Chapter Eleven:

CONTENT WARNING: MENTAL HEALTH, INLCUDING ANXIETY, NEGATIVE SELF TALK, WEIRD TOXIC EMOTIONAL MANIPULATION, AND JUST BAD BRAIN THOUGHTS IN GENERAL (I dunno, but I imagine this can be a pretty heavy read emotionally sometimes).

Several days later Erin stared up at the ceiling in the pitch dark, dreadfully awake despite her resolve to sleep her way through to the end of her problem, and thus her life. Her eyes aches and stung from the lack of sleep she had been getting, and her muscles twitched under her skin from the exhaustion. Worse was the feeling that she was terribly close to the cusp of dissolving into the shadows and silence. She wondered, briefly, if that might not be what death would feel like—the inevitable dissolution of her being into the void, the unmaking of the barrier between her and the infinite. She felt a cool sliver of fear wedge itself in her gut, and abruptly she forced herself to sit up and flick on the light.

She was not afraid of dying, she reminded herself sternly. In fact, she was actively anticipating it, and possibly trying to encourage it. There was no reason for her to be afraid. And she wasn't. If she was, hypothetically, feeling a modicum of terror, then that would make her actions contradictory, and meaningless. It would mean that she was wrong.

The thought gave her pause, and she wondered why she cared about whether she was wrong or not. She had made up her mind, hadn't she? She was not going to do what Ilmort wanted. She was not going to help L. She was going to wait the storm out and when it finally ended, she had resolved herself to being one of the casualties. That was what she had decided. Clearly the only reason she was losing sight of that was because it was late at night, and it was always harder to stay focussed when the hours stretched on, and time seemed to warp.

This was why she hated not being able to sleep. It made her brain all funny and skittery. Things she knew during daytime started to seem so much less certain.

She glared resentfully at the clock, which was telling her that she had not been laying there for nearly so long as she had thought.

The issue was that she had been talking too much to L, and it had been giving her brain a great deal to chew on. There was too much for her to think about, and none of them were really thoughts that she wanted to be having. Mostly because of how they made her feel, and for someone who really was seeking absolute numbness, feeling anything at all beyond maybe a nebulous resentment, and vague impatience was extremely unideal. It had been so much easier when she'd been in the hospital, and no matter how convinced she had been that they had been watching her, it had also been infinitely easier to put some distance between her and the whole thrice-cursed Kira case.

Never mind how easy it had been to let her mind haze over, especially when she had still been medicated. She almost wished that she could go back to that, if only so that she could get some rest. She did not want this tumult rolling around in her head, that subtle pressure that came with trying desperately to account for all eventualities. Erin really wasn't the type of person who could sustain that kind of thing for very long, but the minute she'd been dragged before L's scrutiny, some irritatingly stubborn reflex had decided that it was going to make some sort of effort. A futile, pointless effort, because she was still not actually doing anything other than awkwardly dancing around and buying herself time… or wasting time, more accurately.

She certainly had plenty of it to waste, apparently, as Ilmort had not yet erased her from the books… which made her wonder a little bit. He had blustered, and threatened, and insulted, but didn't seem to be doing anything in particular beyond that. He'd shown up, what, twice? And pretty much all he had done was bark at her. It made her a little doubtful that he was truly capable of doing anything more than that. Maybe there was no bite behind the bark. Or maybe he and his boss knew something that she didn't. She very much hoped that was not the case. She didn't like the thought that she had missed something.

Either way, none of the doubt and angst was doing anything to help her sleep. Which meant an even greater amount of time she had to try and figure out a way to spend. Dangerous, as apparently it made her quite pensive, and that lead down unfortunate paths. Paths filled with doubt. Doubt, which was something she most certainly did not need.

And yet it was there, an unpleasant itch at the back of her mind. She scratched at it with all her reasoning, justifications, and excuses, hurled one stubborn resolve after another at it, but still it was there, skritch, skritch, skritching away, wearing her down.

