September 28, 1998
Moscow, Russia

It was dark in the small and simple prison cell. Dim light from the hallway streamed in through the window on the locked door, casting a small square on the floor.

In the bunk above, Sasha slept soundly.

But on the bottom bunk, Anya Petrova was wide awake.

She was lying on her side with one arm bent under her head and the other resting on her round, pregnant belly. She laid still and soundless, breathing slowly and steadily, waiting for what she knew was coming again any second now.

She'd been at this for four hours.

And then, there it was.

Anya gripped a handful of her pillow and concentrated on breathing evenly as her abdomen tightened in another contraction. Scrunching her eyes, she turned her face into her pillow and tucked her lips in to keep a moan from escaping them.

Only a few more seconds...

Anya bit her lip and arched her back.

This was a big one, and it lasted nearly a full minute.

And then, almost in an instant, it subsided. Panting quietly, Anya lifted her slender, blue eyes and read the digital clock on the wall.

4:21a.m.

5 minutes apart.

Groaning softly, she rolled over onto her back and flopped her arms out beside her with her palms facing upward. She closed her eyes and just laid there, taking in these last few moments of peaceful silence.

Above her, Sasha started to snore loudly.

Anya scowled in annoyance and lifted her foot to kick the bunk above her, but her rather rotund figure kept that from being successful. Instead, she lifted an arm and thrust herself up just enough to punch the wooden bunk before falling back into the mattress.

Her cellmate stirred and mumbled in irritable disapproval, "What, Anya?"

"You sound like a lawn mower!" Anya hissed from below.

The two girls, both 21, had become friends over the past eight months. While Sasha was a little more on the rougher and harsher side than Anya, both had come from similar backgrounds and shared much in common.

"Why are you even awake?" Sasha asked groggily.

Anya sighed. "I... I can't sleep," she whispered loudly, hoping that her friend would just shut up so it could be quiet again for just a few more blessed minutes.

But Sasha whispered back, "Is everything okay?"

Rolling her eyes back in exasperation, Anya groaned. "Ughh, Sasha! I'm fi- ahh ah ow!" Another contraction gripped her abdomen, and Anya quickly brought one hand to her lower stomach, scrunching her eyes tightly.

Sasha's upside-down face appeared next to her. "Uh... you don't look fine," she quipped.

Anya tried to wave a hand dismissively, but suddenly, the contraction intensified. She dropped her head back and let out a sharp cry.

Both of Sasha's feet landed on the floor next to the bunk. She knelt down and folded her arms on the mattress.

"Yeahh, you're not fine," she said bluntly.

The contraction eased, and Anya relaxed, breathing heavily. She turned to look at her friend with the long, blonde dreadlocks and grey-blue eyes that sparked like the sky before a storm.

Sasha reached out and flicked away a piece of Anya's bangs that were starting to stick to her dampening forehead.

"Been awhile?" she asked quietly.

Anya nodded, her breathing jagged. "Since around midnight."

"Hm. That sucks."

Anya reached out and backhanded her friend's arm. "Yah, no kidding," she groaned, rubbing her sore belly.

"Everything alright in there?" A female voice came from the other side of the door.

The girls looked at eachother. Sighing, Anya nodded. It would seem that the quiet stillness was officially over.

Sasha turned toward the door. "Anya's in labor," she informed the guard.

And so it began. The lights came on in the room, the prison medics came to transfer Anya to the hospital wing, and through all the noisy chaos, the contractions continued to come relentlessly, gradually becoming stronger and closer together.

Once they reached the delivery room, Anya dressed into a hospital gown. But before climbing up into the bed, she turned to the midwife and asked if she happened to have a camera on her.

"I do, actually," the plump, middle-aged woman in the scrubs and white sneakers said kindly. "Would you like me to take a couple photos when your baby is born?"

"Oh, would you?" Anya requested with feeling. "And actually, could we take one right now?" She looked down at her big, round belly and placed both hands lovingly over the thin, printed fabric draping over it. "I'd like to have kind of a 'before and after,' you know?"

The midwife nodded understandingly as she opened a drawer and took out a little black camera.

"Oh... wait..." Anya turned and placed both hands on the side of the bed and dropped her chin down to her chest. "Ow... owww..." She gritted her teeth and endured the painful contraction until it passed moments later. Standing upright again, she lifted her hands to rub her face.

"We'd better take this picture now," she said with a tired little laugh. "I'm not gonna be able to smile soon."

The midwife agreed. Anya ran her fingers through her short hair, fluffing the two long pieces around her face. Then, she took a deep breath and posed with a big smile and a perky two-thumbs-up.

The camera clicked and the midwife chuckled. "You make it look easy," she teased.

"Ha!" Anya scoffed as she climbed rather cumbersomely into the bed and under the clean, white sheets.

The midwife was looking over her chart now. "So, I see you're having a boy," she observed.

Anya looked down at her belly again. "Mhmm."

"Do you have a name?"

A tightness suddenly formed in Anya's chest.

A name.

It had been a name that had started all of this. A name that she had been hired to obtain. A name that was still unknown to her.

But there was another name that was more than good enough for her, as it was the one she had come to love; and she'd had it picked out from the very beginning.

"Bennett," she said softly.

And she saw him then, as clearly as though he were standing right beside her. The world-renowned legend known to the rest of the world as L would always be Cayde Bennett to Anya Petrova. The quiet, quirky detective with the wild, black hair and the dark, shadowed eyes. The childishly competitive insomniac with the deep, monotonous voice and the curved, barefooted posture.

