He knows he's hallucinating again when he wakes up to a pair of familiar eyes staring at him. So he closes his own eyes and goes back to sleep.

It gets worse when he wakes up again.

This time he's under fresh scented covers of a double bed, in what appears to be a bedroom. The window is open, and he can smell outside. He's warm, almost too warm. A glass of water is on the bedside table next to him, dripping cold. He takes a cautious sip.

Then he lies back and waits. Near is probably watching.

When L returns, Light decides he is probably not a hallucination after all, at least, not one of his own making. It is just another of Near's games.

So when the man or figure that is supposed to be L sits on the bed and stares at him with his dark, dark eyes, Light simply stares back.

"How are you feeling?"

The voice is spot on too. It throws Light so hard that he can't bring himself to reply.

Fake L looks worried. He places a hand to Light's forehead, and sits there tender and real.

"Light? Can you hear me?"

"I know what you're doing."

It takes him a moment to recognise his own voice, scratched and worn as it is. His eyes slide past L, wondering where the cameras are hidden.

"Light."

Light turns his eyes back to fake L, who has taken his hand. "This isn't a trick. It's me. Near's gone."

Light shakes his head, closes his eyes. He hates these games most of all. "Go away." He begs. "Go away, go away."

L takes away his hand, and it is as if someone has taken away the pillows.

"I'll be next door." His voice, L's voice, comes heavy and sad. "If you need anything."

Light's still there the next day. If it is the next day. He loses track.

L comes to look at him with the same wide eyes.

"Watari is making some soup."

Watari, he thinks. Good one, Near.

"Please eat it. Or, we can bring you anything else you would prefer."

Light considers asking for caviar, maybe consommé potato chips, but he doubts they would find it very funny.

"Do you need anything?"

"I need fresh clothes," he snaps, as a test, but L is nodding eagerly.

"We bought you new clothes. Would you like to get up?"

Light stares at him. His eyes are so real, so sincere.

It's too much. He has to close his eyes.

"It's me, Light," the voice insists. "I promise you. I can show the papers. I can turn on the news. Near's trial is tomorrow."

Light opens his eyes again. He looks at L warily. "People know I'm Kira? That I'm not dead?"

"No. Just that he was keeping a prisoner. Your identity hasn't been disclosed."

L doesn't turn on the news, which Light is grateful for. He leaves the remote beside the bed for him.

"Please eat something.

He has the strength to glare at L when he gets back. If he had something more substantial than pillows, an empty water glass, the remote, he would have thrown it.

"How?" he spits. He is seething and he's not sure why.

L stops in the door, then continues towards him. He doesn't sit on the bed, but on the neighbouring chair he's been ignoring.

"Rem approached me," he says. "When you blackmailed her. She didn't feel Misa would be safe if she killed herself. We came up with a plan."

Light is shaking his head. There is no way a Shinigami outsmarted him. It can't be that simple.

"You were dead."

"No."

"You left me," he says with contempt, like he hasn't heard him. "You left me with them."

"I had no idea this would happen. Near was a child when I- "

"Yes, Light cuts him off. "He was, wasn't he? I've been broken by a child."

"You're not broken."

His eyes burn. "How would you know?"

L doesn't speak for a moment. "It should have been Mello. I made a mistake."

"Shut up." Light doesn't want to hear it. "I should have killed you myself."

Watari comes to take the untouched soup away.

Light stares at him for a moment, as if at a ghost, then closes his eyes until he's gone.

When L comes to check on him, he never leaves it very long, Light asks, with as much contempt as he can, "This is your house?"

"Yes." He sets Light's fresh water pitcher on the bedside table. "I mostly stay in America, though."

Light eyes him. Why was L telling him things?

"Why aren't I in hospital?"

"You have been. But when you got a little better, I thought this was the least I could do." He pauses. "If you would prefer to not be here…"

He tails off, and Light doesn't help him out.

"Would you like me to contact your mother and sister?"

"No."

"They still don't know."

L looks like he's about to leave when Light finally asks, broken-voiced, "How are they?"

L softens, sits back down. "They're fine."

"Where am I buried?"

"Light- "

"Where am I buried?"

He sighs. "In Toshiba Cemetary, with your Father. But we can tell them- "

"No." Light curls up in a ball, L-like. "Don't tell them."

He eats a little soup the next day. It's a start.

"I need a bath." His voice is dull, but L nods like a little dog.

"I can help you." L stands, hesitates. "Or, would you prefer Watari? Or, a nurse?"

Light shakes his head. He doesn't care. "You."

L takes his arm and helps him. He washes Light's hair for him, then leaves him to soak in privacy, leaving the door open ajar. Light hears him moving around his bedroom, doubtless changing the sheets. He wonders where Watari is. Perhaps that part really was a hallucination.

After L helps him out, he shaves and dresses in the clothes L has left for him, black sweater and jeans, the kind he used to wear. L has also bought him the same toiletries, down to the same brand of hair mousse and hand sanitiser. Light almost laughs. He combs his hair.

"Where's Watari?" he asks, after he has been helped downstairs. He refuses to be impressed by the house.

"He's in Singapore on urgent business."

