Whoo, aren't you guys glad I didn't leave that cliffie hanging for two months?! XD, I almost did. I'm really burned out on writing right now, it's horrible.
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Roy walked out of the office so fast Ed had to run to keep up, his heart beating loud and hard. Hohenheim had shot Riza? Where? Was Al OK? What if he wasn't? Ahead of him, Roy almost walked into Hakuro as the General stepped out into the hallway.
"Colonel Mustang. Where are you-"
"There's been an accident. A civilian shot First Lieutenant Hawkeye. I have to get to the scene," Roy said icily. He went around Hakuro and kept going. Ed followed, but Hakuro grabbed his elbow, jerking him around.
"What happened? Does this have anything to do with your father?"
"Let go of me!" Ed said, not loudly enough for Roy to hear. "My brother was at the scene, now let go!" Ed wrenched his arm from Hakuro's grip and ran after Roy to the parking garage.
Ed had never known car rides could be scary before. Roy drove like he was the only person on the road. Brakes screeched, cars dove and swerved around them, people honked. Ed was shaking with a mixture of fear for his own life and fear for Al when they pulled up to a dreary, square house in Sector 16. Ed's assumptions had been correct. Not that anyone cared much now.
Havoc was in front of the house, holding Alphonse in an embrace, both comforting him and restraining him. Hawkeye was being loaded into an ambulance. Roy headed straight for the ambulance, while Ed ran to Al and Jean.
"Don't you understand!" Al was screaming. "I just lost the last thing I had from our old life! Our happy life! Before we screwed everything up!"
Jean looked uncertain and afraid, rubbing Al's back in a comforting gesture that was obviously doing nothing for the boy.
"Al!" Despite seeing his brother unharmed, there were tears in Ed's eyes and voice. Al turned as much as he could in Jean's embrace and screamed in an earth-shattering, broken screech, "Hawkeye shot our father! She killed him! She killed him!"
Jean scrunched up his face, the words obviously paining him. Ed stopped dead in his tracks only a foot or two away from his brother.
"Look in the doorway! GO! Look!"
Ed didn't know what to say, so he simply walked around Al and Jean and went to the open front door of the house, dread building in his gut as he walked. Just inside, Von Hohenheim lay face-down on the floor, blood draining from his head onto the floor. Ed couldn't help releasing a tight whimper before backing away from the gruesome sight and running to hug his brother with all of the life left in him, Jean's arms encircling both the boys. Roy stalked toward them from the departing ambulance, his face pale and his body movements stiff.
"Report, Second Lieutenant Havoc."
"Sir. The First Lieutenant and I knocked on the door, and the man inside rushed out..." Jean looked down at Alphonse. Roy understood the gesture, if only to some extent.
"Edward, take your brother and get in the car."
Ed practically carried Al, his brother's legs weak and unstable. The two boys crawled into the backseat of the car and Ed pulled the door shut behind him.
"He ran out and grabbed Alphonse. He had a gun to his head and he was screaming. All kinds of ugly things, with a gun pressed to his son's head..." Havoc put his forehead into the palm of his hand and took a deep breath.
"Then he took Alphonse back inside the doorway... I was going to let him go. I figured we would break in through a window... Hawkeye drew her gun and he shot her in the chest somewhere. She...screamed... It was horrible. She was on the ground and he had his gun trained on me and she shot him. Right between the eyes. I grabbed Alphonse out of there and then I had to go into the house to find a phone to call you with."
Mustang put a firm hand on Havoc's shoulder to comfort the man. Jean dug in his pockets to gather a cigarette and a lighter. He lit up and glanced at the military car.
"I should've done something. First I let Hohenheim get a hold of Alphonse and then shoot the Lieutenant and she still had to finish him off."
"Were you thinking of Alphonse?"
"He wanted to give Hohenheim a chance." Jean didn't answer Roy's question directly. He sighed. "It was filthy in there. Mold and garbage everywhere. I wonder if this is really where Al was the entire time we were searching for him." Jean looked toward the car again, then shook his head and turned aside.
"You can't avoid him. You'll have to get closer to him."
"What?" Jean didn't look happy.
"I won't let you avoid him."
"Cheif, I don't think I'll have to worry about avoiding him."
"Hawkeye is the one responsible for his father's death," Roy said, trying to keep the emotion the words stirred up out of his voice.
