Disclaimer: I don't own Yu-Gi-Oh!, but I like to think that Takahashi would be on board with how I've handled his characters.

"I've Kept It Inside Much To Long
There'S No Relief
Carry It Around Just Like A Stone
Too Heavy For Me

I Had Paid The Price
Of Standing On The Outside Looking In

It's Time To Let The Healing Begin."

~Let the Healing Begin, Joe Cocker

Chapter 17

Damn. It was the first conscious thought that popped into Seto's head when he woke up. He was still alive. After allowing this fact to sink in for a few moments, he still couldn't tell if he was more disappointed or relieved. On the one hand, he felt like a failure, unable even to kill himself properly. But then again, after years of being bombarded on all sides by talk of destiny and fate he couldn't help but feel that maybe he hadn't been supposed to die; maybe he still had some kind of purpose left to serve, unlike his stepfather whose suicide attempt had succeeded.

All that aside, he had to admit that now at least he was feeling something even if he wasn't quite sure what it was.

Because his attempt had failed, he was now stuck in a hospital, one of his least favorite places on the planet which, after a moment of more general reflection, caused him to start to feel claustrophobic, though he simply didn't yet have the strength to full out panic.

He was going to be expected to give explanations now that he was awake . And he'd also have to live with Mokuba knowing just how weak he truly was.

He tried to sit up, but even the small exertion caused him to feel light-headed and he immediately lay back down again. It was enough motion to get Mokuba's attention. He hadn't left Seto's side since the ambulance had come for him the night before despite the raised eyebrows of several hospital employees. Not that any of them were really going to verbalize their objections to a distraught fifteen year old acting, for all intents and purposes, as Seto's guardian; no one wanted to get in a tangle with the Kaiba family.

Mokuba had been sitting in a chair beside his brother's bed playing a handheld video game when he noticed movement out of the corner of his eye. He quickly set the game aside.

"Seto!" Seto flinched at the sudden loud noise; his head felt like it might split, which he gladly would have let it do if it would relieve the horrible pressure.

"Not so loud," he croaked, his mouth and throat horribly dry.

"I'm sorry." Mokuba lowered his voice. Then he burst into tears and flung himself across his brother's chest. "How could you do that to me?" he wept. "You're supposed to always be there for me! We're supposed to be a team!" Seto didn't know what to say. It hadn't occurred to him that he might survive; he'd thought he'd cut deeply enough that that wouldn't be possible, so he had never come up with a plan of how to explain why he'd done what he'd done to Mokuba.

Still, he instinctively reached up to put a comforting hand on his brother's shoulder. The next question Mokuba asked was the one he didn't want to answer.

"Why? Why did you do it? Was it because of him?" Seto realized then that Mokuba hadn't gotten his note meaning he hadn't been the one to find him which was a relief.

"No, it wasn't because of him."

"Then why?" Seto was spared the necessity of responding when a passing nurse noticed the flurry of movement through the doorway and entered the room holding a clipboard. As soon as Seto saw it his heart sank. He wished that he was still unconscious; he really hated hospitals.

"Mr. Kaiba," the nurse addressed Mokuba brusquely. "Please pull yourself together or I'll have to ask you to leave. Your brother is far too weak for that kind of excitement."

"I can decide that for myself thanks," Seto said reproachfully, struggling into a sitting position and causing Mokuba to let go of him. "Now give me that so I can fill it out and leave." The nurse, whose son was a fan, knew exactly who Seto Kaiba was and was more than familiar with his demeanor from when her son watched his Duel Monsters matches on TV. She'd also dealt with several attempted suicide patients before and was therefore used to the anger and guardedness that many of them used to cover up their shame and vulnerability.

"I'm afraid that won't be possible, Mr. Kaiba," she told him evenly. "You have to stay here until at least tomorrow. You lost quite a lot of blood, you're underweight, you have a fever, and it says on your chart that you're supposed to undergo a psychiatric evaluation before you can be discharged do to the nature of your injuries."

"You can't keep me here!" Seto's tone, though authoritative, contained a hint of desperation.

"It's alright," she told him reassuringly, her maternal instincts kicking in when she realized that the young man was truly frightened. "We're here to help you get better. I won't bother you with this chart right away, but when I come back later I need you to try to answer some questions, ok?"

"Fine," Seto said resignedly, crossing his arms.

"Do you need anything? Are you hungry?"

"No." But just then his stomach growled loudly.

"I'll go get you something. You don't have any food allergies, do you?"

