Thank you all for the amazing reviews! They mean so much to me. :)

There was an awesome clarifying question about whether Light needed ownership over the Death Note in order to have his memories back for good. I double checked with Death Note Wiki on their page for the chapter Inside, and it confirmed what I had been remembering: "Holding a Death Note, even one he did not previously own, would restore his memories, but if he let go of that Death Note without reclaiming ownership then his regained memories would once again vanish." Thanks for keeping me accountable!

I don't own Death Note, Atlas Shrugged, The Odyssey, or The Illiad.

It was the confinement all over again, except this time L was not bothering with the handcuffs. In fact, that was almost the strangest part. It had been months since Light could move without the rattling of some kind of chain, and now that there was no rattle, it was as if he couldn't be as certain of his movements. It had only been a few hours and already Light had taken to drumming his fingertips against the metal of the bedframe, just to assure himself that he was still alive.

"How are you going to explain where I am?" he asked when L deigned him with his presence again. He was sitting on the edge of his cot in a plain set of black cotton clothes, looking into the camera in the corner of the room. "My father is going to lose his shit."

"That has already been taken care of. I told the taskforce myself, right after I congratulated them and told them that they could all go home."

Light was shocked. "The Kira case is over?"

"Kyosuke Higuchi is Kira, and Kira is dead. Legal action is being taken against Yotsuba, of course, but that is none of our concern."

Light was horrified enough to retch. "The world thinks that Kira was Higuchi all along?"

"Yes."

Light slammed a fist against the bedframe and it rattled terribly. "Fuck."

In a crackly murmur through the speakers, "I'm—"

"FUCK." Light fell to the ground. "FUCKING HELL."

"I will give you a moment."

L hadn't given him anything but a slap in the face. He had ruined everything. Light had no doubt that the vast majority of the world would swallow the idea that Higuchi had been Kira from the beginning. L had destroyed every bit the image that Light had so carefully constructed, especially because Light had no way of building it back up. This was a thousand times worse than Misa's blundering attempts at emulation.

Misa.

Could Misa begin killing again? She didn't necessarily have to do a good job of it. In fact, it was better if she didn't do a good job of it. All that was needed was attention, and doubt. She could say that she was not Kira, but that Kira had given her power to proclaim the truth, that she was a prophet. Even God had been silent for four hundred years. Yes, Kira would be silent. Such a man as Kyosuke Higuchi had proclaimed himself as Kira, and the world had believed him. Now Higuchi had been struck down for his blasphemy, and the world would be abandoned to their evil ways. There would be no judgment, for a time. Let the world beg for their Kira to return to them.

But how would he get in contact with Misa? L could see and hear Rem now. She was practically useless to him. But he couldn't see Ryuk. Surely, Ryuk would come back for him. Ryuk had spent the past five months in the shinigami realm, presumably peeking down every once in a while to check on the whole Kira situation, his boredom simmering. Light could count on Ryuk noticing that the killing had stopped, patiently waiting for it to start up again, and getting frustrated when all was going as usual. He would find Light, try to figure out what was going on, and make contact eventually. It was only a matter of time.

L had not ruined anything. In fact, L had forced his hand, and now Kira's legacy would be stronger than ever.

It had been less than a minute. Light pulled himself up off the floor and sat carefully on the cot, which squeaked. Light could practically see L leaning forward towards the video screen, biting at this thumb, eyes wide and questioning. Light smiled. "What did you tell my father about where I am?"

As Light had expected, L was at the microphone right away. "You're sure you're ready to hear it?" His voice was suspicious and slow, bewildered at Light's quick recovery.

"I'm sure."

"Alright then. I told him the truth."

"That you're illegally detaining me because I'm Kira?"

"No. I told him that you have brain cancer."

Light's jaw locked. It was a childish, unfair move. The brain cancer wasn't part of the game.

