Mustang stopped counting the hours they had sat in Vogel's office when an aide stepped in and asked if they wanted anything for lunch. Then came sandwiches, then tea and even smaller sandwiches.
Hawkeye did not eat. She did not speak. He did not press her to do either.
Mustang paced the blue border on the rug, around and around and around, measuring his pace and hoping his heart would slow with his steps. He dropped into one of the two chairs facing Vogel's wide desk. Hawkeye sat still in the other and said nothing. She stared at a spot on one of the velvet curtains.
His fingers twitched, so he rose and paced again.
Finally, Vogel entered. Someone must have told him everything before his arrival, because he did not ask why they were there, did not confirm what they had seen, did not even offer pleasantries. He dropped an overstuffed folder on his desk, walked to the front, and leaned back against the edge and folded his arms. "The diagnosis came four months ago," he said.
Mustang sat and leaned forward with his elbows on his knees.
"It was little things at first," Vogel continued. "He'd forget files, keys…" He shrugged and repeated, "Little things."
Mustang's chest tightened, and he took a deep breath.
"Then he started forgetting meetings he had been to, the occasional name, even faces. So we called the doctor." Vogel looked up at the ceiling and let silence hang before he said, as if speaking hurt his throat, "He has a year. Maybe two."
Mustang's breath caught painfully, and he looked at his laced fingers. "How have you…" He looked up at Vogel. "How have you been maintaining this?" Someone should have found out, someone should have noticed, especially since the Führer was surrounded by staff every day.
Vogel sniffed and nodded. "On his good days he's active enough, and on bad days we still take him for a walk through the building so it looks like business as normal." He inhaled. "And on his worst days…" He gripped the edge of the desk behind him. "Worst days are what you saw. He doesn't know where or when he is."
Mustang looked at Hawkeye, who had been as shocked as he had been by Grumman's behaviour. She had folded her hands in her lap, but otherwise she had not moved.
"He's still having more good days than bad days," Vogel said. "But it's progressing quickly."
Mustang looked down at the swirling pattern in the rug. Underneath the pains in his chest and the oncoming headache, he realised that if Grumman's condition were worsening, the country would be without its rightful leader. "The people need to know—"
"I can't let that happen," Vogel said.
Mustang snapped his eyes up. "They have to know their leader isn't capable—"
"If word gets out," Vogel said, his voice louder and sharper than Mustang's own, "Parliament will vote for a lack of confidence." He smacked his hand against the surface of his desk. "They'll put one of their own in here, and then you can forget about becoming Führer."
Mustang straightened and bristled. He did not think Vogel was threatening him, but he knew no other way to interpret his statement. "What?" Even in the event of a Parliamentary special election, the popular election would still happen. He could still win.
Vogel sighed. "You know the popular election goes to Parliament if less than half of the country shows up?"
"Of course," Mustang said. It was a piece of legislation that Charlie loved to cite. He said they not only had to get as many pro-Mustang voters to show up as they could, they had to get as many other voters to show up as they could. Richard Kaufman could put in minimal effort and still win.
"It was a concession," Vogel said.
Mustang furrowed his brow.
Vogel nodded. "Parliament wanted to pick the next Führer, now that the fixed seats are gone and it would have been a real vote. And they would have picked one of theirs."
Mustang looked back at the floor. Parliament had always had a number of seats filled by military-appointed members, and it had always been a number just high enough to ensure that the military power had the plurality of the vote. Parliament had also always picked the Führer, so it made sense that they wanted that to continue after full democracy guaranteed that the Führer would not be a military favourite.
"But the Führer thought—thinks," Vogel corrected, "you can win. And he wants you to."
Mustang swallowed the hardness in his throat.
"And that was the concession he made," Vogel continued. "If the popular election fails, if the populace doesn't care enough, Parliament gets what they want." He drummed his fingers on the edge of his desk. "And if they hold a special election before then and make one of their own the Führer, then we don't even get to try." He pushed himself off the desk and stepped toward Mustang. "It is my job to preserve the Führer's legacy. The process of a popular election could be that legacy. But if you won't keep this quiet for him, at least do it for yourself."
Mustang glared at Vogel. He would never move against Grumman, and he resented the implication that he would. His interest was the people's right to knowledge. Still, Vogel was right. The election might hang on that knowledge. He reminded himself of something he had figured out long ago: sometimes, to do the most good, one had to do a little evil first. So he would lie.
He nodded and heaved a sigh. He looked at Hawkeye. Her knuckles were white where she squeezed her hands together, but still she had not moved.
Whatever he was feeling, he could not imagine what went through her mind. Her own grandfather mistook her for her mother, which must have shocked her, as she had not said anything since. And there he and Vogel sat, discussing the politics of the man's death as if it affected only them.
Yet hadn't she, on multiple occasions, claimed that she did not really know Grumman? For years she had been uncomfortable with the idea of a familial relationship. She responded to Grumman's inquiries about her health through Mustang with polite resignation. She declined overtures, rejected suggestions that she contact her grandfather Mustang's blood heated when he thought that she might feel anything.
And his gut turned, because he knew it was an unfair way to think.
He looked back to Vogel and asked, "Who else knows?"
Vogel tapped the side of his leg. "Evelyn Bradley," he began.
