Sky blue

"You forgot to say goodbye, little one." An icy smile was about to accompany his bullet.

But before Gin could send the bullet on its way, Akai's fingers tightened around the trigger of his own weapon, but he was faster.

The shot rang out, and a body instantly slumped to the ground.

The first shot was followed by a second, hitting the other man in the thigh and preventing him from fleeing. The detective, however, was no longer aware of this.

The world blurred before Heiji's eyes as his knees gave way after he'd crossed the distance to his son.

"Tousan?"

But Haikuro's little voice was lost under his father's hoarse breathing. Heiji's body trembled; his hands were numb, barely feeling the warm skin under his fingertips as he held Haikuro as tight as he could. He buried his face deep in his son's tousled hair while his lungs struggled to catch a breath.

The child stirred, looking up at his father's moist eyes.

"Why are you crying, Tousan? I'm fine, don't cry, please." But Heiji only blinked, startled by his son's words, whom he'd almost lost, and felt a single tear running down his cheeks when his burning eyes blurred the image of Haikuro in front of him.

A relieved smile formed on the officer's lips. Slowly he shook his head, hugged his son even tighter.

"It's okay; it's over now."

He pressed a kiss to Haikoru's forehead, buried his fingers in his son's soft hair, moving his body so that he could prevent that the little boy could catch a glimpse of the scene behind him.

His bullet had hit the spot, where even this monster should have a heart, tearing it to pieces. The blood on his clothes grew darker and darker, drenching his black coat in a delicate burgundy hue.

Gin was dead.

For a brief moment, Heiji's green eyes regained the coldness they had held for a split second.

The detective swallowed as the memories of the past seconds slowly but surely caught up with him. Before he could even think about it, his finger had pulled the trigger of the gun to kill the man who was about to shoot his son. He hadn't thought about it, simply did it. He'd aimed, pulled the trigger, and fired before the FBI agent next to him had had a chance to react, although he'd certainly been waiting for that moment.

"Tousan, let go of me." The little boy looked up, the tears on his cheeks had not even dried yet, but his words already harbored a whining undertone again.

"We still have to go and find Ran-neechan."

But the officer didn't even think about it, he could feel how the little worm was trying to squirm from his arms, but Haikuro had no chance against his father's strong hold. With a relieved smile on his lips, Heiji shook his head, Kazuha would kill him. After all, it was obvious for her from whom Haiku inherited his stubborn manner. The officer swallowed, felt his tense muscles slowly softening as the panic left his body, while his heart still felt like it was beating in his throat. Kudo had been right. If Gin had hurt him- Heiji swallowed, trying to wash the thought from his head with a deep breath.

He would never have forgiven himself.

Heiji exhaled for a long time, watching Akai slowly walk past him towards Vodka, who he'd shot in the leg the moment Gin went down. He handcuffed the cursing man on the ground as his gaze briefly wandered over the corpse of his arch-enemy before his eyes, then slid back to Heiji, who still held his son tightly in his arms.

That should have been his shot.

But the scene of the officer still stubbornly holding onto his son, who was starting to squirm in his grasp, washed the bitterness from Akai's bones.

His green eyes roamed over the corpse of his former partner, the icy smile with that he'd prepared to end the little boy's life was still plastered on Gin's lips. The pain had not even reached his face; the shot had been too good.

Akai couldn't help but think that this death had been far too generous for him.

The agent just sighed, shook his head in displeasure while his eyes rested on the detective for one last time.

'You owe me, Hattori...'

But the slight smile on Akai Shuichi's lips betrayed him. Even though it annoyed him that he hadn't been the one to end Gin's life, the weapon in his hand didn't feel so heavy anymore. All the years in which they had pursued the organization, in which he'd been on their trail like a bloodhound, seemed to come to an end.

All due to him.

Even though Black was annoyed by Kudo's unconventional method, he'd succeeded.

'The only question is whether you survived the fallout of your own bomb, Kudo.'

But before he could banish the bitter taste from his lips, the ringing of his mobile broke the silence, and the FBI agent answered the call.