"I told him that you didn't want to tell him or the rest of the family, but that I had thought he deserved to know. I told him that I was paying for all your medical expenses and that I would personally be present for all your medical procedures. He wanted to know whether he could see you, and I told him that he could not at the moment, out of respect for your wishes, but that I would let him know as soon as he could."

"You didn't tell him the truth. That last part was a lie."

"I wasn't lying, Light-kun."

It was the first time L had called him that since Light had remembered.

"If you want your father to see you down here, with my one hundred percent certainty that you are Kira, I will allow it."

Bastard.

"If I was incorrect in my assessment of your wishes, then I apologize."

It was the most straightforward of all apologies, and the least relevant, because L had been right.

"Well?"

"He wouldn't understand. It would be cruel to him."

"And Kira would never be cruel."

"Of course not. Remember, Kira is good."

"You mean, righteous."

Light did mean righteous, but righteousness wouldn't be any help to him where L was concerned. "No, I mean good."

When L spoke again, his voice was mocking. "Is this another of those things that only the two of us understand?"

Light laughed. L knew what he was doing, but that didn't mean he would be any less susceptible to it. "This time, no, actually. There are millions of us, perhaps even billions. And then one day it will be all of us."

L murmured, "At the name of Kira, every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth."

The words sent a thrill of delight through Light's body, and it must have shown on his face because L laughed, just once, sharp and humorless. Light's brows dropped, angrily. "What?"

"You are not Christ. You are not infallible, you are not peaceful, and you are not loving. Most of all, you are not good. You may deceive the world, but you will never deceive me. And I will tell you why, even though you already know, because you were the one who told me. It is because I am not good either."

Light scowled. "And yet just a few hours ago you were the one who said you loved me."

"I do, as much as I know how." L sighed. "I understand what you are trying to do, but it will never work for one simple reason. You say you are making a new world where all people are good, but there are no good people. You are not good, and I am not good. Watari is not good. Even your sister Sayu—"

Light leapt to his feet. "Hey!"

"You're so defensive," L marveled. "Do you really think she has never done anything wrong? Never lied? Never insulted someone? Never passed by someone in need and done nothing?"

"Doing one thing wrong doesn't make you evil."

"Perhaps not. But it certainly makes you not good."

"Sayu is a good person. I don't see how you could say that she's not."

"What is the cut off? Must fifty percent of your actions be good? Ninety percent? Ninety five percent?"

Light fisted his hands in frustration. "Why does it always come back to percentages?!"

"Moreover, you are trying to terrify people into goodness. But forced goodness is no goodness at all. It's no credit to you that you are not murdering anyone at the moment considering that I have made you unable to."

"It's not murder," Light snapped. "It's execution."

"I can no longer see any justice in the death penalty. Protect the public, yes, but do not delude yourself into thinking that you are any better than the human being you are strapping to an electric chair."

"The only murderers are those who kill the innocent."

"Then send me to my execution."

Light remembered L listing off his traumas, and was silent.

"And if I am not mistaken, the FBI agents were innocent as well, as was Misora Naomi."

"Necessary sacrifices."

"So you will make excuses for yourself, but not for anyone else."

"I don't consider you a murderer."

L was very much not expecting that. "Don't tell me you consider me a good person."

"Never."

"Good." There was a smile in his voice, so Light frowned.

"What are you even planning on doing with me? Keeping me away from a Death Note until I die of natural causes?"

"Yes."

Light flinched. "And what if I say I want treatment?"

L did not respond for a long time. "Are you really saying you want treatment?" he finally asked, and his voice shook.

It was worth a try at least. He couldn't very well be God of the New World from a coffin. "Yes."

"Then I will do the same, except that we will be going to the hospital far more frequently."

"And if I live for another five years? Or ten years?"

"I will not change my mind, even if you live another eighty years."

Light thought for a moment, and then asked, "What if I forget again?"

L was quiet, and then something changed. "You're being cruel, Kira-kun," he snapped.

Light was very rarely cruel without meaning to do so, so this surprised him. "What do you mean?"

