A/N: Check the Janaverse tag on my tumblr (there's a link on our profile) for an alternate version of a scene from this chapter!


October 9 (2048), 3:00 PM, Themis Legal Academy

"Maybe a Jetstream Sam joke would have been more appropriate," Ares mumbled to himself.

"Yes, sir," Misty E said, "since he's half-Brazilian, isn't he?"

Watson seethed. "Now is not the time for stupid jokes about classic games… Ares, what are we doing here?"

"Looking for blackmail on Miguel, like you 'requested'," Ares said, "look, here he comes now."

Yes, here came seventeen-year-old Miguel, a senior in the prosecutor's course, walking through the courtyard by the side of a fifteen-year-old Watson Justice, a sophomore in the defense attorney's course who wore a slightly-too-big labcoat over her school uniform.

"No," the time-traveling Watson hissed, "I mean, what are we doing here? If Miguel had done something with me in high school that warranted blackmailing, don't you think I would have brought that up first?"

Ares was rolling his eyes under his sunglasses. "I thought maybe you wouldn't bring it up on your own because you didn't want to say-"

"You're just trying to get blackmail on me now!" Watson exclaimed. Over in the courtyard, her younger self glanced over at the bushes where the three of them were concealed.

"Did you hear something?" she said.

"No," Miguel said, taking a swig out of his thermos of coffee.

Past Watson turned back to him. "That stuff stunts your growth, you know," she said, "that's why you're so short."

"I'm not short!" Miguel said defensively, "also, Maria drinks as much as I do and she's taller than I am!"

"…did you just admit you're short…?" past Watson said.

"-already have enough dirt on you I could go into business as a gravedigger," Ares was grumbling.

Present Watson became aware of someone breathing down the back of her neck. She turned around, "Eek!" and almost fell out of her bush.

"You three have balls, don't you?" Macario Armando said.

"M-Macario!" Misty E gasped. Ares just stared from the comfort of his own bush.

"I warned you once. You won't get a second chance," Macario said.

"What are you even doing here?" Ares ventured to ask.

Macario just glared at him, then shifted his glare to Watson, who was still lying on the ground with a root uncomfortably jabbing into her back. "I'm not about to let you take Miguel Fey-Armando out of the picture," he said, "he's my biggest ally in the alpha timeline."

"Why did you come to the alpha timeline?" Watson squeaked, "why not just stay in the lambda timeline?" She cracked a weak smile. "Wanted to be a part of the true path of the universe…?"

Macario spit on the ground next to her, and she flinched. Ares raised an eyebrow impassively.

"I don't give a damn which timeline is 'the truth path of the universe'," Macario said harshly, although he was still keeping his voice low enough not to attract the attention of the Themis students, "the lambda timeline is where I grew up, and where everyone I've ever loved was. That's the truth, as far as I'm concerned. That's my truth. You can take your truth and stick it."

"Then why bother with our timeline at all?" Ares said.

"Ask Phoenix Wright's kid," Macario grunted. Misty E just shook her head - she either didn't know why he'd leave the lambda timeline, or was unwilling to say.

"We should go, sir," she said quietly.

"I agree," Ares said, pulling out the time device.

"Hey, wait-" Watson started, but Misty E was stronger than her and had little difficulty shoving her through the door.

Sophomore Watson glanced at the bushes again. For a second there, she thought she'd seen a flash of orange and blue light.

"Something wrong?" Miguel said.

"No, nothing…"


April 30 (2054), 12:30 PM, Hickfield Clinic

Edgeworth was waiting in the hallway, just outside the door to Alois' room, when Jana ran up, sliding the last few feet, then bending over with her hands on knees, panting. "H-How… how is he…? I heard… he… fainted in court…"

"He had a panic attack," Edgeworth explained, "a severe one. He started hyperventilating and…"

"I… I see…" Jana said, getting ahold of herself, and standing up straight. "But why…?"

"Some comments a witness made in court set him off," Edgeworth said, adjusting his glasses, "somehow they managed to get on the subject of the L. A. Holmes massacre, and he suddenly remembered his… involvement in it. I've called your parents already," he added, "so they know what's going on."

"Will they be returning early?"

"Not unless things get worse. As upsetting as this is, Jana, I should remind you that he is fine now, physically at least. He's still resting, so the psychological repercussions of this have yet to be seen."

"I'm sure he'll be fine," Kristoph said, walking up behind Jana, "he may not look like much, but he is a tough one."