"That doesn't make me innocent. Especially not in his eyes."
"Alphonse needs all the support and love any of us is willing to give. If you two a void each other, all you'll do is create tension. Now. You were responding to complaints about the state and smell of this residence when this civilian attacked and shot Lieutenant Hawkeye. He gave you no choice but to return fire and was killed as a result. Alphonse wasn't here. Got it?"
"Yes, Sir. That's exactly what happened, Sir." Jean knew it was important for them to get their story straight early on. One that wouldn't cause anyone to be overly suspicious of any aspect of the incident.
"We need to get Edward and Alphonse back to my house where they'll be safe. Contact someone in the hospital; I want hourly reports on Hawkeye's condition. We need to be on the alert for homonculi as well. I have no idea what they'll do now that Hohenheim is dead."
"Yes, Sir."
"Once you've contacted the hospital and given your eyewitness testimony, I want you to come back to my house. By then, I hope Alphonse will have calmed down enough that the two of you can have a talk."
Jean suppressed a disappointed sigh. He didn't know why Mustang was being so insistent about being close to Alphonse.
"Yes, Sir," Havoc said with much less enthusiasm than he had previously used with the words. The colonel immediately turned and stalked toward the car. He slid into the driver's seat, shut the door and looked back into the back seat. The two Elric brothers were huddled together so closely in the back seat that they looked like one creature with a lot of blond hair. Al was sobbing and both boys were shaking.
"We're going home," Roy announced. Ed gave a noise of recognition that was barely audible over Al's crying.
"A--L! Please stop crying! See, I'm even being polite," Ed begged his brother. Al clung to him even harder, burying his face in Ed's middle and Ed snapped, letting a litte of his anger and frustration seep out into his voice.
"Stop crying! Right now! Whatever that bastard got was what he deserved and none of it was your fault!"
"How can you still hate him? How can you still hate him even after he's dead? If you don't even feel any sympathy for him, I thought that respect for the dead would at least keep you from saying things like that," Al finished with bitterness flavoring his words.
"Because that's how I feel! I never respected him while he was alive, so why should I respect him now that he's dead?"
"He was our father!"
"Barely! You can hardly even call him that after the way he treated us!"
"But he was! He was our father and- and..." Al pushed himself wearily away from his brother, the only person he could tell anything and everything to, his big, strong, overprotective brother.
"And I'm tired of having this fight with you. Over and over and over again, just because you've always been too afraid of getting hurt to give him a second chance."
"I'm not afraid and I never was! I hate him and I don't need him!"
"Well you replaced him with Roy!" Al flung his pillow at the wall in anger, then wondered if the colonel had heard the noise from downstairs.
"I never replaced him, Al. He was never here to begin with," Ed said, gentler now with a hand over his heart.
"Well he was here! I think. Maybe. But now I'll never know." Al dropped his hand from his chest and sobbed.
"You lived with him! He tried to hit you and you ran away-"
"I'll never know what he was like when Mom was alive!" Al cried, full of pain and frustration, his voice becoming a peephole into years and years of curiosity and longing and the fresh, searing pain of something so close he'd been able to touch it, and then it ceasing to exist forever.
"Al-..." Ed was at his limit. He was helpless in the face of Al's disappointment. There was nothing he could do. Trying to fight it away from Al only made the younger Elric hurt more. And even worse, Ed was just becoming more and more frustrated, more and more angry, and more and more upset as he tried to comfort his brother. Nothing was working!
"I don't know what to do, Al!" he yelled accusatorially. Roy suddenly opened the door and swept into the room like a whirlwind, wrapping one arm around Ed's waist and pulling him out of the room.
"It's better to stop before you make things worse, but it's OK," he said to Ed. To Al:"I think it might be best for you to have some quiet alone time." He closed the door and cuffed Ed very lightly on the head for struggling. Ed pouted and Roy dragged him by the arm to his bedroom, which had the biggest bed in the house. Ed wouldn't lie down and Roy sighed at the refusal. He let the room go quiet for a few minutes, then began speaking slowly.