"No. And can you tell someone to get these out of me?" He indicated the tubes that were attached to an IV in his arm.

"I'd have to ask the doctor, but I'd guess that the answer is no, at least for now."

"Fine," he repeated. He lay back down and turned away from her and she knew that she wouldn't get any more information out of him and left. As soon as she was gone, Mokuba, who in the meantime had taken the nurse's advice and calmed down, put a hand on his brother's shoulder. "Get me out of here Mokuba," Seto said without looking at him. "There's no way I can spend the night here." Hospitals always brought him straight back to the day of their father's accident and left him feeling tense and unsettled. He hated the strange sterile smell, the stupid posters on the walls, the constant humming of the monitors, the drip of the IV. But most of all he hated the people that worked there. The nonchalant way the nurses treated the people they dealt with, the way the doctors talked down to their patients; as though they were nothing more than children, and he hated their lies. Everyone at the hospital had told him that their father would be alright, but he hadn't been. It was exactly the same with their mother four years before. Seto couldn't remember that incident as clearly given that he'd only been four when his mother had died in childbirth, but he had very vivid memories of the night his father died.

Mokuba had fallen asleep in his seat in the waiting room, but Seto, then nine, had been unable to relax and had sat up with his aunt and uncle. A nurse, not unlike the one that had just talked to him, had emerged from the depths of the hospital and the three of them had stood up. She'd told Seto to wait with Mokuba while she talked to 'the adults.' Seto had known exactly what that meant and had started to cry, demanding that she go away as though if she didn't say out loud that their father was dead it would keep it from being true.

Mokuba knew exactly why waking up in a hospital was causing his brother to panic, but there was very little he could do about it. Had he been of age he might have had a say, but as it was, his opinion didn't mean much to the hospital staff.

As he tried to comfort him, Mokuba couldn't help but be reminded of why Seto was there in the first place, particularly when his eyes strayed to the thick bandages wrapped around both of his brother's wrists. If he hadn't slit his wrists over Alistair, why had he done it? The fact that he had no clue made Mokuba sad. He'd thought that they told each other everything, but thinking back he realized that while he had no secrets from Seto, Seto didn't often reciprocate the dialogue unless he deemed his thoughts necessary enough to articulate.

The teen realized that he'd been horribly selfish for never asking Seto how he felt about things or making any effort to carry his own weight, merely relying on his brother to take care of everything. Maybe if he'd taken more time to try and been as attentive as Seto always was this wouldn't have happened.

Several days after his admission to the Domino City Hospital, someone leaked details of Seto's condition to the press, including that it was the result of attempted suicide.

Despite trying to keep this particular piece of news from his brother, Seto eventually found out and demanded that the leak be found so that he could sue them into oblivion. His yelling had prompted the nurse in charge of the ward, Carmella, to threaten to sedate him if he didn't calm down. He'd sat back in his bed and crossed his arms, glaring at her. Suddenly being under someone else's thumb did not sit well with him. He had become so accustomed to being in charge over the years that having his demands ignored was something he was hard pressed to cope with.

His temper was so volatile that it was a matter of hours before everyone working in the ward dreaded being called on to deal with him and often defaulted to passing on information via Mokuba. When he wasn't at the office, Mokuba was sitting at his brother's side or running errands for him.

On the second day, the doctor had deemed Seto well enough for visitors and Seto had had to endure talking to two police officers who wanted to confirm that it had in fact been a suicide attempt.

"Yes," a still feverish Seto had answered.

"And you can confirm that you wrote this," one of the officers presented him with his handwritten suicide note.

"Yes."

"This is your signature?"

"No, I just wrote out a whole letter and had someone else sign it."

"Mr. Kaiba, we need you to answer these questions for our records."

"Of course it's my signature!"

"And you wrote this of your own free will?" Seto had sighed in annoyance.

"Yes."

Satisfied, the officers had left, promising at Seto's prompting, to send him a copy of their report.

Roland had been his next visitor, coming bearing numerous messages from the various department heads, the most urgent of which came from PR. After a lengthy phone call with the PR department manager, Seto had agreed to release a statement to the press after turning down almost a dozen offers to appear on local and national talk shows. The statement, much of which had been written by someone else which explained how glaringly artificial was, essentially downplayed why he was in the hospital, and emphasized the fact that he was still very much in charge of things, still calling the shots, and that business would continue as usual.

The psych evaluation was the worst part of the hospital experience in Seto's opinion. He'd gone into it knowing that he had to convince the psychiatrist that he was fine, but at the same time tell them as little as possible.

