The next few Fridays were really very… nice. There wasn't really any other way to describe them. The distance that had rested between my stranger and me for the first weeks of our acquaintance was still there, but it was softer somehow. While I still wasn't a hundred percent comfortable around him, I had gotten over my tendency to overanalyze our every conversation.

Anyhow, we didn't talk all that much in the first place. Not really. I got into the habit of asking how he was doing when he arrived, but that inquiry was generally met by a grunted, single-word response. Sometimes he'd say things- would give me toneless descriptions of a project he was working on or return my 'how are you doing?' question- but those instances were generally quite rare.

For the most part, our exchanges were little more than brief greetings and farewells. Same as before, except with a few actual words thrown in and maybe a smidgen of added interest on his part.

It was perfect. I wasn't a chatty person, and as much as I enjoyed talking with my stranger, I was also relieved that it wasn't an overly consistent thing. I dealt with noisy and obnoxious people too much as it was- from Joey and my mother, to whichever of Joey's friends decided to stop and see me in their free time. The little I did talk with my stranger didn't have any of that. It was simple and subtle and fantastic.

And, funnily enough, every second of silence was just as wonderful.

I think my stranger saw things the same way. Once, right before I left, he tonelessly informed me that he enjoyed my ability to stay quiet. He said that his brother- whom I hadn't known existed before that particular exchange- was rather loud, and that his workplace was always filled with activity, so the peace was nice. I told him I was used to the same thing, between Joey and my mother and whichever friends of theirs I was pushed into spending time with.

A bit of understanding passed between us then, after we'd shared that with each other. I left soon after and the subject wasn't ever brought up again, but that second of perfect harmony stuck with me. For the first time since I'd lost my sight, it'd felt like someone had really gotten me.

That was when I realized just how much I liked spending time with my stranger. What I had with him- it was comfortable and different and something more beautifully stable than I'd shared with anyone in a very long time.

Then a single variable shifted, and everything changed.

A very important variable.

The stability was erased, our routine disrupted.

And it all started because I missed a week.

It wasn't my fault.

Well…

Actually, yes.

It was.

Kind of.

Really, you're probably imagining that it was a huge, life-shaking event that kept me from going. In all reality, it wasn't anything like that- was something little and stupid and all but inconsequential.

It started on a Thursday. My mother had been too tired to make supper, so I got to digging around in the kitchen, hoping to run across a snack of some sort. I wasn't the most talented of persons at the whole 'being blind' thing- definitely wasn't practiced enough to properly fix a whole meal by myself- but I could usually manage to scrounge up a piece of fruit or a candy bar.

'Usually' being the operative term.

Honestly, I should have been more careful. Only, I wasn't careful at home, not hardly ever. I could get around my house just fine, knew the layout and everything well enough that I'd long since stopped using my cane or taking my time or anything blind people really should do. Then again, I would have been peachy if it wasn't for the… obstruction in the middle of the kitchen. I'm still not sure what it was, but a pair of shoes or a purse or something had been left on the floor, and I tripped over it and fell and sprained my wrist.

It wasn't that bad. I managed not to cry, and my mother got it wrapped and iced and gave me some painkillers until I could only feel a dull throbbing pain.

She still insisted I not go to my 'meeting' the next day.

I started out with a very logical protest: I was fine, I told her, and it wasn't like it was a major injury; therefore, why on earth wouldn't I be able to go? She responded by saying she didn't feel safe with me walking around, blind and injured. Suggested attending the meeting with me, to which I vehemently replied that I didn't want to look like a helpless little girl.

That's where things got ugly.

My mother shot back that I was a helpless little girl, and so it really shouldn't concern me whether or not I looked like one. Which was a huge sore spot for me. Before I really thought on it, I heatedly responded by saying that I really wasn't so helpless as she thought, but if it made her feel like she was needed by someone in the family, she could go right on pretending whatever it was that helped her sleep at night.

At that point she started screaming, and I said something about how she was starting to sound like my father, which was very stupid and not really true at all, but growing up how I had, fighting made me nervous and I panicked, and after more screaming and foot-stomping on her part, all my anger was gone and I started crying and ran to my room and locked the door.