She. Absolutely. Hated. It.

Her stomach twisted, and she tried, momentarily, to blame her diet of sandwiches. But she wasn't such a fool, and she knew what the uneasy, curdling sensation was. She knew it from ticking clocks, and exams papers, and long silences, and empty halls, and slamming doors, and red rimmed eyes, and persistent frowns that seemed to erode their way across faces the same way that glaciers made canyons. It was like there was a small black hole in her gut, crunching up everything under its weight, persistently tugging and pulling at her, tearing off one piece after the next.

She restlessly pushed herself to her feet, pushing away the blanket and sheets, desperately trying to find something to distract herself from her current dramatics.

A hard task, given her lacklustre accommodations. She just wanted something to redirect her attention to. Something that would force her thoughts away from where they insisted on dwelling. Something to do with her hands, because she did not know what to do with them and was currently only able to hastily smooth them down her pyjamas in an instinctual, self-soothing action.

"God damn it" she cursed, the sound gruff and guttural as it wedged itself past the emotion in her throat. She was just so done with the constant merry-go-round. And yet it seemed very much as though it was not done with her. Of course. Because why would anything ever go her way.

"Ms. Harker?"

In that moment, Erin felt something go still and quiet in her, and then just as quickly it got very loud, and she was completely rocked by it. She had never actually drowned before, or even almost drowned. But, if she had, she imagined the sight of someone throwing a rope out to her would have felt no more encouraging.

The strange thing is, sometimes, what it really takes to send another person over the edge, is asking if they are okay. Erin had always been that way. When she was really upset, when she was right on the edge… it was someone turning and asking her how she was doing which had always broken the damn. For better or for worse, because sometimes the reason you finally broke was from just how desperately you needed a reason to release all that built up pressure. L was not asking her if she was okay. Or, at least, not in so many words. But in the isolation of her room and the silence, hearing something… anything at all was the lifeline she'd been reaching for. There was someone checking on her, and it felt like an anchor.

When she started to sob, great, loud, ugly gasping sobs that nearly bordered on hyperventilation, she didn't even have the capacity to feel embarrassed. All she could do was sink to the floor, hands clenched on her knees as she crumpled in on herself, her face pressed nearly into the carpet. She squeezed her eyes shut and let the feeling crash into her, almost tidal in its force. It dragged her under, and tossed her about in its current, but she let it, because she just could not stand against it.

She was almost grateful, because she wasn't sure what would have happened to her if that pressure had been left to build with no release.

She wasn't sure how long it took before she could feel herself, rough and terribly blessedly raw, begin to settle as the feeling subsided. Eventually she was forced to realize that, nearly spent, she had just enough energy to breathe, in and out, her breath stable and almost bizarrely calm considering the last few moments. Her eyes blinked open slowly, gritty, and sore. She gingerly keeled over on her side, relaxing in a lose curl, one hand reaching out the idly brush against the carpet as if she had never really felt such a thing before.

"Do you require assistance, Ms. Harker?"

The smile that slipped across her face was a sad, resigned thing, but it wasn't really all that bitter. "Hey," she began, her voice a husky, tattered mess in the aftermath of her unrestrained cries, "do you ever just feel… really, really, just so fucking small?" Swearing felt good. It flowed easily, with no real venom, but in the space that it left behind, she felt a grain of energy begin to grow. "Like, honest to god, just… like, minuscule?"

There was a beat of silence, but Erin didn't have much energy left to worry about what her counterpart was thinking about.

"Given the lack of control you have over your situation, there is a high likelihood of you feeling this way."

Well. Yes, yes there was. She the logic in the observation and she did appreciate him telling her that, although she couldn't help but wonder what textbook he had read that particular treasure out of. Or maybe Watari was directing him, since she really could not imagine L being able to navigate this situation with anything outside of a shark-like cold bloodedness. In fact, now that she thought of it, that descriptor fit L very well. She figured the only reason that he had even stuck around to humour her was because he could smell the blood in the water, and it was a blaring sign of her vulnerability.

