Chapter forty-five
Giddy took a sip of his tea and put his cup down on the table. "So there you have it, I'm a criminal who taught my brightest student how to swear," he concluded to the astonishment of his hosts. Roy and Riza were still upstairs and had told the rest them to have begun eating without them, and so they had done just that. Which meant that Giddy had taken it all from the beginning with his brother and his wife and his eight years of teaching in Drachman school before his nine years here in Amestris.
Which meant that Giddy was sitting there in front of the three doctors with the table set for lunch and with none of the guests that they had made the table just a bit more extravagant for actually present.
"Well, that explains why you popped up out of nowhere like that," Yuriy began, before sighing with a pained look. "I'm sorry that you haven't been able to be out in public with your son for the past twenty-three years..."
Giddy sighed himself at that, feeling a wave of gratitude at the way that he was being met by such acceptance when having shared his history. There had been many an occasion where he had wanted and had almost needed to have discussed it with someone, especially when Damien had moved out. Yorkie or not, he had been lonely beyond words at first. But he had managed not to have said anything, and now he was frankly ecstatic. "I'm still allowed to treat him as if he was my own, and that's the main point."
"Yes, I suppose so, considering how things were before that," Sara said sadly.
"Well, now I've got both my boys knowing where to find me, and so I'm happy..." He sighed deeply with a fond smile, thinking of his son and of the boy upstairs that was borrowing his shirt. "I'm happy with my life these days, and I'm not complaining about it. What's done is done and I definitely won't be complaining when I'm also lucky enough to actually meet Roy again and with that sort of response at our reunion."
"I have to admit that it's one of the oddest relationships I've ever seen," Yuriy commented.
Giddy chuckled a bit at that. "The oddest and the most unique teacher-pupil relationship known to Amestrian and Drachman history alike, I'd say."
The three Rockbells looked a bit uncertain about it all, and Giddy sighed heavily. "I know that it might seem a bit creepy and perhaps even exploitative, but-"
"-But that's not the case," came Roy's firm voice all of a sudden from the hallway door, and Giddy couldn't help that slight jolt of warmth in his stomach as he turned around in his chair to look at Roy and Riza. "Thank you for being so patient, I just had a thought that I needed to explore, as well as us getting a very important phone call."
Giddy could immediately tell from his eyes that there had been another murder, and he swore inwardly.
Although it seemed that Giddy's shirt and words had had a very inspiring effect on his boy. In fact, he had seemed like he had cracked the case.
...And from his words earlier, Roy himself was at the centre of it and was being targeted.
But he didn't say anything and he wasn't going to. Because Roy was letting his guard down around Giddy in the same way that Damien would do. He was letting his guard down and was subconsciously trusting Giddy in this way. And it warmed his heart.
And the result was Roy looking faintly ridiculous in a shirt that didn't fit him in any way at all.
"Looking good, Mustang," he teased good-naturedly.
Riza giggled slightly and there rose a faint blush to Roy's cheeks.
But then Roy just hugged the overly large garment tighter about himself as they walked over, speaking contemplatively. "You know, I'm actually pretty tempted to repeat history in full and have the police confiscate this shirt too... Flannel's always gonna be a lot nicer than Grumman's old coat," he concluded as he sat down next to Giddy, a slightly teasing smile on his mouth. "Make it sort of come full circle, what with how I caught up to him and confiscated another of your shirts and this time I'm the cop in charge... And because of the witness protection and all that, then I know a very nice house owned by a member of the force to keep it safely stored for years to come."
Giddy snorted slightly, seeing the hint of smugness in his boy's features. "I don't mind, I've got plenty of other ones."
"Your cooperation is very much appreciated, Mr Witkinson," Roy said professionally, though with some childish glee to it even so.
Another wave of warmth came over Giddy, and he reached out and placed his right hand on Roy's right shoulder and squeezed it slightly. It was so odd to see him as a grown man. Roy had been a bit small for his age, only about 135 centimetres, the last time he had seen him, and with a less muscular build. Now Roy's was more like a shorter version of what Mr Witkinson's physique had been like, though he had a feeling that that had actually been somewhere between a subconscious ideal and a general thought about how Roy felt like his amount of muscle should be. Andrei Antonov as a teacher had always been moderately strong, not too much so and not too little, just him taking care of himself and being able to lift and carry an injured kid. Mr Witkinson had had a bit more muscle than that so that his carrying range had included an adult because he had basically wanted to have been able to have carried his son and a heavy rucksack or two because of Irma. And Giddy was self-explanatory because he needed even more because he was working with heavy tools on an almost daily basis, as well as having a fondness for helping people with various renovations when he had some time off. Because Giddy had truly had a blast with renovating the farm and as he had put up a few additional smaller buildings.
So, no, Gideon Fitzgerald both looked very much like and unlike Matthew Witkinson all at once.
Roy just smiled happily, before looking over at their obviously still surprised hosts. "He's not taking advantage of my want for a parent, because I'm strictly speaking the one who started all of it by hugging my teacher right after he had told me that my behaviour was basically me just begging for him to shoot me... So I'm the one who could be said to have taken advantage of him, considering how I also used that initial hug as a makeshift polygraph without his knowledge and sort of forced his hand through my actions... And accidentally made him believe that I saw him as a replacement father, which I didn't."
Giddy sighed and squeezed his shoulder a bit more, though far from something that could be considered painful, and turned towards Roy. "You know, I spent two hours with you unconscious, mentally bracing myself for being a father figure for you because I thought that that was what you needed and wanted me to be. I was both relieved and subconsciously a bit disappointed how that hadn't actually been the case... After all, no matter how hellish it would have been to watch what would have happened to your life and to your future, I'd begun looking forwards to seeing my son get to finally expand his family a bit... Even when the homeschooling would have come to an end, you two would have been friends by that point, and so I would have been able to hear about how my son had in between all the misery suddenly been on a sleepover under the watchful eyes of the formidable Georgina Eunice Mustang and her husband who possessed so much wisdom..."
Roy smiled with a sort of fond sadness once more. "Would have been nice that part, yes... But like I said, you're too short to be Dad... Too young too. Two centimetres too short and two years too young... Nan and Pappy were the ones who became my semi-parents, but with how you're basically just too small, but remind me a lot of Dad, then Uncle Giddy is very much perfect."
"Two years? But didn't you say that your father would have turned sixty another two years from now?" Yuriy asked, drawing their attention back to the Rockbells.
Giddy chuckled, looking back at their hosts, seeing their slightly more reassured and cheerful looks, even if just a bit confused and surprised. "Resembool was the perfect location for witness protection in our case. A very different line of work, remote, and with a highly different scenery and nice and friendly locals with a vast amount of acceptance for any new additions to the town, provided that one was nice to them in turn, even if one were to be a bit of an oddball... And so my youthful looks granted me the opportunity to feel like everyone here were congratulating me on doing so well in my old age... So only problem is that my sixtieth won't be treated nearly as much of an event as it really is, especially as it it's six weeks prior to Gideon Fitzgerald's... So I spent my fiftieth birthday leaning heavily on a pair of rails in relation to my automail rehabilitation process and got a piece of apple cake from my son in my patient's cot..." Then he snickered, seeing the slightly instinctively sad and apologetic looks of the three Rockbells. "Though you townspeople really outdid yourself on my non-existent birthday, considering how you all thought I turned forty-five, which is a bit of a special day of its own, and I was in a bit less pain at that time, so I got to enjoy it more anyway... Still can't believe that you people actually made a semi-banquet in the garden."
