Part Two
When the phone rang, Ran went to the sink to wash her hands. She had just been starting to cook dinner, when the annoying ring sliced through the air. Her father, undoubtedly, was watching television and therefore "too busy" to pick up the phone, leaving her to do it.
So help me; if that's another sales call...
Conan would be home soon, and Ran knew that then she'd have two hungry mouths to feed. She had gotten home late as it was because Sonoko had dragged her into a lingerie shop; she had nearly died of embarrassment! With dinner being off to a late start, she was expecting complaints from the two boys of the house and she really didn't have the time to fend off people who always called during dinner hours to sell some random product they didn't need.
"Mouri Detective Agency," she greeted politely.
"Ran-chan?"
"Yes?"
"I'm Ayumi's mother. I believe we've met on a few occasions."
Ran's eyes widened and a trickle of worry slid down her spine. "Yes, how can I help you?"
"Conan-kun needs a ride home and I'm afraid neither my daughter nor I can do that."
"Oh?" Ran blinked. "He should be able to walk home from your apartment. It's not that far."
"Sorry, dear," Yoshida sighed over the phone. "I'm so scattered right now I'm not making sense. We're at Beika General Hospital."
"EH?"
"Conan-kun and Mitsuhiko-kun came with us when we took Ayumi to the hospital. Could you come pick him up? I..." Ayumi's mother took a moment as her voice wavered. "I'm sorry. Things have just been so crazy that I can't look after children right now."
"I understand," Ran said quickly, "I'm on my way." She hung up the phone and ran into the living area. "Dad! Hurry! We need to go!"
Her father, Kogoro, glanced up from his precious television. "Now what?" he grumbled.
"We need to pick up Conan-kun!"
"That freeloader?" Kogoro looked mournfully at his television. "Let him walk."
"Dad! He's at the hospital!"
"Wha? Why?"
"He had to watch a friend of his get transported to the hospital. She's very sick and Conan-kun's probably scared and worried! You have a driver's license, so get off that sofa," she loomed over him, fist raised, "get your coat and shoes," she brought her fist down, "and take us to the hospital now!" and as the fist connected with a pillow, it scattered feathers into the air.
Her father gave a weak "Yes!" before stumbling off the couch to find his keys and coat.
The drive to the hospital seemed interminable. There was a major accident - somewhere - and the rubberneckers and morbidly curious caused full-stop traffic for miles. Kogoro was muttering a long litany of offenses under his breath, his diatribe including words such as: "Freeloader," and "Sponge," and "No account, good-for-nothing brat," paired with phrases like "The things he puts me through," "The trouble I go to," and "For what? No thanks for the man of the house."
Ran wasn't listening to him, and frankly, all the cars honking and his intelligently low tones kept her from picking out more than phrases. To be sure, her mind wasn't on anything about her father, it was entirely about a little boy who had fallen into her life.
It was overwhelming her; her worry for Conan. No doubt the boy would remember when he was shot and how scary it was. He'd been so brave at the time; the other children had regaled her with how level-headed he had remained, even in such pain as he had been, and how he had calmly lead them out of danger in that cave - a summer adventure that had gone excitedly, horribly, frighteningly wrong. It had been that resolute calmness in dire emergencies, then and many other times, which had first put the inkling in her head.
For so long now, she'd harbored suspicions and denials about him. Despite repeated evidence to the contrary, there was always a portion of her that had latched onto the idea that the cute, adorable, and far-too-intelligent Conan-kun was her dearest friend and person who held her heart: Shinichi. She wasn't entirely certain how the suspicion had become such a strong belief. After all, it was impossible for a human being to lose ten years of age. But once the thought had been created, peculiar things about one seven-year-old Edogawa Conan started to make sense.
