Umi was nearly knocked to the ground as her smaller brother launched himself at her.

"Umi! I've missed you!" Yugi cried as he squeezed her tightly.

"Can't. Breath. Yugi." She faux-gasped before he released her, embarrassed.

"Oh, sorry." He apologized.

"It's alright. I was kidding anyway." She grinned at him, thinking how with his size, he could not do much to really hurt her anyway.

"Hey!" he looked at her with a pout as she felt a wave of resentment wash over her. "It's not my fault I'm short." He stuck his tongue out at her teasingly. She was paralyzed for a moment at the force of his anger. I seem to have forgotten just how strongly I can feel him. But she wondered if it was something else. It seemed even stronger than before, but she could not be certain as it had been so long since she had felt his presence. She shook off the feeling and followed him, their mother and grandfather out of the airport.

The game shop and her grandfather's home above it seemed as if it had been frozen in time. Nothing seemed to have changed in the two years since Umi had stepped foot inside the building. Neither had Yugi's excitement for the games that resided there. He pulled her to one of the glass cases as soon as they had entered.

"Umi, look." He pointed to a box of foil wrapped packages. "Grandpa is selling all of these new card games now."

"Wow. They packages are so pretty." She said, admiring the artwork. "So he's getting away from the puzzles and board games?"

"Not entirely, but those just aren't selling like they used to." Solomon said, peering over their shoulders at the new stock. "You two want to open a pack?"

"Father…" Sakura started to scold. "They don't need to be wasting your stock."

"Oh, one or two packs won't be a problem. Besides, with these new games, you trade the cards to build a deck, so having some already opened cards would probably be useful."

"Yeah, Grandpa! Can we?" Yugi's eyes had lit up a the prospect. Umi found herself also looking expectantly at the old man.

"Please, Mom?" She pleaded.

Sakura sighed and nodded, waving her hand dismissively before carrying her bag up the back stairs to the living areas beyond.

The old man slipped behind the case and gave each child one pack of cards. They both tore into them eagerly. Yugi prattled on about game mechanics and how he wanted to figure out how the game worked and the best way to build a deck. Umi just wanted to look at the pretty pictures. Fanning her stack of ten cards out, she saw a myriad of creatures and landscapes in a variety of colors. She had no idea what it all meant, but she was struck by the beauty of the images—angels, dragons, insects and zombies were all beautifully rendered on the small cardboard squares. Yugi, on the other hand, focused in on the numbers and text on the cards, working out how each of the cards could work together or against each other. Apparently, the color of the card was important, she thought as she spread hers out on the top of the glass case. Yugi was trying to show her something he had discovered about the game when she yawned. She looked at the cards, trying to follow what he was saying in his excitement, and a sense of unease grew within her. Something about the cards felt familiar. She could not quite place why or how, but she felt as if she had seen the monsters on them before.

Yugi spent the rest of the night going on and on about the cards and their features. Umi could see his mind working through invisible mechanics, much like she did when she was trying to figure out how something worked. She fiddled with the RC car that she had been trying to fix as he fiddled with the cards. After taking the car apart completely, she found that one of the motors had burned out and would need replacing.

"Grandpa?" she brought him the tiny cylinder. "Is there a place around here that I can get a new one?"

The old man raised an eyebrow at the small object as if he had never seen its like.

"I… well, I don't know, Umi. I'm sure there must be something, but I'm not sure where you could get a new… motor is it?"

She nodded and sighed in disappointment.

"There's no electronics store around?" She asked.

"I'm not sure, but I will look tomorrow, alright?" The old man said gently. She returned to her pile of parts crestfallen. She could feel Yugi's concerned gaze and felt him pressing for answers.

"Kids, it's time for bed." Their mother called to the pair. Umi hurriedly picked up the parts for the car to keep them from getting strewn across the living room floor. Yugi whined as he put his cards away.

"But Grandpa lets me stay up later than this…"

Umi caught the look that her mother had shot their grandfather upon hearing about her brother's bedtime habits.

"Not while I'm here, young man." She said, directing the small boy to his bedroom.

He groaned in annoyance as he acquiesced to his mother's demands. Umi followed him with her box of parts. She followed him into his room and placed the box down on the floor out of the way before crawling into his bed. No one had told her where she was going to be sleeping while they were visiting. Yugi sat in the bed next to her.

"If we're quiet, I bet we can talk for a while before Mom realizes we aren't asleep." She whispered. She felt laughter behind the smile that he gave her.

