+++ The door +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
+
+ Pearl:
+ There's a little door for Shoe
+ in this big door.
+
+ Phoenix:
+ I'm sure Maya used this door
+ to shove this out there...
+ I'm sure it was her!
+
+ Phoenix:
+ (Every time you give me some
+ piece of evidence, it's always
+ the most crucial piece.)
+
+ Phoenix:
+ (This time too, I'm sure...)
+

Maya silently observed the guests at Tres Bien, after some hours of celebrations following the State Vs Iris of Hazakurain case.

Nick appeared to be enjoying himself, animatedly conversing with Edgeworth, and Larry and Gumshoe (who were even more animated, apparently somewhat drunk.) Pearl had fallen asleep, neatly curled up in a corner with some kind of travel pillow provided by either Edgeworth or Franziska.

Maya hoped nobody had noticed her uncharacteristic lack of appetite for the food tonight, (but this was Tres Bien, so there were plenty of alternate excuses for not eating anything.) Spoiling her cheerful veneer with tears had never been a threat – it was easy to project a fake smile over the dull haze where she could not have cried even if she’d wanted to. She’d tried to delude herself it was just lingering physical distress, but - suddenly, she simply had to leave. She exited the restaurant unnoticed and unannounced.

Maya paced unseeingly in the direction of Gourd Lake Park. There was no longer possibility of conscious denial of that most hideous of emotions – grief.
It had caught her off-guard – she hadn’t even known her mother, didn’t know her when she stared her in the face.

The grief she’d felt over Mia, of course, too had been brutal, but the exact emotion had been obscured, wrapped up as it was in fear at her murder charges and situation and directly followed by fear for Phoenix at his own murder framing in helping her. Then she’d channelled Mia, and even though she hadn’t seen her, it made her feel the connection wasn’t lost, so her death was easier to deal with. Mia wasn’t totally gone.

But Maya knew better than to expect her mother to communicate from the afterlife. If she hadn’t wished to interact with Maya when they stared each other in the face, she certainly wouldn’t desire belated association from beyond the grave.

Maya circuited the lake, near-oblivious to the shimmering surface and muddy shore. Actually, just suddenly leaving Pearly and Nick like that wasn’t very responsible. But somehow she couldn’t bring herself to return or call to explain. Maybe someone would notice she left anyway, and understand.

Sure enough, eventually Nick called her phone.

“Um, Maya, did you go home?”

“I went for a walk. To Gourd Lake,” she explained.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah.” It wasn’t as definite-sounding as she’d intended.

“D..do you want to be alone?” queried Phoenix, evidently arranging his words awkwardly. “Or do you want me to come by on my way home?”

“To the lake?”

“Yeah.”

“What about Pearly?”

A pause.

“Edgeworth has agreed to look after her.”

Great, Nick was probably worried about her. And yes, of course she wanted to see Nick. Oh well, it was Pearly who was the main person she had to stay ‘unaffected’ around. Besides, it was better he could ease his fears by ‘checking up’ on her, instead of imagining the worst.

“If you like..”

“I’ll see you there.”

***

It wasn’t hard for Phoenix to find Maya’s small figure slowly tracing the edge of the lake.

The dull look of grief in her eyes somehow made her look much older and tore at his heart.

Her attempt at a smile to match her greeting to him spectacularly failed.

Maya, you don’t have to fake it, Phoenix groaned internally. Maya must have noticed his incredulity, because she again fell into dull subduedness.

“I’m okay,” she reassured. “You can go back to the others, and Pearly..”

“It’s okay,” confirmed Phoenix, “Edgeworth is going to look after her. Unless you.. want me to leave…”

“No, No! I mean, not unless you want to.”

They meandered slowly, Maya’s eyes silently fixated to the ground. Suddenly she stopped dead. “I.. I think I should get home, if you don’t mind.” Her hand moved unthinkingly to finger her head. Phoenix internally panicked, recalling how Dahlia had thwacked her with that horrible-looking staff, and he couldn’t begin to comprehend what overextended channelling stints wrought on the body…

“I’ll walk you home,” Phoenix offered, affixing her with a cautious eye as they set off in the direction of Maya’s apartment.

Maya’s pace progressively slowed as they slowly progressed. “I’m fine!” she reassured to Phoenix’s concerns. “I’ll just need to lie down..”

