Chapter Text
Not for the first time, Apollo goes to sleep in his apartment, passed out on his desk with a dry legal text in front of him to serve as a makeshift pillow. Not a great habit to have, but it's something Apollo has gotten depressingly used to over the last few weeks. After all, he's an unemployable novice attorney who had gotten his previous boss arrested for murder. He has no mentor to teach him all the things he'll have to know if he wants to be a good attorney, and apparently now he's working out of a talent agency.
…Sorry, an anything agency.
So everything is lined up against him, and if he wants to be able to go up against people like Prosecutor Gavin in court, he needs to do whatever he can. If that means reading dry legal texts until he falls asleep on top of them, well… that's what he's going to do.
So anyway. He falls asleep at his desk with his face plastered against a book, and wakes up on a park bench, with a police officer shining a flashlight into his face. It's not the wakeup call he'd expected, to say the least, and for a second Apollo can do nothing but stare, squinting against the light, uncomprehending and dumb. His half asleep brain is fully unprepared to answer any of the questions this situation is suddenly presenting to him.
"Uh," he says.
The officer—a uniformed woman about his own age—frowns. She's barely visible behind the flashlight beam, and the frown is more an implication from her unfriendly posture than something Apollo can actually see. "Are you alright, sir?" she asks, in a tone that implies that if he is alright, he'd better have an extremely good explanation for what he's doing here.
Apollo sits up slowly, and to his relief the officer lowers her flashlight a little. "Yeah," he says, blinking spots out of his vision. "I'm… I'll be fine."
"Then you need to move along," the woman says. "You can't sleep here."
"Right," Apollo says. "I'll… do that. I'll get going." His legs feel oddly shaky when he stands, weirdly off balance. Something is… wrong. He doesn't know what it is yet, but it's like his subconscious has noticed something important, and whatever that something is, it's something bad.
"You do that," the officer says. "Remember, Peoples Park closes at sundown."
As she moves away, Apollo reflects a little bitterly that no one else ever gets into trouble for being in the park in the middle of the night. In Wocky's case—still fresh in his mind, after wrapping up earlier in the day—there had been a murderer, a guy waving a knife around, a pervert stealing underwear, and a man pulling a stolen noodle cart all just wandering around in the middle of the night. No one had even mentioned the park's closing time, obviously it's not something anyone actually cares about.
Although to be fair, the murder had been slightly more important than a little bit of trespassing…
Ten steps from the park entrance, Apollo stops dead in his tracks. Thinking about Wocky's case has finally jogged his memory, and he knows, suddenly, what exactly his subconscious had noticed.
He'd gotten pretty familiar with Peoples Park during the trial. He'd gone over it again and again, showing exactly what routes different people had taken, exactly where they'd stood and why they'd been there. He'd visited it himself, passing through it on his way to and from the office, he'd investigated it with Trucy and Ema.
The park he sees now looks different than the one he'd looked at for so long during the trial. The trees are too small and too young, and an entire section of path goes in a different direction than it should. And outside the park itself, the skyline has changed too. Buildings that Apollo knows have gone up more recently are gone. Older buildings are still there, but less worn Apollo remembers.
If the brief time he's spent in the courtroom has taught him anything, it's how to connect the dots.
Even when the shape those dots make is something impossible.
Even when its time travel.
-//-
Apollo has no idea how he spends the rest of that night. His mind has more or less shut down in protest.
-//-
Sometime a little after sunrise the next morning, he goes to a coffee shop and buys a bagel and a newspaper. He's ten years in the past, he learns from the newspaper. Ten years. That's almost half his lifetime, and somewhere out there is a much younger version of himself, running around as a clueless kid.
…
At least the bagel is good.
-//-
By lunchtime, he's taken stock of what he has on him. He'd fallen asleep still in his clothes, which is good both because he's not stuck walking around in his pajamas, and because it means he has his wallet and attorney's badge with him. He's wearing his bracelet—he never takes it off—which he's sure will be helpful eventually. There's enough cash in the wallet to get through the next couple of days. After that, he'll have to…. Well, he'll have to think of something else to do.
