It's not easy love, but you've got friends you can trust,
Friends will be friends,
When you're in need of love they give you care and attention,
Friends will be friends,
When you're through with life and all hope is lost,
Hold out your hand cos friends will be friends right till the end.

- 'Friends Will Be Friends' by Queen

Another couple of days at Wammy's House followed, despite L's previous assumption that they would return home the day after their arrival. To his surprise, Sara spent much of her time outside with Mello, and playing with the younger children. For the most part, he watched from the outside of all the activity, but enjoyed it just as much as if he had really participated. Occasionally, she would glance his way and do that wide, white smile that could almost be sunshine in her mouth, blinding and sending warmth across his skin.

On the day that they had to return to London, Sara received a goodbye even she had not anticipated. Tackled to the ground by several of the younger children, she embraced each of them in turn, and when she got to Mello, winked. He winked back knowingly, to L's astonishment. It was a promise her secret would be kept, a promise that he understood her and she could trust him with anything. Somehow, Sara had made this seething, seemingly impenetrable boy love her, wholly and completely.

"You look after everyone here for me, won't you, Mello?" she whispered conspiratorially. "It has to be you."

"You can count on me," he assured her.

Maggie approached, a warm smile lighting her features. "You take care on your journey, my love."

"Thank you for your hospitality," Sara insisted, "you needn't have been so helpful, but you were. I'll come back to see you all when I can."

"You, darling, are always welcome."

L did not embrace any of his family. Quite frankly, he flinched at the thought of contact, but did not hesitate to put some pressure on the small of his housemate's back, guiding her firmly but gently toward the car. He knew that given the opportunity, she would stay at Wammy's forever, yet he had not the time or inclination to fulfill these whims, instead slotting himself next to her in the back of Watari's car and opening a series of folders concerning the case that compelled him to work.

He had narrowed it down to two suspects, and it would only take a couple of weeks before DNA samples could be analyzed and the pair of men interrogated. The geographical profiling had finally come through.

It made him nervous.

Little made him anxious, however it was impossible to do what he usually did: take his insecurities or fears and place them in a mental box for later objective examination, allowing him to continue his work unhindered. The truth was something he would not worry Sara with, although admittedly he knew any other person would feel morally obliged to inform her.

The main suspect in this case of rape of prostitutes lived one street away from where he and Sara currently resided.

To proceed appropriately, he would have to clamp these worries in a mental crate, permanently disabling them. It would be unimaginably foolish to confide in the mother of his future child, a former prostitute, who would undoubtedly then inform her other associates and cause immeasurable problems in catching the culprit. L refused to be compromised. Simply refused. And when he put his mind to it, he could always do what he wanted to do.

He believed that this was why he was so good at his job, and why he had survived long enough as it was to reach the position he was in – the world's topmost private detective. Had he not the emotional detachment skills that he indeed possessed, L's mind years ago would surely have crumpled like a letter in cold rain, like the minds of all those he perceived to be weaker than him because of their inferior intellectualism. Others relinquished their bodies and mentalities to emotion. It was the fatal error of ultimately just being human.

For the sake of the world, he could not just be human.

For his sake, he could not just be human.

Never again.

XXX

He was so quiet, and it unnerved her. She was used to his silence, his studious perusals of documents that held his attention more than any person would. This was not that kind of silence. He sat with his knees close to his chest, and by God, it frustrated her. Was it impossible to sit like an evolved being instead of a hybrid ape-man-thing? Like he was the Missing Link in Darwin's theory of evolution, not quite all there yet more human to his core than any other living thing in history?

By the time they had reached Sara's house in London, she had slept some, and even then, awoke to see him stuck in that same slouched, crouched position. After submitting to her return to her healthy diet, she lay back on the sofa and noted his disappearance to a study upstairs. With a sigh, she rolled over, switched on the television and found that remarkably, there were over a thousand channels and absolutely nothing to watch.

Reluctantly, her eyes drifted to the piano in the corner of her living room. She had not played for so long, she felt almost rusty.

Play me.

Please…

Finally, she dragged her legs to the ground and headed to the piano, straightening herself out on the stool and taking a deep breath before brushing the keys swiftly with her hands. The song that she played was so familiar to her, but not. She realized she had been mulling this creation over in her head since her last vow never to play again. Releasing it to the world in its rawest, most natural form was catharsis, the best kind.

At some points, she lost herself so much that she was closing her eyes, shaking her head with conviction and letting her entire upper body roll with the rhythm of the music. Christ, it felt good.

Letting go.

When she floated to a close after a crescendo of startling simplicity yet infinite personal power, she grinned wide and made a tiny excited squeaking noise. Why the hell had she given up…?

Well, yes, there was that.

