It is not like the Fräulein Detective to be late.
Of course, it is also not like the Fräulein Detective to agree to dinner at an upscale restaurant with him, so as five minutes turns to ten, turns to fifteen, Klavier Gavin thinks nothing of it and orders himself a Long Island iced tea when the waitress happens by for the third time.
Alright, so he's thinking a little something of it. He can't not have Ema Skye on his mind, considering this is the final time he'll be seeing her for—well, that, he's not sure of. It's all dependent on how long Herr Prinz requires her services.
Klavier had refrained—will continue to refrain—from asking if these services entirely pertain to the growth of forensic science in the kingdom of Khura'in. If Ema wants her personal affairs to be Klavier's business, she will see to it, that much is certain.
Over the past year, and especially since she's passed her test and become the forensics specialist she's always dreamed of, Ema has been more accepting that Klavier Gavin exists. What's more, she's been among the people that Klavier can count on one hand who have remained interested in whether or not the fallout following the Misham trial and Kristoph's subsequent conviction has impacted him anything other than professionally.
At least, that's what he took it to mean, when she stopped by his office the first week after he'd returned from his hiatus and told him how, scientifically speaking, a fop without his glimmerousness couldn't really be a fop at all...
...so if there was anything she could do to make sure it didn't fade away...
Or, Klavier had mentally added, burn out.
What he'd actually said was less an acceptance of the help she offered, but an apology: for being the one responsible for Herr Wright's situation, for being so high-maintenance and dismissive and myopic.
For—he didn't say it, but didn't need to; she'd bore witness to the schism between them in the courtroom that day—taking so much after Kristoph.
If they could, perhaps, start over?
The truce that afternoon that shifted into a productive, if careful, partnership, and then something resembling friendship, has yes, made him appreciate Ema more as just that: a friend.
But it's also made him realize that, while his flirtations with her had been born from looking for a rebound, something honest has evolved from that. One of the few honest things he could count in this charade of a life of his.
So, in the unlit backstage portion of his mind, there is this catchy, previously unreleased cut waiting to make its debut: where she shows up—well, late now, but fashionably so—and professes that she has changed her mind; she will not leave for Khura'in (will not leave with Herr Prinz) and will stay in Los Angeles. With the LAPD, and with Klavier.
He is awful, selfish for letting such a thought swirl about, fine-tuning it until he's satisfied like he does (or, did) when he writes (wrote) new songs, needing to test their arrangements with his guitar handy.
Even if she is no longer his Fräulein Detective, hasn't been for a few months now, Ema is still his friend and for Klavier to act as though this evening is in any way meant for him... it is disgusting. He is disgusting.
He continues to nurse his Long Island, and is reading over the appetizer section of the menu for what feels like the millionth time (that jumbo crab cake is sounding more and more delicious), when his phone hums, plays a ringtone many would find far too generic for Klavier Gavin.
Fräulein Forensics Specialist illuminates the screen. He pushes up from his chair, weaves to the other side of Oceanaire, to a narrow alcove outside the restrooms, and takes the call.
"Fräulein... Ema..." He corrects himself, and is aware that he sounds breathless. "Is everything... ?"
"Alright?" She finishes. "Yeah, great, actually."
Klavier can't quite place her tone, this sort of dreaminess, ecstasy. He can see the smile splitting wide, her eyes twinkling bright like a gem. Still, there's an open-endedness to her answer, one that could only continue with, "But...?"
"I... Look, fop. Gavin. Klavier." He can picture her fidgeting, rubbing uneasily at a long strand of brown hair. "I can't make it to dinner tonight. Something came up."
She isn't apologizing, he notes that. Which could only mean... "Something... good, ja?"
"Lana..." Again, she is smiling, grinning from ear to ear.
Despite the disappointment that stabbed him at first, he is too.
"Lana." He repeats Ema's older sister's name. The former chief prosecutor, so many years ago. Whom, from all Ema talks about her, Klavier feels as if he knows personally. Definitely better than he knows his own sibling.
