Author's Notes: Filler chapter! Things get...hrm, "bigger" from here on out.
Colin Persa had been a twenty-six year old medical student when he'd died. He had moved to England to begin his schooling at the age of nineteen, leaving behind a small, prominent but tight knit family in Spain; his mother, father, brother, and a dog.
Colin had been good looking, if somewhat boastful about it. What he'd lacked in athletic ability he had tried to make up for in intelligence. He'd had an average number of friends, rarely did things to make his parents worry, and enjoyed writing about his travels. When Colin's letters to home stopped, his brother had tried to convince their mother that he was only wrapped up in a relationship with some charming young beauty.
Of course, that was done for *her* benefit. Diego was, in fact, even more worried than their mother about the youngest Persa, and he made plans to go to England and check up on his little brother.
Diego had worked for the government before a poisoned cup from a cleverly vengeful criminal had nearly taken his life. He retired at twenty-eight, but would be mute and dead to sensations or tastes for the rest of his life. It hadn't taken away his specialized training.
After arriving in England he was unsettled to learn that Colin had been missing for some time. The trail led Diego all the way to India, where he found his younger sibling was working for a crime syndicate or cult called 'GHOUL'.
On the day when Diego managed to sneak into the lush building where his brother had entered, he was shocked to see Colin kneeling front and center before a bare-chested youth who was still baby-faced enough to be taken for a sixteen year old.
"You failed." The teen hissed. He was holding a golden dagger in his left hand and stroking it idly with his thumb.
Colin whimpered, "I'm sorry, Lord Malik."
"As you should be," was the sneering response. "Plead for your life."
"Please, Master, forgive me!" Colin's voice quavered. "I will never fail you again."
"I'm unconvinced." Malik answered, just before he drove his dagger into the man's stomach. Colin had been screaming in agony before the knife had even moved; Diego had seen a small, brilliant, light shine from the handle of the scepter in the instant Colin started writhing and shrieking in pain.
When Colin was silent, Malik turned to one of the purple-robed figures. "This one has failed. I expect you to succeed." His tone was still commanding, but lacked the harshness that, moments before, Diego would have thought of as natural for the murderer. "When you get the card, we're going to Japan." Malik brought the bloody knife closer to his face and stared at it savagely. "Where we will destroy the Pharaoh."
Diego spent more than four months following Malik, dismissing the importance a card game named 'Duel Monsters' or 'Wizards and Magic' had. He decided-or was convinced-that the Egyptian boy was insane, and that explained the obsession with a nameless pharaoh, not to mention his goal to rule the world. The only thing Diego was never able to understand was what power the golden items had.
As with many unexplainable dealings, Diego's mind blocked it out.
He met Doctor Raul Newton while in England, and eventually disclosed in a letter the strange, tragic, frightening discoveries of the past few months. Newton replied that he was doing special projects with delusional patients such as Malik, and Diego agreed to find the boy and, somehow, get him to Newton's office in Oregon.
This took watching Malik's defeat, and following him for nearly three weeks after that, waiting for him to be alone. It was Diego who had found him in the stinking alley in California. He who had dragged him to the false mental hospital.
In the present day, outside 'Forest Hills Mental Hospital', the fog had cleared. Diego was crouched over Malik's dizzy, staggered footprints. He followed them to the road, quietly crossed over and searched the other side for more tracks.
When he found Rishid's heavier prints, he took out a small green notebook and quickly jotted a few notes down. Once this was done, he followed the tracks all the way to a bus stop before taking out his notebook again. This time he sat down on the hard metal bench and turned to a fresh page of paper. In delicate, spidery script he wrote:
"Newton, Ishtar has escaped with the aid of an unidentified person, whom I would think was just a hapless bystander offering a good deed to a boy lost in the woods, if this were anyone but Ishtar. It is more likely that it was one of his followers. The tracks are much too heavy to be his sister, and it isn't likely she would have been able to follow us all the way here. I will go back to my apartment and wait for any leads on his whereabouts."
Diego rose to his feet and took his letter to Newton, who read it over twice before speaking. "Very well, but you'd better hurry. How soon before you'll have an idea of where he went?"
Diego wrote, "Not long. I think he will go back to his sister. If I find her, I'll wait for him to come."
