Near or Far

SPOILERS: All manga, all anime, L's true name, Another Note, Law and Right, Truth and Justice, Motive and Mayhem, Hell and Healing.

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Near or Far

Chapter 3: The Black List

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Two days later, Mello returned to the base, pulling off his coat and hanging it up, giving a happy sigh. He pulled off his boots and tucked them aside like always, walking up the stairs lazily. When he found himself alone, he raised an eyebrow. "Near?" he called out. "Matt? Where are you guys?" His voice echoed back to him from the monitor room, and his frown deepened.

He, Near and Matt were in their own base, smaller and separate from L's, though it was just a few blocks away. Near rarely left the audio on when he wasn't actively communicating, and the fact that no one was replying was more than a little worrisome.

Mello pulled the gun from the back of his pants, cocking the hammer and carefully, slowly walking to the monitor room, clearing it before tabbing through all the visual feeds and confirming that the building was empty. There were no blind spots in the security feed, and his stomach felt as if it were tying into knots as he realized he was alone.

Abandoned.

Mello wasn't sure how long he'd been sitting there, slumped in the alley next to the building he'd been sharing with Near and Matt for so long. His parka was inside, but he didn't really care about the cold that was settling over him. The warmth flowing through him was more than enough.

Mello's head rolled to the side when he heard a sigh, his gaze shifting upwards, though his eyes couldn't focus.

"You know, this is an easy way to get killed," a soft, female voice announced. Heels crunched through the snow as she approached, then crouched next to him. The pencil skirt pulled tight around her knees as she looked at him.

Mello gave a weak smile. "I been through worse," he replied quietly.

A rosary dangled down in front of his eyes and caused tears to well up in them. Mello reached up, trying twice before he managed to grab the rosary.

"Come on, let's get you somewhere safe," the woman whispered, and gently helped Mello to his feet, guiding him away. They went to a nearby church, Catholic, and she settled Mello on the front stoop, knocking loudly on the door before dissolving into the afternoon crowd, walking away. Still, she glanced over her shoulder at him, sighing in relief as she saw the elderly priest come to the door and gently help Mello to his feet.

"Sorry," Mello mumbled as he was helped into the church. "I didn't... mean to come here. Shoudln' be here right now."

"And why is that?" the priest replied warmly. "God loves all his children, even when they're in the midst of a mistake."

Mello couldn't help smiling weakly at that. "I'm high right now," he admitted.

"I know," the priest replied simply, and settled Mello into a pew. "But I'm not the one you need to apologize to. Rest here and pray," he offered softly. "You're safe here."

"Safe," Mello sighed in reply, closing his eyes and bowing his head. He prayed, rosary clasped firmly in his hand as he sat there for several long hours. When the high had finally faded, he rose and shuffled into confession.

"Forgive me father, for I have sinned," Mello said softly, closing his eyes and leaning back on the confessional bench. "It has been six days since my last confession," he sighed, and confessed to each and every sin he had committed in that time.

When he had finished, Mello rose, recited his prayers of penance at the altar, and crossed himself with the holy water. When he was finished, he rose, turning and walking towards the church doors. He felt lighter, as if he had been healed. Confession always left him feeling clean and loved, though he was still more than a little miserable.

"The one you seek is waiting upstairs, not outside," the priest said as Mello neared the church doors. "M."

Mello stopped, looking over his shoulder at the priest. "N and the other M?"

"Afraid not," he replied. "L and J."

Mello's shoulders slumped a little, but he nodded. "Thank you," he said again, and went up the stairs on the left side of the sanctuary, bowing his head with respect to each nun he passed. When he reached the top floor, he knocked on the door once before letting himself in.

"You've relapsed," L nearly grumbled.

"Yeah," Mello sighed, rubbing his hands over his face and sinking into a seat nearby. "I came home and they were just... gone. Both of them. I couldn't really think past that."

"They didn't abandon you," Light replied quietly. "There were signs of a struggle."

