Guess who's back? Back again? Shardy's back. Tell a friend.

Hee hee hee...

Yayness! I am over my writer's block! And I graduated two days ago!! Whoo-hoo!!!

And I have a boyfriend now. His name is Aaron. And he's a big Bakura fan.

Double whoo-hoo!!!

Updates will be faster as I am now out of school and have nothing else better to do for the rest of the summer except torture Kat and Kassie and make-out with Aaron. =D

Some of you have asked me whether or not this story is based on an actual novel. Well, it is sorta. When I was in this extremely cute little bookstore a few years ago (now it's gone sniff), I happened upon this book entitled Fantasy. The main character had been in a relationship with this guy, and after he left, she traveled the entire world looking for him. I never read it but I want to. Then I have this other book called When Nick Returns. This one tells a story about a girl named Eden and a boy named Nick who had a relationship together throughout their entire college career. But then Nick suffered through a hockey accident and left the state, and returned years later to find out Eden is engaged to his older brother, Cal. At first, neither of them really cares too much for the situation, but then Nick and Eden realize that they still have feelings for each other. It's a sad book really. Okay, on with the story.

Chapter Five

South Pacific

Upon seeing the ship that they were going to board, Serenity gasped in awe, instantly forgetting the torturously boring and uneventful plane trip she and Malik had taken to get here. The huge ship, white and blazing with the reflection of the newly awakened sun, decorated with colorful flags and flowers, would make the Titanic jealous, so to speak. Serenity turned in disbelief to stare at Malik, who continued to grin widely and boyishly at her. "Like it?"

"Malik...I...wow...how did you manage to pay for all this!?"

He laughed, throwing an arm around her shoulders. "Actually, I confess. I have been saving up for this moment for a long time."

She nearly choked in surprise. "And you've been keeping this back from me!?"

"You better believe it, baby."

Ducking from under his arm, she playfully poked him in the stomach. "I don't know whether I should smack you or kiss you. I thought the grocery finances were a little scant."

Like a couple of students going to their first Prom, Malik and Serenity practically skipped on board and into their room, where their luggage was waiting, an outlandish cabin complete with private bathroom, tiny kitchen, cable TV, and a huge king-sized bed. "Special request. I wanted plenty of room," Malik teased with a wicked gleam in his lilac eyes.

"Is sex all you think about?" Serenity retorted good-naturedly, plopping down on the mattress. Ooh. Bouncy.

Still smirking, Malik crawled over to her and began stroking her stomach with one hand. "No," he whispered, leaning over her, his hand slowly sliding under her tank top. "You are all I think about."

He kissed her softly, hands caressing her body as she held him close. Soon, Serenity was overcome with the heaviest weight of guilt. Never had she hated herself any more than she did at this moment. As if sensing her inner turmoil, Malik pulled away, gazing down at her in concern. "Beloved, what's wrong?" he inquired soothingly. "You can tell me. You know you can tell me anything."

It took everything she was not to burst into tears. So, Serenity shoved Malik away and disappeared into the bathroom, running the water on its highest pressure to drown her soft sobbing. Malik sighed as he stared at the closed door. He did not feel anger, he knew he should be, but instead he just felt grief and like a total failure.

Who is he, Serenity?

Meanwhile, back home, the Hawkings residence became quite the place of action. The main event usually consisted of Mokuba Kaiba flying out the front door with several sharp, shiny objects in hot pursuit. Joey, Yugi, and Tristan accompanied him as a sort of male support group thingie only to dive into the bushes to avoid being potential targets of Rebecca's wrath. A pregnant teen with triplets was not a cherished experience. Especially for the poor father.

But Mokuba was, after all, a Kaiba, and each day of this that passed made him ever more determined.

Poor fool.

On the fourth day, he had it. Yugi, Joey, and Tristan observed from the safety of across the street as Mokuba climbed a tree conveniently growing just outside Rebecca's bedroom. Balancing precariously on the edge of the branch, Mokuba managed to open the window and slip inside.

