a/n: Right. This started as me being bored and writing for fun. Then it got a plot. Then I decided I liked it.

A different twist on the old OC comes into the merrie-old-land of Death Note -- I've tried to keep her from being a Mary-Sue, and I think I've suceeded. There's no L/OC, Light/OC, Mello/OC, Matt/OC, Near/OC, Matsuda/OC, Ryuuk/OC...or any OC/canon, actually.

Rated T for language, vague references to Mello, fangirls and socks.

It started with socks.

More specifically, a pair of socks, knee length, rainbow striped that I lifted from the pile of crackling Christmas paper with more trepidation than was usually attributed to a garment, no matter how hideous.

They were a present from my Auntie Katie, a woman whose singular ability to produce the most ridiculous Christmas/Birthday/Easter presents in the whole of recorded history had made her a family legend. Grandma called her a "character", which was Victorian for "madder than a March Hare on crack". Mum was protective of her little sister, preferring to translate her obvious insanity into a compliment: kooky, wacky, zany -- all words that died in the sixties, and with good reason.

Still. The socks. They dangled from my hands innocently, swaying back and forth.

Dad burst out laughing. Mum hit him.

I stared at the socks for several more heartbeats before flinging them into the present pile as though they were a pair of woollen, multi-hued vipers.

Then, on the Great Boxing Day Present Migration, an annual event when my mother decided that my toys had cluttered up her living room for long enough and demanded that I remove them to the oblivion of my bedroom, they were consigned to a sock drawer.

May they rest in peace.

Except they didn't, of course.

The day didn't start well.

It was a Sunday, and for some reason best known to itself my phone chose to wake me with a rendition of "Just Dance."

"Nnghfulnshshutthefuckup." I mumbled into my pillow, one hand flailing for the merrily singing phone. All I succeeded in doing was knocking it off the bedside table and onto the floor, where it buzzed around like a dying insect.

My fingers tap-danced over the carpet blindly, until they connected with quivering plastic. After a few tries I managed to pick the damn thing up, sliding it open to stop the infernal racket, and shoving it against my ear.

Without checking caller ID. Silly really, it could be a serial killer phoning me.

"Hi Emily!"

God, I should be so lucky. I peeled my face off the pillow and propped myself up on my elbows.

"Meh."

For those who don't speak teenager-just-woken-up, here is a rough translation: Hi Angela, why the hell are you calling me at half-seven in the morning?

"Just phoning to remind you that you're coming over mine at nine. You know, so you don't forget."

"Merfle."

Thanks for reminding me Ange, I had forgotten. Still, we don't all have wonderfully organized brains.

Finally it seemed to dawn on my friend that I wasn't all there.

"Did I wake you up?"

I unstuck my lips and swallowed a few times, this time managing coherent speech. "Yeah."

"Sorry," she said, the barest hint of apology seeping into her morning-person trill.

"Meh. Don't worry."

"Good. Well, I'm having my shower now. Byeee!"

I didn't reply. The phone slipped from my hand, closing on the floor, as I rolled myself up in my duvet and went back to sleep.

I got out of bed an hour later. I had Shreddies with milk for breakfast.

All just details.

Because the most important thing happened at precisely 8:47, as I hurried to get dressed.

There were no socks. None whatsoever.

I won't bore you with the details: the checks and re-checks; the emptying of the drawer; the profanity; the appeals to a higher power; more profanity as I discovered that Mum had just put a wash on; the lecture on appropriate language even in the face of extreme provocation; how no, the fact that I have no socks doesn't count as provocation of any kind; the muttered response that Mum still heard; the shouting; the banishment to my room; the threats --

And the inevitable.

"Well you have a pair of socks right there."

Yes. Of course I did. They were coiled around each other, smug, none the worse the wear for their three-month stay in the recesses of my sock drawer.

Deciding that I had been histrionic enough, I tugged the socks on. Then I tried to get my jeans on.

They wouldn't fit over the damn things.

And no, I didn't own a pair of non-skinny jeans that weren't in the wash.

And -- oh dear God -- I ended up slinking to Angela's house, half an hour late, in lurid socks pulled up to my knees.

It was amazing that children didn't start crying. As it was, they pointed. And laughed.

One seven year old actually wept with mirth. He kept saying "Clown girl, clown girl" in what passes for the height of wit in seven-year-old boys.

Little bastard.

