Chapter 45

In the Still of the Night

"You're doing really well." Anna complimented as Mokuba showed off his new skills on his guitar.

"You've been a lot of help. I didn't even know how to read music before you showed me."

"Just be sure to dedicate your first album to me." Anna mussed his hair as she pulled herself up off the bed. "Keep practicing. You'll be playing 'Stairway to Heaven' before you know it."

Carefully she made her way down the hallway and into the living room. She used the wall to balance as she hobbled without crutches. Seto thought she was stubborn not to use them, but she was determined she wasn't going to rely on them. Instead she was going to set a speed record for recovery. She hated those crutches and she hated the leg brace. She wanted out of them as soon as possible. And worst of all, that ugly brace didn't match any of her clothes!

"Are you naturally evil or do you practice?" Seto asked from the couch, where he sat trying to read the stock reports through Anna's markings.

"That's a nice thing to say." Anna plopped down on the couch beside him. "Just because I got to the paper before you did."

"I'm not talking about the paper."

"What then?"

"Out of all the sensible Christmas gifts you could have bought, and you buy him a guitar?"

"He enjoys it."

"It's not a matter of what he likes; it's a matter of what is practical."

"I thought you liked music."

"I do, but now you've got his head filled with fanciful ideas about becoming a rock star. He should be making goals that are more logical."

"When did doing what you love become illogical?"

"Music isn't a career; it's a hobby. He has to understand that."

"Sometimes I wonder where you get this stuff from. I know it's not from me."

Seto sighed and folding the paper on the table beside him stood up. He offered Anna his hand to help her stand. "Come on, we'll discuss it in the car."

"The car? Where are we going?" Anna said as he pulled her to her feet.

"Doctor's appointment." Seto stared at her blankly. "We're going to be late."

"We? When did my doctor's appointment become our doctor's appointment?"

"I'm in charge of your care; I need to know what your condition is."

"Did you want to go with me to my gynecologist too?"

"Is that appointment today?"

"I don't know if I want to go anywhere with you." Anna crossed her arms in defiance. "You could give Oscar the Grouch a run for his money." Anna scrunched her face at him, hoping to make him smile, but it didn't work.

"Fine, I'll have the car pulled around. The driver can take you." Seto stormed over to the phone. Anna watched with concern as he ordered the car and driver.

"Where are you going?" Anna asked as Seto headed for the door.

"I've got work to do."

Anna called after him, but he didn't respond, he just left. She currently wasn't fast enough to catch him, so he was able to escape. He knew that was stupid, that she would be mad at him for being so gruff and rude. But he couldn't handle her right now. His crankiness had started days ago, but it finally came to the surface. It began when he found out that Anna had been sneaking out during the day while he was working. That only bothered him so much. She wasn't a prisoner after all, but she did feel the need to leave without telling him, thus sneaking out behind his back. But it all came to it's height when he caught Anna cut and pasting pictures from wedding magazines into a notebook. She was being very secretive about it; she didn't want him to find out. But he did. She was still going through with her engagement. Did she care nothing for him? Seto didn't know what else to do. He was her guardian and protector, wasn't that proof enough of his affections? What more could she want? What was this other guy like that she was so drawn to him? Seto finally reached his office and sat down at his desk. He realized that he had been making excuses. He wasn't upset about her sneaking out or that stupid wedding stuff. What really angered him was that Anna was feeling better. She was up and mobile again and she hadn't had any dizzy spells for over a week. That's what he hated. She didn't need him anymore. And she would be leaving. Every time she left his home he felt this pain in his chest, like they were connected by some invisible string. The string was tied just under his left rib and it was tied to her in a similar fashion. And when she goes away the string is pulled tight causing him great pain. He feared that if she went too far away the string would break and he would die. That is what he hated. That is what he feared. And fear can be a great motivator. It can make you do some courageous things. And some idiotic ones too.

Anna stared at the empty seat beside her in the car. She regretted that he wasn't there to accompany her, but she couldn't let him, not today. She had planned to meet Yugi after school and she didn't want Seto tagging along. But perhaps it was better this way. By his attitude this morning she got the hint that she had overstayed her welcome. She decided it was time for her to go back to her apartment and her reality.

