Author's Note:
I don't own the characters from Fullmetal Alchemist; I just like to borrow them and play for a while.
If you don't know where Mustang learned his alchemy and you squint really hard, there are spoilers in here.
This is a companion piece to The Flesh Failures and Let the Sunshine In; I suggest you read them in that order for this make more sense. By default of the content of the other two pieces, this piece is dark and deals with serious themes.
"We are missing something." The young prosecutor, Gabriella Cesaire, exclaimed as she poured over the headline news article on a dreary Tuesday morning. The cover story and all of its associated speculation and politics took up easily three-quarters of the morning paper. Plastered over the front page was a single-line headline printed in all capital letters: "FÜHRER MURDERED IN OWN HOME BY SECOND-IN-COMMAND". For readers who dare venture past the cover story, they would find that the news was more about one Riza Hawkeye and less about the recently murdered Führer, Roy Mustang. Cesaire sighed and folded the paper, making a mental note to clip noteworthy article from the paper later in the day.
"That's all fine and dandy, Miss Cesaire, but regardless this will be an open-shut case. The woman may as well have hung the noose around her neck herself—she turned herself in before the Führer's guards even knew the guy was dead." Adrian Montague, the chief detective of the military police force, rubbed his eyes tiredly. He had been called in at 0115 that morning to interrogate Hawkeye himself. "It's very hard to implicate oneself falsely for a crime that nobody knows about yet."
"You spoke to her, right?" Cesaire disregarded Montague's other comments, taking a long drag from her coffee mug.
"Of course I did. And she is going to be hell to work with, I might add. The woman's off her rocker. Second Lieutenant Havoc could paint a picture of what happened just by looking at her because he knew her so damn well." The aged detective rubbed the bridge of his nose, grumbling. "Just do yourself a favor and try not to get too nuts with this one, will you?"
"Me? Go nuts over a case?"
"I know you, Cesaire. You could well drive yourself batshit with this case. I know you want the answers, but no matter how hard you look you can't find answers that aren't there."
"Good afternoon, Miss Hawkeye."
When they had brought Riza Hawkeye into the dingy interrogation room, Cesaire had a moment's thought that they'd brought the wrong woman. She followed enough politics to know the face and stature of this confessed murderer, but the woman sitting across from her looked like someone else entirely. Hawkeye was murmuring to herself quietly, her hands slowly and methodically scrubbing over themselves as she sat, as if she were trying to remove invisible dirt from them.
"I'm Gabriella Cesaire, the prosecutor on your case. I wanted to talk to you about what happened last night…" She hesitated, tilting her head slightly. "Can we do that?"
"…Killed him…" Hawkeye shuddered in her seat and, as Cesaire watched, her left eye twitched. The hand scrubbing stopped briefly, just long enough for Hawkeye to try and wipe the tears from her eyes. "I killed him…I'm turning myself…no…turned…turned myself in…"
"I know that," the prosecutor replied gently. "You told me the part I know. Can you tell me about the part I don't?" Cesaire felt like she was trying to pry a traumatic story from a child who had witnessed a horrific event, not a dedicated and decorated Ishval veteran who would be running this country at this precise moment had she not turned herself in for murder.
Hawkeye shook her head jerkily, pulling absently on the handcuffs that kept her hands both together and in her lap. "T…that's it…I killed him…that's it…"
Cesaire sighed, now understanding just how difficult a witness Hawkeye was going to be. She could suddenly relate to how drained Detective Montague had been earlier. "Okay. Well, here I have this file about what happened last night. How about I tell you what's in it?" She waited for no response to her patronizing comment, opening the file she brought with her and placing it on the table in front of Hawkeye. Hawkeye did not look at it. "Here it says that you got to the Führer's home at 2300 hours on Monday night, and he dismissed his guards upon your arrival. Am I right so far?"
Hawkeye shivered in response, so Cesaire pressed on.
"Then here it says that you came to headquarters at 0100 this morning and told Second Lieutenant Jean Havoc that you were turning yourself in. He says that you approached him from the West Gate. Still right? Good. Lieutenant Havoc brought you to the station where you again stated that you were turning yourself in."
"I killed him."
"I know," Cesaire snapped, growing rapidly exasperated with her suspect. "At the precinct, it says here you surrendered your personal firearm, a black dress covered with blood, a pair of black shoes, an extra magazine clip for your personal sidearm, your shoulder holster, and what appears to be one of Führer Mustang's ignition cloth gloves—"
"Th…that was mine," Hawkeye choked out. "I…I needed…need that…"
"Why?" Cesaire tilted her head slightly. "Why do you need that?"
The older woman shuddered, her hands again scrubbing over one another, her shoulders and back ramrod straight and tense. "Need that," she whimpered, tilting her head downwards and removing her face from the prosecutor's questioning gaze. "I do need that. I just do. Why…did he do this…why?"
