Fair Warning!: This chapter is one of the reasons this story earns an M rating... Parts of it, particularly the latter half, are extremely violent and disturbing. If you find; graphic physical violence, verbal abuse, and the other assorted ways people can be horrible to each other; disturbing, do not read farther... You Have Been Warned!
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Chapter 4
Little Patch of Hell
It had been two days since they left the command post behind them, and there had been little excitement, just long days spent walking, punctuated by the occasional brief excitement of clearing a compound.
Much to Harper's chagrin, Carter had refused to visit the medical unit they passed close to, claiming his leg didn't bother him at all, even though he ended each day limping piteously. To his credit, though, he never complained about it, and in spite of the harsh treatment, it did seem to be healing.
It was midday, and they were in good spirits. Carter was relating a story about his 'friend', and the pitfalls of a long night spent drinking in a strange city... They had barely been able to understand parts of it, Carter had been laughing so hard, but they would never hear the conclusion...
As Carter crested the next hill ahead of the rest, the laughter died in his throat, and he came to an abrupt halt.
Ahead in the distance, was a cluster of long, narrow buildings set next to a rail siding. They were surrounded by layers of barbed wire fence, and several smokestacks grew out of their midst...
"Not another one. God, don't let it be true..." He whispered, looking stricken.
The rest of the group had come to a stop as well. Any joy that had been there just moments before, was now long gone.
"Let's go boys" He said, after a long pause, and a deep fortifying breath. But his voice was still weak, and reluctant.
At his command, they all began, once more, to move forward, but Carter quickly put a hand against Mustang's chest.
"Not you two" He said quietly, coming around to stand very close. "She shouldn't have to see this, no one should really... But we have to... To see if anyone's left..."
Just then, the wind shifted, carrying on it the stench of decaying flesh, underpinned faintly by a smell Roy was far better acquainted with... The smell of burnt flesh. A look of horror crossed Mustangs face
"What is that place?" He gasped, covering his mouth and nose with his sleeve, in a vain attempt to block out the odor.
"Hell" Was the quiet, matter of fact, reply.
But it came from Harper, who's youthful face now wore a haunted expression.
"Here" Carter said, pressing his sidearm into Mustang's hand. "Go up into the tree line, and make camp. We'll try to get back there before dusk..."
Nodding once, he began to walk away, then thinking the better of it, he turned back to Mustang once more.
"Keep your guard up... And try not to let her take it apart before we get back, you may well need it..." He gave a weak smile that fell far short of his eyes.
Mustang nodded grimly, then turned. Taking her by the shoulders, he led her off in the direction Carter had indicated.
.o0o.
"What's going on, what was that smell?"
He didn't respond.
She tried to look back, as he quickly propelled her forward, barely allowing her to catch herself when she stumbled. He did not slow until they had reached the tree line. A few yards in, he finally stopped
"We'll make camp here" He said in a cold, blank tone.
Perplexed by the sudden turn of events, she could only watch as he began clearing the area of debris. Then, taking note of the pistol he had tucked into the back of his waistband, she again tried to pry an answer from him.
"Colonel, what's going on? Why didn't we go with them? What was that place?"
She hadn't meant to call him that, it was just an outdated habit, but it finally garnered a response from him, if not the one she'd been looking for...
Almost angrily, he grabbed a particularly large fallen branch, and began dragging it to the edge of the area he had designated.
"Don't call me that, I'm not a Colonel here, I'm not anything here..."
Her frustration grew as he sidestepped the question yet again
"Fine!... ROY!..."
That brought him up short.
"WHAT-THE-HELL-IS-GOING-ON?"
The life seemed to go out of him. Abandoning the branch he had been dragging, he sighed and turned to her.
"I don't really know for sure Winry, but they did , and they asked me not to take you there... What ever it is, its bad, and they didn't want you to see it... Given the smell, I'm more than willing to humor them..."
"What was that smell?" She asked, remembering clearly the foul wind born stench.
He gave her a grim look.
"Something dead... Actually considering the strength of the scent, I'd say it was a lot of dead somethings..."
Suddenly, she thought she understood what it was he was not saying, but some dark part of her still needed to hear it.
"People...?" She asked in a small voice.
With a sigh he answered.
