Disclaimer: I don't own FMA
Notes: Yeah, I took ages with this. A month and a half? I had times when I'd sit down to work on it, and got a grand total of two sentences out before I was completely stuck. Just a few days ago I wanted to work on it, but the computer wasn't free, so I figured I'd just write down the dialogue I thought was coming up. That helped a lot. I knew where I was going with things, then. I also did a bit of research and dredged up some Law and Order: SVU episodes for this one. Of course, that means it'll still be inaccurate in the processes taking place, but at least it'll be passable.
Chapter Nine: In Which Authorities Are Informed
Roy drove behind the ambulance in his own car. The whole time, he found himself staring at the back of the vehicle, as though, if something was wrong, he'd be able to see through the doors to Riza. What may happen to her in the back of an ambulance that they wouldn't be better equipped to handle than he was, he didn't know, but he was going to be prepared for it.
How could something like this happen? Why did it take him so long to stop being an idiot, and why did he have to treat Riza so badly it drove her away? He could have worded his apologies better and not tried to keep his pride as he made them. If he'd been more humble she wouldn't have been so angry at him, and she wouldn't have stormed off and had dinner with this Emlyn.
When they arrived at the hospital Riza was immediately taken through to a brown-haired nurse, where the paramedics explained the situation briefly and bluntly, and then moved off to their next job. Roy didn't know the normal procedure, but he was amazed at how quickly it was being dealt with.
The nurse smiled sympathetically and led them to a relatively private area, where she gestured for Riza to sit on the bed provided. "My name's Laura. I'm really sorry about what happened, Miss Mustang–"
"Mrs.," Roy interrupted. He didn't want to sound possessive, but she was his wife.
Laura's mouth opened and closed, but she was smiling again in no time. "Mrs. Mustang," she amended. "It's the hospital's recommendation that rape victims are tested for HIV, due to the unknown sexual past of the rapist. You're allowed to refuse the process if you want to, but I highly recommend that you go through with it."
Riza gave a sharp nod, and Roy could see her knuckles going white as her fingers clenched into firm fists in her lap.
"We'll also draw blood so that we can test for any other sexually transmitted diseases or viruses. We can do a pregnancy test, too. Is that all okay with you?" Laura asked politely.
"Yes," Riza said in a strained voice. "It's all fine. Just do it all."
The nurse asked Roy to give Riza some space – he hadn't noticed just how close he was hovering to her until he was told to step back – and produced a syringe. She quickly drew some blood and handed Riza a cotton bud to hold over the spot while she disposed of the blood and syringe in the appropriate manner.
After that, Laura looked Riza over. "Are these the clothes you were wearing when you were raped?"
Roy nodded along with Riza.
"Alright, I just need you to stand up so I can see if there's any visual evidence – rips and tears . . ."
Roy watched as the woman looked Riza over carefully. There was some "hmm"ing and bustling about, and Laura produced a Polaroid camera in the same way she had the syringe. She took photographs of a slit in the back of Riza's dress that was a part of the design – a rip had made it two or three inches longer than it was meant to be. Following this, she sent Roy out ("Yes Roy, I'll be fine," Riza told him) and closed the curtain to give Riza some measure of privacy.
By the time Roy was called for, he had spotted two people walking into the room in a businesslike manner. The blazers they wore and the professional way in which they held themselves assured him that they were either the media or the detectives that the police dispatcher had mentioned. He ignored them and ducked through the curtain, knowing they'd most likely be over in a minute anyway.
Riza was sitting morosely on the bed, now dressed in a loose-fitting hospital gown. Laura was using some fiddly instrument to clean beneath Riza's fingernails, and was wiping the gunk into a little bag.
The small gap Roy had left in the curtains was filled, and the woman in the blazer flashed her badge. "Riza Mustang? I'm Detective Reigner, and this is my partner, Detective Gallows. We'd like to speak with you about your rape, when you're done here."
Laura put down the nail-cleaning instrument and scowled at the Detectives as she folded the evidence into a small, sterile packet. "Yes, after she's done. If you'll excuse me I need to start the pelvic exam."
Reigner nodded. "We'll be in the hallway when you're ready."
As they left, Laura pulled the curtain shut irritably. She gave a short sigh and turned to the worried-looking Riza, a reassuring smile on her face. "I'm told they're perfectly nice people when it comes to it, but they always manage to interrupt at the worst possible times."
"You've met them before?" Roy asked, thinking of the doubtful look that had been on the woman detective's face before she left.
"Oh yes. Three or four times in the last two years. Terrible timing, every visit," the nurse said, exchanging her hospital gloves for a new set. "Other than that I've never heard a complaint about them, though."
