Disclaimer: If I owned Yu-gi-oh!, I'd probably have money right now. Sadly, this is not so. *plays the po' broke blues on harmonica*

AN: In which Tea's soul has a very dark night, and there is an attempted search-and-rescue. Rated especially for violence.

And vomiting.

Strike*

Kaiba had expected a hysterical response.

Even as he stood pinned by that inexplicably daunting look on her face, he had a sense that her real reaction would be something annoying and clumsy and, quite possibly, very shrill. He had thought she would start wailing. Or even reach out and attempt to strike him (attempt being the operative word).

But, perhaps precisely because he had any expectations at all, she did something else entirely.

So he watched in a kind of numb fascination as she flung herself against the drinking fountain, threw her head back and began to laugh.

It wasn't a loud laugh, but it was a hard one. In fact, it was almost completely inaudible save for a sort of hiccuping gasp that seemed wrung from a well of amusement so deep it simply had to be hysterical. Maybe even vaguely psychotic.

In a way, this was almost reassuring. Okay, so now come the tears. That's what hysterics do. First, the laughter, then the tears. He didn't particularly relish the thought of calming a hysterical girl, but at least he knew the protocol. Lie, placate, pat her on the head and send her on her pill-popping way with his reputation none the worse for wear, never mind hers. Done and done.

He waited as her laughter subsided. She straightened with a long, contented sigh. She reached up and raked a hand through her hair, dragging the shaggy mess back to reveal not a single tear in sight.

"M-M-Midol ... Oh, you're ... You ... You are outside of enough, Seto. I mean, una vera e propria**, outside of enough ... Wow ... "

Many, many things were quite frankly wrong about this response, even apart from the incongruous chuckles that still escaped her.

For one: She actually seemed to find his "joke" funny. Never mind that he hadn't intended it as such, hadn't intended it at all, had just blurted out the first thing he could think of to quell that infernal silence. Never mind that any self-respecting female would have been horribly offended by said joke. Never mind that, as jokes went, it was in really poor taste. And yet she laughed still.

Two: She had called him by name. No one - no one - except his brother called him by name. And yet it rolled off her tongue so easily that she may well have been saying it for about as long as Mokuba had.

Third, and most perplexing of all: Unless he was imagining things, she had definitely just spoken in another language. A language he himself could not translate, though he recognized it readily enough as being Italian. He could speak German fluently, he was fairly competent with Russian, and he had begun to pick up Urdu in his dealings with Pundari. But as he had no Italian associates, he wasn't particularly equipped to decipher her words.

Her head lolled slightly, her gaze unfocused as it wandered up to the cracks in the ceiling, then fastening onto his face only to wander past him again. Sweat coated the uppermost part of her forehead, the gleam of it peeking out from between her tattered-looking bangs. Kaiba wondered distantly if she was going to faint.

"Hey ... c'mere. I have something to tell you." Her tone was the equivalent of a crooked finger, playfully conspiratorial and offhandedly compelling at the same time.

He arched a brow, outwardly skeptical as ever while inwardly wondering just when the hell he had backed away from her.

"Why can't you tell me from there?" he asked flatly, not moving an inch.

She rolled her eyes, something most had never dared to do in his presence, except Mokuba. And even he knew not to do it too often. "Maybe I like your cologne and want another whiff."

She didn't say that.

He knew in plain fact that the words had indeed just come out of her mouth and, worse yet, were aimed squarely at him. But still, he knew she hadn't really just said that. He knew it with all his might. And with this "knowledge" firmly in mind, he drew in even closer than he had been a moment ago, the discarded pills crunching under the soles of his shoes. He leaned down until he was practically nose-to-nose with her.

Just to make her uncomfortable. Just to shock her out of this false - it had to be - boldness. Just because he was Seto Kaiba and he fucking felt like it and not because she had explicitly told him to and not because he was suddenly very curious as to what the little bitch had to say about his cologne and not because he wanted to watch the hue of her stupid eyes shifting like the orb of a mood ring as that curious something flashed out at him, rippling through her irises like waves.

"Well?" he prompted with quiet menace.

He watched blankly as she craned her neck, chin jutting forward as she brought her mouth close to his ear. Her breath curled down his neck like an absentminded finger, tracing a not entirely unpleasant jolt clear down his back. She said something to him then, something low and swift and largely incomprehensible because it was almost entirely in Italian.

"Lo farò io sulla gola la vostra ricchezza. E pulire la bocca con quel che rimane di te ***. This is my promise to you."

Then, having uttered whatever it was, she slid away from him and very gingerly began to walk down the hallway. His eyes narrowed speculatively after her. Do they even teach Italian as part of the curriculum? She speaks it like a native, as though she's known it for some time.

He looked down suddenly and noted with a roll of his eyes that she had left her bag. He yanked it up by the strap and, without really stopping to think about it, began to follow her. Without ever once looking back, she made it as far as the front steps of the school, stopping to stare out into the empty courtyard. The slightest rumble of thunder drew his attention up to the sky. It was overcast just above them, and the clouds were practically charcoal in the distance. Already the wind was picking up around them.

Awfully empathic weather we're having ...

"One for the road, Gardner?" he asked, shaking the bottle with its few remaining pills. He knew he was flailing at any chance to provoke her again. Something curiously like intuition seemed to be telling him that he couldn't let her leave without some sort of parting shot from her, some indication that this peculiar battle between them would still rage on.

"I won't need it. Not where I'm going," she said vaguely, staring past the gates like a seer into the smoke of a crystal ball. The weariness that pervaded her frame gave him pause. The fight had gone out of her, he was sure of that now.

