Author's Note: As promised, this chapter reflects episodes 176-178 with the same title as this chapter. Except for the actual reunion between Gin and Sherry, I didn't spend much time on the parts the anime already covered. This is still an AU.

Reunion With the Black Organization

A single snowflake fell in front of Gin's line of vision as he got out of his car and he glanced up at the cloudy gray sky. It was not the only one; the weather had been overcast all day and it seemed to finally make up its mind. A melancholy expression stole over his face as he watched the snow begin to fall more steadily. Snow always reminded him of Sherry.

It had snowed the first time he laid eyes on her when she was thirteen and he was picking her up from the airport after having just arrived from America…

It had been snowing just like this when he had first kissed her at fourteen in the middle of a bridge in one of Kyoto's silent, already snow-covered parks…

And it was during the winter's first snowfall in the dead of night that he gave in to both his desires and hers when she was fifteen and she entrusted him with herself entirely.

The snow reminded him all too keenly that she had chosen to be his in every sense of the word except the legal one, but only because she was too young to fill out a marriage registration form yet. And now she was back out of reach once more.

Gin hadn't seen or heard from Sherry for a couple months now, not since she had shrunk herself into a child to protect the Arquillian scientist, Hiroshi Agasa, and to ensure Shinich Kudo continued to believe the Black Organization was a crime syndicate. She had told him she would call him when it was safe to do so, but she hadn't yet done so, and he had not realized how much of a hold that woman had over him until after she left. Most of the time, he was too busy with work to think too much about it, but then there were days like today when work was slow and the weather was behaving in a nostalgic manner. Given the time of day, elementary school must be nearly over now. How boring that must be for her. Had she noticed the snow falling through the classroom windows yet? Was it even snowing where Teitan Elementary resided? Did the snow remind her of him too or was he alone in his pining?

"Aniki?"

Gin startled out of his wistful thoughts and snapped around to look at his partner. Vodka was staring at him worriedly. "What?" he snapped, not caring how brusque he sounded.

"Nothing!" Vodka said quickly. "You were just… staring up at the sky for a while, that's all."

Gin grunted in acknowledgment, but refused to elaborate. "Come on, let's go and get this over with quickly," he said, locking his car and slamming the door shut.

He shoved his hands into his coat pockets and started walking across the road without waiting for Vodka. He was determined to get his work done and not think about Sherry or how much he missed her anymore today.

()()()()()

Well, not much more time was left in the day now. Gin just had to wait for confirmation that Pisco had either apprehended or eliminated the Adraxxi terrorist arriving at 6:00 at the Mourning Party taking place at the Haido City Hotel, and then this melancholy day would be over. He really wasn't acting like himself. All the footprints around his car had barely stirred any curiosity in him whatsoever and he had been readily inclined to put faith in Vodka's assumption that people had just been curious about it. His Porsche was a classic vintage after all.

Gin had just gotten off the phone with Pisco when he saw something that made him pause. A single, very familiar, reddish-brown hair. It was not a common color, especially not in Japan, and he only knew of one person that had this color hair, but it couldn't possibly be her. There was no need for Sherry to break into his car, unless… it wasn't Sherry, but someone or something else…

Mind working fast, Gin quickly felt around the nooks and crannies of his seat until finally, his eyes caught a glint of shiny black metal that should not be there. From between the seat and the gear panel, Gin withdrew a small nob of black metal wrapped up in a sticky chewing gum-like substance.

"What is that thing?" Vodka asked, looking stunned despite the sunglasses that hid his eyes.

"It's probably a transmitter and receiver," Gin answered vaguely, turning the device over and over between his fingers.

There was no doubt about it; it was definitely alien technology, but unfortunately, it was such a miniscule and simple model that it bore none of the identifying hallmarks that would have indicated which alien species had most likely created it. Of course, creation of an artifact did not necessarily mean implementation, but it would have been something to work with. Regardless, this transmitter's presence confirmed his initial suspicion, and now that it had served its usefulness, he crushed it with ease. Sherry, of course, had no need to break into his car and plant a transmitter, but an alien disguising itself as Sherry would. Was it an ally of the Adraxxi's? It seemed likely and it was safe to assume it had overheard his conversation to Pisco. He'd have to inform him to keep an eye out for hostile alien allies, but he wasn't about to do so when there might be other bugs hidden in less conspicuous places in his car.

Gin turned off of the main road he was driving on and navigated his way down several narrow side streets to throw off any potential pursuers. Vodka seemed to have correctly guessed his intent and motivation because he remained quiet except for glancing at the mirrors and behind them as if to catch someone following them. If there had been anyone, Gin was sure he'd thrown them off their trail by the time he parked his car and killed the engine.

"Vodka, start checking for any other transmitters that might have been attached to the car. There might have been only the one, but I want to be certain. I'll call Pisco to let him know we'll be late while you get started."

"Roger," Vodka agreed with an affirmative nod.

