Author's Note: Ready to see how Mello and Matt survived?
This chapter is going to be from Mello's point of view :D Don't forget that half way through LOL. I'm also going to put a little notification in the story too, just in case some of you don't read my author's note's ha-ha... And oh! I'm REALLY going to try and keep Mello in character, but as you'll see, there's a reason I write with one standard OC, I'm really not that good with getting into other character's heads :/
Disclaimer: I do not own Death Note, or anything remotely associated with it.
Dedication: To my avid readers: Strange Amairaini XIII and KiriKatana who gave suggestions and advice for how to make this chapter work :) Thanks you guys ^_^ I can only hope that I live up to all your expectations.
August 2, 2024. 6:00 PM (Local Time)... 22 Days Left... *MELLO'S POV*
Seeing my own grave might not be such a bad idea. And in any case it was a good idea to get out of town for a while, and hell, out of the country was probably even better. I wasn't afraid, and I wasn't running away; not by any means, but there were more than a couple people who were more than a little upset at the way the last deal had gone down.
It was weird being back. I hadn't been in Winchester England since I was fifteen, no, not even fifteen, I hadn't been here since I was fourteen; I hadn't been back for over half my life.
It wasn't hard to get accustomed to it again. After only a couple hours it felt as though I had never left. I grabbed a quick bite and decided that I would make that trip to the old cemetery. I remembered where they had buried L and Watari, I assumed Matt and I would be nearby. I made my way along the interlocking paths of the cemetery, between rows and columns of graves and tombstones.
It was a cool and windy day for the middle of August, but completely clear. The blue sky and the waving trees were so picturesque you could almost forget you were in a graveyard... almost. I stuffed my hands into my coat pockets and bowed my head into the wind. With my left hand I removed a bar of chocolate from my pocket and undid the wrapping. I took a large bite before I continued on.
I spotted our graves, the Wammy's kid's graves, in a small, adjacent plot to the one I was walking around. I also spotted a short, petite girl in a black, hooded windbreaker and bellbottom jeans standing in front of them. The girl was turned away from me so I couldn't see her face, but streams of platinum blonde hair were whipping about from under her hood in the wind.
I approached her noisily to make sure she didn't freak out if she suddenly noticed I was behind her. When she still didn't react to my presence I asked her, "What are you doing here?"
Without turning around she responded, "I am paying my respect to the dead. It is what one usually does at a cemetery."
I was taken aback for a moment. I had guessed this girl to be seven or eight based on her short stature, but she was quite articulate for her age. I half wondered if she should be out by herself, even if she was exceptionally intelligent. "Where are your parents?" I asked her.
"Funny you should ask," she replied. She seemed completely intent and dedicated to the graves in front of her.
I waited for an elaboration, a more direct answer to my question but she never gave me one, so I asked a different question, one that I really wanted answered. "Do you know who these people are? These 'dead' that you are paying respect to?"
"I never met them, if that's what you mean. But I knew who they were."
"And who were they?"
"They were hero's."
"Did your parents tell you that?" I asked her as I clicked off another helping of my chocolate bar. I let the bittersweet flavour melt and swim in my mouth.
"My mother told me that."
This girl was weird. She didn't seem at all concerned that a strange man had interrupted her homage to four fallen 'heroes.' "Where's your father?"
"Funny you should ask," she said again, but this time continued with, "he's buried right here."
The news, however untrue, had me choking on my chocolate.
"Sir, I'd appreciate some privacy now," the girl said, only now apparently bothered with my presence. I'd give her, her privacy, but first I was going to set her straight. There was no way Watari, L, Matt or myself was this girl's father. She was way too young, and the four of us had 'died' way before this girl could have been conceived.
"Listen girl, none of these men were your father. I'm sorry, but your mom or whoever told you that, lied to you."
The girl finally half turned towards me, but her face was still hidden beneath her hood and flailing hair. "You sir, are the liar," and I heard a touch of anger behind her voice.
"These men died over eleven years ago, none of them could be your father," I tried to explain; "you're too young."
"Just how old do you think I am sir? I'll have you know I'm turning eleven this year, it was perfectly possible for my father to be buried here. He only died eleven years ago."
