Yay, finally got another chapter done, sorry it took so long, I have no excuse -not that you would believe them anyway if I did have one.

This chapter was written together with Syrus07 like the last one was, we'll probably be mostly doing it like that from now on so I hope you don't mind the fact that it turns out super dialogue driven when we do it this way.

I hope you enjoy, and please review, because if you do it'll take me less time to write the chapters (probably).


"So when you 'died' eight years ago you actually drank some weird tears from a rock and became immortal and it also made you younger and messed with your memories?" Aoko summarized after Kaito explained everything, she was giving Kaito her best 'you expect me to actually believe that' look.

"Yup, that sounds about right," Kaito confirmed with his signature smile.

Aoko sighed, "It sounds ridiculous."

Kaito smiled, "But it's true, I really am an old man~"

"Your forty how can you call yourself an old man?" Nakamori replied with a sigh.

"'Cause I'm still used to thinking like a teenager. I feel about eighteen so forty seems pretty old~" Kaito said, and it was true, he really couldn't bring himself to think of himself as being a forty year old despite knowing he was.

The officer muttered mostly to himself, "My childhood friend is a child..."

"Yes, I am," Kaito declared proudly, "And there really isn't anything you can do to change that."

"Well there always is the antidote," Conan muttered, quietly enough that only Kaito would have heard him.

"That antidote would fix your problem, Who knows if it can fix mine or not," The magician whispered back. It's not like he really wanted to be an adult again anyway, at least not at the moment. Who would choose being an adult and growing old over practical eternal youth?

Scowling the not-child replied, still whispering, "My 'problem' is based on your 'problem'."

Kaito wasn't really sure what to say to that. 'Sorry' maybe, after all if he had retained his memories after becoming 'Kaito' then he would have at least been able to keep Pandora out of the hands of that evil organization, then they wouldn't have ever been able to make that stupid poison and 'Shinichi' wouldn't have gotten involved. Not wanting to really think about what would have happened Kaito just remained silent.

Conan realized that Kaito was taking a while to answer so he shrugged, "Well it's worth a shot."

"It's not like it can kill me," Kaito whispered sarcastically.

"Well duh it can't kill you, you're technically immortal," Conan whispered, rolling his eyes.

"Enough with the whispering," Nakamori said suddenly, "Since when have you two been so clique-y. Wasn't Edogawa-kun known as 'the Kid killer'?"

"I have my reasons...," Conan said as if that would be answer enough, before the older man had the chance to ask what reasons he might have Conan added, "and aren't you the guy that's normally obsessed with landing Kid in jail?"

"Um... well... that is..."

Kaito reached up and put his arm around the older looking man's shoulder, his usual grin creeping onto his face, "You just don't want to send your best bud to jail, right?"

"Try acting your age for once," Nakamori replied as he removed Kaito's arm from his shoulder as though it were a thorny plant.

"Do I have to?" Kaito whined, giving the officer his best 'I'm totally innocent' expression.

"The world would be better off if you did."

Kaito raised an eyebrow, "So even though I'm -technically- still in High school, you want me to go back to having a respectable job -though I'm keeping my side job- and acting like a husband to my wife?"

Nakamori opened his mouth to agree immediately, but then he stopped and thought about it for a moment. Finally realizing just how strange it would be to see a teenager acting like a forty year old married man.

"Maybe it's better that you're acting childish..."

Knowing that he had once again beaten the officer Kaito grinned, "Thank you~"

"Can you at least act a little more..." Nakamori started but decided to change his wording, "Less annoying?"

"You didn't find it annoying in high school when you helped me prank," Kaito replied without missing a beat.

The officer flinched. Aoko didn't even try to hide the shock on her face as she reached for a mop that was conveniently sitting nearby; naturally she wasn't very happy with the idea that her father would have helped Kai- Toichi prank back when they were in school, especially not if their pranks were anything like the pranks Kaito usually did.

"It isn't what it sounds like, I swear!" Nakamori said, knowing all to well what his daughter was capable of doing with a mop.

"Tou-san..." Aoko started, raising the mop into the perfect swinging stance.

"Yeah... I remember that you always helped me pull pranks in Highschool all the time, you were practically my assistant back then..." Kaito continued, happy that he wasn't going to be the one on the receiving end of the mop"Peeking in the girls locker room, gluing students to their desks, dying the teacher's hair like a rainbow..."

"Why does he have to remember that?" He muttered to himself before attempting to reply nonchalantly, "You must be mistaken..."

"No I remember very clearly," The magician assured, smiling as a wave of nostalgia hit him.

"I-i thought you couldn't trust your memory," Nakamori stuttered in his surprise.

"No way I could forget that!" Kaito laughed, "I remembered the second I pranked Hakuba again."

