Date Initiated: March 23, 2010.

Genre: Angst/Romance

Disclaimer: I do not own Detective Conan. All of the characters belong to Gosho Aoyama.

(-EDIT- : Majority, if not all, of the simple typos and errors are fixed.)

He didn't know how long the silence lasted. Shinichi Kudo stood as stiff as a board, behind a corner. The tips of his fingers were tingling with a cool sensation as he lowered his steel gaze on to his raised stretched arms in front of him. A black pistol greeted his vision – the killing machine held by his own two hands. A ringing sensation in his ear persisted for a few moments before it began to subside and his normal hearing returned.

There was a muffled sound that he associated with that of a gunshot as something whizzed by his ear, reviving that irritating ringing sensation once again for a few more seconds. A strangled cry was heard in front of him followed by a thud sound.

Looking up again, a horrid scene was burned into his mind that would be etched in his memory for a long time.

Dead bodies… lots of them.

A thin flimsy fog of smoke and the smell of gunpowder were in the air. The bodies lay limply in the ground with blood staining the floor and several walls around him, empty magazines for different weaponry and used bullets were scattered around the open ground.

It was an aftermath of an absolute mayhem.

For the first time, he looked around himself properly.

The familiar environment of the wharf came into view as he absorbed the serenity of the splashing waves and gentle whiff of the cool spring breeze that played with his slightly long hair.

There were sandbag piles and a few low walls here and there as well as scattered crates of varying sizes that lay in wood splinters on the ground.

Looking skyward, grey clouds covered the sky, blocking out the sunlight.

His hand trembled slightly and he lowered his arms hesitantly, with a sense of caution and wariness that was not akin to his personality.

"Warehouse clear" A voice said quietly from behind him.

Shinichi's blue eyes that bore a dark somber glimmer darted to the corner of his eye.

There were other people beside him that stood in different spots behind cars and other cover points, weapons out and poised to shoot at the smallest sign of enemy movement.

A few wore the usual Tokyo Metropolitan Police uniform but more heavily equipped than the regular cop on patrol. The rest were a mixture of people with dark blue jackets bearing the letters 'FBI' on the back, some with bulletproof vests labeled 'DEA' and a few with long grey trench coats that bore an insignia along with the letters 'CIA' on right shoulder of their attire.

Beside that, there were four other individuals who wore casual clothes that made them stand out among the crowd of armed persons – Shinichi one of them.

"The wharf depot is captured."

The voice belonging to a tall built man in the standard Tokyo Metropolitan police uniform was somber, the three stripes on his sleeves indicating his position as a sergeant. The officer looked at the scene in front of him, holding a radio in his right hand that he spoke into to report back to his superiors. A few of the sergeant's men have set out, uncovering the contents of the crates.

"We've retrieved evidences of illegal activities." The man continued as he watched the other officers uncover drugs and weaponry and plastic explosives hidden inside the few crates that survived.

His eyes shifted over to the dead bodies on ground, battered and bloody, cold and unmoving.

"…No survivors left. Number of arrests is devoid."

He took a deep breathe before exhaling.

"The Black Organization has fallen."

There was a brief moment of silence, before unrestrained shouts of joy and relief was heard on the other side of the line. The sergeant shared no more words as he placed the radio back into the police cruiser and shut the door, before walking away to join his men.

In contrast to the seeming celebration elsewhere, not a shout of rejoice or relief was heard in the wharf. Each person present held an expression of somberness in their tired faces.

The bust was a success. It was a part of the final stages of bringing the powerful criminal underground syndicate known as the Black Organization down. After months of city wide surveillance and top secret infiltrations and research, the Japanese Police Force along with the American authorities, finally launched the operation, with the FBI spearheading it.

And in a few weeks, strongholds and nests of the Organization were raided leading to the final stand in the wharf.

And to think… everything happened in the peaceful city of Beika and the surrounding Haido City and Totorri City…

So many unexpected things has happened...

Shinichi moved to take the first steps to step out of his cover and into the open space of the wharf but stopped shortly. His vision spun in front of him and his hand reached out to the rough wall by his right to steady himself up. The stress was finally beginning to catch up to him as the adrenaline from the earlier battle dispersed. He shook his head slightly to clear his vision and took a few deep calming breaths. The firefight raged for a little over an hour with both sides taking heavy losses, he was not the least bit surprised he was feeling like this.

