Dwindling Reminiscence

- By Shelling Ford

A/N: The first part is written in Haibara' POV, but the rest of the fic is written in third person. Italics are thoughts. This is not for the English dubbers, since I'm on episode 400 or something, and just read the latest manga.

Disclaimer: Meitantei Conan is property of the wonderful and brilliant Aoyama Gosho-sama. All hail the genius!!!

Enjoy!

Chapter One: Selfish

The liquid swirled in shades of sickening green. I see my reflection in the test tube smiling back at me, her eyes torn; her soul empty; her smile deadly. Is this who I am?

No more, please, no more. Angels, I ask you to smile down on me and release me. No more.

Let this work.

I want to be selfish, just this one time, allow me to be selfish. I want to be the dolphin. I want a world where I'm free to swim in. I care no more about the responsibilities.

Let my conscience sleep.

Envy. I truly envy her. Mouri Ran, the dolphin in the sea. Beloved Ran, she's perfect. Innocent Ran, she's pure. She's his dolphin, his love, his everything. I love her, too. She's everything that I'm not. Sweet, kind, beautiful, righteous, brave, strong, loving... the list goes on. She's just like onee-chan, loved by many, cared by many. I love her, too, just like I loved onee-chan. She saved my life, in a manner of speaking. But she could not save my soul. She could not save me from my conscience. She could not save me from my past. It's not her fault.

I don't want to do this, but the loneliness is killing me. I want to forget, but I also want to remember. I want to live. So this is my only solution.

I want to be the dolphin.

It's not my intention to hurt her, but hurt her I must.

I'm so, so sorry, Ran-neechan, sorry for everything. Because of me, you lost your beloved Shinichi, and now, you will lose your beloved Conan.

I'm so sorry. Sorry for my weakness; sorry for my past; sorry for my existence.

The jade-green liquid swirls once again in the cursed vial. I put it in my coat pocket and walks out of Agasa's house with a full book bag on my shoulders. The winter wind cuts into my flesh, even Mother Nature wants to prevent me from what I'm about to do.

But no one can stop me now.

I'm so sorry. I'm so, so sorry.

But I want to be the dolphin.

I want to be his dolphin.

Let me be selfish, just this once.

The winter wind berated the windows of the Mouri Detective Agency. One Edogawa Conan snuggled on the couch with blankets wrapped around his little body. His tiny left hand held a copy of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's "Sign of Four", while his right clutched a hot cup of cocoa.

It was such a cold day. In a way, Conan was glad that he got to stay home due to a slight fever that he developed the night before. But for some reason, he couldn't stay asleep. So while his beloved Ran-neechan prepared for school, he watched her from the corner of his eyes.

Suddenly he broke into a fit of coughs. He hastily set his cup on the coffee table. The hacking sounds didn't go unnoticed by his loving guardian. Ran rushed to his side, her briefcase forgotten next to the door.

"Here, Conan-kun, take your cough drop." She didn't wait for a reply and forced a brown pill into the boy's mouth. "I hate to leave you like this, but I have to go to school. Mou," she pouted in a way that sent the butterflies wild in the boy's stomach. "Where's otousan when you need him?"

Conan thanked every deity for the minty relief. "I'll be fine, Ran-neechan," Conan faked his childish tone through a stuffy nose, his blue eyes no longer sparkled behind his large spectacles like they usually did. "Besides, I saw ojisan mark down tomorrow in his date book as Ran-neechan's okaasan's birthday. I think he actually went out for a good reason this time."

Just as he suspected, Ran's face lighted up at once. "Really?! He remembered?!"

"What did you get for obasan?" Miraculously, Conan's head cleared up a little.

Ran winked. "It's a secret." She wrapped the blankets tighter around Conan's shoulders and thrust the cocoa back into his hand. "Now I really have to go, or I'll be late. The phone's right next to you, so if you feel worse, call my school right away. Oh, and are you sure you don't want to watch some TV? You shouldn't use your brain so much when you're sick."

Conan laughed and shook his head. He was getting really warm all of a sudden but wasn't sure if that was due to the fever or not.

"But you've read that book at least twenty times already."

The seemingly young boy chuckled nervously. "It's a good story." And I have only read it eighteen times as Conan, but about seventy times when I was Shinichi.

Ran smiled back in that beautiful way of hers. "All right, I can't argue with you. I'll come back to make you lunch. So just stay still for the next four hours."

"Bye, Ran-neechan."

Ran was about to make her exit when a knock sounded at the door. She glanced at the clock which clearly read 7:30 and murmured as she went to greet the unknown guest: "Did otousan leave his wallet?"

