Mustang flexed and curled his fingers. He had done radio spots before, but this would be his first since the announcement of his campaign. He knew from experience that radio was less forgiving than print: print could be edited, cut, moved around, and delayed, as his week-old newspaper interview with The Central Times had been. The radio was instantaneous and immutable.
Roth stood in one corner of the waiting room and gesticulated while speaking with a harried station worker. As Press Secretary, it was Roth's job to prepare Mustang's remarks, to prepare him for interviews, and then appear on the same radio channel after Mustang had finished his interview and tell the remaining listeners just how supremely well Mustang had done. Every few moments he turned and gestured to Mustang before resuming his conversation.
Hawkeye wasn't with him. She was at Central Headquarters, having agreed to help Lieutenant Denny Brosh with training a new group of graduates in sniping. He would feel better if she were standing outside the door. She was calming.
Not that he was nervous. He didn't get nervous.
Charlie dropped into one of the cheap, velveteen-covered chairs next to him and handed him a newspaper. "Have you read it yet?"
Mustang held up the paper with and scanned the front page. The article began above the fold and continued below it: an exposé on General Roy Mustang. It was his interview.
Mustang hadn't heard anything about that newspaper interview since he had given it a week ago. Mustang had anticipated Charlie would speak to him about any earned press the same day, even if he were displeased with the outcome. Even Hawkeye hadn't mentioned it, and she would have if she had read it. He noted the date at the top of the page: Charlie had handed him the current day's paper.
"It's good," Charlie said as if nothing were amiss and he had fully anticipated a later printing. "Roth agrees that the part about dating is a little transparent."
Mustang looked down at that bit, at the interviewer's question in bold and his own response below. "Well, the alternative was unthinkable to the rest of the team." He had admitted there was a woman, but to preserve her privacy, he would not say more. She knew who she was, and that was all that mattered. He and Charlie and Roth had deliberated on and scripted the response before the interview. It was an answer that was meant to have reporters and the public asking questions for days. Judging by the date above the newspaper title, however, the public could have only been theorising for a few hours.
"Miss Hall is going to come back to it today," Charlie said.
"I'm sure," Mustang said. Somehow the topic of his personal life had eclipsed his policies, and he would have to bring the conversation back to his platform. He looked back at the article. His team had made it clear that he needed to do the interview early, to match and then surpass Kaufman's print mentions by maintaining a media presence. He should have heard if the printing had been delayed. "We did this interview over a week ago," he said.
Charlie shrugged. "Roth's idea."
Mustang frowned and furrowed his brow.
Charlie sighed and leaned back in the chair. "They were going to push you below the fold. Or worse: to page two." He looked up at the ceiling and sighed. "They got some psychologist to comment on the whole radio debacle, and that was apparently more newsworthy."
Mustang stared at the wall. How odd it was that Hawkeye had been investigating a psychologist—his housekeeper's son, no less—for much the same reason. He didn't believe in coincidence.
"So Roth negotiated with them to delay until today. People read it this morning over breakfast, tune into the radio at midday, and suddenly you're all anyone talks about for the rest of the week."
Roth pulled away from the station worker and crossed the room. "Bad news," he said. "Eileen Bridges is back."
"No," Charlie said, and Roth nodded. Charlie ran a hand down his face. "No, no, no. She's supposed to be on her honeymoon."
"I know!" Roth said. "Why do you think Neumann and I booked this for today? She came back early."
Mustang folded his arms while Charlie swore under his breath. Eileen Bridges—at least, that was her maiden name—was the station's usual primetime host, but Mustang had been told a Miss Hall would be covering for her during his interview, which Charlie had told him was good for a reason he couldn't quite recall. "How much worse can this possibly be?"
Charlie scoffed. "She has managed to sink five Parliamentary careers in the past three years. She is unmatched in sniffing out scandals."
Roth held up his hands. "It could be fine. We're not hiding any scandals."
Charlie sighed and squeezed his eyes closed while Mustang rolled his head from side to side. There was the coup he had plotted to overthrow the government eight years earlier. He had been an active participant in the plot to kill the last Führer. Roth knew about those things, of course, but those stories had been told, and any versions that leaned closer to the truth would be written off as conspiracy theories. There were still many things Mustang had never told him. Mustang knew the current Führer was ill enough to be declared unfit for office. That same Führer was acquainted with Mustang's aunt and foster mother, who ran a spy ring of prostitutes that kept him informed of military and government plans he had no legal business knowing. He had a less-than-appropriate relationship with his adjutant, who happened to be the Führer's long-lost grandchild, which made Mustang's appointments and career ascension smack more than slightly of cronyism from an outside perspective.
"Right?" Roth asked.
Other than those things, he wasn't hiding any scandals.
Roth took a deep breath. "Please tell me I won't have to rewrite my spin remarks for the second hour."
Charlie grabbed the newspaper and scanned the front page. "Listen to me," he said, and then he jabbed his finger next to the question about Mustang's romantic life. "If she mentions anything about this, get off of it. Immediately."
Roth rubbed at his mouth. "Do I need to know about any affairs?"
"There's no affair," Mustang said because there wasn't. He stood and crossed to the other side of the room where a low table held several back issues of the Central Times.
