I thought about breaking this chapter into two, but in the end decided it worked better as a whole, so it's longer than usual! Shit's goin down in this, it's all falling together/apart I'm not sure which!

The lift opened onto their floor of the hotel, and Rose stepped out of it into the too-brightly lit corridor. It only took a weary few seconds to reach the suite, and she plodded in tiredly, sinking onto a sofa.

"Supper," she said, inclining her head towards to carrier bag of food she'd got from the 24 hour shop.

"Excellent."

L was back in the omnipresent white, long-sleeved top and blue jeans. It comforted Rose. The suited L had been more than she'd bargained for – it had shown her what he could have become if he'd truly desired power. She passed him a bunch of grapes, which he took without turning round, popping two grapes immediately into his mouth. They'd been talking it all through for hours now, as bits of information slowly bled in from forensics. Fingerprints had been recovered, but no matches. The type of paint had been identified, but not yet where it came from. The man they'd found in the linen box was recovering in order to be questioned in the morning.

A most puzzling detail was the quote. Despite comprehensive research and deliberation, none of the three could identify a source.

"It was definitely a quote though, wasn't it?" Rose double-checked from the sofa. "It had speech marks?"

"Yes it had speech marks," L confirmed, and popped another pair of grapes into his mouth. "Though perhaps they were merely emphasising the fact that they were saying it to us."

"Hmmm."

The neutral pronoun 'they' had replaced 'Melanie' or 'she'. None could make up their minds on the gender of the suspect now.

"The problem is," Matt said unusually thoughtfully through a cloud of smoke, "that we dunno if we can trust that guy's witness. If they never actually got to the point of 'doing it' then he won't have a clue what was really underneath."

"Yes. We'll have to wait until tomorrow to answer that question."

Rose piled mayonnaise, cheese and salad between two slices of bread, and wolfed it down hungrily. Food had been slightly saw-dusty again recently, but she was aware that she needed the nourishment. Finished, she reclined again, and stared at the ceiling. Something was bugging her. It feels like all of the pieces of the puzzle are laid out before me, but for some reason my eyes aren't working well enough to fit them all together. There are faint memories dangling at the edges of my brain just waiting to be remembered, I know it! And when they do...

"You feel it too?" Came L's soft probing voice.

Rose looked down. "Feel what?"

"That feeling that the answer is right there under our noses. And we're being too blind to see it."

Rose nodded seriously. "That's exactly what I feel."

L hmmphed. "That's because the answer IS right before our noses! Just one more piece of the puzzle, that will be all we need. Just a nudge."

There was a knock and a squeal at the door.

"Don't let her in Matt," L reminded.

"I won't dude, chill out." Matt stood up and ambled to the door.

"Maaaaaaatt!" They heard as Matt stepped swiftly out of the suite, shutting the door behind him.

There ensued a silence in the wake of his absence, but not an unpleasant silence. Rose felt her heart and mind expand through the air towards L, and unlike on the plane the night before, she no longer felt the glass bubbles around them. Maybe this is the time.

"L, I-"

"What I-"

Both started speaking at once, and stopped immediately. L cleared his throat. He hadn't looked round at her yet, and she wished she could have the opportunity to try and read his expression.

"Go on."

Rose acquiesced. "Well, the thing is, I-"

And then the gothic letter R appeared on the screen, and they turned to it expectantly.

"L, we've had various bits of news since you've been gone. I'll run you through them. First, we took the list of 'colleagues' Jessie Goulding said she'd told about David Carlton, and though she refused to name her 'manager' it wasn't hard to locate him with the list of prostitutes she gave. He's a man named Ernie Campbell, runs a few nightclubs in London and Birmingham to cover his dodgier dealings, we're in the process of tracking-"

Whatever Roger said next was never heard by Rose, because at the mention of Ernie Campbell her brain began to tick, slowly at first, then faster and faster. What started as a gentle trickle of understanding began to swell into a raging torrent of realisation, bursting through her walls of ignorance. Her perception of the room faded completely away as the pieces of the puzzle all started to slot together.

Campbell, Ernie Campbell, who used to work for The Group... Campbell who runs that club I went to just a few nights ago, where I met... Mello. Campbell knew him as M. M.! Fuck!

..."I've got some great plans, excuse me not sharing them with you"... "anarchy in the UK!"... Her drunken memory of Mello words returned.

As did her memory of the words of Harvey Jones, the pizza boy... "got a bit of weird voice, ain't she? ...pretty tall for a lady... knocked me clean into tomorrow... dark blonde hair... maybe blue eyes? It was pretty dark."

