Note: This is part 2 in the Tears of Light and Dark trilogy. Originally, I had made each one a month apart and each one was a single chapter. But that's changing now because I'm separating each of them into 2 chapters at the climax. I will not make another AN for each part where it splits (meaning the first chapter of each will be missing an EndingAN and each 2nd chapter will be missing an OpeningAN) because I am literally taking the chapters exactly as they are and splitting them in half, no edits (except for spelling errors, but that's it).

Hello again everyone it's me! This, as I said, is a sequel to my previous one (actually two)-shot, 'When Dark Dies The Light Cries'. It has been about a month since I published that one. This has been in my docs for a month now, waiting for the right time.

This takes place in three different time frames: Just after Marik and Ryou are carried away by the paramedics, the day(s) after, and a few months later. It's like a little flashback-aftermath kinda thing. Still a one-shot. My second. [EDIT: I had actually written this right after I wrote the first part, so I didn't know about my other one-shot "Ryou's Girlfriend Woes", which is my actual second one-shot. This fanfic is my third.]

Includes retelling of character deaths, some suggested tendershipping and maybe angstshipping if you want to view it that way, very MINOR abridged personalities, references to Marik's back story, and Season 2 references.

Again, my second attempt at an angsty story and a one-shot. Let me know how I did.

I hope my nicer Marik isn't TOO OOC.

R&R

ENJOY~!

We can't let people know about this. I don't want them to know. And I don't want to remember. I don't want to retell this... Not for anyone but him... I have to...

I hope I still have contact...

A group of friends sit together.

A girl in the group feels a presence in her head.

"Go to..."

A boy notices. "Are you alright?" he asks.

"Oh no! I'm late! I have to go do something important right now! I'll see you guys in about an hour! Bye!" She jumps up and leaves abruptly.

The boy stares after her. I hope she makes it...

Climb up the stairs.

Reach the top.

Get the key.

Open the door.

Step inside.

The girl steps around the mess and finds what she's looking for.

She picks it up, cleans up a bit, opens a window, then exits.

She locks the door behind her and returns the key to its hiding place.

She walks down the stairs and exits the building.

She walks towards another building close by.

She somehow sneaks by and walks into a room.

She hands the object to someone, then sneaks out again.

She returns to her friends.

It has been an hour.

~The next day~

"Hey guys!" Yugi exclaimed. Tea, Tristan, and Joey were walking in the park when Yugi ran and caught up to them. He had a worried and frantic look on his face. "Guess what?! I heard that Marik and Ryou were seriously injured yesterday! They're in the hospital!"

"What?" asked Joey. "Seriously? How did that happen?"

"Apparently a break-in or something like that."

"Who cares how they got hurt," Tristan said. "What we should care about is going over there and visiting."

"Yeah, let's go visit them now," agreed Yugi.

"Yeah. Should we bring something for them?" asked Joey.

"Maybe another time," Tea replied. "For now I just want to see how they're doing. Let's hurry."

The four of them went off to the hospital where Ryou and Marik were in.

"Honestly, the way that woman was talking I couldn't hear the number correctly," Joey complained. "Did she say 'O-seven' or 'eleven'?"

"You shouldn't be complaining about the way people talk."

"Shut up guys," Tea said to Joey and Tristan. "I know what room they're in. Follow me."

The other three looked at her in confusion. "How do you know, Tea?" Yugi asked.

"I don't know I just do. Let's go," Tea said as she headed for room 207.

Tea knocked on the door.

The nurse inside heard it. She opened the door and stuck her head outside. "You visitors?"

"Yeah," Yugi confirmed. "Marik Ishtar and Ryou Bakura?"

The nurse nodded. "Yes come in." She stepped aside and let the four friends enter the room.

They entered and looked over at the two boys lying on the hospital beds.

They looked terrible.

"Oh my gosh!" Yugi exclaimed. "What happened?!"

Both of them had their eyes closed, but opened them at the sound of Yugi's voice. Marik and Ryou looked over at their guests. Marik smiled.

"Hey guys, good to see you again. You too, Tea."

"Hi, everyone," Ryou managed to say. "What's up?"

"What's up?!" Joey repeated. "What's up with you two?! How did this happen?! How bad is it? Did anyone else see or hear what happened?"

