Notes – Done for ygodrabble. ". Set around the end of Duelist Kingdom or the start of Battle City, while Shizuka is still in hospital.

She could hear outside the door of her ward room one of the polite, middle-aged cleaner gossiping with a co-worker. It was about the weather. They always complained about it one way or another, be it too hot, too cold or the old saying, "We're just not built to handle that sort of weather in this part of the world".

Weather was a good subject to complain about, and since it was presently raining that made it all the easier.

When the two nurses looked in on her, Shizuka heard them go quiet, in a sort of pity, before scuttling off to attend to the other duties they needed to do. People thought that he blindfold prevented her from having any awareness of what was going on around her, but she heard it all well enough. The doctors knew that, though these early morning cleaners had nothing but pity for their little blind girl.

Shizuka didn't hold it against them at all. It was that very human attitude to shuffle about awkwardly when faced with someone who had a disability they weren't prepared to deal with. She'd noticed that a lot.

Though she had to admit she didn't agree with their complaining about the rain.

The pattering noises from outside the window comforted her. While she had not been blind all of her life hearing the sound of the rain made her feel that everything outside was still as it should be. In the same way that the wind blowing a chill through did, and even a still, warm day had the occasional chirp of a bird. All these little things reminded her that there was life all around her, and even though she couldn't see it right now didn't mean it wasn't waiting for her to experience it.

Though there were sounds that she was even happier to hear than the weather did.

Outside the door came footsteps. Not the awkward shuffling of the cleaners or the polite little steps of her mother, but the defiant clunking walk of a brother who had come so early on in the visitors' hours that he almost wasn't allowed in but was silently daring anyone to stop him from visiting his little sister.

She heard the brief pause at the door, he was making sure their mother wasn't there, and then he confidently strode over to the bed.

"Everything okay this morning, Shizuka?" he asked, "The weather outside is awful but the traffic's quiet right now so Honda said he'd give me a lift in. Damn, I hope when you get your eyesight back it won't be on a day as foul as this one."

Always 'when' you get your eyesight back, never 'if'.

"I don't know Katsuya, I really don't mind the rain," she replied fondly.

Scratching his head, Jounouchi said, "Sometimes I really don't get you, but if you want rain then I hope it'll be chucking it down from the heavens on that day then."

Shizuka nodded. Whatever weather her eyes greeted her with when it happened, all she really wanted was for her brother to be there.