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Miles’ hands are shaking as he signs the final document, a second wind of some sort of juvenile nervousness taking him over. Why now, he hadn’t the mind to say—but his signature at the bottom is imperfect and jittery, its sweeping loops oblong and off-center. Perfection stopped mattering long ago, of course—especially in matters as trivial as this one—but still, its shape unsettles him a little, the anxiety of the last two weeks crawling somewhere deeper than where his logical mind lives.
It makes sense that he’d be feeling this peace is too good to be true after everything. Perhaps it’s the room itself that’s getting to him—the absent silhouette of the corpse that once bled upon the curving table, the towering shadow of Themis and her sword looming over all of it. Though he knows he has nothing to fear any longer, Miles can’t help but feel like an ant poised beneath her, envision the weight of that sacred blade pointed directly at his throat. A sharp chill runs down his spine, gooseflesh prickling itself beneath his sleeves.
When he finishes scratching out the last wobbling digit—2-0-1-9—even the minute action of pulling pen from paper makes him dizzy. The force of it leaving parchment feels like a hard blow at his chest, one that threatens to send him toppling backward. Miles remains steady, and raises his head to meet Verity’s eyes once more. Her smile is the same sunlit shade as ever, features impossibly soft in the dim lighting of the room. She takes the final piece of paperwork from his hands, regal in her every movement, practiced and poised with the Goddess there behind her. With angelic grace, then, Verity brings her stamp down hard on the mountain of papers, grinning all the way.
“Welcome back,” she whispers, in that airy, commanding voice—
“Prosecutor Miles Edgeworth.”
The title falls over him like sunlight after rain, balm after the wound, sleep after a long, tired night. If ever there was any doubt that this is what he was meant to be, the relief that brings him into its heady embrace would snuff it out entirely. Miles cannot say why—no logic to the feeling, nothing but childish hope—but for some reason, inexplicably, he feels home free. Like the chaos of these last few weeks will finally end here and now. Solely because—on some inconsequential, cosmic scale—balance seems to have been restored.
On cue, a cloud seems to shift outside the far window, falling like embers on Themis’ hanging scales, casting them in proper gold.
When Miles lets the sigh fall from his lips, he tries—despite everything—to have it sound dignified, still. A noble, near-martyred thing—not the pathetic noise of relief it truly is. There is no hope of hiding how the storms inside his heart begin to settle, though, when he bows graciously and feels the weight of that badge tip and tumble in his breast pocket. Finally, that weight has meaning, once more.
With the safety, the adrenaline leaves. Every step down the long hallway leaches more of it from his body. What takes its place is far less pleasant—the dull headache he’d been ignoring for days, now, the sore throbbing below his eyes. That creaky feeling, all the way down to his fingertips, prickling and prodding as he clenches and unclenches his fists. Breathing slow and deep, Miles presses a tented palm to his temple, making his best attempt to assuage the pain. Walking down the flat, unremarkable hallway feels like wading through wet cement, though—fluorescent light hum-buzzing all around him, the everlasting offwhite of the offices tilting on its axis, and…
Tremors. Beneath his feet, the ground is unsteady.
As they said they’d be, they’re waiting by the stairwell—Kay, Gumshoe, and the ever-moving Franziska. It must be visible, because the latter of the three shifts feet immediately, her heels click-clacking urgently against the tile floors to meet Miles. Kay and Gumshoe are a mite slower on the uptake, but they follow regardless, holding steady despite the way the world seems to spin and shake and—he feels bile rising in his throat. A dry, compulsive swallow. When did he start sweating? The air conditioning is roaring in his ears, it’s so cold in here, but he can feel its damp, frigid creep down his back, and then Franziska’s got both hands on his shoulders.
“What happened?” she commands his attention, snapping her fingers erratically when Miles struggles to look at her. “Miles, you’re pale as a phantom, what’s—?”
The room swirls around the lot of them. His feet struggle for purchase, his breathing goes unsteady. What kind of question is that? How long has she known him? Is she truly going to make him say it aloud?
