Risks and Rewards
Description: Elijah has a new year and a new mission, but this time Light won't be so cooperative. Let the battle of ideology begin.
Disclaimer: Death Note is still not mine. Go figure.
A/N: Ah, Wednesday. Know why this is the day you finally get your update? Because my kids are finally back in school! Woo hoo! Easter vacation plus sugar-high kids equals lots of noise and a pounding headache for Karai. Sigh.
Thank you for all the nail-biting remedy suggestions! I had heard of most of them, but some of them were new. Now, to implement them ...
BTW, I am not a member of Monty Python nor am I Dr. Seuss, so I don't own the stuff mentioned. You knew that, though.
Chapter 7
It was ironic, Elijah thought, how his afterlife had turned out. Ironic and a little bit sad. People everywhere dreamed of Heaven, sought it, reached for it, and spoke of it constantly. Even in colloquial speech: heaven on earth, a little slice of heaven, seventh heaven -- although what was wrong with the other six, he didn't know. When he had reached that fabled place, however, he had found it rather dull. Boring even. Truly a sad state of affairs. What made it ironic, though, was that right now he was wishing desperately that he could go back.
Right now, Elijah was in Hell.
"There. I'm done."
While Light gathered up the extra string, Elijah gazed mournfully at his hands.
"Light?"
"Hmm?"
"I hate you."
"I know."
"No, really. I despise you."
"Yes."
"Detest you."
"Okay."
"Abhor you."
"Good."
"Absolutely loathe you."
"Do you have a thesaurus in that brain of yours?" The evil brunet looked up from his cleaning to grin at his victim.
"No," Elijah answered, still looking at the latex gloves that covered him from fingertip to mid-forearm. They were yellow. And Light had made little bows in the string that circled his wrists. "Why did you have to tie them on?"
"So that you won't take them off," Light explained patiently, his tone as if speaking to a child. "I'm going to meet with Professor Trevaeki today to talk about the work I'll be doing this summer, and I don't want you biting your nails while I'm gone. While I'm sure you could manage to get them off, you won't be able to get them back on without help, and if they're off when I get back, then you won't be getting any of the strawberry cake I plan to buy on my way home. And I've already told Julie not to help you."
"You are evil."
"I know."
Finished with his cleaning, Light began to pack his bag for his trip to campus. While he moved quietly around his new room, gathering supplies, Elijah sat on the bed and pouted. Sulked. Moped. Brooded.
Perhaps he did have a thesaurus in his head.
An idea suddenly occurred to him, and he held out his hands. "The string is cutting off my circulation," he lied.
Light didn't even blink. "No, it's not. I made sure to tie it with enough slack so that it wouldn't hurt, but tight enough that you can't slip them off."
"Did I mention that I hate you?"
"Yes."
"All right then."
As much as he didn't want to, Elijah had to give Light credit. The young man was determined. Last night, at the final dinner for their group before people began to go home for the summer, Light, Mark, and Annie had brainstormed for over thirty minutes. Seeing them like that with their heads close together at the end of the table, Elijah couldn't help but think that they were plotting his eventual doom. He hadn't been that far off, he realized now as he stared at his yellow-coated fingers.
"All right, I'm ready to leave." Light threw a look at Elijah over his shoulder as he stood in the doorway. "If you want to mope, I don't mind, but do it in your own room."
The suffering blond didn't particularly feel like being helpful at the moment, so he curled up a bit more tightly and glared at his friend through his bangs. "I don't want to move," he announced.
"I don't care," Light returned easily. "It's my room, and I say get out."
"Don't you trust me?" Elijah asked, sticking out his lower lip in a classic pout.
"Not even as far as I can throw you. Now move."
Grumbling mightily, Elijah began the process of uncurling himself and standing up, moving extra slowly just to annoy Light. Half to himself, he muttered, "It's not like I'm going to go searching through your room for the Death Note while you're gone. I don't play dirty like that."
"Sure you don't," Light replied with heavy sarcasm laced with amusement.
"That's right, I don't," Elijah continued, choosing to ignore the other's tone. "Unlike some people I know. Using bribery to get what he wants."
Shaking his head, Light grabbed Elijah's arm and began to manhandle him out the door. "It's called incentive," he argued. "A reward."
"It's bribery," the elder insisted.
"Fine," the younger conceded with a sigh. "It's bribery." He gave Elijah a mighty shove towards his own room at the end of the hall. "Now be a good boy and keep yourself entertained until I get back."
