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When Sebastian leaves the prison after visiting her pops, she's shaking.
Franziska is waiting outside. She doesn't ask what happened, but when Sebastian goes to open the driver's-side door, Franziska crosses her arms and gives her a steely glare.
"Don't be a fool," she says. "I can take us home."
Sebastian tugs at the ends of her baton. "It's not as if anything actually happened," she says.
"Be that as it may, you're obviously in no condition to drive," says Franziska.
Sebastian relaxes her grip on her baton slightly. Franziska is right, of course, but she hates feeling inculpable. Incapable.
She gets in the passenger seat and hands Franziska the keys. Franziska takes off at exactly the speed limit, which of course means she's going slower than most of the cars on the road. She keeps her eyes fixed on the road and resolutely doesn't ask Sebastian what happened.
"They've set a date for his execution," says Sebastian softly. "It's not for almost another year."
Time enough for him to appeal. He's going to, of course. He's not the sort of person to just give up, not when there's a chance, however small, of raising some sort of procedural error and walking free.
Franziska doesn't take her eyes off the road. "You knew this was going to happen, did you not?"
Sebastian nods. She brushes a strand of hair out of her face. "Obviously," she says. She hesitates. "But — I still haven't told him about me, or us. I'm scared I'm just going to keep putting it off and putting it off and then one day it'll be too late."
"So you do intend to tell him, then?" asks Franziska. She's gripping the steering wheel a little tighter.
"I don't know," says Sebastian. She twists her baton in her hand. "I want him to know, but I'm not sure I want to actually have a conversation about it."
"If it's the conversation that's the issue, that seems eminently solvable," says Franziska. "You could write him a letter, or dispatch someone else to explain, or—"
"That's not the issue," says Sebastian. She glances down at her gloved hands, just for a second. "Did you ever tell your pops that you were a lesbian?"
Franziska hesitates. "It is not as if I was ever capable of lying to him," she says. "I have known since I was fifteen, and so he did too." She hesitates again. "He told me that if anyone else ever knew, it could lead judges to be less favorably disposed towards me, and that if I wanted to be perfect I should simply keep it secret."
Sebastian's pops has never encouraged her to perspire for a perfect record. She used to think it was because he wanted to make sure she didn't accidentally put an innocent person behind bars; as long as she can remember, he'd held von Karma in contempt. Not that he'd ever have said so in public, and not that she had been correct about the reason for his relentment.
Nearly a week later, Sebastian sits at the dining room table, staring at a set of case files spread out atop it. At least this way she's getting some proper use out of the table. Much like the rest of the house, it's far too large for just her and Franziska; it was built for entertaining guests, not for having romantic dinners.
She doesn't let evidence out of her sight, not anymore. Maybe it's her own sort of prosecutorial tic, like Franziska's whip or — what had the man's name been? Goddo? — Goddo's coffee. Or Pops's lighter.
"You should get to sleep," says Franziska from behind her. "It's important to get enough rest before a trial, and staring at the case file won't change the facts."
Sebastian taps her baton absent-mindedly against the edge of the table. "I know," she says. "I'm just ... nervous, I guess, that I'm going to mess something up, and then everyone who gave me a second chance will be disappointed in me. I keep feeling like I'm missing something important."
Franziska ruffles Sebastian's hair and lets her hands come to rest over Sebastian's. "This is supposed to be a routine case, correct? Do you believe it to be less routine than it appears?"
"No!" says Sebastian. She points to a printout of a blurry screenshot in the upper corner. "He was caught on tape committing the assault. There's more than enough evidence for a conviction. I guess I'm just scared that I'll say the wrong thing and he'll end up going free."
Franziska sighs. "The judge assigned to this case is frequently foolish," she says, "but he is not nearly so foolish as to allow a criminal to walk free simply because you were briefly tongue-tied. I have full confidence in your abilities."
Despite Sebastian's fears, the trial goes off without a hitch. She still can't quite shake the feeling that she's missing something, but when she plays the surveillance video for the court, the defendant starts shouting at his public defender, as if this is somehow the public defender's fault. The judge announces a guilty verdict, and someone in the audience throws confetti.
It's only afterwards, when the defendant looks her in the eye and says you're just like him, you know, almost the spitting image that she realizes what she was missing. Her parents' parties may have been a long time past, but now that he's reminded her, she can see him in her mind's eye holding up his hand to his waist and telling her how much she's grown.
