Chapter 9: Three Months

Mustang's head drooped against his left hand, as his right hand attempted to control the movements of the pen that he was holding. He gave a half-hearted effort to signing his name at the bottom the form, which was but one of the many forms awaiting his signature stacked upon his desk. The form that he was currently in the process of signing was a request for approval to send a Central squad up north to join a North squad under a lieutenant named Rikel to investigate Himesa, a small North town disconnected from the main roads and railway. According to the report, there was a high probability of an encampment of Drachman loyalists squatting along the eastern outskirts of the town and Northern Command wanted Central Command to be aware and a part of the operation should it turn out to be the case.

Finishing off the 'g' of his name with a flourish, Mustang glanced up at the clock above his office door. He groaned at seeing that it was only a little past 15:00. The clock hands had moved all of twelve minutes since he had last looked at the blasted thing and that had felt like a half-hour ago at the least, if not longer. Sitting back in his chair and letting out a frustrated sigh, he scrubbed his hands over his face, rubbing at his tired eyes. He was truly getting sick of desk duty. With the threat against him from the Eastern Liberation Front, however, General Halcrow had the perfect excuse to confine him to Central and to his desk in specific. What he wouldn't give to be doing something that didn't involve him reading over and signing off on an ever growing stack of paperwork.

At two abrupt raps on his office door, disturbing the quiet of his office and his thoughts, Mustang lowered his hands from his face and forced himself to sit up straight in his chair. Picking up his pen and bring an unreviewed request form towards him, he gave permission for the person to enter his office. "Come in."

"Roy!" was the shouted greeting, as Lieutenant Colonel Hughes stepped through the oak door with a large smile plastered across his face.

"Hughes," Mustang greeted in what he hoped was a civil tone, as his grip tightened the slightest bit on his pen and he looked up from the form that he had been pretending to have been reading over.

A bombardment of Elicia and Gracia photos wasn't exactly what he had meant about having something else to do and was far from what Mustang felt that he needed at the current moment, but Hughes had been the only ally that his sanity had had in all of Central Command over the last three months. Hawkeye had seemed determine to drive him insane with paperwork, Havoc had offered no sympathy and had dutifully took over Hawkeye's efforts when Hawkeye hadn't been around to pile stack after stack of paperwork upon his desk, the rest of his men had been scared into compliance (by Hawkeye or Halcrow – he didn't know) and had been no help at all, and Halcrow had seen fit to not only keep him on desk duty, but to have a rotation of Colonel Stalwart's men monitor his daily movements (all for his own safety, of course). So, if Hughes wanted to tell him about Elicia pulling herself up on various items of furniture or to brag about Gracia's apple pie, he would endure it without complaint. He owed his friend as much, as he might have done something stupid by now if not for Hughes.

"One of those days, huh?" Hughes asked, concern showing on his face, as he stepped up before Mustang's desk and surveyed the colonel with intelligent eyes. His hand hung suspended in the air in a frozen reach for the inner pocket of his jacket. As Mustang met his assessing gaze, his hand fell back down at his side and he frowned. "Did you sleep last night?"

No, Mustang answered in his mind. He'd been far too busy researching the transmutation circle that had passed across his desk the day before. Something about it had seemed familiar and had bugged him enough that he felt compelled to look into it further. In the report that the circle had been presented in, the circle had been designated as being of little significance. It had been found chalked on the floor of an abandon townhouse on Evergreen Way by a homeless man who had been looking for shelter from the onset of colder weather. The MPs believed it to be graffiti done by kids due to the peculiarity of the design. Even he, the Flame Alchemist, doubted whether the circle was actually functional, as the lines to direct the flow of power and several of the symbols along the outer ring of the circle weren't any that he recognized or knew to have purpose. As far as he could deduce, the alchemist who had developed the design was a novice … or a genesis … or was simply using a form of alchemy that he wasn't privy to – one of the three, depending on if the circle actually worked or not and how well it worked. Then again, the array could have been done by kids who wanted to stir up trouble and probably didn't know how dangerous playing around with transmutation circles could be. He doubted it though, as the lines and symbols were very precise.

"I'll take your silence as confirmation that you did not, in fact, sleep last night." Hughes gave Mustang his best reproving look.

"Save the lecture," Mustang said shortly. "I'm going straight to bed as soon as I'm allowed to leave for the day."

"At least tell me that you ate lunch." Hughes stared Mustang down, his shrewd gaze demanding an honest answer.

Mustang sighed and gestured to the mounds of paperwork on his desk. "I've hardly had time for lunch. I swear this stuff is coming from every office in the building."

"It probably is," Hughes said without sympathy. He held up his hands in a gesture of surrender at the glare Mustang pinned him with. "I'm just saying. As you've made it a point to piss off nearly all of the Top Brass, it's not all that surprising that they're now burying you with paperwork. And … with the State Alchemist Certification Exam next week –"

"Hughes," Mustang said warningly, not wanting to have the same argument that they had already had many times before.

