Chapter forty-three
Riza just stood there, looking at the stranger sitting there before her. And with her fiancé sleeping so peacefully with his head on Mr Fitzgerald's lap as the man gently squeezed his hand.
She wasn't entirely sure what she should be saying or doing about what the man had just said. Mr Fitzgerald was a complete stranger that Roy had never told her about.
She was suddenly faced with a very odd realisation that this stranger was obviously going to become the closest thing she would have to a father-in-law.
And Roy was smiling in his sleep, looking like some great burden had been lifted from his shoulders as if a a void had been filled.
He hadn't told her about his old teacher. Hadn't told her about any of this.
And it was at that moment that she realised just how little she actually knew the man that she was engaged to. Whom she would be raising a pair of kids with.
Whom she was raising a pair of kids with, in fact.
Mr Fitzgerald sighed. "There is a very good reason that Roy hasn't told you about me, and I can assure you that it has nothing to do with lack of trust in you, Ms Hawkeye," he told her kindly. "After all, Roy's first words upon recognising me were that this wasn't Drachma."
Riza paused.
Then realisation struck her.
Then she further realised that Mr Fitzgerald was actually drawing things out in the same way as a teacher would do when helping their student with solving a task, instead of just giving them the correct answer straight away. And that he was enjoying it and wanted to see just how much of the task she could solve of her own.
No wonder Roy had liked him as his teacher. "I'm assuming that this means that you taught maths and that you're an illegal immigrant from Drachma, and that Roy wasn't told about you having stayed in Amestris instead of having been sent back like he had been told that you had been. And so you have actually stayed here for the past fourteen years without his knowledge for his own safety due to him obviously having otherwise wanted to track you down in a heartbeat and eat biscuits with you?"
Mr Fitzgerald began laughing heartily, obviously very happy and excited about having met Roy again. "You're quite right, Ms Hawkeye... Even about the maths teacher... I suppose you caught on to that one through the note?"
Riza nodded. "Yes, sir, but also because of the way you were trying to see how much I could get out of that simple hint... It reminded me of the promptings during my oral mock examination from year ten."
The stranger chuckled some more, before sighing heavily, and he suddenly looked up at the two doctors. "I'm sorry for not exactly doing much else than severely piquing your curiosity, but I would like to go over this with Ms Hawkeye first because of certain parts that are a bit more sensitive than others. So if you wouldn't mind, I'd very much like to discuss the shortened version over lunch when Pinako is awake as she is going to be just as curious as yourselves?" he asked politely.
"Yes, of course," Sara said, immediately walking over to the table, picking up Roy's shirt. "I'll wash this in the meantime and hang it out to dry, and Yuriy can go fetch Roy a new shirt back at the house."
And so Riza was left in the living room with the smiling stranger, a bit of fond exasperation to his features, as she sat down on a chair in front of the two men. "Well, first of all, it's very nice to meet you, and sorry for the abrupt... well, everything, really... But please call me Gideon, or Giddy, for that part, I've sort of assumed the role of Roy's 'Uncle Giddy,' now, actually... I had to come up with a name that he would actually be using, seeing as how he was very, very uncooperative when I last saw him." He looked down at Roy, who was still sleeping peacefully, obviously not aware of anything that was going on around him. "And by uncooperative, I mean that your fiancé here adamantly refused to refer to me as anything else than 'Mr Witkinson,' even as he sat there, using my thigh as a chair, with a gun pointed at his back as I was tasked with helping him out of his shirt and trousers so that that his clothes could be searched, and I told him that he could call me by my real name, Andrei Antonov... But no. I was Mr Witkinson to him, and so he told me that that was my name, pout included."
Riza paused slightly, more than bit taken aback by the information that she had just received.
And then sighed, feeling her stomach clench slightly. "Your explanation seems to be based on you trying to present yourself while avoiding one of the core elements," she began gently and in a non-accusatory fashion. "And you're doing so in order to not start off with unintentionally drawing parallels between a spouse and my husband as Roy and my grandfather have undoubtedly warned you about the separation and the circumstances surrounding it, am I right, Gideon?"
He sighed with a slightly apologetic smile. Apologetic, but also filled with exhaustion and pain at his own memories. "My marriage had some similarities with your own, but discussing the results might seem like I'm trying to tell you that your husband's actions weren't really too consequential..."
Riza nodded. "Hence the 'sensitive' parts that you wanted for us to discuss alone first..." she said calmly, before looking down at her sleeping fiancé, Roy still with a peaceful smile on his lips, and she couldn't help the small, fond smile that came to her lips. "I've dealt with and heard of things that spouses do that are a lot worse than what Will did, but thank you for your concern... But mostly I'm just frustrated with myself for not having noticed it... And you can call me Riza."
"I thought Irma was having an affair, and hoped to talk things out with her because of our two-year-old son... And then instead discovered her to be a part of a large drug syndicate... I asked my brother for help, he was involved with the Amestrian Embassy and was getting caught up in the inescapable web that Irma was creating around him... He decided that to avoid getting in a situation that would entail him abusing his influence between Amestris and Drachma, that he would do the most good by giving me his entry visa, tell me where to meet up with a group of people who would help me out in crossing the border... And then he pulled out a gun that I hadn't even known that he had had in his possession... I never wanted to do what I did, but after what my little brother had done for me and my son without thinking... I just couldn't let it go to waste... And so I found out from the people that I met up with that my son and I would end up with faking our deaths by the means of an explosion at my brother's flat, making it look like we were all casualties after an attack on my brother..."