"Judging by their reaction, I'd say that's quite likely,..."
She blanched, then brought her hand to her mouth, and turned away, but not before he saw the tears beginning to well up in her eyes.
"Now do you understand why they sent us away?" He said gently.
She only nodded, her back still to him, as she hurriedly began to help clear the ground. She didn't want him to see her cry. Apparently that was something he could sympathize with, because without further comment, he returned his focus to the large branch.
Barely acknowledging each others existence, they went about the business of making camp in that mutually agreed upon silence, until Carter and his men returned at sunset. Haunted looks seemed to be standard issue that evening...
.o0o.
Later that night, Harper and Mustang sat across the fire from each other, starring into the dying coals long after everyone else had fallen asleep. Harper had the current watch, and Mustang simply could not bring himself to sleep, so here they sat. Finally Harper broke the silence.
"Do you have a family back home? Wife? Kids?"
"No"
Suspecting where this might lead, Mustang did not elaborate further, but if he was hoping that Harper would take the monosyllabic answer as a hint, and let that be the end of it, he was quickly disabused of the notion.
"Why not?"
He shot a glance across the fire at Harper. Seeing the bored curiosity of someone looking for conversation, he sighed.
"My life has never really been conducive to starting one"
"What about Winry? You've certainly made time in your life for her..."
"No! Out of the question! I would never-"
"Why?... What is there between you and Winry? I've seen the way you smile when you watch her... And it's obvious to me that she cares about you. Hell, Del said she practically glued herself to the door, when Carter and I took you into that cottage alone. "
"You don't know what you're talking about..." He muttered quietly, shaking his head. "There's no way she could feel that way about me..."
"Then tell me what I'm missing? What is this distance you keep between you and her..." Harper asked, looking truly perplexed.
Mustang sighed, knowing that he wouldn't let up, until he had a satisfactory answer. He was much like Maes in that way... And just like Maes, he also realized, Harper had his best interests in mind, when he badgered him like this, so he acceded.
"As a soldier, I have done some truly terrible things, but the ones that haunt me, the ones I don't think I could ever truly be forgiven for, are the acts I committed against her" He said quietly, gazing toward her blanket shrouded form.
The look on Harper's face was one of suspicious concern, but he did not interrupt, so Mustang continued.
"I joined the military when I was seventeen. My mother had just died, and my father had been gone for so long as I could remember, whether dead, or just run off, I neither knew, or cared. Whatever the case, I had to find some means of supporting my self, so I joined up. I spent the usual few months in training, half of that training was having my head filled with all the propagandist bullshit governments tell naive young men... How by becoming a soldier, I was becoming an honorable guardian of the state; how it was my 'sacred duty' be a 'defender of the defenseless'; A 'hero', protecting them from all the chaos and horror the 'Enemy' would bring down on them... And like so many others before me, I believed it. Bought it lock, stock, and barrel..."
Gritting his teeth, he gave a humorless smile at the irony of it, before continuing.
"Turned out I had skills they desired, so I advanced quickly... Wasn't long before I was sent out to do my 'sacred' duty. There was a rebellion in a city near our eastern most border. My battalion, along with several others, was sent to help put it down. While I was there, it came to the military's attention, that a couple of doctors had been treating both friend and foe. They had been asked to stop treating the enemy, but so far, had defied those requests. Then to add insult to injury, it was rumored, that their makeshift hospital had become a place the rebels gathered, not only to recuperate, but also, to plot further attacks.
"Of course, it couldn't be allowed to continue. I was sent, along with several other lower ranking officers, to deliver the government's final ultimatum... 'Cease their activities as ordered, or face the consequences'...
"We were under orders to execute them if they refused. Which, of course, they did. I was the one chosen at random, to carry out the order, and I did what I was told...
"You know the worst thing, though? I was still so green then, that I didn't even question the orders when they came down from my superiors. I just carried them out, like the good little soldier I was.
"It was hardly the first heinous act I had committed on their behalf. I did what they told me because I believed in them, and I believed in the cause... That we were out for the greater good, and their decision must be justified...
"Of course, I was wrong... But it wasn't until I'd spent days trying, and failing, to make some sense out of it; long sleepless nights spent wandering the streets, only to find myself back at that horrid place, again and again; seeing their faces every time I tried to close my eyes... Only then did I understand how grave a mistake I'd made.
