Please note that this fic is part of a series - Please refer to my profile for where this falls in the timeline. This can be read as a stand-alone, but we are reaching the point in the timeline where things might start to get confusing to readers who pick up in the middle. I would at least go back and start with Daddy Nearest - First Arc, but I think it'll be okay to start here if you truly wish.

Hello and welcome! If you are just now joining us for the first time, then I thank you for taking the time to even read this. If you have been following along this entire time, then thank you for sticking around. I sincerely hope that everything you have read so far has been a surprise, and I hope that everything continues to be just as surprising to you. I have a lot planned, so strap in tight!

That said, onward! :3

-Disclaimer-

"Matsuda... Matsuda... For God's sake, not this again. Snap out of it."

Matsuda jolted to attention, everything coming roaring back into focus as he jerked upright in his seat and took in the scowl on his boss' face. "I wasn't sleeping this time, Chief," he murmured.

"No, but you were spaced out. Again," Aizawa pointed out, folding his arms across his chest in the quintessential You done fucked up again, Matsuda look.

The younger man sighed in defeat. "Right. Sorry. Again."

"Do we need to have another talk?" the police chief prompted in clear agitation. "Again?"

"No," moped Matsuda, pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes and trying unsuccessfully to rub out some of the haze.

Apparently he had not been able to wipe away enough of it away to fool even his boss, because that coupled with his sullen expression elicited from the other man a sigh of his own. "Look, why don't you go take an early lunch?"

"I'm not really hungry, Chief."

"Then you should at least take a break and leave the building for a little bit. Go outside, get some air. Something. You look like shit."

Matsuda snorted, "Gee, thanks."

"I'm only saying it because it's the truth. And not only that, but I am going to be candid with you." Aizawa paused and lowered his voice just enough to emphasize his point without being overly dramatic, "I am sincerely worried about you."

"I'm fine."

"Really? Does spacing out during a just about every case meeting count as fine? Because I'm not so sure-.."

"Fine, I get the point. Just-... back off me, all right?"

For a moment, Aizawa just stared back at him in slight surprise. After all, it wasn't often that Matsuda talked back, much less expressed any kind of sarcasm, even in a joking manner. Matsuda saw a look of sincere anger pass over his boss' visage before it slipped away and was replaced with his usual impartial - albeit hard and hawk-like - gaze. Matsuda knew it was because he was trying to impart some leniency in light of everything going on, but he also knew that he was pushing the chief to his breaking point - a point that would have been far exceeded had this type of conversation taken place any time before that last September.

"I'm taking you off the clock for the next hour, then," he said at last. "I need you at your best for the meeting with the director and prosecutor about the Sunagawa case this afternoon. Go get something to eat. There's a nice place that opened up just a few weeks ago. Italian. You should go try it."

Matsuda considered, for a moment, asking the chief how much he would care about eating at a new restaurant if his fiance had been murdered, her case had gone cold, and his kids had been taken away by their deranged biological father. Or-.. the kids would have been taken away by their biological mother, in his case, if it was his fiance that was murdered. Or-.. whatever. After his thoughts tumbled together like that, he deflated and decided it would be better to just do as was asked of him. At least it would get the chief off his back for the time being.

With a short nod, he grabbed his keys and cell phone off his desk and marched off towards the elevator, but not without a glance in the direction of Aizawa's office. Only three months had passed since he and the chief had been discussing what steps to take next in order to get into Sayu's phone - the one she used to communicate with Near - when they happened upon said detective in the most unceremonious of manners. The man (Man, scoffed Matsuda's inner thoughts at the idea that such a word could be used to describe the childish, pajama-wearing asshole) had gained entry into the NPA headquarters via dubious means, bastardizing not only their building's security measures but also all of their hard, time-consuming efforts at contacting him for help on Sayu's case. All that only for him to then turn around and say that he had no help to offer. And the cherry on top of the whole shitty ordeal had been his announcement that the kids were no longer his "concern" and that he would therefore be taking them. In Matsuda's mind, that all had been nothing more than a powerplay of some kind.

Yes, three months had already passed since this infuriating event, but at the same time, it was still so fresh in Matsuda's mind, it felt like only three minutes had passed. He found himself still seething about it from time to time. Of course, the aftermath of what had taken place was still plaguing him, as Aizawa liked to point out - not that he liked to point it out, much less needed to point it out, but point it out he often did. Matsuda was sick of hearing it. He was sick of just about everything, but mostly he felt tired. He was exhausted to the point where he knew he was breaking and he wasn't even sure what was left holding him together at that point.

Well, he did actually know what was holding him together, it was just that these things felt like nothing more than gossamer threads anymore. His ongoing respect for the old chief Soichiro Yagami, rest his soul, and his innate desire to uphold the law as best as he could in today's turmoil were all that kept him moving forward on most days. As long as he lived, he knew he would always fight for what he knew to be right, and that he would always fight for Sayu and the children, even though they were all dead to him now, both literally and figuratively. Not that the kids were dead, thankfully, but for all his lack of being able to contact them in any way, they may as well have been.