"He's gonna die," Tristan commented.

"Yup," Yugi agreed.

"Quite sad, really," Joey added.

Except Mokuba didn't go all the way through the window.

"Why did he stop?" Tristan inquired.

"Uh...." was all Yugi could say.

"Holy hell, he's stuck!" Joey exclaimed.

Indeed, Mokuba hadn't been able to slip entirely through the window. The window was small, and only opened maybe a foot or so at most, meaning that only the slenderest of people could easily squeeze through. And while Mokuba was extremely slender like his brother, he had one thing Seto didn't, and that was a butt, which was about as well developed as the Dark Magician's.

"Memo to me," Mokuba muttered to himself as he sorta hung there in Rebecca's bathroom window, "lay off the chocolate parfaits. Okay, Kaiba, get a grip on yourself. You obviously can't go forward, so all we have to do is scoot back onto the tree and get back down to the ground."

Problem. Much to Mokuba's horror, he discovered that he was quite stuck. Stuck as in stuck stuck. Stuck as in unable-to-move-either-forward-or-backward stuck. Yeah. That kind of stuck.

Instantly Mokuba remembered all the times how he bragged to Seto about how he was the only one in the Kaiba family to be blessed with an ass.

Damn Karma.

"Well, this is embarrassing to say the least," he groaned unhappily. How was he going to explain this one to Rebecca? He could see the headlines now. Younger Brother of Kaiba Corp. CEO Found Stuck Inside Girlfriend's Bathroom Window. Mokuba always wanted to do something to be remembered in the world. Just not that.

Mokuba's head snapped up when he heard footsteps coming down the hall, his blood-violet eyes nearly popping out of his skull.

If Rebecca saw him here, all Pandemonium will crumble into dust and Hell itself would be reduced to smoldering ashes.

Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit...

The door creaked open.

Mokuba closed his eyes tightly, expecting his life to be over any second. Death came to him while he hung stuck in a bathroom window of all places! Talk about an embarrassing end. Seto would laugh amidst his tears, saying how he told his younger brother that having an ass was a curse not a--

"Mokuba?" the soft voice inquired. "What are you doing?"

Slowly, Mokuba lifted his head. Rebecca indeed stood there, looking a bit bigger than normal, her eyes still red-rimmed with unshed tears. Mokuba thought he hadn't seen her look more beautiful than she did then, but to say so would probably make her rip his head off, and then his death wouldn't be just embarrassing but messy to say the least. Well, at least she wasn't angry...yet.

"I...uh..." He wasn't sure what to say in case she'd explode.

Her green eyes turned to the ground. As if she had read his thoughts, she whispered, "Please, just tell me."

"I came to see you."

She snorted.

"I did," he insisted. "I wanted to see you, to be near you again."

She was shaking her head, her frazzled blonde hair becoming even more frazzled in the process. "How can you say that?" she demanded, that old spark of anger returning. "How can you say such a thing? Why would you want to be near me when I look like this? I am no longer beautiful for you, Mokuba! I'm fat now, and ugly!"

"You are pregnant with our children, how is that not beautiful?" Mokuba replied softly.

Rebecca stopped dead in her ranting, and stared at him with wide eyes. "What? You...you mean..."

"Rebecca, I love you, you will always be beautiful to me no matter what you look like on the outside," he continued. "I fell in love with you, not your looks."

A tear slowly slipped out of the corner of her eye, and fell upon her cheek. "Do you mean that, Mokuba."

"More now than ever," he confirmed. "In fact, there was another reason why I wanted to come here today. Why I have been coming here everyday." Thanking to whatever higher being was watching over him that his front pockets were still accessible, Mokuba reached into one of them and pulled out a small black box. Rebecca stared then her mouth dropped open in shock when he opened the lid and revealed the ring to her. "Rebecca, I want you to marry me. I know we're still really young and you've still have to finish high school but I would be honored if you would wear this as a token of our engagement." He had been working on those words for the past two weeks. Seto had offered to make it sound more articulate, but Mokuba told him that he didn't want outside vibes in his proposal. It was his and his alone. Even if he did sound like the world's biggest idiot.

