III

That night Elle is absent during dinner. Jounouchi pushes some vegetables around on his plate; Mokuba is staring at him with a mix of sympathy and confusion. Jounouchi considers a juicy chunk of roast beef but can't bring himself to put it in his mouth. "I'm sorry for laughing."

"I'm not mad." Mokuba has managed to eat about half of his dinner but otherwise appears to be in the same state as Jounouchi. "Would you consider niisama's old job?" Jounouchi looks up at him, and Mokuba rushes to explain, "No, not for real, but publicly. It's not that I don't trust you, but it's not your forte. It seems... Well, it's just you and me now. I want people to know that you're still family."

Just them. Jounouchi laughs again, but his eyes water. He doesn't want to talk about this, not now, not with Mokuba, not ever. But he has to. "There's something we wanted to tell you." His hands are shaking. Kaiba had actually smiled when he debated how to tell Mokuba. "I wanted him to do it."

#

Michael's uncle did some encryption in Kaiba's software department. He found himself the unwitting legal guardian of a four-year-old boy - Kaiba had overheard him talking on the phone with social services late one evening. "Giving up," Kaiba told Jounouchi when he recounted the event. "He actually thought it was going to be best to release Michael into the system, like throwing back a fish."

"You've never fished a day in your life."

"You're missing the point," Kaiba had said, sitting at his desk and tapping his fingertips on the desk. "Katsuya, I want to meet him. It feels right."

"Feels right?"

Kaiba nodded, and Jounouchi agreed - he would never deny Kaiba his feelings.

Secretly, Jounouchi didn't get his hopes up. They had talked about adopting before with so little success, even when things were nearly perfect in their mid-thirties. Kaiba needed it to be perfect. They had both understood so little about good parenting as they grew up that they knew that they couldn't go into halfhearted.

When they met Michael, with his startling blue eyes and dishwater hair, it all finally seemed perfect.

#

"Now?" Mokuba says it like he's been punched in the nuts, and Jounouchi thinks that Kaiba would have done it better. "Isn't it too late for this? I thought you'd decided not to."

"I know, but... We figured there was at least another forty years in us."

"Yeah." Mokuba exhales. "When were you going to..."

"When we... we were going to bring him home after the wedding. We didn't want to spring it on you like this." Jounouchi looks at a far wall and wonders what he'll say to Michael's uncle. He doesn't want to - it mattered to Kaiba, but Kaiba is cold in the morgue and Jounouchi doesn't want to do it without him. "It doesn't matter anymore."

The silence stretches until Mokuba, staring down at his food, breaks it softly: "Do you think we should bury niisama here or in California?"

Wherever I can be near him, Jounouchi wants to say. Without Kaiba there to lead him he doesn't know where to go, what to do – Kaiba was the beat to his drum for so long that Jounouchi barely remembers how to play.

The house in California was always too big, even when there were two of them, but it had been home. But so had Domino, where they met and where they fell... "Here," Jounouchi says. If he doesn't decide now he'll never decide, and these things have to be done. Kaiba had never been one for procrastination. "I think I'll stay."

"Will your son be able to adjust?"

Jounouchi shakes his head; he doesn't want to say it out loud. He wants to go along a little longer, to pray that he'll wake up from this nightmare at any second. "He'll find another nice family. I'll see to it."

For the first time since Jounouchi's return Mokuba looks angry, and he can glare as hard as Kaiba ever had. "You should keep him. He was going to be your son. Niisama's son."

Jounouchi doesn't want a son, not without Kaiba.

#

Before dawn on the second morning after Kaiba's death – and he can finally say death without losing his shit – Jounouchi takes Kaiba's usual seat in the den and meets with the best funeral director in the city. He has a snifter of brandy in one hand when the man enters the room. Jounouchi swirls his drink for show, and doesn't stand. "Thank you for coming on such short notice."

The funeral director is a funny little man in a nice suit. "Of course, Mr. Jounouchi. Anything I can do for your... family," the man says the word as though he's unsure. He shifts from foot and foot, his fingers tight on a binder that Jounouchi is sure illustrates his "options."

In California a lawyer is digging up Kaiba's last written will. Jounouchi is glad the paperwork is already done – all he has to do is give the word. He brings the cup to his lips, inhales deep the sweet aroma. He pauses, looks up at the director. "Pick him up from the morgue and arrange a service for Friday morning – is 48 hours enough notice?"

"Yes, of course. I'll put my best men on the arrangements. Will you be having it here?"

"Yes. Bring the body – "

Oh, God, is he only a body now? Unsettled and misaligned, Jounouchi drinks deep of his brandy. He had forgotten the burn, the sweet (if temporary) rush of calm from his stomach to his brain. He needs that calm right now, more than he needs air but not as much as he just needs Seto.

"Sir?"

Jounouchi closes his eyes and breathes deep. "I want him here early, so the family can say goodbye. Privately. We'll set up in the parlor by the patio doors."

"It sounds very respectful, sir."

Was that all it took to put his lover in the ground? "Yes; please remember to keep it tasteful. This is Kaiba Seto we're talking about."

#

Afterwards, while the funeral director is scurrying to get the funeral of the decade in order, Jonouchi drinks half the brandy in the den and watches the sun rise over Domino city, over the green grass that workers were preparing for Kaiba's grave. Jounouchi tries to imagine what it would be like to bring their son to Domino. What would he say? "Welcome to your new home," he says aloud to their imaginary son. Jounouchi laughs, hiccups, and damn near cries into his glass. "Want to see Daddy's grave?"

And to think that Kaiba had nearly been someone's father.

[tbc]

Notes
Worst. Author. Ever.

Sorry this took a million years to update; I got stuck in the writing, let that psyche me out and stop me from updating what I already had done, and - on top of that - was coordinating a move about 80 miles east. Yikes.

The move is done, and now I'm a "work at home mom," so I have more time. I also know where the story is headed, and that helps.

Part IV is on it's way, after I get the tot to bed here. Like, it'll probably be up by the time you read this. (Is anyone still there? Hahaha.)

Great thanks to Kagi, who has been a fantabulous beta!