Disclaimer: I don't own Death Note. It is far too awesome to be owned by me.

A/N: This idea belongs to my RP partner Dess Artem, who is awesomeness personified when it comes to thinking up good ideas. Kudos to her. There's artwork on DeviantArt that goes along with this. The link to my account's on my profile page, if anyone's interested. It's called "Forgive Me…"

Chapter 3: Hell

Three days later I woke with a start, nearly dropping my laptop. I blinked a few times, trying to remember when I had fallen asleep. I couldn't remember, but according to the computer I had opened my last file at 4:57 AM, which meant I'd been asleep for about six hours, give or take.

I set my laptop on the floor and stretched, listening to almost every bone in my spine pop loudly. Then I shuffled into the kitchen to make some coffee and find myself a cigarette, since God only knew I needed one.

I lit up while I waited for the coffee to brew. The nicotine perked me up enough that I didn't feel like I would fall asleep against the counter, which was good. I knew that eventually cigarettes and coffee would fail to keep me awake, but for now they did the job. I'd worry about later when it came.

After a few minutes the coffeepot rattled, which told me the coffee was ready. I poured myself a cup, snuffed the cigarette in the ashtray on the counter, and went back into the bedroom. I was fairly sure I was nearing the end of Near's endless files, which was good, because I was about ready to go insane from reading cold, emotionless notes – which, while they were unquestionably the most complete type of notes there were, were devoid of anything actually interesting.

I'd only been sitting down for a few minutes when I heard Mello's breathing change from a steady shallow rhythm to raspy gasping. I set the laptop down and went over to sit on the edge of the bed. "You awake?"

Mello didn't answer – he was too busy trying to fight his way into a sitting position. "Get the hell away from me!" he snarled. Well, tried to snarl – it came out as more of a grating rasp that sounded vaguely like words.

"Mello, calm down." I wasn't really worried that he'd hurt me, which it looked like he was trying to do – I was worried that he was going to hurt himself. "Mello, it's me. It's Matt. You're safe."

There was a moment of silence. Mello opened the eye that wasn't covered in a bandage and blinked furiously. His vision must've been fuzzy. "…Matt?" he said, his voice cracking a bit. "What are you doing here? You don't belong here…"

"What are you talking about? Of course I belong here, I live here!" I guessed that he couldn't see that he was in an apartment rather than an explosion site, in which case his comments made almost perfect sense.

However, he didn't seem to like the answer I'd given him. In fact, it made him more upset. "Oh, God, no…" He grabbed his rosary and held it tight enough that his knuckles were white. "Please, God, he doesn't belong here, take him back, he doesn't deserve this!" His eyes were fixed on something far away, and blood dripped through his fingers. "Please, God… I was trying to do the right thing…"

"Mello, stop, it's alright." I grabbed his hand, trying to stop him from hurting himself any more than he already had, but it had no effect on him. He was still panicking. I put one hand on the unburned side of his face and locked eyes with him. "Mello, look at me. You're not dead. You're alright. We both are. Everything's alright."

He stared at me, wide-eyed. "But this… It's Hell, we're in Hell…"

The blood from his hand was dripping through my fingers as well as his. "Mello, listen to me! We're not in Hell! You're in my apartment, it's not Hell!" Well, when he came to his senses he'd probably debate that one with me – my place was a wreck, even by my standards. "You're okay, Mello, I swear."

The look on his face had shifted from pure fear to pain. "But it's burning…"

"You blew up a building and got burned, I know it hurts, but you're alright. You're alive, you're going to be just fine."

Slowly, the panic started to fade from his eyes. "It's not…?" Slowly, he released his rosary and reached up to touch my face, like he was seeing if I was really there. "We're alive…"

I nodded. "We're both alive," I assured him. "I know it hurts, but you're still alive."

Mello took a rasping breath, then lowered his hand back to his rosary, though now he just touched it rather than crushing it. "…Thank you…" he said, closing his eye and relaxing again. Whether he was thanking me or God I wasn't sure – God seemed more likely.

Once I was sure he was back to sleep I grabbed some gauze from the nightstand and wrapped his hand up with it, since there was still blood oozing from his palm. Then I got up and went into the bathroom to wash the blood off my own hands.

What had he done that made him that afraid of dying? Five years ago if I'd asked him where he'd end up he probably would've made some smartass remark about watching Near burn from Purgatory. Now he thought he'd done something so unforgivable that he'd burn for eternity. I would've loved to just pin everything on the pain screwing with his mine, but that didn't explain him begging for forgiveness.

When I went back into the bedroom, I saw that Mello's hand had found the rosary again. He looked almost like a little kid holding a stuffed animal, like it could fight off the monsters in the dark.