Chapter 5: The Honeymoon is Over.
It has been quite a while for these updates. I started writing this earlier in the summer and just never got around to finishing it. It didn't help that my computer quit working and classes started back up. I am back though, not sure how often I will be able to update with my current schedule being a mess, but that's how it goes sometimes. Please read and review and I will update when I can. I do not own Death Note, its characters, or anything related to it. I own Ellie and that is about all.
Ellie didn't sleep well that night. She tried to go to bed soon after being rejected by Laurent. She knew that she shouldn't be overreacting, he was probably just getting used to things again and it was she who had been selfish to think he would be anywhere near being able to have sex with her, he couldn't even sleep in the same room as her. She just sighed. She had been foolish and wasn't going to let it happen again at least not the way that it had.
When she woke up the sun was hanging over the horizon once again. She had managed to wake up with the dawn. She stretched and yawned. There was no way she was going back to sleep, and she was honestly relieved to be awake. Anything was better than the dreams she had been having. She of course couldn't remember many of them after she woke up, but waking up gasping and covered in a cold sweat, muscles aching from tossing all night were usually a good indicator to her of what kind of dream she must have been having. She woke up several times finding herself in that situation.
She looked at herself in the mirror. She looked more awful than she thought. She had dark circles under her eyes and everything about her looked exhausted. She hoped that Laurent wouldn't notice, she knew that he ignored her most of the time, but he might want not want to leave for the airport if she looked like she was going to collapse at any moment.
Ellie tried to cover as much as she could after a hot shower with makeup. She looked fairly acceptable.
She walked down the stairs to start breakfast. She knew that Laurent didn't really sleep and that he would be craving sugar soon. She hunted in the cabinets for pancake mix or even ingredients to make pancakes, but she finally gave up after a half an hour search.
She started to walk upstairs to find Laurent to ask him how to get to town. She hadn't been to town since being in the hospital, and even though that was just a few days ago it felt like forever sine then. Her wedding, that had just been the day before, even felt like it was years behind her.
She peaked into Laurent's office. She found him in front of his computer. He didn't look up at her.
"Yes?" he asked after a few moments of silence.
"Could you give me directions to the grocery store, I need to pick up some pancake mix," Ellie said.
He looked up at her and tried to hide the shocked expression. Ellie obviously hadn't noticed both the time and how Ellie looked.
"Have you been up all night?" Laurent asked with the most shocked expression Ellie had ever seen him wear.
"No," Ellie said. She wasn't lying technically. She had been sleeping in order to have had such horrible dreams, but if he had asked her if she had rested at all that night she would have to have answered him no.
"What time is it?" he asked her.
"About 6 why?" she asked.
"The grocery store doesn't open until 8," Laurent said.
Ellie cursed to herself. She should have guessed as much. "We have other foods here if you would like something else before our trip," Laurent said attempting to be helpful.
"Oh," Ellie said. "The pancakes weren't for me. They were for you," she added looking down at her feet.
Laurent said nothing. Ellie was also silent. The silence lasted for more than two minutes. Ellie hadn't looked up to see if Laurent was even looking at her anymore, and if he wasn't then she was going to feel even more foolish for standing in his doorway looking at her feet and not moving.
She stole a glance up. He was looking at her curiously which made her blush and then she shot her eyes back down.
"How are you feeling?" Ellie asked quietly stealing another glance up.
Laurent had his head titled slightly. "What?" he asked.
"I mean, with the wedding yesterday, and… well… giving up your chosen path because of two babies that neither of us is ready for. It's all… just too fast," Ellie said stumbling over her words. "I just want you to know you're not obligated, though I would like for you to be around, but not if you feel like you have to lock yourself away. This is your home, and I guess I just want you to be happy."
Laurent looked a little flabbergasted. He said nothing though he never broke his eye contact with Ellie.
"I think I'll just get an apple or something," Ellie said finally breaking the eye contact.
Laurent nodded and Ellie left the office. She walked down the stairs into the kitchen and grabbed an apple out of fruit out of the basket on the kitchen table. She wondered why Laurent kept a basket of fruit on the table anyway. She had never seen him eat fruit, or really care about what his space looked like. This house was so beautiful and there were just little decorative things that blew her mind. She finished the apple and looked at the clock again. She had only wasted 15 minutes eating the apple so now she had several hours to waste before they would be boarding a plane back to familiar territory.
