AN: And here's the fourth chapter! I'm pretty pleased with how this one turned out, all things considered. Paikaru is surprisingly enjoyable to write for in his own way. As always, thanks to those of you who are reading this fic! I only ask that you leave a review if you can!

Phantasmal Black

Chapter Four

Amnesia

"Amnesia?"

Hakuba Saguru set down his teacup with a firm clink, his attention directed towards the person sitting across from him. He had thought it strange when Shinichi had invited him over to his place so suddenly, with nary a mention of either Paikaru or Hattori Heiji, and quite honestly, he didn't know what he expected to hear from him when he finally arrived. He'd come to the Kudo household in due haste, at the very least, and found Shinichi waiting for him, putting on a show of making tea before he even began to discuss why he was calling him here.

Probably the last thing he'd expected to hear from his fellow detective was that not only had he successfully captured the Black Organization member known as Paikaru, but he'd also determined that his reason for being with them in the first place was none other than amnesia. In other words, Hattori Heiji had lost his memories after his near death experience five years ago, and had been living under a false identity ever since then, having been taken in by the one with the codename of Merlot.

While certainly Hakuba was pleased to have a little light cast on the shadowy figure of Merlot- even knowing the assassin's gender was a huge breakthrough- he wasn't quite sure what to make of the story that Shinichi was telling him.

"Amnesia." Shinichi repeated with a nod, taking a sip of his own tea. Really, he preferred coffee, but he knew that the half-British detective had very strong feelings for the aforementioned drink- and they were all very negative. "He doesn't remember a single thing about me, much about himself. Doesn't even recognize Kazuha."

"Amnesia." Hakuba repeated, leaning back against the couch, closing his eyes. It was something he frankly hadn't even considered- perhaps it was because he had always been on bad terms with Heiji. It had been easy for him to assume that he might have always been with the Organization, or at the very least had joined it afterwards at some point. "Are you quite certain, Kudo-kun? It's not impossible that he's lying to you."

"He's not lying." Shinichi said simply. "He didn't even recognize his own name."

Searching for any signs of this being some kind of joke, Hakuba eventually let out a brief sigh, picking up his teacup and taking a long swig of tea. "And where is he now, then? Certainly you didn't let him go, Kudo-kun. Need I remind you, he's still a highly dangerous assassin, regardless of who he might have been in the past- all the more so if he really is experiencing memory loss."

"Haibara's examining him." Shinichi said, setting down his teacup. "Did you know that she built her own MRI machine at some point? Because I was most definitely not aware of this fact. If she can ever truly come out of hiding, there's no doubt she'll take the world by storm."

"Kudo-kun." Setting aside his teacup once more, Hakuba locked eyes with him, a stony expression on his face. "Please don't tell me you left an internationally wanted assassin alone with a junior high school student."

"The Professor's there with her." Shinichi said simply, shrugging his shoulders. "Paikaru's not going to hurt her."

The codename felt considerably less like poison on his lips now that he knew there was no true betrayal involved with it. One had to remember the person they were betraying to betray them in the first place. It was probably for the best that he'd gotten used to using it- it had become rapidly apparent to Shinichi that the person in question seemed to feel more than a little uncomfortable when he'd attempted to address him as 'Hattori' instead. He honestly couldn't say that it felt quite right to him either- so Paikaru it had remained, for the time being.

"Paikaru works for the Black Organization, and the Black Organization wants to kill her." Hakuba noted, all but rising to his feet. "At this very moment, they both might be dead, as we're leisurely sitting here sipping tea. I knew I shouldn't have left this matter to you, Kudo-kun, you're too close to it."

"Paikaru also wants to leave the Black Organization, Hakuba." Shinichi told him, motioning for him to take a seat. "He let me capture him in the first place. Even with memory loss, he was fully aware that he was being lied to by them and was being used as a tool. I decided to assist him with that matter."

"Then we'll get what information he knows about the remaining members from him, and turn him over to Jodie-san." Hakuba said simply, not understanding how his fellow detective could continue to remain this calm. What if this had all been a trap to lower his guard to allow Paikaru access to Haibara Ai in the first place? Granted, Hakuba had no idea why it was that the Organization wanted to kill this girl in the first place- it was one thing that Shinichi had never felt inclined to tell him.

"We're not handing him over, Hakuba." Shinichi's voice had a tone to it that brokered no argument, and yet Hakuba wasn't about to take what he had just said without one.

