Fic: Five and a Half Weddings That Never Happened
Title: Five and a Half Weddings That Never Happened
Fandom: Phoenix Wright/Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney
Characters/Pairings: Ensemble
Word Count: 6,101
Contains specific spoilers for all four games. And it is very happily, cheerfully AU, all across the board =D
[read @ AO3]
One.
The bride wore jeans underneath her white cotton dress, if only because it had been chilly that morning and the fog hadn't burned off the mountains. The groom wore his usual sweatshirt, the one the color of Pepto-Bismal that she'd given him to encourage him to break up with her, if only because he thought it was funny.
They were married in court on the Judge's lunch break with three other couples and a few secretarial aides from the Police Department as witnesses, and there was no applause or rice being thrown when it was over; just a bang of the gavel and the Judge's gruff, "Now please excuse me; I have to talk to my brother about the next case he's trying."
They walked back to campus, hand-in-hand, neither of them speaking.
The bustle of girls outside the library reminded her that she had a dissertation on Nathaniel Hawthorne tomorrow, while the mournful cry of a harmonica from a noodle-selling stand reminded him that he hadn't eaten lunch.
When they got back to the dorm, she shrugged off her shawl and tossed it onto her desk, absently picking up a brush to run it through her hair. "How much do you love me?" she asked, studying her reflection in the mirror for any blemishes. There weren't any, of course.
"I just married you, didn't I?" he slipped their papers out of the envelope to make sure that's what they actually did. "I'd say a lot."
She spun, smiling coyly. "Now that I'm your wife, I think it's high time I got you a new necklace," she crept slowly towards him. "One that's a little bit more masculine and a lot less ugly." She made to slip her arms around his neck.
He danced out of her reach, laughing happily. Stupid boy! she snarled in the bramble thorns of her own mind, and if he saw the venom that flashed across her face, he didn't show it.
"I'm going to keep it as long as I possibly can, if only because I know it annoys you," he informed her, cradling the amulet between his long, artistic fingers. "And because I don't care what you say, I think it's absolutely beautiful. And meaningful."
You're full of it. She buried her face in her hands, mortified, giving her soft, beautiful head a shake. "It's ugly and bulky as sin," she sighed; her argument sounded worn and used like an old plaid workshirt, even to her. "And if you love me, you'll give it back to me!"
His sneakers scuffed, and the wooden floor creaked beneath his feet as he came to her, wrapping her up tight inside a hug, his cotton sweatshirt warm on her bare arms and his hips solid and long against hers. "Hey," he said in an undertone, and there was no mistaking the genuine worry in his voice. "Hey. I love you. Oh, man, I love you more than you will ever know. You're fantastic and wonderful and so nice to me even though I don't deserve it and I'm sorry if I embarrass you, but I can't help it."
Dahlia tilted her head back, smiled, and kissed him.
He kissed her back languidly, like he was half-drunk, and this part she was good at. This part she didn't mind, so long as she kept her eyes closed so she didn't have to look at his face, because Phoenix's kisses by themselves made her tingle pleasantly from lips to fingertips to toes. She preferred them to conversation any day. If he thought him walking around carrying her amulet was embarrassing, she should have him remember the kinds of stunts she'd pulled on him in public to keep him from talking. Talk about things she wouldn't tell her grandmother.
He broke away from her lips to ask contemplatively, "Do you think this counts as our wedding night? At ... " he checks his watch. "2 in the afternoon?"
She shrugged off-handedly. "Wedding night, wedding afternoon. We can be flexible."
"Mmhmm."
They fell to kissing again, the same nice, deep kind of making out that made most other kind of thought difficult, but underneath it ran the current of a thrill, of expectation. He got his sweatshirt off, leaving it to puddle on her roommate's empty bed and hoping he remembered to grab it later, and he laughed into her mouth when she snaked her fingers up underneath his undershirt, finding his ticklish spots.
"Wait, stop," she rasped, lips burning. He removed his hands from underneath her dress, and she stepped out of her undone jeans, scooping them up and tucking them over her arm. She knelt down by the mini-fridge, removing a slender bottle of wine from behind the six-packs of yogurt.
When he cracked up, she shook a finger at him. "I dated you for six months. I just got married! I think I deserve a drink," she said indignantly.
"Wow, you're right," he put a hand over his mouth, running the other through his already thoroughly-mussed hair. "We just got married. Whose idea was that again?"
"Yours. Entirely yours," she lied, pouring them both a glass. She unfolded her jeans and rifled through the pockets as if looking for something.
"I wonder what my parents will say. Oh, geeze. Married. In college. They're going to flip out, I know it."
She smiled thinly, putting his glass into his hands, momentarily envying him his parents who were going to be angry. Dahlia couldn't even speak to her parents; both of them believed she was as dead as a doornail, and if she ever revealed to them otherwise, they'd be the first to hang her head on a pike. "This is to worrying about them later," she said, smiling serenely and toasting him.
She watched him drink, the line of his throat bobbing with his swallows (she didn't think wine was supposed to be gulped, she thought distastefully) and she leaned him to put her mouth on the spot where his pulse beat the strongest. Phoenix let her for a moment, before seeking her lips with his. He tasted like alcohol.
He bowed her further and further over the bed, until, finally, they both thrust their drinks onto the bedside table to avoid spilling them all over her bedspread, and tumbled onto the covers.
Not without a small amount of maneuvering, she managed to flip them over so she could straddle his hips, her dress hiked up high on her slim thighs. He was still laughing, partly at the strange picture she made, so she spread her legs a little wider and deeper, and it was her turn to smile as the irises of his eyes suddenly went dark. She stretched herself up the line of his body to reach his mouth, and he kissed her with a naked hunger. She rocked her hips. Dry heat kindled inside her belly.
He tangled their hands together, and she could feel the hard metal of their wedding rings meet somewhere in the middle.
It didn't take long for his breathing to grow shallow. She could hear it, a crackling sound like Rice Krispies, bubbling up from the center of his chest.
Suddenly, he grabbed her around the waist, rolling over and half-crushing her beneath him (and even then, he couldn't even do that; he curved his body upwards so she didn't take the brunt of his weight, ever thoughtful, ever stupid) in order to vomit weakly over the side of the bed, choking, trying to rattle breath into his lungs even as they collapsed. Her nose was filled with the scent of blood and vinegar.
Then, like his strings had been cut, he dropped on top of her, making her grunt.
Dahlia rested there for a moment, compressed tightly against the mattress. She didn't look at his face. She listened; there was a soft wheeze, and then another, and it didn't fade away, it just stopped. She waited another minute, just to be sure.
It took some effort to roll his corpse off of her. Upon succeeding, she sat up, coolly pulling the straps of her dress back up onto her shoulders and smoothing her skirt down. Then she leaned over and with a trembling, rushing relief, she removed the amulet from around his neck and clutched it to her chest.
And then realization dawned on her.
Eyes flying open, she glanced down at the dead body of Phoenix Wright, her newly-wedded husband, all spread-eagled limbs and bugged eyes. It didn't move. Already, she could feel the heat fading from it, the easy joy and effortless love and all-encompassing warmth. He was just a corpse now. And she had absolutely no way to get rid of it. Anyone taking one look at the scene could tell who'd done it.
"Shit," she whispered. And, because it felt good, she said it again. "Shit."
She stretched herself across his body to reach the telephone, an old, half-forgotten number coming immediately to the surface of her mind. She hadn't thought this far ahead.
