Chapter 26: Back again

In all honesty, Conan never expected to wake up again. Something was wrong. The darkness of the past days had become familiar, but even so he couldn't help but shudder at the feeling of near blindness. His hands ran over the gritty, dusty ground until he weakly reached the clothing of the little girl that was imprisoned with him. His throat burned.

"T...Tsss..." he wished he had something, anything to drink. If the little girl was half as bad off as he was, she would need it. He cleared his throat painfully.

"Tsu...kiko?" his voice was whisper-dry, like brittle parchment, as he tugged on her sleeve and carefully rolled over to his side, until he could get his feet under him. With shaking arms barely supporting him, he crawled closer to where she must be sleeping. Once he bumped into her, he felt for her little shoulder and gave her a small shake. A feeling of dread settled in his body, a feeling of deep, utter wrongness.

"Tsukiko?" he tried again, weakly. She was probably exhausted, just like him, he just had to shake her again to make her wake up. He wasn't even sure why it was so important to him that she woke up, sleep after all would keep her from having an asthma attack, would restore a little energy, might give her some peace.

… only he couldn't hear her breath.

It was utterly silent. Silent and dark and his shaking fingers slowly brushed past her shoulder to her throat, his heartbeat so loud that he was sure it must echo in the darkness.

Her skin was cold. So cold. His fingers were shaking too much. He couldn't find a pulse, because his fingers were shaking. Conan felt the need to cry, a burning sensation in his sightless eyes but even that wasn't in his capabilities anymore. He felt himself give out, slumping to the ground and gathering the small form in his arms as if he could warm her up, even though the small, tired, rational part told him that it didn't work like that.

He closed his eyes. For once he didn't want the truth, so if he only closed his eyes for a moment-

With a start Conan opened his eyes again. His whole body was soaked in sweat and was breathing as if he had just ran a marathon, his heart racing and his limps shaking. It was dark, but not the almost all encompassing darkness of their prison. There was a window, the curtains half closed, but still open enough to spill what little light the night had to offer into the room.

A quick look around made him realize that he was still in a hospital. The room he had woken up in was small, but someone had placed some flowers on the night table and a pitcher of water with a glass next to it in a thoughtful attempt of trying to create a soothing atmosphere for what they thought would be a traumatized child.

"A... a dream." he whispered hoarse and shakily brought a hand to his face, swiping at a few damp curls sticking to his face. It was nighttime and he was in a hospital room. Again. A tiny lamp had been burning too, but all the niceties had not helped him when he had woken up, thinking a little girl had died in his arms while he had been helpless to do anything.

Conan was not sure if the nightmares of that horror would ever leave him. When the nurses had come in after he had first woken up he had been frantic, fighting weakly against everyone in his vicinity, starting to cry until they had put him back to sleep. Then again, that had probably been shortly after his rescue and Conan was not sure he had been all there at that time, given that they were just trying to give him the IV-dip.

The next time he woke he had felt hallow. Exhausted and numb with disbelief. Then he had gotten violently ill, when his mind had turned the events over and over in his memory. He had blinked and looked at Ran sitting next to him on the floor and stroking his head and keeping the hair out of his way with tears in her eyes. She had brought him water, and if it wasn't for her expression he might have refused to drink it. He felt sick. Another death he had been unable to prevent. A child, a small, helpless child had died in his arms and he had been unable to do anything to get them out, to get her help. Another time he had been a weak child when he should have been an adult, able to kick the door in.

Ran had asked him how he was and he opened his mouth but no sound came out. As if his voice had been shut inside his body. He didn't know what to say. What was there to say right now? Everything felt wrong and so out of place.

Ran had hugged him as he had started to cry again, hugged him until he went back to his restless sleep. She hadn't even asked him why he was here, what happened to his parents and why nobody put forth a missing person report. Thankfully, his parents had a fake ransom note, a just in case plan had Conan been caught by the Organisation. They would deal with the police.

Still feeling sick, Conan curled up under the blanket and pressed his eyes closed.