Thoroughly annoyed at himself and her by this point, he lifted her ugly tote up by its ugly strap and more or less dropped the ugly thing onto her shoulder. She shrugged it off a second later and let it fall to the stone step between them, not even deigning to look at it as it landed with a heavy thud. Instead she looked straight up at him. Or through him rather, as her eyes had taken on a glazed, almost weary look that didn't sit right with him.

"Like I said. I won't need it." She had become a sleepwalker again, her voice hollow. She walked away and didn't look back. Not even once. He watched her leave, savoring his own confusion. Even in defeat, she confounded him ...

It was only when she was fully out of sight that her words finally struck him.

Not where I'm going, she had said. He rooted through the bag and found just what he had been dreading to see: her wallet and her phone. She had walked off with no money, no means of identification (save for her uniform, perhaps), no method of contact. He realized why that look on her face had boded so ill.

It was the look of someone deliberately marching into the waiting arms of Death.

He shut his eyes and felt his teeth begin to grind.

Great. That's just fucking great.

. . . . .

"... I'll hate you forever if you leave me!"

"I'll never leave you, baby girl. I might be taken from you. Or you might be taken from me. But just short of being dragged off by my fucking hair, Mama's never going to leave you."

There were no visuals, no moving pictures to accompany the fervent words clanging about in her head.

She couldn't tell where she began and the serpent ended, the walls between them were disintegrating, it was like that time on the train when they were one and the same, entwined and united and furious and oh god my head it was about to split in two, rupture straight down the middle and bleed out onto the subway car for all the purposefully detached passengers to see -

Her breath rasped brokenly through her nose. She was home. Night had fallen on her rain-slicked street.

What on earth ...?

She began to move again, but froze as soreness burned her legs.

The ache told her at least part of what she needed to know about the past six hours or so. She must have been on foot for at least part of her journey, perhaps even most of the journey. A peculiar itch in her fingers made her lift her right hand. Dried blood and what could only be a bit of dislodged skin caked her nails; more blood, dried to a rusty brown, coated her knuckles and stained the elbow of her pink uniform jacket. She blinked and didn't react apart from a definite lurch in her gut that felt unrelated to the carnage that stained her.

Well ... I'll deal with that later. Provided I can remember.

She fished her keys out of the left pocket of her jacket, praying that the bitter bile coating her throat wouldn't immediately demand attention, and carefully climbed the six steps up to the front door. Once inside, she continued her slow death march through the foyer, the bile thickening with each step.

Keith's voice floated out from the kitchen. "You're just now getting home? I thought they knew not to put you for a later shift?"

"Mm. Hmm." The darkness of the parlor, out of the circle of light cast by the overhead light in the kitchen, hid both the blood on her school clothes and the lack of her ever-present bag. She sniffed and wished she hadn't. Keith had made dinner in her absence, likely reheating the leftovers from the night before. The thought of crisp, golden duck skin had never seemed so sickening. She clutched her stomach with both arms. Oh, God ...

"Tea?"

"Can't t-talk, I gotta - " Words failed her sooner than she had expected, and she raced for the downstairs bathroom, soreness be damned. She made it just in time, practically flinging her entire head into the porcelain bowl as a torrent of something eerily pale burst out of her mouth. She kicked the door shut and tried to breath through the pain.

"Kiddo? Are you alright in there?"

"Stomach flu, Dad, don't worry!" she managed to call back to him before continuing to heave. It occurred to her that she must have stopped somewhere to eat prior to stumbling back home, because those were definitely undigested rice noodles flooding her toilet.

She didn't have much time to dwell on just how she had bought a meal when her wallet was probably in Kaiba's gold-plated garbage can by this point. The sight of the noodles bobbing around like dead jellyfish brought on another set of heaves.

She caught sight of the mirror when she was done rinsing her mouth out in the sink. A ghoulish husk of a girl stared out at her from the glass, her face wet. Tea felt sorry for the scrawny creature.

Somehow she made it upstairs to her room. She sat on the bed for some time, waiting for the dizziness to subside.

Her door eased open, letting in hallway light that seared her eyes. "Uh, honey? You still awake?"

No, I always sleep sitting bolt upright. "Mm."

"I promised Roy I'd play cards tonight, ok? Will you be alright by yourself?"

Who the fuck is Roy? "Uhhmm."

"Alright then, don't wait up, we'll be out late. I left you some aspirin on the counter," he said has he shut the door behind him.

Gee, thanks.

Tea leaned back and was gone in seconds.

. . . . .

"Who was that girl before?"

Luanna Tregarde didn't even flinch, though the pain this question elicited made her want to. She glanced over at the orange-haired youth hoisting chairs onto the tables. He had paused, mid-hoist, to ask. She took a long pull from the glass in her hand, letting the scotch burn down into her gut before answering.

"A ghost."

The man "Eh?"

"A ghost, a spirit, a visitation from another realm." She propped her elbows up on the polished bar and dropped her head in her hands. It had been a long day. The reminder of Lillian Gardner's daughter made it seem an eternity. "Fuck, Morrey, why are you even asking? That was days ago."

"You've been weird since she came around. I only wondered."

"Well, keep your wondering to yourself," Lu said as unhelpfully as possible.

Morrey sighed and continued to hoist chairs. Lu took another long sip and tried not to reminisce. A dim smile stretched across her face as she glanced over at the pool tables. The phantom image of a little brown-haired girl hoisting a pool cue with the ease and deftness of a grizzled old shark moved unseen beneath the green-paneled lamp.

She'll be back, Lu thought with certainty. She really didn't know if she liked the idea or not. Either way, she was certain. Tea Gardner would be back.

A tear slipped down her face. The old grief resurfaced, just as fresh as the day it had come to roost in her heart.

But Lil won't. Lil won't ever be back.

