David woke far earlier than he liked to the sound of hushed talking. For a moment he thought someone had turned on a radio, then he realised the voice he heard was Mariya's. He pushed himself upright and squinted against the morning light pouring through the hotel windows.
She sat on the edge of the bed, whispering into the telephone. She looked at David for a moment, gave him a tight smile, then turned away again and resumed her conversation.
He waited until she had finished and returned the receiver to the cradle before asking, "Who was that?"
Instead of answering, she said, "Kryot vezhnik eit."
He was awake then. "What?" They had known it was coming. She had been present for the Cretan Ambassador's death, and it had only been a matter of time before someone in the Amestrian military called her in for questioning. "Now? They want to talk with you now?"
She nodded.
David reached over to the bedside table and looked at his watch. "It's seven in the fucking morning."
"I know," she said, and then she was on her feet, untying her dressing gown and rummaging through her suitcase. She yanked out a blouse, considered it, and flung it to the floor; then she did the same with a second blouse, a third, a fourth.
"I'll go with you," he said. "I'll be there the whole time." It was better that way. They needed to appear unified, above suspicion. He dressed as quickly as he could, into his trousers and the not yet too wrinkled shirt from the day before.
They had prepared for this, David and Mariya. They had answered questions from the day they married—questions from family, landlords, immigration officials—and as she fumbled with her earrings in the hotel mirror, he took a moment to remind her of their norms. "Tell them the truth," he said. "No more than what they ask."
Mariya nodded.
David's throat tightened at her silence. "You had nothing to do with this, Masha. So don't give them anything more than what they ask for."
She stepped into her shoes, he did the same, and they locked the hotel room door behind them. When they reached the lift lobby, and when David had pressed the call button, Mariya gasped.
"What?"
"I forget..." She opened her purse, checked her coat pockets. "I forget my visa."
"Masha!" David cried. "That's the most important document—"
"I know!" She reached into his coat pocket and fished out his keys. Then she tapped his chest. "Go down. I will be there soon."
David watched her disappear back down the hallway. Later, he would give her an earful about preparedness before interviews that had the potential to land them both in mountains of trouble. But at the moment, he would settle for drinking a cup of coffee and grabbing a newspaper.
While he waited for the lift, he looked down at his shirt, checked it was tucked into his trousers, and made sure his cuffs were straight. He had dressed in such a hurry that the buttons on his vest were askew, and the laces on his shoes were untied. He corrected the buttons and squatted to tie his laces.
The lift dinged, and he lifted his head and found himself looking up at Major Riza Hawkeye in her pressed military uniform.
And, of course, she was looking down at him.
She stepped to the side so he could get on the lift, and for a moment he debated pretending that he too had left something in the room. But he got the unnerving feeling her eyes saw everything, even things he tried to hide.
She cleared her throat.
He had waited to come up with an excuse for too long for it to be believable, so he stood up and went in.
The lift operator closed the gate, confirmed the destination—the ground floor lobby—and started the slow descent.
The lift rattled every few seconds, and David stared straight ahead at the doors, willing them to open so he could leave. The silence among the three sharing the elevator grew thinner and thinner until David was sure he could hear his own watch ticking.
He looked up at the lighted numbers above the door and watched the dial turn. Was the space between storeys getting larger? Was the lift operator intentionally bringing them down at the slowest possible speed?
Finally, David couldn't bear anymore and said, "Is he doing alright?"
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Riza jump a little at the question. Then she said, "You don't like him."
David shrugged. "There are plenty of people I don't like. I don't want them dead. Just forcibly removed from positions of power."
She scoffed.
David turned to face her then. He was unlikely to ever be friends with Riza Hawkeye or with Roy "The Hero of Ishval" Mustang, but it was not lost on him that his mother worked in Mustang's house. Some civility was required, and that meant some mending was as well. "I get it. You don't like me. That's clear. And maybe it's my—"
She darted a glare his way.
He held up both hands. "No, it is my fault." He put one of his hands on his chest. "It's my fault, and I don't care for you either. That's fine. I can live without your goodwill—Or his, for that matter."
"Then," she said, her voice hard and cold, "I wonder that you're still talking."
As if on cue the lift dinged and the lift operator slid open the gate. Riza stepped into the lobby first, and David jogged to keep up.
"Putting all that aside," he said, "my mother still works for him. Amazingly, she enjoys working for him. So," he grabbed her wrist to stop her.
Before he could say another word, his arm was pulled roughly behind his back, and his shoulder twinged. She was behind him, grasping his own wrist and twisting his arm at the wrong angle.
And then she released him.
She hadn't hurt him, not really. But he wouldn't try touching her again.
"Sorry," he muttered. He took a moment to roll his shoulder, take one step back, and steel himself before he continued, "In the interest of making sure she keeps her job, I'm sorry. I am determined to be polite for as long as we're acquainted."
She sighed. "I won't pretend that I have control over that. He rather likes your mother, and he makes his own decisions."
David doubted that General Mustang so much as tied his shoes without her say-so.
She cocked her head to the side. "You must have something to say."
He smiled. "I do, but I've also just promised I'll be polite."
He let the statement hang as he made his way to the lounge.
It was a different place in the morning light. The electric bulbs were at full brightness, most of the smoke had been cleared out, and more people gathered at the bar than around the low tables and settees.
He squeezed himself into a spot between two other gentlemen—one with his shirt unbuttoned and lipstick staining his collar, the other in a starched grey suit and smelling of shoeshine—and ordered a coffee, no milk, no sugar, and a newspaper. The barman slid him a copy of that morning's Central Times, and when two barstools opened, David moved into one to read more comfortably while he waited for his wife.
Somebody else took the other stool, but he did not look at who it was until she ordered her own cup of coffee. David looked to the side, and he and Riza met eyes again briefly before he returned his gaze to the paper.
"You told me you had a girlfriend."
He looked up again and saw that she was staring at the ring on his left hand. Nothing escaped her notice. "I must have misspoken."
