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azalawa-scroggs · 5 months

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In Which I Kill Miles Edgeworth Repeatedly

I really didn't need to be enabled, but who doesn't like to be enabled? So I signed up for @killacharacterbingo, in order to keep writing my little depresso shots and feel like I'm doing something productive with it. The challenge is to write several fics where the same character dies, and each fic crosses a box on the bingo card. I'm aiming for the black-out. I deeply apologise to all my followers.

More seriously, I know major character death is a big turn-off for many readers, which I fully respect. Feel free to block my tag for it, which will be #Miles Edgeworth Didn't Choose Death (even though in some of them, he will). There will also be specific content warnings where applicable. And MCD will obviously be warned for every time. If I ever miss a warning, feel free to tell me, of course.

Anyway, here is the first of those fics.

These walls echo with your absence

Rating: G Major Character Death Gen Miles Edgeworth & Gregory Edgeworth Tags: Alternate DL-6, Miles Dies Instead, Unhappy Ending, Grief/Mourning, Gregory Edgeworth Needs A Hug, Child's Death

Gregory doesn't die in the DL-6 incident. Instead he has to learn to live with the worst fate that can befall a parent.

Ray drove him home after the funeral. Gregory himself was in no state to.

He sat silently during the ride, clutching at the urn in his hands. His eyes were dry, staring ahead at nothing, as they had been for the whole service. He remembered nothing of it.

“Thank you, Raymond,” he murmured when they arrived. “I appreciate it.”

“Do you have something to eat for tonight?” Ray asked. Gregory smiled at him, touched by his concern even through the fog that had fallen over him. The expression felt foreign, and the muscles of his face stretched painfully, like they had fallen out of use.

“Yes. Don't worry about me, please. I'll manage. Thank you for everything.”

Raymond hesitated, then gave in, biding him goodnight and telling him to take care of himself. Gregory gave another difficult smile and watched as his assistant drove away.

Truth was, he wasn't sure if he had something planned for dinner. He couldn't recall. But it didn't matter. Cooking, eating, it all sounded exhausting.

Gregory knew that this was a dangerous cycle to fall into. The temptation to waste away was great, and all it would achieve was make the people who cared worry about him. He had been so good about it this last week, going through his last check-ups after being discharged from the hospital, giving the police his testimony, organising the funeral. And tomorrow he would be good about it again. He owed it to the people he still had left, so he wouldn't put even more weight on their burden, already so heavy.

But tonight, just tonight, he wanted to give in. To stop fighting for a few hours. He had just laid his only child to rest. He didn't have much strength left to carry him.

He turned the key in the lock, entered the house, turned on the light. The corridor was too cold and too silent, as it had been for seven days. No one came to meet him, no one shouted a greeting to him. Neither did he call out to announce his return as he always used to do, before.

It was startling, how quickly he had lost the habit to say he was back to an empty house.

Miles's snuggly sweater, which he always wore over his pajamas in the winter, still lay discarded on the back of the couch, abandoned in haste. They had been running late for the trial, and Miles had promised to put it away when they came back. Gregory hadn't touched it since.

Suddenly he realised that he'd forgotten to decide where to put Miles's ashes for the few days before he took them to the cemetery. He froze in indecision.

All that was left of Miles was this little urn, and Gregory had completely forgotten to give it a place in the house. His breath stuttered in his throat, his lungs burning. The decision seemed impossible to make now, as his mind stuttered to a halt.

Not Miles's bedroom, the most logical choice. Its door was closed. Gregory wouldn't open it again.

Not Gregory's room. He wasn't strong enough to lay eyes on it every morning, every night.

Eventually he set it on the ground in the living room, just next to the bookshelf. Miles had often sat in that very spot to read, even though Gregory never failed to remind him that there were more comfortable couches barely a few feet farther. But Miles was too impatient. When he grabbed a book, the book grabbed him back, and he needed to start it immediately. At least now he wouldn't get a sore behind from sitting on the floorboards...

He rose up and stood for a long while, paralysed, staring at the urn that stood in his son's place. What was there still left to do? What was he supposed to do now? There was nothing left but this void in his chest. He couldn't bring himself to move, as if somehow his gaze burning into the urn would bring Miles back, or at least let him accept the reality of it all. As if by staying frozen here he could escape the pain tearing him apart.

This was all that remained of him. Just a few bones and ashes which didn't even fill half the urn. He had looked so small in his little coffin, when they had surrendered him to the flames...

He pushed a stuttering, difficult breath out of his lungs, forced himself to move. He had to keep going. There was no other choice. It was too early for bed, so he picked a book from the shelf, barely looking at its title. He sat, not on the floor, but on the couch. He opened the book, read the first page once, twice, ten times. He couldn't think of anything but Miles.

