Here we go, chapter three.

And thank you so much to the readers, favouriters, followers and reviewers!

Disclaimer: I do not own Fullmetal Alchemist.

Oh, and I did some research on flogging for this chapter and I decided upon going with the cat o' nine tails because I thought it would fit Schiff better.

The actual flogging doesn't come until next chapter, though, so I'm giving Ed a bit of a break in this one.

Chapter Three

Roy hung up the phone after thanking the doctor for telling him.

He cursed.

"Sir?" Hawkeye asked.

"Fullmetal will be receiving a flogging at nine tomorrow morning."

If there was one practice that Roy despised, it was flogging. Knowing Schiff, it would probably be the cat as well. Roy couldn't understand how the man thought it would be okay to use it against a kid.

Hawkeye had frozen.

"I'm going to talk to Fullmetal."

"Yes, Sir."

Roy waited until half past four, when Al gently knocked on the door. Hawkeye opened it for him.

"Uh, Colonel? We'll be leaving now, thanks for having me today."

"No problem, Al. Tell your brother to wait, I'll give you a lift."

"Really? But Colonel, there's no need really."

"I insist."

"Oh, okay. Thank you, Sir."

Roy stood up and threw on his coat. "Good night, Lieutenant."

"Good night, Sir."

Roy went out of the inner office and found the two boys waiting for him. Fullmetal wasn't even looking at his face. They walked in silence to the car. "Fullmetal, you sit in the front with me," Roy said as the young boy tried to seat himself in the back.

None of them made any sort of conversation for the ten-minute drive. Alphonse politely thanked him for the ride when they arrived outside their hotel, but when Fullmetal moved for the door, Roy held him back by his right arm.

"Just a minute, we need to talk. You go ahead, Al."

"Oh, okay. Good night, Colonel."

"Good night, Al."

"So, what is it?" Fullmetal demanded.

"You're getting flogged."

The kid shrunk a bit in his seat. "Yeah."

"How many?"

"Forty."

Roy felt his stomach clench. No way in hell was the kid going to go through that, Roy would make sure.

"What the hell did you do?!"

"I hit him."

"You what?!"

"He called me and Al a pair of freaks that not even a parent could love because we're such failures. I didn't think, okay?"

Roy swore inwardly. The General was just saying that to hurt him. The problem was that that sort of thing would just have been annoying usually, but with the Elrics, those insults would hit closer to home. And Roy had a nagging feeling that if Schiff hadn't included Al in his description, Ed wouldn't have snapped.

"Listen, I'm going to talk to General Grumman. At least he's going be able reduce the number of lashes. Did Schiff say what sort of whip?"

"Cat o' nine tails."

"You know what that is?"

"No."

Roy thought that it would be better for the kid to be prepared at least. He sighed deeply. "It's a whip that's got nine knotted whipcords. It's also just called the cat. It makes parallel lacerations that kind of look like claw marks, hence the name. I'm not going to lie to you, it's going to hurt like hell."

"How's it going to work?" the kid said, some fright reaching his eyes.

"You'll be tied by the hands to a so-called "triangle", which is a tripod of wooden beams. You'll be bare-chested and they're only going to hit your back. When it's done you'll be let down and taken to the infirmary."

Roy felt his stomach clench at the thought of that small body suspended to be whipped. A large part of him just wanted to tell the kid to resign. But he knew it wouldn't work because Edward would be willing to go through hell to get his brother's body back. And Roy honestly didn't see any possibility of them reaching their goal without the military resources and funding.

"How long does it take?"

"Maximum ten minutes if we can get the count down."

The kid seemed to regain some heart at that. "Then I'm going to show that bastard. I've gone through automail surgery. This should be a walk in the park, then."

Roy supposed he was right. He hadn't thought about it, but the kid actually had a point. He was strong. Much stronger than most soldiers that Roy knew.

I still want to torch General Schiff, though…

"Colonel?"

"Yes?"

"Please make sure that Al stays in the office. I don't want him to watch."

"Of course. I'll make sure he stays behind with Hawkeye."

"So you're coming?" The kid looked surprised.

"I'm not going to leave you alone in that situation."

"Thanks," Fullmetal said in a low voice.

"Listen, I'll pick you up here tomorrow morning. Do you have to go to the office first?"

"No. He just told me to meet in the grounds fifteen minutes before."

"Okay, then I'll pick you up here twenty minutes before that. That way we can be sure to get Al out of the way. And speaking of Alphonse. You need to tell him."

"I don't really want to."

"Edward, I doubt you'll be let out of the infirmary for at least two days. He's going to find out."

"Fine."

"Good. Is there anything else you want to know?"

There were a few moments of silence.

