It's nowhere near the first time that Ema's seen a dead body, but something about this corpse makes her want to be sick. She takes a few steps back and averts her eyes, pretending to be occupied with producing her notebook.

At the very least, she's forensics, not the lead detective. She can duck away from the limelight while her co-workers deal with giving orders. Once she's gotten over herself, she can assess the scene and start on the list of possible suspects. Not that she thinks it will be a very long list. She's fine. This will all blow over without anyone—

"Skye? You good?"

Ah, fuck.

Ema looks up to face one of the detectives, who is fixing her with a curious gaze. She clears her throat and clenches her notebook tight in her hands. "I'm fine. Just a headache."

The detective — Majima, she thinks his name is, but she honestly can't recall — doesn't look like he believes her, but doesn't push it. "Get some fresh air, and be back in five minutes. I know it's gruesome, but HQ wants all hands on deck. Murder of a prosecutor is a big fuckin' deal."

"I'll only need three," Ema promises, and quickly heads for the open balcony doors before the man can change his mind.

Once she's outside, with the scent of blood significantly less repugnant, she's able to take a deep breath and ground herself. Her name is Ema Skye, and she's a grown adult doing her job. She digs her fingernails into the balcony railing and looks down at the grounds below. They're expansive; the green grass and hedges go on for miles and miles.

Ema hadn't known the victim personally, which is a small victory. But it also gives her the least reason to be having an anxiety attack out of all her coworkers. Even if the murder circumstances are eerily similar to an event in her youth…

She shakes her head. It's a coincidence. Hey, maybe if rich people stopped having suits of armour with real swords on display, people would stop getting impaled through the neck on them. With that conviction — which if she's being honest, is not a conviction at all — Ema goes back into the manor and prepares for battle.

This is not SL-9 and she is not fourteen years old. Joe Darke and Damon Gant are long gone, and this is not personal for her in any capacity. It's just a murder. A murder that she has the responsibility to investigate.

Ema pulls out her fingerprinting powder and, after a nod of approval from Majima, begins dusting the suit of armour.

Ema leaves the crime scene with several questions and almost no answers. Her own observations suggest that this was nothing more than an accident — the victim slipped on his freshly waxed floor and accidentally fell into the sword — but Majima doesn't seem as convinced, and is on the hunt for more evidence.

It's fine. It's not her business for at least a few more hours. She can go home, lie down in bed, and drink until she stops seeing any trace of Neil Marshall in the victim's face.

Apparently, SL-9 is a more serious wound than she believed it was. The case was almost fifteen years ago, she got closure and justice for Lana, and she'd been seeing a psychologist to help her through the worst of it. Ema was finally convinced that she could move on with her life.

Above her car, the sky thunders, and she flinches. She's not in an office and she's not being held hostage and there's no vase falling and nobody is being killed, but she's still sick to her stomach. She scowls and digs her teeth into her bottom lip until it bleeds.

"Get a grip. You're fine," she grumbles to herself. With blood leaking into her mouth, Ema forces herself to drive until she's in the parkade below her apartment. This is nothing. If she's still all fucked up, she can talk to Lana about—

No. Lana's at work. Teaching night classes at the nearby community college. Ema won't hear from her until tomorrow. Ema curses, and then realizes her hands are shaking.

This is a goddamn mess. She climbs out of her car, slamming the door behind her, and rolls her shoulders until she's climbing up the stairs to her apartment. Thankfully, she's always believed that living any higher than the third floor would be stupid. She's never going to be as superfluous as the fop and his goddamn penthouse.

At the top of the stairwell is one of Ema's neighbours. She's not friends with any of the people in the building, since work keeps her so busy, but she almost always says hello, even when it hurts to breathe. Like right now.

"Hey, Aerith," Ema says, trying not to look at the woman. Right now, her ribs and throat hurt.

Aerith beams. "Good evening, Ema! How are you doing?"

That is not a question Ema wants to answer ever, and especially not right now. She doesn't have the energy to force a smile as she says, "Tired. Getting some rest. You probably should too."

"Is something troubling you? I'd be happy to listen to you if you need a shoulder to lean on," Aerith says gently. It's kind and genuine and it only worsens the tremors in Ema's hands. She doesn't want to get upset at the woman, but she would never discuss SL-9 with anyone she didn't know extremely well.

