One For Sorrow, a death note fanfic

One For Sorrow

Genre: general

Characters/Pairings: Matt-centric, M&M

Warnings: made up stuff/characters, believability issues, language, quiet UST, spoilers for 99/35 of manga/anime (duh), name spoilers from HTR13 (also duh).

Disclaimer: don't own

Notes: The magpie counting rhyme runs in full like this (or at least the version I have used here and for the title): One for sorrow/two for joy/three for a girl/four for a boy/five for silver/six for gold/seven for a secret that's never been told. In past times magpies have had quite a tradition of superstitions attached to them, as one may see in the counting rhyme - the number of magpies is supposed to foretell these certain events. They're also viewed as raucous mischievous pests that absolutely no one wants around. You may speculate further on why I chose to use them for the main symbol here, if you like.

I'm also going to mention that in terms of the extra characters, I decided that I wanted to go for the artistic choice of perpetuating a mirroring of what could have been, rather than strict believability. Hope it won't bother too many of you.

Enjoy, I guess.

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One

Other cars whizzed past the red one parked haphazardly at the side of the highway, never slowing or stopping to see if its occupant was all right or in need of help. It was a grey day, the sky hanging low over the world, muffling and ominous. Rain threatened, but didn't follow through; it would stay that way all day, finally breaking just before sunset ended, allowing one gleam of brilliant light to slip through before it was gone.

Matt was lost, and he couldn't understand why. The directions were clear enough; his GPS unit was working just fine, pinpointing him with frightening numerical accuracy and informing him of his place in the world. The only solution he could come to was that maybe he wanted to be lost; he could go with that.

Not five days ago, they had flown in to O'Hare International - they being him and Mello, Mello and Matt, the hacker and the mafia man. Mello had worn sunglasses the entire way, to hide his scar. Matt personally thought the clothes and the hair made him more noticeable than the scar, but that wasn't his business and at least they hadn't been caught.

Not four days ago, he and Mello had been moving in to the cheap hotel room where they would remain for as long as the Kira investigation remained centred in New York. It wasn't much - Mello could afford better, and so could Matt, but anything too good would bring suspicion, according to Mello and his paranoid ways.

Not two days ago, Mello had been crouched beside him on the floor, leaning in almost a little too close for comfort as Matt attempted to set up their network on the floor of their hotel room, asking questions and giving instructions that were right in his ear every thirty seconds and continually scaring the crap out of him. And then Matt's cell phone, which hadn't rung with any other number but Mello's in a long time, had rung, scaring the crap out of him yet again - and it was Roger, of all people, Roger who had somehow kept or found his number.

Roger? Matt had asked, brain a mass of electric sparking confusion already.

Someone's looking for you, Roger said. Mello was looking at him in a way that Matt wasn't able to interpret and it wasn't making things any better. I thought you should know. It's up to you whether you do something about it.

He didn't want to think about it. He shoved the maps into the other (empty) seat, started the car up again, and pulled back out onto the highway. For now, maybe the best thing to do was to drive until he decided what he wanted to do.

It's your choice, Roger had said.

I don't care, that's up to you, Mello had said, face dark and unpleasant. I have shit to do. People to see, things to find out. I don't need you for any of it any more, so if you want to go, go.

Matt drove, and didn't know where he was going.

For Sorrow

Someone's looking? Who?

Your sister.

When Ben and Myria Jeevas had died, Mail had been four; his sister Estella had been seven.

I'll look after you, she'd said time and time again, squeezing his hand as they sat through that terrible funeral, and later the legal proceedings of a court that had discovered that there was no one to look after them, no one to take them in, no will made (they were both barely thirty; it had never crossed their minds) to give direction or provide for them. Promise.

Together, Mail had agreed, squeezing back. They'd been placed in a foster family, and that was all right, that was OK; they were together, no one had tried to take away the last precious bit of family that they had.

When Mail was five, he was being hit, for being precocious, and Estella was too, because she tried to stand in the way.

I'm sorry, said Mail, every night, in tears as he hugged her. I'm so sorry.

It's all right, Estella had said. It's not your fault.

When Mail was six, they were separated; one family desperately wanted a girl, and they were so nice, and kind; and after all they were just children, they would get over it. Mail came back one afternoon after playing in the yard of the orphanage, asked Where's Stella? and was told: I'm sorry, she's gone.

He'd withdrawn into himself, focussed on books and computers and games, anything that could take him away, and then he was transferred to Wammy's House; he hadn't known why at the time, but he'd guessed soon enough, and thrown himself into it, to get away, and when he was told to take a different name, because he had a chance to be the next L, he took one without question. Anything to get away.

When Mail (now Matt for more years than he'd been Mail) was nineteen, Estella had found enough remainders of a record to track him to Wammy's House, where he'd disappeared without a trace.

I want to see her, he'd told Mello after hanging up, and Mello had snapped his chocolate with what Matt felt was unnecessary ferocity, got to his feet in a brush of black leather against Matt's shoulder.

