Dedication: I wouldn't have gotten this far without your encouragement, and I probably would have given the story a much darker ending if you hadn't urged me not to do so.

Trigger warning note: Eight years later, thinking about the fic today and thought I'd come back to add a trigger warning and brief explanation. Absolutely no one is doing anything they do not want, but due to the portrayal of the scene, some may see it as dubcon and triggering. So I just wanted to put that as a warning. The scene isn't anything graphic.

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Patience

"Patience!" Birdie said happily. It made me smile. Perhaps it was because Birdie had been away from May so long-and definitely because she had grown up around Joy and Allison-that she had developed her troublemaker personality over the years. Seeing Misa must have awakened that softer part of her, and I hoped it would stay even when Birdie inevitably returned to Wammy's.

Aizawa and I had just arrived at the Teito Hotel to pick up Misa and Birdie.

"Misa-chan, this is Patience," Birdie said, grabbing my hand and dragging me over to Misa. "Patience, this is Misa-chan."

"He-hello," I said nervously. I knew her all too well, yet she knew nothing of me.

"Nice to meet you!" Misa said enthusiastically. "I see you've already met Monchichi.
"So Patience-chan, you've been taking care of Birdie-chan while she's been in Japan?"

"Yeah, I guess," I admitted, never really having thought of it that way.

Birdie and I didn't sleep at the SPK headquarters. Both in New York and Japan, we had stayed in motel rooms paid for with Near's inheritance. It was a small place with a bedroom, small kitchen and bathroom, and a small living room with a television set. It had been us alone for about a year in New York. Allison had stayed with us when she arrived, and since there were only two beds, Birdie had slept with Allison. It had been mostly Allison and Birdie at first, but over time, Allison became distant, probably soon after she met Matt again. Then it was just Birdie and me again.

"Well, you've done a good job," Misa said with a laugh, bearing a charming smile. It was no wonder she was famous; she was so charismatic, but it seems Light had her outdone in that department, able to use his own charms to manipulate her. "Birdie-chan is a great kid."

"Yeah," I said with a smile, looking down at Birdie, who was staring up at me in curiosity, "I know.
"Birdie, do you remember what I told you?"

Birdie sighed, frowning in disappointment. "I guess I have to go back now, Misa-chan. I'll miss you."

"Aw, I'll miss you, too," Misa said. She was taken aback when Birdie ran up to her and wrapped her arms around her. After a moment, Misa smiled and hugged Birdie back.

Maybe Birdie can do it, I thought. Maybe Birdie can give Misa another reason to live.

Birdie pulled away, she and Misa smiling at one another.

"Be sure to write, okay?" Misa said.

"You, too," said Birdie, "but not in Japanese, because I still have no clue how to read that stuff."

Misa laughed. "Sure thing," she said happily. "Well, I've got to go now, too. It's been almost a month, and I want to see my fiancé!"

I looked at Aizawa, who bore a grave look on his face. He took a deep breath to steady himself; he had obviously gone over what he was going to tell Misa on his ride over to the hotel. This was all painful for him, and worse, it was happening all in one day.

"Come on, Birdie," I said, grabbing her hand and leading her out the door of the suite.

"Huh?" she said in confusion. Still, she was compliant, and she followed me. She looked back at Misa and waved as we walked out. "Goodbye, Misa-chan!"

"Bye-bye, Birdie-chan!" she said and enthusiastically added, "I'm off to see my Light!"

"Misa, there's something I need to tell you about Light," I heard Aizawa say as Birdie and I walked out the door.

"Patience," Birdie said when we were in my rental car, knowing not to speak about what she no doubt had in mind in the hotel, where there were cameras, "you're alive!"

"Yes, I am," I said with a laugh.

"So it worked," she said. Her eyebrows perked up, and she smiled. "What did the God of Death look like? Was it like an angel? Or like the Grim Reaper? Was it a monster?"

"The last one," I said. "I can't even begin to describe what it looked like."

"You'd better draw me a picture, then," Birdie said.

"I can't draw very well, Birdie," I pointed out.

"Well, then call up Linda or something!" she said eagerly. "I want to see!"

She only just seemed to notice that I was alone. "Where's Allison?" she asked. "She didn't...?"

"No," I assured her, "no, don't worry, Birdie. Allison is fine."

"What about you?" she asked.

"What do you mean, Birdie?" I said. "I'm right—" I realized that she wasn't asking if I was alive or dead. "I'm okay, Birdie."

"Patience, please?" she said.

That wasn't something I heard from her very often. I sighed. "I found out my name since Mikami wrote it in the fake notebook."

