Nikki Freeman fix-it fic, featuring reader as her lawyer.
'You take the case for the same reason you have taken every case in your five year career. You were assigned it, and it is your duty as a public defender.
The first time you see Nikki Freeman, subject of about thirty breaking news investigations, you know without a shadow of a doubt that she cannot be guilty. She just can’t be.'
(One)
You take the case for the same reason you have taken every case in your five year career. You were assigned it, and it is your duty as a public defender.
The first time you see Nikki Freeman, subject of about thirty breaking news investigations, you know without a shadow of a doubt that she cannot be guilty. She just can’t be. Her dark eyes, doll-like and wide, dart around like she’s being hunted. Her hair is wet.
She was allowed a shower after the police collected DNA samples from her skin. Her hands look scrubbed raw. She was found, covered in blood. Hers. The dead girl.
You sit down across from her, at the metal table. “Miss Freeman? I’ve been assigned as your legal counsel.”
When she looks up, there’s a hopeless, numb sort of expression on her face.
“I did it. But I didn’t. I really didn’t.”
(Two)
“My daughter doesn’t - didn’t-” the man sobs on the stand, “tell me much. All I can say is that Bear - Mr. Bailey - used to trail around Nikki at the store every day. And then one day it was her following him.”
(Three)
When she tells you everything, the whole story, as best as she can remember it, you feel skeptical. Because it sounds insane. It sounds like something a writer would make up. It sounds like the thing a woman going through a mental break would say.
“I won’t plead insanity. I would rather go to jail than be drugged against my… against my will… in a fucking mental hospital.” Nikki hisses, furious and intense and looking pale in her orange jumpsuit. Nobody posted bail. She doesn’t have the money to.
“Well your story is going to sound like an insanity plea.” You tell her, trying to be gentle, but still sounding as though you are scolding her. “So you need to say what happened. And you need to be certain that all the blame goes to the responsible party. Baron Bailey caused this. Not you.”
At those words, she looks at you and begins to cry.
(Four)
“I went out to her car to see why Bear had left in the middle of the night. He was outside with her at three in the morning.” Nikki says, carefully. “When I saw her face, she was beaten beyond recognition, and it was clear that she was dead.” She pauses to collect herself, and you are proud.
Proud of her for telling no lies, but not the whole truth. Your job is to ensure that justice is carried out. Your job is to make sure due process is given. You would be a failure if you let this young woman go to jail.
The prosecution asks about her wearing Sarah’s dress. About her drawing tattoos on her body.
“Bear wanted me to be Sarah since he couldn’t have her. That’s why we brought the body into the house. I was terrified of him.”
You give her an encouraging nod. This is Bear’s fault. The jury needs to understand.
(Five)
You scour the city, and then the surrounding cities, for any of these so-called “One Wish Willows” that she told you about. The internet has threads about their ineffectiveness as well as an insistence that it works. E-Bay results in nothing. Amazon does not sell them. You find that your free time is filled with the desire to understand what could possibly take someone’s free will away so easily, so cruelly.
On Saturdays you peruse incense shops, places that sell tarot and witchcraft supplies. You go to crystal stores, and fortune tellers. If it weren’t for the quickly dwindling posts online (all inactive, all beginning to get old), and the singular package on the couch at the crime scene, you would think it couldn’t possibly exist.
It takes you fourteen months, as the trial approaches, and you finally find one in a Salvation Army bin. You don’t know what it will do, but you buy it anyways, because if your client thinks it’s the cause of all her suffering, it must mean something.
(Six)
“I wish that the events caused by the One Wish Willow had not happened to Nikki Freeman and her friends.” You say clearly, stick grasped gently in your hands, Nikki watching with terror in her face. She nods slowly, affirming your words.
The stick doesn’t break, you try several times. It can’t break. Or won’t.
“You have to try something else. I don’t think we can change time.” Nikki says, after a moment, glum and defeated.
“Do you want an innocent verdict?” You ask. “I can wish it if changing timelines doesn’t work.”
