"Looking everywhere only to find
That it's not the way I had imagined it all in my mind
(So what am I)
What do I have but negativity
'Cause I can't justify the way, everyone is looking at me
(Nothing to lose)
Nothing to gain, hollow and alone"
-Linkin Park, Somewhere I Belong

Butterfly was perched on a chair in Roger's office that morning as he filed her information into a file. She pulled both of her legs up onto the chair and crossed them "Indian style" like the teacher told them how to on the floor. Her orange bear/dog was held against her chest as she stared at the man shuffling through files. Ryuuzaki had been in the room with her earlier until he went off somewhere. She was scared and a bit nervous but she was holding herself well together unlike the average child her age. Roger was impressed by her score on the test Watari had given her the week before.

"No other student has scored that high except for one," He had said. "She only scored two points lower than Near."

Butterfly didn't know who Near was but she heard the name tossed around a lot by the kids in the halls. Ryuuzaki had taken her around this place they called Wammy's House while the other children where in classes. She was amazed on how big this place seemed. A few kids had the chance to see her, but they mostly stared, no body spoke to her, which added to the fear. Some of the children were way older than her, and some were younger. She remembered feeling self conscious and looking down at her black boots and blue jeans embarrassed, her little hands shoved into her pockets as she shuffled her feet.

"Alright, Butterfly," Roger spoke up, bringing her back to reality. "All the paperwork's been taken care of and you'll be able to go to classes tomorrow." After seeing the alarm in her eyes he smiled reassuringly. "You'll roommate will show you where they're at, you two will have the same classes because of your similar intelligence."

Butterfly nodded. "When am I going to meet them?"

"Later," Roger replied a bit bored. "Ryuuzaki said he'd show you your room first, and the mess hall, or cafeteria, whatever you prefer."

Butterfly nodded and tightened her grip on her dog/bear as anticipation clawed at her stomach.

It seemed like it was only yesterday when she was woken up in the middle of the night by an ear-splitting shriek. She knew that was her momma who was screaming; daddy didn't scream like that, his voice was deeper than momma's. Butterfly was too scared to stumble down those steps that daddy always feel down because momma left her bottles on the steps and daddy would get mad and yell about. She could only curl up closer to Baby, her stuffed bear or dog that was given to her on her fourth birthday. It smelled like the man who gave it to her; like strawberries. She remembered hearing things fall and momma scream and kick, but Butterfly heard this almost every night, whenever daddy came back from the bar or his friend's house after work. Daddy was always angry and mommy was always sick and always drinking from her little bottles. Daddy hit mommy all the time, but mommy told her daughter that this was how it's supposed to be.

"It's okay, husbands need to correct their wives when they're wrong," Momma had said to her in a soft voice.

Butterfly was not expecting to walk down those stairs in the morning to see momma hanging from the pipes in the kitchen ceiling; a TV cord wrapped around her neck and a chair knocked over below her dangling feet. Daddy wasn't on the couch like usual. No, daddy was lying on the living room floor, a knife sticking out of his chest and momma's bottle lying on the ground next to them.

"Butterfly?" Roger asked, bringing the girl back to reality when he saw her body start shaking.

"Can I take Baby with me?" She asked in a tiny voice, holding the stuffed animal close to her in trembling hands.

"Of course, you can," Watari said, stepping into the office with Ryuuzaki following him. Butterfly noticed Ryuuzaki even stood funny, he was hunched over and his fingers were shoved in the pockets of his jeans as his onyx eyes studied the trembling girl.

"Shall we finish our tour?" Ryuuzaki asked politely in his monotone voice. Butterfly gave a weak nod of her head and hopped off the chair and followed Ryuuzaki out the door.

Ryuuzaki walked hunched over as well but Butterfly didn't want to be rude and ask him why.

"Who gave you that animal, Butterfly?" Ryuuzaki asked as he led the girl down the halls.

"The… man… in my backyard…" She answered feeling stupid. He'll never believe that… he's going to think I'm stupid…

Ryuuzaki didn't seem surprised or shocked he just asked, "What was that man's name?"

