[fic update] Piano Man Memory 06: Turn and Face the Stranger
[read at website // ff.net // objection!]
[to read from livejournal, use cuts below]
Title: Piano Man
Author:trenchkamen (via ms_asylum fic-journal)
Fandom: Gyakuten Saiban / Ace Attorney
Genre: General, romance, memory, songfic
Pairings: Phoenix/Edgeworth (throughout), Mia/Diego (this chapter)
Warnings: EPIC GS4 spoilers in this chapter.
Spoilers: Entire Gyakuten Saiban series, including Apollo Justice (big time)
Summary: Entry for "Who's the Hobo?" contest at narumitsu. Phoenix Wright and Miles Edgeworth have finally been able to settle down together, and both have gained tenured professorship at Ivy University. Despite re-gaining his Bar, the need to play memories on the piano has been engraved in Phoenix's psyche.
This chapter: Miles remains injured in the hospital while Phoenix is tried for the murder of Shadi Smith.
Memory 06: Turn and Face the Stranger
April 17, 4:32 AM
Hickfield Clinic
Room 240
Edgeworth was sore when he woke up. Despite taking preemptive steroids the swelling around his wounds was still pretty bad, and almost every surface of his body was bruised. He groaned and closed his eyes again, trying to will his body back asleep, but now that he was awake the pain was keeping him up.
“You okay, Mr. Edgeworth?”
Edgeworth started-hissing with the pain that came with tensing his muscles so suddenly-and gingerly turned his head to face the chair by his bed. Maggey Byrde-Gumshoe, whatever she went by now-was watching him in concern. Her eyes widened.
“Wow, you really are all beat up.”
Edgeworth didn’t reply. Blinked, mind swimming up. He glanced at the digital clock beside his bed. Glanced back at Maggey.
“I mean-I didn’t mean no offence, sir. I hope you’re not mad I scared you. Do you need any water or anything?”
Edgeworth’s tongue finally caught up with his brain. “What the hell are you doing here?”
Maggey saluted. “Sir, we were told to keep you from doing anything stupid, especially since you need your rest right now.”
“…what the hell are you talking about?”
“Mr. Wright told us to stay with you, sir.”
“Mr… what?” Edgeworth leaned forward a little. “Why? He hasn’t gotten himself thrown in prison or something, has he?”
Maggey did not respond, though she twitched, firming her jaw, still saluting. Edgeworth sat up, ignoring the screaming pain in his abdomen, and leaned forward, glowering.
“Has he?”
He knew he was damn good at glaring. He knew he probably looked that much more terrifying with his nose splinted and his face stitched together and ugly mottled shades of bruise. Maggey’s hand wavered slightly, though she kept staring over Edgeworth’s head.
“Sir, you need to stay in bed.”
“Is he okay?”
Maggey dropped her salute and sighed, clutching her arm and staring sidelong at the floor.
“He’s… well…” Her eyes flickered up to Edgeworth. “Yeah, I guess.”
“Damn it, woman; tell me what he’s done to himself right now or I swear to God…”
“You swear to God what, sir?”
He settled for just glaring at her with all the strength he could muster and hoped she got the general idea. It’s a rhetorical statement; I don’t need your maudlin faux-innocent banter right now.
Maggey sighed again.
“He’s fine. He’s just being held at the detention center as a murder suspect.”
“Oh, that’s all, huh?”
Maggey crossed her arms. “Well, at least he’s not hurt!”
“What happened?”
“I don’t know myself. I ran into him at the police station since I was catching up on some paperwork, and he told me to come down here and make sure you don’t hurt yourself doing something stupid. He said you would if you weren’t stopped.”
“You don’t know any details about the case? Victim, evidence, prosecutor, defense, bloody anything?”
“I’m afraid not, sir.” She paused, seeing clearly what Edgeworth was saying. “You can’t prosecute him, sir. They won’t let you prosecute your husband, and you’re too hurt to even stand right now.”
“What about defending him? God, the idiot’s not going to try to defend himself, is he?”
“No idea, sir.”
“Does he already have an attorney?”
“I don’t know. Maybe Mr. Gavin, since they’re such good friends and all.”
Ice drove into the pit of Edgeworth’s stomach. He bit back bile.
“He wouldn’t be that stupid.”
Maggey did not respond. He sat up gingerly, raising his gauze-bound hand to brush his hair out of his face-and his hand was halted, snapped by a tether. The pain shot up his arm, jarred the elbow he had dislocated agonizingly. He bit back a moan of pain, vision going out momentarily, and tugged the other arm gently. His vision cleared. Both wrists were cuffed to the bed in cushiony, medical-plush restraints. They were soft, but the straps held firm. He very slowly arced his good leg across the bed until another strap halted it. He slid it back. For all that he was fuzzy with morphine, it did not take long for the implication to hit.
“What the hell is this?”
“I’m real sorry, sir.” Maggey saluted again. Edgeworth wanted to smack her hand down. “When Dr. Mask came by we told her what had happened, and she put you in those restraints. She says you absolutely can’t stand up right now. Your leg won’t take your body’s weight yet.” Maggey lowered her hand. “She said we should take them off once we’ve made you promise you won’t go off and do something crazy.”
“And what would you do if I did?”
Maggey set her jaw. “I’d have to stop you, sir.”
Edgeworth seethed. Maggey had her hands on her hips, right hand comfortably close to her gun. He knew Maggey would never shoot him no matter what he did, but he also knew no matter what happened, he could never bring himself to risk hurting Maggey. If only it were Gumshoe; Edgeworth would have no qualms about knocking out that ham-handed lug, but grappling with a pregnant woman, even one well-trained in combat, was out of the question. And Phoenix knew that. Bastard.
“Mr. Wright doesn’t want you to hurt yourself or worry, sir.” Her voice had softened. “He told me that he has everything under control.”
Edgeworth sighed and rested back onto his pillows, closing his eyes.
“Where’s your kid, anyway?”
Maggey huffed. “He could be with my husband.”
“He’s not. Detective Gumshoe is here. You kept saying ‘we’ were here to watch me, and you two tend to travel as a set.”