While waiting for Iris to answer, she couldn't believe she hadn't thought of turning to her for help sooner.
2.
If there was one place you'd hope news would spread quickly and efficiently, it was in a hospital, so Alita Tiala was not surprised when she came out of the bathroom with her brand new dress newly swathed around her figure, albeit untailored, to find the nurses lined up outside the hallway, looking as though they'd raided every fake flower display in the entire building in order to create a bouquet for her.
They applauded at the sight of her, and she ducked her head, flushing in genuine happiness. It hadn't really quite dawned on her yet. Today was her wedding day. Today was her wedding day.
Little Plum hustled out of the bathroom behind her, her discarded clothing and the dress box clutched to her chest. With a gruff expression, she stopped Alita and then pinned something heavy and golden into her hair.
"Family heirloom," she said, puffing herself up with pride. "No woman properly enters the Kitaki family without it, I say."
With trembling fingers, Alita touched the detailing of the pin, and then smiled at Plum. "Thank you," she said, hoarse with emotion. "Thank you for everything." For helping her get into her wedding dress on such short notice, a job that should rightfully go to her mother and friends, for the pin, for letting her marry Wocky in the first place when she so heartily disapproved of the whole thing.
Plum waved her thanks off, turning her around and giving her a little shove down the hall.
A nurse handed her the makeshift bouquet, and everyone burst into another spontaneous round of applause -- the nurses, doctors, assorted patients and visitors who'd gathered like flies. Somebody appropriately started humming a wedding march, and everyone else joined in as Alita swooped down the hall like it was the aisle in a church, one long step after another.
When she reached Wocky's room, it was to find it occupied by three people: Wocky himself, in the bed, already done up in surgical scrubs, Mr. Kitaki at his side, shoulders trembling, and a priest.
"Can't say I had much to do with your type before, know what I'm sayin'?" Wocky told the latter, nose wrinkled distastefully.
"Perhaps you should start," the priest replied evenly, uninsulted.
They caught sight of Alita at the same time. Wocky drew himself up suddenly, like his heart had just tried to leap out of his chest, his face blank and awestruck. She ducked her head behind her bundle of potpourri, blushing with joy at his obvious delight. Shyly, she floated to the side of his bed, reaching down to slip her fingers into his where they lay limp on top of the covers. Plum went to join her husband, slipping her arm through his. Both of them kept their faces carefully schooled.
"Now, it's my understanding that before this young man undergoes emergency heart surgery, he had one last request to be granted," said the priest. "And that was the matter of his wedding."
"Yeah, in case, you know, somethin' happens to me while I'm all sliced and diced on that table," babbled Wocky, not taking his eyes off her face. "Which I'm sure ain't somethin' I gotta worry about, but still, I don't want to leave the woman I love unaccounted for, you know? I want it all official. She's everythin' to me. You feelin' me?" He lifted her hand to his mouth so he could kiss it.
Alita smiled again, expecting to feel a rush of relief at his words. Everything she'd worked to obtain was coming to fruition right here and now; she was going to be rich soon, rich and protected as only a mob wife could be, brave and notorious as only a mob wife could be. It was a fabulous destiny she had spread out in front of her, and she'd been so close to losing it all. But he'd come through at the last possible moment.
Yet, the relief, the pleasure of victory didn't come. She looked at Wocky's face, smiling right in the face of death, smiling wide and bright and idiotic just for her, and her heart filled to the brim.
"I take it, young lady, by the outfit you're wearing, that you are fully prepared to marry Wocky Kitaki here and now?" the priest asked gently.
Alita opened her mouth, choked on her own emotion, and then leaned down to kiss him, which he would tell her later nearly put him into cardiac arrest right then and there, which would have, like, sucked.
III.
"I am prepared to hand down my verdict at this time." The Judge lifted his gavel and struck it hard on his podium. "Joe Darke. As substantial evidence could not be found to connect you to the serial killings, a verdict cannot be reached as to the matter of your guilt. However, on the charges of assault with a deadly weapon and attempted murder, the state of California finds you GUILTY."
BANG, said the gavel cheerfully.
In the prosecution bench, Lana felt herself grow dizzy all at once, and she reached out for something to support her. At the same time, Neil wrapped his arms around her, crushing her to his side in a paroxysm of joy. A jolt ran through them both when he punched his fist into the air with a wild whoop, then snatched his hat from his head and waved it around like he was at a rodeo. She looked up at his face; it was twisted with fierce, wild triumph.
She reached out, running a slender finger down the angry red line that ran across his cheek; a bloody souvenir of the night Joe Darke escaped from questioning and cornered her sister in her office. She couldn't bear to imagine what might have happened; images of Darke and Neil wrestling, Ema crying out, knives flashing. Someone could have easily died.
"I'm glad you're alive," she murmured, and he looked at her, startled by the sudden display of affection. Lana was fair-natured, smiling, and capable, but affectionate? Not frequently.
He beamed back at her, still buoyed by the cheering that came from the court body. "I'm mighty glad you decided to become a prosecutor."
"To get Joe Darke convicted for the fright he gave you and my sister, I would have walked across hot coals."
His eyes sparkled, and he gazed at her for a heartbeat longer than was strictly professional. They were still half-embraced, so she could smell the mint on his breath and the almost girly, desert-rose scent of his cologne. He hugged her tighter, so that her head fell into the hollow of his shoulder.
Then, abruptly, he stepped away, slamming his fist down on the prosecution stand to get the Judge's attention. "Your Honor! The prosecution has one more favor to ask!"
"Mr. Marshall, the court has already reached a verdict and the defendant is being led away as we speak. Technically, court is adjourned for the day," the Judge frowned in perplexion; Neil was as straight-forward and dedicated as they come, not unlike a Lone Ranger, and this was unusual for him.
"The prosecution understands. Please, pardner, sir."
"What is it?"
Neil grinned his widest, shit-eating, top-of-the-world grin. "The prosecution would like you to marry us!"
"I beg your pardon?" the Judge blinked.
"We would?" Lana said blankly, staring at her senior partner like he'd grown a cactus out of his head.
"Yes!" Neil's fingers reached down to tangle with Lana's; he was almost breathless. "Please, Your Honor! Marry us!"
The crowd quieted into a soft, speculative mumbling; court was adjourned, but nobody was getting up to leave. The Judge's brows came down heavily. "Prosecutor Marshall! I can't just ... marry you. For one thing, Ms. Skye here probably needs to be aware of your intentions first. Secondly, I don't happen to carry the proper paperwork on me --"
"That's dandy!" interjected Neil, still smiling at 100 wattage. He quickly leaned over the bench to grab his briefcase. "I do. All right here, State of California marriage certificate, waiting to be signed by you, me, and Lana. And notarized or whatever fancy hullabaloo's gotta be done to it."
"You what?" Lana had never been more shell-shocked in her entire life.
"Mr. Marshall --" protested the Judge.
"OH! And!" he shuffled some papers to side, and removed a small, black ring box. Lana gasped, hand flying to her throat. The squeal that came from the back of the courtroom was unmistakably Ema's.
"When did you get that?" Lana breathed, too quietly to be heard by anyone but the man at her side.
He looked at her, some of his manic energy draining out from him in his earnesty to communicate just how serious he was about this. "I got it the day I woke up in that hospital room and it was your face I saw first," he murmured, eyes burning. Then he got down on one knee.
