AN: Forgot how hard writing was, I do an art course now so despite trying to improve the writing, I'm out of practice.
Chapter 3: A Light May Shine
Rosemary rested her chin on her hand as she thought it over.
It had never occurred to her, that she might arrive this far back. In her sporadic decision, she had envisioned the characters in the height of their battle: With Light long past redemption, and L soon to die. But now she could do more than ensure that L lived, she could stop this whole mess from ever happening.
But did she have the right to do that?
It sounded silly really, she was an interdimensional, time travelling, ghost. She'd already fucked over the laws of time, and space, what did it matter now? But the problem for Rosemary, lied in the morality of it.
Light was a good guy, when he picked up the notebook, and removing it from the equation, could ensure he lived a good, and lawful life.
So did she not, as a decent person, owe it to at least try and save him?
Rosemary was panicking inside.
There was no good reason for her not to try and stop it. She could prevent seven, maybe even ten years of murder with no one the wiser, as to what they'd avoided.
But what would happen to her?
Her purpose was to bring Justice. Would Justice mean saving Light? Would her "purpose" be considered unfulfilled if she could never help with the case, leaving her to wander around for all time in a country, and a world she wasn't from?
Rosie was scared.
She hadn't wanted to die, that's why she agreed to this whole thing to maybe suspend it a little longer, and with the way people acted around her here, she might even be able to forget about it you know?
Just continue on with life, if only for just a little while. But to continue on forever with no end, she didn't know if she could do that for a bunch of people she didn't even know; especially when a lot of those that died were still criminals.
But even if this was just a cartoon.
She was in it now, and those may as well be real human lives, that she could save.
If she could save Misora or all the FBI agents, or any random person that got in Light's way, shouldn't that be worth screwing herself over?
Wouldn't that be the right thing to do? Besides even criminals can change, and not all of them would've been guilty, right?
"I don't know." murmured Rose outloud.
Even if she did get the notebook before him, what would she do with it? She couldn't hand it over to the FBI, or NATO; having never heard of Kira, they'd probably just use it against other countries, they didn't like.
She certainly couldn't give it to L. She had no known way of ever contacting him, and he might ask for a demonstration first.
Rosemary sighed, she'd just have to burn it.
Yeah she might be stuck here forever, but she came here to fulfill a "purpose", so damnit she should do something.
Stretching her arms behind her back she glanced at the time. It was now closer to 20:00 and it was probably getting dark outside. Resting her arms down Rosie considered her next move. She was warm and dry now thanks to the central heating so she could start searching for Light again if she wanted.
Her room was booked til the next morning, but she didn't think she'd need to sleep that long to be honest.
Besides, Rosie wasn't sure how much time, she actually had until Light did find the notebook anyway, so it was probably better to start searching for him now, rather than later.
Sitting up, she moved over to the computer desk again.
Rosie typed in "Light Yagami", and searched through News Articles, Mixi Profiles, and Chat Forums, to find anything she could about him.
It didn't take long. For a man as paranoid as Kira, he kept rather public profiles.
Rosemary soon managed to find out his street address, his school, and his affinity for tennis.
Rose couldn't help but groan at one article. She may have been a fan of L, and Light, but Rosemary could think of few sports quite as boring as tennis, and reading how "Enthused he was to be there." made her want to vomit, quite honestly.
She Wrote down, some of the more important details in her notebook, along with train, and bus times, so she could get the right train to him. Thankfully they were both in the Kantō region so she wasn't too far off from Light.
Turning off the computer, Rosemary grabbed her now dry Blue jacket, before reaching inside for her new matching gloves. They were one of her last christmas presents from her dad, and she was quickly growing fond of them, as an accessory.
Rosie then closed the door, and walked to the reception with her notebook tucked under her arm. She dropped her keys in the deposit bin, without the receptionist giving her a glance; though admittedly she may not have acknowledged her, even if she wasn't a ghost.
It was now colder outside without the warmth of the sun, and a much stronger wind, was breezing through the air.
It was nothing compared to the English Winter, she'd just experienced, but none the less, Rosie zipped up the front of her Jacket.
As she walked to the station, Rosemary admired the atmosphere around her.
The streets were very calm and peaceful now. It wasn't late enough for there to be drunks, or sinister figures walking about, and the white glow of the street lamps contrasted beautifully, to the empty shopping district.
She began humming to herself, to pass the time. It took her awhile to realise she was humming a new pop song,
"Then i know that you're somewhere thinking of me" sang Rose softly before catching herself out.
'Shit.' thought Rosie. This song sucked, and now it was stuck in her head, with no way of listening to it for at least another 6 years.
