part three: adrian
It had been forty-eight hours, and she had not slept.
Her pen moved in rapid circles beneath the text of the report, in practiced, refined movement. It was familiar; the recollection of it ached against the bones of her hands, though she had not gone through this ritual of painstakingly identifying and correcting her own mistakes in a long time. There had been no need for it; no Papa to remind her that victory was not always synonymous with perfection.
She had let herself falter. It seemed appallingly clear in the aftermath: how careless she had become. The way she had become too accustomed to the ingrained fear and obedience from the officers at her local precinct. The way she had failed to account for every detail and every possibility. This stray line of questioning; that missed opportunity. How she had allowed Phoenix Wright to trick and bluff his way through her perfect cases, and complete his systematic annihilation of what remained of what pride was left within the name of von Karma.
The pen snapped in her hands; she discarded it angrily with a sweep of her arm before opening the drawer to retrieve another. Her fingers still shook.
Her dreams were becoming vivid these days in a way they had not been since she had been a small child. She breathed with Papa's ghost braced against her back, twisted somewhere in the midst of half-recollected apologies. She gazed into the blank frame that marked her place in the line of family portraits. She dreamt of Miles, in a stranger time, a gentler time, that had never really existed--when their laughter had come easily and there was shared warmth whenever she reached up to grasp his hand.
She had wrenched herself forcefully from that particular dream, her palms drenched in sweat, and worked in lieu of daring to risk seeing it again.
But the thing that had surprised her most was that she was still here.
She had expected something more, somehow--with the familiar sound of the gavel striking down decisively, the harsh, unfamiliar call of Not Guilty--she had closed her eyes and clutched at her whip, waiting for the world to begin crashing down around her ears; felt herself shriek and lash out pre-emptively to drown out the sound. Phoenix Wright had collapsed, she had ran, feeling her right to identity fading away beneath each successive step. Her throat had constricted. She had thought she was going to suffocate. She could not remember when she had reached the door of her apartment, shaking off the last of the paparazzi.
And yet, by the next day, she was still there.
It was jarring, almost. She had never been trained, not in thirteen years, of what to truly expect in the aftermath of failure. The concept in itself was unthinkable. Everything was meant to start and stop with the promise of victory. And yet she opened her eyes to the haze of morning sunlight through the curtains; she rose from bed, dressed, ate, reviewed her case files. And with each successive action, she kept half-expecting the earth to fall out from under her feet--and a quiet, inexplicable sort of hysteria built within her every time it failed to do so.
She found herself thinking that this kind of ordinary morning was one that could have only been possible in a world in which Papa was gone.
Unacceptable.
But if the world would not change with the shockwave on her failure on its own, she had no choice but to accommodate in its stead. The weight of von Karma was her sole burden now, if Papa and Miles were gone, so she could not--she would never be allowed to fall back. She had been granted a pardon, somehow, for this, but never again--and there would never be a need. It was not too late.
But three months later, the same scene played out within the courtroom. Phoenix Wright smiled, his assistant at his side, as he shook hands in the lobby with his defendant and made small talk--while she felt the world close around her, with the press swarming her from every direction, asking for her thoughts as to her second loss in her lifetime--to that man, the one who had also been the downfall of her father and his other successor. They would not name them, as though they thought themselves clever, speaking in epithets--she forced her way through them and slammed her fists against the courthouse wall, the unmarred brick standing as a testament to her powerlessness as the flash of the cameras went off in her face. The perfect picture of disgrace. A bitterness filled her mouth as she realized she could give them that, if nothing else.
Stupid, stupid--she had bit back tears, it had been so foolish; she had been so confident that she had checked every corner, painstakingly swept every detail to ensure the perfection of her case aligned with the evidence and in the ultimate irony that determination had proven to be her new downfall. It made no sense. It wasn't fair. She had stunned herself with her own childishness, but found she couldn't bring herself to take it back.
And she had opened her eyes against the light of the next day, grasping futilely for that lost feeling of purpose; the fire of duty in her veins that had sent her returning here in the first place after five years of absence.
But it was gone, long left in tatters at the hands of Phoenix Wright, and she was left with the fragments of a broken dream instead.
She turned another page of the transcript, and gave a small start when she saw the empty surface of the desk beneath it. She had reached the end and inexplicably failed to realize it, and somehow that made the exhaustion she had been fighting off come crashing back against her all at once. Her stomach twisted with it. It was painful when she swallowed.
