Conan realized he should have listened to Hattori. Really, he had been so frustrated with not knowing what was going on with Ran's sudden protective streak that he had thought he would want to know. Now that he did, he didn't have a clue what he was going to do about it. The only thing he did know was it was somehow all Kid's fault.

I don't own Detective Conan or Sherlock Holmes. Enjoy!

Get a Clue

Despite his extreme intelligence, even Edogawa Conan could not have predicted the type of attention he would receive from his interactions in cases involving Division One or from Kaitou Kid Heists. There had been a number of times that he had been interviewed or praised due to his "young brilliance." There were times when people recognized him on the street due to his involvement in cases, and people like Hattori Heiji, Sera Masumi, and even Hondou Eisuke had linked Edogawa Conan's arrival at the Mouri Detective Agency and/or Kudou Shinichi's disappearance with the same time Sleeping Kogorou appeared on the scene.

It was not an irrational fear to presume that someone else, someone with more sinister or self-serving purposes may put these clues together. Due to this, Conan was always wary of those who were aware of Conan's intellectual prowess.

Sometimes, it was bad enough when people realized that Conan, the smart child who helped solved murders, who had saved Touto Tower from being blown to smithereens, who regularly went head to head with Kaitou Kid, was a force to be reckoned with. When people underestimated him, Conan had an edge. When they knew to look out for him, it made things a bit harder. Still, Conan knew to look out for sinister beings, always fearful that the Black Organization might come after him and those he held dear.

He had no idea he was about to be targeted by another group, in some ways even more crazed than the Black Organization.

When looking back on this particular case, Conan realized his first clue that there was another group on the move had happened over a month before he realized the true danger he was in. However, the first clue he stumbled upon happened during one of Hattori and Kazuha's visits to Tokyo. As usual, Hattori had come to investigate a case. The case involved a missing woman who he and Hattori ended up tracking to a warehouse and found her dead body; they determined the murderer to be her husband, breaking through his alibi and seeing through his trick in a matter of hours.

While the case in and of itself had not been a very difficult one, it had been tedious. Conan and Hattori had spent most of their time scouring Tokyo for clues, leaving Kazuha and Ran to entertain themselves. Upon returning to the Detective Agency, Conan and Hattori were too elated in their deductions to truly pay attention as they entered the door. Conan realized his error and broke off talking about the case and went into cute-seven-year-old-Conan-mode on pure instinct upon hearing the shocked voices of the girls inside.

And that was when he received his first clue.

Ran and Kazuha, instead of seeming suspicious of his adult chatter in regards to the case, were acting very guilty. Conan looked at the three girls – noting that Sonoko had been invited over – and feeling his stomach drop in dread as he watched the way that both Ran and Kazuha's faced turned blank upon seeing them. Sonoko cackled like the cat that just ate the canary, the only one of the three girls who managed to welcome them home in a voice loud enough to hear.

Hattori and Conan looked at each other, both confused, but even Hattori who had limited experience with Sonoko recognized the type of expression on their three faces. This was something that clearly involved them, and more likely than not, involved one of Sonoko's lovey-dovey or other such ludicrous plans. It was better not to ask. But they were both detectives. And Hattori had a big mouth that was almost as big as his curiosity.

"What are the three of ya up ta? The brat and I just spent hours on a case, and yer here and haven' even asked how everythin' went! What's goin' on?"

"Nothin' you ahou!" Kazuha yelled, her face turning bright red. "Nothin' at all! This ain't any of your business, so no need ta go treating it like a case you deductive idiot. Don' go poking yer nose around where it ain't wanted!" For some reason, the deductive idiot slur sounded more like an insult that Ran would use for Shinichi, and Conan wondered if the girls had also been talking about him.

Before Hattori could respond to Kazuha's rather abrasive remark, Sonoko began talking about something that made no sense to either detective.

"Wasn't there one where he pretended to be-" Sonoko began.

"SHHHHHH!" Ran and Kazuha loudly shushed Sonoko, both girls pinning their hands over their friend's mouth.

"We – uh – we have some things we need to do! Girl time!" Ran said before she and Kazuha grabbed Sonoko and all but ran out of the door. As the door slammed closed, they could hear Kazuha and Ran loudly berating Sonoko for talking about it with them around.

