2. Hard Choices

Mai Valentine had had many men pursue her. She'd had marriage proposals from rich old men looking for their third or fourth trophy wife and from movie stars looking for someone photogenic to hang on their arm. She'd had much less savory propositions from many others. She'd had men fight duels over her as if she were a prize to be won and she'd had men try to buy her favor with lavish gifts. She'd had more men than she could begin to count tell her that they loved her. She'd never been impressed or moved by any of it and never once had she actually believed any of them. She'd certainly never wanted to say it back.

Until now.

As they stood near the door of her hotel room early Sunday morning, kissing and trying rather unsuccessfully to say good-bye, Joey told her for what must have been the twentieth or thirtieth time that he loved her. Each time it melted her. Each time she believed it absolutely. Each time she wanted to say it back.

Each time the words stuck in her throat and wouldn't come out.

"I love you, Mai," Joey whispered, kissing her neck. She closed her eyes, expecting it to start sounding like an accusation, a challenge. Say it back or else. But it never did. It always seemed to come out as something that was a relief, like something he'd held inside too long and was just so glad to not be holding back anymore. No expectations. No demands. Just the truth he needed her to know. If he'd even noticed that she hadn't said it back, he didn't let it show.

I love you, she thought, and it overwhelmed her to feel this way about someone, to trust him enough that she actually could feel, but the words wouldn't come. "I hate this," is what she said instead, and it came out strangled.

He stopped kissing her throat and looked at her, a wry grin on his face. "I think I've just been insulted."

"No," she rolled her eyes, smiling in spite of herself and giving him a playful backhanded slap on the shoulder, "I don't hate this. So don't hate this. Could spend many happy hours not hating this."

"I think you just did." He gave her another slow, long kiss.

"There is definitely something to be said for younger men," she breathed.

He jerked back from her. "Younger men? It's not about age, baby, it's all about talent."

She arched a skeptical eyebrow at him. "Oh really? I'll be the judge of that."

He grinned. "If you insist."

He kissed her again and this time her legs almost buckled.

"You were saying?" he asked when they came up for air.

"Was I saying something?" she asked, a little dazed.

"You were telling me how talented I am," he answered with a victorious smile.

"You are such a pig," she insisted, but then leaned against him sadly. "God, I hate that you have to leave. And that's not a guilt trip," she added quickly when she saw his hangdog look. "I understand why you have to go back to Domino, I really do. I would never ask you to choose between your sister and me. But don't be surprised if she starts getting brochures in the mail from colleges in the San Francisco area."

He nodded, toying with her hair and suddenly looking serious. "So what does that mean? Are we… did we just start something here? 'Cause I get the feeling you're not a big fan of long-distance relationships."

She sighed. "Oh Joey, I don't know. In case you haven't noticed, I'm not exactly good with any kinds of relationships and five thousand miles is a really long way away."

He leaned his forehead against hers. "I don't care. I just want… I don't know, I want to know this isn't going to evaporate the second I walk out the door. I want something to hang on to."

She was aching as much as he was. It almost terrified her how much she wanted this to work. "I don't know if I can do this, but I don't want to just let this go, either. I… I think this could be something… something amazing, Joey." When he looked at her hopefully, she sighed again and added, "It's just, I don't know how it can work if we're so far away and we don't even know when we can be together again."

"Tournaments," he began, but she shook her head.

"I'm not talking a week here or there and you know it. I don't know, can we just take it one day at a time? No promises, no expectations? Just… see where we are the next time we see each other?"

It clearly wasn't a very satisfying answer to him, but he nodded. "Fair enough. But you still owe me dinner. Room service on the cruise line's tab doesn't count."

"Why not? You weren't in a hurry to go out last night," she said with an impish grin.

"I ain't in a hurry to go out now, either, but that's beside the point. Next tournament, Valentine, you owe me a dinner. Two when I wipe the floor with you again."

"One lucky duel and your head swells," she said with an exaggerated sigh. He kissed her again and she melted against him, wishing it didn't have to be this way, that they could be together.

