The Führer controlled and commanded the entire military and, as it naturally followed, Riza. If he wanted to make up for a missed appointment with an officer, he could. If he wanted to pull someone from public and into a small, black automobile, he could. And she could do nothing to prevent such a thing: any outright refusal would have been insubordination.
So when excuses ran dry, and when David's surprising efforts at negotiation failed, and when she had decided against being ordered, Riza followed.
She followed the Führer from the public safety of the hotel lobby and into a small, black automobile, where he sat. He was silent, smiling and waiting. If he was still the master planner he had alway been, then she knew his silence was strategic as he waited for her to make a move. But she did not know what move she ought to make, so she looked out the window instead.
She had known after four turns where they were headed—for it was not the way to the hospital nor Central Headquarters, and there was nowhere else the Führer would be taking her than his home.
The silence pulled tight, interrupted only by the occasional horn from another automobile on the streets.
She started when he asked, "How's your holiday been, my dear?"
Riza looked down at her hands, folded in her lap. "It hasn't been a holiday, Sir."
"Of course not," he said. "You needn't worry about your general today. I've sent one of my best men to look after him."
She nodded once. Again, silence.
Then, "Do you like Central?"
Riza looked up. It was impossible to decipher the lines around his eyes and mouth, to read the eyes behind the glint of his spectacles. "No, Sir."
"Oh, ho!" he chuckled.
She shifted and looked out the window again. They were nearing the Führer's residence. She recognised the rows of houses, the tree-lined avenues. The steep pitch of a roof here, the red brick façade of another home there.
"We needn't use such formalities amongst family, you know."
There it was. She glanced at the chauffeur, but he was the consummate professional, staring ahead with a practised stoicism she had seen so often in mirrors.
"I've been wanting to talk with you for some time," the Führer began.
"I know," she said, only just stopping herself from adding "sir." There was no getting away from the conversation, so she lifted her chin and set her shoulders back.
The automobile slowed and pulled between the mansion's two large, wrought iron gates. The Führer had opened his door before the chauffeur fully turned off the engine.
The Führer continued toward the residence. "Come along," he called back with the ease of an invitation, though she knew it was not.
The chauffeur opened Riza's door and handed her out of the automobile with a quiet, "Major Hawkeye."
It had been some time since she had entered through the private wing of the residence. Colonnades of light-coloured limestone rimmed the whole of the courtyard, with kitchens, stables, and garages hidden behind them. The private entrance was only slightly less grand than the front one, with carved stone surrounding a leaded glass transom window and heavy, wooden doors held open by uniformed attendants. She had few positive memories of the house, fewer of the people who had ever lived in it.
"Let's not dally, my dear!" the Führer called from the doorway. "Much to do and much to say."
She followed. The attendants nodded to her with slight smiles as she passed and drew the doors closed with a thud.
The interior hall was much as she remembered it when the Bradleys had lived in the residence, with natural green wallpapering and warm wood tones. Mrs Bradley had always kept fresh flowers, Riza remembered, always bringing a little of the outer world indoors. There were no flowers now.
She followed the Führer up the back stairs and into a different room from the one she and the General had trespassed into only a few days earlier. This one she remembered as well from occasionally bringing Führer Bradley papers he had left at Headquarters.
It had gone through a refurbishment, however. No longer was it an office—gone were the hard, heavy wooden desk and chair. Instead of bare, panelled walls there were paintings by artists she recognized the style of but could not name. Above the stone fireplace hung a map of the country, and before it lay a large Xingese rug, flanked by two deep, green sofas. Between them was a marble inlaid table that held a steaming tea service. Footmen must have rushed the service into the room when the Führer's automobile had pulled in through the gates, but they had already slipped out through the home's discreet passageways.
She and the Führer were alone.
The Führer sat on one sofa, his back to the east-facing windows, and gestured to the other.
Riza obliged him. It would make everything easier if she obliged him.
He smiled at her, haloed by the sunlight streaming through the window behind him. His smile felt too strong. She looked away to the mantle, where a vase rested. It was a lovely vase, covered in green enamel flowers—the sort of flowers with many long, skinny petals—and tiny orange butterflies, all surrounded in an inlay of gold.
"Do you like it?" the Führer asked.
"It's very beautiful."
"Yes," he agreed. "It was a gift from the Emperor of Xing. You remember him, of course."
Riza nodded, and the Führer, satisfied with her confirmation continued:
"It wasn't a gift of state, though. It was a birthday gift. Between friends."
