Chapter Eight: The Past Best Left Forgotten, Part 2

(present day)

I pulled my hand from Near's and pushed my sleeve up as high as it would go. On the far side of my arm, beyond my elbow, was a battered plastic toy wristwatch. Everyone's eyes focused on it, even mine. "Is that?" Simon breathed, daring to ask the question on everyone's mind.

I nodded. "I wear it to remember those who died because of me and why failure is never an option."

Warm fingers closed around my arm. I looked over to see Matt's orange-tinted green eyes looking into mine with slight trepidation, a disapproving Mello clutching his arm possessively. "May I see it?"

In answer, I unbuckled the watch and handed it to him, absently rubbing the spot where it had been absently. "Hey the watch is-" Mello exclaimed, looking at the thing, but I cut him off.

"Broken, I know. It stopped at the exact time of the explosion, 11:12:19 PM on September 5th. But that wasn't the end of things" I paused here both for dramatic effect and a brief moment to contemplate what I was going to say next. "In fact, it was only the beginning."


The instant I was released from the hospital ward, translation: once my wounds healed up, I began trying to solve my case. If there had ever been an occasion where I had eaten, slept, bathed, went to class, or for that matter, paid attention in class without being prompted by Near or L, I can't recall it. Everything after then for three years was the case. Three whole years of memories, of life, lost to me forever. It might have been far longer too if it weren't for the camping trip, the only one Whammy's ever did. The camping trip that opened my eyes...


(6 years prior)

The bumping movement of the motorcoach was annoying, as were the too-loud sounds coming from the speaker directly above my head. I didn't know what movie was playing or the weather outside the window so great was my absorption in the binder in my hands, the binder that was my life's work. Briefly interested in the outside world, I glanced up to the picture screen a few seats above me. Ah. It was a Batman movie. My curiosity sated, I began to reopen my binder, but a pale hand held the cover firmly shut.

"Sherlock, I know you want to work on your case, but there's a storm coming, and-"

"Say no more. I just need to get something first." I turned around in my seat to poke my head through. Matt smiled at my sudden appearance, apparently happy to see me interacting with the world again, but Mello, his seatmate, scowled. "Matt, could I have a cigarette?"

Near yanked on my sleeve, attempting to gain my attention but failing to do so. "Sherlock, you're going to smoke one of those things?!?"

Mello's response was in a hushed whisper since he didn't want to get Matt in trouble, but his tone was no less condescending. "Matt, you smuggled some cancer sticks out with you?!? I thought I'd flushed them all down the toilet!"

Matt glared at him as he handed me something he kept hidden inside of his hand. "Mells, one: I'm not giving her an actual cigarette, and two: why the hell did you flush all my cigarettes down the toilet?!? I was gonna use those!"

I unwrapped the lollipop in my hand and put it in my mouth as Mello continued, "Yeah, and die afterwards of lung cancer!"

"I disagree."

"Fine, you may not die specifically of lung cancer, but those things'll be the death of you! Promise me you'll quit!"

"'Kay, Mells. I'll try."

Finally managing to thin out the lollipop enough for my purposes, I shifted it around in my mouth so the stick stuck out very similar to a cigarette. I leaned back against the seat and sighed in contentment. I had Near, I had a "cigarette", and I had Mello and Matt arguing back and forth behind me. What more could the average girl genius want?

Near's hand crept into mine as the sky grew darker outside, but I didn't react anymore than to clap my hand around his. I could see the barest hints of fear in his eyes and posture, but I doubted anyone else could. Sighing, I moved my back so it was against the window and pulled Near onto my lap, letting him press against me and peep out from around the curtain of my brown hair to watch the very end of the movie. Briefly, I remembered when I would do the same thing, and Simon would comfort me, but I pushed the memories away with a force of effort. Those days were long gone, and missing them would do me no good.

