MorenoX: Aw, but I want to know where you think Maya is! D8 Anyway, Apollo gets more lines next chapter, and yeah, I'll be writing about the guests' reactions when Maya and Phoenix come back from. . . wherever they are. :) Just not this chapter. It'll be the next one.

Kuchiki Jeanne: Nope, it's not the Wright Anything Agency! . . . Though that is a pretty good guess. I'd never actually thought of her going there. -is in idiot-

Bico: Your concern is a very valid one. -thinks for a moment- I'll try to do something the next time we see Pearl. I'm not exactly sure what yet, but I'll think of something. Probably. (Also, trust me, I do not ship ApolloxTrucy. I'm an ApolloxVera person. XD)

~~: Trust me, I'm not going to blow up at you because you've pointed out something wrong with the fic. I'm not that mean. XD Anyway, I think that, even though Maya and Phoenix never really have shown much "romantic love," as you called it, toward each other, some of the people at the reunion might have guessed, like Edgeworth, and the others would just assume they'd been going out for the past few years or so. Or something like that. That's just my opinion, though. -shrugs- Also more fics like this? I have one in mind. . . but you'll have to wait for the author's note of the final chapter for details. -smiles evilly-

And, on that note, I shall stop and let you continue on with this chapter. :)

Chapter 9

The Talisman

Phoenix poked his head inside the door of Walter's Burger Joint, looking around. The restaurant was almost deserted at this time of night; a couple of employees were standing behind the counter, talking to each other about how they had better things to do then work, and there was only one customer in the entire place, a young woman with black hair, wearing a spirit medium costume, sitting in the booth he and Maya had always sat in, a half-eaten cheeseburger in front of her as she stared ahead dully.

"Maya?" he said quietly, walking up to her. Maya turned around in her seat, and he could tell she'd been crying; her eyes were red, and he could see where tears had fallen down her face.

"I knew you'd end up coming here," Maya said half-heartedly. "Nick, go back to the reunion. I'm fine."

Phoenix sat down across from her, gazing at her stubbornly. "No you're not," he said. "You're anything but fine."

Maya made a face and looked down at the table. Phoenix took a deep breath, steeling himself. How did one go about telling someone things like this, anyway? He'd already hurt her once tonight; he didn't want to say something wrong and do it again. At last, he said, "While Pearl and I were looking for you, she channeled Mia."

"Hmm?" Maya said, still looking at the table. "Sis?"

"Yeah. And she told me something interesting." Phoenix slid his hand into his pocket, watching Mia unblinkingly, feeling his stomach turn into a giant knot. "Remember when your mother died, how you left Mia that note, asking what you should do?"

Maya knew where this conversation was headed. She tensed up, her hands clenching into fists, still not looking at him. "Yeah," was all she said, her voice quiet, pleading.

"Mia said that, at the end of the note, you asked her, in case you didn't make it, to tell me that you loved me." He took another deep breath, then asked in a rush, "Is that true?"

He had been expecting it. Chains suddenly appeared from nowhere, crisscrossing in front of Maya, and a single lock, red and yellow, appeared, connecting the chains together. Phoenix extracted his hand from his pocket, pulling out his glowing Magatama, and set it on the table between them. This was his prized possession, the one thing that could show when a person was lying or wanted to hide a secret by exposing Psyche-Locks.

Maya looked at the Magatama for a moment. "You can see them," she said at last. "How many are there?"

"Just one," Phoenix informed her. He'd been expecting more, but he supposed she was tired of hiding the truth, only putting up a feeble resistance.

"I see." Maya bit her lip and was silent, waiting for him to ask the first question. She wasn't going to give in just because he knew he was hiding something.

Phoenix sighed, thinking of how to start. This was awkward; he had never had to break a Pysche-Lock of Maya's before, and he didn't want to now, but if Maya wasn't going to tell him otherwise, he would have to. "I didn't see any Psyche-Locks when Mia told me about the note," he informed her. "That means she wasn't lying. You really did write it, didn't you?"

