Author's Note: So, the last couple chapters have been more than a little depressing eh? Well never fear! Here's a nice upbeat, and moderately (key word: moderately) stress free one ;D

...Also, for those of you who already read chapter 11, I made a tiny edit to the last bit of it. I chopped the last two lines :) It worked better without them.

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

August 10, 2024. 9:00 AM... 14 Days Left...

After the initial panic of the nineteen day time limit wore off, I vowed to make good on my promise to show Matt a proper welcome.

I had Mello get in on it and, although he wasn't that helpful, we manages to pull together a pretty awesome set up if I did say so myself. I took the day off work and pulled Marsh from under the watchful eye of my brother. Together, the three of us lay in wait in my apartment.

"Make the call Mello, I think we're ready."

"This, is a little over the top don't you think?" he asked me.

"You can never be 'over the top' with people you care about," Marsh chipped in and I beamed at her. She was standing right under the open window at the end of my apartment and the bright morning sun that was streaming in was absolutely making her hair glow. She was wearing a halo of pure gold; she was such a little angel.

Mello sighed and smiled and it was obvious the argument was won. And I realised then, that this, this Mello and Marsh and I, it felt good.

Mello pulled out his phone and dialled Matt. "Hey, how busy are you? – Well come over to Jewel's for a second. – Yeah okay, see you soon." Mello folded his phone and stuffed it in his pocket. "He's on his way."

I surveyed the room one last time to make sure I had everything in order. I had pulled out all my old gaming systems, and then added to the collection just recently. I had pulled out all my old games, and then bought dozens more. There were bowls of snacks of every shape, variety and flavour. There were bowls of assorted chocolates for Mello, and bowls of sweets for Marsh. She'd picked up the affinity for sugar from her father no doubt. There were cans of assorted sodas and enough ice in the freezer to make the South Pole jealous.

There were also two presents neatly wrapped and tucked away in the corner of the living room. One for the birthday of Matt's that I'd missed at Wammy's and one for Matt's birthday that had happened just after he had 'died.' Mello had been absolutely useless in telling me what Matt might have wanted, so I had to judge based on what I already knew about Matt... which I realised, wasn't a whole lot.

"Did he say how long he was going to be?" I asked Mello.

"Well we're only stationed a couple blocks down. I'm sure he'll be here soon."

Matt showed up right on cue.

Matt let himself in and upon seeing the vast expanse of games and junk food, I must say, was taken quite aback.

"Uhh, what's going on guys?"

"Uncle Matt!" Marsh leapt up off the couch and into his arms. Matt positively started glowing with happiness.

"You're taking a day off. You've been working too hard," Mello answered for me.

I had had this long speech about how I wanted Matt to feel appreciated, and special, but that all went out the door when he had actually walked in. I still really wasn't good with verbally expressing my feelings... 'Except under extreme duress apparently,' I thought to myself, remembering all the times I had broken down in front of the two of them.

"So...?" Matt asked, all but refusing to release my little angel from his bear hug.

"Gamming party!" Marsh answered excitedly.

"And it's versus you guys?" Matt asked Mello and me sceptically.

"Nope," I answered with an extra pop on the 'p' sound. "You're challenge is her," I said, indicating Marsh. If anybody in this room had a chance in beating Matt at any given game, it was the miniature, pig-tailed blonde.

Marsh was quite the little prodigy. First in line at Wammy's by a long shot and already smarter than Near, Mello or I had ever been at her age. She was well on track to replacing Near one day, and yet, she still retained the childish innocence that the rest of us had lost a long time ago.

"Alright then, let's get started," Matt smiled down at Marsh and she beamed up slyly at him and the whole scene was so adorably cute it was intoxicating.

Fifteen minutes later however, all cuteness was cast aside. The four of us were in a heated battle of Mario Kart. Matt, Mello and I were reserving the use of profane words due to the impressionable pair of ears in the room, but the degree of hostility between us was no secret.

Tilting of the controller became tilting the controller into the other person's controller to throw them off, and items were used mercilessly.

