The lines of reality bent after so many nightmare-hours, after that scream stabbed him again and the world skewed.

"I'm sorry," Mia murmured, "I should have been there."

Miles was surely hallucinating. His dreams never had a welcoming lap to lay his head in, or fingers tracing a gentle rhythm into his hair. He opened his eyes -- to the worry liquid on her face, not impassive ceiling white -- and he sighed, and closed them again.

"It doesn't matter, Fey."

"It does. And stop calling me that."

Whatever this was, limbo laced with care, it was ... pleasant. Mia Fey wasn't an keen-eyed rival or a strange ally here; just a siren, just sweet words. Perhaps Miles had died against sea rocks. He couldn't manage to mind.

"Wright did his job," Miles muttered -- the waves lapped, if he paid attention -- "It's none of your concern."

Quiet drifted, technicolor. She sighed; feather-warm breath on his forehead, a brush of her lips and a flutter of the soft things behind his heart.

"Later," she said, somewhere distant, "I'll show you some other time."

Hallucinating was manageable. But Miles loathed the aftermath, surfacing into dawn light and finding vivid shards of memories, staring at the ceiling while his pulse still raced. A dozen images seared in his head and ... at least one was real, he knew that sure as suffocating. The nightmare stood real and his life was lies, all lies.

He rubbed knuckles against his eyes, slow, so the shadows danced. Floorboards whispered in the hall; he raised his hands to look. And Mia stood in the doorway. Oh. That one was real, too.

She brought tea like she said. She was softer without the suit's angles, with her hair tied loose, but the same soft as when she stepped into his office, smiling. This hung strange in the room, while Miles hunched over a mug in pajamas he didn't remember putting on -- he rarely did -- and Mia's weight dipped the mattress beside him.

"You don't ... have to--"

"Would you rather I left?"

But that wasn't a question because she knew the answer. He sipped the assam tea's deep red.

"You're more intelligent than that and so am I, Edgeworth. This is a lot to handle."

That was one way to put it. A smirk pulled bitter at his mouth.

"Whatever you need, we're here for you."

Wright had said something like that, he and Maya had proved it. How did Miles have these people nudging closer when ... But this person had never been wary of him. Anxious, smiling, a whole spectrum of determined but she hadn't once listened to his bark.

"Fey--"

Stop calling me that.

He frowned for strength. "... Mia."

"Miles."

And he never went by that. He set his own mug aside, felt the vertigo of failing lake ice and Miles wasn't brave enough, he slanted his gaze farther away.

"Is it that obvious?"

"Right now," she murmured, and draped a hand over his, "Yes."

Miles couldn't have said which -- noticing Mia Fey in his home, or noticing silence when she was gone -- was stranger. He pretended not to notice eyes on him as he walked tall into his office, and he tapped his pen and glowered at the paperwork and ordered too many forensics tests. Some change, Miles thought, and felt every thread of the suit on his skin, and saw the blaze in Wright's eyes again. His life turned onto its ear, and this was the rut he returned to? Where did one even start?

I'll show you some other time.

He stood; he watched the window pane instead of its view, and clasped hands behind his back.

Ridiculous, he thought, the entire drive over. Hare-brained, spontaneous foolishness. He didn't even know how late they worked.

Shadows stretched across the parking lot, and the windows of Fey, Wright and Co. glowed with lamplight. Curse, or blessing? Miles couldn't tell as he opened the door to Wright's blinking surprise and broad grin, and Maya's shrill of joy -- and Mia's smile, knowing.

"Phoenix would have met you that night, actually." She closed his front door carefully, like minding a faithful pet. "But he can't drive. And from what he said ..."

Winter chill dissapated, and the shuffling of their coats and boots filled in.

Mia paused, knit scarf folding in her hands. "Well, I was concerned. You must not have slept ...?"

He knew the answer with logic, not in any fleshed reality:

"Four days."

Her hand flitted to her breastbone, and she stared.

"No wonder ..."

His gaze darted away to the hardwood. "I ... don't usually go that long."

