I'm publishing this separately just because it's so long, but this is actually the songfic that started this whole Evanescence series, "Fallen." It's also complete heresy. Bear with me on any factual assumptions or mistakes. 3

~~ 11.10 My Last Breath ~~

No… it wasn't quite time for that yet, Mia thought. Phoenix was absolutely not ready for a trial like this yet.

Scanning over the names on her computer screen, she sighed, wishing she didn't even have to defend this trial. Their prosecutorial opponent wasn't particularly vicious (neither Edgeworth nor Payne, Beth-Ann Litige managed to balance a sharp wit with a soft demeanor), but dangerous all the same, simply because of her precision. The defense would have no mistakes to lean on: and while Mia didn't yet consider herself a true expert on courtroom procedure, she knew it was definitely not the time to send in a rookie, with only one case under his belt.

She frowned: she couldn't even fool herself about the case, either. When it came right down to it, the real problem was that Mia simply didn't trust her client. One of the very worst, a "self-employed" Beverly Hills resident, he was accused of his neighbor's murder. Mia usually trusted her instincts when it came down to her clients, but Brody just didn't fit the mold: he wasn't earnest or particularly shady. He was just too calm about all this, as if he knew for certain she'd get him off, whether or not he did it. That was what she was for, after all.

Mia realized she was clenching her fist again, and forced herself to relax. That was a liability of the job: she wished desperately to get back to cases more like her early days, when her client had completely relied on her, heart and soul… but then, she herself had fallen into those cases without reservation, almost losing herself completely. Those were the kinds of cases Phoenix would probably excel in, those where he could unreservedly defend his client.

Her phone rang, startling her, and she forced herself not to roll her eyes as her young partner poked his head into the room. "Should I answer that?" he asked eagerly.

Mia put a hand on the receiver, feeling terribly and unreasonably protective of whoever was ringing on the other end. It might be Maya, after all: Mia had just called her sister this morning, and was expecting her to stop by sometime that night. "No, Phoenix. I'll take it. Could you just keep looking through the briefs, see if you can find any mention of the DNA samplings?"

"Okay!" he said, just as happily, and scampered back to the desk in the front room. Mia breathed a sigh of relief, and in the moment before she picked up the receiver, reflected that she did indeed like her new partner, both personally and professionally… but he was so very young. Could he really only be four years younger than her? The thought was staggering. Then again, so was the thought that he was the same Phoenix she'd had to defend three years before, and that this was comparative maturity.

"Fey & Co. Law Offices, this is Mia Fey," she said crisply, proud of the tone she could take introducing her very own office. It wasn't new, having her own place to call work, but most of the time she answered the phone panic-stricken, or at least juggling several case files. It took effort and good timing to manage a professional-sounding greeting like this one.

The words on the other end of the line took her breath away, like a punch to the stomach. "Mia… Mia, this is Lana Skye." There was a pause, and Mia couldn't force herself to draw a breath. "You remember me, right? I'm sorry to call you like this but… I've found something out that I think you should know."

Lana Skye. Mia hadn't thought of the woman in years: they'd only known one another for a few months, before either of them had undergone that last hellacious testing period before Lana's graduation. But she'd seen Lana now and again, sometimes at trials, sometimes with her sister around town. Mia's heart had ached whenever she saw the two of them, and now Lana's voice recalled that jealousy: that she could raise her own sister, and stay with her all the time.

Lana hadn't said anything else: yet the silence on the other end sounded frightened, almost ominous. Mia finally managed to swallow, and said, feeling as if she sounded too cool, "Yes, Detective. Hello. Though I suppose it's Prosecutor Skye now, isn't it? What is it you think I should know?"

"I can't tell you over a phone line," said Lana. Mia remembered the smiling, confident young woman with whom she'd discussed intellectual property law, and somehow couldn't reconcile that image with this soft, almost shaking voice. "Could you meet me at the entrance to the Park Avenue subway station in fifteen minutes?"

This is ridiculous, was the first thought that ran through Mia's head. Glancing at the clock, she saw that it was almost four-thirty: she would be leaving for the pre-trial meeting soon anyway. But what could Lana have found out, that involved Mia closely and couldn't be discussed over a phone line? Certainly nothing involving Dahlia's stay of appeal—that had been more than resolved.

Suddenly she felt a chill. Could it be… "All right," she found herself saying. "I'll be there, Lana." She could be at the Park Avenue station in seven minutes, if she walked quickly.

A sigh of relief was all that replied for a moment, then, "Good. See you," a click, and a dial tone.