He popped open the glove compartment and pulled out the handheld bug detector while Gin made to get out of the car. It wasn't like normal bug detectors; this one was specifically designed with both alien technology and biology in mind – sometimes the 'bugs' were literal. Gin stepped out into the wintry night air made even colder by the brisk wind that had picked up sometime after he'd started driving. As he dialed Pisco's number again, there was one thing he knew for certain. There was an alien out there pretending to be Sherry, his Sherry, and there were a lot of ways for them to do so. There were the morphers – able to actually change their physical appearance, the illusionists – only capable of looking like another being and nothing more, the engineers – creating robotic replicas for their disguises, and then there were the skin-wearers – the ones who actually stripped a human of their skin and wrapped it around their body like a human onesie. This alien was not likely an illusionist because of the hair left behind, but that left three other disguise options, and if this was a skin-wearing alien… if some filthy, low-life, scumbag had killed Sherry and skinned her, then they had picked the wrong fucking human to mess with!

()()()()()

That sound! From the chimney? Gin turned his head and listened intently, trying to discern what it was. Was it… breathing?

"In either case, we shouldn't stick around too long, Aniki," Vodka said, appearing not to have noticed Gin's lack of attention.

He glanced down at the ground and a frightful smirk spread across his face. "Hmph, indeed…" he said slowly and followed Vodka out of the wine storage room, closing the door behind him. "We're going up to the roof," he said as soon as they were out of earshot of the door.

"Eh? The roof? But why?" Vodka asked, hurrying to keep up with him because Gin had already set a quick pace to the stairs.

Gin's already frightening smirk turned downright feral. "Because I heard Sherry breathing in that chimney," he said with dark amusement.

This seemed to only perplex Vodka further. "What, Sherry? But how would she fit? Isn't she-?"

"Yes, she is. My Sherry is," Gin agreed. "But our alien friend doesn't know that and appears to be operating under the false delusion that I won't treat him harshly if he's wearing her face."

"So, it really is a skin-wearer?" Vodka said. Gin, too set on his goal of reaching the top of the stairs to the roof, didn't bother looking back, but the squeamish note in Vodka's voice was unmistakable. Gin couldn't blame him.

"No, the odds of it being a skin-wearer have just gone down drastically," Gin explained. "Sherry never made an antidote for her drug and only an adult would be able to brace themselves against the walls of that chimney. A skin-wearer wouldn't be able to accomplish such a task without ruining the skin disguise in the process. We're likely dealing with either a morpher or an engineer."

Vodka sighed in relief. "At least Sherry's not dead then," he said.

Yes, Gin had been thinking that exact same thing and was similarly relieved. Sherry was probably back at home with Dr. Agasa, safe in bed asleep, and none the wiser as to what was going on tonight.

They reached the top of the stairs at last and Gin motioned for Vodka to remain quiet. He cracked the door open a sliver and pressed his ear to the newly-made crack, listening. There… it was faint, but he could hear it: a woman's voice talking on the rooftop. Why Sherry's impersonator was speaking, he had no idea. If there was someone else up here or if they were calling for back-up, then this might get nasty real quick. He swung the door open all the way, careful not to make a sound, and saw that the imposter was the only one present and it was facing away from them. This was almost too perfect. He stepped back out into the snowy night, took aim at its right shoulder, and fired.

The bullet struck on target and red blood stained the snow below. So it was a morpher who had taken Sherry's form, unless this was a super-sophisticated robot that had blood stores to simulate open injuries. If it was the latter, it would explain why the imposter hadn't cried out in pain when he shot it. But then again, it could just be a morpher with high pain tolerance.

'Come on…' he thought mercilessly. 'Face me with those fake eyes of yours and see how little I care.'

As if obeying his unspoken command, the imposter spun around and stared at the two Men in Black agents in shock. "I've been waiting for you, Sherry," Gin said, laying heavy emphasis on the name and a predatory grin twisted his thin lips. How they would regret choosing this form to impersonate.

()()()()()

Sherry stared in disbelief at the two men before her. When she had been shot, she had turned around expecting the Pisco impersonator or one of his allies, not Gin and Vodka with the former's gun raised to leave no room for doubt as to who'd shot her. She'd barely begun to process the fact that Gin had shot her when he spoke. He didn't ask how she'd managed to return to her adult form, didn't seem at all surprised to see her, and the vicious expression and tone with which he said her name stunned her into further silence. This… this couldn't be Gin, not her Gin, could he? Her Gin would not be staring at her with such cold-blooded hatred in his eyes and a gun trained on her forehead. Was this merely another one of Pisco's allies? Was that even Gin's car she and Kudo had infiltrated earlier? Was this whole assassination plot merely a ruse to lure her out of hiding?

"Look at it. Isn't it beautiful? The white snow that scatters amongst the darkness, and the fiery color of blood that decorates its surface. Those glasses and overalls you're wearing as a pathetic disguise don't suit you at all, but this is the perfect place for the death of a traitor, right Sherry?" Gin said, his green eyes boring into hers and she fought to suppress a shiver of horror.

It was wrong, so very wrong. He sounded exactly like Gin from the pitch of his voice to the rhythm of his speech. He'd even mastered the purring inflection that Gin so often used when he said her name, but he would never speak so affectionately of her death and blood amidst the snow that meant so much to them. Whoever was behind this disguise must have been studying Gin for a long time to mimic him so well, but he'd already given himself away as a fake by calling her a traitor. Those in the Organization who even knew she was gone were informed that her cover story was that of a traitor in hiding, and only the high-ranking staff like Gin knew otherwise. Of course, Gin would have known the truth anyway since he had been the only person present to witness her initial shrinking. The disguise was good, scarily good, but now she knew there was no way it was actually Gin.

