AN: It's chapter nineteen! Gosh, it's hard to believe that this story will be over in about two chapters, isn't it? It's been a long ride since then, and while there are some things that I wanted to do with this fic that I ended up not wanting to do, and a few things that I regret doing in hindsight, overall, I still really enjoyed writing this fic! Except for that one time I got told the main plot of the story was "filler", I didn't so much care for that part, lol. But that one person aside, I really have to say that I loved having each and every one of you around for the run, and I hope you stick with me until the very end!

Until next time!

Phantasmal Black

Chapter Nineteen

Maybes

"That's my name, ya know."

She'd probably been holding it in all this time, really, just waiting for him to say those words. She'd barely even given him a chance to finish, before she found herself with her arms thrown around him, clutching him so tightly to her chest that it almost felt as if she was afraid he would disappear if she so much as let go. Though she felt him tense at first, like a coiled snake, it took no longer than a moment for all that tension to wash out of him.

For the first time, it truly felt as if Heiji had finally come home.

"Yer really, really home." The words slipped out, much like her tears, unable to be stopped. But they were different from the ones that she had shown to Ran before- tears of happiness, tears of relief. "Heiji."

"Yeah." The hand that he placed on the small of her back was so gentle, it almost felt as if he were afraid of breaking her. It was silly, really- she wasn't nearly that weak. "I'm home, Kazuha."

"Idiot!" That too, came out without prompting. For a moment, she almost felt as if she were a high school girl again, as if she had once more been kept waiting, their promise to meet up having gone forgotten in the light of a case. "Why did it take ya so damn long ta come back? Don't ya know how long I waited fer ya, ya huge idiot!?"

"Sorry, Kazuha." Closing his eyes, Hattori Heiji drew in a long breath, all but drawing in her familiar scent. "I didn't mean ta. I got a bit held up, by various things. But I'm here now. An' I don't plan on goin' anywhere, not this time."

There was a long pause there, a silence that hung between them, as they both clearly recognized that the decision here was not so much his own. What would happen from here on out was largely beyond his control- he could only attempt to argue in his favor, and see what he could get from that.

Even so, it felt as if the noose around his neck had been loosened, allowing him room to breathe. It might not be much of one, but he had a future ahead of him, one that finally connected him to the past. A past that bit by bit, piece by piece, felt as if it would growing longer than the span of just five years- and not by mere virtue of time passing.

"I remember." His words were so faint, she barely made them out at first, and by the time she had, he had already continued. "At the very least, I remember that somethin' like this happened before. Less huggin' though."

"Of course it has, ya idiot." Finally forcing herself to pull away from him, if only to hear his words better, Kazuha reached up a hand, wiping a stray tear away. There were so many questions that she wanted to ask, pressing him for anything and everything that he might remember- but for the moment, she would put those on hold. "If there's one thing that hasn't changed about ya, it's yer knack fer findin' trouble, Heiji."

The blue eyes that stared up at her still carried with them a trace of a stranger, she thought. They might very well do so for the rest of his life. But that was fine- now that the shadows were gone, she had plenty of time to get to know the stranger in them, until they too, one day became the familiar.

"Yeah, that's... kinda the impression I've been gettin' of myself." Still not wanting to let go of her, he found his other hand straying to his cheek, scratching it out of virtue of nervous habit. One he suspected that he'd always had, judging from the way that people reacted to it.

"Well it's sure as heck not wrong." Kazuha told him, puffing out her cheeks a little, almost pretending to pout. It felt a bit silly, really, but for a moment, she would allow herself to act however she pleased. After all, the only person here to see it was just Heiji. "Even before ya started showin' off by solvin' cases, ya still managed ta find trouble fer yerself. Like that time in second grade when ya got carried away an' fell off the jungle gym after climbin' off all the way ta the top!"

"That one I don't remember." Heiji confessed.

"That's probably more cause ya smacked yer head real good on the way down." Kazuha remarked. "Come ta think of it, we're probably lucky that ya just didn't up an' get amnesia then."

"It's not like I wanted ta get amnesia, ya know!" Narrowing his eyes, Heiji finally let his hand slip from her waist, though she made no move to remove her own in return. He made no move to remove them himself, either. "Just look how it worked out fer me!"

"But ya still came back, didn't ya?" Kazuha asked, giving him a smile. "In spite of everythin', ya still came back."