Newton looked surprised when he'd read this, as if family unity being used as a trap had never occurred to him. Then again, it probably hadn't; Newton viewed families as sacred and therefore untouchable.
The bounty hunter wrote a final message. "Ishtar will be more bendable if I have his medication with me."
Newton nodded, fingering the small bottle of pills in his pocket. "I'll put them in your supplies once you know where you're going."
At the age of 10, after the murder of his father, Malik had become a formidable person. By 16 he had a wiry, well defined frame, and a confident swagger to his gait, but it was his freezing violet eyes that usually made people think twice before approaching him.
It wasn't often the boy who aspired to being Pharaoh could be found gleefully sorting through a bag of gourmet candies. But Bakura had developed a theory on chocolate; he suspected it was an aphrodisiac. Malik already knew it was, but he wasn't planning to let Bakura in on this fact until they'd spent some time 'testing' the hypothesis....
Malik swallowed heavily, blinking several times to clear his mind of the memory. He found he was seated next to Rishid on a gently rumbling airplane. He also found that most of the other passengers were asleep (the flight had been scheduled for take off at 1 a.m.). He wasn't sure if Rishid was meditating or sleeping, and decided not to disturb him.
He swallowed, grimacing at the painful, dry feeling in his mouth and throat and waved his hand at a passing stewardess to catch her attention. When she walked over, he asked quietly, "Could I get a drink?"
"Certainly, what would you like?"
"A glass of white wine."
Her faux-pleasant smile faded. "Do you have your I.D.?"
"No," he growled, becoming irritable with this.
"We aren't allowed to sell alcoholic beverages to minors, sir." Her voice dropped a bit further. "And I don't think your father would be very pleased if he woke up to find you'd been given wine."
Malik glanced at Rishid, indignant. "He's not my father!" She blinked in surprise. "He's my brother, and he's seen me drink until I passed out. I'm asking for a small, Ra-forsaken glass of wine, which won't kill me, but it *might* help me sleep."
A large, bronzed hand clasped Malik's shoulder, allowing the startled woman to make a hasty retreat.
"Allow me to order for you, Lord Malik." Rishid had always been able to slow Malik's anger, though most of the time it was inadvertent. After Yami Malik had come into power, and banished Malik to the far recesses of his own mind, that calming effect had been nullified.
Malik finally responded to Rishid's words with a slight nod and tiny smile, which he hoped looked grateful. "They'll ask you for I.D. I mean, maybe they'd bend the rule if we said we weren't Americans, but we don't really have any way of proving it." Neither of the Egyptians had ever been given a reason to have identification of any sort. The Millennium Rod had taken care of any technicalities (such as what Malik had just been faced with), and Isis had handled everything else after the Items were given to Yami Yugi.
Rishid thought a moment. "I will go directly to the drinks."
Malik was about to agree, but considered where he would throw someone if *he* found a strange man rummaging around in *his* plane. "No. Isis can buy me one when we land, if I still want one."
The plane landed an hour later than expected, due to a sudden heavy hail storm. The tired, frustrated passengers filed out and headed for the pay phones. The airport was hushed and businesslike, very much like a hospital in the middle of an early shift. Malik cringed and tried to think of an analogy that didn't include anything medical.
Before he could, he and Rishid were greeted by Isis. She was the only person still waiting for the long-delayed flight. Malik froze for only two seconds when he recognized her, and then slowly (he couldn't seem to make his legs move any faster than they were) he went to her and put his arms around her thin shoulders.
"Malik..." she whimpered, holding her brother tightly.
"I'm sorry." Malik whispered.
"Come. The taxi is waiting outside." She pulled away and smiled at Rishid, her eyes just noticeably wet. "I don't suppose you have any baggage we need to pick up first?"
"No." Malik answered her slowly, before turning curious lavender eyes on Rishid, who shook his head. "No, we have everything."
It was drizzling outside, the storm having passed just twenty minutes ago. The cab was parked right outside the airport's glass doors, in between two other vehicles. Isis led the way, not even hesitating when Malik's footsteps faltered when he saw Yugi standing with the driver, rolling dice and talking. Malik began to turn around and head back inside, but Isis had a firm hold on his arm.