"These weren't the nameless, faceless enemy I'd been trained to fight and kill... These were just two more good people, simply trying to do what was right... The same thing I was supposed to be there doing... And there was no justification for killing them... No more effort would have been spared, had we simply arrested them and put them on a train home... It would have had the same effect. The realization was crushing, but there was worse still yet to come..."
His jaw clenched tightly at the memory, and for the barest moment, he was again fighting the desperate urge to drink, or run, or both. Fighting it down, he gave a bitter laugh.
"A few days later, they call me out in front of the rest of the men, pin a medal to my chest, and call me a hero... A Hero... I killed two defenseless unarmed doctors,... Killed them because they refused to stop healing people, and they give me a medal for it... It was to vile to bear. I nearly threw up when they pinned it on me... But the vale was gone from my eyes... There was nothing heroic about the war... Just greedy, isolated old men, who didn't give a damn who they destroyed in their quests for immortality... And I realized the only way to keep it from happening again, was to somehow destroy them first."
A look of sympathy shrouded his face, but there was a long silence that stretched out between them, before Harper abruptly echoed his laugh, lacing it with irony.
"I wanted to be a doctor once... I was actually studying to become one, back before Pearl Harbor happened, and I joined up... I always figured I'd pick it back up again, once this thing was over..."
Harper let the thought trail off, seeming to struggle with how to continue. Finally he straightened, but his head lifted and fell twice, before he could meet Mustang's eyes, and in that moment, he suddenly seemed a much older man...
His next words came out haltingly, and so softly Mustang found himself leaning forward just to hear.
"About a month back, our squad ran up against some pretty heavy resistance in this little village near the border,... The battle was fierce, and they fought to the very last man... But they weren't men, were they..."
He shook is head in disgust.
"Just boys. Boys given grown men's guns and responsibilities..."
Mustang hardly knew how to respond to this, after all he himself had been responsible for recruiting Ed when he was just thirteen...
"Hitlerjugend or Hitler Youth... I guess originally, it was just aimed at indoctrinating young men into the ideals of the Reich, which is bad enough as it is... But when those bastards ran out of grown men to fight their battles, they started pressing those kids into service...
"It was some of them who were defending that village. A few of them couldn't have been more than ten- maybe twelve years old... But I didn't know... I didn't know they were just kids...
"Our staff Sargent was killed in that fight, and God help me, I wished every one of them dead, as vehemently as I have any other of the enemy I've faced...
"How do I reconcile that, with the ideals I had back then, back when I wanted to become a doctor... Even now, when I close my eyes, I see their faces, and I cant help but think of my daughter, and how horrible it must be for their parents... War is a truly loathsome thing, and men do horrible things to each other in its name..."
"At least you'll probably never meet their parents..."
Harper nodded in agreement, and quietly muttered something about 'small comfort', but Mustang continued.
"... I'm not so lucky..."
Harper gave him a quizzical look , but remained silent as he waited for Mustang to gather himself and continue.
"You see, I wasn't entirely forthcoming when I said Winry had lost her parents... Those doctors- the ones I killed... Theywere Winry's parents..."
Had Mustang been raised catholic, as Harper had, he would have thought this felt very much like being in confession. As it was, though, he had no words to describe the truths tumbling out, only the desperate feeling of necessity to continue...
"And though I wish it was, lord knows it was more than enough, that's not my only crime against her... After they died, she became very close to a pair of brothers in her village, formed a sort of family with them... they had also been orphaned quite young.
"Unfortunately for her, they were both quite gifted scientifically, and they were also the sons of a well respected military scientist who'd gone missing during the rebellion. So, it wasn't long before they drew the attention of the military, and as fate would have it... Me...
"I didn't know who she was when I met them, but it didn't take me long to figure it out, yet I still wound up recruiting them. I guess in my arrogance, I thought I could protect them... And maybe by proxy, her... But I couldn't...
"The elder of the two joined first, because he wanted to further his work and gain access to the military's research, but during the coup I led against the king a few years later, he disappeared.
"His brother took up the research, following the disappearance... Soon after that, he was gone as well...
"I've taken everything from her,... Just about everyone she ever loved... The fact of which she has always been the first to remind me... Now her grandmother's gone too.
