Holy crap! Shiiiiiiitttt I'm sorry I've taken so long to update.

I was going to earlier today, but my mom got a new book and I hijacked it from her and spent the entire day reading it (and finished it because it was just that good (It's called The Academy by Bentley Little (if school scared you before, it will scare you forever once you read that book))).

SORRYYYYY!!

Disclaimer: I don't own Death Note, Irish rock music, or Metallica. They are just mentioned in my AN here and in my story. Except only Death Note is mentioned in the story itself

Other Disclaimer: I only pick on Matsuda because he's my other favorite character, so please do not hate me or kill me.

Anywhozle. Currently obsessive over Irish inflected rock music. Yepyep. And it's all Metallica's fault with their cover of "Whiskey in a Jar". Dammit.

Not really. I like Metallica :) or, at least, I do from when they were still thrash metal. Then they forgot what guitar solos were and it made me a tad bit angry.

Just a bit of random information for you :)


"But Kat-chan, Misa-Misa doesn't want to be left alone with that per–"

"I'm not staying in here. Besides, you won't be alone, Light'll be here."

"Yes, Misa knows Light will be here, but–"

"I've said it once– no, far more than once, Misa. I'm not staying in here just so I can listen to you complaining about Ryuzaki being chained to your boyfriend."

Misa huffily crossed her arms and legs and looked away from Katherine, who was quite welcoming of the quiet. It was nice to have such a large flat to live in now rather than a hotel room. It was easier to escape from Misa and it didn't feel like Misa was everywhere she was. When she was less apprehensive, she was better at winning arguments with Misa. Misa was still insisting that L had a crush on Katherine, but walking away was a lot easier when she had her own key and Misa didn't.

The new investigation headquarters had been finished by the week's end and everything that needed to be moved was already moved. It was definitely far better than the other option of changing hotel rooms every other week; this was a permanent headquarters that none of the police except those working on the investigation team knew about. It was probably about a hundred and something floors, all of which were large apartment complexes, except for the lobby on the bottom floor and the investigation room on another.

Katherine looked over at Misa to see she had a hopeful look on her face again. She was planning another tactic now, she could tell…. Misa looked around the room for a moment and moved closer.

"If Kat-chan here, it would be more like a double date!" she whispered.

"Misa, I don't look at him like that."

"Don't say that! Kat-chan hasn't known him for very long, Kat-chan could start to like Ryuzaki-san, and Misa thinks Kat-chan might already like Ryuzaki-san like that without knowing it!"

She sighed. "Fine. You win this time. Alright? I still don't think I like him. But I will stay as long as you promise not to refer to it as a 'double date' again. Okay?"

"Okay! Thank you, Kat-chan!!"

Katherine grumbled and rolled her eyes skyward in response. Misa never failed to be annoyingly persuasive, and it wasn't even like she was good at arguing! She only stated the same points over and over again to annoy the other party into agreeing to do what ever she wanted. It was effective, but that didn't mean she was good at coming up with actual arguments that made any sense. Granted, L had already said he had a crush on her. And she did like him. That meant Misa was standing on solid ground in this particular argument. It didn't, however, give her the right to hold Katherine hostage against her own free will. That was completely unjust and even more unfair…

"What now?" Katherine said impatiently, noticing the close examination she was getting from Misa.

"Shouldn't Kat-chan change into something a little less–"

"If you attempt to put me in a corset again then you will regret ever being born."

"Doesn't Kat-chan have any less… um… dirty t-shirts of her own?"

"It's not dirty, it's just baggy."

"Yes, but that makes it look grungy…."

Katherine looked down at her shirt. "But it's an Alice in Chains shirt. They are grunge."

Misa sighed. "Misa isn't talking about what kind of music it is, Misa means that Kat-chan's skirt looks scruffy and messy. Kat-chan doesn't have any girl's t-shirts?

"At my house, yes. You can give it up, Misa. I'm not changing. If you try to make me, I'm not even going to stay in here."

