Disclaimer: I do not own Detective Conan/Case Closed or D.N Angel.

Summary: Meeting with witches and getting kidnapped by artwork definitely hadn't been part of the plan. D.N Angel crossover

An Eternal Art

By V. Shalyr

XIII

Epilogue

Beep.Beep.Beep.Beep.

Shinichi's forehead scrunched up in annoyance at the incessant little noise and he made a move to swat at its source only he couldn't because someone's arms were pinning his to his sides.

"Kaito," he grumbled, jostling at the person behind him, "the alarm."

His partner mumbled sleepily in reply, but a moment later, the alarm shut off and the magician sat up, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. For a few seconds, indigo eyes blinked at their surroundings, not quite registering the change until the events of the past couple months clicked into place and his mind shot wide awake. "Good morning, Shin-chan, looks like we made it home."

Home. The word echoed in his head without comprehension for a moment before Shinichi bolted upright as well. Sure enough, he was greeted by the familiar walls of the room they shared in the Kudou manor. His hand shot up to the weight he'd felt around his neck just before the world had faded out. His fingers touched cold metal and he held it up to the sunlight spilling through the gap in the window curtains. The gemstone cradled by the silver feather had once again gone dark.

"Looks like she used it to help send us both back. Do you think it still has any power?" Kaito asked curiously.

"I don't know, but I don't really want to find out right now." Unclasping the chain from around his neck, Shinichi dropped the pendant into the drawer of the nightstand on his side of the bed. That done, he dropped back onto his back and stared at the ceiling. It felt strange to be back home again, but in a good way.

"So she had to send us back because as long as you were still there, her original paintings would have been too powerful to be sealed away again."

It sounded more like an observation than a question, but Kaito answered it anyway.

"It was my theory, yes. I mean, it wasn't like I knew how to "turn off" whatever it was I did by being there."

"Mm."

"I wonder if everything turned out all right," Kaito mused, absently running his fingers through Shinichi's hair, smoothing it out.

"I hope so."

"Guess that's all we can do, huh?" Another minute of silence then Kaito shrugged and got out of bed with a slight bounce. "So, breakfast anyone?"

The detective smiled. "Sounds good to me. Let's order out."

There was no place like home.

Shinichi wondered what it said about him and Kaito that none of their friends or family had bothered to worry about their absence. Granted, in their world, they had only been missing for a couple of days. Still, he would have thought it should stir up someconcern. You'd think the pair spontaneously vanished for a week or two on a regular basis. Well, so maybe Kaito liked spontaneous vacations and Shinichi could get carried away when a particularly interesting case came his way, but really… He would have at least expected someone to ask about it. Or maybe it was a last lingering bit of magic that made their absence into just another, perfectly ordinary event in their rather extraordinary lives, hardly worth mentioning.

Not that either of them wanted to tell anyone about their impromptu adventure. People already thought Kaito was crazy and Shinichi a little mad by association. They didn't need to be told about murderous fairytale paintings and worlds where people could turn into other people when they thought of the people they cared about. It didn't help that people seemed to have completely forgotten about the Swan Lake painting in their world, the murders around it having been explained away with more down to earth explanations. What mattered was that no one innocent had been put in jail for it and the actual perpetrator would pay her own kind of price. Half the time, Shinichi wasn't sure he believed all that had happened himself, except then he'd look at Kaito and remind himself that things weren't always what they seemed.

One thing was for sure. Neither of them would ever look at a piece of artwork the same way again.

Aside from that however, after a few days of rest, life seemed to go more or less back to normal. As a week passed without further incident, Shinichi started to believe that they'd heard the last of the fairytale paintings and their mysterious magic. That was until Kaito slammed into their shared office at the police station one afternoon and literally picked Shinichi up out of his chair in his rush to usher him from the room.

"Shin-chan, you're not going to believe what I just found."

"Hey, put me down!" Shinichi protested, squirming unsuccessfully to get out of his arms. Despite the ruckus they made, the other officers barely glanced their way as Kaito strode amidst their desks and out the door. They were all more or less used to the magician's antics by now, especially where Shinichi was concerned. "Why in the world are you in such a hurry?"

"You know how I was asked to look at that burglary case in that art museum downtown?"

Shinichi ceased his struggles at the mention of the art museum, his brow furrowing. "What about it? Did something happen?"

"Oh no," Kaito said dismissively, "I wrapped up the case in no time. Really, thieves these days have no style. But anyways, you won't believe what's on display in the galleries right now."

"Not a bunch of fairytale paintings, is it?"

"Not exactly, no."

When they arrived outside the museum's front doors Kaito finally let Shinichi down, grabbed his hand and pulled him up the marble steps. Shinichi was too consumed with curiosity by this point to notice the glances they were receiving from startled passers-by. Blue eyes took in statues in stone and wood, oil paintings and watercolors, photographs and sketches—all of which looked perfectly ordinary.

Kaito finally stopped in the middle of one of the several large picture galleries and pointed. And there upon the gallery wall was a painting set in a simple, silver frame. He'd never seen the painting before but the people in it were another story.

Shinichi's jaw dropped. "That's—but that's…"

"Looks like Swan-san and Risa-chan are all right," Kaito supplied, amused by his partner's look of astonishment. "I wonder if that means Swan-san still has some of her magic."

"I'm glad everything worked out," Shinichi said at last, shaking his head. "Do you think this was their way of letting us know?"

"Probably, if you don't believe in coincidences." Which neither of them did, not really.

It's kind of ironic really," Kaito continued, thinking aloud, "that in the actual story of Swan Lake, it was supposed to be love that could break the spell and turn the swans back into human beings. And we end up using the painting of a love story to break the spell of our Swan Lake. Guess stories really are powerful things. You just can't ever really escape them."

"Certain stories anyway," Shinichi agreed. Because people believed in them, and they knew now first hand just how powerful that belief could be.

"Finally feels like it's over, doesn't it?"

"Yeah."

Kaito eyed the figures in the painting thoughtfully and gave his head a rueful shake. "I'm almost going to miss it all."

"Would you want to go back?" Shinichi asked, genuinely curious.

His sharp, trademark grin flashed across Kaito's face. "Nah, all good stories must end, no? To make room for more good stories. And now that we're done playing out their story, we can get back to ours."

Slipping an arm around his detective's waist, Kaito leaned in to kiss him before steering them back towards the door. "How about we ditch work for the rest of the day and go out for dinner? You can finish your report tomorrow morning."

And behind them, in the painting, a woman in white with hair the color of silver smiled a bright, real smile that was mirrored on the face of the girl at her side.

END

AN: Wow, this story completely did not turn out the way I originally thought it would. But then again, I suppose that's what makes writing stories interesting. I suppose things mostly changed because partway through, I got bored with Swan's original character and decided to give her more depth so she'd stop giving me writer's block. In any case, I hope you enjoyed the story. ^_^ Have a great weekend, everyone.

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