The final Problem

"Ya lookin' pale."

Shinichi's gaze switched over the rim of Bell's glasses to Heiji, who looked at him from the corner of his eye. It was the first thing being said since Bell's arrival in prison. The detective just rolled his eyes and looked back to Heiji, while Bell's voice started to sound strange even to his own ears.

"Very funny, Hattori, you better tell me what I've missed." The grin on the Osakan's lips vanished when he finally started to report.

The court went as expected.

This shark of a lawyer hadn't left a single piece of evidence untouched, he'd questioned everything, so that in the end the judge had no other choice but to deem Kabawa Roki innocent. Even Megure who had previously told the judge why he should postpone the trail had no choice. Kabawa was free, the murder charge was laid down by the lack of evidence.

Only now the hot phase started for the police.

Since "Holmes'" announcement was more precise than ever, he wanted to commit the crime while Kabawa was still in prison. Shinichi swallowed, looked around in the grey and bare hallway in which they stood. Megure, Takagi, Sato, Mori, Heiji and himself. It seemed to be better to reduce the number of officers to a minimum in order to exclude the possibility that someone could sneak past them. This time they might have a chance to catch him, because the time frame the murderer had chosen was slim; not only for them but also himself.

After a won trial, the accused person returned to prison as a free man, going through the usual dismissal routine. Step one: Kabawa got time to pack the few personal things in his cell. Step two: He got his personal clothes and other items back. Step three: He had to sign his dismissal papers before he was allowed to change in the locker room. And last but not least, step number four: they opened the gates for him.

Kabawa had already passed steps one and two and Megure had observed how he'd signed a thick pile of papers. The officer even made sure that he used his pen, just to be sure. After all… you never know. They had to check everything the man came into contact with, whipped each and every door knob he could touch, while they kept a close eye on him, what made the former prisoner more and more nervous.

'And rightly so.'

Shinichi's gaze darkened while he looked to the closed door of Kabawa's locker room. The massive man had every reason to be afraid, because he knew how cruel his death would be.

He certainly expected to swallow his own poison someday.

That's why they observed his every move and Kabawa knew - he knew that his exchange for the security of the prison wasn't only freedom, but also the prospect of a violent death. The detective's gaze went down the hallway to the door of a tiny medical room, where in a safe rested an antidote that everyone hoped they wouldn't have to use in the first place. They discussed this with various doctors, whether they could give the cure to Kabawa even before something happened, but what was a cure for the sick, was a poison for the healthy body as well.

So, they had no choice but to wait.

A heavy silence had spread between them again, resting heavily on Shinichi's shoulders. He could feel Kogoro's eyes on his skin and wondered if Ran had told him about their meeting or if the father still could smell a waft of his daughter's perfume on him. Shinichi breathed out heavily, the thought of Ran was enough to freeze his fingertips to ice. The situation this morning should have made her realize how difficult her plan was, even though the detective knew that his childhood friend wouldn't leave it at that. He sighed and stared at the ceiling so that the white light blinded him along with the sad smile on his lips.

'Ran… why do you have to be so stubborn?'

XXX

The two friends silently walked next to each other, the only thing they could hear was the "engine" of Haikuro, who steered his little car through the air, while he run in front of them. Kazuha sighed, deep, heavy and long, so that Ran knew that a rather unpleasant conversation would follow.

"I do understand what ya mean… but I also can understand his opinion." Her gaze moved to her son, whose board grin made her heave heart beat a little more easy.

"He's trying to protect ya. Just like he always did… he doesn´t want anythin' ta happen ta ya."

Ran could taste the bitter coffee on her lips, even though they had left the little café a while ago the taste still lingered on her tongue.

'I know, but he can´t. Not like that." Kazuha nodded silently, but her eyes still rested on her friend's face. They've discussed the subject a few times, not only today and yesterday but also the past ten years. Kudo's try to protect her was also destroying Ran. Her strong walls threatened to crumble beneath the lonely wind until nothing but ruins would be left.

An empty shell.

'But a living one.'

Her husbands word's echoed in Kazuha's head, the two detective were so alike in some things and yet their genius minds didn´t understand that sometimes they didn´t want to be protected. Ignorance, fear and loneliness sometimes hurt more than physical pain ever could.

She swallowed, watching the colorful pattern of light and shadow on the path in front of them, which was formed by the leaves of the trees above them. It looked like someone had stretched a large lace blanket above them, that was moving back and forward in the wind, making the light on their path dance to a silent sound. However, right know they hand trouble to enjoy the beauty around them.

"I know that you want to be with him, but it's a lot that you're ready to leave behind for him and for a future that…"

'… might not exist.' Kazuha bit her lips and forced her last sentenced back down her throat, since she didn´t want to start this discussion anew.

William Bell was no longer a secret to the organization… this meant that he had to stop to exist, soon. So Shinichi would have to build up a new live again, if they weren´t able to bring the organization to it's knees.

But this time, Ran wanted to be part of his life.

She didn´t want to lose him again.

Her gaze swept back to her little boy, the three-year old was a welcome distraction for her thoughts.

"I want to talk to them, if these people from the FBI really know Shinichi that good, like Heiji told you, I want to talk to them."