Ellie walked back upstairs and packed. She wasn't sure what else she could do now, and she needed something to keep her hands busy. She pulled the knitting out that she had started at the beginning of the Kira investigation. She had started with a soft blue, but had worked in white and yellow as well. She had been expecting to make a scarf out of it, but she saw now she could easily start a blanket. She unraveled what she had started the blanket with the yarn pile that had started at her feet.
She looked up at the clock several times. It seemed every time she looked up she had lost another hour. Finally the clock read 10:36. She had managed to burn almost four hours by knitting and her blanket was starting to come along. She had a long way, but she knew before the twins were born they would each have handmade blanket. She rubbed her stomach and placed the knitting in with the rest of her luggage.
She continued packing the small amount of luggage she had. She hadn't brought much with her; most of her things from the Kira Investigation building were in a storage facility that Ellie used the last of her money to rent. The packing took her another half an hour and at that point she started getting antsy. She loved this place, but she wanted to get back to classes. She knew she had fallen very far behind, and that was when she remembered that she needed to contact the college she attended back where she used to call home before the Kira Investigation, before L, before she had even decided to study abroad. She could hardly remember living there now; it was the place that now felt so foreign. She opened her wallet to find the piece of paper she had tucked in one of the slots. This paper included the address, the extension numbers, and the fax numbers for the college she was attending in the states.
She dialed the number for the student services department. They connected her to her department and a jovial woman answered the phone.
"How can I help you today?" the woman on the other side of the line asked.
"I need to change my personal contact information," Ellie said.
"Oh," the woman on the other line said. "What do you need to have changed?"
"Name," Ellie said.
The woman seemed puzzled. "Eleanor Johnson was your name correct?" the woman asked reading Ellie's file Ellie presumed.
"Yes, I recently married." Ellie said.
The woman seemed to understand after that. "Congratulations! What is your current surname?"
"Wakatasuki," Ellie said.
"Well, that's a mouthful," the woman said laughing. "Be sure to remember that you also need to update your driver's license and any other legal documents should be changed."
Ellie smacked her forehead. She had completely forgotten that she needed to change her name on her driver's license. She also remembered that she now had a new place of residence as well. She realized then that she would have to apply for citizenship in the United Kingdom. "I'll get that changed thank you."
"Have a nice day," the woman said to Ellie.
Ellie hung up the phone. She didn't realize how many problems she was going to have with this. She flopped back on her bed. She sighed loudly. She realized she would have to talk to Laurent about this. She had no idea what to do in this situation; she didn't know how to apply for citizenship in this country. She had never had to do something like this before, and she was in Japan on a visa so there wasn't much complication to that.
She walked to the office where Laurent spent the majority of his time. He was sitting just as he had been when she went to see him at dawn.
"Laurent," she said quietly.
At first he didn't respond. Ellie waited several moments before plucking up the courage to say his name again, more loudly this time hoping that maybe he just hadn't heard her the last time, trying not to think that he was ignoring her and hoping she might disappear altogether.
"Laurent," Ellie repeated.
He spun the swivel chair around to look her in the face. "Yes," he said.
"Oh," Ellie said forgetting completely what she had come in to say.
There were a few moments of awkward silence before Ellie got her bearings and said, "I needed to change a few legal documents and thought that you may have a better knowledge on that sort of thing."
"Legal documents?" Laurent asked. "Pertaining to what?"
"My citizenship in this country, my driver's license, those are just a few I can think of," Ellie said.
"Oh," Laurent said. "That was taken care of late last night," Laurent said.
"What?" Ellie said confused. "I though those kind of things take days or weeks sometimes even months. How were you able to acquire those just hours after our wedding?"
"I, or rather Laurent, have connections," Laurent said. "Everything is taken care of."
"Oh, well that's a relief," Ellie said. "When did you want to leave for Japan?" Ellie asked.
"Now," he said getting up from his computer.
"You don't need to pack or anything?" Ellie asked.
"I was packed before you arrived. As you can imagine I don't have much that I need to bring along," Laurent said.
"Oh, well I will move my bags out to the car," Ellie said.
"We will be taken to the airport; the rental car should be here shortly." Laurent said.
