Gragh. Argh. I'm a... draugr! Yes. Not zombie. Don't like zombies. They're gross. Concept of 'undead', fine. Concept of 'rotting, infectious undead'... yeah, no. Ugh. On that note, have a chapter.

Chapter 10

The next several days passed relatively quietly—Kaito gave up on pranking again, not wanting to prod at an already-anxious Conan in class and there were only three murders that Conan tripped over. Hakuba followed them home and demanded to know if something was wrong and Aoko fussed and brought Conan and Kaito over for dinner for three days straight, but nothing really unusual happened.

Shinichi was dissatisfied with the lack of distraction. Granted, Conan snapping in class would be a bad thing, so Kaito keeping his crazy to himself then was appreciated. After school, there was so much to do, though—Kaito spent about sixty percent of his time in the lab set up in the workshop, checking and re-checking each step on the antidote, making sure nothing was going wrong.

It only served to remind Shinichi that Haibara—Miyano Shiho, that was, not the Haibara he had grown to see as a closer friend than Ran had ever been—was locked in the basement of her own lab, her lab that they still hadn't found even if they had possibles on several, and would soon try to commit suicide via her own poison.

And he didn't know what had caused her to survive last time, didn't know why he had—what if something had changed? What if she didn't? What if something she said or did pissed Gin off enough that he decided shooting her was more beneficial to the Organization than keeping her alive?

He didn't know how long it had been between her sister's death and her complete, despairing rebellion. So many things had happened between that his memory of the relative times felt off, and the dates themselves hadn't felt important, in the long run. Not to mention Haibara had never said if she'd been on the streets for a while before making her way to Agasa.

So, yes, he was worried. Instead of leaving him to his own devices, Kaito dumped him on Hakuba and gave a very simple instruction, "Distract him, please. I can't leave at this stage and he's going stir-crazy."

Shinichi folded his arms and gave the detective holding him a look.

Hakuba hurriedly put him down.

Shinichi sighed, "Alright, fine. I know I'm twitchy. And Kaito's working on the antidote, which at the moment does need constant monitoring. A distraction would not be unwelcome."

Kaito shrugged, "I'd call Hattori, but he doesn't know about…" he waved at Shinichi's height. "… also, he has no filter. He'll take it in stride and then call Conan 'Kudo' in front of anyone and everyone. People will then expect me to not want him anywhere near me."

"'Hattori'?" Hakuba asked.

"Hattori Heiji," Shinichi shrugged, "Son of Superintendent Hattori in Osaka. He's the kind of person who believes in the supernatural—which, admittedly, makes him smarter than most—and would figure out that I'm me without anyone telling him. But he's also a kind of honest that might be a problem at the moment."

Hakuba pinched the bridge of his nose, exhaling something that wasn't quite a sigh. "You know, before I dealt with the two of you regularly, I never thought of honesty as a possible problem."

"Yeah, well, when I was your age, neither did I," Shinichi grumbled.

Kaito made a strange little choked sound before he gave up and snickered, "The six-year-old sounds like an old man!"

"I'm not six, Kaito," Shinichi sighed, "Just—miniaturized. And do you know what teenage hormones do to a body this size?"

Hakuba covered his face entirely, "Please. I don't need to hear this. Especially not from someone who currently looks like a six-year-old."

Kaito legitimately fell over, cackling like the lunatic he obviously was. Shinichi went back over possible implications of what he'd said and decided it was Hakuba's own fault for taking that thought-route. Still, though, "Hakuba. I'm thirty-five, shrunken teenage body or no."

Hakuba paused, considered that, and gestured at the half-breathless laughing magician. "What does that make him?"

"Crazy."

Hakuba choked and Shinichi shrugged, "It's not like that should be news."

Hakuba gave in with a laugh, "No, it's really not."

Shinichi counted that a win. Hakuba really was getting more relaxed, and it had only taken breaking his worldview a few times to do it!

(Kaito counted it a win, too. Shinichi had been successfully distracted.)

xxxx

Kaito didn't bother cursing when he checked the latest results while Hakuba had Conan out of the house—he was the better of the two of them with chemistry, and while they both knew all the steps, Shinichi understood why Kaito wanted to be the one doing most of the work on the antidote.

