A/N: Hello again, everyone! Thanks for your patience with the hiatus! I didn't get as much writing done as I wanted but I definitely figured out a lot of the details of the next arc and of Saguru's timeline and story arc that I hadn't had worked out yet. My beta and I also stayed up 'til the small hours of the morning playing with a specific scene, but let's not focus overmuch on that.

It should be noted, by the way, that miladyRanger is the best and this story would not be without her.

If anyone was waiting for a bit more plot, I have some for you here! Also, there's some warnings for you all in the endnote.

Chapter 21

Kaito was looking a little healthier every day, and Chikage comforted herself with that. They didn't speak much, since the argument. He went out of his way to avoid her, and Chikage was too cowardly to try her skill against his—she knew, really, that while she was still a better thief, he'd outpaced her in evasion months ago, so pursuing him wouldn't really result in anything other than unpleasant confirmation and failure.

But he was gaining color and range of motion, even if he wore a worried expression nearly every time he walked into a room without checking to see if she occupied it first, and wasn't eating nearly his share of the food in the house. She supposed he could be eating elsewhere…but with the change in activity caused by that injury of his, he should have been gaining weight, not losing a bit, and the opposite was happening.

Her dear silly boy was literally worrying himself sick over Hakuba, and it was enough to break her heart. As for her, she'd tried everything she could to chase down the other version of her son, but he was aggressively avoiding her entire network. At best, they were getting week-old third-degree hearsay about his location, which was utterly useless. It was maddening, and she was certain he was doing it on purpose.

So, one version of her son in the wind and avoiding her with special dedication, the other furious at her and worried sick over him. Some parent she was. Not that she didn't always miss Toichi, but it was enough to make her want him back for advice instead of a teasing presence at her side.

She didn't want to leave Kaito alone—and he wouldn't be fully healed for months yet—but the time when she could no longer use his injury as an excuse to avoid giving him the time to himself he'd requested was getting nearer and nearer. So Chikage sat at the kitchen table and contemplated ways to truncate a Las Vegas tour, because hopefully a few weeks would be enough time for Kaito to cool down.

And then her son walked into the room and looked her in the eye.

He looked weary, and hesitant, and desperate in a way that set her every nerve on edge.

"Kaito?" she asked, very quietly.

"Are you still looking for Hakuba?" he asked in reply.

She nodded. He…uncoiled, just a bit, revealing a tension in his posture that she'd utterly missed.

"If I told you a way you might be able to track him down, would you tell me where he is, instead of going yourself?" he asked.

"Kaito, your shoulder—"

"It's healed enough," he said. "And I won't be alone."

Chikage blinked. "Jii didn't tell me—"

"It isn't Jii," Kaito interrupted again.

"Then who?" Chikage asked.

Kaito's lips thinned to a line. "I made a deal, with some of the detectives…"

Chikage's heart stuttered in her chest. "Kaito! You know how dangerous that was!"

"Yes, I knew exactly how dangerous it was, and it turns out, I was right!" Kaito replied, a hint of steel under his tone. "We have a deal and they've honored it, but we keep falling short when it comes to actually catching Hakuba."

"You could have at least told me," Chikage said.

"I knew you'd argue," Kaito said. He hesitated, then added, "And I didn't want you involved if it went south. Anything I know about Hakuba from you came from 'an accomplice.'"

"Kaito, you're my child, it isn't your job to protect me," Chikage said.

"Lately, 'No One Gets Hurt' is harder and harder to put down when I take off the monocle," Kaito said. "I think it's because I've seen what happens when I fail."

"The Nightmare Heist wasn't your fault," Chikage said quietly.

"You're not the first to say that," Kaito said, glancing down. "Maybe someday I'll believe one of you."

Chikage felt her stomach twist. "I still don't like the idea of feeding information from my network to detectives, even if you're keeping an eye on them."

"I wouldn't be asking if it weren't important," Kaito said.

"I know," Chikage said. "But even so…"

"They're going to kill him," Kaito burst out, voice strained. "Tantei-kun has a network of his own—one of them's one of Jackal's people who apparently owes him and won't kill him no matter what. He risked asking her what they knew about Hakuba, and they've noticed him, and they're hunting him, and if they find him—he's dead."

His eyes were pleading. And Chikage did have her weaknesses.

"I'll help," she said, teeth gritted. "But I want to know about these detectives. Particularly your reasons for bringing on that terror of an elementary schooler. And how the h*** he earned a life-debt from one of Jackal's group at that age."

"If I get to have secrets so do they," Kaito said, frowning and tight-lipped.

"Kaito!" Chikage snapped. "You can't be blind enough not to have noticed him as a potential threat."

