Disclaimer: I don't own Death Note or anythign associated with it. The Doctor in this chapter is my own creation, I haven't stolen him from anywhere. Lyrics line is Metro Station, Kelsey.
Note: I KNOW I KNOW IT'S BEEN SEVEN MONTHS I DESERVE ALL OF YOUR HATE. Comments at the end because after seven damn months I'm pretty sure you're tired of hearing my excuses and just want to read the bloody story.
x
and it's gonna feel tougher each and every day
-
"We have received news that Soichiro Yagami is dead," Near says, and he could be talking about anything in the world - cartoons, toy robots, wildlife and shrubbery - anything but the life of a good man.
"From the Japanese task force?" Rester asks, brow furrowed, while part of Halle collapses inside.
They are people. It hits her now more than ever. Halle has next to no confidence in the task force's detective abilities, but Yagami…
She'd seen him. Just on monitors, sure, but she'd seen him, and she'd heard him and she'd listened to his voice break when he thought about the fact that his daughter had been kidnapped -
(And Mello had done that, the boy-man sprawled on her couch with a bleeding face and a soot-blackened soul - he is far from blameless, far from deserving. He is twisting intrigue and hollow, vicious laughter and he is unconscious, in her apartment, and she is risking life and limb to save his life.)
"Correct," Near says, still impassive, still disinterested.
He'd been a good man. An honest cop who'd made it top chief of the NPA off of merit and hard work and absolutely no office politics. He had a wife and two kids and he'd worn glasses and his hair was greying and he was still fighting, fighting for the sake of people who couldn't care less…
…And he was dead.
"He sustained wounds from the attack on Mello's hideout five days ago. He died of them shortly afterwards, it appears." Near's gaze flicks between monitors, and returns to the blue-and-silver plastic figurine in his hands. "Mello's body, however, has not been found. It is possible he survived the incident. Given my experiences with Mello, I certainly wouldn't rule this possibility out."
His voice lilts, oddly, and Halle is confused and can't place it until she realises that his voice has been changed by emotion. The thing seems so foreign and strange in context of Near that she is taken aback for a few moments just trying to reconcile it with him. And then the nature of the sentiment hits her with full force, twisting her stomach before unravelling it to cold, sick disbelief.
He sounded happy.
He is happy that Mello might be alive. Happy. This boy who'd killed their entire team - and Halle knows she can't criticise him for that, isn't even going to try, because after all, she's doing it, too, getting caught up in Mello's fire and each strange rush of euphoria that attacks her sensibilities when she remembers he is alive. It isn't the fact that he's happy that bothers her. It's the fact that his composure can break and he can feel happy about Mello living, but cannot feel a shred of anything, anything at all, for the death of Soichiro Yagami.
On some days she hates him more than she has ever hated Mello. Which, she admits, silently in the recesses of her dreams, is a bit of a fallacy, because really, she's never even hated Mello at all.
-
She can't look at him for the rest of the day. When she delivers reports, she keeps her eyes focused downwards, on papers and figures and cold, hard facts, that have every reason to be impassive and are as unmoved by death as they are by life. Near notices. Of course he does. He's Near.
The part that surprises her is the fact that he brings it up.
"You have refused to look at me all day, Lidner. Have I perhaps developed a facial blemish?"
On any other person, it would be a joke. The crispness of the boy's tone, the sheen of his eyes, tells her it's not. It's a jab, a twist of a stick to remind her that he knows her, that he can get inside her head if she wants. She drags her gaze upwards, fighting against gravity, to meet his.
"Of course not, Near. I'm tired. I apologise."
"That is an excuse, not an explanation."
There is no question. By all rights, she could walk away. She doesn't. She can't.
"Soichiro Yagami didn't deserve to die." It's out of her mouth now. She barely realised she was speaking aloud. Now, it's too late - but she realises she wouldn't change it. She wanted to say it, she's been wanting to say it all day. She holds his stare.
"His death is what has been bothering you?" Near regards her, owlishly, head craned upwards. She half expects him to tilt his neck - but of course, that would be too comical, too much of an acknowledgement of curiosity for Near. "Understandable. But it does not explain your actions towards me."
"You don't care," she says, because it's an explanation, barely, but the only explanation. It's futile, and the childishness of her words strikes her the moment they have passed her lips. Arguments like 'you should' or 'it's respectful' have never worked, not here, in the shallow silver of a secret base of operations, in a world that is slowly going insane.
"You believe I should?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
"You cared about Mello living."
"That is different. That is Mello."
She isn't thinking. If she was thinking, she wouldn't have said it. She would have spoke with her mind and her thoughts and her rationality and not with the cold, snaking realisation that was growing in her gut -
"His life was worth more than Mello's."
