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Phoenix leans against the doorframe, arms crossed over his chest, fingers gripped in his shirtsleeves. Trucy peers around him and taps a finger to her lips. The space beyond is dark, but Trucy can still see the thick layer of dust choking half the room.
"You can't keep making Athena work on the couch, Daddy," she starts, conversational as she can be.
"Right," Phoenix grunts, still staring into the back office.
"And Polly says he's gonna file worker's comp if he falls over the old files one more time."
"Yeah." Phoenix rubs a hand over his mouth, pulling at the skin around his jaw.
Trucy sighs, and slips an arm around her father's, leaning her head against his shoulder. Phoenix still looks into the office like it'll change as he watches, become something more than a storeroom for a woman eleven years dead, her case files, her office supplies, and in one small, small, corner, the desk of Apollo Justice, Attorney at Law. With the blinds drawn and the dust heavy, Trucy thinks she understands why Polly would rather work on the floor of the kitchen, limbs akimbo and paper fluttering across the hardwood, than here at his own desk. The back office is thick with ghosts.
Her daddy is unmoving against the weight of her body, her subtle hints still providing no reaction, so Trucy says, tone no longer quite so light, "Daddy you have to clean out the office. It's creepy and we need the room."
"Yeah," he says, finally, no longer absently, and pats Trucy's hand. "Yeah, it's probably time. Let's give your aunt a call."
"Jesus, Nick, you ever heard of throwing stuff out?" Maya laughs as she throws open the window, clapping her hands over the sill to shake off the dust. She's careful about where she puts her feet, Phoenix notes, despite the casual tone. It makes for a slightly awkward stance, how she steps to avoid every square of carpet Mia's body once touched. "I'd’ve thought you got rid of all this shit years ago!"
Trucy giggles at the language and Phoenix shoots them both a look as he mutters about the corruption of innocent ears, to which Maya only laughs harder and swats at his head. "Like she didn't learn half her swears from you, nerdlord."
Phoenix delicately places his hands over Trucy's ear, making her giggle and grab at his wrists. "Fuck you, Maya," he replies. "Get out of my house."
Maya snorts, as does Trucy, and Apollo says from the doorway, "Honestly, Mr. Wright, if it means you clean out this dust-pit I vote she stays the week."
"Polly!" Trucy cheers, breaking free of Phoenix's grip to tackle her brother about the waist. "How was the trial? Did you win? Did you make Prosecutor Gavin cry? Where's Athena? Did she make Prosecutor Blackquill cry? Did you eat my pasta in the fridge?"
Apollo tries and fails to pull himself free of Trucy's embrace. "Fine; yes; no, unfortunately; parking the car; I have no idea, why are you so fixated on the crying thing; and that was my pasta! I made it for lunch, Truce, you saw me put my name on the tupperware!"
Phoenix smirks and turns away, surveying the decade-old mess of Mia's office as Trucy and Apollo's bickering picks up speed. Most of the floorspace is given over to file cabinets (Mia's) and scattered boxes of case files (his, from the early years), but he sees some of Charley's older, more ostentatious pots in the corner, and Mia's iMac, nearly as old as Trucy at this point, hovering behind the file stacks. Nominally it's a big room, but Phoenix can admit that yes, it has maybe been far too many years since anyone could walk more than a step without barking their shin against some box of contents unknown. At least with the windows open and the kids no doubt getting into a slapfight behind him, it feels a bit less like a tomb.
"Whose is all this stuff, anyways?" Apollo asks, flipping a box open with his toe. He's holding Trucy's hat above his head, one hand against her collar, keeping her at bay, but such efforts had been doomed ever since Trucy overtook him in height. "Some of these files look older than me. Jesus, is this a Polaroid?"
"Hey, I've been looking for that!" Maya shouts, snatching the photo from Apollo's hand. "Sis was always really bad about keeping the family photos in one freaking place."
Apollo's forehead scrunches in confusion. "...Sis? You don't mean Pearl, do you?"
"She means Master Mia, Mr. Justice!" Pearls calls from the kitchen, making Apollo jump. Trucy takes the opportunity to grab her hat back and deliver a quick smack to Apollo's ear.
Phoenix leans back against Mia's old desk, crossing his legs at the ankle as Apollo raises an eyebrow in surprise. "This is all Mia Fey's stuff? You really are a hoarder, Mr. Wright."
"That's what I've been saying!" Maya says. "Fucking thank you, Polly!"
Phoenix shrugs, ignoring Maya's laser-targeted pout, and wipes a line of dust from his pants leg. "It never seemed like the right time to get rid of it all. There was a lot going on right after she died, and then I was running the agency on my own, and then all of a sudden I had a kid—"
"Which was the best thing to ever happen to you, of course."
"Yes, of course, Trucy, thank you, but it did mean I never got around to clearing all this out."
Phoenix doesn't meet anyone's eye as he speaks, mostly just tallying up the file boxes and casting a distant eye over their labels, seeing what's his and what's hers. When he does look up, Apollo's giving him a look. It's not a particularly piercing look, his hand is far from that bracelet, but it looks like maybe Apollo has some idea of what it's like to try and pencil in the tabulation and excavation of all your dead friend's earthly possessions.
"When did she die?" Apollo says, finally, toeing the open box closed.
"Twelve years ago this September," Maya replies, before Phoenix can open his mouth. She's still smiling, because it's a cold day in hell when Maya isn't smiling, or angrily pouting, or overflowing with cruel and petty laughter, or in some other way never evincing anything less than perfect happiness and (sometimes cruel and petty) cheer. She's watching Apollo, though, like she wants to see what he'll do next.
