Certain Demolitions: Play a Fantasia

Summary: 2. Apollo's plane goes down over Germany, which leads to a most interesting meeting between himself and a man who's almost a dead ringer for Klavier...

SPOILER WARNING: I give up. This thing has been in my document manager on FFN for several days, because I thought that I would be able to post it after I got up to Chapter 32 of C.D., because it had spoilers, I thought, for chapters 31 and 32. I was right, but not entirely. It has spoilers for at least chapter 37, too.

So consider this your fair warning: here there be spoilers.

Chapter 3: Miracles and Mirror Images

[Status: Non-cannon in the context of C.D.]

1943

Maybe it was that mystical ability that Phoenix swore up and down his foster son had. Apollo didn't know what it was that had made him jump and pull his parachute cord, but he was very grateful to whatever had caused him to jump out of the plane before the wing had broken off entirely and the rest of the machine had taken a rapid nose-dive to the ground.

That feeling of luck had started to diminish since his landing on German soil, though. Apollo wasn't sure where he was and he was starting to be afraid that someone was following him. Gestapo? It was possible. He had landed basically in someone's backyard, and he had seen the city they had been flying over when the plane went down. His main objective had been to get out of the city. He would probably have a better chance of hiding out in the countryside, at least until he could make his way back to his side of the fight.

He took off running again. It was starting to get dark now. The flight he'd been on had been out before it was truly dark, which probably had contributed to the mess Apollo found himself in.

I've got to get out of here, Apollo thought. All he needed was someone asking him where he was going or what he was doing, and they would call the Gestapo pretty quickly when they learned he couldn't speak any German.

The next moment, his fear was realized. A man in a dark blue coat with a cane came around the corner. He saw Apollo and they both came to a stop.

Apollo wasn't sure what to think. Except for the glasses, the man in front of him was almost a dead ringer for Klavier...

Klavier...

"Kristoph?" He asked. He was pretty sure that had been what Klavier had said his brother's name was.

But those days when they were at college together feel like years ago now.

The man looked startled, and said something in German. Apollo looked at him blankly. The man looked annoyed, then said, in almost flawless English with a faint trace of an accent, "Do I know you?"

"No, but I think I know your brother, Klavier." It's shot in the dark, to be sure, but it's the only shot Apollo has at this point.

"Based on your accent, you must be American." The man says. "I am Kristoph Gavin. Who are you?"

"Apollo Justice."

"Come with me. The Gestapo and the home guard will be looking for you." He takes off his coat and hands it Apollo, who doens't need to be told to put it on. His soldier's uniform will make it clear to anyone they meet which side Apollo is on, but the coat covers his uniform entirely. Kristoph sets off, going back in the direction from which Apollo has come.

He isn't sure whether or not Kristoph is leading him into a trap, but it's the only chance he has at this point. Apollo follows the other man through the streets. They're still on the outskirts of the city, but Kristoph clearly has a destination in mind.

"If we see anyone," Kristoph says quietly, in English, without turning around. "Let me do the talking."

"Alright." Apollo agrees.

They walk on, until they come to a street were the houses are large, and have neat yards. It's quiet. Apollo follows Kristoph up to a large house. The blond pulls a ring of keys out of the pocket of his suit jacket, unlocks the door, and motions Apollo to follow him inside. Once they're inside, Kristoph locks the door behind them. "That went a great deal more smoothly then I hoped it would." Kristoph says.

Apollo is too busy gawking. The entryway is huge, and the room beyond is larger. Hallways run from either direction inside the door. Kristoph leads the way into the room beyond and Apollo can see that there's a staircase going to the second floor there, to his right.

"This is a quite a mess." Kristoph says. "And I don't know what to do with you, either."

"The Gestapo?" Apollo suggested somewhat snidely, trying to gauge the man in front of him. This man and this situation makes Apollo want to believe that's he safe, but if Kristoph Gavin is on the German side of the war, as reasonable expectation would lead someone to believe, then this may be a trap.

Kristoph's reaction to the question will help Apollo figure out where he stands here.

"That is out of the question, unless you earnestly desire for me to call them, in which case I will." Kristoph said, adjusting his glasses. Then he clasped his arms behind his back and smiled. "I meant I don't know what to do with you until we can figure out how to get you back to your side of this fight."

