"Welcome to the new headquarters," announced L to the group of gawking task force members.

They were all standing in the lobby of a brand new high-rise building. L had apparently ordered construction of the downtown structure months ago, declaring just yesterday that they would be working there from now on. Jubilee had been irritated at first at being moved around yet again, but now she stood as impressed as everyone else. The building boasted twenty-three floors aboveground, two floors underground, two penthouse suites—one of which was assigned to her and the other to Misa, though the pop star got to have the rest of the floor as well—two swimming pools, a theater room…and, apparently, a helipad with two helicopters hidden on the roof. Maybe house arrest wouldn't be such a bad gig after all.

"Wow, Ryuzaki!" exclaimed Matsuda, spinning around to admire everything. "You had this place made just for us?"

"For the investigation," corrected L, lifting one finger in the air with his handcuffed hand. Light, startled by his arm involuntarily lifting along with the detective's, gave him a look.

"Right," murmured Matsuda, too engrossed with his lavish surroundings to feel slighted. To Jubilee, he whispered, "I'm almost jealous, Miss Julie! You get one of the best rooms in the building."

Jubilee laughed. "Well, at least you have your freedom."

Matsuda looked abashed. "Oh. Right."

L had walked ahead of them into a larger room in the back. Watari ushered them to follow. "This way to the main room, please," he offered politely.

Jubilee and the others went obediently. The main room opened up before them with high ceilings and industrious looking steel walls. At its end stretched a long, smooth desk from corner to corner of the room, set up with computer stations for each member of the team. Above that was mounted a large, flat screen monitor, with several smaller monitors lined up along its sides. It took up nearly the entire wall. With the exception of a comfortable looking chaise lounge arranged beside a glass coffee table off to the side, and an opposite doorway leading into a kitchen area, the overall feel of the room was one of somber minimalism.

"We having movie nights?" asked Jubilee dryly, indicating the large screens with a dip of her head.

L, already crouched on a swivel chair before one computer, answered by hitting a button that switched the screen on. The monitors flickered to life, high pixilated images of every floor of the building appearing beside each other in neat boxes.

A beep sounded and movement flickered in the box at the bottom right hand corner of the screen. Aizawa was pulling in at the basement-level parking garage, ringing the bell for entrance.

"Let us test out our new security system, shall we?" said L. He pressed a button.

Jubilee and the others watched as Aizawa stuck his head out the car window, proceeded to push in a sequence of numbers on the keypad, look into a retina scan, then exit his car and pass through a lengthy security check that involved taking off first his belt, then his watch, then his shoes.

"Why didn't we have to do all that?" murmured Matsuda in bafflement as, onscreen, Aizawa began cursing when he was denied entrance for the fifth time in a row.

"I trust all of you," stated L simply.

"But not Aizawa?"

"I trust him as well," said L, then added, matter-of-factly, "This is simply for my own passing entertainment." At his last two words he sent a small, imperceptible glance Jubilee's way.

Jubilee resisted the urge to smirk, simply because she had decided that she still didn't like the man, and thus didn't want to give him the satisfaction of her finding him funny. Instead she looked sidelong at Hellenos. This one likes to play god almost as much as Kira does, she thought dryly.

Most humans do, given the opportunity and power, said Hellenos, no humor in his tone. Jubilee didn't respond.

Onscreen Aizawa, in a fit of frustration, had stripped off his trousers and was facing the camera, arms wide in an invitation of combat, eyes daring whoever was behind the security camera to deny him entrance one—more—time.

"Let him pass, Watari," said L. The old man obediently pressed a button, and sliding doors behind them suddenly opened to admit entrance to the angry policeman, who strode in with his trousers draped across one arm. On his forehead was a bandage.

"What's wrong?" asked Chief Yagami. "Did you get hurt?"

"What? Oh this." Aizawa's hand went involuntarily to the bandaged area. "Eh, kind of. I had a little fight with my wife, and…" He faltered for a moment uncomfortably. "It's just that my daughter's still young, and I'm hardly ever at home as it is, so…"

Chief Yagami's face remained expressionless. "Ah yes. It's probably best if you sleep at home."

Jubilee began to tune out as the awkward subject matter continued to be discussed, now with Matsuda's loud and somewhat ignorant input added in. She had learned to do this—shut out what was uncomfortable to hear—back in college. The unending string of condolences, questions about whether she was okay or needed anything, and stories of peoples' own losses—in some misguided attempt to provide her comfort through solidarity—had pushed her to a snapping point that made her shut down. Now, the habit was conditioned into her.

