[fic update] Piano Man Tangent Memory 01: The Winner Takes It All (Maya)

[read at website // ff.net // objection!]
[to read from livejournal, use cuts below]

Title: Piano Man
Author:trenchkamen (via ms_asylum fic-journal)
Fandom: Gyakuten Saiban / Ace Attorney
Genre: General, romance, memory, songfic

narumitsu

“Mystic Maya?”

“Hm?”

“Do you love Mr. Nick?”

Maya stopped mid-lick of her ice cream cone. Pearl was sitting next to her on the park bench, swinging her legs and staring at her, hard, ignoring the ice cream running down the blade of her hand.

“I…” Maya licked some ice cream that was threatening to melt down the side of her cone. “Yeah. Of course I do, Pearl. He’s like my brother. We’ve been through a lot together.”

“That’s not what I mean.”

Maya sighed. “Pearly…”

“Don’t lie.” God damn, that child could look terrifying when she stared at you like that. “You do love Mr. Nick, don’t you? I can feel it when you’re near him.”

“Pearl…”

She felt as though she had been stabbed in the stomach. She had already been fighting off the waves of nausea she felt every time she thought about what Nick and Edgeworth were probably doing at this very second, and this second blow brought the taste of bile. She stared at the top of her ice cream, mapped the thin lines her tongue had patterned across the surface. Glass ground in her throat.

“Sometimes, just because you love somebody, doesn’t mean they’re going to love you back.”

“Why?”

“Well…” Maya sighed heavily. “I don’t know. I don’t think anybody does.”

“…I don’t understand.”

Maya sighed heavily and opened her mouth to say something, but just closed it and stared at her ice cream. It wasn’t that Pearl was intellectually incapable of understanding the concept. Children have an odd way of saying that they don’t understand something when they fully well understand it, but don’t want to accept it, because it’s just too sad or depressing or unfair. They don’t want to understand it. There is unconscious magical thinking in that, as though by asking over and over again, and not understanding, the answer will change, and it will turn out that the adults had just been being cynical and foolish all along.

“I don’t either, Pearl,” she finally said. “I don’t either.”

“But the power of love can make anything happen. If you love Mr. Nick enough, he’ll have to love you back.”

Maya smiled sadly. A rivet of ice cream melted over and ran down the side of her finger, mesmerizing. She could suddenly, and oddly clearly, see every crack and fault in her skin. She lifted her hand and licked it off.

“Come on,” she said. She stood and beckoned to Pearl, trying her best to smile brightly, though she knew her pain was transparent. Her eyes stung. “There are some cute shops around here. Let’s go look.”

“Mystic Maya…”

Pearl was glowering, hard. Maya stared back at her for a long time, entering a silent battle of wills in which she wordlessly begged her cousin to give it up, but Pearl’s gaze did not waver. Her lower lip was firmed in that almost-pout she had when she was feeling especially stubborn.

She wanted to tell Pearl it would only hurt both her and Nick more if she did not give this up. She wanted to tell her that it would ruin the friendship they did have. She wanted to tell her that her efforts were utterly futile, and that this was not a Disney movie in which everything was simple and certain and always worked out all right in the end. She just sighed and shook her head. Suddenly, it was so clear why adults had always said the thing that pissed her off the most when she was a kid. They said it because it was true. They said it because they wanted it to be true.

No child should have to understand this.

“You’ll understand when you’re older.”

---------------------------------------------------

I don’t wanna talk
About things we’ve gone through
Though it’s hurting me
Now it’s history

She had always envisioned her dream man as somebody eccentric, somebody as deeply into fandom as she was, willing to cosplay and take weekend trips on a whim and try new things, just because.

She never thought she would wind up falling in love with a man like him.

It was not that he was unattractive. He had that rare-but-alluring combination of blue eyes and black hair, high cheekbones and good skin, and an easy, open smile. He was easy to read. He had the strong, broad shoulders and long legs romantic leads would kill for.

It was not that he wasn’t one of those rare, fundamentally-good people in the world. He was kind. He was earnest. He championed the underdogs and put his life and career in danger for the sake of other people, sometimes rather rashly and naively. He was a radical opponent of the tyranny of the majority. She had never had any trouble respecting him. Hell, she had never had any trouble admiring him.

