DCMK: Heavy Silences (10/10)

[what_we_dream]

Title: Heavy Silences (10/10)
Series: Magic Kaitou/Detective Conan
Pairing: None
Rating: PG-13
Notes: Follows Slip and Fall/Pride Goeth Before

Summary: "We would like Kid delivered by the 24th. For every day you're late, one bright face vanishes from the world." Children kidnapped, Nakamori has only one place to turn for help. Kaitou Kid.  

His heartbeat is ringing in his ears, slicing seconds off the present, keeping time for him when the last thing he wants to know is how much has passed. If she's been touched, been hurt, been – the full weight will fall on his shoulders. He shouldn't have waited.

The storm is starting to blow in earnest now. Harsh winds are whipping up from the south – warm, but sharp all the same. The rain is coming down in cords, drowning the moist earth. The air tastes of lightning.

It takes less time to rip the damp mask from his face – damp with humidity, with rain, with sweat – than it does for him to sprint outside. He throws it carelessly away; it is gone from his thoughts as soon as it's out of his hands. He shouldn't have waited.

There are no lights outside, only the gentle glow of the flashlights from the room on the first floor. Even as he's evaluating his route up, they go out. Nakamori, trying to reduce the pressure on whoever might up upstairs, to convince them the danger's gone.

As if anyone would fall for that.

As soon as he knew she wasn't there, as soon as the kid was safe, he should have gone after her. Shouldn't have waited for the goddamn cops, for the reporting, for the orders. What is he, if not a free agent? He can think of a thousand excuses – exhaustion, the unstable situation, fear of being shot in the back – but a life can't be bartered with excuses. Failure, no matter the reason, no matter the price of victory, is failure. And failure is a word which is not in the Kuroba dictionary. Not yet.

Kaitou Kid – Kuroba Kaito – pulls in a deep breath despite the clawing in his throat and the ache in his chest, and, standing in the middle of a rainy school courtyard, forces himself to relax. Locks away fear with a very brittle key.

His memory of the building, seen in cloudy afternoon light, and the glance he caught of it before the flashlights went out, are enough even in the dark. He produces a pair of rubber-palmed gloves and slips them on even as he backs away from the building. Runs a hand through his damp but not yet drenched hair, spiking it up unconsciously. Then, taking a breath, he's gone.

Kid pulls the momentum he needs from his sprint, uses it to make the leap to catch the bottom of the rails lining the balcony. Then a kick off the building wall beneath and a twist and he's up on top of the balcony's rail, crouching like an alley cat. From there it's easier, the height between the upper floors less than that between the ground and the second. He's squatting on the fourth floor balcony less than thirty seconds after he left the ground.

Up here the southern building is no protection at all from the elements. The constantly shifting wind slams rain into him like a wall of water every few seconds, pausing playfully as if to throw him off guard, before doing it again.

From his perch he can see the streetlights shining pale in the rain like fireflies in June, like cigarette tips, like embers in a dying fire. They provide no light at all.

The windows here, like those in the downstairs hallway, are set almost a metre up from the floor, which gives him plenty of space to lurk in. He estimates seven regular-sized classrooms, but knows the fourth floor is often dedicated to more specialised pursuits: science, music, cooking. It's too dark to count doors; he can only see the windows by the tiny glimmer of ambient light off the glass, silvery shards in the darkness.

The one single advantage he has is that no one would be looking for invasion from the balcony.

It shouldn't be any harder than a heist, any more dangerous, any more nerve-wracking. But gods, it is.

He creeps along the balcony, heart in mouth, rain streaming into his eyes, ears, mouth, until he thinks he may drown on dry land. Creeps along to the first door and raises his head to glance in. And sees, of course, nothing. It's black as ink.

His lighter is lying heavy in his pocket, but he can't use it. Can't give himself away. Without it, though, he'll never find her. And there's no time.

Gloves pocketed, his hand closes cold and wet over the smooth plastic, thumb tracing the notched wheel. Pulls it out slow as he would a splinter, a thorn. Raises it to near window-level, and turns his eyes back to the room.

In the south, beyond the main building, far, far beyond, lightning flashes. Paints in light and shadows alone a large empty room before his eyes.

