Work Text:
love, from different rooms
September 10th, 2029
Five o’clock comes and goes, and Miles Edgeworth frowns at his phone.
The end of the work day had come with suspicious ease. He’d proceeded through paperwork, phone calls, and supervision meetings without a hint of interruption, and on any day other than this one, he might have welcomed the peace.
However, this day is not like any others, and as such, he is…confused. Suspicious, absolutely. Did he perchance miss the squeal of a rappelling hook outside his window? The thumping of hands and knees crawling in his HVAC?
Scanning the sunset-tinted interior of his office, he finds no hint of an illicit visit, no raven-imprinted clue. But he’s certain. The date on his calendar is correct.
Five-oh-one, and not a single attempt at a break-in. Has she forgotten? he wonders. The idea is disappointing, if uncharacteristic. In nine years, she’s never failed to arrive before the day’s end.
Perhaps his precautions this year were too much? He’d arranged things in preparation for her attempt, as always. In the beginning, his actions had been professional—it was concerning, of course, that a single individual could infiltrate a guarded building to reach his office (reformed Yatagarasu or not). As time went on, and he acknowledged the futility of merely chastising building security, he thought it appropriate to at least increase the difficulty of such an endeavor. Installing a deadbolt on his office door. Arranging the budget for cameras to be installed on every floor. Motion sensors for the roof entrance. All reasonable adjustments, he thought.
(She accused him once of it outright, almost delighted. “Mr. Edgeworth, did you booby trap your office?”
“That would be juvenile,” he replied, and later he’d smiled to himself as they installed locks on his windows.)
Perhaps the keycard access system for the stairways he’d arranged last month had proved an obstacle. Nevertheless, he’d anticipated her arrival anyway. Kay Faraday is nothing if not dogged, and relishes adversity wherever she finds it. No, he ascertains, it is unlikely she was deterred by the walls of his defense. She never has been before.
Therefore, some other barrier has delayed her. He presses his lips together, perturbed. A complication in her work? She’d mentioned some level of progress with her most recent case in her last texts to him; acting as a private investigator sends her all over the world, but she always draws back to Japanifornia around this time of year. Her current case concerns corporate embezzlement, and there is certainly no lack of it in Los Angeles, but he isn’t privy to the details.
If something were wrong, she would have informed him. She doesn't hesitate to ask for help or advice when she needs it, it’s one of her virtues—much as it may perplex and amuse him to act as her sounding-board from time to time. Mr. Edgeworth, is it technically a crime to steal back what’s already been stolen? Mr. Edgeworth, why are there so many scummy creeps in shipping exports? Hey Mr. E, would Mr. Wright be mad if I snuck into his office, because I have a present for Trucy—?
Kay is not here. Ergo, something has come up. If something has come up, and she hasn’t reached out to him, then clearly something is wrong. An uncomfortable coil twists in his chest, and without hesitation, he reaches for his phone to dial her number. It rings, continuously, until a click.
“You’ve reached Kay Faraday, private investigator and master extractor for all of your totally legal, totally clandestine needs—”
He ends the call, scowling, and calls his secretary.
“Yes, Mr. Edgeworth?”
“Were you able to review the security camera footage for today?”
“Oh, yes, Mr. Edgeworth. No sign of her—” His heart gives a clench of dread— “on this floor today. But I caught a glimpse of her just a minute ago on the revolving footage of the courthouse in the old prosecutor’s wing—"
The old prosecution wing.
“Thank you,” he says crisply. “Goodnight, Ms. Dunaway.”
He hangs up, and rises from his desk.
The walk to the old wing summons waves of nostalgia. As Chief Prosecutor, he doesn’t serve in court as often as he once did; now, only the most significant, polarizing cases draw him to the courtroom, cases awarded the largest, newest courtroom the district has to offer. He has not roamed these particular halls since he was a young prosecutor himself, before he even reunited with Phoenix…Nearly twenty years ago, now.
Putting a number to it is like a lead weight, heavy but increasingly familiar. You’re such an old man, Papa, Trucy teases in his ear, and he feels it now, with every passing day. He drifts past an old vending machine, and the nostalgia gains potency, eclipsing the self beneath his skin, and the glasses on his face feel foreign, the cut of his suit incorrect, and the echo of old, impossible burden rings hollow in his stomach.
But as quickly as it came, the feeling disappears—leaving him older and wiser and more whole than he ever used to be, because he rounds a corner and there stands Kay.
She’s taller, somehow. She always seems taller, every time they meet. Impossible, of course, but maybe it’s the maturity of her, pinpointed in the height of her swinging ponytail. He moves to stand at her side, and she doesn’t turn to look when he does.
He waits for her to speak. Eventually, she does.
“Off the clock already?” she asks. Her voice is soft, muted with apology. “Thought I had an hour left. …I guess time got away from me.”
He understands. Just like there's no mistaking today’s date, there’s no mistaking this hallway, or the door they stand before. A weight grows in the silence hanging between them.
“I don’t really know why I... came down here,” she says quietly. “I was just thinking, y’know. it’s been a long time.”
It has. Seventeen years exactly.
“Over ten years,” she says, and he glances down at her, frowning. “Since I met you again.”
What?
