Rumor has it that you can play dirty
I'll tell you what I'll do about that, that, yeah
I'm playin' them at their own game, yeah!

- 'If You Can't Beat Them' by Queen

September 2001

Jenny had not heard from her best friend for at least a week. This much was unusual in itself. What was stranger, however, was the fact that nobody else excepting Iona thought this peculiarly out of character for the bouncy blonde. Harry, when approached, had made some cryptic comment about life moving on and going forward according to what people really wanted, and this, needless to say, pissed her off.

She had, as women frequently do, overanalyzed the situation to the point where she'd imagined that Sara was being held hostage by a terrorist cell, ensuring that she had absolutely no contact with her friends or colleagues. Harry was of course unable to explain the situation to anyone else because her knowledge of the terrorists put her under threat. Shortly after this theory came to light in Jenny's mind, she purposefully hit her head against her bedroom wall. She knew the best thing to do would be to pluck up the courage to go round to Sara's and ask her straight out what was going on.

Walking over to her house, more ideas flew through her head unbidden: the man that had requested Sara become pregnant with his child, had he caused her damage that Harry did not want Jenny knowing about? Was he a dangerous pervert with a taste for vulnerable, blonde, young women? By the time she reached Sara's home, she was desperate to pound her fists against the door. Despite her urges, she managed to restrain herself enough to gently press the doorbell.

The sight that met her was definitely surprising, considering all of the scenarios she'd conjured up.

Sara donned her most comfortable clothes – a pair of baggy, slightly ripped old jeans and an oversized Led Zeppelin shirt she'd stolen from an ex-boyfriend and never returned to him after their breakup. Her long hair was tied back carelessly and the most bizarre aspect of it was that she was spattered with light yellow paint. Although sometimes a creative person, she never painted. Music was her thing, not art.

"Jenny," she breathed, astonished. "How's it going? All right?"

"Posh, what the hell is going on? I haven't seen you at Viva Loca, or at the shops, or the coffee place, or anywhere at all!" she insisted. "Now I turn up, and you look like you've attempted some modern interpretation of Van Gogh's 'Sunflowers'!" She folded her arms, feeling awkward for being there. "I'm worried about you, Sara. Iona is as well; you should've seen her last night. She was whining down the phone to Gemma for hours."

"Yes, well… apologize to Iona's girlfriend on my behalf," Sara mumbled. "Do you want to come in? I was going to make a cup of tea in a minute anyway…"

"You had me at 'apologize'," Jenny smiled weakly.

The two sat down at the kitchen table with their freshly made cups of tea, just two friends having a chat, although the subject was certainly unorthodox.

"So what's with the paint, Picasso?" asked Jenny.

"I… uh… you know that guy, Ryuzaki, who asked me to have his baby?" Sara suggested, and her best friend nodded in response. "Well… I'm going to, like I said I would. Jenny, I'm a week and a bit pregnant."

The squeal Jenny emitted was not the reaction Sara had expected. The brunette threw her arms around her neck and hugged her tight. "You're having a baby! Oh, Sara, this is amazing, I can't believe it!"

"Whoa, calm down," she laughed. "You're not… cross with me?"

"Cross with you? My God, no, why would I be cross with you? I said you should take the bloody job in the first place, and now you're… oh, it's so exciting!" she squeaked enthusiastically. "Can I be godmother? Oh, please, let me be your kid's godmother, I'll spoil them rotten!"

"It's only been a week, Jenny, I've got months left," she reminded her.

"Who gives a fuck? I want dibs on the godparent."

"You know you would be my first choice; that goes without saying." She watched on in delight as Jenny's eyes glowed with happiness at the proclamation. "You can tell Iona that I'm fine. Wouldn't want Gemma dumping her for crying down the phone constantly."

Jenny gestured to her paint-spattered form. "So why the paint? You didn't say."