Apollo hikes up on his own desk, heels kicking against the particleboard, and says, "So what was she like?"
Maya smiles wider, a bit more sincerely, and settles into a swivel chair Phoenix is dead certain was stolen from Grossberg's office. Trucy hops into her lap, cape twisted around her arms, watching Phoenix and Maya expectantly. Maya meets Phoenix's eye, and gestures grandly in his direction.
And so they tell Apollo about Mia.
Athena comes in a few minutes later, cell phone still in hand, promising she didn't get the car towed again, it was just a call from Junie, and when she stands in the door to the office and looks curiously at their little congregation, there's nothing to be done but start over.
And so they tell Apollo and Athena about Mia.
"Yo, Nicky, anyone home?"
(Nicky? Athena mouths to Apollo, who shrugs.)
"We're in the back, Larry!" Phoenix calls, still elbows-deep in the first box of the morning. Pearls has plugged in as many five dollar electric fans as the office has outlets, but as soon as they started opening boxes no number of fans on earth could have conquered the dust rising off Fey & Co.'s ancient case files. Larry's coughing before he's even made it through the doorway.
"What the tits, bro, this place is a disaster!" he chokes out, waving a hand through the rolling dust clouds. His orange jacket is today splattered in a substance of disconcertingly indeterminate color. His hair is today two degrees left of straight up. "You piss off the trash gods or something?"
Apollo and Athena, having had little previous exposure to the Butz, just sort of gape.
"Hey, Uncle Larry!" Trucy chirps from somewhere within the box dunes, hat just barely visible above a cabinet. "Do people really still use tits as a swear word?”
"Okay, that's it, moratorium on swearing in front of my adolescent daughter," Phoenix jumps in before Larry can, no doubt, elaborate, waving a handful of papers accusingly. "Even the dated urban dictionary swears, ok, the law is brutal and unforgiving like that."
"Aw, come on, man, what'd I ever do to you?" Larry pouts, eyes going wide, but Phoenix has already turned back to his box stack and calls over his shoulder, "Let me count the ways, Larry!"
Before Larry can degenerate to full-on simpering, however, Maya pops out of the kitchen, and, around a mouthful of pretzel sticks, shouts, "Laurice!"
"Master M-Dawg!" Larry crows, spinning to greet Maya, and Pearl behind her, hiding a smile behind her palm. "And the fabulous P-Dawg! How are my two favorite homies?"
As Maya and Larry begin their elaborate ritual bro-greeting, Pearl giggling as they slap palms and enter the first butt-bumping sequence, Athena whispers to Phoenix, "Uh, quién es, boss?"
"Athena, Apollo, meet Larry Butz," Phoenix says, still not turning from his box. He thinks these must be some of Mia's later cases, judging by the dim flashes of recognition he's starting to accumulate, rifling through witness accounts and old pictures of evidence. "Larry has somehow been my friend since grade school and is probably here to drink my beer."
"Nick, dude, when's the last time you went on a booze run!" echoes from the kitchen.
Phoenix grins, and accepts a file from Apollo.
"Right, we can toss this one, I think one of the parties ended up a prosecutor, anyways. But yeah, him and Pearls have been friends for a long time, which I could not explain if you asked, and him and Maya, are, you know," Phoenix waves a hand behind him. From the kitchen, there are sounds of Larry telling Maya all about his new method of popping bottles with his wenis. "Larry's a nice enough guy, just don't ever, ever lend him money."
"Such cruelty, dude! I'm insulted!" Larry moans as he returns, winding his way through the scattered boxes, beer in hand. Phoenix is entirely unsurprised to see Larry did not bring one for anyone else. "I'll get you your cash soon, ok, no need to tell the kids lies about me!"
(Kids? Athena mouths, hiding her grin behind one hand. Apollo rolls his eyes.)
Phoenix sits back on his heels with a snort as Larry makes his introductions, shaking hands with a wildly bemused Athena and an Apollo still rankling at being called 'kid' by such a man as Larry.
"Nice to meet you guys!" he grins, bowing over Athena's hand, which doesn't really make her blush but does make her laugh. "Nicky not working you too hard is he, dragging you guys in here on such a fine Saturday morning as this?"
"No, no, we were happy to help," Athena smiles, "Mr. Wright told us what—"
"Oh man oh man Nick is that the Thinker?"
Athena's hand is left dangling lady-like in the air. Larry shoots forward in an instant, plunging a hand into the box open on Phoenix's lap to pull out what is, yes, without a doubt, a dusty bronze statue of the Thinker, its head ever so slightly askew.
"It is, man, it is! I can't believe you still have one of these!" Larry beams, running his fingers along every line of the bronze, tracing each flaw of the mold.
Behind Phoenix, there's a deep quiet.
"Is that Mia's old clock?" Maya asks, from within the silence, and when Phoenix turns her knuckles are whitening around the beer bottles she's double-fisting. She sounds cheery, inquisitive, but Phoenix still sees her hands, tight and paling against the damp brown glass, bottles sweating in the June heat and the Agency's shit air conditioning.
"Nah, I screwed up the patina on Mia's one, it got all wiggy along the little dude's back," Larry replies, unaware of Maya's stare, now opening up the Thinker to examine its parts. "This one definitely belonged to poor old Cindy."
