madimpossibledreamer

Happy New Year's Eve!

Main Points:
Ace Attorney AU
Rating: G?
Word Count: 654
Summary, other main points under the cut
Actual Apollo Justice spoilers, Dual Destinies spoilers, as well as Turnabout Histories spoilers. (One of the clients shows up and...there's no real non-spoilery way to explain the Dual Destinies stuff)

Summary: Apollo meets up with Vera.
Luckily, where he’d agreed to meet Vera wasn’t far. Just another coffee shop. Which wasn’t fair, because he was still hungry, but he munches on another muffin…er, ‘cracker’…and shrugs his backpack to give his shoulders a break. It’s not that bad now, but it will later, so it doesn’t hurt to be prepared.

The artist hadn’t mentioned why she wanted to meet him, or why it couldn’t wait. But he didn’t bother asking. She’d tell him once they’d met, face to face, and it seemed like she didn’t particularly want to talk about it over the phone.

He’s glared at, once he arrives, until he orders a small coffee. If nothing else, it’ll have him going for as long as he needs to, which, given how much sleep and food he’s missing, is kind of actually necessary.

Miss Misham arrives not long after, panting, bag with canvas slung over her shoulder. She quickly orders, flustered, and rushes over to his table. There’s a panic in her eyes that reminds him unpleasantly of that case, and the nervous ticks everywhere aren’t helping him feel any more relaxed. She wants to bite her nails, but it seems like she’s been trying to kick that habit given that it nearly killed her, so her fingers and teeth just keep twitching instead.

“We haven’t really talked…how are you?” The nervous smile doesn’t hide the blind panic at all.

It’s a lousy attempt at small talk, but he manages a smile back at her anyway. “Well enough. Let’s get whatever it is out of the way so you can calm down.”

“I doubt that’ll happen.” She sighs, and pulls the painting out of her bag.

He’s definitely having flashbacks to that case. It’s a sketch, the same kind of rough sketch as the other paintings he’d seen.

His brain immediately shuts down, and it takes him several long seconds. It’s not quite like her other sketches. It’s like she tried to fit everything onto the campus, everything that she’d seen.

There’s a hallway he’d recognize anywhere as being in the Cosmos Space Center. An astronaut is walking down the corridor, supporting another astronaut. There’s a rocket, with an explosion in its side. It looks ready to launch, apart from the flames. There’s a body with a knife in it. It might be Klavier. Which is good, in a way. If anyone has to get stabbed, Klavier can at least survive it. But on the other hand, he feels he pain, even if he’ll just wave it off with a smile. Or toothily grin and kill whatever demon was stupid enough to stab him in the first place. If it’s a human, though, he can only act as a prosecutor.

In any case, Clay is in danger. He calls him first. “Hey, are there any launches scheduled this month?”

“You know there aren’t,” Clay’s tinny voice echoes back, in a ‘are you stupid’ manner. “Look, if this is about the Starbuck case…”

“Starbuck? What about Starbuck? How is he?” He might be prone to fits of melancholy, but he’s another one of the people Apollo really likes. Nothing can happen to him. Or Clay. Especially not Clay.

Several long moments of silence haunt him. Then, “Okay, Apollo, stop panicking. You’re fine. I’m fine. Okay?”

He breathes in, realizing that his breathing had actually stopped and he hadn’t noticed.

“Good. I’m going to call Blackquill and anyone else who needs to know about this. You’re going to tell me what’s going on, but not right now. Just remember we’re both fine, okay?” Terran waits just long enough to get a sound that’s vaguely affirmative and then hangs up.

Vera looks stricken, and he pats her hand. “It’s not your fault. Don’t worry about it. It helps to know what’s going to happen so we can stop it.”

She sighs, nods, and releases a little of her tension before sipping her tea.