Belying the calmness in the face of danger, there was the near countless other similarities that precipitated the suspicion. Little Conan, for one thing, was far too intelligent for his age. She watched him do his homework, taking time to work out math problems, reading something slowly, but it was the times she didn't watch, the times she was in the kitchen or he was in his room, when the schoolwork was mysteriously done in a flash and decidedly perfect in computation, explanation, spelling, grammar, and even embellishment. That perfection, however, was often hidden in erase lines, as what was loosely considered more "grade equivalent" answers were written over them. Ran knew how intelligent Shinichi was and how smart both his parents were, and so she had at first just filed it away as a genetic trait. Conan clearly knew how smart he was, and trying to hide it was natural, Ran rationalized, so he wouldn't stand out so much and be picked on by the other children. She did wonder if he shouldn't be put in an accelerated program, but she remembered what even someone as arrogant as Shinichi had gone through when he was younger. It may not have affected him, being called all those names and the ridicule he faced, but Ran was angry and hurt for him, and she didn't want that stigma for Conan.
Secondly were the mannerisms. The hands in the pockets, the ever-sparkling look of curiosity, even how the boy ate. When Ran had noticed that Conan twirled his chopsticks as he ate, she openly stared, because it was a habit unique to Shinichi. Even she, a martial arts master, did not have the dexterity to spin and wheedle chopsticks and other silverware around her fingers of even one hand. To see a seven-year-old, distantly related cousin do just that was jarring. There was also the arrogant smirk - something Conan didn't show often, but just enough for Ran to double take whenever she saw it, because it was Shinichi's face when that smirk crossed his features. She constantly had to remind herself that it was a fluke, a genetic accident that a distant cousin looked so like the boy she had grown up with and grown to secretly love.
But when it was all added together, mannerisms or looks that were intimately personal, shared only between her and Shinichi, and to see them coming from Conan made her wonder.
She violently shoved those thoughts aside. Conan or a mini-Shinichi the point was that someone important to her had watched a friend be taken away by an ambulance. Shinichi hated it when people were hurt; it was part of why he was so passionate about catching murderers. He couldn't stand being sick either; he'd had no patience for it as a kid and Conan tended to show similar (amazingly similar) feelings. If his friends at school were out sick, Conan would whine about how annoying it was to catch them up. If Kogoro was down with the flu, Conan had zero patience and poked and prodded him if her father needed to do something. The only difference Ran had ever noticed was when she, herself, was sick. Conan was extra thoughtful and considerate, always attempting to do things for her.
She smiled at that thought. Just a few weeks ago she'd had the flu, and Conan had somehow managed to navigate the kitchen and make her favorite soup. The bowl was giant and he could barely hold it as he carried it into her room, and he didn't have enough leverage to lift it onto her bed. She'd been so touched she grabbed him into a fierce hug, and he came away from it distinctly flushed. If it was from embarrassment or something else, she couldn't tell; he quickly ducked his head and mumbled something before escaping the room.
And she started to wonder again.
Upon arriving at the hospital, Ran had expected to just ask for Ayumi's room number and to go there to get Conan. What she certainly hadn't expected was to be told that Ayumi was in the Intensive Care Unit. Both Ran and her father paused at that.
"Is Ayumi-chan really that sick?"
The nurse at the desk shrugged. "Sorry, I don' really know. Are you family?"
"No," Kogoro replied. "But a boy we're taking care of was there when the girl was taken in an ambulance. Her mother called us to come pick him up."
"I see." She offered the two of them a sympathetic smile. "The ICU is on the sixth floor. I'm sure you'll be able to find your boy up there."
"Thank you," Ran replied, heading straight for the elevators. She already knew where the ICU was from when Conan had been shot. He'd spent a day up there after his surgery for monitoring before being moved to the patient wards. Biting a nail, Ran worried about how Conan would be.
She couldn't decide whether to be surprised or not when she found the boy.
He was sitting in a seat, his legs swinging back and forth above the floor, as he held his chin deep in his hand, brow furrowed in thought. The face he wore made her still; it was Shinichi's face, cranial activity being processed in bulk just behind his eyes, the blue orbs darting back and forth in minute gestures, cataloging and working so fast that even his eyes could not keep up. Ran could only stare in wonder, before firmly shaking her head and pushing her suspicions aside. Taking a deep breath, she put on her "Big Sister" face and bent down.