"The police handed that one over a few years after the case," Phoenix adds, not much louder than anyone but Maya can hear. She's still watching Larry and the clock and his fingers exploring its innards and Phoenix tugs at one of the beers in her hand to loosen her grip. "Mia must have put in the request pretty quick. I didn't feel like requesting the second clock," he grimaces, "So I'm guessing they tossed it a long time ago."
"Good," Maya nods, dropping to the floor beside Phoenix as Larry demonstrates the somehow still-functioning clock to Athena and Apollo and Trucy, the last now perched on a haphazard stack of boxes. She catches Athena's ponytail when she kicks her feet.
Larry makes the clock sound "I think it's 7:18 AM!" which is, you know, nothing like close enough, and Trucy asks, "Oh, is this the one from yours and Mia's first case, Daddy?"
"The Frank Sahwit case?" Apollo adds, seemingly before he can stop himself.
Athena leans back, blinking loudly. "Wait, what do you know about Mr. Wright's first case?"
"Yeah, Christ, I didn't even remember that," Maya says, laughing, as Apollo starts to blush.
"No, listen, I mean," he begins, ears burning red, hunching over the box at his knees.
Phoenix suddenly beams. "Well, you see, guys—"
"Mr. Wright, come on—"
"Someone here used to be quite an admirer of Phoenix Wright, Ace Attorney—"
"Oh God, Polly, you didn't," Athena says, only barely choking back a laugh.
"No, no, listen, he used to be cool," Apollo hisses, rounding on Athena.
"Oh no, oh no, he was never cool," Maya grins, "there's not a case he didn't win without me or Sis giving him the answers!"
"Whoa, Maya, please—" Phoenix starts, suddenly and profoundly serious but Maya has already thrown her hands in the air, spritzing the room with beer.
"FEY CLAN HERE WE STAND!" she whoops and Athena gives up entirely and doubles over her lapful of files in teary laughter.
"From day one we've had your back!" Maya roars, pointing an accusing finger at Phoenix, who can at least recognize the irony in how quickly this turned around on him. Athena's gasping for breath and there's beer drying in Phoenix's hair. "Larry might still be on death row if it weren't for Sis!"
"Patently untrue—"
"Tell 'em, Larry, tell 'em how Sis saved your ass!"
From the looks of it, Larry is simply delighted to be included.
Which is how Apollo and Athena learn all about Mia's last (and Phoenix's first) case.
(as Phoenix slowly drops his face into his hands)
"And then he shouts "I would like to examine the witness' parrot!—"
"Stow it, Maya, that one actually worked!"
Larry has enticed Maya onto a food run, Phoenix is stacking boxes for the dump, Athena is teaching Pearl all the French ("It's the language of romance, Master Maya!") she knows, and Apollo has three piles going.
The first is for the shit to toss (case files he doesn't recognize); the second is for shit to probably toss, pending approval (case files he does recognize, case files featuring Prosecutor Edgeworth, what looks to be Mr. Wright's old tax returns); and the third is for shit like the photograph he has in his hand.
Mia and Maya Fey stand side by side in front of the Agency door, except the glass reads "Fey & Co. Law Offices" in fresh gold paint. Mia Fey's wearing a suit so new you can almost see the lines of the hanger it was sold on. Maya Fey looks younger than Apollo's ever seen her. The two of them are smiling like the sun just rose between them.
"She always looks so serious in pictures," Trucy says, from over his shoulder. Her hands clasp lightly over his collar as she rests her head on the crown of his.
"Mia Fey? Really?" Apollo asks, bumping back against Trucy's knees. "She looks pretty cheerful to me."
Apollo feels his sister shrug.
"I dunno, whenever I feel her around the office she always seems so happy, like even happier than that."
Apollo looks up when Trucy doesn't elaborate, like he could see her if he raised his eyebrows high enough.
"You going to explain that one?"
Trucy shrugs again, and leans more of her weight against Apollo, who's glad that if Trucy has to be taller than him now, at least she still isn't very heavy. "Haven't you ever noticed how Charley's soil is always damp, even when you know no one's watered him in a while? Or, like, even when you'd just joined the Agency and we didn't have a whole lot of money, we could always find a buck or two in the couch cushions to go buy noodles and kitkats?"
It's Apollo's turn to shrug now, jogging Trucy's arms up and down. "I'd always assumed Mr. Wright was bad about keeping track of his tips. And that he sometimes actually watered the plants."
"Well, maybe," Trucy concedes. "But still. Don't you ever feel, like, not just happy, but like, really, really content when you're in the agency sometimes? Like you just know for sure everything's going to turn out okay, even when you have no reason to feel that way right then?"
Apollo doesn't say anything, not quite sure how to respond. He flips the photograph between his fingers, Mia and Maya and the agency behind them blinking in and out in half-second intervals.
"I always figured it was Mia looking out for us," Trucy continues through his silence. Her weight is warm on Apollo’s back. "Like it was her spirit telling us not to worry, because she'd make sure it would all work out, no matter how bad it seemed. I liked having that thought, that someone was looking out for me and Daddy."
"She's very beautiful," Apollo says, after a while. The photo's bent at one corner, and he carefully smooths it out against the floor.
"She is," Trucy agrees, voice soft, and Apollo places the photo with its brothers.
Maya throws open the door an hour and a half after she threw it closed and shouts, "We come bearing Ema!"
"Please also have come bearing food," drifts down the hall because Apollo never learned to speak below a dull roar and Nick hollers "Hey Ema!"
"They're talking like they didn't just kidnap me!" Ema shouts back, a half step-behind Maya, shaking off Larry's "helpful" hand at her elbow with a growl. Laughter trickles out of the back office, and Maya grins to herself at a person-heist well orchestrated.
