Chapter Text
+00:15:06:26
It had been a year since Apollo packed up his life in LA and threw himself headfirst into restructuring the entire legal system in Khura’in. An entire year alone, surrounded by a faint sense of nostalgia as he drifted in and out of sleep at the same desk, stacked high with paperwork.
Sure, a lot of progress had been made. He couldn’t be prouder of what they’d achieved in such little time with such a small team - the lack of Khura’inese legal experts that were available after years of being forcibly silenced was palpable. However, it seemed as though the end to the stacks of drawl was perpetually far from his clutches.
The work was laborious for them all; Apollo mostly handled the admin work whilst he let those who had always known Khura’in as home to create a system that felt authentic to the country they so desperately wanted to help heal. Nothing could tempt any of them to rest until the entire system was reformed to a unanimous satisfaction, the rest of the population included, with a process that was ethical and efficient.
Even if he bore the brunt of the sleepless nights alone, he was willing to do anything to make the reformation process less tedious for those who’d already suffered enough under Ga’ran. Endlessly he typed up paperwork, read through contracts and winced as yet another proposal was outwardly rejected, placing them back at square one to try again. Every day, every night, all they thought of was the next idea, searching for the breakthrough they so desperately needed for this sluggish process to pick up speed.
That didn’t even begin to cover the endless stream of clients requesting his services as a defence attorney.
To say he’d hit a wall was an understatement.
Day after day he worked himself on barely a few hours sleep and pure determination. Though at first it was fine, now all he saw when he looked at the proposals and paperwork before him was a blur of printed text. Begrudgingly, he had to relent and accept that he wasn’t going to get much further without the break his body was begging for him to take.
If looks could kill, Nahyuta would’ve already sent him into a coma after he passed out midway through a court debrief for the 5th time.
So, Apollo decided it was time to visit the second place he’d learned to call home. The place where the friends he missed so much it aches were waiting for him.
He’d left LA a year ago - after briefly returning to empty his apartment - with rushed goodbyes and little discussion, tears locked behind his eyes as he waved goodbye to everyone who’d given him their love after the rocky start to his law career. Trucy had cried the most, Athena a close second with Phoenix covering his face to hide his place in the ranking. The Chief Prosecutor had driven them to the airport, who wordlessly handed out tissues to the sobbing group, though Phoenix seemed to find his cravat to be a more appropriate handkerchief.
Apollo hadn’t cried until he was safely out of sight, where he promptly broke down to an audience of nonchalant airport security staff.
He’d wanted to be strong for Trucy and Athena, to leave no doubts in their minds that he was steady and certain in his decision to leave, even if the mere thought of it had sent his knees shaking and heart pounding. Perhaps they’d known anyway - being the human lie detectors that they were - but they seemed too overwhelmed by their own sadness to press it. No matter how much it felt like his heart was being torn from his chest, he’d pushed on knowing deep in his soul that returning to Khura’in for his brother was the right thing to do.
Even if it felt like he was losing his family again.
An antagonising part of his brain taunted that maybe they’d moved on from him, that they resented him for leaving. What if he returned to LA to a bustling airport without a single face to welcome him, without arms squeezing him tight in relief, without the same desperate longing for family he’d felt since the moment they’d left his sight.
What if they welcomed him back but he was just another ‘old friend’ who came and went with little fanfare.
He conjured Clay’s voice to tell him he was fine and sunk into the dated airplane seat. As though it was never there, the inner turmoil disappeared to the depths of his psyche that he refused to unpack.
-41:23:10:09
Sluggishly, Apollo dragged his heavy body through the airport terminal, his suitcase trailing behind him. The wheels clicked with every bump in the tiles providing a gentle metronome to guide his pace. He winced in the oversaturated LED lighting, tired eyes fighting to clamp shut and force him to sleep off the hours of airtime.
Just a few more hours, he told himself, and he’d be able to sink into whatever luxury bed Edgeworth had in the guest room of his home. Trucy had given him her word that her Papa would rather sleep on a bed of nails than have any guest sleep in discomfort, so even if the thought of staying with his old boss and his fiancé for a month and a half was vaguely daunting, he could warm up to the idea of a nice, plush mattress. Anything would beat his desk chair in Khura’in.
Also, Trucy would be there, who always brought a sense of comfort and energy regardless of how awkward a situation should be.
Trying to focus on the positives instead of the drag of every bone in his body as he plodded through the neverending corridors of the airport, Apollo wearily looked around to make sure he was headed in the right direction. Overhead, signs had continued to read ‘arrivals’ with an upwards arrow for apparent miles. Inwardly groaning, he resigned himself to the painful hike, wondering if someone was playing a cruel trick on him and had trapped him in an eternal airport-themed labyrinth.
Maybe he could call Trucy to pull some sort of teleportation trick that would land him amongst fluffy pillows and a comforter in a serene, dark room. If he was really lucky, maybe she’d be able to guarantee him a sleep that lasted longer than four hours.
Honestly, at this point he was willing to sleep on the dusty airport floors.
The more he walked, the more crowded his surroundings became. Around him, people were tiredly hugging grinning welcomers, waving down drivers or frustratedly asking ‘where are you’ down their phones. The energy was both full of relief and tension, his bracelet humming on his wrist with the confusing onslaught of busy emotion. His head pounded as it soaked in the noise of a crowd incessantly chattering.
“POLLY!”
Amongst the buzz he heard his name as though the room was silent. He whipped around, ignoring the painful twinge in his neck as he desperately tried to find the source of the yell. His eyes poured over the hordes of people, searching madly for a blur of blue and brunette.
“Trucy!?” Yelling in a poor attempt to locate the girl, Apollo spun in a confusing circle, eyes darting with little coordination. Like the magician she was, it was as though she’d pulled off the perfect disappearing trick. “Where did she g- OOF!”
