So! Once again, I want to thank my beta, KoK, and I hope she feels better soon. This chapter, hopefully will explain the confusion with Raphael and the whole wedding thing. I would never let Raphael marry a "daddy's girl" *shudders* So here's the disclaimer:

Lola: Jupiter does not own Yu-Gi-Oh! which includes Raphael, Valon and Alister.

Alister: Although I wished she owned Valon

Valon: 'ey! Tha's not fair! W'at 'ave I eve' done to you?

Alister: Uh, just about everything!

Jupiter: Shut up! Anywho, please review?

Last time. . . .

"Skyler, please listen to me," he said, his voice firm enough to silence me. When I didn't interrupt him, he decided that it was safe to continue. "I know you most likely hate me for getting married and leaving you out of it; I didn't want to risk your safety, but I still should have told you what I was doing. Anyways, I wanted to get you something special on your birthday, because…"

"Because what?" I asked when he trailed off, suddenly curious.

"Like I said, it's your birthday. I need to get you something important to make up for the fact that I left you behind."

"I would love to see you try to get me to like you again," I said, though it's spoken with half-hearted conviction.

Raphael let out a heavy sigh on the other end of the phone, but he continued on with, "Your present should be there right about now. Open the front door."

Before I could reply he had hung up. After giving the phone a confused gaze, I put it in my pocket and walked over to open the door. I was not expecting to see what I saw when I opened the door.

Staring back at me was a tall, muscular man, with spiky blond hair and crystal blue eyes. He looked down at me with a nameless expression me and shut his phone off, remaining where he stood.

"R-Raphael?"

Skye's POV

"R-Raphael?" I stuttered. This isn't real...he's supposed to be in France. He is not really standing here with his suitcase behind him…my thoughts were already racing as I stared up at him.

He really is here, Skyler, my magician murmured as he appeared next to me.

"Go away!" I hissed at him. Noticing Raphael's suddenly confused expression, I muttered, "Forget it."

My magician simply chuckled as he vanished once again.

"Were you just talking to yourself?" asked Raphael with a frown.

"I. Said. Forget it," I ground out between my teeth. As I glared at him, I noticed that he visibly flinched. Raphael: 0, Skye: 1, I thought to myself triumphantly.

A few minutes passed before Raphael spoke. "Skye, the only reason I didn't tell you about the wedding was because my grandfather would have come after you and he would have hurt you. I care about you too much to have that happen," he said quietly.

"Oh sure," I said sarcastically. "You cared so much that you went and married Marie. Yeah, that really screams, 'I care about you, Skye!'"

"I didn't go through with the wedding," he stated firmly.

I opened my mouth to reply but stopped when I realized what he had said, and instead I remained silent for a long moment. "But Alister and Valon were your best men. How do they not know that you didn't go through the wedding?" I asked at last.

"My grandfather had the wedding day moved after you crashed it," he explained wryly. "He moved it to the day after the original wedding date, since Alister and Valon had to go home; he wouldn't let them stay, despite the fact they were my best men."

"…Well that explains why Valon was going through my email," I muttered.

Raphael raised an eyebrow. "What does that mean?"

"Look, I'm going to be completely honest. I had Kaiba do some research on you, because I knew something was up and I also didn't believe you at—"

"Research?" he asked, surprised. "You actually did a background check on me?"

"I had to!" I said, sitting on the bench outside the door. "I didn't trust you anymore and I didn't know how else to get answers! Plus, I overheard Alister talking to you on the phone and he mentioned that you loved Marie and…and…!"

I trailed off, tears starting to form in my eyes. Not now, please not now. I will not cry…I will not cry!

But alas, the tears started flowing before I could stop them. I covered my eyes instinctively and continued to talk. "You broke me, Raphael. What you did hurt me so much."

I felt more weight settle on the bench, indicating that Raphael had sat down as well. "You claimed you cared for me, and after that whole incident we had, you knew I was taking my time since I was scared you would treat me the way Caden did. I honestly believed you weren't like that, but then you went and got married without bothering to tell me!"

