Alone With But a Voice

                                    

                                          
           
                          
I found myself alone in a hospital room, patched with stitches, bandages, and leftover numb warm bits of flesh from their work. I still wore my bloody clothes, as I had nothing else to wear and no desire or need to stay in the hospital. Yeah, I had cuts all over me from flying glass and it made my head spin to stand, but...
                          
I had already asked if I could see Naru in intensive care, but not even a spouse was allowed at this crucial moment. That, more than the blood loss, made my head spin. 
                          
The next time I saw him...he could be dead...
                          
I thunked the heal of my hand against my forehead, screwing up my face against the turmoil within. It was almost like Naru simply wasn't meant to live in this world without Gene. Perhaps that legend about twins sharing a soul was true. Too much power for just one body...but what connection could replace that between twins? 
                          
Someone knocked on the door. 
                          
"Come in," I mumbled, though I didn't see why anyone would knock. It wasn't like this hospital room was my bedroom or anything.
                          
When the thin-brow detective walked in, I wasn't surprised. I wasn't happy either. 
                          
"I'm sorry for disturbing you at this time of night," he said (again, this wasn't my house). "But I still had some questions about the investigation I think only you can answer."
                          
"Because the other one is unconscious?" I said, as dry as a desert.
                          
"I have already questioned his assistant, Lin. Any data he could have had, I've seen. You on the other hand..." He pulled over the wheeled stool the doctor had been on just moments before to wheel about from one of my cuts to another. "I hope the seriousness of what's going on will help you answer this question honestly."
                          
I waited, watching the shine move about on a balding patch I hadn't noticed before, right on the peak of his scalp. I realized then that I didn't even know this man's name. He had always been labeled under 'the detective' in my mind. 
                          
He leaned onto his knees like a grandfather about to ask a small child a serious question.
                          
"Are you really clairvoyant?"
                          
I wanted to be sarcastic. I really did. But something about losing a pint of blood and possibly your fiancé as well had a knack of sucking up your snark energy. 
                          
"Yes." I said. "What do you want to know?"
                          
"I need you to identify the girl you say that Swii kid raped. I have a list of pictures here."
                          
"I can do that."
                          
"Also," he hesitated. "Was it really you who found out about the scopolamine?"
                          
 "I take it the tests have come back?"
                          
He made a noncommittal grunting noise that almost sounded impressed. "I figured since you were right one time...now, to the pictures."
                          
From within his coat (very traditionally detective-y of him), he pulled out a handful of your regular 5x7 pictures. They all had the same generic blue-gray background for a school ID. He handed them to me and I mechanically went through them, then handed them back.
                          
"None of them." 
                          
His eyebrows flew high. "Huh."
                          
"What?"
                          
"Nothing. Though I think I have one more picture."
                          
And out from the other side of his coat he pulled out the willowy girl. Despite the smile that completely changed her looks, I knew her in an instant.