Fine. Go.

Two

He pulled into a rest area off the highway and parked his car there for the night, tilted his seat back, and settled down to sleep.

It wasn't easy. It wasn't as though he hadn't slept in his car before, either, but his brain wouldn't shut up, memories of a time when he'd had trouble even seeing over a dining table sweeping him away like the current on a river.

Stella in pigtails, a warrior in faded coveralls or little frilly dresses, standing between him and torment. Stella, too mature, too much a mother, even though she was only eight. Stella, smaller still, curled up in the arms of a woman that he could barely remember the face of, her spilling waterfall of ink-black hair in stark contrast to the red of her daughter's hair. Stella, still asleep on her hard mattress, sunlight creeping over the foot of her bed as Matt slipped off to play in the yard before breakfast, the last time he'd ever seen her.

Stella's looking for me. Matt rolled over, closed his eyes yet again, and tried to shut off his brain, to push away the image of his sister long enough to get some decent rest.

Matt was drifting off when his cell-phone rang.

"'Llo?" he asked, barely stifling an irritated yawn.

"Near's a bastard," said Mello's voice in his ear, harsh but tired, and he woke up pretty quickly after that. "I hate having to deal with him, it just makes me.... ugh. I could have shot him today, but I didn't. Kira has enough of an advantage as it is." Silence for a second; Matt knew Mello was getting ready to say something else, so he said nothing. "I got that picture back, the one I told you about. So everything's fine, I'm not about to be killed by Kira, thanks for asking."

"You didn't exactly give me much of a chance," Matt pointed out, rolling over onto his side and resigning himself to what could be a sleepless night. "So why are you calling? I thought I wasn't part of the team any more."

Pause. "You're not. But you left all your stuff and I only know how to use some of it. I was calling because I need to know how to run that program you just finished tweaking and you didn't leave behind a damn instruction manual. You know I'm fucking terrible when it comes to that sort of computer technology."

"I know," said Matt, and grinned into the darkness as he walked his old friend through the paces for the program; he knew he wouldn't have to repeat it ever again. Mello's memory was near-photographic.

"Thanks," said Mello, in the slightly-too-long silence that followed Matt's explanation. "That's all."

Matt expected Mello to hang up without another word; that was as close to a good-bye as he'd ever gotten from the guy. Mello had this thing about saying good-bye to anyone, about the finality that implied; Matt couldn't really blame him.

For Joy

"Take care of yourself," Mello muttered, and Matt didn't even have time to recover enough from his shock to say You too before Mello hung up on him.

When he woke up in the morning, all the grey had cleared from the skies, or at least as much it could ever clear with the smog this area produced, and Matt had dreamed the night away with a plan bubbling in his mind. He got out of the car, stretched, walked briskly to and from the washroom to get the kinks out of his muscles, and, realizing he hadn't thought much in the way of food for the drive there, decided he'd stop at the first fast food place he came to to get a breakfast sandwich of some sort. Yeah. Not a bad start to a promising day.

He took the car out to the highway, and pointed it North; Roger had said that Estella had called from Montreal, that she was living there in Canada. Matt had never been to Canada, but he guessed he was going there now.

He turned up the volume on the radio, set the car on cruise, and blew North on a dream. He had his fake passport with him; he'd been carrying it with him ever since leaving Wammy's, just in case, and he guessed now it would come in pretty useful.

He wondered what kind of a woman Stella had grown into, whether they still looked alike, with their soft pale skin and freckles, with the exact same shade of red hair, like the father Matt could dimly see, flickering sometimes in the corners of his mind; if she'd gotten married and what her husband might be like, whether she had kids, whether they would like him; what she would think when she opened the door and whether she would be angry at him for disappearing without even trying to find her; whether he could keep himself from crying.

It had been a long, hard, painful time. They'd been little kids the last time they'd seen each other; so much could change in that amount of time. He wondered if she would even recognize him, if he would recognize her.

Right now, though, he was smiling, and humming along with whatever song came on the radio. The sky was blue(ish), his sister was alive and looking for him and doubts could not change that one precious fact, Mello wished him well, and he was driving away from everything that had to do with Kira. It was a good sort of day to be alive on. He hadn't had one of those in what felt like a long time.

Three

He drove all day, made it across the borders with minimal difficulties (just a few strange looks aimed at his clothing); his false identity was law-abiding and gainfully employed and neither for nor against Kira, completely unlike his real one. Matt got a hotel room for the night, tried to relax; just for fun, he hooked up his laptop (the standard one; the one he'd suped up with everything he needed for working with Mello was back in New York) to the internet and did a search on Estella Jeevas.

