Last week was quite tumultuous for me, so I had a hard time finishing this chapter up, but here it is! I hope to have another chapter posted later this week, but I'm not so sure if that's going to happen. Anyway, hope you like it!
Chapter 22 – Turnabout Missing
Background: Another week's gone by since Phoenix told Edgeworth about the threatening note he got.
"This was a horrible idea, Athena! We just wasted two hours of our lives sitting in this white box!"
"Hush up, Simon! You sound awful!"
"I don't sound that bad!" Replied the samurai prosecutor, his voice raspy.
"Do you hear yourself?! Even you know how horrible your voice sounds! You're straining your voice! Keep this up, and you won't be able to talk at all!"
Before he could respond, the door opened. "Alright. Here's the meds you need to take. Read the instructions I typed for them. A nurse should be in with discharge papers soon. Bye." With that, the doctor left the room, leaving the papers with Simon.
He shuffled through them. "This is ridiculous! Why do I need to take so many medications?!"
"To get better, duh!" Although, Athena had to admit: for someone with laryngitis, this was a lot of medications to get. There were at least five listed.
They heard a knock on the door. "Come in!" Athena called out, ready to leave.
"Ahem. Hello there. My name is Dr. St-" Looking up from the chart, she gasped. "Oh! You're not…" Her eyes widened as she gulped. "P-prosecutor Blackquill." Her eyes went to Athena. "Athena. How nice to see you, I mean, it's not nice that you're here...um. Sorry, I got the wrong room."
Simon just glared at her, while Athena waved her hand. "Don't worry about it!" Gee. She's pretty scared of Simon.
"Um…what brings you here today, if you don't mind my asking?"
Athena pointed to Simon. "Someone's got a case of laryngitis."
Serena's eyebrows went up. "Laryngitis?" No wonder he hasn't said anything yet, although that glare of his pretty much speaks for itself.
The defense attorney nodded. "I had to drag him in here; otherwise, he'd never come in."
"I see. So has everything been taken care of?"
"Yeah. He got a whole list of medications from the doctor." She seems a little worried.
Serena frowned. "A whole…list?" Seeing Athena nod, she asked, "May I see them?" She took the papers and read through them, shaking her head. "This is ridiculous! You don't need to take this many medications!"
"He doesn't?"
"I don't?"
Whoa. His voice doesn't sound good at all! "No, of course not. This is crazy!" She read the name at the bottom of the papers and looked up. "If you'll give me a minute, I'll be right back."
True to her word, in one minute, she came back in, another chart in hand. "Let's see here…You don't smoke, no known allergies…" She glanced up at him. "You have a cold?"
"Yeah, he does."
"Hm…" Putting down the chart, she pulled the stethoscope from around her neck. "If you don't mind, can I listen to your lungs?"
He just grunted. "You can, Serena," Athena reassured.
Rubbing her hand over the chest piece, she spoke to him. "I'll need you to lift up your shirt."
"Allow me!" Athena volunteered herself and lifted the shirt to expose his back.
"Thanks." She positioned the stethoscope. "I just need you to take three or four deep breaths for me."
He complied with her. "Good." She stepped away. "Your lungs sound fine, so there can't be any kind of infection there." She thought for a moment. "The doctor who saw you performed a laryngoscopy, right?" Neither one spoke. He just continued to glare at her while Athena looked at her, clueless. "You know? We use a mirror to see your vocal chords?"
"…No."
"He…didn't?" Serena sighed. "Then it looks like I'll need to do one myself."
"Will it hurt?" Athena asked worriedly. It sounded painful.
The doctor smiled. "No. It'll be fine, but I'll have to spray some numbing medication to do the procedure." She looked warily at Simon. "You…wouldn't mind, would you?"
Before he could say anything, Athena spoke up. "I'm sure he wouldn't mind at all!" She then smiled just a little too sweetly at Simon. "Right Simon?"
If he was going to refuse to cooperate before, that wasn't the case anymore. He nodded his head rather quickly. If I don't listen to her, well, I don't even want to imagine what she'll do to me then.
"Excellent! It should only take about ten minutes max. Let me just get the things from the cabinet."
Athena watched her gather everything. "Hey. Is…everything okay?"
"Hm?" Serena turned around to face Athena. "Yes, why?"
"Oh…no reason." Except that from your voice, I can sense many emotions. Worry, sadness, fear. But most of all, anger.
The doctor placed everything on a rolling table and went to grab a pair of gloves when loud music began to play.
Athena frowned. Ugh! This music is awful! She looked over at Simon, who was fuming.
"What is this bloody nonsense?!" He said hoarsely.
They both watched Serena as she shut her eyes and groaned. "It's three o'clock, isn't it?" She answered her own question by glancing at the clock.
"What's the significance of three o'clock?" Athena wondered aloud.
"At every hour, for about twenty minutes, music plays all throughout the ER," Serena explained.
"You're the director here, aren't you? Do something about it!"
She crossed her arms. "Yeah, you'd think as director, I'd have a say in this, but I don't."
Athena didn't see how that made sense. "Why not?"
"Because I'm not 'director' anymore. I'm 'co-director.'"
"Who's the other person then?"
The door opened. "Se-re-na! We need to have our director's meeting soon!"
"Yes, Dr. Emilio. I haven't forgotten, but I'm with a patient right now, so if you wouldn't mind…"
"Sure. Sorry!" He shut the door.
