There were few things that broke Isis's heart more than having to shatter the smooth, clear silence that had settled over them over the past few weeks. The sharp cacophony of rancor and violence that had punctuated their adolescence was finally beginning to melt into a sweet and soothing rhythm that shimmered in the warm lavender sky and rolled lazily along the banks of the river.

For the first time that she could remember, the passing of time was no longer the constricting rope that tightly bound her hands behind her back, but a long stream of luscious ribbon that unfurled at her feet and spread out into the endless, deliciously unknowable distance. For the first time that she could remember, Isis was no longer afraid to meet her brother's gaze, lest she not recognize what she saw lurking there.

Malik and Ryou moved about the house, as silent and still as a pair of ghosts, speaking almost exclusively in soft, dewy whispers. Or they spent hours out on the sands, dodging the tourists and the heat, flickering in and out of focus on the horizon like two small shadows that were for the first time allowed to run free under the sun. In the evenings they reunited in the bustling warmth of the kitchen or on the patio, gazing up at the sky that had long ago been bleached of all its stars.

And Isis convinced herself that she would have forever been content with such a life, where the days chased each other in slow circles and her dreams sparkled—unclouded by nightmares. No longer having the necklace to consult, she had no way of knowing whether such a life would have ever been possible if it had not been shattered, while still in infancy, by the rattle of a telephone call and dry rasp of a voice that she had longed more than anything to forget.

-xxx-

"I wasn't expecting to find you here."

Underneath the smirk in his voice, Isis thought that she did, in fact, catch a tone of genuine surprise. "Nor was I, Mr. Kaiba," she replied. "But we are all of us at the mercy of life's unexpected turns, aren't we?"

"Not you."

"Not anymore." She gave him a wispy smile, but the gentle upward curve of her lips poorly disguised the darker emotions that floated over her features.

"Really." He narrowed his eyes, scrutinizing her face closely. "I don't believe you."

Isis laughed softly. "And what, Mr. Kaiba, have I ever done to cause you to doubt my honesty?"

He snorted. "That's a joke, right?"

She merely smiled, serenely elusive as the petals shrouding a ripening blossom. "I would not have expected to find you here, either."

For the second time in almost as many days, Seto was placed in the uncomfortable position of having to justify his presence in a place where, even he had to admit, he really had no business being.

Returning to the Domino City Museum had not elicited the same tight-throated, nausea-inducing feeling of reentering the Kame Game Shop, but stepping through the door had still filled him with a profound sense of unease, as if he were being mercilessly scrutinized under the dispassionate eye of the world's most exacting microscope. This was doubly true in the rooms that housed the Ancient Egyptian exhibit. Seto had carefully avoided making eye contact with his sunk relief doppelganger; Mokuba, however, had barely been able to tear his eyes from the monument, and had commented several times how remarkable it was that the primary figures looked exactly like Seto and Yuugi.

Here at the far end of the gallery, encased in stacks of moving boxes, Seto felt slightly safer. All the history was tightly packed away, neatly labeled, hidden from probing eyes and inquisitive minds.

"I'm here to make a donation," Seto replied, sounding slightly less definitive than he had intended.

"Oh really?" Isis's eyes widened in curiosity. "May I ask of what?"

Seto shrugged, stepping aside to reveal the stacks of boxes piled almost up to his shoulders behind him. "Some of my step-father's old….treasures. I thought the public might find a better use for them than he did."

Isis stepped closer cautiously, gently extracting one of the boxes from the top of the pile and laying it on the exhibit case besides them.

"Was Gozaburo an avid historian?" She asked, delicately prying past several layers of packing tape and cardboard.

"An avid imperialist and appropriator."

"Ah, I see. Unfortunately, the study of antiquity is often marred by people with such dubious motives. Uprooting artifacts from their native homes and hauling them across the globe makes it incredibly difficult to study them as their original creators intended."

"And how exactly do you reconcile that philosophy with your work here?" He gestured to the glass cases that lined the hall. "This isn't an exactly naturalistic environment for ancient Egyptian artifacts."

