A/N: Update! Sorry for the continued lateness; winter colds on top of my normal health issues are not super awesome.

Thanks again to miladyRanger for betaing; she's only seen the first half of this chapter though, so she can't be blamed for issues in the latter half.

Warnings and additional notes at the end!

Chapter 46

Nakamori Ginzou stretched as he got out of the car, and glanced unhappily out at the lit-up Tokyo skyline. It was long after dark, because like nearly every senior officer, he'd worked overtime today. The superintendent-general's unexpected leave, due to an unexplained family emergency, had happened at the worst possible time. Or, rather, the one day that the superintendent-general was gone, the city's normal collection of petty thefts with Division One's odd freaky murder thrown in had suddenly multiplied into more than a dozen variously serious, complicated, or politically sensitive cases, all with paperwork to match and spread out across the divisions. They were going to need to petition HR to reorder the main office's coffee early this month, at this rate. The sudden spate of disasters meant that anyone who didn't have a reason to go home on time worked overtime, and that had included Ginzou, whose tendency to stay late for heists was well-known.

He might want to be around more for Aoko, but he had to admit that he couldn't exactly explain to HR that needed to go home early because he was starting to think he was giving his teenage daughter a complex.

He slipped off his shoes and left his briefcase at the door, then registered the fact that the house smelled like chicken stir-fry. That meant Kaito was back from his trip and over for dinner-otherwise, Aoko would have grilled the salmon that they'd just gotten, instead of using up frozen leftover chicken from last week.

"Dad, you're just in time!" Aoko exclaimed, looking up from the stove as he walked in and sat down at the table. His place was set, and Kaito was pouring drinks.

"Thanks for making dinner, Aoko," he said. "And welcome back, Kaito-kun."

"You're welcome!" Aoko said cheerily, setting a steaming bowl of rice on the table.

"Thanks," Kaito said. "You okay with water?"

"Give me some of that sugary soda stuff you drink," Ginzou said. "I'm gonna need to stay awake through dinner somehow, and if I drink any more coffee, I won't have a stomach lining left."

Kaito gave him a small half-smile. "Can do," he said, and got a bottle of liquid the exact yellow of the neon signs at his favorite bar out of the fridge. Ginzou winced, and hoped it tasted better than it looked.

As the kids sat down, he asked, "How's that relative you went to visit?"

"Oh, they're doing better now," Kaito said, leaning back a little in his chair.

"You practically slept through class though," Aoko said, as she scooped stir-fry onto her plate. "Are you sure everything is really okay?"

"It was just a long trip," Kaito said. "I'm not looking forward to the makeup work, though."

"Aoko guesses not!" Aoko said. "You missed two tests and an essay!"

"Ehhh, it was worth it," Kaito said.

"Who's this relative, that you had to go visit them so suddenly, anyhow?" Ginzou asked.

Kaito didn't answer, and instead just started serving himself stir-fry. After the silence had stretched just long enough to be awkward, he asked, "So, Mom said the Task Force is still officially off-duty. Why'd you end up staying so late at the station?"

"Superintendent-general had a family emergency and we had a bunch of cases all at once," Ginzou said gruffly, taking time to get his own portion of food.

"Ohh, Hakuba-san's dad!" Aoko exclaimed. "Aoko hopes everything's all right! After-after everything with Hakuba-san, Aoko hopes nothing else happened!"

"I'm sure he's fine," Kaito said calmly.

A bit too calmly. There was something too certain about his expression. Along with those rumors, and his exhaustion, and the way Chikage had been acting last time he'd seen her…

"What do you know, Kaito-kun?"

Kaito laughed tiredly. "I told them that as soon as I came over here, you two would figure it out," he said. "I'm surprised it didn't happen at school, but I think I managed to avoid that by being unconscious for half of my classes."

"What are you talking about?" Ginzou asked, well and truly confused now.

"I wasn't visiting a relative," Kaito said. "I was tagging along with a couple of high school detectives."

"To find Hakuba-san," Aoko filled in. Her face lit up. "You found Hakuba-san?"

Kaito grinned widely. "Yeah," he said. "Yeah, he's back home safe. We did it."

