Edgeworth nearly hesitates in taking the thick folder from the surprisingly serious detective, nerves bunching warily. He opens the folder and immediately freezes when he sees his own basic information jotted down at the top: name, birthdate, age, and gender. He lifts his gaze to Gumshoe, the dread swelling thickly when the detective’s face doesn’t relax, then he bites his lip and turns his attention back to the files. With a slow sigh, he decides to just rip the bandage off quickly and begins to read the papers.
The further he goes, the more his body tenses, his logic fighting the truth presented to him. He notes instantly that his place of birth had been updated from [To Be Determined] to something that chills his bones to the core: Kurain Village and he stiffens, fingers gripping the papers tightly as he hopes against hope that those words are merely a typo. He exhales sharply, lifting his gaze to Gumshoe again, who simply frowns deeper. Edgeworth swallows thickly, then slowly loosens his grip and pushes on, heart slowly climbing as he gets to his family section. In truth, he hopes he just sees Gregory and nothing further, but his logic tells him otherwise and urges him to accept it.
Passing his father’s section, he wishes desperately that his mother’s section will appear blank, but just like all his other prayers, it gets ignored. His breath hitches as his heart jumps up into his throat, choking him of any words he would have said, his hands trembling slightly as he reads her name twice, thrice, ten times, twenty times. Over and over, his eyes trace over her name, trying to make sense of it all. Misty Fey, the Head of the Fey Clan and Master of the Kurain Channeling Technique. Misty Fey, the woman whose life was destroyed due to his father’s passing. Misty Fey, the woman whose murder he investigated when Wright wound up in the hospital and asked him to take his place. Misty Fey was his mother.
He sniffs, vision growing blurry as he tears up at the revelations, his heart pounding like a drum in his ears. His throat thickens as he struggles to keep it all in, watery eyes roaming over the rest of his family, the shaking growing stronger until he forces himself to set the papers down, unable to read them with his unsteady hands. He removes his glasses and rubs his eyes, but the tears still fall. All this time, all this time he had believed he had no family left. After forcing himself to finally accept that he was truly alone, he discovers this. His mother had been alive when he was in his mid-20s, and then he investigated her murder without ever knowing who she truly was. He prosecuted his own sister for the murder of their older sister years before that, he rivaled their older sister when they were both new to their career and destroyed her and her relationship by letting their apparent cousin walk free. So many times, he tore apart the Fey family, the Fey girls themselves by his selfish actions, and now, he finds he’s related to them.
His past sins weigh heavily on him and he feels like he can’t breathe. He buries his face in his hands, praying with all his might that this is a dream and not a reality. He doesn’t deserve a family, he doesn’t deserve THIS family, not after what he did to them when he was a mere brat of a prosecutor.
After a moment, Edgeworth decides that he can’t keep this to himself. Despite how awful he feels, he can’t accept this revelation on his own. Maya and Pearl need to know who they truly are to each other and to him, they deserve that much. Taking a deep breath, he reaches for his phone and dials one of the Fey girls, the dread never fading. // @theburgermaster