Mia replaced the receiver and sat staring at her desk contemplatively for a moment. Then she rose, taking her coat from the back of a chair, and strode towards the office exit, feeling more determined than ever. It had to be.

"Phoenix, if I'm not back in an hour, just pack up the case file and leave the forensic documents out for me, will you?" she said as she passed the front room desk. "I'll see you for dinner tonight."

"Sure thing," said Phoenix cheerfully. She had to repress a smile at the highlighter he'd managed to get on the end of his nose, and sailed out.

Lana wasn't there yet; Mia hugged her coat closer and cursed whatever weather gods had seen fit to send a muggy, half-rainy day upon the city. The humidity and occasional splatters of rain were so miserable that she almost felt cold. Looking around, she saw no sign of Lana, just other passengers going down into the tube station, the occasional older woman with a rolling cart of groceries, and a police car slowly cruising the street.

It had to be about her mother. Mia couldn't think of any other reason why Lana would have contacted her so abruptly—and why she would have sounded so nervous over the phone. Perhaps Misty had been found by the prosecution offices…

Mia's heart leapt at the thought, and her imagination ran wild for a moment. Misty could be hiding out, staying safe from Redd White and the like, but waiting… just waiting to be found by Mia, and maybe Maya could finally see her again…

"Mia!" The shout came from far enough away that she didn't even register it at first. But finally recognizing Lana's voice, Mia looked up to see her old classmate pull up to the curb in a rather nondescript car. Lana didn't say anything else, just leaned over and popped the door open for her.

Mia slid inside, feeling rather awkward; she usually relied on public transportation, and while she did have a driver's license, each time she got into someone else's car it was just another reminder of the fact that she now owned her own law firm. It was about time she bought a vehicle of some kind.

Lana drove in silence for a few moments, looking behind her and in the rearview mirror; Mia would have laughed at the seeming absurdity of her friend's paranoid backward glances, but something about Lana's expression…

Finally, the other woman spoke. "Sorry about that. If you could do me a favor and promise me right now you'll never breathe a word of anything that goes on this afternoon… it would really put me at ease, Mia."

"All right," Mia said, suddenly feeling uneasy. What an awful outfit! Lana was wearing some ungodly combination of an altered brown police suit and a red scarf, and faintly, just for a moment, Mia was reminded of an SS officer. She shook her head to clear the awkward image, and said hastily, "I won't tell anyone. Just please tell me what this is about. Is it… is it about my mother?"

Lana shot her a sharp glance; Mia remembered getting that one from across the room, during particularly heated debates. "No. No, it's not about your mother—though I will tell you, also completely off the record, that your mother is of high interest to the prosecution offices."

The way Lana had said "interest" made a little shiver go down Mia's spine: as if her mother had committed a crime. "I see. Then… is it about…about a certain someone's… stay of execution appeal?" A completely different sensation ran through her, and this time it was heat. She hadn't felt such a brief and powerful surge of anger for a long time, and quelled it immediately. "I thought that was set in stone."

But Lana was already shaking her head again, eyes on the road in front of them. They were quickly picking up speed as Lana turned onto the expressway and started heading out of town, Mia noted. "No. It is. The appeal will take another month or two to be denied, but it's for sure. Little Miss Killer hasn't long for this world. A few years, at most."

Mia felt her cheeks flushed, and was utterly ashamed of the victorious surge of vengeance rushing through her; she bit her lip, hoping Lana didn't look over. Finally.

Then she realized what her old classmate had said, and flushed again, feeling touched. "You…"

"I used to be close friends with Valerie Hawthorne, back before her death. What I'm about to say…" Lana began, and hesitated. After a long pause, she began again, voice wavering between doubt (or was it fear?) and the urge to share. "No. Let me just start with this. It's been a long time since I saw you in court, Mia, so we haven't had much opportunity to talk. Chief Gant keeps me pretty busy. But I did face off against one of your old co-workers, Mr. Hammond."

Mia wasn't sure where this was going, but it couldn't be good; Hammond's name hit her in the pit of the stomach, like a physical hurt. Lana looked over and smiled, ever so lightly. "Don't worry. We didn't say much to one another, beyond comments about the current political atmosphere. He did mention, though, that your old boss Grossberg… well, let's just say his office isn't doing too well."

Mia half-opened her mouth to interrupt, but Lana plowed on, presumably aware that she'd been about to say something and unwilling to be interrupted. "In the end he mentioned something of you, that he wished you were still around: and another one of your co-workers, someone who died not long ago."

