The station was nearly empty in the early morning. Not many people wanted to catch a train out of East City at daybreak, and even fewer could justify waking up so early on a weekend. Havoc, too, would have preferred to stay in bed, but Breda and Feury were finally leaving.
Havoc shook Feury's hand, which felt too impersonal for the occasion, so he clapped him on the shoulder as well. "Say, 'hello' to Hawkeye and the Chief if you see them."
Feury nodded.
Breda hefted his suitcase in one hand. Most of his things he had sent ahead. "'If.' There won't be much time for socialising. It's down to work as soon as we arrive."
"Do you have a flat yet?" Havoc asked, and both Feury and Breda shook their heads.
Feury said, "I was thinking that I might sleep in my office for the first week while I look for something."
"It was easier when we could just be in the military dorms," Breda agreed.
"Office?" Havoc shoved Feury in the shoulder. "You never told me you two would have your own offices. Big-shots."
Breda opened his mouth to reply, but the train whistle blew, and the conductor announced the last call for boarding. So Havoc clapped Feury on the shoulder again, and sent him on his way.
Then, Breda did the strangest of things: he set his suitcase on the ground and hugged Havoc. When he pulled back, he didn't speak but nodded once.
Havoc nodded too. "Alright," he said as the train whistled again. There wasn't time for prolonged goodbyes, but he knew they both preferred it so. There were no words to sum up seventeen years of friendship, from their first punishment in the Academy to the present day.
"Give Mellie my thanks," Breda said.
"Yeah." Havoc swallowed. He reminded himself that it wasn't forever. They had both been sucked into Mustang's inner circle, and the general would surely keep bringing them back together.
Breda picked up his suitcase. "Alright, then."
"Yeah."
"See you." Then Breda took a deep breath, turned, and walked away to board just before the engine began to chug and the wheels began to turn.
Havoc shoved his hand into his pocket and, chest aching, watched until the train rolled out of sight. "See you."
So it would just be him and Hawkeye, he thought as he turned and started walking out of the station. There would be new officers arriving that morning to pick up the slack, but he and Hawkeye were the last holdouts from those early days. Of course, Havoc would be gone before Hawkeye was. He was two promotions away from Lieutenant Colonel and his own office. Hawkeye would never leave General Mustang.
Unless Mustang won the election, in which case Havoc had no idea what Hawkeye would do. She wouldn't continue in the military, surely; she had no interest in taking a command. And Mustang had given that interview in which he talked about that girl from his youth, so whatever had been going on between Mustang and Hawkeye for fifteen years—Hawkeye wouldn't leave to be with him after that. She wouldn't subject herself to that level of nationwide gossip. She had more self-respect and intelligence than that.
He stopped when he reached the pavement outside the station, and his breath caught when he saw the loveliest woman he had ever encountered. She leaned against the side of a black automobile as she pinned her red hair into a low bun and smoothed out the skirt of her nurse's uniform.
He cleared his throat and approached. "Excuse me, Miss. Someone as pretty as you shouldn't be standing all alone out here. It's not right."
She straightened and brushed a few stray hairs from her face. "I'm actually waiting for my husband."
He grinned. "Your husband is a lucky man."
She smiled and pressed a hand to her cheek. "I'm the lucky one."
"Really?" He leaned into his crutch and shook his head. "I imagine him some sort of hideous brute, making you stand outside like this."
"Oh, no! He's quite kind," the lovely nurse said as she pulled her keys out of her purse, "and handsome."
"Handsome?" Havoc asked as he took a step closer.
She nodded and unlocked the automobile door. "And brave and strong."
"Brave?"
Instead of responding she slid into the driver's seat and closed the door, but the window was down, so he bent forward and said, "How strong?"
Mellie grinned at him. "Oh, hurry and get in, Jean. You'll make me late."
He walked around to the other side of the automobile as she turned the engine over, and he relaxed into the seat as his lovely wife pulled into the road.
"How was it?" Mellie asked.
Havoc shrugged. It hadn't been a nice departure, of course, but it hadn't been terrible. And seeing Mellie lifted the ache from his chest.
"We should take a trip," she said, "after the baby is born."