But L was gone, or, more likely, giving him the silent treatment.

At first, Light resisted napping out of a habitual fear of nightmares, but he soon discovered that he had nothing to fear. The nightmares were just no longer there. In fact, the dreams were no longer there, period. Of course. Light had stopped dreaming a long time ago. Kira had only one dream, and it would one day be a reality.

So it was during one of these many naps, which stretched and compressed time until it was so warped that the napping no longer felt like a waste, that the crackly, low voice of Watari finally spoke.

"Yagami Light."

He did not say it very loudly, but there was not very much noise in this cell—for though it was well-furnished, with a bed and a toilet and even a shower and a sink and a door instead of bars, it was a cell all the same—and no one had spoken to him for seven meals worth of time, so Light woke up right away.

"I am sure L has told you that I am like a father to him."

There was no point in using code names now that there was no one else in the building. "I believe L's exact words were that you were the closest thing he had to a father."

Watari did not speak for a number of seconds, and Light wondered whether he had been unintentionally cruel once again. "Nevertheless," Watari said, clearing his throat, "L is like a son to me, and you know how protective parents can be."

"Your son locked me up in prison. I don't think he needs any protecting."

"You strangled him."

"Didn't you hear me over the recording? I said I wasn't going to kill him."

"Well, unlike L, I have no qualms about capital punishment, and I think that you deserve to die."

Light grinned, terribly. "Then perhaps Kira has more support in here than he realized. One of you wants to keep me alive, and the other wants criminals to die."

"Shut up."

Light's smile dropped. "What are you trying to tell me? You wouldn't go behind L's back for no good reason."

"I'm warning you to not hurt him. If I wake up one day and he's gone, I will find you and I will kill you."

Watari had to be at least seventy years old, but Light had seen him with a sniper rifle, and he had raised such a person as L, and Light did not underestimate him. "I genuinely am not planning on killing him," Light disclosed. "I won't pretend that wasn't my plan from the beginning, but things have changed, and I'm not going to kill him."

"That's not the only kind of gone I mean."

Did Watari know that Light was planning on turning L into Kira?

"Why would I hurt him? Haven't you heard? I love him."

"I don't believe that for a second."

"You think I don't love him?"

"I know that loving someone doesn't mean you won't hurt them."

"I thought you Christians were the ones who believed in love. Love never fails, and God is love, and all that jazz."

"We love because He first loved us. You know nothing about God, and you know nothing about love."

"Well, excuse me. You obviously do, and you're doing such a good job of showing it. In fact, I may convert right this instant."

Now it was L's voice over the microphone, distant and sad. "Please, Watari."

"L! I thought you were—"

"I've had enough sleep for tonight. I'll take over, and you can get some rest."

"I didn't—"

"Please, Watari. You've said perfectly enough."

The soft static of the microphone cut off, and returned a few moments later. "Good evening, Light-kun."

Impossibly, Light had almost started missing L. He had been spoiled rotten by the handcuffs. "Good evening, L."

The air was tense between them. To what extent was there truly any love there? Light would have liked to say that it was all one-sided, if that, but he had let his guard down more than he had expected in giving up his memories, and he couldn't just pretend the last three months hadn't happened. There had been the obvious things, like sleeping together, but there had also been the little things, like having L beside him when he threw up every morning. The loneliness hadn't been there in the first confinement, and hadn't been common before that period, and Light didn't know what to do with it now.

"So, what's up?"

"Light-kun, what is your opinion of Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand?"

Light smiled, and the two of them spent a full twenty minutes tearing it to pieces.

It wasn't often that they agreed so wholeheartedly, and Light lay on his cot in the semi-darkness and wished for L to be in bed with him, and was afraid. He was just horny, he tried to tell himself, that it was unfortunate but nothing to be worried about, but he knew it was untrue. Then he told himself that L would become Kira soon, and then there would be nothing between the two of them anymore, and that made him feel a bit better.