When he first met with Dr. Coleman, they ended up spending a good third of the session in silence. Seto refused to be the one to start talking, and it was her policy to wait for a given patient to feel comfortable opening up, though based on his very protective and closed off posture (arms and legs crossed) she could tell that that might take a while. Eventually she was the one to give in.

"I know that you don't want to talk to me."

"Wow, you've really got me figured out." She frowned.

"This might seem like a punishment right now, but it doesn't have to be. And as you know, nothing that you tell me will leave this room."

"Unless you think that I'm a danger to myself or others."

"That's true."

"Look: what do you want to know so I can tell you and get out of here; I have a company to run; I don't have time for this."

"What makes you think you don't have time?"

"The longer I stay away, the more opportunities everyone else has to screw something up."

"So you think that you're the one thing standing between your company succeeding and failing?"

"Of course. I built Kaiba Corp and no one else can run it as well as I do."

"That must be stressful."

"I can handle it." Seto's voice was confident which contrasted with the thick bandages still encircling his wrists. Dr. Coleman recognized it for the false bravado that it was.

"Let's say that you could leave here right now. Would Kaiba Corp be the first place you'd want to go?" The question took Seto aback. He was inclined to say yes, but as he thought about it he realized he didn't know where he wanted to go, just that Kaiba Corp was where he probably would go. He didn't want to go home because there was nothing there that drew him to it except maybe Trudy's cooking, he didn't have any desire to take a trip anywhere in particular, nor was he compelled to go to work. Unwilling to admit that the question had thrown him, he answered that yes, the skyscraper was where he'd go.

"So you'd want to jump right back into working?"

"Kaiba Corp doesn't just run itself." It was something he'd said dozens of times; it was his go-to response to that kind of a question.

"What does running Kaiba Corp do for you?" He rolled his eyes at the stupid question.

"It's my livelihood."

"Yes, but why are you so passionate about it that it's the first thing you want to go to when you leave here?" Again, her question threw him off.

"It's my life." This time his voice wasn't as confident. She noted the undercurrent of confusion.

"And how did it coming under attack recently make you feel given that?" He sighed in irritation. 'How does that make you feel' questions were by far the most tedious.

"Annoyed, obviously."

"Maybe a little bit more than annoyed?" He tensed, then narrowed his eyes.

"If you're suggesting that that stupid article is what landed me here than you must not have a very high opinion of my strength. Things like that hardly bother me; they just create more problems for me to solve."

"So what did 'land you here'?" It occurred to him that she'd probably read his suicide note and therefore had known all along that stress from work wasn't why he'd done it. He wondered how many people had read that letter, and none of them the one person he'd intended it for. He was angry about his privacy being invaded like that, but knowing that that letter was the basis of her analysis of his depression was something he could use to get himself out of there.

"I've always been a hard worker," he said, suddenly much more willing to talk. "I've had to be in order to provide for my brother."

"Since you were thirteen, right? After your step-father passed on?" He wanted to roll his eyes again at her use of the phrase 'passed on' given that Gozaburo had thrown himself out of the conference room window only to splatter onto the pavement below.

"Yes."

"That's a lot of pressure to put on a kid."

"I didn't have a choice. It was either that, or have him shipped off to foster care which I would never do. Mokuba is everything to me."

"Not Kaiba Corp?"

"Kaiba Corp is just a tool that I use in order to ensure my brother's future, but I realized recently that at some point I lost sight of why I was working so hard." Even though he was just trying to tell her what she wanted to hear, he couldn't help but at least acknowledge to himself that there was a lot of truth in what he was saying. "Not that this is Mokuba's fault," he added quickly.

"And whose fault is it?"

"Mine."

"What makes you say that?"

"Oh I don't know, maybe the fact that I'm the one that slit my own wrists?" He knew he ought to keep his sarcasm in check, but if she was going to insist on asking stupid questions…

"What were you hoping that would accomplish? What were you searching for?"

"I didn't want to do it anymore, simple as that. Mokuba doesn't need me anymore so I serve no further function."

"So you believe that your existence depends on him needing you?" Even Seto had to acknowledge that that sounded pretty melodramatic.

"Not anymore."

"What do you think now?"

"That losing my parents at an early age and being abandoned by everyone I'd ever known led me to develop an unhealthy dependence on Mokuba. But I think I'm past that."

"Just like that?"

