The funeral was a quiet affair at a graveside. The Wammy's students and teachers had wanted to attend also, but Watari had insisted they stay away, in the circumstances. The gathering consisted of as few as twelve people. Rose had told the congregation the words that had to be said. There had been tears, but not as many as there could have been.

Words were spoken of the deceased's passing, labeled, 'tragic', 'unexpected' and, 'sudden'. Ben remained stony-faced, Tessa still shaky. Although Takada's killing had been justified in her own eye at the time, she was struggling to cope with it. And now the consequences of Takada's actions were laid out before them, with the group surrounding a person's grave.

"I cannot even express in words the sorrow we must all feel today," Watari said. "To have someone so young snatched from our grasp at such a tumultuous time is no less than dreadfully sad. This is the second time we have been brought here by one's death-"

"Third," Matt piped up throatily.

"My apologies," Watari mumbled, shooting a quick look at Ben. "The third time…"

"Let's get around to it," Ben said cuttingly. "I know what you're all here for, if you're not paying your respects. You wanna know who L named as his successor."

"Ben-" Lara started.

"No, it's true, isn't it?" he snapped. He glared at B, Mello, Near and Matt. "You guys are only here to hear who his final choice was. The top four, that's all you care about, right?"

"Shut up, Ben," Mello growled. "Don't take out Elisabeth's death on us."

Ben gritted his teeth in response, his eyes welling up with tears as they always did when his sister's name was mentioned. He wiped his eyes angrily, trying to hide the moisture building. Lara elbowed Mello gently, as if to reprimand him. She knew the effect that Elisabeth's name, now never mentioned (as the aborigine tradition), had on her best friend… or former best friend.

Lara wasn't sure what to call Ben Reid anymore. His sister's funeral was the last time she had managed to have contact with him. Since then, he had been off his own, doing God only knows what. There were whispers that he had joined a gang, or visited every place that had ever given his sister's life meaning. Another rumor said he had gone looking for his parents and had never found them. Nothing was entirely clear.

The funeral finished with a few words from Watari.

"We now bid farewell to L, one of all our greatest friends, and a truly good man. We can only hope that now he is where he wants to be."

"He is," Rose confirmed. "I can't see him anymore."

"She was my relative, and I didn't kill myself," Ben muttered.

"For those of you wish to remain, you may. Drinks are being served at the house."

One by one, they left. Ben stormed off first, having done what he felt obliged to do, and now heading out. Tessa made to leave on her own, and Matt had said that he would go with her, but she knew that he wasn't done saying goodbye yet.

"I'll take her back," Near offered. "I will make sure she is all right."

As they left the graveyard, Tessa glanced back. They stood over the grave still, like they were waiting for something.

"You have to go back," Near said darkly.

"Yeah, I know," Tessa sighed. "That's where we're going. You said it to Matt, remember?"

"No, I don't mean back home," he told her, as if she was stupid. "I mean back to the aquarium. Back to the night Elisabeth died."

"What?" she gasped. "You're insane. I've never gone that far back before; I couldn't…"

"You must, if you care for any of us as much as you say you do," he warned. "L's suicide is only the beginning. I foresee that this is part of something much bigger than you could imagine. Elisabeth died. L took his own life. Ben is destroying himself. Who do you think will be next?"

"I can't go back that far!" Tessa protested. "And even if I could, what am I supposed to do? I could die in the past-"

Near's stare cut her off.

"Die?" she choked out. "That's what you're suggesting?"

"I'm not suggesting your death, Contessa. I suggest that someone else die for Elisabeth."

"What? Why kill someone else when…?" Her eyes widened as she grasped his meaning. She stopped in her tracks. "Elisabeth's death was two months ago."

"Exactly two months ago. The date today is the same date that she died. Reverse time back as far as two months and stop her. Stop her from dying. If you cannot do that, everything you think you know will change." He regarded her with wide, dark eyes. "I thought before that time revolved around you. The timeline of the universe was centered on you… but I think I was wrong."

"What do you think now?" she asked.

"I am thinking about what it was that Stormeye said, about all of those incidents she mentioned not occurring in this universe. But more of that later. Go, and then we'll talk."

"Wait," she insisted. "Before I go… are you saying that if I save Elisabeth, all of these problems will be over?"

He continued just looking at her. "Go, Contessa."

XXX

Traveling back in time was an eerie experience. First you felt light-headed, almost dizzy, then began to twist and turn like you were being folded, resembling a towel or a blanket, compact enough to fit into a drawer. After this, the unfolding began, like unraveling a paperclip, and though one would expect this to be a relief, the procedure was highly uncomfortable. All the while, the world spun and fizzed into an incomprehensible blur.

As the world began to clear once again, one got the impression that their head was quite disjointed from the rest of one's body. Once everything was set about in place, beginning to make sense, the surroundings became evident.

What became evident for Tessa was something that made her stomach turn cartwheels. She was well used to her arrivals in a foreign time, yet usually she could control the place she ended up. It was five to midnight. Her watch adapted, as it would have to. She knew she must have been the night of Elisabeth's death. That date had stuck prominent in her memory at the time of her travel. Elisabeth had died at two minutes past midnight.

This would not have problem, had Tessa been physically in the aquarium, but as it happened, she was not. She was on a road by a field. The closest field to the aquarium was about a mile and a half away.

She had seven – no, wait, six – minutes to save Elisabeth's life.

