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Ema Skye sits cross-legged on the roof of a penthouse skyscraper, her eyes peering through the glass safety railing to look upon Los Angeles' city centre. Her eyes are searching for a familiar place—any familiar place. Somewhere that'd be easy for her to imagine herself in. A place where she can separate her mind from a physical body that's on fire.
Unfortunately, her desperation is pure waste. Regardless of where she tries to imagine herself, her consciousness always flows back into the party beneath her feet and the source of these warm feelings.
The penthouse belongs to the incumbent Chief Prosecutor, who is hosting a fundraiser for his re-election campaign. Most of the partygoers are donors, though numerous high-profile and well-respected members of LA's legal community have been dragged out to make sure those donations flow.
The Chief of Police and her office are in attendance, as are most of the station captains and commanders, as well as this year's batch of distinguished servicemen and purple shields. Many representatives from the prosecutor’s office are also in attendance: all the High Prosecutors, veterans that have served the office for fifteen-plus years, a dozen or so rising stars, and even a few defence attorneys have been extended an olive branch for the night.
Of course, Ema is not any of those things. She's barely halfway through her first year as a detective, and her behavioural records suggest she'll have a dozen Razzies before her first nomination for an Order of Distinguished Service. Despite that, Ema has the necessary friends and allies to get into this kind of function—not that she'd be interested without them asking her to come.
The first of those is High Prosecutor Miles Edgeworth. He's LA's most successful and famous prosecutor and, as it happens, the incumbent Chief's opponent in the upcoming election. The second is Prosecutor Kay Faraday, a shooting star among those rising ones, Ema's best friend, and the woman responsible for the heat Ema's struggling with.
And if Ema had things her way, her next thought would be to explain why the three of them came to a political opponent's fundraiser. It's part of this fascinating, extremely complex, city-changing operation—and all Ema can think about is a girl. As soon as Kay returns to the forefront of Ema’s mind, her body turns red-hot and her mind becomes consumed by thoughts of her best friend.
For all intents and purposes, Kay and Ema were just on a date. Now, it wasn't an actual date. Part of the plan involved Kay sneaking away to handle Great Thief Yatagarasu business, and Ema was brought along as her date to help establish and maintain her alibi. And yet, from Ema's perspective, every last thing Kay did to pretend to be her girlfriend felt incredibly real and incredibly right.
They only walked the party floor for ten minutes, and Ema's pretty sure it only took one for her to fall for Kay. Ema spent the evening bound to Kay's hip as they talked to anyone who might remember and be able to testify to their presence. Over and over, Ema was introduced to people as Kay's girlfriend, with all the silky, loving tones that befit that word. The word 'love' flowed from Kay's mouth like water, accompanied by a dozen praises to Ema's name.
Kay's arms and hands took an equally intimate approach. One would be laid across Ema's shoulders, teasing at her neck, so Ema would turn her head towards Kay. Or it'd settle around her waist, grabbing at Ema's hips and pulling her closer until no space was between them. Or, she'd just hold Ema's hand in hers. That was the worst one for Ema's heart.
The effect of that intimacy on Ema was immediate, all-consuming, and, so far, permanent. Every word added more to the fire in Ema's stomach and the flutter in her heart. Every touch left a warm imprint on Ema's skin, as though her body refused to part with the feeling of Kay. Even with them having long separated for the mission, that warmth continues to sustain itself exclusively through Ema's blossoming feelings.
And Ema Skye is not a stupid woman. She understands, within a paradigm of science that she finds comforting, that Kay gave her signs of intimacy, and her body is reacting accordingly. Ema also understands that because her feelings continue to infect her without Kay's presence providing stimuli, she has had an internal shift to start thinking about Kay romantically instead of platonically.
Ema just doesn’t understand what she’s supposed to do with that information.
Her whole reason for wishing to get away from her body is because it's impossible to think in this condition. Any attempt to plan, reason out, or apply basic logic to her feelings is undermined by her body's need to be giddy and red as a match simply because Kay held her hand for one minute, half an hour ago. And, while she can temporarily get her mind off Kay, nothing gets resolved by her thinking about these spycraft shenanigans that just lead back-.
“Well now, what’s a woman like you doing up here all by her lonesome?”
Apparently, there is something that can fix Ema: an imminent fear of death. Gay imaginings of a future with Kay suddenly become unimportant when an unknown man is teasingly threatening her on the private roof of a twenty-story building.