()()()()()

"I'm surprised you guessed I would be coming out of this chimney," the imposter Sherry said.

Gin smirked and withdrew a single reddish-brown hair from his coat pocket. "It was this hair," he said smugly.

The imposter's eyes focused on it and widened in surprise, but didn't react beyond that. Did this scum understand yet how badly they'd underestimated him? Perhaps he should elaborate for them.

"I found it near the chimney, this reddish-brown hair of yours." It wasn't this exact hair. This one was the one he'd found in his car and held on to, but there had been another one just like it right by the chimney. "I don't know if you were caught by Pisco or sneaked into that room when he wasn't there." Gin was feeling vindictive and dangerous, and he wanted this imposter to understand he was no weak human prey. He was a deadly predator, so he let that imminent danger ooze into his voice with his next words, "But I could hear it… from that chimney, your quivering breathing…"

Still, the imposter didn't say a word and didn't react at all. Not even the eyes gave away if his words were affecting it. It was almost like he was speaking to Sherry herself, which was interesting. Very interesting. Legal aliens and the more high-class criminal aliens learned how to pretend to be human well enough to get along in society, but an incredibly small number of them were so capable of being able to accurately mimic another human being to this degree. They would have given themselves away long before now.

"I could have shot you in that dirty chimney, but I thought I could at least let your death flower bloom," Gin said, readjusting his gun's aim, making his intent clear.

Finally, a reaction, but not one he expected. Sherry's imposter smiled coldly at him and said, "I guess I should thank you for waiting for me in this cold."

Gin hid his unease behind a mocking smile. He had not expected that kind of response. Even with spies trying to infiltrate the Organization, his and Sherry's relationship had not been a public affair. Playing on the 'past relationship' card would have been a more obvious move if that had not been the case, but as far as he was aware, no-one except Sherry's dead sister, his sister, Vodka, 'that person', Rum, and probably Vermouth, knew just how close his relationship with the woman was. It followed that no impersonator should realize this either and thus should not have responded the way this one did. A niggling of doubt wormed its way into his brain. The evidence he'd gathered so far against this Sherry imposter did not support this new idea, but he'd survived many previous hostile alien encounters by listening to his instincts without any logical reasoning to back them up, and he was not about to stop listening now. What if his initial guess back in his car had been wrong? What if it really was Sherry who had broken into his car and planted the transmitter? What if this wasn't an imposter at all, but Sherry herself, somehow regrown to her adult size? Well, if she was, then he would give her the chance to come forward and explain herself.

"I'll ask you now while those lips can still move, about the trick you used to escape the gas chamber in the Organization. How did you manage it?" Gin asked and waited for her answer. If it was the real Sherry, she would know there had never been a gas chamber involved. Any other response would be a lie, and then he would know for certain what the truth was.

()()()()()

Gin had been quite talkative up until now and Sherry had been happy to let him do so while she tried to work out what she was going to do to get out of this. She had no weapons on her person, and though she was back in her adult body, she was too weak from both her cold and her climb to the roof to try and physically subdue the imposter. The last she had heard from Dr. Agasa, Kudo was coming to get her, but she had no idea how long he'd be and didn't want to rely on his assistance. The tranquilizer was a step in the right direction, but without the right weapons, Kudo was no match for an alien.

She had been so distracted by this and, except for the underlying cruelty in his voice, he sounded so much like Gin that she had spoken without thinking, as if it was really him when she had taunted him about waiting for her in the cold. Sherry hadn't caught herself in time to stop the words, but she didn't miss what happened next. Something had briefly shifted in his eyes then and the mocking smile that adorned his face in response seemed shrewder than before. She'd thought the fake Gin was already well-aware of how much he meant to her; wasn't that why he was speaking with such insincere affection? Had she miscalculated and given it away?

But then he posed the question about a gas chamber escape that hadn't happened and the ball was back in her court. Her brow furrowed in concentration, trying to make her sick-addled brain think. It was only further proof that this was an alien disguising as Gin and yet it bothered her that he was asking about it. Unlike during his other pauses when she had remained silent, he didn't seem keen to resume talking until she answered this question. Why? Why was this alien so interested in knowing what happened then? If this guy had been impersonating Gin for a while, he could not have done so before she shrunk and began her undercover assignment, so there was no reason for him to express such interest in the non-events that took place. Was he just asking to keep in-character? If it had been true, Gin would definitely be plagued with curiosity until he solved the mystery, but this wasn't Gin, no matter how much he looked and sounded like him. Unless he was? It was not an idea she was keen on, but if he thought she was an alien imposter, then that would explain his behavior perfectly. Her slip-up might have clued him in that she could be the real thing and now he was asking for her to confirm her identity without making it too obvious in case he was wrong. But what if she was wrong? If she confessed the truth about 'the trick', and this Gin was an alien in disguise, then she'd be killed anyway and her mission would result in failure. If it was just her life on the line, then she might take that risk, but she wouldn't risk the lives of the other people her secret protected. What was she to do?

