Author's Note: I've had a ridiculous amount of free time on my hands so I've been able to do nothing but write (I don't normally update this fast). Also... um... writing this chapter told me that this story, more than any other previous chapter, is trying to develop a plot. This story was not supposed to have a plot. Or be multi-chaptered. Help? No Sherry in this one, but this is one of my favorite Black Org moments (not my No. 1 favorite, but it ranks high).

Takes place during the "Contact With the Black Organization" episodes (309-311).

Contact With the Black Organization

"What do you mean Vodka's meeting with Itakura is this morning?" Gin said sharply.

"Just that," Curaçao, Rum's confidante and his younger twin sister, said over the line with a shrug in her voice. "He called us to say he was meeting with Itakura at 4:00 AM to submit the completed program we requested him to make and to let you know about it. We would have informed you anyways though."

Gin's eyes narrowed dangerously. "Indeed… and he didn't say why?"

"No, not over the phone. Noir apparently didn't think to ask him about that."

"Understood. Is the location still the same?"

"Yes, it is. Are you planning on meeting him there?"

"Obviously," he snorted. "Until I get to the bottom of this, I will only respond to communications from either Rum or 'that person' and I'm relying on you to inform Rum of everything you told me if you haven't already. I will call you directly once I have resolved this anomaly."

"Understood. Best of luck, Gin," the fair-haired woman said and he thought he heard an apologetic note in his sister's voice before she hung up on her end.

Gin hung up as well and immediately shifted his driving course to Kenbashi station, his mind racing. It was normal to change meeting times. Something comes up and rearrangements have to be made. However, the meeting was supposed to be for tomorrow. Vodka would not have had any events suddenly crop up that would require him to reschedule; he'd have made sure of that, especially since Itakura had been so difficult to convince. Gin was grudgingly forced to admit that Vermouth had been instrumental in assisting with that. Itakura may have had something come up, but he was a very particular and organized man, and the Organization had a good sense for his normal routine, so it didn't seem likely he would be the one to need to reschedule this meeting. It also bothered him that the rescheduled meeting time was so soon after the contact call. Vodka had only given Itakura four hours to get to Kenbashi station in Tokyo from the cabin in Gunma. If meeting tomorrow was inconvenient, than why wasn't it rescheduled for a later day or even late this evening after the station had closed? Why did it have to be this morning? His mind only kept coming back to one thing. It just wasn't like Vodka and that scared him more than very little else in this world could.

His knuckles whitened on the steering wheel as he gripped it tightly. He prayed he was wrong, that there was some other external factor influencing his partner's odd behavior and that he hadn't been killed and impersonated by an alien. There seemed to be far too many impersonations these days and he couldn't help but worry about the fact that they seemed to occur near him. While he had been stuck with Curaçao since birth and Sherry was near and dear to his heart, Sherry's sister had been his oldest friend. When the identity switch had been discovered, he had been just as devastated as Sherry and it had been for his own sake, as well as Sherry's, that he had hunted down Akemi's killer to avenge her.

Then there had been Sherry herself. While she had not actually been impersonated, as he had believed at the time, she had been under direct threat from another who operative who had been. Now Vodka was behaving strangely and he prayed to a god he didn't even believe in that his worst fears were unfounded.

()()()()()

Silent as a phantom, Gin turned the last corner into the coin locker room and observed his partner with sharpened senses. Vodka was on the phone with someone, probably the lower-ranked scouts surrounding the station outside and was working on something in one of the topmost coin lockers. His height and build were correct as well as his voice pitch and manner of speaking. He did not appear to have noticed his presence yet and remained ignorant as Gin took a few steps closer. That too, was just like Vodka; he wasn't the most observant of men. He sniffed the air experimentally and caught a brief whiff of fresh cigarette smoke and Vodka's cologne. As best as he could tell at this point, it was the real Vodka standing a short two meters away from him. Time to put that to the test. He moved forward and drew out his gun.

"What? Only some drunks and a kid entered the station?!" Vodka exclaimed suddenly. "That can't be! Look again!"

Gin chose that moment to release the safety and raise his gun to the back of Vodka's head. He heard Vodka's surprised gasp, but to his credit, he did not try and turn around. "What is this?" Gin demanded quietly.