"Edward, when you first came to live with me, I had to get you to let your walls down. To accept my touch and my instructions... although that never really worked out, did it?" Roy chuckled, even though he looked like he wanted to cry. He looked tired, too, as if he hadn't slept in years. Ed felt his heart reach out to Roy, but he remained wary, distant. Wasn't Roy still angry with him? Ed anticipated some kind of emotional trap.
"I don't know exactly why or how, but you've got your walls up again, Ed. I know you're shutting me out. And I know it must be partly because... because of my... impatience," Roy tried tentatively, "but it's just hurting both of us." He looked at Ed and Ed looked away. Definite trap. It was bordering on blackmail, 'Let your walls down before we both get hurt,' Roy was threatening.
Roy was tired. He was in pain. He was so worried about Hawkeye and Alphonse, neither of whom he could do very much for, and that worry was piling on top of the usual stress and anxiety that came with working in the military and then there was Ed, too. Right now, he was in even more pain, thanks to watching Ed's reaction to his words. The boy's walls really were up all the way, his expression suspicious and his body language opposing and defiant. Right now, Roy was having trouble sorting out what was his fault and what wasn't- Hohenheim, Alphonse, Hawkeye- but the way Ed was acting right now was definitely his fault. And he wasn't sure how to fix it.
"Ed, why are you shutting me out? Are you angry or scared?" Roy suggested a simple choice for Ed. One or the other. Ed huffed a little and looked away, arms across his chest and eyes narrowed.
"Come on, Ed," Roy coaxed, "just give me something to start with."
"I didn't start this," Ed argued coldly.
"You didn't keep your promise," Roy said rationally. Roy watched Ed's expression change just the slightest bit. The overall expression remained the same, but his mouth changed shape almost imperceptibly and his eyes stopped looking at anything in particular, the boy turning his sight inward on himself.
"It wasn't as big of a deal as you made it out to be." Ed had finally reached some small decision.
"It was a big deal to me," Roy said calmly, putting just a bit of emphasis on 'was'.
"But you overreacted," Ed argued.
"Maybe I did. How I reacted doesn't change what you did."
"I don't know why you always have to know where I am," Ed whined, his defenses beginning to crumble.
"You do," Roy said simply, "you just think it's too much work to keep me informed."
"You're overprotective."
"That's not relevant."
"That's why I don't tell you stuff," Ed said in a very high-and-mighty tone of voice.
"No, you do it because I don't like the way you do things sometimes."
"All the time."
"Often," Roy conceded. "If you didn't want to keep me informed, you shouldn't have promised to do so."
"You're still mad at me..." Ed sounded sad for the first time.
"Did you think I wouldn't be?" Roy asked mildly. Ed didn't answer. "Come here," Roy said. Ed came. Roy was sitting on the edge of his bed and Ed stood directly in front of him, head hanging. "I still don't think you realize how much you hurt me," Roy said angrily. Ed backed up a step and Roy reached out, grabbing his automail wrist.
"If you did, I think you would be more guilty."
Ed tugged against Roy's grip, but Roy kept a firm hold on the boy's wrist. Once Ed started leaning his whole body back to try and free his wrist, Roy yanked the blond close, until they were almost touching. Ed met Roy's gaze, his eyes worried and pathetic while Roy's were dark and angry. Ed began to fidget, the tiny, nervous movements of his feet scraping against Roy's worn-thin nerves. The shuffling continued and Roy, well aware of Ed's growing fear and nervousness, sighed heavily and released Ed's wrist. The blond, not expecting the release, stood stock-still, waiting.
"Go take a nap," Roy growled. The colonel climbed to the middle of his bed and lay down. When Ed began fidgeting again, unsure of exactly what to do or what was happening, Roy snapped, "Out."
Ed was hurt by the command, He felt his hear rate increase and he walked out into the hallway feeling an urgent need to be near someone who actually wanted him around. He looked into Al's room and saw his baby brother sleeping. Then he headed out the front door.
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Ed's first thought had been to visit Hawkeye in the hospital, but she'd been asleep. Since he hated hospitals so much, he'd made a quick exit after sitting in her room for a few minutes. From there, he'd gone to the almost-empty office, and tried to read on the colonel's couch, but he couldn't concentrate. He wandered the building at random. He saw Hughes, but kept out of sight. He wanted company, but not Hughes' company. For lack of a better idea, Ed eventually returned to Roy's office, and looked up the residences of all of Roy's crew. Falman had a dorm in a building Ed had never heard of, Hawkeye's empty apartment was all the way across town, Breda's dorm was close, but Havoc and Fuery's were closer. Their dorms were in the same hallway, even. Ed headed out as soon as he had replaced the files in the file cabinet.