A body slammed into his. The force of it knocked the air out of him and it took all of his remaining energy to keep himself from barreling over. Two arms locked around his waist, gripping so hard he could barely breathe. When he looked down, all he could see was the mix of blue silk and wisps of brunette hair that he’d been searching for.
Trucy.
“Polly,” she squeezed his ribs, choked with tears. “I missed you, so much.”
Holding back tears of his own, he wrapped his arms around her and clung to the fabric at the back of her cape. She was like a little sister to him and it overwhelmed him with just how much he considered her to be an irreplaceable piece of his family puzzle. Life without her dazzling energy had pointed to a hole in his soul that Apollo hadn’t even known was there until she was no longer around to fill it.
“I missed you too,” he laughed a little, the way one laughs when overcome with relieved happiness - a wave of teary joy that can’t be contained.
There was so much more he wanted to say, but he was too caught up in his relief and exhaustion to express it. Trucy must’ve understood, because she simply nodded and gripped him painfully tighter. Then, she was pulling away to pout at him, her gloved hands punched on her hips.
“If you brought any paperwork with you, I’m gonna make it disappear,” she huffed.
When he told her he was visiting, Apollo had been warned that he’d invoke her wrath if he dared to bring any work with him. As much as he’d itched to take some - just in case he found the inspiration - he’d decided against it when he considered the horrors that could come from pissing off a magician.
“I didn’t, I swear,” he held up his hands in surrender, withering under her intense gaze. Then, just as quick as the pout had arrived, it was gone. Placated, she grinned at him and gave him another quick, gentle hug.
“It’s nice to have you back,” she whispered.
Smiling softly, he removed her hat and placed a comforting hand atop her head. “It’s good to be home,” he hummed quietly, for her ears only and not the straying ears of bystanders. It warmed his heart knowing she was worried that she’d have him back in LA just to lose him to stacks of paperwork.
He’d never do that to her. Not when he’d missed her just as much.
“Mach schnell, Trucy! I wanna welcome him back too!”
Turning with a sheepish smile on his face, Apollo braced himself for the next round of friendly suffocation. The unmissable mix of fire and bright, primary colors stood behind him with a teary, confident grin. Awkward under all of the emotional greetings, he held his arms open for Athena to step into. Instead, she charged at him, squeezing him so hard his feet came close to leaving the ground.
“Apollo, how could you leave me at the agency alone?” Athena shook him, crying dramatically, bemoaning him for the guaranteed increase in workload she must’ve faced when he left. “Mr Wright and I haven’t slept in weeks!”
“I’ve hardly been getting my own nine hours,” he blanched, batting at her shoulder blades in an attempt to free himself from her death-grip. When she relented, they settled into a more comfortable hold, Apollo chuckling in relief that she was still the same rambunctious lawyer he’d waved goodbye to a year ago.
All of those fears he’d harboured, that somehow everything would be different after a year of absence, began to dissolve into gentle whisps that slipped away in the AC breeze.
“It’s good to see you again. I’d have forgotten what you looked like if Simon didn’t show me all of those- ah nevermind!” Flustered, Athena pulled away and combed her fingers through her hair. He didn’t need the tight press of his bracelet against his wrist to figure out that she was hiding something.
Deep breaths, Apollo. As much as he knew that he’d rest easier if he didn’t know whatever Athena was keeping from him, he knew he couldn’t ignore the painful clamping of metal on his delicate wrist bones. Luckily, he didn’t need to waste a headache trying to perceive her for a tell; the stuttered tapping of her fingers against the pocket that held her phone was blessedly obvious.
“What did Simon show you?” he sighed.
“N-nothing! Nada! Nichts!”
“You started tapping your phone when you trailed off. I really don’t want to know, but somehow has he been texting you… photos of me?”
In defiance, Athena smacked both of her hands over her mouth and glared at him petulantly. Apollo would’ve given up if he weren't so confused and mortified that Blackquill was somehow procuring candids of him to send to Athena.
“Nahyuta sends them to him.”
“Widget, no!” Athena screeched, trying to muffle his voice but it was too late.
“N-Nahyuta?!”
Sheepishly, Athena scratched the back of her head and explained, knowing that the facade was broken. “Whenever you fall asleep in weird places or at a bad time, Nahyuta sends a photo to Simon and we uh… we rate it based on how unexpected or ridiculous it is.”
“WHAT?!”
This was a dream. He’d succumbed to the temptation and fallen asleep on the airport floor and now he was having a nightmare.
“At first he only took them once or twice out of spite if you missed a meeting or kept him waiting. But then we started to enjoy it too much and you kept falling asleep everywhere so…” she trailed off, clearly trying to suppress a giggle. Biting her lip, she looked at him with a new-found determination. “It’s Nahyuta’s fault, Apollo! I’m just an innocent bystander, you gotta forgive me!”
“I’ll forgive you if you agree to defend me when I murder his ass.”
“Deal!” Athena grinned, clapping her hands together as though they were having a perfectly pleasant discussion. Apollo had over a month to truly consider his payback, at least he now had an accomplice for whatever he deemed fitting.
“Hey now, no murdering your brother. The Prosecutor’s Office can’t afford to lose his help.”
“M-Mr Wright!”
He turned to face the man in question, an odd but strangely familiar ache settling in his heart as his eyes settled on the gentle, welcoming smile Phoenix flashed at him. It was a similar feeling to when he’d seen Dhurke for the first time after his decades of absence, a feeling that wedged itself between unbearable longing and a tantalising promise of parental comfort.
Before it had made sense; Dhurke was the closest thing he’d ever had to a father after all, even when he was loath to admit it after years of feeling abandoned. Now, though, Apollo refused to unpack why that feeling had returned when he faced the man who had taken him under his damaged, fragile wing and mentored him. Even if his methods had been… unorthodox at times, Apollo wouldn’t have exchanged it for anything.