"Miss Hawkeye?"
But Hawkeye did not answer. She pulled at the handcuffs once again, sobbing. Then she pulled at her legs, the movement so sudden and jerky that she knocked her chair over. The guard that had been silently watching the interrogation quickly righted the chair, looking at Cesaire solemnly. "May I bring her back?"
"Yes," Cesaire sighed. "Please."
Cesaire returned to her office feeling defeated. Regardless of the woman's guilt or innocence, unless she became suddenly lucid there was little chance of her ever standing trial for what she'd done. And though there was already a very clear picture of what had transpired the night before at the Führer's home even without forensic analysis, she couldn't help but feel incredibly perplexed.
On her desk were the files she'd requested earlier that morning—both Riza Hawkeye and Roy Mustang's military personnel files. Pad and pen in hand, she began to dissect the files. There was valuable information hiding in these files somewhere, of that she was certain; it was just a matter of where.
After an hour of reading, she found little she didn't already know. They were both Ishval veterans, stationed at the same camp, though Hawkeye arrived for fieldwork a few months after Mustang. Hawkeye was only 16 when she'd been shipped off to active combat, before she'd even graduated the Academy. Her "Hawk's Eye" had earned her a place in a desert sniper tower and a reputation before she was even old enough to quite process what that might mean for her future. After the war, Hawkeye worked on Mustang's team for what amounted to the near entirety of her military career, barring a very short period of time working under then-Führer King Bradley. So normal were these two files that Cesaire nearly missed something that seemed critical. Though Mustang's home address upon enlisting was in Central City, he had joined up at the Eastern Academy—a distance of only a few kilometers from the home address Riza Hawkeye had listed.
It was time to do some digging.
It turned out that Riza Hawkeye had grown up in a very small town that was nearly a full twenty-four hours away from Central City by train. Luckily, Cesaire had found that many people who had lived there almost thirty years ago still resided in the same places, and that a handful of them still remembered the reclusive Hawkeye family.
"Little Riza? Of course I remember her. She did all the shopping for her father after her mother died. When her father took in an apprentice the boy occasionally helped her carry the groceries home."
Cesaire smiled—this shopkeeper might be her golden ticket. The elderly woman was sharp despite her advanced age; she'd jumped at the opportunity to talk about the woman who had made headline news across the country. "What do you remember about that apprentice?"
"Hmm…well, he was very bright. Had to be for Mr. Hawkeye to take him in as an alchemy apprentice. I think he was a hair older than Riza, two, maybe three years older than her. Jet black hair and dark eyes. He was a handsome little devil and he was constantly trying to get my daughter interested in him."
The shopkeeper laughed and Cesaire joined in. "Is there anything else you remember?"
"Oh yes. He had left for a while, maybe a few months, probably almost a year. When he came back he'd joined up! Mr. Hawkeye succumbed to his illness during that visit and he got all of the funeral expenses in order. He was such a good boy. I don't understand how all of this could have happened…"
"All of this?" Cesaire replied innocently.
"Of course. That's why you're here, right? Roy Mustang was Mr. Hawkeye's apprentice, and those two got along so well and I'll be darned if he's not the reason she enlisted as soon as she could. I just don't understand how our little Riza could've done this. And just the thought of why! It just breaks my old heart."
The mystery of Mustang's enlisting at the Eastern Academy was suddenly clear, but the fact that Cesaire's source was saying that the murderer and the murdered got along very well left Cesaire with the same question she'd come with: why.
It was early Thursday afternoon when she had gotten back to Central City, just in time to catch the tail end of the Führer's funeral. The assembly was huge, and from her vantage point it was painfully obvious that the man had little family to speak of. There was Second Lieutenant Havoc, a man who looked caught between cross and upset. She managed to catch him just as he was leaving the service.
"Lieutenant Havoc?"
"Uh…yeah. Can I help you?"
Cesaire smiled politely, bowing her head. "Gabriella Cesaire. I'm the—"
"Prosecutor on Hawkeye's case, I know. What do you need? I kind of have somewhere I need to be."
"How about I walk with you then?"
She could tell that Havoc was displeased with this suggestion, as his shoulders stiffened. He was frowning, but he relented. "Okay."
"I'm sure this has been a rough week for you, and I know you've spoken with Detective Montague several times, but I want to ask you something else." Havoc nodded, encouraging her to continue. "Would you say that they got along well?"
"Absolutely." Havoc answered so quickly that she felt like he couldn't have even thought about the question. "We…haha. It's funny to think about now, but the office had a…uh…a little bet going on way back when. On when they'd finally get together."
Havoc squirmed at the curious look he was getting from Cesaire.
"Well…you know. General Hawkeye might be furious with me for saying it—heck, even thinking it—but you know…she's always been an attractive woman. And we all knew Führer Mustang's always liked, well, he's always liked attractive women. Then think about how long they worked together and how good they were at it and you have to wonder when they'd get over themselves and do something."