Next to return were Near's words, spoken casually around the Christmas dinner table at Wammy's House. "...Mello was incredibly envious that I had beaten him to making good explosives – we had a bit of an arms race after that... the garden wasn't the same for years"...

She remembered him standing there leaning against her (his) door, hip jutting out with a feminine arrogance. She remembered how Matt had lamented his best friend's fury over him working with L, how full of hatred Mello had become. She remembered his Cheshire-cat grin after they'd slept together, as if he'd won some kind of game. Of course. It WAS a game. It still is. Fuck, I've been an idiot.

I must confirm this. Shaking herself back into the room she leapt towards L and the computer where the letter R still stared unseeingly into the hotel.

"Roger get me Near on video link! It's urgent, wake him if you must!"

L turned to her sharply. "What is it? What have you thought of?"

Rose didn't reply, immediately realising that sharing her revelation would mean revealing what had happened just a few days ago. This is not how I wanted to tell him. "I'll explain once we've spoken to Near," she replied stiffly.

There then passed a tense five minutes whilst Roger fetched the white-blond boy. Rose paced over to the windows, pulled back the curtain and pretended to watch the streets below whilst her mind frantically went over the details, trying to find a good reason why it couldn't be true. But the more she went over it the surer she got. Blessedly, L did not try to question her again.

The letter R flipped to an image of Roger's study and Near appeared, ghostlike against the dark panelling of the room. Rose turned their camera on. Glancing sideways she found L's bottomless gaze lancing her sharply. There was a disturbing flicker of understanding there already. Of course. Just by my need to talk to Near he's probably already worked out three of the most likely scenarios – and one is probably horribly close to the truth.

"What do you want?" Near asked, in words that would've sounded rude in any other voice but his.

Rose held up bits of the homemade bomb. All tests on it at forensics had been taken and sent off for studying, so Matt had picked it up in order for them to study it themselves. "Don't say anything until you've examined every part of this. Once you have, tell me anything you think is relevant."

She held up each part of the bomb in turn. Occasionally Near would ask her to turn a part round, or open a section up for further inspection. A few minutes later he nodded.

"I'm finished," he announced, and twirled a lock of starlight hair thoughtfully. "First of all, they are all common ingredients, easily garnered by the average person. What makes this interesting is the design: there are a few textbook designs for homemade bombs, and usually your average criminal with a penchant for explosives will follow these to the letter, in fear of something going horribly wrong if they don't. But this one... it's complex and original, well thought out. And in terms of aesthetics... it isn't like the ones I used to make. I always liked arranging the components vertically. No, here they're horizontally laid out, much more like the bombs Mello used to design. In fact this bomb is remarkably similar to his."

"So," Near continued, "in answer to your unspoken question Fern, yes: I believe Mello might be the culprit of these assassinations. I had the thought a few days ago, but I had no evidence to back it up. I'm very curious as to how you came to that conclusion, Fern."

"Yes," L agreed, "very curious indeed." His steely gaze was making Rose nervous.

Matt returned to the suite loudly banging the door and they both jumped. His eyes roamed the bomb and the screen. "What have I missed?"

"Not much," L answered, "Fern was just about to explain how she has worked out the probable identity of the suspect."

"No, who?"

"Mello."

"Mel-?" Matt strangled, and after a searching glance to check they were serious, sat down heavily on the sofa, pulling out two cigarettes from his pocket and lighting them instantly. "Go on then, hit me," he croaked through a couple of puffs.

Rose cleared her throat, and tried not to look at either of her companions, nor the two on the screen. I really did not imagine having to do this with such a big audience. The four men were waiting expectantly. I'll start at the beginning.

"It was in... September perhaps? Or October, I can't quite remember. Anyway, as you know I was staying in Mello's vacated room. One night he came back to Wammy's House – he was confused to find me there, I can tell you."

"Fern why didn't you tell us?" Roger asked, offended. "That's a huge breach of security that no one noticed, that's something I should know about!"

Rose shrugged guiltily. "He asked me not to tell anyone. And it didn't seem like there was any reason to – all he did was get a photo and leave."

"A photo?" L asked, "What photo?"

"Just a picture of some rocker guy with long hair and an anarchy t-shirt. Didn't seem that remarkable to me."

Roger cleared his throat. "That'd probably be his father."

"His father?" Rose repeated, surprised.

"Yes, his father was a member of a Russian/British punk-metal band. He was called Andrei Keehl. Died under suspicious circumstances – it was never proved, but it's thought that he was bumped off by the Russian government for inciting revolutionary behaviour."