"You'd lost your leg to save a couple of local kids; you were the hero of the town and only had one other family member to celebrate with, it's very self-explanatory," Sara said, smiling, though with just a bit of that stubborn Rockbell playfulness. "But I suggest that we have some cake this evening before either of you three leave."
"There's really no need to go to such trouble for me," Giddy told her immediately.
Pinako spoke up at that. "You've got somewhat of the same problem as Roy has, considering the heat and the metal leg, I think it would be wiser if you stayed here until it's less warm outside... Plus, Roy turned twenty-five a month and a half ago and you can be considered to be amongst his closest family, not to speak of the engagement and the adoption and the reunion, plus Roy became the youngest ever DCI in Amestrian history this year... So I suggest that you just keep Roy company until then while Riza is out conducting the fina-"
The phone rang, and Giddy watched Roy get to his feet, obviously thinking that it had something to do with the murders, which was more than logical. The urgency of his actions didn't go unnoticed by anyone, and the three Rockbells frowned. "There's been another murder, hasn't there?" Sara asked Riza quietly with a soft and sad sigh.
"Yes."
Both she and Yuriy looked down, and judging from Riza's look, there was something different about this one.
It caused the mental pictures of Maksim's last actions slam back into the front of his mind, and he felt his stomach jerk violently as all his appetite abruptly disappeared. There was the gun, the blood, Mikhail in his arms starting to wail at the sudden sound as Andrei found himself looking at his little brother as he fell to the floor.
Just gone.
It was twenty-four years ago now.
Tears found their way down his cheeks at the thought of how Maksim would have liked Roy and Riza, and he suddenly had a serviette lightly dabbing against his right cheek by Riza's gentle hand.
He could immediately tell from her look that this was very similar to how she was treating the Elrics at times. That only made sense, of course, considering how the boys too had watched their family die before them.
...And had consequently felt so useless at not having been able to stop it.
Giddy sighed and accepted the serviette as he took it in his own hand, giving her a soft look. "You're a marvellous woman, Riza, truly..." Then he reached out and took her left hand in his, gently pressing his thumb at the engagement ring. "Take care of him for me, will you?"
Roy's stomach clenched violently as they waved at half the townspeople standing there on the platformas their train started moving. He had never felt so selfish about being so torn upon the news that the train tracks had been cleared sooner than expected, meaning that it was eight in the evening and they'd be in East City come morning. The Rockbells, Den, Uncle Giddy and Maximilian were standing there at the front, and Roy felt tears pressing at the sight of Giddy getting more and more distant as the train kept moving.
Then the platform was gone.
Then there were only fields.
"Riza, we need to get this case cleared up as soon as possible so that we can bring the boys and Nan out here, all right?"
The still unidentified witness had been diagnosed by Damien as one that was perfectly capable of speaking. But she appeared to have locked herself in inside her mind, and refused to say anything. Damien had a few theories as to her lack of willingness to speak or move of her own. In fact, she had spent most of the day having been sitting on towels because she hadn't even left to have gone to the bathroom when necessary as of yet. They had managed to have got her to eat some cereal with a large amount of milk, as well as having had her drink enough water. And so the current theories consisted of a) the girl was feeling like it wouldn't be real if she remained as unresponsive as she currently was, and had shut herself off inside her mind completely, or b) acting like she currently was had resulted in her survival, and so she was blocking everything else out in the favour of her survival instincts telling her that this was how she needed to act to stay alive, or c) she felt guilty about it and her mind was closing itself off because she didn't want to admit it to herself or anyone else. And so all options included self-preservation.
And none of the options were good when there was a killer on the loose.
Which was why Roy wanted to be there when they showed her a picture of Lyra Rial, though that would have to wait until later.
His stomach clenched violently once more where he sat on his compartment bed, and looked at the safety poster that had been screwed to the wall next to the violently red emergency hammer to smash the window with if necessary. They actually had a tiny sink right below the window, though, so that was a plus. And since it was a long rectangular one with a deep bowl, they would be able to use some of the facecloths that the train had to offer to clean themselves with to a standard befitting Roy heading directly for a mental asylum, considering how they had both washed their hair thoroughly before they had left for the train station.
He found himself receiving a kiss to his right cheek, Riza's left hand finding its way below his chin to cup his left cheek as she leant backwards again and turned his face towards hers. She looked stunning like this; newly showered, her hair smelling sweetly of apples, and her features highlighted by the peachy-golden colour of the sunset outside lighting up the inside of their small compartment.
"We will, Roy, of course we will," she told him softly.
Roy smiled slightly with a sigh, once again noticing the odd metal line on his cheek that was the engagement ring. And so he took her hands in his and gently stroked the top of them with his thumbs. "It's so stupid, we've quite possibly got ourselves caught in a case where Nan could have become a murder suspect and I still wouldn't have been taken off the case because of how much of CID is possibly corrupt. Your first case here is very likely the biggest one of your career."
"You're purposely avoiding the real reason that you're so anxious." Her voice was still soft, but just a bit strict too this time.
Roy sighed heavily. "Barry."
"Why is it that none of you three want to actually tell me much about him?"
Roy looked at her grimly. "Because you may have seen the pictures, but the three of us know how that hallway smelt like... We saw Ed's arm, saw how powerless we all were, and none of us could shut him up as he shouted about how he'd kill the boys, about how much fun it had been to chop Trisha up, how much he wanted to hear what slicing Ed's intestines open sounded like, to compare Ed's screams with Al's... And I just couldn't get him to shut up."
Riza sat there, frozen.
"And that's just a fraction of it, and I conducted the interview afterwards too... And that is why I've told you that you won't get anything out of those files other than nightmares and undue descriptions of what Barry wants to do to the boys..." He sighed, closing his eyes. "I figured that you didn't really need to have mental pictures of them getting chopped to pieces... But when I'm going to be meeting him again tomorrow and he's very possibly at the centre of this, then I'm beginning to think that it's better that I'm actually able to discuss with you what he'll be telling me... I can't exactly plan on not being shaken after meeting with that psychopath..."
And so he sighed heavily once more and then leant down for his suitcase and opened the hidden room on the back of it that had been shut by magnets. Then he pulled out the file that concerned everything with the Elrics and with Barry Anderson, earning a confused frown from Riza. "Nan stole my suitcase one weekend after I'd been on my first case that had brought me out of town. She's resourceful so I've got a hidden room at the back of my suitcase where I store case files. I'm sorry I didn't tell you about it, but I originally brought this with me in case I would end up deciding that you should read it because of the boys when they weren't there to know about it.
And so Riza took the file with a nod. "I understand, considering your reaction to this..."
A small smile that was both fond and bitter at the same time made its way to his lips. "I had nightmares for a week afterwards, I just didn't think you needed them too, we've got enough with seventy-five per cent of the household with violent nightmares, though rather intermittent ones in my case, thankfully..."
Riza sighed herself and leant sideways to kiss his cheek again before opening the file, pausing at the sight of Trisha's body. "Alphonse just sat there and looked at that for ten minutes?"
Roy nodded, feeling his stomach churn at seeing those photos again. Especially because they didn't really do it justice. Not even close. Pictures didn't carry any sound or smell or the feeling in the room.
There suddenly came a knock at the door and Riza quickly closed the file, only for a picture to fall out and slide right at the train conductor's feet as he opened the door.
The man froze, especially when paired with the gun that was casually lying on the bed next to Riza.
"I know how this might be interpreted as us planning to shoot someone, but we're just discussing a previous murder case. I'm DCI Roy Mustang, and this is DS Riza Hawkeye, so there's no need to worry." Roy reached over to where his jacket hung on the wall in front of him and handed him his ID card. The last thing they needed right now was for the train conductor to feel a need for asking help from any members of the force in the next town over because of the fear that a gun brought with it.