"A-Aniki?" Vodka stammered, seeming both fearful and relieved.

"This meeting wasn't supposed to be until tomorrow," he continued in the same icy tone.

Just like with Sherry before, if this was an imposter, he would have them know how badly they screwed up before he disposed of them. Secret law enforcement officer though he was, the number of people he was close to could be counted on one hand and he refused to allow anyone to get away with harming them without retribution, no matter who or what they were. 'That person' had tried disciplining him for it the first time he'd blasted an alien for taking pot shots at Akemi, and he had made his position clear then that no punishment would change his behavior and he was too efficient at his job to be let go. 'That person' had not been able to argue otherwise even if it did mean more paperwork for Gin when he chose to eliminate a fugitive rather than capture it. It was a small price to pay.

Vodka may be careless, but he wasn't stupid. He knew exactly what Gin made of the current situation and what his assumptions must be.

"Actually, the time was changed because Mr. Itakura couldn't do it then," Vodka explained with a slight tremor in his voice as he turned to face him.

Gin raised an eyebrow. "Ohh?" he said. He was not satisfied with that explanation and Vodka should know better. He readjusted his gun so that it pressed against Vodka's throat and he saw his partner's expression contort with panic. "So you decided it was best to give him the upper hand?" he asked sharply with a warning note in his tone. He better not have done so. He really should know better.

"N-No, the time was decided by me," Vodka corrected, and Gin could see sweat already beading on his forehead. "He couldn't open the mail at his house due to a blackout, so I called him up."

He decided the man before him really was his partner and it was with some sense of relief that he holstered his gun. Vodka correctly took this as a good sign and sighed with relief before turning back to the open coin locker behind him. He wrenched something free and when he turned around, he was holding a disk in a plastic case.

"I wasn't able to dispose of him, but I did get the program," Vodka said and gave the disk to Gin.

Gin accepted the offering, already thinking of how they would need to track him down again to erase his memory when he noticed the strands of scotch tape stuck to two of the edges of the disk. In fact, there was sticky tape residue along all four edges of the disk case. Itakura hadn't been seen and the disk with the program had been taped down within the coin locker. His instincts had been right, though not about the source; there was something suspicious afoot about this meeting and the tape was the final proof. This was a trap and Vodka had fallen right into it without even realizing it.

"Oi, do you know why there's tape on this?" he asked, cutting off his partner mid-sentence. He did not wait for an answer before continuing, "It was to get your fingerprints, since you couldn't peel it off with your gloves on."

Unlike the American branch of the Men in Black, as Sherry had informed him, along with not being required to wear a suit as long at the color was black, the Japanese branch did not require its agents to have their fingerprints burned away. As a result, Vodka could still be identified by his fingerprints as his civilian identity. He quickly glanced around and his green eyes landed on a fresh cigarette that was undoubtedly Vodka's. Now that was just careless.

"And you lit a cigarette when you didn't see the person you came to meet," he picked it up off the ground and stood up, returning to Vodka. "This saliva will tell them your blood type, you see. Why don't you hold on to it?" he suggested and inserted the cigarette into Vodka's slightly open mouth.

His partner's expression was still dumbstruck with shock, but he finally came to his senses enough to remove the cigarette and he looked worried. "Aniki?" he said quietly.

Gin did not answer Vodka's unspoken query, but had already moved on to the disk still in his hands. The answer was obvious; Vodka was being hunted by someone and they were after any information they could get about his identity in order to find him when he was more likely to be vulnerable to attack. It was Akemi and Pisco all over again. Gin pulled out the disk and ripped away the backing.

"Look, they also wanted to find our hideouts," he said and showed the back of the disk case to Vodka: the back with the hidden transmitter. "See, there's a tracking device in this case. This is one clever fox," he commented with a smirk of amusement that he did not genuinely feel.

