Author's Note: ^_^ Your guys' reviews are so awesome! They really make me want to do my best!

BTW, this chapter was getting to be pretty freaking long, so I broke it down into two. Hope that's cool with you guys :)

Disclaimer: I do not own Death Note, or anything remotely associated with it.

August 2, 2024. 12:21 AM... 22 Days Left.

"What are you doing Jewel?"

He was going to think I was crazy. He was going to report me to Near and have me removed if I told him, but I couldn't help myself, "I saw them. I saw them today! They're alive! Mello and Matt are alive!"

"So what are you saying? You're chasing ghosts now?"

I wasn't going to take that from him. I packed up my sparse belongings and left the building in an absolute furry. I made it back to my apartment forty minutes later and found a white and red rosary hanging on my door.

This, wasn't funny anymore.

I cupped my face in my hands and just stood there for a minute trying to keep my brain from having an aneurism. "This isn't happening. Thisisn'thappeningThisisn'thappeningThisisn'thappening." This was all too much! There was no warning. There were no 'Hey, today is really going to mess with your mind' notifications or Post-It's anywhere.

...If this was some sick joke, someone was going to die.

I crept up to my door and listened through the wood. No sound. I removed the rosary from the door knob and took the knob in my hand; it was unlocked. I listened again, but all I could hear was my ragged breathing and my heart pounding. I opened the door a crack, braced myself, and then opened the door a hair more. With every last bit of courage I had I threw the door back and checked frantically around a seemingly empty room.

Not all was as I had left it.

At first glance nothing was missing, but something quite peculiar caught my eye. My Play Station consol, usually kept in the bottom cupboard of my TV stand, was sitting out on the carpet and a controller was suspiciously leading to an empty couch. The TV was on, but the sound was not. A continuous loop of Call of Duty was playing on the screen.

Without taking my eyes off the scene before me I reached my long pale arm into my coat closet for my baseball bat. It wasn't there.

"Yeah, actually, I took the liberty of removing that. A concussion was not something I wanted today."

Matt.

Somehow I figured nothing Matt or Mello could come up with would surprise me anymore.

A mop of shaggy red hair lifted itself off the couch that was facing away from me. Matt turned and I my silver eyes met his green ones and I was speechless for only the fifth time in my life. In all of my extensive vocabulary I had no words for this situation. I eventually settled with, "I knew they should have had me committed."

Matt helped me to the couch and I sat there for ten minutes pinching the bridge of my nose while Matt made me tea and asked every other minute whether or not I was alright.

"Anything else I can get you?" he asked when he brought me my steaming cup of jasmine tea. I had a serious love affair with jasmine tea.

"Bubblegum," I mumbled as I sipped down a piping hot mouthful of the glorious beverage.

Without needing to ask me where it was, Matt went over to my desk drawer and tossed me a full pack. I shoved four sticks in my mouth before I even remotely started to calm down. "Ess-plain," I finally said after a minute, a bulging ball of bum protruding under my cheek.

Matt sat in the armchair opposite me and sighed before speaking. I noticed that there wasn't much, if anything at all, which had changed about him. He looked older of course, but still held a slight build and a carefree look in his eyes. I could tell after only ten minutes he was still inherently laid back.

"There isn't much to explain Gem," he told me. "I don't know what you want to know."

"You're alive Matt! How? Why? What's going on? Are you a part of the crime syndicate Near's organization I looking into? Is..." I didn't know if I could say it.

"'Is Mello alive too?'" Matt asked for me.

"Is he?"

Matt dug in his vest pocket then, a vest that was almost an exact duplicate for the one I had last seen him in, except for that it had obviously changed with the passing styles. He pulled out a pack of cigarettes for himself and then fished in another pocket and pulled out a battered pair of glasses. "I'm sorry kid, they didn't quite make it," he tossed the glasses to me.

I caught them easily and examined them closely. The prescription glass had cracked in one of the lenses and completely fallen out in the other and the arms on both sides were loose. If thirty feet had done this to my glasses, I shuddered at the thought of what the fall would have done to me.

"I've got an appointment with Mello in a half an hour," Matt mentioned as he stuck a cigarette in the corner of his mouth. I wasn't pleased at the idea of him still smoking and I really wasn't pleased at the idea of him smoking in my house; but I didn't say anything. "Same place I ran into you earlier," he continued.

Matt was still digging in his pockets; looking for a lighter I assumed. I dug in my own cargo pocket and tossed him mine. "Don't burn the place down," I said coldly and left to go find Mello.

I made it back to that infamous side street with five minutes to spare. I used that time to get positioned in an inconspicuous crack in the city subsystem.

Mello showed up right on time.

I couldn't believe my eyes, and I wasn't even sure if I wanted to. It was him, it was Mello.

Hold me.