And even then, some people just didn't need to know about her trauma. Not when they'd start acting different around her after finding out.

So, Ema waves her neighbour off. "Nah, it was just a long day. See you around." And she starts walking off before Aerith can protest. She is not dealing with this until she's had a drink or two.

The apartment she shares with Lana is dark, which is a relief. Lana's been leaving lights on when she leaves by accident, and it drives Ema up the wall. It's such a minor nitpick, but how hard is it to flip a light switch? ...Whatever. It doesn't matter now. Nothing does.

Ema trudges over to the liquor cabinet and pours herself a glass of whiskey. With any luck, she can drink this and pass the fuck out until she's needed elsewhere again. Some of the alcohol spills onto the counter, and she grumbles as she wipes it up.

Something brushes against her legs, and she looks down to see Lana's fat tuxedo cat, Final Boss. They'd adopted him shortly before Lana was arrested, so he was getting up there in age, but he seemed just as spry as ever. Ema gives the cat a scratch behind the ears, then grabs her glass and strolls into her room, where she collapses on the bed with a groan.

Predictably, Final Boss jumps onto the bed with her and curls up in the crook of her knee. She can't bring herself to be annoyed, and hopes his soft rumbling will ease what the whiskey doesn't.

Before she can ruminate too much on it all, her phone rings. Ema curses and pulls it out of her pocket, prepared to run back to work at the drop of a hat. As such, she isn't looking at the caller ID when she says, "What the fuck is it?"

"Wow, good morning to you too!" comes the slightly incensed reply on the other end of the line, "Jeez, did I wake you up?"

Ema sits up, spooking the cat, and slaps her hand against her forehead. "Shit, Maya, I thought this was a work call. I'm sorry."

Maya Fey, her girlfriend of three years, laughs gently. "You're forgiven! It's cool, though. I've always sucked at being a morning person. No amount of dawn waterfall training will change that."

"It's ten o'clock at night," Ema says dryly.

"And here I thought I'd finally counted the timezones right!" Maya says. Ema can almost hear her pouting, and she smiles reflexively. It's cute. And it's so nice to hear a loving voice.

Ema says, "It's about three in the afternoon for you, right? If you want to call me in the morning, you'd need to phone around one in the morning, and I know you're not doing that."

Maya giggles. "This is why you're the STEM lesbian. You should just come to Khura'in so we don't have to worry about dumb stuff like the international date line."

"Honestly, I've been thinking about it," Ema admits, "I hate never seeing you anymore. How long are you supposed to be training up there, anyways?"

Maya says, "Not much longer! I'll be done by the end of May, and then I'll be the official Master of the Kurain Channelling Technique."

Ema says, "From everything I've heard about you, you should've been that a long fucking time ago."

"Hey, I don't make the dusty traditions," Maya points out. Ema laughs, and for a moment, the hole in her chest is completely full.

It's expensive to stay connected for so long, but Ema feels the desperate, selfish need to cling to Maya and her kindness. Maybe if she listens to her girlfriend's voice until the wee hours of the morning, it'll be enough to unravel the knot of tension in her gut.

"So!" Maya chirps excitedly, "I've done nothing but talk about myself, and I bet you're bursting at the seams to tell me about whatever crazy case you're wrapped in this week."

Ema sighs, and her smile fades out. "That's— We don't need to go into it. It's boring, you know? Nothing like communicating with the dead."

This isn't a video call, but Ema is sure that Maya is narrowing her eyes as she says, "Who are you, and what have you done with Ema Skye? 'Boring'? Hello?"

"I don't know why I thought that would work," Ema mutters, "I'm sorry. I… I really don't want to talk about it." She takes a swig of her whiskey, and it burns all the way down.

Maya replies, "Oh, not this again. Nick's right, everyone grows up to be like their older sister."

"Mr. Wright doesn't have an older sister."

"He has me!" Maya shouts, "And Mia was family too. Yeah, he's a big doofus ninety-nine percent of the time, but he knows some stuff, and so do I! You're using Lana's same avoidance techniques."

Ema hunches in on herself and takes another drink. "I'm tired. That's all it is. I'm not pushing you away, Maya."

Maya huffs. "Do you really think I'm going to believe that? I know you well enough by now. You're upset, and I want to help you."

