Chapter forty-two
Roy just stood there, his face pressed into Mr Witkinson's chest, soaking it thoroughly. The man was rubbing soothing circles into his back as Roy just sobbed against him, clutching the front of his shirt. "You've got no idea just how much I laughed when my boy came by a few months ago, and told me that he had heard from a colleague that you'd become the youngest ever DCI..." There was so much warmth in his voice.
More so than fourteen years ago. Because back then, he had been full of life and spirit...
...But now he seemed downright happy with his life.
Which made Roy pause.
...Because he was beginning to realise that Mr Witkinson was letting the lines get a bit more blurred in his way of acting around Roy than he had done fourteen years ago, considering how he was supposedly 'the life of the party when he chose to join it.'
Because that had been said as a semi-serious joke.
None of the inhabitants of Resembool had spoken about the warmth and the contentment that the man had displayed.
But then again, Roy supposed that it had had something to do with how Gideon Fitzgerald was still being forced to have his son not be just that.
Which meant that Gideon Fitzgerald had had a lot more warmth in him whenever he had been behind closed doors.
And right now there was a lot of warmth to be found in his voice as he spoke to Roy, because the doors were closed...
...But certainly not alone in the house and Pinako would be coming up here in less than a quarter of an hour.
"There's no way I can pretend like you're not who you are within just thirteen minutes..." Roy wheezed into his chest.
"I know... Roy, I know..." Mr Witkinson said softly, and his voice was just a bit shaky too. "Which is why it's a good thing that I'm allowed to confide in the Rockbells, don't you think?"
Roy nodded weakly into Mr Witkinson's chest, taking a deep breath, though definitely still not getting enough air no matter what he did.
"It had that much of an impact on you, huh?"
"I-I wasn't allowed to do what I could to remember it... Not your voices, not your mannerisms, your faces were blurring and I just couldn't remember you as much as I needed and wanted to! And I couldn't even write down what you told me, so now some of the most important words that I have ever been told, have been reduced to paraphrasing statements in a voice I couldn't even remember!"
"I'm sorry, Roy... I truly am..."
"...I-I found a semi-loophole so that I got the same meaning by writing them down as a quote from Pappy, but even then I had to change the wording so that it actually sounded like the words were his!"
"I wasn't allowed to do the same with you either, if that helps somewhat... Though I am still very happy to have been the epitome of making your father smile in your tummy." Then Mr Witkinson did something both surprising, and yet very welcome in a way even so, because Roy received a quick kiss to his right temple in a way that he hadn't felt for the past seventeen years. "Because I have decided after careful consideration, exactly what you are to me, Roy Mustang. Because, understandably enough, I haven't really been able to only think of you as a former student after what you did... After all, you're the reason that I actually have my son be who he wants to be and without any of us being tortured by my psychotic ex-wife, so calling you a normal ex-pupil is a bit too much of an understatement... And so I have found the perfect title."
Roy could hear the smile in Mr Witkinson's voice as he spoke. "After all, I haven't actually been able to remember exactly how the kid who gave me my son back looks, nor your voice or your direct wordings... Nor have I watched you grow up... But I can assure you that you have been on my mind for a very, very long time every damn day that I wake up and find myself pulling back the curtains of my room and having the countryside to greet me... To see sheep and cows and oh, so many fields... To go downstairs and find a kitchen, rather than a very unfriendly basement with my psychotic wife giving me my morning cup of coffee..." There was a slight sigh of heavy relief and happiness that escaped his lips. "To hear the steady clunk of my leg as the reminder of the way that I got to prevent any kids from being severely burnt, but instead got be so myself, though most of that had to be chopped off... And so you're somewhat of my kid too by now, you know, because you haven't actually left me alone for the past fourteen years..."
A slightly shaky chuckle escaped the man. "And considering how I technically left you as my ex-kidnapping victim and as an illegal immigrant while I had stopped being your teacher a few hours prior to that, I found a bit of inspiration in my last words to you, what with how I am continuing your father's legacy in both words and actions. So I've got a bit bolder, what with the leg and all... Which means that I have invented my very own word for you..." He was really building up the excitement in the way of a verbal drumroll.
Mr Witkinson pulled back and grinned brightly in a very playful manner, even though slightly subdued by tears. Just like the last time Roy had seen him.
Then he poked Roy in the stomach. "You're my tummy-kid."
Roy just looked at him, immediately able to see what he was aiming at, considering how Dad was always going to be Dad, just like Mum was Mum and Auntie Chris was Auntie Chris... But what with how he had told Roy that he would damned well be smiling in his tummy together with his family, then there was an open slot... And the final proof of what Mr Witkinson was thinking, was the way that Mikhail was his kid, but officially his nephew, considering their cover, and before that, he too had been Mr Witkinson's pupil.
...And Roy had damned well felt like his former teacher was very much like Dad, and definitely enough so to be...
"...So you're my tummy-uncle?"
Mr Witkinson grinned brightly, though there were tears now going down his cheeks too. It was odd how things had changed, but Roy was now also a grown man who needed no protection from the cruelty of the world, and could be much more of Mr Witkinson's equal. And without it being something that entailed psychotic wives with guns who would pose a great threat to Roy over a hug. "Nice to see that I can stilll read you well enough to notice how you've thought the same, then," the man said warmly.
Roy just smiled and attacked him in a hug, chuckling and sobbing into his chest all at once. He hadn't thought about it before, but Mr Witkinson had left Roy with him smiling in Roy's tummy together with his family, making him a semi-family member who hadn't left Roy alone either for the past fourteen years. And so Roy had subconsciously viewed him as a part of his family for all that time. "I-I think it's a bit unconventional, though..."
"I think that that is probably my history with you summarised rather thoroughly, considering how I suddenly became... whatever that actually was... right after you stopped being my pupil and I stopped being allowed to... walk about without handcuffs..." There was a very amused chuckle. Amused and happy. "Which means that it fits perfectly in every way imaginable that what with how I'm currently named 'Gideon', that I can be your 'Uncle Giddy', wouldn't you say s-"
Roy interrupted him with a bellow of tearful laughter before he doubled over, emotionally all over the place because of everything that was going on. "How long have you been thinking of that?!" he wheezed.
"Well, I can't exactly have you keep calling me 'Mr Witkinson,' and you didn't seem exactly keen on me being anything but... In fact, you pouted at me as you sat on my knee with my psychotic wife pointing a gun at you... So we needed a new name that actually fits with me being Gideon Fitzgerald, don't you think? So I needed to come up with something that we would actually have a chance at you agreeing to..."
He found himself getting pulled back up to his newfound Uncle Giddy's chest so as to steady Roy as he laughed and sobbed all at the same time.
Enough so for Pinako to return upstairs within a few seconds. "There's nothing to worry about, Mrs Rockbell, Roy and I are just musing over how this isn't Drachma."
"I thought you two would get along, but this is a bit too unprofessional for Roy's standards during an interview..."
"Well, I knew Roy from back when he wanted to be a drug dealer, but his friends and family were there for him and set him straight and I was sent here for witness protection... You see, I'm an illegal immigrant who's guilty of identity theft in order to cross the border from Drachma after faking my son's and my own deaths, and who temporarily employed Roy to intentionally become a social outcast so as to recruit people to sell drugs, and I also threatened to shoot him after he found my house by knocking on my door where I was housing a group of some of the top people of this operation, and I then abused his trust as an ex-pupil of mine and planned to tie him up as I was assisting in kidnapping an eleven-year-old as my psychotic wife pointed a gun at him, and yet he believes me to be a role model, and I believe that I really helped you get some air right now, didn't I, Roy?"
