This fic is part of a series. But this can be read as a stand-alone, so I don't think you will be totally lost if you want to start here. Please refer to my profile for where this falls in the timeline.

Hello and welcome! If you are just now joining us for the first time, then I thank you for taking the time to even read this. If you have been following along this entire time, then thank you for sticking around. I hope you are all prepared for more of a bumpy ride and more dark times ahead. I'm afraid I can't write purely happy things, so...

That said, onward! :3

-Disclaimer-

"Matsuda... Matsuda, for God's sake, wake up."

"Wha...?" slurred the man as he jerked and sat up sharply, blinking blearily up into the frowning face of his boss, "I'm-.. I am awake."

"You were sleeping at your desk just now. Again," said Aizawa, his arms folded.

Matsuda groaned, betrayed by the stiffness in his neck and the lines pressed into his face by the file on which he had fallen asleep. "Sorry, Chief," he mumbled, both exhausted and embarrassed.

"I need to see you in my office. Now. We need to talk about this."

Matsuda did not even try to argue. He knew he had been caught, as he had on multiple occasions over the last few weeks, and so he knew that this was coming.

The events of the last few weeks had taken their toll on him by this point - mentally, physically, and emotionally. This was by far the worst he had ever felt in his life – much worse than he had felt even after putting five bullets into Light Yagami almost fourteen years prior. Worse than the horrible depression that had nearly crippled him afterwards. Matsuda did not think he would ever be the same again, and he was sure no one would have disagreed with him. Anything that even remotely resembled the once optimistic Matsuda was diminished, leaving behind a sullen husk.

Not only that, but he knew his physical appearance was haggard at best. He knew he had some unshaven stubble on his chin from barely making it out the door in time for work that morning, as well as eyes red and swollen from lack of sleep. To say the least, he looked just as bad as he felt.

With a defeated sigh, he got up and followed the police chief into his office, where he was instructed to take a seat and wait while Aizawa fetched them both some coffee. Upon his return, Aizawa handed the younger man one of the cups and took his own seat across the desk from him. Matsuda gazed down into the cup at the fluorescent lights reflecting off the surface of the dark, bitter liquid. He did not feel like drinking it. In fact, the very thought of drinking any more coffee than he already had that morning made him feel sick to his stomach.

It was only after several minutes of uncomfortable and clearly indecisive silence that Aizawa finally spoke, "Matsuda, as I'm sure you are aware, this is just one of many incidents in the last few weeks of you falling asleep at work-.."

"I'm sorry, Chief, I'll try to be better.." he mumbled, unable to meet the other man's gaze.

"I'm not here to bust your balls," said Aizawa, "I know how hard you have been working – hell, we have all been pushing ourselves on this one. But we have had this discussion before. You need to take better care of yourself, and that means getting some rest, otherwise-..."

Matsuda jerked his head up, staring straight at the police chief, "Rest? How can I...?"

"You can start by taking the rest of the day off. I'll have Mogi cover for you, but right now I want you to go home and get some sleep."

All at once, Matsuda was filled with an anger unlike any he had ever felt before. He might have been able to compare it to the rage he felt when he shot Light, except this rage was for a completely different reason. He stood from his chair so rapidly that it caused said chair to tip over backwards, where it made contact with the ground with a loud bang. If that alone was not enough to startle Aizawa, then Matsuda thereafter slamming both of his clenched fists down on the desk should have been.

At the same time this was happening, Matsuda was shouting, "You want me to go home and SLEEP?! How in the hell can you expect me to do that?! Sayu's killer is still on the loose! I'm not sleeping-.. No, I can't sleep until we find him! I'll probably never be able to sleep again, so fuck you and your sleep!"

Aizawa remained seated from behind the other side of the desk during the outburst. Although he was sitting more rigidly than before, his overall demeanor was remarkably calm for someone who had just been yelled and cursed at.

"What, aren't you going to yell at me and call me an idiot?" Matsuda snapped when the other man did not react.

"No."

"Why not?"

"Because I don't think you are being an idiot – you are being human," he replied, "Which is what I am trying to say to you, so please sit back down so we can talk."

Chest heaving and teeth pressed so tightly together his jaw was beginning to hurt, Matsuda stooped to pick up his chair and all but slammed himself into the seat. He could feel Aizawa observing all of these actions, but he could do nothing to stop them regardless. Everything felt so raw and angry, and he was so worn out and broken down, it was impossible to keep it all in at this point. He wasn't even aware of half of what he was doing anymore, which was a bit disconcerting, but, again, he could not bring himself to care.