Maggey watched him warily for a moment, gauging his sincerity. “We called in a favor from Officer Meekins. He’s watching him for us.”
Edgeworth cracked his eyes and stared sidelong at Maggey. He found himself wondering, not for the first time, if he was obligated to call Child Protective Services on these idiots.
“Meekins. Really.”
“He’s great with kids, sir. He’ll make a great daddy someday.”
The door opened, flooding the dark room with halogen light from the hallway. Gumshoe slid in and closed the door behind him, then sat down beside Maggey and handed her what looked to Edgeworth like an ice cream bar box. She thanked him quietly and sat down, tearing into it. Gumshoe tore open a bag of crisps, over-pulling and scattering crumbs all over the place. He looked around guiltily, then held the open bag in Edgeworth’s direction.
“Hi, sir. You hungry?”
Edgeworth glared at him until he withdrew meekly. The bag rustled. Munching. It was hard to see in the dark without glasses.
“Please don’t be mad at us, sir,” he said around munches. Edgeworth wanted to smack him and ask if he was raised in a barn.
Edgeworth made a vague dismissive noise and raised his hands to rub his temples, only to have them halted by the tethers at half-height. He sighed and dropped them.
“You can take me out of these damn things. I promise I’m not going to go anywhere. I can’t. The doctor is right; my leg would snap if I tried to stand on it now.”
“That’s the spirit, sir.”
Gumshoe set his chips down next to Maggey, the latter of whom immediately seized upon them as Gumshoe removed Edgeworth’s restraints with a loud rip of Velcro. Edgeworth sighed and dropped back into the pillows. If not for the morphine he was sure he would have a massive headache coming on. Also if not for the morphine he knew he would be even more manic and wound-up than he was, but also because of the morphine, he was less inclined to let his self-awareness of the drop in his own vigilance bother him.
“Detective, you should be sleeping right now this late in your pregnancy.”
“I’m not made of glass!”
“Hypocritical of you to come here and keep vigil to make sure I don’t hurt myself. I am not made of glass either.”
“With all due respect, sir, I can still walk.”
She had mumbled that around a mouthful of crisps. Gumshoe was watching the bag in her lap with dejected longing, but let it go after a moment and turned back to Edgeworth.
“Has Mr. Wright called you yet, sir?”
“No. The first news I got of any of this was from your wife.” Edgeworth covered his eyes lightly with his bandaged hand, a vague mimic of running his fingers over his eyes. “I assume he would use his phone call on an attorney, since I apparently can’t go to court.”
“Maybe, sir. It’s against the law to put the call log up on the server, so you won’t know unless you ask him.”
The server.
“Detective, my laptop is sitting on that rolling table against the wall. Roll that table over the bed. Make sure it is plugged in.”
Maggey and Gumshoe paused. “Which one of us?”
“Either. I don’t care.”
“It’s not going to be up there, sir,” said Maggey as Gumshoe stood and wheeled the table over Edgeworth’s thighs. Edgeworth pushed himself up slowly.
“I know that.”
Edgeworth loathed having his hands out of commission like this. The gauze binding his fingers together in mittens made it damn near impossible to catch the lip of the laptop’s cover and push it open. He awkwardly pressed the ‘on’ button, and the computer came out of standby. This was where it got tedious. Maybe it was because he had been raised using a keyboard, but he much preferred just to type.
“Voice recognition on.” A minimalist icon of a talking head, side-on like Pac-Man with arcs coming out of its mouth, lit up under the screen. “Login to Miles Edgeworth. Open Firefox browser. Open prosecutor’s office website. Login to secure server.”
The computer flashed through his commands as he spoke them. It automatically filled out the stored password, acting on recognition of Edgeworth’s voice, and logged him into the server. A schedule of this week’s trials was listed in a side-panel. He looked through them, and his stomach dropped when he saw the name on the screen. This was real. He could not deny that anymore.
“Click link ‘State V-period-space Wright’. No… ‘Wright.’ W-R-I-yes, that one.”
He swore under his breath when the data pulled up. Not much of it was on there, and the main body of the page read ‘More information forthcoming’. The left sidebar was filled out. Defendant: Wright, Phoenix. Crime: Second-degree murder. Victim: Smith, Shadi, whoever the hell that was. Phoenix must have just been at the wrong place at the wrong time again. That’s what he gets for placing himself in the underbelly of society on a nightly basis. Location/Time: Courtroom No. 2, Los Angeles District Court, 10:00 AM, Monday, 20 April 2026. Prosecutor: Payne, Winston. Defense: Gavin Law Offices.”
“Well, look at that.” Edgeworth forgot that Gumshoe had been hovering over his shoulder. “He did call Mr. Gavin for help after all.”
“Shut up.”
Edgeworth rested his forehead gingerly in his gauzed hand. Maybe that headache was going to force its way through the morphine after all.
Wright, you idiot. What the hell are you playing at?
“Where’s Trucy?”
“I… I don’t know, sir,” said Maggey. “She wasn’t at the police station. I don’t know if she even knows what happened yet.”.
Edgeworth fished his phone off his bedside table and hit ‘on’, told the phone to dial Trucy. It went straight to voicemail.
“Hey, you’ve reached Trucy Wright!” The recording was obnoxiously chirpy. “I’m sorry I’m not here right now, but if you leave a message, I’ll get back to you as soon as possible! Thanks!” Beep.
“Trucy, it’s Papa Miles. I need you to call me back as soon as you get this. I don’t care what time it is.”
He hung up and sighed heavily, closing his eyes. He desperately needed to talk to Phoenix. He had a vague idea of why he was trying to pull this-he would only request Gavin’s defense if it could result in entrapment, and he would not knowingly put himself at risk needlessly. Knowingly. Phoenix was smarter than he acted sometimes, but he had a tendency to jump into things and hammer out the details as he went along. God knows it had burned him before, for all that he usually managed to pull something brilliant out of his arse at the last moment. And the casual observer underestimated the sway his emotions had over him-especially now that he had mastered the art of appearing apathetic. They could goad him into running full-tilt into oncoming traffic if he thought it was a good idea at the time.
