Chapter 10: Tears

This chapter follows the weekly prompt from FMA_60min ( /fma_60min). It was written in 60 minutes (I edited some things afterward) The theme for the tenth week is: Tears. I decided to do tears as in tearing a sheet of paper. Not the ones you cry.

Winry

"Van! Get back here!" Winry, as quick but as carefully as a southern girl in deep snow would dare to move, scrambled after her wayward son. Van was more timid than his younger sister Sarah so Winry was surprised he had taken off to follow two men that had walked by the park. Before she could reach him, she saw him gather a snowball and throw it at the younger man's head. She was mortified, but continued, carefully, to tread through the snow to catch Van. She finally got close enough to pick him up which was tricky with the thick layers of shirts, sweater, and coat he wore. As she hefted the 4-year-old on her hip she turned towards the man Van had pelted with the slushy snowball.

"I'm so sorry sir, I don't know what got into him." As she made eye contact with brown eyes that were so dark, they were almost black, her speech was halted by the sudden realization of familiarity.

"Mu – ah" Winry drew out the awkward noise when her brain caught up with her mouth. Standing before her was Mustang, a general now, in a not very "disguisey" disguise. He was obviously undercover. The look on his face when she locked eyes with him was one of wariness. It told her she shouldn't blow his cover. Then why did he have such a lousy disguise in the first place Winry couldn't help but think to herself.

"Mama, it's Uncle Roy!" Van belted out.

"Oh!" Winry tried to drown out her son's exclamation. "No, no sweetie. That's not your uncle." Winry turned towards Mustang. "I'm sorry. You look like a family member of ours." Winry knew she had to get away from Mustang and his companion as soon as possible.

"Seriously Winry, you're just gonna leave Sarah in the park to fend for herself? Good thing I came by when I did. If she tripped in this snow, she'd be eaten up by it huh?" Edward tickled their daughter who he was holding in his arms as he walked up to Winry. Sarah screeched with delight.

Winry watched as Edward's gaze fell on Mustang.

"What the hell are you doing here Mustang?" Edward said, brandishing a huge grin.

Mustang brought a hand up to his face looking completely exhausted and absolutely done with life itself.

"Ed-" Winry said to him in a whisper that somehow managed to be much louder than Edward's greeting. "Even you can't be this oblivious…." she spoke through gritted teeth.

Edward started to laugh. "That's the sorriest excuse for a disguise I've ever seen. And that mustache… I thought I'd never see one that looked more ridiculous than Yoki's but here you are."

Before Mustang could speak, the man with him stepped forward towards Edward with a card in his hand. "Would you care to make a housecall? Your family business' renown precedes you, Mr. and Mrs. Elric. I could use a tune-up for my automail leg while I'm vacationing up here in the chilly north. My name is Douglas Digby. This is the hotel we're staying at. Anytime before 5 this evening would be greatly appreciated." The man grinned and Winry swore he looked familiar.

"Um. Yes, sir. I could come by at 2 if that works," Edward said. Winry noticed his whole countenance changed as if he recognized who was with Mustang, and he finally caught up that he needed to play dumb. And as soon as she could, she would let him have it. This sudden family trip to North City and its surrounding towns out of nowhere had surprised her, but now that Mustang was here undercover she realized this couldn't be a coincidence. What had Edward gotten them involved with?

Riza

Riza, Bristol, Roy, and her grandfather had all had dinner at a restaurant by the hotel she and Bristol had been staying at. This was their predetermined rendezvous, they spoke in code, and Riza tried her best to process the information Roy and her grandfather had conveyed in their veiled speech. The Elrics were in town. Edward had met with Roy and Grumman and revealed to them that someone had tried to kidnap his son while they had been at the market in Resembool two days previous. He had not told Winry this. He did, however, interrogate the woman who made the attempt when the authorities arrested her. Edward should have never overstepped, but this was the Fullmetal Alchemist so being brazen and breaking the rules seemed to be all in a day's work. Someone had paid her to kidnap one of the Elrics. All she knew was it was a wealthy family from Alvesta. Most likely it was Nicolas and possibly his parents. The parents would now need to be detained for questioning. Edward had bribed the officers an undisclosed sum of money to give him a few days head start before turning the woman into Central Command for additional questioning. Riza was livid but Edward wasn't there for her to strangle.

This case was getting out of hand and she hoped the Elric's appearance wouldn't tip off the Bradleys if Selim was indeed behind these attacks. Havoc and Heinkel had reported to her that the Bradleys had been spotted in their house and that all the personnel from Central Command were present and seemed to be complying with their duty to keep them safe. Riza and Bristol had done some reconnaissance at the Welling's House and didn't come across anyone or anything of import. The house was empty and no one was on the grounds. Roy, Grumman, and Armstrong had gone to the areas of the sighted "Pride" attacks and came up with nothing. Riza was trying her best to not get discouraged. They would need to keep their identities hidden and see if they could catch Selim/Pride in action at this point. Due to Pride's ability to spy from the shadows, they would have to talk in code as much as possible and try not to bring attention to themselves.

