Chapter Text
Miles glared down at the paper in his hands like it had done him a personal disservice. The Fawles trial had been a mess for all involved, and quite the blunder ill-fitting the rest of his perfect win record thus far. A regrettably messy affair where no verdict had been reached, and the defendant had committed suicide on the stand rather than testifying – it was not the perfect court debut he had envisioned.
That was why, months later, he was still rereading these damned case files. He’d been warned off the practice by Manfred von Karma, who saw no need to even consider the notion that Terry Fawles had not been the culprit. And naturally Miles had agreed with him… except for details that just didn’t add up. Obnoxious as that damnable Ms. Fey’s needling about contradictions had been, he found it difficult to reconcile the discrepancies with the evidence. Of course, it was possible to explain them away, but when he considered the transcript in his hands once again, outside of the heat of the court, there were a number of aspects of her defense that could not be rejected quite as neatly as he had once believed.
That was not to even mention Ms. Hawthorne herself. Lies about her true identity aside, the woman’s sickly-sweet demeanor had melted away more than a few times over the course of the case. Miles didn’t fancy himself much of a judge of character if he was honest, but the cold edge he’d seen in those eyes had given him pause.
But it was impossible, wasn’t it? He should have packed the case file up and never again bothered himself with such considerations. Terry Fawles had been guilty, despite the lack of official verdict passed, and that was all there was to it.
If only Miles was able to convince himself of that fact. Perhaps he could put this whole ordeal to rest if he finally confirmed for himself the truth. And with Mr. Fawles unable to give testimony, it seemed he was simply going to have to arrange a meeting with Ms. Hawthorne instead. If he could verify her innocence, then his doubts could fade, and one less case would plague his thoughts at night.
He doubted he could ever rid himself of the other case that so predominated his dreams, after all. For his own peace of mind, he could at least spare himself having to consider both cases.
And really, he’d spent far too long considering this case already. He would meet with Ms. Hawthorne and lay the whole ordeal to rest.
~
Dahlia Hawthorne was much like Miles remembered when she entered their arranged meeting spot in the courthouse. She was soft-spoken and mild, all wide eyes and tremulous smiles. Miles considered that it would have been very hard to indict this woman of anything without decisive evidence – put simply, she didn’t seem the type.
That was not, of course, to say any judgment of true guilt. Simply that Ms. Fey would have had quite the difficult time redirecting suspicion from Terry Fawles to Ms. Hawthorne instead. She recounted her story quietly, a little regretfully, at times looking mere moments from tearing up, fiddling with a delicate gold necklace chain that slipped under her shirt when she recounted more emotional events. He sipped his tea impassively. He was not interested in her emotional state; he only cared for her version of events.
The story was all a rather open and shut case. There was just one detail he had to clarify before he could dismiss her and never return to this awful case again. “Ms. Hawthorne,” he began, watching her dab at her eyes with the edge of a handkerchief after talking about Mr. Fawles' abrupt suicide, “shortly before that occurred, Mr. Fawles spoke of a memento he had gone to retrieve. A small bottle on a necklace. Could you tell me more about the object in question?”
Dahlia’s eye twitched. It was the briefest of movements, barely there at all, but he was sure he hadn’t mistaken it. How odd.
“W-why would you want to know about a thing like that?” she asked. It was the first time she hadn’t simply answered his question, and the first time he’d asked about something not sufficiently covered in the court case. Perhaps he should tread lightly here.
“Call it mere curiosity.”
Dahlia pursed her lips, but didn’t press the issue. “I’m afraid I have no idea what he was talking about. A memento like that… why would I have given him such a thing?”
Edgeworth frowned. Was she being purposefully avoidant, or had she truly not remembered what Mr. Fawles had said? “Mr. Fawles seemed to believe it was a symbol of your trust. And when you could no longer trust each other… he was to use it to poison himself.”
Again, Dahlia’s eyes seemed rather cold. What was going on here? “Now Mr. Edgeworth, where in the world would I have gotten a thing like that? Me, acquiring poison?” That was certainly true; it was a little difficult to picture her being able to procure poison at the age she had been. “Besides, if Mr. Fawles drank the poison on the stand… well, wasn’t that his own decision?”
Miles stilled. W-what had she just said? No, it wasn’t what she said – it was the way she’d said it. She was almost emotionless. It didn’t fit with the quiet, tear-stricken girl who’d given her earlier testimony at all, and it certainly didn’t fit with Miles’ own memories of witnessing Mr. Fawles’ death and the truly horrific affair it had been. “Ms. Hawthorne-”
His phone chimed in his pocket. Of all the rotten timing… Well, he supposed he could take a moment. It wasn’t like she was going anywhere. “Pardon me, I have to take this – I’ll be right back,” he excused himself, standing and stepping a fair distance away to accept the call.
