Clockwork Relations

Summary: Hakuba Saguru took after his mother, not his father. And like her, he began to grow away.

A/N: I own nothing except Eliza Sterling, mysterious Canadian woman (Lady A) and headcanon. Set in the same universe as my other fics, 'Swing Low, Sweet Chariot' and 'Scarborough Fair'.

EDIT:(19/02/2013)

The earliest memories he had of Hakuba Eliza was her distinctive, proud voice reading to him. None of those picture books with cartoon characters counting apples. He had the world of Sherlock Homes read to him daily, almost religiously.

Hakuba Eliza wasn't a religious woman, but if she was, he knew she would have worshipped Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

". . . Holmes was a great man, even if he was fictional. Saguru, if you must have a role model from the fictional world I insist you take after him, not one of those American muscle-bound morons in tights flying around like lunatics."

He took that to heart.

. . .

His mother took time seriously. She was always angry at the business men in their suits and flashy watches who came to their houses later than the time promised.

His father never noticed. Only Saguru saw it. The tightening of her lips, her hardened eyes, and the tapping of her nails against some hard surface, clicking out a series of sounds that didn't have a repeating, obvious pattern, only increasing more and more in what appeared to be random numbers.

Later, he learned that it was the Fibonacci Sequence, something that always made her relax more. But before that he learned that time was something his mother took seriously. And he also learned to treat time just as seriously as she did.

Saguru wondered why such a person married his father. Never really serious, late to so many events, slackening in pace compared to the clockwork machine the efficient woman that his mother was.

When he announced his wishes of owning a clock that would be accurate no matter what, his father laughed and ruffled his head, telling him that a six-year old boy needed to go out and enjoy the fresh air, not tinker around with watches and clocks.

His mother, on the other hand, ordered a pocket watch be custom made just for him. No inscriptions, no flowery messages encouraging him, but there was his name, and the date, as well as the time, down to the last second when he had first breathed the air of the outside world, the exact time when he had been born.

It was his mother's way of being caring and thoughtful. He always carried it with him, treating it like the external version of his heart.

. . .

When he turned seven his mother got a high-ranking job as a profiler in Scotland Yard, divorced his father and moved back to her family home in Britain, taking him with her. He didn't mind. He liked England, he had Nanny and he liked the tranquil peace of an atmosphere where his parents weren't arguing.

He didn't really like having his mother away most of the day – twelve hours, twenty-eight minutes and fourteen seconds on average according to his watch and the observations based on the results from seven days - but Nanny was a wonderful woman who also liked to read books to him and Hakuba Eliza was much happier as Eliza Sterling.

Saguru still wanted to know why she was.

"Mother, why did you leave father?"

A pause. She removed her black pearl earrings, and set them in their velvet boxes before turning to him. Her sharp eyes softened when she saw that he was sitting straight-backed and properly.

"I didn't love him anymore, Saguru."

"Why?" He noticed his mother tapping her index finger against her thigh. One. One. Two. Three. Five. Eight. Thirteen. Twenty-one. Fibonacci.

"I don't know," she said quietly, and gave him a firm hug before kissing him on his forehead. "Do you want me to read Sherlock Holmes to you again?"

And even if he was more than capable of reading on his own, even if he had all but memorized the immortal words of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, he nodded.

Before she tucked him in and opened the novel, she gave him a rare smile. It was awkward and unsure, but she had never had much practice smiling, and he thought it looked beautiful. "It's good that you want to know the reason why."

. . .

At exactly the twenty-second hour of his tenth birthday, Saguru threw his first and only tantrum. His mother lost her temper at him for the first time fifty-eight seconds later.

"I won't go."

"Yes, you will, Saguru."

"No!" he shook his head. "I'm not returning to Japan!"

"Your father-" she began.

"Can go to bloody hell!"

"Saguru, show respect."

"Why? He's never shown me any, has he?"

"He's your father."

"Well, he's never been much of a parent. I'm not going just so some kind of arrogant, pompous prat can parade me around and pretend to be a-"

"Saguru Hakuba, you will not say another word about your father in that way!"

His eyes widened in shock. He had never heard his mother yell before.

Eliza Sterling seemed to have realized this, too. Her elbows propped on her mahogany desk in her study, she dropped her head into her hands.

Nanny came in, alarmed at the sounds, and coaxed him out, telling 'the young master' that his mother just needed 'some time alone'.

Later, he peeked into the study to see her holding a photograph and silently shedding tears.

Saguru went to Japan. He treated his father with polite courtesy, and focused on the hands of his watch counting down to the moment where he could board the plane and return to England.

