The fire department soon arrived and quickly dealt with the fire. Only the tattered remains of what once was a beautiful castle survived. It was quite unfortunate, but nothing could be done. It had even started raining, later on, as if emphasizing the bitter mood. However, on the bright side, the basement was untouched.

Everyone soon left after their statements were taken by the police and everything was taken care of.

The police had basically forced Conan to go get checked at a hospital, which honestly made a lot of sense. And he would've forced himself to go to the hospital if was in their position, but that didn't mean he had to like it or cooperate though. (Agasa had forged all the necessary documentation that he would need to be checked into a hospital, but he just simply didn't like hospitals, you know, like most people.)

Thankfully, he was fine if not for some bruising and a bit of inhaled smoke, so he was let out the same night. Agasa picked him up, and dropped him off at the Mouri's (after getting his original glasses back).

When he opened the door to the office, he saw Ran despondently staring down at the dove sat on her lap, as she methodically pet it across its back.

"Ojisan's already asleep." He said as he walked in. "I guess he was pretty tired." He finished, coming over to stand next to the desk.

"Yeah..." She quietly said. "It was quite an ordeal, so it can't be helped." She wheeled the office chair closer to the desk and set the dove back in its bed, then stood up and leaned on the windowsill, looking out across the street as the rain started to slow.

She looked.. sad.

"Ran-neechan..?" He hesitantly asked.

"Thanks for saving me back in the castle." She said, her back still to him. "You were really cool back then, Conan-kun..." She stared out for a second, before turning around to meet the boy with a sad looking smile on her face. "You really reminded me of Shinichi." Tears started to form in her eyes. "Really..."

Conan's eyes widened in worry as he just stared at her, unsure what to do. He really never knew what to do when Ran got like this.

"But you aren't him..." Her grip on the windowsill tightened. "You aren't.. but, sometimes, I just wish you were..." She looked downwards, as a tear spilled from her eye.

Conan just sadly looked at the ground, wishing he could bring himself to do something to help the girl.

Suddenly, Ran let out a quiet but surprised, "Huh..?"

Conan looked back up at her, but her surprised gaze was focused on something behind him. He followed her eyesight, and his eyes, too, widened in surprise.

"Sh-Shinichi..!?" Ran stuttered out as she hastily wiped her tears. "W-why're you here?"

"What?" The teen said, leaning against the agency doorframe. His hands were stuffed neatly in his pockets, and the top of his jacket looked wet, as if he had been out in the rain. "I heard you got involved in a case, so I just came to see how you were..."

Conan just continued to stare at him in bewilderment.

Why on earth was he here? If he just wanted to check in on her, he should've just called. It could be potentially dangerous to just show up here all of a sudden when you're on the run from a deadly criminal organization.

"Idiot!" Ran ran over to him. "Why haven't you been calling?" She asked angrily.

"Sorry, sorry, I've just been busy with this case." He answered. "Even tonight, I'll have to leave right away."

"Ah! You're all wet!" Ran said as she noticed the teen's state. "Hold on. I'll go get you a towel, and a change of clothes." She rushed up the stairs.

But instead of coming inside and waiting for Ran, Shinichi turned around and headed back down the stairs.

"Shinichi?" Conan yelled after him, confused, and rushed after him. "H-hey! Shinichi! Where are you going?" But the teen didn't answer and just continued down the stairs. Conan hurriedly followed him down.

By the time he got down to the street, the rain had slowed to a light sprinkle. Shinichi stood on the sidewalk, with his back to Conan.

Conan stared at him for a second. "What are you doing, Shinichi?" He asked again.

Shinichi looked at the boy over his shoulder and gave him what seemed to be a confused look. He turned back and put a hand to his chin, as if in thought, for a second, before suddenly putting his thumb and forefinger to his lips and letting out a whistle. The dove flew out from the agency window and landed on his shoulder.

It was now Conan's turn to stare at him in confusion. "Huh..?" He said quietly under his breath.