Kid curses softly and drops the lighter back into his pocket, heart leaping in time with the low roll of thunder. One hand against the wall he stands and hurries along past the second door – each room with two exits, he notes – and slows when he reaches the end of the first bank of windows. Crouches again and moves forwards.

The lightning strikes again before he's quite ready, shows a classroom full of tall tables – either a science room or a kitchen, he can't tell. With so many pieces of furniture in the room, he can't tell at first glance whether anyone is there or not. Waits for a second bolt. Waits. It comes at last, closer now, brighter, and shows nothing but the tall tables – four rows of them. He nods and hurries on, thunder barking at his heels.

Maybe it's instinct, some thief's instinct, some kaitou's instinct that tells him someone is there. Maybe it's a connection, that red string that girls are so keen on. Maybe it's just luck. But for whatever reason, he turns just as lightning arcs down again, and sees a shadow flashed across the wall for a fraction of a second. A shadow with bushy hair.

Kid would usually have considered the best course of action – sneak in through another room and distract; toss a pellet of sleeping gas into the room; show himself and lure away the guard – but he does not have that chance.

He does not have it because there is no time for thought, much less movement. What there is is the false-thunder rumbling of the balcony door being ripped open, and then the forearm crushing his windpipe and the fist in his gut. It happens with the speed of a lightning strike, flashing out of the classroom to spear him against the outside wall. In another second he's been dragged inside by the collar and slammed down on his knees, a large hand shifting to take a firm grasp in Kid's wet hair. There is no mistaking the cold steel pressed against his temple.

"Give me one reason I shouldn't shoot you, cop," says the harsh voice, rough with a coldness that disproves fear. That marks the man as a professional.

Senses stretched completely taut – taut as a tug-rope, taut as a piano-wire, taut as a weighted noose – by the adrenaline, he hears the tiny whisper of a breath from across the room even though it's scarcely louder than the beat of a moth's wings. A breath taken in terror.

Aoko is here. The thought gives him all the strength he needs, lights fire in his veins.

"'M not a cop," he hisses, playing up the youth in his voice, the shaking fear. The hand in his hair twists suddenly, violently, dragging him around until he's facing the windows. They stay there painting a still tableau of waiting, the heavy silence around them holding only two possibilities: horror or hope, to be decided in a sliver of a second.

The lightning comes down. The gun slams cold and sharp against his temple, the slide tearing at his skin. It is infinitely softer than a bullet.

"The hell're you doing here, kid?" It's a tone which suggests he'd better have a damn good reason. Kid is less worried about the consequences of failing to have one than allowing the man to piece together who might be hanging around with a police raid of a kidnapping whose ransom is a master of disguise.

"Aoko," he grits out, and it should be easy to pour out the terror and gut-twisting anxiety he's been drenched in for the past 24 hours, but the training to poker face is easily bone-deep. Acting emotions is one thing, but purposely allowing real ones to leak out, that's harder than not breathing. Goes straight against the grain of his nature.

He's lucky; the conflict comes off in the darkness as the fear he can't show, and that's enough. "Aoko," he repeats, "I came to –" he trails off. Unable to say something as stupidly melodramatic as "rescue," and aware that nothing else really fits. Fortunately, that's not a problem.

"Came to save your girlfriend," says the voice with a sneer that emphasizes more the stupidity of the action than the relationship.

There's a deeper gasp from across the room.

"And why would the cops let you tag along?"

The man is showing more of a brain than is helpful. It seems unlikely that the leader would blockade himself away from his men, but on the other hand securing the arguably most important hostage separately isn't something anyone with intelligence would leave to a grunt.

"Who says they know? I kept an eye on Nakamori-ji-san and when he took off like a bat out of hell all I had to do was follow." With Nakamori's reputation, it at least has the value of believability.

"A tag-along? Well then, you'll be able to tell me what's going on downstairs." A tear-wrenching twist of the hand in his hair advises against lying.

Kid swallows audibly, fighting for time with nervousness which is only partially feigned. "I don't know," he says, knowing it's the only answer he can give which has a chance of flying, and equally aware that every moment he stalls he loses conviction. Now, he has to sell it. "I followed the cops into the building – there was a fight on the first floor, another outside I think. But when it was over they realised Aoko wasn't there. I noticed the stairs coming in, and took off. They were so focused in rushing the main room, I don't think they did. They were splitting up to watch the captives when I left." It's the best he can do. Not very optimistic, but at least not inspiring immediate panic.