Havoc stretched out his leg and pushed the heel of his hand down his thigh. "That would be nice."
"Odd of Breda not to say anything about it, though."
Havoc stopped moving.
"I haven't even had so much as a telephone call from Hawkeye," Mellie continued, "and she sent such a nice gift when we got married."
He looked out the window at the buildings and people passing by. How could he explain why no one had commented on the baby? That the reason Hawkeye hadn't called or congratulated them was because Havoc hadn't told her?
"Do you remember?" Mellie asked.
He swallowed and looked back at her. "The…uh…"
"The salad plates," she said.
Havoc rubbed the back of his neck. He didn't remember any salad plates—he wasn't sure how they might be any different from a normal plate—but he did know that he ought to mention the baby to his friends at some point. There would be more questions if Mellie showed up at Headquarters one day with a baby in tow. But that would mean talking about the difficulty in the beginning of the pregnancy and about his own insecurities, and he didn't want to talk to any of his coworkers—especially Mustang—about personal insecurities. Still, he said, "Yeah. I'll say something if you're anxious."
Mellie shifted and tightened her grip on the wheel. "I don't want them to think I'm anxious!"
Havoc shrugged. "Then I won't say anything." Then again, if he said nothing, he would have to answer for it later. And if he said something, Hawkeye would reach out to Mellie, and then Mellie would know he had said something. The baby wasn't even born yet, and he already had a headache.
"Jean," Mellie said as she pulled the automobile to a stop in front of Eastern Headquarters, "I think you should take it easy today."
"I'm fine, Mel," he said. "I'm doing everything right."
"I'm sure." She reached across the front seat and patted his knee. "I just worry you might be pushing yourself. I worry you might get hurt."
Havoc leaned his head back and sighed. He had been pushing himself in his therapy lately, and he had felt a little soreness in his thighs and lower back, but it was nothing he hadn't felt before. And he had told himself he'd be consistently on one crutch by the new year, and maybe going without by the election. He had goals—good, attainable goals.
He leaned over and kissed Mellie on her cheek. "Have a good day."
She smiled, but it was a half-smile. She wasn't finished with their conversation.
However, a horn blared behind them, so he got out of the automobile as quickly as he could with his crutch, and Mellie drove away.
Havoc never entered Eastern Headquarters through the front anymore. There were too many stairs, and if he went around the back of the main building, he could go in the back door and take a service elevator up to the floor where General Mustang's office was.
When he got into the office, he took a moment to sit down and massage his thighs. Then he hauled himself upright again and prepared some coffee.
After Mustang had spent a day declaring that Hawkeye couldn't expect him to finish all of his work if there was never enough coffee to go around, Hawkeye had procured an electric coffee maker that held much more than the old pot had and kept it warm besides. Mustang hadn't had much to say about the solution to his professed problem, but Havoc loved it.
He also loved that Hawkeye had managed to get some decent coffee grounds into the office—this had been in response to Mustang's insisting that he couldn't stay awake during meetings if the coffee was too awful for human consumption.
While he waited for the coffee to brew, he drummed his fingers on the countertop and wondered how Hawkeye was doing. He hoped things were going better for her in Central, that she was as fine as Breda had said she would be. Then again, coming back to an empty flat wouldn't be easy either.
He poured coffee into a mug and heaped in two spoonfuls of milk powder and one sugar cube.
"She's a big girl," he whispered to himself as he went back to his desk and set the mug down. There was enough time to relax for a moment before the new—
A knock sounded at the door.
"Dammit," he said before he called out, "Enter!"
The door opened, and the three newest members of Mustang's staff filed in.
Havoc knew two of them; Second Lieutenant Dennis and First Lieutenant Clark had served under him for two years, and Mustang had brought them in on Havoc's recommendation. Second Lieutenant Dennis was a tall woman with a forbidding mien that could match General Armstrong's, but she was quick to help other officers and was handy with electrical devices. Havoc thought Hawkeye would like her. First Lieutenant Clark was a hardworking man who was always good for a drink and a laugh.
But the third, a Sergeant Major Greune, had been a last-minute transfer from the South, and Havoc didn't know him at all. Neither did Mustang, who, when approving the transfers, had signed off with a simple justification of, "If I don't like him, I can always reassign him elsewhere."
