Watari was surprised when he heard the front door open. He checked his phone to make sure he hadn't missed a call from L. He hadn't.

He stuck his head out of the kitchen doorway. L had kicked off his shoes and was already on his way to the desk while Naomi fussed to herself over his shoes lying haphazardly where someone could trip and fall.

"Honestly..." she muttered as she removed her athletic shoes and briskly climbed the steps to her floor. She and L had agreed to discuss the case once she'd had a shower.

Watari emptied the measuring cup of water he was holding into the coffee maker and switched it on. He retrieved a plate of assorted sweets from the refrigerator and moved into the living room to where L was seated in his crouched position at the desk.

"Did you walk home?" he asked.

"Yes," L replied, already surveying the sweets Watari had placed before him.

Watari chuckled. "That was her idea, wasn't it?"

L had selected an eclair with chocolate frosting. He held it delicately, as he always did, and took a big bite. He answered with his mouth full.

"Yes, and now I'm starving." A second bite was all it took to finish off the eclair and he reached for another one immediately.

Watari looked toward the stairs where Naomi had disappeared to, and then back at L. The detective was noisily chocolate off his fingers. It would seem as though nothing had changed.

But something was different.

Watari had known L since he was just a little thing. A peculiar child with large, sunken eyes and a tiny mouth that rarely smiled, L had always been most content parked in front of a computer for hours on end. A tray of sweets and the challenge of a difficult puzzle were the only two things in the world that had ever truly made his dark eyes light up. And so he remained into adulthood.

Naturally then, Watari had been surprised to see L slipping his sneakers on that afternoon- especially since they had already gone out that morning. Outings were rare enough for L. But two in one day?

"Watari, would you drive me to the gym down the street?"

"Of course, Ryuzaki, but what for? Is there a new case?"

"No." L had one hand on the wall for balance. He brought his foot up and used his other hand to pull the shoe over his sockless heel. He spoke so casually, as if this was not totally out of the ordinary for him. "Naomi Misora is practicing Capoeira and I'd like to see how it's done in person."

Watari raised his white eyebrows.

L stood upright again and shoved his hands innocently into his pockets. He stared at Watari and wondered why the old man was hesitating.

"So... Can we go?"

Watari stepped forward then to collect the keys. "Of course."

Nothing was atypical about the short drive to the gym. L sat knees-up in the back seat and busied himself with a bag of gummy bears. Watari was quiet, as he usually was.

The car pulled up in front of the gym and L hopped out, using his foot to shut the door behind him. Hands pocketed, he bent down by the driver's side door and Watari pressed the button to lower the window.

"I'll call you," L said simply.

"Alright."

Like a father dropping his boy off at school, Watari watched as the closest thing he had to a son shuffled up the sidewalk and into the large, brick building. He sat for a moment before putting the car in drive and turning it around to return to the apartment.

He had dropped L off at one place or another more times than he could count. But the vast majority of the time, it was for a case. It had been a long time since L had requested a ride to a location simply for his own interest.

Come to think of it, the last time had been about two and a half years ago, at the conclusion of the BB Case, when L had asked Watari to drive him to a particular subway station in Los Angeles...

Watari hadn't been waiting for L for very long when he saw him returning from the entrance of the metro station. During the drive home, he kept noticing L pressing a hand to his shoulder and rolling it a bit, wincing as he did so.

"Are you alright?" Watari asked, glancing in the rear-view mirror.

"Yes," L replied plainly, still rubbing his shoulder. Then he added under his breath, "She kicks harder than I thought..."

"What?"

"Naomi Misora. She kicked me."

L said it so simply. Like there was nothing whatsoever unusual about that. He dropped his head back onto the backseat but snapped it back up again, putting a hand to the back of his head.

"Ahh-hah, oww!" He looked at his hand. There was blood on his fingertips.

Watari noticed and tried to hide the concern in his voice. "And just how many times did she kick you, exactly?"

"Just once. But I fell down the stairs."