Hattori and Conan looked at each other before Hattori opened the door quietly. They peered out the door and watched the three girls talking at the bottom of the steps.

"Oh my god! I don' think I can ever look at Conan the same way again," Kazuha said, her voice sounding troubled.

"Ooo, wait till I get my hands on them," Ran said, her expression set in a way that Conan recognized meaning that someone would be on the receiving end of the karate champion's wrath. Conan felt a shiver go through him, seeing just how pissed Ran was. He was grateful that her anger was directed at someone other than him.

"Ran, don't be like that! It's all in good fun. No harm done."

"How can you say something like that Sonoko? It's not okay! It's – It's an invasion of privacy!" Ran all but screeched.

"Oh come on. No it's not!" Sonoko groaned, waving her hand about as to dismiss it.

"I agree with Ran. We should go find those hussies," Kazuha said, pushing up her sleeves.

"Maa, maa! I wouldn't have shown you if I'd known you'd react like this," Sonoko grumbled, exasperated.

"Come on Ran! Let's go kick some sense into those horrible people," Kazuha said, her face scrunched up in determination.

"Yes, but – wait a second!" Ran said, before she turned and headed back up the steps. Conan and Hattori hastily moved away from the door and rushed to the couch, pretending that they hadn't just been spying on the girls.

Just as they sat down, Ran opened the door. Her face was set in an expression that Conan recognized as meaning death if one got in her way. She marched over to Conan, sat down in front of him, grabbed his shoulders and looked him straight in the eye.

"Conan-kun," Ran began, her voice very stern, and Conan wondered what the hell he'd done to make her sound so agitated. His worry must have shown in his face because Ran's grip loosened and she took a slightly gentler tone with him, "Conan-kun, you must promise me that you won't go around talking to any strange people. And you need to be extra careful. There are some very...deranged people lurking about. They may even be dressed as young, pretty girls, but you can't talk to anyone you don't know, do you understand?"

"Uh, yes, Ran-nee-chan. Are you okay?" Conan asked, seeing Hattori give him a raised eyebrow.

"Yes, of course I am." Ran wheeled around, turning to face Hattori. Usually she was very cordial with Hattori, but her expression was still fiery. "You!" Ran pointed her finger at Hattori. She kept pointing her finger at him until she was standing right in front of him. Hattori tried backing up out of her way. She glared at him and put both of her hands on his face and pinched his cheeks back and forth. When Hattori began yelping in pain she stepped back and looked at *him* suspiciously. "You better keep an eye on him. Make sure he doesn't go out on his own. And don't lay a hand on him!"

As she left the Detective Agency, she gave one last, searching look at Conan before closing the door.

"What the hell's the matta with 'nee-chan?" Hattori asked, getting up from the couch. He nearly toppled back when the door opened again, and Ran reappeared.

"And don't you dare try and follow us!" She slammed the door. Hattori rubbed his pinched cheeks rather awkwardly.

"Ya know, I don' understand women at all, Kudou," Hattori said.

"Me either."

The second tangible clue came the same night as the first, but as with most situations, the clues didn't make much sense as he didn't have enough information to piece them together to truly understand what was going on. Kazuha and Hattori had headed home on the shinkansen, despite Hattori's protests. Kazuha had forcibly refused to stay the night at the Mouri's. Conan couldn't help but wonder why she couldn't look at him the same way again. For a panicked moment, he wondered if Ran had told Kazuha and Sonoko that she had suspicions that Edogawa Conan was really the shrunken alias of Kudou Shinichi. However, when he looked at the few details he did know, their reactions had to do with something that Sonoko had shown them rather than anything Ran had said. If Ran felt suspicious of him, usually she would be taking out her frustrations on him. While he knew it clearly had something to do with him, and perhaps Hattori, it seemed that there were other people involved.

In order to try and unravel more of the mystery, Conan had gone to Ran to speak with her. He knocked on the door of her bedroom. When she finally answered that he could come in, he could tell that whatever she had been doing on the computer was something that she didn't want him to see. Idly he wondered if she were instant messaging with Sonoko or Kazuha more about whatever had happened.

"Ran-nee-chan..." Conan began, but Ran beat him to the punch.