Roy took a few shaky breaths and straightened up slightly, halfway glaring at him, halfway smiling.
...Unable to keep himself from turning back around to look at Pinako.
She was just staring up at them, her pipe actually having dropped to the floor. Roy just shook his head, coughing and drying away his tears. "His son was also the reason that he became an illegal immigrant in the first place and his psychotic wife only loved him and not their son and so she had Mikhail live with a pair of brutes while Mr Witkinson, as I knew him back in the day, and who was my teacher for three years, was forced to watch as his son's genius was being suppressed, or let Mikhail suffer the wrath of the psychotic Irma Antonov. And so Mikhail started bullying me, but misinterpreted my ambitions rather thoroughly one day after a lot of brainwashing provided by those that he was forced to live with..."
"Meaning that I was suddenly faced with my son getting himself expelled for spraining Roy's elbow and kicking him in the stomach repeatedly in order for Roy to be manipulated into doing something-"
"-Which he hadn't foreseen because I had started learning Drachman for fun so that I recognised it as Mr Witkinson being a possible tyrant whom I guessed where lived because he had been stressed enough to slip up on a single vowel..."
"And so he showed up and hugged me as an alternative polygraph and my possessive wife went into a frenzy and I was bad enough of an influence to even unintentionally inspire the most gifted student that the school had ever seen, to do something as honourable for an eleven-year-old to start swearing in unison with me through the means of the lovely words 'shut the hell up, Irma!'"
Roy looked up at him at that, tears still going down both their cheeks, not wanting to let him just be tormenting himself with his sense of guilt. "Yeah, and about five hundred people turned up for your funeral because you were such a morally corrupt man?"
"...Grumman never told me that there were that many..." Uncle Giddy said at that, his voice softening a lot, seeming both sad and touched. Both of them knew that Xander Benson wouldn't have been the one to have drawn that big a crowd by far, probably only a couple of dozen people at the most, considering his social circle and general reputation. Although it would probably have been expanded a bit when it had been at the hands of a pair of abusive parents.
"They all let me stand right in front of the two graves, you know, considering how I was actually the one to have seen the two of you last besides the headmaster and your supposed murderers, and I had an unrelenting pain from one of the last actions in Xander Benson's miserable life... You were the best damn teacher that the school had ever seen, and I don't think I would have been able to have returned to that building without you as my teacher, had I not already finished year seven..." Roy felt his stomach twist violently, and he spoke in a slightly squeaky whisper. "I-I really don't..." He pressed himself into Uncle Giddy's chest and just cried, unable to keep himself from doing so, thinking back to the pocket watch and the way that they had left things off.
...Because Roy hadn't actually been allowed to have received a final goodbye hug as Mr Witkinson had been taken away.
...And then there had been that final message before the graves and-
"Well, I don't have another appointment scheduled for another three and a half hours, and I severely doubt that you are considered such a dangerous criminal, Gideon, what with Superintendent Grumman letting you run about here on your own and lose a leg to save kids... I'll be down in the basement and lunch is at twelve, and I guess that I've now got a gag order?" came Pinako's businesslike voice from behind Roy.
"Yes, you have," Roy said with his voice muffled by the fabric of Giddy's chequered shirt.
"Though I'm allowed to include your son, daughter-in-law, and your granddaughter, as well as Roy's fiancée, of course..." Giddy added, stroking up and down Roy's back with his right hand, and with his left resting on the back of Roy's head.
"Then we'll get the full story then and figure out just what we should tell Winry, based on how much you tell us... I'll go find you two some biscuits and some tea."
Roy couldn't help but giggle. He had never been able to forget that part. "And frozen broccoli..." he mumbled into Giddy's shirt.
There was a chuckle from the larger man. "Sorry, Mrs Rockbell, just an inside joke, and that sounds perfect, thank you."
"I'll get you some glasses for the cider, too... And I'm guessing that 'Mikhail' is Damien's birth name?"
"Yes. I was born as Andrei Antonov, and Roy here risked his own future just to try to help my son out of getting harmed for harming Roy during a plan that went wrong... I spent nine years of torment with my son taken hostage, and then Roy came knocking on my door in the form of a wooden, off-pitch Drachman national anthem and spoke to me in Drachman that needed a bit of fine-tuning and less than four hours later, I found myself with my psychotic wife bound and gagged by the angry and triumphant uncle of Roy's previous homeschooler, as the police came and subdued everyone there... Which means that there hasn't been a damn day for the past fourteen years that I haven't thought about him at some point."
"So that's why you've been so afraid of people getting hurt by being associated with you..." Pinako's voice was both soft and grumpy and thoughtful.
"Very much so."
"And your slightly odd reaction to losing your leg due to burn injuries...?"
"...It's not my place to tell, really." He sounded just a bit awkward at that. "Besides, I'm a teacher at heart, I'm allowed to be a bit happy about seeing kids still being able to go to school because they weren't crushed by a burning rafter..."
Roy froze.
Because it sounded an awful lot like the man had kept Roy's words very close in his heart for the past fourteen years.
And, judging from his words, Gideon Fitzgerald had wanted to keep Roy close by finding and cheering the reminders of Roy that had met him throughout his life ever since.
And so Roy in turn soon found himself looking at Gideon Fitzgerald before him as Pinako left them on their own and then closed the hallway door. Roy just sat there next to the man on the couch, and as soon as they were alone, Giddy sighed heavily, smiling in an odd fashion. "You've noticed it... You're too good at reading people by now... And I'm too much like you not to know that you know... That great 'what if' scenario that one always starts to imagine... Wonders about how would have turned out... Mikhail was the one who brought it up first after a couple of months... Because he told me that he'd realised that a small part of him had actually been a bit excited at the prospect of having grown up with you as his little brother after you two met at my house... Drew parallels to what my own brother had done for me and how much you sacrificed for him before you knew how much of a criminal that I was... He was always disappointed with how you were never able to actually get to know each other and be a couple of geniuses together because of how things had been so manipulated... And he never misinterpreted my words about how you were the brightest student that the school had ever seen... Because the school had never seen Mikhail Antonov, only Xander Benson, so none of us ever had the chance to really find out."
Roy nodded, having been given a wet facecloth while Pinako had fixed their tea, so he was relatively tear-free at the present time. "...Guess I was a bit disappointed too after that little makeshift polygraph."
There was a slight nod. "Mikhail was actually shouting angrily after only about a fortnight... He'd only realised it too late that he had had his hopes of finally making a friend ripped away from him again, long before he found out that he'd have liked you as his family too... After us getting freed from all of those people, he suddenly saw just how much emptiness there was in his life... How many empty spaces there were, because of the fact that there had never been anything that had been for him to selfishly miss, not when I was moving with him... And it made him angry, because I had actually had something to be sad over, losing my job like that... He felt guilty and hollow, in a way... Extremely grateful, yet he couldn't even do anything to show it. No contact, no nothing... Just leaving you behind to cry with fading memories and a sprained elbow... It's why he wanted to be a child psychologist... To be able to help those that were left behind, as well as all the other kids that needed him to help them... Just some sort of something between repayment and atonement..."
Roy could only nod again himself, not really knowing what to say or do for once...
...But then again, Roy had confided in this man once before, and thoroughly at that. "Mikhail had nobody so he was angry that you couldn't bring me with you, because I was the one person that he had actually felt just a bit robbed of, and whom he would actually have liked to know better after I was no longer his sworn enemy..."
