DISCLAIMER: The Ace Attorney games belong to Capcom. The song "Name" and its lyrics (the lines in italics at the beginning and end of the fic) belong to the Goo Goo Dolls.

~ Name ~

You could hide beside me, maybe for a while.

Even after finding out that she isn't who he thought she was, he still didn't know her true identity.

"So, what's your real name?" he asked.

He tried to be cool about it. Offhanded. It didn't work. She could tell that he was practically dying of curiosity.

She hesitated a long time before answering. Not because she enjoyed watching him squirm, but because she wasn't sure what exactly to admit.

"… … … Aliyah Alba."

"Alba? Then you're…"

Lang jumped to the obvious conclusion, which was that she was the old man's granddaughter or something.

"An orphan taken in off the streets of Cohdopia by the old man and trained from early childhood to become a spy-thief-assassin? Yeah. That's what I am," she said. Her tone was one of cold disinterest.

"So, your real name is Aliyah?"

"… that's what the old man called me."

"What about the name your parents gave you?"

"… … … Hell if I know." She wasn't sure her parents had ever given a name.

She wasn't entirely surprised when Lang pulled her into his arms, held her tightly against him, and whispered, "I'm sorry I couldn't save you."

"Yeah, well… In a way, you kind of did."

He knew she didn't mean the bullet he'd taken for her. She was telling him that in the years she had spent at his side, he had helped form her soul into something that might be worthy of redemption.

And now we're grown-up orphans that never knew their names and don't belong to no one, that's a shame.

~end~

A/N: Reviews are love.