Disclaimer: I don't own anything.

Moka-girl: No assumptions should be made. ;)

theawesomesarah: You're awesome! :D Thanks for the review. Sorry I couldn't get it out earlier. My computer had a virus. (

Note: I kind of did this one following the anime and the manga both, not just the manga…so, that's why it's worded funnyish…:3

She was pacing back and forth. Her hands were holding a cell phone tightly to her chest, and her hair was wild, disheveled. She hadn't gotten any sleep in two days. She hadn't even left the living room. If she went into her room, she knew she would pass out on her bed. Collin, Diego, and Beyond had all taken to ignoring her. She didn't care-not really. Her mind was focused on one thing-Naomi's call. Since she had left her, she hadn't really expected anything. She went around the rest of the day ignoring Beyond's questions as to what they were doing. She had answered Diego's questions when he had asked, though, because he hadn't known what had been going on. He had come home from work to hear her screaming at Beyond that she wasn't going to tell him anything, so he had better give up before she threw a real bitch fit to match what he had called her. Collin was rolling on the ground, laughing because no one had ever yelled at Beyond before and the man didn't know how to handle it.

Naomi hadn't called her, hadn't even bothered to text her. She was worried about her, but she was going to give her until the end of the week until she contacted L. She hadn't been to class-in fact, she wasn't even sure that she wanted to go to school anymore. She could easily pass the class if she simply showed up on the finals. It was simply not her priority. Her priority, now, was to catch Kira and she already had a hunch as to who that was. She had warned Misora not to reveal her name to the boy-Light Yagami-but she probably hadn't listened to her. What was worse, the boy had seen her face. She was only glad she hadn't revealed her own name. In fact, there were only a handful or so of people that knew her real name, and none of them would ever say it out loud. Of that, she was confident.

"I swear, Allyson. If you don't go and take a shower and sleep, I'm going to throw you in a pool, dry you off, change you, and force you to go to sleep, myself!" Collin shouted, standing up from the couch and grabbing her phone from her hand. "I get that your worried, but come on!"

But, apparently, she had been wrong. "Ah. I shouldn't have left her there." She replied, dejectedly. Normally, she would have been fast enough to have been able to pull her hand back so that Collin would miss her phone, but she had been too tired to do it. "I should have insisted that she come with us…should have explained everything. I didn't do it. If she's dead, I'm going to have to live with that." Towards the end, her voice started to rise up a couple of octaves.

"Snap out of it." Beyond sneered, rolling her eyes. "If she's dead, that's her own fault. I was imprisoned because I underestimated her. If she made the same mistake, she should face the consequences."

"Are you kidding me?" Aimi, Allyson, exploded, glowering at him. "She had good ideas! If only she had been able to speak to L-"She cut herself off, instantly paling and starting to shake. "Oh, oh God. Oh…Oh mein Gott. Ich versprach es ihm Kontakt aufzunehmen! Ich habe versprochen, um L zu sprechen!"

"That's it!" Diego frowned, grabbing her by the knees and holstering up so that she was over his shoulder. "You're going to take a shower, and then you're going to go to sleep."

"No!" She screamed, kicking and beating his back with her fits. "B-help me! I have to contact him!"

"You can't." He replied with a lazy draw, a sneer still on his face. "You look like shit. He wouldn't recognize you."

"Besides, if you're going to contact L, we're going to need to prep you." Collin added, jumping back on the couch with a lazy grin. "We can't let you give us away, can we?"

"L! Come on!" She shouted, grabbing his hand and pulling him down the two flights of stairs. For some reason, even though he disliked being around the other children, he had chosen to stay in his old room-which was on the third floor. It was the very last room, opposite the staircase, so people generally didn't pass by there, but they all knew it belonged to him.

Sometimes, the orphans were even unaware of the fact that he was there considering he was always off on different cases. The only two that ever knew, without a doubt, were Alternate and Backup. She would always paint him small picture to hang up around his room-they generally consisted of cakes and other sweets. Backup, on the other hand, would merely lounge around in his room because he had nothing better to do. Between the two of them, they always managed to annoy L before the day was over. They tried to cram as much time as they possibly could with their friend-especially considering he was going to be off again in the morning. (He was heading towards St. Petersburg in Russia.)

"Where are we going?" L asked, letting himself get dragged down the stairs.

Most of the Wammy House residents were currently at dinner, minus the top successor, of course.

"Outside! I have something to show you." She turned her head to smile at him, briefly, before pulling him out the door.