I started to choke on my words. "So what was I supposed to think? You said you cared for me, and yet you lied to me and—!"

"Now you're repeating yourself," he said quietly, placing a hand on my shoulder. I scooted away from him and I lifted my head out of my hands.

"I don't care," I hissed furiously, looking at him with puffy red eyes. "You hurt me…no, worse. You scared me. How do you expect me to trust you now?"

A long and awkward silence fell between us. At last, it was broken by Raphael as he cleared his throat.

"I'm truly sorry, Skyler," he said heavily, looking me in the eye. "You have every right to be mad at me. I won't blame you if you never forgive me for this; if I was in your shoes, I would probably feel about the same way."

I eyed him as he scooted closer and in spite of myself I leaned against him; I allowed him to put his arm over my shoulder as he continued to speak."Skyler, you mean everything to me. There is no one else in the world that I would want to be in a relationship with."

He wiped the few stray tears that were still on my cheeks. "I know you don't trust me right now," he continued as he got to his feet. As he rose he gently pulled me with him, looking deep into my hazel eyes. "But I do want you to know that I love you, and that is not about to change."

With those words still ringing in my ears he bent down and gave me a genuine kiss.

Almost at once a million different thoughts exploded in my head as I instinctively wrapped my arms around his neck and I returned the kiss.

When we broke apart Raphael was once again looking down at me, uncertainty, love, and longing clearly evident in his eyes.

"You…you love me?" I questioned.

"More than anything," he whispered, hugging me close to him. "As I've said before, you're the only one who has my heart. I really and truly do love you," he continued, his grip tightening.

"I love you too, Raphael," I replied softly, my voice catching. You can call it my sixth sense, but I swear I felt him smile.

"Let's go inside," he said, releasing me so that he could grab his luggage. I smiled and reached for his free hand, opening the door for him.

Once we entered and I recognized the sounds of the video playing at the moment, I shouted, "Declan, turn that video off!"

"Nope," he said, and as Raphael and I entered the room I was in time to watch him put the remote back in his pants.

"Again, please keep in mind we use that," Alister said, disgusted.

His gaze shifted to me and, subsequently, Raphael. His eyes lingered on our intertwined hands and he smirked. "It's about freaking time. Welcome back," he commented.

The comment caught Valon's attention and he looked over at us. His eyes brightened almost at once."Oy! Raph's back!" he exclaimed, leaping to his feet and running to us. Raphael had enough time to let go off my hand before Valon tackled the older man to the ground.

"There's a first," I declared, looking down at Raphael. He didn't seem to mind being tackled—in fact, he was laughing.

"But I thought you married...that. What're you doin' 'ere?" asked Valon as he helped Raphael back to his feet.

"Valon," Raphael started, arching an eyebrow, "If I'm here, it should be fairly obvious that I didn't get married after all."

"True," Valon agreed cheerfully. "'ey, Alister! Mind 'elpin' me make some popcorn f'r Raph?"

"I see that the house is still intact. I'm guessing that means no wars?" he asked me as Alister rose to his feet, passing by us to head into the kitchen after Valon.

I shrugged. "Guess so."

It was then that Ember came rolling out of the chimney with a grin on her face. "Welcome back!" she chirped.

"Nice to see you too—" began Raphael earnestly.

"VALON!"

Everyone looked over to watch a soaking wet Alister stalk out of the kitchen, soaked to the bone; I'm guessing Valon had been planning this for some time, since he's already edging toward the front hall. "You're a dead Aussie!"

"See ya!" yelped Valon as he sprinted past us and out the front door, Alister not too far behind him.

Raphael and I looked at each other. "It's good to be back," he said with a warm smile.

There we go! Next chapter will be up soon! I honestly love me beta! I had no idea she was going to reply so fast, even though she's sick =( FEEL BETTER SOON KoK. Please Review