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Mia hates hospitals, and she hates emergency rooms most of all. All the unnatural noises blend into an odd din, a thrum of human suffering and sterile indifference. But she’s here on a mission, so she forges on through the ocean of beds.
She almost doesn’t see him; his nose is buried in a newspaper. At first, she thinks he might be crying into it, since that’s about all he did in court (well, she supposes she ought to be fair; he cried, lied, and ate a glass necklace), but he just looks... intent. He doesn’t turn to face her as she approaches his bed.
“Hi, Mr. Wright.”
He jumps, nearly dropping his newspaper. “Ms. Fey! Did I forget to sign a form or something?” She almost laughs. “Or… wait, am I getting arrested again?”
Now, she actually does let her laughter out. “No! And it’s troubling that you think I can do that.”
He closes his newspaper and looks at the ceiling. “It’s been a rough few days.”
“I just came to check on you. How are you feeling?”
“Well, I’m basically over my cold,” he says drily. Mia snorts. Under the lovesick and clueless exterior, he’s actually a bit of a smartass, isn’t he?
She persists. “Really, though. You weren’t feeling too hot when we last saw each other.”
“Physically, I’m fine. They have to run a couple of tests, and then I can go home.” He sighs. “With a massive hospital bill. Adieu, summer trip to Paris.” His face falls. “I was supposed to go with, uh... with her. So... I guess it wouldn’t have happened anyway.”
Mia looks away. “I’m sorry, Mr. Wright.”
He laughs without humour. “You saw me eat evidence. I think we’re past the point of formal titles.”
“Then you don’t get to call me Ms. Fey, either. It makes me feel like I’m someone’s mother.”
“Fair enough, he says, leaning over the side of his bed to grab his bag. He pulls out a pile of papers.
“What’s that?”
“A request form to change my major to law,” he says, suddenly solemn. “I’ve had it lying around for months, but I wasn’t sure it was the right decision. Now I know.”
“So you were serious?”
“I mean, yeah,” he says. “I’d been taking law courses on the side anyway, and I’d been thinking of leaving theatre for law for a while anyway... What happened yesterday was just confirmation that I was on the right path. That I am on the right path,” he corrects resolutely. “Well... that, and the newspaper gave me a sign,” he says, almost sheepishly, motioning to the newspaper on his lap.
Mia leans in to inspect it. “What, did they cover your case?” Instead of the snarky headline about eating evidence that she was expecting, there’s a small picture of Miles Edgeworth and a headline about forged evidence. She wrinkles her nose. “Yeah, with prosecutors like that, it’s no wonder the system is as awful and corrupt as it is.” It’s honourable that he wants to fix it; his unexpected display of moral fiber is far removed from the evidence-eating that was happening just twenty-four hours prior.
For some reason, though, her client looks wounded. “That’s... that’s not what I meant. He’s my friend,” he protests.
Mia winces. The last person he defended this way was a serial killer (although, to her knowledge, he knows nothing about at least two of those murders, and she’s planning to keep it that way for now; he’s been through enough), and she’s starting to think he just keeps poor company.
“You know him?” she asks, incredulous.
“I... did. In elementary school. He wasn’t like this,” he insists. “He dreamt of being a defence attorney... of saving people. This isn’t who he wanted to be.”
Mia scoffs. “I doubt putting innocents in jail is anyone’s grade school dream.”
The sarcasm flies right over Phoenix’s head. “Exactly! I need to meet him. I need to find out what happened, and when I do, I’m going to help him.”
Mia sits down on the edge of his bed. “Listen, can I be honest here?”
Phoenix eyes her warily. “Uh, okay.”
“In the first case of my career...” She closes her eyes and breathes deeply. The wounds are still fresh, even a year later. “In my first case, I faced off against Miles Edgeworth.”
“Really?” says Phoenix, in wide-eyed admiration.
“He was awful,” says Mia emphatically.
“He was a condescending creep. Prepared witnesses, insidious tactics... but most importantly, he was perfectly willing to send my client to his death, even though we both knew he was innocent.”
Phoenix shakes his head. “I refuse to accept that.”
Mia stares at him in her disbelief. She doesn’t know how he can have this much faith in a man he last saw in grade school, but she has to admit that this kind of belief to the bitter end is what makes a good defence attorney.
