Disclaimer: I don't own Death Note.

Spoilers: End of the series

It Rains on the Living

The rain falls like silver in the gray skies of January 28th's morning. Sachiko Yagami awakens at the urgency of the alarm clock with a pounding in her head. She reaches across the large double bed to the night stand to silence the beeping, stretching her arm as far as it will go. An annoying task - the machine is on Soichiro's side, but Soichiro, he won't never be able to turn it off anymore, anyway. Sachiko can't quite break the habit of sleeping on the left side, even after these weeks of a dead husband. But she has learned to turn off the clock, at least.

She's adjusted out of necessity, mostly. Sayu will need to be helped to the bathroom. Since the girl will not move on her own anymore, shocked still from the trauma of being kidnapped by some mafia gang, Sachiko needs to help her get to the toilet early in the morning or else be stuck with cleaning dirtied bed linens. After that, making breafkast and feeding her, along with the medication early in the morning. Sayu takes the drugs and sees a therapist (though what good that does when she won't talk or respond at all to anything is a mystery).

Sachiko knows that even with a pulse, Sayu isn't alive. It hurts her to tears, but she reminds herself constantly of that pulse. At least they have that. And Light, at least...

At least...

It is late January 28th. The rain falls and the wind forces water onto her doormat as Sachiko answers the doorbell. She expects that some relative or distant friend has come with food and tea bags and well-wishes for Sayu and condolences for Soichiro. It's happened more times than she can count, but even if she had counted she was certain that she would have never reached a number that would make things better. The only thing that would help, she supposed, was time, and learning how to adjust.

Her visitor is a man that she recognizes. Shuichi Aizawa, a cop who worked under her husband and she had met at a holiday office party. She had babysat his little daughters a time or two in the past. She had always liked to help out his kids.

It is not fair that he has come to take away hers.

"Mrs. Yagami," he says, unable to even look at her in the eyes. "...I never thought I'd ever be the one to do something like this. And God knows, I never in my life wanted to. The NPA sent an official letter to you, but I decided... out of respect for the Yagami family... I'd tell you in person first."

Sachiko can not hear the rain anymore. She is deafened by the very silence of it.

Silence, at least, it seems like silence. It takes her awhile to realize that she is screaming, shrieking loudly enough to damage her vocal chords. But how can she tell, anyway, Aizawa looks frozen in his own discomfort and Sayu is in the living room, she stares blankly, unaffected by any noise. How can she tell?

Not Light. Please, oh please, not Light. Anything, anything but her precious baby..!

"Mrs. Yagami, stop! You'll hurt yourself!" Aizawa yells.

But there is no sound, there is nothing, she wants nothing if she can't even have her son.

She took the pregnancy test. Actually, she took it three times, just to be sure. Sachiko knew that she hadn't had her period in seven weeks. It all fit logically, she was mostly sure. Soichiro had warned her not to get too excited right away, things could just be a fluke, and her excitement might cause her to think that nothing at all was a baby. But they had been trying for so long now, and Sachiko was getting terribly paranoid - what if she couldn't get pregnant? What if she would never be able to start the family she had dreamed of? But the facts say-

"I'm pregnant," Sachiko finally states to Soichiro over dinner one day. Before he can say anything, she continues. "I took the test right at the doctor's office, and they say there's no question about it."

Soichiro stares, and then his mouth breaks into an overjoyed grin. "Sachi... Sachi! It's true?! You're going to have a baby?"

"We're going to have a baby," she corrects, to ensure him that she has not been screwing the mailman like she teases him about some late nights, and also to ensure him that he's going to have equal responsibility in taking care of it.

"This is... this is wonderful!" He's at a loss for words, and so instead he stands up and shamelessly pulls his wife into a kiss. When he finally breaks away, he's smiling like he was twenty again. "Everything we ever wanted, Sachi. We're going to have a family."

"We're going to have a family," she repeats, putting her hands on her belly. She can't feel anything yet, and she hasn't exactly gained weight either. But soon everything would swell into something amazing, it would swell into life. And all of Sachiko's dreams would come true.

She had thought that she was old then, getting nearer and nearer to thirty every day. But she had no idea how young she really was.

One day years ago, the rain, it fell like droplets of tar in a black sky, and Soichiro told her that Light wasn't coming home for awhile. Awhile - awhile really means never, so the story goes. Awhile meant that Light was working on the Kira case, under L, just like he was. Awhile meant that he couldn't come home, 18 year old boy that he was, even his own college classes came second to the urgency of the case. Awhile meant that he was going to go live with his girlfriend and work full-time with the police, graduate college early and call her occasionally on the phone to tell her he was sorry he couldn't visit, but capturing Kira was important and demanded so much of his time.

