Stalemate

by The Slytherin Songbird

The outcome of the Terry Fawles case traumatized two young lawyers, both on opposing sides. In the prosecutor's lobby hours after the verdict has been announced, young Miles Edgeworth agonizes over his role in the court, wondering if he'd truly done the right thing after all. Perhaps a confrontation from none other than Mia Fey is enough to make up his mind. One-shot.

That was it; it was over.

Court had officially adjourned as of about thirty minutes ago, but twenty-year-old Miles Edgeworth was finding it extraordinarily difficult to muster up the courage to so much as stand from the suede sofa in the prosecutor's lobby, let alone actually walk out of the courthouse. His legs felt heavy and leaden, his chest tight and achy with the weight of the day's events pressing down upon his shoulders; his thoughts were spinning and whirling about so quickly in his brain that it was nearly enough to make him queasy. A steady, hard pulse jumped in his throat, just beneath the folds and wrinkles of his silken cravat. Surely he was too young to feel this old.

The young man stared unblinkingly at his hands where they rested, fingers interlaced, between his knees, elbows propped against his thighs; his eyes narrowed with an air of intensity, as though he were making it his very life's purpose to memorize every detail before him and keep it with him forever. Edgeworth always had been rather adept in the art of making himself look particularly unapproachable, but with the added tension of what had transpired in the courtroom, he somehow managed to look doubly standoffish and chilly. All the better; given his current state of mind, he was hardly in any condition to talk to anyone about anything.

If he could only gather up the energy and the nerve, though, he almost was compelled to think that even idle conversation with anyone around him might come as a welcome distraction. Anything, he supposed, was better than thinking about what had happened earlier in court today. It was a wonder, given how badly he seemed to be reeling on the inside, how calm and collected he'd managed to keep himself until the end of the trial. He'd exhibited as much control as possible until the adjournment had been announced . . . and then he'd promptly hurried to the men's restroom and all but collapsed to his knees in the nearest stall just long enough to be violently sick. From that moment onward, he'd shakily made his way back to the prosecutor's lobby, still trembling as he'd sunken into the sofa nearest to the wall, and had made a valiant effort to collect himself.

Still, his mind refused to calm down. His thoughts kept returning unwillingly to Terry Fawles' final testimony, to the fateful seconds when he'd tipped the contents of the little bottle of poison down into his throat and effectively sealed his fate. Even now, when Edgeworth closed his eyes, all he could see was Mr. Fawles doubling over in horrible, wrenching coughs, blood trickling from the corners of his full, frowning mouth. He remembered the defendant's feeble last words – "Mr. Armando . . . thanks . . . for the coffee" – and how they left his lips half-garbled by the presence of blood in his mouth, and his stomach gave a sickening lurch in response to the memory.

Mr. Fawles was dead. They'd carried his lifeless form away from the courtroom during a brief recess, and Miles had looked on in horrified disbelief as, for the second time in his life, ambulances and medical personnel had surrounded the courthouse entrance, lights flashing atop their vehicles and sirens occasionally flaring to catch the attention of any bystanders who might be able to assist them. Their efforts to rescue the man had been in vain, and they'd all known it; they'd done what they could, but in the end, it was painfully obvious that the poison had been enough to kill Terry Fawles in moments.

And all the while, he couldn't help but allow the tormenting thought to keep entering his mind: Was he responsible for this? Was it his fault alone that a man had taken the witness stand, only to die in the process of his final testimony?

Even as that much occurred to him, an irrational flare of frustration and anger directed at himself burst into being in the pit of his stomach, searing its way through his very core. Why did he care what befell Terry Fawles, anyway? He was a criminal, after all, was he not? The man was on death row already, as it had stood before he'd been called into court again; did it matter that he'd happened to meet his end now, instead of later? He inevitably would have been found guilty of all the crimes of which he stood accused, after all. Why did it affect Miles so deeply that this had happened, when the case had been as good as his? He knew for a fact that his mentor, Manfred von Karma, would not be so deeply shaken by such an occurrence; did that mean that he was going about this in entirely the wrong way if he was so upset by it all?

