Disclaimer: I do not own Death Note. I usually add an "if I did" statement to my disclaimers, but unlike most series there are as yet no changes I'd make to Death Note.

Note: Before I risk making it obvious, I'll go ahead and admit that so far I've only watched the first season and this is my first Death Note fic. If I write something that you more knowledgeable fans know doesn't fit, please don't jump down my throat and only tell me exactly what it was if you can do so without spoiling me.

--

Headed toward the surveillance room, Matsuda tried to rub sleepiness out of his eyes and quicken his pace to brisk and professional as opposed to hesitant with tendency to veer off course. I probably shouldn't bother, it's o-three-hundred for goodness' sake… Ten minutes ago he and Misa had arrived back from a late night shoot. Misa had told him he shouldn't be all that tired, seeing as she'd caught him asleep five different times throughout the night's production. "So? You go back to the building every night and sleep a good six hours or so. I come back every night and help Light and Ryuzaki-san with the case." He hadn't actually said that. He'd considered it, but it'd only put Misa in an irritable mood and he'd feel like he was lying, referring to fetching coffee and keeping an eye on the screens if someone had to leave a minute to use the restroom as "helping."

But any kind of assistance was appreciated, or so the chief would say to him from time to time, so he had forced this new habit upon himself: To visit the surveillance room every day after work with Misa and ask whoever happened to be there (most often Light and Ryuzaki-san) if they needed anything done. Then, he'd sworn to himself, whatever the task, large or small (consistently small so far, but if he stuck to this habit, surely eventually…) he'd make sure he'd thoroughly completed it before allowing himself to go to bed. Reminding himself of this commitment in an effort to give himself more energy, he stepped into the surveillance room.

"That you, Matsuda?" Light's voice said with a yawn as Matsuda entered the room.

"Come here…" Ryuzaki said without turning away from the screens.

"Coffee, Ryuzaki-san?" Matsuda made an educated guess concerning tonight's "task."

"You can finish mine if you like…"

"Huh?" By the time Ryuzaki had made the odd offer, Light had managed to half-drag him across the room, tugging gently on his side of the handcuffs in an effort to urge the man away from the screens faster.

"I've had it," Light said, stopping to yawn again, "We're done for tonight. Watch the screens for us?"

"Sure…" Matsuda answered uncertainly, but Light had already made it out the door. Ryuzaki blinked glassily at him before his own inevitable exit, but said nothing else. "You're welcome, Ryuzaki-san. You two really do look like you need a good night's sleep more than I do," Matsuda muttered with bitter sarcasm a few seconds after they'd gone. He immediately felt guilty; the men did work around the clock after all. But still. Of all nights Light could've picked to drag L away to have a good night's sleep for once in his life…

Out of curiosity and boredom he watched quite intently as Light dragged his partner and friend into his room. Once they'd arrived, neither bothered to change clothes, a fact that bothered Matsuda on a hygienic level, especially since due to about five otherwise boring minutes of contemplation he'd had the other day, he'd realized that there was no possible way for either handcuffed man to change shirts. Unless of course they unlocked the handcuffs. But if they unlocked the things every time someone wanted to change clothes then why not whenever someone wanted to use the bathroom and then why not whenever one wanted coffee and the other didn't, so why bother wearing the things at all? He wondered about those two sometimes…

"Ack!" He had just fallen asleep, fallen forward, and been jolted awake. He hated when that happened. Can't believe I just fell asleep wondering about Light and Ryuzaki and their handcuff nonsense. God knows what kind of dreams I would've had… Oh God, how long have I been out? He frantically peered at the screens showing Light's room for a point of reference. Last he remembered they had just entered the room… Thank goodness. Ryuzaki was standing in the bathroom, slowly brushing his teeth. Matsuda was too tired to contemplate whether there was a reason for Ryuzaki's toothbrush to be in Light's bathroom or if the two really didn't care much for hygiene. Light leaned against the bathroom wall, an impatient grimace struggling to stay awake on his face. By the time Ryuzaki spit into the sink, Light was practically asleep on his feet. When they finally retired, they assumed positions Matsuda had suspected they would: Light fell into an uneasy rest sprawled across his bed while L perched in a chair at the bedside, staring into space and playing with his mouth the way he always did while thinking, until after a while his eyes closed dreamily and his hand fell away from his face.

