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Under regular circumstances, Franziska would have been loathe to call a bellhop up for help packing her luggage. She shouldn’t need the help, ordinarily, certainly not from some barely post-pubescent bellhop who would root around her personal belongings and leave behind a smell of Axe Body spray that couldn’t be washed out.
But packing with one arm in a sling and a shoulder still in considerable pain had proved to be nearly impossible. Calling downstairs for assistance had been a last resort, necessary so she wouldn’t miss her flight out, but now it had been over twenty minutes and still no knock at her hotel door.
Franziska glances at the clock on her bedside table. Nearly twenty-five minutes had passed now. Ten more till she could take another pain killer. Not that they were doing much good. As soon as she landed, she’d head straight for her regular doctor, a woman with a valid medical degree and not that disgusting excuse for a man she’d been treated by here.
Pain radiates through her shoulder again, a sharp burning sensation instead of the more usual dull throbbing. The nurse at the clinic had told her that was to be expected, but that doesn’t make it hurt any less.
Gritting her teeth through the worst of it, she then decides: what the hell? Ten minutes wouldn't make much of a difference, surely. She grabs the small bottle out of her bag, sitting untouched on top of her best efforts to pack from earlier in the evening.
She’s almost got the cap off (much harder to do one handed) when a gentle knocking at the door startles her so much she almost drops the bottle on to the carpet. It must be the bellhop. Franziska sets the pills down, smoothes down her hair and shirt as best she can, then opens the door.
“Well, it certainly took you long-”
It’s Maya Fey. Not the bellhop, not unless she’d picked up a second job on the side and had decided to clock in less than ten hours after being rescued from a kidnapping. And no, that was impossible, since bellhops wore uniforms and nametags and Maya Fey had on a bright pink sweatshirt over her ceremonial robes. That, and she was carrying flowers, a huge bouquet of hydrangeas that almost drowned out her face.
“Were you expecting someone else?” Maya smiles, straining her neck a bit to be seen over the hydrangeas.
“The, um, bellhop.”
“Oh.”
“But you’re not him.”
“No, sorry. But I mean, I’ll carry your luggage around if you give me a twenty.” Franziska’s about to say that she doesn’t have anything smaller than a fifty dollar bill on her right now when she realizes that Maya is probably kidding.
“You’re joking.” Franziska asks, less as a statement and more as a confirmation.
“Well, my hands are kinda full right now, otherwise I might be serious.” Maya laughs, but it sounds a bit strained. “Anyways, um, these are for you.” She holds the bouquet out to Franziska with both hands.
The hydrangeas are a light blue, mixed in with a few lilac and pale yellow blossoms, set in a dark green plastic pot. Something you’d get from a high end grocery store, maybe, though she can’t fathom when Maya would have had the time to get them.
“You brought flowers?”
“Yeah.”
“Why?” It’s rude, she knows it, but it comes out of Franziska’s mouth before she can stop it.
“Well,” Maya shifts the bouquet in her arms, grunting a little. “They’re a gift.”
“But for me.”
“Yeah, I already said that.” Maya looks past her, straining on her tip toes to see through the doorway without an ounce of subtlety. “Hey, is there somewhere I can put these down? I’ve been carrying them for like, twenty minutes, and they’re starting to get a little heavy.”
“Oh, um. Yes, of course. Forgive me.” Franziska backs up a little, gestures with her good arm to the counter of the small kitchenette area. “On the counter would be a good spot, I think.”
“Thanks.”
Weirdly, part of her isn’t sure Maya will actually walk in, expecting her to turn away at the last minute. Maybe it's still the shock of seeing her at her door when she’d been expecting the bellboy, or the shock of seeing her here at all really. And with flowers, a gift?
But Maya does walk in, sets the flowers down and rotates them till the best angle is showing. The action looks almost comedic, organizing flowers amongst the mess of a hotel room half packed.
“I apologize profusely for the mess. I do not usually live in these conditions, but the foolish bellhop has not yet come to help me pack as I requested.”
“It’s fine. I don’t mind at all. My room is probably way messier than this right now, plus I got to see the inside of a super fancy hotel room I probably wouldn’t get to see otherwise.”
This reminds her, the other outstanding question as to why and how Maya had appeared at her doorstep. “How did you know where I live?”
“Mr. Edgeworth gave me your hotel and room number. He didn’t want to, but I think he felt bad saying no given the circumstances. You know, me just having been kidnapped and all.”
“I gave him my address several days ago for emergencies only. It appears he cannot be trusted, the fool.” Fitting. She had not given Detective Gumshoe her address for this exact reason, knowing he could show up at any hour of the day with an inane question or offer to make her instant noodles made her want to gag.
