Dedicated to the question "Now how would that work?" and its fallout that culminated in the first of these stories and now its sequel. A continuation that I hadn't planned on, and then didn't think was going to be anything more than an idea, until I wrote it down, and by then it was too late. It's a novel now, or at least it will be.
So for those who thought they wanted to see the "Jellyfish Universe's" Gin and Sherry meet again and any other unfortunate reader along for the ride, I hope you're happy. As for why anyone thought putting their hopes of a happy ending in my hands was a good idea...honestly, that one still confuses me.
Prologue
[June: 3 Years Post-Canon]
Kudo Shinichi paced at the edge of a crime scene that the police were only just taping off, and winced preemptively as he dialed his childhood friend, Mouri Ran.
"Hey Ran, I've run into a case here. I don't think I'll make it back for lunch."
She had sent him out for a few odds and ends while she started the meal prep, but someone had been murdered just outside the little market he'd stepped into on his errand. He thought he had a fair grasp on who had done it, but he was still figuring out the trick the culprit had used to poison the victim.
"For crying out loud," Ran huffed. Kudo thought he heard the tempo of chopping increase on the other end of the line. Some poor vegetable was receiving the brunt of Ran's frustration. "Aren't we supposed to be meeting Shiho at your house in half an hour?
"Sorry," he offered. Haibara, as he still thought of her more often than not, would understand, though he would probably still receive an earful from her about it. "Would you mind receiving her there on your own?
"Shi-ni-chi," she over-enunciated his name in annoyance. "It's you she's come to see, isn't it? Three years is a long time not to meet up with a good friend.
"It hasn't been that long." He counted backward in his head, his eyes wandering over the display of square watermelons out front. "Just since the trials started. Let's see, the first one started in August of..." It was admittedly closer to three years than he wanted to acknowledge, but that wasn't entirely his fault. Between the first arrest of a black organization member and the final sentencing hearing for the case had spanned a grueling two years and eight months of his life.
The work of a detective didn't end with discovering the culprit, it didn't even end with an arrest. In fact, the other investigators they had needed to go to trial weren't even brought in until there was going to be a trial. Kudo had been called in to consult, to testify and to be cross-examined, to have his every action and deduction questioned, and then questioned again, and to endure the unending and international publicity of such a high-profile case.
The trials, like the investigation, and the arrests, had been caught between countries, and agencies within countries. However, by the end, they had done it as well as anyone could have hoped. The truth had been fought for and won out; the Organization had been ground to nothing; its members had been brought to justice
For all that time Kudo hadn't met with Shiho face to face. There had been the occasional brief phone call, but neither of them was the best at reaching out that way. Mostly he heard news of her through her sister Akemi, who he saw constantly during the trial years, but Shiho herself was taking time away from all the chaos. He hadn't even been able to get after her about pulling back from her friends because he was constantly hounded by the press she was avoiding. But the trials had been over for two months, and they were only now reconnecting.
He had trailed off in his thoughts.
"Please, Ran," he tried again. "I'll be there as soon as I solve this case."
"Alright," she said. "Be quick."
"I will," he promised.
And he had tried, but it was several hours before he was standing in front of the gate to his house, and fully dark. The poisoning turned out to be a case of involuntary manslaughter. The culprit had been the shop employee he had first suspected, but murder hadn't been her intention
The contact poison she'd rubbed on the square watermelons was only lethal when ingested. She figured square watermelons were too expensive to eat and hadn't thought anyone would ever actually eat one. Much less eat the rind. The fruit cost upwards of 10,000 yen and was used primarily for decoration.
The culprit knew that one of her coworkers never wore gloves like he was supposed to, and so she saw her opportunity to make him too sick to come to work.
Immediately after figuring this out, Kudo had seen the danger to anyone who had touched the poisoned watermelons during the day and gone on to eat something before properly washing their hands. That risk would be triply high for small children, who were more likely to touch the fruit in the first place, as well as to not thoroughly wash their hands before eating. Not to mention it would take a much smaller dose to make them seriously ill. To make a long afternoon short, it had caused him to be rather late.
The weight of the large iron gate slammed it closed behind him, the latch clanging loudly in the thick silence of the night. Almost immediately his front door swung open, and out stormed Shiho. He couldn't easily think of her as Haibara when he saw her in person. And now she was even older, even farther removed from the girl who had been his friend. Her posture was uncharacteristically off balance. He had read that sometimes people unconsciously kept their hands as if they were still carrying something they had recently put down. Shiho's shoulders were skewed slightly, like she was still countering for carrying a heavy weight on one side. He smiled and wondered how many clothes she must have packed in her travel bags
She met him half-way, her voice a harsh whisper
"Didn't you get Ran's texts?"
"No," he answered at a normal volume as he pulled out his phone.
She shushed him and gestured for him to come along with her. As they walked side by side back into the house he pulled up his messages from Ran. The latest of four texts from her had asked him not to make any loud noises when he got in.
"Why are we staying quiet? Where's Ran?" He asked as he read over the other messages.
"Wait, Haibara, do you..?"
He put it all together just as he came into the room where Ran waited on the couch, a small shape curled up against her chest.
"You have a kid!" He exclaimed, remembering at the last second that he had been asked to refrain from loud noises.
Shiho gave him a tired sort of look that was all Haibara.
"When did you...How old is she? You never even said you were seeing someone. Who-"
"Her name is Elaine," Shiho said, halting the near thousand questions he now had. "Elaine Miyano."