We didn't talk the next day. I opened my mouth once, to ask if she'd changed her mind about the 'meeting,' but her nasty glare shot me down before I could utter a word.

I returned to my room then, and spent the whole day fretting.

I didn't know how my stranger would respond to my not being there, and it made me anxious. A part of me hoped he wasn't concerned, that he wouldn't jump to conclusions and think I was really hurt or anything. Another part though- a rather selfish part- prayed that he missed me at least a little. The thought of him sitting there, typing away, and not hardly noticing I was gone made me a bit sick.

Little as I wanted him to actively worry, I didn't think I could stand it if he didn't care about my absence at all.

Me- I cared. I cared a lot that I wasn't there. I hated not spending the morning looking forward to our meeting, hated not hearing his low, cool voice respond to whatever greeting I gave him. I hate the oppressive silence in my house- despised how harsh the lack of sound was compared to the calming quiet that always hung between my stranger and me.

And, most of all, I hated my stranger's lack of thereness. His presence, his confident, impressive presence was absent for the first Friday in months, and silly as it was, it felt as though something very important were missing.

It was the longest Friday I'd experienced in a very long time. In fact, I found it bad enough that I swallowed my pride and apologized to my mother first thing that next morning, needing to make sure she wouldn't keep me home again.

She accepted my apology, and I visibly sighed in relief.

I'd missed a week, but so long as it wasn't any longer than that, things would be okay.

Or so I told myself.

The first thing I noticed about my stranger's footsteps that next Friday was that they were sharp with annoyance. For a brief moment I hoped that annoyance wasn't at me, but then he pulled his chair out a bit more roughly than normal, took a seat, and went about getting his work things out without so much as a single acknowledgement of my presence.

I opened my mouth, very much tempted to ask how he was doing, accept what I predicted would be a very short-tempered answer, and go about pretending nothing had happened.

That didn't feel right though- writing off my absence as nothing. It was a big deal. A huge deal. At least that's what it felt like to me. And it deserved some sort of explanation. Just so he understood that I hadn't ditched him- that my not being there hadn't been anything I could control.

But before I could explain, before I could tell him why I'd been gone, I had the feeling I owed him an apology for some reason I wasn't quite able to define.

Tentatively, worried he might snap at me, I managed a nervous, "I'm sorry."

I could feel his eyes snap to me instantly, heated and intense and so tangible and visible that it was almost like I could meet his gaze- like for a moment, I was just a little less blind.

"You weren't here," he said coolly.

Except there was more to it than that.

I hadn't warned him, hadn't suggested I might be gone. I'd simply not come. Which wasn't right- wasn't part of our silent agreement. And he hadn't liked it. A normal person wouldn't have been able to tell, but I'd gotten good at hearing nuances in voices- especially his voice. Subtle as it was, there was some little emotion there.

Worry, perhaps.

Demand for an explanation, definitely.

Along with an unspoken, I didn't know what'd happened to you.

"I sprained my wrist," I said. Then, feeling as though my response had been inadequate, I added, "I still could have come, but my mother… she'd wanted me to stay home. So we argued about it." I ducked my head. "I lost."

Silence stretched on for some length of time, probably several minutes, until he shattered the quiet with a brusque, "Do you have a cell phone?"

It was the last thing I was expecting, and for a long moment I stared at him, unable to utter a word.

"Wheeler," he prodded.

Numbly, I reached into my bag and dug around until I found my outdated phone.

"But why-"

"I'm giving you my number," he cut in. "If something comes up during the week and you cannot come- call me. I would appreciate knowing the next time your mother decides to keep you home. If you do not come and I haven't received contact, I will assume that you walked into the path of a car on the way over here and are either dead or seriously injured."

For a long second, I wasn't sure how to respond to that. Finally I settled for simply extending my phone in his general direction. He immediately took it and, from what I could hear, started fiddling around in the menu.

"Can you get to the contacts' list?"

"Yeah." I thought of something- a weak attempt to figure out his identity. "I have all the name's counted out mentally though, so I'll need to know-"

"I typed a string of a's into the name slot; that way it'll be your first option. You won't have to count."

Shoot.