Beyond that, though, he was… boring.

She never would have thought he was an art student before deciding to go to law school. As messy as his office was without her clerical input he was ruthlessly meticulous with his bookkeeping and endlessly, painfully practical. When left to his own devices he was content to consume a steady diet of frozen dinners, the History Channel, books, and the occasional independent film down by the university. He was comfortable with a predictable, quiet schedule. His concern for his wardrobe extended so far as to rouse him into the occasional Goodwill trip when his casual clothes were coming apart at the seams, and those casual clothes were jeans and hoodies and t-shirts and the occasional collared shirt and blazer. He sprung for new boxers and socks, at least, but ‘springing’ for him meant going to Target. Gel insoles were an indulgence, almost necessary in his secondhand dress shoes. He liked classical music and twentieth-century rock, the Stones and Zeppelin and Pink Floyd and all the bands everybody else in the world liked. He saw no reason to go out and do things when they could do the equivalent at home; going for the sake of going made no sense to him. When he was bored at work he played solitaire or hearts on the computer, despite her recommendation of several free MMOs and other games with, heaven forbid, a plot or some depth and creativity.

I've played all my cards
And that's what you've done too
Nothing more to say
No more ace to play

It caught her by surprise when she caught him sketching one day. He never showed his artwork to anybody.

She had returned by the office in the evening as she had forgotten her cell phone, and he had not heard her come in. He was cradling the office phone with his shoulder and sketching. She had gotten a good glimpse over his shoulder before he had started and snapped the sketchbook shut, sputtering that he had not heard her come in. Were he not on the phone at the time, she would have pestered him to allow her to see more. She waited out in the lobby for a full half hour, but when it was evident the call was going to continue for a while longer, she let herself out.

The sketch had been of Prosecutor Edgeworth. It was in profile, with odd shadows covering his eyes, but it was clearly Edgeworth. Nick had that artist’s skill for conveying a clear identity with only a few details.

Of course, as soon as she had the office to herself, she dug through the junk in his desk drawers until she found his sketchbook buried in the back corner beneath several fat, manila accordion-folders of tax accounts. The date on the first sketch was only last month. It was a landscape, trees and water ruffled by the wind, and all this conveyed only with charcoal and hatch-markings.

She was used to opening a friend’s sketchbook to find pages upon pages of fantasy-related artwork, all creativity and magic and eccentricity and color. Nick only drew things he saw in real life, as he saw them. His lines conveyed motion and fluidity and a cohesive, intuitive sense of the whole. They were dreamlike, lucid. But, his drawings were so raw and frank. There were no idealizations. For all that Mia was a stunning woman, he had drawn her eyes off-center, as they actually were if one cared to look closely enough. Pearl’s lips had the rough appearance of somebody who chewed on them when nervous. Maya herself was flat-chested, knock-kneed and curveless as she was in real life. Larry was just plain awkward-looking and lanky, as though he had never outgrown adolescence. Maggey had freckles and slightly crooked teeth. Detective Gumshoe’s eyes were a little too small, and his chin disproportionately large relative to the rest of his face. Did Franziska von Karma actually have that mole behind her ear? Prosecutor Edgeworth’s eyes were hollow, sunken and sleepless, and there was already a crease forming between his brows.

They were all beautiful. They were all drawn with so much love.

Nick had always had a knack for noticing the small details. This in-of-itself was not an unusual trait. But, unlike most detail-oriented people, he could integrate these details into the whole and keep them in perspective.

Nick had always loved people for who they were, for all their flaws and humanity.

He had already filled half the sketchbook—which, she checked, was two-hundred pages according to the cover—in the span of a month. There were a disproportionate number of pictures of Prosecutor Edgeworth. The picture of Edgeworth she had seen him working on last night was the last entry. He had shaded it, fleshed out the stark shadows under his eyes and the hollow, gaunt planes of his cheeks. He looked like a ravaged corpse. She ran her fingers across the page gently, taking care not to smear the lead.

