Roy went silent for a long time. Tention stained his eyes as he read the adoption papers and a report file on the incident that supposedly had killed Alphonse's entire family, including his brother Edward. Riza waited, carefully watching her superior.
When Edward Elric had rushed through their office at the HQ a couple of days before, she had started to worry greatly for the young man. He had looked like a limp, cornered animal that had finally escaped caption. No wonder, as he had been wheeled in, strapped to a wheelchair. After some consideration, she had gone after him. How he could have disappeared so fast was beyond her, because when she had reached the outside, he was nowhere in sight. After that, she had not been able to focus on her work. That was when she decided to look further into the case. There had to be someone with ties to his family.
It took nearly an hour before the doctor returned to the corridors, without Edward. In his hand, he held an envelope. Roy frowned in unease and stood up from his seat.
"Colonel, I'm sorry for the wait," the young doctor said, and slid a couple of large pictures from the envelope and handed them to Roy.
Roy recognized them as x-rays and looked at them for good measure, not being able to establish more than that they were the x-ray pictures of Ed's ankle.
"As you can see here..." the doctor said, and pointed to the bottom part of the ankle joint, "he has a fractured talus bone."
Roy rolled his eyes back, wondering how this day could get any worse.
"How bad is it?"
"It is an unstable fracture, but it doesn't look too severe. I don't think surgery is necessary, but we want to keep an eye on it."
Roy nodded.
"He's getting a cast now, and we will provide him with a wheelchair while he is recovering." Roy realized that the shorter man had a concerned look to his face, and was about to ask him about it when the doctor continued to speak.
"I don't know where you found this boy, but he seems very malnourished. He is pale, way too thin, and to be honest, just from his physical appearance, I thought he was much younger."
"I know."
Munch sighed and continued his report on the boy's health. "We will also have to treat his hand and leg for frostbite, and give him at tetanus vaccine."
This day is getting worse, Roy thought. How could he not have noticed that the kid had gotten frostbite, and why did he not take him for a checkup sooner? A loud screech sang through the infirmary, and Roy answered his own question. That is why. Roy followed the doctors' quick steps to an examination room further down the hall. From the distraught sound of the voice, there was no doubt who it belonged to.
As the two men reached the door to the room, they could hear glass shatter. Dr. Munch swallowed a lump in his throat and opened the door.
"No, you get away for me, and take that hell-spike with you!" Then he quickly shut it again, just in time to avoid a tray that was being flung through the air and hitting the door.
He looked at Roy's harsh expression. It was the exact opposite of his own nervous look. In one quick motion, Roy shoved the doctor aside and opened the door.
"EDWARD!" he yelled, eye's fixed on the boy, who used a metal tray as a shied, while verbally threatening the helpless nurse who had a hypodermic needle in her hand.
Ed shrank by the sound of the Colonel's raised voice and looked towards the man with an accusing and desperate look in his golden eyes.
"She was gonna stab me!" he pointed to the nurse's hand, still clutched to is makeshift buckler.
"Don't be overdramatic. It's just a small prick."
Ed pressed his lips together and scowled at the nurse. Roy rolled his eyes, and firmly walked over to the boy and grabbed the tray. Ed let out a silent 'hey', as his hand automatically reached for his protector. Roy made sure to place it out of Ed's reach.
The older man sat down on the examination table next to Ed, and grabbed the boy's shoulders, forcing him to look at him.
"Do you trust me?" Roy asked simply.
Ed's wide eyes looked at the sudden change of mood with confusion. "Huh?"
Roy repeated his words.
"Do you trust me?"
"I-I guess..." Ed said bewildered.
"Okay," he sighed, "I'm sorry."
Ed gasped as the needle was quickly poked into his tight. Roy's hold on the boy did not budge as Ed's arm reached around the steady grip for support. The nurse worked steadily, and slipped the needle out before covering the small orb of blood with a cotton ball, and covered it with a band-aid.
Ed was speechless, as he looked on Roy with a newly found mistrust, pouting his lip and feeling horribly violated. Roy gave Ed a small smile and patted him on the shoulder.
"I really am sorry." Roy softly grabbed onto Ed's heavily bandaged hand and looked at it. "It's to prevent your wounds from getting infected," he explained and looked Ed in the eyes. Edward still felt betrayed but gave in to Roy's apology.
"I really don't like needles," Ed explained as if it was a well-kept secret. A small gulp was heard from the nurse, as she quickly stepped in front of a counter, covering the tray of capsules and instruments for the upcoming blood tests.
Ed was fuming after the visit to the infirmary. Not only did he feel like a pin cushion, but now he had to use the wheelchair, and his hand was completely useless because of the bandages that covered his entire hand, to protect the sores from the frostbite.
No, his hand wasn't useless. He was.
