I got a reviewer asking me to slow down my update rate. They say people "get bored" when a story gets updated too quickly. Thoughts? If they aren't alone in this, I'll certainly take it into consideration. Should I slow down a bit? Review and let your opinions known!

Disclaimer: I don't know anything about health and medicine, I'm making most of this up for the sake of the story. I'd recommend taking it with a grain of salt.

Yori Kaneko's P.O.V.

The Lawliets were odd, to put it lightly, but I liked them, and not just because they pay me twice the salary of an average doctor; Although that certainly doesn't hurt. I liked them because they're interesting. When they told me to cut loose and not worry about acting too professional, I took it to heart. The only reason I even still bother wear my lab coat is because I think it makes me look hot, otherwise I'd treat Ellie's injuries in a T-shirt and jeans. They wouldn't care.

Ellie had spunk. I'm impressed with how well she'd taken the beating that she had. A lot of people wouldn't have held out that long. She had massive muscular bruising all throughout her limbs and torso, and several third-degree burns. That's not even mentioning the stab wounds she'd endured. I counted 23 separate places where she'd been stabbed, but some areas had been hit multiple times.

And on top of everything, she was pregnant. She's been damn busy.

I almost wanted her to abort. She was pretty much guaranteed to die if she doesn't get rid of it, but no, she was just being a stubborn little jackass. I hate to admit it, but I was growing fond of Ellie and her weirdo husband. She'd better survive or I was going to slug L in the face for not being more careful.

Right now, they were doing some weird thing with a drone, talking about Kira and shinigami and some other nonsense. I'll give them this, when they played pretend, they went above and beyond.

"Care to do the honors?" Ellie held the remote out to me and let me push the little red button on the side.

The drone headed back to the tower – which still blew my mind that they owned; these people were seriously loaded – and the guy they call Watari grabbed it, turning it off.

L spoke into that silly microphone he always insisted on having, "Watari, please bring the drone to the medical room."

While we were gone, Ellie asked, "Kaneko, what's your first name?"

"Doctor," I told her. We'd had this conversation before. At this point, I was just trying to annoy her. It was more than a little entertaining.

"You're no fun," She pouted, playing with her bottom lip.

I adjusted my glasses, "If I'm too boring for you, I can always leave and you can hire someone else," I joked. I knew they'd never fire me, Ellie was in too fragile a state for that. I briefly wondered what she'd look like without all her injuries. Give her a shower and some decent clothes and she'd probably be gorgeous. Right now though, she just looked like a beat-up mess. Pity.

Watari walked through the door carrying the drone. Hanging from the bottom of it was a mechanical arm with nothing in it. They had a strange taste in games.

He held the drone up and Ellie grabbed the imaginary notebook out of the metal clamp.

"Drop in on the ground," L instructed.

She held her arms out an opened her hands, miming dropping an object.

Or at least, I thought she was miming… Until I saw a black notebook appear on the ground. Was this some kind of weird prank? "Where did that come from," I asked.

Ellie rolled her dark eyes, "haven't you been paying attention?"

"Have I been watching you play pretend? Yes. And I gotta say, it's a weird pastime for two adults."

She smirked, "Oh, so you don't believe us? L, love, would you please hand the good doctor here the notebook?"

"Keep your eyes on the screen," L ordered. I decided to play along, looking at their precious monitor. He picked up the notebook and lifted my hand with his thumb and forefinger, placing it on top of the leather. His oddly-long fingers were cold.

On the screen a horrifying monster appeared. I started back a bit, making Ellie snicker. Her laugh sounded a bit creepy with her raspy voice, but not nearly as creepy as the picture on the screen. I'm sure her laugh would be a lot nicer once her voice fully healed. L told me she has quite the singing voice. It was hard to imagine considering I didn't know her before the… incident.

L sifted through a stack of papers. They were drawings, made by Ellie. Once, when I came in to find them both asleep, I looked through them. They were of different monsters, a lot like the one on the screen. She was pretty good. They were remarkably detailed.

Her husband grabbed one of the drawings and held it up to compare with the image on the screen. It was a perfect match. Maybe they were telling the truth after all…

"You should mail Matt and Mello a page," Ellie suggested, "they'll be too proud to ask for help, but they-"

Suddenly she burst into a fit of coughs. I checked her vitals; she was stable.

I wouldn't have been worried if it weren't for the blood on her mouth. This was not good. I adjusted her IV and handed her a tissue.

"Ellie," I didn't attempt to hide the worry in my voice, "are you okay? What hurts?"

She kept coughing, but gestured to her chest.

"Okay, I'm gonna need you to hold still."

She managed to get herself under control. I couldn't help but notice as she tried to muffle a sob. My heart ached for her. She was still suffering immensely, regardless of what she wanted the rest of us to think. L didn't react. He just sat there eating candy. It made my blood boil. Did he not care about her at all?

"Take a deep breath," I told her, holding my stethoscope to her lungs, "Now let it out. Again."

She did what I said and I ran a few tests. There was a small amount of blood in her lungs, probably from all the bruising. She'd be alright, but it would not be fun. "Well, you're not gonna like this," I said, "but it looks like you won't be allowed out of bed even after your feet have healed. The more you move around, the more blood will pool in your lungs."

"But-"

"No. You're not moving. That's final."

She looked ready to cry. I had to look away before it got to me.

I adjusted my glasses, "Yori."

"What?" she asked, confused.

"Yori. That's my first name." I gave her a reassuring smile, "It means 'rely,' so you know for sure you can rely on me. I'll get you feeling better in no time, don't worry."

I sincerely hoped I'd get the chance to follow through on that. Unfortunately, things were not looking good.

Still, it seemed to help. She tilted her head, testing my full name aloud, "Doctor Yori Kaneko." She grinned, holding out her hand, "nice to meet you."

I laughed, grabbing her hand, giving it a slight shake, "how do you do?" Her hands were surprisingly soft.

L stared at me with his unnervingly black eyes. "Well, Yori Kaneko, now that you can see the shinigami king, you just became a part of our operation. Obviously, you're not permitted to tell anyone about this; but you already knew that."

Of course I did. They had made it extremely clear in my contract that I was to tell no one outside of this tower about anything I were to see or hear. If I ever did they would sue me for everything I own and send me to jail. I wasn't keen on having my name in the crime system for obvious reasons; Criminals were dropping like flies. I planned to live a long life.

"Ugh, I feel sick," Ellie was about to vomit.

"A side effect of pregnancy, I'm afraid." I handed her a bucket, "you're not having a very good day today, are you?"

She responded by spewing out her breakfast.

L took a slice of cake and munched on it, looking back toward the monitors. "There's something you should know about me, doctor. It's important if you're going to be of any help."

I raised my eyebrow. He was so mysterious. "And what would that be?"

He went on to tell me some crazy story about anime and notebooks.