"She's alone now, completely, and utterly, alone... And the only person left to watch over her is the one who caused it all in the first place... So, yes, I try to take care of her, I owe her that much and more... But I don't see how she could feel anything beyond hatred towards me... No matter how much I might wish what you say were true, it's just not possible..."
But Harper just gave him a sage look and answered simply
"And yet she does..."
.o0o.
She was awoken by raised voices, and swam up into consciousness in time to hear Harper demand that mustang explain what had happened between she and Roy. She wasn't sure what had happened to prompt this line of conversation, but she stiffened at the pain he unwittingly caused her with his question...
For a long time mustang did not answer, and she didn't know whether to be relieved, or angered by his hesitancy. Then, when he began to speak, she was spellbound. Until that very moment, she'd never realized how very little she really knew about his background.
He began by speaking about the training that would one day lead him to the murder of her parents. She felt a stab of rage. Like a dagger, it slipped between her ribs, to lance her heart like fire, but the rage she felt was no longer for him. It was for the people who had perpetrated the lies. The ones who had whispered them into the ears of so many such young men and women, many thousands, leading them to commit countless murders just like those of her parents.
He had entered the military to protect people, and then the very people he'd trusted most, had put him into a position where he'd been forced to hurt them instead. It had been his breaking point, but surprisingly, she now understood that instead of killing the idealism that drove him, it had turned that failure into a compulsion that drove him to do better. Then each time he faced a similar failure he was simply driven to do even more to make up for it. She could see now, that it was what had eventually brought them both here to this place... His all encompassing need to tinker, and fix, until the world matched his idealistic vision for it...
When he came to the actual event... Hearing the retelling of it was not quite so horrible as it had been the first time, but it still ached bitterly, and left her feeling hollow.
A warm drop splashed down onto the arm which she was using to pillow her head, and she realized that at some point, she had begun to cry. She hadn't expected him to go that far, to talk about how her parents died, but he did, and as he did her tears flowed in earnest.
It was difficult... As difficult as the day she'd crouched, hidden behind a pile of crates, and listened as two young Ishbalan boys told the tale of a young state alchemist, who'd been ordered to end the lives of two doctors, man and wife, who's only crime had been their willingness to help heal anyone who came through their doors...
While he did not go into vivid detail, he did elaborate further than the stark impersonal facts he'd given her first, beside the river near Risembul.
Part of her wanted to pull the blanket up over her head, and cover her ears, in an effort to block out those aching words. Really, there'd been too many revelations in the past few days... But another part of her could not turn away. It was the first time she'd heard his side of those terrible events, uncensored by his need to protect her. She began to see the depth of his self loathing, and followed this series of confessions to the true source of it. It was a tortuous path of failures, both real and perceived.
When he began to speak about the boys, while his description of that time was hazy out of necessity, she was still given insight into his view of the events.
She still remembered hearing the muffled explosion, and feeling the concussion travel up through her feet. Soon after, she'd found him standing next to the shattered array, looking shocked and lost, as he stared out across it.
She'd gone to him, worried one of their best possible defenses against the invaders had been injured, but the look of sorrow and helplessness on his face when he saw her, though quickly hidden, had frozen her.
His hands had been unconsciously clenched into fists at his sides, as he spoke to her in that regimented military tone, but they had opened instantly to catch her arms, as her knees buckled. They lowered her gently to the ground, when she would have fallen.
It still hurt, but somehow, despite his miraculous return, she had expected Ed to disappear again... Losing Al, on the other hand, was a shock she had been unprepared for.
Their last words were crushing. No goodbyes, just a 'thanks for the automail'... Like that was the sum total of her value to them... But he'd stayed there with her. When she'd felt the most abandoned, Roy had been the one person still standing beside her...
She hadn't been able to understand then, the anger that flashed in his eyes, or the clenching and unclenching of his fists, which had returned stiffly to his sides, once she'd been safely lowered to the hard packed earth. At the time she had thought it directed at the outworlders, or even her, but now she understood.
He had appointed himself her protector almost from the beginning... Like so many other bad things that had befallen her life, this too, he felt a sole responsibility for failing to prevent... And even though she believed there was nothing he could have done to change the boy's decision, the anger she saw, was directed at himself...