He looks her dead in the eye, far removed from the lovelorn airhead she met yesterday. “I want to become a defence attorney to save people like him. People who are alone, people who are scared... people who don’t have anyone left on their side.” He swallows. “I’m gonna finish law school, I’m going to get my badge, and then one day... I can meet him and understand what happened. And then, I’m going to save him.” He pauses and winces. “But I have to catch up on last week’s reading and do the questions first. Forgot to tell my professors I was busy being a murder suspect.”
It’s a noble goal that he has, even if it’s very stupid. She doesn’t understand it, really, and she’s pretty sure he’ll fail at getting Miles Edgeworth to be a good person, but his heart is in the right place, she thinks. She makes up her mind. “Well, what was the reading about?”
“Wait, what?”
She smiles at him, her heart somehow lighter than it’s been in weeks. She doesn’t understand why she’s doing this, but her gut’s never been wrong about this kind of thing and - Holy Mother take her - the boy’s started to grow on her. “I mean, I’m an Ivy grad. I bet you’re doing mostly the same stuff that I did. Maybe I can lend a hand.”
Phoenix just looks on in shock, for a second, some combination of Mia’s sudden offer and pain medication leaving him dazed.
“Well, we were looking at something boring. A civil case,” he said, waving his hand dismissively through the air. Mia snorts in disbelief. Has he forgotten the very fresh lesson he’s just gotten on how gruelling and traumatizing criminal cases can be?
“Not all civil cases are boring! They’re just...” Mia trails off, but seeing that he isn’t buying it, she throws her hands in the air. “Okay, fine, some of them are boring. Not everything is about murder. What case was it?”
“It was State v., uh... she had a stupid name. The defendants always have stupid names,” he says, without an ounce of self-awareness. His eyes look glazed over, and she remembers how much pain medication he’s probably got in his system. He seems to have the same realization. “Uh... maybe now isn’t the time for studying.”
“Call me when it is,” Mia says, her eagerness surprising her. She roots through her pocket for a business card and sets it gingerly on his bedside.
The boy stares at her like she’s grown a second head. “That’s, uh... I mean... thanks? I... well, I appreciate it.” When he looks this out of it, it’s hard to think of him as anything but a kid she’s babysitting. In a weird way, he reminds her of Maya, with those big naïve eyes. She almost wants to reach over and ruffle his hair.
Almost.
Mia smiles. “Don’t worry about it. Get some rest, all right?”
Phoenix manages a half-baked salute for her. “You got it, Chief.”
Mia snorts. With two trials under her belt, it’ll be a while yet before she’s anyone’s “chief”, as it were. “Bye, Phoenix. Get better.”
“Mm,” he says, facing and ostensibly addressing his thin hospital pillow.
Mia tries to think of something comforting to say, but it looks as though her client is already asleep.
Dahlia Hawthorne, she thinks as she gives Phoenix a last glance before making for the parking lot, has left a mess of death and destruction behind, and if she doesn’t sift through the rubble to find the things worth saving, then who will?
-
“You know,” says Phoenix, “it’s nice to just hang out like this, like old times. How have you been?”
“Phoenix, I’m dead,” she reminds him, genuinely worried about how getting saved by her in desperate trials every other month is going to affect his grieving process. Channeling spirits is supposed to be a secret art meant for seeking holy counsel, not a means by which to win trials and chat over a beer (well, a beer for him — Maya, whose body she is inhabiting, is underage) with your departed mentor. She wonders what her mother would say, what Aunt Morgan would say, if they saw her on the office couch with a half-finished burger in her hand. She supposes Maya always was a trailblazer.
Phoenix waves his hand around, as if he’s shooing away the notion. “Dead, schmead. We still get to see each other. You might as well have... I don’t know. Moved to San Francisco or something.”
Mia doesn’t argue the point. For all the times she’s referred this kid (man, she reminds herself - he’s already twenty-four) to good therapists, she knows he’d rather avoid talking about his problems if he can help it. It’s going to take more than her concern to get Phoenix Wright into therapy. She suspects it might take a court order.
“How about that trial, though?” Phoenix asks through a bite of his burger. “Edgeworth was so weird today.”
Mia takes a contemplative sip from the giant glass of soda that was part of the burger trio. “I’ll give it to him, cornering his own witness like that was gutsy. And...” She trails off, unsure how to describe Edgeworth’s actions. Had he genuinely come to understand that Will Powers was innocent and gone through a change of heart, or had he just taken the only route that he knew would allow him to come out looking relatively noble and competent by the end of the trial? For once, she’s unable to get a good read on him.
