False Hopes
The crumpled bourbon label on the bedside table of his hospital room had accompanied him through the day, always reminding him of what was real, while he drifted between waking and sleeping. Shinichi hadn't noticed how the day turned into night and back into a new day, had slept through the doctor's visits as well as Megure's, who was slowly but surely becoming worried about the still resting detective.
He probably would have slept through the pricking of the needle in his arm that morning, if the constant changing of the blood tubes wouldn´t have woken him so that he now looked at the bloodthirsty vampire by his side in annoyance.
The young nurse, however, hadn't noticed his gaze, nor that of the two people who had entered the room - until his father's voice captured both her's and Shinichi's attention.
"I think that's more than enough blood for your tests. And judging by the look on my son's face, he agrees." The nurse flinched, turning to Yusaku in shock until her gaze drifted to the motionless "victim" of her bloodthirst with a startled gaze.
Shinichi's eyes moved from the nurse's slowly blushing face to the five filled blood vials on the shelf to the sixth she still held in her hand.
"Indeed, I think that for whatever you think you can find, that will be enough."
She held his gaze for a moment, he saw her mouth open and then close again without having done anything, before she released him from the needle with a nod and barely audibly instructed him to apply pressure to the small wound in the crook of his arm. She looked neither at him nor at his parents, as she left the room with a few frantic words.
"I will tell the doctor that you are awake..."
She fled the room and left him alone with his parents.
Shinichi swallowed, avoiding the gazes, not knowing if he preferred the oppressive silence to nurse thirst for blood until his mother's hoarse voice scratched the empty room.
"Oh, Shinichi..."
With a few steps, she had overcome the distance to him, brushed a strand of hair from his forehead, and let her hand rest briefly on his cheek. He pulled a face but kept his mouth shut and allowed his mother the brief moment, while his gaze slid longingly to the coffee mug she had left on the little table in her haste.
"You're awake at last!" He heard the relief in her voice, but there was still the memory of fear and worry in her gaze. He swallowed dryly, then nodded.
"Since yesterday. At least I think it was yesterday. Ran was here... she... she didn't tell you?"
Yukiko bit her lips, shook her head slowly. "No, she didn't..."
Yukiko looked at her son questioningly, but Shinichi remained silent and averting his eyes. She wanted to ask him what was going on, but her son's now grown-up features captured her.
"So, you know? That- that you-..."
"That I've aged ten years overnight?" He sighed, examining his hands in his lap, this time it really seemed permanent.
"Yes, I noticed."
Yukiko, however, ignored the sarcasm in his voice as much as his lack of joy. A fine smile slid across the former actress's red lips, causing fine lines to dig into her make-up as she let her fingers slide through his hair again, even his annoyed expression couldn't change that.
'Finally, we got you back...'
It was hard to get used to his suddenly adult features, which made her understand what she had actually not wanted to admit.
She had lost ten years.
Ten years in which she could not watch her little boy grow into an adult and independent young man.
'More so... after all, your father and I have missed so much.' She swallowed, feeling the lump in her throat grow once more.
'If I ever regretted a decision Shinichi, this is the one...'
His dull eyes marked him, made him look older than he was, and turned him into someone she didn't know.
A stranger.
The young man whose hand she held was tired and beaten.
Yukiko swallowed, felt hot tears sliding down her cheeks, knew they were accompanied by the remnants of her mascara and probably left dark marks on her cheeks.
'What have they done to you, Shinichi...'
As if he had heard her unspoken thought, Yusaku finally came to her side and put his hand protectively on her shoulder.
His son, however, only turned his gaze to him for a moment before he found another corner of the room much more interesting, just as he had done as a child when he was waiting for his father to punish him. He didn't even try to avoid it, simply that there waiting for the storm to wash over him.
But the writer only sighed, running his hand over his forehead as he began to speak.
"To any other detective or police officer, I would probably say that it was a good-, the right decision..." Yusaku swallowed, sat down next to his wife on the hard edge of the hospital bed and let his eyes wander over the young man at his side.
"But Shinichi... you are my son and will remain so, no matter how old you are."
Shinichi's dark eyes made Yusaku's voice more bitter than intended.
"That's why I wish you wouldn´t constantly put yourself in situations where a lie or a truth stands between you and your life."
A deep shadow had formed over the writer's blue eyes, his hand was clenched into a useless fist, reflecting the helplessness of the past weeks and years.
"And damn it I wish you wouldn't have made decisions like that,… that you wouldn´t have to decide such things."
Shinichi swallowed, his throat dry and his mind swept clean by his father's words. He knew neither what to answer, nor what to make of this sermon, only that it was one, he was pretty sure. He let himself sink back into his rumpled pillow and stared at the ceiling.
