"What's your apartment number?" Joey asked as he locked his car and shoved his keys into his pocket, letting his long legs carry him far into the building and straight to the stairs. Mokuba's answer confirmed his assumption that they were not on the first floor. Joey only hung up once he was outside their door, reaching for the handle. Mokuba was close to tears as he sprang up from the floor, Seto's cell still in his hand.

"It's gonna be okay," Joey said before the child could say anything. He walked briskly over to both of them and knelt beside Seto, prompting Mokuba to do the same. While the blond was focused on the immediate danger, he still noticed the amber bottles, the acrid air, the dingy walls. The broken glass by Seto's head was more concerning than anything else.

"Tell me what happened," Joey asked; Mokuba had been too distressed on the phone to tell him, but now that he was here in person, he seemed to have calmed down a bit. Joey gently rolled Seto onto his back, revealing a dark red gash flecked with sparkling amber crumbs on the side of his head. Joey tried to block the wound from Mokuba's view, not wanting to upset him further.

"When we got home, our dad was..." He struggled to find the right word even as he tried not to look at the blood. "Angry. He grabbed Seto, and Seto told me to leave, so I went to our room and locked the door, like I always do." Mokuba paused to swallow hard, his hands shaking as much as his voice did. "I could hear them fighting. Dad was shouting. I heard the glass break and Dad slammed the door when he left. Then I came out and he was like this."

"Seto, can you hear me? Seto?" Joey's calls were unanswered, and he knew there was only one thing left he could do. He pulled out his phone again and started dialing 911. "Mokuba, get me a towel." The raven-haired child got up and dashed away just as the dispatcher answered Joey's call and started asking questions.

Joey stayed remarkably calm as he applied pressure to the wound with the towel he was given and kept talking with the dispatch on the phone, simultaneously trying to keep Mokuba from dissolving into hysterics. Seto woke up a few minutes into the call, and Joey managed to keep him talking. He tried to sit up, insisting that he was fine, but Joey stopped him.

"You're not fine, Seto, you're bleeding, and you need to lay still," Joey said, repeating things the dispatcher told him to say.

"But he is okay," Mokuba insisted hopefully, reaching out to clasp his brother's hand as slow blue eyes found his tear-stained face. "He's awake now, he's okay. He doesn't have to leave." Mokuba looked frightened at the prospect of his brother being taken away, even if he was only being taken to the hospital.

"I'm sorry Mokuba, but he does have to go, and you know it." This was hard for Joey. He needed to be the calm one, the mature one, the controlled one. He needed to comfort Mokuba and save Seto and make a plan for what they were going to do. He needed to be the adult in a home that wasn't even his. "They'll be here in just a few more minutes, just stay awake until then, okay, Seto?" he pleaded. The brunette looked sleepy and irritated more than anything else. He didn't even look like he was in pain.

"Who's coming?" Seto asked, his voice weak in a way that frightened his brother. Seto never sounded weak like that.

"The paramedics are coming. They'll take you to the hospital so they can stitch you up and check your brain."

"Mokuba's right; I'm fine." Seto made another attempt to sit up, making Joey frustrated.

"You are going to lay down right there or so help me I will hold you down," Joey snapped, his brown eyes burning fiercely. "You are going to the hospital whether you like it or not, because it's what you need."

"Okay." Seto gave in much more easily than Joey expected him to, even with the head injury.

"Mokuba, do you see the Millennium Rod?" Joey asked, and Mokuba looked at him in confusion.

Mokuba looked back at the blond in confusion. "The what?" He hadn't known that the item had a name.

"That." Joey nodded in the direction of the golden artifact poking out from within Seto's coat. "Can you please take that out so it's out of the way?"

"O-Okay." Mokuba reached down and gently pulled it out, holding it in front of his chest with both hands, eyes round as he started to seem calmer, shocked into numbness.

