Thanks so much to all who read and reviewed "Issho ni"! I'm so glad you all enjoyed it.

This fic is dedicated to PurpleWildcat2010, who has not only reviewed every single one of my YuGiOh stories to date, but has given me a full-out critique of each. I can tell she spends time crafting a review that will help me the most, and I can't say how much I appreciate it. She suggested doing something with these characters, so here it is! Hope you like it!

A little something about the names: Frankly put, I prefer the name Marik. I grew up with the dub, and I got used to it. I now watch the Japanese version, and got used to "Mariku." "Marik" is far easier for me to pronounce than "Malik." However, I am a stickler for being as close to accuracy as I can. I'm also a student of many foreign languages, and therefore have done my research and have found that chances are quite high that Takahashi-san originally intended "Malik," a romanization of at least two Arabic names. So I used "Malik" here, but I like both and mean no offense to whoever uses either one.

Why don't I use "Isis" instead of "Ishizu"? Because the Japanese "Aishisu" is almost definitely "Isis" (the ancient priestess), while "Ishizu" seems rather different. However, I have found no Arabic nor Egyptian name that sounds similar to that (admittedly, "Isis" is the closest, but again, see my last sentence), so I'm sticking to Ishizu. Again, no offense to those who do use "Isis."

"Rishid," to dub-watchers, is Odion. A "pound" is a modern Egyptian method of currency. And why is it that I use "Sister" instead of "Nee-san" as Malik calls Ishizu? Because they aren't speaking in Japanese when they're alone, they speak in Arabic (actually, calling your older siblings "Brother" or "Sister" is also Japanese-specific—for all we know, he might just call her "Ishizu" in his native tongue). I only use the Japanese suffix "-sama" because it is a Japanese-specific term that shows great respect, and I don't believe there is a truly accurate English equivalent ("Lord" or "Master" comes close, but is still a bit off).

Rated for angsty situations. Obviously, utterly non-romance.

I very much hope you enjoy this little piece of mine, and please leave a review when you finish!

EDIT: Edited for several errors and a general reworking of style. Just for clarity, this story takes place in two different time periods: one very shortly before Malik turns ten and receives the ritual, and one shortly after Battle City.

EDIT2: Finally decided to switch to "Master Malik," because even though it makes me laugh as I remember not only the dub but the Abridged Series (plus, it just sounds somewhat amusing), it is most accurate. I would use an Egyptian Arabic equivalent, but I can't seem to find one, and "Malik-sama," though it sounds better, is quite simply Japanese-specific. And I'm obsessive about accuracy: Rishid and Malik would be speaking Arabic, or maybe a dialect of Old Egyptian, not Japanese.

Omoide

Master Malik wouldn't eat.

He was used to this, of course, and it did not come as a particular surprise when the young boy yet again refused his soup. He often tried to starve himself when he was upset, and though Rishid still didn't like when it happened, it never lasted more than a day. This time Master Malik just looked away and shook his head instead of smacking the bowl from Rishid's hands, so at least Rishid could save it and hope that maybe he could get him to take a few bites.

It had been five minutes this time since the refusal, and since Master Malik had last spoken, and Rishid had taken to sitting on the edge of the bed and watching the boy as he sat at the stone table that functioned as his desk. Master Malik just sat there, staring at nothing, and Rishid had decided it wouldn't do much good to try to get him to move.

Master Malik twitched, and Rishid turned his head.

"Would you like me to save the soup for your next meal, Master Malik?"

Master Malik said nothing, but he twitched again, and a moment later he sighed and laid his head on his arms.

Rishid watched the flames flickering around the edges of the room for what felt like a long time. But it still took him just an instant to realize when Master Malik pushed himself out of his seat. Rishid flinched and stood from the bed as if he had committed some dire sin by sitting there at all.

Master Malik looked at him. Blinking, violet eyes confused and wondrous like they had been many times before. Like the child he was, the child that did not understand who Rishid was, who he was expected to be, and did not understand all the years Rishid had experienced before Master Malik was even brought in the world. There were no words spoken between them. They traded places like Rishid remembered them doing several times on evenings like this. Rishid slipped the tray of food onto the desk where it would be out of the way, and Master Malik lay down on his bed and pulled the covers up to his chin.

