Waking up the next morning hurts. The light from his window hits his face, which brings him up out of his sleep much sooner than his body would have liked. Near feels sick, and muzzy headed; he knows he shouldn't be skipping taking his pills, but he also knows, with just as much certainty, that if he does take them they'll change back to insects in his mouth. He'll forego them for a few more hours. It hasn't been that long, has it? A day? Two?

His stomach growls, urgently, and he nods to himself. He should eat. He will eat, in a moment. Right now, the sun is streaming through his window and he doesn't want to move. The bed is warm, the sheets are soft, the pillows are comfortable and perfect.

One of Near's earliest memories is dawdling in bed in the morning. He'd hid under the blankets and played with his socks, assigning each of them a distinct personality and having them sit down and engage in a discussion about the likelihood of being given pancakes for breakfast versus waffles, allowing for the tired-guardian-cereal contingent. The socks had come to the conclusion that waffles were more likely, but had failed to factor in the guardian's understanding of Near's preferences; the pancakes had been delicious, and delivered in the shape of the caterpillar from the current favourite story book. He'd slathered them in butter and syrup.

Now he really is hungry. It takes him a moment to remember that Gevanni is still hospitalized, and Halle is likely there with him. There's only one other person in the house.

"Rester?"

Silence. It doesn't sound as if the other man is in the house. Near listens for him carefully, and calls out again, louder this time.

"Rester!"

Nothing. And it's at this point he notices something else. His voice echoes loudly in his room, and he can hear a tap dripping in the bathroom. One of the faucets needs tightening. But that's all he can hear. There's no hum of electricity from the rest of the house, no whirr of the dishwasher or laundry machine. The television isn't on, the radio isn't on... it's all peculiarly silent, as though there's been a power outage and everything has been shut off.

He can't even hear the birds outside his window; he can see them, sitting in one of the trees. They're loud enough to wake him some mornings, but not today. Near sits up, and raps on the glass. They hear it, obviously, because they startle out of the tree and flock away. Near knows he should be able to hear them sounding out warnings, but he can't hear anything. All there is is his own breathing, the rustle of the sheets as he crawls along them, and the dripping of the bathroom tap.

"Rester!"

He isn't coming. Near forces himself to face that reality, and draws a deep breath or two. There are two options. He could stay here indefinitely, and wait for someone to arrive, getting hungrier and hungrier, or he could go to the door and leave. It wouldn't be hard, all he'd have to do is walk across the room. He must be imagining this, like he's imagining everything else.

Forcing himself to remember the therapist in the hospital, Near takes a deep breath, pulls the blankets off himself and climbs out of bed.

This turns out to be a mistake.

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One second, Near is on his feet, the next he's slammed face first against the floor, hard enough that he thinks he's chipped a tooth. He doesn't have time to process that, though, because something has his feet and is dragging him, physically, back towards the bed. Near forgets to scream, but manages to kick one leg free and lift it enough to brace it against the frame. He knows he can't let himself be pulled under there, so he fights for all he's worth, kicking and clawing at the ground as he's pulled.

Eventually, he manages to land a solid hit. He feels skin mash against his foot, and hears a dull crunch of bone snapping. He's hit a nose. Whatever it is yelps and releases him, and Near scrambles away as fast as he can. This time, he makes the mistake of looking back.

Light Yagami is underneath his bed, grinning at him, pale skinned and bleeding where Near kicked him. His eyes are hollow and dark, his hair is dank, and tangled in clumps. And this time, this time his hand reaches out. It's the hand Near recognizes, all broken fingernails and veins and bones. Now there are two hands. Now the top of his head; Light is pulling himself out from under the bed. Light is coming for him.

He's too frightened to scream. He runs for the door, and tries the handle. It's locked, of course. He rattles it for a moment, pounding on it in the hopes that Rester will hear and come, well aware that he won't, that there isn't time, that Near is alone in here with this thing.

Behind him, there's a shuffling, lurching step. He turns again, and Light is still there, still giving him that look, still lurching toward him. Near can hear him breathing. No, he isn't breathing, he's laughing. He feels his heart just about stop in terror, and he wonders if this is really going to be how he dies, and if Beyond Birthday had ever known it.

