Alphonse straightened his tie and buttoned his waistcoat. Looking more professional wouldn't affect his written score—and there was no need to feel so nervous anyway since he was going to pass—but the panelists the day before had put the necessity of dressing well into his head. They had talked about Edward so much, and Alphonse loved his brother, but he also needed to distinguish himself from the twelve-year-old who draped himself in black and red and caused a ruckus everywhere he went.
He was Alphonse, and he was finished being the screw-up.
In the mirror, he could see Mei tracing her finger along the top of the footboard of their hotel bed.
"You want to know something stupid?" she said.
Alphonse smoothed his collar and his hair.
"I miss redang."
He stopped checking his appearance and turned to her. It was only natural that she would. The time of year when summer gave way to fall was the same time of year that the Xingese ate those special sticky rice balls, sweetened with dates and red beans and wrapped up in bamboo leaves. Mei would not have them that year.
She would not have so many things.
"There's a sizable Xingese population here," he said. "I'm sure we can find redang when I get back."
She nodded and rested her head against the top of the footboard. "Yi baxian zhewen paiqun gong xufen de?"
He was confident they could find xufen, too, those round oven-baked cakes shaped like the moon and filled with red bean paste and eaten mid-Autumn. "Zhe baxian." Perhaps they might not find the specific kind her clan made, not baked but steamed and filled with fruit custards. If they couldn't find them, he'd make them. He promised her as much. "Duiyin zhewen er paiqun, zhe jiao xun."
Mei snorted, and then she fell back on the bed and cackled.
"Xiezhi?" he asked.
"Yi..." She struggled through peals of laughter to say, "Yi er liu jiao xun!"
Alphonse scowled at her. She was laughing and that was good, but he resented her insistence that he couldn't cook. It was just like alchemy, but with food, right? "Zhe liu lu." Besides, it was not as if she were a great chef either. "Yi ta er liu jiao xun."
Mei, still wearing a broad smile, sat up and brushed her unbound hair from her face. "Zhe mei yi."
He walked to the bed and kissed her, and when he pulled back, he said, "Zhe ta mei yi." Then he pushed up his sleeve to check his wristwatch—soon enough he would have a State Alchemist's silver-plated pocket watch—and saw that while he had time, he should leave soon. One of the exam attendants had told him the day before that if he were more than fifteen minutes late, he would be disqualified.
Alphonse wanted to be as early as possible. He had seen General Mustang's and Lieutenant Colonel Armstrong's faces, and he had no doubts about their somehow interfering.
He gave himself one more glance in the mirror, then headed for the door.
Mei called from behind him, "Ganglai!"
He held up two strong fists to show her he would do his best, and then he pushed his way out of the hotel room and rushed down the stairwell, taking the steps two at a time. His fingers tingled on the bannister, and his chest swelled as he strode through the dim hotel lobby.
He wasn't taking the exam for himself, but there was something so sweet about knowing that he was going to, and that it would be easy, and that—
He stepped out of the hotel and found himself face-to-face with Roy Mustang.
The general leaned against a black automobile with his arms crossed, and he jerked his head toward the back passenger door. "Get in," he said.
Alphonse should have anticipated that General Mustang would not even let him leave his hotel. "No, thanks," Alphonse said. "I'm going to walk. It's not too far." He had chosen the hotel for its proximity to Central Headquarters, and he had been looking forward to the opportunity to clear his head before the exam. Besides, he had witnessed and often been included in the General's ambushing Edward in the same way. Nothing good waited for him in that automobile.
Instead, he turned to start toward Headquarters, but Mustang grabbed Alphonse by his collar so quickly he choked, and then he tossed him into the automobile and onto the hard leather bench and slammed the door shut.
Alphonse pushed himself upright and saw that Riza was part of Mustang's little plot, and she was looking at him in the rearview mirror and whispering, "Don't talk."
'Where are we going?" Alphonse asked, his neck tight with the certainty that it would be far from his destination.
Riza shook her head, gripped the wheel, and stared straight ahead while General Mustang slid into the front passenger's seat. Then she shifted the gears, and the automobile lurched forward and sent Alphonse careening into the bench back.
Riza was a skilled driver, as Alphonse knew from experience, and she was no stranger to using her keen sight and instinct to safely break any number of traffic laws, but that knowledge didn't keep Alphonse's stomach from rising as she wove between other vehicles at an alarming speed. Alphonse braced his hands on either side of himself and stared at the space between Riza and Mustang. If he looked out a side window, he'd be sick.
Mustang appeared less perturbed, "How is it," he asked, as if he were inquiring about the weather, "that in four weeks you have managed to cause more problems for me than your brother did in four years?"
Alphonse bit the insides of his cheeks. He did not think it was a fair assessment. He could recall dozens, if not hundreds, of messes Edward had created in the East during his own time as a State Alchemist. All Alphonse had managed to do was get himself exiled from a foreign nation and show up to take an exam for which Mustang knew he was more than qualified. "I think Ed caused more than two—"
Mustang slammed his hand against the shoulder of Riza's seat and glared at Alphonse. After a moment's pause, he clapped his hands together and touched his door.
"Sir!" Riza cried as the reaction crackled and spread along the sides of the automobile, sealing the doors closed. She did not falter in her driving, though her knuckles were white and her eyebrows knit while she and Mustang looked at each other and had one of their silent exchanges. He remembered Captain Havoc had called them "nonversations".
