Yu-Gi-Oh!

Little Broken Heart

By Lucky_Ladybug

Notes: The characters are not mine and the story is! It's part of my Pendulum Swings timeline that redeems Yami Bakura and the Big Five. This was partially inspired by the story Waiting In Darkness from KaibaGirl007 and partially from watching Noa's arc episodes for the umpteenth time. KaibaGirl007 and I pretty much have completely opposite takes on Lector. Her tale very chillingly has Lector coldly responsible for Noa's death, and while I of course don't have that angle, I did start to wonder what would happen if someone accused Lector of it. This story may be disturbing since it will largely explore the (canonical) death of a child and why it happened.

Chapter One

"Hey, Lector?"

Lector looked up. He had been writing at his desk while Mokuba had been playing a portable video game on the floor. With Seto busy with a long series of company meetings and Marik helping Ishizu at the museum, Seto had asked Lector if he would be willing to keep Mokuba company for a while tonight. Lector, happy to think of being able to further bond with his former charge, had been very willing.

It was certainly something that wouldn't have happened some months ago. So much had happened in the last year, but the most shocking events had started taking place in the Fall. By now it had almost been a year since Lector and the rest of the Big Five had been restored to their bodies and started trying to live honestly. Seto hadn't believed they could do it, but they had certainly been trying hard.

Mokuba had always loved Lector, who had been appointed his and Seto's sometimes-caretaker by Gozaburo, so it wasn't as much of a surprise to Seto that Mokuba had started gravitating to him again. It had taken a while to start getting past the betrayal and hurt, but knowing that Lector had always been upset about what he had perceived as Seto using Mokuba and that he had tried on many occasions to protect Mokuba even in the middle of the Big Five's scheming had helped, for both Mokuba and Seto. By now, Mokuba and Lector had deeply bonded.

Tonight had been a peaceful evening, something they sorely needed after so much chaos and heartache over the past months. They had shared dinner together before taking a few moments to write and play video games, respectively. But now Mokuba sounded serious, hesitant. Something was on his mind.

"What is it?" Lector asked, turning the chair to face the boy.

Mokuba set his game system on a table and got up. ". . . I've been wondering . . . what was Noa like? When you knew him years ago, I mean. . . ."

Lector rocked back. He hadn't expected that, although maybe he should have. Seto had told him that Mokuba still felt sad about Noa.

"I'm sorry," Mokuba quickly added. "You probably don't want to talk about him. . . . I was just realizing that you knew him when he was alive, and . . . well, I still miss him and wish he could have come back with us. . . . Seto could have made him a robot body and maybe he could have learned to be happy again, with us as his family. . . ." He looked away.

"No, it's alright," Lector said. "You just surprised me, that's all." He sighed. "I'm sorry about Noa too.

"Noa was . . . a very innocent child who adored his father. As time went on, he unfortunately became more and more spoiled and expected everything to just be handed to him without him having to work for it. I had trouble getting anywhere with him."

Mokuba frowned in sympathy. "That must have been really hard, especially after the way your nephews treated you. . . ."

"I must admit I was seriously starting to wonder by then why anyone would ever want children," Lector said. "Your stepfather had me trying to help raise Noa, just as he did with you and Seto later, but Noa did not respect me. A couple of times it got so bad that I threatened to discipline him. He told me that Gozaburo would never allow that and he would see that his father fired me if I tried. I wasn't intimidated by him, but even when I felt forced to do as I'd said after a particularly dangerous case of disobedience, it didn't change anything. If anything, it only made Noa that much more difficult to get along with."

"Oh man." Mokuba looked down. "Gozaburo adopting me and Seto must have been the last thing you wanted. . . ."

"I can't deny that. But you turned out perfectly normal, a very sweet child." Lector smiled a bit. "You're the same age as Noa was, but in many ways, you have a maturity that he never gained in life."

Mokuba smiled too, and came closer to the chair. "I still wish you'd been our dad," he said softly.

Lector looked to him. "So do I," he said. "I would have taken good care of you both."

"And Seto wouldn't have got hurt and changed," Mokuba whispered. "He'd still be happy. . . ."