A doctor, who had been paged some time ago, it seemed, slipped in through the curtain, pulling it shut again behind her. She had dull red hair and a harried expression, as though she was supposed to be in three different places at the moment. She immediately moved over to the box of hospital gloves and pulled out a set for herself.
"Hello, I'm Doctor Montgomery," she said briskly. "I'm going to be doing your pelvic exam, and Nurse Morris is going to be right here, helping me out."
Shuddering, Roy distinctly tried to think of other things.
"Do you want your husband here, or should we send him out?" Laura – Nurse Morris, Roy surmised – asked Riza.
For a moment Riza just looked at Laura with a blank expression, as though she was staring right through her, then she seemed to come back to life. "Here."
When she stared like that, Roy didn't know what to do. He could see in the way that her jaw trembled that she was still thinking about what had happened, but he didn't know whether to stop her or if that was overstepping his bounds yet again.
Relieved that she didn't want him gone, Roy stood at the head of the bed and as Riza was ordered to do this and that, he preoccupied himself with chatting meaninglessly to her so that she didn't have to think about what was going on. He had progressed all the way through Addy's problems with her homework, the pool not being entirely clean, a new dish he had heard about that he thought he might mention to the cook, and the merits of dogs as compared to cats (and fish as compared to budgerigars), when the exam seemed to be complete and Riza told him quite plainly to shut up.
He looked at her with concern, and noticed just how tired she looked. Her eyelids were drooping and she sat still for a long time, watching her feet even as Doctor Montgomery said that that would be all, and did she want the detectives to be called in, now?
"Yes. Thank you," was Riza's abrupt answer. She shuffled to the edge of the bed and took the hand Roy held out, to help her stand up.
Doctor Montgomery whisked away out of the room, and left Laura to open the curtains properly, and to collect all of the evidence. "I'll be back in a few minutes with some proper clothing for you to wear home," Laura told Riza, heading out just as Detectives Reigner and Gallows came back in.
"Mrs. Mustang, we'd like you to come back to the police station with us, so we can get an official statement from you about the rape."
Roy gave her hand a squeeze. "The nurse just went to go and get some clothes for her. I can drive Riza over once she's dressed – I have my car here."
There was a pregnant pause in which the detectives both turned to Roy and fixed their eyes on him, looking him over intently. The expressions on their faces reminded Roy of a pair of dogs, cautiously testing the air.
"Could you come outside while we talk to your wife for a moment, sir?" Gallows said, taking a step towards him. The movement showed the coiled muscle beneath his clothing, and by the way he stared down his nose at Roy, it was meant to be intimidating. Roy was too used to having the upper hand to be affected.
Tightening her fingers around Roy's hand, Riza scoffed. "No, Detectives, he wasn't the one to do it. I wouldn't have let him stick around if he did, and I doubt the hospital would have allowed him in here with me."
That was how the two of them found their way to the police station, twenty minutes after Laura had returned with a shirt and some pants for Riza.
An officer brought coffee for them, and Roy sipped his gratefully, knowing he'd probably need it to keep his eyes open on the drive home. Riza didn't touch hers, instead leaving it where the man sat it down on the table. Her eyes wandered around, giving her a vague look quite different to the focussed gaze she normally kept. It seemed to be fairly constant tonight, though.
"Alright, Mrs. Mustang," Detective Reigner said, sitting down next to her partner. "Could you tell us what happened?"
Riza frowned at the table in front of her, and Roy thought that, if anything, it looked as though her lips had just closed even tighter.
"Where were you were at the time of the attack?" Reigner prodded gently.
There was an earnest look on the detective's face that Roy knew Riza couldn't see, but the tone of voice seemed to get through, because Riza gave a very specific address: street, suburb, apartment building and the apartment itself. Roy was almost tempted to ask her to repeat it, so that he could go make a 'visit' to the place.
Detective Gallows wrote the address down in a notebook he held.
"Who lives there?" Reigner asked.
"Emlyn. It- It was him." Riza's eyes were still on the table in front of her, but now they widened as if she was looking at the man's face. She seemed to freeze.
Reigner's reached across the table to briefly take Riza's hand. Riza looked up, surprised, and Reigner said, "Who is Emlyn?"
"Emlyn's . . ." Riza looked away, mouth twisting. "He was a friend. My boss at work."
"Does he have a last name?"
"Greed. Emlyn Greed."
Reigner turned and gave a short nod to Gallows, who was scribbling away again. He must have caught the motion out of the corner of his eye, though, because he nodded in return. She then turned back to Riza. "Can you tell us what happened?"