And she believes it.
Near, for a moment, does not respond. He studies her, from her stiff posture and rigid shoulders to the defiance on her face, tempered with careful, practiced restraint.
"I do not agree with you." She thinks she opened her mouth to respond, because he raises a hand to stop her. "And I am in charge. Please continue with your work, Lidner."
She does. There is nothing else she can do. She's kidding herself if she thinks she can turn away from any of this. And Soichiro Yagami's life was worth more than Mello's, but of the two of them, Mello is the only one she has a hope in hell of doing anything to save.
-
Near doesn't keep them as late as usual. She walks out with Rester, still feeling knocked out of joint. Rester - wonderful, understanding, patient Rester - recognises her disaffection for what it is, and keeps up a pleasant, inane chatter as he leads her to her car. He gently reminds her about his shirts and she fishes them out of the back seat. She apologises again for the absence of the one currently being worn by a red-head who's been sleeping on the floor of her apartment, only she explains it away as something a little different.
"White wine, you told me." He smiles gently. Rester is so, so much more than Near gives him credit for, and Lidner feels another swell of distaste towards their boss.
"Yeah. Um, I have to go. I'm sorry, Rester. Thank you."
"Get some rest, Halle." He is concerned. Despite herself, her heart swells. She has missed friendship.
"I will."
She doesn't. She heads towards the nearest shopping district, out of phase with the rest of the world. She forces herself back into the moment, slipping her purse into a pocket. For around an hour, she browses stores, aimlessly, watching people move about their lives. It seems strange. Foreign. Like, this is something she's never going to go back to, even if she lives through this, even if it all comes to an end. She's never going to be able to just be, not ever again, because good people die and she's always known this, but now -
Now the lines are not clear cut. The good are not always killed by the bad, the good are killed by kids in leather who are in over their heads, or by crazed murderers who think they're a god, spurred on by idiots willing to follow anyone and anything. Right and wrong are beginning to dissolve and it feels like the planet is reforming around her, with ideals changing and rules shifting and old lines becoming obsolete…
Halle can't change with it. She's stuck in her ways, twenty-nine and too late to change. On days like this, she feels like none of it means anything. If the lines are changing and the world are shifting - what are they fighting for?
And if she's honest, she's always hated ideology. And so she ties herself to something concrete, and she decides that from now on her only goals are to stop Kira, stay alive, and try to save the two teenagers in her apartment from charging to their deaths.
She heads home with a box of donuts, a bag of new clothes and renewed determination.
-
Mello is still unconscious when she gets in. Matt is watching TV, cross-legged, eating a single dry slice of bread. With a sudden surge of guilt, Halle realises that she hadn't left anything for him to eat. Any other kid would probably have ransacked her kitchen looking for a snack, but Matt - Matt has taken one slice of bread. He hasn't even deprived her of a lick of margarine.
She laughs. It comes out a little strangled, all of the absurdities of the whole damn situation hitting her at once and then it changes, splits into something genuine and honest and she's just amazed that with everything happening and everything changing there are still people in the world who will only take a piece of bread from your kitchen.
Matt starts at the sound, and looks round. He sighs in relief when he sees it's her. She did come in rather quietly, she thinks, her laughter finally subsiding. A smile lingers on her face, and she feels young again. No. She feels her age. She shouldn't be feeling old. She isn't even thirty.
"Hey," Matt greets her, bouncing up enthusiastically, and reaching out to take her coat and scarf. He's like a puppy, really. Eager to please, unwilling to offend. Hovering back in the doorway of a new room before she calls him through, telling him it's okay, he came come in.
"I brought donuts," she says, holding up the box. Matt's eye's light up.
"Excellent! I'm starving!" The remainder of the slice of bread is still in his hand.
"I can probably manage to make up some real food first," she decides. "Oh, I got you some clothes. My colleague is going to want his shirt back sooner or later and your body warmer is…rather stained." With blood and memories you probably don't want to remember, she doesn't add.
Matt goes red. "You didn't need to do that. I could have -"
Halle raises her eyebrows. "Oh, I didn't realise you had a college fund."
He looks confused, and he looks embarrassed. Halle sighs, suppressing a smile.
"Take the clothes. Enjoy the food I am about to make. Look presentable. Don't hesitate to eat my food next time I am not here. The doctor will be here in about an hour and a half."
"He's coming?" Matt follows her into the kitchen. She holds out the bag of clothes. Hesitantly, he takes them. "Thank you."
"You are welcome, and yes he is. I intend to lie to him until he agrees to treat Mello." She begins to pull things out of the refrigerator , and turns on the oven. She feels like something a bit meaty tonight.