Anya knew she would never see him again... that he would never even know they had a son.

"It's a nice name," the midwife commented, and Anya looked up from being lost in her thoughts.

She smiled. "Thank you," she said. "I think so too."

The hours passed slowly for Anya. An IV needle was put in her arm and taped onto the back of her wrist. Wires connected her to monitors that kept track of the consistency and intensity of her contractions and little Bennett's healthy, steady heartbeat.

By mid-afternoon, she was asking for Sasha. She was miserable and desperate for a familiar face. The guard agreed to let them have thirty minutes together, and soon thereafter, Sasha shuffled into the room, her hands cuffed in front of her.

She sat down in a chair next to Anya, who was curled up on her side with one pillow between her legs and another being hugged to her chest.

"How's it going, hun?" Sasha inquired. The handcuffs' metal chain clinked as she folded her arms atop the bed.

Anya smiled as best she could. "A little better now that you're here," she said tiredly.

And then a sudden cry escaped her as she squeezed her eyes shut and clenched her jaw.

Sasha made a face likened to a sympathetic pout and reached out to rub Anya's shoulder as she groaned agonizingly through the painful contraction.

"Poor thing," Sasha mumbled.

Anya's face was buried in the pillow she was hugging and her words were muffled. "Ughh, I can't do this, Sasha," she lamented, her voice shaking.

Sasha just kept rubbing her friend's arm. "Yes you can, you can do this, hun."

"No, I mean..." Anya lifted a tear-streaked face and sniffed as she bushed damp strands of hair out of her cobalt blue eyes. "I mean... I can't be a mother." She turned her shoulders so that she was looking upward and, placing one hand over her eyes, she began to cry softly.

Sasha was quiet. Finally, she asked plainly, "Do you want to be?"

Anya looked at her friend. She nodded and swallowed, big tears trailing from her slender, blue eyes. "Well, yes. I mean, I don't want to give him away." She lifted an upturned hand helplessly. "But I just feel like he... he deserves more than I can give him, you know?"

Sasha tipped her head. "You have a lot to give, Anya," she said sincerely. "You're strong and you're brave. And I've already seen the way you talk to him. You just keep taking care of him the way that you have been- one step at a time, one foot in front of the other- and that boy is gonna have everything he needs."

Anya couldn't answer as another contraction overwhelmed her entire being. But she reached out and squeezed her friend's hand, nodding.

She knew Sasha was right. She knew that as soon as she saw him, all would be right in the world. She just had to get through this agonizing process.

The guard ended up letting Sasha stay for over an hour, but eventually, she had to leave. Anya labored on, taking one torturous contraction at a time. She tried standing up for awhile with her forearms on the bed and her chin tucked down to her chest. Then she laid down again, first on her back, then on her side, tossing and turning and adjusting pillows in every way imaginable. Miserably and painfully, she was unable to get even the least bit comfortable and still, Bennett took his time. The hours ticked slowly by.

It was dark outside again by the time the midwife finally announced that it was time. Anya was rolled over onto her back and propped up by pillows. The midwife situated herself on a stool in front of her and then nodded, like a commander giving an order.

Anya nodded back and took two deep breaths. Then, with her knees bent up to her ears, she arched her back and pushed with everything she had.

"Oh, good girl, Anya. That's perfect."

Anya vocalized her effort through gritted teeth.

"Good! Ok you can go ahead and relax for a minute." The midwife smiled at Anya. "It looks like he's got a lot of hair," she commented.

One corner of Anya's mouth lifted in a smile as she panted steadily, waiting for the next contraction.

An hour and a half went by like this, with Anya moaning in wearied agony between pushes that made her yell out in excruciating torment.

Then, at 9:58p.m., Anya gave one final sharp cry as, at long last, her son was delivered. Her whole body was shaking as she fell back exhausted into the pillows, her face and chest damp with sweat. Never in her life had she felt this spent.

But then she heard it. A tiny cry, full of life.

Her eyes fluttered open. He was really here.

Slowly, Anya lifted herself up onto her elbows just as the midwife approached her with a tiny bundle.

"Congratulations," the midwife said, beaming, and she placed the blanketed newborn into his mother's arms.

And suddenly, it was as though the world itself stopped spinning. All at once, the purest, most overwhelming sensation completely engulfed her and coursed through the very essence of her being, and Anya knew she would never be the same.

"Hi, baby," she whispered. She brought one trembling hand up to her mouth and rested her fingers against her lips. "Oh, you look just like him," she said softly.

Bennett's tiny fist rested gently against the rosy pink skin of his swollen little face. He made airy little baby noises as his long fingers opened and then closed again. His eyelids fluttered but remained shut, revealing for only a brief second a bright shade of blue beneath soft, delicate lashes.

Anya reached out her hand and carefully cradled the back of his head with it, brushing her thumb back and forth tenderly over his silky, black hair.

And then without warning, she began to cry. So many emotions flooded over her all at once.

Love like this was nonexistent until this very moment.

She shifted to lay on her side and held her Bennett close to her, resting her forehead against his. Her tired and sore body shook with sobs as tears ran unashamedly in streams down her face.

Life had not been kind to the young street girl from Moscow. Being alone was something she had grown accustomed to. Living on the streets had shaped her into a strong and independent woman, but it had also caused her to live a difficult life weighted with loneliness and mistrust.

But now... now she had him. This tiny little bean of a person. Here at last was someone that was her very own to love.

And to the end of her days, Anya was never alone again.