"No, but I'm working on it," he lied, glancing at the digital display on her watch when she wasn't looking. He had less than fifteen minutes to get her to sign off on his psych evaluation or else he'd be stuck having to come and see her indefinitely. He knew he was looking at at least six sessions and a prescription for anti-depressants as it was, not that he intended to actually take the pills.

"What are you thinking about doing to remedy this 'unhealthy dependence?'"

"Spending more time apart, finding friends I guess, reminding myself that just because my family abandoned me that doesn't mean everyone will; that kind of thing." He could tell that she was unconvinced.

"Why do you think finding friends is important?"

"It's what normal people do."

"You don't consider yourself normal?"

"I've been the CEO of a major corporation since I was thirteen years old; of course I'm not normal."

"Do you think that will make it difficult to make friends?"

"Maybe. Probably."

"Where would you look, work?" This time he did roll his eyes again.

"There's no one there that's worth my time; they're all idiots." He regretted saying it as soon as the words left his lips because he knew what her follow-up question would be, but not how to answer it.

"Ok, not work. So where?" Seto had only the barest concept of what people his age usually did and therefore wasn't sure what the proper response would be.

"I don't know, maybe the mall or a club or something."

"Do you play any sports?"

"Not team sports; I don't do the 'teamwork' thing."

"Why is that?" It was time, he decided, to insert another 'this is what she wants to hear' statement.

"For the same reason I don't make friends; everyone I've ever been close to has abandoned me. I'm the only one I can rely on. Which brings me nicely back to the real question here: why did I do it? Mokuba's almost an adult and without him I wouldn't have anyone left, and the way I see it there's no point in going through life alone." Again, though he only said it to get her to sign off on his release papers, there was quite a bit of truth behind his words, which she sensed.

"How long have you felt like that?" she asked, her expression one of concern.

"A while."

"Is there anything that triggered that do you think?"

"Well, my parents dying and then getting cast off at an orphanage by my relatives when I was nine years old probably didn't help."

"No, I imagine that it didn't." There was a pause in the conversation. Seto had had just about enough of being psychoanalyzed.

"Look: the bottom line is that I'm not going to try this again. It was a really bad decision that resulted from being under a lot of pressure at work, and I acknowledge that trying to kill myself was selfish and I shouldn't have. End of story. So could you just write out the prescription and be done with it?"

"Why do you think it was selfish?"

"Enough! I know you read my letter, so stop asking me questions you already know the answers to!" He hadn't meant to lose his temper, but the hum of the air conditioner and an almost imperceptible occasional flickering of the fluorescent light were getting under his skin, though not nearly as much as her probing questions. Why should he be forced to bear his soul to someone who didn't know or care about him? She was probably just over there thinking about her next paycheck. He knew he would be if he were forced to sit and listen to people's problems all day.

"I did. Do you want to talk about it?"

"No, I don't want to talk about it; I want to leave!" He even flexed his thigh muscles, gearing to do just that.

"What are you afraid of? I'm just here to listen, not to judge."

"But you are judging me; that's your job."

"No, it's my job to help you." Even as she said it, she knew she wouldn't get him to talk anymore that day. Still, she felt as though she had a fairly good idea what the root of his insecurity was. "We only have a few minutes left," she said finally. "And this is what I think. I believe that you won't try to kill yourself again, however I am going to suggest that we continue to meet, at least for a while. And this doesn't have to be permanent, but I do think that anti-depressants would-. " He had figured as much.

"Fine." Before she had the chance to dismiss him like some kind of underling, he got up and left without a backward glance. "Have the prescription sent to my home address."

He found out he would be allowed to leave as soon as someone came around to check on his stitches; the physical therapist he'd seen that morning had already signed off after he'd demonstrated that he did in fact still have the ability to walk and run despite having practically starved himself and done little more than sleep for two weeks.

When he first got back to his room he noticed a strange look on Mokuba's face, as though the teen were thinking hard about something, but when he asked, Mokuba said that he'd just been thinking about some argument he'd gotten into with his girlfriend, Hilary.

That wasn't true, however. While Seto had been with Dr. Coleman, Alistair had stopped by and Mokuba had been contemplating what the redhead had told him since he'd left.

Alistair had decided that the best way to check on Seto would be to go to the hospital under the guise of a nurse. Stealing the uniform hadn't been hard given that the hospital stored spare uniforms in a very remote and unsupervised ward, namely the coma ward. The door to the closet hadn't even been locked. He'd simply hunted around for a set of scrubs that fit moderately well, written out a name tag using Valon's name as an alias and followed the signs to where he knew Seto's room was from having hacked into the system.