Rishid watched him with his own eyes soft as Master Malik slipped his arms behind his head and stared up at the ceiling. His eyelids did not droop and he did not shift about. He just looked, like he had found some crack on the ceiling shaped like a lion waving a magic wand.

Any sounds in the room faded to silence, and that silence settled over them like a cloak. A veil. All the pain and truth, dulled by quiet and flickering peace.

"What was Mother like?"

Rishid could not stop his breath from catching in his throat.

It was the sort of question he didn't understand when it first left Master Malik's lips. It just sounded like meaningless words for several seconds. He fiddled with his fingers as those words began to grow clearer, and suddenly, an ache in his chest he had not let himself feel for a very long time grew sharp and new.

He looked straight at Master Malik, and Master Malik looked at the ceiling.

"W-what?"

"Mother." Rishid stared, and Master Malik quirked his head on the pillow to look Rishid in the eyes. "You remember her, don't you?"

It took all Rishid had not to pretend he hadn't heard him. He swallowed and looked at the floor.

"… yes."

"What was she like?"

Rishid flinched. A little part of him, a part he had tried so hard to bury over the years, told him to run as far as he could and hide, though there was nowhere he could go. He shifted back and forth in the chair and glanced from side to side. He did not meet Master Malik's eyes, even though he knew the boy still stared at him from the bed.

"Master Malik … you're tired. You need your rest."

"Rishid." Rishid turned his head, but Master Malik stayed quiet. He seemed to have a million and one things he wanted to say, but even as he opened his mouth to speak, no words came out.

Master Malik looked at Rishid. Rishid looked at Master Malik. Master Malik shifted, settling on the bed, and after a moment, he let out a long and heavy sigh. He twisted himself around to face the wall on the other side of the room and rested his head on the pillow with a faint huff. But not quite annoyed.

Rishid wanted to sigh as well, but stopped himself. He flicked his eyes up and looked at the way the flames cast shadows on the ceiling. Silent, twisting, shadows and light melding together as one. He swallowed.

"She had beautiful eyes."

Rishid could feel Master Malik turn to stare at him. He did not look back, but he could imagine the expression on Master Malik's face. He wanted to look at him. But he didn't. And he heard the creaking of the bed as Master Malik breathed out and settled himself down again.

When silence returned, Rishid turned his head, and he met the wide eyes of the boy lying under the blanket. He blinked up at Rishid like Rishid held a million precious secrets, secrets no one else could tell and no one else could know.

Things he desperately wanted to understand for himself.

Rishid pursed his lips. "You look like your father. Your hair … even the color of your eyes. But when I see you … you have her face. Her smile."

Master Malik glanced away, flicking his eyes to the tanned fingers of his hand, shifting them as they contrasted on the white sheets. Rishid sighed.

"She … saved my life."

"She did?"

Rishid moved his head up.

Master Malik was staring at him again. He had settled his head on the pillow, sinking into the soft cloth, but his eyes were wide. Rishid looked back at him, and somehow it hurt to see him as innocent as he was. Innocent, disbelieving, and naïve to all that went on around him every day.

All that he had yet to understand.

Rishid let out a long breath, and he stared at the ceiling and at the flames on the wall that illuminated the room and flickered as they reflected on the stone. "She found me when I was a baby, right outside, near the entrance."

He listened to the movement of cloth as Master Malik adjusted himself once more. He never did seem to be able to get comfortable.

"Was she nice?" he asked, his voice just a little faint.

Rishid almost smiled. Almost. But not quite.

"The kindest person I've ever met."

Master Malik adjusted himself again, this time quieter, and not as much. Rishid turned his eyes to him and saw his head on the pillow still, and the blankets tangled about his body. "You think she would have liked me?"

"Of course, Master Malik," Rishid whispered, even though he had intended his voice to be clearer. He blinked at the boy lying on the bed. "How could she not?"

It was a very long time after that, after silence had once again settled over the room, that Master Malik sighed and stared at the ceiling above. "Would she have wanted me to get the ritual?"

Rishid cringed.

His chest hurt again. He started to reach a hand to clutch it, but he just lowered his hand a moment later and dropped it to his side. He glanced back and forth, shaking his head, and for once, he hardly thought of whether Master Malik could see him.

"… I would do anything to stop it, Master Malik, if I cou—"

"Then why didn't you!"

