Author's Note: So, I've been challenged to the '10 Hour Pikachu Song' thingy. So like the title suggests it's this YouTube video that plays the Pickachu song for 10 hours. I'm on the fifteen minute mark right now, and I'm going all the way! (Except that there's school tomorrow, but you watch! I WILL make it to midnight! (It's 5:30 local time ha-ha.))

Disclaimer: I do not own Death Note, or anything remotely associated with it.

August 5, 2024. 10:59 PM... 19 Days Left...

I felt Mello's hand brush my shirt sleeve out of the way, and I felt him run his fingers gently across the ragged white lines. I felt his other hand start at my leg. I felt him trace the patterns of the scars that were there through the fabric of the denim. Mello's hand left my arm and I felt him place it on my chest over my heart.

I started crying harder.

I cried bitterly for another couple minutes before I was finally able to pull myself together enough to remember that I had questions for Mello myself. I sniffled for a second and then asked, "Mello, what happened after I left the warehouse that afternoon. Was the briefcase I grabbed from you really the bomb, or did you make the switch while you were still inside?"

"No, it was really the bomb," Mello said, seemingly shaking off the past couple minutes of my tear filled angst like they'd never happened. "There's this, I don't know, rule? Basically if anything like that comes up, where any of our situations has been compromised we all leave with whatever we brought. There was this huge fuss a couple years back where two gangs went to make a deal right, but the one had actually orchestrated a mock invasion in order to hasten the deal. Basically the leader of the one gang who was paying for the drugs the other guy was selling, didn't bring enough money. He was hoping if the 'cops' burst in or whatever he could make the deal fast without the other guys counting what he had brought right? He almost got away with it too. So now we all just take our own junk out when something like that happens," he shrugged.

"What happened to the guy?" I asked.

Mello shot me a look that said, 'What do you think happened to him?'

"Oh," I muttered. "I guess I'm just going to have to take another look at the surveillance video we got." I thought for a moment and then asked, "How are you and Matt coming along?"

"Matt's going through the computer systems and contacting some of our old business partners and mole's to see if he can find something. Nothing yet."

"Rats," I muttered.

"You know, I think we're going to start putting trackers in the damn things."

"The bombs?"

"No, our shoes. Of course the bombs."

"No need to get snappy," I scolded.

Mello grunted an apology and stood up off the couch.

"What kind of blast radius are we talking for this thing?" I finally had the courage to ask.

"It'll cover your standard office building," he told me. "Placed on the main floor it'd probably take the whole thing down."

"Great! What'd you guys use?"

"Just about everything. Thermite, nitro-glycerine, some C-4, the usual."

"Isn't the thermite a little excessive?"

"It's a nice fuel," he said casually, as if we were talking about baking cakes instead of bombs.

"Uh-huh. Well I've got to get back to the office. I've got to check the recordings we made. I might find something. Give me your number in case I need to reach you again," I said, pulling out my cell. Mello took it from me and punched his number in.

"Just call if you need anything," he said quietly.

"Sure Mello... We'd better get going," I said back even softer.

"Yeah, I'm going to go see what progress Matt's making."

I hung my head as Mello stalked towards the door. I'd heard it in his voice; he still wasn't as cool with Gevanni as he'd have me believe.

"Mello!" I called as his hand reached for the door knob.

He paused without turning around. "What is it Jewel?" he asked when I didn't speak and I realised I didn't really know what to say to him. There was a long silence between us before Mello finally said, "It's okay Jewel, I get it."

That didn't make me feel any better.

After the door closed behind Mello, I stood stationary for a second and then into my room and into my closet. I took the tiny, black velvet box off of the top shelf and brushed months of dust off of it. I sat on my bed, folded back the top and stared in at the most beautiful ring I had ever seen.

It was quite a simple thing; white braided gold and a princess cut stone... it was gorgeous. Eleven years and I still shone as brilliantly as it had the first time I had seen it. I pulled the ring out and held it under the light and watched tiny rainbows and little lasers of light reflect inside the prism.

I was mesmerised by the light until a slamming door jolted me from my hypnotic state. Did no one I knew ever bother to knock? I slid the ring back into its box and slid the box into my pocket.

"Jewel!" I heard from my hallway. It was a voice that should have relaxed me, but it didn't.

"I'll be right there Gevanni," I called back.

