After much deliberation, thought and general resignation, I have decided - shock, horror - that after about two years without updates it was time to put this baby to bed. So this is the final chapter, people. Much has happened in this time - I've finished final exams and am starting a whole new phase of life so it only seems right to tie up all loose ends before I start into some new writing. :)

My Death Note obsession has waned somewhat, and this, coupled with the huge undertaking of this plot finally got the best of me. I want to thank all of you for reading this far and for all of the support - reviews, favourites, follows. You've all encouraged me so much, and I thank you.

This isn't goodbye for good, I'm still going to be around, starting a new project in a while as soon as I iron all of the kinks out. Instead, this is a little rounding off of these characters adventures. Thank you again for all being such wonderful readers, and I hope you've enjoyed the journey. :)

MANY THANKS AND MUCH LOVE TO ALL!

Operation Dixon : Phase 5 : Finale

There's no better armour than the knowledge that you are loved ...

oOo

The kid plucked at his bleached hair with an impressive nonchalance as Mello tugged out his phone to check the time. He was a good-looking guy, Mello supposed, with his fashionable hair, silver piercings, black jeans, brightly coloured sneaker and hoodie. Even if he looked like a junkie, all bruises and pallor and bags under the eyes. But it made him look aloof and attractive to the girls he supposed, when a group of three passed by to stare appreciatively at him. He studiously avoided their gaze, and stared at the floor. Mello thought all of this exceptionally weird. He hefted a bag and strode quickly towards the exit, hearing the boy scuffling softly along behind him; the hesitant sound so at odds with the sharp tap tap tap of his own shoes.

Passing Roger's door, the old man stared sorrowfully through the two of them, marking the numerous differences and similarities.

'Don't,' he said simply.

'Mello. Please. You can't kidnap children.'

Mello stared at him. He wanted a witty backhander; he wanted words to wound. But looking at the old man who had given him so much in return for so little, through the hate and anger, he couldn't find the words. Of whatever father Mello had once had, Roger was all he had left.

'I'll do whatever the fuck I want,' he muttered in the end, and shouldered past, pulling the lanky teen along by the scruff of the neck. The old man stumbled, his soft little cry of distress sending bolts of shame through Mello, sounds that reverberated in dreams long after his tumultuous journey to IQ HQ … home.

oOo

The little silver phone started bleeping as he got to the car. With an impatient gesture, Mello unlocked the car and motioned for the boy to get into the passenger seat, which he did with a good deal of sulky trepidation. Mello answered as he opened the back door and chucked the kid's case onto the clean seats.

'Charlise.'

'Mello. I trust the operation has gone according to plan?'

His throat suddenly went dry at the sound of her gentle voice, higher than normal with anxiety. He cleared his throat, slamming the door clumsily.

'Yes, everything's fine. I've got the kid in the car. You weren't doubting me, were you, Charlise?'

Charlise sounded almost as shocked as Mello felt at that unexpected bit of flirtation.

'Of course not, Mello. I know better than that! … but you have Dixon?'

Mello shoved the keys into the ignition and glanced at the kid in the seat next to him. His arms were crossed and he was staring resolutely out of the window at the orphanage. Mello twisted the keys, and the engine purred to life.

'Yeah, I have him.'

'Is he alright?' Her voice was worried, high-pitched. She obviously loved that stuck up brat an awful lot.

'Yes, he's fine.'

Dixon turned suddenly, outrage emblazoned across his young features.

'What the hell? Fine? With this black eye and freak? Is that my sister? I want to talk to her. Give me the phone. Gimme the phone!'

'Mello? What's that noise? Is everything alright?'

Mello struggled with the wheel, phone and teenager in silence for a moment, before striking out with his left hand at the boy, who withdrew moaning into the window.

'Yeah, it's the radio,' Mello lied.

'Are you sure? What sort of sadistic radio do you lis-'

'Oh, look, here's a tunnel … sorry, Charlie, got to go!'

He smashed the keypad until he was sure the call had disconnected and pushed the phone into his pocket.

'I thought,' he said, 'I'd made it clear that fucking with me is not an option.'

The kid didn't answer. Mello glanced over just to be sure he was still conscious, before looking disinteresting away and examining the road before him. It was going to be a long trip.

oOo

'I don't think I've ever seen you so nervous,' Paris chided gently, reaching up to hang a frame on the wall. Charlise stood biting her nails beside the step-ladder.

'Rightly so …'

Charlise looked up into Paris's honest eyes so trustingly that he wanted nothing more than to gather her up and keep her safe.

'Paris … I fear that I will not be the sister he is expecting.'

Paris paused, wrong-footed by her honesty.

'Well, Charlie. Think of it like this. He probably won't be the brother you're expecting.'

She frowned down at the bare floorboards and suddenly moved away, to switch off the loud radio.

'I have thought of that,' she murmured, staring through the open door. 'And it worries me.'

Paris shifted to lean more comfortably on the ladder.

