Scarborough Fair

Summary: Kuroba Kaito finds himself in a sticky situation when he's kidnapped by a man who's also guilty for the abduction of three others. How can even the Kaitou Kid escape drug-induced paralysis, a psychotic doctor, a blackmailed housekeeper, and a mansion filled with traps and dungeons?

Pairings: Very minor hints.

A/N: I own nothing except Dr. Hailey, Anita Hailey (though I don't own their names) Kojima Daisuke, Armagnac, Champagne, Cognac, Amaretto (though I don't own their designs) and 'A'. Okita Soshi and Nagashima Shigeo are actual DC people. Think Yaiba and Yoban Saado.

Title comes from Simon and Garkunkel song. Also loosely based around Mothy's song, 'Little Garden Girl' feat. Hatsune Miku. May be called alternate name of 'Clockwork Lullaby 2'.

Prequel: "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot"

Side Story: "Clockwork Relations"

"We told you."

"You told me," Kaito rephrased his friend's words in an indulging tone like a patient child worker would do for a crying kid. "You said that about a hundred times already."

Aoko scowled at him, but her face was soft as she pushed lightly at him. Not even hard enough to move a feather, which was a far cry from her usual violent ways, the smashes and swings that left him pumping with fear and adrenaline. No, this was nothing compared to the usual things he went through.

He hated this concussion. Okita and Nagashima had practically been thrown out of the building to get them away from the media hounds – both of them didn't want coverage for this – but those quacks in the white coats were still doing tests to make sure that he'd be fine, all because some defective light fixture had broken loose and hit his head. Honestly! One light bulb and they were treating him like something made out of fragile glass! "Weak," he taunted, trying to goad her into her usual self.

She didn't fall for it. "Not today, Kaito," Aoko warned him. "Don't make me hit your head."

Hakuba smirked from his seat as he flipped a page in the Holmes book – the Sign of Four – in his lap. Next to him, Akako examined her nails.

His mother smiled radiantly. "Well, since Kaito already admitted that he didn't follow the good advice his cute friends gave him," she chirped. "I think he needs to buy all of his cute friends a few rounds!"

"We're underage," Hakuba reminded her.

Kuroba Chikage, ever the strict parent, shrugged with a carefree look. "So?"

"Kuroba-san, with all due respect, Nakamouri-chan's father is a police officer and my own parents are – were – involved in law enforcement."

His mother sighed. "Spoilsport. Fine. Kaito, you're going to treat them at an eating place of their choice for not listening to their advice."

In his experience, it did absolutely no good to try and argue with his mother. Besides, why not? He did owe them for the trouble he had caused them. "Sure."

In the car with his wife, Cognac ripped off the latex mask. "I don't know how Miss Vermouth or Champagne can tolerate going around with this," he muttered.

Amaretto was removing her own disguises. Unlike him, she had only been able to use minor alterations to make herself look like a completely different person, but despite the limitations that had been given to her disguise she and Champagne had managed to pull it off perfectly. Now free of all the temporary silicon alterations that had been on her face, she leaned back into the seat. "That feels good," she sighed.

Cognac nodded. "Here's your passport," he said as he handed her the small booklet of her original identity. "We're going back to where it all started."

She took it and leaned in closer, resting her head on his shoulder before closing her eyes. "Wake me up when we get there?" she asked him in a voice that almost made him believe she was vulnerable. He knew she was tougher than that.

"Of course."

Their car drove towards what he hoped to be a fresh start for them.

"Nakamouri-chan?"

Aoko looked up. "Yes, Akako-chan?"

The red-haired girl tipped her head towards her bag. "I think your phone's ringing."

A quick check showed that her classmate's words were true. She excused herself to take the call. "Hello?"

"Hi, Aoko!"

Her face dropped before she could even think about it and several words her father often used when he was extremely frustrated and drunk came to mind.

Those words would also end up getting her into a lot of trouble if she ever dared to speak them out loud in public. She took a deep breath to swallow them back into a place where no one could hear them and began to talk to the person on the other end in what she desperately hoped to be a casual, friendly voice.

When it rained, it poured.

The doctor came in about an hour after Aoko returned. He sprouted some medical mumbo jumbo before summing it all up in one sentence. "So you're good to go."

He blinked. His eyes had been glazing at the doctor's boring rambling and truth be told, he had just ignored the man. "What?" he said stupidly.

"As long as you don't do anything strenuous, you'll be fine."