It had been ridiculously easy and no one had stopped him but a few visitors who asked him questions about where certain wards were to which he'd replied that he was new and didn't know. The only time he'd gotten nervous was when he'd entered Seto's ward, but he ran his lines through his head again and steeled himself before stopping by the nurse's station so as not to raise suspicion.

"Excuse me?" he said to the grumpy looking older woman sitting at the desk.

"Yes?" she replied wearily. She could tell that the young man was new and wasn't particularly in the mood to deal with a jittery intern.

"Dr. Swanson, my supervisor, told me to come up here to get some paperwork from Seto Kaiba. He was in the middle of something and couldn't do it." Her expression turned sympathetic.

"Oh. His room's right down the hall, but good luck getting anything from him without a fight; it's like pulling teeth. I don't blame Carl for not wanting to come up here." That sounded like Seto. Alistair was glad that he was behaving normally.

"That bad?"

"They say doctors make bad patients, but this kid is way worse because he thinks he knows everything when he actually knows nothing. And he's always complaining about something. It's too hot, it's too cold, he wants to be alone, he wants everyone at his beck and call. I've never met someone so bratty in my entire life. I swear: someone needs to give him a good smack." Alistair couldn't help but laugh slightly.

"Well, I don't know if I should smack him, but I'll keep in mind that getting those papers won't be easy."

Alistair had thought long and hard about what he wanted to do. He'd finally decided that he didn't actually want to talk to Seto, nor was he sure that Seto would even talk to him, but Mokuba he felt, might. His plan had been to wait until the schedule on Seto's digital hospital file placed him out of the room and then go and talk to Mokuba who he was sure would nonetheless be there.

To his relief, his hunch had been correct.

When he entered the room, Mokuba had looked up from his phone only to do a double-take when he realized who had just walked in.

"Alistair?" he asked in disbelief, taking in the sea-green scrubs the redhead had on, and his name tag which read: Valon Johnstone.

"Hey."

"You shouldn't be here."

"I know he's still mad at me."

"No, I'm mad at you, he was hurt by you and tried to kill himself over you." Mokuba found himself glaring at Alistair, his overall stance very reminiscent of his brother. "But he's getting better so please leave." He pointed to the door. "I don't want to go through this again."

"Just hear me out. I didn't come here to talk to him or even to see him; I came here to talk to you. I just want to know if he's ok, or going to be ok. I know that this is probably my fault, and I wouldn't have been able to live with myself if he had died." Mokuba searched Alistair's face for some sign that he was insincere, that he was only back to stir up more trouble, but as far as he could tell the redhead was actually worried. He slowly uncrossed his arms.

"He's ok. I mean, he's acting like himself again for the first time since you left, but he's not acting like the person he was when you two were together if that makes sense. More like how he was before that and before he met Yugi.

Since being here he's just been really angry, but I'm hoping that's just because he's at a hospital and that once we get home he'll chill out." There was a pause. "Where are you staying?" the teen asked suddenly. "Cuz you know, if you need some money…"

"I don't need your money; that's not why I'm here. But thanks for the offer," he added. "I'm staying with a friend of mine." He hesitated before giving his roommate's name. "Ryou Bakura."

"You're friends with Bakura?"

"Yeah. We met at the library."

"You never mentioned that you two knew each other." Mokuba's tone was suddenly suspicious, and he crossed his arms again.

"I'm friends with Ryou, not the dark spirit that possessed him," Alistair replied firmly. "But given your brother's stance on magic and the fact that the spirit, while wearing Ryou's face, kidnapped you, I decided that mentioning that we were friends might not go over so well." Mokuba let the new information process before responding.

"That's probably true."

They chatted for a bit longer before Alistair took his leave lest Seto come back from his appointment and catch him there.

Upon leaving the hospital (after returning the scrubs to the closet he'd gotten them from), Alistair took a deep breath and exhaled. It was not a sigh of relief at not having been caught, or for having accomplished his goal; it was an attempt to physically and symbolically let go of the chapter of his life that had revolved around Seto Kaiba. Of course it wouldn't really be as simple as that, but he hoped that now that he'd made sure that Seto was alright (though he wished he could have seen him) he could begin to truly detox and eventually be completely over him, and he wished the same for Seto with regards to him.

Author's Note: Take a deep breath. No, I didn't kill Seto off; that would just be mean. Besides, this isn't Game of Thrones. In any case, Seto is now going to have to learn how to live with his demons, and Alistair is going to have to make a choice.