Hopefully people still have a vague memory of me on this site. I've been away for so long. I dug this out while organizing files on my laptop and decided to finish it. This is my last DC fanfic. This is my take on what happens between the characters years after the end of DC, which has yet to happen but we all know Gosho isn't granting us a CoAi ending.

Chapter 1

"Illusions commend themselves to us because they save us pain and allow us to enjoy pleasure instead. We must therefore accept it without complaint when they sometimes collide with a bit of reality against which they are dashed to pieces." –Sigmund Freud

Ne…Shinichi, if this is an illusion, please don't let me see reality.

The clock hanging beside the refrigerator reads 6:00 PM. It is just starting to get dark outside. I switch the light on with my elbow, careful not to spill the bowl of batter in my hands. Holding my breath, I arrange spoonfuls of batter onto the buttered pan in careful, perfectly round dollops that is to be tonight's dessert.

With that done, I go to wash my hands, to begin chopping up the vegetables for tonight's meal. My hands shake as I line up the carrots on the chopping block. I try to prevent my anxiety from showing, and keep my thoughts on the tasks at hand, but it's hard not to pay attention to the conversation coming from the next room.

"-Are you calling from the plane then? When… no don't bother, I'll go- no really, it's not out of the way…" I can hear Shinichi arguing with her over the phone as he pace back and forth in the living room. "…No, I insist… It's settled, I'll meet you at the airport then, Shiho."

Shiho is coming back to Beika for the first time since she left for America three years ago. She's back in Japan to speak at a lecture at the University of Tokyo. The university had offered her a five-star suite, but Shinichi and Agasa Hakase had persuaded her to stay the night with us instead.

Shinichi has been different since she finally agreed. Nothing in his routine changed, but I can tell. I can always tell.

It's in the way he seemed more talkative at the dinner table, the way he saved the email she sent him with details of her schedule and kept reopening it as if counting down the days, like a child anticipating Christmastime.

I bite my lower lip and try to steady my shaky hold on the knife. I look down at the perfect squares the carrots have turned into, and felt the corner of my lips turn up in a pained smile. I am so careful today, almost to a point of paranoia. I try to tell myself that it is because there will be a guest at dinner tonight, but deep down… deep down I know that in a silly way, I am trying to prove something. That I take care of him, that we're the perfect, model family…

…That there is nothing, or no one, that can make him happier.

Shinichi has been cheerful ever since he woke up this morning, getting up hours earlier than usual and even making breakfast. He went around the house finding chores to do, like he couldn't sit still. Sonoko would tell me to be happy that he is helping out around the house, unlike Makoto-san, whom she is always complaining about. But how can I feel happy, seeing the joy that seemed to radiate from him because of her?

Then again, shouldn't I be glad for his sake that his best friend is coming to visit?

I know how much he misses her. The first few weeks after she left, he'd still call Agasa Hakase's place whenever a case came up. I know that when he finds a clue and turns around eagerly it's not me he wants to share his findings with. I know he rushes to the computer every day, expectant of another letter from her.

I've read his letters to her. I know I shouldn't have, but curiosity got the better of me, and who can blame me for being curious?

He would describe to her the cases he was on, focusing on the details he knew would interest her. She writes back offering her thoughts, along with accounts of her work with the FBI. They'd recommend books to one another, debate over different views…

There were no words of longing, as if so blatantly uncovering the fact that they miss each other would make it too unbearable.

Sometimes he stares off into space, and I know that during those moments, he's not in here, not in the house we've shared for two years, but in the FBI's lab, puzzling with her the case she's working on, analyzing the suspects from her descriptions.

"Hey," Shinichi greets, putting his cellphone away as he steps into the kitchen. I try to shake myself from my thoughts.

He reaches for the leftover batter in the abandoned bowl; I swat his hand away.

He laughs; arms encircling me from behind, his chin resting on my shoulder. I smile, leaning into the embrace and I almost, almost feel that he's completely here.

"It's starting to snow," He remarks, looking out the window. I glance up to see the lawn dusted with a layer of fresh snow, thin like a sprinkling of powdered sugar.

"You used to scare me with the story of the Snow Witch when we were little, remember?" I ask.

He chuckles. "You were too easily scared."

We stay like this. I lose myself in the rhythm of his breathing, counting the rises and falls of his chest as I work.

He speaks just as I finish preparing the vegetables.

"Ran?"

"Hmm?"

"Where do we keep the spare blankets? I don't know if the blankets in the guest bedroom will be warm enough."

My heart falls. Is that why he brought up snow?

"I'll go get it." I say, finding it hard to keep my smile in place.

"I'll get it, you're busy with dinner." He offers.

"No, you should be getting dressed. Shiho's flight should be coming in soon." I say, wondering if he can sense the flatness of my voice.

He doesn't.