Steam clouds billowed around her as she neared the platform. Riza was used to travelling in first class—the General preferred the privacy of a compartment to the tightly-packed rows of third-class benches. She was used to the General's buying her ticket, citing that he needed her watching his back, even on trains. She was used to the rush of boarding, the jostling of movement, the press of the crowds.
She was not used to travelling without her dog.
Riza swallowed the lump in her throat. She had promised the General she would be alright.
He stood with his campaign team several meters to her left, next to a merchant selling colourful balloons from a cart. The General gave no indication that he knew she had arrived. Their discussion appeared important, so she would not interrupt.
Neumann, his head towering over the others, noticed her and smiled before averting his attention to the impromptu meeting on the platform.
He had not approached her since Monday. Riza hoped his infatuation had passed. He was a kind man, and he deserved someone free to love him.
She tightened her grip on the handle of her leather case and rolled her shoulders. Her joints were stiff, and the bone-heaviness of morning clung to her. The past two nights had been sleepless. Every sound had roused her, and every waking reminded her that her dog was still gone.
The train screamed as it rolled into East City Station. Doors opened, and passengers poured onto the platform. Departing travellers surged toward the doors. Riza moved to join them, but someone in the crowd of the station called, "Major!"
She stopped and turned to see a head of close-cut red hair weaving through the throng of people. Riza was glad to see Breda before they parted, but why had he come?
"Maj—" Someone bumped him and cut him off. He shoved his way past a family and a young couple, stopped in front of Riza, and opened his mouth to speak. Then, he muttered, "Oh, shit," and doubled over.
Riza stepped back, but he only gasped for air. "Are you alright?" she asked.
He flashed her a thumbs up and pressed his hands against his thighs. He looked up, chest heaving, and said, "I shouldn't have stopped working out."
She smiled. Breda and Havoc had made a pact when Havoc had first begun physical therapy, but while Havoc's motivation had only grown as he became more independent of everyday assistance, Breda had abandoned his end as he had found himself working behind desks and in the archives.
He straightened, still breathing heavily, and Riza noticed he clutched a brown file in one hand. She knew he had already given the General everything he had on Elise Holfer. Perhaps he had uncovered new information.
Breda held out the file. "I got this for you."
She must have looked confused as she took the papers from him, because he added, "It's a file on your guy. Straight from the archives."
Riza flipped through the pages of "borrowed" documents. One caught her eye. A black and white photograph had been pasted to it, and there was no mistaking the frown, the mess of short, dark curls, or the look of absolute disinterest in the eyes, as if the subject of the photograph were certain he was smarter than everyone else in the room and was already bored by that fact. Breda had put together a file on David Bauer for her.
She shook her head. "You said you wouldn't have—"
"I know," Breda said. "But, I thought, with my leaving and everything…" He ran a hand through his hair. "There was also the lead you gave me. The one about Elise Holfer."
The conductor shouted a boarding call and passengers continued to move onto the train.
Riza nodded slowly. Elise Holfer had thrown a brick at someone protesting the Ishvalan Extermination Campaign, and the action had resulted in a fistfight. "Was it helpful?"
Breda shrugged and then tapped the stack. "You should really take a look at this."
When she pulled out the document with David's picture attached, she noticed the title on the page: "East City Metropolitan Prison System." It was an arrest warrant. At the bottom, stamped in black ink were the words "SENTENCE COMPLETED." She looked up at Breda. "He's been to prison?"
Breda snorted. "Your boy's been to prison four times."
She felt a little lightheaded as she tried to rationalize that with what she knew of him. He was a professor. Professors did not spend time in prisons, and they certainly did not serve multiple prison sentences. "Four?"
"The one you're looking at was during his first year of teaching."
She looked back down at the document. "They didn't fire him?"
Breda barked a laugh. "They gave him tenure!"
Riza squeezed her eyes shut and opened them again to be certain she was seeing correctly. She had never gone to university, and her association with universities was limited, but she was sure that most schools did not offer tenure to first-year professors. She read the page, looking for the charge. It was detailed in the middle of the page as "dissemination of anti-government rhetoric and disturbance of the peace." It was a bureaucratic way of saying what he had really been doing. "Protesting," she translated.
Breda reached forward and pulled all four warrants from her. He passed them to her one at a time. "Protesting in 1913, 1910…This one is fascinating." He gave her a third page. "Different charge. 'Aiding and abetting seven Ishvalan terrorists and defectors' in 1907."
Riza read. He had served seven months for that, and he had paid seventy-thousand cenz in fines—one month and ten-thousand for each person he had tried to help. He had lost half a year of freedom and a month's rent in East City. She did not have to wonder what had happened to the Ishvalan "terrorists" he had helped.
"Last one, from 1908," Breda said, and he locked eyes with Riza as he handed it to her. "You're not going to believe this."
It was David's photograph, but instead of frowning, he wore a self-satisfied smile. Under the charges, she read, "dissemination of anti-government rhetoric and disturbance of the peace," followed by another charge that made her dizzy. "Assault on military personnel."
Her eyes darted to the name of his alleged victim. Elise Holfer. She brought her hand to her mouth. Elise Holfer had declined to make a statement, but someone had filled in David's. "She deserved it. I'd do it again to anyone who supports this war."
Riza closed her eyes and breathed. His distaste for the General made more sense in light of the warrants. She collected herself and looked at Breda. "Did you get anything else about her?"
"I'm still going through the court records," he said, "but, Major, that's not all." He pulled a blue paper from the stack of documents in her hands and placed it on top.
A sharp ringing began in her ears. She recognized the document, though she had never signed one, and she did not know if or when she ever would. "He's married." The platform suddenly felt hot. He had told her he had a girlfriend. Did he have both? "Are they separated?"
Breda shook his head. "She's a Drachman national, so they keep tabs on her. They're registered at the same address." Then he looked down and said, "I'm sorry, Hawkeye."
The ringing stopped, and Riza asked, "Why?" Then, because she thought he might have assumed his work was not enough, she said, "This is very helpful." And it was. Infidelity aside, anyone who opposed the Ishvalan extermination was unlikely to support the Amestrian Freedom Army.
Breda frowned and asked, "Weren't you—"
The train whistle cut him off. Several people around them waved and called goodbye to their loved ones already on board.
Breda swallowed and said, "They're playing your song."
Her heart rammed against her ribs. "They are." Then she threw her arms around his neck. "Take care of yourself."
