Disclaimer: I do not own Death Note or Another Note. I do own C, Dane, and Igloo.

A/N: Hello! So, I just moved back into school. In a few days, I will have no time to write, pretty much ever. I'm gonna get as much done as I can before that.

Edited by Rekhyt.

When we walked back into Wammy's House, the cheerful light streaming in through the stained glass windows contradicted the mood almost cruelly. Children milling about the main entrance stopped and stared in horror as we walked through the small crowd, parting like the Red Sea, an uncomfortable association to make as we walked over the mosaic of the Garden of Eden carrying dead, bloody children. I stepped over the 'tentatio-onis ' I don't know why, but it seemed appropriate. I also stepped over Eve.

These were kids who had seen death and knew far too much about it. More than I did, certainly, and in some cases I was more than a decade their senior. Well, maybe they didn't know more, now that I had killed someone. Maybe now I knew more.

Then again, some of these children had probably killed people. Just like me.

I followed Ryuuzaki dumbly to Roger, in his office, who stared at us wide-eyed when he saw the children in our arms. "Oh..." he said faintly. "Oh..."

It was a small, pathetic sound, and it made me want to hug him despite how I disliked him. He came over to me and held his arms out for Near, and I passed the little boy over. Roger cradled him like an infant. "Oh..." he kept repeating. Tears began to leak down his wrinkled cheeks. "Oh... oh..."

L and I exchanged helpless looks as Roger cried. Finally, when his tears had slowed enough for him to be coherent, he said, "Leave... leave them here... I will take care of it."

L obediently lowered Mello to lie across a couch and Matt went to sit by his side. He took the sliced hand and held it on his lap. The couch would be ruined, but I was certain that no one cared.

"We will go, Light-kun," Ryuuzaki told me. I noticed that he was at the end of the chain's length and had paused so as not to yank me, and jumped to do what he said. We walked down the hallways together in silence.

I couldn't take my eyes off of L. His whole front was red, contrasting sharply with his white shirt and white skin. I was red, too. Maybe people would think it was because of the bodies, but L knew the truth. He had seen me kill C.

L removed our handcuffs the moment we were in his room and ripped off all his clothes, throwing them as far away from himself as he could and heading directly for the shower. The blood had soaked through his shirt and onto his skin. It looked like his.

I automatically stayed right behind him, removing my own crimson-stained clothing. He cranked the water on as hot as it could go and stepped straight in without waiting for it to warm up. Being of apparently high quality, it heated up quickly, and soon it was steaming. It successfully washed the blood from him, but it was also turning his skin pink, the beginnings of a burn. I reached in, scalding my arm, and turned it all the way to cold until it cooled down. When it was reasonable, I set it to a safe, middling temperature and stepped in beside him.

He stood under the showerhead, staring out at nothing through his hair, which was now plastered to him. He wasn't moving, simply letting the stream pound on his back and head, standing, slumped as ever. I imagined Sayu shouting "ZOMBIE!" and laughing like crazy. She had a thing for zombies, which I would never understand.

L said he loved me, right? Enough to sacrifice Mello and Near (which he didn't, not really...)? So I could do this.

I took him in my arms, and when he leaned into me with all his weight I didn't let him fall. The water that now fell on both of us washed me clean, too, although larger pieces of various parts of C were catching on the shower's drain. I shifted him around to turn off the water, and then I scooped him up and carried him out of the bathroom, putting him down on his bed. I did my best not to think about how L had done this for Matt not too long ago. He immediately curled up. I'd never realized it before, but when he sat in his 'deductive reasoning' crouch, he was pretty much in the fetal position.

He was, of course, still soaked, so I hurried back to the bathroom and retrieved some towels. When I returned to him, I sat down next to him on the bed and started drying him off.

I dried everywhere I could get at without moving him, and then I had to pry him out of his dead-bug position to access the rest. It wasn't hard; he didn't resist anything I did to him. I toweled his hair until it wasn't soaked anymore, and finally the only thing that was really wet was the bed.

I had mostly air-dried by that point, so I lay down next to him. I pulled the covers up around us, but there was nothing I could really say. Hey, I'm sorry your kids are dead. See? That would just be awkward.

So I reached out, touched his cheek with the tips of my fingers, and kissed him. He didn't respond, but I got vibes of approval as opposed to leave me alone now, please vibes. For such a supposedly solitary creature, I had yet to find a time he didn't want other people. Specifically me. Maybe he wasn't solitary by choice; he could love, and I'd seen him laugh and cry. He was human... and that was the problem, wasn't it.