She knew now, that he felt the weight of it more than just as their commanding officer, and she began to regret more than ever, the numerous times she'd thrown those failures in his face. It was clear by how he and Harper's conversation ended, that he still truly believed she hated him. Yet still, with almost every action, he carefully weighed how his decision would effect her, and put her wellbeing above his own... When had Ed, whom she'd loved with all her heart, ever done that...
Despite all these revelations, though, when he finally came to lie next to her, she could not bring herself to speak to him about it... Not yet. So instead, she feigned sleep, and listened to him shift restlessly until they both finally drifted off...
.o0o.
Struggling to catch himself, he'd stumbled when his foot slipped on some loose rock at the side of the downward sloping path... For a long moment, he'd thought he might go right over the edge, the irony of which, was not lost on him, even as he fought to regain his balance. Fortunately, he did not fall...
Stepping carefully back from the precipice, he drew a few ragged breaths as he regained his composure. It had been some time since anything had managed to get his heart going quite like that. Looking down, he saw that his hands had begun to shake from it. He jammed them in his pockets, and began to whistle a light tune... His old fallback... But there was no one here to see it, his fear or his well practiced attempts to cover it. He couldn't help but laugh at his own wasted efforts.
Then his mind registered something amiss. He felt around in his pockets, then cursed aloud as he remembered his wallet, still laying snug and safe, in his center desk drawer. He could certainly get it in the morning, but that meant he would be walking home tonight, instead of taking a cab, and the only thing keeping him from going back to his office now, was the fact that the walk back there wouldn't be any shorter than the walk home.
He cursed again. At least he still had his knife on him, or this night might be a total loss. After all, this was only a trial run, and he wasn't so committed to it, that he'd risk infection using what ever was to hand down there... He continued on his way, shaking his head.
Coming into sight of the array, he assessed the damage. Like an electrical circuit, an alchemic array needed to be continuous to function. At the time, he had created a small underground explosion in order to shatter it without causing any further damage to the city above.
It had been a masterstroke, but now he cursed his own thoroughness. A lot of blood, sweat, and tears, would go into making it functional again, but mostly just blood... His.
.o0o.
He woke to the sensation of a weight on his chest. Even just a few nights ago, he probably would have struck at it, or jumped up to escape it. Despite the reputation he'd earned as a lady's man, he'd never let his companions remain through the night. With dreams too dark, and demons legion, the possible outcome had all been too frightening to contemplate, but now here she lay. It was funny how quickly one could grow accustomed to something so foreign...
Now, as suddenly as it had appeared, it slid away as she shifted again in her sleep. At least she wasn't in a fighting mood tonight... Being the subject of her enmity, both expressed and implied, was something he expected, maybe even welcomed, but something entirely unexpected had begun happening, since their very first full night here.
Though clearly, she seemed to like, and even trust, most of the men in this unit by the light of day, he supposed, in the dark of night, he took on the roll of the devil she knew. For each night, with out fail, when he laid down his makeshift bedroll, she laid hers down right beside. While on the first night, it had not been entirely voluntary, it had become a pattern that he found he was now quite comfortable with.
At times, it could be somewhat disconcerting, as her sleep was often restless. Sometimes she would begin to flail, almost as if she were drowning, and at other times, she would speak. It felt wrong to listen, a bit like pawing through another person's diary, but in the silence of the night, it was often impossible not to.
If her nocturnal monologues were to be believed, the dreams that accompanied these episodes could hardly be described as sweet. The first time it had happened, a few nights after they had arrived, he had awoken to her clutching at his shirt, like it was the last bit of drift wood on an otherwise empty ocean.
She had been calling out for Edward... As yet unaccustomed to these unexpected, but apparently not unusual nighttime occurrences, and not entirely awake himself, he had woken her with a shake, harshly informing her that he was 'not Ed'.
He'd regretted it almost instantly. Selfconscious, and embarrassed by her actions, she'd sat up the rest of the night, too ashamed to look him in the eye, even as he tried to convince her to go back to sleep. The next day had been pretty much the same, she'd barely spoken a word to him, and that night he'd had to reassure her, that he had only been startled, and it was alright if she wanted to sleep there...
