Summary: Historical/Gangster AU. New York, 2000. Riza Hawkeye comes into the possession of a family heirloom upon her grandfather's final words: "Keep him safe." Confused and grief-stricken, Riza finds herself pulled in time to Prohibition Era New York, recovering from a gang-related firefight under the care of Doctor Roy Mustang, a reluctant member of the Hughes-Mustang crime family and a self-proclaimed guardian to two boys by the names of Edward and Alphonse.
A/N: I've been talking to a few people about this story for almost a year now, and I finally, finally had a chance to write it! This was originally supposed to take place during WWI, but I've been intrigued by the early gangster era, thanks to Peaky Blinders. A few discussions and consideration later, this is the result.
A big thanks to flourchildwrites for beta'ing this first chapter!
Updates will be every 1.5-2 weeks, life permitting. I hope you enjoy!
Chapter 1: I Promise
Ex tempore (ekˈstempərē). Latin for "out of the moment."
New York City, July 16, 2000
There was nothing extraordinary about the ring. It was slender and silver, and years of wear had chipped and eroded the delicate carving of a garland of leaves into an abraded heirloom. Under the low light of the hospital room, Riza Hawkeye obstinately blinked a set of red, misty eyes. She cleared her vision, distinguishing the neat cursive etched onto the inner band.
"Ex tempore," her grandfather interrupted her thoughts, his voice quiet and frail. George Grumman coughed into his cupped palm as he drew in another shallow breath.
"Shh. Don't talk, grandfather," Riza leaned forward, tucking locks of blonde hair back behind her ear.
Like a petulant child, he disobeyed. "It means... 'out of the moment'."
He coughed again and declined her offer of water with a listless wave as she lifted the glass from its tray. She frowned at her grandfather. "I'll do the talking. You just nod or shake your head. Okay?"
He nodded.
George Grumman was her mother's father. When her mother passed away, he had stayed and mourned with her while her reticent father turned to alcohol and then disappeared. No one knew where he went. Maybe this was why Riza was so reluctant about keeping a man past their third date.
Maybe.
Her grandfather was the only family member she had left, and after reading through some complicated legalese and signing many dotted lines, he had taken her in at the age of sixteen. George Grumman was like a little boy trapped in an old man's body. He was scheming and playful. Still, he was revolutionary in his view of the world, wanting to learn the latest technology and advocating for social equality—a cause that most people his age were quick to disregard.
If there was one thing Riza learned growing up in his colorful household, it was her grandfather's fondness for the past. There were many tales told by the fireplace, of the fascinating men and women he had spent most of his childhood with and the slew of illegal activities that seemed to come straight out of a blockbuster movie. With an excited clap and a wistful slant to his smile, George Grumman had leaped at the chance to speak of the family.
Gently, Riza dragged her chair closer to his bedside and examined the intricate band between her fingers. "I've never seen you wear this. Did you get it from your father?"
He shook his head and croaked his answer, "It was... his..." He wheezed, "The... family..."
Tears threatened to leak out once more as she listened to his struggle. "Yes, I remember your adventures with the family," she soothed. "You would tell me all about them after you took me in. I was so intrigued by your stories; that's why I became a history professor. Would you like me to recite them?"
He nodded again, and Riza placed the antique jewelry on his bedside table before drifting a somber smile as her grandfather eased himself into the propped up pillow.
"When Bill Lovett of the White Hand Gang was killed by a Sicilian assassin nicknamed the Two-Knife, the Hughes-Mustang syndicate became the largest Irish crime family in 1923," Riza narrated. "But the Italian mafias kept growing in size, and by mid-1924, there were so many gang-related firefights throughout Brooklyn and Manhattan that every one of the family members had to carry a gun. They were advised to be ready to kill. At all times."
Her grandfather sighed, his head lolling to one side. With care, Riza brushed the back of her hand across his damp forehead.
"Maes Hughes ordered around-the-clock protection when his wife became pregnant. He even slipped a Colt underneath her pillow in case he needed to be out and about during the night. But Maes' adopted brother, who was a doctor, refused to carry a gun. He wanted to save people, not kill them, and you lived by his words and followed in his steps. That man, Roy Mustang, was your mentor and the reason you became a doctor."
Riza paused, considering the next piece of information. "You know, grandfather, the name Roy Mustang only came up once in my research of Prohibition Era. There was so little about him. I don't think he was as important a figure as you make him out to be. It was always Maes Hughes, the head of the family, or his wife, Gracia Hughes."
When her grandfather coughed next, it jolted him from his rest. The narrow strip that embraced his brilliant hazel eyes now held a pair of grey to match the short tufts of hair along the sides of his otherwise bald head. "Riza," he whispered. "You have... to promise…."
"Promise what, grandfather?"
"Prom-" The sputum that restrained George's speech jerked him into a choking state. He coughed again, over and over, and spat blood on his blue hospital gown.
Alarmed, Riza sprang from her chair and pressed the nurse's call button on the rail of the bed, snatching the bathroom emergency pull string for added measure. "Hang on," she begged, and she felt tears brimming the corner of her eyes.
"Riza… the ring…"
Riza swiped the ring from the bedside table and looked up to find his vital signs dipping low into a steady flat line. And the monitor beeped, and beeped, and beeped. With urgency, she picked up the phone affixed to the wall, her teeth gnawing on trembling lips as she waited for someone to speak on the other side of the cord.
A nurse bolted into the room not long after she hung up. The young woman lifted her grandfather's limp arm, pressing two fingers along his pulse points. However, instead of performing CPR as Riza thought she would, she picked up the same phone she had dialed only seconds before and asked for the doctor.
And Riza knew.