The detective felt a firm hand landing on his shoulder and he turned his head. A calm and composed face that looked so much like him stared back.

Kaito Kuroba, otherwise known as Kaitou Kid to the police department, stood in front of him donning a blue blazer and slacks with white sneakers similar to Shinichi's, with a sniper rifle slung over his shoulder. Kaito's usual mischievously-sparkling eyes held a dead serious look, as he looked the detective in the eye. Silent words and unneeded congratulations were exchanged.

Shinichi's eyes fell on another person as he looked over Kaito's shoulder – a tan and lean teenager donning a green jacket unzipped and tattered black jeans.

Heiji Hattori, Shinichi's rival and one of his best friends nodded at him with a blank face. Heiji ejected the magazine of the gun he held before he turned to face the ocean, reared back and threw it out into the water. Meeting Shinichi's eyes once more, he held the gaze before turning away from him and walking towards a silent group of FBI agents, hands shoved in his pockets, with an apparent determination of not looking ahead.

The hand on Shinichi's shoulder lifted the slight pressure and he felt more than seen Kaito walk past him slowly, with a hint of a limp in his right leg. The detective just stared on ahead into the view of the ocean that was as quiet and serene as it could get.

The Black Organization is gone, downed for forever.

Those men in black, the ones that shrunk him, and the ones that he hated so much were finally out of the picture.

A new chapter would be beginning soon.

Now everything would be alright...

…Right?

He sighed silently, before he heard a loud thunder resonating in the sky. Turning around intending to regroup with his two friends, he was stopped halfway as a reddish blonde hue caught his eye.

Standing near a pile of rubble and concrete of what was left of a demolished wall, was a girl with strawberry blonde hair that flitted in the air around her face. The casual black sweater she wore over the faded lavender shirt and slacks were tattered and dirty, smudged with grey dirt and dust. She stood as still as a pillar, her eyes that he had always known were strangely out of focus, a distant look dancing in the blue-green pools. Her face was blank, devoid of expressions, her lips parted slightly as she stared in his direction.

Something fell to the ground beside her as she lost her grip on the object. A black handgun fell to rest by her feet, but she had yet to even as much as blink.

Shinichi's eyes dropped to her right bandaged hand; the cloth was now slightly red with blood.

He didn't move.

"Kaito!"

"Heiji!"

Two sudden screams reverberated in the air in two different female voices. Shinichi already knew who they are.

Turning towards the direction of the voices, he saw the familiar figure of Kazuha Toyama launch herself into Heiji's arms.

Said Detective of the West stood on his spot with a slightly stunned look and his cheeks tinted with a slight blush as his childhood friend babbled a string of almost intelligible words of relief.

The other girl, whom he knew by name only and assumed to be the same person, was Aoko Nakamori. The slightly short girl whose features strongly reminded him of a certain someone threw herself much in the same way as Kazuha, at Kaito who immediately returned the embrace.

Shinichi smiled slightly as he watched the two pairs. They had made it back to the people who anxiously awaited their return. They more than deserved this.

As if on cue, there were screeching sounds of tires as several cars skidded into a halt here and there. Doors were thrown open and several happy faces of police officers, undercover detectives as well as police captains rushed out with a storm of praise, voices filled with joy and happiness.

One voice stood out among the rest, though. This one, Shinichi took note, was not happy but worried and anxious.

"Shinichi!"

Lightning lit up the dark sky briefly followed by the same booming thunder he heard a few minutes earlier. Shinichi's eyes clouded for a moment at the familiar voice. Paying no heed to the bunch of arriving police, he finally turned slightly glancing out of the corner of his eye.

He caught sight another girl about his age looking around the throng of people, frantically calling out his name repeatedly. She tossed her head left and right, her long dark brown hair swaying behind her from the momentum, her light blue eyes sweeping over the crowd searching for someone.

The detective lowered his eyes and stared at the ground for moment. The voice continued calling out to him, with increasing franticness, as dread surfaced.

They were close, yet, to his ears it sounded distant somehow.

Shinichi raised his eyes slightly as he glanced, this time, at the other girl in the opposite direction.