"Maybe." He replied as the snuggled together. "Are you alright? I'm sure we can find another motor somewhere." He said hopefully as their hands interlocked.

"Yeah. I was just disappointed that it was the part that was broken. It was the one part I don't have a spare of." She felt her eyelids growing heavy. They yawned simultaneously.

"It will be fine… We'll find it…" Yugi said, his voice growing distant as he drifted off to sleep. Umi wanted to fight her exhaustion, but it quickly overtook her. And before too long, the twins were embracing each other in sleep as they had in the womb. As they drifted to sleep, Umi's dreams were filled with vivid visions of Ancient Egypt.

Neferet danced as the sistrums and drums played in the courtyard. She and her many sisters were practicing for the dancing that always accompanied festivals, and the upcoming festival to Hathor was going to have a ton of dancing. She stepped and spun, her arms and small body swaying in time to the beat when loud voices cut through the music. She stopped and turned to the sound. As the discussion continued, she crept closer to hear while remaining hidden among the reeds that lined the edges of the pools.

"But you cannot take him, my Pharaoh. Not yet. He is only five." One of the concubines argued with her father as he strode purposefully through the harem courtyard.

"Yes, Atem is five, which means he is old enough. He will need more training than he can receive here. I will send him to the Lower Palace. He will learn what it takes to be Pharaoh there." Her father was quite commanding, she thought. He turned to her mother—his Great Wife.

"Do you agree?" He asked her directly. She nodded quickly. As the primary wife of the Pharaoh, her opinion held a great weight, even for decisions about children that were not her own.

"And you will need to prepare Neferet as well. She and Atem will marry when he is of age." He added.

"But she is two years older, my Pharaoh. She will have less time to provide an heir." The Great Wife pointed out.

"Yes, but her royal lineage is the most robust." He replied, his eyes shining with a rare look of affection for her mother. Neferet watched the exchange with growing interest. "The people will only accept him with her by his side, you know that."

Her mother nodded.

"I know you are not ready to think about this, to give her up. Neither of you are ready, but the inundation's failure the last couple of years, and the predictions for this year being poor as well, I have to prepare for the future." His voice was heavy with the burden placed upon his shoulders.

"Do you think the people will revolt?" the younger of the two women—Atem's mother and a favored concubine asked.

The pharaoh frowned and his silence made Neferet's belly turn sour. She only knew her father to frown when he was worried, as he was usually quite a jovial man full of laughter.

"You will prepare them both. Atem will leave after the festival." He then strode purposefully from the harem and the frustrated stare of his primary wife. The two women stood in silence after he had left before looking at each other. A small sneeze from across the room startled them both. The younger women then called to her son who had been hiding among the gauzy drapery.

"Atem, come my love. No use in hiding now." A small, brown skinned, skinny boy of five peaked his head from between the curtains. His hair was unruly and untamed despite the best efforts of the women of the harem. Neferet wondered how it stayed so spiky naturally, but then her own hair flowed like water and refused to be bound into the locked style her mother had popularized.

"I was just listening to Father." His small voice mewed as he did as he was bid.

"I know, love." His mother said as she pulled him into an embrace.

"You can come out as well, Neferet." Her own mother commanded. She took a deep breath and stepped out of the bushes with as regal of a bearing as her seven year old frame would allow. Her mother smiled at her proudly.

"You will make a great queen." Neferet beamed at the compliment.

The two weeks flew by, at least it seemed that way to Umi. She and Yugi spent much of their day exploring the park, at least when Yugi did not have school. She met one of Yugi's friends—perhaps his only one, she realized. Tea, Yugi and she had played frequently. She had also managed to get the part she needed to fix her car and spent a day putting it back together. Yugi had weaseled their grandfather out of several more booster packs of cards and spent much of his downtime playing with them. They both, however, had fun driving the car once it had been reassembled. All in all, the time was uneventful, but Umi began dreading separating from her brother again. But before long, she and her mother would leave for Alexandria, and while she loved Egypt like a second home, she found herself wishing more and more that she and Yugi would be able to stay together. She felt that a missing part of her had clicked into place. She just felt better when they were together, despite any arguments they had.

Despite Umi's best attempts, Yugi had still not agreed to travel with her and their mother. His stubbornness proved to be a constant source of frustration for Umi. So it had come as a blessing when one day their mother took Umi out alone, leaving Yugi with their grandfather. They had to renew their passports before they left, Umi knew, and she also knew that her mother wanted to visit the family grave site. Umi was excited to go into the city center for the passport office, but less so for the cemetery. She knew the visit would make her mother sad, and she did not want to be sad.