“I—” He tries, but the words don’t manifest. “Need to—cover—”
There’s nothing of the sort here. The doorframe is his best bet, but here on the 50th floor, if the building collapses—
With every ounce of strength he can pull from his screaming muscles, Miles manages to pull himself from Franziska’s grip, stumble backward a few feet, throw his arms protectively across his head. In the back of his hallowed mind he can hear light fixtures swinging, heavy books toppling from shelves, the horrible creaking of metal breaking apart and grinding against itself as the building gives way, as the power flickers to inky black—
Gumshoe, ever the protective powerhouse, is the last thing Miles sees before the elevator lights go dark.
“—give him an injection, I’m sure he’d be in tip-top shape then!”
“—no such thing, not without an itemized list of every chemical swirling around in that foolishly oversized syringe—”
“—keep it down, pal? Poor guy needs his rest, ya know—”
CRACK.
“—think I don’t know that! Forgive me for attempting to—”
“—pause your weird domestic! I think he’s waking up!”
Indeed he is. The splitting pain in Miles’ head is the first thing he registers—the background buzz of before now a clamoring of fallen pots and pans that rattle around the inside of his brain. Opening his eyes is its own ordeal, nevermind the way the perfect blue of the California skies only intensifies the headache. For a moment, he just stares at the far-off airplane that’s crossing his vision—its long, white tail jetting out behind it in a perfect line.
Like a proper kaiju, then, Kay’s big, toothy grin envelops the picturesque view.
“Mr. Edgeworth!”
It’d be impolite and wholly inaccurate to say that Miles does not enjoy her company. But the shrill tone of her voice at present is more than a little grating, given his current state, and so he cannot help to wince and roll over into whatever soft thing is supporting his head right now. It smells… sugary? And when he opens his eyes again, Miles notices it’s a dark, navy blue. Back to Kay, then, and everything clicks when he realizes how different she looks without her long, billowy scarf.
Something rather heavy is lying atop him, too. Blearily, Miles eyes it over the cut of his nose—the detective’s long, nigh threadbare trench coat. Of course. Dreadful as it looks when he’s wearing it, the soft underside is actually quite comfortable.
Finally, he’s able to take in his surroundings, albeit from an odd angle. The wealth of colour blurs in first, the uncomfortable itch buzzing in his sinuses second. Grasping at the ground beneath one hand offers the source—cherry blossoms everywhere, and his antihistamines are probably wearing off.
(Come to think of it, they weren’t working particularly well this morning, either…)
The observation deck, then. He’d made it after all, despite… whatever it was that had happened. Kay is here, obviously—as are Gumshoe, Franziska… Florence, as well, brandishing a needle in that delightfully unsettling way she always did. Off in the background, Miles thinks he can hear the voices of Mr. Fender and little Eustace, faintly murmuring something to the tune of his name.
Trying with all he is not to die of embarrassment, Miles presses up off the grass, recoiling near immediately at the horrible knots screaming in his neck and shoulders. Valiantly fighting, he struggles against the feeling of all his muscles warring against him to vaguely sit up, in the thinnest sense of the phrase.
“Woah, take it easy there, bestie,” Kay says through a nervous grin, and then presses her foot firmly against his chest. “You’re in no condition to be skulking around like usual.”
“I do not—” Miles says, his mouth feeling horribly dry, “—skulk.”
“Oh, you be skulkin’,” Kay leans back, grinning. “Not right now, though. You took a pretty nasty spill. Lucky Gummy was there to catch you!”
Miles’ face burns red-hot. He wants to crawl beneath the coat of the man in question and make it his coffin. How dreadful, how pathetic, how embarrassing.
Kay, at least, has the audacity to make fun of him. It’s a strange way to be, but Miles vastly prefers it to the downcast pity that paints itself on Gumshoe and Franziska’s faces. Were they ever going to get used to this? Miles himself certainly had, and quite frankly he was mostly just sick of it.
