File Thirty-Three: Close Call

"...ra-san..." the sound filtered through her mind. "... bara-san!"

What's that? she could only wonder, as the voice grew louder and louder.

"Haibara-san, please answer!"

Who are you?

"Haibara-san!"

Her eyes snapped open, only to find herself staring at the ceiling. "Haibara-san!" the voice called again, yet this time she managed to recognize it.

"Kudo-kun?" she mumbled, sitting up and dazely looking around in an attempt to figure out where she was. There was a relieved sigh and, for a moment, she wondered where was his voice coming from."Where are you?"

"I'm in the professor's car in front of the hotel," the boy told her. "I'm communicating with you through the microphone and speaker in the glasses."

Looking around, Haibara frowned, unable to remember what she was doing in a place like that. "What happened to me?"

"That's what I want to know! What happened in the hallway in front of the party room?"

"... In front of the party room?" she slowly pressed her hand against her head, which was hurting a lot. "Oh, at that time, I got engulfed by the wave of people... And got separated from you... Then, someone came from my back and..." upon remembering the recent events, she gasped, finally realizing what was going on. "Someone made me sniff some drug and now I'm being confined in some storage room for wines."

"H-Hey," cold sweat dripped from Conan's forehead. "Could that someone be...?"

"Yeah, it's probably the member of the Organization that managed to commit murder under the supervision of the police," her eyes narrowed. "Pisco."

As Conan seemed to take his time to let the words sink, Haibara stood up to examine the room she had gotten captive in. The door was locked, as expected, and there was nothing in that room but a large cardboard box for goods, where she guessed she had been put in to get her in that place.

"Just hurry up, Haibara-san," Conan said to her. "There has to be a way out of that room."

Haibara paused for a moment, causing the boy to wonder what was going on.

"Listen, Kudo-kun, if you go to my computer there should be a folder with all the progress I have been making on the antidote," she said to him, confusing the small detective for a moment.

"W-What are you talking about, Haibara-san?"

"It might be hard, but I believe that you are more than capable to find another person to finish what I have started. The password is..."

"Stop it!" he shouted at her. "You can tell me that password once you get out of there, so-!"

"Just shut up and listen!" Haibara's voice was firm, before it dropped to a softer tone. "I can't ever... I can't ever exchange words with you again."

"What do you mean?" the boy didn't really like where this was going.

"Don't you understand? They know I'm alive and that I'm here, in this city. Even if I do escape from here, they will find me in no longer than two days, if I'm lucky," she explained, a defeated smile on her face. "If that happens the Professor who had been protecting me is a definite, and all the others who were involved with me would be killed by them to preserve their secrecy."

Conan's teeth clenched, seeing the truth behind her words.

"You get it? Whether I'm killed here or if I manage to escape here successfully, I've already been forced into a state where I can no longer come in contact with any of you."

"... I get it," he finally said, with a sigh. "But I refuse to hear anything else about the drug from you," Haibara's eyebrows raised at that, confused. "You can tell me anything you want after you get out of that room. Then, we'll see where to go from there."

"Ah, really?" she smirked, just as she noticed a computer in the corner of the room. "What are you going to do if I refuse?"

"I'll personally go look for a storage room and tell them there's a girl trapped inside," he replied, as if it was obvious. "But it would be a pity, right? Because Pisco would see me and know I'm involved with you."

That was extremely reckless yet, at the same time, so like him. Haibara knew the boy would do that if she didn't agree to his terms. "So you would go to save me, risking your own integrity in the process?" she teased, sitting behind the computer she had found. "I see, you really are Superman."

Looking at the screen she noticed that whoever had brought her there was analyzing the disk she had in her pocket. She barely remembered getting that from Mitsuhiko that morning, he had returned Agasa's game after finishing it the other night.

"Idiot, I'm no superhero," she paused when his voice, softer and kinder than she had ever heard him use before, sounded in her ears. "I'm only Edogawa Conan... No, Kudo Conan," his lips curved into a small, yet sad smile, even if she couldn't see it. "... Your friend."