His voice took on a little hint of frustration and torment, though it also became a little shaky from tears. "My brother gave up his life to help us get away from Irma so that we wouldn't have to get caught up in what she was doing... I had a toddler to think of and I just... I couldn't help but fear what would have happened if Irma was caught... I would undoubtedly be perceived as a very suspicious part of it all and I would probably have lost my son who would have needed his father more than ever... I made a choice that I don't regret, and never will, no matter how much I hate it... You can understand that, can't you?" His question was somewhere between asking her for her opinion and pleading with her.
Riza just nodded, the lump in her stomach growing. "Yes, I can understand that..." she told him softly. Witness protection or not, fact would still have remained that the Drachman legal system had been very flawed at that time, and everything that had had to do with incriminating someone who had been involved with the Amestrian Embassy and had had any sort of association with drugs would have most likely been arrested and sentenced to prison without even facing a trial, just to silence those that had been involved.
And so she felt a slight stab of pain at the thought of just how much torment that Gideon had gone through.
"One of the people that Maksim had sent me off to meet had had contacts with a homeless shelter in East City. One of said contacts had been able to get me into contact with an old woman who worked at an orphanage and needed some help with someone to tutor the children. I became known as 'Mr Matthew' and became quite popular and well-liked within just a few days, and many of the kids doted on my son, so the arrangement was perfect as I also thereby received a place to live, free of charge, as well as it giving me something to build on in terms of getting myself a teaching position somewhere."
He then proceeded to explain in full about what had happened to him and his son, and about what Roy had done in relation to having found out all that he had done.
She snorted at the exclamation concerning mingling with a 'bad and dangerous crowd,' and was met by a raised and amused eyebrow, the man obviously thinking the same as her. "Roy told me about a certain East City Spring Fair stall... Still hanging with a dangerous crowd..." he teased her.
Riza couldn't help but like the man before her, which was a good thing, considering how he was sitting there with Roy sleeping so peacefully with his thigh as a pillow. And so she nodded with a smile of her own. "Thank you for letting me know first... I suppose that you were also hoping to discuss this to get to know me a bit more before telling your story to those who know you already..."
"As well as the fact that I haven't actually been able to discuss this with just about everyone, meaning that I haven't been able to talk with anyone else whose spouse abused their trust and affection... And whom you also wanted to have kids with up till the point where reality is slammed into your face and you're left desperate and with a broken heart..." He sighed heavily, looking at her with pain in his eyes, his stomach obviously clenching just as much as hers. "Because no matter how much hurt there is involved with it, there is no way to deny the fact that your wedding day was one of the happiest memories that you inhibit because that was what you were at that time."
Riza could only nod. "Problem is that I don't really know where to start or what to say..."
...Which was of course when Roy began to mumble slightly in his sleep. "Mmfmm-muhm-muhm-fluh..."
The bubble of tension and sadness in the room burst immediately and they both began snickering at Roy's still peaceful sleep, both of them looking down at the grown man who had never looked so much as a small child.
"You know, I spent those years as his teacher mentally pleading with him to get the hell away from me on an almost daily basis..." Gideon said with a sigh. A fond and sad one. "I was terrified that Irma would discover just how much he would remind her of me. And with her so mentally unstable, I couldn't even tell if she would have wanted to torture him or abduct him and worship him in order to have a version of 'me' that she could take at a young age and shape into becoming her 'perfect' child... Both ways would have served as a lot of torture to me..." He sighed again, a bit of his torment showing through it. "...It was so odd at that moment when I told her sharply that I wouldn't let her take him too from me... I explained it to Roy as me being terrified of her taking away another child who had trusted me, and especially when he would remind her so much of me... But it was about five minutes after I saw him for what I believed to have been the final time, that realisation struck me..."
Riza opened her mouth without thinking. "You said it like that because it felt like she would be stealing a part of yourself from you because of your similarities... Like she would be corrupting even more of those happy memories of yours because then you would no longer be able to think back to them without seeing Roy and what he too was losing because of her," she said softly.
He looked at her at that, his look carrying a sort of intrigued, soft sadness. "Yes, exactly..." Then he smiled slightly. "You've got no idea how odd it is to meet him again like this. Fourteen years, no contact, nothing, and then he's suddenly here..." He suddenly had an almost mischievous glint in his eye. "And so I am very happy that Grumman decided to ask for help from a very good child psychologist whom everyone agreed would have the greatest chance of success in speaking with Edward Elric after what had happened. After all, his record is spotless, he has a gift for reaching through to just about everyone without facing them with prejudice, and he also knew Trisha, though he's not allowed to disclose that fact to the boys as it will make it clear just where you two have gone, which means sharing information on your case beyond what is strictly necessary."
Riza sat there, frozen.
But then she smiled with a sigh. "I've thought for these past few weeks that Roy had inherited a lot of qualities from being my grandfather's protégé, but I believe now that there may be some of you in there too... A lot of it, actually," she said thoughtfully, a small smile on her lips.
