Hiiii, I'm glad to post my new story in here!

It's a different one from all those I've written so far but it's not finished yet! I hope you'll like it and you'll pardon me for all the grammar mistakes and so on...

Written for the kink meme, for part 18 page 9: "Anon has always believed it's possible that Manfred von Karma killed his wife when Franziska was very young. Naturally, he made it look like an accident.

What he never realized is that toddler!Franziska witnessed the act. Watching her father kill her mother was so traumatic that she blocked the memory for years, until something suddenly triggers it again as an adult.

(This is inspired by a dream anon had. The method of death as well as what caused Franziska to remember in this particular case was being thrown/falling down a staircase, but anything anon wants to do is fine.)"

~~

Title: Repressed Memories
Rating: T
Genre: Angst/Tragedy
Status: Chapter 1/2, not complete
Pairing: Slight MilesxFranziska
Summary:Written for the kink meme. Some spoilers for 1-4. Franziska fell in the stairs in the von Karmas's Estate and this fall brings back to her an horrible souvenir: the murder of her mother and her murderer who hasn't been caught yet. Well, not really...

Now the story! Please review! <3



“ So, we’re at it. Let’s begin. What are you going to do with the things that aren’t needed? ”

“ I think I’ll sell them, if Heidi doesn’t want them either...”

Miles Edgeworth looked at his “sister”. Franziska had asked him to come in Germany, in the home where they had spent their childhood together, under the tutoring of Manfred von Karma. Who was in jail because he had killed Miles’s father, Gregory Edgeworth. In fact, Manfred von Karma had just been sentenced to Death Penalty, and it was only a matter of time, now, before his death and his funeral.

All Miles was feeling toward his mentor was rage and hatred, but he loved Franziska (maybe more than a brother should but...) and when she had called him to ask if he could help her to sort through all her father’s things, he had come without any hesitation.

She had come at the airport to fetch, and they had just entered von Karma’s mansion.

It was as huge and as dark as he remembered. After all Manfred von Karma had been a wealthy man, and had been more often in America than in Germany, and Franziska had her own apartment now.

*Oh well*, Miles thought, *that’s going to take ages, and it won’t be fun*. Then he glanced at Franziska. She was looking around her with so much sadness in her eyes that Miles decided he would be staying as long as she would be needing him.

“Come on”, he said, taking her hand, “we should be beginning by your father’s office.” She nodded, shivering slightly. She hadn’t entered her father’s office for a long time.

Slowly Miles and Franziska ascended the stairs.

***

One hour after, they were beginning to put things out of the office and bringing them down in the giant living room.

“Be careful,” Miles said to Franziska, “the stairs are dangerous.”

Franziska frowned: “I’m not a child anymore, Miles Edgeworth. There is no need to remind me of those foolish stairs!”

And with that, carrying a box filled with various possessions, she headed toward the living room, downstairs.

She should have listened to him, or perhaps the box was too heavy, or maybe it was because of both of them, but nevertheless she fell. One of her foot slipped on one of the step of the stairs, and Franziska von Karma felt herself off the ground. Her scream echoed in the house.

When Miles heard her, he rushed to see what happened and found her on the floor, downstairs. She was still conscious, albeit she seemed to be in some hurt, and one of her arms or legs could be broken. He joined Franziska, sobbing slightly and still under the shock of the event.

“My...My leg! It... it hurts!” She stammered out.

Miles gently palpated her leg and she winced in pain. He wasn’t a doctor, but it seemed to him that her leg was indeed broken. Without any words, he picked her up and walked towards one of the couch of the living room. There, he laid her onto it, telling her to remain calm.

Then he sat on the armchair nearing the couch, and practically yelled at her: “What were you thinking, falling down like that ? What did I tell you? For God’s sake, Franziska, those stairs are dangerous! You have lived here for sixteen years, and I’m sure...” He paused when he heard her sniffle. She was crying.

Inwardly, he cursed himself. He shouldn’t have yelled at her, that wasn’t her fault.

He approached her slowly. Her sobs were getting slightly louder. Miles placed his hand on her shoulder.

“Franziska?”

She didn’t answer, her tears continuing to fall down her cheeks. She looked so vulnerable like that, so young, so...destroyed, by the sequence of events which seemed to pursue her mercilessly. He shook her gently:

“Franziska?”

She seemed to heard him this time, and she clunched at his arm:

“M...Miles Ed...Edge...worth, I a...am so so...rry...”

“It’s alright.” He said, hugging her a bit, “I was a bit scared, that’s all. It’s my fault, I shouldn’t have yelled at you, I’m sorry.”

