A/N: Okay! So for those of you who have me on alert, this is NOT the Death Note story I've been hyping. This is what I came up with while I was on vacation, and had 14 hours in a car and didn't feel like writing something as important and mentally draining as my main Death Note story.

That said, this was really fun to write, and it's technically the first published story I have for this fandom. So that's exciting. If you don't know me, hi! I hope you like this!

ENJOY!

DISCLAIMER: This story was made for entertainment purposes only with no intent on copy infringement.

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One Step Away

Light Yagami sat on the hospital bed, his legs hanging over the side. Vaguely, he registered the doctor speaking to his father about his injury. However, the words passed right over him. A torrent of thoughts swirled around his mind about this unexpected and unwelcome development.

On his way home from Tu-Oh University, Misa hanging off his arm - she had been waiting for him at the campus entrance - Light had been considering how he could find L's real name. Obviously, the detective was never going to drop his suspicion of Light entirely. His instincts were too good. L had caused nothing but trouble for him, and Light believed he was the only person standing between him and his perfect world. Certainly, he was the only one smart enough to challenge him intellectually. Still, that's all he was - a challenge.

And Light had always been good with challenges.

He had been so absorbed in his thoughts that he failed to see the drunk driver swerving towards him and Misa, and with a strength he didn't know she possessed, Misa had jerked him out of the way. And he tripped. Light Yagami, genius student, criminal mastermind, tripped on nothing but air. Then his memories became a little fuzzy after that. One moment, he had been standing upright, thinking. The next, he was on the ground, arm throbbing. Apparently, his forearm had struck the pavement at just the right angle, snapping the bone. Along with the pain, he'd registered Misa's shrill wailing, apologizing for hurting him. Honestly, it was embarrassing. More so, that she'd been too distraught to call an ambulance. He'd ended up doing it himself - it seemed he had to do everything for himself these days. Ryuk had simply snickered during the entire ride to the hospital, and Light swore he heard the Shinigami mumble something about how "graceful" humans were.

Like he was one to talk after Light had watched him go through withdrawals. Perhaps he should've told Ryuk that; maybe he would when they were alone.

Now though, two hours later, Light's arm was wrapped in hard-bandages and settled into a sling. He had been cleared to leave, but his father, who had shown up to drive him home, had wanted to ask the doctor a few questions about the nature of his injury and estimated recovery time. Now, he had much bigger problems than L. The arm that he'd broken was his writing hand. His writing hand was now covered and, more or less, useless. That begged the question: how was he going to use the Death Note? He sighed in his head. True, he could use his off hand to write names, but it would be more difficult and take longer than normal. That meant that the rate of new criminals being killed by Kira would drop significantly. What an annoyance.

'It'll be fine,' Light told himself. 'This exact scenario is why I wrote names months in advance.'

Still, that didn't completely alleviate the problem. Using this back up meant that Kira would mostly be killing known criminals. As he'd realized earlier, few new criminals would die. L was smart enough to discern this, and he was the prime suspect - at least to L. It would seem suspicious that as soon as he acquired an injury that kept him from writing, Kira's pattern shifted too.

This was a big problem indeed.

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Several days passed before the idea came to him.

He was sitting on his bed amongst a green house of bouquets and get well cards. L had even sent one - forget-me-nots as it was. Light didn't miss the double meaning there and rolled his eyes, mature as ever. Honestly, his persistence was such an annoyance.

"All these flowers are giving me a headache," Ryuk lamented as he picked all the petals off a sakura blossom. "In the Shinigami realm, flowers don't have any scent, so all these together are kind of annoying."

"It would be rude to refuse them," Light explained, eyeing the flowers with no small amount of distaste himself.

Ryuk laughed. "Humans are so strange. Why would you accept something you don't want?"

"Because society dictates that it's the proper way to behave. All those balancing acts are considered ways of avoiding rudeness and acting civilized." Light laughed to himself. "In truth it almost brings about the opposite at times. Petty squabbles over the littlest things, separation by class if you can't keep up with the 'correct' way to behave. I suppose you could say humanity just enjoys complicating itself," he finished.

Considering his words, the Shinigami tossed the petal-less stem away from him lackadaisically. "At least it proves to be entertaining. Maybe that's why they do it." They lapsed into silence as Ryuk picked up another flower to mangle. "You sure have bad timing," Ryuk commented when Light didn't answer, "with your injury and all. What happened to all that luck you used to have?" The Shinigami snickered to himself.

Light flopped onto his back, blowing out an aggravated sigh. "This is only a minor setback. Once it heels, it won't take much to get things back on track."

