"CONAN!" Kogoro clawed at a jagged concrete outcropping, desperate to pull himself onto his feet despite his broken legs. No. No. No. He chanted in his head as his shout echoed in his ears. The boy had to be alright. He had to, he couldn't have-

A figure emerged from the cloud of dust, coughing, much taller than the brat should be. But Kogoro had just seen him grow before his eyes. Conan. Kogoro exhaled in relief, the hole in his chest disappearing as he sank back to the ground, his legs throbbing like an exploding volcano mixed with a bad hangover. "What in the world were you thinking you crazy freeloader?!" He half yelled as the now young man stumbled over to him. He collapsed face down next to Kogoro, shivering, his bare, sweat drenched body covered in thick layer of blood and dust.

Kogoro winced, maneuvering himself so that he could lay a hand on the boy, trying to see the extent of his injuries. His head was turned away from Kogoro giving him a good view of the blood covered shoulder the brat had used to lift the rubble, though with the grime, it was hard to tell if he was injured to the bone or not. "You could have killed yourself, pulling a foolhardy stunt like that!" But he hadn't. It looked like the shoulder was the worst thing the boy was dealing with. Relief filled Kogoro. The brat was lucky like that.

"I cou-couldn't let you die, Ojisan." The brat managed, his voice hoarse from screaming, but now much deeper than his kid voice. It sounded so familiar too. How though?

Kogoro exhaled, ruffling the boy's hair, careful to avoid the head wound. The brat made a noise of protest anyways, pulling away. "I can't say I'm not grateful, you freeloader, but that was risky." It should have been impossible, this all was impossible. Conan had grown up right before his eyes! "How did you even manage to grow?! Why would you even think that would work in the first place?" This wasn't a superhero movie. How could something in a bottle do this?

Conan shivered. "When I'm a kid," he spoke, his voice gaining strength and sounding all the more familiar. "I feel like a coiled spring, compacted. So I thought that if I were to grow quickly that spring would release and give me temporary strength stronger than I would normally have at this size because of the energy expanded." He coughed, moving a hand underneath his torso to rub at his chest. "I'm glad it actually worked."

When he was as kid? Kogoro frowned wishing for a drink. The brat made it sound like he did this often. No, he had said he was used to this pain of growing. So he did do this often. But when? Why? How had he and Ran not noticed these 'growth spurts?'

Speaking of that. Kogoro shrugged off his own torn and dirty suit jacket, tossing it onto the brat to give him a little bit of covering. He couldn't let the boy, ah young man, wander around the bomb site completely naked.

"Thanks, Ojisan" Conan whispered, pushing himself up to kneel as he took the jacket. Without looking up, he slipped it on, wincing as he lifted the injured shoulder. It wasn't a perfect fit, Kogoro was more broad in the shoulders than older Conan, but it worked well enough to cover him. However, seeing the blue jacket on Conan only made him look all the more familiar…

Kogoro narrowed his eyes and leaned forward, biting back his own cry of pain as he jarred his broken legs. Right. He was injured too. Conan's grown up appearance had distracted him from that particular issue. He took Conan's chin and lifted it up so he could get a good look into the boy's grime covered face before he could jerk away.

Kogoro inhaled sharply, which resulted in his own coughing fit from the dust in the air. No. That wasn't possible. "Shinichi-kun?"

Conan-no this was Shinichi, he knew the boy too well to mistake him for another, flinched. He opened his mouth, probably in denial, but ended up exhaling running a hand across his blood streaked brow. "Yah...Oji-ah, Mouri-tantei" he said, reluctantly meeting his eyes as he dropped his hand. "It's me."

Kogoro gaped at the boy, trying to fit it all together, before reflexes kicked in and he thumped the brat, albeit lightly, he was injured, on the head. "THE WHOLE TIME?!" he hissed. "HOW!" Teenagers were not supposed to shrink down into six-year-olds!

Shinichi cut off a yelp of pain at the contact, and jerked out of Kogoro's reach, scooting down to his feet. He rubbed his head as he knelt there, examining Kogoro's legs like they were the most interesting thing in the world. Purposely avoiding eye contact. "I can explain late-"

"I can't walk." Kogoro interrupted bluntly, gritting his teeth as Shinichi prodded cautiously at his limbs. Now that he was out of immediate danger they could wait right here for rescue. "There's plenty of time, you conniving little freeloader! How in the world did you become a child! Is this some elaborate joke? How dare you invite yourself into my home-"

"Oji-Mouri-san," Shinichi ran a hand through his hair, shooting Kogoro a frustrated but understanding look. "I know it's a lot to take in, but I only have about an hour, if" he emphasized the word. "I'm lucky, and when it comes to this, I am not, before the pill wears off and I shrink to Conan again." His tone briefly went bitter. "I need to get you out of here before then. We don't know how stable the rest of this place is." He grabbed his-Conan's shirt, it would never have fit Shinichi as he was now, and two mangled pieces of piping and set them on either side of Kogoro's right leg to make a splint.

