A/N: Did anyone else notice how Ted from The Lorax was basically Matt from Death Note. You know, if he was a Who. Same striped shirt, same goggles, same badass transportation. Just sayin.

Do not own

Do not make money

But if you want to send me money, I won't tell.

Also, chapter 30, it's a multiple of ten, and therefore special. Please, if you haven't reviewed before, do it now! And if you have reviewed before, you obviously can again, but I appreciate you, and it's okay if you take a break just this once.

Some, when burdened by an impossibly deep grief, cry out the pain they feel, as if to say "Listen! The world has lost something today!" Some do not understand how, having lost the purpose of their lives, anyone else can find the strength to go on, let alone grocery shop, and attend children's soccer games and shop and sleep and dance and laugh. Some, when facing a loss, stand outwardly solid to counter the inexorable emptiness they feel inside. They appoint themselves as monuments to those they have lost, keeping watch like tombstones through equally dead eyes. L belonged to that last group of grievers. While Lawliet burrowed deep inside the recesses of his soul to hide from the agony of moving on, L meticulously took statements from everyone present, made arrangements, viewed Light's autopsy photos with dry eyes, and a thumb lodged firmly in his mouth.

If Lawliet wept inside, who knew? Indeed, if anyone noticed L eating just the slightest bit more cake, or the bags under his eyes growing ever so slightly darker, it was lost in the understanding that he was just an odd man to begin with.

His employees felt the shame of those who were incontrovertibly right, and sure of their rightness, only to find out that they were, in fact, wrong.

His successors, believing the best in him, and knowing somewhat more about the situation, assumed that L was following some greater plan, and his loss was the loss of an act that seemed, at times, better than reality.

Those who would have grieved with him, in any other world, under any other circumstances, either knew nothing about him, or blamed him.

No, by some cruel irony, the only man in the entire world- including L- fully qualified to understand the exact magnitude of Lawliet's grief was Light. And he was gone.

Not completely understanding his own actions, L attended Light's funeral, slouching in the back wearing his usual jeans, with a button-up black shirt that still smelled like Light. He returned to the French restaurant, and, when the server asked where his handsome friend had gone, he stared at her with uncomprehending eyes, until, disconcerted, she left. He spent half an hour lying in bed, wondering why it felt so wrong, until he noticed the hollow where his mattress had bent to accommodate two bodies, and resumed sleeping in his armchair. Briefly irritated, he noted how Light had imprinted himself on every corner of the building, until he took a walk, wondered what Light would say regarding the use of that particular structure for an apartment complex, and realized Light had simply imprinted himself on every corner of his mind.

Still, L was logical to a fault and reasoned that if he had lived without Light,- in the dark, so to speak, haha- he could do so once more, and so he continued to produce exactly the same amount of flawless work he had before, wrapping up the case, and continuing to blow through smaller cases and an indecent amount of coffee. The task force left, but L continued working from the building since it was custom made for him and altogether too convenient to leave for sentimental reasons. Never mind that sentimental reasons may have convinced him to stay.

And so, he continued on.

I should get that clipped thought L, pulling at a loose thread at the bottom of his jeans with dexterous toes. Briefly, he noted that it was his second thought of the day not directly needed to draw the necessary conclusions for a case. The first had been an observation that his coffee was not quite sweet enough. Ah, and the third was this counting of how many thoughts he'd had. So if the fourth is noticing the third and the fifth the fourth, that brings me into the longest train of thought since Light…rejecting the word, and the grief that accompanied it, L re-submerged.

Two hours later, on his way to the bathroom, L's toe caught the thread, and he slipped backwards, prepared to catch himself, but not prepared for the edge of the table that caught his head on the way down. Hard.

Pain exploded behind L's eyes, leaving behind small spots of light that looked more like static than stars, and when his mouth wouldn't move to call out to Watari, L thought somewhat hysterically of middle aged women who feared choking alone in their apartments. He tried to force himself into a sitting position, and was hit with a wave of nausea so debilitating, it was all he could do to fall back onto his elbows, instead of onto his head. Sitting half propped up on the floor, feeling sick and in pain, L almost didn't notice the other figure in the room, but when he did, it was all he could see. Light was lying, curled up on the floor, exactly where he had died, but shaking, and still clearly alive.

"Light!" L forced past his heavy tongue. Light reacted to the sound, uncurling and spinning around, as if he could hear, but not see the source of the noise. Black started to appear at the corner of L's vision, and he tried to breathe, and ignore the new waves of nausea. "Light!" This time, Light reached towards the sound, and clawed at the space L was in. His hand passed through L's foot, and he began to fade away. "Light!" But he was almost gone, and the black on the edges of L's vision were consuming his sight, until there was only a pinpoint of the room he could see, and a pale outline of Light. He opened his mouth to call out again, but the pinpoint was gone, and so was his consciousness.

