Chapter 4
The song for this chapter is: Make This Go On Forever – Snow Patrol.
I woke up feeling more welcome than I had in a long time. Even though sun shone through the open window right into my eyes, I snuggled down into the covers comfortably, refusing to move just yet.
I inhaled slowly, taking in a scent that brought back so many memories. I grinned, forcing myself not to laugh out loud at some of them. My dreams last night had been of this origin as well. I had gladly reminisced of my time at Wright & Co. Law Offices, even if it was not consciously.
Another smell suddenly itched at my nose; it was fried eggs. Someone was making breakfast. Now, I'd never been a fan of eggs, but this morning they seemed to grate on me even more than normal. I sat straight up, holding my nose. The smell of them made me want to puke.
Not only that; the smell of them did make me puke. I had to make a dash for the bathroom down the hall, tripping over various discarded objects in the hall on my way there. I breathed slowly and deeply (through my mouth, of course, to avoid the stench) after I had finished, and positioned on my hands and knees on the bathroom floor.
I should have known this was coming, I thought. I had been anticipating it for a short while, but it had still caught me unawares this morning.
After a few more minutes, I composed myself and walked through into the kitchen area, still holding my breath. Nick was there, wearing exactly the same outfit he had been wearing last night, hat and all, scooping eggs onto three plates for Pearly, Trucy and himself. He greeted me with a wide grin; I smiled weakly in return.
Pearl looked over her plate at me meaningfully before tucking into her breakfast. I nodded slowly and subtly, sending her a "secret message". I'm fine. She glared at me for a moment more, apparently choosing not to believe that statement, before eating her eggs with far more grace than Phoenix or his daughter did. I slid into a seat next to Nick; he radiated warmth.
"How'd you sleep?" he asked me with a mouthful of egg.
"Fine," I lied. I glanced over at the sofa, noticing the presence of a pillow and screwed-up blanket which had not been there last night. "Did you sleep out here?"
"Yeah," he answered me. "Don't worry about it. The sofa's longer than my bed anyways." I nodded half-heartedly.
"You don't look so good," Trucy noticed. Damn, if this girl was gonna be this observant forever she'd end up finding out things she didn't even want to know.
"It's nothing," I reassured her, and shot a look at Pearly while I was at it. "I'm naturally pale." Pearl snorted a laugh, then tried to cover it up by coughing.
A few moments of almost comfortable silence passed afterwards. I was glad that there as no (or at least, very little) awkwardness between Nick and I. Sure, there was a huge chunk of his life that I had missed, but I was planning on catching up on every minute of that in the time I spent here. Mainly how the hell he managed to acquire a daughter, especially one who was fifteen years old and therefore she would have been born long before I'd even met Nick. It seemed a little odd for us to have been great friends for three years and he'd never mentioned his own daughter.
Then again, he'd missed out on a lot in my life too. Upon realising this, I resolved that, even though he seemed to be less of a "talker" than he once had been, we should have a nice long talk. Without the girls, preferably. Maybe I could buy them a new box-set of Pink Princess…
My thought process was interrupted by Pearl nudging me painlessly yet forcefully under the table. I looked up at her.
"Mystic Maya and I will wash up," she volunteered us. I fought the urge to groan loudly. "Trucy, Mr Nick, why don't you two go watch some television?"
"She's only been here a day and she's running my household again…" Nick said with a wink in my direction. I giggled, while Pearly blushed. "And you can call me Nick, you know, Pearls."
She blushed deeper. "Habit," she muttered. I picked up some empty plates and took them over to the sink. Pearl turned the hot tap on full, spraying me with water a little in doing so.
She nudged me again, her elbow in my side this time. "Are you alright?" she whispered quickly. "And I want the honest answer, okay?"
Her determination scared me a little. "Really, I'm fine, Pearls." Her glare almost burned a hole right through me. "Well, I will be. I just feel a little queasy."
"Look, you have to tell me if you don't feel well. I can't take care of you if you won't tell me what's wrong," she said, squirting an unnecessary amount of washing-up liquid into the basin.
Now it was my turn to glare. "You're sixteen, Pearls. It's not your duty to look after me, nor is it anyone else's." I grabbed an unused-looking sponge and started to scrub.
