Disclaimer: Detective Conan is not mine. The series belongs to its creator, Gosho Aoyama, and I'm just borrowing the characters and scenery to create these short tales.

Disclaimer: #23 - Honor is not mine. It belongs to Astarael00 who I asked for permission and received with a caveat. Easily done.

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Drabble 7: I'll be There When you Return Home

(Possible response to Astarael00's CA 1sentence, File 3, #23 – Honor)

"#23 – Honor
He thought she was practical but somewhat cowardly, and he knew that she tended to look out for 'number one,' so it never occurred to him that she had a sense of honor as fully-developed as his - he didn't find out until she took the bullet for him." - Astarael00

Premise: Conan and Ai confront Gin and Vodka. The police will be here soon, however instead of running right away, Gin pulled out a gun.

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Her side hurt. That was the first thought that entered her mind when she woke up.

She was in a hospital, lying on a sterile smelling white cot.

Then...it happened. It happened so quickly that she was completely unprepared. The instant a small boy had latched onto her shoulders, Ai found herself suffering whiplash as her head flew wildly back and forth.

"Why!" Conan shouted. "Why did you get in the way?!" Later, he wouldn't admit that he was crying, but the tears were unmistakable.

"Hey. Stop that kid. You're in a hospital." a passing nurse sternly reprimanded before leaving the room. Ai was too dizzy to voice her agreement, but she was grateful when the boy detective stopped shaking her.

She stared at him quizzically. Asking him a silent question. He answered.

"You're only interested in yourself, right? You'd pick your own life over someone else's right? Why couldn't you do it this time?" He quietly pleaded to her, a memory overtaking his vision, one where she jumped in front of him just as the gun fired.

A brief memory flashed through her own mind while he was asking. One involving Ayumi, her, and running away. She opened her mouth, but hesitated. It wasn't something that she was willing to reveal.

He didn't give her a chance to gather the courage to say it. Instead, he squeezed her arm tightly...

"Please. Haibara! Don't change. I want someone to come back to when this is all over."

Her near death had weakened his shaky belief that everyone would be alive and well in the end.

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A/N – I wrote this because I thought that inserting a random nurse's comment would have been amusing.

A/N – The sentence posted in the introduction can be found here: http://www.fanfiction.net/s/2989510/3/