"Nahyu—...er, Prosecutor Sahdmadhi. He was able to pull some strings, with Edgeworth, with the courts and... she's not supposed to get out until next year, and I mean, you knew that, but she's out now, as of this afternoon." She says this all in one breath, and her excitement is contagious, or would be if Klavier weren't so conceited to pick out the words that affect him, and not Ema, the most.
"Herr Prinz did all that? Sahdmadhi?"
"Yes! I think... I mean, he understands how big a deal it is for me to just pick up and leave, to go to Khura'in to help him and Apollo, and... I guess it's him showing his thanks. And, he also, well... he understands why Lana did what she did, even if it wasn't... the wisest choice, in hindsight. He wasn't even sure if he could swing it, but..." she laughs, in a disbelieving way that is choked with happy tears. "Gavin, my sister's right here, in my apartment. We just spent the last couple hours watching movies, I lost track of time and I..."
She keeps talking, rambling, in the way Klavier only hears when she's explaining some sort of chemical reaction, or alternately, when she used to rant how insufferable his cologne, his outfit, his voice—his everything—was.
But all he hears, all that rings in his head is her emphasis on understands, how Sahdmadhi understands. It tells Klavier there is more to it than he knows, than he should know, or at least than should be told to him by a third party over the phone. Ema does not openly reveal to others what he is able to confide in her, such as the fact that he visits a counselor twice monthly to speak with someone who is licensed in handling shattered, casually suicidal, washed-up celebrities. And so, he doesn't expect her to be so careless with whatever Sahdmadhi has told her.
But they hardly know each other, Klavier's ego, the one he's constantly fighting to suppress, argues with him. How can he understand not just her, but her sister?
"Gavin?"
"I'm sorry, Fräulein. I'm just thinking."
Or, he's trying to. It's bizarre, there's just a lot of processing going on, that can't seem to complete itself. He has the information, knows what it means, and yet...
He doesn't know what he thinks, and he certainly doesn't know how he feels about all this. Oh, he is happy for Ema, because that is what you feel for your friend when her sister is a free woman after spending nearly a decade in prison.
And yet, that happiness doesn't extend anywhere beyond his smile, anywhere past what's on the surface layer.
He is not happy, because she was supposed to be here tonight.
And Lana should be in prison, because if his attempted finagling to get her out early, to reunite with Ema, failed...
Why, and how, didn't Sahdmadhi's?
"I want to be there tonight, okay? I do," she says after he never elaborates. He believes her. Ema would not tell him, or anyone, anything simply as consolation. Only if she meant it. "I wouldn't have said yes if I didn't. But you get it, right? I..."
"Ema, it's fine. We'll reschedule. For when you return,ja? A welcome back dinner, instead of a goodbye dinner. It'll be less depressing, anyway. "
Yeah, right. If he's there, melancholy will hang thick in the air, regardless of the dinner's purpose.
"Sure, that works," she says, knowing full well, and knowing Klavier knows full well, that there's no timetable for her return.
Why did he propose such a thing? To give himself a commitment to fulfill, he supposes. Having something to pencil into his calendar keeps him going, in some weird way. If he makes a promise to someone else, like dinner with Ema tonight, or that visit to Themis last year, or his weekly jaunts out to the Cabooze, once on his own but now with Blackquill...
He can temporarily ignore the despair, the hopelessness that has spread through him, a virus. It's what his counselor suggested, if he ever hopes to recover. To keep on with daily life, create a placebo effect of sorts while he tests various actual mood stabilizers, anti-depressants.
Sometimes it works. Sometimes it's like now, where, how verdammt stupid is he to think this could work?
Or maybe he's just faking it, this emptiness, if leaving his condo every now and again is all it takes for him to not down a bottle of pills. Who knows?
(Kristoph, probably.)
"Fräulein...?" He blurts out, the beginning of a question he's yet to form. He's only aware that he's been too quiet, too detached, and that Ema should have hung up long ago. This isn't, shouldn't be, a lengthy conversation, but he's the one dragging it out. Making it uncomfortable. Awkward.