"It's not just you I have to look after, Maya." She wasn't even calling me Mystic Maya then. She must have been really angry. I backed down a little.
"I know you're only trying to help," I said, sighing a little. "I promise I'll tell you if anything is really up, okay?" She nodded gently, apparently agreeing to compromise.
She'd washed and dried the majority of the items in the basin before I'd even done one. She took the plate I was holding from me and quickly but thoroughly polished it with a dishtowel. "And don't forget to tell Mr Nick soon."
"I know," I said, sighing again. "To be fair, there's a lot he hasn't told me, either."
"You don't know the half of it," she murmured. I don't think she meant for me to hear her. She continued, louder this time. "I'll try and make some space for the two of you to talk later. Take Trucy out shopping or something."
"I heard my name; what are you two whispering about?" Trucy called from a few meters away. Her curiosity reminded me of a younger Nick.
"Nothing much," Pearl said quickly. "Just trying to figure out how long we're going to be staying here."
"Come to a conclusion?" Phoenix chimed in. His eyes looked hopeful.
"Not yet," I said, truthfully. "You'll know as soon as we do." He seemed content with this and went back to his TV show.
Later that day…
True to her earlier plans, Pearl had in fact taken Trucy to the nearest supermarket. She'd given Phoenix some excuse about him not having the flavour of Pop Tarts she liked, and insisted on going to buy some before tomorrow morning.
"So," I began, curled up on Nick's sofa again while he sat comfortably next to me. "Been up to much in the past seven years?"
He shifted himself slightly so he was facing me. He looked very sincere. "You don't have to do that. You know, ask me about my life, hear a load of crap you're not really interested in… You can just ask me where the hell I got a daughter from. I don't mind." By the time he was finished, he couldn't help grinning. I returned the smile gladly.
"You know I've been wanting to ask you that for the past 30 hours, right?"
"Yeah, I know," he said, his smile fading a little. "Just so you know, everything I'm about to tell you, she already knows. No need to keep it a secret from her or anything."
"Right…" I muttered. Secrets, back again… There were far too many of those going around at the moment.
"You're probably going to be as relieved as I am to know this, but she's not my real daughter," he started. "Not my birth daughter, I mean. I adopted her." I let go of a breath I didn't know I was holding. He was right; I was a little relieved, admittedly. There was something… unknown about that girl.
He continued. "Her father was a magician, as you may or may not have guessed. A key member of the Troupe Gramarye, as it happens. Anyway, I was supposed to be defending him. I wasn't doing a very good job of it; in fact, I was getting pretty desperate. That was the first time I saw Trucy. She was there with her father, but she had another mission other than accompanying her dad. She gave me a sheet of paper which 'someone outside' had told her to give to 'the spiky-haired old boy in blue'." He chuckled at remembering this. "That sheet of paper turned out to be my lifeline for saving her father. I presented it in court, because although I had no idea of its reliability, I thought it was the only way." He sighed before going on. I was thoroughly entranced by his story. "I soon found out that the evidence was forged." I gasped loudly at the statement, leaving my mouth hanging open while he concluded. "However, before Trucy's father's guilty verdict could be passed, he vanished. I lost my lawyer's badge that day, and also gained a daughter."
I continued to stare, open-mouthed, at the man formerly known as Phoenix Wright, Ace Attorney. I couldn't believe it; Phoenix, Nick, my best friend, stripped of his badge for a crime he didn't commit?
"Who was it?" I whispered. He knew what I was referring to.
"It doesn't matter anymore," he assured me. "The man who was the real culprit of forging that evidence has been punished for all his crimes now."
I felt relieved. "Well then, at least justice has been served," I said with a weak smile.
Phoenix laughed. "That reminds me, you haven't met Polly yet!"
"Polly?" I said, a little incredulously, hoping that Trucy hadn't convinced him to buy a parrot or something.
"My employee," he said, a little cockily. "He's a defence attorney, not to mention, Trucy's half-brother. He's officially employed by Wright Anything Agency."
I nodded, understanding. I supposed a defence attorney was a hell of a lot better than a bird.