Mustang raised his eyebrows. The late Führer Bradley's wife had known before he had.
"They're friends," Vogel explained. "And she was actually one of the first to notice." He puffed out his cheeks and exhaled. "Four essential staff members, the doctor, two nurses, and now you two."
Mustang glanced at Hawkeye again. She was nearly stone, but he could detect the uneven rise and fall of her chest, the flutter of her eyelashes, the way she sucked in and bit the insides of her cheeks. He turned his attention to the design on the carpet.
Something Vogel said burned in his chest. If Parliament got one of their own into the Führer's seat, there wouldn't be a general election. Then, if Kaufman were elected the following year, even by the people, he might still dispense with the general election. That meant that there wouldn't be any trying again in five years, not when the upcoming election could be the first and only in the country's history.
If Mustang didn't get elected Führer, he never would be.
There were several concentric circles forming a sort of rose pattern in the carpet, but to him they looked more like an eye. The dark and twisting vines were black tendrils reaching and pulling at him. He was falling into an endless white void where time ceased and a man's insignificance was cast in stark relief.
"There's a granddaughter," Vogel said.
He felt, rather than saw, Hawkeye's head snap toward Vogel, and he heard a tiny sound—somewhere between a gasp and a groan—escape her.
"I've overheard him mention her once," Vogel said, unaffected by the sudden life in the Major. He nodded at Mustang. "It was to you, I believe. We're trying to find her, but we've hit some obstacles."
He looked at Hawkeye, and she looked back, her eyes pleading with him. He jerked his head toward Vogel and furrowed his brow. If there ever was a time to reveal that secret and establish a connection with Grumman, they were living in it.
She hardened and set her shoulders back. It wasn't his place to tell her what to do in family matters, and it wasn't his place to speak for her either.
His skin heated and the back of his neck tightened. He was going to respond, but she looked away from him.
He squeezed the arms on his chair because he wanted to reach across the gap between them and grab her arm instead. He wanted to tell her they were looking for her because her grandfather was ill and dying, and they wanted to bring him some comfort in his last days. He wanted to tell her that she should just announce who she was, that Grumman deserved a relationship with his last living relative.
Then again, Vogel must have already known. With Hawkeye's clearance, he must have wondered who she was to Grumman, and he must have figured it out. Unless, of course, Grumman had taken measures to hide the connection, although he never had before…So Mustang looked away from her and asked, "Obstacles?"
Vogel walked around to the other side of his desk and dropped into his high-backed chair. "On his bad days, he doesn't remember where she is or that she exists. And on good days he's too lucid to tell me. Acts like it's some great, fun mystery." He steepled his fingers. "From what I can gather, his daughter eloped sometime after the 1885 census, because that's the last time we can place her in East City, and that's all I can get out of him." He held up his hands in exasperation. "They cut each other off, she must have had a baby at some point, and then she died. And we don't—"
The office door swung open, and an aide began to speak but stopped when she saw Mustang and Hawkeye sitting in the room. "I should have knocked," she said.
For a moment, no one spoke. Then Vogel grunted and said, "Excuse me," and he rose and went to the door.
While Vogel spoke to the aide in low tones, Mustang turned to Hawkeye. He wondered what Vogel would do if he knew that Grumman's granddaughter was in front of him.
He knew how much comfort she could bring Grumman, and he knew how badly Grumman wanted to see her, for he did nothing without a reason. No one else could have granted Hawkeye the level of clearance she had. Grumman had opened his door as wide as he could for her, and he waited and hoped.
Mustang loved them both, and he wanted to tell her to put things aside for both of their sakes. If she waited, it might be too late, and she would carry the regret forever.
But in that moment, her breathing was quick and shallow, and she was pale like she might be sick. He had a terrible habit of offering unwelcome opinions on the subject, and he had already done that once, so instead of giving voice to his thoughts he said, "Are you alright?"
She jumped in her seat. "I need—" She pressed a hand to her chest and stood, and she said without looking at him, "May I step outside, Sir? I just need some air."
He stood as well and took a step toward her. She looked into his eyes and then dropped her head. His shoulders tightened and he whispered, "Do you want me to join you?"
"No", she said, and then she shook her head. "No, Sir. I'm just going for a walk. I'll be back soon."
He knew her, and he knew she would only harden her resolve the more he pressed her to speak to him or to Grumman. She did look ill, and a walk might do her good. So he nodded.
She left, slipping between Vogel and the aide with a soft word. Neither of them tried to stop her.
Mustang sank back into his chair and rubbed his left shoulder. There was a knot in his muscles that had formed five years earlier, and he had never been able to work it out. He doubted it would be loosening soon.
Vogel closed the door and walked back to his desk. "Anyway, we don't have copies of the marriage or death certificates, because a huge portion of our Eastern duplicate records were lost in the Third Library fire."
Mustang nodded. Then he stopped, because he remembered that girl, the one the Elrics had found and Hughes had hired, the one with the eidetic memory. She had been recreating those lost books and records. Then again, the list of works she had been rewriting from memory was long, and the government's priority would have been to have her recreate census books and other logs. No one would have asked her to reproduce notarized documents such as birth, marriage, and death certificates. No one would have authorized her to do that.
"And he managed to purge Eastern Headquarters of those copies," Vogel continued.