There was a phone listing, an unexpected windfall; he copied it down like a dutiful brother, although he hadn't quite decided if he would call before showing up or not. On one hand, just showing up without warning was both rude and a huge surprise, and he wasn't willing to risk putting his only sister in the hospital with a non-Kira-induced heart attack, even if she was young and had always been ridiculously healthy. On the other, she might not believe a phone call like the one he would have to make; that sort of thing, everyone knew, only ever actually happened in the movies, where the long lost sibling gives you a call just as you start looking for them again to say they were in town and had heard you were looking for them. He didn't want to be that cheesy cliched person either.

He was trying to figure out which way was less dramatic, which made less of a deal of his arrival, and then his stomach growled, and it was decided. He would phone ahead; hopefully that would give her time to pick up some extra groceries if she needed any, and hopefully he would be fed properly for the first time since landing in New York when he got there. Mello's idea of food was not Matt's at all, and he never wanted to take time to stop for meals either. Jerk.

Mello never wanted to eat; L had never wanted to sleep; Near probably did inappropriate things with his toys, like eating them. What was with the burden of the name L and the world's greatest detective that made people so strange? Matt wasn't sure he wanted to know. He was glad he'd never been seriously considered for the role; imagine how strange he would have been. The most he could have hoped for, he knew, was Watari, and the name Watari seemed to indicate at least some level of stability, maturity, and sanity, which was a relief. Justice should not be left solely in the hands of a frighteningly intelligent, more or less insane child genius, no matter how moralistic he was.

His cell rang.

"Still alive?" said Mello when he picked up, and somehow he wasn't surprised. Speak of the devil; he always seemed to know, somehow, when Matt was thinking or talking about him. It was a little creepy.

"Why wouldn't I be?" Matt stretched out on the bed, and wished, uselessly, that Mello were here, stretched out beside him instead of being just a voice in his ears from miles and miles away. He wasn't quite sure why. Mello was such an ass sometimes that he'd probably be ordering him to keep working even though this was supposed to be a vacation of sorts, although black leather and blue eyes and the snap of chocolate usually made extra work more bearable than normal.

He still hadn't quite figured out why, but there you were. "I'm in Montreal, so I should be alive for awhile longer, too; it can hardly be scarier than New York. Or living with you."

"Fuck you," said Mello, and hung up abruptly. Matt followed suit, grinning and feeling better. Mello hadn't had a reason for calling this time.

For a Girl

He lay idly on the bed for awhile, toying with the cell, before flipping it open again and dialling. He put it to his ear, listened to it ring, and ring, and ring. She was probably out, Matt decided, or she had caller ID and didn't know what to make of his number, and he tried to tell himself that his hands weren't sweating, that he wasn't so scared and tense that his mouth had gone dry, and he couldn't hear anything else but the phone ringing.

"Please leave a message after the beep," said a polite mechanized voice, and Matt swallowed hard, but chickened out at the last second and hung up.

Matt turned on the TV, watched the news upside down for awhile as he lay on his back, head hanging over the foot of the bed, before deciding it had given him a headache and that he should probably stop.

It wasn't like the news was any different here in Canada either; Kira still dominated the air, the arrogant bastard of an attention-whore. It was nothing he wouldn't have to deal with anyways, when he went back to New York. He was on a break. He shouldn't be thinking about this right now when he didn't have to. He wasn't Mello or Near, after all.

Matt tried Estella again. This time someone picked up, a man, and he almost panicked. He hadn't been expecting that.

"Hello?" said the man, voice deep, almost familiar, which was strange but what the hell. This whole thing was a little bizarre. He would just go with it for now.

"Hey," he said. "Is..." His voice faltered, and he had to try again. "Is Stella home?"

"She's out right now," the man said. "Night class. Do you want to leave a message with me?"

"Let her know that...uh, that Mail called." It felt so weird to say the name. It didn't really feel like his any more - it hadn't been his, technically, for more than a decade - but it was what Estella would know him as, and there wasn't much other choice.

Silence for a long moment. "You're Stel's brother? Are you in town right now?"

"Yes," Matt said. The phone felt like it was going to slip out of his hand. "To both. I was hoping to see her. It's been a long time."

"Thirteen years, now, isn't it?" the man said. "Yeah. A long time. I'll tell her - no, I have a better idea - I guess you've already paid for your hotel, right?"

"Yeah."

"Which one is it? I'll come pick you up before she gets home from the studio."

Against his better judgment, he told the man where he was, and to call up to his room when he got there so he would know when to come down, and who was looking for him.

Here goes nothing, he told himself, and couldn't hold still any longer.

Four

He called Mello back. He really couldn't sit still, and although he knew they weren't technically a team any more, that Mello had Hal to use and Near to abuse and wrangle information out of, they'd been best friends, for crying out loud, for thirteen fucking years and if he could not share his dread and excitement with Mello, he had no one.

"What the fuck do you want?" was Mello's friendly greeting.

"Mel, I called Stella. I'm going over to her place tonight. I'm going to see my sister again. Thought I should let you know."

"Well, congrats to you. I'm kind of busy right now, do you mind?"

