4 Months Later

St. Anne's Orphanage wasn't a bad place necessarily. It had a decent system for teaching, was big enough for the entire 150 children that resided there, and was considered one of the nicest learning facilities in all of England. It was as perfect as an orphanage could possibly get—that is, if you were at least somewhat normal.

Nate River, unfortunately, wasn't. He was a genius; far too intelligent for the most difficult classes they could throw at him. When the seven-year-old stood it was with a highly pronounced stoop, he was barely ever seen outside of his room, he suffered from albinism, and his only known friend was a toy car that he'd been spotted talking to when he thought no one was looking.

In other words, he was the biggest freak to ever walk the Earth in his classmate's eyes. And of course they gave him hell for it.

But today, Nate wouldn't stand for it. He would stand up to his harassers. For the first time in months, he was going to go down to the play room for once instead of staying inside of his dorm to escape human contact.

Normally, he would've seen the many flaws to his plans immediately. But after nights without sleep and thoughts of them finally getting the guts to actually kill him, he'd snapped.

Nate moved forward with his red, toy car clenched firmly in his hands, eyes set at the bottom of the stairway.

This is foolish you know. You're going to get beaten up.

He settled to the floor, ignoring the amazed looks of the children around him. Nothing would get him to change his mind.

It's not too late. If you head back now maybe you can avoid any unnecessary violence and pretend like this never even happened.

"Look guys! Prince Natey-Poo has decided to join the rest of us!"

You're going to be killed.

Despite his brain's desperate pleas for him to just run away, he remained rooted to his spot. It was one of the first times he'd ever ignored his mind and gone with what his heart wanted. But now even his heart was beginning to grow weary.

Christopher and his lackeys were the main source of his misery. Everyone had picked on him at some point, but they were one of the few groups that actually went so far as to inflict pain upon him. The boys looked down at the pale figure before them with an air of superiority that made him sick. Christopher forced his way through to the front, a huge grin plastered across his dirty face.

Nate glared up at him, his eyes bright with livid hatred.

"It hurts my feelings when you look at me like that, Nate," Christopher said in a mockingly sad tone. "Maybe we should teach him a lesson about being considerate of the feelings of others. What do you say boys?"

There was a rumble of approval erupting from the large bodied children behind him.

Two of them immediately grabbed Nate by his arms and held him up higher, while another wrenched the car out of his fingers.

"Give that back!" he yelled, squirming hopelessly under the weight of the oafs that held him.

Nate yelped as one of the older boys punched him in the stomach, which led to a series of even more painful blows to follow. But he refused to cry; he couldn't. Not yet.

They laughed at him even further as his car was then passed over to Christopher, dropped, and crushed against the hard wooden floor under his tennis shoes.

"Oops!"

In a rush of adrenaline fueled strength, Nate planted his foot right in the lead bully's stomach. His minions released him from their grip and rushed over to Chris, who was holding his gut and grunting loudly.

The white-haired child struggled out of the crowd and sped up the stairs, tears streaming down his face.

"What are you waiting for!? Go after him!" Nate heard Christopher shouting.

He picked up his pace as he heard booming footsteps thunder off behind him. Where was a caretaker when you needed one?

He stopped at Room 106 and reached in his pajama pockets for his key. After what seemed like ages of stressful fumbling, he managed to procure them and get his door open.

As he closed his door behind him, he caught a glimpse of about four large pre-teens blundering through the stairway landing.

He shoved the key back in and locked it before retreating to his bed, sobbing.

"Why does this happen to me..?"

…

"You must be Mr. Wammy from the phone!" said a rather plump looking middle-aged woman from behind a large desk. She pushed herself up and offered a hand, which Quillsh took politely. "My name's Rita Philler, pleased to meet you."

"Yes, I'm here because I've come across the fact that a certain boy by the name of Nate River is currently under the care of this particular establishment, and I'm interested in adopting him."

"Nate River?" the lady said, looking slightly down. "We've had a few people come in claiming that they'd like to adopt him only to be put off by his many… mannerisms, or so to speak."

"Ah, I'd imagine." Wammy muttered gravely. Most of the children he dealt with were incapable of coping with the real world and had lost many chances of being adopted because of it.

"Well, I'll lead you to his room so you can meet him now."

The older man was saddened slightly at her immediate change in mood. Had this happened so often that she would be forever cynical about his one day finding a family?

He was led first to a room full of children, running around and laughing. A few of them stopped and looked at Quillsh with interest, knowing he was here to adopt someone. Some of them would wave or point, and he'd smile at them warmly in response.

Mrs. Philler didn't bother to search this area for the child first, and proceeded straight up the stairway. He followed, careful not to slip on one of the toys he noticed every few steps or so.

"You've got to come out sometime!"

Wammy raised his eyebrows with surprise as he saw some six or seven boys banging on the door to one of the rooms farthest down the hall.

His guide looked angry, but not quite as shocked as he was.

"Get away from there!" She snapped, grabbing the boys' attention. "Go on! Shoo!"

"Yes, Mrs. Rita. C'mon guys. We'll deal with this later." One boy added in an undertone, casting the caretaker angry glances as they passed by her. Wammy didn't flinch when she stopped walking right in front of the door that was being attacked moments before.

"Nate? Can you come outside for a minute? There's someone here to see you."

There was no answer.

"Nate, don't make this difficult…"

Wammy heard the creak of bed springs and the sound of approaching footsteps. He looked up from the gap underneath the door as he saw it being pulled back by a little boy dressed all in white. The first thing he noticed was that his eye was purple and his lip was all busted up. They had probably just gotten there from a fight that had led those boys to his room. He also looked like he'd been doing some crying.

