So I'm back with another chapter! :D And please do review! Positive reviews always inspire me to update quickly!

Chapter sixteen

Roy pulled out his pocket watch. He knew that Hawkeye would have returned by now, but that didn't mean that she'd be walking into his office straight away.

Actually, he saw the fact that she'd have been here for over an hour as something very encouraging. That meant that she had probably hit it off with Benjamin and that Roy would be able to get some help from her with him.

And it gave him some extra time to do even more paperwork to lessen the risk of lead poisoning.

Not that he was actually able to get much done, though, seeing as how his eye kept closing for a bit longer than it should when blinking. But he had avoided fetching those three-or-more cups of coffee he needed because he was honestly avoiding Benjamin until he met Hawkeye. After all, every time Roy had spoken to him since they arrived at the office five hours ago, he had noticed that the kid was jumpy and grew increasingly sad every time he looked at Roy.

And so he had left Havoc to babysit him because he would probably handle the first meeting with Hawkeye better than Roy would anyways.

Oh, how Roy wanted to sleep. The couch in the corner of the room was teasing him, torturing him, whispering sweet promises of rest.

His eye was getting heavy. The stack of papers in front of him was beginning to look like a mighty fine pillow.

The phone on his desk rang and Roy jumped, grabbing it and holding it against his ear. "General Mustang speaking," Roy said, a lot more awake.

"Sir, it's Captain Hawkeye."

Roy grew confused. "So you're not in the outer office? Weren't you supposed to arrive at noon?"

"Yes, and I actually arrived half past eleven, sir. I'm in the infirmary with Benjamin."

Roy froze. "What happened? Is he hurt?" He felt his stomach clench slightly at the idea. The kid was his responsibility after all.

"He's fine now, he's resting. He fainted about thirty minutes ago, we brought him to the infirmary to check him over in case it had anything to do with his surgery. He woke up within a few seconds and it seems to have been emotional shock more than anything, sir."

"Shock?" Roy asked. The most logical reasoning behind that was that he had fainted upon seeing Hawkeye, but if he had fainted about an hour after she arrived, then that didn't really make sense. "How?"

"Führer Grumman saw it fit to hang one of Ben's poems in the entrance hall. And, as you do when someone is hired to make an artistic contribution to an official building like HQ..."

Roy sat there, frozen. "How much did he receive?" He knew that the few artists that were responsible for the paintings hanging on the walls of HQ were paid handsomely, also because they were highly celebrated artists in the first place, but Grumman had taken a liking to Benjamin so although he may not pay him as much as the famous painters, then he was definitely still receiving a rather large sum.

"A hundred thousand cens, sir."

Roy gulped. It wasn't much compared to what a State Alchemist earned, but that was still a vast amount of money. Especially for a nine-year-old kid that came from a country that had to ration their supplies. "I see how that may have been the reason, yes," Roy said. "I'll be right over. Thank you, Hawkeye."

Roy put down the receiver and stood from his desk, running his hand through his fringe a few times to get it back to normal after having been pressed against his forehead for the last few hours as he rested his head in his hand.

Then he stood up and went out the door to find his team looking up at him curiously, and Havoc in particular. Roy went over to him. "Benjamin's in the infirmary, he fainted but woke up after a few seconds, but otherwise he's fine. I'm going over there now." Roy could see the immediate alarm in his face, so he added, "You can join me if you want to."

It was clear that Havoc would very much like that, so he shot to his feet. "Thanks, Boss."

Roy nodded to him and they went off down the corridors.

"Why did he faint, Boss? He seemed pretty stunned when they left, but he wasn't looking like he was about to pass out," Havoc asked, his worry very clear on his face.

"Führer Grumman decided to pay him a hundred thousand cens for his efforts," Roy explained, not needing to say anything else as Havoc obviously knew about the rest.

Havoc swore. "Shit... With Ben's background, there's no wonder it happened..."

"I know," Roy answered.

Roy would have liked to discuss how the meeting between Hawkeye and Benjamin had gone, but there were soldiers in the corridors that might easily overhear something. Letting anyone who shouldn't know that Benjamin was from a parallel timeline was a very bad idea.

What Roy could conclude with quickly though, was that Hawkeye found Roy not to give enough attention to Benjamin's writing. And was obviously failing in the matter of encouragement as well, which was why there now was something that would give the kid quite a lot of recognition as the poem was hanging in the most important building in the country.