The strawberry blonde had yet to move, but her eyes, he noticed, were now focused him. A hesitant smile was tugging at her lips, tired and resigned.

Their eyes met and the first drop of rain landed on his skin, the clouds above ceasing to contain the condensation anymore.

He knew what he had to do – what he wanted to do. His feet moved slowly but without hesitance and doubt, his blue eyes never leaving the blue-green across the distance away from him. Both held the gaze steadily, not daring to break eye contact.

The pace of the slight drizzle escalated in a few seconds and the rain fell in buckets in a short span of time but the slight breeze never picked up in intensity.

"Shiho…"

The name left Shinichi's lips quietly but firmly, as he stopped in front of said girl.

She only greeted him with silence but there was something in her eyes that threw him off. He stopped suddenly, slightly startled.

A sad glint that was carefully hidden beneath her façade shone through her smiling eyes.

Why…?

The Black Organization, the group that was after her and the ones that killed her sister, was finally destroyed.

That group he had been after for so long, the one that shrunk him into a child's body, was finally put down.

They were free. There was no longer any need to worry about being caught again.

No more false pretenses and acts of living double lives.

No more hiding…

...

So why…?

He didn't understand. To tell the truth, Shinichi never did completely figure out the mystery that is Shiho. She was always cold and distant, like an object within your arm's reach yet still unattainable. He knew some things about her – parts she had opened up to him – but that were about it. And on the other hand, to his slight annoyance, she seemed to know everything about him.

The rain fell around the two of them, neither paying heed to its soft patting on their shoulders and hair. The two would doubt if it even rained at all. The only thing that registered was loud thunder that sounded so far off in the haze of the downpour.

Small puddles had started to collect on the ground here and there, reflecting the grey sky above before its surface would be disturbed by a droplet of water.

"Shinichi!"

The same voice from earlier echoed again.

The detective shifted his eyes away from Shiho, to the side and over to the other girl who was a distance away, half-drenched in her clothes. The girl paid no heed and kept turning left and right searching for him, shivering involuntarily from the chilling rain.

'Ran…' Shinichi called out mentally; half-wishing she would hear him. He wanted her to know that he was alright – he was the reason why she was worried.

Conflicting emotions surged through him as what he had pulled off a few days ago came rushing back into the forefront of his thoughts.

"Ran…"

"Shinichi, you called! How's everything?"

"Ran… Listen, I…"

Tense silence for a few seconds.

"…Might not come back again."

Silence.

A strained whisper. "What…?"

It was guarded and composed, but he could sense an underlying hint of bewilderment, surprise and vulnerability. He stood there with his phone to his ear, lips parted slightly and head spinning. What's he supposed to do? Telling her that once had been painful enough, and to confirm it again? He wasn't sure…

He registered a click noise, on his side, followed by a repeated beeping sound, on the other side. His right arm that held the phone slowly began to numb and soon it dropped to his side, followed by the red ribbon held by his left hand, the small bow-tie landing next to his feet. Conan ran a hand over his face and through his hair, leaning against the glass window pane on the second floor of Agasa's home.

Sliding down, he landed with a soft thump on the wooden floor no longer able to support himself. His hand reached for his black rimmed glasses on his face. Taking them off, he took to simply staring at the lenses absently. The darkness of the house caused the glass piece to reflect the full moon shining through the window from outside. A single drop of hot liquid landed on the lens. The shrunken detective shut his eyes involuntarily.

He felt more than heard the soft footsteps approach him. He tried to ignore it – he wasn't in the mood to talk with anyone. But the voice that followed drove that all away, yet managed to pull out his insecure and vulnerable side – a face he never wanted to show to anyone. He felt emotions surging through him – sadness, insecurity, despair and underneath it all, hatred and anger.

"Kudo…" The voice said softly.

Said Detective of the East looked up with blurry eyes. He could make out the outline of a small figure of a girl in the dark, standing in front of him. The darkness obscured her face, but he could make out the faint outline of a soft smile of understanding and sympathy.

And once again, he felt helpless. All he could do was blink and try the force back the tears that just wanted out.

Shinichi's eyes fell back on the girl standing a few feet away from him. He was back at the wharf, the rain falling down around him. The childish features of the girl he once knew as Ai Haibara were replaced by more mature and beautiful looks of the teenage version of her – Shiho Miyano.

