May 5th, 1972
Ethan hadn't been able to get off work to meet his mother-in-law at the train, but he knew that Lia had it covered, so he didn't worry about it. What he did worry about, just a little, was how the household would adjust to this new living situation. He had already had to convince Lia that it was all right to let her mother have the downstairs room his parents normally slept in rather than emptying out his home alchemy lab to put her upstairs with the rest of the family. After all, he'd argued, the downstairs had its own bathroom, more privacy, and was already nicely painted and put together.
Thankfully, Lia had agreed. She had also said a few things about her mother's dietary needs and such, but Ethan hadn't been too worried about that. Food was food after all, and he wasn't picky as long as it tasted good and he got enough of it. He was sure he could get along with Sylvia Swanson for as long as she wanted to visit.
Ethan preferred not to think of it as her really moving in. It implied a permanent state he wasn't quite ready to think about.
So the aroma that met his nose as he walked into the house was… interesting. "What's that?" he asked the first person he saw, who happened to be Eamon, who was sitting on the couch looking at a story book.
Eamon made a funny face. "Dinner."
Oh.
Unable to actually place the aroma, Ethan went into the kitchen, where he found his mother-in-law standing over a pot of… something. "Hello, Sylvia," he said with a smile. "It's good to see you." Even if it did seem odd to see a woman dressed in slacks and a sweater and low heels wearing an apron and cooking in his kitchen.
She turned and gave him a little smile in return. "Welcome home, Ethan. Did you have a good day at the clinic?"
"Yes, I did," Ethan replied. "Thanks. How was your trip?"
"Stuffy, noisy, but otherwise all right." Sylvia turned back to the pot on the stove. "Lia's picking up Lily from her art group, so I offered to make dinner."
"Smells fascinating," Ethan said. "What are we having?" Fascinating seemed a safer word than 'interesting.'
"Boiled cabbage and black-eyed peas," Sylvia replied. "With a flax-seed toast."
… Really? "That sounds interesting," Ethan replied, stifling the urge to make a face. "No meat?"
Sylvia gave him a startled look. "Meat? Oh no, of course not. This is a vegetarian meal."
Of course. Vegetarian? Had Lia told him her mother was a vegetarian?
"I've never had it before," Ethan admitted, somehow managing to smile.
"I'm sure you'll all enjoy it," Sylvia replied as she turned back to the stove. "It was one of Howard's favorites."
Maybe he died to get away from your food. Okay, it was an unkind thought, but Ethan couldn't drum up any real enthusiasm for the smell invading his kitchen. That was all right. He'd just grab something out of the fridge to tide him over.
Ethan went to the refrigerator and opened it up…
On a scene of true horror.
Skim milk? And where was the sandwich ham he'd put in there two days ago? No eggs? No cheese! There were very few things in there now, and none of it looked like a product that came out of or was made from an animal. Lia had said vegetarian… if not for the milk, Ethan would have called the fridge downright vegan. It was stuffed with fruits and vegetables. He didn't mind those, but where was the rest of the food? "Hey, Sylvia, do you know what happened to the meat?"
"Oh, I see you've found the new groceries," she commented cheerfully. "We've switched to skim. That two-percent stuff is so fatty. I can't eat cheese or eggs."
"The ham?"
"I don't like ham."
But some of us really do. Ethan growled in his head. "I see."
"I hope it's all right," Sylvia continued. "Lia and I went shopping as soon as I arrived. She said it was fine."
Lia had said… really? Ethan ignored his growling stomach, closed the fridge, and took an apple out of the fruit basket instead. "I was just surprised," he informed her as politely as he could manage. He just hoped the kids were more excited about the change than he was. Poor Aeddan, it was too bad the kid had to finally be completely weaned only to have to eat this stuff. Well, maybe it tasted better than it smelled.
"Vegetarian, Lia?" Ethan finally asked, staring at his wife safely behind the closed door of their room. The kids were in bed, and Sylvia had settled in to her room with a book for the evening. "What possessed you to tell your mother we were willing try this?"
"Do you have a problem with vegetarian cuisine, Doctor?" Lia asked, crossing her arms, though her tone was more appealing. "Come on, Ethan. I just told her we'd give it a try, since it's what's she's been doing for the past few years. She wants to help out and cook, and it's not fair to make her cook things she can't eat. So, will it kill you to try it her way for a little while?"
"It might," Ethan grumbled. He'd eaten it, but there hadn't been enough made to fill him up, and Sylvia had still expressed surprise at the lack of leftovers. He wasn't full, not even close. "All right," he finally sighed. "You've already told her we'll try it and I don't want to hurt her feelings either. I haven't had any cases of vegetarian cooking killing anyone yet."
