Yes! Finally another chance to get into some weird paradox crap. It's no fun if all of the characters can follow the flow of the conversation (plus if they all understand then I don't have the chance to explain for those of you that don't) so I kinda had to make Shinichi the clueless one.

I kind of had to include the last line of this chapter, I felt like I was cheating you guys if I didn't... I'm not sure why I felt that way though, there doesn't seem to be any reason for it because as far as lines go it's a rather stupid one... oh well, my weird tendencies have never steered me wrong before! (*cough* yes they have *cough*)

Thank you for reading this far and not getting tired of me! I hope you all enjoy and please review.

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21. The Grandfather Paradox

A friend? Really? Conan's friend? my friend? Both of our friend? Can't she say something more than just that much? A name... a fake name... a more descriptive situational role than just 'friend' would even be fine. That this mysterious girl was a 'friend' told me absolutely nothing, no... it told me less than nothing.

"Are you trying to hide your identity from him for some reason?" Conan asked, his tone had a suspicious 'I really wish you weren't here, leave now' ring to it. He seems to be pretty familiar with the girl, so she's his 'friend' then, but not necessarily mine.

"Just in case they bugged this place I'd rather not have any of my names mentioned for the moment,"she replied with a tone that seemed to say 'you idiot I just saved your life so don't question me'.

'Names'... it's plural? Who is this chick?

"What are you doing here in the first place?" Conan asked. Further concreting the impression that this girl was a person that he didn't think was supposed to be here... a friendly member of the Black Organization 'Vermouth' maybe? Or perhaps this had more to do with time travel -which I still have no real proof that it is possible- that would explain my not knowing her.

She gave him a cold stare as if he had just asked her the stupidest question in the world, she didn't see much need to answer his question but rather turned it back on him, "And what are you doing here? Besides setting off a serious grandfather paradox that is."

Grandfather paradox, I've heard that before... it has something to do with the dangers and mysteries of time travel... er, what was it again? By just trying to remember what it was I wasn't getting anywhere so I tried asking directly, "Grandfather paradox?"

The girl -who by now it was pretty obvious was from the future- sighed, "It's basically like this; if you were able to go back in time and killed your own grandfather before he grew up then theoretically you wouldn't be able to exist because your father was never born, but if you didn't exist then you would have never killed your grandfather and thus as your grandfather never died you did exist to kill him- the circular reasoning goes on for eternity, no one really knows what would happen if anyone actually attempted this."

"This is different! We-" Conan protested, but he was cut off.

The girl interrupted him still speaking coldly but something about her seemed genuinely worried, "How is it any different? If anything it's worse! You were poisoned and became a child, later you went back in time to stop that, by doing so you would have never became a child and thus never would have gone back in time to stop the event from occurring; your case is worse because not only did you cause the initial paradox you became involved when you tried to stop it! Instead of avoiding the poison altogether it was given to the future you meaning despite trying to stop the event it still happened but it happened to someone that shouldn't have been there in the first place."

"Hypocrite," Conan said sounding very annoyed but making a good point, "Isn't your presence in this time causing a paradox too?"

"Of course not, me being here was planned all along," She said with one eyebrow twitching, she pulled an envelope out of one of her pockets and held it so that Conan and I could see it clearly.

It was addressed to 'The current Ai Haibara'.

...

That's the letter that Shinji (although he was 'Shinichi' at the time) gave Haibara the day before we left for the past? Why does this Haibara have it she's... it can't be... she's the Haibara from my time...?

She looked a bit too old to be the Haibara I had known from my time, but then again there's no telling when she left the future or when she arrived in the past, any amount of time could have easily passed since the last time this Haibara and I met.

"It completely explains the existence of the time machine and gives schematics for building one, it's actually quite amazing the number of things that completely contradict the current understanding of quantum and temporal metaphysics are perfectly theorized and explained with just this one simple letter... if I published it in a scientific journal I'd probably become rich," Haibara said with a proud expression, "In any case this letter would have kept me from becoming a temporal anomaly if you hadn't been stupid enough to try Plan B -and fail it at that. There was also a warning in it; don't let that idiot detective do anything stupid otherwise it's all over."

"'Otherwise it's all over'," Shinichi said, mimicking her tone perfectly, "could that be any more cryptic?"

She didn't have a chance to call him a fool or give a witty retort, because in that moment we witnessed something amazing- though we didn't know it was amazing yet.

Haibara (the one from this time period that had been kidnapped earlier) and Shinji -for some reason he seemed to be wearing a black trench coat with a hole in it's chest that was way too big for him- staggered in, clearly tired from making their way here from wherever they had been kidnapped to.

It took me a moment to realize that Shinji's sudden questionable wardrobe change probably meant that he had used the antidote to Apotoxin 4869, in my experience it had only ever lasted for twenty four hours without using consecutive doses, but I pushed that matter aside assuming it had something to do with his double dose of poison.

I was a bit more concerned trying to reason out why there would be a whole in the chest of the jacket. My conclusion: either he shot someone and stole their clothes, or he was shot.

"We need to get him to the hospital!" The smaller Haibara said, her voice was panicked, "Gin shot him. Gin shot his heart!"

Shinichi looked at the smaller Haibara, then at the one we'd just been talking to; he looked back and forth before he seemed to have finally come to the conclusion that time travel was just a mess waiting to happen and that it was better he didn't bother questioning it. It would only lead to another headache inducing explanation anyway.

"I'm fine," Shinji sighed, taking off the trench coat to reveal that he was indeed fine. No signs of an injury of any sort, much less a gunshot through his heart, there didn't seem to be anything wrong with him at all. He continued, "I learned a lot from this experience..."

He'd paused as though he was contemplating just how to word what he was about to say. When he finally did speak up he seemed quite pleased with himself to be able to honestly speak from experience on the matter.

"Dying hurts like hell."