Inhale
by icecreamlova

- : -

He's the one that takes you home.

After the court case ends, you are a wreck, and everyone sees it, but you can't find the strength to care. Appearances can deceive; masks donned and shaken off at a thought. Can you trust what you see? Can they? Will they ever trust their eyes again, these spectators to whom you have revealed a she-devil in the guise of an angel?

(This does not include the judge. He seems to lose all logic and common knowledge when a case begins.)

And your state regardless, what they see is nothing, absolutely nothing to the fact that an innocent man is dead, you think.

It's a surprise to you that he doesn't take off immediately. You have vowed to each other, and to the memory of a dead man, to find the truth of the matter, fists clenched and passion roaring. Diego is a hot-shot in more ways than one. He must burn to return to research, but he stays, almost awkward as you brace your hands on the stand in front, eyes stinging. You wish you could release that restless energy by shattering a coffee cup too, but the surface beneath your fingers is the grain of polished wood, varnished until it feels nearly as smooth as glass. Clawing at it would get you nowhere.

The bandaged hand on your elbow catches you by surprise.

You shake off his hand. Physical contact hasn't played a big part in your life for years now, and your sister's hugs belong to a distant past that you rarely revisit.

Dahlia is going down.

You don't realize you have said this out loud until he nods in agreement.

He offers you a ride home, with the pity in his eyes that you hate. You decline.

He'll help you, and you will be friends, but Dahlia is the goal, not Diego, and even if you're shattered, you won't let the demoness see you like this.

But as it registers that appearances are still important after all, you want to laugh, and you feel your knees shaking with the sheer effort it takes to keep standing. Is this the woman you wanted to be, back in Kurain and watching the stars, sadness buried and groping in the dark for a way to heal your shattered family? Is this the woman you wanted to be, buried amidst piles of law books and studying late into the night, reaching for justice with a steady strength and open heart?

You ask yourself, holding onto the magatama pendant of your necklace: are you the woman you have dreamed of being for years yet?

All you are is a shattered soul who watched her client spin away beyond her reach, helpless to bring him back, and yet here you stand, fists clenched and eyes proud, and you won't let your co-worker help you, even if he's seen it all.

You can almost hear the whisper of your mother's voice, old advice given while she thought you were asleep, telling you that there are many different sorts of pride.

Your mouth is a grim line, eyes glaring into Dahlia's retreating back. You've straightened unconsciously, and despite your red-rimmed eyes, your ragged lower lip, despite the dregs of your first case laid out in front of you proclaiming utter failure, you stand tall and the banked fire burns.

You call out to her.

She doesn't turn, but you can see from the tenseness of her shoulders that she is listening. She's not that good an actress. You almost had her this time, and she knows it as well as you do.

You tell her to watch out. Reiterate the threat, as if it can cut right through her mask and show the judge just how utterly wrong he was.

She turns, and she smiles, terse and wary.

It's a hollow victory, for now, but you will find a way, and so you find the strength to turn to Diego and ask him if his offer is still available.

- : -

The ride gets a little strange, half way home. You recline tiredly against the warmth of the front seat, arms drawn around abdomen because you can't curl up any more than that, head leaning against the cool glass car window and feeling the hard surface vibrate against your temples until the world seems to shake in tempo. Diego's car slips from one crush of traffic to another, always slow enough that you can pick out the individual people in their lurid colors - whereas you are dressed in black, fading into the grayness of the city in your uncomfortable tailored suit.

It wasn't like this in Kurain. There, the roads were dirt, not hard asphalt, and the spaces between buildings could be anywhere between endless, and just wide enough to hide between; there is only the latter here, and tall buildings seem to bow inward, until you are afraid they'll topple over, shadows across the sun, and crush everyone beneath. The years of study still haven't fully managed to hide the freedom of your early years.

Just look at where all that sacrifice got you, a voice tells the most insecure part of yourself.

You try not to shudder.

