Getting Back On Your Feet

by ATPD

AU: Detective Sergeant Riza Hawkeye moves to East City where she is suddenly faced with taking care of two traumatised brothers as well as dealing with her own personal life. Feeling completely unprepared for motherhood while also trying to balance it with working with a new team in a new city, it really doesn't help that her new boss is taking things so calmly. Parental Royai.

41. Chapter 41

...So, longest chapter that I have ever written, but I'm not planning on writing so long ones in the future, I am in all honesty slightly alarmed at the length myself... But I'm doing a bit of an origin story-like thing, and I just couldn't stop writing it without feeling like I was taking something away from it, and I also didn't want to split it into two chapters so here's the result, so I really hope that you'll all enjoy it! :)

And please leave a review, but no flames as they can be really discouraging ;)

---

Chapter forty-one

"I should probably warn you that old Gideon's always about fifteen minutes early," Pinako said, carefully sorting through wires. The old lady had told them yesterday about how there had been no need for them yesterday to have made their way out to the farm when Gideon Fitzgerald had had an appointment scheduled for today, and that they would only have been wasting their time when they only would have had less than a day to wait for him to come to them while the man would actually have the time to talk.

Because the good Mr Fitzgerald was a very talkative man when he had the time to be so. He was managing his farm all by himself with the occasional help from a full-time employee in case of an emergency at the farm so that he wouldn't be alone should something go wrong. And that was why he would always need to have an additional pair of people to work for him when he went into the town for supplies or whatever else he needed.

And why he had always been very particular about getting his automail right leg looked at by the Rockbells every four weeks.

Basically, Gideon Fitzgerald was an oddball who enjoyed being very thorough in whatever he did, but also appeared to be more than a little afraid of getting harmed. Of anyone getting harmed, in fact.

Which meant that people were a bit confused by the fifty-one-year-old as he was such a cheerful and easy-going man who enjoyed life to the fullest, and yet he appeared to be secluding himself when it came to his farm. He was only employing the bare minimum of workers, and he would always make sure that they were in good health, making sure that they were treating their cuts properly so as to avoid any infections, telling them to go to their GP once a month, and then paying for whatever medical bills that followed it. Apparently he had inherited a vast amount of money about fourteen years ago and had popped up out of nowhere about a year later, bought the old farm, and had then renovated it together with his nephew and was now growing various vegetables. And he had three hobbies beyond that: reading, knitting, and making clocks and watches.

And when it came to his social life, Yuriy had described it in a rather interesting way: he was the life of the party when he chose to join it. His nephew, Damien Fitzgerald, had moved to East City to have gone to university eight years ago, and the townspeople had been very eager to have offered their help because they had drawn parallels to Trisha Elric's departure.

But there was one thing that stood out in everyone's minds, and that was the haunted and sad look that had followed whenever Gideon Fitzgerald had been offered anything containing even a smidgeon of alcohol, even if it had been as food and without any chances of intoxicating effects.

And so people had stopped doing so, and nobody had ever asked why he had acted like that, though many had guessed that it had had something to do with his nephew being an orphan.

In fact, according to Pinako, his reaction to offers of alcohol had made more of an impact on the townspeople than the time that he had lost his right leg from the knee down six years ago. It had been due to an accident where he had saved a pair of young teenagers from a burning farmhouse about ten minutes away from his own house. Apparently the two kids in question had broken into the abandoned farmhouse so that they had been able to smoke the cigarettes that they had stolen from their mothers' bags, all the while having sat on top of a haystack in an old building with dry, old planks having surrounded it. And so Pinako had told Roy with a sigh that she had doubted that he would be getting much out if the interview, but that she was still pretty certain that Roy would find him an interesting man to converse with, at least, considering how he acted and appeared to be a very clever man.

There came the sound of Den barking, and Pinako just sighed. "Just as I said, fifteen minutes early. Gideon always does that, says he'd rather have some time to spare in case of an accident, rather than risk arriving late... But he's been like that ever since he lost his leg, and I can't say I blame him for being scared when his nephew had already lost his parents... Why don't you go greet him and tell him that I'll be coming upstairs for when his appointment is actually scheduled?"

Roy just got up from the table with a small sound of affirmation, before he headed up the basement stairs. The clinic had a separate door at the side of the house so as to make it a bit easier to tell whose visitors belonged to whom, also for the visitors themselves. And so Roy heard the two knocks just as he entered the living room, and then walked over and opened the door.

...Only to find himself being met by a man with his face hidden by a hat, and who was immediately shoving a silver pocket watch and a glass bottle of what Roy could only guess was non-alcoholic apple cider straight into his chest, startling him more than a little. "I hear that congratulations are in order, Inspector," the man said gruffly.

"I appreciate your gift, Mr Fitzgerald, but I'm afraid that I can't accept it without risking claims of bri-," he began, but then the old man began chuckling heartily.

"Sorry, Roy, but I don't think that you'd be able to resist my charms no matter what you do." Then he used the hand holding the pocket watch to remove his hat, and Roy could only stare at the not-so-stranger before him.

---

...1 October, 1893...

Roy walked inside his new classroom, having walked to school alone because he didn't want people to think that he was a scared little boy who wasn't up to being in the same year as the nine-year-olds. Because he wasn't too scared or too young to fit in. Izumi had been teaching him and Pappy had been giving him whatever textbooks that he had needed to complete to be ready for this.

And Mr Jenkins had cleared him after Roy had taken a lot of tests in the library for the past week and had received very high marks.

However, once he entered the room, he found himself looking at a lot of students that were a few inches taller than he was. Roy had already known that that would be the case. After all, he hadn't technically finished year two, what with having been in the hospital and rehabilitation for the last three months of it. And now he was completely skipping year three. And he found himself more than a little intimidated all of a sudden.

"Hey, you lost or something?" came a worried voice from his right, and he turned around to find a girl that was about four inches taller than him with red hair and a ponytail, looking at him with a slight frown.

Roy shook his head. "Not if this is year four."

"So we've got a new student?" came a blonde boy with brown eyes to his left. "What's your name?"

"Roy Mustang."

"You're that kid that chickened out of moving up a year!" came another girl, this one with black hair going halfway down her back and she was already wearing makeup, standing there with her right hand on her hip, looking at him disapprovingly. "People said you quit 'cos you were too embarrassed to show your face here again 'cos you'd aliened your classmates 'cos you'd made them feel too stupid around you or something."

Roy felt his stomach clench.

"Oi! Holly, you stupid cow!" came a tall boy of about five feet with short, light brown hair. "If you're gonna be an insensitive brat by using big words, then actually say them correctly! It's 'alienated,' not 'aliened!' Secondly, put two and two together and not make it five! If you've forgotten, he's not the only one who disappeared for a while at that exact same time!"

That was when Roy saw a blonde girl over by the window who had paled slightly, and whose eyes were welling up with tears. "There were three of you, weren't there?" she asked quietly, obviously having been there at the memorial. Izumi had told him about how that the Mayor himself had read out all the names and ages of those that had died. What with how unusual and yet easily remembered their surname was, it wasn't too surprising that she would have noticed it in particular. Roy hadn't been able to go himself because he had still been in the hospital at the time, and he hadn't wanted to listen to the broadcast on the radio because of Nan. "My great-grandma died too... I broke my leg."

Roy felt his stomach clench violently, feeling very much like him being back here wasn't such a good idea after all because he didn't fit in at all, and he nodded slightly at the girl. "I'm sorry."

"So you were gone for half a year 'cos of three dead family members?" Holly asked. "If that's how it works, then you're gonna have big trouble being taken seriously 'round here if you're that much of a cry-baby..."

Roy found himself losing his temper. He had been praised enormously by the hospital staff and they had said so many good things about his family and about how well he was working and how him even being here was a great achievement. He wasn't even thinking about how cocky it made him sound by accident as he got highly defesive. "Don't you dare talk about my parents and my aunt that way! And you've got no idea how much pain I've gone through to be here this soon! Because I broke three of my ribs and my arms needed multiple surgeries and I'm still not done with my physical therapy! They all call it a miracle that I survived after what happened and I'm not even allowed to start PE before the next semester and in between all that, I have been doing homeschooling so that I could come here and be completely prepared for year four, so just shut up about things that you don't understand!"

Everyone had frozen as he had delivered his speech.

Then the guy that had called Holly a cow, came over to Roy and put a hand on his left shoulder. "Well, you've certainly earned my respect and then some, Roy. Welcome to year four, and I'm Clarence, by the way."

Roy turned around and shook his hand. "Thank you."

"So you're saying that in between all those things, you've done what, one and a half school years in just six months?" Holly said. "I'm not buying it, 'specially when you're just eight."

"Miss Scott, as the other teachers and myself have been present on the the tests for our respective subjects that Mustang has gone through, I can assure you that he is more than fit to join our year," came a voice from behind Roy. One that he recognised to belong to Mr Witkinson, who taught Amestrian and math. The man was in his mid-thirties, about 1,85 metres tall, had slicked back dark brown hair and matching stubble, and he was obviously dead smart. He had been following the students of this class for the past three years, which was why Roy had never had him as his tutor before now, because he had had different teachers the previous years. "Though, if you would like some proof, then please sit down everyone, save Mustang, I would like you to come up here to the blackboard and solve a few arithmetical problems, just so that people won't be underestimating one of the brightest, if not the brightest student that this school has seen so far."

---

...Noon, 4 January, 1894...

Roy would be lying if he said he wasn't scared as he followed his the male part of his classmates inside the boys' wardrobes in order to dress for his first time of year four PE.