Silently, he held that feeling close to his chest, out of view of peeking eyes who threatened to reveal his hand too early and spoil the game. He was playing poker with the master, one small slip and he’d be bust.
“How’re you doing, kid?” Phoenix said. His voice was soft, paired with a gentle gaze as he lifted a warm hand to ruffle Apollo’s hair. “Is it just me, or did you get taller? At this rate you might reach my shoulders by the time you turn 26!”
Ah, there goes the sentimental moment.
“Daddy, that’s not fair,” thank you, Trucy. “You know he’s doomed to be this short forever!”
Nevermind.
The pair cackled unabashedly, ignoring his annoyed pout. He had no qualms with his height - if only everyone else could just leave him to be pleasantly short in peace he’d greatly appreciate it. Even if it was a little funny, he wasn’t about to give them the satisfaction of laughing at their teasing. Yes, he was short but he was petty too.
“I’m fine, thanks. I’m also exhausted and it’s no longer the flight’s fault,” he huffed and pinched the bridge of his nose, hiding a subtle smirk that he usually only pulled out in court when he’d successfully lured a suspicious witness into his trap. “I can’t tell if you’re tired too or if it’s just your age finally showing.”
“Ngaaagh!”
“Don’t worry Daddy! You don’t look a day over 37!” Trucy grinned, giving him an enthusiastic thumbs up.
“...I’m 36,” he deflated, clearly considering the consequences of his actions. Apollo didn’t go down without a fight, especially when his height was involved.
Trucy winced dramatically and laid a pitying hand on her father’s shoulder. “Ah… well look on the bright side. We could get your senior discount a whole year early at this rate!”
“Trucy,” Phoenix wailed, looking at his daughter with wet eyes. If Apollo didn’t know any better - if he wasn’t already well-aware of the pretend dramatics the father-daughter duo were so fond of - then maybe he’d be convinced that the man was genuinely about to cry. Sighing, he prepared for a dramatic monologue, regaling them with an insistence that he was still the same fresh faced lawyer he was a decade ago.
“You’re a genius! We could save so much money!”
Or, not.
Apollo really needed to remember that nothing was ever predictable when it came to anyone he’d ever crossed paths with during his time as a lawyer. Who knew he’d be so rusty after a year away, his poor brain was desperately trying to warm up its sleep-rusted cogs just to keep up.
“Anyway, it’s really good to have you back again, Apollo. The office has been too quiet without you,” he said, sincere but with a teasing tint to his eye. Apollo knew his indoor voice could rival a rocket launch, it was a blessing and a curse. Personally, he knew it only added to the lively nature of the agency and that the jab was genuine; they truly noticed the lack of his presence, the quiet serving as a perpetual reminder that he wasn’t there.
Before the mix of exhaustion and sentiment choked him up again, Apollo grinned at Phoenix and nodded in lieu of a response. The message seemed to come across, because Phoenix softened his gaze again for just a brief moment before returning to his boisterous spirit.
“Now, have I introduced you to my fiancé-”
“Daddy.”
“Phoenix.”
Edgeworth and Trucy spoke in unison, equally bemused. Apollo could only assume this wasn’t the first time Phoenix had decided to re-introduce Edgeworth to someone who was already well-acquainted with the man.
“He looks an awful lot like Chief Prosecutor Edgeworth, only he smiles more and does my laundry,” grinning smugly, Phoenix squished his fiancé’s scowl with his left hand, his ring catching in the dull overhead lighting.
“That’s enough,” Edgeworth huffed, pinching Phoenix’s cheek and pushing him to move aside. He left Trucy to placate her sulking father after his joke had failed to land once more and smiled kindly at Apollo.
“Welcome back, Mr Justice,” Edgeworth nodded politely. “I hope your work in Khura’in is going well. I’ve heard some promising things.”
“Uh- it is! Thank you, Mr Edgeworth,” he scratched the back of his head, embarrassed. Being praised by the district’s Chief Prosecutor for your international legal reformation work was about as good as it got. “Thanks for letting me stay with you and Mr Wright, too. I really appreciate it!”
“Ah, that’s no problem, Mr Justice. It would be highly impractical for you to rent somewhere for over a month when we have plenty of room in the house.” With a small smile on his face, he crossed his arms and tapped a finger against his arm. “Plus, it’ll keep Trucy entertained and give Phoenix’s back a break from being her assistant,” he said with a foreboding smirk, displaying a humour that Apollo still wasn’t used to seeing on a man he’d always imagined to be terrifying or stoic.
“I thought she’d turned to using Athena instead,” he laughed.
“Miss Cykes will certainly be enjoying a break too. However, since we moved into the new house, Trucy has been practicing at home more and well… Phoenix accepted his fate.”
They laughed together at that, Apollo easily imagining the man being unable to refuse his daughter’s puppy dog eyes even after all the years he’d had to gain an immunity to them. It was an odd feeling though, to hear the sound of his own joy intermingled with the deep timbre of Edgeworth’s chuckles.
Though Edgeworth appeared intimidating, Apollo knew he could trust him after his aid in Khura’in and everything he’d done to seek justice for Clay and Athena. It hadn’t taken much deduction to discover who’d sent that incredibly generous ‘anonymous’ donation to Clay’s father, or who’d covered his own medical bills after the incident in Courtroom No. 4.
Beyond that, he’d also shown himself to be a reliable and helpful source of information. Having studied foriegn legal systems himself, he’d provided Apollo with documents and textbooks he’d found useful when he’d been working across Europe, and passed forward any information he could when Apollo requested it. Even when there was little to be discussed legally, he could still rely on Edgeworth to take the time to check in on him, sometimes even sending him short anecdotes of the antics that Phoenix, Trucy and Athena had gotten into.
There was little doubt in Apollo’s mind that beneath the jabot and exhausted scowl, lay a man who enacted kindness as though it were as natural as breathing.