He notices, and as traffic slows again, grinding into a jam and trapped behind the vivid wink of a red light, he turns his head to look at you. You catch it in the corner of your eye, movement in a world that is muted gray and blurry, but he says nothing until he's turned again and all you can see is the rustle of his shaggy hair. He is looking forward like that - into an imagined distance that is not blocked by rows and rows of cars, perhaps - when he finally breaks the subtle, soothing hum of engines.

He tells you it wasn't your fault, and his voice is strangely loud, even though it hadn't been silent before. The words don't quite measure up to the effect of simply saying them. Is this tidbit of wisdom all he has to offer?

Your reply comes out without conscious thought. You tell him in a listless voice, not quite wrecked, and certainly not crying, that you didn't cause it, but you couldn't stop it either. That was your fault.

He admits that, no, you couldn't, but he doesn't know that anyone else could have.

It's not pity in his eyes, like that detested flicker you saw across his face back in the courthouse, but then, you are not crying, like you were when you gasped out that Fawles's death was your fault. You just feel drained now, like your tears have dried up and left a parched, tired riverbed in its wake.

He tells you to have strength, and also to believe. Isn't that what you're best at?

You point out that it got you nowhere.

Well, he argues, because of your persistence, you found the real killer, even if she couldn't be unmasked through legal means.

Some part of you finds it funny that this superior, condescending man has decided to come down from self-imposed exile among the 'we are better than you' bunch to try and boost your self-esteem. Another part seems to rear at that name. Hatred. You never thought you could hate another like you hate the abstract concept of the person who ruined HER, but this woman comes close. It rouses you.

The world in front of the screen shield is in movement again; the light flickers green-against-gray and his foot presses on the gas pedal. There is silence again, except when you rouse yourself to direct him toward your small apartment to drop you off. The conversation feels unfinished; it gives you no satisfaction, or relief, to have spoken with him. It is not comfort; you can't accept it now anyway. It has been difficult for you to accept other people for more than a decade, so despite the fact you know this man, for all his blunders, is concerned, you tell him to drop you off a minute's walk from your apartment and ignore exhaustion to get out.

He tells you to take it easy, which makes you think that he doesn't know you at all, but you nod anyway, not quite watching smog roll against the sunless, gray skies. There's a hesitation, and you wait for more advice, but it's a personal anecdote he presents you with. Through a window half rolled down, cars rushing by periodically just a few meters away, leaning half-out, he tells you of his third case, nowhere near as traumatic as yours, but one whose loss was completely his fault. He had pressed the wrong person, and refused to admit it despite his instincts, and evidence, screaming to him about the truth, because of something called pride.

There are many sorts of pride, he learned that day, he tells you. And then, their motto: they will make Dahlia Hawthorne pay.

You are still blinking in surprise at the familiar remark when he has left, and you are alone among the crowd, dark and shadowy in your black formal wear, beneath oppressing gray skies again.

- : -

What does it mean to shatter?

There were days in your youth, you cannot help but recall, when you cried in frustration because the exercises you were supposed to just - wouldn't - work! There were days when you sat under a freezing waterfall, trying to concentrate, and not succeeding. But those days, when pressure had been applied, you had bent, not shattered. Those days were gray and miserable, not sharp, knife-blade silver, or smothering black. Not those memories.

There was the day your mother left - perhaps not the exact date, because Misty Fey had gone into seclusion to think, and then when you went to look for her, you found only the people who dubbed themselves the elders waiting gravely. But you didn't shatter then, either. You still had Maya to look after - Maya, with her big smile, clinging to your spirit medium robes and forgetting about Mother for a few hours at least. Like a willow, you bent, but did not break.

Now you are alone, not cold, not being chastised, and not with someone you loved just disappearing, and you have a bad feeling that once the numbness is gone, everything else will hit full force.

- : -

You would have left the house dark, but your cactus plant needs sunlight, so you draw curtains back and close your eyes as the sun hits your eyelids. There's no change in Charley, but you leave it there all the same, feeling soothed. Charley needs you to be up and about, but in a way you can handle even now. It's a small break in the monotony that you think you might even welcome.

