Disclaimer: Tsugumi Ohba and his cohort Takeshi Obata own Death Note and are gods, I'm just a fangirl who wanted to create a backstory for L.

Rated T for very brief sex, much suggested sex, and OC character death.

This is the reposted version of this fic, with new linebreaks to satisfy FFN's stupid new formatting, and also a few edits, including a new paragraph at the end. The bulk of the fic tracks the relationship and adventures of L's parents from their first meeting until their deaths; however, the epilogues (told largely from Watari's POV) deal with a grown-up L and allude to LxLightxL, finding parallels between that relationship and the one I imagined for L's parents. The story's told in short "snapshots" rather than a continuous narrative, in order to keep the story short whilst still getting the important elements across.

Enjoy!

They met in Paris, at the British Embassy's annual End-of-Year Ball. The place was bedecked both outside and in with garlands of fresh green on which hung silver baubles and sprigs of holly, and silver streamers hung down from the chandeliers and hall lamps. Two plain Christmas trees stood guard over the entrance, two more sat in the sitting rooms, two waited in the garden - tall and aglow with strings of lights - and in the Grand Ball Room waited the greatest of all, cheerfully bearing its massive load of streamers, ornaments, red candy baskets and hundreds of bright candles. A lonely, unlit golden menorah stood in a front window, as if someone had added it at the last moment and forgotten about it. The press of people made the Entrance Hall seem much smaller than usual, and the heat was such that guests flocked out to the garden in droves despite the cold that made their breath mist. Waiters patrolled the grounds inside and out, doling out champagne, and outside a chamber orchestra played, cello, flute and harp all in harmony even if the musicians shivered in the cold now and then.

He first noticed her from across the room, in a dark blue ballgown that brought out her eyes and contrasted in a lovely way with her fair skin and deep brown hair. She looked his way and smiled smokily before turning back to her companions, and every now and then she stole another glance at him. She had first noticed him from across the Entrance Hall when he had first arrived: a tall man who seemed to have something of the Oriental about him, all dark hair and dark eyes and smooth, tan skin. When her companions left to collect some hors d'oeuvres, she approached him and held out her hand. They made their introductions (speaking, like most of the guests, in English), went to refill their glasses, and then made their way outside.

"I'm glad to be here tonight," he said with a slight Slavic accent as they reached the patio. Garish, or beautiful, ice sculptures towered above the guests and dripped messily onto the clay tiles. Overall the atmosphere was of chilly festivity, the guests shivering as they talked animatedly, diving deeper into their champagne for warmth. "I don't care much for Christmas, but New Year's is generally the best day of the year for me, when I can celebrate it. This party is the closest I will get, this year. If would be nice if I could spend it with a friend."

"Yes. I'm a bit more local than you are - I grew up on the outskirts of Batignolles - but I've been living in England for a while and I've been out of touch with everyone in Paris. I too could use some company."

"Are you sure you're not English?" he said, as they strolled across the gardens sometime later. "As far as I can tell, you speak English like a native. What's your secret?"

"I spent parts of my childhood there, with my mother's family. They have some old Francophone blood in them, but they've been in England for centuries now."

"Ah, I see. And you became a diplomat to spend more time there?"

"In part. I've always been a bit of a nomad. For a while I worked at the United Nations in New York as an interpreter, but eventually I got tired of being on the sidelines and joined the French Embassy in London. I'm on leave at the moment, teaching a spring course at the Panthéon-Sorbonne. I only arrived here a few days ago."

"You're lucky. I also love to travel, and have had some luck myself in that my work takes me all sorts of places. International trading is my game, you see, and I got into that business largely because I wanted to see the world outside the union republics. I find it wonderful to immerse myself in a culture for a while, soak up the language and customs and become a part of the place. But I always have to move on eventually, so in the end I am little more than a cultural leech."

"I think we have that in common. What brings you to the British Embassy?"

"I have an old college friend who now works as an aide to Potemkin, and he dragged me here on the promise of the best party in town, at least for the likes of us. He vanished among his new Parisian friends some time ago, but even so...the evening has been magnificent so far."