She nodded. "I see."
He wasn't sure why he said it, maybe because the barman slid his coffee to him at that precise moment, maybe because he had made a promise to be more civil, maybe because his shoulder still hurt from their physical encounter earlier, maybe because he wanted to believe that Rebecca kept good friends, but he said, "I did. We broke up." He took a large sip—strong and earthy and bitter and exactly what he needed.
"Was it because your wife found out?"
There was no taunt in the question, no judgement in her voice. Still, he found it funny, and he laughed. "No, not because of that." If Mariya did find out he was seeing someone without telling her, she would certainly be insulted, if only because he hadn't informed her—heart-broken, even, that he had dared keep it a secret. Then she would find some way to turn the whole thing into a joke at his expense and go on as merrily as she always had.
He grinned and shook his head, then returned to the paper. The headline was still about the investigation into the ambassador's assassination. There were articles about the blockade on the desert railway, increased trade with Aerugo, and tucked into the corner of the front page was a brief speculation about why Alphonse Elric, the interim ambassador to Xing, had suddenly returned to Amestris. David could venture a guess—it was because a certain General had thought to recommend a twenty-year-old kid for a diplomatic liaison to the country's largest neighbour. Obviously, the celebrity boy alchemist who had never politicked a day in his life had messed it up. But the things he preferred, those pieces which analysed the news and the impact it would have on how people thought, were always near the back of the paper. He flipped past the advertisements and the gossip columns and the opinions—
"May I see that?" Riza said.
He looked at her outstretched hand and passed the newspaper to her.
She flipped to one of the pages he had just passed and began reading. It was a gossip column page. He hadn't thought Riza Hawkeye would enjoy reading something so frivolous, but she seemed to devour it, her eyes growing wider as she reached the bottom of the page at which point she said, "Oh, my God."
And then she was running.
"Wait!" David cried. He slammed down the rest of his coffee and ran after her. After all, they had somewhat agreed to be civil, and stealing newspapers was most uncivil.
He caught up to her in the lobby, and she waved and called to a man rushing through the front entrance.
"Charlie!"
"I've already seen it," the man called Charlie said. "Rallying the troops." He was accompanied by a much taller, blonde-haired man.
"Is this bad?" Riza asked.
"Don't know yet."
"Wait!" Riza cried as she grabbed Charlie's arm. "I thought you were staying with the general—"
"He's fine," Charlie said, and he removed her hand. "Ross is with him. Wanted something to take her mind off things. I've got to go." And with that, he dashed for the stairs, apparently deeming the lift too slow for his purposes.
The tall one stayed behind. "Hello, Riza. Have you eaten?" he said, all cheerfulness.
She shook her head. "Just coffee."
He offered his hand to David. "Ben Neumann."
"Alright," David said, and he ignored the tall one and turned to Riza. "May I have my paper back now?"
Riza did give it back to him, and he looked it over for whatever had sent her and her cohorts into such a frenzy. But he was distracted by a commotion at the entrance. Bellhops and valets scrambled over each other to both get out of the way of the door and get closer to it. A concierge straightened her collar, and another checked his tie.
The doors opened, and the patrons in the lobby hushed.
In photographs, Führer Grumman had a jovial demeanour, a sly smile hidden under a white moustache, and kind eyes behind silver-rimmed spectacles.
Seeing him in person was a different matter. He was smaller than David had expected, but the manner in which he walked reminded David of a pre-film featurette he had once seen during his university days. In it, a jackal had stalked a small mouse, pursuing it slowly for miles and days across the desert until its prey collapsed from exhaustion.
And now, the Führer moved toward David. His spectacles reflected only the morning sunlight.
David took a step back, his heart hammering against his ribs, and wondered why the Führer of Amestris would come to the hotel and cross the lobby floor to him.
Then he heard Riza whisper, "I forgot."
"Forgot what?" he whispered back, but before she said anything more, the Führer stopped before them.
"Good morning, my dear," Führer Grumman said, all cordiality.
Riza saluted. "Führer, Sir. Do you have a message for the general?"
The Führer waved his hand, and Riza dropped her salute. "No, nothing like that. I'm afraid you missed our appointment."
"Yes, Sir," Riza said, everything about her solid and still. "Yesterday, I had a lot of—"
"I'm sure you did," the Führer said. "Which is why I thought now might be a good time."
David scanned the lobby. Guests gawked and pointed and chattered amongst themselves, and others sank into sofa cushions and shrank toward doors as if the Führer's presence was dangerous. He hoped Mariya would not step off the lift.
"I'm on my way to the hospital, Sir," Riza said. "I need to be with the general. I have to—"
"Nonsense," the Führer said. "One of mine can do that." He snapped his fingers, and one of his security officers stepped forward. They had a brief, hushed conversation, then the officer nodded, turned, and left.
"Well, he'll be expecting me—"
"I can send a message to let him know where you are."
Her stillness broke. It was only for a moment, a tick, a tightening of the jaw, and then it was gone. But it had happened, and from it, David knew: whatever game the Führer was playing, she didn't want to be part of it.
So of course the Führer had walked into a hotel lobby unannounced, and of course he was whisking a military officer away in front of witnesses. She couldn't decline an invitation so public if she wanted to. He was the Führer. Who would dare turn him down?
David would.
"We were actually just on our way to eat breakfast," he said, and Riza whipped her head around to look at him. "Before going to the hospital."
The Führer looked at him then, a long, considering look from head to toe. He was learning, discovering who David was by the make of his suit and the scuffs on his shoes.
"Because," David continued, shrinking as Grumman continued to observe, "I have to visit someone too. At the hospital."
The Führer did not stop looking at David, but he smiled. A slow smile, like tar. And David wondered if that was the end, if the Führer was about to call him a liar and have him questioned and imprisoned for getting in his way. Everything about him and Mariya would come out, and she'd go to prison or, worse, to Drachma. And all because he couldn't keep his mouth shut.