Roy could practically feel the man's pulse sink by about thirty beats per minute. "Thank you for clearing that up, Inspector... I'm just here to check that you have your tickets, you see."
Roy nodded and reached out for the picture on the floor while Riza retrieved their tickets from her handbag.
And so they were soon back to looking through the file, and Roy just sighed heavily. "Do you see why I'm not looking forward to talking with him again?" Riza looked completely disgusted, and Roy just leant his elbows on his knees and rested his forehead in his hands. "I suppose that this is to even out the joy of finding Uncle Giddy... Give a little, take a little, you know?"
Riza just stroked up and down his back, before reaching down into his suitcase and pulling out Giddy's shirt, obviously intending to drape it around his shoulders to cheer him up. And so Roy just kept sitting there like was, knowing that that was what Riza was planning on him doing.
However, there came a pause instead and a snicker, and Roy looked over as horror crept into him.
Because Riza had pulled a note out of the hidden inner pocket.
The thoughts of Uncle Giddy having forgotten his poem inside made him freeze and then reach forwards.
Only for Riza to blush slightly as she held up a small packet of condoms and handed him the note in Uncle Giddy's handwriting.
As an alternative to the date that you two had to cancel.
Have fun, young man.
Roy froze, heat rising steadily to his own cheeks. "I don't believe him..."
"Them, you mean..."
Realisation hit him at that. "Those are Yuriy's... He's the only one who would have had them readily available, considering how Gideon Fitzgerald can't exactly just go out and buy some himself without looking very odd without any sort of romantic partner... They must have done it while we were showering."
"We have been conspired against, in other words..."
"...And we're being patronised and teased for the reasons behind our engagement."
"Yes, that too."
Roy could only nod as he read through the note again and then looked over at Riza, feeling more awkward than ever before. "So...?"
A suddenly playful smile came upon Riza's lips. "Well, we have a perfect opportunity what with the boys not being here, which won't be happening often, and you could use some distraction from your worries about Barry, right?"
Roy smirked slightly himself with a small chuckle and turned around to pull the curtains shut while Riza locked their compartment door.
"Hughes, I'd like a word in private inside my car before you bring Riza back with you back to the hotel," Roy said as soon as he met his best friend on the platform. The boys were staying back at the hotel in order to keep up the 'Roy isn't that great'-façade of Ed's.
And Roy honestly didn't complain much because with all the thoughts swirling in his head, he was more than a little wary of any kids meeting their parents at the train station, even though that was yet to come, really. They weren't Ed and Al's parents yet, nor were they married...
But it didn't change the fact that Mum too had been blonde and Roy looked so much like his father. Granted, Riza and Mum looked nothing alike, not really. Mum's hair had been a silvery blonde instead, and she had been a few centimetres shorter.
...However, Maes's raised eyebrow in between all the worry made it clear to Roy that he had already guessed what they had been doing the first part of their train ride.
And so Roy raised an eyebrow at him in turn, signing four letters with the one-handed alphabet, spelling out 'cond', earning Roy a slight smirk before the three of them headed for Roy's car and he sat himself down up front and turned towards Hughes and Riza in the back. "Are there any changes in the girl's condition?"
"No, she's just the same as before, though she's responding just slightly to Nanna... Can only guess it's because Nanna hasn't spoken for the past five years and is used to both muteness and deafness."
Roy nodded and sighed. "That's something, at least... As for us, I'm pretty certain that John Van Hohenheim was the first murder victim and that the killer is Lyra Rial."
Hughes paused. "So you're saying that you think you've solved the case?"
Roy nodded. "Yes, but we've got zero evidence to support it." Then he explained his thought process in detail and sighed once more. "So what I'm going to do next is to hopefully trigger a reaction by going over and visit Barry at the mental asylum before going over to the station and grab a file of the case so that we can, with Damien present, show a picture of Rial to our mystery girl to see if she reacts to it at all."
"Barry, huh?" Hughes frowned at the information, giving Roy a look that made it all too clear that he knew how little Roy wanted to do it and found the man just as disgusting as they did.
Roy nodded again. "Yes. Now go back to the boys and then you'll be joining me at Grumman's office at a quarter past nine, Hughes."
"Yes, sir!"
Roy then sighed once more, even at the slight joke his friend had just presented him with when it came to his choice in form of address, and turned towards Riza. "Please make my excuses, but don't tell them where I'm going, only that I've got a lead and a meeting and will be back by half past one at the latest."
Riza leant forwards and gave him a chaste kiss and wiped away a stray lock of hair. "It's going to be all right, Roy."
"I hope so."
Riza had the two young boys run at her as soon as the door was unlocked by Al. He immediately attacked her waist in a hug, and she felt heart ache for the boys and placed a hand on the back of their heads as Ed came up to her too. "Hi, boys, it's really good to see you again."
"Where's Roy?" Al asked, squeezing her waist to make it clear that she was still very much appreciated and not overshadowed by her fiancé even if he asked for him immediately.
"He thinks he'll be back here by half past one... He wanted me to apologise for him." She knelt down and spoke quietly, seeing the slightly hurt faces of the two boys. "We think we figured out exactly who the killer is yesterday, but we don't have much in the ways of evidence... So he couldn't just go straight here when that's the case, otherwise he would have been here in a flash."
Ed and Al's eyes widened considerably. "You did?!"
Riza nodded. "Yes, but like I said, we don't have anything in the ways of evidence other than an overlapping choice of words and a theory that fits with it... Plus Roy's gut instinct, which is a pretty impressive one."
"So the case is still gonna go on for a while?" Ed asked, looking both frustrated and disappointed.
And scared.
Both brothers were looking scared.
Riza gave their cheeks a quick peck each. "Let's go inside, I've got quite a lot to catch up on."
"Nan's asleep, and so's the girl," Ed said. "We don't wanna wake either of them too early, and Nan agreed last night not to have an alarm on as she needs a bit extra that'll wake the girl up too, and she could definitely use some sleep... So they're in Nan's room, sharing the double bed there."
"So we shared Maes's room tonight with the double bed so that Damien and Maes were able to have our two single beds," Al added, taking her right hand in both of his, leaving Maes to carry her suitcase for her.
"So you really met Damien's dad?"
Riza smiled and nodded, and found herself face to face with a stranger whom one wouldn't have guessed was related to Gideon Fitzgerald, which probably explained why he had been allowed to walk about far more unrestrainedly than his father. "Hi, so you're Riza... Dad always says that I look like the spitting image of his grandfather, even if the visual similarity between Dad and I end at our height."
"Well, it's very nice to meet you even so."
"How did things go between Roy and Dad?"
"I found my fiancé asleep with his head on the lap of an equally asleep stranger, the two of them smiling peacefully as our hosts wondered if we ought to wake them up or not... So now Roy's calling him 'Uncle Giddy' and he's confiscated the most ridiculous shirt that Roy will ever wear, considering his otherwise very classy and stylish way of dressing himself."
"DCI Mustang, didn't think I'd see you again, to what do I owe this pleasure?" Barry asked as soon as he sat down before Roy at the other end of the steel table. He was obviously finding the leather straps that the guard was fastening his hands to to be completely inconsequential. It was a standard safety measure when Roy wanted to talk with him alone. Barry was wearing a white T-shirt and matching trousers and spent most of his time in a padded cell; the padding being because of the time that he had drawn up an assortment of human body parts on his cell wall. The guards had found him as he had sucked on his right index finger after having broken the nail clean off on the concrete wall so as to have used his blood that way. Hence the plasters currently around all ten of his finger tips, just in case.
"I just wanted to ask you a few questions."