"Conan-kun?"
The small boy started, looking up and blinking at Ran's suddenly larger-than-life face. Something that looked vaguely like panic washed over his face for a fraction of a second before a (seemingly) more natural look of worry settled on his features.
In a small, quiet voice, all Conan said was, "Ran.... nee-chan..."
Compassion for this boy swelled within her, no matter who he was. Just the quiet offering of her name said more on how he was affected by the afternoon's events than any other statement could, and Ran didn't hesitate in the slightest to sweep him up into a hug. He stiffened in her arms briefly, having never seemed to like physical contact, before his tiny arms reached up and wrapped around her neck as he buried his head into his shoulder. For a moment, Ran felt something. Something very strong. But it was gone as Conan pulled away and out of her embrace.
"Mitsuhiko-kun's already gone home," he said quietly, turning to look at the doors into the ICU. "I can't see either Genta-kun or Ayumi-chan."
Ran was about to offer some comforting words when what Conan said caught up with her. "Both Genta-kun and Ayumi-chan?" The child nodded morosely, the picture of a boy who had lost his friends. She ran a hand through his hair. "Let's find out what's going on, shall we?"
Conan nodded with a tiny grin before automatically reaching up to hold her hand. Together, they walked over to Kogoro, who was chatting with a very pretty nurse.
Or trying to chat.
To avoid any major problems, Ran reached over with her free hand and yanked at her father's ear. The nurse gave a small, thankful smile and Ran nodded. She gave Conan's hand a squeeze.
"Excuse me, but would you mind if we inquire about a few patients here in the ICU?"
"Not at all," the nurse replied. "Let me know the names and I'll check with the families. Once they give the okay, I'll be happy to answer your questions."
"Kojima Genta-kun and Yoshida Ayumi-chan," Conan replied. "I haven't heard anything since we came with Ayumi-chan to the hospital."
The nurse blinked, looking down at the small boy before leaning over. "I haven't noticed you at all around here. What a well-behaved little boy you are. I'll go check right now on your friends."
With the nurse heading back into ICU, Ran, Conan, and her father were alone in the hall. Ran looked down at the strange little boy that had taken up residence in her life and knelt down to him.
"While she's getting some information, why don't you tell us a little bit about what happened this afternoon, Conan-kun?"
The boy nodded. "Mitsuhiko-kun and I went to see Genta-kun first..."
And thus came the story of finding Genta's father packing pajamas for his son and being told that Genta was in the hospital with some strange symptoms. Following that, Conan and Mitsuhiko rushed over to Ayumi's to check on her, but during the visit Ayumi seemed took a turn for the worst and her mother and sister had taken her here.
"Nobody will tell me anything," Conan said in a soft whine. "All Mitsuhiko-kun and I could do was follow Ayumi-chan's mother and Nee-chan around."
Ran's father muttered something under his breath, but she ignored him. "This must have been very scary for you, Conan-kun."
"There's just no information." And for a moment, Conan's face held frustration. Strong, sharp, and painful frustration. And in that moment, it was Shinichi she was looking at instead of a seven-year-old boy. Ran mentally shook herself.
"Boy, have you been pestering the doctors and nurses here in your attempt to play detective?" Kogoro growled.
"I'm not playing!" the boy retorted, his eyes fierce even behind his glasses.
"Dad, really," Ran chided quickly, coming to the boy's defense. "Now isn't the time to be picking on him; two of his friends are in intensive care!"
"I'm not going to coddle some free-loading--"
Ran flattened her gaze. "Dad..." she said in a low voice.
Kogoro smartly paled and took a step back before trying to shrug the reaction off and stuffing a hand into a pocket and trying to look more grown up. It failed, however, considering his voice was actually whining when he said, "We got the brat, can't we just go home now?"
