Watari Pt 2: Wammy's House

Many of the Wammy\'s House alumni were already congregated in their meeting room, when Mello and Matt arrived. However, there was one notable addition to their numbers. Hal stood behind the laptop displaying N\'s call symbol. She appeared studiously relaxed, though Mello could see at once that she was very ill at ease. He grinned, jogging across to her side, "Like a bad penny, aren\'t I?"



"Our paths do certainly appear to keep crossing." Hal smiled at him, though her gaze drifted beyond towards the redhead plugging in his own laptop. "And I see that your boyfriend has quite recovered from holding me hostage."



"Ah." Mello stiffened slightly. "Yeah, I should have called you. Checked you\'re alright."



"And I should have imagined that that is a call better coming from Matt."



"Matt\'s, erm..." It wasn\'t often that Mello was at a loss for words, but he choice them carefully now. He realised that it was because he was reasonably anxious for Hal and Matt to like each other. "He\'s my husband actually, not my boyfriend. How can I put this? You know what Charlotte Bronte said about her sister, Emily, that there should always be an interpreter between her and the world?" He met Hal\'s eyes again and smiled apologetically. "Matt\'s a lot like that. He really shouldn\'t be allowed out on his own and definitely not without an interpreter to stand between him and the world."



Hal nodded. "The brief instances where he and I have been in the same room, I can totally support that statement."



Near\'s voice rose from the speaker beside them. "Mello, why was Hal suggested as a replacement for Roger without Matt speaking to me first? Hal is a member of my team."



Mello reached automatically for his chocolate and snapped off a jagged section of it. He bit back the retort that Matt\'s mind worked in mysterious ways and instead tried to find some middle ground. They had only been there for just over a minute and already it felt like the build-up to a war. "Near, you\'re allowed to comment today. I\'m chairing the meeting."



There was silence through the speakers. Then, "I do not need Mello\'s permission to speak or not to speak. Why is Mello chairing the meeting? This is Matt\'s responsibility."



"Back to what Charlotte Bronte said about Emily..." Mello began, but let the sentiment hang. He looked up as the redhead appeared at his shoulder and leaned back to draw him close. "Hal, I\'d like you to properly meet Mail. I would also appreciate it if you didn\'t judge him by either of your two previous encounters. The Yellow Box with Kira and then the other day, with the Mario Clause incident, weren\'t normal situations. You\'ve so far witnessed this beautiful man during two of his greatest crises." Mello kissed Matt\'s cheek. Matt blushed slightly and bowed his head. "Hal, this man is the great love of my life. You saw me last week, when he was taken away from me." The whole room had become silent, everyone listening to this. Matt\'s blush was deepening into crimson. Mello didn\'t care. "He\'s my \'north, south, east and west, my working week and my Sunday best\'. He\'s the centre of my universe and I love him." He smiled fondly at his cringing husband. "Like I said, he\'s the great love of my life." Mello\'s arm squeezed around Matt\'s back. "Baby, I think you owe Hal an apology."



Matt nodded, his whole body wooden with mortification. He spoke so softly that the FBI agent had to strain to hear. "I\'m sorry that you got caught up in all that crap the other day."



"Thank you for apologising." Hal responded, curtly. She caught Mello\'s frown. "What do you expect me to do? Fling my arms around him just because you\'re in love?"



Mello winced almost imperceptibly, but threw back his head. He addressed the room as a whole. "Thank you all for coming. Unfortunately you\'re going to have to listen to me droning on, but it\'s all Matt\'s research and he\'ll jump in where needful." He smirked, his gaze challenging. "I\'m sure I don\'t have to explain to a room full of geniuses why I\'m taking over."



Fenian offered an explanation anyway. "Because you always take over?"



"Top of the class!" Mello grinned. He broke away from Matt and moved towards the whiteboard. Without turning, he commented. "Everyone is here except Roger and Ann. Are they coming?"