"Yes, it's the building with the red convertible parked in front of it," Joey said into the phone. It occurred to him that he was fortunate his car was still there. "Mokuba, when they get here, I need you to stand back and let them do their thing, okay?" Mokuba nodded. "And when they take him to the ambulance, we're gonna follow him in my car, okay?" Mokuba nodded again, feeling slightly comforted by the assurance that he wasn't going to be left behind.

A knock on the front door and an announcement of their presence alerted them to the arrival of the paramedics.

"Mokuba, get the door for them."

The child hopped up to obey Joey, and once he opened the door, all Mokuba could grasp was the flurry of activity, the voices of strangers, and the pressure of Joey's hand on his shoulder as they stood aside, watching and waiting. Joey grabbed Seto's empty wallet off the floor before they followed the paramedics out. He paused and considered cleaning the blood off the floor, but decided that now wasn't the time.

Joey and Mokuba, who was still wearing his pajamas, sat in the waiting room, neither of them in the mood to talk.

"He's going to be fine, you'll see," Joey said every several minutes, trying to sound convincing. Mokuba stared blankly ahead and tried not to cry. When a nurse finally approached them with an update on the brunette, Joey stood up, wringing his hands nervously. "How is he?"

"He's fine," she assured, making them both sigh with relief. "We cleaned the wound, gave him some stitches, and he's sleeping off the anesthetic now. The x-rays didn't show any bone fractures, but he was complaining of a strong head-ache, so in the morning we're going to give him an MRI to check for any signs of a concussion."

"So you're keeping him overnight?"

"Yes, but one night should be enough."

"That's good. See? I told you he'd be alright." Joey pat Mokuba on the head, but the child didn't look the least bit cheered up. "We'll come back tomorrow then to take him home. Thank you for telling us." He nodded appreciatively to the nurse, who reciprocated and left them with a conventional verbal parting.

"Let's go home, Mokuba. You can stay at my house tonight."

"I'm not leaving." He looked up at Joey with solemn grey eyes. "I'm not leaving him here alone."

"He's just going to be asleep—"

"He wouldn't leave me if it were the other way around," Mokuba insisted, looking quite determined. "If he won't leave me, then I won't leave him."

"Yes, but your brother is just going to sleep from now until morning, and he would want you to get some sleep too," Joey said slowly, sitting beside Mokuba once more. It was almost midnight and they were all tired after such a long day. It was hard to believe that the final duels of the tournament had taken place just that morning. "We can come back before he wakes up again. Would you like that?"

"I don't want to leave him here..." Mokuba whispered, his innocent eyes filling with tears.

"Hey, don't cry," Joey urged soothingly, putting an arm around his slim shoulders. "Your brother will be just fine. There's nothing to worry about." Granted, there was a fair chance Seto might have a concussion, but saying that now wouldn't make Mokuba feel any better.

"People die in hospitals, Joey," the raven-haired child whispered, looking at the blond teen with such fear that Joey couldn't take it anymore.

"Mokuba, there is absolutely no way that your brother is going to die between now and tomorrow morning." He spoke with as much energetic confidence as he could muster at this time of night. "I promise you."

Mokuba sniffled and nodded a little, trying to believe him.

Joey gave Mokuba a little nudge with his arm and said, "Would some ice cream make you feel better?"

The grey-eyed child smiled a little bit and nodded.

"Atta boy."

The next morning, Mokuba woke up in Joey's bed to the smell of pancakes. Joey wasn't there, but the Millennium Rod—an item obviously precious to his brother—was still tucked under Mokuba's pillow. Believing it was safe there, Mokuba decided to leave it behind as he followed his nose down to the kitchen, where Serenity was making, not pancakes, but waffles. Mokuba could feel his empty stomach squishing and squeezing with desire as he stared greedily at the breakfast food. It only took a few moments for Serenity to notice him.

"Good morning, Mokuba!" she called out, smiling and sounding rather cheerful. "Joey said he left to get you some clothes from your house and that he'd be back soon."

