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The stale quality of airplane air has always bothered him, but at the moment, it’s the last thing on his mind.
Apollo Justice sits, fists clenched on the armrests of the cheapest seat he could buy last-minute. Tension shows in every part of his body—from his nervously-tapping foot to his furrowed eyebrows. He glares out the window, at the grey ocean far below, as if considering whether it might be faster to jump out and swim.
(The fact that he can’t swim is a point that he disregards. If there was any way to reach his destination that would get him there before…)
Apollo leans back against the seat, forces himself to relax. He can’t spend the entire flight like this. Even if it were physically possible, he has to be ready for when the plane lands at LAX, has to be prepared to speed to the courthouse—if, by some miracle, Trucy has managed to follow through on her promise to talk with Chief Prosecutor Edgeworth and get the trial pushed back. Which she has to have done, because Apollo will be damned if he’s going to let it go forward without a competent defense attorney.
He frowns, running his fingers along the edge of the golden bangle that he wears on his left wrist. If only there was something he could do, if only he wasn’t stuck on an airplane halfway across the Pacific Ocean, fighting a losing battle against the whims of time and the LA court system.
It isn’t often that Apollo regrets his decision to stay behind in Khura’in after the whole mess that had been the overturning of the DC Act and the dethroning of Ga’ran. In truth, he thinks it’s probably been one of the best things that’s happened recently—he’s finally got his own law firm, and he’s doing a job that needs to be done—even if his qualifications are mostly that he’s the only person around who’s doing it.
At times like these, however, he despises the fact that he’s no longer just a simple bike ride away from the LA courthouse, that he can’t just drop everything and sprint across town and get to the crime scene in plenty of time to do a proper investigation. If he hadn’t been an ocean away, then maybe…
Apollo grits his teeth. He’s doing what he can. The only thing he can do, feasibly. He’d gotten the news and booked a place on the next flight out of Khura’in, practically demanding that Nahyuta find somebody to drive him to the airport, no, it can’t wait, and not even stopping to pack a toothbrush or a change of clothes. He’d gone from filing paperwork at his desk to taking his shoes off for airport security in the blink of an eye, and he still isn’t sure he’s going to make it.
But it would have to be enough, had to be enough, and Apollo is going to repeat that phrase until it’s burned into his brain right beside I’m fine, because the alternative is too much for him to even consider.
What was it that Mr Wright always used to say? A lawyer never cries until it’s all over? Well, Apollo certainly feels like crying right now—but he’ll uphold the Agency tradition in the hope that somehow, against all odds, everything will turn out alright.
No matter how hard he tries, though, he can’t quite ignore the tightness in his chest, the feeling akin to having drunk a glass of ice-cold water far too fast, that had taken root the instant he’d heard Trucy Wright declare over the phone that “Kristoph Gavin’s dead, and they’ve arrested Prosecutor Gavin on suspicion of murder.”