Haibara's eyes opened, slightly, due to the surprise.

"So of course I'm not letting you throw your life away just like that."

It took her a second to recover from the shock. "Ah, really? Thank you. That was unusually sweet coming from you, Kudo-kun," she let out another teasing smirk. "Is this the moment where I'm supposed to hug you and say that the feeling is reciprocated?"

From the other side of the transmitter, Agasa noticed the faint blush colouring Conan's cheeks as he gave out an annoyed groan, but decided not to say anything about it.

"No, this is the moment where you go look for a way out."

"That's easy for you to say," she huffed looking around. "There's no escape route in this room. The only thing that's here is an old chimney."

"Can you climb it up?"

She got inside it and looked around. "It's too big," she noted, her hand resting against the crumbly surface. "If I needed to, I guess I could get a grip on the bricks, but..."

"Is there another way?"

"I don't think so."

Conan groaned, loudly. "Try to look for one," he said to her. "I'll pick out Pisco from that group of seven in the meantime."

"It's not like I have that much time," she pointed out. "I'm not tied up, they just left me here. Which means they are in a hurry."

"No, he won't be able to come back for a while," he replied, to her surprise. "After you disappeared I called Inspector Megure and instructed him not to let the guests with purple handkerchiefs leave Haido City Hotel, using my brother's voice of course."

"I'm not sure if I'm supposed to be amazed or disturbed about how easily you can pretend to be other people."

Conan wisely decided not to comment on that.

The reporter on Agasa's computer faded away from their sight and was soon replaced by another one, changing the topic of the news to another random one. By that time, Conan had somehow managed to figure out the position of the seven suspects right after the murder.

But he still couldn't tell who did it. Playing with the pen on his hand, he sighed tiredly.

"Hey," Haibara's voice broke through the silence. "How do you spell Hercule Poirot?"

"Eh?" he blinked, confused. "What are you supposed to be doing?"

"Just tell me."

Rolling his eyes, Conan spelled it for her. He listened as she seemed to type that in a computer before groaning, tiredly.

"What is all of that about?"

"Pisco was trying to analyze the Professor's disk I had in my pocket," she explained. "I wanted to transfer the drug's data from the Organization to the disk, but I got struck on the password."

Her laboured breathing could be heard through the microphone. Maybe her cold got worse.

"The people of the Organization were calling the drug by this name," she said, weakly. "Changing the serial number from 4869 to Sherlock, The Incomplete Detective. So I've been sticking in the names of famous detectives as they popped into my head."

His smile broke into a smirk. "Shelling Ford," he said, before spelling it for her. Hesitantly, she typed that name and, to her surprise, it worked. "That's a temporary name that Conan Doyle gave to his detective before he named him Sherlock."

She gave him a soft chuckle. "I'm glad I have a mystery nerd around, then," Haibara said, hoarsely.

At the sound of her voice, Conan frowned. "Did your fever go up?" he asked, concerned.

Conan heard the furious typing on the keyboard stopping, suddenly. Before he could ask what was going on, she sighed loudly. "I'll let you in a secret, Kudo-kun," Haibara confessed. "I don't really have a cold."

"You don't?" he blinked, confused since it had seemed to him that she had been feeling poorly today at school, at best. "Then what...?"

He trailed off, finally realizing what she meant. It's the drug, he concluded, remembering how his brother had looked the day they met at the diplomat's house. Pale, sweating profusely, ragged breathing...

"You have to leave now," Conan urged her. "We're running out of time and if they get to you as you begin to get chest pains..."

The typing resumed.

"Listen, Kudo-kun, I'll drop the info in the disk and hide it in this wine storage room," his eyes widened as she said that. "Come and get it later... After the Organization has taken me away."

"H-Hey!" he began to get nervous. "Haibara-san, stop that! You need to get out of there."

The typing continued. Conan groaned, feeling impotent to do anything to convince the girl to forget everything about the drug and escape. There was no way he could reason with her, that was for sure. What should I do?

Then, it occurred to him.

"Look," Conan tried. "If you don't care enough about your wellbeing, at the very least... At the very least, think about my brother."