Kogoro frowned, glancing upwards to the remaining ceiling above them. Even as he looked, a section of plaster broke away, shattering into a million pieces as it landed. The brat had a point, but that didn't mean he was about to let Shinichi off the hook. "You can talk and splint my leg at the same time, Shinichi-kun." he growled. "What do you mean shrink? When did this happen?"

Shinichi exhaled, his shoulders slumping even as he reached out with his good arm to pull some electrical wiring from the rubble before turning his attention back to the shirt, his nimble fingers tearing it into strips. Though, Kogoro noted that he kept the injured shoulder as still as he could. "I'm not masquerading as an almost eight-year-old for fun, Oji-Mouri-san." He said finally. The words coming out reluctantly. His blue eyes flickered up to Kogoro's then back to the bandages he was creating from Conan's shirt. "I shrank...that day when I took Ran to Tropical Land."

Kogoro narrowed his eyes, intent on the boy, looking for lies as he worked to remember that day. He did. Vaguely. Ran had been upset Shinichi hadn't come home, gone to find him, and just as Kogoro was dashing out the door for his first real case in months, had returned with the little brat. His eyes widened and he jerked upright, promptly regretting the action, but stubbornly refused to lay down as he grabbed the brat's arm. "Does Ran?"

A flash of pain crossed the boy's face, and only then did Kogoro realize he'd grabbed the boy's injured arm, jarring the shoulder. Shinichi removed his arm from Kogoro's grip, pushing him back against the rubble. "Careful." he muttered, his eyes flickering up to Kogoro's and then away as he shook his head. "She doesn't know." He grimaced, pushing up the sleeves of Kogoro's jacket as he readjusted the pipes against Kogoro's right leg. "She suspects me from time to time...but I haven't told her." He picked up the wire to tie them in place to keep the entire limb straight.

Kogoro hissed, trying to remember to breathe as his fingers dug into the rubble when Shinichi moved his leg. That meant that the brat had hid this secret from both of them for nearly two years. TWO YEARS. "What happened on that date?" He got out through gritted teeth. How could the brat have left a teenager and come back a child?

"It wasn't a date." Shinichi responded automatically and Kogoro snorted with disbelief. Sure it wasn't. He'd seen how the boy had looked at his daughter.

Shinichi hunched his shoulders, but quickly relaxed them, moving one hand up to lightly touch the injured one. "But, I left Ran to investigate-" Shinichi shook his head, dropping his hand back to the pipes, needlessly adjusting them. "And ended up getting poisoned because I was careless and got caught eavesdropping..."

Kogoro bristled. "Poisons don't-"

"This one did." Shinichi interrupted. "I know they usually kill or make you sick,"

And Kogoro knew that the boy would know his poisons. After as many murder investigations he'd been at as Conan, let alone as a teenager, it would be shocking if he didn't. "But it...shrank you, instead?" He threw up his hands. Really? A shrinking poison? Who'd ever heard of that? No one. "You can't expect me to believe that!"

The corner of Shinichi's mouth twitched upwards. "It's a….very, very, very rare side effect, and I wouldn't have believed it myself, but I'm living it. And you witnessed it did you not Oj-Mouri-tantei?" He raised an eyebrow towards the detective.

Kogoro had to give him a point there. He had seen it for himself.

"Instead of me dying, I shrank. And I've been trying since then to get back to normal, and find the peo-" A tremor ran through his arms and he paused in splinting to rub at his chest. "So far things like this," he absently pointed to himself as he wound the wire around Kogoro's leg to keep the pipes steady, "have only been temporary. There hasn't been an antidote created yet that can return me to normal permanently." He finished tying up the splint, double checking the knots in the wires before he moved to Kogoro's left leg.

Kogoro shook his head, wishing he had a beer to help him process this. The boy had been shrunk to a child, and his first thought was to find the people who'd done this?! As a CHILD?! It sounded too unbelievable to be true. But the boy was right. He had seen the results. Kogoro frowned. So the vial had contained one of those supposed antidotes? How many of them did he carry around? Did he go around growing whenever he needed to? It seemed so unreal. To the point where he almost considered this all to be a pain induced hallucination. Kogoro quickly dismissed the idea. This didn't feel like one or act like one. His hallucinations usually had Yoko-chan in them and a distinct lack of broken legs, crumbling buildings and boys growing into teenagers in the blink of an eye.

Kogoro crossed his arms staring the boy down. "So you shrank and chose to leech off of My resources at My home to find these people and this supposed cure!?" He demanded. "Why not go home to your parents?" He blinked, frowning. Wait a minute. "Who was that Fumiyo woman then?" She had cut him quite the check that first time they'd met and sent more money every so often to look after the boy.

"Edogawa Fumiyo is my mother in disguise." Shinichi said glancing at Kogoro again as he took two smaller pipes and placed them on either side of his ankle picking up the bandages to wrap it together.