Inside, he was shaking. Akemi was gone, Sherry was still under threat, and Vodka… If Gin had not suspected something was wrong… if he had not made it to the time of the meeting… would he have been hunting down Vodka's killer next? Vodka flushed red with anger and swore at Itakura, but Gin merely shook his head and crushed the transmitter beneath his heel as he explained. This was not Itakura's work; with his heart condition, he had probably not been anywhere near the cabin nor the train station that morning. Somebody else had received the contact message and somebody else that sounded exactly like Itakura had spoken to Vodka over the phone. What were the chances that the true perpetrator was still around, he wondered? He removed one of his gloves and laid his palm flat against the case.

"Then the guy that I talked to on the phone was…?" Vodka began uncertainly.

"That was likely someone he hired, but they screwed up this time," Gin agreed as a thrill of anticipation ran through him. "This case… it's been wiped down, but it's still emitting heat."

"That means…!" Vodka whispered

"Yeah, he must be hiding nearby," he said in a deadly whisper.

They moved as one; both Men in Black drew their guns in the same breath and Gin gestured with his head for Vodka to take the far side of the lockers. Whoever this adversary was had screwed up majorly. There were no good places to hide in a coin locker room. They advanced forward row-by-row with Vodka's flashlight lighting up the dark spaces and their guns covering both ends of the lockers, systematically eliminating the places this foolish foe of theirs could hide. Eventually, there was only one row of lockers left.

Vodka grinned widely, his confidence fully restored now that they were hunting rather than being hunted. "Heh-heh, I guess there's nowhere for him to hide around here," he chuckled.

"There's always somewhere," Gin admonished and the grin on Vodka's face faded a little as they continued their advance.

Vodka may be fully-confident that they would find their culprit, but this wasn't over until the fox was smoked out into the open and he could look into the face of the one who sought to do in his partner. Gin pressed up against the back of the last aisle lockers, his gun at the ready and his breathing surprisingly even despite his pounding heart. He and Vodka moved together and found…

Nothing.

Gin's eyes widened and his mouth fell open in shock.

Vodka approached him looking just as bewildered as he felt. "Aniki, he's not here. What do we do now?"

No, he was here. He was not wrong about the case and none of the lower-ranks had called back to report anyone leaving the area. The culprit was still hiding somewhere in this room.

"Aniki?"

His gaze almost automatically shifted to the coin lockers on his right. There's always somewhere. Without further conscious thought, Gin yanked open the closest coin locker he could reach and peered inside. He barely registered Vodka's surprised outcry. After ascertaining that nobody was inside that particular coin locker, he shut it and opened the one just below it, and then the one just below that. They were somewhere in this room and he would find them even if he had to open up every single locker. Size was no barrier to aliens; Sherry had once mentioned knowing a species back in America that had lived in a locker and even an alien the size of a small child could be just as dangerous as one ten times the size of a normal human.

Wait…

Gin was opening the door of the locker on the last row.

Child…

He didn't even get the door halfway open before he stopped and smirked, comprehension dawning on him. "Hmph, what am I doing, an adult couldn't fit in here," he said loudly and shut the locker door, then stood up to his full height. "Well then, let's disguise and leave; the police could be on their way."

"Eh? Because of the guy Itakura hired?" Vodka said, once again completely bewildered by his sudden change in demeanor, having not been able to follow Gin's mental train of thought.

"Yeah. Always be on guard, because there's someone investigating us, a fox as clever as a detective," Gin said, continuing to speak more loudly than necessary while Vodka followed him out of the room, making a silent 'ohh' of understanding. Once they were well-clear of the coin locker room, Gin called the leader of the lower-ranks still surrounding the area. "Pull out. The situation is green and we've got what we came for."

"Roger that, sir," the leader answered.

Gin hung up and Vodka finally let out a deep sigh of relief. "It was Kudo, wasn't it?"

"I believe so. No, I know so. Remember? Right before I made my presence known, you were on the phone and the lower-ranked agents surrounding the station told you that the only people who had entered were some drunks and a kid."

Vodka gave a start. "Oh yeah, they did!"

Gin smirked again. "Shinichi Kudo's skills are definitely improving, but he's still no match for me. He consistently keeps underestimating me and he's fortunate I don't actually want him dead. Heh, with so many near-misses, I wonder if I'm the stuff of nightmares yet."

"Aniki!" Vodka scolded.