Riza nodded again and looked back at him as she waited for the real conversation, whatever it was, to begin.
The Führer, though, looked from her to the vase and back. "You can have it, if you like."
Riza blinked and shook her head. "No. Thank you."
"And what of the rest of it?" he asked as he gestured around the room, filled with similar, exotic trinkets. "What do you think?"
"It's…" She paused for the correct word. It was too grand to be lovely, too extravagant to be fine. It was imposing. "It's very well decorated."
"Do you know why the powerful fall?" the Führer said as he picked up the teapot. "Because people stop seeing them as powerful. There's a beautiful simplicity to it all. So one's drawing room must be well decorated." He smiled at her. "How do you take your tea?"
"Why am I here?" she asked.
The Führer's spectacles glinted as he said, "You missed our appointment. I had so been looking forward to it." He lumped one spoonful of sugar and just enough milk into a cup, which he slid across the table.
It was exactly how she took her tea.
She picked up the cup, but she did not drink.
"Have you thought of a name yet?"
Her mind reeled at what he could mean. "Sir?"
"Oh ho!" He chuckled as he lumped two spoonfuls of sugar into his own cup. "We're not back to that are we?" He sipped for a moment. "Have you considered your legacy?"
Riza nodded once. It was always at the forefront of her thoughts, the path she had decided to take with the General and the country he sought to build.
"I've been doing so lately," the Führer said, "and I've found that family is quite important to me." He sipped again and set his cup on a saucer, turning it in contemplation. "There are some things I can't repair. I have many regrets, but losing your mother might be my biggest one. I knew what sort of man your father was. I can imagine the upbringing you had."
Riza's shoulders tensed. Could he indeed? She doubted he could imagine the isolation of being a ten-year-old child with one parent dead and the other all but the same. She doubted he knew what it was to lie awake at night, hungry, listening to the constant drip of the roof her father would not lift his hands to repair.
The Führer set his tea in front of him. "You're very quiet." He cocked his head to the side. "Then again, you've always been very quiet."
Riza had nothing to say to that, so she took a drink. He watched.
"Albrecht might be nice. After your great-great-grandfather."
She choked, coughed a few times, and set her cup down with a shaking hand. He offered a handkerchief, but she waved it off. When she had finally collected herself, Riza said, "I'm sorry. I don't understand."
The Fuhrer only smiled. "When the military overthrew the monarchy, Duke Albrecht Grumman adapted. He renounced his noble title and helped the rebels arrest the king. Lobbed the queen's head off himself, you know."
Riza flinched. She had learned about the revolution in school, of course. Then, it had been the distant history of strangers, not her own.
He sighed and appeared to study his cup as he picked it up again. "Grummans have always had a hand on power in this country. It's our birthright. And when power shifts we adapt.
"And I adapted. Old Bradley, his stratocracy, was going to destroy this country—" He took a sip of his tea, and when he set the cup down, his tone was dark. "But it's ours. Ours by right."
Riza shook her head. The Führer may have been instrumental to ending Bradley's government eight years before, but he had also allowed Bradley to rise to power in the first place, had wanted it, had guaranteed it. She whispered, "That country was a lie."
"Not to the millions who lived in it," the Führer countered. "Reality, just like power, is appearance. But down, down it tumbled all the same, and a Grumman is still here, holding power." He sat back and laced his fingers over his knee. "You see my dear, Grummans will always be attracted to power. Your mother, my Elizabeth…even she fell thrall to power, though sadly of another kind." He nodded. "But back you came. Because power is our right."
Riza looked at her cup on the table. Her chest felt tight, and she ran through excuses. Perhaps she hadn't supplied the General with the correct materials before his meeting. Perhaps she had an appointment with a doctor.
And she wished for Vogel to come through the door with some urgent business.
She had not seen Vogel, though, and at that moment she wondered what might happen if the Führer's speech started to slur, if he dropped his teacup to the floor and again started calling her "Elizabeth."
"So," the Führer said, "have you thought of a name?"
"I am…" Riza stopped, drew a breath, cleared her throat to work out the tightness in her voice, and started again. "I'm not having a child soon."
"No," he allowed. "But in one year, there will be a new Führer. And there will be you."
She clasped her hands in her lap. She knew, of course, that the Führer and the General had discussed these things before, never in detail, but it had been understood. She had never appreciated the exclusion from those conversations as much as she did at that moment.
