Disclaimer: I do not own Fullmetal Alchemist.
Chapter twenty-four
Ed woke up the next day, turning around to watch the alarm clock on the night stand. It said a quarter past ten, which meant that the mail would have arrived by now. Ed slid out from under Daddy's arm, his fingers tickling his side as they slid over Ed's bare chest. Ed had been having so many nightmares, he hadn't been sleeping in his pyjamas tonight because he had been sweating so much.
He sprang to his feet and ran through the hall, down the stairs, through the second hall and practically crashed against the door as he unlocked it. He ran straight outside and over to the mailbox, finding what he had been waiting for for about a week now. He knew that it was addressed to Daddy, but he still ripped it open and found the certificate stating that Roy Mustang was now officially his legal Daddy. Ed grinned and then took the envelope addressed to him with his new name on the envelope. He tore that one open too just for good measure and read through it quickly. He laughed gleefully.
He looked over to his left, seeing someone he guessed was his neighbour. The old woman looked shocked at him, her old, brown dress and shawl flapping in the morning breeze.
"Young man! Where are your clothes?"
"Upstairs." Ed thought it was a stupid question.
"Who are you?"
"I'm Edward Elric-Mustang! Daddy has adopted me, look!" And so Ed ran over to the fence and leaned over it, waving the documents at her. The woman looked shocked and didn't seem to believe him. She read through the documents in question and scoffed.
"So the Colonel has gone from bringing women home with him on a nearly daily basis to adopting naked boys?!"
"Why do you say it like it's a bad thing? He's the best Daddy in the world!"
"He hasn't told me or my husband anything about it, and last I spoke to Colonel Mustang, we talked for forty minutes because I had invited him over for tea."
"When was that?" Ed thought the woman was a bit odd honestly. She seemed pretty stiff in a way.
"A month ago."
"Oh, Daddy found me after that!"
"And exactly how did he "find" you?"
Ed thought the woman was getting pretty personal, but she was still holding his documents. "Tied to a chair. Can I have my documents back now, please?"
The woman didn't move. "He found you tied to a chair?"
"Yes. Please let me have those back." Ed pointed at the documents, but the old woman put her hands on her hips instead.
"And why?"
"I got kidnapped. I don't really wanna talk about it. Can I please have my mail back?"
"And you just happen to be named after two State Alchemists?"
"Only one. I used to be the Fullmetal Alchemist, but I had my licence revoked."
She frowned, glaring at him. "You boy, are a nasty liar. These papers are obviously fake. As if the Führer himself would get involved in the matters of an adoption and a name change. Are you trying to blackmail my neighbour, is that it?"
"No! Roy Mustang is my Daddy! Now please give me those back!"
"Then you'll have to come over here and get them."
Ed did as he was told, those papers were important and otherwise this mad old woman would probably rip them to shreds. She grabbed his wrist and began dragging him towards the porch. Ed didn't like this and began shouting for his Daddy, but that only seemed to make her angrier. Next moment she had sat herself down on a chair, putting those valuable papers on the table next to her, still holding onto Ed. Ed kept shouting towards the house on the other side of the fence. The woman bent him over her knees and began smacking his rear, making pain shoot up from where her flat hand struck. Ed began crying instantly. "DADDY! HELP!" Ed screamed as she struck the second time. She obviously had some rings on her fingers and she hit him with surprising strength, obviously seeking to hurt him. Ed was panicking.
"Bad boys need to learn their manners! So tell me what your real name is!"
Ed just kept crying and shouting, his behind throbbing more and more with each strike. "HELP! DADDY!" He tried to wriggle loose, but the madwoman was obviously stronger than she looked.
Roy woke up to find himself alone in his bed. For a moment he panicked, then he looked at the alarm clock. Ed had probably just run out to get the mail. Ed's pyjamas were still lying on the floor after another one of his bad nights.
Then Roy heard it. Screaming. More specifically, Ed screaming for help.
He ran for the front door, panic rising in his entire body. He slammed the door open, finding the source of the noise and felt the anger surge through him. "WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING TO MY SON!?" He strode over to his neighbour's front porch, where she was fucking spanking his son. "HOW DARE YOU LAY A HAND ON HIM?!"
He lifted Ed off her lap, careful of his red bottom. She had obviously hit him quite a few times and there would definitely be a lot of bruising later on. He could also see small cuts. Roy was furious. Absolutely furious. The woman had hurt his son.
"Why the hell did you think you should spank him?!" Roy growled, hugging Ed to him. Ed was sobbing and obviously terrified.
"He was lying to me," Gladys answered coldly.
"I wasn't, Daddy! She stole the certificates and said I had to tell her who I was! She grabbed me and then she hit me and it hurts!" Ed wailed, clinging to his undershirt. Ed must have been frightened out of his wits.
"He was being a lying little brat who was going to blackmail you with those fake papers of his and I was merely being a good neighbour by teaching him some manners," Gladys said stubbornly.
Roy was doing all he could to stop himself from hitting her. He knew his neighbour had some funny ideas at times, but she was mostly harmless. She did believe that her husband was still alive despite him having been dead for the last five years, but this happened when she had one of her little "episodes" as her smiling daughter used to say every time Roy suggested that she should be put in a home. Said daughter just insisted that she was much happier with living in her home, after all, she had moved in there over fifty years ago. She would simply pine away if she was taken away from the building.
Roy thought it was sentimental bullshit, especially now.
"He wasn't lying. He is my son and those are the official adoption papers!" Roy said through gritted teeth. Ed had been looking forward to this for a week and now his batty old neighbour decided to spank him into a nervous meltdown instead.
