A/N: Bad AreYouReady! Very very bad! Update faster!
Also, this fic keeps changing plots mid arc. Majorly. I hope it doesn't come through too much. Does it?
Dang, it's late to start writing a chapter. Why is it so late?
Oh yeah, because I wanted to feel like less of an a**hole for abandoning my wonderful readers.
So I wanted to give you a chapter.
And I'll have a special apology policy: every review of this chapter gets a reply.
Distractions
It was November of 1986, Quillish was pleased with his life. L was so completely occupied with international cases that he rarely left his room. Carla, on the other hand, was regularly in touch, and the two of them spent hours discussing a variety of international issues between Carla's meetings on behalf of L. Carla also seemed pleased with the arrangement, enjoying the exotic locales she was thrown into, even though her work was exhausting. She confessed to him that her only dissatisfaction was that she couldn't speak a word of the local languages of the places she went. Quillish assumed she would pick up a little of the more common ones eventually, though, so he wasn't too worried.
Overall, everything was peace and quiet. Well, until the day after the first snowfall. Then, one of the children went missing. A nine-year-old boy named Gary. Orphanage workers, including Quillish, searched high and low for him, and eventually called in the authorities. The next day he was found locked in a closet, but otherwise seeming no worse for wear. However, he had no memories of the day before, and a blood test confirmed he had been sedated. How had this happened? And who would cause it? The police speculated that it might be recreational drug use, and the child might have locked himself in, but that didn't seem right. The boy was nine years old! Besides, the closet had been locked from the outside.
So Quillish decided to consult the Wammy's House resident detective. He knocked on L's door. But there was no customary answer of "Enter." Perplexed, Quillish knocked again. And again, there was no answer.
"L?" he said through the door. Nothing. Fearing that whatever had befallen Gary had also befallen L, Quillish opened the door. He was confronted with a scene from a nightmare. A bureaucrat's nightmare, to be precise. Papers were spread all over the floor in a mess that radiated outward from its center point: a small child with wild black hair, white pajamas, a pale face, and extremely dark circles under his eyes. Quillish did not remember those being there before. "L-" he started.
"Quiet," L said in a strained monotone, "I must concentrate."
"L!" exclaimed Quillish, horrified, "When was the last time you slept?"
"Two days ago," replied L, "I am quite adept at pretending to be asleep when your little child-minders come to check on me."
"That is not healthy! You are going to bed right now, this instant!" Quillish said.
"No," replied L.
So Quillish picked up the little boy, who thrashed, bit, and kicked like a wild animal, but was still only six, and couldn't do much damage. He tucked the glaring L into bed, and called one of the nurses to watch over him, to make sure he stayed there.
But that left consulting L on the case of the mysterious disappearance and reappearance of one of the orphans out of the question. Without genius help, Quillish had no idea where to even begin his search for a culprit. But before he could even think about it, another emergency arose. He should've known that the long peaceful spell was just the calm before the storm. An attempt had been made on Carla's life.
In fact, someone had, luckily inexpertly, planted a bomb in her hotel room. She had managed to find it, get out, and warn the hotel staff about it before it went off, but she was quite scared by it. So she was flying back to England, and coming home to Winchester. Quillish decided to pick her up from the airport himself.
"Hi Mr. Wammy," Carla said, as she stepped into the car.
"Hello Carla," said Quillish, "are you alright?"
"I'm fine. Just… jumpy. A little scared. I'm perfectly fine, all things considered. I just… want to take a little break, not be in the line of fire for a while. Not have a sniper hired by the rich family of someone L caught hiding around every corner." She said.
"Well, I should hope that there will be none of that at Wammy's. Welcome home, Carla." Quillish said.
"L seems to be annoyed at you about something, though. Tell me what it is, he's pretty hard to annoy."
"He wasn't sleeping. So I have a nurse watching over him to make sure he sleeps."
"He what?! Why wasn't he sleeping?" Carla exclaimed, horrified concern in her voice.
"He was working so many cases that he apparently had no time to sleep."
"Jesus. Well at least you're making him."
They passed the rest of the ride in silence.
When they got back, Quillish went back to his office. There, he found a string sticking out of his locked desk drawer. Curious, he unlocked the drawer, and peered inside. The string was tied around the neck of the neck of a bottle. A bottle of a liquid sedative. The same sedative that had been used on Gary. Quillish felt a sense of déjà vu. This was disturbingly similar to the case of the domino library shelves last summer: no motive and no lasting damage, just stress, extra work, and worry for him and the rest of the orphanage staff. And mind-games, for him alone. Again, he dusted for prints only to find nothing; they had been wiped away. He was about to go consult with L on it, but a familiar knock made the point moot.
"Come in," said Quillish.
"Ah, Quillish, I have a favor to ask you," said L, tiny smirk already in place on his lips.
"What would you like, L?" Quillish asked.
"Well, Carla is incapacitated, and I can't be a detective alone…" L said.
"Get on with it," said Quillish refusing to make the connection L was implying.
"You don't want me getting bored again, do you?" asked L.
"No, God no." Quillish said.
"I thought not," L said, smirk widening. "I need a reserve go-between, Quillish. You're the perfect candidate."
A/N: I have forgotten how to characterize Carla over the hiatus. Of all the characters, it's my OC who gets the OoC treatment. Wow.