Phoenix smirks that great, big, insufferable smirk of his and leans back. “Admit it. Your nemesis actually has something resembling a moral backbone.”
The clarity of death has not helped her understand her apprentice’s relentless fondness for Miles Edgeworth. She suspects nothing will. “Need I remind you that he very nearly sent you to serve a life sentence he knew you didn’t deserve based on nothing but Redd White’s say-so?”
“I mean, I have to assume he was being coerced. He was in Bluecorp’s clutches, just like everyone else.”
“You really think that?”
“Besides, he came and talked to me after the trial today. Said that I was giving him “unnecessary feelings” or something. Unease and uncertainty, he said. And then he basically told me he never wanted to see my face again.” Phoenix looks far more chipper than she would if someone she liked and respected had told her that. Ever the optimist, even at the most baffling of times.
She snorts, a habit of Maya’s coming through the channelling process. “Charming fellow.”
“I mean it, Chief.” He leans in, in that earnest, naïve, disarming manner of his, his eyes bright. “I really think he might be reevaluating his choices. He seemed really out of sorts.”
Mia leans towards him, gripping his shoulders. “Phoenix, you’ve got a kind and loving and beautiful soul, but you’re too quick to trust.” She sees him open her mouth to reply and raises her own hand in protest. “You give the benefit of the doubt to people who have in no way earned it.”
Phoenix crosses his arms. “No, I don’t!” All she can see is a boy barely out of his teens, pink sweater and all. Just because he’s replaced it with a thrift store suit, she thinks, doesn’t mean the bleeding heart underneath is bleeding any less.
“That’s how you got punched and framed by White. That’s how you nearly got roughed up by Vasquez’s goons!”
“Yeah, but—“
“It’s just like—” She sees him tense up and, in the wisdom that comes with death, decides not to compare this weird, emotionally stunted, smarmy little prosecutor he’s chosen to idolize to his serial killer ex-girlfriend. “Listen. You see the best in people, even when they show you their worst, and that’s great trait in a defence attorney, but it’s a dangerous way to live. I don’t want you to get hurt.”
Phoenix stares at her. “Maybe, but I have a gut feeling about this guy. Call that naïve if you want, but what I saw today was a person who was starting to change.”
Mia picks up a fry and twirls it around in her fingers. “Mm.”
Phoenix crosses his arms. “Okay, just what is your beef with this guy? Just because he was an ass when he was like nineteen—”
Mia throws up her hands. “He would’ve gotten you sent to jail if I hadn’t conquered death to tell you to turn over a receipt!” Phoenix chokes on a burger bite. “Twenty to life at best, the hangman’s noose at worst! I think I have a right to be wary after that, don’t you?”
Phoenix looks taken aback only for a moment, then shrugs. “Fair enough.”
Mia is almost offended by how easily he relents. “What do you mean, fair enough?”
Phoenix crosses his legs and steals one of her fries. “I get it. I see why you think he isn’t worthy of my trust, but he has it anyway. I believe he can change. That he’s changing right now. I don’t know what to tell you.”
Mia sighs so long and hard that she feels like she’s expelling her spirit through Maya’s nose. “You are impossible.”
“Thank you,” he says, looking way too smug for someone vigorously defending the man who almost ruined his life.
She looks at Maya’s slightly hideous Steel Samurai watch. “It’s almost midnight, Wright. I have to get out of here, and you have to stop wrecking my little sister’s sleep hygiene to hang out with a dead woman.”
“Yeah, yeah. Don’t let the bedbugs bite, Chief.” He smiles at her fondly, and she almost forgets how many of her fries he ate.
“They don’t have those where I am,” she says serenely. It isn’t the first time she’s severed her connection to Maya to have the last word with Phoenix, and she doubts it’ll be the last.
-
She knocks on Phoenix’s apartment door, feeling more sheepish than usual. She hasn’t shown up unannounced like this before, but Maya wants her to talk to him, says she’s the only one who understands. She doubts that’s true – Maya doesn’t give herself nearly enough credit, especially considering how much she’s grown in the past year or two – but she can’t turn down her little sister after reading a tear-stained letter.
