31_days | [March 4, 2008] [Detective Conan/Case Closed] Names, Scars, and Painkillers! Oh my!

Title: Names, Scars, and Painkillers! Oh my!

Day/Theme: March 4: This scar I carry proudly

Series: Detective Conan/Case Closed

Character/Pairing: Shinichi/Ran

Rating: PG/K+

-O-

“Ouch.”

“Looks painful.”

“Were you in an accident, Kudo-kun?”

Shinichi just grinned. “Something like that.” His well-wishers – students at the local University – looked slightly concerned at the sizeable gash in his arm that he was brushing off. They continued to offer help – cream that helped with cuts, recommendations for doctors – but Shinichi politely declined each suggestion, insisting it was fine.

“I have some cream that will reduce any scarring,” insisted a petite, bespectacled girl at length, and Shinichi just chuckled.

“No, it’s fine. I think it’s dashing, don’t you?”

When the small group excused themselves, Shinichi let out a sigh. How they’d managed to track him down in a hospital, he’d never know.

These particular students were in their third year towards a forensic science degree, and had been “visiting” him since they were freshmen. Shinichi hardly minded – they were just fans, he reasoned – but it got tiring certain days.

He turned a corner, spotting a familiar potted plant and entering one of the rooms in the hallway.

There she was.

Ran lay serenely on the hospital bed, gazing out of the room’s sole window. Ran’s well-wishers – family and friends, rather than Shinichi’s unique brand of death-obsessed fans – had left their tokens on the sill; flowers, balloons and teddy bears. Shinichi’s guests had been the last to be herded out of the room when the doctor had insisted Ran needed rest.

She turned to him, flashing a wan smile. “He looks like you.”

Shinichi sat in the chair by her bed, taking her hand and nodding. “Yup. Shame, huh?”

Ran laughed weakly. Her eyes alighted on his arm, lingering on the cut on his forearm. “Is it all right?”

Shinichi nodded again. “How about yours?”

Ran’s hand went protectively to her stomach, which had, until very recently, been much bigger. She’d had to undergo an emergency C-section when it was discovered that the baby had somehow tangled itself in the umbilical cord. She traced her fingers on the blanket that covered her stomach. “It hurts a little,” she admitted.

“Well…” Shinichi glanced surreptitiously around the room before continuing in a mock whisper, “Mine too, but don’t tell Ran.”

Ran laughed weakly again. “Well, we can match, at least.”

Shinichi grinned. “Matching scars…I was just thinking that. Maybe we could even name them.”

“It’s an unlikely pair,” Ran said seriously, though a small grin quirked the corners of her mouth.

“They will have issues. They’re too different. Mine’s the result of a workplace hazard –”

“You have to be more careful when you faint in the OR,” Ran said gravely, holding back a giggle.

“– And yours is the result of a child who did too many summersaults –”

“He’s going to be a gymnast,” Ran said stubbornly.

“—And I didn’t faint, I was overcome with joy.”

“So you lost consciousness?”

“Ooh, that sounds better than fainting. I did that.”

Ran laughed a little. “Okay; a note for the future: fainting for men is called losing consciousness.”

“Excuse me?”

The couple looked up to see a nurse in the doorway, carrying a small mass of blankets. Ran’s face lit up in a brighter smile than she’d yet worn. Shinichi extended his arms to the nurse who obligingly placed the bundle in his arms.

“Just the guy I wanted to see,” he murmured, crouching down so that Ran could hold him too.

“See? He really does look like you,” Ran said softly, brushing her fingers gently over the baby’s face.

“Such a shame,” Shinichi grinned.

Ran smacked him indignantly. “Don’t talk like that about my kid,” she said sternly.

“Now watch it, or else we’ll give him the idea that violence solves our problems. Mom’s the only one who can hit stuff, got it?” Shinichi directed this last at the sleeping form of their son, who showed no sign of having heard anything

“What was that you said about him being a gymnast?” Shinichi queried, and Ran smiled.

