Chapter Nine

"Miss Minerva? We have arrived." I opened my eyes to see Watari's face just in my periphery, black and white and wrinkled. I should have liked to sketch him, if I could have but found the strength somewhere in my aching body. Lying on the leather backseat, warmed by my body, for forever and an age sounded like a pleasant way to spend the rest of my life. No more fire, no more Light, no more L. Bliss.

"Miss Minerva, I'm afraid I have to insist."

I sighed, staring up at the black roof. It was patterned, the outline of many fleur-de-lis only just visible in the streetlamp illumination spilling through the windows. Watari certainly drove in style.

Time to face the music. Something inside told me that I was in for a long night.

Watari gave me his arm to get out of the car, and together we walked in through the grand hotel doors into the marble lobby like a couple from the nineteenth century. Those would have been fun days to live in – no need for any undue worry over school exams and so on. Though being an orphan, especially an orphan girl with a little brother to look out for, would have been rather a hassle. Oliver Twist came to mind, and the idea of living in the 1800s became less scintillating.

The elevators were ornamented with gold, twisting up the corners, spreading over the ceiling and curling into a small chandelier.

"I'm sure L would not be contrary to you staying here and drawing for a few days," said Watari, noticing the way my eyes followed the designs.

"You know I can't do that," I said absently. "I have two more people to look after now."

"They aren't your family."

"Not by blood, but I can't abandon them."

The elevator dinged upon reaching the penthouse floor. It was a gentle, patient sound that was so much kinder on the ears than the usual jarring clash of less expensive hotels and offices. The doors slid open and revealed the rooms to be rather different to the ones I had visited before. Instead of traditional European furniture, this was more American, following in the footsteps of the new money socialites of the 1920s. It was like stepping into The Great Gatsby. Shiny tiles arranged in hexagons, hard wooden walls polished to perfection, marble at every protruding corner. More chandeliers, a grand pianoforte in the main room and a wall made from glass looking north over the city, away from the fire of the Yagami house.

L stood at the windows, hunched over as usual, but there was something solemn in his stance. Whereas he usually gave the impression of deep thought and intense analysis of any given situation, now he seemed . . . harried. Aggravated. Anxious. It was there in the line of his shoulders, the way he rubbed his foot almost obsessively against his calf, the tapping of his fingers on the glass. The great detective L was as close to a nervous breakdown as he could get.

"Ryuzaki, I have brought Miss Minerva." Watari turned to me. "I shall get you some tea, Miss Minerva, and a blanket."

"Thank you, Watari." He nodded and walked into another room through a carved wooden door. It was always strange to see him give me such attention. Usually he was the kindly gentleman who stayed at the House when L was there and attended to the detective's every need while always professing the impression of a core of steel. Us kids had learnt not to disturb Watari, or Whammy, as he was at the House. L was more important than all of us combined. We had to rely on the housekeeper and her maids for any sort of help.

L moved away from the windows, padded across the hexagonal floor, and stopped mere inches from my person. With searching eyes he examined me from head to toe. Not touching. His gaze was palpable enough as it was.

"You are not hurt," he said. It wasn't a question. I shook my head anyway.

"What caused the fire?" I already had an idea, ever since I saw Light's room destroyed, but perhaps L knew more.

He bit his thumb and sat down on the chaise lounge, curled in on himself as usual. I tucked my feet under myself on the white loveseat, the leather making an awful sound against my down jacket. Watari came back, blanket in one hand and a tray of two steaming teacups in the other. He placed the tray on the table between us, exchanged my jacket for the woollen blanket, and left. I didn't imagine he would be coming back any time soon.

After a long silence, I said, "L. Tell me. What started the fire?"

He gazed into the faux fire opposite to the windows, the light of the flames absorbed by his dilated pupils. No flickering reflection. It was rather creepy.

"You know of the cameras."

"Yes."

"There was a mistake. Soichiro and Sachiko weren't meant to come home so early, which caused the man removing the wiretaps and cameras to rush his job. When he was in Light's room I can only suppose there was a problem with the last camera because the next thing we knew the place was alight. Soichiro and Sachiko didn't make it out."

He knew more than that, he had to. No way did he suspect one of his criminal contacts to make such a juvenile mistake like starting a housefire when removing a camera. The tiny spark that could have occurred would have been easily put out in seconds.

