"Fifty Springs"

by Acey

Packing is easy, but she tells Light she needs help, anyway, just so she can see him sigh and make that rueful look just for her, as he starts to put her things in cardboard boxes.

He tells her she ought to use labels, be organized. Misa, Light says, Misa, we'll get to our (our—mine and his and no one else's) apartment and we'll be opening the boxes and it'll be a mess trying to find what to put where, without labels.

Misa says she doesn't need labels, not when she has him, and she blushes perfectly and tilts her head down (hopefully Misa did it right, hopefully he'll take me now).

This is the fairy-tale part where he should smile and kiss her, and he does, but his eyes are on the (damn) boxes, surveying his just-begun kingdom, though his arms are around her waist.

When they unpack her things at their apartment, Misa admits to Light things she won't ever tell any interviewer.

"Misa… likes martyrs," she says hastily, feeling foolish, as he opens a box to find a framed print of an apostle, all golden aura and holy expression. "Especially Stephen. That's Stephen."

Light probably already knows it, but Misa goes into an explanation anyway, and he acts, at least, as if he has never heard it before.

"Stephen—wouldn't deny his beliefs, to the very end, and they said it was blasphemy so they stoned him on the streets and he died there, not even trying to run or stop them—just like that, on the streets. Still praying."

Light doesn't answer.

"Misa thought it was beautiful that anyone could believe something so much."

(Misa believes in you that much)

(Misa would die for you like that, oh, Misa would, let the whole world think Kira is evil, let them say whatever they please—Misa will defend you, let them cast their stones but let them cast them all on her, not you, never, ever you)

(because Misa loves you)

"D-don't you think that's beautiful?" Misa drops her glance to the picture in his hands, Saint Stephen's face turned toward heaven. Stephen's robes of red and gold, symbolic of the testimony sealed with blood and oh, Light, Misa loves you, Misa does, she does—

"Yes, that's beautiful."

He takes her and he kisses her again and she thinks Ryuk is laughing but oh, she doesn't care, she doesn't care. Suddenly all the cardboard boxes are forgotten (and it's wonderful, it's ecstasy, it's the fairy-tale come to life when he—), traded in for things that might (shall) last forever.

And that night Misa sleeps in the arms of her god and thinks surely, for this one lovely moment (as Stephen's picture hangs on the wall), martyrdom is its own reward.

finis