"Stop the car, I'll get out here." She ordered from the back seat.

"Miss?" She could see the driver's confusion through the reflection in the rearview mirror.

"This is fine."

"Are you sure? The weather is supposed to get very bad today."

"Don't worry, I live just around the corner."

The driver protested a bit more before he finally let her go. He had been driving Mr. Kaiba and Ms. Sung around for quite a while and he knew how close they were. If Mr. Kaiba found out that he let her out on a snowy street corner and didn't take her back to the office building like ordered, then he would be fired. But Anna was determined she wasn't going back there, so she made him stop the car.

Lunch in the school cafeteria was always a fun time for Yugi. He didn't have to worry about schoolwork or tests, he could just hang out and relax, at least for an hour. But today was different. He was so busy tearing pictures out of magazines that he had barely touched his food. He was so distracted that Honda and Joey easily snuck up on him. They unintentionally banged their trays on the table as they found seats on either side of Yugi. The noise startled him and Yugi jumped slightly.

"Oh, sorry, Yugi." Joey apologized for the noise.

"Hey, what do you have there?" Honda noted that Yugi was quickly trying to conceal his project.

"It's nothing." Yugi said as he stashed the magazines under his schoolbooks.

"That's not nothing." Honda corrected him and grabbed one of the magazines. "Modern Bride?"

Joey's face contorted into an expression of horror.

"Why are you reading 'Modern Bride'?" Honda asked with a snicker in his voice.

"I'm not reading it!" Yugi defended himself and his masculinity. "It's something Anna asked me to do."

"She asked you to not read a magazine?" Honda still wasn't buying this story.

"We're having trouble agreeing on things that we want for the wedding, so she bought two of each of these magazines and asked me to go through them and pick out pictures I liked. Ya know, of flowers and tuxes and stuff. Then we're going to compare what we picked and see if we liked the same things. And those are what we're going to use."

"What happens if you don't pick the same things?" Joey asked cynically.

"I guess we'll start over. I don't know." Yugi took the magazines and tucked them into his backpack. "All I know is that I'm supposed to talk to Anna about this tonight and I'm not done yet."

"Is she back at her apartment?" Honda asked through bites of his food.

"That's where I'm going to meet her."

"That's good then, she's feeling better."

"Well enough that she's been coming to see me in the afternoons." Yugi explained.

"So she finally got away from the warden?" Joey sneered. "You are way too nice, Yugi. If he had my girl I'd go right up to him and punch him in the nose!"

"I can't reach his nose." Yugi joked.

"At least kick him in the shins!" Joey advised as he made a fake punching motion with his hands.

Yugi laughed at Joey's hi-jinks. "Don't tempt me."

Seto had always made it a habit not to go into Anna's room when not invited. He had given it to her and it was her sanctuary. But today he felt a compulsion to do so. He walked around the room looking at the various things she had collected. He went to her dresser and dropped a sprinkling of food in Googie's bowl. She most likely fed him already, but he figured it wasn't going to hurt. Perhaps if he befriended the fish, Googie might but in a good word for him. Anna had placed personal touches all over the room. A couple of photos from their trip to Italy were her latest additions. And she did change the curtains. She had come over one day with them. She claimed that the old ones were ugly and that she had nothing better to do than sew all night, so she made new ones. And then there was the infamous check. The one she threatened to frame. She made good on that threat and hung it on the wall in her room. He reached over and straightened it. He couldn't help but remember...She looked so great that night, he had always been attracted to her. He wanted to kiss her; he was going to try. But she didn't even give him the chance. What would have happened if he did? How would their relationship have changed? Would they have become lovers, or would she have slapped him and called him a pervert? He wasn't sure, but he would have liked to have found out. The taste of her lips haunted him. He wanted more, but the consequences might be too great. She was engaged after all. If he admitted his feelings to her, she might reject him and their friendship ended. Or she could admit her secret feelings for him also, and then she'd dump Mr. Fiancee and stay with him. The later reaction made his heart skip a beat. If only she felt the same way. She had to. But was he willing to risk it? Was he willing to lose her over one forbidden kiss? Or should he stay quiet and keep their friendship?