Mokuba just nodded, not really knowing what he should say.

"You know, you can come down and eat breakfast, if you're hungry," she added after a moment, eyelashes low and coy as she shyly tried to entice her friend to join her.

"I'm starving," Mokuba answered, needing no further invitation. They ate their blueberry waffles indulgently, adding strawberries, whipped cream, and chocolate syrup to them before they dug in. Serenity didn't ask why Mokuba was there, and he didn't tell her. They talked about the upcoming school-year, the recent weather, the results of the tournament that had ended just yesterday. When they finished eating, Serenity started putting things away, so Mokuba offered to help wash the dishes.

"Hey guys, sorry I was gone so long," Joey said as he walked in through the door joining the house to the garage. "Morning traffic was bad." In other words, it had taken longer to scrub the blood out of the carpet than he had anticipated. He set down the backpack he'd slung over his shoulder and said, "Here you go, Mokuba. I got clothes for you and your brother. You can go change now and I'll finish the dishes." Joey sounded breathless in a nervous way, and he wasn't smiling, although he tried to sound like he was. Mokuba dried his hands on a towel and nodded, grabbing the backpack and going upstairs to change.

"His brother?" Serenity looked at the blond teen with curious eyes. Joey had told her earlier not to ask any questions and to just make Mokuba feel welcome, but now she was starting to wonder. Joey just shook his head, though. Seto kept as much about himself a secret as he could possibly get away with, and Joey didn't plan on ruining that for him. He'd kept Seto's secrets longer than he'd kept any other secret in his entire life—even better than he kept his own. Seto mattered that much to him.

When Seto woke up, his head throbbed and he didn't want to open his eyes. He could hear mechanical beeping and humming, distant voices hushed by the walls and doors between them and him, the faint chatter of inane television programming. He tried to think back to what had happened last night. He remembered fighting with his dad. He remembered being hit on the head. He remembered seeing Joey and Mokuba anxiously hovering over him. He vaguely remembered the ambulance, the hospital...

That must be where he was now. He knew he should open his eyes and sit up, but his eyelids felt heavy and his body was reluctant to move. He just wanted to rest here for a little while longer before he had to go back to life, to the real world. Didn't he deserve a break? Just a little break from everything? He'd been so relieved when they'd landed in Domino, because everyone was safe and alive, and they didn't have to worry about Pegasus anymore. Domino itself was more of a home to him than the apartment where he lived; he'd been so relieved to be home, but he'd been afraid to return to their apartment. He wished that he had a real home, a place where he could feel safe, a place he'd be happy to return to at the end of the day. Feeling disheartened, he mentally reached out for Seth, calling his name, but he received no answer. The Millennium Rod wasn't here, then. That made him a bit sadder. He wanted nothing more than to sleep for the rest of the day, but he knew that he wasn't so lucky as to get what he wanted, so he forced his bright blue eyes to open and blink in the bright fluorescent light.

At the same time, another pair of identical blue eyes opened slowly, carefully. Noah blinked, and lifted a stiff arm to rub at his eyes. He stood and stumbled forward, catching himself with one hand on the glass of the window in front of him. He squinted into the colorful sunrise and hated it.

"Oh, Master Kaiba! You're awake!" his nurse, the one who'd been caring for him all this time, exclaimed from somewhere behind him.

"So I am." His voice was indifferent and he didn't bother to turn around. "How long have I been unconscious?"

She answered promptly, telling him the number of days with confident precision. The number was far too high. It angered him. He scowled at the sky as he tried to piece the shards of his mind back together.

"Adina?"

"She's alive and well, sir. A week ago, she was abducted by Mr. Pegasus, but she's been returned unharmed."

He clenched his jaw, teeth grinding in frustration. "Go away. Alert Hobson that I'll be summoning him shortly." He had a lot of catching up to do.

Seto closed his eyes again. He wasn't ready to face the world just yet. He needed a strategy first, a plan of attack, and he needed to know what he was up against. Who had done what while he was asleep, and who needed to be punished for betraying him during his absence?

