Yami could feel the bond reforming and becoming stronger and stronger until it was at full strength once more and he could finally relax. Yugi was there and he could tell he would be fine.

Yami joined Yugi in his soul room and saw him asleep curled around a Kuriboh plushie. He couldn't suppress his smile. He walked over and brushed Yugi's face with his hand. He was still slightly feverish but nowhere near as bad as he had been. He let out a long, relieved sigh.

"You have no idea how relieved I am to see you doing better." He whispered.

"Yami, where are you?"

The distress in Yugi's voice caught Yami off guard. Perhaps he had been so deep under the anesthesia and whatever other medications he had received in the past few hours that he had not felt the bond reform.

"Yugi, I am here," Yami said softly as he sat on the edge of his bed, which was now large enough to hold them both comfortably.

"Yami, I can't find you!" Yugi cried. It became clear to Yami that he hadn't been fully awake when his friends returned the puzzle, or he would have known he was back. "I'm scared! Please, Yami, don't leave me! Big brother…"

Yami's heart broke in his chest as he heard Yugi's cries but the sudden shift from his name to 'big brother' had been what really threw him off.

"Calm down, Aibou, I would never do that." He assured him as he moved the stuffed Kuriboh and lay down pulling Yugi into his chest.

Yugi woke slowly and soon began clinging to Yami and sobbing.

"Easy, I'm right here… I promise I will never abandon you." Yami assured him softly "Rest now, we will talk when you're more awake."

He didn't point out that Yugi should have realized that he would wake alone just as he fell asleep alone. Yami felt that would be, at best, inconsiderate of him, and at worst make him sound insensitive to Yugi's feelings. There were a lot of medications coursing through his boding causing him to not exactly think straight and that led to this reaction, but it still hurt Yami's heart to see Yugi this clingy no matter what the cause was.

Yami closed his eyes and settled in for the long haul. Yugi needed him now more than he'd ever needed him before, and he wouldn't let him down now.

Seto watched as Mokuba looked through the small puzzles that were neatly set on the shelf. He had decided to go to the game shop at the promise of good cards. The tournament was well underway and, normally, Seto wouldn't be adjusting his deck mid-tournament, but some new trap cards promised to make him an even bigger threat to those duelists who remained after word spread of Yugi withdrawing. They were idiots in his opinion, idiots with delusions of defeating the king of games when they couldn't even stand against Jonouchi much less him. Yugi was in a whole new league and none of them could touch him.

"What are you doing?" he asked trying not to sound harsh with his brother and being only marginally successful.

"I was thinking about putting together a little hospital care package for Yugi, I know you don't like him but come on we all know hospitals are boring." Mokuba shrugged "Besides he has helped us before, it's the least we could do to maybe make his hospital stay a little better."

Seto thought about it for a moment. He did owe Yugi for several instances where he'd stepped in to save him and Mokuba, and as much as it irked him Mokuba liked Yugi for one reason or another.

"Fine" Seto bit out trying not to sound like doing so was physically painful. "Under one condition… it's only under your name… your idea, your gift, okay?"

"That's fine with me." Mokuba's smile brightened at the idea of this being his gift to take credit for.

Seto let out a long breath as he watched his brother go through the choice of puzzles trying to pick out the best ones for his gift and smiled faintly. He loved that his brother still had it in him to care about people. He loved that Gozuburo had not tainted his innocence, and he could enjoy life and care about others the way he had been broken of a long time ago.

Mokuba was caught off guard when Seto knelt beside him and presented him with an interesting-looking fidget-puzzle.

"That's perfect, thanks, big brother." Mokuba smiled as he added it to the items he had selected thus far,

"No problem, I'm sure there are other things we can add to this besides these puzzles," Seto said.

Seto could pretend for a moment this wasn't for Yugi and enjoy his brother's happiness at picking the perfect items for this project.

Mokuba was thrilled to have his brother help him and soon they had the package finished and ready to give to Yugi.

Yugi slept the rest of the day of his surgery and into the next day partly due to the medication and partially due to sheer boredom. He felt better than he did before the surgery, but he still had a residual infection in his abdominal cavity that they had to treat before he could be released. They said in the grand scheme of things it wasn't too bad because they had gotten in there quickly once the rupture happened. Though if they had gotten in before the rupture it would have been even better all around.

