Twelve years ago...

Hospital machines beeped in the small white room, but it was all white noise to Seto as he pushed the visitor's chair next to the bed, climbed onto it, then clawed his way onto the mattress.

"That's my boy," his mother praised softly as she extended an arm to him so that he could curl up beside her. Her complexion was sickly and pallid as she smiled at him and he kissed her cheek. "How's my little Mokie doing?"

"He's doing good," Seto answered, curling up under his mother's arm, as close to her as he could get. "He's with Dad right now."

"That's good," she murmured, voice weak as she let her head fall back against the pillow. Her hand shook a little as she lifted it to push back his bangs and kiss her young son's forehead. He wasn't even five years old.

"Are you coming home soon, Mom?" Seto asked hopefully, innocent eyes alight with hope.

"I don't know, Seto," she sighed, even as Seto reached up to push back a piece of her dark, curly hair that had fallen over her face, imitating and reciprocating her gesture.

"Dad said you were getting better, though," Seto pointed out, making his mother wince. She didn't respond at first, just studied the child's face with a mother's adoration.

"Come here, baby, give me butterfly kisses," she murmured, and her son obliged, leaning forward to affectionately rub his nose against hers. When he pulled back a little, his head resting on the pillow beside hers, she whispered, "I have a special job for you, Seto." She couldn't keep the sadness out of her grey eyes, but her son didn't notice it.

"I'll do anything for you, Mom," he replied, still upbeat, still smiling.

"You're a big brother now, and you've got a little brother who's going to need your help," she murmured, weakly smiling back at him. "Do you remember what I told you the day Mokie was born?"

"I promised you that I'd always look out for him," Seto answered promptly, looking proud of himself. "I do, and I will."

"I know you do, baby." She ran her fingers through his hair again, the woody locks soft with youth. "And I only made you promise me because I know it's a promise you can keep, because that's what I always tell you, isn't it?"

"You say to only make a promise if you can keep it." He looked proud of himself for remembering.

"That's right." She smiled again, but the expression was only half-convincing to a well-trained eye. "And I want you to make another promise for me." She could feel it, that it was her time.

"What is it?"

"I want you to promise me that you'll tell your brother that I love him."

Seto's features twisted in confusion. "I promise, but, you'll tell him yourself, won't you?"

It was her time.

"I love you, Seto."

"I love you too, Mommy."

Her eyes closed and one of the machines started sounding out a long, steady tone.

Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee...

"Mom?"

She wouldn't answer, wouldn't open her eyes.

A loud alarm started blaring.

"Mommy?!" Seto grabbed her shoulder and tried to shake her awake.

A doctor and a pair of nurses hurried into the room. One of them started to pick Seto up and carry him away from the bed, but he started to fight back, trying to kick his way free.

"No! I have to be with her!" he screamed. "Mommy! Mommy!"

He shrieked, he kicked, he cried, but he was removed from the room and left to stand alone in the hallway in grief and confusion, tears wetting his round cheeks as he tried to understand unimaginable pain for the first time in his life.

Today...

"Seto?"

"Hm?" The brunette lifted his chin from his hand and turned to look at his brother, who was currently trying to fold an origami crane.

"What are you doing?" Mokuba was curious because he rarely saw his brother staring into empty space. He was always doing something, and at the moment, he had the newspaper open before him on the coffee table, but he wasn't looking at it at all.

"I was just thinking about Mom." Seto sighed and dropped his gaze back to the apartment listings he'd been perusing. Mokuba remained quiet, and after a few moments went back to his paper folding.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm making paper cranes for Amane's birthday."

"Why paper cranes?"

"Because if you make a thousand, you're supposed to get a wish." It was a legend, a myth, and Mokuba knew that, but he couldn't keep himself from hoping.

"What would you wish for?"

"I'd wish for Amane to be able to hear."

Seto looked up at Mokuba, who was intently focused on the paper as he folded it. Seto never talked about Amane's deafness. He knew about it, and his expectations for his interactions with her were adjusted accordingly, but it didn't define her, and he didn't think it was worth commenting on.

"She wants to play on the girls' soccer team at school, but she can't, because she can't hear," Mokuba continued, looking determined. "She wants to know what music is, and she can read sheet music and feel vibrations and copy rhythms, but she still knows that she's missing out on something, and it makes her sad." He finished bending the little head of the crane he'd just folded and reached for a new piece of paper from the stack he had beside him. "It wouldn't bother me, but it bothers her, so it bothers me too."