None of them had seen the scars.

None of them even knew about the scars. He hadn't wanted people to know about them. He hadn't wanted prodding and pushing and asking to see them all the time. Not when he had already been hurting so much over Mum and Dad and Auntie Chris. He had wanted to get back to school first because it had been so overwhelming. After Dad's final words to him, returning to school had meant a lot more than just being well enough to be here.

But then Roy decided that there was no point in delaying the inevitable, as he stood facing the peg that he had decided on with Clarence on his right and the wall to his left. Then he swiftly pulled off his brown uniform sweater with the school crest, then the matching brown tie. Then his black trousers and socks and shoes and placed them all in a neat pile on the bench below the peg, the shoes on the floor below it. He pulled on the gym shorts and then reached the worst part of it all as he unbuttoned his shirt.

Clarence was tactful enough not to mention anything about it, for which Roy was infinitely grateful, even though his eyes widened.

"SHIT!" the boy next to Clarence, Johnnie Westly, to be exact, exclaimed in horror. "THAT'S WHY YOU WAITED WITH PE?!"

Roy felt all eyes on him and tried to repress the tears. "I got trapped under a beam," he said quietly, realising that his fears had just proved themselves to have been all too accurate.

...He was now truly turning from the teacher's pet into the class freak.

Roy swiftly pulled on the school singlet, feeling really, really awkward, before he knelt down to pull on his trainers, trying to ignore the others.

But he should have known that none of them would have walked out of the wardrobe, just so as to see for themselves just what Johnnie had been talking about.

Except for Quentin Ferris, that was. He was pretty runty, had large, round spectacles that made his eyes look a lot smaller than they actually were because of his myopia, and his half-Ishbalan heritage had made him the previous freak, whilst Roy had been severely unpopular because of his love for learning and his teachers' love for seeing that.

Now Roy was about to take over for him as class freak... school freak, actually, as Quentin began pushing at the muscular 1,5 metre tall Xander Benson, his 1,3 metre height leaving him with little hopes of winning. "DON'T MOCK HIM FOR GETTING HURT!"

Roy had stood up for Quentin a few times previously, and Quentin had done the same for Roy. It was basically just the four of them, Quentin, Clarence and a pair of brown-haired identical twins by the names of Mona and Tania Dixon, whom Roy considered his friends out of the forty-one students that year four consisted of. Roy, Quentin and Tania were downright nerdy, Mona was nerdy in the way that she wanted to be an author and would begin humming at odd times, Clarence wanted to be a painter and Roy really hoped that Clarence would become one, because the kid had talent unlike Roy had ever seen before. Quentin also liked to play the guitar, and had spent some time time together with Mona as they were composing a song together, while Tania would be out in the garden doing homework or studying plants or looking at birds, the girl perfect for becoming a biologist.

And Roy had was definitely going to become a policeman. And he really liked Amestrian and maths, as well as social studies, natural sciences, and he even did well in arts and crafts, and music lessons went well too.

...Though he was putting a lot more time into learning the history behind all their subject projects and lessons in general, and Mr Witkinson would always provide him with such additional reading materials for his own two subjects.

Because Roy found it interesting. He found a great amount of interest in learning, and when he was going to be a policeman, preferably a detective, then he wanted to know a lot about everything to be a really good one once the time came that he could become one. Ten years, and the it would be Police Academy. And nothing was going to stop him from doing that. And that meant getting good at PE too. He wanted to be strong like Izumi.

And so Roy had an advantage that he would use for what it was worth: he had been moved up a year so that he could finish the entirety of year three of upper secondary school before going to the Academy. He would miss out on university, but it would be worth it, and he could still study a lot more before he turned eighteen.

"Wow, Mustang, no wonder you get along so well with Quentin, you're even more of a freak than I thought," Xander said mockingly, before letting Quentin pass him for once. "Seems like you've been beaten, Ferris, I'll let you leave for now. Now off you pop," he said, pushing Quentin against the door.

Roy just gave Quentin a look telling him to go fetch the PE teacher. Roy may know that this wouldn't help on his pride at all, but being the new freak meant that the lesson would get delayed and a giant commotion was obviously about to be put in motion.

And Roy would rather have the teacher stop this before Xander would do something so stupid that would get him expelled and become a brutish bully because everything was going wrong in his life. Izumi had taught Roy a lot about human nature, and Xander seemed pretty neglected. If that came from alcoholic parents, then Xander getting expelled could be the tip of the iceberg that caused his parents to become violent.

Basically, getting told off at the cost of Roy's pride was better than setting that sort of chain reaction in motion.

And the guy was stupid enough to think that Roy was too prideful to let Mr Davies know. The guy basically thought that Roy was a cocky brat because he got such good marks and the teachers liked him so much. Basically, by being top of his year despite being a year younger and doing better than Xander, Roy was mocking him by everything he did, even though Roy wasn't in need of trying to prove himself worthy of year four any longer. "Come on then, little Mustang, show us just how freaky you look now..." Xander said, smirking.

Roy simply decided to get it over and done with. They were sharing showers, after all, it was better to just do it now, and so he pulled his singlet back over his head, revealing just how scarred his chest was.

There were twenty-two pairs of wide eyes on him, Clarence glaring at Xander instead.

Roy felt like he had been stabbed by the looks in people's faces. He knew that Mum and Dad were the only reasons that he was still alive, because Nan and Pappy had told him that their bodies had helped keep the beam up so that it hadn't killed Roy by literally having squeezed him to death.

But these people didn't seem to be of the kind where telling them that would achieve anything but scorn.

And so he didn't say anything about it.

"What, Mustang? No recounts of the heroic efforts you've put into being here? No speeches about how clueless we are? How we're beneath you because you're so clever?" Xander taunted, referring to his outburst during his first day in year four due to his fear of school not having wanted him any more.

Mr Davies came to his rescue before anything would have been able to escalate any further, but it was obvious that Xander was going to be there to torment Roy for the rest of his time at this school.

---

...29 May 1895...

"Seriously, Roy, you're just being stupid for not reporting him!" Tania protested, placing a plaster on his right knee to join the two on top of his right hand and on his forehead, while Roy used his left hand to press the bag of frozen peas against his right cheek.

"No. He obviously didn't plan on the tree actually breaking like that... I'm not gonna get him expelled for not knowing the exact sturdiness of a tree," he told his friend stubbornly.

"That doesn't change the fact that he punched you in the stomach so that you slammed into the tree in the first place! He could have killed you if it hadn't been for the grass!" She was both grumpy and scared at the same time, and Roy looked at her with an apologetic smile, because she was not happy about the fact that he was being moved up another year come autumn, meaning that he'd be changing schools when she would only start year seven.

...Because there was no denying it that he was her best friend.

The 'bestest' of her best friends.

And so she was very displeased about the way that Xander had punched him in the stomach so that Roy had fallen sideways into a trench and had thereby got mildly injured as it had been a metre and a half deep and not even too steep.

Also, she was getting very afraid of being abandoned by her friends, what with how Mona and Quentin were spending a lot of time working on their music careers despite only being eleven, and Clarence and his family had already moved to South City because of his parents' jobs, but they would still call each other and write letters.

Roy had of course told her that they would still have recess at the same time despite them being in separate years, but it had only helped with patching up the wound that it had inflicted upon her soul, as her sister had put it. Because Roy's absence in class would still leave a scar because of the existence of group work.

"I don't get it, Roy, why have you never reported him to a teacher? It's not like he's gonna be nice all of a sudden, just because you're letting him step on you as if you were his personal doormat!"

Roy just shook his head. He hadn't told any of his friends about his misgivings concerning Xander's home situation. He had never had them confirmed at any point, but he just knew.

And so it wasn't his place to tell anyone else. "Call it a matter of maintaining my pride without getting my reputation as a model student marred by rising to his taunts. I've got a lot to prove when I'm being moved up yet another year, and I'm already unpopular enough as it is."

Tears began building in her eyes and then she slapped his left cheek weakly and hugged him. "You're such a jerk sometimes!"

---

...22 June, 1896...

"So you've gone and proved just how superior you are to us with your finishing two years early, Mustang?" Xander said contemptuously from behind Roy, causing Roy to pause where he was crouching, his hands still on top of the neatly stacked unused sheets of paper inside the cupboard. Roy had stayed back as he was the student body president, and had therefore made absolutely sure that the room was in perfect order and that nobody had left anything behind. The teachers were gathering his classmates in the school grounds to eat some celebratory cake, and so Roy was alone with someone that he really ought not to be left alone with in this sort of setting.

"I've never said I was superior to any of you, Xander," Roy said as he closed the cupboard doors and began standing up. "I've only been working on achieving my g-"

He was interrupted by the way that he was pushed forwards so that his chin slammed against the top of the cupboard. He didn't have time to react, though, before he was pushed sideways and crashed into the wall, winding him, leaving him open for the kick to his stomach. "So your goals are worth more than ours, Mustang, is that what you're saying?"

Roy gasped at the pain that followed the kick, fear sinking into him. Xander was both bigger and stronger than himself, and had, unlike Roy, already begun his growth spurt, leaving him with about twenty-five centimetres of height advantage and he was more muscular than Roy to boot.

...Which he used to grab Roy by the front of his uniform and lift him up and slam him against the wall again. His right elbow protested it violently and there came an odd flash of pain as it crashed against the edge of one of the blackboard's legs. "They're better than our own, are they?" He received another kick to his stomach and wheezed for air, tears of pain building in his eyes. "Because everything that you do is so much better because you're so clever?" Another kick. "And so you think that you can just leave those few friends that a brat like you are ever gonna be able to get? Just because they're worthless to you when they just slow you down, you self-congratulatory, little fre-"

"THAT'S ENOUGH!" came Mr Witkinson's sharp voice from over by the classroom door, and the man strode quickly towards them.