When L woke up, he was in a bed and felt terrible. As he sat up, the nausea returned, but not the motivation to continue trying, so he immediately turned and threw up, grateful for the bin thrust under his face at the right moment. When he recovered enough to lie back and wrinkle his nose at the bile in his mouth, he saw Watari, in the room with him.

"Thank you, Watari. May I see the security tapes from when I fell?"

"You only tripped on your pants, but you managed to concuss yourself, and getting up and yelling made it worse. You really could have died."

"There was no one else in the room?"

"No."

"Even after I fell?"

"No."

"May I see the tapes, anyways?"

"Of course." As Watari had said, there was nothing on the tapes, but L falling and yelling desperately at the empty air, but L spent almost four bedridden days pondering why it was Light he had seen. Was it merely wishful thinking combined with the effects of the concussion? If so, why would his brain invent a Light who was distant and in pain, instead of one who made loving gestures towards him, or who said a proper goodbye? Most importantly, when L was well enough to get up and wash himself, he noticed the foot his vision of Light had touched. Two of his toes looked unhealthy and colorless.

"What did you do to your foot, L? There's no blockages, but the blood flow just slows down, and nearly stops the further down those toes it gets. The flesh at the end has very nearly died."

"I had a hallucination in which I saw Light. He reached out to me and his hand passed through my foot. Now those toes are trying to die. I suspect Light's reincarnation as a Shinigami has begun."

"That's entirely possible, L, but it doesn't seem very probable. Perhaps you twisted those toes when you fell."

"Perhaps I was more able to see Light when he was not yet fully changed, and I was near death."

"It seems unlikely. Anyways, you work in that room, so if anything else happens, you'll be able to see it. And you'll be a much more reliable witness when you haven't just hit your head." L brought a thumb up to his lips.

"I suppose so."

27 days later, after seeing not so much as a flicker in the direction he'd seen Light, and the least productive work month of perhaps his entire career, L resolved to try a series of experiments. Feeling utterly ridiculous, he carefully copied out series of designs from various grimoires and tried different combinations of candles and herbs to call out whatever he could. The first time Watari caught L using a knife from his evidence file which had fulfilled the requirements of having "killed three men", he rolled his eyes. The second, he made a new key and made L sign evidence in and out. L considered breaking the lock, but decided to move on to newer, less folk-legend oriented methods.

The next experiments L tried were all related to the Death Note he still had in his possession. He did everything he could to the note, short of destroying it on the spot in which Light had appeared.

Finally giving up, L seriously considered recreating his concussion. Choosing his closeness to death as the main factor in his vision, L sent Watari out on an errand, and took a number of painkillers that, while carefully measured, were NOT the recommended amount on the bottle. As the overdose began to affect L, he saw an outline flash into being, and begin to fill out. As he reached out towards it, his limbs grew heavy, and his heart started to beat more quickly. Just a little more. His fingers brushed against the outstretched fingers of Light who, this time, seemed to be able to see him. Light turned burning eyes towards him, and they simply stared at each other for a couple of moments before L's veins literally felt like they were buzzing, and he pulled back and began to vomit out the painkillers.

The second time L woke up from a near death experience, Watari was not amused.

"I am putting you on a suicide watch." Calmly, L began to explain.

"I was not committing suicide, or even any more harm than was necessary-" Watari exploded.

"Necessary for what, exactly?! For getting close enough to dead to see your mass-murderer ex-boyfriend?" L gaped for a moment, before responding.

"I am old enough to make my own decisions. Do not treat me like a child."

"You're acting like one! An angsty, immature child!" They argued for a while longer, but in the end, L was given a tracker, put under surveillance, and everything remotely harmful was locked up from him, no matter how much he glared when he had to ask Watari to retrieve his toothpaste from the locked medicine cabinet. Slowly, with no more way to see Light, or even to occupy his mind, as his brief venture into the occult had, L sunk back into his previous depression. He ate so mechanically that when served a plate of steamed vegetables, he didn't seem to notice the difference. Watari started to force him to spend an hour each day sitting on the roof, as if he were a plant. He stared at the horizon through the bars Watari had installed with the same blank expression he stared at his computer.

And then a death note fell from the sky and landed with a soft thump in front of L.

A/N: Alright. I just re-posted most of this fic, now edited by the truly amazing Enjie. She made an amazing impact on continuity, grammar, general flow, and made several brilliant suggestions about the fic which I am ashamed to say I haven't had the time to follow. I will be making changes to the fic as I work on some of the deeper issues that need re-working, but for now, this just really needed to be reposted. Everything good is probably Enjie's. Any mistakes are definitely mine. Thank you for sticking with it for so long. The sequel is up, entitled: The Established Relationship Sequel.

Chana