Tunes in Profile:

Heavy Price Paid

Snow Falling on Cedars

Proof of Life

"I did it. I shot her."

An extended silence followed the admission, followed by Watari's crackly voice. "Shot whom?"

A shaky exhalation of breath was his initial response, and then the sound of something clicking in the background. ". . . Georgi."

"Is she breathing?" Watari asked, his tone remarkably level and conversational.

L's was not when he replied, his voice coming out in horrid noises that sounded a lot like choking. "Not anymore." More silence on Watari's end, filled suddenly by excited chirping and a heavy thud. "She's . . . " L cut himself off in an audible swallow before low-pitched words spilled out in a forced moan. ". . . she's . . . bleeding, Watari? It's all over."

"Where are the children, L?"

"Gone." He responded immediately, in an almost serene tone.

"Gone where?" Watari pressed gently.

There was the sound of gasping – harsh intakes of breath each shorter than the last before they stopped altogether. Paper crinkled, Hephaestion's singing ceased, and then one long explosion of too-long held breath followed.

"L?" Still no response. "L? Answer me."


Watari tapped a button on his screen with his stylus, and the recording stopped. "The rest is inaudible until paramedics arrived some minutes later."

Coffee colored eyes watched as the old man beside him retired the slim PDA to his breast pocket, and Yagami Light wondered silently at how he'd managed to remain so calm during the entire thing when the current state of affairs called for anything but.

He certainly hadn't been this calm when Watari had called him less than twenty-four hours ago with the words There's been an accident, Yagami-kun and he'd thought for sure he'd been about to regurgitate his own living heart. He hadn't been so calm on his trip here, since Watari hadn't said anything else except that he'd rescheduled him for the first flight out of Japan rather than the flight he was supposed to have taken a week later, and the lack of information had sent Light's imagination to the darkest places possible.

And he sure as hell hadn't been so calm when he'd walked through that arrival gate and seen Watari's face, and almost high-tailed it back to his plane so he could spare himself whatever was about to come.

Light turned to watch as English countryside zipped passed his backseat window, pushing russet fringe from his forehead with a finger. "What did they find?" He asked softly to the glass, as if he would shatter into pieces if he spoke too loudly.

Black leather squeaked as the other backseat passenger shifted his weight. "Georgiana was found on the floor in his office, beside his desk. She'd succumbed already to a gunshot wound to her right temple . . ."

Light waited patiently, his eyes fixed on rapidly moving scenery he didn't really see as the old man struggled to find his words. He knew exactly what he was waiting for, and he also knew that if those words had to come out of his own mouth, he'd lose this calm of his right then and there.

And Watari, he realized when he felt the touch of thick paper against his arm and turned to find a red folder being shoved at him, wasn't much better off. "Page six, if you please."

Light hesitated, darkening amber colliding with liquid steel, before seizing the thing and bending open the cover in his lap. The pages were loose and one sided, so he had to turn five of them over onto the other cover of the folder before searching and coming upon what Watari wanted him to read for himself.

Miscellaneous

Victim's term approximated at third trimester – 29th week.
Trauma-induced premature labor. Postmortem.
Due to prolonged circumstances without emergency medical care – non-viable.

Non-viable. Just another, colder way of saying L's son had died. Light read it again, trying to determine exactly when and where death had occurred – if it had happened somewhere other than the home.

. . . she's bleeding, Watari? It's all over.

L's voice replayed itself in his mind, dark and disturbed, and Light suddenly had his answer.

"And L?" he barely managed to whisper, almost afraid of the answer. The last time he'd spoken to the detective had been that night, when he'd signed off abruptly and Light hadn't been able to get back in touch with him. The next day, he'd called L's phone and had received no answer. Then he'd called Georgi's phone, and still received no answer. Calling the house hadn't produced any results, either; so he'd figured it best to leave things alone, given the conversation he'd had with L last they spoke, and wait for him to return his calls.

Unfortunately, his call-back had come a few days later, and not from L.

Watari shook his head beside him. "They reported seeing no one else in the home; but he's there and most likely hasn't left. According to my logs, the home's security system was re-enabled shortly after the paramedics left, and then disabled only briefly the following day."

"When he put the children outside." Light finished to himself. That had been days ago, and he couldn't even imagine what kind of condition L was in now if he'd been bad enough to put his own children on the street, then.

Watari nodded, and then both men fell quiet for several minutes; leaving only the dampened hum of the Mercedes' engine.

Light took the opportunity to thumb through the rest of the medical report in front of him. Time of death had put been at almost an hour before the paramedics Watari had notified arrived, and Light wondered at the circumstances surrounding that detail. Why would L wait so long? Most people waited to report a death because they either needed time to alter the crime scene in their favor, or they were too distraught to do so immediately. If he'd really shot her . . .

"No." Light berated himself out loud for even thinking that L was guilty. "He didn't do this. L did not murder his own wife."

"He says differently, Yagami-kun."