"That's very good of you," Seto said softly, impressed by his attitude on the subject. Mokuba had a heart of gold, even if he'd been disillusioned about the goodness of other people, thanks to their father. He must be that way naturally, because Seto doubted Mokuba had learned such warm, generous impulses from his brother. Would he still have that heart of gold a year from now? Five years? Ten years? If Seto had his way, he would. He hoped that Mokuba never changed.

"I can't wait to meet Marik's brother and sister," Mokuba said, still occupied with his task. "He says that his brother is even taller than you."

"Unlikely." Statistically speaking, Seto was correct. He crossed out yet another listing that was too expensive. He was mildly pleased that Mr. Bakura was coming home. Of course he was happy that both their family and Marik's family were reuniting, but he was happy for his own sake in a small way.

Mokuba's instructions for emergency situations—like the night they returned from Duelist Kingdom—included a list of people to contact should he or his brother need help outside of—or in addition to—emergency services. Mr. Bakura was the first person on that list, Joey was second, and Duke, simply because he owned a vehicle and was highly adaptive, was third. The only reason that Ryou's mom wasn't on the list was because she worked night shifts and Seto didn't want to burden her with more stress or put her in any danger. Mokuba had called Joey not only because he was closest, but because Mr. Bakura was out of the country.

They'd only had a problem that night because his father had gone nuts from coke withdrawal. If he was suffering the effects of withdrawal, that meant he was deeply addicted, and that made him twice as dangerous as he used to be.

Kenji had asked Seto to tell him if he was ever in trouble, if he was in over his head, if their father became too dangerous for them to live there anymore. While Seto wasn't likely to declare their father "too dangerous" unless he got his hands on a gun, he felt obligated to inform Ryou's father of recent events. He wouldn't want him interfering (yet), but Seto still expected him to try, and maybe that in itself was reassuring.

It was almost three in the morning when Seto awoke to the smell of smoke and the sounds of distant—and some not-so-distant—sirens wailing in the streets. He sat up quickly as Mokuba started to wake up beside him. The smoke wasn't thick enough for the source to be terribly close by; even so, Seto wasn't going to take any chances.

"Come on, Mokuba, we need to get out of here," Seto called out as he grabbed his coat and pulled it on.

"Seto?" As Mokuba sat up, his lungs were hit with the surprise of smog, and he coughed before he continued. "What's going on?"

"There's a fire. We have to go right now." Seto tossed Mokuba his shoes, and as his little brother pulled on his sneakers, Seto slipped into his own, then moved over to the partially opened window and threw it open the rest of the way. He stepped out onto the fire escape, then offered Mokuba a hand to help him out. Seto went down the narrow ladders first, Mokuba just above him, as they descended along the side of the building. The fire was on the far side of the building, and as far as Seto could tell, it had spread from the building next door. It cast an eerie orange glow over everything, even the sky.

They didn't speak as they escaped, unless it was Seto reminding Mokuba to be careful. When they were on the ground, Seto took his brother's hand and guided him to the sidewalk in front of the building, walking briskly away from their residence where firetrucks and ambulances were just starting to arrive. Mokuba stumbled, not quite able to keep up. He was still only half awake.

"Keep walking, Mokuba," Seto said firmly, eyes fixed ahead of him, refusing to look back.

"B-But Dad—" His protest was weak and anxious, born from a sense of duty rather than any sort of affection, and Seto's answer was curt as he dismissed it.

"He can take care of himself. Keep walking."

Mokuba was still distressed, though, looking over his shoulder back at the smoke and flames that consumed the apartment building. Then he looked ahead once more so that he wouldn't trip over his own feet. Seto walked Mokuba two blocks away before his little brother finally spoke up to complain of the pace. He conceded and walked Mokuba to the corner so they could sit down in the light of the street lamp. Mokuba closed his eyes and set his head in his hands, wanting to go back to sleep, while Seto checked his coat pockets: he had his wallet, his cellphone, and his dueling deck. Everything he needed. If their building burned down, then he could still sell the Blue-Eyes card to the highest bidder and get the cash he needed in order to replace what they'd lost.

