Author's Note:

I wanted to publish this chapter yesterday, but Christmas took all my time.

Anyway, best wishes to everyone!

Chapter 9

One second he was asleep, and the second after he was awake, startled golden eyes flickering around the dark room. He didn't know what time of the day it was, or even the day itself. Heavy curtains were draped over the windows, allowing only little streams of light to peak in the room and letting him see the edges of things. If the light was natural or artificial, he didn't know.

He was tired, his limbs felt heavy and his mind was sluggish at best.

He probably looked very dumb, lying there, under the covers, wide eyes blinking in the shadows. Light swallowed. He had the distinct impression that something had crawled in his mouth while he slept and died there.

Yes, the taste on his tongue felt that unpleasant.

He blinked again. What had awoken him? He hadn't been dreaming (the rational voice in his mind – God, how could it be that awake if it was a part of him and he currently felt brain-dead? - argued promptly that of course he had dreamed, the actual process had probably taken up to ten minutes in a REM phase, and of course his mind had replayed the delirious images, he just didn't remember them because he was tired) but something had phased him from unconsciousness to consciousness suddenly.

What was it?

Something vibrated on the nightstand next to him, startling him so badly he jostled his son's head from his shoulder, making the boy whine in his sleep and roll over, a pale figure between equally white sheets. A second after, the phone started ringing, piercing the silence with its sharp tones.

Light became a blur of movements: he was lying in bed, and then he had grabbed the device, silencing the noise with a button (but not rejecting the call) and walking towards the bathroom's door, only stumbling a bit when dizziness caught him, black spots dancing in front of his eyes, punishing him for moving too quickly. He glanced back at the bed, making sure that he hadn't awoken Near – the image of his child nestled between big pillows and blankets in a white-on-white composition made him smile, warmth curling in his chest – before he closed the door, finding himself alone in the privacy of the bathroom. He moved forward to sit on the counter, silently marveling at the warm room. Bathrooms were always cold as Hell, but there he felt pleasantly at ease.

The phone was still vibrating in his hand, showing the stubbornness of the caller. He watched the name on the screen, sighing. He knew he had to talk with the man, he had just hoped the confrontation would come later in time.

He clicked a button and brought the device to his ear.

"River" he rasped, wincing slightly at his parched throat.

"How's Near?" Aizawa's familiar voice crackled in his ear. Light could feel the man shift in what probably was his office's chair, shuffling some paper, the other rumors of the police station merging in the background in a chaotic mess.

"He's not in the best shape, but he'll be fine. Nothing serious. How's the other boy?"

"He'll be fine too. He's currently being smothered to death by his worried family."

"Good."

Silence. A sigh from the other end of the line. Light slouched backwards, his back leaning against the tepid mirror (really, how could they have heated a mirror?!).

Here it comes, he thought bitterly. But he still didn't regret his actions.

"You know we have to talk" his boss said, reluctance clearly heard despite the disturbance sounds in the line.

"I know what you have to say."

"I know you know, but I'll say it anyway. It's my duty." the man shifted again, the sound of the groaning of the leather chair crackling in the speaker. "You went against the orders I gave you, you went over my authority and that of my Chief and acted on your own without consulting with us firs. Your contacted L, and led a rescue mission without permission. Your actions could have endangered the hostages. I know you were worried about your son," another sigh, more shifting in the chair. "but what you did is unforgivable. Actions like the ones you have taken always result in imprisonment, the years changing according to the gravity of the offense. My Chief wanted to throw you in jail. I convinced him to reconsider."

"Thank you, sir." Light's gratitude was sincere. It was difficult to run away and hide when the law was looking for you. It was problematic to change identity and fade in the shadows when your face was being broadcasted worldwide.

"Don't thank me. Thank your flawless records. This doesn't mean you're unscathed, though."

"I'm fired, sir?"

Silence, a sigh.

"Yes. I'm sorry."

"I have to answer to my actions."

Aizawa fell silent again. Then laughed shortly, a small bout of hilarity crackling in the speaker.

"I have the feeling that losing your job didn't faze you in the least, am I right?" he asked, his voice having lost the previous formality and adopting a more jovial and warm undertone. Aizawa didn't wait for an answer. "Have you already picked up the place you're going to disappear to?"