“I was seventeen when I rescued you from that basement at Gatewater Land,” she continues, gaze drifting. “…Feels like forever ago, doesn’t it?”
He studies the distance in her expression, mouth flattening with concern. “It was hardly a basement,” he replies, for lack of a better one. Her mouth twitches.
“Yeah, well, it was creepy and dark and calling it the ‘employee lounge’ isn’t very exciting.” He huffs quietly, conceding, and a flicker of familiar warmth enters her eyes. But then it ebbs, as quickly as it was sparked. “…I was just thinking. Ten years and all.” He waits, and watches her head tilt. She leans, and then her temple is resting against his shoulder. “It’s…longer than I ever knew him, you know?”
Oh, he thinks, and for a moment, he is paralyzed with empathy. But then gently, he lifts a hand. Slowly, it comes to rest on her shoulder, and her chin tilts down as she settles close, hearth-warm against his chest.
“You remind me of him, you know,” she says. His chest cramps. “Not all the time, but...sometimes. Your work. The way you listen to me. And you—you always keep your promises, just like he did.”
She swallows hard, like she wants to keep speaking, but the words have gotten caught in her throat.
“We do this every year. You help me not think about what happened. But then this morning, I…” She trails off, words coarse with fine fractures. “It’s stupid, but…I think I got scared. That I was forgetting.”
He thinks of an elevator. A lonely estate in Brandenburg. Years passing, his life shaped by cruel, perfect hands, and a guilt so deep it nearly ruined him beyond salvation. A moment—thirty-five years old, brushing his teeth, wedding ring on his finger—when he realized he was older than his father ever became. And he understands.
“I came here because I wanted to remember him, I think,” she whispers. “But sometimes when I try, all I can picture is you.”
He inhales. Feels the ache throb in his body, sympathy and fondness welling in his throat, and curls his fingers around her shoulder.
“Is that…” Her voice breaks into small pieces. “Is that okay?”
“It’s nothing,” he says softly, “That you can be faulted for.”
A quiet sniff, bravely stifled. “Are you sure?” she asks, almost too low to hear.
“Yes.”
“It’s not bad?” she presses. In this moment, her voice might as well belong to a younger version of herself, the one that first kicked him in the shin all those years ago.
“No,” he says, quiet and firm, because it’s a lesson he’s learned on his own. A forgiveness that took years to provide himself. She looks at him, eyes aching with hurt that’s as familiar as his own reflection, and he bows his chin.
“It is difficult,” he says, stilted, “For me to recall moments from my youth. For many years…I did not let myself remember. Some memories will always be lost to me. But I know that does not mean that I care for my father any less.”
“Mr. Edgeworth,” she croaks. “I…”
“And I think,” he says, lower, steadier, “That regardless of what you remember…that he would be very proud of the woman you’ve become.”
Something on her face gives way. She ducks her head, hiding her face in his jacket. Moments pass, and grief breathes in the silence of the empty, lonely hall. Its weight is heavy, but not all unwelcome.
He waits, listening as the hitch in her breath evens out. He does not move, or drop his hand. He waits, and hopes he's enough.
Soon, she pulls back. “I’m sorry,” she says, rubbing her eyes with a weak smile. “I sorta broke our tradition.”
“We can always make a new one,” he replies. “Though there’s still time, should you wish to infiltrate my office after hours.”
A watery laugh breaks from her mouth. “Nah,” she says. “It’s not as much fun if I don’t surprise you. I can wait until next year.”
He hums. “Perhaps this year we can…spend time another way. You’re always welcome to dinner at our home. Trucy would be overjoyed.”
She nods, smiling, but the disappointed angle of her shoulders doesn’t escape his notice. Without warning, an idea sparks across his mind—one as sentimental as it is thoroughly unwise.
New traditions, he thinks, resigned, require compromise.
“Unfortunately,” he begins, and pointedly avoids her gaze. “It seems I have…misplaced my house key.”
“You…lost your keys?” Kay asks, boggled, and he can't resist glancing back. “For real?”
“Yes,” he manages, poorly, and clears his throat. “It’s…a shame. But it appears we might have to. Erhm. Devise our own form of entry.”
“You want us,” she echoes, light blooming in her eyes like a candle. “To break into your apartment?”
His mouth twitches, and he wills its curve into a scowl. “It’s hardly breaking and entering if it’s my own—”
“You and me,” she interrupts, eager. “Committing crime. Together.”
He sighs. He brought this upon himself, and he will face the consequences. Not only for her sake, but because if he withdraws now, she will consider it a personal challenge.
And challenge is an obstacle Kay never fails to rise against. “I suppose if you insist on categorizing it as such,” he says, accepting his fate.
“Oh, I do,” she says, with audible relish. “I really do.”
He sighs again, but his heart isn’t in it. In truth, it’s warm. With fondness, and a pride that’s become synonymous with Kay, and the excitement gleaming like stars in her eyes.
“Very well,” he says, and the concession doesn’t cost him a thing. He extends an elbow. “But I must insist on one condition.”
She hooks her arm around his with ease. “Name it, Mr. E.”
“You will never breathe a word of this to anyone.”
And Kay beams.
“Didn’t you know, Mr. Edgeworth? A great thief can always keep a secret.”