The experience had taught him a valuable lesson in patience... And after that initial incident, he'd begun to come up with ways to calm her without having to wake her. This worked out better for them both in the long run.
Now he reached out, carefully straightening her blanket, as it had become tangled by her restless movements. Then, taking liberties he dare not even contemplate during her waking hours, he gently smoothed back the hair that had fallen into her face, and murmured quietly to her that she was safe, and all was well.
Gradually, her breathing slowed to a more normal resting pace, and she was still again. Sighing his relief, he laid back down, gazing at her now serene face, until he too, drifted back to sleep...
.o0o.
She bent, returning the dishes she had just finished cleaning, to the small pile of extraneous equipment the men had left behind. Breakfast, while hardly the most appetizing meal ever eaten, had been better than the alternative.
The men of the squad had set off shortly there after, like the dwarves from that story of old. Upon their departure, she'd set to work on the cleaning, a job she had assigned herself, for lack of anything else to do, and for which she was much appreciated.
Having applied the last of their water to the task at hand, she'd sent Mustang to refill the canteens, and with that in mind, she'd assumed the rustling behind her signaled his return. Surprised by how little time it had taken him, she turned to greet him, but instead found a strange man in unfamiliar uniform.
He leaned nonchalantly against the trunk of a tree at the edge of the clearing, and despite the extravagant detail of his uniform, it and he, were dirty and disheveled.
That, combined with his failure to announce his presence, left her feeling rather uneasy, and there was just something sinister about the way he looked at her, that did nothing to quell her fears.
Hesitantly, she greeted him questioningly, but this only served to spread an even more sinister smile across his worrisome face.
In that instant, she knew what a rabbit must feel, just before it's pounced upon by a wolf... For that, she sensed, was exactly what he was. In the next instant, she was sprinting headlong toward the treeline. She swerved around the fire, and with a kick, upended the wash water into it, but did not let the action slow her pace. If she could just make it into the trees, she might have a prayer of evading him...
It seemed strangely silent in the clearing, just the sounds of her breathing and footfalls, as she charged on, counterpointed by those of the stranger, growing ever closer. She felt his fingers swipe through her hair, then graze across the fabric at the back of her shirt, his fingernails making a kind of hissing sound, as they scraped over the weave.
He'd missed her, and she dodged to the left, but a split second later, she wasn't so lucky. His hands clamped onto her upper arms cruelly, wrenching her to a stop, and slamming her back against his chest. Dazed and winded from the impact, she felt herself being dragged backward toward the fire, with him paying little mind to her initially weakened struggles.
After a moment, she shook off the confusion, and began to kick at him, but soon learned the error of her ways. Swiftly he adjusted his grip on her, an instant later a gun was digging painfully into her side.
"Mind your manners, Bitch." He rasped harshly, his lips too close to her ear. "And don't even think of screaming, you'll be dead before the echos die away."
He ground the barrel into her ribs, to emphasize his point. Having been silent up until this point, it took her a moment to realize, he wasn't speaking the same language as Carter's men... Moreover, he didn't seem to know, or even care, if she understood him or not. He let his body language do the talking, and it certainly spoke volumes.
"Food"
That one word, he ground out haltingly in the language of carters men, and gestured to the the empty cans and boxes that lay smoldering in the fire. He seemed, now, to think she didn't understand him, so she decided to play along with that notion. If she could keep him busy long enough, keep him talking, she might just buy herself enough time, for someone to come... Then, in turn, they might have enough time to do more than simply give her a proper burial, after this monster was done with her...
Shaking her head, she looked up at him, schooling a look of confusion onto her terrified features. He grumbled, and cursed her stupidity in his own language, then rewarded her for it, with another hard jab of the gun barrel to her side. She gasped in pain, as it pressed into the same spot, already bruising deeply from his previous 'statements'.
"FOOD!" He repeated again, more loudly, then to this, he impatiently added. "Where!"
Hand shaking, she hesitantly pointed in the general direction of the pack where she and mustang had been storing their rations, as the men of the squad usually kept theirs with them. Suddenly, without warning, he shoved her in the direction she'd indicated. Caught off guard by this action, she stumbled forward a few steps, trying to check her momentum, but ultimately was unable to. Tumbling onto her side, she slid to a stop, laying prone on the hard packed dirt.
