Watari Pt 2: Wammy's House

Across the room, Gevanni and Rester worked at their stations, but Near paid them no heed. If they uncovered anything about the cases they were currently working on, then they would shout up. The loss of Hal in the team today was irksome, but not insurmountable. It was necessary that she was at Wammy\'s House. Near placed another card on top of the others, balanced so that it didn\'t fall. He wasn\'t actually working on anything in particular, just listening to the conversation as it flooded through his headset from the meeting room in Winchester.



Mello was currently holding court again and Near smiled to hear him doing it. It was, at least, more coherent than Matt\'s presentation the day before and decisions were actually being made. Near wondered if Mello even knew that this was just another power kick. He might have been channelling it through Matt, but nevertheless this kind of shake everything up and reform it strategy was pure Keehl. Though it could possibly have been Matt too. A week ago, Near would have reasoned that Matt hadn\'t got the motivation, but events in this very room had exposed that lie. Near picked up another card, wondering how long it would take the couple to realise that he had had nothing to do with the Mario Clause. In his heart, Mello probably already knew, but Matt? Near wondered if Matt could lie to himself as readily and convincingly as he lied to other people.



Through his earpiece, Near could hear Mello postulating about some child he\'d met in the Wammy\'s House garden. Near had switched his microphone off, so he could comment without causing World War Three on the other end. He murmered now into it, "Emotional blackmail, Mello." Then smiled, because lacing academia with reference to the heart was so like his rival. A constant fatal flaw in his intellect. No-one else appeared to notice though. There was no heckling from the assembled group of supposed geniuses, as they became engaged in the story. Near could have spoken up, but it would have looked peevish. He alone had something to lose by the conclusions in following this agenda. He could lose overall responsibility for Wammy\'s House, while the others could only gain it. A grappling for power from the dispossessed.



Near steadied the tips of two cards together and held his breath as he fitted a third on the pivotal point. Mello was telling them all that the child just wanted his mother to come and make things better again. He was further adding that he had felt like that a lot during his childhood. He occasionally still did. Near sat back and mumbled, unheard, "Hillyer." It was the most damning insult for one Wammy child to say to another. It implied that they were too soft, too childish, to survive in a House where everyone was parentless. It recalled a boy who had spent most of his time there sobbing for his mother. "Aww. Mello wanted his mummy."



"Sir?" Rester called. Near\'s head rose above the level of the cards, ready to learn of new information, but both men were looking quizzically at him. "Did you say something?"



"No." Near frowned, then ducked down again before he could be further questioned. After a brief pause, the clicking of fingers on keyboards started up again and Near could immerse himself fully into Mello\'s soliloquy. The Slav had just growled out, \'In fact, there were moments in the early days of being in the Mafia, when I probably would have sobbed in relief to have seen even Roger walking in the door. Ok, he would have got killed in the next moment, but the sight of someone who could have made it go away would have been enough.\' Near grimaced. Mello was making absolutely no logical sense, but no-one even seemed to be noticing. It was funny. Near glanced down again at the agenda that had been circulated via e-mail about five minutes after the meeting began. There was no listing that said anything like \'emotional reminiscences about the time Mello joined an international murderous bunch of criminals and proceeded to commit murder, kidnap, armed robbery, drug trafficking and a host of other monstrous acts.\' Their action point on the agenda should have been, \'The Future Purpose of The Wammy House.\' Near tore the wrapping off another pack of cards and emptied its contents on the floor.



Mello continued his tirade of random, unconnected anecdotes by stating, \'Matt said something to me outside that struck a chord. He called us child soldiers.\' Near scowled as he listened and was heartened to hear a murmering of dissent amongst their peers in the Winchester room. \'Well, what else were we? Listen up! Hear me out!\' Mello demanded through the earpiece. \'When he said that, it put me in mind of a film that I watched, ironically while I was only sixteen years old and sitting there with a gun in my hand. It was called \'Innocent Voices\', has anyone seen it?\' There was a rumbling in the negative. \'Ok, I won\'t spoil the ending for you then, but a synopsis might be that it\'s about twelve year old boys, during the civil war in El Salvador in the 1990s, who were routinely being collected from their villages and sent off to war. Boys still young enough to be screaming for their mothers, as they were being torn from their arms, and sent out into situations that would have had us crapping our pants.\' It was Salvo who interjected, \'Mello, you walked out of here. You can\'t blame Roger for you going off to war at fourteen.\' \'No,\' Mello barked back, \'but there was a twelve year old boy who didn\'t get the choice. Has anyone ever stopped to ask Near how he felt when he was forced into being a child soldier?\'