'This is no place to raise a child, Paris,' Charlise said, evenly, 'My parents would turn in their graves if they knew the danger I have put him in. It's the only thing I can do, to protect him. I have to try.'

'Charlie, it wasn't your fault.'

'Yes it is. Everything is my fault as everything is my responsibility. This is my crusade, Paris, and I've dragged too many people into it. Too many lives at risk. But, there is nothing I can do about it now. Nothing but care for my brother as well as I can.'

Paris had never met the child who had plagued Charlise's life, but imagined him to be like her; soft, vulnerable, astute.

'Charlise –'

'It'll be my fault, whatever may come to pass,' she said, without hearing him. Paris knew she was far, far away. There was nothing he could do put pull the hammer from where it was hanging on the pocket of his jeans, and get back to work hammering the nail into the wall, and wait for the buttery-blonde girl to return from her requiem for the past.

oOo

At last. The airport. At last.

The slim blonde man unfolded himself from the car, and tossed the keys at a waiting attendant; a girl with papery pale skin and a fringe too heavy for her small face. She blinked at him, and he slipped a bill from his pocket.

'Keep the change,' he told her, offhandedly, and glanced behind. The boy was struggling with the backpack and sports bag; a purple bruise blooming prettily across his pale cheek. Mello swiftly pulled the sports bag from his hand and started briskly towards the airport.

oOo

Their flight was delayed by a half hour; not what Mello had wished for. He was getting irritated, and his nerves were all a jangle. Charlise's brother was curled into a sulky heap a few uncomfortable airport seats away. Mello had been amused by this. Not enough rebellion in him to stalk off, nor enough to excuse himself to wait alone at another gate. Just enough teen rebellion for distance, but with dependency enough to shy from separation.

Maybe this would be easier than Mello suspected.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

His boots shuffled. He couldn't relax. Not that that was anything new, but usually he could feign it, stretched out and luxuriating with a bar of chocolate, but he just couldn't seem to –

Chocolate.

The familiar unease was suddenly recognised. Mello twitched upright, his usual grace somewhat off with the persistent shaking – it always happened when he hit a sugar low. The kid was staring up at him, and for an instant, Mello wondered what he saw. A kid like himself, a little older, a little wiser, a little smarter? A criminal? A creep? A scarred freak?

Mello didn't care.

He turned on his heel and tapped towards the newsagents before him, seeing his reflection in the shiny window. The kid leaned forward to watch him, and Mello smirked.

The chick behind the counter had a nose piercing, and a bunch of safety pins threaded through the holes in her ears. Even she stared.

He slapped down the three Cadbury's bars on the counter, and paid with a hundred pound bill. She gave his change clumsily, and he didn't say thanks; ripped the foil off the first bar before he'd moved two paces, and breaking of a blissfully solid slab, feeling much more at ease; panic easing the tension in his shoulders. Like a crutch; his only one.

He sat back where he had been, finally pulling his pose together; slumped down, legs spread, limbs at ease. Mello owned this place. Without properly looking, he flicked a bar at the kid, who caught it deftly, and stared at it. Mello's smirk pulled higher.

'I'm Mello,' he said, glancing from underneath corn-silk hair.

The kid looked up from the chocolate bar now in his lap.

'No, you're not,' he snorted, putting the bar into his bag, 'You're a psycho.'

The smirk evened to a smile.

'True,' Mello agreed, taking another bite. The silence was suddenly a lot more comfortable.

oOo

The kid fell asleep on the plane. Mello watched him, slumped into the wall of the plane, his crudely bleached hair falling gently over his face, bereft of its usual gel. He looked much younger; much more approachable; but even so. He couldn't see Charlise in him.

The lights on the plane were dimmed; it was quiet onboard. The flight wasn't very full. Mello pulled out his small silver phone, without bothering to glance surreptitiously around. He keyed in IQ's number easily; there were perks to being a genius after all. After about six rings, the blonde twin girl answered.

'Well, hello stranger!' Mello could almost see the grin and smell the chewing gum.

'I want to talk to Charlise.'

'Aren't you just full of the joys of spring?'

He bit back his impatience. Can't you see I have no interest in talking to you?

'Yes. As usual. Charlise.'

'She's here … somewhere … hmm, what'll you give me if I get her?' the girl giggled flirtatiously. Mello was well capable of flirting back – Mello got what he wanted. But right now the idea of it turned his stomach.

'Get me Charlise now.'

He could hear her pouting, and the click of being put on hold. He'd pay, but his word was too important to ignore.

Charlise's alarmed voice filled his ears a moment later.

'Mello? Is something wrong?'

'No, no,' he assured, his tone gentler. 'No. Kid's asleep beside me on the plane. Thought you'd want to know. You're attached to him, though God alone knows why. Kid's a creep.'

She laughed, unexpectedly.

'C'est la poêle qui se moque du chaudron,' she chided gently. He pressed the phone closer.

'I don't understand,' he admitted.