Somewhere in the back of his mind, though, beneath years of pushing his feelings to the very farthest reaches of his heart, where even he himself couldn't find them, beneath years of taking every word that his mentor said as the absolute truth, he couldn't shake the dogging sense that what he was feeling at the moment was entirely rational. Never mind the fact that this overwhelmed, panicky sensation flowering into being in his chest seemed to be entirely lacking in rationality; it just made sense. He'd just seen a man die, after all; surely he was not shirking his duties as a prosecutor if he happened to be moved by the fact that a human life had been ended in front of his very eyes?

Worst of all, he couldn't stop thinking that perhaps he could have stepped in and prevented this all along. After all, Miles Edgeworth was a great many things, but a fool was not one of them. He'd known all that time about the monster that Dahlia Hawthorne hid behind her beautiful, innocent demeanor and her sickly-sweet little smiles; and if he hadn't known the whole time, then he'd at least certainly had the sneaking suspicion. And yet, he'd been so desperate to win, so filled with the vicious hunger to prove himself a prosecutor worthy of being feared and respected, that he'd attacked the defense's case from every possible angle, ignoring what he knew deep down to be the truth.

And because of that greed and pride, a man had lost his life today.

Nonsense, Miles, he chastised himself at last, gritting his teeth and biting back an agitated little snarl. You did no more than what was expected of you; it is your job to prosecute the guilty to the fullest extent of the law, and if your methods are a tad extreme, then what of it? You stand in court to oppose the defense, to present your case perfectly, and nothing more.

And there wasn't a soul in the court or in the media who could scarcely stand to blame him for doing his job! Of course he hadn't intended for things to end this way . . . who would? He knew that the media simply adored the opportunity to paint him as a calculating fiend who was willing to do just about anything to get a guilty verdict – and perhaps that was true, to an extent – but to claim that he would be willing to practically murder a man on the witness stand in order to prove a point was simply ridiculous. Surely all the blame couldn't possibly rest on his shoulders; what of the defense lawyer, Mia Fey? Fawles was her client, was he not? If only she'd fought a little harder, cared just a little more –

But then, he remembered, she did fight. She combatted him on nearly every point that came up during the trial today with a tooth-and-nail sort of grit that Edgeworth had never seen in a defense attorney before (except, perhaps, in his father, but that thought was much too painful to bear even a remote consideration). He had to admit, beneath his many layers of unabashed hatred for defense attorneys and all the evils for which they stood, he had to at least admire the gusto with which she'd presented her case. He'd found her to be an entirely insufferable woman who took to flights of fancy rather than dealing with the facts as they were, but anybody who could stand in the face of adversity like that without crumbling immediately couldn't possibly be but so foolish.

With a world-weary sigh, Miles Edgeworth raked his fingers through his slightly-disheveled bangs, giving his head a tiny, uncomprehending shake. His eyes were directed at the floor, studying the pattern of the tiles in order to keep his mind distracted. As much as he wanted to work up the courage to finally leave the courthouse, he knew all too well what would be awaiting him on the way out. The media coverage of this case had already been extensive to begin with; after all, there were many stories to be had in a death row convict being re-tried for an old kidnapping/murder case. And now that said convict had died on the stand, he expected that the reporters would be twice as bloodthirsty, particularly towards the prosecutor in charge of the entire case.

Is this what it means, then, to be 'perfect'? He thought bitterly, thin mouth creasing into a serious, stony frown. Is this the wretched fruit that all my efforts have wrought?

A familiar voice from over his shoulder all but wrenched him out of these troubling thoughts. "Edgeworth!"