"But then he couldn't do that... Couldn't do anything even remotely close to it... It was only about twenty seconds after we'd left you that Mikhail told me sternly that he was 'gonna become a child psychologist so that he could help kids like you.'" He chuckled slightly, though with pain in his eyes. "It became a sort of joke, actually... 'Can't we just kidnap him for the weekend? It's not like he'd be angry about it.'"
Roy found himself looking down, a small and sad smile to his lips. "...So what you're saying is that a part of you... A part of both of you wanted to adopt me into your family as time went by," he said quietly. It was such an odd thing, this... Because he had been so damned close to having gained something that he had both craved and feared...
...And had left him with so many unasked and unanswered questions, because in reality, what had happened that day, had been-
"...You died on me, more or less... You died on me and left me without a goodbye hug, and I ended up sitting in front of yet another grave just a week later with a business card telling me how you were a very proud teacher... You left me without actually letting me hear it out loud either... Hear that sentence... So I've gone for fourteen years, wondering just what the hell you were to me, because you were a 'very proud teacher' and was supposed to be smiling in my tummy all the way from Drachma... But never once..."
"I'm proud of you, Roy Mustang... I'm proud to have been your teacher and to have been there to be imprinted in your stomach as smiler number four... I'm proud to see just what you became and to have been there to give you the sort of advice that I gave you... And I'm damned proud to have been someone who actually made that much of an impact on you..."
Roy froze, unable to do anything or say anything.
"You gave us our lives here, and we just left you behind, thinking that we'd gone to Drachma. You were even going to give up on your goal of becoming a policeman for us, and yet you didn't even hesitate."
Roy found himself doing something both surprising, but which also felt very right. Because this time it was like last time, but safe.
And so Roy quickly finished drinking up the contents of his teacup and then lay down on his left side and used Giddy's left thigh as a pillow and closed his eyes. He immediately felt his newfound and unconventional uncle place his left hand on Roy's right shoulder, and his right began gently running through Roy's hair. "Just like last time, then..." Giddy said with a soft sigh.
Roy nodded slightly, finding that it felt far more alien after his growth spurt and fourteen years of not having repeated it. "Wanted to try it out without the handcuffs and sprained elbow so that I can get this without the fear of being shot or giving up on my goals... Just so as to let it be safe this time."
"I first thought about it when I realised that you were there with everything that we did, because we were actually free to do so... And yet you weren't actually there with us... You just had a note and a poked tummy and no goodbye hug because of regulations... No contact, nothing... We were gone from your life, while we had you with us with every step of the way... And I didn't even follow up on my promise of that frozen broccoli for your arm... I didn't really follow up on any of my promises to you, except for me to be there as you woke up after Irma drugged you..."
...Fourteen years ago...
Andrei was hugging the small boy to him so that he was awkwardly pressed to his chest enough for Irma to grab his left upper arm, and then hurt someone that had been his student just a few hours previously.
He was letting his wife hurt his ex-pupil who had come here for the single purpose of saving Mikhail. The boy was literally too kind for his own good.
...And even after Mikhail had attacked him like that. Andrei was still cursing himself inwardly for having let that happen. And the worst part was that he hadn't actually been able to have talked with his son as his son afterwards.
He had just ended up locking Mikhail inside the classroom while having carried his pupil in his arms, because Roy had been injured and had been too close to an anxiety attack for it to have been responsible of Andrei to have left his student alone in the classroom.
His stomach still churned at the thought that Mikhail had actually done something like that.
And he had shouted himself hoarse at Irma as he had come back home after having left Mikhail to be taken home by his 'father' after having been expelled. Had shouted himself hoarse because of what his wife had taught his son.
When Andrei had noticed how there had been two people missing from years six and seven, he had walked quickly inside the school, and had then sped up to a jog.
Which was when he had heard his son's angry voice and had found the two boys, Mikhail having stood there with fury in his very being, and with Roy Mustang as he had lain there on his side in large amounts of pain. And then the boy had just started pleading for Andrei not to bring him back to the hospital. Had done so all the way over to the school nurse.
And yet the young boy had turned up on his doorstep just a few hours later in this foolish attempt at keeping Mikhail from being hurt.
...Before having hugged Andrei, followed by having figured out that Mikhail was his son within a few seconds.
Andrei had been completely horrified.
Terrified as he had found Roy Mustang standing there, having obviously found out about Andrei's Drachman origins.
Because Andrei would have been terrified at having found any of his students standing there like that...
...But Roy Mustang had been far too much like himself for him to have wanted him anywhere near Irma.
He could already see what her first question would be.
And that was the most terrifying thing of all. And why he was panicking like he was about her taking the boy from him too after faulty assumptions from his wife.
Because a single vowel might have been enough for Andrei to have doomed his innocent pupil to spend the rest of his life in this darkest pit of hell.
...And especially because of Roy Mustang's words.
Andrei was still wondering if it had been a very bad decision to have hugged the boy back like that. And especially when it hadn't just been as placing his hands on his back.
No, Andrei had stupidly chosen to have knelt down and had then hugged him like he had because he had already known that this would have ended up with disaster no matter what.
...So at least the scared eleven-year-old who had still trusted him as much as he had done to have hugged him in the first place, had deserved a proper hug as he had got himself into this hellhole.
Andrei truly didn't know just what he should have done any more.
But the boy was terrified and crying and Andrei was the one charged with him as of now.
Roy suddenly hissed through his clenched teeth as she emptied the contents of the syringe inside his arm. The wretched woman had even decided to inject him in a spot where it would be hard to notice because of those gruesome scars.
Andrei had been informed of the basics when Roy had been cleared for year four: most of the front of his upper body covered in burn scars, severely broken arms, a few broken ribs and his parents and his aunt dead on spot, and on his birthday no less.
...But this?
There was a small boy on his lap with his chest and large parts of his arms defaced by the explosion that had taken away his family.
No wonder he had been so terrified over his arm possibly having been broken again on a big day like this.
And so Andrei just hugged him even tighter and spoke in a hopefully comforting whisper as he started stroking the boy's cheek with his thumb. "It's going to be all right, Roy, I won't leave you alone with these people..." His stomach was lurching violently with dread and guilt as he began telling the young child words that were hopefully reassuring and comforting, waiting a few seconds between each sentence. "I'll be right there as you wake up... I'll look after you through this... I'm not leaving you on your own..." There was something about the boy's fears about the thunder that had shaken Andrei to the core. It had been okay for the boy to be here, the boy had planned on having got himself into danger, hadn't been surprised by the guns, had told Andrei that it had been okay for him to have let go of the young child.
...But the second that the thunder had begun rumbling above them, there had instantly been the same sort of panic in his eyes from earlier that day. His eyes had been begging Andrei not to let the thunder hurt him, most likely because of the similarities between the sounds of thunder and of explosions. Even though the boy hadn't been awake to even have heard the sound of it ever having gone off, based on what the school had been told by Roy's grandparents.
And now this child in his arms was truly showing just how small that he was. Small and fragile.
And he felt like Andrei had been filling some of the void left by his father's passing. This young, small child in his arms, was trusting Andrei with his life and his well-being based on an emotional significance... One that was cruelly based on this lonely child's emotional abandonment due to his family's deaths.
But now there was no going back and Roy deserved him taking care of him in the way that the boy needed him to... Or Andrei would be failing this boy twice... Once as his teacher, and once as the man that this child in his arms had cared enough about to give up on his future...