"Yeah." Reaching up, Heiji placed a careful hand against her cheek, one hand wiping away the last trace of tears that clung to them. Even if they were probably tears of happiness, to make her cry again... he seriously was the worst kind of guy. Such a thing... he wouldn't allow such a thing to happen, ever again. "I guess I did."

Finally pulling her hands away from him, tracing over his shoulders as she did so, Kazuha couldn't keep the smile off of her face. Though he flinched somewhat as she took his hand in her own, he made no attempts to pull away from her. Cupping his hand within her own, she felt the traces of scars, ones that had blossomed in the missing time between them, pressing against her palms, an unfamiliar sensation, on otherwise familiar hands.

These too, she would learn.

"Welcome home, Heiji."

"...are you okay?"

Judging from the way he had caught Ran hovering just outside of Heiji's hospital room, it hadn't been that hard to guess that he had woken up at some point. And judging from the way she had pressed her fingers to her lips, hurriedly shushing him when he had moved to call out her name, it had also been fairly obvious that he was having something of a moment.

When he had broken it up, he could have sworn that Kazuha's glare was one that was meant to kill, more than enough to send a shiver down his spine. Granted, he could perfectly understand why it was that she would be upset at being interrupted, but it wasn't as if what he needed to speak with Heiji about could exactly wait.

And well... for Heiji's sake too, it was probably for the best that he have something of a break. Maybe it was a little too little, a little too late, though- really, if anything, it was a small miracle that he had managed to hold it in this long.

He'd come here to have a serious conversation with him, but judging from how beet red his face was right now, he was starting to wonder if such a thing would even be possible. If he didn't know any better, there was literal steam rising from his cheeks, and he half wondered if he'd get burned if he so much as touched them right now.

"Y-yeah. M'fine." Finally managing to stammer out an answer, Heiji lifted a hand, almost trying to conceal his flustered expression. Considering that he'd already gotten quite the up close look at it, it felt a bit silly to do it now, really. He'd thought that maybe he would get used to it in time, but apparently, that was proving more difficult than he'd thought.

He wasn't sure if it was the kindness, which still felt undue, or if it was simply Kazuha that caused such a reaction. To be sure, he'd grown so unused to the former that it felt practically alien to him, but perhaps the true explanation behind how shaken she could leave him sometimes was due to a mixture of both.

"...so you're not in love with her, huh?" Unable to help himself, the question slipped right out, to which Shinichi found himself following it up with a matching grin. "It's only around Kazuha that you get that flustered, you know."

"Shut up." Though the words themselves had been on the quiet side, the glare that Heiji shot his way was more than enough to convey their meaning. Compared to the spine chilling glare that he'd shot him during their reunion, this lacked any sort of real bite- but it wasn't quite the same as the grumpy, sour glare that he had given him in the past whenever he'd said something a bit too far.

Still, he preferred it.

"M' just not good with this stuff, that's all." Heiji mumbled, breaking his gaze, unable to take even one more second of that leering grin of his. "I'm not used ta people bein' nice ta me, least not genuinely. Usually there's some kinda motive behind it."

"I'd imagine not." Shinichi said, kneeling down to pick up the chair that had been on the floor, not questioning why it was there in the first place. "I still haven't had the chance to talk to her, not yet. For the moment, I'm letting Hakuba handle that end."

He was avoiding it, in truth, uncertain if he'd be able to keep his cool around the woman who had used and manipulated someone he cared about like this. He knew that he couldn't do it forever- before she left for America, he would have to speak to her at least once. It might be his only chance to, he couldn't waste it.

"I wouldn't advise it, but I get the feelin' yer gonna do it anyways." Heiji noted, his gaze flickering back towards him, brows knitting together. "Yer not askin'."

"Do you feel like talking?" Shinichi asked simply, taking a seat. "You've been through a lot, and we've already got a number of things we need to discuss. I thought we'd go through those first."

"Eh, it's not like this is my first time bein' shot." With a slight shrug of his shoulders, Heiji placed a hand on his stomach, hovering over where he knew a scar from another life rested. He kept it away from the one near his heart, but he could feel Shinichi's eyes straying up towards it nonetheless. "That's part of why it was so easy ta believe what she was tellin' me in the first place."

"I suppose that would make it more convincing." Shinichi said, forcing himself to tear his eyes away. He'd already seen them once before, while he had been searching him, and had been forcing himself not to think on them since. "High school detective isn't exactly the most normal of roles."

