Trying To Be Human

Chapter 5: The Return of Julie D.

This was later than it should have been. I just had a lot of trouble with this chapter, so I half-assed it. Sorry... but, I'm on summer break now, and I've vowed to finish up all my stories, not to mention, I have most of the rest of this story already written, so updates should be faster from now on. XD

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"Remember, Roy, best behavior," Riza growled, straightening his tie for him.

"I know, I know... Even if they act like complete neanderthals, which I'm sure they will, I'm to set the example for the rest of us,"

It must have been the wrong answer, because Riza tightened the tie into a noose, hissing, "If you mess this up, Colonel, you will never get any nookie ever again. Understand?"

Half suffocating, Roy managed to gasp out, "y-yes, dear."

Riza loosened the tie again. "Good. I'm glad we had this little chat."

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Greed, on temporary leave from the hospital, bounced up and down on the bed and watched Sloth help Envy with his tie. "I've got to say, that thing looks ridiculous with the miniskirt. I hope this isn't a very nice restaurant."

"You're going to tear your stitches out," Sloth warned him, wrestling Envy down before he attacked the surgery patient.

"How did you learn how to tie neckties so well, Trisha?" Lust asked, trying to diffuse the tension (they were going by human names all day, just to get used to it).

Sloth went right on tying. "Don't ask questions you don't want to know the answers to."

"Why?" Envy started to ask, "What's so bad about... never mind."

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Reg and Elly sat very still at their reserved table at Le Petite Fleur. Gracia was checking her makeup in the bathroom, and the others hadn't arrived yet.

"They won't remember her," Elly repeated again.

"Nah," Reg replied, his voice unusually high. "She didn't actually work with them, you know... I'm sure they've all forgotten..."

Roy and Riza arrived and were duly seated by an oafish teenage waiter named "Tob". (We are to assume that Gracia also returned somewhere in this interval.)

There was some sundry small talk, with Reg and Elly pale as death, only half paying attention as they watched the doors and clenched each other's hand under the table.

The door opened, and a party of five walked through the door. The tallest one, a man, took off a leather vest with fuzzy white trim, revealing a bright, flamboyant tie. Reg winced.

"Reggie," Elly whispered with a giggle, "Look at Connie."

This time, Reg winced so hard he cramped the muscles in his face. It was bad enough to wear a miniskirt, belly shirt, and spiky hair to a nice restaurant, but a pink tie?

Sloth spotted their table and pushed right past "Tob", waving and calling, "Reg, honey!" Roy caught sight of her.

They won't remember, Reg and Elly thought in unison. They can't remember,

"Oh my God!" Roy gasped, rising, "Slothy?"

Riza spun around and stood as well.

"Mustang Salad? Iowa?" Sloth gasped. "You two are married? Iowa!" (This seemed directed at Riza) "What ever happened to angry feminist Riza?"

Riza laughed, "You're one to talk. I thought you were all men-are-irresponsible-scum!" She pointed over her shoulder, back at Reg. "Where did this kid come from?"

Sloth laughed as well. "Reggie's adopted. And not all men are scum. Just the ones that I dated." She pulled both of them into a group hug. "God, it's been so long."

"I'll say," Roy said, "When did you get back to planet Earth?"

A brief explanation of this comment:

The mysterious disappearance of King Fuhrer Bradley caused quite a stir. Officially, he had died, but nobody believed that, because 1) no cause of death was ever given, 2) no body was ever found, and 3) they didn't even bother to have a funeral for him. It didn't help that his "death" coincided with the disappearance of his secretary, Juliette Douglas (known as "Slothy" around the office because of her chronic workaholism), and a very large sum of cash.

Popular rumor had it that the pair had split to the Bahamas with their embezzled funds, and now lived in a beach side mansion, sipping tropical rum drinks and laughing at the world.

The other theory was that they were aliens taken back to the mother ship. As for the money... well, Brad had probably left it in his wallet or dropped it or eaten it or something.

Actually, Sloth had been setting up a new life with her friends in the country, but she did occasionally wish that she had run off to the tropics with her old boss.

The new guy, King Fuhrer Dave, was a pretty good guy, but he never showed up to work stoned, and therefore just wasn't the same.

Reg introduced his family, hitting only a slight snag when Roy and Riza remembered Sloth by an entirely different name. She explained it away somehow, Reg didn't quite hear, as his blood pressure went way up from the moment "Julie," left Riza's lips until the waiter asked him what he wanted to eat.

Once he was back in the conversation, however, he found that it went surprisingly well, compared to the night before. There was less Death-Stare from Roy, and that made all the difference.

"So, Slothy, something I've been wondering," Roy asked as they waited for their entrees, "and I figure if anyone knows, you do. What ever happened to the Fuhrer?"

