21 Total Eclipse Of The Heart

Maya Fey
Kurain Village Train Station
Jan 25, 2020, 7:45 AM

Every now and then I get a little bit lonely. And you’re never coming around.

Where was he? Had Nick lied to her about coming? Was he going to let her down despite his promise to the contrary?

Maya squeezed her eyelids shut against the stinging sensation behind them.

Every now and then I get a little bit angry and I know I’ve got to get out and cry.

Nick was late. And she had no idea why.

Maya anxiously paced the train station platform like a caged panther, checking her phone for the millionth time to see if her nearly-an-hour-tardy nitwit of a boyfriend had sent her a text or attempted to call her to let her know his whereabouts.

There was nothing. No messages, no missed calls. Absolutely nothing. And her calls to his cell went straight to voicemail. The greeting on it now said, in Trucy’s adorable chirpy twitter: “You’ve reached Phoenix Wright, Vice-President of the Wright Talent Agency! He’s the pianist you’ve been searching for! Please leave a message and he will call you back quicker than you can say Abracadabra!”

Maya was beginning to panic. Time was being wasted and she only had a precious few hours remaining. Her Master’s inauguration began at 10:00 AM sharp, and she still had to make her provisions, spiritual, mental, and physical.

On top of that, she also needed to change into her official ceremonial outfit, and would undoubtedly require a lot of assistance getting into the unfamiliar cultural attire. While the Master’s robes were gorgeous and regal, they also were unlike anything she’d ever worn before – intricately detailed and undoubtedly heavy as hell as they consisted of several contrasting layers and were made of pure silk and brocade. Pearly was expecting her back at Fey Manor as her head ‘lady in waiting’ and indubitably would be alongside Mystic Mildred. The stern, dour Village Elder would oversee both the Council and supervision of the adorning ritual and would also be awaiting Maya’s return – with guaranteed less patience than her doting cousin.

Pearly had wanted to join Maya at the station to greet Nick, but Maya had instead instructed her to stay put, distract the Elders and keep them at bay, should anyone be questioning the Master’s whereabouts and decide to come looking for her.

After running through a myriad of persuasive arguments and excuses to the Elders about justifying her intentions of letting her boyfriend attend the private ceremony, Maya ultimately had decided the hell with decorum, and to just impromptu spring Nick on them and tell them they could bite it sideways if they objected! She was an adult now – the village Master for heaven’s sake! – and they absolutely could not tell her what to do! It wasn’t the most ideal way to handle things, but she was fed up and out of time, and it was certainly no worse than her initial planned actions to get the ball rolling.

To be frank, Maya’s bright idea for ensuring she could fulfill her desirous intentions was perhaps not the most adult route a woman of her stature and office could do in this potentially sticky situation. But what other choice had she had?

To prevent suspicion or being accosted before she could escape to the station, Maya had barely slept a wink the night before and risen at dawn, fluffing her pillows into the shape of her slumbering body and pulling the covers so it seemed like her sleeping form was still in bed, in the event that anyone prematurely poked their head in. She’d then snuck out of her house and made like a bat out of hell towards the train station, wearing a dark hooded cape over her regular purple Master kimono so that she would hopefully remain unrecognizable in the sun cast shadows of early morning. If asked of Maya’s whereabouts, Pearly had been instructed to claim that the Master was off meditating in preparation for her ritual somewhere remote, as custom dictated, was not to be disturbed and would return in plenty of time for ceremony preparation.

Which brought Maya to the present, waiting in vain for the past two some-odd hours at the station, fretfully looking into the horizon, trying to catch a glimpse of the blasted train that was now an hour late and would never appear to come! She’d heard of train delays before, but this was ridiculous! Even more so was the fact that the person who was supposed to be on it hadn’t even possessed the courtesy to warn her of the delay, and couldn’t be reached!

It gave her a sickening sense of déjà vu. It was as if they were back to that God-awful period immediately after Phoenix’s disbarment, all over again.

Every now and then I get a little bit nervous that the best of all the years have gone by.

Finally, at 8:02, she saw the large bullet-shaped steel vehicle in the distance coming towards her. It pulled into the station with a grinding halt, and she watched as the passengers began to disembark – there weren’t too many this early in the morning, nor was the remote Kurain that popular of a stop.

Still no sign of Phoenix.

Maya bit back an impotent sob of frustration.

Every now and then I get a little bit tired of listening to the sound of my tears.

She turned away from the train, an agonized pain building inside her as she wiped the stray tear running down her face with the sleeve of her kimono.

He wasn’t coming. Despite knowing how much this had meant to her, how long he’d known her and supposedly loved her for, and knowing that he’d held her heart in his hands this past year, Phoenix wasn’t going to show up. Perhaps even though he’d said otherwise the last time they’d parted, when he’d bid her adieu last time, he’d meant it to be a final farewell.

Sometimes it’s easier to pretend that goodbye isn’t really goodbye. Perhaps he didn’t mean to lie to me. Perhaps he was also lying to himself.

Another tear fell.

Every now and then I fall apart.

“Turn around.”

