So... I'm kinda more interested in rewriting "Without You" than I am in working on "Golden" right now. :/

Disclaimer: I don't own Yu-Gi-Oh! Gx.

Chapter One: Three Years Later

A duel spirit strode through the cheery afternoon sunlight with a slight frown on his face. Male, young, and strong, he kept one beaten hand on his broadsword while the other hefted his heavy shield. As he clanked down the revived village, his dark eyes swept the faces of curious citizens, looking for the flames that had claimed their village not so long ago.

"Burgundy?"

He turned and saw a petite blonde lean out of her hut. A smile broke out on her face and she ran to embrace him. Awkward, he released his weapons and caught the laughing woman. His fingers fumbled over the harp on her back, forcing a high pitched whine from the instrument.

"Claret?" Burgundy asked. "Then it's true that everyone's back?"

She smiled as an answer, but paused at the stone in his expression. "What do you intend to do, Burgundy?"

He looked over the restored village once more. The buildings were lustrous under the blinding blue sky and rosy cheeks spread throughout its inhabitant. Flowers bloomed and weeds grew for the first time since the Golden Age. Darkness had fled from their world, leaving it blanketed in peace and serenity.

"I'm going to find whoever saved us and thank him," Burgundy replied.

"Or her," Claret teased. She touched his bare chest with a pale hand. "Just be careful, my great defender."

He took her hand in his own, and held it between his tough palms. "I will."

Claret nodded and dashed away, chasing down young children and scooping them into her arms. Burgundy watched her until she flitted indoors before starting on his journey. By his stance, passersby knew where he was going and that failure was never an option.

A world away, Alexis twitched out of her dream with a tickling on her nose. A stray leaf had found its way onto her face during her surprise nap. She flicked the offending piece of nature off and stretched her aching muscles, causing ungraded papers to fall from her lap and onto the blanket she had spread out before the sun had lulled her to sleep.

Alexis had a long list of things to do to Jaden once he came home, but "smack the hell outta him" was moving up through the ranks daily. She had dreamed of the Dark World, the very memories she had come out here to escape. She muttered to herself as she collected the worksheets she had attempted to grade. They fluttered weakly in the breeze, but stayed stuck under her skirt and briefcase. Praising small miracles, she wiped nature from her blonde hair and turned towards the sun, praying for another.

Three years had passed since Jaden Yuki went missing.

She stuffed the papers into her case and closed it, much as the police had. To the world of idiotic law enforcers, Jaden was long dead. Her old group of friends had slaved over the case as it turned from disappearance to possible murder, answered all the questions with outrage, and then watched the Yukis shift their focus elsewhere. The last anyone heard they were moving their search to America on the off chance Jaden missed his target coming home.

With a sigh, Alexis gussied up in the reflection of her cases' lock. Strands of dirty blonde hair were orbiting around her head like planets. Grimacing, she licked her palms and straightened herself out. There was certain etiquette a good teacher had to follow at Duel Academy, even if a traditional education program was not one of them. American College had been passed up for a chance to be tutored by Dr. Crowler and become a teacher here. It was her first year, and she was finding more challenges than rewards.

Most of which came from her dimwit of a brother.

Satisfied with her appearance, Alexis checked her blue watch and found she still had an hour before the big duel started. Already, Atticus would be camping in her room, back from his tour around Europe with no news on Jaden and an endless stream of potential suitors. Joy. Grumbling, she slipped into her dull heels and gathered the picnic blanket into her lap.

A headache was coming on.

Atticus had no boundaries when it came to romance. Whenever he visited, he spent half of his time convincing his sister to date Chazz and the other half her "exotic teacher friend" Jesse Anderson. Jesse was horribly amused by the entire thing, putting his arms on his hips and exaggerating his accent whenever the opportunity arose. If he hadn't come back to Duel Academy for the same reason she had, then he would be wearing black along with his blue graduate blazer.