Alphonse rolled his eyes. "I could just use alchemy to get out," he said. Of course, he would not risk it at the pace they were travelling. Once he would have, but then he had not had bones or internal organs to consider.
Mustang threw his hands up and huffed at Riza, then he leaned back and continued as if Alphonse had never spoken. "It was a clever trick you pulled. Showing up before anyone could dissuade you, using your name to get the Führer's office to approve it, not even telling your brother—Oh, I already know," he said, and he nodded in satisfaction. "We spoke less than an hour ago."
Alphonse closed his eyes, but that was worse, because he would still feel himself hurtling down streets without having the sight to adjust. He rolled his shoulders back. He knew he should have told Edward at least, before he had telephoned the Führer's office and asked if the Führer could submit a letter or something that would guarantee his late admission. But Edward would demand to know what he had been thinking, and he would have done it loudly and with emphatic language.
He leaned back, swallowed and took deep breaths. Even after having his body back for eight years, his sense of balance was slightly off, and he had never been able to sit in the back of vehicles without feeling ill. He didn't know if Mustang and Riza were aware of that, but it wouldn't surprise him if Mustang's intimidation tactics included disorienting Alphonse with motion-sickness.
"Here's what we're going to do," Mustang said. Edward called the general's confidence arrogance, and Alphonse had to agree. "We're going to take you to Central Headquarters. We're going to walk in. We're going to go to the exam room. You're going to withdraw your application."
"No!" Alphonse said. He leaned forward when Mustang didn't flinch at his protestation and added, "I'm not going to."
"You will," Mustang said, every inch the smug bastard Edward had always claimed he was.
"I'm not afraid of you." Alphonse said because he was finished with Mustang and his deciding what Alphonse could do and where he could go and what he could say.
Mustang pointed to his right, Riza jerked the steering wheel, and they rounded a corner and barrelled away from Headquarters.
Alphonse clenched his jaw and said, "I know how you work. You want everyone to blindly follow your orders, and if they don't, you bully them into submission." He knew all of General Mustang's moves. He had watched him play his games for years.
Mustang leaned his head back. "Do you know what they'll make you do if you don't withdraw?"
Ignoring people was a favourite Mustang approach to getting his way. "Why do you care so much?" Alphonse asked. Mustang ought to be thanking him. He had first appeared to Alphonse and Edward while in pursuit of an alchemist who could boost his own standing in the military. Alphonse was a better alchemist than Edward had been over ten years earlier.
"You know what I'm picturing?" Mustang held his hands up and spread his fingers as if smoothing a canvas. "An operative abroad helps you set up one of your 'focal points,'" he said while curling his index and middle fingers. "Then the military makes you send over tonnes and tonnes of explosives, which you then detonate. From kilometres away, you detonate enough explosives to take out an entire city."
The image made Alphonse's heart falter, and he said, "I wouldn't—"
"But I suppose there's a bright side," Mustang said with a slight bite in his tone. "You won't be close enough to see the men and women and children you'll be killing. You'll be so far you won't even hear them scream."
Alphonse's breath caught. Neither Mustang nor Riza had ever discussed Ishval with him, but he had read enough and heard enough from others over the years to understand that Mustang meant Alphonse might one day be the "hero" of the looming war. Mustang miscalculated, though. Alphonse was not like Roy Mustang, the Hero of Ishval. "I won't!" he said. "I'd use it to help people."
Mustang scoffed and crossed his arms. "I've never heard that one before."
Alphonse's stomach hardened, and he curled his toes inside of his shoes. "I can't even do it from more than a few metres away," he said.
Mustang waved one hand. "Oh, don't worry. In a couple years, that'll be different."
Alphonse doubted that. He had studied for five years to be able to perform long-distance transmutation at all, and for the subsequent three he had only increased his distance by a few metres. It was unlikely he would be able to multiply that distance by one thousand in the same amount of time.
"Do you know how you keep your certification, Alphonse?"
"Yes," he said.
Mustang continued to ignore what Alphonse said. "You submit—"
"I know," Alphonse snapped. He had been with Edward when Edward had needed to renew his certification. Edward had always turned in some hastily-patched research from his notes, something irrelevant to their continued search for the Philosopher's Stone.
"I don't think you do," Mustang said, and he turned in his seat to look at Alphonse. "Your brother was given incredible freedom because of his age. The military couldn't use him tactically yet, so it was agreed he would get to pick his contributions until he became a legal adult. But you're not a child." He frowned and turned around to face the windscreen again. "You know what's interesting?" he asked, poison dripping off the last word. "You're the same age I was."
Alphonse recalled Edward's telling him that he thought Alphonse was more similar to the General than Edward was. Just then, as Mustang insinuated that Alphonse would ever take part in something as heinous as the Ishval Extermination Campaign, he resented the idea. "I wouldn't do that," he said. "I'm not you."
The car swerved slightly, and Riza whispered an apology, but Mustang remained calm, as if he had anticipated that response. "Keep saying that," he said. "Maybe it'll come true."
Alphonse crossed his arms. He was vaguely aware of the rushing of buildings past them, of the sway of the automobile, over the hammering of his heartbeat in his ears. It was so like the General to show up and tell Alphonse what he could think and do and how he could think and do it. It was as if he thought Alphonse incapable of making a sound decision. Getting himself exiled from Xing had been a one-time mistake, and he had been doing just fine as the interim ambassador until—
"What's the first law of being a State Alchemist?" Mustang asked.
Alphonse looked up too quickly as Hawkeye rounded another corner, and he braced himself against the bench back and swallowed hard.