Still, he was fidgety and displeased, and without realizing it he started tracing the Greek alphabet against the sheets, and by the time he got to ξ, L had noticed.

"Ἄνδρα μοι ἔννεπε, Μοῦσα," he said, and Light smiled, "πολύτροπον, ὅς μάλα πολλὰ—"

"πλάγχθη," Light picked up at once, "ἐπεὶ Τροίης ἱερὸν πτολίεθρον ἔπερσεν,"

And so they continued reciting The Odyssey, each taking one line, until they made it to the tenth line, and Light had not bothered to memorize it any farther than that. L went for another thirty-three lines on his own, and then even his memory was exhausted. So then he pulled it up on his laptop and continued reading, and that was how Light fell asleep that night, and every night after that for the next two weeks.

Ryuk had not showed up yet, and now Light was leaving his prison and running the risk of missing Ryuk's arrival entirely.

But Light couldn't very well say that. "Sorry, L. I know I promised I would pursue getting treatment so I could survive to legal age and possibly have a long-term relationship with you, but I'm waiting for a shinigami who will help me take over the world and that's more important than anything I could ever have with you. Can we maybe reschedule for next week? We could read The Illiad in the meantime."

To be perfectly honest, Light didn't even like saying things like that in the privacy of his own mind.

Light was handcuffed and blindfolded, of course. But it was L's gentle hands that did the binding, and that spun him around to disorient him, and when Light was so disoriented that it was only L's hands keeping him upright at all, it was L that kissed his mouth, only for Watari to make a noise of alarm and pull L away and be the one to firmly hustle Light to the limo.

For the first time in three months, L sat shotgun, and Light was buckled into the middle seat by himself.

L and Watari genuinely trusted the oncologist Light was seeing, and for good reason. She didn't do so much as a double take when she saw that Light was now the only one who was handcuffed. She also knew at once that something far more important was different. "What's changed?" she demanded.

"What do you mean?" Light asked.

"You want to live now. I can see it in your eyes. What happened?" She nodded towards L, whose eyes widened. "Did he propose to you?" she asked Light.

Watari started spluttering, but Light just said, "No."

She shook her head. "You wait three months and then decide you want treatment. Typical. Well, I'll look over your scans, and we'll see what we can do. Come back in a week for my decision." She pulled over her rolling stool and pulled out her tablet. "Until then, let's talk about your symptoms in the past month."

Light told her about the vomiting and how it had been getting worse, and then better in the past two weeks, because he only threw up in the mornings instead of in the middle of the night now.

"You're better rested," she observed. "Lull in the nightmares?"

Light flinched and went red, because this was not something that they had discussed before.

"I had to bring it up eventually. Well?"

Horrified that it had apparently been so obvious, Light said, "Yeah, lull in the nightmares."

"Any non-confidential changes in your eating or sleeping patterns?" She didn't even glance at the handcuffs as she said this. Incredible.

"My eating is more regular, and I'm sleeping more."

"Are you sleeping alone?"

Light went a deeper shade of red, and Watari may have stopped breathing, but Light said, "Yes."

"I see." She now turned her attention to L. "Are you eating more regularly and sleeping more?"

L was embarrassed as well, and his mouth pinched, but he pulled himself together and answered. "No."

"Less or the same?"

"Less."

"Are you sleeping alone?"

"Yes."

"Lull in the nightmares?"

"No."

"Worse or the same?"

"Worse."

"I see. I would encourage you to modify your eating and sleeping patterns, because when his health deteriorates, you're going to have to be healthy enough to take care of him. Understood?"

"Yes."

They continued through the list of possible symptoms until they hit seizing, at which point Light had to figure out how he was going to explain what had happened. "A little more than two weeks ago, I had a minor seizure. Déjà vu and inability to speak, but no motor issues or hallucinations." Commenting on how Light had obviously done his research was unnecessary, so she did not comment. "I've also had a handful of motor seizures that were very different and that should not be considered in generating a treatment plan."

