relationships: mia fey & lana skye, maya fey & lana skye, mia fey & maya fey, ema skye & lana skye, lana skye & phoenix wright
characters: mia fey, lana skye, maya fey, ema skye, phoenix wright, pearl fey
word count: 2,809
trigger warnings: evil laboratories
additional tags: escaping laboratories, alternate universe - canon divergence, hiding from the government
summary: Lana was almost certain this was a bad idea, but if she didn’t go through with it, was she any better than the scientists at the lab?
A small voice in the back of Lana’s mind was screaming at her that this was a bad idea. As she got closer to the room she was walking to, she couldn’t help but wonder if she should just go about her guard duties as normal and forget about her whole crazy plan. Lana was about to turn on her heel and walk away when the power surged and went out. A few thoughts went through her mind, but the most prominent one was that now was her chance.
Lana picked up her pace so that she was running. She had no idea how long the power would be out for, so she needed to be quick. The files safely stored in her backpack weighed on her mind as she got nearer to the room. What was she doing? Her little rescue operation was risking not only her life, but the lives of the three she was rescuing. Soon enough, Lana was stopped in front of their door.
She dug around in her pocket for the slip of paper she had written the code on and, once found, punched it into the keypad with a gloved hand. The door slid open with a quiet woosh. Inside were the three she was looking for. The oldest person—Lana wracked her brain for the name she read in their file, but it eluded her—sat up when the door opened. They looked in her direction but didn’t quite acknowledge she was there, and Lana wasn’t in the least bit surprised. After all, their sight didn’t include the living.
“Come on,” Lana whispered. “We have to hurry.”
“Who are you?” they asked.
Mia. That was their name. “Mia, I’m here to take you three away from the lab.”
“Who’s Mia?” Mia’s eyes narrowed, and her protective grip over the younger two tightened. “No. I’m not going anywhere with you.”
It suddenly, heartbreakingly, occurred to Lana that they might not even know their own names. “Please, I just want to help you.” She stepped into the room and gently shut the door behind her. “I want to help you three live the life you deserve.”
“Why should I believe you?” Mia asked. “How do I know you won’t hurt us?”
“You don’t,” Lana admitted, “but do you want to spend the rest of your life here, trapped in a room where you don’t know what’s coming at you next?”
“Well…”
“If you don’t do it for yourself, do it for them.”
Lana watched the internal conflict playing out in Mia’s eyes. She knew why the latter was hesitating. The two younger people depended on her, both for comfort and safety, and she was debating whether or not to believe this stranger she couldn’t see. It made Lana think, not for the first time, of how she would react if it was her and Ema in this situation.
“Okay,” Mia whispered out eventually. “We’ll go.”
Lana walked over to the trio as Mia roused the younger girl with black hair. Maya was her name, if Lana’s memory served correctly. She kneeled down in front of them and let her hands hover in front of herself.
“I’m right here,” Lana said. “You’ll have to take my hand so you don’t get lost.”
Mia nodded and helped a disoriented Maya sit up. “Can you carry her?” She gestured to the youngest (Pearl? That sounded right.).
“Yeah, I can.”
Mia stood and brought Maya, now fully awake and watching with rapt attention, up to her feet. Lana carefully scooped Pearl into her arms and stood again. She reached out for Mia’s hand and sighed in relief when the latter took it. Slowly and carefully Lana led them out of the room and down the hall. Thankfully the power was still out, so none of the cameras were working.
The air was tense as Lana led her rescuees down a collection of hallways that would make any normal person dizzy. Finally, after what seemed like both too long and not long at all, the front doors of the building came into view. Past those doors was Lana’s car, and, one long drive away from here, their freedom.
“Woah…” Maya breathed once they stepped foot outside. “It’s… beautiful.”
Lana couldn’t help but smile. “This? Oh, this is ugly compared to the places you’ll all get to see someday.”
Silence hung over them as they walked to Lana’s car. She ushered Mia and Maya into the back and set Pearl down between them, then showing them how to buckle their seatbelts. What good would her rescue be if they got into a car accident and died? Lana was sure she didn’t breathe until she had left the parking lot and was far down a hidden back road most people would never know about.
“Where are we going?” Mia asked after a while.
The landscape around them slowly changed as Lana drove. Barren rock valleys and dense forested mountains gave way to smoothly paved roads and houses of every shape, size, and color. There was one house in particular that Lana needed to get to, and its inhabitants would still be awake, if she was right.
“We’re going to see a friend,” Lana answered. She briefly flicked her gaze to the trio in the backseat with the use of her rearview mirror. “Someone who is going to help us. That, and my own sister is currently at his house.”
“You have a sister?” Maya asked. Her gaze slid from Pearl on her left to Mia on the opposite side of the backseat. “What’s she like?”
