Chapter 2- Hypothermia

Yami, Atemu, Heba, Leo, and Yuesei were walking through the deep snow and the forceful wind, searching for Yugi.

"Yugi, can you hear me?!" Heba shouted.

"Yugi, answer us!" Leo called.

"Yugi, where are you?!" Yami yelled.

"Yugi, tell us where you are?!" Atemu bellowed.

"Yugi, please answer us!" Yuesei hollered.

All five were yelling over the sound of the wind, hoping that Yugi could hear them.

"It's no use. There's no way that Yugi's going to be able to hear us over the sound of this wind." Atemu had to shout to be heard.

"Yami, try to contact Yugi through your link!" Leo shouted.

Yami nodded. He opened his link and said, //Yugi, can you hear me? Yugi, answer me. Please, Hikari. Tell me where you are, and that you're okay.// Yami was near panicking when Yugi didn't answer. "He's not answering, Leo! Either he doesn't have his link open, or he's unconscious!" Yami shouted.

"Al right! Yuesei and I will search this side of the street! You three search on the other side!" Leo ordered.

They nodded and separated to search.

'Yugi, you have to be okay. I will never forgive myself if anything happens to you.' Yami thought.


Seto and Joey were also searching for Yugi.

"Yugi, answer me! Yugi, if you can hear me, please answer!" Joey shouted.

"Yugi, let us know if you can hear us!" Seto yelled.

The two continued to call for him.

"It's not use, puppy! There's no way that Yugi's going to hear us! The wind is drowning out our voices!" Seto shouted to him.

"We can't give up, Seto!" Joey said.

"We're not! Let's keep looking, but I don't think that we're going to be able to find him by yelling." Seto said.

Joey nodded, and the two continued to search for their young friend.

'Damn it! Why did I do it?! I knew that I should have tried harder to get Yugi to stay at the mansion! This is my fault!' Joey thought as he continued searching for Yugi.

'I shouldn't have done it! I shouldn't have let Yugi leave! Even if he was insistent on going home, I could of at least drove him!' Seto thought as he looked for the missing boy.


Yami was becoming panicked. He was still trying to reach Yugi, but with no luck. It was almost like Yugi didn't want him to know he was all right.

'Because you know there's a chance that he might be dead. It would explain the lack of response.' the little voice in the back of his head said.

'NO! Yugi is alive! I won't lose him! I can't lose him!' Yami thought frantically.

Yami was running down the street, looking. He didn't look where he was going, and his foot hit something that was buried in the snow, causing Yami to fall forward head first into the snow. Yami got up. 'I don't have time for this.' Yami thought. He glanced down at the snow, and saw something black in the snow. Yami pushed the snow away and found that it was jacket, buried into snow. Yami, remembering that Yugi had left that morning with a black coat, started to frantically brush the snow away. Yami nearly died of a heart attack when he realized that it was Yugi. "Atemu! Heba! Over here! I found him!" Yami shouted.

By some miracle, Heba and Atemu did hear him and ran over.

"I'm going to get Leo and Yuesei!" Atemu shouted and ran across the street.

Yugi's skin looked blue-gray, he was unconscious, and he looked dead.

"Yami, is he-" Heba started.

"I-I don't know." Yami said.

Lei and Yuesei ran over with Atemu.

Leo got down beside Yugi. "Damn." Leo said.

"What?" Yami asked.

Leo out his fingers at Yugi's neck. The pulse was weak, but it was there. Leo also realized that Yugi's breathing was barely noticeable. Yugi wasn't shivering, either.

"Oh my god! Yugi!" Joey shouted.

They looked up to see Joey and Seto running to them.

"Oh, no." Seto said.

"Seto, we're closet to your house, right?" Leo asked.

"Yes." Seto replied.

"We need to get Yugi there now." Leo said, picking Yugi carefully up into his arms.

No one argued. They just started running toward the mansion.


Mokuba was waiting nervously to hear anything about Yugi. 'Please let them find him. Please let Yugi be okay.' Mokuba thought nervously.

The doors were suddenly thrown open, and the group came barreling.

Mokuba looked up and his eyes widened when he saw Yugi in Leo's arms.

"Is he okay?" Mokuba asked.

"Seto, I need you to get warm blankets, heaters, and hot water bottles. I also need a room to put him in." Leo said.

"First door on the right." Seto said. He and Joey ran off to the things that Leo asked for.

Leo ran upstairs with Yugi with Atemu, Heba, Yami, Yuesei and Mokuba behind him.

Yuesei opened the door, and Leo went in. Leo out Yugi on the bed and instantly took Yugi's coat off.

"Mokuba, do you have any warm clothes we can put on him?" Leo asked.