"Have you ever been flogged?"

Roy paused for a second. "In fact I have."

"Really? What did you do?"

"Shortly after I joined up, Schiff caught me snogging his wife." Roy couldn't stop the faint blush reaching his cheeks.

"What?!"

"In my defence, Henrietta is much too young for him and she's only a year older than me!"

"You remember her name?"

"I'm telling you, she had some great thighs. You don't forget them."

"Thighs?"

"She always wore miniskirts. She even got a nickname because if those thighs."

"Oh, what's that?"

"Henrietta Hopsalot."

After all the tension that had been oppressing them for the last twenty minutes, they suddenly burst out laughing simultaneously.

"You're not serious, are you?"

"Deadly."

"Who came up with that?"

"Me. It caught on quickly."

"No wonder the General doesn't like me. You're screwing things up for me!" He didn't sound accusative though, he was just grinning.

"The fact that she still sends me letters may have something to do with that."

"You really are a womanising bastard, you know that, right?"

Roy was just glad that they were back to the old name-calling. Roy had to say that he would rather be a bastard than a superior in this kid's eyes.

"If it helps, I don't answer them, though."

They burst out laughing again. The kid laughed so hard that he tilted sideways, his head leaning against Roy's thigh. They had been filled with tension for the last thirty-two hours. Just letting go of it like this felt great.

"Thanks, Colonel, I needed that!" the kid wheezed.

"I think we both did."

Edward suddenly seemed to realise that he was using Roy's thigh as a pillow, and quickly sat up. "Oh, sorry."

The air around them was suddenly permeated with awkwardness.

"Listen, kid, it will be alright. I'll call you later when I've talked to General Grumman. And I'm going to make you one other promise too."

"What's that?"

"We're going to sneak into the infirmary tomorrow and have Xingese for dinner, how does that sound?"

The kid scoffed. "Sounds great." He turned to him with a little smile. "Thanks, Colonel, I needed this right now."

"Anytime."

Roy called to General Grumman once he got home. The old man was outraged, but saw that Schiff did have some grounds as the kid had hit him. Twenty minutes later he called back, telling Roy that the sentence had been reduced to twenty. It was a major improvement, but it was still a lot.

Roy kept true to his promise and phoned the hotel that the Elrics were staying at. After a while the kid came to the phone. "Colonel? How did it go?"

"General Grumman's reduced it to twenty strokes."

"Oh. Thanks, Colonel."

"See you tomorrow, I'll start calling the rest of the team about the Xingese take away."

"Great. See you tomorrow."

Roy then phoned Hawkeye.

"Hello, Lieutenant? Will you do me two favours tomorrow?"

"Yes, Sir. What are they?"

"First, I want you to keep Alphonse company in the office and keep him away during the flogging. Secondly, we're sneaking into the infirmary with Xingese take away for dinner."

"Of course, Sir. I'll see you tomorrow. I guess you want me to bring your paperwork to the infirmary?"

Roy groaned inwardly. "Thank you, Hawkeye, I would."

"Very well, Sir. Good night."

"Good night."

Then came Havoc.

"Hey, Havoc, how do you feel about Xingese tomorrow for dinner?"

"I'm sorry, Boss, but I'm going on a date…"

"Cancel it. We're sneaking into the infirmary."

"The infirmary?"

"Ed is getting flogged. We're going there to cheer him up."

"I'll tell Lydia."

Roy was glad to hear that Havoc immediately changed his mindset because of the kid.

"See you tomorrow, Havoc."

"See ya, Boss."

The next three phone calls went just as well, and the whole team was ready in a flash to be there for their two youngest members.

Roy felt like a very proud CO at that moment.

Ed couldn't help but feel like something had happened between him and the Colonel the moment he had been reassigned. He was being much more protective and considerate and Ed didn't really know what to think of it. He guessed the man was suddenly acting, not like a parent, but more of a semi-guardian he supposed. It was weird. What distance there had been between them had sort of disappeared because of the lack of him being his CO.

Parts of him were glad, he guessed, but the fact that he had actually been lying with his head in the Colonel's lap, made him feel a bit vulnerable. Ed had to admit that he had been very guarded against Mustang until now.

And Ed was sort of surprised by the fact that the rest of the team considered him and Al family just after two years. That too made him feel both vulnerable, but also slightly warm inside.

But most of all it made him realise that he wanted to get back to his team as soon as possible. They were at least some fun. Schiff's team could just be described with one word, and that was uniformity. They were boring, perfect soldiers that fucking saluted Ed when he tried to strike up a conversation.

And Ed swore to himself that he was never going to let that bastard of a General make him into one of them.

Never.

I'd rather get flogged.