One shot dedicated to Beika Street web board user Ai Yagami in response to their adoration of the Conan and Ai pairing. (Written in French March 2009)
Beware, this fanfiction contains spoilers for book 60/episodes around 510 of Detective Conan.

Things change.

Beika 2nd district, house number 21.

The books adorning the numerous shelves of the Kudo library are covered in a fine blanket of dust. The windows, however, are covered with none. Thankfully so, as this enables them to better share the light from the setting sun. Its gentle rays glide past the envious tomes to illuminate the target of their jealousy. A simple desk, standing proudly in the middle of the room, is monopolizing the full attentions that are so desired of the room's only occupant. The desk is clean, if a bit encumbered by various volumes clearly borrowed from elsewhere. The man has cleared room for a laptop computer that he has just turned off. He lowers the screen the better to reach out for a glass containing an auburn liquid. The wood and leathers of the desk gleam with joy beneath the refracted colours of the beverage. The drinker enjoys a few sips before lowering his gaze to the glass he is holding. He observes through his glasses the amber colour so similar to that of his hair.

The table, the whole house in fact, have very pleasantly welcomed him despite being more accustomed to a dark-haired owner with a moustache than to a young student of sciences. He should not be there. He is neither the son nor the wife of the great writer whose domain this was. Yet as far has the house and its contents were concerned, this intruder suited them better than being left unattended. There is nothing worse for a home than to be considered a haunted house by the children of the neighbourhood; nothing worse and nothing more depressing.

So what the devil, of course the house cares little that this opportune occupant seems more interested by the occupants of the neighbouring residence than is reasonable. Without hindrance, it lets the man gaze through the window in the corridor leading to this room. It doesn't try to close the door to the library with the aid of a draft. The curtain before the glass remains fully drawn. Despite the fact that there are small trees and a wall between the house and its neighbour, they do not seem to stop the man from observing the object of his focus whenever his eyes leave his drink. On the first floor of the neighbouring home, through one of the many window panes that make the Professor's house so recognizable, he can see the young child. He can't distinguish much, maybe the colour of her hair, similar to his, perhaps even how she has her arms crossed. He can imagine the little girl watching the house hosting him with great fear and suspicion. In truth, he thinks, she is more likely to be yawning while watching night fall. She is but a child.

Yet... And yet...

Things change.

Ai Haibara, the child in question, looks on number 21 with tiredness in her eyes. The first time she had set foot in that house, it had been deserted. She had visited twice to determine whether or not its inhabitant back then, some Shinichi Kudo, was truly deceased. Dust had been everywhere, the electric and water meters hadn't budged an inch. On her third visit, she had been weak and had slumped before it in the rain, her suspicions confirmed. Kudo had survived and found refuge elsewhere, in the shape of a child; just as she had ended up finding refuge with professor Agasa.

And now the Kudo home, the very one whose abandoned condition had assured the Organisation of his death, was being occupied by a stranger, a very suspicious character indeed. The kind of being that when she had first met the newly rechristened "Conan Edogawa" the latter would have confronted without delay...

And yet he had been the very one to welcome that guy into his true home with open arms. Home that was oddly close to one housing the number one target of the Organisation she suspected this Okiya was a member of. After several months of teaching him the values of caution, reminding him of the possibly harmful consequences of any thoughtless acts, even tutoring him on the modus operandi of his "men in black" while ensuring not to give him any compromising excess of information, and this was how he thanked her? Honestly, whatever could she have fancied in him in the past, that tiny mystery-obsessed fool...?

She sighs. Her skin is now coloured gold. The setting sun is tinting her hair dark red, as her eyes stare out at the clouds. She recalls the day a little girl, not even eight yet, had captured a sunset in order to create a romantic memento with the prince charming of her young years. She had helped. She had been the accomplice. Yet only a couple of months before hand the same little girl had confronted her by asking if they were going to be love rivals; two little girls, rivals for the affections of a young boy who was really a young man and whose heart already belonged to another woman. She had never considered herself a candidate for his affections. It had been crystal-clear from the beginning for Haibara that the young Kudo's love was taken.

Yet... And yet...

There had been moments where she had thought that things change, that maybe...

It was silly, she knew it, but she couldn't help remembering a time when she had grabbed onto his shirt, tears in her eyes. He had stood there, struck dumb. He had greeted her as his enemy, and yet he had supported her as friend, a companion would, when they had only just met. Something had sparked, way back then, and since... Well since then...

In a football stadium, she had teased him. He wanted to know her age. In a European castle, transplanted onto a Japanese mountainside, they had been nose to nose. She learned to know him. A hotel on fire, he saved her life. She wanted to leave, to protect his. He convinced her to stay at his side. She offered him a chance, an occasion to declare his feelings to the other that he loves. He wasted it. He needs her still. She left him a coded message, convinced he'll solve it in an instant. She knows how he ticks now. She was in the dumps, fear preventing her from sleeping at night. He reassured her. Once more he saves her life... A life she had been ready to sacrifice for him. He teaches her to cherish that life, so precious in his eyes. All the while they share arguments, mind games and various conversations with a depth and mundane nature that preserve them from boredom.

So many insignificantly small moments, so many occasions, so many clues...

Reason has rules that the heart does not share. She knew she had no hope, and yet the young detective had found himself a place in her heart.

Yet things change.

Thanks to him, she has been able to freely enjoy the joys of a second childhood. Thanks to him, the dark black shades that had been tormenting her when she had run to him had bit by bit flown apart. Thanks to him, she had found herself with an unrequited love.

And thanks to him, she had a foe at her doorstep.

Oh, her love for him was well and truly dead. Now all that remained was a sincere friendship coloured with some irritation. He hadn't changed, but something had. She no longer has the air of mystery that had once allowed her to crease his brow on numerous occasions with incomprehension or fear. He no longer needs her so much for her knowledge, but more as a neutral witness for his deductions. They are now no more than friends. She's the scientist hiding in the basement and he's the know-it-all detective that acts as such.

Hopefully she'll manage to make him take her bad feeling about the new neighbour seriously.

Who knows, things change after all. It's not too late to make him see reason.

Yet... And yet... That Okiya... His aura seems so familiar.

End.