I stood from my bed and made my way back into the hallway, wrinkling my nose at the colour of the walls. I'd been living in this apartment for about as long as I could remember, and the whole time I'd been planning to paint the walls a new colour. I still hadn't gotten around to it. The colour they were right now was taupe. It was a neutral enough colour, but certainly not my favourite, and after something like thirteen years I definitely needed a change! Maybe a nice soft mauve or a cerulean.

"What can I do for you Gevanni?"

"Is Mello here?" he asked me, and I was instantly insulted.

"No," I grumbled.

"I heard he was."

"You heard wrong." ...It wasn't a lie. Mello wasn't here any longer.

"Whatever. Jewel, I think you need to stay away from him from now on."

"EXCUSE ME!" I shot.

"He's bad news Jewel, and you know you're only going to end up getting hurt again. I'm only saying this for your own good!"

"Well I can take care of myself, okay. I don't need you to look after me."

"You know I'm right Jewel. He left you twice already. He's going to do it again."

"What of it?"

"I've seen what it does to you. You know he isn't going to stick around any longer this time. I'm sorry Jewel, but he doesn't want you. Not for the long haul, not the way I do."

I glared up at him, an expression of hurt on my face.

"Jewel, I asked you to marry me. I want so share a life with you," I could hear the pleading in Gevanni's voice. "I know we've been fighting a lot lately, but that doesn't change how I feel about you. I love you Jewel, and I love Marsh too. Was Mello there when Marsh was born? Was he there when she got the chickenpox or when that girl cried and cried and cried when her first pet fish died? Was Mello there when you started her at Wammy's?"

I didn't want to listen to him. I didn't want to hear what Gevanni was telling me. I looked up into Gevanni's steel blue eyes and tried desperately to ignore how what he was saying was true. And I tried desperately to ignore how I'd grown to feel about him all these past years.

Gevanni had been there while I was suffering and alone. It had started with coffees at work, and then led to coffees after work. It had gone from dinner dates to the morning after. I'd cried and told Gevanni all about my crazy childhood and I had let him console me.

I loved Gevanni.

But the truth was that Mello WAS back.

But now, if I left Gevanni and went with Mello, would that be a betrayal to him? And, as much as I hated to, I had to admit to myself, Gevanni was probably right about Mello. If I could count on him for anything, it wasn't sticking around. And besides, Mello hadn't even expressed any interest in me since he'd been back. Sure he'd voiced his opinion on Gevanni, but Mello had yet to say anything about actually wanting me back! ...Surely he did though, right? I mean, this was Mello. Mello had always, always had a hard time putting his feelings into words.

"...He, he left to keep me safe," I finally managed. "He didn't want me getting hurt because of the life he'd chosen."

"But that's just it, isn't it Jewel? If he really loved you, if he really wanted you, he would have given up that life. He would've straightened up and joined the right side of the law." Gevanni let that sink in for a minute before he said, "Now come on. Near sent me to pick you up. He said you wanted to take a look at the tapes we made of the warehouse. I've got the car downstairs."

"I could have walked. It's not that far."

"It's late. I didn't want you getting kidnapped again or anything."

"It was my house they kidnapped me in last time, not the streets."

"Would you like me to have someone stay with you 24/7?"

"Never mind," I sighed.

Gevanni walked me down to the car and opened my door for me. I slid into the darkened Mercedes and did up my seatbelt as Gevanni got in the driver's side. He turned the engine over and we started on our way in silence, the orange glow from the street lights casting mysterious shadows in the car every dozen feet.

I sighed and pulled my cell out then. There was something that I had to know. I ran over the commands in my phone and texted to Mello the same words he had asked me almost exactly seventeen years ago. The same words he had asked me back at Wammy's when we had just been kids.

'What am I to you?'

Not a minute later I got a text back.

'Meet me at sunrise in the park.'

I closed my phone, laid it in my lap and thought about life on the way to the office.

Life with Mello represented everything I ever wanted. He was my first true love, and life with him wouldn't ever get dull. We would challenge each other, and make the most out of every single day we were together. But he was wild and reckless, prone to disappearing and refused to let anybody help him with anything. I could see us getting into fights at all hours of the night and having him storm out, not hearing from him again until he was good and cooled off. I could see myself crying over him again and again and again.

Life with Gevanni represented stability. I could settle down and raise my family and not have to worry about my life being threatened at every turn. I could work on the right side of the law. I would have time after work to come home and take care of my little girl. I could be there for her in ways that just weren't possible if I went to be with Mello and that wasn't fair to her. I could make an honest living and live comfortably. I wouldn't have to deal with greasy, muscle bound guys with tattoos and piercings.