Gideon lit up with cheerful intrigue, though with a definite hint of gratitude. "In what way?"
A thought struck her and she snorted slightly. "For instance Constable Charlie Muffin the sock puppet to interview the younger kids with?"
Gideon paused for three seconds, looked down at Roy, and then began wheezing with laughter that he tried to keep quiet enough for him not to wake him.
Though Riza could see that the tears running down the man's cheeks weren't just from hearty laughter.
"Seems he's got the same passion for his job that I have for teaching, then," Gideon concluded fondly. "I think you're very lucky to have ended up as partners, you've obviously got a lot of good to teach and to give each other, as well as the Elrics..." He looked at her with a warm and soft smile. "And, despite my history with my wife and you with your husband, I'm sure that you two are very good for each other..." He chuckled lightly, though there was an unmistakable sincerity in his eyes. "And I am very certain that you aren't a part of a large drug syndicate... So congratulations on your engagement, I'm sure that he's going to take of you no matter what... Whether it's as his fiancée, girlfriend, wife, work partner or just as a friend, I'm su-"
"Riza's my slut," Roy suddenly mumbled grumpily with a deep frown and with his eyes still closed in his sleep.
They both froze, staring down at Roy.
There wasn't really any way to twist his words into meaning anything else, especially as he kept mumbling the word 'slut' another couple of times. Then his eyes were sharply opened wide mid-word and he looked up at Gideon and then at Riza, his eyes going even wider in realisation, not seeming to find what he had said to have been wrong at all. "You're my slut! That's it!" He got to his feet as quickly as possible. "I need to make a phone call and have the superintendent put someone in the break room for their own safety until we get back," he said rapidly as he made his way around the table. "Ask if we can have the workshop for ourselves, Riza, I need to borrow that beautiful head of yours behind locked doors for obvious reasons," Roy told them as he strode for the hallway and disappeared from view, his mind obviously halfway preoccupied with the case. "And bring coffee!" he added, still out of sight.
Riza got to her feet, exchanging a look with Gideon, feeling both awkward and amused at the same time.
And damned intrigued.
"Well, that sounds very wrong when phrased like that..." Gideon said, his eyebrows raised in both alarm, concern, and a bit of fondness.
Roy put down the phone just as Riza walked inside the room behind him, carrying a tea tray with two mugs and a coffee pot. Roy strode over, unable to keep the slightly excited smile off his mouth because he was pretty sure that he had just made a vital discovery that was at the heart of it all, no matter how ominous it was and how frustrating it was also becoming. And so he held Riza's shoulders and looked at her. "Sorry, I'll explain about the 'slut' comment, because you're still definitely the cross-breed of an angel and a goddess," he told her quickly with a small smile and a quick kiss, before he headed for the door and locked it. Then he strode over to the blackboard that was on the wall that was usually reserved for blueprint ideas.
Right now, however, Roy was grabbing a piece of chalk and then wrote the word 'PASSION' in capital letters at the middle of the blackboard and made a circle around the word, though still leaving plenty of space around it. "This has all got to do with passion. Passion, obsession, and people assuming superiority over others..." Roy wrote quickly with smaller letters as he drew a short line straight up from the main word. "And so, in between all that, there is the Church of Eternity, right?" he asked, writing up the name and drawing a circle around it, before drawing another line to the right and writing up the word 'Father,' and making a ring around that too. He kept his explanation going, hearing Riza place the tray on the table to his left as she began pouring the coffee, though obviously still following everything that he said and did with rapt attention.
"And so we have Father Kent, who is the leader of the cult in which the murder victims were from..." He made a couple of smaller lines connected to 'Father' and wrote up the names of the two victims to the right of it. "...But..." He drew up a new line and wrote another name to the left of 'Church of Eternity', giving the name the same amount of space as that of his brother. "However, per my current theory, John Van Hohenheim's disappearance was most likely the first of these murders..."
Roy suddenly had Riza walk up next to him and hand him his mug, whilst also writing up the names of the three Elrics as they jutted out from 'John Van Hohenheim', causing Roy to smile as he drew up 'Guru' on top of 'Church of Eternity', and connected it to both brothers and the Church. Then he reached over to Riza and drew up a new line from 'Trisha Elric,' just as Riza added hers and Roy's names and linked them to Ed and Al's names. "And then comes Barry Anderson," Roy explained further, writing the name so that it was right above 'Trisha Elric'.
Riza paused slightly at that. "So you believe that Barry might be related to the case?"
Roy made a small grunt of affirmation, and then drew up another line to the left straight from 'Guru' and wrote 'X' and made a circle around it. "I believe that this 'Guru' had another pupil who was a lot more brainwashed by 'Guru's' teachings, and then killed John for leaving the person that 'X' adored," he said as he drew a line between 'X' and 'John Van Hohenheim'.
"Hence leaving 'passion' as the main point?" Riza asked, obviously just as caught up with it as Roy was.
Roy couldn't help the small smile. "Yes, exactly... So why don't you add some thoughts of your own?" He took a sip of coffee.