"Well between ya, me, an' Blondie, it sounds like there was a right crop of us back then, looks like." Heiji noted, leaning back against the wall. "That Sera woman too, I guess. Somethin' in the water, maybe."

"You might be on to something there." Though a faint laugh escaped from him at his words, it still was not nearly enough to lift Shinichi's expression from the grim one that it had settled upon. "You still don't remember anything yet, do you?"

There was guilt laced in his words, so thick that he felt as if he would nearly choke on it. With the shadow of the Organization all but no more, he could feel it, threatening to bubble up to the surface, in a way that he knew that he would never be able to hold back. But for just a little longer, just a little bit longer, he needed to hold it at bay- for there was still far too much work to be done to allow himself to be weighed down by the end result of his own past errors.

But with the silence between them weighing down on him as it was now, it was hard not to let some of that leak out.

"Ya know, there's no need ta make that kind of face." Letting out a long, almost exasperated sigh, Heiji finally broke the silence. A hand straying up behind his neck, he couldn't return anything but a frown, not when confronted with that kind of face. He might have been better at it in the past, but as it was, he didn't know what to do with being confronted with the rather obvious fact that Shinichi was burdened with guilt over what had happened.

"Sorry, it's just..." Shaking his head, Shinichi turned on his heel, facing away from him. He'd always known that they didn't have many options, but that much had become crystal clear after speaking with Akai and Jodie. They would do what they could, but there were limits to that.

"Ya don't have ta worry about somethin' like that." Heiji said after a moment, letting out another sigh, a trace of a grin crossing his face. "I'm the one who made the choice ta stay, knowin' full well I'd have ta face the music fer a lot of things. Whatever happens ta me, it's probably honestly more than I actually deserve."

Shinichi couldn't find it in him to argue that point- he was right, after all. Still...

"I wish that wasn't the case, Hattori."

The use of his name- his real name- gave him something of a pause, before Heiji let out a faint snort. "What, so ya heard. Did Kazuha tell ya?"

"No, I was there." Shinichi said, shaking his head. "I wish I'd gotten there a bit sooner, so I could have prevented you from getting shot again, though."

"Ta be frank, I'm just lucky I'm not dead." Heiji admitted, giving him a shrug of his shoulders. "Without Kazuha, I probably would be too. Gotta pay her back somehow."

"Is that part of the reason you're staying?" Shinichi asked, turning back slightly on his heel, daring to look back again. "For Kazuha?"

Really, there was no need for him to do anything like pay her back- he had already given her exactly what she wanted. Not exactly as she had wanted it, but there was no greater gift than proving that she was right to have faith in his survival all this time. Maybe if he had the same faith, maybe if he had searched a little harder, things would be different.

Maybe, maybe, maybe. No matter how he tried to avoid them, he always found himself coming back to the maybes. More than likely, they would probably haunt him for the rest of his life, much like those of Miyano Akemi's still did, even after all this time. Maybe, maybe.

"That's part of it." Heiji told him, strangely finding himself unable to do anything but grin, even in this situation. "I wish I could say that the other part is out of some noble duty of payin' fer what I've done, but it ain't that. It's fer myself, really. I feel like if I run away again, I'll be runnin' away from my past, an' I'll never get it back."

"So you really don't remember." Shinichi noted, letting out a long sigh. "Well, it's not as if I were expecting a miracle. If there were such things, you probably already used yours up, back on the boat."

"Yeah, if ya buy yer miracles from the discount bin." Heiji noted, quirking a brow. That got him the desired effect- a hint of a smile on Shinichi's face, and something that he couldn't help but find curious as to having wanted it. "I don't really remember anythin' yet, but I feel like I could, at least a bit easier."

Maybe names really did hold a bit of power, after all. It wasn't as though he felt as if the shadow of Paikaru had been liberated from him- indeed, it still felt strange and unfamiliar to be addressed as Hattori Heiji. In time, perhaps he'd grow used to it once again, much as he did with Paikaru.

That would probably always be a part of him though.

"That's progress." Finally turning all the way back around, Shinichi tucked his hands in front of his pockets. "Haibara says that you shouldn't strain yourself though, trying to remember."

"I know. She told me that much." Heiji noted. "Well, I'll probably have plenty of time ta think about it, wherever I end up. Prison, probably."

"We'll visit, if we can." Shinichi told him quickly. "I can't speak for anyone other than myself and Ran, but..."