“It was an emergency.” Maya says solemnly. “I wanted you to catch you before you left. Plus, hydrangeas wilt very quickly, and now you get to enjoy them while they’re still in full bloom. Aren’t they pretty?”
Right, she should have thanked her by now. Poor etiquette was unbecoming, even for surprise guests, or for impractical gifts like a bouquet of flowers for someone leaving the country in the next couple hours. “They’re very beautiful. Thank you Ms. Fey.”
Maya beams. “Aren’t they? I’m glad you like them. I thought about getting some pink ones instead, or maybe roses cause they smell nicer, but I saw the blue and it reminded me of your hair so I figured it worked better.”
“I am not accustomed to receiving flowers selected to align with aspects of my physical appearance. That’s very thoughtful of you.”
A secret she’d never share: Franziska’s always hated receiving flowers. Her father would send them to her upon achievement of an important milestone: passing her first and second state exams, then the Bar for practice in the states, the first case she’d won. Roses, usually, white ones that seemed more at home at a funeral than sitting at her desk.
She’d always keep them displayed for two days, a perfunctory amount of time were her father to drop by unexpectedly, then have them thrown away at the first sign of rot. And there was always a card inserted by the florist, and it was always untouched.
If Franziska had been sent these instead, maybe she would have let them sit out a day past their expiration date. Just a day, of course, but it would be a shame to waste flowers that so perfectly matched her hair.
Maya flicks her eyes down, suddenly shy. Franziska doesn’t know if she’s ever seen her shy before - nervous maybe, during her trial, angry, elated. Never shy.
“I just wanted to say thank you. For everything today. I know Nick offered to buy everyone dinner, but you were already gone by the time he said that, so I thought I’d bring these over instead. I mean, you basically saved my life today.”
“Oh, I…”
It made sense now, why she was here. If no one had told Maya yet that when Franziska had arrived in the courtroom this morning she’d known nothing of the kidnapping. Omitting that, it paints Franziska as noble, heroic, someone worthy of bringing flowers to.
In reality, for all Franziska had known, Maya had been safe at home the entire time, not locked in the basement of a trained assassin and being used as ransom to guarantee the outcome of the trial.
After, when Phoenix Wright had filled her in on everything that had happened, after he’d already been reunited with Maya, the shame had been sudden and overwhelming. Rushing from the car crash to the courthouse, she’d thought of nothing other than that this would be in some way her chance to beat Wright in trial. Indirectly, and after two humiliating losses. A victory that would never be considered such by Von Karma standards, by hers.
And for a moment, she’d let herself revel in this victory, only to have it twist and sink like a weight in her chest when she’d learned the truth. It’d been enough to push her flight up a couple days, disregarding common sense that said not to fly when recovering from a gunshot barely two days old.
With Maya in front of her like this, Franziska thinks for a moment about lying. If Maya’s here after she prosecuted her for murder and has done everything in her power to make the life of Phoenix Wright and Co. hellish in the courtroom, then it must be only because she thinks Franziska acted with willful intent to save her life today.
And it’s not like she wouldn’t have done the same, had she actually known the stakes. But maybe if she’d been less self involved she would have asked Phoenix Wright why he looked so panicked when he’d visited her at the hospital, and learned the truth then.
She takes a deep breath, almost a sigh with how exhausted she is. “Miss Fey, I must confess. Until this afternoon, I did not know that you had been kidnapped. I only brought that evidence to the courtroom because I wanted to win. To preserve my legacy.”
“Oh, I know. Nick told me earlier.”
Franziska frowns. “But then why are you-”
“Well, for one, regardless of whether you were trying to save my life or not, you did. I’d still be in DeKiller’s basement, probably, if it weren’t for you. And two, you were just doing your job. Like, when you tried to have me arrested for the murder of Dr. Grey.”
Franziska bites her lip, turning her eyes to the ground. “I am, I am sorry. For that.”
Maya shrugs. “I mean, don’t get me wrong. I was mad at you at the time, especially because I was also really scared and had no idea what was going on. But you were just doing your job. For all you knew, I could have actually murdered that guy, and then it would have been irresponsible for you not to go after me for it.”
“I… suppose so.” She hadn’t thought of it that way, truthfully.
“My older sister always said it’s the responsibility of any good defense attorney to believe in their client. But if the state is your client, then it’s your job to believe that the defendant did do it. At least until it proves otherwise.”
“That’s very well put, Miss Fey.” Franziska thinks about Edgeworth, about his supposed quest to find out the “true meaning of being a prosecutor”, or whatever nonsense he had said to excuse his absence. Maybe it wasn’t entirely unfounded.
“Well, in the interest of complete transparency, I think I’m the real defense attorney between Nick and I.” Maya smiles. “And you can call me Maya, by the way. Miss Fey is just… too formal.”
