Disclaimer: I'm not the creator or owner of Death Note. Oh, and contrary to popular opinion, I'm also not a guy ;) Not that it really matters, but so many people have mistaken me for male that it's getting a little embarrassing, so I'm sticking it in here XD
This is a sequel to Resurrection, and like Resurrection, it takes place in the movieverse. If you haven't read it, you're likely to miss a lot of the references and probably spend the first couple of chapters scratching your head and saying, "Huh?" Just so you know :P
JULY 20
The car screeched into the parking lot and accelerated into the closest parking bay, taking no notice of the attendant on duty whose job it was to point new arrivals in the direction of the most suitable space, and stopped so abruptly that anyone watching would have thought it had hit something.
Inside the car, Soichiro Yagami adjusted the rear view mirror and took a long look at his reflection.
He barely recognized it. The stress from dealing with that spate of grisly murders which had shocked Tokyo and L's final act at that damn wedding reception – an act that had left him in a coma for the past three weeks – had taken their toll. Although he was as neat and clean-shaven as he'd ever been, there was a gaunt look about him that hadn't been there before.
And now that idiot Tatenaka is sending me on some wild goose chase. When was he going to get some time to just sit down and wait for the world to stop spinning? If it wasn't one thing, it was a whole lot of other things, all needing his attention because apparently nobody else was capable.
Snapping the mirror back to its original position, Soichiro wondered suddenly if this was how L had felt all the time.
Never mind that. He's awake. I have to see him.
The deputy director got out and shut the door carefully, as if silently apologizing to his car for having driven it in such a reckless fashion, then strode into the hospital reception, nodding briefly to the receptionist. He didn't have to do anything more than that; he was a familiar face in this hospital by now, and every member of staff who saw him knew exactly where he was heading.
Room 14.
Soichiro stared at the room number for a long time, his hand on the doorknob. Now the moment had come – now L had finally come out of his coma; at least, he had according to Matsuda – the deputy director couldn't summon up the willpower to open the door. What did you say to someone who had taken a bullet for you, almost dying in the process? What if L had amnesia? Soichiro felt a chill trickle down his back. He'd earned the young man's trust and affection once – and when it came to L, earn was the word; it really hadn't been an easy process – but he wasn't sure if he had the energy to do it again.
What if he doesn't remember? What if he's forgotten that day in Aomori City, or that morning on the roof?
Aizawa and Matsuda were sitting by L's bedside while a nurse made notes on a clipboard, although both of them rose to their feet and bowed as Soichiro entered the room. Next to them, L lay motionless, eyes closed, his breathing regular. Just as he had been for the last three weeks.
The deputy director stared down at him, his own chest rising and falling rapidly. He'd come straight from Tokyo to Kofu on receiving Matsuda's message, a message containing the two words Soichiro had been waiting for three weeks to hear: he's awake.
Except it seemed he wasn't. Not anymore.
Soichiro pulled out a chair and sat down on it, mind whirling. It couldn't have been a joke. Matsuda – well, no, he did have a sense of humor, but he wasn't a cruel man and he certainly wouldn't joke about something like this.
"I was told he was awake," he said, to no one in particular.
"He was," Matsuda said, staring at his feet, "but then he sort of fell asleep again."
The nurse glanced at them. "That's normal. Most people only come out for a few minutes at a time, then slip back in. Next time it may be five minutes, or ten."
"I...see." Soichiro kept his eyes on L as he answered. "Will there be a next time, do you think?"
The woman looked surprised. "Oh yes. It's impossible to know when, but people who wake up once will wake up again. He's sleeping now, not unconscious. I'll leave you alone, but Yagami-san—" here a sharp note entered the woman's voice— "please do not attempt to wake him up unless you can be civil to him!"
Soichiro at least had the good grace to flush a little at that, remembering how he'd reacted the first time he'd come to this hospital and seen L hooked up to those machines.
"But he did regain consciousness?" he asked Matsuda as the nurse swished out of the room.
Matsuda gave him a pained look. "Yes, of course. He regained consciousness and he spoke! I heard him with my own ears!"
"I expect it would be rather difficult for you to hear him with somebody else's," Aizawa remarked. "Speaking of difficult things, where's Roger?"