A work of art was rocked to its core by the artist’s feelings. Anybody with even the most rudimentary spiritual training could feel it. This piece in particular screamed its concern to her. A sense of vertigo reeled her; she was suddenly overcome with an unspeakable sense of betrayal, loss, and pain.

“I’m in love with Miles Edgeworth.”

His voice was broken over the phone, strained. Maya hugged her knees, huddled in the honey-colored darkness of Kurain’s antechamber. There wasn’t a damn thing she could do to comfort her best friend, not all the way out here.

She realized she had forgotten to breathe. She closed the sketchbook and carefully replaced it beneath the tax returns.

For all that he had no imagination, he saw the world in all its insane, complex, unbelievable, and impossible reality in a way nobody else she had ever known could. And, for all his sarcasm, he embraced it.

The gods may throw a dice
Their minds as cold as ice
And someone way down here
Loses someone dear

She had found that sketchbook during the year Prosecutor Edgeworth was presumed dead, after having left that cowardly, childish note and leaving Nick shattered in his wake. Nick hid his pain admirably from his clients, but through her psychic hypersensitivity it was painfully obvious to Maya how much he was hurting. His psyche was marred by a constant turmoil of betrayal, confusion, guilt, anger, and grief. When anybody mentioned Prosecutor Edgeworth around him, his face suddenly went gaunt, haunted, and he demanded that his name never be spoken in his presence again. The pain Nick felt stab through his gut stabbed Maya by proxy.

The winner takes it all
The loser has to fall
It's simple and it's plain
Why should I complain?

She was furious with Prosecutor Edgeworth.

It was such a small, cowardly thing to do, to leave a dramatic, self-pitying note like that and drop off the face of the earth just when people were starting to care about him again. People show their true selves when they are put under pressure. Maya had been impressed with him at first, even a little intimidated, but now, she saw him as nothing but a very cowardly and weak man. He was selfish. It was in such sharp contrast to Nick’s selflessness and courage.

Shortly after, Nick had told her about the letters he had been writing to Edgeworth for fifteen years, continuing even without receiving a single reply. Maya understood why he had not wanted to tell anybody about that, as it was, quite frankly, terrifyingly obsessive and stalkerish, though they now both suspected Edgeworth had not received a single one of those letters as Manfred von Karma was acting as his adoptive father during that time. It was still foolish, even by Maya’s incredibly emotional standards of suitability, to go to law school just to try to ‘save’ a friend he had not spoken to for more than a decade. In real life one did not ‘save’ people like that. Maybe before Edgeworth had done this to Nick, she would have seen things differently, and she realized that. She was a true romantic at heart. Now, however, she could only regard Edgeworth as utterly unworthy of any sacrifices.

Edgeworth said he had run away because he felt it was the right thing to do. That was bullshit. To try to hide his cowardice with some vestige of courage was sickening. The real right thing to do would have been to stay and face those he had wronged, and to own up to his mistakes and make amends. In what way was running away the right or honorable or courageous thing to do? But of course, Nick bought it. Or, at least he tried to convince himself that he did.

---------------------------------------------

But tell me does she kiss
Like I used to kiss you?
Does it feel the same
When she calls your name?

“Then why were you kissing?”

Maya stopped. She heard Pearl stop behind her and turned. Pearl had crossed her arms and was glowering accusingly.

“You saw that?”

“The night after Mr. Nick rescued you from Matt Engarde; I saw you two kissing on the couch.” She straightened her shoulders confidently and pointed, something she had been doing entirely too much since accompanying Nick to court. “That’s proof that you two are in love!”

Her heart was being crushed. She looked away and wet her tongue, willing herself not to start tearing up.

“Sometimes… well… kissing somebody doesn’t mean that you love them, or want to be with them forever. It isn’t like it is in stories.”

Pearl was silent for a moment. Maya did not turn around.

“But that’s stupid,” she finally blurted out. “Why would you kiss somebody if you didn’t love them?”

Maya stared at the ground, fists clenched at her sides.

--------------------------------------------

“He doesn’t deserve you, Nick.”

