Author's Note: I'm a little bit sad. Has it really already been 21 chapters? I feel like I started this story not even that long ago…I guess that's called nostalgia, isn't it? Ignore my rambling if you so choose, and enjoy this chapter!

To WildfireDreams: Thank you :) And enjoy!

To CainToYourAbel: So that's where your name came from! I only like a few Bon Jovi songs, unfortunately. Maybe I should go listen to that one.

I tried to keep the backstories that I created for the characters accurate to their personalities. I wanted to create my own history for some of them, but without totally changing the characterization.

And yes, I'm looking forward to the morning after as well…as well as Light's devious plan. Thanks for reviewing :)

To garnet86: The sexual tension is half the fun. The more build-up there is, the more intense the actual lemon scene will be. (At least, that's been my experience with all the fics I've read.) Of course, I don't want to drag it out too long…

To leedleleedlelawliet: I like your use of adjectives there. :) Thanks a lot! And I simply had to include the scene with Near. What's worse than waking up lying next to a pool of your own vomit with Near staring at you?

To version15: Definitely; last chapter was definitely internally-based. This one is too, though there is more rising action to accompany it. (As well as interaction between characters.) Your theory is interesting…

I'm glad you support my idea for an epilogue, though I'm still trying to work out the circumstances for when it takes place.

Warnings: Profanity, Partial Nudity, Mature Content.

Chapter 21: Reflect

The cameras were exceptionally boring today.

It wasn't as though he saw a lot of action to begin with, but for some reason, Matt felt the emptiness of the room and the hollowness of the screens much more poignantly than usual. In the absence of fresh batteries for his Gameboy—he would have to go rummage through the boxes in the basement later—the copper-haired man decided to put his mind to more purposeful endeavors.

He had been working on Ryuuzaki's communicator ever since Mello and Lana had procured his supplies, but thus far, he had come to no theoretically safe remedy for fixing the blasted object. Simply plunging the wire Mello had recovered into a working outlet and attaching the other end to the gadget's battery was a recipe for electrocution, and Matt was fairly certain that he didn't want to die just yet. After all, who wanted to die before they were thirty? There were so many things he hadn't done—not just him, come to think of it, but Mello, Lana, and now Itzel, as well.

For the millionth time, Matt mused on the unfairness of it all.

However, his mind quickly went back to the task at hand. He picked up the screwdriver that he kept in his desk drawer, and began to pull and prod at the exquisitely crafted piece of technology. He wished briefly that the object would somehow be magically fixed, but his fantastical hopes worked (unsurprisingly) to no avail. On the upside, though, this communicator truly was a thing of beauty. At least he got to study it in greater detail.

The copper-haired man idly wondered about the identity of whoever had made it—it clearly hadn't been Ryuuzaki, but the mysterious man had given no clues or hints as to who the actual creator was. He wondered if the pale man even knew himself. Matt would like to meet him or her one day, if that were possible. He probably wouldn't, though.

Of course it's possible, he thought stubbornly. But will Ryuuzaki help Mello and I get out of here if I fix the communicator? Or Itzel? He clearly doesn't care for us very much. At least, he made it clear that he doesn't trust me.

That fiasco with Lana had told him very clearly where Ryuuzaki's priorities lie—and they were not with the personal relationships he shared with anyone, even Lana. Rather, the pale man seemed to place the whole of humanity above all individuals in terms of overall significance; a man like that most likely didn't have a family to speak of. A man like that didn't care about what others wanted or needed, but about what would get him results—even when it came to his own partner's wellbeing. A man like that wouldn't think twice about saving a stranger whom he did not know if doing so would cause him too much grief.

So how could Matt even bother to hold out hope that he might one day get out of this place? Or that anyone would get out at all? The way things were going right now, it was much more likely that he would be here until he died; so would Mello and Itzel, and even the kid.

And, he realized with sadness, so would Lana.

