Case 2 – The Antidote

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"There was no trace of him. He wasn't even there. People are saying Mouri Kogoro was at a party that night. He didn't take the bait."

"But that thief did. Figures I'd end up doing that fool Snake's job for him."

"…He escaped, sir. He's still out there, and it seems he's stealing more jewels than ever."

"Tch. Not my problem. Just get everything set for your transfer. We'll be keeping a closer eye on that detective from now on."

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The first thing Conan did once he'd been released from the hospital and was able to escape Ran's fussing was go to Agasa's house. He found Haibara working in the lab and walked right up to her, face set with determined purpose, and held the flash drive out. She stared at it for a long time before looking back into his eyes.

"Kudou-kun… What–?"

"It's a complete analysis and breakdown of Apoptoxin 4869."

She didn't take it from him. For too long, she didn't say or do anything at all, and Conan thrust the flash drive forward again in emphasis. "What's wrong with you, Haibara? This is everything we've been missing. Everything you need to make a permanent antidote, right?"

Haibara reached out slowly and took the drive. "Listen," she said. "You know this isn't a guarantee, right? I'm not even one hundred percent sure the program Agasa-hakase wrote to get around the Organization's encryptions is still going to apply. We could lose everything again if they changed it."

"I don't care. It's the closest we've been in ages. We're not going to get anywhere if we don't even try."

"…And if this is a trap?" She met his eyes, her fist clenched around the drive. "How did you even get a hold of this?"

"KID stole it from–"

"Kaitou KID?" Haibara spat, incredulous. "You got this from the Kaitou KID? Are you completely stupid? He could be working with them!"

"You're being paranoid," Conan scoffed. "He said he wanted to help–"

Haibara snorted out an indelicate laugh. "I can't believe how naïve you are. He's a criminal, Kudou-kun. And you know he's involved with them. And his disguise abilities…" She thought back to the incident aboard the mystery train with an involuntary shudder. "They're just like Vermouth's. What if he learned from her? Or taught her?" She looked down at the flash drive. "This is too risky. We can't use this–"

"What the hell are you saying?" Conan demanded. "You can't be serious! Yeah, it's a risk, but so what?"

"So I'm trying to stay alive," Haibara said. "This thing could have a tracer program on it that could lead them right to us. I'm not going to–"

"Well if it does then it's too late, because I already loaded it on Agasa-hakase's computer to check it out," Conan said, hoping the response – the lie – had not been too quick. "So you may as well get to work if you want to fix what you did before we die."

Haibara's eyes flashed with anger, but at the same time her face had gone pale. She slammed the drive onto the desk with a sharp clack and jumped down from the chair. "Why are you so obsessed with changing back?!" she shouted at him. "It's not like Mouri-san is waiting for you anymore. She moved on, remember?" A vindictive part of her had meant that to be a low blow – an eye for an eye after the Conan had had the gall to bring up her guilt over turning her parents' miracle drug into a poison – but Conan hardly blinked. He'd struggled with Ran's decision at first, but ultimately couldn't blame her, and had mostly found relief in it. Haibara just pushed ahead, angrier than ever. "Why don't you start looking at this as a good thing?" she demanded. "Do you know how many people would love to be in your position; would kill to be in your position? To have a chance to start over?"

"You can't decide that for me. I don't want this."

"Then I guess you shouldn't have gone sticking your nose where it doesn't belong. Even if this is a full breakdown of the poison, a permanent antidote might not even be possible. But if it is, go ahead and take it. You want to die that badly, be my guest. Just don't drag me down with you." She turned away, hopping back up onto the computer chair and uncapping the flash drive to jam it into a port on her computer.

Conan just rolled his eyes and stalked out of the room. He stopped only a moment on his way out of the house to ask Agasa to tell Ran that was he was staying the night, not bothering to explain, before he headed over to the Kudou manor to spend the night alone.

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In the days that followed, Conan spent as much time as he could just sitting silently in the lab while Haibara worked. He was slumped on a stool, arms crossed over the counter with his chin resting on top of them, bored out of his mind, when she suddenly spoke.

"Even you have to admit it's suspicious."

Conan sat up. "What?"