She’s about to respond when a second spasm of pain hits her, unable to stop from wincing. The forgotten painkillers, now catching up to her.
“Oh my god, are you okay?” Maya's hands fly to her mouth, eyes wide.
“I am fine.” Franziska says, taking a labored breath. “I have medication here, just let me-” Before she can finish, Maya spots the pill bottle where she’d left it on the end table, uncapping it and placing a pill in Franziska’s hand.
“Here, I’ll get you some water.” She grabs a glass, filling it with water - from the sink, gross, but she’ll take what she can get right now - and passes it off to Franziska. She swallows the pills down, hoping for her sake that they kick in soon so Maya can stop looking at her like a wounded animal when she herself had been freed from a literal kidnapping mere hours earlier.
“You should sit down. It might help.” Maya suggests. Franziska doesn’t have the energy to argue, so she just nods, following Maya to sit down next to her on the couch and taking care not to jostle her shoulder too much.
“I had my arm in a sling too, when I was a kid. My sister and I were goofing off in the waterfalls back in Kurain village instead of meditating, and I slipped on one of the rocks and broke my collarbone. It sucked. I mean, not that getting shot in the shoulder is the same thing. Yours probably hurt a lot worse.”
“No, I’d imagine breaking your collarbone would also be … unpleasant.”
“The worst part was that I still had to do meditation practice. And one of the village elders had to supervise us from then on. I guess I learned not to play tag on wet rocks any more.”
“When I was a child, Miles and I used to play hide and seek when my father was away. I hid in the dumbwaiter, because I could still fit, but the door got stuck and it took nearly forty minutes for one of the servants to come by and help me out. We never played again after that.”
Maya laughs, and Franziska’s surprised at how much this pleases her.
“For some reason I just can’t picture either of you guys as kids. Did you still carry a whip with you?”
“I had a riding crop.” Maya laughs harder this time, only now Franziska’s not sure if she’s being laughed at.
“Miss Fey, are you mocking me?”
“What? No! I mean, you have to admit it’s a little funny imagining like, a nine year old carrying around a riding crop all the time. But I actually do think it’s sweet. You know who you are, and you’ve stuck with that your whole life. A lot of people can’t say the same.”
“Oh, well. Thank you.” Again, the compliment disarms her. She tries to brush past it. “But for clarity's sake, you must know I did not have a riding crop till I was thirteen.”
“It makes sense. I bet Mr. Edgeworth always had a cravat on too.”
Franziska scowls. “My little brother has always had a terrible taste in fashion. It appears that is not likely to change with time. So yes.”
“I thought so.” A moment passes, two, then: “I’m glad he’s okay, by the way.” Maya’s voice is softer now, she fidgets with her hands. “I know you knew he wasn’t really dead the whole time, but still. It really threw me for a loop, seeing him back in the courtroom like nothing had happened.”
“Yes, alive enough to be pining like a foolishly foolish fool over that defense attorney.”
Maya giggles, covering her mouth with one hand. “You should have seen them a year ago, when Nick was first starting out. It was all-” Maya affects her best British accent, an impression that sounds nothing like her little brother but is still funny nevertheless - “Thank you, Wright. For saving me. I care for you so deeply, and yet I will never tell you because we are both so emotionally repressed it is likely we will explode. Would you care for some tea?”
Franziska finds herself laughing too, both at the impression and at her little brother’s foolishness. “When I asked him about Phoenix Wright in the hospital, his face went so red I thought he had come down with something.”
Maya rolls her eyes playfully. “At least you had to deal with it a couple of times. Last year, I swear it was all ‘Edgeworth this’ and ‘Edgeworth that’ and ‘Maya do you think Edgeworth would be mad if I told him I liked his cravat’ and ‘Maya do you think Edgeworth noticed when I spilled coffee on myself today before court?’”
They both laugh, falling into silence again. Maya kicks her feet back and forth a little. She checks the time - not long before she has to call a cab, she should have called one already, really.
“This is a nice hotel room by the way.” Maya says, right as Franziska is about to inform Maya of her impeding departure. “I’ve never been in one this fancy.”
Franziska is surprised - she hadn’t thought much of the accommodations she’d been using since living in America, only that the view from her balcony left a lot to be desired. “This is almost identical to every room I ever stayed in when visiting Papa in the states.”
Maya frowns. “Why didn’t you stay at his house? He lived here full time, right?”
“Well, we did. Back in Germany. But he lived in the states most of the year, and when we were flown out to visit we were guests, so we stayed in a hotel. Usually, Miles and I would get a room on the same floor, but then he moved out here to work full time, and it was just me.”
