A/N: I am very sleepy but I keep on waking up at 9:30 in the morning even when I don't want to. Gah.

Shadows Passing
Phoenix, Part 7

He remembers, now, what it feels like to be dead inside, to stand still as the world keeps on moving. He remembers the pain Edgeworth's disappearance caused him, even if he can barely remember Edgeworth himself. He remembers not caring about anything at all.

He remembers, and he knows he never wants to be that way again—and so he is determined, this time, to move with the world.

And it seems to be moving him toward Evan.

The way they interact with each other, through the snark and the sidelong glances and the smiles—it all seems so familiar. So… right.

He wonders if whatever he had with Miles was anything like this.

On Sunday morning, he wakes up feeling like maybe something's going to happen today. Sightseeing with Evan, certainly. But more than that, though he's not quite sure what it is yet. Something big. Something important.

The feeling persists as he puts on his beanie and sunglasses. The beanie, of course, is hardly needed anymore, since his head wound has long since healed, but he's gotten rather attached to the thing. At the very least, it keeps his hair out of his face. The sunglasses, however, remain a necessity.

Evan picks him up at the café right on time and drives him to the National Mall, somehow finding a parking space among the mess of cars and pigeons. "So, where to first?" he asks, but the other just smiles and tells him to follow along.

They end up visiting mostly art museums, which, to his surprise, he realizes he has no problem with. It's almost as if Evan knows something about him that he doesn't know himself—him? Into art? Really? He never would have thought.

As they walk, he finds himself sneaking glances at the other man every now and then, taking in the way the light glances off the other's silver hair and glasses. And maybe he's going insane, but it seems like Evan's sometimes glancing back. He wonders if he should say something about it—"Hey, is it just me, or are we kind of looking at each other a lot?"—but he has a feeling Evan wouldn't take it very well, and so he keeps his mouth shut.

Eventually, they end up at the Reflecting Pool, where they stare out into the distance in silence as the sun sets. Right when he's thinking about asking whether or not this is more than just a friendly outing, it—cliché of clichés—begins to rain. "All right, back to the car," Evan gripes, motioning to leave.

Before he can stop himself, he reaches out and grabs the other's arm. Evan tenses instantly and stares at him in shock.

Oops. But he can't let this chance go, and so he allows a smile to slide onto his face. "Evan," he says, "even if we run back, we're going to get soaked. So we might as well stay for a little while and enjoy it." Not that he can imagine him running.

"Enjoy what? Catching pneumonia?"

Yeah, he's about to retort, but then his eyes dart toward the pool, toward the thousands of droplets falling on it all at once, and he has his answer. "The Reflecting Pool. Look at the way the rain hits it. It's—it's kind of nice, isn't it?"

He lets go of his arm as Evan turns to stare out at it. For a long while, the two of them stand in silence as the rain pours down on them, but he doesn't really mind.

"Yes," he hears at last. "It's nice."

To his surprise, one of the other's hands tentatively wraps around his own and squeezes gently.

And though both of them are clammy and wet, and the water between their hands makes a strange squelching sound, and Miles Edgeworth is still a complete mystery to him—he can't help but think that nothing in the short span of memory he possesses has ever felt better.

--o--

Though the sun was beginning to rise and the birds had started to sing their song, he couldn't help but think that he had never felt worse.

The road was empty. His heart was empty. Miles had left both.

He's gone, he thought, his breath catching in his throat. Gone, and never coming back.

He tried to move a limb, and this time it worked. How long had he been standing here, staring at the blank spot Edgeworth's taxi had once occupied? At least a couple of hours. He wondered if any of the neighbors had noticed.

Slowly, lethargically, he turned on his heel and walked back into the house, trying to figure out what had happened. Miles had gotten into that taxi and driven off, and he hadn't done a damn thing about it.

He closed his eyes as he leaned against a doorframe wearily. God, after all this, one would think he could stand to be a little more alert, but here he was, exhausted and sluggish for some reason—so much that he couldn't even chase after Edgeworth.

But not so tired that he couldn't shed a few tears, pathetic though that was.

He had cried only a few times in his life. The classroom trial. Finding out about Dahlia's betrayal. Mia's death. Miles' disappearance following the resolution of DL-6. And now Miles again.

Miles, Miles, Miles. He had been the center of his life. Now he was gone, and he had taken everything with him.

God, everything was wrong.

When he was done weeping, he stumbled over to the bed and collapsed onto it, realizing as he did so that there was something clenched in his hand. The Magatama. He remembered the Psyche-Locks wrapping around Edgeworth as they spoke, remembered his shock at seeing how many of them there were.

And he remembered his utter failure when it came to removing even one of them.

Before he could stop himself, he threw it at the wall in frustration, thinking bitterly of all the good it had done him. It made a strange sound as it hit, like maybe it had broken on impact, but he didn't care. It was useless. He was useless.

He buried himself under the covers, trying to ignore the fact that they smelled like Miles, and attempted to fall asleep—he was certainly tired enough for that. But thoughts of Edgeworth's departure kept on running through his head, and so he was forced to remain awake, even as his eyes burned from exhaustion. Why the hell was he so sleepy, anyway? It was almost as if he had been—

Drugged, he thought dully. Of course. Edgeworth had probably put something in that dinner. And he had been stupid enough to eat it.

He wondered what would have happened if he hadn't woken up. Miles would have left. He would have gotten up at the normal time and thought Edgeworth was at work, not noticing that anything was wrong until much later. But most importantly, the other would never have said all those things to him.

All those things. He picked up his pillow and put it over his head, trying to block the words out.

And then he found the note.

No, no, not again, he thought to himself as he read the words: Prosecutor Miles Edgeworth chooses death. Was this his plan? To run off somewhere and hide? What was there to hide from? Himself? But why disappear under the cover of night, leaving only this note behind, if he were the problem, as Edgeworth had told him? Why not break up with him like a normal person?

Nothing made sense.

He kept on coming back to one key fact: he wasn't supposed to have seen Miles leave. Everything the other man had said—maybe it was the truth, maybe it wasn't. But he knew that this ran deeper than it seemed.

And with this in mind, he couldn't bring himself to be angry. Upset, hurt, broken, certainly. But not angry. Edgeworth had a reason—and as he laid there in bed, pressing the note to his chest, he swore to himself that he would discover it if it was the last thing he did.

But then he got the call from Gumshoe, and everything flew out the window.