The question caught Light by surprise, and he frowned, confused.

"What do you mean?"

"Don't play dumb with me, Raito. It would not be the first time you disappeared without a trace."

Light sat there on the counter, speechless.

"H-How?" he managed to stutter, surprised.

He had been careful! He had never mentioned anything he shouldn't have know, he had befriended the officers like they were strangers, faked perfectly his ignorance of Japanese customs and Tokyo's layout. How could Aizawa know about his past identity?

"I knew who you were from the moment I saw you." Light could practically see the smile on his ex-boss's face. "Your face structure was always Sachiko's, but your mannerisms reminded me of Soichiro. And those eyes." The man chuckled. "Even young as you were when we met for the first – and last – time, those eyes were piercing and clever and so golden. Those were – still are – not eyes someone could forget, Raito."

"Why did you not say anything?"

"Would you have liked me to?" Light remained silent. "I thought so. I was at the crime scene, and when we didn't find you I personally went to Hell and back trying to find you." Aizawa sighed, his voice low and sad. "And when time passed, I convinced myself that you were fine. You were a terribly smart kid, and you would be okay. That was my conviction." The man paused, hesitated, then started talking again. "I won't ask questions, and I don't want to pry, but... you were okay, right?"

Light wetted his lips and blinked. Had he been okay? … No, he hadn't been. He hadn't been hurting, because he had forgotten that there was someone to hurt for, but... that hadn't freed him. That blank spot in his mind had tormented him, reminding him that there was something he had no access to. Something of his.

"... Yes, I was okay." he said in the end, not feeling guilty in the slightest when the other man sighed in relief. They exchanged some other pleasantries, and hung up.

That would be the last time they would hear from each other.

Light walked back in the bedroom, feeling exhaustion begin to pull again at his eyelids. He shuffled in the dark, found the bed, and crawled back in.

He draped himself all around his son, engulfing the smaller frame between his body and the covers, pulling them higher and more over them when he felt Near shiver.

His nose buried in white strands, breathing in the clean scent of soap and talc, he relaxed, closing his eyes and welcoming back sleep.

Sometimes the truth hurt. Sometimes, it was better to lie, to avoid discussions, to hide and bury facts and emotions until all that was left was what you wanted to show to the world.

Honesty, sometimes, was a luxury that Light couldn't afford.

Near blinked. The soft murmur of voices drifting from one of the closed doors had woken him gently from the grey blank unconsciousness that his sleep had been – hours of it, he could gather from the heavy weight in his eyelids and limbs, the lazy lethargy that hampered his thoughts -.

He hated sleeping. His brain always seemed to tangle in imaginary chains, scattering parts of itself in various corners of his skull. The real problem was the awakening. His thoughts were sluggish and half-formed and just so slow.

Near kicked the covers off himself, in a rare show of childish resentment.

He knew he was sick. He could feel the warmth coming from his body, the coldness of his skin, the shivers that caught him in the strangest moments.

He felt cold. But under the covers it was entirely too warm.

It was the covers' fault, of course.

The real culprits.

Could covers go to prison? There should be a special Blanket Commission to incarcerate guilty covers, and a special prison for Incorrigible Bed-sheets...

His head lolled to the side, white strands of hair fluttering over his eyes, mixing with equally snowy eyelashes.

A field of snow. Maybe he could profit from it, build a resort and welcome ski fanatics to enjoy the snow and they would pay and with the money he could...

Near blinked. Tried to stand. Fell back down on the bed.

Oh dear, had they drugged him?

He tried to stand up again. His balance seemed to be screwed, but after wobbling a bit he managed to remain upright. He turned his head.

His mother was sleeping between the covers, curled towards the place Near had been in few minutes before. Auburn hair was sprawled all over the pillow, and bits of tanned skin showed in places where he had moved the covers.

The murmur of voices continued to attract him out of the room.

He padded silently forward to the door, leaning his hear against the wood. The voices – vibrations, sound waves moving through the air aided by the rotation of molecules, his brain suggested – were too distorted and low to make out, but he was sure he had heard his name among unintelligible words.

Or, what he thought was his name. Near was a common word in the English language, after all, and he wasn't sure the people out there were talking English or Japanese.