Matsuda sighed as he reached the outside of the building and breathed in the cool, late February air. Thinking of the children as being dead wasn't very fair, or appropriate, he realized. If anything else, they were all lucky the kids were still alive, considering their mother had been abducted right outside their door and the culprit still had not been brought to justice. Also considering how this had all taken place late at night and while Sayu had been taking out the garbage, simultaneously suggesting either that this person had been watching her or that it had been random happenstance, the murderer could have just as easily slipped inside her home and-... and...

No, he really should not be thinking of things like that right now. Or ever. Of course the kids were alive, and that was what mattered. They may not be with him, like they should be, but at least they were alive and being cared for. Right? Or maybe they weren't being cared for. Matsuda didn't really know. He no way of knowing. The last he had heard, that creep-ass freak had taken them to the old headquarters the original L had built specifically for the Kira task force to conduct their own private investigation. And he had left them in their room, alone. The kids had never been left alone before, not like that, and Matsuda felt that such an action was especially thoughtless, given everything the kids had been through. The kids had been just as surprised - if not more so - by this apalling turn of events and had called him to state as much, but that was as far as any of them had gotten. Matsuda had had barely enough time to register that Near had really taken the kids to that amazing, awful building (which was surely haunted, for all that had taken place there) before he was being cut off from them, this time for good.

And after that... nothing. Nothing but the daily rigmarole of fighting for a system that was still just as broken after Kira as it was before, if not more. Matsuda could never fully deny the part of him that still somewhat believed Light had been right in his assessment of the world, but could also never fully devote himself to that line of thinking either. It was Light's fault (no, Kira's fault, as there was a difference between the two that Matsuda was never able to adequately explain, even to himself) that things had become what they were - just another pointless thing for people to kill each other, and themselves, over. But it was not fully Light's fault either - it was also his own. It was his fault, because he had failed to see Light's true nature from the very beginning. He had been a fool... had always been a fool... still was a fool...

Matsuda tried to shake himself out of these thoughts, he really did, but he always seemed to fall right back into them. Without Sayu and the kids, everything felt so dark and pointless. And without at least the old chief there to encourage him, what did he really have left? Fighting for justice? What was that even anymore, when people decided that an infraction as small as jaywalking could warrant murdering someone, and in the name of their god, no less? That really was no exaggeration - Matsuda had spent the better part of a day just the previous week, both pale in the face and green around the gills as he investigated a hit and run crime scene, where the driver had later admitted to running over the young woman on purpose because she should have been more conscientious of the lanes designated for pedestrians. Now, Matsuda was certain that the man's excuse that he had done it in the eyes of his god was nothing more than the man blowing smoke up everyone's ass, to try to get himself off the hook in any way he could, but the very idea that someone could use that as an excuse to brutally kill another person made Matsuda wonder what was even the point of trying to defend this crazy world anymore..

Oh, what was he even thinking of all this for anyway? Of course he was always going to fight alongside the law. Maybe he was going crazier than he thought, because somewhere in between all of that he had gone and collected his lunch and brought it back with him, where he now sat with it in the parking lot, still in his car, all without consciously realizing he had done it all. That realization, in turn, honestly frightened him. How could someone drive around, order food, and exchange money without remembering they had done all of it? He looked at the clock in his car. And forty-five minutes had passed while all of that was going on? He was lucky he hadn't gotten into a wreck or run over anybody on accident himself.

He looked down at his take-away box, filled to the brim with some risotto he didn't remember ordering, and didn't feel even the slightest bit hungry after all. Matsuda missed many things about Sayu - aside from her very presence itself - but one of the biggest personal things he missed was the little bento boxes she used to put together for him. He remembered being exceedingly envious of the bentos the old chief used to bring in, yearning for the day when whoever he ended up settling down with would make him his own. When Sayu had begun making them for him, he remembered making a big show of eating them where everyone could see, feeling proud that she thought of him enough to make them for him. Gazing upon the risotto now before him, even with the expertise behind the creation of such a cuisine, it still did not compare. Not even close. What he may have found to be appetizing once upon a time, was now completely unappealing. Everything was unappealing and dull by comparison to Sayu.

And there he went with his morbid thoughts again. He had to stop this. He had to move on - he just didn't know how. He didn't even think it was possible. How could anyone move on from something like this? Hadn't the chief's wife fallen into a similar bleak state after her husband's death? And the only thing that had really, truly snapped her out of it had been the arrival of her grandchildren. And now she was dead, too. He, Matsuda, had failed to protect both of them, as he had sworn in the old chief's name that he would do. Maybe things would be better for him - for everyone - if he were dead, too...

Swallowing down a sob, he tried to force down what he could of his lunch, but in the end he only took a couple of bites before his stomach impolitely reminded him to piss off and he pushed the rest of it away. Maybe he would try again after work at dinnertime, but definitely not when his stomach was twisted the way it currently was. His lunch break was almost over anyway.

Matsuda trudged his way back into work, feeling no better (if not worse) than before he had left nearly an hour ago. He dropped his keys and phone back onto his desk, eyes grazing over his inbox and seeing that that afternoon's mail had been delivered. Feeling numb and already feeling himself beginning to space out again, he started sorting through it, setting aside the pieces he knew he would have to address that afternoon. Towards the bottom of the stack, he came across a manila envelope and decided to tear into that one first, subconsciously because he thought manila envelopes were more important than ordinary envelopes.