XXX

Drip

He blinked, or at least tried to, while his face contorted in pain. His muscles were stiff and burning, and the pain in his body echoed in his throbbing head. The sane part of his mind tried to make him understand that it's just water, just a few drops that couldn't do any real damage. Yet it felt like he had a fucking hole in the middle of his forehead that continued to deepen with every drop. His ears felt like they were stuffed with cotton, he wanted to swallow, but his tongue was stuck to his palate.

It was dark, always so damn dark.

But of course, he was in the hands of the black organization; how could it be anything but dark.

Drip

"Shinichi..."

`What?'

Goosebumps covered his body, had that really been her voice?

No.

Shinichi felt how his heart started to beat faster at the mere thought that she might be there. And yet, he could not entirely give in to this feeling of hope that seeped into his tired limbs.

Something prevented him from doing so.

He was afraid that her voice was nothing more than a trick of his ailing mind.

Yes, that's how it had to be. She couldn't be here…

"Shinichi, wake up."

'Ran?'

Again?

Could- could this really still be a coincidence?

His eyes darted back and forth, searching in vain for her image, while his ears yearned to hear her voice again, just once more.

'Ran.'

No, that's not Ran!

Drip

The water washed the thought away, making him blink, while the damp film on his skin gave him a feverish glow.

"I'm here, Shinichi. Come, drink something."

Her sweet voice let his breath get stuck in his throat; fear and tension slowly flowed out of his muscles. Damn it, he'd already thought he would never hear her voice again.

He waited, his breath trembling under the tension, while the last drop ran down his forehead and disappeared in his by now completely soaked hair. The water finally reached his mouth so that the hard drops on his forehead were forgotten for a moment.

He shivered while his throat greedily devoured what he had been denied for so long.

'Water', was all he registered at that moment.

But after, in his opinion, far too short a time, the flow dried up again so that his desire only increased after he had been allowed a brief taste.

"Are you feeling better now, Shinichi?"

Her voice alone was enough to make him forget the much-needed water, while another part of his mind warned him not to answer and sealed his lips.

So, he just nodded before the next drop mercilessly hit his forehead.

Drip

The darkness threatened to retake him. He felt his eyelids flutter, and his body wrestled with his mind as her voice tried to keep him with her.

"Shinichi?"

It is not Ran.

He frowned.

What was that about?

Why did this voice want to spoil this moment for him? Why couldn't he just be content with it? Be happy about the turn his fate had apparently taken.

She was here.

Drip

"Shinichi, can you hear me?"

He heard her voice breaking, trembling because his mind would not allow him to answer.

He's playing with you!

`Who?'

Drip, drip.

"Shinichi, please, answer me. You're scaring me."

Her words let his heart tighten.

No, he didn't want to scare her, didn't want to hurt her even more. This had to end - right now.

Don't do it!

But he ignored the warning, biting his still brittle lips defiantly.

It was enough; she had been through enough.

Drip.

Enough.

"Ran?"

Idiot!

XXX

"What?"

But Ran's pale voice blurred in the murmur that came from the receiver after Tracy had entered the room. Yusaku's gaze fell on the dictating machine that the chemist was clutching tightly to her chest. He swallowed and yet never dared to hope that he would ask this question again.

"What do you mean?"

However, the FBI agent seemed to know the full extent of her words, but the smile on her lips remained absent. He saw that she bit her lips briefly before pressing play on the little recorder.

"I don't know if you can understand this, my little Shiho, but this research is my life and the reason that..., that I can't be with you now."

Yukiko frowned, listening to the unknown voice that echoed ghostly through the room with a wildly beating heart when suddenly another voice caught her attention, Sharon's voice.

"Elena?"

A horrified expression stuck to Vermouth's lips, distorting the blonde beauty's face so that for a split second, another one was visible underneath. Old, tired, and bitter.

'Impossible, you are dead.'

With a loud click, the FBI agent put an end to the ghostly voice, making it clear to the black-clad blonde where this ghost of the past had come from. She swallowed, bit her lips, and tried to calm her heartbeat while silently cursing her old friend for leaving her wounded now, with Ran, her angel, of all people.

The others ignored the sudden silence of the organization member, waiting for the chemist to explain herself. Tracy's gaze remained fixed on the recorder before she found the courage to speak.