"Kudo-kun. I understand that this is a very complicated situation for you." Hakuba began, resting a hand on his forehead. "I know how important Hattori-kun was to you, and I know how much his death impacted you. But whatever the case may be, the fact remains that Hattori-kun is no longer a detective, but a murderer himself. All the more so if he has no memory of being Hattori Heiji in the first place. You can't just let him go free because you used to be best friends with him."

"They'll kill him, Hakuba." Shinichi said shortly, a sharp gaze flashing up towards him. "Or did you forget what happened to all Merlot's other pupils already?"

As Hakuba dropped his gaze from Shinichi's, closing his eyes, the Heisei Holmes knew that he remembered full well. "I can't let something like that happen to him, Hakuba. I can't lose what's left of Hattori."

"Then you're suggesting we let him get away with murder?" Hakuba asked, steeling himself once more, turning back towards Shinichi and meeting his gaze. "Listen to yourself for a moment, Kudo-kun."

"I'm not suggesting we let him get away with it." Rising to his feet finally, Shinichi gave Hakuba an assessing look. "I'm suggesting we use Paikaru. He's more than willing to help us bring the Organization down, more than likely with his own two hands, if need be. If he helps us sweep up the remaining members himself, it will most likely be the difference between life and death. For all we know, the FBI might be looking for someone with Paikaru's skills. I only just learned that Hattori is alive, Hakuba, I can't send him marching off to his death again. Can you? Could you ever face Kazuha again knowing that you've condemned the person she's been waiting for all this time to death?"

There was a long silence between them, before Hakuba finally let out a breath, closing his eyes. "No." He said simply. "I can't. At the very least if what you say is true, and Paikaru does want to leave the Organization, his help would be invaluable to us- especially if he still has some of Hattori-kun's detective skills remaining within him."

Sitting back down on the couch, Hakuba shook his head. "Amnesia." Folding his hands in his lap, the half-British detective glanced up at his counterpart. "Does he remember anything at all?"

"No." Shaking his head, Shinichi sat down again himself. "Not consciously, at least. There's something of Hattori still lingering within him underneath the surface, however. He's kept Kazuha's charm even after all these years, and got quite angry when he discovered that I'd taken it from him. That's probably key."

"You're not suggesting we let him meet Toyama-san, surely?" Hakuba asked him. "If she were to learn that the assassin she had been helping me hunt down was her childhood friend, I'm not sure how she would handle the news."

"She's stronger than you give her credit for, Hakuba." Shinichi told him. "Beyond that, if Paikaru himself decided that he wanted to meet her, there's really not that much we could do to stop him. It took him all of five minutes to free himself from three separate pairs of handcuffs, so quietly that I barely even noticed. He'd give Kaito a run for his money when it comes to quick escapes."

"You have him alone with a junior high school student and a defenseless professor, and he's not even handcuffed?" Hakuba asked him, fighting the very uncharacteristic urge to throw up his hands into the air. "Unbelievable."

"I'm telling you Hakuba, you can trust him." Shinichi told him. "He's been lied to his entire life- all five years of it, since that's all he can remember. He has enough awareness to realize that he was likely never meant to be a killer in the first place, and enough humanity left in him to regret it. He remembers the names and faces of the people he's killed, at the very least."

"Beyond that, he's grateful to finally have some real answers." Picking up his teacup and finishing off his tea, Shinichi's eyes narrowed, gaze fixed on the now empty cup in his hands. "Five years ago, a seventeen year old boy recovering from a gunshot wound woke up with no memories of who he was, where he came from, or even why he had been shot. Then a woman appears before him claiming that she's known him all of his life, that she raised him ever since he was a little baby cast out by his parents. She has proof too- manufactured and fake proof, but proof enough to fool someone who is desperately looking for anything to fill in the gap in their memories."

"If anything, it certainly confirms what we've thought all this time. Merlot is a master manipulator." Setting down his teacup, Shinichi closed his eyes, his gaze fixing on the ceiling above him. "Show him some maternal love and affection, act out the role of the worried parent and teacher, and there's no way someone who has no memories wouldn't come to believe that they were someone they once knew and trusted. By the time he realized something was wrong, it was already too late for him to turn back."

"An assassin is still an assassin, Kudo-kun." Hakuba said simply, a frown on his face.

"I'm not making excuses." Shinichi said, shaking his head. "Yes, Paikaru is a murderer. Believe me Hakuba, as much as he might be wearing the face of my best friend, I haven't forgotten this fact, and I'm not ignoring it either. I'm only saying that he's also a victim. We can't afford to view this situation in black and white terms. His entire personality is forged by lies and deceit, and no small amount of pain, as well as whatever little scraps of Hattori's personality that he managed to hold onto even as Merlot tried to train all of that out of him."

