Hey !

I know, I haven't updated "Looking for a case" for so long! But here it's different. It's a translation of one of my French fanfictions, "Erreurs répétitives". Some people (well, two, actually) asked for it, so here is the beginning! Dunno when I'll have time to translate the following chapters but it should be more quick than other fic I'm translating, as the fic is already complete in another langage and I'm not afraid to take some distance from the original as it's mine.

Don't hesitate to point out mistakes by the way! Reviews and all are much appreciated too ;)

Of course, Detective Conan doesn't belong to me but to Gosho Aoyama.

Chapter 1 : Night kidnapping

"Dad, hurry up! We're going to be late!"

"Let me one more minute!" Kogoro grumbled. "Anyway, why did you set a date with this woman, again? I don't want to hear her lamentations on my behavior all over the dinner!"

"Dad!"

It was pretty usual. Ran had invited her parents out for dinner, but without telling them the other would be there too. She had told Kogoro only ten minutes before going, which had slowed him down a lot in his preparations. Obviously, Ran had noticed and was now pushing him to get ready.

"I'm good, let's go!" Kogoro suddenly annouced.

"Finally! Conan-kun, take care and don't go to bed too late, right? All you have to do for dinner is to heat up the dishes I made for you using the microwaves."

"Ok, got it Ran. Have fun!"

I'm not a little child, Conan thought bitterly. He was watching them leave, leaning back against the wall, coughing a bit.

"You better stay in your bed tonight", Kogoro said.

"Get out!" Cut Ran, pushing her dad in the stairs. "See you Conan-kun!"

"Have a good evening", Conan answered.

The door was shut close and suddenly the silence overwhelmed the room, after the noisy leaving of those two. The bespectacled boy sighed. He had to stay home because of his illness, and he was actually pretty happy about this. He was too tired to hear Eri and Kogoro argue all the evening. The idea of spending his evening in his futon reading was far more appealing, he didn't need Kogoro to think about it.

Darness were invading the city pretty fast and early on the evening now. It was also getting cold outside. Walking out in T shirt was no option anymore. No wonder why Conan got ill, it happened almost everytime at this moment of the year.

The child closed the door of Kogoro's office and went upstairs in the kitchen. He wasn't hungry yet, but put the dishes Ran had made for him in the microwaves before heading to his and Kogoro's room. There was no point staying dressed with his day clothes if he wasn't going to get out, his pyjamas would do it. Even if he began watching TV a bit, he could use a blanket.

He was still looking for his pajamas when odd sounds got his attention. He raised his head to look around and determine where it came from. It seemed the noises where coming from the street, or... The front door? Thinking about thieves, Conan gave up on his pyjamas research to go back in the living room.

There was no more sounds. Maybe it came from people in the street. Or from the cafe beneath the agency. Anyway, the small sleuth could see nothing odd, so he went back to his room.

One minute after, he had found the top of his pajamas, and was struggling to get the other part, which was stucked under one of the foot of Kogoro's bed. How did it lend there, Conan had no idea, but he couldn't get it free from the bed. Of course, his child's strenght didn't help.

He kept trying for a bit before stopping. He had to try something else, before he teared it.

New sounds came from outside the room. Muffled footsteps, mainly. Conan, who was sitting on his futon pondering how to get his pajamas, got on his feet quickly and approached the door. Discreetly, he peeked into the living room, and froze.

There were people in the house. He could see two intruders : one of them just got in Ran's room, the other was leaning against a wall, his eyes probably flying over the room even if Conan couldn't see them. Both were wearing a balaclava hidding their face, and no one was using a lamp : it was dark, but not enough that they couldn't see where they walked, thanks to the light coming from outside's street lamps. Moreover, they would have been more visible with lamps, the neighbourhood might have noticed.

The kid stepped back into the room, out of these people's sight. They were definitely thieves, or at least people with inclear but probably not very legal intentions, judging from how they got there and when. But why? What were they looking for in Kogoro Mouri's place? If they were interested in his case files, they were inspecting the wrong area, but they probably wouldn't have missed the office, especially since it was were they received customers, and they had to pass it to get there. Maybe they were breaking into random houses, but it was pretty uncommon for thieves, and pretty risky on the top of that.

No, it was really strange that thieves broke into such a famous detective's house without knowing it, especially with the agency's name written on the office's windows. Well, it didn't matter. Conan had to call the police. He tried to find his phone, but failed that, before remembering both his Conan's and Shinichi's phone were in charge. The closest phone was the living room's one, and he couldn't just go and make a call to the police from it with one of the intruders in the same room.

While the small detective was musing about this, he suddenly had a coughing fit, catching him off guard. He tried to repress it and not be too noisy, but it was a violent one, and he quickly new the intruders had heard him. Footsteps from the living room were coming his way, and the person looking in Ran's room had stopped his researches. Well, at least, they were no light on when they got in, preventing them to know immediately about Conan's presence, and allowing him to see there were thieves before. But he had to improvise anyway.