She had taken her mother's last name, did that mean her father wasn't in the picture? Was Elaine the real reason Shiho had all but disappeared for three years? Who was the father? Kudo had known of only one relationship in Shiho's life, but it couldn't be. How old was Elaine?
He had actually opened his mouth to ask this when Ran said, "She fell asleep in my lap." It brought him back to the present moment. The question of Elaine's father could wait. "I told them you weren't going to make it back at a reasonable hour but they insisted on waiting up for you."
Her voice was so gentle then, distracted by the little face she gazed down at. Even as she nagged him, it was like she forgot that was what she was doing. He couldn't help but smile at the image of Ran, utterly at peace with a small girl snuggled sleepily atop her chest. Everything about the moment was softness and warmth, and he wanted to hold onto it.
She looked up at him. Maybe when she realized he hadn't responded to her. But when she did the intent there changed, softened as she saw how he was watching her and little Elaine.
"She's beautiful isn't she," Ran said tracing the sleeping girl's round cheeks. "I just want to stay here holding her like this forever."
"Yeah," Kudo said blushing profusely and turning to the side in a bad attempt to hide it. "That would be alright with me."
...
Dinner had been postponed for Kudo, but the rich aroma of beef stewing was quick to bring it back to everyone's mind. Only after seeing the pot, and recalling that it was not what Ran had originally planned for tonight, did Kudo remember the groceries she had sent him out for in the first place.
"I forgot them," he admitted in a sort of swear as he entered the kitchen and saw the pot waiting for them on the table.
"Huh? What was that?" Ran asked distractedly as she tried to grab bowls for everyone with only one arm. The other supported a still sleeping Elaine who was wrapped around Ran like a koala.
"The groceries you needed." Kudo helped her get the bowls down and placed them on the table
"Oh, thank you."
"I ended up forgetting them afterward." He continued, "I'm sorry."
"It's all right," Ran said. She had more than half forgiven him even before his apology. "We managed. Didn't we?"
She addressed Shiho, who had fallen relatively silent and withdrawn in the past couple minutes of them talking, though she had still followed them to the kitchen.
"Yes," Shiho answered, caught slightly off guard by Ran's attempts to keep her included. "I should probably take her to bed so we can eat."
"Alright," Ran gave her up with a sigh, and Shiho soon disappeared down a hall with the sleeping toddler.
"Do you remember where- " Kudo started to call after her.
"Of course." She echoed back, not waiting for him to complete the question
Shiho out of sight, Ran turned a scowl at Kudo.
He answered her disapproval with a, "yes?"
Ran let out a breath, something between a sigh and a huff. "Shiho was probably really nervous to show us Elaine after all this time, don't you think?"
"Yeah"
"It was very brave of her."
"I suppose." He answered dumbly. Kudo didn't particularly like being led the same way he and Ran had grown accustomed to leading her father. The way they would point out something seemingly unrelated to the conclusion they meant Kogoro to come to, all with the intent of making him believe he figured it out himself.
Kudo strayed off-topic partly because of this, and partly because the mystery of it had resnagged his attention. "Was she waiting for the press from the trials to die down before revealing her, or did something else happen that changed her mind about keeping Elaine a secret? Might she have been hiding Elaine's existence from the Black Organization, or trying to avoid the public from associating Elaine and the Black Organization together? Maybe both. But why would she not tell any of her friends? Were we all too close to the trials...or?"
Shiho's steps creaked above as she started on her way back to them.
"Shinichi," Ran interrupted his runaway thoughts, her face formed now in a patient sort of smile at his musings. He couldn't resist a mystery; they both knew it. "Let's just try to make her feel welcome, okay?"
He nodded, and for that night at least he made an effort to keep prying questions to a minimum.
...
Still, the mystery of the hidden child and the unnamed father nagged at him. It was as he fell back into step with Shiho that week that his questions became more loaded, his comments more prying. It had been almost effortless to pick up their easy banter, and with that old comfort came less of a guard on what he asked her. She had been taking it in stride for a couple of days, batting aside his curiosity with her own jokes and remarks, before she had finally had enough.
It had been late in the evening, and it was what would be the last of a long string of entirely too direct questions on his part. She had been growing withdrawn and pale and he hadn't noticed. After the fact, he hated himself for not seeing how uncomfortable he'd made her that night. He'd been so focused on solving the puzzle of it, of uncovering the truth, he'd put his friend's welfare second.
He'd wanted to narrow down who Elaine's father might be; wanted to rule out some possibilities. She was never married, or if she had it didn't end well since she had no ring, or indent, or tan line to that effect. He thought she probably hadn't been widowed and had only meant to entirely rule it out. "Has Elaine met him, then?" Him meaning her father, and then, "could she even?"
"Stop!" She had circled in on herself, and immediately he felt a slap of guilt from where his curiosity had pushed her. "Leave it alone, please."
"I- I didn't mean to-" He struggled to say.
"Look, I know this is hard for you; I know this is probably the most interesting case you've had in a while. But this isn't something I want to have unearthed, Kudo. I need you to just let this be the one mystery you don't solve."
"Okay. I'm sorry, Haibara. I promise." He couldn't apologize fast enough. "I'll stop trying to solve your mystery."
"Thank you." She breathed relief. "Thank you."
Hey everyone! I'm back, and it only took me a year to decide to start something else.
Anywho, this will be a post-canon sequel to the pre-canon story "The Shared Past"
So you can expect to see scenes from several different perspectives as we go, and a shared continuity with that story.