“My apologies for my lapse in consciousness,” says Miles, still just laying there and feeling much too weak to fight Kay’s mighty foot. “I trust… you are all unharmed?”
Curiously, Kay tilts her head, crosses her arms. “Uh, yeah? What, did you think you had some sort of AOE when you conked out?”
I have no idea what that means, thinks Miles. “There was—”
Franziska throws her whip urgently, cutting him off. “There was not.”
Miles clears his throat roughly. “Pardon?”
“Oh, I get it now,” Gumshoe says, then screams when Franziska snaps the leather at his feet once more.
“You’re ill.” She turns back to Miles, saying it matter-of-factly. “Knowing you, you either felt the foolish need to push through it, or those same foolhardy proclivities lead you to not notice the ailment at all.”
“Nasty thing you went and caught, too!” Florence pipes up. “I gotcha with the temperature gun while you were out, you’re running pretty hot at the moment. I figured an injection might help, but…”
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.” Franziska eyes her, coiling her whip and gripping at her sleeve with the rest of her features knit a little tense. “In any case, you were shaking like a leaf, Miles. I surmise you must’ve thought the world was shaking around you, and…”
“...and?” Kay turns back to her, and Franziska bites her tongue harder. There’s a heart somewhere in that icy glacier Franziska calls a chest, beating loud as a drum in all she does not say. Just this once, Miles supposes, he can give her a bit of a break. He clears his throat again, making another attempt to sit up.
“I don’t fare well in the midst of earthquakes.”
Short. Brief. In that decisive voice of his that, after years as a prosecutor, leaves little room to argue.
Kay, as always, is his greatest ally.
“Why do you live in freakin’ Earthquake City, USA?” She snorts. “Exposure therapy?”
“That is the question, isn’t it?” says Miles, satisfied that she pries no further. Franziska and Gumshoe both seem to relax, just a smidge. “Regardless, I do believe we had plans, so if you’ll excuse me…”
This time it’s his own body that shoots him down, not Kay and her big blue boots. Somehow, the dizziness is so much worse outside—the sky turns into a vast blue chasm, jaws of a heavenly beast eager to swallow him whole. The high-rises that tower on every side of him blur into a wretched, nauseating grey, and Miles feels his limbs jelly against his will.
“Sir, I think Kay’s got the right idea here,” Gumshoe murmurs nervously. “We might wanna take a rain check on this whole, celebrating you getting your badge back thing.”
Considering he didn’t particularly care about that in the first place, that is more than fine, but… some stubborn part of him remains, still. Miles isn’t sure what, exactly, it is—layover from his time as The Demon Prosecutor? A hesitation to disappoint his peers, after they all took time out of their days to meet him here? The fact that after everything that’s happened, maybe he wanted to enjoy a pleasure as simple as cotton candy in good company?
Whatever it is, it spurs him on now, begging him to downplay, question, deny, persevere.
“It’s nothing so dramatic, detective.” Miles elects instead to awkwardly scoot himself back, using all the strength he has to hoist himself against the cherry tree. Fully enveloped by the shade, now, he has the inexplicable urge to shiver. Weather forecasts echo in the back of his feverish mind, boasting that today would be the hottest day of the month.
“I’m sure this is… some kind of fluke,” continues Miles. “It came on… far too suddenly to be a proper illness. Who on earth takes ill in the springtime?”
“Mmm, unfortunately for you, Prosecutor, it does check out,” says Florence. “Your friends here were telling me you’ve had quite the eventful month…”
“Two weeks, actually,” says Miles, balefully leaning his head against the bark. “Quite frankly, in that time I’ve catalogued enough wild stories to last me the rest of my life.”
Florence nods with an air of pleasant satisfaction. “The human immune system can be a bit fickle. Stress tanks it worse than just about anything else!”
Why does she look so delighted to say something so wholly unfortunate?