But, in the vacuum left by her distress, she found herself too hollowed out to dredge up any real resentment towards this. Instead, she could only distantly appreciate that he was L after all. And there had been a reason why he had been so beloved, despite his lack of charisma… well. Maybe he did have charisma, unconventional though it might have been, and that was how he had ended as appreciated as he had. A direct contrast to Light's brilliant, polished charisma, in the same way they always seemed so similar and yet so polarized.

Like north and south on magnets, she thought. Inevitably drawn towards each other. That sort of certainty had always felt like tragedy to Erin, in anything she had ever read. Reaching a point where it seemed like there was only ever one possible outcome and had only ever been that one ending all along was just so terribly, hopelessly tragic. Especially when you knew that the ending as not a good one.

Usually she bitterly loathed such feelings, with a stinging frustrated resentment. Now though, she just felt a weary resolve. No. More accurately, a cool sort of acceptance.

And as she thought that something clicked into place, because she knew of another inevitability and this one pertained to her and L and the silly, futile struggle she had put up. The sudden sense of surrender she felt was not a dramatic thing, with a white flag raised high over a bloodied and broken body. Instead, it came in the form of a very soft and quiet give. A cracking that leads to sudden but altogether unimpressive crumbling. The weary little smile on her face stretched just a bit further as her eyes fluttered closed.

"Hey. L." She murmured the words passed lips that felt foreign and numb, but not heavy at all, finally admitting to that truth she had been pretending she didn't know. Thinking about it, he had probably been aware that she had known all along. She couldn't remember now, why she had felt that she needed to hide it. Couldn't remember for the life of her why she had struggled so hard to keep all her secrets hoarded away. It was just so much easier to face the inescapable. No. Not face it.

Let it drown her, maybe.

"You are L," She confirmed again, and it was not a question.

The admission filled up the space in the room, easing into every corner unobtrusively, but absolutely. It was not something which could be taken back, and she waited for that regret to come clobbering her with unforgiving fists. It didn't. She waited, breathing in and out, but all that met her was that same cool acceptance. It was soft, and surprisingly gentle, and held onto her with friendly hands.

"You seem to have made some sort of conclusion."

Her eyes flicked open again, and she chuckled dryly. "Yeah. Yeah, I guess I did."

"Then I assume you will be cooperating with this investigation from here on out." Even despite how garbled his voice was, Erin could hear the factual certainty in his voice. He wasn't gloating, no, because he had always been going to win, and it had not even been a challenge for him. Just something routine that he had to work his way through, a process to get what he wanted.

Something like pride tingled petulantly in her chest because no matter what she might have convinced herself, at one point she had been a fan. Probably still was. Of course, she had wanted to impress him. Even if just a little. Silly of her maybe. Certainly, it was nonsensical given how stubbornly she clung to the notion that none of this, none of it, had anything to do with her. But like a child, like a hypocrite, she had still tried to play the game with him but had only been willing to do so half-heartedly. Now she was left the loser and something in her was a little bit disappointed.

But she didn't have the time to dwell on it. "I was telling the truth when I said that I didn't mean to end up here. And I really do think Kira is an idiot." Yes. Yes, she thought, turning a new thought over in her mind, studying it. She thought Kira was an idiot for plenty of reasons. A lot of it she was willing to admit was because of her own personal dislike for him. But now she had the thought that maybe the biggest reason he was an idiot was because he had received something like trust, something like comradeship from L, and he had thrown it away. Wasted it on trying to be a god, of all things.

Then again. Maybe it had already been too late for them by that point. After all. He had already gone down a road that put him across from L. And maybe that had been the only way for their paths to ever cross.

Tragedy.

"Yes. It is clear to me that you are not an agent of your own life."

It was a little incredible how he could just tear her down like that, so dispassionately. Not surprising, no, because L tore down people far more complex than her as a career. But she could almost physically feel him dissembling any illusion of control she might have had… and it hadn't been a lot. Still, she felt it all falling away from her, and sighed at its passing, slow and long. Why, she wondered once again, had she ever bothered?

