Disclaimer: I own Mu. *rimshot*

... because Mu means nothing. Ya get me?

Take a walk through the land of shadows

Take a walk through the peaceful meadows

Don't look so disappointed!

It isn't what you hoped for, is it?

Talking Heads - Memories Can't Wait

Chapter 1: Paradise

Since his untimely death, it had been pretty much business as usual for L. As in life, his death was spent slouching around indoors looking over evidence and getting creative with cake. He found it interesting that the afterlife should be like this; his own custom built world, a perfect reflection of everything that made him L. He'd already considered the possibility that the afterlife would be this way when he was alive, and frankly he was a little disappointed in the universe's capacity for originality. Still, knowing what lay beyond the grave was quite satisfying.

It wasn't a bad life. His tastebuds remained stimulated with a supply of seemingly self-replenishing sweets, and his mind mildly entertained with an exhaustive copyright library for all-time; he suspected a lot of historians might be very interested in some of the publications he had access to. But it wasn't heaven. No, he was pretty sure of that... How could it be heaven? He was here because he'd lost. He'd lost to Light Yagami. He wouldn't have minded so much if he'd been able to say that the best man won, but he was Kira, for God's sake. And he'd known it all along. But of course, true knowledge only comes with absolute proof. The way things had turned out in the end was, more than anything else, purely annoying. All he was left with was this useless anger – before, it would have been a driving force, motivating him to devote more of himself to the pursuit of justice; but now... now none of that was left. The concept of justice became defunct when you took it out of a populated area (Earth) and dumped it in a universe with one solitary inhabitant.

The first few months of L's death had been spent reacting accordingly to the fact that he was dead, but he had to return to a figuratively normal mindset some time. It was when the anger subsided that he really felt the sting of betrayal. And with betrayal came loss. There was no hiding from the fact that Light Yagami had comprised a huge portion of his life. In his time he had played many parts; rival, friend... and of course there had been something more between them. Whether it could be called love was irrelevant, L concluded. What it has been was an unavoidable fascination, an obsession. During their brief time together each was wrapped up in the other, their lives and fates interlocked.

And now he was gone. L had always been pretty convinced of Light's guilt so it hadn't been a surprise to see him smirking down at him in his last seconds on Earth, but it hadn't exactly been pleasant either. It still hurt. And it didn't look like they would be seeing each other again; it didn't seem likely that Light would rock up here when he eventually did end up dying in the course of Justice, as was sure to happen; after all, this afterlife definitely wasn't Light's natural habitat as it was L's. There weren't even mirrors in every room. And of course there was the glaring possibility that Light would be ending up somewhere different, somewhere with considerably more fire and brimstone. Just the fact that L hadn't gone to heaven or hell didn't constitute hard evidence that they didn't exist.

But anyway, needs must. L had to assume he was going to be here forever with no-one to keep him company, so he couldn't afford to let himself be consumed by bitterness... while that might be fun for a year or so, he figured the further he let his mind slip down that slope, the harder it would be to claw his way back to (relative) normality. L decided he would prefer to avoid ending up like Miss Havisham.

So it was that L moved on. As much as a dead soul who endlessly wanders the hallways of an otherworldly mansion tailored to his every living need can move on, which is not that much; but under the circumstances he did a cracking job, because he was L. He reasoned that if he was stopping here for all eternity, it was the only proper way to conduct matters. So he was not expecting a visit from anyone in particular at any time in the foreseeable future.

Which is why he was so surprised that he was interrupted halfway through his breakfast of Frosties-and-custard by the most unhinged laugh he had ever heard, the sound of it percolating through the walls and seeping into every room.

A/N: For readers who don't know who Miss Havisham is, she's a character in Charles Dickens's novel Great Expectations who, having found out she'd been abandoned on her wedding night, decided she was going to stop all the clocks, never change out of her half-arranged wedding dress and never leave her dressing room. Needless to say, she ends up quite odd. I just think it's funny to imagine L in that position having been "abandoned" by Light.