Don't be a fool you haven't reached your peak
You got a fast car racing up inside you
Your life is incomplete
Hang on in there hang on in there

- 'Hang On In There' by Queen

Jenny had not stopped bugging Sara about this new 'assignment' since she had agreed to it. The entire notion of it sounded silly and unbelievable, and her best friend had not spared her that reminder, laughing at her expense. She was rather glad to be sitting back in front of the mirror in Teri's dressing-room again, in familiar surroundings.

She carefully wiped away the remnants of her red lipstick with a makeup pad, as if she were cleaning herself off ready to take on the world's harsh realities again. Actually, she liked not having to wear makeup. She was more herself when with a clear complexion. For 'Ryuzaki's' instructions of wearing something nice, she applied only eye makeup, and lightly at that, with shimmering silver eyeshadow and some mascara.

As she tied her hair up into a neat ponytail, she spotted a figure lurking in her mirror. Her heart dropped into the soles of her shoes. Of course she knew that person. She would have been absurdly stupid not to have known him. Sporting a cap and white tracksuit, Paul Marshall stepped into full view. His jaws closing repeatedly around the days-old chewing gum in his mouth could be heard easily from where Sara was sitting.

"Hello, babe," he sneered. "You've been slacking again. This is the second time I've had to come to see you in person."

"Come now, Paul," Sara said dryly, "I'm sure it's just because you like coming to visit me."

His fist slammed down on the table in front of her, causing her to flinch back. "That job I got you a couple of nights ago, Sara, I want the money. This ain't a fucking charity. Pay me what you owe me."

She stood up, putting simple silver studs in her ears and turning her back on him. "I don't owe you anything, Paul, because there wasn't anything. The job was a dud, all right? There's no money."

"If you're lying to me…" he growled.

"I'm not," she insisted. "You put my ad in the wrong bloody column. 'Private detection'! You really fucked up that one. I'm not paying you for anything, because there's nothing. And you didn't keep your end of the bargain. You get me good jobs, you get good pay."

"I might rethink that deal if you screw me over with anything, babydoll," he threatened.

Sara stopped and considered the indirect edge to his words. He was right: if she was incapable of bringing him back any cash, she knew what he could do to her. Girls like her had been thrown to gangs and left to starve for less than what she had done. As easy as it was to get hold of money from horny politicians and bank managers, it was even easier to lose it all. Hooking was still hooking, and if you ran with dogs, you shouldn't be surprised if you got a few bites.

She knew every time she was handed the wad of notes, she was selling a part of herself she could not get back. Not wanting to be seen as weak, she said none of this to Paul. Instead, she pulled her jacket around her shoulders and turned her back on him.

Downstairs at the bar, Iona looked to be ruthlessly interrogating Ryuzaki, to which Sara face-palmed, embarrassed. Naturally, he looked relieved to see her arrive. Iona raised a finger at him, halting him before he could approach the blonde. "Oh, nu-uh, wait there, mate," she warned. She surprised them both by jumping up over the bar to join them.

"We should probably go," Sara put in quickly.

"Wait," Iona insisted. She processed the two, then pushed them into place so that they stood awkwardly side by side. Her lips turned up at the corners. "You guys are such a freakin' weird couple, I swear to God."

"No, we're not a couple," Ryuzaki corrected her.

"Business partners, friends with benefits, fuck buddies, I don't care," Iona shrugged.

"Watari is in the car outside," L informed Sara hastily, and nudged her with his elbow in the direction of the door. She nodded, trying not to laugh.

"You don't deserve her sweet ass, Ryuzaki, I'm warning you!" Iona called after them, prior to wolf-whistling. "She is hotter than anything you've probably ever set hands on! Watch him, Posh-!"

The car was undoubtedly one of the most luxurious she had ever set foot in, and that was saying something. Being a whore did not mean that you were rented out only to seedy, poor clients. In fact, rather the opposite. She had almost been caught up in a scandal involving a prominent British politician when one of the other girls participating had tried to sell the story to a tabloid – ironically, the tabloid that Ryuzaki had found her advertisement in.

Nothing much could be said on the way to the hotel they would be having dinner at, although ordinarily a gentleman would have commented on his companion's choice of attire or hoping that she liked the food that would be served at the meal they were attending.

Instead, what she got was: "Why do they call you Posh?"

"You what?"

"Everyone at the club, I hear them addressing you by the name of Posh. Clearly that is not your real name, nor is it an abbreviation of Sara or Kelly. So what is it that means they call you that?" he elaborated, speaking slowly and in a monotone as if he thought her terribly stupid.

"Oh," she mumbled. She cleared her throat. "Most of the girls I… work with… uh… they come from the less wealthy boroughs of London, or from the… um… less savory… parts of other cities, like Bristol or Birmingham or Liverpool, but me, my family was middle class. I came from Westminster. Dad was an accountant and Mum was a housewife."

"I see. So they believed you to be… 'posh' because of your former background?" He frowned. "I still find it difficult it to comprehend how a young lady from Westminster, most likely with extremely supportive family and higher expectations, enters prostitution eighteen years old."

"We'll leave that one for another time, shall we?" she said firmly.

"What is the problem with speaking of it-? I shall have to thoroughly research your origins to ensure-"

"All right, Ryuzaki," Sara said. "I'm going to teach you a few rules about women. I know this is going to be difficult, since clearly you have never spent more than thirty minutes in the company of a real woman. So here we go. One: when we say a conversation is over, it ends pretty damn fast. Two: we are not wrong. Ever. Even when you think we're wrong, that's just because we want you to think it. Three: when a woman says she's fine, it often means things could be better. And four, though I don't think this will ever be of use to you: pick-up lines don't work."

