Chapter Seven:

Ten minutes later, he was sitting on the couch in their living room, taking a cup of cold, iced tea from Yami. He sipped it, checked his stomach, and decided he could keep it down. Anna had said morning sickness generally ranged from six to twelve weeks, so maybe his was coming to an end and he'd be able to eat again. That would be a huge relief.

Yami sat down next to him, while Joey sat perched on the edge of the recliner at an angle to the couch. Neither of them had said a word since Yami had told him to sit down and asked if he wanted some tea. Now they sat and stared at him for a moment, before Joey finally ventured, "Um… what did you say out in the hall, Yug'?"

Yugi took another drink of tea to fortify himself, then set it on a coaster and sat, hands pressed palm-to-palm between his knees, eyes on the floor. He licked his lips, then told them everything from start to finish. When he was done, heavy silence greeted him. Finally he couldn't take it anymore and he looked up. Joey was staring at him as if he'd just announced he was moving to Saturn and Yami looked equally surprised, but also horrified, as if he knew Yugi was telling the truth and not mistaken.

"You're… pregnant?" Joey asked finally.

Yugi nodded.

"The statue made you pregnant?"

Yugi nodded again.

"So-"

"Yes, he said he's pregnant, Joey," Yami cut in. Turning to Yugi, he said, "Aibou… are you certain?"

"I'm sure, Yami. There's… It was there on the ultrasound."

Joey blew his breath out in a long, sustained noise that sounded like air being let out of a tire. He slumped back in his recliner, looking confounded. Yami looked across the room at the wall, looking about as bewildered. Yugi bit his lip and looked down at the floor again.

"What are you going to do, Aibou?" Yami asked.

Yugi began to cry again. "I don't know!" he wailed. Putting his face in his hands, he shook his head rapidly. "I don't know! I don't even know what to think!"

Yugi felt Yami put his arms around him again, and he leaned sideways into his chest, his hands still over his face. Yami held him until he got control of himself, cheek against the back of Yugi's head, hand rubbing his back in an attempt to console him. Finally Yugi got hold of himself and raised up, sniffling and hiccupping.

"Hey, Yug'…" Yugi looked up, wiping tears from his cheeks. Joey was leaning forward again, face grave. "Well, I gotta know…"

"Yes, Joey?"

"You are a *guy*, right?"

Yugi stared at him. Yami did, too. Joey stared back at Yugi, eyes boring into his, before his serious expression began to crack and he started to grin. Yugi, shocked, began to laugh.

"Well, I mean, I've never seen," Joey went on. "But, you know, maybe I ought to check. It's purely scientific, of course."

"Joey!" Yami exclaimed.

Yugi was now laughing so hard it hurt. Joey turned to Yami, still grinning.

"Come on, Babe, it's just science," he said. "Go on, Yug', strip. If you wanna throw in a sexy little dance, that's okay, too."

A couch pillow sailed across the room, which Joey easily batted from the air to the floor. Yugi clutched a stitch in his side. The last few days, and especially the last few hours, had been so filled with tension and dread, that this had caught him well and truly off-guard, and it felt great to laugh. Trust Joey to ease the situation with humor, again.

Soon enough, they all sobered again. Yugi turned to Yami and asked him how it was possible that the statue had made him able to get pregnant.

"I suppose anything is possible with magick," Yami said carefully. "The statuette of Tawret must have been designed and enchanted by someone to allow the user to become pregnant with the aid of a spell. Likely it knew no gender or anything else, and just worked when invoked."

Which was what Yugi had thought.

"Pretty irresponsible to make the thing that invokes it just it's name," Joey grumbled. "What if a little kid had picked it up? Hell, look what it did to a guy."

Yami nodded. "Back in Egypt, it's use was probably strictly overseen, and it never left the possession of its creator. In my day, our culture was rigidly structured and regulated, especially when it came to magick and anything involving the gods. I doubt it changed that much when this statue was created. But perhaps some calamity befell them and the statue was lost, or else it's purpose and the dangers it held were lost to memory over the years, and so no one knew what it could do any longer."

