Title: All is Forgotten, All is Forgiven

Author: kathleenrose747

Pairing: L (Lawliet, Ryuzaki, Eraldo Coil, Denueve, Hideki Ryuga)/OC

Rating: M

Disclaimer: I have not, nor will I ever own anything relating to the idea, copyright, persons/characters and creation of Death Note. I also don't own any of the sweets mentioned in here. The only things I own are Michiko Nakashima, Melody Chance, and Piero; characters of my own creation.

Authors Note: I do use some of L's other aliases in the story. Also, L is 30 years old in this story. So yes, we can consider it AU. Please review with constructive criticism. I would also like unadulterated praise, if it is available. :)

February 25, 2013

After several days of working with the extraction teams and relocating the captured women to their various homes, L was finally standing outside the grounds of Whammy House. He had been tortured, beaten, almost killed. He thought back on what he had been through and had to marvel at the fact everything went as well as it possibly could.

During their talk with Melody about the Estimated Abduction Radius, he had notified Melody through the code they had in place that he would send Michiko to Whammy House for assessment and medical care as needed (code 00 for protection and services), and to care for her while he took care of clean up for ten days after the extraction (the 10 of the code, combined to make 1000 in the mile radius abduction code). He had made sure Yana knew to get Michiko out of the place and on a plane to England as soon as he had left the cell with Terrence and Matvey. By the time he had called Michiko, she was already in the car on the way to the airport, confused and disoriented most certainly. Of course, he made sure Yana only knew as little of the mission beyond the fact that she had to get Michiko to the airport. This way, the rest of the plan stayed as secretive as possible.

And here he stood: outside a gate, terrified of a five-foot five woman who probably had more questions than he had answers for.

Well. You're going to have to face her at some point. No use drawing this out any longer than necessary. He stepped through the gate and headed towards the entryway. Before he could reach out to the door handle, the door was wrenched inward and he was punched square in the jaw.

"What the fuck were you thinking?! Putting yourself in that kind of danger? Again?!" Mello yelled as Near half-heartedly tried to hold him back.

"I… fully deserved that." L rubbed his jaw, noting the stubble from his long days of work over the past ten days.

"I have to agree with Mello on this one, Lawliet." Melody shook her head disapprovingly of the man in front of her. "I told you explicitly to keep Michiko safe. And what happens? She comes back with enough PTSD to keep me in business for years. You are forbidden from dragging her into any more cases unless I clear it. No arguing." Melody then turned on her heels and walked down the hallway to her office, emphasizing her distaste by slamming the door shut behind her.

"Speaking of Michiko…" L peered around the two men before him. "How is she doing?"

"You're not getting any third party information from us." Near pointed up the stairwell. "Go talk to her yourself. She's in the same room as last time."

"She went crazy, L. Whatever you subjected her to seriously shattered her psyche." Mello shook his head as L protested. "No. You are the one that let this happen to her. You didn't keep her safe. She trusted you and you need to see what happened because of it." Mello turned and walked with Near towards Melody's office.

L's heart and stomach plummeted. It didn't sound good at all. He chastised himself every step he took up the stairs. He wished time would stop as he walked closer to her room. He prayed the ground would swallow him up as he raised his hand to knock on the door. When no answer was forthcoming, he tried the doorknob and opened the door.

It would have been pitch black in the room had it not been for the light of the full moon casting silvery shadows across every surface. It smelled musty, steamy, and like the air hadn't been circulated in quite a bit of time. To his left, he saw the bathroom door was open a crack and steam had fogged up the mirror inside. Around his feet, he saw ripped up papers of notes from the mission. Books laying half open and piled around the room told him she had been trying desperately to distract herself from her inner demons. As he shut the door behind him, he saw movement by the window, a trembling silhouette standing from the window seat to get a better look at their visitor. Her hair was shorter than he remembered and she was certainly skinnier.

"Michiko…" L whispered before he had to duck as a lamp came flying at his head. It shattered behind him, glass raining down on his back. He stood and tried to move forward, only to be pelted left and right with pillows, bars of soap, books, anything Michiko could grab near her in the dark. In one sudden move, he darted right, pushing off the wall to pull Michiko to the left and pin her arms lightly against the wall to keep her from throwing anything else.