She calmed down a bit, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. He sushed her and when she had stopped crying, he told her:

“Well, I think that it’s clear we’re staying for the night. You’re waiting for me here, try to have some sleep already, while I prepare the rooms. When I’m finished we’re going to the hospital to have an examination of your leg. Get some rest Franziska.” And with that he exited the room.

Franziska watched him go and heard him as he was going upstairs again, before the silence filled the large room. Her mind was still fuzzy because of the accident. Foolish stairs! Her body was exhausted from the stress of the accident and from the sadness and the pain caused by the proximate death of her father. That’s why she didn’t try to fight against the sleep when it submerged her.

***
“When is Papa coming home?” A little girl asked her mother. The latter frowned, something close to anger knitting her brow. She was definitely angry with her husband. He had called on Christmas’s Eve, to tell her that he wouldn’t be home for Christmas because he had an important case he had to prepare in America. Now, four days after Christmas, he was returning from his case and from his trip. He would be home in one hour or two.

“Well darling, Papa will be back after your nap. So if you want him to come home faster, go to sleep, and when you wake up, he’ll be there, alright?”

A little Franziska von Karma of two or three years old nodded, before climbing by herself in her cradle. Her mother kissed her cheek slightly before coming out of the room.

***

Later, Franziska was awoken by the sound of two person who were talking very loudly. She heard her mother’s voice and... her father’s? He was home!

Quickly, she got out of her cradle and opened her door a little bit. Papa was standing at the top of the stairs with Mama, but Mama didn’t seem to be pleased, not at all in fact. Franziska closed the door because she knew that, when her parents had an argument, the best was to let them alone, so that they can settle the problem faster. Franziska heard some of their argument, but it was a bit hard to understand them because they were talking in English, and the little girl wasn’t fluent in English yet.

“... Do you understand the concept of family, Manfred? Or is your perfect mind not counting it as something as important as your stupid trials?”

“I did tell you, Irina, it was a very important case and they ordered me to prosecute it. I couldn’t have said no.”

“Do not tell me you didn’t appreciate it, Manfred!”

“That’s not the subject!”

“Yes it is! Not only did you not pass Christmas with your family, with your daughters who were waiting for you, but on the top of that, I’ve heard that you’ve also been accused to have created false evidences for this case! You, who are always talking about perfection, it seems, that eventually you’re not that perfect!”

“Don’t talk to me like that, Irina! I DID win, and that’s all that matters!”

“ NO! You’ve two important roles! You’re a prosecutor but also a father. Maybe you should try to be less perfect in prosecuting, and to be more perfect in your family life, and especially for your daughters. Because perfection means to be perfect in EVERY way, not only in court.”

There was an heavy silence for several minutes, and Franziska thought that, maybe, the quarrel was over. Then a loud sound was heard in all the house.

Franziska opened the door timidly, and peeked in the corridor. Papa and Mama weren’t in the corridor, that means that, maybe they were in their room or in Papa’s office to continue their little quarrel, and that the sound she had heard, had been the sound of Papa closing the door. Even if she knew her parents didn’t like it when someone was eavesdropping on their conversation,but because she really wanted to see Papa, she decided to go to her father’s office.

It was at the end of the corridor, and she had to pass in front of her parents’s room, the stairs and the library. “Don’t approach the stairs alone, Franziska, you would fall”, Papa had told her once. Talking about it, she heard someone making noise downstairs, and she took a look at it.

She froze when she witnessed a scene that most of the people don’t see in their whole life.

Her father had his back turned to her and he was standing over the corpse of her mother. She laid on the floor as if she was asleep, and when her father moved slightly to his right, she saw her mother’s face with her neck folded in a strange angle. But the worse was her eyes, her grey-blue eyes, wide opened, no longer refleting life and love, but the true reality, the horrible truth, the death of her mother.


Slowly leaving the world of souvenirs, and not the world of the dreams or nightmares, an adult Franziska von Karma awakes when a part of her past she had tried to forget, hit her and that she knows she cannot do anything anymore to pretend that it didn’t happen.

~~

That's all for now! See you on chapter 2.

Last edited by Indochine Ramera on Sun Jan 31, 2010 5:44 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Oooh interesting!
I do like the idea that there are more murders committed by Manfred than we know of.
Please continue!

---

Ahh thanks! I'll update as soon as possible!^^

Hmm...I like where this fic is going. I look forward to an update.

Thank you!

Hi guys! The second chapter is up, the story is now complete.

