Only a week after he was discharged from the hospital, Ryou came down with a fever. He was still covered in nasty bruises, but at least the cuts on his arms seemed to be healing well. He was sentenced to bed-rest until his fever was gone, which left him with plenty of time to think about Amaya, regret everything, and reach the point where he utterly and completely hated his life.

Bakura had, surprisingly enough, left Ryou alone since the incident with Melvin. As such, Marik and the spirit were getting rather restless. Just watching movies together without being able to physically touch each other just wasn't enough. Ryou felt deeply ashamed to realize that the spirit that periodically possessed him had a more successful love life than he did. It was just another handful of salt being rubbed into his emotional wounds.

They'd both been surprisingly helpful while he was recovering, which he chalked up to their shared sense of guilt. Marik hadn't been careful enough to keep Melvin subdued, and Bakura had allowed himself to be trapped inside his soul room. If he'd been watching over Ryou, rather than hiding in his soul room, he would've been able to stop Melvin before anything had happened.

It didn't change the fact that he felt worse than he ever had before in his whole life. He was quickly spiraling downward towards the darkest shadows. After a few days of illness, Ryou's fever still hadn't broken, and he was feeling completely wretched. Bakura and Marik were settling down to watch a movie that evening when Ryou stumbled out of his room wearing a hoodie.

"Ryou? Is everything alright?" Marik asked worriedly.

"Yes, I'm fine, I just need some fresh air and to stretch my limbs a bit. I'm going for a walk, but I'll be back in ten minutes or so. Don't worry about me, I'll be fine!" Ryou managed to fake a half-smile and a semi-cheerful voice.

"Okay, but don't push yourself too hard. Try keeping it to five minutes, so that you don't tire out too quickly."

"Sure thing! See you later!" Ryou responded somewhat breathily, still feigning cheerfulness. Bakura remained silent, staring at Ryou intently. Ryou had a feeling that Bakura could see through his ruse, but if he could read his mind, he would've said something by now.

Ryou felt relieved to be out from under that intense gaze. Once outside, he began to walk towards the Domino Bridge. He pulled the hood up on his sweatshirt to hide his black eye and his hair, his most distinguishing features. The bruise would draw unwanted attention, and right now, he just wanted to disappear. If he hadn't gotten a black eye from Melvin, he wouldn't have needed the hoodie, because nobody would have recognized him anyway, let alone cared about what he was doing or where he was going.

When he arrived at the bridge, it was sunset, the street lamps just starting to come on. A brisk wind blew over the water, and as Ryou stood by the edge of the bridge, it blew fiercely enough to throw off Ryou's hood. He closed his eyes for a moment as the breeze tugged at his hair, then opened them again to watch the sunset. The sky was fiery with amber, crimson, and indigo, the purest, most vivid colors he'd ever seen. The brilliant reds and yellows faded into dusky blues and blacks until the sun had completely sunk beneath the horizon.

This was the moment Ryou had been waiting for. With difficulty, he climbed onto the railing at the edge of the bridge, holding onto a lamppost for support as he carefully balanced on the narrow fence railing. He stared down at the water, swallowing hard. He was still shaking all over from the fever that raged within his body, so he was already unstable at best.

It wouldn't take much for him for to lose his balance and plummet into the cold, choppy waters of the harbor. That wasn't really a problem, though: he was here to jump, after all. He was taking a deep breath, bracing himself to do just that, when he heard his name. He froze. Who could it possibly be?

He half-turned to see Kaiba's bride running towards him from across the street. She looked concerned. That made sense. She stopped several feet away from him, silent for a minute, as if unsure of how to proceed. Then, she simply took a step forward and held out a hand to help him down. He hesitated, then took her hand, gritting his teeth in pain as he stumbled off the fence railing. She caught him as he stumbled, catching sight of his black eye for the first time.

"Ryou, what happened?" she whispered in shock. Then she noticed how red his face was. She pressed her hand to his forehead, and exclaimed, "You're burning up! Come on, let's get your sweatshirt off and I'll get you home."

Ryou tried to resist her taking the sweatshirt off, but he was too weak after the long walk to the bridge. That meant that she saw the bandages wrapped thickly around his forearms. He was shaking, and Akira made him sit down on the bench. While Ryou sat, clutching at his ribs, she texted Seto: "A crisis has come up. I'll have to miss dinner tonight."

"What's your address, Ryou? You need to rest."