Alexis had ditched her own uniform as soon as possible, intent on burning the sexist thing. Then Shepherd had gone and hung Jaden's picture in the Slifer Dorm, and she lost her nerve. Clothing was more than fabric to the students that went here: it was rank, entitlement, power, and to those who knew best, memories. That tit-show of a uniform dug memories of Jaden in deep: from his rough touches to his soft brown eyes. It spent days chasing after him, an illusion at best.

What Atticus failed to realize was that she hadn't finished her chase. Jaden had stolen something from her, and she had to get it back.

Alexis scratched at her chest as the teacher dorm came into view. During a rather zealous campaign against his memories of the Shadow Riders, Atticus had shoved a bunch of money down Shepherd's throat to demolish the abandoned dorm and rebuild a proper building. It became the teacher's dorm, and rather than spook Atticus away, he was always parked on her couch, sorting through mail and channel surfing.

He was doing exactly that when Alexis walked through the front door, but he had a guest.

"Hey," Jesse greeted. He was upside down on the couch, his legs slung over the back as he stroked his invisible lap-Carbuncle. His emerald eyes glittered behind his long sea-green bangs, and she could've sworn he winked.

Atticus popped up from the cushions. "Lexi!"

He leapt at her as if she'd been gone for months instead of minutes. A smack on the ribs seemed like a good approach, and the relief of release was enough to excuse the betrayed look her brother shot her afterwards. "G-Good to see you, too, Sissy."

She flung her briefcase in the general direction of the kitchen counter and wandered over to Jesse. He was unabashed as she leaned over the couch at him, judging his presence with crossed arms.

"I promise not to hug ya," he assured.

She flipped his legs over the couch, but he wormed his way to the corner seat without breaking a sweat, cradling Ruby all the way. Routine was making her slow. "Make sure your animals don't eat the furniture."

He chuckled as Atticus got his second wind. In a flash of brown hair and tight clothing, Atticus was buzzing behind them with letters and date invitations from men across the globe. To escape, she grabbed one envelope from his hand and scolded him to read the others, unleashing Crowler's teacher eye technique. He cowered and tucked himself into the opposite corner of the couch, leaving her the hump seat. Fantastic.

Jesse feigned innocence as he flipped through the channels towards the big duel. Alexis took advantage of the lull to devour the letter, picking information from the brains of Jim and Hassleberry. Dust and dinosaurs bones littered the letter, oozing happiness and success on their expedition across the world. There was no news otherwise, just well wishes from their dear old friends from Duel Academy.

She forced the letter down and closed her eyes, willing back resentment. It was wrong to feel anything but joy to see they were moving on underneath the wide horizons of Egypt while she sat in her modest apartment under the very roof where Jaden had first saved her. She opened her eyes to the new blue tiling and breathed for a private moment.

"So where'd you run off to?" Jesse asked, reminding her how very public she was. He was easier to talk to without her brother between them, but there was so much of Jaden in his smile that her answers rocketed off their orbits at random.

"Into the woods to grade papers," she replied, fishing for a pen in her pocket.

He moaned. "It never ends does it? How much did you finish?"

She hooked a red one and flipped Jim's letter over. A few sentences trickled out before she answered, reaching for a response that wouldn't bleed her feelings across the page. "I fell asleep after the first ten."

"Hope the dreams were worth it," Jesse chuckled. "It took me nearly three hours to finish all of mine."

Alexis wanted to crumple the letter or rip it to shreds. There was nothing to say on her end but bitter disappoints: no, Jaden was not here, no, nothing new had happened, no, she was not alright.

Alexis put the pen down and pushed the paper into Atticus. He complained. She ignored him. Three years of practice.

But Jesse was insistent, staring at her with those big green eyes. She couldn't hurtle out of sight under his watch, so she muttered the only thing that would get him off her back. "I dreamed about the Dark World."

The warmth went right out of him. His mouth and hand were frozen mid-click while an advertisement for trading cards blared out. The catchy, worn-out jingle rang between them for the duration of the commercial, attempting to distract them from the stark landscape of Jaden's grave with bright colors and Duel Monster packs.