"How bad is it?"
His question made Yukiko look up, skeptically she looked from Shinichi to Yusaku, but he seemed to know exactly what his son meant.
"Ever since Shinichi Kudo, the "old" Shinichi Kudo resurfaced, things have been quieter. Tracy indeed used a clever trick to pull your neck of the noose." His son's eyebrows went up questioningly, while Yusaku's moustache twitched just briefly.
"No one outside the police or the FBI has seen you without Bell's face. And after the antidote took effect, the FBI itself got the media involved." He saw Shinichi wrinkle his forehead running cold fingers over his own as he continued to speak.
"They allowed the press a brief glimpse of Shinichi Kudo and, along with a few hints from your colleagues at the FBI, the press spun their own picture of the events of the last few weeks."
Shinichi just stared at him before bursting into a hollow laugh that made both parents look at him questioningly.
A bitter smile was on the detective's lips as he shook his head, seemingly amused.
"They didn´t believe me…." His words were barely audible and yet were met with a nod from Yusaku.
"No. Because after all, anything is probably more believable than what you've served the public."
"The evidence..."
"A clever placed trick, just like the video and the masks."
A relieved sigh escaped Shinichi's throat, but he could already feel the headache of the past weeks catch up with him again.
'How long have you been worrying about maneuvering me out of this, Tracy?'
"Everything that had helped to blow the organization up Is now declared as a moved people in the past days is now being declared as a ruse by you to get these black figures out of their holes. But whether the public likes you better now, after all the former excitement is hard to tell." The writer sighed, noticing how his son's blue eyes rested on him, eyeing him skeptically he already knew that there was a catch to the whole thing.
Yusaku swallowed, a bitter taste coating his tongue accompanying his words.
"As you have just seen from your extremely caring nurse, there are still doubts among the population. People don't want to throw the belief and the possibility of eternal life away so easily."
Shinichi sighed, ran his hand through his hair and only now realized that his hands were shaking.
"Not to mention that there are enough people for whom this story will probably never become a rumor again." He swallowed, his features hardening, while Shinichi continued his thoughts.
"For all those who have known Conan Edogawa, this is probably the only logical answer to a few questions." Yusaku just nodded, while his mother's smile had long since disappeared as she brushed one of her red curls behind her ear.
"We will have to live with this truth somehow…"
Shinichi, however, avoided her gaze.
'The truth.'
The word left a bitter taste in his mouth. But just as he was about to find the courage and turn the conversation to Ran's presence or… well absence, there was a short rhythmic knock on his bedroom door.
A mere phrase of politeness.
Before he could answer, a small, wiry, older gentleman entered the room, a far less skeptical-looking nurse in tow than the vampire from before.
The little doctor's eyebrows lifted in surprise, but the smile I saw on his lips seemed genuine to Shinichi. As he slowly entered the room, his parents moved away from his bed as if on command and cleared the space for the two medics.
"It's good to see you back among the living at last." The doctor took his parents' place and kindly extended his hand to Shinichi.
"Doctor Hamada, your attending physician, if you don't mind." A mischievous wink accompanied his words, Shinichi did him the favor and mirrored the grin, after all, he was the first person to speak to him seemingly without any bias.
"Well, I guess the fact that I woke up at all, speaks for itself." The doctor just grinned as he retrieved the clipboard with the detective's data from the foot of his bed so that the doctor's eyes regained some of their authority and seriousness.
"Very well, then – Kudo-kun, you will have to answer one or two questions for me while I re-examine you." Shinichi swallowed, then nodded. But before the doctor could continue with the protocol, his father intervened clearing his throat. "If you don't mind, doctor, we'll use this time to get some fresh clothes for your patient, I'm sure you'll inform us of any news."
The old doctor blinked in surprise until he nodded in confirmation.
"But of course."
"Thank you very much." Yusaku hooked his arm around Yukiko's and ushered his more-than-surprised wife out of the room, before nodding goodbye to Shinichi, who was visibly relieved not to have to answer these questions in front of them, or rather his mother.
The doctor glanced after them briefly before returning to his patient with a small smile.
"Let's see then..."
The questions about his condition had not taken much time, only the recurring headaches worried the doctor, so he had sent the nurse to fetch a colleague from neurology. Just to be sure, of course, because the worried gleam in the doctor's amber eyes told him that he did have a good guess for the origin of said headache, which was probably not too different from Shinichi's own.
Nevertheless, the little doctor didn't touch the subject, but focused his attention on his ankles, a nasty remnant of Matsumoto's shackles, which had done a particularly good job on his right leg. But when the doctor bandaged the wound again and let his eyes glide over his work with a satisfied nod, Shinichi could no longer contain his sarcasm.