"However, what I am interested in pertains to several seemingly inexplicable coincidences which you are the origin of. Except they are neither inexplicable, nor coincidence."

"Yeah," she huffed, and then, because she was tired of the bizarre angle she was getting from her position on the floor, and because her hip was starting to hurt from pressing against the floor, she sluggishly pushed herself upright so that she was slouched against the foot of her bed and ran a hand through her hair. "Yeah. I know. Got a list?"

"Ms. Harker, explain to me what the word 'reaper' means to you."

She blinked because that was not what she had expected. Well, she had imagined it might come up at some point, maybe, but so soon? And why was he asking her that? What had she done to make him connect grim reapers to her? Did she talk in her sleep or something? Had she actually been drugged at some point?

"Reaper? Um, they are creatures who ferry the dead to the afterlife. Mythological, I guess."

"But you don't actually think that way do you."

Another non-question out of left field. "I… I don't know what… What? I mean… no, I guess not?" She had unfortunate firsthand experiences with them, making them all too real to her. It was unfortunate, and entirely vexing.

"Are you religious?"

"Huh? What? No? I don't think so." She hadn't been. Not for any deep-seated philosophical reason. She just had never really cared one way or the other before. Although, she wondered if she could still say that given that she was apparently in communication with a mythological being that had kind of brought her back from the dead and she was now on a mission mandated to her by something like a god. A Death God, but a god, that make her religious, or just cursed?

Probably just deluded.

"Then it's not symbolic either. Do you know why we removed you from the hospital?"

Erin was forced to acknowledge that she was most certainly not able to keep up with L's thinking, because the way he was hopping from one question to the next, questions that she didn't know the importance behind, was leaving her completely flustered. "No? Not really."

"On December 19th individuals suspected to be victims of the killer, designated as 'Kira', died in such a way which caused me to draw the conclusion that Kira has a method of manipulating his targets before their death. A message was left for me. The contents of it reminded me of something which had been recorded in our observations of you. Tell me, do you know the word 'shinigami'?"

She did, and wondered why he thought that she would, when her language barrier had been perpetually present in her life upon waking up from her coma. "Yes," She answered. "The Japanese equivalent of a Grim Reaper. Mostly. For all intents and purposes." The lore was technically different, varied to suit the aesthetic and historical influence of the different cultures. In fact, the lore became even more different for the 'real' creatures in this world given the influence of Death Note's own fictionalization.

There was another pause, and she imagined the shark swimming lazy circles around her with its hungry, cold eyes. "What would you say, if I told you that Shinigami love to eat apples?"

She wondered if he was expecting a reaction from her. Well, he did get one, though it was nuanced in a way that he would never be able to understand without context. Sure, she was surprised, although not perplexed by what would otherwise be a nonsensical question. Mostly she was just slotting this information away into her mental timeline. Clearly Kira had been messing around with the limits of his Death Note. Of course, she imagined it'd be pretty incriminating of her to know what that was all about.

But she was still so drained, and a sleepiness had settled on her, and she still didn't really see much point in fighting all this. Although there was still a reluctance, which was so silly of her, she thought distantly. She already had admitted that she knew he was L. And she'd already all but agreed to stop being so cagey and cooperate…. Although L had really only assumed that. But she was going to go along with it.

"I would say that it's got some Christian symbolism. No. Judaic? I'm super not an expert. But apples are pretty symbolic of, like, sin, right? Or maybe it was knowledge… I don't know why a Shinigami needs to eat at all. Although maybe they don't need to. Maybe it's just a thing, you know?"

"Death consumes sin?" L mused aloud, not addressing the rest of her response for the moment. "It does fit with what Kira's motivations seem to be."

