Author's Note: To those of you about to read this is technically a side fic to the AU SI "God of the Machine" however as this is an AU of that AU you really don't have to read the original to understand this. If you want more details/suspense/just more stuff in general though that's the place to go as this is, at the end of things, a one-shot.

Attention must be paid.

If there were any words that would be written on her gravestone, wherever these assholes decided to put it, with dramatic music and lighting to match the sober tone of the scene then those words would be carved deep into the granite.

Or at least they should be.

Her reconciling with her imminent death wasn't on a rooftop with Light Yagami, she saved that bullshit for L, hers was in front of a computer and realizing that she had officially run out of ideas and that there may well be no way out. Another key difference between her scene and L's, aside from the speech about bells and the rain, was that hers was a good while earlier, before Light Yagami or Misa Amane had regained their memories.

There wasn't any real terror, terror had been while she'd still had some vague hope of survival or of even leaving, but instead a sort of listlessness and then a dull burning anger.

A demand: Attention must be paid.

She really didn't have the audience for it though. These were men who didn't pay any attention to their wives or their daughters or even their sons for that matter; they weren't the type to sit through a production of, "Death of a Salesman". There was a long line of people desperately demanding someone to look and listen before she would get anywhere.

It was probably a shitty idea, she certainly didn't know what anyone would make of it reading it, but desperation breeds shitty ideas so she ran with it as far as it would take her.

In the midst of the Yotsuba arc, with L chained to Light and them bickering constantly as if the universe revolved around them, in her free time she sat down at a computer and in a single word document wrote down the only real story she knew.

"I, Jones"

It started before the Kira case, before Kira even existed and Light Yagami picked up a plain black notebook called "Death" on the lawn of his school. It didn't, for that matter, start in Japan either.

It started in Moscow in a five star hotel as the great detective L was eating room serviced éclairs. One moment he was stuffing French pastries into his mouth, perched in his chair like some demented oversized bird, or else like a crack head and the next he blinked as the laws of physics bent around him.

She didn't really know what happened either, one moment she hadn't been there, the next she was staring across the room at some really weird skinny guy squatting on a chair without any idea how he got there or even she got there.

He spoke first in Russian, or what probably was Russian, she had no idea at the time only that it wasn't English and she had no clue where the hell she was. He repeated in some other language, similar sounding, and finally she got herself together and answered.

"Uh, English."

He didn't hesitate, or give any sign that it was an odd question to ask, but instead in the same tone asked what she assumed was the same question that was in all the other languages.

"Do you teleport often or are you a hallucination?"

"What?"

This was about how well all her conversations with L went. What said a lot was that this was before she even realized he was L, that she was in Death Note before Death Note was even happening.

After affirming her non-hallucination status by having Watari inspect her L immediately set to work detectiving and completely ignoring the case he had been working on. Teleportation was much more interesting than other petty crimes after all. And with each answer he became more and more delighted, breaking out into an odd childish smile, sticking his thumb between his teeth as he looked her over.

"You have no records, did you know that? Not under your name and not under your face either. You don't exist in this world at all."

Now, hearing that you didn't exist, that you were anomaly, was a bit philosophic for how she was feeling right then. She was more concerned with the fact that she was apparently in Russia in Death Note and in L's hotel room without any idea why.

She had nothing really against L, watching the series she hadn't necessarily been a fan, but she had felt he was fairer and more on the right side of things than Light. L was, after all, against murdering people which excused a lot of his other tendencies. Still, she remembered from the anime that L wasn't necessarily a good person, a lot of his actions in retrospect had been somewhat questionable. L was more like the okay looking girl standing next to the homely girl at the dance, he looked good by comparison.

At the time she'd been too disturbed by the thought that she was either dreaming or had managed to cross dimensions into a fictional world to really think over small details like that.

"Look, I'm sorry for entering your hotel room, I really didn't mean to and you have to believe me."

L wasn't the one having problems believing though, it was more for her because she was finding it hard to believe.

"Oh, don't be sorry, this is the best thing that's happened all week." L interrupted poking at her with an index finger, and inspecting her with too dark and too large eyes.

