Certain Demolitions: Play a Fantasia

Summary: Apollo reunites with Clay Terran after the war, and Clay tells a story about some undercover work he did during the war.

[A/N:] It took me forever to figure out what I wanted to do about Clay Terran in this story, because I was upset that he died in the game before we barely got a chance to know him. I think I've settled on his story CD-wise...we'll just have to see if the next story involving Clay ever gets finished. This one, though, is me writing Clay into an old radio program called the Vale of Darkness. More on that at the end.

Chapter 14: Comin' in a Wing and a Prayer

The young man who walked up to the law office was whistling "Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition" under his breath as he approached the door. He paused on the porch of the building and looked at the nameplates on the sign. The plate for the name of the building itself had been replaced with a sheet of paper that read, "Wright & Gavin Law Offices." Several other names, heavily scrawled out in blocks of black ink, showed that some changes had been taking place.

The man looked at the nameplates again.

Phoenix Wright, Attorney at Law

Kristoph Gavin, Attorney at Law

Trucy Wright, Talent Agent

Apollo Justice, Attorney at Law

He looked at the building name again, then shrugged and pushed the door open. He'd never been in the building before, but he'd been in stranger places during the war and was not afraid to let himself into a building.

The reception area was empty. He pushed open the first door, right off the reception area, and looked at a simply furnished office. On the wall hung a picture of a man with spiky hair, with an arm around one older woman and one younger. The younger was wearing robes that reminded one of an Asian country, but the older was dressed in a woman's business suit, with a scarf around her neck.

He closed the door and went down the hall to the next office. There were floor-to-ceiling bookshelves on either side of the office door, and two windows behind the desk let in the afternoon light. A pastel painting was on the wall to the left as one came in the door.

The man was beginning to wonder if maybe the person he was looking for wasn't in. He backed out of the office and went back into the hallway. There was a staircase, and at the end of the hall was another door. He took a deep breath and pushed it open.

Apollo Justice had been sweating over the papers on his desk, trying to look at them with the same critical eye he knew Kristoph would view them with later, when the door to his office was suddenly pushed open. He looked up, expecting to see Trucy, but it wasn't her. "Can I get some legal help here? I was thinking maybe this Phoenix Wright guy could help…?" The man grinned.

Apollo recognized the man standing there. "Clay! You're back!" he jumped up from his desk, all thoughts of the document he was working on, and raced over to hug Clay.

Clay returned the hug with enthusiasm. "It's been a while, hasn't it, Polo?" The pair released each other. "I see you reached your dream, huh? I saw your name plate on the door on my way in."

"You were flying before I was practicing law." Apollo said. "I got your letter about flight school, remember?"

"Who cares who got to their dream first? We both made it."

Apollo led the way back into his office, and Clay pulled up the other chair that had been sitting against the wall, bringing it closer to the desk. "So what is the proper name of this place?"

"Uh, good question. Trucy wants to call it something that lets people know that she's a talent agent, but Kristoph wants it say "law office" or something similar, and Phoenix is stuck in the middle," Apollo said.

Clay grinned at him. "Sounds like you're stuck too."

Apollo shrugged. "Well, I agree with Kristoph, but don't tell Trucy I said that. Nevermind that, though. How long are you here for?"

"I'm still doing some flying, but I'm looking for a place to live now, and not military barracks this time," Clay said. "Who's Kristoph Gavin?"

"Klavier's brother. I know I mentioned Klavier in my letters, and I'm pretty sure that I mentioned Kristoph at some point."

"So he is the German. I guess I never picked up on the fact that Klavier's last name was Gavin, even though I'm sure you must have mentioned it. How do a couple of Germans end up with such an English sounding surname?"

"Search me. I never thought about it enough to wonder about it." Apollo replied. "I'm surprised you remember so much about the letters I sent you."

Clay waved his hand as though waving the words away. "I always liked getting your letters, especially when I came back from assignment and there were multiple letters. It broke up the monotony of life over there. Assignments undercover kept me busy, and then I was bored to death in between them because once I started working undercover, they wouldn't let me fly anymore."

"You'll come over for dinner tonight, right?"

