A/N: New update day! I've been wanting to switch from Fridays to Wednesdays for a while now and thanks to the break I took over the holidays, this was a good opportunity. I hope everyone had a great holiday season and a good start to their New Year.

Enjoy the newest chapter!

By the time Phoenix makes it home, it's almost 11 at night and he's out fifty dollars from the cab ride home, which he'd had to run inside to grab his wallet to pay for while the driver angrily mumbled that he'd better come back out with the money or he'd call the cops.

He trudges back upstairs to the office when the driver pulls away with his money and enters the office. It may be late, but he still doesn't expect the complete silence that greets him. He was thinking Maya's party would have lasted well into the late night, but it's dark and everything is cleaned up. No one is around.

"Trucy?" he calls.

He hears a commotion from down the hall and then Trucy is there, looking at him wide-eyed. "Daddy! You're finally home! Are you okay?!"

He nods. "I'm fine. A few stitches and some bandages and I'm good as new."

Trucy runs forward and throws her arms around him. "Thank goodness." She pulls back and puts her hands on her hips. "You really need to be more careful!"

He smiles. "I know. I'm sorry. Where is everyone? Where are Maya and Pearls?"

Trucy tilts her head at him. "Miss Maya didn't tell you? There was an emergency in Kurain. She and Pearl had to leave, but she said you'd be back soon."

"Huh? Truce, I haven't seen Maya all night. Not since I left."

Trucy looks even more confused. "But she got your message! She was worried so her and Mr. Edgeworth drove to the hospital to bring you home. She came back without you because of the emergency but she said you'd be back soon."

He furrows his eyebrows. "What the heck?"

"She's probably back in Kurain by now. You could call her?" Trucy suggests.

He sighs. "Yeah. It's kind of late now though, so I'll send her a text and call her tomorrow to make sure everything is okay."

Trucy smiles. "Okay, Daddy! I'm gonna go head to bed now that you're home."

"Alright, Truce. Sorry for making you wait up for me."

She shakes her head and leans up on her tip-toes to kiss him on the cheek, then hugs him again for good measure. "I wanted to stay up to make sure you were okay. Now that I know, I'll be able to sleep."

He hugs her back tightly, and watches her fondly as she goes back to her bedroom when he lets her go. When she's gone, he heads to his own room. He's still wearing his same bloody shirt and he's dying to get out of it. He accidentally left his suit jacket in the ambulance at the bank, but it was ruined anyway, so it's not really a huge loss, and he has others.

He peels the shirt off in his room and throws it in the garbage beside his bed. No point keeping a white shirt with a huge bloodstain and a tear in it when he has what seems like an unlimited supply of them in his drawers. He's too tired to bother getting changed, so he strips down to his boxers and goes to crawl into bed.

He hasn't turned the light on. Thanks to the Gatewater Hotel across the way, there's enough dim light in the room for him to get undressed without bumping into anything or falling over, so he doesn't notice the little teddy bear on his bed until he's pulling back the covers to crawl in.

It falls to the side, and he frowns as he reaches out for it. He holds it up to read the 'Get Well Soon' written on the heart. He sighs and brings it with him down the hall to Trucy's room, where he knocks on the door. Trucy opens the door in her nightgown. "What, Daddy?"

"Did you get this for me?" he asks, holding it out for her to see.

She shakes her head. "No. Miss Maya had it when she got here, so she left it for you."

"Okay. Sorry to disturb you."

She waves him away and shuts her door again.

When he gets back to his room, he sets the bear on his bedside table. He looks around for his phone so he can text Maya, only to remember that he doesn't have it anymore. He's too beat to go back to the living room to use the phone in there, so he decides to call her tomorrow. He knows that Maya and Pearl were both fine when they left, so he doesn't think this so called emergency was all that dire. Most likely it was just one of those Elders overreacting to something and needing their Master to come take care of it.

He is still a little confused as to why Maya acted like she'd spoken to him though. He hasn't seen her all night, she hasn't even called him, so he definitely finds that odd. Maybe she just didn't want Trucy or Pearl to know that she was leaving before bothering to make sure he was okay? Knowing them, and Pearl especially, they would have accused her of not caring enough about her special someone and would have forced her to stay longer. That's the only explanation he can think of as he crawls into bed and pulls the covers up.

He smiles at the little bear before closing his eyes to sleep. At least Maya had left that. Not that he has a use for it as a 35 year old man, but knowing she'd gone out of her way to buy it makes him feel a bit better about the whole night.

He accidentally sleeps in the next day, and when he wakes up he can feel the wound on his arm throbbing, particularly whenever he bends his elbow or when his skin stretches even slightly. He gets up and puts on some pyjama bottoms and a t-shirt and heads out to the kitchen to get a glass of water to down his antibiotics and painkillers. He's going to have to remove the bandage soon and use the ointment he was given, then cover it up again, but it can wait for now. He needs to call Maya, to make sure she got back to Kurain and that everything is okay.