"Oh, ho! I know you don't intend to stay in your current position when the time comes. You are a Grumman, though you've never been one to wield power. You would be ill-suited to a command of your own."
She shook her head. "I don't intend—"
"I'm dying."
Riza bit her lip. Her chest ached more, though more with guilt than sorrow.
"Worse still," he continued, "I'm old. I'd like to see a great-grandchild at some point."
"A great-grandchild," Riza repeated. Her head spun. It was surreal, absurd even, that the Führer should want to corner her for a conversation about future generations. Yet there they were, with the conversation continually circling back to the same topic.
"Of course, my dear." He smiled. "I thought I had lost my family once. I won't have that again."
Her hands tightened in her lap.
"You must have had a lonely childhood," he said. He sighed and shook his head. "I never wanted Elizabeth to marry him. As I said, I knew what sort of man your father was—controlling, selfish, obsessed. My Elizabeth deserved better. I forbade her from seeing him. I had letters intercepted—yes, letters! You had no idea your father was a romantic, did you? When she left with him, I stopped their train to the country, but, then, he was an alchemist, and they were on their way again."
Riza bit the insides of her cheeks. Of course the Führer had been aware of her from the moment of her birth. So why hadn't he come to take her from the decaying house her father haunted?
"I had some hope of seeing my daughter again when you were born. My grandchild!" He sighed. "But I lost her, and when your father sent word that he had no intention of letting your grandmother and me see you—well." He inclined his head, as if that explained everything.
And it did not. For the Führer had even then been a respected military officer, with all the influence and power he so prized growing behind him. What was her father's word against that? Her father, who—Who trusted her. He had trusted her.
"It was a stroke of remarkable luck that the two of you appeared when I was looking for someone to mentor," he continued.
"He understands how things ought to be," the Fuhrer mused, focusing his eyes on her, "and how one can achieve them. He's unafraid of being a little ruthless. He's adaptable."
The pieces fell into place. He had not wanted a grandchild—that would have been too inconvenient—but rather a protégé, a disciple to whom he would pass on his power.
His legacy.
The name would change, but a Grumman would still be there, holding power.
She was not the legacy. He only needed her for this.
And her father, though he had trusted her, had not trusted her with her inheritance. He had always meant it for someone else.
"He understands that to do good, you have to be willing to do evil."
Envy, black and thick and tasting of bile, welled in her throat.
"He's just like me, you know," he said.
Riza could not stop the short laugh from spilling through her teeth. Oh, what a fool she was and had always been.
But the Führer did not understand from whence her derision came, and he countered, "Why do you think I took him under my wing? Out of all the officers and alchemists in the East, he showed the most promise."
"Promise?" she repeated. Did he see a lack of that when he looked at her? Had her father?
He waved a hand in the air to dismiss her question. "And of course that brings us back to the topic of legacy."
She shook her head. There was more than one sort of legacy. "I don't know that I will ever have children."
"You do not want them?" he said, surprise evident in his voice, though his demeanour remained pleasant and calm.
Riza swallowed. "It's irrelevant." She owed him no explanation of her decisions, the decisions that had led her far away from any possibility of that life.
The Führer's face darkened. "Irrelevant?" He considered her for a moment, as if he could hear her racing pulse and feel her rise in temperature. "It's relevant to everything, my dear. What do you and your noble general work for is not a better future for your children?"
She clenched her teeth. How dare he? How dare he push for a relationship he hadn't pursued for three decades, for a family he had no right or means to control? And how dare he discuss what even the General would not? For if she and the General ever spoke of it with one another, they might acknowledge wanting it, and that would make the not having all the worse.
But she also remembered a little house in Resembool, where another happy family lived. "There are other children."
"But they are not us," he said.
She turned her face away as heat burned behind her eyes. What was family to her but a series of those who had consistently chosen power—chosen legacy—over her?
The Führer sighed. "I have no desire to fight with you. Quite the opposite."
When Riza would not look at him, he chuckled. "You really are so like your mother."
But she had no patience for the comparison just then. "May I go?"
The Führer said nothing for a moment, he simply stared at her, and the only sound was the slow ticking of the clock, measuring the distance between them. Then, "Yes."
She met his eyes, saw the displeasure evident in his clenched jaw and the furrow between his brows.
But, ever the gracious leader, he said, "The chauffeur will be downstairs and ready to take you wherever you'd like to go."
She rose and turned toward the door without further invitation.
"My dear."