She contemplated this briefly. "Do you think they were romantically involved?"
"Absolutely not. General Hawkeye lives by the rulebook, and the anti-fraternization laws are still in that book. Even if she wanted to, she never would. Too risky. She'd been used against Führer Mustang in the past and neither of them would want to fuel that fire. They just aren't risk takers like that."
They were standing outside the prison, Havoc with his hands buried deep into his coat pockets. "Is there anything else?"
"One other thing. Why do you think she did it?"
Havoc frowned, looking up at the building sadly, heaving a quiet sigh. "I wish I knew." Before she could even thank him for his time, he hurried into the building. Cesaire hung behind for a few minutes, watching the seconds tick by on her watch. When she was satisfied that enough time had passed, she followed Havoc in, asking staff to allow her to sit in the guard station closest to Hawkeye's cell.
Sure enough, that was where Havoc was headed. He sighed, looking at Hawkeye warily as she paced in her cell. From her vantage point, Cesaire could see Havoc's back and most of the small cell in which Hawkeye was confined.
"Hey Hawkeye. The funeral was today."
Cesaire could see Hawkeye stop dead in her tracks, stiffening like a rail. The frenetic disorganization faded suddenly. "Oh…"
"It was really sad." Hawkeye didn't respond to Havoc. "Damnit, Hawkeye. It's like the lights are on but nobody's home. You're like a different person. Don't you want to snap out of it? Maybe tell me you didn't do it? Something?"
But Hawkeye sank to the floor, her face in her hands as she dissolved into tears. "I'm a murderer," she whimpered. "I wouldn't…deserve to be at his funeral…because I killed him…"
Cesaire could see Havoc shudder, running his hands through his hair in clear frustration. "You have to have something else to say, Hawkeye. Don't you?"
It was quiet for a moment, before Hawkeye shook her head. "No…no…that's it…I killed him."
For a moment, Havoc hesitated, and then he sat on the floor in front of Hawkeye's cell. Cesaire would've given anything to see his face, and the fact that he was sitting made it harder for her to hear him. She strained to hear what he said next. "Hey Hawkeye, just between us…why did you do it?" Cesaire could sense that he was staring at Hawkeye, and from the way the blonde squirmed she could tell that the stare was having an impact.
"I can't," Hawkeye whimpered, sobbing. "Can't…"
On Friday, Cesaire was beginning to run out of ideas. She hesitated to even consider talking to Hawkeye again, at least not for some time. Havoc had been no help. She had a phone interview scheduled with now-retired Warrant Officer Falman and planned to visit Second Lieutenant Breda in the hospital in the next few days. Even with all of this planned, she still felt like the truth was slipping through her fingers, likely to be forever lost in Hawkeye's apparent madness.
Detective Montague had stopped by earlier that day and unceremoniously deposited two boxes on her desk. One contained the evidence from the crime scene at Führer Mustang's home: photographs, a single shell casing, Hawkeye's clothing, pistol, magazine clip and shoulder holster, and the ignition cloth glove she'd been holding when she arrived at the police station.
The photographs of the crime scene gave Cesaire a shiver. According to the ballistics reports and the medical examiner, Führer Mustang had been killed by a single bullet to the head, delivered execution-style to the back of the skull. It suggested quite a few things, not the least of which was that the Führer was most likely on his knees when the killing took place. The body had shown no other signs of having been bound, forced, or pushed in any way; aside from a brutal gunshot wound to the skull, Mustang's body was completely unscathed. That suggested one other crucial detail: because of Hawkeye's height and the positioning required for the bullet to enter his skull where it had, Führer Mustang must have known what was coming.
Another photograph showed where and how the body fell, proven by blood evidence. In that photo was a marker indicating where the detectives believed Hawkeye had been kneeling at the time of the murder. Cesaire was inclined again to agree on this front as careful examination showed that there were two indentations in the carpet where the detectives believe Hawkeye—more Hawkeye's shoes, really—had been when the Führer was killed.
The only photograph that truly unsettled her was one of the deceased Führer himself. Instead of lying face forward on the floor, as would have been expected because of the type of wound he'd received, he was on his back. This photo spoke volumes; she felt like it was screaming at her for inference. Hawkeye had moved the body. But even further perplexing was how it had been moved. Führer Mustang's body was lying comfortably on its' back, his hands carefully folded on his stomach, his eyes closed peacefully. His body had been tucked carefully under a blanket when it was found.
Nobody had yet to explain why, exactly, the confessed criminal had carefully moved, posed and then covered the body.
The second box was much easier to look at. It contained several "noteworthy" items from Hawkeye's home, along with some photographs. The apartment itself was sparse. Cesaire could tell from the photographs that Hawkeye kept her home immaculately clean. The box also contained a photo album, a picture frame, several pistols, a pair of ignition cloth gloves that most likely came from Mustang, and a few other items that had been removed from Hawkeye's home.