But then he saw how Riza's face softened, how grateful she was that someone else would back her excuses. Maybe she'd tell Rebecca about how he had saved her. That would be nice.
"Oh ho!" the Führer covered his mouth with his hand as he chuckled. "What a busy morning you have, Major Hawkeye."
Riza looked back at the Führer. "Yes, Sir. I'm sorry to have to reschedule—"
"I don't want to put you out," the Führer continued, "Mister…"
"Bauer," Riza said while at the same time David said, "Doctor."
David cleared his throat and corrected them both, "Doctor Bauer."
"Of course," said the Führer, and he reached into his own coat pocket and pulled out a wallet. "I realise it's a pain changing your plans at the last minute," he said as he started pulling out banknotes, "so your breakfast is on me." He offered the notes—thirty thousand cenz, more than David would ever spend on a single meal—and continued, "And what luck! You'll get to see your friends at the hospital sooner than you thought!"
David wondered what would come next. If he insisted on having his breakfast with Riza, would he be detained by the security? Charged with obstruction? Obstruction of what? Was it worth it? Was he willing to let thirty thousand cenz go and risk all of that? Was he willing to risk Mariya?
Riza gave her head a very slight shake, and he took the notes.
David swallowed. "Thank you, Sir."
"Oh ho! The pleasure is all mine, Doctor Bauer," the Führer said. Then he turned to leave and said, "Now, my dear, we really should be going."
Riza nodded at one of the security officers and left, and she didn't look back.
David tightened his fist around the money in one hand as he watched them disappear through the great glass doors. It felt wrong, but she had shaken her head at him, right? It was a signal, right? But what if he had interpreted it wrong? He shoved the notes in his pocket. When he saw her again, he'd split it with her.
"I didn't know they were acquainted," said a man next to him, and David turned to see the tall, blonde man who had been with Riza's friend earlier. He held a cup of coffee in one hand and two sweet pastries in the other. "I don't suppose you'd like her pastry?"
"Who are you?" David sputtered, and, without waiting for an answer, he turned toward the lift.
The lift opened and Mariya stepped out.
"Masha!" he cried.
She frowned as David grabbed her hand and pulled her toward the exit so they could hail a cab. "What happened to you? You look sick."
"I have no idea."
Mustang sighed as he stared out the window in his hospital room. It was a bleak view of the alley behind the hospital, full of rubbish bins and washing lines hanging from fire escapes.
He heard the door slide open and closed again, and then a woman said, "Pardon me, Sir." It was Ross.
"You would think," he said, the painkillers in his bloodstream slowing his speech, "that being a general would entitle me to a better view."
"I can speak to the hospital staff about moving you," she said.
He scowled. Not every complaint merited a solution. He imagined what Hawkeye's response might be: "What does it matter, Sir? You're spending most of your day sleeping." The thought made him smile.
Then, he remembered Ross was still in the room, and he said, "Do you need something?" He didn't need to look to know her expression; she hadn't smiled since the night at the embassy. Dozens of civilians and soldiers were injured that night, and twenty-three were dead: the ambassador and Minister of State, and the rest all good soldiers, both Cretan and Amestrian. One of those Amestrian soldiers had been her friend.
"You have a visitor," she said.
"I'm busy," he said. Then, as the door slid open wider, "Gracia."
She was all nerves, with her shoulders tight around her neck and her hands clutching her purse and a newspaper in front of her. The corners of her mouth lifted when she saw him, but there was a hardness about the expression. "I hope I'm not unwelcome."
"Of course not," he said, and Gracia stepped into the room as Ross closed the door behind her.
She moved toward the bed, her heels clicking against the tiles. "How are you feeling?"
He gestured at the chair next to the bed, and she sat. "Never better. You're alright?"
Gracia nodded. "I'm perfectly fine." She laid the paper across her lap and opened her purse. "Elysia wanted me to bring you this." She fished out a folded sheet of paper and handed it to him.
It was a homemade card, decorated with wax pastels and ordering him to "get better soon." He brushed his fingers over the observation wheel and striped tent tops Elysia had drawn on the inside of the card. She was quite the artist. He would keep it on his bookshelf, next to the photograph of Elysia at her ballet recital.
"She's so disappointed you won't be going to the fair together."
Mustang smiled. "I'd far rather go with her than stay here. I'm sure Andy will take her."
"Anthony," Gracia said. "Yes."
"Right." Mustang turned the card over in his hands, set it to one side, and said, "But you're fine?"
Gracia nodded. "Perfectly. Your man, Mr Neumann, found me when everything started happening."
He clenched his fingers around the hospital blanket covering his legs. He had known that Neumann had taken Gracia—Hawkeye had told him, and he was glad she was safe—but the back of his neck still burned and his jaw still tightened.
Gracia, good as she was, mistook his tension for remorse, and she put her hand on his arm. "I don't blame you. You had important things to do, and he was lovely. He took me home, called Anthony, sat with me until Anthony arrived…" She withdrew her hand and smiled. "He was very charming."
He thought about Neumann doing all of that, taking Gracia to her home, calling her boyfriend, keeping her company—He exhaled. It was everything Mustang himself would have done, but the image of Neumann as her saviour prickled him.
He thought of Hawkeye's accusation from that awful night, that he wasn't suspicious but jealous.
And he said, "Ah."
Gracia leaned back in the chair. Then, "I'm glad you're well. Or as well as can be expected, considering…"
He waved it aside. "I've had worse."
She fiddled with the edge of the newspaper on her lap.
He tried to come up with something more clever and comforting to say. "You know," he started, "I'd have thought that as a general, I'd get a room overlooking the garden."
She forced a smile, and he wondered what she must have been thinking. The last time a man Gracia cared about had been shot, he had not been placed in a room at all, but on a slab in the hospital's basement.
She must have been thinking on that, on the unfairness of it all, on why soldiers like Hughes died while those like "the Hero of Ishval" lived.
Then, Gracia said, "I did want to talk with you about something." She opened the paper and flipped toward the last pages as she continued, "You're always in the paper lately." She passed the newspaper to him, tapped a column of text, and said, "But I think you'll want to read this one."
