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Eight months. That’s how long Dollie strung her Feenie along on a lie.
One day. That’s all Iris Fey needed to fall hopelessly irrevocably in love with Phoenix Wright.
Twelve years later, seven years since their chance encounter at Hazakura temple that had spiraled far out of control, the pain of missing him had settled into a dull ache nestled between the crevices of her heart. It was still there, but it wasn’t the all-encompassing hurt of losing him the first time… or the second time. Feenie and Dollie were nothing more than ghosts of the past, ones she thought about in passing but for no longer than a moment.
Until, of course, one of her ghosts came back to haunt her.
Iris was outside doing chores when she heard a voice call out carried by the frigid mountain air, his voice, one she’d only heard in dreams before that moment. “Iris!” Her head whipped around to the noise. Her eyes darting, scanning, for a familiar head of spikes… only to turn up with nothing.
Iris blinked once, twice, before pressing a hand up to her forehead. “Mm… not a fever then… But I’m too young to be going senile…,” shrugging with a soft giggle as she took down another extra hood from the clones line before tossing it into the hamper next to her.
“Iris! Hey!” Louder now, more incessant. Oh, perhaps she really was going senile. But when she looked over this time her eyes locked onto a figure making its way through the snow. She squinted but still, those familiar spikes eluded her.
“Ah, um… Welcome traveler, to Hazakura Temple! If you wouldn’t mind… How do you know my name?” She called back, waving.
The figure broke into a jog and suddenly they were standing right in front of her. She gasped softly, he looked to be a man around his age, face so eerily similar. Except where he was well-groomed: clean-shaven, hair combed, sporting a blue suit and red tie. This man was the exact opposite: he had stubble, and his clothes were casual, they looked to be worn— likely from being practically lived in— and where she was sure she’d find familiar spikes a beanie sat atop his head.
“Ha ha ha, isn’t that ironic? I seem to remember saying something similar to you when we met again the first time,” he chuckled but the mirth didn’t reach his eyes, which looked almost dead.
Iris blinked: once, twice, thrice. Well that answers that question then! “Fee— Mr. Wright?!”
“Disgraced attorney, at your service,” he said, giving a bow that almost reminded her of a certain prosecutor.
“Disgra—?“ she shook her head, one thing at a time. “Why are you here?!” Hm. Perhaps that was a bit rude… Oh well.
“Ouch! Iris, you wound me, I can’t just visit an old friend?” Phoenix clutched at his chest dramatically as if she really had stabbed him. Friend was… putting it lightly. To say the least. Iris wasn’t quite sure there was a word to encapsulate everything between them. Regardless, Iris gave him a pointed look. To which his arm dropped limply to his side, the Comedy Mask on his face dropping alongside it. “But honestly, Iris, I just… felt like I had to see you.” That he had completely abandoned her while she was in prison was left unsaid.
“Right… Okay. Okay, just let me finish this up and I’ll meet you in the main temple and we can… catch up…? I suppose?” he nodded before going inside. Iris, meanwhile, turned back to her chores, mind absolutely buzzing. Why was he really here? It broke her heart to think ill of her Fee— Mr. Wright, after all she had put him through he still believed in her after all. To then think he had an ulterior motive for coming felt almost blasphemous. But really, she couldn’t help it. He had promised to visit her at least once a week while in prison but suddenly two months in the visits slowed to a crawl, once a month… then every two… and then never again. Iris had just assumed he was (rightfully) sick of her and decided to move on fully with his life. Which was fine, really, she did deserve it… but then why was he here now? Finally her work was done. The snow crunched ominously under her sandals as she made her way inside.
“You have a lot of nerve showing up here after what you put my Iris through!” Iris winced as Sister Bikinis yelling cascaded down the hall. Please don’t be so hard on him, mother… She slowed to a stop in the doorway, Iris had never seen Sister Bikini so… angry. The tiny woman was practically exploding with fury, like a firecracker seconds away from going off.
“She told you then, I take it?” Mr. Wrights face was deceptively calm, almost disinterested. Sister Bikini balked at him, her soft typically jovial face hardened and went red in anger.
“No,” she hissed, and again Iris was completely taken aback, never could she imagine the kind happy-go-lucky woman who raised her to be capable of such a sound. “She didn’t. My Iris never complains, you would know better than anyone. She loves too much to ever speak ill of those she cares about. But I saw it, I saw the way she wilted over the years. I saw how she would light up coming into the detention center when I’d visit, thinking it was you. You seemed a nice enough kid Mr. Wright, but you are a cruel cruel man.”
Mr. Wright scoffed at that, “Understatement of the year, but then she never really told you the full story did she? Of the circumstances of our relationship?” He opened his mouth to say something before turning away, Iris felt a pang in her chest. He was right, in the end it was her fault. “Well, its not my place to tell you, especially not in front of her.” He glanced over, now giving her a pointed look. Iris cringed but finally walked into the room, taking a seat across from Mr. Wright at the low table in the middle of the room.