"Hey, Sherlock," Ivy, the girl in the seat ahead of me and one of my dearest friends, said. "I was wondering if- okay, what is going on here?" she asked, changing topics mid-sentence as she processed our seating positions. BB, or Beyond Birthday, her seat mate and another friend of mine, twisted around in his seat and did a double-take when he saw us. Near, uncomfortable with all the attention, attempted to squirm out of the position, but I had him in a death-grip, so he didn't succeed. Fortunately for him, Mello and Matt were too busy arguing about cigarettes to pay much attention to him.

"I'm scared of thunder, so Near's helping," I explained, the lie coming easily from my lips. He glanced at me, understanding in an instant I was telling a falsehood; he was the one with the pathological fear of thunderstorms, not me.

BB wasn't convinced though. "By sitting on you?"

"Yep," I said, eying him meaningfully through Near's erratic white hair. He snorted, still not convinced, but he turned back around to grab a book from his bag, red eyes flicking back for only a moment before he began reading what looked to be Dracula. "What were you saying, Ivy?"

"Um, I was going to ask if you wanted to share a tent with Linda and me?"

I smiled wryly. "I'm already sharing with the two morons behind me."

Her eyes widened. "You're rooming with a couple of guys?" BB hissed, twisting around again to stare at me in disbelief, fangs bared; yes, he had dental work done a few years back to give himself permanent vampire fangs.

"Relax, would you? L says there's a ridiculously high probability the pair are gay, and if not, I think I can fight Matt off, and in what kind of strange alternate universe do you live in if you think for even the slightest part of a nanosecond that Mello Keehl would want to jump my bones?"

"True," they breathed, chuckling.

"And if you repeat the thing I said about them maybe being gay, I will cheerfully beat you until you are nothing more than a quivering pulp upon the ground, perform an act of sexual battery upon that pulp known as your body using something particularly unpleasant, and then kill you in the most violent manner possible. Do I make myself perfectly clear?"

BB nodded solemnly, returning to Dracula, while Ivy piped in a quiet, "Crystal!" before she got out her own book, a much dilapidated copy of Twilight she'd borrowed from me. I promptly decided upon its return that I would defile it with a skinny purple Sharpie; I'd already done so with various different highlighters, but it was time to up the ante. It was time for permanent defilement. Normally, I wouldn't so much as dog-ear my books, but for the very worst ones (cough, Twilight, hack), I made an exception.


The campsite itself was dreadfully disappointing, but since we were stranded here for today, tonight, and tomorrow, I might as well try to make the best of it. Matt and I set up the tent while Mello sat on a rock and "supervised". After our "group" effort to set up the tent was done, we all went down to the river. Near, Matt, and I were the only ones not in a bathing suit because I had the case to work on, Matt was trying to beat Pokemon Ruby again, and Near was building a house of cards on a flat rock off to the side. Ivy, in her white bikini, and BB, in blood-red trunks, were engaged in a water gun fight, but they managed to hit Mello, in jet-black trunks, more often than they would each other.

Fed up of being the unintentional human target, Mello called Matt down to at least wade in the water with him. On the way down, Matt dropped his ancient Gameboy Advance into the river, and although Mells was quick to rescue it, it was obvious that the game was destroyed and that virtual Mudkips do not do well in real-world rivers. "No, Mudkip!" he sniffled as Mello sloshed back upstream to him. As he was walking though, a stone shifted under his feet, which caused him to land loudly and painfully in the water.

"Holy crap!" he exclaimed, or at least, he did in my mind, as he tried to push himself up. "Holy crap!" he gasped when he collapsed again, clutching his ankle.

Matt ran over and felt Mello's ankle gently, examining it with a careful doctor's eye. "Feels like you might've sprained it," he pronounced grimly.

"You're telling me."

"Can you walk?"

"No. I can't even get up, Matty," Mello whispered. The redhead sighed and picked him up, piggybacking the blond back in the general direction of the campsite with his temporarily-killed Mudkip seemingly forgotten. Ivy attempted to snipe BB in the back, thinking he wasn't playing attention to their game anymore, but he had been, so he was able to avoid the shot, but I wasn't quite as lucky.

"Goshdang it, Ivy! If someone comes down to a water place wearing clothes, you do not try to get them wet! It's common sense!" I yelled, a large wet spot all over the front of my shirt.

