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“Nick, I know you said you had a surprise for me, but was me coming all the way from Kurain really necessary?” Maya asked as she walked past her old friend. She’d heard the news about his disbarment via the phone, but before Phoenix had gone into detail, he had insisted on her coming back down to the area. She was in the middle of shedding her coat outside his door when she finally turned to look him in the eye. “Is everything okay? Is the mob after you?” She bit down on her lip to stop from saying ‘again’, like she so wanted to. When she looked into the blue eyes again, she felt a pit growing in her stomach. She hadn’t seen Phoenix Wright look so conflicted since their last court case together, and that was one she’d rather forget. “Nick?”
“Just…promise you won’t freak out, okay?” He asked, his hand hovering over the doorknob. She softened, folding her coat over her arm.
Her voice was quieter when she spoke again. “You’re scaring me,” she murmured. Her robes were a bit longer than they had been, the short dress replaced with one that fell almost all the way to the floor, but she still felt like she was a child compared to Phoenix. “What’s going on?” He turned to her as if to answer her, but before he could, there was the sound of feet inside and the knob was turning under his hand.
“Daddy!” A small voice cried out when the door was finally moved, and Maya was staring down at a hip-high girl clad in a pink cape and top hat. In a flash of silk and pink, the girl rushed forward and engulfed the man next to Maya in a tight hug. Surprised, Maya jumped back, watching as Phoenix’s face turned up in a smile at the creature entangled around his middle. Maya was about to open her mouth to let out some snide remark when it hit her.
Daddy?
“Hey, Trucy,” Nick laughed. In her mind, Maya knew that Phoenix was still talking to the girl, asking her about her day and things like that, but the sound refused to register.
“Daddy?” She breathed, breaking the two out of their happy reunion—or whatever this was, as far as she knew he had only left to pick her up from the train station. Whatever it was, it ended, and the two looked up to see her stunned, staring at them like she’d seen a ghost. “What is this, Nick?”
“Yeah, Daddy, who’s she?” The girl asked, and Maya felt the knot in her stomach tighten, especially when the girls’ eyes lit up further. “Is she my new mommy?”
“Wh-whoa, Trucy,” Phoenix was scratching the back of his neck again, looking up to Maya again.
There, she thought, and in that moment, for Maya Fey, everything stopped.
Ever since Phoenix had picked her up from the train station, she had been getting a different vibe from him. Sure, she had chalked it up to the fact that his badge had just been stripped away from him (quite possibly the only thing she remembered him ever being capable at), but she had never guess—or even started to believe—that it could have been because he was caring for a little girl. A lump formed in the forefront of her throat, and for a moment she thought she was going to start tearing up. Now that she was looking, she noticed what else had been putting her off. He looked a lot thinner than she had ever seen him (and that was including right after Mr. Edgeworth’s ‘death’), like he hadn’t eaten in a few weeks. She opened her mouth as if to say something when he knelt to look her in the eyes.
“Trucy, this is my best friend, Maya,” he waited until she nodded before he stood again and turned to Maya, his face a lot sterner than she would have liked to see him. “Maya, this is my daughter, Trucy.”
Luckily, Maya was well-versed in putting her reactions on hold in order to keep the peace. Apparently, her bringing a few boxes of instant pasta was a treat, and their dinner had been one of her explaining to the nine year old what Kurain was and how spirit channeling worked. Not three minutes after Phoenix returned from tucking his daughter—daughter, she was still reeling form that—in, and she was turning on her heel, her voice a hushed whisper.
“Daughter?” She hissed, her arms crossed tightly over her chest. “Phoenix Wright has a daughter? How long have you known about her? Were you a teen father?” She had gotten along very well with the girl—she had reminded her of Pearly, to be completely honest—while she was awake, but now that she just had her idiot father to talk to, she allowed herself to finally react. “And lastly, Nick, why wasn’t I informed of her existence?”
Phoenix regarded her for a moment, holding onto his breath with a hint of exasperation. When he opened his eyes, he looked less like Phoenix the father, and more like Nick the twenty-five year old man she had been expecting to see. “Yes, since May, and no, I adopted her,” he answered all of her questions sequentially.