"Which is what you hoped would happen," she pointed out, "so why do you look so glum?"

"It's my name," I explained, and when I got a confused look from her, I elaborated. "It's the same name I used before I came to Wammy's; the name I thought was fake."

"What?" Birdie said in confusion. "But that doesn't... Maybe the Shinigami Eyes just see whatever your legal name is? Instead of your birth name?"

"Maybe," I admitted, having already considered this. "Or maybe..." The memory of Jessica and the tears running down her face as she spoke of the mystery that was my past flashed by in my mind, "maybe I've been looking for the wrong thing this entire time. Either way, I need to make sense of this all."

"What happens when you do?" she asked. "You wanted to be with your mum when you started this, but I'm guessing you wouldn't want to know that you know she made up all these lies. What will you do after that?"

"I don't know," I admitted. "Maybe if I find out who she is, it will give me a better sense of myself. I can figure out what my gift is; whatever the people at Wammy's saw in me. Then I can—"

"—Wait, what?" said Birdie. "You don't know what your talent is?"

"I mean, I obviously wasn't accepted for possessing the general skills," I said. "IQ, multitasking, processing speed, and so on. My teachers and my warden all worked with me on improving any of those that were possible to change, so it obviously wasn't innate. For most of the kids at Wammy's, it's 'nature,' but for me, it was definitely 'nurture.' So I must have been accepted for some other gift, but I don't have anything about me that stands out like you guys, Birdie. I can't solve complicated math problems on command or learn a language with minimal effort. There's nothing special about me; nothing noticeable, at least."

"Are you kidding me?" Birdie said, almost scoffing. "It's noticeable. Noticeable to everyone but you, apparently. You really have no idea, not even after all of these years?" She couldn't help but laugh. "It's so normal to you that you haven't even realized it's a gift."

"What are you talking about, Birdie?"

"Your gift, Patience!" she repeated. "You read people!"

"I... what?" I looked at Birdie in confusion. She was smug, clearly amused with my inability to grasp what she meant.

Clearly...

It was clear... to me. I remembered how people would always be shocked at what conclusions or decisions Near came to, but I wouldn't. I recalled how Allison would ask for my opinions on what I thought would happen with Kira, thinking nothing of it. I remembered how it was so obvious to me that Lidner was in love with Mello, while not even Near had noticed.

I remembered what Allison had told me the night before.

Birdie was right. After years had gone by, and before I had figured out that my past was being hidden, my search for my mother had instead become a search for myself. Something I thought that no one, not even I knew, was apparently so obvious to everyone else. If I had even just thought to ask, but instead, I'd made everything difficult for myself.

Noticing that I was deep in thought, Birdie chuckled and added, "Another talent you have is that you are impossible to read unless you want to be read."

"I have no clue what I'm going to do now, Birdie," I admitted.

"Help me pack," she suggested. "As much as I want to stay with Misa, the deal was that I could only stay for as long as the Kira case was going on.
"You know, I bet you Roger only asked Near to let me join because he thought that Near would say no. In all honesty, he may as well have. Near basically stuffed me in a corner and let me watch and remember to keep my mouth shut about anything I saw.
"May's gone, but because I came, I found Misa. I'll miss her, but she promised to keep in touch."

"Birdie, you can't tell her what happened," I said.

"I know that, Patience."

"No, Birdie," I said. "I don't just mean about the Death Note and Light being Kira. I mean about Light being dead."

"What?" she said, her voice soft and confused. "But why? Why can't we tell her the truth?"

"Because she's fragile, Birdie," I explained. "Her parents were murdered, and she's in love with Light Yagami. He's all she has; if she finds out he's gone, then there's no telling what she'll do. We just have to hope that she gets over him after time and that when she eventually finds out, she'll have moved on."

"You mean she'd kill herself?" Birdie said, disturbed and shocked. She didn't even question my opinion; she believed me without a doubt. Because of my talent. Because I can read people.

"She'll be fine as long as she doesn't find out, Birdie," I assured her. "It's not a bad lie. It's... it's for her own good."

Reluctantly, Birdie nodded.

"Okay, Patience," she agreed, and then she smiled timidly. "I'm going to take a nap now, but when we get back, you're going to help me pack my bags."

I smiled and nodded. "Alright, Birdie," I said, "whatever you say."

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We were in our room (or rather, our former room), putting away all of Birdie's things, save the essentials and two outfits for the remaining days she would be in Japan.

"So what do you think happens now, Patience?" Birdie asked as she hung up her clothes for the next day.

"We all get back to our regular lives," I said, the two of us knowing that it would be far more complicated than that.