Near froze, staring fixedly at the card construction inches from his eyes. Suddenly the conversation wasn\'t quite so amusing. He knew, because he was there and because it was him. The quiet terror underneath the veneer of calm, trying not to think of dead Lawliet and wishing with all his being that Mello had come with him. Nothing could be scary when Mello was in the room, not back then, because Mello was the scariest person alive, but Near knew that he, himself, was more clever, so he could have outwitted him. That was how the twelve year old had thought. Near remembered suddenly the Yellow Box and that strange mixture of relief and irritation, when Mello and Matt had arrived; how it all suddenly seemed less dangerous when Mello had stood at his side. That childlike belief still housed in his shivering soul that maybe Mello was the scariest person alive, but that was alright if he was on your side. Near listened to the silence of thoughts being processed on the other side and knew that, even if they asked him, he would never breathe a word of this to anyone, ever.



Calm. It was always about calm. Stay calm and let your mind work. That\'s how it was. Let the mathematics fly like musical notes in your brain, then settle. The answers popping up, just there, correct. Near suddenly felt a little breathless, anxiety peeking, though it was unwelcome and would not gain purchase on his personality. He stiffened and sat up. Aware with an unsettled disposition that he was surrounded. He had effectively built himself a fort out of cards. A whisper of a breath could bring it crashing down. No-one dared. That was all. Near stayed calm, because calm brought answers. Calm solved the puzzles. Calm and his intellect. Near grasped them because they were his strongest weapons. He was special. He could out-think people who were twice, three times, four times his age! He\'d held Mello off and Mello was two years older. All Near had to do was think. Stay calm. Think. Stay calm. Think. Stay calm. Think. Solve the puzzle.



Yes, but it had been frightening. Near closed his eyes and remembered being taken from The Wammy House. He had packed so carefully, ticking off the things that he knew might be helpful or incriminating. He\'d remembered the photographs, taking Mello\'s too, because while Mello was still in the world, he might come back. Then it might not be so frightening anymore. If the photograph wasn\'t safe, then Kira might get his hands on it and then Mello would be dead. Near knew that he should have destroyed it, as he had his own, but he had weakened. As soon as he\'d been taken into the L\'s London headquarters, it had suddenly stopped being so much of a game. Near had felt the calm threatening to shatter and then he wouldn\'t be able to solve the puzzle. He had been shown a room, in which to deposit his things, then taken to the main room. Everyone looking at him, waiting for him to perform. Kira was out there and he had already defeated Lawliet. He had the L title. Find him, Near. End the case.



Near had waited until no-one was looking before he\'d allowed the tears to fill his eyes. He\'d worked for a bit, then excused himself to go to the toilet. Behind locked doors, he\'d allowed a moment of silent pity. Lawliet had had Wammy. He hadn\'t been alone. Even though Mello scared Near, he would have given anything in the world to have had the blond with him now. Scowling, glaring and generally being over-emotional, but at least being there. Someone he knew. Someone who might scare the puppet-masters away. Near had burned his own photograph, but, for the sake of his own retention of calm, he kept Mello\'s image. He\'d kept it on his own person, not only for the sake of security, but because whenever Near felt his own courage being to waiver, he could slip away and take heart in those cold, blue eyes.



Then Mello had resurfaced. He had killed people, really good people, who had fallen around the room that Near had been in. Fear and outrage had burst through and Near had come so close to just sending the picture out into the world. He\'d angrily started to write a note on the back, planning to tell Mello just how stupid and evil he had become. \'Dear Mello,\' he\'d began, but never finished. It had occurred to him that that was just stooping to Mello\'s level and he, Near, was better than that. Though he never sneaked to the toilet anymore to to gain courage from a glimpse of that face, Near had kept it on him still. It reminded him that justice was served by keeping on the side of the righteous. Whenever the facade of calm was being stretched to breaking point, Near had looked at the picture and could keep his temper. The alternative was to be like the Slav and that would never do.



