Title: No More Chances
Rating: T
Pairing/Characters: Hints of Misa/L and Misa/Light
Timeline: Post-Chapter 108
Disclaimer: Death Note © Tsugumi Ohba & Takeshi Obata
Summary: Misa thinks about it in the wake of tears and loneliness, and drinks in the words he had said those few years ago.
Author's Notes: I just finished reading Death Note, and I felt that I wanted to maybe try and get in Misa's head a little and see what her view might've been after the series ended (not following what the How To Read Volume said right away, since it mentioned Misa's fate happened a year afterward). And, of course, liking the idea of L/Misa... I had to put a little in there as well. So... hopefully I didn't do too badly with this.


Amane Misa can feel the weight of the world on her shoulders. It's heavy and hot, touching her skin and making her bones shrivel up and crawl underneath the surface to where she's panting as she takes long steps on the street of Tokyo, Japan. It's practically the same as when she had first moved here, except that the people are quieter and she can't see names and dates hovering over their head anymore.

She shouldn't be here right now. She should be back at a studio somewhere, having a career. Or better yet, she should be with him, as his wife. That would make this ugly picture so much better, so much fuller and warmer than this cold existence he left her with.

Misa can feel tears well up in her eyes, and for the first time, she wishes that, for only one moment, this had never happened. That Light had never died. No... no. She wishes that no one had interfered. That no one had tried to get in Kira's way to create the New World. She wishes and hopes and dreams, but she knows that all died the moment her parents were killed.

Misa is a little figurine with those big, adorable eyes and that happy smile that plays a role on Light's chess board.

Images flood her mind until Misa is reliving things from the past – years ago – and she's almost surprised at what she conjuring. She never really was the sentimental type to begin with –

- or maybe that was because Light was always there.

By now, Misa is crying and people are staring, but she really can't find the strengh to care. They must all be thinking similar thoughts – is that Misa-Misa? What's wrong with her? She looks terrible – and she feels like she has to agree with them.

"Light-kun," she mumbles brokenly. So many people had died, both people who were enemies as well as friends. She remembers that, in a far off world where everything was better, L had called her his second friend. Second. Second friend, second Kira, second chances.

Misa doesn't know where she's going – maybe nowhere, maybe back to a hotel, or maybe to die – but she knows that in the pit of her stomach she can feel the onslaught of nausea waiting to overcome her.

After everything, even after the promise of a new world, nothing had changed. Her hatred towards her parents' killers was still a faint beat in her heavy heart, and the guilt was coming after years of it not ever being there. She now felt guilt – for the people who died, for the people Light and herself had killed, for not being there to save Light – and wanted to crush something in between her fingers, just to know that there was something to hold onto that wouldn't slip away until it layed still because it wanted to be there.

She wanted Light to want to be with her. But as much as she wished for it, even now, she knew that was never something she could have. Between being Kira, the Death Note, and Misa, she knows that Light would always prefer the first two much more than the latter. But that had always been okay... until now. Misa can't help but feel a certain level of devastation creep up to greet her – she can still hear Matsuda's grim face and his terrible words, "Light is... dead."

Misa had never minded that he had yelled at her, been empathetic towards her, and even manipulated her. All for the sake of the new world. But the thought of never seeing him again, to never have the chance to have him love her for real really grated on her.

Things were back to the way they were before Kira had ever descended onto the world.

Misa cries now for all the lost moments and the lost people and the lost years that she would never have because she had sliced her life up more than once, and she cried for Light even if he would never cry for her and she cried for love because that was all she had left, and even that was tainted.

Love.

The word is sharp and painful and Misa remembers all of her mistakes that she can never take back.

L's face lifts up into her train of thought, with his dark hair that she used to pull and his tired eyes and his thumb stuck in between his teeth. She remembers him in that moment then, because she knew that he could be alive right now if it hadn't been for separate sides and separate ideals.

He could be alive... he –

"Uh, I'll fall in love with you?"

Misa thinks about it in the wake of tears and loneliness, and drinks in the words he had said those few years ago. She knows that it was most likely just a passing comment, and she knows that her memories are most likely telling her beautiful lies. But Misa clenches her hands down by her sides and lets herself dream and wonder what could've been if things had been different because she's tired now and she hasn't dreamed up much of anything for so long and she knows this dream can lay in her hands without slipping away because there are no more chances, just the silent roar of a maybe.

Maybe he could've lived and maybe he could've loved her, if things had been different.

Amane Misa hates the way she feels and hates the way she's turned out to be, and she cries because there are no more chances.