He was everything I remembered and then even better. Mello's golden hair was choppy under his hooded coat. The sky was dark, and the orange glow from the street lamps distorted colours and shadows, but I could still see the glorious cerulean blue of Mello's eyes.

Kiss me.

My heart screamed with excitement in my chest. Mello was alive. Mello was standing there before me like he had so many countless times before. He was the same Mello I had met at Wammy's, he was the same Mello I had met again four years later on the other side of the country. He was the same Mello I had watched burn in a horrific fire, and yet here he was.

Love me.

I took a chance. I stepped out from my hiding place into the light. My breathing was ragged and shallow and I had to fight to keep myself from falling over from the lack of oxygen. Mello saw my motion and turned to face me.

My eyes met his and my heart leaped again in my chest. My ribs were beginning to ache and my toes and fingers were going numb, but I was willing to endure a million times that pain to have this moment.

The tingling started at the tip of my nose and worked its way along the crests of my cheeks and along to my ears, behind my eyes and down my neck.

"Mello," I whispered, and then all noise stopped.

No noise, no sound, no motion. There was no blood pounding in my ears, no electrical buzz from the street lights. The traffic noises stopped and the Earth froze up in time and space. Everything stopped in the world except us.

"Coffee then?" Mello asked, and the world restarted.

Mello turned away and I followed after him. We found a tiny cafe in the middle of nowhere that was miraculously still open after midnight. There were only three other customers in the whole place. One was a frumpy and crinkled business man too responsible to go to the bar, but not responsible enough to just go home. His tie was loose around his neck and he had a five o'clock shadow which was growing steadily longer in the wee hours of the morning.

The other two were a pair of police officers who were, no doubt, on their break. They had the kind of light in their eyes that was already dimming and signalling exhaustion although it was probably only halfway through their shift. They had two mugs in front of them and they each had a plate with the remains of a donut on it. The barista had found her way over to their table and was refilling their mugs.

When the hostess saw us her eyes lit up and a cheery smile plastered itself on her face. "Oh, good morning." I suppose it was the morning... technically. "You can seat yourselves if you like. I'll be with you in a minute." She was probably overjoyed to have new customers this late at... this EARLY in the morning.

Mello and I grabbed a booth tucked away in the far corner of the cafe. I was a little worried when we were passing the police officers; knowing Mello's habits I could only assume he was wanted for something. But the pair paid us no mind.

We sat in silence for a moment until the waitress came. I asked for a cup of tea; Mello pulled out a bar of chocolate and shook his head at the girl. Some things never change.

After ten minutes the silence between us was getting uncomfortable.

"Mello, I-"

"Look, you need to stay out of this business," Mello cut me off. After eleven years that's all he had to say to me? He might as well have just slapped me across the face.

"Mello, I-" I tried again, but with the same results.

"You really caused a lot of problems by interfering today, you know that? And that stupid Matt had to go and find you and PURPOSEFULLY bring you back here. That was really smart of him."

Mello's words hurt, but still, being able to hear his voice again after all this time instilled an inner peace in me.

"Matt was kind enough to tell me. Matt cared about me and my feelings when apparently you don't! Don't you dare fault him for that."

"If Matt really cared about you, he wouldn't have said anything. He would have gone on and let you believe that we were still dead."

"Why?" I asked solemnly.

"I didn't want you around."

I pretended that what he said didn't affect me. "So what else is new Mello? You've never wanted me around unless you could gain something from me."

"So why won't you get that through your thick skull and leave me alone?"

I glared angrily at him. I felt a small snarl tug at my mouth but I kept it in check. I pushed away from the table, threw down a ten from my pocket onto the table, and headed for the door. If he wanted me to leave him alone, well fine then... at least that's what I was telling myself.

The strands of my silver hair that had fallen out of my bun throughout the chaos of the day got caught in the cool night breeze and glinted in the moonlight. I stared up at the moon and envied it. The only thing the pale orb in the night sky ever had to worry about was pulling the tides. The moon never had to worry about falling in love; it didn't have to worry about someday the Earth deciding to leave it and find another moon or solar system to spend time with. Lucky moon.

"Jewel!" I heard him call after me. "Jewel."

Call me one more time I dared silently. I wasn't in the mood for this bullshit anymore. It felt like my mind had turned off, like it wasn't working anymore. No more data could be processed tonight. System failure imminent.

"Jewel!"

That did it.

I stopped walking and heard Mello come up on my left. When I knew he was within striking distance I wound up for a right hook.

I should have known better.

Author's Note: So, it's uh, -21 degrees outside and snowing, and for whatever reason my heater is refusing to do its job properly. My nose and fingers are freezing!

But then, THIS IS CANADA! And we freaking embrace the cold! MUHAHAHAHA!

In Soviet Canada, we bite the frost!

...but no, seriously. Someone from California and or Florida and or Hawaii... come get me :)