Mikau: And done. Welcome to the final chapter everyone! Thank you so much for sticking with me for the long haul. I really hope you enjoy the last installment. Thank you so much to everyone who has been reading and all of my wonderful reviewers. A special thanks to last chapter's reviewers: lany-chan, Opal Spirit, and Guest! And now on with the chapter. I hope you guys have fun reading it.

Disclaimer: If I owned it, Kaito would have a harem because he just goes so well with so many people. ^.^; The OTP people would kill me.

…

Omake Three: Bonds

Ran looked up anxiously as the door to the kitchen opened. She relaxed a bit when she saw Shinichi, Kaito, and Saguru come down the steps (a little awkwardly) with Kaito holding a hand of each detective.

The magician smiled puckishly, like he had done something particularly impish that he was especially proud of.

"Well?" she inquired tentatively, unsure if this were merely a temporary truce or a more permanent solution.

"Kudo-kun has exonerated us," Hakuba reported in a tone of relief and contentment, still overcome at the thought that he was allowed to love and be loved by Kaito.

"Only because I was the one in the wrong in the first place," Shinichi muttered, not quite done beating himself up yet.

"That's wonderful!" Ran cheered. "Oh, thank goodness!" Tears of joy began to stream down her face as she rose and hurried to throw her arms around Saguru. "Welcome to the family, Saguru!"

"Nee-san," Saguru chuckled reservedly in embarrassment. "You needn't—"

"—Oh, hush," she scolded lightly. "I can't tell you how happy I am that all this is working out. I've been worried sick for months over it."

"'Nee-san'?" Shinichi groaned incredulously. "He calls you 'Nee-san'?"

"Mmhm," Ran turned to Shinichi and declared brightly, still with her arms securely around the blonde. "I've adopted him as my little brother, so don't make him cry or else I'll have to beat you up."

"Sheesh," Shinichi sighed, shaking his head. "Why do people like you so much?" he inquired accusingly of Saguru.

"I can assure you that I have no idea," the blonde insisted.

"You'll learn to like him too once you're done hating his guts," Kaito assured. "I should know. I hated his guts for a couple months before we managed to come to an understanding."

"Right," Shinichi snorted, sounding unconvinced. Still shaking his head in wonder, he let go of Kaito's hand to fish in his little duffle bag. "I realize things have gotten a little more complicated now with him—" Meaning Saguru. "—joining the family, but…" Shinichi put the bag up on the counter to facilitate his search. "I've been thinking for a while that we call each other fiancé and husband and wife and boyfriend and girlfriend almost interchangeably." Finally spotting one of the sought after objects, Shinichi seized it enthusiastically, checked the bottom to ascertain to which of his two beloveds it was supposed to be presented, and then set it down gently before returning to his search for its twin.

Ran, Saguru, and Kaito's eyes all widened at the ring box now sitting on the counter.

"And I was thinking that I really wanted to make things official…especially when I thought that I could be in danger of losing one of you."

Shinichi found the other ring box and placed it beside the first. He turned to smile sheepishly at his family. "Would now be a bad time to get down on one knee and propose, or…? Should we go somewhere more romantic? I feel like I'm screwing this up." He rubbed at the back of his neck nervously. "Am I supposed to propose to each of you individually, or…but I kind of wanted this to be a vow between the three of us…" He frowned, tripping over his words. "But I guess with Hakuba with us, it's kind of inappropriate to…"

"Regardless of all the extenuating circumstances, Ran, for one, has earned the right to have a ring on her finger," Kaito broke the tense atmosphere in his suave, KID-like tone. "Even if you choose to propose in private in a more romantic setting, you could at least show it to her now. I'm sure it wouldn't hurt anything."

Ran glared at Kaito. "Oh, you and your trying to be considerate at your own loss. I've had enough of it, Kaito. You want a ring every bit as much as I do, and you deserve it every bit as much too," she lectured. "Stop trying to be considerate of Shinichi and me. There is no 'Shinichi and me'. It's all three of us or nothing…well, four now, but you know right well what I'm saying, Mister. Those rings are a promise between all of us, so you come get yours too at the same time. I've had it up to here with your wife versus concubine mindset. Okay, Kaito?" Her tone softened until it was almost pleading. "We love you."

"What she said," Shinichi seconded with an adoring smile directed as much at Kaito as it was at Ran.

"Okay," Kaito chuckled, a delirium of happiness washing over him.

He stepped forward with Ran.

Saguru stepped back, trying to remain unobtrusively out of the way.

Kaito caught him by the wrist. "No, you don't."