"He needs someone he can trust, and someone who trusts him, for a change. He needs to be treated as a human being, and not as a tool." Letting out a deep breath, a clear look of frustration crossed his face. "If only I'd looked for Hattori even harder, Hakuba, we could have saved him from this fate. Whether or not his memories ever return to him, we need to do something for the person that exists in the here and now- I already failed Hattori once, I don't want to fail him again."

"Kudo-kun, you didn't-" Hakuba began, only to be cut off by a sharp look from Shinichi, as he got to his feet again.

"I failed him, Hakuba. I allowed him to take a bullet that was meant for me, and then I couldn't even keep my grip on him. If I had managed to do either of those things, he'd still be with us today as Hattori Heiji, detective of the west and my rival, and not as, as you've mentioned several times now, an internationally wanted assassin that nobody even had the decency to give a real name to." Shinichi said simply, before letting out a breath, letting some tension wash from his shoulders. "Now."

"Do you want to meet him?"

"Aside from the obvious retrograde amnesia, and a slight muscle to nerve response lag in your left arm, you'll be glad to know that you're as healthy as a horse." Ai's voice didn't shift from it's dry tone as she studied the notes of the examination that she had been giving. "With proper treatment, even the scars on your left arm should begin to heal somewhat, I'm sure you'll be thrilled to know."

"Well isn't that great news?" Flashing her a far more business-like smile than the ones he had shown to them earlier in the day, Ai couldn't help but notice that in the presence of the unidentified element that was the Professor, his Osaka-ben had likewise by and large mostly vanished, buried underneath a standard Tokyo dialect, that became clear to the observant listener had been trained into him. Although he sat cross legged on the examination table, hands resting in his lap, he nevertheless had his guard completely up, watching the both of them for any suspicious movements.

The aura of them that he was letting off was almost overpowering- almost as if it were a defense mechanism, in this case, she couldn't help but note. Somehow thinking along those lines made it easier to ignore.

"Ai-kun, a moment, please." Letting the Professor pull her aside, Ai tilted her head, carefully listening to what the man she'd come to view like family had to say. She already knew he'd been thoroughly befuddled by the entire situation- nobody had really bothered to give him a proper explanation yet, so she wasn't quite surprised by this. As much as he'd willingly assisted in the examination, it was obvious that there were many questions he'd wanted to ask her along the way.

"Is that really Hattori-kun?" Agasa asked, whispering into the ear of the girl he'd come to view as his own daughter. Certainly when he'd arrived to pick up Ai and Shinichi earlier in the morning, he'd been more than a little shocked to see the face of someone who had been declared dead five years ago, but the circumstances that had lead up to this were what truly befuddled him the most.

"It is." Ai said simply, not letting Paikaru leave her line of sight for even one moment. "He has no memory of such a thing, however. The test results are more than enough to prove that."

She hadn't been able to determine if restoring his memories was possible through her tests, but she hadn't been able to determine that it was impossible, at the very least. More than likely she suspected that Shinichi was hoping that his memories of being Hattori Heiji would come back to him, but Ai couldn't help but doubt it. It was entirely possible that even if he was exposed to things and people that had been familiar to the person he had been in the past, that he still would never remember anything.

"But if I recall correctly, when Shinichi called me, he told me that we were picking up a member of those guys that he had captured, and that I needed to be on my guard." Agasa whispered.

"That's true as well." Ai said simply. "I suppose an introduction is in order between the two of you. Paikaru!" Almost barking out the codename, the assassin in question startled, more than a little surprised to find such a sharp sounding voice coming out of someone of Ai's stature. Perhaps he shouldn't have been playing around with her medical examination tools- he did have a tendency to get a little fidgety whenever he had nothing else to do and there wasn't a mission at hand. When given nothing else to focus on, it appeared that he had a rather short attention span.

"I've completely forgotten to introduce you to my grandfather here." The placid smile on Ai's face nearly matched the one that Paikaru sent back towards her. "This is my grandfather, Agasa Hiroshi. Grandfather, this is..." Ai paused here, a mild frown appearing on her face. "What do you want me to introduce you as?"

"Paikaru's fine." Waving a hand, that calculated, business-like smile surfaced on his face again. "Like I said, I'm not really all that attached to any of my aliases."

"Well pick one or make one up, you're going to need a fake name eventually." Ai advised him, before turning back towards Agasa, who had been watching the entire exchange without any clue as what to make of it. "He's Paikaru."