"You fucking bastard! What the hell were you thinking?! Did you even know how scared I was? What I went through?" Michiko screamed, kicking and scratching wherever she could reach. L had no answer that would be suitable enough in this situation. So he stayed silent and let the curses and screams ring through his ears, watching this battered, broken woman fight for her freedom like a deer in a snare trap. He was not holding her hard, so she could easily have twisted away. But he could tell she needed a punching bag in that moment. If that was what it would take to get her to talk to him again, he was willing to put up with it.

For her part, Michiko did not want to hurt him, but she had gone through so much. She knew being a secret operative would have its risks. But she never signed up to be tortured, raped, demeaned only to find out her partner could have gotten them out at any point. The tenuous trust between them was gone. Shattered. There was no explanation he could ever give her that would serve as reparation for her pain. So she continued to fight against him with no intention to walk away. The more physical pain he experienced, maybe she could get some satisfaction.

Exhaustion crashed over Michiko as the adrenaline that had launched the fierce emotional attack left her as quickly as it had come. L let go as she slid down against the wall and curled up in a ball, the heels of her hands pressing hard against her eyes. He crouched in front of her, reaching out to try to offer comfort in some form of touch.

"Don't you dare…" Michiko smacked his hand away, venom dripping from her voice. "Get away from me L. I cannot look at you right now…"

"Michiko… just let me…"

"'Explain'? Explain what, exactly? How you led me into the vipers nest knowing full well we would be safe? And not sharing that damn information with me? It would hurt a lot less knowing I was raped for our imminent safety rather than the possibility of never seeing freedom ever again." She looked away, not wanting to see the man's eyes as they pleaded for her understanding. There was nothing in those eyes but lies. "I went through… all of that... thinking we were in danger. That you were in the same hell as me. But no. No. You had a greater plan. You always do. But you never told me. I had no hope L. No knowledge I would someday be safe. You kept that from me and, because of it, I thought for sure we were going to die. How the fuck can I ever trust you again?"

"I…" L couldn't answer her question. He was a man that had built his life in lies. How could she trust him?

Michiko laughed. It was hollow, devoid of impact. "I only said I loved you because I believed you were going to die. Now I wish you had. It wouldn't hurt as much as seeing you here: alive because of your secretive, grand plan."

Everything moved in slow motion for L as he watched the last door close between him and the only woman who had managed to wedge her way into his heart. He had lost her trust. There was no hope he could ever redeem himself. He stood up quietly, shoved his hands into his pockets and turned to the door, leaving Michiko to her thoughts.

He was clearly not wanted in this situation.

He walked a few steps down the hall to his room next to hers. He did not bother turning on the lights and instead walked to the bathroom, reaching into the shower to turn the water to 'scald the skin' hot. After shedding his clothes, he stepped into the steam, not bothering to close the shower door. He had been holding a pressure in his chest since Michiko started hitting him. Ever since he was little, the shower was the only safe place he could truly process the few human emotions that terrified him. Tonight, it was a new one for him: heartbreak.

It wasn't like grief. With grief, there was almost a finality, a closing of the book. It stretched out, but it was more like an aching memory that faded with time.

This was a raw, tearing apart of the heart. The woman he cared for still lived. She was alive, but no longer 'his' in the sense he had only started getting used to. To see her every day would be torture. It would be a scar that would never be allowed to heal. She would haunt him until his dying day, her presence a constant reminder of his failures and fuck ups. Yes. There were 'other fish in the sea'. But there would never be another one as unique as her.

As tears fell down his face and mingled with the stinging water, he remembered their first kiss. Just a few steps down the hall, in the doorway of her assigned room. It was as perfect as any first kiss could be. Because (and he would never admit this outside Melody's office) that was truly L's first kiss with someone he had hoped to explore a future with. Even if it was never to be set in stone, he would have loved to have seen where it could have gone. He always enjoyed the chase, the tracking of the path of the unknown. This would have been new territory for him.

Love. Killed before it could even begin.

He ran his hands through his hair, marveling as the dirt and flecks of blood ran down his body to the drain. That kiss. He ran a thumb over his lip, the motion bringing a quote from a movie he saw years ago: "It was the kiss by which all the others of his life would be judged and found wanting."

When did I let this happen? I never cared how other people saw me until her. Do I just go back to how I was? And how do I do that after all I've done?

These were not questions for a shower. These were questions for a therapist. Whenever she felt willing to talk to him.

I have so much to atone for. For once in my life, I have to owe up to my mistakes. If I don't, I will lose the only support systems I have in place. Not just the ones I've built, but the ones that have been built in my absence or beyond my acknowledgement. He turned off the water, slicking his hair back in the process. First things first; he had some emails to write.