"Can't… go home," he gasped out, sounding pained. The way he clutched at his chest, his abdomen, she suspected that there was further physical damage she couldn't see. That didn't include the psychological and emotional damage he must be suffering if he was driven to the edge of a bridge like this.

"Then you're coming home with me," she decided. "I'm not leaving you here." She felt her phone buzz in her pocket and took it out.

Seto had responded: "What happened?"

She quickly typed back a response: "Had to stop a suicide attempt. I'm bringing Bakura home with me. Don't worry. Love you."

Seto looked at the message, perplexed. Bakura? How was he involved in this? He wanted to ask, but if she was handling someone who'd been in the process of attempting to take their own life, then he knew better than to distract her with questions. He'd find out later, anyways.

"Love you too."

"Alright, come on," Akira said gently, helping Ryou to his feet. "It's not far, and once we get there, we can talk."

Ryou nodded silently, his face twisted in pain. What hell was he suffering? She wondered. She'd find out soon enough.

When she got him to their home, Mokuba was in the kitchen doing homework. He looked up, shocked at what he saw, even more shocked than Akira had been. "Mokuba, get an ice-pack from the freezer then put the kettle on." The boy was too stunned to protest, obeying his sister-in-law immediately.

Akira got Ryou on the couch, helping him into a lying position. She accepted the ice pack from Mokuba, who then scampered back into the kitchen to turn the stove on. She put the ice pack in Ryou's hand and guided it to his black eye, which was the only visible bruise.

"Mokuba, please bring me a cold compress," she said, still calm and composed. She knew that she needed to keep her cool if Ryou and Mokuba were to remain calm.

She accepted the compress from Mokuba and applied it to Ryou's forehead. Then she stood and guided Mokuba back into the kitchen. "Mokuba, can you please take your homework upstairs to your room?" she whispered. He nodded, and began gathering up his things. He hesitated at the base of the stairs, looking back at Akira with a worried expression. She bent down and kissed his forehead. "Everything will be fine, don't worry. Just go do your homework, and I'll let you know when dinner's ready." He nodded, looking somewhat reassured, then dutifully went upstairs to complete his assignments. Then she returned to Ryou's side, deeply concerned for her friend.

"Where else are you hurt?" she asked gently, sitting on the coffee table to face him.

"A couple broken ribs," he managed, with great difficulty. "More bruises."

"Can I look?" she asked hesitantly. She wasn't a physician, but she was trained in basic first aid and CPR certified. She liked to be prepared to help her patients in any situation.

He nodded, and she reached forward to unbutton his shirt. When she was done, she could just sit back and stare in horror at what had been done to him. "Do you need some Advil?" was all she could think to say. It would help with both the pain and his fever. He nodded and buttoned his shirt back up while she went to fetch it from the medicine cabinet, bringing it with a glass of water and two cups of tea on a tray she set down on the coffee table. She helped him sit up so that he could take the medicine, then remained at his side. He couldn't meet her gaze, and this made her fear all the more for his wellbeing.

"Ryou, what happened?" she asked in a whisper, afraid to hear the answer.

His shoulders shook as he started to cry, and she put her arm around his shoulder. He ended up curled on his side with his head in her lap. She let him cry all he needed to, catching snippets of explanation here and there as she stroked his hair, shoulders, and back, trying to comfort him as best she could.

Amaya had left him recently, but she didn't know why. There was a certain "he" that he kept referring to without name, and it would seem that this "he" had been a long-time abuser of Ryou. A man named "Malik" had assaulted Ryou in a moment of weakness. It was in describing these details that Ryou faltered and blushed the most, and Akira was able to read between the lines, hear what he didn't say. She'd had enough experience with rape victims and victims of domestic abuse to see the signs. Her heart swelled with pity for him, and it was all she could do to keep from sobbing herself. As it was, she did shed a few tears, but she still needed to be calm. If she wasn't calm, she couldn't help him.

When he had finally gotten his emotions out of his system, she coaxed him into drinking some herbal tea—a favorite flavor they shared—and got him to lie down and rest while she got dinner started for the three of them. Seto was eating at the office tonight; she and Seto had made plans for her to have dinner with him at the office with him, and normally these were the kinds of plans that never got canceled, no matter what. But Ryou's life had been more important, and she felt herself missing Seto as she stirred a pot of chicken noodle soup.