Nick had gotten himself entirely too drunk the night after the conclusion of the Engarde case after Pearl had gone to bed. He was sprawled out on his couch in his apartment, hand draped over his eyes, and Maya was sitting on the floor next to him. His free arm dangled over the side of the couch, and Maya leaned into it, hoping he would reciprocate. He weakly held her, and her stomach flipped with giddiness. The card onto which she had scrawled his profile during her confinement in Engarde’s basement was still in his breast pocket.

She had realized she was in love with him.

She had realized this just as Prosecutor Edgeworth had re-appeared into their lives, and just as Nick was trying to drown his confusion and pain.

“You deserve so much better, Nick. You really do.”

Phoenix’s voice was quiet. The fan flickered bars of shadow over his supine body.

“Deep down he’s really an amazing guy.”

“So what?” Maya pulled away from Nick and stared at him, trying to keep her voice level. Her chest welled with rage. This was the same fucking conversation they had had a billion times in the past year. It never changed. She knew repeating the same arguments in some twisted way helped him feel less confused, maybe because he just needed an external voice constantly telling him what he already knew, but this was getting damn old. It was already bad enough when Edgeworth was in the steady-state of being gone and uncommunicative; now, he had swept back into their lives to save both of their asses, and had played off of Nick in the courtroom in a shockingly perceptive and humane maneuver to prolong the trial. It was noble and brilliant. Miles Edgeworth was not supposed to act noble and start showing some backbone and moral compass; that complicated things greatly. It was so much easier to demonize him when he was an absent, unresponsive asshole. And damn it, she felt indebted to him now. It was so much easier to appreciate him for the fucked up, ultimately good man he was and feel genuinely grateful when Nick was not tortured by his presence. She had even been able to be genuinely cheerful and welcoming when he was hovering around their group post-victory and oozing painful awkwardness she had yet to see in anybody else out of high school. But as the night wore on and she started drifting back toward Nick, the turmoil devouring his gut ate at her as well, and her patience toward Edgeworth dropped sharply. His flaws came to the fore and seemed so much harder to endure.

She had always hated girls who would be sticky-sweet and welcoming to somebody’s face when they really hated that person, and who then gossiped as soon as they were out of earshot. Now she understood why some of them did it. They felt guilty of their own petty jealousies and knew the ramifications for their other relationships could be dire if they showed their true conflicted emotions.

“Maybe in the past he was a good person, but I don’t think he’s that guy anymore. He certainly hasn’t acted like it.”

“He came all the way out here to help us. With the case.” Phoenix’s words were slurred. “He had a fucked up childhood. He doesn’t know how to deal with his feelings.”

“Oh, for God’s sake, he’s twenty-five years old, Nick! You can’t keep making excuses for him! He’s old enough to know better!”

Phoenix did not respond. Maya sighed heavily and stood, leaning over him and squinting to see him through the shadows. His eyes where obscured by his arm.

He sobbed.

“Nick?”

Tears were collecting in his eyes. He scrunched his eyelids, and tears ran down his cheeks. He took a shaking breath.

“Nick…”

Maya leaned on her forearms on either side of his broad shoulders and brushed his tears away with her thumb. Something in her gut clenched painfully.

“Nick… I’m sorry. I… I just really think you have to let him go.” She paused. “He’s not worth this. I know he came back and everything, but he’s just not worth this. People can’t just do one good thing and expect it to make up for all the tons of bad things they’ve done over the years. That’s too easy.”

Phoenix did not respond. Maya sighed and rested her cheek on his chest, curling her legs beneath her and listening to the steady heartbeat beneath his dress shirt. He smelled of overpowering, cheap cologne, masculine and intoxicating. His chest rose and fall beneath her ear, halting with sobs. His large, course hand came up and stroked her hair. Her stomach fluttered, and something hot coiled within her abdomen at the contact.

She looked up. His forearm was still draped over his eyes, and tears were still running down his cheeks. He was hissing through his teeth, haltingly, trying to hold back sobs.

“Nick…”

Phoenix hissed, sharply, and released a shuddering sob.

