It has been a while, for which I am sorry. I've been having a harder time getting things done in general, in no small part due to the fact that my service dog got ill. She died a few months ago, and she'd been one of my stable points for a long while, even not taking into account how much she did for me. So, yeah - I've been having a hard time. I may or may not end up getting another - as my needs have changed more towards the 'guide' type service dog than the more simple 'helper' type, the likelihood of that happening in any sort of timely manner is slim. I can see light and color, but that's about it at this point, and if it weren't for the fact that Blackhawk is still going strong and has his own eyes, getting into town would be a lot harder than it is. People are helpful (yay small towns!) and my fiance will be finishing up his doctorate relatively soon, and we'll see where we go after that. For now, I'm managing somewhat clumsily, and here's hoping that my proofreader can catch usage errors, because I have no idea whether or not speech recognition can and know perfectly well that spellcheck sucks at grammar.

I also miss reading...

Chapter 16

Another week passed in relative quiet, with Hattori heading back to Osaka and Conan (plus whoever was 'minding' him) only running into two murders and a kidnapping attempt.

Haibara and Miya-san were yet undecided on what to do, and Shinichi hadn't explained his own situation. He'd considered it, but... Haibara was so different, with her sister there. She was still Haibara, sharp-witted and sarcastic, but the biting edge to both her humor and her personality in general just - wasn't there.

Oh, she was still hard, jaded. But the edge of bitterness that she'd always had, especially in the early years, an edge born of guilt and grief and fear... it just wasn't there.

And Shinichi couldn't bring himself to tell her, not when she wasn't even living with the Hakase yet. Not when she was safe and free and even happy.

(His Haibara was dead, lost in fire and blood, and this young one... maybe she could have the peace Shinichi's Haibara never had.)

xxxx

"Miya-nee?" Ai (and it was getting easy, to think of herself like that, to think of herself like the child she was grateful to be again, easy to think of her sister as 'Miya' even if she'd never before this imagined Akemi not being Akemi) asked, a little concerned by how her big sister was tapping her pen against the 'new employee' form she was filling out, only occasionally having to check with the records they'd been given.

(Whole lives sketched out for a young woman and a seven-year-old, perfectly imperfect, with all the minor flaws and misfiles and coffee-stains that bored office workers would end up with. Odd, though, that her name had the kanji it did - she would have expected 'love', but was given instead grieving regret. Which, in honesty, she thought suited her better, but that they had seen that, too...? And she wasn't quite sure why they'd chosen 'Miya', especially with the kanji for 'arrow' in it. It was almost like whoever had set it up knew them, on a sort of level that even the Organization would never be able to claim. Which would be worrying in itself, but...)

"Yes, Ai-chan?" her sister glanced over, eyes thoughtful but expression mildly concerned.

"Is something wrong, Nee-san?" Ai decided on, not quite sure what else to ask.

"Oh... no, Ai-chan. It's fine. I was just thinking about whether we should meet this Agasa-hakase. I'm a little concerned..."

Normally, she'd agree with the concern, but... the offer had been given by Kuroba, who's husband had offered to help the Miyno sisters before he'd gone missing. And Kuroba... if he wasn't Kaito KID, Ai would be rather surprised. Not that she would dream of turning him in, not when he'd given them this chance. "I would usually agree that we should be," she admitted, "but... for some reason, I think they're really just trying to help."

Her sister considered for a few moments. "Well. You're usually right about things like that," she agreed. "They've been leaving us to our own devices, aside from the offer of either meeting this Agasa-hakase or helping us go to America. I admit that it will be hard to make ends meet for a while without help, and you need to be enrolled in school - don't make that face, Ai-chan. Not going would be suspicious."

Which was true, of course. And homeschooling was nearly unheard of, so that certainly wouldn't work. "I know," she couldn't quite keep the grimace from deepening for a moment, "Ugh. I have to go to grade school."

Her sister laughed, "At least it won't be difficult."

Gods, no, it was going to be so boring.

"Who knows, Ai-chan? Maybe you'll make friends."

And maybe the sun would rise in the west. They were all at least ten years younger than she was. But... well. She'd occasionally watched children in the parks, and she had to admit she'd envied the easy truth of all their interactions. Young children - they didn't... she wouldn't have to second-guess everything they said or did. If nothing else, that at least would be refreshing.