"Her name's Cheesecake." Shinichi suddenly said, turning around to face Conan.

He grabbed the dove from his shoulder and flicked his hand to make the bird fly over to Conan's shoulder. It happily nuzzled him in the cheek, but Conan just continued to stare.

"It looks like she likes you." Another dove flew over to him, which he caught on his outstretched hand. "You did a good job of taking care of her for me."

Conan's eyes widened in realization. "K-Kaitou KID!?" He lifted his shoulders in surprise, causing Cheesecake to flap onto his head.

KID smirked. "The one and only."

"W-what?" Conan stuttered. "Why are.. why are you here?" He incredulously asked. "And disguised as Shinichi." He added.

KID gathered a few more doves, which seemed to have appeared out of nowhere. "When we were at the castle, I noticed that nee-chan of yours giving you some strange looks." He shifted his stance to allow more doves to fit on his shoulders. "I thought she might be catching on to your identity, so I thought I'd disguise as you to help you out.. but it seemed I jumped to a bit of a wrong conclusion."

Conan's eyes widened even further, in complete and utter shock. "S-so, you're telling me.. you thought I was Shinichi!?" He repeated incredulously accompanied by a hysterical laugh.

KID sighed. "Pretty much." He confirmed, collecting a few more doves on his arms.

"Why?"

There should be no reason for him to think he was Shinichi, Conan thought. The only thing he really did was act a tad bit smarter than the normal seven year old (well, admittedly it was more than just a tad), which doesn't automatically point to him being Shinichi. And, as far as he's concerned, KID hasn't even met Shinichi before.

"Well..." KID bashfully looked to the side. "I tapped the phone lines on the Suzuki ship, just to confirm something, " he added, "and I happened to overhear an interesting conversation between you and the Professor. I could swear I heard him call you Shinichi, multiple times, so naturally I came to the conclusion that you were Kudo." He paused and looked at the boy for a second. "But it looks like I was wrong."

Oh, that makes a lot more sense. Definitely more sense than KID assuming he was the shrunken form of a famous high school detective, for no apparent reason, and not just some oddly smart child.

Conan felt Cheesecake settle and sit down atop his head. "Ah, well.. you're only half wrong, really." He said. "I'm not actually Shinichi, but a lot of people think I am." He let out a dry laugh.

He figured he might as well tell KID, he seemed like he'd get a kick out of the idea.

KID lifted an eyebrow. "Oh?"

"Yeah. I have this sort of, uh.. game", he settled on, "..going on, to see how many people I can convince I'm Shinichi."

"Eh? That's pretty interesting." KID chuckled. "So, I assume that's why that Professor called you Shinichi then."

"Yeah." Conan plainly answered.

"So." A few more doves appeared out of thin air and landed on the thief. "Is he the only one you've gotten so far, or is there more?"

"Oh, yeah there's more." Conan cheerfully answered. "There's, um..." He trailed off in thought and looked down at his hands as he started counting. After a few seconds he said, "Seven!" And held out his hands with seven fingers up. "People.. now." He added.

KID let out a low whistle. "Impressive." He said, amused. "How'd you manage to do that? Aren't you and Kudo ten years apart?"

"Yeah, well I pretty much just told the Professor and the rest followed." Conan shyly laughed as he put a hand behind his neck. "I basically told them that I shrunk because of a drug."

KID let out a bark of laughter. "And they believed that?"

Conan laughed too. "I know right! I can't believe I've gotten this far." He neglected not to mention that there's actually a drug that shrinks people out there, not wanting to tell KID the whole reason he was doing this and about the Black Organization. Even though he trusted KID a lot, he still didn't trust him that much. "Although it still took a lot of convincing." He added. An image of Hattori suddenly popped in his mind. "Well, most of them..."

Actually, now that he thought about it, Agasa was the only one he had to really convince, wasn't he? Huh. The others had either came to the conclusion themselves or had heard from Agasa (or were Haibara, but she has an excuse).