When Joey said "Did anyone else see...?", Marik's face saddened the tiniest bit. But no one noticed.

Tristan turned to the nurse. "Could you give us some privacy please?" he asked her.

Since there was nothing that the two needed at the moment, she nodded and stepped out, but stayed near the door.

"No, no one heard," Ryou answered. "Marik's neighbors don't really take noise coming from his place seriously anymore. Plus there wasn't much noise..." he trailed off.

"How bad is it?" Yugi asked, echoing Joey. "We heard it was a break in. Were they armed or something?"

Ryou and Marik were both covered by blankets. Only their arms (except Marik who only had one arm out) and everything above their shoulders stuck out. So of course, most of what injuries they had were out of sight. The only injury visible was the scratch on Ryou's arm, which was not an accurate representation of the other injuries they had.

Ryou and Marik turned their heads and looked at each other. Although Ryou didn't know most of the story and had the worst injury, he decided to be the one to speak. His pains weren't directly related to the actual action.

He didn't want to alarm or scare his friends, but he at least had to tell them something so they wouldn't press for other things. "We don't want to say how right now, but I'll tell you that we got scratched a few times."

"Is that it?" Tristan wondered aloud. "I'm pretty sure that there's more than that."

"Don't hold back stuff to keep us from worrying," Yugi pleaded. "We want to know how you are."

"Well... If you must know..." Oh gosh, was he really going to say this? "Marik was punched in the face and I was stabbed twice I think."

Yugi, Tea, Joey, and Tristan all gasped in unison. "Oh my gosh."

"Where?" Joey asked him. "Was it somewhere important?"

"Can you guys please not ask about it?" Marik asked them. "We really don't want to talk about it." Ryou then decided to not answer any more questions because he knew it would upset Marik.

Ryou looked at all of their faces. Yugi and Tea looked at them kindheartedly and pitifully. Joey and Tristan looked concerned and a bit mad. The later was probably because they were still trying to figure out who had been responsible for the supposed "break-in".

"Anyway. Whatever happened, it's good that you're both okay. It was at your place, right?" he asked, addressing Marik. "Did anyone say anything about the damage?"

"Yeah." Yugi was curious as to if there was any police involvement with the break-in and stuff like that. "Did the police come? Did anyone clean up your apartment?"

"Wait, are you going to be able to pay the hospital bill?" Joey asked them.

Marik was starting to get nervous about the types of questions being asked.

But it kept his mind off of the actual incident. So he answered some of them.

"I'll deal with the money. And I had one of my neighbors clean up I think. And I don't think the police even know or will get involved." Marik realized that he was probably making things worse and should just not say anything. He had formulated a plan to manipulate what people knew about the whole thing.

He was going to pretend that it had been a break-in. Most of the blood had been cleaned up, a window had been opened, and he had moved the Millenium items. No one would enter his apartment.

He wasn't going to tell Yugi and the others this anytime soon. Maybe never. Ryou already knew because he had told him last night, when the room had been empty.

"Just don't ask anymore."

"Alright," Tea answered. "No more questions until they're ready."

"But how did you-" Joey began. "Ow!"

Tea had slapped him backside the head. "No questions."

Marik smiled at her.

Yugi realized that Tea hadn't asked anything herself.

"Let's just try to cheer them up," she said. "Sorry guys, we didn't bring you anything."

"That's alright," Ryou reassured her with a smile. "It is nice to see you all after..." His face saddened again. "Well... You know... Yesterday." Damn it, he was remembering stuff again. He quickly changed the subject. "So how have you guys been lately? What you been up to since we last saw you?" That had been a week ago.

"Well actually there's something that you might find funny..." Joey began.

"Not too funny please," Ryou warned. "I'm kind of having... Chest problems right now." He hoped that he was lucky enough to have no one realize where he had been stabbed. But that wasn't likely.

However no one brought it up.

Marik stayed silent for the most part. These people were slightly closer to Ryou than they were to him. Also, he was concentrating more on his plan to keep everything on the down-low. Which is what he was doing that very moment.

Five minutes later, the nurse interrupted and informed the four visitors that they had to leave now. Marik and Ryou needed to have stuff done.