L's countenance darkened. "A.K. – the other initials fit. Carry on, Fern."

"So then I remembered what you said at Christmas, Near – about you blowing up the turkey, and you and Mello competing to make the best explosives. And I remembered the pizza boy saying how Melanie was tall with shoulder-length blonde hair and blue eyes."

"Aaah." Roger nodded.

Matt had sucked both cigarettes dry. His jaw was clenched, shoulders tense, eyes shut behind the goggles.

"But you knew all of these things in England," L observed after a moment's silence. "What made the penny drop now?"

There's really no avoiding it is there. Oh well, here goes. "At the weekend, when Matt's boots arrived in the post, I had to get out of Wammy's House, to remember what it was like to just walk about on my own. So I went to London, walked around all day. Then I went to a club – a place that I knew about because the affiliates of The Group used to work from there. And, it's run by – guess who – Ernie Campbell. Excellent music," she added, without really knowing why she did so. Rose proceeded to explain the evening: the drug dealers who'd bothered her, the appearance of 'M', the drinking of whiskey, his crowing words.

Roger frowned. "But you were there to teach lessons on Saturday morning, if you were in that club until late how on earth did you get back to Winchester?"

"Mello drove me on the motorbike. And well... he followed me in saying he needed to get a few things that he wanted. And we well... you know." Rose continued addressing the wall, dreading looking at anybody's face. She heard Matt gasp as he took her gist.

"I was very drunk," she explained uselessly, even though no one had questioned her, feeling like there were a million ants crawling around inside her stomach. "And I was inebriated on my new-found freedom. I was feeling reckless. And he... well... I suppose he was trying to win the game in every way." I feel empty. She risked a flick of the eyes towards L. Completely unreadable.

Matt had pushed his goggles back on his head, sat forward, and was gaping at her. "But I thought," he looked between his two friends, nonplussed, "I thought that you guys were-"

"There's plenty of things you think Matt, without them being true," L said, uncharacteristically harshly. "As a matter of fact we parted after her injury, and Ro... Fern was free to do as she pleased. As was I. On my part, I slept with Wedy in Australia, so it's no big deal," L explained casually.

This time Rose's and Matt's jaws both dropped open. What? WHAT?

"Whaa- how did that happen?" She spluttered.

L shifted his toes around and stared up to the right at the distant window. "Would you like to know how it happened the first, second, or third time, or all three?"

"Whaat?" Rose cried incredulously. She hadn't felt jealousy in a long time, but now it was coursing through her veins like boiling lead, and she leapt to her feet, seeing red. I have no right to be jealous, no right at all, but god I could murder someone right now! Three times? Three? That's as many as us! No no no no I cannot accept this.

"Yes," L responded matter-of-factly. "So really Matt, don't be shocked at Rose's behaviour. If anything you should feel bad for her – it is much worse to have been at the receiving end of a revenge-fuck than a genuine, is misguided, affection."

Rose roared in anger. "Fuck you! I know you hate to lose but are you trying to win even in this? Fuck you! Are you TRYING to make me feel as shit and as angry as possible? "

"You're doing that all by yourself," he said, infuriatingly calmly, and Rose (to the warning cries of Roger and Near on the computer) leapt towards him, wishing at that moment to knock all the life out the skinny creature crouched on the chair before her. But Matt dived in the way, and pushed her back forcefully.

"Stop it, both of you, you fucking idiots! L stop winding her up coz you're angry, and Fern just stop being so angry! We've got more important things to deal with."

Rose, breathing heavily, slumped onto the sofa, and rubbed her face with her hands. When she opened her eyes, Matt's jaw was firmly clenched and his face had paled and turned grim.

"What you two have just said has made me realise a horrible possibility, that you might've been realising too if you weren't so caught up in your own fucking shit. So Mello's trying to win the game in every possible way, is he? And that includes a revenge-fuck?"

Rose winced.

"That means that... Misa's appearance cannot be ignored," Matt continued, his voice full of regret. "It can't be a coincidence that she messaged me so soon after my dreadful phone-call with Mello."

L's eyes widened. "Get to the suite next door!"

All three of them jumped up and raced out of the room.

Left hanging on the screen, Roger and Near looked at each other, bemused. "Let's leave them to it I think, lad," Roger said gruffly, and switched off the connection.