'That's the kettle calling the pot black, is how you'd say it.'

'Are you calling me a creep?'

'I might be.'

'If you weren't Charlise Boucher and I wasn't on your side … well, I'd take those as fighting words.'

'Don't worry … I'm not Charlise Boucher.'

For a moment Mello let his mind skate across the possibilities of her real name; Jacqueline, Eleanor, Sara, Yvonne … Names unlike her. It was funny. Charlise was more who she was than any other title he could think of. Instead of telling her this, he changed the subject, more awkwardly than was the norm.

'We should be home in about six hours, all in all,' he told her, glancing behind. No air hostess to be seen.

'May I speak to Dixon?'

How eager her voice was.

'He's asleep,' Mello told her, watching the kid snuffle gently mid dream. Charlise hummed gently down the phone.

'Oui. Don't wake him. Is it well?'

'Yes. It's well.'

'No trouble in the airport?'

'Not a whisper.'

There was silence for a moment.

'Mello?'

'Yes, Charlise?'

'I can never thank you enough for this. I owe you more than I can say.'

'Don't say that. Guys like me, we act on those kind of debts.'

'Guys like you are one in 6 billion.'

'You flatter me.'

'Not really. It's something to be grateful for.'

He smiled, and heard a shrill American voice behind him.

'I should go,' he told her quickly, 'I shouldn't be on this on board.'

'Oui. Thank you, Mello. I will see you both soon. Bon voyage.'

'Bye, Charlise,' he said, and hit a button to end the call. He shifted so that he could see the kid clearer. Pale hair and long lashes.

'Would your brother like a blanket?' the hostess suddenly asked; even her hushed voice startling Mello. He looked up blankly.

'Yes,' he said stiffly, answering awkwardly a question he hadn't been asked. He laid the blanket over the teenager and looked away, averting his eyes. There was something vulnerable about the child echoed in Charlise's face, and tonight it was something he didn't want to have to see.

oOo

A cab back to the headquarters, a new sky-line to amuse the new member of IQ HQ. Another operation completed successfully; unlimited missions stretching ahead of them all. People no one cared for, people who slipped through the cracks. These were his compatriots, these were the people who could only understand each other.

'I see a taxi, Charlie,' Paris told her, his nose pressed to the window. A handsome face, a troubled mind, a heart longing for another. Charlie rose as quickly as she could, hobbling to the window to look, a light of hope shining in her pale, weary young eyes. An ache of anticipation and fear choking her. Far beneath their feet, in the basement of this building there hummed a laboratory full of instruments she would soon make her way down to; instruments from which she would coax a meaning and a solution, because Charlise had never put her mind to something and been unsuccessful. It was true, and she accepted that she might never hear her name pass safely through someones lips again - she might never live to share her heart with someone who could understand and love her in spite of her brain and restrictions and every hang-up and problem she faced. It was true thatit would take a miracle to hear her name - Celeste - in casual conversation. It was true and she knew that she could die any day now but at least she could be assured that someone would take up her fight in her place.

'Let's go to them,' she whispered to Paris, confidentially, and he would have followed her to the ends of the earth. Matt merely smiled as they went past - and his smile awoke her own.

An elevator trip to the bottom floor, where neither said a word, but their hearts beat almost in unison. Twix playing with a skipping rope in the reception, pale and teary-eyed still, but offering a small smile which meant that she'd be alright. Austin far away in Switzerland by now, safe - the way Twix had wanted, the way it ought to be. Another loss for Charlie. The right thing to do. She knew all about that.

The taxi had drawn up by the time they reached the door, and looked out onto the otherwise deserted street. For the two misfits on the steps, this was the only home they could hope for. When two blonde heads emerged from the taxi, birds began singing in Charlie's heart, and a smile - exhilarating, mirthful, light as a bubble and twice as fragile spread across her face and her arms opened wide to welcome them home; to welcome them both back to her.

Mello didn't do homes. He didn't do family. He didn't do responsibilities to other people - he wasn't that guy. He did Kira; he did hunting down, he did threats. But a girl stood on the steps of her building, finally aware that she had all of their hearts on strings held in her hands, and the love beaming in her face extended to him too. And when Dixon left her arms to make his way up the steps of his new home grudgingly, sighing every step, and Paris spoke kindly to him of all the things there were to do and see in this city, he cautiously turned to see if her face was still open and lively; if there might be something there for him.

'Welcome home,' she said, her red hair flashing in the dull sunlight, green stick sparkling.

'Don't be such a sap,' he sneered, walking through the doors with her, feeling her heart beat with hope through his glove as he caught her small hand in his.

Hoping that he had found somewhere that he really was welcome, after all.

xXx

I've finally made it
I've hoped and I've waited
and for the first time in my life, I don't feel so alone ...

My heart starts to heal
to know this is real -
This is how it must feel
to have a home!

- To Have A Home, A Very Potter Sequel

A/N: Farewell to all and I hope you have enjoyed!

Love from

- Wraithlike xxx