A/N: This chapter was quite some time coming. Sorry guys! Approaching the end now!

Many thanks to Victoria Hughes (you can look her up here on FFN, high recommendation for her Danny Phantom fanfics!) for drawing a lovely piece of art from this story! Check out phoenixstarr44 on DeviantArt to see it!

Onward!


Only This

by Shimegami-chan

Chapter 7


"Hattori," Conan said, geniunely surprised. "It's..." He checked the clock. "...early. What gives?"

"You're not going to believe this," Heiji said, falling into the chair in a heap. Conan did not bother to point out that it was not even close to visiting hours yet. "That American 'neechan working for the guys in black? Chris Vineyard? She was captured this morning by the Japanese police."

"Vermouth? You're kidding." Conan's face was suddenly animated. "It had something to do with that fire this morning, didn't it? I thought that sounded suspicious."

"It did," Heiji confirmed. He was grinning from ear to ear, his fists clenched with excitement. "Megure-keibu wouldn't give me the details of her interrogation, but Jodie-sensei told me that she's looking out for number one. Giving up Organization secrets in exchange for the police's protection."

The boy in the hospital bed grimaced. "I'm sure Sensei is thrilled about that."

"I got the impression that she wanted to be there to shoot Vermouth herself. Unfortunately, Megure's people got there first, so she was taken alive." Heiji shrugged. He felt a little bad for the blond FBI agent, but was at the same time relieved that the police had taken Vermouth into custody so they could wring the details out of her. He wasn't privy to such details yet, though, especially since they'd immediately moved her to a secure, secret location.

"Wait, how did Megure-keibu and everyone get drawn into this? I thought Sensei and her co-workers were operating on their own."

Heiji hesitated - Kudo was going to find out eventually. "The FBI made things official, and so did Megure, though it was a really small operation. Interpol apparently-"

"Interpol's involved too!"

"-Yeah. Apparently lent some of their knowledge of suspected Organization dealings to the police, and that helped them put together a case." Heiji decided that maybe he wouldn't mention Yuusaku's involvement after all. As he recalled, it was Kudo's pride that stopped his father from interfering back when he'd first been shrunk, hadn't it? "The police had been watching the place, thinking there was some illicit drug trading going on. Sensei and the others suspected it of being an Organization location, but couldn't do anything official. Once the two groups got together, they had enough reason to search the place. To have found a ranking agent there, it was great luck." Heiji was still a little bit worried about what could happen to Megure and his staff if Vermouth's superiors became aware that she'd been captured, but he was so thrilled to be able to deliver the news that he put it at the back of his mind. "Obviously, the police aren't making any of this public. Nobody's sure yet if the Organization higher-ups are aware we got someone alive."

Conan gave the Osakan detective a strange look. "Don't get me wrong, I'm thrilled to find out they caught that lunatic, but I didn't know you were so into this investigation. I didn't even know you were in contact with Jodie-sensei until just now."

"Oh, I wasn't until a few hours ago," Heiji said airily. "She called on your cell phone, actually, looking for you. But the reason we think the Organization doesn't know we have Vermouth is because the raid hit them hard and fast. There were only a dozen ops in there and they started shooting at the officers instead of protecting their secrets. Someone set a fire and Vermouth killed the ones the police put out of commission, but that FBI agent with the perm shot the weapon right out of her hands and they knocked her out. They weren't fast enough to take out the fire before it destroyed the building, but they did get the computers and some evidence before things started to melt."

The shrunken detective's heart started to pound, but less from his sickness than Heiji's infectuous excitement. "And?"

"And that," he held up a compact disc with a secretive smile, "I did get."

"Stop screwing around and just tell me, Hattori."

Heiji laughed at his obvious impatience and lowered his hand. "It was just coincidence that we happened to sniff out one of the locations they were using for their experimental drugs. Everything was encrypted, obviously, and though Sensei's people couldn't get on the network after they'd removed the computers from the building, there was data on the hard drives. They just didn't know how to access it. But that little 'Neechan did." He grinned.

"Haibara?" Conan stared at his companion incredulously.

"Of course," Heiji replied, as though that should have been obvious. "In case you didn't notice, she's more than a bit concerned with saving your life, Kudo. Jodie-sensei wanted me to ask her if she'd help the police anonymously, and she did. In return, she's got a copy of this too-" he held up the disc again, "-and is back at the Professor's right now working with it. It just so happens to have a significant amount of information about the chemical makeup of APTX-4869."

Conan's mouth went dry. "How significant?"

"She told me not to get your hopes up, in case it doesn't work out." Heiji was still grinning like a cat. "But she thinks she has everything she needs to make the cure."


