Chapter Text
The hospital felt colder than usual as Ran returned from the cafeteria, a hot meal having not made a dent in the icy feeling settling into her bones. The lighting had been dimmed for the night, for the comfort of the conscious patients in the ward, while she'd forced herself to eat.
Thirty-six hours. Thirty-six hours since a team of doctors had raced into the detectives' room to discover Conan-kun's bed empty, his life monitors screaming and bedclothes still warm. Thirty-five since Ran and her parents had arrived to a swirl of police and hospital staff. But thirty-six hours since somebody had kidnapped a comatose nine-year-old from his hospital bed.
One of the drawbacks to being the daughter of a detective and a lawyer was that Ran knew the statistics. The chances of finding a missing person alive dropped with every lost hour; the chances of finding a kidnapped child...
Ran passed the door barred with crime scene tape, fists clenching at the flicker of yellow and black in the corner of her eye, and tried not to think about the few reasons there were for taking a comatose child.
The police guarding the detectives' new room didn't try to stop her as she passed between them and entered, despite how long it had been since visiting hours had ended. She didn't know who'd pulled strings to let her sit alone in the night-dark room; she didn't care. She just knew that she'd go mad if she had to wait at home, or in the public waiting rooms with the hospital staff trying not to stare.
Ran let herself fall into the sole comfortable chair in the room, a wingchair meant for the use of semi-mobile patients.
"Evening, Ojousan."
Ran startled so hard she nearly knocked the chair over. She hadn't noticed until he spoke, but a man in a top hat was sitting on the window ledge, a cape pulled around him for warmth against the winter chill. Streetlights gleamed white off the fabric and through a large, single lens over one eye.
"Kaitou Kid," Ran blurted, quiet and dazed. "What are you doing here...?"
"Would you be surprised to know that I'm actually rather fond of these guys?" Kid asked.
Ran almost said 'yes', but the word died in her throat. Kaitou Kid wasn't like other criminals. Not that you could tell what he really felt past the laughing voice and the near-permanent grin, but... he did everything else backwards, from the white clothes to the media circus, so why wouldn't he like the people trying to catch him? "Not entirely," she answered.
"I am."
"That..." completely explained what he was doing here, actually. "You heard about Conan-kun," Ran said instead, dully.
Kid didn't answer, instead turning his face to resume gazing out the window. The top hat tilted further over his profile, brim pushing against the winter-chilled glass. The silence lasted only a few minutes, Ran's mind racing. Kid seemed to want to sit vigil, heedless of the officers stationed scarcely three meters and a single door away.
"Did you know Conan-kun tried to kick a soccer ball through my head the second time we met?" Kid asked, voice almost wistful. When Ran shook her head, Kid added, "He broke a telephone."
Ran choked on a breath that was almost a laugh. "He didn't--!"
"He did." Kid paused. "Your turn, Ojousan."
"My turn...?" To share a memory, Ran supposed. There were so many... but not much that would likely interest Kid.
"Once, when we were in Osaka, Hattori-kun taught him how to play poker." And he'd earned that double whap upside the head that she and Kazuha had given him. "By the time I caught them, Conan-kun had won a week's worth of candy, Hattori-kun's jacket and shoes, and was ordering him to either bet the shirt or get more junk food." Kid's only reaction was a wider grin, so Ran delivered the punchline. "A week later, Conan-kun taught Haibara-kun. Suffice to say he had to be very nice to get his shirt back."
Kid's shoulders shook with mirth. "I'll have to challenge him to a game sometime."
Ran's head shot up. That -- was the most hopeful statement she'd heard yet in this nightmare. No question of 'if', no allowance for the possibility that they'd never find Conan; he'd said it with all the ease and assurance of informing her that it was dark outside. "You know he wouldn't play."
"Now, that's why I'm a master of disguise. He need never know it's me."
Ran laughed at his eagerness. Kid grinned smugly, the laughter eventually fading into a comfortable silence.
"It's been a long year without them chasing me."
