Fox snapped the cell phone shut, lips narrowing into a thin line as he thought about the information he'd received and the orders that had gone along with it. Apparently the hunt for Kuroba had turned up nil, it seemed like the kid had only existed for the time needed to take his test and collect the progress report. His target was very good at hiding. Well, good wasn't really the correct term. Excellent maybe. He'd have to be to hide from the Organization's contacts and sources that flowed like a spider-web throughout the country.

As it was, he only had a couple more days until his secondary orders came into effect. Until then the spynetwork would continue tracking down the teenager. If they didn't find him…well…He'd have to move on to plan B.

--

Ten minutes. Ten minutes was how long it had taken for Kuroba Kaito to forget Shinichi's warning against meeting with his mother. Luckily the woman had been just fine when he stopped by and had taken the meeting (and his appearance) quite well. She'd looked concerned, perhaps even worried when he refused to tell her why she had to be careful, just that it had something to do with his night job.

The shrunken thief had felt marginally better after that, and had managed another four days or so without jumping at shadows. Shinichi had to keep a close eye on the phone, however, because Kaito just had to check in on his mother's safety at least once a day. Shinichi didn't blame him; she was his only family after all. If it had been his parents…well, he wouldn't just be sitting around waiting. He'd be investigating the so-called threat and trying to do his best to eliminate it. Kaito probably would be as well, if he could. The fact of the matter was he couldn't, so Shinichi swore he'd do the best he could in Kaito's place.

At least that's what he'd told Kaito, the last time the two had spent any extended amount of time together.

Ever since that first frantic phone call, to an outside observer the worry seemed to diminish, and eventually faded away when nothing out of the ordinary happened. While there was some truth in the idea that he wasn't quite as agitated as he had been initially, beneath the thin layer of masks existed a sea of churning anxiety, of foreboding, and an unshakable feeling that something was going to happen, and soon. The days dragged on much as usual, if a slight bit busier on Kudou's part. There wasn't a day that Shinichi wasn't called out to preside over some business or another, so, between the teenager's unofficial job and his work from school, Kaito didn't see much of the detective. It was a fact that was quite perplexing, given they lived in the same house.

Now he didn't even have Shinichi to distract him, and had nothing to keep his mind off the little, but very possible chance that Kid's civilian identity had been compromised, either with Snake's little group or the men who were responsible for his little predicament. Either outcome would be bad. Very Bad. It deserved two capital letters.

Kaito shook his head and looked away from the book he'd been trying to read, giving up when his eyes started to shift in and out of focus as his attention wandered from the words on the page, thoughts traveling down the roads they had been, unfortunately, following as of late. With a flick of his wrist the book snapped shut, and the magician reached into his pocket and withdrew a small, folded cell phone. Agasa had given it to him a few days ago, claiming to have worked out an ingenious something or other that would prevent it from being traced through usual methods. It seemed like it would be a nifty little tool for his night job, but he hadn't been able to pay attention once the professor had started trying to explain the intricacies of the work. Kaito considered himself a pretty decent mechanic, but even he had limits on what he could understand without prior knowledge.

The clock on the phone revealed the time to be nearing seven at night, just as Kaito had expected. Half an hour until his mother was likely to be home and finished with the household chores. Another thirty minutes after that would probably lead to Kudou returning home, which left him with a good chunk of time on his hands. He needed something calming to do. He also needed to get rid of a large bundle of anxiety, and the only way he could see was to think through the facts slowly, rationally, and deliberately. He hated to even think it, but he needed to pull a detective trick.

What was it Shinichi did when he needed to think? Kaito thought back, tossing the small phone up and down in one hand. He remembered the detective sitting in that silly thinking pose of his, probably a rip-off from Sherlock Holmes himself, but there was no way he'd do that.

Without much thought the book he'd been reading joined the phone in the air, and the small magician soon had many other small objects dancing in the circle, bobbing up and down to the rhythm created by nimble hands. Shinichi dribbled the soccer ball, so Kaito juggled. His hands moved on auto-pilot after a while, catching each item as it fell before launching it up to join its fellows again. Okay, now, display the facts and work from there.

Exhibit A: Kuroba Kaito was Kaitou KID. Kaito KID had enemies—Snake.

B: Kaito was "killed" by two unidentified men in black.

Exhibit C: Kudou Shinichi, disguised as Kaito, was tailed a good couple miles before the detective (who had to have some experience in the area) managed to shake him.

Fact D: The tail wore a long black trench coat and a black fedora. No other identifying characteristics.

Very Disturbing Fact E: The tail had been waiting at "Kaito"'s school, on the one day that he'd actually be there.

Conclusion: The man had, without a doubt, been looking for Kaito, and not Shinichi. He'd briefly considered a slight chance of mistaken identity; they would have looked like twins if he were still his regular size, but that hope was thrown out the window because of the place, one where Kudou Shinichi had no reason to be.

The rhythm faltered for a moment until Kaito caught himself, adjusting the speed of his props to account for the slight deviation.