...Just to save his son.
And so Andrei had a duty to this small, scared child.
"I'm not leaving you alone here, Roy, I swear," Andrei told him softly, feeling tears stinging in his eyes as the boy started leaning more and more into him. He was Andrei's responsibility, no matter how wrong it was that he had accidentally given his pupil a sense of him being something akin to his father, when he had never been anything of the sort. Andrei had never aimed for it, and it was cruel of him to have left the boy who had been so lonely and abandoned, now viewing Andrei as a father figure, considering how that was the one thing that he could never, ever be...
Which made it even more important that he didn't leave him alone in the hell that he had now accidentally dragged his former pupil into.
This was on Andrei.
And he really should have seen it coming that he would be one of the few people that Roy Mustang would have wanted a hug from.
"I'm not leaving you here, Roy..." he said, just as the boy went completely limp in his arms and his breathing evened out. Andrei couldn't help it as the tears began running down his cheeks in full, and he hugged Roy tighter to him to support his limp body. "I just wish you had seen it before now that I have a tendency to burn those who get close to me."
"First thing she did after you fell asleep was to grab me by my chin so that her nails almost dug hard enough into it to puncture my skin... And then demand that I tell her if you were my son, actually," Giddy said, sighing heavily. "She was livid, accusing me of you being the 'true' reason that I had left for Amestris, and that I had hooked up with some slut from the Embassy, and had then learnt that I had had a second child with someone else whilst still married to Irma... That that was why I had been so scared of her hurting you and telling her not to take you too away from me... She began seeing connections that weren't there, and drew in elements of how you had turned up to protect your 'brother' and how you had been 'my favourite pupil because I could let you be as smart as you wanted to be because I had left her clueless about you, and we had been mocking her behind her back'... And that it had been why I had moved to East City... And, lest we forget, why I had chosen to go with such ridiculous reasoning as to have 'believed' that she had been having an affair, because it's apparently a thing when someone is cheating on their partner that they accuse the innocent party of being the one to be having the affair... In that respect, you're very lucky with how much you look like your father... She found one of the newspapers that had that annual memorial article with pictures of all those that had died..."
Roy felt really odd at that explanation, but then he smiled slightly, his lips trembling. "You're too short to be Dad, he had just over an inch on you... He used to joke about how he was genetically designed to have been able to pick me up and hug me with no difficulty until I was at least ten."
There came a small chuckle from above him. "Well, that explains why there's about six inches of height difference, then."
"Mum was about ten inches shorter than him, though, and Nan was his mother..."
"So, almost forty centimetres of height difference there... Sounds vaguely intimidating, though your grandmother is certainly making up for the lack of height with her fierce spirit..."
They both chuckled slightly, before Roy voiced a thought of his own. "You know, as my teacher, you never really struck me as the emotional type, but I suppose it makes sense..."
"Yes, and you are off duty and lying on in my lap with tears in your eyes... The old house was a haven, except for the basement... It was like constantly living on a bed where you actually knew that the monster underneath it was real... Had I let it interfere with my work, then everything would have crumbled... I had a duty to my pupils, and so 'Mr Witkinson' was somewhat of a role that I was paid by the headmaster to play as the actor that I was... I actually think of my son as 'Damien' these days, because that is who he is now and has been so for over a decade... After all, 'Mikhail' wasn't ever really allowed to be himself or find out who he was... His years of happiness that he can remember are those as Damien Fitzgerald, after all..."
"And you?"
"...That's a lot more complicated... I had a lot of good and fun times as Andrei Antonov, after all, and it was my family's surname, including my brother's. Even those first years with Irma too... And I was still happy as Andrei Antonov when my son was born... But then again, my son doesn't identify himself with being Mikhail Antonov anyways... And then there were those nine years of Matthew Witkinson who had his dream job... And I was Andrei whenever I got home, so Mr Witkinson was a pretty nice man, save how I had to treat my son..." he said thoughtfully, still gently running his fingers through Roy's hair. "...So I think it fits that it has all ended up leaving me a bit giddy." He chuckled softly as he spoke.
Roy chuckled himself, before sighing. "Can I make a guess at something that you feel awkward about saying in case I take it the wrong way?"
"...You're really good at your job by now, in other words..." Giddy said, ruffling Roy's hair, before sighing. "So we're addressing the elephant in the room about how none of us have technically been missing the other and thereby can't say the most obvious thing most people would have expected one to say..."
Roy nodded once. "I missed having you as my teacher, but you disappeared before I could actually have got to know you beyond that act... It's hard to say that you're missing a person that you don't know."
"But which one very much would have liked to know because they're definitely worth missing?"
"Yeah, something like that..." Roy said, before he shifted slightly to get a bit more comfortable.
"You scared me shitless, you know, turning up like that in the first place..."
"You turned deathly pale and then I started saying something in half-appalling Drachman about how Pappy would be retiring and we needed money for fixing the flat..." Roy couldn't help himself as he switched over to speaking Drachman, just to show him how he had definitely improved his fluency and vocabulary. "And then you started acting like the criminal that you weren't as you laughed at my intellectual abilities, called me cheeky or cocky, can't really remember, enquired about whether or not I knew that I was asking for you to shoot me, then came the promises of tea, frozen broccoli, and you tying me to a chair..."
"...And then you had to go and hug me, out of all things... You're so perceptive, and you were so even back then, and makeshift polygraph or not, that was downright stupid... You knew full well that I wasn't in a position where that would have been a good idea, considering how I was obviously Drachman and had threatened to shoot you just moments before," Giddy answered, and no matter how he was trying to semi-tell him off for what he had done all those years ago, there was still a small smirk to his words at Roy's highly improved linguistic abilities.
Roy switched back to Amestrian, wanting to sort of oddly recreate the moments that his memories had robbed him of. "I trusted you, simple as that... You'd brought too many smiles to my tummy for you to have been so bad a person that you would have wanted to hurt Xander... I came there, not sure if you were good or bad, but I had a simple thought that kept me from doubting myself..."
"And what was that?" Giddy too switched back to Amestrian at Roy's words.
"...No matter what, you'd have at worst faked killing Xander Benson in order to have saved his life if you truly had been such a morally corrupt man as you had at first tried to convince me that you were..."
The hand on his head paused. "...That's a very morbid thought for someone of your age back then, you know."
"...I liked to read and learn, and when you're as nerdy as I am, you don't exactly manage to not find out just how cruel humanity can be by age eleven."
"Well, I don't blame you, I did the same..."
"...And you also helped me get over my fear of thunder," Roy told him quietly.
"Oh, did I really?" Giddy asked fondly and with a bit of happy intrigue to his words, resuming his stroking of Roy's head.
"...I was eleven and you poked me in the stomach after having held me like that when I had been scared of it before... Your right index was basically like a flu shot in that sense..." Roy sighed heavily and and pressed his cheek further into Giddy's thigh. "And I really ought to be embarrassed about saying all this, but I'm actually not..."
