My boss’s secretary waved me into her office within thirty seconds of me arriving at the door. I gave Charlie a smile and a brief thanks, making a mental note to email him after this asking where he’d gotten his nails done because wow that was a pretty set of colors. Regardless, I pushed open the door to Alice Tanaka-Schotz’s office, ears perked up and curious.

“You wanted to see me?” I asked.

“I did,” Alice said, taking off her reading glasses as she closed the manilla folder in her hands and set it aside. “A bit surprised you’re up here already, though. I thought you’d still be on a call?”

“The new Staff Judge Advocate and I have a… let’s call it a détente,” I said. “I don’t needle her the way I did her predecessor, she keeps things going smoothly for me. That and she’s my sister-in-law, so.”

“Really?” Alice asked, leaning forward. “I think this is the first time I’m hearing about any relatives of yours.”

“The fox counts,” I replied without missing a beat. Alice shrugged as if to cede the point, and I took the brief lull to take a seat, curling my tail around me so it fell comfortably while also not leaving fur on my pantsuit’s trousers. “So, you wanted to see me?”

“Yes, a few things; first?” Alice opened a drawer in her desk and reached in, then pulled out a small wrapped box, which she slid over to me. “On behalf of the firm, while I’d love to wish our latest rainmaker a happy birthday tomorrow, I won’t be able to for another three years, so I’ll just do it now.”

I groaned, ears folding low as I rolled my eyes.

“Two minutes,” I muttered. “Two lousy minutes and I’d just have a normal February birthday, but no. Instead this stupid joke is going to hound me for the rest of my damn life, clearly.”

“Yes, well—” Alice cut herself, and the way her expression soured just a little bit left me grinning. “Really, Naomi? A fox and the hound joke? Isn’t that a bit beneath you?”

“Not at all,” I giggled, and did nothing to stop the amused wagging of my tail. “It’s what you get for making a joke about me being a leap day baby!”

“I should just take that present back, clearly.”

“Nope, it’s mine!” I tore open the paper, eyes widening and ears standing up straight when I saw a jewelry box inside. The box came open slowly, and I couldn’t help the soft gasp when I saw what was inside. It was a silver brooch in the shape of a fox’s head, with sapphires as the eyes.

It looked just like Gorou, I realized with some wonder.

“That’s why I picked it out for you,” Alice said. I squeaked, ears going low in embarrassment.

“D-did I say that out loud?” At Alice’s giggle, heat rose in my cheeks, and my ears were laying almost completely flat atop my head. “T-this… Alice, I, I can’t accept this! It must’ve cost—”

“Naomi,” she stopped me. “You just brought millions of dollars into the firm. Again. I should think that this,” she waved at the brooch, “is a well-deserved token of appreciation.”

I looked down at the brooch again, then removed it from the box and pinned it to my blazer. Something stirred deep in the recesses of my soul, as traces of emotion flowed through the connection I shared with Gorou — love, affection. Pride. Heat pricked at the corners of my eyes as I let my fingers trail along the brooch, breath heavy in my throat.

“Naomi?” I looked up, and saw Alice holding a tissue box my way. I gave her a watery smile and took one with a sniffle, taking a few deep breaths to get myself back under control.

“T-thanks,” I said, offering a watery chuckle that thankfully faded into just a soft, happy smile.

“Think nothing of it,” Alice said, waving it off. “But, yes. Happy birthday, good job, all that jazz. But on the topic of all that jazz, as it were, any updates on the follow-up matters?”

“Mm, mhmm,” I hummed, balling up the tissue in my hands, then closing my eyes and taking a deep breath to get myself back into Work Mode. When I opened my eyes, Alice had a small trash can waving my way, and I gladly tossed the used tissue into it before continuing. “So, um, yes. Which one did you want to hear about first?”

“Well, I should think the one that gets the government out of our files first,” Alice said. “Any word from the Department of Justice?"