Gin decided he was done waiting.

He fired three shots, the noise muffled by the silencer. One struck her in the flesh of her left upper thigh just below her hip joint. Another embedded itself into her upper right arm just below the shoulder joint. The last didn't stick, but grazed blazing hot against her left cheek as it flew past. In the back of her mind through the haze of sickness, confusion, and pain, she recognized that these shots were intentionally non-lethal, but painfully immobilizing and she applauded Gin's high marksmanship ability (even if it wasn't really Gin). A person of lesser skill could not have pulled it off so quickly and effortlessly.

It was only her training that prevented her from making a sound when each bullet found its mark and she did not cry out when she collapsed against the snowy roof, part from pain and part from fatigue. These were warning shots and the message was clear. If she didn't answer Gin's question, then the next bullet was going straight through her head. She knew this, and yet she could not bring herself to answer. Sherry couldn't figure out if it was the real Gin or not, but she couldn't bring herself to take a chance either way. Even as a she trembled from pain and cold, a part of her hurt very deeply that she couldn't tell the difference. She couldn't keep her dignity or trust her judgment, so she resolved to maintain her silence. If she was going to die anyway, then she was not going to beg for mercy, but accept her fate and carry her secrets to the grave.

()()()()()

Shooting the would-be Sherry had been surprisingly easy. Watching her silent collapse without making a move to stop it had not been. His shots, though incapacitating, should not have caused that to happen. There was something more going on, but Sherry continued to remain stubbornly silent. The idea that this was an outrageously-skilled morpher and not the real Sherry was steadily losing traction with him, but he wasn't going to be hasty. Gin had given her the opportunity to verify herself and she was too smart a woman to not realize that he'd given her that chance if she was real, yet she hadn't taken it. Perhaps she thought that he was an alien in disguise?

"Aniki, this woman won't talk," Vodka said quietly behind him. He'd nearly forgotten that he was there.

No, she wouldn't, even after shooting her. Still, he had one more trick he could use to force her to reveal herself. One that was sure to get the proper reaction from her if she was real, and especially if she believed he was an alien imposter.

"I guess there's nothing we can do," he said with a hapless shrug and re-aimed his gun at her head. Now for the moment of truth. "Let's send her to her sister, who we sent first."

Pure, absolute hatred instantly filled those pretty blue eyes of hers and she glared at him from where she lay prone on the ground, but still… furious as she looked, silent she remained. It was a very encouraging response, but he thought her reaction would be more emotional, considering how upset she'd been when she found out Akemi had been killed and impersonated. Stoic to the end was her decision then, no matter how much he goaded her? Well, he could easily test the extent of her resolve. Gin started to slowly pull on the trigger, feeling the increasing resistance and weight… watching… waiting… no reaction, no fear, just resolution. His eyebrows rose slightly. She was…

Out of nowhere, a sharp pinprick of pain stung his upper right arm and distracted him. He quickly glanced at what caused it and saw a tiny toothpick-sized dart sticking through his coat sleeve right before it disintegrated.

'A needle?' he wondered briefly and then he felt it.

From where the needle had struck, his arm started going numb and the effects of whatever drug that needle carried were spreading fast. His skin was starting to feel tingly all over and already he was starting to feel light-headed and dizzy. Bewildered, he sank to his knees clutching his arm where he'd been struck, trying to clear his head enough to figure out what happened, his mind racing. His training in the Organization had included constant exposure to various toxins and drugs of both human and alien origin at increasingly higher dosages to build his immunity. What the hell had he been hit with?! This drug was working exceptionally fast despite his high tolerance and he was forced to concede that was probably the only reason he hadn't already succumbed to this drug's effects. His hearing and his vision were starting to waver now too; Vodka looked like a blurry figure and his worried voice sounded oddly distorted next to him.

Then he heard a new voice call out into the night sky from somewhere behind him, shouting something about a chimney.

Vodka was shouting now and then his gun went off, but that other voice still rang. Someone was behind them, but Vodka missed and they were still alive. And in front of him, he saw movement in the form of a bluish human-shaped blur. Sherry. She was crawling toward what had to be the chimney. She was leaving. She was getting away. Gin couldn't do anything to get Vodka's attention, not even talk. It was taking everything he had just to keep awake and fight whatever was trying to drag him under, nevermind reason out if it was a poison or a sedative he'd been injected with. The numbness had spread all down his right arm and was reaching into his chest now.

A shot flew towards Sherry, but missed and she tumbled out of sight immediately after. She'd gone down the chimney, helped by that unknown man behind them. The thought infuriated him and his vision darkened considerably for a brief moment. It was still too blurry, he couldn't hear properly, and moving at all was an increasingly-difficult chore. Despite all of that, this didn't feel like a poison. He wasn't in any pain, sweating, short of breath, or having heart palpitations on top of his other symptoms. It felt like a sedative if anything, a very powerful sedative that should have put a normal man to sleep in mere seconds. No human sedative in existence was that fast-acting since they relied on passive circulation of the drugs through the system. No, this was an alien concoction and alien sedatives relied heavily on the initial point of entry as a means to actively produce the desired effect until the drug's target was asleep. Holding onto that thought like a lifeline, Gin forced himself to move and pressed the barrel of the gun to his arm opposite of where the needle had struck him. Without a moment's hesitation, he squeezed the trigger. Pain and sudden clarity overwhelmed his senses as his arm burned and blood spewed out. His only reaction had been the brief grunt through his clenched teeth.