Franziska realized that it was nearly noon.
I can't fall back.
She could not recall the details of the work she had done over the past fifteen minutes. It was static in her mind. She saw she had drawn circles around certain arrangements of words and letters stamped against the surface of the paper, but could not remember why.
I can't fall.
And suddenly she wondered--in a crazed, blasphemous moment--whether Papa was ever human enough to have been where she was now; exhausted, eyes burning, head swimming, the details of a case melding in against one another in his mind--wrestling with his own youth and human shortcomings. Whether he had ever felt the air being pressed out of his lungs as the shadow of his predecessor closed upon him; whether he had ever faced a stacks of paperwork and would have forsaken it all if only he could have been afforded an hour of rest. If he had ever wished, however briefly, that perfection could be compromised for something as base and pathetic as the need for sleep.
I can't.
And she nearly began laughing at the sheer absurdity of the idea, and at her own audacity for daring to even entertain it.
She shook her head, trying to clear her mind and stop the edges of the office from blurring. Pulled the last several pages of the transcript in front of herself once again with pen at ready, and tried to convince herself that it was still not too late.
---
She opened the cover of the report.
It was one of many she had received throughout the day about various petty crimes that were to be tried soon in the future. She'd had little to no interest in any of them. This one that had been delivered a scant hour earlier, regarding a murder that had taken place at the Gatewater Hotel, trial tentatively scheduled for tomorrow. The urgency of it told her it was high profile; a glance at the opening page told her that the suspect was a celebrity by the name of Matthew Engarde, charged with strangling fellow actor Juan Corrida to death in his hotel room.
It meant nothing to her--the players involved, the situation at hand; those were insignificant. The only thing she had had to read was the name Phoenix Wright, notifying his status as Engarde's attorney, before signing her name onto the document--sealing her next battle.
---
It was an open-and-shut case. She could scarcely fathom what Phoenix Wright was thinking when he had accepted Engarde as a client; the mounds of evidence that continued to stack against him were almost suspect in their decisive volume.
This time. She would claim victory, no matter what the means or lengths necessary--she had ordered extensive background checks into each person tied to the case, would sweep the crime scene firsthand, would oversee the forensic investigation personally. She knew now that anything less against the likes of Phoenix Wright would mean disaster.
Matthew Engarde's manager, Adrian Andrews, was a person of particular interest in relation to the incident. Not only was she the one who had discovered the body, but rumors were in circulation about her romantic ties to the victim. Ordinarily she would have dismissed such gossip as irrelevant drivel, but she had learned that Phoenix Wright specialized in somehow spinning drivel into decisive verdicts against her favor.
A quick glance at a case file revealed a sordid history on the part of Andrews, as well. Attempted suicide--a codependency disorder. The photograph included showcased a pale blonde woman, expression frigid and mouth drawn in a thin line, the light reflected on her glasses obscuring a clear view of her eyes. Her cheeks were sallow; she looked half-starved. It had been taken two years ago, amidst a series of intensive therapy sessions after her mentor had taken her own life.
The word codependency stayed with her, looking at this photograph--translating into weakness, of derision, of a woman who was only able to live by chasing the backs of others.
With all of that in consideration, it became obvious that the only thing left to do had been to speak with Andrews herself. She was still being kept in the confines of the hotel, and presumably away from the prying eyes and questions of the media and any other unauthorized personnel--if the people on the force were doing their jobs for once in their incompetent lifetimes.
She was speaking to the detectives when Franziska strode in, back towards the doorway. Her head tilted inquisitively at the new intrusion while the policemen present instantly turned to attention. Franziska glanced amongst them, lips pursed, before jabbing a thumb over her own shoulder towards the empty hallway.
"Out," she ordered.
They obeyed without question, hastily crowding past her through the door and avoiding the side of her belt where her whip was hung. When she and Andrews were left alone in the room, Franziska shut the door behind them. The lock clicked into place with an air of decisive finality, and Adrian Andrews made a small noise of astonishment before turning to face her fully, a card balanced between her fingertips. Her head was raised high, shoulders knotted with unnatural tension; her glasses were slightly crooked on her nose and her makeup could not quite disguise the rings of sleeplessness shadowing her face.
"Adrian Andrews?"
The other woman regained her composure, narrowing her eyes to study Franziska.