Barry's eyes widened slightly with interest. "Ooh, and what might those be?" The man was finding great pleasure in making every word he said into something that made Roy's skin crawl.
Roy gave a nod to the guard and they were left alone in the sterile-looking room that was about the same size as Roy's own office. He rested his elbows on the table and loosely intertwined his fingers horizontally, before resting his chin on them. "Have you ever had any form of followers prior to when you attacked the Elrics?"
"Oh, so does this mean that I have a fan out there who is causing a bit of mayhem?" Barry asked, halfway teasing, halfway intrigued.
"I take that as a 'no', then," Roy replied calmly, not going to rise to Barry's taunts.
Barry just chuckled, making shivers run down his spine. "So there's someone who is making life difficult for you... Tell me, is it a serial killer?"
"So you have no recollections of anyone who might want to emulate you? No secret admirers? No childhood sweethearts?"
"Oh no, Mustang, certainly not, Trisha Elric was the love of my life... It was why I had to make her my first victim... After all, the first time you kill is a very special occasion, and so you shouldn't waste it on someone insignificant... I was going to get a bit more into it with the boys, and then set out... Imagine how big the newspaper articles would have been, showing everyone just how important the Elrics were to me... You arrested me for killing Trisha and trying to kill my boys, but if you had let me finish, then they would have been immortalised, have you thought of that? Ed and Al wouldn't have been there to get ostracised by it to the point that the articles didn't name them if you hadn't done what you did... Everyone would have learnt just how special my wife and my kids we-"
"They're not your boys," Roy hissed, preventing him from finishing his sentence.
Barry's eyebrows rose, and Roy cursed inwardly at having risen to his taunts after all. He had obviously doomed this conversation with the psychotic bastard to involve him pushing Roy's buttons, now that Roy had revealed his weak point. "But they are, Mustang, even if I tried to kill them, I still helped to raise them for the past six years, you know... I went hiking with them, took them fishing, put plasters on their grazed knees, and I am still their stepdad. I lived with them in my home, I would kiss the top of their heads when they'd been having nightmares, I am very much entitled to call them my boys after all that, no matter how much you don't like me."
"They're not your boys, they don't recognise you as their father any more after you betrayed them and gave up on everything that being a father is supposed to be, and you trapped them in a living hell without Trisha."
"You're sounding like you've either met them or you've got some abandonment issues of your own... which one is it, Mustang?" Barry was making it pretty clear that he wasn't too happy with Roy for having stopped him like that.
"You're carrying a grudge against me for stopping you before you felt like you were done with Ed, am I wrong?" Roy asked instead. "You've been spending your time here feeling incomplete because you had already chopped Ed's arm off... I handcuffed you to the radiator, so now I've left you to spend the rest of your days on a constant cliffhanger, haven't I?"
There was a definite hint of malice in Barry's eyes at that, which confirmed one of Roy's new suspicions.
After all, his main point of being here was that if their killer idolised Barry, then Roy might be able to get a slightly clearer idea of their killer's thought processes. Their motives. The way that they picked their victims.
Although this could also be fruitless. Mostly this was just Roy poking a sleeping lion and hoping that it was the right one.
If their killer idolised Barry Anderson, but had never met him, then Barry's words would be inconsequential. But Roy's subconscious had a tendency to get a few more ideas from these sorts of actions. Uncle Giddy's re-emergence had brought with it an entirely new way of viewing things. Although that, too, could mean that Roy was wrong and was just drawing parallels between two different events as if doing a literary comparison assignment, rather than solving a murder case.
So now Roy was sitting there before Barry Anderson, hating the man so intensely that it was practically making him itch.
The slight glare that his question had brought certainly supported his thoughts of Barry's resentment towards him. Which could also be part of what their killer was thinking too. How Roy had been mentally torturing Barry every single second of the day.
And so he was hoping to find out if any of the guards here might be involved because of how they had been listening to Barry so much. Had provided the killer with information on Barry's opinion of Roy.
"You're avoiding my question, Inspector."
"And you're avoiding mine." Roy kept his voice impassive.
"You know, I'd love to get my cleaver into you... To chop your limbs up, all that blood splashing, you screaming, it would be glorious to listen to," Barry said enthusiastically, obviously imagining it.
"Guess you've answered my question, then."
Something happened to the man at that. His eyes told the story of someone getting caught up in the splendour of some highly treasured memories. "I really wish I could have strung them up, just like the pigs in my shop, taken my time, seen just what makes them tick... It's not their fault, but I would just like to hear my sons scream even more... To see the blood pulsing just slightly as the veins are revealed through getting the flesh chopped off... Imagine if I could have opened them up so that I could have seen the heart beating?"
Roy thought back to his nightmare about watching the boys and Riza all dying or dead; Ed screaming with his legs nowhere in sight; Al halfway decapitated...
His stomach churned at the way that the mental pictures began involving the boys hanging upside down by their legs, and Barry approaching them with a meat cleaver as they screamed and cried for help. "You know that that's not how fatherly affection works, right?"
Barry was brought out of his musings at that, and looked at Roy. "But fatherly affection can be many things, Mustang, it's just that society has decided that some are wrong and some are right and then chuck the ones that the majority doesn't like straight into the loony bin... I'm just a free thinker, is all... Look at history, mankind has always loved to slaughter and mayhem. People kill all the time, and it used to be based on survival... It is human nature to want to see big fountains of blood, because we're curious and murderous each and every one of us. But then society decided that that was wrong, because we started killing people that other people loved, and so that was apparently selfish and cruel. But I just saw it for what it really was, which is why I did what I did, Detective Chief Inspector Roy Mustang... Because as I stood there in between all those pieces of meat, I realised something very important..."
His eyes bulged just slightly, making Roy's stomach churn once more. "People are meant to kill, and it's foolish to deny it, otherwise I wouldn't have had anything to do as a butcher when nobody would have wanted to kill the pigs and the cows and all those other animals... Just think about how many people there are who makes a living out of raising animals just to eat them... We hunt and we slash and we eat because we are at the top of the food chain... I'm just seeing it for what it is: people aren't anything but bloodthirsty predators at heart, and all I wanted to do was to find out just what it looks like when I act on what is basic human nature."
Roy had to say that they were stepping into very familiar territory, and he knew what was coming as the man opened his mouth once more. "We all like to see bloodshed, and the ones who are chosen to stop people like me from being human, are the ones who willingly choose to make a career out of studying bloodshed... You think that you're better than me and berate me for teaching my kids the most important lesson about human nature there is, and yet you have chosen to do condescension for a living. You like to think that you're better than me, because your morals are so much better than my own... You think that what you do is a good thing, but when in essence, all you do is living in a fake world where you're practically being paid by those that you think do wrong..."
Roy just raised his eyebrows slightly. "I know that full well, Barry, you don't need to worry about that... I've been called weird by Ed after I pointed out how he was asking someone who investigates murders for a living to explain basic human decency..." He rested his chin just a bit more heavily on his hands. "And so I would like to set you right on your facts, Barry... First of all, I am saying that you have no right to call them your kids, considering how I'm in the process of adopting them... Secondly, no, there's not a copycat killer out there who is emulating you, I just wanted to find out if there were when I'll be bringing the boys into my home, considering how I have a fair few enemies and me arresting you might just mean that any potential followers would have liked to go after my boys, and so I just wanted a heads-up... So no abandonment issues either, I just don't like the mental pictures."
Roy got to his feet and straightened out his suit jacket. "But seeing as how that isn't the question, I think I'll be making my leave now, thank you for your cooperation," he told him nonchalantly, before he opened the door and walked out of the room, nodding at the guard again. "My apologies if he acts up more than usual, I just told him that I'm in the process of adopting the Elrics."