"I know who you are," she said, as they swept around the Ball Room sometime later, her gown whirling behind her. "You're the Soviet spy who infiltrated the VENONA Project and tried to sabotage their intelligence."

"If I were, I doubt I'd be a free man now," he said, and spun her.

"You would if the CIA privately exchanged you for some people of their own," she said, laying a hand on his waist.

"You don't seem to mind dancing with me, though."

"You're no threat to me personally, and I can't do anything to you now. I'm just amazed that the Kremlin'd send you back here when all the wrong people know your game."

"You're one of the wrong people, then? That's too bad. I was thinking that you're just right for me."

"If you like a rough ride, then I am."

"I'd love it," he breathed.

"Is that so? Then I think we can work something out."

They could not spend all evening together, for their respective allies would grow suspicious, so they separated and mingled in their own circles for a while. Yet later, when they met up on the Rue Royale, it was impossible to say who reached for whom first.

The taxi ride back to her hotel room was a whirl of lips, fingers and teeth, and their arrival a delicious storm of discarded clothing and greedy hands; as they fell upon the bed both moaned. Very soon they were joined, exclaiming their ecstasy as they found satisfaction in each other's bodies. Afterward they lay quiet and exhausted, playing with each other's fingers. The only question now was how to keep all of this a secret - both the night they had had, and the nights that were inevitably to follow.

They attempted not to discuss politics any more than necessary, but there were times when he could not help but vent his thoughts to her, almost as if daring her to argue. While he hated Brezhnev, whom he blamed for leading the Soviet economy to stagnation and repealing all the innovations of Khrushchev, he remained loyal to his country and often ranted about abuses by the Western powers. He didn't hate them, he would explain, but they knew nothing about how to properly run a country. At least the socialists had tried to set things straight, even though it had all been fucked up in the end. There were no moral politicians anymore, he sometimes said, only greedy capitalists and power-hungry dogs masquerading as people's heroes. Perhaps the Chinese would eventually pull themselves together, after the joke that was the Cultural Revolution.

Whenever their politics clashed, the resulting fights would be extreme, and would usually end with hot, angry sex against the nearest convenient surface. Afterward, the subject was dropped, until the next time.

Sometimes they played chess. He counted himself a Russian master of the game, but to his dismay she beat him about half the time anyway.

"Where did you learn?" he asked late one night as they lay in bed after an evening of chess battles and competitive sex.

"I think logic and competition're in my blood – yes, even through I grew up by the Seine rather than the Moskva. My father taught mathematics at the University of Paris, and my mother studied military history at Cambridge," she said.

"A pioneer, that one."

"Yes. They both loved a good game of chess and they taught me when I was very small."

"My uncle taught me," he said then. "He'd been a Russian champion when he was young, and he singled me out early because of my talent. 'You're very lucky,' he would tell me. 'You have the mind of a Russian and the ruthlessness of a Jap. Few players have your advantages - you should use them well.' I suppose I have. I've always loved chess in much the same way that I love my work. It's not such a big leap from chess to espionage, after all."

"No, nor to diplomacy, especially behind closed doors," she said. "I was always taught to love the thrill of the contest... and believe me, I do. What's life without a little challenge, after all?"

"I don't know, my dear," he said, grinning and reaching for her, so the game could begin again.

Sometimes they spoke in French, sometimes Russian, but most of all in English, so they could meet in the middle.

"English is the perfect language for us," she said one day. "It's the global language these days, and the language of diplomacy. Just look at us - why, I don't think East and West have ever been as close as they are right now." She smirked, running a hand over his bare hip as they lay in bed. She continued to stroke him for a minute, then he took up her hand and kissed the thumb. They came together once more, and for a while the world outside was completely forgotten.

"I never knew my mother," he said one evening. They were reclining together on the sofa of her apartment, naked as newborns and still coming down from the high of their last session in the bedroom. They had decided to be decadent and open a bottle of wine, which they sipped at while they talked.