“Maybe deep down he’s a great guy. I mean, I can see that too…” It was a half-truth, and the jealousy and bitterness remained sour on her tongue. “…but you can’t live your life based on what potential you have deep down. You have to act on it. And frankly, up until now, he hasn’t been.”

“Wasn’t that from Spider-Man or something…?”

“Batman. Look…”

Maya sighed and curled her legs up closer underneath herself, snuggling further into Nick’s warmth. He stiffened, as if suddenly realizing how close she was getting, and her heart stopped. Time suspended for several long, agonizing seconds, and Nick shifted. For an agonizing split-second Maya was afraid he was going to shed her off and leave, but he re-adjusted his weight and stilled.

Her heart started pounding. He had accepted her physical closeness. She cautiously started rubbing his ribs through his shirt with her thumb, and his only response was to stroke her hair. She shifted her cheek on his chest and stared under his chin, praying he would look down.

“Nick…”

This was not the most attractive angle for him. He tilted his chin down into his chest, and Maya had a good look up his running nose. His eyes were bloodshot. His breath reeked of that cheap old bottle of Jose Cuervo he had refused to toss out of his office; she could have sworn this morning it was over a quarter full. He was one of the few people she knew who could stand the stuff straight; he said his mom used to put it on his gums when he had a toothache, and would give him shots as a kid if he had a cold to clear up his congestion. The bottle lay empty by the couch. Damn it, Nick; how many shots is that?

She sighed and pulled away from his chest, leaning over him to grab the tissue box on the end table behind his head, and realized as she was pulling back down to her knees that she had just shoved her breasts in front of his face. He was such a mess it was hard to know if he noticed, but he mumbled his thanks as he blew his nose loudly and dropped the tissue on the floor. Maya scowled down at it.

“I’m not picking that up.”

“I’m not… I’ll…” Nick sniffed and ran his hand over his eyes, grunting awkwardly. “I’m sorry; what?”

“Never mind.”

Her stomach coiled with nervousness, and she settled back down into his chest, resuming stroking his flank. Growing up in Kurain she had no male friends her own age, and she was still enthralled by the basic physiological differences in the opposite sex: how he seemed to radiate heat, how he was all flat planes and broad shoulders and awkward, bony angles through his cheap shirt. Though he was just over average height for a man his body was so big compared to hers, sparse and gangly. He had an amazing ass, probably mostly because he biked everywhere he went, though he seemed utterly unaware of it. She smirked to herself; if she said anything to that effect, he would probably blush and mumble something non-committal. There was two-days worth of stubble on his face, and she desperately wanted to feel it against the grain to see if it felt as sandpapery as it looked. She assumed it would feel much as her legs did after a couple of days without shaving. She wanted to feel the unevenness and rough patches and bumps on his skin, wanted to confirm his humanity and presence through his flaws. She was replacing her fantasies with a very immediate reality beneath her hands. She had always thought she would be repulsed by male roughness and body hair, but she was quickly realizing she did not mind it. At least he did not have back hair or chest hair; that was where she drew the ‘disgusting’ line. She did have to admit she liked that trail of hair some guys had going down their stomachs to their groins, and she wondered—

“Hey, Maya?”

“Hm?”

Nick opened his mouth as though he was going to say something, and Maya’s stomach dropped out.

“…no.” His voice was quiet. “Never mind.”

“No, what? What is it?”

“It’s nothing; it’s just… nothing…”

“Nick.” Maya propped herself up on her elbows and stared at him. “Spit it out. What’s wrong?”

“No, it’s just—” Nick waved his hand dismissively and turned on his side, facing away from her. “Never mind, Maya. Just forget about it. It’s not important.”

“Yes it is!”

Maya grabbed his shoulders and turned him back around so he was facing her. Nick gave her a sad, almost half-smiling look. He sighed and closed his eyes.

“Just… please, Maya, forget I said anything.”

“Do you like me?”

She blurted the words before she fully realized what she was saying. She covered her mouth, breath bated, feeling like she was going to pass out. Nick just kept his eyes closed and did not respond, did not move. Her heart hammered in her ears as the time stretched out, tension palpable, and finally burst when Nick exhaled and covered his eyes with his hand.

