Ch 11
…
Serenity's cell phone rang in her pocket and she looked to see an unknown number. She accepted the call.
"Hello?" she asked.
"Hello? Serenity?" A faint accent replied.
"Ryou? Hi, how are you?" she said cheerfully.
"I – was wondering if you were busy at the moment."
"No, I'm not busy," she said. "Joey's over and we all had dinner not too long ago. Is everything okay?"
"I, um…" there was an uncomfortable sigh on his end, "I woke from an awful nightmare, about what happened."
"Oh no," her face fell with sympathy.
"And I don't want to be a bother, but there's still some time before visiting hours are over."
"Would you like me to come over for a while?" Serenity asked.
"Yes. Please," he said almost immediately. "If you wouldn't mind."
"I don't mind," she said brightly. "Would it be okay if Joey came to?"
"Sure, that's alright."
"Okay, then we'll be on our way."
"I appreciate it, thank you." Ryou sounded a little relieved.
"See you soon," She said.
…
Ryou held tight to his stuffed companions before the others showed up. Although he felt he had a right to need them for comfort, he decided he'd rather not make a show of it in front of Joey (or the other guys for that matter).
When he saw the familiar siblings pass his window, he put the cat back on his table and let the bear rest beside him.
A quick knock and then they came in, Serenity smiling as always.
"Hello," Ryou said, with a hint of an apologetic smile.
"We tried to get here as soon as we could," Serenity said. "Are you alright?"
He nodded. "Thank you for coming on such short notice."
Joey got their chairs. "It's no problem. Dat's what we left da numbers for, right?"
"Yes well," Ryou said. "I doubt this is the last time this will happen. And I don't expect you to drop what you're doing and rush here every time it does."
"Well we probably couldn't swing dat much," Joey agreed. "But we can come see ya anytime ya really need da company."
"And even if we can't make it in person," Serenity added. "We're always just a phone call away. You can talk to us anytime you want, okay?"
Ryou nodded. "I appreciate that."
Joey lounged a bit in his seat. "So, dis da first nightmare you've had about all dis?"
Ryou propped himself a little higher. "I've had hints and visions of it since coming here, but this is the first time I didn't realize it was a dream until after I'd woken."
A sad look crossed Serenity's face. "What happened? Or would you rather not talk about it?"
Ryou bit his lip in thought. "It was mostly me moving through the house, trying to hide. But he found me." He swallowed. "I woke up soon after, but the whole thing was… awful."
There was no response. He looked up to see the others listening, as though they expected more.
"I don't know how much you know about what happened," Ryou said.
They exchanged a look, and Joey pointed vaguely in the direction of Marik's room. "Well we heard it from da other perspective, but they don't really know what it was like from your end."
"Hmm," Ryou considered how much it would take to get them to understand. He decided he may as well start from the beginning. "I imagine that under normal circumstances, the doctors would send a specialist to try and get me to talk about what happened. But that wouldn't do anyone any good. Trying to explain all of this will make them suspect I've gone mental."
The others agreed.
"However, you're all familiar with everyone involved and you know about the Millennium Items and all that… Perhaps… Perhaps if I tell them that I'm speaking to you lot instead, they'll feel more lenient about you coming here."
"Maybe," Serenity said. "But we're not experts or anything, so we may not be able to help you in the same way that a specialist can."
Ryou thought about it. "I'm not sure what they would do to help me anyway. All I need to do is get physically well again, and then figure out how to get past all of this…"
Joey shifted in his chair. "Well I mean there's lots of information out there, right? I'm sure we could look stuff up if we needed to. And if we got any hard questions, we can thinka' some roundabout way of askin' somebody."
"That might work," Ryou said.
"I'm willing to do that but," Serenity turned to Ryou with a hint of a wince, "Are you willing to tell us everything you would tell a specialist? I mean, in order to help you in that way we may have to ask you to face some tough stuff."
Ryou looked reluctantly at the floor before raising his eyes to her. "That's really the only way to get better though, isn't it?"
She shrugged with some agreement.
Ryou took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "Well nevertheless, I suppose I can tell you my perspective of what happened."