Mustang knew, of course, that Eastern Headquarters had a birth certificate on file. However, it would have been filed under Hawkeye's name, and Vogel had no reason to look there.
"The originals would be in the land district office, so now we're just trying to figure out which of the two thousand land districts that is."
That girl who was recreating the archives would know. Even if she could not reproduce the certificates themselves due to bureaucracy, she could at least recall the information. But Vogel had not considered her an option, and Mustang thought it a betrayal of Hawkeye's trust to suggest it, so he said, "That's unfortunate."
Vogel crossed his arms and studied Mustang with a calculating frown. "He hasn't told you anything?"
Mustang reached for a lie. Hawkeye had her reasons for not saying anything, even if he didn't understand them, and he couldn't bear thinking about what she would do if he betrayed her trust. But he then saw how Vogel looked with narrowed eyes at the chair Hawkeye had been in. Of course Vogel would have had questions about her. Very few people would have her level of clearance, and even if Vogel had no written evidence, he had to suspect. Still, Mustang would not satisfy him with an honest answer. "He's been sparing with the details."
Vogel grunted and shook his head to show he was not convinced. However, he then offered to have someone take Mustang to see the Führer again, though the nurse and one security agent would accompany him. Mustang accepted.
His chest ached as he followed the escort upstairs. He thought that, even if Grumman did not know him, one or two games of chess would be enough for him that day.
Alphonse watched Mei pick up a flat rock, brush her thumb over the surface, and sling it toward the centre of the pond. It skipped three times before sinking below the water and settling on, he imagined, a small mountain of similar stones. Ten stones for each hour they had spent by the pond, at least.
When they had arrived that morning, the sky had been grey-blue. In the stillness of evening, the sun hung low on the horizon, setting the sky aflame with bright oranges and pinks.
Alphonse was hungry. His limbs ached from being in one place and one attitude for so long. Most of all, he was desperate for Mei to say more.
She had told him very little, more about the family dramas that had contributed to their downfall in Xing and less about her own emotional state. He would wait until she was ready, even if that meant skipping dinner and a bed and breakfast. His stomach rumbled, and he crossed his arms over it and watched Mei to see if she had heard.
Mei didn't turn around. She examined another stone, then dropped it on the shore. A gentle breeze caressed her hair, long and unbound, and Mei sighed as the breeze stilled.
Alphonse stood and brushed dirt and grass from his pants.
"It's like…" She still did not look at him, and she hugged herself tight, but she was talking. She was talking. "I don't want to smile anymore."
Alphonse kept still, like she might run away if he moved.
She looked at him. "And I care about Edward and Winry. You know I do, but I can't…" She looked away again and heaved a sigh. "It's exhausting."
He took a tentative step toward her. They had already discussed part of what had happened. The last Emperor had been her father, though he had been distant. The current Emperor was her half-brother, and he had made her an Imperial Minister. But someone had started a vile rumour about Mei and the Emperor, and the Chang clan elders had insisted that Mei had brought dishonour on all of them by being the unwilling subject of the gossip. And her clan, who should have valued familial loyalty above all else, cast her aside and refused to give her aid without a second thought. As if she hadn't given her life serving the clan. As if she were nothing. She was angry, and he understood that. He couldn't imagine how he would feel if Edward and Winry disowned him. "No one expects you to be fine."
"No one wants what I'm really feeling, either," she snapped.
Birds called to one another in the little copse across the water. "Which is?"
She shrugged and shook her head.
"Mei," he said.
"Nothing." She brushed her hair back from her face and hugged herself again. "Angry, sometimes, but mostly I'm just tired, and…" Her breath hitched. "And I feel…"
He reached for her shoulder and gently turned her to face him. A breeze pulled a strand of hair across her forehead, and he tucked it behind her ear.
"Hollowed out," she said, and she ducked her head and hunched her shoulders as she did when she was embarrassed. "Or like I'm not really here. Or I am, but I'm not in my…" She gestured from her shoulders to her waist, and then she jerked back from him. "And I can't talk to you, of all people, about that."
Alphonse looked down at the ground. WHen they had first met, he had been, literally, a soul without a body. It was true that she had no idea what that could have felt like, but he likewise could not imagine her emotional hollowness.
"Duo xiao dou," Mei said.
He looked up at her. "You're not stupid."
She rubbed her bare arms. She still opted to wear Xingese silks—she had never owned anything else—although Winry had offered Amestrian clothing that would attract fewer stares and comments about exoticism in the town. Mei had refused, and Alphonse knew why. Taking that step would feel like divorcing herself from Xing entirely, and while her people had rejected her, she would never abandon her heritage and her homeland.
"I'm sorry," he said. He was responsible for her feeling anything other than happy.
She shook her head. "It's not your fault."
He knew she was wrong. "I—"
"It's not," she said, and her shoulders heaved. "It's mine."
Alphonse forgot to breathe, and he turned that sentence over and over in his mind. "But—"
"I keep thinking about that first conversation with my uncle," she said.
Alphonse nodded because he remembered her coming home in tears and not speaking to him about it for three days. As Mei's maternal uncle, Chang Yong Zhen had positioned himself as the head of the clan and pushed his own daughter, Yi Xuan, into the Imperial Court as one of the Emperor's wives.