"What? It'd be funny! I build myself up as this terrifying, murderous psychopath and imagine we get to the point where we finally tell him our true identities? I have him at gunpoint and I pull the trigger, and instead of a bullet, he's struck by a rubber suction cup. Even though he won't remember the revelation, his stunned expression will be priceless."

"You're kind of an asshole; you know that, right?" Vodka said.

"I beg to differ. I just have a very peculiar sense of humor," Gin corrected.

"A sense of humor that you and Sherry both seem to share."

He grinned widely. "Indeed. Clearly we are a match made in Heaven."

"Maybe not in Heaven, exactly…" Vodka snickered.

"You can laugh now, but I'm going to tell her you said that and you're going to be in so much trouble when my maybe-eventual fiancée returns home," Gin warned.

"I'm pretty sure the world's not ready to deal with the two of you as a married couple."

"Fortunately, the world has time to prepare for that moment. Now, I need to call Curaçao and update her about the situation. I presume you have your own transportation somewhere around here?" he asked.

"Yeah, I parked the car a short distance out and walked the rest of the way."

Gin nodded. "Good. I'll see you later then."

Vodka gave a one-handed wave. "Gotcha. Take care, Aniki. Don't spin out in the snow."

Gin snorted, "As if I'd ever risk my car like that on purpose." Without further delay, he dialed Curaçao's number and waited for her to answer.

"Morning, Gin. What news do you have for me?" Curaçao asked.

"Good news, fortunately. Vodka has not been compromised and though the suspicious change in timing was the result of a trap, it was one set by Shinichi Kudo."

"Ah, I see. And the Organization's cover is still intact?"

"Hmph. Naturally, and I didn't even have to neuralyze him. Before I realized he was the mastermind behind the plot, I was working under the assumption that one of our true enemies was trying to get to Vodka, so I'm sure Kudo was mere moments away from fainting out of fear."

"Evil twin of mine, you're doing it again, aren't you?"

Gin broke out of his temporary reverie. "Doing what?"

"Making that creepy, predatory smirk of yours."

Gin's grin was instantly replaced with a dark scowl. "What of it?" he said defensively.

"Nothing. Just another thing that makes me wonder what that child sees in you," Curaçao sighed.

First his best friend and now his little sister; why was everyone making cracks at him about Sherry lately? He'd only told Vodka about Sherry's proposal. Curaçao couldn't be trusted with that kind of information without undergoing a whole lot of heckling first. "Kudo's detective skills continue to improve, but as he is now, he's still no real threat to us. Annoying and highly inconvenient when we're not expecting his meddling, but not dangerous."

"So it may be worth it to consider staging some 'Black Organization' crimes in his vicinity every so often to make him feel like he's moving forward in bringing us down and returning to his adult body when he's really not?"

"Exactly."

"Understood. I'll run it by Rum, but I expect nothing will happen soon."

"No, but I don't suppose he'll need anything soon either," Gin said thoughtfully. "Vermouth seems to be keeping him unexpectedly occupied at the moment. You don't happen to know what she's up to, do you?"

"No, she's been very mum for a while now, even with 'that person', which is unusual. He trusts her, but this particular brand of silent secretiveness isn't like her and it's started to make him antsy."

"I bet it has," Gin muttered under his breath.

"Thank you for the update on the situation with Vodka. I'll keep in touch and let you know what the verdict is on a plan to keep Mr. Kudo busy," she said.

"Thank you. And… stay vigilant, Emma," he added as a quiet afterthought.

"Wooow, using my first name and everything. Are you trying to be all big brotherly for once?" Curaçao said sarcastically.

Gin rolled his eyes. "Shut up," he grumbled and hung up.

Once the phone was back in his coat pocket, he groaned and pinched the bridge of his nose between his fingers. Sherry may have chosen too well in picking their guinea pig for the Apoptoxin, her back-up protector for her child form should she need it, and the Organization's living witness for their 'criminal activity'. He had really not needed any of the extra stress and fear he'd just finished putting up with so early in the goddamned morning because of Kudo's persistence.

Yes, I made Curaçao Gin's twin sister. Why? Because it doesn't contradict any current, existing material and because I could.