Matsuda shrugged. "At his hotel, I guess. He only comes round once a day and he's not due again until tomorrow."
Wammy's House. What the hell did he have to do to get the message across to that institution? Soichiro felt a dull spark of anger in his chest as he sat there staring at L's limp form and wondering if there was any way they could move him without Wammy's House finding out.
"How did he know where L was, anyway?" Matsuda wondered aloud. "I didn't tell anyone except you and Aizawa."
He paused for a few seconds and then turned to look at Aizawa, who held up his hands and backed off a step.
"Give me a break! I may not like Ryuzaki, but I'm not a traitor!"
"No. I guess not." Matsuda slumped down in his chair. There were faint rings under his eyes and Soichiro wondered how much sleep the younger man had been getting. Probably not a lot. "Maybe Takahashi—"
"Oh, don't be an idiot," Aizawa retorted. "I doubt Takahashi even knows there is a Wammy's House, let alone how to contact them."
Soichiro was silent. That was all very well, but Takahashi had worked out that L was L within the first half hour of meeting him. The kid was young – probably even younger than L himself – but he was sharp.
"Has he been down here a lot?"
"Most days. Though he doesn't tend to linger. I think he's afraid of bumping into you."
Considering their last meeting had ended with Soichiro suspending Takahashi from duty at the NPA, the deputy director thought that was very likely.
"I can't think he's a traitor though," Aizawa conceded. "I mean, he actually seems to like Ryuzaki for some reason."
Soichiro didn't answer, although in his opinion, Takahashi's liking L was nowhere near as unusual as the fact that L seemed to like Takahashi. L had been hurt very deeply in the past. Trusting someone was not easy for him.
Exactly. Look at what I had to go through before I managed to convince him to trust me and my family.
He'd probably done too good a job of that, Soichiro thought with a touch of bitterness. Apparently not content with saving Sayu from a particularly gruesome death, L had then proceeded to sneak after Soichiro on an undercover operation and save his life by taking a bullet for him.
"Well, if he's not," Matsuda countered, "then how did Wammy's House know Ryuzaki was here?"
"How should I know?" Aizawa demanded. "I suppose they hacked Yagami-bucho's cellphone or planted a bug on his car or something. You did send that text saying which hospital he'd been taken to."
Soichiro frowned, Aizawa's comment jerking his mind back to a certain incident with L.
"Sato," he said suddenly.
"That jerk?" Matsuda said, lip curling in a very un-Matsuda like expression. "What about him?"
"Remember how he tried to kidnap Ryuzaki in the NPA that time when we had the power cut? I went to look for the fuses and left Ryuzaki behind—"
"—and Sato just swooped in on him, yeah, I remember. What's that to do with this?"
"Ryuzaki said something to me, something about how Sato had gone straight to him as soon as I was out of the way. At first I just thought he'd followed us, but what if he didn't? What if he found him because Ryuzaki had some kind of, I don't know, tracker planted on him? He said there was a tracker in his jeans that Watari planted. What if he planted some more that Ryuzaki didn't know about?"
Aizawa glanced at L's motionless form, then lowered his voice anyway. "You mean inside him?"
Soichiro shook his head. "No, I'm pretty certain that would have shown up on an X-ray."
"Mm." Matsuda sat down glumly, darting the odd look at L. "And your wife bought him all those new clothes, didn't she?"
"Yes, everything apart from the—" Soichiro stopped abruptly, then said in a different tone of voice, "Sneakers."
As one, they all turned to look at the battered sneakers that had been placed carefully under the chair.
"He always goes barefoot though," Aizawa pointed out.
"He did when he was in the hotel suite with Watari. But if Watari was there and could keep an eye on him, there would be no need for a tracker." Had Watari told L that the tracker was in his jeans to throw the young man off the scent? Soichiro thought about this, then gave a mental shrug. No matter; they'd know soon enough.
"We could cut them up," Aizawa suggested.
"I'd rather wait until Ryuzaki's awake and a lot more alert before we do something like that," Soichiro answered. "They already know he's here, so it won't change anything if we wait. And—"
A slight rustle cut him off and drew everyone's attention to the bed, where L was suddenly stirring. Aizawa and Matsuda exchanged looks, then both men got to their feet and slipped away quietly, leaving Soichiro alone with L.