Yugi and the others said goodbye to Ryou and Marik. Then they left and went home.

As the nurse came closer to them, Ryou and Marik wondered for the hundredth time how they both managed to maintain their physical and mental strength after all they had been though.

~A week later~

Marik and Ryou had finally been released from the hospital. Despite the severity of their injuries (especially Ryou's chest wound), they recovered surprisingly quickly and were deemed well enough to leave.

As Marik had promised, he dealt with the issue of the bill.

Now, Marik and Ryou stood in the same room where it had all happened.

As Marik had said, the place was cleaned up. Not a trace of blood anywhere. The furniture was moved back in place.

The two stood there silently, small bits and pieces of memory coming back to them. But they refused to think of more than that.

Ryou was the first to speak. "Marik, are you sure you want to do this?" he asked. "I told you, you don't have to tell me."

"No, no, no. I have to tell you," Marik insisted. "You have a right to know. And I have a right to say. I gotta get this out or else..." Marik trailed off and looked away.

"Or else what?"

He looked back up. "Or else it might eat up my heart or something. That's what started the whole thing. Something I never wanted to talk about got to my head and my emotions went crazy and they weakened me and..."

"Marik, calm down and just tell the story. Let's get this over with." Ryou walked over to the couch and sat down. In truth, he didn't want to hear Marik tell him about the fight between Melvin and Bakura. The part he knew anguished him already. But he had to know. He needed to be told.

Marik didn't really want to tell about it. But he had to get it over with. He walked over to the couch and sat down next to Ryou.

After a few seconds, Marik sighed deeply and began to tell Ryou about what happened.

By the time Marik reached the part about how Bakura had fallen, both of them were hugging and crying silently into each other's shoulders.

Then it was Ryou's turn to tell. After the last blow, Marik had zoned out. This was when Ryou had escaped his soul room and taken control again.

This next part was 100% new to Marik, so he listened very closely.

Ryou started from the point where he had broken out.

When he reached the last moment, the part where he himself had fallen to the floor, Ryou sat there quietly. Retelling that part of it had calmed him down a little because the act had been almost satisfying. Almost.

Marik sat there quietly as well. He tried to sort out his thoughts and feelings on what he had just heard.

When he was done, he realized how he felt.

Glad and relieved. Because, to an extent, Melvin had been to him what Bakura had been to Ryou. Suppressing and controlling. And also evil.

But for some reason, he also felt...

Sad?

Marik and Ryou had moved to Marik's room. They were sitting on his bed face-to-face, only a box and four items between them. Two items were Ryou's and the other two were Marik's.

They nodded at each other and wordlessly put each of their items in the box. Good bye, they both thought as they placed the lid on the box together.

They both sighed in relief.

Marik broke the silence. "So who should keep it?" he asked both himself and Ryou.

"It happened here, so you keep it."

Marik nodded. They exited the room.

Marik opened a closet door and they both went inside. Together, they placed the box on a high shelf and hid it behind a useless bag. The two stepped back and looked at it.

They left the closet, closed the door behind them, and stood there in front of it.

In their minds, the Ryou and Marik promised to themselves that they would try not to purposely think about it and they would move on.

And they didn't plan on ever telling the other four either.

~Months later~

Tristan, Tea, and Joey stood in front of Marik's door. Joey knocked as Tristan rang the doorbell at the same time. "Hey, we're here!" Tea called.

The three heard the door being unlocked and watched it open. They saw Ryou standing there. "Hello you three," he greeted them. "Yugi's already here." He moved aside to let them in.

Marik, Ryou, Yugi, Tristan, Tea, and Joey had all planned a little get-together for today. They were going to hang out at Marik's place for about an hour, then move over to Yugi's house, then the park.

Yugi waved at his friends from the couch. He and Marik were watching TV. "Hi, guys," he said to them. "I got here five minutes ago. Hope you don't mind."

"Not at all, Yug," Joey said. "But now that we're here, maybe we can eat! I'm starving! I didn't have lunch yet!"

"Joey, you're always hungry," Tristan commented. "And we just got here. Relax for a bit."

"Yeah, maybe now that we're all here, we can play a little game or something," Yugi suggested.