She rounded the bar in hot pursuit of another bottle.

. . . . .

"Hey, honey, why the face, eh?"

A series of smacking kiss-y noises. "C'mon, give us a smile!"

She had had this same scenario play out on the bus and the train many times. The "give me a smile" routine was especially old, though it was usually one man, not a duet. Regardless, she usually appeased them with a smile, no matter how forced, and subtly quickened her pace in the opposite direction.

Tea didn't smile this time.

She stared straight ahead and watched the city at dusk as it flew past the window. She had been riding the train for hours now, falling in and out of a head-pounding daze. At the moment her head grew frighteningly clear and her focus eye-wateringly sharp as contempt crowded out the pain and the presence of enemies gave her self-loathing an external target.

"Oh ho, real tough one, eh? Fix your lip, baby - "

She tuned out the stock phrases and evaluated the situation with a cold eye. She was unarmed, but so were they, as far as she could tell. One of them were significantly larger than her while the other was very lanky, but that was no worry. The final nail in their coffin: Both of them reeked of beer and were unsteady on their feet as the train sped towards the next stop. They were the only three in the car.

A part of her that hadn't already decided made her keep still. Maybe they would get bored. Maybe ...

No. No, they wanted something from her. A bit of entertainment, perhaps? The spectacle of a frightened girl always seemed to arouse these types from their dank little holes. Like sadistic cats toying with a cornered mouse.

Mouse ...

She turned her head in their direction and stared them down with bored detachment, knowing the challenge would draw them closer. She had decided.

Sneering and eager now, the two came closer as expected, sprawling out so that she was blocked on both sides.

"Not very nice, are you?" said the lanky one to her left. He leaned down and blew a lock of her hair off her forehead.

That was when she smiled.

They didn't seem to be expecting it, watching in wary fascination as her kittenish mouth curved up and back, her teeth momentarily cradling the side of her lower lip. She darted a glance up at them from under her lashes. "Oh, I can be very nice."

"Oh, yeah?"

She nodded. "Oh, yeah."

She stood with provocative grace, seeming to pull herself up by the slight lift of her hips alone. Genuine desire and interest slowly edged out the need for dominance that shown in their eyes. Adrenaline surged up within, almost as if she had summoned it by her will alone.

"How nice, hmm?" said the one she was focusing most of her attention on, the lanky one closest to the sliding doors she would be darting through once she was finished with them. In her peripheral vision, she saw the reflection of his bulkier friend, rendered static and clear now that the train was passing through a tunnel. She watched him edge closer behind her, preoccupied with staring down at her ass. After all, it was angled so fetchingly, her hips cocked to the side like an invitation.

The trap was set and ready to spring.

"This nice," she said, inching just a bit closer to the one in front of her and noting that the goon in back moved in tandem with her. She reached up and pushed her hair off of her neck, dragging her fingers in a distractingly seductive motion that held the kid spellbound. All semblance of cocky aggression faded from his face.

That was when she struck.

Her arm lashed out, so fast that even she wouldn't have been able to see it, her index and middle fingers making sharp contact with the boy's eyes. He reared back just as she drew her arm back and up, driving her elbow into the other guys nose hard enough to stain the elbow of her uniform jacket with blood. Clutching his face, he staggered back and hit his head on one of the poles, nearly rendering himself unconscious.

Not wasting a moment, she advanced on the one in front of her, grinning at the sight of him blinking tears from his red eyes. She swept around him, wrapping him a steely embrace, her left arm curled implacably around his neck. In a show of more vindictiveness than genuine skill, she curled her fingers into claws and latched her right hand onto his face, keeping her eyes on the other guy, disoriented with pain as well as booze. With an agonizing slowness and all the force she could muster, she dragged her nails as deep into his skin as she could manage. He shrieked and bucked wildly, attempting to dislodge her. She hopped up, digging her toes into the back of the trapped boy's knees. This forced him down to ground, and her feet balanced perfectly on his calves as she continued to maul his face.

"FUCKING BITCH, GET OFF - !" She pulled her nails out of his face, let go of his neck to get a handle on his hair and bashed him in his nose with the side of her fist, dousing her hand in even more blood as the young man wailed incoherently.

The bulky one, the lower half of his face streaked with blood, made an unsteady dive for Tea and his captive friend. Having seen this coming, the girl yanked the skinny one up by his hair and shoved him with all her might, aiming him at his friends legs. It worked perfectly; he went down like a bowling pin.

The train began to slow to the next stop. She waited for the doors to begin opening before she planted a hard stomp on the top of the larger boy's head, causing injured nose to slam into the floor of the car. Almost as an afterthought, she yanked out the wallet that bulged in his back pocket and took out a fistful of bills, not pausing long enough to count.

Money in hand, she ran out into the station, up the stairs and out onto the darkening streets -

A hideous shriek jolted Tea awake. It was another few seconds before she realized it was her own.

"No. No, no, no, fucking no."

She scrambled out of bed, fumbling around on the floor for her uniform jacket. She found it in a heap near the door and felt around for the buttons that held the right pocket closed. She popped them open, turned the blood-flecked garment upside down and shook.

Out fell the stolen cash.

She rocked back on her heels, staring through the dimness of the bedroom at the wad of money that lay before her. Proof. Proof, at last, that she was the monster she had always suspected herself of being. Proof, at last. She squeezed her eyes shut as the pounding in her head grew more insistent, like someone battering at the walls of a cage.

She wasn't sorry. That may well have been the scariest part.

"I need a drink."

The words were out of her mouth before she could process that her mind had formed them. Her legs were carrying her down to the kitchen before she could stop herself. She started to turn on the overhead light, but thought better of it. She flicked the switch on the light over the stove; the room was suffused with a soft amber glow, casting deep shadows where it failed to reach.

