Hi, I've had this idea for a while and finally wrote it down. I hope you like it.

I don't own Death Note.

Enjoy.

L. Know to most as the world greatest detective. What most don't know is his past, not just at Wammy's, but even before that. I am one of the few who do know, what you could call, the real L. This is the story of how I met and befriended the greatest detective to ever walk the planet, and of how we both fell during that nightmare of a case caused by the serial killer known as Kira.

I was always a sickly child, I was fit and ran around like any other child, but I was chronically ill. The doctors at the time couldn't find the cause, and by the time they did it was too late. My fate was decided at a very young age.

When I was five, my father was killed in the middle of a bank robbery when the thieves opened fire at random. After that my mother fell into a deep state of depression. She at one point tried to kill herself and was declared mentally unstable. She was sent to an asylum where she later died, and I was declared an orphan. This is where things turned for better and worse.

The orphanage I was sent to was very small and overcrowded. The people running it couldn't have cared less about the children living there, much less about my condition. There was only one person who did seem to care. A nurse named Sarah who came to visit rather frequently. She had been there the first time I had a fit at the orphanage. She brought me medicines and tried to help me in any way she could. One day she mysteriously stopped coming…I never saw her again.

A year after my arrival, a young boy about a year older than me showed up. He was different from the other children. He didn't talk much and kept his distance, but he caught my eye. One day, some of the older children were picking on me. That's when we first met face to face.

"You're just as useless as everyone says you are."

"I bet your parents didn't love you, they just dumped you here didn't they?"

I felt a fist connect with my gut. "Ha, you can't even fight back. You're too sick." One of the boys said as I began to cough up blood.

"You shouldn't pick on people younger than you, especially if they're sick." A new voice said.

The older boys turned around. "Listen kid, stay out of this."

He didn't listen he just came closer. "That's it, you asked for it!" One of the boys charged at him but he dodged them. He then flipped back onto his hands and kicked him in the face.

"You should know, I'm a lot stronger than I look." He said. The others tried the same only to suffer the same fate.

"Ugh, stupid kid, we'll get you back." The leader said wiping blood off of his lip. "C'mon guys." He motioned of the others to follow him and they left.

I looked up when a hand came into my vision. The boy was standing above me. "Th-thank you," I said as he helped me up. "I'm Kaitlinn Rachelle by the way."

"L Lawliet," He said. "You shouldn't be up if you're that sick, or with people who want to hurt you walking around."

"I've always been this sick, and I'm used to them, they've bothered me ever since Sarah stopped coming."

"Who's Sarah?"

"She was a nurse who used to come in once a week. She would always bring me medicine and other things to help with my illness. One day she just stopped coming."

He simply nodded. He started walking and I notice he didn't stand up straight. "Why do you walk like that?" I asked.

He looked back at me. "It's comfortable." He replied. "And before you ask I don't like shoes." He said answering my next question.

I laughed. "You're weird L, but not in a bad way. You should stand straight though, you look shorter than me when you don't…"

That was my first meeting with L. Back then we were just two normal orphans, neither of us knew that just six months later Quillish Wammy would come to the orphanage with a test to find children with a high enough IQ to go with him to another orphanage, nor that one of those bullies along with us would be the ones chosen to go with him.

"Children, we have a special guest with us today, Mr. Quillish Wammy. He will be handing out a test and those of you who score the highest will be transferred to a different orphanage." The last part had me determined to do well on that test. Anywhere was better than that horrible excuse for an orphanage.

I looked over at L. "Let's do our best on this, okay?" He nodded.

One hour later everyone had turned in their tests. The next day we got the results.

"Okay, the top five of you have been chosen. If I call your name go pack your belongings and wait in the main entrance hall. L Lawliet," I looked at L as he got up. I began to pray to God that my name was called as well. I didn't want to be left without my only friend. "Brian Bullock," One of the bullies stood. "Harold Luick, Crystal End," One more spot I crossed my fingers so tightly they ached. "and Kaitlinn Rachelle." I let out the breath I had been holding as I stood completely relived. I went to my room and packed my few changes of clothes and my small bear that my parents had given me for my fifth birthday.

I was the last one to the entrance hall. I shot L a quick smile which he returned. A sight so rare I nearly fainted even back then.

The bully, Brian, glared at me. "If you get blood on me at all during this trip I'll give you a reason to bleed." He said too quiet for anyone else to hear.