"I found this tape in Haibara Ai's lab." She sighed, looked up, and was immediately met with several questioning looks. Professor Agasa's cheeks, in particular, were reddened not only with tension but equally with anger. Tracy disregarded the accusatory look under the bushy white eyebrows and continued to speak.

"The voice you just heard is Miyano Elena's, Shiho's mother. She was previously involved in the APTX 4869 project, and she sort of imparted her gift to her daughter, even before the organization had ordered her... elimination."

Tracy felt how a lump formed in her throat and forced herself to take a long breath.

"It's all on tape. Every formula, every composition, and every concentration I needed to make an antidote was on a little microchip stuck directly onto the tape. She left everything there."

Tracy swallowed, looked up, and felt Kudo Yusaku's gaze on her skin. Shinichi's father looked at her sharp and clear for far too long while his eyes said what his lips would not.

'He had a right to know this.'

The chemist bit her lips, avoiding his glance, before finally nodding, more to herself than to the author.

She took a deep breath, couldn't quite believe it when she noticed that a tiny smile actually crept onto her lips.

"It's true, Ran..." Her words were gentle.

"There is still hope."

But the burden on her shoulders grew with every word her lips formed.

"Using this information, I have managed to create an antidote, one that should crease the ATPX's effect and allow him to become himself again."

She swallowed, heard the young woman on the other end of the line gasp for breath. She could well imagine what this information meant for his family, but especially for Ran.

"There is an antidote, Ran."

Tracy felt the lump choking her words as she tried to make her voice sound earnest to make the young woman understand what she wanted from her.

"We just have to find him..."

Vermouth, who had been listening quietly all this time, frowned, looking over at the relieved face of her angel. Tears were gathering in Ran's beautiful eyes, and for the first time, belonged there. Even though she wondered what the chemist was up to and whether she was aware that she was just ruining her beautiful plan to dissuade Ran from doing something stupid.

Tracy's now much harsher voice, however, was about to tell her.

"We have to find him. But we can't do that if we have to fear for your life at the same time. Do you understand Ran-san? If they can use you or anyone else against him, we will lose him."

"But-..." But before Ran's brittle voice could regain strength, the chemist intervened.

"To find Shinichi your safety is the first priority, do you understand that?"

For a moment, there was silence. None of those present stirred while their eyes lay tensely on the buzzing telephone before Ran carefully formed a trembling question.

"But how?! How are we supposed to find him if not-..."

"By agreeing to Vermouth's offer."

Tracy swallowed, feeling her lips struggle to move.

"We have no choice..."

XXX

The pale neon tubes put a grey veil over the room. The steel table reflected the little light, together with the small puddle of water that had formed on the floor by now. If his colleagues were not in the process of destroying the rest of his empire, the dripping wet figure of Kudo Shinichi might still have inspired something like compassion in his cold heart.

But he enjoyed the pale face of his prisoner, watching his eyes dart slowly back and forth while a part of his mind was obviously still trying to fight.

'Give it up, Kudo; it's useless.'

A cold grin rested under the former officer's mustache that didn't match the sweet voice that came out of his mouth. Kudo had fought bravely. He had to give that to him. Anyone else would have given up on the consequences of the experiments, the perpetual darkness and isolation alone, while Kudo has still been fighting the torture, dehydration, and forced position.

Until now...

Because her voice, Mori Ran, the daughter of this good-for-nothing policeman, who was otherwise the source of his strength, was also the one that threw him deep into the abyss.

With her voice, he managed to unhinge his mind.

The moment he'd voiced her name in that manner, he knew...

"Ran."

He'd won.

He had broken into the detective's head, now he just had to find the right path to get to the place where the information he needed was hidden. Matsumoto took a breath and began to speak while the cold smile on his lips betrayed Ran's soft voice.

"Shinichi, you have to tell me where the others are. They are in danger!" He watched as the detective's forehead, covered in cold sweat, wrinkled as he bit his lips.

Apparently, the barrier to his consciousness still wasn't all open, but he was about to change that.

"Please, Shinichi..."

Ran's trembling voice made him flinch, but Kudo's lips remained silent, his foggy mind working against the need to soothe her pleading words, so he forced himself to say something at least.