"It's 'obey the military,' Alphonse," Mustang continued with apparent derision. "You won't be given the same freedom your brother had. You'll be expected to expand on your current skill set. And expand in ways that benefit combat." His voice rose with each word. "Believe me, that will happen. This is a military program. You will be a military asset—a weapon, Alphonse. They will aim you, they will fire you, and there will be nothing you can do to stop it."
Alphonse brightened when he remembered something from the military handbook Edward had received years ago—Edward had read the table of contents and then tossed it aside, but Alphonse had always been the responsible one. "I can refuse an order if—"
"'Any unlawful order made by a direct superior or a higher-ranked officer outside the direct chain of command.' I know." Mustang snorted. "The military is so wound up in the government even now. If it's an unlawful order, they will make it lawful."
"You're a four-star general," Alphonse said, because what was the point in having a high ranking if Mustang wouldn't use it? "You can—"
"There are four others!" Mustang shouted as he slammed one hand against Riza's seat and turned to look at Alphonse. The automobile swerved and Riza said, "Sir!" while Mustang continued, "Four others who would have no problem issuing those orders to you."
Alphonse could see the unspoken frustration in the tightness in Mustang's jaw. Of the five who sat on the Generals' Council, Mustang had been the last appointed. According to protocol, even among those who were his equals in title, he was the lowest ranked and the least powerful.
Mustang nodded once, took a deep breath and said, "Right. Let's go."
"I'm not withdrawing," Alphonse said.
"You'll quit. One day they'll ask you to do something you'll regret for the rest of your life and you'll walk out. But it won't be before they get their hands on your research and figure out exactly how to weaponise it." Mustang found Alphonse's eyes in the rear-view mirror. "It's impressive how determined you are to destroy your own soul."
Alphonse pressed his lips together. If it were as easy for the military to obtain and weaponise his research as Mustang said, there would be dozens of Flame Alchemists running around. In fact, the more he thought about it, the less it made sense. He had read some of Mustang's papers, and he had always described the alchemical reaction of burning as a two-part process, yet his research had only ever described the second part, the conversion of one burning substance into another and its byproducts. Alphonse had never encountered any of Mustang's research that described how to cause ignition. "Did you turn over the ability to make fire?"
Mustang turned around and slammed his hand against the back of Hawkeye's seat again. She gasped, the automobile swerved, a horn blared, and she swore—at least Alphonse thought she did—under her breath.
"Why are you doing this?" Mustang demanded. "Is it for information and research access? I can get you that."
Alphonse dug his nails into his palms as his heart beat faster. Mustang always assumed everyone could be bought, and even if he were right in Alphonse's case, Alphonse couldn't let him know.
"Is it money? Do you need money? I have plenty of it."
Because if Mustang knew, Alphonse would be the one paying.
"Are you punishing me? Is this about what happened when you came back?"
There was something Edward had once said to him: "When you sell yourself to Mustang, you end up paying too."
"Are you just stupid?" Mustang shook his head. "After everything I have done for you two, I can't—"
"To us," Alphonse said.
Mustang paused and blinked. "What was that?"
"To us," Alphonse repeated louder. "You always talk like that, like we owe you something." It was true: whoever sold themselves to Mustang still ended up paying him in the end. "You didn't provide for us. You chucked us on a train to God-knows-where and checked in when it was convenient for you—"
"Now, wait just a—"
"Even when you recruited Ed!" Alphonse said, because Mustang had talked and talked and talked. "It wasn't because you felt sorry for us or because you wanted to help us!" He felt his cheeks flush with anger and then his body warm with heady giddiness at the shock crossing Mustang's face. "It was all because finding an alchemist like him made you look good! You never looked out for us! You only look out for yourself." He steadied his breathing. "So now I'm looking out for me, and you can check in when it suits you as you've always done."
Mustang rubbed his jaw. "This isn't—"
"Don't insult me," Alphonse said, "by pretending you care. Not when you're really just worried I'll embarrass you."
Mustang stared at him, and under that dark and angry gaze Alphonse felt himself shrink smaller and smaller until he was microscopic. Until his anger had fled and the only thing he could feel was exhaustion. He had just wanted to—
"Is that all?" Mustang asked, as calm as he had been at the beginning of the automobile ride.
Alphonse, unable to do more, nodded.
"Sir," Riza said as the automobile slowed.
Mustang turned around. "I see it." He settled in as Riza pulled the automobile to the curb and parked in front of a fine hotel, the sort with a doorman and valets scrambling to take guest baggage. After a moment, Mustang clapped and touched his door. Once again, the reaction crackled and hummed throughout the vehicle, and the doors unsealed. Still, he did not step out. Instead, he pulled a black folder from the floor in front of him and said, "If you've finished, then I'll just say this."
Alphonse closed his eyes.
"There are four other four-star generals in this country, and even if you're in the East and you report to me, any one of them can override my orders. And they won't just chuck you onto a train; they'll make sure that train heads straight to the battlefront." He paused, and when he continued, his voice was tight. "So, maybe you can't cover more than a few metres right now. You will. You have no idea how easily and quickly the military can make you hone your alchemy. You have no idea the kind of practice arena war makes."
Alphonse opened his eyes when he heard the click of a latch.
As Mustang stepped onto the pavement, he leaned in and said to Riza, "You have your orders."
She nodded. "Yes, Sir."
Mustang did not look at Alphonse as he slammed the door shut and walked away.
As soon as Mustang had disappeared into the hotel, Riza started driving again, though at a much easier speed.
