Disclaimer: I don't own Detective Conan.

Chapter 1

Damn. You'd think that Akira Nobumoto was as ordinary as they get from his character, someone who liked his kill fast and simple, no inadequate niceties required.

Certainly not someone so elaborate as to carry both a shotgun and a tranquilizer on his person.

Definitely not someone so elaborate as to drug the body of a child with ten tranquilizer needles in one fell swoop. Wait a minute . . .

Ten tranquilizers? No, not elaborate; the guy was simply paranoid.

Conan's vision blurred, and he fell to his knees, his eyes never leaving the older man's retreating form. The bastard was getting away, and fast. Someone had to stop him, but Conan knew he couldn't. Chloroform in quantities large enough to knock out an elephant was coursing through his veins, and there was nothing he could do. For the first time in his life, Shinichi Kudo was helpless.

Helpless, that is, until the drug took effect and wrapped him in darkness, stripping him of all rational thought, hurling him headlong into a whirlwind of confusion, and then hauling him out right as the shock began to subside, leaving his mind reeling from the momentum, wondering where his body was.

And the feverish dreams came and thrived on the most guarded chambers of the past...

The thoughts sifted themselves in and out of Conan's drugged mind in a fraction of a second before the small body fell onto the cold, uncompromising concrete. For the first time in a long time, he was alone.

And the road grows long and ancient,

But I look at the horizon, and the fading sunset,

To see what I'll become.

I walk back into myself,

To the mouth of the great river

That is the past,

And I wonder why,

Out of all the possibilities,

Why things are the way they are,

Why I am the way I am.

And I hate all of it.

I live within myself,

As he greets this world

With a boy's hands and a man's eyes,

Searching for things to enlighten his heart,

Even though he already has the most important one

With him always,

Holding his hands like a harbor,

Wearing the mask that I wear,

To shield the world

From the same wounds

Because maybe the world can't go through what we go through

Every single day.

How I want to live again!

To bring justice to the dead,

With my own voice, my own identity...

I want my own identity.

I want to kill the shadows that devour me,

And live in the light that I've lost.

To live again,

To taste the world with my fingers,

And not his.

I want to be me again.

I want to live like I've never lived before.

To see what can't be seen.

To touch what can't be touched.

To feel what can't be felt.

And I wonder,

If a second chance at life

Is all it's cracked up to be . . .

And I fear that I am fading.

And the darkness was fading, and he was afraid of what it drew aside to reveal. He feared he would wake up, and then he knew that he wouldn't. Not when he had been tranquilized as if he was a zombie...

It looked and felt like spring. Trees stood sentinel to the Kudo house, the emerald that colored their foliage matched only by the fluffy carpet at their feet, which mostly consisted of overgrown weeds. The sheer amount of them wasn't surprising when one considered at what state the house must've been – it had been empty for four years, up until today. Nevertheless, even in its state of neglect, the sun beat a kind light on the picture, casting it all in a beauty that went unnoticed, like all the efforts of a striving soul and all the emotions behind a mask. (And the sole occupant of this picture sure knew a heck of a lot about masks.)

And, in the center of it all, someone had come back from America, after four years of wondering what the heck he was doing.

"Where do you think you're going, young man?" Hands planted firmly on her hips, Yukiko Kudo glared at Shinichi from her station on the front steps.

"Out." His steps neither slowed nor stopped.

She sighed. "Well, wherever 'out' is, it's going to have to wait. Your things aren't going to unpack themselves, you know.

He continued to hold his pace as he headed for the iron gates and the unexplored streets of beyond. "I'll do it later."

Shinichi grinned as he caught wind of his mother grumbling to herself about having turned nagging housewife before she was even forty. He heard the sound of the front doors closing, and then he was alone with his thoughts.

