AbhorsenSabriel87: I've decided something.
Hiei: What? You're actually going to go through with killing your siblings?
Sabriel: No. --Hiei flinches, thinking she'll fwap him, but she doesn't-- I'm going to keep writing this story until it's complete.
Hiei: You are?
Sabriel: Yup.
Hiei: Why?
Sabriel: Because for some strange reason, I seem to adore angst anyway and I know that writing this will help keep me out of depression.
Hiei: And the psychotic reasoning behind that is...?
Sabriel: --shrugs-- If you punch a punching bag when you're pissed, some of your anger goes away. It's the same for me and angst fics.
Hiei: Whatever.
Sabriel: I own nothing but the plot.
Hiei: That's my job!
Sabriel: Whatever.

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Muffled voices, what's going on? I should be dead, shouldn't I? So tired, but wait: this doesn't feel like a hospital bed. It's too soft. So, where am I? What's going on? So tired, I can't lift my eyes or my arms. So tired...

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"Mr. Kaiba?" Seto took his gaze off the sleeping man in the room he'd just put him in a few hours ago. Early evening sunlight made the white room shine like it was on fire; an array of reds and oranges, giving the room a warm feeling, and Seto was just watching Jou for another moment while he slept. He turned his cobalt eyes, now almost violet in the sunset, to the young lady who had spoken, a young woman of only about fourteen or so with honey-blonde hair reaching he shoulders in a lazy ponytail. Her pale green eyes, the color of jade, looked at him with a mix of intimidation, shyness, and questioning. When he simply acknowledged her question with his usual look, she continued. "Um, what should I-"

"If and when he wakes up," Seto interrupted, "give him whatever he asks for. Do not tell him anything about where he is. I also want to know the moment he falls back asleep when he woke up and how long he was awake. Is that clear?" This last question was asked with enough venom attached to it to intimidate the girl even more, causing her to only gulp slightly and nod. "Good," Seto replied. "Fill Mokuba in when he gets back. Tell him only what you know and nothing else." Again, the young blonde nodded, and Seto once more looked in on the unconscious boy. His eyes narrowed as suspicion took over him. Did his breathing just change? Did he just twitch? Was he waking up?

Seto shook his head. 'Far too much paranoia for one day,' he thought. He looked back on the girl by the door and smiled, just barely. "Why don't you take a break downstairs, Angel?" he said softly. "You get twenty minutes or until Mokuba gets back, whichever comes first. Make sure to bring up a bowl of cold water and a clean cloth when you come back up though." Surprised by his sudden kindness and the use of her nickname, the blonde nodded, curtsied, and walked swiftly down the hall to the marble staircase. Seto sighed as he watched her walk with that overly exaggerated sway that she did. 'She's far too obvious,' Seto thought to himself. 'Too bad. She's a sweet kid and a hard worker. Not many like her around any more... Ah, well, that's her deal. Maybe if she'd quit walking like that, she stop getting into trouble.' Seto frowned as a strange thought crossed his mind. 'Is she trying to seduce me?' he wondered. 'What the Hell is the matter with her?' He shook his head, clearing his thoughts to a less personal view. 'Girls her age, I can't deal with this right now. What's important right now is Jounouchi.' Seto cast his gaze once more on the unconscious teen, and then closed the door. He laid his slender left hand on the solid mahogany door and sighed, then turned and walked down the hall and up the stairs to the third floor. If he didn't do some work, he was going to go insane.

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Hmm? I'm awake? If I'm awake, why can't I open my eyes? Someone's putting something cold on my head. What the Hell? Where am I?

Jounouchi opened his eyes slowly to see a darkened room that had obviously been painted white, but was now dark due to lack of light. The only light came from a small bedside lamp, and when Jou moved his eyes to see it, he caught the face of a young girl, probably no older than his sister Shizuka. She was blonde, with light eyes: he couldn't tell the color in this lighting. Her skin was beginning to tan from the summer sun, and Jou guessed from the darkness outside the window that it was well past eleven. At the moment, she was reading a novel, Lirael by Garth Nix. Jou had given Shizuka the three book series for her last birthday as a gift from their father and a special Duel Monster's card from him that he'd come across in his search for more cards. He realized that a cool towel had been placed on his forehead and smiled slightly. He wasn't in a hospital, but at least whoever this was knew their typical home treatments. He would have stayed like that, pretending to sleep just to see how long before she caught onto him, except that he sneezed, jerking his hand up to hold his nose. A slight pain shot through his left forearm as he did so and he remembered that he was injured.