He hugged her back and said, "We'll overlap by a few days. I'll call the hotel, and we can get coffee."
"Promise," she whispered.
He pulled away and nodded. "I'll bring Fuery."
"Tell him goodbye for me."
Breda looked behind her and saluted, and she turned her head to see the General standing in the carriage door and watching them. The General smiled tightly and nodded at Breda, then disappeared through the door.
A conductor called out the last call.
Panic ballooned in her chest, and she looked back at Breda.
"Bye," he said, and he stepped backwards.
She raised her hand in a small wave, then she turned and ran to the car, and she understood why Edward and Alphonse were always late to board.
The train lurched into a slow crawl seconds after she jumped into the car, and attendants moved down the corridors, closing the carriage doors and checking individual compartments. When one approached her, she dug into her skirt pocket and pulled out the green ticket that confirmed her right to be on board the train.
"Your compartment is just there, Ma'am." He pointed to an open doorway near the end of the carriage. "May I help you with your bag?"
Riza shook her head and said she was fine, and he moved along.
Charlie had reserved two compartments. She assumed the General and the whole of his campaign team would be continuing their meeting from the platform in the compartment next to hers.
She put her hand on the side of the train as she walked toward the compartment, and she wished the fatigue and nonspecific longing that had hounded her for days would dissipate. She could not nap, though, because she would not be able to sleep that night, and then—
Something knocked into her side and sent her falling against the wall. Her eyes flew open. Someone behind her caught her shoulders and kept her from toppling to the floor.
"Whoa!" a familiar voice said. "Are you alright?"
The touch left her as she straightened and berated herself for falling half-asleep while standing. She straightened and turned to thank whoever had caught her and saw Neumann, his back to her, crouching in front of two small children. The meeting must have ended.
"Be safe in the corridors," he told them. "You could hurt yourselves next time."
One of the children, a small boy holding a yellow balloon, said, "Sorry, Miss." Then he grabbed the hand of the girl next to him, and they dashed into the last compartment.
Neumann stood, and the top of his head nearly brushed the roof of the train car. He smiled at her.
They had not spoken since she had turned him down for dinner one week earlier, and Riza's neck grew hot. "Thank you." She gave him a tight smile and stepped into her compartment. She was being silly, she knew, but still, she could not shake the heat. Perhaps it was the fact that they would continue to be in close quarters, even after her rejection. Maybe it was because he smiled at her like she would have to reject him outright a second time.
She locked David's file in her case and lifted it to slide it onto the rack above the cushioned benches, but even in her heels, she struggled to push it into place. The train bumped, and the case slid forward and would have hit her in the face had another arm not reached from behind her and caught it.
Riza did not need to turn to know who had helped her a second time. She stepped to the side while he pushed the case back onto the rack.
Neumann smiled down at her. "It's the good part of being freakishly tall."
Riza shook her head. He was tall, at least a full head taller than the General, but she had known and worked with some who were even taller. "Not freakish."
"Well." He shrugged and smiled at her, then looked at his hands. "Miss Hawkeye, the dining car isn't serving, exactly," he began, choosing each word, "but they'll have coffee, tea, maybe sandwiches. Pastries…"
As he trailed off, her stomach sank, and she realized she would have to turn him down again, and maybe again and again and again. She had thought kind refusal and general disinterest would dissuade him, but it had not. She should be blunt with him.
"I was going to grab something for breakfast, if you'd like to join me."
Riza swallowed. "That's very kind, but—" She stopped herself. No more waiting for him to understand on his own. She would be kind, but firm. "Mr. Neumann—"
"Can I—" He held up a hand. "I'm sorry to interrupt," he said, "but I want to be clear." He looked up at the ceiling and took a deep breath before looking back at her.
She waited with no small amount of dread for him to speak.
Then he said, "I get it. I do." He waved a hand. "I got it after you turned me down on Monday, and I'm very sorry if I've made you feel uncomfortable."
"You haven't," she lied. "Really," she added, because though she had been uncomfortable earlier, even knowing that he understood made her shoulders relax and her stomach untwist itself.
"I'd still like to be friends," he said with a smile, and she decided he did have a rather charming smile. "And that's all. We do a lot of the same work, as it were, just in different contexts, and it seems odd that we shouldn't be friends." He clasped his hands behind his back. "So, if you'd like to get breakfast with a friend, there are sandwiches, I think. There are definitely pastries."
Riza considered. It was a kind offer, and she could imagine baskets full of rolls and sweetbreads laid out on the tables in the dining car, and she was hungry. If he was being honest, and she had every reason to believe he was—no one with guile would be so frank—then he would not try to move beyond the platonic. There was also the matter of the General, and making sure that everything in his work and his campaign ran well, and that could best be accomplished through collaboration. So she nodded. "I would like that. Thank you, Mr. Neumann."
"Oh, Ben," he said. "Please."
She smiled. "Ben." Then she held out her hand. "Riza."
He smiled back and clasped her hand. "Riza."
She took her hand back. "I want to check in on the General."
"Oh, of course," he said as he seemed to realize he stood between her and the doorway. He stepped into the corridor and said, "I'll just wait here, then."
She walked past him and knocked on the frosted glass pane on the door to the second compartment. She slid the door open and entered. "Sir?"
The General sat alone, reading a newspaper. His campaign team must have dispersed while she and Neumann had been speaking.
"Sir," she said again when he did not look up. "Mr. Neumann and I are going to the dining car. Do you need me before I go?" She would bring him something as well. She could predict his every habit, and she knew without having to ask that he had forgotten to eat that morning.
He shook his head and hummed. Then he flipped down the top of the paper and asked, "You and who?"
"Mr. Neumann."
He studied her for a moment, and then he shook his head and turned his attention back to his paper. "No. I'll see you when you get back from your date."
She knew he was stressed, she could see it in the way his thumb twitched where he held the newspaper. The words stung, though, enough that she said, "May I speak freely, Sir?" She would have to say it, as one of her looks would not work if he refused to meet her eyes.
The General huffed and said, "You're going to, anyway."
He was right. She would have spoken her mind with or without permission. "Stop being petty."
The General did look at her then, with a wrinkled nose and a curled lip, and he opened his mouth to reply.
"Sir," she finished before he could speak.
It felt good, satisfying in a perverse way, watching him go slack-jawed in disbelief, though she had undoubtedly said worse over the course of the acquaintance. So she turned and left before he could have the last word.