"Yes." Lamond replied. "A child came in shortly before you arrived to say that they will be late, but to carry on regardless."



"Right." Mello beamed. "So, cutting the crap, who\'s already on-side?" No-one responded. "Yes, I should define on-side before asking something like that. Who agrees to us forming a Board of Governors to oversee all major decisions and to act as a court of appeal for the children?" Now there was a stirring. By the time it had finished, everyone had confirmed their interest, even Near. "Ok. Nice work, Matt. Second point - separation of the L title and Wammy\'s House." The reaction was mixed with no real consent nor dissent, other than from Matt. He was isolated with his finger in the air, looking much happier sitting at the table than he had in the limelight. "One definite, everyone else to be convinced. Fine." He consulted Matt\'s list. "Steps to be made in order to create a more family-based environment, including love, attachment, bonding and parental figures." He paused. "Succinct, Mail, thank you. That is also linked with introducing adoption agencies into the system."



Again the murmurings were inconclusive, but Salvo interjected with his feelings. "Those points should be separated. I\'m fully in favour of making this place less like a training camp and more like a home, but the option for adoption concerns me. There are tremendous security risks involved there."



"Objection noted." Mello scribbled onto the pad laid out ready for him by Matt. "The provision of religious, cultural or specialist needs. That latter is related to disabilities, isn\'t it, Mail?" He received a nod. "Who\'s in favour?" Mello raised his own hand immediately and nodded that Fenian did the same. He noted others voting in favour. "Six! Ok."



"Again there are security risks." Salvo\'s voice through the laptop sounded apologetic. "So we bring a Catholic priest in here so that you and Fenian are happy, but who screens the priest and what\'s to stop him reporting back on the children in here? Also, I believe that Confession requires the children to speak unsupervised with the priest. That\'s asking for trouble in my humble opinion."



Fenian rolled his eyes. "The priest doesn\'t come in here, we go to the church."



Linda sighed. "So a member of staff is lost from the House just because a couple of kids are Christians?"



"Or Jews. Or Muslims. Or Pagans." Mello replied, trying to keep his expression neutral. "We\'re not hashing out the fine details right now. We\'ll get to that. I\'m just seeing what generally is or isn\'t tenable."



Salvo replied. "Sorry, but I just need to be clear on what I\'m agreeing to. This cultural part seemed to me, from what Matt was saying yesterday, to be bound up in language and national identity. How many people here did not have English as their mother tongue?" A brief discussion ensued, which included guessing the nationalities of their dead peers. Once it died down, Salvo went on, "So Near and Fenian are the only people who spoke English at home, though I have to say, Century, I strongly suspect that you knew English before you entered this house. I don\'t know any part of Wales that has no English at all."



"I lived in a Welsh speaking home, went to a Welsh speaking school and our\'s was a Welsh speaking community. You didn\'t ask if I knew English. You asked what my mother tongue is." Century rolled his eyes. "Cymraeg fi dim gwerth rhech dafad? Cer i grafu, twll tin."



"The point I was making," Salvo continued archly, "is that attempting to teach everyone in their own language is quickly going to reduce Wammy\'s House to sounding something like the Tower of Babel."



"However," Fenian smiled, "it could also be a rich linguistics experience. I mean, who here wouldn\'t have leapt at the chance to learn how to say, for example, \'fuck off out of my face\' in Croatian?"



Matt smirked, but interjected before Mello could follow through on his rolled eyes. "Can anyone prove to me that the reason Mello wasn\'t the clear successor to the L title wasn\'t because he was receiving his lessons in a foreign language? Century, this is the 1930s Welsh Not! In your case, downright identically." He leaned forward in his chair, hanging half over the table in front of him. "We were all competing until our brain-cells bled, but there were only ever two real contenders. One of whom was receiving lessons in his mother tongue and the other in a second language. Hardly surprisingly , it was the first one who just got the edge."