Besides, she thought, the day was far too nice to spend it in the cemetery.

She would have much preferred a trip to a park or maybe even the countryside. At least someplace that was cooler, maybe with some fountains or something wet she could play in, but her mother insisted. She felt a rivulet of sweat roll down her neck where her long black hair had been secured in a bun. It was too hot, her mother had said, to have it loose. Nor would her mother have allowed her to look less than presentable for her passport photograph. So, despite the heat, Umi had been dressed in stuffy layers and her hair had been coiffed neatly. At least it had been neatly done for the photo. Now in the heat, she could feel herself fading.

At least Mom did not make me wear black, she thought, recalling the last time she had come to the cemetery, which had been for the funeral.

Umi followed her mother through the rows of grave plots, following the twists and turns to reach her family's space of remembrance. She stopped short as a black cat darted across the path between her and her mother. The sleek creature stopped and looked at her before hopping up on the stone barrier that surrounded on plot. It walked on the stones, keeping a pace that kept it between her and her mother. It seems to be going with us.

"Hello, little kitty, little Bast," she started, invoking the name of the Egyptian cat goddess. The cat looked back at her when she spoke.

"Are you going to visit Father too?" she asked the creature. The cat mewed in response, but kept following along with her. As they approached the aisle where her family memorial plot was located, the cat jumped in front of her, scurrying down row on the opposite side from where her mother had turned. Umi stood at the intersection looking from one side to the other, trying to decide if she should follow her mother or the cat. The cat looked back at her and meowed once more.

She followed the cat. Glancing over her shoulder, she saw her mother sit on a bench further down the row as she began her vigil at the graveside. Umi returned her attention to the cat just in time to narrowly avoid running into a boy.

"Oh, I'm sorry." She said, coming to a stop. "Did you see a cat around here?"

She wanted to look around, but she found it difficult to look away from him. He looked a couple of years older than her, and he had the most intense blue eyes she had ever seen. They were bloodshot and red from tears, but despite that, they were shockingly blue. He shook his head and a warm breeze blew down the aisle and Umi smelled incense like one might burn at a funeral. It was only then that she noticed the others behind the boy, all dressed in black. An even younger boy—she thought he looked around four or five, tugged at Mr. Blue Eyes, as she had named him in her head. She thought they must be brothers with how the younger boy was clinging to the older one, even though they looked so different.

Just then, she heard the mewing once more. Both of the boys had heard it too. The adults further down the aisle argued in hushed tones as if they were trying to not disrespect the dead. None of them noticed that the boys had wandered off as the older one cautiously approached the cat. He crouched down, beckoning to the creature who blended into the shadows. Slowly, the cat approached the boy with the blue eyes and rubbed its head against his hand. Umi crouched next to him and put her hand out. The cat happily walked a figure eight between the two outstretched hands, rubbing its face and body over them, purring. The younger boy tried to touch the cat as well, but the suddenness of his movements frightened the creature, who darted back to the shadows. Umi tried to reach for it as it darted away, her hand brushing his as he did the same. She jumped at the touch, which went through her like a jolt. The wind blew once more, but the scents it carried had changed. She still smelled incense, but it was the heady smell of frankincense, myrrh and lotus that brought Egypt to her mind. She shook her head to clear it as the cat scampered off. She watched the little incarnation of the goddess disappear, only to feel the intensity of the boy's gaze return to her.

She met his eyes once more and felt that she wanted to say something, but before she could, the adults in the distance had finally noticed the missing boys and were calling them back. The younger of the two scurried as quickly as the cat had, while the older one held her gaze a moment longer before walking stiffly, reluctantly, back to the group. She wondered what had caused such reluctance when she felt her mother's hand on her shoulder.

"Umi. Were you interrupting?" her mother asked sternly.

"What? No. There was a cat…" she began to explain as her eyes wandered back to the funeral in progress and the boy with the intense blue eyes.

"Come on. It's time to go. Yugi and your grandfather will start to worry if we do not get home soon."

Umi let her mother lead her by the shoulders out of the cemetery. The entire walk back to the entrance Umi thought she smelled the lingering scent of herbs, incense, and desert sand.

Yugi had been working to solve the puzzle from the golden box before Umi had left with their mother that morning. When they returned, she was not surprised to see him still working on the puzzle. He had not made any headway and she could feel his frustration rolling off of him like waves upon the shore.

"Bad day?" Umi asked as she sat next to him on the couch.