Ah yes, literary symbolism also serving as a mechanical tool to further the plot. That was how you knew it was a well-developed story. Only it wasn't a story anymore, and all the literary symbolism in the world didn't make Erin safe, or happy, or alive again. Speaking of safe, Erin was anxious for L to ask her another question because that last one had cast a pretty grim light on her. Except then she realized that she was still doin git... still passively trying to skirt the truth. She could just start talking on her own, she could have. Though she hesitated to just go and say, "hey Light Yagami is the culprit" because wow, what a non sequitor that would totally look like she was casting the blame on someone else to save her own skin. Also, there was that whole awkward bit where he was the son of the Police Chief. And there was no way for her to have even known he existed, unless she was a stalker, or had stolen investigation information… which was something that L knew Kira had done… had that happened yet?

It was so hard keeping track of all of this, and her head hurt. It felt like her brain was filled with static.

No. No it had to have. The surface motivation for Kira killing one criminal every hour had been to disprove the idea that he was a student, with the sub motivation of sowing discord between the Japanese investigation unit and L, which had then resulted in the FBI agents being brought in. Which was a whole other thing.

Just…just a whole other thing.

She suddenly saw the lonely, puppet-like silhouette of Misora walking away, and the terrible sadness of it.

Erin pulled her knees up to her chest, and pressed her swollen eyes against them, trying sort out her thoughts in the moment of quiet. She had been throwing out truths and dropping her walls automatically, letting things unfold, and responding to all of L's prodding, caught up as she was in the strange after-effects of her emotional collapse. But the lull was starting to wear off, and she was starting to remember that there would be consequences. It wouldn't end with her just telling L everything.

Her fingertips tingled, and she smoothed them on the carpet once more.

What was truly baffling was the fact that he wasn't asking more questions about her whereabouts before the coma situation. Between the police officers, and the interrogation he had ran her through back in the containment facility or wherever it was, they had asked almost every question there could be about her life, from what magazine subscriptions she might have, to whether she had a library card, to her public exam grades. If there had been something that had validated her previous existence, they had requested it. They wanted to know the name of anybody she had ever known or met, be it her mother, her childhood friend, or the freaking cashier at the local corner store. Character witnesses, she guessed, or references. She told them all that she could, but if the issue was that there were absolutely no traces of her before she showed up in Japan, then she doubted her answers had given them anything to work with at all, no matter how honest she had been.

So, with her here, spilling her secrets, or at least dropping whatever flimsy façade she'd pulled over her face up until that point, she was curious about why L wasn't asking her anything on that front. Certainly, he was picking at some very important details, because the discovery of supernatural elements in the case had been a big freaking deal. Still. A nameless girl shows up with apparently no prior history of anything at all, beyond what she proclaims to remember? She kind of thought that might have been a priority. Unless, of course, she was making some gross assumptions, and he was just leading up to that.

There was another thought, a wary sort of buzz, but she just couldn't seem to latch onto it with the dullness fogging her head. She was staggering along, trying to keep up with L's questions while her brain spiralled off as always.

"Ms. Harker. Do you have any reason to think that Kira might make you a target?"

"What?" What was that supposed to mean? Where was that coming from? Was he asking her if she was a criminal? Was he threatening her? Or trying to use fear of Kira as some way to get her to expel all her secrets? Sure, she figured that if Kira did figure out about her existence, he might try to get rid of her… maybe, if he felt the risk of keeping her alive outweighed what he might get from her if he tried to manipulate her… and that was only if he did find out about that she had information about L and the case. But before that, he would have to learn that she even existed, and figure out that she was a subject of interest. Then again that was not entirely impossible since he had access to police databases… But L knew about that already. He was already refocusing his attentions inwards, to the web of people connected to the investigation.

Not that L's awareness of the leak meant that she was automatically safe or anything. She couldn't help but remember that if L thought he could get something out of it, he would totally use her as bait. He was L, and he was not above using people. She had already accepted that, and accepted that the way he went about it, and why he did it had been a large part of his popularity as a character. Only, she had to keep reminding herself that he wasn't just a character to her anymore. She couldn't let him be. And there was that uncomfortable buzzing again; a thought, a question she didn't really want to look at because she had a bad feeling she'd regret it if she did.

