(Y/n) decided that having two flights in quick succession was not the brightest idea, even if it was necessary to throw off suspicion.

The whole 'trip' had been the consequence of a need to get rid of all proof of her birth name. She had needed to wipe out all paper trails leading to (Y/n) (L/n) and replace them with (Y/n) Yagami or get rid of them all together.

They (Garcia and her) had changed the few digital records that existed of her in her real name. Medical records from the time hadn't ever been computerized so that hadn't been a problem.

She had looked through all of the belongings she had of her birth mother (which she had kept in a locker at a bank) and gotten rid of the stuff that had her birth name. (Y/n) knew that she had left the hospital's copies of the same documents as a loose end but she trusted the difficulty of first pinpointing the correct hospitals, then getting them to agree to showing obviously private documents, and then trying to find her records among the mess of others'.

Garcia had hacked into the system and changed her name where it wasn't already (Y/n) Yagami.

Thankfully, since her name had been legally changed, they had gotten all the papers regarding citizenship and the like with her new name and almost all of her legal documents were under Yagami which really prevented most of the headache.

The stuff that she couldn't change and only needed to hide was the reason (Y/n) was flying out to England only four days later. She had looked through her mother's things only to find a property under the (L/n) name somewhere in Winchester, and figured that it was as good a place as any to toss a bunch of papers in a bank.

So she found herself trudging out of Heathrow airport, onto a train (where she stayed and slept for the next hour or so), and finally into a taxi to drive her to the required address.

She may have been half asleep and jet-lagged when she stumbled out of the taxi with her bag barely standing straight next to her, but seeing the building looming before her was enough to momentarily wake her up.

It wasn't that it was all that big. The house was decently sized and what she expected a well-off family to own given the neighborhood and its community.

What caught her attention was that it looked old. Very, very old. That meant that she would have to clean all of that up if she expected it to be habitable and, frankly, she didn't look forward to that.

She briefly considered hiring a professional clean-up crew to drop by and do it for her but she didn't want to risk them stumbling upon some sort of weapon or confidential record in there considering her birth parents' occupation.

It occurred to her that she could always just stay at a hotel, but that would make her traceable. Also, something about the house and the knowledge that it belonged to the (L/n) family-- her birth family-- just prompted her to stay.

So, with a heavy sigh, she took hold of her suitcase and began dragging her feet along the gravel path leading to the front door, grimacing at the ivy that had begun growing on the walls and fence. The grass in the front yard desperately needed to be mowed. The windows needed cleaning.

(Y/n) prayed she wasn't about to step into some sort of spider sanctuary or rat infestation.

That would be severely unpleasant.

Turning the key she had obtained from her mother's belongings in the lock, (Y/n) pushed the door open, already expecting the worst. And good thing she had done that because it really was an awful sight. The only bright spot was that she wasn't immediately met with a good chunk of the cockroach population scuttling away when she opened the door after almost two decades of it being shut.

She coughed against the blast of warm, musty air that finally got to flow out, making a face at the amount of dust on the floor.

There were definitely some spider webs in there. And maybe a few rat-holes, too. Whatever the case, she was definitely going to have to give the exterminators a call.

"What a mess," she muttered into the empty house, sighing as she grabbed her luggage and decided to haul it up the staircase. It was a wonder the wood didn't give out under her feet.

It only creaked and shifted, but it didn't crack and she was grateful for that.

The young woman managed to find the master bedroom, finding that it was in respectable condition. The curtains were open so the sunlight could filter in, and the furniture had been covered with plastic and linen coverings so once she removed those, she expected to be able to use them.

And then she saw the first photograph she had found since she arrived in the house. It was a small rectangular picture placed neatly on the nightstand that stood next to her, encased in a pretty frame decorated with seashells and beads.

Slowly, she wiped the film of grime and dust away using the linen that covered the bed, blowing away the remnants until the photo was clear.

It showed a small family. A woman in her thirties and a man of the same age with a small child in their arms, all three of them grinning toothily at the camera with wide grins and their arms around each other.

(Y/n) wasn't one to cry often. There were times when she did it out of sheer frustration because sometimes that's how her body liked to respond to stress. And she had cried when she had been taken hostage, fearing for her life because hours had seemed like days, and pain and fear had been her only realities.

And she was crying now, realizing it only when a teardrop fell onto the glass of the frame and slid down. She wasn't entirely sure why she was crying, and she was debating if it could be dust allergies, but she found herself hugging the frame to her chest and slowly sinking down onto the bed.

(Y/n) would always be so unbelievably grateful to the Yagami family, and she would never think of them as anything less than her family. But seeing her birth parents after so many years of struggling to cling onto the fading images of their faces triggered something deep inside her chest that made her heart hurt.

These were the people who had birthed her. They had loved and cared for her as best as they could when their lives were under threat. And fate had ripped them from her so cruelly.