So instead of listening she took in her surroundings. Though L's sense of style was somewhat questionable—the main work area echoed a modernized dungeon, for goodness' sake…a dungeon with Wi-Fi and TV—there was no questioning that enormous expense went into all of it.

"How did you get the money for all this?" she asked L while the other officers continued their conversation.

L barely spared her a glance. "I take this investigation very seriously," he answered. Which was no answer at all.

"You're rich." Jubilee made the statement for him. He didn't reply, which irritated her so she added, somewhat callously, "What are you then, a trust fund baby?"

The man declined to respond, but it was Hellenos who spoke up.

Never assume you know a person's past when you don't. The angel's voice drifted into her head from where he stood beside her, and she suddenly felt deeply reprimanded though she didn't know why.

Sorry, she thought, but was too proud to say it aloud. Or, perhaps, too afraid to be vulnerable.

"So basically…you're Batman," she said instead.

L finally turned to her. His expression was blank, and held neither resentment nor any serious interest. "Who?"

She stared at him. "Are you serious?"

He gazed at her for a beat, then said, "I don't get out very much."

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

She snorted. "That much is clear." The man looked like the living dead, he was so pale.

There she went again, saying mean things, thinking mean things. Judging other people. She felt guilt, that ever familiar burden, weighing down on her.

You could just say sorry.

But instead, she blundered on in her blind attempt to socialize without having to open herself up, to connect without really connecting. "Batman is a superhero who uses his vast wealth and intellect to build all the equipment and technology that he needs in order to defeat the bad guys." She gestured at the detective and at the main room. "He also tends to hole himself up in his own personal, high-tech man cave during most of his waking hours. Like you. Oh, and Watari—" She gestured at the old man, who was now stationed by the wall with a refreshment cart that had somehow magically metamorphosed beside him, "Is your Alfred."

L scrutinized her for a moment, as if measuring her sanity. "So this…Batman…is part man, part bat?" he asked at length.

At this Jubilee began laughing; not at him, but out of genuine amusement. Part of her wanted to reprimand herself for breaking so soon, wanted to stubbornly hold on to stoic resistance against bonding. But the other part of her couldn't help it…L's innocence was like that of a child who asks if grapefruit tastes like grapes, or if starfish are part star, part fish. For all his smarts he still had a childlike naïveté.

"No more than you are part man, part monkey," she said at last with a grin, gesturing at his signature crouched position on the chair. He simply looked at her blankly, not comprehending. She waited for herself to feel annoyed at this, but the feeling didn't come.

Satisfied without a response, she turned away to take a seat at the workstation labeled with her name. She glanced at Hellenos by her side.

Progress? she asked, with an arch of her brow and an upward twitch of her lips.

Hellenos rolled his eyes but smiled. Progress, he affirmed.

----------------------------------------

They all got used to living and working together as the days wore on, save Aizawa who returned home at nights. Chief Yagami returned home once every week or two to see his wife and daughter. Light didn't get the same luxury, due to being indefinitely handcuffed to L. And Jubilee? She may not have been in handcuffs, but she may as well have been. It wasn't just that she was under constant surveillance like Misa and the rest of them. It was that she actually felt the investigation winding itself around her like chains. She was starting to feel invested.

And in any case, even if she wasn't under house arrest, what family had she to go home to?

She shoved the thought away, covering it up deep under layers of concentration, analysis and statistics, just like she had done with school, just like she had done with thieving. This case had become her new kleptomania; something to channel her energy into and distract herself from things she didn't want to remember.

The point isn't to numb yourself, piped up Hellenos, lips looking downturned. How do you humans always manage to take a good thing and turn it into an—

"An idol?" she muttered under her breath, as she clicked a video file on the computer in front of her.

I was going to say an unhealthy addiction, and spare you the preachy terminology. But yes. That as well.

It was the most he had said in days. He had been unusually quiet lately, still present and visible to her sight but offering less and less insight the more Jubilee delved into the case. It annoyed her.

You're of little help, Hellenos, she thought to him sourly as she scanned, for the seventh time, the recent kill statistics on a document beside her, before returning her focus to the video that had opened up on her screen. It was public security footage of Light, strolling through the streets of Tokyo on his way to school. Beside him strolled the menacing demon she had seen before, visible to no one else's eyes but hers and the Light in the video, who occasionally bobbed his head towards the demon as if in agreement or acknowledgment.

She had seen this video and countless other ones like it multiple times by now, but still couldn't make any sense of them. The current Light had been genuinely and positively bewildered when she had reported what she could see in the public security footage videos featuring him. The rest of the task force members had simply looked at each other, shifting uncomfortably. No doubt they had thought she was crazy. Again. Only L had listened to her with a quiet and unsurprised receptivity, thumb stuck into the corner of his mouth in a sign of intense thought. But he had said nothing. She had no idea if he actually believed her…or what any of this could mean.

