Case Closed Fan Fiction ❯ The Window ❯ Chapter 1

[ A - All Readers ]

Hi again! This is my first 'Detective Conan' fic..... hope y'all like it. I've only been introduced to the series recently, and I fell in love with it. Such a silly, almost cartoonish series, but at the same time the situation is so desperately sad; I highly advise watching it if you can! Please read and review; I may write a sequal if y'all like this well enough. And now the Disclaimer: Um, Detective Conan belongs to somebody else, somebody highly respected I'm sure, somebody whose name escapes me just now considering that I'm writing this bloody thing at 3:58 a.m. Salude!......... Ysabet

The Window
By Ysabet
(Song "Come To My Window" by Melissa Etheridge)

It had been a year.

Kudo Shinichi lay crosswise on his stomach across his bed. Chin propped on his palms, his feet hanging off the side, he looked the very image of a cute, seven-year old boy.

As if.

His glasses lay on the nightstand, ready to be snatched up in a moment if someone (Ran, particularly) were to come in; idly Shinichi wondered who he was fooling with that little trick, himself or the world. It wasn't like they were really necessary, were they? He had grabbed them up in a panic at the same time he had grabbed his new name, the name of Edogawa Conan. The name was mask enough, wasn't it? No need for the glasses.

Perhaps the disguise was for his own benefit; perhaps he needed that little mask between the world and his new self. If so, it was a pretty flimsy thing to trust as a disguise.

Shinichi rolled over to lie on his back; his eyebrows were drawn together in a very unchildlike frown. He laced his hands together beneath his head, staring unseeing at the ceiling.

He didn't feel very childlike tonight; in fact, he didn't feel much like being Conan now at all.

It had been a year already----- a long, long year spent as a ghost from his own physical past, a year in the shape of a child. So very long; had time dragged like this for him when he had actually *been* the little boy that he saw every day in the mirror? He didn't think so; but, thought Shinichi as he turned his head to stare distantly out the darkened window of his room, a person forgot so much over time. He had had a good childhood, a happy childhood; he didn't recall feeling particularly frustrated..... but then he had actually *been* a child, not some sort of temporal freak. Not some sort of walking fossil from his body's own personal history.

A year. Ran would be turning eighteen in a few months. And he-----

What was his age, anyway? Eighteen? Eight? A few weeks past Ran had asked him what his birthday was; he had nearly given him her *real* birthdate, the one she knew to be that of the missing Kudo Shinichi. *That* would have, to put it bluntly, screwed him *big* time. Instead he had managed to pull together enough presence of mind to stammer out the date of his 'transition' into a second and unwanted childhood--- still coincidental, to be sure; but not quite as bad.

Tomorrow, in fact. A year.

He rubbed his aching eyes hard with his small fingers; God, they felt so weak, so tiny even after a year's time! He had managed pretty well, he knew that--- but, oh--- There were so many things Shinichi wanted to do that he couldn't do!

(He wanted to drive a car; to pick up something-- anything--- heavier than a few kilos; he wanted to carry on a reasonable conversation with a stranger without them smiling and saying 'Oh, you're so *smart* for such a young boy!'; he wanted to wear his own clothes, not these stupid childish things, he wanted to do things on his own, and most of all----- he wanted to make up this lost time to Ran. He wanted to hold her, to tell her the things he had wasted so much time sidestepping and avoiding---)

Shinichi closed his eyes; he was so tired. Tonight had been hard; he had sat at the dinner table, trying to act as if the following day was nothing more than any child's birthday, prattling like the boy he seemed to be. Ran had smiled at him with those beautiful eyes, that expressive face; she had laughed at his feigned excitement, promising to spend the day with him doing whatever he wanted.

But oh, what he wanted..... and what he was willing to *pay* for what he wanted..... Just a day, just *one* day as himself, with her..... The faint, persistant sadness that he had detected beneath Ran's smile at dinner had nearly undone him then and there.

Time was so much on his mind right now. Time, passing time and the lack of it. He rolled onto his side to stare out the window, leaning on one elbow. The rising breeze brushed the glass panes with a twig, making a small scraping sound like a tiny broom.

Was he growing at all? Surely he wasn't stuck *permanently* at the age of seven, was he? God. Shinichi shuddered at the thought--- ageless, endlessly young in body, what would his lifespan be if that were the case? Abnormally short? Abnormally long? And would he care?

Ran wouldn't wait for him forever. And she had looked so sad.....

