"She can and she is right to, Osiris!" A large hand clapped the god of the dead on the back, the force of the friendly gesture causing him to stumble forward a half pace and take a moment to regain his footing before turning to gape at the newcomer.

"Ptah!" Osiris opened his mouth to say something more but was ignored as Ptah brushed past him and continued speaking.

"Well, well, well, and these are the bearers of our split souls, are they? Amazing, simply amazing." His gaze studied Atemu, Yugi, Ryou and Akeifa briefly and with fascination before he turned his attention to Thoth, giving another boisterous laugh and punching him on the shoulder. Unlike Osiris, Thoth managed to retain his balance in the face of the towering god's exuberance, but only because he was expecting it. He did, however, wince slightly at the blow. "It seems you were right, old friend, when you said that splitting a soul would have effects reaching further into the future than we could see. Or, at least, further than I could see," he said and gave Thoth a sly grin, nudging him with an elbow. "I expect you had this all planned from the moment you insisted that we split two souls instead of one."

Thoth simply returned the infectious grin with a small one of his own and didn't answer, but only because he knew not to bother. Ptah's attention had already left him in favor of taking in Bast. His grin widened, if possible, and contained sheer delight at her presence.

"Ah, and there's my beauty. What have you been up to while I slept, gorgeous? Trouble as usual?" He opened his arms toward her, inviting her into them.

A squeal and Bast, being the affectionate cat goddess they all knew her to be, launched herself into her husband's arms and snuggled him fiercely. Ryou thought he could be mistaken when he heard a purr coming from her throat.

"Nothing more than the usual, dear." Her smile matched his in its wideness and radiance. "Just tracking down my boys and making sure they were alright."

Ryou wanted to snort at that comment but a statement from Atemu stopped him.

"You said you split two souls. I can guess one of them is mine and Yugi's but who else did you split?" The young pharaoh pulled Yugi closer and glanced to the only other two mortals in the room. "Is it..."

Ryou caught the way Atemu was looking at him and his thief and shrank back into the safety of Akeifa's arms. "...us?" he finished. Did they? Really? Were their souls the same? Ryou didn't think he could tell but looking back on everything that happened, it would make sense. Akeifa being dropped in his living room, the fact that they seemed to communicate well enough without speaking the other's language, and the way they had fallen for each other so fast. It was nice but hard to deal with. He shook his head, thoughts whirling and found he liked things a lot simpler. Though how simple can things be when dealing with the gods?

Ptah gave his wife a tight squeeze and moved her a bit to the side where she could continue to snuggle and not be in the way. One arm remained around her, petting her hair absently.

"Of course!" He addressed Ryou directly. "I'm still not sure if I quite understand the whole thing yet myself but I assume it has something to do with recent events. Our boy Thoth here is a mastermind with long range planning." The hand not around Bast shot out to give Thoth another friendly whack but the god had already moved enough to the side so that it missed. This seemed to amuse Ptah even more and he laughed loudly.

Osiris realized something at about that time and irritation overrode his normal good nature. "Yes, Thoth. Why don't you explain why you never mentioned to my wife that I still had a piece missing."

Soothing her husband's bristling anger with a few soft strokes of her hand down his arm, Isis answered for the troublesome god. "When does Thoth answer any questions that do not fit in with his plan." And though her gaze was soft and loving on Osiris, when she turned it on Thoth, it was stern and reproachful like an angry mother. "Though it would have been quite helpful to prepare for something like this had I known the moment it was missing." She tsked and turned back to her husband, giving him a small peck on his green cheek.

Ra, too, leveled the god with an angry look, a glare that bore resemblance to the one he had sent toward Akeifa many times but had been ignored. "What were you planning on doing if the thief had not managed to steal the piece back? Do you realize how risky that was?"

"My apologies, Isis, but it was necessary at the time. And of course I knew the risk. I also knew the outcome. As I told you before, Akeifa was the only one who could succeed. The only one who could make it in alive and then back out alive and with Osiris' ear, no less."

Akeifa had been studying Ryou intently. To think that someone so beautiful, so gentle and perfect could be a part of himself... The realization was humbling and threw him off enough so that his next words were far more open and honest than they would normally have been.