Maya shrugged. "Do you have the note as evidence?" she asked. "And how do you know I didn't mean like brother-sister love? That's too vague, Nick."

"Touche," he replied, biting his lip as he tried to think of another angle from which to attack. Finally, he added, "What about Pearl? She seems convinced that we're in love."

Maya shook her head. "You've always said it was just Pearl," she pointed out. "Sorry, Nick, but that's not going to work."

Dammit, Phoenix thought, tapping the table with his fingers, staring at the Psyche-Lock, wishing it would just shatter. He only had one other argument, and he wasn't sure that this would hold if the others had failed. "Remember after Iris's trial, when we all went to Très Bien? Franziska pulled me away from the others to give me something."

"Yeah?" Maya said, a bit confused. She doesn't know that Franziska had it, he realized. "What was it?"

"A card," Phoenix replied simply. "A certain calling card."

Maya stared at him blankly. Then, a look of comprehension dawned on her face, and she said, "Oh. DeKiller's card. The one with the shell."

"Yeah, the one with the shell," he said, nodding. "Except, this one had a little something extra on it. You know what it was, don't you?"

Maya didn't reply; she just gazed at him, waiting for him to tell her.

"On the card, you had drawn me," he said triumphantly, watching the Psyche-Lock, expecting to break. To his surprise, it didn't, but Maya was beginning to look a little nervous.

"Well, of course I did," Maya replied. "You were my best friend, and you were my only hope of getting out of there."

"But you would think that you would have drawn the person you loved the most!" Phoenix protested, trying desperately to make this argument work. If it didn't, he had nothing. Nothing. "You could have drawn Mia, or Pearl, or someone else, but you drew me."

Maya was looking edgy as she countered, "Like I said, you were the only person who could help me, so it's not really surprising that I drew you, right? And the outline of the shell was perfect for drawing your face and hair, anyway."

"But–" Phoenix began, then stopped, because he couldn't think of anything else to say. Maya had successfully shut down each and every one of his arguments. He had none left, and there was nothing he could do or say about it. A Psyche-Lock he couldn't break, hiding a secret he'd never thought existed. . .

But he had to be able to break it. He had to. Maya wouldn't admit anything, because she was afraid of rejection, and, to be honest, he couldn't blame her, not after what he'd said back at the Gatewater.

I can't let that distract me, Phoenix thought, fighting the urge to kick himself. I've got to think of something. He looked around the restaurant for inspiration, first at the employees behind the counter, who were staring at them, then at the door, then at Maya, but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't think of anything.

It's over, he thought to himself, defeated. There's nothing that will break that Psyche-Lock. Nothing.

Maya was playing with her Master's Talisman when he looked up at her. She was looking down at the table again, toward the Magatama. With one hand, she pushed it toward him. "Nick, you can go back to the reunion," she said quietly. "I'll be okay. Tell Pearly I'll be coming back in an hour or so, but don't tell her where I am."

"Maya–" Phoenix began, his voice full of defeat, but before he could finish, his eyes slid to the Talisman that she was twirling in her fingers. He leapt to his feet in excitement as he yelled, "Your Talisman, Maya!"

"Hey, keep it down over there," one of the employees called, annoyed. Sheepishly, Phoenix sat down again, Maya staring at him in surprise.

"My what?" she asked, but she quickly whipped her hand away from her Talisman.

"The Kurain Master's Talisman," he said confidently. "The Master of Kurain Village is to wear it without taking it off until the day they die. And there is a small cavity in the Talisman, as I'm sure you know. Remember when we opened it, after your mother died? Remember what we found inside?"

Maya continued to stare at him, but this time, she understood what he meant. "A picture of Sis and me," she replied. "A picture of the people closest to her heart. . ."

"Exactly," Phoenix said triumphantly. "So, it stands to reason that you would have something close to your heart in there. I'm going to guess a photo of some kind. And whoever is in that photo is the person you love the most." He took a deep breath, then asked, "Maya, could you show me what you have in that Talisman?"

