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It started, as all love stories did, in the middle of a crowded coffee shop.
Ivy U was just around the corner, only but a walk away, and even closer to the bookstore. A block and further elsewhere, San Fernando Valley beckoned, panoramic and bland. She was on the edge of the room, Lana remembered, temple edges of her glasses caught between her teeth, Evidence Law laying across her lap meaning to be read. In her absent-minded wanderings, she cast a glance over the crop of clean-cut freshmen, but it wasn’t the architecture that took her gaze.
Lana couldn’t place the exact moment their eyes found each other, but in a moment, hazel met teal. They were both curious, she could tell.
The eyes seemed to smile at her from across the room.
Lana looked away.
--
She meets those eyes again in two months’ time, amongst the hubbub of the dissipating lecture class, and she approaches the owner with a confidence she's never known before.
“I’m Lana Skye,” she says, and pushes on before she second-guesses herself. “Your views on Constitutional Law were very thought-provoking.” It isn’t a lie. The hazel-eyed stranger held a fiery determination that was evident with every answer she gave, and Lana doesn’t think she’s ever met anyone with a mind as quick as hers.
“Oh!” The young woman responds, if a bit too quickly. A rather endearing blush spreads to the tips of her ears. “Thanks. I’m just auditing.” She pauses. “And I’m Mia. Mia Fey.”
A first-year, then? That made it all the more impressive, so Lana tells her as much.
It’s genuine, and her nervous invitation to work together over coffee is also. With her lips this time, Mia Fey smiles, and Lana’s world is never the same again.
--
“I’m going to be a defence attorney,” she proclaims to Lana one evening, amid tattered textbooks and cans of energy drinks, and she says it with such conviction that Lana immediately believes her. After all, how could she not? It’s a truth Lana instinctively knows; as long as the sky is blue, or the moon is round, Mia Fey was born to become a lawyer.
And try as she might, Lana can’t help but get swept up in the tide.
“Of course you will.”
--
Fresh out of final exams with the top two scores to boot, midday is already high in the sky when they stumble back to Lana's dorm room. They don't have wine-- college loans take a surprising amount out of your wallet, after all, so they toast with cups of tea instead. Healthier too, Mia jokes as she lies akimbo on Lana's couch, lays her head on Lana’s shoulder.
They're close now. Close enough that Lana can catch a hint of something in Mia's eyes. She swallows. Mia’s fingers close around her lapels and tug her forward, pulling her in.
They both fall asleep in the couch that night, Mia's face tucked against the crook of her neck.
(it was a shame it couldn’t last forever).
--
Lana finally meets that little sister Mia has told her so much about when she insists the three of them go to dinner together. Maya’s infectious energy reminds her of Ema, all lab coats and periodic tables, tinted glasses and boundless enthusiasm for anything science.
Maya talks of everything from Steel Samurai to her love of burgers and tokusatsu. As she pauses to focus on her meal, Lana idly wonders how a person with such small stature was able to consume ramen faster than a noodle machine could produce them.
Later, when Mia goes to pay the bill, Maya leans across the table with sly eyes and slyer smirk. “Take care of Sis, yeah?”
Lana sputters. “How—”
Maya only winks.
--
“Congratulations, Miss Detective.”
She grins, a wide, toothy one and reveals another bit of personal trivia: Lana had sharp canines. Ema bounds up beside her and beams, a smile that outshines the sun.
A flash of the camera, and the moment is forever immortalised in a proud wooden frame on Lana’s new desk.
--
(Earlier, Lana had come back from her lunch break with a spring in her step and a half-smile she couldn't completely chase away, because Mia's latest trial had gone extremely well, and for the first time in forever she finally feels like she has a future to look forward to.)
Lana instantly knows something is wrong the moment she stops outside her office. The heavy wooden door, usually ajar, is closed, and the unmistakable copper scent of blood wafts through the air, pungent and raw.
She eases the door open slowly, but not slow enough to lose the sight of her sister’s limp body, curled on the floor like a broken doll.
Ema still has a pulse, but it’s faint, and oh god she’s surrounded by blood and Marshall is impaled on Gant’s ridiculous suit of armour and he’s dead and Joe Darke probably is too, and she’s only left Ema unattended for forty-five minutes at most— And no, no, no, no , Ema couldn’t possibly kill anyone—
"Ema! Ema! Wake up!" She yells, cradling her baby sister to her chest, and begs until her throat is hoarse and tears are springing from her eyes.
Gant's dark silhouette bears down at her. Something glints in his eyes.
“Lana,” he says, quiet and booming all at once.
--
“Lana, did something happen?”
“No, it’s nothing. Just… got caught up in some paperwork. Go back to sleep, Mia.”
--
(“Will she be an issue?”
“...She won’t be a problem, sir.”
“Oh, one more thing…”
“Sir?”
“You should call me Damon, you know. We’re colleagues, after all!”
“Of course… Damon.”)
--
"Please, Lana, I— You can’t just— If there’s anything wrong, you know you can tell me! Please. " Mia pleads, confusion and heartbreak marring her features. Lana hates the fact that it was her who put those expressions there.
