Solace

The day came warm and overcast, with pearly gray clouds. Each breeze was just a little more wet than the last, threatening rain and a slow, heavy storm. The birds had tucked themselves up into the leaves to wait for it to pass.

For Yami, storms were a fascination. No matter how many times he saw themthey always made him contemplative and quiet. His best planning was done under heavy skies.

Yugi was sitting at the dining room table, watching his taller counterpart and feeling somehow left out. The feeling worsened as the sky slowly thickened.

"Yami?"

The question was an intrusion, but the spirit didn't seem to even react to it. It took several minutes before a slight warmth in Yugi's mind revealed that Yami was acknowledging him.

"What are you thinking?" Yugi's entire body threatened to ache with how still he was being. He hadn't wanted to startle Yami; it had begun to feel like spying, and he'd finally broken his silence.

"I am wondering how long it will take for the first rain to fall."

Yugi slid off his chair and stood beside his yami. "It'll probably be a few hours." He chewed on his thoughts for a while. Every day for over a month, he went to sleep feeling he'd made some sort of progress with the spirit, felt that he was just a little bit closer to him. Every morning the hope was doused. He longed to say this, to snap at his self-appointed guardian.

A more diplomatic route was chosen. "I know you don't want to tell me about your memories. I...I can respect that. I mean, I do. But that doesn't mean you can't talk to me at all."

Startled crimson eyes turned to him. "I do talk to you."

Yugi shook his head. "You don't. You're a part of me, and it feels like you're trying to pull away. Small talk isn't the same. I shouldn't have to talk to my soul about something like the weather and then just go back to my life. You're part of my life; you're half of my life! I need you, and if you've found out something that's going to take you away from me, from us, then tell me, please!"

Yami stared at him, tense, bracing himself as he decided. "Not even time can take me away from you, Yugi." Flashes of memory assaulted him; he remembered banishing others to an unforgiving desert. To death. "...Unless..." Yami was a little surprised to find his words sounded so soft, and were so hard to speak. "...unless you ask me to go."

He felt Yugi move, felt the Puzzle's heir slip arms around his shoulders in a hug. And then he knew; Yugi wasn't hugging him because he was oblivious to the things Yami had caused. He wasn't hugging Yami because he thought the Pharaoh was a hero.

Yugi cared. Yugi would always care, no matter what he did. No matter what he had done.

It didn't take the guilt away; it didn't absolve the pain. No other person could...and in that moment, more clearly than he ever had before, Yami knew that, too.

But it helped.

Diego's life had been stolen from him. When he'd taken the poisoned cup and lived in spite of it, he had given up everything he had worked his entire life for. He kept the training, and the skills, but not the position and not the respect.

The poison, the injury, and his forced retirement had earned him pity. If he had died, he would have been honored.

And yet, he would have given up his accomplishments all over again, would have taken the poison as many times as it took if it meant he could have saved Colin. But that wasn't an option; it never had been.

However, he still had his life. He couldn't save Colin no matter how stubbornly he wanted it. He could, instead, bend all his thought and will and might on one thing Colin could appreciate even in death: revenge.

For the first time since his almost-complete recovery, Diego felt a glimmer of thanks for being mute. He hadn't been forced to speak with Ishtar because of it. If he'd been able to speak, he might well have ended up compromising everything.

It had been nearly impossible to restrain himself. He had been so close to Ishtar he could have killed him, and yet he hadn't. The only consolation was seeing the confusion and fear and anger in the boy's eyes. Ishtar had demanded to know if Newton had sent him; Diego had smirked to himself and for once been happy to stay silent.

Ishtar had examined the pills in almost panic. Diego was glad he was unable to laugh, because he wouldn't have been able to stop himself otherwise. Yes, the pills were exactly the same as Malik had been forced to take in the hospital. The irony was that the boy was now willing to poison himself.

Diego hadn't been told what the pills did but he hoped, feverishly, that it would make the boy suffer before Newton was finally ready to take him back. Somehow Diego wasn't worried at all that he'd be disappointed.

In Domino, there were a vast number of odd jobs for people willing to do them. There would always be doors in need of painting, sidewalks in need of sweeping, lawns in need of raking. All sorts of little tasks which some employers were unwilling to pay even minimum wage to have done.

Those employers were always happy to see Rishid. He would accept the small one-day jobs with no complaints and no papers to be signed, for less than minimum wage. Sometimes he'd even do the jobs for nothing more than meals or damaged clothing which hadn't been sold by the end of the day. The employers had at least two less things to worry about, and Rishid could offer one more thing Isis wouldn't have to pay for.