Suddenly, they both heard the sound of a door opening and footsteps coming down the stairs.

"Ah, it seems it's time to leave." KID said as he held his hand out again. Cheesecake, among many other doves, flew over to him, further crowding his form. "If you need me to pretend to be Shinichi for you, just let me know!" He said before he was fully obscured by a swarm of doves. Then, they all flew away, leaving no trace of the thief behind.

"Shinichi!" He heard Ran's worried voice as she ran into the street. She looked around for the teen, but to no avail. "Shinichi..?"

Conan just stared up at the sky with a slightly annoyed smile, watching as the dove's scattered and flew away.

'Just let me know!' - he says.

But.. how?


The next morning Conan got his answer.

After finishing up breakfast, he noticed a familiar dove landing on the windowsill. "Ah, it's Cheesecake!" He walked over and held his hand out. She flapped over onto his finger and cooed as he pet her a couple times on the head.

Conan noticed that there was a small container strapped to her leg. He gingerly took off the lid with his free hand, and pulled out a rolled up piece of paper.

He couldn't help the giddy smile that formed on his face.

Wow, KID must trust him a lot to be giving him a direct line of communication with him.

Well, it was quite an old fashioned way of communicating, but it was definitely safe. Definitely more than any electronic form of communication.

He unrolled the paper:

'Please use sparingly. - K.K.'

Okay, yeah, that makes more sense. He'd assume an internationally wanted criminal wouldn't want to be actively talking with someone who was trying to arrest them.. at least not too often.

And the 'K.K.' must be initials for Kaitou KID, he assumed, because, well, what else would it be referring to (it's not like it could be initials for his actual name or something, that would be completely idiotic), and there wasn't enough room on the small piece of paper to fit the full Kaitou KID or even the caricature he puts on his heist notices. So, simple initials it was.

Conan noticed some writing on the back and turned it around to find a P.S.

'P.S. - She likes crushed up graham crackers.'

Ah, he must be talking about Cheesecake. Graham crackers, how fitting.

Conan gave himself a quick pinch on his arm as the realization that 'holy shit I was just given a direct line of communication with The Kaitou KID, I must be dreaming', set in. Fortunately, he was not dreaming.

He heard footsteps from behind him and turned around to see Ran, so he hastily stuffed the paper in his pocket. She bent down and started petting the bird. "Cheesecake?" She asked. "Did you name it?"

"Ah, no." He shook his head a couple times. "I didn't. KID told me her name last night."

"Oh." Ran said in acknowledgement. Suddenly her hand stopped, completely still. "Wait, KID!?" She shouted in surprise.

Cheesecake flapped back onto the windowsill at the outburst, and Conan slightly flinched away.

"What do you mean, last night!?" She yelled down at the boy, her hands on her hips in a very demanding manner. "You met with KID!?"

Conan shrunk back even further. "Y-yeah." He stuttered. "He came disguised as Shinichi-niichan. You saw him too." He told instinctively.

"Shinichi!?" She said with a very surprised expression, which then quickly changed to anger. "Oh, so that was KID, huh?" She sat down on the office chair next to her and crossed her arms, clearly annoyed. "Geez, what did he go and do all that for?"

"Oh, uh..." Conan nervously began. "KID said he wanted to thank us for taking care of her." He pointed over at Cheesecake.

"Oh." She carefully held her hand out to the bird. "So that means she was one of KID's doves."

"Yeah." Conan gave her a confused look. "You didn't know?"

"Of course not!" She looked at the boy. "How would I have known that?"

"Well, I found her right next to KID's monocle and the egg, so I thought it was pretty easy to assume." He pointed out.

"You should've told us that!"

Conan's eyes widened. "Eh? I didn't?" He asked, surprised. He put a hand to his chin. That's odd... He could've sworn he told them about that. Did he forget? Ugh.

"Actually, that makes a lot more sense." Kogoro said as he plopped himself down on the couch, cigarette in hand. "I thought it was weird how obsessed you were over it."