"They met during the war, while my father was stationed in Japan for a covert operation of some kind. After I was born he took me back with him to Irkutsk, and his family is the only one I've ever known. I don't know if he ever meant to bring my mother back with us - if that was their original plan and that something later changed between them - or if it was only ever me he wanted. Either way, it's very sad. I went back to look for her when I was fully grown, but it was very difficult, as all my father would ever tell me about her was her name. I never did find her. It's possible she died in the war."

They were silent for a moment. Eventually, perhaps feeling that the time was ripe for family histories, or perhaps feeling that she needed to match his war story for one of her own, she said, "It was WWI that brought my great-grandfather to France. He was a businessman, and once the war began it didn't take him long to realize that there was money in selling arms to the French and Italian forces (and, rumour had it, to the other side as well). Then once the war ended, he got into the practice of reconstructing French homes and businesses for a profit. The work went on well into the '20s, and by then Mussolini had got such a stranglehold on the old country that he decided never to go back. And by then, my grandmother had already married, and so had my great-uncles, so the family became anchored here."

"Conflict and war so often shape lives..." he began, stroking her.

"So it is with us," she finished.

They drifted closer.

So far they had been lucky enough to keep things under wraps, yet it was gradually dawning on them both that they could not keep up the game for much longer. The Soviets, at least, would sooner see them both killed than have him divulge state secrets to a Frenchwoman, and there was simply no telling what rogue American agencies like the CIA or FBI might do to keep secrets safe from the Reds. It was also becoming clear that the time they had had together thus far was not enough. Indeed, time together was coming to seem as necessary to life as air and water. If they really wanted to keep one another, they would have to give up everything - their jobs, their countries, their identities. Those things were seeming more and more expendable every day. To elope - to disappear and forge new lives from scratch, to carve out a humble existence together somewhere peaceful, where they could pretend to be average and laugh about how they had outwitted the world's most powerful agencies and won everything... there was an adventurous appeal to it all.

But first they would have to escape. Where could they go? It would have to be somewhere far outside the Soviet sphere of influence, or else the KGB would be able to track them down with ease; it would also have to be removed from the US, for fear of the CIA and FBI. Britain or Australia were probably the best options - prosperous, multicultural English-speaking nations in which they could disappear and build new lives with relative ease. They planned to leave in early fall, and enjoy their first and last summer in Paris together.

Things hit a snag, however, when they discovered that she was pregnant.

There was no good way to predict when she would start to "show" her pregnancy, but it was clear that they would have to leave before she did, or else risk the discovery of their relationship. Under normal circumstances, their disappearances would probably not be linked, for it was unlikely the Soviets would ever hear of a random French diplomat's disappearance, and even less so that the French would hear of the disappearance of a deep-undercover Soviet spy. But if she were to become pregnant and then disappear suddenly, people would want to know who the father was - the truth might be smelt. They could not wait for autumn, in fact they could hardly wait for midsummer, and now they scrambled to get everything in order far sooner than they had planned. Nearly every minute they had was now given up to preparations, and it was clear that by the time they left they would be in a state of exhaustion, not well fit for extended travel and stress.

Their plan was to travel almost continually for a month or so, so as to make absolutely sure that they could not be tracked, and then touch down near London to catch their breath and make arrangements to move permanently to some anonymous town far from the city. While their status as fugitives would never allow them to contact her mother's family, she nonetheless felt that she had roots there, and in any case, England was a lovely country (he, who had once worked in England, concurred) and it granted automatic citizenship to every child born on English soil. Actually, there was an exception to this rule for the children of enemy aliens, but as his forged passport claimed that he was West German, this would hopefully not be a problem. If anyone asked about his accent, he would explain that he had been born in Saxony to Sorbian-speaking parents who migrated to West Germany before the building of the Berlin Wall. He could even demonstrate some authentic Upper Sorbian to them if needed - not a mean feat, considering that there were fewer than 100,000 speakers of the language worldwide.