Disclaimer: The characters belong to Capcom, except Irina who is mine.

Here you go!

~~

Chapter 2: That ugly truth you've been hiding from me

“…Franziska…Franziska !”

The German prosecutor woke up to find Miles Edgeworth at her side, looking utterly worried. His left cheek had the print of... of what?

“Miles Edgeworth... What happened to your cheek?”

He sighed: “I heard you scream when I was making the bed, upstairs, so I came here to your side, and when I tried to wake you up, you slapped me hard, twice, urging me to let you go, and telling me that you hadn’t seen...anything?”

She bit her lips and remembered her dream. No, her souvenir. The horrible souvenir of the death of her mother , killed by her own father.

“Franziska?” she heard Miles’s call but didn’t respond. Tears began to fall down her cheeks again, she began to sob, to sniffle, unable to calm down. Her leg hurt, all her body remind her of her fall in the stairs, the same fall her mother...
Miles embraced her, not understanding why she was crying. He assumed that she might have had a nightmare, and that she felt confused and scared.

Her cries grew louder. Why why why why? Her father was already the murderer of Miles Edgeworth’s father. Wasn’t it enough? Why had he had to kill her mother, his wife? The woman he loved! Was her father just a sadistic bastard, a psychopath?
The man who taught her how to put criminals in prison, how to prosecute criminals, was one himself, yes, she had had a year to get through that, but this! This was totally different. She remembered this horrible murder she had tried to forget during all her childhood, she remembered the pain, the loss, the funerals, Heidi crying, her father saying nothing, and then Miles’s arrival, and then all the rest of her life, all her life...without her mother.

Without her knowledge, Miles had begun to stroke her blue hair. He called her name:

“Franziska? Please tell me... Your dream... What was it about?”

She had to tell him, she had to, she couldn’t support this souvenir by herself. She inspired deeply before she began to talk:

“Wh...When I was young, before your arrival... I... my mother died when she fell, just like me, in the stairs, she broke her neck. But in... in fact I remember everything... she...she...”
She couldn’t continue. She tried to stiffle her cries but failed.
Miles encouraged her to continue:

“She didn’t fall?”

Franziska shook her head:

“N...No, it was... she was pushed in the stairs...by...by Papa... He killed her and try to hide it by saying it...it was an ac...cident.”

“ Wh...What? Your father? Franziska don’t be stupid, she was his wife... why would he...? And how would you know anyway?”

“ I witnessed his crime... I was two at the time, I didn’t understand what they were arguing about, but I remember when I left my room, I passed in front of the stairs, and she was there, already d...dead... Him at her side, his back turned to me... I’m sure he did not see me.
At this time, I was sure it was an accident because, as he was always saying “those stairs are dangerous”, so I believed him when he told Heidi and I that she had fallen in the stairs. But now... now I know why he killed her.”

“Why then?” Miles didn’t question what she had said, because after all, this man had killed his father, so why not his wife? A murderer was a murderer.

“For the same reason he killed...your father. I wasn’t very good at English before your arrival, I did learn your language with you, but now that I remember what they’ve been talking about before he...killed her. I can tell you that she said he wasn’t perfect in every way: he wasn’t perfect in Court (I think she did know about your father), and he wasn’t perfect in his private life either... She angered him, just like your father did, and he had already killed your father, that wasn’t his first time...”

Miles did not say anything after that. He felt so much anger, so much hatred toward this man. This man had destroyed his life by killing his father, but he also had destroyed the life of his daughters. He didn’t deserve to live.
His grip around Franziska tightened.

“Franziska...We need to go to the hospital for your leg...Then after... if you want... we can go to the detention center to see him. So that he can be sentenced for all his crimes, not only for my father’s murder, but for your mother’s too...”

She looked at him for a long minute, then nodded slowly.

***
“von Karma! Wake up! C’mon! Someone wants to see you. Damnit von Karma!“

The guardian was angry. But Manfred von Karma was used to harsh words and to insults.

He stood up slowly. The guardian opened the door of his cell and handcuffed him. Then he led the old prosecutor to the visiting room. Manfred von Karma didn’t expect to see his daughter Franziska with... Miles Edgeworth? He remembered that he had told Franziska not to come again to see him, so what was she doing here?

Franziska was sitting on the only chair of the room, Miles at her side. Her face was stern as she watched her father entering the door. She remained calm, but Miles knew that it wasn’t the case inside.

Manfred von Karma didn’t look at Miles. His eyes were on Franziska, and when he spoke, his voice remained calm, measured.