'Maybe they could offer me a way to stay with him…'

Kazuha's face tensed, when she noticed Ran's expression, her blue eyes seemed to dark for her usual cheerful character. A brief grin crept over the Osakan's lips, as she playfully peeked her friend into her side.

"You're sure that ya just want to take a look at the American woman who caught ya and Kudo on the phone, last time?"

"Kazuha!" Her friend couldn´t help but laugh at the color of Ran's face, so that the lips of the teacher twitched into a smile as well.

"It's true isn´t it? That's at least another reason why ya want ta met them."

"Maybe… but that's not what this is about." Kazuha sighed, looking back to her son, who had found the nearest mud puddle and unceremoniously turned his car into a submarine. But the silence between them couldn´t be lightened by the tiny mud covered face. Kazuha's voice was hoarse when she finally decided to speak again.

"He certainly won´t like it…" Ran hesitated, but nodded.

"No, no he won't."

She swallowed the burning in her throat and tried to ignore the slow-rising nausea.

"But at least I've to try Kazuha… how dangerous can that be anyway?"

XXX

"What's taking him so long?" Kogoro's rough tone was accompanied by a swaying cigarette in the corner of his mouth, which the officer had been chewing on for the last half an hour. Megure nodded silently, Mori was right, this really shouldn´t take so long. His eyes switched to the two detectives by his side, who've been looking at their wristwatches or the digital watch on the wall. Just when Megure wanted to dismiss Takagi to take a look a dull bang mixed with a hoarse curse hit his ears.

Despite his years, Megure was the first person who'd squeezed himself into the small room. The locker room wasn´t big, it was too small and held nothing but a small bench a locker and a mirror on the grey wall. Kabawa lay across the room, leaning with his elbow on the bench while his eyes lay rigidly on his feet, as if he'd seen this part of the body for the first time.

"What happened?" Megure demanded, but the fear already made him talkative.

"I was about to button up this shitty shirt when- Arg, fuck! Do someone already!" Kabawa's trembling hand reached for his half-opened shirt, revealing a greasy fine ribbed undershirt beneath it, before his fingers stopped their motion. Megures own hand rested on the criminal's forehead and the searched for a pulse only to look even more worried, while Heiji pulled the shoes from Kabawa's feed.

Bell climbed over the man on the ground and kneeled beside Megure to reach for the criminals hand. The skin beneath his fingers seemed cold. Kabawa's big hand lay limp, almost lifeless sin his own. It was obvious that the paralysis caused the struggle with the buttons and the fact that his knees could no longer carry his eight.

"Do you have a headache, are you feeling sick?" Bell's worried voice seemed to attract Kabawa's attention, but he only made a face with a snarl.

"The damn head is hammering since the court started, what else is to be expected by all this shit" Shinichi swallowed, but Bell's voice was more bitter than intended.

"Next time Kabawa-san, you should inform yourself a little more about the poison you've been using. The first sighs of an ergotamine poisoning are nausea, headeach and cold limbs, along with a barely measurable pulse.

"What?!" But just when the murderer looked at his finger's in Bell's hand he saw the light blue color of his fingertips, clearly symptom he recognized in horror.

"No! NO!" The officers ignored his scream, Heiji who had ridden the man of his shoes looked up with a nod.

"The toes too." Megure cursed."

"Damn! Hurry Takagi, get the doctor!"

XXX

The paramedics were fast, but the poison was faster. Shinichi swallowed, the man who'd been staring at his blue foot tips was now bending over in pain. Ergotamine, the poison of a fungus that mainly infected cereal and had been a huge problem a few hundred years ago hiding in their bred for breakfast. Today however, it was rare because of chemicals used on the field so that it was hardly common knowledge any more. The police however was still familiar with this medium. Each drug cave was full of this stuff, since it was a step in the LSD production. So when a junkie wasn´t able to wait until the stuff was ready and clean… well that was just unlucky. Kabawa's inspiration and source therefore wasn´t hard to guess, a few milligrams were enough to send even this gorilla of a man to his last rest in a rather nasty way.

The tasteless substance affected the nervous system, paralyzing the limbs and leaving the brain in a fog of delusions, that only ended in pain and some of the cruelest hallucinations. Even if heart and lung failure led to death in the end, it was the narrowing of vessels in hand and feet, which made the victim almost longing for their last rest. Because the extremities were only num at first, but then…

Hot tears run over the big man's cheek, his lips no longer formed sentences but screams and desperate whimpering.

"Kudo…" Heiji's voice ripped him from his thought and yet the detective immediately knew what his friend wanted to tell him.

"I know… I he already had symptoms during court-"

"It mean's that we've missed our killer. The guy poisoned him before." Shinichi nodded, looking back to the man writhed on the ground.

The blood continued to withdraw from his hand's and feet's, the cells lacked oxygen, they might last for a while but not forever, so that Kabawa's tissue slowly started to die. His skin, muscles, nerves slowly decomposed, his toes and fingers would chance color from blue to black.

He couldn´t shake the thought from his head.

Kabawa was rotting alive.