Snapping to attention, lifting his head from his hands and twisting around in his seat, the young prosecutor cleared his throat and looked in the direction of the voice. Sure enough, his suspicions were proven correct when his slate-gray eyes met the brown ones of none other than Mia Fey, herself, looking composed and confident despite the scare they'd both experienced earlier in court today. Within the span of only a few seconds, Edgeworth's guard went up once again, the raw, emotional appearance he'd had seconds earlier disappearing in favor of the cold, condescending, snide persona that he postulated whenever in public.

"Haven't we seen just about enough of one another today, Ms. Fey?" Edgeworth responded coolly at last, making his best endeavor to sound as collected and even-tempered as he presented himself to be in court. Still, his youth failed him, giving his voice the slightest hitch as the first few syllables fell from his lips.

Impressively enough, no annoyance registered on her features; in fact, as she drew closer to him, he could now see that she was still ashen-faced and strained in appearance, most likely from what had happened with Mr. Fawles earlier. He had to admit, it came as a small comfort to him to know that he wasn't the only one still troubled over what had happened . . . though of course, he'd sooner die a thousand deaths himself than admit to that much. She folded her arms across her chest as she approached him; up close, she looked much older than she'd seemed in the courtroom. Not necessarily in a physical sense, just . . . as if the situation at hand had aged them both a thousand years. In court, she'd seemed so small, so insignificant against a backdrop of a teeming, talkative audience, and he'd felt all the more powerful for knowing the entire room was on his side. Now, though, it seemed as though the situation had reversed itself, and suddenly, he was reminded of how much younger he actually was than she.

"Not yet, I'm afraid," she answered. "I wanted to talk to you. Do you think you can spare me a minute of your time? I don't plan on holding you up for very long, so don't worry. I just want to get some things straight."

Rising from his seat at last and walking forward to close the space between them, Edgeworth studied the woman before him with a reserved sort of thoughtfulness, the way a cat might eye a particularly interesting bird. The ever-so-slight narrowing of his eyes, combined with the way he tilted his head to the side just a bit, created an air of caution, of wary curiosity more than anything else. There was a certain malicious quality to the way that he held himself around her, always leaning away from her slightly, as though she smelled foul, but it seemed that she was willing to overlook it for the time being, rather than waste energy pointing it out.

Still, the animosity was a palpable, crackling energy in the air between them, so wildly present that it would be nearly impossible for her to be completely ignorant as to its existence. Unspoken accusations hung heavy in the atmosphere around them, all the spiteful names and taunts that had been volleyed back and forth in the courtroom today now waltzing through their memories once again. What could Mia Fey possibly hope to gain, Miles wondered, from speaking to someone such as himself, whom she so obviously resented? Was it simply an impossible feat for defense attorneys to simply cut their losses and leave with whatever dignity they had left after losing a case?

Swallowing unevenly, his Adam's apple bobbing visibly beneath the golden clasps and woolen scratch of his suit jacket, Edgeworth gave his head a slightly bemused shake and all but forced an expression of sardonic indifference onto his features. "As far as I am concerned, there is nothing more to discuss in regards to this case," he stiffly responded at last, a tremble entering his ironclad grip upon the handle of his briefcase. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I do have a prior engagement."

He made a motion to side-step her, but she was quick on her feet, and she maneuvered to block his way, standing at the archway that led from the prosecutor's lobby down into the main entrance hall of the courthouse with the same fiery determination he'd seen in her eyes during the previous trial. How incredibly annoying, he thought with a roll of his eyes, aiming his slate-gray glare directly to match her gaze. It seemed that the sparring between them would never come to an end, even outside of the courtroom.

"No!" she breathed, eyes widening for a moment with something almost pathetically akin to desperation. After a second or two spanned by in silence, though, Mia seemed to catch herself, closing her eyes briefly before blinking them open once again with a deep, thoughtful sigh. "No," she said again, her tone of voice much calmer and more controlled now. "Please. Don't leave, not just yet. There's just a few really important things that I need to talk to you about."