"Actually now that you mention it I'm kinda hungry too," Ryou admitted. "What time is it?"

"12:30," Tea said after looking at a clock on the wall.

"By the way I have a thing planned for us all to do later," Marik noted.

"Hey, I got an idea!" Joey exclaimed. "Let's play an eating game!"

"Say what?!" cried Tristan.

"Its simple!" Joey explained. "We take someone's Duel Monsters deck and shuffle it. We all take turns drawing two cards, and then we gotta eat two items at the same time that start with the same letters as the name of the card! Whaddaya think?"

"Of course Joey would be the one to think of something like that," Tea teased.

"Hey! It's a brilliant idea! Who's with me?!"

Everyone except Tea raised their hands.

"Yeah!" Joey exclaimed triumphantly. "Five against one, Tea. Let's do it!"

"Okay fine," Tea surrendered. "But I'm not actually playing. I'll just watch."

All six of them moved to the center of the room and sat down in a wide circle. Going clockwise from Joey was Tristan, Tea, Marik, Ryou, then finally Yugi. There was a break in the circle between Yugi and Ryou facing the kitchen so someone could easily exit the circle and get the food.

"Just one thing," Tristan said. "Does anyone actually have their deck with them?"

Joey's triumphant looked faded a bit. "Erm... Didn't think about that."

Joey hadn't seen a reason to bring his, Ryou had put his deck away for some time, and Marik kinda sorta lost his somewhere in his apartment.

"I have mine!" Yugi said as he brought it out and handed it to Joey.

"As always," Ryou noted. Yugi always had his deck on him. It was a thing with him.

"Tea, since you are the most reluctant to play," Joey handed her the deck, "You shuffle!"

Tea took it. "Fine." She shuffled for a minute and set the deck down in the middle of the circle.

"And Marik, since this is your house, you pick the foods," Joey instructed.

"Okay. Just don't complain if I give you a food you don't like."

"Now who wants to go first?"

"I will!" volunteered Tristan. He reached over and drew two cards from the top.

He looked at them for a second before showing everyone else.

"Mirror Force and Dark Magician," Yugi noted. "Marik?"

Marik thought for a moment. "Macaroni salad and dark chocolate!" he said. He stood up and went over to the fridge and cupboard and took out some leftover macaroni salad and a bar of dark chocolate from each respectively. He walked over to Tristan with these and a spoon. "Eat up."

"Ergh..." Tristan groaned. He opened the container and unwrapped the candy bar. He then took a spoonful of the macaroni salad, broke off a corner of the bar, and added it to the spoon. "Here goes," he said before shoving the spoon in his mouth.

"How does it taste?" Ryou asked with a laugh.

Tristan's face went all weird as he chewed. Then he smiled after swallowing. "Not bad," he admitted. "But it would be better if it was heated up." He put the two cards face up next to the deck in the center.

"Who's next?" Marik asked as he put the macaroni salad away. Tristan kept the chocolate and continued eating it.

"I'll go!" Joey said. He drew two cards. He looked at them for a second before revealing what they were. "Eh. I got Monster Reborn and Dark Magician Girl. Hey does that mean I get to have what Tristan got?" he called to Marik as he added his two cards to the discard pile.

"Not quite," Marik said as he carried a bottle of mayo over to the group.

"Nyeh?" Joey said in surprise. He shrugged and sneakily broke a corner from Tristan's dark chocolate bar. He took the bottle of mayo from Marik and dabbed a bit of mayo on it. He put the chocolate in his mouth, chewed, and swallowed. All of that in five seconds. "No biggie," he said. "I've eaten much weirder combos."

"Of course you have," Tea remarked.

After five more minutes, everyone (except Tea) had gone twice except for Ryou. It was his second turn now.

"Okay, here I go," he said as he drew two cards. He flashed them to everyone quickly, too fast for anyone to actually recognize them, before looking at them himself. "I got Polymerization and-" He stopped short as he looked at the other card.

The Change of Heart magic card.

Oh no.

It was a card he and Yugi both had in their decks. Unlike for Yugi, this card was Ryou's favorite. But at the moment, it was anything but his favorite. For some reason, the Change of Heart always reminded him of himself and Bakura.