"As I said, it remains to be seen," Edgeworth said, disregarding Kristoph.

Jana glanced over her shoulder. "Uncle Kristoph, where is Maria? She drove us here…"

There was the sound of footsteps at the end of the hall, one set moving much faster than the other. Miguel ran in, also sliding the last few feet on the slick hospital floor, and Maria followed behind at a more reasonable pace.

"Mr. Edgeworth," Miguel gasped, "let me take over the Ennie case."

Edgeworth raised his eyebrows impassively. "What about the Soergei case?"

"That can wait! It's not ready to go to trial anyway - and you'll need a new prosecutor on the Ennie case since my kitten is down - and I-I think it's related to the L. A. Holmes case."

"If it really is related," Edgeworth said, "then of course you should be the one heading up this case. But, is it?"

"Miguel was just talking to forensics when he heard about Alois," Maria interjected, "apparently, the blood found on the clothing of the victim in the Ennie case matched the unknown blood from the case four years ago."

"The blood that belonged to the culprit…" Edgeworth said.

"That, and the fact that she had that license plate number on her," Miguel said, and Jana frowned, recalling her conversation with Detective Grantaire two days ago, "means that - the person behind the mass murder had to have been involved somehow."

"Are you proposing that Lars Ennie is the mass murderer from four years ago?" Edgeworth said.

Miguel shook his head. "I already know that the blood didn't match him."

"Then are you proposing that Lars Ennie is not the real killer in this case?"

"…that could be a possibility, but there's lots of evidence, right?" Miguel kept shaking his head. "Even if Lars Ennie killed her, I believe he may have killed her because she was - investigating the massacre."

"Maybe Ennie is a hitman and you just didn't know it," Maria said dryly.

"It could happen!"

Edgeworth glanced at the closed door behind him, then nodded. "Alright, Fey," he said, "you can take over the prosecution of this case. I expect you to get to the bottom of this."

Miguel saluted, then ran back off down the hallway.

"I need to go get a drink from the water fountain," Jana said quickly, then ran off after him. Maria and Edgeworth exchanged glances.

"…wait, where did Gavin go?"

Meanwhile in the stairwell, Jana had caught up with Miguel. "You need something, filly?" Miguel said, barely slowing his step, "I need to go talk to Detective Noir like, an hour ago. This case ends tomorrow."

"Actually," Jana said, "it ends fourteen years ago."

Miguel stopped. "…what?"

"My future self and I," Jana said, a rare look on her face, "tonight we are going back in time to fix all of this before it ever even happens. No one will die, and Alois will not be traumatized…"

"Woah, filly," Miguel said, blinking, "are you even sure that'll work?"

"We have to try, do we not?" Jana said.

"Sounds dangerous."

"We have to try," Jana repeated.

Miguel stared at her. Arguing, he knew, was pointless. She was going to do this, no matter what he said or did. "You really think it's going to work, filly?"

Jana made an uncertain, palms-out gesture with her hands. "I… it may. It may not. And it could possibly be dangerous… I do not know. My older self did not tell me her specific plans, except that we would make sure that the mass murder never happened at all."

Miguel just looked at her. Eventually, he placed his hands on her shoulders and stared deep into her eyes. "Filly," he said, his voice very clear, "be. careful. I know I can't convince you to just not do this, but," his grip on her shoulders tightened, and he shook her a little, "come back alive, do you hear me, filly? And unharmed. Your brother's already in a tight enough spot as it is - yeah, and maybe you can completely undo it. Undo this whole case. But be careful. Your parents already almost lost one child once."

"I understand," Jana said, her jaw working. "I will be careful."

"I have to go now," Miguel said, taking his hands off her. "Just in case you don't manage to undo this whole mess, I have a case to solve." He started walking down the stairs again. Jana stayed put. "See you on the other side, filly."


November 17 (2057), 6:45 PM, Wright Anything Agency

"Maya Valerie," Jana said, leaning in front of her desk, hands pressed flat against its surface. She studied the wood, and thought about the last four years. She'd been working here, at WAA, for the past four years, and for three years before that she studied under her uncle, who also worked here. She'd gotten her own desk a few months before her debut.

Seven years, she thought with a trace of irony.

"What is it, Jana?" Maya Valerie Wright, her best friend, said from behind her. Sounded like she was reshelving some of those ancient law books she'd taken out to study.