With a cold, sweeping glance in her direction, nothing but disdain reading in his scrutinizing eyes, Edgeworth gave a soft, observant little huff from his nose. He supposed he didn't truly see any real harm in hearing what she had to say . . . after all, he'd lied about having somewhere that he needed to be, so it wasn't as though he didn't have the time on his hands. He'd simply never been the sort to deal very well with matters such as this, matters of the heart, of seeking resolution after a particularly nasty conflict; his mentors teachings involved ruthlessness and aggression, and spoke of forgoing anything that clashed with that viewpoint, such as friendships or kindness or idle chatter.

Still . . . something in her eyes told him that even if he should refuse her, she would find a way to make him concede to her wishes, anyway. There was nothing particularly threatening about her, but he did sense an underlying passion that knew no bounds, a hunger for the truth that let him know better than anything else that she would never let this go, not until she got her answers. So, by that logic, why not humor her now rather than later?

Though he'd reached his decision, he looked no more gleeful for it as he muttered darkly, "Then by all means, Fey, talk. Make your peace. Say whatever it is that you feel needs to be said; however, be forewarned that I told you from the beginning that I would have nothing more to do with this case, and in so doing, eliminated your right to be surprised when I refuse to answer any questions you may have."

To his mild shock, the beginnings of a rueful smirk registered at the corners of her mouth, amusement glinting in her eyes. "Courtroom bargaining even outside of the workplace? Not very gentlemanly, I must say," she pointed out, lifting her eyebrows and cocking her head to the side slightly.

Despite his valiant effort, Miles couldn't rightly hide his surprise and confusion. What on Earth was she trying to pull here? Was this, perhaps, an effort on her part to hide just how badly today's proceedings had shaken her? If so, he had to admit that it was impressive; he, too, often saw fit to disguise his emotions by taking refuge behind his own cleverness. Still, regardless of her motivations, he couldn't help but feel more than slightly jarred by the humorous jab in his direction; with all the grief that seemed to have draped itself so heavily over the entire courthouse, anything less than somber seriousness felt bizarre and inappropriate. Or perhaps that was simply Edgeworth's own discomfort with casual social interactions and idle niceties rearing its ugly head; he much preferred the verbal war of courtroom proceedings, where he could match wits with his typical bravado and always keep people far enough at bay that they never saw through the tiny chinks in his armor.

Here, though, so close, it was hard to keep people at a distance. Even people he considered to be an enemy, a rival, and nothing more. Suddenly, he couldn't help but become intensely fearful that she might come closer to figuring the truth of him out than anyone else had ever gotten before; he'd seen what she was like in court, after all, and though he'd thought her a ridiculous amateur all along, even he was not so foolish as to deny the gift she had for taking note of inconsistencies. Surely someone so gifted with discernment could not be trusted to get so close, to be so cordial, when he stood to lose so much because of it.

Returning the vague humor on her face with an unsmiling, stony expression of his own, Miles responded, "Regardless of whatever opinion you may have, I have every right to the terms which I have set forth for you. And you may take them as they are or leave me be; that much, I must unfortunately leave to you to decide."

"Alright, alright," she sighed at last, shaking her head and lifting a hand to brush her bangs away from her eyes. The amusement was still there on her face as she looked up to search Edgeworth's gaze, but now it seemed drier, more sarcastic than before. "You drive a hard bargain, but I accept your terms. You reserve the right to refuse to answer anything I might ask you if you don't want to talk about it." She gave a brief pause, during which Edgeworth nodded shortly to confirm her last statement, and when she appeared satisfied with his response, she began to speak again. "Great, then. Now can I please ask you what the hell happened in there earlier?"

