Drunk with Power

Téa looked at herself. It wasn't hard to know what happened. She was dealing with a lot of regrets and had tried to find Yugi. She ended up finding Masika, and found out Masika left the apartment when she sensed she had passed. She left with the cats too.

Masika didn't want the kids finding her or the cats dead on the ground. She tried to call Bakura, but she was dead before she ever got an answer. Although she was sad to see Masika had been attached enough that she had to come after?

She was glad that the kids didn't find her body, and she was glad that Masika was right there right now! They really helped out each other looking for comfort in one another.

For some reason, they were stuck in a throne room with golden dresses. It was sort of Egyptian, but sort of not too. It felt more like if a restaurant wanted to have an Egyptian style to their cuisine. It obviously wasn't real.

"My goddess."

"Yugi?!" She heard his voice, although she couldn't see him yet. He appeared in front of her and she bolted to hug her husband. "Yugi! Oh my god, I'm so glad to see you!"

Yugi just laughed at her. Almost like she made a joke. "Yeah, I'm glad to see you too. Oh and yeah. I am almost a god, not a god yet. Thanks for the greeting."

Téa noticed he was shining a little more. "You are glowing, huh? Boy, I know how annoying that can be." She hugged him again. "What about the kids?"

"They are safe. Joey has them, but not for too much longer," Yugi promised her. "I'm going to make sure they are raised by us in another dimension."

What? "What do you mean, Yugi?"

"He means that we are leaving one dimension alone, and we will collect and become the gods we rightfully will be afterward." Atem appeared and looked toward Masika. Her and Téa looked almost identical, but she had the interesting hairstyle that she had when she was whole. When he was all of Atem. When he had Yugi with him too.

That whole life of sixteen years lived in sixteen seconds, didn't feel like sixteen seconds! There was a reason Yugi couldn't take his hands off Téa. They felt like they just . . . lost them, and not in a car crash.

The long trek. The dreams night after night. He and Yugi were whole, and they were whole. While he noticed the bold nature and humor of Téa inside of her, he also noticed the parts that weren't her. Parts missing in Téa, that were displayed in Masika. Was that why another part of him had married her again?

Her other half. The half of the whole that the whole Atem had searched for, for so long.

Masika looked at him oddly. "Why are you looking at me like that?"

Atem walked toward her, and took her hand. How could he explain? What did he feel with her? Was it love, was it that ancient connection, was it a soulmate that had been platonic? What even was this? How did the other him, the him he was not yet, actually get that close?

Masika looked at his hand in hers. "What are you doing?"

Atem let go of her hand again. "Yugi?" He looked toward Yugi who was very busy with his half of his goddess. Kissing her. "I don't have anything to say to her. No more than I did to Silhouette. I messed up."

Masika looked toward him closer. "Pharoah Atem. Do you know when we'll leave this room?"

He reached for her hand again, and let go. "I am not even down to Atem again yet." Asking for marriage would not be easy. "Yugi? Will you stop making out for two seconds and help me?"

Yugi stopped kissing his goddess as Atem gestured toward Masika. "Oh. Yeah. You didn't leave on very good terms. The Atem we left alive, I can sense . . . he is on great terms with her. While the last you, the one this spirit knows? You . . . . killed her cat, and sent her to the shadow realm, while she had Silhouette inside even, the precious gift of ten thousand years that was basically handgiven to Zorc. Yeah. There was some good there, but not a whole lot to work with. You could have, but you did up and go afterward too."

"Damn," Atem muttered. "I had that same outlook. It's not good." He looked back at Masika and sighed. "You only remember the life in which I trapped you in the shadow realm and killed your cat. Technically, two lives. Do you remember both lives? You remember both lives. Shoot."

"Yugi, what's going on with Atem?" Téa asked. "You seem different too. More than just the glowing. You're calling me your goddess for one thing?"

"You have so many names in so many places, I don't want to tie down a name to you, when all you've ever been is one thing." Yugi kissed her again. "My goddess."

"Are you drunk with power, Yugi?"

"A little maybe," he admitted. Though, it was less of that and the sixteen second trek that felt like sixteen years as Atem, as well as the visions of giving her and Hikaru up that was making him cling to her. He didn't want to tell her that though, he didn't want her to worry about that. "I'm almost a full god? I just have one of me left in one other dimension."

What? "I don't get it, what does that mean?" Yugi wasn't making much sense to her.

Yugi explained a little better to her, that when he became a god, all of the parallels of what were him, had become him. Only one was left alone, the one where the kids came from.

"Plus? I know we loved them just as much." Yugi held her hands. "But those kids? They were ours. Yours and mine. And Atems. And Masika's. They were made ten thousand years ago. We really deserve them, and if I become a god, they'll go too. Gods don't have human descendants."

Téa tried to grasp everything she was hearing. "So, we are dead. A version of us is going to raise the kids, so they won't be lonely."

"Yes. Then, when they pass on, those times and memories will be ours, because we'll be them," Yugi answered. That seemed good enough.