"There... were?" Mello looked up, a bit dumbstruck.

Light nodded, getting up and offering Mello a mug of warm tea. "They were subtle, but they were there. Drink up, you're going to need your strength if you're going to help us find them. Aiber is doing a forensic sweep now."

"He just gave me permission to sleep with Matt again," Mello said softly, looking into the mug of tea for a long moment, before sipping at it.

"Then we'd better find Matt and tell him the good news," L replied simply, eyes on the laptop on the desk in front of him.

"I'm not going to sleep with him," Mello replied, looking up. "Not... right away, anyway. There's something we have to do first, something he has to accept."

"Then the first step is finding him," Light replied simply. "Near, too. Where were you the last three days?"

"Guarding a shipment of some kind," Mello replied. "Took a semi north, then had it barged over to Hokkaido. Then we went north again, to Wakkanai. We left it as it was in a warehouse. I wasn't able to take a look inside because of this," Mello reached into his shirt, pulling out the paper Natasha had given him the day he'd left. He slid it over to L.

An eyebrow lifted slowly. "Boom."

"Like moose and squirrel," Mello replied, and shook his head at the strange looks L and Light gave him. "Never mind. It was Natasha's joke."

"It would be easy to move the shipment into Russia from there. It's not too far from Ostrov Sakhalin ," Light said thoughtfully. "But the question is if this Natasha is involved or not."

"She is," Mello replied. "This kind of security," he tapped the paper. "It's not her style. She'd be more likely to give guards rocket launchers than come up with a contraption like this."

"Then we start with her," Light replied quietly, and pulled a laptop from his backpack, flipping it open and starting it up. "Whoever did this knows the letter system, so I'll see how many letters there are that had cases involving her."

"There will be quite a few," L replied, biting down on his thumb. "She's proven very useful to us over the years, and her business is relatively harmless. She deals in black market art."

"Then why would she risk blowing her stuff up?" Mello asked with a frown. "This rig isn't the kind of thing that blows outward, it blows inward, and art isn't exactly replaceable."

"Because she was forced to," L replied simply, pouting as he turned his gaze to Light. "We should have brought snacks. I require sugar."

Light smirked at that, leaning over and kissing L's lips.

"Not that kind," L replied petulantly, but he turned his attention back to his own keyboard, typing in some things before letting his computer do the work.

"We've got fifteen letters," Light announced, and turned the laptop so L could see the list he'd generated. "But it only goes back five years."

"Five years is insufficient. Go back thirty," L replied. "And eliminated those letters. They are all trustworthy."

Light did as he was told, and ignored L's continued complaints about food, until he'd completed the list. L went though it then, though it was over 100 names, and pared it down to just twenty.

"So one of these twenty people... is most likely holding Matt and Near," Light announced, and let Mello have a look, too.

"We will determine their locations after check-in," L announced. "Aiber has arranged for us to stay in a hotel until the security of the main building can be confirmed. Near was using a similar security schema."

"Speaking of, Aiber just arrived. Shall we? I'm sure he's already arranged for room service at the hotel," Light said with an easy smile. "He knows you're having sugar withdrawal, I'm sure."

L grumbled to himself, but he got up, tucking his laptop under his arm and taking Light's hand.

Backpack slung over his shoulder, Light led the way down to the limo.

Mello took one more look at the list before closing the laptop and carrying it down.

Twenty names. Twenty suspects. Twenty chances to get Near and Matt back. Mello just hoped he could keep himself together long enough to see this through.

The sun was bright the next morning as it fell through the open window and onto Mello's face. It was a gradual thing, but by the time the sun was half-risen, Mello was groggily blinking his eyes, rubbing at them with a weary fist. The memory of the day before hit and he blinked faster, fighting down a wave of misery.

Mello remembered that feeling, and he remembered how to control it. He pushed it down, locked it away. Promised to let himself feel it later.