Lector drew an arm around Mokuba. "I know he's happy with you, Mokuba."

"Yeah, but he'd be even happier if Gozaburo hadn't happened," Mokuba said. He hesitated, then moved closer, really wanting to sit on Lector's lap but not sure he should just do it without permission. Seto would never tell him he was too old for it, but he wasn't sure how Lector would react. It wasn't behavior he would normally engage in, but somehow he liked the thought of doing it with Lector. Maybe it was because of how young he had been when his and Seto's parents were killed. He had snuggled with Seto on so many nights afterwards, and he knew how hard Seto had tried to be a father as well as a brother for him, but he still longed for the presence of an adult parental figure as well. He had wanted Lector to be that person years ago, and now that they were happy and growing close, he couldn't seem to resist.

Lector regarded him in surprise, but his eyes softened and he reached to lift Mokuba onto his lap. "I'm sure that's true," he said. "I'm sorry I didn't know exactly how horrible things were for the both of you. I would have fought hard for your happiness."

Mokuba snuggled close to him and threw his arms around Lector's neck. "I know," he said softly.

Even as Mokuba started to doze in this completely safe environment, Lector was wide awake and thinking of things. Noa was still on his mind now. He had been the last person to see Noa healthy and well those years ago. Could he have prevented what had happened? He had run it over and over through his mind in the past years and never did reach a satisfactory answer. Finally he sighed and drew his arms around Mokuba, starting to doze without half-thinking about it.

They had been like that for an indeterminable amount of time when the maid suddenly burst into the room. "Mr. Lector?!"

Both jumped a mile. "What's going on?!" Lector demanded. She sounded completely distraught.

"Mr. Lector, I . . . I don't know what to do," she exclaimed, twisting her apron in both hands. "One of your neighbors . . . she . . . she suddenly showed up on the doorstep and said she was going to call the police if little Mokuba stayed here any longer!"

"What?!" Mokuba leaped to the floor, shocked and indignant. "She can't do that! Why would she even say something like that?!"

"Well . . ." The maid looked conflicted. She was fairly new, brought in to replace the traitorous maid who had plotted to kill Lector and the rest of the Big Five over the past winter. From her eyes, she wasn't sure what to believe and yet she clearly didn't want to believe that woman.

"What did she say, Miss Helena?" Lector asked, his tone clipped.

He had expected Helena to cite the news stories about the Big Five's betrayal of Seto or about the time they had harnessed his augmented reality game to take over the city. Instead, the neighbor herself stormed to the doorway and glowered in at them, and what she said rocked Lector to his very core.

"I told her about the night Gozaburo Kaiba's young son died," she spat. "How you argued with him and he went away mad! And how you took off after him almost immediately!" She pointed an accusatory finger at Lector. "Isn't it a coincidence, that the story goes that little Noa Kaiba was struck by a car the night he died?!"

Lector just stared at her, unable to really comprehend what he was hearing. Was she really accusing him of . . . ?!

Mokuba was outraged. "What are you saying?! Lector went after him to try to bring him back! Why wouldn't he have gone?!"

Lector was still badly shaken, lost in the past he had already been thinking of before this woman had arrived. "I was the first one on the scene," he practically whispered. "I was too late. . . ."

"Oh, of course that's what you'd say," his neighbor retorted. "But isn't it strange that the vehicle that struck him was never found? I saw that your car's right fender was damaged the next morning! You had your chauffeur take it to be repaired!"

"It was damaged while I was trying to find him!" Lector exclaimed, his tone taking on more of an edge now that it was clear what she meant. "I went around a curb too fast because I heard a car throwing on its brakes up ahead and feared the worst. I ended up hitting a telephone pole!"

"Yeah, and if you really think some messed-up thing like this, why did you wait all these years to say anything?!" Mokuba snapped.

"I was afraid of what he or his friends might do to me to keep me quiet," she replied. "But when I saw you coming over tonight and apparently going to stay for a while, I knew I couldn't stay quiet any longer!"

"Wait a minute." Lector was again staring in disbelief. "You're not just saying you think I accidentally hit Noa and didn't come forward, are you?"

