Well it looks like this is going to be 5 parts instead of 4...couldn't quite wrap things up as neatly as I hoped in four. *shakes fist at uncooperative SPK members*

Homecoming

After the dry cool of January in Japan, the slush and creeping soggy cold of England was almost as chilling as the tense quiet inside the car.

They were on their way to report to L's manager, Watari. What Rester could tell her about the House wasn't much, so Lidner had very little idea of what to expect. She knew it was an orphanage, and assumed it must have been a bleak sort of place to have produced a pair like Mello and Near. Halle pictured a tall, drafty building with tall, narrow staircases and tall, austere windows darkened by the heavy, musty, flower-patterned curtains her mind supplied when she cast about for something "English-looking".

Between her half-frozen feet (pumps really didn't do it for an English winter), her apprehension about their mysterious destination, and the dark, oppressive silence that oozed from the backseat to fill the entire car, Lidner was in a sorry state.

Near blamed her for Mello's death. Lidner knew it.

"It's fine," was all he would say on the subject—which meant nothing, because Near would always say anything was fine unless it affected the case. It was not in any of his communications with the SPK, but in the way he spoke to Kira on the phone that it had been clear that something had changed. The gloating smile and taunts were gone. He simply had confirmed their meeting and hung up.

And since the whole fiasco, he hadn't spoken to her.

"Turn right," the GPS unit droned, and abruptly they were at a gate.

Lidner chanced a glass at the side mirror. For the first time since leaving London, Near looked up, gazing through the gates with unreadable eyes.

It was not as gloomy as she had pictured. It was just a manor house, with wings that were obviously later additions sprawling out on either side, some windows dark but many of them lit and golden. As they crawled up the driveway, curtains twitched in many of the windows, faces peeking quickly then vanishing. It occurred to Lidner (though she kicked herself for not thinking of it earlier, it was so obvious) that the place was probably crawling with children. She cringed internally.

A tired-looking old man stood alone on the front steps, waiting for them as they parked. Near got out of the car and led the way as though he were being escorted to his own execution. From the way he had been acting the entire journey, Halle was led to believe their welcome would be grim at best.

This was not the case.

Watari's greeting was brief, but his watery blue eyes followed Near with the expression of a man whose son had returned against all his expectations from a war zone, and they took barely two steps into the rosy warm foyer before the young man was buried in the embrace of an old woman in a babushka. Clusters of students hung shyly in doorways and peeped through the banisters of the stairs, whispering amongst each other, socked feet skittering on wood floors, some of them even clapping.

"Near's back!"

"Look, he brought Outsiders…."

"Yep, it defsure him!" A teenager yelled up the stairs, summoning yet more of them, until the entryway was buzzing with the chatter of children ranging from young people Near's age to toddlers. Lidner and Rester hung awkwardly in the door, observing the chaos in bemusement.

"So is it true, is Kira dead?"

"Kira's down! Kira's down! Kira's down—"

"Shush up, he not gonna tell us anything with you yellin' at him like that—"

"Leetle Near, you are nothing but skin and bones," Babushka proclaimed, holding the rather shell-shocked-looking detective out at arm's length. "You haf not been eating, tsk. Ve vill fix that. Are you hungry? Of course you are, you young men are alvays hungry. Constance vill get you some supper—"

"No, thank you, Matron," Near said, shrugging off her hands uncomfortably. "I do not require anyth—"

"Do not be silly, you are half starved, and you haf been vorking so hard and zen traveling—"

"He's probably tired, Marta, give him a break," said a tall man with blond hair and glasses, "besides, you're embarrassing him in front of his associates."

"Pfff, zey can understand zat ve are alvays very happy to see our children come home safe," Marta waved him off dismissively, but now Rester and Lidner, too, fell under the scope of her mother-henning. "Come in, come in, it is very cold outside, do not stand in the door. You also vill have supper, and dere are rooms for you—all of you students get avay, let our guests haf some room to breathe, yes? You haf luggage in your car? Hopkins!"

Through all the chaos of scrambling kids and the matron's strident orders, Watari managed to shuffle Rester and Lidner aside. "I apologize for all the ruckus," the old man sighed. "The completion of the Kira case has everyone in…high spirits."