That was when a black rectangular object casually slid out of the envelope and into his hand, as if there was nothing unusual about it. Of course there wasn't anything unusual about the object itself - it was merely a mobile phone - but its method of delivery and the fact that it had not been expected was what was extraordinary. He didn't remember ordering a new phone... but then again, he did just come back from a lunch outing, 75% of which he didn't remember, so maybe he had ordered a new one and had forgotten...?

Well, that was weird. Why would he order a phone like this anyway? His current phone seemed to be working just fine, and this new one was an older model, although it did appear to be in mint condition. Where did he even order it from, anyway? He turned the envelope over in his hands and examined the label with the return address on the front of it. His brow crumpled in complete and utter confusion. Ice Station Zebra Associates? What the hell was that? It was certainly not any cell phone manufacturer or distributor that he had ever heard of. Maybe it had been delivered to the wrong person? But no, it was clearly addressed to him. Obviously-... otherwise, why would it have been delivered to him?

All kinds of alarms began to go off inside Matsuda's head. Something about this didn't seem right. On top of that, the whole situation felt eerily familiar. But before he could fully comprehend what to make of it, the police chief was reappearing his desk, this time startling him so badly that he dropped the phone to where it clattered noisily on his desk.

"That better not be private mail that you had re-routed to the office again, Matsuda," Aizawa grumbled, not even bothering to comment on Matsuda's jumpy behavior.

"Er-... Right, sir, I think I ordered this one before you reminded me-... the last time," he replied, his mind still reeling from everything but at least able to form enough coherent direction to allow him to respond appropriately to his boss.

The older man let out an annoyed sigh but also did not bother to comment on Matsuda's apparent forgetfulness. "Well, we have that meeting with the director and the prosecutor here in the next twenty minutes. I hope you've gotten your act together better this time."

"Right, yes, of course, sir," he hastily agreed, moving to scoop up the mysterious mobile phone and deposited it back into the envelope before slipping the entire thing into his briefcase.

Aizawa gave him one last hard look. "And you might want to, um-..." he said as he vaguely gestured at Matsuda's front, causing him to look down in automatic response and blush upon seeing a few bits of risotto stuck to his tie.

"Thanks," he mumbled back, sweeping the pieces off into the trash.

The rest of the afternoon passed with surprising haste and ease. In going over his findings on the Sunagawa case, laying out everything in preparation for the upcoming trial, he all but forgot about the mysterious mobile phone back at his desk. His mind did wander once or twice, causing him to wonder again what this Ice Station Zebra Associates was and wishing he had a moment to look it up online real quick, but for the most part, he was otherwise too far occupied to think any further than that. Some part of him was truthfully grateful for Aizawa's inclusion of him on more and more of these tedious tasks. Had he been more conscious of it, he might have thanked the other man for helping to keep him so distracted, his meandering thoughts could not pin onto any one thing that was bogging him down.

By the time he was able to leave work, it was already dark outside and the air was thick with the scent of pending rain. It had snowed just a couple weeks ago, but already the air was beginning to warm up enough that any precipitation they were likely to get from here throughout the rest of the season would be in liquid form. It was still quite chilly outside, though, and he definitely did not want to be caught up in any kind of cold rain, so he hurried for his car. He got in, tossed his briefcase into the passenger seat, turned the heater on, and leaned back in his seat, taking in an enormous sigh and closing his eyes for a moment. He almost started to feel pleasantly numb. What a day...

His stomach let out a sudden loud groan when he was hit with the brisk smell of his lunch from earlier. He opened his eyes and let out a groan of his own when he saw the take-out container sitting there upon his dashboard, opened and fully exposed to the air. He couldn't believe he had forgotten his lunch in his car like that. Now it was surely ruined. And not only that, the heat of the food had long since dissipated and left a layer of condensation on his windshield, along with the unpleasant odor that only food that has been sitting out all day can produce. So much for the pleasant numb feeling...

Matsuda grumbled to himself and moved to pack up the container, deciding he'd toss it when he got home. He'd have to figure out something else for dinner, maybe just some plain old noodles or something, not that it mattered.

He was in the middle of carefully closing the lid back when he heard a phone ringing somewhere. Bewildered, his eyebrows knit together and he glanced around. Maybe he had accidentally butt-dialed someone...? He reached to pull his phone out of his trouser pocket, saw that it was off, and then came another round of ringing.

...Was that coming from his car's speakers? He blinked at them, trying to understand what it was that was happening, and that was when his car began speaking to him, causing him to fling both his phone and the take-out container across the center console of his car, coating everything in a thick, gloppy layer of stale, left-over risotto.

"Mr. Matsuda," said a garbled, synthesized voice from somewhere beyond his car's speakers, "Good evening. I believe we have a few things to discuss."

Just a quick tidbit here - For my fellow Breaking Bad fans, did you catch the reference? :P

Please let me know what you thought! :3