Months pass. Wright makes no move to contact Miles again. He buries himself in work, investigating more thoroughly than ever, dismissing multiple cases before they ever come to a trial because of flaws he's found in the detective work, and poring late into the night over the ones he does pursue. Halloween passes, then Thanksgiving – still no Wright banging on his door, offering friendship or condemning him as a monster. He doesn't have any faith that will last. His sleep suffers; a seasonal affliction but worse this year than almost ever before. There are Christmas lights strung up everywhere, carols on every radio station. There's an elevator in every building it seems. No word from Wright.
Miles feels stupid. He's foolish. He asked for this, outright demanded it even. He knows it's better this way. His mentor is back in town, and von Karma would never stand for something so idiotic as a relationship with a defense attorney, much less the one who defeated him twice already. And besides, he doesn't want to feel like this, he knows it would only be worse with Phoenix around. He doesn't need any more examples of what he can't be. He wants to forget ever meeting him again. (He can't stop thinking about him.)
Months pass, in what feels like a slow but steady descent into madness.
The letter is a reckoning fifteen years late. Miles wasn't called to the stand for DL-6; his statement had been taken in a separate interview, with von Karma standing at his shoulder for moral support. It hadn't meant much then – nothing had; not then, and not for a long time after – but now, he wishes he'd been there for the trial. He shouldn't. If he'd been there, he's sure he would've confessed what really happened. What he thought he remembered.
(What he'd done, trying to help.)
The statute of limitations ends this week. He could just ignore Hammond's letter, and soon enough it couldn't do him any legal damage. His reputation might suffer, if the attorney went public with any kind of accusation – he might not, he might not have any idea – but Miles has suffered bad press before, with little real impact. He could ignore this. For the sake of his career, his life as it currently stands, he should.
There's no way in hell he won't be there.
It's a stupid decision. Hammond has no reason to reach out, not so close to the anniversary, not after so long. They'd never even met back then. This meeting has to be an attempt at blackmail, or an accusation, or – it won't be anything good.
But at least it will be honest.
Everything has been wrong since meeting Wright again. One of the worst ways is that the other lawyer's dedication to complete truth has shed light on how much of Miles' own life is built on falsehoods. From the smallest details (a chess set he doesn't know how to use, beyond arranging imagined revenge on a familiar spiky head) to his most important relationships (constantly putting down Gumshoe, playing a game of pretend with Franziska that rivalry is all they have), to even the very foundation on which it was all built. The lie that he is still innocent. The hypocrisy of him putting murderers behind bars.
He's not been happy for years. But Phoenix Wright somehow brought that into such sharp relief that Miles can't ignore it anymore; these months since rejecting his friendship haven't helped in the slightest. Something needs to change. It doesn't have to be good.
Something real will be enough.
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