A/N: Bad Lizzie, bad! I haven't updated this in so long it's almost a crime. When was the last time I updated on this fic? Oh my god, I haven't worked on this thing since November! Anyways, since I finally finished Come Save Me, I've decided to devote my time to finishing this fic. After this, I'll be going on to other ideas for fics. Hopefully, my muse won't fast forward and start working on new stuff ahead of me. He's been known to do that. BTW, the last chapter of Come Save Me that is currently posted isn't the original. I got a few reviews on the original last chapter, and most people commented that it didn't seem long enough or seemed to be lacking in detail. So, I went back and rewrote the chapter, and I'm a lot happier with it. Anyhoo, on to the chapter!

The Love of an Angel

Chapter 3

Ryou sat on the bed where the demon had set him, trying not to fidget. He glanced from time to time over at Bakura. The utter silence didn't seem to bother dark-winged creature, while to Ryou it seemed rather suffocating. The cave they were in didn't help, either. Ryou was used to very open spaces, like the green fields that had been near his home and the open sky that had once been within his reach.

Biting his lip, the angel glanced over at Bakura once more. The demon was idly flipping through a strange deck of cards that he had fished out of the silver chest in the corner of the cave, and but otherwise hadn't moved or even said anything for the past two hours. Ryou finally decided to try and break the silence that seemed to be getting thicker and thicker in the air as each moment passed.

"Have you ever been to the White Lands?" the angel asked, his voice sounding timid and small to his own ears.

"No," Bakura answered flatly.

"Oh," was all Ryou said. Not wanting the silence to return, Ryou simply kept talking, "It's very beautiful. I don't live in any of the famous cities or anything, but out in the countryside where there aren't many people around. Papa didn't like the city, so he moved out into the open country when I was really young. There's a river that goes by our house and a forest on the other side of it. Everything else is green fields, and if you fly up high enough you can see the mountain border between the White Lands and the Black Lands."

Ryou had been staring up at the grayish-black ceiling of the cave as he spoke, and dared to steal a look at Bakura at that moment. The demon's face hadn't changed. Ryou swallowed a bit nervously.

"Papa died a few years ago," he found himself saying. "Mama died when we still lived in the city, so I didn't really know her very well. I was living out there alone until just a few days ago."

Suddenly feeling bold, Ryou turned to look directly at the demon.

"Where do you come from?" he asked, his voice still seeming much too timid.

Bakura didn't even look up as he replied, "None of your business."

Ryou bit his lip and looked down at his hands for a moment, then said, "I told you where I'm from. Now it's your turn."

His turn? Bakura looked at the angel, trying to glare, but finding it hard to do as a pair of soft green eyes stared back imploringly. The demon tried to harden his gaze unsuccessfully, and then simply looked back down at his deck of cards.

"A small, nameless village to the north of the capital city, by the mountains," Bakura said in an emotionless voice. Ryou waited, but Bakura didn't continue.

"W-what about your parents?"

One of Bakura's wings twitched in irritation. "If you must know… I lived there with my mother, and sometimes my father. He was away a lot, so I didn't see much of him. I was seven when he came to the village one day with a battalion of the Demon Lord's guard that killed everyone, including my mother, looking for some kind valuable object that he had promised them in exchange for his own life. They killed him anyways, just like everyone else. I got away, though, and I've never gone back since."

Ryou wasn't quite sure what to say after Bakura fell silent. Having lost both of his parents, he knew what it was like to live life without them, but to have lost them in such a brutal way was a pain that he had never felt.

It suddenly became clear why Bakura was so cold and distant. He had lost all of his innocence a long time ago, and it was something that could not be regained or undone.

"I'm sorry…" Ryou said softly. The words seemed inadequate, but the feeling that he should say something didn't subside.

"Don't be," Bakura said in his conventionally flat tone of voice. Ryou sighed as he lay down on the bed. With nothing to do and nothing else to think about, the angel found himself harboring a small obsession of whether or not it would be possible to reach past Bakura's cold shell and find the person that had to still be inside there somewhere. He found himself wanting to help the demon in any way possible, a want that was born of the one thing that Ryou knew of that he and the demon had in common: loss.

The angel's eyes suddenly began to droop. /Maybe I'll think about it later…/ he thought to himself.

Ryou woke as a hand touched his shoulder and shook him. "Angel, wake up," the familiar, gruff voice said. Sleepy green eyes looked up at Bakura.

"We need to move. Get yourself up," the demon said, and he turned towards the concealed entrance of the cave. Ryou didn't even remember falling asleep, but he sat up and tried to rub the sleepiness out of his eyes. He had been dreaming about the White Lands, and waking up to be reminded of where he really was wasn't pleasant.