"Thank you, Ethan." Lia uncrossed her arms and hugged him. "I know it's not easy, but she just got here. She'll settle in soon, and it will be like we've always lived together."
That… was a slightly scary proposition.
May 8th, 1972
It was a rare day that Tore got home early, but today he'd finished his local mission in near-record time, and as a plus had gotten the rest of the afternoon off. Breda was supposed to be off doing some guest-lecture at the University until late, and Dare was going home from school with Jay to play at Noelle and Jean's for the evening.
It was the perfect opportunity to plan a romantic dinner for two. So Tore picked up flowers on the way home, just because they caught his eye and he thought Charisa would like them, and ingredients for a beef and asparagus dish they had wanted to try cooking.
He arrived home only a couple of hours early, so he was a bit surprised to hear the water running upstairs. He'd have guessed maybe Breda was still home, except that he always used his downstairs bathroom.
Tore set the flowers in a vase and the food in the fridge before he went to the stairs. About that time he heard the water shut off. "Charisa?" He couldn't imagine who else would be home, except that she was supposed to be at work still.
"Up here," she called back through the door.
Tore went upstairs and into the Master bedroom, which he and Charisa had appropriated when he moved in. Charisa was just coming out of the bathroom wrapped in her robe, hair up in a towel. "Hey, you're home early. Not that I'm complaining," he grinned.
"You're early too," Charisa replied, looking at him curiously, but not with the interest Tore had hoped. Then he noticed she looked a little pale.
"You all right?" Tore asked.
"Do I look that bad?" Charisa asked signing. "Fabulous."
"I didn't mean you look bad," Tore objected, "But well… okay so you do."
Charisa smiled thinly. "Your sweet talk is impeccable tonight."
"I'm just worried about my wife," Tore pointed out, moving closer to her. "Are you sick?"
"Sort of," Charisa replied with a small shrug. "I'm pregnant."
Tore froze mid-step, and almost tripped over himself in surprise. "You are?"
"I wouldn't spend half an afternoon losing my lunch over the toilet for fun."
As it sank in, Tore smiled and moved forward again, gathering her up in a gentle hug. "That's… great!" Pregnant! Charisa was carrying a baby… his baby… and it was a brother or sister for Dare. "How long have you known? When are you due? I…"
"Stop babbling and I'll answer you," Charisa hugged him back and leaned against him for support. "Since this morning, and sometime at the end of December. Why did you look so surprised?" she asked, looking up at him with a slightly amused expression.
"Because no one's ever told me I got her pregnant before," Tore pointed out, smiling as he kissed her nose. It had pained him that Cecilia had never confided in him about Dare, and that he had missed out on all of that, and the first year of his son's life. This time… he would be here for all of it. "I'm thrilled; I just wasn't expecting to find that out today. That's wonderful news."
"I'm glad you think so," Charisa kissed his cheek. "I know you always said you wanted to be able to have more kids if you ever got married. Well, here we go."
"Are you excited?" Tore asked, as he realized that she had just admitted to spending half the afternoon vomiting. That couldn't exactly be pleasant.
"I am," she assured him. "Dare is such a joy, and I think have another child is a wonderful idea."
Tore felt nearly overwhelmed in that moment, by feelings of joy, love, tenderness, protectiveness. "This part's new for both of us, and I couldn't be happier than going through it all with you, 'Risa."
Charisa kissed him. "I feel the same way."
They stood like that for several seconds before Tore remembered his original plan for the evening. "Good. Now, do you think you could keep food down?" he asked. "I bought beef and asparagus."
Charisa's eyes lit up. "Given I'm having a terrible craving for meat, I'd say your timing is perfect."
"Cravings already?" Tore chuckled. "Do those happen this early?"
"I'm going to say yes," Charisa replied. "But really, I have no more idea than you do."
"Then I should start fixing dinner." Tore kissed her again on impulse before he stepped back. "You get comfortable and join me when you're ready. All right?"
"I'll be right down," Charisa promised him. "After the day I've had, I could use an evening with you."
"Nice to know I'm no longer an agitation."
"Not often," Charisa chuckled. "But I think I'll let you have the pleasure of telling my father."
Tore swallowed. That was going to be interesting.
May 10th, 1972
"I can't believe I'm doing this," Cal commented quietly to Alyse as they edged their way through the crowded lines of chairs to get seats near the front of the crowded little auditorium.
"And why is that?" Alyse asked, giving him a look that said he'd better not be planning to say something that might embarrass her in front of all the other parents.