"Home cooking? Food that I didn't have to make?" Clay asked. "You don't have to ask me twice."

(-)

It was a crowded table at Phoenix's house that night. Besides Phoenix's family, the Gavin brothers and Ema were there.

Klavier was the only one who had heard of Clay prior to his showing up for dinner, so there were plenty of questions, mostly from Phoenix and Trucy, about how long Clay had known Apollo.

It wasn't until dinner was finished and the group was sitting in the living room with cups of coffee or tea that Trucy makes it to the next subject that she wants to know about. "What did you do during the war?"

"I flew planes for the United States Army Air Force early in the war. Then I get sent do undercover work instead, once the higher-ups discovered I was fluent in French." Clay told her.

"Where did you learn French?" Phoenix wanted to know.

"My grandfather taught me. I learned some German, too."

"Really?" Ema asked.

"Sure! Isch bin Deutsch gelernt wie ich überm See war." clay said, sounding pleased.

Klavier and Kristoph, on the other hand, just looked confused. "What were you trying to say?" Klavier asked.

"That I learned German while I was overseas."

"That is not what you said." Kristoph assured him.

"So what did he say?" Trucy asked.

"That he learned German while hovering over a lake." Kristoph told her.

Clay grinned, a little sheepishly. "I said I learned it. I didn't say I was any good at it."

Trucy was already on to the next question she had for Clay. "What was the best thing that you saw while you were in Europe? I bet the best news you got was that the war was over. But what was the best thing you saw?"

No one is really surprised by the question. Trucy has even been known to get Kristoph, when the man is in a more relaxed mood, to open up about life in Germany, at least pre-war.

Clay considered the question for a moment. "I guess the best thing I saw while I was over there was the Adriatic Sea."

"Really?" Apollo asked. "This from the guy who told me that he flew over the English Channel so many times that he got seasick looking out the window of a plane."

Clay grinned. "Okay. The story of how I wound up seeing the Adriatic Sea ranks as one of the craziest stories I have from my time in the war. Polo knows that I was serving as a pilot for the United States army Air Force, but when they discovered I was fluent in French, I was asked to do undercover work. I did several missions where I pretended to be French or part of the French Armed Forces. One of those missions had me pretending to be a Frenchman in Yugoslavia. Some people in Yugoslavia were on the side of the Allies, and some were on the side of the Germans." At this juncture, Clay paused and looked at Kristoph and Klavier. "I'm afraid your country doesn't come out looking too good in this story.

The brothers looked at each other for a long moment, the Kristoph said, "I don't think you can tell us anything that we don't know."

Clay shrugged and took a seat on the hearth in the living room. "Okay. I was under the impression that I was introducing myself to a Yugoslav who was on the Allies' side. I was wrong and he was on the side of the Germans, so I got sent to a prison camp."

"The Russians were moving in, though, and so the guards got jittery and deserted so a bunch of us escaped. I joined up with a group of escaped prisoners that were being led by a British Major Ramston. They had made contact with British Intelligence and were directed into Rajak Pass in the Montenegro Mountains. So we set out for the pass."

"Meanwhile, we were getting pursued by the Nazi SS. I found out from Captain Sanders, who was one of the only Americans in the group in the beginning, that there were three thousand men chasing us."

"How many prisoners were in your group?" Phoenix asked.

"About 250 when we first set out. Later we got up to about 300 when were joined by some more Americans, Irish, and Russians. And that count includes the women and children who were with us" Clay said. "We set out for the mountains but the Jerries, eh, sorry, the SS was on our tracks. But they didn't really engage us too much, and finally Major Ramston went back to speak to their leader, Major Scheer, because he thought that maybe the war had ended."

"It had not ended, as it turned out, unfortunately. But Major Scheer made Major Ramston an offer that was too good to pass up. He offered a truce to Major Ramston until our group had reached the entrance to Rajak pass. Major Ramston, being a wise man, promptly took him up on his offer and we set out to the pass."

"Why did he offer you a truce?" Trucy asked. She had been listening with rapt attention.

"He offered Major Ramston a truce because he and his men were going to get sent to the Russian front after we had been dealt with and he didn't want to go. He was hoping to drag the chase on. He was hoping to get three weeks or more out of pretending to hunt us, and hoping the war would be over by then." Clay said, then looked thoughtful.