Neumann smiled at her when she emerged, and he led the way to the dining carriage. The first-class carriages all had gangway connections, but he still held out his hand to help her over the gaps between carriages.
When they arrived, she stopped. There were several tables covered in white tablecloths and set with porcelain flatware and crystal glasses. There were no baskets of bread, but waiters brought tiered serving trays piled with finger sandwiches, small pastries, and relishes to diners who were already seated. She had expected something far more casual.
"Are you alright?" Neumann asked, and she nodded, so he held up two fingers, and a waiter brought them to a table. "This is the best part of working on campaigns," he said as they sat and unfolded their napkins. "Candidates have to travel first class. We need total access to the candidate for prep work, so we have to travel first class, and it all comes out of the budget."
She smiled. Her ticket had not come out of the budget, but out of the General's own pocket; however, she could not tell him that. She was grateful for something to talk about, though. She had not sat at such a table in years, and conversation would calm her nerves as she tried to remember finer manners. "How many have you worked on?"
"This is my sixth," he said. "And my first."
Riza nodded. That would be the case for everyone, she supposed. "Sixth campaign, but first for Führer." No one had worked a campaign for Führer before.
"Well, that." He nodded and folded his hands on the table. "Also, the first five I worked were for the military seats. So, you know, it didn't really matter how many events I scheduled or who came or what sort of donations or endorsements they got. They were elected regardless. Or whatever you want to call it."
Riza nodded. For years, a percentage of seats in Parliament were not up for election at all. Instead, the people who filled them were appointed by the military to argue for laws in the military interest, but unopposed national elections poorly hid the appointment. It was the main reason why, despite widespread disapproval of the military state, the stratocracy had perpetuated for so long. No party other than the military's own had ever held enough seats until the last parliament election, two years before, when the military seats had been abolished, and Richard Kaufman's party had taken the plurality.
Neumann looked down at his hands. "This is the first one I've worked on that really matters. And it's the only one that matters. If I mess this up, I'm not just letting my candidate down. I'm letting the whole country down." He looked back up and grinned. "So I'm basically stressed all the time."
A waiter in old-fashioned livery approached their table and asked, "Ma'am, Sir, how may I be of service today?"
Neumann looked at Riza, then at the waiter, and said, "We heard you have sandwiches."
The waiter bowed his head low. "Yes, Sir, but if you'll be good enough to wait, we'll be starting full service in five minutes."
Neumann looked at her, waiting for her answer, and she smiled at the waiter and nodded.
When the waiter had taken their drink orders—coffee for him and tea for her—and left them with two menus to peruse, she leaned across the table and asked, "Should we really stay and charge a full meal?" It seemed like an excess in the early days of the campaign. "Won't Brandt kill us?"
He looked over her head and smiled. "Something tells me he won't mind too much."
She turned to look behind her and saw Brandt and Charlie sitting at a table near the back end of the carriage. Brandt pored over a menu while Charlie gathered papers into a case and stood. He nodded at Riza and Neumann as he passed them on his way to the passenger carriages, possibly for another meeting with the General. Brandt, however, stayed and smiled at a waiter who brought him a serving tray of hors d'oeuvres.
Riza heard a slight clatter and turned to see their waiter putting another tray on their table. Each tier was laden with salmon mousse on cucumber slices, dark berries and goat cheese on digestives, soured cream with radish and chives on oatcake, and many meringues and cream puffs. Small bowls overflowed with red wine pickled grapes, olives, celery, and baked nuts.
It had been a long time since she had been served such a spread, and she had never in her life been served one at breakfast.
"I don't know what half of this is," Neumann whispered as he stared down at the menu in his hand. He lowered it to the table, took a long breath, and smiled. "We've talked about me. How are you?"
She was exhausted. She hadn't slept well since she had lost Black Hayate, and that had been a cap on an already stressful week. "I'm fine."
"Are you?" He tilted his head to the side. "You seem sad."
She was, but she was not going to burden him with that. "It's been a long week."
He pulled his napkin from the table and unfolded it and placed it in his lap, and she did the same. "Do you want to talk about it?"
"No," she said. "No, I…" He was a near stranger, and he was by his own admission as stressed as she was. He did not need her problems on top of his own. Then she remembered David Bauer and how he had told her she should talk to someone. It was none of his business of course, but there may have been some merit to his advice, however unwanted it had been. And she did want to talk to someone. Rebecca was busy with her marital problems, and the General was consumed with the campaign and everything that had transpired over the course of the week.
But there was Ben Neumann, asking her outright if she needed a confidant and waiting for her to decline with a smile. She knew that he would listen if she asked him to. "I do," she said, and then she added, "If you don't mind."
He nodded and leaned forward a little. "Not at all, Riza."
She looked up at the ceiling, at the crystalline light fixtures and copper ceiling tiles, and tried to figure out how to begin. The horrible timing of Alphonse Elric's exile, the radio hijacking, the personal and very late conversations with the General, two encounters with an insufferable psychologist, and the death of her dog on Friday...Somehow, that last thing seemed the best, and safest, place to start, and wasn't that the most significant source of pain in her life at the moment? "My dog died on Friday."
"Oh, I'm so sorry." He leaned back in his chair and said, "Was he very old?"
She shook her head and swallowed the hardness in her throat. "Eleven." She supposed it was not so young, but she thought again that he might have lived longer if she had cared for him more. "He was sick." Her eyes stung, and she gripped the napkin in her lap to keep tears from falling. She would talk, but she could not imagine what he would do if she began crying in the middle of the dining carriage.
She remembered how broken Fuery had been at the funeral—Oh. Oh, Fuery and Breda were leaving too. "And two of my friends are moving to Central."
She looked up at him, searching for a sign of disinterest, but he watched her with a small, sad smile. He was kind to listen, and she thought he would keep listening. So she continued to speak, working backwards through the days, and she felt that perhaps being friends with Ben Neumann would be a good thing.
Mustang folded his arms and stared hard at the rack where he had stored his case. Hawkeye's words thrummed in his veins, even as Charlie prattled about stupid things like image and publicity.
Petty. It was a ridiculous word to ascribe to him. He knew he was not entirely perfect, as she reminded him daily, but petty? He had never been petty in his life. His comment from earlier had not stemmed from pettiness but from…He was not sure he knew the word for it, but he was sure it wasn't pettiness.