"Yeah. Yugi left a few things here when he stayed over a few weeks ago." Mokuba replied.

"Get them." Leo said.

Mokuba ran out.

"Leo, what's wrong?" Atemu asked.

"He has hypothermia. His body temperature has dropped. We need to get him warm. The fact that he's not shivering is bad, and his skin color is too off." Leo said. He started to get Yugi out of his soaked clothes.

"Here they are, Leo." Seto said as he Joey entered with the things that Leo had asked for.

Mokuba came back with the clothes.

Leo quickly got Yugi in the clothes and started to cover him with blankets and put the hot water bottles under the blankets.

"Leo, is there anything we can do?" Yami asked.

"No. I'm going all we can. Seto, you have a medical wing, right?" Leo asked.

"Yes. Do we need it?" Seto asked.

"No." Leo said.

Everyone sighed in relief.

"At least, not yet. If we can get him warmed up with the blankets, the water bottles, and the heaters, he should be fine. If it doesn't, then we may need to get him to the medical wing." Leo said.

"How did this even happen?" Heba asked.

"We tried to get him to stay here, or at least let us give him a ride, but Yugi wouldn't listen. I was about to call you guys to see if Yugi was there when Yami called. We didn't mean for this to happen." Joey said.

"It's not your fault. We shouldn't have assumed that Yugi stayed here with you guys." Leo said. He touched Yugi's face and grimaced at how cold it was.

"What's wrong, though?" Mokuba asked.

"He's been out in the cold for so long that he developed hypothermia. It's when your body temperature starts to drop too low. Your bodily functions start to stop. We have to get him warmed up fast." Leo said.

"What about a hot bath? Would that help?" Joey asked.

"No. We need to get him warmed up, but that could cause his heart to stop. The heat from the hot water would be too much of a shock to his cold body, and his heart could stop. The blankets, the heaters, and the hot water bottles should be enough for now. If worst comes to worse, I know what to do if we need to take him to the medical wing." Leo said.

"What now?" Joey asked.

"All that we can do it wait. There's not much else that we can do. We just need to keep him as warm as possible." Leo said.

"I'd like to know what happened." Seto said.

"Probably the ferocity of the storm. We all saw how bad it was being out there. It was hard to hear anything, see anything, or do anything really. We had to fight against the wind to walk." Leo said.

"The cold probably became too much for Yugi. He must have passed out or something." Yuesei said.

"Yeah, and laying in the snow and cold for so long sent him into hypothermia." Leo said.

"This wouldn't have happened if we hadn't let Yugi go out in that storm to go home. We should have kept him here." Joey said.

"And if he wouldn't, we could have at least driven him." Seto said.

"You couldn't have known that this would happen. We just assumed that because of how bad the storm had gotten that Yugi was just going to stay here. We should have called sooner to make sure. If Yami hadn't called you when he did, Yugi could have died." Leo said.

Those words sent a chill down Yami's spine, knowing that had he not questioned his Light's whereabouts, Yugi could have died.

"Is there anything else that we can do?" Heba asked.

"No. I'll stay here with him. I think that the rest of you should go get something to eat." Leo said.

"Yeah. We were about to when the phone rang." Joey added.

"I'll bring you something, lover." Yuesei said.

Leo nodded.

Everyone left except for Leo.

"Yami, you need to go eat." Leo said.

"Leo, I don't want to leave him." Yami said.

"Yami, I know that you're scared and that you're upset, but there is nothing that you can do here. You're not going to do Yugi any good if you get weak from not eating. Besides, you and I both know that Yugi wouldn't want you to do that to yourself." Leo said.

Yami nodded. "Okay," Yami said. He turned and went back downstairs.

Leo looked at Yugi and sighed. "You're causing a bit of trouble, Yugi. Wake up soon so that we know you're all right." Leo said. He reached out and gently stroked Yugi's hair. He winced when his fingers touched Yugi's cold forehead. Leo sighed. "This is going to be a long night." Leo said.


Heba, Atemu, Yuesei, Yami, Joey, Seto, and Mokuba were downstairs eating dinner.

"I feel bad eating considering what happened to Yugi." Heba said.

"I know, but it's not going to help Yugi for us not to eat. In fact, it would only make Yugi feel bad if we didn't eat." Atemu said.

"We're really sorry, guys. We didn't mean for this to happen." Joey said.

"Joey, it's not your fault. You heard what Leo said." Yami said.

"If we hadn't let him leave, this wouldn't have happened." Seto said.

"Maybe, but you can't blame yourselves. You know how Yugi is. He probably thought that he would be fine. He didn't know how bad the storm was." Atemu said.

"I do know that I am going to give Yugi a good yelling when he wakes up." Heba said.

