Disclaimer: I own not Fullmetal Alchemist. If I did, we would get chapters more than once a month.

Summary: Chris Mustang deals with some unpleasant knowledge, and meets her nephew again.

Characters: Roy Mustang and Madame Christmas

Warnings: None

Author's Note: This one got away from me a bit. It's a necessary chapter, but perhaps not the finest example of my work. Bear with me, you guys.

Chapter 2

It was the simple truth that Chris Mustang did not think much of her older brother and his wife. When she did--which was not often--it generally made her angry. Richard Mustang did not hold his little sister's chosen profession in high esteem.

Like he was one to talk, anyway. Chris's opinion of Rich's intelligence was about as low as his view of her career. And that went for his Xingese beauty of a wife. Honestly, what woman, finding life in her home country to be displeasing, crossed a dangerous desert to take up residence in a militaristic foreign country?

Their son Roy was different matter, on the other hand. From the one time she'd met the boy, Chris knew he had potential, if only she ever get the opportunity to shape him. He was the cutest little thing she'd ever seen too. Like she said, potential.

Too bad the only way she would ever see little Roy again was if both of his parents died, and though she did not get on well with her brother, she didn't want to see him dead.

Chris sighed and went down the stairs to the lounge. Prime business time started soon, and the girls were all taking their places, as directed by Madame Hari. She passed several of her friends saying goodbye to their daughters--with the explicit instructions, tonight as in all nights, to stay upstairs and out of sight. The little ones were the result of accidents that occasionally happened in their line of work.

For the oddest reason, only girls had been produced from such unions. Maybe there was something in the drinks.

Madame Hari, a former beauty gone a tad to seed, was on the phone when Chris arrived in the lounge, and from the look on her face, she was most displeased. Upon sighting Chris, she beckoned imperiously, a dangerous look in her still-stunning emerald eyes.

"Chris, you have a phone call."

The hell? She made it perfectly clear she didn't "deliver." None of them did, by order of Madame Hari. The madame didn't run a call girl service.

"From whom?"

The madame handed her the phone without an answer.

"Hello?"

"Is this Chris Mustang?" asked the voice on the other line. A young man, from the sound of it.

"Who's asking?" Chris replied.

"My name is Michael Higgs, from the Military Police in East City." came the response.

"If my brother said I'd pay his bail, he's got a lot of nerve, and you can tell him to just go to Hell." She wouldn't bail him out again if it was the last thing she ever did. She had enough of that when they were kids, before his damned drinking problem and his shotgun wedding to some foreign almost-royalty, or whatever she was.

"It is about your brother, but he won't need any bail paid, or anything."

"Good."

"Not really, ma'am. Look, can you come to East City by any chance?"

"Why would I need to do that? I've got a lot of customers that expect to see me in my place, and I can't just up and leave to East City for my good-for-nothing older brother."

"We need you to identify two people for us."

Chris felt herself go cold. Of all the thoughts she had to have: the MP's didn't ask for identification of living people, and if they were calling about her brother, they already had a good idea of who these two were.

The MP was still talking, but he sounded a long way off.

"I'm sorry, what did you say?" That didn't sound like her voice, unless someone had come by and transmuted her larynx while she wasn't looking.

"It's about their son, Roy. Do you think you can come and look after him until custody agreements are finalized?"

"Of course. But I'll be keeping him permanently. He's got no other family to speak of."

"We'll see about that, ma'am. When will you be here?"

"In the morning. I'll leave now." Her customers' libidos could hold out a little while longer.

"Aunty Chris!" called a child's voice from across the platform at East City's train station.

Strange, it was, that someone in this God-forsaken city was actually happy to see her.

She looked down when a she felt a tug on her dress. A small boy looked up a her, a smile on his lips but not in his dark eyes. She picked him up and made her way to the nervous-looking young MP she guess was Michael Higgs.

"Aunty, are you here to take care of me?" asked Roy Mustang, his head cocked to the side. The question sparked in his eyes too.