Matt is holding the bag awkwardly, his arm half-outstretched, as if he isn't sure if he should take the clothes or give them back to Halle. "What if he won't treat him?"
"He will."
"But what if he won't?"
Halle turns to him, all charm and devil's smiles, honey eyes and curving flesh. "He will," she says, languidly, assuredly, and this time, Matt doesn't doubt her.
-
Matt is devouring the last donut as if it is the last food he will ever eat. Halle, wiping sugar away from the corner of her mouth with her little finger, comes to a conclusion: Matt likes donuts. He really, really likes donuts.
Mello hasn't stirred. Matt had been nervously checking his breathing ever couple of minutes, until she had forced him to sit down and eat, and then the donuts had come out, and now he only checks his breathing every ten minutes. It's progress, at least.
There is a knock on the door, and Matt jumps. He swallows, hard. Halle suspects he almost asphyxiated himself on a chunk of donut, and raises a finger to her lips.
"It's the doctor, I expect," she says, very quietly. "Take your bag of clothes, go to the bathroom, close the door. Stay there. Try not to make any noise."
Matt nods, clambering to his feet and quietly as he can. The knock comes again, firmly, just as the door to her bathroom is softly pushed shut.
"Doctor Issacs," Halle greets the man on the other side of the door, once it's been opened. Her tone is warm with honey and she has deliberately dressed down, in low-slung jeans and a light, floral top. The material is thin, and leaves little to the imagination.
"Ms Lidner," Isaacs says, his smile as warm as her voice. His eyes are fixed firmly on her face.
Dawson Isaacs, Halle thinks, is a number of things. He is a very competent doctor, he is a very incompetent socialite. He is demure and charming, and perfectly useless around women unless they have something drastically wrong with them to which there can only possibly be a medical solution. He is far too polite to ogle her chest, and far, far too heterosexual to be able to ignore it.
"Won't you come in?" she asks, stepping backwards, bowing forwards just a little, head dipped upwards. She returns his smile.
"Absolutely. Yes. Ms Lidner. What's the problem?"
"Personally, I'm perfectly healthy, Doctor Isaacs." She favours him with another honeyed smile. "I need to speak with you. May I offer you a cup of coffee? Tea?"
"You certainly can. I mean, may. I mean, it's your house. You can offer whatever you - yes please. Tea would be lovely. Unless you're having coffee. Coffee is fine too. Lovely, in fact." Isaacs lets the whole thing out as one whole, long string of verbal diarrhoea. He doesn't stutter, not once, and he never has. He just keeps going until he lands on a sentence he thinks sounds vaguely correct.
"Please, sit," Halle says, because otherwise he'd be standing three paces inside her door determinedly not looking at her breasts for the entire duration of his visit. She gestures to a chair, and holds position until he takes his seat. "I'll just go sort tea."
"Or coffee."
She returns with two cups on a tray, with a small jug of milk and a miniature bowl of sugar cubes finishing the picture. The crockery is far too delicate for Halle's tastes - an inheritance from a relative she was fond of - but suits the situation well enough.
"How many sugars, Doctor?"
"Two," he says decisively. "No milk."
She fixes his tea and hands it to him. Picking up her own cup, she perches herself on the arm of his chair. The good doctor appears to have found something very interesting on the rim of his cup, and does not shift his eyes.
"I have a problem," she says, quietly.
Isaacs sips his tea. "I see."
"It's of quite a…sensitive nature," Halle says, dropping her voice a few octaves and leaning to speak into his ear. "I really can't risk this getting out. Can I trust you, Doctor?"
"Of course. Doctor-patient confidentiality, of course. Of course."
"The thing is…" she continues, stirring her tea slowly. "My friend is sick. Well, no…I don't suppose that's true. A friend of mine has a son who was recently involved in some…less than legal activities. He was injured, quite severely. Unfortunately, taking him to a hospital is out of the question…they're always so fussy about knowing what happened, not like you." She rests her tea on her knee, places a hand on the edge of his shoulder.
"I was hired for my discreetness. Privateness. You know. That." Isaacs' eyes leave his cup, flick up to meet hers.
"You can see why it's a slightly sensitive issue, Doctor? She takes him to the hospital, they record what he was doing, word gets around…these are not safe times for that to happen, Doctor."
"No, they are not." The man's lips purse, and a momentary anger flares up in his eyes. Halle smiles inwardly. She has judged him correctly. To a man such as him, a doctor through and through, the idea of one man arbitrarily dishing out fatal punishment would surely be reprehensible. Kira does not accord with the Hippocratic Oath.
"You'll help me?" she asks, rather breathily.