"Alright Kudo-kun, everything looks quite good. We've got the dehydration under control and the neurologist will clarify everything else with you, so that would be it for me now."
"And you're sure you don't need another blood test?"
The doctor faltered briefly in his movements, but his expression betrayed nothing as he scribbled his signature on a formula in his file.
"I'm sorry about the incident with Natsuja-san, she had no right..." But the moment the little man began to justify himself, Shinichi realized that he'd made a mistake.
The doctor was the first person, apart from his parents and Ran, to treat him like a normal person and that's how he thanked him? He sighed, running his hand through his hair and interrupted the doctor with a quick shake of his head.
"It's all right, I'm sorry, I'm afraid my nerves really aren't the best at the right now..."
Hamada, however, curiously searched eye contact so that Shinichi had asked a question before he had even given himself much time to think about it.
"What do you think?"
The medic frowned thoughtfully and carefully put the file back as if he had not heard him.
"You are my patient Kudo-kun. I am here to ensure your medical care. It is not for me to pass judgment on something like that."
Shinichi, however, just shook his head.
"I didn't ask you to judge, doctor, but for your opinion." The two men looked into each other's eyes, before the doctor broke eye contact with him, took his glasses off his nose and started polishing them. A gesture that made his fingertips twitch, somehow he missed that small, reassuring habit. Doctor Hamada's tone was calm when he then began to speak again.
"As I said before, Kudo-kun, you are my patient. And if I can say anything, it's that whatever you've been through has taken a lot out of you, and not just physically. And as for everything else..." The doctor grinned, put his glasses back on his nose and looked out the window at the grey Tokyo sky.
"In my opinion, there are some secrets in medicine that should remain secret. I have two grandchildren; how would it look if I suddenly-..."
The doctor laughed loudly, still shaking his head in amusement as he turned to face him.
"No, everything has its time. Not to mention that I don't think anyone would be willing to pay your price." Shinichi swallowed and the smile on his lips faded.
'You have no idea...'
But just as the doctor was about to leave him alone with his problems, he remembered something else he wanted to ask the doctor.
"I- excuse me doctor, but is it all right if I stand up?" He felt his cheeks turn red as the doctor's eyebrows rose questioningly.
"I would like to- well..."
The little doctor let his gaze slide over him scrutinizing and then nodded.
"If you don't overdo it, it shouldn't be a problem, but you shouldn't be surprised if your muscles don't obey you. You have been lying still for a long time." His patient nodded calmly before he continued with a sly smile on his lips.
"I can understand you being curious, of course, but I have to warn you, some men can't stand to look in the mirror in the morning even at their age, and God knows they had more time to get used to it."
But while Hamada only winked at him one last time, the detective only grimaced.
'Haha.'
XXX
Now he stood there, still with weak, shaky knees that no longer wanted to support his weight, so he had to support himself with his hands on the cool porcelain of the washbasin while he stared at the man in front of him.
And Shinichi Kudo stared back.
A face that was his and yet one he didn't know.
While the time skip between elementary and high school student was certainly more impressive for others, seeing his own face without knowing the ten years in between left him with an oppressive feeling.
The last childish features had disappeared from his face, leaving it angular and sharp. His mother had been right earlier, he looked like his father, even more so now. The sharp features and angular cheekbones betrayed his origins. Even the wound from Gin's shot and Matsumoto's knife could not change that.
Shinichi swallowed, ran shaky fingers over his face, it scratched when he reached the three-day stubble. His stature, though haggard from the last few days, was different. No longer did anything seem half-finished, his shoulders were broader, he himself a fraction taller.
Shinichi bit his lips, shook his head defensively until a sad smile crept into his face and drew little lines around the corner of his mouth, which then disappeared again along with his smile.
It was over...
He managed to escape the curse of time, or at least catch up with it again.
'Whatever...'
A hoarse laugh made his lips tremble as he felt a burning in his eyes.
He was back in times stream, but for what?
What had this raging river cost him, what had it carried away?
Matsumoto was still at large.
And Ran...
'Ran.'
Shinichi faltered, biting his lips.
He had his life back, but right now there seemed to be nothing left of it but a pile of broken pieces.
And he had condemned Ran to walk with bare feet over these cutting edges until her soles and soul bled.
"What have I done..."
The look with which she had looked at him, or rather not looked at him, still made the blood in his veins run cold.
He knew that look knew it all too well...
After all, he himself had encountered him in the mirror every morning for the last ten years.
Remorse, guilt and pure disgust for one's own.
But seeing that look in her eyes now was more than he could bear.
And it was his fault alone, of all the lies and secrets he'd been dragging around, that was the one thing he would have preferred to take to the grave.
