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Miles Edgeworth is frowning. This is not unusual. But he wasn't when Simon Blackquill started talking, and that probably means something.
The Chief Prosecutor unlaces his long fingers, flattens them on his desk, and then interweaves them again. "First of all, Mr. Blackquill, I cannot agree with your statement that you 'lack discipline.' You are beyond a doubt the most organized prosecutor in the office."
"It isn't quite that, Chief Prosecutor. I can always find something to fill my working hours. But when I get home..." He shrugs.
He hadn't even noticed the problem the first few weeks. The early, heady rush of publicity had so utterly preoccupied him that he'd longed for a few minutes to himself. The whole world wanted to meet the Twisted Samurai, the man who sacrificed everything to save an innocent girl: his life had become a steady stream of interviews, press conferences, and meet-and-greets, worked in between less glittering tasks like getting a bank account and finding a place to live. He'd even managed to prosecute a case or two. But after that -- when he stopped being Simon Blackquill, hero, and became Simon Blackquill, prosecutor with a gimmick (just like everybody else) -- he found that he didn't know what to do with his evenings.
"Ah." Edgeworth is still frowning. "I believe I understand you. I had wondered if I might need to address this."
He shifts uneasily. "I did not intend to put the blame on you."
"I do not take it. But I should have remembered that seven years of prison cannot be put off in a day." The older man leans back in his chair. "The good news is that the solution is simple, and it is always the same. The bad news is that 'simple' does not always mean 'easy.'"
Blackquill reaches up to rub Taka around the nares. "A return to routine."
"Yes. If you permit, I will make a schedule for you. Over a few weeks we can step it down as you become more comfortable deciding what to do with your own time."
That sounds... unpleasant. "Do you speak from experience?"
"I do." His grey eyes are unreadable. "Not prison, but a similar experience with highly regimented time. Also..."
"Yes?"
"I would suggest you take up a hobby."
"I have my swordsmanship." Such as it is.
"That will be your exercise. You need a hobby. Something in the arts." Edgeworth tilts his head. "Give me until tomorrow. I'm sure I can think of something that would suit you."
Curiosity stops him short of protesting that he never actually agreed to this. Curiosity also brings him back to the Chief Prosecutor's office the next day.
"Business first." The three sheets of paper Edgeworth hands him are schedules for every hour of three types of day -- work days, off days, and trial days. Everything from the 6 a.m. wakeup to the 11 p.m. bedtime is booked, with no more than an hour break. Even that is split into half hours, morning and evening.
His unease must have shown on his face, because the Chief Prosecutor goes on. "I based it on my own usual routine. I think after a few days you will find it is not that difficult."
And this is a less regimented life?
"And over the next month or so, I'll work with you on finding your own balance between life and work. I may be a recluse. You need not be." A smile lurks at the corner of Edgeworth's mouth. "Now for the rest. If you would open that box over there..."
The box on Edgeworth's low table is thin white cardboard, intriguingly oblong. Opening it reveals a nested box, also oblong but much smaller, surrounded by implements that he recognizes from a former life.
Tiny clay dishes. Vases. Bowls on little pedestals. Neat, short-bladed shears. And the kenzan -- little beds of nails that could sit in the palm of his hand -- two circles, a crescent moon, and a rectangle about the size of a bar of soap.
Metis Cykes at her desk, patiently turning and turning a branch of hawthorn until it stands just so...
He has to bend quickly to hide his expression. The inner white box is filled with flowers and stems; all different colors and lengths, mixing together inharmoniously.
"You of course know what this is."
"Ikebana. One of the traditional Japanese home arts."
The other man shows him a book of the "...For Newbies" type. Ikebana for Beginners. "Your new hobby."
"Chief Prosecutor..." Can he even find the words? "I appreciate the effort, but I am not the cultural devotee that Dr. Cykes was."
"I didn't choose it for you based on culture. Not entirely. I needed a hobby that would suit you and wouldn't require a great deal of new equipment. This seemed to fill the bill." Edgeworth picks up a kenzan from the box, testing its weight. "Ikebana is much harder than it looks. It requires patience, focus, and a balanced sense of self. You will need that over the next year."
"What makes you so sure?"