"Along with some more unpleasant business, yes," she replied. She looked him over. His hair was too long, stuck up everywhere, and hung in his eyes. "First though, you need a haircut."

"I thought 'taking care of me' was more like feeding me. I'm hungry."

She ruffled the unruly mop fondly. "At such an advanced age as yours, eating is your raison d'être, n'est pas?"

Roy looked confused. "I guess so, as long as that means we're gonna eat."

There was something about this kid, she decided. He had the best sense of timing. She could tell the MP sensed it too, because his face brightened considerably from when she first spotted him.

"You must be Chris Mustang," he said by way of greeting. "I'm Michael Higgs."

She inclined her head. "I'd gathered as much. I'd like to get the unpleasantries over with as soon as possible, if you please."

"Of course. If you'd follow me, please."

Outside of the station, an official-looking driver in a government-issue uniform sat atop a carriage drawn by four official-looking horses.

"No cars?" she asked Higgs.

Higgs frowned. "We have cars, of course, but we thought it best to take the carriage, given the circumstances."

"What circumstances?"

Higgs frowned and gestured her inside. Once they were all comfortable, the driver started forward.

"Last night my partner and I discovered two bodies by the side of the road. They were killed by a collision with an automobile and were almost unrecognizable. In fact, if the man hadn't had a photograph in his wallet, we wouldn't have know they were the Mustangs."

Well, that explained the need for the carriage. Roy wasn't really paying attention to the conversation; he was standing up on Chris's lap and staring out the window, but she had the feeling that being in a car the morning after his parents were killed by one wouldn't have been good for his psyche.

"I assume you need me to identify them for administrative reasons," Chris said. Higgs nodded.

"We could, of course, be wrong, in which case, I apologize for the inconvenience."

"But you don't think so."

Higgs shook his head.

Chris sighed as she looked in the mirror. Black was such a depressing color on her. She never wore it to work.

Three days had passed since she identified the bodies of her brother and his wife. Today was their funeral. She turned around. Her nephew sat on a chair in the hotel room she had rented, watching the rain.

Fitting weather for a funeral, naturally. As Roy had put it, "Even the sky is crying for them, Aunty Chris."

"Roy," she called. He turned his head, the mess of hair falling into his eyes. She never had cut his hair. "Come on, it's time."

He slid down from the chair and took her hand. He kept his eyes on his feet, and she could see him worrying his lip between his teeth.

"It's okay to cry, Roy-boy," she said, putting her hand on his head. He looked up at her, and, very solemnly, shook his head.

"I've cried enough. Mama and Papa would want me to be strong."

He was too young to say that. She sighed and picked him up, deciding that if he wasn't going to cry, then he should at least be allowed to be carried.

The funeral was a depressingly--as if it wasn't sad enough already--perfunctory affair. No one really knew the Mustangs well enough to make a fitting eulogy, so must of what was said had no heart to it.

Everything she said was untrue. Roy stood unnaturally quiet by her side, staring at the shared grave like he couldn't quite believe it was all real.

She manage to get him to drop a handful of dirt into the grave, as was traditional, but he definitely didn't understand the point behind that. She wasn't really sure how to explain it to him.

After the grave was filled, she accepted condolences for the both of them as he stood bareheaded in the rain, staring at the headstones. Once all the well-wishers had left, she put her hand on his shoulder. He looked up at her, water running down either side of his face. She didn't know if it was rain or tears.

"It's raining today, Aunty."

It was the first time Roy Mustang said that at a funeral, but it wouldn't be the last.

Secondary Author's Note: I don't know about you all, but "It's going to rain today" makes me want to cry every time I hear/read it. Because, I'm not already crying enough when Elysia says, "Mama, why are they burying Papa?" I want to thank all again the ones who review the last chapter. You make it easy for a girl to write more! I'm trying something that's very different from my usual style. I know a lot of people have read this, and I really could use all the advice I could get. Please review. Even a "nice job" make me smile!