He didn't like that his adjutant and his scheduler were getting breakfast together because he didn't want his office and his campaign mixing. It was illegal for his employees or subordinates to work on the campaign, and their association would raise too many questions. That was all.
"I'm not petty," he muttered.
Charlie stopped speaking and looked at him. "What?"
"I'm not petty," Mustang repeated louder.
Charlie leaned back in the seat across from Mustang and said, "I never said you were."
Mustang nodded. "Because I'm not."
Charlie looked at the sliding compartment door, then at Mustang. He took a deep breath. "We have a lot to cover." He picked up a new piece of paper.
Neumann had booked newspaper and radio interviews, potential donor luncheons and coffees, and so many other events around Mustang's official duties that the schedule made his head swim. If Neumann were in the compartment with them, and not eating with Hawkeye, he might be able to explain why so many events were necessary.
"Shouldn't Neumann be here?" Mustang asked. "We should find him."
Charlie held out a hand. "His job is preparing your schedule." He pointed to his chest. "Mine is preparing you."
Mustang huffed and slammed his back into the cushioned wall. As far as he was concerned, Neumann's job was focusing on him, not his adjutant.
Charlie set the page on the bench next to him. "I know I asked weeks ago, but is there something you need to tell me?"
Mustang's stomach tightened. There was nothing he could tell, even if he wanted to.
Charlie's face hardened. "It will come out," he said. "Everything does in the end. But the more you're honest with me, the more I can control how that happens."
"There's nothing," he said. Nothing had ever happened, except for that one kiss fourteen years earlier, and they had both buried that. Nothing would come out. He would make sure of it, because if they were investigated, everything she had entrusted to him would surface as well. Their childhoods, her father's research, and once rumours started circulating, the truth behind the stories wouldn't matter.
"Are you sure about that?"
He clenched his jaw. "I'm positive."
Charlie rubbed at one of his eyes. "Roy, I'm not—"
Mustang reached across the gap between them and snatched the paper from the opposite bench. He read the first line of the brief and said, "This is being filmed?"
Charlie considered him for a moment and then said, "It's a newer idea. We think it could have a great impact."
Mustang read over the page. He was familiar with the concept of filmed interviews. He had seen several with film stars playing before their pictures or between double features. The old government had run successful military recruitment short films—seeing them in theatres had ultimately persuaded him to enlist—but they had always been light, inspiring, and never topical. No government leaders had ever discussed themselves or national policy on film, and he figured there was a reason for that. "I thought people went to pictures to escape the news and their daily troubles," he said. "Do they really want more politics?"
"Do they want more news when they turn on their radios?" Charlie said. "Or walk down the street? Or buy chewing gum?"
Mustang frowned at him. Charlie was still pushing that, then.
Charlie crossed his arms. "Advertising is about dissemination, not courtesy," he said.
"Touching." He knew his political persona was a commodity. He had always known as much, and Charlie had emphasized that fact. Still, the filmed advertisements and his face emblazoned on chewing gum wrappers made him feel like more of a brand of toothpaste than a person. He dropped the paper next to him.
Charlie pulled another one from his bottomless briefcase. "Now, we got lucky with one of your radio spots. Eileen Bridges usually does these interviews, but she's out of town for her honeymoon. So instead you'll be working with…" He read over the page in his hand. "Maureen Hall." He held it out, and Mustang took it.
Mustang read down the brief and prompted, "This is good because…"
"Because Eileen Bridges has a reputation." Then, in a very pointed tone that Mustang did not like at all, he added, "She can smell lies." When Mustang only glared at him, Charlie clicked his tongue and said, "But it doesn't matter, because we won't be meeting her."
"It shouldn't make a difference," Mustang said, handing the paper back. "There's a pre-approved list of topics."
"Sure," Charlie said, "but Central has slightly different journalism laws now. They can ask you anything based on your answers. That's why you're talking to me."
Then he pulled out a stack of cards and ran through topics and questions on policy, on the election process itself, on international knowledge and issues. Mustang was glad he had gone before so many promotion boards. He was used to such questions and knew how to give concise, satisfactory answers.
Charlie tapped the stack on his knee to straighten it and said, "We have one more. It's the big one."
Mustang had thought the previous question, "Why do you think you should be the Führer," was the big one, but from the way Charlie was looking at him, he understood. That big one. "I thought that we settled this."
"A lot of people feel it's tied to managing and representing the nation."
He scoffed. "That's ridiculous."
"I agree," Charlie said. "At the same time, we need to talk about how to approach it, because everyone wants to know, and you're going to be asked."
Mustang leaned forward as if moving closer and speaking clearly could communicate to the world what should have been obvious. "Marriage is irrelevant to my ability to govern." When Charlie only looked at him with an impassive expression, Mustang said, "Marriage is not my priority right now. Amestris is." He assumed those were decent answers, so he pointed to Charlie and said, "I thought this wasn't your idea."
Charlie held his hands up. "It wasn't. I don't need you to get married. I need us to finalize an answer we can give when people ask why you're not."
Mustang leaned back and shrugged. "I have no interest in getting married right now." It was not true: he had a great and immediate interest in marrying one person. He thought it strange that he had once considered telling that gossip reporter that he was just a hopeless romantic spending his time searching for the right woman when the opposite was his reality.
"You have an interest in dating," Charlie said, breaking Mustang's train of thought. "You were at the opera on Thursday. Riza told me."
Mustang clenched his teeth. "Did she?" Traitor. He swore to himself he'd get onto her for that, though he knew he never would. He shrugged. "It was a work meeting." A work meeting with one of Vanessa's girls to combat an emerging terror group. It had hardly been an outing for pleasure, even if the information had been sparse and the performance enthralling and Mariya Pavluochenko, the singer who played the lead role Helene, magnificent. He had yet to boast to Hawkeye that he had remained awake for the entire thing, except for those few scenes in the second act.
Charlie nodded. "I'm sure it was." He leaned back, crossed his arms, and raised one eyebrow. "Now explain that to me as if I'm five million people you need to convince to vote for you."
Mustang swallowed. Charlie was right—he usually was—but that was a task. There was little way to explain that he had been using prostitution rings to spy on upper levels of the military and the government for the better part of fifteen years. "Can't we just not approve the topic?"
Charlie looked out the window at the passing fields and farmhouses before saying, "Alright." His dark eyes locked onto Mustang's before he continued, "It's a glaring omission, and you'll have to address it at some point, but alright."