"And I think about it," Mei continued, "and think about it." She dug the heel of her hands into her temples. "And I think about what I should have done differently before everything happened. I should have spoken to Yi Xuan myself. I should have told you what was going on and not waited two months. I should—"
"Wait," he said, and gravity seemed to shift with what she had just said. "What do you mean by 'two months'?"
Mei raised a hand to hide her quivering chin. "I knew," she said, and her voice cracked. "Long before you did. But Ling said it would blow over, and I'm so sorry, and I'll never keep anything from you again. Alphonse, I'm so sorry."
A sharp pain pierced his chest, and he stared at the ground. He had been the last to know. He had been able to do nothing because his wife and his friend had apparently been keeping secrets from him for months.
Then, as quickly as it had come, the pain vanished and left an emptiness behind. His throat tightened and he swallowed. There was no point in getting angry, after all. "It's done," he said.
Mei let out a small sob.
He looked at her, at her eyes squeezed shut and her hands clamped over her mouth. If he were honest with himself, he would have done the same. If Ling had told him it would go away in time, he would have listened, and nothing would be different in the present. He couldn't blame her for that, at least.
But he would have told her. There would be plenty of time to discuss that later, though. What mattered then was that they had both been carrying more guilt than was reasonable, and they had both been carrying it alone.
Instead of yelling or storming off, as she probably expected he would do, he pulled her close and buried his face in her hair. "It's done," he repeated. "It's not all on you either."
For a few minutes they stood there. He breathed in the smell of clean soap, but under it was the lingering perfume of cinnamon and anise from the incense that used to burn around the palace. The scent clung to her clothing, and he wondered if it brought her comfort or more pain.
"It's not your fault," he whispered.
She nodded and wrapped her arms around him. "He promised he would protect me, that he would protect all of us."
There was her answer. She had decided whom to blame. Alphonse would never admit it to Edward, but a small, white hot part of him agreed. What was the purpose of all of Ling's power if he didn't use it?
"He should have done something before it was too late," Mei said, and her breath hitched. "Before he had to sneak us out like…" She choked on another sob.
"I know," he said before repeating in Xingese, "Zhe batian."
She pulled back, wiped her eyes, and mumbled an apology. Then she wiped the front of his shirt and smiled, really smiled. "You're all wet."
That smile rushed into the emptiness left by his earlier anger, and he smiled back. "It's fine."
He did not know how long they stayed out, but before the sun touched the horizon, he was sitting again and she was leaning back against his chest. He had missed their tender moments of stillness. Before everything had changed, they had studied together in such moments, bending over books and scrolls and trading hypotheses. They might do so again.
A plan that had been forming in the back of his mind came to him, and he looked up at the darkening sky. "Do you want to try getting away?"
Mei reached behind her and touched his cheek. "This is away."
"No," he said. She had mentioned exhaustion at feigning happiness, and imagined it would be worse around people who were celebrating the birth of a new baby. "I mean somewhere where you have to act—"
She pulled away and turned to kneel and face him. "I don't want you to think—"
"I don't," he said. He knew she loved Edward and Winry, but he could also understand if she wanted distance to mourn the loss of her previous life. And that half-formed plan, the one that had first come to him during the town hall, pulled at him. "We could travel. You've never really seen Amestris."
She frowned and cocked her head to one side. "I've been all over Amestris."
"Not as a tourist!" When she had first arrived, so many years ago, she had played fugitive. She had travelled with fugitives, searching for a Philosopher's Stone and never taking the time to stop and appreciate the world around her. He had done the same while Edward had been a State Alchemist. "And neither have I, really."
Mei nodded.
He rested his elbows on his knees and took her hands in his own. "We could go to Ishval." He had never been, and she had friends who lived there. "We could see Doctor Marcoh and—"
"I don't want to see them." She looked at their hands and shook her head. "I don't want to see anyone who will have questions."
Alphonse understood that. He didn't even want to discuss things with his own brother.
Thinking of Edward reminded him of his plan, the one he was only a little afraid to speak out loud, the one that might save them all.
He took a deep breath. "We could go to Central." His ears heated, and he released one of her hands so he could rub the back of his neck. "I've been thinking we should go for a few days." He shrugged. "There's something I want to do, but I don't know if it's too late."
"Too late for what?"
Alphonse looked up at the sky and thought about how to begin. It had started with an offhand comment from his brother, and then Alphonse had overheard Edward's side of a telephone conversation. He had turned the idea over in his head, dismissed it, then considered it more.
He explained the steps he would have to take and what it would mean for them in the future. Edward could not know until it was done, and Alphonse emphasized that multiple times.
It was their best solution. They would be able to help Edward and Winry financially, and Alphonse might be able to gain back some of the respect he had squandered as an interim ambassador. This he added at the end with a sheepish glance at Mei, and he hoped she didn't think him selfish for thinking of his success first.
She pursed her lips and nodded slowly. Then she said, "I think it's a perfect idea." She tapped her index finger against her chin. "We could leave the airplane here and let Winry take it apart and put it back together all she wants."
His chest swelled and he smiled. There were still things to discuss, communication being one of them, but they were still together. She was coming with him. They would be fine. She was brilliant and beautiful and he loved her, so he said, "Zhe mei yi."
