Nightmare

He can hear them laughing, the shadows are mocking him. They do not think he can succeed, they want to see him fail and he is ready to prove them wrong. Light looks down and sees it there in the murky water, gleaming as if it is made of glass rather than being submerged in what he cares not to know. In the dim light he can make out the words that would make others turn away, but he is different, he knows those words will lead him to power again. With hardly a thought, there is a pen in his hand, the weapon mightier than any sword. Now that he has his tools again, he begins to write names.

When he is done, the water he had been standing him was full of blood, looking up from that he sees an endless void of a blood filled sea with bodies sticking out of it like rocks. He cares not for the ones he sees first, they are irrelevant to him and were simply causing trouble for the good people of the world. Light is glad to see them dead, they deserved it for what they had done. Walking on, he sees faces of familiar criminals, ones he has either helped to put away or ones he saw while watching the news. Their deaths are of little concern to him in fact they are a triumph, he succeeded where once he had failed and now the world is rid of their filth.

Moving on he starts to notice the faces register in his mind as being people he knew from his past, the ones he went to school with and who were there to cheer him on socially. His heart feels like a spider is crawling over it as he observes their lifeless bodies, but he is quick to ignore it. They must have done something, he is sure, something that warranted his wrath. With a quicker pace he continues his journey, the feeling in his heart intensifies when he sees the faces of people he has known for years and whom at one point he considered friends and family. Their faces twisted in agony, frozen in death and it tells Light they suffered in their death. He is confused, why are these people dead: His father and mother, his baby sister, his good friends, his fellow investigators, Watari, Misa, the boys? What could they have possibly done that was so bad to have deserved this kind of fate?

Light scans the sea of all too familiar faces, the ones he saw almost every day and takes some solace in the fact there are two distinct faces missing. Two faces he has a feeling are waiting to celebrate his victory with him when he is finished wading through this sea of death. Determined to find them, he hurries on, towards a shaft of white light near the end of the sea. Standing in the light is a dark haired man holding an infant girl.

"L! Noriko!" he cries, his voice sounds distant and foreign but he hardly cares, he can see the two people who mean the world to him just a few steps away. He throws his arms around them only to find himself embracing nothing. Looking up he sees another shaft of light, this one red and tentatively he moves towards it, but nothing prepares him for what he sees.

His husband and daughter are lifeless, their eyes fixed on nothing as they stare blankly up at him, their bodies floating motionlessly in the blood red sea. Light can feel what may have been his heart breaking in half, it certainly felt like a part of him had been removed and laid bare for him to see. With a strangled cry he falls to his knees and reaches for the bodies of the ones he never wanted to harm, of the ones he wanted to protect with his own life. Touching L's face he finds his hand feeling nothing even though it is clearly on skin, panicked he tries to pick up Noriko but finds that his hands go straight through her. They lay there like an offering but he cannot embrace them for a final time.

"Look at how many people you've killed, Light," comes Ryuk's voice seemingly from everywhere.

"I didn't mean to kill all of them!" he shouts, looking down at L and Noriko before looking for the god of death.

"All it did was go around in a full circle," says Ryuk. "A life for a life, isn't that how the saying goes?"

"Not their lives, please not their lives," begs Light as he tries fruitlessly to hold his family in his arms again.

"The desperate are always the most interesting," cackles Ryuk.

Light stands and searches for the Shinigami, determined to kill him for what he has done. "I trusted you, you bastard! I trusted you to be on my side."

"I'm afraid that the trust of me will be the fate of you," replies Ryuk. "Besides, Shinigami trust Shinigami before humans."

"They were innocent!" shouts Light, his eyes burning with unshed tears. "My family and friends, my husband and daughter, they did nothing wrong!"

Ryuk cackles again. "Yes they did, Light. What they did wrong was love and trust in you. That was their mistake. And when you picked up the Death Note again, you forfeited their trust. When you used it, you threw away their love. It was you who was the death of them, Light."

Light does not want to hear this, he wants to change what he has done, wants to reject the notebook forever but none of this he can do. Instead he goes to his knees beside his dead heart and weeps openly, his cries echoing off the nothingness.

