0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o
They knew what the flames meant. One by one, yet all at the same time, the realization quaked through them as a hammer tolls a bell, and left just such a resonance. They knew.
From the monitoring screen to his right, a soft, keening whine pierced the connection to Lidner's mouthpiece. The sound shimmered over the spitting and hissing of the communicator like a silver fish through murky waters. Lester didn't know it then, but that was the only sound of grief that ever passed someone's lips for the boy called Mello. Near had informed he and Jevanni of her connections with that one. Now, as he gazed at those distant fires that meant absolutely nothing at all to him, he wondered if Lidner, where she stood in her crumbled masquerade, could feel their heat. He wondered if Lidner could feel now what it was to burn.
From the speakers to his left, Jevanni's voice worried him, asking urgently what had happened. He had seen the fire, he'd heard of Takada's kidnapping, but what did it all mean? Why weren't Lester and Near answering him? Was everyone all right? Was this part of Near's plan? What did it all mean?
And he couldn't bear to tell Jevanni his deepest, most horrible suspicion: That it all meant nothing. That every bit of it had meant nothing at all.
From before him, he heard nothing. Nothing but that cold, terrible silence. Not the silence of a morgue, but the quiet meditation of a cat considering a mouse. Near sat unmoved in his normal, careful way, one leg folded up against his chest. Though the boy did not stir, Near suddenly seemed to be very small against the looming monitors that filled the room with flames until Lester couldn't breathe, couldn't think for the smoke. And out of those fumes, a realization struck him.
We're all that's left now. He's all that's left now.
The thought humbled him, and his mind was suddenly filled with the ghosts of those tried and gone. The former L, the true L who'd almost won, who had gotten so close. The nameless, faceless man in the car, whose identity was now only a bloodstained body bag with a number that no one could remember. Dear, rash Mello, his face ripped wide open by his flaws, who perhaps had seen the hopelessness of it all long before anyone else.
Briefly, Lester closed his eyes.
Near save us.
Because God couldn't be bothered.
0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0oo0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0oo0o0o0o0o
Author's Note: I admit, I am somewhat resentful of Matt and Mello's timeless deaths. I suppose now that the DN fanfiction will turn briefly away from writing L's death tributes to writing Mello's death tributes. I can't really think of anything else to say except that if Near loses this game, I will be very, very upset. And that I am angry with the official DN writer for making Mello out to be such a fool, when he was supposedly the 2nd best in the orphanage (doesn't say much for the orphanage, now does it?).
