59 Teenage Dreams

“All men dream, but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds, wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act on their dreams with open eyes, to make them possible.”
~T.E. Lawrence~

---

Lana Skye and Ema Skye
Elsewhere in Europe
December 22, 2024, 8:16 AM

“Don’t get me wrong! It’s not that I’m not thrilled to be spending Christmas with my big sister!” Ema placed the last of the tinsel on the Christmas tree and then stepped back to admire their joint decorative efforts. “However, I am slightly confused about how you got this impromptu break from Interpol in the first place. Did you get time off for good behavior or something?”

“I wish that was the case!” Lana’s tone was wry as she reached into the last tissue paper-lined box and handed her sister the glass angel on top. “I won’t get my tainted criminal record expunged until after 10 years, remember? I have five more to go!”

“I know it seems like total bummer balls,” Ema sympathized. “But look on the bright side! You’re halfway there!”

“If that colorful euphemism was youth speak for ‘getting a raw deal’ it’s because that’s exactly what it is! The fates truly want to ensure they get their pound of flesh from me for my past sins! Talk about selling your soul to the devil,” Lana grumbled disgustedly. “Hell’s biscuits! I thought my days of soul-sucking bargains ended with that godforsaken bastard, Damon Gant!”

“He’s on death row,” Ema quietly reminded, noting the tears that had formed in her sibling’s eyes as she spoke, and hating to see her sister upset. “He’s out of our lives now, Sis. He can’t hurt us anymore.”

Smiling tenderly, Lana regarded the young woman she’d raised practically as a daughter and tried to shove the harrowing memories of the diabolical former Police Chief out of her mind.

“You’re right Ema, I’m sorry to be such a Debbie Downer.”

Evidently, I’m much better at being a Debbie Dallas!

“Let’s talk happy stuff then.” Ema poured them some eggnog. “How long do I have you for? At least till Christmas, right? Maybe New Year?”

“Well, I’ve been off work a week now, so Christmas is likely,” Lana nodded, taking a sip. “But this isn’t your 9-5, two-weeks off sort of gig, Ema. I may have to up and leave at a moment’s notice if Lang calls and informs me that the source has decided to end his holidays in Asia early and is headed back to Europe.”

It blew turds; it honestly did. Had the former detective known for sure how long she’d be off work, she’d have flown back to California to see Jake, as well as Phoenix and some other friends. But no, Lang had insisted that she and Miles remain in Europe, so they were available at a moment’s notice. Lang was staying with some of the associates in France for the holidays, while Kay and Badd were visiting with Raymond Shields, Gregory Edgeworth’s former law partner, and his wife, Katherine Hall.

That small nugget she’d just conveyed to her sister was the maximum amount of classified information Lana was allowed to divulge, even though she’d sworn Ema to secrecy, nevertheless.

It was a gloomy and inconvenient truth in the end. In the last couple of months, after four more successful contraband shipments, each increasingly larger than the previous one, (the illegally imported drugs from Ku were, as promised, The Real McCoy and not placebos) Maximillian Banks had finally reckoned he’d gained enough of the drug lord’s trust enough to move in for the kill and asked the $64,000 question regarding the sought-after cocoons. This had been around mid-December. Ku in turn, to the surprise of no one, had professed he had zero direct dealings with the coveted Borginian exports! Moreover, he’d then announced, to Interpol’s great chagrin, that he was going to go spend the holidays back in his native Hong Kong, for an undisclosed amount of time. However, he’d added slyly, upon return, the Chinese man would amicably divulge the information about who did have a direct cocoon connection … for the right price, of course.

Consequently, the sting operation was on a temporary standstill and was now at the merciful whims of an Asian kingpin whose return date none of them had any inkling of. Hence, their current standby status.

“I know it’s dangerous and all, but it still sounds so exciting at the same time!” Ema’s teal eyes, so like her sister’s, sparkled with excitement. “I mean, you and Mr. Edgeworth going undercover like that … it’s like having a real-life 007 spy for a sibling! Except he’s James Bond and you’re more … Pussy Galore!”