Ryuk hovered above him. "Eh? I thought you were worried about L figuring out. Especially since he has one of the Death Notes now."

"His notebook has the fake rules in it," Light reminded lazily. He ran a hand through his hair. "For a while that should be fine. He won't be able to detect the shift in victims for a few weeks at any rate. Not with a complete certainty, and by then, I might be able to improve my writing enough with my off hand to be able to write at a relatively steady pace."

"Most of his accusations aren't made with complete certainty though ..." Ryuk mumbled.

Light didn't bother responding. At the moment, he needed to think. There had to be a way to turn this injury to his advantage. If only he could-

Someone knocked on his bedroom door in quick succession. "Light~!" Sayu shouted, the door doing little to muffle the volume of her voice. He sighed, agitated by the intrusion while he was trying to come up with a suitable plan. In this game he was playing with L - and it was a game - he had to stay at least ten steps ahead. L certainly tried to maintain a nine step lead.

"What is it?" he called back, stifling his irritation. It wouldn't do to reveal just how frustrated he was by his current predicament.

Taking his response as an invitation, Sayu flung the door open and waltzed over to his desk. "I need help with my homework again," she explained, dropping a thick yellow text book on his desk with a echoing slam.

Smiling in amused exasperation, Light sat up and chuckled. "With my arm like this, I can't exactly do your work for you."

Waving him off, she shrugged. "Then tell me what to do," she said.

Relenting, he nodded and agreed, "Okay, okay." Rising, he stretched lightly and moved to stand behind her.

After twenty minutes of more or less telling her what to write, she'd decided they were done for the night. However, before she left, she glanced at his cast, a small frown playing on her features. "Hey, Light?"

"Hm?" he responded disinterestedly, returning to his previous seat on the bed. Light was tired- a side effect of his pain medication - but he wanted to spend a little more time thinking before sleeping.

"Why hasn't anyone signed your cast?"

"Does that really matter?" he questioned. "When it's removed, I'll just throw it away."

She planted her hands on her hips. "Of course it matters!" Sayu scolded. "It signifies true friendship when you ask someone to sign your cast."

"I don't think that's how it works," Ryuk mused, scratching his head.

Light just shrugged in response. "I might ask some friends soon then," he allowed, placating her. Actually though ... Oddly enough, it gave him an idea of how his situation could work to his advantage after all.

"You better ask me before you get it taken off since it was my idea," Sayu warned, jabbing a finger in his direction.

"Uh-huh," Light mumbled distractedly. She gave an exaggerated roll of her eyes and stalked out of his room, slamming the door shut behind her. A few moments later, Light heard his mother scolding her for slamming doors in the house.

When she'd gone, he laid back on his bed, holding his watch above him, thinking of the torn piece of notebook paper inside. As he'd proven when he killed the FBI agent that was following him, entire pages of the Death Note still worked when torn out. 'Why hasn't anyone signed your cast yet?' Sayu's voice replayed in his head... That might just work. A slow smirk spread across his face.

"Hey, Light ... You've got that look on your face again. The one where your eyes look all weird," Ryuk told him from the foot of his bed. "Can you stop? It's really creeping me out."

"I've just figured something out is all," he explained.

"Oh?"

"I'm finally going to kill L."

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The next day, Light rode the elevator up in Kira Task Force HQ. The entire previous night, he'd spent covering his cast in pages of regular notebook paper with careful precision to prevent wrinkles and general sloppiness. However, on one particular spot, a strip of the Death Note was plastered. His plan was relatively simple. He would have all the members of the task force sign his cast to alley any suspicion, and then when he was alone with L, he would convince the detective to sign the cast on the the Death Note strip. It was, perhaps a little risky, but he could tell L it was a way of proving their true friendship.

Just then, the elevator dinged, the doors sliding open. As he stepped out, Matsuda glanced up and caught sight of him. "Light?! What are you doing here?" he asked, eyebrows raised. At his announcement, the rest of the task force glanced over at him.

Light chuckled, waving at them, playing his part. "I came to help out with the case," he told them as if it was obvious. "It's not like I'm doing much at home anyways." He made his way into the room, sitting in the office chair he usually occupied.

Soichiro shook his head at Light. "You should be resting," he chided mildly, though Light sensed no real command behind it.

"It's not too strenuous for me to sit in a chair and think. Besides, I want to help with the case."

"Of course, Light," L answered. He tilted his head back, thumb brushing across his lips. "I'm actually surprised you waited this long to show up."

