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Chapter 27 - Conversations

I sat at the breakfast table the next morning eating a bowl of Corn Flakes and struggling to keep my eyes open. I hadn't slept the night before. I sometimes tended not to following nightmares, and after the horrifying one I had endured, I knew I was never going to let sleep hit me. The gun, the struggle, the threatening voice. Was that what my dear mother had heard in her last moments when her crazed husband had burst into the sitting room with his hunting rifle and killed her? Had she forgiven him as she breathed her last? I knew that I never could.

I chewed the same spoonful of cereal as I thought more. How on earth had Wammy held it together and visited him in prison for L? Why hadn't he just told L that he felt uncomfortable doing so? I remembered L saying he only learned who Huxley was because I looked like him, that Wammy hadn't said a word until he questioned him about it. What a shock that must have been and despite the unkind way I treated him, L still hadn't told anyone. Wammy had probably wanted to dive across the table to strangle Huxley himself in that room, but had maintained his composure. I was starting to fear that I could never keep that sense of control. Maybe I was never cut out for being L after all. It was difficult to aspire to something that I could only become when the man I loved was dead. Recently, I had been surprised to discover I was much more content with staying G and never having to ascend at all. My heart ached at the thought of losing him. I didn't wish to sleep and have that horror assault me again.

The kitchen door swung open and Jude entered, still in pajama bottoms and a t-shirt, his blue hair tousled and his eyes looking like they had had less sleep than me.

"Good morning." I greeted him, as he yawned and walked over to the larder to hunt down some breakfast.

"Grace." He nodded in reply before going back to his foraging.

I could leave it at that. The fact that Jude actually responded when spoken to was an accomplishment L greatly deserved praise for in itself. I still found it funny though that when L was fourteen he had possessed a worse attitude than Jude and now he was teaching him manners.

I set down my spoon while he pulled out a tin of baked beans and set it on the counter. "Um, Jude? I have something to say to you."

He sighed from where he was opening the drawer to find a tin opener and turned to me tiredly, taking in my look. "You're welcome." he grumbled and went back to his search.

I was little taken aback, but smiled all the same. It was still a bit odd that he could know what I planned to say before I did. "Oh, right. And Anne and-"

"Liam are getting married, I know." He snapped as he opened his tin of beans and dumped them into a pot he began to heat on the range. "I bloody know everything."

He didn't say it with a tone of superiority or one of disgust, simply fact. Frustrated fact that of course he would know everything. He needed only one look in a person's eyes to know their history, hopes, fears, even the next words already formed in their mind and about to impart from their lips.

"Yes, I suppose you do." I agreed, taking a sip of orange juice as he huffed over to the toaster with four slices of bread. "But I think it's still rather nice to tell you instead of just assuming."

"Never assume, right?" He rolled his eyes with a smirk as he crossed back over to check his beans. "Detective's code and all that?"

"It doesn't just have to be detectives." I shrugged, scraping the bottom of my bowl for the soggy remnants of breakfast. "Just better than treating you like it's not worth any time to converse. I wouldn't want people not telling me things just because they thought I already knew them."