"Stick to the platform," Charlie continued. "The talking points, the—"
"I understand," Mustang said. They had gone over the same strategy to the point of annoyance. He would rather flip through old issues of the newspaper and discover which psychologist had weighed in on the radio hijacking.
"General!" a voice boomed from the waiting room door, and Mustang turned to see Lieutenant Colonel Armstrong striding toward him with a deep frown etched across his face.
Mustang sighed. "What now?" It was one thing after another in recent days, and he was ready for someone to approach him with good news.
To his dismay, Armstrong reached him, leaned in, and whispered, "Alphonse Elric passed his written exam."
Mustang jerked away. "That's not possible." He had given Hawkeye direct orders, and he couldn't imagine her defying them.
"I've been informed," Armstrong said, his voice still low enough that Roth and Charlie, quietly bickering to their side, could not hear, "that the Führer himself escorted the boy and ensured he took it, even though he was almost an hour late."
The news knocked into Mustang's chest and stole his breath. "The Führer…" So Grumman had been well enough to leave the residence, not that Armstrong would know the difference between a well and unwell Grumman's habits. Not only had Grumman been well enough to leave, but his first move had been to push Alphonse toward becoming a State Alchemist. And Grumman had his own eyes everywhere—he was the one who had taught Mustang everything about managing a spy network, and their networks often overlapped—and he would have known that Mustang tried to block Alphonse from taking the exam.
So, instead of contacting Mustang after his countless telephone calls and his attempt to visit, he had chosen to work in direct opposition to him.
His fingers stiffened, and he held his arms behind his back to hide his hands while he worked the muscles.
It wasn't the first time their interests had collided. Grumman had been too eager to let suspicion and blame fall on Mustang in those early days of confusion following the Promised Day, before the careful lies had been printed and the story solidified in the minds of the people, and he had been happy to let such suspicion and blame and confusion launch him into the Führer's seat while Mustang dealt with the aftermath and resigned himself to waiting. There was an art to scheming, and Grumman had been a masterful teacher.
Mustang swallowed and continued to work at his locked joints. Before he could think of a response, the studio door flew open and a woman with blonde, wavy hair and a wide, bright smile that cut into her cheeks said, "Hello!"
She marched into the room, her heels thudding against the linoleum, and she reached for Charlie's hand first. "Eileen Bridges," she said as she switched to Roth. "How do you do?"
Roth smiled back at her. "Isaac Roth. We heard you were on your honeymoon."
Eileen tossed her hair and laughed, a high, merry sound that scraped along the top of Mustang's scalp. "Oh, yes. But the world knows me by 'Bridges,' so we're sticking with that." She turned her attention to Mustang.
"I meant that you shouldn't have had to cut it short," Roth said. "Such a shame."
She wedged herself between Armstrong and Mustang with an impressive measure of force and confidence. "Oh, please. I heard Maureen was getting General Mustang here," she said, and she grabbed Mustang's elbow. "And I wouldn't have it, I tell you." Her grip tightened as she looked over her shoulder at Roth. "I told my husband I wasn't letting this one go by." She looked back at Mustang with that sharp smile. "Well," she said, and she looked him up and down.
"Your picture in the paper certainly doesn't do you justice," she said.
Under any other circumstance, he would be flattered and prepared to flirt, but the gaze was scrutinising, as if she weren't appraising what she liked but rather hunting for loose threads in his coat.
He gave her his best Roy Mustang smile.
She released his elbow and said, "Have you read it yet? Not that you need to. You're the one who gave the interview!" Then she laughed again and turned toward the studio door. "Come on," she said. "We're starting in a few minutes, so let's get situated." She left through the doorway without looking back.
Charlie shrugged, and Mustang nodded to Armstrong before he and his campaign team members moved to follow.
A station worker held up a hand after Mustang passed by. "Only staff and guests past here, Sirs."
Mustang looked back at Charlie and at Roth, who said, "But I am a guest. I'm going to be—" The door closed.
He looked down the dark hall where Eileen stood, one hand on her hip and that smile still plastered to her face. His hands still ached, his fingers were still locked and curled. His shoulders were tight, and the hair on the back of his neck rose. He hadn't felt such a desire to run in years, not since he had mistakenly trusted General Raven, who had led him into a room full of the government's leaders plotting their nation's destruction.
That threat was long gone, though, so he took a step forward and said, "You know, I've always believed that love and happiness make a woman lovelier."
Eileen tossed her head back and laughed. "Oh!" She wagged a finger at him. "I prepared for this, you know. Your reputation precedes you." When he reached her, she turned and led him down a hallway, past glass windows revealing marketing teams and actors and singers rehearsing their advertisement spots. "Clever little stunt in the paper, there," she said. "Was it your aim to make it sound like it could be any woman in the East?"
It had been his aim, but he said, "Reputations are only half-truths."
She hummed. "Well, my skill set is getting whole truths." She pushed through a door labelled "green room" and opened a cupboard filled with glasses. "I wrote my first article on you, you know. Back when I was a university student." She looked over her shoulder at him. "It was just in the university paper, so I doubt you would have read it."