The air in the car suddenly felt heavy, like a muffling fog had crept over the two of them. Lana swallowed, looking abysmally unhappy. "I have to be unhelpfully vague again, Mia." Mia nodded, and her old friend went on. "It goes like this. This girl, someone we both know… let's call her Martha, shall we? She killed someone and framed a friend for the crime… he ended up taking his own life to cover for her. The pair of attorneys who'd defended him investigated his death a little too thoroughly, and one of them was poisoned and killed by our Martha. She convinced yet another man—no, please, let me finish—she convinced this boy to help her hide the poison… and when it became apparent that his stupidity might reveal her, she tried to kill him too. But she ended up murdering someone else."

Despite the chill going down her back, Mia was struck with a morbid urge to giggle. She pressed her fingers to her mouth to stem off the sound—not many people realized exactly who her newest law partner was, and she suspected that Phoenix liked it that way.

Balancing that was a dread in the pit of her stomach: this clearly had nothing to do with her mother. And nothing connected with Dahlia could be good.

"Anyway, Martha eventually got caught. She's on Death Row now, but it's suspected that she might have contacts in the outside world…one or more people she relied on during her reign of terror." Lana paused for a moment, and, taking a hesitant breath, abruptly asked, 'Can you guess at why she was never charged with homicide for that lawyer she killed?"

Mia shook her head. Her lips felt numb as she spoke. "Besides the obvious wisecracks about lawyers… which, to be fair, weren't made… it was just too late. By the time there was any evidence she'd done it, she'd already been arrested for Doug's… for the fourth victim's murder." No one would have pressed charges for it except me and Mr. Grossberg, anyway, Mia thought bitterly.

Lana was silent for a moment, face controlled and blank as she stared out at the road. Mia wondered how much further they had to go, and if she'd really have any time to talk over the case with Phoenix tonight. Finally, she said, "Lana… why did you ask me about… Martha? Or rather, why did you tell me about her, then ask about one of her victims?"

The brief, viscerally unpleasant shudder she felt was suddenly replaced by something much stronger as it came to her, a gut-wrenching and utterly sickening realization. Before it could even fully form, she stuffed it back down, hoping against hope that it could be true yet forcing herself to realize it couldn't possibly be that…

Lana was half-smiling, the expression painful, and she seemed unable to look at Mia as she spoke. "Let's just say… I heard from one person the identity of someone in our witness-protection program… and connected that name with someone Robert Hammond mentioned to me."

Mia felt her heart speed up as Lana braked, slowing the car and guiding it to an exit. "Oh, my God," she heard herself say distantly. Lana made no reply as they drove a short distance through a wooded area.

At last, she spoke again. "You didn't hear any of this from me." Her voice was firm and her eyes cool once more, glancing over at Mia. "Any assumptions you've made about what I haven't said today were pure speculation on your part, since we didn't see one another at all today. You have never seen this facility—" Mia could only assume she was referring to the dun-colored building to which they were pulling up "—and you certainly never, ever, ever used my old badge to get inside."

Lana yanked up the parking brake just a bit too sharply as they cruised into a parking space, throwing both of them against their seat belts. Mia could only gape as the other woman pulled out her badge and stared at it for a moment before offering it.

"… Lana," Mia said weakly, feeling totally incapable of adequate thanks. This was all so sudden. Coming on the heels of her own assumption about Lana's intentions, and that this had been about her mother, she felt horribly frightened, both at what she was about to do and at what she might find.

Lana wiggled the badge. "Please. Take it before I lose my nerve. It's not even a real badge anymore, Chief Gant just forgot to repossess it. But I…" She took a deep breath. "Mia, I knew as well as anyone else in the precinct what the two of you were trying to do. And even though back then I didn't know what… I didn't know how much you meant to one another…."

The phrase was put so delicately that at first Mia didn't even understand what Lana meant: she felt as if she were barely breathing, but when she realized, it took her breath away further. "… Even if I didn't know that back then… I was still so angry." Her voice was shaking, whether from anger or from simple emotion, Mia couldn't tell. "And I feel like you deserve this, for your efforts, because neither I nor anyone else will ever be able to give you more."

She swallowed, jaw tightening. "It's going to be a terrible shock for you, Mia, and I'm so sorry I can't… that I'm not able to… I can't make this better. All I ask in return is that you don't give me away."