"I can't..."

The muscles in Matsumoto's jaw tightened. That damned boy really tested his patience.

"But Shinichi, you don't understand, we have to help them, get them out of Tokyo before something happens to them. They are in Tokyo, aren't they, Shinichi." But even the emphasis in her voice wasn't able to force Kudo's lips apart. Fine, if he didn't want it any other way, he had to change tune. It was due to his acting talent that he'd managed to keep his identity a secret for so long, after all.

"Don't you get it, Shinichi!" He made Ran's voice break, hiding tears in its tone while his own cheeks remained dry.

"You only make things worse, your lies, your silence; I can't do this anymore, Shinichi. I can't..."

"Ran, don't..."

A broad smile spread across Matsumoto's lips, but this time he didn't let up but continued with a trembling voice.

"You – you have to trust me, Shinichi, you have to tell me…"

At last, Kudo's tongue seemed to loosen, his voice was rough, his sentences interrupted by coughing, but at least, he was talking now.

"No, no... I can't, Ran..." Shinichi's voice suddenly sounded desperate. In all the time he had now been tormenting him, he had never seen him like this, while his words were little more than a desperate whisper.

"You can't know..."

One of his bushy eyebrows briefly moved upwards. He'd obviously struck a nerve he didn't even know existed. The boss of the black organization felt his fingertips start to tingle, his beard twitched under the brief smile as he let her voice do the work for him, tricking his victim's mind into steering him in the right direction.

"What am I not allowed to know, Shinichi? What are you not telling me?"

The detective bit his lips, which were far too dry, so that blood oozed from the fine cracks, mixing with the wet film on his skin.

"No... it's not your fault."

Matsumoto's cold eyes lit up.

'Now that's getting interesting...'

He inflicted as much pain from his cold throat as he could muster. It was important to play along before the detective's mind banned him again.

"Of course, it is Shinichi, so stop lying already!"

The detective grimaced, cringing under the next drop, while his voice desperately tried to reassure 'Ran' that she was wrong.

"You didn't know any better... you couldn't have known that he was one of them."

'He?'

Matsumoto's brain began to work, trying to piece together the strange puzzle that the detective was throwing at him. However, it was Ran's voice that carefully formulated his question.

"Amuro?"

Shinichi squinted his eyes, taking a long breath while his exhausted muscles began to tremble.

That was all the answer he needed.

A thin smile slowly formed on his lips. This promised to be interesting indeed. Her voice dripped from his lips in desperate words, and he enjoyed each of them.

"If it hadn't been for me, then..."

And promptly, the detective's dissolved mind fell into his trap.

"No... I-I it's my fault, I should have told you."

"Stop it, Shinichi, you know that's not true, it's all my fault and you know it."

Kudo shook his fixed head as best he could, trying to talk to her in an exasperated tone.

"No, you would never have told him if you had known."

His eyes took on a feverish gleam, so slowly Matsumoto could guess where this would go, so his body trembled with excitement.

All it needed was a tiny push.

"But I did, Shinichi!"

"Just because I let it get this far!"

Shinichi suddenly became loud, but his dry vocal cords could not withstand the pressure for long. He coughed and had to struggle for air before he could continue to speak.

"It was an accident, Ran... you didn't know it was Ai."

She punished him with silence, tempting him to continue.

"Ran... it's not your fault."

Shinichi swallowed, feeling his heart beating harder and harder against his chest, his ears demanding to hear her voice again and make everything right.

"You wouldn't have told him if you had known who she was."

He ignored how another part of his head screamed at him to shut up.

'But I have to tell her...'

His head was buzzing, the water hitting his forehead harder with every drop, making it hard to think.

Why shouldn't he keep talking?

Why couldn't he just take her in his arms?

Why would his lips not break her silence?

Why was he forbidden to comfort her?

Ran was upset; she blamed herself, even though his lies were responsible for her situation, not Ran.

He couldn't allow her to blame herself.

"Please, Ran..."

His pleading heart, longing to wipe the tears from her eyes once and for all, grew louder and louder, slowly pushing the other voice into the background. Even though it was tearing him apart inside, Ran's silence was stronger.