"No!" Conan interjected before Ran could open her mouth. "Not before I know what's going on!" She looked down at the boy, his fierce and determined eyes so similar to Shinichi that she blinked. It belied his high-pitched, boyish voice, the plaintive tone; and she had to wonder which told the truth, the voice or the eyes.
Regardless, the demand was a reasonable one, and so Ran reassured him. "It's okay, Conan-kun, we're not going anywhere until at least the nurse comes back, okay?"
He looked up at her with gratitude of the highest caliber, before turning a smug grin to her father and sticking his tongue out at him. The adult promptly knocked him on the noggin, shouting explicative after explicative before stomping off, back to muttering about waiting in the car.
It wasn't long before the nurse returned, followed by Yoshida-san, Ayumi's mother.
"Ran-chan?"
"Yoshida-san!" Ran exclaimed, rushing over to the older woman. "How are you? What's been happening? We've been so worried!"
"Thank you for coming," she replied, accepting Ran as the young teen took the older woman's hand in hers. "I'm sorry to have worried you..."
"No, no, think nothing of it. How is Ayumi-chan?"
"She's stabilized, they say," Yoshida-san answered, the two of them walking down the hall. Conan, darting ahead, reached up and pushed the paddle-sized button that opened the automatic doors to the ICU, scooting in before the doors had fully swung open. Ran internally smiled at the childishness of the motions before returning her attention to Ayumi's mother. "Her temperature was starting to get dangerously high, but they've lowered it enough that she's not in any danger. We've only been here a few hours; they've just finished giving her a battery of tests, so we don't know for sure what she has."
"Ne, ne," Conan interjected, his voice soft in respect for the situation, "Which ward is Ayumi-chan's?"
The mother looked down, blinking as if trying to process the question, before saying, "Ward Three, over there." Conan darted off again.
"Has she been sick very long?" Ran asked.
"Only a few days," the mother replied. "We all thought she had a bad cold, or perhaps the flu, but then this afternoon..." Pain crushed the woman's face, and Ran was afraid to ask what had happened. Yoshida-san hid her face behind the curtain of her hand, fighting to maintain control. Ran patiently gave her time, glancing over to see little Conan hopping up to the bed where Ayumi lay.
The girl looked small in the mechanical bed, two IVs in her tiny arm, and a cool cloth on her forehead. Ran remembered the day after Conan's surgery. He'd been on a respirator while he was in ICU being monitored, giving his lungs a rest while his body took time to heal. That had been almost too painful to watch, seeing the tube connect from a giant machine on one end and to a child's mouth and deep into the lungs in another - made even worse because of her suspicions that it was Shinichi on a respirator. Ayumi and her mother were spared the image, however, and the young woman was very grateful. Ayumi gave a small cough, turning her head weakly to one side. Yoshida-san instinctively looked to her daughter, but breathed a sigh of relief as the child settled back down.
"Anyway," she continued, "You should be very proud of young Conan-kun. He did a wonderful job calming her down. How he was able to think clearly after everything that happened I'll never understand. Even I was a wreck when it happened."
Ran turned back to Yoshida-san. "I'm sorry, but Conan-kun hasn't told me what happened."
The mother blinked. "Oh. I see. It was all really frightening."
After the tale had been told, Ran readily agreed. To have such a close friend enter a violent delirium - and at poor Conan - Ran couldn't believe that it had all happened. Her thoughts took her back to the deep thought on the boy's face when she'd first found him in the hospital. Perhaps it wasn't frustration over the investigation, but hurt at what Ayumi had called him and shouted at him. "How terrible," she murmured.
"I don't know how he did it," Yoshida-san agreed. "But he got her to settle down, and even got her to recognize poor Mistuhiko-kun. I fear he'll have nightmares over this. I know I certainly will."
"Is there anything I can do?" Ran asked.
"No, thank you. You've been wonderful. I'm sorry to have worried--"
"Yoshida-san?" A middle-aged man in a white lab coat, stethoscope poking out of a pocket, approached the two women.