The attorney's bad gives him an idea. That and his ID are both valid, government issued identification, with the only drawback being that they issue date on both is a decade into the future. But if he goes and raises a stink to the right person about the 'mistake' of the incorrect issue dates, he thinks he can get them reissued.
It'll put him back on the registry of licensed attorneys. And even if it does feel like the less than honest route forward… well, what is he supposed to do, if he can't be an attorney?
-//-
It works. Less than an hour later (after a lengthy chat with an old lady who could barely see past the end of her nose), Apollo walks out of City Hall with a full, valid set of ID that do not have an issue date from sometime in the future. The old woman had helpfully added his name onto the registry of attorneys as well, because after all he has a badge, so it must be a mistake that he's not in the system, right?
And, Apollo reminds himself, it's not even lying. He is an attorney so there's no reason he shouldn't have a badge, he is a citizen so there's no reason he shouldn't have an ID…
(He still feels bad)
It's not bad for his first day in the past, and as long as he keeps going and doesn't think about it too hard, maybe he won't panic and shut down again like he had last night. He has to keep moving, so… next step. What's the next step? The next step is… finding a place to stay, which means finding a way to pay for it, which means getting a job.
He hadn't had his phone on him when he fell asleep, so that's a resource he doesn't have at the moment. He can't just google places to apply to. Instead, he pulls out the newspaper he'd gotten that morning and starts going through the job openings. Ninety percent of them he discards immediately, but one in particular catches his eye.
He's never heard of the Fey & Co. Law Offices, but in another ten years the address is going to belong to the Wright Anything Agency.
Maybe it's coincidence. Maybe it's a sign. Whatever the case, Apollo stares at the ad, gives a little mental shrug, then rolls up the newspaper and goes to investigate.
-//-
Mia Fey had never expected she'd get to open her own legal firm one day. She'd thought she'd be happy enough at Grossberg's firm, but… she isn't. She's gotten tired of someone else telling her what cases to take, she's gotten tired of feeling like it's about the money and the reputation instead of the truth and the clients. Honestly, it just isn't what she wants anymore.
It's time for a fresh start, and even if the 'Co.' in 'Fey & Co.' is basically just Charley the plant for the moment, that's not going to last. There's a student at Ivy University that she'd defended on a murder charge a few years ago. He's taking the bar exam over the summer, and has already told her he wants to come work for her if he passes. Mia, for her part, has already told him she'll hire him when he does.
So there will definitely be two of them, and she's considering hiring a third, just to be safe. Of course, until today so far she hadn't been able to get any interest, and now that an applicant finally has shown up…
Mia doesn't know what to make of the man sitting on the other side of her desk now. He says his name is Apollo Justice, which seems like an… appropriate name for a lawyer, even if she keeps wanting to laugh when she thinks about it too much.
He'd come in person to see if he could set up an interview, and had been perfectly happy to sit down and talk to her there and then. It makes him seem competent and prepared… except that he'd come without references or a resume, which makes him seem sloppy. He already looks comfortable in the office, which might be a good sign… except he'd taken one look around and mumbled something about being glad there's no piano, which is weird. He talks about trials and investigations like he's been through them before, which indicates he's had some experience… except that he can't name a single case he's tried or assisted at.
He's a mess of contradictions, and a law firm like Grossberg's would have thrown him out on his ear. Mia does not. She's not quite sure why, maybe it's just because no one else has even applied, but for some reason she hesitates. "I think I just have one more question," she says, when they've been talking for a while.
"Oh!" Apollo nods and gives her a grin that doesn't hide his obvious nerves. "Okay, what question?"
"Can you win?" she asks. "When we get a case, and you're in that courtroom with a client to defend, are you going to win?"
