February 2nd, 1990
Sara had never considered herself to be overly vain. Oh, she'd always cared that she was fit enough for the rigors of State Alchemist duties, and she had been fond of her hair, but she had never spent much time primping. Still, she was looking forward to Will and Ren's return to Central, and what Ren had promised would be the ultimate alchemical spa day, designed to help Sara look and feel more like herself.
If she could do something about her hacked mess of hair, that would be a great improvement right there. No matter what she did, it would be the best birthday present Sara could have asked for, now that she already had what she really wanted, which was to be home. Franz had promised her dinner from her favorite restaurant later. He had gotten reservations for one of their small, private rooms, which meant she could enjoy dining out without being mobbed by the press or stared at by curious civilians.
"It's good to see you, Sara," Will chuckled as he hugged her tightly. "Though I know it's really my wife you're eager to see."
"I missed you, too," Sara refrained from sticking her tongue out as she returned her cousin's hug. "I can still hardly believe you came all the way back from Xing just to say hello."
"And to give you a hug," Will corrected. "I can't do that on the phone."
"It wouldn't be the same," Sara agreed. Her hug for Ren was just as enthusiastic, and then Franz and Will headed out, leaving Sara and Ren alone.
Ren sat down on the couch across from her. "Let's get to business, shall we? There is no reason you can't look like you did eight years ago, if that's what you want."
All eight… "You can do that?" Sara asked hopefully.
Ren smiled. "There are spas in Xing with alkahestrists on staff for that reason. It's not difficult to naturally rejuvenate someone, any more than it is to heal an injury, particularly in conjunction with the right treatments. I can't make you look twenty, but I can undo some of the damage."
"I don't need to look twenty." Sara could only imagine the stares she would get, looking younger than her own daughter. "Honestly, I'd just like to not look like a half-starved abuse victim… have some of my hair back, and maybe minimize some of the wrinkles?" Given the weight she had lost in prison, coupled with poor nutrition, they were deeper and more lined than she had ever expected.
"All easy enough," Ren assured her as she opened up the suitcase Will had left for her on the table, which proved to be full of a huge variety of Xingese products, most of which were completely unfamiliar to Sara. "We're going to do the full deep treatment on you. When we're done, you'll feel like you again, and I promise you'll enjoy looking in the mirror."
Sara nodded. "I have no idea what we're doing so, just do your thing, I guess." She let herself over into Ren's capable hands. It was a long afternoon in which Ren combined alchemical rejuvenation treatments with herbals and other treatments, many mixed up with alchemy. Every inch of her skin underwent exfoliation and rejuvenation, with special attention paid to her face, hands, and feet. Her hair was washed in two different solutions, then conditioned twice, and then when that was all done, Sara relaxed in the recliner while she was treated to the most unusual fifteen minutes of alchemy she had ever experienced.
Sara had been healed before, but this was an entirely different feeling since she wasn't injured. Though she supposed repairing sun, wind, cold, and age damage was not the same as transmuting a human, just restoring her some to her natural state. There was also the very strange feeling that her scalp was vibrating, stimulated by alchemy.
Finally, after three hours of intensive work, it was done. "Are you ready to take a look?" Ren asked as she held her hands over Sara's face as they stood in Sara's bathroom.
Sara nodded. "I have never been so curious to look in a mirror in my life."
"All right. Here you go."
Almost at once, tears sprung into the corners of her eyes. Sara stared at the face in the mirror; a much more familiar face, one that did not belong to an ancient hag. It was like she had reverted back to her face of eight years before—possibly a little younger. The wrinkles were not as deep or defined, and some of the elasticity and softness had returned to her skin. Her eyes were no longer sunken, and the damage the weather had done to her skin was gone, leaving its color brighter and less mottled. Spots were gone, her cheeks were lifted a little higher, and her eyelashes were thicker; eyes bright.
