Gyakuten Kenji / Ace Attorney: Investigations, its characters and settings, are property of Capcom and are being used here without permission but for no profit. This fic is rated PG, for suggestive themes.

Be My Lady

Part 1 of 4

The first time Kristoph met Calisto Yew, he had to pull her, crying and flailing, away from his father.

By then Arthur Gavin's face was red with welts drawn by the woman's nails. He cursed and swung his briefcase at her, and had to be detained by the bailiff. The courtroom was already in chaos: the prosecutor stood, slack-jawed and speechless, behind his bench; the defendant shoved past the emptying gallery with smug self-assuredness; the Judge shook his head and banged his gavel in futility.

Within the tumultuous wake of the verdict Kristoph pulled Calisto up against the gallery wall, shielding her from the onslaught of reporters and officers, and they from her. He got several jabs in the ribs and broken glasses in the process but in time she calmed, and sobbed into the shoulder of his vest. It was then, as she trembled against him in seemingly helpless distress, that he realized she was faking.

After that day, Courtroom 3 only saw petty disputes for some time. The bailiffs whispered that sometimes they could still hear Calisto's mournful wails, as if her living ghost had been left behind to haunt the site where justice was robbed from her. She remained thus, a legend on the edge of remembrance, until resurrected by a case that no one had expected to be worthy of note.

The court was set; all but the defendant's attorney were at their places, prepared to go through the motions of an unentertaining misappropriation of public funding case. Just as the Judge began to ask after the missing lawyer the courtroom doors flung open in grand fashion, and to the bench strode a woman in a tailored suit with gold emblems piercing her ears. She carried herself with a Valkyrie's brutal grace, and her tall heels tapped a percussive rhythm that cut above the murmurs of the court. And at her side walked the boy that no one forgot, because no one had noticed him in the first place.

Prosecutor Faraday stared at the entrance spectacle with wide and incredulous eyes. His recognition of them both was instantaneous and mind-erasing. "What is this?"

Calisto addressed the court. "My apologies for my tardiness." Her briefcase clapped loudly on the defense bench. "Calisto Yew, Your Honor, taking over the defense of Mr. Winslet."

The Judge frowned at her. "Is Mr. Gavin unwell?"

"Extremely unwell," Calisto replied. "In fact, he's dead."

Shock rippled across the courtroom, and affected none so greatly as Prosecutor Faraday. "Are you joking?" he demanded. "When? How? Why wasn't I told?"

"His body was discovered this morning at his home," said Calisto. "I'm afraid all other details are in the hands of the detective in charge. But it's not related to our case at hand, so--"

"How can we know that if the details haven't been released?" True to his reputation Faraday's cheeks flushed darker with each passing moment. "And what are you doing here? Are you even qualified to--"

Kristoph interrupted him, his voice eerily calm, his face unmoved. "Calisto Yew is an employee at Gavin & Co. Law offices. She has been briefed on the case, and as the inheritor of my father's business, I approve of her taking this case."

"Your father?" the Judge said. "You're Kristoph Gavin?"

"Yes." Kristoph took a deep breath. "My father committed suicide," he declared to another round of gasps. "I can assure you that he has been unwell for many months. His death has nothing to do with the current case."

"And so," Calisto took over for him, "there is no reason for us to delay the proceedings now. Shall we begin the trial?"

The courtroom hushed, and though Prosecutor Faraday was still stunned by the events, he had no choice but to agree. The Judge banged his gavel, and thus the trial lurched into motion. Kristoph remained at Calisto's side but offered not another word for the entire two hours and thirty-seven minutes it took for her to win her case.

In the days to follow, reporters would broadcast the return of Calisto to the world of law as frantically as if she were a ghost brought back from the dead. They would speculate that a thirst for vengeance against the justice that had failed her had driven her into the heart of the corruption she should have despised. They questioned, too, the calm and apparently unimpassioned face of Kristoph Gavin as he confessed his father's tragic fate. Future appearances would convince everyone that those moments of apathy were merely his shock impairing his ability to mourn, and that he was in reality a young man rich in manners, warmth, and professionalism. But Calisto's reputation was set, written twice into legend as the immortal adversary of the Los Angeles Justice Department.