"Geez, did I wake you up, man?" Matt slowed to a halt by the window showing the yellow-spangled darkness of the city night, feeling a little worried. Mello didn't usually sound like this. Angry, yes, grouchy, yes, but there was something like hate in his voice now and it was scaring him a little.

"No," snapped Mello. "Go see your sister. I'm trying to eat and not spill shit all over your precious laptop because I know you'd kill me if I did. Fuck, just shut up and let me do my work. Some of us have a case to solve."

He sounded both distant and very close at the same time; the sensation made something twist in Matt's stomach and maybe it was because of that feeling that he all but blurted, "I'm coming back. You know that, right?"

His eyes widened at the sudden silence on the other end. He could picture Mello right now, sitting cross-legged on the floor with a plate balanced in one hand, one-handedly typing with the phone tucked between one ear and his shoulder, blond hair falling over his face. He could almost see Mello's fingers lifting off the keyboard, setting the plate down, cradling the phone in both hands to switch ears to his uninjured side, to hear better. Was that it? Had Mello thought he was leaving for good?

"Of course you are," Mello said finally, as though it really was only to be expected. "Because if you don't I'll fucking kill you."

"I miss you too," Matt said, and hung up, proving that Mello wasn't the only one good at avoiding awkward good-byes and any chance of a reply. He turned his phone off for good measure; knowing Mello, he was probably frothing at the mouth right now, infuriated by the implication that he felt any emotion besides ambition.

He smiled, feeling good, because he knew better than that.

For a Boy

"You look exactly like her," the man said to Matt when he stepped out of the elevator into the lobby. He was tall, with fair sandy hair and a handsome face and complexion; he was narrow and exotic-looking. He looked as familiar as his voice sounded, although Matt would be damned if he could figure out why.

Matt had pushed his goggles up, so he wouldn't look so strange; he hadn't been able to wrestle himself into actually leaving them behind, but his jacket at least was normal, a black thing that could have belonged to Mello in his less flamboyant days, for the sake of inconspicuousness. He didn't want to draw undue attention to himself or his visit, just in case. Mello's paranoia was wearing off on him. He glanced around the lobby; no one else was giving him a second glance, and he was relieved.

"Hi," said Matt. "I don't know your name, but I'm guessing you're Stella's husband."

"Fiance, but close enough. Name's Andrei," he said with a grin. "I'm just parked out front, in the loading zone, so we should probably get out of here pretty quick before I'm towed or run over."

"Thanks for coming to get me," Matt said, following him. "This means a lot to me."

"It means a lot to Stella, too," Andrei said with another grin as he opened the front doors of the hotel. "Or it will, when she walks in and finds you there."

Andrei's car was sleek and black; it gave off style, not exhaust. Matt's eyes gleamed as he slid into the passenger seat. He didn't think many people would have the nerve to run something like this over or even touch it to hitch it to the tow-truck. And on the other hand, he completely understood Andrei's anxiety about it now.

"Nice ride," he said, the love of all things gleaming and badass and powerful glinting in his eyes.

"Thanks," Andrei said with the proud grin of an owner of a car that looked like sex on wheels. "So where'd you come in from, Mail? Good trip?"

"New York. It was a long drive, nothing special," Matt said, glancing over. "You have a bit of an accent, still; when did you and Stella come over from England?"

"Three years ago." Andrei had started up the car, was pulling out of the parking lot with all the ease and surety of a professional racer, a skill that Matt could definitely appreciate. "That was before we were engaged, of course, but we'd been together for a long time already. We were both worried about Kira; not that either of us really had anything to worry about, but the atmosphere here feels... safer, if you understand. It's not as insane."

"I understand," Matt said. "It's very different from New York."

"That's the centre of the insanity right now, isn't it?" Andrei cast him a canny look. "The team searching for Kira is there right now, is that right? What possessed you to live there?"

"My roommate," Matt said bluntly, and Andrei laughed.

"I bet she's really something," Andrei said with a sly smile, and something finally clicked, the way he sat in the driver's seat, the easy feline grace of his movements as he switched gears, the goddamn aura about the man that made the air seem to vibrate around him, the narrow body, the sly exotic face with pale, pale eyes. He found himself staring, tried to tear his eyes away, but it was hard. How had he not seen it before?

Even the voice had similar overtones, and how had he not noticed? Was he a complete and utter oblivious idiot? Or maybe he was just seeing things, jumping to conclusions. He'd always been too good at that; it was both his greatest strength as a possible successor of L and his greatest weakness.

It should, after all, be impossible; there was no way on earth such coincidences actually happened, but he thought it would be best to know for sure even if his suspicions were completely shot down.

"Actually, she's a he - my best friend," Matt said, and then blurted out with no preamble whatsoever, "Your last name's Keehl, isn't it?"

Andrei cocked an eyebrow at him, a little taken aback at the abrupt subject change, but not obviously confused or distressed. Perhaps he was used to this sort of thing. "I didn't think Stella had mentioned that to you. How'd you know?"