"Seriously, though," she said, throwing a messily folded dress into her suitcase. I sighed in annoyance, pulling the dress out of the suitcase, folding it properly, and then placing it in the suitcase while shooting Birdie a pointed look. "I know you might not know what happens to you, but what about everyone else? I'm curious. Allison, Misa, that bonehead, Near."

"I think Misa will do fine," I said, not quite lying, but not telling the complete truth either. "She'll become independent in time, so when she finds out about Light, she'll recover. It will probably take a while, though.
"Near, well, we're obviously not going to see much of him since he's going to be the new L. I have a feeling that at least Lidner and Rester will stay with him. Rester is... well, he's used to Near, and Lidner... she owes Near a lot. Or at least, she thinks she does.
"As for Near himself... I don't really want to think about that, but he might... regress."

"Regress?"

"As L, you're alone, Birdie," I explained. "He can reach out to people and have them work for him, but Near isn't that type of person. He'll just stay there, alone all the time, and turn more and more into the Near you hate. The quiet one who plays with his toys and doesn't need people."

"You even know why I really hate him," Birdie said with a chuckle. "What about Allison?"

I folded up a blue tee-shirt and put it into one of Birdie's suitcases; her last piece of clothing. I tried to close it, but it was too full. I motioned for Birdie to sit on it to help me out.

"Allison," I said as Birdie sat down, my eyes on hers as I zipped the suitcase up, "is probably going to go away for a very long time."

"What?" Birdie said. "What do you mean? Is she going to jail for what she did?"

"No," I assured her, "but Mello probably would. As L, Near could probably get him out of that trouble, but Mello would never go to Near for help, even now."

"Mello?" Birdie said in confusion. "But Mello's dead."

"No, he's not, Birdie," I told her. "That's just what Allison told us."

"How can you be so sure?" she asked.

"Birdie, we all assumed that Takada used the Death Note to control Mello and have him go somewhere secluded to die," I explained. She nodded, having known this much already. "That's what we said, but that doesn't make any sense. No one bothered thinking about it because we already had the information we needed to beat Kira, but think about it, Birdie.
"If Takada was going to burn to death, then why would she have Mello die someplace secluded? I doubt Light would have told her to do that, and maybe he even figured that and assumed that Mello was alive. At that point, though, he thought he was going to win, with or without Mello in the way.
"His original plan, though, would have been this: have Takada write down Mello's name, then she calls Light and tells him where she is. Since she's in a truck with Mello, he tells her to write down as many names as she can, and in the meantime, he writes down her name, saying that she will burn the truck and everything in it. That includes Mello. Hiding him won't be necessary because Takada will trust Light enough to know that he has a plan to get rid of the evidence."

"Then why did she stop trusting him?" Birdie wondered.

"Well, you see," I said, sitting down next to her on the bed, "Light had both Misa and Takada fall in love with him. Why? Because he was so charming." I pulled off the hood of the lime green hoodie she always wore, revealing her now messy blonde hair to get a better look at her pretty blue eyes. She loved that hoodie, and she always hid away in it as though it would help her conceal any weaknesses. "However, our Allison is also a pretty convincing person. My guess would be that Allison out-charmed Light when it came to Takada, beating him at his own game."

"What a stupid thing to attempt," Birdie said.

"I don't know about stupid, but definitely risky. That's Allison for you, though."

"So then, if Mello's alive, and we're not going to see Allison again," Birdie trailed off. She raised her eyebrows in surprise and looked at me, a question in her baby blues.

"Yep," I confirmed, "since we haven't seen her already..."

"She's not coming back," Birdie said, her voice monotone and her face blank, "and she didn't even say goodbye..." Despite the obvious pain she felt, she grinned. "The idiot finally realized she cares," Birdie said with a laugh, falling back onto her bed.

Allison

I opened the door to the bedroom of the place Matt had been staying. The bed looked like it had never been slept in. He'd probably slept on the coach, falling asleep while playing his video games.

I looked to see Mello, handcuffed to a leg of the bed, glaring at me. I tossed him the keys, and he undid the handcuffs. Unsurprisingly, he came up to me, grabbed me by the shoulders, and belligerently pinned me against the wall.

"What the hell, Allison?" he hissed. "What did you do?"

"A trick Lacey taught me," I said calmly, my face expressionless. It's not as though I hadn't seen this coming, but I knew Mello. I knew he wouldn't do anything to harm me. "Light Yagami is dead. Kira's gone."

"God damn it, Allison!" he said, punching the wall.