It fleetingly crossed her mind that she could bag the whole Industrial Illusions thing and go to Domino with him, but she knew it was a bad idea. She wanted this job, she wanted to duel not just for the penthouse and the cars and the fame but because she knew there was a higher purpose behind it, that she could help stop another psychotic blowhard who didn't care who he hurt on his way to gaining power. From the moment she had been the one to make the final move against Reshef she knew that this was exactly what she wanted to do, what she had to do. She just wished Joey could be there with her, fighting the good fight, too.

But there was more than one way to be a hero, and sacrificing what he wanted so that his sister could get the education she deserved was one of them.

When he broke off their kiss, he looked at her gloomily. "How is it possible to be so deliriously happy and so completely miserable at the same time?"

"If you figure it out, let me know."

He groaned in frustration. "I really gotta go. I have to leave for the airport in a few hours and I haven't packed or anything."

"What can you possibly have to pack? Except for your deck, your duel disk, and the new clothes you bought here, everything you have is at the bottom of the Pacific."

"I know," he said, "but still. You have that brunch to go to in a couple of hours…" He trailed off, pain in his eyes. "God, I don't wanna go, Mai. I just wanna be with you."

"I know," she told him.

"Why don't you come to the airport? Then you can say good-bye to Serenity, too. I know she's gonna really miss you. Not as much as I will, but…."

"Oh no, Joey, I don't think so. This is hard enough as it is. I don't think I can do the public airport good-bye thing, not when I have no idea when I'll see you again, and I can't go through this twice. It's… it's too hard."

He nodded. "Okay. Then… just like ripping off a band-aid. Quickly." He kissed her one more time. "I'll call you when I get to Tokyo, and again when I get to Domino, okay? And I'll e-mail all the time. It worked for Téa and Yugi the last couple of years."

"Okay," she said, blinking so her eyes wouldn't tear up.

"Okay." He opened the door. "I love you, Mai."

I love you too. You have no idea how much I love you. But the words still wouldn't come. All she could say was, "Good-bye, Joey.

It was about eight o'clock Sunday morning when Téa left the room she was sharing with Serenity and Rebecca and headed a few doors down the hall to Yugi's room. Serenity had gone to breakfast with her mother and Rebecca was with her grandfather and since there was still a couple of hours before Yugi had to be at that brunch meeting with Pegasus, she thought they might finally be able to get a little bit of time alone together, the first time since they'd left the island. She stopped abruptly, however, when she found Yugi, Tristan, and Duke sitting on the floor in the hallway in front of their room, all of them wearing pajama bottoms and t-shirts.

"So… any reason you've moved the party out to the hallway?" she asked as she approached them.

Duke held up one finger. "Wait for it." She paused looking at him expectantly, but he said nothing more, just sat with his head cocked toward the door of their room.

Then suddenly from inside the room she heard a woman's voice explode, "Honestly, you are impossible!" Téa recognized the voice as belonging to Serenity.

"I'm impossible? I'm impossible!" came a bellowing response. Joey. "You're impossible!"

Duke pointed at the door and nodded, indicating Téa's question had been answered.

She raised her eyebrows. "What's that all about?" she asked, sitting down cross-legged next to Yugi. He put his arm around her and she settled contentedly against his shoulder.

"Joey decided to turn down Pegasus's job offer and go back to Domino," Yugi answered her. "Apparently Serenity isn't too thrilled with this plan."

As if in confirmation, Serenity screamed, "What are you, brain-damaged? You are so not throwing your life away like this!"

"Apparently," Duke said wryly.

"He's what?" Téa asked, surprised as Joey roared something she couldn't quite make out behind the door. "Why wouldn't he take the job? It's perfect for him! And he's gotta want to help nail Ramesses!"

"He says the cash pay isn't enough for Serenity's tuition, not without the break she gets from him working at the student union," Yugi replied. "That and he doesn't want her living in the same city with their dad without him."

Duke's face darkened. "Okay, I knew they guy was a jerk, but is he some kind of pervert too?"