Yugi was looking through his deck when Mokuba came in.

"Mokuba, what brings you here?" he asked in confusion.

"I heard about what happened and I thought you might want something to keep from getting too bored in here," Mokuba replied.

"Thanks, but…" Yugi hesitated, he knew about how Seto felt about him. He was surprised Seto allowed his brother to do this.

"Don't worry about it, Seto knows, he didn't want his name on it or anything, but he did help me select some of the items. Go ahead and open it." Mokuba encouraged as he sat on the edge of Yugi's bed to see the older boy's reaction better.

"Okay…" Yugi opened it to find several small fidget puzzles and some manga books in there.

"Oh wow… thanks Mokuba."

"No problem, the pyramid magic cube was Seto's idea, but I don't think he wanted me to tell you that."

Yugi laughed at the irony and winced at the pain from his incision.

"Sorry," Mokuba grimaced.

"It's okay, it wasn't your fault," Yugi assured the younger boy.

"I've got to go. I hope you enjoy it."

"I will" Yugi replied.

"I have to admit I wasn't expecting this from Kaiba," Yami said as he stood at Yugi's bedside.

"Seto, no, but you seem to forget Mokuba likes us for some reason." Yugi pointed out.

"Where is your grandfather?" Yami asked noticing Sugoroku was nowhere to be seen.

"He couldn't afford to keep the shop closed so he had to leave. Then again, I am fully aware now so I can tell the nurses what I need." Yugi replied.

"That is true," Yami admitted as he watched Yugi pull out the different little puzzle toys that Mokuba had put in the box "These all look very fascinating, you should be able to keep busy for a while with these."

"True but I also need to remember that I should be getting a lot of sleep while I'm here as well." Yugi pointed out and Yami couldn't find a reason to disagree.

"I have an idea with this." Yugi held up the magic box "But I need your help."

"Name it…"

"You take over and scramble it, then I'll take over to try to solve it. How does that sound?"

Yami thought about it for a moment.

"Sounds like an interesting game." He replied. Then switched, and began to scramble the puzzle, he wanted it to be a challenge for Yugi, but he didn't want to make it too hard.

Yami noticed how different he felt in control now that Yugi was on the mend. He couldn't believe how bad the pain was his aibou had been in at that moment in the bathroom. He could barely think, barely speak for the agony, and he hated himself for letting things get so bad, he'd had time to do something about it. He had let Yugi decide and it had been too late when he'd convinced Yugi to seek medical attention. He then shoved the guilt away hoping Yugi wouldn't notice it.

They switched back and Yugi began to work on the puzzle as a nurse entered the room with his medications.

"Who was that little boy that that just came through?" she asked.

"That was Mokuba Kaiba." Yugi replied not looking up from the side of the pyramid he was working on. "He brought me some games to keep busy with while I'm here."

"Sounds like a good friend, but you should also be thinking about resting while you're here." She said.

"That's true," Yugi said looking up at her.

"Here is your lunch," she said, and Yugi finally noticed the tray of food she was carrying.

"Thanks" Yugi cleared the table, and a tray was set in front of him.

Yami watched in spectral form waiting to see if Yugi had his appetite back. That had been one of the biggest red flags to the former pharaoh that something was wrong. His counterpart wasn't eating like he normally did.

Yami looked out the window as Yugi quietly ate. He found that he couldn't quit thinking about Yugi's first reaction while waking up from the anesthesia. He should have known that even if they weren't at once reunited it would happen. Was it just the medication causing that reaction or was there more?

"Yami are you okay?" Yugi asked jarring the former pharaoh from his thoughts.

They were communicating via mind link rather than out loud so as not to worry the hospital staff that there was more wrong with Yugi than the appendix issue.

"Yes, I'm fine" Yami replied but the side eye he got from his companion let him know he wasn't going to fool Yugi that easily.

Yami let out a harsh sigh, "Fine, I'm worried about how you reacted after the surgery, when you got the Millennium Puzzle back."

Yugi put his chopsticks down his expression morphing into a look of confusion.

"Why… what happened?" he asked.

"You didn't react well… it was as if you couldn't find our reformed bond and panicked about it," Yami explained gently.

"I don't remember any of that." Yugi replied, "What did I say?"