There's a long pause, and Kid can feel the man standing absolutely still through the vice-like grip on his hair. It's an unnatural stillness, suggesting thoughts which will take immediate action when decided. He's not wrong.

Kid is hauled up by the scalp, gun still pressed almost absently to his temple, and led across the room. It's a straight path, but he can't tell any more in the darkness. He's flung down into a counter, tall and cool, and then the gun is gone and his hands are being fastened together by a thin piece of plastic which snickers as it's tightened and locked. His ankles are next. It's just as well it's dark, because he's smiling like a cat.

"You just sit there and don't move, and maybe you'll be the lucky one to be left behind."

If he only knew. But Kid says nothing, lets the bastard let him go and slip off towards the door that leads into the corridor.

He should be slipping his bindings. He should be planning. If nothing else, he should be trying to catalogue the layout of the room in the now off-centred bursts of lightning slotting through the windows. Suddenly all he is aware of, though, is Aoko's quivering shoulder next to his. Slow as honey, a pair of hands creep to his arm and fist in his sleeve. The weight on his shoulder increases as Aoko leans against him.

"Kaito," she whispers, more a breath than anything.

It would be easy. So, so easy.

And when she found out, she would hate Kid even more than she does now. He's too damn selfish.

"Not quite," he replies, and allows just a hint of Kid's cockiness to seep into his tone. She stiffens, and then pulls away all at once with a hiss as she works it out. Thankfully, prudence at least keeps her silent.

Now that she's sitting cold and strong as a lump of marble next to him, it's no trouble to focus on what he should be focusing on. He's slipped the bindings in 30 seconds, holding the plastic silent in his lap. And now the only sound is the thunder crashing outside, interposed by long silences.

Downstairs, the policemen must be moving the blockade silently, piece by piece. It will take time, but not an infinite amount. If there's going to be shooting in the dark, he's sure as hell not going to have Aoko anywhere near it.

Kid produces a blade, just a strip of razor in a plastic sheath, and reaches out to Aoko. Grits his teeth and grabs her wrist in a tight grip and waits for her to stop fighting him. He slits the plastic binding as soon as she's still, bends to free her ankles as well. Except that her legs aren't extended in front of her as he'd predicted, are folded up under her. He runs the tips of light fingers along the side of her thigh, waiting with closed eyes for the slap. He feels her tremble instead – in fear of him.

It hurts infinitely more than a strike. Face locked in a blank expression, hands so tense they could dig into chalk, he pauses to reflect.

The easiest way would be to knock her over and expose her ankles that way. But then she would shriek, and even if she didn't probably she would slam back into the counter hard enough to draw very unwanted attention. And, even if that weren't likely, he couldn't do it. Not here and now, when she is so very scared of him.

For the second time he contemplates simply knocking all three of them out. But he's used up all his long-term gas and what's left will only ensure about 15 minutes of unconsciousness. If the cops are too slow, it could wear off before they show up and as the guard has the advantage in size and weight, odds are he would wake up first, which would be an utter disaster. Neatly cancelling out all options but escape.

Down is impossible, so it will have to be up.

Heights, fortunately, have never been a problem. If there were any light, his teeth would be flashing.

But first, the bindings. Dropping his hand to the floor, he finds Aoko's heel tucked in under her, and then the bunched fabric of her sock beside it. There's not much exposed, and the angle's bad. But there are no major blood vessels under the surface, just smooth bone. He finds the strip of plastic, only a bare sliver exposed, and slices. Aoko flinches but doesn't cry out. The plastic falls away like a flower opening with the sun.

She is free. And now he will get her the hell out of here.

Closest yet, lightning slices down through the sky like a blade, windows shaking with the aftershock of thunder. In the ringing silence following it, Kid puts his mouth to her ear and hisses, "When I say, hold your breath."

He pulls a handful of capsules from his pocket, emptying its entire contents into his curved palm. They are small and smooth as marbles, but much more versatile. Time to go.

Kid, heart counting the half-seconds, grabs Aoko's wrist with his free hand and pulls her around to the side of the counter, away from the guard and towards the far door into the corridor.

The room explodes into white as lightning tears down, thunder following close on its heels.