Roy just lay there, wheezing, pained tears streaming down his cheeks and the pain from his elbow was just getting worse and worse by the second, and his stomach was hurting too.

And it terrified him. He didn't want to get stuck in the hospital again. It was bringing back too many memories of when he had been lying there in the bed while he had been told about what had happened. "I don't wanna go to the hospital," he said in a weak voice that was choked by tears. "Please don't take me back to the hospital."

"It's going to be all right, Mustang, but I need you to tell me if you think that anything's broken," Mr Witkinson said calmly.

"Please don't take me back to the hospital," Roy repeated, afraid to keep lying on his elbow like that, but also afraid to move and make it hurt more as a result. He didn't want it to be broken. He didn't want to risk moving because it would hurt and if he let Mr Witkinson know that it was hurting, then he might take him back to the hospital. And his arm was hurting and his stomach was hurting and history was repeating itself. "I can't go back to the hospital... Not when Dad would have told me he was proud and Mum would have been smiling and Auntie Chris would have been smiling in the way that only she did... It was supposed to be happy this time too... I-I can't go back to the hospital when Dad would have been so very p-"

He looked up at Mr Witkinson, but his face was blurred by tears. "P-please don't let them make Dad's words into a curse..." he pleaded weakly.

"I'm going to sit you up, Mustang, and fetch the school nurse. You're obviously worried about your arm and so you shouldn't be lying on it."

Roy yelped as Mr Witkinson carefully sneaked his left hand underneath Roy's right side and then straightened him up into a sitting position. The throbbing pain was making Roy increasingly nauseous and he was terrified that he had broken his arm again, and his dominant one at that.

---

...Four hours later...

Roy sat there with his large portion of ice cream because of the nausea that came with the way that his badly sprained elbow was throbbing.

He paused as his stomach clenched with realisation, and his gut feeling told him that he was completely right about his worries. And so he quickly shovelled the remainders of his ice cream into his mouth and then put his spoon down, looking up at Pappy, what with how Nan was baking cookies. "I'm gonna go over to Maes, he's gonna get angry with me if I don't tell him what happened before tomorrow. I could use some time alone to think..."

He didn't need to explain any further, because Pappy understood full well about how taking a walk to mull things over on his own was something that Roy would want to do.

...And so it made Roy feel a bit bad about how he wasn't only doing what he had said he would, as he walked through the streets with a satchel over his left arm with a few emergency tools so as to have made Nan feel more at ease about it, even if there were still five hours left of sunlight and barely any clouds to speak of.

And so he had a multipurpose knife in the side pocket, two boxes of matches in the other side pocket together with the small torch in case of... needing a way to quickly light things up by pressing a button... And inside the main room was a spare change of clothes and a travel-size first aid kit.

And so it was highly unnecessary for a thirty minutes' journey of walking through the crowded streets on the way to Maes's house.

But he hadn't objected to it because Nan had been worried and had been fussing about what had happened today, and so the official story was that Roy was merely humouring her.

The unofficial story was that Roy wasn't heading in the direction of Maes's house at all, but was instead walking swiftly in the direction of the forest about two minutes away from the school. Because there was just something about what Xander had said that was making Roy very anxious to do this, and to do this alone because all of it was based on extremely vague assumptions. And if he were to be correct in his subconscious evidence-gathering, then he was about to walk in on something that was extremely personal to Xander Benson.

And so he found himself walking through the forest, and then climbed over the old stone fence to the building that was the main feature of the gory horror stories that had been passed between the school's students for over a decade about ghosts and zombies and evil mutant humans. And so the students had for years now been daring their fellows to walk into the old house and bring a piece of wood or a nail or similar from inside the building.

...But thing was, Xander, whom one would have expected to have been one of the worst people at daring the other kids to do so, had never once done anything of the sort.

And there were just too many things that could explain just what was going on.

...And Roy had a feeling that he'd be meeting a certain person as he came here, if he just did the right things in the right order, no matter how hard it would be to do so.

And no matter how much it would hurt if he was right about this.

Because he had been wrong for the past three years of his life.

Everyone had been wrong about everything.

And so now he needed to help the one who had been wronged more than anyone else.

Which meant that Roy walked past the house and kept walking, following a small path that one would have assumed had been made by deer, until he came upon another building.

A cottage, in fact. A cosy cottage with chequered curtains featuring red and yellow squares that were separated by thin dark green lines. There was even a wooden shed that obviously featured an outside toilet.

It looked like a sanctuary. Somewhere to relax completely and just be in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by nature where no one dared to disturb the owner because they obviously wanted peace and quiet. The peace and quiet of the uncompromised nature, untouched by mankind around it.

It was only that building in between everything else.

A safe haven that Roy would have loved to have owned.

Which confirmed his suspicions.

And so he walked up to the front door and knocked with his left hand so that his knocking sounded like a slightly off-pitch version of the first seven seconds of the Drachman national anthem.

It was fifteen seconds later that the door was opened to reveal Mr Witkinson, who immediately paled upon seeing Roy standing there.

Before Mr Witkinson could do or say anything, Roy spoke in his best Drachman, even if it was a little lacking in proper grammar and pronunciation, much to Roy's chagrin. "Grandfather of mine retires two years in future... Need money for fixing flat."

Mr Witkinson just stared at him for five whole seconds.

Then he began laughing upon seeing Roy's determined look, and spoke to him in Amestrian, probably just so as to put Roy a bit more at ease and to make sure that Roy understood him in full. "Brightest student that the school has ever seen indeed..." His eyes betrayed his amusement and almost fondness as he looked at Roy with a humorous glint in his eye. "Although your Drachman could really use some fine-tuning, young man..." He stepped back and let Roy walk past him.

"I only started learning it about three months ago, I'll put in some extra effort now during the holidays," Roy told him as he went inside the building and found it to be even more tranquil than he had thought it would be. It was beautifully simple with unpainted wood and with a few paintings of birds and forest-dwelling animals, a lot of bookshelves, a pair of cosy armchairs, a grandfather clock, homely rugs on the floor with odd patterns... And that was just what he could see so far, what with the hallway in front of him and the doorway to the living room to his right. "And judging by how heavenly this place looks, I'm really gonna like replacing Xander, especially when it means that we can fix the flat, and without us needing to sell the car just so that we can take a bath without looking up at the mould on the ceiling. So I really hope you don't mind me coming here from time to time just to relax?" he asked nonchalantly as he removed his shoes.

"You know that you're practically begging me to shoot you, right?"

"And you know that that is a stupid question because if you had wanted to kill me, then you would have stabbed me and dragged me inside, instead of having let me walk in here unharmed. Because you know me well enough to know what an asset I could be... I'm guessing drugs and that you'd like me to place my shoes here next to yours?"

"You're a lot more cheeky than you've let me believe for these past three years as your teacher, you know... And yes to both of your questions." His voice was still carrying a lot of amusement. "Now would you mind telling me how you figured it all out?"

"The way that you stepped in today... You slipped up at the way that you made your entrance. Your tone was that of someone just a bit too desperate in your orders for you to be a teacher without any connections to Xander beyond school. And his wording pointed towards Xander being a suppressed genius, which is why he has always had it in for me, and why you've been keeping a closer eye on me so that he wouldn't slip up... And I think you've also been using all that special reading material and far more advanced tasks you've provided me with during lessons to push Xander even further into 'getting in with a bad crowd,' just so that he's got an excellent position to start selling drugs for you people in a few years, and especially to recruit others to do the same. Am I wrong, Mr Witkinson?"

"Still doesn't explain how you figured out that our operation is originally Drachman."

"You dragged out the wrong vowel and with the sound just a bit wrong in 'enough' when you came to my rescue, making it more into an 'enauf,' but in the way that the sound was a distinct and unique feature in the Drachman language and Drachman only."

"Well, you've always had a good ear for languages." Then he sighed. "Let's go into the kitchen, I'll make us some tea and I've got a bag of frozen broccoli that we can wrap in a dishtowel for your arm."

"What about your guests in the basement?"

"I'll tie you to a chair while we wait for the tea to get ready and tell them that I've got an ex-pupil genius who would possibly make a good recruit," Mr Witkinson said as he placed a hand on Roy's left shoulder and led him through the building, making sure that he couldn't run away.

Roy had to say that he felt more than a little awkward about hearing his former teacher speak so casually about tying him to a chair. "Which explains the frozen broccoli... Tell them about how I've finished year seven two years early and can easily assume the role of a social outcast now that I'm switching schools and starting year eight with a high possibility of not making any friends. Plus, I've got very little family to speak of, only with a pair of grandparents as well as a total of three semi-relatives, one of which will be moving to Central in two years and the other will be going to university in South City at that time too. I'm a social outcast and a loner living with a pair of grandparents, one of which is five foot tall and deaf... The model student that nobody suspects is desperately lonely because all he does is study and doesn't make any friends during recess, other than the textbooks and classic literature, as well as weird non-fiction about everything from sharks to mammals to geography. And so I can play the role of a lonely, young boy who is a bit too inexperienced and gullible because of my age when it comes to my 'new friends.'"

"There's another reason that you're so willing to do this beyond helping your grandparents, isn't there?" Mr Witkinson's voice was carrying just a hint of suspiciousness, even if he was still sounding amused. And he was obviously testing Roy to see if he was actually just an informant.