The unintentional irony of the statement didn’t escape Lana in the least, and she tried not to cringe as she emitted a laughing groan as she tossed a Snackoo at her sister.

“Ugh, that’s the first Bond girl name that came to your mind, you gutter-minded little girl?”

“Hey don’t waste those!” Ema caught the snack in mid-air and popped it into her mouth as she flashed an impish grin. “Sorry, did I bring up bad memories of your assigned porn star name, Miss Dallas?”

“Enough of your sass, young lady!” Lana laughingly aimed again, and another snack object whizzed past her kinswoman’s ear. “You’re lucky I’m in altruistic, peaceful holiday spirits, or I’d really let you have it!”

“Holy granoly, your Wolf Man boss sure has one twisted sense of humor, though!” Ema ducked as a decorative pinecone whizzed over her head and snickered. “By the way, is Mr. Edgeworth still as hot now as he was back in the day?”

Cap-wearing catfish flopping a crime beat! The elder Skye’s cheeks flamed.  How much more inappropriate and disgusting can this conversation possibly get?! My ears feel like prostitutes!

“Ema Sharona Skye!” Lana chided, taking a quick sip of her eggnog to hide the flustered expression on her face at the inadvertent scandalous query. “That is my colleague and former subordinate you’re speaking so salaciously about, you naughty trollop! And have you forgotten I’m a betrothed woman?”

“You’re nearly married, not buried, right?” Ema shrugged. “Besides, Mr. Edgeworth isn’t working under you anymore, right?”

The girl appeared oblivious to her sibling’s fiery calescence at the words and hugged herself at the thought of the handsome prosecutor.

“Double whiz fish and fiddlesticks, Lana! You’re so lucky, getting to work with that debonair Prosecutie! I had the hugest crush on him when I was a teenager!”

“Is that right?” The Agent remarked mildly, busying herself with placing the glittery pinecones in a pretty crystal vase and dipping her head down to hide her face with her hair so Ema wouldn’t see her still pink cheeks. “I’m surprised you noticed Miles, considering most of your time was spent with Phoenix. If memory serves me correctly, that spiky-haired defense attorney was a damn good-looking fella, too!”

“Mr. Wright? Good-looking?” The forensic-lover shrugged again.  “Sure, I guess he was, in a different kind of way from Mr. Edgeworth, though. Kind of more adorkable than anything else, in my humble opinion.”

Lana smirked at her sister’s nonchalance about the irrefutably comely defense attorney, to whom she owed a lifetime of gratitude.

“I guess nothing holds a candle to the torch you’re still carrying for Prosecutor Edgeworth, huh, missy?”

“Gosh, Sis, you make me sound so lame! OK, fine! Mr. Wright wasn’t exactly hard on the eyes, either. To be fair, he still isn’t, based on my recollections of the last time I saw him at the Russian bar all those years ago.”

Ema smiled at the memory of their dear friend.

“Nonetheless, even if I’d wanted to pursue that path, it would have been useless; I could sense even back then that his mind and heart were elsewhere. I remember Maya was his partner in solving crimes back when he agreed to be our lawyer, and she’d been gone for a while. So, when I came to see him and asked if he’d help us, he gave me the weirdest look, as if he’d seen a ghost! On top of that, at times, when he thought I wasn’t noticing, he’d stare at me with this kind of sad, nostalgic expression on his face. I obviously reminded him of his cherished assistant, and he was missing her dreadfully.”

Lana was happy to have steered the conversation onto safer topics and away from her former paramour. She had yet to shake the crushing guilt over causing such irreparable strife in her ex’s present love life. The chasm between Miles and Franziska had been impossible to ignore since that fateful dinner party in the fall, and she still loathed herself for her provoked actions and loose lips, which had been the cause of it all.

“I’ve never met the famed Master of Kurain in person thus far,” she murmured absently, dropping her head so Ema wouldn’t see the elder Skye’s still-flushed cheeks as she tried to veer away from the topic of Miles. “Do you two really look that much alike?”

