Guardians

Note: Okay, I'm going to get a little crazy in this chappie, so be ready for random, shocking, things to happen. I'm glad that so many of you kept yourselves safe from the doom bunnies, but they're at it again! Please, please, please review!

Disclaimer: Yu-gi-oh, My Immortal, and Incomplete are not mine, never will be mine, and never have been mine. I'm just borrowing them for use in this fic.

Chapter Thirty-Five: Incomplete

Karmina woke up the next morning with a killer headache and a lot of confused thoughts circulating through her mind. Why was it that she was incapable of sorting things out with her life?

The taste of a cool milkshake was still in her mouth, though really more in her mind than anything else. She'd never had one before, and it meant so much that Joey was willing to just whisk her away at any time, on a whim, and do something nice for her. It was almost… romantic. She mentally kicked herself for thinking such things and wondered where it had come from. Her Seto had not been the most romantic type, but then, the fact that he listened to her, that he'd even bother looking at her, was more than enough romance for her. She realized that her heart was thumping wildly, recalling her dream from that night.

She was sitting alone on the park bench, staring blankly at the sky. Suddenly, there was weight beside her on the bench, and it went without saying that it was Seto Kaiba. His warm hand found her frozen one, much like her soul had found his, and she looked up into those expressive and still so hidden blue eyes. They were like the sky on a summer's day, warm and gentle. She realized that she hardly ever saw them that way.

"Seto… why are you here?" her dream self asked.

"Because I love you," dream Seto answered, pulling her into a fierce embrace, and then a passionate kiss. "And I'll never stop," he told her before she'd snapped awake.

What a strange dream. It made her want to run straight to Kaiba Corp and beg him to take her back. In fact, she realized that she hadn't really seen him sense their fight. She sighed and pulled on her coat, needing time to think.

"I'm going for a walk, Joey," she told him, not even glancing his way as she flew out the door.

"What have I been doing these past few days?" She asked herself as she walked. "It's like I thought I could just erase him from exsistence… like I could replace him with Joey… but I can't. And Joey's nice, but he just isn't Seto. I've been fooling myself this whole time into thinking that I could just… just… I don't know, be a different new me, or something. Just erase the past… but the past is why I'm still here, I think… it's why I haven't fallen into the old rhythm, like I would have if it weren't for Seto… the way I was… I owe it all to him, for waking me from my nightmare and turning it into the most blissful reality possible."

She realized that she was standing in the same place that she'd stood in the singing contest, now so far in the past, not in terms of time, but of who she was. And there, in the third row of chairs, was where Kaiba had sat, watching her with his pretense of indifference. She felt a smile creep onto her lips.

"I sang… so beautifully that day… so much of my pain poured into the song… and now, I think, I'd hear a very different mood, even to the same words." She thought about the songs that she'd loved but had never related to. "And I could sing different words now… and they'd be just as true." She walked slowly, dreamlike, onto that same stage and pretended that there was a microphone and an audience. Subconsciously, she filled the center chair of the third row with Seto Kaiba.

"I… I'm so tired of being here… Suppressed by all my childish fears… And if you have to leave, I wish that you would just leave… Your presence still lingers here… and it won't leave me alone. These wounds won't seem to heal… this pain is just too real… There's just so much that time cannot erase… When you cried, I'd wipe away all of your tears. When you'd scream, I'd fight away all of your fears. And I held your hand through all of these years, and you still have… all of me." She gave a shuddering sigh and stopped singing for a minute before entering the second verse, oblivious to everything in the world around her. "You used to captivate me by your resonating light… but now I'm bound by the life you left behind. Your face, it haunts, my once pleasant dreams… your voice it chased away, all the sanity in me. These wounds won't seem to heal… this pain is just to real… there's just too much that time cannot erase…" She stopped again. Somehow, she suddenly felt this great need to stop, to look up, to see what had broken the trance of her singing.

Standing out there, trench coat blowing softly in the wind, was Seto Kaiba, with his little brother Mokuba. He was staring up at her, face unreadable, while his brother inquisitively followed his gaze, coming to rest upon the heavily cloaked girl on the stage, staring back at them. And there they all stood, staring, for almost a full sixty seconds before the older Kaiba suddenly jolted back to reality.

