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Chapter 51 - Orphans

It's a very odd feeling to know you are being watched. Before I had even lifted my head from the pillow, I was certain that a pair of eyes were locked on me waiting until I fully awoke. The voyeur was entirely content to just sit there, possibly with a grin twitching the corners of his mouth as I feigned slumber. Tired of being such an object of interest and slightly unnerved, I sighed loudly, opening my eyes to find Anne eagerly perched on the end of my bed instead, wearing the wide grin that I was so sure had belonged to someone else.

"Everything." She sang brightly "I want to know EVERYTHING!"

I muttered something about needing to install a pass code system to enter my quarters and buried back under the covers, partly wondering how I had even ended up in my own bed anyway. The last thing I remembered was being warmly tucked into his arms and resting my head on his shoulder as my eyes had begun to droop after eating quite a good deal of cake.

This did not deter her. "Grace Deacon! I am your sister and your best friend in the world! You need to tell me right now what happened between you two because I haven't been able to think of anything else!"

"Nothing at all?" I smirked. "Poor Liam."

She let out an exasperated groan and started to shake my shoulders. "Gracie! This is no time for jokes! L won't tell me anything, so you must!"

I sat up abruptly, my face growing hot. "You have been interrogating L? Anne, he must have been mortified!"

Anne twisted her fingers together in a sheepish fashion. "Well, you were asleep, and he wasn't, you know, because he really doesn't..."

"Not uncommon but still!"

She produced a small pout. "I had to know! I've been an observer of this drama for long enough! The fact that it's finally resolved makes me hungry for every possible detail! You don't know how long I've waited to hear about this!"

"Oh, very well, I don't want to leave you in apparent agony." I finally relented. "Ask away."

Her buoyancy returned. "Okay, well for starters, and I'm really just diving in here, does he wear boxers or briefs?"

"ANNIE!" I gasped, turning even more scarlet. "I don't know that!"

My best friend and torturer doubled over with laughter and I wondered if she'd find things so humorous with the addition of a pillow being thrown at her head. "Haha! Gotcha! If you knew the answer to that, I'd probably faint!"

"I rather hope I did now, knowing the effect such knowledge would have on you." I sniffed, yawning a little. "Now, if you're quite done scaring me half to death - "

"Okay! Okay!" she sobered. "But really, how did it finally happen? I mean, Wammy and I were cooking up some plots of our own but-"

I was completely awake now. "What? Plots? What on earth do you mean by that? And Wammy?"

She sighed. "Oh, I don't know, there was one where we were going to send you both away on a "case" and then arrange it so that you were staying in the same room by some happy accident..."

My mouth fell open.

"And then the locking you in a closet until you confessed scheme was considered for a while, although that was more Fritz's idea..."

"What?!"

"Matt had the notion of writing you a love poem and making it sound like L wrote it, but even in a house of gifted kids no one could get it to sound "L" enough and then they had trouble trying to find a rhyme for "truffle". I told them just to go with your name but by then Mello had given up and said he was hungry."