A/N: I didn't think it would be so hard to write L as a child. He's seven. But he's brilliant. But... he's seven! If you've any suggestions for improvement, let's have them!

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Chapter 3: hEEL

I was speechless. This child, this skinny barefoot little urchin, was the one who had cracked date the sequence of the mad bombings and commissioned me—the renowned inventor who turned down 90 percent of commissions due to lack of time or, I confess, interest—to make a highly complicated technological device?

He must have seen my reaction, because he said, "I'm not what you expected. This is partly why I had to be sure that I could trust you before we met."

Now that there was more light, I got a much better look at his face. He was very pale but, apart from that, he didn't look typically English. In fact, I couldn't place him squarely in any ethnic pigeon hole. He definitely had something Asian about him, and perhaps something of Eastern Europe too, although it was hard to say. He sounded local, no trace of a foreign accent.

"But... we already met." I said.

"That's true. I immediately had a very good feeling about you, Mr. Wammy."This was beyond odd. Here I was, a small child talking to me like he was my boss. All the while I had to fight the impulse to squat down beside him to get onto his eye-level. Instead, I looked out through the window behind him. It was facing the back garden of the house, a part I had not already seen. There was a small side building there that looked like a garage. Its doors were open, and outside it stood a car. A black car with blacked out windows. My breath caught in my throat. L saw me looking and turned his head. Of course, he could not see out the window from his place on the floor, but he must have guessed what I saw.

"I hope you realise I have to be careful," he said.

"You tested me. You, or Smythe, sent that man to see if I could be trusted. That was a very dirty trick, L."

"Yes. I'm sorry."

He looked suitably ashamed, lowering his head and staring at the floor. I felt a sting of regret. Yes, he was highly intelligent, and quite the little schemer, but he was still just a child.

"Well," I said, "now that's out of the way, I hope we can agree to trust each-other and that there will be no need for further tricks. Agreed?"

"Agreed. Thank you."

He still looked like I had reprimanded him in front of an entire class of his peers. Was it an act? If so, what was the need for it?

"In return you can explain to me why you believe the next attack will be today. I didn't have the time to work out the maths last night, as I had plenty of work to do on the device."

My real reason was of course that I wanted to see how his mind worked, if he was really as brilliant as Smythe had claimed.

"Sure. It really is not complicated. Between the first attack on the 26th of May 1986 and the second on the 14th of January there were 233 days. Between the second and the third—the 7th of June—there were 144 days. Between the third and fourth—September the 4th—there were 89 days. Do you see?"

I had to think about it for a minute, then the answer was apparent. "89 plus 144 equals 233. The time between the fourth and third attack, and that between the third and second add up to that between the second and the first!"

"Precisely. So therefore we can conclude that if we subtract 89 from 144 we get 55, we add that on to the 4th of September, we get October the 29th..."

"Which is today. That's amazing..."

"Not really. Using Fibonacci numbers is a very old numerical trick. I find that they are mostly used by people who want to appear more intelligent than they are. Fibonacci numbers are not mathematically complex, to work them out is child's play..." he gave me a tiny, self-conscious smile, "but their inherent symmetrical appeal lends a sort of glamour of mysticism, or at least simplicity and elegance, to the user. It's a rather cheap trick actually."

"Working this out is still pretty advanced for a... what are you, six? Seven?"

"Nearly eight, but that's hardly relevant. The numbers are the same, no matter the age of the person who counts them."

I had to bite down hard not to laugh at that. He was right, in a way, but it was such a tremendously precocious thing to say. Somehow I managed to swallow my amusement.

"Why do you call yourself L?" I asked.

"Can you keep a secret? Oh, sorry, I already know you can, don't I?"

"Yes."

"It's my name. But the great thing is that nobody will believe it is, and as such is it as good as any alias I could take."

"L is your name? Your full name?"

He shrugged his little shoulders and stuck his thumb between his lips.

"It's all they've ever called me. Apparently, it's on my birth certificate, or so I've been told. Maybe my parents didn't have time to decide on a full name. It really doesn't matter much; it is only a label of identification."

The fact that such a young child should speak so matter-of-factly about his parent's death struck me as intensely sad.

"What happened to your parents?" I asked before I could stop myself.

"I'm told they died in a fire just after I was born."

"I'm sorry."

"Thank you," L said. "It's okay though; I have no recollection of the event."
I wanted to kneel down on the floor, put my hands on his tiny shoulders and tell him to stop being so bloody pragmatic, but I didn't. Silence settled like a thick blanket over us and the blinding sunshine fell through the window to light up motes of dust on their way to the floor. A sudden shrill noise cut through the moment and L stood up to answer the telephone on the wall. It must not have been put in specifically for him, because he had to stand on his tip-toes to reach it, and the receiver was larger than his whole head.