Now, Conan wasn't the type that actually enjoyed stepping so low to actually guilt-trip someone into doing what he wished, but shouldn't this one time be allowed?

"Shinichi-san?"

Good. Somehow that was working, it seemed.

"He has less than two years left," he explained to her, slowly and clearly, seriousness lacing into his every word. "That's too little time to find a scientist to develop a complete antidote but it may be enough for you, the creator of the drug, to figure something out... So, please..."

Haibara seemed to stop typing at those words, causing Conan to hold down a sigh of relief.

"That's a bit hypocritical coming from you," she pointed out. There was a teasing tone on her voice, though, that calmed the boy down just a little. "Considering you said the opposite back then at the Professor's car."

"... I reconsidered?"

At his side, however, Agasa gasped. "C-Conan," he called. "The front!"

Looking up, Conan felt his breathing hitching. A black porsche had just pulled up a few feet ahead, and two people were getting out of the old car. "Gin?!" he cried, as he watched the silver haired man look around, before going to talk with Vodka.

"Could it be that Pisco somehow managed to slip a message?" the old man frowned.

As the men in black approached the door of the hotel, Conan began to feel his blood running cold upon the realization of what they were doing there in the first place.

"Haibara-san, they are coming!" instantly, he shouted through the microphone. "Get on the chimney or something, quick!"

He could only hear her heavy breathing.

"Hey, what's wrong?!" she wouldn't answer. "Hey!"

Haibara screamed in pain.

So Conan dialed a number on his phone and, with the bowtie in front of his mouth, he rushedly said:

"Inspector, this is Kudo!"

The door to the wine storage burst open and Vodka came in first, gun in hand, looking for the child scientist. They had, after all, tracked Pisco's computer and it had brought them to that place.

"Pisco isn't here," he told his partner.

Gin didn't answer, just walked around the place until his eyes fixed on the chimney at the corner of the room. He stood close to it and paused, even if Vodka hadn't noticed his change of attitude and kept on talking.

"I guess that brat is not here," he said to his silent partner. "We should hurry up before she gets any further away."

The tall man smirked. "That's right," he said, before closing the door behind his back.

They were gone as quickly as they had arrived, letting silence settled in the empty room once more.

At least, until the scientist gave out a long sigh.

"Hey," the boy's voice rang through her ears. "Did they leave?"

"Yeah," she managed between gasps. "I think so."

"That's good," he told her. "Now, stay where you are, out of sight. I'll go and pick you out."

Even if Conan couldn't see her, she shook her head. "Don't. It is possible that they were trying to trick me and are actually waiting for me outside the door. It's too dangerous for you to come," Haibara told him, her voice shaking from the exertion. She looked up from under the hood that was covering most of her head and began to climb. "I-I think I can make it to the top."

"Idiot, what if you slip or something?"

Haibara did not reply, in favour of going faster, adrenaline pumping up her small muscles so she could climb towards safety. "What about you?" she asked before he could press any further, forcing her tired body to just keep moving. "...Did you... find out who Pisco is?"

"Well..."

"For our sake... I hope it takes you less time than figuring Singani's identity out..."

"Hey, hey..."

The girl barely managed to draw the strength enough to draw out a smirk, solely focused on her escape. Just a bit longer, she tried to convince herself, even if her limbs were in so much pain she didn't even know how she was managing to get them to move, or if she couldn't even feel her fingers, even if they still had the strength to grip into the bricks to pull her weight up.

Her fear, together with her will to live, was overcoming all the pain she was going through.

Just then, Agasa showed Conan a photograph he had found on the net. There was a photo that had been taken just before the accident, where two of the suspects were embracing. Conan stared at it for a while, when his eyes opened widely. He pulled out the purple handkerchief ─ which had a strange burn mark on it ─ along with the broken chain part. Obscuring it a bit with his hand he noticed it. It was shining.

All pieces came into place.

Not long thereafter, an exhausted Haibara Ai came out from the chimney, rolling away in the ground while she recovered her breath, deciding that she was never doing that again.