"But I really would like to get back to America or well… Go home." Home was a bit further than America, she was beginning to realize, but the thought of being somewhere at least vaguely familiar was better than anything else.

L stopped then, observed her, and said, "I'm afraid I can't do that."

"What?"

She'd been distracted by her own thoughts of the impossible, but even then she'd managed to be surprised, like she had expected L to somehow be on her side.

"For one thing it would be pointless, from what I've been able to find your America is not the same as the America I'm familiar with, and there is also the fact that this is now a case. One that will not attract attention or spectacles but a grand case nonetheless, and I can't simply ship it off to America unresolved for any upstart to pick up. No, I'm afraid you'll be staying here for some time, my alien friend."

He then walked over to his laptop and began furiously typing, eyeing her occasionally as he did so, and finally he said, "I'm thinking Anna Jones, very plain, very English, and very boring."

And that was how she became Anna Jones, sitting blankly on the couch with tea in hand and a wet cloth provided by Watari on her head, watching as L swiftly created a life that never existed out of thin air and sheer determination.

The hard part was that it wasn't terrible. She was fed gourmet food as frequently as she wanted, she could order any movie she wanted in the fanciest hotel rooms she had ever been in, she could leave and go shopping or to the mall or do whatever she wanted and it seemed all well and good.

It was a gilded bird cage though, glittering, distracting, but at the end of things a bird cage was still a bird cage.

She could do pretty well anything she wanted, except leave, she had a strict curfew she had to abide by, and she was forced to carry a cellphone that she was pretty sure L could track down if he really wanted. And as the weeks went on, as they left Russia, England, China, and whatever other country needed L digging through their case files she began to panic.

Whatever this situation was it wasn't ending. L believed whole heartedly that she was some sort of alien, which she supposed was true, given the fact that no amount of hacking or searching could produce her existence anywhere. It was more than that though, L wanted to believe she was an alien. L wanted something exciting, something new, something that wasn't easily solved and was so much more than rapists, murderers, and thieves.

L had wanted her and L had desperately wanted Kira.

Towards the ends of his cases, whenever he wrapped it up in his own head but before he went to the police departments, he would always sort through the cases that he could take next. He would surround himself with files and perch in front of his laptop, flicking through papers, and clicking through web pages, with a musing uninterested stare.

"Boring, boring, boring…" He'd mutter to himself and then glance at her.

"What do you think Anna Jones, a derailed train with hints of sabotage?"

And before she could even open her mouth he'd move onto the next one, "Boring."

So no, it could have been worse. She could have been dead, she could have been really imprisoned, she could have been tortured, she could be in many situations worse than the one she was in. Still, there was something so unnerving about all of it. Not necessarily enough to leave, because where the hell would she go then, but enough to put her on edge.

She'd also started to develop odd habits. She'd never exactly been the greatest of people persons but she hadn't been a hermit either, lately she found herself going out of her way to avoid them. Even when getting out of the hotel she'd sit in the corner of some restaurant and eat the most expensive thing on the menu and force L to pay for it.

Her world revolved around L, Watari was in and out and barely talked to her, and so L was the only really stable thing in her life. L provided the money, L told her when it was time to leave, L looked at her and cared how was she doing or feeling even if it was only to figure out how she ticked, everything became about him.

And it was really freaking her out.

The first time she tried to leave was England.

They were staying in London, L working on a rather grisly case that probably involved local gangs rather than serial killers, and as usual she had been allowed to wander the city on her own for hours while L was too deep in detective mode to ask her questions and figure out her mystery.

She'd been thinking about it, so it hadn't quite been impulsive, but all the same she didn't really plan for it.

She'd been sitting in Hyde Park staring at the children and street performers, with a fair amount of cash but no form of identification, and she thought to herself that this might be the only real chance she ever got.

If she used the name and ID L gave her, Anna Jones, he'd easily track her down so she couldn't exactly leave the country (that and he kept a very close hold on her passport, visas, driver's license, and all the other fake documentation he'd created for her so that he could tote her around the world) but she was in a place where she spoke English. Maybe if she went to the right neighborhoods she could find a job where they didn't ask for identification.

