"So, you and Amane have been in the witness protection program all this time?" Ryou was still feeling quite astounded that he'd found his mother while in London. The odds of it were astronomical. His feelings about it were rather mixed, but he still felt overjoyed that the missing half of his family was actually alive. "But did you really have to fake your own deaths, though?"
"We had no choice, sweetie," his mother explained, her wet hazel eyes gazing at him with affection and regret as she brushed his bangs off of his face and leaned in to give his forehead another kiss as they sat side by side on the park bench. "It was in the government's hands, and they insisted that it was far too dangerous for people to even know that we were alive."
"So that's why the caskets were closed at the funeral, now because you were so badly injured, but because you weren't there," he said quietly. He'd put the funeral out of his mind ever since it happened, preferring to remember them when they were alive rather than their interment. "Does Dad know that you're alive?"
"No, we couldn't tell him either," his mother answered with a sigh. "How is he? Is he doing alright? Did he… move on?" Sadness flickered in her eyes, and it occurred to Ryou that his mother had been just as screwed over by Mr. Bakura as Ryou had been.
"Yeah, he moved on, alright," Ryou answered a little bitterly, draining the last of his hot chocolate. "After you and Amane… 'died,' we moved back to Japan to be closer to his family, but he was traveling all the time, so I didn't even see him for five years after I turned twelve. When I found him again, he was in Egypt and he'd remarried and had kids all without telling me."
"What brought you to Egypt?" she asked, intensely curious.
"It's… a long story. I'll tell you another time." Ryou wasn't in the mood to explain about the Millennium Items just now.
"You'll have to tell her about me sooner or later." Ryou glanced up to see Bakura grinning like the Cheshire cat as he stood behind Ryou's mother. Ryou had to work hard not to respond or look at him directly. "What? Afraid to tell her? Afraid that she'll be ashamed of her son for having committed theft, murder, self-harm, desecrating a church…"
He did those things not you, Ryou reminded himself sternly. The more distance he kept between himself and Bakura, the better he could cope with accusations like that.
"I can't believe he abandoned you like that." She sounded shocked and bitter, a note of self-loathing in her tone. "If I'd known that something like that would have happened, I never would have—" She was broken off by a sob, and Ryou put his arm around her, giving her another hug.
"It's not your fault, Mom. There was no way for you to know what would happen when you left, and you didn't know that Dad would change this much after you were gone. I don't blame you for any of it." After all, there was no way for her to prevent what happened, no way for her to predict the consequences, no way for her to know that he would come to possess the Millennium Ring and then be possessed by its spirit.
"All of this was destined to happen, of course. There was no way you would have grown up with your real family. You needed to be isolated. If this hadn't happened, I would have made sure that you were still alone." Bakura was still grinning sadistically, and it was all Ryou could do to keep himself from snapping at the cruel spirit.
"Oh, thank you, dear," she murmured, and lay a hand on his. That was when she first noticed the wedding band. "Oh, you're married?" she gasped, starting to smile. "I'm terrible for not noticing it sooner. What's her name?"
Ryou laughed nervously and pulled out his wallet to show her a picture of the three of them. "That's Seto and that's Duke," he said with a blush, hoping that was explanation enough.
"Oh, you three are adorable together!" she exclaimed joyously. "Seto looks familiar to me. Is he some kind of public figure?"
"You're familiar with KaibaCorp, yes?" he asked, starting to smile a bit himself.
"Oh, yes, that's what I know him from!" She gasped as realization hit her. "You're married to Seto Kaiba?!"
"Yes." Ryou was glad that she was so pleased. "He's wonderful, even if he does show an intimidating front to the public. Deep down, he's just a big teddy bear."
"And Duke, what's he like?" she asked, wanting to be a part of her son's life after being apart for so long.
"He's a rascal, but we love him for it. He has a good heart, even if he is a total flirt. He invented the Dungeon Dice Monsters game, which is popular in Japan, and is currently spreading to America." He slid out a picture of Mokuba from behind the picture of the three of them. "And this is Seto's little brother, Mokuba. They were orphaned when they were young, and Seto's been raising him for most of his life. He's turning fourteen next month."
"He's so cute," she commented with a sad smile.
"He really is. He's kind of been a brother, son, and friend to all of us. He keeps us in line when we're all acting kinda nuts. He announced a couple months ago that he wanted a little sister so we're looking into adoption right now."
