AN: TOMORROW IS THE LAST DAY I'M STUCK IN SCHOOL! AND TOMORROW IS ALSO THE ONE YEAR ANNIVERSARY OF THIS FIC! WHOOOOOT!

May 28, 2011
7:52 PM

The room was quiet.

So Yamamoto knew Light before, and he inadvertantly told Light where the Death Note was...

"In a way," L said, breaking the stunned silence, "that makes perfect sense."

"Huh?" a meek Yamamoto asked. "You're not going to throw me in prison or anything?"

L glanced between Yamamoto and the doctor. "I haven't decided what to do about you or Mido yet, but I'm only about 2% concerned with that at the moment." We need to catch Light before we can bother with anything else.

"Wait," Aizawa said with a frown, "it makes perfect sense that Yamamoto told Light about Miyano?"

"It explains why Light hasn't killed any of us yet," L quickly clarified as he looked over the investigation team's stunned faces. "Other than myself, he has every reason to believe that the rest of you are still alive, and after killing Near he very well should have gone ahead and killed the rest of you at about the same time-"

"So we're all going to die?" Matsuda panicked.

L frowned. "No, Matsuda-san, that's the point. He didn't kill any of you when he was Kira before-because, I believe, he didn't want to kill his own father. The same idea applies here because Yamamoto is his friend." For the most part, what he said was completely true... perhaps it still didn't explain why the SPK hadn't had heart attacks, but L didn't intend to look into that matter too deeply.

"So... we aren't completely safe... but this is as good as it might get," Aizawa summed up.

"More or less," Mido said, shrugging. He sighed and rubbed his forehead habitually.

"We need to catch him," Halle pointed out, "before he changes his mind."

"How on earth are we going to catch him?" Gevanni asked nobody in particular.

It was silent again. Then an incredibly simple idea came to L. He tilted his head and turned to look at Mido. "Any ideas, doctor?" he pointedly asked.

Mido thought for a brief moment before opting to sigh again. "I don't think I can help you with this... I'm sorry."

Oh, but you can... "You found me, didn't you?"

For a minute, the doctor's face was positively blank. "Well, I did..."

"How?" L hinted.

"Because I... I'm not sure what you're getting at."

"Well, I didn't tell you where I was going, so you had to use..."

"I used... OH!" Mido finally got it. "That tracking dot!"

"A tracking dot...?" Aizawa questioned. "What the hell are you guys talking about?"

"I put a tracking dot in one of L's shoes when he decided he wanted to leave the building," Mido explained. "The very day Miyano became Kira, I used it to find him. You're lucky-I did the same thing to Light's shoe... just as a precaution, you know?"

"Good call," Rester said approvingly.

"Alright," said Matsuda, "so we can just use the tracking dot to find Light..." A goofy grin came onto his face. "I feel better about the situation already!"

"Don't get too excited," Aizawa warned. "We haven't caught him yet."

"Indeed," L murmured. Louder, he said, "I'm sure that if we all go downstairs, Mido-san would show us how we can track Light in a short amout of time."

The doctor stepped out of the doorway. "Come on: we're losing valuble time..."

Everyone left the room, with Mido standing there by the door and L still sitting in his chair. Mido, not 100% sure what L was doing, frowned. "Aren't you coming, Ryuzaki?"

L stared at him, unperturbed. "How long have you known?"

"How long have I-" The doctor was thrown off. "...Hmm? What are you talking about?"

"How long," L said again, "have you known?"

"Known what?"

L continued to stare. "You called me L."

Mido blinked. "...Oh."

"Let me ask you once again: how long have you known that I am L?"

The doctor half-opened his mouth, then frowned and closed it again. Finally he said, "Honestly, I'm not sure. One day, a few months ago... I just knew."

"Did you suspect it before then?" L asked, tilting his head.

Mido almost smiled. "Oh, definitely."

"Since when?"

The doctor half-shrugged. "Well... since I got your body. It occurred to me that perhaps Soichiro Yagami wasn't talking about just a friend-he had spoken rather as though he revered you, like all hope was completely lost when you died." Mido paused. "Not to mention... he called you 'One of the brightest members of the team.' I frankly couldn't imagine there being a person that would have had all that apply and not be L."

L tilted his head and continued to stare at the doctor. "Oh... but there was."

Light Yagami.

Mido looked at L. "I know I assumed wrong now: that lesson was learned the hard way."

L bit his thumb. "It's quite coincidental, really: you just happen to get my body, as well as the body of the man that killed me." And you brought both of us back to life.

"I didn't see it that way," Mido said defensively. "All I knew was that two people died, both from cardiac arrest. One was practically unanimous, and he was killed because he was directly related to the investigation team. The other was the son of the man that gave me this job, and he was killed because he simply appeared to be in the wrong place at the wrong time."

"Perhaps..." Another thought crossed L's mind, and he frowned slightly before saying, "You owed a debt to Yagami-san, it is true. But Mido-san, I don't think you ever said why you brought me back to life."

The doctor didn't hesitate.

"Because," Mido replied, "I wanted to see Kira caught."

AN: Hmmmm... I'd say sorry for the long update, but almost nobody reviewed the last chapter. So I said to myself that instead of freaking out, I'd just wait to post until I got one more review... and that just happened to take forever.

So review!1!1111! (Even if it is just to say "ONE YEAR ALREADY?" LOL.)