"Oh!" The little gasp of surprise came from his left and he opened his eyes and glanced at the young teen. She had put down her book and had removed the cloth from his forehead. Her petite and pixy-ish face held a look of surprise... and a little too much innocence. "You're awake!"

"Yeah I am," Jou replied, voice slightly hoarse from lack of use during sleep. 'Strange,' he thought. 'I usually talk in my sleep or worse.' "Got any water?" he asked. The girl nodded and poured him a glass from the pitcher on the nightstand and helped him drink it, lifting the back of his head to the glass until he had drank it all. When she put the glass back on the little table, she smiled brightly at him. "So, what's your name?" she asked softly, kindness and purity in her voice like Yuugi's almost always was.

"Jou," he said, voice still sore and his eyelids getting heavy again. What 'bout you, kid?"

"Angelina," she said. "But you can call me Angel." Jou smiled as he started drifting off again. "Angel, huh?" he whispered. "You remind me of my sis Shizuka, ya know?" Energy spent, Jou fell back asleep; dreamless sleep, his little miracle over however long he'd been out. But now, he was just glad to be getting sleep, restless or not.

Angel looked at him for a moment, watching him sleep for a minute before she got up and walked quietly out of the room, going off to report to her still-awake employer that his "house guest" had woken up momentarily.

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According to Angel, Jou was asleep for most of the first two weeks he was there. Even so, when he did wake up, she had told Seto that he was staying awake longer than the time before. On her last report, it had been eighteen days since Jou had been released and he'd stayed awake for almost an hour just talking to her about their families. Since he hadn't been at school, Yuugi and his little friends were worried, but Seto decided it best not to tell them anything just yet. Worrying might be unhealthy for them, but it was better than some other things.

Seto shook his head as Angel closed the door to his office and continued to type up his document. It was a book that he had been creating for some time now, almost a year and a half, and it amused him if he didn't have any work to do. It was a fictional novel, about a teenage prince and his younger brother fighting against a ruthless dictator. At first, the two had been simpletons on the street, simple commoners, then the dictator's enemies had destroyed their village while they had gone fishing at a nearby river. Their home destroyed, they sought shelter many miles away in an old monastery. They stayed until the elder was thirteen, and then they left and infiltrated the dictator's palace under the guise of servants for almost three years. This book was a diary kept by the elder brother during their "adventure" that he wrote in after the most important events, then a third person view of the events of the time between the writings. For Seto it wasn't just a novel though; it was a fictional version of his life created for teenagers, therefore it didn't have some of the more...unpleasant details of his life.

A knock came from his door and Seto jerked his head up, saving his document and closing it almost at the same time. "What is it?" he asked, voice sharp and slightly irritable. The door opened to reveal a young boy of about thirteen with long black hair and soft violet-gray eyes. "Am I bothering you, Nii-san?" Seto sighed and half smiled. "No, Mokuba," he replied softly. "I wasn't doing anything too important." Mokuba nodded and stepped inside the room, closing the door behind him. 'I'm going to have to get his hair cut soon,' Seto thought absently. 'It's getting far too long.'

"Um, Seto," Mokuba said quietly, "how long is Jou going to stay?" Seto frowned slightly, not in anger, but in confusion, thought, and slight suspicion. "Why?" he asked. Mokuba walked up to the desk and sat in one of the chairs, looking down at his feet. "I know you don't really like me talking to Yuugi and his friends, but they're really worried about Jou. Anzu told me that Yuugi almost had a breakdown in the middle of class. They're really upset and they've been looking everywhere for him." Seto sighed and leaned back in his chair, brushing his hair back away from his face with his right hand.

