in our old familiar place
Characters: Olivier Armstrong, Bendix Llewellyn
Summary: It had been years since they had last spoken.
It had been one of those strange coincidences that sometimes happened, one of those things when two people who had not spoken since their graduation suddenly met on a market while grocery shopping and for some reason, clicked again and decided to leave the market in favour of a nice little restaurant.
"We haven't been here in … twelve years?" she asked with a smirk.
"Don't remind me that we're over thirty now," he sighed. "It is kinda pathetic to cross a street and see all those young kids with their children."
"Well, we chose another life, Bendix," she replied as she opened her menu. "The last thing I heard was that you asked for a transfer back to the Western Headquarters. Does that have a reason?"
"Not really," he shrugged nonchalantly. "I guess it was more to make sure that, well … mother isn't getting any younger and I think that the last twenty years were hard on her. She deserves to return to Central City for the last few years till her retirement."
"Always the perfect son," she remarked as she looked at him over the brim of the menu. "What wine do you drink? Red or white?"
"We are in the same restaurant as after our graduation. We are ordering the same wine as back then: Aerugian rosé even though I heard from crown prince Claudio that they do not approve of this wine at all," he added with a smirk. "And would you mind stop watching the people on the street and talk with me instead? It has been twelve years after all."
"Jealous that I am not staring at your handsome face, Ben?" she taunted. "Don't be, yes? You know that we shared too many bottles of wine and too many study nights for me to forget what you look like. By the way, if you order fish, rosé will be out of question."
"Was that your screwed up way to compliment my looks and to admit that you missed me?"
"If I had missed you which I didn't, I would have stormed the Southern Headquarters and I would have demanded that General Hamilton hands over your ass to me so that you can come back to Briggs," she said as she raised her eyebrow. "Does that answer your question?"
"Always the same strict lady … but I missed you as well," he said with a wink. "So, how have things been going for you, Miss Ice Queen?"
She rolled her eyes. "I have been doing fine," she replied. "Commander of the Northern Area is a decent job, the headquarters are better heated than the fortress and work is fine as well. You?"
"My parents and the rest of my family are doing well," he begun after a moment, hesitation obvious in his voice. "I guess you knew that because mother probably keeps you updated. Well, SouthCity was nice … many pretty women, too … but I didn't care much. I guess me and good ol' Jade broke every record for working overtime because we both dated no one in all those years."
"Miss Pretty dated no one in the past twelve years? I had thought that she married and got a discharge until I met her … she was my lawyer during my trial…" she mused aloud.
"Well, there was someone every once in awhile but most of the time, she was too busy with her career and that scientist stuff to look for a decent guy to date," he shrugged. "My, it's true what they say: meeting after such a long time feels like an eternity has passed since we lost touch."
She crossed her arms. "I didn't stop answering the letters," she stated. "In any case, this does not matter … tell me more … what happened to the other ones?"
"I met good old Eileen Miller a few weeks back," he started. "The girl lost weight – is probably just as skinny as the sisters by now. Talking of them, do you know what happened to Nerissa?"
"Remember how we always said that she would rebel against her mother somehow?" she asked as she leaned back. "And yeah, she married my major … well, now he's probably Mustang's major but you catch my drift. The daughter of the maybe greatest xenophobe and racist I ever met married a man who is quarter Ishbalan. I guess this means that justice exists."
"And that ghosts don't because otherwise, Madame Cerulean Rose would be haunting the hell out of Nessa," he grinned. "You, Liv, haven't changed much in those twelve years by the way. Don't tell me that you do that blood of a virgin treatment we read about as kids."
She tilted her head. "Of course not and it's no miracle that you are single if you make compliments like that," she sighed. "Anyway, is the school still standing?"
"Of course it is," he replied. "Ah, those were good times … remember the night we broke in go steal the records off that one guy who had the nerve to cheat on Kay? That was a funny thing to do … even though I never did such a thing ever again."
She nodded with a slight grin. "We looked so cliché back then … black clothes, masks and boots…" she shrugged. "I also remember that summer in the east when I pushed Jade into the river and she nearly drowned … it was an accident, I swear. She is one of the few I can still kinda stand after all … it would have been dumb to kill her."