Maya staggered directly to her bedroom and flopped lifelessly on the bed. Phoenix perched awkwardly in the doorway, unsure of what protocols he should adhere to with his assistant – he didn’t usually visit her own tiny apartment, let alone her bedroom. But her breathing was shallow and rapid, her body listless. She was clearly quite unwell.

“Do you need a doctor?” he queried, recalling how she’d only recently been released from hospital. [And so had he, he recalled, clutching his own aching head.]

“No,” murmured Maya, without opening her eyes. “Hot.”

Perhaps she has a fever, speculated Phoenix, stepping into the room and kneeling to her side. Even before his hand could contact her forehead he sensed the heat radiating out of it.

Now what did they do for fever? At the hospital, they’d given him some kind of drip…

“I’m getting you a glass of water,” he explained.

Upon his return with the water, Maya shifted herself to drink it, then sank back against the bed, energy spent. Now, pills to reduce fever… Phoenix trawled her bathroom cabinet, but there didn’t seem to be any.

“I’m just going out to get something for your fever,” Phoenix explained.

“Nick… right..” Maya muttered vacantly.

With a last searching backward glance, Phoenix hurried out.

Still, it was around 15 minutes before his successful return, pills in hand.

Things had clearly degenerated in the meantime.

Maya clung limply but determinedly to the edge of her bed, eyes sparked with petrified wildness. “Nn..noo!” she muttered.

“Maya?”

“W.. what’s going on?”

“Maya, it’s me. Here, take this,” directed Phoenix, offering the pill.

Maya merely buried herself against the bedhead.

“Why is she trying to kill me?”

“Maya! It’s Nick!”

“Nick?”

“Eat this! Please! It’ll make you feel better!”

With a flash of lucidity, Maya gulped the pill, then again impaled herself against the bedhead, her eyes manic and unseeing.

“You’re only dreaming,” Phoenix attempted to explain, but Maya did not appear to notice him. Seized with concern at her evidently petrified figure, he laid his hand calmingly against her back.

Maya turned her head, evidently recognized him, and lurched toward him in frenzied relief.

“Nick! Nick, is that you? She’s trying to stab me! No! Run away! She might try and stab you too!”

Maya thrashed away from him and shook frenetically as she collapsed against the edge of the bed, exhausted.

“Maya.. Maya.. It’s over now..” Gently but firmly his hands moved to catch her and avert her sliding off the bed.

“But it’s real!” demanded Maya, her body a mass of tension. Then as if signalled by the touch of his hand again on her back, she ceased resistance and sank limply into him.

“She died, didn’t she,” gulped Maya, subdued, barely a whisper. “My mother died. Why.. why didn’t I know her when I saw her? And I saw… I saw…” She trailed off, incapacitated, her body again wracked with shivering. Phoenix gulped back nausea. First Mia, now her mother… He enfolded Maya tightly to him, uncaring that it was by far the most intimate altercation they had ever had, and stroked her quivering body till it finally stilled.

“You should get some rest,” he directed, noting the manic eyes and burning of fever had begun to leave her.

“Don’t leave me,” she pleaded.

“I won’t. Ever.” Phoenix gulped his conviction without conscious thought. Still with Maya in his arms, he slid down against the bed, guiding her head to the pillow.

“I’m sorry, Nick. I was supposed to try to be strong…”

“We’re partners,” corrected Phoenix. “I’m supposed to help you so you can be strong to everyone else..”

“We’re still partners? I thought Sis left..”

“Of course.”

“But I didn’t help you. I just made a problem again…"

“You helped me more than you’ll ever know,” muttered Phoenix.

“Huh?”

“Get some sleep. You’ll feel better after.” He wrapped his arms more firmly around her. Maya inclined her head closer toward him and obeyed in closing her eyes.

“And I just made that Iris go to jail,” she murmured a few minutes later without opening her eyes. “I’m sorry, Nick. I thought..” She ceased ability of continuation.

“Maya, I said we were partners. That’s your answer.. on that one…” Here it was Phoenix who couldn’t continue.

But no verbal response from Maya was necessary. Phoenix felt the body in his arms relax in entirety and drift into unhindered slumber.

Egdeworth and Gumshoe <3

But DAMNNNNNNN. That case is too much for me.
Maya is frikin stuck in this temple, and Phoenix tried to save her, and risked his life. That was awesome.Maya TT