His thumb jumped, and he worked at his hand behind his back, from the palm to the tips of his fingers and back, just as Hawkeye would have done. "Is that right?" It was likely he had missed it. He doubted anyone in Eastern Headquarters had ever brought him a university paper, and if they had, he certainly would not have read it. "What was it on?"
Eileen leaned against the lower cupboard and shrugged. "It was back when you had just recommended Edward Elric to be a State Alchemist. Everyone was calling you crazy, reckless, even delusional, for recruiting a child."
He remembered. While in hindsight, it was one of his best decisions, the recommendation had been controversial at the time, especially with a public that was growing more anti-military by the day. "What did you call me?"
Her smile seemed to grow and darken, the grin of a wolf about to bite. "Morally reprehensible." Before he could respond, she turned away again and grabbed two glass tumblers. "They explained to you how this will work, right? Tiny room, two chairs." She filled each glass from a pitcher of water on the countertop and set them on a tray. Then she looked back at Mustang. "Oh, you've had radio spots before." She used her toe to slide open a lower cupboard and reveal shelves stocked with bottles of gin, clear Drachman vodka, and dark Cretan whisky. "Drink?"
The door behind them opened, and a lean intern told them they would be live in five minutes. Eileen waved the boy into the room.
"I've never done a spot with a bar," Mustang said. A drink would be nice; it would calm the muscles in his hands; it would mute his thoughts about Grumman and Alphonse. It would alleviate the feeling that he was about to be devoured.
"Jimmy," Eileen said as she walked to Mustang and handed him a glass of water. "Would you be a dear and get me a gin and tonic, and…" She looked at Mustang.
One drink. He could handle one drink. "Same," he said, "but make it a double and hold the tonic."
Eileen laughed again and led him from the room and into the neighbouring recording room. "You're funny," she said. "That's good. Funny sells." She sat in one of the chairs at a table covered in a black tablecloth and gestured to the chair opposite her. There was a silver microphone in front of each chair, and the microphones connected to a wooden box with a red light bulb in the centre of the table. From that ran dozens of wires.
Mustang sat in his chair and smiled as he set his glass on the table. Hawkeye wouldn't have thought his comment funny. She would have rolled her eyes and shook her head and quietly told him he didn't need a drink before noon, Sir.
"I heard you're doing some film promotions with Marcus Braugher next week," Eileen said before she took a sip and set her own water down.
He took a deep breath. "Yes, I—"
"Good luck with that," she said. She waved a hand before he could speak. "Braugher is infamous in the West, you know. He once called Emmie Goldstein 'the short one with blonde curls.'" She leaned forward and repeated, "Emmie Goldstein! Can you believe it?" Then she sat back in her chair and, with that wolfish smile, said, "Of course, you know Emmie."
He did know Emmie Goldstein. He had enjoyed the pleasure of the actress's company on several occasions, and rumours had flown about the nature of their relationship for a brief time. He had given the press the same answer he always gave about such rumours, regardless of their veracity: She was a lovely woman, and nothing indecorous had happened. "We've met."
"Oh, there's no need to be coy," Eileen said as the studio door opened and the intern appeared with two glasses. "Thank you, Jimmy."
Mustang took his drink and knocked back half of it. The alcohol burned in his throat, and warmth bloomed in his chest.
Eileen watched him from over the top of her drink. "Are you alright?"
He smiled back at her. "Fine."
There was a window just above the table, and through it, one of the studio technicians waved at Eileen.
She pointed to the little, red light bulb. "It'll flash red twice and then stay lit, and we'll be live."
He nodded. He was not new to the process.
Eileen smiled. "Ready?"
Mustang smiled back. Calm hummed through his veins, releasing his fingers and washing over his mind. She had him in her territory, and, if she and his campaign team were to be believed, she excelled at asking the right questions. Unfortunately for her, he excelled at giving the right answers. He wouldn't have become the man in that room if he hadn't possessed that skill. "Ready."
The light blinked once.
Eileen shifted under his gaze, and her smile faltered, but only for a moment.
The light blinked twice.
She moved her face close to the silver microphone, and he followed.
The light stayed bright red.
"Good afternoon, Central," she said without breaking eye contact. "I'm Eileen Bridges, and it is so good to be back! I'm joined today by a very special guest, General Roy Mustang, who just kicked off his bid for Führer last month." Her radio voice was low and breathy, a complete contrast to her normal speaking voice. "General, we're delighted to have you on the show."
He had no radio voice, and Charlie had assured him it was a good thing. Authenticity was what people wanted. "Eileen, I'm delighted to be here. I was born and raised in this city, so I'm glad to be back. It feels like coming home."
Eileen leaned her elbows on the table and said, "Now our regular listeners know I despise opening pleasantries, and with the newspaper article this morning, there's no need for introductions. Listeners, if you haven't read the interview with General Mustang, I encourage you to do it after this. And believe me, you'll want to."
He narrowed his eyes and pondered whether or not there was a threat in those words. Charlie had told him to be agreeable, which was an unnecessary reminder, and to stick to policy. "I'd rather skip the small talk, as well."
Eileen produced a pad of paper from under the tablecloth. "Then let's talk about the election. A far more interesting topic for both of us, I'm sure."
"Certainly," he agreed.
"Now," Eileen said as she looked down at her first page, "I'm sure you're aware, but some of our listeners at home might not be. If this popular election sees a voter turnout of less than fifty percent of the national population, the vote goes to Parliament."
