Chapter Text
If you asked anyone in the LA prosecutors’ office, Miles Edgeworth was wholly focused on his career and had no personal life to speak of. He avoided casual conversations, cutting them short and walking away whenever he needed to travel to another floor. Unlike most others, his office lacked any family photos— where most employees would have photos of their spouses and children, the polished surface of his mahogany desk was bare.
However, absence of evidence was not evidence of absence. Just two years ago, a case of child neglect he had witnessed led him to adopt a twelve-year-old girl who had broken her leg falling out of his office window. It had only been out of sympathy at first, but as jarring as the change had been, he couldn’t imagine his life without Kay Faraday.
He had first met Kay four years ago, but she was his daughter in all but blood. Her habit of breaking into his office had been tempered somewhat, but she took half days from school to watch his trials and even shared the Swiss rolls from the vending machine with him, just as she had with her father before the murder that had led Miles to meet her.
(And not unlike a tradition Miles once had with his own father all those years ago…)
Still, as close as they had become over the years, the fact remained that they had been strangers once. It would be overstepping to expect a different form of address just because there were now court documents calling them legal guardian and ward. Besides, everyone at work called him Mr. Edgeworth. What difference did it make if his daughter simply called him what everyone else did?
It hadn’t made a difference to Mr. von Karma, at least. Franziska may have had a different form of address for her father, but Miles was just as much a member of the household, even if he called the head of the household something different.
But even as involved as Mr. von Karma was in his professional life, Miles’ personal life was something that never came up in conversation. Not that anything about his life was truly a secret to his mentor. It was just that the opening had never presented itself. He hadn’t had the opportunity to tell him about Kay, nor did he actively seek one.
He tried on occasion to imagine how the conversation would go if the topic were ever broached.
“You’re very young to have adopted a child,” he imagined Mr. von Karma saying. “I suppose this makes her something of a granddaughter to me. Why have you done this? Is she exceptionally talented in legal matters?”
“No,” Miles imagined saying. “In fact… she likes to joke about becoming a thief.”
Mr. von Karma would narrow his eyes with cold disappointment. What he would say after that, Miles couldn’t imagine, nor did he want to. His personal life would therefore remain something of a secret.
—
As much as his mentor’s rejection had stung, Miles was somewhat glad their relationship was strictly professional now.
The fledgling romance he had managed to develop with Phoenix Wright in the months since their reunion would certainly have been forbidden in the von Karma household. Sexuality and romance were topics that were never discussed, as they were largely seen as a distraction from more important matters, so he had no way of knowing how Mr. von Karma would react if he told him he was gay or brought a boyfriend to some family function. But even if that were somehow a non-issue, Phoenix was not the sort of boyfriend his mentor would ever allow, and for one simple reason: he was a defense attorney.
Manfred von Karma held no respect for defense attorneys. They are like bugs, he had told Miles once during a stroll through the mansion’s garden. Needless things. To be crushed. To emphasize his point, he had turned over a rock, squishing the ants that emerged under his cane. Miles couldn’t say he especially liked the comparison, but he had admittedly lost some respect for the profession since his father’s killer got away.
(In his nightmare, the horrible scream that followed the gunshot was sometimes accompanied by the sick crunching of those ants.)
In all the years they had known each other, Mr. von Karma had only ever mentioned one defense attorney by name: Miles’ father, who he supposed his mentor only remembered for his sake. They had only worked on one case, after all, and it had been a perfect victory just like all the rest. If it weren’t for the great potential he had seen in Miles that had led to the adoption, he would have had no reason to pay the late Gregory Edgeworth any mind.
Now, to hear him say it, that great potential had expired. Miles had lost two cases now against Phoenix Wright, the same Phoenix he remembered from his childhood (though he couldn’t remember ever mentioning him around Mr. von Karma), proving that he would never be worthy of the von Karma name and would always be cursed with the blood of his pathetic, romanticist father.