“…Maya…”

Her hand was still over her mouth. Phoenix opened his eyes and blinked, then looked down.

“…I don’t know.” His voice was barely-audible, drowned out if she breathed too hard. She held her breath to preserve the silence. “I don’t think I can answer that right now.”

“…that means you do, doesn’t it?”

“Yes, but…” Nick sighed heavily and threw his head back on the armrest again, running his fingers over his eyes. “I can’t… I don’t know, Maya. I’m sorry. I just don’t know right now. I don’t think I can… be with anybody else right now. Emotionally, or—”

“Why?”

“I just can’t, all right?”

“It’s Mr. Edgeworth, isn’t it?”

“Well, yes.”

“I know you’re in love with him, but I just don’t think he’s the same guy you’re in love with. I mean—” Maya sighed heavily and curled up with her head resting on his chest again. His heart was pounding as well; she felt a thrill at the realization. “—you know what I think about all of this.”

He did not respond. Maya shifted and curled her arm under his chest, hugging herself to him. She nuzzled under his neck.

“You can’t love somebody until you let go of your past.”

They were silent for a while. Maya had resumed stroking Nick’s side with her fingertips, and Nick had finally started stroking her hair once again. She was warm and felt thoroughly content, sure if she were a cat she would be purring, but she balanced on the edge of saying something, doing something, to make her feelings known. She kept backing away at the last second. If she got too close, he would get uncomfortable and shove her away, but this might be her last chance to say anything.

It was finally time to go over the top.

She pushed herself up on her arms, shaking, and stared down at Nick’s dozing face as his hand slid limply off the top of her head. His lips were parted slightly, barely showing the tips of his teeth. His eyelids were red and swollen. He exhaled an essence of tequila. He was by no means at his most attractive right now; he was not one of those people who became beautiful when he cried, but like Maya, got a blotchy face and a runny nose. But his lower lip was red and swollen from chewing on it, and that, in a morbid way, was beautiful.

Her stomach coiled. She leaned down, closing the distance between them, and paused with her lips barely parted over his. He breathed in and out of her mouth, breath hot and stale with alcohol but his. She barely brushed her lips against his, and it was dry and rough and strange. She pressed in, harder, and suddenly it was wet and slimy and strange. Nick gasped and stiffened, and Maya’s heart stopped for a second—but then reciprocated, threading his fingers through her hair and pressing his tongue against hers.

Maya had read various strange metaphors for kissing, and she had formulated her expectations and fantasies around them, but this… wasn’t quite what she was expecting. She was surprised by how big and broad their tongues felt; she had expected them to feel thinner, more able to ‘twine like snakes’ or ‘battle for dominance’, but Nick’s tongue filled his own mouth, and she couldn’t push her own past it, or twine around it. She pressed the flat of her tongue against his, rubbing, massaging, and found that this worked; this was foreign, but not in the least unpleasant. His mouth was larger than hers and when he worked his jaw sometimes his teeth grazed against her skin, just outside her lips. Her heart was pounding so hard she thought she was going to pass out, but she stabilized herself through the head-rush.

She collapsed on top of him, and he exhaled sharply into her mouth, which made her giggle slightly. Phoenix suddenly pushed her off by the shoulders and sat up, burying his head in his hands.

Maya’s stomach froze. She settled back on her legs and reached for his shoulder.

“Nick…”

“Don’t.”

She froze. Nick did not look up. He sighed.

“I’m sorry, Maya… I just can’t. Just… forget this ever happened, okay?”

Bile rose in the back of her throat.

“I…” She tried to work her tongue around what she wanted to say, but the shape felt wrong; something in her chest caught. “Nick…”

“I’m sorry.”

“Why?”

She knew as she said it that it sounded angry, petulant, but she was getting too upset to care. Her chest was being crushed. Nick stood up and walked toward his bedroom, half-closed the door, paused, and turned around, half-stepping out of the door.

