Author's Note: The following one shot is still very, very subject to being rewritten, but I figured it was good enough to be posted up here. It's also possible that a followup will be posted from Mia's point of view. Let me know what all of you think in the reviews!

Meant To Be Broken

The Countess D

The day Diego opened his eyes was one he never liked to remember, and one he knew he'd never be able forget. The moments in the sudden rush towards consciousness before he awakened were too terrifying to push from his mind, too vivid to ignore. It was suffocating, restricting, and out of all the years he'd spent in slumber, they were the only moments that Diego became utterly, horrifically aware of being trapped within his own body.

He relived these moments in his darkest nights, when guilt weighed on his mind and kept him awake until he collapsed from pure exhaustion. He dreamt of struggling in his own unconsciousness, fighting to break free from the prison of his very existence. On the worst nights, he dreamt that he heard her, only to be too late once he awakened.

He says these are his worst nights, of course, because those nights were more memory than dream.

No; the moments before his awakening never failed to instill Diego with fear. But it was the moments that followed that made Diego marvel at how he'd lasted for so long; how he was still, if just barely, sane.

He remembered his world going from black to red, the sensation of being sentient, of being awake hitting him like a sudden rush of air. He'd taken in his surroundings, his eyes darting around the room wildly. He'd barely heard the nurse calling frantically for the doctor before he began to panic, his hands reaching up to feel the thing that was on his face and his throat hoarsely crying about worlds of blood and monsters and murderers and kittens that weren't there why wasn't she there, and he continued screaming as sterile hands held him down, one driving a needle into his skin before the world went dark again.

The next time he regained consciousness, the doctor was waiting to greet him, his manner too gentle to be bearing any kind of good news. The doctor asked Diego what he remembered, listening patiently as his patient spoke brokenly about courts and devils with parasols and where was Mia before he began to answer all his questions except the one he obviously cared about most.

And though he was aching to hear that answer, Diego listened attentively as he learned what he had become, too sedated to express his horror even as he questioned whether or not he was still human, whether he was still truly alive. He felt himself begin to tremble, his throat tightening before he asked whether anyone had visited, whether she had visited, because surely if she would still come to see him, would still accept him in this artificial state, then surely living wouldn't be so bad.

There was a certain degree of hesitation in the doctor's manner that certainly preceded the worst, but Diego didn't dare believe it. It was only when he had heard definitively that Mia was dead that he felt himself break and started screaming all over again, crying for her, sedatives be damned.

The only time a lawyer can cry is when it's all over. Now as he rested in his cell, Diego-now-and-then-Godot, turned over his self-proclaimed rule in his mind with more than a hint of distaste. At the time he awakened, when he found out that he'd lost Mia he certainly felt like it was all over. If anything, it had certainly been over for Diego Armando.

But Godot wasn't innocent of breaking his own philosophy either. For what were all his actions, but for his cries for vengeance brought to life? What was his hostility towards Wright if not his cries to have Mia back in the place of some bumbling amateur that had failed failed failed to keep her safe? And though, ever since that day in the hospital and up until his fall from grace, Godot had never shed any tears, he'd certainly spent more than enough nights in anguish, leaving his apartment in ruins by dawn.

In fact, if he'd learned anything since his awakening, it was that crying didn't require any tears at all.

So how many other rules had he, as Diego Armando and Godot both, broken? Always defend the innocent. Fight crime, don't commit it. Never lose yourself. Always save the girl. So many unspoken rules that he once believed he held himself to; so many of them so easily thrown away.

He was a fraud in every sense of the word. A false attorney. A false man. His false rules.

In the end, Diego had only truly followed one rule: always chase a riddle down to the end. And look where it brought him. It brought him to this cell, it brought him to Deauxnim; arguably, it had also brought him to the enigma that was Mia Fey. After all, in the end, wasn't it solving her mysteries that had brought him here?

Yes, he answered to himself. The purpose Mia held herself with and the determination in her eyes had been a riddle Diego couldn't resist. It had been a trap in the end, a lure to a relationship that had no hope or future; a relationship that, like his rules, had always been meant to be broken. And yet, he knew that for just a taste of happiness he'd had with Mia, he would do it all over again.

There was the sound of approaching footsteps; Diego tuned his ears into the sound, listening as they came to a stop in front of his cell door. "Armando."

He didn't reply.

Knowing the guard wouldn't wait very long, Diego lifted himself out of bed and walked towards the bars. The guard slid them open, slapping the handcuffs over his wrists before leading him down the hall. Diego could feel the others watching them from behind their own bars.

"Did you decide on your last words?"

Diego glanced at him before giving a small shrug.

The guard looked at him out of the corner of his eye before explaining quietly, "You'll have your last meal in a separate room. You'll be brought to the execution chamber as soon as your done."

"I won't take long."

The guard let out a quiet scoff. "I would hope so. Not many inmates would request a cup of coffee for their last meal."

He shrugged again. Not many inmates would remember the exact brew Diego had been sipping the first time they saw Mia walk through the door – the first time Diego drank her in.

The conversation ended there, and neither of them attempted to revive it. Soon after, Diego entered the room and walked to the table in the center, a single mug of coffee resting on its surface. He lifted to his lips and closed his eyes.

He saw her, green and naïve, standing in the hall of Grossberg's office, the light falling on her at just the right angle. He saw her kissing the palm of his hand, newly bandaged after he crushed his favorite mug at her first trial. He saw her with fire in her eyes as she declared war on Dahlia Hawthorne, saying firmly that they would bring that they would bring her down together. He saw her pressed flush against his chest minutes after he'd had her atop his sheets, gasping for air.

Tears began to flow beneath his mask, down his cheeks.

It was the most bitter cup of coffee he'd ever tasted.

"Any last words?"

Diego stared at his feet, the weight of the rope on his neck and shoulders, the weight of the end on his mind. He became aware of the cuffs on his wrists, the wetness on his cheeks, of being utterly trapped in this false life. The small audience his execution had attracted was somber, already in mourning before he'd even fallen, and here Diego was standing not in dread, but relief. Excitement. And with all that he'd suffered through, with all that was waiting for him on the other side, why wouldn't he be?

He lifted his eyes to look across the crowd, saw the sullen eyes in the few friends that had taken place in the crowd. Grossberg was there, gazing at him sadly. Wright was standing beside him, his own stare just as focused, though Diego knew that in the final moments that the young attorney wouldn't be able to do anything but look away.

He stared at the young boy that Mia had instilled so much trust in even from beyond the grave, his chest aching with both jealousy and respect. He saw the same purpose and determination in Wright's eyes that he'd seen in Mia so long ago. Silently, he wished him all the best.

The words were spoken again, insistently. "Any last words?"

There was another pause, a second of hesitation before Diego licked his lips and began to speak. "I always said that the only time a lawyer could cry…" Diego began slowly, "Is when it's all over."

Phoenix was looking at him, and behind his mask Diego met his gaze straight on. His tears, red and haunting, flowed freely down his cheeks. Then inexplicably, he smiled. "I lied. Don't pity me. This is only the beginning."

The lever was pulled. Phoenix turned. Diego dropped. His world went from red to black.

The day he opened his eyes to see hers was one he always loved to remember and knew he'd never forget.