Ginzou cursed because he wasn't sure how else to respond, but he was sure his smile was as wide as the kid's was.

"Oh that's wonderful!" Aoko exclaimed, delighted. "Oh, Aoko has to call-"

Kaito placed a hand on hers, face serious. "No, you don't. You shouldn't, yet. He's...not ready to talk to people, much."

Aoko deflated, and Ginzou gave Kaito a look that he hoped conveyed, You'd better have a good reason for taking the wind out of her sails like that.

"Sorry," Kaito said. "It's not...look, physically, he's pretty much fine. I mean, he probably needs to gain back some weight and sleep more, and he has a minor injury, but it's not anything you need to be worried about long-term. But…" He swallowed, looking unsure.

"He always used to smile like you do, sometimes," Aoko said, and Kaito inhaled sharply. "Those weird little smiles that aren't really smiles but they look like them if you're silly enough to fall for it. And he seemed so tired after he went on trips to Europe. There was this one time that Aoko mentioned trying to become a detective and Aoko thinks it actually scared him."

For a second, Kaito looked genuinely upset, and then his expression blanked, like it always did when he was confronted with emotions he couldn't handle. Ginzou sometimes thought he should do something to address that, but in the end he always circled back around to asking, Like what?

"That's...yeah," Kaito said. "That's about it. He's really shaken up now. I think leaving Japan made it harder for him to keep pretending he was okay."

Ginzou, for his part, remembered a single glimpse of the pink scar tissue that formed a slash across Hakuba's neck, and the unfamiliar tone and posture the teen had taken on when asked about it.

Aoko frowned. "So he needs some time?"

"Yeah, at the very least," Kaito said. "He and his parents are talking about how to deal with everything. That's why his dad wasn't at work."

"People will notice eventually," Ginzou cautioned.

"Yeah," Kaito agreed. "But please don't be the one to tell them? I know the whole Task Force is worried but at this point if they all show up it'll just end up freaking him out and worrying them."

"He's really not okay, huh?" Ginzou asked.

Kaito deflated slightly. "He's really, really not." He took a breath. "I'm worried about him."

"Are you okay?" Aoko asked.

"Maybe?" Kaito ventured. "I'm worried about Hakuba, and the other detectives who helped out, and stuff with Mom…"

"She said she was going to try to make things up to you," Ginzou said. "You two aren't still fighting, are you?"

"No, not.." Kaito said. He paused, sighed, and ran a hand through his hair "It's...complicated. She said she's going back to Vegas and I think that's for the best. But we are talking again, so that's something."

"You didn't even tell me you were arguing," Aoko said, looking upset.

Kaito looked sheepish. "Sorry, a lot was going on."

"That's exactly when you need to talk to people about your problems!" Aoko huffed.

"You're right," Kaito said quietly, expression serious. "I'm gonna try to be better about that."

"So, the whole Task Force would overwhelm Hakuba, but what about the two of us?" Ginzou asked.

Kaito got that shifty look on his face that meant he was trying not to say something aloud. "I'll talk to him about it, okay? See how he feels."

"You'd better!" Aoko said. "It's not fair that you already got to see him and we didn't!"

"I already got to see him because I helped find him!" Kaito said.

Aoko made a dismissive noise, the dinner table dissolved into pointless bickering, and Ginzou gave up on further attempts to push the matter. Either Kaito would intercede with Saguru on their behalf, or Ginzou would be forced to go over his head. He knew how to get in contact with the Superintendent-General, after all.

In the end, it was a day later when Kaito finally gave them the okay to visit Hakuba. The news had finally broken, and there were reporters outside of the house, so the woman who Hakuba called Baaya snuck the three of them into the house through one of the back entrances. Hakuba was standing beside...whatever you called the little houses hawks lived in, safely out of view of television cameras but still outside to meet them.

The first thing Ginzou noticed was his hair. He was used to using Hakuba's wavy blond hair to pick him out of crowds of dark-haired police officers on heists when he hadn't brought along his hawk or worn something outlandish. Nearly all of it was gone now, leaving behind maybe two centimeters of gold fluff that stuck straight up and made the angles of his face look harsher than they had before.