But Roy was honestly at a loss. Everything he did seemed to be the wrong thing. Being kind and acting like Benjamin's father made the kid break down in tears with grief and misery, and yet not acting like his father made the boy furious and hurt because then Roy seemed to be an insult to the name "Roy Mustang".

Basically, Roy was most likely failing miserably.

"Boss, a word?" Havoc said quietly, nodding towards the men's room to their right.

Roy followed him without question, hoping that this meant that Havoc had some sort of guidance to offer because he wanted to say it before they met up with Benjamin. Making sure that the booths were unoccupied, Roy locked the door. Having unknowing soldiers walk in on them while talking about the kid's dead father who wasn't supposed to exist because Roy was his very much alive one would be bad.

"What is it, Havoc?" Roy asked, not without noticing the faint trace of pleading in his own voice.

"I just thought you should know that Ben isn't a sleepwalker," Havoc answered, looking just a bit awkward.

Roy realised the implications of that just a bit slower than usual because of his mental denial. "What? What did he tell you?" he asked. He wasn't exactly keen on divulging more than necessary about the fact that he had probably spent at least a few hours hugging a child to him in his sleep which was most likely the reason that Benjamin disliked him even more now. If the kid wasn't a sleepwalker, then Roy had probably been responsible for causing the kid even more pain. The same kid that both Havoc and Hawkeye (and Armstrong for that part) had grown attached to and liked. Hell, even Führer Grumman had a soft spot for the young boy. And Roy would rather not get yelled at by either of them, although Hawkeye was definitely the one who scared him the most. You did not mess with the ones she cared about.

"He told me that he had a nightmare about how his family died and that he kept imagining the lock of his bedroom door being shot so that he'd get dragged downstairs again and find his dead family lying in a pool of their own blood in the hallway," Havoc said, looking uncomfortable and angry at the thought of the kid dreaming like that.

Roy suddenly felt a small piece of memory resurfacing in his mind. One that included a sobbing boy talking a mile a minute about how he was too scared to sleep, but he needed to and yet he couldn't.

Roy swore. "The kid came to me sobbing in the middle of the night and I was exhausted from spending the entirety of the previous one preparing his bedroom." Roy ran his fingers through his hair in exasperation with himself. "Damn it, sleep-deprivation really makes my coherency disappear, doesn't it?" he said, almost smiling at his own stupidity. Because how do you deal with completely embarrassing yourself? You joke about it, no matter how unfunny it is. No matter how seriously you've screwed up. Because now Roy had a nine-year-old kid that he had to apologise to for another blunder. And so all humour disappeared in a flash. This was serious. He had broken a grieving boy's heart by not even having the decency to actually wake up completely when having a child walking into his room, sobbing.

Shit, I really shouldn't be the one to look after a kid.

"That explains why Ben said you were comforting him about his worry about apple pies," Havoc said. His voice was caught somewhere between concern for Benjamin and amusement at his boss's sleepy stupidity.

Roy just looked at him, trying to see if he was actually serious. "The kid came into my room, terrified after having a nightmare about one of the most traumatic experiences you can ever have, and I thought he was worried about apple pies?" Roy asked incredulously. "So I pulled the boy into a hug just to keep him quiet so that I could sleep and the only words of comfort I had to offer were based on my mostly asleep mind talking about completely unrelated things before falling asleep on him?" He groaned. "No wonder he began sobbing when I told him that it was okay that he was a sleepwalker."

Havoc looked at him, frowning. "So that's the full story? If you don't mind me saying so, Boss, I think you owe him an apology and an explanation."

"Yes, thank you, Havoc. I'd forgotten the whole thing when I woke up. Thank you for telling me," Roy said. This was the weirdest conversation he'd had with Havoc, and definitely one of the most embarrassing ones. He felt weird. Having a kid in his house was making everything a mess.

"Sure, Boss, and don't worry, I won't tell anyone else about it," he said, smiling. "I'm just looking out for my new nephew's all."

Roy paused. "He's made you his uncle?"

"Yep. I don't really mind it, he's a nice kid and I think he needs someone to be his uncle more than ever right now."

Roy found relief flooding him as he realised just how thankful he was for his subordinates' help in this situation. "You're a good man, Jean Havoc. Thank you."