Ryou felt himself suddenly pulled to his feet, and winced at the pressure he was forced to put on his injured foot. "We need to hurry," Bakura said in a whisper that Ryou's sleep-clogged mind barely processed. The angel was pulled along through the entrance and out into the forest hurriedly, knives of pain shooting up through his leg with every step.

It was night outside, that much Ryou knew. The trees were blurred shadows around him, and the soft light of a thousand stars and one smiling moon made silvery shapes on the ground. The angel continued to limp along behind Bakura for what seemed like an eternity, his mind still clouded with sleep and his legs barely functioning.

The eternity of moving forward continued to pass until Ryou finally decided that he needed to ask Bakura if they could stop for a moment. He was exhausted, and couldn't take the pain in his leg much longer. Even his broken wing, though unused, was beginning to throb. Suddenly, the angel felt his knees give out, and he stumbled and fell in an ungraceful heap on the ground.

Bakura bit back a growl, wondering for the second time why he had decided to keep the angel. He quickly picked Ryou up, not wanting to waste any more time, and hurried through the dark trees.

The angel watched the shadows go by with half-lidded eyes as Bakura carried him through the night. The oddly secure feeling of being in the arms of the demon returned, and his eyelids became heavier and heavier.

When the demon reached their new location, Ryou was fast asleep. Bakura was getting more and more worried about the amount of guards that were patrolling the forest. Never in his life had he stolen anything that had gotten this much attention, even from the Demon Lord. Therefore, he thought it better if he and the angel were to change their location every so often until the tension wore down, however long that took. Afterwards, it would be safe to escape into another city where it was easier to hide.

Thankfully, the forested region around the capital city of the Black Lands had a labyrinth of caves underneath the surface. Bakura had never fully explored it, but took advantage of some of the concealed entrances to the underground tunnels as hiding places when he needed them. In the back of his mind was a map of where every single concealed entrance was that he had ever found, and this map did not fail him as he slipped between two large trees and under some tangled brush to find a small cave entrance in the side of a shallow hill.

Bakura had never visited this hiding place as much as the first, and so it wasn't as well-equipped. The first had been his treasury, of sorts, with many of the more valuable things that he had stolen and had either forgotten to sell or didn't want to sell. This cave he had only used once before, and therefore only knew its location.

Laying Ryou down on the cavern's floor, Bakura's narrowed eyes scanned the area around the outside of the cave. The trees and the brush hid the opening quite well, but the demon was taking no chances. Arrogant though he might be, Bakura knew his business, and part of that business was how to keep from getting caught. His slightly pointed ears pricked up suddenly when he heard a soft sigh.

/It's only the angel/ Bakura told himself, rolling his eyes. Deciding that they were safe for the moment, Bakura sat down and stretched languidly. He crossed his arms, frowning at the size of the cave. He had never particularly liked small spaces, but knew that they wouldn't be staying in this cave very long, and so tried to relax. No such luck.

The angel was murmuring things in his sleep as he curled up into a tight ball. Bakura tried to make out what he was saying, but it was in some other language that he didn't know. Ryou shook his head back and forth as if trying to say no to something, his body beginning to shake all over. Slowly, a drop of water escaped from the corner of his right eye, followed by more that rolled down his cheeks and made dark spots on the ground.

Frowning, Bakura crept closer to the angel. It annoyed him to no end that he couldn't figure out what that water was coming out of Ryou's eyes. When it had happened the first night that the angel had been with him, it was like a memory from a dream that had occurred years ago had suddenly come back to him. It seemed like he should know what they were called and why they were happening, but the name and the reason eluded him. Ryou must know what they were called, he must know the thing that makes them happen; maybe he could ask the angel once he woke up?

The demon almost growled out loud at that idea. He didn't need to depend on that angel for anything, not even the simple answer to a question!

But still, the demon's curious side refused to give up, and Bakura continued to wonder if there was something that Ryou had that he didn't. This thing seemed so familiar that Bakura knew he must have known what it was once, but had lost it. It was sort of like that dream memory that he had forgotten until now, but bigger, more important.

Bakura felt the emotions creeping in once again, the horrid things that he had tried to keep away for so long. More cracks in his defenses were beginning to form as his curiosity for what this thing was overrided all his other concerns.

"What is this thing that you have?" Bakura asked in a whisper to the sleeping angel. "It's so familiar; did I have it once?" The demon dared to touch Ryou's warm hand as the cold, emotionless demeanor he worked so hard to keep up began to crumble and leave him defenseless.

"Can I ever have it again?"

A/N: Well, I have to say that I'm pleased with how this chapter turned out. I got stuck in a rut on this fic for a while, which was why I worked only on Come Save Me for so long. But, my muse finally got his act together, and now this fic is my main focus. Sorry for not updating on it in so long, I promise that I'll be better about it. Please review!