Lots of people have wanted me to write this, and sadly, it isn't as good as it could be because a) I recently had hives in my hands and couldn't type anything and b) Now that I can sort of type again, I rushed to finish this due to demand. Probably shouldn't have. But this *is* it. If you don't know some of the French she's saying, there's never a better time than to use Google Translate.

Basically, this is a break in the main flow of the book for a quick one-shot sort of thing, in the perspective of Noelle speaking to Seto Kaiba.

Yugioh is property of Kazuki Takahashi

Noelle's Story

X ~ X ~ X

I was born on Christmas Day, 1958 – a true bundle of joy for my parents, Seymour and Caroline – in a small town outside of Strasbourg, France. That's my namesake. I had an older sister, Helene, and would soon have, after three years, a young brother, Auguste.

I was raised catholic. Many people now are simply signed up at such as the local mairie and that's all they really invest in the faith, but I was raised differently. I really believed. Many of the other children I would meet said that my family was strict, but I never thought so. If my father allowed me to have fun playing outside, that was what mattered to me. I loved nature; I never thought about business as a profession at all when I was a child. I also liked asking questions.

One day I looked into a brook and saw my reflection, and it occurred to me that people might think I was pretty. I looked a lot like my mother – mousy brown hair, angular jaw. But I got one feature from my dad: my azure eyes. I asked one of my classmates for verification when school started for me, in 1966. I got to know him, and then I asked him. His response? T'es jolie, certes, mais jamais je voudrais te marier. I wasn't marriable. Just pretty. Just a thing to look at. Just like nature.

I became determined to fight against his point of view of me. I wanted then to be the best; not because I had high dreams for later on in life, but because I wanted to prove him wrong. Prove everyone wrong, maybe. I studied as hard as I could, but I was never the perfect student. I received A's, surely, of course, but nothing above the ninety-fifth percentile.

I would eventually discover the one thing that attracted me more than any other in 1970. It wasn't biology, or chemistry, but instead, history. Greek classics, more exactly. I had heard them every night when I was very small; read them to myself when I became able. I had never, until that point, realized the effect they had on me. But when it struck me – what I wanted to do – I became more driven then ever.

My father was one of the few to support me. That was generally how it worked out in my household. My mother would smile, but fakely, and a smile I would grow to use myself, far in the future. My sisters would scoff, as they were wont to do. But my father's blue eyes twinkled alongside mine when I told him of the stories he had long forgotten. He was my inspiration. But I think that predisposed me to much trouble later on, once I entered the University of Strasbourg in 1977.

Everything, at that moment, was perfect. I had my faith; I knew God was beside me, there to protect me in any of my ventures. I had my family – well, my father. And I had my studies. The freshman year of college was spent entirely enthused in my work. I was not rude when people bothered me; but I was reclusive. I wanted to be more perfect. My hair had reddened and darkened, but nothing was in the way of my spirit.

My GPA was perfect. It excited me. I was even more excited when I was offered the opportunity to travel to the United States for my sophomore year – an extremely special privilege, not only due to my age but due to how difficult and rare it was to be able to travel at all. I was to stay until June 1980, and then renew my contract at the University. I chose to go somewhere steeped in history, where I knew even the architecture would be inspired by my chosen field. I chose the University of Virginia.

… I do not think that going to the University was a mistake. It began everything; it changed everything; these are true…. but I can't get ahead of myself. I arrived in Virginia, and things seemed to be going great. There was an intangible feeling, however. Nothing bothersome; but something nagging. Sometimes I would joke with myself that it was perhaps the construction, or the lack of adequate signs telling me where to go. None of those were really the case.

I hadn't the means to travel back home for the Christmas break that year. Instead, I stayed in Charlottesville, along with some of the other foreign exchange students. I wasn't housed with the foreign students; I barely knew any. I had never sought them out beforehand. But I found them overwhelmingly helpful, relaxing to be around, and more accepting of, amongst other things, my inability to speak English, which has thankfully since been remedied.

That's where I met him. That's when I met Tom. Tomas Cizek.

He was from the Czech Republic, he said, but he was actually Slovak; his parents, as well as he, had tried to move farther out of reach of the USSR without completely abandoning their different-minded family. He understood me; I understood him. Other people didn't understand 'us', though. We had clicked immediately. Tomas was apparently a popular person in the University's social circles; I had a reputation as a kind-hearted bookworm. The fact that we were together would make other people guffaw.

