Watari Pt 2: Wammy's House

AN: I did have an entirely different story planned for this, but blame Mad-Hatters-Hare. She was the one who said that she\'s so in love with Fenian, that she hoped I\'d right a one-shot about him. I suggested that a story about Fenian looking at a rock might not be as interesting to everyone else as, perhaps, more Mello and Matt smut might be. She disagreed. She thought that Fenian looking at a rock would be very fine indeed. kay... Here\'s a story about Fenian with a rock. Thank you all for 1000 hits. If there\'s ever 2000 hits, I promise that the thank you story will be more overtly about Mello and Matt. ~ Matilda xxxxx



Fenian peered down at the rock in his hand. It had streaks of a glistening, crystalised blue and he wasn\'t entirely sure that it wasn\'t man-made. O\'Leary had given it to him as soon as he\'d climbed into his car at Shannon Airport. It was supposed to have come from the depths of the systems underneath Cuilcagh; but Fenian strongly suspected it had been bought in a New Age shop in Sligo. "You are taking the piss, aren\'t you?"



O\'Leary just grinned. "Colin said you\'d say that, but no, man, it came from Cuilcagh. Plenty more of it, if you want to go down and see for yourself."



"And I\'d be fucking amazed to see it." Fenian inspected the rock again. "Where?"



"Number 38 shaft. Col\'s got it mapped."



Fenian glanced up, but it took a moment for the scenery to make an impression on his mind. "Stop! Here!" O\'Leary had to slam his brakes on to make the turning. It was a rough track across the bog, that seemed to shimmer and disappear several yards on. It didn\'t, of course, it went on for miles, sodden when it rained and bumpy when it shone. Fenian gave up on the rock. He shoved it in his pocket and stared out of the window instead. His mind transformed the landscape from the soggy peat and hard foliage into the forest that would have been here just centuries ago. He realised that O\'Leary was still speaking to him. "What?"



"I said what possessed you to leave your car at Kiana\'s? The woman lives in the middle of fucking nowhere."



"Many reasons." Fenian shrugged. His primary one was that he believed that Wammy\'s House knew about her and so she would be their first port of call. He might as well leave his car there, if they were going to send their people anyway, than place it somewhere it could be used as a clue to his own location. "Most of all, it gives me an excuse to see her again."



"I thought she told you to go to Hell and never darken her door again."



"Yeah, but she wasn\'t in at the time." Fenian smirked. "So I posted my keys through her door and legged it."



"She\'ll have sold the car by now."



"No, she fucking won\'t." He hoped. "Same conversation she told me to go to Hell, she also called me an buachall ban." He lit a cigarette. "She wants me."



"She\'s ten years older than you." O\'Leary stated, like that meant something. Fenian frowned at him, so his fellow potholer clarified. "She might call you her dear, Irish boy all she likes, but the emphasis there is on \'boy\'. You\'re, what, nineteen, did you say? Can we say mother substitute?"



"Fuck off." Fenian opened the window to flick his ash out. The wind rushed in to freeze them both. "I could fucking walk you know."



O\'Leary didn\'t say another word until they were several miles into the bog and the cluster of houses came into sight. There was smoke in the chimney of Kiana\'s cottage. It had full central heating, but she was an artist and liked the firelight. Fenian grinned at the glimpse of his car in her driveway and O\'Leary raised his eyebrows. "I\'ll hang around, shall I? In case she\'s thrown your keys in the linn."



"She won\'t have." Fenian stated with more confidence than he felt. "You can be gone. Thanks for the lift." He stepped out of the car.



"Don\'t forget your rock."



Fenian reached in and took it, dropping it into his pocket as he waved O\'Leary away. He watched as the estate car weaved its uncertain way back onto the track towards civilisation, then turned. Kiana had seen him coming, of course. She was standing on her front door step, glaring at him, with his keys dangling off her finger. She was in her dressing gown, despite it being nearly dusk, but she might as well have been in a slinky, black number for the look that Fenian gave her. As soon as he was over the cattle-grid, she threw the keys as hard as she could in his direction, then turned to re-enter her home. Fenian caught the keys easily, but called before she could slam the door. "My real name is Liam Mac Taidhg. Liam Tighe."