Mustang nodded. "That's correct." It was one of the many concessions Grumman had made in securing a popular election when Parliament had wanted to keep the electoral process to themselves.
Eileen smiled. "Are you concerned about that?"
"No, absolutely not." Charlie was confident that the right numbers would show, and he was confident they would show for Mustang.
She looked back at her paper. "I only ask because, in a recent poll, thirty-four percent of participants said they were not planning to vote, twenty-one percent said they were planning to vote, and the other forty-five were undecided." She looked back up at him. "Those are not exciting numbers."
Mustang chuckled. "No," he said. "They definitely aren't." He leaned forward to mimic her posture. "I think it's important to remember that it's still early, and we're at a point in our nation's history when everything is changing. At points of great change, there's always a desire for stability. People will want a leader who has always been leading and can bring the nation forward without sacrificing feelings of safety." He looked down at the microphone and thought of Hawkeye, who would be brimming with excitement over the emergence of democracy. "This has never been attempted before in our nation's history. People are used to being told who their Führer will be, that their Parliament is powerless, that their voices don't matter. But they do."
Eileen lifted her chin.
"Part of our goal," he said, "is encouraging that forty-five percent to go and vote, no matter whom they vote for. Because democracy can and will work, but it works best when everyone is involved." He flexed his fingers. "We still have a year to go, and I think in time we'll see that gap close in favour of democracy." He shrugged and grinned at Eileen. There was a third point Charlie and Roth had drilled into him in private: use every opportunity to present himself as the democratic option, as the only democratic option, and Kaufman as the opposite. "But at the end of the day, I think people, in general, would rather choose for themselves than have another group make a choice they don't want on their behalf."
Eileen pursed her lips and nodded. "And let's say we get there. Fifty percent show up. What are you going to do to grow that lack of faith in a democratic system?"
"I'm committed to working with our Parliament and regional governments to ensure that this new world we're entering adapts to the needs of the people." He straightened, the alcohol and his familiarity with his points filling him with a renewed vigour. "What people will see in my first year is a government that responds to the will of the people, not to its own will. And that—proving that a completely democratically elected government can be effective—is what will increase trust in the democratic system." He smiled and rattled off the stump speech tag Roth had come up with that morning. "A restructuring of the Amestrian government will result in a revitalisation of the Amestrian spirit."
Eileen blinked several times, and her smile softened. "You obviously have a vision for Amestris's future. Can you briefly explain that future and the key things you will do to bring it about?"
He did have a vision. He always had. "Right now we're still in recovery from decades of violence, both at and within our borders. A state at constant war cannot thrive, and neither can the people." He swallowed as he remembered, for the first time in a long time, that naïve dream he had confessed to Hawkeye at her father's graveside. "I have always envisioned a future where every citizen is safe. Safe to dream, safe to succeed. And one of the most important things I can do to make that happen is appoint advisors and Ministers with similar visions." Like Hawkeye, who, to his chagrin, seemed more and more suited to be Minister to the Führer the longer he considered it. "I would listen to the people's concerns and put efforts into growing their prosperity and security, as I have done in the East for fifteen years."
Eileen hummed and dropped her eyes, and then she leaned into her microphone and said, "Central, we're only a few questions in, and there are more to come, but for now we're going to go to a message from our sponsors." She looked at the lightbulb until it went dark, and then she pointed at someone through the window.
Mustang knocked back the remainder of his drink. It was unfortunate that the person best suited to advise him was someone he would rather have in an entirely different position—several different positions, the gin-loosened voice in his mind whispered, and he shook his head to banish the thought.
The door opened, and Eileen gestured to their glasses as she picked up her drink. "Another round," she said. She sipped for a moment while the door shut again, and then she put her drink next to her water and said, "Either you mean all of that, or you could star in pictures."
Mustang chuckled. "There's only one way to find out if I mean it."
For the first time in their acquaintance, Eileen did not smile. Instead, she watched him with a pensiveness he had not anticipated. "Yes," she finally said. "I suppose that's true."
Havoc twirled a pen around his thumb as he listened to the interview. Feury crouched over the radio as if he could fix anything wrong General Mustang said by adjusting a few wires. There wasn't a cause for concern.
"He's doing well," Breda said from his desk. He had spent the majority of the morning cleaning his desk drawers and refiling folders he had long ago "borrowed" from the archives.
"No kidding," Havoc said. Mustang had always had a knack for wooing women and the public. In the end, though, it hadn't done him much good. The general was single, and Havoc was the one who married the cute, red-haired nurse. Havoc was the one with a baby on the way.
"They say it's lonely at the top," the radio lady said after the last advertisement ended. "That even if you're surrounded by friends and family, none of them can really understand what it means to run a country."
It was a station that reached all regions, but Havoc had never bothered with it much. Most of the news had focused on Central, and his entire life was in the East.
"Does this isolation scare you?" the lady asked. "Do you have the courage to be lonely?"
"That's an interesting question," Breda said.
"You've said that about every question," Havoc snorted.
Feury shushed them as the general's voice came through the radio again, "I'm a man at the top of my military career. There are five four-star generals allowed by the current constitution and five alone who understand what it means to make military decisions that affect our national security. When Parliament allows us to, of course."