"Major Scheer was a prominent SS man, but with a lot of old-fashioned ideals that his colleagues didn't really like," Kristoph, who had been sitting in one of the armchairs with a cup of tea, spoke up suddenly. "He would have done better in another branch of the Wehrmacht, or a different war."

"Yeah, I got the feeling that he was better suited for the Great War - the first one." Clay acknowledged, then continued with his story. "The British Intelligence had given us the wrong information when Major Ramston contacted them. There was supposed to be no way through the pass, which meant that we were walking into a trap. British Intelligence tried to contact us, but they couldn't get through to us, so they sent one of their operatives, Lt. Salle, to intercept us. Unfortunately, Colonel Horton found us first." At this juncture Clay paused. "How do I describe Colonel Horton to you?"

"I won't quote what you wrote me." Apollo volunteered.

"Yeah, not with your little sister here you won't." Clay agreed.

"I take it Colonel Horton wasn't a welcome addition to your group." Ema spoke up.

"To put it very, very mildly, no he was not. He started doing his best to get us killed starting on the day he airdropped in. The British could have sent us more blankets, more warm clothes, more food, radio equipment to replace what was destroyed, but no. They send us the most pompous idiot in the British army. I figured later they did that because if he got a few escaped prisoners killed, that would be easier to explain to the public then his getting a platoon of soldiers killed.

"Major Ramstom did a good job of keeping everyone together and in a cohesive group working on getting to the pass, and that moron had all undone in minutes." Clay fumed. Even now, so long after the fact, his listeners could see that this part of the story frustrated him. "He set up all sorts of rules and regulations and what really set all the men in the group off was he broke the truce with Major Scheer and demanded that Lt. Salle, who had caught up with us too late to help ward off Colonel Horton, would have to go back and lay mines because it was our job to fight the Germans every step of the way. Nevermind that, as Major Ramston and Captain Sanders tried to point out to him, Major Scheer could have crushed our column anytime he took the inclination to. But he kept his word and he didn't attack us. That wasn't good enough for Colonel Horton. We had to fight the Germans."

"Did you fight them?" Trucy asked.

"I never did fight them, in this particular situation. The rear guard for our column did, but that didn't happen until later. Captain Sanders was so angry over what had happened that he went back and warned Major Scheer about what had happened and that the truce had ended."

"Should he have done that?" Trucy wanted to know.

Clay looked apprehensive. "Should he have done that? From the perspective of fighting a war, no, because he cost us our element of surprise. From the perspective of playing fair with a German Officer who had played fair with Major Ramston? Yes. And I was glad he went back to tell Major Scheer what had happened, too. Sometimes, the smart thing to do and the right thing to do aren't the same thing."

"Anyway, Lady Agnes Collier finally got Horton to see sense. She was, well, she was something else. She minded the women and children. That was her self-appointed task. And she kept Major Ramston and Colonel Horton in line, too, or she tried." He grinned. "She was the one who browbeat Horton into not fighting the Germans. It was just as well, because all those of us who were not British soldiers had decided we were going into the pass with or without Colonel Horton and the rest of the British."

"Mutiny?" Phoenix asked.

"Yes...well, no. Those of us who weren't British didn't have to follow Colonel Horton, and he had earned none of the goodwill that Major Ramston did. Anyway, I was volunteered to fight in a war, not commit suicide by taking on a German force ten times larger than the column I was with." Clay noted.

"So you missed out on fighting that time." Trucy supplied.

Clay gave her another grin. "Don't worry, I made up for it elsewhere. Horton had steered us right past the entrance to Rajak Pass, and we had to backtrack to get back to it since Lt. Salle had met a young woman whose family used to live on the mountains and who knew a way through it. Major Scheer was not very pleased with us by this point so when Captain Sanders went to see if we could re-establish the truce with him, we didn't get nearly as good a deal as we had gotten the first time. Plus we now had a division of Panzers coming after us too, and once they had caught up with us, Major Scheer would have no choice but to radio his headquarters and probably get recalled and sent to the Russian front.

