Miles
(For kittycatty0328)

I have a confession to make...

My mother and father were expecting a girl. Cliché, yes, but true; Angela and Gregory Edgeworth were enthralled with the idea of their baby Becca. After two miscarriages and a false pregnancy, this image of their daughter was firmly in their heads - especially the head of my mother, orphaned at fourteen, who wanted nothing more than a little baby of her own to take care of. And a baby she got, lacking one vital part and sporting another which had been entirely unexpected.

They named me 'Miles' for my father's grandfather - or, to hear my mother tell it, 'for the miles and miles your poor father had to drive to see you on time when you were born'. I loved my mother. Truly. I have never forgotten her, despite what my father thought, despite what everyone thinks. She was never particularly well, though, not for a moment, not really. Something in her broke before I was born, and I know that the disappointment of my sex, despite my father's protests when I asked him, didn't help her in the slightest. Her little sister, I found out, had died young when they were both in the orphanage. She was a Rebecca, 'and only six when they took her'. My mother never truly got over it, I don't think; she blamed herself a little, she 'should have been looking after her better'. So the idea of her baby girl was almost a replacement of this sister I suppose, and I, unfortunately, disappointed her.

My mother was younger than my dad; four years younger. She was only twenty-two when I came along, and her mental stability by the time she died was that of someone around half her age. Poor thing. My father loved her so much.

Don't think she was all gloom and doom though, my mother. She was a wonderful lady. For the first six years of my life, she was the best mother in the world, and I cannot stress this enough. A little odd, stranger than other kids' mothers, but I loved her. She taught me to play the flute. I've seen pictures when I was a baby, dressed in her little home-made pink bobble hats - she'd made them when she was expecting a girl, so they weren't going to go to waste - with both of my parents, and the three of us look so happy.

I always dressed smartly, by the way. My father always said that sharp clothes indicate a sharp mind. And my favourite accessory was my little bow-tie, created out of some of my mother's leftover material. "It's not pink, Miles," she told me gently when she presented it to me and I, aged four, objected that pink was for girls, "It's called magenta, the colour, perfect for big strong men like you."

My mother didn't die when I was six. She left. I don't know if she even knew what she was doing. She still occasionally sent small gifts, on my birthdays and at Christmas time, but I never saw her again. Dad was heartbroken, but we coped well enough, the two of us. He focused a lot more on his work after his wife left, but he never didn't have time for me. My father became my idol...but I still wore my little bow tie. When Phoenix and Larry began to frequent my home, the questions were inevitably asked - by Larry, mostly - where my Mom was, and my father explained, firmly, that she had gone away.

I spoke to Phoenix later that night, while Larry snored on the sofa. He asked me quietly if my mother was dead. This was a surprise to me then; I'd never considered how people may see things before. No, I told him, she's just sick. Maybe you'll meet her one day when she gets back.

She didn't, of course, as we all know. My father was killed, and I left for Germany. When I was an older teenager, I started wearing my suits; the infamous original suit of mine was entirely of Manfred Von Karma's design, the frills, the excess - except for the main colour. Magenta - not pink - I chose, in a homage to my late father's wife, my mother. I hoped, in an odd way, that it would make him happy.

It was when I was about twenty one or twenty two, in Germany with my adopted sisters after the SL-9 fiasco for a short holiday. My older sister made a habit of buying American newspapers, and I often skimmed over them; even on vacation I didn't want to lose touch with what was going on back home. It was a tiny little article in the middle of the paper. A suicide report, about ten small lines long, a tiny little box with tiny little print mourning the passing of Ms Angela Holden - her maiden name, of course.

I didn't cry; I'd lost my mother long before then. I sat alone for a while, thinking over in my head, remembering.

I began to dress much more plainly after that. The frills were nominally kept in the form of my cravat, but the rest of my suit was plain and smart, as my father had taught me. It was almost a reverse of what had happened before; I dressed for my mother on the death of my father, and for my father on the death of my mother.

So when I stand in court now, or when I visit their graves - I tracked my mother's down eventually - I stand proudly in my suit. Smart clothes for a smart mind, and magenta, not pink, for a big strong man like me.

...I miss my family

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