It is difficult to imagine L with any domestic ability, changing sheets, washing dishes, but he prepares Light some rice and vegetables without any obvious difficulty.

"My hair needs cutting," Light observes.

L nods again. "I can have someone come here. Or would you prefer to go somewhere?"

"Here's fine."

When he finishes his food, L asks him if he'd like to go outside. "In the garden," he clarifies, as if he thought Light was expecting a music festival.

"All right."

They sit under the trees with fruit juice, and Light takes off his shoes and socks to curl his toes into the grass. It looks healthier than he is.

"Is it summer?"

"Spring."

They drink in companionable silence.

"Are you warm enough?" L asks him in the evening, when Light is on the couch with some tea and finally forcing himself to watch the news. He experiences a grim little thrill at Near's mugshot and hangs on to it, determined that the man, the child, would not break him completely.

"Yes," Light tells him. "Stop coddling me."

"Sorry." He observes the news without expression. "He's likely to get the death penalty."

Today is the longest Light has seen L go without working. Does he still work? Perhaps he should be in Singapore right now, saving the world with Watari. Light doesn't like to ask.

As if reading his mind, L retrieves his laptop from another room, and hops onto the couch beside Light to open it.

Light leaves him to it until the commercials come, then leans over and snaps it shut, keeping his hand there.

L frowns at him.

"What's going to happen to me?"

L avoids his eyes. "I don't know."

"But it's up to you, isn't it?"

"Yes. Yes, it's up to me."

"You haven't decided yet?"

"No."

Light takes his hand away. They don't speak again.

He knows L is waiting for him to have a breakdown. He can feel it building himself, but he chooses to stay in the eye of the hurricane, the emotions harmless and far away.

Instead, he antagonises L. L does anything and everything for him, and hovers round him with his eye circles getting darker each day.

"You shouldn't have left." Light's voice isn't accusatory, simply observing.

"You were going to kill me."

"If the Shinigami wasn't going to kill you, you shouldn't have left."

"You were going to kill me."

"You shouldn't have left."

L gives up.

He breaks L's china cup the next day, the one he always seems to be using. It smashes beyond repair on the wooden floor, the coffee soaking into the nearby rug. He doesn't do it out of temper, or by accident, but as a test. He wants to see what L will do, what he will let him get away with.

L's eyes just bore into him like nothing has happened.

"You'll let me do anything to you, won't you, L?" he says in disgust. "I could hurt you."

"No, you couldn't."

He's probably right there. Light had been his equal at best. He doesn't stand a chance now.

L gets a little brush and scoop for the mess, pats down the rug with paper towels.

"You have to tell me what you're going to do with me," Light speaks to the crown of his head, while L keeps cleaning at his feet. "You can't just keep me here as your pet murderer, feeding me cake and watching the news with me."

"What would you like to do?"

He stands, and Light follows him into the kitchen.

"You're only giving me all these decisions because you know I can't make them on my own."

L frowns, puts everything down. "That's what you think I'm doing?"

He tries to take Light's hand but he snatches it away.

"You're not on your own." He says it again, and Light doesn't respond.

Back in the living room, Light sits beside him on the couch and considers hitting him, really hitting him, maybe braining him with the nearby vase and sending the lilies flying.

"We can talk about what to do whenever you're ready."

Light is getting at L the next day when, without warning, L picks up his laptop and walks out of the room while Light is still talking. He hears his bedroom door shut.

Light sits there, hollow in the victory of finally getting a reaction out of him.

L stays upstairs all day.

Around 7, Light swallows his pride and knocks on his door.

"L? I made some stir fry. You want some?"

He listens, wonders if L is sleeping. It isn't likely. His stomach clenches with unease.

"I'm sorry." He lowers his voice slightly, but he knows L would be able to hear him. He tries to open the door, finds it locked. He doesn't come out all night, either.

L brushes off his apology the next day.

Light tries to explain. "I'm just so angry all the time."

"Would you like to see someone? Just an idea," he adds, as if Light is about to snap again.

"You mean a psychiatrist?" He thinks about it. "I guess I probably should."

He helps L wish the dishes that night.

"Can we talk about what's going to happen to me?"

L looks at him, biting his thumb. "Would you like to work with me?"

"But why?" Light asks, having suspected it was coming. "Why would you let me? You owe me nothing."

He shrugs.

"I thought you believed in justice."

"So did I." He shrugs again, like it's an answer.

Light considers this. "So I'd stay with you?"

"You don't have to. There are plenty of things you could do."

"Would I travel?"

"It would be difficult, and risky, but you could now and then, if you wanted to."

"You travel a lot." It's not a question.

"Yes."

He thinks about it.

He cries that night, in the privacy of his room, anger finally giving way to the beautiful white house with its wooden furniture, its garden, to L, L filling the fridge with fruit he'd never seen before, L playing with the neighbour's cat, L doing everything for him and asking for nothing in return.

L doesn't hear him, but Light goes to him anyway, letting himself in his bedroom and lying next to him in the dark.

L stiffens, as if Light may be about to torment him again.

"Are you all right?" he asks eventually, warily.

"Yes. No. Yes." Light's throat is still raw with crying.

L reaches out to squeeze his arm.

"I want to stay with you."

He doesn't let go.

"All right, then."