Disclaimer: "Detective Conan" belongs to Gosho Aoyama, and "Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon" belongs to Naoko Takeuchi.

This is an alternative story to my other fanfic "Encounter in Venice" and one of the possibilities of what could have happened if Ai had taken the antidote before Shinichi brought down the Organization.

Thanks a lot to my friends and betas Rae (Astarael00) and SN1987a and the Aicoholics on LiveJournal, without whom I would never have started this fic.

FS

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Ghost at Twilight

(edited version)

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The morning sun…

The morning sun has climbed high above the tree tops of the ginkgo trees in Ichinohashi Park, but the sky is still glowing in a soft, dusky purple hue. Perching on the sofa at the window like Hakuba's peregrine falcon on a high cliff, you silently watch the three Kou brothers as they're doing housework. Taiki-san, whom you've secretly dubbed "Stick" although "Mr Stringy" would have matched him more, is cooped up in the small kitchen among five waist-high vases of roses, preparing ramen for the gyoza with the chilling, detached efficiency of the original Victorian Sherlock Holmes. Seiya, whose speed seems to dwarf Tenoh-san's, has already collected the shards and washed the bloodstained mop and is now scrubbing the floor for the second time while Yaten-san is lounging languidly on the white bench like a mermaid stranded on the beach. Evidently, the oldest Kou brother is not only the most difficult but also the laziest of the three.

All the three brothers are still visibly agitated about their agent's presumptuous attempt to talk them into making their comeback in December instead of July. And you briefly wonder why they're so disproportionately worked up about Shizuka-san's decision before it dawns on you that seven months are a rather long timespan for a musician. Three Lights must be angry about having to slave themselves to death until Christmas (instead of July next year?) to make the extremely tight deadline their inconsiderate agent has set.

The most important (and the only relevant) information which you've extracted from the whole exchange was that your new boyfriend looks irresistible even when he is up in arms and that he respects your relationship enough to talk with you before making a decision which would have a significant impact on his future. Given the circumstances, you wouldn't even have minded if Seiya had decided to return to the stage and the wide screen without consulting you in advance. He and you have just started going out together while the debate over Three Light's comeback has been going on for what must feel like aeons to a long-suffering fan. Even though Seiya and you are now in the obsessive stage of love in which locking yourselves up in his apartment and leaving the bedroom only to fight starvation and dehydration once or twice a day sounds like the ultimate way of life, you're sensible enough to know that one can't shut out the world forever.

Be that as it may, shutting out the world must be a breeze with a man who, to all appearances, has thoroughly mastered the lost art of enjoying a great life while staying a great person. Your stranger may not be the perfectly normal nice man your mind has conjured up when you tried to imagine your ideal husband—but as a boyfriend, he has surpassed all your expectations and amazed you more than once by granting your wishes even before you yourself knew them. Of course he must have hidden vices and annoying quirks just like anyone else—dropping damp clothes into the laundry basket or forgetting to switch off the light in the bathroom after leaving it, for instance, can become a motive for murder in the long run. In many aspects, Seiya also reminds you of Tenoh-san with his abnormal speed and his cavalier attitude to social norms while you have none of Kaioh-san's limitless patience and tolerance. But having to cope with love's inevitable challenges is nothing compared to what you had to go through with Gin—the hell when two people with radically different principles, code of ethics, and moral values were suddenly faced with the reality that attraction and romance could only last for so long whereas the Herculean task of negotiating who was going to do the laundry and who was going to do the washing up would never end.

On Pandora's Box (the ship), after pocketing the remote control for Pandora's Box (the laptop), you calmly stepped back and aimed the Browning in your hand at your enemy's head, ready to fire the two bullets which had missed their target again. Pushed beyond endurance, you couldn't care less about the consequences as long as you didn't endanger your allies for your revenge. You could take care of the activated Pandora's Box later, having over two hours left before the countdown ended. Hattori and Kudo might suspect you of cracking up and shooting your "ex-husband" in your fury, but they wouldn't ever go as far as searching you for incriminating evidence.

To your annoyance, your recalcitrant husband chose the same moment to swallow the poison and instantly relaxed, giving you a lovely smile you had seldom seen on his face while you were together. Intrigued, you squatted down beside him and shuddered when he grabbed your hand, running his bony fingers along your knuckles and wrist with the searching, ghostly touch of a dying man. You had been prepared for a gory spectacle of bullet-ridden limbs and wounds gushing blood but definitely not for the disquieting side effects of your painless, undetectable drug, which hadn't only relaxed Gin's muscles and smoothed out the lines between his brows but also wiped out his hatred and resentment before it sedated him. Without his usual smirks and scowls, he looked peaceful, almost kind. Watching him fade away, it was impossible not to be reminded of better times—when he was still the epitome of beauty in your eyes. And you discovered in horror that you could still hear his husky, reassuring voice at your ear and smell the fragrance of kinmokusei in his hair as he gave you the key for Pandora's Box and told you to forget about the incident with the red-haired girl.

