Within ten minutes, Watari and Chief Soichiro Yagami had arrived at the door with first aid kits. Watari went to revive Misa, still passed out on the ground; and Soichiro headed towards his son. He stopped briefly by Jubilee's side, handing her a kit that contained bandages, dressing and an ice pack.
"Please attend to Ryuzaki, Miss Julie," he instructed in his usual serious tone that broached no protest.
Jubilee tried to anyway. "But—!" she began. The chief had already walked away.
Jubilee watched as he proceeded to attend to Light, bandaging his cuts and applying ointment to his bruises. She glanced down at the items he had dropped into her hands and grimaced.
Great. Just great.
With tremendous force of will she wiped her face of emotion, turned, and marched towards L. The detective was seated quietly on the floor, one knee up and the other leg outstretched. Without a word she knelt down, opened her kit, and proceeded to clean the cuts on his face without making eye contact with him.
L said nothing during her ministrations, but she could feel his eyes on her. She noticed him bravely retain his silence even under the sting of the alcoholic wipes, which she knew hurt, if the small lightning streaks of red spiking out from under his gray haze were any indication. Forcefully she pushed down any feelings of compassion that tried to well their way to the surface of her heart, and proceeded to apply bandages to his face with aloof precision.
Finally she held the ice pack to his jaw, which was starting to take on a similar color to his under eye circles. "Here," she ordered. "Hold this in place."
He complied wordlessly, his fingers brushing hers ever so slightly as he took over holding the ice pack. Jubilee restrained the urge to flinch, and with a great effort of will managed to succeed. Giving a quick glance at the line over his head, she took note of the fact that the gesture had been done on accident, not as some sort of manipulated test of her reaction. She started to relax.
"Thank you," he said quietly, the line over his head still intact.
Jubilee made the mistake of looking at him then. For the briefest instant her eyes made contact with his and she saw a cool, calculating expression appear in them. She looked away and quickly stood up. Just as she was about to turn away she remembered that she needed to reply.
"Right. No problem," she said as indifferently as she could, and then took her leave of him.
As she walked away, she closed her eyes. A foreboding sense of dread formed in the pit of her stomach.
He knows.
"He doesn't know," Jubilee muttered to herself back in front of her workstation. "There's no way. You're just being paranoid, Julie."
She had left Misa's room and returned downstairs before the others. The only other workers in the room with her were Matsuda and Aizawa, the latter of whom, as usual, graciously ignored her mutterings to herself.
"He doesn't know," she repeated to herself. "Stop psyching yourself out."
"Uh...Miss Julie?" asked Matsuda tentatively.
"What?" she snapped, turning on the officer like she was ready to decapitate him.
Matsuda raised his hands in self-defense. "Uh, nothing!" he squeaked. "I mean, that is...are you alright?"
"Peachy." She turned back to her computer and continued muttering to herself. After a pause she inclined her head towards him, begrudgingly grumbled, "Thanks," and continued her mutterings. Matsuda inched away.
Hellenos appeared by her shoulder. Must you scare the poor man so?
She turned on him warily. "Why? You gonna try to set me up with him, too?"
Hellenos' eyes narrowed ever so slightly. I? I have done no such thing. Matchmaking is a purely human sport; not the business of angels. Please be accountable for your own thoughts, feelings and actions.
"Accountable? This isn't my fault!" She looked sidelong at him. "Fine, it's not your fault either," she acquiesced crossly.
Hellenos' tone remained stern. Who are you blaming then? God?
Jubilee stubbornly refused to answer for a minute. I didn't ask for this, she thought at last.
You asked to see what the Father sees.
This is not what I meant! Jubilee seethed.
Regardless, you asked, and He answered. You are now capable of seeing everyone the way that He sees them. Your resulting feelings, however, are your own.
This stopped Jubilee short. Up until this point, despite acknowledging her feelings, she had not been willing to be held accountable for them. She had been unwilling to treat them as feelings of her own; but rather labeled them as being somehow forced on her. To be stripped of the excuse of being victim to some kind of heavenly brainwashing left her feeling bare, vulnerable, and disoriented.
"Miss Amachi," spoke a smooth voice by her ear.
Jubilee jumped and nearly fell out of her chair, whirling about in wide-eyed fear to face L, who had returned along with Light, Chief Yagami, and Watari. He eyed her panicked response with a measured look.
"A word, please," he said, beckoning with one pale finger.
Reason fled her brain. She could do nothing but rise to her feet in a daze and follow him like a sheep being led to slaughter. He led her to a corner of the room, where a green chaise lounge was positioned in front of a glass coffee table.
"Sit," he offered politely, gesturing to the chaise lounge.
She sat.
He perched himself in a crouch at an appropriate distance beside her. For a moment he simply stared at her in silence. Jubilee stared down at the green velvety material beneath her fingers, unable to meet his gaze. She couldn't sense Hellenos anywhere.
At last he spoke. "There is a matter that has risen to my attention, which has become necessary for us to discuss."
Jubilee said nothing. Her palms were sweaty against the velvet cushions, but her brain was too numb to even feel dread at the moment. Somehow she knew what was coming, without knowing what was coming.
"The matter of which I speak," continued L quietly, "Is the attraction that you have developed towards me."
Time felt like it had stopped. Slowly Jubilee raised her eyes to glance at the other members of the task force. They had heard nothing and were paying no attention to her, which should have given her relief, except that she was too paralyzed with shock to feel it. Surreally she watched as the other task force members all seemed to move and talk in slow motion from their workstations, as if they were worlds away, and she was watching them through a television set. On a couch. Next to L. Who had just called her out.
She turned to him, still numb. "Excuse me?"
His eyes held a thoroughly neutral and detached expression. "Naturally you will feel the need to put on a charade, Miss Amachi; but allow me to save you the time and discomfort of having to lie. Earlier I observed the increased rate of the number of breaths you took per minute while in physical contact with me, as well as the dilation of your pupils whenever we were in close proximity. This, in conjunction with your inability to focus lately, are all physiological factors pointing to a developed infatuation; and is the only logical explanation for your recent erratic behavior, as opposed to a spike in hormones due to premenstrual syndrome as you claim, which—due to the current date not matching up with the previous time frames that you have displayed the usual characteristics of a female undergoing her cycle—I can only conclude to have been a false statement."
Jubilee's brain whirled to keep up and she stared, frozen with mortification. There was probably not a single sentence he had just uttered that wasn't completely and utterly humiliating.
"As such," the pale man went on without missing a beat, "I find it necessary to discourage you from further allowance of such a disposition, as it is severely hindering your work on the case."
And that sentence took the cake.
Slowly, Jubilee began to regain control of her slack facial muscles as the cognitive processes in her brain recovered from their shock and caught up to what had just happened. She set her jaw firmly and her eyes hardened.
"Understood, boss," she said coldly. She turned to look the other way and waited for him to leave. He didn't, which only made her feel angrier.
"Your comfort and wellbeing are important to the case, Miss Amachi," he said softly. "As such, you can be assured of my utmost discretion on the subject. We need not speak of this again."
"And you can be assured that I have no desire to, nor any intention to let it get in the way of work." Jubilee's voice sounded harsh in her own ears. When he still didn't leave, she added, in a frigid tone, "Will that be all?"
L gazed at her a moment longer. "Yes, Miss Amachi," he said at last, then got up and quietly padded off.
Jubilee sat alone on the couch. Around her the sound of quiet voices came back into her awareness as the pounding rush of blood faded in her ears. She took a deep breath and cursed to herself.
The L word truly was a four-letter word.