Certain Demolitions: Play a Fantasia
10. America, 194X - Post War. Confronted by bad memories from the past, Kristoph has to find a way to move forward. Fortunately, Klavier's there to help.
Chapter 10: Let It Burn
[Status: Cannon in the context of C.D. Set after chapter 58.]
Why had he agreed to help Justice with this damn case?
Kristoph hoped he looked dispassionate. That was what he was going for. But the witness on the stand made him want to break down. Or poison her, one or the other.
Posey O'ner was on the stand, explaining at the prosecutor's behest how Justice's client could have used chemicals purchased at O'ner's drug store to create a particular type of poison.
She was lying, and Kristoph knew, because the poison that had been used in this case was the same poison he had once assembled and given to the resistance to use to poison the War Communications Office back in Munich.
Obviously, Justice had picked up on it too. He was glaring at O'ner with that same bug-eyed glare he got when his intuition or whatever magic he used to detect lies was going off.
O'ner went into reciting the symptoms of the poison. She got those wrong, too.
Kristoph would know. By experience.
He should never have agreed to help with this damn case.
Posey O'ner was the last witness for the day. After that, the court recesses until 9 am the next morning, when Justice will get to cross-examine the witness.
Kristoph has never been so relieved.
And given his time in Germany as an Allied Spy, that's saying something.
(-)
Back at the Wright Anything Agency/Gavin Law Offices after court had adjourned, Apollo was talking the events of the day's case over with Wright. Kristoph listened in, mostly because the door to his office was open and Phoenix is standing in the hall a few feet further down in front of the doorway to Apollo's office, than because he wants to hear about the witness or the case again.
"She's definitely lying about the symptoms. What she's saying about presenting with a fever is wrong. And then that the deceased would have felt like he couldn't breathe…"
Phoenix said something that Kristoph couldn't hear. Apollo replied, "But the autopsy said that the victim was vomiting before they died. Wouldn't that have helped them to expel the poison?"
Kristoph slammed his hand, and the paper in it, on his desk. There was a pause in the hallway.
Then Phoenix and Apollo both appeared in his doorway. "Do you have something you want to say about the case today?" Phoenix asked.
Nosey people…Kristoph's jaw twitched. "The poison wouldn't be expelled by vomiting because of the delay in metabolizing it!" He spat. "By the time vomiting started it would have been in the victim's system for no less than two hours depending on the dose. Two hours is the median time for it to take effect!"
"Kristoph…" Apollo looked like he wanted to say something, but he trailed off and didn't say anymore.
Phoenix did. "So the witness was lying about everything."
"Yes! She was lying about everything!" Kristoph snarled. "None of the effects she described were correct." He thought of vomiting while his heart rate and respiration were slowing down from the poison and the feeling of his heart being about to burst from the need to pump blood faster while simultaneously being artificially slowed.
It had been misery. It must have been a miserable way to die for those who were killed by it.
But it had been war. He had done what he had to do.
"You should confront her on this," Apollo said.
Kristoph gave him a cool glare. "Justice, I cannot explain to the court how I know any of this."
"Oh." Apollo looked a bit disappointed at this. But both he and Phoenix knew better then to ask for more details. There were things Kristoph had done in Germany during the war that to this day he wouldn't talk to them about.
Kristoph turned away from them, glancing at the painting on his office wall, trying to compose himself.
"I wonder…" Apollo tapped his chin. "How I can trip her up in her statement. There has to be a way."
"What did the autopsy report say?" Kristoph snapped.
"It's getting updated. I don't have it yet." Apollo told him.
Get it together. Get it together. Kristoph kept trying to tell himself that, but it wasn't working.
Phoenix phrased his next question carefully, based on how slowly he spoke. "Is there anything that you can tell us that we should be looking for when the updated autopsy arrives?"
Kristoph tried to keep himself under control. "Ask the doctor who gives you the report about damage the heart, because that's what the poison does. It slows the heart and stresses it." I thought I was going to die. I knew hadn't drunk enough poison to cause it, but I thought my heart was going to burst and I was going to die; that I had made an error in the amount of the poison and the biggest mistake of my life. "So you should ask about that." He slid the chair back from his desk and stood up. "I'm going home."