Havoc took heart in that, for only a moment after he had released the trio to stand at rest, Sergeant Major Greune said, "I thought a General's office would have more to it."
"Well, Sergeant Major," Havoc said, "if we'd known you were coming, we would have called a decorator."
Dennis shook her head and Clark stifled a chuckle. Greune had the decency to look abashed.
Havoc continued, "Dennis and Clark, you're by the door." He tapped his crutch against the leg of a chair next to him. "You're here, Greune." He nodded at the trio and said, "You've already got some assignments on your desks. It's mostly basic, first-day bullshit, but I expect you to take care of everything yourselves."
"Yes, Sir," said Dennis and Clark, and they went to their desks to update their record and pay books.
Greune, however, looked from his desk to Havoc to Havoc's crutch and back again.
Havoc tightened his grip on the handle of his crutch and said, "Something wrong, Greune?"
Greune frowned and nodded once and lowered himself into his chair without any verbal deference.
Havoc shook his head and turned away. The drill sergeants at the nation's military academies had gone soft if they couldn't manage to instill into their graduates an automatic respect for superior officers. When he told Breda, he'd—
Havoc's chest tightened as he sat down at his own desk. Breda was gone, and Havoc liked his replacement very little. But he smiled to himself when he thought that, if Breda were there, Havoc would have bet him his whole wallet that Greune wouldn't last two weeks after Mustang's return.
The alley was different from the one Mustang had grown up above. He expected wooden crates, an old grey cat, that mess of broken cobbles an officer would inevitably trip over while dragging a young Roy Mustang by his shirt collar. None of those things were there, and yet the feeling of the alley was much the same: generations of lives lived stacked on top of one another, a world-weariness that hung like fog, and an energy at once as old as the half-timbered walls and as new as the city's push for lascivious modernity.
He had never taken this back door—he had not visited since the establishment moved locations in the last year—but he knew that regardless of a different location, certain things were predictable: the girls were late risers and would not stir until the afternoon, the bar entrance would be closed and dark, and Madame would have sequestered herself into some back room to go over accounts and receipts from the night before.
The door was locked, of course, but alchemy was a marvellous and convenient thing.
No sooner had he stepped inside a dark, narrow hallway and closed the door behind him than he heard Madame's voice call from behind another door, "Yes?"
Mustang smiled and pushed open that door. "Madame."
Madame Christmas sat behind a roughly hewn desk, one hand's plump fingers pressing down on scattered papers and colourful pamphlets and the other hand bringing a cigarette to her lips. Her attitude was much the same as it had always been, recalling evenings she had scowled at him over the kitchen table because he had played truant again. And yet she was changed. She was always changed, always greyer and more wrinkled and worn by time than she was in his memory.
Madame grunted and jabbed her cigarette toward a leather-covered chair in front of her desk. "You finally showed up."
He sat and examined the cracks in the leather arms. He ought to buy her a new chair. "I've kept you waiting."
"You know," his aunt said, "I've seen that Rebecca girl three times in the past month. But not my own boy."
He grinned. Whether he was a colonel or a general, he was still "boy" to her, and her sharp gaze ensured he felt it. "I've been busy."
"I've heard," she said. She took a long drag on her cigarette while she looked him over. Then she tapped the end over an ashtray and asked, "Have you been eating more?"
He laughed. "Alright, then." Mrs Bauer kept him well-fed, that was true, but his clothes still fit and he kept a normal exercise regimen. Still, he shouldn't have been surprised that Madame would find a chance to comment on any difference in his appearance.
Madame Christmas shook her head. "You look good. Healthy." She leaned her head to one side. "Elizabeth's not letting you get away with skipping meals anymore."
He hummed. It was true in a sort of roundabout way; "Elizabeth" had found and hired Mrs Bauer for him. But thoughts of Riza Hawkeye came with a sting as he recalled the tension of their last conversation, of his fully distancing her from the campaign, of their lack of real conversation since then. He didn't want to think about any of that, so he said, "I'm surprised you haven't mentioned my hair."
Madame snorted. "So you've got some grey hairs. If you think you look old, you must think I'm decrepit."