She fished several bottles out the cabinet beside the dishwasher. She looked them over and thought of Lu. Her eyes fastened on a thick article filled with a rich brown liquid; the label said it was brandy. She set it aside and put the rest of the bottles back where she found them, thinking she'd rather not like to explain to Dad why she was going through his cabinet. Then she moved to the stove, no longer thinking at all, merely swept along by a sudden impulse. She picked up the tea kettle and filled it with water from the tap, the brandy momentarily forgotten. Setting it down on the bottom left eye, she turned it up high and went to the fridge. She dug out a lemon and began to cut it in half.

What am I up to now?

She squeezed, letting the juice of the lemon drip into a large cup from the drying rack, and then spooned in a lot of sugar from the jar by the coffee pot. Tea spun the cap off the brandy and pour a fair amount of the dark liquor in with the lemon juice. She stared down into the liquids as they mingled and waited for the kettle to whistle. Once it did, she tipped it over the cup, filling it the rest of the way and stirring as she went. The scent carried up by the steam was heady. Sweet.

And familiar.

Tea lifted the cup to her mouth once it had cooled from burning to warm, the familiarity of it all growing stronger, so strong it could almost crowd out the pain entirely. She blew twice more for good measure, pressed her lips to the rim and tilted the cup back.

The warmth of the toddy - that's what this is, a hot toddy, Lu made it once when I had a bad cold - flooded her from head to toe, soothing her in a way the pills never had. It wasn't the liquor that did it, at least not for the most part. It was something else in that cup, something greater than the sum of the recipe's parts, something akin to magic. She climbed the steps in the most beautiful haze, her muscles loose and her eyelids heavy. It hadn't occurred to her how wired she had been until just this moment.

Soon, the cup stood empty on her bedside table. And not long after, she crawled under the covers, turning and turning in circles like she had as a kid to warm the mattress. Just on the verge of true sleep, she sent out a silent thanks to Lu for her toddy.

It was like imbibing memory itself ...

The appearance of the garden snake curling lazily around her mother's arm startled Tea, but didn't frighten her. Maybe because Mama wasn't frightened. She had that effect.

"Do you know what an emblem is, darling?" the statuesque woman asked, gliding a fingertip gently along the scales of her newly acquired pet.

Tea answered quite confidently for a nine-year-old. "Like a symbol."

"Just so. The serpent is our emblem. Do you know why that is, Tea?

She thought and thought, but could find no answer. She shook her head. "Will you tell me?"

"We shed our skin as it pleases us to do so. We wrap ourselves around the things we wish to hold onto, even squeezing the life out of it if we must. We swallow our enemies whole."

"What about its venom?"

"Our lifeblood, our sustenance, our weaponry. It is whatever we need it to be. Do you know why I'm telling you this?"

"Why?"

"Because the world would have you believe that you're a mouse."

Even without the association being explained, Tea knew she didn't want to be a mouse. They were nervous creatures that were easily manipulated, and she didn't want to end up in a lab somewhere. "Why does the world want that?"

"You'll understand for yourself some day. Until then, you must be diligent."

"With my lessons?"

The woman nodded as she let the snake crawl back into the tank she and her daughter had purchased the day before. "Yes."

Something was eating at Tea. She scratched her head. "Snakes, huh?"

"Yep." Her mother put the lid back on the tank.

Tea gasped suddenly. Lillian looked down at her with interest.

"Does this mean we're Slytherins?" the girl blurted out.

The woman's laughter miffed her daughter, but only slightly. Mother was beautiful when she laughed. Even more beautiful than when she did anything else, which was saying something. She could say without fear of reprisal that her mother was one of the most beautiful to walk the earth.

She laughed so much in those days. Before it all started to slowly unravel ...

Her eyes flew open, unfazed by the blazing light of day. The tears had already dried on her face, so she didn't bother to wipe at them.

She stood gingerly on legs that were surprisingly steady. The bone-deep exhaustion had faded to a far more manageable weariness and the throbbing of her skull was almost completely gone save for a short, sharp jolt whenever she turned her head too fast. She padded down to the kitchen, too ravenous to even care that she was traipsing about in the nude.

Two duck legs, one pile of cold spuds, a fistful of baby spinach leaves, several refills of water and half an apple later, she reclined, once again able to think now that her mind wasn't wracked with her stomach's protests.

So her mother had been training her. All the "classes" with top instructors and all the things Lillian herself was teaching her were all lessons in some overarching plan. She was being honed, crafted, meticulously polished and shaped. Not as a tool for her mother's own use, but as a free agent, someone versed in everything from French to pool to eye-gouging, someone who would be capable of …

Of …

Of … what?

What the holy hell had Lillian Gardner been training her for?

A slight stab in her temple signaled her rising tension. She took a deep breath and forced herself to think it over rationally.

The woman certainly couldn't have been indifferent to her child, even apart from whatever potential she had seen and wanted to develop in her. Each memory that came back, even detached from its greater context within a largely forgotten past, was infused with the woman's love and devotion. Of that there could be no question. She drew this certainty around her like a warm shawl.

She couldn't have been one of those grasping stage moms; she dismissed this possibility even as it occurred to her. Why bank on her daughter's abilities when "Lil" herself was clearly still a semi-divine specimen, quite capable of ripping down any stage of her choosing? And why incorporate various Machiavellian principles into her teachings if she wanted a compliant cash cow?

No. Tea couldn't have been trained as a tool for the woman's use, not with all the emphasis placed on her own autonomy, not with the consistent bolstering of her self-worth. Regardless of what all the training had been amounting to, she was definitely meant to be an independent operator. Tea took another bite out of the apple and kept thinking.