"Cut it out!" I whined as Matt threw a fake question mark box at me.

"MELLO!" Marsh, Matt and I cried at once as he activated a lightning bolt.

"You little runt!" Matt cried as Marsh attacked him with a blue shell. Her maniacal laughter was more cute than creepy, but the idea was there.

Somewhere along the line it had been decided that we would play through all the games we could, and the one who won the most out of them, would be declared the Ultimate Gamer.

I took home the prize in Mario Kart.

Next came a rapid succession of every Mario game available, every COD game, and every other multiplayer game we could get our hands on.

Just as we were in the middle of an all out Brawl match, my apartment door swung open behind us. A pause was cast on the action and the four of us turned in unison to the person who had dared to interrupt our fun.

"What pray tell is going on here?" Gevanni asked three other members of our organization on his heels.

I stole a glance over the scene.

Matt had four Pocky sticks hanging out of the corner of his mouth like they were cigarettes, and his orange, retro glasses over his eyes. Mello had half a chocolate bar sticking out of his mouth. I watched for a second as he slurped it up without taking his hands off the controller so that the ever melting chocolate didn't break off and fall into his lap. I was in the middle of blowing a huge bubble with my bubblegum and little Marsh had the stick from a lollipop protruding from her lips.

There were candy wrappers everywhere and empty serving bowls with chip crumbs and Cheezie dust left in the bottoms. Empty, and half empty soda cans littered the floor and every available inch of table-top space.

The four of us shared a quick glance; our eyes and expressions all telling the others that we saw nothing wrong with our situation. We all looked back to Gevanni and the other's to see what they had to say about our fun.

"We've been trying to reach the four of you for the past five hours! We were about to send out a search party."

"You didn't think to look here five hours ago?" I asked, sucking the bubble back into my mouth.

"None of you were answering your phones!"

The four of us shared another glance, dropped our controllers into our laps and pulled out our respective cell phones from our respective pockets. We flipped them open in succession and I found that I alone had thirteen missed calls and eight texts. Judging from the looks on the other's faces, they were meeting the same information.

"The house phone was off too!"

"Ohhh yeahhh," I smiled. I hadn't gotten around to turning the ringer back on after I woke up. I hated being woken up in the middle of the night with irrelevant calls.

"We thought you were in trouble," Gevanni charged.

"You were that worried and you waited five hours to check the most obvious place?" Mello scoffed, sucking back more of his melting chocolate.

The looks on their faces in response to Mello's remark boarded on the psychotic. It was somewhere between shocked and infuriated. But really, Mello had a point.

"Give us a minute eh?" I asked, and the four of us went back to our game without waiting for a reply.

"W-what? Are you serious?" I heard behind us as the pinging and crunching and other such animated noises from the game blasted through the speakers.

"Just a second! I'm winning!" I cried, tilting my controller violently, because seriously, it helps.

"Are not!" Matt said from the other side of Mello.

"Get away from me Link!" I warned.

"Don't worry Matt, I got this," Mello teased from beside me.

"Don't you dare Marth!" and I couldn't help myself from laughing when I realised how close Marth's and Marsh's names were.

"Don't worry mommy! I'll save you!" Marsh vowed as an oversized, white Kirby puffed its way toward me.

So. Cute.

"Uhm, we kind of have important matters to discus. You know, about the bomb? But hey, it's just a bomb, no big deal, take your time," an exasperated voice came from the doorway.

"Let yourselves in, grab a seat, have a snack," I coaxed, dodging swords and baseball bats.

"Where?"

I paused they game and earned a round of 'Hey's' as I turned to try to find a place where our four visitors could sit. Mello, Marsh, Matt and I were all seated on the floor in front of the TV, but all of our belongings and assorted collection of junk had ended up on the available couch and chair space.

"Meh, just toss that stuff on the floor. Doesn't matter," I said, turning back to the game and un-pausing it.

"It's like, we walked into a daycare... only, without adults," I heard one of the extra members Gevanni had dragged along say.

"You're just jealous that I didn't invite you," I quipped.

