[Act 2] - ||Waiting||

Short one this time ^^; gomen. But I promise the next chapter will follow on wednesday when my school play is finally done :)

-Sekai-

Sekai couldn't wait to get rid of the white mask. Among all the things she loved about being a nurse she only hated it to wear those surgical masks. They hid the face, they made doctors and nurses look like an army of faceless machines; how should scared patients trust people without faces? Not that it had been a problem this time. The patient they just medicated had been unconscious so it was not about trust or not.

"You're ok?" a male voice asked from behind and Sekai turned around. The man who'd spoken was the senior physician and her mentor; a 46 year old man called Kenzo Ito and (to Sekai's very disappointment) happily married. She nodded grateful for him worrying about her. "Sure, I just dislike these masks."

"Ok…" he replied. "It's just that some nurses have difficulties with medicating hurt children" and with these words he patted her shoulder and left the patient's room. Sekai looked back at the bed. A little girl lay on it and judging from her appearance and name she was English. Sekai slowly walked up to the bed and watched the girl. Her mouth was covered with a lung ventilator and her curly brown hair lay messy on the white pillow. Carefully she stroked her head. She came here by the fire service, 'fire in a depot' they said. The girl wasn't seriously burned, she'd just inhaled too much of the venomous smoke. "You'll be ok" Sekai said, not really sure if it was crazy to talk to an unconscious person. "Sleep some time, your lungs will be all right, you just need a rest."

"So she's ok?" a voice appeared and made Sekai tilt around. A boy with glasses was standing right behind her and watched the heart monitor that showed the girl's pulls. Sekai slowly nodded, she'd seen the boy before. He'd also been in the depot the firemen said and when they arrived he had tried to get the girl out of the depot.

She kneeled down to him and smiled "you've been a hero. The firemen said you rescued a man and tried to rescue the girl, too."

The boy ignored her and passed her by to walk up to the girl. Actually Sekai had thought he'd smile gladly and she could distract him with some toys till his parents would arrive, but the way he stood there, looking at the monitors like he understood them, made him look more like an adult than a child. Sekai decided to leave them alone. There was a reason why she became a nurse on the accident and emergency department; she couldn't handle children like the other women. She loved medicine, it fascinated her, but children weren't her cup of tea.

-Ai-

When Kudo called them Ai blinked unbelieving. She knew he and Alice where away for some kind of case so how did they manage it to get into a fire? Judging from what Kudo told her both were ok, but Alice was still unconscious and lay in hospital so Agasa, the Mori family and Ai drove instantly out to the Beika City hospital.

When they arrived there Kogoro and Agasa soon had to vanish to get the paperwork done since Alice's parents weren't in the country (and even if they were they would either hijack or kill her), so only Ran, Ai and Conan were left. Ai wanted to wait; she didn't want to see Alice lying in a bed with her lung ventilator so Ran went in and left Conan and Ai alone.

After an eternity of silence Ai finally spoke. "Gosh, only you two can manage it to hunt for a culprit and nearly die in a fire." He answered her comment with glaring coldly at the door to Alice's room. "Oh come on Kudo-kun" she added "She will be ok! The doctors said she should be awake about tomorrow."

"Yeah, thanks to the firemen." Ai was surprised how repellent Conan's voice sounded and while she glared at him he continued "I couldn't help her."

Finally she understood what made him this angry. "B…but it wasn't your fault" she tried but he clenched his hands to fists. "No, it wasn't, but I couldn't help her. I couldn't move this joist for a single millimeter, no matter how hard I tried."

"Kudo!" she began "it was a joist! You can't think you could lift a…"

"The first firemen who arrived lifted it up like it was nothing" he interrupted her. "Tell you why Haibara. Because it was nothing!" his voice grew acrid. "As Shinichi I could have helped her, she hadn't been trapped in the smoke for that long and would be ok."

"Y…you… can't change it. We're like this at the moment, of course it has its disadvantages, but…" she wasn't quite sure what she should say but she didn't need to continue speaking anyways. Conan simply turned around and walked away down the corridor, away from Ai and the room until she couldn't see him anymore. Ai sighed and threw a skeptical look after him, though she couldn't help it but feeling this odd feeling within her stomach. Something about the way he simply walked away made her think he was up to do something stupid.

She shook her head, what could he do? Maybe he would take his anger out on someone, but he couldn't do anything about being like this at the moment. For a moment Ai thought about the place she hid the temporary-antidote for APTX4869, but she was sure she was the only one who knew where it is. Eased she walked into Alice's room after Ran had left it; there was nothing to worry about, Conan could only wait and Ai really hoped he would accept that.

-Alice-

Alice opened her eyes. The first thing she saw was red court. She blinked and slowly sat up. She was lying on a couch, a red couch in the middle of a living room. She looked around, she felt she'd been here before but she couldn't tell when, it felt more like a déjà-vu than an actual memory. She got up and tried to remember how she'd come there. She looked down her body and suppressed a scream. It wasn't only that she wore a white dress she'd never seen before she was also tall. "I… I'm Lilly again?" she mumbled shocked and smoother the dress to see if it could be true, but this was doubtlessly her body. Slowly she walked around in the room. It was nicely furnished, maybe a little dark because it had no windows but it was ok.

A mirror on the wall behind the couch told her she was really Lilly again and while she walked up to the mirror above the fireplace she heard it. "Finally." Lilly turned shocked around; she was alone but she'd sworn she'd heard a voice whisper. "I've waited forever!" the whisper appeared again; it had grown louder.

"Who is there?" she asked out loud. "Where am I?"

"No one and nowhere" the whisper replied and Lilly turned around again, she was still alone and the whispers sounded like they came from all around. She clenched her teeth, what was happening here? The last thing she remembered was the fire and… Conan. "Where is he?" she thought. "Not here" the voice replied and Lilly's eyes widened. She hadn't asked out loud. "I know you, you don't have to speak to make me understand what you mean" the whispers weren't whispers anymore, it was more an echo from around. "B…but" she began but the echo interrupted her.

"Take a seat everyone! Please be quiet and look forward to the coming spectacle." The echo sounded like the voices Lilly had heard in theaters, ceremonious and excited, but where was the audience it spoke to? And still Lilly couldn't tell if the voice was male or female, it was just there; echoing in the room and in her head. "It-will-be-SPECTACULAR!" the echo shouted and Lilly needed to cover her ears.

Finally the voice ebbed away and Lilly looked around. After this announcement she'd waited for something to happen, but it was just all silent. "Nothing happens…?" she asked lowly and the echo laughed jolly. "I can understand your impatience, but you have to wait a little longer."

"Waiting for what?" she shouted, slowly this all scared her. Out of the blue a piece of the wall around opened. It seemed there was some kind of hidden door that had been opened up. Slowly she walked over to it, but before she was close enough to even touch its handle the echo repapered. "Time is running up" it said "prepare for the coming events, at least both of us waited for this since month." And with these words the room fell dark.

Alice opened her eyes. Fast she sat up and had to support her head with her hand. It was nearly all dark; the only light came from the moon that shone through a window and a green light coming from a heart-monitor. She was in a hospital, lying in a bed and wearing a patient's nightdress. She looked down her body; it was the body of the 7-year old Alice. Sighing she lay back. It had been a dream. Soon the medicine they must have given to her made itself felt and fatigue hit her mind. She had been jagged under a joist and was now in hospital; she still remembered how Conan was brought away by a fireman so he was ok. She smiled while her eyes fell shot, she didn't even have enough time to worry about the weird dream she just had.

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