"Yes?" She paused. Her tone was airy and noncommittal. "And you are?"
"Prosecutor Franziska von Karma."
Adrian's eyes widened. The hitch of her breath was audible. "Prosecutor…?"
"You know what a prosecutor is, surely."
"Oh--yes, of course. Naturally…" Adrian adjusted her glasses. "I just didn't stop to think…"
"I don't care."
Adrian fell quiet, stricken, and Franziska refused to wait for her to pull herself together again. She lifted her head, moving away from the door and towards the other woman who stood firm at first--but flinched back, at last, as she drew closer.
"I want to make it perfectly clear what it is we're both here for. Tomorrow, during Engarde's trial, you will be called to testify as the one who discovered the body. But before you so much as set foot in that courtroom, we will both be certain as to what it is you will say, how you will say it, and any details you will--forget to mention."
At this, the blonde woman began to say something, mild shock spreading across her features as she realized the implication of Franziska's words. Out of patience, Franziska spoke over her until she became silent and deferential once again.
Franziska felt something almost like disappointment, just for a moment, before brushing it aside.
"To begin with, I want you to give me a personal account of what you know and what you say, in full detail. Leave nothing out." She paused, and then, with steel in her voice: "Start talking."
Adrian stared.
"Now."
She made a noise much like a wounded animal.
"Y-yes." Her voice was hoarse. "I… all right."
She let her breath out, shakily, before beginning to speak in a hasty, breathless monotone. Her explanation matched the preliminary reports--how she had been involved with Juan Corrida, had stopped in to see him between her duties as his rival's manager, and discovered him dead in his room. After recovering from her shock, she had contacted the police, and after they had arrived, she had…
Franziska cut her off. "I don't need to hear about what happened after the police arrived. Is there anything else relevant to this case?"
Adrian's head snapped up, startled. Her hands clutched at opposing elbows, and she shivered though it was not cold. "No. No, that's all. I didn't… leave anything out."
"You're certain?" Franziska moved towards her. A twist of panic seemed to flit over the blonde woman's face, and Franziska's eyes narrowed. A poor liar after all.
"I…"
Adrian's back pressed against the glass of the window. She bit her lip, card spinning wildly between her hands.
No. Not just a poor liar.
Franziska met her gaze, and watched the other woman fall apart before her, looking away, twisting her hair between her fingers, glancing back through the window behind her as though imploring for it to offer viable escape.
"Adrian Andrews." She flinched at the sound of her name, brittle with cold anger. Good.
"The body," she burst out. "I stabbed the body!"
Silence.
A poor excuse for a human, weakly trying to save face.
"Is that a confession to the murder of Juan Corrida?"
"No!" Her eyes widened, horrified. "No, that's not it! I didn't kill him! Matt is the one. But, I just… I wanted to make sure. As soon as I saw what had happened, I knew right away… and that's why I did it. Because people… don't understand the person Matt really is. They wouldn't have suspected him, even if he had left traces. But I knew. That's why I had to make sure. For the truth. For her."
Franziska said nothing.
"I'm sorry."
"Spare me your apologies." Adrian flinched again, pressed on, insistent.
"I know it was wrong. That it was a crime. But it was for her," she repeated. "It was supposed to be for her sake. So until the trial is over, at least…"
Franziska felt her hand brush against the edge of the photo from two years ago and the mirror image of it, now, standing before her--no traces remaining of the woman who had stood coolly before the detectives when she had first entered. She had been so easily broken. Like china. Like, she could not help but think, briefly--like the veneer of perfection and those who dedicated themselves to maintaining it.
"Celeste Inpax," Franziska said, indulging her. The other woman nodded, the sound of her breathing uneven and filled with emotion.
"It's not fair," Adrian said, her hands twisting against each other in misery. "I… loved her so much. She was the only person I had. She was my world. And she left. She was taken from me--by them. They're the reason. It's because of them that she died. It's only right that they finally get what was coming to them--isn't it? The world should know what kind of men they really are." She shivered, eyes and voice filled with pleading that made Franziska's stomach twist in disgust. "Tell me I'm not wrong."
Her left hand rose to her face, obscuring her eyes filling with tears beneath her glasses.
"It hurts."
What do you expect me to do about it? She barely kept it restrained against her tongue--the woman was already at her shattering point; any fool with a pair of functional eyes could see that. She moved to turn away, to turn her attention onto more important matters now that her case had this unexpected complication to consider--and felt Adrian Andrews's hand gripped the crook of her arm, keeping her in place.