"Now," shouts Kid, yanks her to her feet, and throws his handful of toys away. He sprints straight for the door with all the speed he has and, turning as he flies, slams into it shoulder-first. The sliding door, sitting in thin grooves, is thrown out of its frame in time with the screams from his shoulder, and then they are in the hall and running. His eyes are tearing from the gas already.

They hit the stairs at the far end of the hall and go up. It's pitch black here, black as the bottom of the sea, with no windows to let in whatever poor light might come.

They trip at the end of the stairs and tumble into the wall. Kid finds the door to the roof with his fingers and, turning the handle in his hands, slams his weight against it good shoulder first. There's a dry creak, and nothing else.

Even Kaitou Kid can't pick locks in the dark. Not when he doesn't know where they are. And he doesn't have time to find them by touch. He has no assurances that the choking cocktail of sleeping gas, tear gas and simple smoke bombs has stopped pursuit.

Kid slips a penlight into his mouth and then brings out his lockpicks, has them in his hand before he turns the light on. It cuts through the gloom in a strong stroke, lighting the rest of the area in a firefly glow. But there's no time for surroundings; all his attention is focused in a flash on the small padlock securing the door. It's open in five seconds, flashlight off and in his pocket in another two.

And then there is the tempest of the roof.

It's no longer raining; the air is simply filled with water. It pounds against them in waves, coming from all directions as the wind whips and shears it like a weapon. Two seconds after stepping away from the shelter of the building, Kid is soaked to the skin.

Aoko gasps now as water drives against her face; it's like being constantly pelted by water balloons, by buckets of water, so relentless that breathing is difficult. For an instant, Kid is too shocked by the onslaught to be able to think, but he recovers quick as a whip crack. Recovers, and runs.

There is no possibility of using the glider; with perfect weather conditions on a high hill, four stories – five on the roof – might be enough to scrape out a clean take-off, but he has none of those things, and in addition the glider's weight would be almost doubled. The only option is to get to the ground like the student he is pretending to be.

With the storm there is no chance of light, but he knows that the walkways connecting the two school buildings will also connect the roofs, and he knows that the further away he gets from the door before beginning the slower and more dangerous process of getting Aoko back inside, the better. And, he knows approximately how many of his strides it will take them to reach the far walkway.

It turns out to be completely irrelevant.

There is no warning. There is only Aoko's shrill scream in his ears as she falls, and the clap of thunder which is not thunder. Is the sound of a gun shot.

He goes down with her, grip on her wrist unbreakable while his traction on the slick surface of the roof is tenuous. He slips forward on the shallow film of water and lands cat-like on his hands and knees. Aoko beside him lands on her side, skidding to a stop with a whimper.

Kid's – Kaito's – fear runs through his veins like gasoline, thick and choking. And then she moves against him, and his fury is a match. Fire licking through him, teeth locked tight in a snarl of rage, he moves to crouch in front of her. With Aoko keening behind him, he wishes for the first time in his life he had a weapon in his hands. His fury burns like a wild fire, liquid hot, white hot. He means to curse, but the sound which slips through his teeth is older and deeper than words, an animal's growl.

In the shifting waves of rain which allow a glimmer of light only bright enough to emphasize the shadows, he can barely make out the blocky shape of the stairwell. The bastard is safe standing against it, but they can hardly be more visible; the shot which hit Aoko must have been a lucky guess.

Kid can't hear him, can't see him, but the bastard must be advancing. And here in the rain and the dark, with Aoko god knows how wounded behind him, he has so few fucking options. He'll fight to protect her if he has to, but he was never good with his fists and he knows there's only one way that will end.

Kid turns to glance over his shoulder. "Aoko," he hisses, voice so harsh it sounds like he's the one who's been shot. "Aoko – you'll have to run. I can't buy much time." There's never been anything he couldn't do before, at least that he would admit to, and he can feel the certainty and cold calculation that is Kid draining away. But there's nowhere for her to run to, she's no magician, no acrobat. She can't get off this roof without him, and he won't get off with her.

For the first time in his life, Kid is not sure he can win.

"Kaito," says Aoko from behind him, voice weak and wavering, a whisper in the wind.

"I'm right here," says Kaito, as the last strands of Kid slip from his fingers, and tenses to spring. He will sure as hell not go down without giving everything he has, and more.

I'm sorry, Aoko. Gods, I'm sorry.

