September 14th, 1991
Despite what anyone might think, Edward would much rather have been anywhere but convalescing in his bed. He had no memory of the events after the agonizing pain in his skull as Franz' fist connected, and then the even worse pain as he hit the ground. Even yesterday, the day after, was a bit of a blur. Despite healing, his body ached from head to toe, and courtesy of the weather, it was worse in his ports. Somehow the combination was worse than he had come to expect, and the nausea that came with it was only lessened by lying in bed, with his eyes closed.
He was cognizant of Winry's comings and goings. She had made certain to bring him mild, easily digested foods at regular intervals so he had something down, and assist him in getting up or steadied if needed for the few moments it took for him to get up or down on his way to and from the restroom.
Besides that, he slept, and found it too difficult to focus to put much thought into what had happened, or even to put the pieces together. He remembered shouting, and arguing with Sara and then Franz. Some of what had been said was fuzzy, and it frustrated him that his memory wasn't razor sharp.
This morning felt slightly less miserable than yesterday. Though if there was ever a day where he felt old, this was definitely one of them. Still, he could open his eyes without throwing up today, and that was an improvement.
"I see you're awake," Winry commented as she came in with a breakfast tray. "Feeling any better?"
Edward attempted a nod, and it wasn't too awful. "A little. My skull doesn't feel like it's breaking anymore, and my stomach thinks that holding food might be permissible."
"Good, because this morning's oat porridge turned out particularly tasty. Or so says everyone downstairs."
Edward sniffed the air experimentally, and noted the scent of oats, and a hint of sweet. "Is that apples and walnuts?"
"It is." She sat down on the edge of the bed. "Do you need help this morning, or do you think you can eat on your own?"
"I'll feed myself thanks." It was the height of humiliation to be spoon-fed. Slowly, Edward sat up, and leaned back against the pillows and headboard. Then he took the bowl and spoon Winry proffered, and took a few bites. It was fresh and hot out of the pot, and the sweetness of small baked pieces of apple, and the bite of the walnut made a pleasant counterpoint on the tongue. Yet the flavors were gentle, and he didn't feel the surge of nausea that had accompanied everything he had managed to eat yesterday. Feeling heartened, he dug in.
Winry smiled, clearly relieved. "That's better. I have tea as well, when you're ready. You've had everyone pretty worried; you know."
"Everyone, or just you?" Edward asked between bites, though he smiled knowingly as he said it.
"Well, me most," Winry acknowledged, reaching out a free hand and resting it on the blankets over Edward's leg. "But everyone cares. Sara's been particularly anxious, and Franz has been in a state of near panic. He feels terrible about what happened."
"Good." Edward spoke between bites. "Because that hurt." His pride, as much as his body. The simple facts were that he had not seen the hit coming, had not blocked or dodged it, and that he had tripped and fallen instead of even catching himself. "How bad was it?"
"Well, before Ethan got to you, you had enough bruises you were starting to look more like a spotted cow. Fortunately, you didn't sustain any major damage."
"That's still about how I feel," Edward admitted. He hated not bouncing back the way he used to. "I shouldn't have provoked him."
Winry leaned in and kissed him on the forehead. "You shouldn't provoke a lot of people, but you do anyway. Franz hasn't told anyone what the two of you said to each other. Are you going to be any more enlightening?"
Well, that was an interesting development. "Not even Sara?"
"Much to her frustration."
"If he didn't, I'm not really sure I should," Edward admitted. If Franz was that ashamed, maybe he wanted to keep it between the two of them, where the issue belonged.
Winry looked frustrated, but clearly, she knew when not to bother arguing, or maybe she just didn't want to argue while he was sick. "Are you up to talk to either one of them yet? They've been lurking around since yesterday."
It took only a few seconds for Edward to take stock of himself and shake his head. "I'd like to wait until I feel a little less…"
"Delicate?"
"I was going to say pummeled, or maybe exhausted, but sure, make me sound like porcelain."
Winry gave his leg a pat, and then stood up again. "Let me know when you're done with breakfast. I'll keep the others out until you're ready. But please, don't leave them hanging too long. They're starting to drive me a little crazy."
"I won't," Edward promised. When Winry left, he finished eating, and then settled back down into the bedding. In all honesty, he wasn't entirely certain how he wanted to address the situation now, and he didn't have the energy to deal with it yet. He knew he had crossed a line somewhere in his last comments, but a lot of the argument was still fuzzy. He didn't like that.
He also wasn't sure how he felt about Winry not getting on to him more about the other night. She hadn't argued or demanded that he apologize, or insist that he must have said something inappropriate. She was just worried about him, and leaving him to handle it. Somehow, it was incredibly unnerving.
Exhaustion weighed heavy, and before he knew it, he was drifting off again. Edward just hoped that when he woke up next, he would have a better idea of what to do.