The photo album held some important information. The photos themselves were unremarkable, though they did show glimpse of the early years of Hawkeye's life. However, in the back of the album were several sets of hospital records. Many were unimpressive, though Cesaire thought it strange that Hawkeye had discharge paperwork for herself and Mustang.
There was one record that jumped out at her as odd. Just at the end of the Ishval war, there was a record pertaining to a severe burn wound on Hawkeye's back. The date matched up with an event listed as 'friendly-fire' in Hawkeye's official personnel record. Hawkeye had been brought to a small hospital near Eastern headquarters, unconscious. Two things stood out to her. The first was that the cause of injury was 'friendly fire', but the date was after the official end of the Ishvalan war—many soldiers were already well on their way home. The second was that all of the documents were cosigned by Mustang. It wasn't until that moment that Cesaire remembered that Hawkeye was only seventeen when she'd seen the battlefield. For whatever reason, Mustang was acting as her guardian when she couldn't sign the document for herself.
Cesaire made a beeline to the prison and, when Hawkeye was seated in the interrogation room, she asked the guard to leave. When he was gone, she undid the handcuffs on Hawkeye's wrists. Hawkeye watched all of this with little comment, murmuring to herself the entire time.
"Let me see your back."
Hawkeye flinched, her face ashen. The prosecutor tilted her head, surprised to have gotten any sort of a reaction. She was further surprised when Hawkeye shook her head to say no.
"That wasn't a question. I want to see your back. Do it yourself or I'll do it for you. I asked the guard to leave so you could have some privacy. Now show me."
This time Hawkeye abruptly stood, her arms wrapped tightly around her torso. "No. No, no, no." Cesaire began to wonder if she'd made a critical mistake. There was no denying that despite her currently defensive stance that Hawkeye was a very strong woman. It was not difficult for a woman as far gone as Hawkeye to make the leap from defensive to aggressive. Cornering her, removing her handcuffs and putting Hawkeye in a stressful situation was probably not Cesaire's shining moment of brilliance.
"Please," Cesaire asked gently, "it isn't so bad. I just want to see."
One thing was becoming clear: either Riza Hawkeye was ridiculously modest, or there was something on her back that she was trying to hide. And if there was something there, it was something Hawkeye had so deeply engrained in her psyche to hide that she still struggled to keep it hidden even with her conscious awareness so far gone. In one quick move, while Hawkeye was still shaking her head slowly, Cesaire came behind her and grabbed her shoulders. Hawkeye tensed, suddenly stiff as the dead, but she didn't pull away. "One last chance, Hawkeye. You can do it yourself, or I'll do it for you."
Nothing.
Cesaire gingerly lifted the base of Hawkeye's shirt, pulling the hem up until she could see the majority of the woman's back. The lines of the tattoo snaked over almost every centimeter of skin, and what wasn't covered in the thin lines of the alchemical array was marred by ugly scar tissue.
"Oh Hawkeye," Cesaire whispered, aware of how hard Hawkeye's shoulders were shaking. "There is a lot you aren't telling me, isn't there?"
Cesaire had tracked down one Second Lieutenant Heymans Breda in a military hospital on the outskirts of Central City. It had taken a lot of prodding to get herself into the hospital for an interview with the man, but she came armed with a sandwich from a corner deli, which Havoc had discreetly told her was Breda's favorite. Even if he had nothing substantial to offer to the case, she was starting to realize that she was going to have to piece this story together without great assistance from Hawkeye herself. "Thank you so much for taking the time to speak with me." The prosecutor shifter her weight awkwardly as Breda gazed harshly at her, his arms crossed tightly in front of him in the hospital bed. She did everything in her power to avoid looking at his legs, carefully tucked under a bedsheet and eerily still.
"Sure."
She hesitated before continuing. "It's my understanding that you worked with General Hawkeye and Führer Mustang in the past. Is that correct?"
"Yes."
"I'm sure you know what happened—"
"Look, Miss Cesaire. I know your type. You're here to get some 'insight', right? You want some idea of what went on that night. 'Why'd she do it', right?" Breda was staring daggers into the bedsheets. "Well, maybe she just acted upon what the rest of us were thinking."
Cesaire could feel her pulse quicken.
"I…what?"
"You heard me," Breda snapped. "Mustang had planned to fix what was wrong with this country, not make it worse. Why exactly do you think his 'loyal team' fell apart just before his string of promotions? We aren't stupid. We abandoned a sinking ship."