"I can't claim to know what you are feeling, but I know you want to get to the bottom of this more than anyone, Matsuda," Aizawa said, picking up where he left off as if Matsuda had just not had a breakdown right in front of him, "That said, you will not be of any use to us, to yourself, and most of all to this case, if you are exhausted like this. I want you take the rest of the day off, get some sleep, and then come back in tomorrow refreshed, so we can move forward with this."

"Chief-.. I can't do that. Not on this one," said Matsuda, his voice weak. He was barely able to contain any of his rampant emotions, but he'd be damned if he cried in front of his boss. Again.

"I'm afraid you don't have a choice, my friend," said the other man, pressing his lips together in a look that was both sympathetic and severe, "This isn't a request – it's an order. I promise we will call you if any more leads come up, but-.. Take some sleeping pills if you need to, just please get some rest."

"But, Chief, I-.."

"If you argue this any further, then I will take you off the case. As I've said before, we need everyone at their best right now, and you are not at your best in your current state. It's as simple as that."

Frustrated but at least somewhat understanding of his boss' point, Matsuda could do nothing but agree that he would go home and try to rest. When he left the chief's office, he felt like nothing more than a useless appendage to the task force - just like old times. It was with great reluctance that he gathered his effects and went home for the day, barely making it through traffic and up the stairs to his apartment before he collapsed on his bed.

Despite how exhausted he was, though, he still could not sleep. All he could do was lay there, drifting through a weird, semi-lucid state, thinking about Sayu. He bit down on his bottom lip, hard, to keep himself from crying at the thought of her, but it was useless. Before he knew it, he was weeping freely, drawing in uneven, shuddering breaths and replaying the events of that weekend over and over in his head. Her smile, her laugh, the sunlight coming in through the cafe windows and making her brown eyes glimmer like melted chocolate, even her blatant honesty as she told him she would need time to think about his proposal. And then, of course, everything that had happened after they parted ways that afternoon... How could someone do that to her, to such a wonderful, beautiful person whose only crime had been caring too much? It was just so unfair and cruel...

And perhaps even crueler than that - if there was such a thing - thinking repeatedly of the looks on the kids' faces when he had broken the news to them. And hearing Soichiro's wails and seeing Chihiro's shaking form, their denial of the reality of it all, all stuck on repeat in his head. Why was he the one who had to do it? Why was he the one who had to break their hearts and tell them that their lives would never be the same again? Aizawa was technically the one in charge – shouldn't he have been the one to do it? No, Matsuda was the one who was closest to the kids – he was practically their father, so they would believe and listen to him above all others. It made sense that he was the one who had to break the news to the kids that their mother was gone…

The kids…

He wanted to call them to check on them, truly he did, but he could not bring himself to do so at the moment. What else could he tell them at this point that would do them any good? It had been six weeks since their mother's murder and there had not been any solid, new leads in at least the last week. He hated to think it, because he was holding onto a stubborn, staunch hope that by some miracle they would come across something, but it seemed as though their mother's case was growing colder by the day. It was bad enough that they had to be stuck in some crummy, overcrowded orphanage while he waited for all this stupid bureaucracy to decide whether or not he could adopt them, but to have to tell them that they might not ever find their mother's killer… No, he could not do that to them. Somehow, he felt it would be better to wait until something new came up, either with the case or with the adoption, before calling them again. He was sure, at least, that Chihiro would understand and that she would explain as much to her brother. He was sure that they would forgive his lack of communication if only he could present them with some good news - as good as news could get under the circumstances, anyway.

Well, he had to do something in the interim. Laying there and thinking about everything was not helping. It was not helping himself, the kids, or Sayu's case. It didn't matter what Aizawa thought - there was no way he could just lay there all afternoon and evening, doing nothing.

Without much thought, he gathered his keys, wallet, and mobile phone and headed out to his car. He drove as though he were on autopilot, zoning out entirely until he reached his destination.

When he arrived at Sayu's house, he took a breath before putting the key into the door, unlocking it, and opening the door. The silence that hit him almost caused him to choke up again. This house had once been lively and inviting, full of Sayu's care, love, and laughter. The mixed sounds of Chihiro's violin and Soichiro's various video game noises also used to fill the home, giving it the feel of what Matsuda could only describe as home. Now it was an empty shell, an echo of the lives it had contained within, now devoid of all the love and spirit that had once resided there - much as Matsuda felt anymore.

It was both a beautiful and a cursed feeling, being there. It was so powerful, Matsuda wanted to leave immediately, but he took a breath and began his search.

