A deep feeling of dread consumed her whenever he returned to America.

It was only natural to feel that way, she told herself. She was simply worried he would decide to stay there and never return to keep working by her side. It was a perfectly rational concern to have. He was the only family she had that would still speak to her, because he was the only family she had that understood her.

They had a lot in common, after all.

But that feeling would come back in other situations. It would return to her when she sat in that ugly Belgian café with her gaze fixed firmly down upon the lukewarm omelet and undercooked potatoes. You talk too much. Both of you.

Oh yes, that choking feeling would return when Miles yet again spent too much of his own money flying that man across the Atlantic with the weak excuse of wanting to work with him on another case. She tried to explain to him over and over that he never really added anything to their work—his writing was mediocre at best, he never spoke the language, and he just followed them around like a tourist. But Miles would only smile the strangest smile and shake his head. "He's helping more than you realize." He worked much less during these visits, but never so little that she could ask them to stop entirely.

He confronted her about it when he returned from the airport one morning after one of Wright's particularly long visits.

"Does it bother you?"

She always wanted to tell him that yes, it did, he should have been focusing on the case instead of gallivanting around the city with a man so foolish he couldn't practice law for more than three years without utter disaster. But they always achieved the results they were after despite that man's continued presence, so what leg did she have to stand on? He was allowed to have friends even if they were stupid and undignified.

But that was a harsh thought, and even she knew it.

So no, she told him that it did not bother her. He seemed to relax after that and rambled endlessly about the foolish endeavours they'd had—the ones she refused to join—and she realized with some horror that she liked it better when he talked about that goddamned children's show he was so adamant on watching.

One particularly insightful morning she realized that it was probably some unresolved anger towards Wright about her father. Of course, that must have been it. He was the one that waved the stupid metal detector in court and caused her world to turn upside down. He didn't even apologize for it. But of course, he didn't deserve to; he wasn't worthy of apologizing to a von Karma. He was only worthy of being utterly humiliated in court, and she never got to achieve that goal. It was perfect, she finally understood.

But when she opened her mouth to finally explain it to her little brother, she remembered the shock and pain she felt when she heard the news—he's fallen into a river, he might not make it, we must do something—and knew deep inside her bones that, by himself, he wasn't the problem. He'd found a way to make her respect him and, all else be damned, she was not going to lie about her opinions.

"Nothing, it's nothing. Get back to work."

She tried to forget about it. If these feelings were not going to serve a purpose, they had to be entirely discarded. She started to join them on their trips to museums and restaurants and all sorts of useless—but admittedly pleasurable—recreational activities. It was going very well until Miles cornered her one evening and tripped over his words so badly she threatened to whip him. She hadn't carried her whip in years.

"I don't know how to say this any other way, Franziska, but I'd appreciate it if you didn't come with us for the next few days. Is that alright?"

She didn't understand, was this not what he wanted? She voiced this, firmly and confidently, until he swung the axe and cut deep into her dignity.

"You're starting to feel like a third wheel."

Of course she knew they were together. Of course she knew that, but she didn't admit it because it was such a distraction to her brother that it was best if she pretended it wasn't happening at all. He was free to sleep with whomever he pleased, and it would be entirely inappropriate if his sister thought she could interfere with that. She just never thought he would think she was so dense and couldn't understand this.

So she sat at home alone, sipping her tea and trying not to think anything more about Miles' sex life. Well, if that's all it was, then nothing would change.

But things always changed.

It was almost five years into this strange arrangement Miles and Wright had, and Franziska had long since made peace with it. She accepted the fact that, every so often, Phoenix Wright would appear for a little while and she would have to force some strange feelings down into her soul. Then he would leave and things would return to normal. It was nothing she could not handle, even if she was still at a loss for how to explain it.

She was having a fantastically productive day when Phoenix Wright knocked on her door. He was strangely alone. She couldn't remember the last time she saw him without her brother. It had probably been years.

"What do you want, Phoenix Wright?" She asked this more abrasively than she intended. "I'm very busy right now."

Wright looked absolutely terrified, but asked to come in and speak to her. She busied herself making him some tea and stretched the moment out as long as she could before she finally sat down on the chair opposite him.

"What do you need from me?"

Wright let out a deep breath. "I'm really nervous about this, as you can probably see. I know you and Miles are really close, which is something he can't really say about a lot of people. I figured it was best if I talk about this with you first."

"Just say it, Phoenix Wright. You're rambling."

As nervous as he was, and as long as it took him to spit it out, Franziska was entirely blindsided. In a hundred years she would not have guessed that this could have possibly been the reason this man sought her out. A thousand pieces of evidence would not have led her to this conclusion...even though she knew, deep down, a thousand pieces of evidence probably pointed to this conversation happening in some form. Eventually.

"I want to ask Miles to marry me."

The silver lining of this moment was that there was no one else to see it. It was just her and the man that she could never understand and knew she never really wanted to understand. Because there was no one else around, she was afforded a bit more honesty with herself.

"You...you what?"

"I wanted to talk to you about it first, because I figured you probably know him better than anyone. Probably even better than I do, really."

She started and stopped about a dozen sentences, but nothing made sense.

"Does it really seem that sudden?" Wright asked, concern running deep in his voice. "Is it so surprising?"