For a moment, she actually entertains the possibility of confiding in Mia, trusting them both to fix everything. But no. It had already taken Neil Marshall’s life, silencing two more, and if Lana isn’t careful, Ema will be the next one on the list. And if there’s a line Lana will never, ever cross, it’s the one where she fails her little sister.
“I can’t. I’m sorry. Goodbye, Mia.”
(it’s ironic, she reflects afterwards, how her final memory of Mia is one of sorrow.)
Maybe she’d have changed her mind, had she known it would’ve been the final time she’d see Mia Fey alive.
--
The autopsy report hits her desk two years later.
Tears don’t come as they used to, so she sinks against her chair instead, lets the news wash over her like an ice-cold shower. This was what it had come to, she thinks to herself. Once a blazing fire of a woman, Mia Fey was now reduced to a drab grey file and another statistic in the yearly mortality report.
Being blackmailed into accepting the position of Chief Prosecutor does have its benefits, Lana surmises as she picks up the phone, speed dials Miles Edgeworth.
And if there was any reason why she chose the demon prosecutor for the murder of a defence attorney, Damon Gant does not ask when he passes her empty desk the next day. It is the only time he doesn't intervene, and for that, she is almost thankful.
--
Her eyes catch on the picture of the accused. Maya Fey. Lana remembered having noodles with her and her sister a lifetime ago, all smiles and twinkling eyes, back when laughter came easily and her arms were full and Mia Fey was still alive . Then, Maya had seemed to take a liking to her. Now, Lana wondered what she'd think of her, if Maya knew that it had been Lana Skye who'd ordered her arrest.
"Take care of Sis, yeah?"
Ema curled on the floor, Mr Gant saying dangerously, "you know what you have to do." Blood-caked around Neil Marshall's limp corpse —
When had it all gone so wrong?
--
“White? Is that you? What are you doing calling me at a time like this?”
“Hello. Chief Prosecutor? I've changed my mind. I want to testify tomorrow.”
“What's this about?”
“The Mia Fey case. I witnessed the murder, you see. And, thus, as a very important witness, I would like to testify.”
“What? Why now? I thought you said you didn't want to go to court?”
“Quietude...! I told you I changed my mind, didn't I? Oh, and one other thing. Send the police over here right away. The man is standing right in front of me. He looks dazed but could be violent!”
“What? What man?”
“Are you even listening? The executioner! The hatchet-man! The liquidator... The killer, man!”
“...”
“Chief Prosecutor!”
“...Mr White... this isn't another one of those…”
“Miss Skye. I do not believe you are in a position to freely offer your opinions to me, correct? I'm telling you to send the police, now!”
(As it turns out, Redd White was the one who killed Mia Fey. Lana wonders, years later, if she could’ve saved her, had she known of Mia’s quest against the man who blackmailed her mother. But it could not have been, because that was not how it happened.)
--
"And what could you have done? You were nothing but a puppet, dancing on Gant's strings while you condemned Maya Fey for the murder of her own sister."
"I was still the Chief Prosecutor! I could've done something ! What good is being Chief Prosecutor when I can’t even protect the ones I love?!"
--
Burning agarwood is heavy in the air when Lana goes to visit Mia's ashes. She finds her niche in the furthest corner of the room, surrounded by dozens of other ones whose names she does not know.
The ceramic tile her picture rests on is fresh, the markings her name is etched on unblemished and unmarred, but Lana reaches out with a wet handkerchief and cleans it anyway. Her fingers still as they hover over Mia's face.
Bundle of incense in her hand, Lana lights it carefully, extinguishes it with a blow and leaves it gently on the censer.
She dips her head, bows. Once, twice, thrice. A spot on the floor darkens when she lifts her torso back up.
Her throat closes up with every breath she takes. "I'm sorry," Lana tells the air.
What for? She imagines Mia saying.
“Everything.”
--
Mia always visited her dreams afterwards, torturous and tempting, and whispered of a life they could’ve lived.
If only there was a way to change the past. But all has been said and done, and there was nothing she could do anymore. Perhaps this was Mia’s way of reminding Lana of the red still dripping in her ledger.
It would have been bitterly tragic, had any of this ever happened.
--
How it could have gone and how it actually went are two completely different things. For once in her life, Lana doesn’t dwell on the what-ifs. This was already the best version she could’ve hoped for.
--
Here’s how it actually went:
"Please, Lana. Tell me what's wrong." Mia pleads, and Lana is almost surprised that none of them has started crying yet. She opens her mouth. “I…”
“Lana…”
The sight of Mia’s earnest eyes is too hard to bear, and in that second, something in her heart breaks, and everything comes flooding out. She all but collapses into Mia’s arms with a force that rocks them both, sobbing hard into her shoulder. There is none of her usual dignity in these tears. “Gant— Ema— she— she—”
Neil Marshall, Joe Darke, SL-9 and the bloodied suit of armour all come tumbling out in tear-soaked sentences and short gasps, and Mia listens with soothing voice and grounding presence, endlessly caring, like she always does, with a warm understanding that Lana envies.
"It's going to be alright," she whispers, hands threading through Lana's hair. "Everything will be okay." Lana wants to believe her, if only for a moment.