"So 'X' killed John for leaving their tutor, while the pupil that 'Guru' had nurtured had been left alone for following their teachings by starting the Church... So what changed? Why would they suddenly choose to attack the faithful followers of the faithful pupil?"
"Because Barry killed Trisha," Roy said grimly, trying to keep the gruesome mental pictures out of his mind, and tapped his chalk against 'Barry Anderson', before taking a deep breath and returning his focus to the blackboard and the blackboard only. "After all, we're dealing with a brainwashed believer in a concept that we don't live by... Which means that with Pinako's information about how 'Guru' had, according to John, made theories that he had found too horrible to have wanted to discuss, and which had also left him too ashamed to even talk about even when drunk, I'm assuming that 'Guru's' theories about how to achieve immortality were actually toned down by Father Kent's brain trauma... Because I am fairly certain that those original theories had to do with either human sacrifices or cannibalism, which would easily explain just how John would have lost his nerve if he had only been in it for the mentoring by the brilliant chemist and not the occultist..."
"And adding in the shame that followed him running away, he either felt the need for fleeing from his family in order to keep them from harm, or he found his guilt to be too much because of his loyalty to his brother and wanted to try to reason with him or try to track down 'Guru' to try to stop them?" Riza suggested.
Roy nodded and took another sip from his mug. "Mhm." Then he tapped the chalk on 'X' twice. "And so we have this follower here whose mind has probably decided that silencing John as the traitor he is is the most logical and vengeful approach..."
Riza frowned at that, looking slightly horrified and sick as she tapped her chalk on 'Barry Anderson' in turn. "So they saw it as a sign that Barry was some sort of saint for slaughtering the woman who had borne John's children?"
Roy nodded again. "And so the two boys had been innocent enough due to their age and the way that they had been 'redeemed' through their stepfather's actions in purifying them of their sinful flesh, or something along those lines... And Barry Anderson became a martyr at the hands of the police, which just so happened to have been my own at the time."
Roy could see just how she reached the same conclusion as he had done, and so Roy sighed. "Because everything changed when I came back into the picture in the way of you becoming my work partner and having the Elrics live with you... Because then I went from a man just doing my job, to the man who had stopped Barry and had taken everything away from him and was claiming it for my own in the ways of mocking him and was trying to undo his grand work. After all, I am now the ultimate sinner for putting myself above him... And so she started with 'lust' the day that you started working with me, then 'gluttony' when Maes arrived, just to further torment me, or tease me, really, and so I'm-"
Riza interrupted him. "You're talking about 'she' all of a sudden, so I'm guessing Lyra Rial?"
Roy smiled and nodded and swore inwardly. "She's got a perfect position to get any knowledge that she wants through her employer, Yoki being too afraid of ratting on her because it means openly admitting to be a dirty cop, she's been in close contact with one of the members of the Church of Eternity and 'Guru' is probably providing her with information on the people involved, and Solaris Bailey was a prostitute who could easily have gathered information from her high-standing clientele... And Rial was one of the few people that we know of who would have been able to have been provided with information about both the Elrics and the day when you would have started your first day at work because Yoki is far too nosy for his own good..."
Roy scratched the back of his head in frustration. "Or I'm just rambling... And we can't exactly go out and ask her out of the blue, we have nothing to gain from arresting her on suspicion of murder, and especially not when Yoki will be standing by, ready to provide her with a lawyer at the click of his fingers. We'll face ridicule when our reasoning is so incredibly thin. It's basically just a gut feeling and seeing parallels and drawing conclusions on what is effectively non-existent evidence. What we'll further achieve is only for us to also be accused of prejudice against both civilians and our fellow officers..." He ran his hands through his hair with a highly annoyed sigh. "And so, all in all, I'm pretty sure that we've got our killer, but we haven't got anything to prove it as of yet... So I've asked Superintendent Grumman to place Archer in the break room because, if I'm right, then he's at a very, very strong risk of death because of his envy of my position, considering how we've now found out that 'X' isn't just one for killing the members of the Church of Eternity per our current theory..."
He looked at Riza, biting his lip. "So it seems that there's still a long way to go before we get this case closed, and I might be entirely wrong about Rial, and we've got a major security breach when it comes to information leakage, so we need to be careful and our main goal right now is to find 'Guru' and find out who has a connection to them..."
Roy looked at his fiancé with his guts wrenching. "Because, if I'm right, then we're dealing with a very dangerous killer whose sole reason for killing is to prove what their deluded mind is making me into..."
"Because we're actually dealing with a murderer who slaughters on the childish concept of 'how smart do you look now, huh?'" Riza said quietly.
Roy nodded. "Yes, and whom is being provided with information from within the force itself."
"Though you have also put DI Archer in the break room because he might as well be the killer because he has such easy access to whatever material he needs because of the department in which he works, and he definitely has it in for you and has already had a go at the boys and myself. Just so that someone can keep an eye on him in the safest building available on such short notice."
"Yes... Like I said, Lyra Rial is a strong suspect, but not necessarily our killer at all... After all, my theory is based on what I just dreamt... And the way she looked at us when we first met her, I'd say that she was either a very good actress, or she hadn't ever seen me before..." Roy sighed again, staring at the 'X', not getting any wiser from it, and instead tapped his chalk against 'Solaris Bailey' this time. "But our killer would have known about Bailey's ways and of her approach to 'achieving immortality'..."