Brains were so frail. Miles debated where to move but Mia's grip decided for him, all airy command twined on his arm.

"It's behind you now," she murmured.

If only it were true. From the steadiness in her eyes, she wanted it to be.

Mia led him to the living room -- moreso than knowing his own thick carpet, his feet remembered this walk, this particular path with someone at his side. Suddenly, she was absent, selecting the far end of the couch for herself.

"Before you say it, I don't mind." She smiled, small and hopeful, "Really, it's no trouble. Are you sleeping better?"

He stood there, stiff-jointed, a lump sticky in his throat. What had Miles done? What had he invited and, lord, how was this night any less mad?

"... Better."

"Good," she said. One hand tapped the pale cushions. "I'll pick up where I left off."It must have been so easy, following Mia's beacon through mist; the couch stood welcoming and the muted thump of her invitation worked, his muscles loosened. Miles sat, and every tendon screamed anxious. He eased back for long moments, finally watching the ceiling, lifting his legs into place, noticing what a bizarre pillow Mia's thighs made.

"I don't trust my memory," he bit out.

"I don't either, sometimes."

The concussion, surely, and the trial like torn viscera. She hummed soft and Miles chanced a glance; she watched something distant. Touch flowed in his hair; body heat met his awareness and nudged in close.

"Let's see. I think you said that Phoenix handled it and it wasn't my business."

It crawled up sudden, a glinting beetle: "None of your concern?"

"Something like that."

A pause, and fingertips sank through his hair, effervescent on his scalp -- Miles let out a pent sigh. He wriggled. Perhaps this was leading where he thought, and if the night kept sinking and the stars aligned, perhaps he wouldn't mind hearing it.

"But you're not alone. We can't prove that enough, Miles, we're here if you'll let us be." A lingering stroke of her fingers. "Would you believe that I've never hated you?"

Strange, against the mud of a first trial he was fairly sure he remembered. Precognition swelled in his chest; he drifted on fearless tides again. He looked up at Mia, into that steady gaze.

"This sounds like a confession."

"Do you think so?" She smiled wholly. "Maybe it is."

"I don't know what to think, Mia," and the giddiness took over and he smiled back, a crooked effort, "Must I spell it out for you?"

Shock faded, blinding -- hands on his jaw, the melt of her smile against his mouth. Her hair fell guardian around them, and her song returned; there was nothing to mind.

He still had aftermath: moments of realisation and dawn light on the ceiling, vivid fragments to remember. This time it was a pondering slide -- a jigsaw puzzle, soothing, lined with awe. Miles sat, shoving linens away like he had never done it before.

The floorboards whispered deja vu; he looked up, sharply.

I'd like to be here in the morning. Like last time.

And she brought tea again, the same malt-fragrant assam. She planned this at one point or another; who brought an overnight bag to work with them, Miles suddenly knew?

She was soft even with the suit's angles, lurking pleasant at one edge of his mirror's view while he straightened every layer and crease. The instant where he might have left too early for work came, passed by, and died. Standing there, Miles mustered the will to look at her in the mirror, and turn, and meet that endless gaze properly.

"I'm ... not good with these things." Favours, invitations, the vulnerable places between his ribs.

She set her mug aside. Morning light draped her: eretheral, impossibly relaxed there on the edge of his bed, her knees artfully crossed.

"Sometimes what you say," and she smiled, she called him to the rocks, "Doesn't need to be said at all."

The fluttering returned; it crept from his heart, upward, dizzying. Miles hardly remembered moving to sit beside her -- just shifting weight on the mattress, and sun's warmth. He found sureness. He draped a hand over hers.

Mia had plenty to say, too -- with another shock of a kiss, another beautiful thaw. And with slender hands, learning his jawline again, star-spreading on his chest to press him back, down. Vertigo was nothing to mind, either.

"No need," she breathed, humid against his throat, picking his buttons and folds back open, "To spell it out."

Miles smirked, upward and at nothing -- reality could warp to its own content. The waves lapped and Mia pressed lavish against him; fingers wound into scarf's gauze held him anchored.

"Thank you," he said anyway, "For your concern."