The doorbell rang. He frowned, wondering who it could be at this time of the night. Some well-wisher, perhaps. He wasn't sure he had the strength to deal with that.

For a second he considered staying here until they left. But the bell rang a second time, and he realised the visitor wouldn't let him ignore them. So he got up, closed the book, and went to answer the door.

“… Detective Badd?”

“Edgeworth... once again, all my condolences... for your loss,” he said. For once there was no lollipop in his mouth, and his face looked even more sombre than usual. “May I... come in...?”

Gregory mechanically moved back to let him in.

“Is there something you wanted to discuss?”

“Yes...” Badd took a few more steps, then turned back to face Gregory. “It's about... the trial.”

Gregory grew rigid.

“I already told you. I will not be testifying.”

“They are charging... Yogi. The case... goes to trial tomorrow... there is practically no evidence...”

Gregory pinched his nose. The fools. He couldn't even say he was surprised. “I fail to see how that is of any concern to me.”

Badd sighed. “Is there really nothing... you remember...?”

Gregory's throat tightened. Voices rang in his mind, the visceral fear as Yogi started losing his mind, knowing Miles was in the elevator with them. He couldn't recall a gun being involved. He knew it wouldn't matter to the prosecution. “No.”

“Without your testimony... he will certainly... walk free...”

“As he should, with how much reasonable doubt surrounds his guilt,” Gregory snapped. “The prosecution are fools to move to trial with so little proof. I have nothing to add.”

He would never understand this country's prosecutors' obsession with conviction, conviction, conviction. There was nothing decisive against Yogi. They needed to investigate further, instead of losing time and money indicting a man that was guaranteed to walk free. Gregory couldn't care less about his son's death becoming one more meaningless win on some uncaring attorney's record. He wasn't going to become a tool for that.

“There was... no one else,” Badd said. “This is why... they arrested Yogi. We need to find... the truth... to bring your son justice...”

“My son is dead, Detective,” Gregory retorted, teeth gritted. “Justice can't do anything for him.”

Yogi had no motive. He had just been panicking. There was no reason for him to pick up his gun, steadily point it at Miles's heart and shoot. It made no sense for him to be the culprit. Miles's death had been too purposeful.

Purposeful. Gregory's hands started shaking, his throat burning. Somehow, someone had stepped into that elevator. They had looked at his son, his little nine-year-old son, and they had coldly shot him in the heart. A life full of promise, a thousand possible bright futures, cut short with the press of a finger. Just like that.

It was unimaginable. It was unthinkable. It was monstrous. Who could look at a child and want him dead? Who could see such a harmless, beautiful little being and decide they no longer deserved to live? Why would anyone ever desire to do that?

Did Gregory really want to know? To face that person, in court or otherwise, look them in the eye, and know that they took everything from him for no reason at all? For there could be no reason, no reason at all for anyone to want to kill Miles, innocent and precious Miles, the joy and pride of his heart, who had never hurt anyone in his life...

Gregory took a trembling breath, balled his hands into fists. Badd was looking at him with pity.

“Edgeworth...”

“Please leave.” He couldn't do this. Couldn't stand here and discuss it any longer.

Badd reluctantly moved towards the exit.

“If there is... anything... I can do...”

“Thank you, Detective,” Gregory said, forcing one of those painful smiles.

There is nothing anyone can do. Miles is gone. And I have to keep living.

Detective Badd respectfully bowed to him, then with a last sorrowful glance, walked out. Gregory closed the door behind him.

He closed his eyes, forced himself to breathe. The air felt solid around him, with how difficult it was to expand his chest, with how much the simple movement hurt. For a moment he tried to think of nothing but breathing.

Miles was gone. He would never sit on the floor again, engrossed in a book too serious for his age. He wouldn't hug Gregory, wouldn't laugh as he babbled about Phoenix and Larry and the Signal Samurai, ever again.

Aimless steps brought him back to the living room. His gaze fell on Miles's discarded sweater once more. In a surge of courage, he picked it up to put it away.

Miles was gone. Gregory had to move on.

The piece of clothing was so soft. He understood why his son had loved it so much, barely ever allowing Gregory to put it in the wash for how often he wore it. It still faintly smelled like him...

He fell to his knees and buried his face into the fabric.

#Ace Attorney #Gregory Edgeworth #Miles Edgeworth #fanfiction #my fanfic #samurais and mockingbirds #cw major character death #cw child death #kill-a-character bingo 2024 #DL-6 Incident #except worse #Miles Edgeworth Didn't Choose Death

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