Your apartment is empty, and it still feels that way despite the time you've spent there. You moved in after completing law, second year. It's small compared to the manor back in Kurain, but in Kurain you had Maya, Aunt Morgan, and little Pearl. You are alone here.

It feels like there's a splinter in your heart. After arriving in the apartment, you showered and slept, taking care of nothing else, and when you woke up again, greeted the paperwork. It should have been harder, you remember thinking, but the pen flowed smoothly across paper as you filled out every detail. It was only when you stopped to think, really think, about the trial, that the splinter shifted, and you might have cried out in pain, but wouldn't let yourself shatter even in the loneliness of your bare apartment.

You are just twenty-three, and you have failed someone so badly that he died because of it.

You are just twenty-three, and you have failed so badly that another death didn't find justice.

You are just twenty-three, and their murderer is free to try again.

It's the third one that gets you, within the silence, and along with the pain, comes a fresh heat of anger that seems to light up the dimness of your apartment. You had been standing in the middle of the main room, staring at a blank point on the wall as the splinter tore at your heart.

And really, you tell yourself, you should stop feeling sorry like this... too much to do... can't... keep... hiding...

But it's too early for you. You are twenty-three, your first client died, the client you promised to save, and you are not quite at the point when picking up the pieces becomes as easy as crying for an hour, and then searching for vengeance. That will be in the future. It will take more life experience to gain that strength, more tears shed and triumphs enjoyed, love and mentors and revenge. You will reach that point one day, or come so close that you start worrying that deaths seem to mean nothing to you at all if you could keep control over your emotions, what are you becoming, but for now, the room is dark and your heart is still shattered.

That is the problem of belief.

- : -

A day slips by; and then another.

It reminds you of the first few weeks after Misty Fey left Kurain forever, without a trace.

There was the numbness, at first. Disbelief; you knew intellectually that she had gone, but knowing and feeling are different things altogether. Your face froze easily into an expressionless mask, and your heart reached an unstable balance that teetered, threatening to send you into hysterical laughter or tears, until Maya wailed and you knew that she. Wasn't. Coming. Back.

That's it here. You drop off your paperwork, ask for a few days off, which are granted, then return to the apartment to lock the door behind you with an audible click. You're not sure if it's to keep your grief in, or the pressure of the rest of the world out. There're a few mechanical greetings to neighbors, who have no idea what you've been through, and then you're alone again, trying to find a balance between sad and unfeeling.

But it's harder this time. This time someone died.

It's inevitable that you think of it, of course. The paperwork's gone, and so are the reminders, but every time you lay eyes on your attorney's badge, you can't help but pause in your work and get lost in memories.

On the second day you are unexpectedly tired, tears from the night before still drying on the planes of your check. It was horribly tempting, that morning, to just stay in bed, pressing your face into the softness of a pillow to ignore the rest of the world; that is why you got up. In your tracksuit set, curled up with arms locked around legs that are pulled into your stomach and head resting against bent knees, bare feet peeking out from beneath the pants, you feel like a child trying to hide in the gloom of the apartment. Few children have an attorney's badge, though.

As you fiddle unconsciously with it, you remember the dream from last night that left you so little sleep. It was dark; not in the casual dark that any spirit medium is used to, but DARK, when you could see and couldn't see at the same time. Ghosts rose up from around you, chalk-white and translucent silver. They did not speak, but you could hear their voices in your head, asking if this is why you left them: to hang around in an apartment and do nothing, when you vowed to tell their stories. You remember it too. Thoughts taking on a steady rhythm, simultaneous with the ticking of the white analogue clock in the kitchen area, you recall journeying out of the village and onto the grassy plains, your back to the mountain, and promising the open air that you weren't leaving your heritage behind; promising the endless blue sky and wind-swept dry grass that you would make sure justice was found, because so very many of the lives you heard of ended in tragedy.

For some reason, you think of Diego and his story about failing his third case. Did he hole himself up like you have? Did his heart ache? Or did he simply continue as though nothing had happened, figurative hands brushing off memories like cobwebs caught on his shoulder? What's your partner in crime thinking of now, when you've hidden? Does he still remember how Terry Fawles was innocent but won't return again (and it surprised you that you didn't dream of his spirit asking you for vengeance, too), or has he continued onto Dahlia Hawthorne?