“It would be your one wish.” Nikki responds, completely immune to how ridiculous this conversation is. “Don’t you want to be a billionaire or live forever?”
“I already have the things I want in my life.” You reply evenly. You don’t believe in wishes, not really. Maybe curses. Since Nikki Freeman was obviously stripped of her free will. But this apparent magic could be used for good.
“Everyone wants something,” she replies. She seems hopeless.
“There’s nothing worth getting that can be given to me from magic,” you try. This calms her a bit.
“If that’s what you want, give it a try.”
“I wish Nikki Freeman would receive an innocent verdict and be allowed to live freely.” You say, and the stick snaps.
(Seven)
“And the gun residue on your hands?” the prosecutor prompts.
“Bear forced me to point the gun at the door. I was supposed to threaten Ian.” Nikki replies.
“And it fired on it’s own?” the prosecutor asks, snidely.
“Objection, your honor.”
(Eight)
It has taken the trial a full two and a half years. You made the wish months ago.
“The jury finds Nikki Freeman not guilty.”
(Nine)
You help set Nikki up in a new place, because even if you’re at the end of your contact as public defender and client, you worry. A domestic violence survivor group helped her lease the place, a five hundred square foot one bed in the city. She’s about four hours away from where her horror was experienced.
Her hair is cut in a chic bob that you know you couldn’t pull off in a million years, and she wears glasses now. You helped her legally change her name, and she has a job as a barista. Things are getting put behind her.
“I think I’ll start writing again.” She says, over pizza. “I have a lot to say now.”
“You should.” You reply. “You deserve it.”
When you’re at the door, you pull her into a hug. “I really hope I never have to see you again.” She sobs.
“Me too.”
(Ten)
Six years later, when the trial is far behind you, and life has moved forward, you receive a package in the mail.
You smile as you pull the brown paper off the package to reveal a book, by Anne N. Freeman. It’s a love story, love and horror, and the dedication reads: ‘To you who wished for my freedom.’
this is going around twitter rn but im also super curious: please tell me your top four comfort movies that you’re always down to watch bc my friend thinks mine are ridiculous and now we’ve realised everyone’s version of “comfort” is hilariously different
I can’t stand when someone is embarrassed about coming from money and tries to downplay it to fit in with us poors. If you’re really so ashamed then give it to me. Sign over your inheritance, I’ll gladly free you from the shackles of generational wealth. I’ll make your parents proud.
The Life of a Showgirl as Movie Posters (Tracks 7-12)
Actually Romantic as Mean Girls
Wi$h Li$t as 13 Going On 30
Wood as Practical Magic
Cancelled! as Wicked
Honey as When Harry Met Sally
The Life of a Showgirl as Chicago
The ground in these places is too compact for water to soak in during wet season which leads to flooding but digging these holes gives the water a place to stop and soak in. And they’re pushing back the desert with this. By just digging holes.
The new plants also help even more water soak into the ground which reduces flooding even more.
These places also give people places to grow food and graze animals like people are turning completely dry compact desert into a refuge for wildlife and plants and solving regional food insecurity just by digging holes.
I see "deserts are good" has become the latest no-nuance catchphrase that Tumblr has adopted and now tries to apply to every single situation possible with the subtlety of a sledgehammer
taylor swift would release a 30th special edition of the tortured poets department to block the vampire lestats spot on the billboard chart and within 24 hrs travis kelce would go missing
btw you should absolutely read stuff you don't agree with. you should think critically about it. you should reflect and find different stimuli and maybe even form your own thought based on or opposed to it. ideas aren't contagious and reading words someone else has told you are "bad" won't infect you like a virus and make you "evil". read with your own brain.
As today is the 50th anniversary of the moon landing, it’s a great time to revisit Dinah from Devon’s memory of this historic event. And yes, still makes me laugh.
origamiaround
vaporwave
gummygunk
romaincrisis
dailybridgerton
snowghoul
