Apologies may be useless, but I still feel you deserve one for this latest delay. My job of 7 years nearly went out of business twice in the past few months and I got sick shortly afterward. But things are better, thank the Lord! And I really am working hard to make my updates more consistent.

I realize my word is pretty much worthless at this point, but I promise, I really am trying! I will redeem my credibility! You can count on it.

Ch 5

…

Bakura spent some time deliberately sleeping in his physical body. He figured it would help his system work to heal itself better. However, after waking more than once, and feeling all sorts of terrible, he decided to give himself a little reprieve. Once the better part of the day had passed, he allowed himself to slip back into the deep subconscious space where Ryou was.

Bakura noticed the space had changed a bit. There was an element like weak sunlight coming from somewhere above. It shone golden light down on a small grassy area set with numerous flowers. Taller blossoms rose behind the shorter ones in front, and a shadowy figure of a butterfly fluttered from on blossom to the next.

A strange golden-colored gate stood tall in front of it; its slim bars woven in delicate swirling patterns. And there he found Ryou standing, holding onto the bars and staring at the little garden plot. Bakura moved closer, looking the gate over. To call it a gate seemed inaccurate, as it wasn't attached to anything on either side. But it was a welcome change of scenery, and the ancient spirit felt too mentally exhausted to criticize it. He walked to the gate and took hold of the bars beside his younger companion; the latter showing no interest in the fact he'd returned. Bakura took in the detail of the flower blossoms. They were simple; a combination of blues, purples, and several varieties of pinks. The green of the grass patch was notably rich too.

He sighed to himself. It was much nicer than staring at a hospital wall for hours. He almost imagined he could smell the fragrant blossoms.

"Do you feel better now?" Ryou asked quietly. He didn't sound like himself.

"It's progress." Bakura answered simply.

They stood in silence for a while, watching the ghostly butterfly flutter around without a care.

Bakura gave the bars a squeeze. "He really did do a number on you, didn't he?" he mumbled.

There was no answer. There didn't need to be. They both knew it was true. Bakura slowly turned away from the gate and sat with his back against it. A somewhat heavy feeling passed through the air around them, but thankfully didn't linger.

"Have you planned what you want to do?" he asked.

"About what?" Ryou muttered.

"When you get out of here."

The butterfly fluttered its wings as it rested on a higher lilac bundle.

"'Here' being…"

Bakura gave him an impatient look, "You know perfectly well what I mean."

"I don't," Ryou said softly. "Are you referring to the hospital? Or are you referring to where we are now?"

Bakura rolled his eyes at the lack of enthusiasm.

"Or maybe you mean this feeling of trapped distress." Ryou added.

"How about all of the above?" Bakura said. He looked back at the British boy. Ryou's eyes seemed fixated on those flowers, yet they were glazed over and unfocused. He seemed empty. Maybe that's where the gate with no perimeter came from: a pointless obstruction that appeared just a little too big and separated them from something pleasant.

"I don't know, Yami." Ryou said just above a whisper. "I really haven't a goddamned clue in the world."

Bakura stayed with his cheek against the metal, looking from his counterpart down to the grass at the gate's edge. He wasn't surprised. He felt at a bit of a loss himself, and he didn't even feel victimized.

"I don't know what I'm meant to do, or what I'm expected to do," Ryou said. "I don't know how I feel or how I ought to feel... I don't know anything."

"Well…" Bakura said quietly, reaching out to touch some taller blades of grass, "What do you want to feel?"

"I want to feel better than this. Of course."

"Alright," Bakura said, thinking. "And what will it take to do that?"

"How should I know?" Ryou said. "This has never happened to me before."

Bakura ran his fingertips gingerly up and down the fragile green blades. The ease with which they bent and leaned at his faintest touched made him think of Ryou's current state. Surely it wouldn't take much of anything to push him past some foul point of no return, would it?

"Did…" Ryou asked, suddenly sounding much younger, "Did anyone ever beat you like that?"

"Technically he did, didn't he?" Bakura said carefully.

"Before that, I mean?"

"No… And I can admit, this time you got it worse than I did." He heard a quiet but strong intake of breath, which his host let out carefully. Bakura took a long blade of grass between his first two fingers, pulling up slightly. It straightened upright as it slid against his skin. He wondered how much he could test its strength before it would give and tear.

"Do you want revenge?" Bakura asked.

There was a pause. Ryou turned to look at him uncertainly.

Bakura simply looked back, waiting.

"I… No. I don't want revenge."

"Really? After everything that happened to you, it hasn't crossed your mind to get even?"

"No." Ryou turned forward again. "I don't want that. It wouldn't solve anything."

Bakura ran his fingers absentmindedly over the gate's surface. "And what about Marik?"