Mia thought briefly of Valerie Hawthorne, but stayed silent, taking the badge with one hand and gripping her friend's with the other. "Thank you… thank you so much, Lana. If I can ever repay you—" There were suddenly so many words, but Lana was shaking her head, pulling away, not letting her say them.

"I'm going to drive away for thirty minutes—that's all I can give you." Lana put both hands on the steering wheel, glanced at her once, then looked away. "Go in, invent a story, find the room… meet me back here."

Mia nodded dumbly, getting out of the car. She watched as Lana backed out of the space and drove away—a little quickly for a police officer, but hey, it wasn't a patrol car. She looked down at the badge in her hand, took a deep breath, and squared her shoulders. Then she walked into the clinic.

The woman at the front desk may have been a nurse at some point, but it had probably been a while. The scrubs looked far too immaculate. She peered at Mia's badge, looked up to scrutinize her face, then nodded. "What can I do for you, Detective Skye?"

The knot in Mia's stomach unclenched a tiny bit; she'd never really paid attention to how much she and Lana looked alike, but the badge photo was bad enough that they clearly could pass for one another. She said, feeling as if the answer were too honest, "I'm here to check on a patient's status. He's under police custody, for protective reasons, and I'm here to make sure his condition hasn't altered in any suspicious manner."

That part had been free-form inventing, and Mia was only half-relieved to find that she could still do it. The nurse nodded again. "Name?"

Half a second from automatically saying her own name, Mia felt her vocal cords freeze entirely as she realized what was meant. Defense attorneys were always being asked for references, since they were generally untrustworthy scum, second only to journalists when it came to finagling their way into places they didn't belong. But a police officer only had to give the name they were looking for. Don't think about it, Mia… just blurt it out. She cleared her throat. "Diego Armando."

There was more than enough time for that to rattle around in the empty waiting room, while the nurse's rather long fingernails clicked on the computer keys. It almost seemed like a bad dream: then a sigh. "Well, yes… but my file says you're not the detective assigned to this custody case."

Shit. It took only a second for Mia to figure out what she had to say. The lies were coming more easily now. "No, that would be my co-investigator, Detective Dick Gumshoe. He's been assigned to a different case, for the High Prosecutor's office." She realized with a shock that both were actually true, though applied slightly out of context. Gumshoe had technically been assigned as detective investigator on all Dahlia's cases, and was working almost exclusively with Mia's old nemesis Edgeworth now. "If you'd like to call him and make sure, I can wait." Since if she did call Gumshoe, Mia would be out of the building in a flash.

But the woman was shaking her head. "No, that's all right. Just wanted to make sure you were working with him, that's all. Go on down the hallway to the elevators: second floor, room 235, in the green wing."

'Thank you, ma'am," Mia said, gripping the badge hard enough to feel the metal pressing through its leather holster, and walked through the swinging doors. As she got into the elevators and ascended to the second floor, she could practically count her heartbeats, so strongly was the blood pounding in her ears. It kept time to her footsteps as she walked down the hallway. No matter how bad it gets, no matter how awful I feel, I have to keep my cool, she thought desperately, and though of Maya. That calmed her down a little bit, and when she found herself in front of the door, she felt almost trancelike.

Her first thought was that she'd gotten the wrong room, was that she should just backpedal and check the numbers. But it was only a moment's second glance for her to recognize him once more; the casual languor of his hands was unmistakable, even in what was clearly unconsciousness.

Something in the back of her mind was screaming and weeping, but outwardly she felt quite calm. Curiosity overcame her with the urge to know if it was really the poison that had caused his hair to turn white and to make him so thin, or if it had been simple defeat. A clock on the wall caught her eye; she only had fifteen minutes left.

She wasn't sure what to do now; the nurses on the floor had tacitly ignored her, and were bustling on behind the glass. Lana's sudden appearance and this whole shocking, half-illusory surprise had caught her so off-guard… she'd never even bothered to entertain dreams of what she'd say if she ever saw Diego again. Seeing someone dead did that to one, she reflected half-heartedly. This whole thing was like a terrible soap opera.

Well, to hell with it. She sat down at the bedside, putting a hand on one of his, hoping the nurses kept going about their busy little lives. She could weep later: for now, she would commit every single moment of this to memory, to keep safe inside herself, just in case she was never able to share those moments with anyone. "I know you hear me," she said softly, surprised to find how even and calm she sounded. "Sorry I can't get more intimate, but…I'm doing a favor to Lana by not freaking out in the first place."