It was one thing for Conan to tone down his excitement in front of the nurses and his mother, but quite another to hide it from Ran, who knew him so well that it was impossible to hide his elation. Of course, as far as the doctors knew, they were no closer to uncovering the source of his health issues than before, and were in fact extremely worried that at the rate the disease was going, he would not last the next few days. The nurses didn't know what to make of this uncharacteristic cheerfulness, and whispered to themselves as they left his room, but the boy detective was undaunted. The spark of hope Hattori had planted had been enough to make him feel like he could run a marathon. Not just that he'd live - no, he was certainly grateful for his life, that was certain. But if Haibara came through, and Vermouth spilled enough information to lead the police to Gin and Vodka, he could go on living as Kudo Shinichi.

And that was a dream Conan had almost lost faith in ever achieving.

Unfortunately, the unpredictability of his sickness and the uncertainly in Haibara's movements still gave him cause to worry. To return to being his teenaged self, his identity as Conan would have to disappear forever, without the opportunity to tie up many loose ends. His options essentially extended to telling Ran and the kids that he'd hurried back overseas with his parents for alternate medical treatment, or faking his own death. Both would have undesirable repercussions. He wouldn't be able to tell even Ran the truth unless he was sure she would be safe from the Organization's reach. Yukiko had strongly indicated that it would be best for all three of them to return to the villa in San Francisco until the investigation had been fully completed, but Shinichi was loathe to just give up on his most important case without seeing it through to its end.

And now it seemed he had another problem.

"You're in such a good mood today," Ran said for the second time, having caught him smiling at the thought of returning to his real, normal life. "Did something happen?"

"Nah," he replied, trying to make his cheerfulness slightly less purposeful-looking. "Just thinking, that's all."

He could feel Ran watching him, even with his face turned away. "Hmm. But it certainly is a big change from yesterday."

Yesterday. It seemed like a million years ago. In the last eight hours Edogawa Conan's life had experienced a complete turnaround. He was looking and feeling a lot better than he had in over a month, thanks to Hattori's good news. Yesterday...

Damn! He had nearly forgotten about the terrible scene yesterday with Ran. The kiss, the tears, the abrupt exit- "Ah...that's right..." Conan frowned, emabarassed at having lost himself so fully. "I'm really sorry to have caused all that, Ran..." He had to remind himself to call her Ran instead of Ran-neechan, as she'd asked. "Are you feeling better? You were really upset when you left..."

"Much. What about you?" There was something unreadable in her eyes. He wanted to tell her the truth, all of it, but it wasn't quite time. There was still a lingering fear that Vermouth would escape, or worse, use her knowledge about his condition in a way that would jeapordize their lives.

It was better that Ran stay oblivious for now, and he could not give her false hope about his recovery yet either; not if Conan would be disappearing on a permanent basis soon. He decided it was time to start planting the seeds for that particular deception. "A lot better. I saw...well, my father came to visit, this morning."

"Really," Ran said, surprised. She'd never met any such person; never even knew the man's supposed name. Her contact up until now had been Conan's mother only. "That must have been a nice surprise."

"Kind of," Conan replied slowly. "We talked about having me transferred to a hospital back in California. 'Tousan is worried that the winter air in Japan is just making things worse."

"California...?" Ran's stomach seemed to drop right out of her.

"Where my parents live," the boy continued hurriedly. "I'm on some medication now that really helps with the attacks, so they want to move me before things get any worse..." He trailed off, noticing the expression on his companion's face. "Ran...?"

She could only shake her head, fingers curling around the thin blanket on his bed. Something about the idea of him returning to the U.S. felt wrong; she felt like...she felt like...

A strange premonition, just like at that time...when he walked away and I knew somehow that I would never see Shinichi again...

Of course, she had seen him a few times since that moment, but these were all brief, fleeting glimpses characterized by his strange behavior, pallid face and sudden disappearances. Not once since that day in the amusement park had she seen the Shinichi that still existed in memory, the one who grinned stupidly and teased her until she threatened. The one who wasn't constantly looking around himself, over his shoulder, afraid to see who might be following behind.

This is the same, she realized. This feeling... But it wasn't for Shinichi anymore; it was Conan, and already his face was telling her 'It's time to say goodbye.'

"No," she whispered, closing her eyes.

His voice sounded concerned. "What's wrong?"

"If you leave, you won't come back," Ran murmured after a long pause, and his silence was reply enough to tell her that he had known this. He took her chin in three fingers and tilted it to face him, so she looked into his wide blue stare, a little surprised. "Conan-kun?"

"That might be true," he said slowly. "But if it's the case, I don't want you to be sad. You've shed enough tears for me now. Do you understand?"

"How can I not be sad!" she snapped. All this time he had been her support, her confidante, her protector...and now he wanted her to forgive his absence quietly? It was too much. Especially on top of what had happened between them yesterday...