Just shut up.

'She is not to blame.'

Don't say it.

Drip

Her silence tore his heart to pieces and loosened his lips.

"It's not your fault."

He swallowed, his fingers twitching, making desperate efforts to reach for her hand. His eyes darted back and forth, searching her face, while his body demanded to hear her voice again.

"You never would have betrayed Ai, Ran, never."

Ran, however, remained silent, leaving the detective to his fate, who repeated his silent mantra before he lost his battle to the darkness again.

"It's not your fault..."

But the lips he believed to be Ran's displayed a cold, cruel smile.

'Oh... but I think it is my dear detective.'

XXX

With an exhausted sigh, she closed the door behind her.

There was no turning back now.

Tracy swallowed and put the small recorder back on the makeshift lab table to follow his example by sinking into the swivel chair.

Immediately, her eyes wandered to the test tubes on the table in front of her.

Sky blue.

The FBI agent swallowed, shook her head slightly.

Who would have thought that the antidote would have this color, that it would have a color at all...?

Or that there even would be an antidote.

'You don't know that yet...'

Tracy pushed the little devil on her shoulder away, keeping her eyes on the crystal-clear blue liquid. But before the chemist had time to think further about how to apply it to Shinichi, she heard footsteps coming closer to her. She waited for a knock on her door, but instead, the handle gave way with a squeaking sound, opened and closed again immediately.

She felt a shiver running down her spine. She didn't have to turn around to know who was standing behind her, even though she'd expected her much earlier. The scientist took one last calm breath, then turned and rose from her office chair to look at her.

Yukiko remained silent, taking her the time to look around the small room where the FBI agent had been hiding from them all this time.

At least now she knew why.

The room was sparsely furnished; it really couldn't pass off as a laboratory. And yet, her team from the FBI seemed to have provided the chemist with the most important things. Measuring instruments, all kinds of glasses, some of which reminded the actress more of a deformed vase. A gas bottle with a Bunsen burner, something that looked like a small oven, and many other things that Kudo Yukiko couldn't name.

One thing, however, did catch her attention. And that were the small mouse cages, ten in number, but in only one could she recognize one of the little animals.

She swallowed, watching the little mouse's whiskers vibrate as it leaned curiously against the glass to see what was going on in the world around it.

The actress shook her head, crossed her arms in front of her chest, and brought her attention back to the FBI agent, who was still standing there, waiting for her to say something.

"How long have you been working on it? How long have you known about the antidote?"

Yukiko's voice was sharp and formed a lump in Tracy's throat.

"It was just a coincidence, I-..." But Yukiko interrupted her.

"How long?"

Tracy swallowed, turning her head away as she answered.

"While we were making the last mask for him. I knew Sherry's- Ai's data might be useful to me. I thought that with their help, I might be able to make an antidote."

"Why didn't you tell us? Why didn't you tell him?" Yukiko felt her eyes begin to burn but fought back the pressure, so that it was only her voice that broke.

"If he had known that, maybe everything would have been different. Then Shinichi wouldn't have had to make that decision. He wouldn't have had to put everything on the line."

She swallowed, lowered her eyes as she felt the first tears running down her cheeks.

"He- he wouldn't be..."

Tracy fought the lump in her own throat before cautiously taking a step towards his mother.

"Please understand, Kudo-san, I know Shinichi, it was better this way, believe me. Besides, I doubt that it would have changed his mind…"

This time it was Yukiko's turn to take a step towards the FBI agent, while her words were disturbingly quiet.

"Don't tell me what I'm supposed to understand and what not! Don't you dare think that you know my son better than I do! I'm his mother, I raised him, I-..."

"You know nothing about him!"

Tracy's words hit her like a slap in the face, and she had to pause before she found her voice again, her tone turning bitter.

"And whose fault is that? Whose fault is it that until recently, I thought I had buried my son?"

Tracy swallowed, feeling her words hit a point that she truly regrets.

"They took him away from me. You've stolen ten years from us…" Yukiko's voice trailed off, her eyes resting on the silent chemist whose gaze fell to the floor, her voice low, barely audible, perhaps because deep down she knew that she had no right to voice them.