Was it Ran's imagination, or did Kid sound like he missed them? "They'll be back to chasing you. Someday." She hoped. If they ever found Conan... and now she was depressed again.
Kid sighed. "I'm sorry. I'm being cruel," he murmured. A tiny puff of smoke, and a card plopped onto Ran's lap. "Read that. Please."
Confused, Ran tipped up the card -- stiff, formal, unfolded, the black kanji printed deep enough to almost be embossed -- and angled it to catch the moonlight.
Tomorrow night, I will be stealing Hattori-kun and Hakuba-kun's comas. Signed, Kaitou Kid.
"'Stealing comas'?" Ran looked up, utterly bewildered. "Kid-san, what on earth...?"
Kid stood, the cape remaining closed around him as he strode across the room, looming over Ran in her chair. The monocle gleamed unnervingly, Kid's face invisible save for the gleam of a toothy smirk.
"That's my first trick of the night," he told her lightly. "Would you like to see another?"
Ran's gaze fell to the cape, then back up to Kid's shadowed face. "If you flash me--"
"--Sonoko-san will kill you. Not my style." The cape fell open, and Kid deposited a large, quilt-wrapped bundle onto Ran's lap. It was heavy-- a small head lolled against Ran's shoulder, soft breath warm against her collar--
"Conan?!" Ran gasped, arms going around the child asleep in the blanket. "What-- you--"
"Kidnapped him."
Ran froze. He'd what? Him? KID? If her hands weren't full -- she was not going to let go of Conan, but--
Hands latched around her ankles, Kid suddenly kneeling very close; most of his face was hidden by Conan's hair, not even the monocle fully visible in the shadow of his hat. A tiny gleam could have been from the glass or the eye behind it. "Don't kick me," he requested. "I have one more trick to perform... the reason I didn't leave a heist notice for Conan-kun. One. Two. Three." He suddenly ducked his head and blew a raspberry under Conan's ear. "Morning, sunshine!"
Conan flinched, shocking Ran to the core, and Kid danced away. "Gerroff, Kid, 'm sleepin'..."
"Nope." Kid's grinning face seemed to hover in a mass of unreal black and white. "There's somebody here who's been worried about you, Tantei-kun. Let's hear a good morning, hm?"
"Mmf." A small hand batted weakly at the blankets, vaguely in Kid's direction. "Go 'way."
Kid offered Ran an apologetic glance. "He's been pretty groggy when he is awake. But at least he's not trying to jump off your lap to arrest me this time, though I figured that meant no brain damage. Though the cure's left him hypothermic... not that you're going to let him go anytime soon, I suspect."
"Cure..." Ran repeated, the word surreal and senseless. He'd-- Kid had stolen Conan, Kid had, to cure him... and all she could think to say was, "You didn't leave a note."
"Well, as to that... the cure's pretty risky for small fry like Conan-kun. So I had to keep an eye on him, which I could hardly do while dodging hospital staff and police." He almost sounded reasonable. "Jewels and artwork are one thing. With those, I can dance around the police and juggle my heist if I need to, and it's not much of a loss if I have to drop it. Kids, however..."
Strike that 'almost'. That made entirely too much sense, in a twisted, horrible way.
"You're insane," Ran choked out. He was insane, but he'd brought back Conan-kun. He'd cured Conan-kun.
"So I've been told. Repeatedly." Before Ran could think of an answer, Kid glanced at the hallway-- at footsteps in the hallway -- then checked a wristwatch half-hidden by his glove. "That's the nurse on her rounds. I'm afraid I'll have to cut this short, Ojousan. Remember, Conan-kun has to stay warm, and the note goes to the police."
His hand ruffled through Conan's hair, cupping the back of his head for a barely-noticeable second, then in a rustle of white fabric and a gust of wintery air, Kid was gone.
Leaving Ran with a 'kidnapped' child on her lap and a heist note in her hand, just as the nurse opened the door. Blinding light streamed into the room.
"N--nurse?" Ran asked, voice shaky. "Get the police."