He looked over at the counter top where her effects had lain the morning of her disappearance. Of course, said effects were gone now, all brought in as evidence, but Matsuda could clearly see in his mind's eye how her purse, keys, and cell phone had been laying out. She had left them there, clearly intending on coming back for them, and yet she never would. Also beside all of that was the box he had given her the day before, contained within it a symbol of his feelings for her and the promise of a bright and happy future together. It was later revealed that the ring was missing, not only from the box, but presumably from her corpse. Nobody had seen her put it on, but-.. the ring was missing. In Matsuda's mind, above all else, it meant that she had put it on. She had been wearing it at the time she was taken. She had considered his proposal. She most likely would have accepted-…

No. Stop thinking about that. It was not helping the situation at all. There had to be something they had all missed, and Matsuda would not, could not, rest until he found it. Even though the home had already been thoroughly searched and the crime at this point was considered a random crime of opportunity, Matsuda could not accept that as the end result. There had to be something that would help lead them to her killer.. didn't there? He knew that cases went cold all the time and some families never got any closure, but surely that could not be the case this time. This was Sayu. She had to receive justice. The alternative was unthinkable.

Matsuda spent the better part of two hours combing the house from top to bottom, searching for something, anything, that had not already been examined and considered by the police. For all his searching, nothing had turned up in any of the rooms so far. He was admittedly delaying going into Sayu's room, which had been her mother's old room, because he did not think he could bear to see where she had gone to sleep every night. Maybe he would open the door and see her lying there, asleep, and find that this whole ordeal had just been one big nightmare. That thought alone was enough to raise his pulse to the point where he had to close his eyes and just breathe.

Sucking in a breath, he pushed the door open and entered the room, cooled from lack of use. Of course, Sayu was not there, asleep or otherwise. She would never be there again, and Matsuda would never know what it was like to lay beside her. Maybe he if were to lay down on her bed for a moment and close his eyes, he could imagine that she was there. The whole bed still smelled of her - hell, the whole room did - so it would not have taken much for such a pleasant thought to take hold.

But no. As tempting as that was, Matsuda did not want to fall into that kind of trap. It would do nothing to solve her case. Steeling himself, he began his search through her armoire, handling each of what were once her possessions with the utmost of care, all the while feeling a wet warmth behind his eyelids as he thought about the life behind them, thought about everything that had been stolen not just from the kids, and from Sayu, but from himself as well.

As he was pushing various things around in one of the drawers, his hand came into contact with something hard and rectangular. He closed his fingers around it and pulled it out, holding it up so that he could get a good look at it. It was a mobile phone. Just a regular old mobile phone, one that had gone out of style years ago. It did not look like any of the phones he had ever seen her use, though maybe it was one she had used before the two of them had reconnected on the third anniversary of her brother's death. He did think it was a bit strange that she owned an old flip phone, one with no slide-out keyboard, given how she preferred texting above all other forms of communication, but the strangeness of the thought was gone before he could really hold onto it.

Even so, the phone did make him curious for a reason he could not explain even to himself quite yet. Maybe it was because all of his searching had turned up nothing else so far, and so this one small piece of what had once been Sayu's life was all he had to focus on at the moment.

Whatever the case, his curiosity won out. He flipped open the lid and tried to power it on, but the phone was dead. There was not even enough juice left in it for the screen to come on before flickering right back off, as Matsuda had seen his phone do sometimes whenever it was out of power. But of course it was dead - this phone had not even seen the light of day since-.. who the heck knew when, judging by the lack of dust or any kind of smudge on it, which was another thing that struck him as odd about it. The phone was in pristine shape. Either she had hardly used it or had not used it for long, because there wasn't a single scratch on the casing and none of the buttons or keys were worn down as one would expect to see after repeated, long-term use. Perhaps it was merely a faulty product. But then why had she not exchanged it? Some sort of sentimental attachment to it, maybe?

Matsuda was beginning to wonder if maybe he was thinking about it too deeply when yet another strange aspect of the phone stood out to him. There seemed to be nothing special or out of the ordinary about it, but that was what struck him as strange. Usually Sayu had some kind of fun embellishment on her mobile phone, be it a different-colored case, a sticker, or one of those little charms most everyone seemed to have. But not this phone – its total lack of any personal touches was what made it stand out to Matsuda. That added to the fact that the phone did not appear to have any manufacturer's details – no logos, no bar codes, no serial numbers, not even on the battery or inside of the casing where the battery was contained.

