Title: Mister Glasses
Summary: Sometimes, Gracia Hughes caught her daughter talking to someone she could not see. One-shot, manga and FMA2003 compliant
Rating: K
Disclaimer: I do not own Fullmetal Alchemist. This is merely for entertainment purposes.
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"Would you like some more tea?" Gracia paused in her walk down the hall towards her daughter's room and wondered who on earth her little girl was talking to. Stepping further, she heard Elicia's piping voice respond to an unheard reply. "Oh, I promise there's plenty!" Peeking around the doorframe, she saw her daughter sitting at the play table that Maes had purchased for her, her dirty blonde hair tugged up into a pair of pigtails. She rarely allowed for another hairstyle because she had always insisted her daddy loved it the best. It had been over a year since Maes's death and for some reason Elicia's distress that her daddy was never coming home had seemed to wane. At first, Gracia had thought this well and good, that her baby girl was recovering or perhaps forgetting a little.
And then she had come to realize her daughter had developed an invisible friend.
She watched sadly as Elicia pantomimed pouring tea into a little china cup at a setting on the other side of the table where an empty chair sat. "Enjoy!" chirped the little girl before again pantomiming serving some tea to the two occupied chairs, one containing Miss Renee, her pretty doll, and the other containing Mister Socks, a stuffed toy cat. She chattered not really to the two toys but rather to that empty chair. Gracia watched quietly, remembering the times that Maes would sit across from her and play tea party. He had, she recalled, always deferred a second cup before willingly bowing to Elicia's insistences of having more.
The little blue eyed girl seemed to twitch after a moment, perking up slightly, and then turned to her mother. There'd been no signal or word from Gracia but perhaps she'd sensed her mother's gaze.
"Mommy!" chirped the child. "We're having tea! Wanna have some?"
"Sure, sweetie," acquiesced Gracia, moving to sit at the empty spot.
"Not there!" Shifting in surprise, the widow blinked at her daughter. "Mister Glasses is sitting there! You're gonna smush him!"
Going along with it, Gracia asked, "Then where do I sit? The other chairs have Miss Renee and Mister Socks." Elicia hesitated, giving a considering look at the chair before sagging slightly.
"I guess you can sit there," she said quietly. "Mister Glasses said he had to go somewhere."
Curiosity further piqued, Gracia sat down primly in the chair, arranging her legs so that she neither kicked the table nor sat with her knees were thrown wide open. "Who is Mister Glasses?" she asked. Her daughter had never named her imaginary friend before, but she supposed that was well enough.
"Mister Glasses has glasses," Elicia offered, pantomiming tea pouring again. "One lump or two?" The little china sugar bowl had nothing in it save the little tongs, but Gracia smiled and replied.
"Just one." Studiously, the four year old did as directed and her mother pushed again. "So, Mister Glasses has glasses?"
"Yes," the blue-eyed child said importantly. "And blue eyes and he's really funny. He makes jokes a lot and likes to take tea and likes to play with me. He doesn't help me clean up my room, though." She pouted at that.
"He doesn't?"
"No," she pouted further. "He says to clean my room because it'd make you happy." She certainly had been keeping her room up far better lately. Maes had spoiled her rotten, getting her so many toys that it was plain ridiculous. Yet somehow she'd remained the sweet, capricious child she saw before her right now.
"Well, Mister Glasses sounds like a really good friend."
"You don't want your tea?" Suddenly reminded of the empty teacup before her, Gracia laughed and said that she indeed wanted the cup before faking a sip. "I don't know why he doesn't stay when you come, Mommy." Blinking at the disconsolate words, the mother wondered at that.
"What do you mean?"
"When you come, he says he has to go do something. Always and always."
"And what does he do?"
"He doesn't tell me! I've asked but he never tells." Elicia gave her a pleading look. "Couldn't you talk to him?"
"Well, I've never seen him, so I don't know who he is." She wasn't sure how to handle this. It seemed she floundered so much more without Maes at her side.
"Well, he's not quite a grown up like you. He's like Big Brother Ed's age. He's got glasses and short brown hair and he smiles a lot." Elicia described what could have been at least a quarter of the teenage male population with that, but Gracia knew her daughter's imaginary friend was no actual teenage boy. "He's got blue eyes, too. Like Daddy had." And like that, Elicia wilted. "He reminds me of Daddy." Her voice was soft and sad and Gracia stood to move about the table and crouch at her daughter's side. Without any warning, though the widow expected it, Elicia lunged for her mother's neck and wrapped her little arms around it with a great sob. "I miss Daddy!"
Astonished by the emotion, Gracia hugged her daughter to her and felt tears sting at her eyes.
"Oh, baby. I do, too."
"Why did he have to leave?!" wailed the child. Rocking her most precious child, Gracia wondered why he had to as well. She didn't have an answer. The person who had killed her husband had been declared to be Maria Ross, a Second Lieutenant and someone that Maes had known before his death. She'd briefly met the woman and had not thought her capable of the murder. Roy had visited her sometime after that eclipse and the fighting in Central to tell her about who had been responsible for her husband's death. To find out the Second Lieutenant had been framed had been almost welcome. To find out the actual murderer of her husband was dead, had committed suicide by his own hands, had been for a brief moment vindictively wonderful. She knew Roy had not told her of everything, but the fact was that Gracia knew that the man who had destroyed her family was no longer among the living.
And then, Maria Ross herself had come along and offered her apologies. Gracia had accepted them, of course, and had even invited her over for dinner.