Fawles.

You finger your badge again, thinking about ghosts and untold stories and truth, and the numbness starts fading - enough for you to cry.

- : -

Your friends are worried about you.

It honestly hasn't been that long - just a few days spent kicking around the apartment, after dropping off your paperwork, and trying to avoid the urge to start thinking - but you used to phone Maya daily, and Lana has connections enough that she'd heard of what happened at your first trial. Even if she hadn't been a prosecutor, the sham of a trial starring the prodigy Miles Edgeworth, would have made it into the papers anyway. You have certainly read an article or two yourself.

When Lana calls you, it is three days after the trial ended unresolved. You are watching old soaps on the battered television set - after gazing wistfully at an episode of the Steel Samurai, and quickly changing the channel - when the phone begins to shrill. It bounces across the room, sharp and cutting, before you cradle the receiver in your hand and hold it up in your ear.

After a tense greeting, Lana Skye asks how you are.

She is hesitant, not like the steady, strong friend you made in law school. Lana, there, had never hesitated. You remember it well: Lana's cold, sharp confidence when she picked a rival's arguments into pieces and won a debate with apparent ease.

It should make you uncomfortable, but the weight of change drifts into your bones as if it has always belonged there, waiting, always waiting, for you to realize that the world has moved on without you, or maybe not to realize, but to remember.

You answer that you're coping.

The silence communicates her disbelief better than any words could.

Well, sort of, you amend, but it's really not as bad as it seems.

Lana doesn't know what 'it' is supposed to seem like, because you haven't called her.

You weren't sure if she was busy.

Lana admonishes you for being silly. She always has time for this.

You are silent as you consider her remark, the weight of the phone heavier than it's supposed to be, clasped there against your ear. You think this, but you don't say it: the occasions the two of you have spoken since graduation are few and far between, the intensity of friendship diminished from the trials of moving on, and separate lives. The cordial warmth when the two of you do meet is not enough to bridge the gap that has grown from the world twisting and changing.

She accuses of you of hiding in your apartment.

Your denial is immediate. That's not true! You dropped off your paperwork, didn't you?

She knows about that, apparently, and as you wonder just what sort of connections she has, she tells you that it's not good for you.

You tell her you just need a little more time.

There's a second incredulous snort on the other side, but then Lana falls silent, contemplative, and the tension is strong.

She tells you that you don't have to be alone. No one can, not even you, and as a matter of fact, you AREN'T alone.

And maybe you already knew this, but she thought she needed to remind you, she says.

You hear the unspoken chiding: you're intelligent, but sometimes, the world can slip out from beneath your feet, The Right Moment passing through your fingers when you reach out to try to catch it, and if you forget that, you're just being stupid.

You're a little afraid - it's strange, this sort of nervousness, not as intense as pre-trial jitters and yet as consuming in its own way - that she'll invite you to dinner, or something, to get you out of your apartment, but Lana backs off after that.

She'll give you a little more time.

- : -

Another day, another phone call, but this time, the voice that greets you on the other side is Maya's.

Her voice is girlish and sweet, but worried. Are you angry at her?

You almost drop the phone in surprise.

You haven't called her for days, she reminds you when you ask her just where she got that ridiculous idea from. And she's sorry if she did something wrong or bad, she really is (though she's not quite sure what) and will you please forgive -

She cuts herself off, then, and asks you what's wrong.

She informs you that she can hear that there's something in your silence, as strange as it seems.

You sigh into the phone and tell her you had your first court case.

Maya wants to know how badly it went.

You could have teased Maya about instantly concluding that something went wrong, but it's not a flippant conversation, and your voice betrayed it so clearly anyway. Your free hand drifts to your elbow to support the one carrying the phone, as if it has become too heavy, but that's ridiculous, since it doesn't feel heavy at all.

Sis?