"I don't know," Butterfly responded as she looked at the stained glass windows they were walking by. "He came by every year on my birthday… he said he was my daddy… but momma said Joey was my daddy," She explained in a confused but serious tone.

"Ah," Ryuuzaki mused as his brain began to race. Butterfly absent mindedly fiddled with Baby's pink ear as Ryuuzaki brought his thumb to his lip and thought. Butterfly saw an open room that looked like a play room with some toys and little tables and chairs with pieces of paper and markers sitting on them. There was another room around this size but it was empty except for a laptop sitting on a table with a little webcam.

Ryuuzaki ushered her past it and stopped at a closed door.

"This is the library," He explained and turned the handle and pushed the door open. Butterfly gasped, there were so many shelves stuffed with books of all sizes. Thick volumes and thin paperbacks, fiction and non-fiction, everything from Poe to Shakespeare, from Animal Farm to books about the Second World War. Some computers were set up in the back as they hummed quietly to themselves on stand-by just waiting to be started up.

"Do you like reading?" Ryuuzaki asked. Butterfly could only nod as her brain took all this in. She used to spend countless hours reading as her parents fought than made up with alcohol and love-making. Books just took the small girl away from the real world.

"Once your classes for the day are over," Ryuuzaki said, "you'll have time to pursue your own interests, meaning you'll have full access to whatever you want to read."

After Ryuuzaki had shown Butterfly the mess hall, the subject of the strange man who had been visiting the girl yearly had seemed to be dropped. But Ryuuzaki couldn't let the idea go.

It just can't be… no it can be, maybe I just don't want it to be true… He thought as he tugged on his lip with his thumb.

"Butterfly," He addressed her as they were making their way to the girl's new room.

"Yes, Ryuuzaki?" She responded as she found herself staring out one of the big windows out to the playground where some of the children were playing. The classes for the day had ended and the children of Wammy's house were doing homework, playing outside, playing indoors, or reading.

"What did that man look like?"

Butterfly thought hard for a moment, trying to reach back to her memories of those nights, her pointer finger ending up in her mouth as she thought.

"I don't remember," She admitted sadly. "I'm so sorry, Ryuuzaki."

Ryuuzaki didn't give up that easily. "Can you remember anything about him? A scent? Or a specific feature?"

Butterfly thought again as she bit her nail thoughtfully. "Yeah… he smelled like strawberries."

Ryuuzaki nodded, "Thank you, if you remember anything else, tell Roger and he will contact me." Butterfly nodded and they had reached their destination.

Butterfly's room had two beds in it, one was covered in a purple blanket and had a zebra stripped pillow her favorite pillow from home. And the other bed had a soft colored light blue blanket and a fluffy white pillow with a toy robot lying on top of the well made bed.

But what caught her attention the most was the city of blocks constructed on the floor. It was huge! Tons of little buildings and big building too, there even seemed to be a few little people set up around the smaller building that looked like stores and houses. Whoever did this must have been working on it for a day straight at least.

Ryuuzaki chuckled quietly at the awed expression on the child's face and watched as she removed her black boots, one sock getting stuck in the boot and getting pulled off along with it, leaving her with one sock on one foot, and the other foot bare. She didn't bother to put the other sock back on so she took the boots and placed them next to the foot of her bed neatly.

"Let's go meet your roommate," Ryuuzaki instructed and received a small nod from the girl who seemed to be growing more confident by the second. He held open the door for her and she walked out, one sock on, one foot bare.

They reached a room where a few children were playing with toys and some were coloring pictures with neon markers. There was a TV on too but it was only playing the World News channel, though a few children seemed completely absorbed by it, clinging on to every word.

Ryuuzaki didn't go into view of the children in that room; he didn't want any more commotion than there already was today. So he simply said, "He's in here, he shouldn't be too hard to find." Then he began to walk away but as he got maybe two feet away Butterfly suddenly spoke up.