"I think we should ask my grandfather to do something similar with Troy Patton, he's unusually cooperative, it would make him a lucrative target because of his greedy tendencies, especially as he is a member of the Church of Eternity."
"Yes, that's definitely good thinking. He seemed easy enough to convince to actually do so willingly in exchange for some good treatment... Or, in this case, he's most likely just going to give us dirt on all the members in exchange for us giving him good food, a soft bed, and a guard to make sure that he survives... He seemed to hit it off with Havoc, I'll ask that he join him when Patton leaves the Church for the day... He might just be a key witness, considering what our new theory is as he might have spotted a few of her clients in a rather incriminating way..." He frowned deeply, something which obviously didn't go unnoticed by Riza.
"There's something more, isn't there?"
"I want to get our killer to make some mistakes by triggering their instincts to prove me wrong... Which means that I can't speak to either Patton or Archer first when I'm trying to trigger that fierce reaction... Otherwise it might seem like I'm acting on something that they've said to me and thereby put their safety at risk..."
Roy was cursing inwardly, because what he was planning was really the last thing that he wanted to do. "So when we get back home tomorrow evening, I'm gonna ask Hughes to pick you up at the train station and take you back to the boys while I go meet with Barry Anderson so that we can see if any of our colleagues do something unusual come Monday, and especially if Yoki acts differently when speaking with the boys. I'll have Hughes join me during the interviews and when speaking with Grumman, so I'll have to work on Saturday as well. But I should be home in time for a slightly late lunch, and then I can bring you up to speed on the case that evening."
He wasn't expecting Riza to place her hand over his mouth to prevent him from speaking further, having shifted the chalk to her hand that was holding the mug. "Don't you start apologising for this, Roy... It's not your fault and the boys won't blame you... So all I ask is that you be careful, because we're dealing with a killer with accomplices who has five more sins to choose from, and then they'll probably go after you directly..."
Roy nodded once as he placed the chalk back in the tin below the blackboard and then took Riza's hand in his and lowered it slightly. "All right... But there is no way that I am letting you come with me to talk to Barry... If I'm right about this, then we could possibly have police officers who will want you dead just for being an irreverent slut who wants to replace Trisha in full by chatting a bit too much with Barry..."
He frowned again, not able to put away his thoughts that were jumping about and itching like mad. And so he placed a quick kiss on her hand, giving his fiancée a slight look telling her that she didn't need to reply because that was an order, before turning back towards the blackboard. "Riza, I need you to help me find out just what it is that makes my subconscious and my gut feeling so dead set on Rial being the murderer when I'm technically speaking severely hoping for it not to be her and the reasoning is so far so incredibly weak that I should by default not be dead set on her with such prejudice..." he said, grabbing the chalk and drawing a line to the right from 'Solaris Bailey' and adding a 'Lyra Rial', before tapping his chalk against 'X' again. "After all, Rial's the last person I want it to be because she could potentially be connected to far too much of the officers at not jus CID..." He moved back to 'Lyra Rial' and drew a line to the right and wrote up 'Yoki Yandell' and made a ring around that name too. "After all, if this has to do with Yoki, then things become even more complicated when he bribes everyone and everything if he can gain something from it..."
"Maybe it has to do with how he seemed so interested in having Ed and Al tell him about the case because of how he wanted updates on his maid's status as a murder suspect?" Riza suggested. "He's obviously scared of being involved in the murders, even when he could be completely free from guilt when she lives somewhere else and it has nothing to do with him... It could mean that he actually knows that she's not as much of a law-abiding citizen as he'd like her to be?"
Roy bit his lip, but made a line from 'Yoki Yandell' and added 'why updates?' and then frowned. "Yes, I can agree that that is suspicious... Though Yoki is also very fond of not risking to be involved with any sort of illicit businesses that he won't gain anything from... It would hurt his reputation severely if he had employed a killer, as well as it meaning that he'd get dragged into the investigation and get stuck in a situation that he can't bribe himself out of for once..."
"So it could just mean that he's asking for information as a heads-up to take the necessary preventative measures before he can get implicated in the serial killings?"
Roy nodded. "Which again would explain why he wanted information on Maes Hughes to know if he was bribable... After all, the fact that I was the one to request him would definitely serve to make Yoki nervous, considering my reputation..." Roy had an idea strike him, and he immediately drew up a line from 'Yoki Yandell', and wrote up 'Solf J. Kimblee', frowning. "I would just like to make it clear that this is grasping at straws to the extreme, but I just want to have it written down in case it actually means something, seeing as how it could vaguely suggest that Kimblee is feasible to accept bribes. But that's just a stray thought, really, and not our main concern at the moment..."
"So that's something for Maes Hughes to ponder." Riza commented.
"Yes, definitely... We need to write this thing down once we're done here."
Roy paused at that.
"There's something there... Riza, my gut feeling has something to do with you writing things down during an interview."
"In what way?"
Roy felt an overwhelming urge to scratch his brain itself. "It's at the tip of my tongue, because all I can tell is that it's got to do with something suspicious about Lyra that has to do with being written down and that things are missing."
"I didn't write anything down when we met Lyra Rial out of respect because we were telling her about her flatmate's death."
