для Ники, фантомАУ

The day was hot, sunny and bright, just like the man that they were burying.

There weren't that many people at his funeral. Phoenix glanced around, but the small crowd mostly consisted of LA prosecutors and detectives.

Prosecutor Blackquill tried really hard to fade into the background but failed at it miserably, due to his sheer size and harsh palette. Edgeworth was hanging around the closed casket. Phoenix knew that he tried to contact Fullbrights relatives for days before giving up and arranging the funeral himself. Athena stayed by Phoenix's side. Under the harsh sun her hair looked even more fiery, somewhat contrasting with her unusually solemn face. Why she stayed near him and didn’t immediately flutter to the Blackquill side was a mystery to Phoenix. One that he wasn’t terribly interested in solving.

The only face there that wasn’t familiar to Phoenix was Mournsal Fraway, a chief prosecutor from a small California town, under whom Fullbright worked before transferring to LAPD. Fraway had thinning long gray hair framing an unexpectedly fair face and was dressed in a simple white shirt with grey slacks. Overall, he just looked like a very plain man.

Which made matters hard because Phoenix himself wasn’t at Bobby's funeral to honor the man himself, but to snoop.

He had no intention of actually being involved with the Fullbright murder case. Mostly he preferred to believe in his clients innocence, and the one who was accused of the murder was Phantom himself. Hardly an upstanding citizen, that guy.

But after watching Miles trying and failing to reach people that knew the victim personally, he couldn’t help but become slightly curious.

After all, under the new law system one couldn’t declare a man guilty for killing a man no one will admit to having known in an unknown place at an unknown time.

It was certainly possible in the dark age of the law. In fact Phoenix had spent countless hours into the night helping Miles find exactly those verdicts, and they without a doubt would have to spend more countless hours looking for them in the future.

One could say that Phoenix started to doubt the whole “new law” thing that could allow someone like Phantom to get away with killing someone like Bobby Fullbright. Phoenix wouldn’t say that. Of course. He simply was curious and that was what it was.

No matter how obscure and unknowable both the victim and the murderer seemed to be, no doubt with a bit of snooping and maybe a little bit of deducing the truth would reveal itself.

Edgeworth started to read eulogies, and Phoenix’s mind tuned his words out, focusing instead on the cadence of his voice and the tightness in his eyes. There was a wrinkle on his forehead and small barely there bags under his eyes. Those sleepless nights took a toll from both of them. The unpleasant thoughts scattered about in Phoenix's brain. Surely it was just to overturn a baseless judgement. But the lack of the evidence attached to the cases didn’t always mean there wasn’t any evidence. Just by chance the police could have gotten the right guy once or twice even without proper investigation. But, Phoenix gaze once again settled on a Blackquill imposing silhouette, to investigate all the stale cases would take decades.

Phoenix tried to subtly shake his head. He knew this dilemma thoroughly, he knew it deeply inside and out, he debated it back and forth with opponents and internally enough times to know the right answer.

Miles finished reading his little speech and stepped out to allow another to take his place.

Once again Phoenix found himself grateful for the character of his friend. Phoenix himself has been trying to find evidence against one bad guy for a few hours and already run himself into doubting the presumption of innocence. It was a great luck that Maya guided him into an attorney career, he would’ve made an awful prosecutor.

Miles, on the other hand, always stayed true to their ideals.

– You weren’t listening, – came the accusation from the Phoenix's right side in an unexpectedly masculine voice, and Phoenix whipped around to find gray eyes with the barely there bags under them staring at him. Accusatory.

Phoenix smiled sheepishly and lowered his gaze, scratching the back of his head and trying to convey that he totally didn’t mean for that to happen while discreetly searching for Athena. Oh, here she was, near Blackquill and talking his ear off. Good. That boy was through a lot lately and he definitely would benefit from a friendful company.

– Wright… – Miles softened his voice. – You are distracted yet again. Is everything okay?

– Yeah, yeah, I’m just. – Phoenix stumbled a bit. Then looked straight into Edgeworth's eyes. Maybe even blushed a bit, if only from embarrassment of being caught absent-minded twice. – It’s a lot, isn’t it?

– It really is.

– Are you okay? – asked Phoenix. The thing was, Miles looked okay. He even lost that tightness around his eyes. But Miles had a talent of looking okay right up to suddenly flying off the handle. Phoenix was somewhat a master of that discipline too. Between the two of them, an extra check was always worth it.

Miles hummed instead of an answer.

– Was your speech good?

Miles hummed again.

Phoenix deduced it was best to take a different line of questioning.

– Did you question chief prosecutor Fraway already?

– Oh, should I? – Miles suddenly looked very amused. – Are we investigating something? Perhaps… accusing him of something?

Phoenix groaned internally, while Miles smirk grew a few millimetres. Unnoticed by them, prosecutor Fraway started his speech over the casket.

– C’mon, man, – Phoenix whined, – The chief prosecutor reeks of anxiety, while being an only attendant from detective Fullbright previous place of work. Scratch that, he is the only one there who knew detective Fullbright before he joined LAPD. That’s kinda suspicious!

– Perhaps it is, — Miles agreed easily. – It’s nice to see that you are, as kids those days say, back to it.

– Huh? Back to what, Miles? Back to what?!

But Miles was already walking away, battling his smirk away.