Matt reached the door to the neighbouring suite first, and swung it open. Misa was no longer there. Some of her possessions were still strewn about the room, but a quick check revealed that her bag, shoes, coat and valuables were all gone. Matt, howling in anger and distress, picked up a small bedside table and hurled it at the mirror on the opposite wall. The table wrenched in two on the impact, whilst the mirror exploded musically into a thousand shimmering, glimmering shards of deadly beauty.

The aftermath of the sound was a huge expanse of silence, punctuated only by the sound of Matt's barely-controlled sobbing, as he pressed his face into the sheets on the bed, scrunching the white material in his hands.

Rose felt wired and drained all at once. Her emotions weren't making any sense to her. "I'm going for a walk," she said eventually, and picked her way out of the sparkling room. Neither of them responded.

(gap)

The sky was changing colour again. For the previous half an hour it had being slowly progressing from ebony black, through deepest grey, to wolf-grey, to silver-grey. Now the Eastern edges of the rounder clouds were being gilded in gold and orange and soft pink, whilst in the middle the thicker blanket of flat cloud was parting to reveal a cleft of sky of the palest baby-blue. The movement of the clouds was accompanied by a slightly faster breeze – the light, fresh breeze of a new day.

Rose shivered as a gust of the spritely wind passed over her and hushed through the bare-branched trees. She'd been lying on her back staring at the sky for a very long time. After buying a bottle of expensive red wine her feet had carried her hastily up and down unseen streets for over an hour, until tiredly they brought her to Central Park. There Rose had lain herself down on the wide stone balustrade edging a bridge, and had not moved a muscle since except to tilt her head to drink the wine. The wine had been gone for some time now, and the empty bottle rested somewhere by her feet. Cold was seeping into her bones from the stone and her body was stiff and aching from it, but Rose didn't mind that much. She felt sullied, hurt, alone and confused, and the cold was somewhat distracting, as if some of that wrongness was being pulled away into the unconcerned rock. Is there anyone I can trust? Can I even trust myself? Or are we all too caught up in our own dramas to mind the needs of others, or even understand our own needs? Can anyone rely on anybody, or when the chips are down, are we all alone?

A morning jogger, the first, bounced past her resting place. Distantly Rose was aware of the increase in traffic noise several hundred metres away as the city grumbled back into full speed. Can't stay forever.

"Rose."

Rose nearly jumped out her skin, and she whipped up into sitting. "Fucking Jesus, don't do that!" She cursed, seeing L, who had managed to approach entirely silently since his feet were still bare. His face was, of course, not a great display of expression, but from what Rose could tell from the angle of his shoulders, the awkward shuffling of his hands in his pocket, and his slightly twisted lips, L was both wary and contrite. I refuse to apologise first.

There was a tense silence.

L's eyes roamed from side to side. "I... I suppose I'm sorry."

Rose laughed bitterly. "You should be! You didn't have to be so harsh about it, did you." And then, greatly to her shame, Rose felt a rush of hot tears welling up in her eyes. Oh god, I'm not about to start crying am I? I feel pathetic enough already. L looked alarmed when he noticed the rush of salt water pouring from her face and the beginnings of some hiccupping sobs rising in her throat. He shuffled nearer, unsure of whether Rose would attack him, physically or verbally, if he got closer. But the fight seemed to have left her.

"I am sorry for that, I am. I was... I was jealous. It pains me to admit it, because possessiveness strikes me as an ugly and pointless quality, but it turns out that I too get jealous. So, I'm sorry. I didn't know I was capable of such vindictiveness." He thought for a moment, and clarified himself. "Well, not directed at someone I care for." He tentatively put a hand on her knee and breathed a quiet sigh of relief when she didn't knock him away. This churning, sickening feeling inside me, he thought, this is guilt again, is it not? This is guilt for what I've done. The worst emotion in the repertoire and I seem to be feeling it horribly regularly. Why do I keep making so many mistakes? Aren't I supposed to be a genius, is that not what people call me?

Rose fought for a minute or so to regain control of her tears, slowing them to a trickle, and faced away from him, staring down the bridge. When she spoke her voice was low and quiet and faraway. "It hurt already, you know. You didn't need to rub it in. You don't know what it's like to be used, L. You don't know what it's like to know that what someone is doing to you is for their purposes alone, and what you want is entirely irrelevant to them. I know what that feels like better than most. And so it already hurt when I worked out why Mello did what he did – it hurt because he didn't mean it, but he managed to convince me it was real, he lied with his body and soul and I believed him. When really it was all about spiting you, I was just a tool for hurting you. I was a fool. Can you comprehend how much that makes me feel like nothing, absolutely nothing?"

