Author's Note: I HAVE A LOGICAL REASON! In fact, Jewel and I both have logical reasons for choosing Gevanni LOL ;P Just wait, it's going to be good, ha-ha.

WINNERS: The person who came closest to guessing my age was...

snowflakeyukiharuno :D

...and Ryadai gets an uber honourable mention for guessing the exact amount of months for how old I am :P

Thanks all, so much for voting ^_^ You guys are the best, and all your guesses were pretty darn close :)

Disclaimer: I do not own Death Note, or anything remotely associated with it.

August 5, 2024. 1:25 PM... 19 Days Left...

"She's my daughter's mother."

"She's my fiancé."

"She doesn't belong to you!" they both said at once.

"Well this just got awkward," I interrupted. I scooted around Michelle and got off my bed at the end so as not to appear to be choosing sides. I wasn't getting into it with them right now. I went into the kitchen to make myself a sandwich.

Halfway through my endeavour I heard five pairs of feet come in behind me.

"Look, this can be dealt with later. There's a bigger problem we have right now," Mello spoke up.

I turned to face them. "What is it?" I asked. I was sure that there wasn't a whole lot that could move me anymore.

"That bomb's timer was preset," Mello said, a stern and serious expression on his face and in his tone. "It's set to go off, no matter what, in nineteen days."

"What?" I shouted.

"Nineteen days or wherever it is, it blows up, and kills whoever's beside it," Mello affirmed.

It was a plain, black leather briefcase, standard business size. It could have been anywhere.

"You've got to be kidding me! Why did you guys set it to go off?"

"It's what they specified. We don't ask questions."

"Well maybe you should start," Gevanni cut it.

"Nobody asked you," Mello shot back.

"If you'd been a little smarter in the first place, no one would have to ask me."

"I'm about a bazillion times smarter than you are."

"Which is why you dropped out of Wammy's."

"Hey now! What's that say about me!" I jumped back into the argument.

"And me!" Matt added.

"Wammy's was too mainstream, too pedestrian for me!" Mello came back.

"HEY!" Matt and I said at once.

Out of the corner of my eye I could see Near huddling in a corner pulling at his hair.

'Talk about a clinical case of regression,' I thought to myself and shook my head.

"...You're not intelligent enough to be with her!" I heard Mello accuse, coming back halfway through his rebuttal.

"At least I never left her! Not even once!"

Last. Straw.

"ALRIGHT EVERYBODY! ATTENTION!" I slammed my fist down on the closest countertop. If Near wasn't going to intervene to stop this childish argument, I was.

Five pairs of stunned eyes turned towards me and all shouting ceased.

"Thank you! Now, I'm talking charge around here! This isn't going to be an issue anymore. We have a bomb to find and we only have nineteen days to do it!"

"You and I have a wedding to plan, and we only have nineteen days!" Gevanni cut in, and I shot him a death glare for interrupting me.

"I think the wedding can freaking wait!" I said sternly. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Mello shoot me a look of his own, but I refused to meet it. "Now-"

"We already sent out the invitations," Gevanni cut me off again.

"Interrupt me one, more, time," I threatened, and death glared him again so that he knew I meant it. I saw Mello about to say something then and I shot him a look too. "Don't you even start!" I pointed my finger at him. "The next one who speaks out of turn gets a timeout and I don't care how old you are!" I asserted. I took a deep breath and started again. "Now! Near!" I pointed a long, slender finger at him. "What progress have you made with the S.W.A.T. team?"

Near looked like he wasn't going to say anything for a second but then answered with, "I contacted the head of the team we used and asked for a complete and total inventory of their building."

"Not good enough. You're going to take Gevanni and form two teams! Team A is going to interview each and every one of the people in that organization that we've dealt with and cross reference the information we get! Team B is going check the personal history of each and every person in that organization that we've dealt with to see if there's any reason any one of them might have for a bomb. Get it?"

Near nodded.

"I CAN'T HEAR YOU SOLDIER!"

"Yes." Near answered, and I swore I could almost detect a hint of annoyance in his voice and expression. I had managed to incite an emotional response from my stoic brother. Score one Jewel.

"Get it Gevanni?" I asked sternly.

"Yes," he responded grudgingly.

"YOU TWO!" I shouted, directing my attention to Matt and Mello. "You two are going to hit the streets, and or the computer systems and dredge up whatever you can find! Anything on bombs, or organizations that could possibly have a use for them! GOT IT!"

Matt saluted me and I wasn't sure if he was mocking me, or being serious. I figured narrowing my eyes at him would be a good in-between response to his gesture. I glanced over at Mello for his response but I got none. "Got it?" I asked him again and arched my eyebrow.

"Got it," he said, and his tone reminded me of a stuck-up teenager's. I curled my lips but didn't press the issue.

"You now!" I directed my attention to the wide-eyed blonde that came only to chest height on me.

"Yes sir!" she saluted in complete earnestness. I had to use every fibre of my being to resist the urge to coo and giggle at her cute adorable self being all serious. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Matt absolutely melt at the little blonde having copied his previous action.