He rose and walked around the desk. "You're gorgeous," he said, and he pressed a kiss against her leathery cheek. "You know that."
She swatted half-heartedly at him.
Mustang chuckled and looked down at the desk and the mess of papers. "What's all this?" he asked, and he picked up one colourful poster and read it over. There was some new musical and dramatic show opening that evening, with Madame's bar as the venue. "Cabaret?"
"I'm expanding into show business."
He looked back at Madame as his chest tightened. It was her production. It was her production, and somehow he hadn't known. "You never said."
"You never called," she told him with a shrug.
He set the poster back down and went back to drop in the chair and rub at his wrists and palms. He ought to have known—it was the sort of thing he always knew, when and how his aunt was expanding her business—and he supposed it was his fault for not calling to check in with her. He had been rather preoccupied with campaigning for the past few months.
"The first show is tonight," she said, and he nodded once because he had read that, "though I expect you'll be at that diplomat's party instead."
"The Cretan Ambassador," he said. "Yes."
"And who'll be on your arm?" Madame asked as she returned to her cigarette. "Elizabeth?"
He flexed his fingers and shook out his hands. "We are quite alone, Madame."
Madame Christmas gave him one of her sardonic glares. She always had insisted on keeping up pretences even in private. "If you don't practice secrecy when you're alone, boy," she would say, "then you'll mess up when it matters."
So he cleared his throat and said, "She has her own commitments." Hawkeye would be there, but she would be in uniform and with a rifle in hand. "I'm taking an old friend. Hughes's widow, actually."
Madame blew out a huge plume of smoke. Then, as she stubbed out the butt of her cigarette in the ashtray, she said, "I'm not getting any younger, you know."
"Madame," he said as he forced a smile. "You've never expressed those sentiments." It was best to not think on a future that would never be. Hawkeye wasn't thinking on it, certainly—she had asked for a different future, for a cabinet position.
She grunted and leaned back in her chair. "It's less for my sake than the old man's."
Mustang flexed his fingers. He knew Führer Grumman would like to see him settled and married, and he had spent years making his preferences on the specific marriage candidate clear. But, no, she wanted a cabinet position.
"You seen him yet?" Madame said.
Mustang cleared his throat. "Twice." His right thumb twitched, and he started massaging his hand, from the palm to the fingertips and back again. "Once by invitation, and once—" he grimaced as he recalled that first visit to the führer's residence— "decidedly without." He looked at his aunt. "You knew about him."
Madame shrugged and looked away. "He asked me to keep quiet." She waited for a moment before asking, "Does she know?"
His shoulders tightened, and he doubled his efforts to prevent his hands from seizing. Why did every line of conversation seem to lead to Riza Hawkeye? "Yes."
She considered him, and her gaze made his skin prickle as it had when he had been a boy anticipating some scolding. She would tell him to figure things out, that he couldn't manage a cohesive unit if he allowed extended personal conflict to infiltrate.
But instead she sniffed and pulled a thick, oversized envelope out of her desk drawer. "I suppose you're really here for this."
He smiled and took the envelope from her, but he hesitated on opening it when he saw that someone else already had. He looked at Madame, who shrugged as if to suggest that mail sometimes happened to be delivered open and that she claimed no responsibility for it. He clicked his tongue and fished out a note from Breda concerning the opera singer. "No evidence she has ever leaked sensitive information to Drachma," it read. "I'd advise caution." Mustang narrowed his eyes as he wondered what Breda had found that would make that a logical conclusion.
"I don't know why he couldn't just send it care of your Major Hawkeye," Madame said.
Mustang shoved the note back inside the envelope and slapped it against his knee. She knew well that he wouldn't have had Breda send information to the hotel. It was one thing if Madame opened his intelligence reports, and it was quite another if a nosy concierge did the same. And Madame's network allowed for deliveries that were too sensitive to be postmarked.
No. She had noticed his annoyance earlier, and she was prodding him. He tried to imitate a relaxed affect as he said airily, "She's not 'my' Major Hawkeye."
Madame snorted and jerked her chin toward the envelope. "And what about your opera singer? A foreign spy or a new girlfriend?"