Katherine smiled at the look of resignation Misa now had. At least she had won one argument. There was still some dignity to be had in such a situation, and it wasn't going to Misa. Misa had already stolen enough of her dignity just by hanging out with her.

"Kat-chan?" Misa said pleadingly. "Doesn't Kat-chan wear the same t-shirt size as Misa?"

Katherine growled in frustration. "Yes, Kat-chan freaking does!"

"Then Kat-chan could borrow one of Misa's t-shirts and–"

"Fine!"

"Yay!" Misa said excitedly, clapping her hands.

"Dignity be damned…" Katherine murmured as she crossed her legs and leaned sideways into the arm of the couch next to her.

It was then that she heard her pocket start singing, which puzzled her horribly for a moment. But after the first line of the song was sung–

"Woke up this morning, with a wine glass in my hand"

– she figured out it was her cell phone.

"Ah, shit, forgot to turn that off." Katherine stretched out her left leg and managed to wrench her cell phone out of her pocket, looking at the caller ID, though she didn't have to. That ringer was set specifically to–

"Don," she said, looking at the front of the phone.

"– Whose wine? What wine? Where the hell did I dine?–"

"Don?"

"You've met him," she said, managing to tune out the song on her ringer that was already replaying itself in her head. "You remember we went out partying with a few of my friends one night?"

"Yeah…"

"Don's the one I told you about who got the worm in his shot of tequila and we found him the next morning in jail wearing a pink frilly cocktail dress and some guy's phone number written on his hand, and he still doesn't remember what happened. How anyone could forget such circumstances is beyond me…."

"Oh!" Misa said, seeming to remember. "Wasn't Pat the one with the brown hair?"

"The one you thought was cute, yes."

"Did not!"

"Yes, anyway." Katherine said, flipping open her phone and holding it to her ear. "It's been bloody ages, what's goin' on?"

"I was going to ask you that, actually. Your car has been missing from the garage you had it parked in for weeks now. What is going on?"

"Calm down, Mum," she said mockingly, grinning at the grumble of annoyance she received in return on the other line. "You know damn well where I am, you fecking id-jit. And if you don't, I ought to slap you."

"Yes, I know you're working on the you-know-what case I'm in public so I can't mention it in case you're wondering, but you've not even been coming home anymore? That seems strange."

"The truth can be very strange when criminals start dropping dead of 'eart attacks, my friend. It's not a simple case, so I've had no free time to spend at home or anywhere else. I'm currently rooming with a suspect, as I am also a suspect, and am under surveillance, mention what I have just told you to no one."

"Aside from–"

"Obviously."

"Isn't the suspect for the second Kira that annoying blond girl you went to school with last year?"

"Yeah."

"Is it her yeh 'ave to live with?"

"Yes."

She heard an amused laugh at the other end of the line, and rolled her eyes at it. On a scale of one to ten, his level of tact was at about negative infinity. "And I thought I had it bad being stuck living with Patrick Star–" She heard a garbled yell of "not-a-fecking-cartoon-fish" from the background of the conversation, then the sound of breaking glass. "Oi, stop throwing bot'les, ya lunatic, we're in public for the love of God! Shit… make one reference to a cartoon character and you get attacked…. So are you under surveillance?"

"Yeh…" she said with a sigh. "And are you in a bar? If the answer is yes, please tell me where so I can come there and throw a bottle at you as well."

"… No."

"It's eleven in the fucking morning!"

"Well, three in the bloody morning and Ireland and I never used to get 'ome 'til 'round four…" he grumbled. "That's not the point, anyway. I'm outside now, I can ask questions without any drunken bastards breathing down my neck–"

"Can't answer."

"Simple yes and no questions, I'll ask yeh in more detail later. First off, is there a new Kira?"

"What would make you think that?"

"The second Kira is still alive and you are apparently livin' with her, so I'm assuming the first is alive as well."

"Yes."

"And it is that kid with the name that is a synonym of 'illumination' when spoken in English?"