His cold hand curled around the door's handle, the cold metal feeling hot compared to his higher body temperature. The screeching sound it made when he turned it made him cringe. He turned his head quickly, but his mother had just shifted and rolled, stretching out on his back.

Near's eyes flickered to the raised white scar on that golden abdomen, looking almost normal among the lean muscles and profiles of bones.

He had always been fascinated by it. How could a man give birth?

It was possible, of course, since he was alive and kicking, but... the mechanics of it? Males' physiology didn't allow for these kind of things to happen.

Then how had his mother...?

Near had asked Mikami, once. He had been... seven, could it be? Anyway, he had asked his 'family doctor' – the term was more appropriate than ever with Mikami, since the man was family -, because with his knowledge of biology and medicine he hadn't been able to explain the phenomenon. And all he had read couldn't compare with Mikami's knowledge.

So he had asked. All he had learnt was that Mikami didn't know. That Near's existence, and successful birth, had been a miracle.

From that day on, that scar on his mother's belly had been like a relic, something sacred to be admired and cherished.

Near stared at it, then walked out and closed the door softly behind him.

The voices were clearer now. He followed them through a short hallway, and he entered the living room, stealthy and silent as a ghost, clutching the sheet he had wrapped around him like a shield.

Not like he really thought that a bed-sheet could shield him. Or that there was something he had to be shielded against.

Near frowned. He had been kidnapped, of course, and held prisoner for two weeks. A normal child his age would have ended up traumatized. He was not. His mind felt calm and collected – if not a little sluggish from that damned sleep – and his emotions were as clear as ever.

Who needed normality? He was the opposite of normal. Since the moment he was born, if not conceived.

"... and Mikami said that the guy tried to take his life. So this young officer – I don't remember his name..."

Beyond's red eyes glinted in the morning's sun, the light making them seem like burning embers. He was sprawled in one of the armchairs, limbs thrown around like a starfish, clothes messy and dark hair all over the place.

In front of him was another man, sitting on the other chair like a frog. His eyes were dark and his hair even darker. He would have seemed Beyond In Black, if not for the air around him. He had a certain feeling of authority and confidence and don't-mess-with-me aura, that made him glorious.

No one, looking at him and seeing his strange mannerisms and looks and perceiving his presence, could think of him like a freak. No one with half a brain, anyway.

"Anyway, this young office – the clumsiest I have ever seen, I swear..."

"Matsuda."

Two sets of eyes, one red, one charcoal black, turned to him. Both of them seemed to be analyzing him, set on discovering his every weakness.

If they found them, would they use them against him?

Near knew they wouldn't.

"The officer you were talking about is Matsuda" Near said, walking forward and crawling on the empty couch in front of the armchairs, curling up against the pillows.

"You were saying?" he questioned, idly.

Beyond looked at him with a loop-sided smile. "The police caught your kidnapper. I was saying that he almost committed suicide, but that officer Matsuda handcuffed him before he could do anything. At the Station he confessed everything."

"He was desperate, and alone. Of course he would have tried suicide."

The other man's eyes seemed to settle on him more firmly. "What makes you say that?"

Beyond got to his feet, stretching before skipping towards the door, a big smile on his face. "... and this is where I leave. Nephew, L's going to assess you. Be how you always are. You'll be great."

"I don't need your input." said Near, at the same time that L said "I'm not going to assess him!"

The only answer was the soft sound of the door closing behind Beyond.

Near and L stared at each other. Silence stretched between them, but Near didn't find it uncomfortable. Those piercing eyes didn't feel hostile or threatening. They were calm, self-assured without a hint of arrogance.

Tension he hadn't noticed was there slipped from his shoulders, and Near settled more firmly against the pillows, fingers rising up to reflexively curl a strand of hair around them.

"What is your opinion on your kidnapper?" L asked, leaning against the back of the armchair in a more relaxed pose. "From your statement earlier, it seems like you had enough interactions with the subject to formulate a deduction."

That smooth baritone was professional but not formal, straight to the point but not cold. When the press had talked about the Great Detective, it had made him seem like a cold-blooded robot, capable of great intelligence but faulty in emotions (how the reporters had come to that conclusion, Near didn't know. It wasn't like anyone knew the Detective, so to formulate speculations on the base of the cases' outcomes was ludicrous).