He looked down at the mass of intel from Breda. There was still much he hadn't read, and in spite of Breda's judgement, he was not ready to rule that Ms Pavluochenko was not a Drachman asset. "She's married."
Madame lit another cigarette. "Has that ever stopped you?"
He shook his head. "That whole business with the lawyer's wife was an unfortunate misunderstanding."
Madame snorted and rolled her eyes.
Mustang smiled. He shouldn't have been surprised that Madame saw through him-she had raised him, and she was the first to teach him the importance of maintaining one's image.
Cigarette smoke swirled in the air, and they spent a moment in comfortable silence.
He smiled wider as he considered how developments in her life might work in his favour. "So, cabaret. What a fascinating circle of acquaintance you must be making now."
Riza had finished her sweep of the upper floor and roof of the embassy when Lieutenant Colonel Armstrong called the whole team down for one last briefing before they were to get into position. General Maden spoke first. As the general in charge of the West, he had been responsible for vetting and monitoring the Cretan security and military personnel accompanying the ambassador. He talked about who would be closest to the ambassador, where they would be, and how the Amestrian officers on the main floor would work with them.
It was nothing that concerned her. She would not be on the ground; she might not see the ambassador at all. Her post was where her skills would be of best use, high on the rooftop and out of sight.
There would, however, be one Cretan sniper on the roof with her, and he leaned in while Maden continued talking.
"You are Major Hawkeye, yes?"
His voice was hushed, and he had a warm, smooth Cretan accent. She had seen him setting up his station on the roof, his movements slow and steady. She could see now a smattering of freckles across his face that gave him a very boyish appearance, though he could not have been much younger than she was.
"Yes," she said, and she wished she could remember anything from her primary school lessons in Cretan. It seemed disrespectful to not try saying "hello" at least, but all she could recall were some swears and a phrase about being too drunk to walk home, all of which Breda had taught her upon his return from the West, and none of which would be appropriate.
The sniper nodded. "I am Captain Berger."
She was surprised by his cordiality. Considering the rising tensions on the Western border, she had expected more animosity from the foreign military personnel.
"I have heard of you," he said. "You are very impressive."
She shook her head as her stomach fluttered. What could the Cretan military possibly have to say about her? An officer stationed as far away from Creta as one could be in Amestris? Captain Berger might have heard about her in conjunction with the General—
"More than one-hundred confirmed kills before you graduated," he said, and the fluttering in her stomach stopped cold.
More than one-hundred confirmed kills before she had graduated from the Academy, because they had sent her to Ishval. Because the front had been short-staffed. Because they needed more overwatching units and firepower. Because the last führer had changed the strategy from control to annihilation.
"Those were unusual circumstances," she said.
Maden finished his brief by reminding the assembled personnel that the future relations between Creta and Amestris depended, in part, on the security that night. While Armstrong stepped forward to take Maden's place, Captain Berger leaned in closer.
"Not so unusual, I think," he whispered as Armstrong reminded everyone of security measures for the evening. "For Amestrians."
Her neck burned. "Excuse me," Riza said, and she felt glad that she had not remembered any polite Cretan. She stepped forward to stand next to Lieutenant Denny Brosh, who would be with her as spotter and relief.
"The service doors should remain closed at all times," Armstrong said, "as soon as the Ambassador enters the building."
"Hey," Brosh whispered, and she gave him a small smile.
"I never congratulated you for finishing your training," Riza said. She remembered how difficult the sniper training had been; most recruits had dropped out within the first week.
"Thanks," Brosh beamed as Armstrong called forward Captain Maria Ross to go over entrance processes and clearance. "I finished up North. They made me dig a foxhole in the snow and sit in it for two days. I've never been so cold in my life."
Riza coughed to cover a laugh. She remembered enduring the same.
"You know," Brosh said, "when I heard you'd be part of this team, I thought you'd be moving back here."
Riza shook her head. Lieutenant Colonel Armstrong had asked the General for Riza's help. "I'm on loan."
"That's what Ross said." Then he looked back at Captain Berger and another Cretan officer next to him. "They're all oddly nice, don't you think?"
Riza disagreed. The Cretan men seemed quite polite, but it was a cover for deep-seated distrust and dislike.