"Oh, he's a threat," Kaito agreed. "He's gotten closer than anyone to catching me." He paused, raising an eyebrow. "Mom, in this situation, that's what we want from someone who's on our side."

Chikage stared at him for a few seconds.

"If he has a chance at catching me, the same might be true of Hakuba," Kaito said. "But, seriously, if I tell you or anyone else any of his secrets, he'll abandon the case and come on the next heist with twice as many gadgets and a grudge."

Chikage frowned, crossing her arms loosely over her chest. "I just don't like the amount of risk this involves."

"The detectives won't arrest me," Kaito said firmly. "That's all you need to know. This is for their protection, too. Every person who knows that they've been working against Jackal's people puts them in more danger."

"I won't tell anyone what you tell me," she said. You can trust me felt too much like inviting a repeat of their last argument.

"You don't have to tell someone willingly or on purpose to do them harm," Kaito replied softly. "Mom, please."

Sighing, Chikage said, "I just want to keep you safe."

There was a pained underlay to the neutrality of Kaito's answering Poker Face, and Chikage thought she could make out the outline of the reply he wasn't saying out loud—I just want to keep them safe.

When did I become a threat? was what she wanted to ask, but it was a question she already knew the answer to, wasn't it?

So, she hadn't meant badly, coming here as Corbeau. She'd wanted to help. She'd thought Kaito would see it as a test; she thought he'd handle it as easily as he'd handled everything else that being KID had sent his way so far.

She'd been a fool, believing his Poker Faces and his "I'm fines," and questioning his readiness instead of his mental state.

The moment she'd left that first note, she'd shown herself to be a potential threat. Not only that, but she'd done some amount of harm, just with that note, and she'd possibly compounded that harm by continuing to send notes instead of backing down in response to Hakuba's anger. The best she could do for now might be damage control.

Re-establishing real trust would take time, and a lot of it. Though it was possible that even before her careless heist note, the two of them hadn't shared anything like real trust—after all, she hadn't even told him that Corbeau existed, and Kaito, in turn, obviously hadn't confided in her very much at all.

No matter how little she wanted to, she would need to wait for Kaito to be ready. If she pushed him, she would just end up hurting him again.

"I'll accept it, but I don't like it," Chikage said.

"Funny, that's just what the detectives said," Kaito said, in a tone that really didn't hold any humor at all. He took a deep breath, eyes never leaving hers. "Hakuba's in England, somewhere; he came in from the United States. And he's been actively causing Them trouble since he left Japan. Do you think knowing that much will be enough for your sources to find him?"

You can't let him down again, Chikage thought, and chose honesty when she spoke.

"I think so," she said. "I hope so. But I don't know, not for sure. What you gave me will make it a lot easier. But he's KID, and what he said to me implies that he has more experience than you do, so…"

Kaito huffed out a laugh. "He's slipped us twice. If you really can't find him, you won't be the only one. But...this might be our last shot. They're getting serious, now."

"Twice?" Chikage asked, stunned. "How long have you been working with the detectives, exactly?"

Kaito shook his head. "Long enough to know we need all the help we can get. Will you do it?"

"Yes," Chikage said quietly.

She couldn't fix this. Not any of it. But if she could at least help...well, it wouldn't make up for her role in creating the situation, but if she was part of someone else getting Saguru back, he'd still be back, in the end.

Even if the people getting him back were her injured son and a bunch of detectives she didn't trust within 50 feet of him.

It didn't matter. In the end, she was a phantom thief, and she was above all things resourceful. If all she had to work with was the scraps of her son's trust, a few stray pieces of information, and a network built for theft and surveillance, not missing persons investigations-she'd make what she had enough.

:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

"Okay, do we have everything this time?" Shinichi asked, with what he felt was admirable patience.

"Unless Genta-kun eats all the sugar again," Mitsuhiko said crossly.

Shinichi had assembled the Detective Boys in Professor Agasa's kitchen to make adzuki dumplings. It was a nice, safe, boring afterschool activity with no potential for encountering murders—but if they had to make a second convenience store run, Shinichi was willing to bet that someone's corpse was going to turn up before they made it back to the house.

He glared at Genta, who had a handful of sugar halfway to his mouth.

"Genta-kun, stop, you'll get another stomachache and then you'll have to miss school again!" Ayumi said, in genuine concern.

Genta immediately dropped the sugar back into the bag. Shinichi winced and tried to remember if he'd seen Genta wash his hands.

It doesn't matter; we're going to bake everything anyway, he told himself. The oven will kill the germs. I hope.

"Okay, Mitsuhiko-kun, you get out the measuring cups, Ayumi-chan, you get out the eggs—" he started.