"Oh, I already know that." Heiji said. "No reassurances required, Kudo-han."

"You could just call me Kudo, you know." Shinichi observed. "Like you used to."

"I don't think so." Closing his eyes, Heiji shook his head. "I don't feel like I have the right ta address ya as any kind of equal, Kudo-han. Not now, at the very least. Really, I probably shouldn't be callin' Neechan so casually either, but it seems like that's a nickname that's engrained real deep in me. Her an' the littler one."

"Of the two of them, Haibara's the more likely to be annoyed at you for it." Shinichi said, a faint laugh escaping him, even as he tried to swallow back how much those words stung. It wasn't as if he'd thought he'd ever get it back, exactly- the kind of relationship that they had before this.

But if there was one thing that sunk in the reality of it, it was those words. Although he was still alive, the days in which they worked together to solve cases were long behind them. Hattori Heiji was still alive, but the high school detective that he once was, was probably buried forever.

It hurt, more than he fully realized it would, to accept that.

"If that's how you want it." Burying anything else that he might want to say, Shinichi settled instead for what he had came here for in the first place. "They're going to want to meet you, you know. The members of the FBI that I've been speaking without in regards to your case."

"Did I know them?" Heiji asked.

"Only one." Shinichi told him. "And even then, only a little. She's the easy one, though. I don't suppose Gin ever mentioned anything about an Akai Shuichi to you, did he?"

"Ya probably know him about as well as I do, Kudo-han, do ya really think he wouldn't?" Heiji asked, arching a brow. "Between the two of ya, I honestly can't tell which he hates the more. Never met him myself though."

"You'd have had a tough time getting away if you had." Shinichi noted.

"Wow, thanks fer the vote of confidence there." Letting out a small snort, Heiji felt a frown pull at his lips. "There's somethin' more that ya still haven't told me yet, isn't there? Well, I can make a few guesses, though."

"It's your father." Better to cut to the chase, rather than beat around the bush, Shinichi thought. "He knows about you, and it seems that he wants to meet with you, at least once."

"Let him, then." Heiji said, shrugging his shoulders. "I guess I owe him that much."

"I thought you'd protest the idea a little more." Shinichi admitted. "Considering how you reacted when Ran told you about him."

"Oh trust me, I might not look it, but I'm screamin' on the inside. Loud as can be." Heiji quickly reassured him, the strain on his smile speaking the truth to his words. "But if I'm goin' ta face down my past, I guess I gotta face down my parents at some point. They deserve ta know their son is alive, at the very least, fer whatever that's worth at this point."

Probably not all that much, he couldn't help but think. He couldn't help but wonder what his relationship with his father had been like in the past, if just the mere mention of him gave him this uneasy, crawling sensation. Whether it had been good or bad, either way, he was nothing more than a horrible failure of a son now, so he supposed it didn't really matter that much.

"I see." Closing his eyes, Shinichi drew in a long breath. "In that case, I'll go ahead and contact him now. It would be for the best that he gets a chance to speak with you before the FBI do. I'm not sure what will happen after that."

"Well either way, it sounds like I have a busy day ahead of me." Heiji noted. "Ya sure do know how ta treat a guy who was basically in critical condition only a day ago."

"Reconsidering running away?" Shinichi joked.

"A bit." His grin growing somewhat more natural, Heiji placed a hand over his stomach. "But not until Kazuha brings me that food she promised before. I'm starved!"

It started with a prickle at the back of his neck.

It was one that he had come to recognize, over the years. He did not consider himself the type to believe in superstitions, but nor was he the type to deny something that was right in front of him. Perhaps it was something akin to an aura, were there such things, that he had tuned himself to be able to pick up on right away. Not every criminal that he captured gave off such a feeling- only a select few.

Amongst them, those of the Black Organization stood out.

Though he hadn't yet gone to visit the woman, the one that Shinichi claimed was chiefly responsible for all but spiriting his son away, he had gone to visit the man. He knew of him, though he'd never so much as seen the man called Gin directly before. Even so, he cut a figure that was hard to forget, even when he was confined and imprisoned. To a lesser man, perhaps the aura that he gave off would have been enough to spark something like fear in him, or at the very least, some form of vague apprehension.

But Hattori Heizo was no common man, and he had faced down more than his fair share of criminals in his years. Though the man known by the codename of Gin was exceptional, in the end, his presence was nothing that he couldn't handle. And in that sense, what he was picking up on now was nothing that he couldn't handle- it was the source of it that was the problem.