"That wakes memories, doesn't it?" he asked with a fond smile. "The cold water, the burning sun … that's what my romantic teenage night were made of…"
"You have been getting quite sappy but since you mentioned romance … what happened to Helena and Martin? I haven't heard anything about them since 1909," she inquired.
"Lynn and Martin are still in West City and from what I heard, they are just as happy as they used to be … something I cannot say about Thomas and Sue, by the way," he said with a apologetic shrug. "Remember them? Everyone said that Tom and Sue have been made for eternity and that they would make it and that Lynn and Martin would be the ones to fail. Turned out that everyone was totally wrong."
"So the king and queen of the prom are no longer a couple?" she asked. "That's too bad … well, I voted for Serena and Phil anyway," she added as an afterthought. "But what happened? I can still see them making out in the school yard if I concentrate … they had this creepy little song that was 'theirs' and all that stuff that couples have…"
"Remember how they got married right after they graduated?" he asked. "I always thought that it was too early, that they hadn't anything figured out. Turned out, I was right. His dad got them a pretty apartment uptown and Tom got a job while Sue stayed at home, hosting parties and all that stuff you always considered a complete waste of time. Well, Tom lost his job during the war and you know what economy was like back then. Well, if the money gets short and the wife's dreams get bigger and bigger, a marriage hits a hard spot – a spot they weren't prepared for."
"So they did a reasonable thing for once in their lives and got a divorce?"
"You said it, yep," he confirmed. "But let's talk about Phil and Serena now … I heard that they aren't … what they used to be anymore too? Did you know what happened?"
"As far as I heard – and gossip is anything but rare in the North because nothing warms the heart more than someone else's misfortune, they were transferred to NorthCity around the same time as Jade was shipped off to SouthCity," she shrugged. "For a while, Serena and Phil did their Serena-and-Phil-thing … that sickly sweet stuff they always did … but they started to argue as well, right after they moved in together. You know them; they have a terrible way to express themselves when they are mad. Serena is not violent the way I would usually put it … but if she snaps, there is no saying what will happen. And she did snap one day."
"Is Phil out of hospital by now?" he asked with a worried expression on his face.
"They were both in hospital. Phil never made a difference between a man and a woman when he fought and, well, she attacked him first…" she sighed. "In any case, they … broke up or whatever afterwards and ever since, they haven't been talking with each other."
He lowered his head. "That's a sad thing," he said after a moment. "On a maybe brighter note: Kay and Charles are still married. I was worried right after the war when they hit their hard spot and this was because Kay nearly broke – being a state alchemist may have a better pay but, hell, I am rather a normal soldier because I can sleep at night. In any case, Charles stayed by her side and held her hand through that entire mess."
"It would have been a shame if they had broken up too," she replied. "With Sue and Thomas and Serena and Phil, two of the couples most people believed in broke up. That's a bad score."
"On the good side: Nerissa stayed true to our expectations. Most had guessed that she would marry someone from Xing but that was a theory I never believed in," he chuckled. "Plus, most people had guessed that Kay and Charles wouldn't make it. All in all, the scores are good."
"Still, the thing with Serena and Phil is plain sad," she said. "I mean, sure, something like that had been to be expected due to their tempers but … I would have wished that they could have beaten themselves and stayed together. I mean … if Serena had abused Phil or the other way around, I would say that it is better like this but … it was a lapse of judgement … arguments always drove her up the wall … and arguments with Phil especially…"
She looked out of the window, remembered the time years ago when they had been walking this street together. She remembered her friends, their friends. She remembered Serena and Phil who had been walking side by side, always moving in synch for as long as she had known them. To imagine that their relationship had fallen apart, had been burned to the ground like Ishbal was strange because if she had ever counted on something to last it would have been them. For a moment, she imagined that she saw them the way they had looked fourteen years ago, the night when she had graduated and they had gone out, everyone. There was Serena, blond and full of unsolved mysteries, clinging to Phil's arm as she tripped over her own feet – and he held her with that little, spezial smile that had always belonged just her.
"It is sad," the man on the other side of the table confirmed after a moment. "Actually, most stories life wrote for us are sad. So many things we believed that they would last are over now. We used to think that we had nothing to lose … and now, fourteen years later, we look back and realise that we have lost more than we won."
"Opening old wounds won't make things better," she replied as she shrugged. "They will only fester and things will hurt more again. We cannot win this game, believe me. I found my journal from the time when I was president of the students council last week when I tidied up my old room before I moved into the bedroom that used to belong to my parents … those old stories made me kinda nostalgic to be honest."