She continued to pull on his sleeve until they arrived at a bench outside of the orphanage. There, on the back of the bench, were some carvings. There was an L, a B, and an A. They were all within equal distance of each other with the L just being a little higher than the A and B. They didn't look as if they had been carved by a young child. The seven year old girl grinned at the older boy, smiling unabashedly. They were carved as if they were the font on the computer he was always using.

"Do you like it?" Alternate asked, looking down at the carving. "It didn't take me very long-but it's going to last forever."

"Why'd you do it?" He asked, his voice as deadpan as always.

This discouraged her, but not by much. She looked up at the sky, thoughtfully. She hadn't really thought out a reason for why she had done it. She had merely…engraved the bench without a thought-working as carefully as she always did.

"I didn't do it with a reason in mind." She told him, seriously. Her attention was back on the bench. "But, you're always away. Paintings are fun to do of you, but Roger always confiscates them and stores them in a place where I can't see them…the fireplace, if you were going to ask. This is simple, but it's everlasting. Every time I pass by this bench, every time I see it, I'll be reminded of you. You and B are my best friends." She looked at him. "I want to be able to remember you for a long time."

"I see." He brought his thumb up to his mouth and stared at her with his big, wide eyes. "I'm going to die someday, and you're going to have to take my place."

"Yeah, I know." She frowned and reached for his hand. "I don't want you to die, but that's why I'm here, right; to be your replacement…your successor. So, try to live as long as you possibly can, okay? Every time you solve a case, I'll be here…waiting to greet you."

The fuzzy noise of the surveillance TVs were what knocked him back into attention. He couldn't let them know that he had been lost in his own head. It must be near that day…the day that she had committed suicide. It was the only time around the year that she ever snuck into his thoughts. In fact, he was almost surprised because of it. He hadn't lost his focus to her…to Alternate in a long time.

"These tapes are the recordings of every security camera relevant to the deaths of the FBI on December 27th." Aizawa informed them all, looking tired and surrounded by tapes. He grabbed his eyes and shook his head-shaking the tired out of them.

Luckily, he didn't have that problem. The only problem he had was eating his ice cream and focusing on the task at hand and not on the past. "Show me only the scenes of Raye Penber passing the ticket gate, riding the train, and then dying." He heard himself request before taking a bite out of his ice cream cone.

"Uh…yeah." Aizawa got to his feet and searched for it through the tapes. "Let's see…"

"It's right below that." Matusada chimed in, cheerfully.

"Oh…this one." Aizawa pulled the tape out.

Matsuda looked down at a paper he had been writing on previously. His face looked tired and worn out, but less so than everyone else's. It was because he often fell asleep while on duty. "Raye Penber entered through the ticket gate of Shinjuku Station at 15:11. At 15:13, he rode the Yamanote Line."

L glanced down at the ice cream for a moment. He hadn't noticed that the ice cream was pistachio-it was her third favorite flavor after vanilla and strawberry.

"Even if he was following someone, it would be difficult to conclude anything from this blurry video." Matsuda trailed off for a second, blinking the tiredness out of his eyes. "And, at 16:42-" He was cut off by the fact that Watari was currently handing him ice cream, as well. "He got off and died at the Tokyo Station Platform.

Aizawa, meanwhile, was astounded-he could tell by the degree that his mouth hung in shock-at the fact that Watari was handing out ice cream to them all. Not one person declined it.

"It's strange, isn't it?" L said, darkly.

"Huh?" Aizawa asked, shocked.

"L, what's strange?" Yagami asked, quickly.

"Did you notice something?" Matsuda asked, almost dumbly.

He took a while to reply, choosing to take a big bite out of his ice cream rather than answer them. Yes, he had noticed something strange about the video Raye Penber was in, but that wasn't the only thing he noticed. Farther back in the video, even though it wasn't relevant to the case at the moment, he could have sworn that the two figures also boarding the train looked like Alternate, Copy, and Duplicate-two of which were presumed dead.

"Judging by this footage," he began, his mouth still filled with pistachio ice cream. "From the time that Raye Penber got on the train until his death, he had been riding for an hour and a half. The Yamanote Line only takes an hour. And, the envelope is gone."

"Envelope?" Aizawa asked, not catching his meaning.

Almost as if expecting this, he pulled out his remote and clicked the TV screen on so that they could see the envelope that Penber was carrying with him. "At the gates and before entering the train, he had an envelope with him."