"Mokuba, I--" Rebecca was in shock. She had no idea what to say. She always dreamed of Mokuba asking her to marry him, and now that he was in real life, it seemed too good to be true and she was frozen. She wanted to say "Yes" the moment the question popped out of his mouth, yet she felt that if she did so, he and this very moment would vanish into non-existence.

He held her gaze within his own, and Rebecca felt herself melting into it until she realized she was kneeling next to him. "Just say it, Rebecca," he whispered, lips brushing against hers. "Say you'll marry me."

Her voice just refused to work. So Rebecca nodded vigorously, hiccupping slightly as her tears rushed uncontrollably down her face. Then she grabbed his shoulders, hugging him tightly, burying her face in his mane of raven hair. "I love you so much, Mokuba Kaiba," she choked. At his indication, she pulled away as he took the ring out of the box and slipped the emerald teardrop upon her finger.

Mrs. Mokuba Kaiba. Her. Rebecca.

EEEEEEEEEK!!!!!!!!!!

She leaped to her feet, her eyes filled with joy, her heart completely psyched to the point of explosion. She had friends to call, wedding decorations to pick out, holy crap what was the day!? Her dress, what will it look like?! Kids names, kiddy clothes, they would have to move into a new place......

But first...

"I have to show Grandpa!" she exclaimed, whirling around and running out of the bathroom.

"Rebecca, WAIT!" Mokuba called. "What about--!?!"

But in her excitement, she did not hear him.

Well, damn. Mokuba sighed as he just hung there, feeling slightly dizzy from all the blood rushing to his brain.

Still, how many guys can say they proposed to their girlfriends while hanging in their bathroom windows? Not many.

"He's still hanging there," Tristan observed.

"Poor guy," Yugi added sympathetically.

"I'm hungry," Joey declared to no one in particular.

The party was more or less a formal gathering of the upper-crust, in other words, people Malik had no desire to associate with. Still, this was for Serenity, and he desired nothing other than to give her everything she could ever wish for.

Her innocent and naturally beautiful looks won her instantly with the other models of the crowd, and several of them had dragged her away for "girl talk", prying their plastic noses into her personal life. Some looked at Malik, blushing and giggling, and he knew they found him quite the catch, even in their crowd. Malik didn't care. They could look all they want. If he wanted to date a Barbie doll, he could buy one at Wal-Mart for 12 bucks. He watched Serenity giggle delicately as she spoke with the others, and when it became obvious that she was having a good time and didn't need him watching her like a hawk anymore, he turned his attention to his wine glass. He took a sip, his eyes scanning the crowd. Couples danced, some looked his way, women with interest, men with distain, at the dark-skinned, bright-eyed, pale-haired rogue in a suit and tie. People did talk to him, and he gauged in their reactions when he revealed that he was a doctor, a psychiatrist to be exact. After about forty minutes, he had won the respect of about over half of the attendees.

Funny how in this world, career occupations were held higher than personal morality.

Maybe things would be better if his darker half did take over this pathetic rock.

Malik shivered as something dark and ugly slinked up his spine. The memory was still so vivid in his mind after all these years. No. He'd rather put up with the trials and errors of this social Darwinism than have to go through that living Hell again.

Alone again finally, Malik took a longer, deeper swig of his wine to bury those horrific experiences. When he lowered his empty glass, something white flashed in the corner of his eye. He turned his head to see a gentleman leave the room. Curious, Malik set down his glass and followed out into the hall void of any other soul, save the man walking away, slightly taller than himself with snow-white hair.

"Bakura!" Malik cried out in surprise.

The figure froze instantly, shoulders scrunched as if to appear tiny and invisible, alabaster ends of his hair sticking out in all sorts of odd angles, two of which seeming to represent horns, or rabbit ears as Malik liked to tease.

