When Guilt is Deserved

Disclaimer: Characters and setting are the property of Hiromu Arakawa. I'm just borrowing them for a bit of non-profit angst.

Eboni: Hi, thanks for reviewing. I hope this doesn't disappoint. This is my first foray into the FMA fandom, so it's not too long, more of a getting the feet wet (and an outlet for angstful tendancies so they don't overwhelm stories which were intended to have a more cheerful tone) thing. Hughes is a favorite of my as well and I'm still in denial about certain spoilers for episode #25.


Lieutenant Riza Hawkeye glanced from the forms in her hand to Colonel Mustang's empty office and frowned indecisively. For once she found it impossible to be irritated with the man for avoiding his paperwork, but these forms really did need his signature today.

She glanced over at her desk to verify that there was nothing urgently demanding her attention then decided that she should deliver the forms to Colonel Mustang personally. After all she hadn't had a chance to visit Edward yet today.

As she walked across the base Riza considered the situation. Losing Alphonse would have been a hard blow for the company to absorb all by itself. The younger Elric brother was a warm, caring, brilliant boy people couldn't help but love. He was both their comrade and a child they wanted to protect. Edward was barely older than his brother but he protested violently at being called, considered or treated like a child. And it wasn't just Edward's slight build that made people think he was the younger of the two; Ed's obsessive drive cost him the perspective associated with maturity. Ed was brilliant, intense and passionate; he attracted people just as surely as his younger brother even if they tended to fight it more. If they lost them both…

And then there was Colonel Mustang; he wasn't dealing well with the guilt. It was hard knowing what to say to him. Roy had known exactly what he was doing when he arranged things to make a desperate eleven-year-old boy into his tool. The fact that it had taken four years for him to send the Elric brothers into harm's way once too often didn't make what he'd done any better and Roy wouldn't appreciate any attempts to mitigate his responsibility for what had happened.

Alchemy couldn't repair broken souls and Edward's current condition didn't leave him particularly open to manipulation; Roy's efforts to fix the younger Alchemist were akin to shooting a gun in the dark.

Hawkeye opened the door to Ed's hospital room and stopped, her mouth dropped open. Roy was sitting on the bed holding Edward as if comforting a small child. Edward's head was tucked under the Colonel's chin and Roy's arms were wrapped firmly around the younger Alchemist's waist. Both of their expressions were blank; Edward's eyes were dead, Colonel Mustang's mask of impassivity was firmly in place as he stared over the top of Edward's head.

Hawkeye's eyebrow lifted in surprise.

"I thought it might comfort him," Roy said defensively. "Or, failing that, remind him of how tiny he is."

At that Ed's body twitched. Hawkeye remembered Alphonse describing Edward's typical overreactions to being called small as being ingrained into his subconscious.

"So you reallyare listening," Roy murmured to the boy in his arms. "Good. Maybe someday you'll feel like talking back again."

Hawkeye backed out of the room. In the hallway she glanced at the files she was carrying and sighed. She could always allow Havoc to forge the Colonel's signature. That was, after all, the way the company had handled paperwork before she joined them.