It had been three months to the day since my late-night discussion with L, and it still stuck around in my thoughts. The case has hit a wall, there was nothing to investigate right now and the only thing we've been able to do is track the deaths each day waiting for Kira's next move.

The only new development going on was that both L and Watari were gone this morning when I woke up. Since L never does footwork and should be trying to stay hidden from Kira, the sight was a nerve-wracking one.

It was even worst when I had no explanation to give to the task force when they showed up.

Within those last three months I had made my mind up about a few things: One, L will always have a soft spot in my heart and hate is an awful concealer. Two, I believe he knows about the soft spot. Three, If I stay any longer I'll be in the same position I was at seventeen.

I know I was supposed to be going over news pages for the United States and England, but, I passed that task off to Mogi, who was almost done with his own countries.

I had a feeling I wanted to investigate.

I slipped up to Watari's setup, positioned in the back of the room closer to the kitchen than anything. Knowing how L works, I was positive he already had Watari break through To-Oh's security saving me hard work and time.

Now, I had a choice to make.

It had to be easy using their electronics to pull up buried information on Whammy's House or follow through with my To-Oh theory. My spiteful heart said Whammy and leave forever, my clouded brain said To-Oh and see things to the end or you'll never move on.

I let out a small puff of air, deciding both parts make good arguments.

In the background, I started a scan looking for files with Whammy Houses from the twenty-five locations I had left, while pulling up a camera within the college building, watching in real-time everything it was seeing. The hallways were mostly bare, except for the last few students rushing to classes. After a few flips through other cameras, I moved outside to the courtyard, expecting to see students walking around enjoying the spring weather or reading.

However, I didn't see any of that, the area was bare.

Unfirmallar with the place, I bounced around the outside cameras till I found a large group circling a tennis court, watching a match going on. The number of audience members was enough to require a closer look.

While I didn't know the young man with brown hair, L was a creature that was hard to miss. Both reminded me of cobras, striking, and recoiling with perfect timing. The clouds of deja vu blurred my eyes with memories from many years ago. The hours spent on a privately owned tennis court somewhere in England, where whenever we were in the area I would agree to a game or two for L's practice. Truth be told, I can't stand the game and I've never been even okay at it, but teenagers do things to impress others they have feelings for.

The chill of irony ran down my back, trying to ignore it.

Nonetheless, the game playing on the screen made my throat dry. The heat from my blood colored my skin pink, as the idea bounced off my head trying to find a place to burrow itself in.

That sick L word.

I was 28, too old for crushes.

Although, crush and love are two different things.

God, what the hell was I doing? We're talking about the same man who had this heart and dropped it on the floor, now you wanna start skipping a beat? At that moment I wanted to rip it out and replace it with something hard like stone.

After a minute or two, I was able to convince myself it was only lust, he's a handsome guy that I had a history with, only normal to want something again.

"Miss. Petrillo," A voice called out.

Breaking out of my thoughts and turned my head to face Chief Yagami, who was holding the handwritten count of deaths for me to put into L's database, but I had been so lost in thoughts I let myself get caught doing something other than work.

I watched his eyes dance over to my screen, where the two men had stopped playing and were walking over together. His face flushed over, darkening the bags under his eyes. I wasn't sure why he had reacted this way until he opened his mouth.

"That's my son."

Damnit, L was going to be mad.

"How can we trust L when he does things like this under our noses? I thought my family was cleared of his suspension."

I had to come up with a lie quickly, to save face and soften the trouble I knew I'd caused. My lips started to move when I noticed the glazed look in his eyes. I motioned over to a chair, trying to get the Chief to cool off.

"You need to sit,"

Instead, he grabbed his chest grunting as he went down causing an uproar within the Task Force. It might seem a little cold-hearted but I knew the others could take care of things. Since L was out I had a responsibility to do. I ordered Mogi to find a pulse and Aizawa to use his phone to call the paramedics.

"Do you think Kira did this?" Matsuda asked.

I didn't answer him, clicking my belt button twice.

"Watari,"

"Mr. Yagami has collapsed in a-"

I looked over at Mogi, who nodded.

"Non-Kira related heart attack. I'm now starting the reboot and will move to the next hotel."

"I'll let Ryuzaki know. Please make sure the Yagami family isn't informed yet."

I agreed, hanging up and beginning the process of shutting everything off. I told the task force to keep the incident within this room, L's orders. Of course, Matsuda and Aizawa disagreed on the decision to keep the family out of the know, but they couldn't change my mind. Grabbing my laptop, I locked myself into the bedroom to finish going offline.