The lady laughed. "Of course."
Breda puffed his cheeks and blew. "And that's how you criticise an opponent."
"But are we really surprised?" Havoc said. The general had traded in secrets and insults for so long.
"—Laws preventing me from confiding in—even having friendships with the people under my command," Mustang continued. "All that to say, I've been in a similarly isolated position for years. It doesn't scare me at all."
Breda walked across the room and dropped into Hawkeye's seat across from Havoc. "How's Mellie?"
"Good," Havoc said, his shoulders stiffening and his legs aching. He hadn't told the office, not even Breda, about the baby, even though Mellie was starting to show. "She's good." The first few months had been so difficult, and they had been so sure they would lose the child on multiple occasions, so he had been quiet. Poor, poor Jean Havoc, they would say. He can't walk correctly, and he can't be a father.
And even though the doctor said they were out of danger and that the baby would likely survive to term, it seemed almost too late. As if he had kept a secret for so long that his reluctance was humiliating.
"But we've all read the interview by now," the interviewer continued. "And according to that, you may not have to be isolated forever.."
Breda rolled his eyes. "Here it comes."
Feury leaned back in his chair. "Why is the whole election hinging on this?" he asked while the general chuckled and said, "Ah. That."
"We all know there is a special woman in your life," the lady said.
Havoc could imagine Mustang shifting in his seat, moving from a relaxed posture to plant his feet on the floor. "Be that as it may, I'm not thinking about matrimony at the moment. I'm more—"
"Why not?"
Havoc looked at Breda, who was already exhausted by the question and leaned back in Hawkeye's seat with his eyes closed.
"It's just not possible," Mustang said. "I'm focusing on the future of the country first."
Havoc thought it a satisfactory answer. Perhaps it was because he had been sitting across from the answer to the interviewer's question for years, but he preferred the conversation about policies. It was idealism that had first pulled him into Mustang's orbit, not the constant media attention around Mustang's relationships.
The radio lady would not be deterred. "Plenty of people can balance government work and married life. Richard Kaufman, for example."
Breda opened his eyes and rubbed his chin. "She's baiting him."
"And you," she continued. "You're single, attractive, well-off, intelligent—"
Havoc snorted. "Oh, he'll be loving that."
"What could possibly be in the way?" she asked.
"It can't—" Mustang began. "We chose the wrong lives."
Havoc frowned. He thought, just for a moment, that he had heard a slight lisp in the general's voice, like the one he sometimes had after a few—That was impossible, though. Hawkeye wouldn't allow it.
Feury looked across the room at Havoc and Breda. "You heard it, right?"
Breda stared at the top of Hawkeye's desk. "'Chose the wrong lives.'" He looked at Havoc. "That's already too much information."
"He's slurring," Feury said.
"He's lost the thread," Breda agreed quietly while Havoc's stomach sank. "Depending on how the next few minutes go, the next time we're all in the same room might be before the Judiciary Corps."
"Can you tell us more about that?" the lady asked.
"Everyone who knows anything would lie," Havoc said.
Feury nodded. "And it wouldn't technically be a lie, anyway."
Breda grunted. "It doesn't matter."
"At least tell us how you met," the lady said while Havoc asked, "What do you mean?" Even if Mustang said too much, and even if the Judiciary Corps launched an investigation into their unit, they would have difficulty finding hard evidence that Mustang and Hawkeye had violated the fraternisation codes. Havoc had never prided himself on being the clever one, but even he knew that some lines remained uncrossed.
"You're very well-connected in society," the lady continued, "in the government…"
Breda shrugged. "I'm just saying, even if we all go in and lie our asses off, getting investigated for compromising the chain of command while running for a government position isn't a great look."
"Did this star-crossed love begin at a function—"
"No," Mustang said. Then, "No, we were children."
Breda sat up straight, and Feury said, "I didn't know Hawkeye was from Central."
"She's not," Havoc said. It was something they had bonded over during one of their first shifts together. They were both from tiny, Eastern towns, too insignificant to be included on most maps.
Breda shushed him and went to the radio as if by standing closer to the receiver he could see all the way to Central.
"Well," the general continued, "I didn't think I was, but you remember how you were at fifteen."
Havoc grabbed his crutch and joined Breda and Feury. The general was running his words together, but those subtle signs of inebriation didn't make Havoc's head spin. No, what played round and round in his mind were the things he knew. Mustang must have been talking about a fake person, and thousands of gossip columnists would be waiting to descend upon Central and ask every woman who walked the streets if she had ever known or spoken with Roy Mustang in his childhood. There would probably be ten women by the end of the day claiming to be the one Mustang had meant.
He couldn't have been talking about a real person, because Mustang and Hawkeye had met in Ishval. They had met in Ishval because Mustang had grown up in Central and Hawkeye in the East. So they couldn't have met as children. Because Mustang and Hawkeye had met in Ishval. They had met in Ishval because Mustang had grown up in Central—
"He can't be talking about—" Feury managed before Breda shushed him again.
"So this is a childhood romance that broke apart too early," the woman said, and Havoc felt a surge of dislike, both for her pushing too hard on things she had no business knowing and for her making him question a relationship he had taken for granted for fifteen years.
