Lullaby

Copyright Notes: I don't own any of the wonderful characters of Fullmetal Alchemist, though I wish I did. Any characters you don't recognize are mine. Obviously.

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He didn't remember ever asking for a kid. Not that he didn't positively adore the human perpetual motion experiment; he just didn't find it to be very fair. She was the one who wanted kids. Hell, she was the one who wanted to get married too. And look where both of those had gotten him: in the middle of a divorce with a kid he didn't know how to care for, and close to moving back into military housing for not paying bills.

And then he'd just have to see her more.

The last he heard about her was that she moved into housing again after lasting only a month or two with her mother. He laughed to himself a bit at that thought. That woman always was a bitter, self-indulgent bitch. He paused at the thought, contemplating why he suddenly felt a surge of guilt. This was terribly unlike him, so it was immediately expelled from his brain with interrupting thoughts of Like mother, like daughter and a satisfied grin. Though it did serve her right to have to suffer by-

"Daddy?"

The tiny voice startled him. He hadn't noticed the little girl lying with her head gently on his lap had awoken. He managed to put together a mumbled, "Yes sweetie?"

"Daddy, aren't you going to answer the door?"

He hadn't even heard the persistent pounding on the door. Swiftly throwing a white t-shirt over his head, he rose to walk across the room. With his head already through and one arm tangled up in a twisted sleeve, he opened the door without looking through the peephole first.

Mistake number one.

A rush of blue clothes and hot air flew inside, nearly knocking him over from the force of the door swinging.

"HAVOC GOD DAMMIT! Where the FUCK have you been? I've been trying for the past TWO WEEKS to get a hold-" Refreshing. He couldn't say he didn't miss the sight of Mustang. "-haven't shown up at the office, won't answer any-" He couldn't say he missed the yelling though. "-obviously haven't fucking cleaned the damn place; I THOUGHT we had this shit figured-" Ok, so maybe the yelling was a bit justified, but Jesus Roy…wrap it up. He shifted his weight, arms folded, and watched Roy madly pace across the room, his white gloved hands flailing wildly as he spoke. "-and I've been DEFENDING you! And I come here to see-" Spoke? Screamed. Screamed louder than he'd ever recalled Roy screaming, actually.

"-and Jesus fucking Christ Havoc, FIX YOUR DAMN SHIRT!"

Havoc glanced down, seeing the shirt still bunched, covering only one arm and obviously barely any of his chest. Never the one to be bashful, he defiantly put his hands on his hips and coolly said, "But that's the look I'm going for. I call it 'Sexy Disheveled.'" He struck a pose and ran a hand down his muscles. "Don't act like you're not impr-"

WHACK. On the ground.

Mistake number two.

"Do not joke about this Havoc," Roy said as he leaned over Havoc's body, his right hand placed firmly around the neck of his victim. "I am not in the mood." He pivoted sharply on his heels and faced the hallway.

"I see that…" Havoc mumbled.

Looking over his shoulder, Roy sneered, "What was that?" and then there was just the glare. The famous (or maybe infamous) Mustang stare that everyone feared – military or otherwise. Havoc was not immune.

"Nothing…" he managed, one hand busy rubbing the left side of his jaw as the other wriggled his shirt finally into place. He didn't recall ever being hit by Roy, and never so hard by anyone. For a moment he pitied any man who'd ever fought the Colonel. Of course he supposed that was with good reason; no man to fight Mustang had ever won. The great majority ended up charred to perfection, just well-done enough to sustain life but not retreat. It was a talent, that's for sure.

After a moment he tried to gather himself, pushed up from the ground, and rose to…see no one in the room? Listening carefully, he faintly made out a barely audible sob and a low rumbling, but still soothing voice. He followed the noise, trailing back to the tiny yellow room at the end of the hall. The voice became distinct now, as did the sobs, and he paused outside the doorway.

"But-but-but…but you hit Daddy Uncle Roy! And-and…you said the words he says that I'm not supposed to say! And Mommy yelled at me when I said those, and you should get yelled at too!"

It was sweet really. After everything he'd just gotten yelled at for (which was all indisputably true), she still defended him. Adults don't seem to have that loyalty, he thought to himself with a resentment he blamed solely on one woman. A sense of irony crept through him.

"And I promise I will get yelled at. But sometimes big people get mad at each other and don't act the way they know they should. And I'm already very sorry for hitting Daddy; I'll tell him that right away. It's ok to get mad, but we just have to make sure we fix things. Because if we don't say sorry, we end up-"

"Like Mommy and Daddy?"

Silence.

Havoc peered around the corner. The poor girl was curled in a tiny ball in the corner of her tiny bed grasping her tiny blue blanket that Roy himself had given her. Roy squatted at the side of the bed holding out his hands, maybe in hopes that they'd be grasped by tiny fingers. Maybe I should field this one, he thought, and decided quickly it was best.

"There you are angel…Daddy's sorry about all the noise."

The small girl seemed to fly off the bed and across the room, landing precisely on top of Havoc's right foot and promptly attaching herself to his leg.

"It's ok Daddy, I won't tell Mommy about the bad words."

He feigned a smile.