"Nah, nothing like that," Tristan said. "Near as I can piece together from the little Joey would talk about it, I think his dad had issues with Serenity 'cause she was born with all those eye problems or something. Blamed her for everything that was wrong with his life. I think that's one of the reasons Joey's mom took Serenity without even trying to fight for custody of Joey—she didn't want to risk him even getting visitation rights or anything because he was such a bastard to her."

"Yeah, that's pretty much what Joey told me," Yugi confirmed.

"Dude, that's seriously messed up," Duke shook his head.

"No kidding," Téa agreed, shuddering. For not the first time since she'd met Joey, she found herself incredibly grateful for her own parents.

"Though I don't know," Tristan went on, "I think Joey's making a bigger deal of this than it needs to be. I think she'd figure out a way to get through school and stay away from her dad even without Joey's help. The girl's pretty level-headed."

From inside the room, Serenity shrieked, "How can you be such an idiot?"

"Or not," Duke said.

"Man," Tristan whistled. "I use to wonder how someone as sweet as Serenity could be related to a hot-tempered big mouth like Joey. Suddenly I'm seeing the connection."

"How long has this been going on?" Téa asked.

Tristan looked at his watch. "About half an hour. Scared the crap out of us when she started banging on the door a little after seven-thirty after she got back from breakfast with her mom. Woke us all up. Well, except for Joey," he added, his tone suggestive.

Téa gave him a skeptical look. "Joey was up early? He'd sleep past noon every day if he could."

The boys all exchanged looks. "Uh… not up early; up late, actually. He'd just come in," Tristan replied.

"And if I'm not mistaken, Mai's not sharing a room with anyone," Duke finished with a salacious grin.

Lucky her, Téa thought with a twinge of envy.

"Oh, leave him alone," Yugi admonished Tristan and Duke. "Let him have some privacy. This has to be really hard, things finally working out with Mai only to have to be separated again."

Téa swallowed, trying not to think about how she and Yugi were in the exact same predicament.

"Oh please," Tristan snorted. "You're the private one, not him. Believe me, if he weren't so bummed out about having to leave today I guarantee he would've woken us all up just to brag."

Yugi shook his head. "I don't know, Tristan. This is different than the other girls he's gone out with. She really means a lot to him."

"Well, I definitely have never seen him this hung up on anyone before," Tristan conceded. "But speaking of long-distance relationships, what are you two gonna do?"

Yugi and Téa looked at each other. "Well," Yugi replied, "From here we're going back to New York together so I can finally see her dance on Broadway."

"Off Broadway," she corrected. He rolled his eyes indicating it made no difference to him.

"How'd you talk your grandpa into not going straight back to Domino?" Tristan asked.

"I invited him to come with us," Téa answered.

Tristan laughed. "That'd work. I think he's got a bigger crush on you than Yugi does."

"Hey, that's my grandfather you're talking about!" Yugi protested. "That's just wrong," he shuddered dramatically and Téa laughed. Recovering, he continued, "Anyway, after a few days in New York, Grandpa and I will go back to Domino and Téa comes back in August. Hopefully I won't have to be back here any sooner than the start of fall semester and we'll have maybe a week or so together there."

"And then I'm gonna try to get another student visa and save up some money so that by next year or maybe if I'm really lucky, spring semester, I can transfer out here," Téa finished.

"Well, that's not too bad, one more year," Duke said.

Téa and Yugi shared a look that said to both of them, one more year apart seemed like a lifetime. She was already dreading the moment Yugi would leave New York.

But then Yugi sighed. "Yeah, I guess at least it's a plan. Who knows how long Joey's gonna be apart from Mai."

They heard Serenity scream in frustration. "I'll drop out and go back to Tokyo before I let you do this, Joey Wheeler!"

"Over my dead body!" Joey shouted back.

"Don't you tempt me!"

Tristan shook his head. "How long he'll be apart from Mai is kind of a moot point if Serenity kills him."

"Yeah. Who knew she could be so scary," Duke said.

"Well, if she's too much for you, maybe you should stop hitting on her," Tristan suggested.