Matt sat back in his seat, all the air leaking out of him, and he stared at the lights around them for a long, long moment. Then he started to laugh, and laugh, and laugh, for the irony and the sheer ridiculousness of fate and life in general.

"What's funny?" Andrei said, sounding annoyed in the way that Mello did when he was half a step from threatening physical violence.

"You're a lot like Mihael," Matt said, "except politer to strangers."

Five

Andrei sat in silence, the red of the stoplight and the headlights in the oncoming lane all that was illuminating his face.

"Mihael's still alive?" he said, and there was wonder in his voice. "My brother's still...?"

"I was talking to him five minutes before you showed up at the hotel," Matt said, and started laughing again, because he didn't know what else to do; what had been strange before was beyond weird now. "I said I was meeting my sister; I didn't know that I'd be meeting one of his relatives too, I had no idea that his brother and my sister w-were, haha, were going to get married. To each other, of all the people in this world."

"You're a friend of Mihael's, then?" said Andrei. "Is he doing all right?"

"We live together," Matt said, and then wondered what had prompted him to say that, and promptly backtracked. "I mean, we work together. I mean, we live together too, it's sort of a working living arrangement type of thing..." He stopped himself, aware of how strange that had to sound. "I've known him since the time we spent in Wammy's House," he said finally, feeling really stupid by now. "The orphanage my sister managed to track me to."

"You've known each other a long time, then," said Andrei. "Is he still short-tempered?"

"And a stubborn ass to boot," Matt agreed. "He'll never die; he's too proud to quit life for anything or anyone."

Andrei's mouth twitched into a smile. "It sounds like he hasn't changed." He glanced over at Matt as they cruised down a darkened boulevard lit only by streetlamps; the treed way was clearly residential, far greener and prettier than anything Matt had seen in New York yet. "You've stuck with him for a long time."

"Damn straight," said Matt.

"You must love him a lot," Andrei said. "To put up with him all those years."

"Yeah. He's my best friend, after all." Matt stared at his hands, tried to stop twisting his fingers around each other, tangling and knotting. "Has been, like, forever."

"You're not - uh, well, you know - then?" Andrei looked a little embarrassed.

"Oh." Matt laughed again. It was a lot more forced than he'd thought it would be. "Together, like a couple, you mean? No. No. He's all I've got, though. Neither of us really have any other friends."

They pulled up in front of an old, almost European-style duplex, and Andrei said, "Oh-oh, Stella's already home, I'm going to catch it -"

And a woman came out the door, and Matt stared, and stared, because she'd changed so much, she was so - pretty, so tall and slender, hair only a little longer and neater than his own now, eyes bigger, face more open. And still, she was also Estella, the little girl with the red pigtails who'd squeezed his hand and whispered, I'll look after you. Promise.

"Mail?" said Andrei after a moment. "You should get out of the car first, I think."

For Silver

"Andrei, where in the world did you run off to? And what -?"

She stopped. Matt didn't know what to do, so he stood there feeling like an idiot as she stared at him, eyes widening.

"Your brother called and said he was in town," said Andrei, leaning on the roof of the car and watching his fiancee's eyes start to shimmer with disbelieving tears. They were silver in the light of the streetlamps.

"Oh my God," said Estella, stepping forward hesitantly. "Mail, is that really -?"

"Roger called and said you were looking for me," he said, and she flew at him, hugging him so tightly that he could barely breathe. She was taller than him, for crying out loud, her face buried not in his shoulder as he'd half-expected but near his temple, cheek hot and wet with her tears. For a second he flashed back to the last time they'd been like this, and oh, Stella - I'm still making you hurt, aren't I? Matt thought. "I'm sorry," he said, and hugged her back. "I'm sorry."

"You big jerk," she said, sniffling hugely. "I missed you so much."

"I can't stay long," he said when she'd let him go. "I have a lot of things I'm supposed to be doing right now, but when I heard you were so close, I dropped it all and came."

"You're staying as long as you want to," Estella said. "God, Mail, it's been thirteen years, you can spare a couple days, can't you?"

"I can," Matt said. "My partner can't."

"Partner?" Estella sniffed again, gripping his hands. "Are you with the police or something?"

"You could say that," said Matt with a weak laugh.

"He lives with Mihael," said Andrei, "my brother," he added for clarification, and Estella's eyes grew even rounder, and then she too was laughing, almost hysterically. Matt had to support her; he wondered if that was what he'd sounded like in the car. It was a little scary, but then, she had just been asked to shoulder a huge emotional burden all at once. Everything must be totally surreal to her right now.

"Why does everyone think it's so funny?" muttered Andrei, clearly perplexed.

"Maybe it's a Jeevas thing," suggested Matt, and tried not to start laughing again himself, this time at the look on Andrei's face, because he hadn't known a person could actually look that exasperated.

Six

"You're not really with the police, are you," Estella said, after Andrei had proclaimed himself ready for bed due to having to work early the next day. Brother and sister sat in the kitchen at the heavy old-fashioned kitchen table, side-by-side. Estella had made black tea; Matt had spiked his with as much sugar and milk as he could bear.