"Near." He starts, when the person speaks, and looks up, expecting it to be Light. It isn't. The grin is still fixed on Light's face. The voice is coming from the bathroom. The door there swings open, and Near does the only thing he can think of.

He runs to it. Ducks past Light's clumsy arms and lurching body, finally screaming as he nearly trips on the edge of the carpet, and throws himself through the bathroom door, into the little room. He does fall, now, and by all rights he should knock himself unconscious on the tile floor, but something catches him and the door behind him slams shut.

Strong arms wrap him up, and lower him to the floor. For a second he thinks it's Rester, but it isn't. Then it's his father- but it isn't him either. He's pulled against a thin body, and held, and for a few seconds that's enough. The illusion of comfort and of safety. Near can't remember ever being held like this; strong arms that are going to make the monsters go away. Before his parents died, maybe, when he'd crawl into their bed between them and his mother would hush him back to sleep.

"You're doing okay, kid," murmurs Mello, gruff, softer than Near ever remembers him being. If the arms around him are colder than a living human's might be, that doesn't matter. Childhood rival or not, dead or not, Mello is here and promising to keep him safe, and Near isn't going to question that.

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That's the honeymoon period. It lasts about an hour. Mello's dead fingers wander through Near's curls, and Near's heartbeat slows, and stops hammering in his throat.

"You're a good L." Mello is the first to speak. His voice sounds as if it's coming from far away, and the words seem... uncharacteristic. Near looks up at him and pulls away just a little, frowning. Mello is the age he was when he died; young, scarred, bitter looking. Near doesn't hate him as much as he used to. Mello must not hate him much either, any more. Maybe death gives you some kind of perspective.

"Thank you, Mello," Near answers solemnly, unsure as to why the reassurance means something. Maybe it's knowing he's occupying the position that Mello was fated to have. Before the business with the death notes began. Near is supposed to be dead soon. Mello frowns at him, as if to say 'don't think that,' and Near has to wonder if Mello can hear his thoughts.

It ceases to matter when the thing outside (it's too far gone to really be considered Yagami anymore; just some angry remnant of what he used to be) starts to claw and the door and snuffle at the crack between it and the floor, huffing and hissing and wanting in. It makes Near shudder, which makes Mello frown.

"I've been trying to stop him, but I'm not strong enough. You're safe in here for now, but he'll get through eventually." He still sounds so distant. His affect is flattened, too. Near watches him, and wonders if he ever misses him. He decides that he doesn't, but he's still glad he's here now.

"What do I do, Mello?"

The ghost grins at him- cocky, fiery like he used to be. Near swallows, and listens to the plan.

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As plans go, this isn't much of one. An all or nothing bolt for the stairs, down the hall, out the front door on Near's part while Mello tries to hold back the other ghost is so obvious that a two year old non-successor could have thought it up.

It's also all they can do. Near forces himself to stand, and puts his hand on the doorknob. The metal is inexplicably icy cool under his fingers, but he keeps a hold on it. The door stops rattling, as though Light can tell someone is about to emerge.

"There are two things you need to know," Mello is telling him, standing right behind him and speaking in softer tones.

"First of all, you'll have trouble leaving the house. Your emotions will be a wreck. You'll second guess yourself. This place is going to do anything it can to keep you here. It hasn't lost you so far and it doesn't want to lose you now, so whatever you feel, keep running."

He'll pour over that later, dissect the implications of anthropomorphizing the house as having desires. Surely a building cannot want? But if it doesn't, how is it that he's still living here? Shouldn't he have left days ago?

"Second of all." Now Near feels Mello's hand on his shoulder. "...there isn't time. Rester is pulling into the driveway, and I can't get both of you out of here. You're going to need him to get you to the hospital. Get out of here, right now."

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The run is an out of body experience. Near feels himself stagger forward through the door, and is aware of the screams of fury in the room with him as Mello and Light lunge for each other. It sounds like nothing he's ever heard before, and like nothing he's ever imagined hearing. He doesn't have time to think more than that, before he's out of the room and into the hall.

The stairs are ahead of him, faster than he thought they'd be. He nearly trips down them, and manages to catch himself on the banister, sobbing for breath and trying not to scream; it'd be illogical, there's no one going to hear him.