Well, that wasn't all the hair. Kaito wasn't kidding about the lost weight. Hakuba was wearing that light brown suit he liked to wear to heists, and it didn't fit right anymore. It wasn't as bad as it could be, but that suit had been tailored, and now it was noticeably loose at his neck and wrists.

He turned to face them and stiffened, instantly wary. There was a world of difference between this kid and the cocky boy who'd all but forced his way onto the KID Task Force. His eyes met Ginzou's for a half a second, and Ginzou couldn't even puzzle out everything that was going on in his expression, but none of it looked happy, or confident, or anything like the boy he knew.

"Your guests are here," Baaya said.

Hakuba made a hum of acknowledgement. "Thank you for bringing them in through the back, Baaya. You don't have to stay out here with us if there are other things you need to do."

"Are you certain?" she asked.

"I am," Hakuba said.

Baaya nodded, and headed back to the house.

"You two talked things out, I guess," Kaito observed.

"We did," Hakuba said. "You and your mother?"

"We kind of did?" Kaito offered. "She's going back to Vegas."

Hakuba made a complicated face.

"I asked her to," Kaito said.

"Ah," Hakuba said. "I may visit eventually, then."

Kaito smirked. It seemed there was some sort of joke there Ginzou wasn't getting.

Ginzou was content to sit back, because he could see some of the tension easing out of Hakuba's shoulders as he talked with Kaito. But Aoko had apparently lost patience with being ignored.

"Hakuba-san, Aoko really missed you!" she exclaimed.

Hakuba flinched. "I'm sorry," he said quietly. "I did not set out to worry you. Either of you." Again, his gaze only moved to Ginzou for a second, but he otherwise steadily avoided eye contact.

That was starting to unsettle Ginzou. Hakuba had always been a bit Western about eye contact, making more than was strictly polite for a Japanese person and often holding it too long as well. Even when carefully abiding by Japanese custom, he was never this obvious about avoiding it. Something was wrong.

"Aoko is just glad you're home safe," Aoko said firmly. "Do you know when you're coming back to school?"

Hakuba froze up. That was the best way to describe it.

"You're probably still talking with your parents about that, huh?" Kaito asked.

"Ah, yes," Hakuba said. The words sounded shaky.

What the h*** happened to him? Ginzou thought, worried. This isn't even a little like him.

"You had everyone on the Task Force pretty worried too," Ginzou said. "H***, even KID wanted us looking for you."

Hakuba looked confused at that. "Did he tell you that?"

"What, the self-proclaimed Number One KID Fan helped find you and didn't even show you that idiotic heist note?" Ginzou asked. "Telling us to look for 'lost cubs'...as if I needed more evidence that he's full of crap…"

The first hint of life entered Saguru's expression as he glanced at Kaito. "Lost cubs?" he repeated incredulously.

"You know, young Wolves of Europe!" Kaito said, almost defensively. "It's a perfectly good note."

"It's a stupid note and KID is also stupid," Aoko put in.

Kaito looked offended.

Saguru let out a small huff of laughter. "Well said, Aoko-san."

He's still in there somewhere, Ginzou thought in relief.

"Is there anything Aoko can do to help out?" Aoko asked. "Can Aoko bring food, or…"

The ease of the last few minutes vanished as Saguru rapidly shook his head. "I assure you, Baaya has feeding me well in hand. You really needn't worry so much."

Kaito sighed loudly, probably on purpose. "People don't actually worry less when you say that kind of stuff."

"I really don't see why you're all so worried in the first place," Hakuba grumbled.

He actually seemed to be serious, too, which Ginzou was having trouble wrapping his mind around.

When he finally got his thoughts into something like coherent words, they came out as, "You were missing for weeks, no one had any idea where the h*** you were or whether you were even f***ing alive. Why the h*** would you think we wouldn't be d*** worried?"

Hakuba flinched again, and this time it was unmistakable. Before all of this, he'd been able to weather Ginzou's tirades better than some of the Task Force veterans, not even flinching at the language or volume. But here he was, going pale and taking a step back.

"You scared people," Kaito said quietly. "A lot of people. I know you didn't mean to, but that's why they want to see you. They want to know that you really did come back."

