A/N: And now the fourth chapter is rewritten. I added some details to this one too. And changed the PoV entirely to the Third person's. It was surprisingly hard but I've done my decision and it'll hold until all the chapter prior restart of this fic are done. I hope you enjoy this new version. You are welcome to review this chapter too but the answers will come to the newest one.
Chapter 4.
Waking up on the next morning was hard. Tsukiko felt like she had slept only a few hours. The girl yawned and looked around. The room was brighter and now she could see everything better.
"Geez, I'm so tired…" The blonde mumbled as she rubbed her eyes and stretched. After the long rest in actually surprisingly comfy hospital bed it felt good to stretch properly and feel the joints pop on their proper places… Once the mandatory cat-imitation was done, Tsukiko noticed something near the bed. A chair and her clothes neatly folded on it. And on the top of her clothes was a little piece of paper. The girl took the paper and began to read it.
"These are your clothes you had when you were brought here. We have washed them and the items, which were in the pockets of your jacket, are now in your bag.
If you want to you can walk around the hospital in your own clothes but we still hope that you'll sleep and eat in your own room. We also hope that you won't leave the hospital in any case. Your wounds are not fully healed yet and you have just woken up… Bla bla bla…" The girl didn't read it 'til the end. She had already gotten the point. She'd be able to walk around without looking like a patient but she mustn't leave the hospital. Okay, she wasn't going to do it then. Leaving the hospital that was.
Jodie stretched while walking on the corridors of the hospital. Somehow she had managed to get some sleep last night a bit but not that much. After all the agent needed to be alert during all the times.
"Oh, excuse me miss…" The woman heard behind her. It was the same nurse she had met before in that unknown girl's room.
"Yes?"
"The girl you were worrying about… She woke up last night." The nurse told the American woman. Jodie nodded.
"Well, that's good to hear. Has she told her name?"
"Hai, she is Okiya Tsukiko."
"Thank you for this information. I'll visit her later so she can rest a bit first." Jodie smiled. The nurse bowed a bit and left then to check the rest of her patients. Jodie watched after the woman's retreating back but left soon too. The agent was right now heading to Professor Agasa Hiroshi's house where a boy named Edogawa Conan waited for her. The boy had something very important to tell to her.
Tsukiko yawned again and lifted her legs down from the bed. It felt weird after lying still for so long time. Slowly she was up though, standing on her own two feet. The blonde took a step and another one. It was slow progress and in the half way across the room Tsukiko had to lean against the wall for support.
"Is this was the little mermaid felt like when she got legs?" The girl muttered but continued walking then. The distance was only three meters but for her it felt like three kilometers. Eventually Tsukiko reached the far wall opposite the bed though. There were a little table and another chair there and on that chair she collapsed on. A moment later the girl noted her bag placed on the table. Tsukiko opened the bag. Everything in there was in a different order than previously and it meant only one thing: someone had rummaged through it. Instant paranoia struck Tsukiko but she shrugged it away. Maybe it had been done only in order to find out who she was…
Slowly, the girl made her way back to the bed. This time it was a bit easier. Once there, Tsukiko changed into her clothes and sat down on the chair next to the bed with a sigh. Getting exhausted so quickly…Well, it was only expected.
Someone knocked on the door and opened it. It was the same nurse than the one who had come to check on the girl on the previous evening. Now she had a breakfast tray with her.
"Ohayoo gozaimasu!" The nurse greeted with a smile. "I brought some breakfast for you."
"Thank you." Tsukiko said quietly and offered a smile back. Her throat was feeling a bit hoarse after the time of disuse.
"I have to say you speak very fluent Japanese even though you look a bit like a foreigner. Have you been here a long time?"
"Well, kinda long, yes." Tsukiko replied a bit nervously while inwardly she screaming and panicking. "'Japanese'? 'Been here'? What? Am I in Japan now? What an earth has happened?"
"Oh, sorry, my mistake…" The nurse suddenly apologized. "Of course you have roots in Japan, more or less, since your name is Okiya Tsukiko."
"That's okay, I'm used to it." The blonde girl gave a tight smile. Maybe it was better for her to pretend that she was – indeed – Japanese.
The nurse left and Tsukiko ate the porridge the woman had brought. At the same time the girl drew a new picture to her calendar. It was a habit of hers, drawing whenever possible. When the drawing was finished Tsukiko smiled – the picture was pretty good – and wrote a sentence in English under it. After that she took her bag and checked what exactly she had had with her on this impromptu trip… Tsukiko had her green cell phone and its battery charger, her calendar that she'd leave on the table, a pencil case, a little mirror and… a glasses case.