Lana swallowed once, failed at that, and tried again. She felt flushed head to toe, burning and prickling like her body was trying to affirm she was alive. She glanced over her shoulder and caught sight of Ema immediately, her hands clasped to her chest, bouncing on the balls of her feet with her face all scrunched up like a child's. Jake Marshall was in the row above her and to the right; he looked thunderstruck and a little wary, like he was waiting for the punch line. There was the Chief of Police, Damon Gant, newly appointed after his predecessor's "unfortunate" accident, smiling he hadn't a care in the world. None of them volunteered any quick, easy answers for her. She looked back to Neil, trembling all over.
Then, slowly and wordlessly, she nodded.
As if she'd released a spring in him, he jumped up, snatching her to him again. He planted a sloppy, enthusiastic kiss in the general vicinity of her mouth, and she grabbed him by the skull to realign their mouths correctly. He clutched her harder. Dimly, she was aware of the court cheering again, far louder than they'd been for the conviction, but she was barely listening.
She pulled away, and, flushed all over, he took the ring from the box and slipped it on her finger.
"Your Honor!" she lifted her face, blinking at the courtroom that suddenly seemed so bright and large, like she'd never seen it before. "Marry us!"
"Prosecutor Skye, I have another case to hear in twenty minutes and I have to use the facilities!"
"Please!" she said earnestly, as Neil gathered up the marriage papers and brought them to him, tugging Lana along by default since they were still tangled together, tighter than they'd ever been before by a long line of mutual victories and mutual revelations.
He looked at them both shrewdly from his great height. "Are you sure you want to do this? Right here, without any pomp or circumstances, in front of all these witnesses?"
Neil looked over his shoulder, and she knew he sought out Ema and Jake. "Everyone we love is right here with us, pardner. I can't think of a better place or time."
BANG! said the gavel affirmably.
4.
"You know," Juan Corrida said thoughtfully to the woman nestled sleepily in the crook of his arm, as he swirled the last dregs in his beer bottle. "I am now officially old enough to drink this, as of last week."
She groaned; he felt the vibration of it tingle his bare chest, where it lay plaited along hers. "Oh, don't remind me of your age, please. You're just a child."
He laughed, lovingly twirling a lock of her wispy hair around his fingers. "Ah, but weren't you the first one to tell me that I look and act much older than I actually am? If I remember correctly, your exact words were --"
"'Seventeen going on thirty,'" she echoed alongside him, unwilling to be roused from her post-coital stupor. "Yes, I remember."
A cool breeze gushed up gently behind them, running over their naked figures where they lay tangled in the sand and rustling the awning of the beach umbrella they had spread out above them. Absently, he rubbed her ankle with his toe, until she pulled her leg up close to her body with a sleepy, "stop it."
"Celeste," he murmured. She said nothing. "Celeste," he said again, more forcefully this time.
"Hmmm?"
"Are you happy?"
Finally, she opened her eyes, as light and crystalline as an ice sculpture, and raised them to his. Her smile made her whole face light up from the inside out, and oh, he would do anything to see her smile like that as often as she could. She was so beautiful when she smiled. She slid an arm around his ribs. "I am very happy, Juan. Very, very happy,” she mumbled into the skin below his nipple. “What about you? Do you think your fans are going to be upset that the Jammin' Ninja, symbol of justice and all things right, got secretly married on a private beach, far away from their adoring, lensed eye?"
"I couldn't care less about what my fans think," he said flatly, reaching over her in order to pluck a cattail from behind their umbrella, and he used it to stroke a path from her earlobe down the nape of her neck and across her shoulder to the swell of her left breast. She knocked that away too, so he stuck it between his teeth. "All I care about is making you happy, Mrs. Corrida."
She sucked in her breath, so softly he almost mistook it for another trick of the wind. "You should be careful with lines like that, Mr. Corrida," she admonished. "Or else you'll have more hearts than you know what to do with."
"What about you?" he said with sudden interest. "How many have won your heart before me?"
The light went out of her eyes, and she buried her face into his neck. "It doesn't matter," she told him in that no-nonsense voice of hers.
A sudden, incessant buzzing distracted them; they both looked up and around, before finding the source in Juan's discarded pants. He cocked an eyebrow, yanking the item of clothing to him by the pant cuff and rummaging around for the vibrating cell phone. "I didn't think we could get a signal way out here," he told his wife, who rolled her eyes.
"Unless it's your manager," Celeste told him, earning her a bark of laughter. "I don't think it's important enough."
He checked the screen. His face instantly twisted into confusion. "It's Matt Engarde," he said wonderingly. Celeste stiffened. "Huh. I wonder what he wants."
He answered.
Five.
"Are you almost done?" she craned her neck backwards, trying to catch a glimpse of what her sister was doing that tugged so hard at the back of her dress.
"Almost," said Maya through teeth gritted with bobby pins. "It'd be a lot easier if you just stopped fidgeting, Sis."
"Sorry. I'm nervous. Do I sound nervous? Because I certainly feel nervous." She didn't have to look to see Maya's lips twitch with her smile.
"You sound like my sister," she said reassuringly, even as she missed with a bobby pin and accidentally jabbed her in the butt. "My fabulous, expensive, wordsmith of a sister. My sister who is going to marry the man she loves today, in front of all the people who love her. You have nothing to be nervous about."
Mia waited until Maya stood, and then turned around and embraced her tightly and tearfully. Maya returned the sentiment, even though she had just put a torrential amount of effort into fixing a rip in the wedding dress she had caused last time she'd hugged Mia too enthusiastically. It didn't stop her, though. How many times does your older sister get married, after all?
They broke apart eventually, and Maya snuck a peek around the heavy church doors. "Everybody's settled and waiting," she reported. "And Diego's twitching worse than you are! If he tugs one more time on that bowtie, it's going to come undone. I wish I had a camera. Say, Sis, where's yours?"
"I think I gave it to Nick. He's my partner," she clarified at Maya's blank look. "You know, Fey and Wright Law Offices? He's the Wright. In fact, if you could go and get it from him, that'd be great. I think I'm about as picture-perfect as I'm going to get." She brushed imaginary dirt off the trounces of her beautiful, pinned wedding dress and arranged a veil that didn't need arranging.
Maya scoffed. "You're always picture perfect." She made to haul the door open and slip inside, and then paused and backtracked. "Phoenix Wright. Is he the guy with the weird hair?"
"That'd be him, yes. Look for Mr. Edgeworth -- they're usually not too far apart."
"Gotcha." She made another move to open the door.
"Wait!" said Mia, and Maya shot her a frayed, "what-is-it-now?" look. "Is ... Is Mr. Grossberg there?"
The nineteen-year-old peeked again, and after several long heartbeats, she retracted her head. "He sure is. That's surprising; I thought they beefed up the security down at the police station. Mr. von Karma's with him, though; I guess they didn't think he was much of a threat if Mr. von Karma's got his eye on him." As if reading Mia's thoughts, she added, "Too bad Mr. Grossberg turned out to be such a cheat and a liar. We could have asked him to walk you up the aisle."
"It's fine," Mia waved this off. "You and me, we're independent women. We don't need anyone to give us away. Secretly, I'm glad, because it meant Diego inherited his law firm."
"Yeah, I know," Maya's voice was dry as dust. "Both of you are successful business owners. You make more in a month than I make flipping burgers in a year."