She cleared her throat, concentrating for a moment on his mouth, unsmiling. It looked so strange, to see him with five o'clock shadow, which she knew would be a luxuriant growth within two days. Only on extraordinarily stressful cases had she ever seen him drop that vanity. "I can't stay long. Lana kind of dropped it on me that you weren't, you know, dead…and it caught me off guard. Didn't prepare any statements." That was dumb, but too late; she almost felt herself smile, but caught it at the last moment. If she started smiling, she'd start crying, too. "Sorry, that was dumb. All I wanted to say was that…"

She swallowed, wanting to thread herself into his arms, and the words flowed out suddenly, bursting with quiet satisfaction. "My God, we did it after all. She panicked after ruining your good coffee, and made the stupid mistake of trusting her precious necklace to some boy. I got her… I ruined her. She's going to die, that—" Mia stopped, feeling the tears prick, and took a deep breath, wondering if she were actually talking to Diego, this silent, blindfolded figure before her, or merely to herself. "Well, anyway. It's almost over, and I'll be sure to cry for you when it is."

Unable to stop herself, she reached out and touched his face; to her surprise, he moved his head, brushing his cheek against her hand. Maybe it was the way she'd touched him, or perhaps it was her perfume: "Mia," he said, almost too quiet to hear: but there could be no mistake that he'd spoken.

She could see her fingers shaking. She looked up at the EEG: she was no nurse, but she knew what those lines meant. He was still asleep. "I love you," she whispered, feeling stupid, and leaned forward to brush his lips with hers. "Hold on, please. I'm not afraid."

Mia remembered getting up blindly, almost scrambling, staring for one last moment before closing her eyes to compose herself. One last breath, and she turned to leave the room. Don't look back, Mia. If you can't ever return, fine, you'll remember it all. If you can… well, let's pray for that, shall we?

It was the receptionist nurse who finally broke her reverie; Mia turned back, to see the woman beckoning, and was startled to find that she'd come all the way from the second floor without seeing a thing. "Detective! Detective Skye! Can I ask you a question?"

Mia approached the woman; her heart was still this time, and she couldn't have cared less about blowing her cover at this point. "Yes, ma'am?"

The nurse looked nervous for a moment, and actually glanced from side to side, as if to check for listeners. Mia stared at her solemnly; every time she blinked, she could see Diego's face, so terribly changed. "Well… I just wanted to ask a question. Have you… have you ever worked with Prosecutor von Karma?"

The question was so unexpected that Mia almost laughed out loud; then she realized how inappropriate of a response that would be, and managed to summon a moue. "Thankfully, no, ma'am, I have not. His expertise is on call specifically for high-profile cases… those requiring a certain amount of discipline, which I'm not sure I possess." More like she wasn't herself possessed. Mia had seen the man exactly once, and had vowed that she would rather pay another attorney to take a case rather than face him in court. Only an idiot would submit themselves to that horror.

"Oh," said the nurse, who had visibly relaxed. "All right. I was… just curious."

"Good day, ma'am. And thank you again," Mia said in her best Lana tones, and turned to leave. This time she made it through the first door, the breezeway, and the automatic sliding glass doors completely unmolested; she was at least five minutes still too early for the real ex-detective Skye to be arriving.

Unable to control herself, Mia sank to the curb, her knees giving way. She could maintain her calm for another five minutes, right?

She hugged herself and stared out at the wooded area across from the clinic, unable to think of anything at all. It was all blank until Lana's car pulled up once more, and she climbed in.

Neither of them spoke a single word until Mia was just stepping out of the car. She turned around, feeling her movements jerk uncoordinatedly, and said, "Thank you. Oh, Lana. I swear this… well, it never happened, right?"

Lana's answering smile was pained, but grateful. "Yes. So long, Mia."

"I'll never forget that it never happened," Mia said, and half-laughed in a little sobbing noise. Lana reached out to briefly squeeze her hand.

And that was that: Mia stood on the curb for a moment, hugging her coat tightly again, watching the nondescript car drive away. Lana had dropped her off outside the courthouse, for the pre-trial meeting. As she mounted the steps, every single step she'd taken in tandem with Diego rang in her ears. This afternoon would change her whole life.

Might as well go in

, she thought as she strode down the hallway to her office. The pre-trial briefing had flashed by, no one commenting on her unusual quietness. The case itself was going to be boring, anyway. She was much more concerned about Brody's trial.

Phoenix was undoubtedly gone by now, and she could just imagine the whirlwind stack of papers he'd left behind. His strong suit was definitely not organization, she thought as she mounted the inner staircase. Maybe she should have Maya help with that after they all went to dinner...