"Experience." Again the somber eyes betray nothing. "I was going to send you away for a while, to travel and see the world, but you have said that unstructured time is your enemy. I considered what I could do to give you the mental space to wander and -- pardon the cliché -- find yourself."
The dread that is always at the back of his mind wells dangerously close to the surface. "You think I need to schedule my introspection."
"I think your mind is like my mind. You think best when you are doing something else." Long fingers push his glasses higher on his nose. "Also, Athena Cykes suggested this."
"Hmm."
Edgeworth hands him the book and says nothing more.
He ends up spending two hours in the Chief Prosecutor's office that day, trying to make an arrangement. It's so simple.... in theory. Three stems to give the shape. Assistant stems to fill in where needed. A flower to add color and contrast. Oh, there's some math, some easy formulas about how tall the stems should be relative to each other and their container, but sticking three palm fronds into a kenzan and adding a hydrangea are to a 'real' arrangement what slapping paint onto a canvas is to a real picture.
"Okay," he says at last, announcing his surrender.
He doesn't actually hear Edgeworth walk over. "It's lovely."
It isn't. He shrinks from the praise and nearly cringes as the other man sets up a camera and takes a picture of it. The camera is a nice model, from what he can see; the Chief Prosecutor handles it with casual sureness. That must be his hobby. He feels like such a tyro in comparison.
But the moment he catches himself thinking, "The next one will be better," he knows Edgeworth has won.
Over the next two weeks, he feels like the recipient of a white elephant -- in possession of an extremely valuable gift, but what to do with it?
The elephant stays up too late, gets up too early, wants to play with Taka, wishes he'd never adopted Taka, chafes at the idea of a vegetarian diet, recoils from the glistening texture of a steak. The elephant is particularly interested in flowers. Every time he sits down to make an arrangement, the elephant sits on his shoulders, watching, smirking at everything he does. The idea of beauty and simplicity is near; sometimes he catches a glimpse of it. But the picture in his mind dissolves, over and over, in the actual doing, and what he ends up with is nothing like what he imagined. To make things worse, the Chief Prosecutor is interested in the ikebana more than any of the rest of his progress. Blackquill's spent several hours in the other man's office now, perched by the low table like a sullen piece of decor, trying to weave beauty out of carnations and avoid stabbing himself. And whatever he's done at the end of it, Edgeworth photographs, gentle hands twitching a leaf here, a stem there, trying not to be obtrusive about it. Seeing someone else 'fix' his work makes him feel a queasy combination and anger and shame.
The bright spot is that hauling an elephant around has given him an eye for other people's elephants. He catches Klavier Gavin furtively knitting one afternoon; the other man offers no explanation, just a mutter about how he "won't lose to a little Fräulein with leaves in her hair." One of the other prosecutors, the new one with "the best" name, has covered his entire wall with a spider's work -- the network of intricate knots takes his breath away. But the kid shakes his head and insists he's going to untie it all and start over.
Is everyone embarrassed about his art?
Is Edgeworth?
The afternoon he gets the courage to ask, he is rewarded with a look through the Chief Prosecutor's portfolio. Many of the pictures are, frankly, terrible, but some are downright inspired. There's a whole series of that Steel Samurai figurine, forced perspective making him appear to stand by the desk, at the window, by the bookcase. The most successful one shows him standing watchfully over Los Angeles.
"I like this one."
"I do too. I like the idea of the lone sentinel guarding the city." Edgeworth nods respectfully at the figure.
"I didn't take you for a Steel Samurai fan."
"Ah... it was a gift," he says with such forced casualness that Blackquill nearly laughs.
"You know, I have some of the Korean OVAs. Would it be all right if I bring one in, you know, for background noise?"
The Chief Prosecutor hates unnecessary noise in his office, but for some mysterious reason he agrees that having a little Steel Samurai playing in the background would be fine.
Blackquill goes back to the portfolio. "Which of these is your favorite?"
"This one." Edgeworth turns the pages to a simple, black and white portrait. At first it looks like nothing but a closeup of a defense attorney's badge, but in a moment he can see the man behind it. The features are relaxed; the eyes half open and unguarded.
"Is that Wright-dono?"
"Yes. I took it the day he got his badge back." The Chief Prosecutor's eyes are also unguarded, his mouth showing a wistful smile.
He knows that look. He's seen it on Aura.