At that Roy turned around swiftly and hugged him around the waist with his good arm, making the man freeze. But Roy just pressed himself into deep blue waistcoat and cream-coloured shirt, and told his now former teacher something that was completely true. "Because you've been filling some of the void that Dad left ever since you became my teacher... And I wanna do what I can so that you can keep going unnoticed because I don't wanna risk losing you too."

Plus, you're innocent and you are being forced to do this, so I wanna help in getting Xander to safety because I'm pretty sure by now that he's your son, and that him getting expelled today is putting him in a lot of danger, especially when he's basically a hostage as he's living with those that are forcing you to work with them in the first place.

There were a few seconds where nothing happened and Roy was afraid that he had pushed things too far.

But then Mr Witkinson knelt down and gave Roy a proper hug, still being careful about Roy's arm. "And here I thought you were smart, but instead you let your loyalty turn you into a criminal," he said gently with a heavy sigh, sounding like he knew full well what that was like. And he was obviously letting go of his act as a criminal. "Now you're making me feel bad about tying you up. Guess I'll just have to bribe you with biscuits."

Roy just hugged him tighter. He knew that this was dangerous. Really dangerous.

But he also knew that Xander was in significant danger now that he had got himself expelled and that that made things a lot more complicated. And so he didn't let go of Mr Witkinson because Roy could really use a hug right now. "But I wanna ask for a favour, because I need to have sort of innocent way to contact you, otherwise this is going to look very suspicious if I keep casually meeting up with my previous teacher while going to a different school."

"What do you have in mind?"

"I don't want Xander to get hurt, so I want you to make a deal with the Headmaster about letting him return for year seven, at the condition that I help him with his studies under your supervision. He's already behind on his studies and hopefully he'll find it a lot more encouraging to have me tutor him. After all, he hates me, so he'll be really encouraged to work a lot harder just to shut me up and be independent from me."

"And the way that he's not exactly keen on spending time with you means that you're too kind a kid to not want to make friends with him. Which in turn means that you'll get yourself mingling with the wrong crowd during those attempts."

"Exactly... And by being the one to oversee the additional education, you'll get to spend some time with your son while actually getting to act like his father for once because you'll be in your own home."

Mr Witkinson paused at that. "Just how much have you actually figured out?"

"Enough for it to be a good idea for me to borrow a phone to tell my grandparents that I ran into Xander outside the school and that you saw us as you left for the day. And so now we're mediating at your home which is nearby the school because my arm could use some ice as we do so. They're not going to find it suspicious either..." Roy pressed his face against Mr Witkinson's shoulder and spoke in a low voice. "They've been able to tell that the reason that I haven't ever told the teachers about him bullying me, was because I've always had a bad feeling that his parents wouldn't have liked it... I thought it was alcohol first, and wanted to not risk it making them go from neglectful to violent... It's only today that I've put two and two together, and I've been doing so more and more ever since you opened the door."

"All right, then, Roy. I'll tell you the full story after I've cleared it with my bosses, also because it's obvious that you're approaching this in the same way as I did. Meaning that keeping you in the dark won't actually be a good idea because you need to get the full scope of the mess that you've just got yourself into... They like threatening soft-hearted fools like ourselves, and that can't be achieved in its current state of vague promptings."

"Soft-hearted fool indeed, Andrei," came a cold female voice from behind Roy, and Roy felt the way that the man instinctively hugged him tighter.

"Don't you dare, Irma," Mr Witkinson growled sharply, but there was still a lot of fear in his voice. "I won't let you take him too from me. He's a smart boy and he'll do exactly what you need him to."

"Says the man who faked his own and his two-year-old son's deaths and crossed the border illegally by abusing his little brother's trust, and thereby temporarily stole the identity of his own family because he had an entry visa, unlike the man who left his wife behind to mourn her family's deaths after he also killed his brother to silence him," the woman answered snidely.

Roy felt chills go down his spine as Mr Witkinson hugged him even tighter and then spoke quietly and urgently. "Don't listen to her, Roy... Please... I thought she was cheating on me and I found out that she was instead a part of a large criminal organisation and I asked my brother for help in getting out of the country as he was working as a secretary during an attempt at achieving a truce between Drachma and Amestris. It turned out that he was very much aware of what my wife was up to and then some. I met him at his house after he called me. He told me where to go and who to meet up with two hours from then, gave me his documents, shot himself before I could stop him and I couldn't just make it count for nothing when he sacrificed himself to help me get my son and myself across the border. I-I swear that I didn't know what he had been about to do before it was too late... Please believe me..."

Roy just stood there, frozen with horror and fear. He hadn't thought that he would be walking into something as big as this.

And yet part of him was glad that his actions were most likely still going to achieve what he had come here for.

...Xander would get to stay unharmed, and that wouldn't necessarily have happened if Roy hadn't come here alone without having warned anyone.

And so Roy nodded slightly, feeling tears beginning to stream down his cheeks. "I-I do, Mr Witkinson," he whispered shakily, hugging him even tighter, not really knowing what else he was supposed to do.

His original plan had been so stupidly simple: save Xander by replacing him. Because even if Mr Witkinson had turned out to be a cold-blooded murderer who made kids into slaves for his despicable cause, then Roy had still trusted him not to have wanted to kill Xander... Which meant that Roy had been planning to make it possible for Mr Witkinson to fake Xander's death in some unknown way that he would have left his criminal ex-teacher to figure out because Mr Witkinson knew more about that sort of illicit business.

"You would put your trust in the man who has been lying to you from day one?" came Irma's snide voice. "An illegal immigrant whose claims of innocence might very well be a lie? Who invited you inside this building with no qualms about letting you meet up with his wife whom he supposedly hates? Who suddenly switched tactics by appealing to your need for a parent from the moment you first hugged him? Whose real name you don't ev-"

"Shut the hell up, Irma!" Roy shouted at the exact same time as Mr Witkinson.

They both froze.

Then Roy heard quick strides behind him and had a gun pressed the back of his head, and Mr Witkinson's slightly shaky breaths told him that he wasn't the only one whose eyes were stinging as Irma hissed at them. "Give me one good reason why I should believe that you haven't been feeding the police information through this boy, Andrei?"

"Because Xander is comparing me to you, which is why he would be so angry that he would accidentally break his cover like he did today!" Roy exclaimed. "Mr Witkinson interfered so sharply because Xander was about to say too much! Because he was going on about how I was so self-congratulatory that I would leave behind the only few friends that a brat like me could ever get because they were only slowing m-," he began, but Irma interrupted him before he could finish.

"Andrei, let go of him right now, or I'm afraid that little Roy here's fears about Xander Benson's parents will prove themselves to be very justified."

Roy just nodded weakly against Mr Witkinson's shoulder in order to tell him that it was all right, and he found the grip around him slackening. "I'm so sorry about this, Roy... So, so sorry."

Next second, Roy was getting yanked back by his collar, and found himself looking directly at Mr Witkinson. He was still kneeling, tears going down his cheeks, looking guilt-ridden and desperate beyond belief as Roy's satchel was ripped away from his shoulder.

Thunder suddenly rumbled from outside, and Roy yelped. He was ashamed to admit it, but that was one of the things that instinctively scared him the most.

...Because it always made him afraid of it being another bomb. And after what had happened today and with how his arm was hurting, then it just made things ten times worse.

"You're actually saying that you're more scared of thunder than you are of having a gun pressed to the back of your head?" Irma asked, sounding halfway intrigued and halfway scornful, just as another set of footsteps came from down the hallway behind Roy. Her voice turned completely business-like as she turned towards the one behind her. "Go through his satchel, I'll check him for anything else and then we'll have him phone his grandparents, we've just been provided with an excellent excuse for having this young man stay here with us for the night."

Roy couldn't help the yelp that escaped him as Irma suddenly grabbed the bottom of his light blue shirt and yanked it over his head, causing his arm to practically yell with pain.

"I told you that he's even more suited for this than Mikhail, dammit!" Mr Witkinson said angrily, and Roy suddenly found himself with his ex-teacher kneeling down in front of him. "The least you could do is make him actually at ease with you as his employer! Now go find the notebook I keep in the drawer by the desk with the phone numbers to my pupils' households!" His voice was heavy with frustration and his manner was very different from how he had ever acted at school.

Because it was obvious that no matter what, Mr Witkinson was still very much a brilliant teacher by nature. Because he had always cared about all of his students and had never shown any favouritism. Not even once. But he had encouraged all his students and sometimes that had resonated strongly in a few of them. One of which had been Roy. There was a sort of connection that had been there from his first meeting with Mr Witkinson when he had become his teacher in year four. The man had encouraged him and had helped Roy reach his potential. Because Mr Witkinson was the sort of teacher who would always listen to each of his students and guide them in a way that was designed for each of them so that they all got the equal amount of attention.

Which was why he was everyone's favourite teacher, despite him teaching maths in addition to Amestrian.

And it had reminded Roy so much of Dad.

"You've been encouraging me to work so much and achieve such good marks, just so that you wouldn't be at risk of me getting myself into trouble by being around you for longer than absolutely necessary, haven't you?" Roy asked sadly as Mr Witkinson gently pulled his shirt back down into its original position as Roy carefully lowered his arms so that it could be unbuttoned instead. And Roy's heart was breaking even more with each sentence. With each passing second.

And especially at the heavy sigh and brave smile from the man before him who had wiped away his own tears on his hand by now. "Too smart not to notice it and too kind not to sacrifice yourself to try to fix it... You had a bright future ahead of you, and then I managed to slip up like that and look where it got you. They'll search your clothes, but your underwear is staying on you at least."

