(12:18…? Damn. No new record for you today, Cykes…)

A young man, just a few days past his nineteenth birthday, tucked his cell phone back into the pocket of his jeans, shaking his head a bit. His trip to and from the courthouse certainly hadn't felt like it took as long as the phone's digital clock claimed it did.

Under his arm he carried a small folder with a thin stack of freshly photocopied papers loosely packed into it. He suspected that the time it took to actually find the records he needed to bring back from the courthouse's basement archives had been what threw off his arrival time.

No one was waiting in the entryway to the office when he pushed through the door. That at least meant that his slightly delayed arrival probably wouldn't cause any particularly notable problems.

Something caught his eye when he stopped at the main door leading into the office. a note of some kind was hanging over the doorknob, held in place by a strip of tape. He tore it loose.

-Atlas,

I just got a call from the Chief Prosecutor. I'm heading over to the Prosecutor's Office for a bit, but I should be back within an hour or so. If you've got the files we talked about, you and Annie should be able to get a good start on them before I'm back.

Phoenix-

"Hmm."

He crumpled the note into his pocket and opened the office door.

(The Chief Prosecutor, huh? Wonder what they're talking about.)

The Wright Anything Agency might not have looked quite like the average picture of a law office, but it had a fairly strong reputation all the same. The fact that it doubled as a talent agency was always a good conversation piece, too.

Atlas Cykes was no stranger to the more unusual aspects of his workplace. It had taken a bit of getting used to on his first few visits, but with time, he fit right in.

The office itself felt a bit empty at the moment, however. With his boss out for an unknown errand at the Prosecutor's Office, Atlas wondered idly where his two co-workers might be, strolling into the main room of the office to find it unoccupied. He could hear someone's footsteps shuffling around up on the second floor. Probably Terry, he suspected.

Terry-Ruth Wright according to his adoption papers, who went by Terry to his friends and family, was a sixteen-year old magician and standing CEO of the agency. He lived with his foster mother in the small apartment on the building's upper floor, and on the average day, could usually be counted on to have something interesting to talk about or show off from his ever-expanding collection of stage magic tricks. Both at work and away from it, he was one of Atlas' closest friends. He was not, however, the person Atlas was looking for at the moment.

On one end of the office's main room, which was decorated in a rather eccentric fashion with all manner of memorabilia from the office's various occupants and clients, a door was left slightly open. Behind it was the smaller office room that Atlas shared with the agency's other employee.

He crossed the room in a few wide steps, twisting the index finger of his free hand through a few strands of his fiery red shoulder-length hair. It was a tic of sorts that he subconsciously slipped into more often than he cared to admit. He shouldered the door open. Atlas was always glad to take in the sight of his own little office, but as he stepped inside and saw that it too was currently unoccupied, he began to feel a bit annoyed.

"Where are you, Annie…?" he muttered into the empty room. With a quick glance around, he found a place to drop the folder from the courthouse. He was just moving toward his chair when something caught his eye. On the edge of the computer desk, right next to where he'd set the folder down, there was a book he didn't recognize. It looked quite well-worn, with its tattered edges and two or three visibly loose pages. On the lower-left corner of the cover he could see a small scribble of ink. He reached for the book, but stopped just short, his hand lowering a bit. He'd just gotten a proper look at the scribble in the corner. It was a set of initials, signed with a fine-tipped permanent marker.

A.J.

That made sense. The book was obviously a personal belonging of somebody's, and given its placement in this office, the list of potential owners read fairly short.

Atlas was a fairly reasonable person when it came to the belongings of others. He'd been fortunate enough to avoid any especially disagreeable roommates during his stay in Europe, and as such was quite generous with his space. This office wasn't only his, after all.

Anthea Justice was Atlas' one senior co-worker. Just as with Terry, working together with Anthea had easily made her into a close friend. In many ways their personalities were quite similar, which could just as easily help them synergize in their work as it could set them into a heated argument. One of the main roles Terry appointed to himself in the agency was handling all PR and advertisement, and he often joked about the experience of trying to market legal aid from a pair with a dynamic like theirs. To begin with, as far as appearances went, they were a textbook study in the changes the new generation of defence attorneys and prosecutors brought to the table. Anthea generally tried her hardest to look and behave as professionally as possible, but she'd quickly been forced to accept that this was a bit of a wasted effort once she joined the agency. Her straight-laced and calm nature when meeting potential clients already clashed heavily with the hotheaded personality she displayed everywhere else, and working with Atlas had been a kind of last-nail-in-the-coffin development.