She held his hand in her own, looking at the wedding band closely. "What do these gems mean?"
"They're our birthstones: amethyst for Duke, tourmaline for Seto, and sapphire for me." The three gems were clustered closely together on the ring, just like them. Deep violet, icy aqua, and ocean blue. "Our rings are all identical, except for the size and the metal. Duke's is gold and Seto's is gunmetal." His own was a silvery rhodium; the rhodium had been Seto's choice, because it looked like silver, but was rarer and more valuable than titanium. Ryou wasn't vain enough to brag that it was made of rhodium, though. He'd rather let her believe it was silver.
"It's lovely. And if you're happy, then I'm happy." She looked down at his left hand again, finally noticing the spidery, star-shaped scars on the back of it and on his palm. "What happened to your hand?"
"That's… another… long story." Ryou felt uncomfortable for a moment as he realized he would be keeping a lot of secrets from his family until he felt that he could trust them enough to tell them the truth about all that had gone down with the Millennium Items and the evil spirits. "Is it okay for me to know that you're alive?" he asked, worried that they were breaking some kind of witness protection protocol.
"Yes, it is. They finally caught the criminal a few years ago. I've been trying to find you, but the internet hasn't been very helpful with that. I had no way to contact either you or your father after we 'died' and I didn't know where you'd gone or anything."
"Do you think… I could meet Amane?" Ryou was nervous about reconnecting with his little sister. He had no idea what she was like now or how she'd changed. She'd probably changed a lot in the past thirteen years.
"Of course! I'm sure she'll be happy to see you. She really could have benefited from having you around all these years." She sighed heavily. "I wish things could have been different…"
Ryou called Duke on the phone before they left the park across from the cafe.
"They're alive?! How?" Duke exclaimed, following the sound of a strange crash and a cry.
"Did you fall out of your desk chair?" Ryou asked, amused. "I told you that thing was broken."
"How are they alive?" Duke persisted without answering Ryou's question.
"Let me guess, you missed your chair when you went to sit down," Ryou persisted, in too good a mood to pass up the opportunity to tease Duke.
"Will you just answer me already?" Duke demanded, sounding flustered.
"Apparently they were in the witness protection program because they'd witnessed a crime by some high-profile criminal, like some kind of organized crime boss, I imagine. She said that she only received clearance to try and find my father and I again a few years ago, but we were too difficult to track down."
"That's great that you've found them again! I'll tell Seto tonight. Will we get to talk to them on Skype tonight?"
"If they're comfortable with it, then yes. I would like that very much."
"I'm really happy for you. I look forward to meeting them."
"You did miss the chair, didn't you, Duke?" Ryou was already smirking even before he got the answer.
"Yeah, I missed the chair," Duke admitted with a sigh.
"You're such a spazz," Ryou laughed, feeling better than he had since they'd gotten married. "I love you."
"I love you too, angel."
That made Ryou blush.
"Give Seto and Mokuba my love as well."
"I will. See you soon."
It was a little awkward at first, talking to his sister, but as soon as they figured out that they were both hardcore gamers, it became much easier to talk to each other. It was easier to talk while playing MMORPGs on Xbox than in a silent room over a cup of tea. They ordered Thai take-out for dinner, and were pleasantly surprised when the siblings ordered the same dish.
After dinner, they Skyped with Seto and Duke, then went back to playing videogames. They actually managed to stay up all night long playing videogames, and early in the morning, Ryou walked to a nearby cafe and bought a fresh box of cream puffs for them to snack on. When their mother came downstairs around seven-thirty in the morning, she found that they'd both dozed off leaning against each other with a half-empty box of cream-puffs before them and their videogame paused.
She eventually woke them somewhat regretfully, telling her daughter to get to work and her son to get to classes, eliciting a promise from him that he'd return from classes as soon as he could.
Author Notes: The "self-harm" Bakura mentions is a reference to the Monster World incident with his hand, the Millennium Ring's prongs punctures, and the stab-wound on his left arm during Battle City. Those were all things Bakura did to Ryou, but someone watching from the outside without knowing any context would see that as self-harm. The "desecrating a church" that he mentions is a reference to Episode 199 of the Yu-Gi-Oh anime.