Saguru's eyes widened in alarmed confusion. "What? But I…"

"Didn't you hear the tirade I just got?" Kaito snickered. "Do you want me to give you one of your own, or can you just transpose what they said to me and apply it to yourself?"

Saguru blinked as things still refused to make sense. "But this doesn't concern me. You and Nee-san and Kudo-kun are—"

"—Your family," Shinichi sighed, throwing Hakuba a bone for Kaito's sake. "Get it through your head already or you're going to cause problems for Kaito."

"So it concerns you," Ran added more kindly, motioning for Saguru to join them in a circle by the island.

"You did agree to be a part of this insanity, didn't you?" Kaito reminded, giving Saguru's arm a gentle tug in the direction of the others.

"Yes, but…" Saguru allowed himself to be pulled along. "…I didn't expect to be given full member status so soon."

"We don't do things by halves," Shinichi warned, grabbing the ring cases and holding them out to his respective partners. "You and Kaito can do your own private vows or promises or rings or whatever later at your own pace, but, for now, I want to make sure the three original participants in this relationship are on the same page. I'm serious about the both of you, and I want this family we've made to be permanent and official, so…even if it's just a non-legally-binding ceremony with friends, once everything's over with the Organization, will you two marry me?"

There was never any doubt as to what the answer would be.

…

Later that evening, the quartet retired to the den to catch up and snuggle as sleepy flames flickered lazily in the fireplace, enveloping the lovers in a cozy glow.

The peace of basking in each other's company was abruptly interrupted by Kaito as he gave a sharp squeak. "Wait. How long are you staying? I didn't even think to ask," he demanded anxiously, fearing that this happiness was short-lived and that he'd be deprived of Shinichi once more before long.

"He's staying until a little after Baby comes," Ran answered before Shinichi could speak for himself.

"Oh, good," Kaito sighed in relief, taking Ran's word as law and settling back down between his two detectives.

"Do feel free to stay as long as you like," Hakuba added for Kaito and Ran's sake. "You've been sorely missed, and this time with your family as you first become parents isn't something that you can get back, regardless of the outcome of the war."

Shinichi bit back the sour feelings he still harbored for the blonde and forced himself to thank Saguru. "Your gracious magnanimity is too kind," he replied, but his words sounded insincere and even a little sarcastic to his own ears.

Ran jumped in, guiding the conversation around the awkward moment that might have been. "Speaking of Baby, now that we're all here together at last, shouldn't we decide on a name?"

Kaito started. "Isn't that something you and Shinichi should work out together? I mean, Ru and I—"

"—Kaito, we had a conversation earlier today in the kitchen, didn't we?" Ran reminded patiently. "And I told you that there was no 'Shinichi and me'? Besides, Saguru, as god-father, has every right to add his two cents, so don't you, as father, have that same right?"

Kaito shifted uncomfortably in his seat as he turned his gaze to the floor. "But it's not my baby," he muttered.

"Why not?" This time it was Saguru who spoke up, surprising the other three. "Even if not genetically related, you will still be every bit a parent to this child as either Nee-san or Kudo-kun. Besides, you and Nee-san have had relations; therefore, the possibility exists that you really are the biological father."

"It's a slim chance," Kaito half-heartedly refuted.

"Actually, it's a pretty good chance, if I did my natural family planning math right," Shinichi broke in.

Kaito suddenly looked up at his fiancé in bafflement even as the words began to make sense. "Why would you…?"

"Because he loves you," Ran chuckled, smiling affectionately.

Kaito closed his eyes and rested his head on Shinichi's shoulder as the truth of that statement overwhelmed him.

The others gave him a minute to process before Shinichi continued, "So you see now that your vote concerning the name carries equal weight with either Ran's or mine. Right?"

Kaito swallowed hard and nodded, not yet trusting his voice.

"Excellent." Saguru endeavored to move the conversation along. "So now that we're all gathered, are we allowed to know the sex of Baby? Nee-san has been keeping it secret from the rest of us until she could tell both you and Kaito at the same time," he added for Shinichi's benefit.

Ran shook her head almost coquettishly. "Names first. Gender reveal later."

"She's so mean," Kaito pretended to whine even as the magician perked up and resumed his usual demeanor. "She hasn't let me come with her to a single doctor's visit since we got here. She always takes Baaya instead."

"Pardon me," Ran interjected in her own defense. "A certain Interpol operative and his charming, British partner always get themselves involved in a case on the days I'm scheduled to go to the doctor. Is it my fault that said operative prioritizes the capture of dangerous criminals over the opportunity to sit in on the ultrasound?"

Shinichi's eyebrows pinched together in almost vicious disapproval as he turned to Saguru. "Just how dangerous are these criminals that you have Kaito chasing after?"

