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Conan woke early in the morning to a rather rude surprise: He was wet. He sat up, horrified. He'd wet himself!

Not knowing what else to do, he climbed out of bed and walked to Jeane's room. He opened the door and peeked in. She sat up straight in bed, blinking.

"Wuzzat?" She asked, half asleep. Dhee stood up from his position on the floor.

"I'll deal with it." He said, walking into the hallway. "Whaddya want?"

Conan just stared up at him. He knew that the dragon would smell the wet on him in a few moments. And he did, wrinkling his nose slightly. Conan's head fell.

"It's cold out here." Dhee said, abruptly. "I bet you're cold. You want me to get your jammies, right? That's why you woke me up." Dhee leaned down and grabbed Conan's hand, leading him to the closet. He got down some warmer pajamas and handed them to the boy. "Go change. You should sleep with Jeane, too. I'll take Vincent some extra blankets, so he'll be warm."

And he walked off, leaving Conan holding his pajamas, his jaw dropped. Dhee hadn't laughed at him, or called him a baby! He silently put on the dry pajamas and went to Jeane's room.

Maybe the stupid Dragon wasn't so bad after all.

We all arrived safley last night. Morning. Whatever. In any case, I'm tired. Jeane's tired, and Bob's grouchy. We won't go anywahere untill tomorow.

Conan looked out at the building before him with a slight frown. Jeane gave him a strange look.

"Place look farmilar, Co?" She asked, leaning up from the back seat. Conan frowned and shook his head.

"No. Why would it be?" He asked, blinking with his big blue eyes. Jeane smiled and ruffled his hair.

"This is where the famous Detective, Richard Moore, lives." She replied, opening her door. Bob watched them both from the driver's seat, a slight frown on his face.

"I called ahead. Rachel Moore said she'd be glad to meet with you for a while, to talk about 'writing a book about her dad'" Bob rolled his eyes. "That was a bit of genious on your part, short stuff." He reached back and gently tapped behind her right ear with his three middle fingers. Jeane gave herself a shake, and Bob repeated the gesture on Conan.

"Now, can you understand me?" He asked, in japanese. Conan heard the japanese, but there was an overtone of English in his mind.

"Yeah!" He said, amazed. Bob grinned crookidly.

"Magical translater." He said, wiggling his fingers. "You'll talk in Japanese, too. Am I good, or what?"

"You're good." Conan agreed. Jeane blew a rhaspberry and laughed.

"Come on, Co." She said, offering him her hand. He took it and grasped it a little hard. His heart was beating fast. Some part of him knew exactly who he would see, but it wasn't letting the rest of his mind know. Jeane started up a flight of stairs and knocked firmly on the door.

"Just a minute!" A woman's voice called from inside. Conan's insides froze at her voice. There was a rustling, and the door opened. A woman, maybe in her early twenties, opened the door. She smiled warmly at Jeane. "Hello. You must be the english author."

"Jeane Clark, at your servcie." Jeane said, matching the woman's smile. "You must be Rachel." She reached down and ruffled Conan's hair. "This is my little boy, Co." Rachel looked down, and her face froze. Conan's expression nearly matched hers.

Rachel...

Conan snapped out of his stupor first. "Hi, lady!" He said, smiling brightly. Rachel blinked, and she leaned down to ruffle his hair.

"How are you, Co?" She asked, smiling just as brightly as before.

"Tired." He said, yawning. "I've never been to Japan before, and it's so big! There's so much to see!" He said. Rached smiled, but there was sadness in her eyes.

"You'll have to come back again, then." She said, then stood up. "Please, come in. Don't mind the mess, I can't get Dad to clean up after himself." Jeane tugged Conan in after herself. Beer cans littered the floor, and a man was sprawled across his desk, asleep. Rachel motioned Jeane into a different room. "You wanted to ask me about my father, correct?"

"Not entirely." Jeane said, smiling in an apologetic fashion. "I wanted to ask you about another detective." Rachel simled, sadly.

"Jimmy?" She asked, softly. Jeane nodded.

"I read your website on him. He was a genious, and he just disapears?" She shook her head. "I don't understand." Rachel blinked.

"I don't either. I'd get calls from him every now and then, but after Conan disapeared, nothing." Conan started. Rachel... had a Conan? Jeane and Rachel talked back and forth, Jeane occasionally writing down notes. But Conan kept staring at his feet. Why couldn't he remember? It was like a bubble of air was in his brain. What would make it pop?

