Disclaimer: I do not own Phoenix Wright or any of it's characters, otherwise this wouldn't be a fanfiction, would it? And also a big thank you to my beta-reader, Garnet17th, without her this fanfic would definitly be sub-par to the product you are currently reading.
Mia was so antsy she was having a hard time staying seated on her desk chair as she re-read her checklist for the hundredth time, the young woman having scribbled it down furiously one week ago after Maya announced that she was able to visit her over the weekend. It had been so long since Mia had seen her thirteen year old sister (counting up the years that had gone by since she went to law school almost made her cry. How long has it been? Six, seven years?), and she was going to make up for it by organizing the best weekend ever for the apprentice medium.
Hamburgers were definitely a must, what with Maya being a total fanatic of the all-American beef and patties that failed to be available anywhere in Kurain. But it wouldn't be just one night of hamburger feasting, far from it! Tonight they'd eat at Burger King because of the quick service without skimping on the taste that would definitely be required after Maya's long tip, but on Saturday and Sunday they'd go to fancier gourmet restaurants where the burgers were overpriced but well worth it taste bud wise. Other than that, Mia had spent her free time scouring all the possible interesting events going on for brochures and pamphlets, originally planning to pick out a few herself but deciding it would be better (if not more chaotic) that Maya be the one who picked where they will go herself, seeing as this the next couple of days were going to be all about her.
"Looks like you finally got the skip in your step back, Kitten." Diego, who had walked up to her desk with a few files without her noticing, said with a smile. "Glad you finally caved in and started drinking gourmet coffee grinds instead of your tasteless instant brand!" he commented cheekily, raising the coffee cup in his other hand as if proposing a toast. Of course it was there. Diego Armando always had that stupid cup holding that stupid beverage in that stupid hand of his. Mia was beginning to suspect that the darned thing was glued into his hand, loyally following it's master wherever he went. From the morning shower to the long commune to work and all the way to the daily trip at the gym for a caffeine powered work-out (say what you want, but a six-pack and shoulders like that don't grow on trees, Mr. Vacation Photos in Cancun), imaginarily giggling at Diego's stupid coffee puns, cheering him on in his tirades about society slowly killing his precious drink of choice with all the extra caramel and chocolate shavings.
Mia then started to contemplate the fact that he would probably even slept with with his dear mug, nuzzling against it in his sleep as his subconscious bombarded him with visions of coffee filled oceans. No, a coffee cup would be too hard and breakable to sleep with. Even Diego couldn't be THAT weird. It was a coffee cup teddy bear he owned. Yes, that was it: An over-sized, squishy, cotton filled cup made out of soft fabric with a big red smiling face stitched onto it's surface, the Hispanic attorney in question secretly snuggling up against it before going to bed with matching pajamas covered in equally happy coffee cups– or boxers, Mia was not one to be picky in her mental images - lovingly stroking it's sides while whispering words of eternal friendship into the ear it didn't have, softly repeating whatever name he had given it: most probably Muggy. "Muggy...Muggy..."
"Um… Kitten?" Diego asked hesitantly as his subordinate of sorts drifted further and further into her own bubble. "Mi-ia…. Earth to Mia…" he tried again, leaning ever so slightly over her desk and moving his cup of pure black coffee under her nose, the bitter smell of it knocking her out of her fantasies with a start.
"Huh?! Wha-what is it?!" the brunette rambled as she rolled herself and her chair away from Diego's coffee, her nostrils practically burning after a single whiff. "Don't you put cream or sugar in your coffee?!"
"Doing that ruins the taste." Diego replied with a bit of a pout as if Mia had asked him a stupid question. "Any more obvious questions, Kitten? What were you thinking about just there? It's hard having a conversation with a brick wall."
"Oh, nothing!" Mia answered nervously, the fact of mentally picturing her coworker showering or in themed boxers suddenly seeming so very, very wrong. "You were you saying?"
"I was saying how happy you seemed today, Kitten."
"I'm just so happy it's the weeken-" Mia attempted to divulge her plans of spoiling her little sister over the next two days but was interrupted by the telephone's intercom system. "Ms. Fey, there's a call for you on line 2."
"Oh, thank you Penny." Mia replied after she had pressed the button, releasing it to pick up her desk phone's receiver and pressing the button for the corresponding line. "Mia Fey speaking."
"HI MIA!" Maya's distinct voice could be heard over the slightly annoying sound of phone line static.
