AN: YAY!! I'VE GOTTEN MORE THAN FIFTY REVIEWS!! Oh holy holy holy holy HOLY FREAKING WOW AM I HAPPY!! I'm also really happy to read your reviews!! SO MANY OF YOU GUESSED WHERE L IS IT MAKES ME TINGLE!! A lot of you knew EXACTLY where he was, a lot of you had no clue, a bunch of people made funny guesses for the heck of it, and one anonymous person thought he had opened the door to a kitchen and was looking for sugar cubes!! (I was taking a drink of water when I read that one... It went up my nose and I almost died laughing.)

Also, the chapter title for the last one had NOTHING to do with where L is. It was just something silly (and apparently misleading) that I had come up with about 2 seconds before posting it.

As promised: EARLY UPDATE!! (LOL, and maybe I'll hurry in my posting of the next chapter too. I AM THAT EXCITED!!)

February 6, 2011
1:48 PM

Stairs.

Stairs going up.

That was where L was: the stairwell for the building he had commissioned for the task force.

L wasn't sure how he was going to make it up to the ground level without passing out, but that was besides the point.

The point was, if he could make it up the stairs, he would find one very important piece of equipment that he was 99.999% sure hadn't been moved. Well, technically it couldn't be moved: it was really more of a matter of whether the electricity was still on...

But he had to find it to find out.

Slowly and methodically, L pulled himself up step by step.

Okay, I've let him wander around long enough.

After ten minutes of sitting and staring at a blank monitor of an empty hospital bed, Mido was--and he purposely borrowed Ryuzaki's habit--99% sure that his patient had seen everything that there was to be seen around the place. Knowing him he's probably gone through all my secretary's files.

Mido stepped out of the room, and immediately saw...

What the hell?!

There was a hole in the wall!! Where the hell did that come from?! Mido, not even remembering Ryuzaki anymore, immediately ran over to investigate. Yes, there was definitely a hole in the wall, but how had it gotten there...?!

Pressing one of the tiles by accident, Mido revealed some kind of electronic screen that he had never seen before. On it was displayed a message.

DOOR JAMMED
PLEASE CLEAR OFF SENSORS

Clear off sensors...? Mido didn't know what that meant, but it didn't sound good. What could be blocking a sensor...?

The answer, it turned out, was right at his feet. A clipboard that belonged in his office was placed on the floor against a motion detector. Consequently, the door "knew", so to speak, that something was there, and by default it wouldn't shut.

Mido smiled to himself. What a classic trick.

The doctor was about to pick the clipboard up when he had a startling and rather stupid thought.

Clipboards don't open doors...!

He mentally scolded himself for not thinking that before. Someone had opened it and blocked the sensor so that it wouldn't automatically shut after them.

But no one who's ever been down here would be smart enough to figure out that this--

Mido didn't even give himself the chance to finish that thought.

"God dammit!!" he said to himself.

Ryuzaki!!

The doctor dashed through the doorway and ran up the stairs in front of him without a moment's hesitation.

Up one set.

Two.

Three.

Where the hell could he have gone?! And how the hell did he even get that door open in the first place?!

It was on the fourth set of stairs going upward--which appeared to be ground level--that Mido found another opened door. Unlike the one in the basement, this one was ordinary. It wasn't even electronic.

But it had been propped open with another clipboard.

Dammit, is Ryuzaki a kleptomaniac or something?! How many of these did he take?!

He stepped through into the room. It looked like some sort of... control center, maybe. There were several computers and countless monitors to go along with them. They were all covered with dust, and obviously hadn't been touched for years.

"Ryuzaki!!" he called out. "Dammit, where are you?! And what are you doing up here?!"

"I thought Mido-san didn't like it when things were kept from him."

Mido whirled around. Ryuzaki was bending over, picking up the clipboard that propped the door open. "Good God!" Mido shouted at him. "You scared the hell out of me!!"

Ryuzaki just stood there, unperturbed. "Is that so?"

The doctor habitually noticed that his patient was using terrible posture. Assuming that Ryuzaki had any common sense, he would have realized that this pissed Mido off even more. "You're slouching just to aggravate me more, aren't you?!"

"No. I always stand like this."

"Liar."

"I beg to differ."