Isis's paycheck, which hadn't been much to smile at anyway, had taken a very heavy blow with Malik's stay in the hospital. She hid the papers revealing just how expensive the examination had been from her younger brother, but the strain of holding everything together had brought her to share the truth with Rishid. The man had agreed with her logic; it would do more harm than good to tell Malik how much harder things were because they had his hospital bill to worry about. Especially since Malik's condition wasn't improving.

Rishid left the hotel after Isis. He was there when Malik woke up. He knew that the past two days, Malik hadn't left the hotel, not even once. He knew Malik was as likely to still be curled on the bed when Isis returned, whether or not the woman saw it.

Rishid didn't see how she wouldn't. Malik, whose enthusiasm for the outside world had only partially been curbed with hatred for the Pharaoh, didn't seem even tempted to leave his room. At first Rishid had assumed Malik was sick, but found that he wasn't.

Then the motorcycle disappeared.

When Rishid asked about it, Malik pretended not to hear and vanished into the bathroom for a shower which often lasted several hours. Rishid knew the motorcycle wasn't the problem. Malik's strange behavior had started before it had gone missing, and though Rishid had asked, Malik had never answered him then either.

He didn't know if he ought to tell Isis any of this. He didn't think it wise to tell Malik about the financial problems, but added stress over the youngest Ishtar's mental health couldn't be any better for Isis. He knew eventually he'd have to talk to her, especially if Malik refused to.

Rishid glanced down at the plastic bag he was carrying and forced weighty thoughts from his mind. He had a new cream-colored dress for Isis, and a black hooded sweatshirt for Malik. For himself he had taken a black derby hat.

Winter was coming--he could feel a storm building wetly around him as he walked--and the Ishtar family was ill-equipped for it now. Malik, with his sleeveless midriff shirts, Isis with her light-cloth dresses, and Rishid...well, Rishid was bald and that tended to get cold. He was sure that Isis-and perhaps even Malik, if he could find his brother awake-would be pleased with his choice of winter clothing for them.

Sleet dripped from the sky. Isis didn't know when the storm had begun, but walking home from she could see all too well that the sun had given up its attempts to push through the clouds. This left the day a few shades darker than twilight--a grieving, disparaged color.

Barely a block from the museum, Isis was already soaked through. Wet half-melted sleet clung to her clothes and hair, making her feel heavy. She had never seen such weather; rain, yes, and cold days as well. But this...this was a half-hearted attempt at snow, gray as it fell and almost melted and then decided to freeze. It lacked the wondrous feel of white snow; it had dread.

She shivered, realizing then that she had stopped in the middle of the sidewalk. A man with an umbrella pushed past her and knocked her from her thoughts. She took a few steps forward to stand under the eave of a salon.

Methodically--absently--she brushed slush from her dress, keeping her expression neutral. When had this begun? The emptiness...where, when, had it come to her? She thought about the museum and her stomach tightened with violent despair. She refused to let her mind pull away from it.

The exhibit had been created to help the Pharaoh, and allow her to track Malik at the same time. In truth she had never been thrilled about showing her family's artifacts, but necessity and love were impossibly powerful masters. And now the Pharaoh, Atem, had his memories and she had her family.

An image of that first night after Atem and Malik's duel stabbed through her mind. That Malik had said nothing; that Rishid couldn't seem to look at her; and overlaying it, her paltry attempts at conversation. But what had there been to say when the main purpose of their lives was finally closed?

Malik had told her once, when he stole one of the cards from her, that he did whathe did for only one thing: to return their lives to him; his, and hers, and Rishid's. He had wanted only to have a family again.

Failure had never been a consideration for him. It never was. Being wrong was a notion Malik stubbornly refused to believe in...and when at last he'd been faced with it, it had battered him. When it sunk in, he ran from her as he always did, and as always she had been pulled behind him. All the way back to Domino.

Anger overlapped her sorrow for a moment and simmered. How, how could he be so childish, even with all that he had been through? Isis drew a slow breath and coaxed her patience back.

She and Rishid were eldest. They were charged with Malik's well-being, and she had never resented it. But they had been told to protect Malik Ishtar, the heir of the Clan, so that he could fulfill the family's sacred duty. The debt was now paid. They had done what no other Ishtar had been able to, and so life after completing their mission had never been a part of their lessons. It had never been a passing dream in their father's mind, she knew.