"Alphonse, that was cruel," she said.
Her words hit him in his chest, and he hunched his shoulders. "It was true."
"No, it wasn't," she said. She shook her head. "He cares about you more than you realise."
He looked out the window at passing pedestrians and shops. He couldn't see the towers of Central Headquarters. "What are the orders? Are you just supposed to drive around so that I miss the exam?"
Riza said nothing.
"I'll just jump out the next time you stop," he said. He wouldn't be concentrating on keeping his breakfast down or catching his breath, so he would have the time at the next light. "How far are we?"
"About an hour walking," Riza said.
Alphonse's stomach sank. Even if he were to hail a cab, he would miss the cutoff. He would be disqualified. He looked at Riza, in her starched uniform and the familiar high-collared black shirt peeking out of her jacket, and his blood heated. "Can you pull over?" he said. "I'm not going to run."
She did, parking the car in front of a bakery that was advertising a new sort of cake made with a nut called a "pecan." She turned in her seat and said, "Alphonse, why?"
Though he was annoyed with her for going along with the general's scheme, there was censure in her voice, and it wilted his anger. He looked at his shoes so he wouldn't have to look at her frown, at her eyes, at anything that showed her disappointment in him.
"I thought you and Edward had agreed on this years ago," she said, and her gently admonishing tone hit him hard in the gut. He could withstand Mustang's bluster and rage, but this was worse. "If this is about what happened in Xing—"
"It's not!" he cried as a stinging formed behind his eyes. He could tell her, and it would feel good to tell her. She might understand, and the look in her eyes might go away. And he wanted to trust her, wanted to trust that she would protect him, wanted to trust that by telling her he wouldn't be putting himself in Mustang's debt. "You…" Edward wouldn't want him to say in case Mustang heard it. He had his pride. Alphonse thought, though, that he would be able to withstand his wrath. Still, he didn't want to take the chance. "You can't tell him."
"The general?" she asked.
"Ed," he said. Then he shrugged. "Both?" He folded his hands in his lap and stared at his fingers. "Their bank accounts are all dried up. People can't pay for automail tune-ups or replacements, so Winry's been doing it for credit, but she needs to keep ordering parts. So they've just been…" Alphonse had seen the ledger. They had goodwill in the community, and if the grocer was letting people purchase on credit then they could eat, but they had little else. "They'll have to mortgage the house."
He looked up at Riza. Her mouth was pressed in a thin line and there was a little crease between her brows. Her disapproval had not faded.
"They can't do that," Alphonse said as his chest tightened with the need to make her see, to make her be on his side. "Winry's family has lived there forever. And it was kind of Ed's idea…" It was a partial truth. He had overheard Edward talking on the telephone after their conversation about the grants, and that had been when Alphonse had first considered the idea of becoming a State Alchemist himself. "I mean, we know how big the grants are and how much of it is just surplus—"
"They've overhauled the system, Alphonse," she said shaking her head. "You have to return the surplus, and they reduce your funding the next year to match. There's an application process for increase—"
He shrugged. "I can make my research expensive." All it would take was creative accounting of his materials. If his reports inflated the cost of his laboratory materials—
"Alphonse! That's a crime!" Riza said.
He almost laughed. "So? Mustang does it all the time!" He didn't know that for certain, but from what he knew of Mustang's research, it didn't require much in the way of resources. He had a guess that Mustang frequently fudged his receipts to put aside money to fund his various personal plots, his spy ring, and his other covert operations. And based on Riza's silence, his guess was accurate. "And the alternative is possibly losing the house," he added, "and then where would the kids go?"
Riza ducked her head, and for a moment, Alphonse felt guilty. She had a soft spot for children, as he knew from experience. His time as an ambassador had unfortunately taught him too well how to be a politician.
It was only for a moment, though. "There's still the salary," he said.
"The salary is half what it used to be."
"That's still more than enough," Alphonse said.
Riza looked up at him then, and she smiled. "You remind me of him, you know."
"Ed?" he asked.
"No." She searched his face, as if she were seeing him but looking for someone else. "The General."
Alphonse squeezed his hands closed.
"He only wanted to use alchemy for good," she continued. "He once said that even if his alchemy could only help a few people, if he only played a small part in making the country better, he'd be content."
Alphonse blinked. Even when they had first met, Mustang had been concerned with desperately clawing his way up the chain of command and becoming Führer. The methods had shifted, but the goal had not. A Roy Mustang with humble ambition was not one with which he was familiar. "What happened to him?"
Riza's smile faltered. "He became a State Alchemist."
Alphonse frowned. As far as he was aware, Riza and Mustang had met in Ishval, after Mustang had already made a name for himself. "You knew him before he was a State Alchemist?"
Riza furrowed her brow. "Edward never told you?"
The question knocked into him and sent his head spinning. "Ed never told me what?" He and his brother shared everything.
Riza blinked several times, then she smiled. "Nothing." She shook her head. "Just that I knew him before."
All the anger and annoyance that had left him came rushing back, pushing his temperature higher and making his heart hammer against his ribs. He had trusted her, but she did not trust him, at least not in the way she apparently trusted Edward. And Alphonse…When would people stop looking at him and seeing failure personified? Why was he the one people didn't trust when Roy Mustang was everyone's hero?
"I'm not like him," he said. "We're different people."
She sighed. "You remind him of himself, too—"
"Just stop!" he cried. His eyelids heated and stung. "I'm not—"
"He is worried about you," Riza insisted.