He supposed that many other people would have nearly fallen out of the chair at the shout that echoed around the walls. But Rishid stayed frozen still, even as he noticed Master Malik pushed up on his elbows, breathing hard and fast, and staring at him with violet eyes Rishid didn't think he had ever seen so fierce. Pain. Anger.

And after an instant, blatant and unfamiliar regret.

Master Malik did not look at him as he laid his head again on the pillow with a long breath. His mouth was blocked by the edges of the cushion, though his eyes, sparkling with tears never to be shed, were clearer than the day he had never truly seen. "I'm sorry, Rishid."

Rishid shook his head, but followed it with a sigh that he supposed could be heard all around the tomb.

"No. I'm sorry, Master Malik."

Silence. The words floated about in the nothingness of the underground world, and Rishid let them sit there. He waited. He fidgeted with his hands in his lap. He did not know what he was waiting for, but he waited.

"Do you miss her, Rishid?"

Master Malik's voice had grown gentle. Much like the voice of the one who had smiled at him when no one else would have dared. The voice of curiosity and of a caring Rishid had never expected, and could not fully understand.

Rishid flinched, and he swung his head back to look Master Malik in the eyes, just as the boy blinked, turned on his side, and glanced away. His tone was so quiet it almost couldn't be heard. "Mother."

The flames from the candles lit around the room cast shadows on the walls, and the breathing of the two of them suddenly grew so much more distinct. In and out. Life. Tortured life, painful life, but life just the same. Lives that never would have existed—or never would have survived—if it weren't for one who had given the rest of her own.

Rishid wanted to close his eyes and put his face in his hands, but he just let out a breath.

"Every day."

"Do … do you think she'll watch over me?" Rishid kept on his eyes on the boy as Master Malik let the question slip out. It was hesitant, and this time it was Master Malik who fidgeted under the sheets and shifted his violet eyes back and forth before finally settling on Rishid. "After … I get the ritual."

Rishid swallowed, and he felt like he was swallowing promises wrapped in sugar and nails.

"Yes."

"Will you watch over me, Rishid?" The words came as a whisper, and the boy's eyelids flickered open and closed, unable to hold for long, and he never broke his gaze as Rishid stood and pulled the blanket over him and tucked it around his small form. "You and Sister?"

Rishid let out a very long breath, and he looked back at Master Malik, even though Master Malik's eyes had shut almost all the way, and he had settled underneath the blankets and on the pillow. As if there was nothing in the world to fear, nothing in the world to fight. As if all was as Rishid had once dared to wish, even if that wish was lost years before.

He nodded, though no one could see.

"Yes. Yes, we will."

The boy's eyes did not open again, but his lips curved up into a smile Rishid had not seen in a very long time. A smile he told himself he might never see again. Innocent and unknowing, not yet understanding all that was to come.

Rishid tucked the blankets around young Master Malik as he drifted off and his breathing grew quiet and deep. He flicked his eyes around the room, searching, and gave a nod to himself. They were alone. He was alone again in the room with the boy he had long ago vowed to protect.

He did not speak, however much he wanted to say. He did not brush a caring hand through the boy's hair, though he wanted to offer that assurance. He just sat himself down again in the chair by the desk, and for a long time in which he was not fully aware, he stayed there and watched his little charge rest one more time before his life was torn away.

And Rishid promised himself that wherever that little boy ended up, they would always stay together.

Rishid liked the new house.

Granted, he hadn't had much of a say in it, and it wasn't really a new house—Ishizu had bought it over a year ago, though he had never seen it. It wasn't very big, and it was right smack in the middle of a crowded city, when he really preferred somewhere quiet where he sit on his own and think in peace. But it was still nice.

Master Malik—no, he was just Malik now, though Rishid was almost sure he would never get used to that request—had wanted to stay in Domino. He had gotten attached to the place in the short few days he had actually been there, and he wanted to be somewhere close to people and life. But he liked Cairo, and the first few days after they moved in he would just stand out by the road and watch the cars zoom by.

Rishid would try to get him to come in for lunch or for a break from the sun beating down on his head, but Ishizu just sat inside and looked at him, smiling in that strange contented way like she was seeing something she had once thought she might never see again.

Every time Malik turned around and smiled, Rishid understood why.

It was Ishizu's turn this week to go out and buy groceries. Malik had taken on the job the first two weeks they had lived here, and originally it would have remained his job alone. But he kept bringing back cookies and candy from any shop that would sell them, and often expensive brands, and would forget to get milk or bread so Rishid had to pick them up later in the week. It had been okay for a while, but Ishizu seemed to be getting very tired of Reese's peanut butter cups and Twizzlers for dinner.