If it had been Snake or his buddies on the prowl, the situation was a little worse than the other option. Snake wanted something from him. He wanted that jewel so badly that he would stop at nothing to get it. Kaito was sure by now that Snake had somehow received his retirement note and the thief would likely decided that he had Pandora. Kaito doubted that the ex-jewel thief would have any qualms using someone's life to try and draw him and the gem out, especially if the man (or his boss) had finally decided that Toichi was dead, and his son was the mostly likely suspect for the revival. If that little fact was true, there were plenty of targets, the people previously connected to Kuroba Kaito would have little bulls-eyes spray painted on their backs. A few questions here, and a few questions there…

The circle quickened.

Mom. Aoko. Hakuba.

The names came unbidden, and with them faces. His usually steady hands were shaking now, the dancing objects still moving but they were no longer on a smooth path, jagged and agitated.

And then there was Akako, Nakamori, and even Jii. Actually, it would be prudent to switch Jii and Hakuba. Jii was closer to Kaito than Hakuba—in both forms—but the detective would be the more visible and the easier targe—

His cell phone slipped out of the reach of searching fingers, falling to the floor with an obnoxiously loud clatter, quite a feat considering it was a covered in soft carpeting. Being jarred out of his head so suddenly left him reeling for a moment, and only honed reflexes were working as the circle shattered. He managed to save most of the airborne items from sharing his phone's fate, the books were quickly set on the nearby desk, along with a pencil, a pad of post-it notes, and other little knickknacks.

He hadn't meant to do that. His hands were still trembling, but he ignored it, reaching down and scooping up the small plastic item. It felt wrong in his grip, but his old one was too risky. He'd been given this one when they'd realized that it wouldn't be wise to use Shinichi's house phone –connections and all that—and Kaito's cell just wasn't safe.

Damn it all. When did everything change? When did the chance of discovery become more than just an unlikely prospect? It wasn't even the initial incident, the poison and the loss of his friends and his life. He remembered those first weeks, the first months. They hadn't been great—he missed being over four feet tall, he missed his friends, he missed Kid—but they hadn't full of the fear, the worry, the inability to do anything.

The thief slid the phone in his pocket, glancing up at the clock again. Shinichi wasn't back yet. Kaito began to pace the library, searching for a distraction. There was none. He couldn't believe how much he missed school right about now. At least then he had Aoko to distract him—a few words and some skirt flipping or the dropping of Kid's name and she'd be chasing after him like a mad bull, waving her weapon of choice and occasionally getting a few blows in—or he had Akako to watch and speculate, to wonder what her next plan was to snare the elusive phantom thief. After a few moments of thought Hakuba was added to the list of his distractions—the uptight, Holmes-obsessed mystery nut was unbelievably fun to tease. Y'anno, that sounded incredibly familiar, although Shinichi wasn't near as stuffy and…inflexible as the British detective. He missed his friends, but there was no way to see them now, not if he wanted to keep them off the crazy road his life had taken after that one day.

He was getting sick of this library. It with its lonely shelves and large echoing space, with its lack of distraction, its lack of audience. What was a magician when his audience was gone? When the show was over? When the magic was all gone, leaving nothing but shadows?

Where was Kudou when he was needed, anyway? The detective could flit from one side of the city to the other, being dragged to the various crime-scenes by the not-as-competent police. All the crime-solving was supposed to be their job—and they got it done, usually, but Shinichi was just ten-times faster. Kaito remembered the one time he actually saw the detective in action—how long ago had it been since that day at the ice cream parlor? It had been scary. Impressive as hell, but scary. Terrifying, yet utterly exhilarating. Sometimes he wished he could actually go up against that intensity again, against that power, challenge the detective in a way that surpassed the Clock tower heist—

Like that would happen as long as he remained less than four feet tall and banned from his Kid costume.

Again! Again and again his thoughts returned to not-so-pleasant things. Maybe he could go bug Ran? No, she treated him too much like a cute little boy to be spoiled. Not that the spoiling was a bad thing sometimes, but the thing he wanted was to forget his troubles, not be constantly reminded of them. His other haunt, the park, was also ruled out. It was too late to be finding that group of kids he occasionally hung out with. He liked the Shounen Tantei, really he did. Weird name or not—one of the members was a girl!—real children had a refreshingly cheerful outlook on everything, and they never really took notice of anything non-childish. They just accepted it.

--

"I'm home…" Shinichi mumbled quietly upon entering the house, pushing the front door quietly shut behind him. The warmth of the indoors was almost intoxicating compared to the chill, nippy almost-winter weather it felt like outside. Sometimes he really didn't like fall, it fluctuated between a cool, pleasant temperature and biting freezing cold. He liked summer and winter—at least they were pretty constant. Shinichi shrugged his jacket off and slid it onto the reaching arm of the coat rack, making his way slowly to the kitchen as he always did upon arriving home.