"No," said Matt. "But I don't think you need to know what we're really doing."

"It's Kira," she said quietly. "I'm not stupid, Mail, and I know you, I remember what you were like. You wouldn't be my brother if you were with the police cooperating with Kira. People who killed, or hurt others in the name of justice - no, you could never take that. I remember. Are you and Mihael with the SPK?"

"Mihael would kill himself if he had to join the SPK," Matt said, laughing darkly into his tea. He didn't bother denying it; she'd guessed, and that wasn't his fault. "His oldest rival's the leader of it - N - the one that all the newspapers tear to pieces every time Kira makes another major move. We're more... freelance. But he's determined to catch Kira or die trying."

"Mail," said Estella, gripping his hand tightly in hers. "Mail, Andrei's talked about his brother to me a number of times. I know that -" She closed her eyes, drew in a deep breath. "When you say that about him, you mean it," she finished. "And you'll follow him every step of the way, right?"

"Yeah," he said, stared at their clasped hands, tried not to think about what this must be doing to Estella, but it was Mello. He had to. He didn't have a normal life any more. He had his illegal hacking activities, as well as a more legitimate job, but he was also working with Mello, he was his accomplice, his partner in crime, and that was anything but normal.

"Mail, you're going to die," she said, and her voice cracked, eyes glimmering, but she held steady. "It's so dangerous. Why would you do something like this? Because Mihael -? You were always so independent, Mail, even when you were small, and had little other choice but to depend on people. I don't understand. Isn't your life important any more?"

Matt stared at his tea again, unable to meet her eyes any more, and feeling very much like crying himself. "It's still important," he said. "But I guess it's like asking you what you would do if Andrei said tomorrow that he was quitting his job and joining the SPK. What would you do, Stella?"

"Go with him, of course. Join with him; I'd make a better investigator than he would," Stella said immediately, and her eyes cleared a moment later. "Oh. So it's like that. Mihael is... that important to your life, is he?"

"Yes," Matt said, and it still hurt, but at least she understood why he had to do this. "And you need to stay out of it. I can call; I might even be able to come see you again. But you have to stay out of my life. If anyone caught the connection -"

She kissed the back of his hand, held it to her cheek. "I know. Name, face, the end."

"You and Andrei should be happy together," he said, curling his fingers around hers. "Have a good life. Have kids. That sort of thing. Let me know every now and then how my nieces and nephews are doing - and just be happy, OK?" He couldn't help but be a little bit jealous, thinking of Stella with a couple of cute kids, red and blonde with freckles; because of everything, because of Mello, and Kira, that wasn't something he could ever have, or even be a part of.

"Because you and Mihael can't be," she finished, and he looked away, because however she had meant that, it was true. "Oh Mail." Her smile trembled like a stuttering candle flame.

For Gold

He hadn't meant to make her sad by coming; Matt apologized as Andrei carried his bag out to the car.

"I'd rather be sad and have seen you again than be happy and never know if you were all right," Estella said. "Take care of yourself, Mail. Call me whenever you can."

"I will," he said, but he rather thought it was a promise he'd probably end up breaking, because the world wasn't safe and he wouldn't lose Estella through inattention again.

Matt turned on his phone just before he got in the car. It started ringing almost immediately. Andrei stared at it, because Matt was holding it and looking at it in something like horror.

"I forgot," he said. "I turned it off after I hung up on Mel on Tuesday night. He's going to kill me. Oh god. I can't go back to New York, he'll shoot me and sling my body into the bay. Can I stay here?"

"Mel?" said Andrei. "Who's Mel?"

Matt barely heard him as he flipped the phone open as though he thought it might explode. ".... Hey," he said in a small voice.

"Where the fuck were you and what the fuck were you doing?" snarled Mello without so much as a word of hello.

"Visiting Stella, like I said I was going to. Hey, this will totally blow your mind, but -"

"Shut the fuck up, you asshole." Mello only deteriorated into swearing every other word when he was so blinded by rage that he had difficulty remembering the rest of his considerable vocabulary. "This will totally fucking blow your goddamn fucking mind, but you had better have some damn good story for why you turned off your fucking phone, because I am headed down the Rue about three blocks from where the fucking cell phone signal is coming from, so you have fifteen minutes to give me one good reason why I should not kill you for disappearing off the face of the earth for six fucking days after abandoning me in New York."

"You're not serious," Matt croaked.

"I bet you can hear the motor of the bike from where you're standing," said Mello before hanging up, and sure enough, as Matt strained to hear, the distant sound of a rumbling bike was audible.

"What's wrong?" said Andrei, and Estella came up to stand beside him, a small crease between her brows.

"Um, that was Mihael," said Matt. "He's... kinda pissed at me. So I was thinking, you guys should probably go back inside, and thanks for everything, because he's kind of headed down your street right now and I'm going to be in a lot of trouble when he gets here..." His voice trailed off in a mumble.