"Because it's undignified," Cal grinned at her. He was in a suit, with his two-and-a-half year old son drooling on his shoulder, sitting in a group of parents all there to see their little girls –for the most part- dance. Not that the kids in Gloria's class would be doing anything particularly complicated. The four and five year olds were mostly expected to be cute.
"There's nothing undignified about ballet," Alyse told him as they found seats near the end of the third row.
Cal was pretty sure he saw Alphonse, Elicia, and Gracia sitting a couple of rows over.
"No, just stuffing myself into a stiff suit and sitting in an audience full of over-emotional parents." Cal settled Charlie on his lap. "There you go fella. Time to watch your sister be adorable."
Charlie blew a raspberry and giggled.
Yeah, that's what I was thinking, Cal thought, but wisely didn't say. He didn't mind that Alyse had signed Gloria up for dance lessons. His little girl was adorable, and she loved her lessons. That didn't mean Cal was thrilled about watching dozens of pre-pubescent girls, and a few boys, attempt what he might have preferred to watch adult women doing.
"It wouldn't be stiff if you wore it more often," Alyse whispered back.
"I might wear it more often if it fit better."
"It might fit better if you hadn't put on weight lately."
"Which wouldn't have happened if a certain someone would stop baking all the time."
"My baking has nothing to do with your self-control."
"Oh doesn't it? I particularly recall when I got home from Aerugo you said that-"
"Oh, it's starting!"
Cal shut his mouth, dissatisfied with the state of conversation, but unwilling to be body-slammed by guys twice his size that were here to watch their own daughters. So he sat back and waited.
It was, unsurprisingly, one of those sort-of-a-story dances where the littlest or clumsiest kids played things like waving flowers, fruit, trees, or other pieces of scenery, and the characters were danced by the more experienced and talented kids.
As the story opened, Cal paid little attention to the leads, looking for some sign of Gloria and trying not to feel his intelligence was being insulted by dancing fruit. But he didn't see her on stage even though he thought he recognized the girls from her class from the couple of times he had picked her up instead of Alyse doing it.
"Sissy!" Charlie giggled.
"Hush," Cal bent over his son to keep him from distracting the crowd, and followed the toddler's pointing hand over to the other side of the stage-
-where his little girl was dancing with the lead female! Gloria, her curly hair up in braids on her head and wearing a gossamer blue tutu, was dancing a very simple, but well done, duet that looked like she was… doing magic maybe? There was a wand involved, and Gloria tapped the lead –who was supposed to be some sort of princess-in-the-making- three times, and then vanished off stage again.
Wait, what was the plot of this thing? Cal realized he didn't even remember the name of the character Gloria was playing, though she had babbled about it incessantly at dinner for weeks with Alyse. Usually while Cal was convincing Charlie to like peas, or at least to eat them. Wasn't she some sort of fairy?
He looked over at Alyse, who was beaming at the stage and completely oblivious to his confusion.
Cal started paying more attention. He had trouble following the plot since there weren't any lines, but it seemed that Gloria's part involved granting the princess-to-be much needed talents or gifts at critical moments in the story. She would come on, do her simple dance, tap the princess, and dance off. The dance didn't vary much, but it was –he noticed- more complicated than what all the other girls her age were doing, and longer. It must have taken her a lot of practice. He didn't know anything about form, but she seemed almost as graceful as most of the minor characters, and didn't look bad next to the lead.
His little girl was a natural!
The rising feeling of pride in his chest made Cal snicker inside and that calmed any nearly-overwhelming feelings of obsessive fatherliness. Well, it was nice to see that his baby girl was working hard to develop her talent, even at the age of four.
"Why are her shoes different from the lead?" he whispered to Alyse at one point.
"Because she's far too young to start Pointe," Alyse explained patiently. "Her muscles aren't nearly developed enough to do that without hurting her knees. That's years off."
Cal resisted the urge to ask too many more questions over the course of the performance, but he was beginning to feel a bit out of his league. Ballet wasn't exactly something he'd spent a lot of time studying. Even though Alyse hadn't done a lot of dance, she knew quite a bit about it.
When it was over, Cal stood and clapped with everyone else, and even gave a holler when the row of main characters stepped forward to curtsy and his daughter was among them!
That earned him some odd looks, but Cal didn't care. There was no reason for the ballet audience to be as stuffy as the dance in his mind.
"Was that really so bad?" Alyse asked him with a knowing smile as they waded through the pressing lines to get around backstage to pick up their daughter.
Cal, with Charlie once more in his arms to keep him out of the crush of the crowd, shrugged. "It was educational."
Alyse shook her head. "And here I thought you prided yourself on your dancing."
"I swing, I don't walk on tip-toe."
"Pointe."
"Whatever."