"Jou will stay until he is fit to leave," he said calmly. "Right now, he can only stay awake for an hour at a time, and he still can't sit up straight, let alone walk or defend himself. I'd say another two or three weeks should be plenty of time. If he's not better by then, we can release him back to the hospital." Mokuba nodded silently and got up from the chair, walking towards the door. He turned the knob and opened it slightly before looking at his brother again. "What should I tell Yuugi and everyone?" he asked shyly.

Seto sighed again, pondering the idea for a moment. "Wait a couple of hours," he said. "I can forge Jou's handwriting because it looks a lot like mine and I'll write a letter to Yuugi telling him that he went to his mother's for a few days, then he's going to stay in Tokyo for a while."

"Do you think it's right to lie to them, Nii-san?"

"I think we need to whatever's best for Jou right now, and having all his friends over here making a ruckus is not going to help him rest." Seto glanced out the window to his left to see the sun setting once again. "Go on downstairs, Mokuba. I'll be down for dinner in ten minutes." Mokuba nodded and left the room quietly, shutting the door behind him, and Seto stood from his chair, stretching his arms and back out before walking to the window and standing in front of it. He looked out over his grounds for a while, thinking about his current situation, then turned and walked down the hall to Jou's room. Hearing the teen's familiar voice mixing with Angel's high-pitched and musical peals of laughter, Seto nodded and walked down to the dining room to eat, something he'd barely been able to accomplish these last few days. Sleep was the other necessary divinity that he'd been seriously lacking, but he'd spent a lot of nights awake all the time. How was this any different?

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"Jou you're so funny!" Angel giggled slightly, giving her an even more girlish look, if it were possible. "Eh, I try," Jou replied, smiling. "So, what's up wit' you? I thought after-school jobs were 'gainst school pol'cy."

"They are," she replied. "I'm home schooled though, so I just have to help pay the bills." Jou nodded. "I get dat," he said softly. "Heck if it weren't fer me, my old man prob'ly woulda lost our apartment by now."

"Oh, I'm sorry."

"Nah, it's cool. We find ways to pay the rent, and it's a nice place, so it works out, ya know?" Angel nodded, still smiling brightly. She glanced at the clock on the nightstand and, seeing that it read 9:17, turned back to Jou. "Would you like something to eat?" she asked. "The cooks should be here now to cook my employer's dinner, so it'll probably be no trouble." Jou thought about it for a second, then replied, "Just some hot tea with honey and lemon, please. My gut prob'ly still isn't up to solid food just yet."

"I can get you some tomato soup if you want," she pushed. "Or how about some chicken broth? You'll need all the protein you can get." Jou shrugged slightly. "Sounds great by me," he replied. "I'm just not all that hungry." Angel shrugged and walked out the door, her hips swaying like an overpaid model as she went. When she closed the door, Jou sighed and pushed himself up to sit up straight on the bed. Leaning against the headboard, he rubbed his head, thinking, 'God what an annoying teen. What the hell is with the sugary-sweet act? I'd understand if she was a candy striper, but this is going over the top. What's she trying to do, get me to date her or something?' Jou smirked, enjoying that thought. 'Well, she's barking up the wrong tree there. I don't go down that path very often, just for show. Besides, I wouldn't date her even if I was completely straight. She's far too much of a ditz and a push-over. I wouldn't be surprised if someone just came and plucked her off the street for kiddy-pornography.' He sniggered lightly at that last thought, trying to imagine Angel in a very mini angel costume, and almost burst out laughing when he did. When he heard her coming down the hall, he carefully but quickly made it back under the covers, only slightly sitting up like he was before. 'This is going to be one Hell of a vacation,' he thought as Angel walked back in, carrying a steaming mug and bowl on a hardwood and metal tray, smiling as always.