She leaned forward and held his face in her hands, and she kissed him for the first time in weeks.
It felt like sunlight bursting in his chest and filling him from his toes to his head.
When she pulled away, she whispered, "Zhe ta mei yi."
He pulled her into his arms and revelled in the closeness, and he would do so until they returned to the house.
It was not cold—in fact, it was warm—but Riza pulled her uniform jacket tighter as she walked. She did not know the neighbourhood she had wandered into, but it was quiet and lovely and a good place to collect her thoughts, and for that at least she was grateful.
A few people stared at her as she passed, and she wished she was less conspicuous. She felt the ribbons at her breast burning into her skin with each glance. The General had been asked to wear his formal uniform to the residence, and she had dressed to match.
Her stomach tightened when she thought about how she had left the General alone in Vogel's office, but she was confident he would be fine on his own.
The Führer, though, was less than fine, and that thought did not bother her at all.
She should have felt sad, perhaps a sudden desire for kinship. Instead, she had felt nothing. She had accepted the Führer's illness as mere fact, a tragic one, but a distant one. It was a misfortune that had befallen a stranger. Then Vogel had unintentionally reminded her that she was meant to have a personal stake in the Führer's well-being, but she felt no responsibility or pain. She had been more distraught over the death of her dog than she was over the deterioration of her grandfather's mind. In fact, she was more upset by the run in the foot of her nylons, acquired during the mad dash through the residence, than she was by anything Vogel had said.
And that made her sick, like something sticky roiled in her gut and threatened to claw its way out. It was not how she was supposed to feel.
She shrugged out of her jacket and draped it over her arm, taking care to hide the decorations. In her dark blue skirt and plain nylons and white button-down blouse—required for formal dress—she looked like any working woman on her way home for lunch. She certainly attracted fewer stares.
And if she just walked a little farther, she could leave her self-disgust behind.
Riza took a deep breath and looked at the houses on either side of the pedestrian street. Black iron gates and white stone facades and carved lintels surrounded her. One front garden caught her attention, and she moved toward it.
Every garden on the block was trim and simple, but this one had a careful wildness about it. A melange of flowers she could not name spilled from pots and flooded the sides of the short footpath leading to the front door of the row house. Ivy climbed the white brick walls and a small bench and birdbath sat just beneath a trellis supporting light purple blooms.
Someone loved that garden, and she thought that one day, when she had settled into one place long enough and had the time to devote, she might love one like it. She would learn to make things grow and become beautiful, and then, on a quiet pedestrian street where only low conversations and children's laughter broke the silence, she might enjoy life in Central.
She had lived in East City for fifteen years, and in her current apartment for three, and she had made no overtures to a permanent project.
Riza closed her eyes and breathed in the fresh sweetness that floated on the wind.
She could start, though. After the General had won the election and moved to Central, she could find a small house in a peaceful area and create something. Or, she dared to think, she could tend a little garden at the residence. Mrs Bradley had kept flowers, but Riza doubted that maintenance of the garden was a priority for Vogel, especially in recent days.
Something tapped against her heel, and she looked down to see a leather sports ball the size of an orange. She knelt and picked it up, her thoughts back at the residence again. She traced the lacing on the surface of the ball and thought she should head back. The General might need her.
Then she looked up and saw the boy.
He was unmistakable with his black hair, dark eyes, and dishevelled shirt and grass-stained trousers.
She had last seen him in a worse state, eight years earlier, when the stress of continuing his existence had resulted in the deconstruction of his own body. Yet when she remembered him, it was as she saw him in that street, in front of that garden. He looked the same age, with the same sweet expression, as if he were still play-acting at being a normal boy who would never pursue her through the colonnade at the Führer's residence and bind her with shadowy tendrils that whispered over her skin and gripped tighter than they should have.
Her heartbeat thrashed in her ears, and every muscle in her body froze while her mind begged her to run.
Selim Bradley looked at her shaking hands and then at her face, and he said, "Are you still afraid of me?"
All air fled her body, and an overwhelming nausea took its place. "What?"
He blinked, and then he said with a great deal of patience, "May I have my ball back, Miss?"
She looked down at the ball in her hands. "Oh." She must have misheard him. She was tired, she was shocked, she was wracked with conflicting emotions. Of course, she had misheard him. "Yes."
As she passed the ball to him, she heard Mrs Bradley call, "Selim!"
Riza brushed her hands on her skirt. She should have known Mrs Bradley would be close behind, and she saw the older woman walking quickly down the street. A young couple moved to the side to give her a wide berth, and Riza felt a lump form in her throat.
People thought Mrs Bradley was mad. She had been a popular topic in gossip columns in the months following the Promised Day, and it was not unusual for her name to appear in small articles years later. Riza remembered one headline: "Evelyn Bradley Has Lost Her Husband, Her Son, and Her Mind." She had even heard some school children skipping rope and singing "or else you'll go mad, like poor old Eva Brad."
For what else was the public to think? Ostensibly, Mrs Bradley's husband and adopted son had perished in a horrific, failed coup, and not a few weeks had passed before Mrs Bradley was seen with another infant boy, one that was the exact image of her first son when he had been a baby. Then someone discovered that not only had she adopted a baby that was identical to her late eight-year-old son, but also she had called him by the same name: Selim. It was not the behaviour of a stable, sane woman.