Trucy is nowhere to be found, most likely still sleeping or just hanging out in her room, so he has privacy as he grabs the cordless phone in the living room and sits down on the couch to dial Maya's number in Kurain.

It rings and rings. He knows they don't have an answering machine, and just as he's about to hang up, he hears the line pick up.

"Hello?"

"Pearls!"

"Oh, hi, Mr. Nick! Are you okay? I'm glad to know you got home alright last night."

"Thanks, Pearls. I'm fine. Is Maya there?"

Pearl pauses for a second. "Um, no, she's not," she says hesitantly.

"Is she okay? Trucy told me you two had an emergency and you had to leave early last night."

Pearl is quiet for another few seconds, then speaks again, her voice lowered almost to a whisper. "Mr. Nick, I'm going to call you right back, okay?"

Before he can answer her, she hangs up. He waits by the phone, and a few minutes later it rings. He answers it right away. "Hello?"

"It's me again," Pearl says, more loudly now. "Sorry, I had to leave and call you from my cell phone outside."

"Pearls, what is going on?"

She sighs. "Mystic Maya is sick, I think. She is here, she's in her Master's Chambers right now, but she didn't want to talk to you for some reason. She said if it was you to tell you she's not home."

"What? Why?"

"I don't know. Mr. Nick. Last night… Mystic Maya lied to me! There was no emergency here. When we got back, Mystic Lucy said she was surprised to see us after I'd begged her to let Mystic Maya stay in the city longer. Mystic Maya just told her that something came up and she decided to come home… Then she went to bed without even explaining anything to me."

"Has she come out of her room at all today?" he asks. His mind is racing. What on earth happened to Maya last night to make her act like this? "You're sure she's okay?"

"Yes, she's come out to eat meals and watch TV and stuff, but she's acting kind of funny. I've never seen her act like this before… I know that Mystic Maya usually tries to be strong and not let her emotions show, but she's not doing a very good job of it this time. I can tell that something is really bothering her. She can't hide it, whatever it is. Did she say anything to you when you saw her at the hospital?"

He sighs. "Pearls, I never saw Maya at the hospital. She never showed up."

"Huh? But she said she saw you and that you were okay."

"I know. Look, you really can't get her to talk to me?"

"No, Mr. Nick. She doesn't want to. I've really tried hard already to get her to call you, but she won't. She just gets a weird look on her face whenever I tell her she should."

That hurts. Maya has always come to him with anything that's bothered her. He's one of the only people who ever saw her cry over her sister's or her mother's deaths. He's one of the only people who she confided in her lack of confidence over becoming Master, and she's always talked to him about the difficulties raising Pearl, wondering if she's a good enough guardian for her cousin. She's never kept any secrets from him that he knows of, and it hurts his feelings to know that she isn't willing to share whatever it is this time with him. The thought that he himself might be the cause of her hurt never even crosses his mind.

He sighs. "Okay… She was with Edgeworth last night, right? I'll call him to see if he knows what's going on."

"Okay, Mr. Nick."

"Hey, Pearls?"

"Yes?"

"Tell Maya… I miss her. And I'm here if she wants to talk. I lost my cell phone so just… call the home or office phone if you need me."

"I will, and okay."

"Thanks, Pearls. I'll talk to you later, okay?"

"Okay, Mr. Nick. Bye for now."

He hangs up with her and waits a few seconds, going over the conversation again. He just can't understand what would make Maya not want to talk to him. He knows that aside from himself the safest person for Maya to be with is Edgeworth, so he doesn't think anything bad would have happened to her after she left the office to go visit the hospital last night, or Edgeworth would have told him, but clearly something is bothering her.

He picks up the phone again and dials the number to Edgeworth's office at the Prosecutor's Office. It's Sunday, but Phoenix knows there's a better chance of catching Edgeworth at work than at home, even on a weekend.

"Hello?"

"Hey, Edgeworth—"

"Oh. It's you."

Phoenix pauses. Even for Edgeworth, that greeting was sort of cold. "Um, yeah. Listen, do you know what's up with Maya? I know she went with you last night to visit me at the hospital, but she never got there that I know of. I didn't talk to her at all before she went back to Kurain, and now she's refusing to talk to me even on the phone. What's going on?"

Edgeworth sighs. "You know, Wright, I won't deny that in court, during trials, you are an incredibly smart man. You manage to make winning look easy, but when it comes to things outside of court, you can be very dense."

"Huh?"

