I wrote a one shot for this prompt, fueled by a question I've had for a while: What if Mia could use her spiritual powers to read memories?
https://archiveofourown.org/works/66221992
Takes place during a hospital visit to Diego during his coma, about a year after the trial of Turnabout Beginnings.
Mia glanced out the window at the dreary February weather. In the past winter months, it was days like this that she came to the hospital to visit Diego. The gloomy days seemed fitting.
It had been almost a year since she’d seen Dahlia in that trial. And…several months since Diego’s poisoning.
She made a habit of visiting Diego’s hospital room whenever she’d run into a dead end in her investigation. Today was no different.
She pulled up a chair to sit at, next to his bed. Looking at his seemingly lifeless body used to be tough for her. She hated that she had started to get used to it.
Why did things have to get so hard? At the moment when she thought she and Diego were going to make a breakthrough in their investigation?
The police told her the perpetrator had escaped.
The investigators told her that they had no more leads.
The doctors told her Diego might not ever wake up again.
The case was left cold.
And now she felt that she couldn’t go on. There was nothing to follow.
It felt meaningless.
She touched his cold face gently. His body was hanging in the void between life and death. The only comfort to her that he was still alive was the mechanical beeping of his heart rate.
If she were to give up, would he understand?
His smiling face appeared in her memory. He had been the one to reassure her that they would bring Dahlia to justice. She knew he wouldn’t want her to stop.
For a split second, she couldn’t help but allow tears to well up in her eyes.
She bit her lip and blinked them away. She could almost hear his voice and see that day when he’d told her…
The only time a lawyer can cry is when it’s all over.
She gasped. She swore that she almost heard him. His deep voice echoed in her mind and rang in her ears. And the memory of that day was crisp, almost imprinted in her mind. Like a movie that was playing inside her brain. Was she going insane? She slowly pulled her hand away from his head. Suddenly, the scene disappeared from her mind.
What was going on? As she took a step back, she realized something.
Her magatama was glowing.
She clasped the stone with her hand, feeling a warm vibration from it. She knew there were extrasensory perceptive powers she held, but she had no idea there was something like…this. Of course, spirit channelling was a mystery, but it was more familiar for her. Something like mind reading – if that’s what this was – was far beyond her.
What if….
What if she could find some sort of clue hidden in his memories? Something she had missed, or something he discovered just before he had been poisoned?
She held out her hand and gently touched his head to test it again. She could feel some sort of connection bridging his mind and hers.
Closing her eyes, she took a deep breath and used the connective force that was pulling her mind to his. She remembered a technique she’d learned during her spiritual training in Kurain village – a technique to still her mind and focus on gathering the energy that came to her. She was always told it was the spiritual energy coursing through her veins as a Fey. But now she was wondering what kind of energy this was, if it allowed her a path to another mind. Maybe she’d research more about it the next time she visited her home village.
Focusing on the warm, buzzing energy, she felt her conscious mind being propelled into Diego’s unconscious one. It was cold and dark, sending a shiver down her spine. Hesitating for a moment, she wondered if this was a good idea. She had no clue whatever power this was. What if she couldn’t leave his mind, and got stuck? Besides, it was Diego’s mind, and his personal memories. Was it right to interfere?
She decided it might be better to stop.
Except there was a problem.
She couldn’t gather enough energy to stop the force pulling her into Diego’s mind. It was like a whirlpool, sucking her into the dark void.
Clenching her teeth, she shut her eyes and expected some sort of terrible pain as she entered his mind. But nothing happened.
She slowly opened her eyes. The darkness wasn’t as bad as what she’d expected, and she realized why. Small specks of light started to appear, like stars flashing into existence in the night sky. Her body felt light and she saw that she appeared ghost-like. Thankfully, she still remembered who she was, and her memories were still in her head. She sighed with relief, glad that it wasn’t what she had feared – to be propelled into Diego’s mind and lose her own.
She noticed that the lights were getting larger, and gasped when she realized that they were memories . His memories.
As she floated by some of the specks, the lights flashed and transformed into scenes. She didn’t feel that it would be right to look into Diego’s personal memories from his early life, so she continued forward (while curiously glancing at a few).
After a few moments, she saw a familiar one at the corner of her eye. Walking closer, the memory came into focus. It was vivid and bright, but it wasn’t just something to be seen. She could feel the wind blowing her hair, smell the soft and sweet scent of cherry blossoms, and hear the faint rustling of the leaves and clamours of traffic.
Her lips curved into a smile. She remembered that day, though it was an insignificant evening walk at the park with him. It had been a long day for the two of them, with a number of bad things that had happened. The police had refused to give them files regarding the Hawthorne family, Grossberg had suggested that they stop investigating Terry Fawles and Valerie Hawthorne’s case, and they were told that the office, short on lawyers, needed them to work on other cases.
Mia sighed and put her head in her hands.
“What do we do? We’re not getting anywhere closer in our investigation,” she said as she massaged her temples. “And now…”
“And now what?”
She shot him a look. “How can you maintain such a cheery voice right now? Don’t you realize that we can’t go on? No files, no information, no leads.”
“And what? You’re going to give up? I thought my kitten was fiercer than that.”
She sighed. “No, I’m not giving up, I just- I think I just need a break.”
He turned towards the window. “It’s not dark yet. Want to go on a walk?”
She followed his gaze. “I guess...”
She smiled as she thought back to that evening. The cool breeze and beautiful sunset had helped clear away any worries, and she and Diego had a chance to talk and laugh at the park. Sure, she remembered that they had to continue their investigation, balance other criminal cases, and pore through files every day, but that evening walk had instilled a hopeful spirit inside of her that Diego helped stir. She missed those days. The days when he was always by her side.
Another flash of light. She peered at it closely and noticed its slight blurriness.
The redheaded girl who sat at the table looked at him with a malicious grin spread across her face. A sharp, suffocating pain hit his lungs and his eyes blurred.
No. She wouldn't have dared to-
An intense burning in his throat made him gasp and choke as he collapsed onto the table, his coffee lying beside him.
His entire body felt almost paralyzed from the pain. He struggled to raise his head as he made one more glance towards Dahlia Hawthorne.
She swiftly got up and fled, a gold and blue pendant dangling from her arm. The small crystal blue vial in the middle of the pendant sparkled with a kind of liquid in it.
A sudden drowsiness overcame him. Perhaps all he needed was sleep.....
She pulled away from the memory with a start, shutting her eyes.
And as she opened them, she noticed she was back in Diego's hospital room.
"I won't give up," she whispered to him as her eyes looked at his sleeping face. "I'll finish what we left off, I promise."
The memory had made her feel a number of things. Anger, fear, and sadness all swirled inside her. But most prominently? Hope.
After all, Diego had left her a most important clue in his memories.