So no Kid heists for a while?

"Avoid jumping around and try not to be put in a situation where something hitting your head is very likely."

So, no Kid heists for a while. He saw Hakuba smirk. Great. Whatever temporary truce there had been between them while the kidnapper was going around, it sure as hell wouldn't be on again back in school when Kuroba Kaito was supposed to be taking it easy and Kaitou Kid was conveniently absent.

His mother smiled at the doctor. "I'll make sure he behaves," she promised.

But apparently that promise and the long speech loaded with medical terms he had only half understood wasn't enough for the guy – a quack in a white coat, his mind reminded him – who began to tell his mother all about the medical prescriptions he could get if anything went wrong.

He finally shut up when Akako 'accidently' dropped her purse on his foot. "EEEYAARGH!" the annoying quack yelled as the purse smashed his toes with a heavy sounding clunk.

When the doctor hobbled away with tears in his eyes Akako took a brick out of the purse and set it on the windowsill like it was the most natural thing for a girl in high school to do. "You're welcome," she told him.

When she came into the living room, towel-drying her hair, Dr. Agasa gave a meaningful cough and a look to the shrunken detective across the room before exiting the house with slow, deliberate steps, clearly fleeing the scene of the possible future crime.

Kudo-kun sat on the sofa, looking emotionless. A perfect poker face. "We need to talk."

"No, we don't," she slung the slightly damp towel across her shoulder to absorb all the extra water her hair still held. "What I need to do is work on the antidote. The doctor told me something about a poison-"

He had the nerve to interrupt her. "A poison that kills without trace, as well as a refined antipsychotic and a-"

Ai didn't approve of this knowledge he had in his possession. He had no right to know this. He shouldn't have even- "How do you know this?" she interrupted his interruption.

The shrunken detective in front of her tapped his glasses. "I bugged Dr. Hailey."

She pulled the computer chair up and sat. "Talk."

He tapped his fingers against his leg for a few moments while she stared at him impatiently. "At first it was to see if he knew where you were," he began. "Your badge said that you were to the west, but I couldn't see you where you were supposed to be. Then I heard you over the footsteps and in between his talking . . . so I listened in."

Ai shrugged, trying to decrease the importance of those words. "That's it?"

"No," if he had looked serious before, it was nothing compared to how he looked now. Every single part of him radiated seriousness.

It was one of the very few moments in her life that she felt silly and child-like, neither of which were pleasant feelings for her.

"Why'd you tell him your real name?"

The silly feeling got worse. She knew where he would go with this. Tell her that it was stupid, that she was being careless – oh, the irony of it all – that it was ridiculously dangerous to risk such a thing for nothing at all.

To her, though, it wasn't just 'nothing'. It was a silly whim, yes, but at the moment it had been right.

"I had to," she answered.

"Why?"

Detectives and their searches to learn why. "I just wanted him to know that I wasn't his daughter."

Was that disapproval on his face now? "He could have been a member of the Organization," she wasn't sure what was colouring his voice right now.

She knew about the possibility. "I know."

"If he was, you would have been killed."

Actually, she would have been taken, tortured for information and then killed. The corner of her lip turned up ever so slightly. Always the pragmatic ideologist, that detective. Nice of him to cut out the gory details. "Maybe."

"Maybe?"

"Maybe," she said firmly. "But he wasn't my father and I wasn't some replacement or safety blanket. I wanted him to know that I wasn't someone he wanted me to be."

Saying it out loud helped organize her thoughts. Her now-organized thoughts told her that her actions had been stupid. "You know what?" she asked aloud. "I'm tired. Good night, Kudo-kun."

Surprisingly, he didn't argue against her decision. "Night, Haibara."

He showed himself out. She went to bed wondering if he understood the insecurities of trying to reconnect with a parent. Maybe he did. After all, his parents were quite eccentric and often away.

Shinichi met Dr. Agasa outside. "I tried," he shrugged.

"I'm sure you did, Shinichi," his neighbor and confidant nodded, yawning. "She's just trying to focus on your antidote right now. I'm sure that she'll be able to find out how to bring you back now that she has the formula for the poison that shrunk you."

He stayed silent for a few moments. "Do you really think so?" he asked, knowing that he sounded more like what his body looked like now than he did back when he had actually been seven years old. Second childhood, his mother would call it. Only this childhood was filled with fear of a crime organization that would kill them all if their secrets were out.

"Of course I do," the older man said like he truly believed it.