The most likely time period for the refining and distillation to go wrong was the first three weeks. They didn't have the space for enough equipment to have more than one attempted batch going at a time, so that made two weeks of work useless.

Kaito firmly reminded himself that the lack of size-bouncing was going to give Shinichi's system a major break, anyway, this time around. Two weeks wasn't too bad of a setback. If it came down to it, another few months wouldn't make too much difference, so long as Shinichi stayed away from certain herb-infused alcohols.

Legalities and ever-increasing complications on bringing Shinichi back set aside, anyway.

He disposed of the (useless) base and set about starting over. He'd have to plan on skipping school in thirteen days—oh, huh, wasn't that supposed to be an unlucky number in America?—to monitor the heat more exactly. Haibara had noted most of the more volatile days, but either she'd missed this one, lucked out, or Kaito had forgotten about it.

Either way, he was going to have to tell Shinichi. Also, start thinking about heist-planning, because poor Nakamori-keibu was really worried. And they still hadn't returned that book… heading off that thing on Tsukikage and the barely-averted disaster with Akemi had messed up the tentative plans there.

Kaito shook his head and measured out a liter of Paical to restart the refinement process. There was so much to do… maybe Shinichi could handle most of the planning for the heist. He wouldn't be able to be Kid this time, but he could definitely set things up beforehand…

(He now understood why Haibara had spent all her 'free' time holed up in the lab, though. He'd always assumed she was just antisocial, but this was really delicate work.)

xxxx

"Ah! Conan-kun, Hakuba-san!" Takagi spotted the two walking down the street together and glanced around for Kuroba-kun, frowning slightly when he wasn't in sight. "Ano… where's Kuroba-kun?"

Conan-kun frowned back, looking intent as he replied slowly, his accent and lack of suffix-use reminding Takagi that Japanese was not the boy's first language, "Kaito had homework to do, so he asked if Hakuba could watch me for a while."

"No one wants to see Conan bored," Hakuba-san observed, and Takagi blinked. He'd forgotten… the accent was so subtle as to be unnoticeable and Hakuba was undeniably fluent in Japanese, but he was from England, so his first language would also be English. Even if there were differences from American English, he would be a good choice for a stand-in caretaker. And Conan might not be entirely comfortable with the '-kun'.

Still though, "Why not?"

"Aside from the fact that I'm fairly sure he's psychic?" Hakuba-san asked dryly. "Having Conan bored is not unlike having Kuroba bored, only he's harder to keep track of and less predictable. I do not want to go to school tomorrow and find all the desks on the ceiling again."

Conan grumbled something in English. Now, Takagi's English wasn't the best, but he was fairly sure it was "I'm not tall enough to do that one," and he had to stare. He'd thought Conan was more like Kudo-kun than Kuroba-kun, but it was starting to look the other way around.

Deciding to ignore the aside (he had seen some of Kuroba's stunts' aftermath, and he did not want to know), Takagi focused on the first part of Hakuba-kun's claim. "… psychic?"

Hakuba made a sound that crossed between aggrieved sigh and wry laugh, "He's like Senpai. He always knows. Everything."

'Is like?' So, Hakuba-kun thought Kudo-kun was still alive? Was it just that he was being a hopeful teenager, or… no. Takagi couldn't ask that. Hakuba believed it, and he was a good detective, young or not. He knew the odds. If he still thought it anyway… there was a reason. There had to be.

Takagi felt something a little like a weight being lessened, a faint bit of hope sparking to life. He didn't know Hakuba-kun's reasoning—probably didn't want to, because there was a good chance it was some youthful optimism—but he was going to base his own on that unstated belief that Kudo-kun was alive somewhere.

"That seems a little exaggerated," he decided, addressing the more obvious content.

Conan pointed at him, "I like him. He's sensible."

Hakuba made an affronted noise and Takagi had to grin. He liked Conan, too. Sure, his perceptiveness was a little eerie sometimes, but he was a neat kid. Also, quickly becoming something like a mascot around Division One, which was… probably a bad thing. No one deserved luck like that, but Kudo and his little cousin both had it.

(He was starting to believe Megure-keibu's 'family curse' theory.)

xxxx