But that was neither here nor there. Her daughter needed her in that moment. "I don't know," she half-lied. It was a half-truth, too. "I don't know why he had to go." He hadn't explained it to her. It had been Roy and the Elrics vaguely sketching things out for her that she knew as much as she did.
"Didn't he love us?" sobbed her baby and her heart tore. Tears streamed down Gracia's face and she found herself crying, too.
"He loved you so much, baby girl. He loved you more than life itself." Smoothing at her daughter's hair, Gracia rocked them both though it was more for her comfort now than Elicia's. "And I know he'd come back in a heartbeat if he could." Her daughter's sobs didn't abate for some time but eventually Gracia heard her quiet and fall asleep.
It was a little awkward, gathering her daughter up and then standing to put her in her bed. Maes, she thought, would have been able to do so far easier than her. Tucking sheets in about her exhausted child, she started at the sound of words.
"Not really." Spinning, she saw a teenage boy just as Elicia described. And she found herself pressing a hand to her mouth in shock even as he smiled and pressed a finger to his. "Shh," 'Mister Glasses' murmured. "Don't want to wake her." That playful gesture, those familiar eyes… And the form was translucent. She could see that gigantic bear her husband had bought through him.
"Maes?" He nodded and then held up a stalling hand when she reached for him.
"No touching," he cautioned. "I'm not much more than a ghost, but if you touch me I'll disappear from your sight."
"You've been watching out for her," she breathed in awe. Again, he nodded. "Why do you look like this?" Gesturing, she indicated his teenager appearance.
"I don't want her to know." He gave that wry smile, so very familiar, and spoke again before she could. "It's not that I don't want her to, but I want to help her move past this… mess… You know?" And then he fixed her with a very stern look. "And I want you to, too."
"What does that mean?" she demanded in confusion.
"Move on, Gracia," he told her sadly but warmly. "Go on. Have another husband. Have more children. I'd rather you not be alone for the rest of your life. And I don't want you dead anytime soon."
"I'll never find anyone like you again," she returned.
"I never said to replace me, you know," he remarked wryly. "Just, find someone. Anyone. I don't care if the guy is military or just a civilian. I want you happy and I want you to move on."
Gracia realized in that moment how utterly insane this was. The image of a teenager version of her dead husband was standing there looking at her and telling her to move on. As if sensing her incredulous thoughts, he stepped forward and seemed to morph into the man she'd lost and she felt tears stream down her face.
"I am sorry," he murmured as he lifted a hand. Brushing it down the side of her face, she watched him vanish and cried more. There was the phantom touch of lips on hers and then it faded. A tumult of emotions shuddered through her and she cried and felt overjoyed and so lost and so wonderful. She clung to the words he'd given her.
Starting, she woke up and then cried anew. Had it been a dream? Had she really just imagined him being there if only briefly. Looking over to the empty side of the bed, so long cold, she felt tears slide down her cheeks. "Oh, Maes," murmured the distraught widow before sitting up. She had a day to prepare for and lying about in bed was no good.
When her daughter came to breakfast, all the evidence of Gracia's sorrow had been carefully stowed away. And then, she asked, "Elicia?"
"Yes, Mommy?"
"Who do you talk to when I'm not around?" Bright blue eyes blinked up at her mother and she smiled toothily.
"Miss Sunny, Mommy. She likes yellow and she wears a bright dress." As she chattered on, Gracia wondered at her dream and if she'd just imagined it all.
But when she went to the market, Elicia clinging to her skirt, she bumped into a man. He wasn't a young man by any means nor was he old. But there was something in his eyes that caught her attention and for a moment she felt like she could possibly take Maes's ephemeral words to heart.
"Sorry, Miss," he said, gathering up the apples he'd accidentally knocked over when they'd collided. "I wasn't watching where I was going, but I have to say I couldn't have picked a prettier lady to run into even if I'd tried."
Even as Elicia watched in confusion, she chuckled. "Well, that's a sweet thing to say. But, no harm done." Looking down, she smiled at her daughter. "Come on, sweetie. Let's get out of this man's way."
"Yes, Mommy."
Yes, perhaps not right now. Perhaps not even in the next year. But Maes was right, even if it was just a dream. She couldn't live alone for the rest of her life. And he'd be so mad at her if she gave up while their daughter still needed her. Walking with a lighter step, Gracia continued to buy for that evening's meal and there was a smile on her lips that seemed to lighten the atmosphere about her. And she knew that her world lacked the love of her life still but that it did not mean she could not find a second love of her life and live fully as Maes would definitely want her to do.
Standing off some ways away was an unseen man, watching the blonde woman and her equally blonde daughter through rectangular framed glasses. He watched with a slight smile and then nodded in a satisfied way before looking up. "Well, that'd do it I suppose." He cocked his head as though hearing somebody talk. "I don't expect it to happen right away. That'd be ridiculous. But at least they'll be better off now." And after another pause, he burst out laughing and disappeared… though no one had seen him to begin with.
Elicia turned suddenly, eyes peering about for the source of that so very familiar laugh. Not seeing anything, she returned her gaze back to her mother and then begged for a couple oranges.
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Author's Note: A dream from the beyond. Ah, yes. I've had one of those. My mother's had two. There have been others that have had them. And for some reason my grandfather still comes around eighteen years after his death. Not that I mind. Not that I wish him to stop. And I have indeed woken up crying at such a wonderful dream.