Atlas himself hardly looked the part of an all-business attorney. His work attire consisted of a buttoned white shirt, barely secured blue tie, and yellow suit jacket along with blue jeans and a pair of sneakers, which stood out quite noticeably next to Anthea's carefully handpicked red vest and skirt. This was something Terry hardly neglected to mention when the subject came up. Nevertheless, there was no genuine frustration in his comments, and anyone who knew the two of them could attest to their combined skill in the courtroom.

Atlas twitched as he broke out of his brief daydream. His hand was still hovering only a few inches from the book on the desk. Still no sign of Anthea, though Terry's footsteps could still be heard from upstairs. He thought it over. Anthea usually didn't leave things lying around unless she was content to let others see them, and curiosity was making a very compelling argument.

He picked up the book from the desk and dropped into the swivel chair at the desk opposite, which was his own. Up close, the book's tattered appearance was even more noticeable. Atlas suspected that Anthea had owned it for quite a number of years, and if he was right, she'd obviously tried to keep it in respectable shape, even if the years still took their natural toll on its condition.

There was a faded mark on the cover. Some logo he didn't recognize. He flipped the book open.

"… Huh."

The book's contents weren't quite what he expected. The two pages he'd opened it to were both covered by near-identical drawings. A painstakingly detailed image of a young man's face stared back at him from the faded pages. He leafed through a few more pages, only to be greeted by more and more copies of the same drawing. Some were clear, having been drawn with a freshly sharpened pencil, while others were more smudged and marked up with erasers. Some were lightly shaded in immaculate detail, while others were left as outlines. The young man in the pictures had dark hair and a finely detailed smile on his face. Atlas felt a sense that the artist -was it really Anthea?- knew the face they'd drawn here very well.

Something caught his notice as he continued flipping through pages. A few briefly stuck together before slipping free, and when he inspected them, he found them to be marked with small patches of dampness that had long since dried.

Were they teardrops…?

Atlas jumped in surprise as the book was suddenly jerked out of his grip. He looked up to see a familiar face glaring at him.

"… Hey, Annie."

How had he missed the sound of her entering the room? Nobody could sneak up on him with his keen sense of hearing.

Anthea didn't respond, just continuing to stare at him with a stern frown, her eyes apparently searching for something in his surprised expression.

It took her a short while, but she straightened up. "Glad you're back." she said, turning away to set the book back on her own desk. She spoke with the air of someone who hadn't just spent several seconds glaring pointedly at him, but Atlas passed on the chance to inquire. "These are the files?"

"Huh…?" Atlas didn't notice that she had picked up the folder from the courthouse immediately, only catching her meaning when she shook the files in place to draw attention to them. "Oh-… Yeah, those should be all of them. Two copies of each, as requested."

"Good, good…" Anthea said. She still wasn't speaking normally. Instantly, Atlas became intrigued by the particular sound of her voice. There was something unusual there, but what was it…?

"Hey, Annie…?" he began, unable to beat back his curiosity in this case. "Can I ask you something?"

Anthea eyed him suspiciously over the folder she'd just opened. "That would depend on the question."

"Well hey, you're not gonna know the question 'til I ask it, right?" Atlas replied with a small grin that he hoped might be at least a little disarming.

It was hard to tell if it worked. With a second's consideration, Anthea responded, "Fine. Shoot."

It didn't take someone with hearing as sensitive as his for Atlas to recognize that Anthea knew exactly what he was going for. He took in a breath as an excuse to hesitate long enough to think out the best means of addressing the question. "That book on your desk,"

"The one you decided to rifle through while I was out of the room?" Anthea cut in dryly.

"… Yeah, that's the one." Atlas replied slowly, watching for any dangerous signs on his friend's face. "I know I'm not really in the best position to ask, seeing as I did… y'know, that, but it's just got me wondering about something."

"Atlas, I can understand your curiosity, but I'm gonna tell you right now that it's not something I want to talk about."

Atlas swallowed the response he'd mentally plotted out. There was an undertone in Anthea's voice that he recognized quite well. She often slipped into a very similar tone when speaking to especially uncooperative witnesses and in worse cases, clients. It made it quite clear that she was struggling to keep herself reasonable while still expressing impatience to leave the subject behind. "Right, right, none of my business." he said. "But-"

"That's not where you're supposed to say 'but', Atlas." Anthea snapped.