Hakuba had this look on his face, somewhere between completely flat and the edge of tears, and it was terrifying how much it reminded Ginzou of Kaito. That was what happened to Kaito's face when he hit something he just could not handle. On Kaito, it usually came out when Toichi came up unexpectedly. Ginzou didn't understand how people being worried was enough to get it on Hakuba's face, but he didn't like it one bit.

"You okay?" he asked, because he couldn't figure out what else to do.

Both Kaito and Aoko looked at him like he was an idiot.

"Hey, Hakuba-san, Aoko is really glad that you did come back," Aoko said, turning back to Hakuba. "So is her dad. He just says it with more swearing and yelling, because that's what he's like. You know that."

Hakuba swallowed visibly. "I do." He paused. "And thank you. I am...glad, as well."

"Good," Aoko said decisively. She glanced toward Ginzou, who realized he was being called upon to back her up.

"She's right," Ginzou said. "I'm glad to see you back home. When you feel up to it, write the Task Force a letter or something so they don't keep badgering me and your dad about being allowed to visit."

"Have they really been?" Hakuba asked, seeming surprised.

"We argued for jurisdiction on your case, Hakuba-kun," Ginzou said patiently. "Most of the Task Force doesn't actually specialize in Missing Persons but we argued that we were good enough at search grids to make up for it."

Hakuba stared at him with wide eyes. "I thought-Inspector Yamato-"

"He pried that case out of our jurisdiction with a false alarm in his jurisdiction and his personal relationship to your father," Ginzou said, offended.

"Your relationship to his father is how you got the case in the first place," Kaito pointed out.

"I barely know the guy; why does everyone keep saying I have some kind of pull with the superintendent-general?" Ginzou asked, throwing his hands up.

Hakuba carefully held himself still at the motion. He'd wanted to flinch and he'd stopped himself. That was more than a little unsettling. What the h*** had him so spooked?

Kaito, meanwhile, snickered. "Because he let his son work under your direct supervision?"

"Hakuba-kun wanted to be on the Task Force; that's proof that Hakuba-kun wants to catch KID, not that his dad likes me!"

"If Father hadn't liked you, he would have made other arrangements," Hakuba said. "At the very least, he wouldn't have asked you directly to look after me."

Ginzou was feeling distinctly outnumbered, so he dropped the matter.

The conversation went on like for a while-Hakuba carefully opening up for brief periods of time, only to shut down suddenly at any expression of concern or unexpected movement from Aoko or Ginzou. Kaito occasionally blundered into unsafe territory as well, but it was much less frequent, and he was better at putting Hakuba at ease. Also, the way he occasionally redirected the conversation made Ginzou more than a little suspicious.

They hadn't been there 20 minutes when Baaya reemerged from the house. "Saguru-bocchama, it's dinnertime."

"Awww, but Aoko wanted to talk to you a little more," Aoko said.

"I'm afraid questioning Baaya in regard to mealtimes is not particularly wise," Hakuba said. "It was good to see you. I will, at the very least, let Kaito know when a decision is reached regarding my return to school."

"If you want, you can call our house, too," Aoko said. "Kaito knows the number."

Saguru nodded.

Ginzou had been watching Hakuba's reactions, and he knew that he wasn't reacting well to the fact that people were worried about him, but he felt like he needed to say something anyway. "You've got no idea how glad I am that you're home safe, kid."

Hakuba just ducked his head a bit further, and said nothing in response. Ginzou wanted to hug him, no matter how long he'd spent being a stuck-up brat with crap theories about KID, because right now he looked like he was hurting. But he also flinched basically every time someone moved suddenly, so probably that was a bad idea.

Aoko darted past Ginzou and grabbed one of Hakuba's hands in both of hers. Hakuba, predictably, froze up, but only for a second.

"It was good to see you again," Aoko said. "Aoko is really, really glad you're back. We'll see you again soon, right?"

Startled, Hakuba said, "Yes, of course," and met her eyes for possibly the second time in the conversation.

Apparently satisfied, she dropped his hand and stepped back.

Kaito smiled crookedly at him. "Well, now she made you promise," he said.

"So she did," Hakuba said, sounding a bit rattled.

"Good," Kaito said. "Now, go eat."

