It's 2027, and his badge is perched right on his suit where it belongs. He's 34 now, no longer the 24 year old rookie he used to be. He wins another trial, and it's just been so long that he doesn't quite remember how exhilarating this feeling of victory - giddiness, even - was; how it defies his old age. He thinks that after almost eight years of contemplating in silence, changing his whole attitude after his disbarment, he might have broken his old habits.
But when he looks to the side where his co-counsel stands, he doesn't see Apollo or Athena. Instead he sees a 19 year old spirit medium, dressed in beautiful purple robes that look just the tiniest too big for her - it's kind of like prose, he muses, she's not entirely fit for her position as Master of the Kurain Channeling Technique, but she damn as well tries - with beads in her hair and her amber magatama resting against her neckline. Colorful confetti trickles down from the gallery; the bailiffs yelling at a certain scruffy coated detective to knock it off.
He takes a deep breath and closes his eyes.
Suddenly, Phoenix is 26 again - a young, naive fool, but he doesn't mind at this point because the second he and Maya lock eyes, he smiles, and it feels like home. She takes his hands in hers and congratulates him on the win. (She whispers that his bluffing was on-point today, and it makes him laugh.) He says he couldn't have done it without her, a genuine tone weaving through his voice - something he himself hasn't heard in a long time. She smirks knowingly at this - "Of course not, Nick, you're hopeless on your own, huh?" - letting go of his hands and snaking her arms around his waist. He flushes (but leans into her familiar touch anyway,) and she plucks his wallet right out of his coat pocket and demands they go out and have celebratory burgers with Pearl - on him, obviously.
He feels like he should protest, but he just can't bring himself to… especially against her pouty face. He grins - he thinks he does this a lot around her, and then the imagination wears off, and he finds the color of reality much less jubilant.
Apollo looks at him with an air of concern, and when he spots the kid rubbing at his bracelet, he knows that he's questioning the glassy look in his eyes. For the first time since he was reinstated as a defense attorney, he wishes that he had his bright blue beanie on him, just so he could pull it over to mask his feelings. But then he shrugs it off, giving a tired, wilted smile in response before exiting into the defendant's lobby. He hears the patter of Apollo's shoes trail behind him, "Let's go, Justice. I'll treat you, Trucy, and Athena to burgers tonight. That sound good?"
Phoenix Wright knows he won't ever be able to live through those three years of his life again - three years of 'Nick's,' and burgers, and the Steel Samurai, and "special someones". He reaches into his pocket by instinct, like he always does whenever he finds himself falling back into the past memories. Memories that he will never be able to make up for; memories that he ruined and crushed the moment he let her phone call ring into the night when he first was accused of forging evidence. Because the Phoenix Wright she knew had let her go.
His fingers wrap around the nine-shaped jewel - Maya's magatama, on loan, she told him once, though that was when he was the bright-eyed attorney and she was his bright-eyed assistant and probably more than just a friend. It's been too long and he's too late, and he sighs.
Old habits die hard, right?