"Listen, Conan-kun," Ran began, her voice chipper, a kind smile on her face, "I'm sorry I was acting so strange earlier. Sonoko showed me something – a strange picture of a young boy doing...stupid things. And I thought of you and it worried me. Just make sure you don't ever go with strangers. You don't know who they could be."

"I know better than to go with strangers," Conan said slowly, a little miffed at this.

"You are a very smart boy. But people could trick you into thinking they're someone they're not. Tomorrow, I'm going to drop you off and pick you up from school, okay?" Ran's tone left little doubt that he had no choice in the matter.

"O-okay."

Despite multiple attempts to ask Ran about what was bothering her, she firmly refused to tell him. The only thing he could garner from her behavior was that she seemed suspicious of anyone who made an attempt to talk to him, even suspicious of people who he knew other than his elementary school friends.

The most notable incident happened in Cafe Poirot eight days after Ran's strange behavior first started.

"It's nice not to have to cook every now and then," Ran smiled at him, but Conan didn't respond. Part of the reason she hadn't cooked was that she hadn't had time. She had spent most of the afternoon following him and the Detective Boys around, and since Kogorou-ojisan had gone to play Mah-jong, he wouldn't bother her about making a home cooked meal, she had taken Conan to Poirot.

"How're you doing today? Anything special you want to eat, Conan-kun?" Enomoto Azusa asked, looking to Conan first. Ran's cheerful attitude vanished.

"Something special, Azusa-chan? Is there a reason you want to know the special things Conan-kun likes to eat?" Ran asked, leaning forward across the table, looking at Azusa suspiciously. Conan felt like face palming.

"Uh-" Azusa began, unused to Ran's icy attitude.

"I usually eat a lot of different things, and you don't normally take me down here to eat without oji-san unless it's for a special reason. Azusa-nee-chan probably thought there was a special reason you brought me down here, ne, Azusa-nee-chan?" Conan piped up.

"Yeah," Azusa said slowly.

"O-oh, right." Ran laughed a little. "But Azusa-chan wouldn't ever tell anyone what you liked to eat, would you, Azusa-chan?"

"N-no. Of course not," Azusa laughed awkwardly, clearly not sure what was going on. Ran leaned toward her, and tugged on her hair none-too-gently. Azusa nearly toppled over at the action.

"Did you do something different to your hair?" Ran said, her demeanor changing abruptly. "It looks very cute today!"

Conan tried to send Azusa an apologetic look before she said no and scampered away to help another customer before having taken their order.

"What was that for?" Conan asked, looking at Ran who seemed slightly embarrassed.

"Just checking something. Everything should be good for tonight though, right?" Ran asked, smiling in that I'm-going-to-pretend-that-nothing-weird-just-happe ned attitude.

Azusa reappeared, looking at Ran a little warily. Ran, for her part resumed her usual cordial attitude to Azusa the rest of the night.

Ran's behavior was really beginning to grate on Conan's nerves. He couldn't for the life of him figure out what was going on. He needed more data. A Holmes' quote came to mind from A Scandal in Bohemia, "It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts."

Ran refused to tell him what was clearly bothering her. He didn't want to snoop on her computer or on her phone as for one) he didn't like the thought of invading her privacy to that extent and two) he knew she'd drop kick him into the next decade if he got caught.

Trying to coerce Sonoko into telling him was like having his eyelashes pulled out with tweezers: ridiculously painful and he ended up looking stupid as he did it. She merely cackled at him and refused to tell him a thing.

His next source of information came from indirectly questioning Kazuha through Hattori. Hattori had been able to find out what had caused their reactions, but for some reason, he then refused to tell his best friend.

"What do you mean you can't tell me?" Conan demanded, all but yelling into the phone.

"Listen, Kudou. Trust me, it's – It's not somethin' ya really want ta know," Hattori said, his voice pleading and sounding almost embarrassed.

"I can't just ignore this! Whatever is going on, Ran is refusing to leave me alone. I can't investigate cases properly when she's breathing down my neck. Even when I try to go over to Agasa's, she always follows me. Something has her spooked, but it doesn't feel like I'm in danger. I just can't figure it out," Conan couldn't help admitting. He didn't understand her behavior. She acted like he was in some sort of danger, yet when he asked her about it, she said that no harm would come to him.