Ellie was about to question how Laurent had booked a rental car, or how he knew the approximate time Ellie would be ready to go but she decided against it. She would just accept that this is how things operated with Laurent.
Twenty minutes later Ellie and Laurent were being driven to the airport in an enterprise rental car. Ellie and Laurent loaded their luggage and then waited for their flight.
"I never noticed the fountain," Ellie said.
"You were preoccupied," Laurent said.
"Yeah by you," Ellie thought to herself. "It's beautiful," she said.
"Limestone," Laurent said. "It's made of limestone."
"Limestone," Ellie repeated. "I remember reading something about limestone, the largest quarry of limestone in the world wasn't far from where I lived for a while. "
"Rogers City, Michigan," Laurent said plainly.
"I didn't live in Rogers City; I lived about 30 miles away in Hillman."
"Oh," Laurent said. "How long did you live there?"
"I lived there for about four years," Ellie said.
"Oh," Laurent said. "Why did you leave?"
"It's complicated," Ellie said shifting her eyes down. Hillman was not the place she wanted remember especially right now. She left that behind when she left Novalie Smith behind.
Laurent said nothing else and Ellie crossed her legs. Occasionally Ellie would shift when she got uncomfortable and Laurent would check his wrist watch.
Laurent and Ellie waited another half an hour and then their flight was up in the sky. Laurent graciously stood to the side while Ellie took the window seat sitting down next to her once she had gotten herself situated.
"I'm surprised," Ellie said looking at him. "I didn't peg you for someone who traveled coach."
"I generally travel by private jet or first class at the least. I thought this would be more comfortable for you, more, inconspicuous."
Ellie almost felt insulted, but she knew that Laurent didn't mean to poke fun at the fact that she never had any money to travel more than coach. She quietly thanked him and looked out the window as the plane began its ascent.
Several boring hours later Ellie and Laurent made it to Japan. Ellie made a phone call from Laurent's cell phone.
Fifteen minutes later Matsuda drove up in Ellie's station wagon.
"Thank you," Ellie said to Matsuda as he handed her the keys.
"You can drop me off at my apartment," Matsuda said. "I hope it's too much out of your way."
"Of course not Matsuda," Ellie said getting into the driver's side of her station wagon. Matsuda opened the back door on the driver's side and climbed into the backseat. Laurent sat in the passenger seat next Ellie. Ellie turned the key in the ignition and the car roared to life. Ellie smiled. At least driving still felt natural for her.
Matsuda gave Ellie instructions to his apartment building. Ellie laughed when she finally heard the last of the directions to the apartment complex. Matsuda looked horrified. Apparently he thought that she found his apartment building to be some kind of joke.
"That's the same building Laurent and I will be living in," Ellie said finally after she stopped chuckling.
"What number?" Matsuda asked.
"324," Ellie said.
"Oh," Matsuda said.
"What is your apartment number?" Ellie asked after a few moments of silence.
"325," Matsuda said.
"Oh so we will be neighbors!" Ellie exclaimed.
"Yeah," Matsuda said blushing.
The rest of the ride was silent. Laurent never said a word during the entire conversation and stared straight ahead. Apparently he wasn't taking the move well. "Or he doesn't want Matsuda to catch on that he isn't actually Laurent, but is actually L," she thought to herself.
Ellie dropped Matsuda off at the apartment building and then drove to the storage bin that she had rented. She loaded the boxes into her wagon and noted how bare her apartment was going to look. She had been fortunate enough to have a Murphy bed in the small apartment she had rented before moving in with the Kira Investigation team. She had a feeling this apartment was nice enough to not have a bed that folded out of the wall that heaven only knows how many people have slept on it.
"We don't have any furniture," Ellie said quietly.
"Already taken care of," Laurent said smirking.
"Is there anything you didn't take care of?" Ellie asked smiling.
Laurent helped her unload the boxes in the new apartment and Ellie smiled when she walked through the door and saw the furniture was similar to the house they would be living in at the end of this semester.
No sooner than Ellie had gotten all of the boxes unpacked and Laurent had helped her put everything away, Laurent was in front of the computer in the den just off the living room. Ellie flopped on the couch in their living room. She decided that she wouldn't let it get to her.
She spent the first night in their new apartment on the couch watching Laurent type away as her eyes slowly began to droop and sleep overcame her.