Sachiko remembers this as she is brought to the coroner. She remembers that maybe, it was about this time, that she began to lose her son. To these important things. Just like Soichiro, Light was captive to these important things.

But how important was it? How important was it now that you're dead for it...?!

She stands on the other side of the window of glass, where she is to look at the steel table. They lift the sheet of a blanket that hides a tall, slim bundle. There is a chance, Sachiko thinks desperately. There is a chance that he won't be under that blanket, that maybe they got the wrong man. Maybe there's nothing under there except for pillows. She thinks, and the sheet is removed, and Sachiko, she screams for the horror of it.

"Oh gods! Oh gods! My baby, my baby! Light!"

Sachiko can see his skin, pale now with death, his bare unclothed chest. There is blood there, summoned by the explosion of bullets. And his face - someone closed his eyes, but his lips are parted slightly. As though he wants to say something in his gentle tenor voice but that will never, never happen because oh gods he's not even breathing!

Losing all the control that she had promised herself she would maintain, she darts past the looking glass and into the sterile room where the coroner stands. Someone's hands - Aizawa's, maybe - try to stop her. But nothing on this Earth can stop a mother from trying to save her son. (Something on this Earth could only make it too late.)

"Light," she sobs in a voice that is thin and unrecognizable. Her arms wrap around his chest, meeting at the back of his head and pulling his slender body upward. Light is limp, like a doll, and Sachiko shrieks against and she crushes him against her chest. His head rests against her bosom like it did twenty-three years ago when she breast fed her baby. Now there is nothing, no infant's mewling or struggle to find the life-sustaining milk, there is no life left to sustain.

Seven months old, snapshot a picture and never forget. It was a Tuesday afternoon, cloudy and drizzling outside, and Sachiko had just finished feeding Light softened peaches for lunch. She was tired and still had a lot of cleaning to do, and Light was getting cranky, so she scooped him up and brought him to his crib for naptime. As she tucked him in under the covers, she heard it:

"Mama," he cooed, reaching out tiny hands of tiny fingers up toward her. "Mamamamama..."

"...Oh my!" Sachiko yelped in delight. The first word! This was it! "Say it again, sweetie! Say 'mama'!"

"No." And here the baby grinned a smile, showing off the few little teeth he had.

When Sachiko told Soichiro about it later, he said that babies that young don't understand the concept of 'no' and that the boy was probably just babbling. But Sachiko was convinced that Light understood leaps and bounds more than the books said that he should. He was special. He was bright.

He never proved her wrong.

Sachiko can't even see anymore, everything is blurred by the tears she foggily realizes are falling down her cheeks like a rainy downpour. "Light... Light, Light..." The word comes out like a mantra without rhythm, maybe if she begs enough the gods will have mercy and they'll take this all away. They'll make it right again, because nothing should be like this.

Holding the corpse of your dead husband is one thing.

But no mother, no mother should have to see her son's body.

"Mrs. Yagami," Aizawa, somehow he's over here too now, so are grim-faced Matsuda and Mogi. He speaks hoarsely, with an effort at being soft. "Maybe you shouldn't be back here. Look, you're getting blood all over your shirt. Let us get him cleaned up. You shouldn't have to see him like this. Do you understand?"

The woman can't answer, she's rocking back and forth with her son in her arms.

Rock-a-bye baby on the tree top,
When the wind blows, the cradle will rock.
When the bough breaks, the cradle will fall,
and... down will come baby...
Cradle and-

"Mrs. Yagami!" Matsuda's hand touches her shoulder. He's hurt, he's scared, Sachiko can tell these things. "Please, please listen to me. Light wouldn't want you to-"

"Get away from me."

The venom in her voice pains Matsuda, who stiffens, and now Sachiko can see it. She wants to see it, she wants to see them hurt. Her fingers clutch into Light's hair, her nails digging into his back so hard that he might cry out, if only he could. She thinks that she hates everyone - Japan, Kira, the gods and these damned cops, she hates them all.

"You killed him." Her voice is strangely steady, even though she knew that she was still crying. It was steady like a poisoned arrow, and if her son had to die then these policemen, they did it to him, they deserve to die more than anyone. "He's dead because of you."

Matsuda's jaw is working but no sounds come out. He's shaking. Aizawa shoves in front of him, taking his arm and going toward the door, and nods to Mogi to follow as well. Aizawa says, "We'll give you time alone... with him."

"You killed him!"

Light was ten years old that day, for the first time. He was quietly ecstatic - though raised with too much discipline to show off or brag or demand attention, so instead Sachiko saw him smiling to himself. A proud accomplishment for boys, she was sure, to finally make double-digits in age. And of course, she was proud too, and they would have a birthday party tonight with cake and presents. As for her younger daughter, Sayu, she was probably more excited than the ten-year-old was: so animated, with facial expressions that conveyed every mood she was filled with, in a way reflecting what everyone else was too matured to express.

