Heiji knows his reputation. He knew that most people were under the impression that he was rude and maybe a bit too hot headed. But he could be also very calm if the situation required it.

And now he is calm. Calm enough for a headache to rise.

Rubbing slowly his tempers, he appreciates the dull wall of his hotel room maybe a bit too intense. He knows that he's pretending that this wall is the most beautiful white wall in the whole world just to keep his eyes focused and his mind at one point.

But it's pointless, it's seems like the wall starts to laugh at him. About his own incompetence, about the fact, that he had been too late. And so god damn pathetic to not even be able to face the only person in the world that he mostly wanted him to.

Ran didn't called him. Not one time. It shouldn't hurt that much, she certainly was hurt and confused but it hurt somewhere deep down in his guts, adding just another point to the list where he tries to justifies why the hell he'd been for three days in Tokyo without seeing her.

The list is short. Too short for his conscience to be silent.

But the list that keeps him from going to the hospital as so damn short that he doesn't sleep without seeing her burning behind his closed eyes. It's fear. The whole list consists about fear. Because now, now he could still pretend that this all was just a hell of a nightmare, that Shinichi or Conan would call him any minute, telling him about cases, about Ran, about his friends. He in return doesn't dare to call the number just to break the illusion himself. Too high were the risks of a foreign voice, or worse, the utter silence that would occur if the telephone was in that place were evidences went after the crime scene. After murders.

The information he could pry out of the news and his dear father were poor.

Famous detective shot, rumors, headlines, the police didn't make a statement, it was frustrating to no end.

Ran must have been furious, sad, torn apart; Heiji isn't really sure how he would feel in such a situation. He just remembers Conan talking about how he had been afraid of her reaction.

Maybe it's easier for her now, knowing that Shinichi really had been at her side the whole time. Or it would make it all worse.

He pulls his cap from his head and starts spinning it around in on hand. A nervous habit, something he just couldn't get ride of. He certainly doesn't think about all the times he lend it to someone else. He doesn't, he doesn't, he doesn't.

The cap lands on the floor and Heiji sees no point in picking it up again. Everything just seems pointless these days. His phone vibrates and a small, hopefull spark fills him just to get whisked away by the phoners ID.

Kazuha.

As much as he loves and admires her, at the moment he needs to be alone. It's rather cruel, just a small moment he remembers Ran clenching to a phone with a devastated expression in her eyes before canceling the call. She has every right to be furious at him when he returns, he didn't told her about his sudden departure in the slightest way, but this was something that he must sorts out. Without her.

And he would sort it out, his head is full of ideas spinning around in endless circles even when he knows that it's pointless. He couldn't do anything against them.

They are brutal, Conan never wasted a minute to put pressure on exactly this point. They don't have morals, they wouldn't think twice about shooting a teenager. They didn't think about it last time.

It's a bitter realization, so bitter that it twists his guts more than once just thinking a bit about them and how he would enjoy crushing them with his bare hands.

The thoughts are dark sometimes, so dark that he's disgusted. The cases, too much fantasy. But sometimes, when the watch on the night desk shows a time when no normal being is awake anymore, he finds himself thinking that maybe, just maybe, deserved it all. That they doesn't even deserved hell.

Shinichi always had higher morals as him. It's as funny as it's horrifying when he thinks about the times when the detective saved criminals. Even in this child form where they could easily overpower him without too much energy.

He stops himself before his mind could drift in directions of the thousand what if's?

Shinichi always thought that every live was worth saving it.

His phone vibrates again, automatically his finger hovers of the cancel button before he realizes, that it isn't Kazuha who's calling.

Ran Mouri.

It takes him way too long to be proud of to decide, that maybe it's time for him being a best friend. Even when the idea of talking to a girl and telling her one of his best kept secrets with his next breath freaks him out.

"Hattori, I'm glade that could reach you." Her voice's normal and for a horrifying moment he thinks about the fact that maybe she's not as affected as he is. Or that she just threw all her feelings overboard. It paints a cruel and cold picture of the usually sweet girl. Heiji shallows the forming limp in his throat.

"Ran, we need to talk." He doesn't know where to start, but he doesn't have time to get the secrets finally out of the dark before Ran speaks again.

"I know." And after a second. "Everything. Heiji I know everything."

The burden doesn't lift itself from his shoulders like all the novels love to describe a exposing of a heavy secret but he can feel that it's easier to shallow and breath after this fatale sentence.

"I'm sorry Ran." It's not enough, not enough for everything that happened and it rankles Heiji that the sentence sounds hallow over the phone.

"I'm also sorry, for not calling you. The last week had been" horrifying, terrible, the worst week in his whole life "eventful." She doesn't say the words that he knows are on the tip of her tongue. And he's glade for it.

"I'm in Tokyo" suddenly he couldn't wait to see her, to talk to her, to finally, finally telling her the truth about all the lies. Maybe she would hate the detective less after it. He feels a tickling in his hands and legs, too much energy left from sitting around and drowning in misery. It wants to be unleashed. He would be out of the door in a second if she …

"Heiji, how much do you know about them?" Them, so she really knows everything. Even simply thinking about them make him sick again.

"Not much." Not as much as he should maybe do, not as much that he could have protected his friend.

"What about kicking them in the ass." The frace is unexpected from Ran. The darkness dripping from it should have worried him. But he's done worrying about things and not acting at all. And even when they're borderline to something dark, it would be worth it.

"I'm there in 20 minutes."

Shinichi always considered every live worth a fight. Maybe they could start making him realize that he is worth the same fight.

"That great, I have some really interesting people who will help us."

So, Heiji. Nothing to add. Please leave a Review.

Sincerely Anemonenfisch