Still, Yukiko understood every single word.

"What about the years before..."

"WHAT?!"

Yukiko's voice was shrill, nearly vibrating, so that her body started to tremble involuntarily, denying her any control. The FBI agent didn't allow the former actress to keep her at bay any longer; she'd had enough.

"Where have you been all this time? Where were you when your son needed you? When he suddenly had to rely on the help of others again, had to rely on your help..."

Tracy swallowed and finally broke the eye contact with his mother.

"He was talking about you two, only good things, of course. After all, Shinichi is well-mannered - I'll give you that. But even though we didn't know much about his situation, we noticed that you hadn't been there, not for Conan at least..."

The FBI agent's brown eyes burned on Yukiko's skin as her words seemed to punch a hole into her chest.

"It's not my fault that you don't know your son, Kudo-san."

The chemist swallowed and recognized how his mother's eyes became glassy, while the anger in her own voice still refused to fade.

"So, don't insinuate that I don't have his best interests at heart. That I don't regret that I agreed to help him to make that video back then, or that I struggled each and every day not to tell him the story we had to make up for Conan to disappear." Tracy bit her lips.

"You haven't been there for the last ten years. You didn't have to watch a child growing up that wasn't a child to begin with.

You didn't see him."

Yukiko just swallowed, feeling the lump in her throat grow when she saw that the FBI agent had become a few shades paler as she apparently was watching her memories flickering by on the floor.

"It wasn't easy at first... getting used to it, or dealing with it. I mean, a little boy who wasn't a boy at all, who was deep into the case that we'd all been following for so long. That's a bitter pill to swallow." Tracy sighed, brushing a strand of brown hair behind her ear.

"Knowing what he had been through. That he had given up everything and left it all behind just to protect everyone. He had lost a good friend and, along with her, all hope of ever becoming himself again."

She blinked, trying to get rid of the picture of the empty gaze of the little boy sitting on the edge of the bed in the small room at the FBI headquarters, staring into nothingness while his feet didn't even touch the floor.

"You don't get over something like that easily, even someone like your son. And I'm afraid his environment wasn't helpful at the time. We had a room set up for him at FBI headquarters in New York so that one of us could always keeping an eye on him... because, let's face it, from everything we knew about him, we didn't trust him not to something reckless."

'And it seems like this didn't change…'

Tracy slumped against the desk, supporting herself with her hands.

"Apart from Stuart and me, only a few knew about Conan's secret, so they treated him like that, like a child. He became something like a mascot of the facility." The chemist rolled her eyes, still unable to believe that the others had actually bought his acts.

"All this was never a problem until it suddenly became quiet around the organization, until he lacked the distraction. I don't have to tell you how hard it is to help your son, especially when he doesn't think he needs the help, not to mention that on some days, we simply struggled to find the right argument to encourage him."

She swallowed, ran her hand over her eyes.

"Sometimes we were left with nothing but the mere hope that once we finally get the organization, there could still be a chance of an antidote."

Tracy's gaze wandered to the light blue content in the small test tube while her index finger drew small circles on the tabletop.

"We're not talking about days; we're talking about years. And Shinichi knew that even if he tried not to show it. But there were those moments when he felt unobserved, took a look in the mirror and didn't know that we saw the hatred and fear in his eyes. Fear of things that a normal person didn't have to think about. After he'd been with us for maybe two months, he came to me with a measuring tape in his hand and asked me to see how tall he was. You can imagine how hard it was for me to disappoint him, to tell him that he hadn't grown a single inch in all that time." She swallowed, could still see his shocked look in front of her, the disbelief that turned to bitterness the next moment when he could no longer meet her eyes.

"We had no data on the poison; we didn't know what exactly it had done to his body, so all we could do was keep waiting."

Yukiko swallowed. The possibility that Shinichi could have been stuck in this child's body forever had never crossed her mind, while for him, it might have been a fear he'd been carrying around for a while. Should she have known about it? Should she have seen it during her visits?

Probably.

A pale smile crept onto Tracy's lips and caught her attention again; it was the first since Yukiko had entered the room.

"I have never seen him so happy in all the time he has been with us up to the day I was finally could tell him that he'd had grown." She laughed, feeling a hot tear in the corner of her eye.