"Anyway," Nick suddenly changed the subject. "You've got my life story. Now, what about you? What've you been doing in Kurain for seven years?" He leaned in towards me, apparently eager to hear my reply. I smiled, but sadness crept into the edges.
"I should warn you, my story's not as dramatic as yours," I joked. "Though, I suppose there are some twists in there, too."
He shifted in the chair, getting more comfortable. "Fire away. Nothing surprises me now," he said, showing his teeth when he beamed at me. I rolled my eyes in disbelief. He'd become really cocky since I saw him last. I wondered where all this self-confidence came from, considering he'd lost his job and gained a rather bossy daughter.
I began right after I had last seen him. "When I went back to Kurain, I had to tell everyone that the last Master – my mother – had died. Nobody else knew of this except Pearls and I. Everyone was devastated, but they insisted I became the new Master immediately. They'd gone too long without one. I was scared to disappoint them, so I agreed, not quite knowing what I was entering into.
"I trained for a long time to try and regain my spiritual power. I'd missed out on a lot of practice when I'd been running the office with you instead of sitting under waterfalls, so my ability was very low. It took me a long time to even channel the tamest of spirits then. Pearls, Mia and my mom, Misty, helped me, though. They all encouraged me to carry on, because I was sure by then that it was what I wanted. I eventually got most of my power back, but by then, the majority of Kurain had lost their respect for me. I think I had just failed to reach their expectations. I was so disappointed in myself, I would hardly even talk to anyone. Pearls got really worried about me, and tried to get some of the other women to help me. It was a kind thought, but all it really did was make me angry. Those women controlled my entire life. I wasn't allowed to do what I wanted, I had to get permission to do anything.
"The final straw was when someone mentioned to me about continuing the main family line. I had always assumed they'd want me to reproduce and all that, but I didn't think they would go so far as to find me a… What was it they called him?... A suitable match. Which, in plain English, means they arranged a marriage for me. I'd never even met the guy! I was so angry with them, all of them. I snuck out of the village that night, without even telling Pearly where I was going, and went and got myself ridiculously drunk in a bar." I decided to skip out the next part, both to avoid my own embarrassment and making Nick uncomfortable. "I don't remember much about that night, apart from waking up next to some random guy I didn't even know. I realised that I'd been really stupid to get so angry, and tried to forget about the whole thing. Nobody at Kurain even knew I'd gone anywhere. Unfortunately, fate wouldn't let me just forget that night, because two weeks later I missed a period, a week after that I took a pregnancy test, and now I've been thrown out of my home village. Which is pretty much why I'm sitting here on your couch." Phoenix was very still. I tried to mimic him, but the tears in my eyes threatening to spill over apparently had other ideas. My whole body suddenly buckled as I sobbed. Nick snapped out of his daze and scooted over on the sofa to hold me close to his chest while I cried.
"Hey, it's alright," he cooed. "You're here now, with your best friends. We'll take care of you," he promised. I almost smiled.
Later, when most of the tears had dried, sticking most of my hair to my face in the process, Nick sensed it was okay to talk again. He tucked one of many stray strands of hair behind my ear with one calloused hand. "They kicked you out?" he asked sadly.
I inhaled, then let out a low, drawn-out sigh. "Yeah. Apparently, it's against the rules to have 'illegitimate children'." I made speech marks in the air with my fingers. "I would have either had to abort, which was never really an option, or track down that guy and somehow get him to marry a freak like me." I laughed once.
Nick frowned. "You're not a freak, Maya." I scoffed. "Okay, maybe you're a little strange. But strange is good. It's individual. I should know; my daughter is the definition of strange."
I laughed, quietly enough so that I wouldn't wake the girls (who had fallen asleep hours ago). I felt my eyelids begin to droop, but didn't even bother to try and make my way towards my (well, Nick's) bed. I slept curled up in the arms of a man who I once would've called my hero; a man who had once known me better than I'd known myself; a man who, despite the fact I hardly knew him now, I trusted with my life. And that of my "foetus".
A/N: Longest. Chapter. EVER.
Don't get too excited, this will probably be the only one this long. I just didn't want to split it in two. :)