Again, L was casually speaking as though what had just happened was an everyday occurrence. He used his non-bloodied hand to tug at the collar of his shirt, first to one side and then the other, glancing at his shoulders as he did so. Raised red marks in the shapes of size 7 boots were already turning various shades of blue and purple.

Watari said nothing more but was prompt in tending to the injuries when they returned home. L protested but Watari rarely insisted so he reluctantly allowed it.

"She got you pretty good, didn't she?"

L was hunched backwards in a chair with his forehead resting on the back of it while Watari examined the spot on the back of his head that had taken a beating from the concrete steps. Two ice packs rested on his bony shoulders.

"I expected her to." L's voice was muffled as his face was buried in his knees. "But still..." he said, bringing his hands up to hold onto the back of the chair and lifting his chin to rest on them. "I admit it was a little more than I had predicted."

Watari pressed a medicated cloth to L's head. It stung and L's face scrunched.

"I wonder, Watari..." L began thoughtfully. But his voice trailed off, as though his thoughts weren't organized enough yet to say them out loud. "Hmm..." He lifted a hand to his mouth and started biting his thumbnail.

"All done," Watari said after a moment. He removed the ice packs and L stood up. He still seemed deep in thought.

As Watari was leaving the room with the medical supplies, L spoke his name. Watari turned. "Yes?"

L looked at him directly, his elbows bent and his hands resting on his now very sore neck and shoulders.

"I'd like to begin keeping track of Agent Misora. I think I'll be contacting her again in the future."

"Very well."

Watari was lost in this very memory when L returned from the gym with Naomi. After he set him up with his sweets and coffee, he returned to the kitchen to frost the cake that had been cooling on the counter.

Why on earth he was so nostalgic today, he couldn't really say. But, to the only father L had ever known, it was strange to see him setting work aside- even if only for an hour or so- just to do something fun. Especially with another person.

Was Naomi simply someone with just the right interests that L merely enjoyed the same things she did? Or was there something more there? Watari wasn't sure yet how he felt about that possibility. A heartbroken L was not something he ever wanted to deal with. The boy was closed off enough as it was.

Watari continued to frost the cake and tried not to think about it too much. He told himself he was just reading into things. That he was being overprotective.

And that was probably true.

But no one knew L better than he did. It had been sixteen years since Watari- or Quillish Wammy as he had been before the adoption of his alias- had stepped into the British social service office, just as he had done so many times before.

There was another boy for his orphanage, they said. Around eight years old, his name and history were unknown. He was different. Strange. No one wanted him. He'd been handed over from another orphanage. He didn't get along with the other children and it caused problems, they said.

Quillish Wammy just nodded and asked to see him. He was led to a small room with a long table surrounded by several chairs. And crouched in the corner on the floor was a little boy with a full head of untamed black hair and milk-white skin. He didn't appear scared, though. He just sat calmly as if he were simply more comfortable there.

Wammy removed his hat and stepped over to kneel in front of the child.

"Hello," he said, extending his hand. "I'm Mr. Wammy. What's your name?"

The boy didn't answer but, after a brief hesitation, he did shyly reach out to lightly shake the older man's hand. His eyes were wide and yet very tired. So very tired. It was as if the eyes of someone who had already lived a lifetime belonged to this little boy with the bare feet and the plain clothes that were far too big for his tiny frame.

Watari could still see it all so clearly in his mind's eye.

The nameless orphan who had grown up to be the world's greatest detective had come to mean more to him than anything. He was a young man whose deductive abilities surpassed those of all others. He was the mysterious, famous, brilliant L. A part of Wammy would always proudly consider him his greatest invention. A weapon of his own making to wage war on the injustices of the world. But above all, the sugar-loving, bare-footed, quirky, introverted insomniac was his boy.

To the world, he was a covert phenomenon represented by a single letter but to Quillish Wammy- to the only human being who had ever truly known him- he was loved.

And as Watari finished frosting the cake, he heard Naomi coming down the stairs and wondered fleetingly with just the smallest glint of hope if someone else could ever learn to love him too.