"Oh fuck off!" Fenian roared. "Mello is fluent in... how many languages? I\'m sorry, Matt, but you\'re just talking shit now."



Mello had been pensively listening, but he raised a hand. "Let\'s keep this on a level. To my mind the issue is not the language per se, but the proficiency of the teacher. They are hired because of their expertise in a certain discipline, not because of their linguistic skills. Having students from all over the world, it is much more efficient to have them all learn a common tongue than to have the teachers cater to all of them." He glanced at the laptop displaying Near\'s symbol. "To be honest, I think it might have been me with the language edge here. I was bilingual by the time I was five. Near had no incentive to learn another language until it turned up on the curriculum." He smirked wickedly, raising his chocolate bar to quickly hide his mouth.



Century grinned at Mello, but turned his attention back to Matt. "It\'s not precisely the Welsh Not. Sorry. I know that I had a test to check my English language levels before I ever saw the inside of a classroom. Yes, I was asked not to speak in Welsh, which pissed me off no end, but I wasn\'t just thrown into English language classes without anyone ensuring that I was fluent enough to understand. That\'s what happened under the Welsh Not. Also, I was never threatened with a board around my neck or being beaten, if I was to speak in Welsh. In fact, no-one actually told me what the penalty was. I was just asked not to speak in Welsh for my own safety."



"Here\'s where we need Roger at this meeting." Mello sighed.



"Near." Fenian called across the room. "You\'re technically in charge of this place. What\'s the penalty for speaking in our native tongues?"



"Got it." Mello beamed. "I know why." He frowned as he watched Matt leave his seat to pass in front of him. "Where you going, guapo?"



Matt raised a hand and opened the door. He leaned into the corridor and bellowed out, "¡Soy español! ¡Estoy hablando en Español! ¡Soy un niño de Wammy hablando en su lengua materna! ¿Qué me vais a hacer?"



Behind the responses spanned the extremes between giggles and disdain. Only Century frowned. "Shit! I didn\'t do Spanish. I opted for Ancient Greek instead and never got round to it."



Fenian tutted. "I shouldn\'t worry about it. Matt\'s probably got no Welsh either. He\'s saying, \'I\'m Spanish! I\'m speaking in Spanish! I\'m a Wammy kid speaking in my native tongue! What are you going to do to me?\'"



The redhead\'s voice continued to echo into the emptiness, "Aquí estoy, hablando en Español. ¿Qué vais a hacer al respecto?"



"Here I am speaking in Spanish. What you going to do about it?" Fenian translated to the Welshman beside him, then hushed quickly as a response was heard outside.



Ann\'s voice sailed down the corridor. "It Matters! Why are you disturbing the children in their classrooms?"



Mello darted forward, clasping a hand over his husband\'s mouth. He replied, also in Spanish, "Do not shout even louder because she called you that. Come on inside. For me, ok? Mail, you\'ve got that look in your eyes." He chuckled. "Mail, don\'t. Don\'t." Mello\'s grin grew wider. "Mail, I can see it in your eyes. The second I let go of your mouth, you\'re going to scream the place down. Don\'t make me have to shut you up in front of everyone." He glanced up as Ann appeared beside them. "Sorry, we disturbed you in your office. But I was kind of hoping you\'d be in this meeting anyway." Mello caught the expression on her face, as did Matt. The redhead frowned, straightening against the doorframe, and so Mello released him. "Has something bad happened?"



Ann smiled, though her gaze remained haunted. "No, darling. Mail, please simmer down. There are children trying to work in this building, you know." She patted the arms of both of them before entering the room. "Apologies everyone for my lateness, something cropped up at the last moment. I\'m afraid that Roger will not be joining us." Ann intercepted a wave of knowing glances. "I can assure you all that Roger is alive and well, but he is not actually in the building. However, if one of you beauties wouldn\'t mind running down to Storage and Supplies, and asking for another computer, then he will follow procedings via the internet."