"Ara!" Ran let loose a shout of delight as she leaned down to greet the mysterious girl with coffee-brown hair. "Ai-kun! Are you here to see Conan-kun?"

Haibara Ai smiled up at the older girl sweetly. "Hai, I bought him some manga to read. And I can keep him company until I have to leave for school."

"Thank you so much! Well then, I'll see you later, Conan-kun, Ai-kun."

With a click, Ran was gone.

Haibara pasted her usual smirk on her face as she took a seat on the couch across from Conan. The teen-turned-boy stared at her curiously.

"Manga?" Said boy spoke, his voice roughened by last night's fever. "Good one. Now why are you really here? If you keep doing things like this, Haibara, I'll start to think that you actually care about me." He took a sip from his cup and looked straight into Haibara's eyes. His cerulean irises were twinkling once again. But a mischievous glint replaced that childhood innocence. It was a look that Haibara Ai had come to love, that look of righteousness and brilliance despite the harsh memories hidden behind those eyes. Nothing in his current demeanor could have placed him as a regular eight-year-old.

With her smirk still in place, Haibara pulled out two manga books from her red-orange book bag. "Am I not allowed to come and visit a sick friend?"

Conan snorted. "If I remember correctly, the last time you had to visit me, it was during the middle of the night, and you announced your presence with a fake hand gun pointed to my head."

"Sorry, no flowers this time."

The boy shrugged. "Want some cocoa? The pot is on ojisan's table, and there's also an empty cup there."

"Not germ infested, I hope."

"My germs are too precious to spread around."

"Want a refill?" Haibara eyed Conan's half empty cup eagerly. A little too eager, actually, if Conan bothered to look.

"Thanks." Unsuspectingly, he merely handed over the cup and went back to his book.

Haibara made her way toward the pot with shaky hands. With her back turned, she glanced to make sure that Conan's attention was elsewhere and took out a small test tube half full of dark green liquid. She uncorked the vial and emptied the liquid into Conan's drink surreptitiously, and then poured more cocoa into it. After the green faded away, she poured a clean cup for herself.

There was no turning back.

The next thirty seconds was the longest moment in Haibara's life. She vaguely remembered taking both cups back to the couches. She barely recalled giving Conan his poisoned drink. She somehow kept her emotions in place as Conan sipped his cocoa, his eyes still on the book.

Over the past year, Conan had come to trust her, fully and completely. He was her salvation, her Eden, her source of comfort and confidence. If it weren't for Edogawa Conan, if it weren't for Kudo Shinichi, Haibara Ai would have died long before this. As time went on, as the cases continued, they have developed a link, an understanding between each other. Their relationship required utter trust. And now she broke the rules.

Perhaps he shouldn't have trusted her.

Within minutes, Conan dropped the book and yawned.

"I should leave now," Haibara rose from her seat, her own cup untouched. "And you should get some sleep. You look tired."

Conan sank into the couch, no longer able to keep his eyes open. He felt drowsy all of a sudden. His brain welcomed the darkness of the dream world.

In the dimness of his mind, he hazily heard Haibara say "good-bye, Kudo-kun" just before he completely faded away.

Haibara started at the still figure coldly. Conan's chest rose up and sank back down with each breath. Strangely, she felt no remorse for what she had done. In fact, everything passed by like a fog, blurry, obscure, and dim. With her emotions blockaded to the deepest realm of her mind, Haibara set to work.

First she took away Conan's book and slipped it into her own book bag, and then she stuck one of the manga books she brought into Conan's hand. Next she took both their cups to the upstairs' kitchen. After she emptied and cleaned out Conan's cup, she dumped half of her untouched beverage into Conan's mug and the rest into the sink. She then proceeded to clean out her own cup, dried it, and placed it back on Mouri Kogoro's desk. As for Conan's, she put it on the coffee table.

For the final touches, she took off Conan's glasses and hid it away in her jacket pocket. While she was upstairs, she went to the room Conan shared with Kogoro and confiscated his bowtie, watch, and all the tracking devices Agasa invented for him.

After everything was stored away in her bag, Haibara went to check on the sleeping boy one last time. She wrapped the blankets around him, smoothed out his hair, and left without looking back.

As her sneakers crunched in the still white snow, Haibara laughed silently and bitterly. She had finally done her job: She erased Kudo Shinichi.

That was the first chapter. Review please and tell me if you'd like a second chapter (it's already written, but I need to type it up).

Next Chapter:

1) Heiji comes into the scene.

2) Kogoro turns serious.

Any questions? Review or email me. I'd be happy to answer them. Oh, and if necessary, tell me, and I'll put up translations to the Japanese vocabularies. Props to whoever knows the origin of my penname.