Ange wasn't much better. She goggled at the socks, then snorted with laughter. "Nice socks." She choked out between giggles. I stamped in, then slammed the door hard enough to make the glass panes set in it rattle. Then I tore off the socks and threw them at her.

One missed, but the other hit her square in the face. Her giggles cut off petered out and she smiled ruefully.

"I hate socks." I declared, lifting my thumb up to my mouth and gnawing on the nail, a habit that I'd picked up when I was about three and wasn't going to give up now. "Hate them," I emphasized, voice muffled by the digit still trapped between my lips.

Angela snickered.

"...and now you owe me cake." I decided.

"You look like L." She said, and snickered again. "What sort of cake? Chocolate? My Mum made some strawberry cheesecake..."

"Both."

"Pig."

I followed her to the kitchen, where we munched through gooey chocolate cake and sumptuous cheesecake -- Angela's mother was the best cook in the world.

Several bites of cake later I recalled what she'd said to me. "Who's L?"

Her eyes lit up. Seriously. Like someone was shining a torch through her sockets. "L," she said, in the tone of voice that always preceded a rant, "is a detective. On Death Note."

And then I really blew it.

"What's Death Note?"

"Who's she?" I asked, indicating a scarred, angry-looking, leather-clad blonde girl who had just appeared on screen. She was scoffing a lot of chocolate, so couldn't be that bad.

"Mello." Angela informed me. "And he's a boy."

"Really? Huh."

"One of L's successors." A few clicks revealed a familiar albino mouse.

"Near." I identified. She nodded. "Does he die too?"

"No. Just Mello and Matt --"

"Matt?"

"Gamer. Goggles. Here." She produced a fanart picture of a redhead in stripes and -- would you know it? -- green goggles.

"Cool. Fit, in a cartoon-y way."

"Mello's better."

"Mello's a transvestite. What happens to them?"

"They kidnap Kiyome Takada -- she writes Mello's real name down in the book --"

"Which is?"

"His name? Oh -- it's Miheal Keehl."

What a crappy name. Still, they had a thing for weird names in this cartoon (manga, I corrected myself, remembering Ange's ire when I referred to it as a cartoon): Mail Jeevas, Miheal, Lawliet.

"--so Matt gets shot."

"And Light dies and they all live happily ever after." I concluded, pleased that I had picked up the plot so quickly.

"Well, sort of." Angela said regretfully, closing down the window. "They should never have killed off L."

L: sugar-loving, sock-hating, genius detective. I wasn't exactly flattered by the comparison though.

"Yeah." I checked my watch, wondering when I should be heading off home. I had promised Mum I'd be back by six --

It was six-thirty. Damn.

"Gotta go." I told Angela, hurriedly scooping my stuff off her bed. "Late."

She laughed and I left, into the hazy sunlight of a spring evening.

The rain came from nowhere, angry staccato lashing down from the unbroken expanse of black cloud smothering the sky. Only five minutes ago the sky had been shimmering azure; it had disappeared as though someone had torn it from the heavens, revealing the seething mess of storm and lightning and thunder that now raged above me.

It was cold enough to make me gasp, and I was shivering so hard that it was almost a convulsion. In an attempt to get home quicker I cut through the park, not realizing the stupidity of this descision until it was too late, mud squelching under my feet.

Through the gate, through the playground; a child's playground, one me and Angela had spent many happy hours in when we were six.

The rain sloughed down harder, icy needles spearing my skin. Lightning split the sky and thunder rolled as though it was heralding the end of the world.

Concrete was slick under my feet and I trod carefully, not wanting to fall. The swings were thrashed back and forth, chains squealing in protest, as the wind intensified. It drove the breath from my body.

Sloshing through puddles, my head bowed against the voracious wind, I almost missed it.

The line. A glowing white line, like lightning pinned to the ground, like radiant paint, less than a metre in front of me. I gaped at it, astounded beyond reaction. The storm, as though sensing that it had lost my full attention, howled even louder. It turned up the volume of the thunder, the frequency of the lightning. All the way to eleven.

But, somehow, the storm's efforts emphasized the line rather than diverting me from it. The light pulsed in time with the thunder, hypnotizing me.

I took a step forwards. Then another. Then another, until I stood with my toes scraping the edge of it.

There were shapes in the light, faint but there, indecipherable.

I didn't think. I just stepped.

And the world fell away.