Okay, so he was slightly late.

A little late.

But he'd had a little problem shopping and he'd not been sure just what to get, and when it came down to it, as he approached Edgeworth's home with the cardboard box in his arms, he was pretty sure he'd done too much.

But, well, after what had happened...

He pressed the doorbell with a spare finger, waiting outside Miles Edgeworth's house. For once, he wasn't wearing that blue suit but a nice pair of jeans and a dark red button-down shirt. And, just for Miles, his hair was loose instead of spiked back. He didn't expect anything to happen. More than anything, he wanted to tell his friend happy birthday.

...Even if he had overspent. For him, anyway.

"Hm."

Phoenix read and compared between the volumes on his desk. Evidence law wasn't really all that hard to understand, even if it seemed a little fiddly about just what was and what wasn't admissable - certain things that could make or break a case were inadmissable due to privacy laws, and other things couldn't be admitted if they were copies when an original was present.

Luckily, he'd already had experience with self-authenticating documents, so that section wasn't so bad at all, but each book seemed to have a different take on what was and what wasn't self-authenticating, as well as opinion on copied documents in the modern court system.

Just then, Phoenix sat up and looked at his desk. It was covered in books and to one side, he had a notebook opened and notes scribbled on the page. He might as well have been back in college.

It was still a little strange to come into the office and not see Mia.

Okay, it was strange to go into the office and be alone except for a potted plant.

With a cup of coffee sitting on the desk, he held one of the weighty law books from Mia's shelves on his lap. Guess they're my shelves, now... She wasn't around to coach him anymore, and even though he'd leaned on Maya channeling her, he knew now that he didn't have the luxury of counting on her expertise for the rest of his career, as long or short as it may be.

It was time he actually learned something. Even if most of what he learned was that law books made a great cure for insomnia.