He barely had time to put Charlie down backstage before Gloria threw herself into his arms. "Did you see me, Daddy?"
"Yes, yes I saw you sweetie," he laughed, giving her a big bear hug. "You were very pretty."
"Did you like my dance?" Clearly Gloria cared more about that than if she was pretty.
"Yes, very much," Cal replied, grateful it was the truth. While he hadn't been fond of the whole performance, he had definitely enjoyed watching his adorable tiny girl steal the show.
"Would the lovely blue fairy like to get a treat on the way home?"
"Oh, yes please!" Gloria hugged him even tighter. "Can we get ice cream?"
"Yeah, ice cream!" Charlie grinned.
Cal looked over at Alyse, who rolled her eyes, but smiled. "Of course we can," she said. "A wonderful performance deserves a celebration."
For the look of joy on his daughter's face, Cal would have watched a thousand performances. This was good, he thought, because he had a feeling that over the next fourteen years or so, he was going to see a lot of them.
May 12th, 1972
Edward sat, listening sympathetically on the other end of the phone as his youngest son grumbled on and on about the list of growing complaints about his house. Or at least, he supposed it was sympathetic, given there was no way Ethan could actually see his expression to tell, but it seemed to be enough that he was listening.
"…starched all the socks and underwear in the house!" Ethan went on. "The house looks like someone lined everything up with a ruler, poor Brigitte's got a bow on her butt, and then this morning…"
"What happened this morning?" Ed asked the prompting question he knew Ethan was almost waiting for.
"She got rid of the coffee maker."
"What?"
"Yeah. I got up and went into the kitchen and it was replaced with this teapot and nothing in the cabinets but herbal non-caffeinated teas," Ethan exclaimed. "It's driving me nuts!"
"I couldn't tell," Ed replied wryly. "Ethan, I know it's a lot of change but, don't you think you're over-reacting, maybe?"
"Why don't you try being forced to vegetarian?" Ethan asked darkly. "And drink skim milk."
Ed shuddered. "All right, point made. I just think maybe you should give it a little more time before you, you know, go off the deep end."
That seemed to get through to Ethan. "Does it really sound like that?"
"Yeah, a little." Ed leaned back against the wall by the phone. "It's only been what, a week? I'm sure everything will straighten itself out before too long."
"I don't suppose you have any suggestions for how to deal with in-laws?" Ethan asked with a groan.
"Nope, sorry," Ed replied glibly. "That's a situation I've never had the pleasure of dealing with."
"Sorry," Ethan replied contritely. "I didn't mean it like that."
"I know you didn't." Ed tried to think of something that might actually be useful. "You know, when you're not home, you don't actually have to be a vegetarian."
"Don't I know it," said Ethan. "If I couldn't have something substantial with meat for lunch I think I'd have starved by now. I had a fish sandwich earlier."
"Sounds better than butter beans and parsley," Ed commented, referring to one of Ethan's earlier gripes.
"Oh you bet it is!" Ethan responded. "I swear I'm trying, but Sylvia doesn't make it easy. The worst part is, she's doing all of it because she wants to help."
"Even meddling with good intentions can be meddling," Ed replied. "Give her some time to settle in and see if she's actually a problem though. Once she feels more at home, maybe she'll relax."
"Sure, thanks. Okay, I gotta go. My one o'clock appointment's out in the lobby."
"Talk to you later."
Ed set down the phone and sighed.
"Did I actually hear you tell your son he was over-reacting and to be patient?"
Ed looked up at Winry approaching, and smiled. "Yeah, I did."
"I wonder where you ever got an idea like that." She leaned in and kissed him.
"Good advice from a really good looking woman," Ed grinned, kissing her back. "She's really giving him a time of it though," he said as they headed into the kitchen. Lunch was late today for them thanks to one of Winry's patients. "Sylvia I mean."
"I'm not surprised," Winry replied as she pulled out fruit salad and sandwich fixings. "She's always been very particular and proper."
"Which we aren't," Ed snorted.
"Not like her," Winry smiled at him. "There are good manners and there's rigid formality. You remember how much Lia liked coming over to our house. Ethan only ever asked to go over there a small handful of times because they couldn't get rowdy or make a mess."
"Being a kid is about rowdy and messes," Ed nodded as he helped her by spooning up the fruit salad into two small bowls. "I hope Eamon and Lily and Aeddan are really enjoying having their other Grandmother around. Ethan didn't say much about it other than they seemed to be."
"I'm sure everything will be just fine," Winry replied reassuringly as she put the sandwiches together with the same efficiency and precision she built auto-mail. "They're all reasonable people. These things will work themselves out before long."