"That\'s your fault." Mello whispered, his eyebrows raising. Matt merely looked pleased with himself. "It\'s not a good thing, Mail."



Matt grinned back, but returned to his seat. "The reason we can\'t speak in our native tongues is that it would reveal our nationalities. Take my situation. I could have been L and the whole world would have quaked. But all I needed to do was to call the Croatian and American Embassies and anonymously tip them off that two of their sons were being primed to be L. All kinds of bureaucratic crap later, I\'m certain that the governments of those countries would have reclaimed Near and Mello. Woot! I\'m L. All hail me. Until, of course, Deontic got in touch with the Spanish Embassy and then I\'m in the shit." He shrugged. "Why have an L you have to share with the world, when you could have your own sitting in your Cabinet Offices helping shape your national policies?"



"God." Linda sighed. "You are so paranoid, Matt!"



"Possibly he is." Mello growled. "But I need the phone number of the American Embassy as quick as you can please, Linda." He winked. "No, that would have been cheating, but it\'s a good point. Until, of course, we return to yesterday\'s point, which is that all of our records are destroyed and so there\'s no way of me proving that Near is American. Is it time to return to the agenda yet?"



Salvo responded. "Hurrah. But I can\'t agree to multi-language classes for several reasons. Pure practicalities being the main one. Take us as examples and any new child walking through the door would have had to have learned thirteen new languages before even starting a class. No-one is going to do that. No-one is going to learn anything. The whole point of us being here is undermined."



"Not necessarily." Matt snapped. "Not if we change the point of us being here."



"That\'s not going to happen, Matt." Chrissie replied softly from a laptop speaker. "For two reasons, it\'s not going to happen. The first being that there will then be no incentive to even keep this institution open and the second being that there will be no funding for it. The House raises detectives, educates us and takes commission from the work that we do. That\'s what the House is."



Matt let his forehead fall onto the desktop with an audible crack. They all flinched. Mello slowly approached him, but Matt called up from the depths of hair and wood. "So the only obstacle is money? I\'ll do it. I\'ll raise the money. Give the kids a chance to be what they want to be and I\'ll ensure there\'s money to pay for their education. I\'ll even do it legally if that makes everyone happier."



Mello reached down and lifted Matt\'s head. He brushed back to fringe to inspect the reddened skin underneath. Across the room, Fenian sighed. "So you\'re going to set yourself up in competition to Near and Mello? Great. Another civil war. Let\'s have a cigarette break."



Around the room, the suggestion was met with irritation. Linda let out an exasperated sigh. "We\'re only just started! And we\'re getting about as far as we did last night."



Fenian stood. "Mello, call this motion. We\'re all agreed that we\'ll form a Board to govern matters here. Call the entire fucking Board the new Watari. We\'ll meet electronically to thrash out the rest of it and that\'s only because of the distances some of us live away from Winchester. For now, we\'ll not run until we can walk." He waved his cigarettes. "Me, Matt and Lamond are going for a cigarette. When we come back, let\'s just work out who\'s going to replace fucking Roger as the dude behind the desk. Agreed?"



Ripples of consent rolled around the room and Mello\'s retort was bitten back as he witnessed it. "Well done, Mail. You got a motion passed." He grinned. "Ok, breaktime and then let\'s see if we can have a civil conversation to follow." Fenian and Lamond fled the room, but Mello caught hold of Matt as he made to follow. "Don\'t hurt yourself like that, baby. We\'re slowly getting there, ok?"



"Ok."



"I meant what I said. You are the great love of my life." Mello smiled, tenderly, and hugged his husband, not caring who watched him do it. He whispered into Matt\'s ear. "And I\'m the only one allowed to mark you." He kissed the ear and stood back. Matt smirked at him, but it was towards Hal that Mello looked. She was standing just behind them. "Sorry you\'ve had to witness another freakshow. You wouldn\'t believe we have an average IQ of 182." He winked. "Right, me and Matty are going outside. See you in a moment."