"Help me," she said, barely a whisper. Her head was lowered. "I don't know what to do."
She said it.
Franziska felt her lip curl, her thumb relaxing at the base of her whip, a loathing filling her senses towards this woman somehow different from any other she had felt before. It seethed uncomfortably beneath her skin, festering, telling her in no uncertain terms to leave his woman and everything she represented behind.
"All you need to do is as I say," she said, "and Matt Engarde will receive his sentence. That's the only thing you need think about until this trial is over."
She pulled away. Adrian Andrews wept on.
Pathetic.
---
She had discarded the old photograph on her way back to the police station. It was on impulse, while reviewing the case file once again in the car and Adrian Andrews's psychological history alongside it. She had lifted it, looked at the visage of the woman contained within, the gloss of reflection around the edges, and suddenly found herself tearing it into two with one decisive motion.
Franziska could not explain it and did not care to try, but the gesture made her feel almost at ease, just for a moment.
---
But she had left behind something broken, only to find she couldn't bear to face something whole, either.
Her hand had been halfway to her whip, her left foot braced forward, Phoenix Wright's eyes locked on hers, lips drawn into a thin, disapproving line that spoke to her in terms of little girl, angry girl, meaningless girl throwing a girl's tantrum--how dare he, how dare he--but when they turned simultaneously to face the sound of his voice, Franziska thought for a crazed moment that she could hear both of their breaths hitch; both of their hearts skip a beat.
The world had not collapsed beneath her with her failure, and it did not fall back into place when Miles strode back into her life at the police station as though it were nothing, head held high with an air of confidence and pride he should never have been allowed. There was ringing certainty in every word he spoke, as though he had only truly connected with the absolution of von Karma after abdicating his right to it.
"You haven't changed."
She had been waiting for him; to see this moment had been her entire purpose from the beginning--but she had not been expecting this. Her mouth fell open--foolishly--she heard herself splutter, hand half-raised to seize his arm. His eyes met hers, briefly, before turning away to face Phoenix Wright, and Franziska was left staring at the broad expanse of his back with her fingers closing around emptiness.
"It's been a long time, Wright," he said. Phoenix Wright stared, his hands curling into fists at his sides, his expression a complex tangle of a dozen emotions at once. Miles matched his gaze, coolly--and that sudden feeling of being outside; of being a spectator to something beyond her scope was like ice being plunged into her stomach.
"Edgeworth," Phoenix Wright said, at last.
Miles pulled his gaze from Phoenix Wright, and onto her--a casual flick of the eyes, sideways. The informality of it sent her reeling; retreating just enough to know he had noticed.
"What am I going to do with you? Still blaming others when things go wrong?" It was accompanied by an easy smile, one that echoed that same accusation of little girl, ignorant girl that she had seen from Phoenix Wright moments before. It was one she could not recognize from her memories or could have imagined from her visions of this day.
It wasn't supposed to be like this. Not after all that she had been through.
"How dare you!?"
He'd left her with nothing. And she felt, finally, in a way that losing her record had failed to do, in a way that losing Papa had failed to do, something like reality begin to crack beneath her. It was too much and even as she stood and screamed and bleated empty words about victory and legacy and everything she had been trained to do, that they both had, and what else could she do now but repeat and repeat and repeat endlessly and hoped by some miracle they regained meaning--but felt them fall upon two sets of deaf ears.
It was too much. So she ran.
He didn't follow.
---
She dreamt that night that she had discovered a body.
She could not tell precisely who it was; its features seemed to change whenever she tried to get a closer look. But as soon as she took in the scene, she knew what she had to do, above all else: the suicide note, the suicide note; it had been taken, hidden somewhere in this room with Miles's words, Miles's handwriting, Miles finally telling her why--
She kicked aside the guitar case in her frenzy; the flower vase shattered into pieces against the floor. Her hands bled against its jagged edges as she slid her nails against the cracks in the floor, desperation driving her forward and on her knees, stripped of all pretense of dignity.
She searched everywhere, tore the room apart again and again. But it was gone. Her eyes roved around the scene once more, searching and digging for a place she could have missed or overlooked, turning furniture over, when her eyes fell once again upon the body and there was certainty, cold and hard and etched in vague horror. The one place she had yet to search.