"Um, if… if you are asking me whether I am a criminal, and I'm in hiding or something… that's really not it. Um…" She knew, even as she carefully laid that out that this was probably as good a moment to tell L the truth as she was going to get. Still, she hesitated, if only because she didn't know where to start. How was she supposed to tell someone that she was dead? How was she supposed to tell someone that she came from another version of reality, and that she knew way more about them and their world than she should because she watched it all on an animated television show?

"Since you know who I am, I believe you can see why it'd be so interesting that I have yet to find any traces of your life up until your accident. And I think you would also realize the amount of skill and resources it would take to conceal that much information from me. However, from my observations of you, I do not think you are in a position of enough mental stability to make up such a comprehensive lie. And I would know if you were lying to me."

Well. Yeah. She had already accepted the fact that successfully lying to L was likely way out of her reach. Even when she had, she'd simply hoped to lie in such a way that he would think she was lying about something else. Mostly she had been banking on the implausibility of her situation to keep him guessing. Although, given his line of questioning, she was starting to wonder if that had even worked. But then again, a guilty mind will always see suspicious eyes."What are you getting at?" She asked because she was finding that answering questions was easier than taking the initiative.

"I have several theories, based on recent events, though my conviction in any particular one is rather low. However, one of them poses an issue of time. If there is any chance that Kira might have a reason to target you, I need to know now. Before it possibly becomes too late."

Erin blinked, confused, and once again was struck with the sensation of mental whiplash. How had L gone from questioning her lack of a paper trail back to whether Kira was trying to kill her? She didn't have the context clues to even guess at what was going through his head. "I swear to you L, I have no reason to think that Kira even knows that I exist… unless you've leaked something. And… even though it might not be the most believable thing in the world, though you did say you'd know whether I was lying, I'm not some kind of criminal. I mean, sure I've, like, jaywalked, and I totally drank before I was of age, and yeah, I probably plagiarized on school essays a couple times, but if those are the criminals Kira's after, then he's even more of an idiot than I thought…" She said that, and then wondered why she was acting like she didn't know for certain that Kira was most definitely not going after people who'd done anything like that. She rubbed a palm across her face and wondered when it had become such a habit to lie, that even when she was trying to work up the courage to tell the truth she lied instinctually.

"And yet, you seem particularly conscious of keeping your existence a secret from Kira. Why would you think that I leaked something?"

She grimaced and dropped her hand so that she could stare at the source of L's voice, as if that would somehow let her see his face. Did she wish she could talk to him in person? She did not know if that would make that situation any simpler… maybe she was just hoping he'd be able to pluck the truth straight out of her brain, and she wouldn't actually have to say any of it out loud. After all, with the panic nothing but a distant, dull haze at the edge of her thoughts, it had become a lot easier to revert to her usual escapism. It'd be safer that way, after all.

Because Erin knew, deep in her gut that once she started talking, once she started helping, then she would be responsible for what happened afterwards. She'd be responsible for everyone who died after, for everyone who got hurt and grieved. For the mistakes, and the changes. Sure, she wouldn't be the only one responsible. L would be the one wielding the sword she gave him after all. But she wasn't like L. She didn't have the sense of justice to give her the strength to carry it through. She knew what it did to him, and she did not want that. She didn't want to end up bitter and tired like him.

Except, she realized, she already was.

She was so tired she wanted to die. She was so bitter that she was throwing herself recklessly towards her death, trying to egg on her killer. And if she was right, then that was exactly what L had done. A man who had thought himself a monster, and who ate noting but sugar because it was the only thing that he could stomach. Or, well, that had been a literary metaphor, though she knew junk food was usually a gateway drug, and with that knowledge she guessed the artificial rush of endorphins he got from ridiculous amounts of sugar probably was what kept him motivated. Still, at least L, unlike Erin, had tried to do some good on his way out. She just sulked and threw tantrums and got all hysterical. Even thinking that she should just tell him the truth was for her own satisfaction. To ease her guilt. She still didn't want to take responsibility for anything. She still just wanted to roll over and die, pretending that she had done her best.