"He can't be. He said he used to be the Fullmetal Alchemist. Your subordinate isn't that young."
Roy sighed, wondering how that had even come up. "He used to be until he was kidnapped and experimented on until he was left like he is now. I have officially adopted him and his brother and if you ever call him a liar or touch him again, you will be sorry for it!" And so Roy snatched up the documents and stormed back to his house, Ed still sobbing against his chest. Roy brought him to the bathroom, finding a pack of bandages as well as some antiseptic. He lay Ed over his legs, cleaning his bottom, earning a few sobs.
Damn Gladys for always wearing those rings of hers!
"Ed, it's alright, I won't let her hurt you again. All I'm going to do now is put some bandages on this and then we're going to find you something to cool it down."
"She kept hitting me and I didn't do anything wrong! I thought she was gonna destroy the documents and then she dragged me over!"
Roy stroked Ed's back before he applied the bandages. He had to cover most of his rear and it would probably hurt for him to sit down for the next few days. He lifted Ed up to his chest, kissing his forehead before he carried him downstairs and wrapped an ice pack in a towel and gently held it against Ed's bottom to try and at least lessen the pain and bruising. Ed was sitting on his knees on his lap and was still crying into his shoulder. "Why didn't she believe me?"
"Because, Ed, she isn't entirely there mentally, and sometimes she has bad days and makes the wrong calls. She was wrong to hit you and I swear I won't let her do it again," Roy explained, barely keeping his anger in check.
"She kept saying the documents were fake and that she was teaching me some manners."
"I know, I know. I'm going to talk to her later. She has probably grown up with it being the way things are done. But they aren't that way in this house." Roy kissed Ed's cheek. The boy really was a magnet for bad luck.
Riza parked the car and carried the groceries inside. She hadn't bothered to wake the boys because she knew that when they slept in so late, it meant that Ed had had another bad night. She wasn't surprised, the whole Tucker thing must have brought up a lot of bad memories.
She found the whole situation with Ed a bit confusing, but she had noticed that she had instinctively grown quite protective of him. She was however, still amused by the way that the Colonel had begun showing his softer side. She knew that it had always been there, and she was one of the few people that had seen it, but now it was there for everybody to see. And she smiled at it, because her boss seemed so infinitely more happy for it. She was happy that he had acted the way he had done and taken the brothers in. She had seen how much he had cared for the boys before all this happened, and she was saddened to see how he didn't see it himself before it was, in a way, too late. But no, he made the best of it and had gained something invaluable in return.
She opened the door, finding it unlocked, which meant that Ed had probably run to fetch the mail. She smiled, thinking that the small, celebratory cake she had bought would probably be well received. Instead, she came into the kitchen to find the Colonel looking murderous, holding what was most likely an ice pack against Ed's bandage-covered rear. Ed was clinging onto his neck.
Riza felt a surge of anger at seeing Ed like that. Someone had obviously hurt him, it was easy to see from the Colonel's face.
"What happened?"
"Gladys decided that Ed was a liar that was going to try to blackmail me with the adoption papers and saw it fit to spank him, still wearing her rings."
Riza had heard a lot about the Colonel's neighbour and her occasional whims, but this was just cruel and the woman had no right to do that. She also knew that once the woman had made up her mind about something, she wasn't going to change her opinion, which meant that she was going to be after Ed from now on.
"She asked me how Daddy found me, and I told her, but she just called me a nasty liar!" Ed sniffled. The Colonel hugged him tighter, kissing his cheek.
"Sir, may I borrow your phone?"
"Of course."
And so Riza went over to the phone and began looking through the little notebook filled with numbers until she came upon the name she was looking for. When the Colonel was angry, his level of detail was sometimes staggering. She dialled the number and waited for an answer.
"Hello?"
"Good morning, is this Annie Johnson?"
"Yes, who am I talking to?" The woman spoke in a simpering, girlish voice and Riza immediately understood why the Colonel hated having to talk to her.
"This is Riza Hawkeye, I'm Colonel Mustang's assistant."
"Oh, is something wrong? He isn't hurt is he?"
"No, in fact, your mother hurt his son."
"But he doesn't have children, does he?"
"He has adopted a couple of brothers, and his five-year-old son was taking in the mail when your mother decided that the adoption papers that arrived today, were fake and that he was going to use them to blackmail the Colonel."
"Oh dear. What did she do?"
"She saw it fit to spank him still wearing her rings."
"Oh, that's not good."
"I know that you are reluctant to put your mother in a home, but she basically tortured the boy. She will most likely not be inclined to believe him and punish him again."
"A little spanking is hardly torture, is it?"
"When the boy in question was found four weeks ago after being kidnapped and experimented on and has nightmares on an almost daily basis, it is. Especially since Ed told your mother so!"
"Oh, dear. I'm very sorry. How is he?"
"He's crying and in pain and this was supposed to be a happy day because of the arrival of the documents. Your mother clearly isn't all there and it would be kinder to her if you just put her in a home."
"But she'll be so sad."
Riza lost her patience.
Roy sat in the kitchen with Ed still clinging to his neck although the initial shock and fear had worn off. They suddenly heard the fierce roars of Riza Hawkeye echoing through the house and jumped slightly. It lasted for about a minute until there was nothing but silence in the room. Then she returned to the kitchen, looking calm as ever. "Her daughter has kindly agreed that it is in fact time to move Gladys into a home, sir." She moved over to her grocery bags, lifting a box out of one of them, smiling as she walked into Ed's line of vision. "Here Edward, I bought you some cake."