"We made it into the pass not too long before the Panzers arrived, and once we were in the pass, our truce with Major Scheer was officially over. The rear guard engaged Major Scheer's men from time to time, he never got sent off the chase for us as far as we knew, but the for the rest of us who weren't in the rear guard, we just kept walking. We had had some help from the sympathetic partisans, but they refused to come into Rajak with us, all except for Lt. Salle's girlfriend. We had been given some donkeys and carts too, and we used those for the children, the wounded, the women and the supplies, in that order, but we couldn't take the carts through the pass with us. It was too narrow. So we put the supplies on the donkeys and went on foot.

"The pass was a tall, narrow chamber between two walls of rock, and every sound echoed in it. When we got to the end of the pass, there was a rock wall to block our way. Someone climbed it and tied a rope at the top and we climbed up, one at a time, to get to the top of the pass."

"How did the women and children get out?" Ema interrupted.

"The same way we did. The women had to climb. The kids, some of us soldiers carried them on our backs up that rope. The wounded and supplies we took with us the same way," Clay said, as though it were just that simple.

~xXx~

"It's so tall, Edouard," The little boy said in his ear, looking up at the rope that seemed to stretch up forever.

Clay had been using his fake identity for so long on this trip that being called Edouard no longer threw him for a loop. That was always the part he had the most trouble with when he was undercover, was learning to answer to whatever name he'd been assigned. Edouard Devereaux, on the other hand, had been lost, imprisoned, or running around the Yugoslav countryside with fellow escapees for so long now that Clay no longer felt the inclination to look around for Edouard when his name was called.

"It's not that tall, Mateja," He told the child. The boy couldn't have been much older than six. "I'll climb it. You just hold on to me really tight and don't let go."

Clay had been pressed into Lady Agnes Collier's service upon her discovery that he was bilingual. Not everyone in the group was, and she wanted people who translate for the women and children who did not speak English. Colonel Horton had tried to object, since it meant that she had taken about seven men away from the regular duties for the column and turned them into what Francois, who had overheard the conversation, had quite flatly described as babysitters. Horton had not been able to deter her and given up arguing about it.

"He called us babysitters. That's actually what he called us," Francois had complained after it happened. Eric Thorton, an escaped American prisoner of war whose mother's family was Polish, who spoke the language, and for that reason had also been drafted into his new position by Lady Agnes, asked if Francois would rather be part of the rear guard.

That had shut the Frenchman up.

Clay took the rope in both hands as Mateja clung tightly to his back like a tiny monkey and hid his face in the ragged remains of Clay's clothes. It had been a long trip, hard trip in Yugoslavia, and Clay was looking forward to getting back to Allied territory as soon as possible. His jacket had been a gift from one of the partisans, as had the slightly-to-large pair of boots that he was now wearing, He can't remember the name or face of that partisan now.

Polo's probably given up on me and thinks I'm dead. The thought came out of nowhere; and he paused halfway up the rope. What was a person supposed to do when the only friend they had probably believed that they were dead?

"Edouard?" Mateja squeaked out next to his ear, and Clay shook his head and resume climbing.

The rope looked like it stretched on forever, but before Clay had even really expected it, he was at the top. The others who had come up before he had took Mateja up, and then helped Clay scramble up onto the top of the cliff.

~xXx~

"When we got to the top of the cliff we had to descend down a slope to get to a tunnel that ran back down through the mountains. The rear guard had been lagging behind us quite a bit, because they had fortified the pass a little and the SS ran into their choke point which made the rear guard quite happy," Clay continued. "They took very few casualties because of it, and when they reached the rope, they came up behind us and Captain Sanders said they pulled it up after them. Then they had the vantage from the top of the pass. The rest of us were moving towards the tunnel. We had to go through it, then across a ravine, and then, on the other side of the ravine, it was all downhill to the sea."

~xXx~

"You're not nearly as cute as the last gal I shacked up with, Edouard."

"Ta gueule!" Clay shot back, tugging his blanket a little further away from the offender, one of the three men he was sharing a small tent with. "Va te faire cuire un oeuf!I have no idea what woman would want to be close to your ugly face anyway."