Now unable to halt his runaway thoughts, he rifled around in the drawer for the phone's charger and found none. After a bit of searching, no such phone charger surfaced. Weird – what had she done with the charger? Perhaps she had thrown it out by mistake while consolidating power cords, or perhaps it had stopped working and she had thrown it away then. Either way, it would be very easy in today's excessive market of power cords to obtain one that would get the phone working again.

Matsuda did not understand why he was so intent on getting this phone working again. Again, maybe it was the lack of anything else to go on. All he knew was that he felt as though he was on the cusp of something – he wasn't sure what, just that it was something. It wasn't until he was back in the elevator at the station, on his way up to his floor, and barging unceremoniously into Aizawa's office that all the stray thoughts converged.

"Aizawa, I've got it! We need to contact L!" he declared upon his abrupt entry, half-way into a state of hysteria.

"What the-.. Matsuda?" the police chief grumbled, thoroughly taken aback by the sudden reappearance of the younger detective. "I thought I told you go home!"

Matsuda waved him away and approached him from the other side of the desk. "Did you hear me?" he went on, coasting right over his boss' annoyance, "I said we need to contact L! He can help us solve Sayu's case!"

Aizawa sighed, apparently resigned to hearing Matsuda out for the time being. "And how do you propose we do that? He cut off all communication with us years ago. We have no way of contacting him, if you remember," he said, giving Matsuda a pointed look. It had, in essence, been his fault that the World's Greatest Detective had decided to sever all ties with the Japanese NPA, after all.

But that did not stop Matsuda's enthusiasm either. "What if we did have a way of contacting him?"

Nonplussed, the police chief's eyebrows came together. "What do you mean?"

Without another word, Matsuda produced from his pocket the phone he had found at Sayu's house and handed it over to his boss. Aizawa took one look at it and said, "What's this?"

"It's a phone I found at Sayu's. It-…"

"When?"

"Huh?"

"When did you find this?"

"Like an hour ago. I believe-.."

"You were at Sayu's house within the last hour?"

"Yes, I just said that. Now, if you-.."

"Matsuda, I clearly remember telling you to go home – not to Sayu's. What were you thinking?"

Frustrated, Matsuda blurted, "Who the hell cares what I was thinking?! I was thinking that we need to do something to find Sayu's killer and there's no way I can do that by laying around!"

"But I thought I explained to you why-.."

"Just shut up about that already and listen to me!" he yelled, and then took in a breath, trying to steady himself as his boss watched him in surprise from his outburst. "Please, just-.. just look at the phone. Just look at it and then I'll leave you alone and go home. I promise."

Aizawa gazed at him for a long moment with his hard, hawk-like eyes before sighing and looking back to the phone in question. "Okay, what am I looking for?"

"Don't you think it's weird that Sayu had a phone like this?"

"Not really. It's probably an old phone of hers that she forgot to recycle."

"No, I never saw her with a phone like this before. It's not the kind she always used – she always used phones that were more geared towards texting. This one is primarily made for making and receiving calls."

"Then it probably belonged to her mother at some point and Sayu couldn't bring herself to get rid of it."

"No, her mom never carried a mobile phone. She thought they were ridiculous and only wanted to use the landline."

Aizawa sighed again, pressing his fingertips to his forehead in exasperation, "I think-.. Don't you think you are grasping at straws here? There's nothing about this phone that suggests it's some top secret spy phone, or whatever it is you're thinking. In fact, I'm quite sure this is all due to the fact that you need to be home resting."

"I'm serious. Think about it. It looks like a plain old phone, sure, but think about it. Why would Sayu have this phone? If you look at it, it's been very lightly used - moderately at best," he explained, and as he did so, Aizawa turned the phone over, following Matsuda's leads, "No scratches, no smudges, no wearing down of the buttons or keys. No personal touches like her phones always had. No branding, no logos, no any kind of identifying factors for the manufacturer. Not even on the battery. Just look."

Aizawa followed his lead and stared in concentration as he gently pried open the back of the phone, popping out the battery and seeing that there indeed was not any of what Matsuda had mentioned. While he was doing that, Matsuda took a breath and went on, "Now I ask again – why would Sayu have a phone like this?"

"Matsuda, I-.." Aizawa started, fumbling through his momentary stupor, "I don't-.."

"Think about who she was seeing. Think about who is the father of those kids," he breathed, feeling an immense sense of victory at seeing what he thought was a convinced look in the police chief's eyes. "I believe that this is the phone Sayu used to communicate with L – with Near. And I believe that once we get it recharged and powered on, we can use it to contact him as well."