When Joey and Mokuba finally arrived at the hospital, Seto was awake and had already done the MRI. He didn't know the results yet, though.

"Seto!" Mokuba cried as soon as he saw his brother and ran to him, the child becoming tearful again.

"Hey," Seto greeted softly, putting an arm around his brother as Mokuba threw himself at the brunette. He seemed peaceful, but that was probably the after effects of the anesthetic. "Don't cry, Mokuba," he said, trying to comfort him as he plucked a tissue from the box on the side table and handed it to his brother so he could dry his eyes. "I'm okay. There's nothing to worry about."

Joey was still standing by the door to the room, just watching the brothers together. In the hospital gown, Seto's arms were bare, revealing a fresh bruise in the shape of a man's grip. Looking at it made Joey flashback to the hours he'd spent in the motel with Seto: seeing his scars for the first time, hearing him gasp with pain, watching him wince when something hurt and he didn't want to say so. Seto'd sometimes been bruised in places that he refused to name, but even then, Joey had seen how just the act of sitting down would hurt him.

As Seto held Mokuba close, he lifted his eyes to Joey's, and he could see how uncomfortable he was with this level of exposure. He kept himself covered for a reason, and he didn't want Mokuba to see something he shouldn't.

"I brought some clothes for you to change into," Joey said, holding up the backpack. Seto's relief was visible and immediate.

"Thanks." He gave Mokuba a pat on the back before releasing him and taking the backpack from Joey, who then distracted Mokuba as Seto turned and ducked into the bathroom.

"You know, Serenity really liked having you over this morning," the blond informed him. "You two should hang out more."

The Millennium Rod was in the backpack too, and when Seto finished dressing, he clasped it in both hands, then closed his eyes and reached out to the spirit.

He awoke in his spirit room at the edge of the icy pool Seth had pulled him out of the last time they were here. Seth, however, was nowhere in sight. He was at one end of a dark, dank tunnel with stones on all sides. He called Seth's name, but when he received no answer, he started walking forward, searching for the pharaoh. The tunnel got darker and darker, the air increasingly thick with warm, moldy, humid air. He was starting to wonder if he ought to leave when he finally spotted a light at the end of the tunnel. He called for Seth again, his pace quickening. The closer he got, the shadowy light started to reveal paintings on the wall. Two-dimensional art of Egyptian imagery and hieroglyphics that Seto could read for reasons he himself didn't entirely understand. The pictographic text was tightly wrapped around the paintings, and he slowed his pace as he started skimming the words and following the story. He saw images that were achingly familiar.

The paintings were beautiful, the paint colors vivid and bright. But there were gaps, places where nothing was painted at all, but the illegible faint grey smudges there showed that something had once been there. When he finally reached the source of the light, he found Seth kneeling on the floor, his more ceremonial garments absent from his garb. He looked younger, too. When the Egyptian lifted his head to look up at Seto, chestnut hair flopping haphazardly into his wide eyes, the teen felt a pang in his chest: Seth looked no older than Mokuba was now.

"I'm sorry, I didn't see the bottle coming." Seth turned back to the wall and dipped his finely-tipped paintbrush into the dish of black ink in his left hand before leaning close to the wall and continuing his task: repainting all of the faded images on the walls.

"It's alright," Seto murmured, his fight with his father the last thing on his mind right now. "What are you doing?"

"I started to forget, so I need to go back." Seth sounded vaguely irritated, as any interrupted child might be, but his explanation didn't make any sense to Seto.

"I don't understand."

Seth huffed in annoyance and paused to look at Seto again. "I started to forget my past and everthing else. I need to rewrite everything that I know so that I don't lose it forever. If I forget everything, then I can't be of any help to anyone, least of all you." He spoke with slow, emphatic frustration, eliciting pity from his other self.

