Notes – Done for pw_contest, under the prompt "Nobody". Set after the third game. Also, assumes that not all the prisoners are executed, because I'm a sap like that.
When Lana Skye went to prison she didn't expect many visitors.
What she had done was shameful, she justified it to herself that she did it all to protect her sister, but as a prosecutor and as a human being she shouldn't have crossed that line. Because of that she didn't want to face any company there was to offer. She was here to atone for her sins, not to gather sympathy.
Ema came to visit her regardless up until that last day.
The younger Skye sat fidgeting on the other side of the glass, wondering how she could break the news to Lana. But Lana already knew all about what she was going to say.
Her sister had been accepted into an academy in Europe. There had been no doubt in Lana's mind that it was going to happen one day, no one she'd come across had ever been as passionate about science as Ema was. If it was the last thing that girl did it would be becoming a forensic scientist. And Lana wanted that for her.
So she promised her it would be all right, that she should go, and the two shared their last goodbyes before Ema left the country. There were a few tears shed, but Lana tried her hardest to be cheerful about it. She knew how much her sister wanted to see her smile.
After Ema departed there was no one else. Quite rightly so, the people who had been associated with the incident – her old colleagues – wanted nothing to do with her now. And she didn't blame them at all for that. Trying to justify herself to them would have been too hard to manage.
Beyond that the only other people she knew were Phoenix and Edgeworth. The former of these she'd met only briefly because of the case - he had no real connection to her and no reason to visit. Besides that, she'd heard that lately he'd been making a good name for himself as a defence attorney, so he must have been busy all the time. As for Edgeworth, she was more familiar with him. But the thought of him spending time visiting anyone in prison was almost laughable. He was brash and unsociable, not unlike Lana herself, so he really wouldn't even consider it. Not that she'd want him to; any conversation between them now would be awkward.
She did have one friend though.
Or had, rather.
Mia Fey… the two of them had been very close in their college years. She spent too many hours wondering what Mia would have made of her actions. If Mia would have rejected her forever for destroying the truth like that or if she would understand that Lana had done it all to protect her sister. Mia had a younger sister too, after all. Would she have done the same in that situation?
Trying to consider the answer to that question and the potential reactions of her beloved friend stung so much. It was possibly for the best that she would never find out the truth of it for herself.
Though the reason for that was because Mia was no longer living…
She wished that one part could have been different.
As the years past by she told herself that she didn't need company. The occasional letter from Ema or the brief mention of Phoenix's latest court case in the newspaper was all she wanted to know.
She was not lonely.
Every day went the same, with the routine of a prisoner who didn't have anything else to occupy themselves with beyond what the wardens provided them with.
But she was not lonely.
The scenery was always the same, too. There was no outside; it sort of stopped existing after a while. Just the grey walls and solemn men in guard uniforms.
She was definitely not lonely though.
The company the prison provided consisted mostly of people who deserved to be there. There was that nice Acro guy in the wheelchair, but beyond him the place was filled with bitter crooks. She pitied Phoenix should they ever get out.
There was no way at all, however, that she was lonely.
But once more, as she sat at a table in one of the rooms, looking over one of the few remaining photos of Mia and herself from college, a cup slid along, stopping right in front of her as if it had been expertly timed to do so. Inside the cup was a warm coffee with a fresh aroma.
Looking up and across the table, she saw at the other end a man was seated. She hadn't seen him here before. His white hair was striking in contrast to his toned skin and young face, his eyes hidden by some sort of visor.
He smiled warmly over, but even in that smile she could read something that she'd wanted to hear for longer than she'd realised:
'I'm lonely too.'