A bleary-eyed Phoenix opens the door. “Chief?”
“Surprise,” she says mildly, waving a pair of conciliatory milkshakes at him.
Phoenix raises an eyebrow, wary. “Why are you here? I thought Maya was having a hard time channelling?”
“Pearl’s agreed to let me pilot her around for the evening.”
“What is this? What’s going on?”
She slides past him and lets herself into his apartment, which is, as always, a bit of a mess. It would never pass Aunt Morgan’s white glove test. “Pass the vacuum around here every once in a while – you’re twenty-five.”
He rolls his eyes. “Your sister’s staying here, too. Do you tell her to do that?”
She leans on the arm of his couch. “Oh, constantly. The fact that neither of you will listen is the bane of my admittedly limited existence.”
“Why are you here, Mia?” There’s a sour edge in his voice that she knows wasn’t there last year. Maya’s right; something is wrong.
“Maya told me I need to talk to you. You’re bitter, she says. You’re evasive, you’re distant. She knows there’s something you’re not telling her.” He eyes her warily, but stays silent. “Phoenix, you know you can talk to me, right?”
“I’m fine,” he says, as though she hasn't been able to spot his tells since he was a snot-nosed college junior.
She leans forward. “Look, Maya’s a teenager – if you want to keep the kid gloves on with her, I get it. But I’m not going to tell her anything you don’t want me to. You seem like you need someone to talk to – here I am.”
Phoenix looks out the window and sinks into the chair across from the couch. “Some… some pretty bad stuff happened while Maya was training. I don’t really know what to tell her.”
“Hit me.” She slides one of the milkshakes she’s holding across the coffee table.
He sighs and takes a sip. “I assume she told you about all the stuff with Edgeworth and von Karma?”
“Yeah. For what it’s worth, I’m proud of you, Wright.” His expression softens. “You saw something in him that I didn’t. You believed in him to the bitter end. You saved him, just like you said you would.”
Phoenix hunches over, studying a coffee stain on the table in front of him. “Yeah, well. There was another trial after that. It’s a long story, but he wasn’t doing too well afterwards. The next time I heard from him was by way of a suicide note. Prosecutor Miles Edgeworth chooses death.”
She reels back. “Fuck. I’m so sorry, Phoenix.”
He holds his milkshake so firmly that his knuckles turn white. “You were right after all. I bet you’re feeling vindicated.”
She sets down her milkshake, reaches across the table to grab his wrist. “Vindicated? Of course not! You spent all this time chasing down someone you thought you could save, and then you saved him, and then it ended like this. That’s not vindicating, Phoenix – that’s a nightmare.”
He looks a little taken aback. She senses that he wanted to be angry, that he thought that anger and coldness would be easier than heart-wrenching grief. “I thought—”
“What, that I’d gloat because I didn’t like him when I was alive? Even I’m not that petty. You lost someone who shaped your life, who mattered to you. I know what that’s like.” She thinks of the directionless anger she’d felt after Diego’s death, how much rage she’d held about the devastating, fundamental unfairness of it all. For a few years afterwards, her rage was contradictory and all-consuming – it held her together and it tore her apart. She wouldn’t wish it on anyone –certainly not on Phoenix, who had already experienced enough heartbreak for a lifetime by the time she’d met him.
She can see in his expression that she’s opened wounds he’s been trying to stitch up. “I thought I’d saved him for good. I thought he could move past all the shit he went through and be a good person, finally.”
“And he didn’t get the chance.”
“He gave up,” Phoenix says quietly, and the dam breaks.
He cries next to her long past Pearl’s bedtime.
-
After Phoenix somehow manages to save Maya and get justice, Mia thinks she’s done for the night after reuniting with her sister and giving her apprentice (he’s grown so much that perhaps she should stop viewing him that way, but it’s hard to teach a dead woman new tricks) a pat on the back, but what feels like moments later, she’s summoned to the group celebration at that awful hotel next to her office. She barely has time to come to before a waiter offers her a canapé.
She finds Phoenix in the crowd. “Hey – do you know why I’m here?”
He takes a sip of fancy-smelling wine, the kind she remembers having while being taken out to nice restaurants by law firms scouting new talent. “Pearls said she wanted to ‘invite’ you. I think it’s sweet, if a little troubling.”