God, who was the real monster?

Even this. The self-recrimination. It wasn't doing any good. It was nothing but her, feeding her victim complex.

"Ms. Harker?"

She started but pulled herself out of her thoughts. "L. Why… no… how do you do it? How do you—" She stopped because she wasn't really sure what she was trying to ask. Or why, for that matter. What was she hoping L would say? Was she hoping that he would give a reason? An excuse? Erin was not sure. The only thing she did know was that she was tired, and she just… she just wanted to be able to move forward. "How do you keep going?"

There was a long pause. A very long pause.

"What are you running from, Ms. Harker?"

"Ha." Erin shook her head as she chuckled, dry and unamused. "At this point I'm starting to think that it might be better to ask me what I'm not running from. It's so stupid. I make up my mind to do one thing, I think I've found my resolve, and then it just… goes down the drain." There it was, that thought that she didn't want to think, because there was something weird about all of this. Something weird about how she couldn't think clearly. Something weird about how she kept wanting to tell the truth but stumbling in circles around it as if something was stopping her. Some instinct that made her want to lie.

No, it wasn't that she wanted to lie, so much as she resisted wanting to tell the truth. For a brief moment she wondered if maybe she had been drugged. She wouldn't know if she had been because she had no experience with that… although she did have some experience with medications. But she really couldn't count that as reliable knowledge in the field. And besides, hadn't she already decided that drugs were probably an unreliable source of information that L wouldn't resort to, as evidenced by the fact that he hadn't used them in the show? Or had he? No. No, he hadn't. So, what then, was wrong with her?

She frowned and turned to glare directly at the thought that she hadn't wanted to look at.

L was not just taking advantage of the fact that she had broken down. No. L was not using an opportunity to the best of his ability.

L had set this up.

He knew that she was unstable. Her prescription had given that away. She'd explained it a dozen different ways in every interrogation. L was smart. With her vulnerable position she could see what a terribly easy target she had been. Push her into a corner, let her stew, and then show up at the right moment. Offer vague niceties, brief glimpses of human contact, and then deprive her of them. All he had to do was wait and watch, and she would do the rest herself. Guilty people with secrets were always so wound up, after all.

Part of her hated him, in that moment. Hated him for doing that to her. Mostly though, she was mad at herself. What had it been? A mere handful of days? He'd barely even done anything, and she had cracked. Because she was so weak, and so stupid. Because she had thought of him as a treasured character from a treasured TV show in another life, she hadn't thought. She hadn't treated this situation for what it really was. She had treated it like a game. She had treated it like it didn't really matter because she was going to die.

No. That too was a lie. She hadn't even known what game they had been playing. Not really. Even though she had suspected, and idly thought about what kind of interrogation tactics people used in shows. Honestly, she should have just shut her eyes when she woke up in that containment facility, and shut her mouth, and just shut it all down. She should have just waited for death, like a good little terminal case.

But she hadn't.

Because, at the root of it all, Erin didn't want to die. Erin was scared, and sad, and alone, and she was losing control.

So, she'd flailed about, directionless, and without a clue, like an animal caught in a trap, willing to chew off its own foot. Carelessly deciding not to change anything, not to do anything even though there she was, causing a ruckus. And then, all it took was a single crack in her resolve, and she had her mind changed.

But this was how it went in war, she decided. The ones who stayed standing had to have iron in their hearts. Sometimes they fell even then. And could she really blame L? There were lives on the line, and he had no intention of just letting it happen. Because he wasn't like her. And she wasn't like him. They might both be tired, and they might both be bitter, but L did something about it. He didn't run away, even when it meant dying, even when it meant putting himself right in the path of Kira. Even if it meant tossing aside his humanity, and being a monster… manipulating people, using them, and then throwing them away. No. He didn't die because of despair, not like she was trying to.

