And now for the last:

Epilogue

When the doctors and nurses had finally left the room and Conan's throat was no longer too dry to talk (which happened in the opposite order, but that hardly mattered), Shinichi turned a glare on Kaito. "I thought you were a ghost for the past four months! What the hell, Kaito?" he managed to keep his voice down to a strangled whisper, but even he could hear how freaked-out he sounded.

Kaito coughed into a fist, "Um. To be fair, I thought I was a ghost for the past four months, too."

Okay, yes, Shinichi had already guessed that. "What happened?"

"So there's this witch in my class who… uh, well, let's just say she and I don't get along. Anyway, she caught me with some sort of glowing circle thing and I woke up see-through and inaudible, even to myself. I thought she'd killed me."

Shinichi started to raise his arm to rub his forehead and had to abort the movement with a hiss when his chest informed him that was a bad idea. "A witch," he managed as Kaito hovered in a sort of helpless worry, using a lack of acknowledging his own discomfort as a method of reassurance.

It seemed to work, as Kaito only gave a wincing half-shrug, "I know you don't believe in magic—"

Shinichi cut him off with a wry huff. "I am currently about ten years younger than I should be and spent the last four months being tailed by an effective ghost. I'm starting to lose my disbelief in the supernatural."

"Right. Okay. Anyway, I'm not sure exactly what she did to me. I mean, I got hungry, but not often and I got tired… but not as tired as I should have, and I was literally wearing the same outfit for four months solid and came out the other end no worse for it, really. And…" he trailed off, grimacing.

Shinichi frowned at the sudden tensing of Kaito's shoulders. "… and?" he prompted.

"I—it changed when… Gods, Tantei-kun, you were bleeding out all over me and suddenly I was real again. She'd said something about you, once, outside the clock tower three years ago. That you had a clear presence and eyes that pierced through all deception, or something to that effect. I don't know if that had anything to do with it, but… I thought you were going to die. I thought I was going to have to hold you while you died and I wouldn't be able to do anything. I thought… but I was real again, so I called 119 and… you flat-lined twice in the ambulance and you were in a coma for six days. I thought…"

"Kaito," Shinichi said, quiet and firm, cutting off the babble. One second, then two, and Kaito folded forward in the chair until he was half supported by Conan's bed, hands reaching to grasp at Shinichi's own, breath stuttering in repressed hysteria.

"I'm here," Shinichi murmured, squeezing bare fingers (it felt strange, to feel skin where he had grown used to suede, to see hospital blue instead of Kid-white) "I'm okay, Kaito. I'm okay, and you're okay, too."

Sorting out cover stories could wait a little longer. For now, Shinichi just wanted to cling to the fact that Kaito was okay.

He let out his own shuddering breath. Kaito was alive. Everything else was just details.

xxxx

'Just details' included giving a believable story to the police, the Mouris, and Hakuba.

The police were easy; Conan and Kaito had worked out a tale that didn't contain any outright lies and still managed to imply the Black Org as kidnappers with the intent of turning Kaito into an assassin with unusual skills; a direct counter to Kaitou Kid. The Mouris were less easy, but eventually Conan offered up the idea of having Kaito be 'possessed', Conan's 'brother' having merged into Kaito himself while trying to direct the teen to save Conan, and both Kogoro and Ran ended up believing it after watching their interactions—not quite how they'd acted around each other before the whole mess, but not quite how Conan had acted towards 'Kai-nii', either. (Neither knew that was mostly deliberate, a way to reinforce the fiction.)

Hakuba was the only one who got something like the actual truth.

In the end, Hakuba accepted that Conan and Kaito genuinely didn't know what had caused either the ghostliness or the sudden step back into reality, though Kaito had added in Akako's name and that had gotten him to almost forgive them the accidental untruth on the spot.

Conan had been confused when Hakuba muttered something about a squirrel and backed off.

After that, Kaito had addressed something that Conan… hadn't expected.