Even before he’d seen his kindness firsthand, Apollo had known he must’ve had a softer, laid-back side the moment he found out he was dating his boss. A man who could handle the wildfire that was Phoenix Wright can’t have been the biggest stick in the mud, after all.
“Ooo, that reminds me, Polly,” Trucy bounced at his side and tugged on his arm. “There’s a new trick I’ve been wanting to try for months but Athena and Daddy have been too busy to help me workshop it.”
Having already resigned himself to a month and a half of assistant work, Apollo gave her a determined smile. “I’ll do my best to help.”
“That’s the spirit!”
“Well, as wonderful as this airport lounge is, we should get going. I’m sure Mr Justice is tired and hungry,” Edgeworth checked his watch and scowled at the time. “Athena, would you like to join us for dinner?”
“Sounds good, Mr Edgeworth!”
Trucy linked her arm through Apollo’s, giggling giddily at him as it began to sink in that he was going to be by her side for a full six weeks. This time, he wasn’t leaving the airport without her. They’d waited a year to have this again, to bask in the odd faux-sibling bond they’d built together and could no longer live without. Family was an odd concept to Apollo, having gone without the permanence of it his whole life, but he’d always found solace in fostering a sibling bond.
Just as Clay and Nahyuta were both brothers to him, Trucy had wriggled her way into his broken grasp on family and asserted herself as a member of it.
“Alright kids, to the dadmobile!”
Edgeworth groaned and pointedly walked away from Phoenix, though Apollo could see the small smirk that twitched affectionately on his lips. “Just because it isn’t as fancy as my sports car doesn’t mean you get to insult my wonderful, sophisticated SUV.”
“That’s odd, I remember you complaining that it was the most ‘indelicate and cumbersome vehicle’ you’d ever driven.” Phoenix trailed behind his fiancé with a dangerous grin, regarding him as though he were behind the opposite bench in a courtroom. “Then, I said you’d find walking cumbersome if you put my daughter’s booster seat in the back of that death-machine you call a sports car… and not in a sexy way!”
Pointedly ignoring the last comment, Edgeworth sighed and refused to spare a glance at his smug partner. “That was before I discovered the practicality of having a vehicle more suited for parading around the endless list of children we keep taking guardianship of. I can hardly chauffeur your agency, Trucy’s props and Apollo’s luggage in a car I bought for testing the limits of LA traffic laws.”
“Plus, Papa said we needed a car that was safer to teach me to drive in!” Trucy piped in.
“Which is exactly why it’s a dadmobile.”
“Just get in the car.”
With a long-suffering sigh, Edgeworth unlocked the car and pressed Phoenix’s pout away with the tips of his fingers as he passed him. It seemed to be a common theme, Apollo noted, that they were prone to touching each other’s faces. Perhaps that was what it meant to be comfortably in love, to bask in simple touches, making contact purely to enjoy the other’s presence. It made something within him ache, a forgotten thought or memory that begged to be acknowledged but he refused to let it emerge.
“I’ll handle your luggage, Apollo,” Edgeworth startled him from his thoughts, peering at him questioningly. A loud chortle rang from within the car and filled the sluggish silence that fell between them as Apollo watched Edgeworth load his luggage into the trunk. Watching them from an outside perspective gave him a strange moment to reflect, to soak in the sight of his little law-family openly enjoying their time together.
After all those weeks of sleepless nights, he’d craved nothing more than to simply exist in their jovial presence.
“You know,” Edgeworth hummed, “they haven’t stopped talking about today since you told them you were visiting.”
“R-really?” Apollo fumbled, trying to hide his blush. Relief flooded through him with the knowledge that they’d been just as eager to see him as he was. “I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t the same. Nahyuta probably wanted to tape my mouth shut on a daily basis after I booked my flight.”
Edgeworth laughed softly, exhaling with a small huff. “If it’s any consolation, he seemed pretty relieved that you were giving yourself a break when I last spoke with him.” With a wealth of natural grace, he reached up and shut the trunk door, effectively shutting their conversation away from the others. “A lot of people have missed you, Apollo. I hope you understand that you’ll always have people rooting for you here, no matter how long you leave.”
“Mr Edgeworth…”
Apollo felt like a deer in headlights, unprepared for such a meaningful conversation whilst his brain felt like a melting heap of tired mush. If he’d known earlier that an airport reunion could be so emotionally charged, he might’ve tried to brace himself for the tidal wave of sentiment that crashed over him.
“Don’t think about it too much,” Edgeworth said, lightheartedly. “It’s simply something I wish I’d also been told a long time ago.”
And with that, he clapped Apollo on the shoulder and settled into the driver’s seat, leaving Apollo to pile into the back with Athena and Trucy who were frantically waving for him to hurry up.
After a ridiculously long debate over who should spend the two hour drive in the centre seat - covering everything from leg length, hip width and height - it was decided that Apollo would be wedged into the tiny space. So, with his legs bent up to his chest and Phoenix cackling wickedly at his predicament, Apollo finally felt the Earth move beneath him as the car soared toward the pocket of LA he’d missed so dearly.
It was gonna be a long six weeks.
Good.
Despite being on the very last thread of wakefulness, Apollo willed himself to stave off his need for sleep long enough to finish dinner. They were all sitting around the dining room table at Edgeworth and Phoenix’s home, waiting for them to plate up the - frankly - delicious smelling meal that Edgeworth had prepared. Whatever it was, Apollo couldn’t wait to indulge until he was full before falling into a blissful, well-fed slumber.
The main joy, however, was feeling Mikeko’s warm chest rumbling against his feet from where she had curled up to take a nap beneath the table. He’d sent her ahead last week so that she would have more time to become accustomed to the change of environment; the Wright-Edgeworths were more than happy to pamper her in his absence. As soon as he’d walked through the door she’d been at his heels, weaving between his steps and mewling in excitement, relieved to see her human had mystically appeared before her. Scratching her little chin and soft fur had always been therapeutic for him and he’d missed her sorely over the week he’d spent without her.