"What about him?" Ryou said flatly.

"Do you hate him now?"

Ryou closed his eyes with an annoyed sigh.

"I can think of no one who would blame you -" Bakura said.

"I don't hate Marik."

Bakura glanced at him, then back at the grass. "But you are angry at him."

Ryou didn't answer. He watched as the plants swayed slightly in a breeze that was never really there.

"I don't think so," he murmured. "But I told you, I don't know what I feel anymore."

They spent a few moments in silence.

"What about you?" Ryou asked. "Are you angry at him?"

"I have no reason to be."

"He tried to kill you too, you know."

"It wasn't him."

"Right," Ryou muttered. He sounded tired of the whole thing. "That's kind or where our dilemma is, isn't it? You already got revenge against his evil half or whatever it was. And Marik himself is supposedly innocent in all of this, so we have no right to be resentful of him."

"We?" Bakura asked. No answer. "… Whether we have a 'right' to anything doesn't matter. I am the King of Thieves. I want what I want and I'll be sure to have whatever that is."

"So what do you want?" Ryou asked.

"I want this to be over with," Bakura's voice rose a bit. "I want to get past this and go back to how we were before. But you've clearly been traumatized so that's not likely to happen. Which means if I expect to move on, I have to help you move on first. So I'm asking you: what do you want?"

Ryou tensed up and tightened his grip on the bars. "I…"

"There has to be something," Bakura said. "But if it isn't vengeance, then I can't possibly imagine what it is."

"I already told you -" Ryou's voice trembled a bit. "I don't know."

"If you could do anything at all – right here and right now – you can't think of a single thing you want?"

"I want…" Ryou's face turned to a grimace and he leaned his forehead against the gate. "I -"

Bakura watched him, picking up the feeling the tightness in his hikari's chest. But he wasn't about to drop the matter. He needed to know.

"I want my mother."

The butterfly became suddenly still. Bakura sat still. Everything was still. Ryou scrunched his eyes tightly closed.

"I want what I can't have," Ryou said almost inaudibly. "I want her to tell me what I'm supposed to do. I want her to hold me close and tell me how to get through this. I want to feel safe. She would never, ever hurt me. I was always safe with her. I want to feel that way again." He grit his teeth as his eyes began to shimmer. "I want my mother."

He sank to his knees with a strangled sob. The light that had been shining over the flowers faded away. The butterfly was nowhere to be found, nor was Bakura's temper. He watched his host cling to the bars helplessly as the younger man tried not to fall apart again.

"I don't have anybody. There's no one left to turn to. My only friend in the world did this to me, and I don't know what more you can do to help me."

Bakura frowned slightly, turning his face forward. He didn't have a response for that.

Ryou sniffled and wipe his eyes before taking a deep breath. He finally brought his hands down to rest in his lap. "Just take it."

Bakura turned to him again.

"I don't have anything to move forward to. I have no wish to go back to my life. Just take my body for yourself and do whatever you want."

More silence.

It was a bit of an odd offer. Surely Bakura had made it clear he could take control whenever he wanted. So this had to mean something different than just free reign of his host's body. He scanned what he could see of Ryou's face. And as the minutes passed by, it seemed less and less like a mere passing thought. Ryou really was giving up. The thief carefully turned forward again, considering the idea.

"I can't just kill you," Bakura said. "You expect to stay here forever and go quietly mad?"

"What would be the alternative? Even if I did want anything from life, I don't have it in me to go back."

Now it was the Spirit's turn to take in a slow, deep breath.

…

Marik stood outside of Ryou's window twice more during the next few days. Each time, the British boy was still unconscious. But he was beginning to improve, and that was something. At last, a nurse came to him while he was out on a walk with Odion.

"Your friend in room 232 is asking for you. Please keep it brief, he's still having trouble staying awake."

Although he was immediately nervous, Marik hardly hesitated. He'd been waiting anxiously since the beginning.

Odion unfolded the wheelchair and escorted him to Ryou's room, where Marik saw the injured body laying as it always had. But he looked more like he was sleeping now, rather than dead.

"Wait here, please," Marik said as Odion held the door open for him. He paused just inside, waiting for the door to latch closed and block out the hallway noise. He was glad he no longer heard the horrible hissing of the breathing respirator. And the beeping of his Ryou's heart monitor had been turned down a little. Marik quietly wheeled himself closer to the bed, wondering if the other had really fallen asleep while waiting for him. It didn't feel right to wake him. But the nurse did say he had asked to see Marik.

The blonde heaved a sigh, a bit apprehensive. The pale boy's eyes slowly opened and he turned his head slightly toward the blonde.

Marik raised his head a little, very aware of the shame he wore on his face.