He began with the idea of giving Bakura his own body for a day. "Bakura thought it would be best that I not be left alone so, he made a call…" he gestured in the same direction Joey had earlier. "And we arranged to meet at the plaza the next day. That's where I saw you and the others, Joey. But I don't think you were there," he gestured to Serenity and she shook her head.
A look crossed Joey's face as he thought back to that day. "Yeah, I remember Tea was bein' a jerk and wouldn't loan me da money to get some new cards for my deck. She kept saying she had a whole list of new CD's she planned to get, but does she wanna fork over da dough for somethin' important? Oh no. She'd rather just rub it in your face when she's got money and you don't."
"Uh, Joey," Serenity spoke up, "We're getting off topic here, aren't we?"
"Huh? Oh right, my bad. Sorry, Ryou, keep goin'."
"Well it was right after I saw you lot that I lost him in the crowd, and I only spotted him once he headed down a back road to that neighborhood."
Serenity made a mental note to herself to bring something up later, but let him continue with his story for the time being.
Ryou went on to describe everything from wondering what Marik was doing or thinking, to following him to the house, to making up his mind to go in after him. When he got to the point of picking Marik's phone off the porch, he took a moment to compose himself. This was not easy to relive, even though he knew he was out of harm's way in a hospital. He looked up at the siblings, who sat perfectly still with anticipation in their eyes. It probably didn't help that they knew where the story would end up. Ryou made himself go into the details of the house, but he found the more he spoke, the harder it became.
He reached for his journal and the box of colored pencils. Taking the black, grey and brown ones, he opened the book to the first two pages and tried to make his casted hand work for him. "I'm not the best at drawing but…" he made basic lines to describe the layout of the bottom floor, deciding a bird's-eye-view would come across better than trying to draw his perspective from the front door. "The hallway went straight from the front door to the back of the house. The stairway was here, going up this way… The kitchen was here, and across from that was a disgusting living area -" he stopped, frowning at the paper.
The others waited patiently.
Ryou's hand moved between hovering over the two rooms. Did he remember that right?
"What's up?" Joey asked quietly, leaning forward to see the paper.
"I can't remember… Did I dream that?" Ryou wondered aloud. "Each of these rooms led into the next one but the laundry room went down into the basement." He flinched at his own words and moved his hand over the first living room again. "I thought there was another doorway in this room though… or, maybe I'm thinking of this room. The one with the -" He nearly choked at the sudden stress that rose in his throat. He drew a narrow rectangle along the right wall of the back room.
"With da what?" Joey asked.
"With the fireplace," Ryou said. He began to tremble and his shaking hand drew a small circle with lines in the middle. "The big fireplace and t-the bracket full of – fire pokers I can't do this!" His words rushed out all at once as he suddenly tossed the book and pencil to the foot of the bed and placed both hands over his nose and mouth. Serenity reached out to him but he flinched away from her with a muffled, "Don't. Please don't."
"Just take it easy," Joey said in an unusually calm manner. "Everything's alright here, you got us with ya."
Ryou took a deep breath through his hands, then lowered them to address Serenity.
"The marks you saw… on my back…"
She scrunched her eyes with concern and a little uncertainty. Ryou nodded to the journal and ran his hands over his face again.
She looked from him to the book and back again; Joey saw the comprehension spread across her face, followed by horrified disbelief. "He didn't," she whispered.
Ryou hugged himself, his pained expression all the answer she needed.
"My god," she covered her mouth.
Joey suddenly spoke up, "Ryou, are you allowed to have cocoa or is it just tea?"
The British boy looked up at him, a little taken aback by the question. He met Joey's eyes and caught on to the ulterior intentions.
"I'm – I'm not sure. But tea sounds good, if you're thinking about it."
Joey retrieved his wallet and pulled out some money. "Sis, ya wanna check out dat vending machine we passed and see if they got any decaf for Ryou? I think you an' me could use a little of da chocolatey stuff."
"Sure, that sounds good." She took the money and got to her feet. "I'll be right back."
Joey watched her go, then turned to see Ryou shaking his head in shame.