Cesaire crossed her arms, feeling the anger radiate off of Breda's form. It was making her uncomfortable. "Let me ask you this then. If you are knew that the ship was sinking, as you put it, why—"
"Did Hawkeye stay? She was invested in Mustang's dream to fix the country more than he was, I think. Let's be real here, Hawkeye has always been bright but she's never been the most psychologically stable person I've ever met." Breda's voice had softened just slightly, a slight downturn on his lips. Suddenly, instead of being angry, he just seemed sad. "I think she was a kid when she joined up, Havoc once teased her about forging her father's signature. She worked for Mustang her entire life. The idea of him being a massive screw up strikes me as something even she couldn't process. When you've devoted more than half of your life to a person and a cause…" Breda shook his head slowly. "If she wasn't working for Mustang, I don't think she knew what she'd do." Sighing, he drummed his fingertips nervously on his leg, his eyes looking off absently into the distance. "Maybe…maybe she stayed because she wanted to be the one to pull the trigger."
"Oh. Hello Miss Cesaire. I'm glad I didn't miss your call."
Interviewing Mustang and Hawkeye's prior coworkers was turning out to be easier than she'd planned. Havoc walked past her office building every day twice a day. Breda she had no problem tracing down, though he hadn't been particularly interested in giving an interview, and Fuery had been in the paper a year ago for his death while attempting to save a child in the middle of combat. Falman had been the hardest to contact, and only by virtue of distance.
"Mr. Falman, thank you for your time. You worked with Führer Mustang and General Hawkeye in the past, according to the files I have."
"Yes ma'am, I did, for quite a long time."
"Would you say they got along well?"
"Of course. Mustang and Hawkeye were like a well-oiled machine. They were an excellent team; he didn't necessarily even have to provide instructions to her for her to follow them. I was shocked by the news, to be honest."
"Really?"
"Absolutely. General Hawkeye has never been the sort to make rash decisions, and she'd known the late Führer for years. Though none of us seemed to approve of Führer Mustang's actions, General Hawkeye stood by him—and I think she was constantly reminding him of that disapproval."
"I see."
Falman sighed heavily into the phone. "Maybe that's why she stayed. To keep telling him. For all her intelligence and strength, I don't think that General Hawkeye could fathom a world in which she didn't work with Führer Mustang. So I'm sure she stayed, at least in part, to try and salvage that reality. Fixing what was wrong with the government was their shared dream for years."
"If all that's true, why do you think she killed him?" Cesaire felt like she was hearing the same stories over and over again, yet she was not getting any clearer a picture of why things had happened the way they had. Ex-Warrant Officer Falman was living up to his military reputation of being a goldmine of information, but he wasn't giving her what she needed.
"That I don't know. I wish I did. They were both good friends." Falman paused. "I…I hate to ask, but how bad is the case against her?"
Cesaire hesitated, "very solid. It's hard to have another suspect when a person turns themselves in before anybody knows the victim is dead."
"And…how is she holding up?"
"I beg your pardon?"
"I've known General Hawkeye a very long time. I suppose asking if she's still 'all there' might be a better way to put it. Years ago, she and the late Führer had gone on a mission in which an enemy tricked her into believing that Mustang had been killed, I suppose to catch her off guard. A friend who had been with her told me how well that trick worked. Hawkeye surrendered herself and asked to be killed…so I can't imagine that her mental state would be stellar after Mustang's actual death."
"Ah…yes." The prosecutor drummed her fingertips against her desk, contemplating her answer before giving it. "She's been a bit of a mess, I'll concede to that." Somewhere, she could feel an unpleasant turn in her stomach—for a man who had abandoned ship years ago, Falman was quite concerned with his colleague's mental health. And she had an inkling of why.
"Is she fit for trial?"
When Cesaire didn't answer, Falman continued. "Certainly, if she's no longer lucid, or aware of what is happening around her, you wouldn't actually bring her to court. Forget how unethical that would be, Prosecutor—it's downright illegal."
Gabriella Cesaire sat in her office after talking to Falman, frowning. She felt trapped—and she knew he was right. He had just presented a fact that she'd been attempting to ignore to prolong her investigation. If she didn't schedule the psychological evaluation, she could continue to try and find her answers. Truthfully, she didn't even require the services of a psychiatric professional. When she first met Hawkeye in the interrogation room the Tuesday after she'd killed Führer Mustang, she knew the woman would never be fit to stand trial.
Pushing back from her desk, she knew it was time to accept her fate. She would probably never know what happened between Mustang and Hawkeye; the moment she requested a psychiatrist to give an evaluation the clock would start ticking. And as soon as that evaluation was done, the case would be dismissed. Closed. Hawkeye confessed, Mustang was dead—and in the eyes of the law, that was all that there would ever be.
Her eyes trailed to the evidence box sitting on the floor, and then to her clock. It was only 1700 hours. If she hurried, she could catch Detective Montague on her way out the door and make one final stop before her access to Riza Hawkeye would be lost forever.