For a moment Nakamori looked annoyed by the prospect of Kaito remember troublesome things, but curiosity won out on his face. He raised an eyebrow, "What did you do?"

"Dyed his hair periwinkle, eyebrows and all," Kaito answered proudly.

"We did that to-" Nakamori snickered, cutting off as Aoko whacked him with her trusty mop. Fearing another whack he attempted to calm her down, "That was back when I was your age..."

"Still!"

"Actually I wonder how Hakuba managed to get his hair back to normal..." Kaito murmured, "It was supposed to last a week..."

"Maybe the color was just to light? Try a darker one next time," with a shrug the older looking man made the suggestion reflexively.

"Stop encouraging him!" Aoko shouted, whacking her father a few more times to get her point across.

"Too late he's already on the dark side," The thief mused. Just the thought of the police officer being 'on the dark side' made a grin stretch across his face.

Upon getting hit by his daughter again Nakamori couldn't help but shout at his old friend, "Stop, she's just hitting me more!"

"She's been hitting me for about six years now," Katio replied without much sympathy, he held his hands up as if to add 'you kinda deserve it'.

Aoko glared, turning to hit Kaito instead as she realized that he was the one that had dragged her father into his mischief in the past and he apparently hadn't had any mop-weilding friends to keep him on the right track back then.

Not long after Aoko had started hitting Kaito they heard a rather loud 'ahem' come from the general vicinity of the floor, upon looking down they saw Conan standing at their feet with all the innocence of a child.

"Oh, right I need to take you home..."

"Yeah, because Ran will... I mean Ran-neechan will kill you if I stay kidnapped much longer," Conan pointed out.

Kaito gulped. If he thought Aoko with a mop was bad then Ran would be a hundred times worse because unlike Aoko she was trained, it definitely didn't seem like a good idea to be pissing off the Kanto Karate Champion.

"Well you did kidnap him, so you deserve whatever punishment his guardians give you," Nakamori shrugged.

"Does he look kidnapped?" Kaito asked, "I mean it's not like I'm asking for ransom or anything. I didn't even tie him up..."

"I guess..."

"Actually it was kind of fun," Conan stated, he instantly wished he hadn't when he saw the satisfied look on Kaito's face. He added, "I mean... Kaito-niichan pretty much made a fool of himself."

Aoko and Nakamori both laughed, the thought of Kaito making a fool of himself was just to much to not laugh at.

The magician pouted, "I did not make a fool of myself!"

Silence.

Kaito sighed and scooped Conan up like a football. As he reached the door he turned, "Well, I've gotta get Conan home, Chikage will be here soon you can wait for her if you want."

"Nah, we should be getting back home anyway..." Nakamori trailed off.

"Suit yourself."

...

"Whats your story?" Conan asked, he didn't need to explain, Kaito knew that he was going to need some kind of background story if he didn't want to tell the complete truth.

"I'm your brother and Edogawa's a fake last name," Kaito responded, "Also Kid is our father, our mother had you go live with the Mouri's to save you from a life of crime."

"Well at least part of it is true..." Conan sighed.

"That's the point," Kaito pointed out confidently, "If she does a search on the name 'Edogawa' the only real results would be stuff that's happened since you became Conan or stuff relating to Edogawa Ranpo, it'll be believable and she won't be able to discover my real identity."

"She's still going to beat you up, I hope you know that," Conan replied dryly without an ounce of sympathy in his tone, in fact he seemed to be looking forward to it.

Kaito gasped in a very loud and over exaggerated fashion, "But it was Otou-san that kidnapped you, not me, I'm the innocent big brother that's bringing you back!"

The small teen's eyes narrowed, "So that's why you're doing it this way..."

"What? Would you rather me go in there as 'Kudo Shinichi'?" Kaito asked with a smirk.

Conan thought about it for a moment. He had been (very) publicly kidnapped by Kaitou Kid, who had claimed to be Conan's father upon kidnapping him, if 'Kudo Shinichi' brought Conan back then Ran might believe that Shinichi himself was Kid -and by extension Conan's father. Regardless of how impossible it all was Conan shivered at the thought.

"No..." Conan said with a gulp, "This is fine."

"Then lets go," The magician stated, once again picking Conan up football style (much to the small detective's protests) as he walked up the stairs of the detective agency that the Mouri's lived in. With just a few seconds of hesitation the thief knocked on the door.

"Coming!" Ran shouted through the door, answering moments latter. Her confusion showed clearly on her face, "Eh? Conan-kun and... Shinichi?"

"I'm not Kudo Shinichi..." Kaito said with a sigh.

"Then you're kid!" She shouted, kicking him with nearly all the strength she could muster in an instant before he had the chance to confirm or deny her acusation, even with his above average reflexes he didn't have the time to dodge and instead took the full force of the attack.

