"When you get scared, embarrassed, angry, nervous, with full of emotion and bad thoughts…Remember to maintain your discipline. It earns you respect the more."

A/N: I grew up watching a lot of Bollywood movies. They're all genres rolled into one - drama, romance, comedy - and angst! SO. MUCH. ANGST. So that's my excuse for this emotional roller coaster I've subjected my dear readers to, and my consequent apologies for this story having more ups and downs than a hooker in Amsterdam! :p

Sunny skies for a bit now so enjoy! Thanks for reading...this story has officially passes my first Phaya tale readership! Hot diggity! Also, sincere appreciation for all the reviews, I LOVE hearing feedback from you guys!

Chapter Thirty-Four: Turnabout Sisters

Maya Fey and Mia Fey
Hickfield Clinic, Maya Fey's ICU Room
September 8, 2020

There was a pregnant pause in the room as Mia and Maya stared after Phoenix, both confused and slightly concerned about his sudden hasty retreat.

The patient was the first to speak, seizing the opportunity to delay the inevitable lecture she was about to receive, thanks to her boyfriend, The Big Mouth! She still couldn't believe he'd tattled on her to Mia! As if she were some recalcitrant child who needed discipline, rather than a grown woman, who was in charge of a whole village!

On the other hand though, from the recesses of her mind, Maya could vaguely remember hearing her boyfriend's mellifluous voice, and the faint snippets of the things he'd said to her while she'd been unconscious, and had gathered from them that he had devotedly remained at her side…so who on earth could have called his phone just then that would make him leave it, so swiftly and abruptly?

"I hope everything's alright…and nothing happened to Trucy or something…" Maya murmured, her fingers grazing her lips as though lost in thought. "Or God forbid...I hope it wasn't...no...please don't let it be..."

"What is it Maya?" Mia prompted, noting her sister's troubled expression.

"I hope it wasn't that horrid Kristoph Gavin that Nick has been so paranoid about!" Maya exclaimed, miming holding a telephone to her ear. "I've never even met the man but the descriptions are enough to give me the willies! Maybe that's why Nick suddenly excused himself - sorry ladies, I must make haste - creepy German sausage on line one!"

"You're so silly!" Mia laughed. "I'm sure everything is fine. You just woke up from a coma - don't fret yourself too much!"

"Well, he sure took off like a bat out of hell when he got that phone call!"

"Maybe it was an emergency call from work?" Mia suggested. "Or…" she flashed a wry grin. "He may have just been grateful for the opportunity to escape that death glare you shot him when he told me your completely nonsensical plans to try to leave this place already!"

"That rat fink is supposed to be my boyfriend!" Maya pouted, crossing her arms across her chest. "He's supposed to be on my side and support me, as well as my decisions, not narc on me to my big sister!"

"Sometimes to protect the people you love, you must hurt them, Maya. Did you really expect Phoenix to stand by idly and do nothing, when his girlfriend's said decisions are completely harebrained, not to mention moronic?" Mia raised an eyebrow at her sister.

Maya blushed at the reprimand, mild thought it'd been – thus far.

"Siiiiiis…" she whined. "Don't talk to me like I'm five and don't know what I'm doing! This isn't about just me…it's about being the best Master I can be! How much did Nick tell you about what's been going on in Kurain?"

"Enough, sweetie, enough." Mia brushed a strand of stray hair out of Maya's eyes. "I know a lot of this has to do with Mom – how you're trying to prove something to the elders because of what happened with her, and that you don't want to let her down. But Maya," her voice softened. "You can't keep doing this to yourself! Mom didn't sacrifice herself only to have you literally kill yourself in your attempts at trying to follow in her footsteps, and join me and her in the afterlife!"

Maya was immensely touched by Mia's apparent faith in her, and that she'd preserved the belief that her performance as Kurain Master could be suitably acceptable.

"I don't think I'm the type of person mom thought she was saving," she admitted miserably, her downcast gaze on her lap. "She didn't even know me."