"I-indeed!" Aizawa exclaimed. "He's carrying it. He's carrying it!" He pointed at the screen. "He's holding it here, too. That's amazing, Ryuzaki! You notice the smallest details."

Ryuzaki-a name he had taken from Backup after he had beaten him back in Los Angeles. Today just seemed like a day where all of his previous successors-the ones that he had seen but hadn't paid much of any attention to-were all going to haunt him.

"There weren't any envelopes among his articles." Yagami said, shaking his head and searching through some of the papers.

"Something must have happened on the train." L answered, his tone showing that he had been expecting for them to come up with that reason.

"Could the envelope have had the agent's information?" Yagami asked, seriously.

Matsuda, meanwhile…"Kira stole the envelope while they were on the train, and killed Penber once he got off!"

"Impossible." He retorted, turning his head and giving him a look that said he thought he was an idiot. "Penber boarded at 15:13 and he received the information sometime after. Penber couldn't have received the information before 15:13."

"Oh, that's right…"

"Bring me all of the footage on the Yamanote security cameras starting from the 27th."

"Roger!" Aizawa said, still looking surprised.

"Also, on the footage of Penber's death…it seems as if he's trying to look towards the train before he died."

"Is…this an important detail?"

L didn't turn around. "It would be pretty interesting if he was looking at Kira, himself."

"Couldn't be!" Yagami clenched his paper. He seemed unusually surprised by the suggestion that Kira road the train. It was almost as if he didn't see Kira to be a human. This surprise was filed in his mind.

"I don't think so, either." He turned his attention back to the screen. "There's no reason for Kira, who can control death from a distance, to come to the scene of a crime. But, despite that, he may have tried something bold." He looked down and bit into his ice cream again, finishing the top scoop. "Let's just say Kira really was on the train and the security cameras couldn't record the person who took the envelope. It's possible that before the incident, he scouted out the locations of all the cameras and their blind spots. But, if he ever was caught on tape after all, he would become a major suspect."

"Are you awake, yet?" Rue asked opening the door and slamming it behind him before Diego and Collin could follow him.

She didn't want to think of him as Beyond-and she definitely wasn't going to refer to him as Backup. The former made her worry about when he was going to get caught and thrown back in jail. If he was again, she wouldn't be able to help him break out. He would be stuck there until Kira killed him-and she had no doubt in her mind that he would. Calling him Backup, meanwhile, would force her to think about the days where the two of them had spent most of their time with L-and that wasn't pleasant to think about, either.

"Yes." She said instead, her voice coming out cracked. When he walked near her, he raised an eyebrow at her sorry state. She was clean now-so her hair wasn't all over the place. It was just sprawled out around her pillow, and she looked sick and frail. Her face was still extremely pale-and, if she were in a better mood, he would have joked about her matching her pillowcase. But, she wasn't in a good mood, and he wasn't going to make her feel worse.

Instead, he nudged her so that she moved out of his way. He climbed into the bed and leaned against the headboard, not saying anything as she fixed herself around him, her head leaning against his outside thigh and her hand reaching for his so that she could press it against her face. His hands felt like icicles to her, a fact that made her feel better somewhat.

"You're giving yourself a fever." He deadpanned, not looking down at her.

"I can't help it." She whispered, closing her eyes. "I'm worried. I don't…I don't want to lose you again…" She couldn't bring herself to call him Rue out loud, nor could she call him by any of his other names. "I can't lose you again. What would I do without my best friend?"

"Go insane?" He answered, not waiting a beat. "Actually, successfully, commit suicide? No, you wouldn't do that and you know it. You'd be…like Misora, but less trusting. You'd find that bastard L, and you wouldn't sleep until the day you managed to catch Kira, who would more than likely not lose the chance to kill me."

"Realmente sabes…como hacer que una chica se sienta major." She muttered, childishly.

"In a language that isn't useless would be better." Rue shot back, turning and looking at her a bit distastefully.

"Ich sagte…du sicher wissen, wie um mich aufzumuntern, Ruck."

"Don't be such a baby." He muttered, rolling his eyes and bopping her on the head with his hand. "You're going to talk to him."

"Net, ya ne khochu." She shook her head, refusing.

"We'll see about that." He threatened.

"Ryuzaki, Ukita at the NPA has received a phone call he's concerned about." Watari said, bringing the phone down and putting his hand over is so that Ukita couldn't hear him. It was only courteous.