"Hello." The child sniffled.

…

L watched Wammy disinterestedly as he paced back and forth through his room, talking briskly to some gentleman over the phone. It was slightly annoying, actually. Especially since he was right in the middle of a conversation with him when he'd gotten the call.

From the bits of the exchange he even bothered to listen to, he realized it was about the Near kid that Wammy had over-looked in his scout for children to adopt for Wammy's House. He had visited him once every week for the entire month and from the looks of it today was the day he'd finally be coming.

About five, boring minutes later his guardian hung up and looked up at him.

"I'm about to leave to go pick up Near." He said brightly. "Would you mind coming along?"

L was surprised he was even giving him an option. Wammy had been so eager to get him interested in every aspect of these children's lives lately he'd only given him a few options when it came to things like this.

After a moment's consideration, he agreed. Wammy's interest in the boy seemed to have spread on to him.

"Come on, then."

L followed him down the steps until he was suddenly jumped by Matt and Mello, papers in hand.

"Hey, L! I got a 100 on Mr. Goldman's science test!" The blonde chirped, holding out the paper for him to see.

"Very good, Mello."

"And look! I got an A-, but it's still better than anyone else got!"

"Except for mine, of course."

L flipped through Matt's test and took note on the numbers he'd gotten wrong.

"Excellent. I'll go over the ones you missed if you'd like—"

"All of this can be done later. We'll be sure to be back before night so you three can study," Wammy interrupted.

"Where are you going?"

"It's a surprise."

"But we don't like surprises."

L raised an eyebrow at them and they stopped complaining. The two gave him a scowl before finally leaving, pointedly not looking back at him.

"It seems you've taken very well with them."

He shrugged. That may be, but it didn't make them any less stubborn and annoying.

…

If L had any idea how far away Near had lived, he would've never even considered volunteering to come along. It had been nearly thee hours of nothing to do and he'd barely been able to talk to Wammy since he'd been talking on the phone with either Roger or someone from St. Anne's. He'd attempted entertaining himself by counting all the red cars that passed by, but that got boring after about five minutes (and 21 cars) later. Not to mention that he was nearly incapable of sitting how he normally would with the annoying safety belt stretched across his chest. He couldn't recall a time he'd been more bored.

"Wammy?" L said once he noticed him hang up his cell phone. "About how far away are we from our destination?"

"Not far. We should be there in a matter of minutes."

He relaxed a little and returned to staring out of the window. He wasn't sure how many minutes he was talking about, but decided he'd just remain quiet the rest of the trip.

It wasn't long before he saw it—a huge mansion like orphanage that seemed even bigger than the Wammy's House. He doubted it to be as nice on the inside as his home was, but it was still rather beautiful nonetheless.

"I'll be right back," Wammy said as he pulled into the driveway and stepped out. "Near will probably be in here before I will, so please make sure to make him feel welcome."

L nodded. Yet another reason to regret coming here. Why had he come anyway?

He waited for what seemed like an even more mind numbingly boring period of time before his guardian came back. Next to him was a very small white-haired boy holding a stuffed turtle in one hand and holding Wammy's in the other. The older man helped Near in and gave him a smile.

"One moment, I have some paperwork to finish signing back in the orphanage—will you two be alright?"

The two nodded in the affirmative.

"Good."

L watched him close the door and begin to walk away. He had a slight frown set on his face as he pondered how long he'd have to be alone with the little kid.

His eyes drifted over to the child out of curiosity and frowned even further to see that he looked incredibly depressed. The teenager sighed inwardly.

"Do you mind if I asked you what's wrong?"

Near looked very surprised to be addressed and he took a second to register what had been asked.

"I'm just… not comfortable with changes is all. Nothing to worry about…" he mumbled, gripping his plush toy tighter.

"Well, there's no need to look so sad," He put his thumbnail in his mouth nonchalantly. "Wammy's House is a nice place. No one will try to beat you up there and you'll be praised for being intelligent instead of looked down upon for it."

The child looked unconvinced.

"And if you ever need someone to talk to, I'll always be there. Not to mention Wammy and Mr. Roger."

"I suppose that's right," Near said after a little while, looking far less cynical than before.

"I'm right roughly 90 of the time when it comes to such things."

The albino smiled at him. It wasn't big and highly noticeable, but it was certainly there.

…

About 4 hours later, Wammy was guiding a freshly awoken Near out of the car.

The child looked up reluctantly at the orphanage. It might've looked scary at night had it not been for the insane amount of lights that had been left on inside and the faint noise of children bustling around.

L held out a hand, which he took.

"What are the children like in there?" he asked as the walked down the path to the door.

"Nice—to an extent. I don't think any of them will hurt you."

Near's expression remained neutral. He really didn't care what they were like, just as long as none of them tried to take his things or hurt him.

"L's back!" he could hear from inside. The door was then slung open by a red head in a white T-Shirt, who immediately frowned at the sight of him.

"Who's that?" said a blonde behind him.

"This is Near. Near, this is Mello and Matt."

They looked too shocked to really give away any real emotions, so Near was confused as to how they felt about him. He doubted it was positive.

"Well, I'm going to bed now. I'll see you three tomorrow after class," L yawned.

Perhaps Mello and Matt would be so distracted with meeting Near that they'd stop bothering me for a little while…

…

AN: Okay, I've FINALLY finished this chapter. I wanted to fit Near's intro into one chapter so it ended up being a little longer than I'd usually make it, but over all I like how it turned out okay. Way better than the previous one.

And I'm sorry for not saying this before, but thanks for the awesome reviews guys! You rock!