Mia shook her head. "Any mother in the world would have done the same thing had her child's life been at stake. She must have known something. She knew that she loved you. I think that's why she saved you. Not because she wanted you to be a prodigious Kurain Master."

"I'm not very good though, Sis. Not like you were. Not like Pearly, who channeling comes to as naturally as breathing. That's why I was trying so hard! But I feel as if I'm living a gigantic lie…that I'm a fraud! Because…I utterly loathe and despise this accursed position!" Maya cried, tears of frustration burning in her eyes. "I never wanted it! And feeling like this… it just makes me feel so guilty! Mom died so I could take it over, as it was my birthright, and yet, lately, I can't even do the bare essentials, like charming a magatama! Hell, despite all my valiant efforts, I couldn't even channel you, never mind mom!" A tear drop rolled down her cheek. "It's like she doesn't want anything to do with me, alive or dead."

Mia winced internally at the tragic attitudes of shame and dishonor which had torn her mother and Maya apart – outlooks which still appeared to distort and tarnish the relationship even from beyond the grave. She had to try to remedy this. Her mind raced through the vast amount of information her sister's boyfriend had relayed to her, trying to locate the fragment of it that might remedy things, even marginally. Finally, the correct bit of lore that she needed to convey dawned on her.

"Sister Bikini was the one to contact Pearly after you collapsed," Mia informed her sister. "She told Pearly something that she wanted conveyed to you, when our cousin must have wailed to her that you did all this to prove yourself to mom." Mia rapidly searched her memory for what Phoenix had told her about Misty Fey. "Among mom's last words to the good Sister before she passed, were 'I don't have the right to face my daughter after the stigma of disgrace I've left her with, but no matter what path she takes in life, I will always love her and keep her in my heart.'"

"Really?" Maya raised her head to meet her sister's steady gaze, her eyes still sparkling with tears. "Mom actually told Bikini that?"

"Nuns aren't generally known to be liars, silly girl," Mia smiled. "A mother's love is unconditional. I'm sure she saved you for being you, Maya," she asserted resolutely. "It was not contingent on training yourself to collapse or being something you're not. I don't think she would have wanted that from you."

The concern in Mia's eyes confirmed the sincerity of her commitment to her younger sister's well-being, and Maya began to concede the logic of the stance.

"You really think so, Sis?" Maya sniffled, looking at her sister hopefully.

"I do. But Maya, regardless of everything, in the end, the choice is ultimately yours," Mia told her. "It's your life, not moms. You're not just Master of that village. You're Master of your own destiny."

At least Mia apparently still had faith in her and her ability to succeed as Kurain Master on her own terms – without having to morph into some unachievable superior incarnation to her former self. That was a great comfort.

"According to Mystic Mildred, I'm destined for failure," Maya mumbled gloomily, somewhat placated by her sister's words but now consumed with the disturbing thoughts about the rest of her village woes.

"Forget about her, Mildew is just a crusty, miserable old bag!" Mia's lip curled in disgust. "God, I hated that woman! The feeling was entirely mutual, too. She was always up in my face, too and hated that I never backed or bowed down to her. On top of that, she used to call me a bimbo!"

"You're kidding!" Maya choked back a horrified laugh. "She didn't!"

"She did," Mia affirmed, a scowl marring her pretty face as she folded her arms across her chest. "Like I could help the way I was built! It's not my fault they didn't have any robes that properly fit me! Ugh, that's half the reason I left that godforsaken place!"

"That's terrible," Maya commiserated, even as she swallowed back another bout of laughter. "Still, it's hard to feel sorry for you when you hogged all the good genes, Sis! I was a carpenter's dream right up until I was about 19, when Mother Nature finally took pity on me and gave me a small sprinkling of the booby dust!"

"A carpenter's dream?" Mia echoed, her brow furrowed in confusion.

"You know," Maya giggled. "Flat as a board and never been nailed!"

"Ah, I see," Mia smirked. "As much as I can see that Ma Nature has so graciously taken care of the former issue…can I safely assume that Phoenix has seen to it that the latter is no longer applicable, either?"