There was something odd about the silence in the house, but it wasn't an unwelcome silence. He was actually glad of the quiet. The only sounds were the opening of the cupboard doors as Shinichi groped for the package of tea he kept around here somewhere. He sighed and gave the tea a baleful look upon discovering it hidden behind some random packages—he preferred coffee if given the choice, but he did want to be able to get to sleep tonight. Tomorrow might be the start of a weekend, but he really didn't want to deal with any more caffeine related sleepless nights than usual.

Once the tea was made he slipped into one of the chairs around the table, thinking back over the past few hours, even the last few days. He still didn't understand how Hattori had managed to hang around Beika for so long—didn't he have school? He kept running into the other detective whenever he was at the police station, which was actually a good thing, come to think of it. Hattori was a good detective for all his apparent competiveness and hasty actions, and was very useful in helping to deal with the increasing number of petty crimes that had been popping up recently. From theft to murder to missing persons, there was always something to help out with at the police station.

…where was Kaito?

The thought hit him like a thrown brick, finally realizing just why the quiet felt so weird. Kaito wasn't here. Usually, even if the boy didn't come down to meet him, he would always respond to the opening and closing of the door with a yelled "Welcome back!" or something with the same meaning but phrased in a far more creative fashion. There'd been no sound except for himself either from upstairs or down, and it was unlikely the boy would have have gone anywhere at this time of night. If Kaito was still his original age and size, then Shinichi might possibly think he'd gone out, but a ten year old wandering alone after dark would likely attract a bit of attention, even if it was of the well-meaning kind. Ever since the unfortunate incident that had caused the whole mess, Kaito had been a stickler about avoiding attention, even to the point of driving himself nearly insane from lack of contact.

Shinichi frowned at that thought, thinking back to that last few times he'd seen the other . He'd seemed pretty tired, worn out, and maybe even a little stir-crazy then, and that was on top of the worrying knowledge that some shady person was looking for him. Kaito seemed to be a social person, so all of the recent isolation probably wasn't doing much for him. The detective cringed briefly, realizing that it'd been mostly his fault that he hadn't been around recently—he'd just been so busy. He hadn't even seen Ran in a while aside from school.

He decided against going into the station again tomorrow, and with that thought Shinichi stood up, taking the empty mug and placing it in the sink to be washed later. His head turned as he left the kitchen, flicking off the light out of habit, glancing up the stairs on the other side of the hall. Usually Kaito could be found in his room, the library, or the garden. Given the fact that it was dark, cold, and autumn the detective ruled out the garden, instead moving quietly up the wooden stairs in search of his housemate.

There was no change in the quiet as he made his way down the hall, heading to the library first. The partially closed door showed that the light was still shining behind the wooden frame, and he pushed it open, eyes automatically going to one of the large cushy arm-chairs that the kid seemed to favor. In the chair closest to the desk he found the curled up form of his target, a pile of books and other objects left haphazardly on the edge of the desk closest to the chair. Kaito was fast asleep, an arm tucked up his head, wild brown hair framing the too-young face. It was getting longer, Shinichi noticed, but then again he hadn't gotten it cut over the months so it made sense.

He stood there for a moment—at least sleeping was a decent reason for the unusual silence—debating on whether to move the sleeping child to his room or leave him here. On one hand, Kaito would probably be indignant if he woke up in the midst of the move—he didn't really like being treated like a kid by someone who knew that he wasn't—but on the other hand if he stayed in that position all night he would probably have back and neck-pains come the morning. On second thought, the complaining tomorrow would be annoying if he left him there, so Shinichi crept across the carpeted floor.

A few moments later had the sleeping form curled up in his arms, and Kaito had shifted once when the detective had first touched him, but after that first contact he'd settled down again. His breathing was just as deep and regular as it was before Shinichi has removed him from the chair, so the detective was feeling a little more confident that he wouldn't wake. The trek from the library to the spare room that Kaito had made his own wasn't that long, and the boy wasn't really as heavy as he looked. Shinichi was somewhat disturbed when he noticed that fact—had he been eating recently? The real disquieting detail was that he couldn't answer that question.

Finally Shinichi let him down, draping the covers over the small form. A resolution came to mind as he saw Kaito snuggle deeper into the warmth provided by the blanket, tomorrow he'd take Kaito somewhere. Somewhere, anywhere; staying cooped up wasn't healthy.

A/N: Done. This chapter wasn't originally in the script, but it just sort of slipped in there. I liked it. Anyways, University is sapping all my creative juices, but at least Math is mind numbing enough to let me write. The end result is this chapter—like it? I hope so.

I think (but don't quote me on it) but Haibara should appear briefly in the next chapter. As will Akako. I won't give up much more, mostly cause I don't want to be tied down to anything specific. I hope ya'll haven't given up on this story yet, it will finish eventually. Question: Anyone think I should change the summary? Just wonderin'

Oh! Does anyone know any decent DC/MK fics that aren't on ? OR are crossovers? I've run out (again!) even after rereading all the ones I've read before. It's very disheartening.

Also! Anyone watch the Movie 12? I loved it! Except for the ten minutes in the end where they let the criminal tell his story. Bleh.