He and the elephant return to the beds of nails, armed with the knowledge that art embarrasses its maker. (How can it not, when you expose so much of yourself?) He sits down with all the plants he has on hand and everything that might serve as a container and works without stopping until bedtime. Graceful falling grasses with a sprig of yellow. Metis. Pointed, elfin leaves and violets in a metal pot. Aura. Brilliant red-gold stalks of gladiolus with a blue glass sphere for the 'flower.' Athena.
When he tries to make himself, he finds himself face to face with the elephant.
He temporizes. He makes meaningless arrangements until he runs out of flowers. But the primary from Taka that he holds between his teeth taunts him. Anxiety brings his scissors to his own head, and in a sudden impulse he cuts a chunk of black hair, winds it around the feather, and spears it on a kenzan. There he is. An ugly, complicated mess, c'est moi.
The Blackquill 'arrangement' stays on his desk long after the other flowers are gone.
Over the next week, he and Edgeworth hammer out a new schedule. His ability to handle free time has definitely improved, but every attempt at ikebana is another stalemate with a large pachyderm. He can't shove the elephant out of the way. Perhaps he can go around it.
Sitting in the Chief Prosecutor's office while wrestling with unanswerable questions isn't fun, but it does have its joys. For one, anything Steel Samurai on a screen draws him like a lodestone. It's only too easy to bait him into responding with the outrage of the insulted fan -- something about not being able to stab someone from that angle -- but the sheer vehemence of his reaction makes Blackquill forget himself and laugh outright.
Before he has time to be afraid, he hears Edgeworth laughing as well.
From then on, they are conspirators in their shared love of the Steel Samurai. Edgeworth has most of the episodes and all of the movies, plus some stories to tell about Will Powers. And Blackquill has the quiet pleasure of knowing what embarrasses his boss.
But the Chief Prosecutor gets his revenge. From that point on, he can't work on his flowers without knowing a camera is pointed at him. "When are you going to stop doing that?" he asks after a camera flash has jolted him out of a rare moment of concentration.
"When you don't realize I'm doing it," comes the unruffled answer.
The camera devours his arrangements too. Edgeworth has started supplying flowers in no particular pattern, just to see what he can make of them. He's bought more books too. Sometimes he points to an arrangement and says, "Make that," but most of the time he provides a botanical motley and leaves it to Blackquill to weave beauty out of it.
After the third week, he stops fiddling with the arrangements before taking the picture.
Mere happenstance puts Blackquill in the office during the earthquake.
He knows something's happening when the kenzan begins to rattle in its dish. "Do you feel that?" he starts to say before he sees the Chief Prosecutor's expression.
Blank eyes. Open mouth. Arms locked rigid on the desk. He is breathing in rapid, shallow pants. Hyperventilating.
Panicking.
Relief mixes heretically with fear as Blackquill springs up. His long legs carry him across the room in three steps and he grabs -- such soft fabric -- the Chief Prosecutor's arms, crosses them over his chest, stands behind him with a wrist in each hand and pulls. Pressure on, pressure off; squeezing his lungs, trying to force a slower pattern. Edgeworth's pulse is so fast and hard he can feel it through his sleeves. It shakes his whole body.... or is that trembling?
When the worst of it subsides, he gently lets go and backs away. For a second he has to fight the impulse to flee. The Chief Prosecutor remains with his arms crossed, gripping his opposite shoulders and trying to catch his breath. Before he's entirely come out of it, he raises his head.
"H-how did you know to do that?"
"I was trained in psychology. I know how to deal with panic attacks." He sounds calmer than he feels. "Earthquakes, huh?"
"Y-yes." He fumbles his teacup to his lips and drinks most of it in a gulp. His eyes stand out dark against his face. "They... they do that... to me. Usually I wake up on the floor."
"Do you want to tell me why?" He's been inching closer to the desk, but the sensation of soft wool under his fingers startles him into dropping his hand. He can't let himself get so casual with the Chief Prosecutor...
"N-no. Not yet." Edgeworth didn't react to the hand on his shoulder. "When it starts to happen, I can't stop it. I can't stop it..."
He bites back the words that won't help. He takes the teacup and pours more tea into it, which the other man again slugs down, hot and unsweetened though it is. That seems to help. Blackquill brings him more, and this time he makes himself stop to add sugar, but his hand trembles.
