Zero-

He's born. It's an alarming experience, for all concerned. He doesn't scream, he's grey, his umbilical cord comes out around his neck and the nurses make some noise about possible strangulation. He's breathing, but very still, when they hand him to the doctor for inspection. The doctor gives his worried mother a smile, and then gives L a knowing look. Then breathes a sharp puff of air into his face.

The baby startles, goes white, and then bright pink. His face contorts in surprise and rage and he lets out a shrieking wail of dismay, and begins flailing and kicking for all he's worth. His mother gasps in relief, and holds out her arms for the newborn.

He doesn't know this story. Later, he'll wonder what he weighed, what time of day he was born, how many Halloween emergencies came in while his mother was in labour. The answers to these questions are seven point two ounces, 3:38 pm, and three, all related to pumpkin carving.

One-

They enter the eighties. His father goes out and gets a prostitute on New Year's Eve, while his mother stays in. Later that week they get a message from his father's work, saying that he's being transferred to England.

While it's statistically true that abusive relationships and incidences of domestic violence are more likely to occur in lower-income households, the exception is what makes the rule, and L's parents are quite well off. Well, his father is. His mother is a house wife. She feels trapped, and he promises every time afterwards that it's never going to happen again. The same story as everywhere, except for L's father's alcohol is a little more expensive.

So they ship across the sea, to where L's father speaks the language, and his mother doesn't. His father has a job with some sort of software company, and he's an intelligent man and well spoken and almost never drunk at work (though he keeps cocaine in his office desk, of all the places) and they're not going to go back to Japan, are they? His mother struggles in the super market, looking at the cheerios suspiciously before putting them into her cart, and struggles with the money, and doesn't make any friends.

Two-

L's parents don't believe that he's really figuring out reading, when he plays with the news paper, and don't believe he's doing more than making a mess, when he arranges cheerios into piles that double, then double, then double again. In fact, his mother is privately sure he's developmentally delayed, given that he hasn't spoken a single word, as of yet. He considers reassuring her that he's getting to it, but she'd just cry and be a bother and he'd much rather explore and count and see everything. He learns concepts before he has words for them, so he makes them up, and still will privately revert to that language in his head years later.

When they're young, most children play with dolls and things, or play house, to teach them to fill the societal roles they'll occupy a few years down the line. Little girls make their baby dolls say 'mama,' in order to practice. L never wastes his time doing any of that. Whatever he attempts, he does right, so how could he need to indulge in this play-phase? Besides, such things fundamentally don't interest him. His games are about exploration. He uses blocks, not to build towers, but to understand weight and balance and spatial problems, though he doesn't know the words for them at the time.

His father finally notices he exists, and it isn't a good thing. Child services stop by after the third hospital visit, and make noises about taking him away. His mother is quiet, his father is respectable, so nothing comes of it.

Despite the fact that his knee is scraped so badly that the blood is soaking through the cotton bandages wrapped around it. Despite the fact that he's two years old with a broken wrist. His mother explains shyly that he's an adventurous little thing, who likes to climb trees and isn't afraid of falling, and L sits silently and solemnly, with his fingers in his mouth. He remembers, a few years later, this incident, and this being the first time he became aware of the concept of a lie. The idea of telling something that you knew was not true. He watched the conversation with fascination. Later, the man conducting the interview will swear he felt like something was up, but that he just couldn't come up with the grounds to get the little boy with the great big eyes out of there, because he wasn't sure if it was cultural differences, or what. The neighbours will say the mother always looked hopeless. His mother will stand up in court and proclaim that it wasn't her fault.

Three-

L understands everything very quickly, but he doesn't understand why his father is sleeping in the middle of the afternoon, and how the pain from the big hole in his side didn't wake him up. He thinks that would have hurt. It always hurts when he's bleeding, and sometimes it makes it so he can't sleep. He also can't sleep too well when he's on the floor, and his father never sleeps in the kitchen. He knows that these things mean something is wrong, so he sits down next to her to wait until he wakes up.

He goes out into the street to get help, when he stays asleep, at about two am when he can hardly keep his eyes open, and a bunch of teenagers, out to cause trouble, find him. It could have been really dangerous, but since he's two and blood coated and sniffling they do the right thing and phone the police, and the body is discovered, though the details of how the murder happened are hazy. His mother is rushed, also shot but just clinging on, to the hospital. She's arrested for the murder of her husband later that week, once her condition is stabilized. Child services takes L, and moves him to a foster home, and gradually he stops crying for his mother at night.

Four-

His foster parents know he's gifted. It's obvious to anyone who looks close for more than a fraction of a second. They can't afford much, but they do get a government person in to see about testing, for school scholarships. Just think, Doris says, if he got a scholarship to somewhere prestigious? He could really go places, Eric. Eric nods and hopes so, for Lawliet's sake. They're good people, and they love all the children who come into their home, and want them to do their best.