"... I'm out," she finally managed, between gasps.

"Great job, Ai-kun," it was Agasa's voice. "Do you know where you are?"

"Looks like a roof," she pointed out. "Is Kudo-kun not there?"

"Yeah, he was talking with Inspector Megure on the phone just now, but went to the hotel in a hurry," he informed the child. "Don't worry, we know Pisco's identity. He told me to tell you that he'll go there and pick you up soon, so just wait there."

She groaned, using all her strength to get up from the cold snow. "It's not like I have a choice in the matter, huh?" she let out a resigned smile. "I can barely move as it is."

With an amazing display of willpower, the little girl managed to stand up. She wobbled a bit, but managed to stay upright.

But all of her efforts were in vain, since she soon fell back on her knees due to the burning pain on her shoulder. Looking at the ground, she could see her blood drawing beautiful patterns on the pale snow.

And spinning around she could see him. Silver hair, murderous eyes and a gun pointing right at her.

"Long time not see," he let out a wicked smile. "Sherry."

Pressing her hand against her shoulder, Haibara couldn't help but frown. Gin, the one member she definitely did not want to see again in her entire life was there, standing in front of her, grinning devilishly.

She could only wonder how long she had until he placed a bullet in her head.

"I'm surprised," deciding to buy as much time as she could, she managed a smirk. "How did you know that I would come out of this chimney?"

"As soon as I entered the room, I could tell. I imagined you would try to escape from there," he replied, with a chuckle that made her hair stand to an end. "And then I could hear it. From the chimney, your quivering breathing."

Haibara could only grit her teeth.

"You're clever, but not enough to outsmart me, little brat," his sinister smile grew wider. "Haven't I told you before? I can read all of your movements. You'll never escape me."

"Then, why didn't you kill me in that dirty chimney?" she asked between gasps. "Since you are not letting me escape."

"Because there's something that still intrigues me, and I'll ask you while those lips can still move," his gun raised higher. "About the trick you used to fake your death and escape from that burning building."

Her eyes narrowed even further, if possible.

Conan took off running, completely ignoring the ladies on the reception desk he had just been talking to. Using his cute little child's charm, he had easily gotten the information he needed and was currently heading towards the storage room they had just told him about.

His phone beeped, so he answered it without stopping. "Conan, this is bad!" Agasa's voice blared in his ear as soon as he pressed the device against his head. "Ai-kun got shot!"

"What?!" he shouted. "Haibara-san?!"

"Yes, on a roof somewhere," came the old man's panicked voice. "Be careful and-!"

He didn't get to listen to the rest of it since his battery had died, but he figured he knew the rest already. So, clenching his teeth, he willed himself to run as fast as humanly possible.

Haibara-san, please hold on! he cried on his head. Haibara-san!

Haibara collapsed on top of the cold snow, hurting all over.

At that point, she wished she could just lose consciousness or just die already, but it seemed she wouldn't have the luxury of a painless departure. The wounds inflicted to her entire body weren't that serious actually since, most likely, Gin's intention wasn't to kill her right away but to get her to spill her secrets. Even if he had shot several times, he had yet to shoot any vital point.

He was desperate, she could see it. Gin needed to know how she had managed to escape.

"Hold on a little longer, Shiho-chan!"

Her lips remained sealed, pressed against each other, refusing to say anything.

"Bro, this brat won't talk," Vodka pointed out at his side.

"I guess there's nothing we can do," Gin agreed, raising his gun again, pointing at her head this time. "Let's send her to her sister, whom we sent first."

Even if it was tempting, Haibara did not close her eyes. She just sent him a last glare while she waited for the bullet that would end her life.

A needle shot through the air.

When he felt the prick, Gin looked over his shoulder to see that little thing struck on the backside of his arm. Just as he was wondering what was that supposed to be, he felt his strength draining.

Vodka rushed over to him, confused at the sight of his partner suddenly dropping to one knee.

"The chimney!" a nondescript male voice shouted from behind the door. "Get into the chimney!"

"W-Who are you?!" Vodka fired a shot towards the source of the sound.

