A Christmas oneshot dedicated to all of you out there who might not have had the best Christmas out there. I hope this will cheer you up. (Btw, I know it's already a day after Christmas but...lemme have my fun! ^^;)

Credit to Emiko Nabile Gale for helping me out and giving me new ideas to work off of whenever I got stuck.

Merry (late) Christmas to all!

It's Christmas Day, a day of festivity and celebration. People get together with friends and family alike, a day of exchanging gifts and warm hugs, and a day of peace and good will to all.

That's how things happen in the land of the living, but in the realm of the dead in the afterlife, things are a little different because...well, for one, everyone is dead.

And for those dead people, Christmas means wishing that they were alive again, and could just go back for at least one day to celebrate with their loved ones.

Take this dead person for example, Bobby Fulbright, former homicide detective of Los Angeles, who is feeling quite sad at the moment as he stares down through the clouds.

"This has to be the worst day of my life...or non-life ever." The sullen detective says to himself aloud. "Not only are my wife and children lonely this Christmas, I'm dead because some vile criminal disguised himself as me for the sake of injustice! Even taking my own catchphrase!"

He pops his head back up into the clouds and sits by himself, depressed and slightly angry at the world. "This world needs justice, but how am I supposed to bring justice when I, the justice-bringer himself, can't deliver the just justice that the just deserve?"

"Heh, can you say 'justice' one more time?" Jokes the voice of a young man behind him.

"Are you kidding? I can never say it enough!" Fulbright responds as he stands up to greet the young man. "In JUSTICE we trust! So who might you be?"

"Clay Terran." Says the young man.

"Bobby Fulbright, ghost detective of justice!" The detective recites his catchphrase as he salutes with a forced smile on his face. "So what brings you here?"

"Because I'm dead, of course." Clay says in a deadpan (no pun intended) tone. "Or do you mean why am I talking to you? That's because you and I aren't all that different, really."

Fulbright looks sad and twiddles his two pointer fingers together, "Really?"

"Yeah." Clay says as he crosses his arms and looks down. "I had a really close friend down there, his name was Apollo. By the way, his last name just happens to be Justice, wink wink!"

"Well, surely he must have been a true fighter for justice!"

"You can say that." Clay smiles. "Anyways, he and I go way back, back to when we were kids. I had no mother and no father, and I thought that nobody else would ever understand my problems like I did. So early in my life that I had to live in an orphanage; that's when I met Apollo. Whenever I was down he was always there to pick me up, and then I'd pick him up whenever he was down. I don't think we'd ever have been the same had we never met."

Fulbright's tears are gushing like waterfalls out of his eyes as he takes out a tissue and holds his nose. "What true friends you two must have made!" He cries dramatically.

Clay can't help but laugh a little bit at the detective's over-the-top behavior. "Well, of course! But hey, even death doesn't stop me from having meaning in Apollo's life."

Fulbright places a hand on Clay's shoulder, "Y'know, someone told me a long time ago that death ends a life, not a relationship."

Clay didn't stir though, "It's still sad, to be separated from the people that mean so much to you."

Fulbright salutes again, "Maybe we can make new friends here, we already got each other!"

Clay pouts, "Well maybe...maybe I just can't let go!"

"Letting go? Of what?" Fulbright asks.

"Of Apollo! It's like he was the only friend I ever had when I was alive. Now I need to start all over."

"In that case, I think we can get along well." Says a female voice behind Clay.

Clay turns around to see a beautiful woman, a little shorter than him, with long brown hair and wearing a black suit and yellow scarf.

Fulbright sees her too, and he can't help but feel slightly attracted. "Well, hello there!" He greets her. "And who might you be?"

"Are you two new here? I'm Mia Fey." She introduces herself.

"Clay Terran."

"Bobby Fulbright! In justice we trust!"

Mia giggles at the detective, "Quite!"

Clay is confused though, a woman who looks relatively young and beautiful here in the afterlife? "How did you get here anyway?"

"I was a defense attorney investigating for answers to my mother's disappearance. The person I was targeting was a blackmailer, an arrogant man that destroyed lives. But I was caught in my act and struck me with a heavy piece of evidence, my sister was left alone."

"That's intense," Clay frowns.

"It didn't take me too long to accept it though, because I found someone that I could trust in fully. My protégé defended her when no one else would stand by her."

Mr. Fulbright salutes, "He must've of been a real trooper, a person that never gives up even in the face of death."

"I wish I could've been that," Clay mutters.

Mia frowns, "Actually he...A lot of stuff happened."

"So what's your point then?" Clay asked with a furrowed brow.

"Even after death, you can be sure that your closest friends won't ever forget you, and you can rest in that they won't give up on you." Mia said with a comforting smile.

She was then joined by two other ghosts. One a man with a cold, stern look and wearing a long, brown overcoat, and the other a woman with a warm, gentle look and wearing a green jacket with matching track pants.

"Yes." Chimed in the woman, Constance Courte. "And your words will continue to shape their lives in such wonderful ways."

"And even in their dark ages, they will look up to you as their inspirational light." The man, Gregory Edgeworth, adds in.

Clay and Fulbright see this new heavenly host before them, and feel moved by their words.

"...I understand now." Clay whispers as he was on the verge of tears. "Apollo...he always believed in me when I was still alive."

"And I'm sure he still does." Mia smiled.

"We always had our own catchphrase whenever we felt sad...'I'M FINE!'" Clay shouted. "That was how we helped each other whenever we were sad. We would both shout our catchphrase to let us know that everything was gonna be Ok, as long as we had each other."

"Ha ha! How about that?" Fulbright smiled from ear to ear. "I made up my own catchphrase with my best friend in the police academy! Whenever we were discouraged by the injustice in the world, we would remind ourselves 'In justice we trust' so we can keep on fighting for what's right!"

"Ahh! How beautiful it is to see that words do have lasting value!" Constance sighed happily as she put her hands together.

"Thank you...all of you!" Clay said with tears in his eyes. "You've all given me so much comfort, even in death."

"So I see we've done our job, Mr. Terran?" Mia cocked her head to one side as she smiled. "No objections?"

"None at all!" Clay shouted triumphantly. "I'm Clay Terran, and I'm fine!"

"I'm Bobby Fulbright, and I'm fine too!"

"Hey! That's my endearing catchphrase!" Clay teased Fulbright and nudged him.

"Yeah, well I think that's a good one as well! I think it could catch on!"

"Alright, you two can banter about your catchphrases later." Gregory Edgeworth said with the smallest hint of a smile.

"Hmmm? Why's that?" Clay asked.

"Well, because of the annual Afterlife Christmas Celebration, of course." Mia replied.

"Wow! That's seriously a thing?" Clay chuckled.

"Don't believe me? I guess you'll just have to see it for yourself then!" Mia took Clay by the shoulder and led him away as Fulbright and the rest of the spirits followed.

Meanwhile, at a cemetery on a snowy, Christmas evening.

"Merry Christmas, Clay." Apollo whispered as he smiled and laid flowers at the foot of Clay's gravestone.