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Nick?
He stirred, his eyes opening for a moment, the light dim and a vague pink, white, and brown shape blurred next to him before his eyes closed again.
"Nick?" There was a tugging at the sleeve of his shirt, and he opened his eyes again. Her voice was quiet against the loud hum of the wall unit that was air conditioning his room, and it was punctuated by an uneven breath and wet sniff. There were a few moments before he rubbed at his eyes with the back of his hand, yawning. "Yeah, Truce?"
"...I can't sleep."
He made out the shape of her pillow and blanket, and spent two moments too long debating whether it was technically okay to let a young girl he was in the process of legally adopting climb into bed with him...but by the time he'd decided, she was already clambering over him. She tossed her pillow down next to his and lay back on top of the comforter, pulling her blanket around her.
The silence stretched on for a few moments before he propped himself up on his elbow. "So what is it?"
She shook her head for a moment before she spoke, her tone very low, voice quiet and a shaky breath serving as preamble to the statement. "...I miss my daddy."
There was a sigh, and he nodded very softly. "I know." He reached out, resting his hand on her shoulder a bit. "He'll come back. ...until then, I'm here."
She sniffed once, wetly, and wiped her nose on the blanket. "...do you really think he will? He's been gone for so long..." Her voice trailed off from there, her face half-buried in the blanket as she wiped away her tears with it.
"Yeah, Trucy. I'm sure he'll come back for you." A deep breath, and he smiled slightly. "I would." He nodded a bit when he said it, his voice quiet against the constant drone of the air conditioner.
She nodded, going silent against the hum and the occasional airy hiss of a car passing outside the apartment building. Her breathing evened after a few minutes, though it still occasionally hitched in her chest before she finally slept. He couldn't remember how long it took to fall back asleep, fighting off the waking of his mind to running through the thousand things that could keep him awake for a few hours.
Her pillow and blanket were still there when he awoke the next morning, and as he stepped into the living room to half-watching the cartoons with her, he stopped. Trucy was sitting on the sofa, TV on, but she was not looking at it. Her focus was, instead, the shoebox in her lap.
He couldn't breathe for a moment, and she was smiling, turning over a photograph in her hands. This was laid on top of the small pile she had started- slips of paper and letters, notes, old photographs. She took out another and was looking at it before he moved, his hand out. Trucy looked up then, smiling. "Good morning, daddy! I found all of these old pictures of you…and this other guy."
She held one out, smiling widely, and he only had to see the vague outlines of the colors on the paper and he knew at once which one it was. Himself, two years ago, smiling and holding up a card. A photograph taken at his birthday party that year, after he and...after they had returned from the weekend at Point Loma. He didn't need to see the words that he'd scribbled on it then, having spent the better part of two years trying to deny them, deny that he had ever felt them.
"I love Miles Edgeworth." He'd smirked drunkenly when he wrote it, Maya taking the picture before another was taken- his arm lazily draped across Miles' shoulder and card resting near the prosecutor’s chest as he managed to tolerate Phoenix long enough to have his picture taken, his face set and one brow slightly arched at the camera. Still, they had laughed that night, and if he honestly wanted to, he could still remember the feel of his lips against his.
He was moving across the living room before he knew that he was, and the words choked from his mouth. "Trucy. Where did you find those?" He plucked the photograph from her fingers, crumpling it in his hand.
She looked away from him, then, folding her arms across her chest. "I...They were in your closet, daddy. I'm..." She didn't meet his eyes, looking at the box with a mix of guilt and curiosity. Her voice was quiet when she spoke. "I'm sorry, daddy. I didn’t know…"
He took the box, throwing the rest of the papers and photographs that she had looked at inside. It was set on the floor before he settled into place on the sofa. The crumpled photograph would not leave his hand, and he smoothed it out as best he could. She looked over, cautiously.
"You looked happy." Her voice was small, and she rested her hands on his arm. "Who is that?"
She gestured to the photograph on the top of the box- Miles, his hand half-obscuring the camera. A photograph taken that same evening.
"He's..." He couldn't even choke it out. "He's not here anymore, Trucy."
"...oh." She paused for a few moments, and the emptiness settled in on him again, and he was suddenly there again- just days after the phone call, so alone. "Did he disappear, too?"
His throat was dry, and the first word was cut off when he spoke. "Yeah, something like that." His breath was heavy, and he took one more look at the photographs. He was back in that night, moments that, had he known they would leave...that he would be left with this, that he would have held onto, that he wouldn’t have taken for granted in the certainty that they would have forever. Moments that he wished that he could have lived a lifetime of. He didn't realize how raw it all was, that he wasn't done grieving for the life he'd never have, until he felt the tears streaking down his face, hot at first, and then icy in their wake. He looked away from her, wiping them away and willing them to stop. She peered in closer, and he tried to wave her away.
He buried his face in his hands, and her arms found his shoulders. "No. Please don't cry, daddy. I'm sure he'll come back. That's what you told me, right?" She rested her head against his shoulder and he took a deep breath, the silent crying continuing for only a minute more before he nodded softly. She let go of him, and he wordlessly gathered the box and took it back to his room- where he had hidden it the last time, as much from himself as everyone else.
When he returned, the TV was still on, but Trucy was holding the remote and watching the screen intently. Nothing was said about the previous night or that morning, both slipping into the father and daughter roles that they'd gotten so used to. Breakfast that morning was largely silent, but by lunch they had managed to pretend that everything was as normal…and it was. They were more alike than he would ever care to admit- together out of the same need for someone else, just waiting out their days until those people would come back. As they promised themselves, each other, that they would.
When she looked for the box again the next morning, it was gone. Further searching around the apartment did not reveal anything- nor did searching through things as they packed and unpacked the next year. It was something she would think about passingly, in the moments that she and her adoptive father were not busy, and at times she might hunt for it again. After a few years, she simply had to conclude that perhaps the box, like the man and her real father, had disappeared.
She knew, somehow, that they were all out there, just waiting to be found again.