Isaacs sets down his cup. "Near hasn't really signed off on this, has he?"
Halle leans back, but keeps her hand on his shoulder. She glances away. "No, he hasn't. This is a misuse of the agreement you made. But I'm asking you to do it anyway." She turns her gaze back to him now, imploringly.
"Then do it I shall." He gets to his feet. "Please show me the patient."
They had moved Mello from the couch earlier, and laid him on Halle's bed, out of sight. It was best, she and Matt had decided, not to present the doctor with a charred body the moment he entered the apartment. It turns out to have been a good idea. As soon as Isaacs claps eyes on Mello, he lets out a low hiss of breath.
"Ms Lidner!" is all he takes the time to say, before rushing to the bedside. His bag is open and then he is taking Mello's temperature, fishing out bandages and antiseptic, and finally a small bottle of pills. He starts muttering under his breath. "How did this happen?" he asks.
"I don't think I can - "
"No, no, you misunderstand me. I don't need to know all the details. Just enough to treat. A fire or an explosion? How recently?"
"An explosion, five days ago."
Isaacs studies Mello intently, and then nods once. "Thank you, Ms Lidner," he says, all business. "That will be all."
Halle shuts the door, and lets him work.
-
It is approximately thirty minutes before Isaacs emerges from the room. Halle stands up, pushing her hair back.
"Doctor?"
Isaacs shuts the door quietly behind him, and then pauses, hand still on the doorknob.
Halle steps forward. "Is he alright?"
"He," Isaacs begins, slowly, "is going to live. He is going to have a nasty scar and he is going to be in a lot of pain. But he is going to live."
Halle lets out a sigh of relief, as real as it is for show. For a second, all she can think about is that Mello is going to live and that so far, so good, she's done it, she's keeping him alive. And then, she notices the look on Isaacs face.
"Ms Lidner," he says. "The boy in your bedroom is a wanted man."
Halle's breath catches. In a second, she has switched from flowery young woman to Agent Lidner, her back ramrod-straight and her eyes cool.
"That's Mello, isn't it?"
A pause. Then, "Yes. It is."
"And you - a member of the SPK - are protecting him."
Halle wants to close her eyes, rub her temples and think of something, anything to say. She can't. She keeps her eyes on him, her breathing even, and she says, after five seconds of silence and grasping at straws, "I could not let him die."
Isaacs opens his mouth. There are probably a hundred questions he wants to ask. How did he get here? Why are you protecting someone who killed your colleagues? Are you insane? Does Near know? Will you shoot me if I try to run out of here?
Isaacs closes his mouth. He hands her a bag containing three bottles of pills. "One of each of these four times a day. Keep the wound clean. No unnecessary risks. He is lucky not to be dead."
He moves past her, dropping the bag into her hands. He is by the door when she catches up to him.
"Doctor Isaacs? Thank you." She means it.
He turns, and studies her briefly. "It's my job, after all," he says, and Halle recognises the tone. It's the tone her thoughts have been playing out in all day, it's the sound of her voice every time she has had to kill someone in the line of duty.
It's my job, after all, he says. But on days like this I hate it, he doesn't say.
"Goodbye, Ms Lidner."
And Halle is left, the click of the door latch the last sound in her apartment. Then, there is a dull cough.
"Can I come out now?"
-
It is sometime after eleven o'clock. Halle has made hot chocolate, and she and Matt are sitting cross-legged on the floor of the living room, facing each other in the almost-dark between the hum of the lone light in the kitchen and the low murmur of the television set.
"How do we get him to take the pills?" Matt asks meekly, like he thinks it's obvious to everyone but him.
"With difficulty," Halle says grimly, but she knows she will do it.
"That doctor, he…d'you think he'll tell Near?"
Halle stares at her hot chocolate. "I don't know," she answers honestly. "Although, I'm not sure it'll matter if he does."
"Huh?"
"Near - today…" Halle drifts off, remembering. She feels sleepy and disjointed but remarkably safe, and desperately reassured. "He's happy. At the idea of Mello living. If Isaacs tells him…I doubt he will do very much about it. He will just collect the knowledge, the way Near does. More and more and more things to know, and he collects them all together until he knows everything and then -"
"- and then it doesn't matter what anyone does or how they do it because he's already thought out the whole thing, hasn't he? And he's planned everything," Matt finished for her.
Halle looks up, surprise etched over her elegant features. "Yes," she says, in an intake of breath. "Matt…Matt, how do you know Near? Or Mello, for that matter?" She asks this quietly, knowing how sensitive this information is, knowing how much his revealing it could mean.
