Disclaimer: I don't own Detective Conan. I'm not Gosho Aoyama!
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Tomorrow
-by Alena S. Anigor
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She had replaced the blue light of the computer screen with soft rays of sunlight, letting them warm up her pale skin and indifferent expression.
She was lying peacefully on a towel placed neatly over the sand, a magazine in her hands, blue eyes skimming over the pages slowly.
It was one of those beautiful, sunny days when one could go to the beach, laze around, swim and relax under the sun, with no worries in the world. When one could laugh and smile with their friends, play volleyball in the shallow water and drink little, delicious cocktails by the bar.
She knew she wasn't one of those people. And sometimes, she hated it.
Blue eyes stopped skimming over the pages as they glazed over slightly, staring at one sentence, her thoughts scattered, dainty fingers of a child that in reality, belonged to a 19 year old girl, gripping the front pages of the magazine tighter.
How much longer? How much longer would this last?
She knew that Kudou was becoming impatient, as much as he had gotten used to his shrunken state already. She had gotten used to it, too...Perhaps a bit too much than she had intended to. She had gotten used to a lie named Ai Haibara...
She knew that she was close to finding the antidote, the cure, the miracle that would end one nightmare - his, and start the other – hers. She knew he was ready for it; he had been from the day he had met her, always hoping, aching to be Shinichi Kudou again, instead of a pale, mini version of himself, known to the world as Conan Edogawa. She was close to making Shinichi Kudou rise again from the ashes, from the dead, little pieces of a puzzle in her head on the brink of being put together...She knew he was ready. But...she wasn't ready yet. She knew that when she would resurrect Shiho Miyano and bury Ai Haibara, she would also resurrect Sherry.
And that thought was making her shudder. No matter what she would do or say or think, Sherry would always remain.
And if Ai Haibara could make Sherry disappear from her dreams, from her nightmares, her thoughts and memories, then she would pay that price.
She didn't want to give up on a life she never had...not yet...not when she had the opportunity to feel what she never could, to see what she was never allowed to...to behave, the way she never had the chance.
She wanted to spend her afternoons like this, she wanted to play volleyball with her friends, exchange secrets with Ayumi, tease Genta and talk to Mitsuhiko about science stuff...She wanted to lounge by the bar and drink those little cocktails like professor Agasa often did, with a big hat on her head and with dark sunglasses shielding her eyes...
She wanted to live...she wanted life. Not sinister laboratories, dark corridors, people in black controlling her every move...
Controlling her every move...
Would this feeling ever stop? The feeling that she was constantly being watched, observed, followed...She felt like a prey in a large trap – the hunters would allow her to run a bit, hide a bit, feel safe for a little bit, but in truth –there was no escape...just the inevitable fact that she would either have to kill or be killed.
That was the bitter truth she knew...that was her life – waking up from nightmares in the middle of the night, drenched in sweat and with her eyes wide, flinching at every sight of people dressed in black, spending hours in professor's laboratory until her back hurt and her eyes stung from the flickering light of the computer screen...
Ai Haibara was living in a made up world where everything was perfect. But just like her name, the world in which she was living was faux.
She hated it, despised it, feared it...and clung to it because it was her only resort...
She lowered the magazine down, staring bitterly at the sand beneath her towel, tiny specks of minerals glistening on the warm sun. She could hear people chatting nearby, could hear the children laughing and playing in the distance, could hear the waves crashing and could feel the soft breeze tousle and play with her hair...Everything was so perfect, so nice, so serene...she could get used to that if only she could allow herself to...
She jerked suddenly when a rainbow colored ball rolled over to her and bumped into her ankle. Someone bent down to pick it up and she started, the action seeming so out of place after she had spent the last few minutes sitting motionlessly on the towel, with her thoughts in turmoil...
Looking up, she saw Ayumi with her sweet, childlike smile, offering her a hand.
Innocent...
Without even thinking, she took her hand and let her drag her away, her feet sinking into the sand until she gasped slightly when she stepped into the cool water and waves crashed against her shins.
"Come on, Ai-chan! This will be fun!"
Ai-chan...
She stopped and gazed at them all in wonder and then snapped out of her stupor when that same rainbow colored ball flew her way. She reacted instantly, catching it expertly and glancing at the bespectacled boy a few feet away from her.
Conan Edogawa...Shinichi Kudou...
"Yeah, Haibara," he said quietly over the splashing noise when Genta tripped over a small pebble and landed below the surface, earning a few chuckles from Mitsuhiko and Ayumi in return, "now it would be a good time to replace me and save me from this." He added, deadpanning discreetly.
She stared at him for a while, not knowing what to say to that, holding the ball in her hands limply.
"Come on, Ai-chan, throw the ball!" Ayumi exclaimed happily and she sighed heavily before tossing the ball to the girl who laughed when little drops of salty water fell on her face.
She was left to stand there in shallow water, with a bunch of kids around her (save for Kudou, of course), doing the exactly same thing she had been thinking about just a few minutes ago.
She was Ai-chan...she was 9 years old...she was a little girl who liked to play with rainbow colored balls...she had a group of friends around her...She was just like them – innocent, blithe, free...
Could she allow it? Just for a little while? Just for a few moments...It wouldn't hurt, would it?
She allowed herself a small smile...
Just for today, she would be Ai Haibara. She couldn't let this moment pass her by...not when her time was limited and moments like these too precious. She wouldn't think about men dressed in black, chemical formulas and equations, papers filled with drabbles that were her memory of the past...She wouldn't think about death, nightmares that would haunt her again and the feeling of dread washing over her every time she would sense one of them close to her...Not today. Today, she wanted to be Ai-chan...
And she would be Shiho Miyano and Sherry again tomorrow.
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a/n:
I don't know where this came from...
I've wanted to write something for DC for a while now and I wanted to write a Heiji×Kazuha one-shot but somehow, Ai came to my mind, my plot bunnies changed their mind and this is the result.
It's perhaps a bit...weird and disjointed and all, but I hope you liked it!