"Now, do you want to call the Hakase or shall I?"

"You should finish your paperwork," Ai hopped up to dig out the phone her sister had taken her to get a few days before and grab the notebook that had a list of numbers to call in case of questions or emergencies, only stumbling a little as she misjudged her reach, and took a few moments to actually enter contact information in her mostly-blank contacts list before calling.

It took seven rings for the man to pick up, and there was an odd hissing sound like a leaking air-valve in the background, but he sounded cheerful. Kind.

... Maybe this really was a good idea. Maybe - maybe this would really work out.

(Hope stung. But - it was a good sting, like sitting near a warm hearth after coming in from the cold.)

xxxx

Ran closed her phone and stared at it for a long moment, Kuroba-kun's words ringing in her mind with a startling sort of wry wisdom and a parting shot of understated hope.

"No. Shinichi isn't everything to me. He wouldn't want to be, and I wouldn't want to be everything to him. When you lose everything, there's nothing left - and he would want me to have something left. But - have a little faith, Ran-san. I'm not giving up on him just yet."

She huffed, lips quirking into a smile against her will. Kuroba-kun was right. Shinichi wouldn't want to be everything to anyone, and somehow she didn't believe he was dead, either.

"Oi, Ran! You coming?"

"Hai, hai!" she pocketed her phone and grabbed her purse, "Coming, Sonoko!"

"About time! Honda-kun and Katsumi-chan are waiting for us!"

That's right, they were. And Shinichi would want her happy, too.

xxxx

"You okay?" Kaito asked when he finally spotted Shinichi after emerging from his latest antidote-check, curled half-hidden in the living room armchair with a book open on his lap and a stare that looked through the pages rather than at them.

Shinichi blinked, giving himself a slight shake before glancing over at Kaito and offering a quick smile, a little wry and a lot tired. "Just thinking. Agasa-hakase called; Haibara-" he shook his head and self-corrected, "-Ai-san apparently asked if she and Miya-san could meet with him. It just..."

"Ah," Kaito crossed the room and Shinichi closed his book (English, historical fiction - not his usual genre) and shifted over, his tiny form easily leaving space for the magician to sit, which he did before hauling his miniaturized husband in for a sideways hug.

Things like that brought home how much they couldn't ever get back, and sometimes it was hard to look at those here, now, who weren't the ones they'd lost - because memory said they should be but they weren't and it ached.

And Kaito missed Haibara, her acid wit and steady loyalty, but the undersized woman who he'd known, who Shinichi had been so much closer to, wasn't coming back.

Kaito knew that, and it sometimes hurt more to look at Jii-chan and have so much be missing than it had been to know him gone forever. The same was true of others, and Shinichi - Haibara had been much of what Jii was to Kaito, to Shinichi, and in many ways more - though she'd always been closer to 'sister' than 'aunt', and added to that a friend. Confidant, backup, assistant - and the only other in his unique situation of a body younger than the mind within...

And this Ai? Would never be any of those things, at least not to the same degree, and looking at a familiar face and hearing a familiar voice and not being recognized in return...

At least he'd known Jii before the point of their return.

Shinichi sighed and leaned into his hold, nodding. "I miss her," he admitted.

Which... yeah.

"And I feel bad that I wish this Ai-san was more like - but I know why Haibara was that way, and even thinking that I wish..."

Kaito hugged him tighter, unable to voice his reply aloud, but he'd felt the same way with Aoko a few times. Her later maturity had come of hardship, and she'd been the one left thinking him dead, but he'd checked in as often as he'd dared to risk it and seen her become a strong, good woman.

(He'd loved her, then, and he'd loved the wild, bright-eyed girl that was all temper and life, but he'd been so proud to see who she'd become. And wanting to see her become that woman again, when so much of why had been the pain of losing her best friend and her father and a classmate-friend from high school? Yeah, he felt guilty about wanting that too.)

He couldn't voice it aloud, but his grip shifted against Shinichi's shoulder, tapping out understanding that he deserved to hear.

Shinichi huffed and his fingers flicked in acknowledgement, 'We're human, after all.'

Kaito breathed out a laugh and stood, scooping Shinichi up (and knocking his book to bounce off the armrest and land in the cushions), because Shinichi knew people, even ones he'd never met. Most of the time, he understood, too. "Dinner," he declared, "will be ramen."