"Ai-kun, you surely aren't saying what I think you're saying here?" Agasa asked, and she knew it at once to be a redundant question. He'd seen the clear signs of trauma induced memory loss the same as the shrunken scientist had, and it wasn't hard for him to put two and two together. "Oh dear. I thought there was something off in Shinichi's tone when he told us he would be leaving Osaka early, but I never imagined it would turn out to be something like this. How is he taking it? Something like this can't be easy for him to swallow."

"Fine, all things considered. The fact that Paikaru is- Paikaru, please put that down," Without even turning her full gaze to him, she watched the assassin flinch a little as she caught him having resumed messing around with her examination tools the moment he thought she wasn't paying attention to him again. "Paikaru is more than willing to cooperate with him to help root out the remaining Organization members, Gin included."

Very distinctly hearing Paikaru mumble 'Gin's an asshole' underneath his breath, Ai found herself giving a slight nod of agreement. "In a sense, you could say he's in the same boat as I was, just under far more complicated circumstances." Ai whispered, dropping her voice low so only the Professor could hear her. "So to answer your earlier question, yes, that is Hattori Heiji, and yes, he is an Organization member. He just doesn't remember any of the former, and has only known the latter."

"I see." Agasa couldn't help but frown, studying the young man who the world at large thought had been dead for the past five years. He could only imagine how Shinichi was feeling at the moment- although he wasn't always as honest about it as he should have been, he had always known that he'd valued his rival greatly, and thought of him as a best friend. To have him turn up alive and well but under such awful circumstances- it couldn't have been an easy thing for him to deal with.

Especially as he watched Paikaru catch a sound ahead of the two of them, a different sort of look in his eyes entirely as he snatched up one of the sharper examination tools, a cold gaze fixed towards the stairs- one that only relaxed once he noticed that the person he'd heard coming down them was Shinichi himself. At the appearance of another young man coming downstairs behind him, he tensed up once again, but seemed to set aside the tool for the time being.

"How did the examination go, Haibara?" Shinichi asked, making his way over towards the superficially younger girl.

"She says I'm healthy as a horse!" Paikaru offered, flashing Shinichi a somewhat more genuine grin than he had been giving either Ai or the Professor. The gaze that fell on the newcomer, however, was suspicious and cold, an expression that Heiji as they knew him would have never been capable of making. "Ya gonna introduce me ta Blondie over there?"

The suspicious look that Hakuba had been giving him up to that point briefly gave way to that of surprise- just hearing that he had amnesia was one thing, seeing it at work was another thing entirely. Clearing his throat, he decided to take the liberty of introducing himself. "I am Hakuba Saguru, a detective. I'm a close acquaintance of Kudo-kun's."

"Oh, I've heard of ya!" Grinning from almost ear to ear, the slightest hint of his Osakan accent slipped through. "You're the one who's been on my ass for the past few months, aren't you? I have to tell you, having a follower half as persistent as you was a total pain in the ass. So you know the great detective over here, huh? It's a small world after all, I guess."

"Yes, well," Hakuba quirked a brow, watching the assassin with cautious eyes as he got to his feet. He'd honestly half expected to come next door to find both the Professor and Haibara Ai dead, and Paikaru nowhere in sight- perhaps Shinichi was right in the fact that he should be giving him a little bit more trust. There was possibly more Heiji left in him that he had at first suspected. "I suppose that's the truth of it. Should I call you Paikaru?"

"It's the only name I know." Paikaru said simply, shrugging his shoulders. "Oh? Although judging by that look on your face, detective, it seems like you almost wanted to dispute that for a second there. Oi, Kudo-san, does this guy know this Hattori of yers as well? This old man over here too, come to think of it." He said, his gaze briefly flickering towards Agasa. "He's been looking at me weird ever since the start."

"Yes." Shinichi said after a moment, nodding his head. "They both do. Not as well as I knew him, though."

"I see." Folding his arms in front of his chest, Paikaru closed the distance between himself and Hakuba, carefully looking him over, watching as the half-British detective tensed as he came within striking range. "See, this is more what I thought you'd act like, Kudo-san, all guarded and tense like this. Relax, Blondie, I'm not going to hurt you. Don't tell me I was friends with this stiff too?"

"Not quite." Glancing over towards Hakuba, silently telling him to behave himself, before turning a similar look towards Paikaru, Shinichi cleared his throat. "The two of you never really liked each other all of that much. You had... differing styles when it came to solving a case, to put it one way."