"Conan-kun sure likes bossing people around, huh?" Mitsuhiko muttered.

"It makes him feel important," Ai replied, looking Shinichi straight in the eye as she spoke.

Shinichi scowled—and then his phone went off.

Mom found HS pls come to apt now will b there in 10 KK, read the text message, from an unknown number.

It took Shinichi a few seconds to realize that Kuroba, in his haste, had sent his update on the case from his personal phone.

Well, it has been almost a week since we found out for certain that They want Hakuba dead, Shinichi thought. There's some urgency to all of this.

"Sorry, I gotta go," Shinichi said.

"Is it about a case?" Mitsuhiko asked.

"Tell us, tell us!" Ayumi insisted.

"Sorry, guys," Shinichi said. "I just need to go talk to a friend. I'll see you later, okay?"

He hopped down from the kitchen stool and dashed out the door before any of them could ask another question, though he felt Ai's glare burning into his back as he went.

He arrived at the apartment panting, and opened the door to the sight of a very disheveled Kuroba Kaito. Not only was his hair even wilder than usual, but his shirt was visibly rumpled, his jeans were mud-splattered, and one of his socks was part of the way off of his foot.

"Somehow, you're the last one here," Kaito said, a little wearily.

"Could be that my legs are shorter than yours," Shinichi said, more sharply than he'd intended to.

"Eisuke didn't have to run," Kaito said gently, gesturing to the floor next to him. "Sorry to disrupt everyone's days. But our timeline needs to move up."

"Obviously," Shinichi agreed. "If we don't move quickly, we'll lose track of him again."

Kaito shook his head in a jerky, almost reflexive-looking motion. "Not because of that. Mom's contact didn't see Hakuba. He found his blood on a murder suspect's jacket."

"S***," Shinichi breathed. Waited a beat, because he knew Kaito was more sensitive about these sorts of things, and besides, Hakuba was as much one of "his" detectives as Shinichi was. "How much blood?"

"Just a little," Kaito said, a hint of relief to his tone. "Not enough to be from anything near-fatal, so the person said. But definitely enough that Hakuba didn't just cut himself shaving or something."

"And we know the vic wasn't Hakuba," Hattori said helpfully, as Kaito grimaced. "There was an autopsy, and the contact was in the police station and able to check the genetics. They were who they were supposed ta be, an' not Hakuba."

"Speaking of that...how do you have a sample of Hakuba's genes to check against?" Eisuke asked.

Kaito raised an eyebrow.

"Thief, Hondou-san," Shinichi reminded.

Eisuke sighed.

"We need to move now," Kaito insisted. "He may not be seriously injured, but depending on what it was and how much blood he lost, it could slow him down enough that They might actually be able to track him."

"Which no one wants," Shinichi agreed. "But we have really limited resources in London. I know a famous tennis player, her Holmes-loving little brother and her coach-slash-boyfriend. Not really enough to get us anywhere."

"No police, really?" Hattori asked.

"My parents dealt with the police, that time; I was busy finding the bomb," Shinichi said absently.

"So, the police don't know you but they sure as heck owe you," Hattori said.

"But I kept my name out of it," Shinichi corrected, with a not-quite-smile. "Though I guess if I called as Shinichi I could at least leverage being Dad's son, but…"

"I don't think calling is going to be enough," Eisuke said quietly. "We did that before. Not only will he be expecting it, but it also didn't work. And...this is the city he lived in, by himself, for a while, right? He probably knows it inside out."

"Even if we were expecting the cops-as-proxies thing to work, in this case, they might not be good enough proxies," Kaito said slowly.

"Are ya suggestin' we go?" Hattori asked. "Because...that's a heck of a thing for us ta suddenly do."

"I don't know how I'd even get there," Eisuke said. "But at least one of us should, I think. We can't respond quickly enough, otherwise."

"We'll be down travel time," Hattori said. "But we won't be stumblin' over red tape left an' right."

"Who would we choose, though?" Shinichi said. "And...this could get dangerous. Sending one person over with no backup seems like a terrible idea."

"My dad ain't gonna buy me tickets ta London, and ya know I don't have that much saved up," Hattori said.

"No, no, I think I have a solution," Shinichi said, thinking back over what was still in his house and what had been packed away and moved to the Professor's for safekeeping. He looked up at Kaito. "Do you think your Mom would be willing to buy you a ticket?"

Kaito nodded. "I'm pretty sure I could talk her around to it. Especially if it was for this. She's worried about Hakuba too, she just knows that if she was the one who came looking for him, he'd just yell at her and keep running."

"Seriously?" Eisuke asked.

"He really was not impressed, uh, with that thing I told you about, that she did," Kaito said, shifting a bit in discomfort.