Mustang squinted through the haze of medication at the small print until the letters took more definitive shape. And he read. And he read. And when he had finished the article, his eyes darted back to the top and he read again, each line sending heat to his neck and cheeks and tightening his shoulders.
"…just days after his thrilling interview," the paper said, "the general decided to escort none other than the widow of Brigadier General Maes Hughes…" And the writer continued, supplying circumstantial evidence—both he and Gracia had grown up in Central, and the age difference fit with the one he had let slip in the interview. There were insinuations about Mustang's relationship with Gracia beginning long before Hughes had died. There was a slyly written question inviting the audience to consider the "facts" laid before them and arrive at the writer's intended conclusion.
His stomach rolled, and he felt dizzy. To say nothing of the paper running such drivel when Amestris had much larger and more important issues to deal with, such as a dead foreign ambassador, it was offensive to Hughes's memory. How could they dare?
And what might Gracia be thinking?
Mustang dropped the paper and ran one hand down his face. "Gracia—"
"I know," she said, and she put her hand back on his arm. "I know I'm not who you were talking about. I know I didn't meet you until after you and Maes returned from Ishval, and he…" She took a deep breath. "Maes talked."
Mustang straightened and pulled his arm away. Hughes always had managed to know too much.
She continued, choosing her words, "About things he noticed. Things he probably shouldn't have mentioned. So I know. I know I'm not her."
Mustang watched her, waiting for the next move. He couldn't imagine Gracia using such knowledge against him, against Hawkeye…It wasn't in her nature. She wanted something else.
What would he do if she asked him to never come around again? What would he do without seeing Elysia and the little pieces of her father in her face?
But she said, "I suppose I'm asking if you need me to be."
He stared. He went over the article, their conversation, that final statement, in his mind. Gracia knew he hadn't been talking about her, that she wasn't the mystery woman.
Air left his lungs as realisation set in.
She couldn't possibly understand what she was offering, the toll it would take on her life, on her privacy, on Elysia. "Gracia—"
"I would let Anthony know it's all a lie," she said. "It's just…Well, as I said, Maes talked." She shrugged and gave him a small smile. "And a lie right now might be better for you than the truth."
To some extent, she was right. A single mother and her daughter could complete the perfect "family man" image his team wanted him to portray. And if everyone saw Gracia next to him, they wouldn't spare a glance at the woman on his other side.
She was impossibly brave.
Of course, the proposed lie did raise its own share of problems. He could be seen as preying on a grieving woman for whom he had long harboured feelings, of playacting with a family that wasn't his. And Anthony was a complication, his friends and family were complications. It could grow to be too unwieldy of a deception.
And Gracia had already suffered and lost for his goals once before.
But such pain was the cost of democracy.
It was a situation he hadn't anticipated, and the painkillers the nurses had him taking made it hard for him to see all of the possible outcomes.
So instead of giving her an answer, he cleared his throat and said, "I'll talk with my team."
Edward shoved open the grocer's door with his shoulder. "Worst fucking thing in the world—"
"Ed!" Alphonse said from behind him.
"—living in the country when the whole goddamn place—"
"Edward!"
"—is going to shit." Edward marched to the counter and smacked down the list he had written out that morning and his netted grocery bag.
It had been a pleasant enough day then. Winry had taken the children to swim in the pond between their home and town, as the weather was warm, and he had used the extra time to complete the backed up dishes and laundry. He had even extended a very civil invitation to his brother and Mei to join him on various errands in town.
That was before he had seen a newspaper.
"Investigation into Assassination of Minister of State Haugen and Cretan Ambassador Continues," the headline read. And when Edward had asked the man holding the paper—Karl Giese—if he could see it, he read even worse news: Mustang, the idiot, had gone and gotten himself shot.
And if that wasn't bad enough, Edward hadn't known about it for two days.
"Can I use your telephone?" Edward said as the grocer, Strauss, started reading over the list.
Strauss nodded, directed Edward to the telephone in the corner of the store, and then began pulling canisters from shelves behind the counter.
Edward stomped across the wooden floor to the telephone. "The stupidity…Can you believe it?"
Alphonse had followed him, of course, and said, "I'm sure he didn't mean to get—"
"Of course he didn't!" Edward cried, and he jammed his finger into the rotary dial. "What's the hotel number?"
Alphonse patted his breast pocket, and Edward waved him off. He'd just dial for the damn operator.
He rattled off the hotel name, waited while the lines connected, and, when the concierge picked up, said, "Hawkeye. I need to speak with Riza Hawkeye."
"Room number, Sir?" said the concierge, infuriatingly polite.
Edward looked back at Alphonse, who whispered, "Four-twelve."
He repeated the room number, and the concierge said, "One moment, Sir."
"Anyway," Edward said as the holding static crackled in his ear, "I know he didn't mean to get shot. That's the whole problem."
"Ed," Alphonse said. "What are you talking about?"
But the line clicked and the concierge said, "I'm sorry, Sir, but it appears that Miss Hawkeye has—"
"Major Hawkeye," Edward said.
"Yes, Sir. It appears she has stepped out. If you would like me to take—"
Edward slammed the receiver back in its cradle. "Can't even get through to Hawkeye." He wheeled about and headed toward the counter again.
"Maybe she's with Mustang," Alphonse said, still tailing him. "Maybe they're at the hospital."
"Why would they be at the hospital?"
"Because he got shot!"
"Exactly!" Edward said, and he stopped in front of the bags Strauss was packing.
"Ed," Alphonse said again, and he stood next to him. "I'm serious. What are you talking about."
"That'll be twenty-thousand five hundred four cenz," said Strauss.
Edward's hand hesitated over his wallet. He had brought only two ten-thousand notes. They could afford to spend only two ten-thousand notes.
"Coffee's gone up," Strauss shrugged.
Edward nodded and said, "We don't need it." He pulled his wallet from his trousers pocket and removed the notes.