"Correct, and an interesting way to put it."

"Alright, and – oh, hell…. Got to go now, the starfish has just found me–"

"I'm not a bloody cartoon character!"

"– and I think I should run before I'm murdered. Call back as soon as you can give us more information, we might be able to find something else out considering 'ow you're under surveillance and we're not."

"Will do. And don't get too drunk."

"Oh, sod off…"

The other line clicked, and she shut her own cell phone at the sounds of a dial tone, only to find a pair of large, clueless, and curious eyes staring at her from another seat on the couch, belonging to, of course, Misa, who hadn't left her seat since Katherine flipped her phone open.

"Was Kat-chan talking about the Kira case to people not investigating it?" she asked quietly.

"They are investigating it," she said. "They've been my spies since the beginning, I couldn't have found out half of what I know without them and – dammit, what now…"

She flipped her phone open again at the sound of the ringtone corresponding to Don's number.

"Oi?"

"Pat wants to talk to Misa," he said, his tone of voice somewhere between amusement and exasperation.

Katherine rolled her eyes. "Put him on."

"'ere," she heard Don's voice say, and there was a whooshing noise as though the phone had been thrown to someone else.

"'Allo?" Pat said.

"Pat," Katherine said in a falsely stern voice, "I'll not have you whoring yourself out like a piece of meat."

"Oh, come on, now! I just want to–"

"Don't worry, we're all fully aware of what you want to do."

"I want to question her about Kira."

"Of course you do."

"I do–"

"You're half blitzed already, I can tell. She's not even in the same room right now."

"Then get her."

"No."

"Please?"

"No."

"Please?"

"No!"

"What's going on?" Misa asked curiously.

"I 'eard 'er!"

"That wasn't Misa."

"Why is Kat-chan talking about Misa?" Misa asked.

"Was too!"

"Stop questioning me!" she half-yelled at both of them.

Misa blinked a few times. "Is Kat-chan angry?"

"Not at you," she said to Misa quickly before continuing with her now silent but still tipsy friend at the other end of the line. "Patty–"

"Don't call me that, it sounds girly."

"– go drink yourself into a stupor and call me back when you're sober, you seem to be quite a bit more reasonable when you are. Okay?"

"I'm barely tipsy as it is now, I've only 'ad a few shots. Besides, it's only eleven in the morning."

"You're the one at the bar."

"Which was not my idea. Don practically dragged me here. Said I was spending too much fecking time on the fecking case because he's a fecking asswipe who–"

"That's a little harsh!" she heard Don say in the background.

"Go boil yer arse in a piranha tank!"

"Where'd you hear that one?" Katherine asked, with every intention to use it on either Aizawa or Light later on.

"Just came up with it. Good, innit?"

"I'm definitely using it now."

She heard static on the other line for a brief moment. "You're not encouraging him, are you?"

"Oh, but of course not. I need to go. Misa's planning to give me a makeover in the near future," she added, allowing her voice to express her distain at the idea, which Misa luckily paid no attention to. "I'll call you back later. And no matter how much Pat pesters you, please don't call back and let him pester me."

She shut her phone after a quick goodbye and set it on the table in front of the couch. She looked at Misa, then thought of the fairly under crowded bar that Pat and Don were most likely in, and couldn't help but wonder how she managed to turn herself into a magnet for people with less common sense than a toaster oven. Katherine sighed, shaking her head and deciding to dismiss the thought. She flinched at Misa's voice, but not so much the sound of it as the question she was asking.

"Kat-chan is going to let Misa give her a makeover??" she said excitedly.

"No," Katherine said. She tried to make her voice commanding, but her answer more so came out as a spluttered request out of fear at the thought of being dressed in another corset. They hurt. "No. No makeover. Makeup, sure, but if you even try to put me in a skirt, I'm going to chop of your pigtails."

"Kat-chan is mean," Misa said huffily.

"Cut it out or I'll tell your boyfriend you have a crush on my friend."