Berger noticed her looking at him, and he leaned toward his fellow countryman to whisper. Riza turned away.
"We've assembled the best Amestris has to offer tonight," Armstrong said, and Riza looked back to him. He gleamed. "I am sure you will surpass all expectations. Now, go! To your stations!"
Riza turned to go to the back service hall, and Brosh followed on her heels.
As they passed the kitchen, he said, "Do you think they're going to feed us the same things they're giving the ambassador?"
Riza shook her head as they passed the service exit to the garden, and she pushed open the door to the stairs. "That's not likely." Armstrong hadn't mentioned food at all, so she doubted they would be fed at all. If they received anything to eat, it would be whatever the kitchen staff was eating. But she expected she would be grabbing something afterwards with Rebecca, who had promised to wait up and call for room service when Riza got back.
"That's probably better," Brosh said. "I bet everything will be pretty small, anyway. Have you ever noticed that the richer you are, the smaller your portions get?"
Riza shook her head as she climbed the stairs to the roof. Brosh wasn't very smart, but he was kind.
"My mom used to fry potato pancakes when I got back from work late," Brosh continued. "But I moved out a few months ago, and now I have to eat whatever's in the canteen at midnight. Did you know you can't even keep a hotplate in the dorms?"
Riza smiled as they passed the third floor. She remembered. She had lived in the dorms for two years after graduating, but once Rebecca convinced her to get her own flat she grew accustomed to having her own freedoms with lights and shower times. Riza wouldn't move back into the dorms for anything.
"How's Mustang? He always brings the most amazing girls to these things," Brosh said.
Riza's shoulders tightened, and she took a deep breath through her nose.
"I remember one time he brought that actress, Emma Goldstein. That was for the führer's birthday, right?"
Riza rolled her shoulders back to loosen them. She remembered.
"Who's he bringing tonight?" Brosh asked.
"Gracia Hughes," Riza said.
"Gracia Hughes? No kidding. That's sweet."
Riza smiled. It was sweet.
"You know," Brosh continued, "people say all sorts of things about him, like how he's just a power-hungry narcissist—"
Riza stumbled on a step.
"Are you alright?" Brosh asked. "I always tell people that he may act like that, but he's really a good guy. I mean, I remember what he did for Ross when—"
"Brosh," Riza said as she turned around, but before she said more, she noticed Captain Berger coming up the stairs.
Brosh turned around, and when he faced Riza again, his eyes were wide. Riza shook her head. Brosh hadn't said anything too dangerous, but he had come close, and there were some secrets that were best kept.
"He's a good commander," Brosh said, his voice quiet and strained.
Riza nodded. For all that could be said about the General, he was that. She turned back around and opened the door to the roof, and she held it open for the men who followed her.
Brosh ducked his head and passed without a word, but Berger stopped. "Your friend is not quiet."
She frowned. "He's kind."
Berger shrugged and left her for his spot on the roof where he squatted and began assembling his rifle.
Riza breathed in the cool evening air and looked over the skyline of the city. She had no fondness for Central, but as the tall buildings glittered with electric lights in the distance, she could appreciate its beauty.
She approached Brosh, who moved out of her way so she could assemble her own rifle near the edge of the rooftop.
"It looks like rain," he said.
Riza nodded. The sky was grey and heavy with dark clouds, obscuring the sun as it set. Still, snipers were expected to do their jobs and do them well, regardless of the weather. "At least it's not a foxhole in the North."
Brosh grinned, but she looked down and locked the magazine in place. The General and rain did not mix well, but he would be inside. As long as he was inside, he would be dry. And if he was dry, he would be safe.
Mustang snapped his suspenders into place and buttoned his collar. The ambassador's party would not begin for another two hours, but he had returned to the hotel to change so he could take Gracia to dinner beforehand. He always worried about the cuisine at high-class events; it seemed to him that the wealthier a person was, the smaller their food portions became.
He had heard there might be an open bar at the party, though. However, Charlie had told him to treat the night as a campaign event, even if his campaign team would not be with him, and Mustang had told Hawkeye he wouldn't drink at campaign events. Then again, Hawkeye would be on the roof and Charlie would be at home, so how would they know?
