Work Text:
It was artful how she had done it—theatrical, even.
The pair of bodies splayed on the floor, one on top of the other as if they had fallen at the same time. Plastic bags scattered beneath them to give the impression of a scuffle. A gun slipped into one hand, its finger meticulously curled around the trigger, and a bloodied knife placed into the other. Each prop of this grim tableau was carefully arranged to incite the belief that they had died through mutual destruction. If it all had gone according to script, the true culprit would have slipped away, unnoticed, as soon as the curtain fell.
The plan didn’t work, thankfully, but in a perfect world, it would have been foiled before tragedy had struck.
With the press of a few buttons, the scene reset.
Two men were arguing in the defendant’s lobby when a woman entered with a gun concealed inside her coat. The key, not yet a knife, was clutched harmlessly in one of their hands. If this play was to have a happy ending, then the woman must never get her hands on that key—but how?
A young girl burst through the door and bounded to her father’s side. She didn’t know the secret of the key yet, but she had always liked the butterfly patterns etched into its hilt. Perhaps, if she asked to play with it, then….
No, that wouldn’t work. It was an important piece of evidence that her father didn’t allow her to touch. Furthermore, even if the knife was taken out of the equation, Chekov’s gun was still in play. As long as her father stayed in that room, he was in danger.
The scene reset.
A young girl burst through the door and bounded to her father’s side. She grabbed his arm and tugged it, begging him to buy her a Swiss roll. Too busy to leave the room, he gave her money for the vending machine, shooed her away, and—
No, not that either.
The scene reset.
A young girl burst through the door and bounded to her father’s side. She grabbed his arm and tugged it, begging him to play a game with her—no, to say hello to Gummy—no, to give up on the trial and go home, please can we just go home—
“What are you doing?”
Kay yelped and dropped Little Thief to the floor, startled by the unexpected voice. The green projection around her flickered twice before dissipating fully, and the room reverted back to an empty defendant’s lobby with no bodies, no guns, and no knives. Mr. Edgeworth frowned in the open door, his brows knitting together.
Kay sighed.
Dammit. He wasn’t supposed to see this.
“Oh, hi, Mr. Edgeworth!” She picked up Little Thief, and then plastered on her best chipper smile. “I was just… practicing! A Great Thief has gotta keep her skills sharp, after all!”
Mr. Edgeworth scanned the defendant’s lobby, taking in the open window, the black screen on the TV, and Little Thief in her hands. She could practically see the puzzle pieces clicking together in his mind. “Practicing… with your father’s crime scene?”
“Gotta start somewhere, right?”
Mr. Edgeworth’s patient stare spoke louder than any words.
Kay deflated. She should have known better than to lie to him.
“...Do you ever wonder how things might have gone if you had just… acted a little differently?”
Mr. Edgeworth’s face drooped with the weary exhaustion of a man who had a long history with guilt. “Every day.” He gestured to the pleather couch. “Take a seat. Perhaps we should start from the beginning.”
Kay plopped onto the couch, and hugged one of the lumpy pillows for comfort. The lingering embarrassment of being caught recreating her father’s murder made it difficult to meet his eyes. She trusted Mr. Edgeworth to be kind—especially about something like this—but that didn’t mean it was easy to talk about.
Mr. Edgeworth sat on the other end, adjusting his suit jacket as he got comfortable. “Tell me,” he said as he turned to her, visibly concerned, “what’s all this about?”
Kay pulled her knees to her chest. “It’s the seven-year anniversary today. Did you know that?”
Grim understanding crossed Mr. Edgeworth's face without Kay having to explain any further. “Ah. I must admit the significance of the date passed me by.”
“That’s okay. I wouldn’t have expected you to remember anyway.” She sighed, sinking into her seat. “I know there’s no way to change the past. What happened happened, and there’s no undoing that. I get that. I just… don’t understand how it could have happened to begin with. I mean, I know how, and I know why, but….”
“...You’re wondering how you could have let it happen?”
Kay hugged the pillow a little tighter, and said nothing. Sometimes she hated that Mr. Edgeworth was so astute.
“What happened wasn’t your fault.” His tone was gentle, but firm. “You were a child. There was nothing you could have done.”
“But what if there was, though?!” Kay exclaimed, desperate. “If I had just… been there, then maybe….”
The end of the sentence hung in the air, unspoken.
That was the sticking point—the thought she couldn’t shake no matter how hard she tried. She had been in the courthouse with him that day. The murder had happened just down the hall from where she had been playing with her balloon. If she had just been a little closer, or if she had just insisted on staying by her father’s side, then maybe Calisto Yew would have never had the opportunity to hurt him. Maybe he would still be alive today, and she wouldn’t be so alone.
“...Have I ever told you about my father?”
Kay looked up, surprised at the sudden change in topic. She shook her head. “I know he’s gone, but that’s all I know.”
“There… was an incident when I was a boy—not much younger than you were when your father passed. We were in an elevator with a courtroom bailiff when an earthquake struck, causing a blackout and trapping us inside.”
Mr. Edgeworth spoke slowly, and stared off into the middle distance to avoid looking her in the eye. Kay got the impression this wasn’t an easy story for him to tell.
“Five hours we were stuck inside that elevator. The air was getting thin, and emotions were running high. The bailiff began arguing with my father—threatening him. I was a child. I was scared. All I wanted was to make it stop.”
He shut his eyes for a moment, lost in the memory.
“I… picked up the bailiff’s gun, and I threw it. There was a bang, and….”
Kay’s heart dropped. “Mr. Edgeworth! You didn’t—!”
“No, I didn’t. But for a long time, I thought I had.” He opened his eyes again and turned to face her. “I have spent many years wondering if he would still be alive if that day had gone a little differently—if I hadn’t picked up the gun, if we had stepped into the elevator five minutes earlier, if we had only taken the stairs…. But fantasizing about a different timeline will not bring my father back, and it certainly doesn’t make his loss hurt any less.”
Kay looked away when Mr. Edgeworth cut to the core of everything that had been eating at her, but a gentle hand on her arm and the soft tinge to his usually severe expression had her turning back.
“Surviving something traumatic when the people we love did not is a heavy burden to carry, but we must carry it. Your father wouldn’t want you to live with regret on your shoulders as my father wouldn’t want me to live with regret on mine.”
The loss of her father still stung as fresh as it did the day he died. There was so much she wanted to ask him—so much she wanted to tell him—but now she would never get the chance.
How was she supposed to be okay with that? How was she supposed to move on when he wouldn’t be there when she graduated from high school, or when she earned her prosecutor’s badge, or when the Yatagarasu became the shining beacon of hope and justice he had always envisioned it would be? It wasn’t fair. It just wasn’t fair.
But Kay knew Mr. Edgeworth was right. Her father wouldn’t want her to miss out on living her life because she was hung up over him losing his. There was nothing he had hated more than making her upset.
Kay shuffled over to Mr. Edgeworth and rested her head on his shoulder. “Does it ever get any easier?”
Mr. Edgeworth tensed—he wasn’t great with this type of touch, she remembered belatedly—and then rested his head against hers. “It does, in time.”
“It doesn’t feel like it’s getting any easier. I mean, it’s been years, and I still miss him every day.”
“There’s nothing wrong with missing the ones we love, Kay. It’s a sign of how important they were when they were here.”
Kay smiled to herself. What a nice thought. “Well, when you put it like that… I hope I keep missing him forever.”
Mr. Edgeworth chuckled softly. “I’m sure he would be honored to hear that.”
Losing her father was easily the worst thing that had ever happened to her, but in that yawning ache he left behind, Kay realized something important:
It hurt a little less when she could share the pain with a friend who had known it too.