Chapter 26: A Case of Identity

In which I botch anything that looks remotely like science. References to episode 909, since it was the only thing I could think of that would work in this situation.

Something was wrong. Something was very, very wrong.

Ra was awake, but she was staring at Shinichi like he was dangerous. She'd cursed. Asked who he was. She was still aggressively glaring at him with unveiled suspicion, and a tiny voice in the back of his head screamed That's not Ran!

"Y-you're—" His words died in a dry throat as a nurse burst in, having probably been alerted by the heart monitor. Her eyes lit up.

"Kudo-sama, you're awake!" she said, just barely reigning in her excitement. Ran blinked a few times, breaking eye contact with Shinichi and turned to the nurse.

"Yes?"

Something in Shinichi's gut twisted painfully, and he couldn't help but take a step back. He watched the nurse talk animatedly to who was supposed to be Ran, listened to the person in the bed respond to the nurse without any uncomfortable grimaces the way Ran would when having to pretend to be Shinichi.

He took another step back, catching the attention of the teen on the bed, but he didn't stop, couldn't stop to face the painfully familiar gaze that didn't belong to Ran.

Without thinking, he fled from the room and bowled into Agasa, who was coming in for the first time that day.

"Shinichi?" he whispered after confirming no none was around to hear him. "What's wrong? You look like you've seen a ghost!" Shinichi's mouth opened and closed a few times as he pointed to the door, the words stuck in his throat.

"S-something's wrong," he managed to rasp out just as the nurse from earlier opened the door again. She said something into the room that he couldn't hear, and then turned only to blink in surprise at the professor's presence. She greeted him properly after the door closed.

"You're Kudo-sama's current guardian, right?" she asked. He nodded. "He's just woken up—I'm going to call the doctor now." Agasa gave Shinichi a strange look while thanking the nurse. She left immediately to find the doctor in charge.

"Isn't it good Ran-kun's awake?" he whispered with a confused frown. He started for the door, grabbing the handle. Shinichi latched onto the hem of the man's shirt.

"S-she's acting strange," he hissed, staring up at the professor with eyes that pleaded for him to understand. "It's not—it's not her!"

"Now, Shinichi," sighed Agasa, turning the doorknob, "you said just the opposite when she first showed up, remember?"

"But—!" The door was opened before Shinichi could try to explain, and Agasa went in. He followed quickly, peering cautiously at the bed from behind the man. The person on the bed squinted suspiciously at Shinichi and spoke before Agasa could say anything.

"Professor, who is that?" Ran asked in a low, cautious voice. "And why am I…" the words trailed off when she saw Agasa's concerned expression. "What?"

It can't be, thought Shinichi with mounting dread as he listened to the too-familiar speech patterns. That's impossible!

He swallowed hard and stepped out from behind Professor Agasa. He took a deep breath, and with an authoritative confidence he didn't feel, said:

"I'm Kudo Shinichi."

Ran gaped at him for a few moments before giving him a scowl Shinichi himself was prone to wear at times.

"I'm Kudo Shinichi," she growled out. "I don't know what you did, professor, but this is a very bad joke." She faltered at the look of bewildered horror on Agasa's face. Shinichi couldn't feel the floor under his feet anymore, and the roaring of his quickening pulse flooded his ears.

The doctor came in before all hell could break loose, leaving everyone to silently scramble for what was left of their sanity.

As he spoke, explaining to Ran and Agasa some of the things they needed to keep in mind when she was discharged, the two teens stared each other down. Agasa stood in an uncomfortable daze, nodding absently at words he probably didn't hear, the doctor oblivious to the situation as his gaze was kept fixed on his clipboard.

"You've been very lucky, Kudo-san," the doctor said, bringing attention back to him. Shinichi bit back a scoff, unable to tell the man why that wasn't true. "There are a few tests I'd like to take care of now that you're awake, and I'd like you to spend the night here for observation. You should be able to go home tomorrow."

After receiving consent—despite it being more of an absent, distracted agreement—Ran was whisked away to do whatever it was the doctor wanted from her, leaving the professor and Shinichi to process the new situation they found themselves in.

"Wh-what… just happened?" breathed Agasa, still looking at the now vacated bed.

"I told you she was acting strange," said Shinichi as he reached up to cover his eyes. His heart was pounding against his ribs so hard he thought they might bruise. "This doesn't…" He swallowed hard. "It doesn't make sense."