L stared at him, blankly. He was standing up with his shoulder hunched over, and his hair still spiking up in every direction imaginable. "Then, give him the telephone number of number five, and have the informant call that number."

As Watari turned to relay the message, L turned around and fixed his wide eyes on Matsuda. "Matsuda, you can turn on your cell phone. No, please turn it on."

Matsuda looked shocked, but he turned around with an, "Ah, yes!" and did what he was asked to do. When he pulled it out and turned it on, it rang instantly. Right as he was about to answer, it was snatched out of his hand.

"Yes, this is Suzuki the head of the Public Information division." L answered, his face deadpan as ever, but his tone of voice completely different. Behind his back, Matsuda glowered at him. "Penber's Fiancée?" He repeated.

"Yes, my daughter is Misora Naomi, fiancée of Raye Penber. They were planning on visiting us, so they came to Japan together."

Dropping the phone from his ear, he turned to look at Watari. "Naomi Misora…I've heard that name somewhere…" When the search was done, L shuffled over to the computer and read over it.

'For a female, she was promoted through the FBI quickly; in August of 2002, she arrested the perpetrator of the "Los Angles BB Serial Killings." It's her…'

"So that's it…She worked under me on that case and now she's in Japan." He frowned.

"But, then Raye died on the 27th. I heard about it the day after. I was worried about my daughter, so I called her…But, then she said, "Please let me clear my head. I need to think for a while.""

'Think…Did she want to go after Kira, too? It's too dangerous.'

"I called her again on New Year's Eve, but her phone was turned off. It's been like that ever since. She never even returned to the hotel on the 28th."

Their conversation continued on for about thirty point five seconds before they disconnected. "Yagami-san…is it still possible to locate cell phones that are turned off?"

"Of course…" He answered, unsure of why he was asking.

L handed Matsuda back his phone. "Raye Penber and his fiancé came to Japan and stayed at the same hotel. A day after Penber died, Naomi disappeared.

"She must have been devastated by Raye's death…maybe…" Matsuda trailed off.

"Suicide…" Aizawa finished.

"No, I doubt it. Naomi has too strong of a will to do that. She'd go after Kira on her own instead. She was with Penber…Maybe she knows something." He bit at his thumb. "Penber definitely gave Haley Belle, the first agent to receive the profiles, a call. Afterwards, Belle sent the information to Penber. The person who wanted the info the most should be Penber." He turned his back to them. "With his strange behavior in Yamanote, along with Naomi's disappearance…"

"There's something to this." Aizawa told Matsuda, who looked just as confused.

"Everyone, investigate all the people Penber was following ever since Kira began his experiments on December 19th. The list should be small. However, Kira should be among them. So, we can't reveal ourselves by directly questioning those people. In every family that he investigated, Penber's report said that the families were not suspicious. Penber was investigating your families. Please, install hidden cameras and electronic bugs in all of their homes."

"No!" Matsuda and Aizawa shouted at once. "No way! You can't do that in Japan!"

"No matter how powerful you are, or what your background is, you can't do that!" Aizawa finished. "This is a major breach of privacy rights. If our bosses found out, we'd all lose our jobs. And, then the suspects…"

"Do you value your jobs over human lives?" L asked, interrupting him.

"Who was Penber investigating at the time?" Yagami asked, seriously.

Matsuda turned to look through some of the papers he had written on. "From the 19th, Penber was investigating…" He trailed off, shocked.

"Sub-chief Kitamura's family and chief Yagami's family. Then, please install cameras and electronic bugs in these households." L finished, taking in Yagami's shocked face.

Allyson Alexander, alias' Alternate, A, and Aimi Ryuzaki was clad in dark, blue jeans, a black turtle neck and black slip on shoes. Her hair was tied in a side messy bun with the exception of her bangs. Her face was still pale, and every so often she would slip in her steps. Rue had wanted to come with her, but she had refused to allow him to do so. She didn't want him to get caught, and, anyway, she had her cell phone on her if she got into trouble. Not only that, but she also had a replacement cell phone in case that one got taken away from her. Collin had wanted to come to, but Diego had reminded him that he was, at the time, an alleged dead terrorist. And, he himself had offered to come with her, but then had to apologize because he had gotten called away for work once more.

"It's that stupid, dizzy blonde model again." He told her once he had cut off the conversation. "She said she was extremely interested in this place, but I don't know why. I don't even want to ask. She'll probably make me go shopping with her again."

Collin scoffed, but his face had flushed slightly. "I don't understand why you don't just tell her to leave you alone."