Groaning slightly, Rosemary shook her head with a smile, it was nice to deal with a first world problem, in the face of all this mess, but that song wasn't gonna leave her now.
By the time Rose got to the train station it was closer to 22:00, but fortunately it looked like the trains kept running till half past 23:00.
She went through the tedious process of trying to buy a ticket with just a notebook, and a phrase book, before she was finally ready to board 15 minutes later.
She waited patiently for another 12 minutes before the next train rolled in.
When Rosie boarded the train, her entire cart was empty, but considering the time it wasn't surprising. She briefly wondered why she didn't feel tired after all this nonsense, but figured it was a side effect of being a ghost. But then again, Rose had never been particularly great at going to bed early anyway, so perhaps it really wasn't.
She Occupied her time for the two hour Journey by staring outside her window at the city lights, and the pitch black scenery, before finally arriving at her next station.
It was now around midnight, so she wouldn't be able to go back that way, but if Rose had gotten her details right, then this should be the station with the 24 hour service she wanted, and that would take her to the same area as light.
She went up the escalator to the platform, and glanced over the electronic timetable.
Sighing, Rosie realised she would have to ask for help again, this sort of thing was confusing enough at Waterloo, but she definitely wasn't going to get this sort of thing in Japanese.
However walking up to the help desk, Rose was delighted to find herself quickly shown the right direction as the help girl "Mira" was thankfully rather fluent in English.
The next train she got on, would be travelling for four hours, with only one stop in between, for people to get off at, before she arrived at her final station. Then it would take her two hours to get to her last stop, before she'd have to get buses from the town next to Light's. For the first two hours there was only one person in her cart, a young man listening to his ipod at the end of the third row.
One more person joined them, when they reached their next stop at 2:30 in the morning. It was a middle aged businessman, with a sour look on his face.
He was clearly annoyed at being up so early, as he angrily muttered under his breath before seating himself at the front of the cart, with a cup of coffee.
Nothing much happened after that, and Rosemary finally got bored of window watching, as she thought about drawing something to pass the time. At first she thought about drawing L or light, but that would only raise questions if she ever lost her book; besides she didn't really draw anime style anymore. Instead she decided to draw her family.
After All Rose could be here a while, so it would be nice to draw them, while she still had a clear memory of what they all looked like.
Time quickly flew by, for Rose as she soon focussed all her energy into their expressions, and their personalities.
Rose tried to capture her mum's curly brown hair, her dad's wide cheeky smile, and the gaudy printed shirts of her older brother.
Drawing had always been Rosemary's greatest skill; she'd spent the last three years at university improving her shading, and form. Unfortunately the arts were not a particularly successful career path, and Rose had been applying for Waitress, and Retail Jobs to keep herself financially stable, until she could take a more creative career path. Regardless it seems that she'd wasted her time by not "fulfilling her purpose."
She frowned. Something about thinking her art had been a waste, made her angry. She couldn't quite bring herself to accept it.
Sighing slightly Rose noticed that she hadn't taken off her new gloves yet, and that she might smudge them with biro, so she slipped them into her pocket as she looked over the rough first sketch.
Rose smiled. It wasn't a perfect rendering, but it made her feel a little better to see a few familiar faces.
She neatly closed her book and turned to look outside. The pitchblack scenery had morphed into a dark blue, and Rose could now make out buildings, and shapes which meant it'd be morning soon.
As Rose arrived at her last station, it was now 4:30 in the morning, and she was still full of energy, and completely untired.
She once again went through the process of showing notes, and her phrasebook, before finding her final train. But Rose did something different this time, instead of buying a new ticket for her next train Rose decided to do an experiment.
Up until this point she'd paid for her tickets like any other person would, but if she couldn't be seen, wouldn't it be better to avoid using her money unless she really needed it? Well it was certainly worth trying.
If being normal allowed her to be seen as alive, then perhaps focussing on her death would increase the chance of her not being seen. It was a sound enough theory at least, and perhaps it wouldn't hurt as much if it wasn't a person.
So with a deep breath, Rosemary walked to the barrier, repeating to herself like a mantra:
'You are dead. Nothing solid can stop you, you can just walk through, because you're dead.'
Sure enough, Rosemary went through the solid barrier without a trace of the pain, the girl walking through her, had caused her. But as she walked across the platform, Rosie noticed it go quiet.
There weren't many people here anyway, as it was so early, but the platform looked eerily abandoned, as a cool mist seemed to be pouring in through the walls.
However soon enough, a few people did appear, which relieved Rosie, who smiled. Until she heard their moaning.
These people were groaning in pain.