"I'm saying you did it on purpose, probably to get him out of the way so he wouldn't inherit KaibaCorp!" she spat with vehemence.

Now Lector's blue eyes flamed with fire. "Get out of my house!" he spat right back. "How dare you come in here and make these kinds of accusations?! If you dare to call the police on me, I will sue you for defamation of character! You were worried about what I might do to you? Well, that's what you'll have to contend with! And the law will be on my side, because there isn't any evidence of your outrageous story! Get out! Get out!"

She just glowered at him with unbridled hate, but turned on her heel and stormed out the door. Lector stood, seething, glaring at the spot where she had stood.

Mokuba looked up at him worriedly. "Lector? . . . Are . . ." He trailed off. He couldn't ask if Lector was okay. No one could be okay after being accused of something like that, especially when the memories of that night clearly still brought so much pain.

Lector turned away, holding a shaking hand to his face. "She was right that Noa and I argued," he said at last. "I told him he was putting too much stress and strain on his father because of how he was acting. He said I didn't have the right to talk to him like that and ran away. Yes, I went after him! Of course I went after him! It was late at night and I needed to get him home and . . ."

Mokuba slowly went over to him, taking his other hand between his. "Lector, you don't have to talk about it," he said softly. "You know I believe you. . . ."

Lector almost seemed not to hear him. "I heard that car's tires screech and squeal as it threw on the brakes. . . . Worse, I heard Noa scream. I knew what must have happened, but I didn't want to believe it. . . . I sped around the corner and hit the telephone pole. . . . I was dazed, but I pulled away and drove on. . . . I saw the tire marks in the road . . . and Noa's small body just lying there. . . . I dialed for 911 and ran over to see if there was anything I could do. . . . He was still alive, and so afraid. . . . I tried to talk to him and comfort him, but I didn't know what to do. . . . I didn't want to believe it was really as bad as it looked . . . or worse. . . ."

"Lector. . . ." Now Mokuba was crying, for both him and Noa. He hugged Lector around the waist. "I'm so sorry. . . ."

Lector came back to the present and hugged Mokuba close. "I suppose . . . it really was my fault in some way. . . ."

"No, it wasn't!" Mokuba exclaimed. "You didn't know Noa would run off or that a car would come speeding up before you could find him! You were trying to help. . . ."

"I certainly did a lot to help, didn't I," Lector said bitterly. "Then when Gozaburo changed so much and treated all of us so poorly and nearly drove Gansley to a heart attack, I agreed to your brother's plan of taking over the company. I can't deny I wanted more power, like he promised."

"But I'm sure you were also worried about your friends," Mokuba said. "You didn't want Gansley to get hurt worse . . . or die. . . ."

"That's true," Lector said.

"I think . . . people are really complicated," Mokuba said. "There's usually not just one reason why they do things. And I know you didn't want to hurt Gozaburo either. . . ."

"No, I didn't," Lector sighed.

Mokuba took out his phone. "I'm going to text the others. I'm sure you'd like to have them here for you after something like this."

Lector couldn't deny that. "Thank you, Mokuba," he said quietly.

The rest of the Big Five immediately set out for Lector's house as soon as they got the text. All were furious. By the time they arrived, Nesbitt was fired up enough that he really wanted to go find that neighbor's house and scream at her.

"Mokuba didn't say who it was that said that," he snarled in greeting to the others. "I want to know!"

"Knowing wouldn't really help at this stage," Gansley told him. "She didn't really see anything, only that argument with Noa. And going over to yell at her would hardly be productive."

Nesbitt growled. "She had no right, especially after all these years!"

"She sure didn't," Crump agreed.

"I almost wish she would go to the police so I could help Lector sue her," Johnson said. "Only I don't want something like this to get dragged through the papers. That would be horrible for poor Lector. There's been enough bad publicity already, especially because of what his father did to him!"

Gansley reached the porch first and knocked. "Let's just worry about trying to help Lector right now," he said. "He must be devastated."

Crump nodded. "I remember how shaken up he was that night. Noa's blood was all over his hands. . . . He talked about that and kept trying so hard to wash it all off. . . ." His eyes flickered. He was haunted by the memory.