Franz supposed he should be grateful that he had awoken this morning without a raging hangover, and also that Sara had chosen not to make a big deal out of it. Her anger over his momentary lapse in judgment in punching her father was at least less than it had been. He suspected that mostly had to do with her own guilt over getting into a shouting match with him that had resulted in Franz's shouting match with him.
It had been a shocking and horrifying moment when he felt his fist connect with Edward's face, and heard him go down, and the crack of his head against the ground. In that instant, Edward had gone from Fullmetal Alchemist, General, vigorous fighter, to injured old man. He hadn't meant to hit him, but to hear him voicing the worst, darkest, least flattering fears of Franz' own doubts about his ability had stung. He had always felt that overall, he had Edward's support, and that they were in agreement about most things.
Pulling up the very old past had been a low blow, though in a more reasoned frame of mind, Franz had to admit that it had probably not been a calculated jibe on Edward's part, but a reaction out of his own angers and frustrations. Franz and Sara had purposefully kept him out of the loop on what they were doing, knowing that he would object. It had not been an easy decision, but it had been necessary in order to keep things moving. Or so he had told himself at the time. They might have been able to argue Edward around—and possibly Alphonse and Winry, though even there Franz hadn't thought so—with enough time, but it was time they hadn't had.
Winry and Alphonse had gotten over any disappointments they'd had, or anger, at least as far as he knew and from what Sara had told him. If anything, nothing about their relationship or daily interactions seemed to have changed. Edward… well, he was always more complicated. Franz was just stuck on what to say to him or how to approach things. Cal's advice had been mostly observational, rather than effective plans of action.
Sara had made it clear that she intended to apologize to her father for what they had done, not because she no longer felt it had been the right thing to do, because she clearly did, but because she had not meant to hurt him like this. In a way, Franz was glad to see it. It was much more like the Sara he had known and loved before she had been taken from him, than the much more practical, driven, changed woman he had rescued. The longer she was home, the more the two seemed to blend together and find a balance.
Maybe he was just too concerned about his own pride. The last few years had been difficult, even when things were going as smoothly as the head of the Amestrian military could expect. Not that it had been particularly smooth at any point. His predecessors had never made it look easy, but they had always looked more than competent doing it. They commanded authority, respect, and occasionally fear when needed. They had all been a long hard act to follow. Most of the time Franz felt as if he had done a passable job, and measured up, and then there were moments he thought he might agree with some of Edward's assessment. His near obsession with finding Sara's killers and getting vengeance—no matter if it was called justice—had defined his rise in military prestige. He had thought he had put it behind him when he buried himself in the role of President of the Military, but that had been proven violently wrong the moment Sara's screams had echoed across the miles in that one television broadcast. There hadn't even been a way to be sure that it was really her, but somehow, he had just known… and it had all come right back to him.
Sara was the center of his soul. He had been broken without her. With her, he had been subsumed. So much of the plan that had ultimately succeeded had been her ideas, her follow-through. It reminded him of how much he had felt, upon initially taking the office, that it should have rightfully belonged to her.
Yet the time was long past for Mustang-style power plays. They had succeeded, but he had not been willing to fight to hold on to the position any longer when it became clear that he had overstepped the bounds of the authority he held. At least, he had in the eyes of the other Generals, and they had begun to plot against him. He had avoided them deftly, but only barely.
He couldn't regret it too much though. He had Sara back; the vibrant love of his life. Sara, whom Edward had also risked his life for, because she was his daughter. That was a relationship that had been around longer than Franz had been, and he wasn't the only one who loved her deeply, even if they were different types of love. It wasn't Franz keeping him out of military secrets that was angering Edward, Franz realized then… it was the fact that his daughter had done so. Not the Twilight Alchemist. Not General Heimler. Sara…
If the roles were different, and Trisha had ever done something like this to him in this kind of situation, Franz could only imagine how it would feel.
Maybe that was the key to all of this.
These were the through that swirled through Franz's mind most of the day prior, and that morning, as he tried to keep himself distracted and productive while they waited for Edward to either come out of his room, or be up for visitors. The longer he remained in bed, the worse Franz felt, and the more he worried that perhaps he had damaged his father-in-law more than Winry or Ethan were saying.
That, or maybe the old grouch just wanted to make him suffer. If that was the case, it was working.
The rain had lightened up overnight, so the new day was gray and dreary, but only damp. Not to be deterred by weather, he knew that most of the planning activities for the festival were back under way, just moved indoors if needed. So, Elicia and Alphonse left the house fairly early, and Lia went with them, eager to help out. Alyse soon followed on whatever mission Franz did not know, though she looked like she had definite plans. Eventually, Ethan left as well.
By mid-morning the only people in the house besides Edward, and Winry, were himself, Sara, and Cal, who said he just felt like lazing around for a bit after yesterday's adventures.