"He came after you?" said Estella, and smiled. Matt didn't understand. "I'd really like to meet him."

"I'll stay with you," said Andrei. "Of course. He's my baby brother - maybe me being here can shock him out of wanting to murder you, eh?" His eyes glinted.

"Oh, you two are frigging kidding me," moaned Matt, but he didn't fight too hard when Estella and Andrei pulled him down to sit between them on their front steps. He was pretty sure Mello wouldn't actually shoot him. Especially with his brother sitting right there.

Right?

When Mello slowed the bike to a stop in front of the duplex, right behind Matt's car, and took off his helmet before sweeping up the front walk, it was like watching the sun come out, even though his face was a thundercloud and black with rage. He'd always known how to make an entrance.

And even though Matt was terrified, knowing that Mello had bothered to come for him made him feel a little better about his impending doom.

Seven

Matt got to his feet and went to meet him. "Hey," he said, a little nervously.

Mello stopped about three feet away, hands clenched into fists at his sides. "Well? Got a reason why I shouldn't kill you right here and right now?"

"Because I know you'd rather hug me and tell me I scared the shit out of you and that I should never try to pull a trick like that again?" Matt said innocently. Mello moved forward as though to strike him, fists coming up, and Matt held up his hands in a pacifying manner. "Or maybe because I'm almost technically related to you?"

"Excuse me?"

That bewildered Mello just enough that Matt felt safe again; his fists dropped. Matt dared to take a small step closer, and then Mello was going white. His scar stood out livid on his face, and he looked up and past Matt for the first time at the two watching the whole little drama playing out on their front lawn.

"Andrei," said Mello. His mouth was moving as though it was numb. He looked like he didn't know what else to say. Matt had never seen Mello so flat-footed, so absolutely helpless before -

- except that time in the night when he'd woken screaming after the explosion, and sobbed into Matt's shirt like a kid for ten whole minutes before he'd gotten control over himself again -

- But that was beside the point.

"Andrei, what the hell?"

Andrei shrugged, and they really were alike, Andrei city-cool, Mello gothica-bad, but the faces were similar, the eyes the same shade even if Mello's were ice, Andrei's tropical warm, and it felt kind of good to catch Mello so completely off-guard, for once. "Looking good, little bro. For, you know, pretending to be badass and all."

"You moron," said Mello, numbly, and Matt heard the unspoken words; he wasn't sure if the other two could. I'm not pretending. And this shouldn't have happened.

"You should come inside, Mihael," said Estella warmly, and Mello was having trouble even protesting the usage of his real name as Andrei slung an arm over his bewildered shoulder and led him into the house.

Mello answered questions mechanically, eyes flickering between all three of them in a nonplussed sort of way as he sat at the kitchen table; Matt knew what it was, knew that even Mello could not plan for every eventuality. It was hard to give details when everything had to be so secret, but Mello had planned out what they should say to pass as law-abiding.

Estella could sense the lies; Matt caught her glancing at him, wondering which of them had been telling the truth, but her suspicions did not stop her from attempting to ply Mello with cookies and tea, and later, a 'family meal' that she and Andrei made together, just pleased to be like this after so long at last.

"What did you tell them?" Mello demanded when Estella finally left them alone after installing Mello in the guest room as well.

"A watered-down version of the truth," said Matt, stretching out on the bed. "That we've known each other since Wammy's, and that we're work partners and room-mates."

"Your sister suspects something." Mello's mouth tightened.

"She knows me too well," Matt said. "She could tell I was lying when I said we worked for the police."

"Or," said Mello, "maybe you're just a terrible liar." His earlier rage seemed to have faded completely; he was back to being Mello again, paranoid and blunt as ever. "She suspects something else," he said, still standing in front of the closed door like a forbidding statue. He seemed awkward and out of place in such a safe, domestic setting, like he didn't know what to do with himself if there wasn't at least one illegal black market item in the room, and no threat of the law or death on the horizon.

"Does she?" Matt said mildly.

"She put us in the same room with one bed."

"She suspects nothing but the truth then." Matt smirked, knowing he was going to get hit for his teasing and not really caring, because it would mean things would be starting to feel more normal for both of them. "Now stop your whining, you sexy, sexy thing, and come over here and make me hot."

For a second Matt thought he was going to get away with it, and then Mello hit him so hard that Matt almost fell off the bed.

"You really are an ass, Matt," Mello said, almost contemplatively, and then smirked back.

Later, as Mello hogged most of the covers, cold feet draped across Matt's shins, Matt realized that it was the first time since they'd partnered up again that Mello had actually used his name.

For A Secret

"Your sister's nice," was about all Mello had to say about the visit when they met up again in the elevator going up to their hotel room. They'd driven back separately, because of the bike. Matt had carefully kept the car in full view of Mello for as much of the ride back as was humanly possible, not wanting to risk another explosion, although he felt a bit like a puppy on a leash. "My brother's still an ass, though."