"He might have heard you!"

"Then you do?"

"Misa does not!"

"Ooof course not."

Misa crossed her arms in a huff, but then remembered that she had to get Katherine ready for their "double date" (Katherine grimaced at Misa's reference to it as such, but managed to ignore it) and was almost instantly pulling her off of the couch by her wrist as though leading a disobedient child out of a store to give it a good telling-off.


Matsuda glanced back as the last of the task force entered their new and astoundingly large headquarters… for some reason carrying his pants with him rather than wearing them. He decided it was probably because the metal detector outside of that room wouldn't allow him through with them on for whatever reason and continued showing the chief how to start up the rather complicated computer system, which Matsuda had already been walked through by Light an L. A couple times. And he mostly understood it now. It was complicated equipment, after all…

"And you use this key to start all the computers…" Matsuda was saying.

I think that's the right key… he thought as Yagami listened to his instruction.

Aizawa stopped behind them. "You know, it's a pain just to get in here when you're not used to the retina and fingerprint scans."

Or the metal detector… Matsuda thought to himself contemplatively, glancing back at Aizawa.

Yagami looked back. "What happened to your forehead?"

Huh. He did have a bandage there that Matsuda hadn't noticed upon glancing back.

"I got in a fight with my wife about the hours I've been having to work. My kids are still small, so I'll probably have to be commuting."

"What a waste," Matsuda said, turning after he started the computers. "It's hard to find rooms like the ones here anywhere, even in a million dollar mansion. Your whole family should move in."

"Don't be an idiot, family members are still outsiders to the Kira case. If I were allowed to tell my wife it were revenge for Ukita, then maybe she'd understand. And why is half of the team missing?" he added, looking around.

"Light-kun and Misa-Misa are on a date," Matsuda explained. "We can see it on the cameras," he added in slight amusement.

"Can we?"

"Yeah," he said, taking to the keyboard and remembering how to access the cameras. "There's cameras everywhere in this building, no blind spots at all. In all the rooms, too, but only Misa-Misa and Kat's room is watched regularly."

"Considering they're both suspects, that does make sense. But Matsuda, stop calling her Misa-Misa."

"Right." The name did seem to get on Aizawa's nerves. The cameras came up on the screen. "See?"

In the room, Katherine and Misa were on one couch, both of them looking extremely irritated, but obviously for different reasons. Misa was irritated at L just because he was there. Katherine was glaring between the model and the detective. She was probably still quite upset with L for forcing her to stay in the same room as Misa (hopefully no more revenge would ensue), and she was probably angry with Misa due to the fact that she had most likely been forced into the corset she was wearing.

"This doesn't feel like a date like this…" Misa complained, fixing a glare pointedly on L.

Katherine gave an annoyed noise, picking up a box of Cheez-Its inexplicably from the floor next to her (apparently they had already been there for a little while) and opening them.

"And so it begins…." she said through gritted teeth.

She shoot Misa a look of pure evil. If she was Kira, it was probably that glare she used to kill people. There were no ifs about whether or not her looks could kill. If she glared at anyone for long enough, they would probably die on purpose just to end the threat the felt was being imposed on their lives. Being as oblivious as Misa was, however, she took no notice to the glare that would have burned two eye shaped holes in the side of anyone else's head, and continued glaring at L, who was sitting on the couch across the table next to Light, eating a slice of cake.

"You don't have to mind me. Are you going to eat that cake?" he added, pointing at the untouched cake in front of Misa.

"I try to watch sweets, they make you fat."

"If you use your head, you won't get fat even if you eat sweets."

"Oh!" Misa said indignantly. "There you go making fun of me again."

Katherine sniggered. "Burn. What?" she added in a slightly more aggressive tone as Misa turned her glare on her friend. "You deserve that."

"For what?" Katherine tugged at the material of the corset she was wearing in response – or rather, tried to. It was hard to get a grip on any loose material when wearing a shirt that had no loose material.