"This is so easy!" Yugi said with a smile. "I'm glad you thought of it."

"I can't take credit. I read it in a book." Anna confessed as they exchanged their wedding selections. "Okay, what did you pick out for your clothes?"

"I liked this one." Yugi pulled out a picture.

"You really like that tuxedo?"

"You don't?"

"It wasn't my favorite."

"Oh, then I'll find something else." Yugi began to hide the photo.

"No, wait. It's your tuxedo, your choice. If you like it then that's what we'll go with."

"But it won't match anything else we picked out."

"Has anything we've picked out matched?" Anna joked.

"I guess not." Yugi laughed as he spied the eclectic selection before him.

"Hey, I'm getting hungry, why don't we order in diner?"

"That sounds great."

Anna hobbled up off the couch and went to get a phone book off a table near the window. "Holy cow!" Anna exclaimed as she looked out the window. "I think we're on our own. No delivery boy is going to be able to get through this mess."

Yugi came up beside her and was amazed by the sight. It had snowed. It was still snowing. The weatherman had officially called it a 'blizzard', but they were too preoccupied to listen.

"I better head home. Pretty soon I won't be able to make it through all that snow." Yugi gave a quick shiver as he thought of how cold it must be outside.

"It's already too late." Anna said. "You're not going to be able to leave. You might as well stay here tonight."

Yugi's eyes got as big as saucers. 'Did she just ask me to stay the night with her?' he thought. 'She did, didn't she? Oh my god, she wants me to spend the night with her!'

"Why don't you call Grandpa and tell him you won't be home. I'll rummage through the kitchen and see what I can find for us to eat."

Yugi was shaking like a leaf as he dialed the number. What would Grandpa think? He hesitantly explained the situation and he got a response he didn't expect. It was a loud 'woo hoo' noise, which was Grandpa's way of saying, 'You go girl!' And that was followed by a lecture about safe sex and special techniques that made Yugi turn ten shades of red. Making an excuse, Yugi quickly cut off his grandfather's tutorial and hung up. He was so glad that Anna wasn't in the room. He couldn't have been more embarrassed.

It was in the early depths of morning; Anna didn't even look at the clock. She couldn't sleep and she didn't want to disturb Yugi, so she left him in the bedroom while she crashed on the couch. That was a while ago. She had lost all track of time while she was reading, time was the one thing she thought she had in abundance. Besides it took her mind off things. Like the hundreds of photos and magazine clippings spread out on her coffee table. They had made progress today, but she still couldn't get excited about the venture. She secretly feared it. Marriage meant the end of so many things, including her freedom and maybe even her friendship with Seto. She didn't want to lose that. Her mind wandered off of the book she read and onto thoughts of Seto. She smiled. He could always make her smile, and it was a genuine heart felt smile. She didn't have to be fake around him. She didn't have to pretend to be dumb or shy, or any of the other things that guys supposedly like in girls. She was herself; she had been since the moment they met. And he liked her true self, even with her annoying optimism and corny jokes.

Her mind drifted.

At first she saw nothing, but eventually light. A dim light from a few lit torches. She looked around. She was alone. There were no servants or healers, and no Pharaoh. She didn't expect him to be there. He couldn't. She had been tainted now; her kidnapper had made sure of that. He wanted to hurt Pharaoh, and he couldn't have found a more devious way. Now Pharaoh, no matter how much he would want to, couldn't touch her. She could no longer be queen. She pulled herself up. Her strength finally returning. But the pain in her leg reminded her that she was not fully healed. She carefully maneuvered her bound leg over the side of the bed and onto the floor. She had great difficulty standing, but she was tired of lying in bed. She had to move. Pain shot up her leg and spine as she traveled across the room. She grabbed onto anything she could find as she headed for the doors. She wanted out. As she approached the doors she was greeted with a sound. The sound of long deep breaths. She assumed it was a guard, but when she pulled the doors open, she found out she was wrong. There was High Priest Seto sitting on the floor beside the doors. As soon as he heard the door creek, the High Priest looked up at her. His bright blue eyes stained with tears.