"You know we offer a line of credit now," Strauss said.
"I heard." Edward put his notes on the counter. "We don't need it."
"I got it," Alphonse said.
And Edward burned. From deep inside his chest to the tips of his ears he burned as Alphonse pulled out his own wallet, removed the necessary banknotes, and handed them to Strauss.
"Weren't you just in Central?" Strauss smiled at Alphonse, and Edward ground his teeth. "What'd you go for, again?"
"Oh, you know," Alphonse said, airy and bright, but Edward could feel Alphonse glancing at him. "Job hunting."
Strauss chuckled, and Edward wanted to scream at the sound. "You two, never could stay still for—"
Edward snatched the grocery bag off the counter as soon as Strauss placed the last canister inside, and he stormed out of the shop and into the dusty street before he could hear more.
He marched away, toward home. Resembool had always been too small, filled with too few people, for days like he was having. He wished for the relative anonymity he had enjoyed in East City, wished he didn't know quite as many people as he did in Resembool, didn't hear quite as many greetings or have to acknowledge quite as many waves.
"Ed!"
It really was all Alphonse's fault, Edward knew. If Alphonse hadn't jumped in where he wasn't needed—He was always doing that. Jumping in where he shouldn't, taking steps he shouldn't.
"Ed—"
Edward wheeled about and jabbed his finger at Alphonse's nose. "Don't do that again."
Alphonse swatted Edward's hand away. "Do what?"
Edward snorted. "'Do what.'"
Alphonse scowled. "Buy food? I'm going to eat that too!"
Edward shook his head. "You shouldn't…"
"Shouldn't what, Ed?" said Alphonse. "You can pay me back. I'll even charge interest if it matters so much to you."
"I don't want your money!"
Alphonse did not flinch. He stood with his hands in his pockets and said "What?"
Edward pushed his brother's shoulder.
"Ed!" Alphonse gasped, but he quickly regained his footing and looked at Edward. "Stop."
"Stop what?" Ed pushed him again. "I told you over and over again that you shouldn't take that damn exam!"
Alphonse furrowed his brow. "When did we start talking about that?"
"It was my choice, my burden—"
"That was different!" Alphonse said, and he finally—finally!—pushed back. "And I didn't ask you to—"
"How, Al?" Edward said.
The few passers-by hesitated before moving on, pretending to take no interest in the spectacle in the street. Yet Edward knew that word of the argument would reach Winry before he did, and then she would take her own turn yelling at him.
"How?" he said again. "Tell me how it was different!"
"We were children!" Alphonse cried, and he waved toward his chest. "I was a walking felony offence!"
Edward inhaled through his nose and nodded. "No, you know what? You're right. It was different." He shook the netted grocery bag at Alphonse. "Because last time, an ambassador wasn't shot. Mustang wasn't shot." Alphonse stumbled as he stepped back from Edward, and Edward kept going. "Last time, we weren't about to be going to fucking war, and there wasn't a chance that we'd get shipped out—"
Alphonse scoffed. "What I showed them wasn't exactly suited to combat—"
"I'm sure that's what Mustang was thinking." Edward said. "I'm sure he and all the other State Alchemists weren't watching you, figuring out how to use whatever you showed them to…to…."
"Listen—" Alphonse stopped when he saw something over Edward's shoulder. "Mei?"
Edward turned and saw Mei, stopping just short of them and touching her bobbed hair lightly. "Thank God," he said. They could finish their conversation at home, far from neighbours' eyes. "Let's go."
But Alphonse blurted something in Xingese, and Mei smoothed down the skirt of her dress. It was a dark blue dress, with a cut and silhouette similar to the ones Edward saw the young, fashionable women in town wearing to match pictures in newspapers and magazines.
Alphonse said something else in Xingese, and Mei replied, "It's a dress."
Edward looked back at Alphonse, who, eyes wide, said, "What happened to your hair?"
"What's wrong with her hair?" Edward asked, and he looked back at Mei, who touched where it stopped just below her jawline.
"I pinned it," she said.
Alphonse spoke again in Xingese, and she shook her head and responded in kind.
Edward, feeling his temperature rise again, said, "What's happening?"
"Nothing," Alphonse said, and he stepped around Edward, grabbed Mei's arm, and started toward home as they bickered in Xingese.
Edward watched them go, his chest hollowing with the untimely hijacking of his discussion with Alphonse, and then he followed them, letting his feet drag as he went.
It wasn't Alphonse's place to take care of Edward's family, to take risks and play big brother. But, nonetheless, he was trying to do just that. And the worst of it, Edward thought as he watched Alphonse and Mei walk before him, was that when Edward just tried to talk to him about it, Alphonse didn't seem to care.
Edward hefted the grocery bag and shoved his free hand in his trousers pocket. Well, that was fine then. If Alphonse didn't care, then he wouldn't either. If Alphonse wanted to run off and join the military just in time for a war, that was his business. Edward wouldn't interfere.
But as Edward passed through the gate and looked over his home, at the wing of the aeroplane peeking from behind the house, at the uphill walk to the porch where his son played with a wooden train set, he knew he would interfere.
Interfering was what big brothers did, after all.
Breda tapped his files into a semblance of order, then he stood from his desk chair, left his office, and walked down the hall. He had spent the entirety of the previous day interrogating party attendees, and he would spend the entirety of the rest of the morning engaged in the same work. He was eager, he had to admit, to get started with his first appointment. She had been a fascination of Mustang's, and his by extension, for some time, so Breda was anxious to see how she factored into the most recent crisis.
He neared the interrogation room, and one of his newest hires, a former associate from Central Command named Keller, looked up at him and said, "They're both inside."
"Right," Breda said. They were woefully understaffed and underprepared for the level of investigation he needed to conduct, so talented assets like the man before him were doubling as interrogators and secretaries. Breda would have to hire more staff, as soon as he had a chance to begin recruiting and conducting interviews. "Lead the husband to the waiting room, and then come back and wait in case I need you."