Roy nodded slightly. "I'm still not sorry, though, Mr Witkinson. We both know that my plan about the homeschooling is the least suspicious way to do this."

There was this odd moment between them where they sort of resumed their way of acting in the classroom as Mr Witkinson carefully helped Roy with the buttons. "You figured out the common denominator as quickly as usual, although you're finding a surprising answer as you go along because you didn't know what you were getting yourself into."

"I always found it a bit odd with the contrast between your subjects, but I guess that this explains it. You've been putting a lot more work into the Amestrian language and history than most of us, both as a nerd so as to blend in with the Amestrian population with your nature, and as an Amestrian nerd rather than a Drachman one."

"I started studying it when I was staying home with Mikhail a couple of years before all of this first began, my brother was involved with the Amestrian Embassy. I was curious and he had an easy time with procuring books to satisfy that curiosity. I think he did what he did because he wanted to stop risking to be involved with cross-border smuggling operations because of his job, and found it a way to both stop it from happening, while also doing so in order to look after his brother and his nephew, and give us a chance at getting away from this before we would have got involved with it... He faked our deaths through an explosion, but then Irma found us just a year later and took Mikhail hostage and got me a teaching position at the school. And with how high-and-mighty the headmaster is, he was also easily fooled into believing my false credentials." There was so much pain in his eyes as he spoke.

There was another roll of thunder, closer this time, and Roy flinched, his stomach clenching violently at the fact that these people were involved with explosions and Roy couldn't help but start thinking back to when he had first woken up in the hospital three years ago. Mr Witkinson immediately shifted his position so that he was kneeling on one knee, making his right thigh into a chair, and that he then pulled Roy on to and hugged him to his chest again. He sighed heavily as he moved, but with a distinct softness to it even so. "So it's really Andrei Antonov and you're more than free to address me as such."

"Mr Witkinson," Roy said firmly, even if his voice was just a bit choked by his tears. "You're still Mr Witkinson, because that is who you are to me."

"Hey, boss, the kid's come here prepared for sure..." came the man who had taken Roy's satchel and was now pulling out all of the contents and placing them on the floor.

"Nan's just worrying about me in general, I swear!" Roy blurted, more than a little scared by how the contents of his satchel seemed a lot more incriminating than they really were. "I almost died from the bomb at the train station three years ago and I've just had my elbow sprained by a violent classmate!"

And so Roy found himself eight minutes later sitting in only boxers on his ex-teacher's lap as Roy hung up the phone, Mr Witkinson in his boxers and singlet after having been searched for anything that Roy may have provided him with during the initial hug.

"I'm so sorry about this, Roy," Mr Witkinson said heavily, his arms hugged around Roy's waist. Then he stood up together with him and held his hand gently on Roy's right shoulder as they headed towards the kitchen, hugging Roy's left side to him protectively. "Which means that it's finally time for us to find you that frozen br- IRMA, DON'T YOU DARE!"

Roy froze as the reddish blonde in the dark grey skirt and white blouse came in from his right, holding up a syringe. His stomach clenched at the way that her brown eyes were focused on him, making it very clear that Roy was the one that the syringe was intended for.

Then he pressed himself even further into Mr Witkinson's side at the loud rumble of thunder, and found him suddenly holding his left hand between Roy's shoulders, as he pressed Roy's right cheek against him with his right hand to keep Roy from looking at his wife.

"Relax, Andrei, it's just to make him fall asleep while we figure out just what to do with him while I have a private word with you."

"Damn you," Mr Witkinson said in a sort of fearful growl. But then he knelt down like he had done before and sat Roy down on his right thigh again and hugged him. "Roy, I swear I won't let her harm you."

Roy nodded weakly against his chest as Irma crouched down next to them and squeezed her hand around parts of Roy's upper left arm. Mr Witkinson turned Roy's face towards him once more to keep him from watching. Then she inserted the needle right next to where the scars began, making it very hard to spot unless one were specifically looking for it.

Mr Witkinson just hugged Roy even tighter to him as Roy hissed slightly through clenched teeth at the stinging pinch as the contents of the syringe were emptied inside his arm. "It's going to be all right, Roy, I won't leave you alone with these people," the man whispered as he stroked Roy's right cheek with his thumb. "I'll be right there as you wake up." He kept speaking to Roy as he began feeling drowsier and drowsier.

He fell asleep to yet another promise from Mr Witkinson about not leaving him.

---

...Two hours later...

Roy opened his eyes blearily, feeling queasy and a bit dizzy, and he was lying curled up on his left side and he grunted slightly with the pain that followed him shifting his right arm. He suddenly realised that he was in fact lying on a bed, facing the wall, while using someone's thigh as a pillow and with a duvet tucked around him.

And he didn't recognise the bed that he was in at all.

He moved quickly to get away, only to find two things happening instead.

...His left wrist was fastened by a pair of padded handcuffs to one of the thin wooden poles that went in a criss-crossing pattern all over the wall of the bed. Meaning that Roy moved his right elbow a lot more than he should have done...

...Except for the fact that there were suddenly a pair of hands on his back and upper right arm that kept him still, as well as his body being a bit to heavy for any sudden movements. "Take it easy, Roy, it's just Mr Witkinson, so please don't hurt yourself more than necessary... Irma drugged you after we finished with the phone, remember?"

Roy paused as his still slightly foggy mind began trying to piece the information together, but then he nodded and just sank into his alternative pillow. "Are you okay?"

"Considering the circumstances, then I could have been doing a lot worse. Only a polygraph and a few bruises just on principle, so you've been asleep for about two hours... But now they at least believe that I haven't been working with you for the past three years... And we've decided to follow through on the plan that you proposed, also because of how it became clear that you've got an extremely sharp mind to figure so much of this out without me telling you anything... But there's just one thing that I still don't really get... Why did you hug me like that? I saw it in your eyes that you weren't actually certain at that point that I was anything but a liar who would take advantage of a kid. I threatened to shoot you even and called you cheeky and was praising you in a way that was more or less an insult to my teaching you... I was even intentionally toying with your feeli-"

Roy interrupted him at that. "I had a gut feeling that you needed a hug just as much as I did, and I was also using it as an alternative polygraph."

There came a small, but slightly tired chuckle from the man. "So you were toying with my emotions and testing me just as much as I was doing with you, then..." He sounded both amused and tormented as he gently moved his right hand on top of Roy's head. "I'm sorry about what I've done to you, Roy... I never meant to do something as cruel as making you regard me as something beyond a teacher..."

Roy shook his head again, feeling the lump in his stomach making him prone to cry again. "I think you've misunderstood me, Mr Witkinson, because I'm not exactly comfortable about any of this and you're still just my favourite teacher... I told you that you've been filling some of the void that Dad left, and that you needed a hug... But I've loved having you as my teacher and I simply don't want you to lose any of those that you care about or to stop doing what you do best... Because you're a damned good teacher, and I just..." Roy clenched his left fist, feeling both awkward and frustrated and sad, and so he lowered his voice to a whisper. "...You've made me feel like Dad's been looking after me for these past three years..." He took a deep breath and spoke a bit more firmly. "...There's a significant difference between filling a void that someone has left, and replacing them, so there's no confusion there... But you've made Dad smile in my tummy, if you get what I mean?"

There were a couple of seconds of silence and then came a slightly thoughtful chuckle, before another heavy sigh that hada fond smile to it. "Yes, I do... And I believe that I know now why you said what you did earlier today... You weren't showing whose life was the most devastating for you to lose at all... You were directly quoting the last words that your parents said to you, and those just happened to be your father's..." he said softly.

Roy felt tears beginning to form. "They came home for my birthday and we were meeting them at the train station. I told them about how I'd be moved up a year because I'd worked so hard... About how I'd be getting access to the 'advanced readers' section of the school library and about how I'd been put down on the list for three books... Mum practically attacked my cheeks and the top of my head with kisses and Dad joked about how we'd have to get me an extra cake... Then he ruffled my hair and told me 'Congratulations, Son, that's amazing, and we're so very p-.' Then I woke up in the hospital to find Nan having lost her hearing, so Pappy was the one to tell me that Mum, Dad and Auntie Chris had died in the explosion that had been the reason why I basically couldn't move because of the burns and my broken ribs and arms... The doctors and nurses all told me that it was a miracle that I had even survived..." Roy curled in on himself slightly as he pressed his cheek a bit more into Mr Witkinson's thigh, which he faintly noticed was now back to being covered by trousers on top of his boxers. And Roy himself was wearing what felt like an overly large shirt, but he didn't really care, he'd ask afterwards. "...And Pappy told me that I wouldn't have survived if it hadn't been for the fact that Mum's and Dad's bodies had also been pinned under the beam so that their larger bodies had been enough to keep the beam from killing me... I'd have died if they hadn't been hugging me as the last thing that they ever did..."

"And so you increased your efforts even more as you handled all the rehabilitation and getting ready for year four all at once over such a short amount of time... And I suspect that I'm right in thinking that it felt like your father's last words were a sort of goal for you to fulfil... Which was why you were so terrified earlier today of another setback during a second time where your father would have been saying that sentence."