But her hair…. Sara couldn't help running her fingers through several inches of thick, soft hair that fell to the top of her shoulders, in a mop of light white-gold-and-silver streaked blond. "I can't believe I have my hair. Thank you." It was soft and thick and bouncy… the way she had always taken care of it. After years of having it hacked off and nothing to wash it with more than bar soap anyway, she had stopped thinking much of it. It was too painful otherwise, but now, it was back, even if it was shorter than it had been, Ren had grown it several inches in a very short amount of time. "I look like me!" Before the kidnapping, she had been perfectly fine with her natural aging process. She'd been fit from teaching combat, and she looked good. The lighter streaks of gold in her hair—much the way her mother's and father's had gone—had never bothered her. Now the lighter platinum was the predominant color, with a few remaining streaks of her darker gold, but her hair was once more long and silky, instead of broken, hacked, and dull. "You know you could make even more money in cosmetology."
"I think Ethan might object to my dumping the rest of the practice," Ren replied. "I'm just glad you like the results. Though you know, we could turn your hair completely back to its original color, if you wanted, or another color if you're feeling daring."
Sara shook her head without hesitating. "Not another color…" but her own? She had never really considered dying her hair, but then, the last time she had looked at it, it had been darker. "I'll have to think about it, take some time to get used to this first and see how I like it." She looked more like her mother than she ever had before, and there was something comforting in that. "Though we should leave it for now. Ian suggested I should not look too recovered for my exclusive television interview, or people will have trouble believing parts of my story."
"That is… probably true," Ren admitted after a moment's thought. "Well, we can discuss anything else you'd like done after that then, but full color restoration is actually not much more difficult than using dye, and it lasts longer."
"Does it?" Sara eyed Ren's raven-dark locks suspiciously. "Is that why no one in your family looks like they age?"
"Do you really expect me to give up imperial secrets?" Ren grinned playfully. "Actually, we just all go gray very late, but yes, these are standard treatments available in Xing, given the number of alkahestrists in the country. Normally we don't do anything this dramatic, but smaller, regular rejuvenation treatments will prolong youthful skin and hair by quite a bit; years really, but by keeping the body healthy instead of with treatments that cover up damage or just minimize it. Products are nice, but they only do so much. If only we had hot springs in Central."
"That sounds heavenly," Sara agreed. "Maybe I can talk Franz into a long, relaxing vacation in Xing when things quiet down."
"You know my family would love to have you."
"I could get used to palace living." Even her home seemed palatial after Drachman prisons. The Imperial Palace in Xing would be incredible. "I definitely don't recommend the insider-tour vacation of the Drachman prison system."
"I think I'll skip that one," Ren agreed.
Their eyes met, and they both laughed.
Franz had almost forgotten what it felt like to schedule a romantic date. Naturally the restaurant had been more than happy to reserve him one of their private rooms for the evening. It was not a strange request for a President, particularly not when he wanted to treat his wife to a special birthday meal.
There was no being delayed at work; not today. At the end of the day, Franz left his office, locked his door, and told his subordinates not to call him or go looking for him unless someone invaded across the border.
"We've got it, Sir." A nod and a grin assured him it would be fine. "Enjoy your evening."
"I intend to." Though really, it was Sara who needed to have a great time tonight. Franz knew his wife had spent most of the day with Ren, and outside of taking the time to have a cup of coffee with Will and drop him off at Alyse's house, Franz hadn't seen either of them much. He knew they were staying for a couple of weeks, so there would be time to be a better host and family member later; tonight was all about Sara.
He had no idea what to expect when he came in the door of his home, other than that he knew Sara would be waiting for him to take her to dinner, so she and Ren must have had a lot of confidence in Ren's ability to make Sara feel like being seen.