“Are you aware that you just lost your only outlet of income? How are you expecting to feed yourself, much less a nine-year-old magician?” She had told herself over and over during their meal that she wouldn’t freak out at him, but now that the moment finally came for her to react, it was out of her hands.
“I know, I know,” Phoenix rubbed his eyes and waved his hand in front of his face. “Trust me, you and Edgeworth have the same trains of thought.”
“Probably because we agree that you didn’t think this through very well,” she took a deep breath in through her nose and pressed her palms together. At least all the training she was undergoing to become Master was teaching her how to be patient. When her head had stopped spinning, she opened her eyes again to see the man watching her, his shoulders still square (probably through more sheer effort than anything else). “Why don’t you start at the beginning,” she took a seat on the couch a few feet away from her, her hands on her knees. “Maybe it’ll sound a little less ridiculous when I hear the whole story.”
So, Phoenix did as she asked, though, even when he started from the beginning, it still didn’t feel real. The whole part about Zak Enigmar, or Gramarye, or whatever, magicians, murder, and foul play made her heart start thumping in a way that she hadn’t felt since Hazakura.
“So, let me get this straight,” she placed her hands on either side of her head and closed her eyes. “Her father was accused of murder, and so for a failsafe when everything went wrong, he used his own daughter to help him escape from the police and now, until he comes back, you are her legal guardian?”
“The paperwork is almost done,” Phoenix agreed and she collapsed against the back of the couch. “She had nowhere else to go, Maya, and technically everything that happened was connected to me, so…I felt responsible.”
“Can I ask you a question?” She watched as he motioned for her to go on. “Did you…did you do it?”
“No,” Phoenix almost cut her off. “I most certainly did not. But I think I know who did.”
“Then why aren’t we going after them!?” She sat forward again. “You know, guns blazing, justice serving style?”
“Because I have a daughter to think about now,” he answered sternly. “I need to be careful, now, and I need to bide my time.”
“Okay,” she nodded, and took a deep breath. “What can I do about it?”
“You can help me with Trucy,” he supplied, a bit faster than she was expecting. “I…I need outside help, and there’s one man that I can trust in the legal world with my life. He wants me to go to Germany for a week, and—I can’t leave Trucy on her own. I think she’ll get along with Pearls, but if it’s putting you out too much, I understand, I just—you’re the first person that came to mind that I can trust her with—“
“Nick,” Maya reached forward and placed a comforting hand on his knee. When he looked back up, she was smiling one of the reassuring smiles that he was used to seeing from Mia. “Pearly is going to love her.”
After a few years, Maya had foolishly let herself believe that Nick was done taking in strays. For seven years, Trucy had been a regular guest at Kurain, making it up for weekends when Maya couldn’t make it down for weekdays, and she had all but been named Pearly’s sister among the other acolytes. Phoenix, from Maya’s standpoint, had been growing more and more restless as the years went on, and though his trips to go see Miles Edgeworth had grown less and less frequent, he had grown more reliant on his ‘new kid’ to watch over Trucy when he was working on clearing his name.
It wasn’t until she got the ‘all clear’ from Phoenix that she made her way back to Los Angeles for celebratory cheeseburgers. She found her way to the Wright Anything Agency with Pearly’s help, and when she walked through the door, she was greeted by a man only a few inches taller than herself walking by with a case file in his arms. He was clad in a red vest and red pants, and his hair was styled almost as ridiculously as Phoenix’s, but when he looked up at her, he had the same chocolate brown eyes that had been greeting her intermittently for the past seven years. She had to do a double-time when Trucy popped up next to the man with a grin.
“Aunt Maya!” She squealed, propelling forward and throwing her arms around her neck. With a grin, Maya hugged the girl back, lifting her off of her feet and leaning back to
“Trucy, my main girl, my daughter from another otter, how are you?” She leaned back to to set the girl on the ground and put her hands on her hips, looking around the office. It was a bit messier than she remembered, but when she remembered that there was another man standing in front of her with case files in his arms, she figured that there was actual law being practiced again.