"Let's wait until he recovers. Then we can all yell at him." Atemu said.

"I just hope that he'll be okay." Mokuba said.

"It's a good thing that Leo's a doctor. He knows these kinds of things. If he thinks that more needs to be done, he'll do it." Seto said.

Yami's mind had stopped thinking about what the others were saying. He was thinking about Yugi. 'He could have died. If I hadn't been so worried, he could have died. I could have lost Yugi, and he would have never known how much I love him.' Yami thought. That thought alone had his heart wrenching painfully. He had thought that he would be fine with Yugi never knowing that he was in love with him, nut now he wasn't so sure. 'Could I really handle that? Could I really deal with the fact that Yugi never knew?' Yami asked himself.

It wasn't long before the group headed upstairs.

Yami grabbed Atemu and said, "Could I talk to you?"

Atemu nodded, and the two stayed behind.

"I know that this might not be the time, but were you serious about what you said earlier?" Yami asked.

"I have said a lot today. Could you be a little more specific?" Atemu asked.

"When you, Leo, and Yuesei were telling me that I needed to tell Yugi how I felt, were you serious?" Yami asked.

"I know I did it in a teasing manner, but yeah, I think that you should." Atemu said.

"Even if there's someone else that has captured Yugi's attention?" Yami asked.

"Yami, there are times that you have to fight for the one that you love. I mean, I was scared to tell Heba, too, Yami. I didn't want to ruin the friendship that we had forged over the time that we shared a body. When he started dating Fred a few months ago, at first, I was going to let him because I thought it would make Heba happy, but I grew jealous. I knew that I wanted Heba, and I made the choice to fight for him. Sure, I was a secret admirer at the start, but in the end, I ended up being with Heba. If you really want to be with Yugi, then you need to fight for him." Atemu said.

"I guess need to tell him then." Yami said.

"What brought this on?" Atemu asked.

"When Leo said that Yugi could have died, it got me thinking. I guess I know that I don't want Yugi to die not knowing how I feel about him. Maybe there is someone else who had Yugi's heart, but I know that I want to at least fight for him to be with him." Yami said.

"Good. All it took was Yugi nearly freezing to death and getting hypothermia to make you realize that." Atemu said.

Yami glared. "Not funny." Yami said.

"I know. Come on. Let's go see how Yugi's doing." Atemu said.

Yami nodded, and the two went upstairs to the room that Yugi was in.

"Where were you two at?" Seto asked.

"just talking." Atemu said.

"Well, Yugi's doing slightly better. It's not much, but his skin color looks a little better." Leo said.

"What do you suggest that we do?" Heba asked.

"Well, I think that we're staying the night. There's no way I'm fighting that's storm on foot again." Leo said.

"I've already had rooms made ready." Seto said.

"We need to rest. We've had a long day." Leo said.

"Right. I'll show you." Seto said.

Everyone left the room, except for Yami and Leo.

"Yami, if Yugi starts shivering in the night, he's fine. It's a sign that his body temperature is starting to rise since he feels cold. His color should get better, and his skin will get warmer. Let me know if he wakes up." Leo said.

"Why are you telling me this?" Yami asked.

"Because I know that it would take an army of magic wielders to get you out of this room, so I'm not going to bother. Just keep an eye on him." Leo said.

"I will." Yami said.

Leo nodded and left the room.

Yami turned back to look at Yugi. He walked over to Yugi's bedside and reached out to gently stroke Yugi's cheek. He felt his heart tears apart at the icy feel instead of the natural warmth. Yami sighed. He took off his shoes and jacket before he pulled up the blankets and climbed into bed beside Yugi, making sure that Yugi was covered well enough. It was hot for Yami, but he was willing to deal with it for Yugi's sake. Yami reached over and wrapped his arms around Yugi, bringing the smaller frame closer to his own body. He could feel how cold Yugi's skin was, but forced himself not cringe at the coldness. He knew that Yugi needed him right now, and that was enough to make him not pull away. Yami kissed Yugi on the forehead and said, "I'm sorry, Yugi. I'm going to be right here for you during all of this." With that spoken promise, Yami fell into a light sleep.

During the middle of the night, Yami woke up when he felt shaking. Looking down, Yami noticed that Yugi was shivering. He almost panicked until he remembered that Leo said it was sign of Yugi's body temperature going up. Yami hugged Yugi tighter.

Yugi, sensing the warmth, cuddled up closer to Yami.

Yami tightened his hold and said, "It's all right, Yugi. I'm right here."

Yami continued to hold Yugi through the night.


Yugi's found and doing slightly better.

The next chapter will be about waking up in Yami's arms.

R&R.