The man, Quillish Wammy stood in front of us. "As you have been told, you five scored highest on the test I had handed out. That, however, was no ordinary test. It was an IQ test. Each of you scored over genius level. One scored so high I almost didn't believe it myself. Here are your names in the order of how you scored from highest to lowest; L Lawliet, Crystal End, Kaitlinn Rachelle, Harold Luick, and Brian Bullock." 'So I really didn't have to worry.' I thought. 'I scored third best.' I looked at L. 'He must have scored really high for Mr. Wammy to say something like that.'

Mr. Wammy escorted us out…and to a limo. I stared at it in awe. I had never been this close to one, much less ridden in one before. I felt a hand on my shoulder and jumped. I looked over and saw L. "Sit by me?" He asked.

"Well I'm defiantly not sitting by Brian." I joked. He nodded and I got in with him. The ride was long and I wound up falling asleep against L's shoulder. I guess it's better than having a fit and giving Brian a reason to follow through with his threat. When I did wake up I looked up in time to see a large building come into view. A plaque that read Wammy's House on it was next to the fence. I couldn't believe this was an orphanage, it looked much too extravagant. "Whoa," I muttered.

Once we were inside we were told we would each need an Alias. Except for L, whose name already sounded like one. I became K since no one with a name starting with my letter had come yet. Crystal became Clear, Brian became Brain (Not very fitting if you ask me), and Harold like L and I, became his letter, H.

Classes at Wammy's were much different from normal schools. College courses were taught to each of us based on our skills. We were given another test upon arrival to determine the courses we would take. Although L scored high on everything he scored highest on skills needed to become a detective. I, um, scored skills needed to be an assassin, which was obviously out of the question, both because of my condition and the fact that Wammy House doesn't support illegal careers. I wound up going with detective alongside L. Those with the highest scores got to choose someone to be an assistant of sorts, and L chose me for his, much to my joy.

I managed to go two weeks at Wammy's without having an attack. I was with L when I did have one.

I was outside sitting in the shade of one of the trees. I hadn't felt too great that day to begin with, and the heat wasn't helping. I didn't want to go back inside because everyone else was out. L saw me sitting there and came over. He stopped in front of me. "Are you okay?" He asked.

I nodded. "Why?"

"You're a lot paler than usual."

"I'm fine; the heat's just getting to me." I said.

"K," I looked up. "I can tell when you're lying."

I looked down. "I didn't feel too great when I woke up this morning. I was a lot more tired than usual, and the pain in my chest was back." I admitted.

"You need to tell someone." He said.

"No! I don't want to burden anyone else with this; my parents tried everything, then there was Sarah. No more, I don't want people trying to find a cure to something that's probably incurable." I stopped and gasped gripping at my shirt.

"K calm down, fine, over exerting yourself isn't going to help."

"I…know." I managed to get out.

He noticed how much I was struggling. "K…" He reached towards me but stopped when I put a hand to my mouth. He saw the blood that seeped through my fingers. "That's it, I'm telling someone." He left to find someone. All I remember is a teacher coming towards me and I blacked out.

When I woke up I was lying in a bed in the infirmary. A nurse came up to me and asked me some questions, mostly about my past medical conditions. I told her I had been having this problem ever since I could remember. She nodded, then she did something none of the other doctors or nurses had ever been able to do. She told me what was wrong. I apparently had developed tuberculosis at an early point in life, and had a weak set of lungs. This caused my attacks to be more frequent, and for it to be harder to tell exactly what was wrong. I was put on a medication that was supposed to treat the disease and help my lungs to become slightly stronger. After that the attacks became less frequent, from a month between to two to five, until I was at a point where it was almost like nothing was wrong. Of course I knew the medicine only prolonged my life. Eventually it would stop working and the symptoms would come back twice as bad, but at the time I found it completely worth it.

When I was ten and L was eleven I managed to talk him into teaching me how he fought. Apparently it was a fighting style called Capoeira. It took about six months, but I finally got it down enough to where I would be able to defend myself. I would have to keep working in order to master it though. It was a good thing I had learned it though, because it was around this time Brian, whoops Brain decided to get me back for what had happened at the other orphanage. Apparently he managed to turn some of the other Wammy Children on me as well.

I had been walking in the yard when someone grabbed me from behind and pulled me to where no one could see us. "Brain, what do you want?" I asked trying to keep a monotone. Not that easy although L got it down rather quickly.