"Oh my God, Sis!" Maya's face turned crimson and she buried her face in her hands in mortification. "We are so not having this conversation!"

"You're what, 22 now, right?" Mia teased relentlessly. "Do you really still want to try to play the outraged hymenally challenged card with me?"

"I am going to die," Maya groaned, her burning face still hidden in her palms. "I came out of a coma, only to have you ensure that I literally die of embarrassment right afterward!"

"So, based on the evidence of your reaction to my allegation, little sis…" There was a grin in Mia's voice. She was obviously enjoying herself, immensely. "I'm going to conclude that I was correct, and that my nailing speculation was not baseless conjecture?"

"Ahhhhh!"

Phoenix Wright
Hickfield Clinic, Visitors Lounge
September 8, 2020

Phoenix sat rigidly on the edge of his chair in the visitor lounge, where he seemed to have spent so much time in the last few days with various Fey family members. As usual, the room was completely isolated. This was a very good thing, because there was nobody around to see him nervously sweat-dropping as he spoke on the phone to the unexpected caller who had completely thrown him for a loop when they'd rang a moment ago.

"H- hello?"

"Wright. We need to talk. Now."

Edgeworth?!

Phoenix's mind went numb from shock. He'd not spoken to his best friend, except via email, since that fateful day when he'd come to visit at his home a year and a half ago. To say he was surprised by the call would have been the understatement of the millennium, never mind century!

Normally, he would have been merely pleasantly astonished to hear from the other man after so long. However, there was something not quite right in his friend's intonation, which made Phoenix feel jumpier than a virgin at a prison rodeo!

Barely able to make his suddenly dry mouth form the words, he mumbled his excuses to Maya and Mia and hightailed it to the waiting room down the hall, not raising the phone back to his ear again until he was seated and had ensured he was adequate distance out of ear-shot.

"I'm alone now," he said nervously, hating the slight tremble in his voice that always made it evident when he was completely shaken out of the norm. "I can talk."

"Good. There is much that needs to be said."

Again with that tone! Edgeworth had always possessed a succinct, even curt, manner of speaking in general, making few exceptions for anyone, not even Phoenix himself, for the most part. But this time he sounded even more so than usual! Edgeworth sounded…edgier. Even more brusque, if that were even possible! As if he were angry with him, and for the life of him, Phoenix couldn't fathom why!

He wracked his brain, trying to figure out the reason, and drew a complete blank, which was only making him feel more antsy! He was certain it had nothing to do with the disastrous way things had been left between them when they'd last seen each other. Phoenix had been beyond touched and humbled when Trucy had relayed the message to him that his friend wouldn't stop believing in him. Therefore, he had ensured that he contacted Edgeworth before he jetted off to Europe the next morning, and the two had smoothed things over between them so that their parting had been a sweet sorrow, not a hostile one filled with regret. Any adverse feelings or hurts, Phoenix had assured himself, were now water under the bridge.

Maybe they weren't.

How else to explain the tone, the same disdainful one Edgeworth tended to use when he found something to be intolerable or disagreeable? The last time he'd used that voice with Phoenix had been at his girlfriend's 21st birthday party, when the prosecutor had been lecturing him (completely justifiably!) on his buffoonery that night, which had nearly ruined things with him and Maya permanently!

I haven't done anything that stupid since! Well, not that Edgeworth knows of, anyway…

"Um, OK," Phoenix replied weakly, trying to infuse some of the familiar warmth they'd had in their last phone conversation into the present one. "Long time, no speak, Edgeworth! This is, ah, a most pleasant surprise, really! How have you been?"

"I did not call to make senseless chit-chat, Wright," Edgeworth's cadence was clipped. "Before we proceed however, I have but one pressing matter than I would like to address, and I would appreciate a straight answer."

"S- sure, Edgeworth!" Phoenix stammered. "Ask me anything you want! You should know that at this point you don't need to ask permission before you enquire –"

"Fine. Then answer me this, Wright." The next words sounded like they were being uttered through gritted teeth. "Why. In. God's. Name…Did I have to find out from my manservant that Miss Fey was comatose in the hospital?"