Vollkommenheit
Chapter 12:
Wenn sie Geliebten mich
Author's note: This is not the third installment of the Perfection series. But this does follow the same time line as the Perfection series. The title is in German, and is does, in fact, mean perfection. And while the chapter titles will be in German, on the drop down menu, they will be in English. Okay…you know the drill. I don't own Phoenix Wright games or characters…and if I did, I'd be swimming in my own pool of money (which would be shaped like a dollar bill!) But I DO own Diana (pronounced Dee-ahna with a German accent)(RIP...waaaaaaahhhhh! poor Diana!), Adele Etzel, Jakob Dietfried, Althea Weber, and Marty Cruss. I'll never abandon my story! Promise! And while you don't have to read Limits or Striving before this...it might help, as some of the flashbacks will be referenced to.
TO MY REVIEWERS!
noian: ahhh, that will be for me to know and you to find out! Muahahahah!
Auryn: Good! I thought you'd like this one better!
Tilea: Yay! Thanks for the review!
KingdomKeeperSai: I'm so sorry to hear about your math course! Math is my worst subject too.
OOOH! OOH! Vollkommenheit now has a title image to go with it! Go to my profile and look!!!
Oh and now you can find a link to my playlist for my stories. If there's a song you'd like to hear that I've put up the lyrics to, just go to my profile, click on the link, and find that song!
AND NOW...ON TO THE STORY!!
Ah, these translations you might need...
Kleine Dame...little lady
Ja...yes
Auf Wiedersehen...goodbye (formal)
Herr...Sir
Frau...Mrs. (respectful)
Meine Mutter...my mother
Es tut mir Leid...I'm sorry
Guten tag...good day
Nein...no
Bitte...please
Meine Tochter...my daughter
Guten Morgen...good morning
Vielen Dank...thank you
Verlassen Sie mich nicht...don't leave me
Lassen Sie mich gehen...let me go
Helf mir...help me
Frauline...Miss
Meine Gott...My God
Now I know that a song intended for a Disney/Pixar movie is not what most people would think would be fitting for a serious moment, and no I'm not talking about the song "you've got a friend in me". When I heard "When She Loved Me," I knew right then and there that while it may have fit the memories and story that Jessie tells in Toy Story 2, it can also fit the mindset of a small child thinking about their mother...aka Franziska thinking about Diana. Enjoy!
When somebody loved me,
Everything was beautiful.
Every hour spent together,
Lives within my heart.
"Bitte."
"Please."
"Nein."
"No."
"Ja."
"Yes."
"Vielen Dank."
"Thank you."
"Mein Name ist Franziska."
"My name is Franziska."
"Ich verstehe."
"Uhm...I...understand?"
Franziska bit her lip lightly and looked anxiously at her maid. Diana closed the large book in front of her and laughed gently. "Kleine Dame...you really are a genius. To learn two languages in such a short amount of time...and understand what every word means. You truly are the perfect child." she stated praisingly. Franziska heaved a sigh and then looked up at the woman with eager eyes. "Do you think that Papa will feel the same way, Diana?" she asked eagerly. "Of course, Franziska." Diana replied, ruffling the child's hair. "Why wouldn't he?"
Franziska looked down and mumbled something so softly that Diana could not understand what the girl was trying to say. "What did you say, Kleine Dame?" Diana asked gently, cupping the child's chin and raising her head to look up at her. "I...I said that since Papa is gone...maybe he-"
"Oh come now, Franziska. You know your Papa loves you beyond all measure. He's just gone to America, that's all." Diana interrupted gently. "You know that if he could be here, it would be he, and not I, who would be teaching you in your English lessons."
"R-really, Diana?" Franziska asked hopefully.
"Of course! Now come, let's continue. You want to greet your Papa in English when he returns, don't you?" Diana asked, with her characteristically cheerful smile.
"Y-yes! I do!" the child chirped in return as Diana opened the book again.
"Guten tag."
"Good day."