"Oh," was all he managed. Jesse turned his head and frowned into the television screen, mulling over whatever useless condolence was running through his mind. Alexis braced for the same insistence that Atticus, Chazz, and everyone on the goddamned planet was giving her: Alexis, you're young, beautiful, and intelligent; you know Jaden would want you to move on.

Instead, he closed his eyes and said, "I still dream about it, too."

Alexis swallowed the agitation in her throat. Forgetting that the Dark World had bent Jesse was always too easy. His bright smiles and optimism dampened whatever memories she had of his possession, and of Jaden's unrelenting chase to save him.

"Stop moping, lovebirds, it's starting!" Atticus interrupted as loud as possible. Jesse jumped, Alexis glared, and Atticus grinned at the embarrassment on her face, misplacing sympathy for the old transfer student as romance.

Jesse turned up the volume, obviously grateful for the distraction while Alexis settled into the hump seat, reading the tourney board on the Pro Circuit's channel. The boys cheered as they read Chazz' and Syrus' names on the final bracket, about to face off for the first time in their careers. They looked confident in their portraits: Chazz all smirks and snobbish arrogance while Syrus stared at the screen with small determination. Alexis fiddled with the seam of her couch cushion, wondering what her blue-haired friend would look like if Jaden were around.

But the boys could care less. They jumped in their seats at the start of every turn, cheering out encouragements to whoever was down, and trash-talking whoever was in the lead. Chazz was bold and declarative with every turn, earning the respect of his mentor Atticus, while Syrus was reserved and careful, sparking memories of the first-year student who wailed when sneaking in the Girl's Dorm.

Alexis hid her smile behind her hand on the last turn, sizing up the field with Jesse while Atticus continued to whoop for his protégé. Syrus' Roid and Power-Bond based deck hadn't helped him much under the assault of Chazz' Ojama's, and it looked like their snooty friend was going to take his first tourney win.

"It's all over," Jesse declared, leaning back into the couch cushions.

"It's too bad," she chimed in. "Syrus played well."

Jesse laughed, a sound so similar to Jaden's it made her skin crawl. "Yeah, and that's why he's gonna win."

She raised an eyebrow at the transfer. Jesse may have an unprecedented knack for dueling strategy; hence his area of teaching, but there was no way Chazz would lose this one. "Are we watching the same duel?"

"Are we?" He stuck his tongue out. "Chazz may have his XYZ Cannon on the field, but he's got no face-downs while Sy has two. Sy also has more cards in his hand and has yet to bring out Power bond. Plus, Chazz has a long-standing record of chocking on the last turn."

Some of his smile had faded as he analyzed the situation. Sure enough, our little bluenette friend finished the duel with a facedown and a special ability, causing Jesse to sigh in disappointment rather than cheer on his prediction, something he had been doing frequently in recent years.

"Chaaaaaazzz, whhhhhhyyyy?" Atticus wailed at the screen, grabbing the remote from Jesse's hand and clicking the TV off with dramatic flair. He flung the remote off into the corner of her apartment and rose, holding his fist to the sky. "I must console my protégé!"

He was out the door and down the hall on his phone before either teacher could rise from the couch. Jesse snorted and kicked up as well, scooping an invisible duel-spirit off the coffee table and heading for the door. There was still some tension in his shoulders as he walked away. "I'll make sure he doesn't disturb the students."

"Wait, Jesse," Alexis said, surprising them both. He paused in the doorframe, looking back with wide green eyes. She lost her nerve, grabbed the pile of letters Atticus had abandoned on the couch ledge, and pushed them into her coworker's already duel-spirit full hands. "Atticus forgot these."

Jesse glanced down at the letters in confusion before looking back at her, noting her too-steely expression and wobbling fingers. "Alexis, are you—?"

