A/N: I realize this one has been a loooooong time coming. I have a lot of trouble ending long stories, and this is the second-last chapter. I hope the next one will be a little quicker!

Only This

by Shimegami-chan

Chapter 8

Heiji and Conan exchanged a look. "Haibara..." the latter said finally, lowering the jersey to his lap. "I can't believe I'm saying it, but I can't do this just yet."

The faux gradeschooler raised one eyebrow, her expression otherwise unwavering. "I can't wait to hear why."

Again the boys glanced at each other.

"If you're going to tell me that you have a better chance of escaping in that body, Kudo, you're dead wrong. If this sting operation fails, it's not going to matter whether you're a kid or a teenager - they are going to find you."

"But it'll at least make it harder," he protested, knowing that was mostly a lie. He probably knew the danger better than Haibara herself did; he couldn't fend off the common cold with his failing body, much less armed gunmen. But the thought of changing back now, without really saying goodbye to Ran...

But it wasn't really a goodbye, was it? He was still himself. It was only his appearance that was going to change.

Stupid. If Megure's team doesn't get Gin and Vodka, it's not safe for me to come back publicly as Kudo Shinichi anyway. If Conan goes, then who will Ran have...?

"If you're worried about Mouri-kun," Haibara said with just the barest amount of sincerity, "getting killed is not going to help you explain all this. You'd be better off preserving your life by taking the antidote and getting out of here while you still can. Slip away into the night and let your parents do the talking in the morning."

"No," Conan said at length, feeling his heart begin to pound, not with the illness but with anticipation. "We have to wait until morning. I'm not going to run when 'Tousan and Megure-keibu are out there fighting my battle. We're staying here until it's over," he glanced at Heiji for assent, "or as over as it's going to get."

Haibara laid her sachel on the bedside table and inspected the dials and numbers on Conan's heart monitor, then turned her attention to a disconnected IV drip. "How long is it lasting now, Kudo-kun?"

"Eh?"

"Don't play stupid. The morphine, the sedatives. You've been hiding it."

Looking slightly troubled, he glanced out the window, unwilling to look at her. "Even at maximum dosage, the drugs lose their effectiveness in less than a minute."

Haibara slammed both hands down on the table, causing both boys to jump. "Do you have any idea what that's doing to your body, you idiot! You're practically feeding the apotoxin. You could be dead by morning at this rate, and for what!"

Mollified, Conan's fingers tightened on the fabric of the jersey and he opened his mouth to speak, but Haibara wasn't finished yet. "Besides the fact that Hakase and I have barely slept in two months and this incident has pretty much crushed Ayumi and the others, in case you have forgotten, Hattori-kun and I have put every single person we associate with in an extremely dangerous position for the sake of making you a cure in time. Including the Mouris. So you don't want to take it now? Too bad. Even if you haven't been murdered by sunrise, your heart could stop at any time."

"Haibara..." Conan glanced from her to Heiji and back again. "I'm sorry...I know you and Hakase did everything you could...but I just need a bit of time. Even if I took it now, there's no guarantee I'd get away safely. We're gambling either way until we know what happened at the raid."

She stared at him, her eyes icy, and Heiji was amazed Conan could stand up to that kind of pressure in his condition. There was an awkward silence, and finally Haibara turned away, leaving the sachel where it was. "Fine...you win. It's midnight now. You call whoever you want in the morning and say what you need to say, but I will be back here at noon, and I will personally sedate you and administer the antidote, willingly or unwillingly. Good-bye, Kudo-kun, and for God's sake, live to see tomorrow."

With that, Haibara spun on her heel and left, slamming the door shut behind her.

When Patrolman Director Takagi Wataru's consciousness decided to return, it was amid a cacophony of sound, so loud and jarring that he wasn't quite sure just how he'd gotten from the top-secret sting operation to the death metal concert, but could someone turn down the volume, please...? His ears rang, and his head felt cottony, and there were hands all over him. It was quite strange. Takagi was just about to conclude that it must be a dream - is that Satou-san I hear yelling my name? MUST be a dream! - when it abruptly came to him that he'd been shot.

At points in the past, Takagi had occasionally subscribed to belief in the occult, though never for too long, because it was the sort of thing his junior high classmates liked to tease him about. At the time he had seen some television show about ghosts, and insisted that out-of-body experiences could actually happen, and after you died you would float around above the scene, like in that one manga where the kid wasn't supposed to die just then and so got to come back to life. Less than a moment after Takagi realized that Gin had pegged him in the chest from the catwalk just before Jodie Saintemillion brought him down, he concluded that - lacking any pain but being extremely fuzzy in judgement - he was now a ghost, and sat up so fast he collided with the chin of someone just above him. "Gah!"

"Ow!" The unknown person sputtered. His voice looked much younger than his face, which was a combination of surprise and pain. He was dressed in plain clothes, noticibly lacking in black, and had an FBI tag stuck to his breast pocket. "Whoa, you're alive."