A sort of hot lurch in his stomach came with her words, and he looked at her abruptly. "That's it... There's something about what she said about all this, because there was something off about her wording... Something that has to do with the Church of Eternity..."
Riza frowned, her brain obviously working just as hard as his own.
Roy walked over to the worktop in the middle of the room and dragged the chair over to the wall in front of it. Then he made his way over to the door, trying to visualise and remember their first meeting to the best of his abilities. "We came inside, and we were pointed towards the living room couch," he said ponderously, walking towards the worktop and sat himself down on it, facing the empty chair. Then he waved at Riza, silently telling her to play Lyra Rial. "Then Rial sat down in the chair in front of us," he said as Riza sat down herself.
"Then she asked what had happened to Bailey, didn't she?" Riza asked, looking back at him.
Roy nodded. "Then I told her that I regretted to inform her that Solaris Bailey had been found dead the day before..." A frown began to build on his forehead. "Then she became very emotionless, but that's not the main point because she really just seemed the type to react like that in general..."
"And then she asked how it had happened," Riza added.
"And I told her that she had been stabbed and asked her if she knew about any enemies or people that would have wished Solaris Bailey harm..."
"And she told us to go ask at the church..."
Roy nodded again, knowing that they were extremely close to getting their answer. "...Because 'she went there often enough,' so I asked her what church it was."
"And so she told us that it was the Church of Eternity, and that it was led by a man by the name of 'Father' or 'Father Kent' and that Solaris Bailey had visited the Church a lot for the past year... And that it had to do with teaching the soul how to become immortal..." Riza concluded.
Roy frowned even deeper, concentrating on remembering it word for word, because it didn't sound entirely right, and then it came to him. "No, she said that it was 'apparently' about teaching one's souls about how to become immortal..."
"Which suggests that she didn't think too highly of the Church of Eternity."
Roy's eyes went wide with realisation. "Riza, during her introductory description, can you remember her ever saying that it was Solaris Bailey that had told her about it?"
Riza paused, but then shook her head.
"Which makes it a bit odd that she was talking about the Church as if she didn't believe any of it, and yet not present her information as having been provided to her from the one who should have been her only link to the Church of Eternity?"
Riza's look was that of someone desperately trying to remember everything that she could. "But that could also be explained as Rial's grief representing itself through not wanting to mention Solaris Bailey's name..."
Roy couldn't help the small smile on his lips at the fact that Riza too was trying to see it from all angles and not be biased.
However, Roy still had that one nagging thought at the back of his head.
And then it struck him.
Just why the word 'apparently' stood so clearly out in his mind. "But it wouldn't really explain her use of the word 'apparently', and I clearly remember her saying that..."
Riza caught on quickly. "And that suggests that Lyra Rial might not think that Father Kent's doing it right?"
A sudden spark of excitement hit Roy at that, and he dived for Riza's handbag over by the blackboard and started flipping through her notepad until he found what he was looking for. Then he jabbed the particular sentence that confirmed his suspicions and walked back over to Riza and held up the notepad. "There! Lyra Rial is the only one who has said the same thing as John Van Hohenheim did, according to what Pinako remembered, rather than what the followers of Father Kent did... Because she too spoke of 'teaching' one's soul how to become immortal, not 'reaching one's soul's potential to achieve immortality!'"
Riza's eyes widened from where she sat, looking at the words that she had written down the day before. "...And no matter how much Pinako may have forgotten, 'teaching' isn't the first word that would have come to mind if one weren't there to have heard it themselves... Pinako has probably been mulling that conversation over and over in her mind almost daily, having been worried about her drinking buddy ever since she had first heard it, and then every time she had seen the photos of the Elrics since..."
Roy paused slightly, his stomach jerking, and Riza gave him a concerned look. "Roy, what's wrong?"
A hollow chuckle escaped his lips before he knew what he was doing and he put down his mug and the chalk on the shelf below the blackboard. "She was lucky enough to have beed old enough to still remember it now..."
Riza's expression softened, a slightly pained look reaching her eyes. "Gideon told me about how you hadn't been allowed to have written anything down. And he also told me how you had discussed your parents, though he didn't elaborate any further..."
Roy sighed deeply, feeling tears in his eyes and he sat down on the worktop again, crossing his arms and hugging himself. "I haven't told anyone about it, actually... It's hard to explain, and I'd rather not go into detail about it, even with you... It's just that he reminded me of my father and he made me feel closer to him after he was the first teacher whose lesson I had on my first day back to school... It's just so damned personal and I feel like I'm cheapening something that was so important to me if I discuss it with someone else... I haven't even shown that business card to anyone since I got it..." Roy looked down, trying valiantly to fight his tears. "Because I didn't want to have my memories tampered with by having those closest to me tell me things that replaced the then Mr Witkinson's words, and I still feel that way..."
"So he's the reason why you've been reacting so strongly about when Ed first accused me of being a traitorous bitch..." she said softly. "You didn't act entirely like yourself at that time."