This topic of thought was unceasingly depressing to the young man, though to others it was probably just a simple fact. The issue was that Matt had always been an unwavering optimist; more often than not, he saw the glass as being half-full. This was the root cause as to why he acted in the way that he did before the virus broke out. Staying cooped up in the group home, playing video games instead of going outside, neglecting any and all interaction with the opposite sex—these were all actions that he took based solely on the notion that he would always have more time. He hadn't wanted to grow up too fast; from what little he had known of his mother before she died—a pregnant teenager who had been forced to become an adult far too soon—taking his time to mature seemed like a great prospect.

However, he hadn't taken into account the unlikely possibility that his whole world would come to an end before he even turned twenty-one. As a result, Matt was now exactly what he had feared becoming: still relatively young—but nonetheless, an adult, one who had spent so much of his life just trying to survive that he had never really gotten an opportunity to do anything worthwhile.

And wasn't that exactly what his mother had been? (Unless one counted Matt himself as being worthwhile.)

Well—I guess the apple really doesn't fall far from the tree, after all. And I didn't even need to get pregnant to turn out the same.

But even so, the copper-haired man couldn't help but picture a better life, a life much more grand than the one that he had been dealt. True, he had never appreciated the world while it had been around, but he would rectify that mistake if he were given a second chance. He would go back to school; he would get a part-time job; he might even rent an apartment. (That is, if Mello were willing to help him.)

And eventually…well, eventually, he might even ask Lana out on a proper date, instead of giving her a cheap kiss in a dingy room at a radio station. He could be classy; it was worth a shot, at least. He could be patient—that was one of his specialties, as was testified by him having lived with a certain angry blonde for nearly his entire life.

Who knew? Maybe one day…he could even have a family. Not here, but over there—across the ocean, where society still existed in all its underappreciated splendor.

An image suddenly popped into his mind: Him—only older, with close-cropped hair, green eyes shining with the wisdom of age, and standing tall and proud of his accomplishments. A woman was standing next to him, one who bore an uncanny resemblance to the Lana that he knew—only for once, the smile on her face was genuine, so pure and honest that even her cloudy eye twinkled.

But there was another face as well—a smaller face, complete with a mishmash of features from both of them. It was the family portrait that Matt had never had, but had always assumed that he would have time to make. It truly was sad, he thought—how he only now saw the importance of time now that it had seemingly run out, slipping through the crevices of his fingers like so much grainy sand.

But wasn't that how it always was? People never appreciate what they have while they have it. It's only after they lose it, that irreplaceable object or person or belief, that they finally come to understand that they ever had anything in the first place.

A flicker of movement brought Matt back from the precipice of reality, with a none-too-harsh shove toward the monitors. Green eyes darted over the twelve small screens, eagerly attempting to locate the one that had detected the movement. Matt's eyes narrowed as he found it, and he gasped. He had thought, as usual, that it had only been a bird or some sort of rodent. Rats thrived nowadays; they were able to feast on the plentiful carcasses of humans and larger animals alike.

But it wasn't a rodent or a bird that he saw outside: it was a person.

Itzel had been the first outsider he had seen stumble by the radio station since Ryuuzaki, Lana, and Near had been found—and before those three came along, he had only ever seen less than forty wanderers. Some of them had been old and ragged, some young—the young ones usually meandered by with bursting rucksacks, probably looking for someone to trade with or rob.

To put it mildly, not that many people came by.

But there was a man here—a tall, skinny man who seemed to be shrinking into himself as if he were afraid of the sun.

" 'How are you…'"

Flick.

"Como estas?"

Flick.

" 'I am fine. And you?'"

Flick.

"…Soy bueno. Y-uh tu? Wait—what the hell? How do you pronounce this shit?"

A giggle from the doorway drew Mello's attention away from the thick book he held in his hands—and to the face of a person whom he was really hoping wouldn't find him right now.