Roy had to say that he currently had a very, very, very strong urge to hug his boys and kiss their cheeks just to make it clear that they were his and that that psychotic bastard was just...
Roy shivered inwardly at the thought of how Barry had put plasters on their grazed knees, and found himself craving something sweet to put his body more at ease and hopefully get his mind back on the case.
Which meant that he knew where to get cappuccino ice cream. It tasted sweet and nice, and helped with the nausea.
Perfect, in other words.
And so he was furiously focusing in on corrupt cops and the way that Archer might be involved because of how he had obviously read through the Elric file.
He soon rounded the corner of the nearest building, the kiosk with the ice cream being located only a seven minutes' walk from the station, which was a brilliant strategy. There were a lot of officers who wanted nothing more than to indulge themselves with the desserts during or after long days at the office. Or in between gruesome crimes or stolen handbags.
Ice cream cured it all.
And it was thereby a guilty pleasure of Roy's, because Nan would have thoroughly opposed it.
Just the thought of it got his mind over on non-Barry-related matters, including the way that he was smiling at the thought of the pocket watch that was inside the inner pocket of his suit jacket. He wasn't entirely happy about it, but ever since Ed and Al had got themselves involved with Yoki, Roy had been a bit more prone to be wearing his shoulder holster and the gun that belonged to it. Plus, he had just tried to have made their killer now lose their composure.
But he still had to admit that he was very happy with his life at the moment, despite the case. He was engaged to a stunning woman, he was adopting a pair of brilliant boys, and he had actually got to find himself an Uncle Giddy.
Life was good and he wanted his ice cream.
Very much so, in fact.
And so he found himself parking the car along the pavement outside the city park and walking towards to the small kiosk, lifting his right hand in a friendly wave when he was about twenty metres away from his destination. He received a wide grin from the man behind the counter. The forty-something man with the greying black hair was wearing his usual bright purple shirt. "I heard you're getting married and adopting a pair of kids, Inspector, so congratulations must be in order on my part, right?"
Roy smiled and nodded. "Thanks, Mitchell, I certainly am."
"Hoho, you're looking chipper today..." He winked at Roy in the way that was almost mandatory to someone like Mitchell when he was obviously guessing what Roy had been up to with Riza. "Well, what will it be today, then, my young patron?"
Roy was about to answer when he heard a yell from a few metres behind him. "MUSTANG, YOU BASTARD!"
Roy whipped around and found himself partially blinded by the way that the shouter was obscured by the sun behind him in addition to his dark green hoodie. But the most important part right now, was the way that his gaze was drawn to the the fact that the stranger threw something that was undoubtedly a grenade in Roy's direction, making Roy's stomach clench in terror, only for the man's aim to be off.
At least until it turned out that he had already thrown another one straight at the large concrete cube that had been subjected to numerous paintings by several artists in order to have made a sort of striking artistic feature of about twenty-by-twenty-by-twenty metres.
The large concrete cube that the second grenade was blasting Roy straight into.
He had a moment of blind panic and absolute certainty that this was how he was going to die.
But he found himself not even losing consciousness because of how lucky he was angle-wise, considering how the artistic feature had also included a school art project with East City's longest woollen scarf having been made into a circle.
Not that Roy didn't find himself in significant amounts of pain even so, considering how he was leaning on his left side with a piece of crumbled concrete that had fallen off the wall providing him with support both underneath and against the side of his arm.
And his entire left arm was screaming with pain. It was either broken or his shoulder was dislocated and both options left him more than a little terrified because of the smoke surrounding him. He moved to pull out his gun, only to freeze at the sight that met him.
He had a steel rebar that had gone straight through his upper left arm, leaving him unable to stand up or move because it was still stuck to the concrete. Which meant that he really ought to move his left arm as little as possible before the firemen and paramedics could come and get him loose and into an ambulance.
Although that didn't make his terror any less.
Nor the agony of it.
Roy pulled out his gun with a yell as the shoulder holster was on his left side and he really ought to have something to protect himself with if he were to be attacked even further. There was no use in not moving his arm if it killed him.
He could already hear sirens, most likely the police cars and the fire trucks, the latter were only ten minutes away by foot, and there had been two grenades involved. The police station was at the centre of the city, and the fire station was close to it. The hospital was a bit further away and the ambulances normally used about seven minutes to get to the police station.
With how this would be a full-blown emergency, Roy expected that he'd be getting medical assistance in about five minutes. That should work.
He just needed the firemen to get him free from this first.
And Roy was still terrified at what was going on. He had been trapped by another explosion, his arm was in agony and he didn't have any opportunity to assess the wound or the damage in general when it was covered up by his black suit jacket.
Which meant that he was terrified, in agony, unable to move, and he had someone who wanted to kill him very likely still present to boot.
He knew full well that by moving too much, the risk of additional damage was all too real, and he needed immediate medical attention.
Roy had found himself in many a situation where someone had been threatening to kill him. Had been looking at guns pointed straight at him; been grazed by both bullets and knives. One time he had even been stabbed in the back with a pair of nail scissors, so the damage hadn't exactly been too severe, but had it been a knife...
Now, however, Roy was finding himself terrified of dying in a way that he had never been before. Because there was only so much he could do, and if another grenade was thrown in his way, then he wasn't going to be able to shield himself.
He was terrified of dying on his boys and his fiancée and Nan, not to speak of the rest of his friends... And the thought of Uncle Giddy probably not even being allowed to go to the funeral.
Roy had people who truly needed him.
And now he might actually find himself dying alone, leaving them all to hear that he'd been killed as a result of having wanted some ice cream.
And what about Mitchell? Roy couldn't even tell from where he was sitting if he was relatively unharmed, dying or already dead. Nor how his attacker was doing.
He could barely even think. His body was screaming with agony and he couldn't move from where he was sitting. He couldn't even get his weight off his injured arm. He had no option than to keep putting weight on the agonising injury. And Roy had a bad feeling that there was a lot more damage to it than just the wound.
His mind was getting foggy with pain and terror and guilt and he had tears of agony in his eyes. The smoke was clearing and he found himself with someone running up to him and crouching before him, namely Mitchell. The older man had a deep gash over his forehead and another across his right collarbone. "Don't worry, Inspector, the man ran away, you'll be all right... How can I help?" he asked urgently.
"Put your hand under my armpit to help me put a bit less weight on my arm," Roy wheezed hoarsely, relieved that he was at least not as much at risk of dying as he could have been. "I really shouldn't move it, I think there might be more damage to it than what first meets the eye."
Mitchell immediately did as he was told as he sat down by Roy's right hip and pulled him ever so slightly to the right.
Roy yelled through his clenched teeth with a gasp. "Th-thanks... D'you think you're able to keep this up and sit as still as possible until the emergency services get here?" he whispered shakily, panting.
"I'll do my very best, Inspector," Mitchell replied, sweating with fear and was obviously generally just horrified.
Roy just nodded weakly, though the slight motion made another painful wave shoot into his arm, and he let out a sort of yelping gasp.
"ROY!" came a very familiar voice all of a sudden, and Roy smiled weakly, still panting heavily.
"Emergency services are already here, then..." he said hoarsely.
Maes was immediately by his side, looking pale. "What the hell happened?!"
"Guy called me a bastard and threw a couple of grenades to possibly either punish me or kill me slowly... Mitchell says he ran..."
"I think you've dislocated your shoulder."
"Yeah, feels like it too..." he panted. "Get Fuery here to check my car for any trackers, and don't tell Riza and the boys... I'll do it myself once the surgery's done and I'm properly awake... Don't wanna have them worry more than necessary..."