Very badly, you admit to her. And: you're sorry you hadn't told her about the court case on the day you received it, because you know she's missed being part of your life very badly, but the pre-trial jitters had you jumping up and down until you couldn't tell the ceiling from the floor. Not to mention your client's scary habit of shouting.

She lets you talk. Maya has, actually, always been good at listening, though you haven't always been sure whether she takes it in or not. But when she's not talking her head off and conceiving of the strangest ideas, it's comforting to let your day flow out and leave her to analyze it.

He's dead, you admit. It went so badly that he's dead now.

She gasps on the other side. No!

You don't say anything, and barely feel the warmth of the sun on your cheek.

But... but... but... but you're Mia, and you've worked so hard!

Well sometimes it's not enough, you tell her in a voice that is bitterer than anything she's really heard before. You regret your tone of voice immediately.

You can almost feel her biting her lip on the other side, facing down, and as the silence stretches, you understand what she meant earlier by 'hearing that something was wrong'.

She asks in a small voice if he was guilty.

No, he wasn't.

Then why...?

There is that flare of hatred again in the pit of your belly, stronger than when you spoke with Lana yesterday, and stronger still than when Diego dropped you home.

Because of a woman, you tell her.

She exclaims that it sounds so much like a soap opera!

You wonder briefly just what she's been watching, and when, exactly, she's had the time to do it. She's been complaining that training has become very intense that year.

You tell her that you didn't mean it in quite that manner, but that she's right: it was like a soap opera. Except, in the end, you failed.

There is a slight pause on the other end of the line, and background noises suddenly become more muffled, as if Maya's clapped a hand over the receiver so that no one else can year what she's about to say to you.

You're being scary again, she tells you, her whisper very loud now that there is no moving air between her mouth and the phone. Before you can argue, she tells you that the elders have heard of your defeat. Despite the reluctance of Kurain to modernize, the older villagers who form a loose 'council' have received the news quickly, and they're speculating that you might come home after all, where you belong. Maya, of course, didn't believe for a second that it would happen, but your possible return is the reason she's had time to watch soaps.

You wish you could confirm that it never crossed your mind for a second, either, but it did. The memory of Kurain seemed so freeing to you, dirt under your toes and potent success in spirit channeling running through your veins, that the notion asserted itself in your mind.

Maya, unaware of your turmoil, continues in that small whisper to tell you that she wishes she were as strong as you. As brave as you were to step into a whole new world, because the very idea of completely surrendering her body and... not existing... That's what she's training for, but she finds the notion terrifying, and she wants to run straight to the train, jump on, and never come back. But then she remembers how you never did that; how, after running away for a day, you were back, and no longer terrified.

Her ignorance is just another burden pushed on your shoulders: be calm, be strong, be competent enough to trace your mother's destroyer and your client's murderer. And it's hard, to be the Mia Fey everyone wants to know... but Maya, like Charley, needs it in a way you can handle even now.

It's that tough core of determination that you reach into now. Strength, sculpted by experiences terrifying and peaceful, angry and calm: hugs from mother, and sorrow for your client who did nothing. The strength that let you move into the city. The strength that made you hold onto your baby sister with one hand and reach for your vanished mother with the other.

The strength that you draw out for Maya... and did for Terry Fawles.

You were terrified of channeling, too, you tell her. You did run away, after all, did you?

But she wants to jump on the train and NEVER come back.

You assure her that you felt the same. You were going to stay in the countryside forever and eat berries and become the wild-woman-of-the-waterfall or something, even though you would have missed your family, but then someone went to find you. She found you, and told you that fear is okay, and, more than that, absolutely normal. No one can be strong all the time. The woman who found you wasn't, and you certainly weren't. What matters is what you are going to do now. What matters is how you handle it... that is, whether Maya is going to jump on a train and never come back.

She tells you, sheepishly, that that was more an expression than the truth. It's just that thinking about the darkness seems to make her freeze. How did you, she asks, make that journey?

You take a deep breath and stare at the door of your apartment, wishing you could see through it and into the terrifying world beyond: the world where you failed, but also the world where you had to correct the failure.

You did it, you tell her, one step at a time. And you wish that you were there to guide her like the woman was for you, but you have a killer to catch.