"Really?"

"Really. Though I warn you my comrade who assists me with these matters, her schedule is unpredictable. You may be stuck here awhile."

"I'll be fine." Apollo said.

"Stay away from the windows." Kristoph orders as they go up the stairs. "I live alone, so your presence will raise questions. I doubt Frau Dreier will say anything, and the Rosenbaums have been gone for years now, but, how they do say it in America? Better safe than sorry?"

"That's how we say it." Apollo said. "Thank you."

"Don't thank me. I have my own reasons for this. For starters, while you're here, you can tell me all about what Klavier has been up to in America." They walk down a hall, Kristoph pausing in front of each door. Finally he stops in front of one and unlocks it. "You can stay in here for now."

The room he shows Apollo into is small by the standards of the house, but to Apollo it's huge. It's as large as the master bedroom of Phoenix's house, and comfortable furnished with a bed, a bureau, and a desk against the wall in front of the one window that looks out into the side yard. In another corner of the room is a small round table with a couple of plush chairs around it. The bed has a blue and silver bedspread on it.

Apollo is still busy taking in the room when Kristoph speaks again. "I don't know what to do about your clothes. Nothing I have will fit you and nothing that Klavier left will either. Oh well. A problem for the morning." He turns back to Apollo. "I trust you'll be comfortable here."

"I'm sure I will." Apollo said.

"I'll bid you good night then. I have work in the morning. If the air raid sirens go off, I'll come back and make sure you make it to the scullery."

"Thank you."

"Other then that, wait for me to come get you in the morning." Kristoph said.

"I will. Thank you."

"You're welcome. Good night." His enigmatic host departs a moment later. Apollo drops onto the bed and stares at the ceiling. His nerves are starting to settle now; for the moment he's sure there will be no situation where he can run into the Gestapo.

Two thoughts run through his head. The first, 'Trucy, you're never going to believe this.' The second, 'Klavier, how did you leave all of this behind?'

(-)

The second question comes back up the next day. As it turns out, there's a back servants staircase that Kristoph uses to take him to the kitchen for the breakfast. Once they've eaten, Kristoph departs for work, and instructs him that if he gets hungry later, to use the back staircase to get to the kitchen again.

Then he adds, as he's putting his Ulster on and preparing to depart, "We passed Klavier's room on our way to the stairs. It's the door with the black fretwork carved into it. I unlocked it this morning. Klavier is shorter then I am, though not by much. You might some of his clothes that will work for you."

"O-okay." Apollo said. This whole situation is confusing, but it's been confusing since he landed here. He decides to just roll with it.

After Kristoph has departed, warning him again to stay out of sight ("I do not plan on explaining your presence to the Gestapo," Kristoph informs him,) Apollo goes back upstairs. He doesn't know where Kristoph's room is, but Klavier's is on the back of the house. He stands in front of the ornately carved door for a long time before he finally turns the handle and lets himself in.

Klavier's room is larger then the one Apollo slept in last night. Two windows directly opposite the door let in the sunlight. A large tree with twisting, gnarled branches is visible through the window. To the left of the doorway, centered against the wall, is a bed. The bedframe is ornately carved, and the wood looks dark from age, not because it's been painted. A plum-colored blanket with tiny black diamonds patterned across it covers the bed.

"Yes, this is Klavier's room." Apollo sighed, and stepped further into the room. The desk is in an odd place, to the right of the door, but not up against a wall. Instead, it's slightly off centered in the right side of the room, so that whoever was sitting in it would have a view of whoever was coming through the door. Apollo walks over to it. Two books with German titles sit neatly stacked there. A pile of music papers is next to them. Everything is covered in dust. He thumbs through the sheets of music paper. It looks like Klavier had been writing music, at least for awhile. Some of the papers have notations on them in German. One of them has a couple of scrawled lines and an arrow pointing at one note in piece. Apollo sets them back down and looks around again.

There's a fireplace against the right wall, and a couple of chairs in front of it, with a table between them. There's no ashes in the grate. Apollo looks around, but he isn't sure what he's trying to find.

Back on the left wall, on either side of the bed, are two doors. The one on the far side of the bed leads into a private bathroom. The door on the side of the bed closest to the door leads to a walk-in closet...that takes up a room the size of Apollo's bedroom. A plush bench is in the center of the closet, and a full length mirror is mounted on the far wall. The other two walls have closet rods mounted to them.