She was about to tell him that yes, of course it was. It was foolish and out of the blue. It made no sense, and of course Miles Edgeworth would never marry anyone, because he thought that sort of thing was sentimental and entirely irrational.

But she stopped herself.

Why did she think he thought that?

Certainly, it was true that she thought that. Marriage was stupid and she would never get married. She also knew that she and her brother shared a lot of opinions, so it was only reasonable to expect that they would share this one.

But what did the evidence say?

The evidence told her that only a couple of days previously, she heard Miles sneeze six times in a row in the other room. When she got up to go tell him to keep it down, she saw that he was holding a massive bouquet of flowers directly in front of his face. She asked him what he was doing—he was allergic to most flowers, didn't he remember? He told her they were for Wright, because Wright kept hinting at how much he loved flowers. He wanted to surprise him and the ones that didn't make him sneeze just weren't as nice. She rolled her eyes but was struck by that moment. She didn't understand it.

The evidence also told her that last summer, during a rare trip to California, Miles called her and informed her he had an interview at the Chief Prosecutor's Office. She demanded to know what that was about, as he absolutely did not inform her he was doing such a thing. He said he didn't plan on it, but there was an opening and he 'might as well see' if they had any interest. They never spoke of that trip again, and nothing ever did seem to come of it...

Most damningly, the evidence showed her the lasting smile on Miles' face whenever he came back to the office after a lunch or dinner with Wright. It would just sit there, unmoving, for the longest time until Franziska would ask him what was so funny. Nothing was funny, he would say, but then he would later stare at his phone and the smile would return and he would never offer a reason why.

She knew why. She knew why.

She knew why all of these things made her feel so uneasy.

"No, Phoenix Wright, it is not a surprise. It was only a matter of time before you said something like this."

Wright looked a little less concerned, albeit only a little. "But what do you think? We've talked about marriage before, but only in abstract. He never really said if it was something that interested him or not."

Wright was handing her a knife and trusting she wouldn't stab him with it. She could, and it would be easy, but that was not her duty to the truth.

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Absolutely not in front of this foolish man, do not do this now, you fool.

Do not make this about you.

She opened her eyes and felt the warmth sliding down her cheeks. "Miles Edgeworth has loved you for years. You know this. I know this. I also know that he would do anything for you. Were it up to him, he probably wouldn't bother getting married. I doubt he would see the point in it. But if this is something that is important to you, then you wouldn't have to ask him twice."

"Franziska..."

"No. This is not about me." For Wright's benefit entirely, she added, "Don't make me hurt you."

He leaned back a bit.

"When we were younger," she went on, "we used to talk about how foolish it was to fall in love. How vulnerable it makes you, and for what? We never figured that out. It was something only other people did." She wiped the bottom of her chin.

"My parents never got along and divorced when I was very young. Miles' mother was dead before he even knew how to speak. It was not something we grew up around. Were it up to me, it would not be something either of us would ever deal with, Phoenix Wright.

"But it's not up to me. It's up to him. And he chose to deal with it, so that is that. I suppose he could have done much worse."

Wright smiled sadly. "Coming from you, that means a lot."

"Don't get used to it. You are both fools. But if you ask him to marry you, he will marry you." She looked away from him and instead stared at a line of sunlight on the dark wooden floor. A few moments passed in silence.

"This doesn't mean you're going to lose him," Wright said. "He cares very deeply about you."

Franziska nodded, still looking down at the floor. "Yes, I know." But her face was still damp.

"And..." he trailed off, unsure. "And this doesn't mean that you won't find something similar for yourself."

She snapped her head back up, eyes ablaze. Wright, to his credit, didn't flinch or change his expression at all.

"I know you guys have a really competitive relationship. But I don't think this is something anyone can win or lose. It's not really how this works," he said. "I know you don't want to hear this, because it sounds embarrassing. I get it. But I think you should give yourself more credit."

"Do you," she said. It wasn't a question. Was it an invitation?

"Well, yeah. For example, I think Adrian Andrews definitely had a crush on you." Wright looked away and scratched the back of his neck. "I mean, I don't want to assume anything, but from where I'm standing you can definitely attract people."

"I think it's time for you to stop talking, Phoenix Wright," Franziska said sternly, but she could feel her pulse a little more strongly than usual. She did?

"I think that's probably a great idea," Wright agreed. He stood up. "Thank you for your honesty, Franziska. You're really good to Miles, and I know you meant what you said."

Franziska led him over to the door and rested her hand on the knob. "Treat him well, Phoenix Wright," she said, but she knew she didn't have to.

Wright smiled and held out his hand.

"Of course. He is the love of my life."

—-

Miles called her the next day, almost yelling into the phone with excitement. She congratulated him and went along with it, expressing surprise and pride at all the right parts, never letting on that she knew this was going to happen before he did. She doubted he would appreciate her conversation with Wright.

She hung up the phone after ten minutes of sentimental foolishness, joking that she better be chosen as his best man. She knew the wedding, like the rest of their lives, would probably take place in California, but even upon realizing this she didn't feel the shattering sickness that normally came along with these things.

It was the first time that happened.

No, she instead felt relief that her biggest fear came true and she was actually happy about it. The man Miles was to marry was someone she knew and, well, trusted.

She trusted someone.

It wasn't love, of course, but it was a fundamental part of it. And if she was capable of that, then maybe the other parts weren't so impossible.

And that was all she ever needed to hear.