Roy just nodded slightly again, feeling the first tears going down his cheeks. "...You've never been a replacement for Dad and I've never seen you as one, but you were the first teacher that I had when I came back to school... And the first thing you said was that you could assure everyone that I was fit to join year four... And then you went and told my classmates not to underestimate one of the brightest, if not the brightest student that the school had ever seen... You managed to make the hardest day at school into the best day at school that I'd ever had, even though I only had one classmate who didn't treat me like a weird bomb that they weren't quite sure if would explode, implode, be a dud, or was actually stuffed with sweets..." Roy hadn't actually thought about it in this much detail before now, but he was completely certain that it was also one hundred per cent true. "You did something amazing for me that day, because you made me instantly unpopular and irrevocably branded me as the teacher's pet before my first lesson had even really started. Because you knew that that was actually going to make things a lot less emotionally exhausting and uncertain, and I thereby got four friends without any of them having any prejudice against me or making them feel pressured by any of the teachers to make friends with me... You intentionally and instantly made me into a freak so that I would have a few real friends to lean on when I needed it..."

Roy smiled sadly and found himself with a sprained elbow and a handcuffed hand with extra padding to prevent bruises and chafing and a lot of tears that he couldn't wipe away. However, Mr Witkinson reached down and wiped his tears away for him with another soft and heavy sigh, before returning his right hand to rest on the top of Roy's head, while his left one rested gently on Roy's right shoulder.

But the man was also good enough at reading Roy's words to be able to tell that what he had just said had merely been the context for what Roy's main point was. "Which means that you became a sort of guide for me in my wish for making Dad proud, I guess..." His voice became little more than a whisper as he finished his explanation. "...Because you made me keep loving to learn as much as I had done before the explosion, instead of feeling like a freak that the school no longer wanted... So your words were brilliant, because they made me feel like I was at home, while also letting the rest of the class know that I wasn't going to be the standard for marking their homework, and especially as you didn't show me any favouritism. You gave me just the same amount of praise as the ones who learnt how to solve simple fractions... So I got to spend these past three years feeling like my family would have been smiling at me, when it could have been so much different..."

There were a few seconds of silence before his formed teacher spoke up again. "I'm glad to hear you say that, Roy," Mr Witkinson said with his voice telling Roy that there was a small smile on his lips. And his slightly unsteady breathing told him that his words had also made things feel both worse and better for him. "...It means a lot to me to hear that I did that for you as your teacher..."

Roy couldn't help the small giggle as a thought struck him, because that was one of those weird things that humans would do, namely to start laughing at weird jokes based on finding supposedly funny things in situations that were anything but. "And so walking to your home right after I finished my final year as your pupil, and demanding homeschooling in flawed Drachman to keep you guiding me, was more than a little cocky."

"The cockiness I could be able to handle, albeit reluctantly, because then we could have made this plan of yours run a lot more smoothly, and still have achieved the necessary results without you being a significant source of worry..." He moved his right hand to rest on Roy's cheek, his voice getting a bit too shaky for it to be explained as anything else. "But then you had to go and hug me and tell me that and I'm sorry... You had a bright future ahead of you, and I was so damned happy to see you grinning like you were as you cleaned out the classroom while I left with the others..."

"I don't blame him, you know... I'd rather he hadn't attacked me like that, yes, but considering how things are for him, then I'm actually sort of happy that he chose to vent his anger on me."

"...He used it to get me to hold him back after lessons or for me to bring him to my office to have a word with him... I'm not happy or proud about it, because I actually allowed him to do it to a certain extent. Only verbal abuse, of course..." Mr Witkinson said quietly, sounding like he was cursing inwardly.

"...Because you could both tell that I was observant enough not to want to report him because I didn't want him to get into trouble with his parents," Roy whispered, his stomach clenching even more, even though a small smile was twitching on his lips. "I suppose he was a bit jealous too, because he wouldn't ever get any credit like I did..."

"I take it as today not being a first time for him to have physically attacked you, then?"

"Nothing major, really... Just tripping me when I pass him in the school grounds... Accidentally kicking a ball into my face when I pass him outside school as the day comes to an end, bumping into me in the corridors to make me drop whatever I am holding at that particular moment, that accidentally too, of course... He shoved me into a tree last year, but it was old enough to break... In hindsight, now that I know the way that he's a genius, that one's actually pretty alarming."

"You've got it slightly wrong, you know... He told you what he did because you remind him of me, and not Irma, and he's severely afraid of me swapping him out for you..." His voice turned a lot more frustrated. "And, yes, I'll definitely be having a word with him about this as soon as he gets here..."

Then he just sighed heavily once more. "I'm so sorry about what happened today with you in the classroom, I'm getting a feeling that you were extra panicked because of how you'd seen me as a guide to you, and then I came there as you were about to potentially have another setback."

Roy nodded slightly again, and found himself having his tears being wiped away again.

"Hence you begging me not to take you back to the hospital... And to not make your father's words into a curse... By you having another setback the second you were losing me as your teacher..." There was a definite smile on his lips as he spoke next. "Especially when I had become the epitome of making him proud by having him smile in your tummy."

"I think he still is, even if he's white as a sheet with fear..."

"...Because you're selflessly doing what you can to help those around you," Mr Witkinson finished.

Roy just nodded slightly again, before he spoke in a quiet voice after a few seconds of silence. "Did you marry her because she got pregnant?"

"No. We'd been married for five years, and happily at that... It's why she's doing this... I broke her heart by leaving like that when she found out that I had taken our son with me without a word of farewell, and had even made her go to our funeral... The way that I left her rather than talk to her about it, was devastating for her, because she had never planned on getting me involved in any of this, because she truly loved me... It's why she's only demanding that I house her and her main accomplices without involving me any further... And is taking our son away my from me so that she can feel some of the pain that I caused her by what I did... And it's why she made me it so that I'd end up teaching him for those seven years that are soon coming to an end..."

Roy felt odd. The role that Mr Witkinson had had in his life had obviously in many ways just been as a punishment to his favourite teacher.

"I realised a bit too late that she had only had a child with me because she had been able to tell just how much I had wanted kids... And so we had Mikhail and she was so happy at seeing just how happy it made me... And she was happy to raise our child with me... So when I chose to abandon her and take the child that she had already seen as a sort of gift to me and little else, she felt like I had betrayed her... And I think that that was also the main reason that I did what I did, even though it was still subconsciously at the time... Because I had been able to tell that her love for me was becoming too intense... It had slowly gone from love to adoration and her son was paling in comparison because he was just something that she had wanted to give me to see me happy... She had gone through nine months of pregnancy just so as to see me smile. To see me love her child. To give me another reason to love her even more... Because she was getting more and more powerful because of what she was actually doing for a living, and it was twisting her view of the world as she made most people into mere objects. She had already begun using our son as a tool, and though I didn't know it at the time, in hindsight, I think that was why my brother chose to help fake our deaths so that we could get free from her adoration of me, so that I could get away before I realised just how dangerous and twisted my life was..."

Mr Witkinson began unconsciously running his fingers through Roy's hair as he continued speaking. "Please don't misunderstand me, Roy, teaching is what I love doing, which is why she saw to it that I did so... Problem is that she loves me and not our son and so she's taking away the 'gift' that she had given me because I broke her trust in the man that she adored and almost worshipped... And so she's only letting me see our son at odd times during some of my weekends and on a few afternoons that are very much at random, besides when I'm at work... That's why I panicked like I did earlier about her taking another child who trusted me away from me... You said to me that I had filled some of the void that your father left when he died, and I knew immediately just how dangerous it was going to be for you... And I'm not going to let her take one of my students away from me, and especially as you're reminding her far too much of myself for me to dare to leave you with her. I'm pretty sure you noticed just how much angrier she got when I told you that I had thought she had been cheating on me... But I suppose that it actually shows how much faith I had in her that I believed it was something so harmless compared to criminal networks... And I think I would still have stayed with her had it been the former, just so as to have our son be happier than with the alternative, because we still loved each other... And now it turns out that she's been feeding Mikhail her twisted opinions about how treacherous I am when it comes to family... So he reached his breaking point today when you were alone and smiling and had done what I would have done when it came to academic achievements... I'm so sorry that I didn't notice just how bad it was..."

Roy shook his head at that. "It's not your fault... It's easy to see just who holds the blame here, and I don't blame you."

"And this is why I was acting like I was when you came here... Irma's still extremely possessive, and whenever I show affection for someone who isn't her, then that doesn't end well... She's pissed off with me now, and especially after we told her 'shut the hell up, Irma' at the exact same time... During our talk while you were asleep, it became obvious to her that I am now 'corrupting the minds of my students by producing more traitorous people like myself'... However, I'm still curious about how you and I said the exact same thing at the same time... Especially as I have never heard you ever utter a single profanity."

Roy just pressed himself into his thigh even further, a faint blush to his cheek. "She was upsetting us, bullying you, and... And making you cry... And that's my first profanity, really..."

Mr Witkinson sighed heavily at that. "Seems that I'm already a bad influence on you, then..."

Roy shook his head with a grunt. "You'll never be that, Mr Witkinson, so you're not allowed to suggest something like that."

"We're not going to agree on that one, then..." He just kept gently stroking Roy's head for a few seconds, before he spoke again, but still continuing with that soothing motion. It helped Roy feel a bit safer, considering the handcuffs and the gun-toting criminals outside. "How did you find us, though? Your footprints were leading from the path from the school. My mailbox is about two kilometres away at the other end of the forest, but I doubt that you've walked for two hours in order to get to a place that you really shouldn't know even existed."