Maya didn't reply for a few seconds. Her eyes had slid to the Talisman hanging around her neck, and she was deep in thought. At last, without looking up, she whispered, "I'm tired of lying to you, Nick." She reached for the Talisman and, slowly, deliberately, she opened it.

The Psyche-Lock shattered. The chains rolled back, blinking into nonexistence, and Phoenix drew the Magatama toward him, pocketing it as he watched Maya extract a small, folded photograph from inside the Talisman. She handed it to him wordlessly, still not looking at him, and he accepted it, unfolding it slowly and staring at it for several long moments.

A younger, happier-looking version of himself stared back at him, smiling at the camera. There wasn't much to the picture, just him and the wall of one of the defendant lobbies at the courthouse. It must have been taken at least seven years ago, because he was wearing his suit and his attorney's badge, and due to the fact that it looked rather worn and free of dust, he assumed she must have taken the picture out often.

Phoenix handed the photo back to her. Maya inserted the picture back into the Talisman and closed it. Then, refusing to look at him, she said, "I'll admit it. I've had a crush on you for a while."

"How long is a while?" Phoenix asked, curious.

Maya shrugged. "Um. . . it was a little bit after Sis's murder trial, I think. So, about nine years."

Phoenix let out a low whistle, but otherwise, didn't say anything, wanting her to continue.

"I didn't tell you," Maya continued quietly, "because that would have made our friendship really awkward."

"And because you thought I didn't feel the same way?" Phoenix suggested.

Maya nodded slowly. "That, too," she conceded. "Anyway, it was just a crush for a while. You know, like the crushes you get in school. Then I left to train to become a full-fledged spirit medium, and I thought that I might get over it if I didn't see you for a while. That's mostly the reason I didn't want you to come visit. But I was really starting to miss you about a week after I'd arrived in Kurain, more than I'd ever expected, and I just kind of had an emotional breakdown and hid in my room. I didn't think anyone would hear me, but Pearly wanted me to play with her and she found me crying."

"I'm going to guess this is when she found out about me," Phoenix said, nodding.

"Not really. She'd already heard about you, because everyone in Kurain knew I was working with you and they were really ticked at me for not training." Maya paused for a moment, then continued, "Pearl asked me what was wrong. So I told her about how I felt about you, and I guess she just automatically assumed you felt the same way about me. That's why she's always going on about us being in love."

Phoenix nodded. "Well, that makes sense," he said. "She'd have to have gotten the idea from somewhere." What he really wanted to say was that he felt incredibly stupid for not seeing any of this, because as Maya explained it, it was all beginning to make sense, but he decided to just let her continue letting out her thoughts and feelings for the past nine years.

"And when that Dr. Grey asked me to channel that nurse?" Maya continued, her voice beginning to crack a little. "Remember how one of the conditions was for him to bring you along?"

How could he forget? It wasn't every day he had people who wouldn't shut up about the weather waltz into his office and tell him that he was going to see Maya after months of her absence. Aloud, he said, "Vaguely."

"I couldn't take it any longer," Maya admitted. "I wanted to see you. I knew I wasn't going to get over it, so I told him I wasn't channeling any spirit without seeing you first. And then, that murder happened." Her voice grew hard here as she continued, "Even I thought I did it. I thought I was going to be sentenced to death, and there was nothing I could do. But you. . . just like the last time I'd been on trial, you believed I was innocent. And you saved me again."

Phoenix smiled a little to himself. "I wasn't going to let you die," he told her.

"I know," Maya said, her voice sounding odd. He was sure she was suppressing tears now. "I sort of thought you wouldn't take me because you were bound to lose. But I also knew that wouldn't stop you. And it wasn't the last time you'd saved me, either. Remember DeKiller?"

"I don't think I could forget," Phoenix admitted. "When you disappeared from the Gatewater, I was worried you were going to get kidnapped again."