Rishid wasn't as fond of sweets as most, but he still smiled when Malik sat down at the table to try each new candy or cookie or cake. He beamed at the taste of each one, different, but all apparently delicious, like Rishid hadn't seen him beam in a great many years. Ishizu might have disagreed, but Rishid thought that seeing Malik smile so much was worth a few extra pounds a week.

He chuckled and shifted his position on the couch so the pillow cushioned his head. A real couch, with soft, fine tan lining and fluffy cushions, placed right in front of the television in the living room. Sunlight streaming in through the windows. Sounds of life all around.

It hadn't been a life he had ever imagined or even truly wanted for himself before. But he was glad he had it now.

Ishizu had recommended some programs for him to watch on television in his spare time. Some educational channels, so he could learn the things they had never learned living underground, things she had learned as soon as she left their old home and started showing exhibits in museums. One had aired at about nine that morning, some children's cartoon. Malik had still been asleep when he turned on the television, and Rishid had worried for a good few minutes if he had woken him from how hard he had been laughing.

Rishid had watched the whole thing, though, and he had liked it, spending the entire half hour sitting on the couch staring at the screen, eating more than he really should have of the "Gummy Bears" Malik had brought home from the store last week but Ishizu had hidden in the cupboard the next day.

"Is this a nature documentary?"

He didn't flinch. He had grown far too used to surprises to let himself ever be truly off his guard, and he merely turned his head and sat up straight in that old respectful manner he couldn't shake no matter how much he was told to let it go. He gave a small nod, even though Malik was currently locking eyes with the television, leaning on his hands on the back of the couch.

"Ishizu says she likes this one," Rishid muttered, turning away from Malik and settling back into place.

Malik leaned so far against the back of the couch that Rishid could feel the cushions pushing against his shoulder blades. He kept himself from smiling, even though he wanted to when he imagined the almost dazed look he was sure was on Malik's face. Those moments when he just stared at something new, something amazing, with wide, childlike eyes that hardly blinked, and his mouth hanging open enough for a bug to fly in.

A minute later Malik climbed over to flop himself down next to Rishid. He propped his socked feet up on the little glass table they had placed in the center of the living room, and he crossed his arms over his chest and quirked his head in a way that switched his childlike appearance to teenage. Rishid glanced over at him and let a small smile show.

Malik was still a child, in so many ways even Rishid didn't fully understand. He had been forced to grow up years ago, but he had never really grown. In this new world they had never had a moment to just explore, this new world that Malik had seen only glimpses of in the time he had spent out of the tomb, he was new. He was a little boy yet again, with so much to learn and so much to do. So much he had already missed.

He leaned forward to place his cheeks in his palms and flicked his eyes over to Rishid. Malik furrowed his brow. "What is it?"

"N-nothing," Rishid forced out, old habit scolding him for lying. He glanced at the television and tried to act as if he was completely engrossed in the eating habits of the koala bear, but he could still feel Malik's gaze stuck on the side of his face. He shifted, and he stared at the screen, and after a time, he just sighed.

Rishid didn't look, but he could feel the shifting of the cushions on which they both sat as Malik turned to see him better. He could imagine that look on the boy's face. That gentle curiosity that characterized him, at least in Rishid's mind. That gentle curiosity that had disappeared for such a long time, replaced only by pent up anger and malicious grins, and fear of what he knew he could not control.

Rishid shook his head and parted his lips.

"How do you like it here?"

The words had come to him when he searched his head for excuses, things to say, things to take the focus off of himself, and he didn't know what he was asking but he asked it anyway. He felt Malik shift again, this time back against the pillows. He heard Malik sigh, partially in defeat and partially in some odd sort of content.

Rishid glanced to the side and caught Malik staring at the television, but not really watching it. The boy quirked his head. "Do you like it, Rishid?"

"I … um … me?"

Malik looked at him again, his eyes different, but not entirely new. "Yeah. Do you like it, living here?"

Rishid wondered if there was a way to will the phone to ring, or maybe something surprisingly exciting to happen with the koalas on the screen. The phone did not ring, and the koalas were still hanging from trees from particularly boring angles of the camera. He lifted a hand to his face, and hardly noticed when he ran a finger over the marks on the side of his cheek.