"It was the way that Xander Benson would never dare anyone to go to the old house... Nor go there himself... I only thought of it today, but when I did, things began making sense, even though I didn't really know what I would find here when I walked further inside the forest, other than you... Mixed with the way that I began realising that you were forcing him to not be a genius, and were Drachman to boot, I had a feeling that you'd still be the type of man who would find living in a forest a very wonderful thing, just like I would have done... And that that was why Xander didn't want to go in here... I-I didn't know if I would have found a ruthless criminal whose true identity would break my heart... I actually thought I would... But the way that you paled made me risk hugging you, and the way that you hugged me back made it obvious that you've got a child of your own whom you're both missing to hug, and that you also know how to hug someone as a parent."

"That's what you meant by polygraph, huh? ...I don't blame you for thinking that I'm a ruthless criminal, because I damn well feel like it whenever I see my son... And yet you came here without warning anyone..."

"Mhm... Is it your shirt that I'm wearing?"

"Yes, one of my pyjama shirts, actually, I figured that it was a bit more comfortable for you to sleep in, rather than one of my work ones..." Mr Witkinson said with a sigh. "They're washing your clothes to remove any traces of them having been looking through your satchel... They insisted on handcuffing you to my bed so that I wouldn't be inclined to leave you, even if I were allowed to not get tied up myself... I made it very clear that this is based on loyalty to me and a wish to protect your classmate. Which means that this is also so as to actually help you feel at least a bit safer with what you're getting yourself into... If you know that you've got someone to lean on here when it gets to be too much, then it's less likely for you to slip up when you're not here... And so they're basically using this talk to show you that that is part of the deal, which it is..." His voice turned a lot angrier, even if still kept soft because of Roy. "Because I'm certainly not going to leave you working for these people out of loyalty and kindness without getting some substantial emotional support."

Roy nodded weakly again. "Thank you, Mr Witkinson."

"You've just potentially thrown away most of your future and have got yourself into some very, very dangerous criminal activities, just so as to let me be with my son... I'm definitely the one who ought to express my gratitude here..." There was some of that shakiness to his voice that told Roy that he wasn't the only one crying here for real. "So thank you, Roy Mustang... From the bottom of my heart..."

Roy gave a small sound of recognition, before a small and brave smile formed on his lips. "...Though I think I'm changing my plans about becoming a cop for now." His lips trembled as his stomach lurched.

Then the lump in his chest and stomach spread throughout his body and exploded and he broke down into loud sobs.

His pillow swiftly got to his feet and then Roy found himself with his former teacher moving to the other side of the bed, just so that he could lift Roy on to his lap and hug him as properly as possible despite the handcuffs. Then he just sat there, gently rocking back and forth as he rubbed soothing circles into Roy's back, and with his chin resting on top of Roy's head. "It's okay, Roy, you're more than allowed to cry, don't worry... It's okay... I'll look after you... I won't leave you alone in this business..."

"Th-that was your goal?" came a voice from behind him ten minutes later as Roy's sobs began dying down. A familiar one.

Xander Benson's to be exact.

Mr Witkinson paused at the same time as Roy did. "How much has Irma told you?" Mr Witkinson asked as Roy looked about, finding Xander standing in the doorway to their left as the boy opened the door in full, rather than the main door in front of hem.

"She... She..." Then tears began streaming down his cheeks as he looked at Roy and then at his father, his features filled with emotional pain. "She told me something that doesn't fit with the way that you're looking at me, Dad!"

Roy immediately moved to get off of Mr Witkinson's lap, but found himself with Xander... Mikhail... striding forwards and grabbing his right bicep gently. "No, just... Just keep sitting, Mustang... You're just gonna get yourself hurt even more..."

Roy shook his head. "No, he's your dad, I sh-'

"Sit still, dammit! I'm the one who got you hurt, and you're stupid enough to be here out of your stupid loyalty to me!"

Mr Witkinson reached out with his left hand at that and hooked it around his son's waist to pull him up to sit next to them, facing Roy, Mikhail taking a few shaky, tearful breaths. "Mikhail, how long have you been listening to what we've been talking about?" he asked softly with a heavy sigh as he gently hugged him to his side, and Mikhail seemed barely to hold back a sob.

"The past twenty-four minutes or so... Mustang was still asleep when I came here, though she didn't let me tell you that I'd arrived... She's been going on about how treacherous you are and that you had swapped me out for your super-smart protégé, but then I got to listen to what you two were really talking about and it..." He locked eyes with Roy, and his look told him everything that he needed to know, his voice breaking slightly. "I-I'm so sorry about what I've done to you... Especially with your arm."

Roy felt both betrayed and honoured at the same time. "You wanted this to happen. You wanted me to come here and you used me to get some extra time with your father!"

"I-I just thought you deserved it! I didn't think that you'd be here just to stop me from getting hurt! I thought you'd end up outside the school before Dad left to ask him talk to the headmaster so that you could be annoying and smug because you were worshipping the ground on which he stood! I thought you'd just come up with that 'homeschooling to encourage me to achieve my great potential or something'-plan! I meant for you to think that I was quoting my 'friends' from when I was little! I thought you'd figure that I was a brute who hated you so intensely because you reminded me of something that I'd been told for having turned on some childhood friend because he was too nerdy for me! Like I was a bully for a reason! Not that I actually knew that word from having spent a lot of time during my weekends with Dad teaching me to expand my vocabulary since age four! Not that you'd find this house! And definitely not that you'd start knocking on Dad's door and speak bad Drachman! How much of a freak are you to learn Drachman for fun with everything else that's going on around you?! You were supposed to be so much of a bookworm who let yourself get pushed about because you were too kind! Of the type who felt so good about himself because you weren't stooping as low as the bully, because you weren't scared of me!"

"Mikhail, I've tried to te-," Mr Witkinson began, but Mikhail interrupted him, looking at Roy in a sort of miserable, angry guilt.

"You weren't supposed to be pondering it over in your head and then suddenly come here out of the blue like that! You weren't supposed to be willing to become a criminal just to help me stay with Dad! You weren't supposed to figure out who Dad was in general! You weren't supposed to figure out that Dad was the one that you found the most suspicious! AND NOT BECAUSE OF ONE DAMNED VOWEL!" He glared at Roy tearfully. "And even then you should have stayed cocky. To be so clever. To have found out how Dad was actually a criminal who threatened to shoot you... Not a brat who wanted to find a way to save my hide after what had happened, and who then actually hugged the man who had threatened you with a gun and had laughed at your cleverness!" He poked Roy hard in the chest, his eyes still full of hatred, but this time more because of how he wasn't like he had thought and how it was making Mikhail emotionally tormented. "You were supposed to have been some clever brat who was the model student so that you could accomplish your goal in becoming a scholar! You could do anything that you had wanted, not to... Not to be a cop!"

"Mikhail, I w-," Mr Witkinson tried, but his son interrupted him once more.

"You weren't supposed to be noble! To be selfless! AND NOT IN ORDER TO SAVE ME!"

"Which I would have been fully capable of telling you, if it hadn't been for the fact that you have been making up your own opinions based on prejudice and intentionally hurting him to the point that he hadn't been able to speak up for himself, because you shut him up by kicking a ball in his face!" Mr Witkinson said sternly.

"YOU WEREN'T SUPPOSED TO GIVE UP ON YOUR STUPID IDEALS, YOU LITTLE BRAT!" Mikhail screamed and began to sob, but in a way that made things far too clear, despite the semi-darkness of the room which had hidden it from Mikhail's features up till then.

...Because there wasn't just emotional pain in Mikhail's voice, and it was suddenly obvious that Mikhail wasn't the only one who had reached the same conclusions as Michail had about his previous bullying of Roy.

Which was when Roy leant backwards to the point that his back was pressed flat to the bed as Mr Witkinson immediately pulled up Mikhail's jumper to reveal the beginning bruises on his chest.

And then frantically began feeling up and down his son's ribcage with slightly trembling fingers. "D-don't, Dad... They already checked, there's only bruising, I swear..." he whispered, flinching at his father's touch.

Mr Witkinson suddenly bellowed in Drachman, sounding nothing like himself, though Roy could hear that there were unknown words which were obviously some very unkind descriptions concerning his wife.

...Some very unkind descriptions that weren't answered by Irma standing there in the doorway.

...Because she was instead thrown inside, tied up, gagged, and with a very angry-looking and familiar man standing there behind her, and Roy needed to lift his head slightly to look at the fuming woman on the floor.

"It's always nice to be terrifying enough to stop the original escorts and persuade them into letting me swap places with one of them, don't you agree, Roy?" Jim Walsh asked, pressing his foot down on Irma's back to keep her from moving.

Roy paused, looking up at him weakly. "So you were the one who taught Izumi to be so?"

"Yep... And I've been joined by the police too out there in the actually soundproof part of the building... Turns out that none of your closest family and friends are capable of not noticing stalkers..."

Roy paled, but then frowned. "What about Maes?"

"My niece has very kindly taught him to throw daggers, he's a natural at it... And Wilford's got his walking stick and Georgina has her taser, of course."

Roy found himself with Mr Witkinson's and Mikhail's pale faces turning slowly towards him. "You told me that you would be getting in with a bad and dangerous crowd because of our plan?!" Mr Witkinson asked incredulously, wide-eyed.

---

...Seven days later...

Roy stood there, tears streaming down his cheeks, as he looked down at the two graves before him.

The official story was that Xander Benson had told his teacher, Matthew Witkinson, about how bad things had been with his parents, and Mr Witkinson had gone to talk with said parents in an attempt at making some sort of innocent plans about summer school, while waiting for the ability to get Xander out of his house as there had been no physical evidence of abuse.