Ran looked to the older woman. "Do you want me to stay?"
"Goodness, no, it's late enough as it is, and I'm sure you want to get young Conan-kun home."
Ran hesitated, but nodded and stood. "Conan-kun, it's time to--"
She looked around, but the boy was nowhere to be seen.
Conan darted ahead of the "adults" and into Ayumi's room. For a moment he just stood there and stared, appalled and sickened that a child would be hooked up to IVs and heart and blood pressure monitors and rectal thermometers and other machines. He took a deep breath though, pushing all that emotion aside and hopping onto the bed for a closer examination. He glanced at Ran, but she was absorbed in conversation with Yoshida-san. She was the only "adult" in the world, it seemed, that kept any kind of eye on "Conan", but Shinichi knew that even she could be lax. Using that to his advantage and silently apologizing to her that he was doing so, he started examining his classmate.
He began with pulling a skin sample from her dry and cracked fingers, and slowly lifted the blanket up to examine her feet. They were cracked and flaking too, but her legs were not, and neither were her arms. The dehydration only applied to extremities then, another piece of information to file away for analysis later. Shinichi examined her arms and saw a small cut on the inside of her wrist, something he'd noticed before and now again, but paid it no mind and continued to look.
Unfortunately, there were no outward signs of her odd symptoms other than her skin, and so he slid silently off the bed and began looking around for a medical chart, frowning when he realized that, having just been admitted, one hadn't been placed in the ward yet. He wandered outside to think.
ICU had several wards, rooms where the patients lay in a psychological bubble of privacy. The illusion was lost, however, when exiting the ward to see the nurse's station, an oblong oval of computers and terminals and nurses sitting at them, watching the monitors and machines that were hooked up to the patients in their charge. That was to be his second stop: his first was to the giant man he saw at the other end of the station, the one he'd met several hours earlier packing pajamas for his son.
"Kojima-san?" he asked, putting his little boy voice on.
The man turned, his bulk and height making him look like a mountain to the abbreviated Shinichi.
"... Conan-kun?"
"Ayumi-chan just got here, and I was visiting her," Conan explained, the young teen remembering how he'd observed other children act when they were tired and emotionally spent, "and I was wondering if I could visit Genta-kun, too."
"Ayumi-chan? She's here too? Yes, yes, go and see him. I'm going to go check on Yoshida-san."
Conan gave what he hoped was a tired nod before stepping into his other friend's room.
He wasn't entirely sure what he was expecting to find as he hopped up onto the boy's bed, but seeing a second friend attached to IVs and monitors made him pause, made him stare, made him shove all the emotion that welled up in him aside and kicking it into a hole to bury before shaking his head and getting back to work. Indeed, what good was he if he couldn't find out why two of his kids were so direly sick?
Unlike Ayumi, Genta had had a PICC line inserted at his elbow, to allow for more IVs. A quick tally revealed a baker's dozen of thin plastic lines that worked their way to Genta's PICC. As with Ayumi, there was no respirator, which eased Shinichi's mind. Neither Genta nor Ayumi were so poor in health as to need machines to ease the stress of bodily functions.
Slumped in a chair on the other side of Genta's bed was his mother, breathing deeply and sound asleep; understandable given the circumstances. With the extra presence in the room, Shinichi moved slowly and quietly as he inspected his friend for the first time. He carefully lifted blankets, as he had with Ayumi, to see dry, cracked skin flaking off the larger boy's fingers and feet. A glace at the rectal thermometer showed that Genta had a high fever of 102 degrees, occasionally topping off at 103.
Shinichi looked through Conan's glasses and noted other vitals as he had with Ayumi when he noticed two things. First was a vial for sampling blood, unopened and unused on the nightstand among other various bits of medical miscellany that gather in the room of a patient. Shinichi's much smaller fingers were twitching. Carefully, he reached over, ripped open the packaging, and grabbed an alcohol swab. With precision belying even his true age, he swiped both the vial and an offshoot of the PICC line. He may not have been a doctor or a nurse, but he'd watched both take blood from him to check for infections during his recovery after he'd been shot. He remembered it clearly and he imitated his memory to get a vial of blood from Genta to take to Agasa and Haibara for testing, along with the skin samples.