"Can't imagine why," Hattori said, deadpan.

"What I need you to do is go ask her to do that, now," Shinichi said. "Get one for tonight, so Hattori has time to get here from Osaka. I'll buy the two of us tickets for the same flight as you, and Hondou-san one for a flight with similar arrival times."

"With what money?" Hattori asked, confused.

Shinichi frowned. "That's the risky part. My parents left one of their credit cards in the house before the last time they left; it's in a box in the Professor's basement right now. I know their PIN, and, if I use it, we probably have about three days before one or the other of them notices a large amount of money is gone and starts investigating. And then meddling, most likely. But...we don't have a lot of time to find Hakuba anyway, if Kuroba-san's right."

"Kudou-san, I don't want—" Eisuke started.

"You have good ideas, and you've been a lot of help on this investigation," Shinichi said. "I want you along, and I know it would be troublesome for you to pay to come along yourself."

Eisuke nodded.

"I take it if you just asked for the money, your parents would cause trouble from the start?" Kaito asked.

"They might not," Shinichi said. "They've helped me hide people from Them before. But...since we're kind of working against Hakuba at the same time that we're working to protect him, it's a little more complicated than the last few times I've gotten them involved. And both my parents have a tendency to try improv at the worst moments. After all the other risks we've taken for this lead, I don't want to get them involved and then have something one of them does send the situation out of control."

"Especially not when Hakuba's in immediate danger, right?" Eisuke asked.

Shinichi nodded.

"I can't miss that much school," Eisuke said. "As it is, I'll have to make up an excuse for why I'm gone this time."

"Leave that to me," Kaito said. "I can impersonate a distant relative having an emergency for you to as many people as you need." He glanced at Shinichi. "Same goes for you, if you don't want to do it yourself."

Shinichi grinned a little, feeling like a weight was off his shoulders. "Yeah, that would be nice, actually."

"Come to think, my dad won't want me gone very long, either," Hattori said. "Ya think we could get round-trip tickets or somethin'?"

"You think it would make him more likely to agree?" Kaito asked.

"I think I'm gonna sneak outta the house, get a train to Tokyo, and text Otaki-han to tell him what I'm doin' before the flight leaves," Hattori said, grin crooked. "But Dad's less likely to lose his s*** when I come back if we're gone less than a week."

"Yeah, you've got a point," Kaito said. "Aoko's gonna murder me with a broom if I'm gone too long without explaining."

Heiji quirked an eyebrow.

Kaito shrugged. "It's her way."

"That gives us a solid deadline," Shinichi said seriously. "Will you guys be okay with that?"

"We already have one anyway," Kaito said quietly. "Once we get to the city, it's only a matter of time before Hakuba notices we're there too, and leaves. We've only got one shot, no matter how we approach this."

"Three days in London, plus two for travel back and forth," Shinichi said. "Could you all manage that?"

"Yeah," Kaito said, without hesitating.

"Dad ain't gonna be happy, but I think I can swing it," Heiji said.

Eisuke swallowed. "I think, for this...I think I could."

"So, it's settled," Shinichi said, feeling the finality of it, and the adrenaline-driven focus of knowing he had a task before him he needed to get right.

"I'll head for the train, then," Hattori said. "See ya soon."

"See all of you soon," Kaito said quietly. "It'll be nice to meet you in person, Eisuke."

Eisuke lit up a little. "It'll be nice to meet you, too!"

Well, at least something unambiguously positive would come of all of this. Now they just needed to make sure that they found Hakuba, this time—because between the brittle note to Kaito's voice, even now, and the churning in Shinichi's own stomach, he didn't like the thought of what might happen if they didn't.

A/N: Warning for Kaito's crappy self-care practices, depiction and discussion of dysfunctional families, a lot of discussion of a person (Saguru) who the speakers assume is a minor being in danger, including danger of the 'mortal peril' variety. Also, remember, kids: stealing is illegal, even when you're a homicide detective working a missing persons case and trying to keep the truth about what you're doing away from your dangerously meddlesome parents.

That said, Shinichi ability to take these actions is pretty realistic—I know a number of people who grew up knowing their parents' credit card PINs for reasons of convenience. Often they were responsible kids, and their parents were busy.

A few people have asked about Chikage getting some kind of redemption arc; her actions this chapter are what qualify as progress for her in terms of becoming a better parent to Kaito. She's a smart, stubborn woman, and admitting that she made a fairly large mistake is no mean feat for her.

A reminder to you all—I do exist on Tumblr, as ninthfeather, and I put up chapter previews, art, and other stuff there. You can also ask me anything that isn't a direct spoiler on or off anon and I will answer it.

Reviews are always appreciated!