Emilia stared at the blonde with a small smile on her face, her teasing expression causing the usual stirrings of violence within his blood.

"What are you doing?" the young woman asked, her deep brown eyes betraying the fact that she already knew the answer to her own question.

Mello's eyes widened, and he snapped the book closed immediately, throwing it behind him as he glared daggers at the girl standing in his doorway. How had she managed to open the damn door without him noticing? "Nothing," he snapped irritably, clenching his blankets between his fists. "What do you want?"

Disregarding the blonde's sudden shift in mood, Emilia took a tentative step into the room. Her smile stayed present. "You are learning Español?" she said, her question sounding more like a statement.

Mello didn't respond, his cheeks still burning with what he would only refer to as irritation.

Still, the brown-skinned girl ventured deeper into his room—and before he could tell her to get lost, she seated herself on his bed.

"It is 'ee,'" she said enthusiastically, her bright grin hurting his eyes.

"What?" Mello stiffened as she suddenly reached across his lap, grabbing the thick book from behind him. He didn't even stop her when she flicked to the bookmarked page he had been on.

"Here," she said, pointing to the line he had been reading aloud when she came in. "It is 'Y tu,' with an 'ee' sound. Like in English."

He took the book from her then, scanning the page with renewed interest. "Oh."

"I teach you."

Once again, his head snapped in her direction. She was still smiling, the lights in her eyes dancing like those of the often-unseen stars of Los Angeles.

"What?" he asked again, probably sounding as dumb as he felt.

"I can teach Español to you," she repeated, her voice now sounding timid. "What kind is this?" She gestured towards the book in Mello's hands.

"Kind of what?"

"Español—Spanish," she clarified with an irritated sigh.

He stared at her questioningly, but flipped to the front cover. Reading aloud, he said, "Standard Spanish from All Over the World."

Emilia made a tsk noise before plucking the book out of his grasp. Without a word, she tossed it on the floor.

"No," she said simply, her tone leaving no opportunities for objections. "I teach you."

Mello's skin crawled with indignation. Who did this girl think she was, his boss? What he did was none of her business. "What's your problem? Isn't it better to learn a language from someone who wrote a book about it? You aren't even a real teacher."

"You are stupid," she said bluntly, shocking Mello into furious silence. A moment later, she seemed to realize what she had said. "I am sorry. There are many kinds of Spanish, from many countries. They have differences. We are near México, so I teach you the Mexicano Spanish."

Mello understood what she was saying, even if he was put off by her gruff way of telling it to him. He wasn't an idiot, after all. Still, even if he was irritated, he supposed that having Emilia, a native Spanish speaker, teach him her language wasn't a bad idea.

"Fine," he agreed, a sour edge to his voice.

She smiled at him once more, folding her hands in her lap. "Bueno," she whispered. She looked nervous all of a sudden, her eyes hooded as she glanced sheepishly at him. "You…are a good man, Mello."

The blonde raised an eyebrow at her sudden proclamation. However, he didn't interrupt, and so she continued.

"First, I thought you are a bad man. But you are good. I help you because you are good."

The blonde shook off the last vestiges of his daydream as his eyes detected the barest hint of movement through the two-story window. Cursing himself for his moment of ineptitude, Mello pulled his binoculars up to his eyes, careful to ensure that he could not be seen through the heavily tinted window. He watched with rapt attention as the figure approached the front doors of the radio station, then took a long, lingering glance around themselves as if he or she were wary of being watched.

Mello raised a brow. He had a bad feeling, as usual. The man approaching the doors (at least, it looked like a man from this distance) came across to the blonde as suspicious, but then again, so did everybody that he didn't know. He had only ever placed his trust in a select few people.

He sighed tiredly. At the very least, he knew that he should go and talk to Matt. The man was no idiot, but at times he could be far too trusting for Mello's taste. He needed to make sure that the copper-haired man didn't do anything idiotic.

