Disclaimer: I don't own Detective Conan.

•Remembering•

She awoke to a sunshine she didn't feel, and with tremendous effort, got herself up. No matter how many people died, no matter how important or small they were, life went on, like the steady drip-dropping of water upon rock, and the water slowly diminishing the rock over the accumulation of ages.

It was an unexpected relief to find that it was Saturday. With a sigh, she walked over to the window, gazing down at the street below. It all belonged to her life, as much her as her room, her bed, her house, her clothes, her school. They meant nothing to her. Not the relieving sort of nothing, the nothing-nothing of oblivion, the nothing within the silence, but the sort of nothing that leaves you lost. They all meant nothing to her, the nothing of the lost. The nothing-nothing of oblivion made her feel as if she had more than that, a life that overrode the pettiness humanity wrapped around itself. And she did. She had an identity. One identity, not two, like one person she knew used to have. Like one person she used to know still had. No, she still knew that person. Just because that person was gone didn't mean she was lost to the ones who remember her, the ones who aren't afraid to speak her name. Her names.

The ringing telephone dragged her out of her thoughts. After the second ring it stopped, and she could make out beyond the closed door, her father's voice as he said, "Mouri Kogoro Detective Agency. Oh, it's you. Lemme see if she—"

Ran had opened the door of her room and slowly crossed the room to the desk, looking expectantly at her father. Without another word, he handed the phone to her. She placed it to her ear, both hands clutching it, as if she was afraid Shinichi might still slip away from her life like he had done once before. Once was enough. She didn't think she could ever stop feeling that way. She wiped away the tears from last night, and the ones that had begun to flow just a few minutes ago. Hoping her voice didn't crack, she cautiously said, "Shinichi?"

"Hey."

"Hey yourself," she whispered tiredly.

"Are you…are you okay?" She could tell the voice on the other end was concerned for her welfare, but also trying to hide its owner's own, similar emotions.

"I thought you said you could tell how I was just by listening to my voice on the phone," she thought, but didn't say out loud. She knew his words were there just to show her that he cared. But even without them, she would know he cared. He always cared, for life and for truth. And for her.That made him Shinichi. Instead, she ventured, "Are you?"

"No."

She knew what he meant, but didn't say so.

"But it's going to be better."

She nodded. "I know."

"I was looking at her hat."

She replied in silence, waiting for him to go on.

"The camera was turned on, and it wasn't when Vermouth shot her. You think…?" He trailed off, knowing he didn't need to explain any further, and knowing also that the silence on the other end of the receiver meant that his best friend was trying to fight a fresh knew army of tears.She should never fight her emotions, not because she usually lost, but because her emotions were what made her. Emotions, along with several thousand more miracles.

"Well, there's only one way to find out," she finally said. "I'll come by."

"I'll be waiting."

"Bye."

She hung up, opened the door, and said to Kogoro, "I'm going to Shinichi's."

Before he could reply, she was down the steps, walking rapidly and trying to escape feelings she knew she could never leave behind.

He opened the door before she could even knock or ring his doorbell. She glanced at him, at the Shinichi she had missed beyond reason, beyond eternity, for so, so long. He didn't look like he had cried, but then again, he was always better at hiding his emotions than she was. He was just as downcast, just as overwhelmed by memories of what Ai had done for him as she was—maybe even more. None of it was evident on his face, but she could tell. She didn't know how, but she could tell. He had had his own private thoughts, his own regrets, his own despair like she had had. And she suspected they weren't much different from hers.

"Where's the hat?"

Without a word, he led her to the kitchen table and picked it up, holding it as carefully as if it was Ai's soul he held between his hands. His voice shook. "It's still pretty hard to believe, Ran. That she's ...gone, I mean."

She nodded, looking at the hat. Her tone was soft. "We get so used to seeing people walk into our lives without any announcement, it's sort of a shock to see them walk out of them in the same way."

"I was never this stricken when I was at a murder case. But now I know what it's like to have a relation to the victim. And there isn't a mystery to who killed her. I'm just glad that that person's behind bars."

"Jodie-sensei…" She realized now that although the majority of her tears were for Ai, a part of them was for the teacher she had lost, and had trusted. Trusted wrongly. But she wasn't wrong for trusting. It was whom she had trusted. She knew that, all too well. After all, trust had rekindled her life as well as driven a wooden stake through it. She wasn't a vampyress. Wooden stakes were useless to someone whom others had sometimes deemed an angel. (She wondered for the first time if she would ever really live up to that name.) And what good was wood when it met flame? A brief bridge into beyond, and that was about all. She raised her eyes from Ai's baseball cap to find Shinichi watching her curiously. "Um, we should probably have Dr. Agasa here, too."

"Yeah. Whatever this may be, I've a feeling he'll want to see it, too."

It took six persistent rings to get the professor to the phone. "Hello?"