"Maya, why aren't you on the bus? Are you alright?!" Mia demanded, already imagining her little sister starving on the side of the road with a broken leg. And a coffee cup somewhere in the background. Ugh, why was she still thinking of Muggy in a time like this?!
"Sis, relax! I'm on the bus and everything, I just borrowed someone's cellphone to call you!"
Mia paused at that. "Maya…. did you ask before 'borrowing' the cellphone?"
"Of course I did! What kind of person do you think I am?!" Maya almost screamed into her end of the line, outraged. "I learned my lesson last time!"
"There's a last time?! Maya, what happened?!" Mia asked, already feeling the color drain from her face. Was that supposed to make her feel better?
"I shouldn't talk about it, lest it taint my public image." The thirteen year-old replied with her best adult-sounding voice, her usual tactic along with the use of big words ('lest' apparently counting as a big word in this case) for evading a topic, to which Mia just sighed while looking above her just in time to see Diego was back and silently mouthing her to look over the file he was handing to her. "So how was Kurain's awesomest lawyer's day?" Maya asked, still intent on driving the conversation away from her past of implied cellphone theft.
Mia decided to follow her example. "Oh, pretty standard lawyer stuff… double-checking some files." The woman said as she opened the document Diego wanted her to look at so badly, which was odd considering he must have filled a thousand of these before in his career.
"You forgot the 'awesomest' part!" Maya insisted, causing her older sister to smile brightly.
"Now you're exaggerating." She spoke into the phone while closing the document and handing it to Diego with a nod, to which he silently mouthed to her if she was sure, to which she rolled her eyes and mouthed that she was, to which he shot her that happy grin that always managed to make her knees feel like Jell-O and be off on his merry way. Any happier he would have jumped in the air to click his heels together.
"Strange…" Mia mumbled aloud without even realizing.
"What's strange? You not being awesomest material until you buy me hamburgers?" Maya sounded just as confused as her sister was.
"Oh, did I say that aloud?!"
"Ch-ya! Kinda did!"
"Sorry about that, my supervisor was acting weird."
"This the one that smells like coffee? I'd HATE having to work for someone that smelt like anything other than hamburgers! How do you do it?"
"Patience. And self-control. Lots. Of. Self. Control." The eldest Fey sister responded as she did her best to look at anything other than her co-worker lazily stretching his arms and abruptly sneezing, which Mia didn't associate for one second with the Japanese superstition of sneeze inducing gossiping. See what she did there?
"Uh-oh, who did that macho sneeze in the background just now?!" Maya asked frantically. "Was it Coffee Man?! He's on to us!"
"Maya, calm down, how is he supposed to know that-"
"Heh, what's the Japanese saying about people sneezing?" Diego dared to randomly yell in the direction of Grossberg's office, not realizing the horrible coincidence with Mia's phone conversation. "That people are talking about me or something?"
"I wonder what they say about hemorrhoids flaring up…" Was all the large head lawyer in the green business suit replied absently, sending Diego's face into a grimace of disgust as he spit his coffee back into his cup. "Wonderful… just…. wonderful…."
"Well whatever. It takes a lot of patience to be a awesomest lawyer, but it takes a lot of hamburgers to be awesomest sister!" Mia could hear her sister chiming on her seat in a bus somewhere between here and Kurain.
"Don't worry Maya, you'll get all the hamburgers you want just like I promised. Now tell the bus driver to go faster so I can spoil you already!'
"Will do!"
"How far are you from here, anyway?" Mia asked into her phone's receiver as she pulled out the map of the bus route she had printed off the internet. At first no response came, which the attorney took as a bad omen.
"I'm at the part of the trip where you can see trees out the bus window." Maya's reply finally came, most probably after the thirteen year old took the time to look out the window to double check.
"They have those everywhere!" Mia did a double-take at the sheer outrageous nature of her sister's reply. "That doesn't tell me anything!"
"What's important is that I'm on the right bus and I'll be there eventually!" Maya quickly interjected. "The man who's phone I borrowed is giving me looks, I think I need to give it back to him. Talk to you soon!" She hung up without even giving Mia the chance to reply.
But who cared?! She was going to see her little sister for a whole weekend! Time to get back at that list!
A/N: Thank you to all of those who took the time to review and suscribe to Turnabout Babysitting thus far, all your feedback and comments are very much appreciated and make me strive to perfect my writing style even more!