"Ich habe Sie verpasst."
"I've missed you..."
And when she was sad
I was there to dry her tears
The soft sobs filled Franziska's ears, and the curious child climbed out of her crib to take a look...perhaps the television had been left on and one of those daytime shows that Diana despised so much was on...
The source came from the room that would soon be that of the orphan boy that her father had so kindly taken in. Poking her head around the corner with an inquisitive expression on her face, Franziska was surprised to see Diana, in an exhausted slump on the floor. Her hair had been taken out of its customary bun, and hung long to the edges of her shoulder blades. Her black dress splayed out around her legs, and Franziska could practically hear the dripping of tears onto the hardwood floor. This whole scene was a shock to the small child, who had never seen anything but cheerfulness and joy out of the woman who had taken care of her so faithfully.
"Diana?"
Her tiny voice seemed to reach though the layers of sadness emanating around the woman, and she turned quickly towards her. Now Franziska could see her tear-streaked face...and the corners of her eyes that were filled with remnants of sadness. Diana placed something underneath the folds of her dress quickly, and wiped her eyes. She tried to fake a smile, but it didn't work. Franziska already knew that this woman was now capable of crying...perhaps it was a good thing? She seemed more human now.
"K-Kleine Dame...is there something you need?" Diana asked, clearing her throat and sitting up straighter so that her back was against the edge of the bed. She motioned to her lap, and Franziska quickly toddled over to her, sitting down, her back to the woman.
"I heard you crying." Franziska stated, looking up slightly.
"I-is that so?" Diana replied, as she began busying her hands by beginning to braid strands of the child's thin hair.
"Why are you so sad?" the little girl questioned softly.
"What make you so sure I was crying because I was sad?"
"...I know the difference between happy crying and sad crying. When you're happy, you're not hiding things." Franziska replied wisely, referring to the thing Diana had underneath the skirts of her dress.
The woman sat in stunned silence for a moment before bowing her head and letting a soft smile frame her face. "You...you, Franziska von Karma...you will always be ahead of your years...wide beyond all comparison." she praised quietly.
And when she was happy,
So was I
"So what were you crying about?" Franziska questioned after sitting in several minutes in comfortable silence as Diana was braiding little sections of her light-blue hair.
Diana took several minutes to answer, in which time, she did not touch the child's hair. Instead, Franziska could hear the ruffling of cloth, and she assumed that Diana was bringing out whatever she had been hiding.
"...I was thinking about my daughter." Diana replied softly, looking at the picture while the child's back was turned.
"You have a daughter, Diana?" Franziska asked with a genuinely surprised tone of voice.
"I did...she...she was taken from me at birth."
Franziska understood...or at least, she thought that she did. What to say to something as serious as that? The child felt rather remorseful for bringing the topic up, even if it was unintentional.
"I'm sorry." the German child replied finally, finding that a simple apology seemed the most fitting for the situation.
"Don't be sorry, Franziska. I may have lost her, but there are moments when I feel as though she has never left me." Diana replied with a gentle smile, as she tucked the photo down the front of her dress for safekeeping for the moment.
"Maybe...maybe I could be your new daughter?" Franziska asked, trying to cheer the woman up. She turned in Diana's lap, cocking her head slightly at the confused and yet slightly joyous expression on the older woman's face.
And then she laughed.
It was like the old Diana again; laughing heartily at the child's unintentional wisdom.
"Oh Kleine Dame you are too funny. You are a von Karma! Silly girl...you can only be your father's daughter!" she exclaimed, making Franziska giggle as well.
Diana was right.
It was a rather foolish notion.
To suggest she could be anything other than her father's daughter.
How foolish.
When she loved me...
Through the summer
and the fall.
We had each other
that was all.
Just she and I together
Like it was meant to be...
"Diana...what are those children doing?"
"Hmm?" Diana looked up from doing the dishes in the kitchen and looked into the dining room where Franziska was pressed against a window, pointing to a group of schoolchildren walking home from school.