"I know, Roy. You know what you're doing and have everything under control. The Elrics are perfectly aware of the risks and brutality involve with military life and are far from the children that I think they are," Hughes conceited, looking not at all convinced.

A tense silence filled the room, as the two men stared at each other – both knowing what the other was thinking, but neither willing to start the argument that would inevitably follow should either man verbalize their thoughts. They had gone back and forth on the matter of the Elric brothers joining the ranks of the State Alchemists enough to know the other's position and counterarguments on the matter. Mustang stood firmly by his decision to bring the boys into the Military, while Hughes objected Mustang's actions in regards to the boys and would rather that Mustang called the whole thing off before it was too late, continually citing that the brothers were only children and couldn't possibly cope with the brutality of military life at such a young age, no matter what they might have been through and how confident they were about their abilities and what they believed they wanted out of life.

"Come around for dinner tonight," Hughes said finally, effectively decompressing the tense atmosphere.

"Like I said, I'm going straight to bed as soon as I'm done here," Mustang said with a hint of apology.

"Maybe tomorrow night?" Hughes tried.

"Tomorrow." Mustang nodded.

"Gracia will be please." Hughes beamed. "She's been talking about making her grandmother's stew for weeks ..."

Mustang tuned out Hughes, as his friend began his accustom rambling about his wife and daughter. He nodded his head and made sounds of ascent, while embracing Hughes's interruption as the momentary reprieve that it was and falling into a state of permissible half-sleep. Hughes would get around to whatever official business the man had come to his office for soon enough.

–

"Fuck it!"

"Brother!"

Ed scowled around the stack of books before him, ensuring that Al, who was sitting across from him at the massive table that took up the center of the reading room off of General Elias's library, got the full treatment to his displeasure, seeing as their pointless bout of research was Al's idea to begin with.

"It doesn't exist, Al!" Ed gritted his teeth and added the book that he'd just slammed close, after having spent an additional two hours to the countless hours they had already waisted on the endeavor reading over something entirely useless – okay, not entirely useless, but not what he and Al were looking for – once again, to a stack of books to his right! "It's a child's tale. A fable. Not real! Not possible!"

Al drew his lips into a hard, determined line and treated his brother to a narrowed eye look filled with reproach. "You're the one who said our calculations were correct, that we created exactly what we meant to. Essentially at least. We just messed up with the soul bit." He lowered his voice. "It's not like we'd be trying to create new life, brother. We don't need a soul for this. We already have souls. Don't you see it? Surely, if alchemy can create living, human tissue – as we proved possible – we ought to be able to –"

There was a creak of the floorboards outside the room, up the hall near the stairs. Ed and Al's heads whipped around, as they looked to the clock that hung above the reading room's main entrance with stricken faces. They'd gotten absorbed in their research again!

"Tea," they said in unison, both jumping up from their chairs. They dashed over to the door, intent on heading General Elias off, both knowing that there was no way that they'd be able to put their research away before the general came in to remind them to come down for the afternoon meal, which they were five minutes late for already.

"I was just coming to get you." General Elias smiled, while shifting his weight on his cane in order to peeking around the brothers, as the two blond boys filed out into the hall with flushed cheeks and guilty looks upon their faces. "Madam Martha has made the most exquisite lamb croissants," he continued, as if he didn't suspect the boys of being up to trouble, which he knew they were well capable of after having housed them for three months.

"Sounds great," Al said as casually as he could manage.

"Yeah, we're starved," Ed agreed, achieving a normal tone a bit better than his brother.

General Elias chuckled at receiving the boys' accustom response to the announcement of a meal, even if it was a minor meal that was nothing more than a small snack and a cup tea. "How is your review work coming along?" he asked, as he turned back up the hall and hobbled back the way he had come, trusting the boys to fall into step behind him.

"We're nearly finished. Just a bit more now," Ed lied through his teeth, just as he had for the last two weeks.

In truth, the brothers had finished their review work almost as soon as the general had assigned it to them and they'd been doing independent research ever since, while slowly handing in their complete work at night. Though, by this point, Ed had had just about enough of Al's wild goose chase, as he had absolutely no desire to tangle with the Gate again, even if the possibility of facing It a second time was remote with the way Al was suggesting that they go about things this time. He wished desperately that Al would just agree with him already to stay far away from human transmutation, as they had agreed to do so back in Resembool.

Since they'd reviewed some of General Elias's work with organic matter, however, Al had become convinced that there was a way for them to not necessarily get their limbs back, but to regrow them at the very least. The troublesome matter for Ed was that he had no way to counter Al's arguments, because he knew his brother was on to something. So long as they took it slow and got the calculations and equivalences absolutely right, the possibility was there. Still, He was scared … for the both of them … to go down that road a second time. There was a very good chance that the next time they faced the Gate, neither of them would walk away alive – if they faced It again, that is.