Maya smiled, but she didn't look at him. "DeKiller told me, after I woke up, about Enguarde's trial, and the deal between the two of you. Then he locked me in this sort of wine cellar, leaving me with that card and a photograph and pen I'd swiped when I managed to get out of the room. So I wrote you a message on the photograph, thinking you'd probably come sooner or later and DeKiller and I would be long gone by then. Then, to pass the time, I took the pen and drew your face on the card. You were my last hope, and it just felt so comforting to see your face, even if it was just a drawn face."

"I see," Phoenix replied, lost in thought. One of the memories that had played out in his head while talking to Mia had been a call from Maya, and something about the call was beginning to bug him. "I have a question for you. Do you remember when you called me, informing me you were going to abandon your position as the Master because the elders wouldn't let you visit me anymore?"

Maya nodded. "It's pretty hard to forget."

"There was something you were going to tell me," Phoenix continued. "You broke off, though, and then hung up. Were you going to tell me how you really felt?"

Maya nodded again. "I'd been working up the courage to tell you since the DeKiller thing. I was going to tell you if Dahlia Hawthorne didn't kill me, actually. That's why I told Sis to tell you if I didn't make it. I wanted you to know, and I was worried it was going to be too late to tell you. But then, when I came to, I didn't have a chance to tell you before Iris. . ." Her voice trailed away, but he knew what she was talking about. He closed his eyes, trying to block out the memory. He and Iris were over now. . . but Maya probably didn't know that, after seeing them together all night.

"So, that's why you didn't tell me over the phone?" he asked. "You thought Iris and I were still together, or were going to get back together after she got out of prison?"

"Yes," Maya admitted with a sigh. "I figured that, even if you did feel the same way, you would prefer Iris over me."

"Iris is a nun now," Phoenix said. "A full-fledged one. She had to take a vow of chastity. I'm not going to lie, but I did want to start over with her after she was released from jail." He paused for a moment, then said, "She also seemed to think that you and I were dating."

Maya hesitated before saying, "I. . . see." She coughed, then said, "Well, it's out now, I guess. All of it."

Phoenix shook his head. "Not all of it."

Maya looked up at him sharply. "What do you mean?" she asked warily.

Phoenix stared across the table at her for what felt like an eternity, but what couldn't have been more than a couple of seconds. "There's still another side, isn't there? Don't you want to know what my take is on this?"

"I already know," she replied dully. "I've always known. That's why I didn't tell you."

Phoenix tried hard not to smile. "Then you won't be surprised by this," he replied quietly. Then, leaning across the table, he kissed her.

Maya went rigid with shock. After a few seconds, they broke away, Phoenix feeling like an idiot as he grinned at her, Maya staring at him as if he'd grown two heads.

"Wh-What?" she spluttered, confused. "Nick? What the–?"

"I guess I've been in denial for a long time," Phoenix replied with a shrug, still smiling.

"But what about what you said at the reunion?" Maya asked, still confused. "And all those times Pearly talked about us. It doesn't–"

Phoenix shrugged again. "Like I said, I've been in denial for a while."

Maya bit her lip. "So that wasn't just out of pity?" she asked, her voice hopeful.

"Nope," he said, shaking his head.

Maya's face suddenly broke out into a huge smile, looking happier than he had ever seen her. His own smile broadened, and they kissed again before they remembered that there were two teenaged girls that were almost certainly in hysterics over their whereabouts.

"We'd better be getting back," Phoenix said reluctantly, standing up. Maya stood up too, looking so light-headed that she could float, and held his hand.

"It's okay," she said with a smile. "We have another two days until I have to go back to Kurain. We have a lot of catching up to do."

And together, holding hands, they walked out of the restaurant and out into the street, Phoenix thinking, Yes we do. Yes we do.

This may seem like the end. It's not. We still have one more chapter left, which is more like an epilogue, but whatever. Then it's the end.

Anyway, this is the first time I've written anything like this, so I don't know how well it turned out, if it was cheesy, etc. I need to be able to judge my work better. XDD