DISCLAIMER: Characters not mine. All Gosho's. Story mine. All mine.

This is a short file, sorry, next one will be much longer.

I use the Japanese honorifics because there just isn't any English equivalents! Hope this file steadies things a bit after a head-spinning first file. Thanks for all your comments, and additional feedback will be hugged, squeezed, and called George.

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Veritas

File 2: The White Knight

Edogawa Conan shuffled slowly down the sidewalk, his shoulders slumped under the straps of his backpack. He was on his way home from school later than usual, and for once walked without Ran beside him.

He was grateful for the solitude. During this one time, this one brief while, he could think properly without having to be fear that his thoughts, not common in a seven-year-old, would be revealed in his expression. He could almost act his age.

But he wasn't thinking of that now. His mind was furiously running through, like snatches of videotape, bits of what had happened only the night before, to be paused and examined, or rewound and replayed. After giving him the temporary cure for APTX-4869, Vermouth had sauntered out of the park and into the night with a careless salute and a "Good luck, cool guy." He had been so dumbfounded that it had never occurred to him until later to find out how she had managed to gain entry and exit to the closed theme park to begin with. He had simply walked back to Professor Agasa's in a daze -- only to be confronted by Ai the moment he stepped through the door.

"I'm surprised to see you alive." Her cool voice had come from the kitchen, and he had found her there, sitting on a stool at the table. Conan would have thought she hadn't cared for his safety at all, but he saw the feet of the usually self-composed woman kicking at the rungs of her stool.

"Ai!" the Professor had admonished, after shutting the door behind Conan. "What a thing to say."

"It's true." Haibara had then hopped off the stool, coming to stand in front of the other two. "I can assume verification that we have been finally found out?"

"You're calm about it," Conan had remarked defensively.

"I've had all evening to imagine the Organization coming down on this place and killing both the Professor and myself," she had shot back, "so I've had time to resign myself to it."

Conan had then climbed into a kitchen chair, fixing a tired glare on her. "Sorry to disappoint you."

"Shinichi," the Professor had said anxiously, "are you all right?"

"Never been better," he had muttered.

"They're closing in on us. They've found us, and now they're going to kill us and all who know." Ai's clinical observations were marred only by the faint note of fear in her voice. "We're dead."

"Will you shut up? You're not helping!"

"I'm giving you the facts," she had retorted. "They'll play games with you first, then they'll destroy you. I'm telling you the truth, and the truth is that no one has ever lived once they decided to kill them." Her face was pale.

Truth, Conan had remembered, feeling startled. Ran's teacher -- no, Vermouth -- had questioned the very existence of truth only an hour before. It made him feel ill, knowing that Vermouth was in such close proximity with Ran almost every day.

"You're right," he had said then, "they are playing games. But this time, I'll win."

Haibara had snorted in disbelief. "We're children now, Kudo, or have you forgotten already?"

"Not for long." And then, finally, he had pushed across the table in her direction, the little vial that held the capsule capable of changing everything. "That woman, the one you called Vermouth, she gave this to me."

"It's a pill." Haibara had stared at the pale capsule for a brief moment. "They can't expect you to take poison?"

Professor Agasa had come for a closer look, peering over his young charge, and Conan had shrugged. "She said it was a cure for ATPX-4869," he had said, his voice steady.

"Shinichi!" Agasa had exclaimed. "A cure? You can return to your real body!"

Ai's eyes had widened considerably. "The cure?" she had breathed. "But I haven't even -- How -- why would she give -- unless..."

"Yeah." Conan had not met her eyes. "But it's not what you think either. It's only temporary, like the one you developed, but this one lasts for seven days rather than twenty-four hours."

"And let me guess," Ai's tone had been deadpan, "you're going to imbibe an untested pill that could very well be poison because you'd theoretically have six more days to try and get yourself killed rather than the twenty-four hours you'd have using my own formula."

Conan had looked at her helplessly. "Well... yes. I mean, probably."

"Kudo, are you out of your mind?" she had snapped.

"What else can I do?" he had fired back. "This body -- Conan's body -- it's too small for something like this! For anything!"

"You can use your head a little, to start."

"Use my --" Conan had started abruptly, staring at her intensely. "Use my head!" he had exclaimed triumphantly. "You're right, Haibara, I should, and I'm an idiot for not seeing it sooner."

"Seeing what sooner?" Agasa had asked perplexedly, setting himself heavily into a chair. "Stop being melodramatic, Shinichi, and just tell us."

"That woman told me that you, Haibara, had yet to formulate this antidote. That doesn't make sense, does it," Conan had mused, eyes bright behind his glasses, "not at all. Because if she knows as much as she insinuates that she does, then it should be blindingly obvious that you've already developed one, it just has a shorter time span of effectiveness than hers. So what's she giving it to me for, when it shouldn't make a difference?"

Ai had then raised the pill for closer inspection, then began to leave the kitchen, the pill still raised to her eyes.

"Where are you going?" Conan had asked tensely. The idea of that all-important capsule being out of his sight was off-putting.

She had paused in the doorway. "I'm not going to just stand here talking about it. I'm going to test it, obviously." She had scrutinized Conan for a moment then said, "I'm not going to destroy it, but I'm not going to let you take it and possibly kill yourself when right now it's necessary for you to be alive. By late tomorrow I'll know what this is. I'll let you know then." And with a brief nod to the Professor, Ai had vanished into the lab.

And then Agasa had packed him off to sleep in a guest room, and then to school with the Detective Boys the next day. Today.

Without Haibara, Conan reminded himself. He slowly climbed the steps to the apartment. She was probably still in the lab.

He paused outside the door of the Mouri Detective Agency, listening to the voices inside, particularly Ran's. He changed his expression from grave and tired to innocent and exuberant easily, and took a deep breath. All he had to do was remember that he spent all night at Professor Agasa's to help test out a new invention (that failed), and school was great. What did they do in school today anyway? He never paid attention, not like it mattered.

And he opened the door with a shout of "I'm home, Ran-neechan!" only to freeze in the doorway.

Heiji Hattori was sitting on the living room sofa, looking as if he wanted to punch a hole in someone. Ran was bustling around in the small kitchen making tea, a worried expression on her face. And Kogoro was sitting on the loveseat opposite Heiji silently.

"Hattori?" Conan slipped, then quickly amended his error with an innocent, "I mean, Heiji-niichan? I didn't know you were visiting today."

"Not visiting today, sorry, kid." Heiji was furious and worried. But then he shot Conan, for a fraction of a second, a brief glance.

"Hattori-kun came to tell us something." Ran took Conan aside, then went back to putting teacups on a tray, her confusion audible. "He wanted to wait, though, until you came home."

Idiot, Conan wanted to tell him. She's already suspicious enough as it is. "What's wrong, Heiji-niichan?"

Heiji rose from the sofa, hands fisted. "I came to tell you," he flatly. He was looking at Kogoro, but Conan knew Heiji was addressing him. "Kazuha's missing. And I don't know where she could be."

And for a moment the only sounds in the room were the sounds of breaking china as Ran dropped a teacup on the floor, and the flutter of paper as Heiji dropped a note on the coffee table.

After a stunned pause, Kogoro picked up the slip and read aloud, "Check. White Knight to move."

~ End File 2 ~

Began: June 18, 2002

Completed: June 26, 2002