There is something like progress being made in the back office, though Maya's not sure she believes it when she sees it. Most of Mia's later cases have made their way out to the curb, Phoenix assures her, and floorspace is gradually emerging as off in a corner Athena and Apollo loudly debate how best to get the two ancient swivel chairs down the building's narrow steps without further streaking the walls. The guys are down to t-shirts and the girls to tank tops as the enduringly shit AC completely fails to do its job in the rising afternoon swelter and the five dollar fans merely move the dust around.
Ema's waylaid by a tackling hug from Trucy, stationed with Pearl in the front room to learn new and exciting things about the American tax system by way of sorting through eight years of Wright family 1040s, so Maya greets Phoenix as he stands with, first of all, two bulging plastic bags and a wink.
"Oh, we got food," Maya grins. "Polly need never have worried."
Maya laughs as Nick narrows his eyes, glancing between her and the bags in her hands with a total and obvious absence of trust. He hooks a finger in the mouth of the largest, peering in with what Maya considers to be highly premature disappointment clear in the set of his weirdo eyebrows. Not exactly undeserved disappointment, of course, but, then, this is what Nick gets for trusting Maya and the Butz. This is, Maya likes to think, how Nick learns.
"Beer, burgers, and kitkats," he deadpans.
"Good to see you're not letting that agnosia get you down, buddy!"
"So the club sandwich I asked for."
"Yeah, that was never gonna happen. But look, we got so much beer! And Ema!"
"She means they grabbed me by the damn elbows outside Eldoon's and just sort of," Ema waves a vague and needlessly accusatory hand as she enters the (diminishing) box labyrinth, "Towed me. Like a dog. There was no explanation given."
"Welcome to the family, Ema," Maya grins, slapping her heartily on the back, which does not actually faze Ema in the least. These Skyes. Very hardy.
"I have known you assholes for ten years," Ema sighs instead, pushing her glasses back into her hair. "Please do not tell me I was pulled away from my shitty, shitty noodles ("Guys, language, please," Nick groans) in order to help someone move. You could have just texted."
"Would you have said yes?"
"Hell no. The fuck do you take me for."
"We're just clearing out Mia's old stuff," Nick explains, snatching the bags from Maya before she can, what, further fail to produce a club sandwich? Incredibly rude. "I can't say we wouldn't be happy to have the help, but don't feel obligated to stay."
"Oh, it's Mia's stuff?" Ema asks, suddenly shucking her coat and kicking off her heels and tossing her shoulder bag onto a chair. "I can help."
Maya blinks. "Whoa, hold up, what happened to the violent, screaming protest? I get slander and libel, Nick just gets an okay? Did someone bribe you? Did Eldoon slip something in the noodles again?"
Ema rolls her eyes, pulling her hair back into a tight bun. "You talk too much. And, anyways, your sister was nice. She brought me candy from the import stores whenever she visited the house. I can spare a couple hours to move her shit."
"Huh," Maya responds, eloquently, as Ema starts looking into boxes with interest. "Well, thanks."
"Yeah, sure," Ema shrugs, rifling through a stack of manila folders. "It was nice when she came around. Lana got really happy. Also, Mr. Wright, you should probably check your phone."
Nick pauses in moving Trucy's dry-clean only cape some place that is not the floor. "Wait, what? What makes you say that?"
Ema replies, without looking up from her new handful of papers, "We passed Prosecutor Edgeworth's car on the way in."
Maya says "Oh, wow, we totally did," as Nick's face goes a shimmering, bloodless white and he hisses, really almost sobs, "Fuck me we had a lunch date."
"Daddy!" Trucy laughs, chiding, as Nick bolts for the door, shouting something apologetic-sounding from the stairs.
"Well," Maya says, clapping her hands together, taking survey of her domain. "Who wants a beer? Not you, kids."
"Ms. Fey, I'm twenty-four."
"Sorry, sorry, sorry," Phoenix chants as Miles slides out of the car, a frown carving his handsome but also very angry face.
"You were an hour late. No, no, that implies that you at some point showed up for lunch," Miles growls as Phoenix wrings his hands on the curb, debating the merits of going in for a kiss. "You are still an hour late, we just don't have reservations anymore."
"I—yes, I have fucked this one up pretty bad," Phoenix says as Miles crosses his arms over his chest. "I admit that freely, and will apologize as much as you want. But we got started clearing out Mia's old stuff, right, and now there's like a lot of people upstairs and we still haven't figured out what to do with her old computer—"
Miles holds up a hand, cutting Phoenix off. He doesn't say anything for a moment, seeming to roll the situation around in his mind, and when he gives Phoenix a once-over, Phoenix knows what he's seeing: sweat-stained t-shirt, old painting jeans pulled on after the nicer ones got friendly with some beer, hair finding new and exciting ways to do the thing. In the depths of Miles' eyes, Phoenix can see the dream of the lunch date wither and die.
"Alright, then," Miles sighs and Phoenix grins apologetically, relieved.
"I'll probably be the rest of the day here but I swear I can make lunch tomorrow—" he starts, but Miles, again, cuts him off.
"No, I meant, alright, I'll help you sort through Ms. Fey's possessions," he says, sliding out of his coat as Phoenix gapes. "Honestly, it took you ten years to get to this?"
"I—okay, you and Maya have had the same haircuts since age ten at the least, no one gets to judge the speed at which I get my life together," Phoenix manages, rallying, "And you're really going to help? You're not still mad?"