Ema spins around, tucking her back against the glass as her hand goes to her bag. Her eyes flick across the darkened roof as she searches for the voice, seeing nothing until a utility pole light blinks. Suddenly, the rooftop is flooded by a red light that clings to the dark shadows, and a figure outlines itself in bloody red.
The large form lumbers towards the trapped detective as she struggles to find anything that might save her from a deadlier version of that same outline, and desperation reaches its pinnacle. Knowing that waiting any longer will just corner and condemn her, Ema grabs the largest thing in her bag and tosses it at the shadow.
Unfortunately, Ema didn't bring any lab equipment to the fundraiser, so the biggest thing she has is a family-sized Snackoos bag. Even with the weak distraction, Ema still attempts to run.
Tragically, it's not just pointless but actively detrimental. Her sprint out is timed too close to the red light dying, and blind without it, Ema runs right into the shadowy figure. Feeling arms wrap around her, Ema begins to thrash and yell in a last-ditch moment of desperation. “Ahh! Get off me! Get off!”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa. Ema, please don’t yell. The first part to being a Great Thief is not getting caught, remember?”
Ema stops dead. She still doesn’t know that voice, but the cadence and word choice are deeply familiar. In fact, she's spent the last half hour obsessively running words in that cadence through her love-stuck head. Ema pulls her head back just enough to perceive a bird mask rimmed by moonlight, and her voice spills from her mouth in an off-colour tone. “Kay?”
The mask only covers the top half of her face and makes that all-too-familiar smile painfully visible. “Yeah, dummy. Were you expecting someone else up here tonight?”
“Motherfucker!” Ema returns to failing against Kay, slamming a hand into her shoulder as she loops expletive after expletive at her until she tires herself out and decides to turn Kay’s hold into a hug. “You can’t fucking scare me like that. And where the fuck is your voice training?”
“Oh, I-. Hang on.” Kay clears her throat before quickly singing up through her range until her larynx remembers she’s a girl, and a beautifully sweet voice leaves her mouth. “That's just an OPSEC thing. During a few break-ins, I've had to talk to on-sign personnel, and given that I'd rather the police think the Yatagarasu is a man, keeping my voice down there the whole time I’m in costume just makes sense.”
“Well, don’t do it around me ever again. And stop hugging me. I’m mad at you.”
There’s a small chuckle from Kay. “You’re the one hugging me.”
That's not wrong, unfortunately. Kay certainly has her arms around Ema's waist, but it's nothing compared to the death grip Ema has on her torso. More unfortunately, given Ema raised the complaint, staying in Kay's arms like she wants to would just raise questions she can't answer in this condition. At least, Ema’s skin’s insistence on taking warm imprints of Kay’s touch makes the separation barely register.
Ema's also willing to admit that space might be helpful for her, enough so that she actively chooses to walk back to the glass railing and sit down. While her brain is now drowning in a mix of oxytocin and adrenaline, rather than just the love hormone she’d been struggling with, her ability to consider things has barely improved. If anything, Kay's being here simply makes things worse.
Scratch that; Kay's presence definitely makes things worse. After a paltry five seconds spent staring at the city skyline and only being able to imagine what the girl behind her is doing, Ema gives up thinking and turns around to actually see what Kay is doing. With a little more moonlight and a lot less blinding fear, Ema watches as Kay retires the Yatagarasu for tonight.
The first step is apparently throwing down a large bag tucked under her cloak, which hits the ground with an impressive thud. If Ema had to guess—and guessing is far preferable to staring at Kay's pretty, half-covered face—she'd bet that's the sound of a forty-year corruption sentencing for the incumbent Chief Prosecutor hitting the ground.
With the evidence bag out of the way, Kay walks to an apparently false AC unit, removes the grate, and pulls out another carryall. Kay's billowing, feather-lined coat is then removed, set in the bag, and tucked in until it becomes a second layer of internal lining.
Her bird mask is removed and tossed in, followed in well-practice efficacy by her ballistic vest, utility belt, wig, boots, and everything else she didn't arrive at the party wearing. Finally, Kay removes the Yatagarasu pin from her scarf, giving it a longing look before tossing it into the bag and sealing it.
Pulling a pair of flats from one of the bag's side pockets, Kay sits on the slightly raised AC platform to put on the shoes, eyes turning towards Ema. “Y’know, it’s rude to peep Ema. For all you know, the costume went down to my skivvies tonight.”
Ema takes one beat to remember what that word means and another half-dozen to blush up a storm as her mind's eye starts to picture things. “S-sorry.”