Elijah snorted fiercely. "What, killing me once wasn't enough for you? You just have to do it a second time?"
Light ignored him completely. Didn't even turn around for a goodbye or a wave. Fuming, Elijah stomped off to his room and slammed the door behind him. How the hell was he supposed to entertain himself? He couldn't type with these stupid things on his hands, and he doubted he could use a pencil very well either. Instinctively, one hand rose to his mouth, but the scent of latex made him gag before it had even reached his lips. Irritated beyond belief, Elijah collapsed onto his bed and sulked viciously. Light was going to pay for this.
Across his room, the phone rang. Elijah ignored it. One of his parents would pick it up. It wouldn't be for him anyway. Annie was on a plane, Mark was in his last final, and Ethan had called earlier in the day to say that he had arrived home safely. So whoever it was on the line, it would not involve him. He was free to sit there and perfect his sulk.
"Elijah? It's for you!"
He blinked at his mother's voice as it floated up the stairs. The phone call was for him? Really?
"Who is it?" he asked, raising his voice so that she could hear.
"That girl named Charlie."
Surprised, he jumped off of the bed and crossed to his desk. He had not heard from either Charlie or Lily since the impressive explosion in the middle of the living room on the day that Light had moved in.
"Charlie?" he demanded once he had picked up the receiver clumsily in his fingers. "Why are you calling me?"
The girl's bright voice laughed at him loudly, causing him to pull the phone a bit away from his ear. "Well, isn't that a nice way to greet someone! Hello to you, too, Elijah."
"I'm sorry," he quickly apologized. "I just wasn't expecting you to call today." Or ever, he added mentally.
"Ha ha!" she crowed, forcing him to move the receiver even farther from his ear. "No one expects the Spanish Inquisition!"
Elijah blinked. "Excuse me?"
"Never mind. So look, are you busy today?"
"Not particularly. Why do you -- ?"
"Is that asshole there?" she interrupted.
"If you mean Light, then no, not right now. He should be back around -- ."
"Good. Lily and I are coming over, okay? We'll see you in a few."
"Wait a minute," he tried. "Charlie!" But she had hung up on him already. For several minutes, he simply stood there, staring at the dead phone between his fingers. Then, he walked calmly to his door and called down, "Mom! Tornado approaching!"
"Got it!" Julie called back, completely understanding him. "I'll keep an eye out for her."
Nodding to himself, Elijah wandered over to his bookshelf and looked for something to read to pass the time.
About ten minutes later, he heard the front door opening and the sound of pleasant chatter. Not particularly wanting to introduce a couple of females to his bedroom, Elijah quickly hurried down the stairs. Charlie stood in the hallway, laughing with Julie, while Lily hid partly behind her, looking for all the world like she wanted to be elsewhere.
"Heya, 'Lij!" Charlie grinned, waving at him in greeting. "Good to see you. You're looking skinny and pale as always, so I guess that's good. Sorry to barge in on you with such short notice, but you know me and spontaneity and all that and what the hell do you have on your hands?"
While Elijah tried to hide the yellow gloves behind his back, Julie explained with a wide smile, "Light's trying to get him to stop chewing his fingernails. Today he has to keep those gloves on and not take them off or he doesn't get cake later on. Right, sweetheart?"
"Yes, mother," he mumbled, embarrassed and irritated.
"Seriously?" Charlie asked, raising an eyebrow. "That sucks." She shrugged and pushed forward, "Anyway, the reason why we came over and the reason why Lily-Mouse is trying to melt into the wall over here is because she would like to draw you, please Mr. McCormick, if you don't mind." She threw the last few phrases out off-handedly, grinning all the while.
Elijah raised his head and tried to catch Lily's eyes; she refused to lift them from the floor. "Draw me?" he echoed.
"That's right!" Charlie answered for her friend. "Specifically in that Halloween costume you had last year. Do you still have it?"
"Yes."
"Good. Go put it on." When he didn't move, she stepped forward and began shoving him towards the stairs. "Come on, go. Before she changes her mind and runs away. She's wanted to draw you in it ever since she saw the pictures that Kim brought back from the party, and it's taken me this long to convince her to come over and ask, so go!"