Light laughed like he should. After a moment, he asked, "Has anything new happened?"

And so, Light spent the next few hours catching up on the little he'd missed and collecting signatures from the other officers - which was met with reactions varying from mild amusement to confused exasperation - and generally waiting for his opportunity to speak with L in private. It finally came around six in the evening. Matsuda had been sent out to retrieve some coffee for everyone, and Aizawa had returned home for the night as he was making more of an effort to spend time with his family. The others were busy elsewhere in the tower. Where exactly, Light wasn't sure, but he knew this might be his only chance. So he had to take it.

"Hey, L," he began, keeping his voice even and a touch disinterested. "Would you sign my cast too? I've already asked everyone else on the task force."

L spun in his chair to face Light, canting his head to the side. "If I did, would it be okay to use Rue Ryuzaki?"

Shaking his head, Light smiled disarmingly. "Not this time, Sayu says asking someone to sign your cast is a symbol of real friendship, something about trusting someone to handle your injury I think... It only counts though if you use your real name," he explained, gesturing to the various names he'd acquired throughout the day. "That's why I waited until we were alone. I know how you feel about giving out your real name."

The genius detective picked up a near by gram-crackers, popping it into his mouth. Speaking around his food, L reminded, "But if you're Kira and I gave you my name, I might die."

Acting appalled, Light frowned and crossed his arms. "Why won't you believe I'm not Kira? You already have one of the notebooks, and it proved that there was no way I could've done it since you kept me under lock down for over fifteen days. There was no way I could've killed in that time." Light allowed hurt to seep into his voice. "I thought you said we were frien-" then he stopped himself. L narrowed his eyes at Light. "No, I suppose you're right. It's not fair for me to demand something like this. Besides, it's just a silly symbol."

L sighed dramatically. "I guess I could write my name on it. I'll just explain to the rest of the task force that if I die in the few days, that you're definitely Kira." L picked up a nearby pen with the tips of his fingers. "Where did you want me to sign it? You were very specific with all the others."

Light fought back a smirk. Everything was working out in his favor. However, he resisted the urge to celebrate just yet. L could still back out at any moment. Before the pause drew out too long, Light gestured to the strip of notebook he'd hidden. "Here is fine, it's hidden most of the time when I sit or walk around, so someone would have to really look for it to see it," he explained.

"I appreciate your thoughtfulness, Light," L told him, reaching for his cast.

Light lowered his eyes to watch L write, his hair falling to obscure his face, a good thing since he wasn't sure he could keep the triumph out of his eyes. Though due to the positioning - the place he'd set out was on the bottom of his forearm - he couldn't really see L's writing. 'I've won. Finally, after all this time. You were a good opponent. Just as you were in our tennis match, but just like then, I won in the end. With you out of the way, I can finally create my perfect world. It will be better for everyone really, once they grow used to it.'

"There you go," L told him, dropping his pen on the desk.

'Would it be like Kira to look at his name immediately? Or would it be like Kira to refrain, so I wouldn't seem like Kira?,' Light wondered, inwardly counting the seconds that passed. 'I don't see how it would make a difference. He only has twenty-three seconds left anyways.' This time a smirk did cross Light's face as he maneuvered his arm to read what L had written... And it immediately dropped off his face when he saw it:

Nice try, Kira. Got you.

Frowning, he inwardly cursed L and forced himself not to reveal his fury. "This isn't funny," he told him.

L tapped his chin, voice a little wistful. "No, I suppose it isn't."

"Why did you write that?"

Huffing a sigh, L glanced pointedly over his shoulder towards where Ryuk was floating. Could he ... impossible. Unless.. Light's eyes widened, his mind flashing back to when L wrote on his cast, he'd touched the notebook paper when he grabbed Light's arm. "We're being rude, Light. Aren't you going to introduce me to your Shinigami?"

Ryuk snickered and waved at him amicably.

'Dammit!'

And that's how L solved the Great Kira Caper.

The End

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A/N: Well, there it is! A little silly I know, but it IS a parody of sorts. Well, my attempt at one anywho. I hope y'all enjoyed it, and be sure to let me know if you did! Reviews make my day much better, and I've been sad lately.

If you liked it! Keep an eye out for my upcoming Death Note story! It's a long one, and a bit of a doozy. Not much Light unfortunately, which is very much explained in the story, but I'm thinking of turning the prologue into a full fledged story. That WILL be told from Light and Soichiro's PoV I think.

ANYWAYS! Advertisements aside, thanks for reading!

ONWARD!

-Alyssa