They left on a Friday and quickly jumped from country to country, rapidly consuming their reserves of cash and exhausting their remaining strength, hers in particular. It wasn't long, either, before they realized that they were being chased. They weren't even sure who was after them - the KGB, the Police Nationale, the CIA, who knew? But that was beside the point. Whenever they were shadowed at the train station, or their latest hotel room was sacked, or their pictures appeared on the local news, all that mattered was escape. Between the two of them they always managed to stay a step ahead in the cat-and-mouse game, but there were far, far too many close shaves. They could not run forever on limited resources, and if it were discovered that they planned to settle in England, they would be finished; they hadn't acquired (forged) work visas for anywhere else and it would be near-impossible to obtain new ones while on the run. And what if they couldn't shake off their pursuers before the baby's birth? Even assuming they were not apprehended at the hospital, newborns could not withstand constant travel, and they would draw great attention to themselves if they skipped all over the globe with an infant in their arms.

She was about eight months into her pregnancy when they finally seemed to shake off the pursuers, and settled into a London tenement house to await the baby.

When the child was born, she suggested that it be given her mother's maiden name as its surname. That way, it would have no obvious connection to its parents' true identities, nor to any country outside Western Europe, but it would not be fully disconnected from its roots. He agreed. Then, he suggested that the child's first name be simply "L".

"Where did you get that?" she asked, smiling a little.

"If his last name is your heritage – a French name carried by a British family – than I think his first name should have some sort of ties to, or meaning in, my heritage," he said. "Of course, a Russian name or even a Japanese one is out of the question, as I'm not supposed to be either Russian or Japanese. So I tried to think of something creative, and 'L' popped into my mind. In Russian, the letter 'Л' is the symbol for rook pieces in chess. Straight-moving and strong, I've always thought them among the most elegant pieces in the game. And in Japanese, the 'L' sound cannot be found, just as I hope the child will never be found by our enemies – I like the idea that the child's very name would be (well, at least seem) a protection against evildoers. Also, I don't believe anyone else in the world has the name 'L,' and I think it would be fitting to give him a unique name as I hope that he himself will be unique."

"Interesting idea...and alliterative."

"I thought it fit, somehow. I know it's unusual, so if you don't like it, I could come up with something else..."

"No..." she said. "I'm happy with that." She looked down at the bundle in her arms, which was sleeping quietly. "You shall be L, then," she said to it. And the matter was settled.

Six months after the baby was born they got wind of pursuers on their trail again, and once again they were forced to flee the country. But there was only so much more traveling they could do on dwindling funds, so they were forced to move less and use their intelligence more in order to outsmart their enemies. Thus it went for the next few years. Every time they moved, things would be alright for a while, until suddenly they found they were being watched on the way to work or that their landlord had received strange guests out of the blue, and they would have to pick up and leave again. And every time they moved it was necessary to find new employment and a new place to stay, and often only one of them spoke the local language. In those years the longest they managed to stay in one place was one year, in the Kansai region of Japan, where the child went to pre-school for the first time. After that, when it seemed clear that they had finally left their pursuers behind once and for all, they returned to England. They found jobs, rented a small house in a small town and they sent the child to a good local school; they also managed to buy a car for the first time. The child seemed pleased with the return to England, as English was the language he knew best and the town was beautiful, especially in the fall - the only downside to it was all the rain.

One morning they went to have breakfast at a neighbour's house, afterward leaving the child to play there for a while, while they went to the grocery store. It wasn't very far, but neither felt like walking fifteen minutes both ways, so they went to the car, parked in the driveway like always. At the moment he turned the ignition, the body of the car exploded. The wheels left the ground as the roof was blown open and the whole vehicle was instantly engulfed in flames, sending up a pillar of black smoke that could be seen for miles around. The babysitter, hearing the explosion, went out into the street and, seeing the aftermath, quickly took the child upstairs and refused to let him look out the window.