That said, he couldn't claim that he hadn't been fully expecting something like this. It would seem that holding off on telling Shizuka had been the right choice. Having to be introduced to his own son was cause enough for the feeling that something was out of place- were Shizuka able to pick up on something like this, she would doubtlessly only end up in pain.

He'd never remembered Heiji having such cold eyes. In those eyes, there was an expression of wariness, a watchful gaze that told him that all of his actions were closely being monitored, as if he were waiting for him to make the wrong move. The way that he had tensed up as soon as he had entered the room- no, perhaps even before that, had caught his attention as well.

These were not things that he was doing intentionally, he sensed, watching as he drew in something of a breath, a small trace of the aura he was giving off seeming to fade back. Most of it, however, remained behind- telling him perhaps more than words ever could. Though Shinichi had reassured him that it would be fine to call him by his name, in reality, Heizo couldn't help but wonder if the one he was meeting here wasn't still Paikaru, the Black Organization's assassin.

But he'd also come into this fully aware that his son had most likely changed since he had seen him last. Still, even he had to admit, he was ultimately unprepared for the extent of it.

"You're-" Barely even a word got out before he took them back, drawing in a long breath as he seemed to correct himself. His son had never been good at speaking standard Japanese, but that too, seemed to have been something that had changed. "...yer shorter than I thought ya'd be."

"You grew." Heizo stated. Out of the corner of his eye, he could sense Shinichi giving them some space, hovering just out of view. Likely he didn't want to get too directly involved in whatever was about to unfold.

Right now, it was nothing more than silence. He was certain that just as he was gauging him, he was being gauged as well. There was still something left of that analytical gaze his son used to possess in those blue eyes of his, but the nature behind them had changed. The disconnect alone was nearly enough to make his skin crawl.

As he thought, this would be no easy reunion.

"So, do I have a grave somewhere?"

Suffice to say, it wasn't the question that he had been expecting. Quite frankly, he couldn't determine if it had been meant to provoke or not, or even what purpose it would have served if it did. If anything, he'd most likely blurted out the very first thing that had come to his mind, heedless of any kind of filter.

In that regard, that was very much something that hadn't changed.

"You do." Heizo answered frankly. "There's nothing in it, naturally."

"That'd be scary if there was." Perhaps it was meant to be a joke, but the disconnect between the slightly jovial tone in which it was spoken, and the tense expression on his face made it hard to determine.

In the past, there used to be those who expressed their doubts that the two of them were actually father and son- and the difference in the way they expressed themselves was chief among them. Heizo knew full well that he was a hard man to read- it was something that served him well in his role as a police officer, though perhaps not as well in his role as a father. Perhaps because of that, Heiji, on the other hand, had always been an open book.

Not so much anymore, Heizo found himself thinking. It was never something that he had wished his son to have in common with him, in the end.

"That it would be." Heizo said, moving to take a seat. He didn't miss the way the sudden movement caused him to tense- only relaxing when he'd finally sat down. A bit more relaxed than he had been before, Heizo noted- as he thought, the way that he had been hovering over him previously was not something that sat well with him.

The wariness that his son watched him with, that seemed to be etched into every fiber of him... that was as much an indication of how much training he had gone through, as well as very much an indication of what he could only define as abuse. The scars that blossomed outwards along his left arm, crackling in a gut wrenching pattern, helped too to tell a story that words perhaps, would not entirely suffice for.

That too, was something he would keep in mind. For if there was one thing that Heizo had come to deeply understand during his time with the police, it was that there was sometimes a very thin line that separated a criminal from a victim. Those who killed for revenge, those who killed to protect themselves... not all of those who made the choice to take a human life did so for light reasons.

But none had half so much blood on their hands as his own son.

He'd read them, once more, before coming here. All of the files that Kazuha kept on Paikaru. He knew where to find them, after all, and during the chaos, she'd never so much as thought to come back to claim them. More than likely, without the kind of deal Shinichi was hoping to make with the FBI, there would be nothing waiting for him at the end of the road but death.

And that was not something Heizo wished to see.

"I'm sure ya gathered as much already, but just in case, I'll tell ya myself." From the way that black presence around him had eased once more, it would seem that he had grown somewhat used to his presence. "I don't remember a damn thing about ya. The only reason I recognize ya is cause I was shown a picture before."

