The big day had finally arrived.

Technically, it had only just started. The clock in the main room of headquarters told Jubilee it was a quarter past midnight. Before her stood Wedy, proffering a slim black notebook to L.

"You're wearing gloves," Jubilee noted. She was surprised that her voice didn't shake. Though apparently, stating things to people that they obviously already knew was the byproduct of her anxiety instead.

"Ryuzaki and I agreed I should in order to retrieve the notebook," explained Wedy. "Any chance of me giving away that I can see the shinigami would not be in our favor, and to be honest, I'm not exactly keen on seeing one in the flesh anyway."

"Can't blame you for that," muttered Jubilee.

Technically they don't have any flesh, Hellenos offered helpfully from where he stood in the corner. Not that any of us do.

Can you not be a smart aleck at a time like this? she thought, just as L said, "I'm fairly sure that they don't have flesh, technically."

Hellenos pointed at the detective from across the room. Didn't I always say I liked this boy? Jubilee rolled her eyes.

"But," L continued, his hands jammed into his pockets as he eyed the notebook warily, "I understand where you are coming from. Since I've already encountered one myself, though, I suppose another one can't hurt." The air around him seemed to tremble nervously before calming itself, and finally L reached out to slowly take the Death Note from Wedy's grasp. Flipping open the book with bare fingers, he began to inspect its pages. "On second thought, perhaps I should retract that statement—seeing as how the last time I saw one, I died," he quipped mildly.

Both women stared at him in bewildered silence.

Oh dear, began Hellenos slowly. That was rather dark, wasn't it?

Jubilee finally found her voice. "I hope you're not planning to repeat that," she said severely.

The air around him bubbled and she distinctly saw the side of his mouth twitch. She stared, aghast. He actually found that funny. The genius had lost it.

"Not yet, anyway," he replied mildly. Wedy was looking between the two of them, one eyebrow subtly quirked. L laid the notebook down on the desk behind him and addressed the other woman. "Wedy, you may go now. We'll see you and Aiber tomorrow at the meetup point. Have you already touched base with Mello to confirm everything?"

"Yes, sir." The blonde nodded and turned to leave. "Until tomorrow then."

Jubilee waited until she was gone before sinking into a chair and burying her face in her hands. "I think I might have a heart attack," she groaned between her fingers. "From stress."

"That won't do," said L. "You'd be giving Kira exactly what he wants, and I'll be rather cross about all our planning going to waste."

She dropped her hands to give him a look. "How can you be talk so flippantly about all this?"

"It'd be too depressing otherwise."

She measured him for a moment. "Well...I won't die if you won't."

He sobered at that, the usual colors around him dulling. "That sounds like a good deal, J," he said softly. Turning away, he picked up the notebook again. "But you know I can't promise you that...and I don't think I ever will be able to."

Jubilee swallowed, her heart pounding with both dread and something else at the meaning behind his words. "I know," she said quietly.

There was a long moment of silence, punctuated only by the sound of L flipping pages. Shaking her head to clear it, Jubilee finally stood to go and join him. Peering down at the innocuous-looking notebook, she reached out to touch one of its pages. Strangely, she felt nothing; no nausea, no ominous premonition. But it had been that way with Higuchi's notebook too, so that told her nothing. The memory of her writing in the Death Note brought with it the the event which had preceded it—L falling from his chair and to his death. Her fingers tensed over the page at the memory.

"What if it's another fake?" she whispered. "If Kira still has the real one...and if he knows your name...you and the others—you'll..." She fell silent, biting her lip to keep her emotions at bay.

L was shoulder to shoulder with her, close enough for her to feel him swivel his gaze onto her. "Still worried about that, are you?"

"How can I not be? There are lives on the line, including yours." She glanced up at him. "How can we go forward with the plan if there's a chance that Light predicted our move from the start and planted a fake notebook? How can we be sure that this one is actually real?"

L considered her for a long moment, his dark eyes boring into hers. "One way to find out," he said at last. Breaking their gaze, he gently pried her fingers from the notebook and turned to his computer, where he proceeded to pull up recent video surveillance of Light. A few seconds passed as he stared at the footage.

Nothing in his expression changed, but his aura distinctly dropped several degrees in temperature, making Jubilee shiver. There was no mistaking it. L could see Ryuk. And it made him afraid.

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"It's real," they both said at the same time.

L continued to stare at the shinigami onscreen, the air around him pulsing with frigid blue and red hues. "So," he said after a moment, his voice deceptively level. "This is the demon that killed you and your father."

Jubilee tensed. "Human stupidity killed me and my father," she said, glaring down at the floor with clenched fists. "My own, and some other drunk kid's. That demon just...took advantage of our bad choices."

"Would your accident have happened if he didn't write what he did?"

"Would he have written what he did if I wasn't already living that kind of life?" she shot back. Closing her eyes, she took a deep breath. "I'm sorry, I don't mean to be snappish. It's just...I spent too long blaming everything else for the downward spiral that my life took. I think that I—that that's what made me justify to myself all the things I did." Opening her eyes again, she gazed sadly at the shinigami onscreen. "It's kind of a chicken or egg question...whether it was that shinigami's influence or my own dumb decisions that started making my life derail back then. I don't know which came first. But I do know...that I can't avoid holding myself accountable anymore." She shook her head and turned away. "Anyway, I'm sorry you have to see him too. I know it's part of the plan and everything, but I don't wish that sight on anyone. It's the stuff of my nightmares. Literally."