Miles kept telling himself that had he not been hospitalized, Phoenix would let him in on this. This was not the time to act bitchy and scorned. Phoenix could also be secretive when he knew Miles would only disapprove and tear his ideas to pieces; he had made up his mind and did not want to be confused by the facts, or he had made some insane intuitive leap Miles was loathe to admit was, more often than not, right. He half-suspected Phoenix had been up to something ever since he had landed in the hospital; Phoenix had been distant and pensive, unusually quiet. Miles knew it was not at all personally directed at him-Phoenix’s warmth and affection had not waned in the slightest-and he wondered when Phoenix was going to let him in on whatever the hell he was mulling over. Hell, it would be bloody hypocritical of him not to, after paying so much lip service to having no secrets and trusting each other.
“First and foremost, you’re my best friend. Nothing’s ever going to change that.”
“Mr. Edgeworth? Are you okay?”
I still don't know what I was waiting for
And my time was running wild
A million dead-end streets
Every time I thought I'd got it made
It seemed the taste was not so sweet
“…yes.” Miles opened his eyes. “I’m fine.”
His phone rang. He grabbed it up awkwardly, expecting to see Trucy on his caller ID, but was just as glad to see it was the Detention Center. He took a deep breath and pressed the ‘answer’ button.
“You insane bastard! What the hell do you think you’re playing at?”
“Hi, honey!” Phoenix sounded far, far too happy for a man who was being held on suspicion of murder. “Guess where I am.”
“Have you lost your mind?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You know God damn well what I’m talking about! Gavin? GAVIN?”
“What about Kristoph?”
That faux-innocence wasn’t fooling anybody. Miles almost found it insulting and desperately wanted to say so, but the rational side of his brain knew that they could not talk openly about this over the Detention Center line. For all that this was supposed to be a confidential call, he knew damn well it was not. He had used recordings of such calls in cases many times before. He half-considered demanding that Gumshoe wheel him out of the hospital and give him a ride to the Detention Center right now, but even there their conversation was not guaranteed private.
“Honey, you there?”
“Cut the ‘honey’ bullshit. Of all the times for you to pull an insane stunt like this, it has to be when I’m laid up here in the hospital.”
“I think you need to have your morphine drip increased. You sound tense.”
Had Miles less self-control, he would have punched something.
“Phoenix.” His voice was dangerously quiet. “You have to tell me what’s going on. This is-this is madness.” He heard Phoenix take a breath. “Don’t you say it.”
“This is Sparta?”
Miles wished the Detention Center had sprung the money to install the video uplink. He wished the force of his glare could penetrate the phone. Phoenix laughed as though sensing his reaction.
“This isn’t funny.”
“I don’t know why you’re acting like I planned this to happen tonight. This whole mess was just Godawful timing. I also don’t know why you assume Kristoph is handling my defense.”
“The website lists Gavin Law Offices-”
Miles stopped cold. He could almost feel that smug bastard’s satisfaction across the airwaves.
“…the kid. You’re having that apprentice of his handle your defense. Justice.”
“He’s not an apprentice anymore. Monday he’s a full-fledged attorney.”
“This is his first trial?”
“We’ve all got to start somewhere.”
“Phoenix, this is insane. He’s a kid. One of those vocational-school lawyers. Do you think you can manipulate him from the defendant’s stand or something? Run this whole thing yourself? Gavin won’t allow it.”
“He’s not just a kid, Miles.”
“What, has he got magical powers or something? Do you think that he’s some sort of incorruptible martyr who will risk everything in the name of Truth and Justice? Going up against Gavin will cost him his job, at the very least. The kid won’t do it. He can’t do it, not this early into his career. Besides, you know damn well he won’t suspect his mentor unless you put that idea into his head. He’s too trusting. Gavin’s too charismatic.” He paused. “God, you do want to run this show, don’t you?”
Phoenix did not reply.
Edgeworth continued, “I know he seems earnest, but honestly, after Engarde you’d think that whole ‘fresh as a spring breeze’ persona wouldn’t fool you anymore.”
So I turned myself to face me
But I've never caught a glimpse
Of how the others must see the faker
I'm much too fast to take that test
Miles knew Phoenix was staring, eyes hardened with cynicism and fatigue over the past seven years. He continued anyway.
“You can’t do this. You’d take an innocent kid down in flames with you if this fails. You might not rise out of the ashes this time. Don’t blow this. This isn’t the time to reveal our hand.”
“The Demon Prosecutor worried about one innocent life ruined in the quest for Greater Justice?”
“Wright…”
It was below the belt. They both knew it. It was in the past, and there they swore it would stay; it was a topic never to be used as ammunition. They had reconciled Edgeworth’s past behavior many times over, his rationale and logic and pathology, and Phoenix had understood that ultimately Miles did what he thought was right at the time-and that is all anybody can ever do. But, they both knew it still hurt. Edgeworth’s grip tightened on the phone; blood seeped through his gauze.
“I’m sorry, Miles.” Phoenix’s voice was quiet. “That was unfair.”
Edgeworth did not reply, tongue sandpaper-dry. He knew anything he said would be an acidic insult, an attempt to take an eye for an eye, but there was no point in escalating this.
“I won’t let the kid fall,” Phoenix continued. “If the worst-case scenario occurs I know I can bail him out.”
The pain in Edgeworth’s hand grounded him, kept his mind sharp and focused. Phoenix sighed.
“Trust me.” Phoenix’s voice had gotten quiet. “Please. You’ve got to trust me. I promise I know what I’m doing. This is my chance. It may be the only one I ever get to make things right.”
Blood bloomed through the gauze.
“Miles. I’m sorry. I really shouldn’t have said that. I’m so sorry.”
There was a long silence. Finally, Miles took a deep breath.
“Fine. But you have to promise that if you screw this up, I get to handle your appeal.”
-----------------------------------------
Edgeworth tried to remember the last time he had felt this helpless.
The past two days had been slow torture. He was still too-soon post-op to go to the detention center, Phoenix’s cell phone had of course been confiscated, and his phone call had already been used up. Maya and Pearl had reluctantly returned to Kurain before Phoenix was jailed, ordering Miles to get plenty of rest, and Miles could not bring himself to call them and worry them sick with Phoenix’s theatrics when they had work to catch up on. He would contact them if things went to hell. He found himself succumbing to the desire to sleep hours at a time, hoping it would help the time pass.
