Whew! It's. Finally. Ready. I didn't have any great ideas for any cases, so this is just something for the lost month in the manga. It's written with a 'just what comes to mind' attitude and therefore the story itself doesn't progress much here. It's also pretty short. Hope you like it anyway. And I'm sorry for the long pause. It's last week before Finland's autumn holidays and we have a lot of tests.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Well, this figures. There's no way Conan can be caseless for a month.

Marie stood little ways from Conan, who examined a corpse of a middle aged woman. The woman who just gave her a candy for helping her carry a bag. Who was alive just a minute ago. Marie shook the thoughts out of her head. They gave her an unpleasant feeling in the stomach that she could deal with later. She knew she would never get used to this and Conan wouldn't either. Right now, though, she needed her thoughts clear. Solve the case first, think about it later.

"Find something?", she walked to the boy and whispered.

Conan glanced at her once and nodded, "She was killed with a knife used to slit her throat. About twenty centimeters long. It was done in a hurry and unplanned. The killer most likely threw the knife away somewhere nearby. Motive was probably money"

Marie averted her eyes from the corpse glueing her eyes to Conan's cowlick, "Should I look for the knife?"

"The sooner it's found the better. Go ahead. Do you have gloves?"

"Are these good enough?"

Conan glanced at the rubber gloves and nodded, did a double take, and stared.

"Why do you have rubber gloves with you?"

The girl grinned a prankster-like grin Conan had started to fear a little, "Oh, you never know when you need them"

Conan just stared at the girl's back when she walked away pulling the gloves on. He was still puzzled until he remembered the girl practiced magic. He made a mental note to not question the odd things she had on her in the future.

XXXX

The case was finally over an hour later and the four, Ran, Kogoro, and the not kids, left the scene to go home. Marie was deep in thought.

This one definitely wasn't in the manga.

She remembered each and every scene the manga had to offer and right now she was living the one month's pause where she shouldn't have any idea what happens next. She had, though. She got the same bad feeling she had when she walked towards the second case in this world in Okino Yoko's apartment building. She didn't have the image of what happens, but she had the feeling that something will go wrong soon.

Suddenly Marie wanted to smack her head in a wall and groan. It was too frustrating to have these kind of, well, 'powers' and not know anything about why or how.

Should I go and ask Akako?

Marie paused her walking for a second.

…Let's not think about that again.

She started walking again completely discarding any thoughts about supernatural and odd future seeing feelings. She stuffed her hands in her pockets and found something wrapped in paper. Her shoulders tensed as she remembered the smiling face of a woman, Ramunawa Kimiko, giving her a candy and walking away… only to… only to scream and turn up dead the next second.

She swallowed and let go of the candy, hand searching for her brother's and squeezing.

It took two seconds before Conan tightened his hold. Marie kept her eyes fixed on the ground and thought. He could hide it well, but she knew murders affected him too. He just chose to deal with it later like Marie had at the scene. Maybe they didn't affect him as much anymore, but he must have dealt with them alone to this day. Taking a deep breath Marie lifted her head and gave her brother a weak smile.

"It's okay to let it out sometimes, you know", she whispered so only he heard.

She could see the surprise in his eyes as he snapped his head around to face her. Then his expression melted into something tired and resigned that Marie had never seen before. He gave his own weak smile and let his gaze slide back to the ground.

"In the evening, then. Both of us"

Marie's smile became a little more firm, "It's a promise"

They walked for a while in a comfortable silence, hands still locked together.

"Marie-chan, Conan-kun! Hurry it up!", Ran's voice carried from far ahead of them.

They looked up and saw her and Kogoro almost disappearing behind the next corner. Exchanging glances they smiled and started running letting their hold slip. It was back to this never ending, usually fun acting.

"Hai, Ran-neechan!", two dramatically high voices rang out accompanied by rapid footsteps.

XXXX

The day after that was exhausting. The Edogawa siblings had almost forgotten about Daichi, who had made himself their self proclaimed rival, that made a, in a word, nasty prank on their classmates and put the blame on them. The Detective Boys' shouting (Marie would never do it!, It was Daichi! I know it was him! He hates Conan-kun!, My woman's instinct tells me it was Daichi!...) didn't help the situation in any way. At that moment Marie was so glad she had a detective of all things as her brother. He found undeniable proof that it wasn't them and who the real culprit was. It was an iteresting schoolday and they didn't have a beating from Ran because of a prank they didn't do. But it was also exhausting to wash the mess Daichi had left behind. Right then they had decided to keep an eye on the boy and if he did something more harming they would tell or stop it.

After school the two got pulled into an argument between Daichi and the Detective Boys and Marie was sure it would leave her ears ringing for a week. Luckily it didn't happen. Then, when walking towards home, Marie had a sudden strange feeling and about a block away from home they found an arguing pair of youngsters, the other insisting her friend had decieved her. Conan solved the conflict by telling her why it wasn't true. And Marie couldn't utter a word, because she was too shell shocked with the fact she had almost literally seen this coming when she got that odd feeling.

The dreadful thought of asking Akako had just gotten itself a little more stable place in Marie's mind.

Then, when they actually got home, the Detective Boys called and wanted to drag the two into a Kamen Yaiba show. The worst part was that Ran practically pushed them out almost right after they got the call because she didn't want to deal with 'extra people in the house' when an important exam was coming and she was studying. Plus, they had to 'go and play with kids their age', or so Ran said. They would have preferred to stay with the one who was actually their age. Unfortunately Ran wasn't aware of it.

The show had been the most boring and exhausting thing Marie had ever been to and Conan agreed with her. They spent it with Marie teaching Conan the sign language, like most boring things of the day. He was becoming very good at it very fast. They could almost hold a conversation with it now! Needless to say, Marie was beyond happy. But exhausted. Which brings things to the evening where Marie and Conan had to do their forgotten homework and fall into bed.

Only, they couldn't just go to sleep because Ran decided it was a good idea to have a warm bath after a long day.

Marie groaned and let her head fall in her hands on the couch she was lying on.

She had jinxed it. Right when she first heard she was going to be Conan's sister.

'How are baths going to turn out?' ...What a dumb thought. Way to go, me!

This was the first time Ran had suggested it, so now they had to come up with excuses as to why they don't like to bath together and why Ran should let it stay that way. Nope, Marie didn't want to deal with this. Maybe she should pretend to have fallen asleep. This day was way too exhausting.

XXXX

In the next one we welcome back the manga's storyline. You can check it out so you know what to expect or wait until I get it written. It's probably going to be pretty hard and I'm almost certain it'll take about a week or longer (and might still turn out short). I'm exhausted! Thanks for reading and I'll see you next chapter! *Buries her head in a pillow and sleeps*