By the time Cesaire made it to the prison, it was 2200 hours. The guard was not pleased to see her, but made little verbal complaint and let her pass, leaving her in the same sparse interrogation room that she'd been meeting Hawkeye in for the last three and a half weeks. "This will probably be the last time I come to talk to you, Miss Hawkeye."
Hawkeye, free of all restraints—a request Cesaire had made herself—sat catatonically in her chair. As per usual, she did nothing to respond. As aggravating as Cesaire found Hawkeye's behavior, she was in no way surprised.
"I want you to look at me. Right now." Cesaire leaned forward in her seat. Hawkeye remained still, unusually preoccupied with a speck of dust floating in front of her eyes that only she could see.
"Damn it Hawkeye! Look at me!"
Her voice rang louder in the empty room than she'd expected. Hawkeye jumped in her seat, but her amber eyes slowly met Cesaire's. Her hands were wringing themselves so violently that her knuckles were stark white. She looked nervous; her entire upper body was trembling.
"Now look here," Cesaire whispered, calmly. She carefully took the small plastic bag from her purse and placed it on the table. "You know what this is. It's the only thing you've made a fuss about this entire time, right Hawkeye? You took it with you when you left the crime scene. You took it with you when you turned yourself in. And you made quite a scene when the detective told you that you had to turn it in."
Hawkeye had stiffened visibly in her seat.
"Detective Montague took this from you. But it's yours, isn't it?"
The blonde leaned forward in her chair, her eyes wide as saucers. Without a word, she reached for the bag that was on the table, her fingers twitching. Cesaire met Hawkeye's wrist halfway, stopping her. She stood, guiding Hawkeye's reaching hand away from the tabletop.
"No. If you want this," she whispered, "then we need to make a deal."
"B…but…"
"No buts. I know that the General Hawkeye, the woman who helped run this country, is in you somewhere. I'll give you this. But only if you'll talk to me."
Hawkeye shivered, yanking her wrist out of the prosecutor's grasp, her face suddenly pale. She rubbed her hands over her face, eyes locking on Cesaire's. "You…you're the prosecutor. For my case. Gabriella Cesaire."
"That's right."
"You came to ask me why…again." Hawkeye swallowed hard, her hands balled tightly into fists at her side, her body trembling with the exertion. Her eyes were flitting around the interrogation room, and for the first time Cesaire saw Hawkeye be cognizant of what was happening to her at that precise moment. "You want to know why I did it so badly that you'd blackmail me for the answer."
This was it. This was the woman who she'd seen at one of the late Führer's press conferences, the woman who was a master of negotiating hostage situations, the woman who rarely spoke a word to the public but who played a huge role in the public's fate. "Why did you do it?"
"I had to," she breathed, her voice cracking. Her eyes had locked on the small plastic bag on the table, flitting over the scrap of bloody fabric that had once been an ignition cloth glove. She bowed her head to hide her face, and Cesaire could tell she was doing everything in her power to not cry. "I had to…"
"Did somebody force you? Because unless someone held a gun to your head and demanded you do it, I doubt you really had to."
"No," Hawkeye snapped, rubbing her eyes behind the curtain of hair that obscured her gaze. "I…made a promise. I made a promise a long time ago…and…unlike h…him…" she shivered, shaking her head slightly. "Unlike him…I keep mine. I keep my promises."
Cesaire hesitated. She wasn't sure how long she'd have before Hawkeye cracked again, and she knew that she needed to choose her questions wisely. "You promised to kill him? What would possess you to make a promise to kill your superior officer, a man you worked with for almost twenty years? A man you knew since you were a child?"
"You don't understand," she whispered. "I didn't promise someone else." Her chest was heaving as she tried to stifle her tears, her face still turned away. She took a shaking breath before speaking again. "I promised him."
"Promised who?"
"Roy. I promised Roy." Hawkeye slid forward in her seat, resting her forehead against the table, shivering. "I promised him when we were young and stupid and fresh out of battle. He wanted to change this country. And…and I did too. After all of the horrible things we'd done—that he'd never have been able to do if it weren't for me."
"So you made a promise."
"I…I want you to protect my back," she murmured. "That's what he said. When…he requested me to be his aide, that's what he said. That means…that you can shoot me from behind at any time. That's what he said to me. If I should step off the path…shoot and kill me with those hands." Hawkeye wasn't crying anymore. She was sobbing.
"A…and he gave me a choice." She was choking on her words, but she still spoke. "Because…he always gave a choice. Will you follow me?" Hawkeye looked up, her face streaked with tears, shaking as she spoke. "If that is your wish," she whispered, "then even into hell."
Cesaire let out a breath she didn't realize she'd been holding. "There was a lot you weren't telling me," she replied quietly.
"I kept my half of the deal," Hawkeye whispered, wrapping her arms tight around her shoulders and rubbing her hands against her skin as though she were trying to keep herself warm. "I even stayed when he proved to be a monumental failure in office, b…because maybe he'd snap out of it."