When he came back, he snuck in and dug up the battered photograph she'd been looking at. A calm, sophisticated woman looked back at him, intelligence visible even in the eyes captured by the unmoving film. Behind the image was his mother's neat, flowing writing, christening the woman 'Elena'. She looked a lot like his mother, he noticed.

He put it back and left his mother's study.

. . .

After that, things changed. Staring from the age of ten, his mother was just too busy, too efficient for a young child. She quit her job as Scotland Yard's top profiler without any warning whatsoever and instead began calling people over to the Sterling Mansion. People who spoke in whispers, who wore formal clothes and talked in mysterious sentences and codenames, always bringing in files and information he could never hear or see because mother always told his governess to take him out.

Only once was he allowed to stay at the house, but the then-thirteen year old he had been forced to stay in the family library with a woman in her late twenties with blond hair and a secret smile.

"You shouldn't be so prying in your mother's business," she said in a strangely-accented English. American, maybe? "A secret makes a woman a woman, eh?" and then she winked at him before showing him a few magic tricks she claimed to have picked up from an old teacher of hers.

He looked up her words later. It was said to be the catch phrase of a mysterious American actress. She wasn't Chris Vineyard, though.

Saguru didn't see that woman again for a long time, but he did learn that stereotypical Canadians said 'eh' in the exact way she did quite a lot.

. . .

Four years later, the one clue he picked up from his mother's 'friends' was 'Kaitou Kid'. Also known as International Criminal 1412, the Heisei Lupin, the Magician under the Moonlight. . . . he mostly stole big jewels in elaborate fashions and always returned them.

And, as luck would have it, he often appeared in areas where his father had some power.

His mother seemed surprised when he told her he was going to Japan, but she arranged for the necessary things.

Saguru checked her profiles on all the criminals she had ever gone after. None of them had anything to do with Kaitou Kid. An astounding number of child molesters and serial killers that targeted children, but none on Kid.

He knew for a fact that some people had asked Eliza Sterling to profile Kid. She had refused. More than once.

And he wanted to know what his mother was up to.

His usual question was altered just a bit when he left the letter for her before he boarded the plane to Japan.

"Why didn't you do it?"

. . .

Saguru had learned from the best. He profiled Kid using all the resources from both his mother and his father's databases, though his mother's was surprisingly bare of information.

Again the question came up in his mind while he organized everything about Kid. What he was like, what his MO was, possible theories, connections, coordinates, comfort zones. . . .

It was all so easy. So obvious, which then brought up the just-as obvious question. Why hadn't his mother gone after Kid? Kid was a criminal, and an international one, too. His mother had once been sent to Interpol as part of an 'embassy' from Scotland Yard. One of the last cases she had handled before resigning had been an international serial murder involving the FBI and other law inforcement forces.

It was all so vague and unlike his clockwork mother that he gave up on trying to dissect her mind. Despite his love of a challenge, this was one migraine he really didn't need. Most of his work went towards perfecting Kid's profile instead.

His chance to present his profile to Inspector Nakamouri came when Kid left behind a single strand of hair after a heist. Unless the living cells on the root of the hair could be retrieved it was impossible to get identifiable DNA from the strand of hair, but he had a good suspicion of just who it was, and the cross-referencing with all the data from high school students who fit the profile just kept adding to that suspicion till it became certainty.

And then after another heist where Kuroba got away, supposedly innocent, he received an email from his mother.

'Have you ever thought of just why he might be doing this?'

Below that was a document with extreme details on one Kuroba Toichi, deceased magician. The timeline made sense, as did Kid's movements.

He returned to Europe, making a detour in France to cool his head. He sent a phone call to Kuroba, and impulsively told him about the phantom thief Chat Noir.

While Kuroba faced Noir he'd have to think of a way to confront Eliza Sterling.

. . .

"You're working for a crime ring."

His mother didn't even look up from her computer screen. "Saguru, don't be ridiculous."

"Then who were all those people?"

"Friends."

"What kind of friends speaks in codes and carries secrets so important that they'd be willing to die for them?" the last part was more of an educated guess than anything, but Eliza Sterling didn't correct him.

"You'd be surprised at the people I know, Saguru," she sighed and clicked something before meeting his eye for the first time in six months. He was taller than she was now, but in his mind's eyes she would always be a tall, towering giant of clockwork-like efficiency. "I'm leaving to Chicago for a few months."

"Why?"

"For my job."

"You're unemployed."

"Let's say I have a job, for the sake of convenience. I have a gift for you before I leave, by the way."

The gift turned out to be an actual hawk, as well as a prompt crash course lesson on how to care for a predator bird properly.

"Its name is Watson," she said. "It likes you."

The next day, she left for Chicago. A city once infamous for crime, drugs, gangs and deaths. It wasn't much to back her claim on how ridiculous it was that she'd be associated with a crime organization.