Kiana hesitated, then turned to survey him. Her long, black hair hung untidily in a loose pony-tail. Fenian imagined pulling it out and letting it cascade over her shoulders again, as it had that Friday night, three months ago. "Right." She said, plainly and without emotion, though her dark, blue eyes still flashed. She held open the door. "You better come in then."



Fenian grinned and ran into the cottage before she could change her mind. She was waiting inside, standing in front of the settee with the fire roaring behind her. She was beautiful. "I\'m ready to tell you everything. No more lies. But it\'s a bit tricky, you see? \'Cause it\'s like government and I don\'t technically fucking exist."



"Liam." She responded finally. "Your name is fucking Liam and you have had me calling you fucking Fenian."



"I\'m not supposed to give out my name to anyone." He patted his bag. "I have the proof."



Kiana nodded. "Talk."



"I lied a bit when I said my parents died in the fighting up Derry. But I spoke the truth when I said they\'re fucking dead. It\'s just that I\'m from Galway and that\'s a bit fucking close, don\'t you think? I mean, if you were to start tracing me, you\'d only have to go twenty miles to the library and look up the newspaper archives. They died in a car crash." He took a few steps closer and risked sitting down. She didn\'t stop him. "I got taken to England."



Kiana sighed. "How do I know that this isn\'t another bag of lies on top of the shitheap of lies you\'ve already told me?"



Fenian rubbed his goatee and chewed the inside of his mouth. "To be sure, you don\'t. It sounds even less feasible to me than anything else I\'ve told you. Difference being, it\'s the truth and I can prove it." He took out his laptop and plugged in the booster. The signal was always uncertain at Kiana\'s place. He had the information he initially needed on his hard-drive, but later on he would need the connection. His router found it on the third attempt, but he opened his documents rather than a browser. "Read this." There were three newspaper reports there, from different publications, all detailiing the circumstances of his parent\'s fatal accident. They all mentioned the orphaned, ten year old Liam Tighe. She read them, her frown deepening. "But that doesn\'t prove I\'m one and the same. How\'s this?" He pulled up a report. "This is from a private detective, one of the best in the world, by the name of Salvo. I can give you his card to prove he\'s real." He found the card and handed it to her. "He\'ll tell you that he\'s searched the county, the country, the fucking world. There are plenty of Liam Tighe\'s around, but none of them could be that child. According to the official records, that child was never even fucking born, let alone in the world now."



She read the report, then sat down herself. "It\'s really fucking elaborate what you\'ve gone through to convince me of this, Fenian."



"There\'s more. Have I given you enough to at least consider that I might be Liam Tighe?"



"Yes."



"Then you\'ll be wanting to know what became of me." He pulled his wallet out and presented a small card. On it was a free phone number and the message, \'In case of emergency, please call and quote \'Fenian\'\'. She looked at him quizzically. "I was taken to an institution in England and raised to be a successor to L. You\'ve heard of L, I take it."



Now she looked incredulous. Everyone had heard of L. He had been the guiding light in the early hunt for Kira and, at one point, all of the television channels had been full of him. "Now you are seriously taking the piss."



"Call that number. Tell them you found me unconscious out on the bog and assumed that you were calling my mother or something. I guarantee that, within half an hour, secret service agents will be at that door. They might be dressed up as fucking gardai or paramedics, but something won\'t ring right about them. I\'m breaking the Official Secrets Act by telling you this much." He shrugged. A pen had appeared in his hand and he tapped it against his thigh, until she reached across and took it off him. "Sorry, I\'m tapping again."



"Yes, you are." She stared at him, sizing him up. "You\'re talking through your arse, Fenian."