"But he didn't," Cesaire replied gently. She'd carefully pulled her chair away from the table and sat it next to Hawkeye's. Without moving her gaze from Hawkeye's face, she placed a calming hand on the woman's knee and gently squeezed.
"The last thing he said to me…was that I'd pulled that trigger many times before without hesitation…I'd killed many men." Her voice was a whisper, choked and tight, her face ducked down and to the right, avoiding meeting Cesaire's gaze at all costs. "Really, Hawkeye. What's one more life?"
Cesaire had thought about saying something to try and comfort the older woman sitting next to her, but she found herself utterly speechless.
Ever since the case had arrived on her desk on that dreary Tuesday morning three and a half weeks ago, all Cesaire had wanted was to know the truth behind what had happened. Why did Hawkeye shoot the man she'd devoted her entire career to? Why didn't she run when she'd committed the crime when she still had the chance? And why was she such a wreck over the whole thing? Now that she had the answers and she could see the cost of her curiosity, she almost wished she'd never asked.
The two women sat without further comment for what felt like hours before Cesaire realized she hadn't kept her part of the agreement. She took the bag off the table and offered it to Hawkeye. "You kept your half of this deal," she said gently, "and I'll keep mine. You can have it."
Bloodshot eyes stared at the plastic bag, and her hand twitched, reaching for it. After a moment, though, she turned her head, angling her body away from Cesaire. "I…I don't want it," she whispered, her voice shaking. "I don't want it anymore."
Her interview had gone so late into the night that Cesaire called out sick the following morning. She'd felt it would be downright cruel to leave Hawkeye in the state she'd left her in without trying to settle the woman down, and she'd sat with Hawkeye in the small interrogation room until midnight when a guard told her she had to leave. The fact that she'd then sat in her bedroom wide awake until 0500 hours didn't do much to convince her to drag herself to work the following morning either, so she'd called around 0700 to say she was sick.
It was 0834 when her phone rang the first time. She chose to not answer.
Her phone rang again at 0842, and again she decided to not answer. This time, she contemplated leaving it off the hook.
But when the phone rang for the third time at 0847, she decided to answer.
"It's about time, Cesaire. Where the hell are you?"
"I called out," Cesaire replied groggily. "Why are you screaming at me?"
"Hawkeye's dead." Detective Montague was not necessarily melodramatic, but he certainly had a thing for impeccably horrid delivery of bad news.
Cesaire sat bolt upright in her bed, rubbing her eyes. "W…what? She was fine yesterday! What happened?"
"Havoc found her this morning before work, he visits every day. Apparently those idiots in the prison put her in isolation the night before. What kind of idiotic prison warden would put a woman hanging by a very thin psychological thread in damned isolation, for crying out loud? He was already giving his guards permission to gag her to keep her quiet. They better be hoping nobody calls foul on their idiocy."
"What happened?"
She could hear him sigh over the phone. "Suicide. She hung herself with a sheet and the assistance of the bars on the window."
"Oh my…"
"You were right yesterday when you said you weren't going to bring her to court. She was never with us enough to stand trial." She could hear Montague snap something to another person before continuing. "I'm sorry, by the way."
"What?"
"You'll never get your answers. Can't get answers from a dead person."
"Oh…right."
It took her weeks to figure out where Hawkeye had been buried.
The information, though technically public knowledge, was not published in the paper. Hawkeye had not had a proper funeral. She had been stripped of her rank. She had not been buried in the state cemetery. She was disgraced in public opinion. In her death, Cesaire thought, Hawkeye had had everything she might have ever wanted taken away from her. If she had to guess, she would've expected that Hawkeye would want to be buried near her superior officer. Regardless of whether or not she wanted to keep the promise she'd made to shoot him if he strayed from his path, Roy Mustang was so important to her that she'd been willing to do it.
"I guess this is what you meant by following him even into hell, huh, Hawkeye?"
She kicked around the area for a bit, hesitating. There was a single wilted lily on the soil, the petals browned and curled from exposure to the elements.
Cesaire knelt on the ground, carefully running her hands through the dirt, digging a small hole in the fresh soil. She avoided touching the lily.
"I know you said you didn't want it. But the case is closed and this is evidence; it'd just go into the trash. And I saw the way you said no. I've never seen a person say no but mean yes more in my life." She carefully took the glove out of the plastic bag, trying not to cringe at the blood. "This is yours."
She sat back on her knees and sighed. "Well then…I guess this is goodbye." Cesaire stood, slipping her hands into her pockets.
INSIDE SOURCE SPEAKS OUT ON MURDER OF FÜHRER MUSTANG
The Central Times has received word from an inside source in the military police department that the story of Führer Mustang's murder is incomplete.