The first thief got in the bedroom, slamming the door wide open, and stopped in the doorframe, probably looking for him, before stepping in. Conan had hid behind a piece of furniture. He had put on his shoes to go and lock the office's room and, probably because of this illness confusing him, had forgotten to remove them. Well, at least he didn't stood on his futon with it, and right now he was pretty happy about this. He activated his shoes along with his belt, got outside his hide to have a better view of the thief and kicked the soccer ball that just hit the ground.

The intruder turned to him but froze in surprise long enough for Conan to have a proper aim at his head. The person hit the piece of furniture behind him, making some objects fall, before collapsing, knocked out.

The other intruder chose this moment to get in. This footsteps warned Conan and he had already his watch ready when he got in the room and stopped in surprise, seeing his accomplice on the ground. A needle later, and he was joining him in the dreamland.

The boy sighed in relief and stepped over the unconscious bodies to get to the living room. Well, it went better than he thought. He picked up the phone and dialed the police's number.

His instincts suddenly roared, warning him of a danger. He wanted to turn back, but it was already too late.

There was a third intruder. He pulled the phone Conan was holding off while gaging him with a handkerchief. A handkerchief with a sweet smell coming from it, reminding Conan of chloroform.

The boy took a breathe of it before realising what happened and what it was, and his vision suddenly blurred until darkness overcame everything.

"Dad, move!"

"Alcohol, alcohol everywhere!" Kogoro said, trying to get those words into a song while he climbed the stairs with a not so well balance.

"Dad! It's the last time I invite both of you to the restaurant! Next time it will be at mom's, that way you won't be able to ruin everything by drinking and watching every nice women who pass!"

"No way I'll eat in this woman's home! Especially if she's cooking!"

"Dad!"

"Yeah, I got it, I'm your father, so what?"

The drunken man managed to get away from her daughter by entering the living room stumbling.

"Go to sleep now", Ran ordered.

"Yeah, going..."

"And don't wake up Conan-kun!"

"He won't die of it", Kogoro mumbled after entering his room.

His feet then stepped on something unsteady and he felt the gravity call him to the ground.

"Wuaaa!" Kogoro yelled as he felt on his back. "Ouch, he could clean when he's letting stuff around, that brat!"

"Dad!" Ran's voice answered with a threatening tone from her own room.

Still complaining, but with a lower voice so she couldn't hear, the sleuth got up and saw that several objects had fallen. The carpet wasn't flat, there was a fold and it wasn't quite in line with the furnitures in the room. Did the brat fall here too? He could have put away the objects and set back the carpet!

Kogoro cast a grumpy glare toward the kid's bed. His mind flooded by alcohol needed several seconds to notice the sheets were oddly low. He turned on the light and looked again. Then, he understood : the brat wasn't in his bed.

"Gone to the bathroom, uh?" Kogoro guessed. "Well, that's perfect! I'll tell him off when he'll be back!"

The mustached man got ready to bed and waited for the kid under his sheet, but no one was coming. He heard Ran get back to her room from the bathroom, but she didn't seem to have met Conan. Still, the child wasn't in his bed, nor anywhere in the room, and didn't seem to be around at all, as he wasn't in front of the TV, and didn't greet them when they entered the house.

"Where did that brat go?" Kogoro wondered out loud. "He had to stay home! And he couldn't go to the professor's, if I remember correctly, he's out for the night for some kind of conference with the girl living with him."

He was getting annoyed about this. He went to see in the living room with a more stable walk. There were no light on anywere in the house, except from his room. Come to think of it, he remembered seeing Conan's pajamas on his futon. Moreover, those fallen objects and untidy carpet weren't like him. Usually the kid cleaned up behind him in such situations. By the way, would he really had made so much objects fall if he did fell there? Even if he had tried to put his hand on the top of the piece of furniture to prevent his fall, he wouldn't have been able to reach a lot of them, especially since you're usually not straight up when falling.

There was definitely something strange going on. Kogoro went in the kitchen and found Ran's dishes for Conan in the microwave. He probably heated it up, but never retrieved it. Sure, sometimes you're not much hungry when you're ill, but if he had put it in the microwave, it was because he wanted to eat. So what, did he forget about it?

There was another unusual detail. He didn't need his keys to enter, even though the kid was supposed to lock behind them. When he got at his office's level on his way back, he used the door to steady himself, and could see at the time the door was locked. So the kid didn't forget to lock it, so why forget this one? It wasn't like him. Illness couldn't explain everything, especially where the boy currently was.

Kogoro was thinking hard. He really couldn't think of why the kid would have left without telling anyone, and while he has a cold. He got back in the living room, and only then, noticed Conan's shoes not far from their room's door. He frowned. What were they doing here? Especially if Conan had gone out, he would probably have used those shoes.