In retrospect, it couldn't have been love. Infatuation, maybe. Lust thrown into the mix somewhere… it could almost be considered a fling, now. It happened during that horrible snowstorm in Charlottesville, early in 1980. It was cold outside, so why not try and stay warm inside?

It wasn't until spring semester had begun that I knew he had made me pregnant.

… How could it have happened to me? I had never done anything wrong. I had only gone with my gut, my instincts. It was une cauchemar, a nightmare. I thought I was perfect, intelligent. I thought I never got out of line. Comment est-ce que j'aurais pu être aussi stupide?

It was an unusually warm day in March, 1980, when I decided to tell Tomas. It was the Friday before Spring Break. I know now I should have told him earlier; who waits until the last minute? At any rate, he comforted me, said he would stay by me. He then said he was going back to the Czech Republic to see his family over the break now that he was able. Not enough money back in December, he said. I fucking believed him.

School started again. Upon days of searching, and hours of inquiry, I learned he had graduated early. He had never told me.

Terrified. Outraged. Distraught. Betrayed. No word in any language conveys the amalgam of emotions I felt when I first learned that he had… had… I couldn't believe it. I was in shock. I tried to cope by simply falling into my study habits once more, but the fact that he had lied, promised his support and then left, never left me. My biggest concern was where I was going to have the baby – you, Seto. I didn't want to go back to France and face my family. I wanted to stay. I wanted to never go back. I wanted to shrink into the shadows and disappear entirely. I went from perfect to useless.

The University of Virginia thought otherwise, and, alongside the University of Strasbourg, extended my stay there an extra year. Now I was, as they say in English, between a rock and a hard place. I didn't like UVA. I didn't like France. Que faire maintenant?

In the school year 1980 – 1981, my grades began to slip. My body was young; it wasn't quite ready for the complications of being pregnant. I realize now that I was very depressed at the same time, also. I prayed that God could forgive me. I prayed that I could forgive me. I prayed for anything.

You were born October 25, 1980, Seto.

… Why did I choose to name you Seto? It's simple, actually. I wanted a name that, to me, was strong, yet unique. I decided to name you Seto, after the Ancient Greek word for wheat, sitos. It was the staple of their diet, and a symbol of how you would, from a motherly perspective, grown on to provide your family with all the necessities that they needed. Unlike your father. It fit in every possible way with my desired specifications. While you are now Japanese, you did once have a middle name. I never told you what it was. It was Olivier, a French name for the olive tree. The symbol of Athena. You were entirely under my control. My problem.

I must say, you were not the stoic baby people may believe you to be. You were loud, roudy, rambunctious, and demanding. I could even feed you cold milk, because you were too impatient to wait for me to heat it. You drained me. I couldn't focus on school anymore; nobody was really there to support me. My grades continued to plummet; by December, a year after I met your father, I was failing. The day I turned twenty-two, I was back in France, having bought a one-way ticket. I bargained my way into an apartment in northern Strasbourg. I didn't tell my family I was back.

At least, not then. The pressure built. I would think about them. What if they tried to call me, or send me messages or write letters, and the University of Virginia said that I had dropped out? What would they do? I couldn't let them figure it out. I was imperfect; I had to confess to that. In February 1981, I showed up on my parents' doorstep, you a babe in arms.

My brother Auguste was just beginning college. When I announced myself, and my little bundle of pleasure, he scrapped his idea to live at home and commute. He simply left. He didn't want to deal with the family tensions I would be bringing. I knew my mother and sister loved me; but they distrusted you. No. They hated you. The only person that really accepted me was my father. Like always. Il m'a toujours compris.

I rented the apartment above my parents', leaving the one I had lived in for the winter months. My first real job – not on the campus – was at a nearby restaurant, but only out of pity. You have to train to be a real waitress; I tried but I never achieved the license. I was too preoccupied with blaming myself. For being in France; for having a child; for being destroyed in the prime of my life. My one comfort? You – You became accustomed to the little food on the table. You were excitable, yes, but highly imaginative, and you shared by deep blue eyes, the one mark of my father's kindness. I had every expectation for you. Funnily, I remember thinking that you might prove intelligent one day, once you were old enough to start school.