"Hurry!" yet, it seemed like the man had avoided it.

Vodka groaned, spinning around to see Haibara leaning over the chimney. He tried to shoot her, but the bullet barely grazed her back before she collapsed, dropping down from a story long height.

As if it wasn't enough, her chest started hurting. Her teeth clenched, as she fought to get the pain under control, yet the burning sensation would not leave. I don't have time for this, she decided, as she tried to crawl outside the room, only to make it a few inches before screaming due to the pain.

So she collapsed, completely devoid of energy. At least, the pain in her chest had subsided by now...

But then, she heard steps coming her way. Opening her eyes, she could see a pair of feet coming her way.

"Oh, look at you. You've grown a lot since I had last saw you," the voice was getting closer and closer, yet she couldn't move a muscle. "I can still remember the first time I saw you. You were so tiny in your mother's arms..."

Pisco, she frowned and struggled to move. No avail.

"Did you know? I was close with your parents who were scientists," Pisco kneeled down next to her. "To see you have grown to take over their project... But this is an order," even if her sight was blurring at the second, she still could see him pulling out a gun. "Don't blame me for this, Shiho-chan."

He pointed the gun to her head, and she waited for the inevitable. A voice, however, boomed through the room and caused Pisco to pause.

"Hold it right there!" it was Conan's voice, no doubts about it. "Masuyama-san... Or should I call you Pisco?"

Pisco spun around, clearly surprised about that, almost dropping the cigarette on his mouth due to the shock. Yet, he could not see the source of the voice anywhere.

"You probably think you skillfully dropped the chandelier upon Nomiguchi-san's head to make it look like an accident," he continued, but Pisco still couldn't see him anywhere. "But things will never go that smoothly."

As the child explained the crime to the older man, he walked around the room, looking for the one that surely knew far too much for his own good. He searched for him, following the voice, in every corner of that little storage room, but he wasn't anywhere.

The trick had been simple, the kid had explained. A little fluorescent paint on the floor ─ after the victim had been promised that he would receive help to escape the police and thus interpreting that spot being a signal for it ─ and a bit in the chain of the chandelier was almost all he needed.

With a silenced gun, the handkerchief over the muzzle so the spark could remain unseen, Pisco had shot to the shining spot and, like so, the deed had been done.

"Considering everyone's alibis, it could've only been you, Masuyama-san."

"There you are!" the Masuyama shouted while appearing from around the shelves, firing a few shots.

He only managed to break a few bottles of spirits, which started to leak to the floor. Pisco paid no mind, only moved closer, just to realize there was a speaker stuck at the side of one of the boxes.

"Wh-Who...?" he breathed out, shocked. "Who are you?!"

A small figure showed itself, standing right in front of Haibara. "Edogawa Conan," the little boy said, lips curving into a smile as he slipped his hands inside his pockets. "A detective."

"D-Detective?"

"Yup," he chirped, innocently. "Maybe you should quit smoking, you know. It's not good for you," the sweet grin turned into an arrogant smirk. "Especially when there's that under your feet."

One look was enough for him to realize what the child was talking about. The alcoholic drink he had shot by accident was forming a pool beneath him, causing him to take a step back in fear. As he did that, the cigarette slipped from his mouth and fell on top of it.

Flames came to life after that.

From the place she was in, Haibara couldn't help but gaze at the fire slowly starting to take over the small room and, without meaning to, her eyes opened widely in horror.

The excruciating warmth... The smoke... The sight of every single thing being swallowed by the fire as she could do nothing but watch, waiting for her turn to disappear as well...

It all came back to her. So, she closed her eyes tightly.

But then, she felt herself being lifted in someone else's back, so her eyes opened again in shock. Haibara looked right into Conan's worried yet determined blue gaze as he looked back at her over his shoulder. His mouth was opening and closing as he said something that was lost to her in the sea of her own panic.

That's right... Just like that other time, I...

Soon, the boy had carried her outside the burning room was and running down the stairs. Only then, she felt her senses coming back to her.

But she didn't move, just pressed her face against his shoulder wishing, now more than ever, that nobody else saw her face.

