Family Dynamics

Author: MoonStarDutchess

Part 3: Riza and Maes

Disclaimer: I claim no ownership to Fullmetal Alchemist and gain no profit from this fanfiction but I do own my plot and OC's if any. Any resemblance of the OC's to anyone, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Note: Maes and Maeve's bad grammar is intentional.



Riza and Maes

Maes Mustang's eyes widened in delight as he and his mother walked into the large arena where the gun show was being held. There were hundreds of rows of different sized booths. Situated on the top of most of the booths were banners that bore the company's name and logo. The decoration on the banners ranged from simple camouflage, to highly ornate, to just void of anything but simple solid neutral colored letters. They were held above the booths by round brown poles about the same circumference as a broomstick. The stalls that were void of the banners held up by the poles instead had ones that draped over the front of the tables. Atop all of the tables were various types of guns depending on the specialty of that particular booth. Along side of the guns at each section were labeled boxes of ammo that went with the guns they were selling.

People were crowded around the stalls and wandering up and down the wide areas between each of the respective sections. Maes felt his mommy pick him up in her arms and begin walking through the sea of people. He was amazed at how the people seemed to move out of his mommy's way as she walked through them. The circumstances made him remember a story that he heard once when his grandfather took him to something called Sunday school. Something about a man parting a color sea by raising his hands. Perhaps his mom had that power when she carried him and that was why she wasn't letting him walk on his own.

He gazed around and suddenly became aware of and uncomfortable with the way the men were staring at his mommy. If his daddy had been there the men wouldn't be turning around to gaze at her as she walked by. If they did, his daddy would have made sure to fix the trouble right away and scare the men. His daddy could be the scariest person on the planet, even scarier than his mommy, especially when it came to protecting all of them.

Riza stopped at a long line that led into the blocked off military section of the show. He looked around and saw all the blue uniforms like his mommy and daddy wore when they went to work. When he turned his head to the right, he shouted and latched on to Riza, hiding his face in the junction between her neck and shoulder. She looked at her little boy, alarmed at his actions.

"Maes, what's the matter?" she said soothingly, hating to see her baby afraid of something.

"There are animals here!" He said. "There's a moose staring at me and he's not breathing or blinking! He's a zombie moose!"

Riza raised an eyebrow, "What? Where?"

Maes pointed to the right without directing his gaze in the direction and chuckled lightly when she saw various mounted animals atop a wooden booth.

"It's okay Maes, those animals are stuffed, they can't hurt you," she said and walked over to all of the dummies.

"Did my display scare your son?" the vendor asked, as he noticed the little boy clinging to her.

"Do you mind if he touches one?"

"Not at all," the man said.

"Maes, look," she said.

"Nopers, I'm good."

"Maes, do you trust mommy?" Riza didn't want her son to stay afraid of such a silly, incredibly harmless thing.

"Yes."

"Then look at them," she said.

Maes slowly turned to look at the large moose head, its brown eyes seeming to stare right into him. His grip tightened around Riza's neck.

Riza raised her hand and rested it on the animal's large nose. "See, it won't hurt you. Touch it."

"Okay," he said meekly. He moved his hand from its place and slowly moved it to touch the place right beside Riza's hand, feeling the thin fur on the animal. When it didn't move to bite him, he giggled, "I so silly."

Riza laughed and kissed his cheek. She directed her gaze to the vendor, "thank you very much."

"You are very welcome," he said.

When they stepped further away from the booth Maes spoke, "Why did that man have so many heads?"

Riza chuckled at her son's wording but didn't speak about it. "That was the hunting section."

"And we want the solider section right?"

"That's right. I have to pick up forms for a shipment of rifles for the range."

"And that's why we are here. Not just to look at the guns."

"That's right."

"When do I get my own gun?" he said looking around at the various firearms. "I want a big one."

"We'll have to start you out small, but you won't get your own gun until you are much much older."

"It's like sissy with alchemy right? She can't play with alchemy till she's older. But I can already shoot but not have my own gun right?"

"Right. And you can't shoot without having me around either, remember."
"Yep."

Maes looked around the place again while they waited in line and he yelled out in joy when he saw two familiar people coming toward them. "Mommy! Look!" he said, pointing to the right with his index finger.

Riza turned her head and saw Havoc being pushed in his wheelchair by none other than Rebecca. Maes struggled to get down as Rebecca and Havoc waved at the two of them. Riza sat him on his feet and he ran toward the two people as fast as he could. Havoc caught him and sat him on his lap. Maes hugged him tightly around the neck.

"Uncle Jean!" he shouted in joy.

Havoc laughed. "It's good to see you little man!"

Maes looked up and smiled his toothy grin at Rebecca.

"Hi there Maes," she said with a huge smile.

"Hi Aunt Harpy!"

Riza and Havoc covered their mouth to hold back boisterous laughter as they stopped in front of Riza.

"Maes, my name is Aunt Rebecca," she said as sweetly as possible. In reality she was furious at being called a harpy but figured it wasn't the young child's fault. In fact she knew without a doubt where he got the harpy comment.

Maes looked confused, "But daddy calls you harpy all the time."

Riza paled at the true statement her son made. Roy really did refer to Rebecca as the harpy.

Rebecca narrowed her eyes. The blond colonel coughed loudly and changed the topic, "What are you two doing in Central?"

"This is our favorite gun show. Did you really expect us not to come out here?" Rebecca asked.

"I wasn't aware you two liked this show, otherwise I guess I would have expected you to come."

"I see. Well what are you doing here? Normally you don't like crowds."

"Mommy has to do all kinds of work and I have to wait and it will be boring," Maes injected.

"Speaking of boring, where's Mustang and Maeve," Rebecca asked.

"You think you are going to see Roy and Maeve at a gun show? There's a better chance of it snowing in Ishbal."