"You're going with uncle Near and you are to STAY in his eyesight at all times. 'Stay' as in the verb. Infinitive form, 'to stay;' meaning, to remain through/during or for, a period of time. You are to stay in his eyesight at all times whilst not getting in his way. Understood?"

"Yes sir!" she saluted again. I allowed a small smile and shook my head at her ridiculousness.

"Now! Any questions!"

"Yeah," Mello started and I have him my most uncompromising look. "What are you going to do?" he asked.

"Me?" I asked back and he nodded. "I am going to finish off all the food we have in this house. I am going to send out for a crate of bubblegum, I'm going to drink so much tea the people in China and Japan would think I was crazy, I'm going to take a long, hot bath with rose petals, jasmine bubble bath and candles and then I'm going to take a nice long nap and not wake up until I freaking feel like it. AND THEN, and only THEN, I will decided what I am going to do with regards to this case. And if any one of you has any complaints, or if I find any one of you standing over me when I wake up I'll, send you to Antarctica and then you'll have something to complain about.

NOW EVERYBODY OUT!"

My place was empty and silent in thirty seconds flat.

I had never yelled at them like that. I'd never really spoken up like that at all... At least not to all of them at once. Gevanni and I had had our spats, and heaven knows Mello and I had gone more than a couple rounds, I'd let Near have it a couple times, but that was the extent of it.

I felt really bad for it.

But could any of them blame me? This past week I had been shot at, challenged, and told I was going insane. I had: been told my case was a total bust, seen dead people, been starved, been threatened, learned that my ex knew about his daughter, fainted, been in the worst position in my life of having to choose whether my love, my daughter or myself was going to die, had almost died, had fainted again and had been caught in the middle of a vicious quarrel. No, they really couldn't hold it against me.

I felt so guilty.

And then I told myself that nothing had been getting done, and that things were getting done now. I told myself that the ends justified the means, and I was satisfied with my outburst.

I started with my bath.

Once I had checked off all the items on my list of things to do, I grabbed a notepad and a pen and sat down on front of my coffee table in the living room. There had to be something I was missing, there had to be something I had seen or heard that day that would unlock the mystery of what happened to that bomb.

I played out the event in my mind's eye.

Two groups of men strolled in simultaneously. One from the left, and one from the right; one from the west and one from the east.

"Near, are you getting this?" I asked aloud like I had wanted to back then.

The group on the felt was more or less facing me. I could see all of their faces, and I almost wished I couldn't; they weren't much to look at. There were five of them, all ripped with the type of muscles that come from a bottle and not from hard work. All of them could've used a trip to the dentist and all of them had been to the tattoo parlour one too many times. The lead guy had a shaved head and a half a dozen piercings in his face; the one I assumed to be his second in command had just as many pricings, but also had a ponytail of long and greasy black hair, he was the one holding the briefcase.

The group coming in from the right I really couldn't see very well; I was staring at their backs. As a whole they all seemed to be slimmer and marginally shorter, but I couldn't really make a good call on heights when I was thirty feet in the air. Four of them were wearing black hoodies, all with the hoods up. One of the hooded characters was carrying a briefcase, and so was the guy I took to be their leader.

"Mello. Not possible," I said as I played back the scene behind closed eyes.

Another briefcase; a third.

Briefcase 3 = laptop.

Briefcase 2 = money.

The briefcase Mello was holding had to be the bomb... Although, I'd never actually seen it.

Muzzle flash. Bullets. Shattered glass.

Falling.

Bullets.

"Don't let her escape!"

"Stop her!" I heard between gunshots.

"Hey, wait a minute!"

Roof.

"Jewel. Jewel come in." Static.

"Send in the backup!" I spoke in the present.

The S.W.A.T. team.

The briefcase.

But which one? I couldn't be definitively sure that the briefcase Mello was holding was the one with the bomb in it.

'Ask Mello about which bomb he had, and what went on in the warehouse after I got on the roof,' I wrote on my notepad.

I went back to the unfolding chaos. I went back to the moment just after I had taken the bomb off of Mello's motorcycle.

"HEY!" I shouted at one of the S.W.A.T. I tossed the briefcase at him; I made sure he had caught it.

"Him! That S.W.A.T. member was the last person I had seen with the briefcase before I left. I hadn't seen his face because he had been wearing a darkened helmet like each of the other people who were there.

I squinted my eyes closed and thought hard.

Average build, average height. He hadn't said anything.

Damn.

'Check recording of video feed from my surveillance equipment,' I wrote on my notepad under my note for Mello.

I picked up my phone off the cradle then and dialled Near's number at the office.

"Hello?"

"Yeah Near, I'm going to need to go over the recordings made off of my feed of the warehouse that day and can you put me in touch with Mello, I have a couple questions to ask him."

"Funny, 'cause I have a couple questions to ask you too."

I jumped up and spun around to be ready to defend myself against the voice that had come from behind me.

Mello was letting himself in through my door.

"You still don't knock, do you?" I asked him.