Helena opened the door in response to Gansley's knock. "Oh good, you're all here," she said in relief. "Please come in. Mr. Lector's in the living room with Mokuba."

Gansley nodded. "Thank you." He hurried past her and into the living room. The others swiftly followed.

Lector was sitting on one of the couches. He got up to go to them, but while he was happy to see his friends, he found he didn't quite know what to say. Mokuba had told them what had happened. What could he add to that? He had just been accused of murdering a child! And not just any child, but one he had taken care of and whose death had haunted him!

"Hey, Buddy," Crump said in concern. "How are you doing?"

Lector opened his mouth to reply, then wasn't sure how to and shook his head. "I . . . I'm not well. I'm not fine. I . . ."

"Of course you're not," Crump soothed. "But I'm glad you're admitting it this time." He pulled Lector into a hug.

Lector hugged him close, a shudder running up his back. "It was so horrible that night," he whispered.

"I know," Crump said.

"She had no right to make you relive it," Nesbitt growled.

"I relive it a great deal," Lector said, "but not while being accused of being coldly and deliberately responsible."

"Why did she think you would do it?" Johnson frowned. Mokuba hadn't given them the details of that, instead just wanting to type a quick message to get them out here.

"To get him out of the way so I could take over KaibaCorp," Lector said.

Crump stiffened. "Okay, who was she?!" he boomed. "Now I'm gonna go over and yell at her!"

"Not without me, you're not," Nesbitt snarled.

"It's still just as pointless to yell at her as it was five minutes ago," Gansley scolded. Nevertheless, his eyes were filled with a fury he didn't often have.

"Who was it, Lector?" Johnson asked. "We'll need to know in case she really does try to make trouble."

Lector gave a weary sigh. "You might think it would be the inquisitive woman next-door, but it wasn't," he said. "It was Mrs. Clarkson from across the street."

"I always thought something was funny about her," Crump growled. "She's even more off-the-wall than I realized!"

"There has to be something we can do," Nesbitt snarled. "Now that we know she feels this way about Lector, she could try to cause trouble any time Mokuba's over here . . . or any other time she feels like it!"

"Someone like that will probably never change her opinion no matter what the facts say," Gansley said. "But at least if the facts showed that Lector is innocent, there won't be anything of substance she can cause. Lector, did the police investigate you to make sure your vehicle wasn't the one that struck Noa?"

"Yes," Lector said. "Naturally they asked about the damaged fender. I told them and they went to the telephone pole and found paint samples that matched my car's. They also made sure the tire marks in the road didn't match my tires."

Gansley nodded in approval. "Then I would say you're innocent in the eyes of the law."

"Mrs. Clarkson might even try to say I had an accomplice," Lector said bitterly. "Maybe one of you, maybe someone else."

"She really would be batty!" Crump exclaimed.

Lector sighed. "Noa's death is still an open case. No one knows who struck him. I always thought it was an accident, but . . . Mrs. Clarkson makes me wonder. What if someone really did hit him on purpose?"

Mokuba gasped. "Why would they?!"

"I really don't know," Lector said. "Gozaburo had a lot of enemies. Someone could have wanted to take away the only person they thought he cared about."

"The police questioned everyone on that street, didn't they?" Gansley said.

"They certainly did," Lector agreed. "Some people weren't home. Those who were saw nothing, but only heard the impact . . . and Noa's screams. . . ." He clenched a fist.

"Who wasn't home?" Johnson asked. "It could be innocent, but on the other hand it could mean something, especially if the hit-and-run was deliberate. The residents might have wanted to be away so they could more believably say they didn't know anything."

"I'd have to look at the official report," Lector said. "I don't remember details like that."

"Seto probably has a copy of it locked away in old company files," Mokuba said. "I'll ask him!"

Lector smiled a bit. "Thank you, Mokuba."

"We're gonna get to the bottom of this," Mokuba vowed. "If someone really did kill Noa on purpose, we need to know who and why. And even if it was an accident, they still just drove away without doing anything to help and they need to be found out!"

"Yes, they do," Gansley said. "One way or another, we're going to put this case to rest."