Yami explained how Yugi was calling for him and expressing his fear of not being able to find him.

Yugi looked at what was left of the piece of fish he had been eating and sighed.

"I honestly don't remember any of that, Yami, I must have still been under the influence of the medication." He sighed "But I can see how that would be distressing for you."

"Finish eating Yugi, you need your strength if you're going to recover," Yami said.

Yugi started eating again.

"So, did I really call you, 'big brother'?" he asked once again putting down his chopsticks as curiosity got the better of him.

"At least once where I could fully understand, you hid your face in my chest and after that, I really couldn't understand your words, so for all I know it was several times" Yami replied, and Yugi realized it made sense to him. He was an only child so he wasn't sure, but he could imagine that the way Yami treated him was a lot like how a protective older brother would be towards his younger brother.

As he was finishing his lunch Jonouchi and Anzu entered the room.

"How's the tournament going, Jonouchi?" Yugi asked as he finished off his lunch.

"Going great." Jonouchi replied with a smirk, "About half a dozen competitors dropped out when they found out you withdrew. I think they were only in it to test themselves against you. Kaiba wasn't too thrilled either, but he stayed in he just said it would be boring without you."

"Maybe… oh well" Yugi shrugged as Anzu took the tray to be taken back to the kitchen.

"You look like you're feeling a lot better." Jonouchi observed, "Where did you get these?"

Jonouchi held up the pyramid magic box so he could look it over.

"Oh, those were in a care package Mokuba dropped off before lunch," Yugi replied. "I'm going to be honest it surprised me when he came in here. I didn't think Kaiba would let him do that for me."

"Let me guess he scrambled this already for you?" Jonouchi smirked.

Yugi shook his head and then tapped the Millennium Puzzle as if hinting at the idea that Yami had done it for him without saying so out loud.

"Ah… good luck with that," Jonouchi replied handing the puzzle back to Yugi.

"I'm slowly figuring out how this works." Yugi replied "Ah, there and… got it!" he said in excitement as he solved the pyramid.

"Try this, wise guy," Jonouchi said passing Yugi another puzzle. He had been fidgeting with it since Yugi went back to the magic box but was nowhere near figuring it out. This one took Yugi mere seconds to solve.

"Show off," Jonouchi muttered leading Yugi to start laughing and then cringed in pain. This instantly got Jonouchi's attention.

"Yugi… are you okay?" he asked his voice laced with concern.

"Yes, it's okay… laughing hurts my incision," Yugi explained.

"Sorry, didn't realize it was that sensitive." Jonouchi sighed with relief taking a seat in one of the sparse chairs in Yugi's room.

Anzu returned during that conversation and overheard what Mokua had done.

"That's cool, I keep forgetting how nice Mokuba is compared to his brother." She commented as she took one of the other chairs.

"We all do, I've got to get back to the tournament, I'll see ya later Yugi!" Jonouchi stood and headed out the door.

"Bye Jonouchi," Yugi replied.

Anzu then turned back to Yugi as Jonouchi walked out of the room.

"So how are you doing, really…?"

"I'm fine" Yugi replied simply as he began to work on another puzzle "I'm not going to lie, I'm a little sore and it hurts when I move certain ways, but I'll be okay."

Anzu looked concerned.

"Do you need any medicine we could always call the nurse if you think pain medicine would help." She said.

"It's not time for that yet, and besides it's not that bad." Yugi insisted.

Yami was standing on the other side of him in spectral form looking a little disbelieving as he could tell Yugi was downplaying his pain. He wished he could communicate with Anzu and let her know that Yugi was lying to her.

"Yugi there is no one here that you must prove anything to. If you need medicine for pain, you should take it." He said in a soft tone.

Yugi looked down, his thoughts racing, Yami was right as much as he hated to admit it. The incision wasn't a pleasant thing though before he could do or say anything a nurse entered with the next dose of antibiotic.

"How are we feeling?" she asked with a sweet smile as she connected the antibiotic bag to the I.V.

"Good," Yugi replied simply but Yami was staring at him as if to silently remind him to tell her the truth about his pain level.

Yugi looked down and explained to the nurse about the symptoms from the incision and how he was hurting.

"I'll see what I can do to help with that." she said then left the room.

To Be Continued...