Unbelievable. He'd told her he was going to die, and then he'd told her that he loved her. Was in love with her. Ran's breath caught in her throat as the gears started to turn. His parents must want him to come home so he can pass away peacefully. That's why...that's why it feels so final...

And he, Conan, was putting on a brave face for her as he always did. Protecting her from harm. Tears began to spill unbidden from her eyes, and she wrenched her face from his grasp, hid it behind a long curtain of brown hair. "I'm sorry. I'll try, just..."

"Ran." She felt the bed shift, and his small arms encircled her tightly. He was pleasantly warm; she relaxed into the embrace, trying to calm herself. "Ran, I'm sorry, I keep making you cry."

Again yesterday's incident surfaced in her mind. She'd returned home last night and lay on her bed for hours, deep in thought, unable to untangle the strange mess her emotions had become. As soon as she accepted one detail or another (He loves me? Impossible! He's just a little kid! But when she looked back at the evidence, there it was...) there was another, just as ludicrious, begging for attention (Conan-kun kissed me, and I let it happen. Maybe I even liked it. Maybe I would even...). In the end she'd hardly slept. In the end she'd had no clearer a conclusion than before, but was wracked with new guilt, and at the same time other strange emotions, things she hadn't felt in a long time. Anticipation. Hope. Nervousness.

The kind of feelings she had when she spoke to Shinichi on the phone.

But only because he reminds me so much of Shinichi, she told herself repeatedly. Because they look the same; they act the same. She breathed him in and it was even the same scent. "I wish you didn't have to go."

"Me either," he replied, and he was surprised at how much truth there was in his words.


It wasn't that he wanted to get involved, though his personal interest in this particular case was definitely way up there, but more like he wanted to observe; he wanted to make sure that what was about to happen was actually going to happen, or at least as far as the police forces' plans extended.

They wouldn't have appreciated his presence at the party anyway, Kaitou Kid supposed.

He was perched on top of a roof as far as he could possibly get from the actual scene, already wearing three disguises on top of one another (the FBI agent persona had to be tossed right after Kaito left the briefing, just in case) and carting a sound system that could have powered a rock concert, but fit neatly into the pocket of his tuxedo. No less than six members of the First Investigation Division and the Bureau (Interpol wasn't directly involving its officers in the sting, which was probably for the best, in case Kid found himself compromised) were outfitted with wireless transcievers and tiny fish-eye cameras in their hats and badges for Kid's exclusive perusal. Yet even having all the cards - including knowing that the FBI sniper was just two buildings over with a long-range rifle - Kid was having difficulty calming his nerves. He knew far better than these guys what they were up against, and couldn't stop himself from being worried.

If that Vermouth woman (she was so familiar! where had he seen her before?) wasn't telling the truth, Kid was going to have a lot of dead officers on his hands, and even though Nakamori was not among them, there were many faces he recognized, even people he'd disguised as. Officer Takagi, for example, whom he'd taken a bit of a liking to at the heist they'd attended together, though Takagi had been asleep before ever knowing Kid was there. Chiba was also present, along with Shiratori, one of Kid's favourite First Division people to impersonate, with Officer Satou backing up Megure himself. And the man with the mustache and glasses, hanging back in the shadows but conspicuous by his completely unflappable manner, was undoubtedly Kudo Shinichi's father.

He looked familiar, too, and Kid wondered just how deep the mystery novelist was in all this business.

With his head ducked and a careful eye on the perimeter alarms he'd set up around the building, Kid turned his attention to the handheld monitor he had built with which to watch the show. Beside him, laid bare on the concrete, was a neat row of various items that could come in handy if intervention was unavoidable - there would be plenty of other shots at the Organization, but none would ever be so attractive as this. If the situation got out of control, Interpol or not, Kid was going in.

But, watching the scene from the camera placed in an oblivious Takagi's chest pocket, Kid was genuinely hoping he wouldn't have to, because these guys scared the hell out of him.

Nobody could ever accuse Kaitou Kid of being overly cautious. The issue was that his confidence came largely from the fact that he was always prepared, and when it came to the Organization - the guys who had killed his father, taken down Kid's own rival Kudo Shinichi, not to mention probably killed hundreds of thousands of people, murdered civilians in broad daylight, and could accurately shoot you in the head from hundreds of metres away, in the dark, around obstacles - well, gentleman thief Kaitou Kid just had to admit that even he didn't know what to do. They were as unpredictable as he was, and far more likely to sneak back later and murder him and his family in their sleep. It was a miracle Kudo had kept alive this long, having been so close to their secrets, and not for lack of trying.

