(A/N: This piece was done for the PW Kink Meme.

Phoenix Wright and related characters are the property of Capcom...who are nice people and don't want to sue me.

Challenge: Phoenix/Mia where Phoenix is taken to the hospital after the events of 3-1.)

Phoenix was willing to admit he'd done plenty of stupid things in his life. He could easily remember a dozen of them off the top of his head; however only one had landed him in an overnight stay at the hospital. Sitting and listening to the electronic beep measuring his heart rate didn't help the slowly growing feeling of unease he had, nor did the stark white walls of his room.

His mind kept turning back to the events of the day, bringing a dull ache to his heart and throwing his mind into a whirl of confusion. The woman he'd seen on the stand hadn't been the woman he'd dated for eight months…it didn't makes sense. Of course, the dry cynical part of his mind reminded him, She could have faked everything, you know.

Phoenix mentally kicked himself for the umpteenth time that day. He'd been a fool; a blind romantic fool who had almost found himself in jail, and most likely on death row, were it not for the efforts of his defense attorney, Ms. Fey.

Ms. Fey had stood by him and believed in his innocence until the end, even when he had behaved poorly and irreparably damaged his case by eating that little necklace with the trace amount of poison in it.

That was the reason his was in the hospital at the moment. The moment the trial had ended Ms. Fey had grabbed his scarf and forcibly dragged him into her car. The initial few minutes of the ride were permeated with a tense silence.

When they were stopped at a red light Mia let out a frustrated noise and turned to him, her tone a contrast to the hard glare in her eyes. "How are you feeling?"

Phoenix looked down at his hands, and his voice was shaky as he responded, "Fine, I guess…" That tense silence fell thick between them for a moment. Mia's flicked back to the road in front of her. Taking a moment to gather his thoughts, he weakly continued, "Ms. Fey…?"

Mia's eyes never left the road. "Yes?"

"I really wanted to...thank you. I was an idiot back there and I know you have every right to be angry with me for what I did but…thank you for believing in me."

The car's hum filled the silence after his statement. Mia closed her eyes for a moment before turning and responding, "I'm not angry, I never was, Mr. Wright. I was concerned more than anything, especially after you ate that bottle."

The light ahead of them flickered green, and silence reigned again for a moment before Mia continued, "You probably wouldn't know this, but my first client…died on the stand. He'd poisoned himself with something similar that was in the bottle you ate. You seem fine, but I'd like for you to get checked out, if that's okay…"

Phoenix found himself smiling despite the grim story Mia had just related, "That's fine."

Of course, once the doctors had heard what had happened he was led off quickly, and didn't even have a chance to say goodbye to Ms. Fey. They ended up pumping his stomach because of the glass and metal he'd ingested. They'd explained that normally they'd just force him to regurgitate it, but in this case, that would cause more harm that good. The end result was that he woke up from the anesthetics several hours later, with a fuzzy head and a complaining stomach. When he'd awoken, the doctor had informed him that they were running some blood tests, but aside from some queasiness, he should feel no ill effects for the small amount of poison he'd ingested.

He swallowed, his throat burning and feeling raw. He could no longer taste the blood from the cuts lining his mouth and throat, but the pain was still there. Eating that glass bottle had caused more damage than he'd thought it would and the doctors couldn't do much for the gashes in his throat; they'd have to heal on their own. The fact that there actually HAD been poison in the bottle disturbed Phoenix more than he'd thought it would, and more so than the minor injuries he'd obtained from eating it. Maybe it just made what had happened in court hit home, but he found that fact more bothersome than anything else the doctor could have told him.

Phoenix sighed as he leaned further into the hospital bed he was currently occupying and stared at his room as though seeing if for the fist time, which wouldn't be surprising given how wrapped up in his thoughts he'd been. The room they'd placed him in was private (something he was profoundly grateful for) and composed of four whitewashed walls. There were several rather uncomfortable looking plastic chairs lining the wall facing his bed, and a TV was in the right corner, perhaps to distract from the beeping machinery both behind and to the left of his bed. Most of the equipment was shut off, as he wasn't a seriously ill patient, but the device to monitor his heart and a few other extraneous machines were hooked up to him, probably regulating body temperature and some other things (Phoenix wasn't well versed in machines like this, being an art major). The only other feature to the room was a beige door in the right wall that was barely visible from his bed.

Phoenix was startled out of his examination of his room by the sound of footsteps echoing down the long hallway outside the door. He assumed it was just the nurse coming to check and make sure he hadn't been stupid enough to strangle himself on the machine chords or something similar.

He was surprised when he heard Mia's voice. "Knock knock."

He watched her come into view around the machines, smiling. "Ms. Fey! I wasn't expecting to see you."

Mia's eyebrow quirked up. "I'm not allowed to visit a client that's in the hospital?"

"No that wasn't…what I meant was…"

Mia chuckled at his attempts to explain himself. "I was kidding, Mr. Wright. To be honest, they rushed you off so quickly I go concerned."

Phoenix smiled, somewhat pleased that she was concerned. "Well, I should be fine, but they're keeping me overnight to make sure. They got the remains of the necklace out of my system too."

Mia smiled and sat on the bottom right corner of his bed. "That's good to hear. That stuff is lethal with two teaspoons, so I wasn't sure how a trace amount would affect someone."

"Well, they said it shouldn't do much except cause some slight queasiness."

A short silence fell over the room. It wasn't the tense silence that had plagued the car ride over, but rather an awkward pause where neither knew what to say.

Mia was the one to break it. "So…what are you planning to do after you get out of here, Mr. Wright?"

Phoenix made a bit of a face. "Now that the case is over, Ms. Fey, would you mind not calling me, 'Mr. Wright'? It makes me sound like my father."

Mia gave him a slight smile. "Alright, fair enough. What do you want to be called?"

"Phoenix would be fine."

"Well, Phoenix, you never answered my initial question. What are you planning to do when you get out of here?"

Phoenix sighed and leaned back to stare at the ceiling. "I hadn't really thought that far ahead, but I'll probably go to the counselor's office on campus and change my major. I've been taking a lot of law and criminology courses alongside my art ones, so I should have enough units to make it work."

"So you were serious about taking up law?"

"Yes. Actually, Ms. Fey. -"

"Mia."

Phoenix blinked. "What?"

"My name's Mia. I don't like being called 'Ms. Fey' any more than you like being called 'Mr. Wright'. I've learned to deal with it in court, but that doesn't mean I like it."

Phoenix nodded. "Alright. Mia, would you mind…if I asked for your help in my studies sometimes?"

Mia stared for a minute. "Are you sure, Phoenix? I don't have a whole lot of experience to offer."

Phoenix grinned. "I can't think of anyone else I'd want to turn to, Mia."

A smile spread slowly over Mia's face. "Then I'd be glad to."

Phoenix watched as she pulled out a scrap of paper and scribbled something on it. She handed it to him and he noted it was her house and cell numbers.

Mia tapped the paper with a finger. "I'm always available on my cell so give me a call if you need a hand."

"Thank you."

"My pleasure, Phoenix."

She pulled him into a brief hug, which, after a moment of surprise, he awkwardly returned.

Mia straightened up and said, "I'd better head out, but I'll see you sometime soon probably."

"See you around."

Even long after Mia left, Phoenix couldn't seem to keep a smile off of his face. Maybe things weren't as bad as they seemed.

(Reviews and comments welcomed and appreciated.)