"That's only because you haven't tapped into your true potential yet," Mia said primly, and her sister's jaw went askew with disbelief. In revenge, she lunged forward, grabbing both heavy doors firmly by the handles and wrenching them open, instantly flooding the small entryway with brilliant, stained-glass sunshine and jolting Mia clear out of her skin. The bellow of the organ beginning the wedding march shuddered the congregation to the core, and they all surged to their feet. Diego stood up straight, hands dropping away from his bow-tie.
"Thanks a lot," she mouthed to Maya, who grinned back guilelessly.
I need a drink, she thought fervently, taking slow, evenly-paced steps up towards the altar, and the waiting Diego Armando. I can't do this sober.
She wished her mother were here. The thought had been hemming at the edge of her mind all day; out of all the times she'd wanted her mother nearby, today seemed more appropriate than all of them. She and Diego had worked as hard as they could to find her location ever since they'd become engaged, to no avail. She hoped, wherever her mother was, that she was somehow incorporeally aware of what was happening. Of how happy she was.
Just like that, she reached Diego, which was the strangest part of all -- her mentor-turned-lover, someone she saw every day like a piece of furniture she was particularly fond of, now standing as groom to her bride. The anonymous figure that had always been present in her daydreams about her perfect white wedding now had a face.
His fingers found the outline of her veil, and she closed her eyes when he lifted it, lips straining with her smile.
When she opened them, her breath caught in her throat and panic flashed through her body -- her surroundings had completely changed. The church was gone, the flowers were gone, the people were gone, and the sudden void of life where only a second ago it had been bursting all around her made her want to shrink in on herself.
Relax, she told herself, taking a deep, calming breath. It's just your ESP kicking in. You're a spirit medium. You can handle this.
It took her a moment to realize she was still at a wedding, but it was incredibly different from the one she'd just left. This was a state penitentiary wedding, in a closed, windowless room with guards in full uniform at the doors instead of ushers, strip-light cameras instead of garland arches, ankle monitors instead of garter belts.
Yet, it was still Diego who stood in the groom's place. Only it wasn't him.
His hair was a shock of white, sprouting up and around a giant mask fastened to the front of his face like a parasite, so she couldn't see his eyes. His hands shook, and extra sensory told her it wasn't because of nerves, or too much caffeine (which was completely believable), but because that was just what his body did; it shivered and crumbled from beneath him.
Finally, she dragged her eyes from the ghost-like shell of the man she loved, and looked behind over her shoulder, out to where the guests would have been sitting.
Phoenix and Maya stood side-by-side there, practically alone. Maya rested her weight on one foot, leaning towards the man beside her, and while her sister watched, slipped her hand into Nick's pocket and stealthily removed his cell phone. She punched furtively at the buttons until he noticed.
"Hey!" He made a swipe at her, and she dodged. "What're you doing? Stop putting those ridiculous ringtones on my cell phone!"
She laughed, and they wrestled for the phone in place, with a sort of hackneyed casualness, almost as if (her mind boggled) they were friends.
Maya ducked, and something around her neck caught the light; heavy and brocaded with red and gold, it took Mia a moment to recognize it; and when she did, she stood dumbfounded. Why was her little sister wearing the talisman of the Master of the Kurain Channeling Technique? The Maya that Mia knew scarcely had any spiritual strength; she was too flighty.
The bride entered at that moment, and Phoenix and Maya settled quickly, like scolded children. Mia almost screamed: Dahlia Hawthorne's face was pale and wane, and she touched the braids in her hair nervously, fingering the lace on her bouquet. A plump little Fey woman stood behind her, giving the train of her wedding dress one last little flounce before sending her on her way up the makeshift aisle.
"Oooooooh!" Maya squealed irreverently. "Iris, you look so pretty! Doesn't she, Nick?"
"Beautiful," breathed Nick, with the kind of slack-jawed awe that made Dahlia (but it wasn't Dahlia, was it? Her eyes were farther apart, and her smile was too sweet and wholesome to really be Dahlia. So this was Iris, then. The names seemed familiar, somehow. Did she have any distant cousins who'd been named after flowers?) blush and the mutant Diego say, "hey, watch it" in a raspy, possessive growl.
"Oh, relax, Godot," said one of the guards scornfully. "You won't be around much longer and he will be --"
"And I will still have ten years of my sentence left," cut in Iris with the kind of calm that was more effective than reproach; she looked at him unsmilingly. "Now, please. This is my wedding. I'd appreciate it if you keep those kinds of comments to yourself."
"Yes, ma'am," said the guard, cowed.
Abruptly, in the space of time it took her to blink, the scene disappeared again, leaving her alone in an inky nothingness with a woman. A very familiar woman.
"Mother?" breathed Mia, and longing gave her heart one great squeeze. This was why she'd become a lawyer; just to lay eyes on Misty Fey one more time, to make sure she was all right. "Wait ... are you ... ?"
"Dead?" Misty tilted her head thoughtfully. "No. I'm not. I think ... I think I'm supposed to be, though. You too."
Mia thought about this. It wasn't too hard to puzzle out. "So that back there was ..."
"How things were supposed to be, yes."
She wrapped her arms around herself like she was overcome with a sudden chill. "But that ... that was so awful! And bleak!"
"Not for them," her mother's voice was sympathetic. "For them, that was their happy ending." She reached out, taking Mia's face between her papery, sweet-smelling hands and looking her right in the eye. "Be grateful for the universe you have, my darling. You are blessed beyond your knowledge."
When she leaned forward to press a kiss to her forehead, light shattered all around her like an explosion of downy feathers, and when it cleared, she was back at her own wedding with Diego's face right in front of her, filling up her vision, dark and whole.
"You all right?" he said, a wry little smile quirking the edges of his lips, and if she didn't know him as well as she did, she would have missed the faint flicker of concern in his eyes. She studied the features of his face closely, but she saw no trace of the man from her vision, the one with white hair and ruined eyes and who stood like his bones were made of the very bitterness that wove the fabric of the universe. "Don't leave me now, kitten. This'd be the worst place to do it." He suddenly looked worried. "Which is exactly why you'd do it."
Definitely her Diego.
"I'm fine," she said, putting her hands into his.
His eyes softened. "Mia Armando," he mulled it over in his mouth like it was an acquired taste, one he'd have to get used to.
She shoved him lightly. "Not yet, I'm not," she chided him, and he laughed uproariously.
The pastor cleared his throat. Somebody in the audience tittered.
"Sorry," she said. "We're ready."
Up in the choir loft, her figure straining against Pearl Fey's dress clothes like too much fruit in a grocery sack, Dahlia Hawthorne crouched low between the bars, her eyes fierce and fixed. She removed the safety on her handgun with an almost inaudible click.
"Can you do it?" her sister whispered like poison, hot and stabbing in her ear. "Can you rob all that from them?"
"Of course I can!" Dahlia hissed, tossing her head like she was bothered by a mosquito. Beads of sweat rolled down her temples. "It'd be so easy. They robbed me of my life. Double homicide, punishable by death, maximum sentence, all thanks to their constant nosing. If they had just minded their own business, I'd be rich by now. Or, better, I'd still be alive. They mean nothing to me!"
"Understandable, I guess." Iris crossed her legs at the knee, absently playing with the ties on her hood. "But she's our cousin. Do you really want to inflict that on her sister, on our Master? Do you want her sister's children to wind up like us?"
"Shut up." Dahlia lifted the gun and trained it straight at the back of Mia Fey's skull. Her hand trembled.