It was true that some of his past feelings had resurfaced when he began meeting Phoenix outside of court. But at the same time, the trials in which he found himself facing off against his childhood friend turned rival had proven complicated, causing him to question the haste with which he had once completed his cases. Phoenix and his clients had truly been innocent, and despite the bluffs he used, he was still the same Phoenix as before, the same overflowing well of emotion with the same brilliant smile. It was only natural for those cases to be resolved in the way they had, and similarly natural for his encounters with Phoenix outside of court to lead them into this new relationship.
Though… as much as he enjoyed being with Phoenix now, he couldn’t stop wondering what might have happened if that trial had gone differently. He smiled at every text that wouldn’t have been sent if he’d secured a guilty verdict. Every weekend, when he climbed the stairs to that tiny apartment, he watched Phoenix’s five-year-old daughter perform magic tricks (with Kay assisting), trying not to think that he had almost orphaned her yet again.
Just like Redd White…
How many of his defendants had truly been guilty? It was a question he could never stop asking himself. After all, if he could convince himself of Phoenix’s guilt based only on the word of one witness, who knew how many others he had been mistaken about?
Trucy and Kay took a short bow after their performance, Phoenix ruffling his daughter’s hair as Maya applauded from his other side, but Miles remained lost in thought. How many of his convicts had families they would never again come home to? How many children had been left without parents because of him?
Before now, he found ways to put the thought out of his mind. Criminals were unfit to raise children. If any of his defendants had children, he was doing them a favor by removing those bad influences from their lives, and it wasn’t like the state lacked ways of ensuring that they would be taken in by suitable relatives or put into foster care if necessary. But since that whole situation with Kay, he had begun to doubt, though he hadn’t given these doubts any conscious thought until meeting Phoenix, until hearing Trucy’s story from him. She had been abandoned by her father during a trial and rather than leaving her to the state, Mia Fey had taken her in, entrusting her care to Phoenix upon death.
If any of his convicts who had children were truly innocent, was he any better than Redd White? Or Calisto Yew? Or…?
“Miles?” Phoenix asked, interrupting that thought. “Trucy is asking what you thought of her performance.”
He looked down, noticing that the little girl was watching him expectantly. “Oh,” he said falteringly. Which new escape trick had the girls been performing…? “It was riveting,” he told her, doing his best to meet Trucy’s eyes. “I could hardly look away.”
For a moment, the brim of her pink top hat tilted down to hide her face.
“Of course it was!” said Kay, her voice filled with all the cheer Miles wished he could express just so that nobody would look at him the way Trucy was now. “We’ve worked on it for weeks. The world couldn’t possibly ask for a better magician or a better assistant!”
Trucy quickly perked up after that and the mood returned to normal, though Miles remained quiet, letting everyone else carry on around him. As inviting as the warm atmosphere was, that thought still lingered in his mind, keeping him from fully immersing himself.
You don’t deserve this.
It was a thought that plagued him more and more lately: when he met Phoenix for lunch (far enough away from the prosecutors’ office that nobody would see) and Phoenix greeted him with a kiss (Miles turning his head to make it a kiss on the cheek, not comfortable kissing on the lips in public), when Phoenix ordered more than he could finish at once and insisted on sharing, when Trucy called him Uncle Miles, when Maya shared her love of the Steel Samurai with him, even when Kay woke up early and hugged him goodbye before he left for work. He had done so much wrong. He’d failed to catch the woman who had killed Kay’s father, failed to stop his first defendant from committing suicide, convicted who knew how many innocents, he’d even tried to get Maya and Phoenix convicted. How could they act like none of it ever happened?
The day grew late, and soon enough, it was time for Miles and Kay to go home. “Are we still on for lunch this week?” Phoenix asked as if this were any other weekend, oblivious to Miles’ inner turmoil.
He smiled despite himself. “Of course.”
—
As the drawings on the Wrights’ fridge began to include snowmen and Santas alongside the hand turkeys, a cheerful mood permeated the air, and everyone’s hearts were somewhat lighter than usual.
Everyone’s, that is, save for Miles. He came home from work days punctuated with sleigh bells and seasonal advertisements on the radio and stayed up as late as he could before inevitably falling asleep, the overly cheery voices turning panicked and angry as he once again heard his father arguing with the bailiff in the elevator. The nightmares always became more frequent around this time of year, and with this year marking the fifteen-year anniversary, they came with an increasing feeling of urgency that had him waking up in a cold sweat, his heart pounding like he’d run a mile and his throat as dry as sandpaper.