"I guess," Joey muttered grudgingly. Then suddenly he seemed to have a horrible thought, because his face faulted and he went white. "Hey… I touched that thing, too! It shocked me, too! Could I be- Am I-"

Joey looked like he was going to be sick or faint or both. He couldn't even finish his sentence. But Yugi shook his head, quick to reassure him.

"Have you been getting sick any? Gained any weight? Had any weird mood changes or anything like that? I don't think so, so I don't think you are."

"I don't either," Yami said. "Aibou, you mentioned feeling very sexual that night, but not since. Joey was the same way, as I recall."

"Say, yeah," Joey agreed. "I felt very weird, really turned on."

"Me, too," Yugi admitted. "But once it was morning, I didn't feel that way anymore."

"Yes. I believe it was a one night application. Once a tryst was complete, the enchantment abated, it's purpose served."

"Yeah, but, we did-"

"Yes, but you were dominant that night, Joey."

Yugi felt himself blushing to the roots of his hair. Joey coughed in embarrassment. Yami, as always upfront and unabashed, didn't look the least bit discomfited.

"The magick of the statue likely no longer affects you," he continued. "I have been on top since, and you have not presented any signs like Aibou has."

Yugi squirmed and Joey was examining the side table beside his chair. He raised his hand and coughed again into it pointedly.

"Uh, right. Anyway… Yug', what are you going to do?"

"Are you going to tell Kaiba, Aibou?" Yami asked delicately.

"No! I mean, how can I? I don't know what he'd say, what he'd do. He'll… He'll…" Yugi stammered, too many possibilities of the brunette's reaction filling his mind that he faltered. "I just can't," he finished lamely. "I want to get this over with without him ever knowing."

Joey hesitated, then said uncertainly, "Are you really going to have an abortion?"

"I don't know," Yugi admitted, unconsciously drawing his legs up as he pressed into the corner of the couch. He wrapped his arms around his legs and bit his lip. "I never really thought much about abortion. I mean, I guess I've kind of always been against it, but it never really affected me, so I never thought about it. Now… I don't know. I guess I have to, don't I?"

Joey and Yami both nodded, though they looked equally uncomfortable.

"Yeah, I guess," Joey said haltingly. "I mean, what are you going to do, have it?"

….

Seto studied Yugi surreptitiously over the dinner table. His diminutive lover had been reserved all evening, hardly saying anything since the moment Seto had gotten home, which was unusual. He had greeted Seto with the customary kiss and question about his day, but he'd seemed distracted when Seto responded, and had been distant since. Seto had tried to get him to tell him about his appointment with Dr. Kuribayashi, disconcerted when Yugi had muttered noncommittally and changed the subject. He wanted to press the issue, but Yugi's temper had been abnormally volatile lately, and he didn't want to their conversation, no matter how stilted, to devolve into an argument.

Yugi was picking at his food as Seto surveyed him. Seto wasn't sure if it had to do with his touch-and-go stomach, or something else. Yugi seemed well enough, with color in his cheeks and an alert gaze, so his problem seemed to be emotional rather than physical. What had happened there at that doctor's office?

Had he… received bad news? The worst news?

Mokuba seemed to notice Yugi's preoccupation as well. After trying and failing to engage Yugi in conversation about a new version of the duel disk that would allow players to connect online to duel all across the globe, he'd subsided, shooting worried glances at Yugi through the rest of the meal.

Because of this oppressive atmosphere, dinner was shorter than usual, even by Seto's standards, and they parted ways. Mokuba went to get on the computer, as he did most evenings of the week, and Yugi wandered upstairs without a word. Seto initially attempted to continue on with his usual nightly business tasks, but finally he gave up and went to find Yugi. He found him in their shared bedroom, in the bathroom, soaking in the tub. He rarely took a genuine bath, but every once in a while enjoyed a long, luxurious bubble-bath soak. As he had left the door half-open to foil a build in steam, Seto pushed it open and went inside, seeing him propped against the inside of the tub, looking off into the middle distance in front of the faucet, absentmindedly stroking his stomach and looking pensive.