Well, at least she had the dates right. "Alright you smart ass brat, which one of these men was your father." Ten bucks said she couldn't name any one of us buried here, let alone Matt or I, the only ones it could have been who was her father.
"His name was Mihael Keehl if you must know!" she spun on her heels to face me and when she did I was unable to tell which one of us had more of a heart attack.
I swear the poor girl went into shock. Her azure eyes filled with surprise and terror; her eyes that looked scarily familiar, and scarily identical to my own. Her heart-shaped mouth pulled back into a wide 'O' and she took a step backwards to distance herself from me.
I myself took a step back from her in surprise. She looked just like me, no, she looked just like Jewel... after a moment I realized I was wrong again. This girl looked just like the both of us. Jewel's face and hair, my eyes and mouth. Her slight frame identical to that of Jewel's and mine. But, it just wasn't possible! Jewel and I had only... No way. It just wasn't possible.
The girl took another step back and stumbled on the side of my grave. She fell backwards hard, but never once took her eyes off of mine. They were so captivating. She fought to right herself and when she did, she took off running, and in a familiar direction.
If this girl's story was even half way true, there was only one place she could be going.
I followed after her at a slower pace, I knew where she was going, there was no need to kill myself getting there.
A block away I saw the large, ancient building looming overhead. I saw Wammy's house. So many old memories came flooding back to me; some of them good, and most of them not. I remembered the rainy day in December my parents had callously dropped me off here. The day I met Matt. The day that I became the best at Wammy's and how I had become the best so that I could show my parents that it had been wrong to abandon me here. And then I recalled the day Near and Jewel had shown up out of nowhere. I recalled L's death, and the day I left.
As I neared the building I saw the cast iron gates and the old plated sign that read 'Wammy's' at the front entrance. I also saw that the large wooden door had been thrown open with much haste and had not been closed. Through the open door I could hear frantic and panicked shouts echoing from inside the poorly lit entrance way.
As I drew nearer I heard, "I'm not kidding Roger! I'm not! You've got to believe me!"
"I told you going to the cemetery on a weekly basis would be bad for you."
"No Roger! Look! He looked just like this!"
"It could have been anybody-"
"But it wasn't! It was him I swear!" the girl interrupted.
"Mind if I let myself in?" I asked, stepping up to the front door.
Two pairs of eyes turned in my direction.
The girl still had a frenzied look in her azure eyes, and her all but silver hair was wild with her run and the wind and her ghostly pale skin was flushed red from all the excitement. Her long slender hand had black painted nails and was holding a photograph. A laminated photograph, with six words on the back. Six words, and four of them had been crossed out. The first crossed out pair read, 'Dear Mello' the next crossed out pair read, 'Dear Jewel.' The final pair of words was partially covered by the girl's tiny hand.
Roger, or at least an older, greyer version of the Roger I knew, looked to be attempting to lead this girl back to her room. That is, assuming the rooms were still where they had always been; and looking around just the front entrance of the place, I was sure every last item, down to the paintings and the vases were all still there they had always been.
"Mello!" Roger asked as recognition dawned slowly on his face. "It's not possible." The look in Roger's eyes shifted to one that mimicked the girl's; it was one of shock and surprise.
"Whose kid is this Roger?"
Ten minutes later the three of us were seated in Roger's office, and there were something like a dozen ears pressed against the closed door. These newbies were no kind of silent.
"I just don't know about this," Roger finally said, breaking the awkward silence that had crept into the room like a fog, making it less silent, but no less awkward.
"Who is this kid Roger? And whose kid is she?" I wanted a real answer, and I wanted it now. There was no way some little girl was going to claim to be my kid with no verification.
"I don't know if I can tell you that Mello."
"Fine then," I turned my attention to the little girl. "Who's your mother?"
The girl with the azure eyes looked up at me with fear in her eyes and then looked to Roger to see if she was allowed to tell me.
"You can tell him if you want to I suppose," Roger sighed.
This day I'm sure, was not something Roger could deal with in stride. It felt like L and Watari might show up themselves and say something like, 'Ha, we got you guys.' If that was ever going to happen, today seemed like it would be the perfect day for it. It was the day for anomalies, all 'round.
