Hope you guys enjoy! This is a little piece I wrote when I was thinking about how Phoenix has changed over the years, and how much of that change can be attributed to being a father. As a fandom, we need more Phoenix and Trucy moments... especially those that make us say, "Awwww..."

Disclaimer: I don't own these characters.

The Most Magical Thing of All

"Daddy, why is the sky blue? Why not some other color…. Why doesn't it change colors?"

Oh, more often than not he didn't know the answer. But that just made him feel strangely triumphant when he did. Phoenix was often presented with those odd questions which are sparked by a healthy eight-year-old curiosity.

"Daddy, how come the sun sets?" She would ask, her blue eyes trusting and ready to believe anything he told her.

"Daddy, where do the stars go?"

"How come you haven't picked me out a new mommy, Daddy?"

Yeah, more often than not he would revert back to his "old standby"- wink slyly and mysteriously whisper something about "It's a secret. Only for Daddies to know." She probably hadn't learned a lot from him. Well, not where the stars go or the reason for the absence of a mommy, anyway.

Phoenix laughed at how ironic it was- looking back, the one doing most of the learning had been him. Had the word "magical" even been in his vocabulary before? But now, with "magical" itself embodied in front of him, in the form a pink-caped, bright-eyed little girl, it was hard not to know the word's meaning.

Trucy's talent wasn't precisely the skill that won her applause down at the Wonder Bar. It wasn't exactly the way she could make objects disappear or how she could pull a rabbit from a hat. No, it was truly in how she could enter a room and make sadness vanish without even half trying; something about her little person that seemed to make sorrow roll away. It was the way she could pull a smile out of nowhere, and make it appear on the most unlikely sources. Phoenix had rubbed his eyes several times watching her first meeting with "Uncle Edgeworth." He'd never seen Edgeworth's face light up that way before, in all their years of friendship. Who knew Edgeworth responded so well to kids?

"A good magician never tells his secrets!"

Phoenix had heard it from Trucy many, many times. That was her "old standby"- and she never tired of pulling it on her father. Sometimes he wondered if there was a secret to her trick of drawing an audience, of coaxing smiles from an uninterested crowd. Or was it something unique to his little girl-something money, time or practice could never lay hands on?

Not that it mattered how she was magical; how her little voice so trustingly calling him "Daddy" warmed him inside, or how her smaller hand clinging to his made him taller, stronger. Who knew how she did it? That's real magic.

At times he wondered if Zak knew what a treasure he had left behind. This treasure which he had turned away from him, and now rightfully belonged to Phoenix. In her blood flowed something that every magician strives for, and few achieve. He would tighten his grasp on her small hand, cuddle her closer as she told him goodnight when these thoughts struck him. It didn't take him long to realize that losing her would be losing something inexpressibly precious.

For all those years, Phoenix was her father- her teacher, and Trucy the child, growing and learning. But looking back on his adventure of raising Trucy, Phoenix felt as if it had often been the other way around. Sure, he had cleaned off a scraped knee, brought a smile to her face when she was worried, carried her to bed when she fell asleep on the couch. But who had bandaged his wounded heart, patched up his battered life, brought sunshine to his soul, and given him someone really and truly to call his own? Phoenix found he had depended on her just as much as she had leaned on him for support and guidance.

Real magic is an art… the unbelievable happening before your eyes… miracles occurring as ordinary events.This Phoenix had learned over the years.Probably, Trucy didn't even know herself just what she had been to her father. How could she?

"Daddy! Daddy! Look… at the lights in the sky! Magic!"

Phoenix remembered watching the northern lights with his daughter. It wasn't his first sighting of the celestial aurora, but had never before noticed that particular breathtaking quality Trucy described as "magic". To Trucy, the whole world was magical. In her eyes, an ordinary day was transformed into a thrilling adventure. And that's kind of how life with her had seemed, Phoenix thought. A thrilling adventure like nothing he had ever experienced.

Phoenix dropped the photo album out of his hands and sighed. He had been sitting here for hours, though he had only meant to flip through the pages… he hadn't expected to become drowned with memories. They were all here, in this book… Trucy's first show outside of the Wonder Bar; a snapshot of her with ice cream smeared across her face; a birthday party of Trucy's; the day she had gotten her ears pierced; a school picture which just appeared to be a simple photo of a brown-haired girl with a brilliant smile, cloaked in a pink silk cape. But Phoenix remembered that day clearly, and he laughed at what a battle he had fought that morning, getting her ready for school. In the end, she had left her top hat behind… but he couldn't convince her to take off the cape.

In the back of the photo album was a picture he had slipped in just recently- a photo Trucy had taken of herself and Apollo at the Gavinner's concert. Phoenix laughed at Apollo's bewildered expression. Trucy's enthusiasm was slightly disorienting at first. But Apollo would certainly get used to her ways in time. A thought crossed Phoenix's mind, that he'd have to let Apollo page through this old photo album…

After digging up the old memories, Phoenix sorted through them like a case file. He still hadn't broken himself of the habit of tying up the loose ends of the past in order to understand the present. And now, he thought he understood. The "magic" Trucy saw in the world around her… It was from her own heart that she pulled that contagious joy which never ceased to amaze him. And it had a way of spreading to whoever was around her… even Apollo was starting to get affected, Phoenix noted with a smile.

Life had sure changed because of her… one small girl turned his whole life around. Instead of puzzling more over just how she did it, Phoenix stood up and stretched, leaving the memories behind him.

Perhaps it was something he would never understand… after all, that was the real magic, wasn't it?

\/p