Maya spun about in the direction of that wonderful, familiar sound, and found herself face-to-face with Phoenix, standing several feet away from her on the platform, hands in his pockets, smiling shyly at her.

She tilted her head slightly as if expecting him to say some further addendum to the spoken words. When none came, she completed the thought in her mind, bright eyes! Triggered from naught but sheer relief, she started to laugh at her foolishness, but it got caught in her throat at the sight of Nick’s beatific smile in the sunlight.

Every now and then I get a little bit terrified and then I see the look in your eyes.

Her heart no longer filled with pain or uncertainty, she lifted her shining gaze to look at his sculptured, clean-shaven face, with the golden hues of early morning rays upon it, and thought that even with the silly hat Trucy had given him, he was still so handsome.

He is beautiful, inside and out. He is the silver lining in a world of darkness. He is my light.

Moreover, despite what the world might think, he was still a pursuer of the truth in all things, a trustworthy, reliable man who kept his word.

The man she loved.

You don’t love someone for their looks or their clothes or a fancy car, but because they sing a song only you can hear. Some songs sound the way that falling in love feels. And with Nick, every single time I see him, I fall in love. Over, and over again.

She still felt wonderful, but no longer in a giggly way. She wanted his arms around her again. She wanted to know what his lips felt like again after all this time. She just plain wanted. Him.

Phoenix’s smile, too, faded, and then, with a couple of quick strides, he closed the open space between them, and then he was holding her, pulling her to him. She looked up into his beautiful sapphire eyes, feeling giddy with joy.

Maya didn’t know how she could have doubted him. But nothing else mattered now. She was where she belonged, with Nick’s warm, firm arms around her shoulders and her hands around his back, feeling his muscles shifting under his clean-smelling hooded sweatshirt. Her lips parted as she leaned towards him.

Toward this kiss.

This soft, sweet, so-worth-the-wait kiss.

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Phoenix Wright
Kurain Village Train Station
Jan 25, 2020

Phoenix had seen the dejected form walking away as he’d exited from the back end of the train, and at long last, the sight of the beloved form caused his shout of her name to die in his throat, ceasing his ability to prevent her from leaving.

Desperately, he all but leaped off the accursed train and sprinted towards her, hastily catching his breath before urging her to (Turn around), and feeling a lump form in his throat when he saw the tears in her eyes, the apprehensive frown marring those beautiful features.

She thought I wasn’t going to come.

He wanted to erase the tension from her face. Kiss away the worry. But what he wanted and what she needed were two very different things. “Maya, the damn train got delayed and I forgot to charge my cell last night so my battery is completely dead. I’m so sorry I worried you.”

Seconds passed and she didn’t say a word. Her eyes were so wide, so open, so trusting. Had anyone aside from his daughter ever looked at him that way before? He didn’t think so.

Swaying softly in her arms, she leaned her head against his chest and circled an arm around his neck. Her cheek felt so warm and so soft when it met the bare flesh of his chin as he leaned down. Her eyelashes fluttered as she closed her eyes.

“It doesn’t matter. Thank you, Nick,” she whispered. “Thank you for being here for me when I needed you most.”

He breathed in her scent and lifted his hand to cradle her head against him, to keep her from ever leaving him. He couldn’t force her to stay though, no matter how much he wanted this moment to last. So he trailed along the curve of her skull, following the path of her hair, teasing the silky strands between his fingertips before settling his hand on the middle of her back.

She snuggled closer, rubbing her cheek against his chest. Her quiet exhale heated him straight through.

It was the first perfect moment of his life in ages.

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Maya Fey
Kurain Village Train Station
Jan 25, 2020

Standing there, feeling his hard, muscled body so closely pressed against hers after so long, Maya felt an insatiable hunger unlike any she’d ever felt before. It wasn’t just an innate response to wanting to wrap herself around him like a tire whenever she set eyes on him. This was a different kind of hunger, one where she didn’t let herself think. Her whole body ached; she ached – as if there were a terrible hollow emptiness inside her that could only now begin to be filled. She was more conscious of Phoenix than she had ever been of anything or anyone else in her life. Of the faint shine of blue beneath his half-closed lids, of the shadow of light stubble across his jaw where he hadn’t shaved, of the faint scars that dotted the skin of his throat—and more than anything else, of his mouth, the crescent shape of it, the slight dent in the center of his bottom lip.

She leaned forward and pressed her lips to his. He took a split second to respond, but then he made a sound almost like a growl from low in his throat. He leaned toward her and brushed his lips across hers and she reached for him as if she would otherwise drown.

For a moment their mouths pressed hotly together, his free hand tangling in her hair. She gasped when his arms tightened around her, her knees nearly snagging beneath her as he pulled her against him. She put her hand lightly around his neck; his skin was burning hot to the touch. Slipping her free hand under his hoodie and the thin t-shirt underneath, she could feel the muscles of his shoulders, hard and smooth. His arms wrapped around her even more firmly, holding her so tightly she could hardly breathe. Not that she cared. All she cared about was Phoenix, his mouth on hers, and his body pressed against her own. They had only kissed a few times in the past, but nothing like this. She felt electrified from the top of her head to her toes, and somewhere in the back of her mind, she remembered that her late older sister had said that love had a power all its own.