"Whatever, I don't want to deal with this right now. I'm going for a walk." I wasn't getting any answers anyway. I pushed up from my chair and strolled over to the door. Three kids fell into the room when I swung the door open, and five more jumped out of my way to let me through. I stepped over the ones that had fallen in and went out into the hall. I walked past the stairs, past the cafeteria, and through a number of ever familiar hallways and corridors before I made it outside. Nothing had changed, and yet, everything had.
"Hey you!" I heard a soft, but somewhat uncertain voice call after me. I stopped but didn't turn around to face her. "My mom's name is Jewel." ...I really wasn't sure how I felt about this. "And she told me that you were dead."
"She thought I was kid, what else can I tell you?"
"You can tell me how you're alive."
I have to give the girl credit, after her initial shock, she was able to calm down quite quickly. This one was collected and rational; a case against Jewel being her mother, if I dared to make one. We walked out to the old willow tree in the back of the property which, for some reason, I was surprised was still there.
"How much do you know about the Kira case?" I asked her.
"I know as much as my mother does. She told me everything she knew."
"Are you sure?"
"Pretty sure, she did say, 'That's everything I know,' when she told me."
I thought back to that fateful day, back to the day when Matt and I 'died.' "You know who Kiyomi Takada was?" I asked just to be sure. I didn't know why I felt inclined to tell this girl my life story. There still was no concrete evidence to collaborate her claim... and yet.
"Yes. She's the one that supposedly killed you."
"She would have," I didn't deny, "but we took every precaution. We knew she must have had some pieces of the Notebook lying around. It was a given. So on the day before we went to kidnap her, we broke into her house. There were ten of us and we were all in and out of that house in ten minutes while she was in the shower. We replaced each and every piece of paper in the place. Then it was just a matter of installing closed circuit cameras in the back of the truck we put her in. As soon as she wrote my name down I just had to wait forty seconds and then pretend to be dead. Wasn't too hard," I shrugged it off. It wasn't that big of a deal. "Now Matt's death was easy to fake. He-"
"What! Uncle Matt is alive too!"
"'Uncle Matt'?"
"Not biologically. It's just a term of endearment to signify closeness and importance," she explained even though she didn't need to. Man, I wonder what Matt would do if he heard this girl call him 'uncle.'
"Yeah, Matt's alive too. He-"
"Does my mom know? Does she know that you're alive?" she interrupted again. Now, THAT was something she DID get from her mother.
"She does now kid, now do you want to know what happened or not?"
"I'm sorry," she seemed taken aback. She probably wasn't used to people snapping at her.
I narrowed my eyes at her, this was one weird kid. "Matt's death was easy to fake," I started to explain again. "Near hired a bunch of cops and people to play cops to corner Matt and shoot at him. But there weren't any real bullets, only blanks. So then in order to make it look real, we had blood packs installed on Matt and we had a bunch of gunshot squibs wired into Matt's car to make it look like it was getting shot up too. Easy, there was never any danger for Matt, and only a marginal danger for me if I wasn't careful."
"If it was all so safe, why did you have to leave my mom out of it?"
"We had to leave Jewel out of it. She would have tried to stop us even if she knew it was all fake. She would have gotten hurt."
"So... you did it to protect her?"
I didn't answer her. I was lost in that day. I was lost in the day, in that moment that I said goodbye to Jewel.
"Just let's go okay, we're on a tight schedule," I snapped at her.
"Alright," she said defeated. I watched her go into the bedroom and come out with her teddy bear and my rabbit. "Guys have you seen my coat?" she asked when she couldn't find it hanging up, and Matt and I shared a look. I wanted to leave her with my coat. I wanted her to have it.
"Here, take mine," I suggested casually; I knew how much she loved it.
"But, but won't you need it?"
"No, just take care of it for me," I cringed when I realised that I might have said too much.
"Alright, I guess I'm ready then."
Matt and I ushered her out to his Camaro and I slid into the back seat with her. I wanted to be with her, I wanted to hold her for as long as I could. If something went wrong today... No, even if nothing went wrong today, I wasn't going to see her again. I couldn't do that to her. I wouldn't drag her back into the life I had created for myself, I wouldn't ask her to be a part of gangs and gun fights. I wouldn't drag her into the line of fire just so that I could be with her; that wasn't fair to her, and it hadn't been fair to drag her back into this Kira investigation after all those years, after knowing what it had done to her. The truth was, I just wanted to be with her. I held her as close to me as I could.