Yugi smiled. "Hi, Isis. Did everything go alright?"
"Yes. The plane was late due to the poor weather, but my brothers are fine." Malik turned again, but this time it was to face his sister. Her dark blue eyes were filled with stern reassurance, which he took to mean she wouldn't tolerate him running away from the Pharaoh or his light half.
"Hello, Yugi Mutou..." he said quietly, to appease the firm presence at his side. "It is a surprise to see you again so soon."
Yugi was staring at him. It took a moment for realization to dawn that this was probably because of how terrible he looked right now.
Licking his lower lip, Malik said a little bit louder, "It's been a while." It was more uncomfortable under those large, shocked eyes than sitting under the "interrogation lamp" in a police station.
"Y-yeah, it has. But I'm glad to see you're okay. Isis was really worried." Malik wondered if the claim that Yugi was glad to see him was true. One look at the small boy's cherubic features washed away any doubt of it.
"I'm glad to see you as well." Malik murmured, climbing into the car after Isis.
Yugi settled down next to him, against the door. "So where were you?"
"I was in America." He glanced at Isis and added, "In Oregon."
The elder of the siblings tilted her head. "What were you doing, brother?"
Malik watched one of his nervously trembling hands. Eventually he shook his head and answered, "I stayed in a hospital." He didn't feel like going into detail, as he didn't want to worry his sister further.
"You went from California to Oregon to stay in a hospital? Were you hurt?" It was curiosity that led her tone, but behind it was a vein of sarcasm.
Malik scowled and stared ahead, through the windshield. "I got drunk and woke up there, in Oregon. That's all you need to know, my sister."
Isis stubbornly pressed him for more answers, which he just as stubbornly withheld. All the while, Rishid kept his silence, and Yugi watched Malik and Isis argue with slight embarrassment.
Yugi was only too happy to end the bickering. "Here we are!" Isis and Malik looked first at the Game King and then at their hotel. "We'll be in Domino by tomorrow afternoon."
Malik stiffened. "Why are we going to Domino?"
"Because it is the Pharaoh's will. That's all you need to know." Isis retorted. The near-panicked expression on Malik's face softened her, and she gently laid a hand on his arm. "There are certain items of business I must attend to before we can leave."
He tried to force himself to accept this answer, and opened the car door.
The hotel room was small, with four mattresses spread out across the floor. A TV sat against the far wall with a sign "Ask front desk for billing before use". Isis sighed tiredly and walked over to turn on the heater.
It took a while for Malik to realize that Yugi was staring at him. When the small Item Holder realized what he was doing (and that the tall Egyptian had noticed) he blushed and stammered, "Are you alright, Malik?"
The seventeen year old nodded. "Yes. Thank you." Still a bit embarrassed, he added, "Why?"
"You look..." Yugi fumbled. "You look different."
Malik took note of the trembling in his own legs and fingers. Attempting to sound amused, lest Yugi think he was insulted, he replied, "By that you mean it isn't a good thing."
Blushing even more nervously, Yugi shook his head. Malik looked at his own wrist, studying the pale blue veins which ran, ghostlike, beneath his honey-colored skin. "I guess I am different. I haven't had much to eat besides pills and water and my soul has lost its darkness, but..." The tips of Malik's ears reddened, and he dropped his arm to look down at Yugi.
The younger teen met his gaze, expression friendly. "Well, Tristan and Joey and Anzu will feed you. You'll look like yourself again in no time."
Malik didn't really hear him. His mind turned over hundreds of ideas and thoughts and concerns that had been plaguing him since Yugi had welcomed him outside the airport. A glance around the room affirmed that Isis had gone into another room to change. "Why are you here, Yugi? Is it because of my sister?"
"Part of it is." He smiled. "We do owe her a lot, you know. But I saw you defeat your own yami." Yugi's expression sobered and a small hand trailed up to gently cup the front of the Millennium Puzzle. "I don't know everything behind that. But it proved to me that you've changed. On your own. And I don't think anyone deserves to suffer alone, after they've worked hard to become a better person."
Warm air slowly filled the room from the space heater under the window. Malik studied it, more for a distraction than anything else. "I'm not a better person. I'm the same person I've always been."
"Then maybe that's a good thing."