It's not the best way to phrase what she's trying to get at, but Apollo nods slowly, like he knows what she means. Because the thing is, with the legal system set up the way it is now, criminal trials are heavily skewed toward the prosecution. They have all the resources, they get information the defense doesn't learn until the middle of the trial, and they usually have the judge on their side. There's a reason that there are so many prosecutors with perfect win records.
It's enough to make a lot of defense attorneys give up entirely—they're there to get paid just for showing up, win or lose, or to try and get their clients the minimum sentence. One of the things that had driven Mia to her own law firm in the first place is the way Grossberg and (most of) the attorneys at that firm hadn't even tried.
"I can," Apollo says. "And I don't think I'll win every time, but I'll try every time."
Mia sighs, and stands up. It's a risk, she knows. But she can't exactly afford to be picky, not when no one else has applied. When Phoenix passes the bar there'll be the three of them, and that seems like a solid foundation to start with. "Can you start tomorrow?" she asks.
Apollo stands too, looking relieved. "I can," he says. "Thank you."
She really hopes she's not going to regret this. "Let me walk you down," she says, and Apollo lets her take him down to the ground floor. She's about to wish him well and say that she'll see him in the morning, when the late afternoon quiet is shattered by the sound of someone screaming his name.
"Apollo!"
The shout--the scream, voice breaking a little on the last syllable--is a girl's, startling in the relative quiet of the midafternoon street. Mia stops, looking around, and she's not the only one. Most of the people that happen to be out on the sidewalk at the moment are looking around for the source of the shouting, and only Apollo's reaction is different. As the girl herself comes running into view (she's a teenager, maybe a year or two younger than Maya back home, wearing a men's T-shirt and what look like pajama pants), his eyes go wide. He takes a step forward, obvious shock and relief on his face.
The girl comes running right up to him and then stops just short. "You're really here?" she demands.
"I—yeah, Trucy, what are you doing—ow!"
She's punched him.
"S-sorry," the girl—Trucy—says, as Apollo rubs at his forearm and looks at her balefully. "I just wanted to make sure you were real."
"So you hit me?" he asks.
All the energy seems to go out of her at once. "I just woke up," she says. "And everything was different."
The two of them stare at each other. Everyone on the street stares at them too. Mia clears her throat as curiosity gets the better of her. "Do you want to come back inside?" she offers. "So you won't have to have… whatever this conversation is in the middle of the street?"
Apollo seems to realize that everyone's looking at them, because his face turns red again. "Yes please," he says weakly, and allows Mia to lead the way back into the office. Trucy looks around, wide eyed, and—and mutters something to Apollo about a missing piano.
Mia wouldn't have thought anything about it, except that she'd heard Apollo make pretty much the same comment when he'd first come in. "So this is a friend of yours?" Mia asks, trying not to sound like she's just being extremely nosy.
"She's my…"What follows is such a long pause that Mia knows better than to believe whatever he's about to say, even before she hears it.
"…sister?" Apollo tries.
Even if Mia hadn't already been suspicious, Trucy's stifled laugh would have made her question that. Mia turns her attention to the girl. "So you said your name is….?"
"Trucy Wright," the girl says brightly.
"Wright?" Mia repeats.
"Half-sister," Apollo blurts. "Different… last names."
She hadn't even been thinking about that. She'd been wondering if the girl knows Phoenix at all. Wright isn't exactly an uncommon last name, but it still seems like a fairly large coincidence. Apollo seems genuinely interested in working here and defending clients, and if she can just figure out what it is he's keeping from her, she thinks he'll probably work out. Keeping his friend around seems like the fastest way to get those secrets to leak out.
Is that nosy? It feels a little nosy.
But who wouldn't be, if something like this happened to them?
Mia nods at Trucy. "Well," she says. "Any time Apollo's working, if you want to come here after school, or anything…" She trails off.
"You're working here, Polly?" Trucy asks, eyes shifting almost accusingly to Apollo.