"Yugi?"

Yugi looked up, blinking himself back to reality. "Oh. Hi, Seto."

"What's wrong?"

"What do you mean?"

Seto gave him a look and settled himself on the closed toilet lid. "You've been acting strange all night. Mokuba noticed it, too. And I know you had your appointment with Kuribayashi today, so don't pretend you didn't. What happened there?"

Yugi bit his lip and looked away, looking briefly panicky. He seemed to be searching for something to say, and Seto was surprised to realize he believed Yugi was going to lie to him.

"It was fine," Yugi said weakly. "Why do you ask?"

"Yugi."

Seto said it so reprovingly that Yugi looked up at him with an almost guilty expression.

"Don't play games. Don't hold stuff back because you think it will upset me. You know me better than that. You know I don't appreciate it, so tell me what happened."

Yugi sighed and slumped back further into the bath, looking drawn. "It wasn't kidney or gallstones," he said finally.

Seto started to ask him how that could upset him that much, when he understood. It might have checked something else off the list, only to leave Yugi still with no answers. And with worse and worse prospects. The idea of a tumor or cancer seemed more and more likely with each negative test return.

Seto sat in silence, looking away himself and to at the bathroom rug beneath his feet. At times like this, when he thought about this, he just wanted to break something. He wanted to hurt something. Take out all his frustration-and, truly, fear-on something.

"I'm taking you to a different doctor," he said.

Yugi looked up. "What? No. I like Dr. Kuri-"

"He obviously has no idea what he's doing," Seto said stubbornly. "Someone better would have found out something by now."

"Seto-"

"Someone with more medical degrees, maybe," Seto went on. "A larger practice, or more years experience-"

"Seto, stop being so ridiculous."

Seto looked at him in surprise. Yugi was frowning at him from the tub, but even as Seto looked back at him, his expression softened and he leaned forward and reached out, gently taking Seto's hand.

"Listen to me," he said. "I know this is how you deal. You try to force it, make it what you want. But it doesn't work that way."

Seto glared at the sink.

"Now, I want to stay with Dr. Kuribayashi," Yugi said, with a touch of the implacable firmness he was capable of when he really meant it. "I like him. I trust him. And… it'll all work out. You'll see."

Seto felt stupid, being comforted by Yugi when it was Yugi who was facing down any number of horrific diagnoses. Seto should have been the one comforting him. But he'd never been good at that, and Yugi always had been.

"Fine," was all he said.

Yugi smiled, still holding his hand. "I love you, you know that, right?"

"Of course I do," Seto snapped impatiently. He sighed, and added, "I love you, too."

Yugi squeezed his hand. He looked brooding and worried again, and he released Seto's hand and leaned back in the tub again, his other hand still randomly rubbing at his stomach. Seto looked at him for a long time, but he could see nothing different or wrong with him. Whatever this was, it was insidious, hiding away in Yugi, invisible, and so far undetectable.

Seto got to his feet and left the bathroom. He went back to his office and forced himself through all of his nightly tasks, trying to take his mind off of it with more and more work. Yugi did not come to make him stop and Seto gladly gave himself over to each task with a single-minded determination. Finally, though, when the clock told him it was a quarter past one, Seto had done everything he'd needed to do for that night, and the next night as well, completing stuff even he knew could have been put off for several days, and there was nothing left. Defeated, Seto stood, wincing at the kinks in his back and knees, and stretched, before turning out the light and returning to their bedroom, walking on cat's paws so as not to wake Yugi if he was asleep.

He was, beneath the covers, the moonlight streaming in through the open curtains lighting him up sufficiently for Seto's now dark-adapted eyes to see even the details of his features. Undressing and silently redressing in some pajamas, Seto eased his way into bed and then lay on his elbow, watching Yugi sleep, the moon silvering his already pale skin to an ethereal luster.

'Don't worry, Yugi,' Seto said silently. 'Whatever this is, whatever's hurting you, I'll beat it. Somehow. I promise.'

tbc…

A/N: Sorry it's late, and short. Horrifically stressful past few days.