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'Just when I need her here,' Seto thought bitterly, 'her mother gets sick and she has to call off work to take care of her. That's karma if I ever did see it.' Angel had called in a vacation day because she needed to take care of her mother while she was sick with pneumonia, and all of the other servants were elsewhere. Besides, he couldn't trust anyone with this duty besides Angel, so he had to do it himself. He now sat typing on his laptop, the mini computer resting in his lap as he sat in the chair next to Jou's bed, and his mind wandered as he typed quickly, long fingers racing across the keys with immense speed and uncanny accuracy as he finished typing more codes for his video game rewiring disk. This was a program that would almost completely reboot his virtual video game and allow him to restart the program. 'There's no point in denying it now; whatever God there is, they're seriously out to get me.'

It had been a little over three weeks since Jou had arrived from the hospital, and his condition was rapidly improving. Even though he still didn't quite have the strength to walk yet, so said Angel, he was staying awake for hours at a time and was now able to eat more, although not as much as he used to. He also, Seto was told, could now sit up straight in bed and wasn't shaking so much when he slept anymore. Seto smiled slightly at remembering her comment. He'd been in Jou's room almost every night to check on him, and every time Jou started to shake or seemed to be having a nightmare, he'd been there next to him, lightly touching his hand to the blonde's forehead, or gently grasping his hand. Every time, it worked to calm him, and soon, Jou wasn't having any nightmares anymore as far as Seto could tell. Now, Jou slept silently and calmly, none of the all too familiar lines of pain or fear crossing his young features.

Seto leaned back and pushed his bangs back from his forehead, sighing deeply and closing his eyes. He didn't remember the last time he'd been so tired, not being able to sleep right for almost a week, or, for that matter, sleep at all. Why was it getting so hard for him? What was his mind trying to tell him?

He was so immersed in his own thoughts and was so tired that he didn't hear Jou waking up. The blonde haired teen opened his eyes, expecting to see Angel again but instead saw a face that he really didn't expect. "Hmm? Kaiba?" Jou couldn't believe it; his greatest rival had taken him in and was now caring for him while he was down. He didn't even know how long he'd been here, but it had to have been more than a couple of weeks because he knew he needed to shave soon or he'll have more whiskers than his old man. The sound of Jou's voice seemed to snap Seto out of his miniature daydream and back into reality. The brunette returned his sapphire gaze to Jou's deep amber one and the two just stared at each other for a minute. Jou propped himself up an his elbow and gave the other a confused look. "You're the one who's been housin' me?" Seto shook himself out of the shock of being caught and continued to type on his computer. "What does it matter, Jounouchi?" he muttered, glaring at his computer screen. "Why?" Jou asked, his eyes questioning as he scanned the teenager next to him.

"Does it matter?" Seto snapped, not really angry at Jou but more at himself for not preparing an answer to the inevitable question. "Yes it matters!" Jou replied, keeping his voice low and sharp so that Kaiba could get the fact that he was a little ticked, but was trying not to wake everyone in the house. "I thought you hated me, so why are ya bein' like this?"

"Being like what Jounouchi? Actually caring whether you live or die? Making sure that no one takes advantage of you while you're down with broken ribs and a healing surgery wound in your gut?" Seto's eyes focused intensely on his computer screen as he talked, his eyes tingling with tears of an unknown emotion that threatened to fall if he didn't get out of there quickly. Jou, however, was shocked at Seto's sudden change of character. He'd never been like this before, so why was now ant different? He'd been to the hospital a lot during his life and Kaiba had never once been there then. True, the CEO probably had no idea that Jou was there almost every month, but still... What made this one time so special?

"Kaiba, I didn't mean-"

"Save your breath, Jounouchi. I was the one who was wrong in this case." Jou was, to say the least, startled. As far as he knew, Seto had never admitted that he was wrong, or that he'd made a mistake. But right now, Jou couldn't bring himself to correct the teen, for his deep cobalt eyes stared at his computer screen as if it could get him out of the conversation, and his face showed that he was having a really hard time getting his words out. "The surgeons who worked on you found some... interesting data. When they did a full body scan..." Seto closed his eyes, and Jou could see the tears at the edges of his eyes as he tried to complete his sentence. Somewhere in the house, a clock rang two in the morning and Seto shook his head, trying to clear away the stray thoughts.

