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It’s not until a week or so after the case that it catches him, like a thorn snagged in the material of a jumper, one that you only notice when it pulls you back, sudden and sharp as you hurry along. He’s flicking through his contacts, checking he’s got all the important ones he needs for mundane things - insurance, and his landlord, and the landlord for the office. The reset was inconvenient, sure, but it wasn’t horrible, not like the two small marks on his upper arm that Maya likes to bump against her own a little too gleefully whenever someone mentions the name Manfred von Karma. He’d have to track down Larry again, which could take months given the guy’s talent for doing multiple things on a whim without telling people between the somewhat brief times they met in person. There are still no names under the tab marked ‘E’. That hasn’t changed.
It’s only when he gets to ‘M’ that he stops. Thinks, briefly, until it sinks in. There is only one name under it that he has re-entered, and that is Maya Fey. He’d known it without asking her, a remnant of every single time he’d stared at the number between December and April, finger hovering over the call button until he’d inevitably sigh and turn away to other things, clients, business, who knows what else. Sometimes he’d talk to Charley about it, then panic when he remembered that he couldn’t recall how long it had been since he’d last watered him.
He supposes that it’s hard to remember everything when you’re building back up from nothing. Hell, he just went through amnesia, of course he should understand that. Still, it doesn’t hit less hard when he realises that he hasn’t put any other names under ‘M’.
*
He remembers when she gave him her number, still hacking up nothing every so often and wheezing a little in odd moments that made conversation awkward. “To ensure that you stay out of trouble,” he recalls her saying, with that wry smile he’d come to know whenever she teased him. He didn’t really consider it at first, rushing around in a daze and picking up as many projects as possible, opening commissions, auditioning for the university’s summer play, heck even reading the paper for one of the first times in his life, enough that it meant he wouldn’t have time to slow down and start thinking again. His grades had never been better, and his professor had just invited him to exhibit one of his paintings in Ivy’s annual art show at the end of the semester.
That’s why he’d been busy in the art room, the afternoon sun lazily stretching through the skylights on the top floor of the building and gently warming his face each time he looked up from the canvas. He hadn’t read the article until a couple of days after it released, when it had found its way onto the floor in ripped sheets slightly stuck together with paint. That’s when he’d started thinking again, pacing up and down the halls until someone stuck their head out of their room and told him to be quieter, even though he hadn’t said a word. He’d looked at his own room with fresh eyes, seen the mess piling up in the middle instead of pushed to the corners as usual. His phone was on the desk amongst pencils, paints, a disembowelled sketchbook and a half-eaten chocolate bar that somehow hadn’t yet melted in the heat. He’d picked it up, taking a moment to recall her name, finding it there in all its clinical length: Mia Fey (lawyer).
Before he knew it, he’d hit the call button, mouth dry. Heard her voice after two rings, surprisingly quick at hiding slight confusion and just as friendly as it had been months ago. Asked her what he should do if he wanted to take the bar.
*
“Do you ever feel weird about still being able to talk to Mia?” It’s a stupid question, one he must’ve asked her so many times before. It has been a year, although they both know that doesn’t matter. He’s still staring up at the ceiling when he asks, so he doesn’t have to look at her and feel bad about bringing it up.
It doesn’t work, and he watches her out of the corner of his eye, fiddling with the limited edition Steel Samurai strap around her pink cell phone. “I mean, I guess. It’s weird that it’s Mia.” Her voice is level, but she also avoids his gaze. “I don’t know. It’s always been a thing.”
He can’t remember the last time he texted Mia, or called. He supposes that Maya had to do it more often, being two hours away by train, while he was only a bike-ride from her for several years. Digital communication for them was smaller things, preludes to the uncountable meetings at restaurants, the courthouse or simply the old, battered couch in the office, where they’d pour over papers or chat over shitty coffee. Did she ever think, he wonders, of faraway Maya when she sat opposite him all those times? He reminds himself, after a while, that he can ask. He doesn’t know if he wants to. “Still can’t get my head around it.”
Maya laughs softly, tired. “Most people can’t.” The sound of the air conditioning whirrs as they ponder it. “To be fair, you didn’t question it too much. I was surprised sis didn’t tell you earlier. But it kinda makes sense given that it has literally nothing to do with the law.” They both know that isn’t true, which makes it easier to leave unsaid. Makes him wonder what else Mia never bothered with.
“Sorta like she’s a phone call away, if you want to look at it like that,” he grunts. Maya hums, a strange sound that shifts. She starts to speak, then stops again.
“Like a phone call from the mountains….incredibly unreliable and hard to reach, but not impossible.” He snorts. “I always hated calling her from that phone booth. Usually Morgan was outside, glaring at me for about thirty minutes ‘cuz I’d spent too long in there. It was harder to find cell service though, so I kinda had to deal with it.”