Those pale lips parted with an intake of breath. Then a cracked whisper said, "There you are."

Marik didn't speak. He couldn't. He watched those exhausted brown eyes close and slowly open again, and he tried to determine whom he was speaking to.

The pale figure looked own as Marik's wheelchair. "Will you walk again?" he asked slowly.

The blonde sucked on his lip and nodded uncomfortably.

The other turned his head forward again. "The rod went pretty deep into your leg. I wasn't sure how bad it would be."

Marik's eyes moved over him, watching his chest rise and fall the way it was naturally intended to. Not by mechanical, calculated precision. He gave a short, hopeless shake of his head.

"I feel like I'm supposed to say something but… In all this time, I couldn't -"

He stopped as the other shook his head as well. "We saw you. When you came in before… we could hear you."

Marik rose a little in his seat at that. "Is it you now, Ryou?"

"… No," One eye cracked open to look at him.

Marik nodded, moving his hands against each other. "Is he -? How is -? I mean -"

The eye closed again. "He's struggling with all of this."

Marik nodded again, trying to swallow the persistent lump in his throat. "I can't even imagine."

"It was pretty bad." The gravelly voice said simply. "I joined up with him after the worst of it, I think. But it was all more than I'd ever experienced."

Hot liquid attempted to build in Marik's eyes. He swallowed hard again. "Bakura," he whispered. "Please believe me, I didn't mean for any of this."

"I know you didn't."

Marik bit his lip, hesitating. "… Does he know?"

Bakura worked to suppress a cough, wincing as he did. "Yes."

Marik winced too. He held his hands apart. "So?"

Bakura turned to him again. "So what?"

"So… Where does that put us? I've had questions running aimlessly through my head about both of you all this time."

"We don't know yet."

Marik stopped, his mouth still open.

Bakura took in a painful breath, letting it out carefully. "We've been asking the same questions. Haven't come up with many answers yet."

Marik hung his head.

"I'll wager that you've been beating yourself up all this time. There's really no need for that. It's… not as if you got away unscathed."

"But this all happened because of me."

"We all survived."

"Barely," Marik muttered.

"Marik…" Bakura opened his eyes to look sidelong at him. Marik didn't know if it was fatigue or a real glare he was seeing, but he didn't like it. "I was going to snap your neck."

The Egyptian sat stunned.

"Your brother… stopped me at the last second. But I was really going to kill you."

They stared at each other while those words sank in.

"So you really don't need to punish yourself anymore... We all survived," he said again. "Think about that."

Marik had no response. He sat perfectly still, trying to put an image to everything he had been told about that day. Each time he thought he'd had it figured out, he learned something new.

Then Bakura gave a slight rise of his eyebrows. "I don't hold any of this against you, actually. All I want is to get out of this wretched place. Get things back the way they were."

"How?" Marik said, agitation rising in his voice. "How could we possibly go back to how things were?"

"We just have to move on. Your evil self is vanquished for good this time. I made sure of it. This won't happen again."

Marik opened his mouth to say otherwise but decided against it. He slouched in his chair, holding his head in his hand. "I never thanked you for that."

A few more raspy breaths. "They said you're paying the bills here?" Bakura cracked an eye open again.

"Yes."

"Then that will do… for now at least."

Marik wanted to know more, to offer more, to do more. But he didn't know what.

"Just get yourself healed and out of this place," Bakura murmured. "I'm working on the same thing."

"What about Ryou?"

Bakura looked blearily at the ceiling. "That's where I'm at a loss… It's taken everything I have to keep him from splitting apart, as well as get this body back in control of itself. I don't think there's anything more I can do for him."

Marik's felt his heart into his stomach. He grimaced as the first hot tears slide down his cheek. Damn it all... To hell and back! Why did this have to happen, why?

Bakura thought quietly for a moment. "But maybe you can."

Marik's eyes were instantly back on him, mouth open.

"It's a long shot… but -"

Marik all but leapt out of his chair, "Name it!"

…

I thought for a very long time (I think even before the first chapter of this story was posted) about how the conversation would go when they spoke for the first time after the events of "Defenseless". I had come up with a few scenarios, but this one apparently won out. Still though, after a few unrelated conversations with some friends of mine, it's come to my attention that I have a tendency to react to situations in a somewhat less than usual way.

So that made me curious as I was editing this chapter: how did you guys see the conversation playing out? What id you expect or imagine would happen? I'd love to know, if you're up for sharing. I love hearing different perspectives :D

Please review to let me know your thoughts, reactions or feelings to this. And while I have a general idea how this story will end, I am ALWAYS open to suggestions. You never know, someone may have a better plan than I do ;D

Thanks so much for sticking with my stories!