Elijah had the sinking feeling that he looked rather like a fish at that moment, what with his mouth repeatedly opening and closing. However, he couldn't help himself. Lily wanted to draw him? Lily, who really did draw quite well for an amateur and who had a wonderful muse in the wild, vibrant, and lovely Charlie? Him, with his vacant eyes and his bad posture and his messy hair? She wanted him to model for her? Stunned, he looked for her eyes again, and, while he could not catch a glimpse of them, he did see the red flush spreading over her cheeks, telling him that it was indeed true.
"All right," he announced, moving far enough away from Charlie that she could no longer push him. "I'm going. How much of the costume do you need? Just the wings or everything?"
At his question, Lily finally lifted her head and looked at him. Her face still burned and she looked like she wanted to bolt, but her voice came out surprisingly steady. "The wings, the belts, and the shirt, please. Those jeans will be fine, and I don't need the make-up or the wig. The colors are not as important as the draping of the fabric and the various angles and planes."
He nodded his understanding and turned to walk upstairs, but a sudden realization made him stop. Slowly, he lifted his hands and stared at the hated yellow gloves covering them. How was he supposed to change his shirt and put on belts when these things were in the way?
His mother answered his unspoken question by stepping up to his side and slipping her arm around his waist. "Come on, Elijah," she smiled. "I'll help." Before he could protest, she was pulling him up the stairs towards his room. He stopped struggling after a few moments. While he didn't like the thought of his mother undressing him like a child, he had the sneaking suspicion that if he didn't let Julie do it, Charlie would offer to help next. That was a situation he did not want to have occur.
When he came downstairs again -- wincing every time the wings crashed into the walls -- he found that the small, shy girl had recovered completely. She had, in fact, gone into a kind of business mode. He watched in awe as she wandered around the living room, muttering to herself, and investigated various angles in relation to one of the straight-backed dining room chairs that she had placed in the middle of the floor. When he appeared, she immediately took his hand and guided him to the chair where she began to pose him like a doll. His right leg she lifted up to rest with the foot on the seat, but the left leg she kept with the foot on the ground. The right arm she draped across his lifted knee so that the hand dangled over the edge, and the left she positioned in his lap, in line with the horizontal thigh. After taking a step back and surveying her work, she moved around to his back and began to play with the wings, forcing them too to lie the way she wanted.
From the couch, Charlie grinned at him. "Isn't she awesome?" the blonde asked brightly. "She knows just what she wants and exactly how to get it."
"You've done this for her quite a bit yourself, haven't you?"
"Yeah, tons. Although," she added with a wave of her hand, "Lil memorized my planes and proportions ages ago, so I don't have to sit still for her anymore. Nowadays she asks me to run around. I haven't actually played movable statue for her for a long time."
Elijah smiled at the fond tone of Charlie's voice, but a sudden flash of sunlight into his eyes made him wince and squint.
"Sorry," Lily's voice said immediately from the other side of the room. He peered in that direction to find her messing with the window blinds, adjusting the amount of light that fell on him.
"Hey, Lil," Charlie called to her. "What are you gonna do about his hands?"
Lily shrugged. "Just draw them another time, I suppose. Elijah has such unique fingers that I don't want to substitute or give it my best guess." She seemed to finally have found a lighting that she liked for she moved over to one of the chairs and began to get her supplies out of her bag. "Perhaps Light will come home before I'm finished."
Her friend wrinkled her nose at the thought. "God, I hope not. If he does, I'm so out of here. I can't stand that prick."
"Charlie," Lily sighed tiredly, "I am not having this conversation with you. Again."
"What is it, the fifth time?"
"Try the seventh. Elijah, please don't move your hands."
Elijah frowned but did as he was told, carefully placing his right hand back in its previous location. He couldn't help it. He had found the easy interaction between the two women to be quite interesting, and his thumb had made a break for his mouth on its own. It never would have made it there, of course, because of the stupid gloves, but Lily's watchful eye had stopped it before it could move more than an inch.
"Am I allowed to move at all?" he asked with a hint of nervousness.
"Right now, no," she replied evenly, still giving off that business-like aura. Her pencil began to scratch across the sketchpad in her lap as she continued, "Once I'm done with the initial forms, however, I'll be concentrating on individual parts of your body so you'll be able to move the parts I'm not detailing. Within reason, of course." Her eyes lifted to him, and her brow suddenly furrowed. "Ah, I forgot to position your head. Could you lift your chin for me please? A bit more, as if you're looking up at the sky. No, now that's too much." She sighed, frustrated, but then an idea occurred to her and she brightened. "Charlie, would you go stand next to him? Elijah, look up at her face. There! Yes, perfect. No one move!" Her pencil began to fly across the paper in broad strokes.