Days like these, Sachiko's heart would swell and she knew that she had been blessed with the perfect life. A hardworking husband, a bright son and a cheerful daughter, sometimes Sachiko wondered what she had done to deserve these precious gifts. Or maybe, one day she would still have to pay.

"Hey, Light!" Sayu chirped, bounding down the stairs into the kitchen. "Catch!"

Light turned to and raised his hands to receive whatever object she had been planning on throwing, only Sayu had decided to throw her own self and that had been something he had not anticipated. She leaped into Light's arms with such ferocity that she tackled him backwards onto the kitchen floor.

"Ow! Sayu!" he whined, though it would take more than that to actually kill his good spirits. "What are you doing?!"

"Mm, I told you to catch," she purred, sitting up on his stomach. "Pinned ya!"

"Be careful, dear," Sachiko reprimanded as she finished mixing the frosting that she would put on the cake as soon as it finished cooling. "We wouldn't want you to kill the birthday boy, or they'll be no party."

"Yeah, what if I was dead right now?" Light asked flippantly, pushing her off. "You wouldn't get any cake and no one would let you play the Super Nintendo that they're giving me."

"How do you know about the Super Nintendo?" Sachiko demanded with irritation. "Were you digging through my closet again?"

Light smirked. "I didn't know. I was only guessing. Mom, it's too easy to get secrets out of you."

That boy! Though she kept her face rigid as she scraped the plastic bowl with the rubber of the spatula, she had to clench her teeth to keep from snickering herself along with Sayu. But she really wasn't in a bad mood and she couldn't pretend for very long, until finally she said, "Well you better behave yourself, or I'll make sure you really are in a grave before your next birthday."

"Wah, ha, ha!" Sayu exploded with laughter, clutching her stomach. "Light's a dead man!"

"You'd better hope not," he challenged his sister and sat down at one of the table chairs, ankles crossed. "Or I'd come back to haunt you. But that might not be so fun, since you'll probably wet the bed for another five years at least without the help of ghosts to scare you."

There was an indignant squeal. "I do not wet the bed!"

"Yeah you do."

"Do not! Do not!"

"Then why'd you put your sheets in the washing machine this morning?"

"Moooom!" Sayu howled. "Make Light go to his room!"

"Don't say that, Sayu," Light prodded. "Or I'll tell Daisuke to give you a diaper for White Day."

"Moooom!"

She probably could have mitigated the problem more professionally, but at that moment the phone rang. She sighed, setting down her bowl and dismissed the issue with a, "Light, stop blackmailing your sister."

It was Soichiro on the phone. The moment it was him was the moment that Sachiko knew exactly why he was calling. But she played it off innocently at first, asking if he would pick up a carton of ice cream on his way back from the station because this wasn't just any birthday, this was number ten. Her husband sounded hurt and tired, she knew he did, but that didn't change the fact that he was going to miss his own son's birthday. A wretched case had just popped up, and since he was police chief he couldn't get the time off.

To hell with all the crime and chaos in the world outside her house. Why couldn't her family just be together and happy?

"Daddy's not coming home?" Sayu asked, stricken. "But it's Light's-"

"It's okay," Light interrupted, smiling a lie before the sentence could be finished. "He's got important things to do."

"You're important," Sachiko declared, uncertain whether she was trying to convince him or his absent father.

"I want to be a cop one day, like him."

As if that answered everything. As if that answered anything. The only thing Sachiko saw was her baby boy leaving her, and never coming back. Just like Soichiro.

Just like Soichiro.

To bury a husband was a shame. She was informed of the death and for awhile, she had not wept. He had had it coming. By the gods, the man worked his way to his own heart attacks and if he died on the job, well, that was probably a mercy. She had been angry, more than anything, and when the tears finally came she clenched her fists. As always, he had left her. Now, as always, she was alone to care for their daughter, their Sayu who sat like a statue in her wheelchair, face so eerily void of the joys and expressions it had once portrayed. Sayu had not cried at the funeral, and neither had Sachiko.

Just like Soichiro.

To bury a son is unbelievable.

The funeral home has cleaned Light's body. The casket is open, for his face is still a face, and the bullet wounds that punctured his body are masked by the dark suit he is dressed in. He's so clean and well-groomed that he looks like he should be going to a wedding. Why isn't he going to a wedding? Twenty-three years old, no, Sachiko thinks that he's still too young to be married. But not too young to die.

No, too young to die.