"Oh..." Diana left the rest of the dishes in the sink and walked to the inquisitive child. She knew this day would come eventually...and had thought of many ways to explain it to her...but somehow, none of them seemed to explain the real truth.
"Do you mean those children over there?" Diana questioned, kneeling behind Franziska and looked out of the windowpane above her.
"Uh huh. What are they doing outside? It's cold out there!" Franziska exclaimed, turning to look at her maid with wide, innocent eyes.
"They've going home from school, Franziska." Diana replied, looking down at Franziska in return.
"School? You mean they're not taught their lessons at home?" the child asked, pressing her face to the glass once more, admiring the children in their warm jackets, prancing in the leaves that fell, signaling autumn's approach.
"No...they all go to one place and learn there...but they also make friends there. School isn't so bad once you get past the homework and the annoying other children and the rude teachers and the snobby parents and the-"
"Diana...why don't I go to school?" A tug on her sleeve, the highly inquisitive look, and the girl's words made Diana pause in mid-sentence.
"I suppose your Papa thinks it best for you to stay here." the maid answered finally after thinking over the best choice of words to say to the child.
"...oh..." Franziska whispered, looking back at the last of the children, who were vanishing from her sight.
"I...I'm different. Aren't I, Diana?" she questioned after the sounds of laughter and fun were gone from her ears and the noisy children were gone from her sight. All that was left were the falling leaves and the sound of the hollow wind that blew against the sturdy manor.
"Franziska...Kleine Dame...you are a von Karma! You are destined to be different than other children." Diana replied, feigning cheerfulness. "Besides! Would you really risk going out there in the bitter cold, possibly catching a cold, just to play with some children who may claim that they'll never speak to you again the next day? Or would you rather sit by the fire in the library with me and a cup of hot cocoa?"
The gray-blue eyed girl perked up at the mention of hot cocoa on this chilling day. "Really, Diana? Can we read something in the library too? Anything! Just so long as it's a bigger book than the last time."
Diana laughed and picked the child up. "Really, child. I can only read so much of Les Miserables before my mouth begins to get tongue tied and sore. Those French names are hard for a German woman like me to pronounce." she teased, walking into the kitchen.
She would leave the dishes for later.
And when she was lonely
I was there to comfort her
"Diana?"
Franziska stood in the doorway to the room that the maid normally occupied. Dressed in a black dress that almost covered her tiny feet, which were protected by black leather mary-janes, and her hair clipped up at the side with a tiny black clip, she looked even more solemn and wide-eyed than normal.
But there was no one in the room.
Of course.
How could she forget the reason she was in black in the first place?
Diana was gone.
Wiping clean her eyes, Franziska walked to the bed and climbed atop it. She rested her head on the pillow, feeling more heartbroken than she had in the days since the truth had been revealed. As she moved her head, Franziska heard something crinkle in the pillowcase. Curious, she lifted her head up and reached inside the pillowcase, pulling out a photograph.
"Mama..." she whispered, turning the photograph over to reveal its picture.
And I knew that she loved me...
A birthday party she never remembered. Her first birthday. Perhaps the only party she ever had in her life. She had never had a party, to her knowledge. There she was, in Diana's lap, looking curiously at the woman she would never know as Mama until it was too late. With a smile of great joy forever etched onto her face...Franziska vowed that this was how she would always remember Diana...as the most cheerful woman that life would ever let her know.
Was this the thing that Diana had hidden from her?
This precious memento that had been in her pillow?
Franziska would never lose it.
So the years went by
I stayed the same
But she began to drift away
I was left alone
She sat at her desk, twirling a pencil between her slender fingers. The desk space was sparse and organized. Everything that needed to be filed was placed into a filing cabinet to her right. Cases that were left unsolved or that were being worked on by other members of the prosecution staff were in the filing cabinet to her left. While other prosecutors had picture frames on the edges of their desks, or plaques hanging on their walls...Franziska had none. Her office was just as bare as her desk, save for the two leather chairs that were seated opposite her desk, and a couch up against the far right wall. The desk drawers were just as neatly organized too...office supplies went in the small drawer in front of her, and miscellaneous items went in the other drawers...but never cluttered.