She heaves a sigh. That girl works way too hard for a school-aged child. “Yeah, that sounds about right.” She dodges past a woman with a camera she vaguely recalls encountering in some case or another barrelling after one of Maya’s beloved Steel Samurai actors. “How are you feeling?”
“Relieved. Exhausted. Pissed off. Numb. Self-actualized. All of the above, and also none of the above. Who knows?” He knocks back more wine. She wasn’t present for all of it, but this case does seem like it’s been something of an emotional rollercoaster. “You said once that I’m too trusting. I expected an ‘I told you so’ today.”,
Mia shakes her head. “Your trusting nature’s nearly gotten you killed or jailed, but for every time that’s happened, you’ve saved someone who needed it, just like you said you would. I’d say you’ve about broken even.”
“You always say it like that – nature.” He twirls the stem of his glass, contemplative. “It’s not my nature, you know? It’s a choice. The love of my life framed me for murder when I was barely an adult. That’s not something that inspires a whole lot of trust and goodwill towards one’s fellow man.” He takes a long, slow sip of wine. “So when I believe in my clients, that’s a choice.”
She hasn’t been giving him the credit he deserves, she thinks. He’s not naïve, he’s not dumb – he’s just stubborn. He’s so willing to let himself get hurt over and over if it means he doesn’t have to give up on people who deserve his trust. She can’t help but be pissed when she watches him believe in someone who’s done nothing to deserve it, wants so badly to yell at him to stop, but she’s sure he’s a better person – a more charitable person, at the very least – than she ever was.
Phoenix offers a wry smile. “I know, I know – you think it’s dumb.”
“I think it’s… I don’t know. Maybe it’s dumb, but it’s also brilliant. It works. I wish it got you arrested a little less often, but you get results.”
He rolls his eyes. “That was one time.”
“One time too many.” She can’t help but laugh. “Besides, how could I fault your methods right now? You've saved my sister's life for the third time in two years. I can't even begin to say how much I owe you." She's so glad he's around - her biggest regret, when she saw Redd White darken her doorstep for the last time and understood what would happen to her, was that if exactly what Aunt Morgan eventually did came to pass, she wouldn't be there for her sister. Phoenix may be a stubborn, ridiculously optimistic smartass, but he hasn't failed Maya yet.
“She’s my family now, too. You don't owe me a thing. Besides, in this case, Edgeworth and Franziska deserve some credit here, too.” She follows his gaze and casts a glance across the room at Miles Edgeworth, who looks like he would rather be anywhere else. “Edgeworth… he really came through today.”
“I’ll say. Pretty reliable, for a dead man.” Mia still doesn’t exactly understand the mechanics of his return – did he mean to go through with the unthinkable and change his mind? Did the people he left behind to run off to wherever he’s been for the past year misinterpret a particularly melodramatic resignation? She can’t tell with him, struggles to recognize him as time speeds past her. As she’s summoned less and less often, as weeks and months slip through her fingers, it becomes harder to truly understand people; she doesn't get to watch them grow and change, she just gets snapshots of then and now, coming one after another. She wonders how long Maya and Pearl will keep summoning her, how long she'll get to watch friends and family slowly become strangers.
"I wanted to hate him," says Phoenix, seemingly not caring if the subject of their conversation overhears him. "That would be easier than... whatever it is I've been feeling. Grief, I guess." He finishes his wine. "It's weird. After he came back, I felt like I was finally ready to give up on him, but it seems like he's finally trying to become the person I hoped he was when I first saw him again."
She considers debating the point, but for the first time, she almost believes he might be changing. He's still a bit smug for her liking, and not particularly remorseful for his actions, but it's a start, perhaps.
"Hey, Phoenix." He looks at her, exhaustion plain on his face. "I'm proud of you. You did what you had to today."
"I hope so," he says, rubbing the back of his neck. "Do you think Maya's going to be okay?"
"I know so. She's stronger than you think - you have to be strong, to survive as a Fey daughter." She looks at Maya, who's fallen asleep on one of the couches in the reception room. She can only hope that she can have at least a moment of peace, before she begins her Master training and gets drawn into Kurain's heinous politicking. She thinks of how much she and Pearl adore each other, how inseparable they've been of late - maybe this generation will finally make the village into a home, not the battlefield where they all grew up.
"You should get out of here. Pearls has hardly slept - she's been so concerned."