He was on the verge of losing this line of questioning entirely. What was the right move now? Should he backpedal and just give it another try later on? Maybe once they'd finished looking through the case notes would do. But no, once they finished with all that, Ms. Wright would probably have their next move for their investigation planned and ready to go.

(All or nothing then, Cykes.)

"Who is the guy you drew in that book?"

Anthea actually did a double-take in surprise at his blunt question.

"I mean, it was you who drew all of those, right?" he went on.

Anthea stared him down once more. "Atlas, I know you aren't stupid enough to miss my hints back there." she said. "Though I'll admit that I hoped someone as well-read in psychology as you would be able to work out that it's not something I want to-"

"Getting to the bottom of what's bothering people is just as important in my work as recognizing it in the first place, Annie." Atlas cut in. He'd spotted his chance the moment Anthea began speaking. There was a clear note of combined emotional distress beneath her words. The court notes could wait, he'd decided. "I know there's something more than just embarrassment that's bothering you about this, and I'm concerned."

Anthea looked surprised once again by his determination. That was the next thing to tip him off. If the book she left in the office had been a personal diary or something else of the sort, it might've made perfect sense for her to be so secretive. Her co-workers were all of a very compassionate sort, but teasing was always commonplace.

"One more time, Annie." Atlas said, his fingers reflexively moving to touch the small metallic sphere hanging on the end of the chain around his neck. The sphere emitted a cheerful little noise as its front lit up to reveal a stylized smiling face. "Who is that in all those drawings?"

Anthea sighed resignedly. "Making this into a full-blown cross-examination now that you've brought Widget into it, huh?"

Atlas smirked as a holographic interface sprung up before him, projected from the little necklace. "Spill it, Red Stuff." Widget chirped.

Anthea managed a chuckle at Widget's outburst, but took a few more seconds to respond properly. She dropped the folder back onto her desk and sat in her own chair, facing away from Atlas. "… I guess you noticed how many times I've drawn it." she commented.

"Kinda hard to miss, yeah." Atlas replied, eagerly setting up Widget's interface the same way he would in court.

"See," Anthea's voice was slow now. It sounded like she was now the one carefully thinking her words through. "Ever since I was a little girl, I've… I've had this dream. Over and over. Not every night, I mean, but it's always kept coming back to me."

"A dream?" Atlas replied. He wanted to keep Anthea on-topic. If they strayed too much, she might want to back out of her explanation. "Tell me about it. I know they can get pretty hard to remember once you're awake, but if you've had this particular one a lot of times,"

"I've never forgotten this one." Anthea said firmly. "It's not very hard to keep track of. Not much really happens."

Atlas nodded despite Anthea still facing the opposite direction. Widget's interface was beginning to gather what little data it could from Anthea's words.

"Every time, it's almost exactly the same." Anthea continued. "There's just… kind of a soft light for a while. It's comforting. And then, after a little while, I see-…"

Atlas looked up with the first hints of a frown appearing on his face. Just before Anthea broke her sentence off, her voice began to show clear signs of deep discomfort. Quite a contrast with what she'd said. "Keep going." he said gently.

Anthea's shoulders visibly rose and fell as she took in a steadying breath. "… I always see… him." she finished.

"The man in the drawings?"

"Right. He just… just looks at me. Smiling. Sometimes his mouth moves, like he's saying something, but I've never been able to hear it."

Widget's display was lit up with vaguely defined images that were clearly starting to resemble the drawings from the book.

"You said you've been having this dream since you were little. Do you have any idea of who the guy you're seeing is?"

Once more, Anthea delayed her reply. She was sitting very still in her chair. What little Atlas could pick up from the subtle sounds she involuntarily made gave him a fairly clear impression of her discomfort. "That's the thing." she said in a hollow voice. "I think I do know. A-at least…"

Atlas waited to see if she might continue. When she remained silent, he wheeled his chair across the floor to her and gently urged her on with a light tap on the shoulder.

Anthea glanced toward him for a split second. He could see the side of her face now. It looked like she was steeling herself for an answer that wouldn't come easily.

(She's probably never told anyone about this in her life…)

"I-… I think he's…" she mumbled indistinctly. Another second passed and she took in a deep breath. "… I'm pretty sure he's my dad."

Atlas shifted back a bit as the answer sunk in. Anthea's father? He knew that she'd grown up in a fairly nice orphanage as far back as she could remember, and apparently never met either of her parents. It seemed unlikely that her subconscious could contain such a clear image of someone she'd only ever known in her infancy for this long, but was it really unbelievable?