“Apparently to the point where Maya kind of freaked out when she saw me in the bathroom that night!” A reminiscent grin played on the scientist’s lips as she fondly remembered her old comrade and his girlfriend. “I think Mr. Wright may have loved her even back then when he and I first met. My suspicions were proven on the night you and I went to celebrate your engagement at the Borscht Bowl – the two were officially together! I saw Franziska too, although I didn’t know she and Mr. Edgeworth were engaged at the time.”

She sighed wistfully.

“Boy, that whip-happy German sure is a lucky girl!”

“Yes, I suppose she is,” replied Lana noncommittally as she finished ornamenting the table, then beaming at her kin as she admired the results. “Check it out! The house is officially all festive and decorated! Hope is going to love what we did with the place!”

“I hope so,” Ema ignored her sister’s eye roll and grinned at her own pun about Lana’s coroner friend, with whom she’d been staying for the past decade. “Poor Doc! She doesn’t get any more time off in her line of work than you do, otherwise, she’d have done up the place herself!”

“I still insist you somehow had some sort of ESP premonition that I was going to be here in time to help you do up the place and trim the tree,” Lana teased. “Which is why nothing was still done when I got here!”

“Since when did you turn thicker than a plank?” Ema scoffed. “Scientifically speaking, there’s no such thing as ESP or psychic powers! I just got lucky that you came along when you did, Sis! I’ve simply been too busy obsessing over my science books and study papers, trying to ascertain how I did on that forensic exam!”

She nervously popped one of her ever-present Snackoos into her mouth and suddenly seemed quite nervous.

“I cannot believe I need to wait until the New Year to find out how I did!”

“Professors do have lives outside campus, so they don’t generally like to mark papers during the holidays,” Lana reminded her. “Now, stop eating your weight in those calorie-laden things! I have no idea how you aren’t the size of a house by now, what with the way you gorge on them!”

“Must be my metabolism.” Ema popped another two of the treats into her mouth. “Either that or stress burns calories!”

“It’s called being in your 20’s,” Lana laughed. “Enjoy it while you can! And no more worrying about science, you hear? I’m sure you passed that test with flying colors, and then my connections in the US are going to hook you up with your dream job, where you’ll be the happiest, Snackoos-stuffed forensic scientist in the world!”

“Do you think by the time I’m done my training for the role and am an actively practicing scientist, that you and Mr. Edgeworth will have wrapped up this whole operation and be back in the States by then?” Ema was all starry-eyed at the notion. “Because that would make it be a total dream come true! Snackoos, my favorite prosecutie, and you!”

“I’m not sure…” Lana faltered, feeling the tension creeping back up her spine at the mention of her old flame again. “Although I don’t know what to say about the fact that I’m last on your wish list, and rank lower than even Snackoos, never mind my former subordinate!”

“I can’t help it! I’ll never forget the first time I saw Mr. Edgeworth in that courtroom,” Ema sighed dreamily. “He was so much more… forceful in person! It was so inspiring; hell, I remember he inspired me to think: ‘I suddenly feel like confessing to everything! Even things I haven’t even done!”

Despite herself, Lana wound up cracking up then. Sometimes her sister was just too much!

“To be honest, one of the reasons I wanted to get into the forensics field was so I could gather scientific evidence to help with criminal cases.” Ema closed her eyes, lost in her blissful daydream. “I’d get to work with Mr. Wright again too, of course, and Gumshoe … but the icing on the cake would be working alongside Mr. High Prosecutor’s suave, debonair behind!”

“Ema!” Lana admonished with a reluctant laugh. “You little home-wrecking hussy! You do know Miles is not only engaged to Franziska but they’re expecting a baby in a couple of months, right?”

“Sis, don’t be such a killjoy!” Ema opened her eyes and scowled darkly. “Just let me have my teenage dream, alright?!”

Katy Perry – Teenage Dream