He took his cane and his briefcase and walked out the door. Phoenix and Apollo watched him go.
As soon as they heard the front door close, Apollo turned to Phoenix. "I'm going to find Klavier."
"That's probably a good idea." Phoenix agreed.
(-)
Kristoph went straight home and went to his room.
The new house was much smaller than the house in Munich, but he liked it better. There were stairs up to the porch, and stairs down to the terrace, but he could manage the four steps up to the front door and the three down to the terrace. The rest of the house was one level.
The front door opened into the living room, and Kristoph went straight through it, then through the French doors that led into the dining room. At the end of the dining room, on the left, was a door that led into a hallway. At the far end of the dining room was another doorway that led into the kitchen. To the left in the hall was the room that Kristoph had turned into his home office. Then there was the bathroom. His bedroom was to the right, at the end of the hall in the back of the house.
Kristoph entered his room and shut the door behind him. He dropped his briefcase onto the tall plush chair in the room, then dropped his suit jacket on top of the briefcase.
The ribbon and crescent moon pin at his throat he dropped onto the bureau, and propped his cane against it.
I hate war, he thought, and looked at the floor. I hate both wars.
His head was hurting. Kristoph pulled the curtains shut, kicked his shoes off, and crawled into bed, dropping his glasses on the nightstand as he did.
Kristoph hadn't been trying to fall asleep very long when he heard the front door open and shut. He tensed, waiting for a knock at his door, but there was nothing.
Klavier certainly must know he was home; his car was in the driveway. But then he heard the sound of dishes being rattled in the kitchen. Apparently Klavier had no intentions of seeing what his brother was doing. Kristoph was just fine with that.
He was tired. He stretched out under the blankets and gave into the sleep waiting to drag him under.
(-)
A knock on his door wakes him. Kristoph snapped awake, but it took him a moment to place who could be knocking at his door. "What?"
"Can I come in?" Klavier called to him.
"The door is unlocked." Kristoph called back, rubbing his eyes. He reached for his glasses as the door opened.
Klavier came in, balancing a tray in his hands. It took Kristoph a moment to realize that the tray had bowls on it, two; and there was a basket covered in a napkin and a pitcher of water and two glasses.
"Someone's getting creative." Kristoph noted flatly. "What is all this about?"
"You mean you aren't hungry?" Klavier responded, setting the tray down on the bed. He handed a bowl of soup to Kristoph, who took it in one hand and then reached over to the basket. It was filled with crusty rolls from the bakery in town; still warm from being reheated in the oven. He took one of them.
Klavier perched on the edge of the bed and took his own bowl from the tray. "Are you feeling alright?"
"I'm fine. Just tired. It was a long day." Kristoph admitted.
Conversation between them lapsed as they both ate. As they were finishing up, Klavier said, "Apollo came to see me this afternoon."
Kristoph looked annoyed, and then looked away. "Oh, did he?"
"He said you were upset by the trial today," Klavier replied.
"It wasn't the trial." Kristoph snapped. "It was the witness. The lying witness! And I know she was lying because…" He trailed. "I can't tell the court how I know she was lying."
Klavier stacked the dirty dishes on the tray and set the tray on the floor. "It has to do with what you did as a spy, doesn't it?"
Kristoph crossed his arms over his chest. "I was poisoned with the same poison that killed the victim. I did it on purpose to try and keep people from suspecting me of being a spy."
Klavier looked upset at this news. "You could have died!"
"I wasn't going to die." Kristoph said flatly. "I didn't drink enough to die." Though while I was under the influence of the poison I wished I was dead. "I know beyond the hesitation of a doubt that the witness is lying and I can't prove it."
"Of course you can!" Klavier said. "You'll come up with something! I know you will."
Kristoph looked taken aback by this. Then he looked at the bedspread. "I hope you're right. I have to figure out how to ask questions to prove that she's lying."