"I think I finally met my match. I'm never going to figure this thing out." He put the pieces he had been holding back in the box and leaned heavily back against the cushions. He glared at the golden box before pushing it across the table with his foot, angrily.

"Oh, come on, Yugi. If what Grandpa says is true, no one's solved that puzzle in five thousand years! I would expect at least a couple of weeks would be needed to figure it out." She held out a Ramune for him. He smiled as he took it and popped the ball down to access the sweet sweet liquid inside.

"I guess you're right. Still, it's frustrating."

"What did Dad always say? 'Nothing worth doing was ever easy'?" Umi popped the ball down on her own bottle and took a long gulp. "Oh man, I will miss these."

"You wouldn't have to if you stayed." Yugi pointed out. They had been going back and forth for the entire visit like this: Yugi trying to convince her to stay, and she trying to convince him to go.

"But then I wouldn't get to see Abu Simbel. The temple there is amazing in pictures. I can't wait to see it in person!" She picked up her journal from the table next to his puzzle and thumbed through the pages.

"See? And at dawn on certain times of the year, the sun hits the statues inside, like this." She showed him, turning the pages to show the exterior and interior of the temple. She had drawn them from memory of the pictures she had stared at for hours. "They actually moved the temple, did you know? Because when they put in the dam here," she turned to a map she had sketched, also from memory. "It flooded the original site, but the temple was so beautiful and so important that they moved the whole thing! I wish I could have seen that." Her voice was filled with awe, making Yugi smile sadly. He realized that the one thing stronger than their twin bond was her fascination with ancient engineering. She continued to talk about the wonders she would see in Egypt with their mother in a few days and over the course of her remaining summer vacation. He was jealous that she had such a long break. He had been in school the entire time she had been visiting, so they had made the most of the time after school. He wished that she would visit again when their breaks lined up, but he knew his mother's work on the digs usually ran through July and August, when he was out. She flipped through the journal, showing him the schematics of the tombs in the Valley of the Kings and her sketches of some of the wall reliefs.

"Yugi, I would love to show them all to you for real." Her eyes pleaded with him to go exploring with her. He looked back to the puzzle.

"I… can't." He said, softly though he could still not give her a good reason as to why.

"Umi. You need to pack your bag, sweetie." Her mother called from where she was preparing dinner in the kitchen. Umi put the notebook down, sighing as she stomped off to the room she had shared with her brother during the trip.

Curious, Yugi picked up the notebook and flipped through the pages. His sister's drawings were good, not great, but he could see the love she had put into them, the dedication to detail she had when sketching out things. He flipped past the many pages of architectural details of temples and tombs until the image of a monster caught his eye. It looked familiar, like one of the designs on the new cards he had gotten from his grandfather. He continued through the book, staring at the pages of hieroglyphs in both awe and confusion. He knew that only his sister had used the notebook, but the pictorial text looked as if it had been drawn by a far more practiced hand. Even the style had shifted from Umi's childlike—despite the detail and intention—scribbles to far more skilled work.

Looking at the pictograms, he was reminded of the nights he had woken to her speaking in her sleep. He could not make out the words; they had seemed to be gibberish at the time, as is common with dreams, but now he was not so sure. He remembered evenings when they had all four been a family, of crawling in his father's lap as his parents discussed translations of ancient texts. The sounds were buried deep within his memories, but he was sure some of the sounds they had discussed were what he had heard when Umi spoke in her dreams. Flipping further through the book, passed the hieroglyphs, Yugi came across more drawings—people this time. He thought it odd as Umi hardly ever drew people. Buildings, vehicles and other machines were her usual subjects, but the style of drawing was definitely more like Umi's than whoever had drawn the hieroglyps. One sketch drew his eye above all. It was a skinny boy with spiky hair, dressed in the clothing of a prince or king. It stood out to him, because he felt as if he were looking in the mirror. Yugi chuckled at the sketch that was obviously another attempt to have him go with her.

As the twins hugged each other tightly in the airport, they both felt hot tears sliding over their cheeks. Neither wanted to part, but neither did they want to show the other that they could not stand on their own. They had their own adventures waiting, and they were excited to share them with each other when they met once more.

Despite the tears, they smiled at each other as Umi boarded the plane. Like before, Yugi stood at the window watching the plane taxi and take off. He stood there until the plane was not longer visible in the sky and even longer than that until he could no longer even feel her presence.

I love you, Umi. Until next time, he thought.

Until next time, Yugi.

He felt her reply through the distance, and he knew that she had been hanging on to him as long as she could too.