"Of course I'm still mad," Miles replies, though he doesn't look quite so much like he means it. "But I still owe Mia Fey for more than a few things, and I'm fairly certain that you have not only not ordered a bulk items pickup, but are also unaware of how to do so, so, yes. I am going to help."
Miles leads the way back up the stairs, letting Phoenix bob, still bemused, in his wake. "Well, huh. Thanks. And I'm definitely not turning you away, but what could you possibly owe Mia?" Phoenix asks as Miles sidesteps one of the more questionable stains in the hallway carpet. "I thought you only met her the one time."
"That's true, but I didn't treat her with anything like respect the one time we did properly meet," Miles says, looking as uncomfortable as ever with his decades-old interpersonal failings.
"Sure, but you were pretty godawful to everyone back then," Phoenix smiles, clapping a hand to Miles' shoulder in what is surely meant to be comfort. "I'm sure she didn't take it personally!"
Miles scowls. Phoenix lets a smidge of actual sympathy show in his grin.
"C'mon, Edgeworth," he says, taking the lead into the apartment. "You know you don't owe her for being twenty years old and kind of an asshole."
"Maybe," Miles concedes, nodding slowly like, as is very possibly true, he had never considered this before. "And I would know her as an extraordinarily decent woman even if I hadn't met her in person, but she did do more than merely stand in court against me without—and I wouldn't have blamed her—breaking my jaw afterwards."
"Oh, yeah?"
"Without her," Miles says, levelly, casually, like this is something Phoenix must already know. "I wouldn't have had you. It doesn't really bear considering."
"Huh," Phoenix says, to the inattentive air, and rubs a hand to the back of his neck as Miles turns to accept Trucy's swooping hug.
After another beer and two moderately fruitful calls to the sanitation department, Phoenix starts in on the story of Mia's first trial. He gets up to the "novice bimbo" comment before Edgeworth, displeased with his representation in this retelling, interrupts with the epic saga of State v. Wright, long legendary in the Prosecutors' Office, and Phoenix chokes on his beer.
Maya and Ema sit back against Mia's desk, still casually rifling through the last few boxes of her files, watching Phoenix splutter and protest ("How long have you known about that!") with varying levels of interest.
"I take it you knew about this one," Ema says, as Athena and Trucy cling to each other on the other side of the room, their laughter basically indistinguishable from sobs.
"Oh, yes," Maya grins, "Mia liked telling this story. Especially after she figured out that her new intern and the bottlegobbler were one and the same."
Ema raises an eyebrow, half-twisting towards Maya. "She couldn't immediately tell from the...?" She waves one hand behind her head. There is an implication of spikes.
"Mia was actually pretty bad at faces. And names. And really people?" Maya says. "She liked the law, and she liked winning, but I'm not sure she ever got the hang of people. She used to mix up our cousins a lot."
"Huh," Ema says, then, "I guess I never noticed. Maybe Lana just reminded her of my name whenever she came over."
Maya doesn't immediately reply, and Ema assumes they're both transfixed by the laughter Apollo is near choking on as Larry elaborates on Phoenix's college years, but when she casts an eye over Maya's got a file open in her lap and a look in her eye like she hasn't read a word of it.
"Hey, earth to space cadet," Ema says, nudging her bottle against Maya's shoulder. It leaves a damp little punctuation mark on the fine purple fabric.
"Did you see a lot of Mia?" Maya says finally, abruptly, not looking anywhere, really, but especially not at Ema. The words come out too quickly. She's sitting very still.
"I guess you could say that," Ema replies, brow starting to crease. They're approaching the border of serious feelings territory here, she can smell it, and she's never particularly enjoyed serious feelings territory. There be sister issues and shit. "Lana and I lived together until her and Gant's bullshit went critical, so Mia would be around most weekends while they were dating. That was for two years, maybe?"
Maya nods, relaxing a little, but only like she'd still be sitting just as tense if she had any energy left in the world. She starts fiddling with one of the bracelets at her wrist, pulling the heavy beads taut on their string to smack back into her arm.
"Mia wasn't so great about visiting once she left," Maya says, and Ema knows immediately that it's an explanation, and that feelings are coming, and that she's just not quite big enough an asshole to cut Maya off even though her guts are suddenly seized in wordless emotion-terror. "She'd come up for holidays and I'd go down for birthdays, and she said once she had enough money for a bigger place I could move in with her. I was already in line to be Master at that point, and wasn't super enthused, but..." she trails off, smirking at her jewelry, and her updo, and Pearl across the room who'll still insist it's Master Maya, please! before she's even gotten your name. "Guess she couldn't do much about that in the end."
There's a lull, one Ema suspects she is unqualified to fill, and she just barely stops her fingers from reaching for the frayed corner of her beer label before Maya continues, like there'd been no pause at all, "I'm not sure she ever meant it, anyways?"
Her voice rises into a doubting question, some deeper emotion Ema is definitely not qualified to define pulling at her face. "I think she said it just to make me feel better, like she wasn't around much then but it'd all be okay some day, way the hell off in the future. But she really loved her work, like a lot, and… I don't know. I don't know what she would have done. You probably knew her better than I did by the time she died."
Across the room Larry makes some gesture with his hands. It's spacious and dramatic and his audience, even Edgeworth, laughs in response. Against the desk, Ema opens her mouth, because there's a rhythm to her and Maya's conversation that means Now it's Ema's turn to talk. Then Ema closes her mouth, because Holy shit, what does a girl even say to this level of fucked up sister issues, and then she opens her mouth again because, NO, she is a twenty-eight-year-old woman with a LIZARD and a PAYCHECK and if she can't think of something to say to this obviously heartbroken woman about their eerily similar sistermom issues than she is even MORE of a giant fucking asshole than she has lead people to believe.