She wondered at times if they were supposed to have died in their task. Had anyone everconsidered what would become of the grave keepers once their purpose was gone? Surely no one had predicted an Heir might rebel. Even if they had predicted it, they must certainly have dismissed it, reasoning Atem would destroy any such threat before long. Isis had feared the Pharaoh would do so; but there was Yugi. Malik had lived, and his reason for rebellion was gone...but his nature was not changed.

Malik was not a servant, and resented even the idea that he would be thought of as one. But he had no right to rule, no people to lead, and no direction to follow. Rishid and Isis filled such needs as they could. She whored out the secrets of their people to feed the three of them; Rishid left some time after she did, and returned late with offerings of food or clothing. Malik took. And took. And took.

She loved him endlessly, but god help her, sometimes the pain he caused her was so fierce it made her choke.

She could think of no way to explain to him that he was no longer the Heir. He had never wanted to be in the first place, but all the same he had never known anything except having his siblings there to give more than he had to.

Malik was loving and devoted, and angry and selfish. The three of them were all floundering, and it felt as if Malik had again left it to her and Rishid to pick up what he would not bear.

Not a tear fell as she stood watching the sleet. When she went home they ate, and went to bed and waited for the sleet to stop.

There were times when it seemed as if the sun and the darkness and life itself weren't even there.

Sometimes, it seemed the world was made of frail gray shapes, so translucent and dull Malik could barely remember they existed. It was as if the world became a forest of dead, blackened trees, and he was surrounded with chalky mist. When he let his mind wander, that was in fact exactly what he saw.

Isis and Rishid were a splash of color in an otherwise flat, empty world. But they were gone most of the time, trying to provide for him. When he wasn't with them, the memory of them seemed to become even more invisible than the intemperate air.

He could be walking and feel as if he were standing still. Nothing changed in the opaque grayness around him. He couldn't drag up the energy to do anything, and when he thought to, truth would rise murkily up to drown him: there was no point.

He had found a little relief with Yugi and Ryou and even Bakura, but it passed as smoothly as tears. When he'd realized the tiny haven was moving persistently away, Malik tried to hold on to it. He failed. This feeling was entirely out of his control.

Before, Malik had been able to resist, or change, or at least act on whateverfeelings he found in himself. He had simply taken for granted that he would always be able to handle his own emotions. It had never once occurred to him that maybe what others said was true, that emotions ruled the person and not the other way around.

When he paused to think on this newest scrap of lost control, it was the only thing that even hinted at giving him something stronger than the overwhelming blankness. He was desperate to feel anything in this unmoving gray. But...not desperate enough.

Because the bitter self-loathing it brought was too strong, and so sudden it nearly smothered him. Hatred, turned in on himself, took him away from the gray forest and into cavernous gulfs so deep he couldn't bring himself to imagine what might be down there.

He'd thought there wasn't anything which could be worse than feeling nothing, but that was a lie. In the emptiness, he was simply stuck with nowhere to go. The bitterness grabbed, clawed, ached to drag him down where it pleased.

At least, feeling nothing, he knew where he was. At least, if he was stuck, he wouldn't be swept away.

Light slipped between the blinds to fall across his lap. The sudden shift from autumnmorning shadow to a slant of light was startling; for a moment the nothingness in his mind hesitated. Without it there, the moment passed and fear and helpless despair folded swiftly over him. Shivering, he drew his hands into the sleeves of the black hooded sweater Rishid had given him the night before.

His fingers idly began spinning a ball point pen. He had meant to write something for Isis, she had asked him to, but he couldn't remember what the task had been and the paper remained mockingly blank. She wouldn't be happy; the tired strain in her face would be resignedly worse. He glanced once at his only other pair of pants, where the envelope with his money was hidden in one of the cargo pockets. Perhaps, though, he did have something which would help put her at ease.

His eyes stung briefly with tears. Anger and humiliation spun in him and as if to retaliate he dragged the point of the pen across the top of his hand, hard. Even so it only hurt a little, left nothing more than a scrape and vivid black ink for his effort. He jammed the pen into his hand again, more viciously, broke the skin this time.

A small dot of blood welled up, not enough to run or even need cleaning. But it hurt enough to make him gasp; stop; set the pen down.

The numbing knot in his stomach had loosened, as it had not in weeks. The throbbing in his hand pushed at the empty agony which had enveloped him, forcing it away, relieving tension he hadn't known was there.

The relief brought on a sudden, nauseating recognition of what he had done. Panic and horror banished everything else. Malik tossed the pen aside and left the room, trying not to think about it, trying to focus on the pain and disgust instead of....