His criminal must have found Light's false bottom and forced it open, thus igniting the trap and setting the desk ablaze. And since the person shouldn't have been in the house to begin with, the likelihood of them calling the fire department was slim to none. There wasn't a smoke alarm in Light's room; the fire grew until it was too late.

I swallowed this slowly, staring at my hands wrapped in wool and trying to stop them trembling. Too my shame, my thoughts weren't with Soichiro and Sachiko, but on the fact that the Death Note had survived. Light had brought it to my house, it was in his bag as we watched his house burn. He was still Kira. His parents had been killed in his game with L and died for nothing. I didn't know whether to blame Light or L for their deaths. Both were responsible.

"What will happen to them now?" I asked quietly.

"Watari has ordered a task force headquarters to be built here in the city. Once it is complete Sayu and Light can move in." He glanced at me out the corner of his eye. "Until then, they will need somewhere to stay."

"I –" I swallowed. "Of course. They can stay with us. We have a spare room."

L nodded, but didn't seem any less uneasy with my compliance. He still wanted me to run back to the House with Quinn, out of harm's way. But at least now he would have those under his watch all in the same place.

"And the task force? They no longer have their leader."

"I can't bring anyone else on since too many people know my identity already. But . . ." he shifted slightly, pushing himself further into the curved back of the sofa. "I may bring Light on once he has completed high school."

I tried not to laugh. I really did. However, I couldn't stop my shoulders shaking with pained mirth as I imagined Kira on the task force, trying to find himself. I knew that L only wanted Light to examine the possibility of him being Kira in close quarters and manoeuvring him into a corner, but still. The irony was too strong.

With a strained tone I said, "Will the rest of the task force let you?"

"I am eighty-five percent certain I can convince them."

"Then by all means. Take him." I don't want to deal with his Kira-insanity anymore.

"I don't know when I will conscript him, but I will tell you."

"You don't have to. It might tip Light off if I'm getting strange phone calls I won't tell him about."

"He has that much control over your life?" L moved forwards, hands on his knees and eyes piercing. I stared straight back.

"You lost your right to be concerned over me the second BB took me into his room."

L flinched like I'd struck him. "I didn't know what he was then," he murmured.

"Yeah, well." I stood up, blanket sliding off my shoulders. "Maybe if you'd paid a little more attention to the people around you than the world, I would still be at the House."

"V!" Quinn jumped up from the couch and came to my side. I stepped out of the elevator and smiled at him. He gave a small yelp of surprise when I pulled him into a tight hug, burying my face in his hair. He was warm. He was home. I didn't want to let him go. Quinn wrapped his arms around me and reciprocated the embrace with equal fervour. We hadn't had a hug like this in too long.

After who knows how long, he pulled away, dragging me through the kitchen to Light and Sayu, who were seated against the couch. Tear tracks ran down Sayu's face as she sobbed into her brother's shoulder, her brown hair a bedraggled mess from hands being run through it too often.

Light, on the other hand, was the picture of controlled depression. His face was suitably miserable, hair falling in his eyes in lank strands, shirt rumpled and stained from his sister's tears. Yet his eyes were clear. The second he looked at me for showed no signs of the weeping Sayu had succumbed to. They were dry. Then he closed them again and tugged Sayu closer, hiding his designed expression from my sight.

"I'll make us dinner," I said. Quinn stuck to my side, too socially awkward to even attempt staying with the Yagami siblings in their grief.

We set to work chopping vegetables and chicken and boiling rice for stir fry, remembering the recipe from Sachiko's lesson once a week ago. My breathing hitched at the thought. I set my knife down and strained my arms against the counter, trying to crush the upsurge of emotion in my chest. Some of the shock, the numbness, was falling away with every breath I took and reality was sinking in.

Sayu and Light were now relying on me to house them, feed them, pay for their lives. Soichiro and Sachiko weren't here anymore. No more guidance or kind words or smiles to distract me from their son. I was on my own.

I glanced over at Quinn, his blonde hair flopping in time to the beat playing in his head as he cut up the chicken. For the first time in my life, I wished I was the younger sibling and it was Quinn who would be handling all this. A small, resentful thought came that it was unfair for me to deal with the nightmares and BB and L and Light and moving house and making a living for us while he rode on my coattails. My grip on the knife tightened.

"V?" I blinked. Quinn's eyes were suddenly close, concern obvious in their depths. I gave him and grimace of a smile and returned to chopping up vegetables. He went to his knife and continued with the chicken.