Near blinked. He was missing half of the conversation. He had lost his calm. Emotions cluttered his mind and he couldn\'t think. He glared at the house of cards and concentrated. Mello was finishing, his words emphatically spat. \'So, as someone who was sent out there, a child soldier with a gun in my hand, I lend my support to Matt\'s assertion that no child be removed from Wammy\'s House or sent into a dangerous case, unsupervised, until the age of eighteen years old. Let\'s end that practice right here.\'



Near reached into the pocket of his pyjamas and pulled out his Lawliet puppet. He, Nate River, was the puppeteer now. He stared at the plastic face and calm descended fast around him. He switched on his microphone and spoke officially for the first time in this gathering. "Age has nothing to do with genius. If Mello and I had not taken on the case, then Kira would probably still be out there. How many more would be dead now without Mello\'s so-called child soldiers?"



Mello exhaled an exasperated sigh. "End justifies the means, Near? You sound an awful lot like me right now."



"The case was solved. We were equal to the job."



"But it wasn\'t our problem!" Mello snapped. "And it makes no sense as a long-term strategy. Yes, we did it, but at what cost? How many more lives would be saved if I didn\'t keep retreating into my shell over my emotional scarring? I have a lot of demons to try and exorcise before I can usually put my training into practice again." He paused and Near could just picture him pacing around, trying to control his temper. "I\'m telling you now that Mail isn\'t pulling his weight, much as I love you, baby. This for the same reason. He rebelled really early on under the pressures that were placed on him. He just side-stepped it and washed his hands of the great pile of shit that he had been expected to take on. I\'m getting to the same point. All because our psychological and emotional needs were not being taken into consideration. Lamond! Luigi! You both know what I\'m talking about! You cannot put that kind of pressure on children and hope that their extant trauma will just go away as well."



Near kept his gaze fixed on the painted dots of L\'s eyes. He enjoyed how his matter of fact reasoning and even tone constrasted with Mello\'s ranting. "I have always admired your initiative, but Mello honestly cannot expect that the evils of the world will wait for him to mature before presenting themselves." He smiled at the twin interpretations that \'mature\' could imply. The shuffling silence at the other end told him all he needed to know of the expression on Mello\'s face. "Kira was our problem. It is a pity that we weren\'t older, but that cannot be helped."



"How was it our problem?" Mello demanded harshly. "Just because we happened to have come from the same institution as a detective, who decided to take on the case, then got killed? We are not the only geniuses in the world. We are not the greatest minds on this planet."



"Yes, we are." Near replied smoothly.



Mello hesitated. "By what fucked-up reasoning have you deduced that one, Near?"



"Because out of all the world, we were the ones who caught Kira." Near told his puppet. "We were not the only minds focused on the task, but we were the only ones to solve the case."



"Don\'t be ridiculous." Mello spat. "IQ levels go up to 201. There are only eight members of the Pi Society and I\'m not in it. I know you\'re not either!"



Near frowned. "How can you know that?"



"Because I had Matt hack it to find out." Mello barked, then instantly became quiet.



Near grinned. "Really? And does Mello agree with the methodology used to determine intelligence quotient?" He barely heard the negative response. "So it is a sound conclusion that, given an equal opportunity for all of the world\'s geniuses to work on solving the global problem that Kira represented, those who actually succeeded probably possess the greatest minds in the world."



Fenian\'s Irish brogue lifted out of the loaded silence at the other end. "As amusing as it is to sit through yet more fucking snarking between Near and Mello, can I just ask what the point of all of this is? Only I\'m gasping for a fucking cigarette and this was boring when we were kids. It\'s intensely boring now."



"Yeah, me too." Matt\'s soft voice sounded close, like he was sitting beside Near\'s laptop there.



"Near!" Mello growled. "One day you and I are going to have a conversation about those times, right? But for now, tell me that you don\'t still have nightmares about when you first left Wammy\'s House; tell me that you haven\'t any issues stemming from it, that might possibly, maybe, who knows, interfere with your work now. If you can tell me that neither of those things happen, then I will drop this subject." Near stared straight ahead, the lines caused by the edges of the cards a perfect display of symmetry and fractals. He could lie. He could lie, but Mello would know that he was lying. Near did not reply at all. "Well, then. Near, I\'m sorry for the loss of your childhood. Your genius did not give them the right to rob you of that. God bless you and I hope you find your peace."