All of the staff from the orphanage who told him that he had no future and should be committed to a long term care facility had been right. The entire time from when he left Drachma until now, he had been completely dependent on other people. He had never been so dependent his whole life. If Ivan had not met him on the way to the train station, he'd be dead, buried in the snow.
And Roy...
Ed looked to his broken leg, and to his wounded hand. Roy didn't sign up for this. Being some kind of glorified babysitter for a worthless, good for nothing cripple. Just like everybody else, Roy felt sorry for him and had been unfortunate enough to be the one standing closest to the trainwreck that was Edward Elric.
The next few hours in the office, Ed did not utter a single word. He didn't even touch the books he had gotten from the library. Roy looked from his paperwork to the boy frequently. He had really messed up at the infirmary, had he not? Betraying the boy's trust like that, and now Ed seemed so depressed, so hurt. Roy wanted to say something, but could not think of anything to make it better. And now he also had to keep this potentially major secret from him. He needed to ask Hawkeye if she had any new information about the unsuspected findings from earlier.
Roy got up from his desk and casually walked to the door. Ed finally lifted his gaze from his lap and looked at Roy.
"I just need a quick word with Lt. Hawkeye. If you need anything, Lt. Havoc is right outside."
Ed replied with a small nod and gave the colonel a shy smile. It took Roy off guard, but he answered it with a warm smile of his own that plastered to his face as he opened the door and stepped out of his office.
His subordinates looked at him with raised eyebrows as he entered the office landscape with the uncharacteristic warmth to his usually cold face.
"Shell shock?" Furey asked Falman quietly.
"Definitely some kind of war neurosis," Falman answered.
"I'm getting flashbacks from Ishvala." shuddered Havoc.
Roy quickly shifted his face to an angry grimace, as he stomped over the floor and waved Hawkeye to come along. She obliged without hesitation.
Locking the door to one of their large meeting rooms, Roy turned to face Riza. Her face was serious, and she looked deep into his eyes. Roy paused for a moment, letting the sight of his most trusted subordinate and friend sink in. Her reddish-brown eyes looked beautiful in the sunlight from the tall windows in the room. Her hair was getting quite long these days, she always used to wear it short, he thought with his eyes following the length down beneath her shoulders. She tilted her head.
"Sir, are you okay?" And with that, Roy snapped back to reality.
"Yes," he hesitated, "well, no. I'm not sure."
Riza gave him a small nod and sat down on one of the chairs.
"Talk to me."
Roy smirked as he realized that their roles had reversed from earlier in the day.
"I think I screwed up with Edward," he heard himself say, sitting down in surprise, as this was not what he wanted to talk to Riza about. Or, what he was supposed to talk to hear about. "In the infirmary," he explained, "I think I really hurt him."
Riza looked at Roy's hands, that was fiddling with the bottom of his uniform jacket. She reached out and stopped them with only a touch, and rested her right hand on his. Roy didn't look up. Instead, he turned his hand around, holding her's and let her thumb gently stroke his palm. They sat like that for a minute. Riza was the first to breach the silence. "You are doing a really good job, Roy."
Roy shook his head slightly, still not moving his gaze from the long-awaited caress.
"Yes, you are. He is lucky to have met you. And now we are going to find his family."
Roy smiled wearily and looked up to be met with her reassuring smile.
"I'm going to make a phone call to the Rockbells. Let's just get it out of the way, and hopefully get the answers we're looking for directly from the source. All of this 'how and why' can wait."
Hawkeye went to the rows of the phone booths at the HQ to get the privacy while making the somewhat dreaded phone call. She had found a phone number to a Pianko Rockbell, which was also connected to, ironically, a small business called Rockbell Prosthetics. Riza had thought for a second that it was some kind of cruel joke that someone had planted in the folder. But, she did indeed find out that Rockbell Prosthetic was real, and had helped out a lot in the aftermath of the Ishvalan war.
She dialed the number registered Pinako Rockbell, resting her forehead in her palm as she waited for them to pick up.
"Rockbell Prosthetic limbs," the lively voice of what Riza assumed to be a young girl answered. "How can I be at your service?"
"H-hello. My name is Riza Hawkeye." She decided not to mention her title right away. "I'm looking to speak to a Pinako Rockbell."
"Just a minute!"
She heard the voice call out for 'Granny'. Not long after the phone was picked back up.
"This is Pinako." This voice sounded more like that of an elderly woman. According to the file, she'd been nearly sixty years old when she adopted the supposed younger Elric brother.
"Hello, I'm Second Lt. Riza Hawkeye." she hoped that it might add some credibility.
"Okay?" the old woman seemed skeptical.
"I'm calling to ask you... I'm sorry, this is a little out of the blue, but, did you adopt a young child called Alphonse Elric, about 12 years ago?"
The older woman wasn't answering right away.