"I'm sure it was just from the head injury," said Agasa gently, though his trembling shoulders told the teen he was consoling himself just as much as Shinichi.

Thinking you're someone else after a concussion only happens in cartoons, thought Shinichi as he hid a grimace. But she does know me well enough for something like that to be feasible, even if it's incredibly stupid. He rubbed his temples.

"And we can't ask the doctor about it without giving ourselves away, either" he groaned. Agasa patted him on the shoulder, though the action did little to lift his spirits. He consoled himself by telling himself that it shouldn't last very long. They just had to remind her who she was. Some research into the topic wouldn't be uncalled for, either.

So, as they waited for the doctor to return with Ran in tow, Shinichi slipped into the bathroom to make a phone call, updating Haibara on the new situation. She listened to him speak without interrupting.

"Hmmm," she said after a few moments of silence. "I have heard that delusions can occur after a brain injury, but… outside of media entertainment, I'm not familiar with any cases like this. Delusions of grandeur are usually symptomatic of a different issue altogether."

"I'd thought that, too," said Shinichi, gratified to know he wasn't the only one who thought it was strange.

"I need to do some research," said the scientist. "When did you say she gets discharged?"

"Sometime tomorrow, if they don't find anything wrong."

"Good. Spending too much time with people who also think she's you will probably make it worse. I'll see what I can find out here, but a copy of the diagnostics and x-rays will be most helpful." The telltale dial-tone was the only indication he got that the conversation was over.

He sighed and checked his messages. Nothing new, thankfully. He debated telling Heiji that Ran was awake; but then he'd want to visit, and Shinichi would be stuck explaining something he didn't want to think too much about. He had to tell Subaru, though. A brief explanation was all the man needed, thankfully. He would be ready when she was released.

… Perhaps a visit from Hattori would be beneficial… he found himself thinking. His finger hovered over Heiji's icon for a while before turning his phone back off. He could tell the other teen tomorrow if nothing changed. Maybe then, he wouldn't feel so shaken and would be able to articulate the problem better.

By the time Shinichi came out of the restroom, Ran was back in the hospital room. Once more, she looked suspiciously at him with a gaze that wasn't hers. His gut squirmed as they listened to the doctor talk, waiting for them to be alone again so that he could talk to her properly.

"… be reviewing the scans, and I'll get back to you when I've finished," the doctor was saying as Shinichi tuned back in. At the mention of the scans, he gave Agasa a meaningful look. The older man blinked a few times before nodding. He cleared his throat, drawing the doctor's attention.

"W-we, er… I was wondering if I could get a copy of those scans for his parents' records," said the professor.

"Yes, of course," came the reply. "I can include them in the report and statement before he's discharged tomorrow."

Ran frowned from her place on the bed as she listened to the exchange, confusion creeping into her features. The doctor left, and she spoke again.

"Professor, will you please explain what's going on?!" she demanded, again with Shinichi's speech pattern instead of her own.

"Now, Ran-kun," he started to say, but Ran's scowl deepened as she looked around the room.

"Ran's not here—who're you talking to?" Shinichi's chest felt tight around his heart. Her sharp gaze refocused on him. "And you still need to explain… whatever's going on with that imposter." Agasa sighed and glanced at the door before speaking.

"I'm talking to you," he said gently. Before she could refute that, he continued. "I know you must be confused right now, especially since you have a concussion, but you need to stay calm and try to remember who you are." Ran blinked at him a few times, mouth gaping open in disbelief. Then she looked back down at herself.

"… I'm dreaming, right?" she murmured as she absently flexed her fingers. "Yeah, that's it. That's the only thing that makes any sense." Shinichi exchanged a worried glance with Agasa.

She really does believe she's me… he thought gloomily.

"Ran-kun—"

"I'm not Ran!" she yelled, and abruptly winced, bringing her hand up to the back of her head with a soft hiss. The outcry, accompanied with the frantic beeping of the heart monitor she was still hooked up to, summoned a nurse who quickly shooed Agasa and Shinichi away for the rest of the day.

Shinichi pinched the bridge of his nose as they headed for the parking lot, then checked his watch. Visiting hours were nearly over anyway. He could spend the rest of the evening trying to figure out how to get Ran to snap out of it.

Post-traumatic amnesia, he could deal with; there was a precedent for that sort of thing, after all. And some forms of delusions were to be expected when dealing with a concussion. He could tend to those, too, but… Something about this set his teeth on edge, and he couldn't shake the feeling that Ran's recovery wasn't going to be that simple. Agasa sent him a worried look as they got in his little yellow Volkswagen.