It would be sketchy as hell, sketchier than hell, probably dangerous but at the very least she would be free.

At least, that's how she rationalized it later. Really it was her standing up dramatically, stepping onto a bus, and rolling out of London and to wherever.

It took the bastard only four days to find her.

And when she saw Watari, standing outside of the cheapest hotel that didn't have blood stains she could find, she felt something inside of her plummet.

After that she wasn't allowed to use cash anymore, only credit card.

Kira didn't show up until after almost half a year that she had been living with L.

By that point they'd gotten almost used to each other, or as used to each other as they were ever going to get. He made a game of guessing her real name, her history, her past and some she told him but most she didn't. He probably didn't want to be told anyway because L liked the guessing, he liked the game, once the game was over it was back to the grind in search of something new.

She supposed she shouldn't be too hard on L, he had some redeeming qualities, ones that never really came to mind but they had to be there. He wasn't like the people he tracked down for one, he wasn't an embezzler, a serial killer, and the things he did really did help save the world; maybe.

He was obsessive but he wasn't terrifying, he didn't always push and prod, and for the most part she could do what she wanted.

Except leave.

He was intelligent, but she wasn't sure intelligence was necessarily a redeeming quality, not in the way that being good or kind was.

But she got used to him, she got used to seeing him perched in a chair every morning, to telling him that she was going to see red square, or the great wall, or the forbidden palace, or whatever was worth seeing and him giving a distracted response.

She got used to thinking that maybe this was what her life was going to be. That maybe she should ask L if she could have funds to go to college or something, to get a degree and at least help with the detectiving, to become some sort of under-Watari so she could at least do something.

It wasn't a terrible life, and it could be exciting, being a detective or something like it.

The trouble was that it wasn't really terrible; if it had been terrible maybe she would have been motivated to get out while the going was good.

The first time L told her about Kira he was smiling, practically dancing around the room.

"I don't know how he does it, Anna, I don't know how he does it!" He kept saying that over and over his smile growing wider as if it was the greatest thing he'd ever heard in his life.

"It's the scale of things, the rate, which makes it impossible. He killed hundreds already, he'll be in the thousands before the month is out I'm sure, and they're all so far from one another in distance and time that even with minions or technology it couldn't be done."

Watari was out of the room, doing some menial task for L, which wasn't exactly out of the ordinary for this kind of situation. L and Watari had an odd relationship, even weirder than hers and L's, it was as if to him Watari was more of a tool than a person only not quite. It was more that Watari must be a tool and wasn't allowed to be a person because he'd made a tool out of L. To each other they were only the great detective and the assistant, Watari was in charge of taking care of L and keeping him alive and in luxury and in return L was in charge of solving cases; it seemed that it'd been the bargain they'd had ever since L was very young.

Anna was different though, as much as L kept her on a tight leash he wasn't distant towards her, if anything he was too close. He always wanted to tell her details about cases, often times very grisly and not always that interesting, to show off and prove that he really was the best of the best. Sometimes he even talked about his personal life, about the existence of Wammy's, about Beyond Birthday, about the whole idea of heirs.

Anna Jones was something L had made up, she didn't really exist, and there was nowhere she could go where she could blab all his secrets and so she was probably the closest thing to a friend he'd ever had.

At least, that was the only explanation she could come up with, because it was really weird.

"Kira, killer in English which is so simple it's almost pedantic but all the same there's something to its simplicity. I wonder if he calls himself it, if he's accepted it, I doubt he liked it at first but it rolls off the tongue doesn't it, Kira? Killer, Death Destroyer of Worlds." He grinned at her then, showing her his laptop which contained one of the fan pages dedicated to Kira before he really took off running.

"This may be the single greatest case I've ever seen."

Only a few days later and they were in Tokyo with Watari representing L's interests at Interpol and his immediate taking over of the NPA homicide division's investigation of the Kira case.