Feebly, her grandfather turned to her and mouthed a silent phrase. Inching closer until her ear touched his lips, Riza heard George Grumman's strained murmur beneath her racing heart: "Keep him safe."
Keep him safe?
His eyes closed then, and a long trail of warm breath escaped his mouth. For the first time tonight, Riza let fear and sorrow overwhelm her, raising a collection of sobs and whimpers into the cold, pale room. She clasped his hand, the chill of death beneath her palm, and whispered in his deaf ear, "I promise."
And as if it was the natural thing to do in grief, she slipped his ring onto her finger, finding not the traces of his warmth but rather the startling sensation of an electric charge. Desperately, she gathered his hand again and willed his life to return, a set of lonely eyes clinging onto the memories of a doting man who had always been by her side.
Everything was white in an instant. The room had been reduced to a blank page. The noise of the hospital had disappeared, the doctor and nurses vanished. And what remained was the restful image of her grandfather, his fingers twined into a prayer, his features serene as if to assure her he had felt no pain. She barely had the chance to say goodbye when color started to seep into her vision again.
Then her grandfather was gone.
The next thing Riza Hawkeye knew, she was no longer at Memorial Sloan Kettering Hospital. She sat with her knees pressed into her chest, her head tucked in between them as though she was a newborn baby brought into the world. Her eyes blinked rapidly under the glare of the sun, and when she twisted her neck to assess her surroundings, it popped with a loud crack. She was only twenty-nine for goodness' sake. Hardly old at all.
A crawler loader concealed her entire body from the din of activities behind her, but it didn't look like any of the crawler loaders she recognized. The size was half of what was typical, and the outer steel was painted forest green like the replica of a World War I Renault tank she had gleaned over a million times during her graduate studies. A red brick building similar to the abandoned power plant found near the Brooklyn Bridge puffed with steam, the exterior free of soot and grime that historical structures tend to collect.
Where the hell was she?
The waterfront street rang harshly with clamors and gunshots, and the pulse beneath her chest began to jog again as she promptly covered her ears with both hands. Before her, shell casings and construction sawdust tracked a path towards a group of monochromatic men—white shirts tucked beneath a fitted vest, black ties, and pinstripe suits, their profiles shadowed by their newsboy caps. In their grip were submachine guns and pistols, peppering bullets into the large wooden crates and metal containers that rimmed the industrial curb.
It must be a dream.
Riza pinched her cheek, hard. It hurt.
Or she was on a movie set.
But everything seemed real. There were no cameras. There was no lighting and film crew. And if these men had been actors, every one of them deserved an award for playing their roles so well.
A man ran in her direction, with comb-over black hair and a round face that seemed vaguely familiar. His youthful appearance twisted into terror, magnified behind a pair of thick glasses. "Miss!" the man called to her. "You have to leave!"
"What?" she asked, incredulous.
"It's not safe here! You could get shot!" he warned her at the top of his lungs, beckoning her to come with his hand motion.
Peeking around the machinery, Riza spied a man drooping against a pile of sandbags, both hands clutching the red that stained his crisp dress shirt. He looked dead. As the gravity of the situation sank into the forefront of her mind, Riza slowly stood and leaned a perplexed head against the cool metal of the blade. This can't be happening. She needed to leave. Now. But where?
A booming voice, sharp and commanding, bellowed from behind the crawler loader, "Get her out of here, Fuery!"
She couldn't see his face, but she was sure he was firing a gun at something. Or someone. The sound was so close.
"Come now, miss!" the man named Fuery shouted again, gesturing once more with his hand.
Amidst the confusion, Riza chose to comply, her breath caught, and her feet heavy like lead beneath her. The distance between her and Fuery was a mere fifty feet, give or take, but the instinct to avoid the crossfire coming from all angles dropped her down to a crouch. She had never been so scared in her entire life. On her hands and knees, Riza crawled towards him. However, when a shot whirled above her head, hissing near her ear, she rose to her feet and started to run.
Before Riza realized, a sharp sting penetrated the area just below her breast and spread across the plane of her sweat-slick back. When she looked down, it had colored the ends of her long tresses a deep burgundy. The pain was a sensation she had never felt before, and it was inconsolable. And no matter how much pressure she applied, her shaky hand didn't know where to stave off the flow of blood.
Blood.
She moaned in agony before slumping to the ground, her eyelids fluttering, her vision a white haze under the punishing sun. The man who had been yelling commands and hiding behind the enormous equipment emerged into the light. There was no gun in his hands other than a large medical bag and a folded flat cap he might have worn before he rushed to her side.
The sky was suddenly dark and then bright again. The pain was still there, but it was not as bad as it had been a minute ago. Then she began to feel cold. Riza felt as if her body had been submerged in a tub full of ice cubes, freezing and uncomfortable but numbing the misery all the same.
When her sight cleared for a few seconds, she found a man with tousled hair hovering over her, the dark strands that fell over his forehead as dark as the shades of his eyes. He was handsome. Yet his expression was an unpleasant view beneath a mask of panic and concern. Riza wanted nothing more than to say that she was fine, that everything would be okay…
"What happened?" another voice came from somewhere in her periphery.
"Maes, I need your help," the man above her replied, calmly and smoothly, belying the horrified countenance she witnessed only a moment ago. "She's been shot."
"What is she wearing?" Maes scoffed.
"Maes!"
In an instant, Riza felt a weight on her shoulders, holding her down to the earth. A quick prick on her arm. A probing of something wet and cool at her side. And then the pain was gone.
In her daze, there were muffled conversations nearby, and then Maes' voice split the last of her consciousness, "Take her away from here, Roy."
Then everything faded to black.
A/N: Thank you for reading! Reviews always motivate me to continue, and I appreciate them a whole lot :)