“Mr. Edgeworth, sir!” Detective Gumshoe’s loud voice boomed in his ear, and he sighed. He should have expected as much. Gumshoe always did have a way with timing.
A few short minutes of debriefing about a crime scene and a terse reminder that no detective, I’m quite capable of taking a lunch break on my own and I am otherwise engaged at the moment anyway later, Edgeworth resettled himself in his chair and pushed his residual annoyance to the back of his mind.
“My apologies for the interruption.”
“Oh, not a problem at all, Mr. Edgeworth.” Dahlia’s previous tension, faint as it had been, had all but evaporated. Damn it all. If she was this relaxed, she’d likely come up with some way to hide the truth of the matter from him.
He wondered at what point he’d gone from trying to confirm her innocence to assuming her guilt. He reminded himself firmly that this was all for the sake of proving Ms. Hawthorne had no part in Valerie Hawthorne’s passing.
“Now, I believe we were discussing the matter of the necklace.”
Dahlia brought her hand to her lips. “I’m sorry, but I truly didn’t have anything to do with that. If Mr. Fawles chose to drink poison rather than lie like that hag of a defense attorney wanted him to, then he did so all on his own.”
Her eyes had become quite cold again, settling uncomfortably on him. Miles found himself reaching for his tea, if only for the sake of having something to do with his hands. He took only the barest of sips, trying not to grimace at how cold it had gotten over the course of their conversation or let on that he was merely stalling his own response.
Ms. Hawthorne smiled, sharp and quick. It looked rather out of place on her face. Miles tried to keep a frown off his own.
“Ah, if that’s all then, Mr. Edgeworth…?”
He hadn’t exactly gotten what he’d come for, but he could hardly press her for more without any evidence. It seemed he was going to have to wait for the resolution of this case once more. “I suppose that is all. Thank you for meeting with me.”
Her smile was sickly sweet once more, but as she rose from the table, something about it felt off. “The pleasure was all mine.”
Miles watched her go, drumming his fingers against his thigh. Perhaps he had wasted his time today after all, and he would have been better served allowing Detective Gumshoe to pull him away for lunch. What a thought.
He began to stand himself, but as he did he felt dizzy and landed heavily again in his chair. How odd; he’d felt fine just a moment ago. But rapidly he began to feel dizzy, his limbs uncooperative, only barely twitching under his command. He grit his teeth and tried to stop the spinning of his head, but it only grew worse.
What in the world was going on-
She couldn’t have. They’d just agreed there was no way for her to get her hands on poison. And yet…
As his breathing shook, he cast a wild glance about the meeting room, but it was empty save for himself. He cursed his past self for having it cleared through the thick fog in his head. He was beginning to believe he hadn’t merely been catastrophizing.
He fumbled for his phone in his pocket, trying to get his fingers to obey his command. There was no way he could dial 911 with any accuracy like this. Someone, anyone, if he could just get his damn contacts open, or hit redial… There!
The soft ringback buzzing clicked off. “Uh, hey pal-” Gumshoe began, sounding confused, but Miles cut him off.
“Detective… the courthouse…” he forced out, hoping the phone was close enough to his face.
“Right, that’s where you were meeting that Hawthorne girl, right? …Mr. Edgeworth? You still there?”
“Come quick,” he breathed, feeling the phone begin to slip from his loosening grasp. “Poison…”
If Detective Gumshoe had a response to that, Miles wasn’t able to hear it. His nerveless fingers gave up the ghost and his phone clattered to the ground. A few moments later, Miles Edgeworth followed it.
~~
When he awoke, Miles’ head felt muzzy and his thoughts disoriented. He wondered dimly if he’d had that nightmare again – though he usually remembered them quite clearly. A soft, repetitive beeping noise was the next thing to intrude upon his consciousness. Funny, it almost sounded like a monitor in the hospital-
He sat bolt upright, or at least his body attempted to, though he only really managed a feeble twitch that left him hissing in pain. What the hell had happened to him? He couldn’t remember how he’d ended up hospitalized.
He tried not to think about the last time he’d woken up in a hospital. Well, at least that ruled amnesia out of his list of concerns.
After a few more minutes, he found he had better control over his limbs, and raised a shaky hand to the call button next to his bedside. His arm looked rather thinner than he remembered, though he supposed it was the nature of hospital clothes, and he had been skipping lunch more frequently, a practice which he hoped had no relation to his stay here.
It took only a few moments for a doctor to enter his room, greeting him with an enthusiastic look and a high-spirited, “I’m glad to see you’re awake, Mr. Edgeworth!”