"I'd never thought I'd live to see the day when you would be wearing a tuxedo," Malik remarked, brows raised in surprise.

Bakura turned his head, his brown eyes almost crimson as this was the demon, not the angel. "What are you doing here?" he demanded.

Malik choked. "What am I doing!? I am providing luxury for my wife. I can do that, you know. The question is, what are YOU doing here? What, did you sneak on and steal some poor fool's tuxedo?"

"I am also providing luxury for someone special, thankyouverymuch," came the reply.

Malik nearly choked. "You?"

Bakura growled under his breath. "It's Ryou's stupid infatuation, okay? Seeing as I am stuck in his body, I hardly have a say anymore."

"What girl did you take here?"

"Easy. Your sister."

He could only blink. The world seemed to tilt. Malik felt like he was going to faint right where he stood. "Isis is here!?" he managed to force out.

"Unless you have another sister we don't know about."

Dammit! Malik wanted to punch something. The wall looked like a promising target. So did Bakura. But he didn't trust himself, so he just let his fists clench at his sides. Isis probably found out about this cruise, so she dragged Bakura along as a date to keep an eye on her baby brother. Couldn't she see that he was healed now? And what the hell was she doing with the likes of Bakura Ryou anyway? Granted, Ryou was sweet in a silent, morbid way, but his rabbit demon alter-ego was another story.

This whole time, Malik had noticed that Bakura still had his back to him, and the Egyptian glared at the rabbit in suspicion. "Bakura, what do you have?"

"None of your business!"

"Let's see."

"NO!" Bakura clutched at his stomach tighter.

"We are on a ship, Bakura. There's nowhere you can go. You'll get caught eventually."

"No, it's mine, I found it!!"

Bakura looked ready to spring, but Malik was faster, and grabbed Bakura by the arm. The halls rang with a chinking sound like metal rain as many silver objects hit the floor and upon each other. Malik blinked and Bakura snatched his arm away. "Pure silver. Can you believe it?"

"Bakura," Malik began slowly, raising his eyes to the rabbit demon. "You're stealing spoons."

Bakura glanced at the hundreds of spoons scattered at their feet. "Yeah," he replied, as if challenging Malik to elaborate further. "You've got a problem with spoons?"

Malik rolled his eyes in disgust. "People eat with those, Bakura!"

"They're made out of pure silver!" Bakura protested. "Do you have any idea how much pure silver is worth!?"

"They're spoons!!" Malik exclaimed. "Spoons! Who the hell is going to buy an ass-load of spoons!?!"

"I'll find someone."

"I bet you will."

Of course, they had proven this long ago. That Bakura was never really trying to find all the Millennium Items for power. It was just an excuse. To hide the real truth. Bakura was nothing more than a kleptomaniac. A crazy, demonic kleptomaniac, but a kleptomaniac just the same. Malik had drawn this conclusion when it became apparent that the oddest of things turned up missing on the Duel Ship. Food mostly, shoes, duel disk parts, even Mai Valentine's eyebrow clippers. She had screamed and ranted and raged about that for hours. Malik's ears rang just at the memory.

Now, the kleptomaniac had struck the cruise ship. This time depriving the passengers the simple pleasure of eating soup without having to drink from the bowl.

Hmm...how amusing.

"Tell you what, Bakura, I'll cover for you if you clean up all this mess," Malik offered.

Bakura stared at him suspiciously, but quickly began scooping the spoons into the fold of his jacket before the Egyptian could change his mind. "Thanks," Bakura muttered before jogging off to his room. Once the rabbit had disappeared around the corner, Malik sighed and went back into the ballroom.

A few days after Mokuba had proposed to Rebecca, Kaiba was busy working on the latest upgrades to the duel disks when it happened.