Ahead of him, he catches a hint of movement, a black shape in a world of silver rain. He fists his hands, heart burning, and waits for the next step.

And then, breaking through the heaving of the storm and the hissing of the rain, is a cheap metallic tune. Kaito recognises the refrain of EXILE's Fly Away. In what feels like a dream, everything stops. And then starts again as the man pulls out a cell phone and snaps it open. And Kaito, recognising his one chance, uses it.

Even as he moves, he can hear the conversation, although it sounds like it's coming from the other side of a drainpipe.

"Sir, what – yes, sir. No, sir. But – yes, sir. Yes, sir. Understood sir. Right away, sir."

The click of the phone closing is like a skull's teeth clattering shut. In Kaito's arms, Aoko shivers. He steps backwards, and feels the raised edge of the roof pressing against his calf.

Seven metres away, a flashlight flares to life and turns on them, trapping them in its blinding beam.

All he needed was one more ounce of luck. One single ounce, he thinks as the gun he can't see is levelled at them.

Directly above them, the sky splits open. Brighter than any bulb, brighter than fire, brighter than the sun, lightning descends and paints the world white.

Kaito jumps off the roof.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

Even deafened by thunder so loud his ear drums ache, Kaito falls in silence thicker than velvet, dropping with rather than through the rain. It's surreal, like a movie, or a book, or anything where he is an observer rather than an actor.

And then the line tied to his glider's harness snaps taut hard enough to wind him, and he slams back-first in through the first floor window, and it instantly becomes very clear who the actor is.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

The glass rains down around him with a sound that is momentarily like the chirping of hundreds of swallows, lined up on telephone wires waiting for the fall migration. Then the last pieces fall and Kaito stops listening. In the pale glow of flashlights shining in from the classroom directly across the hall, he can see officer Washio standing in front of him, gun out and aimed straight at his heart. Kaito, hanging from the rope, arms full and shoulder aching, sways slightly in the sudden dearth of sound. The boy looks into the policeman's shadowed eyes, and realises with a kind of exhaustion that he can't read what's written there.

They stay frozen like that for several moments which seem much longer than they are, trickling by slow as icebergs. It's Aoko who breaks the heavy stillness by twisting in his arms; he glances down and sees a sliver of light reflected in her eyes as she watches him.

And just like that, he is Kaitou Kid again.

Raising his head sharp as a sword-stroke, he catches the man's eye and holds it.

"Call Nakamori. Tell him there's an armed man on the roof, and that the east roof access in this building is unlocked. Then call an ambulance. Do it now." His voice is a whip, and the man reacts to it; pulls his radio from his belt and opens the channel.

Kid pulls a knee up high to support Aoko's legs. In a second he's snapped a dagger of glass from the window frame and sliced through the rope holding them in the air – he lands with a crunch on the lake of glass below. Without bothering to wait he strides through the corridor and into the room opposite.

Oogawa's head snaps up as he enters, hand at his side. It falls away when he recognizes Kid, eyes widening. Sitting and lying around him, asleep and motionless, are the kids. Sawara's wife is sitting near Oogawa with her back to the wall, looking pale and slightly stressed. She startles at the sight of them.

Kid ignores them, just walks straight in and kneels jerkily to lay Aoko down on the floor. He can see her now, see her for the first time in two days. Her face is startling white against the dark mess of her hair, stuck to her skin by the rain. There's already a puddle forming under her, he notices without meaning to.

She's dressed in lose house-clothes – a t-shirt and slacks. They're dark with water, dark and heavy, and he can't make out any sign of a wound.

"Nakamori-san?" He only just remembers the formality without stuttering, a fact which he should be worried about but which he can't spare the thought to even consider. "Nakamori-san, where – "

"I'm alright," hisses Aoko from between clenched teeth, the quiet sound of water poured on red-hot metal. "My leg – just grazed. I was just, was just scared." He's not sure whether it's the pain, or the cold, or just fear making her stammer. It freezes his gut regardless.

Sawara-san creeps up out of nowhere to pull Aoko up against her side, wrapping thin arms around Aoko's shoulders. Aoko's trembling now, lips pursed tight as tears drip down her cheeks.

"Which leg? Nakamori-san?"

"L-left."

He finds the tear in the fabric on the outside of the pant leg a few inches above her knee. It rips easily under his stiff fingers.