"You've got a lot on your chest, Roy, and a lot that you have wanted to talk to me about these past fourteen years... Our relationship is as unconventional as it gets, considering how I technically kidnapped you and sat there with you without fulfilling my promises of frozen broccoli after having made a compromise with my psychotic wife, just so that you were at least kept from being tied to a chair in the basement... We were fellow prisoners in the home with the monsters downstairs and you were scared whilst I had unintentionally dragged you into that building... All because of a single vowel... I wanted to talk and comfort you, and you wanted to talk and receive comfort from me, because you were a scared child and I was a terrified adult who was supposed to take care of you, seeing as how you'd decided to throw away your goals in order to help my son... Considering our history, we have plenty to be embarrassed about the both of us..." Then he reached up a bit with his left hand and cupped Roy's right cheek and wiped his tears away for him. "So I prefer the way that we're actually at ease about talking like this, just like fourteen years ago... But without my eleven-year-old ex-pupil lying in my bed after I had tucked him in because of the chills that follows that damned drug... And with his left hand handcuffed to said bed, most importantly."
Roy just nodded once more, feeling very much like a small kid.
"I both gave and ripped away something extremely important to you that day, and for me too, and now you just want to pick things up where we left off because of your chance at filling that empty space that I really wished that I had been there to fill... So if you ever need or want to speak, then I am finally just twelve hours away by train because you've just made some family friends down here."
Roy nodded, sniffing, feeling the warm hands on his cheeks again. "That sounds really good... Really, really good."
"I think so, too..." Giddy said softly. "...And now you're engaged to Grumman's granddaughter and are adopting a pair of kids with her after less than a month..."
Roy swallowed. "...So he didn't tell you the reason behind why we're moving so f-"
"There was no need... I could tell the second he said that you were engaged after such a short time... You'll have to keep me updated, you know... And it's definitely all right to be scared."
Roy took a deep and shaky breath. "I'm barely ready for Ed and Al, but a third? And my own? I... I don't really want to be a father like that, at least not right now... I want Riza and the boys, but I don't want a baby... I'm just not ready for one..."
"I understand, Roy... I understand that full well... I got my kid completely intentionally, trying for one and everything... You want those boys... But it's something very different from having a child of you own from day one..."
Roy had an odd thought strike him at that. "Let's just hope you haven't cursed me... After all, Ed's fourteen years younger than myself, which is the same amount of years since I saved you, and you were twenty-five when your son was born."
"You've got nothing to worry about in that regard, then... After all, I entered the country illegally with my little brother's visa, meaning that I'm not fifty-one, but fifty-six..."
Roy paused, more than a little surprised. "Oh..."
"Makes me feel young that nobody has even questioned it... Also makes it easier to not be detected, considering how I was originally made a year older as Matthew Witkinson, though you wouldn't have known about that, so I'm four years older than him, and five years older than the one I'm pretending to be... Feels like everyone's congratulating my youthful looks wherever I go."
Roy snorted, finding the continued stroking of his hair to be highly calming. "Should probably warn you that you're gonna cause me to fall asleep if you keep stroking my hair like this," he told him, digging his face into Uncle Giddy's thigh.
"It's okay if you do, you know... And I'll be right here as you wake up, if so..." Giddy said softly. "But I want to show you something first, then..." He pulled his hands away and Roy looked up slightly to find him opening the buttons of his shirt and then pulling out a folded up page from a notepad from an inside pocket. "I'm sorry to say it, but I may have abused your trust in me as your teacher two years before your unlawful imprisonment, in the sense of writing this down... But I just couldn't help myself..." He handed it to Roy, and Roy unfolded it to find something that made him more than a bit awkward upon reading it.
"I'd forgotten about this one..."
"...As a teacher, I simply couldn't help myself when I went through that stack of springtime poems that had been inspired by that field trip to that farm about an hour outside of East City... And then found this lyrical gem in between all those bumblebees and the green grass and the equally green leaves and the multitudes of flowers... where you had made a poem about spring shedding in horses..." Then he chuckled. "And about how they should make it into a form of community service for criminals..."
Roy felt a faint blush reach his cheeks. "Some of us were grooming horses, it had a great impact on me, and I wanted to become a cop."
"Like I said, lyrical gem... So I wrote it down on a notepad and I was told that I was allowed to keep it, and that it probably even was a good idea, considering where I ended up... There was something about the title 'Wall-to-Wall Carpets and Their Uses,' in between 'Little Bumblebee,' and 'Sunny Sunflowers,' that really caught my eye..."
"I believe in being creative and broad-minded," Roy said, trying to keep himself from dying inwardly. "See it as me expanding my view of the world by taking everything into account through my nine-year-old state of being astounded by the alarming amount of never-ending drizzle of hair."
"'And if you really need proof, see the white by that hoof,'" Giddy quoted, his voice full of amusement.
"I was nine."
"...And stunningly creative."
Roy quickly folded the piece of paper again and handed it back to Giddy. "Which means that you will never, ever show it to anyone else and it needs to be immediately returned to that inside pocket before Riza can see it."
Uncle Giddy just laughed, but did as he was told. "Very well, Roy, but I'm glad to hear that you're actually letting me keep it."
A lump grew in Roy's stomach at that. Because part of him was also feeling sorry about not having been there when the two Fitzgeralds had obviously wanted him strongly.
But then a thought struck him and he paused, before sitting up and grabbing his wallet from where it was lying on the coffee table. "So what you're saying is that you've kept that poem in the same way that I have kept this?" he asked as he pulled out the old business card that the Superintendent had even taken the time to have laminated before having given it to Roy so as to have preserved it for so long.
Giddy smiled warmly at seeing it. "Like I said, I couldn't have anything that tied me to you, and even less than you could to me... So I brought with me something that I would forever strongly associate with you..." Then he chuckled and grabbed the bottle of cider. "I made this myself, actually, so please humour me with a taste before we forget as you are now sitting up at least."
Roy smiled back with a sigh as Giddy uncorked the bottle and the fizzing that followed it, pointing towards it being carbonated. "I really wish you'd been able to keep teaching, you know..."
"I can't deny that I miss it, but it can't be helped either. And Damien's doing a lot of good and I feel like he's sort of continuing my legacy, even if through another profession... So now I'm retired and twice dead..." he said as he poured some of the carbonated apple juice-coloured beverage into one of the glasses and then handed it to Roy, looking at him expectantly. "So, yes, a bit different from where I said I would end up fourteen years ago."
Roy took a sip and smiled with a nod, tasting it, and then smiled even wider. "I think I'll need another bottle for later... Riza and I are going to find ourselves a sheep-less hill and look at the sunset so as to at least have been on one date during the same week as our engagement."
"I can endorse that opinion," Uncle Giddy said with a small chuckle before he turned back towards the table to pour himself a glass. "Speaking of your fiancée, was Grumman serious when he said that she had inherited his good looks?" he asked conversationally.
Roy got a lot of horrifying mental pictures in his head, many of which featured Riza with a large moustache. And so he choked slightly on his drink, resulting in a large amount of apple cider down his front and chin and a lot of coughing. "Definitely not," Roy said hoarsely, before coughing a bit more.
"Sorry, I didn't think you were still swallowing, Roy," Uncle Giddy said urgently, sounding slightly horrified at the result of his question. "I'll go fetch you some water to drink and some wet paper towels so that your chin doesn't get sticky at least." He stood up while squeezing Roy's right shoulder before he headed for the kitchen and returned half a minute later. Roy was still coughing slightly, but mostly just a bit surprised at just how much it appeared to have scared Uncle Giddy to have seen him choking on his drink. Either the man was a bit more anxiety-prone that Roy had thought, or...
"I'm sorry... I just... You were looking more than a little like when I found you two in the classroom," Uncle Giddy said, handing Roy the promised glass of water, which Roy gulped down, before coughing a couple more times. "I realised that I don't really know just how you feel about hospitals now compared to back then. I hardly wanted our reunion to be marred by a repeat of that, considering how we appear to already be repeating a lot of things, including you now obviously needing your shirt washed."