"You were wrong then," he challenged Thoth. "Set knew every move I was to make. If Ryou had not been there, I would have fallen right into the trap he set."

Thoth only continued to smile in his secretive way. "Ah, but Ryou was there. And that is why I knew that only you would be able to succeed."

Ryou looked up, hearing his name and finally tuned into the conversation he had only been half listening to after hearing his soul was split. It hadn't gotten any less confusing and it was still difficult to wrap his mind around the whole thing. "But I didn't really do anything," he protested. "I couldn't even run very fast. He would have gotten out of Set's palace so much faster had I not been there." He shook his head. "All I did was distract him from a really shiny, creepy chest."

Akeifa's fingers folded under Ryou's chin, forcing the boy to look at him. "If you hadn't distracted me, stumbled and scared that little spy, and figured out how to disperse the trap that kept drawing us back to the throne room, I would have never gotten out at all. If you had stayed behind, I would have never returned." He stopped suddenly, gaze returning sharply to Thoth as he remembered who had insisted that Ryou go as well. "Oh."

Thoth nodded but Osiris kept up the line of questioning. He squeezed Isis' hand, acknowledging her point but refusing to relent. "On the topic of Set, how was it that he even knew who we got to retrieve the top of my ear? You're the only one of us who makes regular visits to him, the only one he'll even allow to visit and I know for a fact that he doesn't have any spies in my domain."

But the conversation passed over Ryou as his attention was fixed solely on his thief. He really wanted to reach up and close the gap between their lips, seal it closed for an hour or two in the privacy he felt they had more than earned. Hard work builds up an appetite and with the way Akeifa was holding him and looking at him, he was starving. But he didn't trust himself to steal a kiss, even a small, light, quick one, so he settled on tracing the lines of his thief's face with his fingers, his mouth curving into a tiny smile. "I didn't do that much. But I am glad we were together. We'll always be together."

"Could it be that you have been telling Set certain things? Things you think he needs to know?" Ra's face was livid as he questioned Thoth.

Everything ceased to exist for Akeifa except for Ryou's large eyes and the feel of his soft hands. Well, not everything. He was vaguely aware of having an audience still and that awareness was what spurred on what he did next. He leaned teasingly close to his mouse until barely an inch separated their lips before whispering "Always, pnw-i," for Ryou's ears alone. Remembering how very reactive the boy was, he held his gaze, eyes intent and the corner of his mouth lifted with just a hint of mischief. One hand made its way down Ryou's back, just out of sight.

Thoth simply continued to explain patiently, paying only as much attention to the two white haired boys on the couch as they were to him. "Things he did need to know," he corrected. "Set could have simply killed whoever we sent. But his own greed is what kept Akeifa alive when he found out exactly who it was we did recruit and that our thief would contain within him something just as useful as Osiris' flesh."

Yugi leaned forward a bit, eyes sparkling with interest as he followed the conversation closely.

"Don't you think you could have let us know?" Ra's rant ceased as he glanced over to the mortal in question. Seeing the god's expression, Atemu turned to look as well. He immediately wished he hadn't.

The teasing and hot breath and lips so close broke Ryou's patience and he knocked his thief backwards as he attacked his face. So sexy, so irresistible and he gave in easily, catching and holding and pressing Akeifa's head and mouth closer and he really did forget about all the others in the room. That hand on his back (which wasn't really on his back anymore) sent sparks shooting through him. His modesty had left for the time being but it was worth it. Being in Akeifa's arms was worth everything and more.

Atemu looked away, embarrassed and angry at the thief. He was sure that somehow this was all his fault. His wandering gaze landed on Bast and he was not surprised to see her watching intently with more interest than he had seen ever. She glanced up, caught his eye and winked before going back to the show. He was sure the purring got a little louder.

A pleased rumble sounded in Akeifa's chest, pleased with his mouse's weight on top of him, pleased with the hand at the back of his head and pleased with the hot mouth pressed against his. Both arms wrapped around Ryou, pulling him closer and he wondered just how far he could get the boy to go before he realized what they were doing and moved away.

Thoth knew better than to look and turned toward Yugi whose eyes were lowered and unfocused, lost in thought.