She nodded. "A valid point. However, there are factors that you are failing to consider: the first being the instructive nature of museums, which allows the legacy of extinguished cultures to live on, long after their accomplishments might have otherwise been forgotten. Second, we must consider the possibility that—despite the fact that this is not the most naturalistic environment—bringing their works here, where they might be seen by you, was in fact exactly what their creators originally intended." She peered pensively into the shadowed contents of the box for a moment before suddenly changing the subject. "Seto, how have you been?"

His jaw stiffened and his hands balled into tight fists. "Fine."

She pursed her lips and scrutinized his face, searching out the faintest crack or shadow in its stolid, stubborn surface. He glared back coolly.

"That's not the impression you gave me when we last met."

"You always have had a tendency to read too much into things," he snapped back. "What are you even doing here, anyway?"

She was silent for a moment, struggling to keep her voice steady. "I wish you would think a bit more."

"What is there to think about?" A threat lurked in the corners of his voice—red and dark and ready to pounce. That kind of tone would often send his subordinates scampering towards the nearest exit, but it only made Isis's eyes darken in icy anger.

"Do you not realize the significance of your position? Can you not conceive of the opportunities presented to you—and what you will be abandoning by refusing to take advantage of them?"

"Opportunities?!" he scoffed. "How can you even—what kind of opportunities could I possibly have? I have—you lied to me!" The mounting agitation in his voice was now attracting curious glances from across the gallery, and he lowered his voice to a frantic, heated whisper. "All that bullshit you spouted to me, and I was foolish enough to listen to you. I have—I have been trying—trying—"

"Nii-sama, is everything alright?"

Seto immediately stiffened and snapped his jaw shut when he heard Mokuba's voice behind him. He turned around cautiously and replied, "everything is fine, Mokuba," voice artificially flat. "You remember Isis." He continued rigidly, gesturing towards her.

"Oh yeah, of course!" Mokuba chirped. "Hey, all this stuff is yours, right?"

"Not precisely. I represent their owner in a variety of legal settings, but I do not own them outright. That is actually the business that brings me here today," she glanced headlong at Seto, "to convey a message from their original owner. If you'll excuse us, Mokuba, that is a subject that I need to discuss with your brother."

"Oh, yeah sure." Mokuba retreated slowly, shooting skeptical glances over his shoulder as he walked back across the hall.

Seto watched him go warily. "Looking for a place to eavesdrop, I'm sure," he muttered under this breath. He turned back to her, the impassioned tumult raging in his eyes just a few moments prior now cloaked in stone. "So you actually do have a reason to be here?"

She nodded. "Were you aware that Industrial Illusions is the legal owner of these artifacts? Pegasus often employed me as the human face of the archaeological arm of his company, but I have no more authority over them than anyone else here today."

"No," Seto replied shortly. "What does that have to do with me?"

Isis paused a moment to collect her thoughts before coming to the conclusion that there was no way to be delicate without sacrificing accuracy. "Pegasus is preparing to make his first public appearance since Duelist Kingdom, and to regain control of his company. As I'm sure you're aware, the price of Industrial Illusions stock has fallen dramatically since his tournament; he will have to employ some very clever accounting strategies if he hopes to remain solvent going into the next fiscal year.
She sighed. "And these artifacts, which Pegasus once viewed as valuable investment and source of artistic inspiration, now strike him as a financial liability. He has asked me to negotiate a purchase with the Domino City Museum."

Seto scoffed from the back of his throat. "He really thinks he can recover from that kind of disgrace?"

"I'm sure people have said exactly the same thing about you."

Seto smirked. "I know they have. The difference then was that I wasn't one of them."

"He wants to talk to you."

"I don't care."

"I told him that was how you would respond," she replied warily. "But I urge you to do it. If not for yourself, then for your business."

Her words seemed to roll off him. "I don't see the necessity."

"You know it's impossible to move fully into the future without understanding the events of the past."