Mia coughs to cover a laugh at the nickname.
"Yep," Apollo says, and gives her a look that seems to be begging her to let the question drop. Trucy looks like she's physically trying to stop herself from asking more questions. And while Mia is too curious for her own good about what they're going to say, she decides to take pity on them instead. "I'll see you tomorrow, Apollo," she says, sitting back down behind her desk. "I don't think anyone will still be standing around outside because of that scene the two of you had." People have short attention spans. They will have moved on by now.
"Thank you," Apollo says all in a rush. "Tomorrow, see you, I—" Trucy grabs his hand and practically drags him away.
Which leaves Mia alone with Charley. She sighs, and looks over at the plant. "Why do I feel like I probably shouldn't have done that?" she mutters.
Charley, as ever, has no reply.
-//-
Apollo takes Trucy, first of all, to a mall. She's wearing pajamas, so presumably she'd been asleep when she came back in time, like him—but unlike him, she'd probably been sensibly in bed. So that needs to be taken care of before someone decides to make an issue out of her bare feet and plaid patterned pajama pants.
And then after that—when Trucy is dressed in clothes that make her seem somehow much smaller than she does in her magician's outfit—they find themselves gravitating toward the food court. They're both starving by now, and while the food here isn't great, it's close by and cheap. Apollo doesn't know when exactly he'll get paid, so in the interest of making his funds stretch, fast food is probably the way to go.
"So…" Apollo clears his throat and looks across the table at Trucy. She's been unusually quiet since leaving the Wright… the Fey and Co. law office. "Maybe we should talk about how we got here?" he suggests.
Trucy pauses, leaning in for another bite, and her eyes go wide. "Does that mean you know how we got here?"
"No," Apollo says quietly. "I just meant we should compare stories." He tells her everything he's done over the course of what's turned out to be a long and exhausting day.
Trucy frowns at the end. "I didn't do anything like that. I just kind of…" She stops, and Apollo doesn't push. After all, he'd sort of shut down himself when he first got here, hadn't he? For a little while, anyway. While he's thinking, Trucy starts talking again. "I woke up in the park too, and I could see a police officer talking to someone a little way away." She grins, but it's just an echo of her normal good humor. "I guess that was probably you."
"Probably," Apollo is forced to admit.
"I guess I figured out the time travel pretty quick," Trucy says. "But I just kind of wandered around, and… nothing was familiar.
"So she was looking for something familiar? No wonder she'd had such a big reaction on seeing him. They barely know each other, but... but this is 2016. Finding anyone else here from home sort of feels like a good enough reason to grab on and not let go. It's why he'd come up with a reason to explain them sticking together, isn't it? It's why he's here with her now. "So that's why you were at the office?" Apollo asks. "Just--looking for something?"
Trucy nods. "It… was the last place I could think of to try. And I did find you there, so I guess it worked out."
She has a point. He'd basically gone there for the same reason as Trucy—to find something familiar. Even if he's only been a few days since he first came to the place… well, there's something about it that just feels a lot more right than he would have expected. After seeing that help wanted ad, he doesn't think he could have stopped himself from going back there if he'd tried.
"Apollo?" Trucy says. "Why did you say I was your sister?"
"Oh. Uh…" He winces self consciously under the weight of her stare. "I figured… I guess I didn't think it through all the way, but if we're the only two that are here from the future, we have to stick together, right?"
She looks surprised for a second, but then nods firmly. "R-right!" she says.
"And I couldn't think of any other reason that felt believable," Apollo says. "Is… that okay? I really couldn't think of anything else."
"You could have said you're a big fan of my magic," Trucy says.
Apollo is pretty sure that would actually raise more questions than it answers.
"But I guess this is probably easier," Trucy admits. "…hey, Apollo?"
"Yea?"
"I… really don't like being alone," Trucy says. Her voice is suddenly small. "So that's why I think it's probably good that we have a really good reason to stay together. Like when my daddy had to leave, and I got my new daddy. It's just--better to have someone else with you."