"Do you remember… when you first enrolled in Themis Academy?" Jana said, still looking at her desk. "One of your teachers recognized you, and she gave you an old piece of fabric to give back to your step-father."

Maya Valerie laughed. "Of course," she said, "it was Daddy's cravat. She'd stolen it from him at a convention back in '28. I can't believe someone would keep something like that for 27 years!"

Jana turned around, looked at Maya Valerie. She looked more and more like her dead mother every day, or at least more and more like her dead aunt, since she'd kept up that purposefully annoying habit of dying her hair red. "What brought this on, Jana?" she said, tilting her head. A butterfly floated serenely by.

"…nothing," Jana said. "Maya Valerie, when you graduate, do you… still want to re-form Gavin Law Offices with me?"

"Of course!" said Maya Valerie brightly, "Wright Anything Agency is getting too crowded anyway. We need to strike out on our own."

Jana nodded.

"…so what is this about?" Maya Valerie said, then added in a softer tone, "are you scared, because of what happened to Alois?"

Jana, very slowly, nodded again, and then she abruptly pulled Maya Valerie into a hug.

"Jana…?"

"Everything will be fine," Jana whispered, mostly to herself, "everything will work out. It will."


October 4 (2040), 7:45 AM, Cheyenne, Wyoming

"Where are we?" said Jana, looking around. This city they were in was nothing like Los Angeles, or indeed any city in California. It was very flat, and very cold and the sky was gray. Both Janas' breaths fogged in the air in front of their faces.

"The time and place of Jackie Proserpine's first kidnapping," future Jana said, "the crime that would eventually escalate into a mass murder."

A newspaper lying on the street they were walking down caught Jana's eye. "We are very far from home."

"Jackie Proserpine only primarily operated on the west coast. She sometimes found victims more inland." They approached the mouth of an alley, and future Jana slowed, Jana following suit. "Ked Napp is about to be abducted on his way to school."

At the other end of the alley, a skinny black-haired woman - not much older than the older Jana - was watching the perpendicular street and breathing hard.

This must be her, Jana thought. She supposed that her older self had been able to track her here using their newfound knowledge of her identity. "What do we do? What is the plan?" Jana whispered.

Future Jana held her hand in a wait-a-minute gesture. "We will have her arrested for attempted kidnapping," she murmured, "so first, she needs to attempt the kidnapping."

"H-Hey, kid," Proserpine called, "you're from around here, right?"

The twelve-year-old boy with the backpack, who had just walked into view of the alley, nodded warily.

"Do you know how to get to the gas station?"

The kid pointed down the road some. "It's over there."

"Over where?" Proserpine said.

"Over there," the boy repeated. "See where the intersection is? Make a right, and then make a left, and-"

"Oh," Proserpine groaned, "I have no sense of direction. Can you show me where it is? It can't be too far out of your way…"

The kid raised his eyebrow at her, shrugged, said, "Come on," and started walking down the street. Proserpine quickly followed.

"Here we go," future Jana said, striding forward. Jana trailed after. "I will see if I can provoke her into doing something more obvious - once she does that, you run for the police."

"If it does not work?" Jana said.

"Then you will not like the backup plan," future Jana said flatly. She fell into step beside Proserpine, who looked at her with alarm, while Jana lingered behind. "You are a long way from your hotel, are you not?"

"Who's this lady?" the boy said.

"Er…" Proserpine glared at Jana with a panicked heat.

"I will not let you kidnap this child, Jackie Proserpine," future Jana said calmly.

Ked barely got out a "What-?" before Proserpine's hand was clamped over his mouth, and her other arm was wrapped around him, wedged under his armpits, and lifting him off his feet. She bolted, carrying Ked off with her. Jana took that as her cue to run down the street in the opposite direction, where she hoped she'd find a police station - behind her, she heard the crack of a whip and a loud thud as, presumably, future Jana whipped Proserpine's feet out from under her. Ked's screams and Proserpine's angry shouts faded into the distance…


April 30 (2054), 11:35 PM, Gavin estate, Jana's room

Jana stepped out of the time door with a feeling of immense satisfaction. Her bet that she was running in the vague direction of a police station had been on the mark, and she had brought a pair of cops to where future Jana was waiting for them, pinning Proserpine to the ground with her arm wrenched behind her back, and a crying Ked. She explained the situation, Ked was more than willing to talk about what had just happened, and one of the cops slapped some cuffs on Proserpine. Jana asked the other one if, since this was only an attempted kidnapping and therefore her sentence would be relatively light - if she was convicted at all - was there not a chance of her trying again in the future? The cop had assured her that the police would keep a close eye on her from now on, even if she crossed state lines. And once Proserpine was loaded into the back of a police car, future Jana had sent present Jana back to her own time before returning to her present, herself.