Already, he could feel the effects of the sedative waning and with his mental faculties no longer compromised, his thoughts were coming to him very quickly. Right before he'd been shot with the sedative, he had concluded that it was the real Sherry, somehow grown again, that had been up here on the roof and she must have thought him a fake. That meant the sedative had to be from the Arquilian scientist she was living with and that it was Kudo who'd hit him from behind, no doubt trying to protect Sherry from him. But if the two were both here, how and why had they been separated? Kudo firmly believed the Organization was a secret crime syndicate, but Sherry shouldn't have been removed from his presence. Pisco… It had to have been Pisco. He had told him someone who looked like Sherry would be coming, but that had been with the assumption she would be in her adult form. If she was with Kudo, then she definitely wasn't an adult, and Pisco would have realized the truth and not interfered with her. But he had interfered and that meant only one thing in their line of work. Pisco wasn't Pisco, and Sherry had fallen down the chimney back into that room the alien had left her in. Despite the convoluted nature of the subject, Gin reached this conclusion in a matter of mere seconds. He stood up quickly, already feeling his strength return despite the blood he was still losing out of his arm, and stalked over to the chimney.

"Aniki, what are you doing?" Vodka asked. He had no way of knowing the complicated thought processes that had just taken place inside Gin's head.

"That Sherry was the real one and Pisco left her in that room to either kill her or try and get to the Organization," Gin explained without actually explaining anything at all. He climbed into the chimney and held onto the ledge as he placed his feet sideways against two of the opposing walls.

"Sherry? Pisco? Wait, Aniki, what do you want me to do?" Vodka said, still very bewildered.

"Stay there until I climb back up," he snapped without looking at his partner and started sliding down spread-eagled bracing against the chimney's walls. It was slower, but he was not keen on dropping to the ground like a rock the way Sherry must have when she fell.

Gin felt and smelled the fire long before he saw it and he dropped to the ground once he was at a safe enough height to do so. Glass crunched underneath his shoes when he landed and he bent his knees to absorb the full impact of the blow. He'd landed on the glasses Sherry had been wearing that were undoubtedly Kudo's and tricked out with some alien tech. Putting that aside, the first thing he saw looking out of the chimney was Pisco's black suit standing before him. That old, wrinkled face peered into the chimney, obviously having heard him land, and Gin greeted him first with the barrel of his gun. Nothing pleased Gin more in that moment than to see the shock on his face then morph into terror as he stepped out of chimney and Pisco saw who was waiting for him at the other end. Oh yes, this fake should be scared to see him. He would find out if the real Pisco had been killed or captured later, but he would deal with this scum first; this scum who had learned of Sherry's secret and been intending to harm her. He would not be surprised if this alien was a partner of the Adraxxi terrorist and had only followed through with the plan to subdue him in order to shut him up forever. He couldn't confirm it because odds were good those glasses of Kudo's might have the ability to transmit every word he said back to its owner.

"It looks like you messed up, Pisco…" Gin said with haughty amusement. Even with the hot red flames burning everything around them, he was going to savor every precious second he had of this moment before he had to leave.

()()()()()

While Dr. Agasa fussed over her injuries and Kudo was consumed by the recent encounter with the Black Organization, Haibara found her thoughts consumed by only one thing from the whole affair. Gin… seeing and hearing him again after so long had renewed anew the keen sense of longing she had been struggling to bury ever since she left him. She'd promised she'd contact him when it was safe for her to do so, but hadn't done so once, afraid that she would end up contacting him too much and he would get fed up with her acting like a clingy child. Still, she wanted to believe that it was really him and not some alien, both because she didn't want to think there was anything out there clever enough to bring him down and… because she missed him, plain and simple. She never had been able to figure out if it was him on the rooftop and that bothered her immensely. She had not been able to do anything about it in the aftermath though. So, if she seemed more downcast to Kudo and Dr. Agasa, they likely attributed it to her narrow escape from those who were supposedly hunting her and did not question it.

As such, she did not get her chance until nearly a week after the event had occurred and the furor from her companions had died down to manageable levels. Dr. Agasa would not betray her secret to Kudo, of course, but she did not want to give him any more reason to lie to the boy he had watched grow up and was subsequently fond of. So, once he had fallen asleep for the night, Haibara quietly got out of bed and removed the wireless phone from the jack, carrying it with her to the front of the house near the large windows. It wasn't snowing anymore, but it lay several inches deep, covering everything in beautiful, pristine whiteness. She dialed a number she knew by heart and waited with baited breath.

"Sherry? Is that you?" the achingly familiar voice answered over the line, and her heart swelled with longing. He sounded so surprised that she had called him.

"Yes, Gin, it's me. It's safe," she reassured him, feeling herself smile in spite of herself. "But before I go on, what was my final request of you?"