The wound is deep, but as she says it's a gash rather than a puncture. It's bleeding steadily, though, and as soon as he's reassured himself it's not serious Kid's pressing his palm tight against it. He looks up to find Oogawa at his side.

"Do you have any cloth? And a coat…" he trails off as he notices that the lieutenant's already stripped off his trench coat. The man lays it over Aoko, Sawara-san tucking it around her. That done, he tears a sleeve from his shirt and begins to rip it into strips, handing them to Kid one at a time. The thief ties them off, then glances around for something to prop her leg up on. Oogawa's already on that, though, moving over towards one of the crooked chairs probably used by the guards. He's halfway across the room when the gunshots break out like short bursts of thunder somewhere above them.

Kid pulls his card-gun from its holster for all the protection it can give, and leans over Aoko with teeth locked tight and his eyes on the door. He knows she is watching him, in the same way he knows the sun is in the sky and the moon orbits the earth; the knowledge is there but not something he thinks about.

Almost half a minute goes by. One of the kids rolls over in his sleep. Oogawa creeps towards the door, own weapon in his hand.

Then footsteps in the hall; more than one person. Kid tenses. The door flies open with a rattling bang, and Nakamori shoots in.

The Inspector is red in the face, eyes sharper than Kid's ever seen them. There's a long rip in his coat between his shoulder and his heart, the black of Kevlar peeking through below.

And then he's at Aoko's side, holding her shoulders in shaking hands.

"Aoko? Gods, I – are you alright? What's wrong?" He turns his head to her leg and swivels then back to her face again, like a bird following motion.

"It's nothing, Dad. It's fine, just a scratch –"

"Oogawa, call the goddamn medics."

"They're already on their way," says Kid, quietly. His voice breaks through Nakamori's frantic fervour all the same, and the Inspector slows to stare at him as if he's a stranger. Kid remembers abruptly that the man hasn't seen him as Kaito before.

"Kid? What happened to you?"

Or maybe it's just the bruises on his face.

Kid ignores that; it's not important. "What's going on upstairs? Did you find him?"

Nakamori freezes, face locking down. "It's over," he says in a flat tone, and there's only one thing that kind of finality can mean.

The stillness feels like winter, like early mornings after snowfall when the world is pristine and white and empty and silent.

Kid can't condone killing; that's something no kaitou can do, because once he does he's got all the tools he needs to crush nations, but at the moment he can't quite regret it either, which is damn dangerous. He can, in fact, not seem to manage a reaction of any kind. But he's not exactly in his right mind. He is running entirely, 100% on adrenaline, and when it runs out he will be left a cold, empty, shaking mess and he knows it. He needs to get the hell out of here before time runs out, and he crashes like a plane with no fuel.

Fortunately, everyone is much more concerned with Aoko – as they should be. Even Nakamori, whose finger it quite possibly was on the trigger – has already turned back to her. Kid slips back to let Oogawa take his place with the chair the man intended to bring earlier to prop up her legs.

With a moment of calm for the first time in what feels like years, Kid can look around and really take stock, not just of potential dangers and exits, but of everything. He finds himself in a makeshift nursery. There are only five kids, but there seem to be more, the overall sum far more than its parts. They're sleeping in corners and huddled against walls, like ragdolls flung haphazardly into a room and left there.

The weight of their lives is staggering, and it crashes down out of nowhere on his shoulders so heavy he almost stumbles. Kid, who has held gems worth hundreds of millions of yen, is stunned by the price of it. Money is valueless to him – what could it possibly mean to a boy who can nearly pull it out of thin air? – but life is immeasurably precious, these tiny lives infinitely so.

This is real. This isn't some buffoon in a suit screwing around and tripping over his own shoes. This is children being hurt, this is lives being threatened, this is Aoko trembling against him.

This is not something he will allow.

It's a decision made in the heart of a second in the middle of a room that at that instant doesn't know he exists, but he knows the weight of these lives on his shoulders will hold him to it. Hold him to it with the white-knuckled grip of a man holding onto a tiger, very aware that it's only him standing between it and slaughter.

The wind shifts momentarily, and brings with it the distant sound of sirens, and the moment passes. His shoulders slump, cold beginning to seep in. Time to go.