"Why do you ask?"
"So, you did?"
"Yes. But I don't see..."
"Did you know that Alphonse Elric had an older brother?" Riza interrupted, not wanting to let the elderly woman get a chance to think too much about her responses.
"Oh, yes," Pinako said wistfully. "Yes, that poor child died in the hospital after that awful fire. Alphonse was lucky he came out of it with only the bad memories. It was truly a miracle. If you believe in that sort of stuff." she added.
Riza held her breath. So it was really him. She had to approach this carefully.
"Do you know for certain that his brother succumbed to his injuries?" she asked.
"That's kind of an inappropriate question," the older woman said sternly. "The social worker reported it as Al was sent off to our local orphanage. We saw the death certificate, and we held a funeral for the poor child. I don't care about your military rank, this is something I won't talk about with a stranger. I am going to hang up now."
"He's not dead!" Riza just about shouted into the handset. She was met with a long silence.
"Excuse me?" Pinako exclaimed.
"I mean... I think you were lied to. I don't know why, but..." Riza sighed. "I'm sorry for springing this off on you. We've met Alphonse's older brother, Edward. He thinks Alphonse is dead, and it's stated in both of their personal files that the other is diseased."
"What in heavens name..."
"I know this comes as a shock. You're free to do with the information as you want, but I thought Alphonse had the right to know. Edward too."
"I do appreciate this information, Second Lt. I have to process a bit..." she said slowly. "Can I get a number where I can reach you?"
Riza left both of her office and home number and hung up the phone. Now, all they could do was wait. She transcribed her phone call with Pinako Rockbell and disguised it as a report, before handing it over to Roy in his office. Edward was laying with his back rested on the armrest of the red couch, with his newly casted leg raised on a pillow. His bandaged hand struggled to turn the page in an old looking book. She smiled at the boy and leaned over to help him.
"Thanks." He said in a shy voice and smiled carefully at her.
"No problem, Edward. How are you feeling?"
"Fine," he answered straight away. Riza looked back, unconvinced, and he realized his mistake.
"Just a little tired," he added, hoping she would leave it alone.
Roy was done reading the form Riza had put on his desk, and their eyes met. He nodded, as to confirm that he had read it, and stood up.
"If you're tired Edward, we can go home a little early. I can finish some of this at home."
"Don't worry about me. If you need to stay, I'll wait." Ed said as the thoughts of him being a liability to Roy still haunted his mind.
"We're going home for the day." Roy decided, and placed the stack of files, not forgetting the one he just received from Hawkeye, into his bag.
Ed kept his silence throughout the evening, only speaking when spoken to. Roy wondered if he had gotten a fever in addition to the cold, but the boy kept reassuring him that he felt fine. After helping Edward to bed, Roy went back downstairs and poured himself a glass of an old Evan Williams bourbon. Wearly, he sat down in his favorite chair and closed his eyes. Riza Hawkeye had not called yet, which meant that the Rockbells had not called. Roy had mixed feelings about it. First, of all, he hoped with everything he had that Edward would get his brother back, while something in the depths of his mind was feeling worried that they would take him away. What was wrong with him? He only knew the kid for a couple of days. He also realized that he had not, even once, thought about Edward as a brat for the last 24 hours, even after his display at the infirmary. Roy scoffed and looked to his glass. If this was his thought pattern tonight, he needed at least 2 or 12 more of these.
The next morning Roy woke up at five o'clock as usual. He had not slept well, and a hint of a hangover lingered behind his eyes. He got up and walked into the bathroom that was connected to his bedroom. He looked at his reflection in the bathroom mirror. Black rings underlined his grey eyes, and his usually smoothly shaved jaw was studded. He sprinkled some cold water in his face, still not feeling much fresher. Had he taken a sick day off from work this year? Maybe he should. He shrugged it off, undressing from his boxers and got into the shower.
About 20 minutes later he was standing in the kitchen, freshly shaved and showered. He felt more and more like a human. He tapped impatiently on the countertop, waiting for his coffee to be ready. That would be the last piece, putting himself back together. A cup of coffee to get ready for the day ahead of him. A day filled with paperwork and trying to mend the relationship with the boy that he had broken yesterday. As the thought struck him, he immediately felt like he was going to fall apart again.
Newly equipped with a cup of fresh coffee in his hand, he walked upstairs to wake up his sleeping guest. He knocked on the door, that he thought for sure he had left cracked the night before. Hopefully, Ed had not struggled with his usual nightmares that night. There was no answer, so he knocked on the door a little harder this time.
"Wake up snoozy, you need to get washed up before we leave."
Roy opened the door.
No. Nononono.
Ed was not there.
Thank you so much for reading! Again, I'd like to remind everybody that this is, and will stay, parental. The next chapter will be up during the next couple of days!
