"That was a little fun wasn't it?" Lilly was asking Edward as the two left through the front doors of the church after having chatted with the mother and the children for some time into the late afternoon. She had her arms intertwined with his again and teetered close to his body while he in turn enjoyed the feel of her warmth.
"If by fun you mean it was sad to see the lives that they live then yeah," Edward replied somberly, mulling over the bittersweet taste of having gotten his answers for the day.
"But it was insightful. And there was something so amazing seeing you hold that baby. Do you feel like you really might adopt?"
"I dunno," Edward shrugged as they began to walk down the steps. He wanted to leave it at that and so he hoped that she wouldn't press him any further. Instead, he opted to change the subject to a lighter topic. "You know, for once I'm actually feeling hungry. Let's go out to eat?"
"That sounds good to me," Lilly sighed. "I haven't eaten anything today."
Edward was about to laugh and toss a light hearted comment back at her, but upon raising his eyes he glanced on ahead, down at the side walk and caught the stare of General Mustang who was standing at the base of the stairs, carrying what looked to be a bag of freshly purchased groceries. He was dressed in casual clothes, indicating that he too had the day off. So it was purely just by chance that he had been passing by the church as Edward and Lilly came out. Rotten, unforgiving chance.
Roy's body was turned towards them, staring up at Edward with a confused and what seemed to be a pained expression on his features. As their eyes met, Roy raised his eyebrow and looked to Lilly, then back to Edward before he spoke. "Fancy meeting you two out and about in this part of town. What has you all dressed so nice and going to church together? Planning a wedding or something?" he said lightly, though Edward knew far better than to trust his casual attitude. "I highly doubt that Edward would go into a church for any less of a reason."
It took a great deal of willpower for Edward to not lose his cool. He didn't know how best to react short of shouting, 'I can explain!' He gulped as his stomach lurched.
Lilly broke off of Edward and stepped to a more casual stance at his side. "No, nothing of that sort, General, Sir," she said as she gave a salute.
"At ease. Please, it's your day off it looks like," Roy laughed as he waved her off formal gesture. "So I can't expect to hear wedding bells in the future?"
"No! Nothing like that. Edward just asked me for some help," Lilly stated vaguely to Edward's momentary relief.
Instead of saying something on his own, he chose to remain silent lest he call too much attention to just how serious this was for Roy to see them like this. He looked down, not wanting to show an expression of shame and avoided Roy's eyes.
"Well Edward is lucky to have a friend like you that he can ask these sorts of favors of," came Roy's voice, his comment hitting a little more of a hateful tone than perhaps he meant.
Edward flinched subtly. There was nothing about this that looked good. Worst case scenario was that Roy would walk away thinking that he had been two timing him all along; best-worst case scenario was that he knew Edward's true motives and would be livid that he hadn't at first talked to him about it. "Roy, I-" Edward's voice was barely above a hoarse squeak; he was unable to say much before Roy held up his hand and gestured that he wanted the younger man to save his explanations.
"I went grocery shopping because I was hoping to have you over for dinner. So I think it's comical that I ran into you on my way home. You and your girlfriend are welcome to come over tonight," Roy went on with a dull look on his face.
"We really are serious; we aren't dating, Roy," Edward said as he began to walk down the steps towards the other, leaving Lilly behind.
"Your girl acquaintance if that's less awkward for you," Roy corrected as he adjusted his bag of groceries. He looked down at Edward's stomach then into his eyes quickly, giving him the full brunt of his fierce glare as Edward stepped closer.
"Oh," Edward could hear Lilly announce from behind him. He stopped himself from speaking and glanced back. She was standing still, half way up the stairs with her hands clasped around her small handbag. She stood there and swayed her body back and forth while she observed the other from her perch. Again she spoke. "Oh! I get it." She snapped her fingers before she lowered her voice to repeat, "I get it.
"Okay. Please, General, Sir, understand that Edward only had good intentions for asking me to help him today. I'm not, um, hear to come between anyone."