He nodded, even though it was slow.

"It's … nice."

This time he saw Malik lean in toward him, and his eyebrows lower. "What are you thinking?"

"Nothing, Master Ma—" He shut his lips when Malik nearly gave him that look he had developed after he told Rishid to stop addressing him as a superior. Rishid swallowed. "It's nice here. It … is a good home."

Malik sighed and looked away. Again, back at the television. The koalas still weren't doing anything new.

"Please tell me, Rishid. No secrets. Not now."

Rishid opened his mouth and shut it again, and though he wanted to shake his head he didn't. He leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees. "You're happy here," he muttered, louder than he had intended. "As long as you're happy, I am too."

Malik just sighed.

The koalas went on about their business, and the voice-over narrator went on and on with nature vocabulary Rishid had never learned but which sounded familiar from some of the books Ishizu kept around. Shelves upon shelves of books, and Rishid had promised himself he would someday read every single one, and learn everything he had never been taught. Everything he wanted to understand.

The couch creaked when Malik moved again.

"I wonder …"

Rishid turned his head a bit, though Malik had yet to look back. "Hm?"

Malik settled himself into the cushions of the couch and let out a long breath. He didn't meet Rishid's eyes, even as Rishid turned all the way so he could see Malik in full. Malik just sat there, quiet, and blinked very slow.

"… if it had been all of us here," he finished. "Not just you and me and Sister."

Rishid furrowed his brow, and something deep within him cringed.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean … if we'd lived here from the beginning." Rishid watched his eyes flick around the room, as if seeing all this from the eyes of one who had known it for years, instead of one who was still learning even the smallest things. Malik sighed. "With Father. And … Mother."

Something deep within Rishid, something that had been long buried, stirred and ached within his chest. He ignored the old memories that raced before his mind's eye. He ignored the pains of those memories, the only face that had ever smiled upon him as a boy, the kind hand on his cheek and the gentle words he had never felt he deserved.

Rishid did not move from where he sat. But he stared at his hands for a moment and let out a long, almost silent breath.

"I think she would have liked it here."

Malik staring at him again. Curious. Always unsure. "You think?"

Rishid nodded, and he did all he could not to fidget.

"She would have liked to see how you've … grown."

He meant those words, more than he had meant many things he had said to Malik over all the years they had lived together. But they still came out quiet, and Rishid couldn't tell whether it was because of that or something else that Malik sunk down a little in his seat on the couch and turned his head to face the television.

He let out a breath. "I don't think she'd be very proud of me now."

There were a million things Rishid wanted to say. A million things he had thought of, a million things he wanted to make as clear as he could. But even when he opened his mouth and tried to speak, no words came out, and when he tried to read them again in his mind he came out blank. He wanted to reach over and offer some form of comfort to the boy, anything, even if it was only a bit.

But he couldn't make himself move. He couldn't make himself shift from that place on the couch next to the boy who was so different, and yet so very much the same.

Malik kept his eyes on something Rishid could not see, and he squeezed and released his fists, shaking his head like there was something to deny. "If things had been different …"

"We can't change the past, Malik."

The words were sharper than Rishid had meant, and he almost wanted to take them back. But he didn't. He let them settle into the air, and a second later Malik finally turned his head and looked Rishid in the eyes. He blinked. He sat there with a sense of calm about him that even he didn't seem to understand. He did not fidget. He did not look away.

"But … if they had been different …" His own words were quiet, and somehow older than Rishid thought Malik could sound. "Maybe if Mother was here, and Father …"

Rishid didn't feel the same sting he had felt a little earlier. But he still felt the ache, and that ache doubled when he saw Malik with stiff shoulders, staring back at Rishid in a kind of pain Rishid knew he would never be able to heal. It would disappear, with time, after many more trials and pains. But it would have to disappear on its own.

That was one thing against which Rishid could not protect.

"If we weren't Tomb Keepers," Malik whispered, but in the silence of the house it was loud enough to echo about the room. "We could just be a family. A normal family."

Silence, one Rishid did not dare to break, fell over them. It surrounded itself with awkwardness and discomfort, and yet with a sense of quiet Rishid did not understand. A peace and gentleness he had sought for a long time, though this was nothing like what he had imagined it would be.

Malik's lips twitched into a sad little smile as he glanced at his hands in his lap and fidgeted again. "But I guess … we've never really been normal, have we?"