With nothing of interest to watch on the screens now, Matsuda cautiously examined L's abandoned cup of coffee. It was still half full. Matsuda gave himself a congratulatory nod for not thinking of it as half empty. However, no amount of optimism would plead the case of the liquid still being half warm. He tasted it anyway, just in case- Nope. Nothing nastier than cold coffee. Blinking with exhaustion, he reluctantly swallowed a mouthful.

--

Wondering how long it would be until someone came to relieve him, Matsuda glanced at the time index on one of the surveillance screens. 05:14 Less than two and a half hours left before he'd leave the building with Misa and he hadn't gotten to sleep all night. With his luck the filming would go late again tonight too.

He stared at L's now much-more-than-half-empty-or-much-less-than-half-full coffee cup. He'd drank the last of the repulsively cool and bitter substance about half an hour ago and had spent the last twenty-five minutes debating whether or not he should try consuming the thick layer of undissolved sugar that had congealed at the bottom of the cup. He'd decided against it.

He was fighting the urge to doze off again when something caught his eye: movement on one of the screens. It was Misa's room. She was tossing and turning as if fighting off some attacker in her dreams. At last she awoke and stared at the ceiling a while. Matsuda wondered if she'd be able to get back to sleep. Lack of assistance with the Kira case aside, she'd been working very hard lately and filming the movie would get just that extra bit more difficult if she started her day this sleep-deprived.

After about fifteen minutes of shifting position and staring at the ceiling, she finally gave up and sat up on the edge of the bed. Unable to tell himself a reason why, Matsuda flipped the switch that would allow him to hear what went on in her room as well, just in case.

With a weary moan Misa stood up and walked into the next room. This room, Matsuda saw, was at the southeast corner of the building; two of its walls were actually windows. With a jolt he realized that one of the doors exiting the surveillance room led to the southeast corner of this floor. He'd been sitting a mere two floors precisely above Misa's bedroom this whole time. He really couldn't tell himself why this was significant, but it was.

Meanwhile Misa was leaning against one of the glass walls, too tired to stand, too restless to sleep. To Matsuda's surprise, she spoke.

"Misa needs to get back to bed," she yawned, "Is someone watching Misa now?"

Of course, Matsuda thought, everyone in the building is constantly watched by someone.

"I'll bet it's that Ryuzaki creep," Misa continued, "Misa's never seen him sleep. But that means my Light-kun's watching too. Misa didn't get to see Light-kun yesterday because the filming went on too long. In case we don't meet today either, I'll say good morning to you now, Light-kun."

"That's sweet," Matsuda said aloud.

Misa was silent again for a time, and continued to lean against the glass, shivering occasionally as if it were a cold surface.

Startling Matsuda again, she suddenly said, "Oh, Light-kun! Can you see what Misa sees?" She was now quite raptly staring out the east window.

"What? What?" said Matsuda, before clapping a hand to his forehead at the silliness of asking aloud. If I abandon the screens for a mere thirty seconds, I can run into the other room and look at what Misa's looking at. Surely a measly thirty seconds won't be enough time for Kira to kill us all and uproot the entire investigation, even he is living in this building. With one final skim of all the screens to confirm that Misa was the only one awake and that she didn't appear to be killing anyone, Matsuda sprinted into the next room to look out the east window before he was too late. He gasped at what he saw. What he saw was…

The most beautiful sunrise he had ever seen.

Clouds that looked like stretched cotton balls streaked across the sky, their tops blazing white and their bottoms black shadow. The sky itself was a brilliant, almost pink red, with a crescent moon loitering a ways above the horizon, reluctant to leave. The sun itself had just now pulled itself free of the horizon and was battling to give its light to everyone, regardless of all the buildings in the way. The buildings themselves were cast with pink-orange glow, so everything looked to be in pretty pastels in contrast with severe dark shadows.

To his surprise, he could still hear the audio-feed from Misa's room from here.

"Isn't it beautiful Light-kun?"

"Yes it is," Matsuda whispered, "Misa-chan."

Eventually the sun courageously climbed higher and the pretty pastels faded to the city's natural grays. Matsuda walked back to the surveillance room to find Misa on the move as well.

"Misa didn't want to do this with you perverts watching," she said peevishly, "But Misa can't hold it any longer." She opened her bathroom door. "No peeking, perverts!" she added before closing it behind her.

