lessons learned, bridges burned to the ground

[proxysearch]

Who: proxysearch and mentis_reae
When: Monday, January 16th, early evening.
Where: Re-l's apartment.
Summary: Finally sitting down and talking about everything they've been avoiding.
Warnings: None.

Comments

[mentis_reae]

He'd hoped she wouldn't be there when he came back. He'd hidden in his office all day, slunk from place to place, half-expecting that someone would stand up and decry him for what he'd done. There would be no one who would do so - he knew that on a logical level, for indeed for all appearances his behavior had been courageous and exemplary. He'd thrown himself into the fray, spending himself to save lives - indeed, risking his own life to help the man he hated so intensely. No...As ever, he'd played the hero. As ever, he'd come out looking noble

[mentis_reae]

"The paramedics did. He's in the hospital now, quite the worse for wear for my efforts to help." He couldn't look at her. "I couldn't undo it. Once it had been done. Once I convinced myself that a heart not beating was more right and true than..." He couldn't finish the sentence, choking out a rough, odd noise that contained an emotion that was part guilt and part despair and part loathing. He had to take a moment to steady his breathing, swallowing hard, wanting to look at her face but afraid to do so.

Please despise me for this, Ms. Mayer. Please.

"Life is chaotic, after all." He swallowed and leaned back against the couch, his eyes still pressed shut. "It seems my power can correct for that. And it seemed that I tried to."

[proxysearch]

But she didn't despise him. How could she? Even if he wanted von Karma to die, even if he wanted him to disappear or to suffer painfully through his death once more...he couldn't bring himself to do it. He couldn't do it on his own terms, as he didn't leave von Karma to die in the rubble. What had happened was a mistake. That was all it was. The evidence was here in his guilt and in his distress. He still couldn't look at her.

Re-l stood so she could place one knee on the couch and she took him by the shoulders to get his attention. And once she had that, she lifted one hand to his face to keep his focus on her. "Life is chaotic. You're right. But you didn't intend to kill him, as much as you might have wanted him to pay for all of the things he's done to you and to your father. And yes, he does deserve all of those things. But that does not mean that you intended to kill him. In your heart of hearts, Miles Edgeworth, you did not want him to die there. You wouldn't react this way if you didn't feel guilty."

God. Please don't cry.

[mentis_reae]

"I..." It would have been so much easier if she hated him for what he did. God, it would have been better if she had arrested him, then and there, so that he could pay his penance to society for his foul and cowardly and malicious act. Instead, she was touching him and speaking to him softly, assuring him that he wasn't guilty and wasn't to blame...

"I just wanted him to go away. I just wanted..." He shook his head and reached out and gripped her shoulder tightly and finally lifted his eyes to hers. There was without question dampness in his eyes, and fear, and unhappiness, and sorrow, but he was nevertheless searching her face, hopeful that she truly meant what she said. Finally, his gaze dropped away, and he asked quietly, "What do you know about...all of that?" He swallowed. "And - who told you?"

[proxysearch]

"I know. I know, Miles." She didn't know if she would have the strength of mind not to let someone like Manfred von Karma die. Perhaps she would, but she also knew that it would be a great temptation to succumb to. The fact that he didn't and attempted to help, whether that proved to be harmful or not, was testament to that. And that was how she knew.

She settled back and sat, half-kneeling on the couch beside him. "When he arrived, both Maya and Larry were upset that he was there. I called the latter and asked." She raised an eyebrow briefly. "He had a few choice words about the entire situation. But he told me as much as he could...as much as he could understand about it. I know it's probably not the entire story--" And while emotional, it wasn't from Edgeworth himself. "But it gave me a pretty good idea of what sort of man he is and what he's done."

[mentis_reae]

Edgeworth tried to work up some sort of spiteful annoyance at Larry, but found himself quite thoroughly unable to. Maybe it wasn't Butz' story to tell, but Edgeworth had been gone at that time, and God knew Larry had suffered through it as well...And, honestly, it saved him some of the painful details. Re-l Mayer was sitting before him now, knowing that his father had been murdered, knowing that Edgeworth's mentor had been the one to do it, knowing that that mentor had been bent on his destruction...And he didn't have to utter the absurd, painful words aloud.

So he was able to reach out to her, blindly, before drawing her close. He hoped that was all right. He hoped that she wasn't...disgusted by his emotionality. He just wanted her close. "I...assume he told you about the trial. And therefore about my father as well."

[proxysearch]

She was grateful. The look on his face gave a pretty clear indication that he wasn't in a proper state of mind to address the death of his father and von Karma's cruelty, and so she thanked Larry silently. If he hadn't known the details he did, she might have had to ask around or wait for Edgeworth to be ready to tell her. As it was, she wouldn't have to.

She put her arms around him, holding him. "Yes, he did." About the murder that could very well have ended in Edgeworth's death as well, had von Karma chosen to do so. She frowned. "I'm so sorry." She never knew his father. She never would. But no child should have to go through that.

[mentis_reae]

He shook his head, though there was rather little spirit or conviction in it. "It's...fine," he said, though that was absurd because as he'd just proven it wasn't fine and never would be. The thing was - he had been fine with it for quite some time; it would never be a happy memory, and it would never be something he would forget, but it had been something he'd put behind him. His father's killer had been found and punished. He was absolved of the guilt he felt for the murder. But now, in these past few days, with von Karma here and walking free and - speaking to people

[proxysearch]

"It's not fine." His father was murdered by the man who then adopted him, someone who then tried to have him framed for that very murder years later. How could that ever be fine?