We drove around for a while until we ended up in the parking lot a building even more run down that our headquarters. It was an old asylum. It had a chain link fence around it, with concertina wire at the top. Matt and I had chosen this place specifically for what we had in mind. It was the only place we could find that had a chance of holding her for as long as we needed to.
"C'mon, we're going inside," I told her. I tried to keep all emotion out of my voice; I couldn't make her any more suspicious. If she started fighting now, we wouldn't be able to stop her.
We walked her into the building and through the halls, she was holding onto my hand the whole time. When we finally got her to the designated room, she finally spoke up. "Alright, that's it. I want some real answers, and now!" She turned to me and started with, "I don't want any more-" but she was cut off when Matt pulled her into a bear hug from behind. At that moment I was more envious of him than I had ever been of anyone, than I had ever even been of Near. Matt could come back for her, Matt could see her again if he so chose. I couldn't. I wouldn't do that to her.
"M-Matt?" she stuttered. He released her then and gave her a small shove towards me.
I hugged her as tightly as I possibly could. I wanted to hold her in my arms forever. I wanted to feel her slight frame in my arms, I wanted to hear her voice every day for the rest of my life, I wanted her see her smile when I was feeling down, and to have her lips on mine; but that just wasn't a possibility anymore.
"Mello," she cried and snuggled closer still into my arms. "W-what are you doing? What's going on! Tell me now!" she sobbed.
I had to do it, I had to do it now, or I might never be able to. My resolve would weaken with each word she cried into my ears. I picked her up and carried her over to the tiny door stashed away in the far corner of the room. The closet that would hold her until someone came to get her out. I opened it one handed and shoved her inside.
"Mello!" she shrieked at me, and I prepared myself the best that I could for her hatred and her fury. I closed the barred gate that would forever separate us. "Mello what are you doing!" she cried as tears started to show behind her eyes. She grabbed one of the iron bars in each of her tiny hands and pulled futilely at them.
"Do you want to see something really 'reckless and destructive'?" I asked her, going back to a month ago where she had shown me all the physical and emotional pain she had gone through when I hadn't been there for her. "I don't need you getting involved in the next part of the plan," I explained. She was going to say something, but I cut her off, "No, shut up, I know what you're going to say. 'We're in this together,' and whatever else. And yes we are Jesse, but there are some things that you just don't need to be a part of, understand."
She glanced desperately from me to Matt, "Matt, c'mon, don't do this. Let me out of here! Whatever it is I can help! I won't get in the way I promise! You can't leave me here!" Matt wouldn't acknowledge her pleas and so she turned back to me, "Don't do this Mello. Don't leave me here like you left me at Wammy's."
It was low of her to play that card, especially now, but I couldn't blame her. And in the end, she would see that she couldn't blame me. This was all for the best, this was all to protect her. "Matt'll come get you out when we're done."
"And where will YOU be?" she shot accusingly and I refused to look at her, I refused to see her pain. She was silent for a moment and then something must have clicked because her cries were more insistent now. "MELLO NO! Don't do this! Please! You can't! There's got to be another way! Let me out and we can come up with another plan! We can figure this out!" she reached out to me.
"I'm sorry Jesse. I love you, so much." And I did. I loved her more than anything, and she would never know. She would probably never forgive me after this, but I was alright with that so long as I could protect her.
"Mello." she called again and I finally relented. I went back to the barred door and reached in to give her one last hug, one last kiss.
I didn't want to, but I had to. I pulled away, "Goodbye Jesse."
Her final cries would echo in my ears until the end of time.
And that's when I got a phone call; a phone call from Matt on the other side of the world.
"Mello! Jewel's gone missing!"
Author's Note: So, I got to thinking the other night... In my last story, on one of my Reader Review Polls, I asked you all how old you are. Well now I'm wondering, just how old do you all think I am? Cyber cookies and a choice of prizes (YES PRIZES) goes to the person(s) who guess the closest ;P
Shout out to anyone whose birthday it is ^_^ LOL