That was rather an understatement. The chant of Kira's down, Kira's down had restarted in the foyer, accompanied by the drumbeat of enthusiastic feet on the stairs and oak floor. Except for the Japanese task force, no one else out in the world knew of Kira's defeat. It was a secret, a dark, bitter victory they couldn't even acknowledge, a war no one knew was over. Yet here, in this English orphanage, they were met with celebration. It was as though they had stepped over the threshold into a bizarre dreamworld.

"Understandable," Rester said politely, looking around with a frown. "Where's Near?"

"I assure you he's safe, wherever he got off to. Most likely he has retired to his room," said Watari, sounding resigned. "Come, I will have tea brought up to my office until things have…settled somewhat."

-o-

A day and a half they had been here and Near still hadn't spoken to her.

Almost worse was facing all the people who did.

Watari, the matron, the cook, the librarians, all the young men and women who carefully shepherded the children away from her and Rester with quiet reprimands to leave them be and not pester them with questions…these people had raised Mello. Seeing one of the aides scoop up a child who couldn't be more than five and tickle him until he shrieked with delighted laughter, or the look on Roger's face when her mouth betrayed her and she asked about the young man, Halle felt physically ill. Being around Near had been bad enough; she remembered all too keenly what it felt like when she had received word from the prison that Jake had died of a heart attack. But their parents had been long gone by then. There had been no one else for Lidner to call and tell that their little boy had been killed. She was the only one he'd had.

Not so for Mello, apparently. Halle could hardly bear to face them all.

"Halle Lidner. You work for Near," a dull voice said, making her jump.

It was hard to find a private corner in this place, free of the curious stares of the students. Places that one would expect to be the quietest, like the library, tended to be the most full of people. Upon finding the dining room empty in the middle of the afternoon, Lidner had taken shelter in there, sitting by herself in the dark at a long table, and tried to fix her mind on something other than guilt.

A teenage girl with short blond hair sat down a few feet away on the same bench, so that they were facing in opposite directions. "I'm O. O for Ochre."

"Oh," said Lidner, unsure of how to respond.

"Yes. That's what I said." The girl was not looking at Lidner, but out across the shadowy jumble of empty tables and benches. "Is Kira dead, or is he incarcerated?"

"That's classified information," Lidner said with a hint of chill, straightening in her seat.

"N would still be a clam about everything," Ochre sighed, more to herself than to Lidner. "But he also thorough. So it most likely safe to suppose that Kira is at least permanently incapacitated."

"…Yes," Lidner said reluctantly, when the silence stretched to a point that it seemed the girl expected some reply.

"Good." Ochre stood to go.

Halle's thoughts escaped from her mouth. "Did you know Mello?"

The girl paused.

"Yes. But he's dead now, isn't he."

"What—what was he like? Here?"

Ochre's dim eyes evaluated her critically. "Mean. No more than Near, though."

"Oh."

"You are very upset that he's dead," Ochre observed. She said it with pity, less as though she were sympathetic, and more as though she thought this was an unwise thing to feel, and that the older woman didn't know any better.

"It's always upsetting when people we know die," Halle responded in a clipped tone. Ochre's eyes flickered, and she suddenly felt that she had said far too much.

"Yes," the teenager agreed. "Though I doubt you'll get far working for L if you let it keep eating you like that. These things happen, you know, especially around people like Mello and Near."

And with that the girl left Halle sitting alone again in the dark hall, feeling offended at being so brashly criticized by a child, but also wondering if perhaps O was right.

-o-

"He seems much better," Rester said a few days later, relieved.

And it was true. The evening before Rester and Watari had decided enough was enough and Roger had gone out to speak with the young detective. They had come back in red-cheeked and shivering from the cold, but Near had looked the most unburdened and somehow alive that he had since—well, since ever in the time Halle had known him.

Lidner still hadn't spoken to him, though if she was honest, he didn't seem to be avoiding her. It was more that she hadn't found the proper opportunity. There was always someone else around- Watari, other students or staff, Rester.

She knew, heavily, she needed to talk to him about future plans. (Though, that might have been easier if she had any definite ones.) Lidner couldn't keep working for someone she couldn't even speak to. And anyway, this was all ridiculous. She was a grown professional, not some child who had broken her mother's favorite vase. There was no good reason she couldn't deal with this situation like a professional.

"Are you staying with him?" she asked Rester.

"Only as far as London," he said, with a calm certainty that Halle envied. "I need to get back to the States and let my family know I'm not dead. If L ever needs me he'll know how to reach me."

Family. Lidner felt a sharp pang at the word.

"What about you?" he asked.