Apollo walks through the closet, perturbed, trying to envision what sort of life Klavier had had until he came to America. Most of the closet is empty, but there are a few items of clothing hanging in there. Apollo selects a white button-down shirt and puts it on over his uniform. As Kristoph had predicted, it's too big for him. His uniform can be seen through it if one looks at him long enough, but it's enough to deflect suspicion at least momentarily.

Suddenly feeling like a specter, Apollo leaves the room altogether and closes the door gently behind him.

(-)

Kristoph comes home at six that night. It's early for the man, but Apollo has no way of knowing that.

Kristoph fixes a small dinner for the two of them, and they eat at the table in the kitchen. "My ration book is only good for one." Kristoph says as they start.

Apollo pauses, now wondering if he's taking food out of the man's mouth. Kristoph notices his look and smiles. "My ration book is only good for one person. I buy whatever I want on the black market. It's the only reason you're eating meat tonight. And the reason I will be having coffee tomorrow morning. Now, tell me what Klavier has been up to since you saw him last."

Apollo tells the man what he knows, including the part where Klavier was declared and Enemy Alien by the American government, and adds the news he'd gotten from his latest letter from Trucy. She and Klavier were starting the garden again this year.

When he's finished, Kristoph speaks. "I managed to reach my alternate contact today. You'll be leaving tomorrow night, once they've finished working on the fake papers you'll need."

"Thank you."

"If you want to thank me, help end this war a little sooner. Which I think you will, once you're back with your comrades." Kristoph said.

"Could I ask you something?"

"You can ask whatever you like. But there's no guarantee that I'll answer."

"Why do you speak English better than your brother? He sprinkles a lot of German into his conversation."

Kristoph smiled. "I could not begin to guess. I do know that I had one advantage that he did not. I was able to attend a school in London for a year, and until he went to America Klavier never left the Continent. He was left to study with myself, and the English professors at his schools.

"Why did you send Klavier away?"

Kristoph looked surprised by the question. Apollo went on, "He never talked about how and why he came to America, but the implication was always that he didn't want to go, he was sent away."

"He was." Kristoph confirmed, no emotion in his voice. "He had been drafted, and was going to be sent to the eastern front. As you know, the German army on the eastern front surrendered not all that long ago. If Klavier had been there, he would be dead, or in a prison camp now. So I sent him to America so that, among other things, he wouldn't be involved in that mess in Russia."

"I see."

The rest of the meal concludes in silence.

When it's over, Kristoph stands and says, "You should go back upstairs. It's safer."

"Thank you," Apollo said, "For everything."

"Of course." Kristoph said, and smiled. "Take care of Klavier for me, until I can join him after the war."

"I'll let them know at home, and I'm sure they will."

(=X=)

It's been a rough season at the Wright house since news that the plane Apollo was on went down over Germany has been delivered to them.

There's still hope that Apollo is alive, but only because he was not declared dead.

Phoenix thinks that knowing would be better then not knowing what's happened to Apollo, but he knows that that can go both ways, and he doesn't want to have give Trucy bad news about her brother. So he waits, and hopes that they will get good news.

He'd settle for hearing that Apollo is in some German prison camp somewhere, because that at least means that Apollo isn't be dead.

Trucy, for her part, is trying to pretend that she isn't worried about Apollo, even though she is. She does good, most of the time, keeping her emotions hidden. But sometimes they creep out, and when they do, she spends a lot more time staying close to Phoenix or Klavier.

Klavier, already burdened down with his own problems, had found himself facing the fact that Trucy was leaning on him more and more as the days dragged by with no news of Apollo. He said nothing about it, instead trying to comfort her as best as he could, and not to think too much about what might happen to Apollo, because he knows better then any of them the country that he had left behind, and his older brother is still there too.

Edgeworth doesn't say anything when he hears the news. He frowns, and shakes his head, and promises to write to Franziska immediately and ask her what she can find out.

He doesn't want to tell Phoenix (who probably already knows this anyway) that there's no guarantee that a POW camp would be any safer, and he's thinking of World War I medals sitting on his credenza at home, and his father who went to war and never came back.

Days drag by, and become weeks.

