Chapter Text
It was too sudden, Quillsh Wammy thought. The way his chest clenched and tightened. He almost thought it cinematic. As though this was the cue upon which he was meant to claw at his shirt and groan. An actor playing his role. He knew what this was, of course. He knew what it meant.
But his first thought was for L.
As a storm whipped at the trees outside, Quillsh Wammy, codename Watari, sounded an alarm to warn L and the investigation team of the impending doom. The beeping was immediately grating. The lights across the entire complex cut to a brilliant, ominous red. On the frontmost of the monitors that crowded Watari's small base of operations, he could see L, crouched in his usual strange way in his seat. Could see the way his head jerked ever so slightly as the lights changed and thunder crashed outside. L's expression darkened at the commotion, and Watari knew he had understood. This was it.
Watari had always known, in a way, that he would follow L until the very end. The most brilliant mind that the Wammy House had ever produced, L's existence had fundamentally changed the intention of the Wammy House entirely. Watari had taken in many children, but L had always been his enduring pride and joy. He'd never said it in words - it would have done them no good to dwell on such things when there was so much important work to be done, and L had never been the sappy type. Watari had come to learn L's many quirks rather quickly, and eventually the quirks became normal. The ways in which L sat, fidgeted, and ate were each just another part of him. It would have been much stranger without them.
Watching L on the monitor now, Watari found himself mired in his memories of the boy, playing them at random like a broken cd changer. Teenager, child, adult. They had spent around twenty years together, and most of it was geared towards honing L's investigative abilities. Not a lot of time for fun and games, although solving mysteries always did seem like it was fun and games to L. Only twenty years. L was still so young. Watari could still remember the last time he had held L's hand. Watari reached out through his pain towards the monitor directly before him. To anyone else, L's expression would have seemed no different than usual. He'd never been paticularly expressive as a child either, despite his large, dark, doe-like eyes. But to Watari it was crystal clear that he was confused. Surprised. Perhaps a little frightened. The thought made Watari's chest clench in a different way.
Kira had already gotten him, but he knew L would be next.
It was that thought that pained him the most.
They had always known that his detective work would be a dangerous venture for L. That baiting highly skilled criminals obviously results in a number of people who want to see you dead. But for a brief moment Watari was no longer his associate. He was his father. And he didn't give a damn about logic and reasoning. He desperately wanted to dash out of that surveillance room and scoop L up in his arms, a pointless gesture to somehow shield him from Kira. But his body was fighting him just to simply keep his arm outstretched. He could only stare, transfixed by the monitor image of L before him, as if he could will Kira to let him be, as if L would continue to live so long as he did not avert his gaze. He would have watched over L until his very last breath, but he knew he had such precious little time.
"Watari?" L called through the monitor. His voice dissolved into Watari's spinning memories and he sounded like a child again. Watari recalled the first time L had tasted a strawberry and how it was also the first time Watari had seen L smile.
He needed to do what L had asked of him.
He moved his extended hand to reach instead for the keyboard, and fumbled for the emergency button behind it. Groaning, with waning strength and a head fuzzy with pain, he pushed it. One by one, the monitors around him flickered to static and then displayed the message;
ALL DATA DELETION.
"Watari!" The monitor with L on it was the last to go. Now that the worst scenario had been realized, he did sound frightened. Watari would have liked to go and comfort him. His remaining strength was sapped from him and he collapsed to the floor.
The first time L had solved a breakthrough case, he had been eight years old. Watari recalled how the investigative teams had been none too impressed to have been shown up by a child. L was never wrong in his deductions, so if L was convinced that Light was Kira, Watari had never given it a moment's doubt. And now, it was too late. By removing both Watari and L from the equation, Kira would have free reign. The kids - Mello and Near - weren't ready yet. They would make a brilliant team one day if only they'd quit their bickering. But it was too soon for them. They weren't ready. Watari had always known he would follow L to the end, but he hadn't expected it so soon. It was too soon.
Watari wished he had, just once, told L how proud he was of him.