"How wonderful," General Elias said, as he led the boys into the parlor, where Madam Martha had set up their afternoon tea. "Are you feeling confident? The exam is only a few days away now."

"Most definitely, sir," Al declared, as he sat down at the far right place setting laid out upon the mahogany table, across from the general's accustom seat, and Ed sat down beside him at his left. The elegance of their surroundings and the detail paid to the layout of their tea with true silver silverware, decorative Xing plates, and cloth napkins folded neatly in crystal goblets hardly even phasing him or Ed, as both had become familiar with such things and grown used to the standard of living General Elias granted them as his guests.

"Even more so than when we first arrived." Ed assured, while eying his serving of finger food sized lamb croissants hungrily.

The general smiled and pour Ed and Al's tea. Without needing to ask, he added sugar and cream to the boys' individual preferences – one sugar and a touch of cream for Al, three sugars and no cream for Ed.

Ed grinned. "I don't think we'll have too much to worry about."

General Elias hummed and picked up his tea cup, sipping at the hot liquid. "It is good your studies are going so well. I'm very proud of you boys," he said sincerely.

"That means a lot to us, sir," Ed returned just as honestly, his eyes brightening, while Al's cheeks returned to a flushed state – this time due to modesty rather than embarrassment at nearly being caught doing something which they really shouldn't even be contemplating.

The general's approval of the two brothers had become more and more important to Ed and Al over the course of their stay with the man. While they had had Teacher and Granny's expectations to live up to over the years following their mother's death, gaining the general's praise felt different to gaining the two women's praise. Teacher and Granny weren't their family – neither was General Elias, of course – but it didn't stop the two boys from feeling a close kinship with the general, who treated them very much like grandsons and seemed to see them as the family that the man had never had the opportunity to have.

As Ed and Al had learned a month and a half earlier, General Elias had lived his life purely as a man of science, having dedicated the entirety of his life to his work and coming to regret having done so in his old age. The lost opportunity of obtaining a wife and having sons, daughters, grandsons, and granddaughters had left him a very lonely man, as death encroached upon him. His loneliness Ed and Al alleviated, their company treasured by the old general more than they could possibly understand according to the way general spoke of his affections for them.

As the light, afternoon meal commenced, Ed and Al listened with great interest to General Elias, as he recounted the many State Alchemists Certification Exams that he'd sat in on, as well as his own exam. Both took mental notes on each portion of the Exam that the general describe. Prior to today, the general hadn't truly discussed the Exam with them, as he hadn't wanted them to lose focus on their studies and end up stressing themselves out long before it was even time for them to take the Exam.

"So we sit the written portion first," Ed said, seeing reason in the way the Exam was set up. "If we do well enough, we're called back for the interview, and if we say the right thing, we go on to the practical portion. That doesn't sound too bad."

Al nodded. "It's much better than everything being crammed into a single day."

"Just remember," General Elias said with a touch of warning, "the hard part isn't the Exam itself, but gaining the right kind of notice from the Top Brass. You can pass the written, make it through the interview, and do more than sufficient on the practical and still not get selected. Only one or two State Alchemists are named each testing season. You're going to want to bring everything you have and hold nothing back. It is no place for modesty." He turned his gaze on Al. "Yet, brash action won't do either." He looked to Ed. "You want to dazzle them. Personal charm, the elegance, efficiency, and power of you work, standing apart with a style and affluent air unique to yourself: that is what will catch and hold their interests. They're looking for good alchemists who have the potential to become good soldiers, but more so for the next Roy Mustang."

The general chuckled heartily at the boys' surprised, yet intrigued looks.

"Oh, he's a pain in the ass for sure and few desire him under their command, once they've had the experience of having him under their command," General Elias acknowledged, still chuckling. "Nonetheless, there is a reason Mustang has been able to rise through the ranks to reach the post of Colonel at 26 years of age. He's the most effective soldier the Military has. He can do the job of an entire platoon on the battlefield, efficiently lead his men through a field of flying bullet to tackling a mountain of paperwork in the office, works well on clandestine missions and especially well under extreme pressure, and possesses the ability to more than just kiss up to the Top Brass when he's so inclined. According to my sources, he's the man assigned the most difficult, dangerous, and essential missions, as every general, the Fuhrer included, knows Mustang is always the man for the job, always more than up to proving just how good he is. Having even another alchemist like Mustang under their command would make the Top Brass' year, but if they manage to obtain two," he looked from Ed to Al and grinned almost fiendishly, while peering over his glasses intently at the boys, "and if those two alchemists somehow managed to be placed directly under Mustang's command …"

"Mustang's value goes up," Al said with understanding.

Ed furrowed his brow. "Not just up, but practically explodes!"