“I’m sorry, Maya.” His eyes were still red. He looked on the verge of tears again, confused, aching, and guilty. She reached into his mind, and all she could sense was a turmoil of confusion, affection, and aching. There were no words either of them could put to the emotions. She could only sense what was in another person’s conscious mind; things hidden, intuitive and beneath the surface even that person did not know, were obscured to her. “I… look. Maybe someday, something can happen, but not now. I just can’t do it right now. I’m sorry.”

She still couldn’t breathe. She wet her tongue, realized how dry it was, but she couldn’t form any sounds before the door closed.

She lost track of how long she spent curled up on the couch sobbing. She kept hoping, manipulative though she knew it was, that Nick would hear her and come out and comfort her, but the door remained closed. At some point she had passed out. She was woken up mid-morning by Pearl shaking her shoulders and asking where Mr. Nick had gone. During the night somebody had tucked a blanket firmly around her, and there was a half-eaten box of doughnuts on the coffee table with a note in Nick’s familiar messy hand: “I’m sorry, Maya.”

-------------------------------------------

“I don’t know, Pearl,” she finally said. “I don’t know.”

-----------------------------------------------

“Maybe someday.” It held all the hope in the world.

She held on to that hope for a year before it was crushed.

Somewhere deep inside
You must know I miss you
But what can I say
Rules must be obeyed

She could not talk to Pearl, not in a meaningful adult way, about all of this. Pearl’s insistence that she and Mr. Nick were destined to be together twisted the knife deep in her gut, and precocious and perceptive as she was, she refused to accept the reality of the situation in any workable manner. As much as it soothed her heart to have Pearl give her false hope, Maya knew it was ultimately damaging. She had to deal with reality, not dreams and possibilities, or she would never, ever move forward.

The few times that she had been able to talk to Mia, the advice had been predictable and crushing. Mia had fallen in love with a boy who had broken her heart in college, and she said that she had felt her life was over for quite a long time after that. But, she would not have been able to see Diego Armando as a potential lover—even though she didn’t say anything until it was too late—until she let that boy go in her heart. And, ultimately, Diego was better for her. It was damn near impossible at the time to even conceive of another person consuming her heart, but it had happened to her as it had happened to countless people since the dawn of humanity.

“I know your heart is broken,” Mia had said, sitting cross-legged on the floor of Wright and Co. Law Offices. She was bursting out of Pearl’s robes. It was after midnight, and Nick had already gone home. “Trust me, I know how that feels. Nobody can describe it. But you have to move on, for your sake and Phoenix’s. Otherwise, you’re going to be stuck like this forever.”

“But Mr. Edgeworth is such a screwed up person; what if he leaves Nick again, or something happens—”

“And you think waiting around is going to magically make that more likely?”

“No—”

“You can’t put your entire life on hold waiting for something like that to happen. If it does, it does. You can deal with it when it happens. But you can’t shut everybody out of your heart because you are afraid of losing that chance with Phoenix. I know you’re afraid things will be complicated if you’re involved with somebody else if that happens, and, heaven forbid, that you’re in love with that other person. You’re afraid it will make you look flakey. It will make things complicated, and people you care about will get hurt. But everything will be all right in the end. The alternative is putting your entire life on hold, and if you do that, you may not realize how many real chances for happiness you missed waiting for something that is not meant to be—until it is too late.”

As much as Maya hated to admit Mia was right, being in love with two men at once seemed like the least of her problems at that point. None of the guys in her life at that point interested her but Phoenix. And, as shallow as it made her feel, once she had made out with somebody for the first time, she could not stop thinking about it and craving that sort of attention once again. Her motives felt so much cleaner before that point.

The judges will decide
The likes of me abide
Spectators of the show
Always staying low

“He said, ‘maybe someday’.” Her heart and mind held onto this like a talisman, the only warm or bright thing she could see right now. “I felt… that he meant it. He really meant it at the time.”

“I don’t doubt that. He probably did. But ‘maybe’ isn’t ‘yes’, and it’s tempting to misread it that way when we want something that badly.”

The game is on again
A lover or a friend
A big thing or a small
The winner takes it all

She had made a peace with knowing Nick had affections for her, even if he loved somebody else more. She had, if only for a moment, occupied his heart. That was their moment. He was hers for that one night. Nobody could ever take that away.