"You…" Adopted. She's adopted, right, which raises some questions about what had happened to her birth family, but that's probably not a good thing to focus on right now. The point is that she's obviously been through this before, she's found herself alone before, and Apollo isn't sure how he feels about how serious this has all suddenly gotten.
But on the other hand…He's scared, too. If he lets himself slow down and think about what it would be like to be stuck in the past alone, he wouldn't be able to keep going.
"I'm not going anywhere," he says instead. "Okay?"
Trucy's smile is sudden and—for the first time—absolutely real. "Then neither am I," she declares. For a couple seconds, everything feels kind of okay. Then Trucy picks up her half forgotten meal again, and asks, "So... where are we staying tonight?"
"Uh…" He honestly hasn't thought that far ahead, and the sudden intrusion of reality sends a spike of anxiety through him. "I have no idea. Not a park bench. But--I haven't thought any farther than that."
"That's okay," Trucy says. "I think I have an idea. Do you know where I practiced my lock picking?"
"You can pick—" He remembers there are people around and lowers his voice to a hiss. "You can pick locks?"
"For my magic tricks," Trucy says. "But anyway. Guess which locks I used to practice on?"
Apollo does not guess, but has a funny idea that he's not going to like whatever the answer is.
Trucy tells him.
Apollo does not, in fact, like what he hears.
And it really doesn't help that he can't think of anywhere better to go. When their food is gone, and Apollo has mentally gone through every alternative option he can think of (and realized the only one he can afford is 'sleeping on the street and being arrested for vagrancy'), he lets Trucy lead the way out of the mall.
(The Wright Anything Agency. That's where she'd practiced her lock picking)
(It turns out, when they get to the Fey and Co Law Offices, that no one has changed the locks in at least ten years)
-//-
Phoenix knows he's lucky to have a job ready and waiting for him when he gets out of school. Mia has been a huge help ever since he decided to transfer out of the art program and into pre-law--
(Not a very popular transition)
--and he’s definitely lucky to have a job waiting for him at her new firm when he passes the bar. Assuming he does pass the bar, of course. Right now, with finals officially behind him and the bar looming large in his nightmares, he’s spending most of his time alternating between studying everything he can get his hands on, and surreptitiously checking help wanted ads for other potential jobs.
Basically, he is not at all confident that he's going to pass, no matter what Mia might say about how everyone gets nervous for the bar, and he's going to do fine.
On this particular morning, with no classes to go to, he gets up early and heads to the new office. It’ll be quieter than his cheap apartment with its thin walls, and Mia will be in soon if he has questions. He’s mentally debating which books to start in on when he gets up to the office, opens the door, and finds a girl fast asleep on the office sofa. The surprise stops him dead in his tracks, but not before the sound of the door manages to half wake her—she rolls over, looks at him through tired, barely open eyes, then mumbles something unintelligible and immediately falls asleep again.
“Sorry about that,” a man's voice says, and Phoenix realizes the sleeping girl isn’t the only other person in the office. Even more confused now, he looks across the room to the man standing there with a curious look of wariness on his expression. "I—didn't think you'd be here." He winces. "I mean—I didn't know anyone would be here this early. I… wanted to get here early, and after I dragged Trucy all the way out here she kind of just fell asleep, I…" He shrugs helplessly.
It all comes out kind of rushed, and it doesn't exactly seem truthful. Phoenix just can't figure out what the point of the lie is, if it really is a lie. The only reason he can think of for someone to be in here in the middle of the night is some kind of strange, early morning thievery.
But what would be worth stealing, and why would one of the thieves have fallen asleep on the couch mid-heist?
"Are you one of Mia's clients?" Phoenix asks, after a pause that's long enough to get pretty awkward.
"No," the man says. "I, uh—work here now. I was hired yesterday."