L was a great detective, she supposed, sometimes it was hard to tell if he was smart or just plain lucky. Only when in a good mood did he explain a case to her from start to finish, listing out the motivations, the crime scenes, everything that had led to his unshakable conclusion.

According to his track record he had never been wrong before.

All the same though there were times when she was reminded more of "National Treasure" than something she could actually believe. Where conclusions were rushed together at such a rapid, unbelievable rate, that it made it seem as if they the work of a genius. Look too closely though and you realized that there was nothing holding them together except enthusiasm and an unreasonable amount of confidence.

So perhaps L did deserve his titles of three greatest detectives in the world, having disposed of the other two to claim a monopoly over the field, but all the same she couldn't help but feel that he was really missing something.

It took him far longer than she expected to figure out that she knew quite a lot about what was going to happen.

At the Lind L. Taylor plan, told to her in great detail because of its brilliance, she hadn't put on much of a show. She'd remembered feeling sick, at first dismissing it, and then realized that L was televising a man's death. No, that he was hoping to televise a man's death. He wanted Lind L. Taylor dead within that first ten minutes, in the Kanto region of Japan, he wanted to be able to interrupt his own broadcast and declare war on Kira.

She remembered that scene, the dramatics, Light's reaction to it afterwards. The manga had always been so focused on Light though, on what Light thought of L in that moment, that they hadn't really gotten to see what L had made of Kira's development.

And listening to L talk about it, as if it was the most brilliant thing he had ever thought of, she had wondered if L really was all that much better than Kira because there was something wrong with being able to think that this was okay.

He didn't notice it then, or at least, he didn't say anything.

He didn't notice it later as he deduced various aspects about Kira. That Kira was a student, that he was an idealist, that he had a connection with the police, and that he hated to lose.

She kept waiting for him to notice and then it was November and he was discussing sending FBI agents into the field.

"My major lead is the families of homicide agents, there are after all many students in Tokyo alone, and so my hand is almost forced." L gave a thin smile as he stared at a slice of cheesecake, "Kira's a very clever young man, isn't he Anna Jones?"

"Yeah, I guess he is." She watched him eat it, there'd been a time when she'd taken some of his sweets out of spite, back in her earlier days with him but that game had gotten old pretty fast. There was, after all, a seemingly unlimited supply with Watari and all the room service.

"He's forcing me to alienate my underlings, to get them all to turn against me, but of course that's a double edged sword. They'll leave soon, especially after this, but when they do a few will remain and those ones I can trust; as much as one can trust anyone in a world where a man can kill with just a face and a name." Again L had that strange contemplative expression on his face that he always got when considering Kira; looking as if he wasn't sure if he should condemn him or congratulate him for being so absurdly clever.

Those FBI agents would die though, they would all die, each and every one of them and then more as Naomi Misora would die by being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

She had waited for L to figure it out, to ask her, but it seemed he wasn't as good of a detective as he wanted to be.

Or perhaps he didn't want to know, maybe it was like having the solutions to a puzzle close at hand, and that acknowledging that she knew the answers would spoil everything.

Either way it seemed that it wouldn't be up to him.

So in the end L didn't figure it out, she told him, because Lind L. Taylor was enough.

L had quite the sense of humor when he felt like it. He had a brilliant poker face so it was always hard to tell but it was there.

L, to put it mildly, was a giant troll. The anonymous detective charade, his posture, his imitating a junky in withdrawal, everything was just to get everyone around him to be completely uncomfortable. He liked watching ordinary people twitch.

And that was why, it had to be why there certainly wasn't any other reason, that when the team finally assembled in L's hotel room and they were all introduced she was introduced as his personal maid Sakura and forced to wear an elaborate maid's outfit that made her feel like a whore.

"If Kira doesn't kill you, Ryuzaki, I swear to God I will do it for him." She'd told him under her breath when the men had first walked in and she'd caught Matsuda staring at her tights and billowing skirt.

"Oh dear, I wouldn't want to alienate my prescient alien princess, now would I Sakura? I'd better take that under advisement." He'd said giving her a cheery smile, before turning back to the men and getting down to business.