"You'll figure it out. You'll be fine." Klavier assured him. Then he changed the subject. "Do you dream about what happened to you in the war?"
Kristoph frowned, and shot back, "Do you dream about the Nazis trying to abduct you?"
"I asked you first." Klavier replied.
You are such a pain sometimes, Kristoph thought. "I dreamed, when the bombers were raiding the city, of the ordinance that went off the day I went on that outing with Uncle Johan. That was during the war. Sometimes I dream about it still, when I'm reminded that it happened, or on the Fourth of July when the whole neighborhood likes to light off fireworks."
Klavier looked subdued by this information. Then he said, "I don't dream a lot, but sometimes I do dream about the day the Nazis came for me. It ends in so many different ways, though. Sometimes I watch them shoot Ema and Apollo. Sometimes they blindfold me and I know that they're dragging me onto the U-boat. It has a lot of different endings. None of them are very good." He tried to smile. "I guess we are both pretty messed up, huh?"
"That's a term for it." Kristoph agreed. He leaned back against the pillows behind him. I am so tired.
"The autopsy report should show that the witness is lying," Kristoph said absently after a pause, thinking back through the day's trial.
Klavier yanked one of the pillows out from behind Kristoph and curled up around it on the other side of the bed, on top of the blue counterpane. "See? I knew you'd figure it out."
He sounded so pleased by the fact that he was right about the fact that Kristoph could solve the problem that the older Gavin can't help but smile in spite of himself.
If he's honest, Kristoph can't deny that his little brother is better at him at a lot of things, which makes Klavier's still-unyielding faith in his big brother that much more important to Kristoph.
It was the one thing he had missed in Munich when they were apart for the duration of the war.
He tossed the blankets off, and onto Klavier. Then he stood up. "I had better makes notes for Justice. He's not going to know what he's dealing with."
Klavier flipped the blankets back off of himself a minute later. "Where are you going?"
"My office. I have work to do." Kristoph called back as he walked out of the room and down the hall to his home office.
(-)
The autopsy report the next day does show that the witness is lying. Based on her reaction when Apollo points this out to her, he's able to catch her in another lie, and in short order, he's pulled part of the house of card Posey O'ner has built down. It's obvious there's a lot left that will have to be untangled, but the situation looks better for the attorneys of the Wright & Gavin Anything & Law Offices.
Kristoph does not try to kill the witness, nor does he try to strangle Phoenix Wright at their shared office that morning before he and Justice set off to the courthouse. It's not that he doesn't like Wright, it's just that Wright tends to pick up more on Kristoph's emotional distress while Apollo tends not to see it.
Or maybe it's just that Phoenix happens to be the one around when Kristoph lets more of his distress show, and Kristoph does a better job of hiding his feelings from Apollo.
Regardless of why it is, he doesn't strangle Wright when the man comes in that morning, takes one look at him, and asks if he'd rather sit the trial out.
The trial had been back underway for an hour that morning when the door to the visitor's gallery above the prosecutor's bench open and Klavier slips in and takes a seat. Kristoph sees him enter but they don't acknowledge each other. Kristoph is here to work, after all.
And Klavier can support his brother just as well without being acknowledged.
He's not out of the woods yet, in the trial or in life, but at moments like this, Kristoph Gavin thinks that he can find his way back again.
[A/N:] So I have this idea that Kristoph is probably not doing so great following the war, not because he killed anyone, but because the war itself was a stressful event and because of the double life he lived for the duration.
So I was going to write this story where he was suffering some depression or otherwise a mentally unhealthy state, but I was surprised. Klavier came in at the end and really turned things around. Didn't see that coming, but I'm pleased with how it worked out. Yes, the name of the Wright Anything Agency/ Gavin Law Office keeps changing in this story because at this point, everyone is still trying to figure out what to call the place.
So there's one in-progress AU spinoff of CD and a couple(?) more Fantasia stories floating around on my computer somewhere. I will have to get them rounded up, finished if they aren't, and I see what I want to do with the other two AU spinoffs.
Anyway, please review!