Fandom: Phoenix Wright/Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney
Characters/Pairings: Ensemble
Word Count: 6,101
Contains specific spoilers for all four games. And it is very happily, cheerfully AU, all across the board =D
[read @ AO3]
One.
The bride wore jeans underneath her white cotton dress, if only because it had been chilly that morning and the fog hadn't burned off the mountains. The groom wore his usual sweatshirt, the one the color of Pepto-Bismal that she'd given him to encourage him to break up with her, if only because he thought it was funny.
They were married in court on the Judge's lunch break with three other couples and a few secretarial aides from the Police Department as witnesses, and there was no applause or rice being thrown when it was over; just a bang of the gavel and the Judge's gruff, "Now please excuse me; I have to talk to my brother about the next case he's trying."
They walked back to campus, hand-in-hand, neither of them speaking.
The bustle of girls outside the library reminded her that she had a dissertation on Nathaniel Hawthorne tomorrow, while the mournful cry of a harmonica from a noodle-selling stand reminded him that he hadn't eaten lunch.
When they got back to the dorm, she shrugged off her shawl and tossed it onto her desk, absently picking up a brush to run it through her hair. "How much do you love me?" she asked, studying her reflection in the mirror for any blemishes. There weren't any, of course.
"I just married you, didn't I?" he slipped their papers out of the envelope to make sure that's what they actually did. "I'd say a lot."
She spun, smiling coyly. "Now that I'm your wife, I think it's high time I got you a new necklace," she crept slowly towards him. "One that's a little bit more masculine and a lot less ugly." She made to slip her arms around his neck.
He danced out of her reach, laughing happily. Stupid boy! she snarled in the bramble thorns of her own mind, and if he saw the venom that flashed across her face, he didn't show it.
"I'm going to keep it as long as I possibly can, if only because I know it annoys you," he informed her, cradling the amulet between his long, artistic fingers. "And because I don't care what you say, I think it's absolutely beautiful. And meaningful."
You're full of it. She buried her face in her hands, mortified, giving her soft, beautiful head a shake. "It's ugly and bulky as sin," she sighed; her argument sounded worn and used like an old plaid workshirt, even to her. "And if you love me, you'll give it back to me!"
His sneakers scuffed, and the wooden floor creaked beneath his feet as he came to her, wrapping her up tight inside a hug, his cotton sweatshirt warm on her bare arms and his hips solid and long against hers. "Hey," he said in an undertone, and there was no mistaking the genuine worry in his voice. "Hey. I love you. Oh, man, I love you more than you will ever know. You're fantastic and wonderful and so nice to me even though I don't deserve it and I'm sorry if I embarrass you, but I can't help it."
Dahlia tilted her head back, smiled, and kissed him.
He kissed her back languidly, like he was half-drunk, and this part she was good at. This part she didn't mind, so long as she kept her eyes closed so she didn't have to look at his face, because Phoenix's kisses by themselves made her tingle pleasantly from lips to fingertips to toes. She preferred them to conversation any day. If he thought him walking around carrying her amulet was embarrassing, she should have him remember the kinds of stunts she'd pulled on him in public to keep him from talking. Talk about things she wouldn't tell her grandmother.
He broke away from her lips to ask contemplatively, "Do you think this counts as our wedding night? At ... " he checks his watch. "2 in the afternoon?"
She shrugged off-handedly. "Wedding night, wedding afternoon. We can be flexible."
"Mmhmm."
They fell to kissing again, the same nice, deep kind of making out that made most other kind of thought difficult, but underneath it ran the current of a thrill, of expectation. He got his sweatshirt off, leaving it to puddle on her roommate's empty bed and hoping he remembered to grab it later, and he laughed into her mouth when she snaked her fingers up underneath his undershirt, finding his ticklish spots.
"Wait, stop," she rasped, lips burning. He removed his hands from underneath her dress, and she stepped out of her undone jeans, scooping them up and tucking them over her arm. She knelt down by the mini-fridge, removing a slender bottle of wine from behind the six-packs of yogurt.
When he cracked up, she shook a finger at him. "I dated you for six months. I just got married! I think I deserve a drink," she said indignantly.
"Wow, you're right," he put a hand over his mouth, running the other through his already thoroughly-mussed hair. "We just got married. Whose idea was that again?"
"Yours. Entirely yours," she lied, pouring them both a glass. She unfolded her jeans and rifled through the pockets as if looking for something.
"I wonder what my parents will say. Oh, geeze. Married. In college. They're going to flip out, I know it."
She smiled thinly, putting his glass into his hands, momentarily envying him his parents who were going to be angry. Dahlia couldn't even speak to her parents; both of them believed she was as dead as a doornail, and if she ever revealed to them otherwise, they'd be the first to hang her head on a pike. "This is to worrying about them later," she said, smiling serenely and toasting him.
She watched him drink, the line of his throat bobbing with his swallows (she didn't think wine was supposed to be gulped, she thought distastefully) and she leaned him to put her mouth on the spot where his pulse beat the strongest. Phoenix let her for a moment, before seeking her lips with his. He tasted like alcohol.
He bowed her further and further over the bed, until, finally, they both thrust their drinks onto the bedside table to avoid spilling them all over her bedspread, and tumbled onto the covers.
Not without a small amount of maneuvering, she managed to flip them over so she could straddle his hips, her dress hiked up high on her slim thighs. He was still laughing, partly at the strange picture she made, so she spread her legs a little wider and deeper, and it was her turn to smile as the irises of his eyes suddenly went dark. She stretched herself up the line of his body to reach his mouth, and he kissed her with a naked hunger. She rocked her hips. Dry heat kindled inside her belly.
He tangled their hands together, and she could feel the hard metal of their wedding rings meet somewhere in the middle.
It didn't take long for his breathing to grow shallow. She could hear it, a crackling sound like Rice Krispies, bubbling up from the center of his chest.
Suddenly, he grabbed her around the waist, rolling over and half-crushing her beneath him (and even then, he couldn't even do that; he curved his body upwards so she didn't take the brunt of his weight, ever thoughtful, ever stupid) in order to vomit weakly over the side of the bed, choking, trying to rattle breath into his lungs even as they collapsed. Her nose was filled with the scent of blood and vinegar.
Then, like his strings had been cut, he dropped on top of her, making her grunt.
Dahlia rested there for a moment, compressed tightly against the mattress. She didn't look at his face. She listened; there was a soft wheeze, and then another, and it didn't fade away, it just stopped. She waited another minute, just to be sure.
It took some effort to roll his corpse off of her. Upon succeeding, she sat up, coolly pulling the straps of her dress back up onto her shoulders and smoothing her skirt down. Then she leaned over and with a trembling, rushing relief, she removed the amulet from around his neck and clutched it to her chest.
And then realization dawned on her.
Eyes flying open, she glanced down at the dead body of Phoenix Wright, her newly-wedded husband, all spread-eagled limbs and bugged eyes. It didn't move. Already, she could feel the heat fading from it, the easy joy and effortless love and all-encompassing warmth. He was just a corpse now. And she had absolutely no way to get rid of it. Anyone taking one look at the scene could tell who'd done it.
"Shit," she whispered. And, because it felt good, she said it again. "Shit."
She stretched herself across his body to reach the telephone, an old, half-forgotten number coming immediately to the surface of her mind. She hadn't thought this far ahead.