Shinichi swallowed, averting his eyes from the mirror to ignore the cynical smile on the stranger's lips. Here stood, having achieved just about everything he hadn't even dared to dream of in the last few years, and she, the reason why he hadn't given up long ago...
She wasn't here.
He'd lost her.
A quiet shudder ran through his body, making him feel every muscle, while goosebumps appeared on his skin. He had no idea how to bring her back…how to give her back what he and Matsumoto had taken from her.
'Not the slightest…'
Shinichi swallowed, forced himself to lift his gaze again and stared into his own blue eyes for a brief moment.
He felt exactly how he looked, tired, dirty and exhausted. In short, shitty.
He took his hand from the sink and ran it over his face, his fingers cool from the porcelain and giving him relief for a few seconds. His gaze wandered away from the mirror to the small pile of towels that had been placed for him. It was finally time to wash off all this dirt.
Determined, he pushed aside the small curtain of his shower and turned the tap, so that the water could get to the right temperature. He hadn't thought much about it, in fact, he hadn't thought at all, just imagining how a warm shower would wash off the dirt and at least some worry.
A mistake, quite clearly.
For as soon as the first drops of water found their rushing way down, he felt his breath catch in his throat. He made a frantic leap backward, stumbled and hit his head against the opposite wall, so that black dots danced before his eyes, while Shinichi slowly slid down the wall.
But even the rush of his own blood didn't manage to mask the thunderous roar of the shower. The filthy thing was calcified, so that some of the nozzles were clogged and, in addition to the pelting rain, individual heavy drops kept hitting the brown tiles on the floor.
His gaze was fixed on the water, he couldn't move, couldn't look away, even if the black shadows before his eyes slowly disappeared.
Irrational, stupid, a shower.
Nothing to which one should react in this way. But all these thoughts were useless because together with the pattering rain, her voice also echoed in his ear.
Ran's voice, that wasn't hers, while his lips told her the truth, something that would destroy them being together ever again.
'No...'
The watery air swamped the room, the drops seemed to grow louder and louder, the roar of the shower a deadly waterfall, while the white mist slowly swallowed him, eating cold and clammy into his clothes.
'No.'
Drop by drop, his mind drowned in panic.
Drop by drop, he was down there again, along with him.
Drop by drop, he ruined her life.
"No."
"K-Kudo-san?"
The strange voice jolted him out of his thoughts, he looked at the nurse, who in turn eyed him anxiously. But his head was still empty, his muscles did not obey him, so it remained that way, he stared at her like a deer caught in the headlights.
The young woman swallowed, remembering the passages in his file that had made her hair stand on end the first time she read them, and reacted immediately; with just a few steps she had reached the shower and stopped the flow of water. With her hands now wet but a sigh of relief on her lips, she turned back to him, but the young man was still staring at her. She saw him flinch, here and there, when a lone drop of water still sought its way into the sink.
She swallowed, feeling a lump forming in her own throat when she finally threw all professionalism go out the window when she saw the look in his eyes. Shinichi Kudo was not much older than her, she knew the old press reports about the "savior of the Japanese" police. Too clever, too grown up, even then, perhaps. If one of her friends had such a look in their eyes, she would be frightened.
Because that's what it was, terrifying.
So much suffering, so much pain and regret in such otherwise knowing and intelligent eyes, now slowly mingled with shame as his mind began to grasp the situation.
Those eyes were too old for him.
Too old, actually, for any human being.
She swallowed, shook her head gruffly.
`Back to reality Hatsumi.'
Her gaze fell back on her patient, who was now rubbing the seemingly fishy bump on the back of his head, while he avoided her gaze.
He swallowed, feeling his cheeks begin to glow with shame as he tried to explain himself.
"I- I'm sorry, I must have slip-"
"We have a bathtub."
This short sentence made him look up.
The nurse, however, didn't cross his gaze, had begun to pick up the towels he had snatched during his panic attack.
"I will arrange it for you and call you when it's ready."
Warm water from below in exchange for cold drops from above, well it was at least worth a try.
He nodded and she smiled, getting up and offering him a hand to help him to his feet as well, before studying him closely.
"Are you hurt?"
Shinichi swallowed, automatically grabbed the throbbing spot at the back of his head, but shook his head.
"A bump, nothing more. "
She eyed him skeptically for a moment before nodding.
"Very well, I will call you when everything is ready. The neurologist won't be here for a few hours, he's in surgery right now." But before she could finally offer him the left to free him from this embarrassing situation, the voice of Shinichi Kudo stopped her in her tracks.
"Thank you."
That was probably the most sincere and serious word she had heard from him today, so she left the room of this special patient with a fine smile on her lips.