Earlier that morning…

After unceremoniously and borderline abusively kicking out Near, scraping the pungent vomit off of her floor (it was subsequently tossed out the window), and straightening out her rumpled and sweat-soaked clothes, Lana came to the reasonable conclusion that she was in desperate need of a bath—as well as a thorough physical thrashing for her stupidity. Of course, a bath merely consisted of venturing out back behind the building, accompanied by a bucket of dubiously clean water ("dubiously" since it was repeatedly used by the others until the water got too low), a bar of soap, and a ragged old washcloth that had probably once been used to scrape dried mustard off a tabletop.

Still, it was better than nothing, and was markedly more sanitary than using the old lake was. Lana would opt out of bathing entirely to avoid wasting water, but if you didn't bathe, disease would get you, even if it wasn't P.H.D.

And at the moment, the only thing that would stop the scarred woman from washing herself would be a horde of rampaging, disease-stricken track runners.

Lana yawned and stretched as she left her room, feeling only somewhat better now that the headache-inducing stench of her own vomit was gone from the air. She was already thinking much more clearly than she had been when she had first woken up, and as a consequence, there was only one thing on her mind besides bathing at the moment.

L.

She already knew that this time around, she would not be able to avoid talking to him about what she had done last night. This wasn't just an unintended kiss from another guy; this was her, mindlessly throwing herself at him on a drunken whim. She was willing to believe that the pale man did not want to be dealing with such nonsense at the moment, and honestly, neither did she. It was a significant fuck-up, due to the fact that they had agreed a long time ago to an impartial partnership with mutual benefits—she helps him, he helps her. Matt had promised no such thing, and so did nothing wrong by kissing her. She had rejected him as she should have, but that one good decision paled in comparison to how ironically she had messed up right after.

All that Lana could hope for—all that she would allow herself to hope for—was that L would be able to move past this mistake, since that was all he seemed to think it was. Sure, he had reciprocated her gestures for a brief moment, but had quickly left. A few minutes of kissing did not mean that he wanted to have sex with her, or even that he thought she was attractive—especially considering that the way she had jumped him would have stunned anyone for a moment.

Yeah, right, she thought angrily. Who was I kidding? Maybe if he had also been shitfaced he would've fucked me. But that's all it would've been—fucking. There was a different connotation between fucking and having sex, Lana knew. All of the guys that she had been with since her injury—the customers from Waterfront—had fucked her. That was it—no kissing, no caressing, no mutual pleasure on her part—and above all else, there had been no eye contact. Nearly all of them had asked her to turn around—her eye was too ugly, they had told her. It was an eyesore, literally. What guy wanted to look at that while having sex?

She had been a fool to believe that it would be any different with L.

On her way downstairs, Lana hesitated at the sound of a feminine voice coming from the door to her right—only to relax immediately when she quickly placed the voice as belonging to Itzel.

That's right. I forgot that she's here. That tequila must've been laced with something to make me forget that.

She started to walk once more—then froze as a quizzical fact washed over her.

Who was Itzel talking to? Lana couldn't imagine that any of the guys had stopped by her room for a casual chat, and in any case, Lana couldn't detect a voice other than Itzel's from behind the door. Was she talking to herself?

Then, Lana's ears perked up at a familiar crackling noise that emanated from inside the room. It was low-pitched and subtle, but the dark-haired woman was able to place it as…

A radio?

Why would she be listening to a radio? We're in the damn radio station! And if that were true, why would Itzel be talking to it—unless it's one of those radios that broadcasts your voice, like the one truckers use.

Feeling a bit apprehensive, Lana tried the doorknob; it was locked. Sighing, she resorted to knocking on the door.

"Itzel?" she called, her cheek pressed against the wood. Lana heard the sound of a mumbled curse, as well as the rustling of fabric.

A few seconds later, the Hispanic woman answered the door.

"Hey, girly," she greeted normally, her grin as bright as usual. "What's up?"