"Mustang and his unit, or rather Mustang and the two alchemists under him, would become the most valuable combination of assets the Military possesses." General Elias nodded. "The possibility of what you three could accomplished won't go unnoticed by the Top Brass, the Fuhrer in specific … as well as the potential threat you three could pose. Mustang is playing a dangerous game." He pinned the boys with a severe look. "I tell you this as my last and only warning. You've already set events in motion and cultivated circumstance that will place you directly under his command, creating that pocket of power that Mustang intends very much so to capitalize on. Make no mistake, he will take you far, very far – I don't doubt it – but their will be a cost involved, a great personal cost to the both of you. So, if you have any doubt about what you're getting yourselves into, any whatsoever, Monday is the final day to back out."

"What cost, sir?" Al asked pensively and bit his lower lip.

"Every shred of innocence you have left, my child," the general stated grimly. "You'll be stepping into the world of men, powerful men with high ambitions. It is no place for a boy or naivety. You'll see things no one your age should see and will be ordered to do things someone so young should never have to do," he said, his eyes softening with tender affection as he looked from Al to Ed. "There is a certain measure of the children you once were left within you, beneath all you've suffered and all you've accomplished. You must be certain that you're prepared to give up the last of your innocence. Once named State Alchemists, you become men, become dogs of the Military. The Military will own you … for life, in essence."

"You're right, sir, that Al and I have suffered, as well as have accomplished much," Ed said with determination in his eyes. "But you're mistaken that there is any measure of the children we once were left within us. We've seen more than most men twice our age have seen, done more too. It is not naivety or innocence that we possess, but lingering immaturity, sir. If the price to accomplish what we desire to accomplish by joining the Military is to give up that immaturity, I've no qualms. Childhood wasn't exactly for us."

Ed glanced at Al, who met his gaze with understanding, both knowing just how true his words were. It was as if the world hadn't wanted them to be children, not for very long at any rate. He looked back to the general. He knew what he and Al wanted, and they would have it. He and Al, they were going to be the best they could be, do the best they could to help and protect the citizens of Amestris. Even if it means signing our lives away to the State.

"Mustang gave us a similar warning nearly a year ago and I'll tell you what I told him," Ed said with steadfast fire burning in his heart and reflecting in his eyes. "We're not backing down, we won't be intimidated, and we will become State Alchemists. Our reasons are strong, our will stronger yet, and we've nothing to hold us back, as we are all that we have left. This is what we want and failure is not an option, not for us. We are young, but we are old enough."

"Bravo!" General Elias clapped his hand together, beaming. He winked at Ed, who scowled at realizing that the general had played him. "You definitely have me convinced. Ah, Mustang … I always knew when he finally chose to sponsor another alchemist that he'd chose someone special." His beam grew. "Well, two someones special in your case. I repeat again, you are very lucky that he's taken such an interest in you. I feel honored to have been able to host you these last few months. You've brilliant futures ahead of you." He clapped his hand again with energy not accustom to him as of late. "Tonight! Tonight we celebrate, and tomorrow, tomorrow you hand in those completed papers you boys have been hoarding away and spend your last weekend of freedom out and about!" he declared. "Now, upstairs the both of you. I want you back down here at 17:00 sharp, in formal attire."

As both boys knew better than to ask where the general would be taking them for the evening celebrations, Ed and Al got up and bowed respectfully to the general without protest or question, before hurrying upstairs to clean up their day's mess and get cleaned up themselves.

At hearing the boys' eager steps on the stair, General Elias rose from his own seat. "Those boys." Leaning heavily on his cane for support, he crossed the room over to the phone on the table by the bay window overlooking his back garden. He picked up the ear piece and greeted the operator on the other end with the usual pleasantries.

"Elias for Central Command, extension 228, the office of Colonel Roy Mustang," General Elias said, when asked how the operator could direct his call. He waited on the line patiently, as the phone clicked with the switching of the lines, as the operator connected his call to the Military switchboard. He gave his clearance code, once he'd been connected to the Military, and obtained a direct line to Mustang.

"Mustang," the colonels voice tiredly picked up the other end of the call.

"You sound exhausted, my friend," the general commented cheerfully, his heart feeling sympathy for the ambitious, young man. "Perhaps my call might wake you up."

Mustang's weary chuckle crackled down the line. "To the contrary, you sound as if you've good news, General. I could use some right about now."

"Good news, indeed." General Elias grinned. "Your boys are ready. I'll be taking them out tonight to the opening of the Fall Symphony, after a social dinner at the Rierson House. You will attend. Our reservations are for 17:15."

"Yes, sir," Mustang said, sounding as if he weren't exactly enthused, but wasn't entirely put out by the alteration to his evening plans either.

AN: All right, this is the last prewritten chapter. I hope you all have enjoy it so far. A special thanks to those who have reviewed. I appreciate your words.