The first night together, despite the pain and the sense of loss, was far more pleasant than the last night, when boredom and irritation accompanied you into your sleep even though he had made an effort to be gentle. But there had been many other enjoyable days and nights in between, which your mind had chosen to blot out after Akemi-nee-san's death—endless hours of laughter and delight when Gin and Sherry were roaming the streets of Osaka and Kyoto or strolling along salty beaches together. You had buried his legs in the sun-warmed sand and covered his hair with layers of fresh snow until he snapped, massaged his stiff neck and shoulders on the hotel bed while he told you particularly mean and embarrassing anecdotes about the Organization's highest members, and made love to him on the damp grass and on the dew-covered moss in various forests without caring about your best dresses and your health, all of which were ruined by the sharp twigs and pebbles and the ubiquitous dirt and the cold air. Looking back, you couldn't even tell when all those things ceased to matter in the equation and only assumed the importance of water drops in the desert—too little to revive illusions and hope and just enough to make the thirst feel unbearable.

Seconds later, when Kudo returned to the scene, he was greeted by the sight of you holding Gin's hand and checking Gin's pulse with streams of tears running down your cheeks, looking the very image of the tragic, grieving lover. In view of this heartbreaking sight, it was no wonder that not the slightest doubt of your innocence would enter his mind. Since Hattori and Kudo had to fish you out of the sea after you were washed aboard and the ship exploded at the scheduled time before they could return to secure Gin's corpse, they carefully omitted the presence of "the second crow" from all their reports. To the few people they trusted whose minds were too sharp to be fooled like Hakuba and Akai, you had only shot Gin in self-defense and suffered a mental breakdown after he died.

On recovering from your pneumonia, you were excused from all formalities and interrogations and covered from all sides by a well-meaning, protective veil of white lies. Thanks to Meioh-san's Night Baron copy, which Tenoh-san had sent to Gin's mail addresses and which had erased all the data on his phones and laptops soon after it was opened, no trace of your trap remained. From time to time, you wonder what Kudo would have thought if he had found your message and what went through Gin's mind when he took the bait and opened the door to the log cabin. It's impossible for you to ask either man, as your "ex-husband" is dead and you can't tell your detective the truth, but you can always imagine…

We both know that you can never kill me—but I can give you the formula to the Silver Bullet. In return for the ideal drug, which reverts all victims to the size and the mental age of a toddler without endangering their lives, I want you to erase my files in Pandora's Box and return to me my savings from the time I worked for the Organization.

I'm going to bring you an inferior version of my drug, which I'm going to alter for you after making sure that you're not trying to trap me. As you can tell, I've met someone I like and grown tired of this nomadic lifestyle. If Anokata and the seven crows agree to grant me freedom and amnesty, I'm going to support the Organization for a last time before leaving "the family".

Let's put aside old grudges and meet up for a last reunion before we go our separate ways. I'm going to tell you the time and the place in three days—after you've had enough time to ponder my proposal.

Poor naive little Sherry, who had become extremely foolish and careless after falling in love! But she had always been so hardworking and (at least academically) so brilliant despite her inability to deal with reality and the pragmatic aspects of life that Gin couldn't dismiss the possibility that she successfully completed the Silver Bullet for the Organization. If truth be told, he was looking forward to seeing her face again, which had become blurred in his memory during her absence. He must admit he was curious about her new man as well—the impetuous crook who had dared to shoot the tranquilizer needle at Gin on the rooftop of Haido City Hotel and who had helped her flee from Gin every time they met. From the look of things, the wanton woman was still infatuated with the guy after three years on the run, overlooking the obvious truth that it was only the thrill and the danger which had lengthened the dizzying first stage of love in which a couple would ignore all the red flags, shut their eyes to each other's vices, and move mountains to bridge their differences. Should he give them both a slow, painful death after taking the Silver Bullet from her, or should he let them go in peace to figure out by themselves that romance, however true and intense, would never last?

For in love, there was never a happy end. One day, she would suddenly push the mop towards him and declare that she couldn't take it anymore, that their life together was a never-ending torture, which she could no longer endure, and that he had to change radically if he didn't want her to leave whereas just the day before, she had treated his wounds and cooked for him and scrubbed their apartment without complaint, danced with him for hours in his favourite jazz club until her heels broke, shared a bath and a bottle of wine with him and even watched the samurai movie he liked so much, and let him push her down onto their heated parquet floor and make love to her for almost an hour until they fell asleep and she had to wake him up at dawn to drag him into bed with her. The following morning, when he woke up with a migraine, in a terrible mood because he had to meet up with this nutcase of a professor and then execute a traitor in a train, she had already cleaned the bathroom and prepared them breakfast. After she made the bed and aired out the apartment and did the dishes and got dressed while he was watching her from the armchair with silent approval, he drove her to her lab and kissed her passionately, lovingly, in the car before they parted. Who would have thought that it was the beginning of the end when she turned round for the last time to run her fingers through his long hair and tell him to stay safe? Take care of yourself for me—I love you so much, she had said.

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