At first it was hypothesized that they had been killed by Irish nationalists, who were all too well-versed in the art of planting car bombs. However, famous inventor and philanthropist Quillsh Wammy, testifying in court concerning the make of the bomb, dispelled that notion, giving the opinion that it was of military sophistication and that the murders were the work of a powerful governmental force, possibly the KGB. Yet none of this could be proven, largely because nobody could tell who the deceased actually were. All their ID had turned out to be forged, and it had proven impossible to discover their true names and identities; a cache of additional fake passports, birth certificates, driver's licenses and whatnot that had been discovered among their personal items only added to the mystery. The only document deemed valid was the child's birth certificate. As he was a British citizen and had no known family left, he was deemed a ward of the state. He would have gone into foster care, except that Wammy, who had come to know the boy through his involvement with the case, requested that he be sent to his private orphanage in Winchester, Hampshire, where he would be offered the best available care and education. The request was granted.

Epilogue One

The identity of his parents had been thought impossible to uncover, but that would certainly never stop L, who spent days at his computer studying documents and making calls and following leads. Wammy could do little but give him what he needed and wait, passing the evenings reading in his study or speaking with Roger. Finally one day, Wammy found L unusually calm and still in front of the computer, apparently thinking hard, yet without the usual intensity in his gaze.

"I think the task is finished," he said. "I've found them, and I think I now know enough to piece together what happened to them. I don't feel like discussing it now, but I'll tell you in a day or two. Right now I would really like to think."

"That's alright, L," Wammy said, and turned to leave, but before he reached the door L spoke again.

"I will tell you one thing, though. Heh - it seems I'm not technically a British citizen after all, even if the government doesn't know that. I'm not a citizen of anything, really. And do you know what that means?"

"What?"

He's so young, Wammy thought. Just barely full-grown, and the child he had been was in his eyes as he looked at Wammy.

"It means that I'm completely free - a citizen of the world, unbeholden to any country. D'you know, Watari...I think I'm glad. That's exactly what I want to be - who I've been trying to become all along.

He smiled a little, and bit his thumb.

Epilogue Two

"You know, I've never been fonder of my own name than I am right now," L said, slurping at an ice-cream cone while he and Watari waited for the movers in the next room to pack up the computers for shipment to Japan. "Japanese is one of those languages in which the letter 'L' does not exist; the supposed difficulty of the letter L to the Japanese has become infamous, and they know it. To Kira, my very name signifies something foreign and difficult to know, or pin down. In my hands, what my parents probably meant as a protection for me now becomes a challenge against him." He smiled that childish, closed-lipped smile that Watari had come to know so well, but his eyes gleamed darkly. "He will not easily overcome me."

That was an understatement, Watari thought many times over the next few months, as he watched the detective and the killer stalk one another. L worked with a vigour Watari had never seen in him before, obviously enjoying the thrill of the chase, particularly when he began to zone in on his first suspect. He watched the handsome young man on the monitors with a bright gleam in his eye that Watari had never seen there before. The air was thick with something unnameable as L and Light played chess, or traded arch insults in half a dozen languages. Transcending East and West and two very different ideologies, a bond was forming, and Watari watched as they were drawn closer to one another. Even as the cat-and-mouse game between L and Kira approached its end, L and Light talked and fought and touched one another's hands with an easy familiarity that startled the other investigators.

When the blow finally fell and he lay dying, Watari thought he should have seen it coming. Even as a young couple of twenty years ago had been unable to evade their shadows forever, so their son now felt his pursuer grab hold to take his life. And now, just as then, a still-blooming bond was taken along with it. If Kira was to become God, Watari thought dimly, as least this God would regret the evil done today. The indifferent Universe had never shown either love or pity to this family.

Or to himself, he thought, even as he joined with it once again.