"I get that feeling when I hear the music that was played at our prom somewhere … or when I find a faded out picture," he nodded. "I found one of you and Jade last week … that felt strange because it seems like it was yesterday that you passed the badge over and told her to make sure that the rules would be obeyed even without you around."
She chuckled as she lifted her hands. "She was a good kid but she had to be warned that I wouldn't go easy on her if she screwed up," she replied before she ordered her meal. "But you're right … it's the music that makes it feel like I could open a door, go through it and be eighteen again … sometimes, it truly feels like there isn't a minute that has passed since then."
He sighed as he grabbed his glass. "To be honest, when I came back to Central, I walked through our park until I got to our café … for a moment, I expected everyone to sit there," he admitted. "I mean … we are the lucky ones. No one of the old gang has been killed so far. Compared to Mustang, your archenemy, we are really the lucky ones. I can only pray that it stays like that."
"We nearly lost four in one go when Scar targeted Jade, Helena, Phil and Serena in West City," she replied, her jaw clenching. "I can understand the man, sure, revenge is a good motivator but when I imagine how easily we could have … have lost four friends in one night…"
He took her hand and kissed her knuckles. "I know, Liv, I know," he stated calmly.
"It is scary," she said as she looked at him. "Actually, if I am honest, meeting you again has been scaring me more than the entire Drachman Army. Don't get me wrong, I am happy that you are fine and that you have had a good life in those twelve years … but … it feels wrong that you haven't changed at all. I mean, shouldn't you start getting grey hair by now or something like that?"
He glared at her. "I am thirty two and not forty five," he said, slightly insulted. "I am not any older than you are; actually, I am a day younger than you and since I spot no line of silver in your hair, we should congratulate each other to the brilliant genes we got that keep the traces of age away."
She shook her head. "That's exactly what I meant … you haven't changed at all. You are just as laid-back and calm as you always were … hell, you still use the same shampoo too if my nose isn't playing tricks on me. Have you changed anything about yourself in all those years?"
He shrugged. "The thing is why do you remember everything this well? Shouldn't you have forgotten about those details? I mean: that's what is really strange: that you remember the way my shampoo smelled and the way I acted…" he replied. "But I guess that the answer is the obvious: we are stuck because … because we never talked about all those things – that we both remember the smallest details about each other. You should have seen Jade's face when I mentioned that you prefer cinema over theatre at times. She didn't believe me."
"Did Miss Pretty have an explanation that actually makes sense?" she inquired.
"Her usual," he said with a quirky smirk. "That means: according to her, we are now officially the next set of star-crossed lovers – right after Serena and Phil. We can now pride ourselves that the expert for screwed-up relationships gave us the same label that she gave those who can never be completely happy because there is always something in the way. We can be really, really happy."
She lowered her head. "If Miss Pretty says so, it has to be true because … I cannot remember a time when she was wrong. She called every relationship before it started … she called Kay and Charles when Kay was still looking down on him," she said slowly. "Goddamn, I had really hoped that she would be wrong this time at least…"
"She called us as well?" he inquired, raising his eyebrow.
"Of course she did," she said as she sipped on her wine. "That's the funny thing about her after all: she is always right when it comes to relationships. It is … like she cannot be wrong there."
"When did she call us?" he asked as he frowned slightly.
"Years ago when she was still my vice and you were the treasurer … we once stayed back to go through some details for a festival, just the three of us. You had to leave for a moment and she looked at me, did that creepy smirk thing and declared that we had feelings for each other … which I denied at the time … because I didn't want to believe it."
"You are hurting my feelings," he grinned.
"Shut up or I will be hurting more than just your feelings," she growled. "In any case, now, that we have established that we have mutual feelings for each other … where will it leave us?"
"We haven't seen each other for twelve years and sure, you are still you – the huge, formerly star-crossed love of my life – but … we need a few dates to figure out things properly – and because otherwise, your father will have a heart attack. But if you see a nice wedding gown, it might be smart to buy it … in case that you are not opposed to becoming my wife, of course."
"How does it come that you always know what to say when I am lost?"
"Because, Olivier, I am still the one who knows you best and I know that humour makes you relax when you feel like punching a wall. In any case, stay relaxed. It is still me."