Anna heaved a heavy sigh as she came out of her trance. The vision was so strange. What was Anck-su-namun trying to tell her? It had been months since she received her first vision and she still was no closer to finding out what happened to Anck-su-namun. She still didn't know what choice she made and how to correct it. She said that Seto knew the answer, but how could Anna find out when she didn't even know the question? But this vision, it had to mean something specific. It wouldn't have appeared to her at this moment in time if it didn't. Which got her thinking...

She got up and hobbled to the door. Was Anck-su-namun trying to tell her Seto was there? Looking out the peephole she saw nothing, but her sight was obscured by its narrow view. She then popped the locks and cracked the door to look out. Unlike in the vision, he wasn't by her door. Instead he was sitting on the top step in the stairwell adjacent to her apartment. She wondered what possessed him to battle through the snow to see her, but kept him from knocking on her door? Did he know she had company?

The squeak of the door as she exited didn't disturb him. He stayed in exactly the same position, never turning to see who it was. He didn't moved until she was along side of him. That's when he looked up at her with those blue eyes. They hadn't been crying, but they were sad and full of worry. He helped her as she tried to sit beside him.

There was silence for a minute before she finally whispered, "How long have you been out here?"

"I don't know...a few hours I guess." He whispered back as he stared down the stairwell.

"Why didn't you let me know you were here?"

"Apparently someone told you."

"That she did."

There was another silence before Seto got to the point of his visit. "You didn't come back."

"I called and explained that."

"You can't stay here; it's not safe. I can't protect you."

"Protect me from what?"

"Something's coming. I don't know what it is." Seto looked over at her. "It will be horrible, and it's coming for you."

"For me?" Anna looked concerned. "How do you know?"

Seto hesitated. He wasn't sure she would believe him, but he had to tell her. He had to explain why she needed to be with him. "I've been having these dreams." This was the point at which he expected her to tell him that dreams aren't real and that he's worrying over nothing. But she didn't, she seemed interested, so he continued. "Ever since I met you, I've been seeing things in my dreams. At first they didn't make much sense, but now they're clearer. And you're in every one of them."

He paused and waited for a reaction and what she gave him was a firm grip on his hand. "Tell me about them."

"You're in them, but it's not you. You're someone else. A queen I think. And I'm not me; I'm a dignitary or an ambassador of some kind. You're married to a Pharaoh, but I don't think you're happy." He stopped and collected his thoughts. " In the beginning, my dreams seemed to mirror what happened in my life. Like they were making up fanciful images of things that we did. But then they got darker and I started seeing things. Things that haven't happened yet. Things I never wanted to come true, but they did. Like the injury to your leg. She also had her leg bound. And this scar..." Seto ran a finger along the edge of her jawbone, outlining the scar she received in the car accident. "She had one just like it after..." He withdrew his hand and his face from her. That was one dream he didn't want to remember.

"Do you know what they are? These dreams."

"I think they're warnings of things to come."

"Have you ever considered that they're the past? Our past and that we are destined to repeat it."

"That's illogical. How could what happened or what might have happened in the past effect us now?"

"Anck-su-namun."

"What did you say?"

"Anck-su-namun, that was her name."

"How did you know?"

"Because I've had the dreams too. She's spoken to me. I feel like she's trying to tell me something. She even told me once to not make the same mistake she did. But I don't know what it was. Sometimes I feel like she's placed this huge burden on me. Like my life hangs in the balance, but I don't know which path to choose."

"That's easy. Just do what makes you happy."

Neither of them had to elaborate on the subject. They both knew what she truly meant by her statement and what he meant from his answer. He wanted her to be happy, even if that included losing her to another man. But it was a decision that only she could make.

