All of the Ace Attorney characters belong to Capcom, not me. I only own Rebecca and a few others
Chapter 13
A/N: Hi! This chapter will be in Phoenix's POV again because, well, Becs can hardly do anything at the moment. Just so you don't get confused. Right, let's get right back to da story!
I exited the hospital feeling a strong sense of relief. Becs was still alive, and furthermore, she'd regained consciousness whilst I was there. Although she was currently hospitalised, she was still here with me.
(At least I'm not totally alone in this, right? Despite the situation, I still need to try to look on the brighter side and remain positive about what's to come. Especially for Maya's sake. If Becs can do it and she's hospitalised, then surely I can.)
Feeling a sudden sense of strong determination, I nodded to myself, solidifying that thought in my head, and caught the first bus to the detention centre. I had to see her as soon as possible. After asking to see Maya and waiting for a few minutes, she finally appeared in the tiny confined room on the other side of the glass, lead by a prison guard and sat directly across from me on a small stool. She looked so dejected, poor girl, like all of the hope and life had been sucked right out of her. Upon seeing the identity of her visitor, she gasped in surprise, which admittedly shocked me a little too.
"Oh! It's you! The lawyer... G-Good morning."
"Good morning!" I exclaimed, tossing as much enthusiasm as I possibly could into my reply. I had to cheer her up somehow. However, it didn't seem to help; Maya's expression didn't change, not even slightly. I sighed.
(She looks so tired..)
"H-How's Becky?"
(Becky..? Oh, she must mean Becs. Despite her own situation, she's still thinking about Becs, huh...)
"She's doing fine, you don't need to worry. She's woken up now and seems to be in a stable condition. She'll be out of the hospital as soon as she can. Oh, and she also told me to say 'hi' from her." I informed her, smiling a little in a reassuring manner.
A tiny smile appeared on her face for a split second as she sighed in relief.
"Thank goodness...I'm glad..."
A blanket of silence covered the dull, cramped room as Maya's smile vanished as quickly as it had appeared and she slumped further on the stool. It didn't take her long to move onto a more pressing question, one that I had greatly anticipated.
"Um... Are you going to be my attorney?"
"Well, that's what I wanted to talk to you about..."
I silently thought over my options, quickly deciding on, what I assumed, was the best answer.
(I'd better give it to her straight...)
Focussing my attention back onto Maya, I coughed lightly when I realised that her tired gaze had shifted to her own lap. A little startled, her eyes darted back up to meet mine expectantly. Admittedly, this made me a tad nervous for her reaction to what I had to say. Nevertheless, I continued.
"It's up to you."
She seemed a bit taken aback at first, but eventually uttered out a reply.
"Up...to me?"
"Yes, I don't think this is something I should decide. After all, you're the one in trouble here." I explained, not wishing to put any more pressure on her than what she already had.
Maya was silent for a a few seconds. I'm not sure what she was doing but, whatever it was, I didn't interrupt her. She had turned her head away from me slightly, so I assumed she was thinking. After a short while, without looking back at me, she spoke again in the same soft, weak voice, devoid of all hope.
"They're not going to believe me...are they?"
She continued, raising her voice a little.
"Even you, when you found me in the office. You looked at me like I'd done it!"
Her words confused me. I thought back to when I'd walked into the office that night in an attempt to confirm or refute her statement.
(Did I look at her like that?)
I couldn't have done. She was sobbing by the body, there's no way she did it. But...the way that I looked at her at the time might have made her think-
"No, no! I never thought..." I spluttered in an attempt to explain that I never suspected her of the murder.
However, unexpectedly, Maya cut me off.
"I-It's okay. I understand."
Then, silence overtook again as Maya and I thought of what to say. To my surprise, Maya spoke before I could. She had a small smile on her face now though; she must have been starting to feel a little better.
"And...I've also heard about you."
"Heard..? Heard what about me?" I asked, taken aback and a little confused about her choice of conversational subject.
"I...was talking to my sister on the phone the other day...
She then went on to describe a conversation that she had with Mia the night after my first trial. I was surprised to learn that she had praised my efforts and seemed to see a lot of potential in me. I'll admit, it was pretty heartwarming and relieving that my boss had thought that I did a good job. It made me feel pretty proud of myself.
That was...until the second half of the phone call came around.
Maya then explained that the Chief had said that I needed a little more time and experience before I could be trusted to defend her little sister. She even said that I'd probably get a guilty verdict. It wasn't that she didn't have a point, I'd only had one official trial after all, but that didn't stop her words from stealing away what little confidence I currently had left. I was fully aware that this situation was entirely in my hands; Mia was gone, Maya was in detention and poor Becs was hospitalised and in no state to defend. I knew that I was the only one in any state to get us all out of this. However, I was far from confident in myself. I mean, the Chief had said it herself, I needed more experience to be able to take on a trial like this.