The two women stood, and Jeane offered her his hand again. Looking down at him, Rachel smiled. "Hold on a minute." She said, walking off into a small room. She came back a few moments later, holding a red bowtie in her hands. "This belonged to my little Conan." She said, fastening it around his neck. Conan reached up and held her face in her hands. There were tears in her eyes.

"Don't cry, Rachel." He said, softly. "Jimmy will come back one day." Rachel smiled, giving him a hug.

"Thank you." She said softly. He waved to her as Jeane led him from the building. In the car, he inspected the bowtie. It was odd, and heavy. He pushed away the material on the backside. There was a metal speaker, of sorts. He pressed a button to one side and leaned his mouth up to it.

"Test?" He said, and his voice came out as a woman's. Bob jumped, and Jeane laughed at him.

"Test?" Conan said, speaking through the bowtie. He laughed slightly, and an older man in front of him laughed as well.

His eyes widened as the bubble burst.

"Come on, Rachel. Your Dad hasn't solved a case since VHS was cool!" He laughed, but his voice was older. Rachel laughed, then dented a telephone pole with one punch.

"If you keep joking like that, you will be next!"

Tears filled his eyes.

"I know. You like that boy, Jimmy." Conan said, a bit evilly. Rachel looked down and laughed.

"Yes. I do." Conan's eyes widened in surprise.

"He's stubborn, and full of himself." She laughed. "And I just love him." She looked down, her eyes shimmering. "You feel like the little brother I never had. I feel like I could tell you anything."

Conan held the bowtie in both hands, and he started to cry. Because he had lied to Rachel. Her Jimmy wouldn't come back.

Pepito's back.

He's a girl now.

I don't know how, and I don't think I want to know. Mignon will vouch for the fact that he's really a girl, too. Says that he has boobies. I didn't notice the boobs. I noticed the fact that there's a gaping hole where his right eye should be. Bob got him an eyepatch.

It's weird how nice Bob is to Pepito. I was pretty sure that Bob was going to attack the man next time they met. But then again, Bob didn't ever meet the 'man' again.

Weird.

Conan peered out from the kitchen window, towards the tree. It'd been nearly four days since Dhee had followed Jeane through the portal, and nothing had been heard from him since.

"You wanna follow?" Rene asked, scrubbing a dish. Mignon was drying plates, and she looked at Conan with large eyes.

"Can we go get Mommy?" She whispered. Conan frowned, turning away.

"I-I don't know." He said quietly. "Mommy told us to stay here."

"A week ago, she told us to stay here." Rene replied, flicking her wet hands into the sink. Grabbing a towel, she hopped down from her step stool. "I think we should go."

"Find Mommy!" Mignon agreed.

"We're just a bunch of kids!" Conan argued. "We'll get killed!"

". . ."

"Sure, fine." Rene brandished the dishtowel at him. "Just abandon her!"

". . ."

"Dhee told me to take care of everyone!" Conan cried. "I can't let anyone get hurt!" Conan paused. "Where's Mignon?"

"She went out back." Rene replied, putting the dishtowel down. "We're going to get Jeane. You can come if you want." The angel gave her wings a shake and started down the stairs.

Conan sighed and reached up for Daisuke, who was sitting on his head. "What do you think?"

With uncharacteric firmness Daisuke replied: "Go after her."

The boy sighed again. "Fine." Grumbling slightly to himself, he clomped down the stairs and stopped by the greenhouse to tell Lilac they were leaving. The flower girl blinked at him once or twice, then went back to grooming her flowers.

The group surronded the tree. Conan reached for both Rene and Mignon's hands. The onion girl shot him a supportive smile. "Everything will be fine." She assured him. Rene gave his hand a firm squeeze.

He took a deep breath and fell towards the tree. An electric feeling ran through his body, making him shake. When it stopped, he gasped and surveyed his surroundings. They were in a large hallway lit by torches. They could hear a loud, female voice ringing. Mignon perked up.

"Mommy!" She breathed, running towards the voice. Rene reached out and grabbed her.

"Wait." She warned, frowning. "Let's look closer, first." Gripping Mignon's hand, she crept down towards the voice.

"That's... Not Jeane." Daisuke said, shuddering and gripping Conan's hair. Indeed, no matter how much the sweet, young voiced sounded like their mother, the words that were said could not have came from her mouth.

"It was so easy to get you here!" Her laugh was nothing like Mom's, Conan thought. It was mean. "All I had to do was wait for your stupid guardian to come back. And catching him was oh so easy. All I had to do was get him to scream a few times, and you came running." It sounded like someone kicked someone else, and a low moan followed. Rene stiffened, knowing who made the moan.