Mustang's entire body tensed, and he felt those first pangs shoot through his fingers. He clasped his hands tightly together. "What would you have me say?"
Charlie shook his head. "I don't know. Ideally, you'd be honest with me, and we could work with that to create some sort of narrative."
Mustang looked up at the ceiling. If Charlie wanted a narrative, he could use the one Mustang had planned to sell to the reporter. He looked back at Charlie and said, "Maybe I'm just looking for the right person."
Charlie frowned. "Some might wonder what's wrong with you since you haven't."
Mustang snorted. There was nothing wrong with him, nothing that would prevent him from getting married. No, the law did a good enough job of preventing it for him.
"Maybe you already have," Charlie suggested. Then in a softer voice, he said, "The best lies are close to the truth."
His heart pounded. He should have been more careful. He always should have been more cautious. That reporter had noticed, and Charlie had noticed. How many more? Perhaps he would be wise to disclose everything to Charlie before the story ran in the papers.
Then again, he had waited almost a week to see the headline about himself. Maybe the reporter had seen less than he had thought.
"We'll strike the topic," Charlie said while Mustang said at the same time, "I'll let you know."
Mustang met Charlie's eyes and said, "I'll let you know about running that narrative. I have to think about it." It would not affect only him, after all.
Charlie nodded and started gathering papers.
Mustang's thumb jumped, and a sharp pain burst through his palm, and he knew he needed to leave. He jumped to his feet and threw open the door.
"Hungry?" Charlie asked.
"Not really," he grumbled.
The door slid shut behind him as he fell against the corridor wall, and he worked at his hand, massaging from the centre of his palm to the tips of his fingers as she would have done. As she used to do. His chest tightened with the overwhelming desire to see her.
The door to their second compartment was closed. He decided he should check inside, just to be sure she was not there. She might still be with Neumann in the dining car.
He slid the door open, just to see, but she was there, and she was quite alone.
Her eyes were closed, and her head leaned against the window at an angle she would regret upon waking. She held a stack of papers in one hand, but most of the pages had fallen and blanketed the floor.
He bent down to pick them up, to stack them next to her on the bench, and he noticed one blue paper that he could not justify her possessing. He grabbed the marriage certificate off the floor and read the longer of the two names. "Mariya Ivanovna Orlova Pavluochenko."
He could not fathom what Hawkeye could be doing with the marriage license of an opera singer, and then he read the other name, which raised more questions.
Questions he could ask later, he thought as he looked back at her. He was glad she slept. He had noticed the dark circles under her eyes before they had boarded the train. Getting away from East City would be good for her. She might be able to sleep better away from her flat.
There was a strand of hair stuck in the corner of her mouth, and there was a voice in his head telling him that he did not need to get married but that he did need a narrative, and it was hard, so very hard, not to reach out and touch her.
They were alone, though. She would be annoyed if she woke up with hair in her mouth as well as a pain in her neck, and he could easily fix the first thing. He lifted his thumb to brush the hair away.
She inhaled sharply and sat upright, and he jerked his hand back.
"I'm sorry," he whispered as her eyes opened.
She ran her hand down the side of her face and looked at her palm when the strand of hair stuck to it. She grimaced and wiped her mouth with her thumb. Then she looked up as if seeing him for the first time and opened her mouth to apologize.
"You dropped these," he said with a casualness that let her know an apology was unnecessary. "You should lie down."
Hawkeye shook her head and blinked, still bleary-eyed from sleep. "Thank you for waking me." Her voice creaked, and she swallowed hard while she took the offered papers and put everything on the bench next to her. "Can I do something, Sir?"
He smiled. She could lie down and sleep, or talk to him, or remain just as she was in silence. He did not need anything more. "Just looking for somewhere quiet."
She nodded and was unsuccessful in stifling a yawn.
He sat across from her and nodded at the papers. "What's all that?"
She put a hand on the stack and pushed to fan the papers out. "Something from Breda."
He was still confused. He had not known David Bauer was married to a Drachman opera singer, nor did he know why proof of that marriage was in the compartment with them. "Why are you investigating Mrs. Bauer's son?" He figured she had looked into the entire Bauer family before he had hired his housekeeper.
She shook her head and covered another yawn. "He's a political psychologist. I thought he might be useful with everything going on." She picked up the stack and handed it to him. "I didn't know how fruitful it would be."
So she had not wanted to bother him with it. He wondered if she was running any other investigations without his knowledge.
He flipped through the file and stopped on an arrest warrant. Four arrest warrants, actually. He had not known about those either. He read the first one. "Dissemination of anti-government rhetoric and disturbance of the peace," it said.
It was what Mustang should have been doing, instead of following orders and becoming the "Hero of Ishval." He cleared his throat and said, "Well, at least he's a decent person."
Hawkeye let out a sound that was not quite a laugh.
He looked at her, but she had her lips pressed together as she stared out the window at passing trees and fields. "Is that funny?"
She faced him, and he waited for her to explain why his comment had warranted that reaction, but she only said, "No, Sir."
He handed the documents to her, and she tapped them into a neat stack on her legs. He watched her as she organized the file, reordering pages and turning them right-side up.
Her hair just brushed her shoulders, and every so often, she tucked her fringe behind her ear before it fell across her forehead once more. Regulations would require that she tie her hair back soon. She had once worn a brown clip, but it had broken long ago. He might get her a new one when the time came.
He had intended to buy her another gift, but that had been before the dates of the trip had changed. "Your birthday is while we're in Central."
She smiled at the papers in her lap. "You threatened me with a vase."
He leaned against the seat cushion behind him. "I've decided against it." When she looked at him with eyebrows raised, he shrugged and explained, "I imagine you'd leave it in the hotel room and claim it was too inconvenient for travel. And then we'd be back where we started."
She smiled wider, the first one he had seen in days that reached her eyes, and said, "I would never."
"You say that," he said as he raised a finger, "but I know you."
Still smiling, she shook her head and looked through the window again.
She was dressed simply for travel, but she still looked lovely in a white blouse and grey cardigan. Somehow, even after falling asleep on the train, she was clean and pressed. She had always been good at presenting an unflappable and straight image, at hiding. But he had always been good at seeing through the cracks.
"I thought that instead that you could take some time off."
She folded her hands. "I have two vacation days left, Sir, and I'd—"
"Yes," he said, because she had misunderstood him "But you have as many discretionary days as your superior allows."