When at last the Chief Prosecutor has stopped shaking, he looks at his subordinate but pauses. Awkward silence hangs in the air.
What to say? What was that line from the show, after the Steel Samurai blocked the tsunami with the old barn door? "A samurai protects his master's life, property, and honor."
Liquid emotions move in those grey eyes. "Thank you, honorable samurai."
"Tell me." He isn't sure what instinct makes him reach for that berry-colored cashmere again.
Edgeworth sits back and tries to pull his sleeve away, but Blackquill holds firm. "I'm a psychologist. I won't embarrass you."
"I know you won't. But there are.... there are lines I can't cross as long as you're my employee."
"Fire me, then. I was only a prosecutor to get the job done."
The Chief Prosecutor gives him the Glare. "You don't know what you want. If I let you make a decision like that now, you'll hate me for it. You need time, Blackquill. Time and thought, not.... whatever it is you think you're going to get from me."
And so he finds himself exiled, put on indefinite leave with no company but the elephant.
For a full month, he gives himself over to self pity. For the month after that, he prowls the Wright Anything Agency, learning what he can about the art of legal defense. Athena, unsurprisingly, doesn't rest until she's probed the depths of his problems, but she also refrains from telling him what to do.
Nothing will get better until he faces down the elephant. So one afternoon, after a walk through the park, he sits down with a tall vase and three fresh stems from a blackthorn tree. He doesn't think about the arrangement. He thinks about what they mean to him -- thorny things, all spiky and defensive. They extend just beyond the green leaves, waiting to give a nasty surprise to anyone who tries to eat them. Thorns don't attack people. They defend their tree.
He got into psychology to be a better prosecutor, but he also did it to help people. Athena's cross-examinations have a way of turning into therapy sessions... could he do that? Or...
What hits him is the memory of his conversation with Edgeworth, five years and some months into his sentence, asking him for help. He wanted, he said, a 'man on the inside,' an agent in prison to listen for false convictions and cases that needed to be retried. A combination of dark mirth and curiosity made him take the deal -- failing, of course, to see the trap in it. He'd seen a dandy in a ridiculous silk bib; most likely a scheming dandy who wanted to improve his own standing by overturning his fellows' Guilty verdicts. He didn't expect to find his own cage sprung.
And when he did, he was lost. What good is getting your life back when you don't know where to go?
And what about the ones who don't have a job to go back to, or a hero's reputation to coast on; who have to face the world as an unemployed felon? Edgeworth had understood, from some experience that he still won't talk about. But he's surely never been in prison; never known the terror that open sky can inspire.
A sudden plan makes him grin, and he reaches for the phone to call Athena.
It's so hard not to laugh at the look on the Edgeworth's face when he walks in and slaps a sheaf of documents on his desk.
"Chief Prosecutor, I may not know what I look like in flowe--"
The sight of his last "arrangement" sitting on the elegant desk robs him of all momentum. "--you still have that?"
"Yes." The smaller man leans forward in interest. "Go on with what you were saying."
"I know what I want to do. I want to help people who were convicted by mistake get back into society."
That gets a raised eyebrow. "Interesting. Do you mean reopening the cases, or...?"
"That will be part of it. Athena's agreed to play the defense's role. But we won't bring it to trial until we're both convinced that the person truly is innocent."
"So what is this?" He taps the papers.
"That's our first prospective client. He was one of Payne's."
"Which Payne?"
"Does it matter?"
That brings a ghost of a smile to Edgeworth's face. "And after that, you'll help them cope with life out of prison?"
"Yes. Anything and everything I can think of."
"Noble. And who will pay for this?"
"Ideally, a foundation that I'm still trying to get set up. But it will be a joint project run through the Department of Corrections and the Prosecutor's Office."
Edgeworth's frown looks thoughtful. "And run by...?"
"Me, of course. But I want the sitting Chief Prosecutor to have oversight."
He can't read the other man's eyes. "I support this. Provided you can get it set up. But in the immediate present, I need you to stay in the Prosecutor's Office. We're getting short on honest prosecutors."
"I can agree to that."
Edgeworth offers his long-fingered hand. "Welcome back."
It is, in retrospect, a turning point.