"A case, huh?" Scratching the back of his head, Paikaru's lips curled into something of a frown, before he shrugged his shoulders. The idea that he used to be some kind of detective in the past was nothing short of surreal to him- even if he thought it did explain some things. He couldn't help but wonder what the him of then would have thought of the person he'd ended up becoming- probably not much, and frankly, he wouldn't have blamed him.

Eyes darting over towards Hakuba again, Paikaru narrowed his eyes somewhat. "Oh? You look like you've got something to say to me. You wanna spit it out already?"

"I want to know if your intentions of betraying the Black Organization are genuine, Paikaru." Hakuba stated simply, refusing to so much as take his eyes off of him. He wasn't quite certain what he had been expecting, and it was true that he had done no harm to either Ai or the Professor, but that wasn't quite enough for him to completely trust him. "All of Merlot's other pupils were quite loyal to her."

"Merlot." Clicking his tongue, Paikaru took a step back, watching as Hakuba's guard eased somewhat now that he was no longer in arm's reach. "She used me and manipulated me, and knew full well what she was doing the entire time. I've got no reason to be loyal to her now that she can't reach me anymore. For the first time that I can remember, I'm free of her, and I'm in no damn hurry to go back."

"Course as soon as she notices that I haven't carried out the hit I came here for in the first place, she's going to realize that much herself." Paikaru said, before blinking, realizing the implications of his words. "Speaking of that, I guess I should probably share that information with the two of you. A show of trust, let's call it."

Sensing that Shinichi was having trouble asking the question himself, Hakuba decided to do it for him. "And? Who is it that you've been hired to kill?"

"A female police Inspector." Paikaru told him, shrugging his shoulders. "I don't know the exact reasons, you learn not to ask about those sorts of things after awhile. Her name's-"

"Takagi Miwako?"

Blinking at Shinichi, Paikaru gave a small nod of his head. "Yeah. How did ya know?"

"Because there's only one female police Inspector in these parts who could have possibly gotten such a big target painted on her back." Shinichi heaved a deep sigh, rubbing his forehead. Suddenly he became very glad that they had managed to catch Paikaru's tail when they did- otherwise he didn't doubt that he'd gone through with his job without so much as a second thought.

And that would have made things truly complicated.

"Do you know who it is that wants her dead?" Shinichi asked. "From the sound of it, it doesn't seem to be a job you obtained from within the Organization, at the very least. I doubt that they would have let you come back to Japan on your own."

"Now that ya mention it, Merlot was against the idea." Paikaru frowned, putting a hand to his chin in thought, eyes narrowing a little as he realized now why she had been against him taking on the job at first. "But yer right. As fer who wants her dead, apparently it was someone that she arrested in the past, least that's what I gathered from him over the phone. Didn't give his name, paid up front. Guess technically I've ripped him off now. Should probably drain my bank account before the Organization freezes it."

"And if you don't fulfill your mission, what happens?" Hakuba asked, unable to help noticing the way Paikaru had slipped back into Osaka-ben without realizing it.

"Probably nothing would happen to that Inspector, unless the one who hired me decided ta take it into his own hands." Paikaru told him honestly, before leveling his gaze on him. "The real trouble will come when Merlot herself decides ta come an' investigate the matter- because she will come. I'm her favorite." It was hard to miss the hints of betrayal and anger that were laced into the word- whatever relationship he'd developed with the assassin woman in the past five years, it seemed to be somewhat more complicated than he had at first expected.

"That works out just fine for us." Shinichi said after a moment. "After all, Hakuba here has been wanting to get his hands on Merlot for the past five years, even more so than you. As long as she can't figure out that we have any connection to your disappearance, that leaves us at an advantage. When was the deadline for your mission?"

"In two days." Paikaru told him.

"Good. That means we have time." Nodding his head, Shinichi looked over towards Hakuba, putting a hand on his shoulder. "There's someone I need to go speak with, before we advance this any further."

Catching his drift without even needing him to say the woman's name, Hakuba gave him a short nod. "What should we do about him," he began, his gaze briefly flickering over towards Paikaru. "...in the meantime?"

"Give him the grand tour of my home. Find something to distract him with." Shinichi said simply, cutting off Hakuba before he could protest. "The best place to keep him right now is at my house. As long as he's there, I can make sure he's not getting himself into any trouble."

"I'm right here ya know." Paikaru spoke up, raising a brow. "Just because I only have five years worth of memories doesn't mean I'm five, you two. I don't need ta be babysat."

"I would never imply as such." Shinichi said simply, before a small spark struck in his head. "Say, Paikaru, have you ever heard of the works of Ellery Queen?"

"No." Titling his head to the side, Paikaru blinked at the sudden change of subject. "Who's that?"