She could have sworn he was smiling right now too. "You made me promise to wait for you and not die before you finally return home," he said softly.

"Correct," she said brightly now that she knew for certain he was the real deal. "It's good to hear you after so long."

"I thought you would have called me sooner than now…" he said, trailing off. Did she imagine the bitterness in his tone?

"I wanted to," Haibara admitted quietly. "I got into some trouble recently and was injured as a result. Dr. Agasa and Kudo have only just stopped worrying themselves over me."

There was nothing but heavy silence on the other end for a while before Gin finally spoke up again, sounding unusually hesitant. "Sherry… I was the one who shot you on the Haido City Hotel rooftop."

She had known that was a possibility… that he had been the one who shot at her, even though she had still hoped he was the real Gin. "You knew it was me then?" she asked, her voice sounding unnaturally high.

"No, the thought didn't even cross my mind until you taunted me about waiting for you in the cold. Only four or five living people should know how close our relationship really is, thus an imposter shouldn't have known to try and flirt with me. Even then, I wasn't certain it was you until right at the very end just before your tiny protector shot me with an extremely powerful sedative."

"It was the wristwatch," Haibara said automatically.

"The what?"

"Dr. Agasa invented a stun gun wristwatch for Kudo that he usually uses to put Kogoro Mouri to sleep in order to solve cases with his own brain without drawing attention to himself as a survivor of APTX-4869," Haibara explained. "Mouri's famous reputation as the Sleeping Sleuth is all because of Kudo."

"Well, that wristwatch of his would have completely incapacitated me if I wasn't a glutton for punishment during the Organization's training," Gin grumbled. "Any other special gadgets I should be aware of that might get in the way?"

"Well, he's got some special sneakers that are designed to stimulate the muscles and nerves in his feet in order to give him back the full-powered kick of a high school student," Haibara began with an amused smile. "And his glasses have a built-in tracking mechanism, a detachable transmitter, and the frames act as a receiver directing conversations around the transmitter directly to his ears."

"So, I was right about the glasses after all," Gin said with what she imagined was a triumphant smirk on his face. "You're fortunate I noticed them and guessed their function when I jumped down the chimney after you to take care of Pisco before he got to you first."

Haibara's heart leapt in her throat. "You figured it out that fast?" she exclaimed. "But how? You had nothing to go on."

"Not true. I made the realization after I finally stopped the sedative from putting me to sleep. By that time, I knew you weren't an alien and that you were with Kudo. Pisco would not have taken you from Shinichi Kudo's company if he was who he claimed, so I knew it was him then," Gin said, still sounding oh-so smug. He was like Kudo in that way, fond of showing off his impressive deductive reasoning abilities to his girl. "If it's of interest to you, I did look for the real Pisco after we got out of the hotel in order to figure out what happened to him."

"And? Did you find him?" she asked, worried what she might learn.

"Oh, we found him alright," Gin said bitterly. "All across five rooms and two different levels in his own home. The only reason we even knew it was him was because his decapitated head was ironically the only thing untouched. We're not even sure if all the pieces were present, but since nobody else lived there, we decided to burn the place down. Easier clean-up that way and maybe a funeral pyre will be enough to lay his soul to rest. God knows his death didn't give him that. Whoever killed him either had a deep-seated hatred for him or just liked to play with their food."

"Gin, that's horrible!" Haibara exclaimed, horrified at what had happened to the old man. Such an awful, violent way to die!

"You know how some of these aliens are, Sherry. Despite Earth being the Casablanca of the galaxy, many of them don't view humans as anything more than a food source. So, because the fake Pisco kidnapped you in the first place, I suppose it wasn't too much of a stretch for you to assume that I was also an alien in disguise and in league with him when I confronted you on the roof?" Gin asked.

"No, it wasn't, but it didn't help that the first thing you did was shoot me in the shoulder to get my attention, and you weren't surprised that I wasn't a child anymore," Haibara huffed in annoyance.

"That was part of why I was convinced you couldn't be the real Sherry," Gin said with an apologetic note in his voice. "I didn't realize you'd already started working on an antidote to the shrinking process."

Haibara shook her head. "I haven't. Kudo told me to drink some Chinese baijiu in order to escape the room by chimney. He didn't tell me what it would do, much less that I would return to my adult form. I'm guessing he had a similar experience with the liquor before I met him."

"I see. So, how have you been?" Gin asked. "I haven't heard from you in months and I can't help but feel that if we hadn't met the way we did a week ago, your silence would have continued."

"I've been…" Haibara began, but her throat seemed to close of her own accord and swallow the word 'fine' that she wanted to say. "I've been…" she tried again, but she still couldn't say it. She hung her head low and stared blankly at the snow-covered ground beyond the frosty windows. "I've missed you," she said quietly, unbidden tears coming to her eyes as she finally admitted this painful truth to the one remaining person alive who knew her and loved her most. "I've been wanting to see you for over a month now and I felt that if I called and talked to you, I'd only miss you even more and want to see you again, so I talked myself out of it over and over again. It's lonely here. I like the kids, but it's hard only being able to have adult conversations with two people, one of which doesn't know the truth behind my work and the other who does is so far removed from it the alien community, I can't even properly discuss it with him."