"It's stupid," Ema grumbles. More whiskey, more fire in her throat, more tears piling up in her eyes.

Maya says, "I'm not going to judge you for it, if that's what you're worried about. Remember when I spent an hour crying over the Plumed Punisher, and you talked me through it and asked questions? This is just like that!"

"Except this has nothing to do with a kid's television show."

Maya's voice is soft and gentle. "I gathered. Something at work, right? Is some jerk at the prosecutor's office giving you hell again?"

Ema sighs, and runs her hands through her hair. She hits a snag, and winces as she tries to pull it loose. "A high prosecutor died. Fell backwards on a sword that went right through his back. Punctured jugular."

Maya whispers, "It reminded you of SL-9, right?"

"I told you it was stupid," Ema mutters, and downs the rest of her drink.

"Hey, I never said that," Maya responds, "I get it. It's natural to get screwed up over stuff like that. It happens to me all the time, actually."

Ema frowns. "Seriously? I assumed I had to be over it by now."

Maya says, "That's not a healthy mindset to have. Hm, maybe I can convince Mr. Edgeworth to share his therapist with the rest of us."

"I saw a therapist when I was younger," Ema replies. She gets up off her bed, stumbling back to the kitchen and the whiskey bottle on the counter. "Talked through the trauma. Got medication for the worst of it. I'm almost thirty, I should be…"

Maya is quiet for a few moments, and Ema uses the time to fill up her glass again. When she does speak, she sounds tired. "I was framed for murder three times before my twentieth birthday. Two of those times, it was for the murder of a family member. And the other time, it was my aunt who framed me."

In between sips, Ema murmurs, "And that's horrifying. But we're grown adults now, so shouldn't we be dealing with it?"

"You're kidding, right?" Maya asks. When Ema doesn't answer, she says, "I get nightmares all the time, and I'm lucky it isn't any worse! Even Mr. Edgeworth still can't handle earthquakes, and nobody should expect him to."

Ema says, "That's different."

"How?"

She fumbles for an answer, and settles for more whiskey. Her head's starting to feel fuzzy at this point. "'Cuz it was worse for him. Or something. I don't know, okay?! I just feel like… like if I show any weakness…"

There's hot tears running down her face. She desperately wipes them on her sleeve, but more and more come out, ugly and violent. Ema hiccoughs, and slumps down on the tile floor. What a fucking wreck she turned out to be.

Maya whispers, "It's not your fault, Ema. And you're not showing weakness. Sometimes, the world is cruel, but you never have to blame yourself."

Ema says nothing. It's hard for her to breathe, with her tears rolling down into her mouth.

"You're one of the bravest people I know," Maya continues softly, almost melodic, "And I'm so, so proud of you. You've come so far! You got into forensics! You're going to kick ass, and inspire tons of girls to go into science."

"You're… you're too nice to me," Ema mumbles. She coughs weakly into her elbow, wincing as bile rises up her throat. Damn alcohol.

Maya says, "Please. I'm only speaking the truth. You're doing incredible, and I'm so glad to know you and love you."

Ema wipes her eyes again. "I love you. Thank you for… for putting up with whatever that was."

"It's not 'putting up' with anything. I'm here to help, and I know you'd do the same for me," Maya points out.

Ema smiles, but it's uneasy. She still feels a little sick. "Yeah. Yeah…"

Maya asks, "Still troubled? What else do you want to discuss?"

Ema shrugs. "I don't think it's anything you can fix. I need… to ask to be reassigned. I can't work this case. Not if it's going to do this to me every time I think about it."

"That's a good idea," Maya says, "If you push yourself until you break, you'll never put your pieces back together."

They're both quiet for a few moments. Ema rubs her temples with her free hand until she feels confident enough to stand up and lean over the counter.

"Hey," Ema mumbles, "Would you, uh… would you mind…"

Maya says, "Anything for you. I can stay here as long as you need me."

Ema does not think about how much her phone bill is going to cost. "Tell me about Khura'in. About the mountains, and the waterfalls, and the temples. Describe it until I can get there and see it with you. Until I can see you smile again."

"Gladly," Maya whispers breathlessly, and it occurs to Ema that she might be crying too.

She closes her eyes as Maya's rich descriptions weave their way into her mind, and untangle the agony inside her. It's not going to fix her, but it'll keep her head above the water, and that's more than enough.