Rishid's own smile was less obvious. Just a tiny curving upward of the lips. But it held something that had been resting deep within him for a long time. Knowledge he had never denied even if it wasn't the most pleasant of facts. The life he had always lived. The life he had known he could never escape. And the life that, for a long time, he had never wanted to leave.

He shook his head.

"No. We haven't."

Malik sighed, not quite as sadly as might have been expected. He looked at his tan fingers and the gold bands decorating his arms like they were new and unfamiliar, and he shifted his hands back and forth, back and forth again. "… we could have been a lot more, Rishid," he added. "A better family."

"We can be a family now, Malik." His voice shook, even though he tried to force it to settle. Malik looked at him with those wide eyes that reminded him of the boy in the underground home, sitting on his bed, asking questions and never understanding what was to come. Rishid swallowed the lump in his throat. "You and Ishizu."

"And you, Rishid."

Malik did not speak it soft. He spoke it certain and firm, leaning forward so the springs of the couch creaked, and suddenly that little boy knew so much more than he had ever had the chance to learn.

Rishid stared at him like he had never before dared to do. Like he was truly trying to look at the boy for who he was, who had always been, and who he was trying to become. He looked into those eyes he couldn't quite understand, and he saw the emotion swirling within him. An emotion that mirrored the mixing feelings inside Rishid himself.

It took a long time. So long that Malik sat back and quirked his head. But after that time, after something inside him had settled and his breath came easy, Rishid nodded. And with that came the tiniest smile from the boy across the couch.

The koala bears played about on the forgotten television screen, and any sounds from the shifting movements on the couch were drowned out by the stiff narrator of the film—this station really needed to work on its Arabic dubbing. Rishid rang his hands from the confusion he couldn't entirely shake, and Malik looked at the ceiling as if the ceiling had suddenly started to talk.

"I don't think I regret it, though," he whispered. His voice was so quiet, but it was definite in a way Rishid was not used to hearing Malik speak. Malik turned his head to look at his hands. "That … I was born how I was. That we were … Tomb Keepers, instead of normal people."

Rishid looked at him, blinking, and he furrowed his brow and quirked his head. The rest of the world seemed to fade as he tried very hard to decipher the expression in Malik's eyes.

"Why?"

Malik looked back at him. Those eyes that Rishid had seen young and innocent, and hurt and angry, and vengeful and lost, and confused and regretful, and loving toward all who had ever cared about him, even if he had taken so many years to realize it.

He gave the tiniest nod to himself.

"Because … if we had been normal people, Mother never would have found you."

It was a strange feeling, looking at that boy as if he was an entirely new person. Not the boy who had grown up as his young master, the one he had lived to serve and protect. Who had led Ghouls collecting rare cards and searching for the future Rishid wasn't sure he wanted, who had never been a child, and had taken up a role of malicious leader when he could have been so much more.

But he also was not that naïve boy who did not understand. He understood everything, and even so, he looked at Rishid with kind eyes. Hopeful eyes. Eyes that seemed to see in Rishid something Rishid had never been able to see in himself.

Rishid stared for a very long time, and the entire room remained in silence as Malik looked back. His gaze was gentle and soft, and so knowing even when he had so little to go upon for the new future he wanted to seek. He did not smile, and after nearly a minute, he glanced away.

"You think … we can try and be a family now, Rishid?" he whispered, the voice of the boy Rishid had long ago hoped he could become. "All of us?"

Rishid stared for a moment longer, until at last, the disbelief and shock within him faded. And underneath, he found the oddest sense of peace.

He nodded, even though there was still so much to be done, so much that had yet to be achieved. So much they would all have to discover, and none of it, he knew, would come easy. He did not smile, but his voice rang true.

"Yes, Malik. I think we can."

Malik shifted forward and stared Rishid right in the eyes, even though his own gaze had grown open and new. A different Malik. One that would have to learn much. But one that was never going to give up. "You think I'll make a good little brother?"

Rishid felt something in him tense, and the old images and sounds and the little boy who lay fevered on the bed, waiting for him, searching for him, apologizing when he had done nothing wrong. The boy who knew nothing of his lifelong protector except that he was always there, and that for all he knew, he was family.

An embrace—more than out of guarding, more than out of just making sure harm could not be done—was something Rishid couldn't ever remember receiving since the death of the woman who had been his mother, nor could he ever remember giving, not even once. And it would be a long time before he could give one now.