She tucked her hair behind her ear again and said, in that tone that told him she was about to say something he wouldn't like, "Sir—"
"Do you know what I wrote on your performance evaluation?" He had given the performance evaluations for the office to her to take to Human Resources weeks earlier, but she knew better than to read them. Still, she would not have been shocked to read hers. She watched him, waiting, and he said, "The same thing I always write."
She ducked her head because she was clever and modest enough to act flattered when she was not surprised. "Exemplary," he had written.
He took a deep breath and tried to ignore the slight pain in his palm. He would not have a second episode that morning. "I don't think anyone will question why I'm giving you extended leave. I think they're more likely to ask why I haven't until now."
He had once said he could not spare her during the campaign, but things had changed since then. She looked tired—grief was an exhausting companion. She worked hard. She deserved a break.
He knew she would not accept, though, and his hand was aching, and he saw that she was opening her mouth to protest, so he said, "Speaking of your performance evaluation, some colonel in the South just retired, and Lieutenant Colonel Katorosz is being reassigned there to replace him."
She narrowed her eyes as she looked at him because she knew what that meant. An opening in a commissioned rank above hers meant she would be eligible for a promotion, and he would not have brought it up if he weren't considering calling together a promotion board.
She shifted and crossed her ankles. "Isn't that favouritism, Sir?"
Ah, that word. The fraternization code seemed to touch every action he took, even when his intentions were honourable. He gave in and started massaging the aching hand. His doctor would tell him that he needed to be easier on himself and that he needed to relax more. He would not have much time for relaxation over the next year.
She tightened her fists in her lap as she watched him work at his palm and his fingers.
"Recognizing competence is not favouritism," he said. "And we'd be convening a whole panel, so unless the papers want to accuse every general in this country of favouritism…"
Hawkeye nodded.
The reporter affected her as much as she affected him. He had checked the papers every morning that week, looking for some headline that would open an investigation into him. Any inquiry would shed light on acts far more troubling, and with much more dire consequences, than any compromise to the chain of command. Yet there had been nothing. Perhaps the reporter had seen nothing more than a friendly gesture.
"She hasn't published anything," he told her. "I might have just been paranoid."
She nodded again. "It's likely." Then she smiled that calm, sweet smile, and said, "But that's not a bad thing, Sir."
He supposed she was right. He had always been, by some estimations, paranoid, but she had never shamed him for it. His paranoia had proven useful in the past. Whenever he had compromised the safety of his subordinates or the integrity of an operation, it was due to his not being cautious enough. No matter how he wanted to reach across the gap and touch her, no matter how alone they were, he could not. The compartment door could open on them. Everything could be compromised in an instant. Vigilance was a virtue.
She, however, leaned forward and took his hand. Her fingers were strong, gentle, and sure as they worked the pain out of his fingers until the stiffness had subsided. When she had finished, he brushed his thumb over her knuckles once and pulled his hand back.
She sighed, leaned back in her seat, and turned her head away from him to stare out the window again.
"Do you want me to go?" he asked.
"No," she said.
He was glad. He would always rather stay with her, enjoying having nothing to do and nowhere to be and nothing to say. They would have minutes—hours if they were fortunate—before someone disturbed them.
There in that compartment, there was no campaign, no Amestrian Freedom Armies, no reporters. There were only the two of them and the silence they shared.
The bullpen of the Eastern Tribune was loud. Telephones rang with little interruption, typewriter keys clacked, carts barreled between desks, and conversations buzzed, all of it creating a frenzied symphony that Geneva Menke loved.
She belonged there, in that bullpen, where news changed in an instant and where the things reporters published mattered. She would have her own desk soon if she could just get Mr. Heller to accept one of her articles.
She had a lead, a real lead, something substantial and worthwhile. She knew it. All she needed to do was convince him.
Geneva wove through carts and reporters and interns to the door with "Robert Heller, Editor-in-Chief" emblazoned on the glass, with "Eastern Tribune" below it, and "& Eastern Review" below that in smaller type. Mr. Heller sat at his desk with the Assistant Regional Editor, Margot, standing over him. They shuffled articles and headlines around on a cork-board, plotting out the format for the next morning's issue.
Geneva knocked, and Mr. Heller looked up, sighed, and waved her in. "Switch those two," he was telling Margot as Geneva entered, "and it should be fine to run. Sit," he said to Geneva, and he pointed at a chrome and suede chair in front of his desk. Then he looked at Margot. "Get this out. I want it sent to print as soon as we have the editorials."
Margot pulled the cumbersome board off the desk and shuffled out of Mr. Heller's office.
Mr. Heller pulled off his glasses and rubbed one eye. "Alright, what is it today? Another piece on unions? Rising inflation? Immigrant rights?"
Geneva bit the inside of her cheek as heat rose up the back of her neck. "Actually, it's about Roy Mustang."
Mr. Heller put his glasses back on and asked, as if the words exhausted him, "His policies on immigrant rights?"
She had to be careful in her approach. How many stories had she brought him? How many times had he told her to stick to her beat, to keep writing puff pieces until she had worked long enough to move upstairs to the Tribune? "It's about his personal life."
"Ah." Mr. Heller slapped a hand on his desk. "See, that sounds like what I hired you to do. Good work." Then he checked the watch on his wrist.
There was more to her story than that, though. "Mr. Heller—"
"Where the hell is he?" he muttered as he pushed himself to his feet and stalked to his office door. "Where the hell is Michael?" he yelled at the bullpen. "I need those editorials on my desk five minutes ago!"
"Mr. Heller," Geneva said, twisting in the chair, "I think he's having an affair."
Mr. Heller snorted and went back to his desk. "It's Roy Mustang," he said, and he dropped into his desk chair and began rifling through stacks of papers. "You're probably right."
"Yes, but I think he's having an affair with his aide." General Mustang had called her "Major Hawkeye," and Geneva had not had to ask too many questions to learn about their professional relationship. However, his behaviour had left her with many questions about their private relationship.
"Interesting angle," Mr. Heller said as the door opened and Michael, who oversaw editorials, ran in and handed a stack of papers off. "Why are you talking to me instead of writing it?"
"Well…" Geneva watched him scan the first editorial and tried to find the words that would emphasize that she had uncovered something important. "It's not just an affair, then. It's illegal."