"Hey, Tantei-kun…" Kaito waited until Conan looked over at him from where he'd been staring out the window at the tree-crown barely in view over the third-story windowsill of their hospital room. "Do you want to come live with me?"

For an instant, Conan froze, not quite believing what he'd just heard. Did he want—could he? It's not like he was getting anywhere with Kogoro, after all, and if he wasn't there the man would stop stumbling over cases. People didn't tend to bring murders to him, after all, it was mostly adultery and such that (considering the curse Conan seemed to be under) often ended in murder, but that wasn't likely to continue if he left.

No one had brought Black Org. related cases, and Conan was beginning to see why. They didn't leave anything suspicious behind for people to question when they were involved, unless someone (like a mini Shinichi) stirred up enough trouble to bring out the big guns, and even then the police investigations were quashed from the inside.

Practically speaking, his original reason for staying with Ran and her father had been rendered moot. From a less logical standpoint, staying with them was… wearing at him. He almost never had a chance to just relax and be himself, and that was something Kaito was offering.

"Gods, yes."

xxxx

It was several weeks before Conan was allowed out of the hospital, though Kaito had been released sooner. During those weeks, Shinichi had gotten ahold of his parents and 'Conan's' mother had arraigned things for him with the Mouris and various legalities, which meant Conan was picked up by Kaito and taken to Ekoda.

They'd managed to get him 'home-schooled', though the work was sent in to a local elementary for grading (which meant he could do it all at once and move on to more interesting things), which was harder than it sounded because Japan had a pretty big emphasis on public (or at least classroom) schooling. Shinichi still didn't know how his mother had managed that, but she'd done the same for Shinichi's proper schooling so he could get caught up with his actual age-level and maybe, just maybe, graduate as himself if Haibara managed the antidote in time.

Things were finally a little easier, with someone who understood.

xxxx

Kouzumi Akako mused over the oddness that was her returned classmate, wondering how he'd broken her spell. Oh, it hadn't worked as intended—they never did, with him. As per usual, he'd thrown off the mental aspects of the magic without even having seemed to realize they were there.

Also as per usual, the physical aspects had caught him just fine. Like with the voodoo doll, he had no instinctive defense against that magic of hers that effected his physical self, and the spell—originating in Ancient Greece, though the words could be in any language (thus the mixing, she hadn't wanted the magician to know exactly what she had done because he would have found it easier to break the spell)—had altered his body to something that wasn't quite a ghost.

The tale of Eros and Pasiphae had mentioned those so ensorcelled; the perfect servants. Invisible, inaudible, requiring very little in the way of food or sleep, completely incapable of growing dirty in any way (to waste resources on a slave was an inconvenience, after all) and unfailingly obedient to their masters.

She hadn't truly expected Kuroba to be obedient to her, but had rather assumed that removing him from the world by a half-step would render him all but helpless. Sooner or later, he would die, alone and unnoticed.

Clearly, that had not worked out as she had expected, and now she had him seeing her as an actual threat. That was dangerous.

He knew how her power worked, how it could be broken at the source. That he had almost gotten her to cry without even trying… if he took it upon himself to draw tears from her, she had no doubt he could. Then her power would vanish, and she would be no more than an ordinary girl.

… Perhaps she should no longer antagonize him. He was more resourceful than she had once believed, and to have him treat her as an enemy…

No. That was not a good idea. She would let him be, at least for a while.

xxxx

I'm sorry to see this one over, but I think it's best I end it where I'd planned. So, here we are, at the last of No Ghosts Need Apply. Thanks for sticking it out, dear readers, and perhaps I'll see you along other tales. For now, though, I'm going back to only having Lucid Dreams to work on, but that one has no end in immediate sight.

This whole thing was spawned by a prompt from the lovely Gallery13. The prompt in question was basically "I thought you were a ghost for the past four months" and "In what situation would Shinichi say that to Kaito?"

Also, for those who are interested, I have a linked-in one-shot 'series' that will be posted as scenes occur to me under the story-title "A Day in the Life". Chapters will be standalone and with individual titles as well as not reliably chronologically ordered.