“When I was growing up, Mia and Pearl and I used to all share a room with my cousins, the ones who didn’t live in Kurian. They were more like distant cousins, but anyways. It was pretty crowded. I would have liked to stay in a hotel, one time, I think."
Franziska tries to imagine her and Miles crammed in like that with their relatives and draws a blank.
“Still,” Maya goes on, “I’m sure that could get kind of lonely, sometimes.” Lonely. That was certainly one way of putting it.
“Yes. Yes, it did.” Franziska gestures at the vase. “Miss Fey-”
“Maya.”
“Right.” She tries again. “Maya. These are lovely, but as I’m sure you can see I am preparing to leave shortly and am unable to take a vase with me on such short notice.”
“Oh.” Maya’s face falls a bit, then brightens up again. “Well we could always press them!”
“Press the flowers?”
“Yeah, you know. You flatten them, so you can take them with you when you’re traveling or whatever, and then that way they’re still pretty even when they’re not fresh anymore. Here,” she grabs yesterday's newspaper off the nightstand, brandishing it proudly in one hand. “We could use newspapers! That way, you have two souvenirs. The flowers, and the newspaper.”
“You do know we have newspapers in Germany. Far better ones.”
Maya rolls her eyes, smiling like Franziska had made a funny joke rather than a snide remark about the quality of American journalism. “Well, okay, maybe. But are those papers covering such riveting events as-” she scans the headline for the first time, eyes narrowed, “the impending opening of Gatewater land?”
Franziska wrinkles her nose. “You Americans and your theme parks.”
“Okay, there’s no way you’re telling me they don’t have theme parks in Germany. That’s like, absurd.”
“Of course we do.” She quickly counters. “Many, in fact.”
“Well, which one’s your favorite?”
“I-” she pauses, “I’ve never been to one before. It seems a rather foolish waste of time.”
“Well, next time you come to Los Angeles we can go somewhere better than Gatewater land. Disneyland or Universal Studios. Then you’ll change your mind.”
“I’m sure.” She tries not to let it show in her voice how utterly unappealing that idea sounds, stops herself from pointing out that the odds of her returning to Japanifornia or even the states at all in the next couple of years were very low.
But then again, the odds aren’t impossible.
“There!” Maya says, laying out the last flower. “Don’t worry about the extra ones, I can always give them to Nick or something. His office is kinda drab anyways, but don’t tell him I said that.”
“I won’t.”
“You know,” Maya says, almost conspiratorily, “If you give me your phone number, I can tell you how to put the flowers into soap or candles once you get home. They make really good birthday gifts and stuff.”
“Oh. Okay.” Franziska digs her phone out of the side of her skirt awkwardly, where she’d been keeping it in a bit of a makeshift pocket. Giving out her personal cell number to just anyone is a major security risk, and in a million years she can’t picture herself making soap. Much less giving it out to people, of all things.
Still, like so many other times tonight, she does it anyway, reciting the number back to Maya so that she can make sure she has the right one.
“Wow, this is so cool. I’ve never had someone’s phone number before who wasn’t American. I promise I won’t spam text you or anything. The service in Kurain village isn’t great, but I think I can make it work.”
“Well, if I ever have another case involving spirit channeling, I can call you as a consultant.” She means it as a joke, and for a moment, Franziska thinks maybe it didn’t land. That Maya will just stare at her, confused
But instead, Maya laughs, handing Franziska her phone back. “You’re funny.”
Funny. She’s never been told that before. She wishes her blush didn’t show so easily.
Ten minutes later, and Franziska is all packed, flowers stored neatly away in her luggage. Maya had helped her, despite Franziska’s insistence that she could do it on her own, and to her surprise Maya actually does a pretty decent job of it.
They part ways when Franziska calls her cab, Maya promising to send her any other ideas she has for dried hydrangeas as soon as she gets back home. There’s a bit of an awkward moment where Maya tries to hug her, but with Franziska’s arm in a sling its more of a one sided clasp on the shoulder.
Still, she feels the spot where Maya’s hands grazed her neck the whole ride to the airport, a welcome distraction from the lingering pain in her shoulder. She thinks about the flowers the whole plane ride home, and when she lands, a little text pops up on her phone under Maya’s number:
“hi! this is maya! hope u had a safe flight :)”
She texts back: “Thank you for the flowers Maya Fey. I did have a safe flight and should be well on my way to a full recovery.”
A few hours later, another text message from Maya:
“yay! glad 2 hear!”
If her driver notices her blushing and staring at her phone, he thankfully says nothing.
A month goes by, and her shoulder is taken out of the sling. The first thing she does with her newfound freedom is have the pressed hydrangeas framed, then hangs them up next to her dresser where she can see them every morning.