No doubt this was all conjecture. Until the whole picture came back in full-on Technicolor with no dead patches of time in-between the scenes of her past, there could be no real certainty, no real objectivity.

Still: There was no mistaking that excellence had been bred into her, vigorously and methodically. She knew without a drop of arrogance that the child in her memories had been groomed for some kind of promising future, a future she would weave with her own capable hands. She was a dancer able to adapt to just about any style, an acrobat of some kind, and if last night's brawl was any indication, a resourceful - if not formally trained - fighter. She knew at least six different languages, in forms both written and spoken. She had understood Machiavelli and Nietzsche almost as soon as she could read.

And what have you to show for it? What have you done to be so damn proud of?

Anger welled up inside her then, its source and its target one and the same. She was furious with herself.

Here she was, practically molded into an Ubermensch, unable to tap into her own reservoirs of power, unable at this point to even fully gauge what these reservoirs held, popping pills to numb even the faintest breath of unpleasantness and starving away every ounce of muscle and strength her body could spare.

She drew her thighs up to her chest, wrapped her arms around her legs and put her head down on her knees, trembling on the hard chair with a mix of shame and fury. The weight of all the wasted years that had preceded this moment settled onto her back. She sank down and down into the loathing ...

Mouse.

She jerked her head back up at the thought, heedless of the painful jolt in the back of her head. She could almost see her mother now. Not as a memory dredged up, but a towering vision summoned in her moment of doubt. She voiced her own thoughts in her mother's signature contralto, the reprimand taking on a resonance she couldn't yet manage on her own: "Self-pity was most certainly not one of the virtues I bestowed upon you. Get your ass up. Now."

Tea unraveled herself, planting her bare feet firmly on the ground; her trembling ceased at the imagined scolding, though bitter tears still stung her eyes. She chomped back into the apple and glanced at the clock on the wall. She noted with the barest pinprick of interest that her shift had started roughly a half-hour ago.

Mid-bite, she began to mentally construct a to-do list. She sank her teeth into the juicy meat of the Braeburn with renewed vigor, finishing it off in a matter of seconds. For once, she was looking forward to the tasks at hand. Tea stood, thrilling briefly at the pleasant feel of moving about without clothing, and strode back upstairs for a much-needed shower after chucking the apple core into the garbage. The sunlight streaming through the living room accentuated every hollow and dip between her diminished curves.

She pulled her waitress uniform out of the closet and looked it over.

"As good a place as any to start."

. . . . .

Monday morning at Domino High found Tristan and Joey in the library prior to the first bell. Yugi joined them, on fire with an anxiety that had built slowly all weekend, like a kettle slowly heating to a whistling boil. He paced the aisle, as if putting a rut in the library floor would make Tea magically materialize in her favorite spot. He checked his phone again. She hadn't called or texted back in the twelve minutes or so since he had checked last.

"I've been trying to reach her for days now, but her cell just keeps ringing. It's not even going to voicemail, it just rings. Have either of you seen her?"

"Not since study hall Friday," Tristan chimed in, tapping his fingers restlessly on the top of the shelf he was leaning against.

"Yeah," Joey grumbled from where he sat on the table, feet planted on the chair, "when she freaked."

Tristan sighed petulantly and began what had rapidly become an old argument over the past two days. "She did not freak. She just ... really needed the restroom."

"Dude. Pitiful. Seriously."

"Well, asshole, if you're so observant, what do you think happened?"

"Come on, man!" Joey roared, his small reservoir of patience fully squandered. "She's been acting weird for days now! Whatever happened didn't have shit to do with needing the toilet!"

"What happened?" Yugi shrieked, tired of being out of the loop and having fully made the leap from anxiety to the beginnings of panic. It was one thing for her to not return his calls; it was quite another for her to be in some kind of danger.

"I have no fucking clue!" Joey burst out, relieved to finally have someone other than Tristan's skeptical ass to hash this out with. "I mean, there we are, we're in study hall, right? And we keep asking if she's okay, but then we had to stop cuz it was pissin' her off. Like, seriously, she looked like she was gonna cut Tristan here if he asked again. She went back to her work, but she started waving her hand in front of her face, like - like - like maybe she was going blind or something -!"

"Oh, come on," Tristan muttered, put off by Joey's melodramatics even as a tendril of panic began to worm its way up to tighten his throat. He hadn't even considered impending blindness as a possibility! Sure, that's because it was ridiculous, but still...

"Then! Oh, man, then she looked up and just stared in front of her. But not like she was spacing out, it was like she was seeing something we couldn't see, man, cuz she wasn't blinking. At all." Joey shuddered visibly at the memory of that zombie-like look on Tea's face. "Scary shit, man. Scary. Like she wasn't really there anymore ..."

Yugi, who during the course of the conversation had slowly reached up to touch his lips as a horrible possibility began to dawn on him, uncovered his mouth and asked softly, "Is that when she left? Was she still like that? When she left?"

Joey shook his head, partly in answer and partly to clear his mind of the same dread that he could sense brewing in his petite friend. "Nah, she snapped out of it. She got really red in the face, picked up her stuff and booked it. Didn't even look to see if the librarian was watching, she just said she needed to go and she was gone."

"Y-you ... you don't think - ?" Yugi began, not even daring to voice his suspicion aloud.

"I dunno ... It kinda fits, though, right?" Joey said, hoping against hope that it wasn't true.

"Yes, but how? I mean, she doesn't even have an Item, so - ?"

"Maybe she's being tapped some other way, like some sort of astral projection - !"