For once he didn't want to see.

For once he didn't want to face the truth.

Sleep took a long time to claim him.

It couldn't have been more than a few hours of sleep before he jolted awake again. It was still dark outside, but movement in the room made him flinch and focus on the familiar nurse was checking over his hospital information. Silently he watched, not really in the mood to deal with Kaito at all. In the end, he closed his eyes and turned away, curling in on himself. Of course it didn't stop the thief from talking to him anyways.

"You know... the little girl is alive."

With a jolt he turned back, staring at Kaito wide-eyed. Hopeful. He knew Kaito would not lie, not about something like that, but it was still hard to believe him. He had been there, in that cellar. Even if he had been dehydrated and confused... could he have been mistaken?

"w...w-what?" he choked out, his voice breaking from disuse and pent up emotion.

Kaito put down the papers and turned back to Conan, taking a chair and sitting on it so that the backrest was on his front where he crossed his arms on while he stared at Conan.

"You get into way too much trouble, Tantei-kun... the little girl was alive when you were found. Unconscious, but alive. Barely." Kaito looked uncomfortable and Conan had a hunch just who had found him. Never mind how Kaito had done it, he couldn't have used the GPS-function in his phone again, as Conan had left that with Haibara.

He also didn't look like all was well. Conan closed his eyes and took a breath, opening them in resignation. It seemed like Kaito had waited for this moment because he regretfully continued.

"She's in a coma now. It was too much for her weak body. But she might recover yet..."

A coma. She might recover, but... but she might also not. Conan closed his eyes in pain. There were silly maybe's and what if's that were haunting him, despite him knowing better. How – if he had not interfered – the parents might have paid a ransom and the girl would have been brought back to them save and sound, if a lot more scared about strangers.

They were not based on reality, he knew he would never be able to turn away from a crime.

"T-the woman? She's dead, right?" he asked dully, already knowing the answer. He had thought he had been able to smell her. It was probably imagination too, but stuck in a dark cellar, your imagination played games with your senses. What he had overheard had been enough confirmation for him.

"Yes."

Conan's shoulders slumped at the answer. He felt old, and weighted down by an invisible force. Sometimes the crimes he stumbled on made it seem like there was nothing beautiful in this cruel world.

He took a breath, then another and lifted his head.

"Then there is only the man left." he said, eyes burning with determination as he looked on Kaito. There was no way he would not catch the bastard who not only killed his accomplice but also left what he thought were two children to die in a cellar.

He scratched at the bandage on his wrist, frowning in concentration.

Then he reached over to the night-table, rummaging through it. A hand with a notepad and a pen appeared on his bed in a puff of smoke.

"Ah. Thanks." He took both, for once not even thinking about fingerprints and other evidence and wrote down a few letters and numbers.

"This..." he ripped out the paper "Was the number plate of the car we were taken in." he explained, then on another paper he wrote down several key points he could remember from the kidnapper. He had only seen him for a very short time, when he had looked up and saw the reflection in the window of the car.

"It's not much but... it might be enough to give the police a lead." the grip on the pen went bone-white at the thought that it might not be enough.

If it was not... there was not much to go on, but if Conan ever saw that man again, found any hint of his presence... there would be nothing stopping him from dragging the bastard to the police himself.

By now though there was not much he himself could do. It was not a fresh murder scene. The kidnapper could have left the country already, for all they knew.

A few days later, while he was still recovering, a newspaper appeared on his nightstand next to his breakfast. If the title page showed a man trussed up like a chistmas-present with tape and fairy lights, hanging head down from a police building that it took 2 hours to get the man down safety, well.

Well.

Apparently KID took it personally if you attacked and nearly killed one of his detectives.

That and Conan who was bored out of his mind and feeling a little closer to normal (especially after visiting Tsukiko, pale and unconscious but alive), finally had some reading to occupy his mind...

A/N: I'm not really updating regularly on this site anymore (very rarely in fact as you might have noticed). I can be found on AO3 under the same pen name though.