"She hasn't?" Mia does feel exhausted, now that she thinks about it. "I wonder how she even gathered enough power to summon me in this state." She's stronger than Mia ever was, and she hasn't even lost all her baby teeth.
Phoenix sighs. "It's been a stressful few days."
"I know. Take care of each other."
“Always,” says Phoenix, and as she fades away again, she believes him.
-
Mia’s first thought after she is summoned is that Phoenix Wright has absolutely ruined her office. It’s a mess, items she doesn’t recognize strewn all over – and is that a piano?
Phoenix is sitting across from her – he’s added another couch to the space, with an egregious disregard for her minimalist design philosophy.
She gives up on trying to get her bearings. “Phoenix? What’s going on?”
“Hi, Chief.” He looks different, sounds different, even. He has some freckles he didn’t have before, some crows’ feet at the corners of his eyes. The realization hits her.
“How long has it been?”
“Nine years, give or take.”
Mia blinks, runs her hand through what must be Maya’s hair. Just a moment ago, she was exorcising her past, banishing Dahlia, and mourning the person Diego Armando used to be. “Nine years? Why am I back, then? Is something wrong?”
Phoenix laughs. He seems so comfortable. She wonders what he’s found, what’s brought him peace in their time apart. “No – honestly, it’s the opposite. Everything is good. Chaotic, but good.” He shifts in his seat. “I’ve actually brought you back to invite you to my wedding.”
She barks out a surprised laugh. “Almost a decade, and you and my sister still use the holy art of spirit channeling to socialize.”
Phoenix laughs, too, looking a little sheepish. “Hey! Maya gave me her blessing – she’s the one who suggested this, even. And she’s Master Maya now, so you can’t tell her any different.”
Mia feels a cord around her neck and fishes the charm their mother always wore out from under her clothing. “So she is.” She spots a Khura’inese symbol that denotes powerful mystics tattooed on her left palm. “I knew she could do it.” She beams, feeling lighter than ever knowing that Maya has learnt to stand on her own.
“She says she misses you every day, by the way. She brought you a souvenir from Khura’in.” Indeed, she finds a hideous fake magatama next to a stack of top hats. The past nine years have utterly wrecked her décor – too bad it’s a terrible time to tell Phoenix how much she hates it.
“That’s for later – catch me up first. You’re getting married? To whom?”
Phoenix lets out an embarrassed, boyish little laugh. “You’re gonna hate this.”
“Holy Mother take my eternal soul. You’re getting married to Miles Edgeworth.” She isn’t as surprised as she thought she would be – she saw how those two grew to trust each other, saw Edgeworth turn into someone worthy of Phoenix’s belief in him. If anything, she’s only surprised that it took them this long.
Phoenix is still laughing. “Yeah, I am.”
She considers the facts long and hard before speaking. “Is he still an asshole?”
Phoenix looks like he’s completely taken off guard. “… Yeah. But only in inoffensive ways.”
“And you’re happy?”
Phoenix smiles, bright as the sun. “Happier than I’ve ever been in my life.”
She wants to be a bit mad, a bit petty, but she can’t do it. Phoenix Wright spent so long claiming he could save Miles Edgeworth. How can she fault him for succeeding? “Then I’m happy. I’ll be there.”
“Just like that, no further questions?” His mouth hangs open, like he was expecting to have to debate her. “I owe Maya twenty bucks. I thought you were gonna throw something at me.”
“Don’t give me ideas, Wright. God knows this place isn’t lacking in projectiles.”
He looks around, a bit flustered. “Sorry, sorry. I know you had a clean aesthetic you were going for in here. I have a junior partner, and I adopted a kid, and that kind of killed the minimalist vibe.”
She almost does throw something at him for that, but every time she gets a little mad, he says something that she can’t possibly begrudge. “I assume I’ll meet them at the reception?”
“They’ll be so excited.” She follows his gaze to a framed photo on the coffee table – it’s a group shot in the court lobby. Some people she recognizes – Phoenix and Edgeworth are there, as well as Pearl (she looks so much like Dahlia and Iris now). Maya is there, and she is reminded that she must be older than Mia herself ever got to be. The rest are strangers – a young man in red and a red-haired young woman, and a beaming brunette teenager whose arm is slung around Phoenix’s shoulder. He really has built a whole new life, she thinks. She couldn’t be prouder.
