a thimble's worth of blood – Ran doubts. Ran returns. Ran finds. Ran does not like what she finds.
Warnings: Descriptions of blood, violence, mentions of corpses, trauma.
When Ran turns back on her way to the bus stop, she is full of doubt. Mouri Ran doesn't like to feel doubt. She does not like the uncertainty of what is real beneath her feet actually being real. She doesn't think about these theories. In fact she tries very hard not to.
That is why it is very easy for her to convince herself to go back the way she had come.
There is still an undercurrent of anger from her fists to her feet, a disappointment of the first date that had gone wrong. He had not stopped talking about things he liked (but wasn't that just who Kudo Shinichi was? He was always fixated on the truth and how to create the truth and anything that was related to the truth, even when he thought of making her happy) and he had been proud of knowing it but now but now she wants to hear him talk about it again so she can be absolutely, positively sure.
He won't come back, her heart says, clear as day. He's not coming back, Mouri Ran, he's never coming back.
She wants to be sure, she can't help it she needs to be absolutely sure because the uncertainty sounds worse than death at this moment.
There's also a steady little voice in her ear telling her she'll see him again but it will never be long enough, so that doesn't help.
So she runs, dodging irritable people behind their newspapers and on their phones because this is important this is her best friend who could be dead-
How did she get to dead?
Thankfully her ticket is still good for a few more hours but that doesn't give her any answer, just places to look. Ran runs (it's in her name) but there's not much to see and find and it's getting so dark. Her father's waiting for dinner, her mother expects a call tonight to make sure she's eating well, but she's still outside-
It's just dark enough that she almost doesn't see it. She almost trips over it. But there it is, a lump on the ground. A motionless lump on the ground. She's been to enough crime scenes to know what a dead body looks like and smells like and feels like. And yet when she reaches it, she realizes:
This person is breathing. Her fingers fumble for a cell phone she remembers she can't afford and without thought, without care for the police or the possibility of whatever it was Shinichi had thought was more important than seeing her home (which was rare he always saw her home even when they were mad at each other). She gestures again as she steps closer. her legs are quaking and she doesn't know why. she doesn't want to find this, but she's going to she knows. She knows she needs to or things will be-
Different.
And now she's close enough. Now she can see-
There's a child on the ground, a child with blood on his neck and caking into his hair. Horror rises like a volcano's top but it pauses, held back by the slow recognition that builds from years and years of fuzzy nostalgic details. The same details you forgot after seeing them every day. The things you took for granted as things naturally fuzzed over.
"Shinichi?" she whispers.
The child breathes. Each breath is fast, hot, a smoke cloud. Shinichi is sixteen years old, not six.
But this is his jacket, these are his jeans. His shoes are awkward flops on the ground. His body steams.
Ran scoops up the little boy and begins the most cautious sneaking she has ever done in her life out of the park.
Either no one notices or no one cares. Even the police forget about their anonymous tip in the wake of dealing with finding the head of a body in a roller coaster ride.
She does not go home. She cannot go home with a child dressed in Shinichi's clothes, injured and sleeping like he's caught the flu. At least he has stopped steaming now, possibly due to the heavy rain. That's not better, that's worse.
She calls the professor, calls and calls, and only when he arrives, leftovers in hand, umbrella frayed, does she burst into tears.
(She shouldn't be crying, she's not a crybaby no matter what Shinichi ever said but now Shinichi might be dead or at worst he's a child.)
She doesn't feel him moving about but she hears him coughing, pathetic little things as he shivers in the paltry cover of his over-sized things. She needs to get him dry and safe and awake.
Once, of course, she stops crying.
"You're sure this is Shinichi-kun."
Ran nods. "The clothes… the, the hair, all of it..." She shivers from cold. "He said he'd see me later… like it wouldn't mean anything… he said he'd be okay but… I couldn't believe him and…"
And it all catches up to her and her legs give out and Ran goes numb right there, for a long while she just stares blankly at the wall, unable to hear or touch or move. She's not certain if she's breathing because in dreams you don't have to breathe.
Then the boy who was likely Shinichi stirs, coughs, wheezes really. It stirs her slushy, sluggish brain, but the clear blue of Shinichi's eyes stares back at her.
And yet it doesn't.
Shinichi is not staring back at her. She is sure.
He coughs and the eyes shutter closed at the pain. "Who are you?" she hears him say and the certainty becomes truth.
"Where am I?" His voice is hoarse. "Who am I?"
"Shinichi-kun?" Ran had forgotten the existence of Agasa. Really. And judging by the way little Shinichi reacts, he had too. He leaps despite the lack of strength that should exist in such a tiny body, all the way from her, still wheezing, eyes frantically wide.
"No!" he shouts. "No no no!" He continues with that single word of panic, inching closer and closer to the door with frantic steps. And it snaps Ran free like a rubber band breaks. She looks around the small library, the furthest inside the house that they could go without risking stairs. and sees two names.
"Conan-kun?" she tries, and finds her own voice is weepy and weak and not strong and this is a child a child needs something god she needs something.
His head darts to look at her and he's mouthing the word, the name, his name, over and over.
"Conan-kun," she repeats and Ran wells up in relief that her voice is stronger now. "It's okay, it was just a slip of the tongue."
"Co-nan?" he sounds out the word and her heart breaks all over again, all over the floor. She could see it if she looked down. "That's… me."
"That's you." And Agasa sounds stronger than her, than both of them. "Edogawa Conan. Ran-kun here found you outside. You must have been around a long time, you were very cold and asleep."
As if by reflex, the little boy shivers. He looks desolated.
"Who am I?" he repeats, mournful. "I can't see."
"You probably lost your glasses out here." Agasa sounds mournful, rather than able to answer. "We'll take you to the doctor's in the morning."
"Who're you?"
Ran sees the fight leaving Shinichi, sees the wariness replaced with drowsiness, with exhaustion from a real cold.
"I'm an inventor. My name is Agasa Hiroshi."
Shinichi slumps a little more but he turns his head towards Ran and she can see the slight blurriness from tears in those eyes, like he's about ready to cry himself. "An' who're you?"
Ran swallows the lump in her throat. "I'm Mouri Ran," she says through it. "My friend lives in this house. He always says I'm allowed to come over."
Shinichi blinks and his eyes droop. "You're…" He raises a hand like he's trying to point. "You're…" His head droops a little. "Ran-nee-chan?"
And he slumps over and drops entirely, all before Ran's brain can think of what to even say.
A/N: Guess who's back in DC hell after years? That's right, it's me, back after years. Don't even ask why, because I don't know. Don't worry this is about... three to five chapters in the first of a good few installments because I'm going to attempt to pace myself. Key word being attempt. Anyway, please leave a review in the box below and as always thank you for reading!