Elijah grimaced, not particularly happy with the angle of his neck at the moment. He decided, however, to just deal with it for now. He rather liked this new side of Lily, and to be honest, being forced to stare into Charlie's pretty face wasn't all that bad. The girl in question was smiling at him quite nicely, although her eyes kept flicking downwards every few seconds at his hands.
"So," she asked eventually, "you're not going to have to wear those things all summer, are you?"
"I certainly hope not," he replied with feeling. "At the very least, they will cease to be effective when I get tired of being bribed or when Light runs out of money with which to buy bribery materials." Sighing, he began to tip his head to the side, but Charlie stopped him with a quick shake of her own head. After a quick side-glance to make sure he had not disturbed Lily, he continued, "Unfortunately, I am certain I will be subjected to a nail-biting treatment of some sort or the other all summer long."
"That seriously sucks," Charlie reiterated, frowning. "Breaking a habit like that is hard, dammit. If Light is going to torture you like this, he should be made to give up something, too. What bad habits does he have?"
Elijah caught himself before he could shrug and released another sigh instead. "None that I know of. He doesn't fidget in any way, knows how to keep his temper and hold his tongue, and could probably teach a course on proper etiquette."
But Charlie would not be deterred. "Then how about like giving something up for Lent? Does he overindulge on coffee? Chocolate? Booze?"
"Again, not that I know of."
She huffed and crossed her arms, creating a spike of jealousy in Elijah that she could move but he could not. "There has to be something," she insisted, half to herself. And then, slowly, her expression changed. The anger in her brows disappeared, and her lips curved up into a small smile. That familiar sparkle shone out from her eyes, but this time it had more than a bit of evil mischief in it. In fact, as Elijah watched her smile deepen and broaden and her eyes crinkle and gleam, he began to realize that this was an expression he never wanted directed at him. It reminded him of a program he had watched with Julie last Christmas, when the ugly green thing decided to dress up as Santa Claus. A face like that would make even Kira turn tail and flee like a screaming child.
Softly, she whispered to the little demons that just had to be flying about her, "I have an idea, and it's perfect!"
xXx
Light stood in the entrance to the living room, stunned. Elijah was in the middle of the room, wearing most of his Halloween costume from last year and sitting stock-still in a most ridiculous fashion. And she was here, smiling at him in a disturbing way. The last time he had seen her, she had looked like she wanted to rip out all his internal organs and stomp on them in pointy-heeled shoes. Now, she was giving him a too-innocent, cavity-inducing smile that was somehow far more frightening than her fury.
"Hello, Light," she purred. "Welcome back."
"What --" he began, but his voice sounded too high and tight for his liking, so he swallowed and tried again. "What is going on in here?"
Thankfully, Elijah answered him in his normal, half-bored tone. "I am being preserved for posterity. Speaking of which, could you please come over here and remove these gloves?" His eyes darted over to Light as he continued, "I do hope that box you are holding is my cake. Considering I had to endure being undressed and redressed by my mother because of these things, I plan to eat the entire thing just as soon as Lily is done with me."
At the mention of the other girl, Light finally noticed her sitting across the room, working intently at her sketchpad. Her presence instantly explained Elijah's strange outfit and the appearance of Charlie. No longer confused, Light released the breath he had been holding and smiled.
"Yes, it's your cake," he replied to Elijah. "Let me put it in the kitchen, and then I'll come take off the gloves."
"Very well, but haste would be appreciated."
A few minutes later, Light knelt on the ground in front of Elijah, carefully undoing the knots he had tied earlier that day. The older man had warned him not to disturb the positioning of his hands under pain of Lily's wrath. Light truly doubted the quiet young woman had any wrath to speak of, but despite that he took his time and tried not to move Elijah's hands as he removed the gloves. Secretly, he was quite proud of Elijah for enduring this trial. He had half expected to find the gloves off or the knots undone when he returned.
"Hey, Light," Charlie said when he had stood up and moved away, gloves in hand, "I want to talk to you."
"Is that so?" he returned, trying to hide his apprehension. She had been watching him the entire time with sharp, intent eyes. Like a lioness observing a future kill or a juicy piece of meat. It had unnerved him, cutting into his normally unruffled composure.