"I didn't say that. I like fiery women," Duke shot back. "And if you hadn't invited yourself along on our dinner date last night—"

"Your date?" Tristan gaped. "You're the one who muscled in on our date—"

Téa rolled her eyes as the two of them exchanged barbs over who had actually had a date with Serenity last night and which of them would be better suited for her overall. Deciding it was the perfect time to make her escape with Yugi, she leaned over to him and said quietly, "Let's get out of here before these two cavemen bring out their clubs. There's no one in my room right now."

Yugi nodded eagerly, his cheeks reddening slightly, and she had to bite her lip to not laugh at how easy it was to embarrass him.

As they stood up, a bellhop approached. Seeing them clustered around the door, he stopped. "Uh… are you in room 1138?"

"Yeah, that's us," Yugi replied. Tristan and Duke stopped bickering and looked up.

The bellhop looked at some envelopes he was holding. "I'm looking for… Joey Wheeler, Tristan Taylor, Duke Devlin, and, uh…" he squinted, "Yuh-gy Mutt-ow?" he tried.

"Yugi Mutou," Yugi corrected with a sigh as Tristan and Duke snickered. "That's me. And they're Tristan and Duke," he indicated with a tilt of his head.

"We can take the one for Joey, too," Tristan added, still grinning at the mangling of Yugi's name. "He's inside, but I don't think you wanna go in there." He nodded his head toward the door where more shouts could be heard from within.

The bellhop eyed the door warily. "Yeah, I think I'll just leave it with you." He handed out the cards while Yugi reached for his wallet only to remember he was still in his pajamas.

"Uh… I guess I need to go back in there to get my wallet," he said, but he didn't move as the sounds of Serenity and Joey's fight continued.

"Yeah, good luck with that," Duke said.

"Oh, honestly, what a bunch of babies!" Téa rolled her eyes. "Just let me take care of it," she added, reaching into her purse for a few dollars to tip the bellhop.

When he'd handed out the four envelopes, she saw he still had a few more. "Are any of those for room 1132?" she guessed. "I'm Téa Gardner and my roommates are Rebecca Hawkins and Serenity Wheeler."

Shuffling through the envelopes, he nodded. "Yep. I have one for each of you."

"I can just take those if you'd like. No one's in the room right now."

He handed her the three envelopes and then she gave him the tip and he left.

"Good thing your girlfriend had her purse on her, Mutt-ow," Tristan mocked as he tore open his envelope.

Duke sniggered. "I always thought Joey was the mutt…."

Téa coughed. "So what's in the envelopes?" she asked Tristan and Duke as she opened hers. The two boys stopped harassing Yugi and looked at their cards.

"Huh," Tristan said with a quizzical look. "It's an invitation to Pegasus's brunch."

"Mine, too," Duke confirmed. "I thought that was just for the top four duelists."

Téa opened hers and saw that it, too, was an invitation to the brunch. "Seems like we all got one. I wonder if Pegasus found out something more about Ramesses. I—"

Before she could finish the thought, the room to the guys' room slammed open and Serenity stormed out, muttering invectives about Joey. She blew past them without stopping and headed toward her room.

Just as the door to the room she'd just left was about to click shut, it banged open again and Joey leaned out. "Don't you walk out on me, Serenity, we're not done yet!"

"Oh yes we are!" she shouted back. She jammed her keycard into her door then wrenched it open and stomped through it, slamming it shut behind her.

"WOMEN!" Joey screamed, then slammed his own door shut without acknowledging his friends' presence.

Téa, Yugi, Tristan, and Duke blinked at each other and then Téa sighed. "I'll take Serenity. You guys take Joey." So much for time alone with Yugi.

"Okay. We'll see you at Pegasus's suite, then," Yugi said sounding as resigned as she felt.

Joey had his newly-purchased replacement suitcase open on one of the beds and was violently throwing clothes into it while mumbling curses when Yugi, Tristan, and Duke entered the room.

"You okay, Joey?" Yugi asked.

"Oh yeah, I'm fan-freaking-tastic," he grumbled, tossing his duel disk into the suitcase with a crash. "After the best night of my entire pathetic existence I had to say good-bye to the best thing that ever happened to me for a sister who thinks I'm an idiot and is now threatening to drop out of school. I'm just fabulous, how are you?"