He hears Ryuk's voice one last time. "You have lost, Light."

Light bolts awake, sweat pouring down his body like a fever just broke. Glancing over he sees L's side of the bed empty and for a moment he thinks that he really is dead, that he had been dreaming of his death as it happened. Leaping from bed he makes a mad dash for Noriko's room, crossing the room in a few strides at most to check on his daughter. In the light of the moon he sees his daughter's crib empty, as if she had never been there to begin with. Defeated he falls to his knees, his body shaking as he cries clutching the bars of the crib that once held his baby daughter. He wonders why Ryuk decided now to take them from him.

'Perhaps he thought I was too happy?' considers Light miserably.

Suddenly something cool and solid touches his shoulder, he nearly jumps out of his skin and turning around he sees L looking down at him with a great deal of worry, Noriko is nestled safely in his arms. Without a second thought, Light scrambles up and holds them both tightly against him, relieved to find that he can in fact touch them and that they are still with him.

"Light, are you alright?" asks L, his voice muffled against Light's bare shoulder. "You're acting rather strangely for a weeknight."

Light laughs and kisses him tenderly, then moves to take Noriko from him, the infant making a small sound of protest at the loss of heat before snuggling against Light's naked chest. He finds himself crying all over again, which only serves to worry L more.

"Light, what's going on?" asks L seriously, touching Light's cheek and forcing eye contact. "And don't you dare lie to me, I know something's wrong."

"I had a nightmare," says Light quietly as he struggles for the right words. "I dreamt . . . that I became Kira again."

In the darkened room Light could see L tense and almost pull away from him, his dark grey orbs going directly to Noriko as if working out a plan to pull her away from Light.

Light takes a step back. "I'm not him, L, not anymore. The nightmare showed me that much anyway."

"Noriko and I were killed by Kira I assume," says L, his words phrased as a statement rather than a question and Light nods solemnly. "I see, and you obviously did not like this outcome so you have concluded that it means you are no longer Kira, correct?"

Again Light nods.

"Light, do you know why I never made you give up ownership of the Death Note?" asks L as he takes a step towards Light.

"You wanted me to suffer the consequences of my actions," says Light, his finger holding Noriko's small hand. "You wanted me to understand that mass murderers won't get off easy no matter what they try to do."

L shakes his head. "No, I wanted you to remember what you did so you could make sure it never happened again. I wanted you to know that you can reform of your own free will, not just be reformed because of some outside influence. Yes, I wanted you to pay for your actions to a certain degree, but I never wanted you to think for a second I was doing it out of spite." He puts his arms around Light and Noriko. "I love you, Light and it's because of that love that I didn't want to lose you to the influence of the notebook. I wanted you to fight it with every fiber of your being, and it seems to be working."

Light let out a breathy laugh. "You are something else, L, and I wouldn't change that for all the world." He kisses him again, this time not out of desperation. "You should know this isn't the first nightmare I've had, I've been having them ever since I stopped using the Death Note."

"And it won't be the last," says L gravely. "The fact you have survived this long while being plagued by them means you can and are fighting against it, you know the world could be better but you're choosing a different path." He presses his forehead against Light's, their daughter wedged comfortably between them. "But no matter what, I will always be there to fight with you, Light. I'm not going to give up the fight for your soul and I'm sure Noriko would say something similar if she could."

"I know, L, and for the two of you I will always fight," says Light sincerely and he moves to hold L then guides him out of the room. "Let's go to bed, my love."

"Are you sure you want Noriko with us?" asks L as they enter their room. "Weren't you worried about her developing an unhealthy dependency?"

"To hell with that, I need my family tonight," declares Light as gets into bed, Noriko still safely in his grip.

L brings over a cashmere blanket from the closet and climbs into bed, using the blanket to make a little nest between them for Noriko to sleep in. Light grins when he sees it and gently places their daughter in the downy heap, his fingers brushing over her hair ever so gently and he is once again taken aback by how much she looks like him. Then he and L huddle around the nest, their hands joined and fingers intertwined, they share a loving gaze before sleep takes one of them. As L stares at Light's sleeping form he hopes his husband has pleasant dreams and that someday there will be a night when a nightmare will not come.