"Ryuuzaki, he had red eyes," she said than shyly walked into the room full of children.

Ryuuzaki didn't turn around, in fact he kept walking. He had been right but he couldn't stop the feeling of fear that shot through him as he heard that. Red eyes… She said he had red eyes… than it must be true… there's no other explanation…

Near was sitting on the floor near the television that was talking about a murder case in Portugal which he half listened to. He stacked another card carefully to add to the house he had created in less than ten minutes. A few of the children were muttering quietly to one another as someone else walked into the room. Near didn't really like the other's too much, they were too loud and frankly Near didn't find them in any way competition. Linda was the second smartest in this school, but she fell under him by quite a few points. Near stacked another card as the news station started talking about political elections in America.

The white-haired boy looked over a few seconds later to see what had everyone muttering to each other, he didn't like being left out. A girl who he hadn't seen around before was sitting by herself looking around, registering everyone's faces down in her mind, or so it looked. She had long black hair that looked a bit crooked, like it was trimmed with kitchen scissors by someone who had no idea what they were doing. Her eyes were big and a bright ice-blue color and they flickered around endlessly as she cuddled an orange creature that looked cross between a bear and a dog with a pink ear, a green ear, a pink foot, a green foot, a pink hand, a green hand, a green belly and a green tail. Near thought the creature looked rather odd to him. She wore dark jeans and a black shirt that looked a bit too big but Near didn't see anything wrong with that considering what he often found himself wearing.

Her legs were crossed and one foot had a sock on it and the other was completely bare.

She looked over at Near and looked at the house of cards he had set up. Almost as if this told her something. She scooted over closer to him and smiled a bit shyly.

"I'm Butterfly," She muttered just loud enough for Near to hear.

"Near," He replied in a small monotone voice. She almost seemed to be biting back a laugh. The five-year-old stared at her, eyes slightly narrowed. Near had to admit he was used to people laughing about him but he also had to admit he was sensitive.

"What's funny?" He asked.

"Nothing…" She responded embarrassed, "You just sound like Ryuuzaki…"

Near was a bit shocked. She's met L…

"Okay… I'm not upset… I just thought you were like," He dropped his voice, "them…"

"What do you mean?"

Near shrugged his small shoulders as he placed another card, he hadn't spoken this much with any other children in awhile, if he ever had.

"They enjoy attacking others for things that are different…" He muttered. "I don't think it's mature."

Butterfly nodded. "It's not very nice either." She studied Near as he worked on his house of cards. "You mad that city in my room, didn't you?" She asked.

"My room and yes. You must be the roommate Roger said was coming today. So it would be our room then." Near wasn't really happy about sharing his space with anyone but he did enjoy the small conversation they just had. He supposed he could live with this.

Butterfly wandered into her room later that night after dinner was served. She was dead on her feet from all that walking and she was ready to sleep. Near was sitting on the floor, twirling a strand of his white hair as he placed a block on a new building he added to his little city. Butterfly had to admit the albino seemed really smart for a five-year-old; in fact he seemed smarter than she could ever dream to be. He wore baggy white pajamas and he always played with his hair, and he probably didn't even know he was doing it.

She looked over and her eyes widened as she saw a plastic bag sitting on her pillow. Inside were a bunch of the red jellybeans, Ryuuzaki said they were cherry flavored. She jumped on to her bed and crawled over to the bag and grabbed it and looked it over as she took in the sight of solely the cherry jellybeans inside. Attached to the bag was a single slip of paper that had nothing on it except for an old-English L.

Butterfly fell asleep shortly after to the sensation of the taste of cherry lingering in her mouth, the feel of Baby snuggled up against her chest and the sound of Near constructing his city of blocks.

She sleep dreamlessly that night even though she was going to be starting classes tomorrow.

A/N: I put song quotes of the song I was listening to while writing... xD

I would like to thank Bree Renee for being my first reviewer :D *huggles* And thanks to everyone who read this so far.

-Debra

BTW This is not a Near love story folks. Sorry :)