"Takagi!" Satou apparantly owned the second set of hands that had just been ripping his jacket open to investigate the bullet wound. "You...are you...?"

"Am I dead?" He was, understandably, confused. There wasn't even the broken-rib pain that ought to have accompanied his Kevlar vest intercepting a bullet. Other than being a bit dizzy, he felt fine. "What just happened? Did we get them?"

"I don't know," she said honestly. "I...I should get back in there. I was just afraid that..."

The young man nodded at her from just over Takagi's head. "I'll take care of him, Ojousan."

"Thank you." Satou got to her feet and ran back into the melee. Takagi observed at last that he had been carried outside of the building and laid out on the ground. He must have blacked out from the impact, he thought. If there was an impact at all.

His clothing seemed to be fused together on the right side, he also noticed as the agent undid his white cotton shirt and Kevlar vest in a much more leisurely fashion and inspected his chest. "You have some damn luck."

"What? Why?" Angling his neck, Takagi looked down at a small, round bruise beginning to form just below his right clavicle. "What happened there? Where did the bullet go?"

Wordlessly the agent pulled back the flap of his dark jacket, where a mess of wires and burnt fabric smouldered in his breast pocket. The slug had been caught neatly between the contraption - what was that, Takagi wondered? He hadn't been carrying anything in that pocket - and the protection of the vest. Between the bullet and the melted components, it seemed unlikely that the three garments would ever separate again. "It seems you have a guardian angel," the FBI agent grinned, buttoning up both shirt and vest.

He helped the unsteady officer to his feet, and Takagi clung to the wall for a moment before standing under his own power and checking the pistol at his side. "I have to go back in there."

His companion frowned. "That's probably not a great idea. You seem pretty disoriented."

Takagi shook his head. "People are counting on me. Satou-san is in there..." He turned and glanced over his shoulder at the other man, who looked impassive. If anything, he seemed reluctant to enter the building. "Aren't you coming?"

"I..." The agent faltered and one hand curled into a fist. Takagi noticed that he was unarmed. "...I guess I am."

Takagi smiled encouragingly. "Then come on. Maybe my guardian angel has enough luck left for both of us."

"Seemed like my supply might be running low. Wait, Takagi." The young man caught his sleeve. "Listen...the shots have stopped."

Both stood stock-still for a moment, straining their ears for the sounds of humans rising and falling. "It's over," Takagi breathed, and together they ran towards the entrance.

Much later that night, Kudo Yukiko had slipped back to the relative comfort of her old home, perched in the window seat without so much as a single lamp to lessen the imposing darkness of the room. She breathed deeply the scent of ageing ink and paper, and the stale air of a room gone undusted far too long. It was nearing three o'clock A.M.

A clicking sound signalled his key in the lock; Yukiko stayed where she was, hating those last few seconds of uncertainty but needing them just the same. If it was Yuusaku, he would know where to find her. If it was them, she refused to make it easy. Instead she peered out through the opposite curtains of dust and rain, wishing she had seen him coming up the walk.

The door to the library creaked open, and Yuusaku's face came into view, lit by the hallway lamps. "Yukiko."

She shut her eyes and muttered a silent 'thanks' to any deities that might be listening.

Conan and Heiji had fallen asleep many hours into their vigil, fists curled around broomsticks and dart-guns. Neither was alert enough to notice the pitter-patter of feet and excited laughter echoing from the speakers, at least until one of the voices threw the door open and ran into the room, startling both detectives. Fortunately for Ayumi, they were far too disoriented to reach for their weapons before opening their eyes. "Wha-?"

"Conan-kun!" Ayumi enthused, clasping both her hands around one of his. "Good morning! Ah...and hello, Heiji-san."

"Hello, Heiji-san!" Mitsuhiko greeted him with a wave. "You look tired."

"Osu," Heiji yawned, rubbing sleep from his eyes.

"You're wasting a perfectly good Saturday morning," Genta admonished, waving a finger in the Osakan's face.

"Hattori," Conan hissed, "it's eleven-thirty."

Heiji sat straight up and looked, bewildered, at the clock. "So it is...I'll, uh...what should I do?"

"Go down to the precinct! I'll...handle things here." Conan pushed away the bundle of clothing that had been resting on his lap and smiled tiredly at his visitors. 'You guys are pretty energetic today, aren't you?"

"Well..." Ayumi said slowly, moving back to allow Heiji room to pass, "Ai-chan sent us. She said you had something important to tell us."

Both detectives froze and Heiji looked at his friend over the childrens' heads. "You're right, I'll, uh, leave you guys alone," he ground out, grabbing his jacket and cell phone and hurrying out of the room without a backward glance. That little 'Neechan's a sneaky one, all right.

When the door had closed behind Heiji, Conan sat up straighter in the bed and looked down at his hands. "Yeah...we do need to talk."

"If there's anything we can do for you, just say so!" Mitsuhiko declared. "The Detective Boys are always at the ready!"

"Thanks. But this isn't really something you can help with, I'm sorry to say." Conan offered him a grim smile. "The truth is that I'm going to be leaving Japan, and maybe very soon."