“You know, after Iris’ trial, Maya and I agreed that you deserved your rest – that it was time to let go, for both of us.” He looks out the window, and she follows his gaze. The old dumpling place across the street seems to have been replaced by some kind of noodle stand. “But when I started planning this… I just couldn’t imagine doing it without you. Not when I couldn’t have made it here without your grit, your patience, and your determination.”
“I’m honoured that you think of me that way,” she says, unable to respond to his disarming sincerity with anything but the same.
“Anyway – I won’t keep you. I know I’ve kept you from whatever’s on the other side long enough.”
She shakes her head. “You and Maya were always worth returning for.”
He smiles, wide and genuine – she’s not sure she’s ever seen him smile this much. “I’ll see you at the wedding, Chief.”
As she releases Maya’s body, she laughs. “I’ll see if I can drop by.”
-
She finds herself in the courtroom lobby, and she has to laugh.
A courthouse wedding. Naturally.
She thought she’d be in a crowd, but the only person in the room with her is Miles Edgeworth.
“Ms. Fey,” he says, looking slightly less awkward and stiff than she remembers him being.
“Edgeworth.” She nods. “I understand congratulations are in order.”
“Thank you.” He shifts from one foot to the other. “I asked Maya to… bring you here.” He still seems a bit uncomfortable with the idea of spirit channeling, for someone who’s seen more of it than almost anyone in the world. “Before the ceremony… I wanted to apologize.”
A decade ago, she would’ve cherished this moment. She would have given anything she had to get an apology, so she could reject him to his face. Now, she doesn’t even need it – but she’s not above making him squirm a little. “What for?”
“When we last met – when you were still alive... at the Fawles trial, I was particularly rude to you.”
She puts minimal effort into pretending she doesn’t remember every word he said. “What was it you called me? ‘Novice bimbo’?”
Miles Edgeworth shifts, looking like he wishes lightning would strike him through the ceiling. “… Yes. I believe that was it.”
She laughs, cutting the silence between them. “You used to be a real asshole.”
He laughs a little, too. “I can’t disagree.”
“Phoenix thinks that’s not the case anymore. A few years ago, that wouldn’t have been enough for me – he’s been saying he can fix you for as long as I’ve known him. But now… well, he’s placed his faith in you, and I’m placing my faith in him. As lawyers, and as people, that’s all we can do.”
“Thank you,” he says, seeming genuinely moved.
“You look so much like your father now.”
He adjusts his glasses, taken off guard. “You knew him?”
“Only by reputation. I worked with people who worked with him. They had nothing but good things to say.” A picture of him hung prominently at Grossberg’s law office – for a few years, she looked at it every time she passed the front desk, and his face is seared into her mind.
“I think of him often. I can only hope to keep his legacy well.” He sighs, a distant look in his eyes. “I… am sorry that you were taken from this world so prematurely.”
“Oh, there’s nothing to be sorry about. I got to come back and finish up my business. That’s not a privilege everyone gets.” She feels the weight of Maya’s ceremonial garb, the magatama resting at her throat. “I have no regrets.”
“Do you wonder how everything would have turned out, had you stayed alive?”
“No. My mother used to tell me about the Shichishito – a sword that represents the branches of fate. Destiny can flicker and weave, she said, but it always comes to the same end.” Phoenix is okay, now - he's built a life and a family. She hasn't gotten the chance to talk to her, but something tells her Maya's happy, too. They've found peace without her. How could she wish things had gone differently? "I wouldn't change a thing."
Miles Edgeworth smiles a little - a smile of genuine happiness, not the smirk she wanted to smack off his face in court. She's not sure she's ever seen that. "I once believed I would never experience that sort of certainty, but I think... I may be starting to feel the same way."
They stand in silence for a while, light streaming through a window and illuminating the dust dancing in the air between them.
"I guess I'm supposed to tell you that I'll kick your ass if you hurt him, but I think Maya can handle that for me."
He laughs. "Quite right. She is... an incredibly strong person. It's a pleasure to know her."
The sun is warm on her skin. It's been a long road, but her people are going to be alright.
"I think they're playing that song. You should go get married."
"... Thank you, Ms. Fey."
"No worries," she says, meaning it in every sense of the phrase, as he walks through those old courtroom doors.
She looks back at the lobby she's paced through a hundred times, and follows him into the future.