While waiting for Iris to answer, she couldn't believe she hadn't thought of turning to her for help sooner.
2.
If there was one place you'd hope news would spread quickly and efficiently, it was in a hospital, so Alita Tiala was not surprised when she came out of the bathroom with her brand new dress newly swathed around her figure, albeit untailored, to find the nurses lined up outside the hallway, looking as though they'd raided every fake flower display in the entire building in order to create a bouquet for her.
They applauded at the sight of her, and she ducked her head, flushing in genuine happiness. It hadn't really quite dawned on her yet. Today was her wedding day. Today was her wedding day.
Little Plum hustled out of the bathroom behind her, her discarded clothing and the dress box clutched to her chest. With a gruff expression, she stopped Alita and then pinned something heavy and golden into her hair.
"Family heirloom," she said, puffing herself up with pride. "No woman properly enters the Kitaki family without it, I say."
With trembling fingers, Alita touched the detailing of the pin, and then smiled at Plum. "Thank you," she said, hoarse with emotion. "Thank you for everything." For helping her get into her wedding dress on such short notice, a job that should rightfully go to her mother and friends, for the pin, for letting her marry Wocky in the first place when she so heartily disapproved of the whole thing.
Plum waved her thanks off, turning her around and giving her a little shove down the hall.
A nurse handed her the makeshift bouquet, and everyone burst into another spontaneous round of applause -- the nurses, doctors, assorted patients and visitors who'd gathered like flies. Somebody appropriately started humming a wedding march, and everyone else joined in as Alita swooped down the hall like it was the aisle in a church, one long step after another.
When she reached Wocky's room, it was to find it occupied by three people: Wocky himself, in the bed, already done up in surgical scrubs, Mr. Kitaki at his side, shoulders trembling, and a priest.
"Can't say I had much to do with your type before, know what I'm sayin'?" Wocky told the latter, nose wrinkled distastefully.
"Perhaps you should start," the priest replied evenly, uninsulted.
They caught sight of Alita at the same time. Wocky drew himself up suddenly, like his heart had just tried to leap out of his chest, his face blank and awestruck. She ducked her head behind her bundle of potpourri, blushing with joy at his obvious delight. Shyly, she floated to the side of his bed, reaching down to slip her fingers into his where they lay limp on top of the covers. Plum went to join her husband, slipping her arm through his. Both of them kept their faces carefully schooled.
"Now, it's my understanding that before this young man undergoes emergency heart surgery, he had one last request to be granted," said the priest. "And that was the matter of his wedding."
"Yeah, in case, you know, somethin' happens to me while I'm all sliced and diced on that table," babbled Wocky, not taking his eyes off her face. "Which I'm sure ain't somethin' I gotta worry about, but still, I don't want to leave the woman I love unaccounted for, you know? I want it all official. She's everythin' to me. You feelin' me?" He lifted her hand to his mouth so he could kiss it.
Alita smiled again, expecting to feel a rush of relief at his words. Everything she'd worked to obtain was coming to fruition right here and now; she was going to be rich soon, rich and protected as only a mob wife could be, brave and notorious as only a mob wife could be. It was a fabulous destiny she had spread out in front of her, and she'd been so close to losing it all. But he'd come through at the last possible moment.
Yet, the relief, the pleasure of victory didn't come. She looked at Wocky's face, smiling right in the face of death, smiling wide and bright and idiotic just for her, and her heart filled to the brim.
"I take it, young lady, by the outfit you're wearing, that you are fully prepared to marry Wocky Kitaki here and now?" the priest asked gently.
Alita opened her mouth, choked on her own emotion, and then leaned down to kiss him, which he would tell her later nearly put him into cardiac arrest right then and there, which would have, like, sucked.
III.
"I am prepared to hand down my verdict at this time." The Judge lifted his gavel and struck it hard on his podium. "Joe Darke. As substantial evidence could not be found to connect you to the serial killings, a verdict cannot be reached as to the matter of your guilt. However, on the charges of assault with a deadly weapon and attempted murder, the state of California finds you GUILTY."
BANG, said the gavel cheerfully.
In the prosecution bench, Lana felt herself grow dizzy all at once, and she reached out for something to support her. At the same time, Neil wrapped his arms around her, crushing her to his side in a paroxysm of joy. A jolt ran through them both when he punched his fist into the air with a wild whoop, then snatched his hat from his head and waved it around like he was at a rodeo. She looked up at his face; it was twisted with fierce, wild triumph.
She reached out, running a slender finger down the angry red line that ran across his cheek; a bloody souvenir of the night Joe Darke escaped from questioning and cornered her sister in her office. She couldn't bear to imagine what might have happened; images of Darke and Neil wrestling, Ema crying out, knives flashing. Someone could have easily died.
"I'm glad you're alive," she murmured, and he looked at her, startled by the sudden display of affection. Lana was fair-natured, smiling, and capable, but affectionate? Not frequently.
He beamed back at her, still buoyed by the cheering that came from the court body. "I'm mighty glad you decided to become a prosecutor."
"To get Joe Darke convicted for the fright he gave you and my sister, I would have walked across hot coals."
His eyes sparkled, and he gazed at her for a heartbeat longer than was strictly professional. They were still half-embraced, so she could smell the mint on his breath and the almost girly, desert-rose scent of his cologne. He hugged her tighter, so that her head fell into the hollow of his shoulder.
Then, abruptly, he stepped away, slamming his fist down on the prosecution stand to get the Judge's attention. "Your Honor! The prosecution has one more favor to ask!"
"Mr. Marshall, the court has already reached a verdict and the defendant is being led away as we speak. Technically, court is adjourned for the day," the Judge frowned in perplexion; Neil was as straight-forward and dedicated as they come, not unlike a Lone Ranger, and this was unusual for him.
"The prosecution understands. Please, pardner, sir."
"What is it?"
Neil grinned his widest, shit-eating, top-of-the-world grin. "The prosecution would like you to marry us!"
"I beg your pardon?" the Judge blinked.
"We would?" Lana said blankly, staring at her senior partner like he'd grown a cactus out of his head.
"Yes!" Neil's fingers reached down to tangle with Lana's; he was almost breathless. "Please, Your Honor! Marry us!"
The crowd quieted into a soft, speculative mumbling; court was adjourned, but nobody was getting up to leave. The Judge's brows came down heavily. "Prosecutor Marshall! I can't just ... marry you. For one thing, Ms. Skye here probably needs to be aware of your intentions first. Secondly, I don't happen to carry the proper paperwork on me --"
"That's dandy!" interjected Neil, still smiling at 100 wattage. He quickly leaned over the bench to grab his briefcase. "I do. All right here, State of California marriage certificate, waiting to be signed by you, me, and Lana. And notarized or whatever fancy hullabaloo's gotta be done to it."
"You what?" Lana had never been more shell-shocked in her entire life.
"Mr. Marshall --" protested the Judge.
"OH! And!" he shuffled some papers to side, and removed a small, black ring box. Lana gasped, hand flying to her throat. The squeal that came from the back of the courtroom was unmistakably Ema's.
"When did you get that?" Lana breathed, too quietly to be heard by anyone but the man at her side.
He looked at her, some of his manic energy draining out from him in his earnesty to communicate just how serious he was about this. "I got it the day I woke up in that hospital room and it was your face I saw first," he murmured, eyes burning. Then he got down on one knee.