Raising his eyebrows and recoiling back from her slightly, as though she'd just lifted a hand to strike him, Edgeworth all but stuttered in reply, "I-I'm afraid I don't know what you're talking ab—"

"Oh, don't give me that," she hissed, her voice dropping to a low, urgent whisper. "You know entirely well what I mean. You just stood there and twiddled your thumbs and allowed all that to unfold; you let a girl walk in there and lie about her identity, lie about what she supposedly witnessed, just to make sure that an innocent man was condemned to death. And all the while, you . . ." she paused, giving her head a disbelieving shake, "you knew that every word out of her mouth was just one big fairy tale."

The words cut deeper than Edgeworth had expected them to. That much, he owed to his vulnerability at the moment; he'd just witnessed a man's death, after all. Of course he'd be more sensitive than usual, even to accusations and character-twisting exaggerations that he'd heard every day since beginning his pursuit of a prosecutorial career. He heard protestations such as these in regards to his methods all the time, even if this truly was the first time he'd legitimately stood in court; he'd assisted Manfred von Karma enough with investigations and trials for his name to already hold significant weight . . . and for significant rumors to become attached to it. Why, then, did those empty words only seem to hit him so hard now?

Rather than flinch in the face of her allegations, however, Miles simply did his best to stand his ground, lifting his chin and staring imperiously down at her for a long while before deigning to respond. "It is the job of a prosecutor to ensure that the accused receives due punishment for their crime," he said, repeating the rhetoric he'd memorized from von Karma in a voice nearly devoid of inflection, "whomever they may be, whatever they may have done. My actions in court are only what is expected of me."

At this, a flash of anger entered Mia's eyes. "That may be true, but it's not your job to twist the truth just so that you can earn your precious guilty verdict," she fired back, disgust with his courtroom methods radiating from every syllable. Still, she managed to keep her voice fairly low, in order not to cause a scene. "I just don't understand how you could claim to revere the law so much, yet you turn around and treat it like it's nothing but a – a game! Don't you get that it's not just about you winning, Edgeworth? There's peoples' lives at stake here, every time we walk into this courtroom!"

Now it was Miles' turn to allow the first traces of irritation to register on his sharp, angular features. "I'll thank you to take your condescending tone of speech elsewhere, Ms. Fey," he snarled. "In spite of whatever you may feel is the truth about me, I am not a child and I'm perfectly capable of understanding how a court of law works. How dare you presume to judge me, when day after day defense attorneys stand in these very courts and use little more than smoke and mirrors to send those who truly are guilty off free to gallivant about wherever they please, never once facing the justice they deserve!" The tinge of bitterness entering his tone of voice could scarcely be helped; he'd seen his own father's murder go unsolved because of the trickery of a defense attorney, after all.

"And so, what, you choose to combat their lies with more lies?" Mia argued, gazing up at him with a questioning, expectant look in her eyes. "Explain that convoluted logic to me, please, because I fail to see how that accomplishes anything."

Edgeworth scoffed, glancing off to the side, a defensive sort of fury plainly visible upon his face. "I don't believe I owe you anything of the sort," was his frigid response. "Need I remind you that you were the one who approached me, requesting that I speak with you in regards to today's case? You've no business whatsoever personally attacking any methods of mine or accusing me of amorality, when the purpose of our discussion is meant to be that of Mr. Fawles' trial."

Visibly flinching at the sound of the defendant's name, Fey seemed to deflate in response to the firepower of those words. The tension fell from her shoulders and she gave a long, slow sigh, raking her fingers through her already-disheveled bangs. Neither of them truly had the energy left to argue with one another, though it appeared that they didn't want to admit to that much. Still, it was fairly obvious to him that she, too, was simply wishing they could get this conversation other with and move on with their lives. All the better; Edgeworth was rather exhausted with the idea of having to answer for every little thing that he did, and would just as soon prefer to get away and go home.

"Okay," she said at last, the weariness evident in her voice. "I, uh . . . I get it. Look, you're right. I shouldn't be hounding you when I just wanted to ask you a few things. I'll back off. But I guess what I really want to know is . . ." she paused for what seemed like an eternity, swallowing hard and looking him over with that same intensely thoughtful gleam to her eyes. When she spoke again, her voice was little more than a quiet murmur. "You knew all along, didn't you? You knew what sort of – of vile, horrible woman she is, and you still didn't do anything."