"He's worried I'll embarrass or inconvenience him," he said, and he dragged his sleeve across his eyes. "So he'll do whatever he has to do to get his way, because that's all that matters to him."
She reached forward, and he recoiled from her hand. Her breath caught and she said, "Alph—"
"He doesn't care about other people," Alphonse said, and somewhere a clock tower sounded, reminding him that his exam should have started and that he would be disqualified because she had gone along with Mustang's plan. Because neither one of them had trusted him. "He only cares about how useful they are to him! And he thinks I'm useless."
Riza shook her head and opened her mouth to refute, but Alphonse continued, "And you help him!"
Her eyes widened at that, and she froze.
"You constantly make excuses for him! You let him use you, and then you help him use others." His chest ached, and he pressed a fist there to try to rub the pain away. "I'm not going to let him use me, but I'm not going to let him think I'm worthless either. Because I'm not. And I don't care what you or he thinks."
Riza took a breath and held it, then she said, "If this is about money, he can help. You have people who—"
"I don't want his help!" Alphonse said. "I don't want either of your help! I'm not a kid, and I can make my own decisions. I just want to be a person, and not some pawn on Mustang's chessboard. I get that you don't trust me, but I don't need you to protect me either."
Riza's expression hardened, as if she had seen through his display of anger and understood the resentment and humiliation growing in him.
His stomach hardened and his throat constricted. He hadn't meant to say those things to her—or about her. Not really. He just needed to prove that he was capable of something, anything. Passing the State Alchemist exam, using the funds to help his family—he could do those things. He needed Mei to know that. He needed Edward to know that. He needed Riza, Mustang, everyone he loved to know that he could do something right and to trust him to do it.
"Riza," he said.
She turned around and pulled the gear lever. "You're right that you're not a child." The automobile lurched forward again, and she pulled them onto the street. "Stop behaving like one."
He did not know how long they drove—thirty minutes, perhaps—but it was long enough for all of his tension and aching to flow from his body and leave behind nothing but numbness and blurring vision. He was fighting so hard to not cry that at first glance he did not recognise the hotel when Riza stopped the automobile in front of it.
When he did notice, he opened the automobile door and, "Riza, I'm sorry."
"I know," she said, her voice even and quiet.
There had to be something he could do to show her that he truly was remorseful, but she had not turned off the engine. She had only parked. "Do you have to go?"
She nodded.
He stepped onto the pavement with a final "I'm sorry," and he closed the door behind him.
Through the window, he could see Riza bow her head to rest her forehead on the top of the steering wheel. She took a few breaths, her shoulders rising and falling with each, and then she sat upright and pulled away.
He stood on the pavement, wondering where to go and what to do. He could go up to the hotel room, see Mei and tell her—What? That he hadn't taken the exam because the two people who had pulled his brother into their world didn't trust him with the same responsibilities? That he had lashed out at them?
He shoved his hands into his trouser pockets and turned to walk down the pavement. He did not know Central well, but he could always ask for directions. For the moment, the pounding of hard concrete under his shoes felt good, the paper boys hawking the daily news—another thick smog had dispelled the West City riots and Richard Kaufman was leading in preliminary election polling—drowned out his thoughts, and he could feel something other than sorry for himself.
It wasn't until he almost ran into a shorter gentleman in a black jacket that he looked up. Alphonse realised two things in short succession: first, he had managed to walk himself the short distance to Central Headquarters, and second, he had almost plowed down the Führer himself.
Führer Grumman grabbed Alphonse's upper arm and held him in a firm grip. "Ah, Mr. Elric! I was wondering when you'd show."
Alphonse's stomach dropped, and he saw several men in civilian clothes a few paces away. But he had known Riza Hawkeye a long time, and he knew how to tell if a person was wearing a holster under their plainclothes. It was likely that they were standard security, but they made his heart pound. "Führer, Sir," he began, and then he stopped when he found he had nothing further to add.
"They called me when you didn't arrive," the Führer said, and, waving aside the guards and allowing his security to provide any credentials, he started down the wide avenue to the main building. "Come along."
Alphonse did, but he feared he looked rather foolish with his eyes wide and mouth agape and with his hurrying after such an unusually spry old man. He had spoken to the Chief of Staff the day before when he had called to get his application forced through, but he had never anticipated that Grumman would directly involve himself.
"Did old Mustang take you for a joyride?" the Führer asked with a look over his shoulder.
Alphonse only shrugged. His voice would not come.
"Oh, ho!" Grumman chuckled. "It's a trick he learned from me, I'm afraid." They reached the entrance, and the Führer opened the front doors and grabbed the first officer he saw—a colonel. "This boy needs to take the State Alchemist exam. Run along and let them know Alphonse Elric is here, and that I eagerly await his results."
Alphonse wanted to point out that he was too late, that the time had passed and the board would have disqualified him, but the colonel saluted and hurried down a hallway.
"One of those grumpy majors tried to tell me you were too late, but I assured him he had set his watch wrong," Grumman explained with a wink at Alphonse. "How fortunate that you've arrived right on time."
"I—" Alphonse meant to protest that he was tardy, by a full half hour at least, but he stopped when he saw the flash in Grumman's eyes. Mustang played games, but if Alphonse's memory served, Grumman played the same games, and his tactics were far more brutal.
An enlisted soldier with a badge reading "proctor" hurried up to them and bid Alphonse to follow.
Alphonse hesitated. He had trusted a Führer once, and that Führer had abused his trust to betray the nation's people. Could he trust another? What was Grumman's interest in him, and why was it at odds with Mustang's interests?
