Since You've Been Gone
Chapter 1: The Accident

"What happened?" A year later, hair a few inches longer and maybe a few inches taller, Tea Gardner asks as she sits in the emergency room of the Domino.

"We're not quite sure." Grandpa sighs. "He won't give an answer when he is unconscious. And he hasn't talked for weeks." He rubs his temples and closes his eyes with anxiety. Tea realized his hair was graying even more than before and his eyes had huge bags around them. "But he must stop before he puts Yugi in danger."

"He must." Tea decides nodding her head. "Grandpa,"

"Yes Tea?"

"I'm coming home for good." Tea stands and places a hand on Grandpa's wrist as she looks at him with soft cerulean eyes. She walks over to the pay phone in the corner of the room picks it up and calls the number she had known by heart, the number of the New York City Dance School.

"Hello, you have reached the NYC Dance Studio how may I help you?" The receptionist asks politely.

"This is Tea Gardner one of the students there and I am calling to stop my tuition I am not coming back, there are matters at home I must deal with. Please send all of my belongings home." Then she hangs up with tears stinging her eyes and a hole in the pit of her stomach that made her feel sick.

"Pills, drugs or knife? Gun rope or anorexic?" He wonders to himself. The shadowed Pharaoh's features grew dark as the days went by then soon turned to weeks as Tea had left. It had been three months since she had left and now he was loosing his mind! Without her there, Yami couldn't survive.

"There has to be another way... There just has too!" A small voice cries. Tea's face appears in the small window of the darkened night. Tears falling from her eyes and hands clenching and unclenching.

"Tea!" Yami calls to her from his place on the floor. He slowly stands and walks over to the window and as he touches it, it dissolves away into nothing and it sparkles into matter with the air around. Tears stung his eyes until they fell down his cheeks and dripped down to his black tank top. He cries in depression and screeches "Tea!" As he falls to his knees and bangs on the carpet of Yugi's bed room floor. Nobody was home, Grandpa was out shopping and Yugi's mother was away visiting a sick friend. Yugi, of course, was inside the puzzle blocked from all the happening surrounds that were going on.

The dream ended in Yami's head as the many nurses obeyed orders that the elder Doctor was barking out in the hyped and intense surroundings of the emergency room. Yami laid, unconscious, on a long stretcher that was placed on the operating table with a deep cut on his forhead and his arm twisted the other way around and his head had small cuts in various places, one covering his once beautiful chrisom wine orb.

Tea went and stood by the emergency room doors and slammed her head against the solid metal door. "WHY, why, WHY!" She asks herself. Suddenly an old memory comes to her head as she closes her eyes and let's itself replay:

The sun shown fully down upon the freshly waxed limo that sat in Tea's drive way while the driver packed Tea's things neatly in the back trunk as Yami Yugi and the other stare and watch. The air was hot and the wind was humid, the day seemed too perfect for Tea to be leaving. All were silent until Tea came out of the house with her small book bag perched on her back and a wide smile on her face she hugged them all and gave Yami a small peck on the cheek. Tears welled in all of their eyes but they dare not say a word the butler opened the back seat of the black limo's doors and ushers for Tea to step in when Yami finally couldn't stand it any longer. He breaks away from everyone else and walks up to Tea. Tears falling down his cheeks he only stares at her as she stands behind the door of the limo about to get in. "Please Tea..." Was all he could say.

"I'm leaving." She said simply closing her eyes so she wouldn't have to look into his handsome amethyst ones.

"Tea, please! Just wait! Don't leave. I'm beggin you please don't leave me." Yami cries as he stands by Tea's limo.

"Yami, I can't. I must go. You'll survive without me!" Tea says her face straight and emotionless. No tears stung her eyes, as she had rehearsed earlier. "Let's just cut it off!" She slices the air with her hand but she also slashed Yami's heart with her words. She slides into the limo's seat and closes the door as she sets her small backpack in her lap. A small drop of wetness falls on her pleated skirt as the limo begins to drive away. "What have I done?" She asks herself.

(End flashback)

Tears swell her eyes as her fist clenches and unclenches with anger and rage. "Let's... let's cut it off!" The sharpness in her voice, the pain in his eye. She hadn't only broke the air current she broke Yami's heart, and coming to think about it, her own as well. Living a year's lie was one thing smiling as others went by, learning all they knew and making new friends. Not once did she look at another man. Not one... She acted like a total bitch and she knew it. The tears pushed each other out of her eye lids and down her cheeks as she sobs leaning against the door that separated her from her only love. Slamming her head softly on the door again and again the door began to open and suddenly she banged her head on someone's chest. "Oh?" She opened her eyes and looked up to see a man with a white red stained lab coat on. Looking down into her cerulean tear, sparkling eyes with his own dark brown ones and a soft smile was on his face.