Those hateful, poisonous thoughts swirled through my mind even as I set the table and coaxed Sayu and Light to the table. Sayu didn't say thank you, and Light only muttered a quiet word of gratefulness and my emotions got darker. We ate in silence. I tried to drag my thoughts away from the murmurs of unfair, uncompassionate, taken for granted, no one cares, but when my knife hit my empty plate with a sharp crack I had to push my chair back and rush to my room, slamming the door.

My hands were shaking as they covered my face. I let out a breath that was more of a sob and my strength deserted me. I collapsed to the ground and had only just enough frame of mind to drag myself to the bed. Large, dark eyes stared at me in surprise and interest.

"What's got you so worked up?" asked Ryuk, sitting up and floating an inch above my bedcovers. "Was it something Light did?"

I choked out a laugh. Of course my life would fall to the point where my confidante was a Shinigami who ruined the lives of those closest to me. Was anything going to ever go right for me?

"Ryuk, does reincarnation exist?"

"No."

"Shame. It would've been useful to blame all this on karma."

"What happened?"

I sighed, heaving myself up to lean on the side of the bed. A picture of Light was on my wall, a sketch drawn two weeks ago of him at his desk, studying for once instead of writing names. The desk that had exploded into flames and killed his parents.

"Soichiro and Sachiko are dead."

"I know." Right. He saw the fire with us.

"And now I'm going to look after Sayu and your little Shinigami-trainee."

"There's no other place they can go?"

"Hah. You think Light would let himself be shipped off to some foster home now? In a few weeks he'll be eighteen and he can take care of himself. Until then . . ."

Ryuk flipped onto his stomach, face uncomfortably close to my own, and flicked his feet back and forth in the air. It was reminiscent of Sayu when discussing Hideki Ryuga.

"So I can get all my apples from you? You won't hold out on me like Light does?"

"Sure, as long as you promise to do me a favour at some point in return."

He chuckled and whispered in my ear, "Anything." A shudder raced down my spine. Quickly, I scooted over to the opposite wall and glared at him. He laughed, and at that moment the door opened.

"Minerva?" Light's glanced at Ryuk for a moment, who waved, and then to me. My glare hardened.

"You should be with your sister," I said.

"I wanted to talk to you."

"Now?"

"Yes."

"What a surprise."

Light shut the door and locked it. The low click it made had me flinching, plastering myself closer to the wall in between half completed canvases and a box of paints. I wrapped my arms around my knees and tried to be as small as possible.

"Ryuk, get out."

"Nah, I think I'll stay." The death god grinned, making himself comfortable amongst my sheets. "This is going to be interesting." Light's hands curled into fists. I breathed in deeply.

"Ryuk." His grin dimmed slightly. "Could you please? I don't think you want to hear this." A swirl of rage was building in my stomach at the sight of Light and his blank expression. "I'll give you two apples every meal for a week."

"Deal." He disappeared through the wall. There was a long silence, in which I focused on the dark green carpet at my feet and Light examined the many pictures of him and his family and Quinn scattered all over the room. He picked up one of his mother and father at the dinner table.

"You remember what I said before, about sacrifices?" His head snapped up sharply but I kept my gaze down as I continued. "So was this worth it? The fire started in your room. What do you think caused it?"

The drawing fluttered out of his grasp. Suddenly he was there, crouching in front of me grasping my jaw. "Did you know this was going to happen? Did you know the fire would start?"

"You're delusional," I spat. "As if I'd kill your parents to get a point across. Being Kira is getting to you, Light Yagami. You aren't the boy I met."

"No. That boy was weak. I'm more than he could ever have imagined," he said coolly. I tore free of him and stood. The rage spilled over.

"I can't believe you! How can you be so cruel in the face of their deaths? Your parents are dead, Light. They burned alive in a fire because of you! You have to feel something beyond this – this – calculating monster!" Light betrayed no emotion. I almost screamed in frustration. "You have no idea, do you? No idea of the pain you've caused, the ruin you leave in your wake." I bent down, moving as close to him as I could bear. "Think about it, Light. Imagine you are them. You feel the heat. Trapped, unable to run. Your mum and dad, alone in that house, crying out to each other as the smoke coats their lungs and flames lick up their legs. Your nerves screaming at you. Pain beyond measure. Your skin cracked and blistering, your hands charred, being ripped apart with agony until you are injured beyond the point of feeling it and your blood boiling in your veins. You die within minutes that seem to last decades, hoping your children are alright, hoping they are safe. And the reality is, it's all their son's fault."