"I know what's been happening to you these past years, Jounouchi," he muttered quietly. "I... it hit a little close to home, if you know what I mean. I knew that if you were in the hospital, your dad would get you released and you would be defenseless." Jou's eyes widened in shock as he heard these words come out of Seto's mouth. "You... You mean to say dat..." Jou's sentence trailed off as Seto nodded his head. "I know, Jou," he murmured. "And I couldn't let him do it again, not when I have the chance to stop it. If he got to you like this, he'd kill you Jou." Seto's eyes stared at the computer screen, not seeing it as his hands just rested on the keys, not moving in the slightest. "I couldn't let that happen." His ocean blue eyes closed and twin tear lines ran down his cheeks.

Jou just sat there in shock at what he'd just heard and seen. 'He actually cares about what happens to me?' he thought in wonder. 'But why? And what does he mean, it "hits a little close to home"? What's got him so wierded out that he's worried about me?' Then he noticed how tired and how spent the other looked, how in the course of thirty seconds he seemed to gain ten years onto his life. "Are you all right, Kaiba?" he asked quietly. "You look tired, you should prob'ly get some rest, ya know?" Seto returned his eyes to Jou's face, one of caring and concern, not of anger or confusion like before. Still spent after confessing to him, Seto only nodded, closed his laptop, and walked out of the room. When he got to the door, Jou called back to him. When he turned around, he saw Jou's face smiling; not that big goofy one he always wore around his friends, but an honest-to-God pure smile. "Thanks," he muttered. Seto smiled half-heartedly.

"Any time," he whispered back. "Just don't tell anyone I've gone soft, 'kay?" The two shared a smirk at this and Seto closed the door, allowing Jou to go back to sleep and Seto to ponder as he walked down the hall to his own room. Maybe Jou wasn't such a bad guy after all... Maybe this was the only person... who could actually understand...

Seto shook his head and put the laptop on the desk in his room. 'I need to get some sleep tonight. No telling when I'll get any again.'

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Sabriel: That's it for now.
Hiei: That was one Hell of a boring chapter.
Sabriel: Meh. It gets better next chappie.
Hiei: --suspicious look-- Why?
Sabriel: It just does.
Hiei: What happens?
Sabriel: You'll find out the same time the readers do.
Hiei: Damn. Is it safe to say it?
Sabriel: Yup.
Hiei: R&R, angst lovers.
Sabriel: Or anyone else reading this fic.
Hiei: Wait!
Sabriel: What?
Hiei: I feel like we're forgetting something.
Sabriel: Like what?
Hiei: --thinks--
Sabriel: --thinks, then snaps her fingers-- Reviewer responses!
Hiei: Oh yeah. --hands over list from printer--
Sabriel: Here we go....

Flame Swordswoman - --chibi grin-- Yeah, I am very descriptive. (one of my friends says overly, but I say fuck you to them.) Anywho, I was guessing that you weren't that hyper over every fic, so, yeah.

CoconutDemon – Okay, I'll try, but old habits die hard. Other than that, thanks!

kenshinfan21 – Your wish is my command! --knocks Hiei out cold with a giant rubber mallet-- There ya go! And P.S. you're welcome.
Hiei: --out cold--

Kakarots-Frying-Pan – Who says Kaiba cares?
Hiei: You did.
Sabriel: When'd you wake up?!
Hiei: Just now.
Sabriel: --sighs-- Anywho, my dad was a medic and a cop, and I'm a student counselor, so confidentiality is a must for us. Anyway, thanks for noticing that detail and read the next chapters!

Kibethan – Thanks! I'll keep it in mind, but as I said before, old habits die hard. And I happen to love your penname too! The Disreputable Dog kicks ass! (But I happen to like Mogget a little better. .)

YAMIGIRL3 – Yami Bakura? Try to corrupt you? Hah! He couldn't corrupt Satan! Anyway, thanks for that, Isabella says 'hi', and everyone feels sorry for poor Jounouchi. Thanks for the review!

Sabriel: That's it! I'm done! Good-bye all, I hope to see more reviews!
Hiei: --sweatdrop-- I don't.
Sabriel: --knocks him out with her giant rubber mallet-- Sayonara everyone!