It was humiliating, it was beyond humiliating, she didn't really have words to describe how embarrassed she felt. Here she was, in Death Note, in the same room as the task force investigation only she was pretending to be L's super maid who lived to serve his every whim.

It did deflect attention from her, made it seem as if she didn't know the ins and outs of the case as they discussed pseudonyms to use for their own protection, as if they wouldn't already be dead in a second if Light wanted it.

Still, there was something about being in a maid's outfit that clearly was just so sexist and objectifying that she just couldn't stand it.

That, and it really was starting to seem like some sort of play they were putting on, because L already knew that Kira was none other than Yagami Light.

"Well, that's all well and good, but I can't simply arrest him without some evidence." L had said after she'd told him. His eyes had been cold then, she was right he hadn't wanted to know, she'd spoiled it for him but all the same he was playing along.

He still had to gather evidence on Light, had to place cameras in his house even if it would come to nothing, had to meet him in person. L insisted on all the same moves he had played before not even bothering to listen that she already knew how it all worked and that there was no point in it.

He had placed Misa Amane under surveillance, at her insistence, but there was no heart in it. After all, as far as they could tell she didn't have a notebook yet. They would have to wait for Misa to make her mistake in order to get Light, and so L was content to let things roll along until the second Kira's premier on Sakura television station.

He had treated it as if it was all meaningless, as if her wealth of information, information that could save lives, ultimately meant nothing. Worse than nothing, that it had been a hindrance, the only thing that it had done was make him look at her more closely and loudly question her motivations for lying to him and making it all up.

As if by trying to save people, by trying to help get rid of Kira and save the world as L had put it, she was just trying to find a way out of L's myriad of hotel rooms. It wasn't that simple and she hated that he felt he could say that to her.

Maybe that was why she was Sakura the maid, to prove a point, to make it clear that L was also childish and hated to lose.

Sometimes, she thought to herself, sometimes she hated L more than anything in the world.

Light Yagami was different in person than she'd expected. He was shorter for one thing, only a little taller than her, but more than that he was composed. Charming to a certain extent but more than that he had this air of confidence that drew you in as if the universe extended itself before him.

The first time he saw her he didn't say anything, his eyebrows merely raised a bit as he took in the sight of her, and he gave her a polite smile.

"Yagami Light, a friend of Ryuzaki's from college." He said bowing slightly like she was someone worth respecting instead of some weird white girl in a maid outfit. And it almost was charming except that she was still in a maid outfit and he was a mass murderer who was probably plotting her death even as he stared at her.

"Sakura, Ryuzaki's bitch and maid, I make him sandwiches." She responded bowing back to him in turn and giving him an equally polite smile.

He blinked a few times at that, his polite smile straining underneath the silence as he searched for something to say in response. Not that she blamed him had someone said that to her she probably would have had the same reaction but all the same she was getting very tired of her position, "Well, you're certainly quite forward.

They stared at each other, and she felt for an odd moment, that they were both really looking that somehow he saw past the maid outfit to what she really was. Like he somehow knew everything.

The moment faded quickly enough when L called Light over, "Light, my friend, there are much more interesting things to discuss than the hired help."

The worrying thing was that she didn't know what Light thought about her before he was incarcerated. For the most part it seemed as if he was clearly fixated on L as L was just as fixated on him, but every once in a while his eyes would wander towards her with a question in them.

Because she didn't fit and she felt he knew that.

The others took her as some quirk of L's, some other thing he had just to be weird, a part of the role. Light didn't treat her as if she was L's maid, and whenever she did act as his maid, got coffee for Matsuda and the like he always gave her a thinly amused smile as if he knew exactly what she was doing.

They didn't talk too often, they'd greet each other, she'd take his coat when he stepped into the hotel room but there was no real interaction beyond that. His eyes though, he had very expressive eyes, and when he stared at her she couldn't help but shudder.

What chess piece was she in his head and how did he expect her to be played in the coming months?