A terrible silence stretched between them for a long while before Miles Edgeworth at last cleared his throat, giving a slow, almost hesitant nod of his head. " . . . Yes," he confessed at last, the words stilted and heavy as they fell from his lips. "I knew."

For whatever reason, the disappointment that flickered across Mia's features harmed him more deeply than anything else. A flush of heat rose to his cheeks at the realization, even painting the backs of his ears and the nape of his neck a deep shade of crimson. Still, he put forth his best effort to remain calm and composed all the while, pushing all the sudden feelings of regret and unease to the very bottom of the darkest corners of his heart, hopefully where they would stay undisturbed.

"And . . ." he began again at last, when the silence had spanned far too long for his taste, "contrary to whatever you must believe to be the truth of me, I am . . . I mean, that is to say . . . I do apologize. For what has transpired today. No one should be made to suffer at the hands of that – that wretched, murderous –" At this point in his sentence, his voice trailed off, unable to find an adjective that could describe with any degree of accuracy what he currently felt towards the woman known as Dahlia Hawthorne.

While she appeared on the surface to be touched by his effort to apologize, Mia still didn't seem entirely convinced. "If that's the case . . . if that's truly how you feel . . . then why? Why would you allow something like this to happen? If you knew all this time just how dangerous she is, why would you completely turn a blind eye to the fact that she's so obviously the real killer?"

Annoyed all over again, Edgeworth made another last ditch effort to swerve past her, saying, "We've been over this, Ms. Fey . . ."

And, once again, Mia managed to step in front of him and bar his way before he could escape her line of sight. "No," she insisted, shaking her head and staring intently up at the young man. "No, I heard what you told me earlier, but I don't believe that's what you actually think. Someone else told you that. I don't want regurgitated information, Mr. Edgeworth, I want your opinion on this. That's why I came to you." Regarding him with a slightly softer facial expression, more contemplative than accusatory this time, she murmured, "Now tell me . . . why is it that you think you stand in court? What do you hope to accomplish?"

It was a question that he hadn't anticipated, and frankly, he had to pause to collect his thoughts before he supplied her with a proper answer. What did he personally hope to accomplish in a court of law? Only one person had ever bothered to ask him such a thing before, and, well . . . Gregory Edgeworth had died long ago, when Miles had been only nine years old. He could scarcely remember the answer he'd given his father then, and he suspected that even if he did, his response would have changed considerably over the years that he'd resided with Manfred von Karma in Germany. As a child, he'd idealized defense attorneys, built them up in his mind as gods, heroes, beings powerful enough to save everyone that needed their assistance; but now that he was older and had seen more of the world and its injustice, he knew the truth. He knew that the guilty always lied, to avoid being found out, and that the law had failed him personally when he'd needed it most. His heart had grown jaded and bitter over the years, so much so that in all this time, he'd never even thought about why he stood where he did.

If he were being completely honest, he became a prosecutor in part to serve as a punishment for himself. Of course, he'd take that secret with him to the grave – even he himself wasn't entirely sure if it was true all the time – but he couldn't help but feel it needling at him, nonetheless. Despite all his bitterness, did a part of him still long to stand at the defense's bench, to correct the wrongs that had been done to him as a child? Or could he finally absolve himself of all the guilt he felt, all the nightmares that had plagued him for years, standing as a prosecutor, punishing those who tried to run from the eyes of the law?

"I . . . suppose I stand in court to ensure that justice is done," he offered at last, almost cringing at how cliché it sounded. After a moment, he drew a quick breath and decided to elaborate. "Regardless of how you may view my role in a court of law, Ms. Fey, I have only ever done what I believe to be right. And if that methodology is perceived by others to be too extreme or ruthless, then so be it."