The people didn't know that her first son had not been human, but instead an immortal homunculus created at the nation's inception. They didn't know how Mrs Bradley had been deceived in her marriage. They didn't know that Selim had lost his immortality and reverted to infancy during the chaos of the General's coup, that the two Selims were the same.
The people knew Mrs Bradley was a madwoman. They avoided and followed her with morbid fascination. And the woman had borne it as no other could have borne it, for in spite of what the people thought they knew, Mrs Bradley was quite sane.
Mrs Bradley slowed when she saw Riza, and she smiled. "Oh, Major Hawkeye." She put one hand on Selim's shoulder. "I had heard General Mustang was in town, but I didn't think you'd be wandering around here."
Riza tried to smile, but she couldn't, not when that child was looking at her. "I'm just—" She cleared her throat. "I'm taking a walk."
Mrs Bradley hummed and gestured to the garden and the house behind Riza. "Would you like to come in for some tea?"
Riza turned to the garden and looked back at Mrs Bradley. "You…" Her ears warmed, and she took a deep breath. How foolish she must look, frozen outside of Mrs Bradley's home. "No, thank you," she said. "I should be getting back to the residence."
Back to the residence, where she had left the General. Back to the residence, where there waited the reminder of her lack of empathy. The General had seen it—she hadn't been able to bear looking at the disapproval in his eyes. He must have been as disgusted with her as she was.
Her distress was clearly evident because Mrs Bradley nodded. "Oh, I see," she said, and Riza remembered that Vogel had mentioned Mrs Bradley had been one of the first to know about the Führer' health.
Mrs Bradley reached forward and said, "Major Hawkeye—"
"Mom," groaned Selim as he tugged on her blouse sleeve.
"Alright," Mrs Bradley told him, then, abandoning whatever she had meant to say, she smiled at Riza. "Good day, Major Hawkeye. Selim, tell Major Hawkeye 'goodbye.'"
Selim looked at her with the resignation of a child forced to endure strangers and said, "Bye."
"Goodbye," Riza whispered.
Then mother and son pushed open the wrought iron gate and left her in the street.
Riza turned to her left. She knew she had turned onto the street just a few houses away, but beyond that, she was unsure of her whereabouts. She did not know how many streets she had turned onto or how many blocks she had walked down. She closed her eyes and sighed. It had been a long time since she had let her emotions overwhelm her, but she always got sloppy when she did.
She turned around and said, "I'm sorry."
Mrs Bradley stopped in the doorway of her home. Selim had already disappeared into the shadows inside, and the relief loosened Riza's shoulders.
"Could you tell me how to get back?" she asked.
Mrs Bradley smiled and walked back to the gate. "Of course. If you go up—"
"Mom!"
Mrs Bradley turned to Selim, who had appeared on the doorstep. "Go practice your scales. I'll be there soon." She looked back at Riza with an apologetic smile. "He had an active day, and he's starving."
Riza forced a smile and nodded.
Mrs Bradley gestured back to the house. "Why don't you come in and I'll draw you a map."
The darkness in the house yawned before them, but Riza nodded and told herself she was being ridiculous. Selim Bradley wasn't a monster anymore. He was just a little boy.
Mrs Bradley led her inside and flipped a few light switches. She had a lovely parlour, decorated in a modern style with clean lines and shades of charcoal and dusty violet and orange. Selim sat on a black piano bench in front of an upright and watched them. Mrs Bradley excused herself into a small office while Riza waited.
Riza watched Selim watching her. He turned to the piano and hit a single key, then looked back at her. Then he hit another one, and then another.
"Here you are," Mrs Bradley said, and Riza's heart thudded. She held out a folded piece of stationery. "Are you sure you won't stay?"
"I'm sure," Riza said.
Selim slammed both hands on the keys, making a discordant blast that made Riza jump and Mrs Bradley put her hands on her hips.
"Selim!" Mrs Bradley said.
"I'm practising!" he cried.
She pointed at him. "You're not." She shook her head at Riza in apology and opened the front door. She gestured to the street. "Turn left, then follow that." She tapped the paper.
Riza unfolded it and looked at the map sketched in blue ink, at parallel lines indicating streets and arrows showing where to turn.
"You are always welcome, you know," Mrs Bradley said, and she smiled when Riza looked up. "There. And here."
Riza nodded. "Thank you." The meaning of Mrs Bradley's comment was not lost on her, and she realized that the woman knew far more about Riza and Grumman than she let on. It was kind of her to extend her own hospitality as well, so Riza said, "Your garden is lovely."
"Oh." Mrs Bradley smiled. "Thank you."
Riza stepped onto the little path that led to the gate. "Goodbye."
Mrs Bradley waved. "Goodbye." She closed her door.
Riza walked through the gate and onto the street, but she stopped when she heard faint, uneven piano scales. She looked through the bay window where Selim sat at an upright piano. He must have noticed her watching, because he looked up, then toward the back of the house. After another moment, he looked at her again, waved, and smiled.
She turned away and rushed down the street, and when she reached the first corner she leaned her hand against a streetlamp and told herself she was being foolish. She was imagining things that weren't there. It was unreasonable that, after so many years, seeing that child could spark so much fear.