With a groan that had little of Conan and much of Shinichi in it, the boy pulled his pillow up around his ears and tried to forget his grief in sleep.

*****He was walking; no, THEY were walking, prowling through the darkened streets like cats out after midnight. He looked down at his smaller self; the child-face was set in a scowl behind the glasses. They flashed as the boy looked up at his larger self, a flare of resentment.

"It's not like I like it any better than you do, you know!" said the boy to the young man, hunching his shoulders. "I want Ran to be happy too..... I always did. Can't you do something?"

He scowled back at himself, eyes meeting eyes through the mask of glass. "Like what?" he said, not bothering to hide the anger and frustration in his voice. "I'm not even THERE---- *you* are! I can't even talk to her unless I use the phone---"

The boy cut him off with a roll of his eyes as they turned a corner. "Don't be stupid. You're there, I'm there, we're both there all the time. There must be *something* we can do....."

The two selves walked together through the enveloping darkness, side by side. Each knew where they were going; this sort of thing happened about once a month, particularly when Shinichi/Conan had had an unusually frustrating day or a difficult case. Sometimes it was useful; sometimes the two halves of the whole could work out problems together.

But sometimes not. Sometimes it made things worse, seeing each other, seeing the what-had-been and the what-was-now together.

They were almost at the amusement park; that was where it had all started, so that was where they ended up. Without turning his head, the young man spoke again; his voice was very quiet. "It's the time interval that worries me the most, you know? It's not just that Ran won't wait for me--- us--- forever; I keep wondering how long I've got? I mean, that damned pill was supposed to KILL me, not-----"

The boy interrupted his other self. "I know, I know--- who better? I mean, that's when I was *born,* so to speak." He glanced up. "But we're still here. I think maybe it did all the damage it could, making me. So.... Tomorrow's my 'birthday'...... it's been a year. We've tried just about everything we can think of, both of us. Maybe it's time to do something--- different."

The young man stopped, staring at the boy with a certain dread. ".....different? Like--- what?"

The boy shrugged, tugging off his glasses with one hand to stare back, unmasked; his eyes were fierce and determined beneath the amusement park's orange-sulfur security lights. "Maybe we should tell her. Maybe she should know."

He laughed, a sound that held little humor. "After all, there's only one truth, right? Only one truth....."*****

******************************************************* *****************************

Shinichi woke with a jerk. He could hear the faint echoes of his own voice in the room, could feel his lips relax after shaping a word: "...truth..."

He groped for the light on his nightstand and repressed a shiver. He hated those dreams! Sure, sometimes they were useful, but there was something so *wrong* about talking to yourself like that..... And the worst thing was, sometimes he wasn't sure just which one of his 'selves' *he* really was! It was damned confusing.

But..... At least in his dreams he could be honest; he hated the lie that he had to live. Hated the pretense, the masks, the role that ensured the safety of others (not to mention his own precarious hold on life). Hated the deception. But--- how else could he live? This was the only way. The show had to go on, and on, and on.....

Restless, Shinichi stumbled from his bed and began to dress. No rest for the wicked; no sleep for little Conan tonight. He could blame his shadowed eyes tomorrow on pre-birthday excitement or something else eight-year-oldish. Silently he opened his window; with the limberness of a child (and the ease of a year's practice) he slipped out and onto a handy maple branch, slithering and catching himself expertly until his feet touched the ground. Child's play, he thought to himself with a rather grim smile.

Leaning back against the treetrunk, the boy stared up at his erstwhile home. Ran's window was up there, a little down the ways from his; the panes were nearly obscured by the maple branches, their leaves black silhouettes against the shine of glass. He had thought a time or two that she should cut the branches back so no-one could ever break into the house by climbing her tree (the branch that *he* had escaped by would only support someone of his own negligible weight), but somehow it had never been done.

She was sleeping up there, right up there. And tomorrow (or today; it wasn't far from dawn) she would wake up, and remember a significance to the date that had *nothing* to do with her young friend's birthday. And maybe she would make up her mind that a year was too long, that it was time to stop waiting.....

No. No, he had to do something-----

He wandered across the late-summer grass, head down, thinking. The scent of flowers from the beds against the house caught his attention; a profusion of hotweather daisies, the last few straggly iris, early chrysanthemums, a stand of lilies blowing their trumpets towards heaven. The perfume hung thick and perfect in the cool air; he smiled a little despite himself, remembering Ran's face when they were fourteen and she had had the mumps. The young Shinichi had surprised her (and himself) by coming to visit with a huge bunch of chrysanthemums, all rust-colored and golden..... "Do you like your flowers?" he had said, his ears burning with embarrasement. It wasn't until the shouts of an enraged neighbor had broken the peace of the house that Ran had realized that the blushing teenager had shamelessly plundered a nearby garden for the flowers.