Roy felt his lips tremble slightly. "Well, Ed didn't appreciate something that he needed so much and who was there to actually take care of him like he was their own family... It was too damned stupid of him not to use it for what it was worth when you wouldn't be at risk of being sent back to Drachma, you know? ...I didn't even think about it before today... Haven't thought about just how much it's been guiding my actions and my thoughts for these past fourteen years... And why I became so scared and frustrated when Ed got involved like that in thanks for me making him realise just how much you could give him... After all, he's eleven and there's a year between him and Alphonse... And he's got an injured arm and a powerful megalomaniac who may want them dead, just because I was too blinded by the trust that they had put in me to actually think ahead and take Yoki into account..." Roy chuckled shakily as the first few tears began running down his cheeks. "I wasn't allowed to tell you anything about it no matter how much I trust you three, also so as to make sure that you're not at risk of slipping up or, even worse, triggering some form of reaction from me that puts you at risk..."
He began chuckling a bit more, but with a lot of tears involved. "And then my abandonment issues made me smash a cup to the floor immediately after Ed had decided to do something that had been so similar to what I had done at his age..."
"...Except for the fact that Yoki isn't a hugger," Riza said fondly and with a soft sadness.
Roy began laughing in full and found himself stifling his semi-sobs against Riza's left shoulder as she hugged him tightly. And so they just stood there for a few minutes as Roy slowly gathered himself and then pulled away.
"So that's... That's the story of why I was lying on the couch like that..." he stated weakly.
...Which caused Riza to suddenly break down into giggles.
"Riza?"
"Do you have any idea just how hard I've been working on taking you seriously ever since you first woke up?" she asked.
Roy froze. "Is this about the slut comment?"
She shook her head, fondness practically pulsing from her. "This is the most inattentive moment of your life, and it has been the most trying discussion over a case that I have ever been subjected to... And I was once involved in taking statements in a nudist colony and then discussing my findings with DI Armstrong..."
A lot of worry made its way into Roy. "Riza, has Giddy provided you with some kind of joke?" He was halfway afraid that Riza had been given the poem after all.
She just looked at him almost as if she felt sorry for him and reached out to take his hands in hers.
...Only for her to instead grab the end of the sleeves of his borrowed shirt.
"I have been discussing our murder case with my boss, meaning the handsome, stylish, and always smartly dressed, youngest DCI that there has ever been... as he has been moving about in front of the blackboard, oblivious as to the overly long shirt sleeves of the overly large shirt with the yellow and green chequers, flapping around him, making him look like a small kid who has been playing in his parents' wardrobe for the entire time..."
Roy couldn't stop himself from blushing. "Well, it still helped us find our number one killer suspect... If my mind hadn't been so caught up in teachers and teaching suddenly..."
Riza gave him a fond and warm smile and gently took his left shirt sleeve in her hands and began folding it up to his wrist. "I'm happy that you got to meet him again..." she said softly. "And I've got nothing against you borrowing his shirt if that is what you want."
Roy smiled and placed a small kiss on her cheek. "Thank you."
"Of course... Though I have to admit that I wasn't expecting your origin story and your first meeting with my grandfather to have been quite like this... Though I suppose it explains why he took you under his wing as soon as you graduated from the Academy."
Roy snorted slightly with a nod. "Actually, first thing I did was to ask where to find him and turn up at his office with a chessboard in my satchel, which turned out to be a sort of job interview... He'd been keeping an eye on me since I first joined the Academy, so I suppose that I made an impression when we first met..."
...Fourteen years ago...
Roy just lay there on his back, looking up at Mr Witkinson's and Mikhail's alarmed and incredulous faces.
Part of him was happy.
Part of him was devastated.
Most of him wanted to cry.
And he was completely terrified.
Because he knew what this meant.
And so he needed to start at the most important part, and he turned towards Jim. "Th-they're not dangerous, I swear... Mr Witkinson isn't a criminal, he doesn't wanna hurt us."
A slight hint of pain came over Jim's features, and Roy's stomach clenched violently. He looked up at Mr Witkinson, seeing that same pained softness in his face too.
Roy shook his head. "N-no... You're not a criminal..."
"I'm an illegal immigrant from Drachma who has practically kidnapped you and handcuffed you to my bed, Roy..." Mr Witkinson said gently.
...Said gently, but without any form of soothing gestures that there had been supposed to be. No gently squeezing his toes. No placing a hand on his head. No stroking his cheek.
No comforting at all.
Just because he knew that it would probably be seen as Roy being his hostage and him fooling him. He was going to go with the honest approach and give himself up.
Roy was going to lose him too right after their talk about Mum and Dad and Auntie Chris.
Mr Witkinson was going to leave him.
"...Which means that I'll probably have a greater chance at not involving you if you don't sit on my lap like this," Mr Witkinson added with a definite hint of urgency and began to stand up, moving Roy off his lap. "Keep you as innocent in this business as possible, you know?"
Which was when a man in a black suit and a long coat and who had a large, grey moustache, came up to the doorway as well, and Jim stepped to the side to let him past him.
Roy panicked, knowing that he was about to lose Mr Witkinson and Mikhail for good. "He didn't kidnap me! It was unlawful imprisonment that was effectively a form of protective custody because his wife would most likely have shot me if not! He's not a bad man! You have to believe me!"
Roy didn't even think as Mr Witkinson stepped away from him. He had understood his words, he could of course see the logic.