It wasn't a question he or L ever bothered to address.

The events of the next few months were probably the ones worthy of the most detail, they were the ones where the most happened, but in the end she'd keep her recounting of this brief.

There wasn't much to say after all, L failed to capture Misa before she used the notebook out of his need to rely on evidence, and so Light and Misa met. She didn't know the exact details of their meeting, if anything had changed or if anything needed to.

She guessed it had gone the same, that Light had seduced Misa over to his side, that he now had access to the eyes and two notebooks, and for a moment he had a select window of opportunity to kill L.

And like in the manga this failed, Misa was finally imprisoned, and then shortly after the memory gambit was in play.

She hadn't really thought about it at that point, the possibility of her death, she'd been an observer of the plot beforehand. Sure she'd tried to participate, tried to warn L, but he hadn't listened and so instead she'd just watched as everything played out.

She may have been trapped in Death Note, L may have made her his maid, but even when she thought about the fact that Light was planning to kill L she didn't realize that he'd be after her as well. That she wasn't separated by one way glass and that he could see her just as clearly as she could see him, and more, she wasn't labeled a neutral player but one of L's key pieces.

She was someone who belonged to L, like Watari, like Wedy, and Aiber.

It wouldn't be until later, when Light was released after being fake executed by his father, when he stood handcuffed next to L that she realized if the memory gambit played out then she was going to die along with L and everyone else.

Anna Jones was slated for that first purge.

She liked to think she was moral person or at least decently moral. She liked to believe that she was on a different level from Light and even L, that she was a good person, and had the capacity to remain good even in terrible situations.

She liked to believe these things but she didn't know if they were true.

During the Yotsuba arc she was faced with a major dilemma.

Delay the case, prevent L and Light from ever finding Higuchi, and save her, L, Watari, and the lives of the rest of the task force in the process or stop Higuchi from being Kira and possibly solve the Kira case early at the very real possibility of her and everyone else's death.

She supposed it came down to who she trusted less as Kira, Light or Higuchi.

Light went batshit crazy after six years of believing he was a god but if she remembered correctly he hadn't been that bad after only a year. Evil, yes, but also disciplined, at least in the beginning. Light didn't kill news castors who slandered Kira, he didn't kill Demegawa even though he was severely tempted to, the point was that even though he had been slipping he had drawn lines. Higuchi didn't draw lines, he killed business rivals, Kira was a hobby for him and given time he might use it only for personal means.

But maybe that was better, letting Kira slip away, like he never existed in the first place. But then the Death Note would still be there, and there would always be the chance that someone like Light, or worse someone like Mikami or Misa could get it instead.

If they caught Higuchi, if L made sure Light wasn't holding that notebook, then they had a chance to end Kira and keep everyone alive.

But then that was what the memory gambit was for, even if Light failed to regain his memories, even if Misa failed to regain hers, then Rem would still be placed in a position to kill everyone off. If L pushed for the death penalty, for imprisonment, if he didn't spare Misa or even Light then they were all dead.

And it wouldn't matter if they had caught Kira only for a moment.

Her life, L's life, Watari's life, Light Yagami's life, Misa's life, everyone's life depended on L's good will and mercy.

Why did she feel so pessimistic of the outcome?

"Ryuzaki, I need to talk to you."

It was about halfway through the Yotsuba arc and everyone was at their wits end for very different reasons. L had been driving Light up the wall, he looked like a mess, for the most part she tried not to think about Light beyond 'there's Kira when he's not being Kira' but even she couldn't help but note that he was not looking good. L was pushing him past any decent breaking point and she wondered if he really was the biggest idiot alive because what kind of a moron knowingly bullied a dragon like Kira.

But L did, constantly, incessantly. There was more work done pushing Light's buttons, watching how he twitched, than on the stagnating Kira case. Light was L's newest toy, his newest Anna Jones, the only issue was that Light hadn't realized it yet.

L looked over at her, "Oh, if it isn't Sakura, my devoted maid. Did you need something? I personally require cheesecake."

He gave her a pointed look, one that meant for her to get the damn cheesecake, but she didn't budge.