"Um, hello?" Tristan hissed, waving his arms in the air. "Remember me? Are either of you going to complete a fucking sentence so I can be in on whatever -"

"Dude," Joey hissed. "Think about it! She's not herself. She's going into fucking trances. She won't tell us what's up. Put it all together and ... ?"

Tristan shrugged, well and truly at a loss. The best he could come up with was: "She's stressing over mid-terms?"

"She's possessed! Tea is possessed, you idiot!"

"Oh ... Oh! Oh, shit, then what are we still doing here?" Tristan bolted for the exit with Joey, happy to have finally gotten through to his cynical compatriot, not too far behind. Yugi gaped after his wayward friends.

"Guys! We have school, that was the bell - !"

"Who the hell cares, Yugi?" Joey called back as they left through the back way. "It's not like we haven't done it before!"

Yugi groaned, finding this well-worn excuse even harder to argue with in light of Tea's safety, and took off after his two friends.

Their search began at Tea's house. Keith Gardner answered the door, sporting the neutral expression that was his trademark.

"Shouldn't you three be in school?" he asked as he turned and walked from the door, ostensibly inviting them in.

All three boys began to talk at once, Joey saying they had a mythical out-of-school pass of some sort, Tristan opting for at least part of the truth, Yugi attempting to latch onto whichever excuse sounded about right and just sort of babbling by way of compromise -

Keith lifted his hand, shutting them all up instantly. He eased himself back into his seat at the newspaper-strewn kitchen table.

"No worries, boys, I'm not the truancy officer. What's on your mind?" He held up his hand again as all three of them opened their mouths to speak again. "One at a time, please."

"We're worried about Tea," Yugi said.

"We keep calling, but she won't answer," Tristan dove in.

"Is she here?" Joey finished.

"No, she isn't," Keith replied. "She was very ill Friday. When I went to check on her the next day, she was gone."

Yugi paled. Tristan gulped. Joey asked, "Gone? Like gone-gone?"

Keith's brow shot straight up into the stratosphere, his eyes narrowing at the implication that his child would abandon him. "No, she left a note. She said she was well enough to go back to work. That's probably why you can't reach her. They frown on cell phone use during shifts." He stared down into his coffee mug. "I haven't seen too much of her lately either. She's been so busy."

Yugi suddenly darted out into the living room, claiming he needed to use the downstairs bathroom. Joey and Tristan kept up a bit of idle chitchat with Tea's imposing father until they heard Yugi's voice a few minutes later:

" ... were just looking for you ... Uh-huh? Uh-huh? Oh, cool, yeah ... Sounds great, we'll be there." Yugi walked back into the kitchen with a glowing smile. "Tea finally called back, you guys! She says we can visit during her lunch hour."

Keith's eyes narrowed even more. "Since when do they give her an hour? She usually gets a thirty."

Yugi shrugged, the very picture of unconcerned adolescence. "Probably all the overtime she's getting. They have to lengthen the break if she's doing more than her share. You know how she is."

Keith grinned. "Such a hard worker, my girl. So you'll be off then?"

"Yeah, let's go, you guys," Yugi said, backing out of the kitchen. "Bye, Mr. Gardner!"

Joey and Tristan bid him farewell and rushed to catch up with their short friend, who seemed to be in a great hurry all of a sudden.

"Well, that was easy," Joey said, almost but not quite sad to see the Tea-hunt end so quickly. "So did she sound alright?"

"How would I know?" Yugi blurted out, sounding very guilty.

"What do you mean, how?" Tristan asked. "If she said we could come by -"

"She didn't say anything. I faked that whole conversation."

Tristan and Joey gawked in transparent amazement.

"You ... You lied?" Tristan said, agape. "You're capable of lying?"

Yugi blushed furiously and stomped off to the bus stop. "We're not the only ones out of the loop, guys. If she's keeping things from her dad, she has her reasons. We can't get her in trouble and then expect her to tell us what's going on with her."

After agreeing on this point - no one wants to be a snitch, after all - the three descended upon the restaurant that was Tea's place of employ, figuring she would probably be there picking up extra hours. The place was fairly empty, that lowest point of the grace period that preceded the lunch-time rush.

"You seen Tea?" they asked the bouffant-sporting waitress leaning lazily at the bar.

Gail looked up with interest from the gum she was twirling between her index finger and her teeth. "Oh, you're looking for Gardner? Bit late for that, don't you think?"

"What do you mean? How long ago was she in?"

"Saturday morning. She handed in her uniform."

"EH?" the three boys cried in unison.

"Yeah, yeah! She just struts in, puts her stuff on the breakfast bar and says 'I won't be back. Take care, G'. Not even mad! Real calm-like, you know? Then she shoulder-checks boss man on the way out and goes on her way. Man, that chick's got balls. I've always wanted to quit like that."

Yugi, Tristan and Joey exchanged uncomfortable side glances as the waitress seemed to disappear in a cloud of worship that seemed almost Sapphic. They said goodbye, boarded yet another bus and sat in silence for some time. Tea had quit her job. Quit. On the spot. Things were definitely not looking good.

After a few more agonizing minutes, Joey suggested they go to see Mai.

Tristan disapproved immediately: "You're flailing, man."

"Do you have any other ideas?"

He didn't, so they went to Mai's apartment, taking another bus to get there. She lived near the top of a high-rise close to the midtown area. She answered the door looking carelessly gorgeous, her golden hair swept up into a messy bun and her legs long and tan under a -

Joey grunted, pulled from his gawking revery by Mai's fist connecting squarely with his chest.

"Quit ogling my legs," she sneered, "and get on with it, Joseph."

He flinched. She had used his full name. She definitely wasn't in a cooperative mood. He cleared his throat.

"Have you seen - ?"

"No."

Joey threw his hands up in the air, what-the-hell style. "You didn't even let me finish!"