"Not half so bad as the ones you're combating, Dear," Kaito himself countered and went on to add. "And they're nowhere near as dangerous as those slugs I chased before I met you."

"So baby names!" Ran brought them back on task.

"Right." Shinichi reluctantly let the point of contention drop. "Ground rules: Not Conan or anything Lupin-related."

"Ground rules:" Ran repeated. "No homages to Holmes." She eyed Kaito. "Or Lupin, Napoleon, or Justinian." She next turned to Saguru and counted out on her fingers. "Or Star Trek or Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, Doctor Who…What am I forgetting?"

"Alexandre Dumas's novels and innumerable video and trading card games," Saguru docilely supplied with a soft sigh of regret.

"Or anything remotely nerdy," Ran summarized.

"Well, I'd say you've effectively drained the fun out of this, Nee-san," Saguru hummed, sounding almost impressed. "Pray, if we're not allowed to draw on inspiration from literature, history, or popular culture, how are we supposed to arrive upon a suitable name?"

"Whatever name we do arrive upon will be suitable because we avoided naming him or her after those kinds of things," Ran argued. "This isn't just for fun, guys. The name we pick is going to follow an actual human child around like a shadow until he or she is old enough to have it legally changed. It wouldn't be fair to pick something like Sherlock or Theodora or Spock."

"She has a point," Kaito reluctantly admitted. "Puns like 'Kuroba Kaito' make you wonder if your parents really cared about you if they'd make a joke out of your identity."

"'Hakuba Saguru' isn't much better," Saguru added ruefully. "Perhaps I see Nee-san's point."

Shinichi sighed. "Yeah. 'Edogawa Conan' was a little…"

The other three nodded in commiseration.

"Maybe I should be disqualified from the naming process due to my bad track record," Shinichi groaned, burying his face in his hands.

"Oh, you had to come up with that on the spot," Ran reminded, waving Shinichi's reservations away. "Now who wants to suggest a name first? Feel free to do both girl names and boy names at the same time, and then we'll pick one of each at the end from all of the options."

"Can't we just save ourselves the effort by only picking a name that matches the sex of the baby we're actually having?" Shinichi wondered aloud. "Why do we have to decide on a boy name if we're having a daughter? I mean, you do know the sex already, don't you, Ran?"

"Yes, but what if the doctor made a mistake and we end up with a boy when we were expecting a girl? Are we going to stop to debate in the delivery room or just give our son an extremely girly name?" she reasoned. "Don't you think it's better to have a backup plan? I thought those were your and Kaito's specialty?"

"Another point to Nee-san, I think," Saguru hummed. "And may I be the first to suggest a name?"

Finding no opposition, Saguru continued: "Touya and Kasumi…supposing you want Japanese origin names."

"I like Touya." Ran approved with a smile. "And I wouldn't be opposed to a foreign name if it were easy enough to transpose into Japanese pronunciation. I just don't want the other kids at school to make fun of our children or ostracize them because their names are hard to pronounce."

"Trust me," Shinichi sighed. "Being the kid with the foreign name isn't fun."

"You made friends just fine," Ran snickered. "Conan-kun was a hit with the ladies from day one, and that's the reason he had such a hard time with the other boys picking on him. It had nothing to do with your name."

"Can I add something?" Kaito spoke up a little cautiously. "Not exactly a ground rule, but…"

"Of course, Kai. What is it?" Shinichi warmly prompted.

Kaito bit his lip and tentatively inquired, "Would it be possible to avoid female names with the –ko ending? I'm sill not exactly over…" He looked down at his feet. "…Aoko still hurts," he confessed.

Saguru rested a supportive hand on one of Kaito's knees while Shinichi did the exact same on the other side.

"We understand," Ran assured. "Besides, I don't really like '-ko' names much anyway. There are just too many of them. But did you have any particular name in mind, Kaito?"

Kaito met the gaze of each member of his family and smiled in gratitude. "Rather than a specific name, I was thinking more in categories like seasonal names, weather names, color names…maybe flower names to match yours, Ran?"

Shinichi nodded. "I like the name Ren for a boy. Tsubaki, Yuri, Nadeshi—but I guess that one's out because of the 'ko' at the end."

"Still, flower names are a good idea." Hakuba picked up the thread where Shinichi had left off. "Asagao, Renge, Ayame, Sakura, Shion, Erika, Sumire… Do any of those appeal to anyone?"

"Not Sakura." Ran's brow furrowed as she pursed her lips. "It's a pretty name, but it's too common."

"We knew a Renge once," Shinichi interposed, turning to his fiancée. "Remember in that acting troupe?"

