May I advertise the works of my wonderful friend Dotti55, she has recently begun writing and her stories are well worth the read. I hope that you will take some time to go and read them.

A/N; Well, it's been a while since I've updated this story huh. I can only apologise really, my muse went on holiday for a bit amongst other things that happened in my life, but as with Instrumentalities I think we can get up and running again.

I hope you are all still interested in reading this story, and I'd love to hear what you all think about it. So please read, and review!

Chapter 3

"You would truly side with me?" Light whispered, standing and taking a few steps closer to L. His face shone with undisguised happiness and surprise, "You would choose me over everything else?"

"I did over two years ago, and now I find I want to join you completely," L replied, looking down at the tabletop with a defeated expression, "I can't even hold being Kira against you..."

"Oh L," Light sighed, and he shifted to lay a hand on L's hair briefly. "What do you want from all of this? Surely you didn't need to go through all this? All you had to do was say you didn't want to tell me, and then it need never have had to be brought up again."

"No... I had to a pick a side," L said, and he glanced up at Light, "It is more than certain they would have found out that I was here eventually. They would undoubtedly think I was here against my will and then I would be forced to give you their names... Because I would choose you over them, no matter how much it pains me to admit it. They're only doing this because of their memories of me as L."

Light nodded in understanding, he had known realistically that L would have to act in some way with this. He supposed he just hadn't wanted to reawaken the aspects of L that were so logical and so close to making L back into the enemy he had once had. He didn't think he could cope with having the man he loved suddenly turning against him once more; not after so long.

"I take it you have a plan," Light commented, leaning against the table his arms crossed.

"I want to be the one to chase after them and find them. I know how they think and how they are most likely to act. I can't think of anyone you could employ who would be better," L continued, "You told me you wouldn't kill them, and after all I have seen today I believe you on that. Though I was also wondering... Light, I need to be more visible. They need to know I side with you of my own free will, and I want them to change their focus away from you to wondering why I'm on your side."

"That's a very dangerous plan L," Light said after a moment's consideration, "You can't possibly know that they are as you remember them. It has been ten years since you could have last spoken to them."

"I know Light, Wammy's training was very thorough. I suspect it would have continued to operate just as it had before even once they thought I was dead. That you didn't know of this before they began to be a threat gives me great confidence that it was so," L explained, finally looking up at Light, "I'm just not sure how to become more public... "

For a moment there was silence between the two great genii. Then Light smiled and L froze in his seat. He knew that this could only mean his lover was going to suggest something he really wasn't going to like. Though L had to admit that it was unlikely he was ever going to like any plans to become public, and it was probably the main reason he hadn't come up with one already.

"I know of a way," Light murmured, reaching down with one gloved hand to cup L's cheek, "become one of my advisors. There have been so many times I would have valued your input, and I have a feeling I could always guarantee I'd get your honest opinion."

"..."

"You'd have the same standing as Mikami," Light continued, seemingly getting more enthused with the idea as he spoke, "So you wouldn't have to worry about him outranking you, and you will have access to resources that should be I hope equal to what you had before. So you could more easily track these people down as you would want to, while being better able to help me."

"You would trust me with this?" L said suddenly, "Trust that all that I've told you is the truth. No questions you're just going to trust me?"

"If you had wanted to work against me in any form you would have done so in the past two years, despite the promise I had you give me that day," Light explained, "You never did. Since then I think I've got to know you well enough to be able to trust you. In fact I think I've always shown I trust you or at least I have tried to, it is you who had to seek to trust me."

L looked away from Light then and stared down at the table once more, his gaze passing briefly over the documents and photos that lay strewn across them. He was surprised that the reply he had received was so frank. He also knew that light was right, he had always been trusted. Never had he had a guard present to restrict his movement in the past two years, always allowed to go where he wished. It had been himself entirely that had kept him from exploring the mansion where they lived further and meeting more of the people here. He had created his own walls and realising this made him feel so stupid. Even if he knew he had only done so because it helped him stay in his own world where he could forget the conflict he had once felt towards Light.

"Don't you ever worry though that my feelings for you are a form of Stockholm Syndrome?" L asked, turning to look back at his once captor. At the pained expression that appeared on Light's face he felt immediately guilty for bringing up such a painful topic. He had to know all the answers though, he didn't like being in the dark any longer. He couldn't keep that side of him repressed any longer and knowing precisely where Light stood on all these matters was important. The more he knew the less he would feel he was betraying himself.

"In the early days after your release I worried that was the case quite often," Light whispered, "I gave you so much free reign so that if you wanted to escape you could..."