"This flash drive," Haibara said. She was still staring at her computer screen, a hand on the mouse and another at the keys as she continued to work. "It's exactly what I need to continue my research. How much did you tell KID about our situation? How did he know to give you this?"

Conan just shrugged, dropping his chin onto his arms again and quelling his irritation to something more like a sulk. She could at least admit I was right and KID wasn't working with them. Instead he just said, "KID couldn't have gotten to where he is today if he didn't know how to do a little reconnaissance."

"But why?" Haibara insisted, finally spinning her chair around to look at him. "He didn't have any reason to do that reconnaissance."

"Why?" Conan repeated, head coming up again with interest. I never really thought… It's KID. He always… helps. He paused then shook the thought away. "How should I know?" he replied, sinking back down onto the counter again.

Haibara watched him for a few seconds more, then silently returned to her work.

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It was weeks before Haibara managed a formula she was willing to let him try.

"Obviously it hasn't been tested," she warned over the phone. It was the middle of the night, and Conan had crept out into the stairwell outside the detective agency to take her call. "I can't guarantee your safety."

"That's fine," he said, keeping his voice low. "We can test it on me. Then if it works we'll know it's safe for you to try it."

There was a pause. "Kudou-kun, I'm not taking it."

Conan was silent, taken a little by surprise. Really, he'd just assumed she'd do it once it came down to this. Once they had a viable solution in their hands. She'd made her arguments against it, but he could never bring himself to believe that anyone with a choice could actually want this. He just couldn't imagine that.

"There's no reason for me to take it," she went on. "It's safer for me to stay like this – for a lot of reasons – and I'm not losing anything because I've got nothing left to lose." Her explanation was frank, practical and clipped. Conan closed his eyes.

"Right… Look, Haibara… I'm sorry about before–"

"Don't worry about it," she said, brushing him off. "Now, I'm going to insist that you take it here. I'm going to want to keep an eye on you, just in case. Understand?"

"Yeah, of course."

.

It took an enormous amount of willpower for Conan not to just drop everything and run to take the antidote, but he knew there was a proper way to do this. "Conan" had become a big part of Ran's life as well as the Junior Detective League's, and just up and disappearing would be a pretty bad move. He'd already seen what that could do to the people left behind and he didn't want to cause that a second time.

It was arranged that Conan would finally be going abroad to be with his parents, and, to be safe, he allowed an extra week after that (during which Conan laid low at Agasa's house) before he would take the antidote and Kudou Shinichi would return, hoping the exchange would not be too obvious. If he'd had his choice, he would have taken the antidote the moment Conan had officially left and spent that week in hiding but at least as himself, but he had given in to Haibara's reasoning that the antidote could still go wrong. It would draw unnecessary suspicion if Kudou Shinichi had to "return" to be hospitalized (or buried, Haibara had helpfully pointed out) the same night Conan had left.

When the time finally, finally arrived, Conan was nearly consumed with nervous excitement. He'd brought clothes that would fit his teenage body over from his house the same night he'd moved out of the Mouris' place, too excited to wait, and gathered them together to meet Haibara outside the bathroom. She placed a single pill into his hand and nodded toward the open door.

"I know how much it hurts. I'll wait right out here. Don't lock the door."

Conan nodded. "Thank you, Haibara. Really."

"Try saying that again after we're sure it worked." Her face was pinched and her arms were folded tightly in front of her, much more tense than the tone of her words let on.

He gave her a reassuring smile but didn't say anything more, heading into the bathroom and closing the door gently behind him.

Conan tossed the extra set of clothes onto the floor and threw the pill into his mouth, swallowing it without a second thought. He had already been shaking slightly from nerves and anticipation and he leaned his back against the door, trying to calm down.

The fever came over him in a matter of minutes and escalated with impossible speed until his brain seemed filled with white heat so intense that his whole body shivered with it. Sweat beaded on his skin and he quickly began shedding the clothes he'd been too eager to discard beforehand like he should have.

He staggered when the first familiar pulse struck, gasping and clutching at his chest even as his limbs began to ache. By the time the second pulse came it was already too much and he crumpled to the floor, curling in on himself as tightly as he could manage, as if he could somehow hold himself together while the antidote ripped him apart.

