Fandom: Detective Conan
Title: Adagio Sostenuto
Author: Eeveebeth Fejvu
Theme: #18 – Listen to the music at night
Pairing/Characters: Edogawa Conan and Haibara Ai
Rating: K
Disclaimer: I don't own Detective Conan. I requested Haibara to make me a pill that would somehow turn me into the creator of the shrunken tantei-san, but my order is in line behind the antidote to Apoptoxin-4869. …So, for now, I write fan fiction.
Summary: The melody is soothing and gentle, but so mysterious and evocative…
Author's Note: Inspired by the well-known manga files 7.2-7, with additional inspiration from the little-known anime episode 81 (episode number taken from the English DVD).
Conan awakens instantly with a gasp of fear. His eyes are wide open and his fingers dig into the sheets that have twisted themselves around his small frame. He freezes in place, listening intently. The vast Kudo mansion is silent now, but he knows he heard it, the softly climbing scales of Beethoven's great composition. The melody is soothing and gentle, like a child's lullaby, but so mysterious and evocative that even in his sleep the distinctive sound of the lone piano puts him on edge. From the very first notes, a blazing fire erupted in front of his eyes, the heat rolling in scorching waves onto his unprotected face, the muffling smoke clogging his burning throat. Missing, however, were the violent crackle of the inferno and the wailing of the sirens; all was silent in that flaming vortex, silent except for that haunting, wordless song.
As he lies motionless in his old bed – Shinichi's bed – and listens for more of the music in the dark, Conan wonders at the sheer power of that memory. He has always heard that scent has the greatest tie to old, half-forgotten remembrances, but perhaps in his case it is sound. When he continues to contemplate on the matter, he begins to realize that some of the clearest things he can remember about his cases are the ticking of the bombs, the cocking of the triggers, the screeching of tires, the sobbing of cornered suspects. He blinks, gazing up at the dark ceiling. The sobbing of a small girl, heartbroken and clinging to his shirt, both blaming him and begging him for forgiveness.
The faint melody begins again. Carefully, he untangles himself from his sheets, kicking them away with his bare toes. He reaches instinctively towards the nightstand for his glasses, hesitates briefly, and puts them on anyway, sliding off the mattress and into his house scuffs. He pads softly out of the bedroom and down the hallway, following the slow, drawn out tune as it drifts through the quiet mansion. Finally, he arrives at the paneled wood door he sought and pushes it open with both hands.
In the dark room, the sheer curtains covering the French doors are thrown back, allowing pale white moonlight to flow in and fall upon the black grand piano majestically isolated in the middle of the wood floor. Perched gracefully on the piano bench, the petite figure he expected to find is there, playing on without turning around to look at him. Conan leans against the doorway as he watches her. In the full moon's shining glow, her reddish brown hair is almost silver, and from the short glimpses he gets, her delicate fingers strike each ivory key with quiet assurance. To him, she is beautiful beyond words.
Softly, Conan makes his way across the open floor. Halfway there, she seems to sense his presence, her hands suspended in midair as the last notes fade away. She rests them gently on the keyboard as he comes to stand next to the bench.
"You woke me up," he tells her impassively.
"Sorry," Ai replies in kind. Her eyes are fixed on the faded and wrinkled sheet music in front of her.
After a comfortable pause, Conan feels the hint of a smile twitch onto his face. "That song gave me a nightmare."
Finally she turns her head to look at him, raising a thin eyebrow in question. "'Moonlight' Sonata?"
"Mmhmm." When he doesn't elaborate, her inquisitive expression darkens. Conan overlooks the adorable coldness in her luminous eyes and teases her gently with a grin. "There was once a case…"
Her expression grows tedious, certain that she knows where this is going.
"There was once a case…" he continues anyway, "four or five years ago, I guess, one of my first ones as Conan… where death occurred on this island whenever that song was played. It began many years before with a famous pianist named Asou Keiji…"
As he continues to outline the case and the suspects, he watches the dullness in her expression transition into aloof interest. It makes all the difference to him that she does not break into his story with a snide comment or grow irritated at his discourse.
As he finally comes to the denouement, however, he finds it harder to go on. His speech becomes disjointed and he pauses more often as the images, as brilliant as fresh photographs, flash into his mind. Finally, his words cease. All he can see is the fire raging around him, consuming the building, the piano, the countless pages of sheet music… All he can hear is that terrifying, lingering scale…
"…Conan?" He blinks as her soft voice snaps him out of his unwanted reverie. She is not looking at him unkindly, but with firmness. "What happened? …Asou Seiji confessed to you, and then…? You said that the place was burning down around you…"
He is silent. He wants to finish the distressing tale, wants to let her in. And the longer he hesitates, the more he fears her patience will snap. If it does, he is sure that he will never be able to go on.
He finally opens his mouth, but the words refuse to leave his lips.
"You can tell me." There is no impatience in her hushed voice, only calm sincerity.
The quiet remark strikes a familiar chord within him. It is the same sort of voice he has employed around her, the same gentle tone he has tried his best to use when prodding her to continue a story, for the past few years.
Once he had realized how truly difficult it was for her to share her memories with him – despite knowing of his profound affection for her – he had made a conscious effort to approach the often disturbing and traumatizing subject of her past with a calmness and sympathy that did not always come naturally to him. Sometimes it would take hours for her to relate the smallest incident about her former life, so deep was the scarring in her soul, but it was always worth the time. And, over the years, Conan had noticed a sure increase in her openness and honesty with him, growing to a point where he became convinced that no one had ever known or could ever know Haibara Ai the way he did.
"You can tell me," she repeats, still tranquil and still genuine. Her eyes narrow as she focuses on his slightly uncertain expression. "Whatever happened… I will understand."