XXX
The electric tension in her body when she saw him awake for the first time, the young man she hadn't really known until now, faded when she saw the look in his eyes. They were empty, which made him look even more lost with this foreign face.
The American swallowed, frowned and entered the room with a final step.
"Why that face? You are a little too young for midlife crises, aren't you?"
The detective jolted out of his trance, not having noticed that someone had entered his hospital room, and now stared at the FBI agent in surprise.
"Tracy?"
But she frowned, noticing how his voice sent a soft shiver down her spine as she studied his adult features and dropped down next to him in the small armchair she had claimed for herself so many times in the past few days.
"So, what now? Can you explain to me why you making such a face, while you should be jumping with joy?" Shinichi, however, avoided her gaze, so that the glee in her voice disappeared along with the anger she had forced in her tone, she became quiet, putting her hand on his arm.
"You did it Shinichi... you achieved the impossible, you are yourself again... so why can't you enjoy it?"
She saw him swallow before handing her a crumpled piece of paper. Tracy, however, immediately recognized the torn label and just looked at him, waiting for an answer.
"She blames herself... Ran, for everything that happened..." His words had faltered, the air left his lungs so that he had to take a deep breath before he managed to continue to speak.
"She didn't know ... she had no idea. Because of me, I kept her in the dark... that's why this happened. But Ran... she doesn't want to understand..." Shinichi's voice died away, his words had made her heart heavy.
Why couldn't it be easy for the two of them, just once?
The American swallowed, shook her head with a cynical smile on her lips.
'You two are just so quite similar. You hurt each other to protect each other.' She swallowed, looked up, back into the dark blue eyes.
'Nevertheless, that's no reason to stop fighting, now of all times!'
She drew her eyebrows together as she slowly rose from the chair, the floor squeaked beneath her green pumps now causing Shinichi to look up at her questioningly.
"This is the reason why you're looking like a drowned cat?" He flinched, but she didn't hesitate, she had enough. She'd understood and guided him over the last few years, but enough was enough, it was time to give him a piece of her mind.
"After all this time, being miles and even years away from her, that's it?" She shook her head, looking down at him in disappointment.
"You gave her up, just like that?"
He looked at her, swallowed, before guiltily avoiding her gaze. Tracy just sighed, massaging the bridge of her nose in annoyance, risking ruining her make-up in the process.
"Hell Shinichi, don't you think it's time to behave like the man you look like?"
He winced noticeably, staring at his hands that lay uselessly in his lap.
"What am I supposed to say?" The detective sighed, shook his head helplessly before looking up at her questioningly.
"She doesn't want to hear what really happened, she doesn't want to understand... I can't change the past,... so what should I do?"
"Be with her, Shinichi."
Stuart's voice made them look up, the FBI agent stood in the doorway and slowly started walking towards his fiancée as he eyed the detective in front of him. He had really done it...
He was himself again and yet he looked lost. The agent grinned to himself, no wonder Tracy was angry, after all the work and worry he had caused them, this was certainly not the outcome his romantically inclined fiancée had imagined.
Tracy, however, only nodded, shifting her gaze back to her "foster child" before her features slowly softened.
"Stue is right. Do what she did for you, even if she claims she doesn't want to see you..."
A soft smile slid across her lips.
"She needs you..."
'...as much as you need her.'
She sighed, automatically sought her fiancé's hand, and nestled her warm fingers in his.
"You love her, Shinichi, and if she'll realize that you don't blame her, she may eventually be able to forgive herself too."
She smiled, winking at him encouragingly.
"Trust me."
He just stared at her, long and silent, so that he had to clear his throat at the end, to prevent his voice from breaking, while a faint shade of red crept onto his pale cheeks.
"Thank you..."
Shinichi swallowed, looking up at the two with a tired smile.
"For... for everything, I guess." He laughed, still shaking his head in disbelief.
"Even though I have no idea how you did it." His gaze fell to his hands.
"I really don't know how to thank you..." Tracy, however, swallowed, just shook his head with a soft smile, making him look at her questioningly.
"You don't have to..."
"But-..." She however, was having none of this.
"You don't have to thank me Shinichi... not for this, anyway." She nodded looking up and down his body.
'What?' Shinichi looked at her in confusion, but the chemist swallowed as her fiancé's warm hand settled on her shoulder when he noticed her tension. She took a breath, opened her handbag and handed the voice recorder and a pair of headphones to the still puzzled detective.
"Here." She sheepishly brushed a strand of hair behind her ear.
"I just hope you don't mind my curiosity."
Of course, he immediately recognized what Tracy had put in his hand.
"But... that's-..."