"That's right," she said. "You hid it." Then there was only one thing left to do.
She gripped the handle of the dinner knife--had she been holding it the entire time?--braced her free hand against the armrest of the chair, and drew back her arm--
When she woke, bolting upright and drenched in sweat, hand pressed against her chest where the point of the knife had burst through--she found herself shivering. But it was not cold.
---
She had pushed it to the back of her mind. Miles was right. Nothing had changed. Least of all herself; least of all the resolve that accompanied her name and her blood.
This was what she told herself the following morning, manila folder clasped under her arm, ignoring the extra set of footsteps moving alongside hers--and ignoring the way she caught herself matching her own movement to his, just as they had when they were children.
His arrival had not changed what had to be done in the courthouse; their separation had not changed the way she could not stop herself from slowing down or speeding up to ensure they remained side-by-side. To let physical reality match internal pride and internal symbol. To be a von Karma was to be well versed in the power of both--and it was a comfort, in a way, to fall back on the rule and ritual that she had sworn by since the beginning of everything, when one simply had to memorize the rote and remember to never question.
"There was something I wanted to speak to you about last night, before you ran off," Miles said suddenly, glancing upwards. They slowed their pace by half a step.
Franziska did not answer. Her cell phone had remained untouched since she had first seen the identity of the persistent caller from the night before.
"About the case," he clarified.
"Of course," she answered, irritation biting into the words. He paused briefly again; she thought she might have seen a miniscule shake of the head before continuing to walk.
"It's the Andrews woman," Miles said. "I spoke to her briefly this morning, after looking extensively into her background. Franziska, I think…"
She began walking again, abruptly, not wishing to hear this; breaking a childhood's worth of habits to avoid doing so. She didn't know what he thought he was doing in the first place; suggesting that there was something to consider about her perfect case minutes before they were to enter the courtroom. Disgrace had made him sloppier than she could have conceived, and for once, if he would just follow her, follow her, she could show him where things stood between them as they were now.
"Franziska--"
"I don't care what you think, Miles Edgeworth."
He didn't call her on the obvious lie.
And then she inhaled, sharply, as his face blurred and fell out of focus, slid above her line of sight to be replaced by black pavement and the outline of her own gloved hands braced against it.
"Franziska!"
The world fell back into focus all at once at the crack of his voice--harsher and more piercing, somehow, than the crack of the gunshot that had preceded it. She saw him rush to her; felt his arms fly around her, pulling her behind him and pulling both of them against the cold brick of the courthouse for cover all at once.
She heard the wail of police sirens and saw men in police uniforms forming a semi-circle around them. Miles was speaking into a cellphone--his grip on her tightened when her knees began to give way from under her--no, not like this--and then he was dragging her, even with her heels digging against the pavement stubbornly, protesting even as she heard him say, in the interjections between her own shrill voice, "Hospital; you've been shot--absolutely out of the question--stop fighting me, Franziska!"
I can't.
"Let go!" she was screaming as she hadn't for at least five years now; pulling at him with her good arm, nails raking into his sleeve, sending lines of fabric trailing after his wrist like streamers. "Let go! Let go! Let go of me!"
He laid his hand over hers--it was warm--she held back a sob, as he glanced upwards and pulled her towards him, against the cover of his coat to shield against the incoming rain. This was wrong, this was not how it was meant to be, this was not why she had come here, not to keep leaning on him and clinging to his back and relying on him to stay standing, this was not acceptable, she could not--not with the sting of cold rain beating down on her shoulder and the strange mixture of red ribbon strands entangling against the mud at her feet if she could ever prove that she could not walk in his shadow it was now why couldn't he understand that, that this was what she needed, why couldn't he just--
"Let go!"
He shook his head.
Her shoulder was throbbing, in time to the rapid pounding of her heart, filling her with dizzy hysteria but draining her of the strength to fight for it. She gripped at him, hard enough to hurt, but it still did not deter him.
He was the one who was lost, after all. He was the one who needed her to guide him. He was her little brother. He was the one person she could help. He was the one thing she had left.
He was--
She heard the voice of Adrian Andrews, suddenly, with a clarity that left her staggering, her legs finally giving out from under her and darkness engulfing her vision.
--my world.
---
It was a cold rain outside. The rhythm of it beat against the windows, casting the walls of the hospital room into dull grey. She had been left alone and left behind, again.
And there it was--the same. He'd been lying to her all along. She had been lying to herself all along.
