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There is a surprisingly high amount of prosecutors who have ended up convicted of murder in this general area, over the years. Some, like Manfred von Karma, do not last long in prison. Others, like the man who is still legally known as Diego Armando but hasn't felt any real attachment to that name in years, make do for as long as they can.
But there's something off about Simon Blackquill, from the moment he's thrown into the cell next to Godot's, and the other former prosecutor can never quite put his finger on what it is.
By all rights, there shouldn't be anything off about the man.
When pressed, he had fixed Godot with a glare and recounted in gruesome detail precisely how he had murdered a woman in cold blood, right in front of her daughter, with her own sword. Then he had paused, and in a quieter tone, said that he was the first to bother listening to the full story.
"Of course," Godot had said with a shrug. "Listening to the stories of those in this hell with me... it's the least I can do. And it makes for a better hobby than caffeine withdrawal."
They'd become friends, of a sort, before too long. They'd stayed friends, of a sort, over the long years of being locked away from polite society, even after the new Chief Prosecutor had decided he was desperate enough for qualified subordinates that he looked at the two in prison and decided he'd rather take his chances with Blackquill than Godot.
(If the new Chief Prosecutor is who Godot thinks he is, no wonder he'd rather have Blackquill.)
And now, nearly seven years to the day from when Godot first met the man, his cell is empty. This is not a novel occurrence. It has happened before, and will happen again, and has happened more and more often over the last few months. For much of the day, Blackquill is gone from his cell, but he is always returned there to sleep, and Godot can usually prod him for details on whatever it is he's prosecuting.
What is a novel occurrence is that Blackquill's cell has been vacant for nearly a week, now—and the warden clearing out what few belongings the other man was allowed only serves to confirm his suspicions. Godot sighs, averts his gaze, and shuts his eyes. Not that it does any good, of course, given that his eyes haven't worked right since Diego became Godot.
He had a feeling that Blackquill's execution was coming soon, though he didn't know the exact date.
He wonders if Blackquill knew he was saying goodbye for good, the last time he saw him.
He probably did.
There aren't many luxuries in prison. Godot considers himself lucky that he can get any coffee here, though considering how addicted a large proportion of the population is to caffeine—himself included, he gains nothing from denying that—there would almost certainly be a riot if the prisoners couldn't get their coffee fix.
It's not great. His own blends were better—obviously, he'd poured his heart and soul into them before leaving them to Trite in something approaching a too-late apology—but even something cheap from outside would probably be better than the prison coffee on an average day.
But it's better than nothing. It's so much better than nothing, which is why Godot sits in a corner today, nursing a cup that's as hot as it is stale and steadfastly ignoring the rest of the prison cafeteria crowded around the old TV that provides mealtime entertainment.
Or at least, he's trying to ignore them all.
It gets a bit difficult when someone whose name he doesn't remember looks over his shoulder and hollers, "Oi, Armando! Get over here!"
He scowls into the dark liquid. Considers not responding at all. "It's—"
"It’s Godot, you moron," says someone else, elbowing the first guy. "Hey, Godot—c'mere a second. You've got to see this."
"Do I," Godot says dryly. He looks up, raising an eyebrow. "Do I really?"
"It's about your buddy Blackquill."
"I really don't," he decides.
Throwing back his head, he drains the rest of his coffee in a single gulp before standing and walking—slowly, deliberately—to the trash. His path takes him right next to the television, which he carefully tunes out. At least, he tries to.
He's mostly successful, up until he hears the words full pardon. And then his jaw drops and he pulls up a seat of his own and he watches the old friend he'd already given up for dead take the stand, as every charge against him is proven false and dropped.
He was innocent. The whole damn time, he was innocent. That whole disturbing story was just that—a story. A very detailed story, but still a story, something he'd made up and stuck to like glue.
Godot doesn't know how to feel about that. He'd thought... well, he'd thought a lot of things about Simon Blackquill. Maybe what the other man had wanted him to think all along.