"It's yours now Shinichi, it's always been yours..." The young man, however, only raised his eyebrows and frowned.
'Seems that you're not the only one who prepared for the worst.' The chemist thought bitterly. But just as Shinichi was about to open his mouth, Stuart intervened. The inventor cleared his throat artificially and put his arm around Tracy's slender waist.
"Well, we're heading off now, at least someone needs to face the consequences of your actions."
Shinichi flinched briefly before Stuart put a hand on his shoulder, the scientist's surprisingly large hands suddenly felt no longer as heavy as before. His inquiring and honest gaze had not changed, however, as he looked Shinichi in the eye.
"We would never have come this far without you, Shinichi, the organization is history now... thanks to you." But the relieved smile on Shinichi's lips didn't last long and was extinguished by Stuart's next almost silent words.
"But I swear, if you ever put such a stunt again, I'll show you a different side of me. Got it?"
Shinichi rolled his eyes but then nodded as Stuart grinned triumphantly at him.
"What are you two talking about?"
"Nothing!"
The answer to Tracy's question came a little too fast from the mouths of the man, never a good sign. Today, however, she would let it go with a shake of her head, Stuart was right, they really did have some work to do.
"Alright, come on, it's time to do your job."
"See you later Shinichi."
He just nodded, watching the two of them walk towards the door so that they probably didn't even hear him anymore.
"Thank you."
He was left alone in the room, well, not quite alone, after all, there was the ghost of Elena Miyano.
But why would Tracy give him one of Ai's tapes?
The detective swallowed, carefully turned the recorder back and forth while putting the plugs in his ears with one hand. A cold feeling had found itself at home in the pit of his stomach, betraying the evil foreboding into which had found its way into his confused mind. But there was only one way to find out whether he was right in his assumption. Shinichi faltered, hesitated briefly before playing the tape with a small click.
"-forgive me... for being a bad person. "
Elena's voice sounded desperate, the otherwise calm Englishwoman seemed close to tears.
"I love you, my little Shiho, with all my heart."
Shinichi swallowed, knowing that these words were not really meant for his ears, but the silence that fell quickly dispelled the thought, his finger hovering over the switch-off button when suddenly her voice echoed in his ears.
"Kudo-kun... I'm sorry."
"H- Haibara...?"
His breath caught in his chest, he felt the hairs on his arm stand up as he listened to the ghost of her voice, familiar to his ears despite all these years.
He heard her swallow, literally saw her in front of him, with that vague and sad expression in her eyes that had so rarely broken through her cold façade.
"I know an apology isn't enough to make up for all this and I'm not asking you to forgive me either. You know I never have. But I hope you find that tape and that you hear me out as you did before."
Her green eyes hovered in the air in front of him, piercing his heart and making him nod involuntarily, even though she would probably have continued to speak even without his consent.
"My mother was right when she said she left me something..."A bitter smile crept ghostly from the dark tape.
"The APTX... she left it to me. Her research, everything they had up to that point... including the failures, it was here on this tape. " He heard her sigh, still sensing how hard it was for her to keep talking.
"I had the data on the poison at least up to the point where I had taken over the research on it... but that was enough..."
She paused, a hot shiver running down his spine, when she finally managed to continue speaking, a fine smile invisible on her lips.
"It... it was enough to set up the formula of a new antidote, Kudo-kun."
His heart stopped for a beat, his ears filled with cotton as her voice spoke insistently to him.
"I know I should have told you, it wasn't right to keep your life from you...but-..." She swallowed and he heard her voice finally break.
"I did it to protect you, Kudo-kun...at least I hope so...and I wasn`t simply selfish." She sighed, he could see her in front of him, strands of reddish blonde hair falling back and forth as she shook her head in.
"Because honestly, Shinichi, how did you imagine it would work? Do you really think you could go back to being a cheerful high school student and walk around the world without the organization getting wind of it?"
Anger crept up inside him, he knew she was right, she had been right all along and yet her next words, barely spoken aloud, hit him right in the heart.
"I know you want to go back to her..." She faltered, making the tape hiss briefly and obscuring the sad sound of her voice for a moment.
"And what I have done to you is irreparable, I only hope Vermouth has kept her part of the deal. You're probably angry, but you're no good to this world dead, Kudo-kun. The arrogant high school student whose house I raided could never bring this organization down, but you could."
Her voice had gained new strength, humming in his ears, while his heart contracted painfully.
"And for that, I leave you the data of the antidote, instead of my mother's, it's time to erase these formulas once and for all.
You probably can't understand this... after all, I never gave you a reason to so, but... I trust you, Shinichi, I believe in you, in the fact that you can make the world a better place for yourself and others. For the children, the professor..." He heard her voice break as her words were suddenly no longer directed at him.