“Well, what with him being so good at summersaults…”

“Our son is brilliant! We can’t have him wasting his talents as a gymnast! He’ll be a soccer star!”

“Or a karate expert,” Ran intervened.

“Yes! Or even a detect –”

“No! I refuse to be stuck in a house with two of you. He’ll be a chef.”

“And he’ll put even your cooking to shame!”

“Hey.”

“…though he’d never say that, of course.”

“Well, of course not.”

“…because he’ll be a well-mannered gentleman as well as a world-renowned chef.”

“And humble, unlike his father.”

Shinichi paused to laugh quietly. “Look at us. We’re deciding our son’s future and his very person…”

Ran turned a confused face to her husband. “What’s so wrong with that?”

Shinichi smiled. “He doesn’t even have a name yet.”

“Well, it can wait.”

“Why don’t you want to name our son?”

Ran colored slightly. “It’s a big decision…and I don’t want to choose the wrong name.”

Shinichi nodded. “Well, we know what we won’t name him.”

Ran grinned. “What?”

“Shinichi.”

“What? Why?”

“You just said you couldn’t stand two of me in one house.”

Ran groaned. “My husband the funny guy,” she said sarcastically as Shinichi snickered at his own joke. “I don’t know if we should name him after anyone.”

“Why not?”

“Well, it would just make someone jealous. If we named him after my dad, your dad would feel jilted –”

“Actually, no he wouldn’t –”

“And then we’d just have to promise to name our next child after your dad –”

“Next child?”

“And then, of course, it would be a girl, and so we’d have to have a third –”

Shinichi choked. “Th-third?”

“And I’d never get to pick a name I wanted.”

“Well…what name do you want?”

Ran started, then flushed red. “It’s silly…” she muttered.

“Try me. I’m the king of inventing silly names, if you hadn’t forgotten.”

Ran’s blush somehow darkened. “Well, about that…”

Shinichi blinked. “Ran? What name did you want?”

“…mmbln,” Ran muttered.

“What?”

“…mmblan,” Ran clarified.

Shinichi leveled his wife with a look.

“Oh fine. Conan,” Ran said a little louder, her face reaching a level of color that had no name.

Shinichi blinked again. He smiled. He chuckled lightly.

“See? It’s stupid…” Ran brought her hands up to her face, trying to hide her embarrassment.

Shinichi carefully shifted his arms, holding their sleeping son in one and lifting the other to Ran’s covered face. “Ran…it’s not stupid.”

“Then why did you laugh?” Ran demanded, stubbornly refusing Shinichi’s coaxing fingers as he tried to pull her hands away from her face.

“I was actually thinking the same thing.”

Ran finally let Shinichi pull her fingers away from her face. “Really?”

Shinichi nodded. “Yeah. Though…”

“What?”

“Conan Kudo sounds a little odd…”

“So did Conan Edogawa.”

“You have a point.”

They sat in comfortable silence for a minute, testing the name out in their minds and on their tongues. Looking at their son. Picturing his life…a lifetime with the name Conan Kudo…

“I like it,” Shinichi said at length, and Ran nodded her agreement.

“I do too.”

Shinichi pushed a button for the nurse, tenderly transferring little Conan into her arms before settling back in his chair.“Well. Now there’s only one thing left to do,” he said softly.

“Hmm?” Ran said tiredly, eyes drooping in tiredness.

“Unless you still wanted to name the scars?”

“Umm…I think I’ll pass,” Ran said, without missing a beat, letting her eyelids close firmly.

“Well…you did mention a second and possibly third child before…”

When the nurse returned a few minutes later with some paperwork and a pill for the pain Ran still had for the scar from her C-section, it was to see the sweet young couple, both asleep; the wife was propped up on her pillows, breathing softly, and the husband was slumped at her knees by the side of the bed. She left quietly, not wanting to disturb them. But she didn’t see the large bump on the back of Shinichi’s head.

-O-

A U T H O R S N O T E

Whew! This is my longest yet! (I think…) But oh…it was fun abusing Shinichi. (cackles madly)