Who was it? she asks.

The non-sequitur surprises you.

Who was the woman who guided you?

Your eyes slide shut at this new reminder of your vows, but only for a moment.

It was your mother.

- : -

You visit the park briefly, to try and get used to being around people again, but return to your apartment only with the impression that there are far too many couples out in the cold. One in particular sticks in your mind: a pale woman and a tanned man. The woman smiled across at him, a world of meaning in their soft, shared gaze. She rubbed her bracelet, like it'd become too tight, but he clasped her hand and smoothed it for her, his dark skin and her lighter shade like two perfectly balanced halves of a whole.

You think about the intimate look across his dark face, the warmth in her gaze, you shake your head ruefully and smile at your thoughts. You wouldn't have time for a relationship like that, anyway. And even if you did, there's no one you know who you could care about in that way.

No one at all.

The park prepares you, a little, for the office, but by nature the two scenes are not the same. At the park, no one knows who you are, and if your name is on their lips, it's only because you're a customer at someone's noodle stand. The Grossberg Law Office, however, has been your second home, and you've become, in Diego's terms, their little pet, their 'kitten', as he so liked reminding you that day.

Everyone knows what happened. You don't have a reputation for prodigy, but Miles Edgeworth did, and you're not close to any of your co-workers, but you're friendly, so it's with surprising regularity that people come out of their office and speak with you, on your journey to see Mr. Grossberg. You should appreciate this gesture of sympathy, of shared grief from the other attorneys who have also lost cases in and out of court, but pity and sympathy are not always easily separated. Just a single flash of the memory that shows Diego's eyes, superior and pitying in the courtroom, and a fist clenches in your chest, making it difficult to follow the strand of conversation, urging you to hurry along; he IS your boss, and procrastination is something you've become tired of. The dark blue carpet is eaten up beneath your legs, doors and cubicles passing, until, at last, you're in front of your boss's door.

You knock, and enter when he calls for you to come in.

Sitting down across his desk, smoothing the fabric of your black suit - impeccably pressed - and ironed white blouse, you take a moment to apologize for taking so long, but he waves it off.

He tells you that he's a little surprised to see you back so fast: Diego told him you were indisposed, and wasn't to be disturbed, and though you're annoyed at that, you bite back any impolite retort. It's easier, and more accurate really, to say that you've had time to think about it, and that being in the office is better for you.

Your boss studies you momentarily, with an old, sharp eye, jaded from experience. You bear Grossberg's scrutiny without complaint; there's more at stake than a fuss about manners, particularly now, and you're much too wary to let him find any reason to have you fired.

Although you try hard not to let anything show, you still have the feeling he sees more than you wanted. He doesn't comment; he lets you leave, mentioning only briefly that he's glad you're back. The office has missed you.

The office has missed you indeed, enough so that there's someone waiting by your cubicle, when you return from your visit. This time, there aren't as many detours into unrelated, stiff conversations, but he's still looking impatient by the time you've walked down two flights of stairs, and woven through the many corridors that lead to the office you share with another lawyer.

The sight of him should make you angry, especially after he took it on himself to say something to your boss, but it's just a fleeting thought, and your greeting is as cordial as ever.

Are you feeling better?

You contemplate the question for a brief moment, the exact length of time for you to inhale slowly, air shuddering through your windpipes, and come to the realization that a non-answer is sufficient; you shrug at him.

He doesn't ask you again; he's as unsure, as awkward as any of the other lawyers who pretended, during her trip to see Mr. Grossberg, that their concern hadn't been accompanied by muffled curiosity, burning behind their shuttered gazes, and the thick, pervading heaviness of the air. Diego saw you at the trial, but he doesn't know either. He's not interested; you won't foist it on him.

Filling the ensuing moment of insecurity - Diego fumbling to decide which thread of conversation to follow - with business instead of personal, you ask if he's gone further ahead at all.