Near the end of their dinner/rendezvous, as Riza wrote an encrypted note to be delivered to Havoc she felt eyes on her. She looked up and locked in a fixed gaze with Roy. He stared at her, no discernable expression on his face. His elbow rested on the table, his chin propped on his left palm, his fingers cupping his left cheek. Riza noticed his jawline looked much more angular. It was probably the haircut. As long as she had known him, since she was 15 years old, she had never seen his black hair shorn so close to his scalp. Although from a distance it made him appear younger, it revealed more of his face which over the years had thinned as he aged. His cheekbones jutted out more and the fine lines around his eyes didn't disappear when he quit smiling. She had known this man for more than half of her life. She had seen him change, seen him grow as a leader, he had inspired her through many of her own life's milestones. And it felt then as if she never really ever had a choice. That her heart perhaps hadn't really been hers for the last 15 years. It had been his. Stop, Riza. She needed to keep her head in the game. Too much was at stake. But after this mission, they would go on holiday. She had already decided this. The universe owed them this after all this time being so close together but at the same time so far apart. They had a lot of time to make up and she wanted it now, but she had to be patient. Riza was the poster child of patience, she could wait a few more days.

Roy had not taken his eyes off her. He lowered his left arm, sat back in his chair, and smiled at her. It was forced, he seemed worried. "Elizabeth." He said it and it somehow sounded so much more intimate than even when he had called her Riza the day before yesterday.

"Yes?" Her answer sounded so hollow after the way he had called her name despite it being a fake moniker.

"If you need anything, you know where you can find us. We should go. I need to get Dad in bed early tonight." They both glanced over at Bristol and Grumman. Bristol was showing Grumman a map of the town proper of Alvesta. They sounded like a couple of tourists but there was a hidden language about what Bristol told him that only those on their mission would pick up on.

/

It had started to snow as Riza and Bristol walked back to their hotel room. They were holding hands and Riza was glad they were both wearing thick gloves because it made it seem less intimate. Due to the time of year and how far north they were, the sun had already set at 17:00 hours. Now that it was almost 19:00 hours they found themselves in a very dark alleyway, the only light helping to guide them, a lone lamppost up ahead. Riza felt the shift around her before her eyes picked up on the subtle change. The shadows that stretched out towards them being cast by the lamppost had moved. It was completely unnatural and surprisingly familiar. Before she could even speak a warning to her partner, she grabbed Bristol and pulled him against the wall as an inky black appendage whipped through the air.

"The shadows…" Riza gasped. She knew her gun would do very little damage to Pride, but she still unzipped her coat and grabbed her weapon from the holster under her sweater. As she turned towards Bristol, she saw he was armed as well.

"It's been a while Hawkeye," the shadows around them spoke, their voices overlapping. Bristol's eyes went wide with shock and Riza scanned the area to see how many spaces Pride had infiltrated. This voice wasn't the Pride Riza remembered; it wasn't the voice of a young boy, but one of a young man.

"What do you want Pride? I'd like to negotiate. We can work something out so no one gets hurt." Riza had to try and keep him occupied. Havoc would be patrolling in the area soon and if he could alert Roy they may be able to subdue the errant homunculus through Flame alchemy.

"Fine. I trust you. But I know nothing of the spare so I hope you don't mind if I take him out. That way it's a level playing field." Before Riza could negotiate, the shadows around them came to life. Riza tried to adjust her eyes to the dark, so she could aim and shoot, and try her damnedest to save Bristol. Before she could even turn towards Bristol, she heard him scream out. And then an awful noise filled the air. Riza had no idea what the sound of human flesh tearing sounded like until that moment. Bristol inhaled a shaky breath and his eyes grew wide with terror. A second later rivulets of blood exploded through the top of Bristol's coat, covering his face and the brick wall behind him. It gushed from the cuffs of his coat at his wrists, painting his hands and the snow beneath him crimson. Riza shot at the ebony phantom limbs that whipped around her and Bristol. They receded only for a few seconds as Riza fired off her round, the noisy gun blasts echoing through the long alleyway.

"Well, that's not playing fair. I thought I could trust you," the voice chided.

"That's before you took out my colleague Pride. Show yourself. Quit hiding in the shadows. Come out and talk to me." Riza kept her voice steady. She quickly reloaded her gun and then stepped towards Bristol and kneeled down next to him. With one hand, she reached down and unzipped his coat. Bristol's shirt and pants didn't have a single tear in them. But blood seeped through his clothing thick and dark. Pride had rended through Bristol, tearing his body as if he was a paper doll.

"Riza…there…" Bristol whispered out, his eyes flicking up past Riza towards the sky. Riza followed his gaze and saw a man standing on a patio two floors above them, his face barely illuminated by the lamppost further down the alley. A shiver shot its way down Riza's spine. The man looked like the former Fuhrer Bradley, but if he had been de-aged to a young man in his twenties. He resembled the picture of Selim they had on file, although a few years older. Before Riza could speak, a funnel of flame barreled through the alleyway, tearing through the darkness in a spiraling blaze. The dark limbs and reaching midnight hands of Pride recoiled further into the shadows to escape the fiery cyclone. She heard the familiar footsteps approach and it strengthened her. She pointed her gun at Selim Bradley and waited for directions from her commanding officer.

"Like father, like son. Let's see if you stay in the fight now that you no longer have the upper hand." Roy's voice rang out cold like the snow that crunched beneath his feet as he stood next to Riza.