Jane Grey

Chapter 43: Apprentixe

I woke up that morning feeling completely heavy and numb. My mind was forcing my body to just shut down and do noting whilst the rest of me screamed for activity and work. I checked the time on the clock beside the bed and saw that it was the time for breakfast, but rather than getting up I just pulled the covers over my head and wallowed in it. No clue how long I stayed there, but by the time I managed to haul myself out of bed and even brush my hair the whole house was quiet. I slipped in and out of my thoughts whilst brushing, I don't even remember picking up the brush at all or even packing it.

"So, what's on the agenda today? Stay in bed until the boys go to sleep?" A voice behind me asked, making me jump. On instinct, I threw my hairbrush in the direction of the voice. There before me was the real L, a constant reminder of who I was pretending to be and destroying the reputation of all because I can't get out of bed!
"How are you here, you're dead,"
"I'm not here. Thought you of all people would know that,"
"But how are you..." My thoughts trailed off as he picked up my projectile hairbrush and walked towards me and grabbed my hand, "How are you tangible?"
"You're smart Jane, you know the answer," He sat me down at the desk I spent most of the night at and began brushing my hair - this was quite unlike the L I was reborn around, though I imagine he would be this sort of loving brother if he hadn't had such an intense job that required all of his brain power and attention. The bags under his eyes that warranted the nickname raccoon were faded and his hair whilst still messy was more put-together than I'm used to.

I sighed deeply and slumped against the back of the chair as he carefully removed the tangles and knots, "But I'm really not, L. You put too much faith in me,"
"Jane, you forget that I don't give such trust to just about anyone,"
"You sound like Gramps," I scoffed. He finished a lot sooner than I liked, but he swerved the chair around so I faced him and grabbed the tie that was hanging loosely over the doorknob. How in the hell this was happening was beyond me. Stringing the cloth around my neck and under the collar, he began knotting it a lot more gentler than Light did the other day.

"You need to stop sitting in your head and letting all these thoughts get to you, you have a case to fullfil Jane,"
"But I'm not smart enough to do this, Light is! I can't be L, I can barely be me," he tightened the knot and then knelt down, resting a hand on my knee.
"That's just it Jane, you aren't me. But what you are is an amazing apprentice, you took note of things I said and theorised without realising it. You have the means to do this," My eyes closed in thought of his words, and when I opened them again he was gone. The room undisturbed by another person as if he was never there in the first place. I shook my head, slapped my cheeks, and left the room to confront my new coworkers.

All three of them were distracted with something of interest, whether it be something on the screens or a puzzle or even a video game, so they didn't really notice me entering the room until I greeted them. Not looking up from the screen, Mello throws in his signature charm "You're late,"
"Sorry, won't happen again hopefully,"
"Did you sleep alright?" Near asked, not sparing me a glance from his puzzle which looked to be completely...blank?
"Yeah, yeah I slept fine thanks." Roger came up behind me, handing me a cup of tea whispering that my face says otherwise. But I digress. we all congregated together in the centre of the room, sharing notes of what we already know and filling in details that were obscured for them - turns out they were kept relatively in the dark about the Kira case and yet still knew a substantial amount to contribute.

"So you're asking us to profile?" I nodded. We sorted through the profile's of suspects I had compiled form before and after Light-Kira and Misa-Kira to see what they could make of it. However there was nothing that we could draw from them aside from motive and there was no way that we could investigate virtually every person in Japan and the potential for a motive. I grew very hot with frustration, all of this work and it got us nowhere already.

"This is bullshit, we're going nowhere!"
"Thanks for pointing out the obvious, Sherlock"
"Oh shut the fuck up Matt."

Just shut up

"Have you got any bright ideas then Mello?"
"Better than you do!"

Please just shut up

"Well do share these ideas, we'd LOVE to hear them,"
"Oh my God just shut the fuck up!" I finally yelled and it fell silent, my chest rising and falling rapidly, "So we've reached a dead end, so what? We just retrace,"

"You forget we've had no lead to begin with," Near mentioned, twirling a bit of his hair in his fingers. I fiddled with my sleeve cuff, just hoping and praying that I'll get an answer if I relied on the pieces of metal connecting my jacket and shirt. I felt a big headache coming on, a sign of my medicine wearing off (though I could've figured that out by the hallucinations), "Look, I gotta go take my medicine. I'll be back in an hour. We'll figure something out," and so I took a step out into the gardens with a glass of water in hand. Sat down against the wall, watching the children playing amongst the grass a few feet from where I was sat and began to ponder how different things would be if I actually could step up to the plate and solve this case; L solved my case within a week and there wasn't anything connecting me to my kidnappers, he also narrowed down Light as a suspect within merely a month. So why the fuck can't I do that even with more information than he did?

But that's just it, I'm not L. I'm Jane, the Queen for nine days. What I can be is Gramps' granddaughter and Lawliet's sister, the one with the scholarship, the apprentice. I can do this, we've just gotta build the case from the beginning. Right?