A letter arrives for Klavier one day. It's postmarked from Switzerland. He doesn't know anyone in Switzerland, so this is a bit of a mystery until he opens the envelope and sees the second envelope inside, addressed in his brother's handwriting. He takes the letter, excuses himself, and goes upstairs to read it. He'd written to his brother late last year, after recovering from a serious bout of flu.

Edgeworth comes in about two minutes later. Phoenix is in the kitchen cooking dinner, Trucy is sitting at the kitchen table, her homework spread out on it. She's staring off into space. Edgeworth pulls up a chair next to her. "Hello, Trucy."

She jolted out of her reverie, and a smile grew across her face. "Uncle Miles!"

"Is everything alright?"

"Mm-hmm." Trucy nodded. "I'm fine!" She said, and they both paused, recognizing the phrase. Trucy frowned. Edgeworth patted her hand.

"Have you heard anything from your sister?" Trucy asked. In the kitchen, Phoenix is listening in on the conversation.

"Nothing yet." Edegworth said. "But she may not write until she knows something."

"Apollo is fine, or he was a few weeks ago." Klavier says, coming down the stairs with the letter in his hand. He has everyone's attention, instantly.

"How did you hear?" Phoenix asks, looking at the letter Klavier is holding apprehensively.

"From my brother." Klavier said. He looked down at the letter in front of him and started to read. "It may interest you to hear that I met a classmate of your in Munich the other day, one Apollo Justice. How he came to be here is something I never asked him. He informs me that all is well with you, apart from that unfortunate Enemy Alien incident. With any luck by the time you read this I will have succeeded in sending him back to the Allies, where he belongs."

"Is that all he said?" Phoenix asked, suddenly feeling weak-kneed. He doesn't know Kristoph, but he's more grateful suddenly then he can express.

"That's all." Klavier confirmed.

Trucy jumps out of her chair and races over to Klavier, throwing her arms around him. "I'm really happy! Thank you for telling us, Klavier! Apollo is alive!"

Edgeworth reached out for the letter. "May I?" He asked.

Klavier nodded and handed it over. Edgeworth skimmed through it, but there was nothing else that could be added to what Klavier had said.

Thank goodness, Edgeworth thought when he read the lines the Klavier had read to them only moments ago.

He handed the letter back.

They finally had news, and good news at that.

(=X=)

"Man, where have you been?! They told me your plane went down and I thought for sure you were a goner!" Clay Terran said when the tent flap opened and Apollo entered. It'd been four weeks since the plane went down and Apollo was reported missing in action. The journey back, moving between underground point to underground point only when it was determined safe by his hosts along the way, had taken Apollo longer then he'd anticipated.

Apollo was dirty, disheveled, and hungry, but he ignored all of these things. "The plane I was on went down over Munich."

"How'd you miss a meeting with the Gestapo?" Clay asked as Apollo started to fish around in his footlocker for paper. He needs to eat and clean himself up, but first he knows he has to get a letter to Trucy in the mail.

"I had help. You remember Klavier, my roommate from college that I told you about? I met his brother in Munich, and his brother helped get me to the Underground and back here." Apollo replied.

"Really?"

"Yeah, otherwise I think I'd be in a POW camp somewhere." Apollo said, dropping into a chair and beginning to write quickly. He keeps the note short; there's too much to do and he has to talk to his superiors yet. But Trucy needs to know he's okay. He'll write her a longer letter later, after he's cleaned up and eaten and been debriefed.

"Apollo, I want you to know that that is nothing short of a miracle." Clay said.

"You don't have to tell me twice." Apollo agreed, folding the letter over and handing it to Clay. "Post that to Trucy for me, so I can go clean up?"

"Absolutely." Clay replied.

[A/N:] I really like writing Fantasia, except for the part where every story I've posted so far has spoilers to one degree or another. This one is probably the most egregious offender... so far. I haven't had this big of a spoiler problem since Night got published.

Some things in here are cannon, like the description of the Gavin house, Kristoph's school attendance, and Edgeworth's allusions to what happened to his father, but the scenario is non-cannon. (I wrote an Alternate Universe spinoff of an Alternate Universe story. Isn't that weird?) But I wanted to write it anyway, so here you go. I hope you enjoyed it.

Please review!

12-27-17