But that did not stop him from reaching out a big, tanned hand and resting it on the shoulder of the Malik he had to get to know all over again, and this time, he did not stop his lips from forming into a tiny smile, a smile which was mirrored twice over on the face of the boy he had never realized how much he loved.

"You always have."

There was, Rishid imagined, quite a long silence after that before the silence was broken. He imagined that much could have been said in that silence, much could have been done. Getting a snack, chatting, even a hug when such a thing still seemed so unimaginable and far away.

But when he heard the now-familiar sound of feet pattering outside and the front door pushing open, Rishid did not think a minute spent smiling at the boy before him could have been spent a better way at all.

Feet shuffled, and paper rustled, and a feminine voice groaned in frustration as bags were adjusted in unskilled arms.

"Malik! Rishid! Will you two help me with the groceries, please?"

Malik twisted himself around to lean his head and neck over the back of the couch, and Rishid almost snickered when Malik watched her walking in the doorway to the living room upside down. "Yes, Sister!"

Ishizu still had yet to break her habit of wearing linen. Malik had taken to wearing jeans and cargo pants and khaki early on after he had left the tomb, and Rishid wore whatever was convenient to buy when they went shopping for Malik. But Ishizu still wore the thick white linen and the gold jewelry, decorated like she was some ancient noble.

Which was why it still made him smile in half-hidden amusement to see her struggling to carry stuffed and clearly heavy grocery bags, and blinking at the two of them on the couch and at the television further into the room.

"What are you two watching?"

Malik flipped himself around and grinned a very big grin. "A nature documentary."

Rishid rested his upper arm on the back of the couch and looked at Ishizu without a smile, but with eyes he suspected were gentle and, as she might have called them, sweet. "About koalas."

Ishizu adjusted the bags again, finally seeming to have gained some semblance of balance in carrying them. She remained in the hallway, only just, but leaned in the entrance so as to better see the television. The narrator was still talking in his horribly formal, unnatural speech, even to someone who always spoke in formal tones like her. Ishizu blinked, and nodded to herself.

"Oh, yes, I like that one."

She stayed where she was, and Malik settled again onto the couch to look at the documentary on the screen. Rishid looked back and forth between them, and he imagined that this was not new and unfamiliar, the idea of the three of them in the living room watching television like siblings. Like a family.

He imagined this was something that could happen many times again. And no matter how many times it occurred, he would always treasure it close and dear.

Ishizu straightened herself and blinked, shaking her head with that stern but gentle expression she seemed to find so comfortable.

"Now, come on, you two, I had to buy everything that Malik forgot, so we've got a lot of groceries to carry in."

"Yes, Sister." Malik chuckled, like he had a long time ago, and sat forward on the couch.

He did not push himself up to stand. For a moment, he didn't move at all. Then he turned his head to look at Rishid with eyes that Rishid had seen people wear on television or on the street. But never had he imagined he would see that odd, unfamiliar look on the boy who sat before him.

Malik grinned from ear to ear.

"Race you to the car!"

For a few seconds, Rishid just sat perfectly still. Watching as Malik climbed over the back of the couch, grinning like mad, and jumped down to the floor. He nearly slipped from his socks on the wood floor, but steadied his legs and went racing down the hallway toward the front door with a speed Rishid had not seen him use in years.

Rishid stared, before his lips formed into a very uncharacteristic grin.

He pushed on the cushions of the couch and leapt to his feet, one solitary laugh making its way past him as he ran as fast as his tall legs could carry him after the boy who was getting closer and closer to the front door.

Ishizu stumbled as he sped past, not once stopping, and he heard but did not see her gasp in something that was not quite horrified shock.

"Malik! Rishid!"

She must have called after them at least twice after that. Called after them, her voice growing fainter and fainter as they grew further and further away.

Rishid did not care to listen to that voice. All he cared to listen to were the thumping of two pairs of feet as they ran across the floor toward the front of the house, his own footsteps quickly gaining on those of the younger boy with pale hair flopping as he moved, and the laughter that rang through the air, laughter he had never truly heard before, and laughter he had once thought he would never hear again.

And in the back of his mind, he imagined a kind, quiet woman watching from somewhere he did not yet know, smiling at them, and smiling at the bright future they could finally step to meet.