He had always been a man who was content keeping his own company. Loneliness was familiar to him; he had never fraternized with co-workers or schoolmates, even in university. In the past this loneliness only occasionally got to him; even after he and Phoenix had started ‘dating’, he guessed you’d call it, or become boyfriends or whatever, and when he had still been in Europe, he had accustomed himself to his physical absence, painful though it was. Now that he was accustomed to Phoenix’s constant company, he felt a gaping hole by the side of his bed where Phoenix’s chair should have been. Despite occupying his waking hours with reading, digging through any new developments on Wright’s case on the district court’s server, and watching downloads of old Steel Samurai episodes, those two days dragged like hell.
He knew Phoenix was all right. He was probably bored and lonely stuck in the Detention Center, picking through the paltry library of used books provided to prisoners and watching nonstop CNN drivel in the common room, but Miles had sensed no emotional distress when they had last talked. He hoped that confident resolution and the calm inherent therein would sustain Phoenix until the trial. He knew none of the criminals Phoenix had helped put away were at that Detention Center-they were all in the State Prison if they had not already been executed-so he at least did not have to worry about Phoenix getting skived in the shower or something.
He wondered if Phoenix missed him, and was thinking about him too.
Trucy finally came back on the radar the morning after the murder. She had shown up in Miles’ hospital room with a red leather rose she had soaked in some sort of healing oil, and had insisted on anointing various aspects of his hospital room-doorframe, bedframe, windowframe, etc-with a rag soaked in “Fiery Wall of Protection” or something like that. She said it would help protect him from directed malice and further attacks against his person. It smelled lovely, and it would make her feel better, so he let her go nuts, and for once did not ask her how she could so easily succumb to magical thinking when she herself, by trade, took advantage of the magical thinking of others. Those arguments never ended productively for anybody.
He remembered with a pang of guilt that Monday was the full moon, and he had promised Trucy he would finally drive her down to Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab, as he had not been able to make it for some months now. She had a venerable collection she had built up over the years and made a hobby out of designating scents that ‘suited’ him or Phoenix-many of which, Miles had to admit, did make handsome colognes, a few of which he had gotten for himself. While at the store she liked to shove scent mixes under his and Phoenix’s noses and chirp-loudly, to everybody within earshot-that they had various oils for igniting sexual passion and refreshing the euphoria of newfound love for couples who had been together for years. Miles had a painful memory of Trucy bouncing up to them holding out a bottle and saying “Look! This one is for gay couples!” which had Phoenix laughing and Miles trying to hide his embarrassment with a scowl.
“You’re going to school on Monday.”
Trucy settled back down on her feet from standing on tiptoe to anoint the doorframe as far up as she could reach and crossed her arms, rag dangling from one hand. She had been rambling about how she hadn’t seen the courthouse in quite a while, and wondered if it had changed at all since the last time she was down there, when Edgeworth had spoken.
“No, I’m not.”
“Yes, you are.”
“No, I’m not.”
“Phoenix would agree with me.”
“No, he wouldn’t.”
“Really? Why not?”
“He has a mission for me.”
“Really.” Miles fought to keep the interest out of his voice. “What mission might this be, missy?”
Trucy held her finger up to her lips and smirked. “It’s a secret.”
“Uh-huh.” Miles desperately wished he could cross his arms without his dislocated elbow screaming in agony. He settled for glaring. “Talk.”
“That would ruin the surprise on Monday. You’re going to watch the show, aren’t you?”
“Yes.” Miles lowered his head slightly, still glowering. “I see ‘Daddy’ has instilled in you a disturbing tendency toward approaching serious matters with a theatrical flair.”
“I already had that.”
“Right. The Amazing Mr. Hat trick. Oh no-”
Trucy’s cape was already fluttering out to the side as Mr. Hat unfurled; she jumped slightly, and he scooped her hat onto his head.
“Do you have a problem with me, Papa Miles?”
Mr. Hat spoke with an exaggeratedly-deep version of Trucy’s voice, though Trucy’s lips did not move at all. Edgeworth had to admit in spite of himself her ventriloquism was impressive.
“Are you even old enough to remember South Park?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. Trucy’s daddy named me. Her… real daddy.”
Mr. Hat stopped moving, and Trucy slackened the elbow she was using to control him. He slouched slightly. Miles felt like kicking himself in the balls.
“Trucy.” His voice was quiet. “You were at Borsht Bowl on the night of the murder. What did you see? What do you know?”
“I actually wasn’t,” Trucy said in her own voice. She pulled Mr. Hat back into her cape.
“Trucy, come on. You can talk to me.”
“I’m telling the truth.”
“Are you ever around when he eats dinner with Kristoph Gavin?”
“…now that you mention it, no.” She twisted her toe on the ground. “Daddy only calls me in when he’s going to play a really hard opponent. He can usually manage on his own. I was at the Wonder Bar all night.”
“So his opponent wasn’t a very good player?”
“Not necessarily. I mean, he’s really good at reading people-really good-but he’s not as good as me. He wouldn’t take on the guy if he wasn’t sure he could win. He’d risk wrecking his perfect win record. Then we’d be out a job.”
“You mean he’d have to get a real job and you’d have to go to bed at a decent hour and focus on your studies like any normal ninth grader.”
Trucy scowled at him. “In the first place, I don’t need formal schooling. I’m learning my real trade outside school. School teaches me nothing. I already know how to read and think and do basic math; I don’t need all this other bullshit they teach us.”
“Must you be so vulgar?”
“If I need to know it, I can teach myself. Otherwise, school is a waste of time.”
“While I have to agree with you that American high schools are a waste of time and little more than holding pins for hooligans, you still need to graduate.”
Trucy rolled her eyes. “Yeah, whatever. In the second place, who are you to judge what a ‘real job’ is? Who is society to judge?”