Conan willfully forces the words to rush out of his mouth. "He threw me out the window." Her eyebrows rise in surprise. "He picked me up and… he threw me out of the window. The glass just shattered… into a million pieces… and the next thing I knew, I had hit the concrete outside."
He remembers the sound of the glass shattering more than the pain of the impact, and he realizes that his hands have curled up into fists. His entire body is shaking uncontrollably.
He suddenly gasps. "…I was so small, and there was nothing I could do… I tried to get him to leave, but he… He died! He died, Ai! Just like that!He died in that building… playing the piano, and I… I watched it burn. …He said that there was blood staining his hands, and that he… He just let himself be burnt right up…"
Ashamed, Conan buries his face in his trembling hands. He doesn't trust himself to speak calmly, and Ai does not respond, so for a long moment the mansion remains silent. Finally, he lifts his head up enough to catch a glimpse of her expression in the silvery moonlight. Her face has grown grave and drawn, but she does not turn away from him. He realizes she is still giving him time to go on, so he continues, not sure exactly where he is going.
"I felt… I had never felt so much… like a failurein my entire life. I mean… I was right there, and I could have stopped him. Even now, I still wonder … if only I had said something different… if only I had been Shinichi instead of Conan… would he have lived?"
He pauses to consider his own words for a moment. "…Once, during a case we solved together, Hattori and I prevented the suspect from killing herself, but she was in such a turmoil afterward that Hattori… suggested that maybe it would have been better – more humane – if we had let her carry it out."
A tense, hoarse laugh escapes him. "It immediately made me think of Seiji… he had planned his own death as well, right from the very start, and I had been too caught up in solving the case to even consider that… he might resort to measures like… And so I told Hattori, 'If you corner a killer with your deductions, and then let that killer commit suicide… you're no better than a murderer yourself.'
"And, truthfully, it doesn't even matter if they are the ones that kill themselves… If a suspect dies on your watch… it's the same…"
He sees her stiffen slightly at his words, her back straighten and her eyes narrow. He forgets his own grief for a moment as he tries to figure out what he said to cause this barely perceptible action. And, looking into her intelligent face, he recognizes the connection she immediately made between the death of Asou Seiji and the death of another much dearer to her heart.
"You… weren't the only one that blamed me for your sister's death…" he finally murmurs, lips twitching into a small, uncomfortable smile.
She stares at him for a long silent moment, her intense expression frozen in place. He understands that she is trying to sort out her own emotions and thoughts, and he finds himself practically holding his breath.
He is awaiting judgment, he realizes, just as she had waited for his own every time she revealed some dark secret or criminal activity she had been involved in during her years in the Black Organization. And he has been waiting for her final judgment on this most personal of failures for years, ever since she had dropped to her knees before him that first day they had met. He finds himself hoping that she will be as merciful as he had come to be. The charge on him now is not unlike those that he had once pressed against her, before he had learned how to care for her.
Finally, she speaks, in a subdued but honest voice.
"I don't blame you."
And that is all she says as she turns her attention back to the worn sheet music perched on the piano's stand. As if on impulse, she suddenly reaches a delicate hand out to the already tidy pages to straighten them, then turns back to the first page of the composition.
Conan is, most of all, relieved. He stands quietly, letting out the breath he had been holding in, then gazes over her head and through the doors' clear glass panes at the shining full moon in the sky. Sincerely, he whispers, "Thank you."
After a moment, her silver-lit hair bobs slightly as she gives a short nod. Then, eyes still focused on the musical score in front of her, she scoots slightly to one side of her seat, leaving just enough room for another.
Warily, he accepts the invitation and joins her on the piano bench. To prevent himself from fallen off the small perch, he presses his left side snuggly against her right, and she silently adjusts her trapped arm, placing her elegant, arched fingers back on the ivory keys. When he is finally still, she resumes her performance, but from the beginning of the first movement.
After the first dozen measures, he slowly leans his head to the side to rest his cheek on her shoulder. The position is not entirely comfortable, because her delicate shoulder is relatively bony and his glasses' frame presses painfully into him, but she is warm and her long, lace-trimmed cotton nightgown is soft against his skin.
"You must understand…" he closes his eyes and speaks quietly over the lingering notes, "why I couldn't let you die… not on that hijacked bus… not in the twin towers… not any place or any time, no matter how close the Organization seemed to be to finding us…" Silky strands of her hair tickle his face, but he doesn't brush them away. He chuckles softly. "Of course, that wasn't the only reason… just the only one that I understood at the time…"
For a moment, there is an unusual pause in the melody, and he opens his eyes, thinking that she is stopping once more, but the moment passes and she continues to play. Watching her progression through the measures, he reaches out to turn the page as she gets to the end of the last line. As he does, his eyes flicker up to the top of the sheet at the first movement's description.
Adagio Sostenuto. He barely gets the page turned in time for her to carry on without interruption. Adagio, an unhurried and regal tempo, and Sostenuto,holding each note out longer than is typical. He considers the musical notations even with the words gone from his sight. Together, they signal a slow and sustained melody, dilatory and lingering. The idea seems familiar, and he gradually understands why.
He and Ai are just like the 'Moonlight' Sonata. Their entire relationship, from its admittedly rocky beginning to its present openness and honest affection, has been slow to progress, each new stage of interaction sustained for months, even years, at a time. Every exposed secret and every fault forgiven has helped them, however, to climb the scale until their trust in each other is as beautiful as the Sonata itself.
As her fingers continue to navigate the keyboard with precision, Conan lets the melody fill his ears and his mind, finally savoring the composition as he has not been able to do in years. He smiles, certain now that the slow, sustained piece will no longer haunt his conscience or his dreams.