Not having a cat trampling his keyboard or sitting on urgent documents was hardly a bonus when the cons far outweighed the pros.
Somehow, Trucy had managed to lure his notoriously grumpy cat into wearing a little magician’s hat that balanced delicately between her ears. Apollo was amazed that Mikeko had allowed it, typically she would only let Apollo get away with something as brave as putting anything vaguely hat-shaped on her head. There was a manner in which she’d twisted and turned in confusion between himself and Trucy when they stood too close, as though she struggled to figure out where one began and one ended. He would’ve worried that there was something wrong with her vision, but the problem seemed to be exclusive to just the two of them.
Maybe they both smelled too much of the airport.
Regardless, when he stepped towards her and offered his hand she knew him well. Mikeko had traced his every movement and coveted the spot on his lap when he was sitting until reaching her current spot on the dining room rug at his feet. Trucy pouted a little at being delegated back to second place in the cat’s eyes, but she knew that nobody would ever top Apollo in Mikeko’s heart.
The group chattered and chortled as they ate. Swapping stories and grievances, catching each other up on the woes of their workweek, they fell into a firm rhythm that sang through the air, telling a tale of a family reunited. Athena still clapped him on the back so hard it winded him, Phoenix still snorted when he laughed, Edgeworth still glowered adoringly at his fiancé and Trucy still set fire to tablecloths for the purposes of magic.
When he eventually collapsed into bed that night, he’d never felt so full.
The next morning, Apollo found himself awake at the god-awful time of 5am, the jetlag ironically forcing him to rise only slightly earlier than he would on a typical workday. He was on vacation, couldn’t he have one chance to sleep a solid twelve hours without interruption?
At the very least he’d hoped to spend the morning lounging in the incredibly comfortable home that Edgeworth and the Wrights lived in. Trucy hadn’t exaggerated the comfort of every plush surface in the house, it was as though they were made of satin clouds.
That hope, however, was also beyond his reach.
Phoenix and Edgeworth were facing each other in court that morning, and Trucy was insisting on driving her and Apollo to the agency instead of taking her Papa’s offer to drop them on the way to the courthouse. Apollo couldn’t comprehend why she was so desperate to go to her father’s office before 8am when she could practice her tricks at home.
“Since when could you drive?” He groaned, rubbing his temples.
“Since Papa taught me,” she huffed, placing her hands on her hips. “Listen, Polly, it’s either I drive or we go with Daddy and Papa and suffer their creepy pre-trial tension.”
She gestured to her parents who were facing each other from opposite sides of the kitchen island. Phoenix was leaning casually on his elbow, a haughty, smug smirk lifting his lips while his fiancé slowly sipped at his coffee, sending a challenging, sharp stare back at him. Every minute or so Edgeworth would raise an eyebrow at him, taunting his opponent who’d just whistle and pretend to look away before the intense staring-match continued again.
They looked like they were ready to jump each other any second and Apollo really didn’t want to be around to see that happen.
“You’re a safe driver, right? Never crashed?” He asked, purely for the sake of posterity. His mind had been made up the second she mentioned the god-awful tension that permeated the air around Phoenix and Edgeworth.
“Not since I learned which pedal was the brake.”
Well, that was… promising?
Taking another glance at the two men, Apollo knew he was out of options. Phoenix had begun to lean fully on the counter, walking his fingers over to where Edgeworth’s newspaper was hanging from his loose, distracted grip. He brushed his fingertips over his fiancé’s knuckles and tugged the paper down, their faces inches apart with matching smug expressions.
Now they were just flirting.
If Apollo had to watch another second of this, he’d need to wash his eyes with bleach.
“Good enough for me,” he groaned. “Let’s go. Now…. Please, I’m begging.”
Anything to get them out of the same room as the couple. There was a difference, Apollo learned, between watching their tender exchanges of affection and witnessing what felt like a mating ritual.
“Bye Daddy, bye Papa!” Giggling, Trucy hopped past her parents to grab the keys, giving them both a quick hug and kiss as she went.
For a moment the spell was broken and Apollo bemoaned the fact that he’d had to see them flirt when Trucy had the power to stop them this whole time. From the moment she’d spoken, the parent switch must’ve flipped because they’d instantly broken out of their mood and addressed her as though nothing was out of the ordinary. He shuddered to think that maybe this was normal to them before they’d become parents and that the habit had just failed to die.
God, did they even know they were doing it?
Edgeworth told her to drive safe, absentmindedly fixing her cape and smoothing out the creases. Then, Phoenix ruffled her hair, wrapping her in a bear hug and peppering her forehead with obnoxious kisses, listening to the sound of her delightful laughter as it filled the kitchen. The sight was so familial, so caring.
Apollo’s heart ached.
“C’mon, it gets worse when they start talking,” she said, looping an arm through his and pulling him out the door. “Papa will say something like ‘hm, I hope your shoddy appearance doesn’t reflect your preparation for today’s trial, Wright’,” she mocked his low pitch, holding back giggles. “Then, Daddy either says something equally dramatic and weird back or he’ll just go ‘ooh you wanna kiss me so bad’.”
As they climbed into the SUV, Apollo considered the two possibilities and struggled to settle on which he’d rather suffer through.
“I don’t know which is worse.”
“Neither, they’re equally terrible.”
For a moment she faltered, her eyes tracking tiny wisps of dust as they danced in the morning sunlight. “I’m just glad they’re happy,” Trucy hummed.
Her smile turned smaller. Less open and wild but subdued and sincere. She basked in the tender peace that a phrase so simple was finally true.
Apollo knew how much her parents had fought for their relationship, how many years she’d watched her parents split across two continents yearning for the permanence of a single roof that held their family safely beneath. There had been too many eyes on Phoenix, too much work in Europe, too many miles to travel and too little time. Trucy had been clutched to Phoenix’s side with a promise of ‘tomorrow’ for seven years. Everything they’d done was in pursuit of their family, to be able to extend their fingertips and know they’d find warmth within reach.