Matsuda dutifully fixed his attention on another room until he heard the toilet flush followed by the sound of Misa washing her hands. Ironically, he had actually once discussed this matter with her. A few days into his position as her manager he had noticed that every morning when they arrived at the studio, or someone's business, or wherever their first destination of the day was, she would immediately rush to the nearest restroom, sometimes even taking the initiative to declare, "Misa has to pee!" as if someone might question her behavior otherwise. After five consecutive days of this he just couldn't help asking why she couldn't just go before they left the building. She told him: "Misa always tries to hold it back there. Misa doesn't want anyone to watch." Fair enough, he'd decided.

As he watched her get back into bed to attempt to steal perhaps a few more minutes' worth of sleep, he found himself absently wondering if today when they first walked in the studio she'd yell, "Misa doesn't have to pee!"

By 06:00 he was thankful to see that the Chief was awake; by 06:30 he was headed for the surveillance room. Also, just before 06:00 L had woken up as well and was now attempting to continue his investigation as quietly possible via a laptop that had somehow ended up hidden in Light's room. Matsuda stared fixedly at the busy detective in an effort to not watch Misa perform her morning routine. Tried to anyway. Oh well, at least the worst she could possibly suspect was being ogled by Ryuzaki between bites of his morning cake, which Watari had brought by at 06:15 sharp.

Just after 06:30 the chief came in carrying two cups of coffee. "Good morning boys," he began, "I brought you- Matsuda what are you doing here all by yourself?"

"Good morning, chief, your son and Ryuzaki-san needed some rest so I took over the screens for them. If you could relieve me now, I have an hour to freshen up before Misa and I have to leave."

"Of course. Thank you Matsuda, it's times like these we really know we can count on you. Here, have some coffee. And how many times do I have to tell you I'm not Chief anymore?"

"As many as pleases you sir, you're still Chief to me," Matsuda said, accepting the coffee and the compliment to his dependability gratefully. Deep down he suspected that the chief was really only nice to him because he thought he had some kind of self-esteem issue or something, but even so, it was nice to know someone cared.

--

"Matsuda! Hurry up! We're gonna be late!" Misa hollered from the limo.

"Coming!" Matsuda called after swallowing one more mouthful of coffee. With any luck he might make it through the day without collapsing from exhaustion.

"Misa hopes shooting ends early today!" Misa announced cheerfully as they began driving to the studio.

"Why?" Matsuda yawned. Maybe not…

"I can't wait to talk to Light-kun!"

"…why?"

"This morning we shared something so beautiful, I just can't wait to talk to him about it!"

"…oh…" and yet I'm the first one you talk to about it, not to mention you've bestowed me with the honor of hearing you not talk about yourself in the third person. Either Misa thinks more of Matsuda than she lets on or Matsuda really shouldn't talk to Misa without getting more sleep… He rubbed his eyes. Where the hell was all this coming from?

"Is something wrong, Matsu?"

"I'm just… tired." She calls me Matsu too…

"Oh please. You got back same time as Misa and Misa has to work harder than you!"

"Well… yeah, you're right. Sorry."

"It's fine," she said with a carefully crafted martyr's sigh. "Anyway, very first thing when we get to our location we're going to-"

"Location?"

"Yes," she sighed again, "Today we're shooting on location at Takeshi farm, remember?"

That memory, along with something urgent and coffee-related, did at last become apparent in Matsuda's mind.

"Oh yeah," he said awkwardly, "Um, how far away is it…?"

"Just a ninety-minute drive."

"Urgh. Maybe we could stop somewhere…" He glanced out the window, somehow, during the course of their conversation, the car had ended up in the middle of nowhere. Nothing but grass and trees as far as he could see…

He leaned forward, "Stop the car."

The driver didn't ask, simply pulled over to a stop by a likely looking wooded area.

"Matsu!" Misa exclaimed, giggling, "Don't tell me you have to-"

"Yeah," he said, climbing out of the car. Looking back at her over his shoulder, he added in a high-pitched voice, "No peeking, perverts!" before disappearing among the trees.

--

Note: So yeah, my first attempt at writing Matsu. When I first looked up Death Note fan fiction I was surprised more people didn't think Misa and Matsu might be cute together. So if you liked it, lemme know please! If you didn't like it… Lemme know nicely?