She only hopes telling Mia wasn’t a mistake that could cost them all their lives.
--
Folders of evidence against Damon Gant start to take space in their tiny apartment. There's another filing cabinet sat next to it that Mia won't let Lana touch, and Lana doesn’t ask, but she has a sneaking suspicion she knows what is in it anyway.
--
“Can you come by, later on, say around nine or so? There’s something I want you to pick up and I think it’d be safer in your hands than mine.”
“Oh, what is it?”
“The Thinker. A mini-replica that also functions as a clock, I mean.”
“The Thinker… wait, wasn’t that the murder weapon for Phoenix's trial?”
“Well, yes, but it’s the twin. I’m using it to store some papers and I don’t think my office is safe for it.”
“ ...Ah. Right. Of course.”
“Thanks, Lana. I'll see you soon.”
--
Eight-forty, Lana heads to Mia's office. She’d intended to pick up dinner along the way, but rush hour had come on the subway and Lana was not one for tardiness. So she knocks on Mia’s door exactly ten minutes before nine, briefly notes the newly minted “& co.” stapled to the middle of the bronze “Fey Law Offices” plaque. She pushes it open after a brief call of “come in!” and “the door’s unlocked!”.
True to her word, Mia produces the statuette, and Lana examines it. “So I see you’ve removed the clockwork?”
Mia nods. “Yep. There’s a lot of buzz around the upcoming trial, and the papers inside aren’t safe here.”
As she deposits the statue in her briefcase, something tickles at the back of her head. “There was a strange man standing by your office building when I walked in,” Lana says, “was he one of your clients?”
“I don’t think so? My last trial ended yesterday…” Mia’s brow creases. “Describe him to me?”
“He had blue hair, was dressed in pink and looked like he’d been there for a while. That’s why I assumed…”
Mia instantly stiffens and sucks in a breath.
“...Mia?”
A cloudy expression crosses into her eyes. “Lana… there’s something I need to tell you. It’s- it’s about what I’ve been working on all these years.”
--
Redd White is arrested in three months, and Damon Gant follows soon after, when their filing cabinets are finally stuffed to the brim with documents and papers and scandal splashes across the front pages of all the city’s newspapers.
Lana’s assigned as the prosecutor for both cases. If memories of that night float back to the top of her mind, if words catch in her throat and her hands start to shake while laying out the facts of the case, she surely doesn’t show any of it. She can’t betray any weakness. Not now, not when she’s so close to finally being liberated from this nightmare.
But Mia knows, and she’s right there by her side when she glares down her blackmailers from the bench, when words stop at the base of her neck, Mia’s there to complete her sentences and land blow after blow after blow on Redd White and Damon Gant, until, finally, it all ends.
It’s a freeing thing, Lana finds, to finally be able to breathe like you’re alive again.
--
(“How could you,” She hisses at Gant from the visitor’s area, days after he’s remanded back into prison for sentencing. “How could you use my sister against me?! I trusted you!”
“Lana, Lana, Lana. You never understand, do you?”)
(He doesn’t answer when she asks why he did it.)
When she leaves the penitentiary with no answers and no plans to return again, it suddenly occurs to her that instead of Gant, she’d be the one in prison, had things gone only slightly differently.
--
Mia’s voice is lighter after the verdict. Like a weight she didn’t even know was there lifted. Lana can see it in the way she holds herself, the way her lips always seem to turn up into a faint smile. Mia shines brighter after the catharsis of the guilty verdict, and Lana’s never been more grateful to have her in her life, because now she knows there’s a shoulder she can lean on, and someone to catch her if she falls.
“See?” She says to Lana as they walk down the courthouse steps. “I told you everything would work out.”
And of course it would, because Mia Fey was always the wiser one.
--
They go for burgers and ramen, because they always do, except now Edgeworth and Phoenix tag along too. Lana notices a visible change in Edgeworth's demeanour, as she watches Maya indulge him in a long-winded discussion on Steel Samurai. He's softer around the edges, smiles a lot more, and his eyes are a far cry from the razor-sharp swords they used to be.
Perhaps she wasn’t the only one who was freed.
When the food arrives, Phoenix takes initiative and lifts his drink. “I’d like to propose a toast,” he says, eyes shining. "To ending corruption!"
"To Steel Samurai!" Maya pipes in, already halfway through her burger.
“To Steel Samurai,” Edgeworth affirms sagely.
“To science!” Ema says, a grin wider than any Lana had ever seen on her.
“To friends!”
“To family!”
Ema nudges her. “...Lana?”
“Right,” Lana brings a smile to her face, and it’s genuine. “To a new future.”
--
It ends continues, as all love stories do, in the remnants of what-ifs and what-could-have-beens. Something better sprouts out of the dirt instead.
It’s funny, she wonders sometimes, how one single choice could change everything. But it isn’t bad at all, Lana muses as dawn ignites the horizon in flaming hues of violet and gold. Mia comes up beside her, a gentle smile to rival the rising sun, and presses a kiss to her cheek.
"Good morning."
--
“Mia, thank you. So much.”
“What for?”
“Everything.”
--
But, all of that is wishful thinking.