(F/n) and (M/n) (L/n) had been killed only in their thirties. They were still too young to have their whole lives taken away from them. To have lost their dreams and hopes and their family.

They deserved to be remembered.

And here she was, removing all traces of the name they had given her. In a way, it did feel like she was disrespecting their legacy and their sacrifice.

On the other hand, she knew that this was something she would have to do if she wanted to guarantee her own safety. All that was left was blocking the adoption papers in the Japanese system, and she would officially have her first identity hidden well enough to cause any intelligence agency a good inconvenience.

And she-- of all people-- knew that 'inconvenience' for intelligence agencies went a long way with just about anyone else.

Especially when Penelope Garcia was involved.

"I'm sorry if you're mad," she whispered to the picture, fingers tracing her parents' faces. "This is what I have to do though. I hope you're okay with how I've turned out, and that you're proud. My parents now are great, but you're my parents as well, and I'll never forget that. I love you guys. So much."

Perhaps it was a little absurd to be whispering such sentimental things to a photograph, but (Y/n) didn't particularly care just then.

Placing the picture safely back where it had been before, (Y/n) sniffled, wiping away her tears as she left the room to go see the damage everywhere else.

In hindsight, sniffling wasn't the best idea because she managed to inhale a worrying amount of dust that had her coughing and sneezing simultaneously for a torturous two minutes.

Once she had recovered from her coughing/sneezing fit, it only took one look down the hallways to have (Y/n) turning back around to the room she had just left.

Deciding to throw caution to the wind, the young woman ripped over the layers of coverings over the bed and tossed them onto the sofa pushed against the wall before pulling off her Oxfords and letting herself fall onto the mattress. It only took a very brief moment to have her settled in under the covers, quickly setting an alarm for herself on her phone before she fell asleep and let her body catch up on some much needed rest.

When she woke up two hours later, (Y/n) went out into town to get herself a sandwich and some groceries that largely included cleaning supplies.

And so began the herculean task of getting the house clean.

She figured that if she didn't want to give up halfway through, she would have to take it step-by-step and actually see it through, challenging the lethargy that was already rearing its ugly head at her.

It took her a grand total of two days to get it all done when not counting the exterminators' visit, and it was added to (Y/n)'s list of experiences she would pay never to relive.

In the evening, following the exterminators' visit, she found herself leaving the house with no particular purpose in mind, simply letting her feet take her down unfamiliar paths that she supposed she might regret later if she were to forget her way back.

There was something almost poetic about walking down the relatively empty streets in a place she did not know, nothing but gray skies above to keep her company. It made her think of a life she could have had, one that stretched beyond reach like a hazy dream that was fading away.

The town was a sleepy place. One would think that time slowed down there, and everyone moved slowly. Sometimes, (Y/n) felt like she moved at that speed, too. Like she could simply fade into a background that was the visual equivalent of white noise and she would feel peace in her state of muted existence.

That was what made her so starkly different from Light.

Light Yagami strove to stand out-- he was born for it, really. The boy was built of shades of red that burned and raged and moved too quickly for her to be able to keep up with. Light was the fire that burned everything it touched and would someday consume him. And those around him? They were merely moths-- indistinguishable, unimportant, and disposable, all of them merely being drawn in by a deadly radiance.

You would get close to him because he promised you warmth, and by the time you realized that the heat was too much, there would be nothing left to salvage among the ashes.

Her Otouto was a force of destruction that could wipe out of the world if not kept in check.

And then there was (Y/n). She thought that if she were to be a color, she would most likely be blue. Not the electric or bright kind of blue that left your skin tingling with anticipation and the want for something more. No, she would be a darker shade which would be difficult to distinguish from green and black that was reminiscent of the trenches that led into the unknowns of the sea.

There was nothing particularly special that drew people in to her, but the ones that did manage to get close enough found themselves drowning in the depths of the treacherous waters that composed (Y/n) Yagami. She was the cool and collected young woman you would see at her surface, but there was much more hidden right underneath. There were hurricanes and lightning that died just as they reached the surface of her skin, never able to break through.

If Light was a flame, then she was the ocean.

Untold secrets lingered in her deepest trenches, unfound mysteries hidden away in the darkness of the waters, lying in wait for someone clever and patient enough to dive into her ocean and find them.

They were both deceptive-- different and unimaginably more than what they seemed.

The difference was that (Y/n) was unyielding, not unreasonable as Light was.

Taking a step back from the loyalty she had held for Light had provided (Y/n) with a much needed insight.

With the path that Light was currently treading, he would burn everyone close to him if he was not restrained. That, she supposed, was his 'destiny' as it was called. Her brother was born for greatness, and now it seemed that he was born for the fall from that grandeur as well.