Lana swallowed once, failed at that, and tried again. She felt flushed head to toe, burning and prickling like her body was trying to affirm she was alive. She glanced over her shoulder and caught sight of Ema immediately, her hands clasped to her chest, bouncing on the balls of her feet with her face all scrunched up like a child's. Jake Marshall was in the row above her and to the right; he looked thunderstruck and a little wary, like he was waiting for the punch line. There was the Chief of Police, Damon Gant, newly appointed after his predecessor's "unfortunate" accident, smiling he hadn't a care in the world. None of them volunteered any quick, easy answers for her. She looked back to Neil, trembling all over.
Then, slowly and wordlessly, she nodded.
As if she'd released a spring in him, he jumped up, snatching her to him again. He planted a sloppy, enthusiastic kiss in the general vicinity of her mouth, and she grabbed him by the skull to realign their mouths correctly. He clutched her harder. Dimly, she was aware of the court cheering again, far louder than they'd been for the conviction, but she was barely listening.
She pulled away, and, flushed all over, he took the ring from the box and slipped it on her finger.
"Your Honor!" she lifted her face, blinking at the courtroom that suddenly seemed so bright and large, like she'd never seen it before. "Marry us!"
"Prosecutor Skye, I have another case to hear in twenty minutes and I have to use the facilities!"
"Please!" she said earnestly, as Neil gathered up the marriage papers and brought them to him, tugging Lana along by default since they were still tangled together, tighter than they'd ever been before by a long line of mutual victories and mutual revelations.
He looked at them both shrewdly from his great height. "Are you sure you want to do this? Right here, without any pomp or circumstances, in front of all these witnesses?"
Neil looked over his shoulder, and she knew he sought out Ema and Jake. "Everyone we love is right here with us, pardner. I can't think of a better place or time."
BANG! said the gavel affirmably.
4.
"You know," Juan Corrida said thoughtfully to the woman nestled sleepily in the crook of his arm, as he swirled the last dregs in his beer bottle. "I am now officially old enough to drink this, as of last week."
She groaned; he felt the vibration of it tingle his bare chest, where it lay plaited along hers. "Oh, don't remind me of your age, please. You're just a child."
He laughed, lovingly twirling a lock of her wispy hair around his fingers. "Ah, but weren't you the first one to tell me that I look and act much older than I actually am? If I remember correctly, your exact words were --"
"'Seventeen going on thirty,'" she echoed alongside him, unwilling to be roused from her post-coital stupor. "Yes, I remember."
A cool breeze gushed up gently behind them, running over their naked figures where they lay tangled in the sand and rustling the awning of the beach umbrella they had spread out above them. Absently, he rubbed her ankle with his toe, until she pulled her leg up close to her body with a sleepy, "stop it."
"Celeste," he murmured. She said nothing. "Celeste," he said again, more forcefully this time.
"Hmmm?"
"Are you happy?"
Finally, she opened her eyes, as light and crystalline as an ice sculpture, and raised them to his. Her smile made her whole face light up from the inside out, and oh, he would do anything to see her smile like that as often as she could. She was so beautiful when she smiled. She slid an arm around his ribs. "I am very happy, Juan. Very, very happy,” she mumbled into the skin below his nipple. “What about you? Do you think your fans are going to be upset that the Jammin' Ninja, symbol of justice and all things right, got secretly married on a private beach, far away from their adoring, lensed eye?"
"I couldn't care less about what my fans think," he said flatly, reaching over her in order to pluck a cattail from behind their umbrella, and he used it to stroke a path from her earlobe down the nape of her neck and across her shoulder to the swell of her left breast. She knocked that away too, so he stuck it between his teeth. "All I care about is making you happy, Mrs. Corrida."
She sucked in her breath, so softly he almost mistook it for another trick of the wind. "You should be careful with lines like that, Mr. Corrida," she admonished. "Or else you'll have more hearts than you know what to do with."
"What about you?" he said with sudden interest. "How many have won your heart before me?"
The light went out of her eyes, and she buried her face into his neck. "It doesn't matter," she told him in that no-nonsense voice of hers.
A sudden, incessant buzzing distracted them; they both looked up and around, before finding the source in Juan's discarded pants. He cocked an eyebrow, yanking the item of clothing to him by the pant cuff and rummaging around for the vibrating cell phone. "I didn't think we could get a signal way out here," he told his wife, who rolled her eyes.
"Unless it's your manager," Celeste told him, earning her a bark of laughter. "I don't think it's important enough."
He checked the screen. His face instantly twisted into confusion. "It's Matt Engarde," he said wonderingly. Celeste stiffened. "Huh. I wonder what he wants."
He answered.
Five.
"Are you almost done?" she craned her neck backwards, trying to catch a glimpse of what her sister was doing that tugged so hard at the back of her dress.
"Almost," said Maya through teeth gritted with bobby pins. "It'd be a lot easier if you just stopped fidgeting, Sis."
"Sorry. I'm nervous. Do I sound nervous? Because I certainly feel nervous." She didn't have to look to see Maya's lips twitch with her smile.
"You sound like my sister," she said reassuringly, even as she missed with a bobby pin and accidentally jabbed her in the butt. "My fabulous, expensive, wordsmith of a sister. My sister who is going to marry the man she loves today, in front of all the people who love her. You have nothing to be nervous about."
Mia waited until Maya stood, and then turned around and embraced her tightly and tearfully. Maya returned the sentiment, even though she had just put a torrential amount of effort into fixing a rip in the wedding dress she had caused last time she'd hugged Mia too enthusiastically. It didn't stop her, though. How many times does your older sister get married, after all?
They broke apart eventually, and Maya snuck a peek around the heavy church doors. "Everybody's settled and waiting," she reported. "And Diego's twitching worse than you are! If he tugs one more time on that bowtie, it's going to come undone. I wish I had a camera. Say, Sis, where's yours?"
"I think I gave it to Nick. He's my partner," she clarified at Maya's blank look. "You know, Fey and Wright Law Offices? He's the Wright. In fact, if you could go and get it from him, that'd be great. I think I'm about as picture-perfect as I'm going to get." She brushed imaginary dirt off the trounces of her beautiful, pinned wedding dress and arranged a veil that didn't need arranging.
Maya scoffed. "You're always picture perfect." She made to haul the door open and slip inside, and then paused and backtracked. "Phoenix Wright. Is he the guy with the weird hair?"
"That'd be him, yes. Look for Mr. Edgeworth -- they're usually not too far apart."
"Gotcha." She made another move to open the door.
"Wait!" said Mia, and Maya shot her a frayed, "what-is-it-now?" look. "Is ... Is Mr. Grossberg there?"
The nineteen-year-old peeked again, and after several long heartbeats, she retracted her head. "He sure is. That's surprising; I thought they beefed up the security down at the police station. Mr. von Karma's with him, though; I guess they didn't think he was much of a threat if Mr. von Karma's got his eye on him." As if reading Mia's thoughts, she added, "Too bad Mr. Grossberg turned out to be such a cheat and a liar. We could have asked him to walk you up the aisle."
"It's fine," Mia waved this off. "You and me, we're independent women. We don't need anyone to give us away. Secretly, I'm glad, because it meant Diego inherited his law firm."
"Yeah, I know," Maya's voice was dry as dust. "Both of you are successful business owners. You make more in a month than I make flipping burgers in a year."
