Changeling, chapter 10: Mysteries

"The thousand mysteries around us would not trouble but interest us, if only we had cheerful, healthy hearts." - Friedrich Nietzsche

Stretching his arms and legs, the boy stood up, leaning on the desk for a moment. Anna didn't move to dismiss him and L silently bit his thumb in frustration, unsure of the proper course of action at this point. The boy was a complete enigma; his actions made little sense in any context and he seemed determined to put as many obstacles as he possibly could in L's path to discovering the mystery surrounding him.

Though of course, that most definitely meant he had something to hide. L's chapped lips stretched into a small smile around his thumb and he bit down on the soft flesh, mentally flipping through different ways to garner the responses he wanted for his inquiries. He needed an inroad.

Certainly, he could begin by introducing himself and welcoming the boy to Wammy's, but L had never cared to observe social niceties and wasn't about to let the boy thrust him into playing host. He'd allowed Hadrian to control enough of their interactions at this point, even if the boy had done so unwittingly.

It was most likely just childish stubbornness that had Hadrian choosing a seat other than the one Anna had shown him to... but seven percent said that the boy could have another reason for the switch. (About 0.6 percent had the boy changing seat out of spite, but L knew that was just his own annoyance talking and thus promptly refused to acknowledge the thought.)

"Hadrian?"

The boy stiffened at his voice and then forcibly relaxed his shoulders, slowly turning around to face him. Finally seeing the boy up close, L wasted no time cataloguing Hadrian's features. His eyes zoned in on the boy's messy fringe, noticing hints of scar tissue between the dark tufts of hair.

A small hand came up to smooth the fringe to the boy's forehead, and L let his eyes wander further down to meet the boy's green eyes. They were very characteristic, so perhaps he could run a check to see if there were any leads on the other side of the law, if he narrowed it down to a boy with bright green eyes. Of course, if Hadrian had been living underground there was a chance he might have been wearing lenses to cover up such an unique feature, but if he had not... L mentally shook his head in annoyance; he could think further on this later.

"Why did you chance seats?" he asked instead without preamble, expecting the blunt question to at least partly throw the boy off balance. A small surge of satisfaction rose in his chest when those green eyes blinked in surprise, Hadrian's lips parting a little before he regained composure.

"Because you were staring at me," the boy said, voice bland but not monotone. It also wasn't a lie, which was interesting. Perhaps Hadrian had an aversion to being the centre of someone's attention, or else the situation as a whole had made him so uncomfortable that the discomfort had been amplified by L's interest in him?

"I see." L nodded but didn't bother excusing himself. He hadn't done anything wrong, no matter that it had discomfited the boy. Hadrian shifted and L realized that he was either waiting to be dismissed or for the conversation to continue. That was not a child's usual way of dealing with an uncomfortable situation. L would not have been surprised had Hadrian simply turned to leave the moment a lull in the conversation appeared, but instead he remained behind.

Either he was very well-mannered, a rather rare thing for the geniuses in the house, or he'd grown up in a place where polite behaviour was expected even from young children. Perhaps a private school? Had the boy been an adult, L could have considered him having previous experience in the Army.

Hm. Perhaps a military academy?

"Who... are you?" The boy finally asked when L made no move to either dismiss him or continue speaking, instead waiting Hadrian out to see if the boy would push the conversation further on his own. That question was a welcome return to the expected and L slowly grinned.

"Erald." Which wasn't a complete untruth. This was what he had potentially interesting children try to figure out. Before the heirs had been decided, L had shown himself to them as either Erald or Danuve, to see if they were curious and resourceful as well as suspicious enough to figure out his identity. He normally wouldn't have appeared in front of a new arrival whose test results he hadn't reviewed, but as they were racing against the clock to find the Red Painter, L was certain that peaking the boy's interest would serve his own interests later.

A child's curiosity wasn't to be underestimated. L himself had been a voracious child when it came to any and all mysteries, and it was one of the earmarks for his heirs. An intelligent but incurious child would never be a suitable potential successor.

Hadrian's eyes narrowed and L's grin widened. Then he turned around to approach Wammy, who was speaking quietly with Anna, both of them leaning over the test papers. As he moved forwards, he watched from the corner of his eye as Hadrian left the room sporting a confused frown, and resisted the urge to stick his tongue out at the boy. It was a small revenge, but taunting the boy a little made his own frustration more bearable.

