Edgey, as he was so endearingly called before everything went wrong, sits on the shore of Gourd Lake. He clutches a cup of coffee in his hand – whatever blend it may be, it is certainly not Arabica. He stares from one fluid to another, lake to cup to lake, attempting not to choke on the scalding substance currently burning his system. "What did you say this was, again?" He doesn't turn to look at the person to whom the question is directed – he's not sure he can quite handle it.
"It's the Samurai Dog special!" God, you can hear the musical notes at the end of each phrase. The sound makes his ears ache as well as his throat. He almost expects the local dogs to come bounding towards them at any moment.
'It tastes like a dog,' is what he does not say, also avoiding accusations of sacrilege of the Steel Samurai name. Instead he drinks the coffee as quickly and mindlessly as he can, wanting to escape this place and his old acquaintance with all due haste. But obviously this acquaintance, being Larry Butz, decides to sit down next to him at this point with one of the aforementioned cups of vile coffee. Strangely enough, he doesn't smile.
"Just three years ago, huh?" he starts. "Seems a lot long-"
"Shut up, Larry."
"Oh. Yeah." He takes what would be a thoughtful sip, if it weren't for the fact that it's Larry Butz. "But it was cool in the end, right? Nick…"
He trailed off; lapsed into silence. Both sets of eyes stared out across the choppy lake, for some rare moment both thinking exactly the same thought.
"He didn't do it, right, Edgey?" His foot scraped in the dirt to the side, drawing infuriating circles. Over and over. "Not Nick. He wasn't ever like that."
Edgeworth didn't reply. Sipping the last dregs of coffee, his mind crossed thoughts that were so personal, so private, they were almost alien to him.
The truth, of course. That was what mattered. Not speculation.
"Where d'ya think he is right now?" The circles continued. "You know, how that he's not a… defence attorney anymore."
And if he looked hard enough across Gourd lake; where that incident had happened, as Larry had said, three years ago, that time that defence attorney had saved his life – maybe he'd remember what it was like to be kids, again. Smiling. Especially him; he who had such a strange sense of loyalty, and had a smile that appeared to be built into his system.
No, was his thought as he silently drained the cup. He didn't do it, did he.
He clambered to his feet, as elegantly as possible. "Larry?"
The circles stopped. He looked up. "Yeah, Edgey?"
The empty cup struck a chord as it hit the metallic bin.
"I think you better give Wright his money back."