"Right…" I could feel his amusement, and a little part of me wanted to ask if he could tell me his name anyway. I didn't want to though- sensed that it was a topic I shouldn't approach, that he wouldn't answer me even if I were to do so. That in mind, I gave up on the issue. "Um. You should get my number too. In case you'll be gone or something."

"Already got it from your phone."

"You didn't type it into yours."

He snorted, as though the idea was absolutely ridiculous, and handed my phone back to me. "I have a good memory. I won't forget it."

He was so obviously brilliant that I wasn't a bit skeptical over him already having it memorized.

"If you say so."

A beat of quiet, once again broken by my stranger. This time with an indifferent, "What happened, exactly?"

"I tripped. Nothing any more extreme than that, thankfully. And anyhow, all that really came of it was the minor sprain, which only aches a bit now-"

He cleared his throat, and I snapped my mouth shut.

"Not what I was referring to."

Oh.

Unable to help myself, I shrunk back into my chair, the idea of discussing anything personal still scary to me even after so many weeks. "You're talking about the argument with my mother."

"Correct."

I hesitated, hoping he might take that as a sign to pull back the question. He didn't.

Probably, if I were to say I didn't want to talk about it, he would let the issue go. The problem was that I didn't want that to happen.

Nervous as I was to open up, I did want to talk about the fight. To tell him how frustrated my mother had made me and how much it hurt when she said I was a helpless little girl and how I'd panicked when the screaming started. I wanted to see if he'd understand and listen. Because there was really no one else I could talk to this stuff about- I didn't have friends my own age, Joey's friends probably didn't care, and Joey and our mother were on such shaky terms that I wouldn't ever say anything bad about her to him. He'd overreact and make things a million times worse.

For this particular situation, my stranger was my safest confident.

So I told him. I told him about my mother wanting to tag along to the 'meetings' to make sure I didn't hurt myself, and my response to that, and the argument that escalated from there. Tentatively I mentioned how things had been before the divorce and how much I hated fighting, and how I'd lost my composure and she'd started screaming. It was just a petty spat, I reiterated, but we both reacted awfully and things had gotten ugly really quickly.

"But comparing her to my dad- I shouldn't have done that," I admitted softly. I fidgeted in my seat, well aware that he was probably bored and maybe even a little annoyed that I was troubling him with all this. I couldn't quite bring myself to stop though. "He'd get drunk, and scream and throw things, and… and she hadn't been like that, at all. Except…"

I took a deep breath.

"Except I can't see, and I was scared, because… because she sounded like he had, when he'd do those things, and I had no way to know, to make sure she wasn't going to." A humorless chuckle escaped my throat. "That's silly though, because my mother isn't like him. We don't generally argue, and she hasn't ever done anything violent. She was just frustrated, and I said the wrong things, and we both made a really big deal out of nothing."

He didn't utter a word, and my cheeks turned bright red because I was sure I'd blathered on for too long. I shifted uneasily, waiting for him to snort and say something about how I really needed to control myself and talk less and that I was getting much too comfortable with him and probably needed a psychiatrist besides.

Only when he finally did get around to saying something, it wasn't anything like that at all.

"You are aware that your mother thinks you a 'helpless little girl' only because that is the impression you tend to give off?"

"Pardon?" I blurted, unable to keep from sounding completely affronted.

"How old are you?"

"Eighteen…"

"Meaning you've been blind for four years." I tried to remember when I told him how long ago I'd lost my sight and found that I couldn't. He'd been right earlier, when he spoke of how impressive his memory was.

"Uh-huh," I said, even though I'm pretty sure he'd meant it to be a statement and not a question.

"And you still cannot function on your own."

Now that hurt, probably because of how painfully true it was. He hadn't spoken tauntingly or cruelly, but the meaning conveyed by his words was taunting and cruel enough.

"I don't see how," I said, speaking a little more harshly than usual to cover the injured tone I was sure laced my voice, "that has anything to do with what I told you."

"Don't you? From what I can tell, you are not attending university. You have no job. Your days are spent either with your mother or at home, and the only people you spend time with who are anywhere near your own age are your brother's friends. Given such evidence, I can see why your mother refuses to give you independence; you show no signs of being ready for it."

"I'm blind!" I hissed. "How am I supposed to meet people or do anything by myself when I always need someone around to help me!?"