With a knowing look on his face that almost made the assassin uneasy, Shinichi simply gave him a smile. "Oh, you'll love them. Trust me."

"It's nice to finally see you again, Kudo-kun."

"Spare me the pleasantries, Vermouth." As he took a seat across from her, only a thick pane of glass separating the two of them, Shinichi kept his tone blunt. "I need to have some words with you."

"Oh?" Raising her brows, Vermouth looked mildly surprised. "I don't believe there's any information about the Organization that I could possibly give you at this point. I've been in here for the past five years, after all."

"It's about the information you must have known and decided not to share with me." Being able to speak with Vermouth in private was one of his few special privileges- and this was definitely conversation he needed to have without a security guard lurking around behind either of them. Although he knew that they were waiting just outside their respective doors, said doors were thick enough so that neither of them could overhear anything the detective and the former actress were saying.

When he'd left Paikaru, he was buried in one of the Ellery Queen novels that Shinichi had pulled for him, reading it with vested interest. It was almost a relief to know that the amnesiac young man had just the same fondness for them that Heiji had. From the intent way he was reading it, however, he could clearly tell that he felt that he was reading the novel in question for the first time. Given the additional stack of other Ellery Queen novels he'd gathered for himself, he was quite assured of the fact that he'd be busy until he came back home.

"And what would that be, pray tell?" Vermouth asked, leaning her chin into her hand, somewhat curious as to what had caused the young man to be in such a short temper today. She was well aware that he didn't like her, but he seemed far more wound up than usual today. Naturally, it was something that struck her as more than a little unusual- he'd always been more of the collected type after all.

"Don't play dumb with me." Shinichi's eyes narrowed, reaching inside his jacket to pull out a single photograph. He'd taken the time to print it out himself, after which he had erased the actual photograph from Hakuba's camera, before handing it back to the man. He didn't believe that his fellow detective would turn Paikaru in behind his back, but he couldn't be too careful. "It's about this."

Sliding the photo closer to her so that she could see it, he watched as a brief look of confusion crossed her features- before a look of understanding dawned across them. With a faint click of her tongue, the American woman leveled her gaze at him. "This is the first I've heard of this myself, I assure you."

She had never really met the young boy captured in the photograph- though he was now a young man, she supposed- but she knew full well who he was, and what had happened to him- up to a point, at least. She also knew full well how deeply losing him had impacted the one in front of her. Closing her eyes and letting out a deep breath, Vermouth gathered herself, preparing for what was doubtlessly going to be an unpleasant conversation.

"I can think of a number of reasons why you might be showing this image to me, Kudo-kun." Vermouth said simply, opening her eyes. "But it appears that what you're seeking from me is not answers."

"I already know the answers." Shinichi said shortly, tapping the photograph. "Did you know he was alive, Vermouth?"

"I had a suspicion." The woman confessed after a moment. "But no confirmation. I didn't want to get your hopes up."

Eyes narrowing at such a kindly sounding reason, Shinichi didn't have to ask to know that it probably was the truth. All told, he never quite figured out what it was that Vermouth thought of him- he knew full well that she treasured Ran, but he never quite understood why she seemed so fond of him to begin with. Heaving an annoyed sigh, he picked up the photograph, once again pocketing it.

"One would think you would be happier to know that he was alive." Vermouth couldn't help but note, though there was something in her eyes that told him she had a suspicion as to why. "And while you do seem somewhat happy, you're also quite angry. Why?"

"Paikaru." Shinichi said simply, for all the world seeming as if he was suddenly changing the topic. But from the look in Vermouth's eyes, he knew that she understood. "You told me that they were a recent pupil of Merlot's, one whom she had taken under her wing not long before we arrested you in the first place, Vermouth."

"Is it not the truth?" Vermouth asked simply, folding her hands in front of her. "I didn't know he was your friend, Kudo-kun."

"But you did suspect." Shinichi said, his tone as cold as his eyes.

"Yes." Vermouth said simply. "I did."

"Why didn't you say anything?" Shinichi asked, resisting the urge to jump to his feet, to slam the table in front of him. He didn't want to draw the attention of the guards waiting outside, didn't want to cut this conversation short. "If you'd told me what you had suspected earlier, then we could have... I could have helped him. I could have brought him home, Vermouth!"

"Because I didn't want to risk losing you just yet." Vermouth confessed simply. "In the state of mind you were in after his death, I was certain that you would have recklessly charged in if you had even the slightest idea that he was alive and in the clutches of one of our members. I didn't want to see you get yourself killed over what was nothing more than a small hunch of mine."