She looked down at the paper Mrs Bradley had given her and followed the hastily-sketched lines, searching for street signs and landmarks until she reached the first intersection with a paved road for automobiles.
Following directions was methodical—grounding—and her breathing evened as she walked. She was almost composed when she reached the gatehouse at the residence.
The guard took her identification badge and sent her into the house with a reminder that he still had her holster and weapons.
She had forgotten to take them when she had left. She was supposed to be better than that. She needed to be better than that.
An aide at the main door took her down a series of hallways and back into Vogel's office.
The Minister to the Führer hovered over his desk and looked up when she entered. "He's saying goodbye," he told her before turning back to a stack of papers. "You can too."
She tugged at her shirtsleeves and smoothed out her skirt, realizing too late that her walk might have left her dishevelled. "Thank you."
"Are you an old family friend or something?" he asked with a sharpness that let her know he did not think she was just a friend.
Riza swallowed and dug her nails into her palms. "Or something."
Vogel grunted. Had the General told him?
Riza looked at the decorations in the room and searched for something that could keep him from prying further. She settled on the painting of an ocean over a bureau. It was an odd choice. Amestris was landlocked. She wondered if the General's future Minister to the Führer would choose something different, perhaps a scene from the Amestrian countryside. She wondered who he would pick, and that thought unnerved her more than she had expected.
She turned to Vogel and said, "Can I ask you a question?"
He looked up from his desk. "If it's quick."
She looked at the stacks of papers and folders and files on his desk. Some of them were meant to be the Führer's, she assumed. There must be a line between the Führer's work and his own. "What exactly is your job?"
Vogel rolled his shoulders back as he straightened. "That's not quick at all." He looked toward one of the windows. "Whatever he needs it to be, I guess. My job is to do everything in my power to make sure the Führer can do his own job." He looked back at her and gave her the first smile she had ever seen on his face. "I imagine you're familiar with the concept."
She was.
Riza remembered her first days working in Eastern Headquarters. She had been sent into combat early, before her graduation, and her wounds sustained in Ishval and her recovery period had prevented her from completing coursework with her class. That first year she had run from courses to the office almost every day. There had been sleepless nights of studying after staying late at work, minor breakdowns on the office floor as she searched for a specific case in Lieutenant Colonel Mustang's circular and maddeningly subjective filing system, and many failures. The Lieutenant Colonel had been patient, but he had never lowered his expectations.
Fifteen years later, she had built a reputation in the military for precision and efficiency. She spent her days making his job easier. She kept track of his schedule, his workload, and the minutiae he could not take on. She knew how to anticipate his needs before he knew what they were. She understood that if he had to ask for something, or demand something be done, it was already too late.
She nodded. "That includes being him." She had attended meetings in the General's stead when there were conflicts.
"It takes a lot of loyalty and love," Vogel said, and there was an intensity to his voice that told her they both knew where the conversation was headed. "There's no glory in it. It is a thankless job." He took a deep breath, and his fingers traced a line of text on a document before him. "The people of this country can never know everything I do. So, if you don't mind giving everything you have and getting nothing in return…" He shrugged.
To Riza, his seemed a bleak interpretation of their duties. She recalled something Alphonse said often, something he and Edward tried to live. "You can always give back more than you get," she said.
Vogel hummed. "Not really an option in this position." He glanced at the clock on the wall. "I have to go, but if you want it…" He walked to the bureau and rifled through drawers until he pulled out a stapled packet. "Here," he said, offering it to her. "It's the legislation on the position." His lips curled again, slightly. "But it's far from comprehensive."
Riza took it from him and flipped through the pages. It was a short read, one she could finish that night. She had never been ambitious, had never vied for her promotions or for positions of authority, but she knew that if the General left the military to finish what they had begun, she would follow.
"Read up if you're interested," Vogel said, and he went back to his desk and gathered up a few folders. Then he held open the office door and ushered her into the hall. "And if you want my advice, don't be interested."
Her escort still waited in the hall, and when Vogel had bid his farewell, the aide asked where Riza wanted to go.
Vogel had said she could visit the Führer, but she didn't know him. She didn't know anything about him. Likewise, he did not know her. She didn't know what either of them could expect from a visit.
What she did want was to return to the hotel, order a pot of tea to her room, and fall asleep. She wanted to forget the turmoil inside her head and forget seeing Selim. She could not, however, leave without the General, and didn't know where to tell the aide to take her to wait for him.
In what might have been her first stroke of good fortune in weeks, she turned her head and saw the General coming toward her. She tucked the legislation under one arm and saluted him, and he released her.
"Are you ready?" he said.
She nodded once. "Yes, Sir."
She knew that he wanted to speak with her, to ask her questions. She could see it in the set of his jaw and the incline of his head. He could not speak on anything with the escort leading them, and she was glad because she knew she would have no satisfactory reply.
They picked up their things at the guardhouse—her weapons and his gloves—and walked to the automobile.
Riza dug into her jacket pocket for the keys, but something like a string tugged at her mind, and she turned to look at the residence. A figure stood in the window on the top storey and watched them go, and her gut twisted and her hands shook, and she dropped the keys on the sidewalk.
She needed to stop looking back at windows, she told herself while she bent down.