Eyeing him thoughtfully, Mia gave a slow nod in response to this. "I see," she mused, half to herself, although the look on her face strongly implied that she didn't believe a word of what he'd just said. Was it truly possible for someone such as her – a complete stranger – to see through his ruse, the cold, guarded front he always postulated, so easily? He wasn't granted a copious amount of time to think about it before she questioned, "You . . . you're von Karma's student, aren't you?"

"Yes," he responded, the word coming out a touch more clipped and defensive than he had originally intended it to be. "What of it?"

Mia shook her head in response to this, the touch of that same little smirk returning as its own nervous ghost. "Nothing," she answered. "It's just that . . . hm. When I look at you and when I think of all that I know about your mentor, it's like I can't tell where he ends and you begin." Mulling over this for a moment, biting her lower lip out of what appeared to be nervous habit, she quickly added, "Hey, can I give you some advice? If I were you, I'd just give some thought to who it is you are, underneath all this pomp and pageantry. You are who you choose to be, after all. And right now, before you've begun to really establish yourself, you have every opportunity to change who you are, who you're viewed to be. Don't let that go to waste."

At this statement, a bark of laughter escaped Edgeworth's lips, but the sound was chilly and without humor. "Well, I should say that this is a rather extreme case of the crow calling the raven black!" All at once, his guard seemed to build itself back up, a stalwart stone wall around his heart that more easily enabled him to wear a condescending little smirk and wield a tone of superiority. "Tell me this, Mia Fey – does your oh-so-keen sense of adult sagacity enable you to feel so certain that what you say is the truth? Is that it? Because otherwise, I fail to see how you are any less an upstart than myself. In fact, an argument could be made that I've a wealth of experience in comparison to yourself. Why, then, would you presume to tell me what it is I should and should not believe in?"

He was at least given the satisfaction of seeing a faint pink dusting brush the apples of her cheeks, letting him know that his words had hit home. True, he'd been rather on the patronizing side, but such was typically the case with Miles Edgeworth, particularly when he was addressing those of which he was less than fond. After a moment had passed in silence, though, she seemed to – remarkably enough – swiftly regain her composure, giving him a light shrug of her shoulders in response to the argument that he'd presented.

"Hey, take from it what you will," she said at last, sounding as though it truly didn't matter to her one way or the other. Her tone of voice radiated a calm, casual sort of confidence, but the glint in her eyes told a different story. "It's just . . . something to think about, I guess. I don't know."

The smirk on his face widened just the slightest bit. With a wry laugh, he replied in his typical prickly, smarmy way, "Your concern is touching, but hardly necessary." Moving to pass her once again, he muttered, "Thank you for this incredibly stimulating conversation, Ms. Fey, but I'm afraid I truly must be going now."

This time, there was no effort made to stop him. Instead, she appeared to have directed her attention to a tiny notepad in her left hand, scrawling something busily down with her right before tearing the small page out and folding it crisply in half. He hesitated for a moment in the doorway, observing, and when she turned around and held out the paper with him, he allowed an expression of mildest surprise to meander onto his features. Just what on Earth was this woman trying to pull?

"My office number," she explained in response to the inquiring look on his face. "Just in case you ever decide one day that you're ready to accept the truth about what happened here earlier. Dahlia Hawthorne walked free today, but I can promise you that as long as I can help it, that won't last forever. I know that you know as well as I who the real guilty party is where this case is concerned, and now's your chance to do something about it." For a moment, she paused, searching his features, as if to gauge his reaction. Catching on to this, he made his best effort to keep his facial expression blank and unreadable. A line appeared between the sleek curves of her eyebrows as she gazed thoughtfully into the cold, unwelcoming depths of his eyes and murmured, "What sort of man are you really, Edgeworth? I hope you'll think it over."