Havoc gave him a smirk and a two-fingered salute. "Thanks, Boss. Now, I've got some last piece of advice if you're interested," he began, seeing Roy's look, he continued quickly, his nonchalance leaving him as his expression and tone turned serious. "You need to remember that he's just a kid. He's been through hell, but it's still too recent for it to actually harden him. He's a genius and very mature for his age, but that still doesn't mean that he wasn't sitting in his bed with a couple of pillows supporting his back while his dad read to him with his arm around his son just a week ago. He's a prodigy, but he hasn't been forced to grow up too soon, and his emotions reflect that. And I'm sorry to say, sir, but it's mostly up to you now whether or not he'll get to stay a kid. He's at an age where he needs you to be a parental figure or he'll end up pushing everyone and everything away because he's too afraid of getting hurt again. So I think it's better if you suggest that you spend some time together a few times too many than just when it's a necessity. Otherwise, Ben's gonna grow up thinking that he's just a liability."

Roy had never heard Jean Havoc sound so wise before. The man may not be among the smartest ones, but he was good with kids and he obviously took his role as uncle quite seriously. And his words made sense. Roy was at the moment responsible for that kid's future. And right now, he was on the road to crushing every piece of innocence that the kid had left in a world that had been just as cruel to him as to the Elrics.

Roy found himself glad that the kid was a lyrical prodigy instead of a scientific one, or Roy might just end up coming home to find a kid with missing limbs and a homunculus in his basement.

It didn't help either, that if his doppelgänger was like Roy in other aspects and genetically transferred some of those to Benjamin, then Roy had some very unpleasant memories of the metallic taste of a gun in his mouth.

He looked at Havoc and nodded. "Thank you, Lieutenant, I'll keep that in mind," he said, and went for the bathroom door, his stomach clenching at the memory that filled his mind on the way over to the infirmary.

Benjamin was lying in one of the beds, Captain Hawkeye sitting in the chair next to him. She stood up and saluted him as he walked inside the room.

Benjamin looked tearful again. Roy was certain that it was because of the fact that the person the kid wanted the most right now to comfort him, was also the one who was never going to be available again.

No, it was clear, Roy was doing something wrong just by being in the room. And he was doing something wrong by letting it be that way. Benjamin would probably have felt better had Roy not come here and just sent Havoc instead, which really just supported what his subordinate had just told him.

Basically: break his heart or neglect him and break his heart by doing so. Sad or angry. Or both. Mostly everything he did wielded that result.

In a way it was probably a good thing that Roy had the eyepatch so that Benjamin didn't subconsciously get his hopes up every time he looked at him.

Roy barely repressed a sigh because that would definitely be both suspicious and disheartening for the kid as it was likely to be taken the wrong way. And so he walked over to him, and, after thinking a bit, sat down on the bed next to Benjamin's feet. "How are you feeling, Benjamin?" he asked, not failing to notice the hint of concern in his own voice as he spoke.

The kid looked confused at the sudden display of interest in his wellbeing, which was a bit worrying in itself. It gave him a very clear sign that he had, without a doubt, been highly neglectful of Benjamin's feelings.

Yes, Roy had been busy. Yes, it had been a very bad time for this to happen. Yes, he had had tonnes of paperwork to do.

...But the kid was still nine and had literally lost his life and everyone in it, only to end up here with him.

Roy was a mass murderer. He had killed so many people, so the least he could do was to save this one.

And he couldn't help but feel like he had an obligation to take care of a kid that had been his son in a parallel universe. That had been Riza Hawkeye's. Although he knew he didn't really have that and he knew that this kid wasn't his.

Well, Roy, he is now. You're legally his father.

Roy felt his stomach clench. That was very true. He was strictly speaking a father as of now. He had been too caught up in preparing for the charade that he had failed to recognise that fact. He was a father, even if by a very unusual adoption process. He couldn't just make it into a tactical game. He had to face up to the responsibilities of a parent because pushing the kid over on someone else wasn't right. Even if the kid hated him, Roy was his father and Roy would have to act like it because he had taken a child into his home.

"I'm fine, just a bit tired," Benjamin answered, both bringing Roy out of his terrified musings, but also increasing his sense of dread.

Roy looked at Hawkeye to ask silently for permission to skip work in order to be with the kid, and she actually gave him a look of approval, no questions asked. She had obviously read his mind just like she always did.

Roy sighed, reaching out and squeezing Benjamin's toes gently in a friendly manner. "Come on, kid, let's get you home."

Benjamin looked like Roy had burned him and snatched his feet back. "What... what's going on with you?" he asked, shocked.

Roy was groaning inwardly. If a little friendly gesture that didn't have anything to do with pretending in public was received this way, then they were up for a really long talk.

And Roy had no idea just what the hell he had got himself into.