Keller nodded, and he followed Breda into the interrogation room. It was a small space, not ten paces wide or long, and it was occupied by a man and a woman.
"Ms Pavluochenko?" he said, and she looked up at him from her seat on the other side of the room's wooden table. She was pretty, with upturned eyes and a wide mouth and dark curls, and she held the hand of the person next to her, a frowning, dark-haired man Breda presumed to be the husband.
"Yes," she said, and she dragged the word out, as if the idea of replying bored her.
Breda turned to the man next to her. "And?" He let it hang.
"I'm her husband," the man said.
Breda huffed and flipped through his files until he found the name. "Yes. Mr David Bauer."
"Doctor," the man said, and Breda looked back at him. "It's Doctor Bauer."
"Well, then," Breda said, because he hadn't asked if the man was a doctor, just what his name was, "you can wait outside, Dr Bauer. I'll need to speak with your wife alone."
David Bauer looked for a moment as if he very much did not want to go, but his wife put a hand on his arm and whispered in Drachman to him. Then he nodded his head and let Keller usher him out of the room.
Breda sat in a metal chair opposite the opera singer. "Tea? Water?"
She met his eyes and smiled. "Coffee, if you please."
The door opened, and Breda looked to Keller, who stuck his head in. "Could you get two cups of coffee, please?" He looked back at the singer. "Cream? Sugar?"
"Both," she said.
He looked back to Keller. "Both."
Keller nodded, and he closed the door.
She continued to look at him with that serene, disinterested smile. Breda had seen such expressions many times before. It wouldn't stay.
"So, Ms Pavluochenko…" He looked at his files and back at her. "And it is Pavluochenko, correct? You kept your maiden name."
She leaned forward. "I kept my family's name, yes. Drachman women do not take their husbands' names." She shrugged. "We are not property, ah?"
"Of course not," Breda said. He looked over her file. She was relaxed, too relaxed for someone with nothing to hide. It would be best to skip whatever game she wanted to play and get right to it. "Why are you here?"
She shrugged again. "You asked me to come."
"No," he said, "why are you here in Amestris?"
"I have career."
He looked down at her file, information he had gathered at Mustang's request, information she wouldn't know he had. "You had a career before you arrived." He looked up. "Of a sort."
She blinked, and her smirk vanished at the reference to her time with the Drachman crown prince. That was good. Then she tilted her head to one side. "I quit."
"As I understand it," he said, "that's not the sort of thing you quit." Mistresses at such high levels of society typically didn't leave unless the benefactor had grown tired of them. And his intelligence showed no indication that Prince Vasily had tired of her at all.
But she smiled. "I did."
And while he was curious as to why the notoriously selfish and cruel Prince Vasily would just let her walk away and move to another country because she felt like doing so, he had more pressing concerns. "Would you mind—"
The door creaked open, and Keller appeared with a tray holding a carafe, two mugs, a sugar bowl, and a cream pitcher. Keller left the tray on the table and left as swiftly as he had come.
Breda gestured to the tray, and she selected a mug, poured herself a cup of coffee from the carafe, and lumped in two spoonfuls of sugar.
"Would you take me through your night at the embassy?"
She hummed as she stirred in cream. "I arrive early afternoon, around three, for rehearsal."
Breda scribbled down the time she noted. "Were you familiar with the pieces?"
"Of course," she said.
"Then why arrive so early?"
Her relaxed smile faded, and her eyes narrowed. "For rehearsal," she said slowly, as if she thought him very ignorant. "The orchestra must learn venue, I must learn venue and orchestra."
"What about the venue?" he asked. He would need to know everything she had done since her arrival, where she had gone, what she had seen.
"The stage," she said, "size, sound."
He nodded. "You had never performed with this orchestra before."
"No."
"You replaced another singer, a Miss…" He checked his file. "Edie Braun."
She snorted.
"You're not a fan," he said.
She shrugged again. "I am not."
He fought the urge to laugh at the frankness of the statement, and he instead asked, "Why did you accept the offer to perform?" When Ms Pavluochenko looked confused by the question, he continued, "You live in another city, have an established career there—I hear your most recent performance was widely acclaimed. Why come here for one performance?"
"My husband is also here for conference," she explained. "All these psychologists come and talk about research."
Breda nodded and took down a few notes. It likely wouldn't matter what kind of doctor her husband was, but that kind of information about close family members often came in useful. "What do you know about your husband's research?"
"It is tedious," she said.
"Then why come?"
She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, and then she said, slowly again, "I had performance."
Breda sighed. "You don't have an interest in your husband's conference, and you didn't need to take a single night performance in another city. Why?"
She picked up her coffee cup. "For delightful coffee and conversation." She took a drink, set the cup on the table, and played with the handle as if searching for how to phrase her answer. "At opera house in East City, I performed my last opera of season. I am on…" She clicked her tongue. "Oh, break for personal need, ah?"
"Sabbatical," he offered.
"Sabbatical," she repeated, letting the word roll across her lips. "I am on sabbatical."
He felt, as she practised the new word in front of him, admitting her lack of knowledge, that in this, at least, she was telling him the truth.
"I am paid for every opera performance," she continued, "and with no opera, there is no money. But I still pay rent. So." She ticked off the order of events on her fingers. "Edie makes stupid comment, Ministry of State needs new singer, performance is at same time as David's conference, so I come."
He recalled hearing about a comment by some singer, about how Cretans were all lazy cowards, and the country wasn't technically at peace with them anyway, and how could she be expected to entertain them? He asked, "How much did you make?"
"Four million cenz," she said.
He blinked. It was a magnificent sum, one that would cover rent in a nicer neighbourhood in East City for several months. Poor Edie Braun had talked herself out of quite the payday.
She must have noticed how he balked, for she grinned and said, "They were desperate for someone good. I don't know why they ask for Edie in the first place."