The second thing he noticed was a healing cut along the back of Genta's hand. Given how energetic the large boy could be, cuts and bruises were often common along Genta's arms and legs. (And Conan's when Genta started roughhousing...) Shinichi couldn't say why his eyes focused in on it. Something about the healing abrasion was turning up the volume on his private, danger-radar of a television. It was an important clue, but he couldn't give any sort of reason as to why. So he stored it away.
Another covert glance at Genta's mother revealed that she was still sleeping, but Shinichi didn't want to press his luck, it was only a matter of time before Genta's father or a nurse came in to check on him. It was sheer luck that he was able to get a vial of blood as it was, so he quietly slid off the bed and gently touched his feet to the floor.
Conan paused at the door and turned back to his sleeping friend as he had with Ayumi. He bowed his head and offered a silent promise that he would figure out what had happened.
The next thing he needed to look at would be any medical records for Genta and Ayumi beyond the vital signs being monitored in the rooms. To do that, he'd need access to their files. The smaller version of Shinichi hung by Genta's door, observing the nurse's station. Ideally, he'd wait until all the nurses were helping the various patients of the ICU and then he'd just walk over, innocent as could be, and start looking up the information he needed.
But that wasn't going to happen. Ran would notice he was missing soon enough so waiting wasn't an option. He needed another way to look through Ayumi's and Genta's medical charts (assuming Ayumi's data had been inputted into the system). That meant Shinichi would need to use his "little-boy-charms" to somehow get one of the nurses at the station to give him what he needed.
Deep breath. Deep breath. And go.
Conan trudged over to one of the nurses at the computers, the same one who had remarked on what a well-behaved boy he was. He waited by her knees for a moment, before lightly tugging on her scrubs. "Nurse-nee-chan?"
Glancing down, the nurse blinked before giving a gentle smile. "You're the good boy from earlier. How can I help you?"
"What happened to my friends?"
"Didn't Yoshida-san explain it to you?"
Conan sadly shook his head. "Yoshida-obaa-san and Ran-nee-chan are talking. I don't understand what they're saying." Conan glanced over to her computer and offered a brighter smile. "Can I look it up online?"
There was a small hesitation as the nurse appeared to internally debate what to do. Finally, she hefted Conan up onto her lap. "Come here." The small detective's heart raced as he realized that the screen on the computer was actually Genta's file! He started to read in earnest, noting the notes that the ER doctor made at Genta's arrival when the window suddenly closed. Deep inside of Conan, Shinichi stomped in frustrated fury. The nurse opened an internet window and went to a kid-friendly website about healthcare. "Why don't you look through this? It should answer some of your questions."
Yeah, Conan thought to himself. It'll answer any and all questions on how you're treating him, not what he has. Thanks a bunch. Really. Still, he played the good boy and poked around the site, looking at bright, cheery animations of doctors looking after sick kids. His sharp eyes, however, noticed that Genta's file was still open, merely minimized. The nurse holding him was talking across the ICU to another nurse who had poked her head out of a room with a question of some kind, so Conan seized the opportunity to go back to Genta's file and read through as much as possible.
He didn't get very far when, "Conan-kun!"
Conan automatically switched the window back to the kid-friendly website and looked up to Ran, who was on the other side of the counter looking down at him, blessedly unable to see the computer screen.
"Ran-nee-chan!" he attempted a cheery chirp. "Look, look! This nurse is showing me how they'll be treating Genta-kun and Ayumi-chan! They'll be better in no time!"