"Oh!" Well, that connects a few dots. Mia had texted him last night about a new hire that she had described as 'honestly, pretty strange.' He tries to remember the name she'd mentioned, but all he can remember is that it had sounded kind of weird.
Luckily, the man chooses that moment to walk around the couch for introductions. "My name's Apollo Justice," he says, holding out a hand.
…Right. Definitely weird. "Phoenix Wright," Phoenix says, stepping forward to shake the man's hand. "I'm probably going to be working here in another couple weeks, if I can manage to pass the bar."
"I'm sure you won't have any trouble," Apollo says. It's not placating or just politeness, the way so many people have said some variety of you'll be fine since he started worrying about the bar exam. He just says it like it's a fact, which actually takes Phoenix a little by surprise. He does feel a little of his suspicion start to fade.
"Oh good," says Mia from behind him, and Phoenix turns around to realize she's standing behind him in the doorway. "The two of you have met.
"While Mia's walking in, Phoenix watches Apollo surreptitiously step to one side and nudge the sleeping girl—Trucy, he'd called her—a couple times until she jerks and wakes up. She looks around, visibly confused in the way that people only really get when they're first waking up. Her eyes fix on him for an uncomfortably long time, and even when Mia starts talking again, Trucy still doesn't look away.
"I know we're still trying to figure all this out," Mia says, drowning her things onto the desk and turning around to face the other three. "This is a new firm, and we don't have a lot of work or a lot of clients yet. Things aren't going to be easy, but I think that the three of us can figure it out."
"I'll help too," Trucy says earnestly.
Mia's smile looks like it's torn somewhere between laughing at the sudden interjection, and something more genuine. "Well, thank you," she says. "I'm sure we can use any help we can get."
Trucy grins.
"So," Mia says, nodding a little and getting down to business. "Plans going forward…"There's nothing really surprising in the plan she outlines for the rest of them. She points Phoenix to the overflowing shelf of legal books on the back wall, and tells him he's not allowed to see the sun again until he's passed the bar. Apollo she announces can help with that, or he can work on client leads with her. Apollo, out of what seems like politeness and what seems like a desire to make a good first impression, says he'll try to help with the studying.
He does not seem overly enthusiastic, which Phoenix does not blame him for.
Mia doesn't give Trucy anything specific to work on, but there's a gleam in her eye that suggests she has her own ideas of how she's going to help. When Mia finishes her talk and they start to split up for their various tasks, Phoenix overhears Trucy whisper something about "magic!" to Apollo, and hears the man's long suffering sigh.…Things have really gotten interesting here, all of a sudden.
-//-
At the end of the day, after Phoenix and Mia have finished work and gone home, Apollo and Trucy double back to the office. Trucy picks the lock on the door, and for the second night in a row they make themselves as comfortable as possible.
Neither of them says anything for a while.
Finally, Apollo says, "I know I should have been expecting to see him here, but I really wasn't. I guess I thought he wouldn't be here because the firm has a different name and everything."
"It was really weird waking up this morning," Trucy says. "I thought… for a second I thought I was back home." Apollo looks over at her, and is surprised to see she's smiling. "I'm glad he's here though," she says. "Even if he doesn't know… anything."
Which reminds Apollo of something he hadn't wanted to ask while Phoenix and Mia were around. "So he definitely doesn't know you, right?" he asks. "I know you said you were adopted, but he hasn't adopted you yet?"
Trucy shakes her head. "Not until after my real daddy left."
"When was that?"
"I guess… about two more years?" She looks very sad. "Or two and a half."
"Maybe we'll figure out how to get back home before then," Apollo says, without much hope. He wouldn't even know where to start trying to figure out how time travel works. Right now, their problems are smaller and more immediate. Making their money stretch out long enough for them to keep eating. Staying hidden in the office until they get enough money to rent somewhere less suspicious to stay. Doing good enough work that he keeps this job he doesn't even know if he deserved to get in the first place.
Time travel is… very far outside the stretch of what he feels capable of dealing with right now.