He listened for a while without interrupting, then thanked the caller and hung up.

"There's been another one," he said, turning to me. "A house on Gordon Road. They don't know if anybody else was in there. We have to wait for the police to finish up the examination of the crime scene."

Another bombing? So, his theory held water. Which reminded me of something I had been about to ask before we got into talking about his age.

"If the attacks are following the reversed Fibonacci sequence, then they will eventually reach a point where they stop, isn't that right?"

L nodded. "Yes. I have worked out that there will be a total of 13 attacks, unless we manage to stop him before that."

"Why are you so sure that there is one man behind this? Might it not be an organisation?"

"It could be, but even if so, they will have a leader. I still think there's a single mad-man behind it. First of all because the bombings seem so pointless. They are not, to him, of course. They are some kind of code, only one that I haven't been able to crack yet." He frowned and clenched his fists, then continued, "But there is no organisation at work today that would seem to benefit from any of these attacks... I hate to say it, but I need more clues. I need him to leave something for me to work with."

L unfolded a map of central Winchester and pulled the cap off a large red marker. Tracing a little finger along the paper, he found the spot of today's explosion and marked it with a red dot. There didn't seem to be any pattern evolving among those red dots.

After marking the spot on the map, L opened a small plastic box and took out some white index cards that he stuck to the map with globs of Blu Tack. The cards had names and dates written on them.

"May 26, 1986, Unidentified male. Car registered in Edinburgh to a William Wells. Reported stolen on the 22nd of May. Mr. Wells not a suspect according police."

"January 14, 1987, Diego Garcia, Tourist from Barcelona, Spain. Rings bell and blows up, killing house owner Marc Molorat instantly.

"June 7, 1987, Henry Wright, Winchester. Witnessed before detonation chasing hikers and screaming hysterically. Claimed to have 'a bulky right leg' – believed to have been explosives.

"September 4, 1987, George Gregory Goldfish, Winchester. Witnesses claim he 'seemed to limp and his left leg appeared to be bulky and irregular like he was hiding something under his trouserleg'."

While I watched, L wrote "October 29, 1987" on a fresh card in his childishly imperfect hand and stuck it to the map on Gordon Rd.

"These people," I said, "Don't appear to have anything to do with each-other. You have two from here, one from Spain and one from Edinburgh..."

"The car was from Edinburgh. We don't know about the driver."

"Well, nevertheless..."

L capped the marker, dropped it and rubbed his eyes with his fists. "I'm hungry," he said.

"As a matter of fact, so am I. I didn't have breakfast, come to think of it."

"I did. Mrs. White, the housekeeper, don't let us eat between meals. She says that if I ate something every time I got hungry, I'd grow up to be a big fat blob that nobody likes. But I don't think she likes me very much as it is... Do you like me, Mr. Wammy?"

I was quite taken aback by the straightforward question but hemmed and hawed and eventually managed to say "Yes, sure I do. You seem like a very nice boy."

His little face lit up, almost like he had lured me into a harmless and playful trap. "Then will you bring me out for ice-cream?" he said.

Cheeky little bugger. I couldn't help but smile at the expectant look on his face though, so I said, "If it's alright with Mr. Smythe."

It was alright with Mr. Smythe, and after getting a coat for L from the children's communal closet, we were walking down the road heading for a small café near the cathedral. I was surprised at how much like a normal child he suddenly was, walking beside me and even holding my hand. For all the world we must have looked like any grandfather and son. With no grandchildren—or even children—of my own, I felt a little awkward and unsure of how to act, but it was still quite nice to have some company for once.

The bell above the door to the café chimed as I pushed the door open. The place was nearly empty, only two men in paint-splattered overalls near the door, finishing their fry-ups. The glass case of the counter showed a wide range of cakes, pastries, sandwiches and many flavours of ice-cream. L seemed almost transfixed by the display. I couldn't blame him, it must have been like Christmas come early. Although, I could imagine what Christmas would be like at the orphanage, under supervision of the no doubt charming Mrs. White. I had been inside enough of those places. A small bowl of powdery, artificial vanilla ice-cream would be the height of festivities in most of them.

I ordered a full English breakfast for myself and waited for L to make his mind up. It took some time, and when several minutes had gone by and he was still staring into the display case with his mittens pressed against the glass, I had to prompt him. "So, what would you like?"

He looked up at me, for the first time meeting my eyes fully. His eyes really were almost abnormally large and it gave him somewhat of an exaggerated cartoonish look, like someone had drew a little orphan child and intentionally made the picture look heartbreaking and cute.

"You mean... I can have whatever I want?"