So Ema opens her mouth, and what comes out is, "Eh, Mia wasn't that great."
Maya twists, face forming into a smile more automatic than sincere. She says, "What?" Ema thinks, Fuck.
"She was always turning the AC down in the summer," Ema's mouth says, because Ema's brain has basically no part in this but is a little curious as to how much deeper into the shit she can dig. "She must have had a high fucking heat tolerance growing up in Hellmurder Temple with you guys, but Lana almost dumped her over it more than once, I swear to God."
"Really?" Maya says, with half of a laugh. The file slides forgotten off her lap. "Her apartment was always fine when I visited."
"Right, because you grew up in the San Gabriels, too, and are thus inhuman. No, she fiddled with the AC, she always left the cupboards open after she'd gotten a plate, and oh my god was she ever loud in bed."
Maya's eyebrows ascend into her hairline, an actual smile, disbelieving and high at the corners, growing on her face.
"Oh, yes," Ema says, to Maya's unspoken question. She can see the light at the end of the serious feelings tunnel and she is going to reach it or die trying. "Heard her and Lana going at it every Friday night and alternate Saturdays. Never breathed a word of it to either of them, but, man, did I ever lose a lot of fucking sleep in middle school."
Ema smirks as Maya laughs, quietly amazed that she has somehow not ruined this deep and emotionally charged moment by talking about her sister having sex, and when Maya doesn't stop laughing, letting something Ema still won't put a name to trail out between inhales, Ema starts in on the story of Baby Ema Looks For Bandaids Under The Sink And Instead Finds A Dildo.
Which is how Ema ends up telling Maya about Mia.
Athena runs her fingers through Pearls' hair, long and unbound, curling it into little braids and twists as Pearls hums and leans back against her knees. Apollo and Trucy and Ema and Prosecutor Edgeworth pass back and forth before their seat on the couch, trucking out the last of the files, the last of the furniture, the last of the five-dollar fans long ago given up the ghost. Mr. Wright and Maya are in the initial stages of a throwdown over what to eat for dinner. Athena plucks the last of the bobby pins from between her lips, pinning Pearls' bangs back around her crown, and remembers the question she'd yet to find a way to ask.
"Hey," she starts, because Pearls is nothing if not nonjudgmental and eager to please. "Can I, like, ask you something?"
Pearls twists around, smiling brightly, and chirps, "Of course, Miss Athena, I'd be happy to help!"
Athena has yet to figure out what to do about the "Miss" thing. She's pretty sure Pearls is older than her. For now, though, she rests her arms on her bent knees and says, "The women of your family can channel the spirits of other Feys, right?"
"Oh, not only our own family members," Pearl replies brightly, "Master Maya and I can channel just about anyone, but that certainly includes our relatives, as well! Is that—is that alright, Miss Athena?"
Athena realizes her mouth is hanging open, eyes fixed just to the left of Pearls' shoulder, and shakes herself together. Images of her mother, smiling and reaching out a hand, slip from her mind.
"No, I'm fine, I just— I was wondering why Maya and Mr. Wright talk like they haven't seen Mia in ages," Athena says, forcing herself on, "Because, then, they could have seen her anytime right? You could have just channeled her?"
Pearls glances away for a moment, face settling into something less bright than her usual sunshine. Her hands begin to knot into her lap. "Well," she says, leaning her head to one side, like she's trying to avoid her own answer. "Master Maya is very powerful, but even she—" Pearl pauses, pursing her lips.
"We can only contact lingering spirits," she says, finally. "Those who have died violent or unexpected deaths, mostly, or those who have died very young. Suicides, sometimes, if they want to be called. Most of the time spirits pass very quickly to the other side, you see? And once they do, they're beyond our reach." Pearls sighs and lets her shoulders drop a fraction of an inch. Athena can't tell if her discomfort comes from some kind of betrayal of spirit-channeling professionalism in revealing all this, or if Pearls just doesn't like telling people what they may not like to hear. "Master Mia lingered a very long time," she explains. "Almost three years, actually, which is very much unheard of for benevolent spirits, but she was also a very strong woman in life! She completed her business on earth eight years ago, though, and then she moved on. Master Maya and Mister Nick have not seen her since."
Athena sighs, rubbing her hands over her shoulders. She hadn't imagined there could be a reason for Maya and Mr. Wright to go so long without seeing a woman they both obviously loved very much, but the confirmation isn't making her feel much better. Pearls scoots around her, knees jostling against the curve of her back, and begins to play with her own ponytail, twisting the hair into a loose, ginger plait. It feels nice.
"Do you mind if I—" Athena starts, deeply conscious that she may be overstepping some line in the sand here, but just as deeply curious, "Do you mind if I ask what Mia's unfinished business was? Like, what she was waiting for?"
Pearl doesn't say anything for a moment, and Athena fears she's gone too far, but then one small hand appears over her shoulder, gesturing to Mr. Wright and Maya across the room, who are now moving into the third act of their pizza topping debate. Maya seems to be scanning the room for objects to break over Mr. Wright's head.
"She had to see that they would be okay," Pearls says simply, and with more warmth than Athena'd expected. Her fingers brush over Athena's neck, pulling a few errant strands of hair into place.