"For you. Yugi, I'm just me. I'm no goddess or anything. I'm Téa," she reminded him.

"Right." Yugi scratched his head. "Each time one of you passes, it's going to be a lot of wives." He looked back at Atem. "The gods even liked to make the First Tear of Ra reincarnate constantly."

"We could face a million wives if we look," Atem agreed. "I am sure a human can't handle this power. I remember being overwhelmed for the first few seconds when I flowed together." He looked back toward Masika. "That is troubling. What do we do about that?"

"A million wives?" Téa looked straight at Yugi. "You don't get a million wives, Yugi! You are married to me!"

"Technically, Yugi is fond of each version of you in every dimension I was in with you where you existed. All of those Yugi's, are me now," he told her. "I love you. I love you and you and you and you and you and we have to figure out how to make you a goddess. Every Yugi, every memory of every Yugi wants you."

"Yugi? I'm dead, but somehow, you're still scaring me a little," Téa admitted. "Are you always going to be like this now? This is going to suck to get used to."

"Right. Okay? So, this one. This Téa. If I only ever see you, then you are mine," Yugi seemed to be trying to reason. "I just put all of the other memories aside, and remember just you. The second to the last one left who can remember a Yugi." Everyone else forgot him, wiped from time and their memories. Only two dimensions remembered them. "Téa Gardner. Off to New York, came back, beared a child, moved back to New York, I was your babysitter a few months before scoring more than a small date, a few more problems, then we were steady, then I proposed and married you. See? I can keep you straight." He kissed her again. "One is enough for me. But?" He looked alarmed. "I can leave the other forms of my goddess behind, since none of the others even know Yugi anymore anyhow, but the Yugi I eventually will be with, will still have the memories that I will know and crave. You deserve to know those as well. Raising our children. Growing old. Can we place you into each other at the end?"

What? "What the heck does that mean?"

"Please, yes," Atem insisted. "We need to get permission to join them."

"What?!" Masika asked angrily. "Téa and I went through great lengths never to be joined, it is not possible!"

"No, not that," Atem tried to say delicately. "Yugi, I'm no good at this."

"Just try," Yugi insisted. He looked toward Téa who was radiating unhappiness. "We don't want to join you with Masika. Just, your other self. You won't feel any real difference, Téa. You will still just be one person. The one girl, wife, girlfriend, selfish friend that I long since cherished. You'll just have memories of two lives in your head, and they'll balance so perfectly. You won't know whether you were Téa Gardner, or Anzu Mazaki."

"Anzu Whosa?" Téa still didn't like it.

"You'll have the memories of us growing old together, with our family. With Hikaru. The memories that you don't have now," Yugi insisted. "I'm pretty sure we could do just one dimension."

"That sounds relatively simple, not like changing a god to demon," Atem agreed. "And? I really do need that." He reached out to Masika's hand again, and put it back down. "Did I ever tell you that I am very sorry about trapping you in the shadow realm? It was an accident, I am just very good at games."

"In . . . a way. Your graciousness afterward helped," Masika said. "I don't remember if it was the words or not."

"Well, I am sorry," Atem said. "For that. I'm also sorry for leaving you and not sticking around with Yugi to raise Silhouette. I was not fully convinced whether I should have stayed or not, but I should have chosen to stay. I really should have chosen to stay, we could have gotten better results." Masika started to walk away. "Where are you going?"

"You are getting weird, Atem," she said moving toward Téa instead.

"See?" Yugi noticed. "She said the first name."

"I swear," Téa muttered. "You are lucky I love you so much, Yugi. You are worse than that time Joey came down to see you and you were missing for two days straight."

"Getting kidnapped is always a valid excuse for being late," Yugi answered.

"Not when it was Tristan that kidnapped you!" Téa scolded him. "Kidnapped people also don't come home smelling like you did."

Yugi just looked at her for a second, then back at Atem. "See? No matter what you goof up on, you can always get back to square one if you are just nice to her."

"I was trying, and she's hiding behind Téa now," Atem complained.

"Well, I don't think you were that super nice to her before," Yugi reminded him. "Maybe, just remember what you had of her? Just her, not the whole First Tear of Ra we were obsessed with."

"But I do, I only have two dimensions where I associated with her. One that I don't have, and the other I sent her to the shadow realm in," he reminded him. "Perhaps she was right. Perhaps the puzzle was punishment for everything I made happen. I don't have millions of ideas on what to do here, Yugi,"

"I don't understand what you are trying to get from me, Pharoah Atem?" Masika asked. "Téa, they are acting so strange."

"Yeah, well? I know it's 'til death do you part," Téa said, "but I will deal with the goofiness. Yugi gets like this when he's been around Joey and Tristan too much. Okay, not quite like this, but still like this. Atem is probably going through something similar."

"Intoxication?" Masika asked.

"Yeah, I'd call it drunk with power. It'll probably go away," Téa said. "I'm hoping or this is going to be a long eternity, Yugi Muto."