"He's only dead because they thought you were," I told him. "When they thought you died, Mikami—a man that Near had been tracking after coming to the conclusion that he was working as Light Yagami's proxy—went out of his way to get the Death Note he kept in a vault at a bank. He only ever went to the bank on the twenty-fifth; that's how we figured out something was wrong.
"Near had the Death Note replaced with a fake. If you had come, then the plan would have been ruined, and we would all be dead. And I know you, Mello. You would have come."

Unable to deny this accusation, Mello sighed in frustration and took his hands off of me. He put his back against the wall and slid down onto the floor. I did the same, quietly sitting down next to him.

"So then Near won," Mello said. "He beat me."

"No, he didn't," I argued. "Do you know what Near said?" I didn't wait for a response. "He said that neither of you could have defeated Kira. He said that only together can the two of you surpass L."

Mello stared at me dubiously, and after a moment, he realized that I was telling the truth. "You're serious, aren't you?"

"Of course I am."

He laughed dryly. "It's all over. It took nearly five years, but it's all over."

"As much as I want to say you left for nothing, we both know that's not true," I admitted. "Tell me, did you plan on dying?"

"What?" he said in confusion.

I reached into my handbag and pulled out the leather journal, tossing it his way. He didn't need to open it to know what it was.

"This is private," he said.

"So I stole it," I said with a shrug. "What are you going to do? Tell Kira?
"You haven't answered my question, though. Did you plan on dying or what? You wrote down that you were dead."

"I didn't plan on dying, idiot," he said gruffly.

I simply rolled my eyes. "Idiot" was practically his nickname for me; it had been for as long as I could remember.

"It was," he began, trying to think of the words he needed, "a precautionary memoir. Just in case I didn't make it."

"You're welcome, by the way," I said with a cheeky grin. "Deny it all you want, but you'd be dead if I hadn't gotten involved."

He shrugged. "I won't deny it," he said, much to my surprise. "I want to punch you in the face for it, but it did end up saving my life.
"...Did you read the whole thing?"

"I read enough," I told him. "Enough to get an idea of what's been going on in that bloody head of yours."

He chuckled. "Whereas I'll never have a clue what's going on in yours. And now... now I have no idea what I'm going to do."

I grabbed my handbag, stood up, stretched, and then I headed for the door. "I don't know, and I don't particularly care. That's your problem."

"Are we seriously still doing this?" Mello said in disbelief.

"Doing what?" I said, stopping and turning to look at him.

"Denying it," he said as he got to his feet and approached me.

"What's that supposed to—?"

He shut me up when he grabbed me and pushed me forcefully against the wall. I was completely taken aback, abruptly dropping my handbag and standing there wide-eyed and gobsmacked. Mello smirked at my speechlessness, and then he pressed his lips against mine. He held me by the wrists, pushing me against the wall, but his grip was loose, silently letting me know that I could push him away if I wanted. I stood there pinned, unable to wrap my mind around what was happening. Sensing my hesitation, he began to pull away, but I didn't want that. I whimpered in defeat and kissed him back, and his grip on me tightened. He pulled away after a while, a grin on his face.

"Now tell me you don't care," he said smugly.

This time, I shut him up, crashing my lips against his. I let him hold my wrists tighter and push me against the wall harder as he deepened the kiss. His strong grip on me hurt, but I didn't mind. Then I pushed him away and weakly glared at him.

"I hate you," I said unconvincingly.

He laughed as he drew me in and kissed me again. I kissed him back eagerly, desperately. Tears ran down my face, and I wrapped my arms tightly around his neck, fearing that if I let go, he might disappear again.

It amazed me as this realization dawned upon me. The realization of how much I wanted this, the realization of how long I'd unknowingly yearned for it but had convinced myself otherwise. I shivered as his warm, rough hand found its way under my blouse and up my back, melting me with its touch.

I pulled away, my cheeks flushed and my breath heavy, and I gave him a warning look. "Just so we're clear, if you ever leave me again, I'll kill you."

Mello laughed at my comment, his eyes glued to mine. "Understood," he said as he leaned in to kiss me again.

What happened next? Well, to quote the wise words of Birdie: it's none of your doggone business.

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A/N: Okay, so I'm putting this author's note at the end because if I put it at the beginning, it would be giving away some of the ending of the chapter.

Anyways: though it is never seen, Misa commits suicide in the manga (which is the "universe" in which this takes place) after finding out that Light dies, and she dies under unclear circumstances in the anime. If you're wondering whether or not she kills herself after finding out about Light or if Birdie gave her a new reason to live, I can't tell you. I'm not quite sure myself, so that's up for you to decide. Interpret it however you'd like.