It was like riding a bicycle; you never forgot it once you knew how to do it, especially with the natural talent Sara had been born with. She'd been so certain that this was what she wanted to do with her life, playing and singing and living, feeding off of music. It had never struck her that so many others want to do it too, and they were in a much better place to do so. They hadn't had the father she had, or the mother she had. Or half the promise.

Had she been aware that above her, her music would be easily heard and taken notice of, she may have been somewhat more self-conscious of it. Previously skimming through Interpol's files in search of another case to follow up on after the rape case was over, his slender fingers hovered in anticipation of the keys. He played along with her, following her melody a fraction of a second after her as he typed, both creating music in the ways they knew how. His music was justice, hers the thrumming of ivory that captured the beat of her heart.

When she started up again, so did he, waiting for her moves to counter. As she slowed to a stop, he did too, the leaves to her breeze. A challenge he would sway to, coordinate with as naturally as she played.

Eventually, at around eleven o'clock that night, the two of them crossed paths, Sara on her way to her bedroom, he on his way downstairs for cake. Not a word passed between them. Somehow, their coexistence was managing to be a peaceful one.

L's trip to the kitchen was silent. He opened the fridge with not so much as the pop of the door arousing the peace. Smiling to himself, he removed a plate of cake he had not seen before with a note attached: 'to say thank you for the market day – Sara'.

Oddly gentle of her. He lifted the slice of what appeared to be coconut cake to his mouth – yes, it definitely smelled like coconut – and took a bite. He promptly spat it back out again, and was forced to wash out his mouth with the kitchen tap. He clawed at his tongue as he realized that the texture of the cake was in fact lathering. Returning to the cake, he observed embedded in the sponge another note.

'You did stalk me though – S'.

She'd filled the cake with soap! Coconut, to disguise the scent.

Upstairs, she was curled up in bed, shaking with laughter that she had been trying to keep silent lest he suspected her dirty work. At one point, she had used a CD of her old piano recordings to cover up the sound of the electric whisk as she mixed her hand gel into the cake mix. Honestly, how likely was it she would play piano from five in the afternoon until eleven o'clock at night? He wouldn't go about snooping through her past business in a hurry again. She stretched her arms out across the bed in satisfaction until her hand brushed something sticky and gooey, at which point she yanked her hand away and sat up hastily to switch the lamp on. She screamed at the sight.

A cadaver! A fucking cadaver, in her bed! But not a cadaver, it couldn't possibly be. The eyes were not real but glass, the kind one would get from a doll repair shop for a china doll. That was almost creepier. Almost.

A number of relaxed footsteps leading her eyeline to the doorway informed her that the culprit was leaning against the doorframe, rather pleased with himself. With a satisfied 'hm', he shrugged his hunched shoulders as if to say, "what can I do?"

"What's wrong?"

"What's wrong?"

"Why, yes. Exactly my question." He arched an eyebrow.

Gritting her teeth, she rolled out of bed and marched over to face him contemptuously. "There is a corpse in my bed, L."

"What odd taste in men you seem to have, Sara," he deadpanned.

Her mouth pursed into a straight line as she shoved the hefty bedtime visitor off her sheets and onto the floor. She dared not give him the satisfaction that undoubtedly would come should she respond as sarcastically as she wanted to. After a few moments eyeballing him, he seemed to lose interest in her reaction – how characteristically psychopathic of him.

"It's not even a real corpse. It's a mannequin full of pig flesh. I call him Kevin."

"Oh, that's disgusting."

"It's the closest thing I could find without using a real cadaver from the nearest morgue. Apparently, the relatives of the cadaver had some objections as to its usage outside cremation and burial." He shrugged. "Can't imagine why."

"You're clinically insane, did you know that?"

"Never been diagnosed with a condition-"

"Oh that's encouraging, just 'cause you've not been bloody caught yet…" Sara muttered, swinging her legs out of bed and stepping away from the corpse. She planted her feet and scowled at the father of her unborn child. "This…" She gestured briefly to the cadaver. "This is war."

Forget Jenny's assumptions about her relationship with L, facial expression or not – she was fuming. What she felt coursing through her veins did not ring of sexual or romantic interest, more of hatred and frustration. This man simply did not possess any understanding of human social intercourse, and somehow, she'd ended up being the unlucky bastard who had to initiate him into the real world. Now L had incurred Sara's wrath, and the games would most likely continue until an obvious winner emerged.

An idea, beautifully wrought, formed.

Smirking inwardly, she kicked the pig-fleshed mannequin towards the doorframe and indicated that he should remove it. Then, calmly, she slotted herself back underneath her bed covers and sighed with exhaustion.

L, too startled by her sudden, unexplainable change in mood, found himself incapable of protest, and pulled the cadaver he'd christened Kevin into the hallway.

"Kevin," he muttered, "women are an odd species."