"That's only because you haven't tapped into your true potential yet," Mia said primly, and her sister's jaw went askew with disbelief. In revenge, she lunged forward, grabbing both heavy doors firmly by the handles and wrenching them open, instantly flooding the small entryway with brilliant, stained-glass sunshine and jolting Mia clear out of her skin. The bellow of the organ beginning the wedding march shuddered the congregation to the core, and they all surged to their feet. Diego stood up straight, hands dropping away from his bow-tie.
"Thanks a lot," she mouthed to Maya, who grinned back guilelessly.
I need a drink, she thought fervently, taking slow, evenly-paced steps up towards the altar, and the waiting Diego Armando. I can't do this sober.
She wished her mother were here. The thought had been hemming at the edge of her mind all day; out of all the times she'd wanted her mother nearby, today seemed more appropriate than all of them. She and Diego had worked as hard as they could to find her location ever since they'd become engaged, to no avail. She hoped, wherever her mother was, that she was somehow incorporeally aware of what was happening. Of how happy she was.
Just like that, she reached Diego, which was the strangest part of all -- her mentor-turned-lover, someone she saw every day like a piece of furniture she was particularly fond of, now standing as groom to her bride. The anonymous figure that had always been present in her daydreams about her perfect white wedding now had a face.
His fingers found the outline of her veil, and she closed her eyes when he lifted it, lips straining with her smile.
When she opened them, her breath caught in her throat and panic flashed through her body -- her surroundings had completely changed. The church was gone, the flowers were gone, the people were gone, and the sudden void of life where only a second ago it had been bursting all around her made her want to shrink in on herself.
Relax, she told herself, taking a deep, calming breath. It's just your ESP kicking in. You're a spirit medium. You can handle this.
It took her a moment to realize she was still at a wedding, but it was incredibly different from the one she'd just left. This was a state penitentiary wedding, in a closed, windowless room with guards in full uniform at the doors instead of ushers, strip-light cameras instead of garland arches, ankle monitors instead of garter belts.
Yet, it was still Diego who stood in the groom's place. Only it wasn't him.
His hair was a shock of white, sprouting up and around a giant mask fastened to the front of his face like a parasite, so she couldn't see his eyes. His hands shook, and extra sensory told her it wasn't because of nerves, or too much caffeine (which was completely believable), but because that was just what his body did; it shivered and crumbled from beneath him.
Finally, she dragged her eyes from the ghost-like shell of the man she loved, and looked behind over her shoulder, out to where the guests would have been sitting.
Phoenix and Maya stood side-by-side there, practically alone. Maya rested her weight on one foot, leaning towards the man beside her, and while her sister watched, slipped her hand into Nick's pocket and stealthily removed his cell phone. She punched furtively at the buttons until he noticed.
"Hey!" He made a swipe at her, and she dodged. "What're you doing? Stop putting those ridiculous ringtones on my cell phone!"
She laughed, and they wrestled for the phone in place, with a sort of hackneyed casualness, almost as if (her mind boggled) they were friends.
Maya ducked, and something around her neck caught the light; heavy and brocaded with red and gold, it took Mia a moment to recognize it; and when she did, she stood dumbfounded. Why was her little sister wearing the talisman of the Master of the Kurain Channeling Technique? The Maya that Mia knew scarcely had any spiritual strength; she was too flighty.
The bride entered at that moment, and Phoenix and Maya settled quickly, like scolded children. Mia almost screamed: Dahlia Hawthorne's face was pale and wane, and she touched the braids in her hair nervously, fingering the lace on her bouquet. A plump little Fey woman stood behind her, giving the train of her wedding dress one last little flounce before sending her on her way up the makeshift aisle.
"Oooooooh!" Maya squealed irreverently. "Iris, you look so pretty! Doesn't she, Nick?"
"Beautiful," breathed Nick, with the kind of slack-jawed awe that made Dahlia (but it wasn't Dahlia, was it? Her eyes were farther apart, and her smile was too sweet and wholesome to really be Dahlia. So this was Iris, then. The names seemed familiar, somehow. Did she have any distant cousins who'd been named after flowers?) blush and the mutant Diego say, "hey, watch it" in a raspy, possessive growl.
"Oh, relax, Godot," said one of the guards scornfully. "You won't be around much longer and he will be --"
"And I will still have ten years of my sentence left," cut in Iris with the kind of calm that was more effective than reproach; she looked at him unsmilingly. "Now, please. This is my wedding. I'd appreciate it if you keep those kinds of comments to yourself."
"Yes, ma'am," said the guard, cowed.
Abruptly, in the space of time it took her to blink, the scene disappeared again, leaving her alone in an inky nothingness with a woman. A very familiar woman.
"Mother?" breathed Mia, and longing gave her heart one great squeeze. This was why she'd become a lawyer; just to lay eyes on Misty Fey one more time, to make sure she was all right. "Wait ... are you ... ?"
"Dead?" Misty tilted her head thoughtfully. "No. I'm not. I think ... I think I'm supposed to be, though. You too."
Mia thought about this. It wasn't too hard to puzzle out. "So that back there was ..."
"How things were supposed to be, yes."
She wrapped her arms around herself like she was overcome with a sudden chill. "But that ... that was so awful! And bleak!"
"Not for them," her mother's voice was sympathetic. "For them, that was their happy ending." She reached out, taking Mia's face between her papery, sweet-smelling hands and looking her right in the eye. "Be grateful for the universe you have, my darling. You are blessed beyond your knowledge."
When she leaned forward to press a kiss to her forehead, light shattered all around her like an explosion of downy feathers, and when it cleared, she was back at her own wedding with Diego's face right in front of her, filling up her vision, dark and whole.
"You all right?" he said, a wry little smile quirking the edges of his lips, and if she didn't know him as well as she did, she would have missed the faint flicker of concern in his eyes. She studied the features of his face closely, but she saw no trace of the man from her vision, the one with white hair and ruined eyes and who stood like his bones were made of the very bitterness that wove the fabric of the universe. "Don't leave me now, kitten. This'd be the worst place to do it." He suddenly looked worried. "Which is exactly why you'd do it."
Definitely her Diego.
"I'm fine," she said, putting her hands into his.
His eyes softened. "Mia Armando," he mulled it over in his mouth like it was an acquired taste, one he'd have to get used to.
She shoved him lightly. "Not yet, I'm not," she chided him, and he laughed uproariously.
The pastor cleared his throat. Somebody in the audience tittered.
"Sorry," she said. "We're ready."
Up in the choir loft, her figure straining against Pearl Fey's dress clothes like too much fruit in a grocery sack, Dahlia Hawthorne crouched low between the bars, her eyes fierce and fixed. She removed the safety on her handgun with an almost inaudible click.
"Can you do it?" her sister whispered like poison, hot and stabbing in her ear. "Can you rob all that from them?"
"Of course I can!" Dahlia hissed, tossing her head like she was bothered by a mosquito. Beads of sweat rolled down her temples. "It'd be so easy. They robbed me of my life. Double homicide, punishable by death, maximum sentence, all thanks to their constant nosing. If they had just minded their own business, I'd be rich by now. Or, better, I'd still be alive. They mean nothing to me!"
"Understandable, I guess." Iris crossed her legs at the knee, absently playing with the ties on her hood. "But she's our cousin. Do you really want to inflict that on her sister, on our Master? Do you want her sister's children to wind up like us?"
"Shut up." Dahlia lifted the gun and trained it straight at the back of Mia Fey's skull. Her hand trembled.