Sara finished gulping down her tea, wiped her mouth and stood before beckoning her best friend to follow her. It took a moment for Jenny to smile and follow her through the hall and up the stairs to the plain white door of the guest room. In all the years Sara had lived here, Jenny had never seen anything but the room consisting of an unused bed (seeing as guests were uncommon) with all of Sara's junk piled on top of it.

Now the room was clear of any furniture, and the light streamed in through the window. The floor was polished wood, and the formerly mint-green walls were being covered inch by inch in paint the colour of sunshine. In fact, the entire room echoed warmth and brightness. Jenny beamed at the sight. The edges of the floor had been protected by white sheets, and paintbrushes of various sizes were dotted about the room.

"Oh, Sara," she said. "This is lovely. The nursery?"

"Yep." She folded her arms. "It's taking a while, though, considering… well, there's only one of me, and there's this whole room to do."

"How long have you been at it?"

"Um…" Sara thought about it, biting her lip. "I got up this morning at seven o'clock, and then I went out for breakfast because I don't trust anything in my fridge, then I came back and played on my piano for a bit when Ryuzaki went to work, then… yeah, I've been painting since about quarter to ten this morning."

"It's midday, Sara!" Jenny gasped. "Right!"

"What are you doing?"

"What does it look like I'm doing, girl?" the brunette snapped, rolling up her sleeves and grabbing a paint roller from a tray on the floor. "I'm being a responsible godmother and I'm helping you paint my godchild's nursery!"

Sara couldn't help the grin that worked its way onto her face. Together, the two women painted, Jenny proving to be much more efficient at the job than her friend was. Within an hour, the entire nursery had been painted and another two hours later, they were applying a second coat. They finished their job waiting for the paint to dry with a cup of tea and plate of biscuits in Sara's kitchen. Of course, Jenny's clothes had been splattered with irritating little specks of yellow paint, and so Sara had lent her some jeans and a shirt (too big for her considering her height, yet too small in the bust area).

"This shirt's going to be even tighter if I keep eating these biscuits," Jenny groaned, "but I can't stop… they're just too good!"

"Nothing says, 'good work' like a plate of chocolate bourbons."

"Amen to that, sister," Jenny mumbled as she finished off another one. "So what about your baby-daddy, then, eh? Scored pretty well on that one, didn't you?"

"Oh, Jesus," Sara sighed, sipping her tea. "You wouldn't be saying that if you lived with him. He's a total bloody nightmare. You wouldn't believe it. I have no sugar. Seriously. Every time I think, 'actually, a bit of sugar would come in handy right about now', I look and he's bloody eaten it all! Then there's the sleeping thing. He just doesn't do it-"

"Never bothered you before."

"Ugh, shut up. Ryuzaki wakes me up at absurd times of the morning just to drink a stupid hormone smoothie or something, and then he puts weird stuff in my fridge, and he leaves his papers lying around, expecting me to pick them up like I'm his mother. He rarely showers. Actually, I don't think I've seen him go into my bathroom since he arrived here, which is disgusting in a number of ways. Oh, and get this! He crouches all the time. I can't sit on the sofa next to him; he drives me insane with it…"

"Sounds fun," Jenny chuckled.

"He's not going to last nine months. I'm going to murder him," she warned her.

Jenny only sipped at her tea demurely in response before clearing her throat. "I know that face, Sara Kelly."

"What face?" Sara demanded. "I'm not pulling any face. This is my face."

"Mm-hm," Jenny teased. "No, that's your 'take me now' face."

"It is not!"

"Don't shout. High blood pressure is bad for your baby. You know, the baby you're having with the man that you talk about with your 'take me now' face."

"I do not have a 'take me now' face," she protested.

"Yes, you do," Jenny laughed. "And it looks like that!"

"I do not have a-"

"Sara?" a familiar voice called as the front door shut. "Is there someone in there with you?"