The churning inside L reached a new zenith, so much that he thought he might actually be sick, and he clenched his teeth hard. "Mmm," he whispered miserably, wishing that the bridge would collapse and crush him between thick pillars of stone beneath the freezing water. "You're right, I don't understand, and I didn't try to. I was... immature."

"You were." Rose turned to look at him. Her brown-green, almond shaped eyes met his with such vulnerability and strength that L's legs almost gave way, and he swayed against the balustrade. The remnants of tears sparkled in her eyelashes. "But so was I," she added, and took his hand in hers.

They stood in silence for a moment.

And then L felt a bubble of resentment well up inside him as he remembered the months of suffering that had not been his fault.

"What is it?" Rose asked, seeing the tightening of his jaw, the shadow descend on his brow.

"I was angry at you for what happened with Mello for only a matter of minutes," he explained, voice tightly controlled, "and after that only at him. No, what makes me angry at you is bigger than that."

"Oh?"

"You drove me away," L said, and the control over his hushed voice cracked slightly. "You forced me to leave without you, you cut me out. Do you have any idea what THAT feels like?"

It was Rose's turn to internally squirm. Neither could bear to look at each other.

When L spoke again he muttered fast and quietly and Rose struggled to catch every word. "Rose you broke behind my walls, walls I didn't even know I had, you forced me to feel, you tore me out of my safe existence, you made me hope for so much, and then you cut it all off. And I obeyed because I thought it was what you wanted, and I'd sacrifice my happiness for that. I did what you asked, I tried to forget about it. And now, today, after observing your behaviour it's obvious that our separation has hurt you as much as I, and I have to ask why?" He looked at her then, and Rose was forced to meet his gaze. It was a bright, dark stare, unrelenting. "Why would you do something against the wishes of both of us, why would you make us suffer pointlessly?"

"I thought it would be better for you. I did, I truly did."

L made a strange bitter noise in his throat that Rose had never heard before. I suppose I've never seen him bitter before.

"No Rose, I'll tell you why you made us suffer, it was your pride."

"My-" she started, outraged, but he cut her off.

"You were too proud to let me see you helpless, too proud to let yourself be looked after. And you were too proud because you were too insecure. Too insecure to believe that I could love you no matter what."

Rose's breath caught in her throat, she felt the tears well up again, and she blinked her eyes shut to avoid that bottomless gaze striking further into her soul. His words are true, I know they're true. But god they hurt. And then with a jolt she realised that that was the first time the word 'love' had ever been used between them, even indirectly, and she felt immeasurably dizzy.

"Rose," L whispered, and caught her salted wet cheeks in his hands, "you hate to lose as much as I do, I know that. You hate to be anything less than perfect in everything you do. But you don't have to be perfect for me to want you. I may not be well versed in practical relationships, but I'm well versed in human nature. So all I've got to say is: you do not have to push me away when you think you're not good enough."

A single wracking sob wrenched through her, and Rose clutched the cool-fingered hands at her face and pressed them further into her cheeks to a pressure that could've been painful had the feelings inside her not totally overwhelmed it. Opening her eyes, blinking the water away, she allowed the oil-black eyes meeting hers to break into her heart once more and dissolve her resistance, feeling all parts of her innermost self naked and visible and tender. And from those eyes and those hands a great compassion tangibly, almost physically poured into her, greater than she knew existed, and she sank with relief as it washed away her tenseness and her dread. Rose's tears dried, her heartbeat slowed, and she took a couple of deep, measured breaths. Then she took his hands off her cheeks and held them tightly in her lap.

You beautiful, ruinous, delicate, tortuous creature, L thought, as he watched the calm restore itself to her. What have you done to me?

"Will you tell me what happened in Australia?" Rose asked, desperately needing to know, but not wanting to hear it, all at once. L didn't reply immediately.

"I will. But not right now. I warn you that Wedy story is only half of the saga – and the less dreadful half." He gazed up at her, shadow-eyed. "I dread telling for fear you will never speak to me again."

Rose tsked. "It can't be that bad."

"It might be," L replied dubiously. "You may have made your mistakes, but I've some too. Anyway, I cannot inform you now. We have a plane to catch."

"A plane?"

"Yes. Mello has already left for Russia. The farther we're behind the worse off we'll be. Talking must wait until Russia."

Rose nodded slowly. "Of course." It's impressive that he's let even this conversation preside over resolving the case. Sliding stiffly off her seat she took up pace beside L, and they headed towards the hotel just as streaks of sunlight began to glow in between the skyscrapers.

Thank you very much for reading =]