"I'm sorry, Joey. I should've known better."
"Don't beat yourself up, pal. You're da one tryin' to get better, not us," Joey said. "But I think we oughta' tweak dis plan a smidge. 'Cause I know Serenity would do anything to help you out, even if it meant listening to stuff she didn't really wanna hear. But I gotta watch out for her too, ya know?"
Ryou nodded.
"I'm not saying don't talk about what happened, cause obviously ya gotta. But maybe you could skim over da more violent and grisly details? Just while she's here? She'll never admit it, but she's easily upset by dat kinda' thing. And it'll stick with her longer than it would other people."
"I understand," Ryou said quietly.
"Don't get me wrong," Joey said, leaning forward, "I definitely think it will help us to hear everything in as much detail as possible – er, so long as your comfortable with it, dat is. But let's save dat for when it's just me and da guys. Whaddaya say?"
Ryou nodded again, "I can do that. I wouldn't want to upset her either."
Joey gave him an admiring smile, "Thanks man, dat's real big of ya." He leaned back again, and his eyes wandered over the bed. "Is dat da bear she got ya?"
Ryou flinched with a little embarrassment.
"Yes," he turned and brought the animal closer to be seen easier.
"Aw man, dat does look like da other one," Joey said, almost to himself. "What are da odds she'd find somethin' like dat in a place like dis?"
Ryou shrugged. "It was a sweet gift though."
"She puts a lot of heart into her gifts, dat's for sure," Joey said, scratching his head.
"She does." Ryou looked over the bear. The stitched mouth was the same as it had ever been, yet Mrs. Bear seemed a little less sad today.
"She left your room in a funky fit of laughing tears last time," Joey said, "It took almost da whole trip home to get her to tell me what she was so worked up about. But she told me about how she'd found it and how she thought it was da perfect gift. Sorry it's so frilly."
Ryou immediately shook his head. "That doesn't bother me. It reminds me of my Mum and my baby sister… So does she."
"Oh yeah?"
"I think I needed that… Perhaps I still do," he put the bear back beside him. "That's why I called her. I debated it for a long time, but I realized she's done some real good for me even in this short amount of time."
A small smile formed on Joey's lips as he listened.
"I don't intend to burden her or take up more of her time than is necessary. I want you to know that. But I do think I'll need her to get better."
"Well she'll be happy about dat. If there's one thing she can't handle, it's standin' by helplessly while other people are suffering." His eyes drifted to the wall, his face looking plenty proud now. "She's somethin' real special, my sister."
Serenity returned at that moment, carrying a carton with several covered drinks.
"This is very hot so be careful," she said as she placed Ryou's drink on his bedside table. "I didn't add any sweetener because I wasn't sure how much you could have. So I brought some packets for you."
"Thank you, Serenity," Ryou gave her a smile and took the contents she offered.
"And for you," she turned to Joey and offered him a cardboard sleeve before holding his drink aloft to slip inside of it.
"Thanks a lot," he said.
"You're welcome. You bought it." She gave a playful chuckle and took her seat.
"We came to a decision," Joey told her. "We can keep goin' through da details of da house for now, to get an idea of Ryou's side of the story. But we think it'll be better to save the more detailed talks for when Yugi and Tristan are here. Then you and Tea can come in and help get Ryou's mind on happier stuff. Help him keep da bad things detached, ya know?"
She thought about it and nodded. "That sounds like a good idea. What do you think, Ryou?"
"Sounds top to me," he said, removing the lid of his cup to lightly blow the steam away. "Purging the bad and filling in the good."
"Then, just in case da talks don't go so good, or da mood gets too grim with us," Joey added, "Ryou can still look forward to visiting with you girls, and you can work your magic to make him feel better."
"I like that plan," Serenity smiled. "Great idea, Joey."
He held his hand aloft and she high-fived him.
"So how 'bout dis? We'll drink these up 'til you're ready to continue," he gestured to Ryou, then to the journal on the bed. "We'll get through da gist of dis, then we'll get an idea how to help you with yer nightmares. After dat, we can work out a plan for getting' ya better."
…