Lana stared with dubious concern at her friend, not knowing what to say without sounding accusatory. Should she question her? "Nothing," the scarred woman finally said. "…What are you doing?"

"Nothin' much—just woke up not too long ago. The guys don't mind if I go lookin' around, do they?"

"…No. Just head upstairs. Matt can show you around. He's in the control room, same as yesterday."

Itzel clapped the scarred woman on the back. "Thanks, girly. See ya later, then?"

"…Sure."

With that, Lana continued on her way downstairs. She wondered if she should have pushed harder for Itzel to tell her the truth, but she quickly dismissed the idea. Itzel would know something was up if she started questioning her.

But still…what had she been doing in her room? And who had she been talking to just now? Lana was the last person in the city who wanted to start suspecting her best friend of wrongdoing, but there was one thing she was certain of.

Itzel was hiding something.

At first, L was unsure about what to do or say when the object of what he chalked up to an infatuation stepped into his path.

More accurately, she stepped into the hallway that his room happened to be in, which was conveniently located on the floor just below her own. It appeared to the detective, as she did not address his presence, that she hadn't seen him. It made sense, really.

He was standing on her right side.

So he followed her—quietly, and from a distance, of course. He noticed that she was carrying a towel, one that was folded under her arm and which she had probably found in one of the rooms. He did not know exactly why he was following her, but he knew that he wanted to say something to her. The content of what he wanted to divulge, however, was lost on him; he had not prepared a speech, nor did he have a prejudged script that he could pull from his repertoire.

He should have turned around and went back to his room, or at least to the studio.

He didn't.

He saw Lana exit the building through the back door, the young woman only pausing once to grab a dingy old water bucket that sat by the doorway. Beside that was a half-used bar of soap, perfectly arranged in the tin can that served as a dish. He lingered by the doorframe when she went outside, careful that he was immersed in shadow.

Not that it mattered—the dark-haired woman apparently had a bad habit of not looking behind her to see if she was being followed. He wondered, for a brief moment, if that was just how she was, or if she simply trusted them all that much.

It does not matter, he concluded. I should say something now. If I do not, I will risk another misunderstanding between us—

L stopped thinking along those lines when she began taking off her shirt. Yes, he had procrastinated too much; he was now doomed no matter what he said.

The man's breath caught in his throat as Lana shrugged the button-up off her shoulders, placing the lump of cloth into a heap on the hot asphalt. L was pleasantly surprised. Though he had never considered his partner unattractive by any means—on the contrary, he found her face to be pleasant, despite what some people would think of her eye—he had never glimpsed the true shape of her body. Always, it was kept covered by the baggy button-up shirt she had worn since they left Parkerville Warehouse. She scrubbed it several times a week, resulting in the fabric loosening and stretching, masking her body type from the others even more than it already was. Yet, the brief glimpse of her cleavage that she had given him last night had been enough to fluster the detective, and he could say with the utmost certainty that he was not one to become flustered so easily.

A bit too late, he recognized the very real possibility that if she were to turn around and see him now, she may just as well curse him with every letter of the alphabet.

So, just as the young woman reached for the tin of soap, L cleared his now-dry throat.

"Excuse me."

Lana jumped, dropping the tin and spinning around to face him with a wild look in her eyes. The detective tensed, preparing himself for any and all of her physical and verbal onslaughts.

To his surprise, none of that happened.

The scarred woman stared at him with stark panic in her eyes, but only briefly; in the next second, all traces of emotion on her face vanished, leaving her with nothing in her expression but a mask of indifference. He could tell it was forced; the tense lines of her facial muscles and the barest squint of her eyes gave her away, as did the faint pink glow in her cheeks.

He was beginning to believe that she would ignore him completely, but then, she sighed.

"Look…" She turned back around, making no attempt to cover her bra-clad chest. She bent over to retrieve the tin of soap that she had dropped, her movement stiff and slow. "I don't know what you want, but I'm not gonna stop bathing on your account. I feel disgusting."