"Well, they're asking for our work product on the case, particularly the discovery turned over and our investigations into the defendants,” I said, crossing my legs to stay comfortable while also giving my tail a bit more room to breathe against the back of the chair. “Their warrant means we didn’t need to destroy the confidential discovery and could turn that right over, but we need to get permission from the personal representative for Mrs. Banks' estate to waive the attorney-client privilege regarding the work we did."

"And...?"

"Let me ask." I lowered one ear, then the other. "Yup, just asked the estate PR. She says yes."

We shared a bit of a giggle at that. Morbid, yes, but you find humor where you can.

“Were they willing to share any leads?” Alice asked, the brief smile accompanying her laugh immediately fading into a slight, stern frown.

“They found almost a dozen wire transfers for a large sum of money, starting a few hours before the building burned down.” My ears pinned back low as I recalled that nasty little tidbit. “It was Leslie King’s brother-in-law, ‘Dicky’. He paid for it. Eleven wire transfers, totaling five million dollars. Feds traced the wires as best they could, but the trails went cold.”

“Let me guess: Caymans, Switzerland, the rest of the usual suspects?” I nodded, to which Alice sighed. “Of course. Of course. And the trigger man is still out there, isn’t he?”

“As far as I know, yeah.”

“Damn it,” Alice hissed. “That… well. I suppose it’s at least good to know that it wasn’t random. Not like we haven’t seen worse crimes committed over substantial government handouts. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that a hundred dead isn’t awful, but…” she trailed off, wheeling her chair to the side so she could turn and look out the window briefly. “At least in this instance, it was all just… rationalized away as the cost of doing business, and not something… else. Worse. I don’t think the District could’ve taken another Dirksen.”

I swallowed and looked away from Alice, not wanting to get lost in her thousand-yard stare. I’d only been a law student when the Decimation of Dirksen happened, but I’d never be able to forget the aftermath, or how close I’d come to being re-drafted as a result.

“Even so!” I clapped my hands, thankfully pulling Alice from the dark thoughts I could see percolating behind her eyes. “Hopefully they find something in our disclosures, and if they haven’t made that connection about the property managers, I’ll bring it to their attention. Needless to say I would be more than happy to help them nail their perps to the wall, but it’ll be out of our hands again soon.”

“I… suppose.” Alice closed her eyes and took a deep breath, releasing it as she turned back towards me. “Sorry about that. I shouldn’t have… no, enough of that.” She shook her head a couple of times, using the motion to clear away the bad thoughts. When she met my gaze again, there was no trace of that far-off look in her eyes. “Back to the important things. Fatima Osmani and Julio Cabrera. How did they do?”

“Both of them acquitted themselves fairly well, but they both have issues that need shoring up if they’re to grow as attorneys,” I said, shifting slightly in my seat.

“How so?”

“I’ll go in the opposite order,” I began. “Julio Cabrera. His two years as a public defender may have given him more courtroom experience than some of our attorneys with twice his years on the job, but it did him no favors in the confidence department. He spent too long as the permanent underdog, always expecting to lose and having to count slightly-less-awful plea bargains as his wins. It’s left him without the ego issues that too many attorneys have, but it’s also left him with a seriously defeatist attitude towards going to trial.”

“And how do you recommend we go about fixing that?” Alice asked. I frowned, ears tilting back slightly as I thought about it for a few seconds.

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“... honestly? I think we need to give him an ego,” I answered. “His issue is a lack of confidence, so we’ll want him in positions where he needs to show confidence, but also where we know from the outset that his odds are good. He’s only been with the firm for a bit more than a year, but he is a year-four attorney. Give him first chair on a few easy wins, assign him a couple of entry-level or summer associates to guide. Put him in a position where he’ll need to fake it ‘til he makes it, and eventually he’ll stop having to fake it in the first place.”