"No," Mustang said again, and this time, he had the audacity to laugh, as if it were all some clever joke or radio drama. "What fifteen-year-old boy who believes he's an adult spends his time chasing an eleven-year-old girl? Who does that?"
"In my experience," said the lady, "fifteen-year-old boys are more interested in girls four years their senior, not the other way around."
"Exactly," Mustang said, and he sounded almost relieved.
"And as you grew older, things fell into place?"
"We actually went our separate ways for a long time," he said.
At least, Havoc decided, the Judiciary Corps would have no reason to investigate their office. Primarily because Mustang had grown up in Central and Hawkeye in the East, and they couldn't have met as children.
"I can't decide if this is genius or idiotic," Breda murmured.
The general continued, "We met again as adults. I had been stationed in the East for a year by the time I realised…" He stopped and cleared his throat.
In the silence, Feury whispered, "Do you think he could be lying?"
"He could be," Breda said. "But that means that if someone comes forward claiming to be this mystery woman, he has to either ignore it or run with it. Both could turn out badly."
"By the time it happened for me," Mustang finally said, his voice tight, as if he had just realised how much he had disclosed. "And by then, I was already too late."
Feury looked between Breda and Havoc. "And we're sure she's from the East? She doesn't sound Eastern."
"But that just means," said Mustang, "that I have more time and energy to devote to this country and her people. I can devote my entire life, everything I have, to the future of this nation."
"She's from Amlingstadt in Burne," Breda said, his frown deepening like it did when he was putting together an elaborate puzzle for which he had to deduce the missing pieces. "It's all public record."
The interviewer moved on, thanking the listeners and expressing sadness at having to end the "wonderful, intimate look at the man in the general's uniform." Next, she would be speaking with the campaign's Press Secretary, Mr Roth.
Feury laid one hand on the receiver. "Poor Hawkeye," he said.
Havoc's gut twisted. Even if Mustang were honest—and Havoc was not convinced either way—that didn't mean that their team had imagined feelings for years. It didn't mean that every fleeting relationship wasn't a cover or consolation for an unconsummated tryst between the general and his adjutant. Even if Mustang professed love for someone else, it didn't mean Hawkeye wasn't in love with him. "Poor Hawkeye," he said.
Breda cracked his neck. "She's a big girl." When Havoc and Feury turned to him, he held up his hands. "I'm just saying she'll be fine."
"Based on what?" Havoc asked. He could only imagine how he would feel if he discovered that Mellie had long carried a torch for another man. He wouldn't feel fine.
Breda shrugged and walked back to his desk. "I just think there are things we don't know about them. Their personal lives." He grabbed a box of files and went to the office door. "I think things aren't as simple as we want them to be."
Then, before Havoc could ask him what he meant by that, Breda left.
"Do you think he knows something we don't?" Feury asked. "Or do you think he's full of it?"
Havoc heaved a sigh and adjusted his grip on his crutch. Breda usually knew more about things than he appeared to. He found tiny pieces of information and pulled them together to form a full investigation. It was his speciality. It was why he was leaving.
Havoc went back to his desk and lowered himself into his chair. For the first time in weeks, he wanted a cigarette, but instead, he pulled a toothpick from a drawer in his desk and started to chew it. "I think Hawkeye is having the worst year of her life."
Mustang leaned against the door frame and he fumbled with the key. He had, perhaps, had two celebratory drinks too many, but Charlie had been pleased.
"She was not letting you get away," he had said, "but you handled it well, and you brought it back to policy. That's the best you could have done with her. Adding that specificity was a stroke of genius."
Roth had been in similar spirits. "Those were tough questions, and your answers were great. Relatable and real and beautiful," he had said before joking, "Maybe we should switch jobs."
So drinks had followed, and after that, the unsteady trek back to his hotel room.
He managed to fit the key into the lock and turn in, and then he pushed forward and stumbled into the dark room.
His head already pounded as the liquor wore off, and he thought he should order something to the room. Perhaps some of those little sandwiches, or, if the kitchen served such base things, small potato pancakes and some sort of sausage and pickled cabbage. His aunt had her cures for daytime hangovers besides greasy foods, but he would not drink a glass of pickle juice and raw egg yolks if he could help it.
As he steadied himself and closed the door, the lamp in the far corner switched on, and a low, quiet voice asked, "Satisfied?"
He jumped and fell hard against the side of the wardrobe. He sucked in through gritted teeth and pushed himself upright again and rubbed his shoulder. "Fuck." Then he looked at the person by the lamp, at her crossed arms and unimpressed frown, at her blonde fringe that partially covered one brown eye.
He looked at the bed and the pristine, white quilt. He looked at the wardrobe and the small, empty vanity. He looked back at her. "Is this the wrong room?"
Hawkeye lifted her chin. "No."
He lifted a heavy finger and shook it at her. "You…" He was a fan of ambush, though he was less inclined to enjoy it when he was on the receiving end. Still, he could not accuse her of stealing his tactics. He preferred to trap his prey and move it to a secondary location, to disorient his target until he could force them to see his side. This, however…This waiting in the shadows, still and silent, for the prey to be in the line of sight…That was Hawkeye's speciality. "Sniper," he finished.