Comfort food. Guaranteed to make any situation look less bleak.

Besides which, the Haibara sisters choosing to meet the Hakase would likely help them all in the long run, especially if they did accept the invitation to share his home. It wouldn't be the same - couldn't be - but 'different' didn't have to be 'bad'.

And what they had now was so much more than what they'd hoped to have again.

(Sometimes it just got a little hard to remember that, that's all.)

xxxx

Another week (three murders, one kidnapping, a broad spectrum of minor robberies, and a major bomb-scare that involved Conan, a large building, and disarmament) later, and Kaito felt pretty optimistic about the chances of the current batch of antidote making it all the way to the final month - most of the next few months were far less finicky than the early and late stages, and with a lot of care and a little luck, they might manage a full-sized Shinichi before the next year.

Hopefully.

That aside, the two elder Kudo were back in town, and Shinichi didn't seem entirely sure what to do with it. Conan presumably would have met them at least once in their gallivanting across the States, but considering Yukiko... most six-year-olds would be a bit leery, and one as quiet as Conan would likely outright shun someone of her... enthusiasm.

That said, Shinichi had missed his parents after they'd been killed, even if he'd hardly ever seen them even before then, and it was understandable that he at least wanted to check in with them, to know they were there and alive and safe - but even then he understandably found his mother's antics a bit wearing after a while.

If it came down to it, Kaito could find Kudo Yukiko to be a bit much, and his own mother was nearly as bad at times. (His mother's scare tactics didn't generally involve actually shooting at people, though, and the same couldn't always be said of Yukiko. Sharon Vineyard was a bad influence, and she'd always been closer to Yukiko than Chikage. Black operatives were scary, even when they were aiming to bring down the organization as a whole.)

"We could go to dinner with them?" Kaito suggested, a bit uncertain, after checking his texts and finding one from the woman in question.

Conan nodded, mindful of their location. "... she's less scary with Uncle Yuusaku there," he agreed, American English flawlessly childish.

Kaito considered that, then conceded with a nod. "Except when they plot together," he agreed, ignoring the way Hakuba blinked at both of them and Aoko frowned as she puzzled through the conversation.

"Kaito-kun's getting a lot better at English with Conan-kun around," Momoi-chan mused, also in careful English, snapping her bento closed.

"Should you even be here today?" Hakuba asked, apparently deciding that the fact that no one had suffered for Momoi breaking the lingering silence was insurance enough to ask.

Kaito supposed he had been a bit twitchy.

"Why wouldn't we be?" Conan asked.

Hakuba wasn't the only one to stare, though a few of the others took several seconds to work through to the meaning. "Conan, you were caught in the bombings yesterday."

Conan tilted his head, looking confused, "I didn't get hurt or anything," he pointed out. "The only one that blew up wasn't that near me."

Hakuba opened his mouth, then closed it again, clearly nonplussed.

"Yeah," Kaito agreed with Hakuba's clear speechlessness, "I used to think that about Shinichi, too. I'm not even going to try with Conan."

Conan gave him a suspicious sort of glare the way only a six-year-old could manage (although full-sized Shinichi had regained the ability post-Conan, which was downright creepy), then apparently decided it wasn't worth the effort and dug out a novel to read.

Aoko tilted her head to squint at the cover, frowning, "Is that really a book for a six-year-old?" she asked doubtfully, in slightly halting English.

"If you want to tell him he can't read it, be my guest," Kaito offered. "Considering his life is more violent than most mystery novels, I'm not too concerned."

There was a pause as the majority of those still in the classroom for lunch deciphered that, then Momoi conceded the point for the lot of them.

Then their English teacher walked in, a little early, and offered a smile to Conan, "Thank you, Conan, for getting the class to practice regularly. I think they're the best English-speakers in the entire school, now!"

Well, there was that, Kaito mused, tapping something to that effect on his desktop before snapping the lid on his own bento as Conan did much the same. The class was willing to speak English to include Conan where they certainly hadn't done anything like that for Hakuba, seeing as he was a teen. Not that they needed to, but they didn't know that.

Conan huffed softly and stuck his bento-box back in his backpack before pointedly returning his attention to his book.

Kaito grinned, just a bit. At least some things never changed.

xxxx