...But Roy didn't want to listen to logic right now.
And so he reached out and clamped his legs as hard as possible around Mr Witkinson's right thigh. "You're not a criminal, Mr Witkinson! She's the one who made it so that you had to leave! You're innocent! You only wanted to take care of your son and be a teacher and it isn't your fault that she's such a psychotic b-!"
He was cut off by the gentle hand that Mr Witkinson placed over his mouth and saw the desperation in the tearful eyes. "Roy, you're far too young to use words like that, no matter how fitting a description that is," he said in his slightly stern teacher-voice, though with a lot of softness to it.
And pleading.
His eyes were begging Roy to stop what he was doing as Mr Witkinson moved his hand to cup his cheek instead and wipe Roy's tears away with his thumb. "Now you need to let go of my leg."
Roy shook his head slightly, his voice weak with tears. "You said you wouldn't leave me, and that's exactly what you'll do if I let go and then I won't get to see you again."
Mr Witkinson sighed heavily and looked at the slightly surprised stranger still standing at the doorway, removing his hand from Roy's cheek as he spoke. "Sir, would there be any way that I can give my statement in an adjoining room and then have a word with Roy before you take us away? I won't protest any handcuffs if that's necessary."
The stranger studied Roy's face and then Mr Witkinson's and frowned. "Considering what Mr Walsh has told me from what he learnt when he was escorting your son, I suppose that that should be possible..."
Mr Witkinson sighed heavily again. "Thank you, sir."
Roy, however, wasn't having any of it. Not when those could just be empty words to make Roy let go. "No. I wanna give my own explanation about what happened when you're still here so that you won't leave me because you're feeling too guilty about what Irma forced you to do... I can't trust you, Mr Witkinson, not when you said that you feel like a criminal every time you look at your son, just because you're actually a really nice man who loves him and hates seeing him not be himself... You're gonna guilt-trip yourself about things that were out of your control and then be forced to leave me..." Roy had tears streaming down his cheeks. "So I'm gonna be the one to explain first while you stay completely quiet because you're not a criminal, not really."
...Present time...
Roy finished his explanation, being met by a fond and sorry snort from his fiancée. "I can understand these days that, yes, he is to be described as a criminal, but at that moment, there were two options for what he was, and those were that he was either a non-criminal or a criminal, and I just couldn't get myself to think of him as that, so I added a third category, and that one was called 'Mr Witkinson'... It was sort of like when one describes people in general, and then there's that 'you're not people, you're Riza.'"
"And now he's 'Uncle Giddy,' which makes him even more complicated?" Riza suggested, gently stroking away a stray lock of hair from his face.
Roy shook his head at that. "No... Now he's less complicated than ever, because now he's just..." He wasn't really able to explain it.
"...Now it's safe for you to borrow his shirt and look like a small child when you do," Riza said softly, her eyes getting just a bit shiny with tears.
Roy leant forwards and gave her a deeper kiss this time, before pulling away and pointing towards the blackboard. "Now let's write this thing down..." Then he sighed, scratching the back of his head, looking through the names on the blackboard, feeling his stomach clench at the sight of Barry's name. He let out a frustrated grunt at the thought of the way that he was going to go from the joy of finding Giddy again to the complete disgust that talking with Barry brought.
But he'd be back with the boys soon enough, and if Ed was going to get automail, then they had the perfect homeschooler in the same town as where he'd be getting his automail.
His stomach churned at the thought of how Ed would expose himself to such agony.
He felt an overwhelming urge to just hug his boys.
There was so much going on in his life all at once.
"But at least I think we've got our killer, even though we'll need a lot more proof to back our claims because what we've got at the moment is feeble at best," he said, crossing his arms. "And if we're wrong, then we need to learn why as soon as possible, for that part." Roy locked his eyes at 'X'. "We've got a serial killer and a place to start and a few calls to make after what we've just discovered... And if I'm right about how 'X' operates, then there's a strong chance that we'll be met with a new murder tomorrow as a welcome home present unless we make the necessary precautions." Roy strode towards the phone, only for it to start ringing when he was a metre away from it. And so he picked it up, Pinako having told him that he was more than free to answer the phone first as he was likely to have his colleagues phone him, and it was in that case better to have Roy answer them directly, and tell Pinako if the caller was a customer instead.
"Hello?" Roy asked.
"Roy, that's you, right?" came a very familiar voice.
A very distressed and frustrated one.
He had a bad feeling that he knew what was coming.
Though the second half of what Hughes had to say left him frozen on the spot as he gripped the phone twice as hard. "WHAT?!"
Sorry about the cliffhanger!
And I would just like to say that this isn't an attempt at fishing for reviews, it's just a good place to end it because of how I'm switching POVs and me wanting to update the story as quickly as possible, as well as the fact that this chapter is already 9600 words long, but I can assure you that I am not holding back on any chapters!
But positive reviews do inspire my writing, though, so please leave one :)
(Though flames have the opposite effect, so please none of those)
redmike: Thank you so much, I'm glad you enjoy this! And I can assure you that I'm not planning on abandoning this story, I have far too many things that I want to write for me to do that ;)
CallMeWaffle: Thank you, I hope that the chapter lived up to your expectations :)