Without looking up, he said, "Most affairs violate some sort of law or code. That's why they're affairs and not relationships. That's why you write about them." He dropped the papers on his desk and looked at Michael. "There are only four here. We're running five."
Michael nodded. "James is rewriting his final paragraph—"
"God. Why?" Mr. Heller stood up and marched to his door. "Can anyone tell me when this issue is supposed to print?"
"Four tomorrow morning," someone called.
"Thank God someone showed up to work today," Mr. Heller said. "We are printing this in eight hours, so I'd appreciate it if everyone could stop acting like we're not distributing until next Tuesday." He turned back to the two in his office and sighed.
"It could result in a court-martial," Geneva said while, at the same time, Michael said, "He thought the final paragraph was too opinionated."
Mr. Heller stared at Michael. "It's an editorial."
"I know."
"Do you?" Mr. Heller reached forward, grabbed the papers off his desk, and slapped them against Michael's chest. "Remind him of what an editorial is supposed to be, and then come see me again." As Michael nodded and hurried away, Mr. Heller called after him, "He has three minutes to change it back!"
Geneva cleared her throat. "A court-martial could have implications for the election."
Mr. Heller folded his arms across his chest. "Geneva, do you know what happens to him if an affair like that even makes it to a military court?"
She nodded. Myrtle had been studying in their apartment for her exams for months. Geneva had helped her. And because Myrtle was studying military law, they had spent a great deal of time pouring over those codes. "Yes."
"Nothing," Mr. Heller said as if she had not spoken. "Nothing happens to him. A man like that didn't get where he is without making a few friends."
Geneva frowned in indignation. "That doesn't mean he's untouchable." Mr. Heller ignored her, and, feeling her gut hollow, she said, "It's still news."
"But it's not Tribune news." He folded his arms across his chest and said, "You're a smart kid, Geneva. You wrote good pieces for the East City University paper." He gestured to his closed office door. "But so did every person out there, and they put in their dues at the bottom to get to where they are now." He stepped toward her and patted her shoulder. "Go back down to the Review, and write what I pay you to write." He looked at the small clock on his desk and said, "Actually, it's eight o'clock. What are you still doing here? Go home."
She bit the insides of her cheeks and swallowed the hard lump in her throat as she stood and left his office. She grabbed her bag from her desk downstairs and locked her drawers, and then she trudged out of the building and onto one of the trams. There were no places to sit, so she stood and leaned her head against a metal pole, letting it hit her skull with every bump in the road.
It was unfair, wholly unfair, that Mr. Heller would not hear her out because of her lack of experience. She knew she was a good writer, and she knew she had good instincts. She knew she was better than half the Tribune staff who had been writing for more than ten years.
She almost missed her stop, and she pushed off the tram and dragged herself up five flights of stairs and into the flat she shared with Myrtle.
Geneva sagged against the door and kicked off her heels.
One day, Mr. Heller would stop listening to her. She needed to prove what she could do before then, but if he would not even consider giving her a one-time spot in the Tribune, what could she do?
There was a run in the foot of her right stocking, and the ball of her foot stuck to the wood floor as she dragged herself to the corduroy sofa and fell face-first onto the cushions.
She should just write the damn thing. Mr. Heller was right, though. The only story she had was an affair, and that was the sort of thing she already wrote for the Review. Keep her head down, stick to her beat.
Hadn't Mustang said the same sort of thing? "That's your normal beat, is it?" he had asked. She clenched her teeth as her cheeks burned from the mockery all over again.
"Genny?" she heard Myrtle say. "Genny." Myrtle shook Geneva's shoulder. "Hey, Genny."
Geneva grunted and buried her face deeper into one of the cushions.
Myrtle sighed, and her hand left Geneva's shoulder. "Why didn't you call? I was getting worried."
Geneva turned her head to the side and stared at the peeling wallpaper above the fireplace. The flue had been bricked up before the two of them had found the flat, and the fireplace instead served as a storage space for some of Myrtle's law books. "I didn't realize what time it was."
Myrtle hummed and brushed Geneva's hair from her cheek. "Do you want me to heat up a plate for you?"
Geneva sighed. Of course, Myrtle had already made and eaten dinner. She should have left sooner. She should not have gone upstairs at all. "No." Then she turned her face back to the sofa cushion.
Myrtle kept her hand on Geneva's head, smoothing down her hair and occasionally brushing the shell of her ear. "We're not students anymore, Genny. You can't live on coffee and breakroom pastries."
"I can try," Geneva said.
Myrtle pulled Geneva's hair back from her neck, her thumb brushing just below Geneva's ear. "Do you want to talk about it?"
Geneva sat up, turned around so she leaned against one arm of the sofa, and hugged her knees to her chest. "I went upstairs today."
Myrtle lowered herself onto the sofa opposite Geneva and smoothed the skirt of her dress. It was a pale pink linen, the same dress she had been wearing the day they met, and it set off her dark skin in a way that always made Geneva smile. Myrtle took a deep breath. "What was the story about?"
Geneva pressed her thumbs together and looked at her toes. She already knew what Myrtle would say. "Roy Mustang."
"I thought he was blowing you off."
She nodded. "He was." Then she shook her head. "He is. I went to see him on Tuesday."
Myrtle inhaled, just as Geneva knew she would. "Genny—"
"And," Geneva said, louder, "I think—"
"He probably didn't want to talk to any reporters on Tuesday," Myrtle said.
Geneva looked up at the ceiling and worked her jaw from side to side to relieve the stiffness. She had not wanted to talk to him about the radio incident on Monday. She had told him what she wanted to write. For a moment, she thought he had seemed a little interested. Her reasons for going, though, were not the real story. What happened next was. She looked at her girlfriend and said, "Myrtle, I saw something."
She told her, making sure to include every detail she could remember. How General Mustang had been patronizing but had entertained her until Major Hawkeye had appeared. How his posture had changed, his spine straightening and his shoulders relaxing and his mouth forming a smaller yet more genuine smile than the one he had given Geneva. How his hand had hovered, just for a moment and without touching, over the Major's lower back before it had fallen and he had turned to look at Geneva one last time. When she was finished, she half-smiled at Myrtle and said, "Well?"
Myrtle shrugged. "Well, what?"
Geneva blinked several times. "That's illegal, isn't it?"