Since moving out on his own, he’d developed a strategy to cope with the frequent nightmares: throwing himself into his work, spending all of his mental energy solving a new case so he had none left for thinking about the past. It had been a convenient strategy, too— many prosecutors took time off for the holidays, but crime rates remained as high as ever, which often left a backlog in January. At least with him working himself to exhaustion, that backlog was mitigated somewhat.
It had been a difficult point in the first December since he’d adopted Kay. As hard-working as her father had been, he had still been one of those who took holidays off to spend with family. Naturally, she wanted to recreate the traditions they had shared. Miles had struggled on what to do, but they had eventually reached a compromise: he would take shorter hours during the holidays and they would eat dinner together on Christmas Eve before opening presents. It was somewhat simpler than what Kay had been used to, but it was something he could tell she looked forward to each year, and that was good enough for both of them.
He had assumed that this year would be similar. But there was one factor he had failed to account for: his new relationship with Phoenix.
“So,” Phoenix asked him one day as they sat on the couch at the Wrights’ apartment watching Trucy teach Kay a card trick, “do you have any plans for the holidays?”
“I will be busy,” Miles said.
“Really?” Phoenix looked disappointed. “I was hoping we could do something together. You’re always working and I never get to see you.”
It dawned belatedly on Miles that those with a significant other often spent holidays together. “It is… a difficult time for me,” he said by way of explanation. “Crime never sleeps, as they say, and I need look no further than what happened to my father as proof. Besides, someone has to mitigate the case backlog that inevitably carries over to the new year, and it might as well be me.”
Phoenix’s eyes shone with concern. “Sounds more like you need a break,” he said. “It seems like barely any time passes between your good night and good morning texts. When was the last time you had a full night’s sleep?”
Miles couldn’t remember. Come to think of it, it had probably been the night before his father’s final trial.
“How about this,” Phoenix said. “On Christmas Eve, how would you and Kay like to spend the night here?”
Kay whipped around, dropping the cards in her hand on the coffee table. “Can we?” Her bright green eyes practically sparkled. “It could be like a big sleepover! Please, Mr. Edgeworth?”
Miles took a deep breath, staring down at his arm as he gripped his elbow. As much as he wanted to say no, to turn away from everyone and bury himself in his work as usual, something about Kay’s wide, shining eyes made him pause to reconsider. Because as much as he wanted to turn down the invitation, he wasn’t living just for himself anymore. The minimal tradition had been a compromise to begin with. If he insisted on staying home, would he not be depriving Kay of holiday fun for entirely selfish reasons?
At the same time, he couldn’t bring himself to say yes. As much as he would love to spend the night with Phoenix and their families on any other occasion, something about having this kind of celebration that close to the anniversary of his father’s death left a bad taste in his mouth.
“I…” He tightened his grip. “If you wish to stay the night here, you may. I will be… otherwise occupied.”
Behind Kay, Trucy had finished gathering up the scattered cards and fixed a searching gaze on him. “Daddy?” she asked Phoenix. “What does that mean?”
“It means Uncle Miles is going to be busy on Christmas Eve,” Phoenix said. “But Kay can stay over if she wants. Does that sound good?”
Trucy folded her arms, looking pensive. “Uncle Miles isn’t gonna be busy,” she insisted. “Why did he say he was?”
How could she possibly…? Miles thought fast for something to say. He’d thought Phoenix was exaggerating before, but his daughter really did have a way of catching on to people’s lies, and the farther they took this conversation, the closer they would get to a topic Miles wasn’t ready to discuss, especially with a child present.
“I’ll try to be there for at least part of it,” he ended up saying, to the relieved smiles of everyone present.
That evening, he checked the mail as usual, sorting it at the coffee table once he and Kay arrived home. Among the usual bills and junk mail was a letter addressed to him. The name on the return address didn’t ring any immediate bells of recognition, but strangely enough, he felt like he might have seen it before.
Curious, he opened the envelope.