"No need. I haven't seen Tea, so you can get to stepping now."

Yugi, who had retreated further out into the hall along with Tristan when Mai had answered the door, spoke up: "How'd you know we were looking for her?"

Mai leaned against the door frame, arms crossed across her ample chest. "She had the good grace to call and warn me about unexpected visitors."

The three boys exchanged charged looks. Tea knew they were looking for her? What was this, hide-and-seek? What the hell was going on?

"Are you sure - ?" Joey tried again.

"Yes, I'm sure. Go. Now." Before I murder you, the blatantly hostile look on her face finished where her words ceased. She slammed the door on them without saying goodbye.

"She's hiding something," Joey insisted as they rode the elevator back to the ground floor.

"Or she's still pissed that you called her a stripper," Tristan pointed out.

"Oooh ... Shit, I forgot about that."

Eventually, they could think of nowhere else to go but back to school. They went their separate ways in the corridors. Tristan and Yugi managed to make it to their third period classes on time. Joey didn't and got detention for not having a good enough excuse. The discussion at fourth-period lunch hour was taken up with Joey's offense at this injustice. They had settled into Tea's spot in the back of the library once they were done eating. Tristan was halfway through explaining that Joey shouldn't have tried to talk his way out by pointing out just how many other times he had gone missing without any bother when a sharp, gravely voice overrode their conversation:

"Mohto."

The three boys froze. Seto Kaiba, of all people, was parked rather purposefully in front of them. And in his hand was Tea's trademark satchel, the worn strap wound tightly around the young man's fist. He held it out to his short rival, the look on his face telegraphing blatantly just how displeased he was to be playing the courier.

"Will you do something with this? I'm sick of looking at it." And thinking about suicidal pill-poppers. I'm sick of that, too, he thought snidely, disgusted with the guilt that kept trying to take root in his gut.

"What are you doing with Tea's bag?" Yugi asked, sounding more incredulous than upset.

I wish I knew, he almost said. "She left it with me."

Joey inched forward, eyes ablaze with suspicion. "The fuck do you mean, left it with you?"

"She left it. With Me," he repeated slowly. "Each of those words is only one syllable, Wheeler. Even you should be able to work it out."

"Answer the goddamn question!"

"I believe I just did, mutt."

Before Joey could either respond verbally or respond via launching himself at Kaiba's throat, Tristan distracted the other three young men with frantic, windmill arm-flailing. "Shh, SHH. Listen! Do you hear that?"

In the void of silence that followed, they could hear a faint, automated jingling. All four of them stared down at the tote in Kaiba's hand. The billionaire stuck his hand inside and fished out the plain black Samsung that hadn't rung or jingled in the entire two days he had been keeping a wary eye on the bag between short bouts of homework, longer bouts of work-work and very long stretches of paranoid news-channel-surfing. He pressed the flashing message icon and read the text that appeared before handing it over to Yugi, who proceeded to read it aloud to the rest of them:

"Pick up my phone at the next ring. I'm calling from another cell."

"Pick up my ... ? Holy shit, it's her! WE FOUND HER!"

Kaiba rolled his eyes, mostly at Wheeler's idiocy, but at least partly at the hysterical relief that bubbled up into his chest like carbonated cough medicine. So Gardner wasn't dead, after all. Hooray.

"I'd say she found you, moron," he muttered grimly.

About thirty tense seconds passed before the promised ring sounded. Yugi slid the answer tab on the touch screen and then activated the speaker.

"Tea! Tea, is that you?" he asked of the device in his hand.

Her voice spilled out into the room, calm and smooth. #"Yes. Am I on the speaker?"#

"Yeah, yeah!" Yugi placed the phone on the table and leaned over it, hands braced on the wooden edge.

#"Who all is there?"#

"Me, Tristan, Joey ... and, uh, Kaiba."

A tiny exhale that might have been a sigh or a scoff or a tiny laugh slipped through the phone.

#"Is he really?"# Whether skepticism, amusement or genuine indifference, something in the girl's tone didn't sit well with the billionaire.

Unable to help himself, Kaiba chimed in acerbically with, "No, Gardner, he just said it to be funny."

#"That's him, alright. What brings you to this discussion, Kaiba?"#

Yugi jumped in before Kaiba could say anything: "He said you left your bag. He brought it with him."

#"How sweet of you, Kaiba. Uncharacteristically so, but sweet nonetheless."#

Kaiba scoffed at this blase pronouncement, but offered no reply. He wondered if he was imagining the faint emphasis she placed on his last name. Or if he only noticed because he had expected her to brazenly go on using his first.

#"Yugi, Tristan, Joey. I'm sorry to have worried you. Kaiba ... You don't have to stick around for this if you don't want to."#

"I might as well stay for the final act of your little melodrama."

#"Suit yourself. Guys, I didn't mean to behave so poorly Friday. I was very ill and taking it out on you. Just know that I'm alright now and that you can stop looking for me."#

"How'd you know we went looking for you?" Joey asked.

And how did you know that I wouldn't just toss your things in the garbage, phone and all? Kaiba suddenly thought, the realization zinging through him like a shot of caffeine. It was only just dawning on him how eerily perfect the girl's timing had been when she called. He cast a surreptitious glance around them, as if expecting to see her skulking about with a borrowed cell.

A low, melodious laugh sent a distinctly sensuous ripple through the room, unsettling its four male inhabitants. They had never heard her laugh that way before, so languorous and devil-may-care. The sound made it almost impossible not to imagine her lounging like a pasha in an overstuffed harem, her legs kicked up and her hair splayed across a cushion.

Or maybe that was just Yugi, who shifted restlessly and tried in vain not to imagine her reclining in the buff.