The bedroom door bangs against the wall behind him, and Near wastes a second pretending that maybe Mello's won, that he can stop running and they'll go into the kitchen and have tea and chocolate and discuss politics. He lands on the bottom step and his knee jars badly, but he doesn't stop hobbling forwards. He never was particularly good at lying to himself.

Near doesn't have to look over his shoulder to know that Light is on the stairs behind him. He can feel the ghost approaching. He can feel the world around them start to freeze; he doesn't stop moving, but suddenly every step he takes seems to last forever, and the door ahead of him seems so far away. Part of him wants to stop now, stumble to a halt and lie down, and just let whatever is going to happen happen.

Mello is upstairs. Mello is probably badly hurt; he was dead, but he probably isn't coming back this time. Mello wants him to keep running no matter what, and says the house will try to stop him. Near keeps running. His hand closes on the door knob as Light takes the last few steps towards him, and he still can't turn to look, not to save his life. He stumbles forward, across the threshold, just as those clammy fingers clamp on the back of his neck.

And worse. They sink in through his skin, immaterial some how, but also there, horrible and pressing. Near collapses, face down on the front porch, as Light Yagami tries to crawl into his mind through his skin. Every part of him objects to this action on a physical and fundamental level. He feels it, this time, as another seizure begins.

At first, in the distance, he hears Rester screaming. Then he doesn't hear anything at all.

Brains do not make good battle grounds, and unbeknownst to Near, his has been the location of something of a war. Light tries once more to slither into him, pushing at walls and defenses that, once formidable, are finally beginning to crack and give way under the strain. Whether the attempted possession triggered the seizures, or the seizures were an invitation to possession isn't precisely clear. Light isn't human enough to be able to articulate chains of causality, and Near is unconscious, convulsing on the porch.

Neither of them is giving up this time.

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When seizures last more than thirty minutes, brain damage and death can eventually occur. Rester is the one to call the ambulance, and pull Near off the porch. He doesn't know what's going on, but he isn't stupid. He makes a promise to himself; if Near gets through this, none of them is ever going to set foot in that house ever again. He'll sign the demolition papers himself, if he has to. He hovers over Near, trying to make sure he doesn't hurt himself with the thrashing, until the ambulance arrives.

What saves him is a combination of serious medication, and distance from the site of the haunting. The siren blares as they speed away, and Light's hold on him stretches, stretches, and finally snaps. Mello, bloody and tired, sprawled on the floor of Near's bedroom crows out his laughter. Near sits up on the gurney and screams, nearly causing the driver to wreck the vehicle in shock.

Near makes it. When ghosts are involved, you sometimes can cheat death.

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"But why are you still alive?" Gevanni asks, from the chair by the window, trying to wrap his head around the whole idea a little more.

"Because Mello died," Rester explains, sparing Near the trouble. Near has his mouth full of jello anyways, and feels a little too wrung out to do any serious explaining.

"B made his predictions at a point in time when Mello was supposed to live longer than Near, so Near's date of death couldn't have accounted for Mello's help in getting him out of there. The prediction was probably entirely unrelated to the house- it might have just been the epilepsy." If it even is that, all of them add mentally. Near has been in the hospital for three days, and is back on his medication. He hasn't had a seizure since leaving the house, but there's no real way to test out whether or not it's going to stay that way. Only time will tell.

"I will have to live out the rest of my days without knowing when it will end. The rest of mankind does so, I see no reason why it should inhibit me in any way," Near observes, between bites from the jello-cup. "It might be a refreshing change of pace; an exercise in normalcy. Perhaps we should also acquire a golden retriever."

All of them know him well enough to recognize this as a joke. Halle smiles, and climbs to her feet.

"I'll go get us something for dinner."

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In the house, back in that valley, Light Yagami leans his forehead against the window pane and screams. Mello crawls up inside the bathroom tap and hides in the water, to try to get away from the sound. Near is away from both of them; for him, it is over.

For the two ghosts, trapped together by some metaphysical accident tied up with a lot of rage and all Near's memories and guilt, forever is just beginning.

[AN: And it's done! Thanks to everyone who's been reading and reviewing, and sorry for the massive delay on the final chapter. I don't know what happened, but I finally made it. Hope everyone enjoyed it, and even though a lot of you guessed the ending in the reviews, I hope I managed to maintain SOME suspense, haha.]