"Yeah."
"What about?"
She grinned. "Kira."
Of course. Light huffed and crossed his arms, staring down his nose at her in contempt. "Whatever for?" he demanded. "I support Kira. That simple piece of information was enough to send you in a blind fury and denounce me. I see no reason to have a discussion with you after that display."
Charlie's smile did not falter in the slightest. "I'll behave myself," she promised, raising a hand as if in a pledge. "And Lily's here to hold me back if I get too crazy. I only wanted to ask you a couple of questions. That's it."
"You might as well give in to her, Light," Lily said, breaking her silence. "If you don't today, she'll just harass you tomorrow and every following day until you do."
Light sighed and ran a hand tiredly through his hair. "Fine." He walked over to the couch, placed the gloves on the end table, and settled down with his legs crossed. "Ask your questions."
"All right!" She leaned back in her chair and crossed her own legs, almost as if the two of them were British gentlemen relaxing together over brandy and cigars. "First, do you think, like a bunch of people do, that Kira is a god?"
Light blinked. With the first mention of Kira, his mind had begun to construct the eventual conversation and had formed proper responses that would direct the flow of the discussion in the way he wanted. But this question he had not expected, certainly not first. Once again, this woman had confused him with her strange unpredictability. It made him feel ill at ease; he hated it.
Quickly, he adjusted his thoughts to this new line of questioning and answered, "No, I don't. Even if he has somehow acquired a god-like ability to kill without being present, I don't think that Kira is a god in the sense that he is immortal or omniscient."
The fake grin slid off of Charlie's face at his statement, and she tipped her head at him with a more genuine smile. "I'm surprised," she confessed. "I thought you would. But I'm glad you don't. It shows that you do have some sense in you after all." When Light visibly bristled at that, she laughed lightly and continued, "It's pretty obvious if you look at the facts that Kira is human. For one thing, he makes mistakes."
Light's irritation at the insult to his intelligence died in the face of this new statement. "Mistakes?" he repeated. "How so?"
His opponent brightened and sat up straighter. "Well, my favorite example is this: Back in the 1960's, the FBI wanted to crack down on organized crime, and they relied heavily on their informers. However, the informers, being not so nice people themselves, would sometimes lump in an innocent person that they considered a threat or held a grudge against. Sometimes, the informers themselves would commit a crime and blame it on a completely unrelated person. The FBI, not wanting to lose their informers, turned a blind eye at this and sent innocent people to jail. Their lawyers have been fighting for them for decades, and now, finally, some of them are being released. Completely innocent people, wrongly accused and convicted, are getting justice at last." Charlie paused and leveled her gaze directly onto Light. In a strong tone, she announced, "Kira has killed three of these innocents so far. Who knows how many he'll kill before they can all get out?"
Taken aback, Light took a moment to respond, allowing Elijah to cut in ahead of him. "That does not prove that Kira is human, however. Only that he relies on the media to get his information which proves that he is not omniscient."
Charlie considered this a moment before agreeing. "True. Or it proves that he works for the FBI," she added with a laugh.
Light's stomach dropped. Sure enough, Elijah replied immediately. "No, he doesn't work for the FBI. He killed twelve of their agents."
Charlie and Lily both stared at Elijah for a moment in surprise. "How do you know that?" Charlie finally asked.
"Julie conducted a personality profile of Kira last year," he answered easily. "While I did not participate, I did examine some of the data. The agents were hired by L to tail various suspects, and they all died of heart attacks soon after." For a brief moment, his empty blue eyes sought and found Light's gaze, but then they fled again, leaving the younger man to wonder why Elijah had not mentioned that Light had been the one to supply the data.
"Well," Charlie said, after a moment to process this new information, "that proves something else, doesn't it? That Kira can feel threatened. That he can fear the possibility of being discovered. That makes him mortal which makes him human."
"How so?" Light countered, more out of a sense of perfectionism than to prove her wrong. "It could simply have been a message to those trying to catch him that anyone who tries to stop him will be punished."
"Then why is L still alive?" Charlie argued, returning her focus to him sharply. "If he's immortal, then he has no need to fear for his life and should have left the agents alone. If he wants to make the statement you're suggesting, it should be a grand movement that all the world will see, not some hidden murders like these."
"L is still alive because his name is unknown."