However, when Mr Witkinson had arrived, he had been met by a scream and had slammed the door open, only to have found his student dead after having been pushed over the banister at the top of the stairs. Due to the shock and anger at the situation, Mr Witkinson had found himself with Mr Benson drunkenly shooting him in the back with an illegally obtained rifle before Mr Witkinson had been able to have noticed him as he had sneaked up on him.

And nobody had really doubted it, considering how Xander Benson's attack on Roy had already spread throughout the school like wildfire.

And the unofficial story?

"Sorry, Roy, I suppose I wasn't the best one at keeping my promise about not leaving you... So it's back to Drachma for me, considering how I'm an illegal immigrant who is also guilty of identity theft, and that was without anyone forcing me to do anything, instead of informing the police about my wife's illicit businesses... Then I also technically housed a group of criminals, although by force and with my son being held hostage... Plus, I am still unable to deny the fact that I knowingly contributed in the unlawful imprisonment of an eleven-year-old ex-pupil by abusing his trust... Though I should be able to make a deal of some kind, considering how I'm going to testify against all of those bastards and the way that I had my son used as a tool against me for years... The way that they also punched him so that he got his ribs bruised will add a lot more credibility to just how much of a threat that they had posed to him..."

Roy felt his stomach clench violently, and was hugged to Nan's right side, while Pappy stroked up and down his back. There were a lot of students, a large group of former ones as well, many of them crying too.

...A lot of many crying people of all ages, actually.

And yet, Roy had been allowed to stand so close to the grave, simply because they all knew that he had been there in the office that day, and they had figured that Roy, with his sprained elbow courtesy of Xander Benson only hours before, would need to see the grave the most.

And so he just sat down on the dry grass. And he stayed there.

For a long, long time.

Longer than anybody else.

...Thinking back to some of the most important words he had ever been given during the last time that Mr Witkinson had spoken to him.

"You know, Roy... Your father's words weren't ever a goal to fulfil in order to put pressure on you, at least not in my opinion... As a father myself, I very much believe that his words have always meant one single thing, and it has never had anything to do with your academic achievements... Because those were amazing, to him as your son... But then there's that little comma and an 'and' that I think means that your parents are very proud of you no matter what you do... And, if you truly believe that I am the epitome of you achieving your goals and being your guide, like you told me I am, then I am the one you should listen to in that regard... After all, you said that my teachings have made your family smile in your tummy, so I believe very much that what you've learnt through letting me guide you one last time, is that you're going to become one hell of a policeman... And do you know why?"

Roy shook his head tearfully, looking up at Mr Witkinson, unable to get himself to actually open his mouth at the risk of breaking down into sobs.

At that, Mr Witkinson awkwardly knelt down, his handcuffs making him slightly off-balance. But then he smiled kindly back at Roy and reached out and poked Roy gently in the stomach with his right index finger. "Because after this, I will damned well be smiling in your tummy too all the way from Drachma."

Someone suddenly spoke up behind Roy, and it was a voice that did not belong to either of his grandparents or his friends.

...Although he recognised it well enough after this past week as it belonged to DI Herbert Grumman. "I hear that you are aiming to become a police officer yourself, young man..."

Roy looked up at him over his shoulder. "Yes, sir, very much so."

The man smiled slightly at him, though it also hinted at an amused smirk. "Well, in that case, I suggest that you play a little chess first... Just so as to get a bit better at thinking a few more steps ahead concerning your opponents and how you should act according to their upcoming moves."

Roy nodded, smiling slightly, but with his lips trembling even so, his eyes still stinging with tears. "I will, sir."

He received a nod and a clearly amused smile. "Well, here's my card in the meantime, but don't go catching any colds or getting yourself into trouble until then... I'll be seeing you around, Mustang."

Roy took the card in his left hand and kept his focus on DI Grumman as he nodded again with a "thank you, sir," knowing exactly what he had meant. Roy had been forbidden from writing anything down in case someone should find out just how much Roy had been involved in this matter... Because the official story between the officers involved was that that Roy had been kidnapped by his teacher and had not been anything but a victim with a protective group of associates... who had all immediately gone to the police because of how they had been stalked and then been assaulted by said stalker when they had let them know that they had been aware of their presences.

Meaning that Roy had also not received a fist bump from Mikhail Antonov and even a tearful hug with a little wince from both parties.

And so Roy watched the DI leaving, before he looked down at the business card to read what it said.

And then froze.

Because the design had been altered more than a little, considering how it had been written on with a fountain pen in Mr Witkinson's handwriting, in the same way as he would always mark his tests and homework. And those had always included some form of words of encouragement no matter what the students had done, because that had been the kind of teacher that Matthew Witkinson had been.

Then Roy began sobbing.

Roy Mustang, 11/10, (bonus point for additional information on question 8)

Very proud teacher :)

---

...Present time...

"...This isn't Drachma," Roy said weakly, both angry and happy, as he pointed equally weakly towards where north would be found on the compass. "Drachma's that way..." He was a bit worried that his former teacher had once again stayed here as an illegal immigrant.

Mr Witkinson shook his head with a warm smile, his eyes betraying more than a little pain, fondness, guilt, and a lot of happiness.

Then he pointed in an entirely different direction. "I know, and the unnervingly violent now chemistry professor who stopped a terrorist single-handedly at age fourteen lives in that direction, and so does your boss."

"She made a deal and never told me?" Roy asked, still unable to believe what was happening.

"No, she doesn't know, your boss merely pointed it out fourteen years ago that she had been the one to have done it and so Mikhail and I ended up here in the form of witness protection. They figured that it would probably be better for us when he had grown up here in this country, what with how it would require a lot of work to not act like he had grown up in Amestris... So it was safer here when he was only twelve and it would be more beneficial to his mental health."

"Can I have Nan tase my boss as my future grandfather-in-law as this is an entirely personal matter and has nothing to do with assaulting a police officer?"

Mr Witkinson began laughing. "She's still kept that one, then..." His face was a lot more tanned than before and he now had a fair few wrinkles and a lot more joy in his eyes than what there had been fourteen years ago. His hair had turned a deep grey with a hint of brown and was now in a long ponytail. And he had no stubble any more either.

But his eyes were instantly recognisable. His eyes and his spirit.

"Yes, she has." Roy was having a hard time finding out just what he was supposed to be doing. He had furiously tried to have remembered as much as possible of his old teacher, but fourteen years was a lot of time, and especially when he had only been eleven at the time that he had last seen him. He had kept the business card, though. And he had tried to go through all of the events on a daily basis ever since, but the faces had faded and the sound of their voices were completely gone. And their words had of course not been accurately preserved even from day one either in all the emotional strain of it all.

And because he hadn't been allowed to have made any sort of written recounts of it or have shared the story with anyone beyond his grandparents, Izumi, Jim and Maes, he had lost a lot of it.

...And especially as he had never told any of them just how much he had been told or had told Mr Witkinson that day.

Because it had all been so damned personal.

"Do you think that you can accept my gift after all?"

Roy just nodded and stepped back, letting Mr Witkinson walk past him and then closed the door abruptly. "You were just twelve hours away by train, and yet you never sought me out once? Not even years later?" He felt tears stinging in his eyes.

There was a lot of pain, frustration and guilt in his eyes as Mr Witkinson sighed heavily. "We both know full well how I taught far too many students for it to have been a good idea, and it was in the city where I had supposedly died as a result of finding out just how bad things were with Xander Benson's parents. And you were still a victim of a criminal organisation if anyone were to find out anything beyond the official story... I couldn't risk you getting your future ruined once more... So I bargained a lot, but in the end, Herbert Grumman was a nice enough man to have given you that final message from me."

Roy found himself unable to keep his tears from streaming down his cheeks at that point, and his old teacher just smiled at him in a kind of fatherly fashion, but in the way that Izumi's uncle would look at her. Then he put the hat and the bottle on the floor, but kept the pocket watch in his hand. "Grumman gave me a heads-up two days ago, which gave me enough time to make this for you, have a look inside."

Roy took the object in his hand and opened it.

He barely held back the sob at the words that were neatly engraved on the inside of the lid.

To someone to be oh, so very proud of.

He looked back up at the man before him. And at the way that his eyes were just a bit shinier than before as he smiled warmly at Roy. "I owe you a lot more than you could ever truly fathom, though I hear that you're about to get a lot closer to it soon enough."

Roy just nodded once, not trusting himself to speak. He was feeling completely trapped in a way that he had never been before. But he still forced himself to speak as a thought struck him. "You literally risked life and limb in order to save a pair of kids from burning to death..." he said quietly in a semi-squeak. "And your look when you've been offered alcohol in any form?"

Another warm nod, but with a slightly haunted look in his eyes. "The fact that you thought for three whole years that his parents were drinking and could turn violent... The cover story doesn't matter, the way that you would let him bully you like he did because of how you didn't want to see the alternative, that stuck with me..."

Roy felt himself trying to steady his breathing. "And Mikhail?"

"He benefited greatly from the fresh country air and the chance to spend a lot of time alone together with his father as we put a farm back in order... He works as a child psychologist in New Optain these days, he's grown up so much, he's not getting recognised by anyone, especially with how he acts." Then there was suddenly a glint of playfulness as Mr Witkinson grinned at him. "Although they asked him for a bit of help today as he would obviously be the only psychologist that Edward Elric would actually talk to in full..."

Roy paused, paling completely.

Then he found himself getting pulled to Mr Witkinson's chest just in time to muffle his sobs.

---

Little Minamino: Thank you! Well, I hope you liked a bit more of the background story for the counsellor that Ed spoke to, even if it was a bit ridiculously long! ;)