"Kudo-kun informed me of your memory loss." Heizo stated simply. "I did not expect anything else."

"Well, that's good then." There was a tight frown on his face, a look of almost hesitation in his eyes- which seemed a tad less cold now than when he had first entered, if no less wary. "I'll be frank with ya, I don't really understand what it is that ya want with me. I heard about it, ya know, yer role with the police. I would have thought ya'd not want anythin' ta do with me, knowin' what ya know about me."

Ah, so there was regret there. Were it not for the fact that Heizo recognized it as something quite recent, it would have put him a bit more at ease. Though Shinichi had vouched for him, it wasn't that hard to see that it was likely only after he had begun to learn about his past, that he had begun to develop such feelings.

Still, he could not deny that it was a good sign. If anything, it meant that rehabilitation was entirely possible, even for someone who carried such a record behind him. Never again would he return to what or who he once was, but it was possible, he thought, for him to once again become something more than he was now.

Perhaps he would be able to bring Shizuka to meet him after all. He'd only be able to keep the truth from her for so long.

"Is it truly so strange that a father should want to meet with his son?" Heizo asked. "All the more so when they've thought him dead for the past five years."

"Might have been better off." The averted gaze, the half mumbled words... all obvious clues that told him that those were not words anyone was meant to hear. "Well, ya've met me now. Ya satisfied, old man?"

That familiar term of address... perhaps there were some things still, that hadn't yet changed. It was not so much that the son that he knew was gone, Heizo realized, but rather had been buried, deep down. Much like in the way he had nearly used standard Japanese to speak at first, he had taken all that which would have earned the ire of that woman, and had hidden it, in a place where she couldn't reach.

Some of which had disappeared over time, some of it which had grown twisted. As a father, it was a hard thing to take. When his son had needed him the most- he had failed him. Failed him by giving him, failed him by believing him to be dead.

"I am." Heizo stated, cracking one eye open, gazing carefully at the young man that his son, that Heiji, had grown up into. Were he not currently confined to a hospital bed, he likely would have been able to see far more than he was now- more of all the things that had changed. Things that had been hardwired into him, things that had no place being there.

There too, was regret in his heart.

Rising to his feet, Heizo watched the way that he tensed up again. This time, instead of following him with a wary gaze, it fell away from him, as if he didn't want to look him in the face. The tense air between them... in a way, that too, was something that hadn't entirely changed. He'd always known, in the end, that their relationship was not the best, and though he'd always tried to fix it, the source of the strain between them was not something that was so easily mended.

If anything, the gap had only grown. Were his memories to return... in the end, Heizo could only imagine that such a thing would only cause the gap between them to grow further, rather than to shrink.

This time, however, he intended to mend what he could. What Heiji had done, regardless of the circumstances behind it, was unforgivable- but these still, were sins that he could recover from, if given the chance. And too, did they appear to be sins that he wanted to recover from, to reform.

"The next time I come, it will be with your mother, Heiji." It was the first time that he had said his name since coming here, and judging from the way that Heiji himself flinched at it, he'd recognized it as well. "She never gave up hope that you were alive. You seem tense around people, so I suppose I should give you fair warning ahead of time that you may find it difficult to avoid her attempts to embrace you."

The look of complete and utter incomprehension on his face told him too, a story that mere words could not say. He'd been told something of the lies Heiji had been fed by Shinichi, at the very least, as much as he knew. The fact that he'd been told his parents had abandoned him, cast him out, had stuck out like a thorn to him.

He would not allow such a lie to become the truth.

In the end, even with the lies, he'd done the right thing. Perhaps not entirely for the right reasons, not at first- but it would seem those too, he was slowly stumbling into. It would not wash away anything else- but it showed that even entrenched in darkness, so deep that it had wrapped his very aura, that the child he'd helped raise for seventeen years was not someone that could so easily be erased.

Though if he had to say just one thing, the one reaction he hadn't excepted his words to earn was for his son's face to grow so red, that it nearly seemed as if he'd short circuited. Emotional, yes, Heiji had always been that way... but perhaps not so easily flustered as this.

Perhaps it would be wise to impress upon Shizuka to go easy on the boy. If words alone were enough to cause such a reaction, there was a very good chance he might not survive the affections of his actual mother.

And as for the woman who had claimed that she filled that role for him... he could only imagine that he was only one in a long line of people that would like to very much have a word with her.