He had never agreed to that description. Instead, he had listened to his mother's reluctant stories, about a brilliant man who donned a mask in front of the world, who was not indifferent but was capable of emotionally difficult rational decisions when needed.

This image of L had seemed to him the closest to the possible truth, because despite any problem he may have in that sector, Near understood that in life emotions were necessary.

Especially in catching criminals.

He was happy that his mother's words had been the truth, and not the sugar-coated stories that mothers often said to their children about their missing fathers.

Not that he was comparing his mother to a whiny female*.

"I did not interact with the man, seeing as he wasn't keen to talking with his prisoners. But on his figure were quite telling clues."

The right corner of L's mouth curled a tiny bit up, and his eyes seemed even more focused, if that was even possible. "Oh? Do tell."

Near looked at him. He knew that the other man had noticed the details he was talking about, and he knew he was being tested.

He also knew that he would pass. One of the things his mother had taught him since a young age was self-confidence (if there were the right motives to have it, of course. Too much pride – unjustified pride even more – was known to bring even the most powerful human being to their knees).

"His clothes were elegant but not new, several years old, and not ironed. Also his general untidiness was a big clue of the fact that he was alone. No one – a wife, a companion – was there to make him do the effort of looking smart. Also the timing."

"Timing?" L asked, tilting his head. His smile was more evident, his eyes half-lidded.

"He visited often, at different hours. It would mostly be at night, or at odd times. Alone. No one was there to be suspicious of his movements."

Near blinked, yawned. After a brief nod from the other, he continued.

"Despite his general untidiness, I had noticed that he had been very careful in his murders. There was no evidence, no traces. He really didn't want to be found. So, he had a goal. A goal so important that when the PD leaked my deductions about the black market, he took a risk and kidnapped two children at once, without killing them immediately. He needed to keep on murdering. A goal. Not money, because if he had gained something from his sales at the black market – and organs are very expensive, so there was a lot of money to gain – he would have fixed his appearance. Not too much, in order not to catch too much attention, but a little bit. He didn't. So, not money. He wasn't apparently gaining anything from murdering those children, so why sell their organs in the market? His goal. To do a twisted good action, to make a point by helping others. Maybe because no one helped him when he needed it? And his mistake – kidnapping two children at once, keeping them alive in the faint chance that the PD might drop the man hunt out of fear. An act of petty revenge, that if he had thought more about it he would have seen it for what it was. A mistake, and his desperation acting out."

Near's throat felt sore. He never talked much to begin with, and after two weeks of silence this little speech of his had scratched his throat, making him wince.

"I'm impressed."

L was smiling, a satisfied expression on his face. His long fingers dipped in the container on the table next to the armchairs, drawing out a handful of sugar cubes. "Light had said that you were smart, but you surprised me. Age is not generally indicative of IQ levels, but even I, at your age, wasn't so focused in my deductions." the man chewed the glittering cubes, the crunching sound echoing in the room. Near found the sound oddly funny, instead of his usual annoyance. "What most of all astounded me was the circumstance. You were kidnapped by a murderer, you had seen the crime scenes' photos, so you knew what the man wanted to do to you. Despite all this, and your captivity, you managed to assess the subject and deduct extremely rational, and right, informations. I'm impressed."

Near was not a stranger to praise. Being smart had gained him the admiration of the few people he had had contact with, and the words had since lost any meaning to him.

He knew he was smart.

But his father's words, they reached him in a way that other's had not. His chest felt wonderfully warm, and he was sure his usually pale cheeks were sporting a suffused blush.

Had he always had a desire for his absent father's words of praise, and he had never realized?

He knew that children sought their parent's approval, but he had never seen himself as one of those.

Maybe he had been wrong.

"I'm good at locking down my emotions" he explained softly. "I can decide to feel something or anything."

"It's useful" agreed L, his eyes pondering and roaming over Near's form with an expression the child couldn't pinpoint. "But dangerous. If we choose not to feel, what really makes us human?"

Silence settled around them.

They understood.

*nothing against women, eh. It's just that it would make sense that Near, grown up surrounded by extremely intelligent men, might seem women as irrational fools.