Franz was still not prepared for the much more familiar face that awaited him, smiling as he stopped dead in the doorway. For several moments he could not take his eyes off of her; her eyes, her hair….any make-up was minimal, but she looked like a whole new person—like the Sara he had last seen getting on a train to go to West City. She looked vibrantly restored, even if her hair was still much shorter than it had been. It was long enough that it had been simply styled and left down, and in being down, it lightly brushed her shoulders instead of being a hacked and uneven mess only a couple of inches long.
She wore one of her dressy separate tops in a deep green, with a long black wool skirt that covered her heavily bandaged knee. A necklace of twisted gold that ended in an emerald pendant, and her wedding ring, were the only jewelry. Not that she had ever worn much. One brief bit of gratitude—in all the heartache—that he felt now was that to make the fake believable, they had taken off Sara's ring, and her pocket watch, and left them on the body, so those had come home to him. He'd had the ring cleaned and tucked away carefully. Now, it was back where it belonged.
Apparently, he had been staring too long, because she smiled a little nervously. "How do I look?"
"Breathtaking." He crossed the floor in a few steps and took her into his arms, letting the kiss say all the things he was feeling in that moment more eloquently than words. "Maybe I shouldn't take you out," he teased when their lips parted. "Someone may try to steal you away from me."
Sara's face was flush with pleasure, but she gave him a skeptically arched eyebrow. "Now that I find unlikely. I've been waiting for years for this dinner date, so no backing out now."
"No, definitely not," he agreed. She had been standing when he came in, but he knew she wouldn't be able to do that all evening. The wheelchair—which thankfully folded down for transport—was already in the back of the car, just in case. He would not embarrass her by insisting she use it just to get to the car. "Shall we go, my love?"
"Let's." She smiled. "If nothing else, we'll cause a huge stir in the gossip columns with me being out and about before I'm even fully healed. Maybe it will put to rest the ridiculous rumors that I'm a broken, sobbing mess whose brains were addled by her trials." There was a wry twist at the end. He knew those rumors irritated her as much as the suggestions of being a traitor had enraged her.
Together, they made their way to the door and out to the car. "Your interview with Lisa Phillips in two days will put a lot of that to rest, I imagine," he pointed out, grateful to Ian for arranging it all, and so efficiently. Sara was determined to take control of her own situation, and that was one major step towards it. "Live broadcasting, and doing so this quickly, will give the gossipers and conspiracy theorists much less to go on."
Sara nodded as he helped her into the car, then went around to the driver's side and got in. "Once they hear what I have to say, whatever they want to say, they're going to have to deal with some very uncomfortable facts. I'll also give them a few hares to chase… like how the heck none of them even picked up on the fact that my murder was actually a kidnapping. Some investigative reporters they are."
"Don't expect more of them than military intelligence," Franz scolded gently as he pulled out of the driveway and headed towards the restaurant. "If we didn't figure it out, they had no hope. Though you can bet that a certain pair of investigative reporters with personal experience in this Drachman mess may be looking into it when they have the opportunity." Gloria and her fiancé had proven to have a lot of the grit he remembered from the old war correspondents that had followed them on campaigns, reporting the news at risk to their own lives.
Sara looked pleased, but unsurprised. "Oh, they will. Gloria's already asked to help me write a complete book about my experiences… a lot of it, anyway."
That would not be an easy read, but Franz could see where a lot of people would want to know what it had been like. Even if it irritated him that they would find it more a curiosity, an educational read, than the horrible reality that it had been.
Sara laid a hand on his arm, and he realized the muscles had stiffened. "I want to share the story, Franz. People need to know. A lot of the prisoners there with me were just what I was, a political inconvenience…not even criminals. It's a story no one hears, and I can be the one to tell it."
His brave girl. Franz relaxed. "Gloria better do it justice then. I expect it'll be a bestseller."
"I intend it to be." Sara grinned smugly. "I want to outsell Dad."
February 3rd, 1990
Three birthdays and an anniversary were more than enough reasons to have one big bash while everyone was still in Central. The fact that one of those birthdays was Sara's meant that it needed to be a step above, if only because it had been so long since she'd had a birthday celebration.