"I need to talk to you, sans Light if that's possible."

Here Light's eyebrows raised looking over at her dubiously as if he was surprised that she was the one asking that. It was fairly surprising, since the debut of the handcuffs no one had really raised any objections, or asked to speak to either alone. By this point the handcuffs were sort of a given and to question them was in the territory of questioning L's competence, which just wasn't done.

"Well, I'm afraid that's not, possible that is." L said pursing his lips and then limply raising his wrist to jangle the chain, "I must keep an eye on him at all times for suspicious activity, one never knows when he might snap and drop the charade."

"You bastard, you know I'm not Kira!" Light snapped slamming his hand on the table his eyes blazing.

Light hadn't appeared to caught on that L didn't care that Light wasn't Kira; if Light wasn't willing to be Kira then L was going to make him Kira whether he liked it or not.

"Not right now, not yet." L said with a musing sort of expression that left all the possibilities dangling in the air.

The thing was that L knew Light wasn't Kira right now and that there was no way for him to be Kira. She'd told him that more or less herself months before Misa even had the notebook. He knew that Light wasn't ever going to be Kira unless he got his hands on that little black notebook. He knew that he'd swapped ownership with someone else, that at the moment Light had no memory whatsoever of being Kira. He knew all of this but he still wasn't willing to give up the chase.

Evidence, he kept saying, I need evidence before I can act. Like it was somehow cheating if he took her advice, and maybe it was, but there were lives on the line his own included! The least he could do was attempt to listen to her.

"Would you stop baiting him for two seconds?! We need to talk, now, or else we will all be dead before this is over!"

That seemed to catch his attention, but more than that it caught Light's, he was looking at her like he had never seen her before or else didn't know what to make of her. Sakura the maid had a mysterious background after all, L hadn't told them much, just that she was a maid that worked for him in the same way Watari worked for him.

When Matsuda asked what else she did besides being a maid, since Watari was clearly more than a butler, he'd only smiled.

"I long ago accepted the stakes of taking this case." L said slowly but she interrupted him.

"No, Ryuzaki, I really don't think you have. I didn't say you can die, that you can lose, I said you will! You've ignored me for long enough, and look where it's gotten us!"

He stared at her for a few moments, weighing her, and in that moment she thought he was seriously considering it.

Then the moment passed and he smiled, "Sakura, if you don't mind Light and I are working and Kira won't be caught on empty stomachs. That cheesecake really would be appreciated."

(Later she came back with the plate of cheesecake only to shove it into his face.

He'd perched there, like a demented oversized bird, and wiped it off his face only to shove his cake covered hand into his mouth.

"Delicious.")

Shortly after Light found his lead, the deaths of the Yotsuba rivals, and shortly after that Matsuda's incredible stupidity brought them closer to the kill, she started writing the stupid story of her very stupid life.

It was turning out to be one of those existential dramas where at the end of it she realized there hadn't been a point to any of it. It would be a waste of somebody else's two hours, if they ever read it.

Very soon Misa would probably be seducing Higuchi in a naughty nurse outfit and then it would all slide downhill.

"Are you alright?"

Speak of the devil and he'd appear with L handcuffed to him behind your shoulder. She turned and found herself face to face with Light and a very bored looking L. She was about to dismiss him, tell him to go off and solve the Kira case or whatever it was he and L ever did but then she caught something in his expression.

He was actually concerned, not fake-Kira concerned, but concerned like a normal person. Like no one else had ever been.

"I… No, not really." She offered him a weak smile, "Thanks for asking though it… It means more than you probably think."

He gave her a weak smile back. He looked like as much hell as she did, still. The nights had gotten longer, she knew he and L barely slept, and he looked much thinner than he had only a few months before.

He looked worn down at the edges, frayed, but it hadn't touched his eyes yet. L hadn't broken him, after months, incarceration, after everything that had happened he hadn't broken yet.

It was too bad, she couldn't help but think, that he was Kira because he really could have been a great man.

