Hey look! Another Chapter! And so soon!

Wow, this Ligerlilly, she must be a real stand up author.

She's probably pretty, too. And has a great personality.

I don't want to hurt her at all with pitchforks and torches. Nope. Not at all.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

For the Love of…

It was amazing, really.

That after all the mess and confusion, Light still had Shiori's rice ball cell phone charm.

A reminder of not just one lost friend, but two.

Mikami was still alive. Somewhere. He went on trial for his murders, and would have been sentenced to a lifetime in prison for each of the innocents he had killed, but prison was not the right place for him. He had been deemed criminally insane and banished to a psychiatric facility to live the rest of his life under evaluation from trained professionals. Where this facility was, exactly, L never said, but Light assumed he could probably hack into government files eventually and figure it out, if he really wanted to, which he did not.

It was a place, L said, where Mikami would get the help he needed.

He would be locked behind four walls in a room where he could no longer hurt himself or others. And most importantly, for L, never hurt Light again.

But he would never be gone from Light's mind.

He had been, after all, one of Light's closest friends. One of the only people that he had, at one time, trusted with the dark secret of his past. A trust that had been betrayed.

Many factors must have played into Mikami's eventual fall into madness, and for the first time Light could admit that it had not been solely his fault. Maybe he was a factor… but he never put the knife in Mikami's hand. Neither had he put the knife in his mother's hand.

He mourned both friends now.

Time had gone by. It has been almost a week since he had been broken out of his self-imposed prison and saved by L.

They had been almost inseparable for the three days following that (mostly because Light had become incredibly clingy). Although L finally broke his walls, Light was still a mess.

He was mentally unsound at the moment and a few words of love would not patch it up. But they helped.

Eventually, with time and effort, he could heal.

It still hurt. To be away from L. It hurt even now. But with each separation the pain became more bearable, and Light accepted the fact that soon he would be used to it. Not uncaring that L was gone, but knowing they could not always be together.

He would not burden L as much as possible.

As soon as he can, he will start building himself up. Returning himself to his former glory and beyond.

L was the world's greatest detective. He worked with the world's finest and solves the world's hardest mysteries. So Light would become the world's best whatever to stay at L's side. Help him and support him. Whatever was necessary. He has not told L this yet, but he was planning to.

He was planning a whole life with L. Not just a today and tomorrow. Light would stay by L's side until one of them died, which he would not allow to happen anytime soon. Not until they have lived years and years together and grew to a ripe old age.

But first he had to let his old friends go.

He had to let Shiori go.

In peace.

….

He was under a sakura tree, digging a hole in the ground underneath its barren branches with his hands. He did not think to grab a shovel ahead of time and would not have known where to look if he had.

The tree was within sight of the window from his room in the mansion. He had stared at it for hours once. When spring came the tree would surely burst in full blossom. The petals would be delicate and pink and full of life until they rained down and coated the ground below and green leaves of growth and warmth and life would take their place. Then the leaves would change color to reflect the spirit and soul of autumn and eventually fall off the way of the blossom. Then the cycle would start all over again.

Life, death, and rebirth.

When the hole was deep enough to his satisfaction he carefully remove the charm from his pocket and placed in carefully in the hole.

It struck him how silly this must all look to an outsider.

Yet it made him very sad.

This would be the last time he saw the charm.

He could keep it. It did not really make sense to get rid of it in such a manner. He could keep it. Treasure it. The only thing he had held on to, once, as a reminder of a life he left behind.

The charms had served not just as a reminder of the good of that life, but the guilt of it as well. And he promised L he would choose to fight.

He stared at it for a bit, waiting. He felt she was near but when he looked around she was nowhere to be seen. He listened. The forest around him rustled when wind blew the leaves. Birds chirped off in the distance. The sound of his own breath steadily going in and out. He was alone.

She should be here, he thought. It would be wrong that if, after all this time, she did not come. She had been there for him… all this time. He was losing his mind and she had been there. She should now be here to say goodbye.

Light never got to say goodbye.

L would not be happy he was wanting to see the ghosts of dead people.

"Goodbye," he whispered to the charms.

They did not respond.

They never would.

Light sighed.

Shiori hadn't really been there. Not since she died.

It has been years.