A/N: And so there you have it! In my own mind at least, this is the definitive story of how L came to be. I'm particularly in love with the idea that L's father was a Soviet spy, and that the relationship of L's parents transcended the Iron Curtain during the Cold War. After all, if L is part Russian and part Western European and was born in 1979, it's easy to imagine some thorny family history there. I also like the idea that L's mother is an equal to his father, in contrast with Light's female relatives, who (while nice characters) seem to be the weak links in the Yagami clan. L's mom as a half-English French diplomat seemed a good complement to L's dad as a half-Japanese Soviet spy. I definitely enjoyed fitting bits of L into both of them, especially his apparently prodigious language abilities and love for international intrigue/power. Additionally, I LOVED making L's parents' relationship mirror L and Light's, for I am in fact a huge LxLightxL shipper. Though I didn't have any explicit LxLightxL sex in this fic, I nonetheless tried to convey that they were in a sexual relationship and were in love. And if it's not quite clear why Watari thinks he should have seen his and L's deaths coming, it's because he feels that L's lost his long cat-and-mouse battle with Kira the same way L's parents lost their long cat-and-mouse battle with their pursuers. By the way, I cheated a little on the whole "East and West" thing. When L's mom mentions East and West she mostly means the opposing sides of the Cold War, i.e. capitalists vs. communists, the US and Western Europe vs. the USSR, Eastern Europe and China. With L and Light, of course, Watari is thinking of East and West as we tend to think of it today, i.e. (East) Asia vs. North America and Europe. But really, the point is just that in both cases the lovers come from very different cultures, so it works for me. I also have a theory about how "Death Note" pits Westerners against the Japanese (Easterners) and depressingly enough has the Westerners win, but that's a story for another time.

I just couldn't resist the Paris setting for L's parents' initial meeting and romance. Google "british embassy in paris" and you'll instantly find some beautiful pictures of the place where L's parents first meet, including the Grand Ball Room (at chestofbooksDOTcom). Also look up "Place de la Concorde" on Wikipedia - it's a gorgeous public square in the heart of the city, and it leads off to the Rue Royale, where I have L's parents meet up and kiss (ahem, make out) for the first time. Yes, I DID choose the Rue Royale for its R-alliteration. Many other references in the story are also real, including the Brezhnev stagnation, the VENONA project and the Upper Sorbian language. I found out about all these things through the miracle of Wikipedia. It's also true that the Irish Republican Army (IRA) used to be well-known for planting car bombs in Northern Ireland and England. Potemkin the Soviet diplomat is not real; however, according to Wiki there were two prominent Russian diplomats in the 17th and 18th centuries called Potemkin, which is why I picked the name. L's dad's comment about not liking Christmas, by the way, is a reflection of the fact that the Soviet regime despised religion and made New Year's the major winter holiday. I know this not from Wiki (though I'm sure it's in there), but through a Russian ex-boyfriend of mine.

If you're wondering why I didn't name L's parents, it's mainly because I felt that neither I nor anyone could come up with names that would meet our expectations. Also, even though the secret of L's own name is out, it's fun to keep L's parents' identities secret! I think the story's better off if we don't know.

You want to know something crazy? I actually made family trees for L, in order to write this fic so that everything would make sense. He's Russian and Japanese and English and French and Italian, and I wanted to make it all work in a way that I thought seemed right for L. You'd be amazed at how tricky it actually was. Unfortunately, I can't reproduce the family trees here - however, I still want to go into a bit more depth on L's family backstory as I imagine it.

About L's mom's family:

L's grandma – his mom's mom – is English and her last name is Lawliet, a relic of the family's Francophone heritage hundreds of years back. Grandma Lawliet marries L's French/Italian grandpa and produces L's mom, whose last name is NOT Lawliet but is a French name nonetheless. L's mom is raised mostly in France, but also in England. By blood, she's half-English, a quarter French and a quarter Italian.

L's French/Italian grandpa is the son of the Italian woman L's mom mentions in her story ("by then, my grandmother had already married [in France]..."). Because L's grandpa has a French, not Italian, last name, so does L's mom. Having lived mostly in France and never in Italy, she feels very French and not very Italian at all. She's significantly closer to England.

About L's dad's family:

It's just as L's dad describes in his story. L's grandpa is Russian and his grandma is Japanese. L's dad is raised entirely in Russia, with a Russian name, and he soaks up the communist ideology there. He feels almost completely Russian, though he wants to know more about his Japanese family.

Well, that's it! I hope you enjoyed the story!