"Leaving? You're taking a trip?" Genta grasped the metal railing on the side of the bed. "Where are you going? Someplace with good food?"

"America. I'm sure there's plenty to eat there, and I'd bring you souvenirs if I could...but...I probably won't be coming back."

"What!" All three exclaimed, in unison.

"My parents want to take me back to San Fransisco with them, so I can have better treatment for my illness," Conan continued, trying to put as much sincerity into his voice as possible. He felt like a jerk lying to the Detective Boys' faces, after they had been through so much together. Ayumi's eyes were already filling with tears.

"We won't let them!" Genta asserted, shaking the bar he was clutching. "You belong here!"

"That may be so, but they're my parents," Conan reasoned, grateful he was able to shift a bit of the blame to the always-disagreeable adults. It would be far easier for them to accept it if they thought it was out of his control. "I have to do what they say, you know?"

Ayumi's lower lip was trembling. "But Conan-kun...you won't be coming back, ever?"

"That's hard to say." It wasn't fair to give them false hope, no matter how hard this was already. In fact, Conan hoped he would one day be able to tell them the truth...the whole truth. But they weren't ready for that yet. "I probably can't come back, though, no."

"But you can write to us, though, right! And call..." Mitsuhiko despite usually being the most mature of the geniune children, looked more upset than he had expected. His hands were clenched into fists and he looked as though he were struggling to control his expression.

Can I? If I live through the cure...I guess that's not so bad. Somehow the idea of simply abandoning the life he had lived for the past few years left him with a hollow feeling. He really had come to care for the trio, and considered them friends. "Sure. I'll call and write, no problem."

This seemed to reassure Genta and Mitsuhiko, but Ayumi was now crying outright. "Conan-kun...I don't want you to go."

"I don't want to, either." Somehow, Conan realized, he'd become rather attached to his dual identity. He hadn't wanted it, but now, even though there was no question of wanting to return to his original form, he didn't really want to say good-bye to Edogawa Conan.

This is the risk I ran when I let them get close to me, he told himself. They're not ready to hear the truth...and who knows what they'd think even if they did. Damned if I do, damned if I don't.

"That's why I asked you to come," he said stiffly, wishing he had the words to console her. "We have to say good-bye. I know it's hard, but we're the Detective Boys, right? We have to be strong at all times."

Sniffling, Ayumi shuffled forward to hug him, her arms wrapping around his neck. "I just want you to get better."

"No problem." He smiled and hugged back. "I just know I'll get better, so don't you worry."

"Okay." Ayumi pulled back and delivered him a kiss on the cheek, causing Genta's expression to darken for a moment, but before she stepped back the portly boy was giving Conan an encouraging smile. "Promise?"

"I promise. And you guys need to promise to take care of yourselves, too. No more getting into troublesome cases when I'm not there to bail you out, right?"

"We can handle it on our own!" Mistuhiko huffed.

"We promise," Ayumi added, stifling him with a look.

Just then, the door eased open and his regular nurse stuck her head inside. "Ah, you're awake, Conan-kun. I just need to check your vitals."

The boy looked at the clock again, which read eleven-forty-five. Surely Hattori had made it to the police station by now? "Okay. You guys should head home...and if I don't see you again, you'll hear from me soon, okay?"

"Okay," they agreed, nodding. Ayumi gave Conan a last, brave smile before slipping under the nurses' arm and out the door.

For the next few minutes, Conan was quiet, letting his medical info be recorded and blood pressure and temperature be taken. "Pretty good," the nurse commented as she checked his pulse. "And you haven't had any attacks since last night?"

Conan shook his head; it was this fortunate coincidence that had allowed him a small amount of undrugged sleep that morning.

"That's great, honey!" She set her clipboard down and picked up the tray with his lunch on it, setting it down beside the sachel. "In that case, you should definitely eat up. Just call me if you need me, okay?"

"Okay," he answered.

She left, closing the door behind her, and at last Conan was left alone with the sachel and the bundle of clothing. Haibara had probably just taken it from the pile of clean laundry Hattori was "borrowing" his daily wardrobe from, but she had brought his favourite Tokyo Spirits jersey and a pair of faded jeans. He happened to own just such an outfit in miniature, Conan-sized, though he hadn't seen it or the rest of his possessions from the Detective Agency in months. The jersey had his name, "KUDO," written in white block letters on the back. It seemed almost like it was advertising his much-anticipated return.

The sachel he did not open yet, though he was curious about the antidote. What would it be like, he wondered, to go through the change and finally feel like himself, without the side effects of the temporary cures? What would it be like to run and play soccer, go to a class at school that was actually challenging, or solve a case without wondering when the next wave of pain would hit him?

How satisfying would it be to confess to Ran, and have her smile at him, rather than look away, appalled?

Amazing, Conan decided. He did not care how much the final change was going to hurt him. This would be worth it.

Looking up at the clock, the time read eleven-fifty-eight. He reached into the bag.