He turned to the bed and gathered up the papers he had scattered across the coverlet. Breda had compiled quite the assortment of documents, and they painted a very colourful picture.
There were copies of a work visa and a marriage license and seven separate residents permits, a three-year-old application for citizenship (which had been denied), and pages of newspaper clippings mentioning Mariya Ivanovna Orlova Pavluochenko.
And there was more: Breda's contacts in Creta and Aerugo had sent him information of their own, inappropriate liaisons and confiscated letters to and from the Drachman court. There were memoranda from Amestrian post officials and General Armstrong's intelligence in the North, noting that Ms Pavluochenko's last attempt to contact anyone in Drachma had been almost seven years earlier. Breda had enclosed a list of her patrons from the opera along with a note that while she had pursued people of great power in other countries, in Amestris she had kept herself somewhat separated from government and military officials.
Finally, Breda had typed a full dossier of testimony from other Drachman immigrants. Ms Pavluochenko was more well-known in Drachma than she was in Amestris. She was the daughter of an infamous dissenter, and still she had managed to work her way into the royal family and had enjoyed a position as the crown prince's mistress for four years.
As Mustang shoved all the documents back into the envelope, he wondered what would make her give up her lavish lifestyle in a Drachman palace to come live in a small flat and sing in a theatre in East City.
It was love, he supposed as he stuffed the marriage license in with the rest of the papers. Love drove people to absolute stupidity. He knew that from experience.
He popped open his suitcase and tucked the envelope into the small pocket where he had also stored the legislation that Hawkeye had given to him concerning the position of Minister to the Fuhrer. He had every intention of reading it, but it was dry, and he needed first to decide if it was more stupid to give her the position or tap someone else.
He shut the case, snapped the clasps closed, grabbed his jacket off the back of a chair, and left his room.
It occurred to him as he descended in the lift that he had not paid his tab at the hotel bar the previous night. Charlie had been so adamant about not charging anything to the hotel room tabs, since he and Brandt wanted to keep every campaign expenditure unimpeachable, which meant that to avoid his manager's and financier's seeing the bill attached at check-out, he would need to settle in cash.
And one drink before dinner wouldn't hurt, he decided.
So instead of leaving the hotel when the lift opened on the ground floor, he turned and walked through the lobby to the dark, sunken lounge.
He neared the bar, and as fate would have it, he saw David Bauer, who was married to Ms Pavluochenko, and whom Hawkeye had thought might be useful to Mustang in the future. He didn't know much more about the man, other than the fact that he was standoffish on the best of days, but Mustang did know that nothing loosened a tongue like alcohol.
So he dropped into a chair next to David's and said, "Good evening."
David jumped, scowled, and looked closer at a stack of papers he was busy marking.
Mustang smiled. "Your wife will be performing tonight at the—"
"Yeah," David said, and he picked up and finished his beer in one draught.
"Will you be attending?" Mustang asked.
David slammed his glass down. "No."
Mustang sighed and clenched his fists. He had enjoyed benefits from many aggravating people—General Armstrong among them—so he persisted. "Have I offended you in some way?" When David looked up at him, Mustang continued, "You don't seem to like me very much."
David hummed and his frown deepened. "State Alchemists really are the best and the brightest, aren't they?" Then he returned his attention to his papers.
The bartender came over, and Mustang asked for a whisky and his bill.
When the bartender had gone again, Mustang drummed his fingers on the bartop and reminded himself that Hawkeye had thought David might be useful, and Mustang trusted her judgement. "If I've done something," he began, and David dropped his pen on his stack of papers, "I'd like to rectify it."
"And I'd like to get my work done," David said. "I guess we're both unhappy tonight."
Mustang cleared his throat and tried a different approach. "I thought that, as a political psychologist, you'd be quite interested in whatever's really going on while your wife is singing."
David held up his pen. "First, I study radicalisation and terrorism. Not electoral politics. So unless those people on the radio are coming too, I don't care."
Mustang leaned against the bar. That was why Hawkeye had judged him useful. He had a very beneficial skillset. "That must be very interesting."
"Second," David said, "I'm really not taking an interest in this election cycle. So don't waste your time." Then he went back to marking papers.
