Everyone was gone. In the quiet darkness L sat alone in front of his laptop. With the exception of the tapping of keys, there was complete silence. He paused and looked at the clock in the corner of his screen; two thirty a.m.. That was four and a half hours until Chief Yagami and the rest of the police squad returned to headquarters.

He began typing again, but quickly stopped, sighed and brought a new window up on the screen. After accessing the security footage, he activated several cameras and a new image came to the screen. It was video footage of a sleeping woman. He sighed again. He knew she wasn't sleeping; that her insomnia was just as bad as his, if not worse. No, she was just pretending to sleep; a technique she had been using since she was a child as a way to "trick her unconscious mind into letting her sleep".

Four and a half hours.. I guess I could afford to get a few hours of sleep.

With that thought he shut his laptop and walked out of the room and into the elevator. Once he had reached the sixth floor, the elevator stopped and opened into a lobby like area. Ignoring the business appearance, he walked straight through and opened a door on the opposite side of the room. Behind it was a large living area equal to that of a small house. The furnishings were typical of that in an expensive hotel and everything smelled lightly of lemon verbena. Any available space was either crammed with books of every genre and variety or had a computer sitting on it.

He ignored all of this though, and walked through the living room area, carefully avoiding the piles of wires, and into a bedroom stemming off of it. There on the bed was a young woman with short messy brown hair, laying on her side with her eyes closed, tapping her fingers across the hard cover of a book that lay beside her.

"If you're going to tap on it like that, you might as well read it" L said softly with a small smile.

"But I'm tapping on it so I don't read it. If I start now, then I'll never get to sleep."

"Just put it in a drawer so you wont think about it"

"ehhhh" she moaned, defeated, and lightly pushed the book off the side of the bed with a loud thud.

"Just come to bed. I haven't seen you in days." She rolled over and looked at him.

He silently obeyed, walking over and laying down next to her on the bed. She moved closer as he pulled her over to him and put her head on his chest, deeply inhaling his scent.

"I despise not being able to see you"

"So do I, but you know-"

"- I know I know" she nuzzled her face in his shirt as he gently ran a hand through her hair.

"How's your back?"
"Fine"

"Liar. Roll over" she sat up and grabbed his shoulders, forcing him to lay on his stomach. Pushing up is shirt and pulling his pants down a little, she began massaging his back. Did he really think he could hide something like that from her? She knew from the moment she saw him walk towards her that he was in pain.

He squirmed a little under the pressure and every so often she would hear a faint moan, but after a few minutes he stopped and began talking.

"I want you to officially become apart of the team"

"You mean have everyone be aware of my presence?"

"Yes"

"And I take it this is because you need some ground work done?"

"Yes, I'm sorry."

"No, It's alright. Its not a problem." She stopped massaging his back and sighed, leaning forward and kissed his shoulder. "I worry about you…"

"Please don't. It makes me feel guilty" he rolled over and took her hand.

"Don't feel guilty. You know I cant help but worry." She leaned and softly kissed his lips. With only centimeters between them, they stared at each other and she rose her hand to his face, rubbing his cheek with her thumb. "you need to get some sleep, lets talk about this tomorrow, alright?"

"Alright"

she lay her head down on his chest and closed her eyes. For the first time in many days the two found themselves able to peacefully fall asleep, even if it was for only a few hours.