A/N: Written for the Diversity Writing Challenge, e54 - write a post-canon fic.

Her Smile

Matsuda sincerely hoped that, when Chief Yagami had said he wouldn't allow his daughter to marry a police officer or detective, it didn't apply to ex- ones and it didn't specifically apply to him. Then again, he hadn't been good for very much anyway. In terms of police capabilities, he'd gone undercover a couple of time and shot a few hands. And all of that was related to the Kira investigation. Which was what had killed Chief Yagami, in a roundabout way. And killed the first L. And the second L. And Misa-Misa. And Light…

Of course, he could argue that Kira had killed all those people. That Light Yagami had killed all of those people, and scores more he didn't even remember the names of. But he still liked Light. The Light that he'd known before he'd twisted into that monster or man he'd shot, again and again, as though Kira would be blasted out of him and the old idealistic and innocent Light would return.

But that wouldn't happen. It was naïve to expect that to happen but he hadn't been naïve that day. He'd shot the pen, after all. Or was it a needle? He didn't even remember any more. He barely remembered the round he'd emptied out, firing at point blank range but still missing any vital area. Hell, Light had managed to crawl away from them and halfway up a stairwell before died of a heart attack in the end.

He'd just been so…angry and disbelieving then. But, afterwards, he thought he understood a little of what had driven him. Even though it would never have worked. Even when Kira became the law, it hadn't worked. The Mafia had sprung up. The international law had brought in a new twist with Near – and he still didn't know what it was about Near but it was ultimately that which made him quit his job.

He was happier as a barista, anyway. His most significant contribution to the case until shooting Higuchi in the hand had been making coffee, after all. Maybe that had been a sign for him to change his career. And it was a pity he hadn't taken the hint because he might have been able to avoid that heartbreak Chief Yagami did.

Maybe Light – he shook his head. He'd accepted long ago that Light was Kira, but the Light he knew was still dissociated from it all. So he corrected the thought. Maybe Kira had cared enough about Chief Yagami, in the end, to give him a bit of false hope before he died. Maybe Kira hadn't even planned for Chief Yagami to die. Matsuda had volunteered, after all.

Somehow, he couldn't be too sad about being thought as disposable, like that. There were far more horrifying things in the world. Like the way Chief Yagami had died. Like what had happened to Sayu Yagami. And, yes, what had happened to Light as well, because he still maintained the idea that the Death Note was cursed and twisted the mind and morals of anyone who came into contact with it. The Death Note…or the Shinigami who used the human world as their feeding ground and entertainment. They were little more than a bar for them to cut lose: a place to enjoy themselves and gorge on death and apples… Or maybe the apple fetish was specific to Ryuk. He'd never heard Rem ask for an apple.

The Death Note on the other hand… he didn't know Near before the incident but there'd never been any love lost between the pair during their acquaintance. He might have had a similar impression of L, when he reflected on the parts of him that really got under his skin. Except he hadn't, so it wasn't just the fact that both of them were so flippant to the collateral damage when they took on cases, or the cost of denying more meagre ones even with law enforcements across the world begging for their aid… Light had answered every call he could, and despite the ulterior motive in hiding, in being Kira, Matsuda appreciated the sentiment. He understood it. He couldn't understand how someone could be in such a position of power and not use that power – and therein lay his sympathies with the Death Note too, and with Light's circumstances all around.

And yet, it wasn't something he could share with anyone. What remained of the Task Force had dispersed, and they didn't agree with him anyway. They were close to Chief Yagami yes, but close as coworkers were and no closer. They pitied the poor man for what had happened to his family. Maybe they pitied Light as well. And of course they pitied Sayu. But they hadn't been mentored by the man. They weren't indebted in a way that went above and beyond work related favours – it was before work, back when Matsuda was still applying and Chief Yagami had spotted something in that enthusiasm that, he later understood, mirrored his daughter's light.