"I liked Andrei," Matt said mildly. "And he had a wicked-cool car."

Mello snorted.

"He said that about you too, you know," Matt said. "That you were an ass. But also that he was glad you were still alive." He liked seeing uncertainty on Mello's face every now and then; it meant he was actually thinking about other people rather than running off half-cocked at the mouth or with a gun.

Both Andrei and Estella had hugged him, saying, Take care of yourself, and Mel. Andrei had taken devious delight in the nickname, once he'd managed to wrangle it out of his younger brother, using it at every opportunity. They didn't want them to die, but they didn't know their lives and there was no way they could ever be a part of them.

"Matt. You probably should have stayed with them," Mello said later, meaning Estella and Andrei, as Matt settled back in to work on their couch and Mello hung over his shoulder. His voice was muffled by the chocolate bar he had hanging out of his mouth, but Matt could hear the same strange almost-hate in his voice as he had the night Matt had interrupted him in eating and working.

"Nah," said Matt, "they're better off without me, especially if they plan on having kids after they're married. I think I could probably give kids cancer just by looking at them too long, now."

Besides, you need me here, don't you, or you wouldn't have come after me like that, he thought, tilting his head back to look Mello in the eye as he hovered over him. He smiled, pleased with the idea, with the thought that Mello was still a semi-normal human being with the human need for contact.

Mello took the chocolate bar out of his mouth, hair falling in a curtain around Matt's face as his head tilted slightly forward, brushing lightly over his cheeks and nose. His eyes were strange, blue softening from the kind of ice ships sunk on to merely frigid water. "You think so," he said, and it wasn't exactly a question, but more of a breath, a puff of words that ghosted across Matt's lips.

Matt tensed, trying not to sneeze, barely daring to breathe, drowning in icy seas, and then Mello was leaning back and getting to his feet, a piece of chocolate snapped off and sticking out of his mouth once again, something like shame flickering through his eyes.

It's not a crime to need someone, Mello, Matt wanted to say, something tight in his chest, but instead he merely closed his eyes briefly before turning back to his computer screen.

You love him, so stay with him as long as you can, Estella had whispered as she hugged him, and Andrei had attempted to do the same to Mello. I love you too, Mail, don't forget that. Call sometimes. E-mail. Let me know you're doing all right, OK?

OK, Matt had said, but he wasn't sure how much he could lie to his sister over the phone, because it wasn't all right and nothing would be all right in his life again until Kira was done for; and by then, he was almost positive, he would be dead, and so would Mello.

That's Never Been Told

"Mel?" Matt said, just before Mello put the helmet on and walked out the door.

"What, Matt." Mello paused, turned, eyeing him suspiciously.

"Take care of yourself today, OK?" He readjusted his goggles, flashed a smirk at his old friend; he seemed subdued today, somehow, and Matt knew why, but he didn't want it to end like this, for his last memory of Mello to be sad.

"You too," mumbled Mello, turning so that his hair hid his face behind a golden curtain, back straight and proud as always, but not meeting his eyes.

Matt could not help but succumb to his urge to wrap his arms tightly around Mello from behind, and Mello didn't resist, didn't even try to push him away, and Matt knew for certain how serious this must be, for him to allow such contact.

His head still hung low, eyes hidden, fingers clenching hard into Matt's arm, so hard that they left white marks under the black and white sleeve. They would remain there until they curdled into bruises that the coroner would note at the autopsy and file away on an official certificate somewhere along with the bullet wounds and the tar in the lungs, the name space forever blank.

"Don't be sorry about any of this," Matt said; there were many things he was regretting right then, but not choosing to stay with Mello. "I'm not."

"You're an idiot, Matt," responded Mello automatically and harshly, but there was a hint of the devil-may-care smirk there again, a spark of the old Mello lingering in his eyes, the one Matt wanted to stay with, the one who needed him by his side.

Matt let him go, and thought he had no more regrets. He'd gotten all he'd dared ask for, and he couldn't hold on forever.

"Did you hear -? Kiyomi Takada was kidnapped," said Andrei, as he walked into the living room and shrugged off his jacket. "All hell broke loose apparently, and - Stel? Stella, are you OK?"

Estella was sitting on the couch, staring blankly at the TV, fingers tirelessly turning the remote over and over in her fingers. The announcer was going through all the evidence they had on the case so far; an empty smoke cartridge, reports of an unidentified red car, an unknown man shot dead in the streets of Tokyo, a delivery truck with an abandoned box of clothes, a burning church near Nagano, a cause with no hope of winning for a purpose no one could guess.

"Mail's dead," she said. "He stayed with Mihael as long as he could," and then she started to cry. Andrei stood there, bewildered and suddenly cold as the news flashed stills of a car pocked with bullets, blood pooling around the feet of the man hidden behind the open door, and a burning church, turning the sky bilious orange as the cross at the top crumbled and fell, wheeling and burning, to ruin on the earth.