He's still in Room 1202 on a regular basis, but this time more as an equal. Edgeworth chats with him in stolen moments between phone calls and crises. His camera is often in his hand, though Blackquill has yet to forget it's there.
He soon comes to be glad he hadn't made any promises to any inmates, because setting up a foundation and a "case review board" is a headache and a half, especially when his legal skills aren't in that area. He has to interview each prosecutor in turn and tell them that he may be overturning some of their verdicts; no one really objects, though Debeste looks pensive.
And he hasn't forgotten his flowers. He makes an arrangement that suits him -- heavy blackthorn branches and a single white camellia. He makes one for Edgeworth too: woody rose-less stems with a berry-pink blossom hidden between the thorns. "Like a rose deconstructed?" Edgeworth muses when he sees it. "If anyone wants to smell that flower, how is he supposed to get in?"
He even does ikebana when meeting with his new 'clientele.' It definitely makes an impression. Some of them are curious; some immediately lose interest. But all of them drop their guard. He sees his own thoughts in their eyes. Dandy. Useless man.
Happy, busy months fly past. But he still sees the elephant from time to time. Is it still not done? Has he still not found himself?
He never expects his good intentions to cause a crisis. (But then, who ever does?)
About three months after he and Athena have set a newly-exonerated prisoner on his feet and set him up with a new life and a new reputation, he gets a 3 a.m. call.
"Look.... birdy prosecutor... this ain't working out. We all dream on the inside, you know, about the outside. And this is nice, but it ain't my dream, you know?"
Cold chills have been running through him from the start. "Where are you?"
"Never you worry. I'm going to live my dream. I'm going to get the sumbitches who put me in there."
He thinks his heart will stop when the line goes silent.
The prosecutor... who was the prosecutor for that case? It had been one of the unpleasant lesser lights, he thought, long since fired. He manages to call the police while yanking on something that resembles clothing -- his boots are hopeless, so he restricts himself to sandals -- and bolting for his car.
They arrive too late to prevent one murder. And the former inmate has fled. The significance of the plural has long since hit Blackquill. "Call the Judge. He's going after the Judge."
The patrol officer's vehicle is faster. He catches a ride, trying to fill Edgeworth in on the news on the way. On the Chief Prosecutor's advice, they roll up to the scene with the lights and sirens off. Blackquill springs out and runs for the back door.
"You just stay back. Stay back!" bellows his target, caught in the middle of breaking the lock. He's pulling... aiming...
Blackquill draws his 'sword' without hesitation and slices the gun right out of his hand. The former inmate stares at him, falls to his knees, scrambles for the dark object on the dark grass...
Then the police are on him.
The news causes an uproar. The Prosecutor's Office comes under siege. The phrase 'another Dark Age of the Law' chimes incessantly from television screens, telephone calls, the yells of protesters and random pedestrians. He hasn't had time to speak with Edgeworth since it happened, and he isn't certain the man would have anything to say to him anyway -- every time the Chief Prosecutor appears, he has his head carried high and his eyes like iron.
When the inevitable press conference request comes for Blackquill, he cringes and tries to remember the lesson of the thorns. Do not attack. But pierce them when they grab you. You guard something precious. Your program, all those innocent lives... and your master's honor.
So he meets their questions with a stinging honesty. But the crowd wants blood. They want to make him pay. They want him to admit he was in the wrong. And the more they press, the more outnumbered and desperate he begins to feel.
The CRACK of the slamming door announces a new arrival. A hand on his shoulder, a comforting touch. "Stand down, Blackquill. This is my fight."
And so the broad, berry-colored shoulders of Miles Edgeworth take the weight of all those stares, as he insists over and over that he will not let them make a scapegoat out of his employee. "The program was necessary to fill a vacuum which no one realized existed until Simon Blackquill mentioned it -- that the innocent are not truly free until they have some semblance of a normal life back. As for those who let themselves become twisted by anger and revenge, let us put the blame where it goes -- on the prosecutors who failed to get them a fair sentence and on the prison system that turned men into monsters."
To rest in someone else's shadow... to feel safe in the lee of another man...
So many painful weeks pass. Some mornings he feels sick at the thought of getting out of bed. Every waking moment is a constant reminder to preserve his pride and hold his head high.
But they win their fight. They keep the program.