Nevertheless, Kid had to be here, partially out of duty to his father and Kudo, partially as the cavalry, and partially because he knew for certain that if the Organization won, they would take no prisoners. If he waited so much as an hour after the sting failed, there was an excellent chance that Kudo's mother and the families of the policemen would be targeted, Vermouth would be freed, and Mouri Kogorou and his family, his detective rival, the Professor and the little girl as well as Osaka would be dead by morning.

Kid was, understandably, uneasy as the Takagi-cam was blocked by a number of broader bodies approaching the door. He was part of the entrance team, and in the corner of Kid's monitor he had a thumbnail of the view from the back of the building, led by that busty FBI agent. Her group was in position with arms at the ready, and then the group Takagi was with surged forward, and the glare on the camera increased as it was hit by indoor lights. There was a lot of shouting going on - he thumbed down the audio in both ears.

The Takagi-cam was unstable and shaky, and not in much of a position to see much, as it had turned to watch the open doorway they had entered through. Kid switched to the view from the FBI's side, broadcast from Jodie Saintemillion's hip. It had been quite a job planting that camera, and Kid was glad to have made the effort, because from here he had a clear view of everything, complete with deafening sound. The police group had caught some of the men in black, but some officers were already down, as were many of the operatives. It seemed they were much more interested in getting killed than taken, though some of the mens' survival instinct had won out and they had dropped their weapons and raised their hands. Amateurs, he thought coldly. These guys probably wouldn't have even lasted a year in the Black Organization.

If he'd blinked, Kid would have missed what happened next, and it only registered because he saw it from both sides of the room. A man with long blonde hair appeared on the catwalk at the exact moment one of the hat-cameras (the Megure-cam, he thought) looked up, and Kid observed him draw a pistol with lightening speed and snap off a shot in the general direction of the officers.

Abruptly the Takagi-cam went offline. Kid swore loudly and then bit down on his knuckle, conscious of the sniper's sharp hearing just a few hundred feet away.

There was a bit of chaos on several of the other video thumbnails at this; Megure's movements were dizzying, but the main action was still happening from Jodie Saintemillion's point of view. The blonde man's back was still turned to her, and Kid's view was obscured for a split second as an additional pistol cleared the holster on her belt, raised out of his line of sight, and fired. He didn't see it connect and he didn't see the FBI agent's face, but he did have an excellent angle as the body of the operative known as Gin came crashing down and sprawled on the cement floor, limp.

All hell broke loose.


Around the same time that evening, as Kaitou Kid was watching the feared Syndicate be taken apart piece by piece on a rooftop over Haido City, the famous young detectives stationed in Beika Hospital were waiting by the phone. A person would have needed two hands to count the weaponry stashed in Edogawa Conan's hospital room, and it wasn't all tranquilizer darts, either. He had developed the habit of reaching for his watch each time footsteps drew near to the door, compounded by the listening devices he had placed in the hallway. If the sting operation failed, neither of the boys were holding out much hope for their own lives, but they weren't going down without a fight. Conan willed himself not to think about his mother and best friend, who were probably having a very high-strung visit at the Professor's right now, especially with Agasa trying to hide this impossible secret from Ran.

Heiji didn't have a sword, his weapon of choice, but they had unscrewed the handle from a broom for his use in case they needed to defend themselves. He fervently wished he didn't have to just sit here and wait for an attack that might never come, but Conan's illness made him useless for the sting, not that the officers would have allowed them to participate, so the two detectives were stuck waiting for a call from Megure. The Inspector still didn't know the extent of Heiji's involvement, so he hadn't insisted that the boys go into hiding, but the part of it that Megure did not know - and Conan only half-suspected, thanks to their keeping Yuusaku's involvement under wraps - was that the raid being unsuccessful pretty much meant they were both dead. This, Heiji preferred not to think about too much, but had quickly backed up his friend's suggestion to make the hospital room "unfriendly" to surprise visitors.

Pat-pat-pat-pat. Conan tensed; someone was coming down the hall, someone who moved very quietly, almost without noise. If it hadn't been for the transmitter amplifying the sound, he would not have even caught it. Heiji's grip tightened on the stick as the footsteps slowed just outside, and stopped.

Conan aimed the crosshairs of his watch at the door as it slid open, but did not fire.

"Some greeting," Haibara said dryly, not even taken by surprise. "but I guess I should expect this sort of thing from you when you're going crazy. Here." She tossed a packet onto Conan's lap.

Lowering his weapon, the gradeschooler unwrapped the package and pulled out an oversized soccer jersey and a pair of jeans. "These are my clothes."

"How astute. I'll leave while you put them on."

"Hold up, what? Why?" Heiji looked back and forth from Kudo to their visitor. "Are we going somewhere?"

"Isn't it obvious?" Haibara held up the other package she carried, concealed by a white paper bag. "You're going to drink this, and what you're wearing now is going to get uncomfortably small."


-to be continued...