"What?" Near asked into the phone, still on the other line.

"Nothing Near, never mind for now, I'll call you back. Thanks." I laid the phone back on the cradle and stared up at Mello. He seemed kind of, forlorn. Which was, for Mello, quite out of the ordinary. "What's up?" I asked him, worrying slightly at his expression.

"You're really going to marry that tool in nineteen days?"

"You're really going to come right out and call him a tool?"

"You heard what he was saying," Mello said defensively.

"I heard you both arguing like five year olds," I said back.

"Why him?" Mello asked me suddenly.

"Are we really going to go there Mello?" I asked back, turning away from him. I just couldn't look him in the eyes right then. Mello didn't answer but I felt his stern gaze at the back of my head. "You were gone Mello. As far as I knew you were never coming back. I was alone... Again."

"So why him?" Mello asked again.

"Would your anger at me be any different if it was someone else?"

"Maybe."

"Yeah right." I hung my head as I prepared to answer Mello's question. "Who else was it supposed to be Mello?

"Anybody."

"Anybody?" I asked sceptically.

"Yeah, anybody. You could have-"

I spun back around to face him and cut him off, "I could have met some guy at the corner pub one right. We could have really hit it off and we could have started dating," I started with mock enthusiasm. "We could've gotten really close and really started to like each other. But then, a couple months down the road, this guy, he would've realized he knows absolutely nothing about me. So one day, the inevitable conversation happens, he says:
'So, tell me about yourself Jewel. Tell me your life story.' He says 'Jewel' because I still can't give out my real name, and he wants to know my life story, because I've kept it bottled up inside me the whole time. But I decide to trust him, so I say:
'Well, I was born a twin a really long time ago. My parents died in a fire and so my brother and I got sent to this orphanage over in Winchester England. But get this...' I'd say, 'this 'orphanage' is really a school. A school to groom all the kids there, to get them ready to one day take on the role of the greatest detective on Earth! So while I'm at this school I meet this one guy right, and I absolutely fall in love with him, and I hope that one day, things are going to turn out right for us. But even though we've been through a lot, we're both still just kids. So that aside, while I'm at this orphanage I actually get to meet the greatest detective on Earth! His name is L and he drafted ME! Me of all people to help him with this one case. Maybe you've heard of it. It was the Kira investigation!' And then," I explain to Mello, "this guy gets a look of total incredulity! He doesn't believe me, but I continue anyway. I tell him, 'Everything was going just fine too, until, oh yeah, L died. So I went back to Winchester and I felt so hopeless and useless! Especially when the guy I'd fallen in love with leaves. So what do I do? Years later I move to Los Angeles, and I'm finally getting settled in when, who shows up? The guy from the school. He asks me to help him solve the Kira case, because of course, it hasn't been solved yet as L has died and my little brother had to take his place!"

I pause to take a breath, ignoring Mello's unwavering stare.

"'I helped him the best that I could,' I'll explain to this guy, 'but it still wasn't good enough. The case finally got solved but I lost my best friend and the one I'd fallen in love with. But hey, at least the case is over. I then however find out I'm carrying this guy's kid. Yeah, I've got a kid, if I've forgotten to tell you all these months, sorry. So then I raise her, and ship her off to the same school I went to as a kid, and now I'm working for my brother, the new L.' What do you think?" I ask Mello. "I can see that going over well," I sneer.

"You could lie," Mello finally says.

"Mello, I've been lying about who I am my entire life. I'm sick of it. So that's why Gevanni. Gevanni was there when I was carrying Marsh. Gevanni knows the life Near and I have had. I wouldn't have to explain my crazy, messed up life to him. He was there when I went to work for Near, he was there when I needed a shoulder to cry on!" I shout and I realise the volume of my voice has been steadily escalating for the past five minutes, and I realise that I've started crying. I buried my face in my hands and dumped myself onto the couch.

"He never left you. Not even once," Mello said, quoting Gevanni's earlier words as he sat down beside me on the couch. "It seems every time I leave you, you end up with more scars."

I felt Mello's hand brush my shirt sleeve out of the way, and I felt him run his fingers gently across the ragged white lines. I felt his other hand start at my leg. I felt him trace the patterns of the scars that were there through the fabric of the denim. Mello's hand left my arm and I felt him place it on my chest over my heart.

I started crying harder.

Author's Note: Now, MY reasons for having Gevanni be "that guy" LOL ;P

I didn't want to create another OC. I find when authors stuff too many OC's in any one given story, things get confusing.

Of course then, it had to be somebody already in the story, and there were only two 'surviving' males (Near, and Gevanni) and one of them was Jewel's brother... So this reason speaks for itself.

I wanted to have it be someone that you guys wouldn't get too attached to. If I made her fiancé some sweet, caring and understanding guy (IE Matsuda,) there could have been some debate and controversy there for what I have planned at the end ...And if I made the guy a total asshole, it would have been unbelievable.

Therefore, Gevanni ;P

So, I hope you all approve of, or at least understand, my choice now, LOL ;)