Maes immediately shot to his feet and ran for the radio, leaving Roy to wonder just how hard Ed was going to kick his shin for this as he tried valiantly not to throw up from the agony.
Ed was relieved when there came the familiar knocking tone on the door to their hotel room, and he ran to the door together with Al. No matter how much of an annoying Old Fart he was, he was also their Old Fart.
And their Old Fart had just got something so precious back in his life and had left it behind again the same evening, and would most likely need a hug from those that he was coming back for. And after everything that he had done for them, then Ed would be happy to give it to him for once.
Because he had actually missed Roy, and more so than he wanted to admit, even to himself.
And so Ed was ready to press himself against Roy's waist as Al opened the door.
Only to freeze at the sight that met him.
Roy was smiling, yes, but he was wearing his shirt on top of his left arm which was clearly in a sling underneath it.
Ed couldn't help but feel the slight stab of betrayal that Riza hadn't told them that Roy had got himself hurt, and nor had Roy.
"Why didn't you say you were injured?!" Ed exclaimed, at the same time as Al went, "Riza never told us you were injured, Roy, what happened?!"
"I'd like to know that myself, seeing as how Roy never told me either," came Riza's worried voice as she walked out of the kitchen.
Roy sighed heavily at that. "You're not gonna be exactly calmed down by what I have to say, but I'd just like to start with making it clear that it's only my arm that's injured, except for the few bruises I'll undoubtedly get. I found East City's longest woollen scarf, which was an excellent emergency cushion, by the way... But I've also messed with my left arm quite a lot, seeing as how I dislocated my shoulder, broke my humerus, though not in a complicated or unstable way, and I got my upper arm impaled all the way through by a steel rebar that had been jutting out of the piece of concrete that I slammed my arm into in the first place... So I've got an appointment with the surgeon that removed the rebar and fixed up my injuries and a physiotherapist in a week to see if it's better to stabilise the fracture completely in order to be able to do more exercises than if I need to keep it completely immobilised. I can't wear a cast because of the wound, after all."
"You've been given general anaesthetic, in other words, and then you just pop up here?" Ed asked, feeling his stomach clench hard. Roy was standing there, not caring about the fact that he should be somewhere completely different, namely a hospital room.
At least for a few hours.
He should have access to nausea-reducing medicine that he got into his veins. He'd just broken his arm and he was definitely in more pain than he should be, considering how un-zombielike he seemed. He'd broken his humerus, had had his shoulder dislocated and had been impaled all the way through his arm.
Roy sighed heavily. "If there's one thing I'm in possession of, it's a high pain threshold and an iron will." Then he knelt down in front of them, put his hand on the back of Ed's head and pulled him forwards in a hug...
...And then kissed Ed's cheek before resting it against his.
Ed froze, heat rising to his cheeks. "So you do have some painkillers in your system, then..." he said awkwardly as Roy pulled away and did the same with Al, earning a kiss to Roy's cheek in turn, Al with tears in his eyes. It was obvious that hugs were going to be a bit awkward from this point on because of Roy's obviously non-optional sling.
Which was obviously why Roy had gone with kissing their cheeks instead.
Because that was a parent-thing, and only a parent-thing.
So Roy just wanted to show some affection in a way that he could, and he was a bit confused of the drugs.
Right?
Roy pulled back and shook his head. "No, I've wanted to do that since about a quarter to nine."
"That's specific," Ed said awkwardly.
Roy sighed again. "I'll tell you more about it in a minute, but I'd like to do so when I'm sitting down on a couch."
Ed heard steps behind him, and the crackling of plastic.
And Roy burst into painful giggles, and so Ed turned around to look at Damien standing there with a bag of frozen broccoli. "Fourteen years overdue, I know, now sit down while I fetch Georgina and look after our mystery girl for her."
Roy just nodded and supported himself slightly on Al's shoulder as he stood up, and Riza grabbed his suitcase.
"Thanks, Riza, would you mind getting Giddy's shirt out of there for me, an oversized shirt is perfect right now."
"I'm on it."
And so they soon found themselves on the sofa, and Roy was sitting in the middle of it, Ed to his left, Al to his right...
And stressed footsteps made their way down the hallway from Georgina's bedroom just as Riza finished buttoning up Roy's ridiculous shirt.
And so Nan was showering Roy's cheeks with kisses, plus his forehead, before she sat down in the chair opposite them to be able to easily see all of them at the same time as they spoke.
Roy sighed heavily once more. "I know that normally, I should have had Maes phone you to have told you what had happened, but I decided against it... Because no matter how much I trust you guys, I still didn't really want to have you watch as I lay in the recovery room with a blanket around my head as I cried over my dead family because severe pain from my broken arm really just reminded me of waking up there seventeen years ago... So Maes was in the ambulance with me and he was in the recovery room with me as I woke up. I didn't wanna worry you. And so I requested that I didn't have strong painkillers in my system as I woke up to reduce the amount of continuously dozing off to nightmares and fear."
Ed felt his stomach clench violently. "I'm sorry." He vaguely remembered actually having had both Al and Roy there when he had woken up in the recovery room himself after the surgery for closing up his stump.
There came another heavy sigh and a shake of his head from Roy. "Plus, I'd rather have been awake to have explained it in full why I'm twenty-five and asked in the ambulance that they get Dr David Samuels to do the surgery..."
Ed froze, recognising the name. "He's the paediatric surgeon that closed up my stump... Why would you ask for him when you're twenty-five?"
"He's got a wife who was born with almost complete hearing loss, so he's fluent in ASL and gave us a lot of pointers in how to learn ASL quickly and didn't treat Nan as a bomb when he was the one who performed the surgeries after the explosion, so I actually trust him a lot more than the other doctors... Childhood trauma is a very impractical thing when it comes to how I have a lot of instincts telling me two things when I have a broken arm in a hospital: the hospital killed my family, lost Nan her hearing, and almost killed me too. I don't remember the bomb, so the train station's okay, but the hospital's an entirely different matter... And the second thing is that the hospital firmly means that I should be dead. I got told that several times, which is why I also got told that it's a miracle that I'm still alive. And Doc Samuels is the one who performed that miracle, so he's the doctor that I instinctively trust to want to keep me alive, unlike all the other nurses and doctors... I was eight, and I just can't stop that instinctive way of thinking. And it doesn't really matter that much between eighteen an twenty-five, and he was fully capable of an appendicectomy back then and I was fully grown by that point."
He sighed heavily yet again. "...And I suppose that it had something to do with how I got attacked by a pair of grenades and broken arms due to explosions are a bit of a weak point for me..."
Ed froze, horror filling him. "So you were targeted by the serial killer?"
"You know how they go after people based on the seven deadly sins of man?"
"Yeah?"
"Well, yesterday they killed someone and marked them 'envy' for killing someone themselves... What with how we took in an eye witness, I figured that since our killer still hasn't done anything in relation to the sin of pride, this would be the perfect time to strike, especially when we think there are corrupt cops involved and we could get to see if Yoki would be acting strangely on Monday... So it's clear that weren't planning on killing me today, but it turned out that they had put a tracker on my car and my prideful and lusty ways with a hint of gluttony as I was buying ice cream afterwards became a bit too much for our killer to ignore. So I'd say that it proves my theory about corrupt cops being involved."
"What exactly did you do?!" Ed blurted together with Al.
A slightly deadened look came over Roy's face at that. "There's nothing that makes me as much of a prideful bastard as when I go and gloat about the adoption to none other than Barry Anderson, don't you think?... It's why I felt an overwhelming urge to kiss your cheeks when I got back."