Alice had shifted back over to her computer as I spoke, her fingers flying across the keyboard to capture not so much exactly what I said, so much as the essence of it, which was basically ‘build him up, challenge with leadership’. The gist of it all: Julio was a hell of an attorney in the making, but he was his own worst critic.

“Okay, I’ve got that down,” Alice said once she’d finished typing, and moved one hand to her mouse so she could click through her calendar. “Let’s see… we’ve got a few insurance defense claims coming in, pretty easy slam dunks it looks like; I know a bogus claim when I see one. Thoughts?”

“Definitely not,” I said, ears lowering in distaste. “Look, I may be more than happy to handle insurance defense, lord knows you see the weirdest shit there, but Julio needs to not

be on the defensive. I wouldn’t put him on any of our defense-side work for at least the next six months, preferably a year. Hell, don’t even give him a case where he’s up against an affirmative defense. Nothing where he can win without actually having to prove anything.”

“... damn it, Naomi,” Alice muttered as she clicked a few things in her calendar. “Can’t just make it easy on me, could you?”

“I mean, this is just part of being the managing partner,” I fired back with a grin, which earned me a glare, though there wasn’t any heat in it.

“Just for that, I’m gonna make you do this once I get to make you a partner,” she fired back, and my ears perked right up at that. Once she gets to, as in when? When, not if?

I had to lay a hand atop my treasonous tail to stop it from wagging at the thought. Alice caught the motion and laughed, which had my cheeks heating up and ears lowering in mild embarrassment.

“And what about Fatima Osmani?” she asked, the segue thankfully saving me from any further embarrassment.

“... the opposite problem, honestly,” I said, letting go of my tail so I could rub at my temples. “Julio’s problem is not having confidence. Fatima’s issue is that she’s overly confident, paired with being absurdly aggressive. She will focus on her target, on her prey, with such intensity that she completely ignores everything else. And don’t get me wrong! That can be incredibly useful, particularly when paired with the right people!”

“But that would require her to be a team player, and she’s very bad at passing the ball,” Alice finished for me. “I’ve heard a lot of that between this case and the Allstate one we had last November. But since you’ve been the one who worked with her most recently, I’d like your take on what should be done there.”

I hummed, thinking the problem over. Fatima’s problem was that she focused on an opponent. She saw somebody, labeled them the ‘bad guy’ in her mind, and just went right for them, damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead. So the answer here was… ah.

That would do it.

“Mrs. Banks’ will.” Alice looked up, and beckoned for me to continue. “Have you had a chance to read through it?”

“Pretend I haven’t,” she said, and I nodded.

“Mrs. Banks didn’t have any living relatives, nor did she have close enough friends to name any of them as heirs,” I explained, watching as Alice leaned away from her computer and towards me. “All the sacrifices she’d made in her life? Those were to give her sons an opportunity. And while their futures may have been stolen from them, she wanted to give other kids in similar situations the chances that Jerome and Elijah should have gotten. Hell, we spoke about what she would do with the money. She was only going to keep enough of whatever award she received to live within relatively modest means for the rest of her life, and wanted the rest to go towards setting up a charitable foundation. This was her idea from the get-go.”

“And what was the plan?” Alice asked.

“A charity dedicated to giving kids growing up in DC’s Section 8 housing the same options that were available to more privileged people. Scholarships. Grants for after-school programs. Making sure no kid has to go hungry, just because of food stamps’ inability to match rising food prices. And of course, running, training, and staffing a dedicated tenant’s rights nonprofit for when the next landlord inevitably tries to play robber baron.”

I smiled, remembering the conversation we’d had, how emphatic my client had been about the sheer poetic justice of taking the money her landlords had swindled from hard-working people like her, and giving it right back to the communities that they’d robbed the most. The legal nonprofit had been my own addition — it wasn’t exactly a hard sell, either, given that this entire tragedy could’ve been prevented with ready access to a good tenant’s rights group.

“And what would you have Fatima do?” Alice pushed.