Roy looked up at her, more livid than ever for a hot moment. There was a bright flicker of fear mixed with rage that gleamed in his eye. "Like hell he had good intentions, but thank you, Lilly. I know you mean well. I don't believe you're here to come between anyone either," he said with a defeated sigh as Edward watched him visibly deflate a little. So much for the great General Mustang's best kept secret.
"I'll just go on by myself, then. Head to a nice diner by my dorms and grab a snack I suppose." She tugged on her black hair and pulled it over her shoulder, using it as though it were her safety blanket. "I can see that I'm in the middle of something that I ought not be in the middle of," she said as she bowed and quickly excused herself, dashing off before Edward could properly bid her a grateful goodbye.
Roy glanced up at the church then back to Edward before he adjusted his bag of groceries again. "You can go with her; it's not like I'm in charge of your life or anything. I can't make you involve me in your affairs, right?"
"I wasn't having an affair, Roy."
"No; I can see that. You were looking to see how adoption works. Too scared to do it alone and too ashamed to ask me about it?" Roy paused for a moment while the words sunk in. "Right, Ed?" he snapped.
"I just wanted to see what other options there were," Edward meekly replied.
"I find it ironic that an orphan himself would think orphaning another would even be an options to begin with. Come on, Ed. We shouldn't talk about this here."
Edward couldn't quite understand what was worse: the entirety of the situation, or the fact that he was willingly following Roy home to accept his scolding and punishment. As Roy so painfully and blatantly stated, he did not have to be involved in Edward's personal affairs. Edward owed him nothing; the baby wasn't his, and they were not yet lovers, nor were they legally bound to each other in any way. Roy was just another man to Edward, right? If that's truly how he wanted to look at it, but Edward did not want to look at it like that.
He had his hands shoved in his coat pockets as he scuffed his feet along the carpet outside of Roy's apartment door. He paused before crossing the threshold and looked into the usually calm and safe environment; this time he felt as though he were walking into an active battlefield.
Roy slammed his bag down onto the kitchen table and feverishly removed his coat. This was obviously not how the older individual had intended to spend his evening.
Edward was at a loss. He began to unbutton his coat slowly before he found use in his voice. "Do I go first or…?" he cut himself off whilst the man across the room shot out a sarcastic snort.
"Sure; you can start off by explaining to me why you wouldn't think to ask an actual orphan that you knew to begin with before you went jumping in and involving someone else in this," Roy snapped.
"Lilly doesn't know," Edward defended at first as Roy crossed his arms and gave an impatient look. Edward had seen him annoyed before, but this was different. He was clearly offended and hurt. It was impossible for Edward to understand why he hadn't seen this coming. "I just said it like this: I'm thinking about adoption and I'd like to look into it. Will you please help me," he explained, trying to defuse any rebuttal Roy might have before he had the opportunity to reply.
"That doesn't explain why that was your first go to option after telling me. So what, Ed? Your little plan didn't work out? You thought the child was mine so you were telling me with the intention of making someone else responsible? So now you find out that I'm not the father, and that means you're looking for someone else to take responsibility? What? Is your next course of action to take steps in finding the real father?"
"You know as well as I do that that's a near impossible task. I don't even know where to begin," Edward said, his voice cracking a little. Roy was good at pointing out the hard facts that even he couldn't admit to himself. The way Roy said it made him sound awful and manipulative. It made his blood boil. "Of course I'm going to weigh my options, Mustang. I'm 20 years old for fuck's sake! I'm not equipt to be able to raise a child successfully! I don't even know what I'm doing right now."
"Adoption is a low way to sink. Especially given that you took on this responsibility willingly. You made yourself a part of that baby's life even if right now you're trying to alienate yourself from it."