Miles sighed. He should have known by now that trying to convince a rebellious teenager that playing piano and playing poker is not a ‘real job’ because it’s just not was impossible, but he kept coming back to this argument in the vain hope that maybe this time Trucy would understand.
He could not control Phoenix’s actions. That had taken him damn near thirty-three years to learn, and he still had trouble with that concept. But damned if he was going to let his daughter follow the same path, or make these decisions while she was too young to fully understand the consequences. At no point in her life had she had a conventional upbringing-first a circus family, then a man trying to come to terms with being screwed by The System by rejecting it and taking his daughter along that path with him.
Unfortunately, because of that upbringing she had seen that it was possible to succeed, but in seeing that possibility she was blinded to the very real chance that she could screw her life up. She had not heard any of the regrets the adults in her life had regarding their life choices. She had no realistic picture of what it meant to live off the beaten path. She had always been at the receiving end of adults’ exaltations of the road less traveled, probably while they were trying to convince themselves as much as convince her, trying to feed off her youthful optimism to give themselves courage to continue.
“Trucy, I’m going insane here. Please tell me what fool thing your father has you doing now. He couldn’t speak freely over the phone from the Detention Center.”
Not for the first time, Miles wished he had that magatama back for just a moment. He had the feeling Trucy would be crawling with Psycho Locks or whatever the hell they were called.
“…I can’t tell you.” Trucy looked at the ground awkwardly. “He said you’d get real mad if you found out.”
Oh, sure. That’s supposed to get me off the chase.
“Trucy Alice Wright, you tell me what your father told you to do right now.”
“He told me to make up an ace of spades with a drop of blood on it because Gavin stole it from the crime scene and if he can present it in court Mr. Gavin won’t be able to object and say it’s fake because if he knows it’s fake that it means he’s the murderer.”
It had come out in a rush. Trucy blushed, realizing what she had just spilled, and stared at the ground, twisting her toe. Edgeworth’s tongue felt dry.
“He’s asking you to forge evidence?”
Trucy looked up and clenched her fists. “It isn’t like that!”
“Really? How is it not like that? Because that’s exactly what it sounds like to me.”
“He knew you’d react like this! That’s why he didn’t want to tell you!”
“Of course I’m going to react like this!”
“That’s not fair! Daddy said you’ve done something like this before because you knew it was the right thing to do, even though it was against the rules!”
“Trucy…”
“He said it’s all right because it’ll only work if Mr. Gavin is the killer, and if he’s not, nothing’s going to come out of it.”
“That’s…” Edgeworth gently massaged his temples. “…yes, that may be what he thinks will happen, but he should know damn well by now that evidence can have implications nobody foresaw in the beginning.”
“I know he won’t let that happen.”
“And what if his attorney does let it happen, huh? He may not be as in control of the whole situation as he thinks he is.”
“He does. Mr. Gavin is the real killer. He… he has evidence that he is. Just not concrete. It’s something Mr. Gavin said, he said. He has to trap Mr. Gavin into slipping it up in court. That’s all this is.” Trucy paused, quailing under Miles’ glare. “He said it’s a backup. He said he can’t take any chances of Gavin getting away. He said sometimes, you have to get yourself dirty so good people don’t have to.”
Miles arched his eyebrow. “Uncharacteristically elegant of him.”
“Well, it’s like…” Trucy thought for a moment. “You remember The Dark Knight, don’t you?”
“The Batman movie? Yes.”
“Well, you remember how at the end of the movie Batman said he was going to be the ‘bad guy’ because it was what Gotham City needed at that point, and he was going to do the stuff that was ‘against the rules’ that the cops couldn’t do because he was willing to be a scapegoat?”
“…I don’t think that’s exactly what happened, if I recall correctly. I thought he just took the fall for Harvey Dent.”
“You’re missing the point!”
“What? Phoenix is the Batman?”
“No! Grrr.” Trucy crossed her arms and thought for a moment. “He’s the hero we need right now, but not the hero we deserve. You know, that whole thing. He can do what’s ‘against the rules’ and be the ‘bad guy’ even though it’s the right thing to do, and it needs to be done.”
‘Hero’, huh?
Edgeworth looked away, weakly grasping the sleeve of his gown with his injured hand, and furrowed his eyebrows in thought.
“I fail to see the heroics in this,” he said quietly, though he barely heard his own words. Hero?
Trucy did not hear him. She was gazing off into the distance thoughtfully.
“Though I guess you’d have to be Harvey Dent.”
“What? He’s taking the fall for my crimes?”
“No! I just mean you’re both prosecutors.”
“Now you’re confusing me.”
“Do you think if a guy tried to shoot you from the witness stand, you’d take the gun away and punch him in the face?”
“I’d, uh, like to think so.” Miles narrowed his eyes. “And you’re not derailing this conversation.”
“…I’m still not going to school on Monday.”
“Do you think what you’re doing is ethical?”
Trucy bit her lip and stared at the ground, brows furrowed. She looked up and nodded firmly.
“Because it’s set up so that it only works if Mr. Gavin’s guilty. And I’m not making anything up that wasn’t at the crime scene. I’m just replicating what was actually there. And I know it’s right. I know it, and you know it, and Daddy knows it. Screw the rules.” Trucy looked dead-set. “I want to stop this murdering bastard before he can hurt more people!”
Just gonna have to be a different man
Miles smile to himself ruefully, still glancing sidelong at the floor.
Ten years ago, your father would understand where you were coming from. Ten years ago, your father would never have consented to this. I know he knows the ice he treads is thin-he saw the effect of DL-6 and SL-9, he realized what had to be done with Engarde and Tigre and why Maya lied to save Diego Armando. It was what was right, even if sometimes, it can be very, very wrong.
You’ve changed, Wright.
You’re not so simple anymore. You’re not that innocent.
Besides, if all else fails, you had that stupid camera in your hat on, didn’t you?
--------------------------------------
Time may change me
But I can't trace time
--------------------------------------
April 20, 10:00 AM
Hickfield Clinic
Room 240
Oh my God, he is wearing that hat in court.