"I'm a mile and a half away," she breathed disbelievingly. "I'm a mile and a half… away…?"

She wasn't even sure which direction she was going. She followed her gut instinct, turned left and sprinted as fast as she could. She knew she could run a mile in six minutes. She had an extra half a mile to do in that time, or her friend – and by extension, L – would die.

Her heart hammered erratically under her ribcage as she ran. She spotted the bridge that stood over the Itchen and elation followed. At least she was on the right track this way. Now she just had to remember which route they had taken to get to the aquarium when Misa was driving and they had been so worried about Elisabeth they hadn't really been concentrating.

Fortunately, she caught sight of a sign that advertised the new aquarium in huge blue letters. Catapulting herself forward, she followed its directions. She checked her watch again. Two minutes. The sign had said two minutes.

Rushing into the aquarium, she heard Ben's voice.

"None of that ever happened…"

"I said, not here-"

She was about to kill Takada. Or, rather, the past version of herself was about to kill Takada. Causing the explosion. Causing Elisabeth's death.

The realization struck her that it had been her fault, her anger, that had been the reason her friend had died in the first place. And now… could she bring herself to kill another? As she turned the corner, she saw Misa stop in her tracks. She saw that other, vengeful version of herself raise the glass shard that stopped Elisabeth's heart.

Terrified, Tessa forced herself to rush forward and push Matt sideways as Takada died so that the path of the glass shard slammed into him instead. He cried out in pain, Elisabeth gaping up at Tessa in her funeral clothes. Matt dropped to the ground, holding onto the glass shard.

"What…?" he coughed.

Tessa took a few steps back, watching Matt die whilst the others checked on each other. She received a very shocked gaze from her past self. There had been three of her in a room at once, and she supposed that while two was company, three was a crowd. She had to go back. She had saved Elisabeth. Matt would come back to life anyway. Lara was placating the upset sharks.

As Tessa began to fade away once more, she saw police burst in through the door, armed and threatening.

XXX

A young redheaded woman stepped into the private hospital room in the intensive care unit. It was warm, warm enough that she could take off the leather jacket she donned. The afternoon light, sunny and bright compared to the recent dark days, shone in through the window by her friend's heart monitor. Strangely enough, some of the grapes she had brought in last time in the hope that Claire may recover had been eaten. Maybe the hospital had mice.

She had seen on the news that a whole bunch of people had been arrested in connection to a break-in and murder at a local aquarium. Apart from Claire's… accident… it was probably the most exciting thing that had happened in Winchester for a long time. No wonder she had opted to live in London instead. She had never understood Claire's sudden move. One day not long ago, she had just said, 'I'm moving to Winchester'. No warning. Nothing.

Now look what had happened. The place had made her so bloody depressed she'd tried to top herself. Not much had been said about Claire's former circumstances in Winchester, but M. Rockwell knew that her parents probably weren't aware of her current situation. What could she do, anyway? She wouldn't want to be the one to let Claire's family know their child was in a coma.

"Looks like someone's been in and eaten those grapes," she remarked casually. "Unless it was you. It's not likely you've caught a whiff of them and jumped up to have a quick nibble of them, though, is it? Ugh… don't know what to say. What do you say when the person you're talking to can't answer you back?"

A doctor entered the room and stopped himself from walking into the redhead hurriedly. He glanced down at his clipboard. "Sorry, I didn't know anyone was visiting."

M gestured to her body, arching a sarcastic eyebrow. "What d'you think I'm doing here?"

"Sorry," he repeated. "I was just checking on the girl."

"Her name's-"

"I know what her name is," the doctor cut her off. He wrote something on the clipboard. "Her heart's not as strong as it was yesterday. It's a shame. She's so very young. If she shows no sign of improvement, we may have to resort to… well…"

"You're going to take her off life support?" M gasped, outraged. "Are you insane?"

"She doesn't have much chance of a real life," he told her. "I'm just saying. I'm sure you've been kept updated of her progress? Yes? Well, then you know that she will live a life of a vegetable should she wake up from her coma. You will also know that she will live with an astronomical number of health problems. What kind of life would that be for someone? She'd have to learn everything all over again, like a baby."

"You can't just let her die."

"It's just an option. A very real option, sadly, but only an option nonetheless. I just wanted to check how her pulse is faring." He glanced at the heart monitor again, letting M's shoulders slump as he wrote down several notes. He left the room a minute or so, nodding to the redhead in acknowledgement.

M went over to the side of the bed. She was beginning to get angry. "Come on. You can do better than this. Didn't you hear? They're going to take you off life support! You're just going to lie back and let them kill you? Can't you hear me? You're going to die!"

She growled in frustration and made to leave the room when the beeping of her heart monitor started to beep a little faster. She froze in the doorway. The beeping became more definite, quicker and stronger. She turned to see her friend's eyes, so long glued together, flutter open. Her lips parted as if to speak, though no words came out.

"You…" M said disbelievingly.

Her eyes did not look dead or vacant, as she'd expected. They were the same eyes of the friend she'd left behind, except this time, there was a funny little look about them, like she'd seen something in the time she'd been comatose.

As doctors and nurses rushed in, responding to the heart monitor, M smiled.

"Hello again, C."

Next chapter will be the last chapter of this story. I am very grateful to all of you who are still bothering to read "Zapped", and look forward to finishing this with you.

As for the character of Claire, that's for all of you guys who weren't sure of her significance! If you're still confused, let me know.

C.