"Well...a lot of it is in 'nee-chan's head. It's...it's not somethin' ya can un-see-"

"Un-see? What do you mean un-see? She said that Sonoko showed her a picture of a boy doing something stupid, but I don't know why she would think that I would do whatever it was she saw. She keeps warning me about going with strangers, but she knows I wouldn't do that," Conan said. He began pacing. This puzzle was driving him mad. Everyone seemed to know what was going on but him. It reminded him of the incident when he didn't know what an "X" stood for at the end of a letter.

"It's kinda difficult ta explain."

"Then do your best!" Conan hissed. "How would you feel if our positions were reversed? Please, tell me." That finally seemed to get Hattori to open up.

"Listen, it's kinda bad. But not. But it is..." Hattori began. Conan rolled his eyes, but didn't press it yet. He knew that sometimes you just had to wait for someone to get over the awkwardness. "Okay," Hattori took in a deep breath and exhaled. "Ya know how that 'nee-chan friend of ya girl's is a huge Kid fan?"

"Yes," Conan said, not understanding how Sonoko being a Kid fan had anything to do with anything and blushing as Hattori referred to Ran as his girl.

"What's goin' on kinda has ta do wit' Kid."

"It has to do with Kaitou Kid?" Conan asked, taken aback.

"Wit' ya and Kid."

"The picture – Is it a picture with me and Kid in it?" Conan asked. Hattori made a strange noise.

"Y-yeah."

"Wait a second! You mean to tell me that someone took a picture of me with Kid? What was I doing? Is that why Ran won't let me go anywhere? Does it show me using my belt or the watch or – Hattori! I need to see that picture to know what Ran knows," Conan insisted. If someone had taken a picture of him doing something that a normal seven year old would not do, it could jeopardize his identity.

"It's not like that. It's really not-" Hattori seemed to have trouble expressing his words, "-that kinda picture. Someone drew it. It's a picture some crazy fangirl drew of the two of ya. Actually, it's a lot of different pictures. Kinda like...stories."

"Stories?" Conan asked, once more baffled. What in the world could have Ran upset of something a boy was doing if it was just a silly picture story? "Hattori, really? What type of picture could someone have drawn with Kid and I to have Ran so...so..."

Horribly, all the clues converged together like a ton of bricks hitting him straight into his gut.

"Yeah. Those kinda pictures. In fact, Kazuha says Sonoko showed 'em a whole buncha websites dedicated ta...ta that kinda thing between ya and Kid. Honestly, Kudou, there're a ton of pictures of ya and him...doin' – doin'…things."

"Got it. Thanks, Hattori."

"Wa-" But before Hattori could say anything Conan hung up the phone and covered his face in embarrassment. He had dealt with his own set of fangirls as high-school detective Kudou Shinichi. He'd seen Kaitou Kid's fans go all out before. But he'd never, ever thought of the possibility that there would be a group of people out there who were shipping the romantic couple of Kaitou Kid and Edogawa Conan.

Despite not having even seen any of the pictures, Conan could imagine what type of pictures that had Ran so up in arms. He should have listened to Hattori. Now that he thought about it, he couldn't not think about it.

Well, this was awkward. Idly he wondered if Kaitou Kid had any idea about those websites. Thinking about how well connected and informed the big headed thief was, he probably knew and didn't care. He seemed to be an attention hog. With the way he delved into technology, Conan had the strangest suspicion that Kid could have somehow deleted the content if he had really wanted to. If it was still on the internet, Kid was probably feeding into it to make his fan base grow. That didn't help Conan any!

How the hell was Conan supposed to go to the next Kid heist knowing there was an entire group of people out there hoping that he and Kid would meet and...and...do things?!

He didn't have a clue.

I got to thinking. If there were Kid/Con shippers in the Conan universe and Ran found out, I have a feeling that she would go crazy possessive protecting her beloved Conan-kun from scary fangirls. Mind you, I'm sure she'd still feel a bit jealous if she knew that Conan was Shinichi. But Kazuha, who doesn't have a clue that Conan isn't a little kid…how awkward would that be?

Should I continue? As is, I feel it's complete, but I have several ideas to how this could develop. And should it be Shin/Ran or Kai/Shin? Let me know what you think!

~ Jelp