Washio and Takarai come in, presumably finished whatever task Nakamori left them in the middle of to find his daughter. In the sudden shift of attention towards them, no one notices him back over to a corner window. They don't notice him flick the lock open, either.

His shoulder burns hot as he boosts himself up onto the sill, watching Nakamori sitting with Aoko – the man sits still and stiff as rusty iron and doesn't say a word, just focuses on her with intensity so hard it's nearly visible, cold and blue in the air. She will be safe here, she is safe here. He has done all he could to see to that; somehow it was enough.

Kid flips out into the soaked bushes under the window, thick leaves rustling around him, weighed down with rain. He slides the window closed behind him with trembling hands. His legs feel like chilled jelly, his heart like it's flapping in an empty well.

Not good.

The cement is a dark sea in the falling rain – it's eased off now to a misty shower, clouds having emptied themselves of a lake's worth of water. He follows the rough uneven feeling of cement under his feet and the map in his head, and comes up against the green iron bars of the front gate almost without thought, half sleep-walking. The shine of the streetlight is a firefly glow here, and in it he can make out a short form leaning against the gate.

"If I didn't know better, I'd think you were drunk," says Edogawa Conan's voice from the deep shadows.

Great, thinks Kid, trying not to sag. Just great. What little strength he has left is bleeding out of him; he's so tired he can feel it wrapped around him like a heavy blanket. This is really not a good time for this.

"I wish I could say I was expecting you," he says with hardly any of his usual enthusiasm. More accurately, he'd just put the detective out of his mind, and once out he had stayed there.

"I'm perfectly capable of reading a map," says the boy sourly. And then, more dryly, "Or did you really think that phone call came at the necessary instant by chance?"

Kid boggles slightly, despite his exhaustion.

"You're not the only one who can imitate people," says a gruff, dangerous voice, from waist-height. The voice from the ransom call, recognizes Kid's ears, his brain lagging behind. "And since I already knew the number, and that they had the phone, all I had to do was dial when I heard the shot. Whatever was going on, it was bound to distract."

The nice thing about detectives is that they're never hesitant to explain their tricks. It always leaves Kid, who of course never reveals his, with the smugness of someone who knows more than everyone else: only idiots and greenhorns give themselves away. The real trick is keeping your secrets.

If he stays here much longer, he'll lose all of his at once.

"Are you going to tell me what happened?" asks the detective, after a pause, and Kid bites back a smart answer. Kid's not a smart-ass, at least not with words although he has been known to get a bit fresh with his heists, and now's not the time for it even if he were.

"Everything was taken care of," he says in an echo of Nakamori's words. "The hostages are safe."

"And the kidnappers?"

"In police custody." All but one, who is in another form of custody all together, and he's sure he'll be conflicted about that later.

"Maybe we should," begins the kid, but Kid can feel the squad cars approaching in his bones, the back of his neck beginning to tingle, and he's in no state to cut things hair-thin.

"As much as I love chatting with you," says Kid, who can hear the sirens now, "I have things to take care of." Things which don't include Kuroba Kaito going downtown in a squad car.

The kid's starting to say something, but he's done here. More than done here, and at the same time he wants to stay with Aoko so much his chest burns, acid harsh, until each breath is like inhaling sulfer.

Kuroba Kaito might have stayed, but he would have been Kid underneath, and Kid has no particular reason to be interested in Nakamori Aoko. He's turning into a damn Matryoshka doll, one layer inside the next, and he's pretty sure he doesn't like it.

Maybe that's the exhaustion talking. And, as much as he would love to crawl home and sleep – sleeping in his bed seems like an unattainable dream, soft and warm and cozy – his night isn't over yet.

Without bothering to say goodbye – without bothering to say anything at all – he vaults up and over the wet gate, lands with instinctive skill on the other side next to a sagging azalea bush.

He doesn't miss the praise he would have receive as an officer, as a bystander, as anything other than what he is, but he does miss the ride he would have been given. Wet and alone, the thief fishes his satchel out of the shrub he left it in, pulls out a pair of hand warmers for his pockets, and begins the long walk to the station.

Aoko and the kids are safe, and he knows he should feel relief, gratitude, joy, or any number of the warmer emotions. But aside from cold, all he feels is a kind of insubstantial twist in his gut, like hunger. He thinks it may be foreboding.