The sleuth went to the front door and checked on the lock from outside. It indeed had marks proving it has been forced open.

Suddenly perfectly aware, the detective got back inside and noticed the living room's phone wasn't hung up correctly. He approached it and checked the last number called from here.

"Beika main police station. We are sorry to inform you the line is currently busy..."

It was enough for Kogoro who hung up. He hadn't called the police today, especially not from this phone. Something was really wrong. But what happened? Robbers wouldn't abduct a witness. Either they silence him a was or another, either his presence make them flee. Conan being a child, the first option was way more believable, but why did they took him? Obviously he hadn't the time to call the police, or they would be here, and the only reason thieves would take a hostage would be this one.

Kogoro grumbled. Great, now the brat didn't even need to get out of the house to put himself in trouble! Of course, it had to happen at such a late hour, too. Well, if Conan hadn't the time to call the police, he would.

There probably weren't any listening device on the living room phone, or the culprits would have hung it up properly, but Kogoro prefered to call Megure directly, and for that he needed his cell phone. He could tell Ran afterwards. After all, she may have noticed something too, and she'd kill him anyway if the brat disappeared and he didn't let her know.

But on his way to his room, he finally noticed a paper on the table.

We have the boy. For his safety, you better not call the police. We'll contact you soon.

Kogoro clenched his fists. He didn't seem drunk anymore.

Well, at least the kid was alive, and probably healthy, if the cold didn't count. But he felt right about not wanting to go to his stupid dinner, it would have prevented this! Still... Was it the kidnappers's initial goal, than to abduct the kid? If yes, it meant they have been watching the agency to be sure he was alone.

Kogoro went quickly around the home to make sure nothing has been stolen, and indeed, only Conan was missing. The abductors didn't seem to have let any clue behind them, so all he could do was wait until they called him. But maybe not...

The sleuth opened the window and watched the street, looking for anything suspicious, before closing it. While he headed to Ran's room to wake her up, a plan growing in his mind, he suddenly remembered the "we" on the note left by the kidnappers. So there was more than one culprit. It made sense. One probably fell in his room trying to grab the boy, and maybe knocked himself out at the time. The kid tried to take advantage of it to call the police but then got caught by another abductor. Or else, he would have tried to flee the house to call the police from outside. It would also explain the phone poorly hung up.

Yes, he should definitely wake up Ran. The culprits didn't seem to watch him anymore, and were probably expecting him to discover Conan's disappearance in the morning. So maybe, if she called the police from outside tonight, in case there was a device spying phone conversations in the house – from what he remembered, such things didn't always need to be on the phone, and could intercept cell phones too, depending on the kind of device used – they wouldn't notice. She would probably attract less attention than him. It was a bit risky, but after all, he had better chances to arrest them with the police on his side, especially since the culprits would probably be pretty cautions around a famous detective like him.

"That freaking mustached sleuth!" Eri cursed as she passed the doorframe of her place.

The evening has been pretty unpleasant to her, but she wasn't surprised about it. Ran kept trying, but it always endend up the same way. When would she understand it was pointless?

Still, her daughter's stubborness made the lawyer smile. But she was still angry at Kogoro, and certainly wouldn't be able to sleep like that.

She entered her living room and turned on the TV. Some serie would probably do it to change her mind. Or work, but it wasn't the place and time... Nor the good state of mind to do so!

So, Eri Kisaki, a brillant lawyer, collapsed lazily on her couch in front of the TV. Once from time to time couldn't hurt, right?

The serie on TV was an americain police serie. Lucky, it was the beginning, so the began to watch. The situation was beginning to get really interesting when someone rang to the door.

"Who could that be?" Eri wondered out loud.

The woman stood up to go open the door. She had a strange feeling about who it was.

"Hi mom, I hope you weren't sleeping", Ran begun.

It was indeed her daughter, who seemed to be in a hurry and a bit awkward. Eri didn't pay attention to that and answered :

"If it's to forgive that pervert, you can go home!"

"No, it's not about that! Can I get in?"

Finally, Eri noticed Ran's strange behavior. She glanced around behind her daughter, smiled and let her in. As soon as the door closed behind Ran, Eri turner to her, hands on her hips with a suspicious look.

"So what is it about?"

Well, I made it though the first chapter in only one day! I hope it's not too bad. I read a whole fic in English yesterday, it helps me to think in English and all, but it doesn't make me bilingual, and I'm still not used to write in English (including translations from French to English, it's harder that way). I'll probably ask some of my English speakers friends if they're okay to beta read it (one of them actually asked for this translation, so...).

Also, if you already read the French version, you probably noticed some differences. It's normal, I feel more free to add details to make it more realistic, and stuff like that. Even if in the end, it'll probably make the English version kind of better than the original, French one, which isn't what I want, but anyway...

See you soon, I hope!