"Barry?!"
Ed's terror only tripled at the news. "He's involved with your case?! Is that why you wanted to have someone keep an eye on us all the time?!"
Roy shook his head. "No, we wanted to keep an eye on you all the time because of Yoki being a corrupt bastard... And now we've also found out that we've possibly got a group of corrupt officers at CID, and I'm one of the cleanest cops there are with a pair of kids who are involved with one of the dirtiest. If there are other officers who are working with Yoki, then they might try to use you against me to make someone who has so much trust and a favourable record and golden pupil-like status with the higher-ups, and, even worse, is going to be the grandson-in-law of Superintendent Grumman himself, into some sort of corrupt weapon almost."
Shivers ran down Ed's spine, and obviously did so with Al too, judging from what his little brother said next. "I'm sorry, Roy."
"Don't... We've got Superintendent Grumman on our side and he's an excellent tactician. We might just be able to get a lot of corruption removed from the force, and I have no qualms about doing a bit of infiltration work if that's what it takes to do so. The thing that matters is that we're ahead of all that so that we can actually let the right people know before it can permanently harm my reputation midway through."
Ed still didn't like this at all. "But that could mean that you'd be targeted afterwards from those that are left."
"If we play our cards right, then what we'll achieve is that that won't happen because those that we don't manage to bring down won't want to be discovered to still exist."
Ed looked down, feeling his stomach clench even harder. "Just promise us that you won't die and that you'll be careful."
Roy sighed heavily, though with a bit of warmth to it even so. "Of course I will... Otherwise I wouldn't be much of an adoptive father."
Ed stood up and kicked his shin. "Swear to me, Old Fart."
A small snort escaped Roy's mouth, and he bumped his right foot lightly against Ed's left shin in turn. "I swear, kiddo."
Al immediately just hugged Roy's arm tightly, and Roy kissed the top of his head.
The sight of it made a sort of scared lump of warmth and fear form in Ed's stomach.
Then he got a surge of inspiration from the ridiculous shirt an leant forwards to whisper into Roy's ear so that nobody else could hear him. "Because I want you to be our dad."
Roy paused and then nodded as Ed pulled back, giving him a soft smile and Ed didn't fail to notice that Roy's eyes were just a bit shinier than before.
"How's Mustang doing?" Superintendent Grumman asked him as Maes sat down in the visitor chair of his office after having dropped Roy off at the hotel.
Maes sighed. "Stubborn and in pain."
Grumman chuckled with slight amusement and slight exasperation. "Just like when I first met him, then."
"Yup." Maes frowned slightly, deciding to ask something that might prove itself to be very personal. With everything that was going on, they had assumed a bit less of a formal way for Maes to be acting around Grumman, especially as this was less of a professional visit than previously, so he might as well ask. "Do you mind if I ask you something?"
"Go ahead." He seemed intrigued by Maes's phrasing.
"Why is it that your career is so inconsistent? You worked just as hard as Roy during those first few ranks, though you didn't have a mentor who was able to put in such a good word with those that promoted you, as you have done with Roy, and then with Riza. But even if you weren't a star exception like them, you still got promoted to DI when you were just twenty-nine, making a record for CID here in East City... But then you just stopped there and didn't aim for any promotions for a period of twenty-one years, even if you would have made an excellent DCI at the time when the position had opened up when you were thirty-four. And then again at forty-three... But you waited until you were fifty, and then as soon as the superintendent position opened up two and a half years ago, you practically jumped on it. The large gap can halfway be explained as you wanting to keep solving crimes, but you would have been better paid as a DCI, and you would easily have got that promotion... So it's got me a bit puzzled, is all."
Grumman chuckled actually, which was a good sign. "You've taken your job seriously when looking through everyone's records, then, though I suspect that you actually chose to look at my file right after Yoki Yandell's because you were just curious and have been so for a few years now."
Maes nodded, happy that he didn't seem to have overstepped the mark at least. "Yes, though I don't exactly believe you to be on the take, just curiosity about that single fact, though I didn't get much wiser from it, hence me asking you directly."
Another chuckle from the sixty-three-year-old. "Well, you're right about me wanting to solve crimes, but once I reached DI, I found myself quite content where I was. And I had a nine-year-old daughter at the time of my promotion, so I figured during the course of her growing up, that I didn't really need to bring too much attention to myself when it came to having my face pop up in the news more than strictly necessary. Then Elsie married Berthold when she was seventeen so that her mother, who had been diagnosed with cancer at the time and had been told that she had only had less than a year left to live, was able to be present at their wedding. Elsie then got pregnant at nineteen, emulating her father by having a baby at twenty, but then she too died only three years later due to an accidental fall on a hiking trip with a friend of hers a few weeks after the DCI spot had been filled..."
"So what changed seven years later?" Maes could tell that the man didn't really feel the need for any condolences, and so Maes didn't say anything.
The older man chuckled once more. "A little squirt who obviously needed an experienced and far more influential officer than at that time to guide him once he graduated the Academy. Roy Mustang had a lot of potential, and he needed someone who could pave the way for him to use it as soon as possible. So once he got promoted to DI, then he was on his own and I was old."
Maes's eyebrows rose. "Does Roy know?"
"Consciously? Maybe. Subconsciously? Certainly... He has a gift for picking things up subconsciously and thereby having a very accurate gut feeling, and one that he really ought to be able to use without being restricted by someone with an underdeveloped one. It's why I took him under my wing."
Maes couldn't help but chuckle himself, but then paused at the phone that began ringing on Grumman's desk. The older officer picked it up and instantly began frowning. "I'll see to it, but nobody is allowed to shoot him."
He put down the phone with a grunt and looked at Maes, and he could tell that this meant that they had found the attacker from a few hours previously. "It appears that the one who attacked Mustang earlier today, has been occupying Riza's flat since Tuesday night and has taken the landlady hostage and will kill her if Riza and 'that bastard', as he puts it, aren't there within the next forty-five minutes."
Roy was more than a little nervous as they drove in the direction of Riza's flat. Ed had given Roy's shins repeated bruises to make sure that he didn't get himself killed, before he had hugged Riza lightly around the middle and had then grudgingly accepted Roy's kiss to the top of his head. Al had kissed each of their cheeks as they had knelt down, before he had thrown his arms around Roy's neck and had sobbed slightly. Then Riza had received the same treatment. And then Nan had hugged them a lot and had kissed their cheeks and foreheads multiple times, Riza obviously already like her granddaughter in her opinion.
They hadn't got to show the mystery girl the picture of Lyra Rial before the phone had rung, seeing as how they had needed to have made a plan with Damien before having shown the girl the picture.
Now they were sitting inside the car, only a minute away from the flat, leaving them with five minutes to spare to meet the man's demands.
And Roy was in the back seat in case the man would be inclined towards shooting Roy through the windscreen if he were to sit next to Riza as she drove.
"If this is a man with a fixation on you, then that would explain why he'd call me a bastard and be so easy for our killer to manipulate... This is too impulsive and messy for the serial killer."
"Yes, I think so too."
He could hear how awkward she was. Awkward and scared. The boys had left them a lot more scared of injuries and death in the line of duty.
A lot more.
He turned around in his seat so that he was sitting sideways in the back seat and leant over to place a small kiss against the back of her neck, which had basically been the easiest piece of skin for him to currently reach despite the moving car. Then he just sighed, deciding just to say it. "Riza, if this goes to hell, then I want you to know that I'm beginning to love you."
His words and actions earned him a small giggle. "I love how you're making it more romantic by not making it into a cliché moment... You're always so respectful of my feelings that you're not even capable of making false statements before your potential death... No white lies... No overly romantic gestures..." She spoke in a slightly fond and shaky way. "And I'm beginning to love you too, Roy," she said softly.