"What?!" Conan was beyond shocked. "Gin killed Pisco?!"

"Yeah," Agasa replied, not letting his eyes stray away from the path ahead. "I was listening to the conversation through the glasses Ai-kun forgot in the chimney."

The boy frowned, slightly, as he held his chin, deep in thought. While it was true it had been difficult to aim correctly without his glasses, he could tell for a fact that he had correctly shot Gin with the tranquilizer gun. He still couldn't get around the fact that he had somehow managed to shook it off, kill Pisco then run away from the police.

There was something else that confused Conan a bit, as well. While he had been carrying Haibara towards the car, he had told him she had gotten discovered because Gin had been able to read her movements perfectly.

"He hasn't changed one bit," she had mumbled against his shirt, more to herself than to him.

He hadn't said anything about it at the moment, but he still hadn't been able to get it out his head.

"Say, Haibara-san, when you were in the Organization... were you and Gin...?"

Looking over his shoulder, she could see the girl, who lied down on the backseat, covering her eyes with arm, tensing at his words. Her limb moved away from her face, letting him see her stare up the ceiling with a distant look on her eyes.

"You pointed it out before, right? When we first met," she finally answered, her voice soft. "That I knew how to handle a gun."

It took Conan a few seconds, until he finally understood the meaning behind her words. As an indication of it, his eyes opened widely.

"Pain tolerance, stealth, gun firing. Everything that's necessary in case of capture, torture and eventually escaping," Haibara continued. "Gin was ordered to teach me all that."

There was nothing Conan could say about that, since he didn't need her to say anything for him to know that Gin wasn't probably a compasive teacher. He could only shudder when he imagined what she had to go through.

"That's how he knows. He knows my every move," she let out a humorless laugh. "Looks like it was silly to think that I would be free from them, huh?"

Her fists clenched, slightly. Conan simply gave her a long look, before focusing his gaze back to the road.

"So," he finally asked. "What are you planning to do now?"

"Let's see... Now that they know I'm in this city I can no longer stay with you guys. And all the data was probably destroyed by Gin even if it survived the fire," she replied with a sigh. "There's no more reason for me to stay here... Don't worry, I'll leave first thing tomorrow for you."

She didn't expect Conan to smirk at that.

"Alright, then everything is fine."

"... Eh?"

"Eh? You're not going to look for that brat in this city?"

"Yeah, I'm a shogun that doesn't do useless things," Gin simply replied. "She's probably long gone by now with that man that came to save her. She's not that stupid as to stay in a city where her face was seen by us."

Vodka nodded at that, focusing back to the road. "Aren't you curious, though?" he commented. "About who that man was. He seemed to know about us."

Gin's expression twisted, a frown present on his face as his teeth clenched, definitely disgusted at the thought of whoever had just crossed his mind.

"I can only think about that one person," he then scowled. "The only man I know that would do something as stupid as to shoot a tranquilizer needle to us."

There was a laugh behind them. "Have you forgotten already, Gin?" the woman said to him, as she fixed her lipstick from the backseat. "That person is long dead," she stated. "We saw his body disappear in the ocean with our own eyes."

The tall man smirked. "That's right," he nodded, before continuing, glancing briefly over his shoulder. "Sorry, Vermouth. We called a woman like you help that old geezer, and made you get in such a mess."

Vermouth just shrugged, a pleased smile still on her lips as she lit up a cigarette .

"Are you going to return to America again?" Vodka questioned. "I has been a while since you came back here all those months ago."

"No, I'm going to take a break from being an actress," she replied. "I plan to relax in Japan for a while."

Vermouth gazed towards the darkened street outside her window.

And said nothing more, as the black porsche drove by in the middle of the silently still night.

A/N:

Dy: Yeah, that scene you're talking about is absolutely fantastic XD Don't worry, I'll cover that episode when the times comes... If I live long enough to write it, that is lol!

Asahina Chihaya: Indeed, that sounds pretty fun when you think about it XD Still, I wonder if Conan would actually be okay with people constantly mistaking him with his brother, lol!