“What is the matter, Franziska? I thought I had told you not to come. I feel no need to see you, or your sister, or anyone else. I want to be alone.”

Franziska answered with the voice she usually reserved for attorneys, in trials: “You killed my mother, you killed your wife.”

Perfection means that you do not show any feeling, reaction, however when he heard his daughter’s response, Miles clearly saw the old man’s face suprised, shocked. Franziska didn’t let him say anything, she kept talking:

“ I was two, you had just killed Gregory Edgeworth, and you had come home, when Mother and you have had an argument. She told you that you weren’t perfect, and you pushed her in the stairs and killed her, just like you did with Miles’s father. Don’t you dare tell me it’s not true! Don’t you dare find a lie to cover your crime!”

Manfred was still in shock, and each word reminded him of this day, of the second person he had killed.
He tried to control his voice and asked: “How do you know?”

Franziska laughed. But it was a broken laugh which reflected all her pain, all her contempt for the man who had killed her mother.

“When you killed Mother,” she said finally, “I was there, listening, and when I exited the room, I saw you, and her... outspread on the floor. I was the witness, but because I was so young I didn’t understand that you had killed her. I was naive and I believed in your words, whereas the truth was obvious.”

There was an awkward silence in the room, after Franziska’s answer. Manfred was focused on Franziska, while she and Miles were focused on him.

Eventually Manfred talked, under the look full of anger of his daughter: “ I didn’t want to kill her...”

Franziska interrupted him: “You didn’t want to kill her? Are you sure? Not even after she told you that you weren’t perfect? Not even after she told you she knew about your crime?”

Manfred sighed: “That’s...You don’t know what really happened, Franziska. You weren’t there—“

“I wasn’t there? I wasn’t there?!” She was yelling, “I was listening to your conversation! I was happy to see my father again, until I saw Mother dead!”

“If you had been there, watching and not listening, then you could have understood—“

“Don’t lie to me Father! I’ve had enough for one day, I want the TRUTH!”

“That’s what I am trying to tell you, child!”

Franziska looked at her father, breathing heavily, tears threatening to fall. Her father took a deep breath.

“Franziska, you, of all the people, should know how deeply I loved your mother. She was everything to me, she was the only woman I’ve ever loved, the mother of my two daughters. I didn’t want to kill her—“

“Just as you didn’t want to kill Miles’s father?”

Manfred looked briefly at Miles before answering:

“I...No. I confess that the murder of Edgeworth wasn’t a manslaughter. But that was different for your mother. It was an accident, I didn’t want to push her in the stairs—“

He interrupted himself when he saw his daughter crying.

“St...Stop it Father, I c...can’t stand it. Please I...I don’t want your lies, I want the truth... For the first time, be honest!”

Her father looked at her with sadness in his eyes.

*That murderer loves his daughters*, Miles thought, *he doesn’t have a stone heart as everyone thought...*

Manfred von Karma stayed silent for a few minutes before he began to talk again:

“Well...”

***
“... Do you understand the concept of family, Manfred? Or is your perfect mind not counting it as something as important as your stupid trials?”

“I did tell you, Irina, it was a very important case and they ordered me to prosecute it. I couldn’t have said no.”

“Do not tell me you didn’t appreciate it, Manfred!”

“That’s not the subject!”

“Yes it is! Not only did you not pass Christmas with your family, with your daughters who were waiting for you, but on the top of that, I’ve heard that you’ve also been accused to have created false evidences for this case! You, who are always talking about perfection, it seems, that eventually you’re not that perfect!”

“Don’t talk to me like that, Irina! I DID win, and that’s all that matters!”

“ NO! You’ve two important roles! You’re a prosecutor but also a father. Maybe you should try to be less perfect in prosecuting, and to be more perfect in your family life, and especially for your daughters. Because perfection means to be perfect in EVERY way, not only in court.”

He looked at her intensely, refusing to believe that she had said what he had heard.
She saw that she had hurt him. She bit her lips, then sighed and said, in a gentle voice:

“ Manfred, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you, but try to understand, you weren’t there for Christmas, you weren’t with your family and during Christmas you destroyed the family of a young boy. Imagine that a member of your family die while you were working abroad. You should think of your family first.”

“I want to protect our daughters from criminals, so that they can have a safe life.”

“But there will always have criminals in the world. And now you’ve become one yourself...”

Manfred turned his head : “I don’t want to talk about it...”

“Then I will wait for when you’ll be ready to tell me,” his wife responded.