How did it go? Do not go quietly into that good night?

How did she even dare to ask L how he kept going? How did she have the gall to even compare their resolve?

Across from her, yellow eyes blinked, and a horrible grin of cracked and rot encrusted teeth stretched. All around it, around that monstrous creature who knew her perhaps too well, the colours faded leaving a splotch of dull dreary, washed out unreality. "Well? Are you done wasting my time?"

She grimaced, and eyed Ilmort, wondering how it knew to show up then. Or maybe it had always been with her.

"Well?" It asked, so terribly smug, like it already knew.

And maybe it had. It said it'd picked her on a whim, because she just happened to be the most convenient option. Except, maybe that hadn't been true. Maybe there had been more to it than that. She didn't know what it was, but the thought lingered.

It continued, its voice wheedling and yet victorious. "You've got a job to do maggot. Put a stop to the Kira killings. Bring down the human."

Yeah. Yeah, she knew. No more running away. Her eyes drifted away from the Shinigami, up towards where she imagined L's camera to be. She didn't pay it much mind as Ilmort faded away like it had never been there. She had work to do after all.

"You know what I think I've really been running away from, L?" Erin asked, although it was rhetorical. "I think I might have been running away from you. Because, the thing is, I know who Kira is, and I know that he's going to kill you."

A/N: Well. YEET.

How are you all holding up? It's been a whole heck ton, hasn't it? I'll be honest, I've been sitting on this chapter for pretty much a year, editing it, thinking about completely reworking it from the top, liking it, and back again. There's a lot that happens in this chapter, and I'm not always in the right place to even comprehend what's happening in my own fanfic. Guess anxiety can make it real hard to process information. Not only that, but, like, a lot has happened in the past year. And not just because of the thing, though that certainly has flung its weight around too. I dunno. My brain's a whole ass mess. Ironically, I never ever wanted Erin to be a self-insert, but somehow, I've ended up channelling all kinds of messy stuff through her over the years. She's still not me, but let me tell you, sometimes I read through this and just… boy. So, thanks to each and every one of you for tagging along, despite that, and even though I'm periodically absent. Actually, I got a random review today (bless each and every one of you, I see you, and you mean something, and you deserve the world—but, like, the world at its best) and I just got up, dragged myself to my computer and read this over. And… it's not bad. I still have no idea what I'm doing (I have planning, and I stare at it like: wut? Because I have to many thoughts with no anchors for me to keep them in place), and no, I did not get around to watching the anime again yet. BUT I WILL DAMN IT BECAUSE I'M FEELING NOSTALIGIC. I did start reading the manga though, like seven months ago… and then got distracted. Again. Anxiety can make things hard. On a more positive note, I've also been working on my digital art and original comic ideas and planning a whole D&D campaign so there's that as an excuse? Anyway. I hope you all are faring as well as possible. Take care of yourselves. Take care of others where you can. You're miraculous.

Thinking I might do up a playlist for this thing, because vibes are what help me write? Anyone interested in maybe having access to that? (Also may do some fan art or something, which I might throw up on instagram... might not be right away since I'm working on commissions, but who knows? My whims are disastrous, and untameable. And if I say it, I might actually feel enough pressure to do it... and it should help make up for the time it'll take me to get the next chapter out.)

Kirkles: Hey. Thank you. I mean it. Your review came at a serendipitous moment. I'm mostly doing well, thanks for asking. I hope that you too are doing well. Excellent, even. Thank you very much for the high praise. The idea that you feel like I am keeping with the feel of the original warms my heart. Your compliments made me smile, and I hope I can continue to live up to them.

pmugis: You. Thank you. Thank you for checking in again, a whole forever ago. Thank you so much for all the love and for cheering me on. It means a lot, and I'm sorry for the delay. I hope the unravelling lives up to your expectations, and I hope this whole shenanigan continues to do so.