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Ema places within five points of passing all three times she takes the exam. Her last attempt is her worst performance, despite the practice, the late night study sessions, the flashcards. She stares at the results for a long moment, then carefully folds the page, slips it back into the envelope, and lights the whole mess on fire. It catches faster than she anticipates, the flame dancing up to her fingertips, and she drops it to the table with a start. Her catharsis turns into a small bonfire on the kitchen table, and she douses it just as fast as she can with her glass of tap water.
She picks up the sopping envelope with just her thumb and forefinger, holding it gingerly, as though she's afraid it might be cursed. It drips onto the table, onto the freshly scorched wood, and it's then, taking in these sad remains, that the tears well in her eyes.
She can't even ritualistically burn her piss-poor results without screwing it up.
Fuck.
Her aunt is a lovely woman. Perhaps a little too lovely, Ema sometimes finds herself thinking, then immediately feels guilty.
She misses Lana. Her sister always knew how to get the best out of her--when to taper her praise with some realism, how much discipline should be mixed in with her encouragements.
But Lana, she's not around anymore; she hasn't been for a while. Most of the time, Ema's able to push this to the back of her mind, not let it bother her. But sometimes--like now--she is desperate for Lana's warm, tight hugs, for her quiet understanding.
She's not surprised when she doesn't get the job; you have to pass the test to get the job. She'd applied anyway, always stubborn, but she'd expected to get rejected. The detective gig, she knows it's not a bad job, that plenty of people start where she is right now and work their way up. This isn't the end of the road for her, and she knows that.
She's leaving for America tomorrow. She's supposed to be finishing her packing, but instead she's lying on her bed in the middle of her empty room and wondering why she hasn't heard from Lana. If something doesn't come in the mail tomorrow morning, she won't hear from her sister until she returns to the States, until she goes to see her in jail.
There are many reasons why she isn't looking forward to going home.
One thing she thinks she can look forward to is seeing some old friends. Well, maybe "friends" isn't the right word, but the men mean a lot to her.
And, she hopes, perhaps they can put in the right words to the right people, gain her some points in Forensics.
Miles Edgeworth, she finds, is abroad, apparently having left the country shortly after Ema herself. She's frustrated and embarrassed to learn that he's professing at a university not five miles from where she'd been studying. She imagines cramming in Edgeworth's office, the quiet companionship of the former prosecutor as he worked at his desk. If only she'd been more involved in school, taken advantage of the networking opportunities, maybe she would have heard that Miles Edgeworth was working just down the road.
She can't think about that now. It's in the past, no sense in dwelling on the things she can't change.
And Phoenix Wright, that's even more painful. The moment she hears the charges, she knows it isn't true, that Phoenix would never resort to such tactics. He takes a couple of her calls, offers some encouragement, but he won't agree to meet with her. He's cagey about it, so much so that she doesn't realize how thoroughly he's evaded her until they hang up the phone.
She takes little comfort in the promise that he'll be in touch soon.
She flops back onto the hotel bed. She's supposed to be out apartment hunting. All she wants to do is crawl under the comforter, disappear in the space between the sheets and the mattress.
It's a week before she goes to see Lana. She feels guilty over it, but she needs the time to herself, to get her head on straight. Lana's allowed contact visits now, and Ema falls into her sister's arms, letting the stress of all these years slide out of her.
She wasn't expecting to cry.
The new job is not quite what she expects. She's paired up with this young, flashy prosecutor, and Miles Edgeworth he is not. She hates how flippant he is, how difficult it is to get him to take her seriously. She wonders if he somehow knows why she's a detective, not in Forensics, especially when he blocks her every attempt to help out on the sciencey side of things.
She confronts him about it one afternoon. Maybe it's too soon for this, only a few weeks on the job, but something about him just rubs her the wrong way, and this isn't what she wants to be doing, she has hopes and dreams and passions and he is standing in her way.
"Fräulein," he says pleasantly, and her hands clench into fists. "You are a beautiful, intelligent woman, insightful and quick on your feet. I understand that perhaps your heart is not in the day-to-day of investigations, but frankly, that does not concern me. You are a detective, Fräulein Skye, and that is where your talents are needed."
"You're not my boss," she says, not meaning to sound petulant but unable to stop herself.
"No I am not, but when my investigation is threatened, I will not hold my tongue. If you want to spend time in the lab, by all means, I encourage it. But not while you are on the clock."
She feels her face heat, anger bubbling under her skin. She hates his calm smile, his even tone. She hates that this boy, just a year her senior, feels comfortable in telling her what to do, in judging her performance. She hates his stupid hair and his stupid face and his stupid, stupid professionalism.
Most of all, she hates that he's right.
They come to an uneasy truce after that. They're still at each other's throats, but there's an understanding there now, a begrudging respect. She still thinks he's ridiculous, a fop, but it's undeniable that he's good at what he does, that he cares deeply for his work.
Still, he's no Miles Edgeworth.
For her part, she cleans up her act, focusing while she's at work and holing up in the lab after hours. The Forensics team, they seem to like her, don't mind her hanging around, and slowly they start giving her work to do--little projects, nothing too important, but she'll take what she can get. It makes it harder, sometimes, to go back to her day job when she knows so thoroughly what she's missing, but it's something, it's a start.
She's been going to see Lana twice a week. It's nice--more than nice--and it seems unfathomable that she went for years without seeing her sister, as though ink on paper could ever accurately translate Lana's laughter, the crinkle at her eyes when she smiles.
Lana warns that she shouldn't build her identity so completely on her career, that it's good to love your job, be passionate about it, but that it shouldn't consume you. Her voice is low, pain shining in her eyes, and Ema doesn't know how to say that this is different.
She doesn't know how to say that she's learned from Lana's mistakes.
She decides to get a cat. She goes to the shelter and gets this round, grey ball of fluff named Maxwell. Maxwell is six years old and grumpy. Ema figures they can be grumpy together.
Maxwell wakes her up at six o'clock every morning. She hated it at first, threatened him daily with a trip back to the shelter, but now she sort of likes it, likes that extra hour it gives her every morning. She makes a pot of tea and studies at the kitchen table, Maxwell curled up in her lap.
She has two hundred and thirty-seven days before she can retake the exam. She's determined to make them count.