She kept it spotless for when her father came for surprise visits. If he had no way of knowing that she really understood how much of crucial role Diana played in her life, the better off she was. The better off Diana's memory was. But for those rare times, like this one, where the teenage prosecutor had nothing to do that could benefit herself or other members of her office, she kept it hidden here. It being the photo she had kept close to her heart since childhood. Franziska pulled it out from underneath an organizing tray in one of her drawers that had hidden it. and smiled upon the scene...until she felt a gap in her memory come forth. She couldn't remember...she couldn't remember...
Those well preserved memories were fading as she grew older and her mind made room for less important things. It horrified and saddened her to realize that she could barely remember the details of her long-since-passed mother. What...what were the color of her eyes? The picture didn't show them well, yet as a child she remembered finding herself entranced by them.
The picture fluttered to the ground as Franziska pounded her fists on her desk and clenched her teeth, suppressing emotion. She was in a public place, in her work place. She couldn't cry here...not over something people would find as trivial as the loss of some silly details of a woman long since dead.
"Why...?" she whispered, her voice hitching in the back of her throat.
"Not now. Don't...don't leave me now..."
Still I waited for the day
When she'd say
I will always love you
She looked back at the manor from where she stood, her suitcases at her feet on the sidewalk. Though it had been thoroughly taken care of in her father's absence...and to every one else, it looked like the best house in the whole city, Franziska could feel the hollowness and the loneliness that emanated from the property. The icy wind howled around her, and the woman looked at her reflection in the taxi window. Had she really grown that much? There she was, her light-blue hair cut short, hanging straight against her pale face. The full length black coat covered her body down to her feet, where she wore high-heeled boots that upped her hight a little. In one hand, she carried her whip...and with the other, she picked up a suitcase an began loading it into the taxi. It was hard to say goodbye to the place she had called home for her entire life.
Eighteen...she was eighteen now. Her father had been in prison for little over a year...Miles Edgeworth had apparently committed suicide...it seemed that there was not a soul in the world who seemed to care for the lonesome woman.
Diana would have.
Oh how Franziska used to imagine it. She would stand at the curb and Diana would rush from the house, smothering her with kisses and hugs, and begging her to be good and give her all against the defense attorneys in California...
But it was not meant to be.
She placed the suitcases in the open trunk of the taxi, and then, after rearranging them a bit, she closed the trunk, and got into the back of the cab.
"To the airport, right, Frauline von Karma?" the driver questioned gently, to which Franziska merely nodded as she settled in her seat and closed the door behind her.
It was a temporary farewell, yes, but farewell nonetheless.
Lonely and forgotten
I never thought she'd look my way
She awoke, perhaps not in body but in mind. Confused...for all she could see was darkness around her. She felt as though she was in a endless void...trapped in the confines of her own mind. Oh that's right... An attempt had been made on her life. Slowly, she was going back; various memories flooded her. She knew she would not wake for a while...still her subconscious had had enough of those memories...she had blocked them for a reason...anything that had to do with Diana had been blocked from her mind. At least, it had up until yesterday. Yesterday, when she took a moment to think about all that had happened to her to lead up to the point where she was at now. To the point where she was 'Franziska von Karma, the prosecuting prodigy', and not just Franziska. She seemed to walk endlessly in the void of darkness...finally collapsing on the ground in a frustrated heap.
"Kleine Dame...what's wrong?"
She felt a presence touch against her shoulder, and looked up into the sapphire blue eyes of a woman, dressed in a pair of blue jeans and a simple white blouse. The woman's locks of hair were a soft blue color...almost like her own...
"...I did as you said, Diana...I didn't cry...I was strong...I let Papa think he'd won...I even bought a whip. Why do I feel like you've left me all alone? Why do I feel like the whole world has dumped me off somewhere to crawl into a corner and die?"