"Would y'all kindly have the decency," Eric Thornton, who was lying in the row on the other side of Clay, cut in, "to shut up? Some of us are tryin' to sleep here."

The scarcity of blankets had been a bit of an issue ever since Lady Agnes had gotten into it with Colonel Horton over the lack thereof. It was still cold up here, high in the mountains. The men and women who did not spend the nights together - and fewer men had that option now that the partisan women had left - ended up sleeping crowded together in tents to share whatever body heat didn't dissipate through the thin tent canvas.

"Where did London find these tents, anyway?" Laszlo, who was crowded in the tent with the other three men, asked. "I swear, this canvas is so thin I can see the stars."

"The stars at night are big and bright, deep in the heart of Texas!" Eric sang.

Clay considered swatting the other American but decided he was too tired to go through with it. "Allez," he muttered. "Now who's trying to sleep?"

"We should all sleep," Laszlo said. "We have more walking to do in the morning."

That reminder was enough to quiet the group. For a few minutes there was nothing but the sound of tossing and turning and shuffling as the four of them tried to get comfortable.

Clay was almost asleep when he heard Laszlo hiss, "Who's there?" Then he realized that the rustling he was hearing was not the grass, but someone fumbling with the door to the tent. He rolled onto his side so that when the tent opened, he wouldn't see whoever came in as though they were standing upside down. The flap opened, and a small, malnourished form burst into the tent and clung to Clay like a frightened animal.

"Mateja?" Clay asked.

"I'm scared, Edouard. I want to sleep with you." Mateja said.

"What happened?" Clay asked.

"I dreamed of the camp, and when they took Momma away," Mateja whimpered.

"What's wrong?" Eric asked. Clay's conversation with Mateja had been solely in French.

"Mateja's had a bad dream," Except it wasn't a bad dream, it was reality. "He wants to stay with me tonight."

"If I say I don't care," Laszlo began, "Will I be able to get some sleep before the sun comes up?" Eric had sat up when the tent flap opened, now he too began to settle back under the motley collection of coats, canvas, and thin blankets that made up their bedding.

It was the last occupant of the tent, the one whose name Clay could never remember - Vladislaus? It was something like that - who had to start problems. "I never took you for a father figure, Edouard. You making up for the parents the kid doesn't have?"

"Let it go," Clay warned him.

"Life is hard," The man sneered. "Tell the kid to get over it."

This was too much for Clay. He swung around to face the other man. "You don't have to be a complete animal about it, you know," He snapped.

"Life is hard! The sooner the kid learns it, the less chance he's going to have to be disappointed." The other man shot back.

"Gentleman," A firm British voice said outside the tent, and all the men suddenly looked like they'd bitten into lemons.

Lady Agnes.

"Will you please come out here?" She asked.

Like school boys who had been caught disrupting class, the four men trudged out of the tent, stood in front of the woman in question, and tried not to look like they had been doing anything wrong. Clay still had Mateja clinging to him.

"Gentlemen, is there a reason you are disrupting the sleep of those around you?" Lady Agnes asked.

The four of them tried not to look at each other, feeling that that would be a sign of guilt.

"We had a...disagreement." Laszlo volunteered after a moment.

"I see," Lady Agnes said. Even in the tattered remains of what had once been the travelling outfit of a British Peer, with a man's too-large overcoat wrapped around a frame made thin from time in the labor camps, she still managed to be a force to be reckoned with. "And you think this disagreement is important enough for ou to disturb those around you?"

"Oui, Madame, I do," Clay spoke up. His glare shot daggers at Vlad, or whatever his name was. "But I'm sure it won't happen again."

Vlad looked unrepentant, but Eric and Laszlo were glaring at him too.

"I see," Lady Agnes repeated, then she noticed Mateja. "And why is that child with you?"

"He had a nightmare, Madame, and wanted to sleep with me," Clay told her.

She seemed to accept this. "Very well, but gentlemen, try to keep it down. We will no doubt have another long day ahead of us, trying to reach that miserable tunnel that will get us out of these awful mountains. If Mateja," She also had the uncanny ability to remember the names of everyone she had ever met and put their faces and names together instantly in her mind, "would like to sleep with you following his nightmare, I have no issue with it. But you had better take these."