He cocked his head, his dark eyes not leaving her as she proceeded to dip the bar of soap into the water bucket, and began rolling it over her arms and torso. "Disgusting?" he echoed. "Is that due to the heavy amount of alcohol you consumed?"

Lana sighed heavily. "Wouldn't even you feel disgusting if you woke up this morning hungover, next to a pool of your own vomit? Not to mention…" The hands that had been diligently washing her upper arm and shoulder stilled suddenly, as though somehow incapable of performing the necessary functions of bathing when she was deep in her own thoughts. "…what I did…last night."

"…I see."

All was silent for a tense moment, a moment that L would have declared awkward were it not for his total misunderstanding—disregard was a better term—of the word. If he were anyone else, he would have left to spare her feelings. But he was L, a detective, and he did not walk away from people who had something relevant to say.

And it was obvious to him that Lana still had something she wanted to tell him, even if she was currently avoiding eye contact and, if he wasn't mistaken, was even glowing a slight shade of red.

"L," she said firmly, out of the blue. He didn't respond, and she seemed to have expected that. She was adapting quickly to his behavior and mannerisms, he thought. It was her turn to explain herself. "I'm…sorry, for what I did last night. I…let my feelings get the better of me, damn them, and then I tried to take advantage of you. It was fucked up—and really, really stupid, and…I'm sorry. I don't expect you to even want to associate with me again. So…sorry."

L allowed a few moments of deep breathing before responding. When he did, it was not without silently asking himself why he was even doing this.

"I am not."

Lana glanced back at him with furrowed brows. "What?"

"I am not sorry for what you did, Lana." I should not be telling her this. "On the contrary, actually, I was rather enjoying our tryst until the moment I put a stop to it."

She scoffed. "Really? Then why did you? Don't tell me you actually meant what you said about not wanting to screw a drunk girl."

L wondered at the notion that he would ever use such crass wording, but plowed ahead as if he hadn't even heard her speak. "It occurs to me that I have been what some would call…insensitive to your emotions. Being who I am, it is often difficult for me to fully explain my thoughts and perceptions, as my occupation dictates that I keep them strictly under control. It is my nature, as well, that causes this tendency. However," he stepped closer to her, subconsciously trying to assuage her bewildered expression, "it has also come to my attention that you are my first real partner, that a mutual understanding would be beneficial to the both of us, and so should be a priority." He made eye contact with her, biting his fingertip in order to incite himself not to focus on the largeness of her eyes, but on his next words. "I fully participated last night, not because I was shocked, but because I consented to. I am sorry if I unwittingly played with your emotions, but I am not sorry that I pushed you away. I meant what I said, Lana; I refuse to touch you or take advantage of you in that state. I do not know why I felt in necessary to tell you this, but I hope that you will believe it."

Lana looked speechless after he finished his rant, the long-forgotten bar of soap hanging loosely in her grasp. Had he said something wrong? He opened his mouth to ask her, but was interrupted by the unpleasant sensation of someone almost slamming into him.

A very flushed Matt burst through the door, paying no mind to either L or the half-naked woman beside him—at first. When he took a break from wheezing to digest his surroundings, the brunette flushed a deep shade of red under the gaze of the stony-faced woman.

"Uh, guys," he managed to choke out, his eyes attempting to drag themselves away from a visibly angering Lana, "come back upstairs. There's someone at the front doors."

So how was it? I wonder if any of you know who the strange man is. I look forward to writing the next chapter!

I am moving in a few days. This shouldn't interfere with my writing schedule too much. However, I want to update my stories before I head out so that there isn't any unnecessary delay. This way, I'll be able to get a few free days to move all my shit (because that's what most of my belongings are) without making you guys wait for very long.

This story is getting long really fast. Thanks for sticking with it—I get ecstatic whenever I get a review from one of you :)

—Vicious Ventriloquist