Straight away, Riza's gaze fell to the edge of the table. She sat straight-backed and proud, but Roy could recognise the signs of her pulling away already. It was the clenched jaw that did the trick – if she didn't want to open her mouth, it would take a crowbar to separate her lips.
The detective was trying anyway, either not recognising the signs or thinking she could change Riza's mind. "It's okay," Reigner said. "Just start from the beginning. Why were you at the apartment?"
Roy felt Riza let go of his hand, and looked to see that she had balled her fists in her lap. An empty gaze fell on the table, the mind behind her eyes not focussing them because it was elsewhere at that moment. He shifted in his seat, turning so that he faced towards the detective, but still kept an eye on Riza.
When Riza still didn't reply, Gallows looked up from his notepad, over which his pen was poised. He glanced Riza, then Roy, and then his partner, his brows slowly drawing closer.
Reigner looked about to open her mouth again, but Roy interrupted. "We'd been arguing. The day before, and just before she left."
"Roy," Riza hissed, her tone hinting at a warning.
"No, it's alright, Riza. They're here to help us." He turned to the detectives. "There's . . . no chance of this being released to the media, is there?"
Gallows shook his head. "If we catch him, the case will go to court, and there's no doubt the media will catch wind of that. You can ask that the press be banned from the courtroom for the duration of the trial, and any information you tell us now will be kept to those who need to know for the sake of the case."
"See?" Roy said to Riza. He paused, trying to remember what she had told him when she arrived home. "I'd said some stupid things, and when I tried to apologise it didn't come out right, so I ended up making things worse. That meant when Riza left she was in a bad mood with me already. I tried calling her to apologise, but . . . I think you said your battery died?"
Riza nodded stiffly, her eyes somewhat softened. "Emlyn invited me out to dinner because things were bumpy at home. It was supposed to distract me from all of our arguments. We had just driven back from the restaurant when I found Roy's message, but the battery died halfway through, and it just reminded me of everything happening and made me angry again. Emlyn said I could call a taxi from his apartment, but by the time I was up there I was- . . . I didn't want to go back home to Addy in the mood I was in. Emlyn made us some coffee and he was saying that I shouldn't put up with Roy anymore – that he didn't deserve me – and all of a sudden he was kissing me, and his tongue was inside my mouth, and it took me a minute to realise what was happening. He- He was unbuckling his pants, and unzipping my dress – like he was trying to make it easier for me or something – but when I started pushing him away he just grabbed my hands, told me to shut up, then hiked up my dress and r-raped me."
A shudder ran through Roy's body. He shook himself to clear his head, to push away the anger clouding his eyes.
"What happened after that?" Reigner asked quietly.
Riza's eyes blinked open and closed so many times in the next few seconds that it was almost as though she was using them to transmit Morse Code. When she had herself under control, she kept her eyes on the coffee cup before her. "He just stood up, dressed himself, and walked away."
"What did you do? How did you get home?"
"I called a taxi. Well, I fixed my clothes up first. I laid there on the lounge for a while, sort of . . . trying to understand what exactly had just happened. Then I got up and looked around to find his phone, and called a taxi. The person who answered said it would take fifteen minutes for the car to get there, but I didn't want to wait in the apartment, so I went to look for my bag, and when I looked up he was standing in the doorway, drinking his coffee and staring at me. I walked to the door as quickly as I could, and he followed me, and stopped me before I could leave, saying, 'I'm a greedy man, Riza – I always want what I can't have, until I get it.' Then he pushed me out and closed the door behind me, like he'd had enough of me." A snarl appeared on Riza's lips before she schooled her mouth back into its matter-of-fact sneer. "I went down to the lobby and waited there for the taxi, then went home."
By the end of the night – or morning, really – they had asked Riza everything about Emlyn, her previous relationship with him, conversations they'd had, and even coaxed out what little information they could about Roy and Riza's arguing, where it was relevant – or so they said. Roy was happy to supply anything he could, so long as it helped put the bastard behind bars, but eventually he was growing tired, and Riza's posture had slumped. He was happy when the detectives finally told them that that would be enough for now.
"If you need anything else to help with the case . . ." Roy said, guiding Riza out the door.
"We'll let you know," Reigner nodded.
Flashback to be continued in next chapter.
The plan is that that chapter will be the last. I don't think I have enough material to make a whole chapter-worth out of the next one, but we'll see how that goes, right?
Thank you for your patience. Reviews are good ways of telling me what to work on or if I'm doing okay . . .
-Dai