Light snapped his head to his best friend, dumbfounded. Had Elijah just come to his defense? Why would he do something like that? Hadn't he been the one to suggest to Charlie that she attack him like this?
"Then not L," she had continued, "but still, it should have been someone well-known. There are still a lot of people in high government offices who disapprove of Kira. Killing them would make a much more potent statement. So I'm sticking to my guns on this one. Kira is human."
"I would have to agree," Elijah added. He flicked his eyes over to the brunet once more. "What about you, Light?"
Light frowned at the blond's seemingly vacillating support. Angrily, he answered, "I haven't argued that point from the very beginning. I was merely trying to make her reasoning more airtight."
"You've done well then. Good job."
"A personality profile …"
Three heads turned in surprise to regard the fourth occupant of the room who had said very little until then. She had stopped drawing for the moment, resting the eraser end of her pencil against her cheek in an expression of deep thought. Noticing she had the others' attentions, she smiled a little and continued on in her soft voice.
"I think Kira has the mentality of a small child. That kind of innocence and belief in how the world should work versus how it actually does. I also think that he was sheltered growing up, probably a very good life, full of affection, wanting for nothing. Only someone who had grown up like that could believe in such things as good and evil. Only then could he live a life of fairy tales and have such little knowledge of reality."
Light's anger was burning. He didn't know which was worse: Charlie's in-your-face vilification of his ideals or Lily's calm and quiet insults that shot straight for his heart. With tight control over his voice, he replied, "I'm sorry, Lily, but I don't agree. We've established that Kira gets his information from the media, and all you have to do is watch the news for one day to understand the reality of our world."
Lily blinked at his rebuttal. "Oh," she said with a small gasp, "that's not what I meant. I've confused you. I'm sorry, Light, but sometimes I'm not as clear as I need to be."
"What did you mean then, Lil?" Charlie asked, leaning back in her seat and encouraging her friend with a smile.
Lily took a breath and explained, "When I say that he has no knowledge of the real world, I don't mean the events that occur. I mean the people of the world. In fairy tales and storybooks, one side is always good and the other evil. There are no in betweens. But the world we live in is not so clear cut as that. The world is not black and white. People are full of grays, and even as we live and grow, the shading of those grays change and develop." She sought Light's eyes anxiously. "Does that make more sense?"
"I suppose …"
At his hesitance, she put aside her pencil and began flipping through her sketchbook. "Let me try again. The world Kira wants for us is like this." She turned the book around and showed him a blank piece of paper. "The whole world is white," she explained. "Everyone is that idealistic good that we read about as children. Now, the world that Kira sees is like this." She flipped to the sketch of Elijah that she had been working on. The black lines that formed him jumped out from the white background of the paper. "The only things in this world are black and white. Just the extremes. A person is good or he is evil. Nothing in between. But the real world is like this." She showed the picture of Charlie at bat, now finished with realistic shading and lighting. "There is black and there is white, but there is also gray. Lots of gray of varying degrees. And really," she finished, lowering the pad to her lap, "this world is the most interesting and the most beautiful."
"All right," Light acknowledged, "I can see your point now, and I agree with it somewhat, but I don't agree with the last thing you said. How can a world that contains black and gray be preferable to one that is only white? How can you wish evil in any degree into the world?"
"Because," she replied, lifting her head to look at him straight on, "we are not the artist. You and I live in this world. We are merely points on this piece of paper. We can see the colors immediately surrounding us, but the larger things -- the figures, the shading -- those we can never comprehend because our viewpoint is so small. The only one who can see everything and appreciate everything is the artist, the one who created it."
"By which she means God, of course," Charlie cut in with an airy wave of her hand. "It's a pretty analogy and works very well if you're religious. Unfortunately, I'm not." Her eyes moved to Light and she winked. "Got a feeling you aren't either." In a sudden burst of action, she clapped her hands and leapt to her feet. Pointing her finger at Light, she announced, "This line of conversation has led perfectly to my next question. Ready for it, Mr. Yagami?"
He sighed and cradled his head in one hand. "If I said no, would it make a difference?"
"Absolutely none. Here it is: Would you classify me as a criminal?"
"What?" Light lifted his head and stared at Charlie. She had planted her hands on her hips and stood with spread legs in a pseudo-pose. At his confused stare, she simply smiled and waited for his answer which he eventually gave. "Of course not. You are loud and annoying, but that isn't against the law in any country that I know of."