"Ryuzaki?" The deputy director hardly dared to breathe. Please. Please answer me.
L turned his head, blinking rapidly.
"Yagami-san..."
Good. He was awake and he knew who Soichiro was. That meant that the deputy director could proceed with a clear conscience.
Reaching down, Soichiro picked up a newspaper he'd brought along for precisely this purpose, folded it in half and smacked L on the head with it.
"You are the most stubborn, headstrong idiot in the whole of Jap—no, not Japan; in the whole of Asia!"
A dry, cracked smile appeared on L's face. "Alive."
The deputy director wasn't certain which of them L was referring to with that word, but he glared at him for good measure.
"Yes, we're both alive, although in your case I've no idea how. And if you ever so much as think about putting me through an ordeal like this again, I'll kill you myself! You idiot! You stupid, thoughtless idiot!"
L stared at him for a few moments, no longer smiling, then turned his head away again. Gritting his teeth, Soichiro took a long, deep breath, held it until he saw little sparks flashing in and out of his vision, then let it out.
"I'm sorry, Ryuzaki. I know you don't understand. I just...I couldn't face the thought of losing you. I've been out of my mind with worry these last three weeks."
L's head swiveled back, a frown on his face.
"Weeks?" he croaked.
"How long—wait." Soichiro pulled a bottle of water out of his bag. "Drink this."
"Ramune," L insisted.
"You can have some ramune once you're a little better. I'm not sure what soda would do to your insides right now and I don't want to take a chance." Reaching down, he fumbled at the remote attached to L's bed and finally succeeded in tilting the mattress so L was sitting up. "Here."
He opened the bottle and held it out to the young man, who recoiled a little.
Soichiro sighed. "Yes, Ryuzaki. I know you hate people doing things for you, but you've been unconscious for three weeks and I'm not sure you can hold this for yourself yet. You're struggling to even turn your head right now. Now drink."
Grudgingly, L allowed Soichiro to pour some of the water into his mouth. He swished it around a few times, then swallowed with what looked like real effort.
"That's better. Three weeks without anything to drink, your mouth must feel like sandpaper."
L licked his lips.
"Needed that." His voice was still hoarse, but not as bad as before. "Where am I?"
"Kofu National Hospital. Yamanashi prefecture," Soichiro added when L looked blank.
Pause. "Why?"
"Why? Why is because you were shot in the damn chest and almost bled to death in my arms!" Soichiro grabbed the newspaper and smacked L again. "Idiot!"
L's face closed up and he looked away, face drawn.
"Great. I came back because I thought that was what you would want and the first thing I get is hit and yelled at. I should've gone on while I had the chance."
Soichiro was shocked into silence for several moments. L's words were a little slurred, but they'd been clear enough.
"Is that really what you wanted?" the deputy director asked very quietly. "To die?"
"I don't. Know." There it was, the flash of anger that was always bubbling just below the surface. Soichiro thought the only reason he wasn't treated to one of L's explosions just then was the young man wasn't feeling up to it. "I don't know anything anymore! All I know is that one minute I'm getting ready to follow you to that hotel and the next I'm here and you're hitting me on the head and telling me I've just lost three weeks of my life! Surely even you can understand that I'm a little confused right now?"
The deputy director stared at him. "You don't remember?"
"Remember what?"
"At the hotel reception. You took a bullet for me."
"Ah. I see. I took a bullet for you, I saved your life and you're angry with me for it. I don't think I'll ever understand what pleases you, Yagami-san." Some of the anger faded out of L's eyes, to be replaced with concern. "Unless...did my taking a bullet for you somehow screw up whatever you were doing?"
Soichiro yanked his temper kicking and screaming back under control, took a deep breath and then said, "No. Your taking a bullet for me saved my life. It also subjected me to three weeks of sleepless nights and endless vigils here wondering if you were ever going to wake up again. And I'm not the only one; Matsuda's been by almost every day as well."
"Matsuda?" L frowned, blinking rapidly. "What about the divorce?"