I was looking forward to raising you.

In April 1984, however, that changed. It began with a letter in the mail. It was from New York state.

According to the letter, Tomas was pressing to take custody of you. The letter was from a lawyer of his, I remember; it claimed he was in a better financial situation, or something of the sort, although he must have apparently sent the letter supposing that I was a failure. That I couldn't get out.

I had failed that young boy, in the schoolyard. I was still the pretty girl, nice to look at, nice to sleep with, distasteful for marriage. He said he was engaged to a Japanese woman. Someone he truly loved. He wanted a family for his child. He didn't know your name. He didn't even know he had a son.

For some reason, however, I took his bait. Everything in that letter was serious. All of it was important, necessary. I believed what he said – that I couldn't love you, because I wasn't worth enough. After all these thoughts of how useless I had once been, I was back to caving in again. I didn't want to. I swear I never wanted to let you go, Seto. But… I was weak. So I did.

I thought after May, 1984, I would never see you again.

It was a mistake. I knew it almost as soon as you had left for… well, only you can tell me that part of your story now; it is here that our paths diverge. I wallowed in grief for months on end. I lost my job as a waitress because I simply could not control myself. After that I refused to leave my apartment; when my parents shoved me back into their own, I wouldn't come out of the room I was given back.

August, 1984, never was supposed to have come for me. A month previous, I had been irresolutely determined to kill myself. Why would anyone useless need to burden anyone else? I failed you. I failed your father. I failed my own father. What was left to win? But I failed at that, too. And they sent me to a psychotherapist.

… That changed my perspective back to what it had been years before, while I was still in high school and beginning college. He wouldn't say 'yes' to any of my excuses, and yet refused to think I was a failure. He proved to me there was only one way, now that everything could be placed behind me, that I could go. Up. I had to do something to make up for the fact I had lost my way down life's road; looking behind would only keep me further entrenched in the mud and tar that tends to cover up some parts of it. I had to move on. Change. Take vengeance.

I didn't cry when I said goodbye to my parents. My next stop was Paris, France, where I still couldn't find a job, and the rent was ridiculously high. I made fun of myself for thinking it. But that new thrill-seeker in me silenced the figure that had once been me. I decided to cheer myself up. My first post was as a menial street-sweeper in Disneyland Paris. It taught me hard work, physical labor, more than anything else I had done before. Yes, it was boring; gave little pay; and was looked down upon by everyone else, but I had to stay confident. I was at the bottom of my personal economic crisis. My fortunes had to rise.

My superiors quickly noticed me. The 'new recruit'. I began to climb, slowly, surely, inching my way up the corporate ladder. Living was all about achieving power now. The only thing I learned was how to fake my own happiness with an artificial smile. I forgot about my family, I forgot about my past. I forgot about you and your father. C'etait un plaisir cruel.

By 1990, I was working as a secretary in the corporate offices of the park. By 1995, I was (to my excitement) elected to the board, and I grew to become in charge of the relations between my park and the other Disney Parks worldwide. Then, Three years ago came my largest leap: leaving Paris so that I could lead the park in Tokyo, a complete stranger to the life and culture I would find here. I only had one distraction: my father… avec ces yeux si brillants, bleus, et clairs… died of a heart attack right when I wasn't looking, in 1999. I felt horrible with myself for missing his final moments, but by that point working had become a drug I had to have. Nothing was good enough for me anymore; I was plagued by the prospect of returning to the year 1981 once again.

… I never thought I would see you again, Seto. This past Christmas Eve answered the prayers I had had every Christmas eve for almost twenty years. It also confirmed to me, after hearing of your past, that Tomas must have died, the ungrateful bastard. I had regained my fortune, and I had regained my son, and in one of the most fantastic ways possible. I thought you looked familiar to me – the eyes, the hair – and when it all clicked… ohh, c'etait fantastique. And now… this business relationship we built earlier… it was always a crockery. It split us apart.

I want my son back; I can never take back my father. I want back all of my life's treasures, whenever they happened. Hell, I want my life back, and it rests mostly on you. I want my cake and to eat it too.

Mais ce que je veux le plus, c'est que tu m'en croies.

As for wondering if I have any relationship to Disney or the University of Virginia, the answer is no. I've been to both though (the Disney in Orlando, not in Paris.)