"Hi," she said quickly, her own voice a couple of octaves higher than normal. It was obvious that Jenny was using all of her restraint so as to not burst into uncontrollable giggles when L entered the room, a puzzled expression evident on his face. "Hi, Ryuzaki. You remember Jenny? From the club?"

"No," he admitted bluntly.

"Oh, charmer," Jenny remarked.

"Jenny helped me finish painting the nursery upstairs," Sara told him. There was an undertone of threat lacing her words, as though warning him to be polite to her or else.

He nodded, uncaring. "All right, then."

Sara's patience was wearing very thin as she grappled for conversation topics he might bother to engage himself in. "So, what kind of case did you work on today?"

Despite some unease at discussing it in front of Jenny, he managed to shrug nonchalantly and respond. "There's been a series of extremely violent cases of rape where the perpetrator has been targeting…" He trailed off and rubbed the back of his neck with one hand. "Prostitutes…"

Jenny was amused by his awkwardness. "Sounds fascinating."

"You," Sara ordered L, "sit down. I'm going to refill on tea."

"There's more-"

"Sugar, I know, I bought more yesterday evening… after you had a plate of diabetic coma for dinner," she cut him off, moving around the counter so that he could take her seat.

As Sara had predicted, he crouched on the chair with his knees up to his chest and large, dark eyes fixed on the brown-haired woman in front of him. Jenny's eyes strayed to his wacky hair. It reminded her of Edward Scissorhands, though his light skin had no blemishes, let alone scars of the magnitude of the Tim Burton character.

"You have good taste in picking my sweetie Sara over there," Jenny commented. "I don't know what to think about her accepting you, though, so I'm going to make my judgments now."

"Oh."

"Isn't she gorgeous?" Jenny asked, glancing over at Sara heading over to the fridge.

"I… well… she's…"

"Oh, please," Jenny interjected, "she's a stunner. If you've met any woman more naturally attractive than Posh I'll eat someone's hat, since I'm pretty sure I don't own one of my own."

"An odd thing to do."

"So I bet you're proud. Did your family like her when she met them? I bet they did, I mean, who wouldn't-?"

"She has not met my… my family," L confessed. "My-"

"She hasn't met your family?" Jenny shrieked, really overdoing it just to make the detective jump. Sara snickered. "Call yourself a man? For God's sake, why hasn't she? She should!"

"Jenny's right, Ryuzaki," Sara put in softly. She placed his cup of tea in front of him and pleaded with her eyes. "I would like to meet your family. I should, shouldn't I?"

He grumbled into his cup briefly, then sighed. "Fine. I'll speak with Watari and see what we can arrange."

"That's better," Jenny approved.

L gulped down his tea to cope with the thought of Sara actually meeting the Wammy's children. A moment later, he coughed loudly.

"Sara, what was in that tea?"

"Oh, nothing to worry about," she said innocently. "I just used some of the milk from the fridge."

"The fridge?" he repeated. "But that's where I keep the-" He suddenly looked very green.

"That's right, sweetheart," Sara simpered. "Would you like a biscuit with that?"


Thank you very much for everyone who reviewed last chapter, particularly B. Asterfield; you really made my day!

I apologise for the lack of L in this chapter for all his fans. There is guaranteed more of him next time as it is the instalment where they will visit Wammy's House in Winchester. For those of you who haven't read "Zapped" or the "LAWLIET" series, it will probably feature OCs from there, because I'm too lazy to think of more OCs, and backstories are nice to make the characters rounded.

Thanks for reading, and please review if you liked it (or even if you didn't, it's good to see where I can get better)!

C.

P.S. I am going to be holding a cover art competition for "The Darwinian Theory", seeing as I can't draw myself. If you would like to participate, message me with a link to your entry (you're allowed more than one), preferably on deviantART. I do have an account with the same pen name as this, so keep an eye out and I'll PM you to tell you I've seen it. The deadline for this challenge, should you choose to accept it, is 1st July 2012. Happy drawing, you arty genii!