"You know it's impossible to take you seriously when you insist on talking like a fortune cookie."

Isis's eyes widened, as if in horror, at the turn that the conversation had taken. The last time they had spoken she had felt the high stone walls that segregated them beginning to rupture, she had seen a few flickers of dappled sunlight breaking through the darkness of his outer disposition. But now, everything that had once felt so close was thousands of miles and hundreds of centuries away, buried as deeply in the ground as the pharaoh's tomb.

"Seto, what has gotten into you?"

"I—what do you think?!" he stammered, making an effort to keep his voice to an acidic whisper this time. "Everything you told me was such—none of it was right! And Yuugi! That whole spiel about the world starting over and peace and harmony and crap, that was all the figment of some delusional fantasy, wasn't it? None of it meant anything—nothing that you ever told me—"

"Kaiba-kun? And Isis? Wow, what are you two doing here?" Yuugi's voice, chiming with surprise and enthusiasm, rung out across the gallery walls as he rushed to meet them.

"Yuugi." Isis nodded, betraying no glimmer of the anxiety that had gripped her a few moments prior. Her eyes flickered to Seto who, back still to Yuugi, was struggling to swallow his agitation. "I am here conducting business on behalf of Industrial Illusions. It's quite nice to see you again."

"You too!" He exclaimed. "What business does Industrial Illusions have with the museum?"

"We are the owners of this exhibition, and all the artifacts therein."

Yuugi's face dropped slightly, and he began to speak in a slightly muted tone. "And you're closing it?"

"Hopefully not, though that decision will soon be in the hands of Domino itself."

Yuugi nodded, and glanced reverently at the stone plaques and artifacts that lined the walls. "I see…are these yours, too?" he asked, turning his attention to the stacks of boxes.

"Those are mine," Seto hissed as he slowly turned to face Yuugi, only to be taken aback to discover that he was not alone. Standing about a foot behind, close enough to hear without being noticed, Jounouchi stood with his hands stuffed in his pockets and eyes fixed resolutely on the ceiling. When he realized that he had been spotted, he turned to Seto sheepishly.

"Hey."

Seto blanched and spun abruptly around, failing to notice the question that Yuugi had directed at him.

"Kaiba is making a public endowment of some of his family's old possessions," Isis replied on his behalf, eyeing him quizzically.

"Hm, that makes sense, I guess. You really are getting ready to take off, aren't you?"

"That's the idea."

"Yeah, but fortunately it looks like you're leaving a lot behind for us to remember you by, huh?" Jounouchi quipped as he approached them, taking stock of the volume of boxes.

"I would never want to be remembered by these things," Seto retorted, voice sounding as if it had been frozen over.

"Do you think they'll give the artifacts back to your family?" Yuugi interjected. "I mean, they do technically belong to your family, don't they?"

Isis pursed her lips. "Perhaps from a historical perspective—not a financial one."

"Oh…" Yuugi's voice wandered down a lonely trail as he turned to gaze wistfully at the plaques and statues that lined the walls.

Jounouchi took the opportunity to insert himself between Seto and Isis and began to speak to them in a low whisper. "Hey guys, I brought Yuugi here because he's been feeling kind of…down recently, and I thought having a chance to talk to the pharaoh might cheer him up or something. If we could leave him alone with that for a little while, I think that'd be good…"

Isis nodded, Seto rolled his eyes, but they both retreated from Yuugi, who in the meantime had gravitated towards his own likeness hanging on the wall.

"I'm sorry to hear that. Do you think it's quite serious?"

Jounouchi shrugged. "No, I don't think so. He's just had a lot of changes to deal with I guess…losing a piece of your mind and all I think must be rough. I don't know, maybe I'm just making it worse bringing him here."

"I'm sure Yuugi is very grateful for your support. And how have you been faring?"

"Oh, hah, I'm fine. But I didn't really have so much to lose."

Their conversation was suddenly interrupted by the brisk and airy footsteps of the head of acquisitions, followed closely by a small army of movers and technicians.