Aimi had excused him and had wondered out on her own, placing a kiss on each of their cheeks before they left. She had lingered by Rue and promised him that she would call him as soon as she could, but that he shouldn't be surprised if she called him by a different name entirely. They had done the all the research, hacked every file they could get their hands on, and finally printed out a map as to where she was supposed to go. From there, she had taken a cap until she was about two blocks away from her destination. None of them were particularly happy about it-she was the least happy of them all. But, they knew how much faster their investigation would go if one of them was on the inside.

Oh, they had argued about it, sure. They had argued into the night-argued until that morning where she had just given up and let them talk her into going. Originally, she said that it would make more sense if Diego went-because, he was the only one who wasn't 'six feet under'. Not only were the other three dead, but they hadn't even been buried under Japan soil. She was supposed to be in England-decomposed already. Rue was in America-half-way decayed. And, lastly, Collin was supposed to have been left without a single trace of his body left. She wished, just wished, that she had won-but all three of them were against them. They had had trouble with it, too. Because, it seemed that he had moved hotels. They should have known better than to assume that he would stay in one place-but that hadn't stopped them from cursing him out.

So, there she was. Standing in front of the hotel with the most frightened look on her face. At least, she was frightened until she started laughing softly under her breath. It was just like him to stay in fancy-yet not over-the-top-hotels. She smiled at the doorman who opened the door, asking on whether or not she was okay.

"Oh, trust me. I'm fine." She smiled, reassuringly. "I just caught a small cold-nothing too serious."

With that, she left him and went inside, telling the man at the counter that, yes, she was being expected and, yes, she knew exactly where she was going. He was suspicious at first and stared at her until she pressed the button for the elevator, but, considering he made no movement to stop her, she assumed that he thought she knew exactly what she was getting herself into. When the elevator stopped on his floor, she had to take deep breaths to calm herself down. She couldn't start panicking in the elevator, not when she had business to attend to. Slowly, she shuffled her way towards his door and stood outside of it, staring at it.

Almost as slowly as she had walked up to it, she brought her fist up to knock. There were some muffled voices on the other side before the door opened, allowing her eyes to meet with some dark brown ones that were hidden behind some glasses. When she observed his face, she found a man who almost looked 50. He had a black mustache and black hair that showed signs of graying in the near future.

"Yes?" He asked, only blocking half of the door.

Ignoring him, she pushed past him-a feat that she only managed to accomplish because he was distracted by her presence. Aimi walked into the room, her heart pounding. She glanced over half of it before her eyes came to rest on a very familiar figure. He was still taller than her-a feature she would have to become used to considering almost everyone she knew was taller than her-and was still very skinny. His hair was still as black as she remembered it, and the shadows under his eyes somewhat darker than she recalled. He was still wearing a long-sleeved white shirt that looked too long for him, and worn blue jean pants. He wasn't wearing any socks-something which caused her to smile. But, when she actually paid attention to the look on her face, the smile went away and she looked down at the floor.

She had never seen him shocked before. She had never before seen his mouth dropped in what she assumed was horror. His face was probably paler than hers was.

"Hello, L." She greeted, her voice soft, her own eyes widening somewhat as she walked forward.

She took once step when she heard some dishes crash to the ground. She turned around to see a face she had known and loved when she was younger. Wammy-no, he was to be called Watari now. His face was wrinkled and older than she remembered. His eyes were closed, and his hands were shaking. She was shaking, too. If Diego had come in her stead, then he would have known exactly how to treat the situation. Her I.Q. may have been higher than his-and barely higher than B's-but that hadn't meant that she would know exactly what to do.

The man who had opened the door seemed to be able to recover from his shock that such a small person could have gotten past him-he had even recovered faster than L and Wam-Watari, who were still staring at her as if she had just arisen from the dead.

"Who are you?" He asked, grabbing her by the elbow. Her eyes connected once more with L's while she answered.

"No one-at least, no one important. You can call me…A."

Oh, oh my God. I promised I would contact him! I promised I'd talk to L! (German)

You really know...how to make a girl feel better. (Spanish)

I said...you sure know how to cheer me up, jerk. (German)

No, I don't want to. (Russian)

AN: There! I hope that made up for missing so long. Like I said, I had a virus...I swear, my computer doesn't like to let me keep my promises. ( Oh well, at least it's long, right? :) Now, I'm going to ask for 2 reviews before I post the next chapter. (Frankly, because they make me feel fantastic~)