The emptiness that came with that understanding settled comfortably against her chest--where it had always belonged--as she reclined her head against her pillows. It had been naïve of her, sentimental of her, to think that something as vital as a difference in name could have been overlooked and forgiven.
She switched on the television, curious despite herself as to the proceedings of the trial that should have been hers. The courtroom looked to be in a frenzy, and--there. Miles Edgeworth, knuckles white as he braced them against the edge of his podium, and Phoenix Wright facing him, mouth set in a grim and determined line. Engarde's expression was neutral in the defendant's chair near his side, the back of his hand braced against the underside of his chin.
And then the sight of Adrian Andrews' tearstained face filled her vision.
Help me, she was mouthing. At no one in particular--but her gaze was focused at the camera, towards an audience, towards the silent room where she lay with a bullet lodged in her shoulder and the white gloss of the hospital surrounding her on all sides.
Franziska's fists clenched around the hospital gown, hating the helplessness it represented, hating the burning sensation building behind her eyes, hating the gnawing feeling that refused to leave her completely when she stared into the image of the other woman; hating the way it recalled to her the previous day when she had made a promise of victory to Adrian she had been unable to keep and hating most of all that she knew that she was now responsible for the sight of her weeping and pleading on the screen for the world to see.
It was absurd. Absurd. No, something far worse than absurd.
Pathetic.
She shut the television off.
---
She was dreaming again. When had she allowed herself to fall asleep, under the scent of tulips, grasping at them for their splash of color against the slate grey of the room? She remembered hazily that she had resolved herself to stay conscious, to carefully watch the live broadcast of the trial of State vs. Engarde, to ignore her own exhaustion and the painful throbbing of her right shoulder and the humiliating memory of the discarded bandages stained with her blood. Strange that she would have succumbed so easily, without so much as a struggle.
She opened her eyes against her dream.
A nurse was speaking--Franziska shook her head, trying to focus--telling her that she had received a call.
"Adrian Andrews?" she asked, groggily.
The nurse blinked. "No, ma'am." Franziska frowned, momentarily bewildered--the nurse went on to explain, nervous, black receiver held between both hands, that it was in fact from a man named Miles Edgeworth from the courthouse lobby. He had insisted that it was urgent and that he had to speak to her now as a matter of life and death--
Like nails against a chalkboard.
"I'm not accepting any calls," she said. "Tell him that."
"Franziska." His voice called out from the receiver. Faint, but audible. "I know you're there. Pick up."
The nurse looked at her, imploring. She hesitated. The weight of the receiver felt unnaturally heavy against her hands.
"Why are you contacting me now, Miles Edgeworth?" Her voice was steadier than she had been afraid of. "You've a trial to run. Surely even someone on the level of your incompetence hasn't managed to lose already." Fingers pressed lightly against the buttons of the television remote--meaningless commentary by brainless fools while court was in recess. A replay of Adrian Andrews pale and shaking against the witness stand.
"You know that isn't the case. I need your help."
There was a faint twist against her stomach. Now, of all times.
"I know you've been watching the trial." She opened her mouth to reply, angrily, but he cut her off, impatience biting into his voice. "We're losing ground. If things continue as they are, Engarde will be acquitted and Adrian Andrews accused in his place."
Her lip curled in derision; in something approaching self-loathing. Good.
"I don't--"
"Don't tell me you don't care." Sharply.
She didn't. He continued to speak, his voice terse, in low, forced control. She realized with a start that he was afraid.
"Listen carefully. Detective Gumshoe reported that he had acquired more evidence that could be of use in the trial, but the fool has managed to wreck his vehicle on the return journey." He exhaled, and as he spoke, she could picture him, index finger pressed against his temple, brow creased, mouth thinned to a line across his face. The same. It always was. "We have no other recourse to track his location other than you. The entire trial is depending on this. So I'm asking you, as a fellow prosecutor--please, lend us your assistance."
He paused, waiting for her answer.
She closed her eyes. The phone rattled against her ear with the trembling of her hands. She could see herself, back turned, leaving behind the ruins of the case against Engarde and with it her final revenge against the man she had called brother for so long; she could feel the wind against her back and the ground beneath her feet as she walked away, once and for all, never mind Phoenix Wright, never mind Miles Edgeworth, never mind Adrian Andrews.
It would be so easy. She had already decided, long ago.