"No... I'm not..." The thief lied, wheezing as he tried -in vain- to catch his breath.

"This is kaito-niichan, he's my... well, Niichan," Conan explained, trying very hard to hide his smile. He knew that it would be hard for Kaito to say much himself after having just been on the reviving end of Ran's karate.

"Oh My God! I'm so sorry!" Ran apologized helping the now ungraceful Kaito get off the ground.

"It's alright," Kaito replied as he seemed to have finally recovered enough to put his poker face back on, "I've been banged around a lot by my friend... she's a mop wielding demon."

The karate champion gave an apologetic smile, "Sorry again... I just thought that since you look so much like Shinichi you must be Kid... since it was Kid that Kidnapped Conan-kun and all..."

"Anyway, Kaito-niichan isn't Kid," Conan stated, glaring daggers at Kaito as if to say 'I'm not lying for you, I'm lying so we won't have to explain that it's possible for someone to look that much younger than their actual age'.

"Yeah, but I'm sorry about Tou-san, he's a nice guy," Kaito added, not even flinching when Conan casual delivered a super-charged kick to his shin, "but he's still a criminal."

"Well it was great seeing you but..." Conan said as he began to close the door, but ran stopped him.

"'Kaito', is it?"

He nodded, "Yes, Edogawa Kaito."

"Come in, it would be great to learn about Conan's family," She said, happily smiling as she completely ignored the fact that Conan couldn't wait for his so-called older brother to leave.

"Kuso..." The teen-turned-child grumbled under his breath, to quiet for Ran to hear and scold him for cursing.

Kaito smiled as he followed Ran through the door, "I'd love to, it'll be nice to see the environment that Conan's been living in all this time."

Ran led the way inside and up the stairs into the main living area of their house. "Tou-san, Conan-kun's back!" She shouted to her father before turning to Kaito, "I'll go make some tea, you can make yourself at home."

As soon as Ran was out of earshot Conan whispered to Kaito, making clear the obvious fact that he was annoyed by the thief's mere presence, "Why are you still here?"

"'Cause it annoys you~" Kaito whispered back with an amused tone.

"Nakamori-keibu is right..." Conan muttered, "You really should try to act a bit more mature. You're more like an annoying brother than father."

Kaito sighed, it's not like he wasn't trying to act a little more like his original self, but it really didn't help that almost everything he could remember was from his first time going through high school. Did anyone really expect him to go from being a class clown type to a mature, responsible adult in a matter of days?

"Can't you let me regain a few more memories before acting like Toichi?"

Of course as luck would have it Ran managed to walk in just as Kaito had asked that so she just so happened to overhear that portion of their conversation. Though whether it was Ran's luck, or Kaito's luck is anyone's guess.

The confusion on Ran's face was clear once again as she managed to make sense of Kaito's question, "Eh? You've lost your memories? And... who's Toichi?"

Kaito gave a somewhat panicked look in Conan's direction, they both knew that this would be difficult to explain without telling some portion of the truth... but telling her the full truth would definitely complicate things, and he tried to convey as much with his gaze.

"Er... It's kind of a long story but..." He said, hesitating just a moment before he continued, "I lost my memories a few years ago and actually managed to create an entire false identity for myself as Kaito, I recently learned that my real name is Toichi and have started to get my memories back..."

"Oh, I've had amnesia before myself," Ran tried to sympathize, "If it wasn't for Conan-kun I... I don't know that I would have ever gotten my memories back."

"He helped you then? That sounds like something he would do," Kaito said with a smile, giving a little laugh as he continued, "He's always been such a cute child... at least I think he has... I don't really remember."

"You can come back anytime you want to see Conan-kun, maybe it'll help with your memories," Ran suggested.

"Thank you," Kaito said giving a nod to say that he might come by some time, "Now I really should go... I don't think Conan wants me to stay..."

Even if it was true Conan could help but feel guilty hearing that, sure he didn't want the thief there but that was simply because he made a habit of annoying Conan nearly any time an opportunity to do so arose. It surprised him that Kaito would actually be leaving because Conan didn't want him around... perhaps it was a sign of maturity. The half-pint Holmes didn't make any effort to confirm or deny the thief's statement.

Kaito gave an apologetic bow as he went to leave, smiling at an angle that only Conan would see, "Oh, and I'll try and convince Tou-san not to kidnap Conan next time he want's to see him -though he might do it anyway- I apologize if he worried you."

"Bye Kaito-niichan," Conan said, trying to keep up the appearance of being a somewhat normal child as Ran was in the area. The excitement wasn't completely faked, he was glad to see the magician go, even if he still felt guilty.

"See you again some time, Toichi-kun."