Myrtle sighed, reached out, and took Geneva's hand. "You know I love you, and you know I'll support you—"
"Don't," Geneva said, and she snatched her hand back. Roy Mustang had told her to stick to her beat. Robert Heller had told her to stick to her beat. She wouldn't be able to stand it if Myrtle did the same. "Don't do this."
"You don't have evidence," Myrtle said in that impossible, reasonable tone. "You have a hunch. That's not—"
"Everything starts with a hunch," Geneva said. She stood and paced in front of the sofa. She knew Myrtle preferred Mustang to the other announced candidates. In university, Myrtle had engaged in many arguments with her father on social issues that had left her exhausted and distressed, and she hoped that Mustang, who had implemented so many changes in the East, might maintain his progressive streak at a national level. Myrtle called him their best hope, and Geneva knew she did not always mean Amestris. Still, she hated that Myrtle would take his side over her own. "He could be abusing his position."
"Alright," Myrtle said, and Geneva stopped pacing to look at her. "Let's pretend your hunch is right. Do you know what happens to him if you write this?"
Geneva rolled her eyes. Mr. Heller had asked her the same thing, and she was able to mouth along as Myrtle said, "Nothing." Then she raised a finger and touched the tip of her nose because that didn't make sense. He had looked back at her. He had looked scared, as if her seeing that gesture was worse than the accusations on the radio. It wasn't the behaviour of a man who faced no consequences if he were discovered.
"He's a man, Genny," Myrtle continued. "He's a very powerful man."
Geneva shook her head and sat back down. "That's not right." He hadn't acted like a powerful man. He had acted like a hunted one.
Myrtle touched Geneva's knee. "I thought you liked him for Führer."
"I did," Geneva said. "I do. But if he's corrupt, we ought to know about it."
Myrtle laughed. "Oh, so now he's corrupt? Genny, this is why…" She shook her head and sighed. "Never mind."
Geneva grunted and threw herself against the back of the sofa as heat climbed the back of her neck. "Just say it."
Myrtle put her hand on Geneva's. "This is why they won't move you upstairs."
Geneva pulled her hand away and marched to the bedroom where she could slam the door and get away from another verbal blockade, but she heard Myrtle stand and follow her.
"You get carried away and start making assumptions before you have any proof!" Myrtle ran in front of Geneva and put her hands on her shoulders. "What did you see? He put his hand on—" She held up a finger. "Almost. He almost touched her. It could be nothing."
"Then why did he look scared?" Geneva stepped back from Myrtle and tugged at the sleeve of her cardigan. "He looked too scared for something that has no consequences—"
"I didn't say it had no consequences." Myrtle shrugged. "Oh, for him, sure. He gets a slap on the wrist. But her?" She pressed her perfectly rouged lips together and shook her head. "Best case, she gets reassigned, and her new office is hell because they all know. Worst case, the same happens, and the media drags her through the mud, and—"
"Why do you care?" Geneva demanded. She hated the conversation. She hated that Myrtle was taking such pains to protect Mustang and his aide instead of being supportive.
Myrtle threw her hands out. "Why don't you? You remember what happened to Della Zalesky?"
Of course, Geneva remembered what happened to Della Zalesky, the Central University graduate who had worked as an aide for a Parliament member from the West until the politician had fired her. Geneva's predecessor at the Eastern Review had uncovered the affair between the young girl and the older, married politician and had become an overnight legend amongst reporters. Geneva could not remember the politician's name, but Della Zalesky was a cautionary tale. The last Geneva had heard, the young woman had been unable to find decent work due to her reputation and press-hounding, and she had moved to work in an isolated, country textile mill.
"Maybe—" Myrtle grabbed Geneva's hands and squeezed them. "Maybe you saw two people in love who aren't able to do anything about it."
Geneva shook her head. Roy Mustang wasn't like them, pretending their relationship was less than it was in front of parents—in front of Myrtle's father, in particular—who were stuck in archconservative mindsets. Mustang never had to hide, and he would be sure his own influence would protect him. He might even be sure his influence would protect her. "No." Then he would not have looked at her the way he had. Unless there was more to the relationship than she had initially supposed. Her heart thudded with the realization, and she looked up. "There's something there, Myrtle. There's something else hiding under all of this. I know it."
Myrtle dropped Geneva's hands and walked to the bedroom window.
Geneva's chest tightened, and she bit the insides of her cheeks and lowered herself onto the bed. She whispered, "Why can't you be on my side?"
Myrtle turned, walked back to Geneva, and sat next to her. "Alright," she said, and she took Geneva's hand. "You're right. If you think there's something there, you have to investigate it."
Geneva smiled and squeezed Myrtle's hand. They would always support one another in the end. She knew that. Her stomach rumbled, and she pressed a hand there.
"But you need to promise me something," Myrtle said. "Promise me this won't take over your life."
Geneva nodded. Of course, it wouldn't.
"No," Myrtle said. "No, look at me." She put a hand on Geneva's cheek and turned her head. "I know you," she said in a way that made Geneva feel warm and bare all at once. "You get obsessed. Don't let it happen."
Geneva pressed her lips together and swallowed. She wouldn't, no matter how certain she was or how difficult the investigation became. She would not become obsessed. "I promise."
Myrtle kissed her once, and then sat back when Geneva's stomach gurgled again. "So you're really not hungry?"
Geneva giggled and patted her stomach. "Starving." Then she let Myrtle take her hand and drag her into the kitchen.
Later that night, as she lay in bed, the possibility that Mustang was hiding more than just an affair would not let her go. She looked over at Myrtle, who slept beside her. She had promised her she would not get obsessed, and she wouldn't. But that look General Mustang had given her...So she kissed Myrtle's forehead just below the knot on the silk turban that covered her tight, black curls at night and left bed while taking care not to wake her.
She sat on the sofa and pulled a pen and notepad from her bag, and she wrote. She listed every question in her head, every route she needed to investigate, every possible angle she had then. And when grey morning light crept through the windows, she looked over pages of notes, and she smiled.
So. Alright. Here it is. Like, I went on vacation for Chinese New Year about five weeks ago, and I have been narrowly dodging a global health crisis ever since. As you can probably imagine, being displaced and stranded in a different country because all flights home have been suspended until further notice has been stressful. My mind has been occupied with lots of…things. Which means I have not been writing. Until the last few days. So. Have a behemoth of a chapter as an apology. Thank you for your patience and for sticking around. I have zero intentions of dropping this. I'm just…stranded and things are weird. A virus has successfully upended my life. How are you?