“Her name is Ema, and she’s…” Lana tapped her fingers on the steering wheel as she thought. “Something. She has a thing for science, but not in the evil way like at the lab. She wants to do something good for humanity. She’s actually about your age, Maya.”
“My age?” Maya brought her gaze back to Lana. “How do you know? And why are you calling me Maya?”
“I read it in your file,” Lana said. “I actually read all three of your files. They have your names and birthdays, among other things. I have them with me right now.”
“Oh wow, that’s so cool!” Maya beamed at Lana before she took to looking out the window. “I wonder what else it says about us in those files…”
“You’ll have to wonder a bit longer, because we’re here.”
Lana made sure her car was in park before she got out and helped the three out onto the sidewalk. The house standing before them was unimpressive in just about every way save for the large tree planted in the backyard. Some of its branches extended toward the windows on the second floor, and Lana had zero doubts in her mind that a certain someone that lived in the house had used them to sneak out her bedroom window before.
“This is where your friend lives? It’s… big,” Mia murmured. Pearl, still asleep, was resting on her hip.
“His house is actually kind of small compared to some of the other ones in the area.” Lana took Mia’s hand, who in turn took Maya’s hand. “Still, it’s the place he and his kids call home.”
“Kids…?”
Mia’s query went unanswered as Lana rang the doorbell. She only felt a bit bad about potentially waking up the kids this late, but she had a sneaking suspicion they were already awake anyway. There was silence, supplemented only by Lana tapping her foot against the front stoop, before the front door opened.
“Hey, Lana,” Phoenix said, “it’s a bit late to be dropping in. I was under the impression Ema was staying the night.”
“I need to come in,” Lana said, cutting straight to the chase. “We need to talk.”
“Uh… yeah, of course.” Phoenix stepped aside and gestured her in. He raised a brow when he saw the three people entering behind her. “Lana? Who are they?”
“They’re why I need to talk to you.” Lana glanced around the living room but saw no one. “Where’s Ema and your kids?”
“Up in Apollo’s room. Is something wrong?” Phoenix asked.
“So, you know how I work at that lab way out of town…?” Lana started.
Phoenix stared. “Lana, you didn’t…”
“I had to, Nick! Things there were just…” Lana gestured with her hands while searching for the right word. “Inhumane! I didn’t realize how bad it was until recently, and then I just decided…”
“To break them out?” Lana nodded, and Phoenix sighed. “Okay, let’s all go sit down in the living room, and you can tell me what’s up.”
Their group moved down the hall to the living room. Phoenix sat down on the couch, not bothering to turn a light on due to the glow of whatever was currently playing on the television, and nearly jumped up again when Maya nearly sat on him.
“Woah, hey!” he said. “Careful there. This seat’s occupied.”
Maya clasped her hands over her mouth to stifle a gasp. “I’m so sorry! I-I… I um…” She looked aside and shuffled closer to Mia.
“It’s okay, no one got hurt. You don’t have to apologize,” Phoenix said. “It’s like you didn’t even see me.”
Lana bit her lip. “Well…”
“Well?” Phoenix parroted. “Lana, what’s going on?”
“She really didn’t see you,” Lana admitted, “because she can’t. None of them can.”
“So they’re blind?” Phoenix asked.
“Not… really?” Lana supposed their condition could be called something akin to blindness. “They can see ghosts, but they can only see ghosts. They can’t see any living people except for themselves and each other.”
“Oh…” Phoenix murmured. “Well… Shit.”
“Phoenix!” Lana hissed, gesturing to (a thankfully still sleeping!) Pearl. “Language!”
“Oh, shi— sorry. I’m just… surprised. Sometimes you hear of people who can see ghosts, but not like this.” Phoenix looked Lana in the eye. “Aren’t the scientists at the lab going to be looking for them?”
Lana took a deep breath in. Right, the lab. The reason why she had come to Phoenix’s house in the first place. She didn’t want to get him involved, for his own safety, but in order to keep the trio safe, she had to. It was another sprinkle to add to the top of her grand complication cake.
“Yes, they are,” Lana said carefully, “so I need your help.”
“Help… how?” Phoenix asked.
“They’re probably going to come to me first when they realize they’re gone, so I need somewhere for them to stay. Just for a bit!”
“…I’ll help you,” Phoenix said after a while. He held a finger up to prevent Lana from speaking just yet. “But won’t it be dangerous to keep all three of them together?”
Shit. It would be. Lana hadn’t even thought of that. Honestly, there were a lot of aspects to her plan that hadn’t been thought out. One of said aspects happened to be that Ema had no idea about any part of the plan. Lana didn’t know when she planned on telling her sister that oh yeah, by the way, she broke three people out of the lab she worked at, but she was definitely going to… at some point.