"Oh Franziska..."
The warmth of an embrace filled her body.
And she smiled at me
And held me,
Just like she used to do
"I know what he's done to you...but in the end, you came out victoriously, Franziska. You let him think that you'd never make it, and then you turned around and showed him what you were made of. I always said you had more potential than any child I had ever known of...it was your father's choice not to believe me...and believe me when I say this, Franziska. I never could have asked for a more perfect child. I may never have been able to see you off in this world, but you've done a great deal more than I ever could have helped you with."
"Diana..."
Like she loved me...
When she loved me..
Silence filtered over her, and she didn't mind laying her head in her mother's lap...feeling as though she had reverted back to three years old again, when she used to lay in Diana's lap and listen to her read stories aloud until she fell asleep.
"Franziska...wake up..."
"Hmmm?"
As she looked upwards, her eyes were suddenly blinded by white, and her vision came into focus...
"Franziska, wake up. Franziska? Franziska, how are you feeling?"
Miles Edgeworth was standing over her, watchful eyes filled with a gentle worry. Franziska blinked several times before finally realizing what had happened. She had been put under for emergency surgery on her shoulder...and now that the anesthesia was wearing off, her mind didn't seem so fuzzy, crowded, and delusional. A dream? A hopeful longing of a future never seen? Her conversation with Diana was nothing more than a fleeting thought...just a figment of her realistic imagination. The German woman cleared her throat and looked at Edgeworth seriously before speaking.
"The trial." she demanded, her voice sounding a little off.
"We need to find more evidence...right now, the trial is at a standstill." Miles replied, sitting down in a chair next to the woman. Franziska sat up in her hospital bed, careful of her aching shoulder. "...is he guilty?" she questioned, attempting to cross her arms over her chest. This was received by a sigh of frustration by her fellow prosecutor, and perked her own interest.
"...we found that there's a third party involved in all of this." Miles stated gravely.
"Murder-for-hire?" Franziska translated with a raised eyebrow. "Somehow this doesn't seem like the type of case for that sort of thing."
"Nothing is ever as it seems, Franziska." the older man stated wisely, a frown etched deep into his features.
"Then by all means, your duty is to figure out what's going on before Wright beats you to it. I'm not going to interfere...you've started this trial, and I most certainly do not pick up cases where people have left me their work to clean up." Franziska replied, a determined fire glowing in her eyes.
"Speaking of Wright...he's coming here." Miles added, running a hand through his hair...he didn't even have to look up to know Franziska had a look on her face that was in between contempt for the man and absolute surprise for his concern. "He was worried at the beginning of the trial. And when court was dismissed, and I told him I was coming here, he said he'd be here shortly after."
That was all she needed to hear to motivate herself to start moving around after her operation. She swung her feet around and stood up, gingerly touching her shoulder as she stretched slightly. As she began to walk out of the room, she noticed that she seemed to be missing something. The icy-blue haired woman turned around to find Miles Edgeworth standing up and holding her whip out for her.
"...looking for this?" he questioned with a ghost of a smile on his lips. Franziska snatched it out of his hands and her thank you was a mere flick of her hair over her shoulders. Walking out of the room ahead of her, Miles did not notice that she did not follow. The German woman stood there for a moment, looking at the object in her hands...and let a small...very, very, small smile trace her lips for a fraction of a second.
When somebody loved me
Everything was beautiful
Every hour spent together,
Lives within my heart...
"Don't listen to him, Franziska. Not when he says things like that." Diana continued strongly. "If he wants to batter your spirit, only make him think that he is...when you come out from behind and whip him...he'll never know what hit him."
Franziska looked at Diana with curious eyes. "So...I...I should get a whip?" she asked, blinking.
The maid laughed, and ruffled the child's hair. "If that's what gets you through the day with him...then yes, Franziska." she replied with a genuine smile.
When she...loved me...