"He's WHAT!" For Kazuha this call came a few minutes shy of 10 p.m. She had just finished her homework and was preparing to call Heiji. This may have explained some of her surprise when she picked up her phone to see it was Ran calling. Undoubtedly, however, the bulk of her shock came from what Ran said

"This isn't a joke. He thinks you're being unfaithful so he caught the first plane to New York, now he's on his way!" Ran yelled, somewhat sternly

"I thought you reassured him!" Kazuha screamed back frantically

"I did….but Conan-kun overheard us talking and told Hattori-kun" Conan smiled nervously, as if trying to smile at Kazuha through the phone. His smile was soon turned to a fearful grimace as he heard Kazuha's voice through the phone screaming death threats at him. Her volume was deafening, so much so that it caused Ran to hold the phone away from her ear and it was easily decipherable for Conan who was a few feet away from the phone. "Kazuha calm down, this isn't his fault he's just a little kid. He didn't know any better" Conan grinned sarcastically 'the one advantage to be like this is that I get out of a lot of trouble, especially with Ran'.

"But Ran-chan, what are we gonna do? I don't know if I can tell him the truth to his face. And I'm supposed to see James-san tomorrow for dinner at the Empire State Building. I haven't been there yet so he's taking me" Kazuha's stomach turned at the thought of Heiji coming face-to-face with James.

"Relax Kazuha-chan you're just going to have to tell him that you can't see him tomorrow"

"Ran, you don't understand, I already told him I have something really important to tell him tomorrow. I have to see him" Ran was appalled by her candor

"Kazuha…what were you going to tell him?" Ran asked apprehensively

"That we can't see each other anymore. I realized yesterday when I talked to you that it was wrong to toy with his emotions when I was already devoted to someone else." She said shamefully

"Well that's a good thing, so why do you sound so unsure of it?" Ran asked, handing the ticket agent her credit card

"It's just…I don't if Heiji will forgive me" her voice was quiet and nervous

"Kazuha" she said tenderly as she led Conan by the hand toward their gate "He will. Trust me, if he cares enough to fly across the world so suddenly, he cares enough to forgive you" Kazuha gave a sigh of relief

"I hope you're right Ran-chan. Hey, what's all that noise around you? Where are you exactly?" Ran hesitated as her eyes widened fearfully

"Um…well when I heard Hattori-kun was going to see you I thought I would try to talk him before he found you" she said sheepishly as the female attendant in front of the entrance tunnel to the plane took her tickets

"Wait so you're-"

"Ma'am no phones beyond this point. The flight attendants will confiscate your phone if you try to make a call while the plane is in flight" Kazuha paused having heard all of what the woman instructed

"Ran-chan!"

"Sorry Kazuha-chan I'll talk to you later" she said just before abruptly ending the call "Ne Conan-kun" she said sweetly, looking down at the child that was holding her hand "Maybe we'll see your parents while we're in America" 'Oh crap!' Conan thought 'Knowing my parents, they'll track us down while we're their. They live in New York after all. I wonder if they'll come in disguise or not'. As he continued to ponder the prospect of a meeting with his parents, he and Ran made their way to their seats. Once seated, Ran gave a heavy sigh and leaned back. Conan noticed this immediately

"Are you tired Ran-neechan?" she slowly rolled her head in his direction

"Yeah, I guess all this excitement has worn me out a little. I think I'll take a nap, wake me up if they play a romance movie" Conan nodded and rolled his eyes 'Please God not a romance movie' he thought.

Meanwhile, a very uneasy Hattori Heiji watched as the ground disappeared from his plane seat. There was a movie playing, but he didn't care to watch. He tried to sleep but could barely mange to shut his eyes. His blood was pumping furiously through his body, making him hot and uncomfortable. He tried his best to maintain his composure in such a public setting, but found it difficult when the couple behind him insisted on arguing feverishly. They hadn't stopped since the moment they sat down, and the woman had used his sacred word at least a hundred times already. Every time she called her counterpart an 'Aho' his boiling emotions pushed a little closer to the surface. 'That word' he kept thinking with gritted teeth and curved eyebrows. The word brought unwanted memories of Kazuha to the forefront of his mind. In a frenzy, he stood up and quickly walked to the bathroom. He locked the door and leaned against it. He was breathing heavily, holding a hand firmly to his chest. His heart was beating violently against his sternum, causing him to squeeze his chest harder. He leaned over the small sink and cupped some water in his hands. He slowly submerged his face in the water, temporarily cooling his heated cheeks. When he let the water run down into the drain, he felt significantly better. He dried his face and opened the bathroom door, taking one last deep breath to level himself out. When he returned to his seat he placed the complimentary headphones over his ears. He grinned with satisfaction as he looked back at the arguing couple, watching their lips move with no sound to accompany. He turned back around and shut his eyes.

Meanwhile, Conan was having his own problems on his flight. Though Ran had slept when they got onto the plane, the movie was indeed a romance so Ran elected to watch. This was no mere romance movie, however, it was the sappiest romance movie in existence: The Notebook. Conan hated it when she watched romance movies because despite how they pleased her initially, they always reminded her that Shinichi wasn't with her and it killed her. Every time, she would watch a romance with Sonoko or Kazuha or by herself on T.V and be enamored with it. Then later that night she would think about it and want so badly for Shinichi to be there with her and she would cry her eyes out. And every time she repeated this masochistic ritual, he was there to watch and it hurt him just as much. He would never admit it out loud, but he probably missed her more than she missed him. He had to be with her everyday and pretend he was someone else. He had to pretend he didn't care about her the way he really did. He had to love her as a sister, and it drove him to the brink of insanity. As Ran continued to watch the movie, crying tears that both sympathized for and related to the characters. If the sexes were reversed, their stories would actually be fairly similar: she was forced to leave him and he waited for her to come back to him. However, the woman in their story ran off and found someone else. She even got engaged to another man, but he found her and won her heart. Ran wrestled with a few very disturbing thoughts as the film's credits began to roll 'Would Shinichi actually find someone else? Has he already found someone else? Should I be chasing after him? Maybe he thinks I don't care because I've never gone and searched for him' She became so enwrapped in her own contemplations that she didn't even notice Conan's eyes glued to her. He had been watching her for the past fifteen minutes, pretending to sleep but keeping both eyes open slightly. The look on her face said she was deeply troubled and internally conflicted, a look that he had seen far too often over the last year. He rolled the other way and closed his eyes completely, trying to fall asleep as a means of escaping the melancholy eyes of the girl beside him. As he drifted off to sleep he heard her mutter something somberly to herself. It sounded something like

"I wonder if he'd do this for me" Conan inched further away from her and made another futile attempt to fall asleep. In spite of his valiant efforts to escape consciousness, he remained awake and his mind remained centered on the words she had said, those torturous, unrelenting words that swam without restraint through every fiber of his being. The guilt eroded away any confidence or resolve he had left. At that moment, he was closer to pouring his heart out and confessing every detail of the last year to Ran than he had ever been before. Yet he remained quiet and curled up as close to the side of the plane of he possibly could, gaining the maximum distance possible from Ran. Deep down he wanted to be as far away from her as he felt.

Meanwhile, the Great Detective of the West laid comfortably in his seat. Because of his anxiety over Kazuha he had slept only a few hours a night the last week so for him, sleeping felt wondrous. At the rate he was going, the idea of sleeping through the entire twelve hour flight was not the least bit farfetched. Three hours down, nine to go.