Conan grabbed and peeked over the top of the desk (that he had to tip-toe just to see over, which was embarrassing, unfortunately) to glare at him. "It's not like I took care of it just because it was KID's." He grumbled.

Kogoro didn't respond to that and just took a drag of his cigarette. "Anyways..." He continued. "Why're you getting all buddy-buddy with him? He's a thief."

Conan hopped up and sat on the desk to glare at Kogoro better. "I wasn't all 'buddy-buddy' with him." He lied. "He was just thanking me."

Kogoro scoffed. "Sure..."

"Besides," Conan continued, deciding to ignore Kogoro's last comment, "he's nonviolent so it's fine."

"Yeah but he's a criminal." Kogoro pointed out as he let out a breath of smoke.

"A harmless one."

"Still a criminal." Kogoro put out his cigarette in the ashtray.

"You know, dad's right." Ran said to the boy. "Even if he's harmless, he's still a criminal. You shouldn't be spending time with him."

Conan hmpf-ed then crossed his arms and just glared out the window like the bratty child that he currently was.

Why were they being like that about him spending time with an internationally wanted criminal? It's not that bad-

Okay, wait.

When he put it like that...

Maybe they were right. Maybe.

But, there was much worse that he could be doing! At least KID was nonviolent, and generally nice. He could be spending time with an actually dangerous criminal.

See, there's always a silver lining.

Conan hopped off the desk and plopped down onto the more comfortable office chair. "You know," He said, interrupting whatever Ran and Kogoro were doing (and it didn't look like much, it seemed Kogoro had picked up the newspaper in the meantime and Ran had gotten up to.. go do something). "Isn't everyone technically a criminal?"

Ran and Kogoro both immediately stopped and incredulously stared at the boy.

"No..?" Kogoro just said.

"I mean, hasn't everyone committed some sort of crime in their life?" He elaborated.

"Well..." Kogoro said, marginally less surprised. "If you count jaywalking and stuff like that." He paused. "But, wait." He suddenly said, lowering the newspaper slightly to look at the boy. "You say that as if you've committed a crime before."

"Of course I have." Conan said as if it was completely normal. Ran turned her head over to the boy. She somehow gave him an angry, worried, and disappointed look, all at the same time.

"Huh!?" Kogoro yelled. "You're like, what, five years old-"

"Seven." Conan pointedly corrected.

Kogoro grumbled under his breath what sounded like, "Same difference." (Which it was not. Five and seven were completely different ages, two whole years apart.) "What sort of crimes could you have possibly committed?"

Conan scoffed. Easy. "Jaywalking, like you mentioned. And, once, I stole a toy from a classmate back in kindergarten. You know, just stuff like that."

(If you ignore the identity fraud, illegal entry, forgery, underage drinking, and much much more that he didn't have the time to think about.)

(Actually, now that he thought about it, he was probably the most criminal in this household. Huh.)

(And, no, he didn't feel even somewhat guilty about stealing that kid's toy. He was being rude and deserved to have his favorite toy suddenly disappear. The tantrum that resulted was satisfying for young Conan to watch.)

(Maybe there was something wrong with him.)

"Tch." Kogoro side-eyed the boy as he looked back down at the newspaper again. "Weird kid..."

Yeah, that was a pretty normal response to.. whatever Conan was.

Ran seemed less angry knowing that the crimes he was speaking of we're minor (bless her heart, she'd probably have an aneurysm if she knew what he was actually getting up to), and they both went back to whatever they were doing. So Conan took the paper back out of his pocket.

Hmm... Yeah, he can probably keep this. KID wouldn't mind. It'll be a nice memento.

He put it back in his pocket, and then rummaged around in the main desk drawer for a second before pulling out a pen and a thing of neon pink colored sticky notes (because those were the only small pieces of paper he could find during his short search of the desk).

He simply just put an okay (because he wasn't really sure what else to write) with a couple of exclamation points and a smiley face, for fun, and then signed it '-E.C.', to stick with the initials thing.

