Chapter Text
"Post, Nick! Think fast!!"
Phoenix barely had time to bleat a protest from behind his desk before he was smacked in the face with several dense envelopes and a large, glossy magazine. He peeled the latter off his face and bundled the rest up from his lap, shooting his assistant a death glare in the process. Maya had the good grace to look sheepish for maybe five seconds before bouncing over and wrestling the magazine from his grasp and examining it closely.
"Ooh, look, Legal Eagle comes with a free poster of the Judge this month! Luuuuucky you! Maybe we can stick it in the toilet and give you some motivation for your scrubbing; ya'know, make it as shiny as his head, or something," she grinned, holding up the centre page spread. Peering closer, Phoenix had to agree that His Honour's pate was looking pretty polished... Nah, probably just the overly shiny paper.
Maya turned the mag back to herself and began to flick through, humming something to herself. Something slipped from between the pages and hit the floor with a dull thud. He stifled a sigh, wondering how naturally messy a person could be, and picked up the mystery item. It was a flyer for some competition or other; "WIN: ONE ALL-EXPENSES-PAID TRIP TO THE LEGAL LEAGUE INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE IN LONDON! PRIZE OPEN TO ONE PROSECUTOR AND ONE DEFENSE ATTORNEY IN THE DISTRICT!"
"London, eh? Never been," Phoenix mused under his breath, placing the leaflet on the desk and turning back to the other post. Maya's ears were keen, however, and she quickly snatched it up.
"London, Nick? THE London? In England? Nick, you gotta enter!" She read the thing in record time, eyes growing wider by the second. "It's totally free to enter! Shame you can't take me with you, but... You could totally use the holiday! When's the last time you even went out of state, let alone out of the country?" She fished a pen out of the stationary mug and began filling in Nick's details.
"H-hey, Maya, c'mon! My odds of winning that are a billion to one! Besides, can you imagine being buddied up with some of the prosecutors around here for a week? Imagine sitting next to Payne for the ten hours on the plane... No thanks." He made a vague swipe at it, but Maya was faster.
"Yeeeaaah, but who knows? You could end up with some totally smokin' hot lady-lawyer! Like Lana! Not all the prosecutors are awful, y'know. Or what about Edgeworth? You guys get along alright now, right?" She paused to look up at him quizzically.
It was true; he was on better terms with Edgeworth than he'd been in years. Coming together to lay the ghosts of the Fey family to rest had done much, even though that case hurt in other ways. Also, it was hard to not feel a little indebted to the man who dropped everything and came from halfway around the world to his side after he took that tumble from the bridge. He wasn't quite sure why Edgeworth had gone to those lengths, but he was grateful for it. It was maybe a couple of months on, and while they didn't exactly make plans to see each other, there'd been a few cordial lunches at the courthouse, and it felt like things were beginning to mend into something a little more wholesome than how their friendship had been since Phoenix took up law.
He paused. "I guess sharing with Edgeworth wouldn't be too bad, but what are the chances he'd ever go in for something like this? He's always hopping all over the world for study anyway, and he'd never willingly take anything slightly resembling a holiday. Nope, not happening." He turned back to the envelopes; mostly bills and bank statements, and a couple of bits of paperwork he needed to file. He sat down at his desk, began sorting through the day's tasks, and quite forgot all about London and visits to it...
- - - - -
...Meanwhile, across town, somebody was knocking on Miles Edgeworth's door. He slipped a bookmark in the file he'd been reading, set down his Darjeeling, and bade them enter.
"M-morning, Mr Edgeworth!" chirped the Prosecutor's Office secretary, peering round the door with a nervous smile. "I saw you hadn't collected your post this morning, so I brought it up to you!" She edged into the room, vaguely waving a handful of paper in an explanatory fashion. Blast; he'd been accosted by a junior detective who wanted him for something or other first thing, and had quite forgotten. Her obvious nervousness made him cringe internally; he loathed and dreaded these schoolgirl crushes he seemed to attract.
"Thank you, Miss Canis," he said, getting up from his desk to meet her halfway, slightly forcing a smile. "You're too kind." He took the post from her hands, deliberately failing to notice the flush spreading across her cheeks.
"P-please, it's no trouble, and, uh, y-you can call me Rose, if you want, uhm... ThankyouOKbye” she blustered, before turning tail and making a swift exit. There was a pause as Edgeworth looked at the open door, before a pattering of footsteps brought her back to close the door with another "OhI'msosorrybyeforreal". The latch clicked and he was left alone once more.
Miles glanced through the mail on his way back to his desk, not expecting much interesting today. Follow-up report, request for file, therapy appointment, internal memo... Internal memo? That was rare. They did most of that by emails these days. Even if the crime scene photos were still black and white, the law was starting a sluggish transition into the modern world. Unfolding it, he saw it was just an announcement of some lottery in the office to win conference tickets to something or other. He cast it straight into the recycling and turned back to his files. Let those who cared for luck enter lotteries; real work, right here, was far more pressing. So he quite forgot all about it.