She rose from where she had been perched on a bedside table. "You're drunk. Still."
He looked at his door and back at her. "How did you get in here?"
She walked closer to him and looked up into his eyes. "You were drunk on the air."
He held up a finger. "I wasn't drunk."
She threw her hands out. "I heard you! Do you really think—"
He stepped back. He wanted to lie down, drink water, nap. He wanted to do anything other than sit through the lecture she had prepared. "I had one drink before—"
"Oh," she said, and she put her hands on her hips and nodded. "Are you sure it was just the one?" She took a deep breath. "Does Charlie know?"
Mustang hummed and walked around her to shed his jacket and toss it on a chair. Charlie knew about the post-interview drinks but not the one—no, it had been two—before and during the interview. "No," he said. "And you're not going to tell him."
She whipped around.
"That's an order," he said before she could speak.
She pressed her lips together and furrowed her brow.
Mustang tugged at his collar. He was too warm, his clothes too stuffy. He undid his top two buttons and pushed his sleeves up his forearms. Then he dropped into the chair and on top of his jacket. He looked back up at his adjutant. "What?"
"I'm trying," she said, her voice low and tight, "to decide if I protect you by obeying."
"Even if—" he raked his hands through his hair. She could be so damn stubborn. He hadn't embarrassed himself, and he hadn't released sensitive military information. He had done nothing, as far as he was aware, to warrant such a haranguing. "Charlie and Roth were quite pleased. Why are you upset?" He ticked off his points on his fingers. "I brought things back to policy, I was strong, well-spoken, personable—"
"What about the last question?" she asked.
He let his head drop and sighed. That was the least concerning part, in his opinion. "The best lies are closest to the truth." And what a lie it was: he had grown up in Central, and they had met as children. All true, all false.
Hawkeye moved forward and leaned over him. "That doesn't mean you tell the actual truth!"
Mustang looked up at her. "Charlie says that specificity adds validity."
She leaned back and whispered, "Validity?" She pressed her hand to her mouth and looked out the window, to where the late afternoon sun cast a deep orange glow on everything. She looked back at him and said, "Do you not realise what you've done?"
He sighed because he knew. He had taken care of that little "marriage problem" his team had given him weeks before. He had presented humanity in a different way. "I've boosted my poll numbers and pushed my campaign team off my back all at once."
"You've made me a liability," she said. "How am I supposed to watch your back if I'm the very thing putting you in danger?"
He grunted, stood, and pushed past her to the wardrobe. He yanked open the doors and decided he would change into something less formal and constraining for dinner. And, since Hawkeye followed him with that same glare, he had a feeling she would decline to join him.
"If people ask the right questions," she continued. "They'll find everything. My father's research, the years we've spent…"
He yanked off his dress shirt and hung it on the rod, and she averted her gaze and licked her lips. His chest flushed with warmth, and he wanted to ask if she liked what she saw, him standing there in his vest and trousers and years of military physical demands showing in his musculature.
"Everything we've built falls apart," she said before he could speak. She looked back at him then, her eyes hard. "And it won't matter what the truth is, then. Just what people believe."
He grabbed another shirt and a pair of dark trousers, and then he sat on the bed so he had more stability while he shucked the rest of his uniform, one leg at a time. Even when he had stripped down to his pants and socks, she made no attempt to leave.
Instead, she watched him with little obvious embarrassment and said, "You've made me the thing that could destroy you."
He snorted as he pulled on a shirt and began doing up the buttons. "That won't happen."
"Oh," she said, and she cupped her elbows and leaned one hip against an iron bedpost. "Because no one's ever held me over your head before?"
He paused on the last button. There had been that time, eight years earlier, when Führer Bradley had taken Hawkeye, had dangled her in front of Mustang's eyes while she worked under Bradley as a hostage. Of course, he reasoned as he pulled on his trousers, that particular move had been a bit of a gamble on Bradley's part, and it hadn't worked anyway.
People might make wild accusations. They might suspect anyone in Central if they took all of his words at face value. Even if someone were to learn that he had spent time in the East as a youth, there were too many towns and too many people to sort through before they would find her. He pulled his braces over his shoulders and buttoned them to his trousers. "You were hardly the only girl in Amlingstadt." There had been many, and all of them had been ready to fall for the newly arrived city boy, and that had suited him just fine.
"No," she agreed, "but how many of the other girls have you spoken with in the past twenty years?" Then she let out a sound that was not quite a laugh. "Did you give Caroline a call while I wasn't looking?"
He scrunched his nose and narrowed his eyes. The name sounded familiar, and there may have been a girl named Caroline, but he couldn't recall what she looked like.
"Or Rachel," Hawkeye continued, and his temperature rose. "Or Ana. Or—"
"I don't know who they are!" he said as he pushed himself upright and stood over her.
Hawkeye would not be cowed by his anger. "That's my point!"
He scrubbed at his face with both hands. She was so much better at arguing sober than he was at arguing drunk. Still, he couldn't imagine anyone would know to look for him in a town that didn't even show up on a map. None of that mattered anyway. "How could someone trace it?" he said, and he threw his arms out and leaned in closer. "There are no documents linking me to that goddamn town. Your father and I never even signed a fucking contract because he didn't trust paper, which you should know better than anyone—"
His head snapped to the side, and his cheek smarted before he knew what had happened.