The General picked up the keys first, and he opened the passenger door and jerked his chin toward it. She slid into the automobile without argument and waited while he climbed in on the driver's side and started the engine.
"Are you alright?" he asked.
"Yes, Sir." It was the easiest response, and if she was honest, she did not know if she was alright or not. She was determined to be, and that was enough.
Whether he understood her or whether he believed her, she did not know, for he did not press. Instead, the General spent the drive back to the hotel making light comments that did not necessitate a response. They would be in Central for too long, and it was unnatural for a man to live out of a suitcase for a whole month. There were only six applicants for the State Alchemist Exams that week, and that was good, because he'd finish judging the practicals early. Speaking of the exams, he insisted she take the whole of Friday off, instead of just the afternoon. The last comment she did not understand, because she didn't remember making the request or know why she would have made one in the first place, but her eyelids felt heavier with each passing block, and she couldn't fight him then.
He must have known that, though, schemer that he was.
When they reached the hotel, he handed her out of the automobile and let go before she could register the contact. They crossed the marble floor of the lobby—only the best for a candidate, Charlie had insisted, and the military had also never put up a four-star general in anything less than a four-star establishment—and walked down the dark hall where their block of rooms were.
The General sighed. "I'm not very hungry. I'm going to bed."
On any other day, she would argue that he needed to eat. She also could not bear the thought of food, and she too wanted sleep. "Yes, Sir."
He pulled out his key and turned the lock. "Hawkeye."
"Yes, Sir?"
He looked her in the eye and whispered, "I'm sorry."
She knew what he meant. He was sorry for pushing her earlier, sorry for being angry when she hadn't wanted to speak to Grumman like he had wanted. He was sorry for dragging her into another crazy plot. He was sorry for burdening her with another political secret, and he was sorry that the complications of her nonexistent relationship with her grandfather had multiplied. It was all too much for her just then, and her chest constricted so much she felt her ribs might break. "Yes, Sir," she whispered back.
He waited for more, but she had nothing more to give him. So he nodded and opened his door. "Get some sleep." Then he disappeared into his room.
Riza pressed a hand to her chest and closed her eyes. She inhaled slowly. "Yes, Sir," she breathed into the darkness of the hall. She pulled out her own key and let herself into her dimly-lit room, but she froze when one of the shadows on the wall moved.
It moved again and again and again, and her heart hammered in her chest, and she realized that a maid had left a candle burning. The flickering light cast unnatural shadows all around.
She went to the bedside table and blew out the flame, and the room was dark except for the faint glow of street lamps coming through the window.
Riza pulled off her uniform and hung it in the provided wardrobe, then she slipped into her pyjamas and under the bed covers.
Her heart still pounded, and although she was exhausted and although she squeezed her eyes shut and pulled the soft, white quilt up to her chin, sleep would not come. She turned onto her side, but the events of the day played behind her eyelids, as if she were sitting in a cinema and not lying in a hotel room.
In the darkness, she relived the horror of being mistaken for her mother by a man she did not know, and whom she had no particular desire to know. The self-disgust she felt when she realised her impassive detachment. The terror of seeing that boy again, like some recurring nightmare nearly a decade old. She clenched her jaw because she was annoyed, so annoyed, with herself for being frightened by something as simple as a candle.
She rolled onto her back again and threw one arm across her eyes. She wanted nothing more than to sleep and wake up and have a less terrible day, but her mind raced and her neck tightened with an anxiety she could not shake.
She sat upright. She would not be able to sleep, she knew, until she had managed to calm herself. Perhaps she could speak with the General. He would offer her an ear, if not complete understanding. Then she dismissed the idea. If he were already sleeping, she would not want to wake him.
She needed a drink. She could go down to the hotel lounge, order something just to help her calm down, and then she would be able to sleep.
Riza slid out of bed and dressed again in her blouse and a brown skirt, the nicest one she had brought. As she rolled her nylons on, she felt the run on the sole of her foot pull and spread up and over her ankle.
The purchasing of new nylons was an expense she had not anticipated, and she yanked them off, wadded them into a ball, and threw them into the waste bin. Then she sank onto the edge of the bed and pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes. There was yet another frustration to add to her ever-growing list.
It would be dark in the lounge, she decided, and no one would notice if she weren't wearing them, so she stepped into her shoes and left her room.
The lounge was dark and smoky, with rich woods and greens in the furniture. Several groups took after-dinner drinks in large armchairs, while others engaged in idle conversation at the long bar.
One gentleman at the bar towered above the other patrons. He bent over a file and raked a hand through his blond hair, and Riza was glad the seat next to him was open.
She slipped past a few seating areas and onto the stool.
Neumann almost jumped when he saw her, but he smiled and shoved the papers into a leather attaché. "Hey!" he said with more vigour than she had felt in days. "Hi. Can I get you a drink?"
"Please," she said.
Neumann must have noticed her weariness, because he nodded and said, "We'll make it a strong one, then." Then he raised his hand to summon the bartender.
Riza watched him ask for a menu, and she rested her chin in one hand and wished, as she often had, that she had chosen a different life. That she had made different choices. It was a counterproductive wish, however. There was no undoing them. There was only moving forward.
So when Neumann passed the menu to her, she forced herself to smile.