Ethan and Lia had handled hosting the party, which he knew would take the stress off a lot of other members of the family who were having a much more complicated couple of months than Ethan had. With no small children in the house, and the family mostly pulled back out of Drachma, and so many of them here having been part of the war, and others up to see Sara well… it was just easiest for all concerned. Not that everyone wasn't involved. After all, there was plenty of food to prepare! Not much else was needed for an extended-family-and-friends get together.
Which did not mean that others had not decided to go all out. Especially the kids, who decided that a party required balloons and streamers, and had decorated Ethan's house—with permission—in a riot of color that more than made up for the bleak February drizzle outside. Rosa had led the way, organizing streamers, balloons, and one huge banner for each birthday, and his parents' anniversary, which made four of them strung up around the room.
The dining table was quickly groaning with everyone's family favorite foods—which these days made for a fascinating variety of dishes, and multiple desserts—and while almost everyone arrived late in the day, when they did, it was a constant trickle of happy faces, with most of the stresses of the past couple of months temporarily put out of sight, and out of mind.
"You look amazing," he complimented Sara as he hugged his sister on her way in the door.
"It's all Ren's work," Sara chuckled, returning the hug. "I feel a lot more like myself this way."
"Well you're definitely recognizable," Ian commented with a grin as he pushed through the crowd of family. "You'll look great on camera tomorrow."
"Great as in attractive, or great as in convincing?" Sara asked.
Ian paused for a moment, blinking. Then he grinned. "Both. And I've already arranged with the studio to have Bonnie do you up for the interview." He held out an arm, and his wife appeared beside him. Ethan got out of the way. "Aunt Sara, this is Bonnie. Bonnie this is…my amazing aunt."
Ethan watched as Bonnie held out a hand and found herself pulled into one of Sara's firm hugs. "You have no idea how happy I am to meet you," Sara smiled warmly as she let Bonnie go. "Ian can't seem to go two sentences without mentioning your name."
Bonnie laughed, and in a moment the two were conversing like old friends.
Ethan had a feeling his sister and Bonnie would get along well. Moving away from that group as they edged further into the room so Sara could sit in the recliner-of-honor, he wiggled his way toward the table, and found himself next to Trisha, who seemed to be staring introspectively at the cheese platter.
"I didn't know cheese was such a serious decision," he commented quietly to his niece, who jumped slightly.
Trisha smiled. "Sorry, Uncle Ethan. I was just wondering when we'll hear from Roy and Ted."
Of course, she was worried about her husband, and her cousin, but primarily her husband. In the short days since the news of a massive jailbreak in Petrayevka, and even more massive explosions outside the city that intelligence had confirmed was the airfield and plane factories, there had been not a word from either alchemist. Not that they could expect anything until they hit the Amestrian border. It was a several day trip from Petrayevka to Briggs even by train. It could be weeks before they heard any news.
"I'm sure they'll contact us as soon as they possibly can," he assured her, not bringing up the thing he knew she feared, that something might have gone wrong, and one or both of them could very well be dead. "If they'd been caught, it would be all over the Drachman news about how we had spies in their country and blowing up their facility is an act of warfare. They need a scapegoat for the mess, and they don't have any of our men to use. So, I'd place my money on them being too smart to be seen until they're safe out of enemy territory. Then we'll hear something, and I'm sure it'll be some harrowing tale full of bravado and heroism, wildly exaggerated for our benefit."
At that, Trisha chuckled. "You're right. I feel like I'd know if he was dead… I just can't stand the waiting."
"That's almost always the worst part," Ethan agreed. Someday, he would be happy no to be waiting and wondering and concerned about someone in his family. He was pretty sure that day would never come. Elrics and those who would marry them were not prone to 'staying out of things.'