Miles had live video feed of the courtroom’s proceedings pulled up on his laptop and was sipping coffee, awkwardly cupping the mug with his bound hands and trying to ward off the sedative effects of his pain medication. The net effect was that he was very shaky and felt like he was going to pass out. He had to keep resting his head back on the pillows and closing his eyes until the head rush crashed down and his vision came back. It was like perpetually standing up too fast.
It would take an idiot not to recognize the ‘Shadi Smith’ given in the court record. Miles confirmed his suspicions by looking up a photograph of Shadi Enigmar in the district court’s archives, and sure enough, these men were one and the same, dead-ringers of one another. This was also confirmed by Phoenix’s sudden acquisition of the locket with Trucy’s picture in it, and Edgeworth noticed that Phoenix carefully never actually denied that he took the locket from Smith-saying his daughter was in it was true and enough to throw the lawyers off the chase. Though it was his husband’s neck on the line he wanted to smack the shit out of Payne for not objecting to that. That was a classic maneuver.
Trucy’s biological father was dead. He did not relish the idea of having to explain that to her.
It was a good thing the Judge was such a senile idiot, and that Payne did not recognize this man; the connection between Wright and Enigmar provided far more motive than a contested poker game that-so the court had been told-was not even being played for money. Gavin had to be tangentially involved with Enigmar somehow-Edgeworth’s intuition was vehement on this-but Wright was more directly and publicly-linked to this man. Enigmar’s trial had gotten him disbarred. Short, sweet, simple motive. Revenge as a dish best served seven-years cold.
Seven years, huh…
Seven years’ disappearance declared a missing person legally dead. This was the seventh anniversary of that case. So, Enigmar goes to visit Wright on the day he becomes ‘dead’. Why? If that did not come out in the course of this trial, he was going to grill Phoenix on that point.
Miles followed the trial with rapt attention. It was strange to see the courtroom he so often dominated-even with that damned broken seat still up in the galley-from such a distance. The web-camera was bolted in the center of the lower-floor of the galley, and though the resolution on web-cameras had greatly improved since their introduction, the picture was by no means high-definition. The judge was in his place, and he was used to seeing Payne and Gavin behind their respective benches, but Phoenix did not belong behind the defendant’s stand-or the witness’s stand, as the case may be. He lounged nonchalantly as though this were a joke, clad slovenly in track pants (oh sweet God, Edgeworth suddenly thought, I hope he’s not going commando today), sandals, a ratty sweatshirt, and that ludicrous hat, glibly answering questions and chiding the lawyers and judge with condescending playfulness. Edgeworth worried his confidence was overbloated. Honestly; he knew Phoenix was becoming increasingly aware of the cracks in the legal system and how arbitrary so much of it was, but his irreverent attitude would have been infuriating to anybody who did not know him.
Miles shook his head at Apollo Justice multiple times-the kid was overeager, jumping over details he only realized were important when Gavin or Phoenix pointed them out to him. There were times when it felt like a battle between Gavin and Wright, with Justice a shared pawn. Justice’s body language made his deference to Gavin painfully clear. He leaned slightly toward him as though comforted by his presence and guidance.
When the chips are down, the kid’s going to side with his boss. His job is on the line. He’s not going to risk that for a disgraced ex-attorney. You’ve got nothing to offer him.
You trust too easily and freely in the inherent good in others. This trust is EXACTLY what got you disbarred, Phoenix.
It finally came down to that. The trial continued, and Phoenix slowly manipulated proceedings to point toward Gavin’s guilt. Miles closed his eyes. Breathed. Decision time.
Phoenix, this is when your faith would pay off.
It was clear Justice was struggling. He knew the stakes of the trial now. He clenched his fists, brows furrowed. Stared hard at Phoenix. Finally, he straightened. His voice was clear when he spoke.
“The defense would like to request that Mr. Wright testify to the court!”
“Et tu, Justice?” Gavin stared straight ahead, face calm, unreadable. His eyes focused on Phoenix. “You would betray me, your teacher?”
“I'm sorry, Mr. Gavin. This isn't about loyalty... This is about the truth!”
Miles smiled to himself. Maybe this kid had a backbone and a mind of his own after all.
It was a sick pleasure to watch Gavin during the testimony and cross-examination. He had told his protégé that Wright was lying, that it was his duty to expose him. Though to the casual observer Gavin seemed perfectly calm and in control of the situation, Edgeworth knew him well enough to see that he was tense, on the verge of the sick, twisted smile he adopted when he was cornered. The exchange between him and Phoenix was now transparently dripping with venom, cutting.
And when Phoenix revealed that he had recorded their phone conversation, and had replaced the hat on the victim’s head at the crime scene, Miles grinned. They got him. They finally had the bastard cornered. This was what Phoenix had been talking about.
The Judge called a recess. Edgeworth rested his head back on the pillows, closing his eyes, and drifted into a semi-lucid catnap. He heard-integrated oddly into his dream, an almost astral-projection-like awareness that he was in the courthouse-the judge call the trial back into succession. He saw himself as though standing in the corner of the court floor by the defense’s bench, observing things with a stunning clarity. Kristoph Gavin was called to the stand. Payne stuttered with his usual lack of presence whenever the trial took a route he had not anticipated.
Edgeworth half-processed the dialogue, seeing himself standing behind the defense’s bench-seamlessly gliding there with the odd logic of dreams-next to Phoenix, clean-shaven in his cheap navy suit. He wanted to thread his fingers with his husband’s and squeeze his hand encouragingly, tell him, somehow, that he was there with him.
He missed that hurried, haphazard energy. He wanted to hear him yell-
“OBJECTION!”
It was like being punched in the stomach.
Miles’ eyes snapped open, and he was back in the hospital, watching the trial on his laptop. He sat up and stared at the screen.
He was suddenly light-headed, heady with excitement. There was the Phoenix he had known standing behind the defense’s table, straight back, eyes hard and smoldering, pointing toward Payne’s table. It was as though seven years’ worth of jaded dullness, of cynical irreverence and purred sarcasm, had sloughed off. The man suddenly seemed misplaced in a gray sweater and a knit cap; he should be wearing a navy suit, with his hair free.