"Is there anything I can do to help?" Seto asked, looking at the other small pots of presumably different colored paints, the paintbrushes in the cup by the pots, and the weak lantern on Seth's other side.

"Not now," he answered with a shake of his head. "Just let Joey take you home, take a nap, then you can join me here. I could use some help with the pictures."

Seto nodded, but didn't leave just yet. "How often do you have to do this?"

"Every hundred years or so," Seth answered dismissively as he painted a cartouche in bold black. "Now go take care of yourself. I'll still be here when you're done."

It felt like taking orders from Mokuba, which prompted another question to spill from Seto's lips: "Why are you so much younger now?"

"Because when I go back, I restart, obviously," he snapped. Seth's eyes narrowed to icy slits as he glared at Seto once again. "Go, Seto. You have more important things to do than ask silly questions when your brother's worried about you."

As brusque as Seth was, Seto couldn't be mad at him. He was just a kid, after all. He was just a kid wearing a simple tunic trying to complete a task without being delayed by an unnecessary obstruction.

"Okay, okay, I'll go." Seto was entranced by this revelation, though, and he would be back quite soon for more answers.

The process of leaving the hospital went fairly quickly after that. The MRI didn't show any concussion, but the back of his head was bruised (Seto had suspected as much). He wouldn't need to return for any kind of follow-up unless he started experiencing concussion-like symptoms. Earlier, he'd called his supervisor at KaibaCorp to tell him that he'd be in late, but at Joey's insistence, he called back and said that he was taking the day off.

"Don't you have a job?" Seto asked Joey when he got off the phone.

Joey sighed theatrically and said, "Yeah, technically. I mean, all I do is shred sensitive papers at a bank. That's literally all I do!" He led Seto and Mokuba out of the hospital and into the attached parking garage to the hospital building.

As they walked to Joey's car, Seto made another call to Ryou, who'd called him that morning a few times without an answer.

"Hi Seto!"

"Hi, Ryou."

"I got a little worried when you didn't drop Mokuba off this morning." Seto still paid Ryou to babysit Mokuba. "I was wondering if something had happened."

"Everything's fine," Seto assured. He didn't want to tell anyone else that he'd been in the hospital, because if he told them, they would want to know why, and he couldn't tell them the truth, so he'd have to tell a lie, and he was so tired of lying to them. He was worried about what all this lying was doing to Mokuba, too. "Mokuba's at work with me today, that's all." It was the best excuse he had on hand.

"Oh, okay, well, I'm glad everything's alright. Oh, and Marik wanted me to ask you if you'd be able to come over on Saturday. I still have to check with Joey, but he said he wanted to educate us about Chuck Norris." Seto started to chuckle. "So I'm planning a movie night for all of us who were at Duelist Kingdom. Little siblings invited, of course."

"Yeah, we'll be there. I look forward to it."

"Okay, cool."

"You should invite Duke too," Seto interjected, sensing that Ryou was about to end the call and hang up. "I think he'd appreciate it."

"That's a good idea. I hadn't thought of that."

Duke wasn't exactly a part of their typical friend circle at school, but he was Seto's friend, and he wanted him there. Seto gave Ryou Duke's cell number and hung up just as they reached Joey's car.

Author Notes: I'm going to be awful to you fellow yanks and refer to soccer as "football" from this point forward, because it's only called soccer in America (in my experience) and I did set this story in Japan, after all. Besides, I'm feeling puckish. ;P Please review!

As Season One draws to a close, I would like to remind/inform you that Seasons Two & Three will be posted in a new story, tentatively titled "Rise Up." When I post the last chapter of S1, I will also post the first chapter of S2 so that you can follow that story and stay up to date as soon as you finish reading the last chapter. I will ALSO, at that time, be posting "The Room Where It Happened," which is sort of a prequel to S0: it fills in all the events between the beginning and end of the first chapter, "S0: Prologue," so it will be focused on the hateful and odious Gozaburo Kaiba. -_-