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You’re in your office. You come down to the office sometimes when you can’t sleep. Your apartments are upstairs now, because it used to be easier to live directly above your office. The lease Mia left you includes the law offices and a large, four-room apartment. You never questioned why the chief needed two spare bedrooms. You figure one was supposed to be an office and the other a spare room for Maya. Or maybe one was for Maya and one was to be for Pearls eventually, since Mia had her office right down the stairs. You don’t know and it’s not really important, but you wonder as you sit at your dead mentor’s desk if you’re not just trying to hold onto a mystery so you can forget what your life is right now.
A while ago, you were disbarred. They took away your badge and you haven’t told anyone (anyone who wouldn’t have heard about it anyway). Maya doesn’t know. Pearl doesn’t know. As a consequence, Mia doesn’t know (unless she’s still hanging around).
You don’t know how you would face your friends if you told them. You don't know how you would face your mentor. What would Mia do if she was still here? Hug you and tell you it’s not the end of the world? Flick you on the forehead and tell you to fight to get your badge back? Smack you in the face for failing at upholding her legacy and ruining everything she worked so hard to build? Your throat tightens at the thought and you breathe deeply. You have nightmares in which she stares at you like you’re worth nothing, like you’re a waste of time and space, like you’re unworthy of being her successor.
You held so many people’s hopes these past few years. Clients, friends, loved ones. You stood up for them whether it was in court or in life. You joined them in a raging storm and you faced it together. You don’t know what to do now that you’re not him anymore. Phoenix Wright, Turnabout Terror, they all belong in the past. You’re not even Nick anymore. You’re a secret, undefined, shapeless thing. An empty shell with no purpose.
You hear the stairs creak. When you look at who’s at the door, your heart sinks just a little. It’s your daughter and she looks upset.
Trucy isn’t usually upset. She’s taking all of this rather well considering the situation. If you’re honest, she’s taking it much better than you. She was abandoned by her own father, you only lost your job. Those are dark times, what did Mia always tell you? Put on a bright smile. You force a smile, or at least the ghost of a smile. You don’t know where you would be if you didn’t have the responsibility of this child weighing on you. It keeps you grounded. You would most probably mop even more. You would let yourself go.
You were disbarred and you gained a daughter. You can’t even say for how long Trucy has been living with you. Time is blurry, only a succession of events: Trucy’s breakfast, Trucy’s lunch, Trucy’s magic training, Trucy’s dinner, Trucy’s bedtime. After that, you don’t exist anymore. After that, you disappear.
But right now, it’s beyond Trucy’s bedtime and you’re not sure how you’re supposed to handle the situation. Trucy looks scared. Unsure. And this is so unlike the child you took in that you find yourself standing up and walking over to her. You don’t even need to speak. She does it first.
“I’m scared,” Trucy says. “The storm…”
As if on cue, there is lightning outside, followed by a loud rumble. The rain keeps plastering the window. The wind is howling and if you didn’t know the place was haunted yet, you believe it now.
“Come here,” you say, putting your attention back on Trucy. You walk over to the sofas, the ones that are– were– for clients, and sit down. Trucy sits next to you and you note with quiet amusement that her feet don’t reach the carpet. You don’t quite know why Trucy sat a safe distance from you.
You don’t know what to do. The last time there was such a strong storm, Maya and Pearl were dancing on the balcony, cheering on the storm. You’ve never been faced with a kid who was scared of a storm. You were never really scared of the storm either. For all the awkward parenting you did with Pearl or Maya, you’re largely unprepared for this.
“Do you want to stay with me?” You say.
Trucy crawls by your side silently, leaning against your arm. You glance outside.
You used to like storms. You caused them, in the courtroom. You loved making an uproar, you loved the thunder of the gallery when you finally got your breakthrough and the tide turned in your favor. You stood, proud and smug, as the prosecutor’s face crumpled. You remember thinking so many times that you could get addicted to that feeling– and you did. You could feel a ghost tap you in the back, Well done, Phoenix.
The last uproar you heard in a courtroom was followed by a deafening silence. You remained quiet. Stunned, in hindsight. You accepted your fate because what else could you do? You cheated in court. You presented fake evidence. Did you know? Did it matter anyway? Well done, Phoenix.
You didn’t even fight. Your client bolted out and disappeared, leaving behind his eight-year-old daughter. Your eight-year-old daughter. Trucy is like a bolt of thunder in the storm. Short, warm. Illuminating the darkness for a brief instant as everything around you falls apart.
You’re in the middle of a storm. Lost in the wind. No direction. The rain is hammering down on you, holding you down relentlessly.
And for the first time in your life, you’re afraid.
You stare at the storm outside, feeling the warmth of the small child leaning against you, falling asleep against your arm.
You hear Trucy snore softly at your side. And you swear you hear a familiar voice again.
Well done, Phoenix.