She was impossibly close to him, the sound of her voice little more than a soft, rumble that hunkered low in the back of her throat, like thunder rolling on the distant horizon. He could feel the warmth of her radiating through business casual, a bright, burning presence determined to make itself known to anyone nearby. In court, she'd seemed so completely insignificant, but in person, she was a force of nature, confident and even a touch cunning where she'd been a frazzled mess behind the defense's bench. He was all too aware of her and her ability to scrutinize him down to the last detail, and in the painful seconds that passed, he wanted nothing more than to draw back, to hide and push away from the very idea of unintentionally allowing someone in. Still, he stood firmly before her until at last she turned her back on him and retreated from the prosecutor's lobby without another word, though not without sending another enigmatic glance over her shoulder in his direction before she vanished from his line of sight.

His gaze traveled to the scrap of paper resting in his hand; suddenly, it felt as though it were actually a thousand-pound hot coal, scalding the brand of Mia Fey's messily-scrawled signature into the smooth surface of his palm. A noncommittal, huffy sort of noise escaped through his nose and he set his jaw tightly in a stubborn effort to chase her last words to him out of his mind. He would sooner die than reveal how much her question had shaken him . . . especially when it was a question that he'd been asking himself for eleven years now.

What sort of man was he? If he knew even an inkling of the answer to that inquiry, then he likely wouldn't even be pursuing a career as a prosecutor in the first place. And anyway, what gave that nosy, blithering excuse for a defense attorney the right to ask him such a thing? What made her so certain of herself and the path that she had paved? Her first trial had ended in failure, after all! What did that say about her abilities?

Then again . . . the more he thought about it, what did the outcome of this case say about any of them? After all, he supposed that in the grand scheme of things, neither one of them could claim victory. Of course, he'd tried to do so at first – his initial impulse, after years of being trained by von Karma to chase so doggedly after perfection and glory – but as the minutes had ticked by and he'd been left alone with his thoughts, he'd realized that perhaps in the face of Mr. Fawles' death, bickering over who could claim that they had won in the end hardly seemed appropriate. When a man's life had been lost, could the justice system even stand to claim that it had done its job properly overall? He hardly knew what to think, at this point.

Enjoy this stalemate while it lasts, Mia Fey, Edgeworth thought at last, the barest traces of a smirk touching his pallid features as he threw another glance in the direction of the paper in his hand. After all, I must have the opportunity to defeat you properly in court someday.

As for what sort of man he was, Miles wasn't sure if he could ever truly know. The cold, sharp-witted front that he always displayed whenever in the view of the public certainly acted as a stark contrast to the pathetic figure that would wake up screaming, drenched in a chilly, fearful sweat from his nightmares and lie awake beneath his sheets, trembling and attempting to rid himself of the traumas of memories past until the night sky faded into dawn. When he so effortlessly wore a mask so completely different from what he felt on the inside, how could he know for certain which aspects of himself were real and which were artificial?

Perhaps this would be his chance. With this opportunity that Mia Fey had afforded him, he had to wonder if he could pursue this case, this issue with Dahlia Hawthorne, any further, and finally gain some redemption for himself. Would that much absolve him of the guilt that had been weighing on his shoulders for so long? By solving the mystery surrounding the death of another man, could he finally rid himself of the crushing, looming shadow of his own father's murder? What would it take to wash his hands of Gregory Edgeworth's blood?

And, most importantly of all, was he even truly worthy of a chance such as that?

Biting back a frustrated snarl, Edgeworth clenched his hand tightly into a fist, crumpling the paper with Ms. Fey's telephone number written on it. Next moment, he headed for the front doors of the courthouse, moving with a brisk determination, grateful for the opportunity to finally throw the little scrap of paper into a trash can sitting in the main lobby. It was best that he didn't delude himself, he supposed. Chances such as those were only afforded to the innocent, to those that hadn't killed the one person they'd held dear, to those that hadn't abandoned everything even remotely related to their old life in favor of cold, ruthless ambition.

He was Miles Edgeworth, the Demon Prosecutor . . . and that was the only fate he deserved.