When Roy woke to a silent house, he had a feeling of emptiness. The day's events had stripped him of two of the most important people in his life, in a way. Hawkeye was in the hospital, most likely unconscious still, and he and Ed were barely on speaking terms. He got up and checked on Al, who was still sleeping soundly, then searched the chilly house for Ed. He wasn't there and Roy was so tired of this particular scenario, that he decided to go visit Hawkeye, who might actually appreciate his company, rather than search for Ed. Besides, Alphonse was here now. Ed wouldn't be gone too long.
Roy took the car, too weary to walk. This day was really just sucking. When he arrived, Hawkeye was asleep. She'd been shot just below her right collarbone and she looked pale as she slept. Roy took her limp hand in both of his own and played with it, threading his fingers between hers.
"Now that I'm here, I want to blame Alphonse for this. The doctor told me you wouldn't die, but you're still suffering. Why did you act so quickly?" Roy suddenly wondered when talking to sleeping people had become a habit. But just like the last time, the listener wasn't quite asleep.
"Because I had to, Sir. Hohenheim was mentally unstable. I couldn't allow Alphonse to have any further contact with him."
"How did he manage to shoot you?"
"I'm human, Sir, just like you." Riza grit her teeth, setting her jaw so hard that the action of the bones moving was visible through her skin. Roy saw the redness around her eyes and immediately recognized the nerve he'd hit.
"I know you are, Hawkeye." But nothing could make up for the words he'd just spoken. She felt criticized, and the burn of humiliation lit up her face and made her almost irrationally angry at herself. Criticism from her colonel often had that effect on her.
Roy didn't know of any words that would soothe her now that he'd lit the fire of her anger, so he just sat in silence with her hand still between his.
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Jean was on his way to drunk when Ed knocked on his door. At first, beer in hand, the 2nd Lt. had told the boy to go somewhere else because he was almost drunk. Then he'd wondered aloud why Ed wasn't at home with Roy and immediately, Ed had begun to pour out all his frustrations. Once it had become apparent that Ed was not going to be done for a long, long time, Jean had grabbed the boy by his jacket and hauled him inside the musty, smoke-scented little room. There, while Jean continued on his quest for drunkenness, Ed continued to tell Jean all about Roy and how they weren't getting along. The thing that most intrigued Jean, and made him want to laugh, was how many times Ed had mentioned being sorry for one thing or another, and then claimed that before he could ever muster an apology of sorts, Roy always did something that got Ed's back up and, for the sake of pride, made apology an undeserved luxury for Roy in Ed's eyes. When Ed finally stopped ranting, Jean yawned lazily. Ed looked at Jean hopefully.
"Well," Jean said with sudden conviction and surety, "We gotta get 'im drunk."
At first Ed thought Jean was kidding, but half an hour later, the two blonds were walking side by side back to Roy's house, each carrying an armful or two of assorted liquor, all of which Jean had deemed necessary to bring because he wasn't sure what the colonel would be in the mood for. When they arrived at Roy's house, they were surprised to find Alphonse the sole occupant of the house. Alphonse was strangely happy to see them. Ed didn't figure out why until Jean was asleep on the couch and Ed was fetching a blanket for him from the laundry room. When Ed came out of the room with the blanket, he found Al sampling some of the cheap beer Jean had brought.
"Ohh no you don't," Ed said testily. He grabbed the beer from Al's hands and the younger Elric growled back.
"I'm your brother and I say you're not allowed to drink your worries away until your my age," Ed said. Al was intrigued by that particular age limit.
"Have you ever been drunk?" Al didn't think so... his brother was almost always with him...
"No. I have a better solution."
"What?" Al was suddenly scooped up and carried to the couch where a rumpled Jean Havoc was snoring loudly. Ed dumped Al down next to Jean and the man automatically put an arm over Al, holding him like a teddy bear. Al squeaked and Ed grinned maniacally as he threw the blanket he'd retrieved over Al and Jean. Ed walked away, still grinning as he listened to more squeaks from Al as Jean pulled him close. Within twenty minutes, both of them were sound asleep. Ed was left to peruse once again, the collection of booze Jean had brought with him. He was curious, but anxious enough about Roy returning that he preferred to keep his senses alert and also not to be caught doing anything that Roy would be angry with him for upon his immediate return.