Saguru nodded, looking embarrassed.

"Can you find your way back out?" Baaya asked, reminding them all of her presence.

"Aoko remembers!" Aoko volunteered. "And Kaito does too, probably."

"Yeah, we'll be fine," Kaito said. "You go keep an eye on him."

Baaya smiled at him, then headed back to the house, with Hakuba following close behind.

Apparently dismissed, Ginzou, Kaito and Aoko headed for the back entrance. Ginzou waited until they were nearly there to turn to Kaito. "All right, out with it."

Kaito stared up at him, looking honestly confused. "With what?"

"You know what happened to him when he was gone, don't you?" Ginzou asked. "You knew what to avoid talking to him about."

Kaito sighed. "It's a little more complicated than-"

"It's really not," Ginzou interrupted. "If you know what happened, you need to tell me. So I can find whoever hurt him and arrest them."

"Dad?" Aoko asked.

"You noticed it too, didn't you?" Ginzou asked. "How he was flinching and acting nervous?"

"Yeah, but he ran away on his own," Aoko said. "He wasn't kidnapped. Kaito would've said if that wasn't true!"

"I would have," Kaito agreed. "It wasn't-what happened to Hakuba didn't happen while he was gone. It happened before he came to Japan, or got adopted. Leaving just brought a lot of things back up for him, that's all. As for arresting people...I don't think you could find those people to arrest, and I really don't think Hakuba would appreciate me giving people details of his life without his permission."

"Yeah, I guess he wouldn't," Ginzou agreed. "But you're absolutely sure we couldn't track them down?"

"Yeah," Kaito said quietly. "Yeah, I'm pretty sure. If finding them was a realistic thing you'd need to get in line."

"Teenage detectives?" Ginzou asked.

"Definitely, among others," Kaito said.

"He's going to be okay, though, right?" Aoko asked, looking distraught.

"I think so," Kaito said. "It might take him a while though."

"Aoko can be patient," Aoko said. "It's usually Kaito who's bad at it."

"I can be patient when there's something worth waiting for," Kaito said.

They continued out the entrance, and down the road. It was starting to get dark, but the street lamps hadn't quite turned on yet. This part of town was much quieter than the block where they lived, and it made the silence that fell feel a bit heavier.

"It was a good thing you did, helping to track him down," Ginzou said at length.

"It was selfish," Kaito replied. "I was as worried as everyone else. I'm glad he's home now, though."

"Still a good thing to do," Ginzou said. "Proud of you, kid."

Kaito lit up a bit at the praise, then turned serious. "You should tell Hakuba-san that, too," he said.

"You think?" he asked. "I know his dad; I'm sure he hears it plenty from him."

"I think it would mean something different coming from you," Kaito said.

Well, it's not like I wouldn't mean it, Ginzou thought. Crackpot theorist or not, the kid solved half the riddles for the Task Force after he came and nearly caught KID a few times on top of that. And Kaito's good at people. If he says Hakuba should hear it from me, he probably should.

"When he calls us, then," Ginzou said.

There was a satisfaction to Kaito's smile that seemed a bit excessive given the situation, but Ginzou wasn't about to call him on it. It was good to see his kids smiling again.

A/N: Warnings for: Dysfunctional families (specifically canon-typical stuff for the Nakamoris and fic-typical stuff for the Kurobas), Kaito-type emotional issues, outsider POV of PTSD and PTSD-related anxiety, very vague allusions to disordered eating.

Thank you guys again for your patience! Review replies are coming-I've been trying to catch up, but it's slow going. As for updates, I'm hoping to get back on schedule, but since I'm traveling for the holidays it's frankly unlikely. It's likely to be another 3-week update gap; please bear with me.

Because some characters are longer-winded than others, I can't be confident about chapter lengths at this point. My best "total chapter count" estimates fall between 50 and 60, probably closer to 50. It depends on how long a few scenes stretch and how in depth I decide to go with some elements.

That said, I do have follow-up oneshots planned, though they will likely be posted less quickly than chapters are. At the very least, there's a Sunset Mansion story happening at some point.

Thank you all, leave a review on your way out if you like, and please look forward to the next chapter!