Edward had lost count of the number of hours he had spent in his life standing by the large glass windows that looked out over the backyard of this very house. Good memories, and more melancholy ones, but many introspective moments had been spent in contemplation of those gardens, now sleeping, and remembering thousands of memories made in that space. Now he stood beside them, one arm around Winry's shoulders, just enjoying an incredible sense of peace. No, the world was not peaceful, and not everyone was safe at home, but there had been far worse, and having Sara back…recovering… it made him feel younger than he had in a long time. A thought that made him wonder when he had started thinking of himself as old.
Somewhere between eighty and ninety he decided, when he'd realized his children were middle-aged, and he might, in fact, live to the end of the century if he kept on in the health he had.
When his grandchildren started having children.
When he'd looked around and realized that most of his close friends were gone.
Hughes. Havoc. Mustang. Breda. Armstrong. Izumi. Sig. Gracia… a litany of state alchemists and their family members who had gone before.
A list which had, for too long, included his baby girl… who had been returned to them when it seemed impossible.
His daughter, who was sitting with them once more, laughing and joking and teasing and having a wonderful time, amazingly unbroken— if not quite whole.
There were only four people in the crowd left in his generation, and the only one markedly older than himself was Riza, who had turned one-hundred this past year.
"You're looking introspective," Winry commented quietly beside him.
Ed turned his head just a little, and saw her smiling at him in that knowing way she had since they were teenagers, as if she knew what he was really thinking. Which, she probably did. He smiled back. "Just feeling grateful for everything we have."
February 4th, 1990
Sara had been interviewed before, and she had been to filming sets before—mostly as Ian's chaperone to and from work as a teenager—but she had never before been the subject of a live television broadcast. A few years ago, she might have been nervous. Now…well, no one was going to be shooting at her or breaking her leg with a bat, so how bad could it possibly be?
Channel Four's Lisa Phillips, their prime-time interview host, was proving to be the level-headed, respectful professional that Ian had promised, as they sat on the set across from each other in two comfortable armchairs, going over the questions Lisa wanted to ask, to verify beforehand how they wanted the flow of the conversation to go. She actually wanted Sara's input, and if she didn't like a question, it was reworded or removed. It was very different from dealing with the bedlam of reporters at military news hearings.
Sara was grateful not to be in her wheelchair, though the bulk of the bandaging around her knee was visible under the long military-blue skirt she had chosen for the interview. While she was not in uniform, she had chosen an outfit that purposefully implied her military status—her renewed status—as a general of the Amestrian army, and a State Alchemist. The skirt and the matching dress jacket were blue. The hint of a dress shirt underneath was a cream just one shade shy of golden-yellow. Her hair was down—there was not much else that could be done with it—and smoothed, without a hair out of place, but simple. The make-up—a necessity under stage lights, she understood—made Sara look natural; the way she had always looked in military briefings and any official photographs. She looked professional, and like herself, but they hadn't tried to hide that her experiences had been harrowing, which was the last thing she wanted. The people needed to see the face of someone who had been through hell, and come back again; to believe in the sincerity and honesty of what she had to say.
The audience was also not without its supporters. Franz, Ian, and Bonnie were standing just off stage. Her parents, Ethan, Lia, Aldon, and Cassie all had seats in the front row, by invitation of the station. She could not have felt safer if they had secured the doors with military police.
Which they had because Franz was in the building and the fact that they were filming here was no secret since the channel had been advertising it for days.
"Are you ready?" Lisa asked with a smile as they finished going through the questions, and a stage hand filled the cups of water sitting on the table between the two chairs.
Sara nodded.
A moment later the director took over, and she heard someone say they were going live, and count down…
Lisa turned and looked out at the audience, right at one of the cameras. "Welcome to Talk Tonight! This evening we have the honor of being the first newscast to speak with General Sara Heimler, state alchemist, wife of our esteemed President Franz Heimler, and rescued prisoner of war, who up until very recently, was presumed dead." She turned to Sara, and smiled genuinely. "Welcome, Sara. Or should I say, welcome home."