"Ryuuzaki, how did you get into Wammy's?" Why are you alone?

"The same way every child gets into Wammy's. My parents died, and I am remarkably intelligent."

He was twenty-five. Once you're an adult, no one thinks of you as an orphan anymore. I wondered if that was something that ever really went away, though. I mean, you would grow up with a particular mentality, right? A combination of independence and codependence, the ability to take care of yourself but needing other people in order to be alright. Maybe that was what Ryuuzaki dealt with.

He saw me thinking and touched my forehead with one finger. That was strange, but then again, so was he.

"I love watching you think," he told me matter-of-factly.

"I'll make sure to think more often, then," I replied.

He acknowledged the humor with a nod but couldn't laugh. Not that I really expected him to in this situation. Actually, I probably would have worried more if he had laughed.

I held out my arms to him. He stared at me for a moment, and then scooted over, burying his face in my chest. I wrapped my arms around him and held him close.

"Light-kun, my children are dead."

I squeezed him gently. "I know."

"They were killed by my other child, who was killed by my lover."

Lover. My heart pounded, which he probably knew because his ear was right there. Indeed, he smiled slightly and looked up at me with those beautiful dark eyes.

"I had to kill him," I said quietly. "He was going to kill you."

"You were justified."

"Even if I wasn't, I'd do it again."

He didn't reply to that.

We lay in silence for a long time, until I said, "Are you sleeping tonight?"

He smiled sadly. "I think not."

I immediately resented the fact that I had to sleep to be able to function properly, that I couldn't stay up all night twice in one week, that I would eventually doze off and leave him alone.

When neither of us said anything more, I eventually did.

That night, I dreamed of Ryuuzaki.

Normally, dreaming about the one you l...ove... is good because you can do all sorts of fun things in dreams that you can't do in real life. And sometimes, it's just nice to think about them while you're asleep so that you don't have to miss them.

Not this one. I'd have paid to not have this dream. It wasn't even really all that creative, compared to some of the nightmares I'd had in my life. The one a few days ago with the falling bodies was a good example. But this...

It was simple. Ryuuzaki was just dying in my arms, after all, and there's nothing complicated about that. I was kneeling on the hard tile of the investigation room and he was staring up at me, and his eyes slowly, slowly closed. And he was just... gone. Dead. And I was screaming.

I sat straight up in bed with a shout and looked at Ryuuzaki, sleeping peacefully next to me.

Strange; he had said he wasn't going to sleep.

And... the sheets were red.

I ripped them off him, my hands shaking so hard I almost couldn't do it.

There was a 'C' carved in his stomach, and he was sleeping peacefully because he was dead, and Ryuuzaki was dead, and L was dead, and the one I loved was dead, and... and...

I woke up for real this time with a jolt that made my whole body jerk, tears flowing freely down my cheeks. I seized Ryuuzaki, who was minding his own business, roughly by the shoulders and forced him to face me. I grabbed his face and held it hard, feeling his now-elevated pulse through his temples where I clutched him, touching all over; his hair, his eyes, his lips, his cheeks, his ears, his nose, that he was still there and that they were still working and that the one I loved was still alive.

His calm features never twitched as I fumbled about his face, finally wrapping both arms around him, one on his head and one over his shoulders, and forcing him into me. He remained passive until he knew that I had calmed down, at which point he moved his legs so that they weren't being snapped in half and readjusted his body into a more comfortable position. Then he went still again to accommodate me.

I tore the bed sheets off him and checked his chest. No 'C.' Of course there was no 'C.' C was dead, I had killed him myself. I'd had bits of his brain on me! And I'm an extremely clever person; I understand that brain bits means dead.

I re-covered him so that he wasn't all out in the open, then buried my face completely in his damp and crazy hair. I noticed that I was still crying.

I was still crying because, even though I now knew he was okay, the nightmare had left me feeling rubbed raw, hollowed out. I felt shaky, weak, and exhausted as if I had sobbed for hours and as if I hadn't eaten. I wondered if he could feel me tremble.

I couldn't lose him. If I ever did- in any way, for any reason- I would go mad.

So I held him, and he let me, and I shook.

"Well your faith was strong but you needed proof.

You saw her bathing on the roof, her beauty and the moonlight overthrew you.

She tied you to her kitchen chair, she broke your throne, she cut your hair,

And from your lips she drew the Hallelujah.

Well baby, I've been here before.

I know this room and I've walked this floor.

I used to live alone before I knew you.

I've seen your flag on the marble arch... love is not a victory march,

It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah."

-Hallelujah, Rufus Wainwright