"What should we do, Shinichi?" he asked. "She obviously doesn't believe us—which is understandable, since she does look like you, and the doctors think she's you…" The distress he'd been poorly suppressing in the hospital came out unveiled, shaking his voice. Shinichi pulled off his glasses and covered his face with his hands for a few moments, releasing a long sigh that did nothing to calm his nerves.

"First, I think before getting her to remember who she is, we need to prove to her who she's not," he said. Agasa's brows furrowed.

"And how are we going to do that?" he asked as he started the car. They slowly made their way out of the parking lot, waiting at the street for an opening. "You two have been practically inseparable since preschool. She knows you almost as well as you know yourself. Perhaps even better." They were on the street, now. It had started raining sometime before they left. It had been sunny that morning. Shinichi irritably clicked his tongue.

"You think I don't know that?" he snapped. "I just need to think of something only I would know about." Agasa pursed his lips.

"That's going to be difficult, since you've told her just about everything since you outed yourself," he pointed out. Shinichi slumped in his seat.

"… Yeah…" He gazed ruefully out the window at the wet street rushing past; then he sat up suddenly, snapping his fingers. "I didn't tell her about Subaru!"

"You didn't?"

"No, since he is undercover, even if I was the one who helped him out. As far as she knows, Subaru and Akai are two different people."

Of course, he didn't think she knew Akai's name, but that wasn't really an issue, since he was certain she didn't know Subaru was a disguise. He wouldn't even need to reveal the deception—he'd just need to ask if she knew his secret. And hopefully, the fact that she didn't know the secret would help snap her out of it. It might not work if Shinichi was the only one who could prove it, but since Agasa (and Subaru himself, if the need arose) could back him up, it should be enough. He nodded to himself in satisfaction.

We just have to hope it's enough, he thought. Maybe she'll wake up normal tomorrow, and we won't even have to try that. It was a comforting thought, but not one he was willing to entertain for too long lest he get his hopes too high.

xXx

He was nervous. He'd gone over the plan with Agasa and Haibara (and mentioned it to Subaru, just in case), and it was decided that the professor would go by himself to get Ran, and bring her back to his house where Shinichi would confront her with the truth.

"Quit pacing, you're making me anxious," said Haibara from her place on the couch. She was reading a fashion magazine. Shinichi ignored her, stopping only to look out the window before resuming his trek.

"What's taking so long?" he grumbled. Haibara sighed and closed the magazine, setting it on the coffee table.

"I'd say it's very likely she's demanding answers from the professor, and is probably getting increasingly frustrated when he can't answer," she said. She bit back a yawn, and Shinichi noticed the dark circles under her eyes. He shoved his hands into his pockets, hating how clammy his palms felt.

"Did you find out anything?" he asked. She scowled and shook her head.

"Nothing like this," she said, frustration etching lines into her face. "Not any cases in real life, anyway. Every case resembling this one came straight out of movies and TV shows." She glared at the cover of the abandoned magazine. "I was up all night looking, and I've nothing to show for it."

Shinichi started pacing again, his mood souring further. He'd been up all night, too. As for concussions, a personality change was common; but, with a few exceptions, they didn't usually last long, and definitely never included actually believing one was someone else. He'd even looked up delusions of grandeur to be on the safe side, but found that those happened in the frontal lobe of the brain. Ran's injury was in the occipital area, and as far as he could tell from the reports, her frontal lobe didn't have any injuries or swelling that might cause that. He was completely at a loss.

The telltale sound of a car slowing down snapped the wound-up teen from his downward spiral, and he rushed back to the window. They were pulling up the driveway; Ran was in the passenger's seat, scowling the same way she'd done yesterday. He swallowed, hard, heart jumping to his throat.

Subaru was waiting on standby in Shinichi's house. He had a hunch that the man kept listening devices here somewhere, but he'd always been too busy to check. It didn't matter whether he did or not, though. Shinichi situated himself at the window facing his house. If needed, he could signal for Subaru who was waiting in a similar position at the Kudo mansion. He could come in and offer whatever extra support might be needed, should Shinichi and Agasa prove unsuccessful by themselves.

The front door opened, chasing Shinichi's thoughts away.

Agasa held the door open for Ran, who pushed her way past him, that scowl growing even deeper. Shinichi swallowed again, a lump forming in his throat, when he noticed she even carried herself the way he did. It was almost as if her existence had been erased. He suppressed a shiver at the thought.