"Sherry, love, you need to call me more if you're feeling like that, not less," Gin sighed. "You're not going to feel any less disconnected if you choose to shut me out. Don't think you're the only one who's been feeling lonely, Sherry. Only you didn't allow me the option to call you whenever I want. I could have wished for better circumstances, but I was happy to see you last week once I realized it was actually you."

Haibara's grip on the phone tightened briefly and she bit her lip in indecision. "Where are you right now?" she asked in a barely audible whisper.

"… I'm in Beika," he said with a resigned air.

Haibara's brow furrowed. "You're in Beika? In Tokyo? Right now?"

"Yes. I've been holding up in the area for about a week now."

Ever since the rooftop reunion was what he truly meant. "Gin, that's dangerous; what if Kudo had spotted you or your car? You don't exactly blend in," she scolded.

"So why are you asking where I am at the moment?" he asked, completely ignoring her warning. Haibara's mouth snapped shut. "Maybe I was hoping to see you again just as much as you were, Sherry," he said gently.

Haibara swallowed hard and gave a stiff nod. "Yes. I want to see you, Gin."

"I'll be there in ten minutes."

"Right. Just be careful no one important sees you. You're not supposed to know where I live after all."

Gin chuckled. "Woman, if anyone sees me that shouldn't, I'll just neuralyze them and make them forget what they saw."

The corner of her mouth twitched upward. "Right, you have that thing. Take care then."

"I will. I'll see you soon, Sherry." With those parting words spoken, Gin hung up.

Haibara hung up too and returned to the table where the phone jack resided to put the phone back. She wouldn't be needing it again tonight. Afterward, she resumed her place by the window overlooking the front yard and the street beyond, keeping a lookout for both suspicious characters and Gin's own car. She felt oddly disassociated from herself right now. Ordinarily in this kind of situation, she would have berated Gin for being so unusually reckless and refused to see him out of spite if nothing else, yet she couldn't care less at the moment. Nothing mattered more to her than seeing him in the flesh without a gun between them.

Time seemed to drag on forever and there was nothing to look at out there in the street. It was so late that no normal people were awake at this time, but she resisted the urge to look at the clock and find out just how much time had passed anyway. Gin would not be late; he was nothing if not punctual unless he suspected a trap. She would wait... And wait... And wait... A beam of white light split the night along the street and Haibara sat up a little straighter. Could it be…? The light beam became larger and brighter until the source finally came into view in the form of headlights attached to a familiar, classic black Porsche 356A. The car stopped at the curb right in front of Dr. Agasa's gate and the headlights cut out. The car had been turned off. The car door opened and the driver stepped out. Tall, clad in black, and with long silvery-blond hair, he leaned against his car and stared expectantly at the house he'd parked in front of.

Haibara could not think of any time recently when she had smiled as genuinely as she did now and she could not run to the front door fast enough. She fruitlessly tried to yank the door open for a few seconds before realizing she hadn't unlocked it yet. Glaring at it for delaying her, she turned the deadbolt, removed the chain, and flung the front door wide open.

"Gin!" she shouted and ran down the walkway without giving him time to acknowledge her presence.

He dropped to his knees just as she burst through the front gate and flung herself into his arms. They engulfed her much smaller frame instantly and she tightened her hold around his neck. Any awkwardness she might have felt about being held like a child by her lover was wiped from her mind in an instant. Gin was here, really and tangibly here. Her senses were overwhelmed by the sudden invasion of everything that was him: the fine smoothness of his hair beneath her fingers, the sharp smell of leather from his coat mixed with the pungent odor of cigarette smoke, the penetrating warmth and strength of his embrace, and the loving, purring rhythm with which he murmured her name in his deep voice. She was so happy to see him, hear him, feel him, smell him, it actually hurt, and she was sure she must be crying. Haibara felt his arms loosen and momentary panic gripped her, making her desperately clutch at him. No, it was too quick; he couldn't be leaving her so soon!

She heard his low chuckle in her ear and felt his chest vibrate with his laughter. "Easy Sherry, I just want to see those pretty blue eyes of yours," he said reassuringly.

Haibara blushed in embarrassment and allowed him to pull back to look at her properly. It seemed incredible to her that with everything else that had transpired in her life so far in such a criminally-short period of time, Gin had somehow remained unchanged through all of it. His green eyes roved intently all over her face, taking in every little detail just like they had done when he had first seen her in this shrunken appearance.

"Still not used to it?" she teased.

"You wouldn't be either if it was me," Gin retorted, still not taking his eyes off her.

Haibara grinned in spite of herself. "I would love to see that. The Organization's best, most-intimidating and highly-effective law enforcer turned pint-sized ankle-biter. I bet you would be an adorable-looking kid too; very feminine with the long hair."

"As much as I prefer seeing you happy, I'm not about to make a fool of myself by shrinking into a kid just because it would amuse you," he said.

"Oh? Not even if I started falling in love with someone else?" she baited.

Gin scowled. "No," he said shortly.

Haibara gave an exaggerated sigh. "Darn. That would have been some excellent blackmail material."