He shook his head. "I\'m not. I\'ve an IQ of 180 and I\'ve been in a place called Wammy\'s House. Have you heard of Mello?" She indicated that she hadn\'t. "Ok, go into that laptop and search for L + Mello, see what you find. I\'ll make us a nice cup of tea." Fenian rose and darted into the kitchen before she could stop him. The longer he was here, the more likely it was that he could stay. His feet were practically under the table. He filled up the kettle and peeped back through the door into the front room. Kiana was intent on whatever she was reading on the monitor. He loved this place. He loved the fact that all of the walls were three foot thick with plastered limestone and that the windowsills were accordingly so deep that a child could have slept on one. He loved the mismatched furniture and the sheer colour of the place. None of the cushions matched, either each other or the three piece suite. The carpet was brown with orange swirls, while the rug upon it was bright blue. Fenian loved it. Most of all, he loved the fact that this was Kiana\'s home and, despite the fact that they argued incessantly, she liked him. He called out. "I\'ve brought you a rock."



Kiana cast him a long-suffering glare. "Ok, I\'ve heard of Mello now. How that\'s tea coming on?"



"It\'s coming. Keep your fucking hair on." He ducked back into the kitchen. There was cake there too, in the tin, so he cut them two large slices and carried them through on the same tray as the tea. "So you\'re believing in Mello now?"



"I believe that it might be another name for L."



"Well it\'s not." Fenian snapped. "As much as that wanker might think it is." At her glance, he sighed. "Ok, ok. You remember when your Maura was here and I was talking with her little girl? I said I got bullied too at school, so I know how she feels?"



"Yes." She gestured towards his leg. "You said that this bully was the cause of those scars there on your thigh."



Fenian nodded. "He came up the tree after me and another boy and I tried to escape along a branch, but I didn\'t figure on the thorns on the fucking bush underneath. I was dangling there and the bully shimmied along the fucking branch and bastard thumped down on my fingers until I couldn\'t hold on. Fucking bush tore my bloody thigh to shreds." Kiana had seen the scars. She knew that \'torn to shreds\' was an exaggeration, but two cuts at least must have been quite deep. What she couldn\'t doubt was the bitterness flooding the teenager\'s features now. Fenian was no actor. The fact that he couldn\'t convincingly lie to save his life was the cause of most of their arguments. She found herself believing him. He saw it in her face. "The bully was Mello."



Kiana glanced back at the monitor. "The same?"



He nodded. "I was with him yesterday. In fact, I\'ve seen him three times in the past week and half. We\'re all adults now and he\'s still a vicious fucker, but maybe calmed down a bit. I don\'t know. Maybe I hardened up. You had to in that place and fortunately he fucked off when I was thirteen, so I only had three years with the tuili." Fenian met Kiana\'s gaze and realised that he\'d been ranting a little. "Yeah, well, he\'s no more L than I am. Just another successor. Another kid pipped us to the post." He stretched, then reached to claim his cake. "Do you believe me yet?"



"To be honest, I don\'t know what to make of it. You\'re a lying toerag, but this story is so out there." She shook her head, trying to make sense of it. "It just seems so unbelievable a story, that you wouldn\'t possibly expect me to believe it. That, surprisingly, makes it feel more true."



Fenian smiled at her. "I\'ve got to make a call sometime today. I\'m going to do it now. One thing though, you\'re to keep absolutely silent. I\'d be in trouble and I\'m not sure what they\'d do with you." He frowned. "Probably bang us both in prison. I don\'t know. It\'s fucking beyond the law. I just know that I had to sign a piece of paper, in front of a fucking lawyer, saying that I\'d never reveal my true identity and certainly never reveal the existence of this institution or any of its alumni. I\'ve just done that and now I\'m going to prove what I said."



He took the laptop from her and opened another tab. She couldn\'t see the screen, just his fingers typing rapidly. When he showed her again, there was a website there with several links down the side. She could see an old English font \'F\' in the corner, but the rest pertained to a bank account, a dialling system, policy and files. It was peculiar in itself, but then he selected the dial tab and a series of letters appeared in the same font. Fenian took small speakers and a metal box from his bag and plugged them in. He looked pale; his eyes darted once in her direction, then back at the screen. Kiana realised that he was afraid. That frightened her. She had never known Fenian fear anything before. He directed his mouse to the letter \'M\' and the sound through the speakers was a ringing, just like a telephone.