"Still fighting." Soichiro sighed. "It's not as bad as it was though. His ex has stopped coming by his apartment, which is a blessing, and Matsuda's also discovered that smiling and being annoyingly perky and cheerful upsets her far more than yelling, but doesn't upset his daughter so much. Aizawa says Matsuda should have known that right from the start, given his personality."
That won a small smile from L.
"Yagami-san?"
"Yes?"
"How long do I have to stay here?"
"Until the doctor tells me you're healthy enough to leave." Soichiro emphasized the word doctor ever so slightly. "And forestalling your next question, I don't know how long that will be and at the moment, I don't think they do either. At the very least, you'd probably have to meet certain milestones." Like being able to stay awake all day, for example.
L looked a little more alert. "What kind of milestones?"
"I'm not going to tell you, firstly because I don't know myself and secondly because I know you, Ryuzaki, and I know that you'll drive yourself into the ground trying to accomplish them before you're ready." He paused, then went on. "There's something else I need to tell you. Wammy's House is here."
L tensed up for a few minutes, then looked away, lips tight.
"I know. They sent Roger, didn't they?"
Soichiro's heart jumped unpleasantly in his chest. "Has he been in here?"
"Yes. I haven't seen him, but I heard his voice and Matsuda told me about him."
"Then you know he wants you to return to Wammy's House."
L squeezed his eyes shut, fingers on one hand curling into a fist. "I don't want anything more to do with that damn House!"
"I know that, Ryuzaki." Soichiro wasn't surprised, remembering the little flashes of insight he'd got into L's life and the reality of being the best detective in the world. More than anything, he remembered that early morning on the roof when he'd finally pushed through L's protective shell and the young man had told him...well, not everything, but a hell of a lot more than Soichiro thought he'd ever told anyone else. "But Roger's the one you have to convince, and you stand a much better chance of doing that if you present your case to him in a calm and mature fashion."
L was quiet for a very long time. At last he said, "Yagami-san...I don't think I know how to do something like that."
"Then maybe you should pretend it's another case, and Roger's your client. You were calm enough when you were accusing my son of being Kira."
L flinched a little at that, but Soichiro could see him considering the idea.
"Yagami-san?" His voice was more slurred than before and Soichiro kicked himself.
"I'm sorry, Ryuzaki. You've only been conscious for about ten minutes and here am I already telling you there's someone out there waiting to kidnap you."
L shook his head, his breathing becoming a little more shallow. "No, used to that. Yagami-san, please, there's something in...old HQ." He closed his eyes, face taut as he visibly racked his brains.
"It's alright," Soichiro said quietly. "You can tell me next time."
The young man snapped his eyes open. "No. No time." He managed to prop himself up on his elbows with what looked like a herculean amount of effort and lay there, gasping for breath. "My apartment. I wrote...in the bathroom cabinet. False back. All that time alone, I wrote about Wammy's House. Not about me. Not about my life there. But everything about the House. Find it. Please. And...washing machine. Jeans. On floor. In there too."
Soichiro reached out and took hold of L's hand, squeezing it gently. "Alright, Ryuzaki. Alright. I'll have a look for it as soon as I get back. You get some rest."
"Don't want to rest," L mumbled.
"Tough. You've just come out of a coma, for goodness' sake! You're nowhere near as recovered as you think you are."
"Am so."
Soichiro sighed. "Ryuzaki, I don't want to argue with you right now, so just this once can we fast forward to the part where you do as I suggest, albeit under protest?"
L forced his eyes open enough to look at the older man. "If I can have some more water first."
"Alright." Soichiro tipped the bottle back to L's mouth and the young man took several deep swallows, already half asleep by the last of them. "Now sleep. I promise there'll be someone here when you wake up." And while you do that, Ryuzaki, I'll go and ask the nurses about my bringing in food for you, he added to himself. L had lost too much weight while he was unconscious and the sooner he started putting it back on, the better. At least you woke up, even if it was only for about fifteen minutes. And at least you're not brain damaged. Of course, the tests had shown beforehand there was no danger of that, but Soichiro was never one to place a lot of faith in tests. A little rest and L would be back to his stubborn, awkward self in no time.
Yeah. You rest, and when you've done that, we can see about feeding you up. Soichiro wasn't familiar with Kofu, but there had to be a supermarket or convenience store around here somewhere...