And in this present, somehow, Jana could already tell the atmosphere had changed.

But… Jana realized, as her eyes readjusted to the dark of her room, it wasn't just the atmosphere that had changed. For one thing, she was certain she had left the lamp on when she'd stepped through the time door. And for another thing, her room was… messier than when she had left. Her normally neat desk had piles of folded clothes, which Jana usually put in her dresser immediately, on it. There were more than a few dirty articles of clothing scattered on her floor.

And, Jana realized, there was someone in her bed.

Someone… that looked a little like her.

Wordlessly, Jana clicked on the lamp. A person who was Jana's mirror image, except flipped, stirred, and opened her eyes.

They stared at each other.

Jana put her finger to her lips. The other one kept staring.

"What," the other Jana finally hissed.

"What is going on here?" Jana said.

The other Jana sat up, glaring at herself. "What do you mean, what is going on here?" she said. "Who are you? Am I dreaming?"

Jana blinked. "You must be the alternate version of me," she said, "what timeline is this?"

"Timeline? What are you talking about?"

Jana glanced at the closed door of the bedroom. Future Jana must have accidentally sent her to a different timeline somehow - apparently one where Jana and Alois had never gotten involved in time travel. "Where is Alois?" Jana said, now that he was on her mind, "in his room?"

"Alois? He is dead."

Jana's head whipped back to goggle at her other self. She was the one hissing "What?!" this time.

"He is dead," the other Jana said again, her glare intensifying murderously. "That bastard Clay Justice killed him."

It didn't even register with Jana that her other self was using much coarser language that she had ever used herself. "What do you mean, Clay Justice killed him?"

"It was a double murder," the other Jana said, her voice getting a little choked, "he and Maria Fey-Armando were both killed last December."

Jana felt like the wind had been knocked out her. She took a step back, and slowly raised her hands to her ears. "No," she said out loud. "No, that cannot…" Murdered last December? Suddenly, Ares' words at the end of that trial came back to her:

"Once she did actually pass out, I noticed the defendant. He actually was pretty pissed off, he probably wanted to attack me… but he fainted almost as soon as I looked at him. It was then that I realized that he was Alois von Karma-Gavin, so I realized that he wouldn't actually remember anything that happened, so I let him live. Oh," he added, glancing behind him at Armando, "I did actually intend to kill Maria. It's a wonder she survived. I honestly thought the she was dead when I left…"

She hadn't realized that. She hadn't realized that Alois would have been murdered if it hadn't been for his phobia of blood.

She hadn't realized that Jackie Proserpine had unintentionally saved his life, three years after she tried to take it.

Future Jana suddenly appeared, her face panic-stricken, although it quickly smoothed out into her usual vaguely arrogant impassiveness when she saw the two younger Janas.

"What the hell?" the Jana in the bed said, rubbing one eye with the heel of her hand.

"My apologies," future Jana said, "the user input to my time travel device is streamlined. It does not show what timeline you are in unless you specifically check, and always sends you to your destination within your own timeline unless you specifically change it."

She showed Jana the screen on it. It did look like a sleeker version of the old MASON system, although for the moment the screen just had one thing on it.

LN α δ

"We arrived in the alpha timeline, but in the course of our interfering, we changed it to the delta timeline," future Jana explained, "and as such, delta was the one we left from. I also ended up in the delta timeline upon my return home." She glanced at delta-Jana behind her, who was staring at her doppelgänger and older, alternate self in confusion. She probably still thought she was dreaming.

Jana knew she wouldn't remember this meeting at all, and she felt sorry for her anyway. She didn't want to imagine the pain she was going through, the pain of having lost her older brother and one of her friends, too…

"So the alpha timeline remains unchanged," Jana said, looking back at her older self.

"For now," future Jana said. "I think I know a way to make sure the changes take in our timeline, though."

"But-" Jana started, now unsure if she wanted to change the past. Her older self cut her off, grabbing her wrist.

"Come," she said, and they left the delta timeline, and the sad other Jana, behind.


LAL brick joke! *finger guns* Sorry, I had to.

Also, I copy/pasted (and slightly edited, because my proofreading has always sucked) that flashback line from Sleeping Turnabout.