She trusted him absolutely, and made a few notes on her tablet then moved through the rest of the symptoms. When they were done, she said, "Now that you are compliant, I am prescribing you prochlorperazine for the nausea. The possible side effects are confusion, drowsiness, dizziness, gastrointestinal upset, excitability, nightmares, uncontrollable muscle movements, and lip smacking or chewing movements, but of course when it comes to medication, anything can happen, so really just tell me if anything changes. Do you understand?"

Light hated to bring this up again, but he had to ask. "Nightmares?"

Her eyes were hard and kind. "Yes. Remember, feel free to experiment with your eating or sleeping patterns. And"—here she turned to L, ignoring Watari altogether—"indulge him, but take care of yourself. Understood?"

Both L and Light nodded.

"I am not prescribing you any medication for the seizures yet. I want to see how you respond to the prochlorperazine without adding anything else, and I want to form a long-term treatment plan before I decide what to do about the seizures. If you do have any more seizures, motor or otherwise, I want you to call my office right away, explain what is happening, and I will decide whether you need to come in to see me or whether it can wait. Understand?"

All three of them said that they did.

She didn't give them a prescription because her office just had plenty of prochlorperazine on hand, because there were plenty of nauseous people with cancer and because this was the kind of place people went to when they didn't want to be seen at a pharmacy. And so, one bag of prescription drugs richer, Light was blindfolded and disoriented and buckled back into the middle seat of the limo.

But this time L lingered during the buckling process, and when the door shut, L was still beside him, making sounds that sounded an awful lot like he was buckling himself in too.

"What do you think you're doing?" Watari demanded, voice tight, and Light was sort of wondering the same thing.

"I am putting on my seatbelt because I am going to be in a moving vehicle."

"You know that's not what I'm asking."

L refused to play along. "Then what are you asking?"

"Fine. Do what you'd like." There was a low humming that sounded like Watari rolling up that little tinted window between the front and back of the limo. What did he think L and Light were going to be doing? Perhaps more importantly, what did L think they were going to be doing? Light hated the idea of being blindfolded and unable to see L's expressions, unable to see what he expected of him, during potentially important conversation during this three hour car ride.

They had been sitting in stiff silence for a solid ten minutes when L reached his hand over and twined his fingers through Light's. Light held his hand back, but did not squeeze. "Good afternoon," he said, with just enough formality to be playful.

"Good afternoon," L murmured back, and he pillowed his head on Light's shoulder, and after a moment of amazement, Light relaxed and leaned his cheek on the top of L's head.

"Your nightmares are getting better," L said.

Light hummed.

"Should I be glad?"

Light shrugged, gently. "It's not that they're better so much as that they're gone. It's because the memories are back. Kira doesn't dream."

This startled L and he was quiet for a little while. "The Death Note…?" he ventured, but Light shook his head.

"This isn't about the Death Note. It's about me. I had nightmares at first, of course, but I couldn't let that get in the way of my work. So soon enough they just went away."

"Just like that."

"I guess."

"Hm." L let go of Light's hand, and for one panicked moment, Light wondered whether he had scared L away with his casual talk of being Kira, and it was panic not on a strategic level but on a far deeper one. But L was not recoiling. He was using both of his hands to hold gently to Light's face, and to steady it for a kiss, then a second, and a third, and a fourth—

"Wait," Light murmured, because he didn't know when it was going to stop, and he didn't know whether he wanted it ever to stop, and everything was much more confusing than it should have been. "Wait, please. I'm just— I can't—"

And L said, "Okay," and his hands pulled away reluctantly and went back to hold both of Light's, which were cold and trembling. "Please just talk to me. Okay?"

But Light didn't know who L wanted to talk to. Was it a conversation with Light he was looking for, or with Kira? If Light, was it Light-before-Kira or Light-after-Kira? Worst of all, if L just wanted to talk to the real person whose hands he was holding and whose mouth he had been kissing, who was that real person at all?