But none of that had happened yet. Immediately after the trial Calisto had heated words with Prosecutor Faraday and then left the courthouse with Kristoph. She drove him to her small apartment downtown, and had only leftovers to feed him, but he was grateful. They ate in silence and several times Kristoph felt her look at him in fascination. He knew what she wanted to ask, and decided to answer before he had to listen to her form the words. "I'm all right."

"Hm?" Calisto took a long gulp from a bottle of iced tea and then passed it to him. "Is that so?"

He didn't wipe the rim. "My father killed himself last night. Isn't it normal to ask?"

"Maybe it is," she conceded. "But you're not all that normal, are you?" She dropped her chin into her palm as she watched him drink. "I can tell when you're lying, even though you are very good. You'll only get better with age."

"I could say the same about you," Kristoph said. "On all counts."

Calisto frowned at him, her pink lips pursed and perfect. "Are you calling me a liar, little boy?"

"Am I wrong?" He met her gaze. "Your sister's death didn't mean to you what it should have. Everyone's going to think you murdered my father because he helped her killer go free, but they'll never be able to prove it, because you never hated him to begin with, did you? That was part of your act."

Calisto's eyes narrowed. "You think because your daddy offed himself you understand death now?" she challenged. She rose from her chair and circled toward him, slowly. "What it should mean to me? Who the hell do you think you are?"

She leaned her hip against the kitchen table and snatched his hand. The bandages crossing it were fresh, and when she squeezed, she felt them grow warm with blood. He flinched back, and tried to continue to meet her eye to eye, but she was stronger than him in every regard.

"A cute little rich kid like you has no idea what death and vengeance mean to me," she said as she glared down at him. "How much I sacrificed to get here--what I went through having to work for your father, of all people. How do you know I didn't kill him anyway?" She squeezed again and he grimaced. "Just because you found the body doesn't mean you're a forensics expert, does it? How can you be sure I didn't set it up to look like a suicide?"

Kristoph's eyes watered; though his hand throbbed he didn't try to escape her. "Because I killed him," he said.

Calisto let him go, and watched him for several beats in silent surprise until he added, quietly, "Figuratively."

"Figuratively," she repeated.

And then she laughed. It was the first time he had heard her do so, and it was the first time he had seen her sincere. As he cradled his aching palm she reached out, plucking off his glasses and smoothing his hair. "You poor thing," she cooed as her warm fingertips brushed his cheeks. She took her weight from the table and urged him upright. "You're right, I didn't kill him. I'll leave it on you, if that's how you want it." She steered him towards a nearby sofa. "Get some sleep before the cops come looking for you. You'll need it."

Kristoph followed her guidance. As he shed his vest and shoes he glanced up to her again. "You're still a liar," he reminded her. "What do you want now that he's dead?"

Calisto stared down at him, and for a moment her eyes softened. She looked past him into an abyss. He wondered if she often looked that way, on the cusp of honesty, and felt in him rise a sensation of possessiveness.

"He put me in charge of the firm until you're old enough to take it over," she said. "Legally and...figuratively." Her eyebrow arched. "If you decide to go into law at all."

"I am," he replied quickly. "Whatever you're after, I'm not going to let you do what you like with his firm."

"All right." Calisto laughed again as she loosened her tie and walked away. "In that case, we're going to know each other for a long time, huh?"

Kristoph watched her leave. He lied back on the lumpy sofa and trembled--not in resentment for Calisto's laughter, but because he welcomed it. She was a mystery, the legend Courtroom 3 would remember her to be, and because he knew what she looked like when she lied, she was the only person Kristoph would ever trust.

He would think about her at least once every day until the moment of his execution, seventeen years after huddling with her against the gallery wall.