Roy found himself leaning his temple against her neck as they drove down the familiar street and Riza parked the car, the two of them surrounded by three parked police cars with their armed colleagues hidden behind them.
And then she uttered some of the most surprising words for her to say in this sort of situation.
"What the HELL?!"
Her voice suddenly broke and she reacted in the most unprofessional manner he'd have expected of her as she slammed the door open, considering how she practically screamed at the man who was holding a gun against the landlady's temple as he had her in a chokehold. The sixty-something woman was terrified as she held on to the arm around her neck, her dark grey hair having partially fallen out of its bun, her deep red dress torn at one of the sleeves. Her attacker had military-style-short brown hair, was about six feet tall, and was wearing a dark green hoodie and matching trousers, though Roy could see his face clearly this time as he had his hood down. Which meant that he could easily see the deep brown spectacles that were like more square versions of Maes's. He definitely looked military.
"YOU DAMNED HYPOCRITE! YOU PRACTICALLY WORSHIPPED YOUR BIG BROTHER, AND THEN YOU DARE CALL ROY A BASTARD?!"
Roy was more than a little confused by now, but as Riza's voice lowered to a tearful tone, Roy had a feeling that he knew who the person must be.
"Why would you even come here, Michael? You've worshipped the ground on which Will stood, but there's no reason to break my heart once more by now trying to take my fiancé away from me! You don't want me happy, none of you, but travelling all the way to East City just to dig Will's betrayal in eve-," she began, but she was cut off.
"BECAUSE YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO MARRY ME THIS TIME! I SPENT FOUR YEARS TRYING TO BE HAPPY FOR MY BIG BROTHER, BUT THEN HE WENT AND DID THAT! AND NONE OF YOU TOLD ME, AND SUDDENLY YOU HAD JUST MOVED OUT WITHOUT EVEN HAVING SAID GOODBYE!" The man took a few deep breaths and glared at the car. "Now get your arse out of there, Mustang, or I'm gonna shoot! Because I wanna show you and Riza something in private."
Roy swore inwardly, but stepped out of the car even so, only for him to receive some devastating words.
"Now you take that ring from Riza's finger and throw it away!"
Roy walked over, seeing Riza's tearful look as he took her hand and gently removed the ring, pressing it in his palm, feeling his stomach clench violently.
But at the terrified whimper from the landlady and Riza's tearful nod, Roy threw the ring as far away as possible and then found themselves being thrown a pair of handcuffs. Riza fastened Roy's, leaving him with his right hand at a very odd angle to not make his left arm uncomfortable, and then Riza fastened her own behind her back, per Michael's instructions, leaving them much more at the mercy of their captor.
They both froze at the sight of the flat. The walls were covered with drawings and photographs of Riza, and with red crosses over those that contained Roy.
Roy began wondering if he was going to make it out of this alive.
"You should have been mine, Riza! When I heard that William had sent you that letter, I came straight here, only to find out that you'd gone and had found yourself a boyfriend who wasn't me! And then you went and got e-engaged! How could you do that to me, Riza? How?!"
"Mi-," she began in reply, but she never got any further before he pointed his gun at Roy and shot him in the chest as he let go of the screaming landlady.
Roy just looked down at his chest as blood began spreading across his shirt.
Then came the agonising pain and he fell to his knees as Riza began sobbing.
Michael just hugged her to him and began stroking the back of her head. "Sh-sh-sh, Riza, we're going to be together now... Just you and me..."
"Don't you dare," Roy wheezed, looking up at the bastard who had made them break their promises to their boys. "She doesn't belong to you!"
Michael hugged Riza tighter, resting his chin on her shoulder. "She does."
And then held the gun up to her temple and pulled the trigger, making the bullet pass through both of their heads.
"RIZA!" Roy yelled, looking at the body of his fiancée in front of him as she slumped to the floor, blood pooling around her head, colouring her blonde hair crimson.
He couldn't help the sob that escaped him.
Though he was cut off at the second one as warm hands, one with the cold metal of a ring on one of its fingers, were placed on his cheeks and a soft and familiar mouth locked over his.
He reciprocated instinctively as he opened his eyes, finding himself with a heart monitor beeping from somewhere to his left and with his fiancée sitting by his right hip in what was undoubtedly the recovery room. Gentle thumbs wiped his tears away from his cheeks, and she pulled back, smiling warmly at him. "Hello, handsome, you looked like you needed one."
"What... What's going on?" he mumbled in confusion.
"You got attacked by a pair of grenades and first woke up about fifteen minutes ago after just over three hours of surgery, though you fell asleep about thirty seconds after I assured you that I would be right there when you woke up again... The boys are eating ice cream with Maes in the café." Her voice was soft, but worried.
Roy paused, confusion only growing, feeling very groggy, though he was taking in his surroundings a lot more than before, the nightmarish events having roused him a lot more than anything else could. "But it was a stable and uncomplicated humerus fracture...?" He couldn't quite get his voice working properly just yet, and his speech was a bit drawn out and slurred.
At that she laughed quietly and softly, and like she thought he was cute, even though there was a lot of worry in her eyes. But in between that she was once again looking at him fondly, and she gently stroked away a stray lock of hair. "Roy, you have two displaced fractures, the humeral shaft one almost having pierced the skin and your ulna one was hardly any better... Maes told me what you had told him, but your rules were frankly ridiculous with your condition, considering how adrenaline and your high pain threshold had severely clouded your assessment of the extent of the damages to your arm, so Maes didn't pay much attention to your orders and did the talking for you while you had fun with the laughing gas."
"...But what about Michael?" Roy asked, even more confused, though also faintly amused by Riza being a bit unprofessional in her medical terms to almost tease him and show him that she wasn't angry.
"Who?" She was obviously taken aback slightly.
"Will's little brother?... He attacked me with grenades and shot me in the chest and then the two of you in your temples because he wanted to marry you and was jealous... He made me throw away the engagement ring even."
Riza began stroking the top of his head, frowning slightly with emotional pain. "That doesn't sound much like Janet, and she's three years older than him..." She leant forwards and whispered into his ear. "You've probably made up a threat to our family based on Irma and the name 'Mikhail'."
"So... So everything's all right?" He was vaguely getting more and more aware of the pain from his arm.
"Yes, Roy, definitely..." She placed a small kiss on the tip of his nose. "Although you've got titanium in your arm and a lot of sponge baths to look forwards to."
Roy replied before his mind caught up to what he was saying. "...Not sexy?"
Riza giggled and kissed his forehead. "Not particularly, no, but I think we'll make do even so."
CallMeWaffle: Thank you so much! And I suppose I ...sort of... fulfilled your wishes of seeing Roy and Riza back with the boys XD I hope you enjoyed the chapter even with the ending!
the-kermit-kid: I guess I just made it even more complicated, let's hope you think it keeps being in a good way XD Thank you for the review!
redmike: Thank you! And as for fast updates, I had a hard time getting this chapter the way that I wanted it to be, so I have written and deleted about 7000-8000 words, so I hope you're happy with the result! :)
ceemu: Trust me, I've been fighting that inner battle for about a year now since the pregnant/not pregnant idea first started coming into being, so I won't give away any spoilers! And thank you for that comment about Ben Mustang, I'm sort of semi-stuck in between chapters on that story and whether I want to add another chapter before the one that I am working on, because I got an idea after about 3700 words. Plus, I'll need to re-edit the story before then to fix some mistakes ;)
And please keep leaving positive reviews and also thank you to all you readers, favouriters and followers!