If I had Becs by my side, I wouldn't be feeling like this. After all, she has two years of experience and cases under her belt. Me though? A single trial. That's it. I hadn't even investigated properly yet. I knew that I couldn't voice any of this to Maya, the last thing she needed at this point was more reasons to worry. And talking about this conversation she had with her sister had seemed to perk her up a little. She was grinning as she finished off her story.
"That's what she said!"
I was silent. I couldn't show her any signs of what I was thinking, I couldn't let her worry. As subtly as I could, I attempted to hide my feelings from the girl sat across from me. Unfortunately, my efforts were in vain as she seemed to catch on pretty quickly.
"I-I'm sorry! I didn't mean to trouble you..."
"No, it's okay. It's true, I guess." I admitted, rubbing the back of my neck nervously, in an attempt to rub off my worries as meaningless and petty, for both Maya and myself. However, instead, my frustration with my own inexperience only grew. "But...at the same time, I can't just sit and watch! When I think of the person who did this to Mia..."
I trailed off, realising that what I was saying probably wasn't making Maya feel any better. She had gone silent again and was staring down at her lap, apparently trying to hide the fact that she was dangerously close to crying. Glancing back up at me, her eyes were sparkling with tears.
"I know..."
Deciding that this topic had gotten too depressing, I quickly shifted the conversation on to something different.
"There's something I've been wanting to ask you..."
Maya seemed equally eager to move on, as she wiped the tears away with the sleeve of her purple jacket (if I could call it that) with surprising speed, took a deep breath and met my eyes once more.
"Yes?"
"What's with that outfit?" I inquired, gesturing to her unique clothes. Upon following my gaze and realising what I meant, she looked back up at me with a small grin on her face.
"Oh, this? This is what all acolytes wear. It's my uniform, you could say." She replied, as if she had just given a totally ordinary answer to my question.
"A-Acolytes? Like people in religious training? What is it you do?" I couldn't help but be taken aback a little. Never would I have thought that she would come out with a response like that and, being quite honest, my curiosity was urging me to find out more.
"Oh! It's nothing strange, really! I'm a spirit medium. ...In training."
"A s-spirit medium?!" I exclaimed, unable to hide my surprise.
(I'm pretty sure that qualifies as strange.)
"So you're an acolyte. A, er, medium-in-training." I continued, still engulfed with shock.
"That's right. The Fey family, especially the women, have always been very sensitive to the spirit world." Maya smiled at me reassuringly, seemingly eager to tell me about her unique abilities. As she spoke though, something stuck out to me in what she said and I felt compelled to ask about it.
"Wait a second, you said the 'Fey Family'? So, Mia was into this stuff too?" I inquired, edging my seat a little closer to the glass pane separating us.
"Of course! She left the mountain to 'follow her career', she said. Her powers were first class too!" Maya grinned.
(I...I had no idea.)
"Hmm..."
(A spirit medium, huh? But...wouldn't that mean that-)
"Wait...!" I exclaimed, an idea suddenly entering my head.
"What?" Maya asked, eyes wide in shock from my sudden outburst.
"So, you're a real, honest-to-goodness spirit medium? With E.S.P and all that?" I asked. I had to know if this would work.
"Yes...in training."
"Well, can't you contact Mia's spirit, then? We can just ask her who killed her!" I deduced, a welcome feeling of relief spreading across my chest. I grinned with pride and triumph. Finally, I had some kind of solution to this. Maybe I wouldn't have to stand in court on my own after all!
Maya's face, however, brought me back to reality.
Unlike me, she wasn't suddenly overjoyed and hopeful that the plan that I had just formulated would be the solution to her predicament. Instead, her already faint smile vanished even further and she hung her head once again. The look on her face caused my own grin to fade a little as I tried to figure out what could be wrong. Confused, I waited for her to explain.
"I-I'm sorry... I'm still in training. I couldn't do something on that level..."
Of course.
(Hmm...I thought that would be too easy.)
Sighing and figuring that the current topic had become worn, I decided to move on to another matter, information about last night. This was something that I was seriously lacking at the moment and would certainly require if I was to free Maya.
"Could you tell me about the day of the murder?"
"Yes!" Maya exclaimed with a surprising amount of enthusiasm. It seemed that she was willing to cooperate with me and tell me what she knows, despite the fact that it would probably hurt her to do so. I must admit, I was impressed with how strong she was being; it was truly admirable. "Let's see...that morning, I got a call from my sister. She wanted me to hold onto a piece of evidence for an upcoming trial." She began.