When Yugi reached a tentative conclusion and looked up, he flushed slightly to find himself the object of the god's attention. An odd thought had stuck him, one that made sense, but seemed almost ridiculous in its simplicity. If the piece of Osiris had been found with all the others and put back like it was supposed to, then there would have never been a need to bring the thief forward in time from a place where his soul hadn't been completely darkened by the demon. And then he and Ryou would have never tried to send Akeifa back meaning that he never would have pulled Atemu from the afterlife. He and Ryou may very well have had to live the rest of their lives separated from their other halves. Still, it seemed silly and kind of selfish to think that something so risky and dangerous had been allowed to happen just to ensure that the four of them... were happy? He really did want to ask about it but couldn't form the idea into words without it sounding strange.

He didn't have to.

"You know who my wife is, of course," Thoth addressed him quietly. It wasn't so much a question as a statement and Yugi nodded. "Having you and Atemu, and likewise, Ryou and Akeifa remain separate would throw her further off balance."

"But, you must have gone through so much trouble and planning just for..." Thousands of years of planning and risking the end of the world several times over had things gone wrong.

"A happy ending?" Thoth smiled gently at him. "We asked so much from you, all four of you, when we deprived you of the usual balance a soul enjoys. It allowed us to change the course of history not once, but twice. Two of the halves played out their parts in ancient times and then joined their respective pairs to continue and resolve the battle thousands of years later. It was a cruel thing to allow events to unfold as they did, even if they were the consequence of human actions. It was a cruel thing to sit back and watch as the slaughter of a boy's family led him to make a deal with a demon. It was yet another cruel thing to let another boy sacrifice his own life to wait in darkness until he found what he needed to defeat that same demon for good." Thoth paused to glance over at Ryou and Akeifa. "A happy ending all around seems the least we can do."

The conversation did not go unheard by Atemu. His attention turned swiftly to Thoth, the actions of the two other mortals forgotten. He turned his body completely in the god's direction and fixed him with a hard stare. "Do you mean that? Are you sure?" The last thing he wanted was to be separated from his aibou ever again but he knew that having their hopes shattered would be devastating. He would not get them up unless he was absolutely sure they could not be shot down. His fingers twined with Yugi's squeezed and brought them up to his lips to brush against them in a small, sweet kiss. There was no way he could lose this.

Yugi tried to keep from blushing but color dusted his fair complexion despite his best efforts and Thoth's only answer was to nod towards Ptah, directing Atemu's attention back to the god still laughing heartily even as he paced back across the room to slap Ra on the back.

"Looks like we had better get the boys home before you burst a vein! And don't be mad at me for overriding your decision on this one," his tone became serious but the wide grin never disappeared, "be mad at Thoth. I find he's always the easiest one to blame in situations like these."

Ryou's head snapped up and he looked at the god in astonishment. "You mean he can stay with me? We won't be separated?"

"No, he can't!" Ra's voice rang out and he stood from his seat and turned to Ptah. "I don't care if they are the same soul. Can't you see? He is dead. He has been dead for thousands of years. Not to mention we pulled him from a time when he was still alive! And setting him loose on the modern world will only cause chaos. He made a contract with Zork. ZORK! He is sharing his soul with the being that tried to destroy Egypt and its people. You cannot send him out there. Who knows what could happen?"

"I could keep a watchful eye over him," Atemu volunteered. He would not sit back and let himself be split apart from his other half. Even if it meant babysitting the thief. "I can make sure he doesn't do anything dangerous."

"And how would that be possible with you still here?" Ra's stern gaze swept over to Atemu. "You cannot be considering leaving. Your rightful place is here where you can rest. You go back, the Shadows may be opened again and people may come after -"

Isis stopped the frustrated god's rant with a restraining hand as she rose. "I think we will need to discuss this before we do anything. It is not a decision that can be made lightly."

Ptah looked at Ra in surprise.

"Are you questioning my judgment?"

Osiris took a breath and stepped forward.

"No disrespect, Ptah, but Ra raises a valid point. Several in fact. Not even I was allowed to return to the land of the living after my death."

Meanwhile, Akeifa decided he was tired of the arguing and the waiting.