"So you admit that you need your mother to constantly take care of you."

"Yes- wait, no. I mean-" I clamped my mouth shut, well aware that he'd just worked me into a hole. "That isn't the point!"

"Then what is?"

I had to think on that one for a while. My stranger was right. All that hovering my mother did was necessary. I disliked it and argued with her about it, but I would have been in very big trouble had she ever decided to listen to my complaints and back off. It was an annoyingly impossible predicament. I wanted space, but would've been totally lost were it given to me.

That wasn't my mother's fault. She was doing what she needed to do. The problem wasn't that she didn't give me enough freedom- it was that my stupid eyes made her suffocatingly constant presence necessary in the first place.

Which, I realized, was the real issue. My lack of sight.

"The point," I said, voice ringing with conviction, "is that I'm unable do anything because I can't see."

"And every blind person with a life or a job can?"

Another punch to the gut, this one completely unexpected. I stared slack-jawed, unable to believe he'd just said that, that he'd destroyed my previous conclusion in a ten word sentence that made so sickeningly much sense that I knew disputing it would be useless.

"But…" And I couldn't think of anything. No buts or excuses or claims. I wanted to tell him that I was different than all those other people, that I wasn't supposed to be blind. That if Yugi or Joey had won that single Duel Monster's tournament, I would be able to see. Except all those things were silly and senseless and I knew I was better off not saying them. Instead, reluctantly, I ducked my head and admitted, "You're right."

"Of course I'm right," he said, like there was no way he couldn't have been. "I'd rather you tell me what you plan to do about it."

Which stumped me. University was out- I'd struggled to graduate on schedule, even with all the disability programs, so higher education would probably be way beyond me. The idea of any kind of job scared me too- not that I had any idea what I could possibly do correctly anyway. Even trying to go out and meet people was scary, especially when I thought about trying to do so without my mother there.

Finally, I decided that there was no solution, and it would be best to simply conclude the conversation.

"Nothing," I said. "There is nothing I can do about it."

To which he sardonically replied, "And you're supposed to be related to Joey Wheeler? The duelist who finished in the top four of two separate tournaments he hadn't even been invited to. He must be very proud."

Very immaturely, I reached into my bag and pulled my headphones on, thereby ending our talk.

Unfortunately, the music didn't keep my stranger's words from rumbling through my head like a bulldozer. As I sat there, waiting for the clock to toll, I found myself acknowledging each and every argument he'd presented, each point he made that so wonderfully showed me how very much I was to blame for the bulk of my current situation.

By the time three o'clock rolled around, I couldn't help but concede that maybe, just maybe, I was a bit pathetic and wallowed too much and really needed to go about getting over something that happened four years ago.

"I'm going to talk with my mother," I muttered in my stranger's direction, loathe to let him know just how well bringing up Joey's name had worked. "See if she wouldn't be willing to help me start up a hobby, or get a job, or… or something."

He grunted an acknowledgement.

"And…um. Thank you. For listening and helping… not so much for understanding- you were awful at that... but still. I appreciate it."

My stranger's responding, "It was nothing," was so stiff and awkward and shocked that, even though he'd all but torn me apart earlier, I couldn't help but laugh at him on my way out.

It was almost cute, how little experience he had dealing with gratitude. I almost wondered what he would have done if I'd hugged him...

Then I realized I was thinking about hugging my stranger. Which was awkward.

I pushed the notion from my head immediately.

...

Author's Note-

Slightly shorter update time, but still longer than I'm hoping for. School started recently though, and much as I love a good education, it's really great at sucking up my time. That being said, I did get a relatively timely update, and it's my longest one yet. There's also tons of Seto/Serenity interaction, albeit a slightly different kind- I would love to know what you think about the more intense conversation by the way. I'm back and forth on it, but if there are too many negative reactions, I can always do tweaks.

Also, I failed at review replies last chapter. I promise I will do my best to get those going again this chapter. You guys are all great- I can't believe how successful this story has been so far- and you do deserve my recognition. Now that I'm a bit more used to the dent classes are going to leave on my schedule, I'll have more time to compose replies and let you know properly how much I appreciate every bit of support.

That's everything then. I'll do my best for a quick update, and I hope to hear what you guys thought of this chapter.