"Damn, what do they give him? Why isn´t the stuff working? Kogoro's voice was tense, eve through he despite the ma on the floor none of them wanted to watch this scene any longer. But the two medic's didn't react to the shout, long gone deaf for accusations like this. Nevertheless, the cold sweat on heir forehead and the brittle voice of the paramedic was telling them enough.

"It's not working… but why?" The doctor stared at the little, now empty, bottle in his hand, which Kogoro had taken form the prison's safe on Megure's order.

While the doctor moved the bottle back and forth, Shinichi recognized something on the label, or rather underneath it. The detectives eyes grew large, the American grabbed the little bottle, not asking for permission and held it against the light of the ceiling lamp.

"The final Problem."

The three words shimmered through the label in black letters.

"WHAT?!" But Bell stopped Kogoro's hand, who was ready to rip the label from the tiny bottle.

"Wait, Mori-kun, we should leave this to the guy's from the lab." Kogoro's gaze briefly fixed Shnichi before the police officer understood the meaning of their found.

"Holmes" had switched their antidote. The security measures they had chosen to protect their victim, now doomed him to his fate.

A thunderous swear emerged from Megure's throat, his eyes wandered from Shinichi to the paramedic.

"What now?"

The doctor himself had only grown pale it took him a few seconds before he could get his mid to work again.

"I've got everything to prevent a cardiac arrest for now, but nothing to stop the necrosis on his hands and feet-" His grey eyes detached from his patient and fixed Megure.

"I've got nothing to stop the poison."

XXX

"How did he do that?"

Heiji's voice was muffled I the little medical room of the prison. They had to leave the crime scene when it became clear that Kabawa needed medical attention. Mori had accompanied the emergency doctor while Takagi oversaw the forensics at work, who've been searching through the locker, Kabawa's cell and the medical room, they stood in now. Some evidence Kabawa might carry with him could be lost, but saving the man's live was still priority in this case.

"He'd switched them, aright, but how and when?" Bell looked to his friend, who'd been searching for evidences near the safe, while he examined the room. The scent of disinfectant still stabbed his nose, like the smell wanted to tell him something, something he simply didn´t get.

Shinichi simply shrugged.

"If we're lucky he can answer this question himself."

"If we can use the finger prints at all.." Heiji grumbled, but his own words made the detective of the west pause. He looked back to Shinichi who'd been skipping through the schedule of the medical office.

"Say Kudo… if it's true and the organization is involved in this case, isn´t it surprising that they would him allow such a mistake." Shinichi swallowed, scrolled forwards to the last two days.

"It worries me more than it surprises me-" The detective stopped, drawing his friends attention again.

"What?"

"Kabawa had an appointment, last night."

"Here?"

Shinichi nodded, reaching for the phone in the room and let himself being connected with the director. The smoky voice of the old officer, spoke loud enough that Heiji could hear him a few meters away.

"It's true, Kabawa had a treatment last night. He was nauseous as far as I've heard. The doctor had ordered another examination for today, shortly before court, to make sure that he was well enough to be interrogated today." The eyes of the two detectives grew big, the blank calendar pace of today's date was right I front of him.

"And who performed this examination?"

"Our doctor of course, Dr. Korioshi."

"Could you please try to reach him? We need him here."

"of course… just a moment please." Shinichi could hear the dealing noise of the phone at the other end of the line, waiting for the strange feeling in his stomach grew with the silence.

"That's strange… he's not picking up."

The eyes of the two detectives met briefly, before Shinichi asked for the address of the doctor, as well as requesting that the information was also shared with Megure right away.

The phone fell back to it's place with a dull sound, leaving a loud silence in the room.

"How?"

It was no longer the question how the victim was poisoned, no that was easy, since the real doctor didn´t seemed to be home, someone had abused his name.

Still, there were two things that bothered him.

For once the murder had to have good medical knowledge, they knew that from the first murder, when he'd precisely missed the heart to imitate the stab pattern of the previous murder. On the other hand he had to play the doctor for Kabawa without him growing suspicious. Furthermore he could only have exchanged the antidote at last minute and that meant they must have known about the measures they'd been preparing.

Shinichi thoughtfully buried his fingers in Bell's hair and saw how Hattori reached for the calendar, swearing when he upset the iodine bottle on the shelf next to the examination table.

The bottle had not been sealed so that the rust-brown liquid was now running over the metal table, changing the cold metal color to a warm chopper before it was stopped by the edge of the table.

Pictures wavered in front of him, Shinichi gasped for breath only to stop breathing right away when the iodine fused air burned his nose.

"So that's how it is…"

Heiji who'd notices the whisper of is colleague, looked at him in wonder, before his eyes widened when he recognized the sparkle in his friends gaze.

"Kudo?"

Shinichi just turned to him with a nod, but the triumphant smile on his lips didn´t appear.

'This is way too easy…'

Hey everyone,

I know, I know... the chapter is sort of a filler- but it's worth it, because the fun is going to start soon!

I hope you still enjoyed the chapter! Many thanks to each of you who reviewed and of course a big thank you to Tobina for her amazing beta work!

Of course I would love to read your thoughts!

Stay safe everyone!

Till next month

~ Shelling