"Thank you, Lisa," Sara smiled back. "I appreciate your accepting my request to speak with you."
"It's my pleasure," Lisa assured her. "I know everyone is dying to hear what you have to say. As you can imagine, there have been a lot of questions. The big ones, and then we've also been soliciting viewer questions for the past several days through the phones, and have chosen some of those for later in the program."
"Sounds wonderful," Sara agreed, having already seen them. "Let's get to it then."
Lisa nodded. "Eight years ago, we were devastated by shock of what was, in recent times, one of the boldest terrorist attacks against a State Alchemist or a military installation, in decades. The Hashman Syndicate blew up a warehouse in West City and, as far as the rest of us knew, killed every military officer in the building, you included. Now, clearly, we know that is not what happened. What can you tell us?"
Not a push for more information than she was willing to give, and not an implication that she should spill any military secrets. Perfectly phrased. "It was a set-up from the word go," Sara replied. "The building was in flames, and people were shooting in our direction. As I tried to avoid burning debris and gunshots, someone got in a blow to my head, and I passed out. From there, I've been told that a body was found, but my next memory is waking up in a cell, bound and gagged. They'd faked my death, for their own reasons."
"How did you feel?"
"Furious." Sara gave a short laugh. "Dizzy from being hit on the head, but mostly angry. I've been shot at plenty of times, but I wasn't used to losing. It's not something we're trained to do."
That got a rumble of soft chuckles out of the rest of the live audience.
"Were you afraid?"
"Of course." Sara nodded. "No one in their right mind wouldn't be, but I was more concerned with what they were going to do to me next, and if I could escape. Which, obviously, did not happen since they had thought things through."
"Did they ever tell you what they wanted with you?"
"Information, and the chaos my reported death would cause. They never said anything about using me as a hostage, though I suspect it was in the back of their minds. After all, they didn't kill me, even when I wouldn't talk, no matter what they did to me. I kept expecting them to do it, and they didn't."
"Do you know how long they tortured you?"
"Several months," Sara replied. "They moved me a couple of times too, and I was never sure where at the time, not until they dumped me in a Drachman maximum security prison. After a few more months, it seemed like they had just forgotten about me. I know now that they stopped coming right about the time the combined Amestrian-Xingese forces ended the coup in Xing, and blew up the Syndicate's secret headquarters. It seems, at that point, that the Drachmans had little interest in what happened to me, except that they weren't going to let me go."
"Why do you think the government didn't step in?" Lisa asked.
"I don't think the legitimate Drachman government even knew I was there," Sara replied honestly. "The first prison was a privately owned one. Probably whoever was in league with the Syndicate. After they were destroyed, well, being associated with them wouldn't look very good, would it? It was better for them to forget I existed. So, I was transferred, more than once."
"Do you know why?"
At that, Sara grinned. "Probably because I kept blowing holes and leading revolts and causing them a lot of trouble. That's why they blocked my alchemy…and why they destroyed my leg." She gestured at her knee, and she knew that one camera was panning down to give the viewers a shot of the bulky-wrapped knee under skirt fabric.
"That, and locking me up in solitary confinement for weeks at a time. Re-breaking the leg was a favorite way of keeping me immobile." The quiet gasps of horror from the audience were gratifying, and she was sure they would be picked up by the microphones.
"Is the damage permanent?" Lisa asked sympathetically.
"Some of it. Thankfully, our brilliant medical engineers here in Central tell me they can replace part of my knee with a modified, internal auto-mail knee. It's a groundbreaking new design. I'll be undergoing surgery to repair the damage and install the new structure. After physical therapy, I should have a lot of my mobility back, though that will take several months."
"That must be frustrating."
"Honestly, I've been hobbling around on it without pain relief for more than half a decade, thinking it was permanent. While the waiting does get frustrating, I'm much more excited about the possibility of being able to walk and run again, and get back to doing something productive."
"Do you know what you'd like to do?"