"What was so important that I had to come here first?" she asked, looking around with unveiled irritation. Her eyes landed on Haibara and Shinichi, and the gaze turned icy, as understanding crossed her face. "You're still insisting I'm Ran, huh?"

"Isn't there some merit to multiple people insisting the same thing?" asked Shinichi quietly. He hated seeing her like this. She glared at him.

"My knowing Conan and I can't exist in the same room together should prove otherwise," she said coolly. "Add that to the obvious fact that I'm a boy," she continued, voice rising a bit, "and I think I have a rock-solid case, even if the professor was trying to tell me something outlandish in the car earlier."

Shinichi glanced at Agasa, who nodded, implying he'd given her a summary of events on the way over that she clearly did not believe. He pinched the bridge of his nose, feeling a headache looming just behind his temples.

"Your knowing the truth about Conan's existence is hardly proof, since I told you about it not long ago," he said, trying to keep his voice even. "And whatever Agasa told you in the car is true." She faltered when she heard that Shinichi's identity had willingly been revealed to her and the shock on her face was nearly comical. Shinichi decided to speed things along.

"The best way to prove who you are is this: what is Subaru-san's secret?" There. She wouldn't be able to answer, and could get on with remembering herself. He ignored Haibara's inquisitive glare, which he expected. He wasn't prepared for the blank look on Ran's face, though, nor for the question she asked.

"… Uh… Who's Subaru…?"

Everyone was silent for a few seconds, momentarily stunned.

"You don't remember?" asked Haibara, looking mildly interested, but a touch of concern glittered behind her eyes. Ran grimaced.

"You can't forget someone you don't know,' she said, irritation in her voice growing. She winced a bit and reached up to her head, fingers hovering over the fresh bandage. Frustration seemed to trigger pain in the wound.

Shinichi glanced out of the window, and caught the man in question shaking his head. They couldn't use him anymore. Not if she insisted she didn't even know who he was. He closed his eyes, thinking.

"… Efune…" It was barely a whisper, but everyone's stares bored into him now. He opened his eyes again. "Do you remember Efune-sensei?" he asked, anticipating an answer aligning with Ran's knowledge. She frowned again.

"You mean that would-be kidnapper?" she spat venomously. Shinichi startled, staring at her with wide eyes as the blood drained from his face. He wanted to throw up.

"Y-you…" He swallowed around the growing lump in his too-tight throat. "W-why do you know about—how do you know about that?!"

At his panic, Ran's expression morphed from frustration to alarm, her face paling significantly as the blood drained from it the way Shinichi's had just done. This…

This wasn't Ran.

"I'm confused, who is Efune-sensei?" asked Haibara hesitantly as she looked between the other two teens in the room.

"A teacher who tried to kidnap Ran-kun in preschool, but…" said Agasa, trailing off as he stared hard at Ran.

"No one… Ran doesn't know about it. No one told her," whispered Shinichi in a shaky voice. "Even after thirteen years, no one told her the truth about that incident." Haibara's frown deepened as she looked towards who was supposed to be Ran. Shinichi felt lightheaded.

"So why do you know about it?" she asked. Not-Ran, still staring in shock at Shinichi, answered in a voice just as shaky as Shinichi's was.

"Because I'm not Ran," she—he?—said. Intense eyes bored into Shinichi's. "And you're not… an imposter, are you…?" Shinichi's breath caught in his throat as he shook his head.

"I'm not," he managed to whisper. His vision started to tunnel, blurring at the edges as he willed his breathing to remain even. Tense silence weighed heavily on the group as they struggled to figure out what exactly this news meant.

Ran was Shinichi now? Why? Nothing made sense, and the only thing that he knew for certain was that Ran had vanished.

"… So, this is like a clone thing or something, right?" asked Not-Ran. Not-Ran… Not Shinichi, either, as far as the original was concerned. The newly christened clone looked sharply at him. "Which means one of us isn't real."

Shinichi scowled.

"That'd be you," he growled. Not-Shinichi scowled back at him. Before a fight could break out, Haibara spoke up.

"Let's be logical about this," she said through an icy cool façade Shinichi saw through right away. "What's the last thing you remember?"

"… I was in the hospital," said Not-Shinichi slowly. Haibara sent him a flat glare.

"I meant before waking up yesterday," she snapped. He returned her ire with his own irritation.