"I thought it was about time I followed through with that threat from four years ago. You know, where I said I'd get you and L back." He said. He came at me and remembering what L had told me I dodged and pushed myself up on my hands kicking him in that face. The expression he gave me was murderous. He held out his hand to the others as if asking for something. My eyes widened when I saw what was in his hand. I couldn't help it I let every emotion I was feeling at that moment show, especially fear. What he held in his hand was a pocket knife, and it wasn't that small. I screamed before they could cover my mouth.

A monotonous voice came from behind them. "Now that could get you kicked out of the orphanage."

Brain turned around. "I thought you would have learned the first time to stay out of this." He said.

"I'm not going to watch my only friend get bullied when I could help her."

"That's it; I should have taken care of you the first time!" He went at L instead of me. L managed to dodge him the first few times but eventually the knife made contact with L's right arm. I saw him twitch in pain as his whit sleeve was dyed red. I cracked.

I bit the hand over my mouth hard enough to draw blood and the person holding me cried out in pain and let go. I kicked them in the stomach and turned to Brain. He saw me coming and turned slashing me across the stomach. It wasn't too deep but it was deep enough to need stitches. At this point the sound of commotion had attracted other people's attention and someone had gone and gotten one of the professors. Brain and the others who had helped him were expelled and L and I both had to get stitches where the knife had cut us.

I was sitting with him in his room one night soon after that. I had recently learned that L had insomnia so he didn't sleep that often. I didn't have insomnia but I didn't need that much sleep either. I usually ran off of about six hours a night, so I would stay up with him until about midnight or one.

We were working on one of the cases we had been given when something suddenly occurred to me. "I'm sorry." I said.

He stopped typing. "For what?"

"For you having to save me…again." I said. "I feel so weak."

"You're not weak. They had a knife, that's hardly fair."

"Yeah, but what if you hadn't been there. I would probably be dead with my body hidden somewhere right now."

"Don't say that." He said in a tone I had never heard him use before.

I froze. "L…"

"I don't even want to think about that K. Don't say things like that." He said. "You're my best friend; I don't want to lose you."

"L…" I smiled slightly. "I'm not going anywhere."

What I had said was the truth, I wasn't going to go anywhere, but apparently L was. When he was fifteen he finally left Wammy's…and me to go become the world's greatest detective. I left soon after him. I knew where I was going, and knew he wouldn't like it, but it was what my original test scores had pointed at, and ever since the incident with Brain, what I had wanted to become. I wasn't going to do just any job though. It had to be a criminal I knew would be sentenced to death if they were caught anyway. That didn't keep it from being illegal though. I would have to be careful.

I was under the impression that L wouldn't care where I was once he started with his many cases. I was wrong. I was in Australia on an assignment two years later when he found me.

I had just finished the job and taken all of the necessary precautions needed to make sure they couldn't tell who had done it. I had just gotten back to my hideout when I noticed a figure in the corner. I drew my gun on instinct on aimed it at them.

"Now you wouldn't shoot an old friend would you K?"

I lowered my gun. "L? How did you find me? And more importantly, why are you here?"

"In order, yes, I'm not the world's greatest detective for nothing, and I need your help."

"Huh, the world's greatest detective needs my help. I almost don't believe it."

"I chose you as my assistant back at Wammy's for a reason K. In case this ever happened."

"So you knew all along that you'd be leaving me? Why didn't you say something? It would have hurt less to have known."

"I was told not to. Otherwise I would have."

"I'm not sure if I can believe you L."

"If I was lying I wouldn't be here."

I stopped realizing he was right. I sighed. "What do you need help with?"

"You seem to be good at tracking otherwise invisible criminals. If you'll come back with me I need you to find an ex mafia boss. He's responsible for a recent string of murders." L said.

I thought for a moment. "Alright," I said. "Hold on, and don't make a sound."

I took out my phone and dialed a familiar number. "D 180, was the mission successful?"

"Yes,"

"Good, we have another assignment for you back at headquarters."

"Actually I was going to ask if I could have time off."

"How long?" I looked at L. He held up two fingers and drew an M in the air.

"Two months."

"Alright, we'll be awaiting your return." The line went dead.

"Well," I said. "That went better than expected. Okay L, now where are we going?"

"The United States."

That's the first chapter. Review and let me know what you think.

See ya.