Little Lawliet scores wildly off the charts in every manner. They give him the tests for children five years older than him, too, and he completes those, with ease. Actual knowledge of facts and cultural context is limited, just because the information he's had access to is also limited, but he demonstrates near-perfect recall, excellent problem solving skills, a better grasp of language than adults occasionally have, and a special affinity to puzzles.

Quillish Whammy hears about him, swoops in, and rescues him from it all. He gives Doris and Eric a small amount of money (more than they've ever had) and thanks them, and reassures them that L is going to get a chance to fulfill his creative potential. He tells them not to worry on his behalf. He sends someone to break in at night, and start a fire, and Doris and Eric and the children are alright, but the house is burnt to the ground, along with any pictures they might have taken of little L Lawliet. All records of him mysteriously disappear out of city hall. Quillish personally burns the child's birth certificate, the day before he turns five, after the tests have continued and he is still excelling.

Five-

The grooming is subtle, but important. L gets to do what he wants in terms of diet, but has to take vitamins. L gets to do what he wants when he's awake, but has to conform to Whammy's increasingly gruelling sleep schedule. Eventually, he only needs five hours a night, to be completely rested. Whammy would like to make that number smaller, but little Lawliet is beginning to develop dark circles under his eyes, and he wouldn't want him to cave from the pressure. Besides, the boy said he did his best thinking when he had just woken up. All the same, Whammy had to explain several times about Winston Churchill, who almost never slept throughout the war, and who got so much more done because of it, while L rubbed at his eyes and yawned and looked back down at the battle strategies he's been analyzing, as his puzzle for this week.

Six-

"Do I have to?" whines L, looking up at Watari with irritation, as the man offers him his shoes to wear for the day. Childish demeanour aside, he's very nervous about that question. Very seldom does he challenge Watari's authority on any matter, and this seems like a good way of testing the water. That, and he isn't actually fond of shoes at all.

"They make me think slower. Decrease my ability to reason."
Watari just looks surprised at being spoken to. L is a quiet child, for the most part, unless he's replying to a direct question, in which case he gives long, precisely detailed answers.

"No, you don't have to. Reason is paramount." He turns around, to put the shoes away in the closet. He imagines they won't be coming out again for a long time. The little boy is chewing on his thumb, looking startled, mulling over what Watari has just said.

Reason is paramount.

And he can do anything he wants.

"Mr Whammy?"
"Watari, L, you must get in the habit of calling me Watari."

"Watari. Marshmallows would help me think."

The old man gives him a shrewd little smile.

"Not before breakfast, L."

His face falls. Oh well, it was worth a try.

But after breakfast, there's a bowl of marshmallows sitting next to his computer, which makes him think that he could probably get used to this.

Seven-

"Surely you've had macaroons before," Watari murmurs, patting a bright-eyed little L on the top of the head. "Doris used to make them, didn't she?"

"Who's Doris?" asks L, earnestly, arranging the cookies into a star on the plate, and then a hexagon, and then a tower, each time getting a little smaller as they disappear. He still loves sugar; Watari wonders if he's ever going to grow out of it, or if he's going to just continue keeping small third world countries in business with the amount he consumes.

"You don't remember?" It wouldn't surprise him; amnesia to repress trauma is not uncommon in children of L's age, having gone through the sort of thing that he did.

"Evidently not," replies the eight year old, who is developing just enough of a snide streak to both test Watari's patience and encourage him. L, to be the L he wants to be, needs to have a backbone, to do what he does. If that starts by being a little snippy witht he man who brings you your tea, then that's fine with Watari. Especially since he doesn't exactly have an inferiority complex, in this situation. L could win a debate with Watari with his hands down, but he couldn't win an argument with a sniper rifle. If the little boy gets too out of control, and his heart constricts at the thought because he's fairly sure he loves L, but if he gets out of control...

No, Watari probably wouldn't have the heart to shoot him. They'll just have to hope that L doesn't get out of control.

Eight-

"Alright, L," Watari says, setting papers down on the table with breakfast the croissant and tea. L peers at them, before reaching for the sugar bowl. "We have a new kind of puzzle for you today. I want you to look at these facts, and see if you can deduce who stole the diamonds from what you have here."

"What if I need more information?" asks L, dipping a bit of croissant into his newly sweetened tea.

"I can get it for you," Watari assures him, trying to keep his patience and not push the papers towards the eight year old.

"'Deduction' isn't really a good word for what you're having me do," L complains, still eating his croissant, "deduction implies I'm going to create a hypothesis and test it. This is really more of an inductive approach. It's obviously an actual crime."

"What makes you say that?"

L gives him a flat, irritated, childish look.

"It was obvious, Watari. You've been building toward this for years now."

He nods. What can he do but admit it?