He found it funny, really. This girl… the one that he thought he would hate for the rest of his life turned out to be the one he would trust unconditionally. She had been there for him since the beginning and he knew he didn't have to hide around her for she understood him more than anyone. He didn't need to hide behind the façade of Conan like when around other people.

Looking at her now, battered with cuts and bruises with dirt smudges on her clothes still, she looked just the same as she had to him.

Suddenly, he came back to his senses when he noticed that she was standing right in front of him holding out her bandaged hand with a white handkerchief and her head bowed. Shinichi stared at her for a moment, before he reached out a hand under her palm with seeming hesitance.

He had a feeling he wouldn't like something about this…

Shiho simply dropped the handkerchief into Shinichi's waiting hand, the white cotton material immediately getting soaked with the rain.

Shinichi watched cloth cling onto something, outlining a very small container. He looked at her again before parting the material revealing a small black hard leather box. He opened it slowly, revealing a single blue and white capsule sitting in its mold.

A wide grin slowly enveloped his face.

The antidote to the Apotoxin… the permanent cure. It was finally done.

For over a year, Shiho had worked on it and now it's finally sitting in his hand.

During the aftermath he even forgot that the reason to why he stood here as a teenager was that he took the temporary antidote so that he could participate in the operation – the same with Shiho.

But something else cut his joy short.

Wait… what?

Shinichi looked at the capsule with a frown this time.

Why only one?

He lifted his gaze over to Shiho who was now looking at him with the same smile she had on. Surely, she…

"Shiho…" he started quietly. "You did make one for yourself, right…?"

It just wasn't going to be fair if she did not. No, not at all… She worked on developing it. And she deserved it just as much as he did after the hell they have gone through.

Shiho's impassive smile remained in place. Even at a time like this, he thought of her as well.

It's ironic really.

Wasn't she the one responsible for everything that happened to him?

She was the one who created that Apotoxin drug that started this whole mess, to begin with. She hated herself for inventing such a creation.

A drug that could kill without leaving a single trace… How wondrous science had achieved such progress, she had thought.

She had nothing but her sister in her life, but even that, Fate took her away from her just like her parents - snatched cruelly away, her only pillar of support. She could feel the ground give away beneath her feet the moment she learned of her sister's murder, but her being Shiho, she never showed it, not even a single hint of the hurt that was bleeding her inside out.

The very goal she was working towards, the very goal she was set on to achieve for as long as it took, will not have the same outcome anymore. What she had been working on, will no longer be saving here and her sister.

She lost hope and desire to live. And when she met Kudo and somehow got to know him, observed how her creation had taken such a toll on him, she vowed to herself to find the cure and restore the life that he had had snatched away from him.

She loved him.

She really did.

She had no idea how the hell that happened and maybe she would never find out. But to hell with reason and logic, it would never be needed to explain why she loved him.

It was that and the self-made promise that kept her going, to continue living her life for that new-found purpose.

But of course, she knew that he would never return her feelings. He had Mouri for that – she was just a tool, just a scientist that would be able to make the antidote for him.

And now that the antidote was done, she knew she wasn't needed anymore. Her promise was fulfilled; she had nothing left to hold on to.

Averting her eyes from his gaze, she chose to stare at her right bandaged hand by her side. Instead of answering his question that was so obvious, she chose to state another obvious fact.

"It's the antidote." She was stalling, she knew.

"Go back to her, Kudo…"

Blue-green met ocean blue and a single tear rolled down her face, hidden by the veil of the rain. She turned around promptly.

"She's waiting… and she needs you."

And with that, she took a step forward, followed by another.

Shinichi watched the retreating back of the person he tried to approach all this time, his hand lowering to his side and lips parting slightly in a stunned expression. Vaguely, he registered a soft sound of something meeting the ground among the pitter-patter of the rain.

Her voice was so soft, that one would probably have to strain their hearing enough to hear her, but he heard everything just as clearly as he did her voice these months back. The tone and the smile she donned… it was all very familiar to him – he had seen it on her lips albeit very rarely that he could count the times on his fingers.

But now somehow, he realized. To hear that soft resigned voice and see her smile in that way…

It hurt.