She'd rather he have just called her an idiot. She'd rather be an idiot than "just like him."
It's almost enough to make her reconsider her plans for the afternoon, but Sebastian's been visiting her pops in prison every week for nearly a year now, and if she doesn't show up that'll be one more thing to explain the next week. Besides, what would she even say? "Someone compared me to you and it made me feel bad about myself" isn't the sort of explanation her pops would see as anything other than pathetic.
She runs her gloved fingers over the hem of her cherry-red cardigan. She and Franziska have talked over the best way to present the truth to him, like they're deciding what to say in an opening statement. She'd be happy in her suit, she likes her suit, but the last thing she wants is for him to somehow latch onto it as evidence that she's not really a girl. Maybe that's a silly thing to worry about, but it's not like she gets a second chance if she messes this up.
"Ah, Sebastian," says Pops. "And ... Ms. von Karma? Y'know, I can't say I ever expected to see you here with my idiot son."
Sebastian flinches. He's been calling her that for as long as she can remember, every time she made a mistake that he couldn't just make disappear. She used to think the only part of it that bothered her was the "idiot" part.
She points her baton at him. She and Franziska had rehearsed a speech, obviously, but it suddenly feels stupid to think he might see it as anything but a carefully-practiced lecture.
"Pops, I'm transgender," she says.
She can feel her hands shaking, see the way her pops is looking her up and down, picture the note of condensation that always, always laces his words. She wishes she could have Franziska step in and do all the talking, but they had planned for Sebastian to be the one to explain things, and she doesn't want to back down now.
"Y'know, I always thought I had an idiot for a son," says her pops. "But I guess I actually had an idiot for a daughter."
Next to her, Franziska exhales sharply, fingers dancing over her whip. Sebastian wishes she wouldn't. It's not like he's saying anything that isn't true.
"You still haven't explained why she's here, y'know," says her pops, gesturing at Franziska.
"We're dating, Pops," she says. "We've been dating for months."
He laughs. It shouldn't be scary. "Don't see why she'd bother staying around an idiot like you."
There are a lot of things she's tempted to say to him. At least I'm not going to have her killed, maybe. Instead of saying any of them, she stands up and turns toward the door.
"I'm done here, Franziska," she says.
Franziska nods. She squeezes Sebastian's hand. The two of them are getting up to leave when she hears her pops start to speak again.
"We were going to call you Irene if you were a girl, y'know," he says.
"It would be easier to hate him if he were awful all the time," she says.
They're sitting in Sebastian's car, holding hands as they watch rain beat against the windshield. It's supposed to let up in a few minutes. There's no harm in spending a few minutes longer in the prison's parking lot, apart from the fact that every time Sebastian looks up at the prison she thinks of Pops.
"Do you want to hate him?" asks Franziska.
Sebastian stares straight ahead, gripping the steering wheel tightly with her free hand. "He's a murderer, isn't he?"
"That's not what I asked," says Franziska.
Sebastian glances at her out of the corner of her eye. Franziska's eyes are downcast, and her free arm is reaching across her stomach, as if she's subcutaneously trying to cross her arms.
"No," says Sebastian softly. "I don't."
"Then don't," says Franziska. As if it's that easy to just decide how you should feel and then feel it. Maybe it is for her.
Somehow, Sebastian doubts it.
Franziska carefully pulls Sebastian's gloved hand to her mouth and gives it a brief kiss. "Regardless of how you feel about him, that doesn't have to affect the life you're building for yourself."
"Doesn't it, though?" says Sebastian. "You heard what the defendant said in court today—"
"Do you think your papa never prosecuted anyone who was clearly guilty?" asks Franziska. "It is not as if you have assassinated any political figures or forged any evidence or kidnapped any adolescents. To treat your actions as equivalent to his simply because you are both competent prosecutors would be absurd."
Competent. No one ever called her competent, even when her pops was still making them pretend to take her seriously. She's saved from having to figure out how to reply by the rain beginning to lighten up.
"We should get home," she says. "Love you, Franziska."
"Love you too," says Franziska. She hesitates for a moment. "Is it still acceptable to you if I call you Sebastian...?"
"...Frankly, I would prefer just about any other girl's name to Irene," says Sebastian. "I'm sure I'll settle on something eventually, but Sebastian is fine for now."
"Very well," says Franziska. "Love you too, Sebastian."