"Evidence?"
"Yes. That clock shaped like 'The Thinker'."
(The one Larry made...) Again? What could have possibly happened now to make that statue...clock...thing involved in another case?
"How could that have been evidence in a case?"
"Um, right, she said something about that..."
There was a short pause as I waited for Maya to recall what Mia had told her. Within seconds, she had an answer for me.
"I remember! Do you want to hear it in her own voice?"
"H-Her own voice?!" I spluttered, completely clueless as to how Mia could speak to us from beyond the grave. Well, besides through channeling...
"Yes. I'm pretty sure our conversation is on my cell phone."
"You recorded it!" I exclaimed, thankful that I now had some kind of evidence and hopefully some foundations for Maya's defence.
"Yeah! I forgot how to delete those things." She said with a small giggle of embarrassment.
"So, you say you have a conversation with your sister on your cell phone? Let's hear it!"
"Right!" Maya reached into a pocket in her outfit and drew out her empty hand a second later, shock written all over her face as she realised her phone wasn't there. She felt the pocket on the opposite side frantically before sighing in defeat, seeming to remember what happened to it. "Oh! I just remembered: that detective took my cell phone. Sorry."
"Oh right." I tried not to sound too disappointed.
(Of course...)
"Next time I see Detective Gumshoe, I'll ask him for it." I offered.
"I'll write you a note so you don't forget, okay?"
"Sure, thanks." I smiled as she wrote out a quick message on a scrap of paper and passed it through the gap beneath the pane of glass separating us.
Silence took over again as I folded the note and slipped it into my suit pocket.
"Um...!" Maya suddenly uttered, eyes widening and staring right at me as if she had just remembered something pressing that she had to tell me.
"Huh? Something the matter?"
"Um...I was wondering, could I ask you a favour?"
I was silent, simply looking at her questioningly. When I realised she was waiting for a response, I gestured with my hands for her to continue.
"This is the address of a famous lawyer." she began as she slipped another piece of paper under the glass. I examined it quickly to see that it was, as she said, an address for a guy called Marvin Grossberg. I skimmed over the rest of the words, scribbled hurriedly in the Chief's familiar writing, as she continued. "My sister gave me this a long time ago. She said if I was ever in trouble, I should call him. And, well, I'm in trouble. Do you think you could go and ask him to represent me?"
(Hmm...)
She's already essentially explained why she won't accept me as her lawyer, because of inexperience. And...I completely understand that. It hurts a little to think about but I can understand why she thinks that way. It feels odd, being a lawyer myself, to go and ask someone else to represent Maya in her stead but I have to respect her decision. It would be immoral and just plain rude to refuse to take on her request.
"Sure, why not. I'll go ask."
"Thank you so much!" The relief was clear on her face. However, it quickly turned back into negativity as her head tilted back down to her lap. "I have no one else to turn to..."
Her reply took me a little by surprise. Surely she had other family aside from her sister..?
"Say, what about your parents?"
A long silence followed my question. Maya was unresponsive, her expression vaguely pained, however it was clear that she was trying her hardest to hide it from me. Slightly embarrassed, I realised I had struck a nerve and brought up a sensitive topic for her. Not wishing to hurt her or make her feel awkward, I quickly moved the conversation forward.
"I...I see. Don't worry, leave it to me."
"Thank you! The trial's tomorrow...at 10:00."
"W-What?! Tomorrow?!" I spluttered, taken completely by shock since I'd never expected the trial to be coming up this soon.
"Tomorrow." Maya said again, confirming what I had just heard her say and solidifying that fact in my head.
"What if this guy refuses?!" I asked, panic beginning to set in.
"They told me that if I don't find one, the state will pick an attorney to defend me." Maya told me, clearly attempting to calm me down a bit. And, I must admit, it did work a little. When I asked my next question, my tone was noticeably softer.
"When will that happen?"
"They're giving me until 4:00 this afternoon."
Immediately, I looked down at my watch and gasped. Time was running out; it was only a matter of hours before the detention centre was closed off to visitors.
(And visiting hours are almost up...I'd better hurry!)
"Right, I'll be back!" I proclaimed with determination as a rose from my seat, smiled widely at Maya one last time (with her giving a smaller one in return) and exited the room.
Taking a deep breath, I shifted my focus to my next destination, trying as hard as I could to push all the worry and doubt out of my mind.
(Ok, next stop, the office! Hang in there Maya, I won't be long.)
A/N: Yes, that's right. I have returned to the world of writing once again! I'm SO sorry for being away for so long but I'm going to try as hard as I can to carry on writing and start updating regularly again. Anyway, hope you enjoyed this chapter and expect more in the future!
Gaby :)