Franz decided to busy himself with something that took him away from the television and the others for a while, where he could think. Outside, he walked around back to where the altercation had happened the other night. It was clear that no one had been here since the fight. Rocks were out of place, and there were deep scuff marks and mud across the path. The pathway edging stones that Edward had tripped over were out of position. Slowly, carefully, Franz bent down and started setting things to rights. It only took about fifteen minutes to put everything back to where he thought it had been before. He had to admit that other than admire the over-all layout, he hadn't spent a lot of time ever really thinking about the careful placement of the garden, or how it was used for contemplation and calming the mind.
Of course, he hadn't spent very much time with a calm mind the last time he had been in Xing, either.
There was something calming even in the placement of putting it back in order. The satisfaction of the stones lining up, and the neatness of it all. He found the little rake that Edward used for the sand between the rocks, and traced a simple smooth pattern, so that the frantic scattered footsteps were neatly erased, and gone in the waves of sand that looked like water.
"That looks lovely."
He hadn't even heard Winry coming up behind him.
"I wanted to clean it up. It's my fault it's a mess." He took the rake back to the narrow little wooden storage shed, stained a deep reddish-brown, and put it away with the other tools Edward used specifically for this garden.
"I'm sure Edward will appreciate it."
"I wish I had your confidence."
"Well, you'll find out in a minute. He'd like to see you and Sara."
Franz hadn't expected that. "Both of us?"
Winry nodded. "Together. That was his request. I recommend you speak to him quickly. He's still pretty sore from the rain."
"I'll go now. Where's Sara?"
"Waiting for you."
Inside, Franz found a very anxious looking Sara standing at the bottom of the stairs, waiting just as Winry had said. She smiled nervously. "Well, we've been summoned."
Franz took her hand, and squeezed it. "I guess we'll know what he wants to say in minute."
Sara squeezed his hand back. "Let's go."
Sara couldn't help wondering how her father could manage to make a bed, piled with comfortable pillows, look like a throne, or the chair in the President of the Military's office, but somehow it managed to have that authoritative weight as they entered.
Seeing him there, she knew at once that her mother had not exaggerated her father's condition. Healing or not, the past day had clearly been miserable. He looked pinched, as if he had been ill, but not small as he sat upright, radiating a little more of the natural charisma she knew him by.
He watched them expectantly, calmly as they came in, and closed the door, standing close together. First, he looked at Franz for a long, considering moment; then Sara. It was just long enough that Sara knew that, when she was younger, she would have been fighting not to squirm in front of him. The fact that she even had a remnant of that feeling now told her just how off-kilter it felt to be this at odds with her father again after all this time. It wasn't the first time they had fought, but it had been a very long time.
She wasn't entirely certain if he was waiting for them to speak first, until he opened his mouth.
"A few years ago, back before we went into Aerugo for the first time, I told you that you were a State Alchemist and a soldier, and my personal feelings couldn't stand in the way of your career, or the needs of Amestris. At the time, we didn't have any disagreement about what that meant… the needs of Amestris. But that doesn't mean that the statement is any less true just because I disagree with you."
A few years? That was a severe understatement; it had been decades. The Aerugo War had started in nineteen-fifty-one… forty years ago.
"You should have trusted me. Of course, I wasn't going to like it, but that doesn't mean I would have stopped you. Still, I'm sorry for getting on to you so much about it. How I feel is my problem."
"No…it's not," Sara blurted, even before she knew the words were coming out of her mouth. "I mean it is, but it's not just yours. We wanted to protect you, and Mom, and Uncle Al from the political repercussions we knew would be coming, but we didn't give you the chance to choose for yourself. I can't apologize for making the choices we did in ending the conflict in Drachma, but I'm sorry that it hurt you. That was never what I wanted, and I hope you know that. Whatever has happened, I'm still your daughter, and I love you." It was far more emotional than she would normally have said it, but it was the truth, and apparently somewhere in her focus on the mission, that had gotten lost.
Her father's expression lightened a little; his muscles looked less tense. "Thank you, Sara. I love you, too." He looked expectantly at Franz.
Sara also looked at her husband, who was the only one who had not yet spoken.
It had been a long time since she had seen Franz stand so stiffly. He looked as though he might be addressing a superior officer instead of his father-in-law. Or, in reconsidering that, she suspected the latter fact of their relationship might be the more intimidating at the moment.
Despite being a quiet, affable person most of his life, Sara knew Franz had always had a strong pride in the quality of his work, and a surety that in making a decision, he had considered it thoroughly and tried to come to the best decision possible. Not that he always succeeded, particularly where interpersonal relationships were involved, but most of the time he was spot on. It was something his superiors had always complimented him on in his evaluations.