Ryou's expression darkened as he remembered his Yami. His dead Yami. Bakura had saved Ryou's life by protecting his body's heart, but his soul had died while doing so.

He stared at the girl with one bat wing and one angel wing. Half shrouded in shadow, half shrouded in light. The former side of her body backgrounded by purple, the later side backgrounded by yellow,

Ryou didn't want to remember that day ever again, but how could he forget when the very card that reminded him of Bakura was right in front of his face?

He had been staring at it silently for a while. Marik noticed and spoke up. "Ryou? What card did you get?"

Marik's voice snapped Ryou out of his daze. And thankfully before he had started crying or flashbacking. "Oh, um... what?"

"The other card," Yugi reminded him. "What is it?"

"Oh um... This." He turned it around, not wanting to say the name himself.

"That's the Change of Heart magic card," observed Tristan. "Right?"

Ryou nodded.

Marik gasped silently. He understood Ryou's expression now. He knew what it meant to Ryou and knew that he was probably thinking of Bakura again.

Oh, great. Now he was thinking of him too. He tried to focus on something else.

Besides Marik, only Tea had noticed the small hint of sadness and worry on Ryou's face when he looked at the card. But she didn't know why.

Yugi had taken it for disappointment. Somehow. "Another C card?" he wondered aloud. "Why do we keep getting these same letters?

The whole time they had been drawing more D's, C's, and M's than any other letter. Some of the cards in the discard pile so far were: Mirror Force, Dark Magician, Dark Magician Girl, Monster Reborn, Catapult Turtle, Card Destruction, Pot of Greed, Celtic Guardian, Magical Hats, De-Fusion, Alpha the Magnet Warrior, Kuriboh, Card of Sanctity, Mystical Elf, Disgraceful Charity, and Premature Burial. They had reused the same foods several times.

Marik used this as an opportunity to say something and break himself away from his thoughts. "Maybe because your deck is weird? I don't know." He turned to Ryou. "How about peanut butter and carrots?" He stayed sitting until he got an answer, just in case it was no.

Ryou shook his head. He didn't want to use the card. It might raise some questions, but he didn't care at the moment. "Can I change my card please?"

"Why you wanna do that?" Joey asked in surprise. "No fair, we didn't ask to change ours!"

"Aw, just let him," Tea said. "It's no big deal."

"I second that," Marik said. He gently took the card from Ryou's hand and placed it on the bottom of the discard pile.

Ryou picked a new one.

"I drew Spellbinding Circle," he announced.

"Okay, peanut butter and strawberries?" Marik got up to get them.

After one last round, everyone felt that either they'd had enough weird combos or they were bored. At least Joey wasn't complaining about lunch anymore. They decided to do something else.

Marik suggested they do the scavenger hunt he had planned.

He distributed the lists and everyone except for him started searching for random items.

Five minutes later, almost everything had been found. Joey was looking through a closet, Tristan was in the kitchen, Yugi was searching the living room, Tea was searching the guest room, and Ryou was counting up the stuff. Marik was in his room putting his Duel Monsters deck away, which he had put on the list so he could get help finding it.

Joey stood on a stool and looked on a high shelf for any boxes that something might be inside. He found a big black box that was hidden behind some bags. He took it out and opened it.

"A-Nyeh?!" he quietly exclaimed. The contents were both shocking and unusual.

"Hey guys, look what I found!" Everyone looked up at the sound of Joey's voice. Tea left the guest room.

He exited the closet with the opened box balanced on one hand. In the other hand he held the lid, which he quickly dropped.

"What is it?" asked Tristan.

Could it be...? The box looked very, very, VERY familiar to Ryou.

Marik had just left his room and froze when he saw the box in Joey's hand. "No," he whispered.

"Is this what I think it is?" Joey asked. He moved to the living room and set the box down on the coffee table for everyone to see. The others crowded around it and looked inside.

Tristan, Tea, and Yugi all said "Huh?" in confusion.

Marik and Ryou gasped in shock.

Inside the box were four things:
Another Change of Heart magic card,
A fake Winged Dragon of Ra card,
The Millenium Rod,
And the Millenium Ring.

The Millenium Ring had dark red stains on the tips of all five prongs.