His nod is brief, closed and guarded. In the ensuing silence, you realize that what he's discovered oughtn't be voiced in the airy corridor, where anyone could listen in, and invite him inside instead, hoping that your companion is absent. It's a relief to find the office still empty, and as you close the door behind you, the smallness of the square room, with its dark walls and neat shelves filled with colored binders, you feel the tension knotting your shoulders relax.

You run your eyes across the navy desk, with its many drawers, and the rolling chairs, and offer him a seat. It surprises you that everything is so familiar, but it's a comfort. It feels like home. And you know that you'll need it, to confront the long shadow of Dahlia Hawthorne.

He sets his mug of coffee on your desk, its scent pervading the room and making you think of mornings, before bringing out a binder stuffed with sheets.

You eye it warily, wondering just how much time he's been spending on this side-project. (You are under no illusions that Mr. Grossberg has let him concentrate on a failed trial.) Soon, though, you don't have time to think about any of that. He's busy going through things.

You stop him once and twice to ask him for clarification. He's surprisingly patient; you would have expected him to snap at you, or smirk smugly, but he merely continues. Now, you think to yourself when you interrupt again; now, he's going to go back to being arrogant and condescending, and you'll go back to that feeling you had pre-trial, because some things won't have changed.

He nods at your inquiry, and tells you that he was wondering for himself.

- : -

Today, you tell yourself the next day, the world's going to go back to normal.

He's still being... polite.

- : -

Today?

Not today.

- : -

You mess up a bit of paperwork, and he snaps at you, annoyed.

He expected better.

You can tell that he genuinely means it.

(Not that it stops you from snapping back, irritated by the failure to find out more about Dahlia's background - because he's not doing any better.)

- : -

It takes you a week to pin the problem down, and it takes your office coworker, of all people, to make you notice it.

You're trying to track down Dahlia Hawthorne's birth records, which are strangely unavailable. You've gone down to the precinct several times, but they've been taking days to get back - and Dick Gumshoe, the one who was so infatuated with you, hasn't been much help either. You're back at the office now, left to browse through public databases, caught between pulling your hair out at the absurd difficulty of a simple background check and an odd feeling of anticipation for something waiting just around the corner.

The keyboard clicks softly with every letter you input into the search frame. Hawthorne, Dahlia. Los Angeles. You lean back, exhaling softly as you wait for results - and curse out loud when you sort the results by age, and the only mention of a twenty-year-old Dahlia Hawthorne is a strong contribution to paper on morality that received some ambiguous recognition from Ivy University.

Your teeth sink almost painfully into your bottom lip when you realize just what words you have uttered sink in, and brace yourself for a chuckle, or a throw-away comment from lips whose uttered sentiments no longer drip condescendingly; but your co-worker is silent. From beneath the fringe you like to flick when making a point, you peer out, eyelashes lowered; he's looking at you. Wary. Cautious. Words poised on his tongue by the look on his face, but he's choking them back.

He doesn't want to upset you, you realize.

He doesn't want to take the risk to ask - like everyone else - in case that haunted look in your eyes comes back, and he'll be the one left to deal with it.

(And the co-worker, despite sharing an office with you, hasn't seen you pause in the middle of a sentence, struck with nostalgia at a scary noise, or a comment about a client appearing out of nowhere and startling you until you can barely keep from stuttering.)

It's a marked contrast with someone else you've been spending an increasing amount of time with, hours focused so deeply on research that your head pounds with barely perceivable aches at the end of the day that are nevertheless surprisingly insistent. You blink, let your gaze fall back on the paperwork, and your pen moves again beneath your hand across blank white, inky black marks curving into symbols that reinforce sealing someone else's doom, and wonder why you have the time to think about this when there's so much left to do, so many people waiting to...

Surely, the question isn't so important that you would contemplate using the few hours you have free that are better spent researching (you have to tell their stories) on this. Among the lessons law school taught you was time management.

Still, when the two of you meet later that week to discuss the information that has been gathered, shred by shred, about Dahlia Hawthorne, the question keeps ringing in your head as though your stream of thought is on repeat. The quiet of the office after hours, fluorescent light buzzing overhead and door closed, gives the illusion of privacy. He's telling you that he's pretty sure Dahlia Hawthorne's father had only remarried once; you watch his face close in frustration at yet another alley closed, thinking about the familiar taste of flower names on your tongue, when you realize he's stopped speaking, and the words have been pushed out of the jam in your throat before you realize it.