She shifted in his hold once he relaxed his grip, moving back just enough to look into his face. "It might have happened a long time ago but it's okay to still be upset about it, to still be hurting and angry. It's okay to feel and it doesn't make you weak. What he did is unforgivable." Even if her own grandfather had been murdered, the circumstances were wildly different. She still harbored some ounce of sadness for the only family member she'd ever had - fake or not - even after all he'd done to her. "You've accepted the truth. You've moved forward. But that doesn't mean that you've left it all behind, nor should it."

She tried to smile but the gesture was faint and mostly grim. "I'm terrible at comforting people, especially with things like this. Sorry."

[mentis_reae]

He shook his head, looking up at her earnestly. "No. Please, don't apologize." Given the chance, given nothing to interrupt him, he would brood without end on his own unhappiness and loneliness and sorrow. Her self-recrimination, though, interrupted him; he pulled out of his uncertainty to worry a bit about her and the burdens he was laying upon her. "You're...better than most."

He took in a breath. "The issue isn't merely the past, though. That's part of it, I'll grant - and what makes it rather difficult, but...Von Karma is - not a forgiving man. My father earned but a single penalty against him, and that marked my father for death. Indeed, more than death...Complete destruction." His lips tightened, and he swallowed. "Betrayal by his own son, engineered by his enemy. That was what my father earned for his audacity."

But he was trying to focus on the present - yet he found himself once again lost in the past. "I suppose - it is not only anger that I feel, but also..." Fear. "An awareness of the fact that he will do anything to

[proxysearch]

She raised an eyebrow skeptically and the faint smile widened just a little. "You're just saying that." Honestly, the only way she could help people feel better was by yelling at them and making them forget their problems so they could be frustrated with her. And it didn't always work

[mentis_reae]

Edgeworth shook his head and clenched his fists. "He won't be a prosecutor again. I can't permit it. I won't permit it. If I do nothing else in this world or any other aside from preventing his practicing the law again, I will have spent my life well."

He looked at her again. "You know about how I would...comport myself in my early days as a prosecutor. How what mattered most to me was victory, to the point where even the innocent suffered. He taught me...all of that. How to lie, how to cheat, what to do to ensure victory at any cost. He worked as a prosecutor for forty years, and never once did he lose a case. Never once."If he becomes a prosecutor again, then he'll work for them. Do their bidding, just if it flatters his ego. Send people away to be slaves, forge evidence so that they're trapped into serving as subjects for SERO's experiments...Without hesitation. Just so he can win. Just so he can have his revenge

[proxysearch]

"But how can you stop him? No one else has been kept from getting jobs before, not even people who are downright villainous here." The kettle whistled in the kitchen and she pulled away reluctantly to take it off the stove. "Roman Sionis ran a goddamn restaurant for months without anyone touching him. Joker worked for the theater. They've both kidnapped, murdered, and tortured. This city can do whatever the hell it wants." She glanced over at him. "And you're right. The companies would shower him with money and gifts so he could play both sides. But how would you be able to stop him? How could you convince the courts that he's an abominable man and should under no circumstances be allowed in

[mentis_reae]

"Neither of them tried to become attorneys." He set his jaw stubbornly. "Working in a restaurant, fine. Working for a theater, fine. Neither of those positions are predicated on being of upstanding moral character. In neither of those positions do you hold someone's life in your hands." He stretched out his own hand, looking at it, his stomach churning. "So I...show his bad moral character. I tell them about all he's done. I...prove his criminality..."

I stand over him, feeling his life ebb away by my own hand. I use what power I've been given not to save a life, but to take it. I take revenge. Not retribution, but revenge.He lifted his hand to cover his eyes. "And really - please. I beg of you. You - say that, but you can't underestimate him. He is...adept at changing your way of thinking...He may not seem it, not with how contemptuous and dismissive he comes off, but..." He reached out again to touch her, trying to reassure himself of her solidity. Maybe he was wrong and von Karma was not so adept a manipulator...Maybe he was

[proxysearch]

"And you shouldn't put yourself in that position either. As much as I trust you and your judgment, you're too close to this situation." If it had been someone she knew that she needed to bring into the station, they'd all tell her that she was too close. Hell, they wouldn't even let her take Daisuke's case at first. "And what if he turns around and talks about all the things you've done? It would turn into a 'he said this, he said that' contest. You could lose your job." And quite a bit of respect in the community

[mentis_reae]

"But I've not done anything. I've never broken a law like he has - even in those darkest days, I never once broke my oath as an attorney - " But though he scowled, he knew she was right. Von Karma would not lie outright, but he could distort things. He could use facts of Edgeworth's life and background and cast them in a new light, because that was what he was so skilled at, and the very thought left Edgeworth feeling dizzy with dread -

He looked up, though, when she took his hand. Her words calmed him slightly; he nodded. She was right, of course. She wasn't as great a fool as he'd been as a child, when he'd looked fiercely up to von Karma and accepted his every word, no matter how preposterous. She wasn't unarmed, either. Nor would anyone else be. He would ensure that they were protected against von Karma.

And yet -

"You're right. But...He can do unfathomable damage if he stands in court again. Absolutely enormous. He can undermine law and justice in this city, destroy countless lives...He can harm so many people."