He nodded slightly. His wife smiled to him and laid her hand on his right shoulder. Suddenly the pain flood back to him, and with it, the memories, the shame, his crime... He intended to remove her hand, but the pain was overwhelming and he pushed her with too much strenght. She felt herself off the groung. She saw the surprise and the shock on her husband’s face and then... nothing.

*NO*

He couldn’t believe what he had done. He hurtled down the stairs but too late. Her neck was broken, she was dead. He felt tears on his cheeks, and he thought he was going to die too. It was all his fault. He was a monster.

***

“After her death, and her funerals, I remembered what she had told me. I thought about it, and I decided to adopt Miles Edgeworth. A few months later, I brought him in Germany.”

He paused and looked at his daughter. She was crying silently.

“I don’t ask you to forgive me. I don’t deserve it. After my arrest, I asked for the Death Penalty because I felt guilty about your mother’s death. I wanted to join her, because since her death, I’ve never stopped to think about her. And that’s what is going to happen.”

Miles, who hadn’t said a word since the beginning, reacted. He leaned and took Franziska in his arms very carefully because of her leg. She didn’t say anything, neither did he.

Without any other word, any other look, Miles exited the room, bearing a brokenhearted Franziska.

Manfred watched them leaving and then came back to his cell.

***

Miles was reading the papers. He saw that today was the day. The day of the execution of Manfred von Karma. He was going to pay for all his crimes.

Miles went to Franziska’s room. Since they had come back after the meeting with her father, she hadn’t said a word, she hadn’t eaten food, she hadn’t left her bed.

He sat on one of her chairs:

“Franziska?”

She didn’t answer.

He continued: “I was wondering if you wanted to go and see your father for the last time. It’s his execution, today. If you want to go, I will accompany you.”

She didn’t answer, didn’t move. He stayed for a moment then stood up and exited the room. She didn’t call him back.

Downstairs he was wondering. Should he go? After all, this was the execution of his father’s murderer, he would get his revenge. But he knew that he wasn’t going to enjoy it. Because Franziska was terribly pained and sad. And because he loved her, he couldn’t be delighted.

After a moment of reflection, he decided to go. He didn’t know why he wanted to go. He went to Franziska’s room, gently kissed her cheek and then headed to the Detention Center.

***

Miles Edgeworth also attended to his funerals. There was the Judge, some of his friends of the police station, and surely some of his relatives except Franziska, who hadn’t come at all. He was standing far from the ceremony. He wanted to watch. He wasn’t sure of what he was feeling. He managed to reach the conclusion that he did feel nothing. No pain, no joy, no regrets, no hatred, nothing.

He came back home at the end of the afternoon, the sky was cloudy. He decided to go and check Franziska’s room, but when he arrived, Franziska wasn’t in her room. He checked several rooms, but Franziska wasn’t in any of them.

Miles was worried. She must have exited the apartment but her coat was still on the coat racks, and with her broken leg... She couldn’t have gone far...

He went out of his home at the second it began to rain. Cursing, he took his car and began searching where Franziska could have gone. He knew she felt devastated by what had happened in the last few days, and he prayed that she was alright, that nothing had happened to her.

After he had checked several places, he suddenly remembered what he had told her in the morning. She hadn’t come with him because she hadn’t wanted him to see her in such a lamentable state, she was a von Karma after all. But now that it was over, that everybody was gone, maybe she went to see him one last time, because he was her father, and despite all he had done, she loved him.

Edgeworth drove as fast as he could and he arrived a few minutes later at the cemetery. He found the grave and... she was there.
It was still raining.

Franziska didn’t have her coat on her. She was on the ground. He approached her slowly and kneeled at her side.
She was staring intensely her father’s grave. Miles took her in his ams.

She didn’t say anything, she was resting in his arms, while the rain was pouring and pouring. And it finally happened. She couldn't hold back anymore. The tears began to stream down her face and she began to sob. She wailed and moaned and pounded her fists against his chest, her chest and throat aching.

She was crying because today she had lost her father. She was crying because a few days ago she discovered the truth about her mother’s death, and had to bury her again. She was crying because she wouldn’t be able to see her parents anymore.

Edgeworth was waiting. He was gently stroking her blue hair and whispering comforting words which sounded like a beautiful lullaby. He didn’t know how long they had been staying like that, under the rain, but at some point she called his name.

“Miles... I...I...“

He interrupted her: “ Shh...shh... I know, I know...”

And that was sufficient.

~~

Thanks for taking the time to read me! I hope you liked it! Review, please! :3

It's so... heartwarming...

I felt myself almost sobbing when I finished.

---

Aww thank you. The ending was very hard to write! I'm glad you liked it!