"I would like to apologize for hitting you," Franz said when he finally spoke. "I lost my temper, and I didn't mean to strike. It was inexcusable."
"Hah!" Her father's cool calm cracked, and he snickered, and then he started laughing.
Franz looked confused, then irritated. "What's so funny?"
After several seconds, Edward seemed to get his amusement under control. He was grinning now, which to Sara was a reassuring thing to see. "Sorry, you were just so… formal. Given how many people I've punched in the face, or wanted to, that's the least of your worries." He wiped tears from his eyes with the back of his hand. "Thank you, by the way, for putting my garden back together."
Franz blinked. "How did you know?"
"I saw it from the window." Sara's father nodded to the one just a few feet from the bed, which did face out that side of the house. "You did a nice job."
"… You're welcome." Franz seemed to recover some composure. "I'm glad it meets with your approval."
Sara's father was relaxed now, and smiling. "We can discuss your raking technique at another time. I hope you got something out of it."
"I did, actually." Franz admitted. "There's a satisfaction in it."
That was it? Sara looked between them before focusing on her father. "So… are we okay now?"
Edward nodded. "If you feel like we are. You've already said everything I needed to hear, and the look on your faces told me everything else. I don't think we're ever going to agree about what happened, but it's over, and I don't want to spend the rest of my life at odds with you. At my age, that would be a real possibility."
Hearing him admit to advanced age was almost worse than shouting. It was an immediate reminder of the fact that Franz, of all people, had been able to land a blow on him. As comfortable as Sara found herself with late middle-age, the idea that her father was incredibly old was much harder to deal with. It was all right for her to age; she didn't like seeing her parents do it. As lively as they were, sometimes it was easy to forget until events like this one.
Sara broke the moment by crossing the room and bending over, catching her father up in a brisk hug.
Her father's arms wrapped around her, tightening in response. He held her that way for several seconds. "Don't worry, even without a philosopher's stone I'm not going anywhere yet," he murmured quietly.
Sara smiled. "Good. I'm not ready to let you go yet, and I never will be."
If there was a time Cal wished he still had the ability to sneak around and listen in on conversations, it would have been now, when he was dying to know what Fullmetal was saying to Franz and Sara upstairs. From the living room he certainly couldn't hear them, and Winry had refused to say a word to him when he asked her how it was going outside of "That's between them. He hasn't actually told me what he was going to say."
Judging from the lack of shouting, it was either going very well or very badly. Cal just wished he knew which one. Unfortunately, there was nothing he could do but sit there in front of the television, wondering. Oh, he supposed he could have gone and done something else for a while, since he was in his chair, but he didn't really have anything more interesting to do either.
So, he waited, with one of Al's cats asleep on his lap, for someone to come downstairs so he could find out what had transpired.
Eventually, over the sound of the commercial on the television, he heard a door open and close on one of the floors above, and a single set of footsteps. Judging by the weight of them, even before he could see behind him, Cal could tell it was Franz.
The footsteps hit the ground floor, and tracked into the kitchen. The refrigerator opened and closed, and then more footsteps, and Franz dropped down on the sofa a few feet from Cal, cracked open a bottle of pop—none of the elder Elrics kept alcohol in the house—and took a long swig.
Cal watched him for a moment. "Is that a victory drink, or a you're out of the will drink?" he finally quipped.
Franz took another drink, then sat back. "Edward is going to drive me entirely insane before I ever figure him out."
"After this long, I've given up." Cal shrugged. "There are only two people left in the world who might understand him, and those are Winry and Al." He wasn't sure any of the others who knew Edward well who had passed on could say they understood him either, but they weren't here to ask. "How did it go?"
"Fine." Franz looked at him, his arms laid out across the back of the couch. "He apologized. Sara apologized. I apologized. They hugged, and then we talked for a few minutes. Once it all got out in the open it just…kind of blew over."
"Maybe it just needed airing."
"I guess so. At least he hasn't threatened to kill me or remove me from the family."
"He can't even do that."
"Don't tell him that. He might take it as a challenge. It was just so strange, after decades to realize he can still make me feel like an awkward twenty-something, standing in his daughter's living room in my shorts, trying to explain what I'm doing there."
Cal tried to stifle a laugh, but it came out as more of a snort. "You're lucky he didn't kill you on the spot."
"Back then I thought he might have been considering it," Franz admitted. "But when Sara and I committed to each other, that was the end of it. He never made threats. He never looked at me sideways after that. When she… when we thought she was dead, he never stopped treating me as if I was a born member of the family. I forgot how incredibly intimidating he is when his fury is aimed at you. I think, I don't want to revisit that again."
"A wise decision."
"Your snark is unnecessary."
"But you should expect it anyway," Cal chuckled. "At least now that this drama is out of the house, maybe we can all just relax and enjoy this festival."
Franz nodded. "That sounds like an excellent idea."