Jabbing her finger at the spot on the screen where the demon stood, she projected her feelings of frustration onto Hellenos. Surely you have some idea of something. Like what that thing is and where it went. So fess up. What's going on here?

Hellenos remained tight-lipped. It is the privilege of God to conceal a matter, and the honor of kings to seek it out, he intoned cryptically.

That's from the bible, she snapped. I don't need a walking talking bible. I already have one in print.

Then maybe you should open it once in a while.

"That's enough of your snark," she hissed.

"Huh?" said Matsuda from beside her, bewildered. "Oh, I'm sorry, Miss Amachi, I didn't—"

"What? No, no," protested Jubilee. "I wasn't talking to you. You're fine. And please, call me Julie."

Matsuda smiled sheepishly. "Thank you, Julie." He looked around curiously. "Who were you talking to?"

Her smile disappeared. "You don't want to know," she said darkly, and went back to her work.

Next to her, she could hear Matsuda whisper worriedly to Aizawa, "She's doing that delusional thing you were talking about again." Aizawa sharply hushed him.

A couple chairs down L looked up. Light, engrossed in whatever work he was engaged in on his screen, did not notice. L turned back to his own screen and rapidly began clicking and typing.

In a matter of moments a message had popped up on Jubilee's screen: What is it?

Jubilee, feeling in a less charitable mood towards him than she was on her better days, didn't think before typing back: You're supposed to say hello first, especially if you're already bypassing the standard courtesy of asking someone for something to their face. Did your mother never teach you manners?

There was a lengthy pause before the response came. My apologies. Small talk is not my strong suit. I am using this medium for the sake of discretion, due to my being handcuffed to Light.

Oh yeah? she typed back. And whose fault is that?

She could almost hear him sigh in her head, before she realized someone actually had sighed, and it was Hellenos. His sigh echoed through her mind at the same time L's response came: Mine, I suppose.

There was nothing else for a moment. Then: And I take responsibility for that. What can we do to ease your mood, Miss Amachi? Your state of wellbeing is paramount to this investigation.

Oh really? she wrote in response, still feeling in a snit. So now you care about how I feel?

I always did.

Because it benefits you, she shot back.

Yes. And it will benefit you as well, if you will stop being stubborn and allow it to. So what can I do to make things better for you?

She paused, the weight of the conversation finally settling on her. Out of the two of them, L was the one choosing to turn the other cheek in the face of conflict. The irony of it could have killed her.

"Shouldn't I know better by now?" she groaned under her breath to herself.

Hellenos gave her a compassionate pat on the back. Don't worry, he told her. If you had a nickel for every time I've heard a human say or think that, you'd be a very rich woman.

Shaking her head but feeling slightly comforted, Jubilee typed back a response: Nothing. I was just being cranky. I'm sorry.

She let the apology sit for a moment, feeling uncomfortable. Then she quickly added, It was just my guardian angel talking to me. He was being annoying.

Thanks, said Hellenos.

Ah, was L's response. I was unaware that 'annoying' was a term that could apply to angels.

You have no idea, wrote Jubilee.

I'm right here, you know, said Hellenos.

What did he say? asked L.

I tried to get him to give me a clue as to what's going on in the investigation, but all he would tell me is that I should read my bible.

A few feet to her right she heard L hmm to himself. Then, with a quick tap of his fingers, a final reply appeared on Jubilee's screen: Excellent idea.

"Watari," called L without missing a beat. "Bring your bible to me, if you'd please."

The old man looked shocked—a rare expression for him. "What?"

"What?" echoed Jubilee in bewilderment, then, with indignation, "What!"

"What?" asked L innocently. "It is a logical resource for me to use in this investigation, considering the circumstances." He addressed the old man. "Watari, your days of pestering me in my childhood have finally paid off. Bring me your bible, please."

Watari had regained his usual composure. Expressionless, he bowed and left the room. Moments later he was back, a thick and weathered volume held between his fingers. He handed the book over to L, who, without a pause, flipped it open and began poring through its pages.

Jubilee glared at the detective. Was he doing this to spite her? "What do you think you're doing?" she demanded.

L didn't bother to look at her as he rapidly flipped from one page to the next. "I should think that would be obvious, Miss Amachi," he said. "I'm conducting research."

Beside her, Hellenos, much to her great annoyance, began laughing. The sound was audible only to her ears, but all around her the members of the team, for reasons they couldn't quite fathom, found themselves suddenly smiling.