"Oh, him," Sloth shrugged as their waiter returned. "We poisoned him and buried his remains in a shallow grave in our backyard." She flashed them a bright grin and took her plate from the waiter.

After a second of open-mouth gaping, Roy and Riza realized she might be joking, and started to laugh. The Sins smiled, but didn't join in.

"Reg, are you two going to get hitched before you go home?" Lust asked, causing Roy to choke on a crouton from his side salad. He obviously did not want to think about any wedding.

"We were thinking more along the lines of next year," Reg laughed.

Lust frowned, and the others realized she was serious. "Why wait? Better do it as soon as you can, while everything's still looking good."

"I'm sure it'd be best if they waited," Roy said with a twitch. "To give them time to reconsider, I mean, plan things out."

Lust shook her head. "Trust me, shotgun is the way to go. You never know when life is going to throw you a curve ball, and BAM! One of you gets an incurable illness and dies."

Elly went a little white, and Reg felt he should stop this conversation as soon as possible. "Natasha, we are not going to have a shotgun wedding. And don't worry. I doubt either of us will contract an incurable illness."

Lust looked unconvinced, but Gluttony stopped her from arguing, "But, 'Tasha, Reg said I could do the cake... I wouldn't have time,"

Sloth jumped in before anything more could be said. "This is a good time to bring up why we're all here, though."

Gracia and Greed picked up their glasses like they were expecting a toast. Sloth paid them no attention. "We need to talk about how we're going to get this marriage organized."

Greed lowered his glass again, remarking to Gracia, "Should have known, with Trisha, every dinner must have a defined business purpose."

"I'll be honest, we don't know all that much about planning weddings," Riza admitted, to prevent Roy from telling everybody that they were wasting their time, there would be no wedding. "We got married in our dress uniforms on the parade ground by a Military official."

"I'll check, but I think that's one of the signs you've taken your career a little too far," Envy told her with the slightest hint of sarcasm.

"I know," Riza sighed, "not the most romantic thing we could think up, but cheap."

"Well, we don't want our Reg and Elly to have to worry about that," Sloth beamed. (Roy scowled at her use of the word "our".) "You two just leave the money to us."

The implication that the bride's family would be unable to pay for her wedding was too much of a blow to Roy's ego, and, risking Riza's rage, he decided to speak. "We can take care of it."

Sloth only smiled calmly. "Mustang, do you remember all that money that went missing from the treasury awhile back?"

Roy nodded. "Of course. They had all of us off our regular jobs trying to find out where it went... we never did."

Sloth patted his shoulder. "We're paying for the wedding," she assured him.

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Reg decided it would be best if he spent the night with his relatives, and Elly went straight to bed when they got home, so Roy, Riza, and Gracia got together to talk about the prospective In-Laws.

"I think they're nice," Gracia revealed to her friends. "It's really great how involved they all want to be. I can't believe Boris is actually making the cake! I didn't even know regular people could make wedding cakes. I thought it was a trade secret."

Riza smiled. "I sure wish you knew how to cook, Roy," she jibed.

"And I sure wish you would dress like Connie," Roy teased.

Gracia laughed. "He certainly was cute, wasn't he?"

"...he?" gulped Roy. The two women giggled.

"You didn't know he was a man?"

"He was wearing a miniskirt!" Roy protested defensively. "And Connie can be a girl's name!"

"Were you hitting on him?" Riza grinned.

Roy very suavely draped an arm over his wife's shoulder. "Riza, baby, you know you're the only one I hit on."

Gracia interrupted, because she knew that it was late, and that they were in danger of forgetting that she was there. "Well, I really like Reggie's family. They all seem like real dolls, especially Greg. He was great,"

"Yeah, I'm glad we met them," Riza agreed. "And who'd of thought Elly would get married to Slothy's boy? It's a small world, I guess."

"We're lucky she's helping out. She seems very organized," Gracia said.

"She is," Riza confirmed. "Unless she's changed drastically since we knew her, you can trust her with things like this. She was always a perfectionist, right, Roy?"

Roy nodded quietly. Something troubling seemed to have occurred to him, and when the telephone rang a second later, and Gracia left to answer it (it turned out to be a wrong number), he managed to tell Riza. "It was Ms. Douglas that,"

Riza stiffened and stared coldly at the wall. "Mustang, we decided a long time ago, that was an unfortunate coincidence. We can't bring all that up again."

Her husband nodded, not making any move to argue. It wasn't a subject he wanted to bring up, either.

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They didn't know it, but in her room, Elly was curled up with her oldest surviving toy, a big teddy bear she had had since she was four, and thinking about the exact same incident.