“Maybe I could go stay with Lana?” Mia suggested.
Lana turned to her, eyebrows raised in shock. Realizing Mia couldn’t see her, she spoke, “Really? Are you sure? That would mean leaving Maya and Pearl here, and you would be separated for who knows how long.”
“I’m sure,” Mia said firmly. “I don’t want to put them at risk anymore than I have to, and if that means being separated, then so be it.”
“Okay,” Lana conceded, “then that’s what we’ll do.”
The next few minutes passed by in a blur. Pearl (who was miraculously still asleep after all that) was handed off to Maya, who was then led upstairs by Phoenix. Ema came bounding down the stairs, and when she saw Lana’s uncharacteristically nervous demeanor matched with the stranger not quite looking at her, she nodded in some sort of understanding. She had always been smart, perhaps she already knew of what Lana had done? Soon enough they had said their goodbyes to Phoenix (and on Lana’s end, extensive thank yous) and were seated in Lana’s car again for the drive back to her house.
“So,” Ema said, turning in the passenger seat to look at Mia, “what’s your name?”
“Lana told me it’s Mia,” she answered. “I assume you’re Ema?”
“The one and only!” Ema grabbed the console to steady herself when Lana took a turn just a tad too sharply. “Lana tells me that you can only see ghosts.”
“Ema!” Lana scolded. She removed a hand from the steering wheel to flick her sister’s head. “Don’t be rude.”
“Whaaat?” Ema whined, rubbing her head. “That’s basically what you told Mr. Phoenix.”
“Yes, but when I said it, I was nicer about it.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Ema grumbled. She returned her attention to Mia. “My sister may be a knuckle-brained idiot sometimes”—that earned her another flick—“but she has a good heart. I promise you we’ll both do whatever we can for you.”
A small smile played at Mia’s lips before she settled her gaze on the window. She wasn’t really paying attention to the buildings whizzing by, but that was okay by her. Had she made the right decision, leaving Maya and Pearl in the hands of a complete stranger? Had she made the right decision leaving the lab at all? Mia was about to answer her own questions with a no when she remembered all of the tests and trials and the pain, tears, exhaustion, and general miserableness that had come with them. Compared to what she knew of these people claiming to help them, she reasoned that the lab was much, much worse.
“Here we are,” Lana said, snapping Mia out of her thoughts.
The house stretching in front of them was bigger than Phoenix’s, though not by much. Mia stumbled out of the car and stood still, examining it, until a smaller hand was placed into hers.
“Come on,” Ema said, “I’ll show you your room.”
Mia let herself be practically dragged inside by the younger Skye sister. She took in her surroundings as she walked. They looked nice, although Mia didn’t have anything to compare them to. She almost tripped on the stairs due to not watching where she was going, and her saving grace came in the form of Lana grabbing her free hand. She felt helpless, and it frustrated her, but she couldn’t exactly go gallivanting around the house when she didn’t know where anyone was anyway.
“Just down the hall here—“ Ema started, only to be cut off by Lana.
“Nope, other room.” From the sudden shift in her shoulders, Mia could tell that Lana had taken the lead. “It’s closer to the bathroom, which can be used to hide if necessary.”
“Oh, right, yeah,” Ema said. “Anyway, I’m going to go crash—probably literally. Scream if there’s trouble.” After a moment, she added, “But there won’t be.”
Her footsteps filled the hall as she walked away. Lana opened the door to a room, and Mia was met with what she assumed was going to be her room. She saw a lot of furniture that she had no idea what the purpose was, but she was pretty sure the large, flat surface in the middle was meant for sleeping.
“Is this okay? I don’t want you to be uncomfortable,” Lana said.
“It’s perfect.” Mia turned to where she heard Lana’s voice. “Thank you. Really.”
“I’m just doing what anyone should.” Lana sighed and checked the time on her phone. “Oh, yikes. It’s pretty late. Are you going to be okay? If so, I’m going to try to get some sleep before the sun rises today…”
“I’ll be fine,” Mia assured her. “Get some rest.”
She waited until she heard Lana’s footfalls disappear into another room before closing the door to her own room. She approached the bed cautiously, almost afraid of what it would do if she moved too suddenly. Nothing happened, so Mia sat on top of the covers and leaned back against the pillows. Movement in the corner of her eye caught her attention, and it sent a spike of fear through her chest.
“Hello?” Mia whispered. She found two figures, a man and a woman, looking at her with curiosity. “Oh… Hello, I’m Mia.”
The two ghosts smiled at her, but with their numerous wounds, bruises, and other injuries, it looked pained. They didn’t say a word, simply waving at her before disappearing through the wall. Mia watched the spot they had once been in for a moment before shifting to lay down on her side.
So they have ghosts, she mused as her eyelids started to drag shut. Interesting.