“I’m sorry, dear, that you had to see me like that.” Bikini’s face softened as she got up from her seat next to Mr. Wright to leave, patting Iris’s hand on her way out. “Be firm, okay?” she murmured softly as she left them alone together.
“It’s rude to eavesdrop you know,” He said, eyes looking up and away from her in what seemed to her a feigned disinterest.
“I do apologize for that, I didn’t want to interrupt.” Iris nervously pulled at the edges of her sleeve, refusing to make eye contact.
Mr. Wright hummed, “You know, even if you had told her the full story… She’d likely react the same way.” He looked back down at her, face completely unintelligible to her. Like an old grimoire written in ancient draconic. When did she get so bad at reading him? “Parents have a hard time finding fault in their children… Not that it was entirely your fault anyhow, to be clear.”
“You… speak as if you have experience with that sort of thing Mr. Wright,” Iris nervously stated, his parents were always pretty hands-off as far as she knew. It was fine if he had met someone else, decided to have children with them. Truly it was, expected even. Didn’t mean it hurt her less though.
“Ah, yeah. I suppose I am” He pulled at a locket hanging around his neck in a move that was so… Feenie. Before getting up and presenting it to her, a soft genuine smile on his face. The first she had seen since he got here. “Trucy, my daughter… Adopted, but mine all the same.” he murmured almost reverently as he flicked the locket open to a picture of her.
“Well, congratulations Mr. Wright, she’s adorable… and um… congratulations to your partner as well” Iris smiled and in response he looked at her like she had grown a second head.
“…I did say she was adopted didn’t I? And cut the formalities Iris, we’ve known each other too long for that “Mr. Wright” crap, call me Phoenix… Or Nick, or...” He paused, “or you know, whatever.”
“…Phoenix,” It felt odd, on her tongue. There was a time she had called him Phoenix but that was a completely different life now, back when they had first started dating. Even then she had swapped entirely to Feenie only a week into the relationship, “couples do still adopt children for a myriad of reasons… You do realize that right?”
Phoenix blinked. “Ah, right, well I’m a single parent, much to Trucy’s chagrin,” and again his face lit up in a way he almost looked like himself again. Then he met her eyes and his expression changed only slightly, and even though it was minor, it made the expression almost unreadable to her. But it did still carry the same softness. His expression pulled at something in the back of her mind, a nagging memory that refused to fully formulate.
Iris swallowed, unsure what that look could possibly mean and thus unsure how to respond; so, the conversation lulled into an only slightly awkward silence, with Phoenix looking at her almost analytically now and Iris shrinking away completely from his gaze. For the third time that night Iris wondered just when it got so hard to read him. When she dated him, Feenie was an open book… Every feeling he had shown plainly on his face because he prided himself on wearing his heart on his sleeve… Or rather chest, she supposed.
Years later, once they met again, she noticed that he had begun to mask his emotions, Iris couldn’t help think she (or rather, Dahlia) had a hand in why. But even still, he was an open book to her, all his tells remained even after all those years— it was a bit like moving up from picture books to chapter books. To look at him now and see a stranger was an alien feeling to Iris. Phoenix meanwhile was none the wiser to her turmoil as he drummed his fingers on the table, seeming to be heading down a completely different rabbit hole of thoughts.
“Why did you call yourself a ‘disgraced attorney’” Iris blurted out suddenly. As soon as the words came out of her mouth, however, Iris wished hard that she could take them and stuff them back in. Phoenix’s reaction wasn’t shock, in fact he looked resigned. As if he had expected to explain eventually, he was just stalling for time beforehand. And then his face slipped into what Iris now recognized as a poker face of sorts.
“Well, Iris, I presented forged evidence in an extremely high profile case some seven odd years ago and… I got disbarred,” his tone remained so even and controlled it was almost as if he were recounting his day; his face betrayed none of the turmoil Iris knew for a fact he must be feeling.
Well, that did explain one thing then, Iris would have to double back and ask about that later, but first: “Bullshit. I know you, that isn’t something you would do, Phoenix Wright, so tell me what really happened.”
Phoenix scoffed, “Do you? Do you really know me, Iris? I’m not exactly the kid you dated in college. I really could’ve done it, you have no idea.”
Iris was quiet. Living up to his last name he was right yet again. After all, had she not been thinking all evening about what a stranger he had become? She meet his eyes and then looked over his face carefully, analytically, how she imagined he examined evidence as a lawyer, now. The slight furrow in his brow and thinly lipped smile was an almost “I told you so”. The expression was almost sad, perhaps he had expected her to argue. That told her all she needed to know.