Trucy, Phoenix and Edgeworth had finally closed the chapter on empty seats at dinner tables and planning the day in two time zones.
“You must be excited for the wedding,” he settled on. A polite acknowledgement of her emotions yet granting her privacy to them. Those days were long passed, Apollo didn’t intend to nudge her back into the memory of them.
“Of course I am!” She piped up, starting the car and swiftly pulling away from the drive. For a so-called ‘dadmobile’, Trucy still drove it like a sports car. “My Aunt Franzy said she was coming back to LA for the rest of the year because of the staff shortage at the Prosecutor’s Office, but I really think she’s coming to help plan the wedding with me and Aunt Maya.”
Apollo felt a shiver run down his spine. He’d never met Franziska but Phoenix spoke often of being whipped in court… and anywhere else he happened to cross her. Regardless, he knew the pair got along, even beyond the fact that she was his fiancé’s sister.
Trucy, in particular, adored her aunt.
“You must be excited to have both of your aunts back together,” he smiled at her, having listened to many excited tirades about her aunts’ visits since he’d met her.
“Mmhm! As much as she probably won’t admit it, I think Aunt Franzy is even more excited than I am. Papa hardly needed to ask her to help with some cases. As soon as he mentioned LA she was already packing her bags.”
“Is the Prosecutor’s Office really that short staffed? I know Nahyuta is called over sometimes to help but I didn’t know it had gotten this bad.” If Apollo was completely honest, he’d even thought Nahyuta was using it as a cover to see Simon but didn’t want to admit it.
Begging your sister to take time away from her important, international prosecutorial work was hardly a small favour.
“I don’t really know, you’d have to ask Papa. I just hear him and Daddy talking about it a lot and Papa seems pretty stressed about it. I’m just glad that Aunt Franzy has an excuse to see Aunt Maya and I can finally put the wedding binder I’ve been making since I was nine to good use!”
Most kids, Apollo thought to himself, fantasize about their own future weddings. Trucy had always been thinking of her parents’. There was something so special and sweet about it, a selfless act of blessing upon her parent’s aching hearts that one day they’d see the pages come to life.
“I feel like I probably already know the answer to this, but do your parents get any say in the planning?”
“Absolutely not.”
“Yeah, thought so,” he chuckled, silently taking pleasure in picturing their shocked faces when they themselves realise their wedding is being clutched in the grip of their sisters and daughter.
“Tell me, Polly, would you wanna go to a wedding that’s 90% my Papa’s love for frills and 10% whatever my Daddy booked without telling him? We’d have a buffet full of fancy European delicacies next to a hot sauce fountain that Daddy found a coupon for in an In-N-Out parking lot.”
They both shuddered at the thought… a very possible, terrifyingly realistic thought. Edgeworth and Phoenix paired perfectly in so many ways like sweet strawberries on fresh pastry, but their aesthetic taste was not one of them. They had styles that were equally horrendous, Apollo thought, with little regard to the horns that purposefully sprung from his head.
Maybe if they behaved, they would let the couple pick the tablecloths.
Eventually, they arrived at the Wright Anything Agency. The building loomed before him, mixing up a strange concoction of foreboding and comfort within his stomach. He’d missed the place immensely, yet there was something he was almost certain that he’d see once the door was open. Something he had dreaded to think of, no matter how minor a thing it may seem.
His desk. Empty.
Or worse: his desk, occupied.
He shook the thought away. They’d tell him if they’d hired a new attorney, they wouldn’t have brushed the belongings he’d failed to take with him aside to make room for another without a word spoken to him. No matter what, unless they replaced the desk, they could never remove the chips in the lacquer from his folders, the faint coffee rings from a restless night of scanning evidence.
He was terrified of the evidence that proved he was there disappearing from that room.
Snap out of it. He’d had enough emotional twists and turns, he couldn’t keep approaching everything like it was about to shatter when he reached it.
“Polly,” Trucy prodded him with a slight frown, “are you gonna open the door?”
She slipped the key into his hand, pushing him in front of her so he couldn’t see her face. Masked behind her question was a subtle reassurance, whispered into his ear like a mellow breeze in summer.
It hasn’t changed, you can still open the door. You belong there.
With a breath he twisted the lock open, pushing the door forward and inhaling the air that escaped. Fresh, spring pollen permeated the room from the window that was always left on the latch. A chill brushed against him, draping over his skin like cool silk sheets on a summer evening. Coffee and compost tickled his nose, Charley swaying in the breeze as though to point bemusedly at an abandoned half-drunk mug of lawyer sleep replacement.
His jacket was still draped over the back of the sofa.
He hadn’t taken it. They hadn’t moved it.
He closed his eyes and felt the room exist around him, let the aura lick at his senses and absorbed its familiar comfort. Trucy tapped his back gently as she passed him, skipping into the room without intruding on the second feeling of homecoming that was coursing through him. She worked on setting up her props, hopping back and forth from the car, up the stairs and past Apollo who didn’t move an inch.
Amusedly, he noticed the itch under his skin that expected to collapse at his desk and read over stacks of evidence.
It didn’t take long for Trucy to finish unloading the car. ‘Just a few bits and pieces’ she’d called it, as though she hadn’t just unpacked more props than his apartment had furniture.
Just like that, Apollo was a magician’s assistant once more. He watched the cogs turn in Trucy’s head, eyes focussed as she overcame each and every obstacle that threatened to ruin the perfect illusion of her trick. But, she was smart, and always knew how to press away every tiny detail that could possibly slip past the curtain and into the audience’s view.
Not even a single speck of dust was left unchecked by her planning. By noon, the trick was already beginning to take a new shape, worked by the type of magic that Trucy didn’t perform on stage but in her creation and creativity.
He was considering pausing for a break when the office door opened.