The thought of Maya suddenly jolted her out of the cold reverie she'd maintained since leaving the clinic, and as Mia took out her key to get into the apartment, her fingers shook so violently that she dropped them onto the carpet. "Oh, my God," she said to herself softly, and as her knees hit the floor, her tears suddenly thrashed out, falling down her face in a torrent she'd never imagined possible.

It was horrible. Inescapable. Every single second of those short fifteen minutes would live inside her forever, every photon of light that passed through her eyes captured immortally. Whether he lived or died, his face would always be the last thing she saw before closing her eyes.

Finally she managed to get a grip on herself, and stood up again. At least Maya was coming soon, Mia thought with relief, fumbling once more with the keys, finally getting the office door unlocked. Her sister's implacable energy could always be counted upon to improve any situation.

She felt even more cheered by the idea that Maya was finally going to meet Phoenix. Mia shucked off her coat, tossing it onto her partner's desk recklessly. It knocked over a stack of papers, and immediately the desk looked cleaner. Mia could only imagine that the two of them would get along swimmingly: that would be the best kind of distraction, to go out for pizza (or knowing Maya, burgers) with two of the highest-energy friends she had.

She stepped into her office, and with a hand on the light switch glanced at the clock on the wall: startled, she saw its glowing hands read almost quarter to nine. The pretrial meeting had been much longer than she'd expected.

"Hello, Miss Fey," a voice suddenly said from behind her.

Mia whirled, clutching at her desk. "No," she said faintly as the silhouette resolved itself, coming forward.

"I'll take what's mine now, Miss Fey," he said, approaching ever so slowly.

Mia backed away, along the edge of the desk. She couldn't believe it: after all this time, he'd come into her office to get the statue. Why, oh why, had she walked in so stupidly? Only five more minutes, she thought desperately, and then Phoenix would come. She groped on the desk, but to no avail: her letter opener was probably somewhere in the drawers, and there was no other weapon.

Well, this was it. She stood taller, and said, "I'm sorry, but I can't give you what I don't have."

He chuckled. "Miss Fey, you are a poor liar. Why, I see it right over there." He pointed to the statue, sitting on top of the file cabinet, and her heart sank. "It must be The Thinker that swallowed those papers."

Damn! He'd called her bluff. Mia swallowed. "How could you know…?"

"Ho hoh. You are not cogniferous of my background? I am a gatherer of information, after all."

He picked up the statue, coming back towards her once more. She realized he must have either tapped her phone or placed a surveillance camera pointing through her window. How stupid she was! "I… I should have been more careful." She edged along the window, trying to find the latch. It was only a two-story drop… maybe she could jump…

He shook his head, watching her pitiful attempts. "My dear Miss Fey… I am so very sorry. But I am afraid I must ask you for one more thing."

He paused ominously, and she wished, prayed, hoped that someone would come in: even Maya could use the phone and call the police. "Your eternal silence." he finally said, triumphantly. She would have been tempted to groan if not for the terror.

The man lunged at her so suddenly that she almost tripped trying to get away. She dodged back around her desk, knocking into the brand-new lamp stand. It crashed to the floor.

But he was too quick, and with a strong hand he threw her against the window. Dazed, she hardly felt it when the statue crashed to the back of her head.

Falling back against the window, she slumped down, feeling her hands go numb. In front of her, the man laughed maniacally: she tried to speak, and failed. The pain throbbed.

Darkness overtook her as Redd White knelt down next to her and took her hand.

She opened her eyes one last time, struggling to draw breath. Someone was shaking her arm, calling her name: it could only be Maya, whose panic-stricken face loomed in hers.

"Mia!" her little sister sobbed, hands fisted.

Mia tried to raise her head to speak or say anything, but she was too weak. There were so many things she wanted to say, so many memories she still had to share.

Today's revelation! My God, he would wake up alone, knowing the truth of her death, knowing that she'd been so stupid… She suddenly and irrationally thought of their last trip together, to Hazakura Temple, their breath frosting white amongst the trees, so fragile and so temporary.

A door somewhere in the office slammed. There was a pause, then a voice called out, "Mia!" It was Phoenix.

She felt the darkness swelling up again, irresistibly grey and inescapable this time. But now it was all right. She closed her eyes, feeling a drifting sensation. All the pain was gone.

As both voices melted together, horrified and panicked, Mia knew it would be all right. Phoenix would protect her sister now: he would figure it all out. Diego, she thought, hold on. She drew one last breath before life and rapture ended, before the dreams faded into black.