Although Shinichi's eyes narrowed, he at the very least seemed to accept this explanation. That didn't mean he had to like it, however. "You said you had a hunch. Why?"

"From what little I understand of Merlot, they were always looking for new pupils, new students to take underneath their wing." Vermouth began. "Always on the lookout for people with talent and ability wherever they went. I'd heard a whisper of a rumor passed down from that way that your friend had caught their eye at some point. Only that, and nothing more."

She watched, holding her tongue, as a look of understanding dawned across Shinichi's face. As the clear look of guilt surfaced in his eyes, Vermouth closed her own, knowing full well what he was likely thinking. The only way the likes of Hattori Heiji would have come to Merlot's attention in the first place was because Shinichi had involved him with the Organization takedown- in other words, if he'd never included him from the start, then he never would have caught Merlot's eye.

"When I heard that she had taken on a new pupil shortly after your friend vanished, I merely thought it was one possibility." Vermouth told him simply. "But I couldn't have possibly imagined that he would have simply joined her as easily as that. That was the real reason my hunch remained nothing more than a hunch. I didn't think you'd ally yourself with someone who would betray you so easily."

There was a long silence between the two of them then, before Shinichi let out a breath. "He didn't betray me. He lost his memories." He said finally, his voice barely above a whisper. "She used that."

"I see." Locking her gaze with the obviously guilt-ridden detective in front of her, Vermouth couldn't help but wonder what would have happened if she had said something back then. Even armed with such knowledge, it was entirely possible that Merlot and the newly christened Paikaru could have slipped from his grasp- and she didn't even want to think about the mental state he would have been in if something like that had happened. "From the fact that you know he's lost his memories, I take it you've spoken with him."

"Yes." Shinichi said shortly, not willing to divulge any further information to her. "I have."

"It's going to get quite busy for you again very soon, isn't it, great detective?" Vermouth asked.

"Yes." Getting to his feet, a look of determination dashed away the guilt in his eyes. "It will."

"I brought you some food." All but dropping the bag of fast food on Paikaru's stomach, Shinichi watched as he first pulled up the book he was reading to glance at the bag, before finally turning to look up towards the detective. He'd found the assassin stretched out on the floor of the library of his home, head resting on a small pile of other Ellery Queen novels, for all the world looking as if he'd already made himself at home there. As absorbed as he appeared to be in the novel that he was reading, Shinichi didn't miss the slight way he'd stiffened as he had entered the room, indicating that Paikaru wasn't nearly as completely focused on his novel as he looked.

Seeing that Shinichi had returned from his trip to visit Vermouth, Hakuba excused himself from the library. He'd positioned himself at the desk, his gaze fixed on Paikaru, watching him rather intently the entire time. The young man in question had paid him very little attention in return, far more interested in the mystery novels that Shinichi had given him before he'd left.

"Oh, thanks!" Marking the page he was reading, Paikaru closed the book for the moment, plucking the bag of fast food off of his stomach and shifting into a sitting position. "I was just startin' ta get a little bit hungry. Yer a real lifesaver!"

Shinichi couldn't help but scoff at those words. They had been said in jest, he knew full well, but he couldn't help but find it bitterly ironic to be told such a thing. "If I really were some kind of lifesaver, you wouldn't have the name Paikaru."

"Mm." Opening up the bag, Paikaru pulled out the carton of fries, setting it aside, reaching for the burger deeper in the bag. Unwrapping it, he took a bite out of it before he turned his attention towards Shinichi, an assessing look on his face. That too, he thought, was different from the assessing way that Heiji would often size up suspects- it was an expression that had been born out of an entirely different need, after all.

"Ya don't like me, do you?" Paikaru asked, cutting straight to the point. "I can't blame ya. Here ya were, hopin' ta reconnect with the yer dead best friend, an' ya end up with me instead."

"It's not like that." Shinichi said, letting out a deep sigh, grateful that Hakuba had excused himself. Taking a seat across from Paikaru, he watched as the young man before him took another bite out of his burger, suddenly remembering that he probably hadn't had anything to eat since that morning. "You are Hattori, you're just also..."

"Not?" Paikaru finished for him. "Believe me, I understand what yer thinkin' there, Kudo-han. Even if ya tell me that I used ta be some kind of high school detective, honestly, I find it hard to believe." Noticing the slight start in Shinichi's eyes, he gave him a wry grin. "Whoa there, detective. I didn't say I thought ya were lyin' ta me. I wouldn't be hangin' around here still if I thought ya were."