It hurt and he didn't know why, but he knew one thing.

He moved without thinking and in a few strides, he was right behind her. A soft whispered 'Hey' left his lips, his hand outstretched.

Without warning, Shiho felt herself being turned around from behind before being drawn into a hug. She made no movement, not even attempted to, but only bowed her head. She stood still. She knew what he was trying to do. 'Let go…' She begged him with a mental thought.

Shinichi held on to her, his hug soon turning into a tight and desperate one. He feared he might be suffocating her, but he needed to feel that she was there. He never thought reading what's between the lines would be this painful.

He knew she was going to leave… She was going to try to, again. He trusted her and she had been there for him, but he failed to realize that in the span of the time they had spent together that she might be leaving in the future. He was so preoccupied that he failed to see just how important a part she had become of his life. He took her for granted and now, he regretted that one action.

She may have been a person he despised that created the Apotoxin back then, but not anymore. And she was never just the one who held the cure for their condition in their hands. She was nothing of that sort to him.

To Shinichi, she was a confidant that he trusted and confided in his troubles, problems and doubts as well his partner in crime.

To Conan, she was the best friend that Shinichi never had.

Snapping back, he felt a feminine body pressed flush against him. He didn't blush or back away in embarrassment; in fact it felt… right.

"You still don't get it, do you…?" He whispered into her ear.

"What I've been trying to protect wasn't just a person who held the cure…"

A pause.

"It is you…"

Shiho's head snapped up at that, eyes widening noticeably. The blue-green orbs held a glint of surprise and disbelief and past all that, a dim spark of hope. At first she was skeptical. She must have heard wrong. Or maybe even dreaming or further more hallucinating. Yet his words that held nothing but silent sincerity kept ringing inside her head realistically and told her otherwise.

Rationality flew out of the window and she found herself hugging him back with desperation as if hanging onto a cut thread strand and pulling on it to reach the other side, as if it could still be reached. For the first time since she could remember, she felt that she belonged, needed… loved.

And not just for the prodigy that she was.

The dam broke and the tears cascaded down her face mixing with the raindrops. For the first time, she let herself be swept away by emotions. She shunned the rules that damned Black Organization instilled in her – the rules that dictated her life. She let her emotions reign for once.

Rain and Tears… Such a dynamic combination.

Shinichi held Shiho's shaking frame wracking with silent and inaudible sobs. He just held her and let her let it out once and for all. For the second time, he was in her presence as her cold mask that she always donned shattered into a thousand shards, revealing the battered and broken soul that lay forgotten in the depth of the abyss that engulfed her.

Gone was the front she put up to protect herself.

Gone was the sarcastic and cold girl who always managed to irk him.

Gone was the girl who always shunned help away and relied only on herself.

She had been there for him, to hold him together during the times he needed something to hold on to.

And now, he would do the same for her.

And as the rain kept falling down around them, he realized what had been staring at him all the while.

He loved Shiho.

Shinichi loved Shiho.

It felt the most natural thing to realize even though he failed to back in these past months. He felt as though something was lifted allowing him to see clearly for the first time. His heart swelled with renewed life and also, love for the girl he held. Uncertainty be damned, he would worry about those later.

Rearing back a little, Shinichi held Shiho by the shoulder, his blue eyes roaming over her face. To any random person, she would look like a mess, soaked to the bone, with bruises and cuts on her exposed skin. But to him, she looked nothing short of perfect.

Nearing his face to hers, he simply touched his forehead to hers. Closing his eyes, he savored the moment to be burned into his memories.

There was no need for words as silent comfort was exchanged. And right then and there, he knew he had found her at last. He finally got to know the real Shiho behind that cold mask.

A few feet away, the black box holding the cure lay forgotten in a small puddle of water. Lightning flashed across the sky twice illuminating unnoticeable engraved letters. 'Stand by the Truth' it read. A loud thunder crash was heard and the rain continued to fall.

So many things had kept him back in life, starting with the shrink.

But for a moment - that he knew he would always be grateful to - he was glad to turn around to notice something that was so subtly sneaking up on him.

A/N: The last three dialogues by Shinichi, I'm sure some of you Conan/Ai and Shinichi/Shiho fans out there must have seen or heard of already from a fan-made manga :P