"How did he do?" L asked, cocking his head at Wammy. The older man's white eyebrows were raised and he was skimming the pages intently. L could have had Wammy give the test results to him to look through himself, but the older man was very good at split-second judgements and often considered the 'human angle' of different answers in a more empathetic way than L did. L was more for statistics and looking at patterns and deviations thereof. But it was irritating, having the older man's social interaction skills be so far above his own, but L knew that eighty percent of his lacking skills in that area was due to his own stubbornness in refusing to bow to the social norms.

Not that it mattered overly much, as he very rarely bothered to interact with people anyway.

"If he enters the race for the Letters, I think he'll soar to the top in a very short amount of time," Wammy murmured, eyes still intently focused on the page. L flicked his tongue over his lips in thought, examining his feelings about that answer. He found himself to be largely unsurprised and slightly excited at the thought. He was currently more invested in this mystery than most of his open cases.

"Dr. Anderson, your impressions of the boy?" he asked absently, staring out into thin air as he thought.

The woman's lips puckered as she frowned in thought. "Except for his wearing pyjamas, his conduct couldn't be faulted. He seems like a polite boy, very mature." L looked at the useless camera over the assigned seat and couldn't disagree more. In his experience, people who were 'mature' were a lot more easier to manipulate than Hadrian had proven to be. "And he seems reasonably well-adjusted, looking at his 'Social Intelligence' results. Not as well as Matt and Mello, but much more than Near was when he first arrived."

"What about his language skills?" He'd swelled that part of the test to more than twice its original size, and would be annoyed if it didn't bear fruit. After a moment of flipping through pages, Wammy looked up at him with eyes that were almost amazed and then turned the paper for L to see. L skimmed the page quickly, unsatisfied with all the blanks the boy had left, all the questions he hadn't known the answers to- what was the point of compiling a test for linguists if the boy didn't speak the common languages?

Then he reached the last question.

Which languages do you speak with some fluency?

L blinked, paused and reread the answer, slower. His eyes took in the information, but his brain refused to process it as truthful.

"That's not possible," he then said flatly. Several of those languages were extinct, the only people with fluency being either professors or archaeologists. And yet... L's thoughts raced. If the boy could speak even half of those languages... But no, it was too implausible to consider. Who would have taught him? With 95% surety, it would have had to be a group of people, as a single individual speaking all of the languages listed was even more unlikely than Hadrian himself speaking them. And a group of people spending time teaching a pre-pubescent boy extinct languages was a very improbable thought.

But not impossible, a small voice in the back of his mind eddied up to the surface.

"We'll have to give him another test, one solely for his alleged language skills." L nodded at Wammy's suggestion, that spark of excitement crackling again inside his chest. What reasons could Hadrian possibly have for lying about something like this? He must have known they'd be able to call him on a bluff of this magnitude. So either the boy wasn't as intelligent as he'd first appeared to be – unlikely, because L's instincts in these cases were very rarely wrong – or Hadrian was even more of a mystery than L had first thought.

L's lips formed a small grin as he nibbled on his sleeve, mind sorting through different professorial contacts he could call in favors from.

"Dr. Anderson, you may leave," he commented absently, he wouldn't have cared if she left or not, but Wammy was shifting in a very pointed way and trying to catch his eye. Obviously, he had something on his mind that he didn't want overheard. The blond woman bobbed her head in a nod, seeming completely unconcerned about his dismissal. Not that L cared about her opinion, but people tended to get annoyed when he didn't tack useless 'please' or 'thank-you's' to sentences.

As the door closed behind her, L fixed the elderly man with a stare. "Did you manage to extract any information from Jensen's biological parents?" L had apparently hit the nail on the head, because with a nod, Wammy sighed.

"I did speak to the couple, yes. Though why we couldn't have waited to do that at a more reasonable time of the day is beyond me." Wammy's lips pursed in disapproval, but L ignored the expression in favor of continued staring. The fact that the Jensens had been roused in the middle of the night wasn't a concern. He doubted that they'd been sleeping at all, considering their daughter's recent murder, no mattered that they hadn't been a family in anything but blood.

"And?" he asked, some impatience he didn't bother hiding leaking in to his voice. Wammy held onto his stern expression for another moment before sighing. Very graciously, L didn't gloat about this small victory.

"I made a few careful inquiries, and they were seemingly completely unaware that their daughter had stricken up any kind of relationship with any child, though they did mention that she 'had a bit of a soft spot for children'."

"And they appeared truthful?" Normally, L would have assumed that they were lying, but he'd already had the niggling feeling that the relationship between Christine Jensen and Hadrian would have been a secret.

"Yes."