Her smile deepened into something slightly sad. "But stealing is," she said.
Before Light could question her, Charlie relaxed her stance and launched into her explanation. "I didn't grow up in a nice comfy house like the rest of you. I grew up in a trailer. It was the only thing that Dad left Mom when he up and left her. The trailer and three kids. We were poor, dirt poor. After paying for utilities and necessities, Mom made enough for two decent meals a day. Everything else we needed, we got from dumpster diving. You know what that is, rich boy?"
Subdued, Light nodded. Of course he knew that such poverty existed, but he had never before talked with someone who had endured it. Had never heard it discussed with almost a kind of pride in the speaker's voice.
"When I was eleven," Charlie continued, "things got worse. Our decent meals got not so decent. I got used to being hungry all the time. And then, one night, I woke up to the sound of Mom crying. On her way home, someone had mistaken her for a whore and propositioned her. She set him straight, of course, but it had gotten her to thinking. She told me that she was actually wondering if whoring wouldn't bring in more money for us, so that my brothers and I wouldn't have to suffer so much." Charlie snorted and tossed her head. "I talked her out of that right quick. But the next day, I went out to the farmers' market and shoplifted for the first time. If it had been just me, I could have tightened my belt and shut my mouth. But my little brothers were too young to fully understand. When they got hungry, they whined. So I decided I'd find a way to keep them happy and keep some of the pressure off of Mom."
Her bright eyes found Light's and held them as she announced, "For two years, I went out every couple of days and nicked food. Mostly fruit and vegetables, but I did manage to get the occasional loaf of bread or hunk of cheese. I got caught a few times, but I never got arrested. And the fear of being arrested didn't stop me. It didn't even slow me down. My family needed that food far more than the sellers did, and when I did have a little money to spend, I always spent it on one of the ones I had stolen from anyway as a kind of apology. When I was fourteen, things got better and I stopped. And when I was fifteen, we finally had enough for a house, an honest-to-God house with multiple rooms and a real shower and a yard and everything, and at that point, I focused all my energy on getting a full scholarship to a good school so that I can support my family and make it so they never have to worry about going hungry again."
She paused and took a few steps toward Light, closing the distance between them. "So, Light," she asked with a cocky grin, "what do you think? Am I deserving of Kira's justice?"
Light swallowed with difficulty. He did not like where this was heading. "Kira doesn't kill shoplifters," he murmured. Although I have killed a purse snatcher before, he realized with growing horror. When I was trying to shake off L. Concerned, he shot a glance in Elijah's direction to see if the older man would bring up that fact, but Elijah was sitting calmly, watching Charlie with sympathetic interest.
The girl in front of him took another step forward and leaned down a bit so that they were almost eye to eye. "Hypothetically, though," she persisted, "one of those times that I had been caught, if there had been a struggle and I had accidentally killed someone, do you think Kira would judge me? Do you think I would deserve to die?"
With her face hanging directly in front of him, curtains of blonde hair framing it on either side, Light knew he'd never be able to find his voice well enough to reply to those questions. The answer to the first one he knew well enough. Yes, Kira would have judged her. He would have noted the fact that it was accidental, but he also would have seen her as a small-time criminal, a multiple offender, and would have decided to get rid of her before she could mature into a more dangerous person and do more damage to others. The second question was much harder. If he had been presented with merely the facts of the situation, like he always was, he would have said yes. But sitting there with Charlie's sparkling eyes gazing questioningly into his, he suddenly found that his resolve was fading away and every time he tried to grab it, it slipped right through his fingers. Would she have deserved to die? She had committed crimes, yes, but she had done it to prevent her mother from committing a much worse one. If she hadn't stolen, would her little brothers have grown up tainted and twisted by their hunger and need and turned to more violent crimes when they were older? Did the end justify the means in her case? In any case? How should he view this in relation to the law, ethics, and morality?
Light just didn't know.
"Let him be, Charlie," Elijah spoke quietly, coming to his rescue and relieving the panic that he didn't realize had been building. "Light grew up sheltered in a world of fairy tales and storybooks, just as Lily said. It will take him some time to become accustomed to your world."
Charlie stood up, breaking the tension that had surrounded Light, and gave Elijah a small smile. "I see," she said quietly before moving away.
"So many grays," Lily breathed to herself as Charlie returned to her seat. "Of all degrees and variations. Such a complicated, beautiful world."