He doesn’t have an answer to that, which is fine. He suspects that she’s happy for him to listen without comment. That is, until she offers it to him candidly for the first time. “I can channel her properly next time we’re in Kurain, if you want. Can’t get any worse than last time.” He thinks of the phone number he can’t remember, of the weight that still hangs over him, the feeling that the office is still hers after so long.
“It’s alright. You don’t have to do that.”
*
The prison is nicer than he thought it would be, especially after the several visits to the detention centre he’s now had. They let him in surprisingly quickly, and there’s not much waiting before she’s led out to see him, or at the very least stare at him from the other side of the glass.
“Mr Wright,” Lana greets him, much more warmly than he is used to. She seems a little confused at first that he should come to see her after all has been said and done, but she is still kind. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”
They chat a little, about his recent cases and how she’s adjusted, the most recent time she called Ema two days ago, all the way in Europe, beaming with pride at her progress in school and forensics. Once again, the similarities don’t help. She can tell that he’s tiptoeing around it. “You want to ask about Mia, don’t you? We do have all the time we need now, after all.” But first, she asks how Maya is doing, and laments the fact that she's never met her properly. This surprises him. She laughs.
“She wanted to keep us separate, I think,” she muses airily. “Like two cats being slowly introduced to each other between a door, or something similar. It seems odd now I suppose, but it was very different for her in Kurain.” He still can’t reconcile her, so strong and full of cheek in the smart black suit, with a spirit medium in something Maya would wear. He can’t ever imagine her being pious - that’s a stretch too far. Lana smiles as she sees him try. “She used to tell me sometimes, about the village. Very rarely, you understand. Mostly she tried to make me forget that she was anything other than an LA native. It was frustrating for her a lot of the time.”
He wonders just how much Lana knows of Mia; what that ‘intellectual attraction’ had wrought from her. He can parrot her inflections, cheerful and serious, repeated every single trial: the only time a lawyer can cry is when it’s over. He’d never seen her cry at all. How long had she waited?
He asks her for Mia’s phone number. Lana repeats it automatically, and they stare at each other in silence. He lets it dissipate into the air, and watches the tiredness ebb into her eyes for the first time since he’d seen her in the defendant lobby before the last trial. There is nothing more to be said.
He still offers to get Maya to channel her. She looks more like the Lana he is familiar with when he does, with her February face that masks the pain. Her refusal is polite, and she thanks him for his consideration. He tells her he’ll come again soon, and hopes he means it.
*
Life goes on. He muddles through beside Maya and Pearls, taking a few small things on here and there for the money to fund an insatiable appetite for burgers. There’s been no progress on his contacts since August, nothing new to blindside him as it usually does. He watches the girls leave, once a month, each time the ghost of an offer to accompany them flailing before it gets very far. He sees Pearly’s shoulders slump when they return, and the way Maya bites her lip when she thinks nobody is looking. The days are getting longer.
“You should really get a new phone, Nick,” Maya says suddenly on one of those unremarkable evenings. Pearls is asleep on the couch, still with her coat on, and his heavy eyes envy her this small moment of peace, telling him he should’ve been asleep an hour ago. He turns around for a blanket instead of answering. “You’ve had that thing for, like, forever.”
It’s not that he’s putting it off. There’s not an issue with it really. Sure it’s still the first one he ever got, but there’s nothing wrong with that.
She sees him when he turns back to lay the blanket over her cousin and shrugs. “Just a suggestion. Fresh start, y’know? Didn’t you say that Wellington smashed it up a bit when he tried to get it back from you?” He shushes her and points to the sleeping Pearly. She makes a face back, but slips into a frown not long afterwards. “You said you were considering getting a new one last December, that’s all.” She gives a little gasp when it catches up to her, just as he stiffens. Doesn’t stop him when he walks out of the room to bed, wordless.
He doesn’t get up for several hours, and she burns next morning’s pancakes to show she is sorry.
*
“G’morning Nick,” Maya greets him groggily as he enters, breaking from her tussle with some wrapping paper and scrunching up her face in a yawn. “Do you know how to wrap presents?” He nods, kneeling down to take her place above the large set of coloured pencils, slowly reaching for the tape. “Is it too much? Or not enough? Aunt Morgan never did anything, so-”
“Maya,” he says, monotone with exhaustion, “it’s fine. It’s good, really. She deserves a nice Christmas and you’re giving her one. There’s nothing much more you can do. I’m proud of you.”
“Really?” He stops folding the corners of the paper. Her shoulders shake slightly against him, warm, until she springs up again, hastily swiping at her eyes with her sleeve. “Hey, I got those circus tickets too! I can’t believe we’re going to see Maximillion Galactica!”