Some had legs that looked run over, others bore gaping head wounds, and the more she stared in fear the more her neck began to ache, as it seemed to twist uncomfortably to the left.
Breathing loudly Rosemary tried to calm herself down, this had gone wrong, horribly wrong. Whatever this place was she didn't want to be here, she was alive, and doing something for other people, she had to get out of here right now.
Slowly, as Rosemary reminded herself what she was doing, the figures disappeared into the mist, and the mist cleared away. Her neck stopped aching, though her body was shaking, as a man blew a whistle, signaling people to get onto her train.
Trembling, Rosie walked onto the train, and sat down. She was still breathing heavy, as she tried to calm down, before she finally fainted in her seat.
She woke up about an hour later, to the sun shining on her face.
Opening her eyes, she was amazed.
Rose hadn't thought an anime, could make something like a sunrise, look as captivating as it was real life, but it was a vision to be sure.
Rosemary smiled. It was comforting to know that even with Shinigami, and...whatever that had been, there were still some small pleasures she could enjoy.
Rose frowned again slightly. Apparently there was a big risk to alienating herself from others, that had been terrifying, if she wanted to save money in future, she'd certainly try less hard to not be noticed.
With that thought in mind, Rose reached the end of her train journey at 6:00 in the morning; arriving just when the station was starting to bustle with life.
She took a deep breath, before trying to walk through the barrier again. Without thinking about being a ghost it was trickier, but she managed to get through, which meant she could go through objects, with only mild awareness of herself being dead, it just wasn't as easy as it was when she focussed.
Walking up onto the platform she looked around her, at the students, and businessmen getting to work.
It was a larger station before, with lots of little shops. There were four cafés, two coffee shops, another stationary store, a fast food pick up, and a store selling flowers.
Nothing she particularly needed, but she walked up to the Flower shop, to look anyway.
The florist was selling a large variety of flowers, including: some very cheap roses, that were wilting.
They were a milky white sort of colour, with a light pink blush, that faded out before it reached the edges. It was a shame that they'd been left so long, because they really were pretty.
They reminded Rosie of a poem, she learned as a kid.
'Best and dearest flower that grows,
Perfect both to see and smell;
Words can never, never tell
Half the beauty of a rose-
Buds that open to disclose
Fold on fold of purest white,
Lovely pink, or red that glows
Deep, sweet scented. What delight
To be fairy of the rose'
That was her mum's favourite poem when she was little, and when she grew older she swore, she'd have a little girl called Rose.
That was going to be her name almost certainly, but tragedy struck just weeks before her birth, when her Dad's mum had died in her sleep.
After that, he'd wanted to call her Mary in her honour, so they compromised with Rosemary, the perfect name of course.
Rose grimaced slightly, it was an unbearably dull name, and it made her cringe when it wasn't shortened to just Rose or Mary; chances are she'd never like it, but at least it wasn't her middle name, Heidi.
Heidi sounded so simperingly cute she really couldn't stand it at the best of times, but as a middle name it was ignorable enough, she supposed.
Rosie thought about buying a rose, but they really were close to dying, and looked like they'd fall apart in mid-purchase, so She looked around the stationary store instead.
For some reason Rose was now feeling peckish, so she browsed through the sweet aisle, looking for something snack-like, that wouldn't make a mess.
She bought a small chocolate bar, that looked like it had almonds in it, before walking out of the train station, into the streets.
If she was hungry now, then clearly she still needed food in some way, so maybe being a spirit gave her some endurance, but she still needed to sleep and fuel up every once in awhile?
If that was the case, she'd gone almost 24 hours without sleep and had probably skipped about four meals. So she'd probably only have to eat, and sleep about once a day if that.
That could come in handy down the line. If nothing else, it would make her money stretch out longer, and that was always a plus.
As she walked towards the bus stop, she ate her chocolate bar. It was good, but not as sweet, or creamy as English chocolate in Rose's opinion. But it was at least better than that cheap tasting Hershey chocolate; that stuff was disgusting.
Throwing away her wrapper, she made her way to the notice board. Rose briefly looked at the Bus schedule for the next bus; 7:15.
Unlike the train schedules, this schedule had the names of places in English underneath the Kanji, so Rose knew it would head off in the right direction.
The next bus arrived 30 minutes later, as Rose was touching up her familly portrait.
She got on without the driver noticing, and took a seat at the back.
Closing up her notebook, she leaned against the glass, and tried to take a nap.
That short fainting spell on her last train, hadn't given her much rest, and now Rose was finally starting to feel a little fatigued.
As she dozed off, the bus began to head towards the next town; where Light Yagami Lived.