Sadly, she no longer had that light. Her imprisonment had snuffed it out, and the loss of her father and brother had not helped. And yet… the world could taint it further, if only they knew. Near had at least agreed to keep Light's name out of the case's conclusion. His identity fell under the same secrecy as the first L's, and as Near's himself – even though everyone who'd been in the warehouse at the time if Kira's downfall knew his real name: Nate Rivers.

Matsuda supposed he could understand how frustrating it was for the boy, to have such a deadly weapon in the hands of strangers who didn't even trust him, even if the Death Notes were all under his control now. Sometimes, he wondered if Near wouldn't just write their names down and be done with the security breach – but he still breathed, so it hadn't been done in the last thirty days at least. Hopefully it never would. He didn't want the Death Note to ruin any more lives, to taint any more living people… And Sayu's only comfort was that she would never, as far as he could help, know her brother hadn't been all he appeared.

She didn't know he was the second L, nor that he was Kira. Things were better that way because a combination of both had destroyed her soul and despite the rage he'd felt in the warehouse that day, he couldn't bear the thought of Light's family hating him in that way. Sayu might not: her love for her brother might overpower even that. But trauma was a powerful thing and in his years with the police force, he'd seen a lot of it.

He saw a bit as a barista too. A different sort of trauma. The sort he was sure Light had skipped over entirely because he hadn't been able to make the mistakes all teenagers made. He hadn't been able to find a thing to challenge him before crime, before L, before Near. It was sad. Pathetically sad. And all that was left were a few random cults dealt with by the local police and people like Sayu who could never know the whole truth.

Sayu… He kept on returning to her. To the Yagami family grave, first of all, where she would often be with her mother, staring at the blank where her name would go. And Sachiko would look so old and drained, so ready to surrender to dreams in which her family was still alive and whole and he didn't have the heart to tell her, either, how badly it had all been torn apart.

Maybe it was a sense of obligation, or something else. But he found himself there more often. He found himself changing his career path because he'd had enough of death and teenage heartbreaks was something far more understandable, and bringing sweet little cakes and three cups of coffee whenever he visited the Yagami home.

And, Sachiko often said sadly, he was the only one who visited so frequently anymore. The only one, apart from her, that Sayu opened up to: talked with. Asking for stories about her father and brother, mostly. Lately, stories about him as well and he'd tell her the tales he'd hear while making coffees and she'd sometimes smile, remembering the high school days when she'd been like that as well.

Of course, that didn't automatically mean they'd fallen in love, that they should get married. And yet, he couldn't imagine leaving that household. He was already a part of it. Chief Yagami's protégé – albeit a failure of one. Light's friend – or he liked to think of himself as that. They'd gone around the city a few times. Light had trusted him – even if he'd trusted him to cut his lifespan in half and both those times were Kira anyhow. He'd really twisted them both. But that was fine with him. Kira wasn't just a criminal. Just like the name of "L" wasn't just justice, and Misa-Misa wasn't just a pretty model. The world just wasn't that black and white. Just like family didn't dictate a need for blood or marriage vows tying them together.

And yet it did make sense, and it was a possibility, and the way things were going, it was unlikely Sayu would ever fall in the sort of love she should, like those heartbroken teens who cried over their late night teas before the trickle of early risers came in, looking for a caffeine fix in their coffees. Granted, the police pretty much all had caffeine addictions. The staff at the local hospital seemed to as well. The amount of people in suits or scrubs he saw before the students started trickling in, and the occasional one mixed with the droves as well. Sayu might like it there, once she was a little further along. Unmanageable drama tended to go to the tavern at the end of the road, and if the stories could make her smile, perhaps seeing them in real time could prompt a few as well.

He owed a lot of people her smiles, all in all: the Chief, Light and the rest of the Yagami family, and other people too. People he'd failed, like Misa-Misa. People he'd turned away from of his own free will. Sayu herself because he remembered her smile from when he first saw it, at dinner with the Yagamis, and how the Chief had commented on his own being so similar and then he'd understood just what had prompted the man to take him under his wings…

And, if Sayu should ever ask why he stayed with him, he had that answer ready for her: her smile, above and beyond the other things.