The optimism was a nice comfort to him. "Thanks, professor," he took out the envelope his mother – the real Yukiko Kudo this time, not Lady A in disguise – had dropped off. "Will you give this to Haibara when she wakes up?" he asked as he handed him part of Lady A's reward. Inside the manila envelope the papers – birth certificate, health insurance and passport – for one Haibara Ai sat waiting to be used as the support for her disguise. Lady A had also added a few sheets of paper describing just what kind of life Haibara Ai had lived. It was a bland, boring life the girl got, but he supposed it would be easier to lie about that way. Keep facts simple and straightforward.

His were quite similar, only for his background Lady A had simply told him to use his parents' contacts to solidify his lie.

"Good night, professor."

"Good night, Shinichi."

"Oh, gosh, look at the time!" Aoko gasped, gawking down at the face of her wristwatch.

Hakuba, ever the prat, glanced at his scarily accurate pocket watch with disinterest. "Eleven forty-seven, fifty-two seconds," he yawned. The half British teenager seemed pretty tired. "My governess will be here in around three minutes and twelve seconds, if I'm correct in my estimates. Would you like a ride back home, Koizumi-chan?"

Akako accepted gracefully, while Aoko waved and muttered about how her dad would freak out. "Why hasn't he called me?" she wondered as she dug her cell phone out of her bag. "Oh . . . ."

"Out of battery?" he guessed and knew that he had struck the nail dead on the head when he saw her guilty face.

"I'm sure he'll understand," his mother said. "I did tell him that we were going to celebrate Kaito's health and return to my house when we were leaving."

Aoko visibly relaxed before she let out a huge yawn. "Thank you, Chikage-san!"

Hakuba's phone buzzed and the screen lit up with the notification of a new message. He glanced down at it before getting out of his seat. "Thank you very much for everything, Kuroba-san," he said to his mother before offering an arm to Akako. "Koizumi-chan?"

The two creepy people walked out the door, leaving his house and a lot of the burden on Kaito's chest was relieved as he watched two of his classmates climb into the car Hakuba's housekeeper person had driven here. He waved from his spot at the doorway until they were out of sight in the darkness of the night.

That left only him and his childhood friend at the doorway. Aoko glared half-heartedly at him, hands childishly placed on her hips. "You stay in bed," she ordered, clearly trying – and failing – to look intimidating.

"Yes ma'am," he grinned at her, trying to look trusty. Judging from the twitch in her brow it hadn't worked, but she patted his arm and left for her own home anyways.

Kaito closed the door and locked it before making his way into the kitchen. His mother was washing the cups his friends had used and putting them onto the rack to dry. "Do you need anything?" he asked, not really expecting her to answer.

She did. "Kaito, we need to talk."

Kuroba Chikage's voice was so serious and solemn that he paused on his way towards his room. "Uh, okay?" it came out more as a question. "What about?"

His mother set the last of the cups onto the wire rack before tugging her apron off and taking a seat at the table. He followed her example and sat across from her. "You know you can tell me anything, right?" he asked as he noticed her gnawing her lips. She was clearly nervous.

Had she met someone while travelling? Maybe she wanted him to have a new father. While he strongly disapproved of some guy being a replacement for the best dad in the whole world he wouldn't hold it against her for wanting someone close to her again. No matter how much he tried Kaito knew that there were just some gaps in his mother's heart he couldn't fill.

"You're not getting remarried, are you?" he asked as a joke. His mother was wavering, obviously trying to make her mind up about a hard decision.

She shook her head and still wouldn't meet his eyes. "Kaito, you know I love you, right?"

"Yeah . . . ." where was this going?

Kuroba Chikage exhaled, closing her eyes. Kaito mentally braced himself. Her expression, her body language, everything about her at the moment was the stance a woman who thought she had nothing to lose as she pulled a risky, dangerous Hail Mary. Her decision was made.

His mother met his eyes. "Kaito," she began and he saw resolve hardened in her eyes. What was it? What?

"Stop looking for Pandora. Stop being Kaitou Kid."

Fin.

Oh, and the boy group was BIGBANG.

Kojima Daisuke's appearance was based off Gary Oak from Pokemon. Just imagine Shinichi/Kaito with Gary's hair.

As for my OC BO members, the credits go to the Bookmark of Demise project.

Amaretto/Diana: D-ne

Cognac/Colin: C-ta

Champagne/Beniko: B-ko

Armagnac: A-ya

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