Kogoro's eyes flashed. His Mother!? "Why the charade then!" He exclaimed again grabbing the boy by the arm, only remembering to let go when Shinichi inhaled sharply. "If your parents already knew about your size issue, why have they not come to take you back perm-"

"Because I didn't want them to take me." Shinichi interrupted, edging further out of Kogoro's reach. "Ran's told you my parents moved to America when I was fourteen. I had no one at home to go home to when this," he gestured to himself. "Happened." He fiddled with the remaining torn bandages made from his-Conan's shirt. "Trust me. You weren't my first choice, Mouri-san." He looked up, his eyes dark. "I did return home first even though I knew no one would be there to help me." Shinichi ran a hand through his mussed up hair, pushing up the sleeves of Kogoro's jacket to keep his hands uncovered. "And I was too short to be able to open my own gate when I got there."

Kogoro leaned against the rubble, shoving away the hint of sympathy trying to grow in his chest. Instead choosing to focus on piecing a timeline together. The boy had returned to his mansion of a house, but hadn't been able to get in, so what had… "Ran found you there." His daughter would have gone to Shinichi's house first to check for him.

Shinichi nodded, taking up more of the wire. "Yes. I wouldn't have come with her if I could have found another way. I didn't want her getting hurt by Them if word got out I was still alive." He pushed the sleeves up again, looking pensive. "And Ran knows me so well...how could I hide that I was myself from my best friend?"

That was true. The two of them had been inseparable growing up. Ran would have known that Shinichi was Shinichi pretty quickly, even as impossible as the situation seemed. Honestly, how a simple pair of glasses had kept the boy from being discovered was beyond him. Kogoro glowered. Well he had been fooled. He'd never noticed a thing. "Yet you decided to risk her life anyways," he growled, hiding the niggling worry worming itself into his chest. How much danger was this boy in? Again he dug his fingers into the dirt as Shinichi moved his leg slightly to be able to wind the wire easier around his leg to hold the splint together

"It wasn't a decision made lightly, Oji-Mouri-san." Shinichi shook his head. "I had had my neighbor, Agasa, already willing to help me out." He said, methodically checking to make sure the wire was keeping the pipes tight against the leg.

Kogoro gritted his teeth at that, eyes widening in fury. The professor was in on the secret too?!

"I had already dismissed going to Ran," Shinichi continued, before Kogoro could speak, again glancing to him. "Back at Tropical Land when I first woke up. I was going to call her…but then I couldn't figure out how to explain this and I didn't want her getting hurt." His face took on a pensive look before he lowered his head.

Kogoro leaned forward, tense. He didn't want her getting hurt?! But here he was with them. "So what changed? Why did you decide to involve her?" He bit off. "Involve me?"

Shinichi flinched, though his hands were steady as he worked. "When she suddenly showed up looking for me...Agasa reminded me that you're a detective," For once, Shinichi didn't sound like he was mocking Kogoro's capabilities in being one. That was new. "And if I was going to find a cure, find the people who-" he cut off again, biting his bottom lip. "I would need a way to access leads to Their crimes, find cases involving...Them...and the best way to do that was to live with you." He met Kogoro's eyes once more. "If I left with my parents, I would never find the leads I needed to solve this…" he broke eye contact suddenly, focusing back on Kogoro's legs. "...this never ending case." His fingers went white on the wire.

So the brat had risked their lives simply to satisfy his own ends for a case. Kogoro wanted to see red. After all that they'd done for him. Fed him, clothed him, housed him, and he risked their lives! "The case Ran says you've been away on? This is that case? You being a kid?" Kogoro gave a derisive snort. "What happened to your mighty 'solve the case in a day' streak?" He remembered that all too well. Kogoro blamed the high schooler for his lack of work back then, though he knew the boy hadn't been the cause.

Shinichi's eyes flashed, before his face went blank. He finished with the wire, using the last of the bandages to ensure the ends wouldn't dig into Kogoro's leg. "I usually solve murders, not shrinkage." he retorted. "It's not like I can search for solutions publicly. The people who did this to me think Kudo Shinichi is dead." His shoulders slumped. "At this point he might as well be." he mumbled so quietly Kogoro barely heard it.

His chest tightened a bit. He'd never heard Shinichi so...dejected before. Almost it cooled the anger burning within.

"And if they find out I'm still alive before I can take Them down...they'll come back to kill me, and everyone around me for good measure."

"So you chose to risk me and my daughter's lives to keep your absentee parents safe?" Kogoro growled the small bit of sympathy he felt vanishing as his temper flared once more. "Are our lives not-"

Shinichi stood abruptly, wincing as he jarred his shoulder. "Yours and Ran's lives are worth more to me than my parents right now, Ojisan." He stated, his bright blue eyes piercing straight into Kogoro's soul.

-
Notes:

Disclaimer: I do not own Detective Conan or it's characters.

Chapter 2 Posted: 8/31/2017