Chapter 11

TEA POV

Tea couldn't sleep. Again. Sitting wide awake in the Hawkins' trailer, her mind wandered. Is this what people meant by baggage? Well Yami had some serious baggage. Five thousand years' worth, she supposed. He won the duel against the first Orichalcos weirdo, but the bikers still got away with the God Cards. How much more of this was still to come? And with people's souls on the line under the control of this new, strange magic, the stakes just kept climbing.

All Tea wanted was to be happily with Yami, but this was the road she had to take to get there. It's what makes him special, she told herself. This was a part of him, a part of them, together. And she would stay by his side no matter what.

The situation seemed to be getting more complicated by the second. Duel monsters were on the loose, Kaiba was pissed, Pegasus needed to see Yugi and give him some secret card, Professor Hawkins thought it all had something to do with the lost city of Atlantis and his latest archeological findings, and then those creeps decided to burn down his laboratory and kidnap him. And on top of all that, Professor Hawkins' granddaughter Rebecca couldn't keep her paws off Yugi. Little twerp. It aggravated Tea to no end.

She looked at Yugi, asleep on the chair. So peaceful. He deserved some peace and quiet. Yami too. Hadn't the world put them through enough? All she wanted to do was go snuggle up next to Yami and reassure him that they would get through this, that it wasn't his fault, that she loved him... A tear leaked silently down her cheek and she drifted into fitful sleep.

The next thing she knew, Joey was yelling, waking everyone up, and Yugi was gone from the chair. To save Professor Hawkins, he had gone to face Rafael... alone. And Rebecca was to naive to tell anyone. Tea was furious and scared all at once. She was supposed to be there for him. New hot tears of frustration sprang to her eyes. She felt so helpless.

Joey burst out the door, determined to go after Yugi, but stopped in his tracks when he saw who was outside. Professor Hawkins! Thank goodness. Except that Yugi didn't know and he was risking his soul needlessly. They had to find him before it was too late.

Much to Tea's frustration, the boys insisted that she stay behind to look after the professor and "hold down the fort," UGH! She just wished they understood what he meant to her. They never would have made her stay behind. But she had to bite her tongue and just wish them luck. She would be a bundle of nerves until they got back...

... A few hours later...

"Tea?" Rebecca approached her cautiously. No response. "He'll be okay. I know it." Still nothing. "Maybe you should try to rest for a while - you barely got to sleep at all."

Tea took a deep breath and seemed to relax marginally. Wordlessly, she released her white-knuckle grip on the window sill and moved to the couch where she flopped down with her arm over her eyes.

"Grandpa and I are going to go see if we can recover anything from the remains of the lab. If you need anything, just holler, okay? Rest well."

The silence was deafening. Too much space to think. And so many of the imagined outcomes were not pleasant. She was so afraid for him and frustrated she couldn't be by his side! She got up to grab her Egyptian belt from her duffle bag, hoping, on some level, Yami would know she was there for him. She laid back down and cuddled the golden band to her chest, willing it to send him good vibes.

She felt immediately safer holding the belt. And she was...*yawn*... really sleepy. Maybe a nap wasn't such a bad... idea...

She succumbed quickly to the physical and mental exhaustion plaguing her body and slipped into a deep sleep. She did not see the sun in Isis' headdress start to emit a soft glow.

Please review and let me know what you thought!