Even as the aches turned to biting pain, he wondered at the sharpness and speed of it all and hoped that this variation was a sign – a sign that this time would be different. That this time he could finally really stay himself and not turn back because he never wanted to go back, he refused to go back, he absolutely could not go back after coming this close to being himself again, not ever–

Shinichi screamed as he felt the change take over, forcing ten years of growth into ten seconds of blinding white agony, and his heart stuttered painfully in protest. He didn't even have time to acknowledge the result. He passed out, curled up on the floor, welcoming the relief of quiet darkness.

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Haibara stood with her back pressed to the door, eyes on her watch, listening stoically to the sounds of Conan's… of Shinichi's struggles. It was only a handful of minutes later that she heard him scream, but still she did not react, though she wondered a little at how quickly he'd been driven to that. But then it was silent. Too soon.

"Kudou-kun?" she called tentatively through the door. No response. "…Kudou-kun!" She pounded her tiny fist against the wood, pausing just a moment longer before reaching up for the handle and shoving the door open. Shinichi – the actual, teenaged Kudou Shinichi – was lying on the floor, naked and curled tightly in on himself, pale and thin and out cold. She stopped short in the doorway, shocked at the speed of the transformation, and had to shake herself to get her feet to move.

She rushed to his side and dove to her knees on the cold tiles. "Kudou-kun," she almost growled, thrusting a hand against his neck and going cold when she did not immediately find a pulse. Taking a deep breath, she tried to still herself, concentrating as she shifted her fingers until she felt a faint throb beneath his fevered skin. "Kudou-kun…" she whispered, clinging to mostly unfounded anger to keep fear from closing in. "Professor!" she shouted over her shoulder at the open door. "Call an ambulance!"

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The first thing Shinichi did after opening his eyes was roll them. The hospital. Again. Then he heard a quiet gasp and Ran's voice, startlingly close beside him.

"Shinichi!"

"Ran-neechan?" he murmured and his voice sounded incredibly strange to his own ears. He turned his head slowly toward her and saw her cheeks color.

"Sh-Shinichi?" she repeated, nervous now.

Somewhere in Shinichi's mind it abruptly clicked: She was saying his name. His name. Not Conan's. He managed to prop himself up on an elbow and she came up a little out of her chair.

"Are you feeling all right?" she asked, forgetting what she'd thought she'd heard, losing it somewhere in her concern. "You should lie down; I'll get the doctor." She rushed from the room before he could respond.

Shinichi looked down at himself, but it didn't really sink in that this was happening. A small, nervous laugh escaped him. He wasn't quite able to believe it, and he hoped desperately that he would not wake up and find that this was a dream. Again. His mind flinched away from that possibility and he glanced around the room instead, wondering why exactly he was in a hospital. He certainly felt okay even as he pushed himself up to sit back against the pillows.

Ran returned, dragging the doctor behind her and depositing him at Shinichi's bedside before hurrying back to the door. "I'll let Agasa-hakase and everyone know you're awake," she said and added, pausing at the door and smiling with tears in her eyes, "It's good to have you back, Shinichi."

Shinichi inwardly cringed and suddenly wondered how long he'd been there – and what story Haibara and the professor had come up with.

The doctor set down Shinichi's chart and fit a blood pressure cuff onto his arm and Shinichi stayed quiet until he was finished, slipping it off again with a satisfied nod.

"How long have I been here?" he asked as the doctor made a quick notation on the clipboard.

The doctor's eyes flicked over the chart. "Going on two days," he answered, and he said it casually but Shinichi could tell he was watching him closely and with some degree of concern.

"…What happened?" Shinichi tried cautiously.

"Someone, your neighbor I think, found you lying in the street in front of your house. Didn't know how you got there. …You don't remember?"

Shinichi hesitated but decided that no was probably the safest answer for now and shook his head. The doctor sighed.

"Well, you were pretty worn down, but no injuries and you seem to be doing just fine now. The memory loss is a concern though, so I'd like for you to stay overnight to be safe."

"That's fine," Shinichi agreed, seeing no reason not to. It would probably be best to make sure the antidote didn't have any side effects anyway.

The doctor left as Ran, Agasa, Sonoko, and Haibara all piled back into the room with far more snarky comments than warm welcome backs, and Shinichi relaxed just a little because maybe, just maybe, this time was for real.