It was then that Clay noticed that what she had been carrying over her left arm was, in fact, a pair of blankets. Thin blankets, but still blankets. "You might need them," Lady agnes finished. "Now gentlemen, I will bid you a good night."

There were assorted mutters of "Yes Ma'am" and "Goodnight" from the group, then they crawled back into the tent. Eric spread the additional blankets out, and they all went back to work making themselves comfortable.

It was just as Clay was about to drift off to sleep, with Mateja sleeping on his chest, that he heard Eric whisper, "Edouard."

"Mmm?" was Clay's nonsensical response.

"Next time the kid wants to sleep with us, let him."

The extra blankets had really made a difference.

~xXx~

"We reached this tunnel through the mountains and took it, and it was probably the easier part of the trip," Clay said.

Trucy was really invested in the story. "Did the rear guard catch up with you?"

Clay smiled, but sadly. "Not exactly. Colonel Horton decided that he was going to have the tunnel blown up behind us because he wanted to stop the Jerries, I mean, the SS. He decided to do this with our rear guard left behind to the mercy of the SS, which is how he almost started the second mutiny."

"Was that man on the wrong side of the war?" Phoenix asked.

"That kind of stupidity on the other side of the war," Kristoph spoke up again, "Would have gotten the Colonel a revolver with a single bullet left on his bed."

"Wish we could have done that to him at the time," Clay muttered under his breath.

Trucy was not deterred from the original question. "Did the people who were left behind get out before the tunnel got blown up?"

"Everyone get out except Lt. Arkanov and his Russians. They stayed, along with one Irishman. But someone did go back and get everyone else out before the tunnel got blown up," Clay said. "On the other side of the tunnel was a bridge of three ropes that we all had to cross. The kids and wounded we carried, as well as the supplies. The maximum weight we could have on it was about three people. The women went across one at a time with a man in front of and behind her. But we all made it across."

Now a grin was spread across Clay's face, and the look in his eyes showed that his mind was a long ways away. "The Adriatic Sea was the best thing I ever saw in the war. We came down the mountains, with the sun setting behind us, and there was strip of blue off in the distance and it was the sea, the British were waiting to get to get us to Allied territory. And when I saw the sea, that was when I knew that we were going to make it."

~xXx~

The sun was setting as the tired group descended the mountain. Though they were tired, they were elated. They were through the mountain, and almost to the see.

Then they saw a dark blue strip, off on the horizon, and cheering and clapping broke out.

Mateja had long ago gotten tired and was hanging on Clay's back again, but he roused at the sound of the clapping. "What is it?"

Clay's grin couldn't have been wider. "It's the sea, Mateja! It's the sea!

"We made it."

[A/N:] So, back in 2017 I started listening to an old time radio program called The Vale of Darkness. I listened to it in the summer, long before I started CD, but at the time I started it, I never finished it. this summer, while I was traveling, I did. And I was listening to it - the story about the escapees is far, far more interesting than the soap opera about Lt Salle's romance with the woman who betrayed the group, imho - I was thinking, how can this have a happy ending?

But it had a good ending. I won't say happy because yeah, Lt Arkanov and his Russians, well, they stayed behind. But the ending was good. It's free online in some of the Old time Radio Libraries in the US. And I thought, I've got to incorporate this into CD somehow.

And that was when I figured out what I was going to do with Clay Terran.

I changed Clay from wanting to be an astronaut to wanting to be a pilot because of the timeline issues here. The Space Race didn't begin in earnest until the late 1950s (and this chapter is another one that's set between the last chapter and epilogue of CD proper.) Sputnik, the first satellite, which was launched by Russia, didn't go up until 1957. The chapter title comes from a WWII song.

Alright, what else? Thanks to Enkida over at Writer's Anonymous for the bad German in this chapter. It's much appreciated!

Oh, and when you've finished reviewing, hop over to YouTube and watch Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Uptown Funk by The Storyteller. I was never big fan of the song, but it's worth watching to see Godot throw a cup of coffee at Apollo's head. And then go watch Wright & Edgeworth - How to Save a Life by Aura Blackquill. I'll give you a feels warning for that one.

Merry Christmas! Please review!