Mia had been right: this was magic.

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Phoenix Wright and Maya Fey
Kurain Village
Jan 25, 2020, 8:20 AM

 

“So, do you know exactly what happened that made the train so late in arriving?” Maya asked her lover after they’d finally parted from their embrace and at last began to walk, hand in hand, onto the path which led them back to the village.

“There was a body tied down to the train tracks,” he explained. “The conductor slammed on the breaks and had to call the police, who proceeded to then launch a full-blown murder investigation, right there and then!”

“God’s elbow, Nick!” She gasped. “That’s awful!”

He grimaced. “Not really. It was a dummy, not a real person! Something that I could immediately ascertain by looking at it out the window, but took the cops half an hour to figure out, after confirming with numerous sources and about taking about a million photographs!”

“You’ve got to be kidding me!” Maya started cracking up then, her shoulders shaking with mirth as he joined in the laughter. “Not even Gumshoe could have been so idiotic not be able to tell a real corpse from a dummy?!”

“The real dummy was that detective in charge,” he chuckled. “Score another one for the LAPD, right? That’s our tax dollars at work for you!”

“Speaking of detective work, have you had any luck getting any idea about who may have set you up, Nick?”

“Ideas, yes. Proof, no, and I haven’t had much time to work on it, what with working and fatherhood and all.” Phoenix let out a long sigh. “I’d rather not get into this right now. This day is supposed to be all about you. Plus, it’s kind of depressing.”

“Nick, you’ve got to turn around your way of thinking! Consider this instead as your greatest challenge yet. Envision the day you make your triumphant return to the courtroom! You’ll have had the last laugh when you finally solve the mystery about Trucy’s grandfather’s death and the son of a bitch who did this to you. Pearly and I, we’re rooting for you! And I know you’ll make us proud. Sis will be so proud, too!”

“Chief?” That got his attention. Frowning, Phoenix adjusted his beanie and shook his head. “She never would have made such a stupid error – she was always so painstaking meticulous. She was always on me to be better prepared, to be more like her. I didn’t listen. I got careless. I had a lot on my mind and I didn’t pay enough attention. There’s no one to blame but me. I should have known better.”

“Ace Attorneys still make mistakes, Nick.”

Maya spoke softly, her heart aching at the pain in his voice as he berated himself. Phoenix’s work had been his life. There had never been another lawyer who’d been more devoted to helping his clients. She knew that better than anyone. She’d been one of his first … on multiple occasions, including that one time in Europe … But that was another story.

“I feel like I’ve been making a lot of mistakes lately. I can’t afford to make any more of them. I do have a hunch about someone that’s making me feel suspicious about his ulterior motives, but once again, we’re back to that burden of proof thing. The suspect in question’s name is Kristoph Gavin.”

“Gavin …why does that sound so familiar?”

“Klavier’s older brother. He was the defense attorney that Zak had retained before deciding to hand the reins over to me at the eleventh hour. After I got disbarred, I remember he said something like ‘if not for you, I’d be the one standing in your shoes right now.’ It sounds harmlessly trite enough, but nothing was consoling in his smile. The man had no emotion, no soul like he was just woodenly reciting the lines from a script.”

“Maybe he’s just not good at expressing emotions? That’s how Edgeworth was in the beginning before you broke down his barriers and made him realize he had a heart, remember?”

“Edgeworth always had a heart!” Phoenix proclaimed loyally. “It was just hidden because his life had been made into a living hell at the hands of that diabolical Manfred Von Karma. There’s no comparison between the two of them, Maya! There’s a tad frosty … then there’s flat-out prickly like a cactus…a la Manfred…and then there’s… Gavin. The man has eyes that would rival Jaws. The only proof I have is my magatama. It shows black psyche locks and chains around him even though he’s not even being asked any questions!”

“OK, that is weird,” Maya murmured, feeling a flicker of uneasiness within her. “Black? I’ve never heard of that before. We definitely need to look into that later. Maybe you should trust your gut instincts then, Nick. He may be dangerous. You’ve got to stay away from him!”

They reached the village entrance and paused for a moment. Phoenix took Maya by the shoulders and looked at her steadily. She knew she wasn’t going to like what he was about to say even before he spoke.

“Stay away from him? I can’t do that, Maya. If he is as dangerous as we think he is, I’m better off being his false friend than his openly hostile adversary.”

“Nick, you can’t know what a man like that is capable of!” Maya protested, alarmed for her boyfriend’s safety. “You don’t just willingly play with fire and not expect to get burned!”

“You know what they say, keep your friends close, and your enemies closer, right?” Phoenix smiled reassuringly at her and gave her a wink. “Besides, I may be completely wrong about the man and may just be turning into an eccentric, overly paranoid old man. I won’t know unless I at least take Gavin up on his repeated offers to go for a drink.”

“But Nick –”

Phoenix put a finger to her lips then, then leaned down and gently replaced it with his lips, ever so softly brushing them with his own before drawing back. “Don’t worry about me, my love. I’ve learned how to swim with sharks.”

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Bonnie Tyler – Total Eclipse of the Heart

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