What To Make Of Trucy

by Prosecutor Writer (writtenwordsaloud)

Summary:

After Phoenix is disbarred, Maya and Miles learn about Trucy. So does Phoenix.

Notes:

• For deifyruby.

Maya hadn’t known what to make of Trucy. At least, of her existence in Phoenix’s life.

Too much had happened all at once and she hadn’t been there for Nick when it happened. He lost his badge, his practice. And suddenly had a daughter out of nowhere. No job and yet had taken in the daughter of his disappeared client. A client he had let down.

Maya didn’t know what to make of that either. Nick had never failed before. No matter what had gone wrong, he had always managed to pull it through in the end. Perhaps it had been luck as well as his ability, because Maya couldn’t believe Nick would have messed up. It was something outside his power. It had to be.

Nick finished explaining. There was something hollow in his eyes which she hadn’t seen since the night they had met, since they both lost Mia. Maya had stared over to where Trucy was colouring on the floor in the office.

“Nick…”

“Really messed up, huh?” He chuckled with that same empty feeling. “I don’t want to lose the office though. I’d rather move everything here. I can’t… lose anything more of…”

He didn’t want to lose Mia’s space. Maya’s throat constricted.

“Daddy!”

Trucy had moved fast, throwing herself into Nick’s lap. Maya almost jumped, though Nick didn’t. His eyes cleared up as he looked down at the little girl. She shoved her picture into his face.

How was she calling him daddy already?

“What’s this?” Nick didn’t sound choked up anymore. He took the paper and looked it over. Blinking, he laughed. That was Nick’s laugh. He turned it for Maya to see. “I think Trucy wants us to go out to eat.”

The picture was of all three of them at a food stand. Trucy beamed at Maya. This girl who had just lost her father, sprawled over Phoenix’s lap as if she belonged there.

She did, Maya realized. Within an hour, Maya knew Trucy belonged. Maybe there had been a reason this had happened. Perhaps luck meant something completely different. Maya didn’t know, but she leaned forward and took one of Trucy’s hands.

“Lunch is on me.”

“Lies,” Phoenix said with mock shock. Maya punched him in the arm as Trucy giggled.

---

Miles hadn’t known what to make of Trucy. Not at first.

She slept on the couch. So small, like Pearl Fey. Miles stared before he and Phoenix moved into the back office to talk. Already the offices had changed. Phoenix was moving in. Had he lost his apartment?

“You’ve been disbarred and your first action is to adopt?” It wasn’t like Miles wouldn’t be fighting that first point with all of his ability, but it didn’t make sense. For both Phoenix and this little girl, they both deserved more.

Phoenix shrugged. He hadn’t been able to meet Miles’s eyes since he arrived. Miles had taken an overnight flight the instant he had heard, which hadn’t been from Phoenix but from Gumshoe. Miles was used to what Phoenix looked like when he was shamed, but it had never been like this. When Maya was kidnapped, Phoenix was cornered, but still fighting. When Phoenix was accused of murder, his worry had always been more for the truth than worry about his own incarceration.

This was not a Phoenix that Miles recognized. He wanted to grab and shake him, but Miles wasn’t used to doing such a thing.

Miles pinched the bridge of his nose. “Have you at least found other work?”

Phoenix chuckled and shrugged. Miles very much wanted to shake him.

“Wright, you—”

“I know.” Phoenix pushed his hair back. “I know. I… If someone else took her, she wouldn’t be able to— It’s not that…”

Miles narrowed his eyes. “You’re still on the case.” And this girl was his last connection to his client.

Phoenix met his eyes. “She is,” he corrected. “No one else would understand. She’s good at hiding how she really feels. She’s like Maya.”

The comparison was not what Miles expected. Like Maya? The situation was not the same, but Miles supposed he could follow. Her grandfather died and her father was accused of the death. Her father was missing. Trucy was alone. Maya hadn’t had an older member of her family who she could actually rely on, which in part had to have been why she latched onto Phoenix as she had.

A few days after Maya’s older sister had died and Miles had seen her smiling despite it all.

“Like you as well. Or… how you used to be.”

Phoenix swallowed. “I don’t know why. I don’t know how. But even if I never clear my own name, I’m going to find her answers. She deserves them. She helped her father escape that courtroom and he didn’t even take her with him.”

There was a bitterness there which had Miles think of Phoenix’s parents. How his own mother had died and his father left. As opposed to Miles, who had never known his mother and had his father’s death haunt him for years.

“You have my assistance.”

The lines in Phoenix’s face eased. “Thanks. I won’t let you down.”

Miles huffed out some laughter. “I don’t just mean with the case. You’d best find a way to support yourself, but… until then, do not worry about her expenses.” He would offer more, but Miles didn’t want to make the shame worse. This was the most he thought he could make Phoenix accept.

Phoenix swallowed.

“But if anything like this happens again, I should hear this from you. Not from Gumshoe. Not from Maya.”

“Right back at you,” Phoenix muttered.

Fair enough. Miles reached forward, rolling his chair forward. Phoenix’s hand met his halfway.

---

Phoenix still didn’t know what to make of Trucy, but he already knew he loved her.

“Daddy, watch!”

He looked away from the computer, turning his chair completely away from it as Trucy set up her trick. In a few short months and Phoenix already was catching on to how she accomplished some of them, but other acts were completely beyond him. She lived and breathed her magic. He could tell she genuinely loved it, whether or not she was raised with it.

She pulled the handkerchiefs out of his pocket, making him laugh. As he did, her eyes sparkled. She loved to make people laugh. Somehow, she loved to call him daddy.

He hadn’t thought about being a father. At least, it wasn’t something he had planned on anytime soon. As he pulled Trucy into his lap, praising her on a wonderful performance, he suddenly couldn’t imagine anything else.

It might have come hand in hand with the worst moment of his life, but suddenly Phoenix couldn’t imagine not being Trucy’s daddy.