Atticus wailed once more, lamenting the fate of Chazz in a voice far too loud and dramatic for a lazy Sunday afternoon. Jesse cringed, shot Alexis an embarrassed apology, and ducked into the hall as if Atticus was his crazy brother that needed discipline, not hers. She frowned and closed the door after him, resting her pounding forehead on the painted wood.

The Alexis from three years ago would've been down that hall, throwing paintings or end tables at Atticus until he quit his hissy fit. The Alexis from three years ago would've cheered alongside her friends, siding against her crazy suitor Chazz and egging on Jesse. And the Alexis from three years ago certainly wouldn't be hiding behind her door at the thought of confronting Jesse about some Dark World dreams.

But like she had for three years, Alexis turned away from the commotion outside and wandered deeper into her apartment, hugging her arms instead of a duel disk. The briefcase full of ungraded papers taunted a headache out of her as she passed, opting instead to visit the cool darkness of her bedroom down the hall. She peeled off the jacket from Duel Academy's teacher uniform and laid it across her desk chair, carefully pushing the creases out of the material. Too much had been sacrificed for her to wear this material to leave it huddled in a wrinkling corner.

Alexis marched over to her bed and flopped down, determined to nap through whatever chaos her brother would cause and ignore the nags of her former self to go out and stop him. There were still papers to grade, and if she was going to waste any time today, it was going to be on clearing her mind to make sure her students were handled properly, not on chasing down a psychotic brunette pop star.

Determined, Alexis closed her eyes to the wailing around her and surrendered to sleep.

On cue, Burgundy ran through the rain towards cold town in the colder night. Without the light of the blue comet to guide him, he stumbled against rocks and roots, cursing their salvation for the second time that day. There was no denying the urgency that came in his footfalls, and his ragged breath signaled that his dash had been arduous. Worrisome further was the crumpled body huddled against his heaving chest, returning none of the gasps with its own mouth.

Burgundy dashed into the first house that he came upon, calling the name of Claret. The young woman dashed down the stairs in her nightgown and tumbled towards the distressed man. He turned so that she could see who was held in his arms and the air in her lungs left quicker than if someone had punched her in the stomach.

"Isn't that-?" Claret started.

"Yes," Burgandy nodded, placing the figure down on the hay were Jim 'Crocodile' Cook had been not even seven days ago. Claret bent beside the boy and gently stroked the brown hair out of his face. His skin was as cold as the night to the touch, and her ministrations earned no reactions from the unconscious teen.

Burgundy stood tense behind them, fingering his broadsword in consideration. "I'll get help."

"No, I will," Claret offered. She turned to him, pulling herself up with his bicep. "You need rest Burgandy. Would you please just watch over him?"

Burgandy nodded, but kept his hand firmly on his weapon.

"He doesn't seem right," the spirit of Staunch Defender told her. "He just doesn't seem to be completely... human."

"Neither are we," Claret's voice was hard, but her touch remained gentle on his arm. "We can interrogate him when he wakes up."

Burgundy grunted, but loosened his hold on his broadsword and dropped to the ground, staring at the boy on the cot like an enemy. Claret's arms swung around his shoulders in thanks and vanished, sliding off him like the wind and whirling away into the dark night. His skin was cool without her touch, but his eyes were colder as they looked on the still figure below him.

The face he knew from the photograph Jim Cook had provided, but the deck cradled in the boy's duel disk was a sight more familiar to him—a sight that had taken the cold nights and burned them to the ground.

Thanks for reading!
And don't be alarmed—I'm taking down all of the old chapters of this story and rewriting them, tweaking them slightly and changing certain things altogether. But the plot's the same, just bumped up instead of taking, like, ten chapters to get to it.

Feel free to tell me your thoughts on how this redo's going. I'd love to know:

1) Do you like this better than the original so far? :D
2) What confused you in the original?
3) Anything you hated/loved in the original the you want to get rid of/keep?

Thanks again for reading guys and gals! Your comments really encourage me to keep writing. X3

~AxJfan