He grinned faintly, recalling how he had barely escaped with his life; then, staring up at the window, the grin changed slowly into speculation. He needed to do something..... It was desperate, it was silly, but maybe---

Maybe it was just right. Maybe it *was* time for something different. Maybe it was time for the truth.

The boy set to work.

The dawn was breaking; little breaths of warmth from the rising sun ghosted across the sleeping young woman's face as she shifted upon her pillow. Ran had always woken with the light; as the new day's radience gilded her skin, she stretched beneath the coverlet and drew a long breath.

Breath--- what was that scent? And why was her room so cool? The window---- surely she had shut it the night before, when she had gone to bed--- A faint frown stole across Ran's sleepy face as she yawned, turning towards the gentle breeze that was even now billowing her curtains in soft drifts of gauze.

Ran stared.

And slowly, carefully she climbed from the bed and walked to the open window, where she stood, ankle-deep in flowers. Chrysanthemums, lilies, iris, daisies, magnolias, wysteria--- a dozen types of flowers, all heaped upon her windowsill and overflowing onto the floor. Ran raised one hand to stroke a lily wonderingly, her fingertips barely grazing the streaked and dappled petals. Beautiful----- but--- who had---?

A noise below caught her attention; thump, thump-a, bump! Kneeling amidst the wealth of blooms, she gathered an armful and pressed them to her heart as she leaned out to see.....

Conan. Bouncing a soccer ball, just as he did so often when he was thinking hard, when he had that oddly-adult scowl on his young face. "Conan?" she called, pushing her brown hair back from her face and hugging the flowers closer.

He looked up. Funny--- he wasn't wearing his glasses this morning. That face.....

Ever since Shinichi had... vanished... she had found herself thinking some impossible thoughts about that face. About how *much* the two resembled each other, how much they were alike----- God, the speculations, the wild ideas that had come to her in unguarded moments when anything seemed possible! Stupid ideas, really; the ramblings of an idiot. That sort of thing didn't happen, *couldn't* happen, not really..... but when he looked up at her with that face.....

Like he was looking up at her now. And it was a funny thing, but for a moment it almost seemed as if there was someone else standing with him there, someone who loomed over his small form like a lanky shadow, staring up at her.

She blinked. "You're up early....." she said, trying to steady her voice. The boy shrugged his small shoulders. "Couldn't sleep." He kicked the ball from one foot to the other, the sound barely audible over the sleepy twitter of awakening birdsong. Then he looked up again. "Do you like your flowers?"

For a moment, there seemed to be an echo in the room; the words chased themselves around in her mind. "Shinichi...." his voice cracked; "Shinichi brought them for you. He said--- that you'd find a message in them. That you'd know where to look."

Startled, Ran felt a flood of emotion rush through her at Shinichi's name. Today was..... it had been a year. A whole year.

A message? Lilies, iris, magnolias, wysteria, chrysanthemums-----

A slip of white was folded into a knot of rust-and-golden chrysanthemums. Rust-and-golden? *Oh, not again---* she thought in dismay. Shinichi must've denuded the gardens for blocks around to filch THIS heap of stolen blossoms..... But he had done it for her. Ran's fingers shook as she pulled out the folded slip of paper, slowly spreading it out on the sill so that she could read.

'Dear Ran, I couldn't be here for you the way I wanted to be--- so these flowers have to be here in my place. There's so much I want to tell you, and I promise you'll understand everything by the end of the day. It's going to be so very hard to explain, but please, Ran, wait for me---'

Below, Conan's lips moved as he whispered the final words of the note: "..... I won't leave you ever again. I promise." He could see her lean her head down upon the windowsill for a moment, the flowers pressed against her. She drew a shaky breath and looked back down at the boy. "Conan--- did, did Shinichi say when he'd be back?"

He smiled a little, looking directly back up at her with those brilliant eyes (*that face of his.....*). "Ummm, let's eat breakfast first, Ran-neechan--- I'm starving." Then he flushed, looking down at his shoes. "And after breakfast..... we'll talk. We have a lot to talk about."

And the boy ran off across the lawn, his feet making little sound on the soft, late-summer grass. Above him, the girl watched him run, an armful of stolen flowers pressed against her heart.