Roy just nodded, his throat and nose still feeling fizzy.
And part of him was slightly worried about Uncle Giddy's mental health. About the way that he seemed so scared of Roy just choking on some cider in a non-life-threatening manner and how he seemed to be so dead set on people being in peak condition and on having his leg maintained on such regular intervals. Whilst it was actually a good thing that he was taking such good care of his employees, it was still considered a very unusual way of acting here in the countryside. And especially after thirteen years.
But then again, he had lost his leg six years ago and Roy had been scared of thunder. With someone who only had so few to lose, if he were to do so, it would be completely devastating.
Roy knew that feeling all too well, in fact.
As if reading Roy's mind, Uncle Giddy began stroking up and down his back as Roy grabbed the wet paper towels and began to clean his chin. "Roy, I know I seem a bit paranoid about it all, but it's just been a long time. And the last time I saw you, I also spent an hour and a half with you sitting limply on my lap, completely unresponsive and unawares of the situation, while I was holding on to you to the best of my ability, considering how my wrists had been tied together. I was sitting there with a small child who was in my care on my lap, unable to protect you as you were at your most vulnerable, only dressed in your boxers while I knew that my promises might just have been false... I didn't tell you because you were just eleven, but I can still remember full well about having you sitting on my lap, your head resting limply against my shoulder, while Irma was kneeling before the two of us with a letter opener in her right hand and with her left thumb and index finger keeping the eyelids of your right eye from closing so that I would be sure to really help her with making the best plan."
Roy paused at the information and looked over at the other man's eyes, seeing the haunted look that came with the obviously very real horrible memories. "She did that?"
In answer, he found himself getting pulled to Giddy's chest and hugged tightly, receiving another kiss to his temple. "I just don't want to watch you get hurt again, Roy, not in general and not when it reminds me of when I found you barely getting enough air in between tears as you repeatedly pleaded with me about not taking you to a hospital... I'm still having trouble with getting used to seeing you as a grown man, and I don't want to have one of the first things that happen upon meeting you again to be that you end up getting harmed once more."
Roy sighed and hugged him back. "Can't exactly fault you for being scared of me partially choking on my drink, then..."
"I'm sorry for leaving you behind like that without a word when we were actually so close by..." came the heavy voice above him.
Roy just shook his head, but then a small smile formed on his lips. "Does this mean that I get to borrow your shirt again?"
"That's the least I can do."
"Then I'd like to do so now," Roy said, still smiling slightly, pressing himself into his newfound uncle's shoulder before pulling away and unbuttoning the top three buttons of his shirt and pulling it over his head. He found himself with Uncle Giddy ready to help him pull the new shirt around his shoulders, before pausing, and Roy knew exactly why.
...Namely the scar from when he had been shot in the left arm five years ago. There came a flash of fear and pain in Uncle Giddy's eyes at seeing it, and Roy sighed as he slid his arms inside the yellow and green-chequered shirt. "You've got sharp eyes, most people don't notice it..."
Riza had of course done so as soon as she had entered Roy's bedroom the day that he had told her and the boys about the explosion, but they had decided that that hadn't been something to have discussed with the boys in the same building.
"What happened?" Giddy enquired, helping Roy button up the shirt as if by instinct, sitting there in his white singlet and denim jeans, looking more than a little worried.
"Some clever rhetoric with a hint of self-sacrifice... Was five years ago, back when I was a DC... Managed to accidentally combine my pay cheque with a bank robbery. And so I found myself in a hostage situation with a total of thirty-six hostages, including a couple of kids. Pissed our hosts off just enough to have them shoot me in the arm, and then told them how stupid that had been. And so I made them aware of the fact that I was actually a cop and that they had shot me, as well as letting them know that they had also shot someone whose autopsy would make them look even worse because of the fact that I'm one of the people who got injured the most during the explosion, and followed by me showing them the scars to prove my claims... I convinced them in the end that it would look a lot better and make things easier for them if they took me and me only hostage. So thirty-five people left that building unharmed, and I found myself being taken out to a remote field and was tied to a tree after they had removed the bullet and had then patched up my arm, and so the bank robbers got away after shooting a up signal flare, per the deal that had been made. We tracked them down three weeks later because I had studied all their mannerisms in detail during those two hours and forty-nine minutes." Roy looked at Giddy with a smirk. "And so, all in all, you were a much nicer kidnapper, even if I never got the tea, biscuits and frozen broccoli that you had promised me."
Giddy chuckled with a warm smile on his face. "Glad to hear that I was at least a satisfactory and high-standard criminal before my retirement."
Roy snorted and shook his head. Then he lay back down, this time on his back, though with his head still placed on Uncle Giddy's lap. "Can't have been nice, though, getting your son back, only to have him move out six years later... It must get lonely."
He felt Giddy's right hand move to rest on his head, but Roy reached up his own hand to hold Giddy's and rest them on Roy's shoulder instead. Just offer a bit of comfort in return, something which the older man seemed to understand. And so Roy felt a larger hand squeeze his own gently with a soft sigh from his rather unconventionally acquired uncle. "Which is why I got myself a dog the same week as he left... Maximilian's outside, playing with Den. I liked the name as my brother's name was Maksim, 'milian' reminds me of a mixture between 'Mikhail' and 'Damien', and he's got a pretty similar hairstyle to yours."
Roy paused in semi-horror. "You bought a dog because of its fur reminding you of my hair?"
"No, I decided that it was destiny, because I bought a Yorkie with your hairstyle," he said cheerfully, though with a hint of fond teasing to it. "After all, it has your name at the beginning."
A terrified wave of embarrassment hit Roy like a freight train at the result of reading the name backwards. "You are never allowed to speak of the fact that you bought it for that purpose... It's bad enough as it is with Roy the bull calf after I assisted Joshua Garfield yesterday with an emergency calving."
Giddy laughed at that. "I heard about that from one of the people who manage the farm for me while I'm here..."
"Ed wants me to take a picture together with him."
"Oh, I'd like one myself, if so... There's something very fitting about expanding my little connection to you through having a horse poem by a Mustang, a Yorkie with your hairstyle, and a you together with a bull calf named after you."
Roy paused, about to reply to the horror and yet the way that he was touched and embarrassed about the horse poem that reminded Giddy so much of him, and even more so because of his surname.
But then Uncle Giddy cut him off, his voice gentle, almost near tears, in fact, as he held the business card in his left hand that was resting on Roy's chest. Roy hadn't even noticed the fact that he had held on to it throughout the whole cider-choking ordeal. "...You know, Roy, back when I lost my leg, Damien came back here for a year and a half to manage the farm during my rehabilitation... Also so as to be there to make sure that he could explain away anything suspicious that I might have said due to either strong painkillers or the inevitable fevers and nightmares that followed the surgery... And I remember having this beautiful thought right after I woke up from the immediate surgery from the emergency amputation... I came dangerously close to giving things away, but I at least called you 'my kid who isn't mine,' which was easily mistaken for me talking about my nephew as in Damien... But that thought still remained and I remember being heartbroken about not having been able to tell you..." His voice was both soft and sad.
And he had a couple of tears going down his cheeks. "You see, your father's last words, I like to think that they can also be seen as him having died before he could finish saying that he was proud of you, because he never stopped being so..."