They had not spoken about it for a long time. It was always there, palpable, especially in emotionally-intense moments when they were alone together, but slowly she sensed that Nick truly lost his awkwardness and came to feel comfortable around her as though she was a little sister. And though it hurt, it was okay; she could feel that he genuinely valued her presence, which cut down on a little of the delusion of scorn inherent in being rejected, but also left her no room to hope for anything more. She knew that was for the best; she knew that holding out hope for him would only put her life and emotions on hold, and make her unable to see possible romances when they presented themselves.

But, in all the time that passed since, she had yet to meet anybody who made her feel like Nick did.

-------------------------

I don't wanna talk
If it makes you feel sad
And I understand
You've come to shake my hand

The restaurant Maya and Pearl had chosen usually required reservations, but Edgeworth had used his clout to get them a table on such short notice. Maya felt a stab of sick loathing at this flagrant show of power, something akin to what she felt every time she saw his tacky sports car, but she was accustomed to brushing it aside and attributing its vehemence to her jealousy and hurt.

She had bought an evening gown that set well with her figure. She did not have much of a waist, so she had found a midnight blue dress that did not draw attention to her midriff and showed off her rather nice shoulders. Pearl had fallen in love with a rather tacky, many-layered lacy monstrosity from the children’s section that on an older girl would have screamed of Lolita fetish-wear, but Maya had to admit on Pearl it did look rather cute. She had pulled Pearl’s hair out of its loops and brushed it out so it fell down around her shoulders, and the little girl could not stop spinning and watching her skirt and hair flutter around her the entire time they were waiting for the boys to be ready to go.
They had a secluded corner-booth with a view of the dining room, all polished wood and bright lighting and modern décor. Pearl stalled as the group was being shown its table to look up at the grand chandelier in the ceiling, and as soon as they were seated, she crawled out under the table to go stare up at it in awe. When she had enough she returned to the table to pull the centers out of her bread, despite Nick’s light scolding and Maya’s encouragement by eating her crusts. The waitress did not card when Maya replied that she would like to try the champagne that was offered, and at her insistence, Nick and Edgeworth agreed to some as well. Pearl had stared mesmerized at the pale golden bubbles rising up through the flue until Maya agreed to let her try some, despite Nick’s sputtering that they were going to get arrested, but his fears were short-lived as she spat out the one tiny sip she took.

Maya was relieved that Nick looked a lot better than he had that morning. He was still prone to spells of silent brooding, but Pearl was especially insistent in keeping him involved in the conversation, and she noticed that Edgeworth would discreetly grasp his hand beneath the table and give him a comforting squeeze if he started looking too forlorn. Maya only noticed because she was hyper-sensitive to any such activities between the two, and there was an insanely powerful psychic burst associated with that action—despite the lack of inflection in his facial expression Edgeworth’s mind screamed its concern to Phoenix, and the comfort he tried to convey through his hand enveloped his aura like a cloak.

I apologize
If it makes you feel bad
Seeing me so tense
No self-confidence

Sometimes, she would catch Nick’s eye, especially after sharing a mutual story or an inside joke nobody else got, and something sad and melancholy, unreadable and bittersweet, would be in his expression. An unspoken awareness would pass between them. No words could express it, and they never tried. He would just smile sadly, and she would do the same and look down as she felt a snatch of question, a flutter deep in his heart of ache and regret, cross his mind.

What if?

But the flutter would disappear, and he would convince himself that ultimately he had made the right decision and that he loved Miles Edgeworth. Though he still had feelings for her there was no confusion as to whether or not his decision was right: just sadness that he had hurt her, an almost half-wish she had never had feelings for him. And both of them wished the whole situation could have been simpler.

And then there was something longing, something bittersweet, neither of them could put words to. And it was all right. Putting words to it would only distort it. All they could do was smile sadly, and hope the other understood.

They could have been a family. Everything could have been perfect.

She could wait to cry until she was on her own.

They were a family. It wasn’t perfect. It wasn’t the way she had wanted it. But few things in life ever are.

And it was all right.

Someday, her heart was going to heal.