He tilts his head and smiles, as though he's surprised you need to ask, but it's a pleased smile, not a smug one - and you wonder privately what changed, and why you cling so deeply onto the difference now when, just a few days ago, you wanted badly for the world to have stopped, rewound, or simply stayed the same.

He asks you why you find it so surprising that he thinks you can take it.

It's such a straight-forward answer that you have to stop and think, to wonder if there's some sort of trick behind the veneer of innocence, but you've always been a straight-forward person really. It takes just a moment to remind him of his attitude during the trial.

(And after it, when you first returned to the office, but you keep this thought to yourself.)

He's silent for a while; you wonder what's running through the brain of the vaunted Diego Armando.

It was the trial, he says finally. But not just the trial. The aftermath. No one should have to go through that on their first trial, but somehow you managed to, and you returned just a day later, ready and eager to search for... for the truth.

He doesn't know anyone who can bounce back without losing heart the way that you seem to have. If that doesn't deserve his respect, he doesn't know what does.

And it's there. You can see it not just in his face, but in his gestures, his expectations, in the respect you've earned, and the respect that he's earned from you for being able to pick up on her mood and change his opinion - something you thought impossible.

You feel like an actress, a fraud, a liar. You think of the days in your apartment, maudlin one moment and then hysterical in the next breath, and barely being able to keep it together when speaking to Maya, who needed you so much. You think of dreams of old ghosts, memories fraying and fading while you take your sweet time trying to move on. You think of a defense attorney badge turning in your fingers, thoughts as chaotic as a stream of dust lit by the sunlight and dancing, and the feeling of being slate gray when everyone else walks in lurid colors with loved ones in the park. Bouncing back. Right.

You think of the first step outside, the air cool and crisp against your face - unexpectedly refreshing despite the bitter chill that soon set in. The first step toward the woman and the man. Cloudy skies above your head, but making conversation all the same.

Terry Fawles. Misty Fey. Searching for...

Lana telling you that you don't have to be alone.

You smile, feeling the answer settling into the depths of your bones along with a sort of acceptance that the world's kept spinning without you, and ask him if he'll stop calling you Kitten.

He retorts, he'll stop if you promise to cease calling him Java behind his back.

And you laugh.

The background check on Dahlia Hawthorne lies forgotten while you pour over transcripts of the trial.

- : -

You think you could love him.

You would have laughed at the idea not so long ago; love seemed so impossible at the park, on a windy day beneath cloudy gray skies. And Diego Armando... you respected him for his position, but he burned so fiercely with arrogance that you could feel the heat when removed by three days and half a city. You wouldn't have considered anything more than tolerance for a colleague.

It's different now that you have his respect. It encourages you to keep looking past that.

The respect is part of it. Respect is wonderful. But you'd expect respect from most people for being intelligent at your profession. It's that something extra; the understanding that comes with your respect for him, because the respect for someone as a person, not a lawyer or a professional, needs to be earned, and he earned yours at a meeting while balancing binders on your knees, coffee wafting around the room, and speaking of a poisonous woman.

Thinking you COULD love someone is a far cry from falling in love, or just loving, and you don't feel either for him.

He's your co-worker.

But something has changed in you, too, and maybe it will not stay that way forever.

It helps you keep smiling, as you inhale the scent of java, and find he does it at the same time.

- : -

END

R & R, please

A/N: This was originally a 3-part Diego x Mia story called "Keep Breathing" where their feelings were actually realized. I had part 1 finished (and polished up), but then I didn't write any more, cut some of it out, and turned it into a oneshot. I think it's better that way.

(Who knows, I might finish it one day, and let it become the tragedy that the story is. . . Though the next part, if it comes, will DEFINITELY be after my other ongoing PW story has at least a couple more chapters done, and I am feeling pretty unmotivated about W.O.E. right now.)