Author's Notes: o.O First fanfic? Anyway, this is my first attempt at writing a DC fanfic... (with the keyword being 'attempt' o.O)

Disclaimer: I do not own Detective Conan. All copyrights go to Gosho Aoyama. All events mentioned in this story are false. Any other materials which are copyrighted belong to their respective owners. And I own nothing, except for the mere idea of this story. *coughcough*

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N u k e g a r a

[Chapter One: Waiting]

A cold, dark day. Dark grey clouds hung overhead, clouds which spread across the whole sky, relieving it of its cerulean-blueness and replacing it with white, grey, black, and all shades in between. A cold bitter wind blew, amongst the white fog in the air, the mistiness, mysteriousness. The air was cold, frosty, icy, wintry…

"Will she really?"

It was that little girl, with the strawberry-blonde hair, that had spoken; that girl whose name was Ai, Haibara Ai, that girl who seemed to know more than she should have, who seemed more mature than even an adult, whose eyes seem to have seen more than a seven-year-old's should. Waiting for an answer, she tucked her hair behind her ear, and stared at the boy in front of her.

He was the great Kudo Shinichi, but was currently known as Edogawa Conan. (As you can guess, it would be kind of inconvenient, with men from the Black Organisation hunting him down and everything. Being trapped in a child's body will further limit escape, as was the same with Haibara Ai.)

And although the great Kudo Shinichi was, well, great, he wasn't such an expert at the topic of feelings and emotions, as opposed to his absolute genius in deduction and detective work.

Jolting back to the question at hand, ("Will she really?") he frowned, and bit his lip in concentration. Finally, he said,

"Well, I had supposed that she would. But I don't actually expect her to; I mean, I would like her to, but I won't expect her too."

The 'her' in question was another girl, Mori Ran. She was the childhood friend, the best friend, of Kudo Shinichi; and was currently a seventeen-year-old student at Teitan Secondary. A cheerful girl with smiling blue eyes and long dark-brown hair, she was very pretty, and the subject of Shinichi's affections, since, well, since forever, practically.

She did like him back, but will she wait forever for him?

That was the question, the question that Haibara Ai had been imposing on Edogawa Conan.

"She can't wait forever, you know. Every time you get into contact with her, you will only ignite her hopes more… that you'll come back soon, the real you, that she'll see you again, soon." She said, quietly.

"And won't she?" Conan demanded.

"I can't promise that I can make the antidote any time soon," Ai sighed. "And you know that. You can't keep on giving her false hopes. It wouldn't be fair on her."

"What would you know?!" Conan burst out. "What would you know, about love, about Ran, about all this?! It's all tangled up, because of… because of…"

Because of you.

The unspoken words hung in the air, so much like a dark grey cloud in the sky, refusing the go away, dissipate. The tension was so thick. His voice faded away, as he realized what he'd said… he'd said the wrong thing, by far.

"Haibara…" he faltered. "I didn't mean that, you know…" he tried to sound as sincere as possible. Which he was. But you never know with her; you can't guess her reaction to anything…

"Don't worry about that." The voice betrayed its words; it didn't seem to fit. Her voice was cold, as cold as the bitter wind, icy cold, biting. "It seems like you have other, more important things, to worry about, anyway." She added. "Although, you still seem to have time to delve into my personal life, right?"

"Though… I had Akemi…"he could hear her whisper. "And it was because of you, that she didn't live."

Now there was no emotion whatsoever in her voice, the mask slipped back into place. "And, after all, after all we've been through, and if we lived… I wasn't planning for you to remember me, anyway."

"What… what do you mean?" Conan asked, lips dry, mouth dry, afraid of the answer that he knows he's going to dread. That he was already dreading…

"What I mean is," Haibara Ai stated, "What I mean is, I don't mind, I don't care, if you choose to hate me now. You were never going to remember me, anyway."

This wasn't, didn't remotely seem like, one of the normal conversations he's had with her; this was more serious, even more cold, than her normal self. She wasn't a joyful, super-happy girl to begin with, and even at her best she had never come near; but she had never spoken to him like this; never spoken to him in a killer-to-prey exchange style. Even when she first met him, that night, her tone had been teasing, her smirk imminent, clearly amused at his shock, his horror, his fear.

But… she'd never actually been at her utmost cold, spoken to him as she did now. It was a killer-to-prey exchange… Because she never actually hated him… but she didn't know if she did now. She just didn't know.

And that's why…

"I was going to include an amnesia-inducing ingredient into your antidote," she informed him. "And it seems like I was right to think so. Because clearly you seem much better off forgetting you ever knew me, ever knew Haibara Ai, ever knew Sherry, ever knew Miyano Shiho. Yes, it's much better that you don't know what those names mean."

"H-haibara…" he stared at her.

She dropped her cool façade, and a smirk graced her pale face "And that was also why," she concluded. "That was also why… I never told you that… I've met your mother before, as Miyano Shiho."

As she slowly walked off and disappeared into the distance, Edogawa Conan frowned to himself and wondered what her words meant.

~fin~ END CHAPTER TWO ANSWERS ~fin~

~TBC~