Mr. Wright shoves Maya back onto the couch, dropping his ass onto her middle before she can get up, shouting at Apollo to order the hawaiian, and quickly, as Maya screeches and claws at his shirt. Athena laughs, then, suddenly, remembers the timeline of Mr. Wright's earlier career. "And eight years ago, they were okay?" she asks, turning her head to look over her shoulder.
Pearls smiles almost apologetically. "Well, Mr. Nick did lose his badge not too long after Master Mia passed on, and Master Maya got a bit sad for a while after that, yes, but I think Master Mia knew she'd done the best she could. And, well, she couldn't stay forever!"
Trucy goes for her father's legs and Maya throws Mr. Wright off with a shout, leaping for the phone. Fear dawns bright and tremulous in Apollo's face.
Pearls sighs, legs warm against Athena's back, and says, "We are very, very lucky to have what time we do with the spirits of our loved ones, Miss Athena, but unfortunately for us, the dead aren't ours to keep."
The pizza comes. They take the last box out to the curb.
"So that's it, then," Maya says, though it's not so much speech as one long, lasting exhale of exhaustion and accumulated lungdust as she drops prone on the couch, heels just brushing Pearly's thigh, an arm thrown over her eyes. Phoenix sits on the floor beside her, back against the couch and head propped on her hip, spikes flattened and dispersed over the rise of her robes. She flicks his ear every once in a while. He thumps his head against her stomach. The rest of their friends and family settle around the living room, divvying up the remains of the beer and (blessedly un-pinapple'ed) pizza amongst themselves.
The office is empty. Every way Maya can think of that sentence is true.
"Guess so," Phoenix replies, though she hadn't really asked a question. He's sitting with his legs unbent, extending under the coffee table to every so often, when either of them shifts, brush Edgeworth's foot with his own. Edgeworth glances to him when he does, then, maybe conscious of Maya peering out from under her forearm, returns to his conversation with Apollo and Athena. It's cute. She'd tease someone about it, but she's tired, and the couch is still warm from sitting in the sun all day.
She didn't think she'd be this tired.
"What are you going to do with her desk?" she asks, idly, still luxuriating in the warm black pressure of her arm over her eyelids.
"Use it myself," Phoenix replies. He sounds as wiped out as her, somehow. "It's nice wood, and Larry said he'll refinish it."
"So it'll quote unquote 'slip his mind' for the next six months, then you'll bribe him with beer and he'll stain the whole thing purple and green or something and disappear until Christmas."
"Yeah, well, when I forget the bribes and threaten him with physical violence after a year or so I'm sure he'll fix it up wonderfully."
Maya snorts into her arm and Phoenix unearths a chuckle in response, lying heavier against her stomach. The conversations of their company fill the room, and Pearly shifts at the end of the couch. Maya cracks an eye open, sliding her arm up and behind her head, and sees Pearly going for another slice of pizza, chattering happily with Athena. Everyone's chattering, everyone’s happy, but Maya and Phoenix stay quiet, and though Phoenix has got a little smile on his face, growing wider whenever he catches Edgeworth checking he's still alive, it's not... much.
Maya sighs again, feeling it down to her toes, and scrubs one hand over her face. "Is all the shit we're taking up to Kurain packed up?" she asks, mostly just loud enough for Phoenix to hear. He doesn't seem surprised that she's asking after logistics, uncharacteristic as it is, but then maybe he doesn't even notice. She wouldn't know.
"Yeah, it's all ready to go," he replies, rolling his head up to catch her eye. "Edgeworth's offered to drive you up to the station, too, though I told him he didn't have to. I think he's just feeling nebulously guilty about shit again."
Maya nods, ready to drift back into her halfway stupor, but Phoenix is shifting against her hip again, digging at something in his back pocket.
"Almost forgot to tell you," he says, apparently having trouble getting at whatever it is he's got. His shoulder digs into Maya's ribs. "Apollo found an old picture of you two, gave it to me to give to you."
He resettles himself and passes her up an old Polaroid. One corner has been bent then, with apparent care, smoothed back out. She flips it over in her fingers and sees herself and Mia, young and smiling, arms around each other's shoulders, standing in front of the office door, and Maya feels exhaustion like a break in her ribs.
"She looks so young," she manages, after a moment or two, running a finger along the line of Mia's face in the photograph. Phoenix nods, quiet, turned back away from her to watch not much of anything at all, and suddenly Maya can't do this a minute longer.
"Do you know, after she died, I used to see her a lot?" she asks, ostensibly to Phoenix, and he shifts back to look at her, a question forming in his face. Maya only sees it out the corner of her eye, still tracking her finger around the crescent of Mia's smile. "Not like channeling her, of course, but just around. On the street, sometimes. And I always thought that was silly, you know? How people in movies said they'd, like, seen their poor dead sister's face in the crowds, because how could you mistake anyone for Mia, right? She was incredible. She was, you know, one-of-a-kind." Maya smiles, voice suddenly wet and words hard to find under the lump in her throat. Phoenix faces her fully now, one hand hovering by her arm, and she doesn't mind so much crying in front of him—god knows she's done it before—but all things considered she wouldn't have minded growing out of the habit.
"But I'd still see her sometimes," Maya continues, tears starting to wet the hair at her temples. She thinks Pearly's started to listen now, too. The noise is less. "I'd see her in movies, or at the bus stop, or even in the store, and I'd see her and I'd just know it was her, because it was her hair, or her suit, or her voice or something, and who else could it be? But then the woman, whatever woman it was, would turn around, and I'd be wrong again. And it was a shock every time, you know? Like how could I possibly think that some stranger was my sister?"