"I was under the impression that I was going to be wearing a t-shirt!"

"So you aren't going to eat the cake?" L asked again, still pointing.

"If you leave me and Light alone together, then you can have the cake."

"Fecking made me stay…" Katherine grumbled, rolling her eyes.

"Even if I leave you two alone together, I can watch from the cameras downstairs, so it's the same thing."

"I told you that's perverted!" Misa yelled at him, leaning forward as she glared. "Would you stop with that kind of fetish?"

"Say what you want," L said, standing up on the couch easily from his sitting position and grabbing the plate in front of Misa, "but I will still be taking your cake."

"Well, fine," Misa said mockingly. "I'll just shut all the curtains and turn off the lamps and things when I'm alone with Light."

"It's also an infrared camera," L informed her.

"Then should we cover ourselves with the futon, Light?" Misa asked him sweetly.

Katherine refrained from finding a spoon to gag herself with, at the same time she refrained from kicking some sense into Misa with the insufferable spike healed boots Misa had forced her to wear. Misa had indignantly denied Katherine's claim that they were "hooker heals," and Katherine had bitterly insisted they were until they both gave up arguing each other's points and Katherine agreed to put them on. It hadn't been fun at all.

"More importantly," Light said, ignoring Misa, "we've moved to a headquarters with better equipment, but you seem to have no motivation."

"Mo… more importantly??" Misa said, between outrage and sadness.

"Double burn."

"Kat-chan!"

"Motivation?" L repeated. "I have none. I'm actually depressed."

"D… depressed?" Light repeated, a mixture of surprise and confusion on his face.

If he was falling for this act, Katherine couldn't help but wonder if Light's test scores really did anything to reflect any common sense that he might have possibly had.

"Yes," L said.

Katherine's mind wandered off as she listened to them discuss this "depression" that L was suffering through (she refrained from laughing at the pitiful act, particularly the fact that Light was buying into it). Apparently, L basically felt depressed because he was wrong about Light and Misa being Kira and the second Kira, even though he still did believe he was correct. This was an obvious lie to Katherine, at the least, considering he could definitely see Shinigami and he definitely knew that Light's Shinigami had left him. This was where Katherine's mind wandered off track. Much of a pain in the ass as that Shinigami had been, she kind of missed its occasional wisecracks, which she had had to compensate for to amuse herself. It just wasn't the same when it was from a human, however, rather than an eight foot tall winged gothic jester that seemed to be a bigger smart ass than herself.

And it still wasn't fair that she had gotten her Death Note years before Light and Misa got theirs and her Shinigami was still in the stupid Shinigami realm. She managed not to roll her eyes at the thought. King of the Shinigami or not, she just didn't give a damn. It was no excuse! Light hadn't even appreciated having a Shinigami. He probably didn't even like buying it apples. It was no worse than buying puppy chow for a puppy, for Christ's sake. She would have even taken a more reasonable Shinigami like Rem. She didn't care.

Damn jealousy… she thought in response to her own mind's incoherent ponderings of Death Gods and why they hated her so much. Damn it to hel– holy shit he sooo did not just punch my panda!

Katherine found herself gaping at the scene as she was snapped back into focus by Misa's sudden shriek, with a slight inclination to lunge at Light like a cheetah and snap his neck.

She managed to refrain.

For now… she thought, feeling her fists clench involuntarily as Misa hid behind the couch.


The chapters have basically been filler with bits of comic relief lately, but it's leading up to major plot points.

So please don't be as annoyed with me as I am with myself.

Aside from this, "Do You Feel Like We Do" by Peter Frampton (ringtone song in story) is what's annoying me now because it's been stuck in my head for the past umpteen days.

I need to go learn that shit on geetar.

Thanks ta all the nice reviewers and favoriters. I don't want to thank anyone in particular because I don't like discriminating other peoples (though those who have been commenting since nearly the beginning know who you are and still get extra thanks), and I'm grateful to everyone.