"Look, you've had your fun, Ryuzaki!! So would you mind explaining to me exactly how you got up here?!"

Ryuzaki actually looked amused by the doctor's hot temper. "I opened the door and walked up the stairs. What else is there for me to explain?"

Mido gave a sigh of exasperation. "But WHY?!"

This time, Ryuzaki seemed to hesitate in answering. "Because," he slowly said, "I was bored staying downstairs."

Mido had to force himself not to roll his eyes. "I already knew that! Are you sure that's the only reason??"

"No. As a matter of fact, I know it isn't the only reason."

Mido waited.

"...Well?" he prompted.

"'Well' what?"

"What other reason do you have for coming up here?!" Why does he have to be so damn difficult NOW, of all times?!

"Because I want ice cream."

...Did I hear that right?!

"You want ice cream," Mido numbly repeated.

"Yes. I want ice cream. And if I can assume that the freezer is still running--"

"Wait a minute!! How the hell do you even know there's a freezer around here?!"

"Maybe I could find some chocolate... Or sherbet would be nice..."

"RYUZAKI!!"

For a moment, they both simply stared at each other. Slowly, methodically, Ryuzaki sighed and turned around so he no longer faced the doctor. "I apologize, Mido-san. Today has held many unexpected instances of déjà vu for me. It wears one down quite a bit..."

This sudden change of subject confused Mido. "Déjà vu? Like what?"

"Mido, I know the location of the freezer, the building layout, and the security codes because... I lived here."

...What?!

"Excuse me?!" he managed. "You LIVED here?!"

"Correct."

...Wow.

"L built this building for the remaining members of the investigation team," Ryuzaki continued. "It was where we all lived for a few months. Until, I would guess..."

Until Ryuzaki died.

"It was only after you'd died," Mido slowly thought out loud. "Yagami gave me the building about two weeks after I got your body... But... why after....?"

There was a pause.

"Mido-san," Ryuzaki said while glancing at him, "if you were chasing a serial killer that brings death by cardiac arrest and one of your colleagues dies from a heart attack, one can reasonably assume there is a serious security leak."

When Ryuzaki phrased it that way, it made sense. "So you're saying that L got scared and moved the Kira investigators somewhere safer."

Ryuzaki frowned. "I wouldn't necessarily say that L was scared... but yes, it is obvious they moved their headquarters somewhere else."

Mido huffed. "Sounds like L was scared to me," he muttered.

"Hmm? What was that?"

"Erm... Never mind."

Neither of them spoke for a while. Suddenly, without any prior signs, Ryuzaki started heading out the door.

"Hey!! Ryuzaki, where are you going??"

"To the elevator."

"Huh? Why do you need to go to the elevator??"

Mido's patient whirled around to face him. "Because frankly," he said with a perfectly straight face, "I don't want to go up any more stairs today, and the freezer is still another three floors above us."

Oh.

Of course Ryuzaki could be counted on to find his precious ice cream.

Mido didn't even think about it until later, but at some point he realized that clipboards are not only incapable of opening electronic doors, but they are also not able to move themselves to block electronic sensors or be door stoppers.

Or rather, that Ryuzaki had moved the clipboards to purposely keep the doors open.

But why? He obviously knew the access code and could have opened the electronic door again. It wasn't a complicated procedure; certainly it wasn't worth the trouble of jamming the thing. It had nothing to do with electrical problems, either. And the other door didn't even appear to have a lock on it.

So why had he done it...?

In the end, the doctor only came up with one good explanation.

Ryuzaki had left it open so Mido would be able to chase him.

AN: Ha ha!! L you bizarre insomniac genius... Apparently Mido was pawned into following him! Which is actually in his benefit, for once.

I had an interesting conversation with my dad over the ice cream thing. I just randomly walked up to him and was like, "Dad, if you have ice cream in a freezer for about five years, would it still be good?" He thought I was mental. ;-P
(In the end we decided that if it was frozen at 31 degrees Fahrenheit and hadn't been opened then it might have a chance.)

BTW, I might update fast for the heck of it, because I already have the next chapter written!! O.O But I might be cruel and wait a bit to plot out the story a little more, because frankly this is nothing like I had first thought it would end up being. That plan consisted of maybe 10 chapters, which is NOT happening here...

I'll stop rambling. REVIEW PLEASE!!