A/N: And yet another chapter! Wow, that was fast. Well, I already had half of this written and I knew what I needed to write for the rest, so it didn't take much effort to pull it together. Oh, and something else that I've been meaning to do (and should have done last chapter) is address the parallels to Beauty and the Beast that some people have pointed out to me. For the record, that wasn't my intention when I started out. I did notice the similarities after I got through a few chapters, but it wasn't my original inspiration. Besides, I think the parallels kind of went out the window when they screwed each other silly. But anyways! On to the next chapter.

In Memories Forgotten

Chapter 12

Yugi shaded his eyes against the sun as he looked over the vast reaches of the forest. Far off in the distance he could see the many towns and villages that went about their daily lives, unaware that he was watching. In the opposite direction, ominous mountains stood beneath a cloudy haze, their snow-capped points barely visible. The wind was still cold despite the coming spring, so Yugi had a thick cloak wrapped around him.

Yugi was standing on one of the high balconies of the house in the late afternoon, waiting for Atemu to wake up. Both of them were now in the routine of sleeping during the day and being awake at night, but there were still times when Yugi wanted to go outside when the sun was out. He would often watch the sunrise before going to bed, and get up early enough to see the sunset. It always saddened him that Yami could not see these things; his only light consisted of dim candles and the moon's watery rays. During the night, though, Yugi would often describe the sunsets and sunrises and the way the mountains looked in the daytime, and that seemed to make Atemu happy. Sometimes it was hard to tell what Atemu was feeling, but Yugi was becoming more adept at translating Yami's facial expressions and body language.

But today, Yugi wasn't up because he wanted to see the sun. He was up because he couldn't sleep. In the past week or so, Yugi had been having strange and very frightening dreams. He hadn't experienced anything like them since the panic attack he'd had when Atemu had locked him in his room as punishment for going into the east turret, but that was now months ago.

In the dream, Yugi was walking down a hallway in the house trying to find Atemu. The kegawa were bouncing along down the hallway with him. At the end of the hallway there was a door, and Yugi would open it and go inside. At first the room was completely dark. Yugi would call out Atemu's name, and from nowhere a candle was suddenly lit in his hand. He would look around the room and see that it was his old room from his father's house. As soon as he realized where he was, the door slammed behind him. The kegawa had disappeared. Yugi turned and ran to the door, trying to open it, but to no avail. He would scream and cry and pound on the door, begging for Atemu to let him out, but no one was there to help him.

He would sink down onto the floor and, turning to look at the room, would see that it was growing progressively smaller. He would then see that the window was open. Yugi would try to get to it, but his legs were suddenly incredibly heavy and he could barely stand. He would finally get to the window, only to find that there were bars on it. Beyond the bars, he saw his father, except it wasn't his father. It was a heavyset jail keeper with his father's face, a cruel smile twisting his features. In his hand was a set of keys, and he would dangle them in front of Yugi's face. Yugi would try to reach for them, only to have the jail keeper pull them away. Meanwhile, the room around him grew smaller and smaller until he barely fit inside of it and his arm would no longer fit through the bars on the window. The jail keeper would laugh and laugh with his father's mouth until Yugi woke up, sweating and shaking, with the jangling of keys still ringing in his ears.

Atemu had been concerned, of course, but Yugi had continued to dismiss it as just a bad dream. Atemu hadn't said anything yet, but Yugi figured that he knew that it was more than just a bad dream spawned from baseless fear. The trauma of his life with his father was coming back to haunt him and Yugi didn't know what to do about it. He thought that he had finally gotten away from those fears; he felt safe in the house, with Atemu and with the kegawa, but somehow he was still afraid that it would all be taken away and that he would end up trapped in his father's house again.

Yugi hugged himself, pulling his cloak tighter around his body. He had tried so hard to tell himself that his fears had no legitimate ground to stand on, that Atemu had promised to protect him and that he was very capable of doing so.

And yet…

Shaking his head, Yugi turned to go back inside, suddenly filled with a desire to be near Atemu. It hadn't yet failed to make him feel better.