"Do you have a pen?" the proctor asked.
"Yes," Alphonse said, deciding that he could always withdraw when he understood more, just as so many had done before him. He patted down the pocket of his waistcoat, but he felt no pen. "I must have dropped it." It was likely on the floor of that automobile, having fallen out when Riza had taken a particularly sharp turn.
Führer Grumman produced a fountain pen from his own pocket. "You can borrow mine." As Alphonse took it, he added, "Best of luck, my boy."
Alphonse stumbled after the proctor and turned once to look behind him. Führer Grumman, surrounded by his plainclothes security detail, watched him go with that coy smile he so often wore. Alphonse wondered how many games he would have to play if he sat for the written exam.
The proctor led him to a small room, which was bare except for a wooden desk, a wooden chair, and a paper booklet. "You'll have two hours," the proctor said. "Time will start when the door closes."
Alphonse nodded. He couldn't decipher Grumman's strategy then, not when there was alchemy and theory to do.
The proctor closed the door. Alphonse lowered himself into the desk chair and uncapped the Führer's pen. How would he return it—it didn't matter. The exam mattered. He looked over the booklet in front of him.
The first page appeared easy enough. It was just the balancing of alchemical equations. He flipped a few pages forward and read a question about operators of particles in a single dimension. He recalled Edward once turning in some research on the same topic. His brother might have inadvertently written the question.
Alphonse wondered if the proctor knew. Of course, Alphonse did not have an advantage. He had known a vague outline of Edward's research, but never the details. Edward had always managed to protect his notes through a combination of an unbreakable code and indecipherable handwriting.
He turned back to the front page and raced through the equations, and then he turned to the next problems and began to diagram the hemiacetal intermediates of certain reactions.
Mustang checked his pocket watch under the table—Hawkeye would be returning soon with answers—while Charlie wrapped up their plans for September and charged ahead into the next month.
"As soon as we're back in the East," Charlie said, "we're going to run. Speeches and public events and—" He stopped and looked at Neumann, who towered over Mustang's left side. "How many donor meetings do we have set up?"
"Give me a minute," Neumann said, and he flipped through pages of a calendar. "I'll get you the exact figure."
Charlie nodded and tapped his finger on the dark wood table. "Our plan is tout your successes, to dominate the news cycle and stay on top when Parliament passes the new constitution, which we expect sometime in December."
Mustang nodded. Parliament had been drafting and revising the constitution for years, ever since the dissolution of the military seats had allowed them the power to do so. December seemed a political time to pass it: just after parliament elections so they would see the new party standings heading into the election for Führer, and just before any new MP's who might want to change up amendments could be sworn in.
Charlie pointed at Roth, who sat to Mustang's right. "Roth is already preparing two statements for you."
The half-Ishvalan man leaned in. "If there's a massive swing away from the current party standings, you'll be furious that this Parliament disregarded the democratic will of the people by forcing its own constitution through. If things stay more or less the same, you're giving it your wholehearted support."
"Right," Mustang said. "Politics."
"Eighty-six," Neumann said. "There are eighty-six donor events scheduled through the end of this year."
Mustang crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair. "Are there even that many days left in the year?"
"There are," Brandt assured him from his own seat across the table.
Charlie leaned forward. He had booked a conference room in the hotel, but it was cramped and the table was hardly large enough to contain all the documents they had pored over for the past hour. Mustang was seeing the benefits in Rebecca's suggestion that he find office space in the city. "We need to break things down by region," Charlie said. "Right now, people everywhere are nervous. They're unfamiliar with this new government, so…" He gestured to Mustang. "You've been criticised as representing the old government, but we can work that to our advantage. We can talk about gradual change—"
Mustang held up a hand to stop him. They had discussed it all before, but hadn't he been working for most of his life to establish a democratic government? Hadn't he plotted a coup for that very purpose? It was true that he had intentionally misled the people about the purposes of that coup and the outcomes, but to stand on a stage representing the stratocracy he had committed to dismantling seemed even more disingenuous. "I don't want to represent the old government," he said. "I've been working for years for this."
"And yet," Charlie said, "you walked in here wearing a military uniform."
Mustang thought it wasn't the most fair note. He worked for the military, and wearing the uniform was part of his job, but that didn't mean he wanted to pull the military back into the political arena only to push it out again after he won. Surely, that would look worse.
"We can balance," Charlie said. "Change and stability at the same time." He flipped open a notepad and grabbed a pen from under a stack of papers. "Right now our big word in the East is 'reconstruction.' Let's come up with more words like that. Words that mean moving onto something new but imply a return to stability. 'Re-' words. I don't want your stump speeches to get stale." He looked at Roth. "No offence."
Roth grunted.
Charlie tapped his pen on the pad. "So? 'Renew. Revitalise.'" He wrote both down.
"'Revitalise' is good for the West," Roth said.
Mustang heard Neumann next to him muttering "re, re, re" and drumming his fingers on the table.
"What else?" Charlie asked. He glared at the team as Roth folded his arms and looked up at the ceiling and Kuhn, ever silent, shrunk in his chair in the corner. "Am I the only one working on this campaign?"
"'Reconcile,'" Roth said. "We could tie it to the railroad, to the armistice in the North—"
"Armstrong will love my taking credit for that," Mustang said, because he could envision her rage, could feel her soldiers covering his body under tonnes of concrete, all while wondering aloud how General Mustang had disappeared.