"Noooo!" Matt cried suddenly, and a bout of hysterical laughter erupted from the fourth player to my right.

"Matt no!" Mello shouted, and I laughed inwardly at him, for in the beginning Mello had insisted this whole idea of mine had been childish. He had gotten quite in to it.

"Do they understand that people's lives are in danger?" I heard another one half whisper behind us.

"Darn right people's lives are in danger!" I said seriously as I fended off an aerial attack from Mello. "Matt just got KO'd! ...And I'm next!" I cried as a blast from the super scope sent me off screen. "Noo!" I threw my arms up in defeat.

"Noo!" Mello's cry echoed my own only seconds later.

"YESSSS!" A tiny fist shot into the air in triumph.

We all set our controllers down and sent each other looks of acceptance of our fate. Even Matt, who looked absolutely dejected at having finished fourth ...In his own defence he had played amazingly, and it had been a simple turn of bad luck when he had been unable to recover from an earlier shot off screen.

"Can we get down to business now please?" an impatient brunette with a folder in his hands asked.

"By all means," I said dryly.

"Alright," the brunette started, folding open his file. The rest of us oriented ourselves to face him. "We have recently acquired new information about an underground organization we believe may be connected to the theft of the bomb. We're planning a strategic infiltration of their base of operations."

"Wait a minute," I cut in, "has this information even been verified?"

"How would you have us verify it without going in and checking ourselves?"

"Uh, by cross referencing the information you got with any relevant information relating to the actual time in question. For instance, do these men," I gestured to the file, "have any ties to the S.W.A.T. team that we used?"

"Why are you so fixated on the S.W.A.T. team?" he challenged.

"You're an idiot!" I said flatly. "The member of the S.W.A.T. team I handed the briefcase over to was the last person I personally saw to have it before I left. The rest of you can't seem to place it after that. Therefore it's the most logical place to start."

"Yeah, well we didn't find anything chasing that lead down; it was a dead end."

"Whatever."

"So anyway, we're looking for you guys to be a part of the infiltration," the brunette directed to Mello and Matt and me. "We're going in, in a couple of hours."

"A couple of hours? Short notice much," Mello said.

"Well that's what you get for not answering your phones."

"Well, I guess we should get going-"

"I still don't like this. Do we even know anything about these people? What's this information you just happened to come across? What does Near have to say about this?"

"You don't have to go Jewel," Gevanni cut in. "And in fact, I'd almost prefer if you didn't anyway."

All the eyes in the room were on me.

"Whatever," I muttered. "I'll do it. When and where are we meeting? Is there anything we need to go over beforehand?"

"Their base is a converted office building on the west side. We managed to dig up a floor plan," the guy with the folder said as he handed Matt a sheet of paper.

Matt passed it down the line to Mello and Mello passed it to me. The damn thing was a veritable maze! There were corridors crisscrossing each other all over the place. There was no way the building had been designed for efficiency. Even the stairwells didn't seem to connect. Where the stairwell on one side would end in the northern half of the building, the corresponding set of stairs on the next floor would start on the south side... I strongly believed the blue prints had not been run by a safety inspector before the building was built.

"In a couple of hours we believe the building will be vacated. These people are pretty habitual in their dealings. They always send their people home at the end of their work day; they only keep a skeleton staff on hand after that. Because this is a stealth mission you guys should have no problems."

"So why do we think these people have a bomb? And what exactly are we going in for? Are we actually hoping to find it? You think it'll actually be in there?"

"We hacked into their networking mainframe just last night. After decoding some of their encrypted files we came to learn that they are in fact, in possession of a bomb. We do believe it to be in the building on the top floor. They have a safe there."

"So we sneak in, hack the safe, and get out?" I asked.

"That's about it."

"Alright, let's do this and get it over with," I said reluctantly.

Author's Note: Man, this 'author's note' has gone from, me telling you about parts of my story, to telling you about how my day has been LOL. And speaking of which, I think I caught myself a cold :( I absolutely refuse to come down with anything though! I refuse! I have too much to do; I don't have time to be sick!