Roy had continued to sit by Riza until she fell asleep again, and after a few minutes of holding her hand and watching over her, he'd left the hospital. He headed back home. As he drove up to his darkish house, he felt guilt squeeze his stomach uncomfortably. He really wasn't being much of a father to Ed.
'I'm just checking to see if he's come home by himself yet. If he hasn't, I'll go out and look for him,' Roy told himself. But he wasn't really sure if it was true.
There was a light on downstairs, but that could just be Al... Roy realized he wasn't being very good to Al either, leaving him alone in the house without so much as a note.
What Roy found surprised him. Jean and Alphonse asleep on the couch, and Ed sitting at the table with a bottle of bourbon in his hands. Ed quickly set it down as Roy walked in the door.
"What the hell is all this? Edward, get away from there." Roy surveyed the booze-laden table as Ed obediently came to Roy.
"Jean brought it."
"Why?"
Ed wasn't sure how smart it would be to tell Roy that Jean wanted to get him drunk. Jean suddenly moaned from the couch.
"Boss, you ain't been drunk for a long time. Now have at it."
"This is no time to be getting drunk," Roy snarled. Jean sighed heavily and loudly.
"Well, Colonel, if you don't take the booze, you'll have to take yer other option."
"What other option?" Roy sounded disdainful.
"Git yer teddy bear and bring him over here to the other couch," Jean said sleepily. Roy growled.
"Lieutenant, I don't know why you're here, but you're obviously drunk and-"
"Drunk, but not blind. Not blind, Mustang. Now git'cher kiddo and come over here."
"Jean," Ed hissed in complaint.
"Why are you so concerned about me bring Ed onto the couch?" Roy sounded exasperated now.
"Because it's what you both need. Ah-ah, don't deny it. Just do what I say, Boss-O."
Roy rolled his eyes.
"If you don't pick an option pretty soon, the practical jokes will begin!" Jean exclaimed loudly and dramatically.
"Fine," Roy snapped savagely,"if it means so much to you." He grabbed Ed right at the place between his shoulder and neck and Ed slipped out of his grip. Roy became even more annoyed, grabbing Ed painfully hard on the upper arm and forcing him over to the couch.
Ed wanted to cuddle, but he wasn't pleased at being manhandled like this. Still, he didn't fight Roy, hoping the man would just calm down and forgive him already. Roy pushed Ed, making him fall onto the couch, and Ed snapped.
"Are you trying to pick a fight?"
"I thought you wanted to cuddle, Ed," Roy sneered.
"What exactly gave you that idea?" Ed bit back.
"Isn't that why you told Havoc to get me drunk?"
"That was all his idea! I didn't tell him to do anything!"
"It's true," Jean put in.
"Oh, so you've outgrown cuddling now, huh?" Roy manipulated the conversation, addressing Ed. Ed's face turned red in indignation and anger.
"Maybe I just don't want to 'cuddle' a bastard like you!"
Roy shook his head at Ed, "Don't even bother acting tough to me. I know you too well now." He smirked infuriatingly and grabbed Ed up, holding him against his body. Ed reached behind Roy's head with his automail and hit the back of his head, knocking him out. Roy toppled backward onto the couch, then slid to the floor while Ed tried to quickly disentangle himself from the suddenly limp body.
"Mighta been a bit much...?" Jean said sleepily. Ed was slightly alarmed and nodded his head in agreement. He pulled, lifted, and maneuvered Roy back onto the couch. Jean fell asleep again. After a bit of indecisive fidgeting and mental flip-flopping, Ed got another blanket from the laundry room and snuggled himself in between Roy and the blanket.
"You better wake up in a better mood," Ed told Roy grumpily as he made himself comfortable on top of the KO'd colonel.
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OK, so I think that's probably the last chapter for a couple of months. Thank you all for reading and being patient with me. I'll still be replying to reviews and checking my email, so I won't completely disappear, but I'm not going to be writing any more for a while unless I get hit by some really potent inspiration.
sniffles "Goodbye everyone!" XD
R&R