"Because she BEGGED me too, Roy! What was I supposed to do; let her die knowing that I didn't have the courage to fulfil her last request? She lied to me and now I'm screwed! I don't know who the father is. I originally thought I was helping you; I thought I was brining you a piece of the woman that you loved and that in the end-"
"In the end what? What did the end of this story look like I wonder? Deliver me a newborn infant and promptly leave afterwards, knowing that you had fulfilled this righteous act and did me a favor of some kind!? Mission accomplished, eh?"
"I don't know what I was going to do!" At that point the two had raised their voices towards each other, but neither dared to make a move nor even breath after that. They couldn't out and out argue, not with how close others were to them in the apartment complex. Two men arguing like a married couple surely would not bode well, and Edward had already done enough to have someone question Roy's sexuality.
"So you don't know and that makes it okay to go off on your own and figure things out?" Roy said after he exhaled a long breath. He lowered his voice and covered his forehead with the palm of his hand, pushing his bangs between his fingers and gripping tight at the roots. From that angle, Ed could clearly see that the other was starting to show a little gray in the underbelly of his bangs.
"It's how I've always lived." He didn't know what else to say beyond that. It was the truth. When he had a problem he made it his own business and did his best to figure it out.
"And the last 10 or so years of your life has done nothing to teach you otherwise? To show you that you're not alone?"
"This is different," Edward murmured, anger still stirring low in his belly. He couldn't help but ruminate on the bitter taste of reality that hung on Roy's words.
"How is this different?"
"Everyone is gone, dead or moved in the aftermath of the coup that my problem caused… because of me; my life is different now. It's not mine anymore, everything is different; everything is new," he said, this time his anger near evaporating and leaving him with nothing but the empty feeling of sadness. He hadn't voiced it out loud before, that everything was different. "I feel like it's a dream most of the time. I'm scared near constantly, Roy," he said as he crouched down and gripped his fingers into his blond locks. "Just when I think things are normal, I get this overwhelming sense of this not being real. You're alone in your dreams; do you ever notice that? So I feel like I'm alone even when I'm awake, because nothing feels real."
"I get it; people have died. And now your brother is no longer always at your side. But, Ed, that's why I kept insisting that you live with me. You're not alone because in the very least you have me. Aren't I familiar enough of a figure in your life by now? After so many years?"
"You can't take responsibility for me or my warped sense of righteousness. That's all it is that got me into this mess. You're right."
"For someone so smart you sure are the biggest dumbass I've ever met," Roy scoffed, though his tone was far from hostile at that point. Edward relaxed a little as he listened to him continue. "Adoption is a shitty idea. As an orphan myself I can say that being raised by the church is the worst thing, never having structure and stability, always wondering why you're not good enough to be adopted."
"I wouldn't have been able to go through with it anyway, Roy," Edward sighed. "Those children didn't have innocence. They were robbed of it just as I was. I don't want another baby coming into this world having to grow up too fast."
"I'm glad you can see that. Why do you have it in your head that I don't want to take responsibility?" Roy continued. Edward listened as the man began to walk towards him, his footfalls heavy against the wooden floor, still the other did not look up to acknowledge him. "I thought my having told you that I love you, my inviting you to live with me was obvious enough that I'd like to take responsibility."
Edward chortled a little in the back of his throat. "See I'm confused by that because you can't let anyone in the military know that you're gay otherwise you'll be discharged, but you want to willingly live with me; what's more you want to bring this baby into the world and continue to care for me as well? In what kind of reality do you think that's going to work out?"
"It's a chance, but I think it'll work. It's don't ask don't tell, Edward. I might very well be high up enough in the chain of command that no one would want to know anyway," Edward could hear him say, ever closer did he come still, moving down so that he could place his hand onto his shoulder and give him a reassuring squeeze.
"So you're going to live happily ever after with me? Keep this baby and keep me as well; and what-we just pretend that this is the right way of things?"
"Give it a chance; I think deep down you know that you'll like it. You don't have to be alone. I don't care if it's not biologically mine or even yours. I'm still thankful that I'm being given this opportunity. I'd like to be the father."