"We're in trouble." She thought, eyes widening. She looked over at Conan and Mignon, biting her lip. I was the one who pushed them to come. "Well." She said out loud, softly. "Shall we go?" Conan, being the largest, held onto both girl's hands and walked though the door.

A strange sight awaited them. Jeane, her eyes narrowed, stared at them. Bob lay on the floor in a pool of his own blood, Pepito was tied up beside him, Dhee was wrapped in chains, halfway into his dragon form, and there was a human sized wooden doll.

It was Jeane who spoke. She spoke slowly, as if choosing her words carefully. "Kill the boy first." She said, extending a finger towards Conan. Mignon screamed something intelligible, and Rene thrust herself in front of the boy. Not a moment too soon, it seemed, because an arrow caught in one of her chains.

"Aren't you a brave little dear?" Jeane asked, hand over her mouth. "Fine. Shoot a will, men."

Now, her plan might have worked, if the doll hadn't lurched forward and wrapped her arms around Jeane's throat. She started to splutter and choke, grasping at the unrelenting wood.

The archers didn't seem to know what to do, because no more arrows rained down upon the trio. "Come on!" Conan hissed, pulling the girls towards Pepito and Dhee. Rene went to work on the chains while Conan and Mignon tugged off the rope. Chains gone, Dhee let out a roar and charged Jeane and the doll. Pepito whimpered and gathered the bady injured fairy in her arms.

"I think we should get out of here." Conan whispered. Bob blinked blearily.

"Why is it that every time I see you, you're getting hurt?" Rene asked gently.

"Shut up." He mananged to force out.

"Well, we've got Bob and Pep, Dhee, Jeane is locked in mortal combat with a doll-"

"No, Jeane is locked in moral combat with herself." Pepito ammended gently.

"Uh, okay. Mignon's here, I'm here, Rene's here, Dai's-" Conan patted his hair, but the tiny boy wasn't there. "Homigod." He breathed.

"He's over there." Mignon said, pointing at Dhee, Jeane, and, uh, Jeane. If Conan looked hard enough, there was a little green dot in Dhee's hair.

"Jeane's going to kill me." He whimpered.

"Archers! Fire!" Jeane screamed.

"Let's make with the running now!" Pepito cried, standing and dashing for the door as fast as possible, considering she was carying about two hundred pounds of dead weight. The three children followed her, and Dhee, Daisuke, and the doll came after them a few moments later. Howling like banshees, the group reached the gate and found themselves in a large pile of arms and legs in the backyard.

"Bob, you alive?" Dhee's voice, heavily muffled, asked from the bottom of the pile.

"Mmmph." The fairy grunted.

"That's encouraging. Pep?"

Her voice was pained. "I think... Your elbow's in my stomach." She said, heaving. Dhee apparently corrected that, because she sighed.

"Co?"

"Here." Conan said, reaching for his glasses.

"Rene?"

"I think my chain busted Mignon in the mouth."

"It did." The onion girl was near tears.

"Daisuke?"

"Mmminyrrhrrr!" A tiny, very muffled voice said. Dhee reached in his hair, untangled the relequiant, and brought him up for air.

"Jeane?"

Silence.

"Jeanie, love?"

"ITHOUGHTITOLDALLOFYOUNOTTOFOLLOWME!" She howled, forcing her way to the top of the pile. Conan stared at her, wide eyed. Not because of her rage, but because one of her arms was made out of wood. As her chest heaved with angry breathing, the arm slowly turned back into flesh.

". . . Dhee followed you first." Mignon said, meekly. "An' there weren't any adult's no more. We were worried."

"Yeah, yeah." She growled. "I think we all need to get inside, get checked over, and get to bed." Jeane gently helped Pep prop up her brother and move him into the house.

"There's a lot about that I didn't understand." Conan said, taking Daisuke from Dhee.

"Why?" The little man asked, smoothing his hair down. But Mignon gasped, stars in her eyes.

"If you love something enough, it'll be real!" She squealed, chasing after her mother.

One year ago today, Mom got me. Wow.

Well, uh, what's happened since I last wrote? I grew, for one. Got real sick a few weeks back.

And I saw Kiri again. Wow. All I can say is, Wow. She's so awesome. She's the most beautiful girl I've ever seen. And she came over to our house and got her mom to remodel it. Now I've got my own room and everything.

Now I want to do something special for her, to thank her. I just don't know what.