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Chapter 33 - Heroes

My bleary eyes opened in the morning to see Anne sitting down on the foot of my bed, perky and the picture of health with her smile oh so knowing. Damn her.

I groaned and covered myself with the blanket. "Leave me be..." I droned, my head pounding; my stomach upset. I'd never felt as dreadfully rotten in my life as I had last night and this morning wasn't feeling much better.

"That's what you get for downing three pints, leading a sing-song of Rule Britannia on top of a chair in the middle of the pub and then doing your approximation of the tango with Wood." Her smarmy grin was too much to bear. "I swear, another side of you came out last night, Gracie. I couldn't believe it."

"Well, as long as I did nothing stupid." I rolled my eyes and then turned my face away from the weak sunlight permeating the curtains. "But that's not why I have this awful headache, I promise you."

She tsked her tongue. "Oh, come on, he wasn't that bad..."

"Four hours, Annie! Four hours of us saying the exact same thing over and over—well, perhaps three hours for me with the running to the loo and all." I sat up slowly and yawned. "Yes, L is the L. How many times does it need to be said before it sinks in?"

At that moment, someone knocked on the door, and we both jumped. "Uh, is everybody decent in there?" Liam asked from the other side, still not sounding his regular happy self.

I covered my ears and sighed as Anne let him in. "Good morning, Hun. Do you feel better today?" she asked kissing his cheek.

"Er, yeah. Now, let me get this straight..." Liam sat down on the other bed, cradling his head in his hands. "L, the L, the world famous detective that no one's ever seen, and The Sun is always running articles about who he might be, that L is the L we know personally?"

Oh God, it was a repeat performance! I let out a gusty sigh and nodded, leaning against my pillow, preparing to at least make myself comfortable. "Yes, Liam. He's not the son of Bat Boy or whatever claptrap they're pushing this week."

"But, but he's so young. I mean, how old is he?" Liam turned to Anne, obviously still having some trouble getting his head around the fact.

"L is twenty-three." His fiancée supplied. "Almost twenty-four."

"Twenty-three? He's younger than me! How long has he been at it, then?"

"He's been active around nine years." I explained. "He was quite young when he started out."

"But, but, he doesn't seem the type of bloke! I mean from the look of him and all. He was nice enough, but it wasn't like he was really analyzing me and seeing if I was good enough for Annie! He did interrogate me a bit, oh God! That gulag he talked about, where I'd spend the rest of my days, Grace, Is that real?!"

"No, he likely made that up." I smiled slightly. "But interrogating you was my job, although I had asked him for help."

"Right!" Liam's eyes were still white all around the irises. "That's another thing. How have you girls grown up with him? It's got to be hard, I mean, he's the greatest crime fighter ever! Better than Superman and Batman combined!"

"Lee, they aren't real!" Anne giggled a little. "And like I told you before about L, he always isolated himself from us and he only starting opening himself up to us last spring. Before, we hardly talked, and G and he fought like cats and dogs whenever he was home."

"I'm not the least bit surprised by that," he remarked turning to me. "I only met the pair of you yesterday and you've already had more than a couple rows!"