Envy is kind of OOC and spazzy becuase he's stressed. Not because I couldn't get him to act in character. Definitely not, no, no.

Well, okay... maybe a little bit. But not much, honest!

I own nothing.

"Is this not a good time? I'm very sorry, but we need to talk to your... father?" said the man who had introduced himself as Officer Hughes.

"H-half-brother." Ed corrected, doing his best to swallow his shock and appear as unsuspicious as possible. "You... You'd better come in. Excuse me while I get my brother for you." he said, giving them a weak, shaky smile. "Uh... make yourselves at home." he said, leading them into the living room before shutting the door on them firmly and rushing to the kitchen.

"Envy!" he whispered. "Keep quiet, whatever you do. There are three police officers in the living room and they want to talk to you!"

"WHAT?!" Envy hissed back.

"Police officers! In the living room! Want to talk to you!" Edward responded, agitated. Envy looked horrified.

"What do we do?" he asked, desperately.

"Lie. Lie constantly and consistently, and don't do anything suspicious!"

"But- what- but we can't do- what if we slip up? Ed, I can't do this!"

"You have to, what're they going to think if you don't? Where's Al?"

"He- he went to his room, but Ed, what are we going to do? We can't do this, we can't!"

"We can't not do it, they're waiting in there right now! I'll get Al, wait right here, I'm not leaving you alone with them."

Had the situation been any different, Envy would've found it funny how protective Edward was being. However, the situation was not different.

Edward disappeared and returned with Al in the space of ten second, obviously in rush. An automail hand gripped Envy's wrist, and he found himself pulled along towards the living room.

Envy looked down at his younger brothers, both watching him with concern and fear written across their faces.

He took a deep breath.

"Y-yeah. Okay. You're right, we have to do this..." he took another, shuddering breath. "Don't act suspicious." he told the two blonde-haired boys, and with that, he opened the door into what he was quite sure would be his own personal hell.

Maes looked up as the door opened to see two wary blonde teens and a young man with long green hair.

"I'm sorry, this seems to be a bad time... We'd come by another day, but it's rather important." he said, looking over the three with concern. "Why don't you sit yourselves down, and we'll talk about this, okay?"

The oldest boy nodded and took a seat. "Ah... you want to talk to me?" he asked, obviously nervous about something.

"Mr Elric, I'm sorry to say that recently, we found the body of a murdered woman near a small village a good way north of here."

Envy nodded, looking like he wanted nothing more than to have them out of the small flat immediately.

"Mr Elric... Envy... I'm very sorry to have to inform you that your mother has been murdered." he said gently. "We'll do our best to catch whoever did this."

All three boys looked up sharply, eyes wide, suddenly looking less scared and more confused.

"You don't have a suspect yet?" asked one of the blonde boys tentatively.

"I'm afraid the evidence at the scene had been tampered with..."

The emotions that flickered across each face were unreadable to Maes. He almost thought he saw relief, but that couldn't be right... could it? He found himself watching each boy slightly more carefully.

"O-oh. Right. Ah... th-thank you, for informing me. I... uh... I think I need a few moments with my brothers." he said.

"Of course." Maes smiled comfortingly at them. "I understand. We'll wait here." he said, before Roy and Riza could rise from their seats. The two flashed him questioning looks, but stayed where they were as the disconcerted Elrics left the room.

Once the door was shut, Roy turned to Maes with a frown. "What's this about?"

"Don't you think there's something odd about this, Roy?" he asked. "When we showed up at the door, that kid went white as a sheet, and you can't tell me you didn't see how nervous those three were. There's something going on here, Roy."

"Perhaps one of them has done something, and they thought we had come to arrest them?" suggested Riza. "I notice they looked considerably less worried after you told them why we were here."

Maes shook his head. "No... they looked considerably less worried when I told them we didn't have a suspect."

Riza's eyes widened, and even Roy, whose facial expressions were usually restricted to serious, annoyed and smirking, looked shocked. "You think that one of them...?"

Maes shook his head. "I don't know. But there's definitely something weird about this, and I'm pretty sure it's related to this case."

Riza nodded slowly. "I think you may be right."

Roy looked between the two for a moment. "I think," he said, "We should investigate this a bit further before we make any assumptions."

"But you're agreeing to investigate, which means that on some level you agree with me!" Maes grinned. Roy rolled his eyes. Riza sighed.

"Shut up, Maes." said Roy. Beyond the closed door, the Elrics breathed a sigh or relief, unaware of the police officers' suspicions.