"Dr. Agasa, it's Shinichi. The camera you installed into Haibera's hat was on when I was looking at it, and I was pretty sure it was off when—er, at the hotel. I thought maybe we should check it out."

There was a brief period of indecision, then the professor said, "All right. I'll see what I can do.

In a few minutes after Dr. Agasa arrived, the camera had been taken off from its home under the beak of the hat and a small black chip had been carefully inserted with tweezers into the computer in Shinichi's room. Gradually Ai's face, framed by her blonde hair, appeared on the screen.

"I'm hoping you'd get this, Kudo," she said, and it was obvious what effort it took her just to speak from the way her mouth formed over her words and the strain of her voice. "From the way you notice these things, this one should be a cinch. Show this to Ran and Dr. Agasa, okay? I just want to get a few words in with you before it's too late. Because I know I'm going to die. The pain's left me with the blood.

"Listen, don't regret what happened, okay? I don't. Of course, it could have to do with me being about to die, but…" she trailed off and chuckled slightly at her feeble joke. "Vermouth and Gin and everyone in that organization, they've hated me so much, I could kind of guess that it would be one of them who would kill me. Ever since I took that pill, I knew my days were numbered. Even after I realized the pill wasn't going to kill me. Luckily, it didn't." She smiled here, and despite the ghostly whiteness of her face, now she resembled the Ai her current audience had lamented over. "Because I would've never met you, nor Ayumi and Genta and Mitsuhiko, who're nice kids, even if they are, well, kids. Nor Dr. Agasa, nor Ran, nor anyone else. And really, you've done so much more for me than I for you. You gave me friends, and to someone whose whole life is—was like mine, it's really not that hard to realize how priceless friends can be. So thank you, Shinichi.

"Don't regret my decision to remain a kid, either. I know that if I had been in my former form—I can never really think of it as my true form now—I might have survived the bullet. But remember, this is my decision. And once someone makes a decision, they're accepting the consequences, whether they know what they are or not. These are the consequences, and somehow, I don't think this is a bad turnout after all. Can you tell Dr. Agasa thanks, for doing so many things for me and all? Somehow he made it up. Made up for all the family I lost, by just being there.

"And lastly, I don't want to die knowing that you don't know how I feel about you. It's almost funny, how someone who can solve mysteries like you can can't even tell the slightest thing about someone else's feelings. Especially if those feelings happen to be liking you. A lot. I talked with Ran about it, and I'm still not sure if it's love. You never knew, did you? I've been thinking about it, and I've accepted a long time ago how you only hold me in your mind as a friend, but that doesn't make me stop liking you. I had been hoping someday that, when all of this is over, something might happen to make me stop liking you like this, and only as a friend. Maybe this is the something that I had been hoping for. Actually, I'm sure it is. I know how important Ran is to you, and I know how important you are to Ran. I see it. So I guess it's okay with me, to see you two together. Actually, I think I may not prefer it any other way. That's another reason I remained…this way. I've told Ran, when we were waiting for you at the Beikan. How I didn't want to even give myself an opportunity to think I had a chance of replacing Ran. Because that's never, ever going to happen. You two—sometimes it seems you've loved each other all your lives, and like I've told Ran, that sort of love is too strong and too fragile for anyone to break. So promise me two things, Shinichi: Tell Ayumi and Genta and Mitsuhiko what happened. I know you were planning to tell them when they grew up a little bit, but they deserve to know right now. While it's easy to make them believe the truth. And the other thing is to not let this news, plus the fact that I'm…dead, get in the way of what you two have." She grinned here with the happiness that she had missed when she was still Sherry, still Miyano Shiiho.

"Oh yeah, and tell Ran that what she said, about as long as I loved my family, I wouldn't be afraid

of remembering, as long as I give things time—well, I have. It took her words to help me. And I do cherish my memories, even if I have to give them up when I'm gone—I'm counting on you and Ran and Dr. Agasa and the kids to remember them for me."

The girl on the computer screen smiled again, this time with an exasperated expression, and sighed. "Look at me, Ai, analytical enough to be annoying, writing my own will. You did this to me, you know. Ran, Shinichi…you did this to me. Thanks." She sighed again. "I guess…I guess this is good-bye." It had been a small miracle that she had said all of those things while the life was leaking out of her body, drop by ruby red drop, but her face also seemed peaceful, at a genuine relief for the first time. There was no question whether she would've been the same if the APTX 4869 had killed her. The world wouldn't have been the same if that APTX 4869 had done what Gin thought it was supposed to do. And maybe a part of her was relieved, and not only at the thought of leaving the world without having to worry about how the people she was only too lucky to leave behind would wreak havoc on more still others, those who had had better lives than she. No, there was a small relief at locking her memories of what she hated—and those that she loved—into a chest of unbeing and swallowing the key of death, and of not having to fear what the future might hold for her. Because the future, as she knew it, had just closed its doors to her. And that was not an entirely bad thing. Not when another door opened to her: the door of nothing-nothing oblivion, of nothing within the silence. How that silence, that oblivion, that nothing was represented, out of the four people in the room, only Haibera Ai, Miyano Shiiho, no longer bound by the string of life to the name of Sherry of the Kurozukume, knew. Whether it was announced by the trumpets of angels, or by the silence of darkness, or by something else altogether, they all summed up to one thing.