Light leapt forwards, grabbing me by the wrists and slamming me into the wall, so hard my head hit it with a crack. Stars burst in my vision and it took several seconds for them to fade and reveal his face, distorted and terrifying.

"Shut up. Just shut up. You've never had parents so how can you even think to understand what I'm going through?"

"Yes, because I'm an orphan I don't know what love is, right? I have Quinn. If he died by my hand I would take my own life in penance!"

Light's mouth twisted. "So you think I should commit suicide?"

"No! You have Sayu to look after! There is no way I'm letting you leave me to clean up your mess even more than I am already!"

"This is about you then, is it?" He smirked, but it didn't reach his eyes and the hands wrapped around my arms were shaking ever so slightly. "It doesn't matter that Soichiro and Sachiko are dead, no. Only that poor Minerva-chan is stuck with their kids. What would your Granny Hiro have to say about that?"

"She would say I should take Sayu and run as far from you as possible. Anything is better than living with a psychotic murderer who'd kill his own family for his twisted plan."

He jerked away, turning his back on me and covering his face with his hands. I slid to the floor and watched, curious. It was slow, but Light seemed to finally realise the implications of what he'd done. He began to shake ever so slightly.

"This is all your fault, Light. No one else's but yours," I whispered. "Soon you're going to look around and realise that being god is a lonely thing."

"I chose this path," he hissed. "I'm stronger than this. No one else can do it but me. I am god of this new world."

"Is being a god truly worth losing everything precious to you? You'll be left alone, with only a Shinigami who cares nothing for you for company." I cocked my head, leaning forwards. "Humans aren't meant to be isolated. We need each other to live."

He turned to me then, eyes bloodshot from what I hoped were tears but could easily be madness. A small, warped smile curved his lips. It was pathetic, harrowing, and I felt my soul almost bleed for him.

Then he had to ruin it by saying, "You'll stay with me, won't you?" With the steps of a predator, at odds to the tremulous voice, he walked me back into the wall, tracing a finger up my arm. "I need someone to . . . keep me grounded."

"Stop it," I snarled. "You can't manipulate me."

This small smile disappeared and was replaced with pleading eyes. "I need you, Minerva. You're right, I hate being alone. Stay here."

"If you hate being alone you shouldn't have started killing people!"

His expression changed again, becoming intense. "I need a queen." Change. Desperate. "There's no one else I can trust." Angry. "Everyone else doesn't understand. They are all fools." Hopeful. "We can make a new world, one full of only good people." Happy. "With your help, no one innocent needs to suffer ever again." Hard. "But you can't leave."

"STOP IT!" I screamed, shoving him away. He stumbled back, apparently shocked, but the smug triumph was there, waiting just below the surface. A humourless chuckle bubbled past my lips. "You're no different to him. Always scheming, always trying to get what you want, not giving a damn about what anyone else thinks. I should have known this was happen the moment I met you. It only ever happens to me. You'd have thought I'd be more cautious, but no." I gave a hysterical laugh, hugging myself.

Light was rooted to the spot, watching as I showed the cracks that had been building for so long. I collapsed for a second time, the laughter turning into a howl. Flames flickered in the back of my mind, eating curtains and surrounding a chair occupied by a corpse. Black eyes glared at me hungrily, a knife glinting in the moonlight. Tears of exhaustion ran down my cheeks.

"Minerva?" said Light warily.

"Leave," I got out between cackles. "Leave me be. I'll be – I'll be fine in the morning."

The door unlocked, opened and shut. Cheeks almost crying with pain, I fell to my side and curled into a ball, trying to suppress every high pitched giggle.

What a pair we made. The boy who was losing his mind, and the girl who pretended she hadn't lost hers already.

TOWRTA: I wrote a different ending to this originally, but it was too similar to what I'd done previously, so I had to rework it. Much happier now. Minerva's finally lost it, or has she? In my opinion, I'm impressed it took her this long. Being stuck with Light would have sent me mad weeks before it got to her, especially if I had her past. Yikes.

Reply to Alex (anon): sorry, wasn't option 2. I hadn't even thought of that, honestly, before you mentioned it. Still, I hope you can appreciate this explanation for the fire; it makes both L and Light guilty for Soichiro and Sachiko's demise. Mwahaha. I've hinted in here about what BB might have done too. Can you spot it?

Thank you to all the reviews, favourites and followers! I love hearing from you guys!

Next time: living together