“Ah! Apollo, great,” Athena walked into the office and turned to him with a terrifying glint in her eye. Considering her usual high-energy state, the bags under her eyes gave slip to how much sleep she must’ve been lacking. “You’re coming with me. Now.”
“W-what?!”
Something told him that regardless of what she meant, he wasn’t escaping it. It was probably the dominating determination that she perpetually exuded and the knowledge that she had the strength to throw him over her shoulder if he refused.
“I haven’t had a day off in two weeks, you had one yesterday,” she grabbed his arm and flashed him a dangerous grin. “You’re helping me investigate, junior partner.”
“I’m not your juni-”
“You are now! I just said so, now allez vous!” Athena pulled him by the arm, essentially tackling him towards the agency door. So much for his vacation, he mourned.
He looked to Trucy for help, vaguely hopeful that she’d stop her. He expected her strict ‘no work’ policy to save him from a day of investigative work and questioning witnesses that he could only assume were going to be a nightmare, considering the cases the agency usually attracted.
However, one glance and he knew he was doomed.
“You heard her! Don’t worry, Polly, I can look after the office while you’re out.”
“I thought you said no work or paperwork?!”
“This doesn’t count, I only said you couldn’t bring any with you,” she shook her head, shrugging her shoulders in a manner that read ‘it can’t be helped’. “I never said you couldn’t do anything that was already here. Technically, it’s Athena’s work.”
Were it possible, his jaw would’ve crashed into the floor.
“Exactly. Now, tout suite! I don’t know who’s prosecuting so I wanna get there before they can shut us out… again.”
Ushering him out, Athena continued to pull him away from his final thread of hope for a relaxing vacation. Though, if he was really being honest, he was excited to be thrown back into the thrill of investigating a case. In recent months, he’d been too busy to actively take on any new cases so the prospect of investigating without too much pressure was oddly welcome.
Maybe, just maybe, the thought of being back in the fray made his heart pound in anticipation. Even if he bemoaned the fact that he considered his old job to be a suitable vacation activity, he couldn’t deny the excitement that ignited in his veins. As much as he’d missed Athena’s company, Apollo couldn’t deny that he’d missed working with her too. As two defence attorneys, the best chance they’d had for bonding was during sleepless nights, pouring over court documents together.
He craved it - no matter how much he would complain about it when it was a regular occurrence.
As they made their way towards the crime scene, the pair easily fell back into their old dynamic as friends and co-workers. He hadn’t had the chance to speak to her alone yet, part of him had forgotten just how much fun they would have as a duo. Laughter bubbled naturally from his chest, his shoulders shaking off the lingering grains of fear with every chuckle.
“Surely it must be weird being back? Seeing all of us again?” Athena asked, an impish ulterior motive dripping from the question.
“Honestly? It kinda feels like I never left,” he admitted, his heart finally relaxed as it realised that his life had not been wiped clean once he stepped foot out of LA. “Of course I missed you guys, but I didn’t really have the time to think about it. It feels more like coming home from a quick trip rather than an entire year abroad.”
“Hmm, that’s fair I guess,” she hummed and flicked her earring thoughtfully. “But, let’s say hypothetically, you did get the chance to think about it - who did you miss the most?”
“How am I supposed to know who I hypothetically missed more?! I told you, I missed everyone!”
He looked at her incredulously as he passed her, entering an apartment that bustled with busy detectives.
“C’mon, there must’ve been someone you especially missed- oh Ema!” Athena waved her arm, trying to catch the woman’s attention.
What the hell was that about?
“Athena!” Ema hardly glanced up from the muddy footprint she was currently examining with a magnifying glass, papers bearing comparison prints fanned out around her. “As happy as I am to see you, you’ve just confirmed my fears that this case is gonna cut into my overtime. You and Mr Wright never seem to find a simple case.”
“Don’t worry, I brought a good luck charm today,” she assured with sunny enthusiasm. “He’s not as fun as Trucy, but he’ll do.”
“Huh? It’s not Trucy?” Still holding the magnifying glass to her eye - whether on purpose or because she’d forgotten it was there was unclear - she looked up and yelped when Apollo fell into her view. He didn’t want to know what his face looked like magnified, but he hoped it was purely a yell of surprise and not horror. “Apollo!? You’re back?”
“Trucy insisted I visited, I got back yesterday,” he explained, scratching his cheek with a faint embarrassment from being continually held under the gaze of that magnifying glass. She soon dropped it however, as she rose up to greet him properly with a swift, polite hug. “I’d say it’s been a while, but…”
She deflated, exhaustion pressing on her shoulders. “I’m flattered that Nahyuta thinks so highly of my forensic expertise but the travel is killing me. One moment I’m testing samples in LA and the next I’m being told I need to be on a flight to Khura’in that leaves in two hours. He doesn’t even give me time to pack, Apollo!”
“If it makes you feel any better, two hours' notice is him being nice,” he said. “I had to talk him out of booking one that left in thirty minutes once.”
“Tell him if he ever does that, he’ll need more than one forensic scientist when I’m done with him.”
“Oh, I’ve got revenge of my own to carry out. Have at him.”
Gasping, she turned to Athena who was desperately motioning for her to stop talking. “He found out about the photos?”
“YOU TOO?!”
“Apollo,” she said, a deadpan look on her face. “I’m in Khura’in at least once a month, I’ve seen your ridiculous sleeping habits. I help Nahyuta pick out the best shots when I’m there.”
“A month,” he grumbled, “he’s doing my paperwork for a month when I get back.”
Athena patted him on the back sympathetically, though the amusement still shone through and uplifted the corners of her lips. Ema made no effort to hide her grin, openly chuckling behind her hand which drew the attention of the nearby officers. With how often they visited scenes like this, they sometimes forgot that laughing at a murder scene wasn’t necessarily the height of decorum.