"Well, if I was a cruel person, I'd be using these tears of yours as blackmail," Gin said rather quietly and the playful air turned somber instantly. He cupped her cheeks with both hands and wiped away the remains of her tears with his thumbs. "It's not healthy for you to be crying like this over me," he told her and he leaned forward, kissing her forehead.

Haibara quickly caught handfuls of his hair near his neck, preventing him from pulling away. "You missed," she said sternly.

Gin raised an eyebrow, looking skeptical. "I missed?"

She nodded. "Yes, you did."

And before he could stop her, Haibara used her leverage on his hair to lean up and kiss him properly on the mouth. Gin did not respond immediately to her soft entreaty, but eventually he gave in and she only let go of his hair once he was holding her as tightly as before. She did not care anymore how wrong this would undoubtedly look to an outsider – a grown man kissing a little girl young enough to be his daughter in a non-platonic way – because she was an eighteen-year-old woman, and she needed to remind herself of that. She had thought that kissing him with her child's body would have been awkward, but it wasn't surprisingly. It was only her body that had changed, not her mind or emotions. Kissing Gin in her shrunken form was exactly the same as kissing him in her adult form. When Haibara was satisfied that she'd both had her fill and made her point, she pulled away and Gin did not pursue further contact, though he didn't release her from his arms either.

He slowly opened his eyes and as soon as they met hers, he sighed heavily. "You still feel and respond like Sherry when I kiss you, but I feel like a pedophile when I think of kissing you while you still look like this."

"Well, I could start working on an antidote that will counter the effects of the drug and return me to my normal size for the next time we have another clandestine meeting," Haibara said with a teasing smile.

"Please do," Gin said, completely serious.

Haibara's smile faded a little. He knew she'd been joking when she said it, yet there was no sign of humor in his eyes at all. This really upset him.

"Okay, I will," she said quietly and it pleased her to see Gin's eyes widen in shock. He was very rarely surprised by anything. "For Kudo's sake, I won't be trying too hard, but thanks to that baijiu, I now have something to work on without you providing me a copy of the current drug data and him accidentally stumbling upon it. I imagine it won't be long anyway before he finds himself in a situation where he has to prove to others that Conan Edogawa is not Shinichi Kudo. Having even a temporary antidote on hand will be helpful for that."

Gin frowned in annoyance. "Kudo again. Everything you've done recently seems to be centered around Shinichi Kudo."

Haibara gave him a deadpan glare. "He's my job, so of course I have to focus on him the same way I would focus on any other assignment. There's no need to be jealous."

"I'm not," he said through gritted teeth.

She raised an eyebrow. "Not even trying to hide that you're lying? That's new," she said coolly.

His expression contorted briefly into a silent snarl before he could smooth it over. "You see each other every day and he protects you without a second thought – protects you from me – though he hardly knows you, and he's your age both chronologically and biologically, so forgive me if I feel threatened by him," Gin said, his tone full of bitter resentment.

Haibara could not believe she was having this conversation with him. Gin was jealous. Over nothing, but he was jealous of her work subject of two months. What kind of woman did he think she was?! She did not want to argue with him after finally being back in his arms for the first time in months, but she was not about to let that stand either.

"Let's get this straight right now," Haibara said sharply. "One, Kudo is already hopelessly in love with his childhood friend and I am not the kind of woman who would throw myself at a man who only has eyes for another, nor would I pursue one who has already been claimed."

She gave Gin a meaningful look at this. She had never met the woman known as Vermouth who had been her rival for Gin's affection, but she'd heard rumors that Vermouth hated her because of it and still flirted wantonly with Gin on a semi-regular basis.

She continued, "Two, do you honestly believe that my love for you can so easily be replaced by another?"

Gin did not answer her immediately, but she held his gaze and the irritated anger seemed to drain out of him. He stretched his left hand toward her and carefully stroked his long fingers through her short, reddish-brown hair. He wore a far-away expression on his face as he did so.

"No…" he said at last. "You wouldn't betray me like that, Shiho."

The words ready on her tongue died instantly and her eyes widened in awe. He very rarely called her by her given name and never did so in a public setting.

"Gin, you keep that up and I'm going to start crying all over again," she said with an attempt at her normal teasing tone, but her voice sounded too high and strained.

Gin's eyes lit up and his faint smile returned. "Well that's no good. I'll be sure to refrain from using it until the next time I see you back to your normal self and can kiss you without restraint."

Haibara released a sigh and leaned back against his warm chest, gripping the front of his black coat with her small hands and listening to his heartbeat. "I promise to do better about calling you this time around," she said. "But the next time I see you, it will be when I'm my adult self again."

Gin stiffened as if shocked by an electric current. "What are you saying right now?"

Haibara smiled and nuzzled deeper into his coat. "I told you earlier, didn't I? I'm going to start working on an antidote to the shrinking drug. I doubt I will make a complete antidote on the first try, but if my first prototype works, then I'll be back to my adult body and you can, as you put it, 'kiss me without restraint', because the first thing I'm going to want to do is see you and make up for the lost time."

"I'll wait for you, Sherry," he vowed once more.

"I know you will," she said, and then mentally added, 'You and Ran both.'

I did not intend it when I first wrote the ending to this chapter, but I accidentally set it up to lead right into shortly before the Desperate Revival set of episodes takes place.