As she recovered from the fall, he began to spit more demands that she get the food for him, in his own language. Glancing back, she saw he'd remained where he was, and had begun gesturing wildly with one hand, in the direction she had pointed.
With a strange sense of calm, she noted that his other hand, the one that held the gun, remained perfectly steady, and still pointed at her. Hastily she scrambled to her knees, and pulled the pack that held the rations to her.
Lifting the top flap, she began to reach inside, but as she did, she heard his footsteps advance in a rush. An instant later, she felt a terrible pain in her scalp, as he grabbed her up by a fist full of hair, and slammed her onto her back. In the next instant, the pack was wrenched from her grip.
He was standing over her, and as she stared up at him from the ground, for the second time in less than a minute, she knew that he was going to kill her. For a moment she almost squeezed her eyes shut, to wait for the inevitable, but then that defiant part of of her soul rebelled.
She decided, that if he was going to kill her, he was going to have to look her in the eye when he did it. With that conviction in her heart, she stared angrily back up at him... This time, he was the one to blink.
With his free hand, he held the pack by it's top flap, and as he lifted the opening to eye level, he chanced a glance inside.
"Well, you're not as stupid as I thought" He muttered loudly.
Relaxing, but only slightly, he tossed the bag over near the treeline, and indicated she should stand. She continued to glare at him, until he again took hold of her arm. Forcing her to turn, he held her in front of him as before.
He guided her forward, and in doing so, believing she could not understand him, he began to say the most outlandish and disturbing things she had ever heard, and she had heard a great deal. She cringed in fear and disgust, as his lips brushed the back of her ear, and he began to whisper the horrifying details of his intentions for her.
She was finding it harder and harder, not to react directly, to what he was saying. Thanks to the fire having been partially doused by the wash water, the clearing had gone quite foggy, and since her concentration was on not giving herself away, she did not notice anything amiss until the strangers grip went tight, pulling her back against him.
It was not the most relieved she'd ever been in her life, to see someone... That place was still reserved for when Ed had saved her from Barry the Chopper... But when Roy materialized from the mist, she noted that it did rate a very close second, and gave her the first sense of hope she'd had, since this monster had gotten his hands on her...
She heard her captor utter yet another snide remark, and felt his foul breath roll past her ear, as he burrowed the gun deeper into that tender spot he'd created...
Up until this point, she'd only been holding it together through sheer force of will. Then finally, after all the pain and fear she had experienced in the last few minutes, she knew one thing for certain... And it was that she didn't want to die. Especially not at the hands of this cruel stranger... It wasn't just an impulse, or some outdated animal instinct, she truly wanted to live, more than she had in a very, very long time... But she couldn't do it alone, and she couldn't keep waiting around, ignoring the help that stood so plainly before her... In that moment what little resolve she had left to keep her distance from him, finally faltered and broke... She cried out to Roy for help.
.o0o.
He should have known better than to leave her alone, but he'd allowed him self to be lulled into a false sense of security, by the relative peace in their little patch of the world. After the squad had left that morning, he'd foolishly gone off to fill their canteens in the near by stream, and returned to find a ragged man in a filthy gray uniform, half mad and pressing a gun into her side.
When he'd first heard the strange voice coming from the clearing, he had assumed that one of the squad had left something behind, and returned for it. As he had drawn closer, he'd realized, in a sickening flash of panic, that the voice was not at all familiar, and though he could understand most of what it was saying, it wasn't even speaking the same language Carter's men did.
Under a heavy mantle of dread, he drew the pistol from his waistband, their canteens forgotten beside the path. Steam rose thickly from where the wash water had overturned into the fire, presumably, during her initial attempts to flee... The sheer mass of it in the chill morning air, had shrouded the clearing in a fog, and allowed him to approach largely unnoticed
"What a pretty thing you are..." The strange man was saying, as Mustang stepped from the trees "Far to perfect to associate with such filth..."
Noticing the newcomer, he pulled her to his chest like a shield.
"Well, well, here's one of your suitors now..." He growled , Dragging her closer still.
He dug the muzzle of the gun into her side until she whimpered in pain, then he bowed his head letting his lips come to rest just behind her ear.