Miles tries not to glare—honestly, he does. “If that’s the case, would it have not made more sense for me to go down in the thick of it?”
“That’s the other thing…” says Florence, “some people have this thing where their body doesn’t actually let them get sick until it’s sure it’s safe to.”
Balefully, he and Franziska share a look across the small divide. Leisure sickness. Mr. von Karma had bemoaned it time and time again, told them it was a wicked thing and chief among the many reasons he didn’t find pleasure in vacationing. It didn’t require proper blood to run in the family, the good prosecutor’s proteges could certainly attest to that.
“Good grief,” Miles places his head weakly in one still-shaking hand. “Ms. Niedler, when did you arrive? I do hope you weren’t pulled from your work to come fuss over me.”
“Oh, no worries, Prosecutor!” She salutes. “I was wrapping up some things with regards to, um… well, my own hearing I suppose. I was stopping off for a snack up here when the detective climbed up with you on his back.”
Miles clears the shame from his throat once more. It catches, and he struggles to stifle a cough into his fist. There’s a cruel impulse to just bury his face in Detective Gumshoe’s jacket, but even he is not so uncouth—he supposes if it were someone he loved, Miles would do the same. He looks to those loved ones in question, who don’t at all seem perturbed, merely concerned. Something unidentifiable tugs at Miles’ heart, and he takes a deep, slow breath before speaking once more.
“Again, I’d like to offer my sincerest apologies for making a scene,” he says. “I’m hardly intent to waste everyone’s time further. Kay, my promise stands—I may have to enjoy it from my makeshift sickbed, but I will still treat you to lunch.”
“You don’t have to tell me twice, Mr. Edgeworth!” She pumps a fist in the air. “Psst, hey doc, can we prescribe sicko over there with a metric fuckton of cotton candy?”
Florence puts a finger to her lip. “Well, I suppose the sugar would be good for restoring energy, and it’s best to feed a fever anyways…”
“Score!” Kay beams. “I’ll grab some for you, Mr. Edgeworth! Don’t lift a single one of your dainty little fingers!”
“They’re not—” Miles sputters, “—Kay, you need my—”
“Snatched your wallet while you were passed out!” she calls back, and Miles feels his headache getting worse.
Franziska snickers devilishly before barking an order at Gumshoe, and pointedly hangs back with Miles beneath the tree. For all the comparing people to dogs she did, no one was quite as houndlike as Franziska herself—haunches raised, fangs bared, far softer on the inside than she’d ever admit. As always, her affection was delightfully silent.
He doesn’t know how it happens, exactly, but less than thirty minutes later Miles is surrounded on all sides by warm bodies. Gumshoe is propped up on his right side, eating his cotton candy slower than Miles knew a man could—desperate to savor every last drop of it. Kay is splayed out on her stomach—half on the detective, half on Miles—playing some sort of game on her phone. At his left, Franziska is engaged in what can only be described as a one-sided intellectual debate with Mr. Fender—the latter is absolutely just messing with her, but in all her social obliviousness she has not caught on yet, and Miles worries halfheartedly for the man’s wellbeing when and if she ever does. Eustace, a bit concernedly, is cloudgazing right beside the pair. Quiet as he is now, Miles finds he misses the misguided bravado of before. It all makes sense, though—whatever the young prosecutor sees in those clouds, Miles hopes it sets his heart at ease.
Sugar melting on Miles’ tongue, he can’t say how or when he starts drifting. Kay’s scarf makes it to his neck when he shivers a bit too aggressively, Gumshoe’s jacket stays loosely thrown across his legs. The shade and sunlight hit him in all the right ways, assuaging some of the agony of the morning as they do. Maybe it’s that he hasn’t slept proper since February, but Miles’ eyes feel leaded there in his head.
Giving in, he leans back against the tree and listens to the sound of car horns and citylife echoing down far below. Kay’s laughter is the final thing he registers before he lets the feeling carry him off.
He hadn’t realized it until just then, but he really could use a good nap.