"I meant before yesterday—I'd just been shot and was being rushed to the emergency room. It was right before the school festival, which I guess I missed." The last part was muttered. Shinichi gaped at him.

"The school festiv—but that was months ago!" he exclaimed, causing Not-Shinichi to startle, a surprised expression crossing his face.

'Months..?' he mouthed silently as Haibara recovered her wits first.

"Well," she said quietly, thoughtfully rubbing her chin, "if that's true, then we now know where they must have acquired your DNA, Kudo-kun." The clone frowned, but he didn't seem to hear Haibara's comment.

"Now that I'm thinking of it, how are the children?" he asked anxiously, absently reaching up again to the back of his head and halting when fingers met bandages. Everyone blinked.

"The children?" asked Agasa, confused.

"Yeah, the kids! Ayumi and them—my friends! The last time I saw them was in that cave with the murderers. You know: when I was shot." The last sentence was said in a 'that should have been obvious' tone, but something about it gnawed painfully at the back of Shinichi's mind. He couldn't place it, too distraught over Ran's… disappearance, so to speak.

"They're fine," Agasa quickly assured when the silence made Not-Shinichi more anxious. "They bounced back pretty quickly after that." The clone relaxed a bit.

"That was really months ago?" he asked quietly. At Agasa's nod, he looked down at his hands. "So I'm not…" He seemed lost, but Shinichi couldn't feel for someone who had essentially taken Ran's place.

"No, you're not," he affirmed, tone waspish. "We already told you what's going on." Not-Shinichi's scowl returned.

"My being a clone doesn't make me Ran—that doesn't even make any sense!"

Shinichi glared angrily at his copy. He was being so stubborn—the fact that everyone told him he was originally Ran should have been enough to convince him. Even Haibara didn't refute that fact, which should have alerted the clone to the truth, but he simply refused to believe them. It was all just circumstantial evidence. They needed something more concrete to show him. The sooner he realized the truth, the better. Then an idea popped into his head.

"Proof…" he said softly. The other Shinichi gave him a questioning stare.

"Yeah, you need some," he said. Shinichi shook his head.

"I have proof!" He wanted to smack himself for forgetting. "Unshakeable proof. Follow me." He headed out of the room before the copy could protest. There was an irritated sigh behind him, but the clone followed despite the frustration.

Shinichi led his copy out of Agasa's house and into his own. Not-Shinichi looked around suspiciously the moment he stepped inside.

"Why are there hidden cameras in my house?"

"It's my house," snapped Shinichi. He kept walking. "And we installed them a little while ago to help with the cover of an FBI agent."

"FBI?" The other Shinichi asked, surprised. He didn't know any FBI agents.

"I'll explain later," he said. "The point is, we haven't had time to uninstall them. They've been running the whole time." He stopped and turned to glare up at the taller boy. "Recording proof, that is."

Still skeptical, the clone followed Shinichi up to the second floor and into the room where he had monitored the exchange between Amuro and his father. The double watched silently, lips pressed into a thin line, as the shrunken detective booted up the computer and pulled up several windows. When he was finished, he hopped off the chair and pointed at it.

"Sit," he commanded. Seeing no other alternative, the other Shinichi sighed, strode over to the desk, and sat down.

"You can see it with your own eyes," he said coolly. "And there's sound, so you'll be able to hear her speech patterns. There're a couple of weeks of footage, so take your time." And with that he left the room, emotionally incapable of watching Ran on the screen while her 'borrowed' body was in the room.

His vision swam ruthlessly as he walked down the hallway, which seemed to stretch out forever before him. It hurt to think. It hurt to breathe.

He made his way to the music room—it was rarely ever used, but his parents had the room soundproofed when he was little, given that his father hadn't wanted to be distracted if he ever needed to write the same time his mother wanted to play something.

A look around the room confirmed he was alone. He locked the door behind him, but still felt too exposed. That stupid grand piano his mother used to train Shinichi with was still there, collecting dust now that his parents were away. Discarding his dignity, he crawled underneath it and curled into a ball, gripping his head tightly in his hands.

His vision blurred, head buzzing. He couldn't breathe properly, gasping on emotions he'd forced himself to keep hidden.

Ran was gone, and there was nothing he could do about it.

The scream that tore itself from his throat did nothing to ease his grief.

As a disclaimer: despite how it looks, this is NOT DID, or MPD, or whatever they're calling it nowadays. It's some sci-fi shit I made up for drama that happens to look slightly similar to anyone who doesn't know any better. Thanks for your understanding.