Edgeworth realized how fast his heart was pounding, and he placed his fingertips on his neck, feeling his pulse as Phoenix spoke in his steady, forceful voice, reveling in his own shallow breathing. He remembered standing in the defendant’s podium, watching that same youthful, determined power, feeling it course through him. He remembered standing across from Wright on the receiving end of that power, aimed at him, tearing his flawed and misguided tactics apart, leaving him breathless with the raw power of The Fool who believed in his clients. This was the man who never, ever, ever gave up.
Time may change me
This was Phoenix Wright in his element.
But I can't trace time
Edgeworth’s hand moved down toward his heart, and he clenched his fingers, mimicking the feeling that his heart was being ripped out. His resolve to get Phoenix his bar back was hardened once again in his stomach; the complacent resolve he had cultivated over the years was melting away. Fuck this inept piano playing and the Wright Talent Agency bullshit. It was a refracted shadow of who Phoenix Wright really was.
They say you can never go home.
Edgeworth smiled to himself, half-cynical, half-warm with hope and memory.
You’ve changed, Wright. But in all the ways that matter you’re still the same.
--------------------------------------
Edgeworth had finally allowed himself to pass out after the trial’s conclusion, relaxed and near-giddy with the cocktail of Kristoph’s downfall, Phoenix’s victory, something like four cups of coffee, and being drugged off his ass. He awoke to find that it was late evening, but the lights in his hospital room were on. Phoenix was perched on the chair beside his bed, slurping lo mein from a carry-out container with wooden chopsticks and reading a book he had laid across his knee, spine bent back. The golden locket around his neck glinted in the lamplight. Miles turned over gingerly and watched him. He seemed engrossed in the book, awkwardly turning pages with his free hand and holding them down with his elbow. When he angled his head in the light properly a bruise became evident under his eye. Edgeworth arched his eyebrow.
“What did you do to deserve that?”
Phoenix started slightly and looked up, then grinned at Edgeworth. He looked as though a huge weight had been lifted off his shoulders.
“Oh, this?” He touched under his eye with his free hand. The book’s page flapped over, and Phoenix nudged it back flat with his fingertips before pinning it down with his elbow again. “I offended a young attorney’s sense of justice.”
“You do realize you deserve that, dragging your daughter and that young man into your debauchery.”
Phoenix laughed. “And did I offend your sense of justice, Prosecutor Edgeworth?”
“Of the many sensibilities of mine you do offend, ‘justice’ is not one of them.” He paused. Phoenix was still smiling, but unease was clearly visible in his expression. “You handled the situation in such a way as to ensure that justice would be served. Ultimately, you did not alter the truth to anybody’s detriment.”
Phoenix’s smile broadened in relief. “Not so black and white anymore, are you?”
I watch the ripples change their size
But never leave the stream
Of warm impermanence and
So the days float through my eyes
But still the days seem the same
“Neither are you.” Edgeworth glared at him. “But you do realize how utterly foolish you were, pulling a stunt like that out of the blue. And don’t tell me it was a ‘now or never’ situation; I damn well know that.”
Phoenix’s smile waned.
“Gavin had to be stopped. He almost killed you, Miles. It took every scrap of willpower I had not to rip his face off right then and there. It… sickened me to pretend to be his friend. I’m stunned I was able to hold out this long.”
“In all fairness, we have no conclusive evidence it was Gavin. Hell, we only have vague circumstantial evidence and conjecture.”
Phoenix did not reply. He stared vaguely over Miles’ head, brows knit, and removed his cap, turning it over in his hands. He stared at the pin on its hem.
“It’s not over yet.”
And these children that you spit on
As they try to change their worlds
Are immune to your consultations
They're quite aware of what they're going through
Miles was silent for a moment.
“You do realize how lucky you are nobody’s realized how much wiring you have in that damn hat.”
“I pulled the wiring out and hid it in the Hydeout before I was arrested. I’m glad nobody found it. Since you were in the hospital, I had nobody at home to make a backup tape of the footage I got that night.”
Miles arched his eyebrows. “Oh?”
Phoenix had pulled the hem aside to reveal a black cartridge wired into the setup, and pressed on the lip of a memory card to dislodge it. He pulled it out and held it up, smirking triumphantly.
“Come on, Miles. You didn’t think I’d ask Trucy to forge that card if I did not have backup to prove it was there during the game, did you?”
“Theoretically, you never actually saw the card with blood on it.”
Phoenix laughed. “Touché, touché. But blood splatter analysis would show I was right. There should have been a blood splatter within that radius around Smith.”
“You mean Enigmar?”
Phoenix arched his eyebrows. “You have an impressive memory for faces.”
“I tore his case file apart, and he looks too much like Trucy not to raise suspicion.”
Phoenix stared at Miles for a moment. Miles looked at the bed briefly before looking back up.
“Phoenix. We have to tell Trucy what happened.”
Where's your shame
You've left us up to our necks in it
“…I know.” Phoenix ran his fingers through his hair, sighed, stared at the ground. “I know. I can’t. Not yet.”
“Why not?”
Phoenix paused. He picked up his carton of Chinese food and resumed eating, staring off into the distance. Swallowed.
Time may change me
“I’ll show you in a moment. Let me finish eating.”
But you can't trace time
---------------------------------------
They watched the video footage Phoenix had taken of his conversation with Enigmar. The revelation of Trucy’s perception powers as a Gramarye heritage, the supposed murder of Trucy’s mother Thalassa Gramarye, Apollo Justice’s confirmed inclusion in the Gramarye bloodline, his gold bangle, kinetic vision, Valant Gramarye’s exclusion from the passage of Magnifi’s secrets and his status as the actual murderer, Zak’s false confession to clear his brother’s name, the Gramarye family secrets signed off to Trucy.
When the video ended, Edgeworth closed his eyes, deep in thought. Phoenix had pushed the table back and slid onto the bed next to him, curled on his side, head resting on Miles’ good shoulder.
“…wow, Phoenix,” he finally said. “Wow.”
“I know.”
“Had you no footage of this, I would not have believed it had happened.”
“It’s something you taught me, remember? Always have proof that something was there, because you may never have the chance to prove it again.”
Miles nodded, still digesting everything he had just been shown.