“Anyway, we should probably get to discussing the case,” Athena settled, gaining her composure before turning back towards the scene that lay before them, stripped of the most gruesome component and replaced with white tape. “My client mentioned that she didn’t know the victim.”
“Honestly, it’s messy. She claims she doesn’t know the victim but the detectives are insisting that we have evidence proving otherwise, but I’ll start at the beginning and give you a brief overview.” Ema huffed, pulling out her notepad and tapping the paper. “The victim is a woman, Venus Belle, 31. She was murdered around 2am after her drink was laced with poison, and we found fingerprints matching Ena Sceant’s, your client, on the bottle that contained it. There was another liquid found on the rim of the poison bottle that we’re still trying to identify.”
“Who called the police?” Athena asked, tapping her chin at the information.
“The victim’s boyfriend, Ash Shole, found her when he came to visit this morning,” Ema winced, as though the words she spoke dealt pain to her brain’s desperation for scientific fact. “I don’t know guys, there’s a whole lot of evidence and none of it seems to match. There’s footprints that match no records, no evidence placing the defendant in the apartment other than the bottle, the matter of why the victim would’ve been with the defendant at the time of the poisoning.”
“You said there was evidence proving they knew each other?” Apollo prodded, pinching the bridge of his nose in thought.
“Well, it’s more that they knew of each other. Mr Shole alleges he used to be romantically involved with Miss Sceant and that she knew he was currently dating the victim.” Ema paused, knowing that regardless of the trust they had in her, the explanation was as solid as paper walls in a rainstorm.
“The boyfriend alleges? Is that your evidence?” Athena asked. It was clear in her eyes that she wanted the answer to be ‘yes’, that the prosecution was built on foundations that would crumble in a soft spring gust. It wasn’t accusatory toward Ema, this was how the sharing of information worked and they all trusted each other to value transparency and truth.
“I’m sorry, Athena. The detective in charge won’t let me see whatever ‘evidence’ they found that supposedly corroborates his statement until the lead prosecutor arrives.”
“By any chance, do you know who’s been assigned to the case?” Apollo asked, sheepishly though he wasn’t certain why. He knew the prosecutors, he couldn’t grasp what was causing him discomfort at not knowing which one to expect.
Sighing in exhausted exasperation, Ema shook her head.
“With the Prosecutor’s Office so understaffed they’ve been assigning whoever has the most time when the call comes through. We just wait and see who turns up - makes it a nightmare to coordinate the investigation at the start.” Rubbing her forehead as though to soothe the stress away, Ema turned herself back to the outline of the victim. “I heard some murmurs that they think it was an act of jealousy, so they better have some solid evidence that Miss Sceant knew of Miss Belle’s relationship to Mr Shole otherwise the case will fall through.”
As much as he pitied the stress of having to start their investigation again with a different lead and perspective, he couldn’t rejoice in the wrong person being arrested. Apollo hadn’t spoken to the client but Athena had, and he had full trust in her capabilities to ensure that they could believe in Miss Sceant’s innocence.
“Miss Skye!” From across the room a young detective called, to which Ema only groaned harder and looked like she would gladly take the role of ‘corpse on the floor’ in place of the white tape.
“I’ll catch up with you guys when the lead prosecutor arrives. I’ll let you know anything I find out, good luck investigating,” she smiled at them, eyes shining with a look that pleaded ‘don’t make my job too difficult, find the truth quickly’.
Then, she was gone.
Honestly, part of Apollo feared that he’d forgotten how to investigate a scene. Luckily, this was Athena’s case and she was more than eager to take charge herself.
“Well, let’s start taking stock of whatever we can find and we’ll see whatever extra info Ema has for us when the prosecutor decides to show up.” Athena knelt down by the tape and narrowed her eyes at the same muddy footprint that had been occupying Ema’s attention before they had turned up. No matches, she’d said. ‘No matches’ at a crime scene was never irrelevant, never uninvolved.
His brain thrummed with the mystery, determination coursing through him as he worked in tandem with Athena, throwing ideas back and forth as they grasped for a case that could hold like a fortress in court. They examined everything, left no theory unchecked or corner glanced over. For a man who was exhausted beyond belief, he had a strange amount of vigour to stare at bloodstains and mud.
There was a hum of commands and formal conversation behind them, indicating to them that the prosecutor must’ve finally arrived to receive the dreaded news that they needed to make time for a flimsy, complicated case in their already overfilled schedule. Apollo was too busy staring at that damn footprint to turn around and greet them, reasoning that this was Athena’s case anyway.
He stood up to see if the view from afar would reveal some concealed clue, Athena’s body blocking him from view for anyone looking from the direction of the entryway.
“Fräulein Cykes, how wonderful it is to see your cheerful face again,” came a voice - silky, suave and so full of sincerity. It took no guessing to know who it was, Apollo only knew of one man who made genuine kindness sound so alluring. Only one man who could make that strange accented German sound like sweet, drizzling honey.
Apollo promptly forgot how to breathe.
Fuck.
He couldn’t bring himself to even look at him.
“I heard Herr Wright was defending a case against the Chief Prosecutor today. It seems both of our bosses have assigned us to be their solo support acts, ja?”
“Actually, I’ve got help today,” Athena grinned, batting at him from where he was concealed behind her, encouraging him to step forward. There was something he couldn’t quite place in her expression, something that dripped with devious mischief. From experience, Apollo knew to fear that look. Naively, he wondered if she’d spare him if he offered to write her case report.
“Ach, has Fräulein Wright come to rock with us? I wanted to congratulate her on-”
Awkwardly, he shuffled from behind Athena, lifting his hand in a small, stiff wave. He dared a glance up to greet him properly and felt the earth slip from beneath his feet, his heart stuttering and pounding in an oppressive rhythm.
Gold and sapphire - just as he’d remembered. The culmination of the world’s most precious jewels all rolled into one man.
“Prosecutor Gavin… It’s been a while.”