"For the first time in the history of our country," Mustang said, "the people are going to choose their führer." David paused in his markings, and Mustang continued, "The people have all the power now. And you're not going to be part of it?"
David looked at Mustang and furrowed his brow. After a moment of silence, he said, "I can't tell if you and Riza really believe that or if you just lie out of habit."
"'Lie,'" Mustang spat. "It's not a lie."
"You're a greater fool than I realised if you think that," said David. "The people who have always been in power are still in power, and they will always be in power."
"The military no longer runs the government."
"No?" David said. "What about the current führer? What about you?"
Mustang's ribs felt too tight, and he took a deep breath. Charlie had mentioned that his position in the military might affect his public image in some circles. He had spent years working to dismantle the stratocracy, but his campaign could not make that public knowledge without releasing classified information.
David shook his head. "Even in an election, the winners are decided before the first vote is cast. Money and military credentials and name recognition get your name on the ballot. You know how this works."
Mustang did. His campaign had needed to prove that they had attained a certain amount of money—he was unsure of how many cenz exactly, as it was Brandt's job to know—just to qualify for ballot placement. Mustang had far surpassed it before he had submitted his intention to run to the newly established Electoral Committee, and he had several alliances with powerful people in the military, but that wasn't inherently a bad thing.
"Which means," David continued, "that the wealthy and the military have chosen who's running. And we get to decide which choice we hate the least." He shrugged. "Well, I don't."
Mustang frowned. "You're really determined to sit this out."
David scoffed. "I don't have a choice. The military made sure political dissidents couldn't have a legal voice, and because those laws somehow stuck when Führer Grumman started playing with the system…" He waved a hand at Mustang. "So keep your bourgeois democracy. You're wasting your time with me."
"I'm curious, though." Mustang said, because the conversation had continued far longer than all of their previous conversations combined, and he was sure that it was partly due to alcohol, and he was sure he might never have another chance to ask. "Why do you hate me?"
"Seriously?" David asked, and he looked down at his papers. "It's not anything that can be fixed."
Mustang waited for further explanation, but it didn't come.
Instead, David looked at him and, with a softer voice, said, "Look. I appreciate that you've given my mom a job. She…" He shifted in his seat to face Mustang. "She enjoys it." He pressed a hand against his chest. "But I can't vote. And even if I could, I would never vote for you." He grabbed a toothpick from a jar on the bartop and waved it between them. "So we don't have to talk ever again."
Mustang shrugged. He no longer cared what Hawkeye thought about David. If Mustang needed a political psychologist, he'd find someone else. There had to be several dozen more in the East, and one of them was bound to be far less hostile and nihilistic than the man beside him. "If you like," he said, and then he pulled a stack of bank notes from his wallet and set them down across his bill. "I'm covering my friend, too," he told the bartender as he nodded toward David, who sat frozen with his thumb pressed against the toothpick in his closed fist.
"Of course, Sir," the bartender said.
As Mustang walked away, he heard the soft crack of a toothpick snapping. He smiled all the way through the lobby and out the front door of the hotel.
Mustang handed the automobile keys to the valet and shoved his hands in his pockets while the boy ran to the garage.
He had to allow there was some truth to David's arguments; for all that he and other leaders proclaimed the arrival of a true democracy as evidenced by a national popular election, how much had actually changed?
"The leaders are actually human this time," he said, and he smiled. Then he frowned. Human beings had held power eight years ago, too. They had plotted the county's destruction for their own selfish ends. They had helped facilitate the annihilation of Ishval. They had known what they were doing and who their masters were. Many of them—those who had not taken their own lives to avoid facing justice—sat in prison, having been convicted of treason by a military tribunal.
Those men had been replaced—Mustang had been one of the replacements—but there was no guarantee that the new government, or anyone who came after, wouldn't again be swayed by selfish interests at the expense of the people.
A drop of water fell on his cheek, and he looked up at the grey rain clouds before stepping back under the porte-cochère to keep dry.
And I'm back. Thank you so much to those of you who sent words of encouragement. And thank you everyone for your understanding and patience.
As a side note, if you're ever waiting for an update, you can find information about expected release dates on my profile page.