"..tell him- thank you from me, and that I am sorry and that he- he was Ai's family and I am grateful for that. However, that is no excuse to neglect his diet! Tell him that."
Haibara swallowed and he felt her last words slowly coming to an end.
"I know I'm only putting more obstacles in your way with this plan... but she's right you know… "to fire a bullet, the powder must first be lit first" You will defeat them Kudo, I know that now, you yourself gave me that hope and confidence, you gave me a life - it may have been short, yet more beautiful than anything I could have dreamed of. I..." But she stopped herself in her flow, there was silence for a brief moment before she spoke again.
"Thank you, Shinichi."
A relieved smile resonated in her slightly defiant voice, long-gone tears falling dully and silently to the ground in the background.
"So defeat these black demons and return to her. Return to Ran..."
The detective swallowed, feeling the colour return to his face as he continued to listen to Ai's voice.
He needed a mobile phone, immediately.
XXX
He'd been told that he was awake.
But finding him pacing back and forth in the room, or rather limping, wasn't what he'd expected. Shinichi hadn't spotted him yet, hanging on to the cheap mobile phone he'd been given as if his life depended on it.
'Wouldn't be the first time...'
Hattori, however, only swallowed, taking the opportunity to scrutinize the detective of the East a little more closely. The dust and dirt of the last few weeks had finally disappeared from his hair and face, while his stature had somewhat matched his own.
It was... strange.
He knew he knew this man before him and yet his figure seemed strange to him, the oppressive memory of his first encounter with Conan, didn´t exactly reduce this impression.
'At least it's over now...'
The Osakan sighed, sank into the armchair next to his friend's bed, who clearly just preferred to ignore him. His gaze fell on the small black voice recorder that lay on the patient's side table along with a pair of small headphones. The police officer frowned, but it was not long before the curiosity inherent in his profession prevailed. He didn't notice two sharp eyes watching him, as he grows paler with each turn of the reel.
He listened to the sound of her long-faded voice until the empty hiss of the tape slowly brought him back to reality.
The little girl had tricked them, had deliberately set it all up, sacrificed herself to protect him...
"Kudo."
Heiji looked up, his eyes met Shinichi's, who was no longer pacing restlessly around the room, but looked at him, waiting for a reaction. When he heard the click of the tape, he took the recorder from his hands and rewound the tape.
"Now you're in the picture."
The detective faltered, due to his friend's unfamiliar voice, before he nodded, but Shinichi no longer looked at him, speaking as he watched the tape that seemed to rewind time itself with a buzzing sound, just like that.
"How could I have missed that, Hattori? I should have guessed, after all, I knew her well enough to know that-..."
Heiji, however, just shook his head.
"You're only human, Kudo, and she knew ya as well as ya knew her, so maybe it was easier for her ta keep it from you."
Shinichi swallowed, sank back onto the edge of the bed and gave his tired bones a rest while he cradled the mobile phone in one hand and the tape recorder in the other.
The Osakan's eyebrows drew together critically.
"Everyone makes their own decisions, even if that doesn't necessarily mean that others think they are particularly wise." He saw his colleague flinch.
"Jeez Kudo, what were ya thinkin'? Why didn't ya tell me? Then all this crap would never have happened!"
Shinichi, however, only swallowed.
"You know why, Hattori..."
"Because ya wanted to protect us?"
The police officer stood up, looking at him from above.
"Seriously? Congrats, that worked out well! First, they poisoned Ran and caught ya, and then ya managed ta blow ya secret and ya live up so that hell broke loose all over Japan. Kudo, do ya really think Ran can stand ta keep her feet still while they do God knows what to you? "
Shinichi swallowed, the commissioner watched the colour drain from his face.
"She was gone. Just like that. Of all days, when we finally got our hands on those two damn guys."
This causes Shinichi to finally look him in the eye.
"Gin-..."
"... and Vodka, right! And because of you, because of Ran-" But Heiji's voice broke with a hissed curse.
"Oh, damn!"
Shinichi, however, only stared at him questioningly, Hattori was trembling with anger and was apparently speechless for the first time in his life. Heiji, however, tried to shake off the thought, massaging the bridge of his nose and trying to get the images of past nightmares out of his head.
"Ya were right, Kudo... I could never be able ta forgiven myself."
A brief wave of heat crept under the detective's skin as an inkling of what his friend might mean formed in his mind.
"What happened, Hattori?"
But he just swallowed, looked him in the eye for the first time after his long speech and the fear that Shinichi saw there choked his throat.
"I almost lost him... Haikuro."
The detective let himself sink himself back into the armchair while his eyes lingered on a vague point on the wall as if the scene was playing itself again.