“Don’t be. I’m only kidding.” Kay quietly laughs to herself, and Ema enjoys that sound enough to let her embarrassed guilt slip away. “Also, with how spooked you look, I figure it’d be best to let you be freely mad at me for a couple more minutes.”
“Mm-hmm.” Ema is too busy feeling things to think of a more appropriate response. Attempting to formulate something—to just be normal around her best friend—doesn't start much better. “How did, um-. So, how did the heist go? Any issues getting into his private study?”
“Study was a breeze. Now, the panic room in his study and the private vault in his panic room? Well… Nah, I’m kidding. There's nothing the Great Thief Yatagarasu can't steal.” Kay smirks and kicks at the heavy bag, moving it at most an inch. “Look inside.”
Ema carefully approaches the bag while pulling gloves from her own, her eyes on Kay the entire time. She's done with her shoes, now simply sitting and looking at the bag with excitement, which, in a small way, makes Ema want to open it more. Making one attempt to lift it, Ema finds the weight unreasonable, even in comparison to her everyday forensic carry, and drops it and her knees to look inside.
Ema has never seen so much money. A mixed assortment of banknotes, primarily hundreds and fifties, line every inch and fill every nook and cranny of the bag. And that isn't 'Ema has never seen so much money at once,' it's period. Across her entire life, Ema has never seen as much money as she's looking at right now. She’s sure, if she excludes tonight, that she will die without ever collectively seeing this much money.
With a newfound concern for what Edgeworth and Kay have gotten her involved in, Ema flings her eyes up toward her crush. “What the fuck?”
“Oh, that’s not even the fun part.” Kay pulls a UV light pen from the inside pocket of her vest and tosses it to Ema. Instinctively, Ema turns it on and flashes it across the bills, a galaxy's worth of invisible dots flaring to life to reveal the marked money.
“Lang owed Mr. Edgeworth a few debts, and as repayment, he gave us some bills marked with Interpol's in-house formula to introduce into the forged evidence market. I thought I'd just be stealing hard drives tonight, but it seems our beloved Chief Prosecutor isn't just abiding by the dark age; he's actively profiting off it.”
“Oh, wow.” Ema's reaction comes out in a dull voice that is as odd to Kay as it is to herself.
Logic dictates she should be ecstatic. If this money and those hard drives can be tied to the Chief, and Ema knows Kay and Edgeworth have already ensured they will be, his career is over. Edgeworth will win the Chief Prosecutor election by default, and the war against the Dark Age of the Law will begin in earnest. She is quite literally staring at the beginning of the end of all that's broken in the legal system.
Ema doesn't care, though. Or, more accurately, she can't get physically excited. The adrenaline from earlier has finally faded from her system, and with that being the only thing stopping her from obsessing over Kay, her mind returns to its Sisyphean worship of Kay's beauty. “Goddammit.”
“Huh?” Kay watches Ema for a second, but waiting for things to happen has never suited her. She stands up and walks to Ema's side, crouching down while, likely unintentionally, still giving Ema a few inches of needed space. “Is something wrong? Someone at the fundraiser noticed I slipped away, or…?”
“No. No. I’m sorry.” Ema sighs, drawing her knees against her chest. “I know this mission is important; I just-. Something else happened, and I can't focus on anything else right now. I'm sorry. Don't, uh, don't worry about it.”
“Y’know, I can’t really do that. I care a lot about you, and if something’s wrong, I want to help.” Kay sits down with her legs crossed, taking one of Ema’s hands between hers. “I mean, unless you’d really, really, really, really prefer I leave it alone right now?”
“Yeah.” Ema looks at Kay, sees a bit of a frown on her lips, and feels sad and guilty. “Or, no? I don’t-. I don’t know. I want to talk to you about it, and I don’t, and I just-. These feelings are so new that I have no idea how I'm supposed to say the things I want to.”
Kay runs her teeth across her bottom lip, trying to tame any outward emotion. “I get that. I blindly run my mouth so much that you probably don't believe me, but it's true. It’s hard talking to people, especially about serious stuff.”
Ema doesn't immediately respond, and Kay allows the silence to linger. She's nervous and uncomfortable in it, but it seems that as long as silence is what Ema wants, Kay is ready to give it to her. And, looking as intensely at the pretty girl as she does, Ema sees Kay's raw caring and desire to help slip through her surface emotions.
“Could I ask you a question?”
“Of course.”
“Um.” Ema blows air through her lips as she tries to figure out what question she wants to ask. “What was going on when you were introducing me to everyone as your girlfriend?”