"Don't blame yourself." he whispers in her ear. She blushes a deep red taking in everything that had just happened. Suddenly Grandpa appeared by her side.

"How is he?" His voice was concerned and upset, with a hint of tiredness in it.

"I have good news and bad news." The doctor ignores Grandpa's question. He looks from Tea and Grandpa then back to Tea again. "Which first?" He bites his lips still looking at Tea. To lower the intenseness of his glare Tea looks at Grandpa.

"What do you think Gramps?" She asks.

"Your pick Tea." Grandpa ushers towards the doctor.

"Bad news, I suppose." Tea shrugs closing her eyes not wanting to hear it.

"Alrighty then." Rubbing his hands together the doctor sighs looking up at the ceiling. "The bad news... whelp, let's say he will need someone to care for him at all times. His memory is going haywire. The cats cans that have been done show his brain is too occupied." The doctor stops and looks at Tea.

"That's it?" She asks after a moment. "His head should be too occupied right Grandpa?" She whispers in Grandpa's ear. Grandpa only nods thinking of the two bodies that inhabit one soul.

"Good news?" Grandpa asks.

"He is breathing at normal rate and the blood loose isn't to much." The doctor smiles. "He is muttering someone's name though..." The doctor squints looking at the long ceiling light above them. "Tea or something... he mentioned that he loves her..."

"Doctor Mirgani, is it possible to let one person in to see him?" Grandpa asks as Tea stuffs her face into her hands and begins to sob.

"I suppose one, who would go?" Mirgani asks looking at the two of them.

"Tea here..." Grandpa gestures towards the chocolate haired girl crying into her hands. Suddenly the sobs stop and she looks up and them.

"Grandpa don't waist your one chance to see him on me." She wails.

"I'm not. He loves you and needs to hear your voice. Needs your soothing words. He needs YOU Tea." Grandpa shoves her into the room and the doctor hands her a white lab coat.

"Put this on Miss Tea. So you're the lucky girl." He looks at her with a small sparkle in his eye. "Wow this fellow's lucky." His eye brows shoot up and Tea blushes madly. She carefully slips on the lab coat and goes over to Yami's side. Tears dripping from her eyes she looks at his face. His one eye covered with a patch and the other closed with sleepiness. The small scratches on his cheeks and forehead and his blond bangs were stained with blood and dirt.

"I'm here..." She whispers in his ear. "Don't let go... I missed you Yami. You really shouldn't hurt yourself..." Tears fall from her eyes and land on his limp, cold hand. "Please wake up.

"Blood loss, that's not as bad."

"What happened anyway?"

"We found him... lying in the road... Maybe a car hit him."

"Please say he'll be alright!"

"Yugi! YUGIIIII!" Small violet eyes open in his mind showing little Yugi's small pain filled face.

"Pharaoh..." His voice was stained and his face was white. Blond bangs were blood stained with dirt clots as well. "Why?" The Pharaoh began to cry mentally blaming himself once more for all that has happened. The voices around him were haunting his mind and he couldn't take it.

"I'm here.." Suddenly his heart stops and his shallow breaths begin to become shallower. "Don't let go..." Heart beating wildly, breaths coming back to normal speed, not as hollow. Was it her? It couldn't have been. She was miles away dancing her heart out in NYC. "I'm here... Please wake up." Quivering voice, shaking and then, a small wet drop landed on his hand.

"Please Yami." Tea coos. "Wake up. I missed you. I... I..."

"I I love you..." The words echo over and over in his mind after they left her lips. It was her!

Eyes begin to fidget and his limp hand begins to tighten around her small pale hands.

"I love you too." Tea heard in her head. Tears came falling down her cheeks. A small smile graces her lips as she looks at his closed eye waiting... just waiting for it to open again. Suddenly it does and she stares into tears drowning out with beautiful wine orb.

"Oh! Yami your alive!!!" Her unshed tears fall three by three down her cheeks. He only smiles. "I'm so glad." She sighs with relief and agony. Moments of silence passed between the two as the doctors and nurses left the room to leave the two alone for a while. Then the room was completely silent.

"You came back..." He breaths, breathlessly.

"Of course!" Tea says offended. "Why wouldn't I?"

"Dance... School." Then his eyes shadow over.

"What's wrong Yami?" Tea tilts her head to the side.

"You'll have to go back." He turns his head to the other side, avoiding her intense blue orbs he loved so much.

"What?!" She looks at him hurtfully then her eyes soften. "No..." Shaking her head. "No... No Yami... I'm here now, and I will be..."

"For how long?"

"Forever." She whispers. "I'm home Yami!" She coos. He smiles with tears in his eyes. They slip down his cheeks and he is only silent.

"Your back... you've come home... My... Angel."