He turns the wrapped present to her and she gives him a thumbs up. It is nestled under the little fake tree Maya had insisted they get while at the mall a week or so ago. He’d just been planning to drape some lights over Charley, but now the miniature conifer sits on a spare table with a few small decorations picked out the same day while the old Cordyline stricta twinkles half-heartedly in the corner. Maya babbles about a Christmas display downtown as he blurs the lights and leaves with his stare.
Larry had called sometime around 2am, that stupid ringtone that Maya had picked out for him blaring into his ears and startling him awake. The man had barely even regarded his grudging answers, all in a tone begging him to take a hint. He’d heard the muffled sound of club music interrupted by faraway feminine laughter, and hung up before Larry managed to slur that he loved him one more time. He squints through the dark at the numbers of the digital clock and feels a creeping sense of defeat at knowing he’ll have to take a nap later.
He grins a little guiltily when he only catches the tail-end of Maya’s reminiscences. “I asked to go every year after that, but…,” she sighs, and he puts it together far too quickly.
This is not the first Christmas without her, nor will it be the last, for either of them. But when was there time to stop and think on that grey day a year ago, something within him asks. After all, they were so busy that he, at least, had nothing left to give. The only thing he needed was answers, a real adult to sort the puzzle pieces and put the edges together. She had only ever been an echo of a message left while he was on another line. He makes a mental note for them to find their way downtown later, after the main rush of the day is over.
“Oh, I got something for you too, Nick!” Maya is handing him a small, rectangular box that she has managed to badly attach some paper to. “If it helps, I see it as another way to stick it to Morgan.” It’s heavier than he thought it would be, and he automatically cups it in his palms before registering it. He peeks back the wrappings and lets them fall from his fingers almost as soon as he does.
“Maya, I can’t take this.”
She huffs a laugh. “Of course you can, stupid!” His face does not change. Hers does, rapidly, flickering through several different things and eventually settling on lightheartedness. “If you weren’t going to let me pay rent, I had to do something!” She reaches for it and lifts the lid off, rifling through the assorted ephemera until she finds it, shiny and new, and waves it at him. She drops her arms, and her smile, when he continues to stare.
“Nick. Take it from me, old guy. You need a new phone. That thing can’t still be working properly.” He has no answer to give. The corners of her eyes crinkle with frustration, and she stands up at full height, all of her 5’1 to his 6’0. She’s almost glaring at him, mouth set in a thin line. “You can't wallow like this forever. Not for Pearly,” she swallows, “and not for me either. They’re gone.” It’s as soft as she can make it but he still flinches, tightening his grip over his pocket.
“I’ve broken so many rules for us, you know that? Calling Mia whenever we need her, outside of the candles, and altars and shit. We do that stuff for a reason. Because it’s just once, or twice, in order to help people find peace. Closure. And I can’t do that here. So I’m doing what I can.” She squints at him, fingers tangled tightly and voice trembling. “It has to happen, Nick.”
She raises her arms, holding out the phone, the glowing orange 4:59 of the digital clock morphing into 5:00am. He grasps it, fragile. He can hear her breathing, determinedly steady. Then, a sigh of relief as she tackles him by the waist.
“Thank you,” she whispers. He holds her tightly and swears again, for good measure, to never let her go.
*
He shuts the box in his desk drawer amidst the nest of paper and happiness scattered around the living room hours after. Maya and Pearls lie sleeping on their mattress, curled into one another after a day of delight and exhaustion in equal measure. He tiptoes around them to make it to the couch and pinches his brow with two fingers, staring at the drawer like he can see through it. He runs his fingers over the scratched buttons on his old reliable and tries to hopscotch Mia’s number aimlessly, without success but also, to his surprise, without staggering remorse. Hopes Maya can be content with his acquiescence, that he will be able to set it up sooner or later.
Yeah, he thinks, watching the girls - his girls, his and Mia’s - breathe in tandem with one another, a soft smile falling onto his face. He can do that later.
(Later, he will get a call from Maya that Maximillion Galactica has been arrested from murder, and find himself knee-deep in another incredulous case that doesn’t feel entirely real.)
(Later, he will be phoned by a smooth-voiced killer that leaves them fighting for their small existence and digs into his very core with each successive ring until there is nothing he can fight with anymore.)
(Later, he will limp from the courtroom while Pearl clings to him, hand her to a concerned bailiff and throw his phone on the ground so fiercely that it breaks into uncountable fragments, in both anger and relief.)
(Later, he will pass the new phone to Maya and she will gasp in delight and pick out the same old Steel Samurai ringtone that has bothered him for the last couple of years, and he will not change it.)
(Later, he will find a contact under ‘E’ and call it over and over again. As time goes on, it will move to ‘M’.)
(Later, Mia will stop answering Maya and Pearl, and he will be okay.)
But for now, there is peace. He closes his eyes, perhaps imagining that faint outline of the Chief in front of him just before he does. His phone slides from his hand and onto the cushion beside him. There is one contact under ‘M’. It is enough.