"You're thinking very hard," L said. "I can see it in your mouth."

"What do you want from me?" Light asked, with daring honesty. "Why are you here? What are you doing?"

L sighed, and his warm breath told Light how close he was. "I've told you already, but you weren't listening. I want to know how you're doing. I want to be close to you. I want you to talk to me."

This was a crucial moment. Light had to decide whether it was plausible for Kira to let down his guard in the face of something that was either brutal honesty or blatant deception. If there was ever a time to do it, it was now. And if Light was to be successful in convincing L to become Kira for him, he would have to do it, and soon. Were there any downsides to giving in so easily? Light was having trouble thinking even of downsides that he could dismiss easily.

"You're thinking too hard again," L said.

"I know." Light bit at his lower lip, his mind stalled, his heart racing. L was wrong. The problem wasn't that he was thinking too much, but that he couldn't think at all.

"I'm going to try again, okay?"

Light either could not or could not want to reason his way into an answer. Instead, he leaned forward in the direction of L's voice, and L met him halfway.

They kissed, and kissed, and Light was grateful for the little tinted window that Watari had raised, and he longed for his hands to be free and for the seatbelts to be gone, and L was perfect in every way, and it was incredible that they had gone two weeks without touching one another. It wasn't long before the both of them realized that they couldn't go much further with Watari right in the front seat, even with the little tinted window there, and at about the same time they whispered this conclusion in each other's ears, and they sighed and kissed sporadically and clung and slowly eased away until they were comfortably settled against one another. Light had his eyes closed behind the blindfold, and he pretended that it was nighttime and neither of them could see the other one.

"Your nightmares are getting worse," Light said, sadly.

L nodded. "I was being honest when I told you that it was incredible for you to be able to calm me down so quickly. Now my recovery time is longer, and I wake up in more of a panic. And I haven't chosen difficult enough cases to be able to convince myself to work on them instead of trying to sleep."

Light was shocked. "You're working on new cases?"

"Of course. I've told you already. The Kira case is over."

Like hell it was. "I suppose. That was just quicker than I had expected."

"The cases were piling up. I hadn't touched any cases as Deneuve in far too long. He's officially only the third best, but that doesn't mean that he can just disappear."

"Oh," Light said loftily, "only the third best."

Light could imagine L grinning, and he wished he could see it. "Yes, only the third best. Just petty assassinations."

"Only nationwide scandals."

Light laughed. "Mere politics." And L ducked his face into Light's neck and breathed deeply.

They snuggled—there was no dignified term for it, and Kira was just going to have to deal with it for the time being—in silence for a long while, and then L said, "Perhaps one day you could pick up Deneuve's cases. I've been getting tired of him anyhow."

"You want Kira to be a detective?"

"I want Yagami Light to be a detective. Besides, as long as you're working for me, how much trouble could you really get into?"

"It's true. You never cause any trouble."

L laughed, and snuggled closer.

"I'll have to have a life expectancy longer than a year before I go signing any contracts though. I wouldn't want to dupe you by making you pay me a year's worth of a work that I have no plans on finishing."

"Then I suppose an incredible salary will be your incentive for staying alive." Quietly, he added, speaking to real-world concerns, "Your family would be comfortable for years."

Light did not want to think of the real world or its endless concerns. "We'll see next week whether the partnership has any chance of coming through."

"I'll have to interview you first, of course. The position is very competitive."

"Who says I'll say yes? I've been sending out résumés. I'm very sought after, you know."

"I know."

And so they alternated between silence and banter and kisses. Light did not think about what he was doing, and Kira held his tongue, and L may or may not have known that there was a difference. Watari, for his part, remained completely silent, and he may or may not have been checking his rear view mirror over the course of the entire trip. Regardless, they soon wound up back at the prison that was their home, safe and sound. Light was disoriented, kissed, and led back to his cell, where his handcuffs and blindfold were removed, and everything changed yet again.