He tore off the paper, folded the sticky side down, rolled it up, and placed it in the container

Conan gave Cheesecake a couple pat's on the head before watching her fly off.

He hopped off the chair and headed over to Ran, who seemed to be packing some books for school. "Ran-neechan?" He asked.

She paused, and turned to him. "Huh? What is it Conan-kun?"

"Do we have graham crackers?"

Ran put a finger to her chin and looked upwards in thought. "Uh... I'm not sure. If we do, they'd be in the pantry. Why?"

"No reason!" He cheerfully said as he headed off to the kitchen.

He sifted through the pantry, but found no graham crackers.

Drats! He'll have to put that on the list.


Overall, the week had been pretty good.

Cheesecake was a nice addition to the household and the graham crackers made her like Conan even more. Granted, her visits had started to dwindle, which was expected, and there weren't really any more notes from KID (except for one that showed some of the tricks he could do with Cheesecake, which were very fun to try out and show to the others).

Somewhat surprisingly, the Detective Boys didn't question the sudden presence of the bird that occasionally followed Conan around (although they acknowledged her presence, just didn't question it), and nor did the Mouri's question the box of graham crackers that suddenly showed up in their pantry.

It had even started snowing as well. Conan had never really seen much of it back in America, so it was a nice surprise. However, he didn't really have any winter clothes, actually meaning he couldn't find much in the Kudo manor. Most jackets or pants that he did find were way too big to fit. (And of the few jackets that actually fit, had the letter 'K' on them which he assumed stood for Kudo..? He wasn't sure. Was probably just a rich kid thing.) There was probably some more child sized winter clothing stuffed away there somewhere (most likely the attic), but he was hesitant to go deep searching the house, because of the whole criminal organization that was trying to kill him (well, Shinichi, but one member already mistook him for the teen once so there's no saying it can't happen again). But, thankfully, Ran so kindly went shopping with him for some new clothes.

He had also decided to officially retire the bullet-proof glasses. Even if Agasa did make replacement lenses, he didn't think he'd use them. Typically, most shooters and or criminals tend to aim for the head and not specifically the eyes, so he probably wasn't going to get into that sort of a situation where he'd need such eye protection again (although, knowing his luck...). And, even if the added weight was very minimal, it was just enough to give him a bit of a headache. So, no more bullet-proof glasses.

And lastly, the bruise on his right eye has healed up nicely. At this point, there was barely even a trace of it left.

However there was one glaring issue: Haibara.

In the beginning of the week, she had been acting relatively normal, but today, a flip just switched in her mind or something. She was acting all edgy and depressed, and saying stuff like, "I don't belong here.", and, "I wish I could just disappear." And he couldn't figure out why for the life of him (well he could guess it was probably something to do with the Black Organization, but there's no way he could solve an issue like that). Although it seemed she had a cold, which was probably making her mood even worse.

Even now, when the Detective Boys happily said their goodbyes to the other two as they were heading home from school, Haibara said nothing, not even sending back a wave, and just continued walking with her head sullenly faced towards the ground.

Well, Conan decided, the only thing that could make this week better was if a lead on the Black Organization was handed to him on a silver platter (or if he figured out how to better Haibara's mood, but that seemed even less likely).

Conan said goodbye for the both of them. It seemed Genta accidentally left his soccer ball behind, so Conan just idly kicked it as he walked. He was doing a horrible job as usual, but he didn't think Haibara even noticed (and even if she did, he could just say he was practicing being bad or something).

At one point, Conan suddenly noticed Haibara's presence was no longer next to him. He looked behind him, and saw her standing a few feet behind him. She looked completely shocked and terrified. Her eyes were nearly as wide as plates, staring at something up ahead, and she had broken out into a cold sweat and was shaking like a leaf.

So, Conan promptly followed her gaze to see what on earth made her so terrified, and he too froze in shock.

Parked on the side of the road just a bit ahead, stood a foreign car model. A very familiar foreign car model. A black Porsche 356 A, to be exact.