When Yugi woke up he was initially confronted with the fact that he was alone. The first thing he noticed was the lack of Pharaoh's presence. He could always sense him even when he secluded himself in the puzzle. That's when Yugi remembered. He had taken off the puzzle. He thought it a bit selfish, but he wanted to be alone with Anna. Perhaps he should have left it on. Pharaoh would have handled things better than he did. It wasn't that Yugi didn't want to be with Anna, he was more than willing. And that was his problem, he was a little too excited. In the end he just made a mess of things. Anna said she wasn't upset, but he knew she was disappointed. That's probably why she didn't stay with him. Looking over to the other side of the bed he sighed. She was there when he went to sleep, but now she was gone. He couldn't blame her.

He got out of bed and searched the apartment for her. He wasn't sure how he could ever make things up to her, but he wanted to try. He quietly walked around the apartment, but surprisingly found no sign of Anna. He looked out the window. The snow was still pretty thick; she wouldn't have ventured out. But he did notice that the front door was cracked. Where could she have gone? As he approached the door he heard the slight whispers from the hallway. He dared not open the door and give away his position; instead he peeked through the crack. The sight took him by surprise. How could she? Anna was sitting in the stairwell with Kaiba. When did he get here? Did she call him and ask him to come over or did he do it on his own? And what could they be talking about? Was she telling Kaiba about him? He silently watched and observed them. He expected Kaiba to make some move on her, but he didn't, they just talked. They spoke in such hushed tones that Yugi couldn't make anything out. How easy it would be for him to bust through the door and tell Kaiba to get lost, or at least kick him in the shins like Joey suggested. But Yugi couldn't justify it. Kaiba wasn't doing anything wrong. Was he incorrect in his assumptions about Kaiba? Were they really just good friends? He watched for a long time. He tried interpreting every move, every gesture. But he couldn't find anything suspicious. The only thing that bothered him came when Kaiba finally decided to leave. He helped Anna to her feet then as a parting gesture kissed her hand. Yugi didn't like that at all. He didn't want Kaiba's lips anywhere near her. He didn't have time to react, he had to move. He quickly fled to the bedroom and jumping back in bed, pretended to still be asleep. It wouldn't have been a good idea for Anna to know he had been spying on her. As he lay there he could hear the door squeak as it opened and then closed again. Then the sound of the locks being turned. And eventually the soft pad of feet down the hall and into the room. A poof of cold air hit him as she lifted the covers. But it was replaced by the warmth of her body as she snuggled up to him.

Anna wrapped her arms around him as he slept. All of what Seto told her, replaying in her mind. They really were connected. All three of them. In some kind of cruel eternal circle. She wondered how many times it had played out and if it had ever been broken. But at least now she knew. She knew the choice she had to make. The same choice Anck-su-namun had. But was she strong enough to make a decision?

Author's note: I've got bad news for everyone. There are only four chapters left. And if that weren't bad enough, you'll have to wait almost two weeks for the next update. But I promise when I get back that what you'll get is one wild ride. And thank you to everyone who voted in my informal poll. Right now the race is at a dead heat between people who want to see Anna with Yugi and those wanting to see her with Kaiba. And then there were a few 'I don't care as long as you write something' votes. I hope that I won't disappoint too many people when I finally finish this and reveal what happens. But do catch my sequel. It will explain some things you'll probably have questions about. It won't explain them immediately, but be faithful; they will be told along with some other stories you'll find fun. Speaking of fun. Here are some ways this story WILL NOT end:

1: Anna turns out to be a man.

2: Giant meteor impacts Earth and destroys all mankind.

3: Anna says 'screw it' and runs off with Rex and Weevil.

4: Seto says 'screw it' and runs off with Rex and Weevil.

5: Yugi becomes a male stripper to get Anna's attention.

6: Seto gives up business and becomes a Buddhist Monk.

7: Mokuba becomes a famous rock star whom girls throw their panties and room keys at. (Oh wait, that does happen)

8: Anna turns out to be a liar. She's not really Yugi's fiancee, she's a spy sent by Pegasus to totally screw up Yugi and Seto's lives, just because Pegasus thought it would be fun. (Oh wait, that really does happen. JUST KIDDING! But wouldn't that be a fun twist?)