Right now he had more important things to do. He had to find Matt and Near. He had to get some god damn answers.

He was the first to wake, so Mello scrounged for some breakfast, settling on a stale doughnut from the night before and started the coffee pot going. He went to the sofa then, grabbed a computer, and got to work.

Twenty letters. Twenty people that might be involved in the disappearances. Twenty people that they all would have trusted, twenty people who knew Natasha.

Twenty different countries, too. Mello scowled at the screen as Light rose, scratching at one of his many scars, and heading straight for the coffee pot. He poured three mugs, added a quarter cup of sugar to one, two creams to another.

"How do you take your coffee?" Light asked.

"Chocolate syrup," Mello replied. "Doesn't matter how much."

Light added the syrup, then brought Mello's mug over, and took the other two back to the bedroom, smiling faintly when a 'thanks' was grumbled after him.

"He's already working?" L asked as he stood in front of a mirror, fighting with a comb.

Light hummed in agreement, giving L his morning coffee and taking the comb, working it through L's hair. He sipped his coffee occasionally, and by the time he'd finished the mug, L's hair looked a little less like a mushroom cloud.

"Thank you," L mumbled, dripping the last of the coffee-flavored sugar onto his tongue.

"Always," Light assured warmly, kissing L's cheek and going to dress. When they were both presentable, he led the way into the main room of the suite and settled next to Mello, taking another of the laptops.

"They're all in different countries," Mello announced. "Do we know the approximate time they were taken?"

"I'm checking out Aiber's report now," Light replied quietly, pulling up the email he shared with L and reading the report. "Looks like it was just one hour after you left. Let's start by confirming the whereabouts of the twenty people at that time. I doubt that anyone on the list is the actual perpetrator, but Natasha only works face to face, so if we can find someone that's done that recently, we'll be one step closer."

"Yeah," Mello sighed. "I've got three that were within three hours of Japan the entire time. Five, if you consider the possibility of a Learjet."

"We should keep that part open," Light agreed. "Do an overview of all the case files those five have worked in the last year," he suggested, and when the names popped up on his screen, he started looking at the other fifteen, going through each one's record carefully. Of course, these were only the things they'd actually reported, and many of them took work without reporting it, but most of the significant cases ended up in the database one way or another.

Minutes ticked by, bled into hours. L settled with them, working on a third laptop and making a little tower out of sugar cubes. Whenever Light glanced his way, he couldn't help the strange chill that ran up his spine. L's expression was cold, distant as he considered all possibilities, eyes narrowing as he followed a train of thought to its logical conclusion.

"None of these people are involved," L announced late that afternoon. "If they were, we would have spotted it by now. No one on this list is of suitable intelligence to pose this much of a puzzle and not leave breadcrumbs. We need to begin looking elsewhere."

"Where else is there?" Mello demanded.

"The other list," L explained

"The black list?" Mello raised an eyebrow.

"Precisely," L replied simply. "The only ones that held grudges against Near are the ones he has brought to justice. There are letters on that list," he pointed out.

Mello swallowed heavily. "Matt's one of them."

"What's the black list?" Light asked, frowning a little as he looked to L.

"A list of the exceptionally dangerous," L replied quietly. "Any letter that is incarcerated is on the list, though not all continue to be dangerous. It also contains every criminal that is intelligent enough to be a considerable threat to my personal security should they gain freedom and attempt to exact their revenge."

"It's a list of the most dangerous people in the world," Mello agreed. "And Matt knew I would be gone for a considerable amount of time."

L and Light shared a look.

"Then we will begin with Matt," L replied.

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A/N: I don't know much about Russian Geography, or geography in general. Most of what I'm saying here comes from what I can figure out using google maps and googling images of specific regions. If I've incorrectly identified Ostrov Sakhalin, and Ostrov actually a place on the island in question, or the island is called Ostrov and Sakhalin is just the area/sea that it's located in, my apologies and please correct me.