"Kaiba-sama and Ishtar-sama, so sorry to keep you waiting." He bowed quickly, then began rifling through a thick stack of documents that was pinned to a clipboard in his hands. "We were simply overcome with the sheer volume of Kaiba-sama's generous donation. It took our records department quite a while to sort out all the paperwork." He made a few wiry gestures to the movers behind him, who began carefully transplanting Kaiba's goods onto carts and dollies. "The city of Domino thanks you kindly for your generosity." He bowed to Kaiba again, then turned to Isis. "If you follow me, Ishtar-sama, we can discuss your matter in my office."

"Of course." She turned to Seto. "I hope you will reconsider my proposal." The two then disappeared down the hall, leaving both Seto and Jounouchi feeling uncomfortably exposed.

"What is her proposal?" Jounouchi asked, poorly stifling the laughter in his voice.

"It's nothing."

"I don't know, sounds pretty serious to me, Kaiba," he chuckled. "Isis's plans usually end up being pretty important."

Seto scoffed. "I'm well aware."

The two stood in silence for a few moments, Seto supervising Mokuba as he perused the gallery, Jounouchi watching over Yuugi as he remained rooted in place. He cast a few cautious glances in Seto's direction, coughed, and swayed slightly before beginning to speak again.

"Hey look, I'm really sorry about what happened last time. I never would have gone through something you didn't want me looking at, only you left it out so I didn't know! I never, well I hope you know I didn't mean anything by it."

Seto's face paled slightly, and he refused to face him. "Don't mention it."

Across the gallery, Mokuba's meandering took him to where Yuugi was standing vigil by Atem's plaque. Though his body was there, his mind seemed far removed, wandering a distant plane that, once full of life and possibility, now rung with a hollow disenchanting silence.

"Yuugi?" Mokuba asked cautiously. "Are you okay?"

Yuugi blinked several times, twitched slightly around the edges, and after what seemed like an eternity managed to re-enter consciousness, as painfully as a fish emerging from the sea.

"Oh, hi, Mokuba."

"That's…you, isn't it?" he asked, pointing towards the image on the wall. "And Seto?"

Yuugi sighed. "Not exactly."

"The spirit from your puzzle."

He nodded. "What I thought of as 'the other me' was really someone else entirely, someone who didn't really belong in this world. He just needed me for a little while to get back on the right track."

"And you helped him?"

"Yes, I'd like to think so. And he helped me, too. It was really each other that we needed." He sighed again, and for a moment his expression seemed to deflate.

"And your spirit was from ancient Egypt?"

"Uh-huh."

"Why did Seto never tell me any of this?"

A flash of concern dashed across Yuugi's eyes. "He hasn't? I don't know. That's pretty strange. I mean, that's basically been our entire lives for the past couple years."

"Hm." They stood in a contemplative silence for a few moments. "So what will your life be now?"

Yuugi laughed in a manner that somehow seemed to convey more sadness than pleasure. It sounded like something shattering. "I'm still trying to figure that out." He paused. "Getting Atem back to the afterlife was like—being trapped in a cave, and there was this big boulder I had to push out of the way to get out. And now that the boulder's gone, I can see that the cave isn't what I thought it was. Everything looks different to me."

"Different in what way?"

Yuugi shook his head. "I'm not sure that I could explain it."

Their conversation was interrupted by the sudden rumble of irate voices. "What part of 'don't mention it' do you not understand?! I could not have made that any clearer to you."

"Sorry, sorry!" Jounouchi cried, throwing up his hands. "I didn't think you could get so riled up by an innocent question."

Seto seethed. "Just drop it."

"Seto?"

Seto's eyes snapped over to Mokuba, noting his position triangulated with Yuugi and the plaque, and sighed inwardly. This was a maze of explanations that he would have to hack through later.

"Let's just leave, Mokuba," he groaned. "Our business here is over."

Title for this chapter comes from the song Ask Me How I Am by Snow Patrol