"Franziska?"
Her eyelids rose, and she felt the cool fabric of the hospital bed sheets against her skin, the bandages tight around her shoulder, and heard the promise hanging between his voice and her own. And hers.
It wasn't too late. She was needed.
She answered: "Yes."
---
A happy ending.
It wasn't right, it didn't fit--for von Karmas, there were no happy endings. Miles Edgeworth knew this as well as she did. But he was smiling. They all were.
It's over.
She had not been sure what she expected to feel after the guilty verdict had been passed. Relief, maybe. Accomplishment. A shadow of everything she had lost in her struggles against Phoenix Wright over the past year. But when she had seen them laughing and embracing in the lobby--treating defeat as though it had been victory--every sense of what she understood about what was and should be fell to pieces around her once again.
To bring the evidence to the courtroom--to convict Matt Engarde and save Adrian's life--meant to defeat Phoenix Wright, finally, and to show Miles Edgeworth he needed her guidance after all.
"The truth," Miles had said. Phoenix Wright had nodded. She was the only one there, it seemed, who could not follow; who had not unlocked the secret.
So she had fled, away from them and away from everything once and for all, the way she should have done from the beginning. Nothing mattered anymore. She had left her whip behind, pushing past the others crowding in the lobby to reach the doors showing the way to her escape.
"Franziska!"
She stopped, as though a noose had closed around her neck.
"Franziska…"
She recognized the quaver in the voice, and wondered if it was worth the effort to turn around. Ignored the uncomfortable tightness in her chest, the strange way her eyes flitted downwards, the vague burning sensation in the back of her throat. There was a word for this, she knew, but she couldn't recall it to mind, and if it was this terrible just hearing then to turn around and look was nigh unthinkable.
"…Miss von Karma?" More hesitantly. A shift in word choice; more formal, more acceptable. She could hear the wordless precursor behind it: Was that wrong? Are you angry? Show me how to do it right. Show me how to speak. Show me how to breathe. She felt a twist of something like nausea; held back the taste of bile gathering in her throat. Her face contorted with it, out of the other's sight.
Papa, are you angry?
She used it to lace her words with venom. "What do you want?"
But somehow it failed to drive her away. And now two footsteps, soft and faltering. She tensed with the need to compensate for the lost distance between them. Harshness had not deterred her--why did they have to be so persistent about clinging?
(she tightened her grip on miles's hand)
She was in no mood or condition to deal with this. Her shoulders were still trembling from the force with which she had discarded her whip. Not now. She couldn't support the weight of her own name and the expectations that came with it, let alone carry someone else's--not standing like this on the precipice of her own failure. The thing to do was tell her so, in no uncertain terms.
But Miles never had.
She listened to the intake of breath, so close too close behind her back. I am not your pillar.
She waited for the pleading.
"Are you all right?"
Franziska looked back.
Her hand was half-outstretched towards her, tentative, concerned. Too close.
"I heard," she said. "About what happened to you outside the courthouse. I was--worried."
"I'll survive," she answered.
"I'm glad," Adrian said. "I'm so glad."
They fell silent.
"I also wanted to thank you."
Franziska raised her eyes to meet hers, brow furrowed, not understanding.
"For everything," Adrian clarified. She managed a weak, watery smile. "If you hadn't been there, I don't know what I would have done. I was so afraid of everything--myself, even. What I had been, what I was turning into. But… because you were there, I was able to keep going. Because of Mr. Edgeworth, and Mr. Wright, and you, I feel like I can finally start over." An awkward, self-conscious laugh, filtered with the fear of rejection--but struggling for the strength to keep it at bay.
Franziska stared. Adrian stepped towards her.
"Stop," she said; but it came out voiceless, past Adrian's ability to hear. But the other woman hesitated, retracted--as though she had understood even without the benefit of sound.
"Thank you," she said again, and her smile broadened, too subtly for a frail wisp of a woman, too kindly for anyone who had broken down and confessed that she could never carry on with her own strength alone. Franziska knew this more than anyone else. But somehow, she still dared.
It was not a perfect smile.
It was nervous, one awkward from lack of use. The corners of her mouth jerked and shifted; her eyes darted nervously from her face and to the ground and back up again, unable to maintain consistent eye contact. Her nails dug tense marks into the skin of her hands, braced awkwardly against her chest. It was far from perfect.
But Franziska could not help but think it was a good one all the same.