Roy felt a lump grow in his stomach at the thought, but Uncle Giddy continued to explain. "And so I sort of feel like it's a sign that I had the torch passed on to me as I got to save a pair of kids by having a rafter fall on me... And that is why I'd like you to have a watch in your pocket where I have been able finish that sentence, and yet it means that I am still proud of you every single second of the day and that I will keep being so long after I'm gone..."
"Well, then, I think we've got what we need for now, boys," Damien told them, smiling, and Al just watched him nod at them as he got to his feet from his chair in front of the couch. "But I'd like to request to borrow the bathroom before I leave, the lavatories downstairs in the reception area are reserved for hotel guests and hotel guests only, after all."
"Yeah, sure. It's that first door on the right," Brother said, and Al looked up at the psychologist that he had first talked to himself, a dark-haired woman in her mid-thirties by the name of Maisie Woods with a round face, light green long-sleeved dress, and with her notes being replaced inside her handbag. She too got to her feet, just as Damien disappeared in the direction of the bathroom with a quick word of thanks.
"Well, it was very nice to meet you, boys, I'll be seeing you again in a few days," Maisie said with a warm smile. She had been talking with Al at first as Damien had spoken to Ed, and then they had both talked with them when they had been together. Which meant that they had been here for a couple of hours in total, and that it was now a quarter past eleven.
"You too, Maisie," Al said, giving her a small smile back. She was very nice, and it reminded him of one of the librarians that would always provide them with books and recommendations the second she saw them.
And so it was about half a minute after she left that Damien returned from the bathroom and then suddenly burst out laughing loudly for some reason.
Al turned around curiously to look at him. "Damien, is there something wrong?"
"The infamous taser on the kitchen worktop over there, I didn't notice it before now!" he said, laughing to the point that he got tears in his eyes.
"Infamous?" Al asked in unison with Brother. Both Nan and Havoc were in another room so as to have avoided any pressure on their behaviour towards them during their session, and Al was getting just a bit worried that they were in danger.
"Sorry, I'll go fetch Georgina and hug her, I'm pretty sure she's going to cry soon enough, and then I'll explain..."
Al just stared at him as the man walked down the hallway towards Nan's room where she and Havoc were sitting with a book each.
It was fifteen seconds later that Havoc walked back out, looking at them curiously, pointing towards the room door. "He spoke in ASL, and now she's sobbing and hugging him tightly, do you guys have any idea what's going on here?"
"He laughed himself silly about the taser and called it 'infamous' and said he'd explain once he'd given Nan a hug as it would make her cry..." Brother said in confusion.
"...Right..." Havoc said, obviously just as clueless and confused as they were. "Well, at least he doesn't seem like a threat if Georgina approves of him..." He walked over towards them and grabbed himself a biscuit from the table so as to pass the time and to try to fight back the urge to smoke.
And so they just stared at the door for a full minute, before Nan arrived, clinging to a grinning Damien's arm. "Sorry, guys, but, first of all, you're not allowed to tell anyone about this, and that's both for your own safety, and for mine... Also, Roy's going to be looking at me funny because I was sort of lying to you... We haven't been working together on a few cases like I told you earlier, because I was part of his first case and I have a total of two graves, one of which is located in Drachma from when I was two, and the other here in East City from when I was twelve..."
"...Uh... Okay...?" Brother said apprehensively as Damien walked towards them.
"So I got my name through witness protection as we sort of faked my death and I'm originally an illegal immigrant from Drachma, though I was a toddler at the time, so that's on Dad, really... And Dad used to be Roy's teacher and I used to be Roy's bully, though that was me stupidly venting my anger on him because he wouldn't report me and I got to spend some more time with Dad, rather than with the brutes who used me as a hostage and almost cracked my ribs for losing my temper and getting myself expelled... So it's a really long story, but it ended with a fist bump and a hug and a very strong urge to come back here to East City from a location that I am not allowed to disclose and kidnap Roy as my little brother."
When Riza unlocked the front door as she arrived for lunch, she was met by Yuriy and Sara looking very uncertain, and she paused. "Is there something wrong with Roy?"
"We don't really know, to be honest..." Yuriy said awkwardly in a low voice. "Mom's having her usual nap before she begins making lunch in about twenty minutes, so we don't really want to wake her... And we don't really know if we should wake either of them, so we should probably speak a bit quietly until we know what we should do..."
"We were hoping that you'd be able to tell us whether we should actually be worried or not..." Sara added. "We didn't want to wake Roy because of how little sleep he got tonight, after all."
Riza just looked at them in confusion, but removed her shoes and walked inside the living room.
...The scene that met her didn't really help with her confusion.
Because Roy had never seemed to be particularly close to Gideon Fitzgerald.
Nor have ever heard of him in general.
And yet the two men that were asleep on the couch seemed very familiar with each other.
At least considering how Roy was wearing Mr Fitzgerald's shirt as he lay there on his back with his head resting on the older man's left thigh, the two of them smiling happily in their sleep. Roy's right arm was bent so that his hand was on his shoulder so that Mr Fitzgerald's own hand was holding it in his sleep. Roy's other hand was clutching an open silver pocket watch, and Mr Fitzgerald's left hand was in turn resting on Roy's left bicep. There was a lot of happiness and peacefulness to the very surprising scene. And so Riza couldn't blame the two doctors for being uncertain about whether or not they ought to actually wake them.
"We don't know how heavy a sleeper that either of them really are," Sara explained awkwardly, looking just a bit worried. "We were really hoping that you could see if you'd be able to walk over and try to find out if there's anything important about the note or the pocket watch, because we don't want to intrude upon their privacy either."
Riza nodded approached the two sleeping men with gentle steps.
And then froze at the sight of the pocket watch and the words that were engraved on it, wondering for half a second if Mr Fitzgerald was in fact Roy's father.
But then she saw the business card held limply in the older man's hand, and she paused. A large part of it was covered by Mr Fitzgerald's thumb.
R ... 11/10 (bonus point for add ... ion on question 8)
She then froze at the words that she could read at the bottom.
... roud teacher :)
She felt tears beginning to sting in her eyes as she took in the words and the peaceful smile on her fiancé's lips, before she stepped back and looked at the two doctors. "No, I think that they are more than allowed to just keep sleeping... It looks like he's an old teacher of Roy's that means a lot to him... And Roy means a lot to him in turn," she said softly and quietly.
Both Yuriy and Sara nodded, looking both relieved and almost fond at the sight of Roy's peaceful look as Riza made her way back around the coffee table.
Then Sara opened her mouth slightly in a semi-gasp of realisation, and she turned towards her husband. "I think that this could mean that when he woke up from the surgery right after the amputation six years ago, he might actually have been talking about Roy..."
Yuriy paused at that, realisation seeming to strike him as well. "He kept muttering random sentences, we just assumed..."
He was interrupted by a small chuckle from behind her. "I think it was something along the lines of 'He never stopped being proud, I need to tell my kid who isn't mine... Give me a new leg, it's the least I owe him for what he gave me. He's in the big city, following his dream... I'm so very, very proud of him... Need to tell him...' as far as I can remember... Now please turn around, Ms Hawkeye, I'd very much like to have a look at just why Roy sent cider all down his front after I asked him about the validity of your grandfather's statement. He told me how you'd inherited his good looks, you see..." Mr Fitzgerald said, sounding amused.
Riza turned around to face the stranger, surprised at the familiarity he seemed to have with her grandfather. And, of course, awkward at the statement, and the man instantly began wheezing with tears of laughter. "I don't blame Roy at all..."