Edgeworth pauses. "You should be able to figure it out on your own. And I'm not sure it's my place to say anyway. You need to talk to her yourself."

"Edgeworth, please. She won't talk to me, believe me I've tried. I have no idea what's—"

"I can understand why she doesn't want to talk to you…" he mumbles. Then louder, "look, I'll text her and ask her to call you. I can't help you any more than that."

He hears the click of Edgeworth hanging up on him. He blinks in surprise. Edgeworth has never acted like that before. Sure he can be a bit short and sometimes a little too honest, but he's never been downright rude before. At least their conversation wasn't totally useless, as he's given Phoenix one clue. Whatever Maya is upset about, it's somehow his fault.

Phoenix takes a shower, cleans and re-dresses his stitches, and gets dressed so he can run to the store to buy a new cell phone. He can't be bothered going to the police station just to see if they have his in evidence because he knows it will take forever to get them to release it, and he doesn't have time to stand around waiting for a bunch of forms to get signed.

Once he's back at home and he's managed to activate the phone with Trucy's help, he taps Maya's cell number into a new contact entry. He knows it by heart now. It's one of the only numbers he knows by heart and not just by the name in his contact list.

He decides not to call her though. If she really doesn't want to talk to him, she probably won't answer, but if he texts her she won't feel the need to reply right away, which he thinks makes it more likely she'll at least read the message.

He isn't really sure what to say at first but once he starts typing, the words come, and the message ends up longer than he expected. It's probably better not to blow up her phone with a bunch of separate texts anyway, so he sends it all in one big paragraph.

Hi Maya, it's Nick. I had to get a new phone so my number is different now. I'll just cut to the chase here. Please don't get mad at her for it, but Pearls told me that there was no emergency, and that you don't want to talk to me right now. I also know that you told everyone that you talked to me at the hospital, but I never saw you. All you left was that teddy bear on my bed.

I talked to Edgeworth too, and he seemed pretty pissed at me. He said I should know what I did and he doesn't blame you for not wanting to talk to me, but I have no idea what I did wrong. Please tell me so I can fix it, or so I can at least apologize. I'm pulling my hair out here trying to figure out what I did to upset you. You know how oblivious I can be, right? You aren't mad because I mentioned how you tried to drunk kiss me, right? Trust me, it was fine!

Anyway, please text or call me. I'll try to make it right, whatever it is.

He hits send, refraining from saying anything more. Much as he wants to just blurt out to her that he loves her, he knows that it's probably not something she'll want to hear if she's mad at him, and especially not over a text message. He won't use that as an easy way to earn her forgiveness anyway. When he says it, he needs her to know that he means it.

He resists the urge to text her again when she doesn't answer him within five minutes. Whatever he's done, she probably just needs time to think through her response. He still has some paperwork to file from the bank robbery case, and doing that will take his mind off of Maya, so he heads downstairs to the office to get to work.

Two hours later, as he's finishing up the last of the paperwork, Maya still hasn't texted him back. He picks up his phone and stares at the screen, at the stock photo background now replacing the photo of him, Trucy, Maya, and Pearl at some outing that had been set as his background on his old phone for a few years now.

He goes to Maya's contact, also blank now, nothing but a little grey silhouette of a person instead of the picture of her he'd entered on his other phone, so long ago. His finger hovers over the call button, debating whether or not to press it.

In the end, he decides not to, and sets the phone back down. He looks up when he hears a soft knock on the doorway that leads to the stairs to the apartment. Trucy is standing there, smiling at him.

"Hey, Truce. Come in."

She walks in, holding something in her hands. "I wanted to give this to you, Daddy."

He raises an eyebrow as Trucy comes forward. She holds the item out to him, and he realizes it's a picture frame. He takes it from her and turns it around. It's the photo Trucy had taken of him and Maya before going out the other night. Maya is smiling, her hand on his chest, wearing that pretty dress. She looks beautiful. He's not looking at the camera at all though. His attention is focused solely on Maya, and the hint of the smile that he can see on his face isn't directed at the camera either. It's a smile directed at Maya, meant for Maya and no one else.

He sighs and sets the frame on his desk. "Thank you, Trucy."

She smiles. "You're welcome, Daddy." She purses her lips as she bounces on the balls of her feet, still standing in front of his desk.

"Did you need something else?" he asks. "If you want lunch I think we should just get take out today—"

"Daddy, can I ask you something?" she interrupts.

"Oh. Sure."

"Is Pearl right about you and Miss Maya?" He blinks at her, and Trucy shifts to put her hands on her hips. "Don't lie either. You know I can always tell when you're lying. That picture," she says, nodding in its direction, "I don't think that's how people who are just friends look at each other."

He swallows. "Promise not to tell anyone?"

She grins. "I promise!"