"If you need anything…"

"I'll ask." She finished for him and then said, "Look, you two better get working, this Yotsuba case isn't going to crack itself after all."

"Right."

And then he and L wordlessly sauntered to the other main computers leaving her to her unfinished life story, which really was just a giant venting session, and began bickering almost before they sat down.

It was nice, she thought, seeing someone besides her who didn't always put up with L's shit.

It was just too bad that he was also evil.

The artificial wind from the helicopter was almost deafening, it pounded in her ears like a too-fast heartbeat, but it was her last chance to get in a word with L.

"Ryuzaki, do you remember what I said?"

L glanced at her as he was boarding with a blank expression even as he hunched his way in, she had no idea if he'd heard or not or if he just didn't care.

"Ryuzaki, you can't let him touch it!" She shouted, screaming above the pounding wind, but he wasn't looking, he was somewhere inside the helicopter making his way to the copilot's seat.

"Ryuzaki! You have to listen to me! Don't let him touch it!"

The helicopter lifted off the ground leaving her staring up at it, the wind beating tears into her eyes.

"Ryuzaki!"

She printed her within the next few days, it was as close as it was ever going to get to being finished, she wasn't necessarily proud of it but all the same it at least deserved to be printed. And it gave her something to do, something that wasn't L digging himself into their joint grave, or Light menacingly looking at them all as he prowled about the building.

She wasn't sure if she'd be able to tell the difference but it was in his eyes, his eyes were very different when he was Kira, and it was more than clear that team L had lost this round.

At this point though she just felt tired.

This was the end, she had tried, she had tried very hard and now it was too late.

She'd folded and put away the maid uniform and after deleting the file from the computer she planned to walk out the door and never look back. There were so many things she wanted to see and do before she died but more than that she wanted to die outside, not inside a tower filled with screens.

Her last farewell to L was a bit more anticlimactic than his final speech to Light.

"I've decided to go out for a bit, around Tokyo."

He was perched on the couch, his eyes distant and unfocused as his fork twirled on his plate, he must have realized it as well. He must have realized he was going to die.

"I just wanted to tell you." She said.

He looked over at her, his eyes expressionless but also cutting in the same moment, as if chiding her for not coming out and saying goodbye like she meant to. But then they softened and he offered her a small smile.

"I never did learn your mystery, did I, Anna Jones?"

No, he never did figure it out, not beyond what she'd already told him.

"Well, maybe you'll have time once this all wraps up."

"Yes, maybe."

Something prompted her, maybe it was his expression, to walk over and place her arms around him. It was only for a moment or too but she couldn't help but think as he stiffened then relaxed in her grasp that this was the only time she really touched L.

The most human connection they'd ever had didn't involve any words at all.

"You're leaving then?"

She had not meant to say goodbye to Light Yagami.

He was waiting for her at the door, eyeing the suitcase she was carrying in speculation, perhaps wondering just where she thought she was going and what she thought she was doing; you didn't just leave the Kira case after all.

"Yes, I'm afraid I've grown tired of being Ryuzaki's maid. He pays well but he doesn't pay that well, if you catch my drift." She said and then asked, "Was there something you needed?"

"I'm just surprised he's letting you walk out in the middle of the Kira investigation, you know a lot of his secrets after all." Light commented casually, coolly, so different than the Light without memories who actually cared about people and things.

"True, but, I wanted to see the sunset."

"The sunset?" He almost sounded surprised.

"Yes, the sunset, I haven't seen it for a while… Outside of postcards anyway, and I just thought… I want to see the sunset."

He didn't understand but then Light Yagami had never understood aspects of humanity that were as simple as watching sunsets. She offered him one final tight lipped smile, "Goodbye, Mr. Yagami."

And she walked out the glass doors without looking back.

It was a nice sunset.

Author's Note: And there you have it, the brief what if... Well, the one-shot version at the very least. For the 200th review of God of the Machine by patheticnoob who asked for a fic where Anna Jones mysteriously appears with L instead of with Light.

Thanks to readers, reviews are always appreciated.

Disclaimer: I don't own Death Note.