“Can I help you?” The man asked, and Maya looked up to see one of his eyebrows raised. He had a high forehead, but it only stretched to midway up the exposed area. “Do you need a defense attorney?”
“Polly!” Trucy hissed, turning on her heel and putting her hands on her hips. “Don’t you know who this is?”
“No?” He turned to her, still looking puzzled.
“Does she look like someone who is in need of a defense attorney?” The man stopped for a moment. He looked back at Maya, taking in her Master’s cloak and robes, and pursed his lips together before turning back to Trucy.
“Do I have to answer that?” He replied.
“No, no you don’t,” Maya laughed, holding her hand out. She watched him fumble with the case files for a moment before he could mimic the motion. “Maya Fey. You must be Apollo?”
“Wait, you’re Maya Fey?” His eyes bugged out and he almost dropped the papers he was holding as he tried to straighten up.
“I thought the robes gave it away,” she laughed as he went to finally go set down his armful. He began to sputter out his reply, but Trucy, being much closer to the other woman, beat him to it.
“He’s slow on the uptake,” she grinned, and Maya swore that she watched the man visibly deflate. “What’s the occasion, though, Maya? Is everything okay in Kurain?”
“Yeah, everything’s fine,” she waved it off and leaned forward, trying to look past the entryway and farther into where Phoenix might be hiding. “I just came down to have a celebratory burger with Nick, you know, to celebrate getting his name cleared and all that.”
“He’s out at the moment,” Apollo piped up from his desk, where he was still looking over a few pieces of paper. “Something about meeting Mr. Edgeworth at the airport?”
“Oh good, Mr. Edgeworth is going to be here, too!” She smiled. “Apollo, text Nick that we’re meeting him at the usual joint, no questions asked.”
“Uh-are you sure—“
“Positive. This is a momentous occasion, Apollo, the best way to celebrate is with burgers. Are you texting him yet?”
It was only a year and a half before Maya was asked to come back down to Los Angeles again. She was almost to the point of becoming Master of Kurain publicly, so her visits had been few and far between lately, but she made sure to check in on Nick every few weeks or so. As happy as she was to finally be the Master, she did miss how easy it had been to go down to LA when she had just been a regular medium. The only thing that was easier now than it had been was taking Pearly with her. After Nick and Mr. Edgeworth had finally—finally told each other how they felt, it was as if some sort of light bulb had gone off in Pearly’s head that her and Nick would never be a romantic couple.
It was that reason, actually, that had her and Pearly were climbing out of the train with two weekend bags and looking for a garish blue suit in a sea of brown and black. Before they had time to find the blue, she caught sight of a familiar red vest and blue tie, and looked over to see Apollo Justice holding a sign that read ‘MAYA FEY’. He looked almost peeved to be there, as if there were some important paperwork he was missing out on filing.
“Apollo!” She raised her hand in greeting, catching his and the fifty people in her proximity at her exclamation. He stuffed the sign under his arm and moved forward in the crowd to take the backpack she had draped on her forearm. “How is the tiny Cricket of Justice?” The man deflated at that, and Maya swore she could see the two points in his hair droop. She heard Pearly mutter out a ‘Hello, Mr. Justice’ behind her.
“Do you have to call me that every time you see me?” He asked, probably wishing that Maya had done away with the cruel nickname the first time he’d asked her to not use it.
“Did you have to offer to defend me the first time I met you?” She retorted. Before he could respond, she was already moving forward, looking for a way through the crowd to an exit. “What sort of tomfoolery got you the privilege of picking us up?”
“My car,” he answered, jerking his head to the right and leading them out of the crowd. It was warm, about the usual for a mid-August day, and the sun felt good on Maya’s skin.
What did not feel good, however, was Apollo’s seeming fascination with air conditioning.
“I swear, you city folk have no sense of moderation,” Maya was complaining as they ascended the stairs to the Wright Anything Agency.
“It’s ninety degrees! How are you not sweating in all of those robes!?” Apollo shot back. It seemed as though he had relaxed enough to treat her as a human being again, something for which Maya was eternally grateful. “You’d think that they grew you in the sticks to be grateful for technology.”
