Disclaimer: Just own the words, not the folks.

The Crowd Called Out

I can only watch in horror as he beats and kicks her while she tries to protect her protruding belly.

Too groggy from being slammed into their bedroom wall, I can't make a move to help her.

It all happened so fast. Mom and I were talking about her plans to go to Hokkaido and laughing about uncle Harry, the gaijin who married aunt Rei when he burst in. His eyes were glazed with rage and alcohol and I moved to protect my mom from the madman I'd faced for years. He'd never come at her like this, it would always be after he'd beat on me a while and had calmed some or in response to her trying to help or shield me. She never got the pure madness and I wondered what had happened for him to bring it now.

"I knew you were a slut, Meiko, but to do it with you own son…" he raged.

"What the fuck are you talking about?" I screamed.

He went off on some tangent about knowing all about our 'secret meetings' and the 'abomination growing in your mother's belly' and how he'd planned to get rid of it and punish us both for our 'morally reprehensible actions'.

I'd stepped into his face.

"You're insane if you think I will allow you to harm her," I snarled.

His backhand sent me reeling before he grabbed me by the front of my shirt and slammed me into the wall by the door. I crumpled to the floor, head ringing as he advanced on my mom who screamed denials at him, assuring him I held no part in Mokuba's paternity.

After he's done with her, he slams out of their bedroom, nearly hitting me with the door, telling my mother to be gone once he got back.

I crawl to her side.

"Mom?" I mumble weakly, but she's unconscious. Tears form in my eyes at my inability to protect her and Mokuba. What's the point of enduring all of this if I can't protect those most important to me? I feel my own consciousness slipping away and am vaguely aware of the gasp of one of the servants and the horror in her eyes before I fall by my mother's side.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

I sit by her side holding her hand. It's been a week, but she won't wake up. She probably doesn't want to. Not now.

They couldn't save him. Mokuba's gone. And she'll never have any more children.

That's why she doesn't want to wake up.

My father threw all of mom's things out three days ago and started divorce proceedings. He didn't want to pay for her hospital bills, but he didn't have a choice since she was already on his insurance. I had one of the servants help me pick everything up and got Valon to drive me to a nearby hotel with them. He didn't ask and I didn't tell. I haven't been home since.

I hang my head over her hand.

Gozaboro is wrong. I'm the worthless one. My presence is what cost her everything. If I'd never been conceived, Noah would have been born. Mom would have been pampered and treated like a queen.

If I had just run away or died instead of coming back here, Mokuba would still be alive inside her womb.

If I hadn't gone to their room…

It's all my fault. I'll fix it somehow. Some way. I promise, Mom. Just please wake up.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

They said it's a form of brain damage, short term memory loss, and there's nothing they can do about it. She'll never be right again. The facility where she's staying takes really good care of her.

Every time I go see her, she asks what happened to the baby. And every time I have to say…

I don't want to say it anymore. I don't want to see her like that anymore.

After she's been awake for about two weeks, I call aunt Reiko and uncle Harry and tell them the name of the facility and how she's doing.

Aunt Reiko is too distraught to talk to me, so I get uncle Harry instead.

"What happened?" He demands, his Japanese sloppy from worry.

"There was a bad car accident," I lie, my voice not giving anything away. Not that it helps with uncle Harry.

"Gozaboro did it, didn't he," he spits in English, abandoning all pretence of civility.

"No, it was a car accident. I swear," I assert.

He pauses.

"You're getting to be just like him, Seto," he affirms, pure rage in his voice.

"I'm not!" I scream into the phone, startling those in the visiting area around me. "I'm nothing like that bastard!"

Another pause.

"Then why are you lying for him? Who are you trying to protect? Certainly not your mother."

"I…I…"

"Are you doing this to protect the baby?"

I should have known mom would have told aunt Reiko by now. After all, she was almost six months along.

"Th-there is no baby," I whisper sadly. "A-and there won't be anymore babies."

"Are you telling me he killed his own child!"

I hear aunt Reiko wail 'Gods no! Not Mokuba!' in the background.

"Why? Why would he do that?" Uncle Harry's shocked voice continues.

"B-because he thought…" No, I can't them that. "She was protecting me," I interject instead. Better that they hate me for that than to think I would ever…

"P-protecting you? From Gozaboro? You let her take the blows meant for you!"

No. I didn't let her. I couldn't stop him.

Uncle Harry continues to rant about how worthless a son I am to have allowed my father to do that to her while aunt Rei sobs loudly in the background. Then he tells me that they'll be here to get her from 'you fucking Kaibas' and hangs up.

Yes. This is better. Let them hate me for not doing what I should have to protect her and Mokuba. Mom will be better off with them. I deserve to be with Gozaboro. I've earned my hell.