There aren't a lot of people who want to pay a visit to the man who used to be Diego Armando, because what family members hadn't already long since given him up for dead while he was in a coma weren't particularly thrilled to find that the man who woke up was nearly unrecognizable personality-wise. Trite's one of them, for some unfathomable reason, and it's him that Godot assumes is his visitor today.
"Wright again?" He asks, just to confirm. Yet the guard shakes his head, in response.
"Oh." Godot's brow furrows. "Then, who...?"
The door on the other side of the glass opens, and a man clad in black and white steps in from the side of freedom and innocence. An old friend, or so Godot thought.
His eyes go to Blackquill's hands. They're not cuffed.
Of course they're not cuffed. Why would they be?
Simon Blackquill is a free man.
"Godot," Blackquill greets, pulling up a chair.
Taka is perched on his shoulder, as usual, and the bird hasn't taken his eyes off Godot since he entered. Neither, for that matter, has the hawk's master.
"Blackquill," Godot replies, in the same even tone. He doesn't really sit in the chair on his side of the glass so much as fall into it. "You know, if I hadn't seen the news about that retrial of yours, I'd have thought they executed you."
The prosecutor's visage darkens. "Had the retrial come any later, they would have."
Godot raises an eyebrow. He leans forward on the counter, folding his hands in front of his visor. "Cutting it a little too close there, were we? Should have given yourself a wider margin. For something this important—"
"If you say that's one of your rules, I'm leaving," Blackquill interrupts. "You cannot possibly have had a rule for something that specific unless you made it up on the spot."
"You never know." Godot shrugs. "Maybe I did."
Blackquill stares him down.
"Maybe I didn't," Godot amends, leaning back in his chair. "Still—I don't know as much about you as I thought I did."
"And?"
"I used to be a defense attorney, Quill, I told you that. I don't like not knowing things."
Stone-faced, Blackquill replies, "And this is my problem... how, exactly?"
"Oh, it's not yours, it's mine." Godot grins. "Still, from what I do know... you lied to me."
"I lied to everyone."
"I'm not special, huh?"
"I did not say that."
"Nah. It was implied." The grin lessens, a bit, but stays on. It's as much of a shield as Blackquill's ruthless persona in prison, and the careful mask he's wearing now. "So why are you here? You're a free man."
Blackquill looks at Taka, then back at Godot. "Contrary to what is perhaps popular belief, I do not enjoy lying to people."
"I'm sure you had your reasons. I had mine, too. Least you didn't kill anyone for them."
The other man sighs, and shakes his head. "No... I didn't."
"Well then, Quill—don't suppose you'd be willing to share?"
Godot doesn't want to sound too eager, but the news broadcast had been... largely uninformative as to what had actually happened. There was something about a phantom, something about a more recent murder committed by the same person who had framed Blackquill, something about a moon rock? And Wright, of course, because if something ridiculous happens in a courtroom, the odds are very high that Trite's involved one way or another.
Blackquill's expression remains carefully neutral, for a few long moments. And then, he smiles.
He's... never actually seen the man smile, before, now that he thinks about it. Not once, in prison.
"I had my reasons for lying to you, then," Blackquill begins. "However, those reasons are gone now, and I have an equally compelling reason to no longer hide the truth. In my time in prison, you were a good friend, and if I hadn't had to lie to you... I would not have. So... where would you like me to begin?"
Where to begin? How should Godot know? Still, there's one question that's been eating at him, so he does ask, "Why? What were your reasons?"
Blackquill winces. "The short version is that I had someone to protect, and if I hadn't taken the blame..."
Godot nods. "I understand."
"As for the longer version, which we do, in fact, have time for..."
Because of course they have time for it, Blackquill is a prosecutor and if Godot's brief tenure as one himself taught him anything, it's that prosecutors can get away with anything short of actual murder. Visiting with a convict for longer than the normal visiting hours, compared to anything like that, is nothing at all.
"It all began, I suppose," Blackquill continues, "when I was tasked to investigate a spy known only as the Phantom."
"Well," Godot says at last.
There's a window on his side of the visitor's room, high up along the wall to his right. When he'd arrived here, it was light out. It still is light out, but he's quite suddenly aware of the fact that the light from outside is significantly dimmer than it had been, and rapidly continuing its recession from the world.