"He's the other director?!" Athena exclaimed.
"He's the dotard who looked after me today," Simon grumbled.
"And the guy who told us that you were seeing Mr. Wright! He didn't even recognize us when he came in!"
"Yeah, he is. This whole playing-music-in-the-ER was his idea, and the board was okay with it."
"Are you okay with it?" Given your tone of voice, I highly doubt it.
"Let's put it this way. We had a vote for this matter. There was only one person who voted against it."
"Wild guess here: was it you?" She nodded. "Oh."
"Yeah, but moving on from that, let's get this examination done."
While they were doing it, Athena was thinking. "Hey! That reminded me of something! I heard that you went out on a date with Dr. Emilio! Is that true?!"
Serena was busy examining Simon's throat, but that didn't stop her from responding. "I'd…rather not talk about that, actually. And for the record, it was not a date, despite what anyone might tell you. It was…simply a friendly outing."
"Okay." Denial.
Once finished, the doctor spoke to Simon. "You do have laryngitis, but that was easy to tell just from listening to your voice. However, your infection is viral, not bacterial. So these meds he prescribed aren't going to do any good whatsoever." She ripped them up. "I won't be prescribing you anything, unless of course you're having any pain."
He let out a dry cough. "I'm not."
"Right. This is probably just due to your cold, in which case you just need to make sure you get rest. As for the laryngitis, you should get some lozenges and have those often. They'll help keep your throat from going dry. Also make sure to have lots of liquids, mainly water, and avoid caffeine. Don't strain your voice too much with whispering or yelling. And a humidifier can help you breathe in moist air."
"Why did Dr. Emilio prescribe all those meds to him then?"
"I have no idea. However, I apologize that it took…" She checked the clock. "Three hours for you to get seen for something that could've easily been taken care of in 45 minutes at the most. Had I known you were waiting this long, I would've come in here myself."
Simon was about to say something rude, but Athena cut him off. "No problem, Serena! Thank you so much!" She nudged Simon, who looked at her, brows furrowed. "Simon, do you have something to say to her?"
"Hmph."
"I…should get going now. If you don't get better in about a week, make sure to see your primary care physician, Dr…" She checked the chart. "Oh. In that case, make sure to come back here." She smiled at them. "Take care you two, and…I hope you feel better, Prosecutor Blackquill." With that, she rushed out of the room.
"Would it seriously kill you to say thanks, Simon?!"
He grabbed one of the discharge papers, pulled out a pen, and wrote something on it before handing it to Athena. She read over it.
"Really? And you choose now to stop talking?!" She rolled her eyes. "Come on. Let's get you home. You need to rest." She smiled mischievously. "But you know what this means? No yelling 'objection!' or 'silence!' at anyone until you're better!"
And here I thought I was the winner of the battle. She seems to best me when I least expect it!
"Gee. Now that I think about it, if you're this upset about losing your voice, I wonder how Apollo would feel if he were in this situation?!" She laughed.
He stared at her. I sincerely hope the fate that has fallen upon me now never, ever falls upon Justice-dono. Otherwise, Athena won't leave him to recover in peace.
"Still no leads on that note, Detective?" Edgeworth listened to Gumshoe over the phone.
"'Fraid not, sir, but we're trying our best!"
"Of course. Let me know if you do find out anything." He hung up the phone and sighed heavily. While there weren't too many cases at the Prosecutor's Office, Edgeworth had too much on his plate. There was the matter with the escaped murderer, the botched autopsy report, and most importantly, the note Phoenix had gotten.
Who could possibly be the one to have sent that note? There's hardly enough information to warrant a thorough investigation. We don't even have a list of suspects!
Edgeworth stood up and went to stand near the window of his office. He glared outside, deep in thought. If only something could happen…anything that might get us closer to finding out!
Athena had returned to the agency after dropping Simon at his apartment. She was surprised to see that the lights in the lobby were off. She saw a small sliver of light underneath the door to the room where everyone's desks were.
That's…odd. Where is everyone? She knew Phoenix and Iris had gone to Ivy University together, while Trucy and Apollo had also gone out, but they had went to the cemetery to visit Thalassa's grave.
Athena carefully knocked on the door before opening it. She entered to see Phoenix and Iris.
Wait. Why is Mr. Wright sitting at Apollo's desk?
Iris had looked up at Athena. "Oh Athena. Thank goodness."
She sounds relieved, and yet, she also sounds…disappointed. Very disappointed, in fact. Athena's eyes landed on Phoenix. Why does Mr. Wright looks so…so…upset?
Athena knew upset was an understatement. The defense attorney held his head in his hands. Athena found it discomforting.
"Boss! What's wrong?" Phoenix didn't say anything. "Boss. What's wrong?" She asked more forcefully. He sat there in the same position for a moment before raising his head up. Even though there wasn't much light in the room, Athena could tell his eyes were red. But what was more noticeable was that he looked paralyzed. Paralyzed in fear. "Mr. Wright! What happened?!"
Iris spoke up, her voice shaky. "It's…T-Trucy and Apollo."
"What about them?" Please…don't say it. Anything but that…
Iris looked into Athena's eyes, fear evident in them. "They've gone missing."
Agh! I just want to write the chapter where everything's revealed, but I can't! I'm trying to speed things up a bit with writing the story though. Please feel free to leave a review and/or private message me. Thanks!