"So we focus on your biggest successes," Charlie said while Roth took the pad from him and began to write. "Ishval's growth and, as Roth said, the railroad."
"Which has a blockade," Mustang said. A place of conflict could not be counted as a success. In fact, everything he had set up between Amestris and Xing had begun to fail.
"Reform," Roth muttered as he wrote. "Reclaim, rekindle, renovate…."
"The blockade went up after Parliament effectively stripped your position of any governing and international negotiating power," Charlie said, and Brandt nodded. "We can make that Kaufman's fault."
"He's still the man to beat," Brandt said.
Mustang hummed. Kaufman was a convenient scapegoat. He was a Member of Parliament, one of the people who had voted to reduce the governing powers of generals, and while Mustang did see the benefit of such a move, it was a great inconvenience to him. If there was one thing in campaigning Mustang knew well, it was spinning stories. Still, he imagined Kaufman was sitting in a room—larger than theirs, maybe—and discussing with his own team how to spin the same problems against Mustang.
"'Regenerate,'" Neumann suggested, and Roth shrugged and wrote the word down.
"We're not going to win big in the West," Charlie said. "That's Kaufman's region, and his support there is strong. We'd do better to focus our energies on other regions." He flipped through stacks of newspapers. "Every region has problems to fix, but Central…It'll be tough."
"They're stable," Mustang said. Even with General Maden's support, the West would be a hard fight. He could count on General Armstrong's support in the North, most likely, and he thought that perhaps his efforts in building relationships with Aerugo would counter any lack of support from General Fischer. Central was another matter. "They're reaping the rewards of every other region's industry and rural efforts."
Charlie drummed his fingers on the tabletop. "People here might get worried if all they hear is how you're planning to fix all other regions at the expense of their own prosperity."
"Especially now that Hauser's running," Neumann said.
Mustang agreed. "That is an unfortunate development." It was remarkable how little Neumann annoyed him when Hawkeye was out of the room—though he was still taller than any man should be, and that was irksome.
Charlie crossed his arms on the table and furrowed his brow. "What did you say?"
"It's unfortunate," Mustang repeated.
Charlie shook his head. "Hauser?"
"General Hauser," Mustang said, as if there were any other who was well-known enough to be referred to by surname alone.
Charlie looked at Brandt, who shook his head, then at Kuhn, who looked as if he wanted to disappear entirely, and then at Roth, who held up both hands in innocence. Then he looked between Mustang and Neumann. "Both of you knew this? And said nothing?"
Mustang pulled his shoulders back, because it wasn't his fault if Charlie had missed the announcement in any of the newspapers. "He was going to announce his bid before the end of the week." At the same time, Neumann pointed to Charlie and said, "Weren't you the one who told me about this?"
"Stop," Charlie said, and he ran a hand down his face. He let the silence hang until it stretched thin, like a garrotte. Finally, he said, "Hauser is nothing. His approval rating is low. He might take Central, but even here people think he's hot air." He jabbed a finger into the tabletop. "But the next time anyone knows something, even if you think I already know, tell me." He looked at each man in the room in turn, moving on only once they had each nodded in agreement.
Charlie then leaned back in his chair. "Alright. Aside from slogans and writing new stump speeches, does anyone have an idea about how to tackle Central?" He checked his wristwatch. "We have a few minutes left before management comes to kick us out."
"I'm from Central," Mustang said. "I was born and raised here. I went to the Academy here, and I was stationed here until…" He trailed off as Roth shifted beside him, and he chose his next words with care. "Until I was deployed and then assigned to East City."
"Which means," Brandt said, "that you've effectively lived half your life not in Central."
"Roots are still important," Roth said, and he wrote something else down on the pad. "I can work with that."
Mustang took a deep breath. There was always Rebecca's suggestion. "Someone mentioned setting up a campaign office here."
Charlie considered with a frown. "It would be good to have a set-up here, monitoring public opinion constantly."
"Telephone banks!" Kuhn squeaked from his corner for the first time in an hour. "Volunteer events. It'll be easy to distribute pamphlets."
Roth tapped his pen against the notepad. "It suggests a permanent commitment to the city. A return or a…" He snapped his fingers. "Reunion!"
Charlie looked at Brandt. "Can we afford it?"
Brandt grunted and scanned an accounts ledger. "It's possible."
"I'll set up more donor meetings," Neumann said, and Mustang wrinkled his nose. There were already eighty-six on the calendar, and surely there were other things he could do with his time to further the campaign. "We can fill up the treasury so we don't take as big of a financial hit on other things."
"Great," Charlie said.
"Rejuvenate?" Kuhn said as he scooted closer to the table.
Brandt shook his head. "That makes us sound like a bathhouse."
Roth shrugged. "I'm writing it down."
Kuhn beamed.
A knock sounded at the door, signalling the end of their allotted time in the rented space.
"Roth," Charlie said as everyone shuffled papers into bags and briefcases. "Start working on a new stump speech, and get me something for Central by the end of tomorrow. I want to be able to use it while we're here."
"Roots, renewal, reunion," Roth said. "I've got it." Then he left.
"Neumann," Charlie said. "Schedule as many meetings with potential donors as you can. Kuhn, go find me some office space, preferably somewhere you can scrounge up volunteers." Then, when Neumann and Kuhn had gone, he said, "Brandt, go with Kuhn. And get me the figures."
Brandt's massive form pushed the door open wide, and Mustang saw Hawkeye waiting in the hall. She nodded once at him, and he gathered his things into a black leather portfolio. He had more pressing concerns than an election that was more than a year away.