"You know, bro, did it ever occur to you maybe Serenity's right?" Tristan asked. When Joey shot him a poisonous look, he mumbled, "Okay, maybe not."

Yugi tried again. "So what's gonna happen now? With you and Mai, I mean."

Joey stopped the assault on his suitcase and flopped down on his back beside it. "Man, I wish I knew. Me, I don't wanna be with anyone else no matter how far away she is, but she… she doesn't like the distance. Wants to take it one day at a time. Not that I can blame her. Domino and San Francisco are awfully far apart."

"Tell me about it," Yugi agreed miserably, sitting down beside Joey.

Joey looked up at him. "That's right, you—oh man!" He slapped both hands to his forehead. "I just realized. I'm gonna be with Téa and you're gonna be with Mai. How's that for irony?"

"Hey that's right," Duke said. "You two should just trade girlfriends and be done with it."

"I don't think so," Yugi and Joey said together, then both chuckled.

"Tell you what, Yuge. I'll look out for Téa for you if you'll scare away any guy who comes within, say, fifty miles of Mai."

"Oh yeah, that'll work. I'm just so threatening," Yugi joked.

"You can be when you wanna be," Joey said, completely serious this time, and Yugi realized he was talking about the part of him that was still the Pharaoh. He was reminded of how Joey had had to stop him from going after Ramesses on his own and he thought with some unease that if he had internalized Atem's personality along with his memories, then he'd have his weaknesses as well as his strengths.

Not wanting to pursue that line of thinking, he said bracingly, "I think it'll work out in the end, Joey."

"I hope you're right, 'cause I can't stand the thought of not being with her."

"Okay, at the risk of having you bite my head off," Tristan said slowly, "don't you think you should at least consider taking the job with Pegasus?"

Joey sat up and eyed his friend. "You know, for a guy who's spent the last two weeks chasing after my sister, you're pretty quick to suggest I just ditch her."

"Dude, would you chill? I'm not suggesting you ditch her. I'm suggesting that maybe, just maybe she's smart enough to take care of herself. I'm sure she can find a way to pay for school even if you do come out here."

"Hey, I'm all for that. As soon as it's a done deal—along with a way to keep our dad away from her—then I'll consider taking the job with Pegasus, and not a second before."

"If you don't take it now there might not be a chance to consider it later," Tristan argued.

"Not a second before," Joey said firmly.

Tristan shrugged. "It's your life, I'm just trying to help. Oh, here's your invitation to the brunch anyway," he added, holding the envelope out to Joey.

"Toss it. No point in me going."

"Joey, I think you should go even if you're not taking the job," Yugi said. "It isn't just the top four who got invitations. All of us got one."

"Yeah, even me and Téa and Serenity," Tristan confirmed, holding up his own envelope.

"Well, if Serenity's going, then of course I wanna go. I just can't wait to have her scream at me some more," Joey sneered.

"I still think you should go," Yugi repeated. "He might have found out something important about Ramesses."

"So? It's not like I can do anything about it from Domino," he said bitterly.

Yugi sighed. "That's not true and you know it. It all started in Domino. Come on, Joey, just come to the meeting."

"Think of the food," Duke coaxed him. "Knowing Pegasus, it'll be an awesome spread."

"I'm not hungry."

They all exchanged glances. "You're not hungry? Dude, you've got it bad," Tristan voiced what they were all thinking.

Joey blew out a puff of air, momentarily pushing his bangs off his face. "Guys, you don't get it. Mai's gonna be there. It took me half the morning just to say good-bye to her. I… I don't think I can go through that again."

Yugi reached out and put a hand on his friend's shoulder. "I know it's hard, Joey. Believe me, I know. I'm dreading saying good-bye to Téa, too. But you're a part of this. We need you."

Joey looked at him, chewing on his lip, then growled in frustration. "Okay, fine, you win. But it'll be your fault if I don't leave that suite alive. Reshef the Dark Being I can handle, but Serenity when she's pissed?" He shuddered theatrically.