Ivy looked near tears, and Beyond Birthday put his arms around her shoulders. "She didn't mean it, Sherlock. She was aiming for me." Unable to find the proper words to express myself, I growled at the two of them, stomping off to my now one-person tent. They didn't follow me, understanding I needed some good quality alone time with my case to calm down.


A few hours later, Ivy reluctantly stuck her head in through the flap as though she expected me to bite it off at the earliest opportunity. "Hey, have you seen Near? He went off a few hours ago to go birdwatching and hasn't come back yet."

"So?" I asked, rolling lazily onto my back.

"So," she said slowly, carefully emphasizing each word as she said it, "it's about to turn into a real thunderstorm out there."

I sat up abruptly, suddenly realizing my absolute absorption in my case wasn't healthy and my situation now was a direct result of it. "I have to find him! He's gonna get himself killed!" I struggled into my boots and raincoat, ready to go out into the impending storm to find him.

"I'll come with you! And we can take Beyond-"

"No!" I hissed. I glared out into the angry gray sky overhead. "I have to do this alone. If we aren't back by morning, tell Roger, okay?" I didn't wait for her to agree or tell me I was crazy, instead running off into the trees, calling Near's name at the top of my lungs. I had to find him. I'd been stupid, absorbed in the past, and if I lost him now, I would never forgive myself.

The sky opened up, pouring buckets of rain down on my head, but still I yelled. The water soaked into my hair and clothes, pressing them against my body, but I did not leave. Visibility drastically reduced, but I didn't give up. Anxiously, I scanned the trees with growing concern. "Near!"

I don't know how I managed to spot the water-logged genius up in the tree since the white had long since changed to gray, and he hadn't gotten my attention in any way. "Near!" I yelped in relief, scrambling up the tree towards him, "Near!"

I was a few moments away from reaching him when it happened. He was turned towards me so I could see what it did to him. A large flash of lightning snapped down nearby, terrifying us both. Near's gray eyes showed a fear so irrational, the only thing keeping him here was the absolute trust he had in me. I wanted to let go of my rationality, as he had done, but someone had to be the responsible one, and it obviously wasn't going to be him. When I reached his branch, he threw himself at me as though he was trying to hide himself inside me, rasping, "Sherlock, Sherlock, Sherlock," over and over.

"Shh, it's all right, Near, it's all right now. I'm here, and we can go back to my tent now. Come on, up on my back, I can't carry you there and climb down at the same time," I murmured soothingly to him. He obeyed, clinging to my back like a small koala would to its mother, burying his face in my hair. I navigated my way down as best I could one-handed, but sometimes I would be forced to use tow and let Near hold on as best he could. When we reached the bottom, he slipped off and clung to my arm. I pulled out my phone and sent Ivy a quick text telling her that I'd found Near and we were coming back now.

I pulled Near into my tent when we reached the campground, recognizing he would not be able to sleep alone tonight. Matt and Mello were also sharing a sleeping bag, the pair looking very sweet asleep. Near snuggled closer to me inside of my over-sized sleeping bag that I was sharing with him, falling asleep almost instantly so close to my comforting warmth. I stared at his innocent face, devoid of sadness or fear since he was close to me, and made my decision. I opened my phone again to send one last text.

L. Can't take cases anymore. Giving up mine. 4Ever. Sorry. -S.


When I got home, I separated myself from everyone; Near, Beyond Birthday, Ivy, Matt, Mello, basically everyone I knew. I ran to my room, surreptitiously palming a lighter from Matt on the way. I grabbed a metal trash can in my room, locking the door behind me to prevent anyone and everyone from stopping me. I collected all the paperwork from around the room, throwing it in the bin, before adding binders, folders, anything to do with my case. I lit a single paper on fire and dropped it in the trash can, watching my dreams go up in smoke with the papers.

If only I could go up too...


Meh, I'll just say if you want to see the saying, go to the beginning. I'm not putting it anymore. Too lazy. :P

No real author's not this time; sticking another chapter up after this, so I'll put the author's note in then.