Hmm. That gave him very few clues about the nature of his injury. “I am afraid I cannot remember why I am here.”
The doctor nodded. “That’s understandable – you may not have even known what was going on at the time. Mr. Edgeworth, you were poisoned.”
Poison? He knew he had not made many friends in his career, but who in the world would have poisoned-
That was right. He’d been in the courthouse, meeting with that woman… Dahlia Hawthorne. Discussing the poison Terry Fawles had used to end his own life. It seemed, if his own recollection was to be believed, that Ms. Hawthorne was not opposed to more standard poisoning methods on top of her earlier coercion.
“Ah. I remember now,” was all he said in response, frowning. If Ms. Hawthorne had been the one to poison him, then it stood to reason she could indeed get her hands on poison after all. Perhaps she was not as innocent as he had wanted to believe. But that also led to the possibility that Mr. Fawles may not have been as guilty as he wanted to believe either, and he hardly thought he was in the right frame of mind to consider that possibility, so he ignored both for the time being.
The doctor performed a few tests, and though the risk to his life had been credible initially, it seemed he had consumed so little that the quick treatment he’d received had been enough to stave off any lasting damage. Miles thought he faintly remembered Detective Gumshoe having something to do with that… perhaps he would consider reversing a pay cut or two next salary review.
He still felt rather weak, but the doctor assured him it would fade as time went on and he was able to stretch the muscles more. Which seemed to indicate something rather concerning. “How long have I been here for?”
“Well, while we were able to perform a stomach pump and stabilize you quite rapidly after arrival, the poison heavily damaged a great deal of your system. Your body needed to recover. You’ve been with us for nearly two months now.”
Two months? Manfred was going to skin him alive. The man had never taken a day off in his career, meanwhile Miles had only been practicing for a year and had taken a two month absence. Of course, that implied he had a job to go back to. “…Very well,” he sighed, acknowledging the doctor’s answer.
“If you’re feeling well enough,” the doctor tried with no small amount of forced cheer, “you can start accepting visitors if you like.”
What a silly thought. Like anyone would be coming to visit him. Still, it seemed a rather unnecessary thing to admit to the doctor, so he simply nodded, though he wasn't about to hold his breath.
~~
To Miles’ surprise, he was proven wrong a mere two hours later when Detective Gumshoe shouldered his way into his hospital room. “Mr. Edgeworth, sir!” Gumshoe cried, looking almost as if he were about to burst into tears. “I’m so glad to know you’re okay pal!”
Gumshoe moved as if he were about to envelop him in a bear hug, and Miles tensed, wide-eyed, but Gumshoe seemed to think better of it at the last moment and simply clapped him on the shoulder instead. “I was so worried when you made that phone call and I called an ambulance but by the time I got here you had already passed out, and then you weren’t waking up for so long, and the doctors kept telling me-”
“Detective,” Miles interrupted with a forestalling hand. “I should thank you for your quick response time. If you had not come when you did, I very likely would not have made it.” To some, the discussion of their own mortality would have been off-putting. To Miles, what he had to say next was the more difficult part. “And… thank you for your concern. It is… appreciated.”
Gumshoe beamed back at him. Miles wondered what exactly he’d said to illicit that strong of a response. “Speaking of which,” Gumshoe continued, looking more serious, “do you have any idea who poisoned you?”
So she’d managed to get away with it after all, then. That put him in quite the position. “I believe… it was Ms. Dahlia Hawthorne. She was the only one present when my tea was left unattended.”
“That’s what we suspected too, sir. But we searched Ms. Hawthorne before we let her leave the courthouse, and couldn’t find any evidence she’d had poison on her. Or any other evidence other than circumstantial.”
Miles frowned. He was certain it could only be her, but unfortunately, his own testimony was not enough to surpass the need for evidence. Especially as he had not seen her poison the drink – though of course, if he had, he wouldn’t have been in this damnable hospital in the first place. “Rather unfortunate. Still, she would have needed some sort of vial to contain the poison. Perhaps it is long gone by now… or perhaps it still lies in hiding at the courthouse.”
Gumshoe gave him a salute and a wide grin. “You leave it to me, sir! If there’s something to find, I’ll find it! You just get your rest so when the time comes you’ll be able to prosecute her for what she’s done.”
He highly doubted he’d be allowed to prosecute a case in which he was the victim. That said, he also doubted the prosecutor’s office would still have a position for him. Neither thing seemed worth bringing up as he watched Gumshoe leave the room.