I sighed heavily as we pulled up to our organizations headquarters.

I slid soundlessly out of the car without even waiting for Gevanni and made my way through the lobby, up the elevator, and into Near's office.

"The video equipment is all set up in your office."

"Hello to you too," I muttered and made my way across the hall, wondering for maybe the first time, if Near EVER left this building.

I strolled into my office and flipped on the lights. The walls in my office were taupe too. I sat down at my swivelling computer chair and started up the playback that had already been set up on a range of monitors in front of me.

For the next five hours I sat at those screens. Taking breaks periodically for tea, snacks, Red Bull and washroom breaks.

My eyes and mind were beyond cloudy by five in the morning. I had been over the video from beginning to end over eighty times and seventy of those eighty were in slow motion. I had run them through the computers, I had run them through every identifying program we had. I'd zoomed in and out and played with the contrast and brightness. I had come up with nothing.

It was 5:05 in the morning when I finally pushed away from my monitors. I yawned and dragged myself through my office to the elevator and down to the ground floor. I let the crisp, early morning air wake me up and clear my head as I made my way home. I didn't even bother to go inside, I just grabbed my car. I had a date... of sorts, and I didn't want to be late.

Mello hadn't specified a specific park, or a specific place in the park. But this was New York, he could really only have meant Central Park, and I had a feeling Mello would find me before I got lost. My suspicions were confirmed when I strolled up to the park and found Mello leaning against a tree, waiting for me.

Neither of us said anything, but I walked to join him and he held his hand out to me. I took it casually and Mello led us to an out of the way place where we could watch the sunrise.

We had made it just in time. The sky over the Eastern horizon was glowing bright yellow, and hues of orange, red, pink and purple were spreading away from it in a slow wave. I told myself then that if I lived to be a hundred I would never be able to fully comprehend the artistry of a sunrise.

"Sure is beautiful," I said finally.

"Yes, you are," Mello answered, replying the scene from back at Wammy's all those years ago, and the scene in fact, which had taken place only a day before Mello had asked me what he was to me.

It seemed to me like the event was just as prevalent in Mello's memory as it was in mine.

"Mello-"

"No, Jewel, I want an answer first. What am I to you?"

'In short,' I thought, 'everything.' But it was so much more complicated than that now. Now I had a little girl that was my 'everything.' And I knew losing Near, or Matt again...

At the thought of Matt I realised that I had paid him all of five minutes of my attention since I found out that he and Mello were alive. I felt like dirt for a moment and vowed to properly show him how glad I was that he too, was alive.

Then of course, there was Gevanni. I hadn't agreed to marry him on a whim; I truly did care about him. We had gotten along just fine only months ago. I had only started picking fights with him since... since he'd proposed. I knew it was only my internal way of dealing with the stress of the whole situation. And still he refused to hold it against me.

"My answer Mello, is that I don't have one. Not now."

"Well, what do you want me to do then?"

I shook my head at him, "No Mello, you can't base your decision on what I want. That won't work for either of us, and you'd end up resenting me if I forced you into something you didn't want."

I dug in my pocket where I had stashed the ring box the night before and held it out to him.

Mello didn't need for me to tell him what it was. "You still have it. But you said-"

"What did you expect me to say?" I asked, cutting him off.

"So, you're giving it back to me?"

"I'm giving you a choice," I said as I placed the tiny black box in his hand.

"What kind of choice?"

"I'm getting married in eighteen days at the Mount Vernon Courthouse at one in the afternoon. If you want me; if you want me forever and ever and everything that comes with that, if you want me to be your wife to have and to hold, for better or worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and cherish until death do us part, you'll meet me there at that time and ask me to marry you."

"And what, then you'll marry me?"

"I might marry you."

"Might! What kind of a guarantee is that?"

"The same kind of guarantee you gave me eleven years ago," I said back coolly.

"So, I could go through all the trouble of barging in and breaking up your wedding and you might not even say yes to marrying me?"

"Wouldn't it be worth it?" I asked him. "Wouldn't it be worth it to go down to the courthouse and ask me to marry you, even if there was a chance I would say no? Even if there was a 99.9% chance I'd say no?" I watched him earnestly for a second and then continued with, "If not then I guess you already have your answer, and I'll have mine."

Author's Note: Well, final count for the Pikachu challenge was... 1:01:08. One hour, one minute and eight seconds. And now I feel like my brain melted.