“What you call technology I call witchcraft,” Maya heard Pearl giggle as Apollo turned back to her, his face the pure picture of ‘done’.
“Big talk for the Master of Witchcraft,” he muttered as he pushed the door open. “I come bearing freaks,” he announced to the inside of the office as they entered.
“That’s Master Freak to you,” Pearl corrected him before she realized what was going on, leaving Maya to laugh in the doorway. She stopped to take a look around the office. it looked a lot different than the last time she had been there, and even more than when her sister had owned the place. It looked less like an office and more like a home, she realized, That wasn’t helped by the fact that Nick was most likely sleeping in his office, but she figured some concessions had to be made. He was only a few months new after getting his badge back, after all. As she looked around the office, her eyes landed on a a familiar suit coat folded over what she assumed as Nick’s desk chair. She hadn’t seen the magenta coat in years, and when she heard the smooth baritone voice coming up the stairs behind her, she turned and placed her hands on her hips. Nick was a few stairs in front of him, but nonetheless, Miles Edgeworth was ascending the stairs with the same air he’d carried the last time she’d seen him.
“Edgeworth!?” She called out, and the gray-haired man almost jumped out of his skin. When he looked up, his eyes widened behind a pair of glasses that made him look all too much like his father. She grinned as he broke out into a smile of his own.
“Ms. Fey,” he nodded as Phoenix’s eyes finally met hers.
“Maya!” He grinned, bounding up the last few stairs and engulfing his friend in a bear hug. She laughed and returned the hug, pulling back far enough to look at the two.
“It has been way too long, she told Nick before turning back to Edgeworth, “and you, the last time I saw you, I was just starting my Master training. What’s with that?”
“W-well,” he looked all too uncomfortable at the accusation, moving to push the glasses farther up his nose. As he made the move, Maya noticed a sleek tungsten ring with a red stripe cutting its way through the material on his left ring finger.
“Wait,” she cut off whatever excuse he was bringing up and reached forward, grabbing his hand and holding it up to her face. He protested a little bit, sputtering a little was she examined his hand. Barely looking up, she found Nick’s hand and turned to see a matching one placed on his ring finger. Looking between the two, her mouth fell open in a silent ‘o’. “You did not,” she breathed, and when both of them turned red in unison, she let their hands drop. “You did not,” she repeated, this time louder. When Phoenix sheepishly raised his hands in surrender, she turned to see Miles hiding his hands behind his back. “You did not!” She repeated herself again, as if anything logical she had to say was forgotten.
“We did,” Phoenix finally smiled and she leveled her pointer finger at him.
“Phoenix Wright, if you are shitting me right now—,”
“We’re getting married,” Phoenix smiled, and Maya let out a high pitched squeal that effectively cut him off.
“Get out!” She yelled, placing both hands on his chest and pushing. She must have underestimated the strength of her push, or Phoenix must not have been expecting it, because he stumbled back a few feet, trying to gain his balance—
Only to lose it and topple down the stairs.
“Wright!” Miles choked out, reaching out to try and save his partner at the same time as Maya, but the two were destined only to watch as the blue-clad man gracelessly bounced down the flight of stairs.
After the commotion had subsided, Miles, Maya, Apollo, and Pearl were all crowded around the doorway, looking down the hallway in shock as Phoenix groaned in a heap on the floor. Miles had already started his descent down the stairwell, despite Phoenix’s assurances that he was fine. When he was halfway down the stairs, a figure in a yellow miniskirt and blue tie rounded the corner, almost stepping on the man’s abdomen. She squealed as she realized what was going on, and when she jumped back, her long red hair took a moment to catch up with her.
“Boss!” She looked up the stairs and back down at the man, and then repeated the action. “What happened?”
“Athena, meet Maya Fey,” Phoenix groaned as he sat up, gratefully taking Miles’ hand. He turned back to the stairwell and gestured to Maya. “Maya, this is my new intern, Athena,” he explained, and the Master of Kurain sheepishly held up her hand in greeting.
“Hi,” she muttered. Maybe one day she’d meet one of Phoenix’s coworkers without embarrassing them or herself.