The nurse behind him and Ran shared a glance that Conan understood all too well. He doesn't understand how sick they are. But he did. From the small bit of Genta's file that he was able to read, he did understand, probably better than Ran at his point, just how sick Ayumi and Genta were. And how the doctors didn't know what was causing it and could only treat the symptoms and not the actual problem yet. That the doctors had been running test after test on Genta once they stabilized him and were already planning on running comparisons with Ayumi. The affects on the nervous system that caused hallucinations and that Genta had gone through two more incidents since his arrival at the hospital was why both Ayumi and Genta were being sedated.
Conan understood what was happening to his kids all too well. But he couldn't show it. So he smiled brightly, if tiredly, while Ran gave a small smile of her own. "Come on Conan-kun. Let's go home."
"Can we visit tomorrow?" he asked, like any other kid his apparent age would.
"Sorry, Conan-kun. We were lucky to get in today at all. The ICU is for family only."
He frowned, but hopped off the nurse's lap and scurried around the counter to Ran. "When will we seem them again?"
"When they get better," Ran replied, reaching down. Conan thought she would just take his hand like always, but instead, she picked him up and held him close. "Come on. Before Dad gets too cranky."
Blushing madly, Conan nodded, hoped she couldn't feel the vial in his pocket, and gave himself a moment to just hold her, like he had earlier. He was going to have to get away for a while with Agasa soon so that he could properly decompress from his hellish life. His emotions were getting closer to the surface and he needed some time as himself to properly deal with and then bury them again.
Kogoro was muttering in the car when they arrived, and there were quite a few swear words being bitten out as Ran buckled Conan in, but the teens both ignored him as he started the car and began the drive home.
"Are you okay, Conan-kun?" Ran asked after a few minutes.
Shinichi eyed her with many, many emotions bubbling just under the surface, but all he could throw together was a muttered, "I'm tired," in his little boy voice.
Ran smiled softly, warmly, lovingly, and it was everything Shinichi could do to not burst into theory and harangue about what he'd discovered and what it all meant and the implications and all the questions that what he was putting together were leading him to. This was not an illness. It wasn't. But this was only the start of the case, and so there was a lot still to be done; and besides, none of this could be shared with Ran. Not one word of it.
And it sucked. Really, really sucked.
Something must have shown on his face, because Ran's smile widened, and she put a gentle hand on the top of his head. "It's okay to feel that way, you know. When bad things like this happen, it's natural to feel hurt, and angry, and tired and frustrated. Helpless, even, but you can't let it wear you down." Her face changed, becoming sadder, more distant. "It hurts not to know sometimes, but that doesn't mean you can give up; you just have to keep believing that everything will turn out alright, that everyone will come home, and soon..."
And Shinichi knew exactly what she was talking about, and guilt swelled in him. It was his own inability to solve his own case that made her suffer like this, and everything he felt over his kids was compounded by what he felt for what he was doing, consciously and deliberately, to Ran. Without thought, he put his tiny hand on hers. "It'll be okay," he said, his voice thick with emotion he couldn't hide.
"I'll fix it. Somehow... I'll fix it. I'll fix everything."
Ran hiccupped and pulled Conan close, holding him tightly in the car. "It's okay, Conan-kun. You don't have to fix it; that isn't your responsibility."
She didn't know. She didn't understand. And that was his fault.
Shinichi bent his head down into her embrace, and fought with everything in him to not cry.
Author's Notes: Yo! Thanks for the reviews, everyone! A few comments before we close for the interim - a couple of people mentioned that Genta actually doesn't take after his father, but more his mother. Thanks for the heads up. We're only just starting to get into the Conan manga, I think we're on issue 250, so *clearly* we're not completely up to date; we haven't even seen the kids' families, so we kind of made things up as we went. Same for Ayumi's room.
As an aside, while this isn't our first mystery that we've written, it's definitely the first that came out any good - at least in our opinion. We're really curious about reader feedback, so feel free to frop a line if something really strikes you.
Next up: Conan officially begins his investigations, Haibara does some tests, and Conan picks up a tail. See you in two weeks!