Well, within reason, I almost added, because he looked like my offer was not at all limited to one of the contents of the case.

"Did you not want ice-cream?"

"Yes. There's lots..."

I couldn't hold back a smile any longer. Decision making definitely seemed to be an issue here, so I thought I'd narrow it down for him.

"Well, pick a flavour then, and we'll have the lady make a sundae." Or we'll be here all day, I didn't say.

"Matcha?" he said and for a full second, my brain stood completely still.

"You want green tea ice cream? I don't think they have that... where did you even learn that word?" I used to live in Tokyo when I was younger, which was the only reason I even knew what he was talking about. Was he trying to be difficult?

"Japan. What's that? It's green." He pointed.

"That's pistachio."

"I'll have that."

Pistachio sundae was probably not their most ordered dessert, but my breakfast arrived then and I nodded at the woman behind the counter. She had been listening and smiling throughout the conversation, and she said "I'll fix something nice for you," and grabbed a glass cup from a shelf.

"You have been to Japan?" I asked L.

"Mhm. I lived with my grandfather there until I was five. He didn't like me at all. He said I exhausted him, and he wanted me to go to school here in England."

School, yes. It was a Thursday, should he not be in school?

"I only have to go every other week," he explained. "Because I learn everything fast. I wanted to just read on my own and sit the A-levels right away, but they won't let me. Says I need the 'social interaction'." He rolled his eyes a little but then the waitress brought his ice cream over and any troubles were forgotten as he laid eyes on the cream and chocolate sauce with the cherry on top.

"A-levels are for 16 year olds... never mind."

I ate my breakfast in silence. Despite—or rather because of—his intelligence, L was going to have to struggle with rules and regulations and people holding him back all his life. It seemed an awful shame. Perhaps I could offer him better opportunities if I was to move him to my own orphanage—the Wammy's House. In fact, perhaps the Wammy's House itself would be of better service to the community if I was to tailor it specifically to take it gifted children. Children who would otherwise never reach their potential. It was definitely worth thinking about.

When we got back to Milesdown, the other children were playing outside under the strict supervision of a man I had not seen before. He frowned when he saw us, but didn't say anything. A boy about twelve ran up and stuck his tongue out at L, who ignored him, although I could feel his grip on my hand tighten. He was very quiet until we got back up to his room, the only place he really seemed able to relax. There was an envelope on the bed, which he grabbed and tore open. I sheet of paper and a photograph fell out. While L read the letter, I picked up the photo and looked at it. It showed some sort of wooden surface, perhaps a table, and it looked like it had been charred and wiped clean again. Something was carved into the wood, a single underlined word in inverse capitalisation. hEEL.

"What on earth is this?" I asked.

L looked up and took the picture from me, holding it delicately by one corner like he didn't want to get his fingerprints all over it.

"It's from the crime scene," he said. "It says someone broke it and carved it into the table. And then blew up. One of the neighbours recognised him, said he looked absolutely terrified when he broke down the door. Apparently, his name is Arthur Larbig. Was."

I had no idea what to say, and I didn't really have time to say anything, because L looked up and said, "Mr. Wammy, I need to think about the case now, and I would like you to start work on the device, if at all possible. This is going to get dangerous for both of us, and I would like us to use an alias for you as well when dealing with any outsiders or the police. May I call you Watari?"

"Um, yes. Why that name?"

"I like that name."

He was already writing the new information onto the card on the map, leaving me standing there, lost for words again.

"Fine. I will come back tomorrow then..." I said.

"Please wait until I contact you unless there is something urgent. The less time you spend here, the better. The next attack will not be until December the 12th so you have until then to complete the device."

"..."

I turned to leave, opening the door, and he spoke again. "Watari. Thank you for the ice cream."

"You're welcome... L."

Feeling strangely deflated, I headed back to my workshop and another long night's work.

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Disclaimer: Please note that, although most of the place and business names in this story do/have exist/ed in the real world, this is only an indication that I'm too lazy to make up fictional names and simply resort to using google. Alot. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead is purely coincidental. Watari's name in this is Quillish because it is in the book and it sounds more like a real name to me than 'Quillsh'. Timeline taken from the manga/book, not the anime. Some scenes taken from the anime. No offence meant to people living in Winchester or anywhere else. The political views of anyone in this piece of fiction is not necessarily shared by the author. Death Note is the property of people who aren't me. No animals were injured in the making of this fic. Watari may or may not have invented a glow in the dark carpet. Article is provided "as is" without any warranties. Some in-jokes may occur. Not responsible for direct, indirect, incidental or consequential damages resulting from any defect, error or failure to perform. Feedback is appreciated. Thank you very much reading this fic.