"What is this doing here?" Tsukiko frowned and opened the case, finding a pair of familiar eye glasses. They belonged to her friend K-chan from junior high who had got new ones a few weeks ago. That was when Tsukiko had asked the other girl if she would give her the old ones. The blonde put the glasses on her face. The lenses weren't too strong but still the wrong prescription so she could feel how she had to automatically squint when she had them on. When Tsukiko glanced at her reflection in the little hand mirror, she noticed how she looked very different with glasses. More like a Japanese girl, though her hair color was far too blond. The girl smiled: maybe she could use these glasses as a disguise. Although she wasn't exactly sure from what she should hide.
When Tsukiko placed her bag back on the table she noticed some blue car paint in the buckle of the bag's strap. "Hmm… Where has this come from?" The girl mused aloud but let it be. When leaving the hospital room, Tsukiko took her cellphone with her. The phone fees be damned, she had to contact her family somehow.
"Oh, one of them is in this hospital?" Akai spoke to his phone. He was on the roof of the Haido Central Hospital and observing the surrounding area with a pair of binoculars. Jodie, who was at the other end of the line, was explaining the situation to the man. The tired-looking agent headed to the door that led inside the hospital. "Roger…" He stated before hanging up the call. Right when he was descending the stairs, the phone beeped, indicating the arrival of a new message. Once checking from whom the message was, Akai opened it in mild puzzlement. The contents of the message made the stoic man blink in surprise.
"You'll look after her, won't you, Rye?
–Hibiki"
Beneath the message was a photo of the girl lying unconscious in the room next to Mizunashi's.
"Nani…" The green-eyed man breathed and almost missed the person walking past him up to the roof.
Tsukiko walked through the corridors and finally found a staircase that led to the rooftop of the hospital. When she was walking those stairs up, the girl passed someone who was coming the said stairs down. Somehow he seemed familiar to her but Tsukiko didn't remember meeting him before. Besides with the glasses she had on her face now, she couldn't really get a good look at him. Not to mention the fact Tsukiko wasn't really even trying to look at him. Nevertheless she got a feeling about meeting him before. Or at least seeing him somewhere. A feeling of familiarity.
"Sometimes… it's painful to know the truth…" A young girl, who passed him, mumbled quietly in English. She was obviously deep in her thoughts and not paying attention on her surroundings. Akai recognized her voice immediately and stopped dead on his tracks at the foot of the stairs. He looked up at the girl's retreating back with a slight frown on his face. The man had heard that voice on the previous day when he'd been in the room next to Mizunashi's… Checking the girl whom the message, he had just received, concerned.
"What she is doing here? She should still be in coma… What is her connection to Hibiki?" Questions twirled around in the agent's mind but he pushed them aside, continuing his way towards Mizunashi Rena's hospital room.
Tsukiko closed the door behind her and opened her cell.
"Hmm… I'll call to my brother… He should be answering… And not to worry about me as much as mum…" The girl scrolled down on his number and pressed the 'call' button.
"The dialed number is not located. Please, check the number…" A metallic female voice said almost as soon as the call 'connected'.
"What an earth? Has he changed his number? How about mum then…" Tsukiko chose another number with a deep frown only to get the same response. A deep sigh. Where was she? And what should she, – no – what could she do?
Jodie was on her way back to hospital with Edogawa Conan. The boy was the one who had found out about the Organization member hiding somewhere in the hospital. It was the information she'd gone to listen earlier in the day. And right now the female agent had just informed Akai about the Crow, letting out a sigh right after the call disconnected.
"What's up, Jodie-sensei? Is something bothering you?" Conan asked next to the woman.
"Only a bad timing…" Jodie muttered.
"Timing? Has something else happened then?" Black who was driving the car asked, glancing at his subordinate via the rear-view mirror.
"Yes, it's about that girl next to Mizunashi Rena's room. I heard she woke up last night." Jodie explained to the man.
"That is quite bad timing indeed. But right now we have to concentrate finding this organization member before they figure out Mizunashi's presence there..." Black admitted.
"Ano, what girl are you talking about?" Conan asked curiously, hiding his annoyance. He didn't really like information being kept from him even when those people were his allies. A presence of a girl whom FBI was taking interest in and that he didn't know about? Very irritating. Considering she only now woke up… But apparently he had to wait for the explanation for a moment longer.
"It's a long story. I'll explain it later." Jodie stated. "We have to keep the priority of things in our mind. And right now finding the organization member is the more important than worrying about a young girl. No matter what the odds of her presence being a mere coincidence are."
A/N: And done! Tha same cliffie here than before! I've decided not to combine the chapters because then the numbering in the later ones about be screwed up. After all I refence constantly previous and up-coming chapters. So these rewritten chapters are still quite short even though I try to add the lenght a bit...