“This is why you targeted that boy, Justice, isn’t it? You knew his powers would help you in court.”
“Yup.” He ran his fingers through his hair. “Though I’d had a suspicion ever since I saw his bracelet matched the ones in the picture Valant gave me of Trucy’s mother. Thalassa.”
“Where is Valant now?”
“No idea. I need to hunt him down and ask him more questions, though.”
Phoenix yawned and draped his arm gently over Miles’ abdomen, nestling into his shoulder. Miles hissed in pain, and Phoenix pulled back, mumbling an apology. He rested the weight of his head on the pillow and brushed his lips against Miles’ cheek, nibbled lightly on his ear.
“Wright, I don’t even need to tell you how not up for this I am.”
Phoenix laughed quietly and kissed Miles on the cheek, under his stitches. “Oh, lighten up. I’m being thoroughly chaste.” His hand lightly quested lower. “You’re sure you couldn’t use a little relaxation?”
“I am, as Trucy so elegantly put it, ‘tripping balls’ on morphine; I doubt even your prowess could re-direct blood where you want it to go right now. And a nurse could come in at any second.”
Phoenix laughed and slid his hand back up Miles’ chest to his opposite shoulder, holding him in a soft embrace. “All right, all right.”
Miles smiled to himself and closed his eyes, drifting on the edge of sleep. Phoenix’s breath was warm on his cheek, stubble brushing the crook of his neck, and he could feel the shadow of the pulse in his neck. His body was warm against his injured skin; as lovely as his presence was, he hoped to God Phoenix did not fall asleep and roll over onto his dislocated elbow.
He did not know how long he dozed in a semi-lucid state when Phoenix shifted and said “Miles?”
“Hm?”
“There’s something I’ve been wanting to talk to you about.”
Edgeworth opened his eyes warily and glanced sidelong at Phoenix. Phoenix stared back at him.
“It’s nothing bad; I promise.”
“Well, that’s always good news.”
“I’ve-well, I’ve wanted to talk to you about this for a long time. You’re my best friend. Hell, you’re one of the most brilliant people I’ve ever met. But I knew if I approached you with any half-formed ideas you’d tear them apart before I’d even begun. And, well, you’ve been an invaluable help with all of this investigating I’ve been doing. I mean, you’re the only person in the world I’d trust with this. I couldn’t have done all this alone.”
Strange fascination, fascinating me
Changes are taking the pace I'm going through
Miles closed his eyes and rested back against the pillows, smiling softly.
“Well, I will do my best to live up to your expectations.”
“I want to re-instate the Jurist System.”
It took Miles a moment to process what Phoenix had just said. Something about the idea crashed up against a wall in his drugged brain, struggled. He blinked and turned his body slightly.
It was then that the door slammed open and Trucy skipped into the room.
“Daddy! Papa Miles! We did it!”
She pulled off her top hat and shoved it under Miles’ nose. It took him a moment to shift gears from realizing that Phoenix was absolutely fucking insane to realizing that the hat was brimful of roses. He blinked and stared blankly down his splinted nose at the flowers.
“Oh, that’s so sweet! Thank you!”
Phoenix swept the hat out from under Miles’ nose and set it on the bedside table. Trucy bustled over and pulled the flowers out of the hat, dropping them into the water pitcher by the bed (Miles made a vague noise of protest) and flipping the hat back onto her own head.
“I’m not done yet!”
It was a dangerous phrase. Miles’ eye twitched nervously.
“I’m sorry Mr. Hat couldn’t come to visit you. I have something even better.”
The twitching got worse. Oh hell.
Trucy twitched her elbow slightly, and a very shell-shocked, very confused Pess scrambled out from under her cape, a thick red bow around her neck. The top hat landed on her head. She bolted away from Trucy, shedding the hat in the process, and cowered under the bed.
“…Pess! No!” Trucy leaned down and clapped her hands. Pess whined in response. “Come back, girl!”
Edgeworth finally found his voice again.
“TRUCY!”
In another moment of trademark first-rate parenting, Phoenix was laughing. Miles wished his elbow wasn’t in agony so he could elbow him. Hard.
Oh, look out you rock 'n rollers
“Are you ten?” he hissed. “You’re encouraging her!”
Pretty soon you're gonna get a little older
“It’s fine, Papa Miles! I took her for a walk before we came in, so she’s good for a while.” Trucy clapped and whistled slightly. “Pess-Pess, come here. Come here, girl.”
Pess whined as though saying ‘Oh hell no; get away from me, you psycho bitch.’
“What did you do to her, anyway?”
“Shh.” Trucy held her finger up to her lips. “Gramarye family secret.”
“You Gramarye family secreted my dog!
“Miles, it’s okay.” Phoenix touched his arm. “Trucy would never hurt Pess.”
“Not intentionally.”
Phoenix finally lured out a very jumpy, but otherwise fine, Pess from under the bed with the rest of his lo mein, and yanked it out from under her nose at the last minute. She whined a little, then gave it up and tried to jump on the bed with Miles. She was so glad to see him it took several firm commands of “NO!” and “DOWN!” before she settled with sitting by the side of the bed and nuzzling the back of Miles’ hand, tail sweeping across the floor cheerfully. Despite the fact that his daughter had smuggled a dog into a hospital, and had probably traumatized her in the process, Miles was glad to see her. He smiled softly and kept his hand tangling over the side of the bed for her. Trucy had jumped on the end of his bed and was chattering with Phoenix happily, frequently hugging him tightly and commenting on how awesome they are to have pulled that off. She had scooped her top hat off the floor and plopped it on Miles’ head, which had earned her an indignant look on Miles’ part and a good deal of laughter from Phoenix. He mellowed under the compliments they both gave him, saying he looked like a gentleman, and he finally allowed himself to smile and returned to playing with Pess, listening to his family chatter behind him.
That was one of the concepts that still stunned him. His family.
And he had to admit, in spite of his misgivings, that if Trucy could already manage to hide a dog that was half her size underneath her cape, she was going to make a fine heir to the Gramarye repertoire.
-----------------------------------------
I said that time may change me
But I can't trace time