He lengthened his stride, finally breaking into an all-out run, looking over the Tokyo streets as if for the first time. He had never remembered watching everything so closely before . . . These things that he had known for all his life save for the last four years, but seemed so surprisingly, crisp-morningly new at the same time. It had been four years that were forever. He had forgotten the way to his own house, couldn't even recognize some of the streets outside the taxicab window, but he knew the way to her. You could said that it was something akin to instinct - that was the only plausible reason that he could come up with. But then again, screw reason. He needed only one reason for coming halfway across the planet, and he was going to it.

Ran up the stairs, gave himself time to catch his breath. Rang the doorbell, and just as he had somehow known would happen, it was Ran that opened the door. Finally, after having waited so damn long . . .

The eyes that he had missed so much widened, but she said nothing. They stared at each other, both finding themselves speechless. Ran found her voice first.

"So."

Shinichi's own voice wasn't too long in coming. "So."

"We've ordered pizza. Hope you're okay with pepperoni?"

He grinned. "Gee, thanks. I've finally gotten out of America and the first thing I get is pizza."

Shinichi cast an eye over the house from his vantage point at the table. Nothing much had changed at the Mouris' as far as his detective's eye could tell. Ran's words only fed him further proof in the matter.

"Dad's out again." She rolled her eyes. "Drinking."

Yep. Good ole Mouri would never change. Ran, however, was a different matter. She had gotten better at cooking, better at karate, better at keeping her temper since Shinichi hadn't been there to incite it, and –

And, observed Shinichi, she had gotten even prettier.

Ran was chatting away about what had happened during his absence - how the police were getting along without their quote-unquote "savior", how their – his former - classmates were doing, how everyone missed him -

" - but did you miss me, Ran?" Shinichi interrupted, grinning.

She stopped abruptly, stared at him, then lowered her head and collected both their empty plates from the table and headed back to the kitchen, probably to hide her expression. She came back with a false smile on her lips. "America's been spoiling you, Shinichi. Ask too many personal questions and you - " her fist slammed onto the table in emphasis - "are going to hurt in a dozen different places. Need I elaborate?"

He shook his head fervently. "No'm."

It didn't matter how even-tempered she had become. Some things simply couldn't be pushed when one of them was reluctant. And perhaps they were better that way.

It was strange how lightning easy he reverted back to his until-recently forsaken Japanese life. Coming out of Ran's house, he came to a jolting recognition and acknowledgement of the streets, store-fronts and houses that he swore he couldn't remember an hour prior, coming out of the Kudo residence. It just went to show that, out of the two houses, which he really considered his home . . .

Home is where the heart is, and the heart is where your loved ones are – but what happens when the people you love lived separately, and you were forced to choose between them?

Once upon a time, Shinichi Kudo, age thirteen, had been forced to make a decision - not the sort of crap that, once decided on, the maker would forget the next day. His parents were going to move to America, wanted him to go with them, but at the same time knew how hard it'd be for him to leave the life he'd always known . . . not to mention certain people he'd always known. So they left the decision to him, let him choose where he'd be better off, and more importantly, with whom he'd be better off. It was the sort of decision that, once made, the maker would ponder over for weeks, wondering if what he chose was right, wondering what might have been if he had taken the other course.

Once upon a time, Shinichi Kudo left Japan with his parents for America. And he had wondered about his decision ever since. What might have happened if he had stayed. If he had made the right choice. If there was a right choice to begin with. Of course, that didn't matter. He had already chosen, if somewhat rashly. At the time when he had conceded, all he wanted to do was get away from everyone . . . especially Ran. It was but one reason, but it was reason enough.

And now, he had returned because of the same person.

a/n: So by now I guess it's obvious why it's only somewhat AU. This, like my other DC fic, was something I had written a looong time ago, so do forgive if any of it seems immature. Coming up next: mysteries, parks, and ice cream! And who doesn't like ice cream? Rawr.

And if you're confused by this chapter...good. It'll get clearer later on, I hope.

By the way, Southpaw, good catch. :) Appreciate it.