When he did, he felt as if he had been tossed into a frozen lake, and he could feel nothing, not his anger and not the sting of her hand, over the unfathomable cold, cold, cold. He couldn't look at her, not while he was catching his breath and repeating what he had just said in his mind; and, oh, what a horrible thing it had been.
When he did look at her, her eyes were wide, and she cradled her hand against her chest, as if she were afraid of what would happen if she were to release it. '"Sir," she choked, "I'm—"
"No," he said, and he stared at her hands, only at her hands. He couldn't bear meeting her gaze. "No, that was a terrible thing to say."
She nodded once. "It was." Then she shook her head. "I still shouldn't—"
"Don't," he said, and he sat on the edge of the bed again. "This is why I hired you." In truth, he had told her to shoot him if he ever strayed too far from his ideals. What manner of man was he if he couldn't withstand a slap when he was out of line?
She lowered herself to sit next to him and clasped her hands in her lap.
They stayed that way for a time, side by side and staring at the pattern in the wallpaper and letting the silence fill the space between them.
His thumb twitched, pain shot through his wrist, and his fingers seized. He knew she had noticed, he saw it in the way she turned her head away just so and clasped her hands tighter, but she did not reach for him. She did not reach for him when he began to massage his hand, working from the palm to the tips of his fingers and back, and she did not reach for him when the spasms had passed.
"There are no documents," he said. "It's untraceable. Everyone around us who could testify would lie, and there's nothing to lie about. We haven't broken the rules."
She looked at him out of the corner of her eye and pressed her lips into a thin line. They were constantly breaking the rules. They were breaking them at that moment.
"There's nothing definitive," he clarified. "We've never broken the chain of command. Or appeared to," he added when she opened her mouth to contradict him. "There are no documents, no witnesses, no proof, so…" He took a deep breath. "No violations." She still wore a puzzled frown, so he scrambled for something distracting. "How did you get in here?"
"I picked the lock," she said as if it were obvious. "Havoc taught me."
He closed his eyes and tried to remember Havoc's teaching her anything, and he asked, "Where was I?"
"Sleeping, I think."
He opened his eyes and nodded. That sounded right.
"We shouldn't be alone together," she said, and the words slammed into his chest and squeezed his heart. "Not even for a few minutes," she continued. "Not unless we're in uniform, and even then…" She looked down at her hands and then up at him. "There's too much risk."
He looked down at the toes of his socks. She was right, of course. They hadn't set parameters the first time, and that had allowed affection to overwhelm them again and again. They needed a clear delineation, and that was it. But how the weight of it crushed him! He thought his chest might collapse inward, for he had learned to breathe and live lifetimes in those quiet moments of professional solitude.
He rested his elbows on his knees and looked at her, at the way her fringe fell over her forehead, at the way her jawline softened as it turned toward her ear. Part of him—the part that was more inebriated than was advisable—wanted to ask her for one night. Just one night to hold her and be as close to her as he possibly could, and then he could walk away in the morning and be satisfied for the rest of his life.
Instead, he said, "You're right."
"You have to stop drinking during the day," she said. "Even if this was calculated—and I'm not convinced it was—you could slip. Or…" She trailed off and gave him the tiniest of smiles. "It's a bad look, politically."
"I know," he said, and he meant it. He had been reckless, accepting a drink before he was supposed to be on the air, and he decided he would never do so again. He couldn't risk the campaign like that.
Her fingers were still laced together so tightly that her knuckles were white, so he said, "I'll ask Breda to double-check that there are no documents." There hadn't been, and he was certain of it. He had never signed an apprenticeship contract with Berthold Hawkeye, and if his aunt had done so for him, she would have told him.
Hawkeye nodded and said, "You'll have to tell him everything."
Mustang shrugged. "So that makes…four people who'll know." At least, four people would know their shared history when Grumman was having a good day.
She did not relax.
"Who else?" he asked.
"Rebecca knows enough that she'll piece it together," she said as she stared down at her hands. "And Edward."
Mustang inhaled sharply through his nose and nodded. He knew Hawkeye had divulged certain secrets eight years ago to Edward, but he had never known how much she had revealed. Still, if he knew Edward, and he did, the boy would never repeat them, not even to his own brother.
"You probably haven't heard," he said. "Alphonse Elric passed his exam."
She looked up. "I didn't take him."
"I know," Mustang said. "The Führer did."
"The Führer," she repeated.
He nodded. It still irked him that, after all his attempts to call and visit the Führer, Grumman's first act on a lucid day was setting up a game that involved Alphonse Elric and was in direct conflict with Mustang's own ends. "So I was thinking we go as soon as possible and figure out what he's up to."
"We," she said.
"Who else?" He watched her ponder. Each of her experiences in the Führer's residence had been its own nightmare, and he understood that, but he needed to know. She would go, and if not for Alphonse's sake, then for his. "Even into hell, right?"
She gave him another tight smile and nodded.
They stayed there, sitting on the edge of the bed in a silence that weighed heavy on him, until she was sure most guests were in their rooms preparing for dinner and no staff was in the hall. Then she slipped out of his room and into hers unnoticed.