He sighs, and nods. "Then, yes. Pearls is right about us. Or she's right about my feelings towards Maya, at least."

Trucy squeals. "Is Miss Maya going to be my new mom?!"

He smiles sadly. "Don't get too excited. Maya and I have had an interesting week, but honestly, these feelings for her are new to me, Trucy. Something changed this week. Except…"

Trucy gets a serious look on her face. "Except?"

"Except she doesn't seem to want to talk to me right now."

"Huh? But why not? If you two are in love then why doesn't she want to talk to you?"

He chuckles. "That's the thing. I love her but I don't think she loves me."

Trucy frowns and walks around the desk to hug him around the neck. "What are you going to do?"

He sighs and pats her arm. "As of right now, I'm just going to give her space and hope she tells me what's wrong soon."

Trucy stands up straight again. "Okay. I'll go order us some Chinese, okay?"

He nods, and she hurries away, back upstairs to the apartment. He opens his phone once more, hovers over the call button on Maya's contact, and again decides not to press it.

He jumps a little in surprise when the loud ringer—now a default ringtone instead of the Steel Samurai theme tune—fills the room, and Maya's name lights up on the screen. For a second he's scared he accidentally pushed the button or made it call her somehow, until he realizes she's the one calling him.

He hits the green accept button right away. "Hello? Maya?"

"Hi Nick."

"Maya! I'm so glad you called," he says. "What's wrong? What happened? Why are you ignoring my calls?"

He can hear her sigh. "Look, Nick. I just need some space right now, okay? You should be able to understand that. I'm not ending our friendship over this or anything, I just need some time to sort through… things."

He makes a frustrated noise. "I don't understand, actually. What did I do to make you need space? Before I left to go to the store we were fine! We were talking about everything that happened this week until Athena interrupted us…"

Maya pauses. "You really don't understand why I'm upset?" He can hear her exhale through her nose. "Men really are dumb. It's not like I should have expected anything though, it's my fault for getting my hopes up… I guess I'm pretty dumb too."

She seems to be talking more to herself than to him, and it's making him more and more frustrated. "Maya… Can you please just talk to me? Stop beating around the bush and tell me. Use your words."

That's apparently the wrong thing to say, as he hears her huff. "Just leave me alone for a bit, Nick! I'll call you when I'm ready to talk again!"

"Maya," he growls. "I swear if you don't tell me what I did I will take a train all the way down to Kurain tonight just to see—"

He hears a click.

"Hello? Maya? Maya?!"

Only silence answers him. He lowers the phone from his ear and stares at it. The urge to throw it is almost overwhelming, but he's not about to waste $500 by breaking a brand new phone. He drops it onto the desk instead, and puts his head in his hands. Yet again he's having to blink back tears. He shouldn't have gotten angry at her, but she's being so damn frustrating. Is it so hard to just admit what's bothering her so he can try to fix it?

He gets up and heads back upstairs to the apartment, trying to put on a happier face before seeing Trucy. Sure he'd threatened to go to Kurain, but he's not actually going to. If Maya needs space, he'll give her space.

Trucy greets him with a smile. "Chinese is on its way."

He smiles. "Thanks, Truce."

She seems to sense his unhappiness, but she says nothing, just comes over to wrap her arms around his middle again. "What do you say we hang out tonight, Daddy? Just me and you, like when I was little. We can watch a movie or something."

The tears are there again, pricking his eyes. He wraps his arms tightly around her. He'll never stop being grateful for Trucy. He's always needed her more than she's needed him. "That actually sounds great."

She presses her face into his chest, tightening her hug. "You'll win Miss Maya over, Daddy. Don't worry. I could see the way she looked at you. She has to feel the same way. Whatever she's going through, just give her some time."

"Yeah. I hope you're right."

She pulls back and grins up at him. "Of course I'm right! Now come on, let's go check out what movies are out. You should get your mind off of Miss Maya for tonight."

She takes his hand and drags him into the living room. Maybe she's right. Maybe he does need to take his mind off of Maya for now. They'd been together all week, and she's all he's thought about for most of said week. When they were younger, spending so much time together was normal, but it was never so emotionally charged, and Maya didn't have as much responsibility back then. Maybe it's just been too much for her.

He's not sure whether or not he's going to be able to stop thinking about her though, particularly after coming to terms with his feelings for her so suddenly. Just thinking about her sets his heart to beating faster, until he remembers their phone conversation and instead of his heart it's his stomach that feels funny. Not in the good, fluttery way his heart feels but in a bad, uneasy way.

Trucy sits him down on the couch and picks up the TV remote. "What sort of movie do you want to watch, Daddy?"

He sighs. "Anything but a romance."

A/N: Ugh don't you wish characters would just TALK to each other.