"You're going, aren't you, Shinichi?"

Though she did not move to impede his path in the least, the concern in her words was more than enough to stop him in his tracks. Coming to a halt, Shinichi drew in a long breath, before turning to face his fiancee.

"I am." Shinichi confirmed, with a nod of his head. "I wanted to give Hattori and Kazuha a bit more time to themselves. Before I have to meet with the FBI about him, I figured I might as well take the chance to go and speak with her."

Ran knew who the her in question was without even having to ask. She also knew that there was no way that she could talk him out of it, though she didn't like it. Before they both were taken to America to await trail, this might very well be the last chance he had to speak to either of the captured Organization members.

It was strange, really- if one had asked her a month ago which one she was more nervous about, the answer clearly would have been Gin. Even now, she still didn't like the idea of putting Shinichi and that man together, alone, at that- even if Gin was confined at the moment. But now, after everything that had happened, her overall answer had changed- the one she was worried the most about now was Merlot.

But at the same time, she knew that he had to go. If he didn't, then he wouldn't be able to find closure. She couldn't keep him here- nor would she, really. She just didn't want to send him off without saying anything.

"I imagine those two have a lot to catch up on." Ran said, her gaze trailing down the hall, towards where Heiji's hospital room was. "How did his meeting with his father go?"

"Better than I thought it would." Shinichi confessed. "If only things with the FBI could go as smoothly."

"We can only hope." Ran said. "I'd hate to think their reunion would have to end at this. They deserve more, the both of them."

"Kazuha's good for him, that much I can already tell." A hint of a grin surfaced at that, as Shinichi turned to face Ran. "That is, when he can manage to deal with her."

"He's getting better at that." Ran noted, returning his smile with one of her own. "He's changed a bit, since we first met him."

"That's true." Shinichi admitted. "I'm still going, Ran."

"I know." Slowly nodding her head, Ran took a step forward, resting a hand on his shoulder. "I won't stop you, Shinichi. If you can get her to confess on record that she coerced Hattori-kun into all of this, it might very well help his case."

"I don't think she will. At the very least, not in the kind of phrasing that would actually help." Shinichi noted. "We're just lucky that Hattori didn't turn out to be like the rest of her so-called children. If he had... I don't know if there would be any taking him back. I don't want to think about it, really."

"I don't blame you." Ran said, shaking her head. "Those trails were hard to watch."

"I won't let that happen to Hattori." Placing his hand over her own, Shinichi locked eyes with her. "I won't."

"I know." Ran said, slowly nodding her head. "Be careful, Shinichi. We don't know what that woman will say. I'm sure most of it will be unpleasant to hear."

"I don't doubt it." Shinichi noted. "I'll be fine though, Ran. This is hardly my first rodeo."

"I know that." Ran told him, leaning forward a bit, planting a quick kiss on his lips, one that briefly left him speechless. The way that he would still get a bit flustered at that even now... honestly, she found that to be a rather endearing trait of his. "But I'm your fiancee, so I tend to worry when you run off on your own. Especially given precedence."

"I don't plan on shrinking a second time." Shinichi noted, unable to resist the joke. "Though something to turn back time sure would be pretty useful for Hattori right about now. Too bad it'd come with an almost ninety nine percent chance of death."

"That does tend to be a drawback." Ran noted, drawing away from him a bit, still holding his hand in her own even as she did. "I'm not sure Hattori-kun would be fond of the idea himself either."

"He'd have to learn about Conan-kun too, then." Shinichi couldn't help but note. "That's not a memory I'm looking forward to him getting back."

"You know what they say, Conan-kun~." Giving his hand a slight squeeze, Ran couldn't help but slip in a bit of teasing. "You have to take the good with the bad."

"Don't remind me." Leaning forward, Shinichi returned her earlier kiss, before reluctantly drawing away, letting go of her hand. "I have to go. I already contacted Jodie-san, so I'd hate to keep her waiting for much longer."

"Then, I'll watch over things here for you, Shinichi." Ran promised him. "Namely, making sure that Hattori-kun is still in one piece when you come back."

"Weren't you the one who said he was getting better about it?" Shinichi couldn't help but note.

"Better, not perfect." Ran noted. "Now then. Go give that woman a good talking to, Shinichi. For my sake as well."

"Yeah." With a firm nod of his head, Shinichi gave her a smile. "You can count on me, Ran."