Raine: I can honestly tell you that I don't remember writing those last two chapters. My mind has been in such a blur over everything that's going on I just don't know what I'm doing anymore. I wish I could go back to when life made sense but I still have another three weeks to go. So if this all seems weird or dark or confusing or even stupid, it's because I'm really not sure what I'm writing at all. Maybe when I get my head back I can fix whatever it is that I did to this story but right now, my mind is just mush. Sorry if I disappointed anyone. I'm really not trying to mess this up, it just kinda turned out that way.

------------

"Hey mutt, you forgot something," Kaiba called after him. He stopped and turned around. Kaiba looked at him expectantly then waited as he walked back over.

"What? Did you forget to diss my hair or something?" Joey asked half bored, half annoyed.

"No. You forgot to wait for my apology." Kaiba pushed him up against the wall and Joey eyes closed as Kaiba leaned in.

"Why do you let him treat you like that?" Joey's eyes snapped back open as he noticed that someone was following him. The pictures he'd formed quickly subsided.

"Ally. What are you doing here?" he asked.

"Returning. I was on my way out when Kaiba came in."

"Oh," Joey kept walking as if he were ignoring her.

"So why do you let him treat you like that?" she repeated, still following.

"I don't let him treat me like anything and I really don't know why you care so much."

"Well okay..." It was quiet a moment as she thought over what else she was going to say. "You live over by the..."

"Liquor store? Sadly yes and I loathe that fact every day," Joey rolled his eyes and looked down thinking about his father's drinking problem. He never told very many people about that.

"Well I live two blocks over from that. But you walk to school?"

"Yeah, so," Joey said trying to see if she were taking this somewhere.

"No wonder you're always late." Joey stopped walking as they approached the cafeteria and looked at her.

"Is there a point to all this?" he asked. She sighed.

"Come in and eat lunch with me and I'll try to figure out a way to explain myself. I want to ask you for your help. And I want to say that I'm sorry. Yesterday..." she didn't finish the thought.

"Help? What? I didn't understand any of that," Joey ran the sentences over in his head again to see if maybe he'd missed something.

"Well just, sit down with me. I won't keep you long." She put a hand to his arm gently to indicate how much she wanted him to listen but slipped it away again and shook her head. "I just feel like I've given you a bad impression and I don't want that to be the way things stay."

"I still don't know where this is all coming from but I guess it wouldn't hurt. Just don't be offended if I say something stupid." She smiled.

"You have a deal." They went into the lunchroom together.

After getting lunch and sitting down at a table by themselves in a corner, she started.

"First, I want to say that I'm sorry about yesterday. My friends and I were talking about you and Yugi and one of them dared me to ask you out to see if you guys were...well, to put it simply, together. Before you even start to explain that look that just came to your face, let me finish. I didn't go that far because frankly, it's none of my business or theirs and it's just plain rude to even assume something like that without having any basis except the fact that you're always around each other. Word was going around that Yugi was...well, like that, and they started saying...things..."

"Like that we were together?" Joey looked toward Yugi and his other friends as the idea hit him. Skepticism covered his face at the very thought. " That's crazy. Yugi's..."

"To cute to be gay?" Ally broke in before he could explain anything. "Yeah, that's what I said. So that's great. It actually a relief to know, even though I still believe this was the wrong way to go about it." She rushed on, her sentences coming out so fast that it was hard to understand what she was even saying. But she didn't seem to want to know the real truth so Joey just let her go on. He ate his food while he waited for her to stop. "Well anyway, now that that all out in the open I want to get down to why I really wanted to talk to you."

"You mean it's not because of your crush on Yugi?" She blushed and looked down.

"Was it that obvious?"

"No, I was actually just guessing."

"Oh. Well, then no, I don't know what you're talking about, and what I really wanted is your help." Joey looked at her confused. "It's about my acting. I've found the one thing that I can't do and it's driving me crazy. I was wondering if maybe you could like coach me or something."

"On acting? But I..."

"You're really great and I don't know how you do everything so perfectly. Share your secret with me. I can come over after school or something and no one else has to know or anything."

"Well I don't..."

"Please, I don't like asking people to do things for me but I need this."

"Being perfect isn't everything you know," Joey commented.

"I can't believe you just said that." She crossed her arms as if annoyed. Joey shrugged.

"Well I don't know how much help I'd be but there's nothing better to do and you did ask nicely so...why not?!" She jumped up excitedly and hugged him.

"Great! I'll walk home with you after school. This is going to be so much fun," she giggled and let him go. She started to eat her food, conveniently ignoring the blush on Joey's face. "I knew you weren't such a bad guy. My friends don't know what they're talking about." Joey chose not to question that further for fear that she'd go into another rambling session. The sound of her voice was actually starting to annoy him and he wondered if agreeing to ' tutor' her was such a great idea.

---------------------

"Nay, false Arcita, it shall not be so. I loved her first, and told you all my woe. As to a brother and to one that swore to further me, for which you are in duty bound, as knight, to help me. If the thing lie in your capacity, or else you're false and untrustworthy." Kaiba looked at Joey as Joey said the last word, knowing full well what Joey was trying to do.

"You shall," he said, "be rather false than I, for I loved her first. For how... You know not, even now, whether she is a woman or goddess! Yours is a worship as of holiness, while mine is love, as of a mortal maid; wherefore I told you of it unafraid. And if be she maid, or widow, or a wife, it is not likely that you'll meet in life. For as you are well aware, that we are doomed to die in this prison drear."

"I see her beauty and her grace, and believe that fate hath brought her to this place. That I may now know to believe, that there is one day that I will leave. And when that blessed day is to come, she'll be mine to start a home. For as the sun so shines above, nothing will ever keep me from my love."

"Love if you like; for I love too and shall, and certainly, dear cousin, that is all. Here in this prison cell must we remain and each endure whatever fate ordain," Kaiba finished and turned his back to Joey causing Joey to look down.

"Great was..."

"What the hell is fate good for anyway?" Joey interrupted the narrator. Everyone except Kaiba looked at him. "I mean, if everything's up to fate then why do anything at all? If something's meant to happen, it'll happen, so why..."

"That only matters if you believe in fate," Kaiba responded without turning around. " People are unintelligent to believe that there's something out there controlling everything. Fate; God; it's all nonsense, just another pointless hope for people to share instead of seeing reality. If there really was such a being out there, what makes people think it'd want to bother with them?"

"Guys, can we..."

"So I suppose it's stupid to believe in other people too. Do you even know what you believe?" Joey interrupted.

"That's none of your business."

"But I'm curious. If God doesn't exist then what does? Why are we here?"

"Why would we be here if God did exist? And I never said that he didn't, that was you," Kaiba finally turned to face him. "But if things were just 'meant to happen' then why would it look like something was supposed to and then didn't?"

"I should be asking you that," Joey responded.

"People please. This isn't philosophy class. Sign up for it next year if you still want to have this discussion because you'll still be here when we all fail because of it. Can we just get on with this?" Joey turned to face the boy.

"You are beginning to get a little annoying," Joey said clenching one fist and making a symbol to represent how little with the other.

"Only a little?" Tristan commented.

"You're one to talk," the boy replied sarcastically.

"Back off," Kaiba spoke up, making everyone stop to look at him.

"Seto..." Joey whispered. He opened his mouth to say something further but the bell rang. Kaiba met him eyes briefly before turning to go.

"So are we ready to go?" Ally asked approaching him. Joey watched Kaiba a minute longer and then looked at Ally and nodded.

"Yeah." He helped her off the stage and they met up with Tristan, Tea, and Yugi at the door.