“Oh, that’s simple,” I said. “I’d put her in charge of it.”

Alice gave me a Look.

“... you’ll have to elaborate.”

“Fatima’s current weakness is her inability to take a step back and slow down when there’s a clear and present opponent for her to face off against, which is magnified by her desire to be the one on the front lines,” I said, spelling it all out. “She’s too competitive, too focused on taking that win for herself, on being the anchor in the relay. She doesn’t know how to delegate, nor does she want to. What she needs is something that has no opponent, something that requires working with a team, mandates delegation just to let her do anything else.”

The answer had been staring me in the face the entire trial. Fatima was usually agreeable, polite, even a bit reticent. But the instant you gave her a bad guy, she was an absolute nightmare. If the negative behavior had an obvious trigger… just remove the trigger.

“And you think she’ll be okay with that.” Alice didn’t ask, because she knew me better than that.

“Fatima has been gunning for success, and she doesn’t think too hard about the difference between what she thinks success looks like versus how it actually is.” I offered Alice a conspiratorial grin, my ears pulling back in aggression. “Fatima will see that she’s being offered the chance to manage a foundation worth more than two hundred and fifty million dollars, see that as a sign that she has Made It, and not consider what that actually entails until she’s already hip-deep. She’s not going to be okay with it, but she’ll do it anyway.”

“I see,” Alice said, her tone telling me that, yes, she actually had understood what I was going for. “Reward, punishment, and room to grow, all at the same time.” I nodded at that summation, and Alice sighed, turning back to her computer to make a note of it. “I’m guessing you want me to be the one to pitch this to her? She’d probably be suspicious of it after the friction you two had during this case.”

“But coming from you, she’ll see it as rewarding her and snubbing me,” I agreed. “Oh, and since we’re already on the topic of my co-counsels for this past case, I’m calling dibs on Casey for the rest of his externship and until he’s barred.”

Alice paused, then turned to look at me with a surprised expression.

“What?” I asked.

“Nothing,” she said. “It’s just… I think this is the first time you’ve actually liked one of the student hires enough to get territorial over them.”

“Well, he was an absolute boon to the trial team,” I said. “Plus, there’s… I don’t know. Just… something about him. Feels a bit… familiar, I guess? Bit like me when I was that age? It doesn’t matter,” I waved it off. “I’ll figure it out later. For now? Good kid, lots of potential; also he’s finishing up at my alma mater, so we had that in common to break the ice in the first place. And, yeah. Dibs.”

“Okay, okay,” Alice waved me off. “You can mentor Casey.” Yes! Cool Aunt Fox time! “Just make sure he has time to go to class and do his bar prep.” I gave her a Look, which failed to do anything more than have my boss roll her eyes at me.

“Well, I think that should just about cover the housekeeping matters for now?” I asked, though it was less a question than a statement. There really wasn’t much else for us to discuss right now, not until Alice had that talk with Fatima and other matters were handled. “If there’s nothing else…”

“There was one thing,” Alice said, stopping me in my tracks as I was getting up from the chair. “Did you screen a call from the NYPD this morning?”

“... I did,” I said, lowering both ears in worry before raising one back up out of curiosity and concern. “Why?”

“Well, you remember Robby Schwartz, don’t you?”

I blinked.

“Bob the Nepo Baby? Didn’t he get shitcanned last year?”

“He did,” Alice confirmed. “And after mommy pulled her protection, he went to New York and used some connections to get a job there. But apparently old habits die hard, because I heard from a friend of a friend that he just might be facing charges for a little thing called sexual harassment.” Alice leaned in, her smile even more predatory than some of my own. “And I might have suggested that this friend of a friend have the detectives involved reach out to you. Given that you have personal experience with this pattern of behavior, and you’re a former law enforcement officer, well…”

My grin very swiftly matched hers. Oh, yes. Justice.

Sweet, sweet poetic justice.