"Ideally, I'd love to go back to helping train Amestris' State Alchemists. Physically, that may or may not be possible. If not, I'll have plenty on my plate anyway, serving as the wife of the President of the Military and, I hope, depending on how things turn out in Drachma, bringing the inequalities and brutality of their prison system to light, so the government can fix what is clearly a broken system… full of many people who were not legitimately criminals. I was not the only politically-inconvenient prisoner lost and forgotten in a work camp in the frozen north."
"Worthy goals." Lisa's expression continued to be professional, but also sympathetic. "Were you surprised to find out your husband was President?"
"Absolutely." Sara allowed a more sincere, open laugh. "Not that I ever doubted he'd have been good at it, after working with Mustang, Breda, and Rehnquist. I'm just grateful he called in the strike team that rescued me, when there was no reason to believe it was actually me at all."
"About that… tell us about your rescue, and how you ended up in Petrayevka."
This was the part that had required the most careful pre-planning. "To answer the second part first, I was taken there by Valhov himself, though he only used a code name in my hearing. He was one of the Drachmans who had been secretly in league with the Syndicate, and when planning for the coup ramped up, he pulled me out of the prisons and made me his personal prisoner, offering me minor comforts if I would give him information. It was a chance to regain my strength, to find out what was going on in the world. I pretended to go along with it, feeding him subtle misinformation; things that would seem to check out. That worked until he started demanding things I couldn't hedge, and I told him no." She paused then, and took a sip of her water.
"After that, they went back to torture methods, and drugged me, and I lost track of a few months. Then, as you've probably already heard some reports, I was rescued. I never would have expected it, but I didn't realize I was in a populated area either. Amestrian intelligence agents, who had been hiding in the city undercover, were sent to where I was when intelligence traced the television broadcast. They snuck in and pulled me out, and took me back to the vehicle they had waiting. By the time I was lucid and conscious, we were already a hundred miles away."
"An amazing rescue," Lisa nodded enthusiastically. "It is truly incredible that you held on all this time. Now, I understand there is something you would like to say, to address those who still have questions about what information was, or was not given, to the Drachmans under torture."
"There is." Sara took that moment to turn and look at the pre-determined camera that was more out-front towards the crowd. "I can understand why, given the current situation, people would wonder, and question. I do not blame anyone for that, or for their fear or suspicion, but I have never been, and never will be, a traitor to my country. I was prepared to die, and indeed expected to die, for years. It did not happen. If Valhov had not overplayed his hand and revealed that I might not, in fact, be dead, then I probably would be dead now. I am just grateful for a country that wasn't willing to let even a probable fake die needlessly, because Amestris is better than that."
"Thank you, Sara."
From there, they moved into the questions from viewers that had been collected via phone and from that day's audience, which was much more of a mishmash of non-political interest questions and concerns; including what kind of food and sleep accommodations existed in Drachman prisons, the type of work they made her do, how many times she had tried to escape. Those, she included a few details of the almost-successful ones. The ones that made the most interesting stories, and spotlighted some of those who had tried to escape with her, as the victims they truly were. There were questions about if she was happy to see her family again, and what she wanted to do now that she was free.
Finally, it was done, she was thanked, and they went to the final commercial.
"How was that?" she asked, as Franz materialized beside her to help her up and off stage.
"Perfect," Lisa assured her with a bright smile as she walked beside them. "The people will eat it up, not only because it's true, but because they will want to believe you. You've become a bit of a legend in the past few years, and no one wants to think of legends as flawed, real people, but they start to lose some of what made them that way in the first place over time. You've shown them you're real, and you didn't talk down to them. You didn't get defensive, and you were kind, compassionate, and brave, but human. It's the perfect balance."
"I was just being myself," Sara pointed out, focusing on remaining balanced until they got off-stage, and he eased her down into the wheelchair.
"Which is exactly everything she said." Franz grinned. "You were wonderful."