Breda stifled a laugh by clearing his throat. Still, it was astonishing to him that an opera singer might earn in a night what he earned in half a year, and more astonishing still that she wasted no time on false humility. "After the rehearsal?"
"I change into my gown for evening—"
"Where?" he said.
"There was ladies' changing room upstairs." Then she smacked the table. "My clothes are still there," she said, as if the clothes would prove her innocence. "I cannot get because military has closed building."
"I'm sure they'll be returned to you in time," Breda said, though he did not believe it would be soon. "I can give you a form to fill out describing the items."
Ms Pavluochenko smiled, a sincere smile that made his heart quicken. "Thank you."
"So you changed," he said, suddenly desperate for her to stop smiling. There were important questions he needed to ask, after all, and a smile like that would only distract him from his purpose.
She did. "I came back to stage, party begins—"
"Did you meet the ambassador?"
She shook her head. "I was supposed to be introduced later."
There. A lie. "But you had already met," he said as he looked up at her. She blinked, but gave him no other reaction, so he decided to press further. "In Creta. You were there shortly before you moved here."
"Yes," she said, dragging her words. "I am singer. I had tour."
"I believe the late ambassador was a state representative at that time, and you had the pleasure of meeting at several of your performances."
She shrugged one shoulder. "I met many men at these performances."
Breda narrowed his eyes. "But how was meeting him?"
"Boring."
He paused. "Boring," he confirmed.
"Yes."
"Nothing eventful occurred at any of these meetings?" he asked. "He didn't proposition anything or…make any comments?"
She raised an eyebrow. "What kind of comments?"
"You tell me."
She scoffed and shook her head. "He said nothing I would kill him for."
"And what would you kill him for?"
She froze then, apparently realising her misstep. Then she pursed her lips and spat, "He was nothing to me."
Breda doubted very much that she was telling him everything, but he could see her agitation rising, so he continued, "Tell me more about your time in Creta. About the steel negotiations."
She crossed her arms. "Why does everyone ask this? This is so old."
Breda leaned forward. "Who is 'everyone?'" How many people had approached her for similar information? "Ms Pavluochenko, who else asked you about this?"
But instead of answering, she went very still and very quiet.
Further belligerence wouldn't encourage her to share what she knew, he realised, but trust might. So he asked quietly, "Did they threaten you?"
She stared at the table between them, but it was enough to confirm.
"Was it relevant to the ambassador's death?"
"No," she whispered, and she shook her head. Then, "I do not think."
Breda leaned back in his chair. It was unlikely she had knowingly engaged in any plot, but her secrets might still uncover more knowledge. "Ms Pavluochenko, my job is to keep the people of this country safe by maintaining the legality and legitimacy of the government. If someone powerful has threatened you, it is best that I know who it was and what they have on you. It's the best chance I have of protecting this country. Of protecting you. And I can protect you." He reached across the table and placed his hand down in front of her. It was time to deliver the final blow, to mix kindness with threats. "If you don't allow me to protect you, I'll have no choice but to assume that the country needs protection from you." She blinked rapidly, and he said, "I trust you understand me."
She nodded once.
Breda asked, "Who was it?"
Then she said, so quietly he almost didn't hear, "General Mustang."
Breda pulled back. "Mustang?"
If Mustang was involved, then her secrets were unrelated to the assassination. If Mustang had asked her about it, he must have had a reason. If Mustang had threatened her into silence, then he was plotting something.
And Breda needed to know what that was before he could proceed.
He pushed back his chair and stood. "One moment, please." He shoved his way out of the room, gave the order to Keller to observe her while Breda was gone, marched back to his office, and dialled the hospital number. He then rattled off the room number and his credentials to the operator, and listened to the buzzing tone until a distinctly annoyed voice answered, "Hello?"
"Sir," Breda said, and habit nearly forced him to attention. "I need—"
"Make it quick," Mustang said on the other end. "The council has called a meeting and I'm supposed to be leaving soon. And I'm told Hawkeye isn't going to be here before then. Of all the days for her to—"
"Sir," Breda said again, because he found Hawkeye's absence from Mustang's periphery far less important than his own questions. "I need to ask you something. It's about the opera singer."
Mustang paused for a moment before he said, "What."
"Did you…discuss the steel trade matter with her? At the party, perhaps?"
"Oh, yes," Mustang said. Then, "She's one of mine."
Breda braced himself against his office desk. "She is?"
"Or she will be. She talked, did she?"
"To me," Breda allowed, though he thought it would make little difference.
Mustang hummed, and then he said, "I need a favour."
Breda sighed. Mustang always needed a favour.
"Can you find someone for me? Someone in Belkovia? Possibly get a message in? I'll get you the particulars later."
Breda frowned. "The Belkovian borders are closed."
"So?"
He pinched the bridge of his nose. It was unlikely, nearly impossible, but if he had the right tools, the right people, it could be feasible. After his investigation concluded, of course. "Give me two months and maybe—"
"One."
Breda tightened his grip on the edge of his desk. It was not a negotiation, not unless he was very lucky. Still, he agreed, "One."
"Good," Mustang said. "I have to go. Keep me abreast. And impress upon her the importance of discretion."
"Yes—" Breda began, but the line clicked before he could finish.
Breda returned the telephone to the cradle, straightened, and walked back out of his office with his pad and pen in hand.
When he reached the interrogation room, he knocked, waited, and said to Keller when he emerged, "How's she been?"
"Fidgeting," Keller said, "quiet. She's hiding something."
"I know." She wasn't hiding her connection to the assassination, nor was she hiding her presence as a foreign spy. No, she was one of Mustang's spies, and a new and untested one at that. He recalled his own first few months working under Mustang, his own uncertainty in his role and his abilities. "We're letting her go."
Keller's narrowed his eyes "But—"
"We're letting her go," Breda repeated, and then he pushed into the room. "Ms Pavluochenko," he said, and her head jerked up. He slid his pad and pen across the table to her. It wasn't the proper form—he wouldn't keep her long enough to get it—but he could fill that out for her. "Describe the items you left at the embassy, please."