While she let that boil and simmer, she handed Ryou the teddy bear she had gotten for the Kaiba brothers for the sake of emotional expression and comfort. With a smile, she said, "You look like you could use something to hug right now."

He gave her a faint half-smile. "Thank you," he said softly, hugging the teddy bear to his chest.

"Do you need to spend the night here?" she asked gently. "I can put you up in one of the guest rooms."

"I'd hate to impose…" he began falteringly, but she silenced him after that.

"Ryou, you need help. I'm not going to turn you out when you need me. Not when things are this bad." She leaned in and kissed his forehead, just as she had for Mokuba. She saw that it had made him smile, and that cheered her. "I'll go get the room ready for you. The soup should be ready when I'm done."

With those words and a smile, she left to do as she'd said she'd do, then, when she returned, she served the three bowls of soup, bringing one to Ryou before bringing one up to Mokuba.

She knocked on his door and waited for his answer before entering the room. "Hi Mokuba, how's your homework going?"

"It's going pretty well. I'm almost done with my math, and I finished the reading earlier," he responded in his usual cheerful manner.

"That's good. If you need help with anything, let me know, and I'll do what I can to get you through it. At least I'm still able to help with your homework. Once you get to high school and start taking calculus, you'll have to ask your brother, because I am positively useless for any sort of advanced math." She smiled at him warmly, setting down the bowl of soup on the nightstand as she moved to sit beside him on the bed.

"Thank you for dinner, Akira," he said sweetly, giving her a tight hug. She smiled and returned the hug, playing with his hair a little as she did so.

"I think you need another hair cut, mister," she chided maternally, and Mokuba screwed up his face at the thought. He was silent for a minute, though, and he seemed reluctant to let go of her. "Is something wrong, Mokuba?"

"How's Bakura?" he asked quietly. Seeing their mutual friend in such a state had shaken him up quite a bit, it seemed.

"He's going to be alright, Mokuba," she answered slowly, choosing her words with care. "He's just sad and hurt and sick all at once, and that's a hard thing to go through. It's times like that when you need your friends the most, so it's a good thing that he's here to see me."

When Seto finally came home late that night, Akira was only half asleep. She was quickly wakened by her husband's sweet, eager kiss, and she soon had her arms around his lean frame.

"How was your day?" he finally asked when he broke the kiss to let her breathe.

"Oh, Dear, I'm so worried about Ryou," she whispered, tears flooding her eyes. Seto stroked her hair gently, a concerned look on his face.

"Do you want to talk about it?" he asked cautiously. He knew that she took the doctor-patient privilege very seriously, but there were some things she could say even so.

Quickly becoming very emotional, she nodded, taking a few deep breaths to calm herself. "Seto, Ryou looks like he was used as a human punching bag," she began grimly, choking up already, her first tear betraying the depth of her disturbance. Now that she had started, she was too overwhelmed to stop. "He has bruises on his neck from being choked, his forearms are plastered with bandages, and he has broken ribs that he went to the hospital for. He has a fever and is almost underweight. When I found him, he was going to jump off the bridge downtown. What was he thinking? Why didn't he come to me? He knows he can talk to me about anything." Seto put his arms around her as she started to cry, letting her sob against him.

This had happened a couple of times before, when Akira became so overwhelmed with emotion after listening to certain stories from her patients, she needed to weep to let all of the emotions out. This time, because it was her friend who was in trouble, it was worse. Seto was always there to silently reassure her, not telling her to stop crying or to get over herself, but understanding what she needed to do. Of course, she couldn't cry in front of Mokuba; she didn't want to risk upsetting him over nothing. Her deep empathy was both a blessing and a curse as a therapist, but she knew that there was no other profession for her.

"I don't know what I'm going to do about him," she sobbed. "I'd call Amaya, but he told me they're not together anymore, and I don't know if he'd want me to. I can't figure out why they're separated though. He kept mentioning these two people that were hurting him, but I don't even have a name for one of them. He called the other one Malik."

Seto stiffened noticeably, and Akira lifted her head, perplexed. "Seto, what's wrong? Do you know who Malik is?"

He was silent for a moment as he grabbed a tissue and started to dry her tears. He'd never told her of the Millennium Items or the strange events that centered around them. He'd never thought that he would need to. Then he sighed and began the long, confusing explanation of it all. She deserved to know, and knowing would help her help Ryou. He only hoped that she believed him, especially since he hardly believed them himself.