"When you were Conan." Ran nodded, smiling at the memories. "They ran into a lot of trouble, but I bet they're married and famous now."

"I like Yuri, Tsubaki, and Renge," Kaito hummed, racking his brain for options. "Just not Sumire or Ayame. I…those were always major contenders when I was young and used to daydream about…before KID and everything falling apart," he hedged as his voice cracked.

Shinichi and Saguru gave Kaito comforting squeezes and nudges as Ran leaned over Shinichi (with some difficulty due to her heavily pregnant belly) to take Kaito by the hands.

"My poor Kaito," she cooed, rubbing sympathetic circles on the backs of his hands with her thumbs. "It's okay to still be grieving. Aoko-san was very important to you for a long time, and we understand that even now she's still precious."

"Thanks," Kaito sighed, trying to keep his chin up. In order to provide a distraction, he elbowed Shinichi and demanded, "You come up with some suggestions, Shinichi. I mean, I know you've been fantasizing about your kids with Ran since you were little, so what names did you have picked out?"

Shinichi blushed, scratching at his cheek in embarrassment. "Unfortunately, they were all mostly names that Ran has ruled out with our ground rules, but…Arthur, James, Akechi, Yoshio…you see?"

"I actually like Yoshio as a name." Ran frowned suspiciously at her mate. "What is that from?"

"Kobayashi Yoshio is Akechi Kogoro's assistant and the leader of the Shounen Tanteidan in the Fiend with Twenty Faces series," Kaito supplied with a chuckle. "I'd almost forgotten since he's mostly just called 'Kobayashi' in the books."

"So he's like Conan-kun!" Ran giggled, laughing even harder as she noticed the pained expression on Shinichi's face.

"I don't love that name anymore," the Heisei Holmes sighed, lamenting the loss of his youth.

"Well, I do," Ran chuckled, and it came out sounding a bit like a cackle.

"How about we add it to the list with Touya, Ren, Tsubaki, Yuri, and Renge so that we can revisit it later?" Saguru suggested in order to preserve the peace. "Does anyone else have any suggestions? Nee-san? Surely you have an opinion on the matter."

"Chiaki, Nagisa, Yanagi, Haruka," Ran recited the well-practiced list.

Saguru nodded his approval as Kaito snickered to Shinichi, "She has good taste."

"Doesn't she?" Shinichi joined in with a pleased chuckle of his own. "I'd be perfectly happy with any of those. What do you think?"

"I like Chiaki and Haruka best," Kaito agreed. "And both of those can be used for either a boy or a girl, so…" He glanced enquiringly at Saguru and Ran.

The blonde smiled bashfully. "I don't know why you're seeking my approval; I'm merely the god-father. I very much appreciate the three of you involving me in this process, but, really, whatever name you all decide upon will be fine with me."

"Ran?" Kaito turned his attention back to her.

"Well, don't just go along with the first options I suggest," she insisted sheepishly, waving her hands in protest. "I mean, I'm glad you seem to like my ideas, but we should really talk about it more, shouldn't we? Why don't you put a few more out there and then we'll pick?"

"And today doesn't have to be the be-all-end-all," Shinichi added. "I mean, this is the first time we're even discussing this, and I don't want us to feel like we're locked into a decision we made in half an hour's time. Like Ran said, our kid is going to be stuck with whatever we pick for a long time; we want to be sure before we commit, so…why don't you throw a few more names out there, Kaito?"

"Why me?" the magician wondered.

"Because Kudo-kun has a bad track record," Saguru ventured to tease, hoping that his efforts to lighten the atmosphere didn't end poorly.

Surprisingly, Shinichi set aside his grudge towards the other detective and joined in. "What your nerdy boyfriend said."

"You're both nerdy," Kaito muttered under his breath as he began the search for another suitable name that he hadn't previously selected for his and Aoko's daydreamed children. "…Ariake?" he decided after some thought.

Three pairs of eyes widened.

Kaito blushed. "It's not really a normal name, but…"

"If I remember correctly, that was the penname of a poet a little over half a century ago, but…" Shinichi's eyebrows pinched together. "It is pretty…'daybreak'."

"But doesn't it have kind of lonely implications or undertones or something?" Ran hummed as she tried to recall. "We talked about it in one of my Japanese literature classes in college."

"Kaito has been reading a great deal of traditional poetry the last month or so as he's pined for his absent fiancé," Saguru informed with a puckish chuckle.

"All right, all right." Kaito's cheeks reddened as he half-heartedly swatted at Saguru. "How about Katsuki instead?"