"I am quite frankly surprised that there are only four rules," he admitted.

"Oh, there's a hell of a lot more than just four," Sara explained, "but you're still only in basic training, and haven't even graduated past puberty-worthy understanding of females yet. You may get there, you may not. I'm thinking maybe not…"

"Do not underestimate me. I am considerably more intelligent than you presume."

She smiled, raising an eyebrow. Her voice was annoyingly sarcastic. "I'm sure you are."

Her control of the situation she found herself in was short-lived. The extravagant and expensive-looking hotel, adorned with satins and gilt, put a lump in her throat again as she remembered what she was doing there. She and Ryuzaki followed the older man, Watari, through to the elevator, instead of going to the restaurant. Okay, she had not been expecting that they would be ordering room service. At least in public, she would have had buffers to witness if things got out of hand.

Food had already arrived, having been ordered beforehand. The table in Ryuzaki's suite was pleasantly laid out.

She noticed that in the seat Ryuzaki took there was only confectionary. Seriously, was that all he ate? Was it any wonder he looked so wired, unable to sleep, with all the sugar in his system? Damn, he'd been asking her whether she had any diseases, and he was probably diabetic. What a fucking hypocrite.

"So, Miss Kelly? I see Ryuzaki managed to persuade you to dine with us," Watari remarked amicably.

"Oh?" she said. "'Persuade' is the word he used, was it?"

"He inferred something of the sort," Watari smiled. "I wondered if it may have been other reasons, seeing as Ryuzaki has never been a particularly conventional person."

"So that's what they're calling it these days," Sara murmured.

"Are you enjoying your wasabi beans, Miss Kelly?" Watari interjected, hoping to diffuse the tension.

She attempted to pick one up with the chopsticks provided, only to find that it shot out of her grasp into the old man's glass of water. Biting her lip, she placed the chopsticks to one side and her hands, folded, in her lap.

"Slippery little suckers, aren't they?" she mumbled.

"I suppose." He finished a mouthful of food before speaking again. "About what you have been asked to do, Miss Kelly-"

"Please, just call me Sara."

"Sara," he repeated, "I am sure we would all prefer the utmost discretion. I am afraid you will have to sign a confidentiality agreement stating you cannot give anyone outside of the allowed parties the full details of your condition. Obviously, you will be able to tell them you are pregnant, but you will not be able to tell them exactly why."

"Speaking of, I'm not exactly sure why," she confessed. "Things have been pretty… crazy, I guess. I got the basics. You know – get pregnant without sex, have a baby, hand it over to… number one detective? How do you even quantify that?"

"Yes, well," Ryuzaki began, "I will have you know that the reason you are to be carrying a child in the first place, should you ultimately agree, is that it will be used as a successor in the case of my death. So once you've had the child, you would not have to deal with me again."

She stared at him wide-eyed, then nodded. "Go on."

"My name is L," he told her, "not Ryuzaki, though you should address me by that name at all times when I see you in public, and sometimes even in private. In my line of work, death is an occupational hazard, and it was Watari's idea some years ago that I have a successor in place to carry on my work after my death. Your role would be merely providing a channel through which that goal can be achieved."

"What will happen to the kid?" she asked. "I mean, once I've had it? Where will it go? Will you look after it?"

Ryuzaki, unnerved by the question, though retaining composure, glanced at Watari, who shook his head. "Ryuzaki will not look after the child. He or she will go to an orphanage to be raised."

"Wait a second." Her expression was one of pure disbelief. "You're going to father a child, and then you're not going to see it?"

"Well-"

"I'll do it," she announced.

"Excuse me?" Ryuzaki asked, face unchanging.

"You must be seriously deranged if you think I'm going to let you impregnate anyone who may not give a shit," she snapped. "If a kid is being brought into this world, which is already screwed up enough as it is, then I am not letting it come into the world without someone being ready to care for it, especially if its father is a suspiciously raccoon-like detective."

"You are agreeing to the proposal?"

"On a couple of conditions, firstly that I get to look after the baby once its born, at least for a little while, so that it doesn't get shipped off to some foreign orphanage the moment it's out of me. And secondly…" She inhaled, hoping that she wouldn't regret her decision. "That you" – she pointed to Ryuzaki – "have input in your baby's life, both prior to its birth and after."

'Forcing him to take responsibility,' Watari thought. 'I was wrong. I could grow to quite like this young woman.'

The dark-haired man gritted his teeth, trying not to let Sara see how much this latter condition irritated him. He was young, he was free… and she was going to anchor him to her situation. After a couple of moments' consideration, he nodded.

"Very well. I am willing to keep to your conditions."

"And I'm willing to keep to yours, Not-Ryuzaki," she said triumphantly.

"I suppose you may call me L now."

There was a wry smile on her face.

"What?" he asked.

"I knew you would say yes."

"And you called me manipulative," he grumbled.

I know that I've been away for a long time, and I apologise, but I get the feeling that the next few chapters will really make up for it. I'm going to ask you to answer a question in your reviews that I need should I update sooner this time: should this fic have fluff, or more cynical humor? I already have the ending sorted out either way, so I hope you enjoy the chapter and THANK YOU to all of those who have stuck with the story; I know it's frustrating!

C.