Once, she had thought that she could keep the flame at bay. That instead of raging forest fires, Light could be the flame of the hearth that makes a home.

She knew now that, perhaps, she had thought wrong.

In her absence, Light had slipped beyond the point of where she could help him. His anger had festered and infected the deepest parts of him, and she didn't even understand why he was so angry.

And, yes, (Y/n) was a creature of passiveness who much preferred to just go with the flow to avoid the pain of standing against the current. But this hurt her just as much. Because she knew that Light could no longer be helped and it hurt her to have to consider putting out the flame that was her little brother.

She had loved this boy for eighteen years now, and despite everything else, she still loved him. Light was still her brother even though he was much too dangerous to even be kept around the family he was disturbingly willing to sacrifice.

And it pained her deep down in her chest to actively consider working against him. She had never been one for guilt, but sometimes when she looked at her little brother and at the trust and admiration blatantly visible on his face as he looked back at her, guilt was all she felt churning deep in the pits of her stomach.

She was betraying that trust, and even though she knew that it was the most logical thing to do, it was still difficult.

Every time he called her 'Nee-chan' felt like a sucker punch to her gut because she felt like she didn't deserve that title when she was murdering every sentiment behind it.

It took her arriving at a park to finally snap her out of her reckless train of thoughts. (Y/n) blinked at browning grass and deserted park, deciding that it was just as gray as the rest of the town. The whole place seemed to give off this sense of sleepiness that made her hyper-aware of any sluggishness that threatened to creep up on her as a direct result of extended exposure to the atmosphere of the place.

Figuring that she had nothing better to do just then anyways, she strolled through the open metal gates and sat down on a bench that looked over the playground close to what she assumed to be the center of the small park. It seemed that she would be spending another afternoon in her own company even though she'd made the effort to actually leave the house.

Could it be that she had gotten accustomed to having someone's presence around her most of the time? It wouldn't really be strange considering how many 'office hours' her job required her to put in which, in turn, meant that she was surrounded by her team a lot of the time.

And, of course, now she was usually at Task Force headquarters and had them around. More accurately, she had gotten used to having L around to stick his nose in even when she didn't appreciate it (which was the case most of the time).

(Y/n) almost missed having the detective around in the past few days of her trip. How amusing. Perhaps she really had lost her mind from the exhaustion or from all the time she'd had to spend around eccentric geniuses.

After all, Light and L were both as strange as they were brilliant.

She supposed she would be considered strange as well. (Y/n) doubted she could judge for herself, but it may be a safe bet to say she would fit in among the eccentrics. Although she would much prefer to just hang back with the normal folk.

The genius kind who stood out were too troublesome. It was a pity that she seemed to be surrounded by them as of late.

Drawing her out of her thoughts was the sudden chattering and laughter that floated in from the gates of the park, breathing life into the place as a considerably large group of children filed in, looking to be in much higher spirits than (Y/n) ever recalled being in her lifetime.

Ah, she was a depressing adult. She belonged in the monochrome gray of the town that seemed to be housing these colorful children.

And they really did seem to be quite the interesting bunch as a good number of them ran ahead to the playground where she was sitting while some seemed to favor going off to be away from the group. Two adults accompanied the group, lingering by the playground and supervising. The few children that remained stuck around close to edge of the playground, busying themselves with other things.

"Excuse me?" a small voice asked for her attention, and she turned to find a girl (probably ten years of age) peering up at her. "Is it okay if I sit with you?"

(Y/n) blinked at the girl and then shrugged. "Go ahead."

Taking the invitation, the girl sat down surprisingly close to the woman on the otherwise empty bench. "You aren't from here, are you?"

The (h/c)-haired woman hummed, eyeing the boy with the orange goggles as he decided to sit down next to the girl, not paying either of them any attention and choosing, instead, to remain immersed in his handheld gaming device. "Did the accent give it away?"

"Naturally," the girl confirmed, smiling in what (Y/n) categorized as self-importance. "American accent in an English town. But there's something else in there, too. I can't tell..."

Eyebrows rising, (Y/n) decided that she may as well indulge the kid if not for her own entertainment. "Japanese, I suppose." Were her eyes deceiving her or did that gamer kid just twitch and lean closer?

The girl's eyes widened in interest, and (Y/n) wondered if the child really ought to be conversing with a stranger. "Are you Japanese? You (do/don't) look it, but I didn't guess from the accent. I should have... Oh! Then you must know of the Kira case!"

Yeah, his room's next to mine, (Y/n) thought sarcastically, but only nodded outwardly. "I follow it," she responded without too much commitment, sounding disinterested at best but it wasn't close to enough to put off the girl.

"Is it scary? I mean, you're in proximity to the most notorious serial killer of our day! Oh, wait. Do you even live in Japan? You sound American, after all." The girl turned large curious eyes to (Y/n) who barely refrained from