"I really don't understand what you see in him. Only a whore would sully such perfect blood, with filth such as he."
His voice was silken and dangerous, as he extended his tongue like a viper, to stroke the edge of her ear. She shuddered in revulsion, her eyes full of fear and pleading.
"Roy, please help me..."
Barely above a whisper, her voice shook with terror. The man's thin sharp face, disturbingly calm until now, grew livid.
"BLOOD TRAITOR! I try to save you from your mistake, and yet you ask HIS protection from ME!"
His fingers ground viciously into her arm, making her cry out. Roy thought his heart might stop.
"LET HER GO!" He screamed in desperation.
"Don't you bark orders at me, you dog, I know what you're trying to do..." He hissed, his pale eyes now veritably blazing with madness. "you see the Furor's perfect plan, and it terrifies you, so you try to sabotage it any way you can... But you can't stop us, No one can, we will claim our destiny"
Single minded hatred, plain on his face. Mustang grasped at straws...
"If you release her, I will let you go free. I wont tell anyone you were here, or make any attempts to capture you. You have my word on that."
But the man just laughed. It was a cruel, harsh noise that grated in Roy's ears.
"No! What good is the word of a dog, to me?!" He spat. "You are all just a disease... A blight to be eradicated. Kill me if you can, but I will not allow you to further degrade our bloodline, even if I have to kill her to stop you!"
He flashed a predatory smile, as the nonsensical rhetoric poured from his lips.
That the man was hiding behind Winry, made it difficult enough to get a lock on him, but add to that the jerky movements he made as he spoke, and it was all but impossible. Perhaps a top marksman like Riza, might have been able to pull off a shot like that, but he was no Hawkeye, and the stakes were far to high to chance it. The only option he saw left to him, was to cover the man, and pray for some kind of miracle, but at present, he couldn't see any kind of positive outcome to this standoff.
The stalemate drew on in silence for a few moments, then the man spoke again.
"Hmm...Something occurs to me" He said in an unnaturally calm, introspective tone. "Traveling with you, as she has, it is likely her blood has already been defiled..."
His face took on a mask of false regret.
"...And if so, she'll have to be disposed of... Such a pity." The mask dissolved."But that doesn't mean I can't have a little fun" He growled as a feral, lupine smile replaced it.
"Decisions, decisions... Should I kill you now..." He glared at Mustang for a moment, then raised the pistol to stroke her cheek slowly with the barrel. "Or, let you watch?..."
He seemed to considered it for a moment, that wicked, predatory grin still plastered across his face. Then he sighed ruefully.
"As appealing as the latter sounds..." Sounding sincerely regretful this time, he took aim at Mustang. "I think I'll kill you first."
This last statement brought a shriek of protest, and her elbow back hard into his ribs. Cursing, he threw her to the ground, finally giving Mustang a clear shot, but in the split second the man was distracted, Mustang hesitated... Try as he might, he could not make his finger squeeze the trigger, and the advantage was lost. The man again raised his gun, taking aim. In a moment he would be dead, and she at his mercy, would likely follow soon after, all because of his hesitation.
Then a flicker of movement off to the left, caught his attention. Before his brain could even process it, an olive-brown blur plowed into the man before him. Harper's momentum carried them to the ground.
.o0o.
Harper hadn't expected the man to recover so quickly, considering the force with which he'd tackled him. So when they slid to a stop, he'd hauled back with the intention of belting the guy full force. Much to his dismay, a maniacal grin graced the intruder's face, as he thrust the gun into Harper's. Out of instinct, he'd flinched back, squeezing his eyes shut. Knowing even as he did, that it would do him no good. The action could not protect him from a bullet.
Somewhere be hind him, Winry screamed. Then a shot rang out.
.o0o.o0o.o0o.o0o.o0o.
A/N: It's finally out. I had planned to release this on Thanksgiving, or at least by the end of November, and I truly have no excuses for being late, other than the fact that I just could not get motivated for the proofreading phase, so thank you for your patience.
A special thanks to xxdarknessxfallsxx and camudekyu for reviewing the last chapter, as well as a thankyou to the rest of you who have reviewed in the past.
and finally, much thanks, as always to my spectacular betareader and story adviser, ZonkieTheGreat.
Please R&R!
xxdarknessxfallsxx