"It doesn't snow in the desert silly mommy," Maes said. The adults looked at him quietly and calmly for a moment before laughing at his comment.

"Exactly Maes," Havoc said.

Maes looked confused but thought it would be better just to let the adults talk their silly nonsense.

Riza heard her name called by rank and every soldier in line saluted immediately. She waved them off, telling them she was off duty and there was no need to salute.

"Well aren't you well respected," Rebecca joked.

"That gets annoying," Riza said. "They salute even when I'm clearly in civilian clothing."

"I can see how that would be a pain."

"Who called my name anyway?" Riza asked, looking around for the source of the address.

"Colonel Hawkeye," the voice called again, this time a tall, wiry man with brown hair and thin rimmed sunglasses was at the entrance of the area. "You can come on in, the paperwork is almost ready. It will take about an hour to fill everything out though."

"Alright," she said.

"Hey, is it alright if we take Maes to look around?" Havoc asked. "It's hard for an adult to listen to that stuff. I can imagine it will be torture on a kid. We'll bring him back in an hour."

"You want to do that Maes?" Riza asked.

"I can?"

"Yes," she said.

"Okay!"

The three left the area as Riza made her way into the indoor tent where the military weapons were displayed.

An hour later, Rebecca and Havoc returned Maes to the area, he rushed into the tent to see his mommy and tell her about all the cool stuff he saw, including more "vendor heads". He walked up to stand beside her.

"Did you have fun?" she asked, not taking her eyes off the paper she was reading. Maes crawled upon her lap, knowing it was okay to do so by her open attitude.

"Yep, I saw more heads and petted them."

Riza smiled and signed the last line on the form before resting it on the table in front of her and the pen beside the paper.

"That's good," she said.

"Now I'm really hungry," he said.

"We'll go to eat when I get this form copied."

A different man from the one Maes remembered from earlier came into the area. This man was shorter and more muscular than the first and had a smile on his face as opposed to no expression. "Is that your son?" the man asked.

"Yes," she said.

"I wasn't aware that you gave birth to a child," he said, "He's clearly Mustang's right?"

Riza nodded, "That's right."

The man bent over the table and stared at Maes a moment, "Hello there."

Maes hid his face against Riza, remembering that he wasn't supposed to talk to strangers. That man was strange to him so he wouldn't talk unless his mommy said it was okay.

Riza knew what was wrong with her son so she spoke, "You can talk to him Maes. I've known him since I was a teenager. His name is Frank."

Maes raised his head, smiled, and nodded. He turned to Frank and grinned. "Hi, I'm Maes! I have a twin sister too! Her name is Maeve but she doesn't like guns. She's like daddy!"

"Oh, is that right?" Frank chuckled. "Do you want to be a sniper like your mom?"

"Nope! I want to build guns but I still want to be good like mommy at shooting them!"

"I'm sure you will be Maes," he said then directed his gaze to Riza. "I'll have these copied. I'll be right back."

"Alright," she said.

Five minutes later, Frank returned. He handed Riza a manila folder and some receipts. "I'll have the weapons here next week. It was nice to see you again and tell Mustang I said hello," he said. He reached his hand out to Maes and he took it in a handshake. "Nice to meet you Maes."

"You too," he said.

Frank looked up at Riza and smiled sadly. "He's a lot like his namesake."

"Yes, he is," Riza agreed.

Maes slurped on his shake as his mother ran her eyes over the paperwork in her hand, committing everything to memory. On the way home they took the time to stop at a small diner that Maes loved, for a quick lunch. She had little doubt that Roy and Maeve had already gone out to the worst and unhealthiest place possible for lunch.

"Mommy, what's a namesake?" Maes asked.

Riza put down her papers so that she could look at her son. "A namesake is someone that you are named after."

"My friend Andy is named after his grandpa. Am I named after my grandpa? Gramps Grumman's name isn't Maes is it? "

Riza froze. The kids had never mentioned grandparents. "Um… no Maes. You and Maeve aren't named after your grandparents. Grumman is my grandfather you know. He's your great grandpa."

"So gramp's real name is great?"

Riza laughed. "Your great grandpa's name is Charles."

"Oh… how about my grandpa then and grandma?"

"They died a long time ago," Riza said. "Your dad and I were young when it happened."

"That's sad. What were they like?"

"Why do you suddenly want to know about them?"

"I just do. Please tell me mommy."

"I don't remember my mom very much Maes, but my father wasn't very loving. He stayed in his study a lot after I got old enough to take care of myself."

"He wasn't like my daddy?"

"No, he wasn't like your daddy at all. Your daddy is a much better daddy than mine was."

"How about daddy's mommy and daddy? Did you know them?"

"No, you know your daddy has Madam Christmas though."

"Yeah but she's a forest mother."

"It's foster mother. But that doesn't matter because Christmas loves your dad very much."

"Do you think she will love us too?"

"Oh I'm sure she will love you very much."

"So papa's his real mommy and daddy don't love him?"

"I don't know. They didn't want your daddy so I suppose not. They gave him up when he was about a year younger than you."

"So that must have made daddy sad?"

"For a while I suppose it did."

"Are you sad that your mommy and daddy aren't alive?"

"Sometimes," Riza said. Really she was sadder that her father hadn't been the kind man that people had told her he once was. The death of her mother apparently changed him significantly.

"I'm glad I have you and daddy. You both are a good momma and daddy."

"And you are glad to have your sister?"

Maes wrinkled his nose "Sometimes. When she doesn't call me a mankin!"

Riza laughed and kissed the top of his head gently. "Finish your lunch. Then we will head home."

"Okay!" he said, then took a bite of his turkey sandwich.


AN: I really loved writing Maes in this chapter. Hope you enjoyed it and feedback is appreciated.