Work Text:
Where the hell am I? The girl had called him Nick, and now he surveyed the hall outside what people had told him was the courtroom. The papers shifted under his arm, he’d barely had time to look at them before officers in uniform had called him and the woman Maggey Byrde to line up to begin proceedings.
“Wright.” A cool tone spoke from beside him, and Nick jumped, turning around.
“Hello there!” He managed, avoiding the gaze of the man standing before him in a red suit. A cravat protruded from beneath his chin, above which sat a stern scowl. “Do I know you?”
The man looked for a second like he had been struck in the stomach.
“You- this isn’t very funny, Wright.” The man’s voice was low and severe. Nick wondered what his deal was.
“I’m not making a joke,” Nick laughed nervously, an arm coming up to scratch his head sheepishly. He tried and failed to hold back a wince when his hand ran over a sore spot on his skull. “I’m really sorry if I’m offending in any way, I really don’t mean it!”
The other man was just staring at him, his hard gaze bouncing from Nick’s apologetic smile to the small gold badge pinned to his lapel. In the distance, Nick heard a booming voice call them to enter, forcing his attention away.
“Maybe I’ll see you later?” Nick tried to say to the man with the cravat, but he was already walking away, hands white knuckled at his side. Something adjacent to guilt flooded him, and he knew he was forgetting something important about that man. But that didn’t matter now, what mattered was the nervous woman waving at him from the bench, and the man across from him grinning evilly.
This isn’t very funny Wright. Edgeworth had told him, but the look on Phoenix’s face had belied that the man was serious. Had no one else noticed? Did not one else care that Phoenix Wright was walking into a courtroom with apparently no memory? Edgeworth couldn’t be sure how much he’d lost, it couldn’t have been total amnesia since Wright hadn’t immediately run from the building panicking.
Dammit. Wright’s girl, Maya Fey hadn’t been with him either. What was going on? Edgeworth stared at the legal pad in front of him on the desk. He had a client meeting in 15 minutes, there wasn’t anything he could do now about it. If Phoenix wasn’t going up against him, it had to be Payne, that loser.
Edgeworth picked up the phone. 15 minutes.
“Hello! You’ve reached Maya Fey, I’m not at the phone right now- Nick what do I say next? ….Oh...okay…leave a message at the beep!”
Dammit again. Edgeworth dropped the phone into his desk drawer and rearranged the papers for his own case. Something was gripping at his heart and throat, some panic that something was wrong but there was nothing he could do until the end of his meeting. He swallowed the feeling, willing his heart rate under control as best as he could.
He had heard the phone buzz in the desk drawer at the very end of the meeting, and had ushered the client out just in time to pick it up, the heavy oak door to the meeting room closing sharply.
“Edgeworth.” He answered, forcing his voice to remain calm.
“Mr. Edgeworth? Is that you? How do you have my number?”
“Miss Fey, it’s urgent. It’s about Wright.”
“Are you at the courthouse? I’m on my way there now.”
“I have reason to believe Wright has amnesia.” He knew she would appreciate him getting to the point, no reason to sugarcoat it.
“What!?” Maya Fey yelled into the phone, making Edgworth wince.
“I know Wright is in trial right now, but meet me in briefing room 2C before you go in there. If you can. I’ll explain then.”
“Okay.” Was all she said before hanging up.
Edgeworth closed the phone, letting out a shaky breath.
This shouldn’t be a big deal. And if this was a prank or joke from Wright, Edgeworth would look like the world’s biggest idiot. But the confusion in his eyes had been genuine, which is what scared Edgeworth the most.
He had no choice but to pace the briefing room he was in, back and forth in front of the wooden desk, one arm gripping the other.
A knock sounded god knows how long later, followed by Maya Fey’s quiet “Hello?”
“Miss Fey.” He answered the door stiffly, immediately stepping back to let her walk in without being too close. He wasn’t sure Wright ever noticed her reservedness with anyone who wasn’t a woman or Wright. But he needed her to listen to everything he had to say.
“I ran into Wright just before he walked into the courtroom, and he told me he had no idea who I was. And I think he was telling the truth.” Edgeworth grimaced. “He also seemed like his head hurt.”
“Do you think he was attacked?” Maya Fey gasped. “He sent me to gather records back at the office, so I wasn’t with him all morning. Just our client.”
“And she’s on the stand right now, so we can’t question her.” Edgeworth’s words came out from behind clenched teeth. “But if you weren’t with him, it’s possible something happened.”
“If that’s the case I think I should get in there ASAP.” She nodded up at him, her expression mimicking the resolve Edgeworth was so used to seeing in Wright.
Remembering Wright’s confusion at seeing Edgeworth caused a cold shiver in him.
“Yes. Of course. Thank you for meeting with me.”
“Thank you for the heads up.” Maya Fey nodded again, and he held the door for her as she left, and immediately broke into a light jog towards Wright’s courtroom. Edgeworth silently wished her good luck as he watched her.
Edgeworth was not good at being left alone with his thoughts. He’d left the courthouse to return to his own office to work on his own case, but had spent the majority of the afternoon and evening worrying about Wright.
Finally, in the late evening his phone rang, a single name lighting up on the screen. In a fit of some emotion, Edgeworth had just saved the number as “Wright” and nothing else. It had felt so wrong to even have Phoenix’s number in the first place, but he couldn’t bring himself to delete it.
Besides, it would have just kept showing up in his history as unsaved.
“Edgeworth.” His voice barely came out above a whisper in the empty, dark office. He’d been on his way to the car, and was now standing with nothing but outside street light filtering through the blinds.
“Hey Edgeworth, Maya told me about earlier,”
Edgeworth grimaced. Of course she had. He should have asked her to be discrete.
“But yeah anyway I’m sorryyy for forgetting about youuuu” Phoenix stretched the last syllable just long enough to make Edgeworth ask.
“Have you been drinking?”
“Not a lot, because I did get bonked on the head really hard. So don’t worry.” Phoenix said it so casually, so sheepishly, it almost made Edgeworth mad. Phoenix had no idea that Edgeworth had spent the whole day worrying.
“I…uhm…I hope you didn’t spend all day worrying. I remembered everything eventually, right as I won the trial.”
“Well done Wright.”
“Thank you! I try. Even when I have no idea what I’m doing.”
“That remains the same even when you don’t have amnesia.”
“You’re so funny Miles.”
The use of his first name made Edgeworth stiffen, and he cut Phoenix off from saying anything else.
“I appreciate the update. You’re fortunate the amnesia wasn’t permanent.”
“Lucky me I guess. Though I gotta be honest Miles, I wish I could forget the horror you looked at me with right before the trial started.”
Edgeworth paled in the darkness.
“I won’t tell anyone, but I felt so guilty, like I’d let you down somehow, but I had no idea what I had or hadn’t done!” Phoenix laughed.
“I….apologize.” Edgeworth muttered. “Goodnight Phoenix.” And he hung up in the middle of Phoenix pleading for him not to.
At least Wright was back to normal. And Edgeworth put his phone on silent as he walked to his car.