Seto frowned at his cellphone. He knew what he had to do, but he didn't want to do it. He'd been thinking over Joey's offer, weighing all of the benefits and detriments, and reached the conclusion that Joey was right. It would be best—in every way—if Seto and Mokuba moved into Joey's basement, they'd be much better off, and they'd be independent from their father much sooner. So why wasn't Seto will to accept the offer?

Pride.

Seto's own pride forbid him from accepting such an act of charity, especially when it made him so vulnerable to discovery. It would be so easy for the others to figure out that he was living with Joey, and if they found out that he was, they'd want to know why he was.

Too many people knew his secrets already. Seto valued his privacy, because it was one of the few things in his life that he valued and controlled. Besides that, there was a particular set of reasoning that had influenced his need for secrecy all this time: if people knew that their father was neglectful and abusive, they would report him to the authorities. If he was reported to the authorities, then he would be arrested. If he was arrested, Seto and Mokuba would be put in the care of child services, nevermind the fact that Seto held down a steady job and was fully capable of supporting them. Even though he was almost seventeen, he was still legally a minor. The foster care system was a flawed mess, one of many examples that the government was terrible at doing anything. If they were put into the foster care system, they ran a high risk of being separated from each other, and Seto had promised that he would always take care of him. Mokuba wasn't ready to be on his own, yet. He wasn't ready to face the world without his big brother there to shield and guide him. He wasn't ready—

Seto was jerked out of his thoughts as Mokuba started coughing next to him, reminded that there was only so much that Seto could protect him from. He pushed the call button on his phone and put it to his ear, counting the rings as he waited for Joey to answer. It rang several times, then went to voicemail, and Seto hung up with a frown, only to call again and put the phone back to his ear.

That was when he remembered the Millennium Rod. It was still inside the apartment. He looked back towards the burning building and sighed in irritation. How could he have forgotten it? Then again, how would he have carried it while climbing down the fire escape? In his teeth like a dog? No thank you.

"Hello?" Joey sounded groggy, which was understandable. It was the middle of the night.

"Joey, can you come pick us up?"

"Seto? It's... almost three in the morning."

"There's a fire," Seto explained quietly, not wanting to go into details. "We don't have anywhere else to go."

"Okay, I'll be there soon."

"Thanks."

Mokuba was sleeping against Seto when Joey showed up, and Seto had to nudge his brother awake. Joey's expression was grim as Seto managed to get his brother buckled up in the backseat. Seto slid into the passenger seat without a word. Joey started driving, and Seto closed his eyes, letting them rest but forcing his mind to stay awake.

"Thanks," he said at last, opening his eyes again to watch buildings pass by, illuminated only by the yellow streetlights.

"My offer still stands, Seto." Joey spared a glance in Seto's direction. "I'll even tell my parents if that's what it takes. You're not safe there."

"Okay."

That was it. That was all it took. Seto may be proud, but he wasn't foolish.

"I'll bring you back tomorrow so you can get your stuff."

"I'll have to take the morning off work, then."

"Why not take the whole day?"

"Because I don't need the whole day, Joey, but I do need to work."

Meanwhile, thousands of miles away...

"How does your arm feel?"

"It still hurts a bit, but that's what the meds are for." Kenji smiled at Ishizu, who didn't seem the least bit reassured. His gaze softened as he said, "You need to stop blaming yourself."

"But I could have stopped it," she protested, turning to face him more fully as she continued. "I could have if I'd started looking ahead sooner, if I'd known what I was doing."

"You can't blame yourself for every bad thing that happens." He spoke firmly, being stern with her as if she were his little sister. In truth, she was old enough to be his sister. "Some things are fated to happen no matter what we do, and other things can be changed by our power to choose. You need to accept the things that you can't change, and accept the things that do happen instead of worrying about how it could have been different. If all you ever think about is what you could have done differently, you'll never be satisfied."

Ishizu sighed, nodded, and murmured an assent, but inside, her stomach was still churning with guilt. She had never been satisfied, so why should she start now?

Author Notes: Writing that first piece made me cry twice, I think, because I started it in one sitting and finished it in another sitting. :'(

I changed my mind. I'm calling soccer soccer because I live... in America. B) And most of you do too, so it's easier that way for all of us. Please review!

Gwee: I loved putting together their backstory, but there are so many details that I had to leave out to keep it from getting too long. I'll probably find a way to include some of that info without more flashbacks. Thank you for your continued support! :D