She pauses again, swallowing, and wipes at her eyes. Phoenix finally puts his hand to her arm, and she's sure he looks wretched, but she can’t look away from the photo. "It happened so often," she says. The room's gotten quieter. "Just a couple months ago, even, and the funny thing is, we're older than she'll ever be, now. I'm older than she ever was. She was twenty-seven, and I—" she cuts off, laughing damply. Phoenix's hand tightens on her arm. "And I'm thirty. And it makes the least sense in the world. How could I be older than my big sister? How could I have lived almost half my life without her?"
She stops a moment, the finds she doesn’t need to go on. She finally turns to look, and Phoenix does look wretched, like he's just been told he killed her dog as a younger man and never knew until now, and Maya smiles. She feels strange, and suddenly weightless, but her chuckle, muffled by phlegm, feels genuine. "It's okay, Nick," she says, propping up on one arm of the couch. "I'm fine. I thought this might happen but it's— it's fine, I'm okay. I dealt with all this, for the most part."
This makes Phoenix no look no less wretched, and he opens his mouth, starts to say something like “No, I—“ but Maya lays her hand over his. He looks absolutely desolate as she smiles. “It’s fine, Nick,” she says, sniffling. She feels better, though, no less tired than before but it doesn’t ache in her anymore, doesn’t lay leaden on her chest. She hasn’t quite managed to stop crying, but that’s easy to live with. “I can’t be the only one to miss her, right? You told me she was like family to you.”
Phoenix looks like he's still trying to form a reply, some kind of monumental apology or attempt at recompense, so she just passes the Polaroid back down to him and pats his other hand. He looks between her and the photograph, one thumb moving over the plastic, then tries, again, to meet her eye, to which she says “Please?” and hope he knows what she’s asking for.
"I... yeah," he says, after a moment, and now Maya sees that conversation really has stopped around the room, everyone watching them do this thing they're doing with a certain awkward reverence. Ema shifts in her seat, like she’s not sure what to do with her knees. "Yeah, she was like family. I mean, you know about my parents." Phoenix shrugs. His eyes affix to the photograph. "They were never really there much when I was a kid, and then by the time I was done with school they were really never there, so it was... nice, having Mia. She was nice."
Phoenix sighs, running a hand through his hair. He's staring at the photo now like it can tell him what to say, face screwing up as he searches for words. Edgeworth is watching him with an expression Maya doesn't know the man well enough to define. Apollo wears something like it, scratching at the skin of his arm. Trucy leans against his side.
"Even when she was mad at me she was nice to me," Phoenix says. "She trusted me to work shit out, or to learn, and even when I screwed up she just told me it'd all work out, and… I don't know. It was nice. I'd never had that before, someone like Mia. It was… really, really nice. And then she was dead."
Phoenix's voice rises, just a bit, and Maya grips his hand again. His eyes look overbright. "And then we found her body and then we had the trial for you and the trial for me and after all that bullshit, and, Jesus, it really was just days and days of constant bullshit—" and Edgeworth here looks as wretched as Phoenix did, not two minutes ago, "—I remember sitting with you in the defense lobby."
Phoenix swallows, and doesn't seem to notice he's started crying. "We sat there, and it had only been three days since she died, and not even an hour since we'd both been cleared of her murder, and I remember sitting there, with you, and I remember realizing I had to figure out what we were going to do for lunch."
He shakes for a moment. And then he laughs a little, and he's crying, and she's crying, and she twines her fingers into his, and he says, "Isn't that funny."
Maya rests her face in her hand and replies, "Oh, yeah. Hilarious."
She supposes if they both have to be crying, it's not the worst thing in the world to be laughing at the same time, too, and he meets her eyes with the snottiest and grossest smile on the planet, but it's alright. She's probably looking pretty crusty, too. Pearly puts a hand to her leg, and Edgeworth reaches a hand out for Phoenix's. Phoenix takes it, and squeezes it, but he doesn't look away from Maya.
"I am still sorry," he says, and she lets him this time. "We never talked about this back then, or, god, any time after, and being busy is no fucking excuse. I'm so sorry, I’m— more sorry than you probably want to hear, really, that you had to do this alone. I wasn't a very good friend."
He doesn't look wretched anymore, or bereaved, just tired and kinda sad and damp and frowning, and Maya's alright with that. "It's fine, buttface," she says, and he finds a grin again, pulling his hand from Edgeworth's to wipe a sleeve over his cheeks. "It all worked out in the end, you know? We all turned out fine."
He mouths 'we?' for a second, then he follows her gaze out, scanning over their friends and family, all gathered here today to move boxes and eat pizza and drink beer, and she thinks he's probably seeing what she can, too.
DL-6, SL-9, UR-1, courthouse bombings, boarding schools, car crashes, Damon Gant and Manfred von Karma, the Gramarye family and the Feys, and they all turned out fine. A bit rough around the edges maybe, and all looking decidedly foolish right now as they smile damply, or pretend they've just got something in their eye, or attempt to blow their nose on their brother's sleeve, but, when all's said and done, fine.
Maya sits up, still keeping one hand tied to Phoenix's, and reaches behind the couch with the other. She finds the almost-empty beer bottle she's looking for, an ounce or two or liquid still swirling around the bottom, and brings it forward.
"To Mia," she says, and if anyone else were talking only Phoenix would have heard, leaning close with eyes still wet, but no one's talking, so they all, even Trucy with her coke and Pearly with her tea, raise a glass.
"To Mia," Phoenix echoes, "Who made sure we turned out fine," and clinks his bottle to hers.