At first, it was a faint buzzing in his ears, which Kaiba instantly dismissed as one of the machines malfunctioning in the floor below his. But as the buzzing became increasingly distinct, he realized it was within his mind. He shook his head vigorously, but that didn't do any good. Undecipherable neon colors began swirling before his vision. He felt hot, his skin breaking into a sweat, and it suddenly became difficult to breathe. He drew heavy, ridged gasps for air, however it didn't seem to be working. Clinging to his desk, he stood up and took a few steps forward, not sure where he was going or why. He couldn't think, couldn't see, couldn't breathe. Kaiba reached for the phone, but it fell out of his hand as he seemed to acquire the strength of cooked noodles.

The vortex of colors soon swirled into a pool of darkness. Kaiba fell into unconsciousness before his knees even buckled, enabling him to hear the sound of his body as it slammed onto the floor. He lay there facedown on the floor, completely and perfectly still as if in death, the phone receiver swinging from the desk as it hung from its cord, beeping consistently for being offline.

Needless to say, the entire kitchen raised Hell when it came to their attention that all the spoons were missing. Serenity had thought of this as very odd, but when Malik had informed her that Bakura and Isis were also on board, she needed no further explanation. When the more prestigious of the guests complained about starving without spoons to aide them, she had to admit that she found this as amusing as Malik did. In fact, judging from the mischievous sparkle in Malik's eye, he must have had something to do with this. She said nothing. At least Bakura was stealing spoons, not jewelry off old ladies.

Other than Bakura's odd thievery, the cruise had indeed turned out to be a pleasant one. Isis and Bakura spoke with them often, but for the most part, it was just Serenity and Malik. Soon, she forgotten about when they first came onboard, forgot about everything, as she found herself drowning in Malik's love and attention. She even managed to make love to him without thinking of a certain blue-eyed dragon.

But reality slammed in all its anti-fantasy ugliness the moment Serenity and Malik returned home.

The answering machine blinked with messages, most of them from Malik's secretary informing him of upcoming appointments. The last one however nearly caused Serenity's heart to cease beating.

It was from Mokuba, and he sounded breathless and on the verge of a nervous breakdown. At first, Serenity thought Rebecca had gone into premature labor or something until his words struck home.

"It's Seto. I don't know what's wrong, but he's in the hospital. I think...I think he's dying!"

Cliffhanger! Yeah, you people are going to kill me. I finally update, and I leave you all with another friggin' cliffhanger. Sorry. But that's the way the story goes.

I'm sorry this chapter was so friggin' short. The rest will be longer now that I finally know what the hell I'm doing.

Hey, I told you all that this is not your typical Seto/Serenity story. Nope. Not going to have typical ending either. Though I really do like typical endings. Like PinkStarz's story? Yeah, the last chapter made me cry. Almost. I would have cried had I not been reading it in Government class.

I wasn't really sure where I was going with this chapter which was why it took me so damn long to update. I wanted to write about it, but at the same time, I'm like, "How the hell am I going to make it fit?" Then the whole Bakura and the spoon thing saved me, and I went to town. Yayness! I am over my writer's block!

Now you all are probably wondering about my other stories.

Love is Blind--I will continue working on that. But I will have to reread everything I wrote for it so I can get in the mood to continue. This story is extremely deep and I have to be in a certain mood in order to right it and make it sound effective. I will update soon, possibly this week (I have nothing better to do), but I promise you it will be soon.

Seto's Girl--Due to the fact that it is really not in popular demand, I will wait until I am finished with that story before I will update. But it WILL be updated on. Just not for another while yet.

In This Midst of Thorns--Something else for you to read while you wait for me to update. Considering I have already written eight chapters for it, updates will be about once or twice a week. My first YGO fic about me and my friends Kat and Kassie based on my video game series, this one being Duelists of the Roses. Sound Mary-Sueish? Maybe. Who cares? I wrote it for comic stupidity than anything else. Come on, it has Monty Python excerpts inside. First chapter isn't all that great so I posted the second one with it. Trust me, you will really, really like this story. Basically, the three of us get sucked back in time and all hell breaks loose. XD