“What about you?” Trucy asks. “Where were you back now?"
Apollo resists the urge to make a smart comment about her grammar, and just mutters, "Space center, mostly."
She gives him a clueless look, so he sighs and just answers the question. “I was in foster care," he says. "I'll keep away from where I was then, and we don't have to worry into running into any family or anything."
(The only people he might have ever called family are either dead or in another country)
“Foster…?” Trucy frowns, and Apollo does not let her finish the question.
"What about you?" he asks. "Do we have to worry about you running into your, uh… your first dad? Or your mom?”
“Do you think that would be bad?” Trucy asks. “It’s been… a really long time…”
“Maybe—maybe we can figure out a way,” Apollo says. “But you couldn’t tell anyone who you are, alright? We don’t know anything about how this time travel works. What if we change something and… I don’t know, destroy the future or make it worse, or…”
“Oh,” Trucy says. “Yeah. I guess that makes sense.” She sighs. “I think I hate this.”
She looks down, more than Apollo has seen her before, and he has no idea what to do about it. He barely knows her, and doesn’t know how to help—but he does know that he wants to. They’re not family, no matter what they might be pretending right now, but the are the only two here from the future. That has to mean something. “We’ll figure it out,” he says. “We will figure… something out.”
After a long several seconds of silence, Trucy says, "Apollo?"
"Yeah?"
She bites her lip for a second, then says all in a rush, "We're ten years in the past, you just got hired to work at the same law office as my dad--only he's not my dad yet, he's not even a lawyer yet--and we're pretending to be siblings."
This sits in the space between them for a few seconds. Then Apollo lets out a long sigh and nods. "Yeah," he says. "That pretty much sums it up."
"Okay," Trucy says in a quiet voice. "I just--needed to hear it out loud."
That's fair. Apollo's having a hard time wrapping his head around it too.
He rubs at his eyes (he has not been sleeping well since they got here), and looks around for something else to distract him. Anything, really, because anything would be less complex than time travel. Eventually, his wandering gaze lands on Charley the plant on the other side of the room. Some things he's heard and seen start to click together, and he says, "That plant…"
"Mr. Charley?" Trucy asks, following his gaze. "What about him?"
"It's Mia's plant, right?" Apollo asks.
"I guess," Trucy says. "I heard her saying she just went out and bought him the other day. Why?"
"Because someone said… back in the future, or the present, or whatever. Someone mentioned that it used to belong to Mr. Wright's mentor, right?" He's noticed that it's really hard to think of the Phoenix Wright of this time as the same person as the Phoenix Wright of the future. The man he'd first met when he was told he was going to be defending him on a murder charge is someone Apollo can't help but admire. Even disbarred, even with all the rumors about whatever happened seven years ago (or… three years in the future, now), Apollo still can't help but feel a little bit of awe for the Mr. Wright he's heard so much about. On the other hand, in this time, Phoenix is just a law school graduate stressing about being admitted to the bar. Apollo has been through that, everyone he knows from school has been through that, and it's just so… normal.
"Yeah," Trucy says. "Daddy got Mr. Charley from his mentor, but.. he doesn't really talk about that."
"But that would make Mia his mentor," Apollo says. "Which makes sense, from what we've seen. I guess it just makes me wonder what's going to happen to Mia, right?"
"I'm… sure it's nothing bad," Trucy says. Yeah, Apollo thinks. Sure. That's why he'd inherited the office and the plant. That's why he's never even mentioned her to Trucy…But even if something bad had happened (is going to happen)…
What are they supposed to do about it? Apollo shakes his head and lets himself refocus on the more immediate problems. Food, shelter, keeping secrets from everyone they ever meet. Time travel is dangerous, and they can't exactly run around changing things they don't understand. They should just keep their noses down, and cross their fingers that everything, somehow, turns out okay.
(everything is fine, everything is fine, EVERYTHING IS FINE)
(...nothing is fine)