"Come on Mokuba, let's get that hot chocolate you wanted," he said, slightly louder than necessary.

"Okay big brother," he answered uneasily, still staring at the girl who he didn't recognize as being Karmina. Something about her had changed to the point of affecting her physical appearance as well, if only the dark circles under her eyes and etched sadness of her face.

She watched them walk away, her face as immobile as Kaiba's own, for the sake of her shock. The second they disappeared from view, she fell to her knees, not even wincing as frozen bones hit a frozen surface. Suddenly, she recalled a recent song from the radio. Incomplete. And that was exactly how she felt, in her heart and in her soul.

"I feel… like I've just woken up," she said simply to no one. "And reality… hurts... so very bad." She sighed and picked up the Incomplete chorus, since it was the only part she really remembered. "I tried… to go on like I never knew you… I'm awake, but my world is half asleep… I prayed… for this heart to be unbroken, but without you all I'm going to be is… incomplete." It was too true for words, really… too true to be real… just… too true.

She stood up creakily and walked off the stage in short, painful steps. The place was so desolate that it reminded her of her currently broken heart, suddenly thawed out from is frozen, unfeeling vacation by the sight of Seto and his cold, cold eyes. Cold like this horrible winter. And they'd been softening up a little, too.

"I suppose this is really mostly my fault, now, isn't it? I mean, he was all 'my image is super important' and all that crap… but I can't really blame him for thinking it… he might never have mentioned it out loud… and then he was sorry, and I yelled at him… I guess we're back to how it was before we even really met. When he was just a CEO and I was just… invisible. This is awful… I hate myself… I really, really, do…"

She sobbed a little, but didn't cry for fear of getting her eyelids frozen together. She wasn't exactly a light crier.

Suddenly, she felt that staying at Joey's was a stupid move. She just shouldn't pretend that everything was fine and good… she should get a job and then buy a tent or something. If hobos could live in the park, she could do it until she made enough money to live somewhere else. And then she could find Joey and pay him back for everything.

Of course, logic said she needed to find a job, and then earn enough for food before she left behind a good house. But she was telling Joey her plan as soon as she walked through the door.

Unhappily, she realized that the only way she knew to get home passed the hot cocoa stand. I'm being ridiculus. Surely it won't be too painful just to walk by… if I don't look at him… yes, I'll be brave.

And she nearly had a breakdown when she saw him with his little brother, looking removed from the world as he had seemed before she'd gotten to know him. Maybe even, unless she was imagining it, more so than then.

She opened her mouth as if to call out his name, but when he regarded her with those frozen eyes, she herself froze. How could that look… that empty and icy cool look… be for her? The one who'd listened to his thoughts, the one who'd had her own mind read… and now he was acting as if she was just another person on the street unworthy of his time. And then, maybe she was… Maybe by getting angry, she'd managed to send herself right back to where she'd so happily escaped.

Mokuba glanced at her, at Seto, and then at the ground. He apparently had no idea what to think. Here was this girl he (thought he) didn't know, and she kept giving Seto the strangest, sad look. He decided that she was a crazy stalker and that he should ignore her.

After a moment of being caught in the icy gaze, she snapped out of it and walked on, her heart shattering into a million shards of misery. He hated her… loathed her. That indifferent stare told her that much. It felt horrible.

"I was really right when I said that everything was falling apart," she noted dimly, seating herself on a nearby bench because her legs were rapidly turning to putty. "And now I'm about to have another breakdown."

But, surprisingly, she regained her calm and managed to stand up again. After all, there were other things in life besides boys and love. She had to remember that she was looking for a job, that she was on the way to tell Joey so.

"Joey," she said as she walked in the door. He looked up from his deck, which he appeared to be reorganizing, and listened intently to her proposition.

"Well… I like ya stayin' here an all, but if you're not happy… if ya wanna move out, den it's your decision."

She felt a little twinge as his face seemed to close off a little. "It's not really you, Joey… it's just… I don't like living in someone else's house… I dreamed of getting my own place for years… now it's just come a little sooner than expected, is all."

He nodded and returned his attention to the cards. She sighed and went to turn on the radio and look at the newspaper.

End note: Wow, I found my muse! YAY! Okay, so review and tell me what you think! Next chapter'll be here as soon as I can write it (and as soon as you review this chapter!)