She's surprised, again, when he doesn't hesitate. "I can't really tell you too much, Ms Lidner, but I'll say what I can say. We were at an orphanage together."
"Call me Halle, Matt. An orphanage? You mean Wammy's House?"
He nods. "So I guess you know Mello and Near were both there. Top two in all the classes, Near always just that little bit ahead."
"I know that, yes. Near told us a little about Wammy's House, about its purpose, about why the children there are chosen."
Matt takes a large gulp of hot chocolate, and shifts position. He brings his knees up, all long and gangly teenager, and he's wearing the clothes Halle got him. "I was there, too. I was the third candidate in line."
"Third?" Halle covers up her shock with a sip of chocolate. Matt? Third in line to the position of L? She runs her eyes over him again. He has none of the strangeness of Near - he is not pale, like an old shirt with the colours washed out, his eyes aren't empty, his voice lilts and changes normally, he grins and looks scared and shivers when he's cold. And he doesn't have Mello's crazed anger and ferocious blaze, doesn't have his crashing temper. Matt is just - Matt. He is skinny, his fingers have a touch of nicotine staining on them, he rubs his nose against his sleeve. He's tired, and he yawns. He's a kid, stretching into manhood, all hiccupped adolescence coupled with inevitable maturity.
And here he is. Third.
The boy himself nods. "Yeah. They were always so focused, and me, I just sort of…drifted into it, I guess. I don't know. I don't belong there. I was always a bit…wild." He offers her an almost apologetic grin. She offers him a warm smile.
"So…why are you here?" She knows, though, and his answer doesn't surprise her.
"Because Mello is."
"You're friends?"
"I guess. I don't know. I don't like myself when I'm not around him. I stagnate." He shrugs. "Sounds dumb. But, Ms Lid - Halle - you've met him. You know what I mean, don't you?"
Her voice is quiet and tired when she answers him. "Yes. Yes, I know."
"So I'm just going to follow him. I don't know. Just - if he'll let me, I'm going to tag along." Matt looks away, at the brightness of the television, at the shimmering images of other lives.
"It's dangerous what he's doing, Matt."
"I know. And I know I probably can't help much. But…if something happens to him, and I wasn't there to try to help…" He shakes his head, red hair flopping about his face. "I wouldn't be able to live with myself."
Maybe Halle knew what to say in response. Maybe it hit close to home and she was about to tell him that, or maybe she was going to change the topic, or maybe she was going to drink her hot chocolate, or maybe she was going to go to bed. In the hours and days and years afterwards she will never know, no matter how many times she thinks back to it. Because before she could react, answer, move, or anything, her bedroom door had been slammed open with the force of a hurricane. She'd left the lamp on, and now, light floods out of the doorway and sends a heavy shadow spilling out onto the living room carpet. And where the shadow meets flesh…
Mello is standing in the doorway, towering in the lamplight, silhouetted and half-scarred. He is awake. He is alive. He is blazingly, terrifyingly, unstoppably alive -
And all across his face is a storm, all rolling thunder and forks of lightning and the pattern of flames - Mello is awake, and he is livid.
Neither Matt nor Halle can speak. Electricity sparks through the room, and it feels like no one is breathing.
"Someone," Mello growls, his voice all cataclysms and destruction and infernos and raging, golden flames, "had better tell me what's going on, now."
And through the fire and the ice and the impossibility, beyond all of Mello's unspeakable anger, somewhere deep inside herself, Halle is euphoric.
x
Note Deux: Please don't hate me ILY? I'm so so sorry this took so long. It wasn't for lack of demand - per chapter, this is my most reviewed and alerted fic. I've wanted to update this so bad but I've just been so stumped. Today, though, I got an alert from ff telling me phollie. had updated Unblooming. It is far and away the best Halle Lidner fanfic I have seen and I would strongly advice anyone who find this story even vaguely engaging to go over there and read it. It's only three chapters so far so you can't excuse yourself by saying it's too long. It's gold. Go read it. Trust me.
Right. I hate myself for making Isaacs as big a character as he is, I wish Death Note had a doctor I could use. Only I don't because I have a total weakness for doctors and doctor angst and I'm bad enough with just Matsuda, a Death Note doctor would lead to no end of dry and dull oneshots from me. He won't be back though, Isaacs, so don't worry. I think I'm okay with how this turned out. I promise to try to update soon. I've pledged to finish Passages and Antivillain before October. I'll do my best. I hope you enjoyed. Again, I'm so sorry.
And also I am working on a giant Harry Potter project, details on my profile. I would love any help, even from stuff like "WOULD LILY ACT THIS WAY" to "does this section read as if I am an insane dolphin or a serious writer?" Please PM me if you're interested.