~~
His second visitor of the day was perhaps more surprising than the first, though the hurried scrambling of hospital employees as they skittered out of his visitor’s path gave her identity away before she set foot in the door. But while on some level he had been anticipating the detective’s visit if he were truly honest, it was quite another thing altogether to say he had in any way expected Franziska to be here. Last he’d heard – which had been, admittedly, two months ago – she was still in Germany.
“Miles Edgeworth!” she snapped, levelling him with a glare that she’d likely used to clear her path down the hall. “I see you have finally decided to stop foolishly putting off our confrontation.” This was going to be rather painful, wasn’t it? “I have been waiting for you to awaken for two months! Do you know how many foolish Americans I have had to put up with for your sake?”
She’d flown in from Germany… for his sake? Something itched at the corner of his eyes, and he blinked it away. How… sentimental.
“Franziska, it’s good to see you as well.”
She hmph’d and turned her nose up at him, but didn’t dispute the point. She’d been truly worried then.
“I cannot believe one raised under the von Karma name of perfection would do something as imperfect as allow themselves to be poisoned. If I had my whip with me I would make you pay for being such a foolish fool!” Franziska grumbled, resorting to wringing the air with her fists. Miles winced sympathetically for whichever member of the hospital staff had been the one to tell Franziska she couldn’t come in with the whip.
“I apologize for my lapse in judgment.” It truly had been a foolish mistake, one he was not about to make again around Ms. Hawthorne.
Franziska continued without acknowledgement of his statement. “You owe me quite a number of favors for all of the extra work I have taken on in your absence. The first of which will be returning to work – I have no more desire to stand in American courts.”
Had she been taking on his cases for him so he could return to his job? His eyes itched again; perhaps it was a symptom he should relay to the doctor.
“I will be quite certain to do so as soon as I am able.”
“See to it that you do. In the meantime…” She took the small plastic chair nearest his bedside. “Tell me, what has my little brother gotten himself so wrapped up in all the way over in America?”
~~
Gumshoe and Franziska frequented the hospital for the few days it took for his condition to improve. Though the hospital was hesitant about releasing him, he assured his doctor he felt quite healthy now, and he was eager to return to work besides.
It was on his last day at the hospital, when he imagined word of his recuperation was beginning to reach the outside world, that he received his third and final visitor. They announced themselves with a knock on the frame of the door, which in itself was odd, as neither Franziska nor Gumshoe had ever placed much value in gaining permission before entering a room. Still, he shrugged and figured there was no sense in turning anyone away, not before he had seen who it was at least. But the woman who stepped into the doorway was not someone he’d expected to see at all.
With all the research he’d been doing into the Fawles case, it didn’t take long for him to place her. “Ms. Fey,” he said, rather confused. He hardly figured she’d come to wish him a speedy recovery, and yet there was a small vase of flowers in her hands – or perhaps it was more of a fern, now that he looked.
“Mr. Edgeworth,” Mia Fey greeted in return, offering a smile he was quite certain she’d never shown him in court. “I just heard about your recovery.”
Ah, then his poisoning was public knowledge, it seemed. He supposed that made sense; it would have been difficult to keep a crime committed in the courthouse a secret for very long. “Yes, I awoke a few days ago.”
It seemed Ms. Fey was content with the pleasantries exchanged, because she moved right past them into more serious matters. “Your meeting at the courthouse was with Dahlia Hawthorne, wasn’t it?”
He supposed she had been as haunted by that court case as he was. “It was.”
“Then you know firsthand how dangerous she is,” she pressed.
It was something he’d been considering for a while now, since waking up. If Ms. Hawthorne had indeed gone to such lengths to silence him, did it mean Ms. Fey’s claims were in fact true? Or was that too much to assume?
“I… cannot prove Ms. Hawthorne was the one to poison me at this time,” he admitted, feeling a bit like he was under the scrutiny of the judge once more. “That said, the incident will be looked into.”
“But you know, don’t you?”
He chose not to answer that. “Moreover,” he continued, “her guilt in this incident does not prove her guilt in past incidents, nor does it acquit Terry Fawles of his crimes. If you have come here seeking an ally for the results of that case, Ms. Fey, I am sorry to disappoint you.”
She sighed, sounding resigned, if not surprised. “Very well. Then… just take this, would you?” She moved to offer him the plant in her arms, and he unthinkingly took it, only considering refusing when Mia had already made her way out the door. It seemed he was a plant owner now.
Something dangling from the opposite side of the plant caught his eye – a tag perhaps? How tacky to have not removed it first. He caught it between two fingers and raised it up to his face, and realized it wasn’t a tag after all, but a business card for one Mia Fey at the Grossberg Law Offices.
An interesting move, he had to admit. If, he was certain, ultimately ineffective. He was sure he’d never have a reason to contact Mia Fey.