DISCLAIMER: I do not own Detective Conan.

-06-

Let's go home

(Haibara's Point of View)

It has been a compulsive and a rather stupid decision on my part to go out in the middle of the night. For an eight-year-old girl like me, going out at this time is dangerous. For the eighteen-year-old me, it still is dangerous. Halloween, Christmas, New Year's, and my birthday have passed and we are still not getting any closer to solving the many mysteries that surround the organization, let alone take them down. For all I know, they might be lurking around dark corners, watching me and waiting for the opportune moment to take me.

A myriad of thoughts fill my mind which has kept me awake. With the silence and nothing to distract me, I feel like everything there is to think about just comes to me all at once. Being alone in this big, wide world makes me ponder over everything and anything. It made me think. A lot. Surprisingly though, I feel calm and at peace. The beauty of the night somehow must have contributed to such tranquillity; millions of stars sparkle against the dark sky; silence engulfed my surroundings as people succumb to slumber in their own homes, in their own beds.

Happy thoughts, nostalgic memories, heart-warming moments. They come to me like a movie, scenes after scenes flash on my mind, and I smiled.

But then there's the organization. And suddenly, the smile vanishes, to be replaced by a frown. The happy feeling I have earlier is now replaced with fear and worry and anxiety.

I almost forgot that they are still out there, plaguing the world with evil. And they might be after me, a defect. A traitor.

Many times, I feel like giving up; that maybe if I surrender myself to the organization, they will leave alone the people I've come to care – the Professor, the Detective Boys, him. Every waking moment of my life, I feel like the organization can take them away from me. Again. Like how they took away the parents I've never come to know and the sister who has been the only family I have left. I don't want that to ever happen. I don't want to take them away from the family who loves them and from the homes they belonged to. I don't want to see them hurt just because I have been a selfish woman who desperately wanted to be out of that hellhole where I have stayed and lived all my life.

Sometimes, I feel guilty staying at the house of someone so gentle and caring and accepting. Sometimes I hurt to see the carefree smiles of the kids I've come to adore, knowing that there is danger lurking around them because of me. Sometimes I hurt to see him look at his childhood friend and all the other teenagers having the best high school of their lives because he couldn't be like them; because I took that liberty away from him.

I don't deserve this home that sheltered me and these people who are so nice to me. I don't deserve this life. I don't deserve Haibara Ai.

Looking around the riverbank from the grassy, pitched ground where I settled myself, I suddenly thought about how things change quickly. It has been so peaceful just a while ago. The night sky, the stars, the still water, the silence – they all look eerie to me now.

Suddenly, I feel vulnerable. I feel weak.

But I decide to stay at the park in the wee hours of the morning. I have stayed, because despite the dangers that may arise, I just don't care anymore. Not about myself, that is. For once, I just want to be carefree.

I bend my knees up and wrap my arms around them. Calm and peace gone, now I just feel empty. I smile bitterly to myself. What am I so disappointed for?

Suddenly, something warm and soft lands on my shoulders. It surprises me to see a dark blue jacket wrapped around my upper torso. I look behind me to see a man – no, a kid, just like me – rubbing his hands together for warmth. I notice that he is dressed lightly and that he is slightly panting.

"Edogawa-kun, what are you doing here?"

"I could ask you the same, Haibara."

I grimace upon hearing my pseudonym but I choose to ignore him and resume my earlier activity – think. Silence engulfs us. Fortunately, he hasn't asked anything more. He merely lies beside me with his hands supporting his head. He gazes the night sky like I have when I arrived. It is silent for a while; I don't know how long we stayed. I even thinm he fell asleep, but after a while, he declares, "Let's go?" I haven't noticed him stand up, yet now he has his arm stretched towards me, offering me to take it. I just stare at it and then at his face.

He shakes it again, "Come on. It's cold."

"What are you really doing here, Edogawa-kun?"

"What else? I came to take you home," he says as he grins that boyish grin of his.

And at that moment, all negative thoughts fly out of my mind. My sentiments, my worries, my problems and guilt, my loneliness. Every bad feeling just vanishes. With just that one word he said – home.

He's taking me home.

Do I really deserve this? After all the things I have done, to him especially. After I have ruined his life and put him in this situation. Do I really deserve a place I can call home? I believe I don't, so why?

I just stare at his proffered hand, not moving, not taking it. I don't deserve that hand either.

Noticing my hesitance, he takes my hand instead and pulls me to a stand. "Let's go home, Haibara."

And in a moment of selfishness on my part, I let him pull me up. I let him drag me back home. Because I know that deep inside of me, I also want to be home.