L nodded thoughtfully and carefully folded that piece of information away to be scrutinized at a later point. "Did you retrieve the reports from the crime scene?" Hopefully those would have been compiled by now- the Red Painter was every close precinct's top priority at the moment and L expected the police to have collected enough evidence for a preliminary report.

"I did." Wammy handed him a small USB flash drive and then quickly set up the travel laptop he'd brought with him. This room was as secure as any other unused room in the orphanage and L felt no compunctions about conducting his work here. Even if there were cameras in the room, they only fed back to his own control centre and even so, they weren't angled to see the computer screen- L's back would block the view.

It took only a moment for the computer to load and L leaned forward, eyes moving rapidly over the text.

'...Blood splatter confirms suspect's blood type to be AB... high velocity splatter, as if the suspect was pushed through the window with great force... blood splatter on the floor, from (witness A), concurs with witness's statement...'

"I'm not altogether too surprised that the poor boy recreated the chain of events to a 'T'," Wammy murmured, leaning over his shoulder. With anyone other than the elderly man, the proximity would have been uncomfortable, but as it was, L just hummed.

Slowly sucking on his tongue, he continued reading. '...serrated blade... series of horizontal cuts... smeared blood over torso suggests the suspect was interrupted, presumably by the approach of (witness A)...'

"Well, as much as I wish it were otherwise, Hadrian needs to be interviewed again." Wammy's voice was regretful, and L knew the elderly man was likely feeling guilty about the thought. L didn't, of course, because necessity was necessity, regardless of emotion. He was about to agree and suggest a course of action, when an idea hit him.

"Perhaps it needn't be done in such an obvious way..." he began slowly, tasting the words as he spoke them. "Perhaps one of the heirs-"

Wammy straightened, hand slipping away from L's shoulder. "L! We are not involving one of the children in the investigation!" His tone was sharply reproachful and L looked back at him over his shoulder, tilting his head to rest his cheek on a knee. Wammy had always had a soft spot for children and L had known with almost 100 percent surety that the elderly man would protest.

"They aren't trained enough to be of use in this investigation," that was a small lie, but one that would calm his foster father some, "But the boy is more comfortable speaking with the other children, and asking Matt-" after a quick calculation, Matt seemed like the best choice. Mello was too volatile and Near was too unapproachable. "- to make small inquiries would hurt neither of them, especially as Hadrian will need to speak about the incident either way, if he is to heal from the trauma."

That last bit was more blatant manipulation than he'd normally have used, but it wasn't untrue, and should provide a compassionate enough excuse for Wammy to agree. After several moments of hesitation, the elderly man nodded and L turned back to the screen.

"Professional help will be required as well, of course," he continued in monotone, mentally skimming lists of people who would be available. The one he'd prefer, William, wasn't on the legal side of life- but that was hardly a concern. The man was good at what he did, which was what mattered. He'd been of use before, and L knew the man still owed him enoughthat he would help out at L's request, no questions asked.

William wasn't part of the investigation either, but L could pull some strings and have him listed as a temporary attaché... Biting his thumbnail, L contemplated the next possible moves in the chess game against time, and against the Red Painter. Tried not to let his mind turn to observe the harrying puzzle that was Hadrian from other angles, because as much as he'd have liked to spend more time trying to figure out the boy, he currently had nothing more to go on. It would be a waste of time until more information was available.

"What about his alias? It would be prudent to have one made up for him before he meets any more of the children here. Perhaps you could text Matt and ask him to relay it to the boy?" Wammy suggested and L frowned in annoyance even as he nodded. He'd almost allowed himself to forget that issue- he really should have had a new name to hand the boy when he'd confronted him after the test. The fact that the boy had managed to throw him out of his stride even in this small way was unacceptable.

With a slightly vindictive curl of his lips, L punched in a short message to his red-headed heir. His alias is to be 'Harry'. L pressed send with a decisive push of his thumb.

'Harry', to harass: annoy continually or chronically. How fitting, L thought.

A/N: L does not have a 'cheerful, healthy heart' ;)

Sorry for the delay; I have a thousand appropriate excuses I could make, but I don't quite see the point. I hope you enjoyed the chapter, and thank you for all the lovely reviews- without you guys this chapter would have been delayed even further. I'm sorry for not answering them personally (busytimes are busy), but never doubt that they are my motivation! I reread them whenever I'm stuck ;)

Dedicated to mabidiso, Duchessa and Wingwyrm, who for various reasons got me to finish this chapter.

Edited some things that apparently didn't make sense to anyone but me. I apologize for the misunderstandings, I should have been clearer.

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