“Creating alibi?” Kay bites at the inside of her lip, and Ema doesn’t catch her before she continues with that train of thought. “I gained access to this penthouse as Prosecutor Faraday, which means there’s a record of me being here that could be used to connect me to the Yatagarasu without physical evidence. If that happens, you can testify that you were with me all night and I did nothing illegal, and enough people can testify to seeing us together to give you credibility.”
“No. I get that. I get the mission. I know how tonight was supposed to work.” Ema grabs Kay's lapels, forcing her to look directly into her madly dancing irises. ”What I need to know is why, every single time you told someone about this pretend relationship and how you loved me, you were looking at me like it was all real.”
“Oh…” Kay turns her eyes down. Ema is left watching as Kay thinks to herself, whatever messy thoughts she has running through her head playing out in agonizing display on her face. After a moment, she sighs and looks back at Ema, more nervous than she’s ever seen Kay. “Ema, I won’t lie when I tell you, but do you really want to know the answers? Because if I tell you, our relationship will permanently change in one way or another.”
“My opinion of our relationship has already shifted once tonight, Kay. What's one more thing?” Ema speaks in a low groan.
“It has?” Kay seems excited by that. A tad nervous, but excited. “Good. Because, um. Well, down there? That was all me. The real, genuine, Kay Faraday. I was just treating you how I wish I could treat you every day of our lives. Saying the things to you that I have always wanted to say. Because I do. I really do, um… oh, wow, it’s so much harder to say now.”
Ema stares at Kay with starry eyes. “Wait, you love me?”
“Yeah, I always have. Ever since Gatewater Land.” Kay is nodding, laughing, and smiling so much that she doesn’t seem to take note of Ema.
“I mean, I guess love isn't the right word for all seven years, but it's the one I want to use. I've liked you ever since that day, and time and time again, you have been able to make my feelings for you stronger than I thought possible. I'm sure in your mind the things I care about most are being the Great Thief Yatagarasu, or maybe legal ethics, but no. My primary thought all these years has been what to do about me being in love with you.”
“Can you imagine how hard that is to navigate? Having this person in your life that you want to be your life and having to continue to function without making that a reality? Thinking about her and loving her every moment of every day? Devising an endless series of ways to prove your feelings to her in the hopes that it might make her love you back? It's as amazing a feeling as it is terrifying, and…”
Kay's excitement falls away. “And when you said our relationship had changed for you, I figured you meant you had realized you were in love with me. I've been sitting here spilling my heart under the assumption that so long as I kept talking, you'd eventually hit me with that romantic trope where you shut someone up with a kiss. Seems like I’ve misread things and need to shut myself up, though.”
“I…” Ema sighs, lowering her hands from Kay's collar and placing them in Kay's. She lowers her head as well, and Kay presses their foreheads together.
“How bad did I just mess us up?”
“You haven't messed anything up.” Ema finds unwavering ease in saying those words, a feeling that she continues to ride out of fear that stopping to think will shut her down entirely. “I know what it feels like to be so consumed by thoughts of a girl you like. And, yes, that girl is you, Kay. I know how you feel, and by that logic, I suppose that means I’m in love with you. I’d definitely like to be in love with you.”
Ema puts a finger under Kay’s chin and tilts it up, so she can look into her eyes. “I can’t kiss you, though. Not right now. I have only been in love with you for the last hour. Or, at least, I only realized I have had feelings for you tonight. And I know it might be hard for you after being into me for so long, but if something is going to happen between us, I need to take it slowly.”
Kay smiles as she emphatically shakes her head. “Ema, I have waited seven and a half years to tell you I like you. No pace you could set will ever be slower than that.”
“You need to be more careful with things that sound like challenges.” Ema lifts a finger to teasingly bop Kay on the nose, and both of them smile. “So, what do we do now?”
“Call the police and run.”
“What?”
“The next step is reporting a Great Thief Yatagarasu sighting.” When Ema looks at her blankly, Kay points at the bag full of illegally gotten gains. “Cops need to find this here and connect it to the calling card down in the Chief's study. ...we're in the middle of a criminal conspiracy, remember?”
“Oh! Right, yeah. Sorry, I forgot about that because of how fucking gorgeous you are.”
“I, um-.” Kay blushes, a giddy laugh escaping from her lips that she tries to hide by turning around and grabbing the bag with her costume in it. “Oh god, you flirting with me is going to do things to me that I didn’t think possible.”
Ema feels all the warmth in her body consolidate in the centre of her chest and begin to flow from her mouth in a matching, happy laugh. “Just don't forget to return the favour.”