Light didn't look up from the report, his eyes scanning over text as he thought of the conversation Watari had recorded. "I heard what was said. But, I don't think he means it literally. You reported it as a suicide," Light turned over several pages until he came to the last. "And the medical examiner agrees with you. The angle of the entry wound and the bullet's trajectory indicates self-infliction."

"And you know as well as I do that if anyone is capable of turning a homicide into a suicide, it's L. Regardless of his mental state, he will always act on his sense of self-preservation."

Light had no idea why, but he bristled at the handler's presentation of contrary theories. He did not want to sit here and run a fucking differential on L like he was some kind of two-bit suspect whose motives could be explained away in the backseat of a car.

"I know that. I'm not an imbecile!"

Light regretted the outburst as soon as it left his lips, and he closed his eyes in an effort to control himself. "I . . . I'm sorry, I didn't mean that."

And Watari looked not at all put-out when Light reopened his eyes to regard the man in apology. "It's alright. I want as much as you do to believe that L is innocent. That this isn't in his heart. But the fact remains, Yagami-kun, that L is not . . ." He stumbled, his face appearing to age almost ten years instantaneously before he turned it away and exhaled audibly through his nose. " . . . he's capable of this."

"Of murder? Watari?" Light asked, the disbelief in his voice he couldn't hide.

"Under certain circumstances . . . absolutely."

"That doesn't mean he's guilty. It just means the possibility exists." Light said more to himself as he returned his attention to the packet of papers in his lap. He'd caught a glimpse of a toxicology report earlier, and decided to have a closer look. He didn't really expect to find anything, having never known Georgi to partake in such things. She'd always been one of those chirpy people – naturally happy and high on life. So when he came across the amount of Benzodiazepine found in her blood, he was genuinely surprised.

"What the hell kind of practitioner prescribes Temazepam to a pregnant woman!?"

"It was L's prescription," Watari explained, turning from the window. "His sleeping habits were worsening. He didn't tell you?"

"Not that he was taking any medication for it, no." Light all but gaped at the old man, as if to ask what else is there that I don't know about? And Watari responded with his own look that said Light knew better than he did.

Yes, Light did know better, and he wanted to say so, too. He wanted to say that this is what happens when someone like L is left to his own devices – unsupervised and allowed to go about doing whatever he damn well pleased. But Light kept his mouth shut, completely unwilling to disgrace himself with such disrespect to an elder and especially when he could be just as responsible as anyone else, if not more so.

He turned to stare out of the car window again with a heavy sigh, and wondered if Watari knew. He knew everything, didn't he? And if he did, wouldn't he have warned L and coaxed that fool detective into doing the right thing? Into at least attempting to handle the situation with a little tact, and not coming off as a total prick only out for himself?

"Georgi called me that day." Light just blurted it out, before he had a chance to convince himself otherwise.

"I know," was Watari's gentle reply not a moment later. "I was wondering if and when you would tell me. I assume it wasn't just a call for pleasantries, then?"

He watched rolling hills and open grassland turn into more heavily populated forest. "I think she knew." He answered quietly, and waited. When no response came, Light gingerly looked back to gauge the old man's non-verbal reaction and found him staring back with an odd angle of his head. Apparently, he didn't know either.

"About you and L?"

Light nodded once, solemnly. "Maybe."

Disapproval twisted the soft wrinkles of his face, but he said nothing; and Light had to look away in shame to instead concentrate on the tinted glass that separated them from the driver. Watari had always disapproved of the relationship he and L carried on behind Georgi's back . . . in her home . . . in her bed, sometimes. But just as they had, he'd assumed that two bright boys like themselves would have had no trouble keeping such a wicked liaison buried and hidden, and had left them to it.

More fool him, Light thought. More fool them all.

"That only complicates things further, Yagami-kun."

"Yes it does. Those Temazepam pills she was taking can cause all sorts of side-effects, Watari. Including psychotic breaks. If she . . . " he trailed off, frustrated at himself and everything else. "If L confessed to her, they may have twisted or disturbed her reaction."

"Or L's own actions." L's retired assistant completed his side of the differential admirably.

And Light had no choice but to let it end there, because the car had turned into the gravel driveway of their destination – one of Quillsh Wammy's many properties and one not far from L's own home.

Yagami Light's brain switched gears immediately, putting everything else on temporary hold as he watched the Victorian style house grow in size as they closed in. Elaborate gardens on either side of the driveway rose up around them – complete with stone fountains and decorative statues. A small version of a Polo field stretched out to his right, with accommodating stables looming up behind it. There was even a single tennis court, on his left.

Light stared straight ahead, his eyes keen and fixed – ignoring all of it. Under any other circumstances, he would have paid gracious attention to the property and been sure to compliment its owner. But not today. Not when he could see, standing right outside the front door of the two-story home with some lady he didn't know or want there, exactly what he'd come here for.

L's suddenly, very much alone children.

. . .