#"You guys weren't exactly subtle about your detective work."#

Kaiba bit back a snort.

"What does that mean?" Tristan asked, blushing indignantly.

She laughed just has she had a moment ago, making them uncomfortable again. #"It doesn't matter, I'm grateful all the same. Just know that I'm okay and that you don't have to worry. I'll be back in school on Wednesday."#

"Will you be at home between now and then?" Yugi asked. He itched to see her more than ever.

#"No. I'm going to go visit my aunt."#

Kaiba, perceptive as he was, didn't miss the shock that froze the three others surrounding the table. They looked at one another, transmitting unspoken sentiments in mere seconds before charging on.

"Your ... aunt?" Yugi asked, the expectation in his voice clear.

She didn't seem to hear it. #"Yes."#

"When did you - ?"

#"See you all Wednesday."#

"... get an aunt?" Yugi finished, trailing off into nothing as the sound of the dial tone filled the air.

Joey shook his head somberly. "I don't like this. Do you think she's telling the truth?"

"She wouldn't lie - " Yugi said automatically.

"Yugi, you never think she lies about anything! Get a grip, man, when has she ever even mentioned family, besides her old man? It's like she's - "

"Guys." Tristan jerked his head towards the vaguely intrigued interloper in the room. Joey shut his mouth.

"So I guess we'll be seeing you, Kaiba?" Yugi offered with a chilly politeness that the pharaoh would have approved of, had he been paying attention.

"I guess you will," Kaiba replied, turning towards the exit. His mind was wracked with more curiosity than he cared to admit. He realized with he was quite looking forward to Wednesday, to the inevitable resumption of their battle.

"You can leave the bag."

"What?"

"The bag. Her bag, you can leave it."

Kaiba looked down and realized he had yet to relinquish the hideous tote. His grip tightened on the strap. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed the librarian on his way over the corner, likely ready to tell them to either get a book or get the hell out. He made for the exit, tossing his parting shot over his shoulder as he did:

"If she wants it back so bad, she can come and get it her damn self. From me."

. . . . .

Tea handed the phone back to the raven-haired young man in the seat across from her. "Thanks again," she said with a lazy smile. The smell of coffee beans all around was doing wonders for her mood.

He stuck the cell back into his pocket. His vibrant green eyes, lit with unabashed curiosity, never left her face. "No problem."

Her smile grew as she turned her attention out the window of the coffeehouse. She closed her eyes and braced her chin on her hand, hoping the good weather held out for a long while. Tea could only seem to think about sunbathing. With her hair half-pinned back, she felt the heat all over her face despite the cafe's air-conditioning. It was nice. Nicer than nice.

"So, um ..."

She looked back at him, placid and warm in the sunlight. "Hmm?"

"You're visiting your aunt?" he asked, seeming to realize just how silly it was to do so. He had been there for the tail end of her conversation, after all.

"Oh, yes," she replied, "I'll be on my way there soon, actually. Why?"

"It's just ... it was really good to run into you. If you're going to be away for awhile ... I mean, I don't wanna lose touch again ..."

"It sounds as though you've thought about it," she said evenly before lifting her cup. She blew at the steam rising from the black coffee and glanced up from the dark liquid to see that those remarkable eyes had drifted to her pursed lips.

He gave her a serious stare that bordered on smoldering. "I have. A lot, actually."

She arched a brow, playfully skeptical.

"Okay, okay, it only just occurred to me about ten minutes ago when we ran into each other. But since then I've thought about it a lot."

Cute, she thought with a smirk, very cute.

"Well, you have my number now," she said, her eyes drifting down to where he had pocketed his phone, before drifting slowly back up to his face, "so feel free."

"C-cool," he said, that lopsided grin of his making him look anything but. She realized that she was genuinely charmed by this. Odd, but true. She had always had him pegged as a smooth charmer. Now he seemed off-balance in a most adorable way. Perhaps she had something to do with it? She hit him with the full force of her smile and his blush deepened.

He stood up suddenly, looking very reluctant to go and thus even cuter. "I have to get back to school."

She nodded and resumed drinking the coffee he had bought her.

"See you, Tea," he called from somewhere behind her.

She lifted her fingers in a careless gesture without turning around.

"Bye, Duke."

Surprisingly, I'm quite happy with this chapter. I hope y'all are, too!

Also, on a totally unrelated note: I'm regretting naming Tea's dad Keith. It's a very Dad kind of name, don't get me wrong. It's just that I keep visualizing Bandit Keith whenever I write scenes that he's in. AND THAT'S JUST WRONG. Anyway, onto the footnotes:

*Do I even need to discuss the chapter title?

... Yes. Yes, I do, because I love to cryptically over-analyze everything, and I have many, many (not that many) meanings behind "Strike".

"Strike" in the serpent-sense means, of course, the bearing of said snake's fangs; Tea hasn't actually "Bitten" anyone yet, but she has proven that she is quite capable of shaking up the people in her life. The actual biting will come later, which leads to the second meaning. This refers to baseball: strike one, strike two, etc. The next few chapters will be a series of strikes and with good reason: It pertains to just how much impertinence and presumptuousness the men in Tea's life (Kaiba, especially) can get away with; as she is justifiably preoccupied and reexamining the bigger picture, she will be amused and cunning and even obliging ... but only up to a point. Eventually, and at differing points, she will have to punish each of them.

SPOILER ALERT: Kaiba's punishment will be especially thrilling to see ... er, read, rather. I keep forgetting that fan fiction isn't a visual medium. Damn my cinephile sensibilities!

** "Really and truly"

*** "I will gorge myself on your wealth. And wipe my mouth with what's left of you." (Best. Line. Yet.)