"Well," Blackquill echoes, crossing his arms across his chest. "Now you know."
"Now I know," Godot agrees.
Idly, he wonders what the security guard must think of them at this point. Two prosecutors, both convicted for murder, both to try and protect people. Blackquill had succeeded, and he hadn't even committed the crime he'd been put away for. Godot... as much as he'd told himself different, at the time, it wasn't keeping anyone safe that he was after.
It was revenge, and he'd gotten it, and it solved precisely none of his many, many problems. If anything, it made many more.
(He wonders, sometimes, if Trite would have still been able to pin him as the true culprit, if he hadn't given in and confessed when he did. Maybe he would have, maybe he wouldn't have. Godot just knows he wouldn't have been able to live with it, himself, after that.)
"Can't help but wonder what you're doing here," Godot says at last. "You sure didn't have to tell me what was going on. You've been reinstated as a prosecutor, but even then... you knew I'd done what I was put away for."
"I did," Blackquill agrees.
"And—obviously—you knew you hadn't done what you were convicted for."
Blackquill sighs, and looks down. "Some days, it got difficult to remember that. However... yes. I did."
"Why even bother with me, then?" Godot asks. "Sure, it was one thing when you had to convince everybody you'd snapped and murdered someone. But now..."
He doesn't say the words he's thinking, but if the look in Blackquill's eyes is any indication, he doesn't have to.
"Innocence is not everything," Blackquill responds, after a long moment. "I do not know if you would still consider me a friend, but you were one, to me, when I needed it most. You listened to my tale, and you did not even flinch."
"I've heard worse in here," Godot says, because he has.
"As have I." He pauses when Taka headbutts the side of his head, then raises a hand to scritch the bird under his chin. Taka lets out a satisfied noise, and Blackquill continues, "I... was fully prepared to die. It is decidedly strange to still be here."
"And yet you are," Godot notes. "Trite's involvement, I presume?"
Blackquill stares at him for a moment. The hand petting Taka freezes, but resumes its motion when Taka makes a displeased chirp and nips at his fingers, and only then does Blackquill say, "Out of everything I expected out of Phoenix Wright from your descriptions of him, I have to say that trite may, perhaps, not be a particularly accurate description?"
Godot snorts, and shakes his head. "It isn't, I'll grant you that. Old habits die hard, and I came up with that one when I was feeling as bitter as the blackest coffee."
Also, Trite finds it funny, to the point that when Godot had briefly tried to start calling him by his actual name he had only gotten a baffled look and an awkward request to go back actually, please, this is weird.
"He does manage to be quite infuriating in a courtroom, if you are not used to his... shenanigans," Blackquill notes, making a face.
"Oh, that wasn't why." Godot pauses. "Though that didn't exactly help. To this day, I don't know what goes through that man's head, to get from some of the points he makes to the next."
"That makes me feel a little better about dealing with him." Blackquill sighs. "Not overmuch, but a wee bit."
Godot shrugs. "I'm sure you'll have plenty of time to practice."
"Yes..." Blackquill pauses. "There is... no easy way to broach this. Your... date, is coming rather soon, isn't it?"
"Less than a year, now." Godot shrugs. "The waiting is the worst part, at this point."
"Indeed." He pauses again, for longer this time. Godot has a sinking feeling that he knows where he's going with this. "The Chief Prosecutor had no way of knowing that I was innocent. If you wanted—"
"Nah." Godot shakes his head. "I appreciate the offer, but... it's been too long."
Blackquill nods. "Tell me if that changes."
It's not a question. It's an order, and Godot doesn't much like orders, but he finds himself nodding anyway.
Trite continues to visit, fairly regularly, like he always does. But, strangely enough, he no longer is Godot's only repeat visitor.
Godot can't imagine why. Except that he can, because despite the differences between them, despite everything— they are more similar, in some ways, than Godot ever realized.
There's footage from one of Blackquill's new trials on the television, a few weeks later. Godot watches, and smiles.