He stuck his head hastily into the slightly open doorway. The coast was clear. With the practiced stealth of a cat stalking a bird, Joey crept down the hallway and towards his room. If he could just get in and out without his "father" waking up...

Once in his room, he moved quickly around, gathering everything that he might need. He pulled a book full of pictures from his closet and put it in a small backpack. Some CDs...homework...pants...shirts...school uniform...

He stuck his hands in his pockets, wondering what else he could possibly need. His hand came in contact with a piece of paper. Curiously, he pulled it out and opened it.

Oh yeah...the paragraph written in Latin...Kaiba's paragraph written in Latin. He stared intently at it as if that would somehow translate it into a language he could actually read.

Sighing and stuffing the paper back into his pocket, the blonde boy picked up his back pack and slowly made his way out of his room. Slowly he crept down the hall and into the living room where his "father" was sleeping.

As he slipped by the chair, the man's foot jerkily moved out and into Joey's path. The next thing he knew, he was on the ground and his father was groaning and opening his eyes.

Quicker then lightening, Joey leapy up and made a beeline for the door. But he wasn't fast enough. A thick hand wrapped around his ankle and he slammed against the floor.

Blood trickled from his broken lips....he groaned.

This was just the beginning.

***

//Why do we have to go to the museum.//

Ryou sighed. /It's someone in the museum, Bakura. She---/ he sighed. /You'll see in a moment./

A figure appeared before them, tall and graceful. Her long black hair fell elegantly over her shoulders. "Hello Ryou," Ishizu said softly. Her eyes fell on the boy's companion and she smirked uncharacteristically. "Hello Bakura."

"Ishizu," the spirit laughed. "Last time I saw you, you were laying in a pool of your own blood in Egypt."

"Funny," she replied uncharacteristically sarcastic. "Last time I recall seeing you, you were standing over me with a knife."

"Um..." Ryou looked uncertainly from Bakura to Ishizu and back to Bakura.

"So little hikari," Bakura asked, eyes still on the keeper of the Millenium Necklace. "What does Ishizu have to do with knowing my past."

The Necklace glowed slightly and Ishizu smiled. "Ah...yes. Ryou came in one day, sad and lonely. I asked him what the problem was and he replied, very bluntly I might add, that you were all of his problems." Ryou twisted his shirt nervously. "And I decided, Bakura, that your little hikari needed to see what you used to be like. Before you killed. Before you robbed."

"You had no---" Bakura began.

"I had every right. Ryou has the right to know what his counterpart was once like. You used to love Bakura." Her voice turned bitter. "What happened."

"You happened," came to cold reply. "You came waltzing in and stole everything that was normal to me."

"Me?" Ishizu cried.

"Yes. You stole my heart you know!" Bakura cried, no longer caring who knew. "And then stuffed it in a bag and chopped it up into little pieces!"

Ryou stared at his counterpart incredulously. His...Bakura had been in love?

"C'mon Ryou," Bakura said, glaring at Ishizu. "We're leaving."

"No." The words were out of his mouth before he could stop them. Shaking his head, he continued. "No Bakura. I think that you should see how you once were." When the spirit shook his head, Ryou begged with his huge brown eyes. "C'mon Bakura...you owe it to yourself...and to me...and apparently to Ishizu as well....pllleeeaaasssseeeee...."

"Mortals..." the ancient Tomb Robber muttered rolling his eyes. "Fine..."

Ryou grinned and turned to Ishizu who smiled proudly at the younger boy and winked.

***

"Ah!" He yelped as a fist the size of a Thanksgiving ham slammed into his jaw. Blood oozed from his broken gums and he fell to the floor, holding himself up with one hand while the other gently touched his jaw.

"Where ya been kid?" the man who called himself a father yelled drunkenly, slamming his fish into Joey's back. "You leave all of a sudden? You know what I'll do to you!"

The hand slapped him, palm wide open across his face. He winced but stared defantly up at the man. Anger flared in his eyes. "You have pushed me around long enough," he growled.

"What's that?" Donocha laughed. "What's that I hear? A puppy whining?"

With a gutteral growl, Joey mustered up his strength and hurled himself at his father. The huge drunken man laughed and swatted his son away as if he were a bug flying around him. Joey hit the wall hard and slumped down onto the ground, fading in and out of cousiousness. In the end it was his lucidity, or lack thereof, that saved him. Had he been totally aware at that moment of every punch his father threw....