He can't see Miles Edgeworth in the same light after they've fought together, side by side.
The P.I.C. becomes their unwitting ally in what follows. One compromise -- painful at the time, but increasingly welcome once he realizes what it means -- is that Blackquill has to step down from actively prosecuting while he's running the program. He can consult, and keep his badge, but he's not officially in the Prosecutor's Office. This means Edgeworth is no longer his boss.
The outings start so innocuously. An afternoon trip to the latest Steel Samurai stage show. Casual dinner. More formal dinner. A visit to a garden that so impresses both of them that they splurge at the gift shop and come away with a book on the meaning of flowers (his) and a stunning glass paperweight containing a preserved chrysanthemum (Edgeworth). The red petals look like they would still bend to the touch. They go to parks where Taka can scare the squirrels. He finds himself browsing rose beds and making Edgeworth come over so he can compared the color of the petals to his suit. It's so easy to lose time in the grey-eyed man's company; too easy to forget that the demands of his job haven't stopped just because...
Just because they're...
He doesn't dare follow that line of thought any further.
He keeps returning to Room 1202 to work at that low table, wanting to keep Edgeworth company without disrupting his schedule. He has been amusing himself lately with 'clever' arrangements -- a fluff of gray branches in an old ashtray, for example, with a little yellow blossom for the 'flame' -- but now he weaves with intention. Two arrangements of roses, in tall vases with nearly identical heights, as symmetrical as he can manage. Tall arrangements don't use a kenzan; they require a ticklish bracing of crossed sticks to keep everything in place, and getting everything together without swearing is taking all of his concentration.
At last, red roses face white roses; an arch of white anemone nearly bridges them. Devotion. Love. Sincerity.
"All right. Come have a look."
His quarry doesn't speak at first. Edgeworth goes down on one knee to see them better. He reaches out to touch one of the vases with -- yes, those long fingers are trembling.
He sees it. He understands.
Blackquill doesn't know what possesses him to pick up the camera on the desk. But in a moment of transcendence, he points it at those wondering eyes and clicks the shutter. Edgeworth doesn't even blink.
"Well?" he finally asks when he can't take the silence any more.
"There's a problem." The words that pierce his heart are strained. He almost doesn't hear the rest of it. "They're not close enough together."
"I-I can fix that." He doesn't recognize his own voice. He nudges the white vase closer to the red one and interlaces the anemone into a true arch. "That's... that's it, right? This..." He cringes as the words squeak out. "This is what you want?"
"Yes." His hand reaching for Blackquill's is clammy. "I'm... I'm not good at this. But yes. This is what I want."
They hold hands all the way down to the stairwell. They hold hands all the way down to the lobby. They don't do more than that, but it's enough to make him feel giddy. And Edgeworth is blushing. Honestly blushing.
"How long?" Blackquill asks when they finally reach the bottom and the lobby door could end their privacy at any minute.
"Since I first saw you stand in court, I wondered. But I told myself you wouldn't be interested." He half smiles. "You?"
"Since you stood up for me." He pulls his newfound boyfriend into his chest. "Oh, my instinct was to protect you for a long time before that. But I didn't know how strong you really were."
"Mm." The Chief Prosecutor releases him. "I have to get back to work if you want to go somewhere tonight."
He leaves in a vague daze. He has no idea how he passes the time until they meet again. When the Chief Prosecutor comes to collect him (in the car, of course) he drops a portfolio in his lap.
"Have a look at that."
All of his arrangements, or at least all the ones Edgeworth and his camera had access to. From the very first one, cringingly clumsy, to the Blackquill 'arrangement' to the joint creation of white and red roses they'd made just this afternoon. But there's one last page...
Himself, lost in focus, hands full of white roses. "You bastard..." he mutters just as his eye drifts to the right. "When did you take...?"
"When did you ?"
On the facing page -- Edgeworth. His long fingers seem to meet Blackquill's from the other side of the white roses, and their eyes are in the same line as well. Their images look at each other in nervous but unmistakable interest.
What are the odds...?
"The camera never lies." The grey-haired man shrugs. "And I'm not a man to run from the truth. Are you, Simon?"
"Why, Miles." The name feels so awkward in his mouth; yet another skill he'll have to acquire with practice. "I'm disappointed you'd even need to ask."
The End