"Yeah?"
Klavier pauses. Is it too cliche, too common of a sentiment? But it's all he can think to ask; he has to know. "You are happy, aren't you? Not just about Lana, obviously, but ah... everything. It's what you want, right?"
If they were together in person, this is where he'd expect a Snackoo or five to be flicked his way. "Yeah, fop, it's what I want." He knows she's rolling her eyes, although this time might be the first out of hundreds where she's actually amused and not exasperated. In the background, he can hear the sounds of rummaging. "I have to go. I'm going to pop popcorn with Lana, for the next movie. You know the old-school way, of doing it over the stove? We always did it that way when I was growing up. Anyway, don't be a stranger. E-mail me if you'd like. Hell, visit for all I care. His Ephemeral Holiness has more than enough room for guests in that palace of his. I don't think they have a minstrel, either, if you're interested."
"I'll think about it. Good luck, Ema. And..." Everything he wants to say is about himself, about how grateful he is for her support and how he probably won't e-mail her because if he does it couldn't possibly be about anything positive.
He's terrible, so fucking horrible, and it's because of this that he simply settles on, "Auf widersehen."
As he says it, Klavier wishes it didn't carry such finality.
Mere seconds after he returns to his table, the waitress reappears, with the courtesy not to inquire if Klavier is still waiting on the rest of his party. So he reciprocates in kind, and instead of asking for the check, orders another Long Island as well as the crab cake and the "Catch of the Day", which happens to be swordfish.
"Fräulein, you wouldn't happen to have any more napkins you could spare?" Klavier asks when she brings his drink, along with the cocktail napkin set under it. "Oh, and a pen? Inspiration is calling."
She does—or maybe she doesn't really, but it's hardly the most scandalous thing he's requested while flashing one of his disarming smiles—and within the next minute, he has an entire cube of napkins, and a ballpoint pen riddled with more than a few teeth marks.
Even as he's distanced himself from his former career, he hasn't been able to stop the lyrics, the tunes from spontaneously generating. Mentally, that is. It's a switch he can't shut off, doesn't even try to, because letting songs and lyrics, however shite they are, fill in the empty spaces of his mind is preferable to having all his thoughts woven with commentary from Kristoph.
But it's been ages—or, a year, verging close to two—since he's put any of those ideas to paper. Since he's felt they're worth making anything of. He keeps the instruments at home tuned, but more in case he decides to sell them, opposed to playing them. And composing music, writing these lyrics down? Forget about it. The melodies, the words, they get scrambled somewhere between his brain and fingers. And Klavier knows why, knows it's because the whole process of songwriting relies on, ultimately, the consumption of the final product by some type of audience.
Why start something that won't be finished?
Because his counselor suggested that, while it may be painful, might invoke self-reflection that Klavier may not feel completely ready to face, it was important that he find an honest, productive outlet for his endless storm of emotions. Keeping them so close to the vest, to only let them out after Kristoph found the right chord and strummed away at it, was not.
It's a fine suggestion, he knows. But writing for the sake of it, to use music as a private diary, is not and never has been appealing. Even when he was younger, at least he had Daryan, or at times, Kristoph, to share his compositions with, and those moments while the sharing was happening were always the biggest thrill. And eventually, to have his ideas, his creations, out amongst the masses, to have them not only validated, but jammed to, swooned over—that was the payoff.
It made him feel like he wasn't alone.
As a songwriter, he had striven to write about two topics he believed to be universal: truth, and love. In the end, it was revealed that Klavier Gavin had very little knowledge of what either entailed.
The jury is still out on love, but he understands what truth is now, as the words—his feelings—bleed out through ink, and he knows that not only will he not share them, but that he has no one to share these revelations with.
The truth is that he is a shitty human being, who can't even be not miserable long enough to be happy for one of the few people who still bothered with him.
That Kristoph might have been pulling the strings but Klavier never tried to untangle any knots he'd discovered along the way.
That, as he was long before entering this restaurant, and will be after leaving tonight, he is always...
Alone.