Führer Roy Mustang was murdered inside his home nearly two months ago by his second-in-command, then-General Riza Hawkeye. Hawkeye committed suicide in the state military prison three weeks after the Führer's death. The story made national news when Hawkeye turned herself in before the Führer was reported dead, and from the start no other suspects were identified. Early reports from the police department stated that the case against Hawkeye was as open-and-shut as a case gets; Prosecutor Gabriella Cesaire was quoted stating that all evidence pointed to Hawkeye committing the crime, the strongest piece of evidence being Hawkeye's confession.
Detective Adrian Montague, the head of the military police department released this statement to the media the day of Hawkeye's death regarding the case against her: "Riza Hawkeye was no longer psychologically fit to stand trial. The investigation was called off the night before her death." Earlier reports suggested that investigations were continuing while the psychiatric evaluation remained pending.
The inside source in the military police department has spoken on condition of anonymity, as they are no longer at liberty to discuss the case.
They report that they spoke to Hawkeye several times while the investigation was active, and that they had concerns from the very start that the woman would be unfit to stand trial. The source stated that Hawkeye was "by far the most difficult witness I have ever had to interrogate."
The source stated their reasoning for coming forward pertains to the questions that still whisper around Central today: the why that nearly everyone in the country has been asking for two months.
On the night Hawkeye died, the source spoke with Hawkeye one last time. The psychiatric evaluation was scheduled for the next day, and our source stated several times that it was known that the woman would not stand trial. "That was the first and only time I spoke to the General Riza Hawkeye that the public would recognize," our source states.
According to the source, the story fell into place piece by piece. This was not an act of jealousy or a crime of passion, which has long been the prevailing theory in the court of public opinion. Our source paraphrased the discussion that they and Hawkeye had had the night that Hawkeye hung, and relayed the conversation as follows:
"Hawkeye told me that when Mustang had recommended her as his aid, he'd asked her if she would protect his back. 'I want you to protect my back—that means you can shoot me from behind at any time. If I should step off the path, shoot and kill me with those hands'." According to Hawkeye's explanation of the tale, she agreed to follow him, "even into hell".
It has long been public knowledge that the two had worked together for the entirety of their military careers. Aside from a short period of time in Ishval, Hawkeye had worked directly under Mustang's command for twenty years. Our source reveals that the two knew each other long before either enlisted in the military. Hawkeye's father was a well-known alchemist in the region in which she grew up, and the late Führer apprenticed under Master Hawkeye for several years before enlisting.
"From the day the case was made public knowledge, I believed there was more to what happened between those two than met the eye. My opinion may be worth very little, but I pity [Hawkeye] for everything that happened. She had made a promise as a child, and [the Führer] put her into a position where she needed to keep it. It's come to the point where I felt I couldn't keep the story to myself; not when citizens of this country flipped on a dime and forgot all of their unrest with the late Führer's actions when he was dead. Hawkeye can't tell the story herself anymore. I can."
Führer Mustang was buried with full honors, thousands of Amestrian citizens and soldiers gathering for the service. Posthumously stripped of her rank, Hawkeye was not buried in a state cemetery and did not receive a funeral.
"It breaks my heart, that she wasn't buried next to her commanding officer. After everything that had happened, I have to believe that she cared deeply for him. She didn't run away after committing the crime of the century—she turned herself in and quietly took her punishment for her crime. What sort of person who committed a crime of passion does that?"
Havoc was sitting quietly at his family shop when the paper was delivered. He only read the Sunday edition of the Central Times now that he was long gone from Central City. It was in part because he had grown weary of the same tired headlines day after day. There did have to be something going on in Central other than Führer Mustang's death. As such, he almost tossed the newspaper when he saw that the headline, again, was about the man's murder.
It was the front page story, which is the only way he would have caught Gabrielle Cesaire's name as he stalked to the wastepaper basket. He wasn't fond of Cesaire, mostly because the woman was responsible for making the case against Hawkeye as strong as it could be, but throughout the weeks he ran into her and heard about her, he admired her dedication to the truth. Even he felt uncomfortable probing too deeply about the rationale behind Mustang's murder, a sentiment he shared with Breda and Falman when they'd spoken over the last few weeks.
Clearly, Cesaire had not shared the same reservations.
Havoc read the paper, and almost wished he was still in Central. Cesaire had to be the 'unnamed source' who spoke under 'conditions of anonymity'. Words of thanks could never be enough, not when her quiet perseverance had revealed the truth of the last moments of the lives of two of his closest friends.
Author's Note: Okay, this is really the end of this triple-shot, okay? This story has literally sat on my hard-drive for over a year and a half (I started it in January of 2010). I wanted a perspective to wrap up all of the loose ends, and a perspective to get the real story out there to the people involved in the story who would really otherwise never know (read: everyone except Hawkeye and Mustang themselves).
I hope you've enjoyed the ride into this very crazy monster of a three-shot series! I'm glad that it is finally done; I feel like I can finally lay the entire plotline to rest.