"Stuart was teasing him, told him he was like a child on a sugar rush, and you know what? Shinichi just stuck his tongue out at him before he fell back on his bead and simply started to laugh. I think that was the first time we both heard him laugh..."

She swallowed, shook her head with a sigh.

"But that was soon to be over. Because growing up a second time, fully aware of what was happening to his body and why drove him crazy some days."

Yukiko bit her lip; some part of her didn't want to hear any of this, but the FBI agent had no mercy.

"He was too hard on himself, really. Shinichi hated puberty, which stretched his nerves to the breaking point, apologized more than once for the odd outbursts of anger or his annoyed expression, which was sometimes hard to scrape off his face.

He knew exactly what was happening, why he was behaving like this, and it was simply unbearable for him that he could do nothing about it. That was probably one reason why he started writing.

Of course, this was far from a solution to everything.

I still remember when his voice began to break, and we heard Kudo Shinichi for the first time between the jarring sounds. But he was more than embarrassed by this loss of control. Maybe it was also because he first had to get used to the fact that now Shinichi and no longer Conan was speaking again. In any case, he only talked to us about most necessary things until he could control it to some extent, and his voice did no longer waver back and forth between the primary and the high schooler."

Yukiko felt how goosebumps rose on the back of her neck, an insatiable desire rising inside her.

She should have been there then.

She should have been with him.

Tracy took advantage of the brief pause to wet her lips. Her voice wasn't as raspy as before when she continued to speak.

"He grew up again, and we finally got to know the young man he should have been when we met. The look in the mirror, however, remained the same for him... Time still separated Edogawa Conan and Kudo Shinichi, and even worse, time still separated him from her, more than distance ever could."

The chemist swallowed, noticed how her voice became rough again when she spoke.

"I tried to help him. It was my job, after all, to figure out the poison, to find out if there was a way to separate his body from this substance. I ran every test I could think of, took more blood than he liked."

The actress pressed her lips together, feeling the blood slowly drain from her cheeks.

"It was him who stopped in the end, not me..."

Tracy's voice broke.

"I probably wouldn't have been able to bear the disappointment in his eyes any longer either, but I would have kept going, I would have kept trying...

But Shinichi had had enough; he could take no more.

He asked me to stop."

For the first time since that long monologue, she managed to look his mother in the eye again.

"That's why I didn't tell him. I didn't want to hurt him. I couldn't bear to disappoint him like that again." She averted her eyes while her lips reluctantly obeyed her.

"I don't want to do that to him again."

Tracy swallowed, shook her head briefly, and looked up.

"Not to mention, he would have continued with his plan anyway. He would've never put so much on the line, for nothing but a mere chance…"

This time Yukiko's ears perked up again, but the anger had long since disappeared from her words. Uncertain, she took a step towards the chemist.

"A chance? But you said..."

Tracy bit his lips and avoided his mother's gaze.

"I said I have an antidote. I said it should work..."

Yukiko swallowed, her gaze falling back to the empty cages, already afraid of the answer to her question.

"But you tested it, didn't you?"

The chemist just swallowed, nodded, and then let her gaze wander over to what had remained for her massacre.

"Yes, but these mice were healthy; they didn't have the APTX in their organism. But at least one survived..."

The actress had turned pale, covering her mouth with her hand until she found the courage to ask further.

"So, you're saying that-..."

But the chemist interrupted her.

"That's the only chance we got."

Tracy's brown eyes weighed heavily on her, regret reflected in her gaze, while she would have loved to tell his mother something else.

Something better than the fragile truth.

"If this antidote doesn't work, then none will."

Hello everybody,

I'm sorry for being late and for missing answering some of your reviews! I do love every single one of them!

About four weeks ago we saved two little kittens about two weeks old, so we had to bottle-feed them. Well, now they can eat by themselves, all grown-up little buddies. Anyway of course that took a lot of time (and sleep) beside and left me with some kind of vertigo that won´t go away, it's so annoying too be honest.

Ah well- that aside thanks for your patience and of course all your reviews and favs/kudos/likes!

I hope you had fun with the chapter!

Till next time,

~ Shelling