"Ai," said Dr. Agasa, smiling sadly as she slowly drifted away from them for the second and final time. He turned the computer screen off and stood there, gazing into the darkness of the glass that stared stolidly back at him. Finally he said hoarsely as he turned around to face Shinichi and Ran, "I think I'll show myself the door. I need to…" he trailed off, and Shinichi smiled at him gratefully.

Ran sat down on the bed, staining her cheeks with tears rid of regret and guilt, and full only of sweet, sweet, remembrance of the brief friendship she had had, and infused within that remembrance the remembrance of Shinichi's friendship with Ai.

After a second glance at Ran, and then at Shinichi, Dr. Agasa closed the door after him, his footfalls on the stairs receding slowly and painfully with each thought of his former colleague and adoptive "daughter".

"Who would've thought it would end like this?" wondered Ran out loud, not troubling to wipe away her tears now that there was only Shinichi to see them. And really, sometimes she felt it was only Shinichi who should see them, because sometimes he seemed to be the only one who understood them.

"Don't hold back, Ran," Shinichi whispered. He sat down beside her, watching her. "Ai did. Think it would end like this, I mean. But really," he smiled and gently ran a hand through her hair, "it hasn't ended. Not yet. And I don't think it ever will, not by a long shot. Life goes on."

She returned his smile. "It's worth it." She encircled her arms around his neck and whispered, "I promise I'll remember. For Ai, and for you."

The way he held her close to him, as if he could never let her go, come Heaven or heathen or anything else that would try to stand in their way, was so natural—as if she belonged there—she couldn't help but feel all of their troubles, their woes and their memories melting into one another, and into one another's soul. Memories remembered from before. Before Ai's death, before the Kurozukume. An essence, a feeling, an emotion older than time had interwoven their destinies into a single red string—that is, if the ifs and whens all aligned, if they had chosen to be the them that they had become. And they had chosen to be. "Then everything's going to be okay."

She was the first to break away, gently. Her right hand slipped down his back to close over his on her waist, and she brought it up to her cheek. Closed her eyes. "Why?" She opened her eyes to meet his, and the Heaven she saw within their blue, blue depths. She dropped her hand, but his still stayed on her cheek.

He raised an eyebrow in question, and smiled when he realized her meaning. Hr leaned a bit closer, smiling softly. "For many reasons."

"Oh? How many?"

"Countless ones that I can name, and countless ones I can't." His grip on her tightened, bringing her closer. You're innocent, and somehow, you manage to preserve that despite…despite so many things that have happened. I can feel it. You can see so many things, things that not even I can see. You can see how people feel, see how they think, and you're made wise by your innocence. Seventeen years, and I finally realize it when we were…well, apart. I know that if I say this, you're probably going to laugh, but when you look like this, I know I'd protect you, stand by you, and all the angels in Heaven, and all the spawn of hell, and anything and anyone in between—no matter how much they try, they can't ever stop my loving you. Even you can't, and out of all the angels in Heaven, and out of all the angels on earth, you're my favorite.

"You've come through so much. I've said it once, Ran, and I'll say it again. I saw your tears. I saw what caused them, and I couldn't forgive myself knowing that what had caused them was me."

"You're going to have to forgive yourself. Because I would never forgive you if you didn't," she said. The look he gave her was enough to last her an eternity. Just like he had, his smile changed her life. "Ran." The arm that held her pressed her ever closer against him. "Sometimes I feel like you've got a soul older than time. As old as love. And love made time."

She grinned at the last sentence. "You think so too? About love making time, I mean."

He nodded. "Yeah." And you've got a strength inside you. Even before I saw you, in that alley with Gin and Vodka, I knew. You were yourself. And that's why I love you. You've got something that few in this world have ever seen, and I'm just thankful I get to see it within you. You've got a strength inside, and you can use it as long as you have a reason. You know what that strength comes from, Ran? It comes from your innocence, and your wisdom, and your vulnerability. And it comes from your goodness, your purity. All these passing years have proved that. "But really, Ran, you want to know why I really love you? I love you because I do."

"That was all I wanted to hear," she said. "That was all."

"But you know what I said came straight from here." He guided her hand to his heart. "And what was all?"

"The last part. I love you because I do."

There was the spark of mischief she loved in his smile. "You do?"

She laughed, caught in his trap. "I do."

It was then that she realized how close her body was to his, how close their faces were, how close their hearts and souls were. But it was too late to break free—and, she realized later, even if it wasn't too late, maybe she wouldn't have released herself from his arms anyway. His lips met hers, a kiss that sealed destinies into one another by a single red string. It was worth it.

••