He would have been far worse then dead.

***

Yugi paced anxiously around Tristan who was sitting in a chair, lounging and Téa who was laying on the couch.

"Something weird is going on," the small boy said as he paced.

"What do ya mean?" Tristan asked, continuing to count the tiles on the ceiling, out of pure bordom.

"I mean Ryou hasn't called back yet and it's been over and hour and a half since we called. And Joey's been gone almost forty five minutes, It shouldn't take him that long to get his stuff and get back..."

"Oh Yugi..." Téa sighed. "It's at least a half hour to the Wheeler's apartment. Then he has to get his stuff and come all the way back."

The small boy sighed again and began to pace, unaware that he had stopped while Téa had spoken. "Maybe..."

But something wasn't right. He could just....just feel it. There was just something...

In his soul room, Yami nodded, agreeing with his hikari's thoughts. Something was not right.

***

"Look..."

The three of them were floating above a large bazaar of Egypt. Ryou smiled at all of the people running around on the streets below him and Ishizu chuckled at five kids running through the crowds of people.

"Watch..." she whispered.

"Hurry up Anzu!" a voice cried. It was the tallest boy, a ruffian with familiar features and brown hair. He was in the lead of his four friends, but not by much.

The brown haired girl, who was close behind him panted. "I'm...hurrying...."

Just behind her a boy with blonde hair was laughing wildly and generally getting a kick out of the whole idea of being chased. He leapt into a cartwheel and pulled up next to the gilr who grudgingly stuck her tongue out at him.

On the other side of the girl was a short, very thin boy, wearing an all black cape that fluttered gently around him as he ran. He grinned fleetingly at the girl as they hurried into an alley.

At the end of the pack was a tall boy with strange white hair. He was laughing along with the blonde and pokiing the boy in the back. He ducked and dodged everything that the butcher behind them threw, including a whole chicken.

"It's you, Bakura," Ryou whispered. "Don't you remember all of this? All of this happiness?"

"What happiness," the spirit growled. "Anzu ended up dead. Honda, that's the one that looks like the dork, ended up a guard for the Pharaoh, a job that was supposed to go to me. Jonouchi, the one that looks like punk, lived his whole life on the streets and Yami goes on to be one of the most famous Pharaoh;s of all time. And ya know what Ryou? I didn't do squat. In fact somehow I ended up with her little brother---" he made a jerking motion at Ishizu. "---who took me over and tried to make me kill Yami, my BEST FRIEND!" The spirit was breathing heavily now. "And of course that put Yami and myself at odds and now he hates me. And always will. That--Ryou--is why I did not want to do this silly thing. Because all the past does is remind you of your mistakes. That's all its good for." He turned sulkily towards Ishizu. "I wanna go back. Now."

***

He winced as his "father's" foot slammed into his side and he groaned and rolled over, blood spilling from his mouth. A groan must have escaped his lips because the next thing he knew, Donocha had hauled him up and hurled him against the wall so hard that a picture of Joey and Serenity fell to the ground and cracked.

All while this was going on, Donocha was screaming at his son about what an aweful boy he was and how much he deserved to die. He said that he was doing Joey a favor, but the blonde boy always blacked out when he got to the part of how he was doing his son a favor by beating the living daylights out of him.

Foggily, he gazed up at the ceiling...white ceiling....there was only one place that he wshed to be right now...

/For you.../

"Seto...."

***

"Seto!"

His eyes snapped open and even before his eyes took in the room around him, his thoughts turned to a certain blonde haired duelist.

"Joey?" He looked around. It was the afternoon, going into night. Mokuba had fallen asleep again next to his brother. Seto smiled at the young boy. He was so tired.

"Seetooo!"

The voice sounded as if it was right next to his ear...but no one was there....

"Joey?" he whispered again. A sudden uncanny and incharacteristical fear swept through the elder Kaiba. He grabbed at the phone that the nurse had installed and dialed Yugi's number.

Joey...

A/N: Hey everyone I wanted to get this chapter up before I left so its a little shorter then I wanted it to be. Eh anyway, I won't be updating for about 2 weeks, due to the fact that I'll be out of the country. Anyway read and enjoy! Ireland here come! ^_^ have a great vacation everyone!