"He was there, sneaking into the car ta help find Neechan, that little brat. I didn't notice, didn't even know he was there until Gin-..."
Shinichi swallowed, feeling nausea creeping up his throat.
'No… please!'
"Hattori...?" But his voice interrupted him bitter and cold.
"He's dead. Gin, I shot him."
The detective bit his lips, the police officer opposite him exhales for a long time, while his eyes still stared into nothing. With a hoarse clearing of his throat, he continued.
"We were supposed ta swap Haiku for Vodka, but tha moment when..."
Heiji's voice died away, Shinichi saw him swallow and slowly shake his head, his tone bitter and final.
"He's dead."
Hattori sighed, feeling his breath still shaking as his tired gaze wandered out of the window, the sky grey and dark. It was probably a bumpy flight for the two of them.
"Tha little one is fine. I put him on a plane with Kazuha, after all..."
But the detective bit his lips, the anger had drained him, along with his narrative, leaving him calmer than when he entered Kudo's room. Shinichi, however, only swallowed, shook his head with a sigh.
"It's okay, I would have done the same. How is he?" This time, however, it was Heiji who shook his head before rolling his eyes and wearing a crooked grin.
"Haiku? He's proud as a peacock that he was able ta help find his Neechan, luckily he didn't notice much of anything else, even though I don't think he still has much faith in Japanese people with long blond hair." Shinichi's lips, however, only twitched briefly, he looked at his friend long and urgently.
"What about you?" The grin on the officer's lips died, and for a moment there was silence between them.
"It's part of tha job."
Heiji swallowed, then shrugged stiffly.
"I'll be fine. Not ta mention, I think we all a little shaken from tha whole thin', go and ask Megure."
Shinichi sighed, ran cold fingers through his hair.
'Of couse... Matsumoto.'
"He led us all astray, Megure couldn't have known. He's not to blame." Heiji nodded.
"I'm sure he'd like ta hear that from ya."
"But first of all ya should take care of yarself, Kudo, if anyone had ta take a beating here, it was ya." He swallowed, feeling a thousand questions burning on his tongue, but the bandages around his friend's hands and ankles and the dark look in his eyes only led to one question, that had nothing to do with what Kudo had experienced in this shithole.
"Who were ya trying to reach?"
The commissioner's gaze fell significantly on the old-fashioned little mobile phone in his friend's hand. Shinichi followed his eyes, swallowing hard before answering.
"Ran." The Osakan's eyebrows drew together, he remembered the ominous paper in the lab.
"Oh."
"She doesn't pick up..."
The pain in his friend's features clearly showed him that Kudo was only telling half the truth, but in this case, it was probably better to leave him alone with it for now.
"She needs time Kudo, she needed ta process all this first."
Shinichi, however, only nodded, continuing to stare dumbly at the small mobile phone in his hand.
"She's under guard, isn't she?"
A soundless, relieved sigh escaped the detective's throat, at least as far as that was concerned he could reassure his colleague.
"Sure. As soon as she leaves the hospital, two guys from the FBI are on her heels and this place is crawling with our stuff anyway."
Shinichi nodded slowly, but worry was not about to leave his gut so easily.
"Then it's fine I guess, I already thought that-..."
But that was as far as he would get.
With a loud bang, the door to his room was yanked open, causing the air in the room to tremble briefly before she crossed the threshold with two firm steps and pointed wildly at him.
"YOU!"
Shinichi barely had time to blink when suddenly the Suzuki heiress was standing in front of him, so close that he could watch her nostrils open and close excitedly.
"What have you done to Ran, Kudo?"
The detective swallowed, looked up at her from the bed and yet felt that his calm was only superficial while his stomach tightened due to the evil forebodings.
"You're going to have to be a little more specific than that, Sonoko."
But she only continued to scowl at him, hot tears burning in her eyes, causing his own heart to stop beating for a moment.
'No.'
He saw her catch her breath, her cheeks red with clear traces of tears that were far too old for mere fantasies and panic.
'Don't say it.'
But once again, the truth had no mercy with him.
Sonoko's accusing words tore what was left of his soul to shreds, stabbing cold and sharp under his skin and releasing hot panic into his veins.
"She's gone! Ran has disappeared. Is that specific enough for you?"
'No!'
Hey everyone,
so sorry for not responding to your reviews, even though they are few, they still keep me going.
Please don´t be mad, I am still working on the next chapter- so I am not sure if I'll manage to be in time next month, but I'lll try!
Thank's to everyone who's still with me and of course big thanks to Tobina who's still working as my Beta!
I hope I'll see you next month with a new chapter - of course, some reviews would be lovely in the writing process.
Have a good time,
~ Shelling