Widget's display was now showing a clear image of the young man from the drawings. Atlas tilted his head as he studied it once more, taking his new perspective on it into consideration. There was some similarity between the man's face and Anthea's. They had about the same smile, though Anthea was usually expressive enough to smile much more widely than the man she'd drawn. For a moment his attention was drawn to the eyes of the sketch, as if he'd spotted something very familiar there as well, but after a quick examination, he shook it off. Anthea's eyes looked quite different. Still, Atlas had the distinct feeling nagging at the back of his mind that he'd seen somebody with those eyes before.

In his reverie, he didn't immediately notice that Anthea had picked the book back up from her desk. He only picked up on it when she began to carefully leaf through the faded pages.

"This one." she said. Atlas couldn't tell whether she was really speaking to him or merely thinking out loud. "Page thirty-two. I drew this one when I was seven. I've always liked how it came out. I've got better ones by now, but…"

"That one's still special to you, huh?"

"Yeah." Anthea replied. Atlas thought for a moment that he spotted the shine of a tear just below Anthea's eye when she blinked just after.

He leaned in to look at the drawing she'd specified. The lines were a bit crooked in some places, as one might expect from a seven-year old's work. There was very little shading, but Atlas had a hard time disagreeing on the look of the picture overall. He thought over Anthea's theory on the man's identity. Analyzing facial expressions was more Anthea's own skill, though Atlas got a distinct impression from the look of this particular drawing.

"Ever since I realized who he was," Anthea suddenly said, "Or, y'know, who I think he is… Well, that was when I drew this one, but ever since then, I've always had this feeling about the way he looks at me in the dream."

"Yeah?" Atlas replied softly.

"He just looks so… There's just something about his expression. It's the kind of look that makes me think nothing could ever make him happier than what he's seeing at that exact moment."

"So… You, then." Atlas said.

They sat in silence together this time. Atlas wasn't the type afraid to properly express his feelings around friends, and he was beginning to feel a familiar twinge around his eyes. The last time he and Anthea had spoken this openly about her own feelings was the evening following the retrial of the UR-1 case. Atlas had plenty to get off his chest back then, too.

From the day they first started working together, he'd always been eager to make friends with everyone he worked alongside, but there'd always been something he kept to himself. He hadn't been able to really decide for himself whether he did it because he wanted to avoid burdening his friends with his own problems or if he was just too afraid and hurt by the idea himself. In the end, though, once he'd seen the lengths they went to in helping him achieve his goals and overcome his own demons, there was no more hiding. Anthea might not have felt like she deserved his friendship at the time, but Atlas knew she'd seen him at his lowest and even when her trust in him was called into serious question, she'd still done everything she could to avoid turning away from him. That was the last push he'd needed to throw away his own personal barriers and let her see and hear what he was really feeling.

Maybe, he thought, it was time to return the favour.

"Seeing you - seeing his daughter; that made him happier than anything else in the world." he said. When she heard his voice, Anthea glanced toward him in surprise again. She'd probably been just as deep in thought as he'd been. "Nothing could possibly have brought him greater joy than seeing his daughter's face. If he's not your father, Anthea, I can't think of much else he could be."

He switched Widget's interface off again.

"Atlas…" Anthea's voice was barely audible, but Atlas heard everything he needed to from the one mumbled word alone.

Rather than saying anything back or encouraging her to go on, Atlas set a hand on the armrest of Anthea's chair and turned it to face him. The young woman sitting before him had clearly not been able to keep her tears back forever. She rubbed a bit of the dampness on her face away, but her eyes were still shining with tears still waiting to fall. Maybe they were there out of sadness, maybe it was happiness, or even a combination of the two. Whatever the case, Atlas had a clear idea of what to do.

He shifted out of his chair to pull Anthea into a tight embrace. She accepted it immediately, her arms sliding up onto his shoulders and her face sinking into the curve of his neck. Atlas only tightened his grip when his friend's shoulders began to shake with the sobs she'd held back before.

If Atlas Cykes considered Anthea Justice one of his closest friends, he would do whatever he needed to to let her consider him the same. Teasing comments about the way she was soaking his jacket could wait. Besides, he couldn't claim that his eyes were exactly dry, either.

He didn't need Anthea's words to tell him what her shaking sobs expressed loud and clear.

(Thank you too, Annie.)