Riza had a feeling about just what was going on here. "You wouldn't happen to be here in the form of witness protection, would you, sir?"
The man's eyebrows rose, obviously a bit impressed as he kept chuckling. "You've got a sharp mind, then, no wonder Roy would want to marry you... And, yes, very much so... You see, Damien's my son, and Roy Mustang's the kid who risked everything to give him back to me." He fondly squeezed Roy's hand, a few tears building in his eyes. "So please understand that this is highly confidential."
...14 January, 1897...
Mikhail leant into Dad's side where they sat on the sofa. It served as a double bed when one opened a couple of clasps and pressed the back of the sofa down so that there was enough room for the both of them. And so they were halfway lying there with a few pillows propped up against the wall behind their backs. And Dad was doing something that Mikhail was technically too old for...
...Except for the fact that he could only remember ever having been allowed to do this a total of twenty-three times.
Namely to just close his eyes with Dad's arm around his shoulders as Dad read to him.
It was a book that they had been provided with by the locals earlier today as a welcome gift, now that they were moving in for real.
And there was no denying it that they had no heating, nor electricity, which was why they were sleeping in the living room with a propane heater about two metres away from them and an electric torch on the floor next to their bed, while relying on body heat for the remaining need for a sufficient amount of warmth.
And Mikhail honestly wasn't complaining. He had lost a lot of his childhood to that hag that was his mother, and he felt a lot of emptiness in the ways of missing a parent.
Dad had been crying at least once a day with gratitude and relief ever since the first day that he had woken up somewhere that hadn't been his old house.
And he had looked sick and had paled with each wince that Mikhail hadn't been able to have fought because of his then bruised ribs.
But now there was Dad's scent and Dad's heartbeat under his ear and Dad's...
...Warm voice.
Dad was finally able to be warm.
Because he had been freed from the slight shakiness that had been caused by knowing that Mikhail had always been an object for Irma to have taken away from him.
And Mikhail had never been so scared as when he had been brought home by that thug Brutus after his expulsion. His name hadn't been 'Brutus,' of course, but it had helped Mikhail slightly to have thought of him as such, simply because of how it had very much fitted the worst brute that he had encountered so far.
...But he hadn't anticipated the way that the second he had come 'home', Brutus had punched him in the gut so that he had been winded and had landed on the floor.
...And had then been repeatedly kicked by his 'parents,' where he had been unable to have held back the tears.
But right now, he was safe and warm and listening to Dad reading to him from a fantasy novel for ages thirteen and up.
And so he snuggled just a bit further up to Dad, his father almost instinctively putting down the book and hugging him with both his arms and placing a kiss at the top of his head.
Because that was just how Dad worked. He was a very caring man who had been terrified to have been so for nine years, and had pushed everyone and everything away for their own safety.
...And so Dad had always showered Mikhail with hugs.
Because Mikhail could tell that he was the person that Dad loved the most in the world.
And now it was actually safe for both of them and they could be so all hours of the day.
Mikhail remembered having been allowed to stay at Dad's house for a total of twenty-one nights when Irma had been the one in charge, and almost all those times they had been because of Dad's and his own birthday. And every time they had been birthday-related, Mikhail had slept in Dad's bed, wedged between his father and the wall in an attempt at having kept his mother from grabbing him so easily.
And so Mikhail didn't really mind not having sufficient heating for them not to make things easier by Mikhail just snuggling up to Dad at night.
Because his earliest memory would always consist of screaming for Daddy as Irma pressed a gun to his back.
Mikhail still felt horrible about all those times that he had since then asked Dad about why he couldn't be with his 'good Daddy' for the following two years.
"Dad... Do you think I could just..." He decided to start somewhere else before he asked his question. "You know that I don't blame you for what you did or for what Irma forced you to do, right?" Mikhail asked quietly.
In response, Dad just hugged him tighter, his voice heavy and carrying some of that torment that came whenever he thought about it. "I'm still sorry, and I won't stop being so, you know. I still helped you be miserable at school and watched you be so."
Mikhail just dug his face into Dad's chest. "I was miserable, but it got me a few extra trips to your office for a hug, now didn't I?"
"Not enough of them. Not nearly enough of them... I had to house her and those bastards, and spend all the time worrying about you as you spent most of your time being a hostage in that blasted building... It was hell... It was pure hell."
Mikhail sighed, his stomach clenching violently, before a small and sad smile spread across his lips. "But it's over now and we've got ourselves a farm to be in witness protection in and where we'll start growing various vegetables once this building is up to speed..."
"And as we get things in order, the nearest neighbours are very happy to help us in the means of letting us borrow their shower so that we can have warm water until we get electricity to boil it and get a water heater in here..."
"...Do you think we could get a large bath to read in when that time comes? ...I remember that time when I was five and I sat there and you suddenly put away the rubber ducks and pulled out that book instead... I'm too old for that now, but just reading in the bath on my own..." Mikhail said quietly.
Dad immediately kissed his temple, his breathing just a bit shaky. "We'll make that into one of our top priorities, then."
Mikhail reached his left arm over and hugged Dad around his chest. "I love you, Dad," he whispered, feeling tears pressing.
"I love you too, Mikhail, my perfect little son," Dad told him warmly. So, so warmly.
Which was what Mikhail had really wanted to ask Dad about. And Dad knew him well enough to tell that Mikhail had only been warming up to asking his main question. Most likely to also make him at more at ease about asking for whatever it was that was so important that he had wanted to have made sure that he didn't blame him. "Dad, could I just... Could I just stop being Mikhail? Like at all?" He felt Dad tense, and his stomach clenched hard as a few tears began streaming down his cheeks. "Because most of Mikhail Antonov's life was mostly just miserable... And now I've got you and I've got a new identity and a new life, basically... So can I just get to be Damien from now on?"
Dad's breathing became a lot shakier with realisation as to why he had told him that he didn't blame him.
"If that's what you want, then of course..." His voice got even shakier, but it also carried some happiness to it. "Of course you can be Damien."
Damien nodded and pressed his face even more into Dad's chest. "Thank you..." They had already agreed to the way that Damien wouldn't be calling Dad 'Dad', but because of his state as Damien Fitzgerald's uncle, Damien would be calling him 'Pap' in public because of the way that Dad was supposedly his father's brother. After all, it made it easier for him to make up a lie about how that had been what he had called his uncle since he had first begun talking, because his father had been 'Papa', and he had looked a lot like his brother, so he had, because he had been a cute kid, called his uncle 'Pap.'
"You don't need to thank me, Damien..." Dad said softly as he began stroking up and down his back.
Which was when Damien reached his final question, now that he had been able to get this. "Dad...? I know that you're not a teacher any more, but I want to ask if you could help teach me one last thing, now that I'm done being Mikhail," he said shakily, taking a deep breath.
"I'll do anything that I can for you... Anything," Dad said quietly and softly.
And so Damien did something unusual for someone his age, but which he really, really needed right now, and he climbed up so that he could sit on Dad's lap and then lean sideways into Dad's chest as his arms were placed around him. And so Damien rested his face by Dad's right collarbone and let Dad do all the hugging while Damien just let himself be a small kid. "Now that I'm not Mikhail any more, can you teach me what it's like to be happy with my life?"
Dad paused.
And then came something that Mikhail had only seen once before, and that had been the day that he had been taken away from Dad.
Because Dad began sobbing.
And please leave a review! I didn't get any for the last chapter, which was a bit disappointing.
And, as always, please no flames as they can be rather discouraging ;)