"We'll need a telephone supervisor for Central," Charlie said to himself as he stacked pages and shoved them into a brown case. "And I'll need to hire staffers…" He sighed and looked at Mustang. "That's all I have for you. Do you need anything?"
Mustang looked through the open doorway and saw Hawkeye speaking with Neumann. His temperature rose, and he said, "I trust you."
Charlie turned to see where Mustang was looking, where Hawkeye waved farewell to Neumann. She leaned against the wall and brushed her hair behind her ear. "Sure," he said with little conviction.
As Mustang left the small conference room, a lobby boy stepped past him and asked Charlie if he could help him clear away anything.
Mustang approached Hawkeye and said, "Change into civilian clothes and join me for lunch?"
She frowned and lifted an eyebrow, and he felt her disapproval.
"Oh, bring Rebecca along," he said. "If that makes you feel better about it."
It did seem to make her feel better about it, for ten minutes later he sat at a table laid for three in the café adjoining the lobby. It was a pretty place, with red back floors,glass walls and a glass roof. Potted plants sat in every space unoccupied by a table or a chair. He had changed out of his uniform and into black trousers and a matching waistcoat, and he waited for the women to arrive.
When Hawkeye and Rebecca entered, Rebecca was picking at the sleeve of Hawkeye's grey cardigan, and Hawkeye slapped her hand away, but they were both smiling at some private joke.
As they sat waiting for their food, he thought that he had by chance struck the perfect balance between his reputation and irreproachability. For there he was with a beautiful woman on either side of him, and yet both of them were entirely unavailable to him; one was his adjutant, the other married and a former colleague. It was a picture that suited his former licentious image yet held such little suspicion as to fit with the more chaste image his campaign required of him.
Rebecca excused herself when their drinks arrived, and while Hawkeye poured herself a cup of tea, he said, "Well?"
She wrapped her hands around the warming porcelain. "It's about finances. From what I understand, Edward and Winry have been providing free medical care and automail."
He swirled his gin and tonic. "That's stupid." Given the expense of automail, the young couple would soon be bankrupt, if they weren't already. Still, he had once met the Rockbell doctors before their untimely death on the battlefield, and he was not surprised to learn that their daughter would extend treatment to those who could not pay.
Then he frowned. There was something that had crossed his desk several weeks earlier, something he had signed off on without reading it too closely. Of course, if he admitted as much to Hawkeye he would never hear the end of it, but if he could just suggest what he needed to know, she would supply the rest. "There's a new program for training military doctors. The one with the annual stipend."
Hawkeye was not so easily fooled. She narrowed her eyes at him, and he looked up at the glass ceiling and sighed. Then he looked back at her, and she clicked her tongue and nodded. "I can find out more, Sir." She bent to the side and pulled a bound packet of papers from the bag at her feet. "Sir, I've been wanting to speak with you about something." She slid the packet across the table.
He read the bolded title at the top of the cover page. "Legislation Concerning the Appointment and Duties of the Minister to the Führer." He swallowed and tried to roll away the sudden tightness in his neck and shoulders.
"Vogel gave it to me," she explained.
He thumbed through the first few pages and refused to look at her. "I thought I was supposed to pick my staff." He had meant to play it off as a joke—she had picked his housekeeper and his house, after all—but it came out harsher than he had intended.
Hawkeye picked up her teacup off her saucer. "Is your list of candidates for the position very long?"
He did look at her then, at her perfect poise and grace with which she held her teacup and cast her eyes downward before replacing the cup and meeting his gaze. "No," he admitted. There was no one else he considered quite so capable or trustworthy. He had no doubt that the pages contained a lengthy description of tasks and expectations that matched her current job description, and an equally lengthy description of tasks and expectations that did not. He also had no doubt that she would rise to meet each of them. "I just thought…" He looked back down at the cover page.
"What did you think?" she whispered. "That I would stay in the military and take a command while you continued to dismantle the stratocracy and push the military further from government power?" She leaned in, and he could almost smell citrus and carnauba wax, a scent that frustrated and intoxicated and haunted him all at once. "That I'd let you push me to a place where I can't help you build up our nation's democracy and reform everything we've done?" She rested her hand on the packet, their hands so close he could flex his fingers and grab hers if he dared to do so in such a public place. "This is my goal, too."
His chest tightened. "I know."
"And I swore I'd follow you wherever you went." Hawkeye pulled her hand back. "And I know the Führer's residence is a long way from hell, but…"
She was still coming. "Are you officially turning down the promotion, then?" he asked.
She nodded, "Yes, Sir."
He folded his arms across his chest and looked across the room at several other couples who sat for lunch. He knew that he would have to run for Führer while a bachelor. He had always supposed that marriage would come later, when the fraternisation legislation or the appearance of cronyism no longer mattered. But she had reintroduced those boundaries. She had reintroduced the idea that he could be the Führer or he could have her, not both. Never both. Those damn rules would govern him for the rest of his life.
He looked back at her as she watched him, waiting for a response. "You know what I thought," he said.
She nodded. "Yes, Sir." Then, instead of appearing to bear the same conflicting emotions he did, she smiled and picked up her cup again. "Read the legislation, Sir."
Rebecca chose that moment to reinsert herself at their table, and though he knew she spied the packet as he tucked it away, she instead launched into a speech about some heiress whom he should know and whom she had just seen checking into the lobby.
The name did not matter. Nothing mattered to him then except for that horrid packet of rules burning through his waistcoat pocket.