The monitor filled with the letter M, but the voice which emerged was distorted. "F, you don\'t half pick your moments."



"Were you beating Matt up or something, Mello?"



There was a short pause, then the voice returned, sounding slightly scathing. "I love how you ask about my sex life before anything else, Fenian. Source of endless fascination for your Irish Catholic mind?" Fenian rolled his eyes, but didn\'t respond. Mello continued. "If you must know, the sexy redhead is fast asleep in bed. I could wake him up if you really need to listen to me fucking him up the wall, but frankly, I think he needs his rest more."



Fenian closed his eyes, then opened them to wince an apology to Kiana. "Let\'s get this over with, you twisted fuckwit." He pulled out a notepad and another pen. He was soon tapping it on the side, until Kiana\'s scowl stopped him. "I love how I step back inside Wammy\'s for the first time in a year and come away with fucking homework."



"Yeah." Mello empathised. "Our mission is to decide if Wammy\'s kiddies should be allowed to practice their religion..."



"They should."



"Agreed." Mello chuckled. "That\'s that bit over with and the others knew our response or else they would never have given us this part to work out. So part two, how can we safely have that happen?"



Kiana listened to them as, for the next half an hour, this uneasy alliance hashed out the pros and cons of bringing clergy into the House versus allowing the children escorted access to religious centres. They had just reached some conclusions, when Fenian mentioned cults and they had to start a whole new conversation about what defined an acceptable religion. In truth, by then, Kiana was finding that more and more of the nitty-gritty was going over her head. She considered herself to be a highly intelligent woman, but the dialogue between these two sounded like the musings of aged professors.



Finally, they agreed that as any child professing a religion had to appeal to the Board for the right to practice it, then they could investigate each religion as it emerged and decide on a case by case basis if it was acceptable. That stated, Mello started to say his goodbyes, but Fenian stopped him. "Mello, one more thing, unrelated. What happens to us if we reveal our identities to someone outside the system?"



"... the fuck should I know? I just introduce myself as Mello."



"But what if, for whatever reason, you decided to tell someone your real name and life story. What would the system do?"



"Is this about Matt threatening to go to Geneva?" Mello sighed. "He was joking. He wouldn\'t be so stupid as to endanger the lives of Near, all of the children there and all of us too. He was just using it to prove a point."



"Right." Fenian stared at Kiana. "Hopefully won\'t see you around. Bye, Mello."



"Bye, Fenian." Just before he cut the connection, Mello spoke again. "Hey, take care of yourself, alright? I know we take the piss out of each other, but you\'re alright. I wish I\'d taken the time to get to know you more when we were kids."



Fenian stared in horror at the giant \'M\' on his screen. "Yeah, man. Bye." He hung up before Mello could embarrass him further. "That last bit was really stupid of me. Fortunately, I\'d forgotten that Matt threatened to do that, so luckily Mello\'s paranoid and arrogant enough to think I was talking about him. There was enough there for someone with his mind to work out that I\'d done it. You know what?" He looked back at Kiana. "I really think I\'d get fucking life for telling you. I\'ve been thinking with my balls, erm, my heart instead of my head. Fuck."



Kiana rose from her armchair and reached for his hand. He took it and rose to stand in front of her. She gazed into his eyes for the longest time, then nodded. "I believe you, a chuisle." She smiled at him. "And I come from a long history of women hiding our fine Irish men from the English. I\'ll keep your secrets." Fenian forced a smile back, but his flesh was crawling with goosebumps. "You look so scared. You\'re scaring me. Would a kiss make it better?"



Fenian snapped out of his reverie. "Yes! Fuck, yes, it would!"



"Well then, Liam mac Taidhg, I\'d better kiss you then." So she did and the ghosts of Wammy\'s House fled from his mind, as Fenian kissed her right back.