The rain, it falls like pearls in a white-cloud sky. The people underneath it - and there are a lot - they hold black umbrellas and huddle close together like they're cold. Sayu, where is Sayu... Matsuda is behind her wheelchair, sheltering her from the water droplets. Sayu, at least, can not cry, her face is completely dry and void. As it will always be. Just like Soichiro. Just like Light.

Sachiko shakes off the friends and relatives who swarm her and instead stands under the tarp, where Light lies in his final bed.

"Rock-a-bye, baby." The song whispers out of her lips, and she reaches a shaking hand over to touch his face. It really is cold, so cold, but her hand is cold too so maybe this one last time, their bodies will have the same heat. She traces her fingers across his cheek. He does not look like he's sleeping peacefully like the magazines always described it, he simply looks dead - stiff and dead, beautiful, but dead. Artificial. A candle without a flame. "Lullaby, baby..."

This time, she can't keep her composure. She does not fight the tears that trickle down her face, the tears that can't dampen skin already wet from rainwater. She accepts it quietly.

"Lullaby, baby, now it's time to sleep."

Her voice doesn't choke, though she must wait a moment, out of time with her song, because her the oxygen won't fill her lungs fully.

"And tomorrow ...we'll be together again."

Sachiko loses track of the time, anyway, she did not bother to wear a wrist watch. But soon she has to back up as they, whoever they are, it really doesn't matter, as they close the box holding her Light and they lower him into the ground. She says a prayer for the gods to take care of him, since they wanted him so badly, and no one bothers her.

Until one does.

It's a skinny Caucasian boy with white hair and ashen skin. He looks perhaps fifteen in hunched stature, but has eyes that make appear older. Probably, he is. Sachiko can't recall who this youth could be, maybe it's one of Light's friends. Light always had a lot of friends.

"Mrs. Yagami," the boy says quietly. His face is as blank as Sayu's but something about it, some spark of emotion looks unsettled or at least like it wants to say something. He watches her as he speaks. "My condolences about your son. I'd like you to know that my group has taken care of Kira, so Yagami-kun would surely be pleased. May he therefore rest in peace."

Sachiko raises her face, resting her gaze on this pale youth. Her hands had been folded, but now they fall down to her sides, the eruption of fury holding her control hostage. Her tone is strict, and she hisses in a sound that could be a shout if only it were not so icily low.

"How dare you. I don't give a damn about Kira."

The boy's eyes widen. That had not been what he had been anticipating.

"You got what you wanted. Good for you," she snaps, her own fingernails digging into her palms as she made fists. "Good for all of you, you finally got what you were dying for. And because of you all, the police, Kira, everyone - everyone who can't just be content with what they have and instead they have to go be righteous fools and lose everything - because of you all, I've lost everyone who was important to me."

He fumbles with his coat sleeves of his over-sized jacket, bowing his head. "Mrs. Yagami, you're not thinking straight. I don't think you realize what you're suggesting."

"I'm not thinking straight? But here I am, alive, aren't I?" The anger she has felt has somehow hardened now, into something made of stone. Weary and empty, a sky without anything left to mourn. She gives this boy one last look. "I'm the only one left alive."

And then she leaves, treading across the muddy grass to her unresponsive daughter. Matsuda looks at her hopefully, but she takes the handles of the wheel chair from him and pushes to the car. Cops are trailing her, trying to help get Sayu in and fold the chair up to put in the trunk, but Sachiko shoves them away and sits at the wheel. She starts her car, and sits for a moment, listening to the rain pounding on the roof.

She has stopped crying entirely, she realizes.

She will never cry again.

Now the only thing left to do is drive. She does not need to pretend that the place that she is going is still called 'home'.

The End

Author's Notes:

1. This was written in a few hours when I realized what the date was today - January 28th, the day that Light dies in the series. I got really depressed (this is why I prefer not knowing what day it is!) so instead of doing homework I decided to write something, err, sad? I decided to use Sachiko again, similar to how I used her in 'The Golden Son, Light' because for some reason that seemed to be even more sad than writing from Light's POV about dying. It was only written in an hour, which is less time that I usually write, but I was terribly emotional while writing it. Sachiko really does lose the family that she loved so dearly.

2. Logically Sachiko probably wouldn't find out about Light for at least a day, as Light died in the afternoon of the 28th in the warehouse with Near, but I left it as is to emphasize the date, and besides, that's today.

3. White Day - like Valentine's Day in Japan. On Valentine's Day, girls give boys gifts, and on White Day, boys give girls gifts.

4. I also pity Matsuda, and I purposefully had Sachiko direct her anger at him. After all, he's the one who shot Light.

5. Near, at the end - I had big ideas as to what exactly was going through his head as he saw a mother mourning her lost son, as he was an orphan, but also mourning the man Kira. Unfortunately there was no appropriate time to include his thoughts, so there you have it.

Thanks for reading!