Work Text:
When Franziska came into the Prosecutor’s Office with a smile, everyone thought it was a Christmas miracle.
“It’s just ‘cause it’s cold,” says one of the senior prosecutors. “You know how much she hates the summer.”
They’re not wrong, technically. Franziska does hate the heat, and she is glad that it is currently 8 degrees celsius (stubbornly using the metric system, she’s European) in the normally scorching hot, hell-on-Earth Los Angeles. It’s not freezing cold, but it’s not hot either, so it’s acceptable, and she is content with this, but not even favourable weather could make the prodigious I-became-a-prosecutor-at-thirteen Franziska von Karma walk into the office on Christmas Day with an honest-to-god smile on her face. No, actually, it would take a lot less than that.
“Ha,” a detective says. “Maybe she likes to see other people working on Christmas day.”
Well, of course she does. Autopsies and paperworks don’t just finish themselves, you know.
No one would have guessed it, not even her dear, foolish adoptive brother who likes to think he knows everything, but Franziska is going to spend Christmas Day with her girlfriend. Yes, she is perfectly aware of how awfully juvenile the word sounds and how embarrassing it is that she can’t stop herself from smiling at the mere thought of spending Christmas with her, and yes, Edgeworth knows, so she supposes he does know everything. Spending Christmas with her adoptive brother has become an annual routine, after all, so when Franziska told him that she’d be spending the day with someone else, it was only natural that he’d ask about it.
“Oh, I see,” Miles had murmured meaningfully. (Franziska wanted to smack him for that. Damn you, Miles Edgeworth—I don’t ‘Oh, I see’ you whenever you decline an invitation to a five-star dinner because you wanted to eat instant spaghetti at Phoenix Wright’s! ) “Well, I hope you have a pleasant time. Please send my kindest regards to Ms. Fey.”
Ms. Fey. Oh my God, she’s smiling like an idiot again. Like a fool.
“Focus, Franziska,” she hisses at herself, closing the door behind her a little too loudly, even for her. “You only have to spend eight hours in this godforsaken precinct, and then you can be on your way. Calm yourself—just because you have a date doesn’t mean you can act like a fool.”
That seems to work. Just because you have a date doesn’t mean you can act like a fool, she repeats to herself. Just because you have… a date… Oh my God, I have a date. With Maya Fey. On Christmas Day. I will be spending Christmas with her. I —
Franziska covers her face with her gloved hands. She has a date. And she’s so screwed.
“There you are!” Maya’s winter coat is far too big and bulky for her, and it makes interlocking arms a little awkward. “So, how was work?”
“Um, it was… as productive as it can get, given the circumstances.” The ‘circumstances’ being, I couldn’t stop thinking about you, so I only finished half the work I could’ve done in a day. (In Franziska’s defence, her 20% effort is everyone else’s 80%, so she probably still got more work done than all the other prosecutors combined.) "It is Christmas, after all."
“Yeah, working on Christmas doesn’t sound like a lot of fun. I bet everyone was just dying to go home,” Maya grins in a way that makes Franziska feel like the spirit medium knows something she’s not supposed to, and adds, “By the way, a little birdie told me that a certain someone came into the prosecutor’s office with a huge smile on her face…”
Franziska’s eyes widen a fraction before narrowing with all the danger and resolve of a hawk. “I am going to murder Miles Edgeworth.”
“Aah! Nonononono! It was a joke, it was a joke! Please don’t kill Mr. Edgeworth!” Maya’s reddened hands—this foolish girl, she must have forgotten her gloves again—make contact with her shoulders, shaking them and snapping Franziska from whatever murderous tirade she was about to go on. “It… It’s nothing to be embarrassed about! I-I mean, practically the same thing happened to me! I got so excited to see you that I forgot my gloves at home, then I took the wrong train, then I got off the wrong stop, so I had to take a train 3 platforms away…”
Franziska, who hasn’t quite recovered yet, offers her an incredulous stare. “That’s not the same thing at all!”
“I know, I know! But… I mean…” Maya sighs, avoiding Franziska’s gaze as her cheeks turn so red that Franziska couldn’t tell if it was from embarrassment or the cold. “It’s stupid, but I... I’m glad you’re as excited about this as I am, since you’re so busy all the time with, y’know, Interpol work, and… I’m just really, really happy that we could spend time with each other tonight.”
Her eyes meets Franziska’s, whose gaze gradually grows softer, a smile making its way to her lips.
“I assure you, it is not foolish at all, Maya Fey,” she says. “I, too, am nothing but grateful and content that we had the chance to see each other tonight, and that you would go through such great lengths just to see me.”
Maya smiles, and she takes Franziska by surprise in a tight hug that she gladly returns, only with less force and without the excited squeal. They lock eyes with each other before sharing a kiss, after which Franziska buries her head in Maya’s shoulders.
“Maya.”
“Mm?”
“You must let me pick you up next time.”