Atemu woke to find that Yugi was not with him. He sat up, immediately searching the house with his mind and found that Yugi was coming back towards the bedroom. A few moments later, Yugi opened the door. He was wearing a cloak and his cheeks were flushed from cold, so Atemu guessed that he had been outside. Yugi shed his cloak and, without a word, walked over to Atemu and put his arms around him, burying his face in Atemu's chest.

Putting his arms around Yugi, Atemu began to rock him gently and whisper words of love in his ear. His eyes saddened as he realized that Yugi was shaking.

"You had the dream again," he said. Yugi just nodded without looking up. Eventually Atemu grasped Yugi's chin and forced him to meet his eyes.

"Yugi," he said gently, "I promised you that I would protect you and I intend to keep that promise. You're safe here; I won't let anyone hurt you."

Yugi nodded again. "I know… I don't know why I'm so afraid, why I'm having these dreams. I just… I don't want to be taken away from you."

"No one's going to take you away, Yugi," Atemu said as he stroked his lover's cheek. "You don't have to be afraid."

With a sigh Yugi laid his head on Atemu's shoulder. He knew that what Atemu had just said was true, but he still couldn't shake off the fear that lingered in the back of his mind. However, being with Atemu did stem the fear a bit, making it easier to ignore. Forcing a smile onto his face, Yugi looked up at Atemu.

"Thank you…" he murmured. Atemu smiled back and leaned in for a kiss.

Yugi ran for the window and stuck his arm through the bars, trying in vain to reach the keys that were dangling just out of reach. The jailer was laughing cruelly and Yugi could feel the room becoming smaller and smaller around him. He was trapped…

Yugi sat up suddenly, sweating and shaking, and stared around at the bedroom for several moments. Reassured that he was still in Atemu's house, Yugi relaxed a bit. He glanced beside him to see Atemu fast asleep. The nightwalker had tried so hard the night before to make Yugi feel better, and Yugi certainly appreciated his efforts, but the dreams still came and the fear was still present.

Knowing that he probably wouldn't be able to go back to sleep, Yugi got out of bed and dressed himself. He grabbed his cloak and left the room, ignoring the sleepy eyes of the kegawa as they watched him curiously. Yugi made his way downstairs and outside; maybe walking around in the garden a bit would make him feel better.

Seeing the garden did indeed raise his spirits. The sun was shining cheerily and the wild ferns and flowers were beginning to poke up out of the ground in anticipation of spring. It certainly had been getting warmer, though the wind was still chilly. Smiling to himself, Yugi looked up at a tree with buds covering its branches to see a bluebird perched there, swaying slightly in the wind.

Suddenly, though, the bird startled and took off. Yugi frowned; he was quite sure that he hadn't made enough noise to frighten it. Then, Yugi heard an odd scraping sound. He whirled around and behind him was a large, tangled bush that partially obscured the iron fence around the garden. Figuring that the sound had come from that direction, Yugi cautiously peered around the bush. It seemed that the fence behind the bush had rotted away, as there was a sizeable hole in the bars. In fact, it was big enough for a person to squeeze through.

Yugi froze. Now that he was close enough he could see that the bars hadn't rotted away; they had been sawed off.

That was all the warning Yugi had before he was grabbed from behind and a gag was stuffed in his mouth. He panicked, struggling wildly against his assailant, but suddenly there were more of them outside of the fence. He faintly recognized some of them as villagers. The man behind him forced him towards the hole and he was pulled through the fence. Yugi tried to grab hold of one of the bars but his arms were yanked behind his back and secured with rope.

Yugi took a last look up at the house before he was pulled away by the villagers toward the forest. His heart sank; even if Atemu knew that he had been captured, what could Atemu do? It was the middle of the day, and the sun was shining brightly as Yugi was pulled back to the village by the witch hunters.

A/N: Once again, ominous! Mwahahahaha! Um, yeah, total cliffhanger. Hopefully I can get the next chapter up quickly so that I don't have to dodge any pointy projectiles from enraged reviewers. Oh, yeah, please review!