"From 'akatsuki', 'dawn'?" Ran wondered.

"I'm sensing a theme," Saguru quipped.

"I like that," Shinichi chimed in, trying the name on for size. "Kuroba Katsuki."

Kaito gave a start. "Whoa. Since when are we giving the kid my family name?"

"Well, they're certainly not going to be Mouris," Ran snorted indignantly. "As if I were a single mother. I didn't get pregnant on my own, and one of the two of you is going to own up to your part in the matter."

"I just meant that shouldn't the last name be 'Kudo'?" Kaito clarified, looking from Shinichi to Ran and back.

"So you'd have even more of a reason to feel your usual insecurity about 'being in the way' of a 'normal relationship' between Ran and me?" Shinichi rolled his eyes. "I don't think so. I did my best to arrange for this to be your biological child, so he or she is going to bear your surname, and we're going to be one big, happy family, all thr—four," Shinichi forced himself to correct, "of us and Baby. Then, the next time, we'll have my biological child, Kudo Nagisa, followed by Hakuba Yanagi the time after that."

"Whenever you and Kaito are to the point in your relationship where you're ready to have a child of your own, Saguru," Ran amended.

Saguru's face completely drained of color for a moment before racing through the gambit of shades of red. "B-B-But," he stuttered, waving his hands in protest as his brain struggled to form a proper sentence in Japanese. "I don't…I only want…I could never have…physically…"

Kaito mercifully interceded on Saguru's behalf. "I'm guessing she means she'll be our surrogate through in vitro because there's no way I'm sharing you, and I think Shinichi feels the same way about Ran…besides the whole sort of incestful feeling you're currently experiencing trying to imagine having a baby with a girl you've come to see as an older sister. So you can stop hyperventilating now, Ru."

"Thank goodness," Saguru sighed in immense relief, partially collapsing over the arm of the sofa for support. "I nearly had a heart attack there, but…" He tentatively looked up at Shinichi. "You'd be okay with that?"

Shinichi shrugged. "It would make Ran and Kaito happy for you and Kaito to have a child of your own. I'm still trying to get used to the idea of letting you into our family, but…I figure I can't hate you this much forever, and you have been absolutely wonderful to my family, caring for them so devotedly while I deal with the Organization back home, so…when the time comes, I don't think I'll begrudge you it."

"Thank you, Kudo-kun." Saguru bowed in sincere gratitude before turning to Ran and adding, "And to you as well, Nee-san."

Ran waved his thanks away good-naturedly. "It's what families do. But now that we've talked a good deal about names, are you ready for the gender reveal?"

"Ran, we've been ready to know for months," Kaito chuckled wryly.

"Are we having a boy or a girl?" Shinichi urged, holding his breath. He wasn't exactly sure why he did this as the sex of his child really didn't matter much. He was still planning on sharing his love of all things detective with the child, and he'd teach him or her to play soccer either way…but he supposed it was only a matter of having to worry about accidentally shooting the first boyfriend in case of a girl or dealing with the angry parents of heartbroken young women if they ended up with a son that took after Kaito.

"Both," Ran practically sang, so excited to finally share her joy with the people she loved best.

Saguru, Kaito, and Shinichi all stared at her.

"Both?" someone muttered in confusion as they all endeavored to make sense of the word.

"We're having twins!" Ran squealed with glee. "There's a good reason I'm as big as a stretch limo; I'm carrying two children: a boy and a girl."

"Oh my gosh! Ran!" Kaito shrieked, throwing himself across Shinichi's lap at his partner. "This is wonderful!"

"Hold on," Saguru interjected, his face pale. "Didn't we determine that there's a high probability that Kaito is the biological father? So…that would mean…"

"Two baby Kurobas at once," Shinichi gasped in horror. "What have I done?"

"I'm not that bad," Kaito snorted. "And I was an angel as a baby, so there."

"We are never going to sleep again," Saguru sighed, matching Shinichi's expression exactly.

"Two of them," Shinichi repeated. "At least we've got Ran as the mother to sort of even things out."

"You two are mean," Kaito pretended to pout, moving away from the detectives to sit on the other side of the couch with Ran and chatter excitedly about the upcoming birth.

Shinichi smiled at his two loves, moving in to press a kiss to Ran's temple and then leaning over to tussle Kaito's hair before he turned to look at Hakuba.

"You're still certain that you want to be a part of this craziness?" he chuckled, letting go of his malevolence towards the blonde in honor of that evening's good news.

"Absolutely," Saguru returned with confidence and mirth. "There's nothing on earth I'd trade this family for."

Shinichi grinned contentedly. "On that point, at least, we're agreed."

The

End