"For what it's worth, I'm sorry." Shinichi said after a moment. "I should have tried harder to find you. I searched every hospital in Japan, and it still wasn't nearly enough." Shaking his head, he narrowed his eyes. "If I'd just found you earlier, maybe circumstances would have been better than this."

Judging from the look of on his face, Paikaru was more than a little taken aback by the sudden apology- and clearly had no idea what to make of it. "Ya shouldn't blame yerself like that, Kudo-han." Shrugging his shoulders finally, he gave him an almost sheepish looking grin. "'Sides, maybe with time, I'll remember more about this Hattori of yers. That's what ya really want, right? More than my help with the Organization, ya want me ta remember."

The silence that hung in the air between the two of them was thick enough to cut with a enough. Although it wasn't spoken aloud, there was a clear underlying implication to his words- that the person that Shinichi wanted here was not Paikaru, but Hattori Heiji. Finally, Shinichi broke the silence himself. "Yes. I do. More than anything."

"Well, that's what I thought." Paikaru said simply. "I'm not like him at all, am I?"

"You're similar." Shinichi said after a moment. "Ellery Queen was his favorite too, for example." Closing his eyes, he shook his head a little. "It's true that I do want you to remember, Paikaru. I want to be able to stop using a codename given to you be an Organization that I despise, and start calling you Hattori again without having to see you look uncomfortable every time I use it. But more importantly than that, I also don't want to see you push yourself to remember, and end up straining yourself."

Opening his eyes again, Shinichi gave him a small smile. "Whatever happens, the fact doesn't change that I'm happy that you're alive, memories or no memories, regardless of what name you're more comfortable with me using. Even if you never remember, I don't intend to throw you out into the cold, so to speak. You're not the same as the Hattori that I knew, but there's no reason as to why I shouldn't put forth some kind of effort to get to know you as you are now."

He had to admit, he hadn't exactly expected Paikaru's reaction to those words would be to turn a faint shade of red, and quickly avert his eyes from him. "S-sorry, that's, um..." Trailing off a little, he gave him a nervous laugh, suddenly apparently finding the ceiling infinitely fascinating judging by the way he centered his gaze on it.

"Positive attention is rare for you, isn't it?" Shinichi couldn't help but observe, quirking a brow as Paikaru gave him the slightest of nods. "Don't really know what to do with it, do you?"

"I've just never really had anyone say anythin' like that ta me before." He admitted, scratching his cheek a little. More or less he found himself being accustomed to being treated something like a tool- whatever positive attention came his way over the past five years was all a part of Merlot's calculated manipulation of him, so he could hardly even compare it to someone telling him that he was actually happy that was alive. "At least, not that I remember."

"If this is how badly you react to me, I'd be amazed if you managed to survive even five minutes with Kazuha." Shinichi couldn't help but note, secretly somewhat interested in this rather unexpected side to the young man before him. If it weren't for the fact that the implications behind him being so bad with any form of positive attention were utterly horrifying, then he'd almost be willing to say that it was actually rather amusing. The Hattori that he had known had always been the type to get carried away with praise, while the young man he was gradually coming to know all over again almost seemed like he'd overheat at the faintest hint of anything nice said to him.

Whatever Hattori had been through to make him like this, it must have been hell.

"Kazuha... she's the one ya mentioned, earlier, right?" Paikaru asked, his hand unconsciously reaching up to touch his omamori again. "A childhood friend, huh. It's kinda hard ta believe I had somethin' like that."

"You did." Nodding his head, Shinichi gave him a small smile. Getting to know Paikaru was certainly proving to be interesting in it's own right- although the added humanity it provided him made it all the more disconcerting when he did display behavior that made it abundantly clear that he was perfectly capable of killing people. Such instincts most likely wouldn't go away even if his memories returned, he grimly thought to himself. "She's the one who made that omamori you've been holding on to all of this time."

"Eh? Is that so?" Blinking, Paikaru glanced down at he omamori in question, carefully holding it in his hand. "I see. That's why it always felt so warm."

Opening his mouth to ask a question that was all but dancing on his lips, Shinichi found himself preemptively cut off by the ringing of his cellphone, the ringtone alone being enough to tell him it was a call from the Tokyo MPD. Wondering what it was that they could want, he answered the phone quickly, getting to his feet and walking away from Paikaru somewhat to speak to the person on the other end of the line.

Finishing his call and hanging up, Shinichi tucked his cellphone away, turning his attention back towards Paikaru, a considering look on his face.

"Say," He began, causing the amnesiac Osakan to look his way. "How do you feel about helping me solve a case?"