“It’s true,” She began, and he looked away, “That you’ve changed, perhaps more than I will ever know. But I also know that your heart remains the same. You and Mr. Edgeworth are seekers of the truth, and nothing but the truth, it is an innate part of you. And I refuse to believe that you would forsake that simply to win a trial. So now, Phoenix, tell me the whole truth.”
For a moment Phoenix looked taken aback, and then he looked away from her, “I guess you can say my luck finally ran out, I was framed. I got given a forged piece of evidence before the trial started, presented it in court and… here we are. The untimely demise of the Turnabout Terror.”
For a moment Iris was quiet, and then “It wasn’t your fault, you know that right? Some awful person did this to you…” Phoenix looked up at her with another unreadable expression. “I just wonder… surely there must be some kind of evidence to prove your innocence?”
Phoenix shrugged, “You could say I’m currently working on it. Anyway, I… I guess thats why I’m really here. I met this kid right? Good kid… Great lawyer too, reminds me a lot of myself. Too much of myself. He’s… gonna help me tie up loose ends… so to speak. and it made me realize I never… I never apologized, to you.” Feenie looked up at her, and in this moment he really was Feenie again. All bleeding heart, and expressive eyes. He looked so apologetic, even if she hadn’t already forgiven him years ago, the puppy dog eyes he was giving her now would have immediately done her in.
“Oh, Feenie…” Her voice cracked at the nickname, her heart clenching as his eyes shone with unshed tears. “It’s okay, honestly I was shocked you even wanted to see me after the trial… I was certain you’d hate me. So I completely understood if you didn’t want to see me.”
Phoenix shook his head so hard she was half-afraid he’d snap it in two. “Iris. Iris no, never. How could you even say that? You’re so wonderful I could never hope to earn or possibly repay the kindness you showed me, still show me…”
And now it was Iris’ turn to be taken aback. How could he not hate her? How could he stand there and tell her he wouldn’t be able to repay her kindness? When he was the one who defended her even when she hadn’t done a single thing to deserve it. She’d ruined his life, ruined his life like she’d ruined her mother’s and her sister’s before him. If only she had been born with spiritual powers, if only she had been more stern with her sister instead of enabling her crimes, if only she had told Feenie the truth from the very beginning, if only she had reported the note her mother wrote to the police instead of following along with Mystic Misty and Mr. Armandos half-baked scheme. If only, if only, if only. So many regrets, so many decisions she made out of fear. Iris knew she was nothing but a selfish coward, it was simply a fact of life, so why couldn’t he see that? Didn’t he understand she didn’t deserve his kindness? Not the other way around? Never the other way around…
“Iris,” his voice cut through the silence once again. “Let me formally apologize for not keeping my promise. It was wrong of me to cut you out for such selfish reasons, honestly I was ashamed of what you’d say when you saw me. But that’s no excuse, you needed me and I wasn’t there. I’ll never forgive myself for that.” And hadn’t she done the same? Once upon a time? Hadn’t she left him to stew in the hurt of Dahlia’s betrayal for five years because she thought it best that he never see her again?
“No.” And Iris’s voice was barely above a whisper. “No, don’t. Don’t say that. Don’t pretend like I wasn’t much more at fault than you were. If I’d had the courage to report my sister to the police from the start none of this ever would have happened.” The world blurred as tears pooled in her eyes, immediately she broke eye contact and tried to discreetly wipe at her eyes.
“Iris, look at me,” gently, Phoenix took her hand in his. The touch so achingly familiar… Iris looked up and met his eyes. Finding the same conviction in his expression as when he would speak of saving his friend way back when. The same conviction she fell so deeply in love with. “It’s not your fault. You are not to blame for your sisters actions. I can’t even blame you for not reporting her to the police, she was your sister— your only family aside Sister Bikini— I won’t lie and say I wasn’t hurt. I was, but those eight months were real. Your love was real. And they were some of the happiest months of my life because of it, I wouldn’t take them back for anything. So please, stop beating yourself up over what happened for my sake. I forgive you, if that’s what you need to hear to let it go.” And in a sense, it was. Even seven years ago he hadn’t said it in such plain terms. Iris choked on a sob and then felt the familiar warmth of a Feenie bear hug, and frankly, that only served to make her cry harder.
Eventually though, her sobs petered off to quiet hiccups. Her grip on him tightened. Of course she was hurt by his radio silence, but she could never hold it against him. Especially knowing she’d done something similar to him, and so she murmured: “I forgive you too, Feenie.” He tensed almost imperceptibly before relaxing back into her hold.
Phoenix then mouthed… something next to her ear and then slowly, lingering on everything he touched, let her go. “Mind if I stick around a little longer? I can help you out with your chores and we can talk about the good old days or something.”
“I’d love nothing more”