All his conversations with her since then had been unreal. Just him talking to the shadow of her memory in his mind.

All this time Light had been alone and he had clung to her for comfort. It was unfair to her. Unfair to hold his own guilt over her death and trap and taint her memory.

He was going to miss her.

He had to let her go.

He started to bury the charms, scooping all the dirt he had unearthed back into the hole until it was filled and packed down. He placed a large rock on top, to act as a marker, should he ever come back. But he never would come looking for her again.

He felt lighter.

He made a promise over the stone that, in the future, he would never not get to say goodbye to anyone again.

When he finished making peace and walked back to the mansion, he saw L waiting for him. He leaned casually on the frame of the sliding glass door, arms crossed, watching Light with that stupid unreadable expression.

Light tried to mimic it as he walked closer, but L's eyes narrowed and he knew he was failing. He straightened up as Light approached and let his arms fall to his sides.

Light went up to him and wrapped his own arms around L and pressed his forehead against L's. The raven-headed bastard put a hand on Light's cheek and tilted it so their lips could meet.

…

"What am I going to do?" Light said as L sat down on the bed they shared. He was wearing a fresh pair of his usual outfit, white shirt and jeans, with a towel wrapped around his neck and his black hair dripping wet.

Light had showered first, after insisting he do it on his own. He got a chance to observe his current state in the newly installed mirror (which L mentioned that if Light broke this one too he was going to dye Light's hair blue and shave it down the middle in a reverse Mohawk). He had more color in his skin, a sign of his health returning. He was still weak from his injuries and extend time of bed rest, but the injuries themselves have started healing. He would have scars, though, that he would carry with him for the rest of his life. At least he no longer looked into the mirror and saw someone he hated staring back.

"What do you want to do?" L asked.

"I want to follow you wherever you go."

"That is something a stalker might say, Light." L jabbed. Light smiled, glad that they had finally gotten to a place where they could comfortably mock each other once again.

"You found me out. But I can't stalk you all the time. It would get very boring watching you tinker with computers for hours on end. My binocular hand would get tired."

"Then what do you want to do?"

"I want to help you solve crimes."

L stared at him. "Is that what you really want?"

"It was what I was doing before I met you. You know I am smart. You know I am good at it. I know you have looked up everything you can about Kira. And since you are stuck with me, your own fault by the way, I want work with you."

"It's dangerous." L warned.

"Are you serious?" Light laughed, knowing L knew how dangerously he had lived before.

"I am very serious." L answered, seriously. "I don't want to put you in danger."

"I'm following you everywhere. If you are in danger I am already going to be as well. Purely by proximity. This way I can help protect you. I won't let anyone get near you." Light moved closer to L, lifting a hand to play with the older man's wet hair.

"You could join the program with Near, Matt, and Mello."

They had talked before about the three boys. How they were the top students from a secret orphanage L had grown up in. He had been the first child who his adoptive father, Watari aka Wallingford aka Whammy, took in. He recognized L's intellect and taught him how to fully utilize it. He had been trained to solve crimes and had rose to the level of World's best detective at a young age. Watari had realized the benefits L had on the world, so he created the orphanage and a program to take all the intelligent children from orphanages around the world and bring them somewhere where their talents would not go to waste. The brightest and most determined would follow the path of L, while the rest would be given everything they needed to flourish in the world.

Mello, Matt, and Near were the top of the program, there for the most likely to replace L in the event that the worst happened and he was killed in action. They would assume his name and continue on solving mysteries and saving lives.

Something Light had yet to tell L was that he now recognized Watari as the old man who had come and visited him once as a child. He had almost been one of those children fighting for the title of successor to the man he now loved.

"I don't want to train to be one of your replacements." Light took his hand away and frowned at L. "I don't want to think about life after you die. I want to think about keeping you alive."

"You want to be my personal security?" L probed.

"Yes. And your personal ego-checker and ass-kicker when you are being difficult and dietician to make you stop eating all of those damn desserts all the time." Light scooted closer to L and rested his arms on L's shoulders.

"So you are after Watari's job?"

"Something like that." Light mumbled. "Will you let me?"

"I think something of sorts can be arranged.

End of Chapter!

My friend's bakery burned down last night. Now his business is toast.