She carefully picked up the pen and uncapped it, then she began writing.
He observed her penmanship, her motions agitated, her strokes sloppy. "Tell no one what we've discussed here."
She paused, nodded without looking, and resumed writing her list of affects. When she had finished, she capped the pen again and slid the pad back to him. "You said if I tell you—"
"Mustang offered you safety as well, didn't he?" Breda said, for he could predict her next words. "I'll be your friend now and tell you he means it, as do I." She looked up at him at that, her eyes wide, and he continued, "We don't have to be your enemies."
She nodded.
Breda added, "Silence is your greatest protection from that." Then he gathered up his things and opened the door. "You're free to go."
She scrambled to her feet and out the door, and Breda did not go with her to see the reunion with her husband, but he did tell Keller before he left, "Tell them to go back to East City and to keep paying their telephone bill."
Breda shoved his hands in his pockets and strolled back to his office. With this interview cut short, he had some time before his next one. He would be meeting with members of Mustang's campaign team later, specifically with the scheduler, Ben Neumann.
"Watch out for him," Mustang had told Breda the day before. "I don't like him. I don't know why, but I don't like him."
Of course, Breda had seen Neumann interact with Hawkeye plenty in the East, and Havoc had made enough comments. If Mustang didn't know—or rather, refused to acknowledge—why he didn't like Neumann, Breda certainly did.
Still, the party had been an invitation-only event, and Neumann had never seemed important enough or powerful enough to secure an invitation on his own. His presence was a particular curiosity.
But the man was rather a dope, and he was unlikely to have been involved with the assassination.
Breda walked into his office and had only just sat down when Fuery ran in and said, "We have a problem."
"Really," Breda said, tossing his pen on his desk. "Is a dead ambassador a problem?"
But Fuery said, "You know the listening devices I've been making?"
"Sure." They were small, no larger than a deck of cards, and rather a marvel of engineering. They couldn't transmit very far, several hundred metres on average, but their discrete size made them ideal for espionage.
"We're missing some."
Breda looked up at Fuery, who shuffled from one foot to the other. "What does that mean."
"I mean," Fuery said, and he adjusted his glasses, "I had ninety-eight, now I have ninety-four."
Breda snorted. "You miscounted."
"No," Fuery said, and Breda straightened at the certainty in his voice. "I left them in my office, two days ago. Boxed them up, locked the door…" Fuery shook his head. "Today I'm missing four."
"You didn't notice yesterday?" Breda asked as he stood again—there would be no rest for him before his next interview, it seemed.
"I was busy." Fuery led Breda down the halls to his own office, which was more of a technological workroom than a place of business. He unlocked the door and pushed it open. "Didn't get to look at them."
Breda looked around the small room, taking in the wires and little things Fuery called "capacitors" and "resistors" littering all surfaces. In the middle of the clutter on Fuery's desk, there was an open file box which contained not files but dozens of small, black rectangles with long, skinny antennae. "Was anything else moved?" he asked, though he had no idea how Fuery would be able to tell with the mess.
But Fuery said, "No. Nothing. Just the listening devices."
Breda bent next to the door and traced his finger around the edge of the lock. There were scuffs, very light, but definitely there, and definitely unusual on a lock so new. Unless, of course, someone had been trying to get in without the key. "Go around," he said, "and see if anyone has noticed anything out of the ordinary, either today or yesterday. We might've had a break-in."
"That's a nasty coincidence, isn't it?" Fuery said.
"An embarrassing one," he grunted, and Fuery ran off to start discussing strange occurrences with the few other staff they had.
But Breda knew, and his heart had been sinking with what he already knew: Two nights ago, they were stretched thinner, dispatching staff to the embassy, and placing their own internal security as a lower priority. And someone who wanted to get in and take something, perhaps some very small and discreet listening devices, would have known that with the right distraction, such action would have been simple. And a shooting at an embassy was an excellent distraction.
It wasn't a coincidence at all.
Oh hi guys. How's it hangin'?
I have a PhD now. You know what that means…I'm no longer spending all of my time trying to become a doctor, because I am one. Which means that all the time I was previously devoting to doctor things I am no longer devoting to that. I get home from work like, "Oh, huh. Ok. What to do now?" Well, obviously, TAC to do now, but also other things. I'll probably be starting up the podcast again at some point, and then doing some other pastimes. I might be in a play soon, might be starting a new D&D party. I don't know. I just know I have so much goddamn time. Time and time and time and time.
A while before this…eight? nine? I don't math…month hiatus began…Actually no. After the hiatus began, but back in February, my fiancé suggested that I give y'all something to tide you over. Not a chapter, but, like, an author's note which would…Ok. So. He was like, "Hey, do people make fanart of the Amestrian Candidate?" And I was like, "Pft. No. Of course not." And he was like, "Oh, well, if they do, you could promote the shit out of it while people wait for a chapter, so it's at least something. It could also be motivating to you. You could ask if anyone is interested in making art." And I was like, "But I don't want to come off as desperate." And he was like, "You're a grown-ass woman. Learn to ask for things." And I was like, "I'm bisexual and ADHD. It is not in my nature to do this." And he was like, "Dyanne—" And I was like, "Babe, I'm afraid of offending our wedding planner by asking for a different centrepiece concept. I can't ask for fanart." And he was like, "Ugh…Ok, I'll tell you what to say." So. He came up with this:
"Hey! I know it's been a while since I posted. I'm focused on my thesis at the moment (a truth), and it's going great (a lie), and I'm almost done with it (another lie). I probably won't get to post another chapter until after I graduate in May. But, in the meantime, if anyone has any fanart of this fic, I would be so delighted to post it here so that all readers can see and enjoy while they wait for the next chapter!"
And then I ididn't post it/i. And now it's June and not February and I ihave/i posted a new chapter, so most of that paragraph is irrelevant. But…I will be an awkward and desperate bitch and say now…offer still stands. If you make a thing tangential to my thing, I will promote/link it on my thing.