He trailed off, obviously unable to continue where this conversation was heading, his darkened gaze fixed on a distant point on the wall behind L. His eyes turned to look at L once more though as one of the detective's hands covered his where it lay upon the table.

"I worried that it was the reason myself," L said calmly, realising that this would be the final 'act' in his joining Light because never in the past two years had he admitted how he truly felt about the man before him, "But it's not, at least I don't believe so. Light, I do love you. "

Deep inside his own mind Light pushed down the worry, the small niggling worry, that all this was being said to hide L's real plan. He believed L he could see in the dark eyes before him only conviction and he darted forward in his chair to place a kiss on the lips just below them, smiling as it was almost instantly returned.

"So, I'd have the same standing as Mikami would I?" L laughed as Light shifted away once more, "I like the sound of that."

The sudden dull expression of realisation that dawned on Light's face as he realised what he had done made L laugh even harder, a hand supporting his head up off the table he was laughing that hard. The advisor to the world stared at his partner in growing horror as his mind played out all the scenes that were in his future now he had put L next to the one person he liked to torment most in the whole world.

"He's never going to forgive me," Light whispered.

...

"Oi, Linda."

She frowned at the shout from below down the hole in which a ladder stood leading into the warehouse below her. As always she was annoyed that Mello was able to find her hiding places in the collection of rundown warehouses and factories. One of the few remaining places that were safe in this godforsaken world now Kira had risen to such power. She hated him for all he had cost her and for the way one man could have so much sway over the world. Just because things appeared to be getting better didn't mean that they always would. Power was corrupting, that was something L had always warned them about. So Kira had to be stopped if not for that reason, then simply because he was the reason L had died. There could be no greater symbol of impending evil than the removal of one of the greatest forces of good there had ever been.

"I hate you," she whispered, glaring out across the rooftops below her out towards the gleaming towers of the city beyond. It made her feel as though all the tarnished and imperfect things were being forced out of the world as Kira attempted to make it 'perfect'. It made her feel sick, and it made her wonder if it was going to start happening to the people too.

"What?" Mello said, his tone one of shock as he finally emerged onto the roof, almost leaping off the ladder to stand next to her.

"Oh, nothing," Linda sighed, turning to smile at her erstwhile friend.

"Ah, nothing being your usual hatred towards Kira," Mello commented with a smirk, "As if that's anything new."

"Oh, so you don't?"

"Wasn't saying that," Mello replied with a laugh, "I'm saving it up until I'm face to face with the bastard."

Linda said nothing; there was no real reply she could give to this she knew. Since the day they had heard of L's death there had been nothing more on Mello's mind than revenge and if Linda and Matt hadn't chased after him the day he had left Wammy's to do that... she knew he would have done something that would have gotten him killed by now. She knew her presence hadn't really been the factor that had brought him back, only Matt dissolving into tears at his feet had done the trick, the gamer holding onto the bottom of his legs and refusing to let go.

"What's up?" She asked at last, wondering what had brought Mello in search of her now.

"Matt thinks he might have found something. A potential way to crack into the network Kira has. He keeps complaining though apparently that thing is just too damn impenetrable," Mello said with another smirk, "If it wasn't for the fact Kira was behind it, I'd be impressed."

With those words Mello vanished back down the hole, sliding down the ladder to the bottom at such a speed that, had Linda not seen it before, she would have been scared for him. With a sigh she followed him at a more sedate pace.

"So what's the way in you found Matt?" she asked as she entered the small space they called home, the only place in the whole warehouse that didn't look as though it were about to fall down. She smiled as she saw Near crouched by the computer bank, looking rather put out about something and she wondered what Mello could have done in such a small space of time to upset him.

"It's not so much a way in... not really," Matt began, and at the laughing tone of his voice Linda began to worry. Her worry mounting as both Mello and Near turned calculating gazes in her direction.

"Well, it seems Kira is holding a recruiting drive," Matt continued, "So I was thinking, perhaps, one of us could join up..."

"Oh no," Linda said hurriedly as the looks she was receiving became steely, "You can't be serious. Not me..."

"Out of all of us you are the one most likely to pass personality tests," Near said calmly, "I doubt any of us can match Kira's exacting standards-"

"Tch," Mello grumbled, "When you said you had a way in I hadn't thought you meant something so stupid..."

"It is the only way," Near countered, "Anything else and we won't be able to reach Kira. Perhaps we could even work to our advantage."

"But what about me?" Linda whispered, she could see their logic yes, but she couldn't help feeling as though they were discussing throwing her in with the lions. "You really can't be serious."