L's hand caught her wrist. She turned back, surprised. He had finally torn his gaze from the video and was fixing her with an intense look. The blues and reds around him quelled for a moment, replaced by a momentary mauve.

"Don't apologize," he said seriously. "You shouldn't have to face your demons alone anymore. I mean that both literally and figuratively."

She stared back at him, caught off guard by the earnestness in his eyes. He took a step closer then, and put both hands on her shoulders.

"J, I want you to promise me something," he began, his tone suddenly more grim. The blue and red flared up again and the air between them became cold. "Tomorrow, if anything starts to go wrong—if anyone on the Task Force starts dying, or if Light or the shinigami start to target you...or if anything else happens that isn't part of the plan—I want you to run. Take Mello, and get out of there. He'll have a method of escape to get as far away as possible. Once you're safe, then you can regroup with him, Near and Matt."

Jubilee gaped at him. Under other circumstances she might have blushed at his closeness and concern for her. But at the moment she could only think about one thing. "What about you?"

"Forget about me."

Her throat suddenly went dry, and the sensation of the colors, coldness, and Hellenos' presence in the corner winked out. "What?"

"If any one of our party starts dying, I'm as good as dead," stated L, his hands still on her shoulders. "That means that Kira still has a Death Note in his possession and is confident in killing off most if not all of us. As I said, you're the only one whose true name I am certain he does not know. And Mello as well, now that he will be joining us. If anything should go wrong, the two of you have a chance to get out alive."

Jubilee started to shake her head vehemently. "I can't do that."

"J—"

She put her hands over his and pushed them off, moving away to brace herself over the desk, breathing hard. "I can't. I can't just leave you behind and forget about you. I won't." Her arms shook underneath her as the reason behind L's request suddenly bore down on her like a heavy weight. He was afraid that their plan might still fail. "If you're trying to come up with a backup plan, it'll have to be something else," she snapped, trying hide the surge of panic she felt.

L was silent beside her for a long moment. Then he sighed. "Any ideas?"

A short laugh escaped her lips, but there was no humor in it. Hadn't they exhausted their reservoir of ideas already? At this stage, with desperation running high and a primitive sense of survival instinct starting to kick in, the only other idea she could think of was a totally irrational and impulsive one. Not to mention cowardly.

"Other than us both running away from the case and leaving the country together in disgrace? No," she huffed angrily, rubbing at her temples. She could feel a tension headache coming on. It probably wasn't helped by the fact that she had neglected to eat or drink for the last six hours. Reaching for a water bottle on the desk, she took a long gulp.

L had cocked his head and was watching her with a speculative look on his face as she drank. "So, in other words," he began, "You're suggesting elopement?"

Jubilee choked, jerking the crook of her sleeve up to her mouth in a violent attempt to avoid spewing water all over the computers. Or what little water was left that hadn't already gone down her windpipe. L started to approach her as she doubled over coughing, then seemed to think better of it when she waved him away in a panic, her face red.

"I'm sorry," he began. "Bad joke. I haven't had much practice in the humor department."

She stared up at him. "You don't say?" Recovering her breath, she straightened up and muttered, cheeks still heated, "I can't believe you'd even think of something like that."

L hmmed thoughtfully. "You're right, it is an extremely impractical notion."

Jubilee gave him a suspicious look. Was this his idea of joking around to lighten the mood? Of all the times for him to be developing a sense of humor, she thought. Slowly, she smirked.

"Exactly," she said. "I mean, what would happen to poor Mello?"

"That's a silly question," said L. "We'd adopt him, obviously."

The smirk dropped from her face. She gawked at him.

He returned her look with an utterly neutral expression. Slowly, his eyes crinkled. And then, to her amazement, he started laughing.

Jubilee had never heard L laugh before. In fact, she could count the number of times she had seen him smile—four and half, including half smiles—on one hand. She stared at him in awe. It occurred to her that this miraculous event was happening at the expense of her dignity. And perhaps due to some fear-induced hysteria on both their parts as well.

But, for the moment, it was worth it.

She started to laugh too. It felt a little insane, cracking jokes and laughing on the night before they all might die. But in some ways, that was exactly why they needed it. Faintly she heard Hellenos laughing along with them as well, making a remark that sounded vaguely like, You should've seen your face!

At last the two of them quieted. Jubilee wiped tears from her eyes—ones that had threatened to spill earlier from all the pressure and anxiety she was feeling, and that had finally given way after their bout of laughter—and she smiled a tender but sad smile at L.

"Still impractical, and improbable," she chided softly. "I know that there's approximately a zero percent chance of you leaving anyone on the Task Force behind to die."

L held her gaze. "You've shaped up to be quite the detective," he said quietly. "That is a hundred percent correct."

She took a deep breath to steady both her voice and her suddenly rapid heartbeat. "Then you should also know that, until this case is solved...there's about a zero percent chance of me leaving your side."

He said nothing for a long moment, simply looked at her, his large gray eyes boring into her wide brown ones. At last he smiled. Five and a half, she thought instinctively.

"I know," he said.