Her hand tightened on the door handle.
"You are always welcome."
She stared at a knot in the wood grain on the door. "Thank you."
Then she pushed the door open and rushed down the familiar path to the courtyard and release.
The chauffeur straightened next to the automobile the moment he saw her. He stubbed out his cigarette into a cigarette case and snapped it closed. "Back to the hotel, Ma'am?"
"Yes, please." She wrenched the door open before he could offer to do it for her, threw herself into the back seat, and slammed the door closed. She pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes as the engine turned over and the automobile lurched forward. She wanted to scream.
The ride passed in silence, and even after the automobile slowed to a permanent stop, the chauffeur waited for her to move first.
Riza lifted her head and took a deep breath. Out the window, the hotel loomed over her.
"Are you alright, Ma'am?" the chauffeur asked.
Riza met his eyes in the rear-view mirror. "Fine, thank you," she said, and she climbed out, straightened her uniform, and started through the front door, leaving the chauffeur, the small, black automobile, and thoughts of the Führer's legacy behind.
It was time to get back to work.
It was a damnable offence, Mustang thought, that he should be asked to suffer one of Grumman's faceless officers while Hawkeye—his Major Hawkeye—was off doing whatever the führer had in mind for her to do.
He supposed he could decide to be happy. It was a meeting between a grandfather and his granddaughter, one which had been delayed by recent events and was long overdue. But Mustang found being morose about the inconvenient rescheduling so much more pleasant.
"Will you be needing a chair, Sir?" the officer had the gall to ask as Mustang pulled himself out of the automobile which had brought them to Central Headquarters.
"No," Mustang said. "I will not." Hawkeye would never ask him such a stupid question, the same question voiced by nurses and Ross over the past two days. For, yes, walking hurt, and he much would have preferred being pushed along in a chair, but he would never admit as much, and Hawkeye would never have put him in such a position. No, Hawkeye would have just sat him into the chair and that would have been the end of the matter.
But she wasn't there, so he pleased himself with a miserable climb up the front steps and a laborious walk down the colonnade.
The officer tried to open the door to the meeting room, but Mustang grunted and pushed him off. He hoped the officer wouldn't be there when the meeting was done.
"Hello, there, Mustang," said General Fischer once Mustang was inside the meeting room.
There was a long table inside the small, stuffy room, with two chairs on either side and one at the head—Hauser had seated himself in that one, while Fischer had taken a chair to his left.
Mustang grabbed the back of a chair on the right side of the table and pondered dragging it to the opposite end of the table so he could stare Hauser down.
"You alright?" Fischer continued. "Heard you got shot."
"Hit by an automobile, the way I heard it," said Hauser with a sneer. "Or was it both?"
Mustang lowered himself, slowly so as to not agitate his wound and risk wincing. "I suppose I'm lucky."
Hauser grunted, and Fischer laughed heartily. "Well, on the bright side, if that didn't kill you…"
"Can't kill this one, unfortunately," said another voice from the doorway. "He's a cockroach."
Mustang turned and smiled. "That's nice, Armstrong."
She yanked out the chair next to Mustang's and dropped into it. "Alex really cocked this one up." She snorted. "I have never let a foreign ambassador die while I was in charge of his security. Incompetence at its finest."
Mustang sighed and watched Fischer pour a mug of coffee for himself from a carafe on a side table. "I know I've said this before—"
"Then why bother speaking?" Armstrong said.
"Shouldn't you be kinder to your younger brother?" Mustang said.
Armstrong scoffed. "Respect is earned, Mustang." She leaned back and crossed her arms. "Speaking of respect, I didn't see Hawkeye out there." She jerked her chin toward the door.
Mustang's thumb jumped, and he began the massaging ritual—inside of the palm, working out to the ends of his fingers. "She's indisposed."
Armstrong hummed and nodded. "She finally left you."
He sighed. "That's not—"
"She finally figured out what a slimy son of a bitch you are, and she's better off without you."
He smiled at Armstrong and said with all seriousness, "Oh, she's always known that."
The final member of their council strode into the room. "With respect, Generals," Maden said, "more than ever we need to be reconciled amongst ourselves." He shot a meaningful look at Armstrong and Mustang. "Creta has issued a statement." He then produced a thin packet of paper from his case.
"You've already read it?" Fischer asked. "How'd you get hold of that before the rest of us?"
Maden set the packet down on the table. "Well, I'm the one who'll be dealing with the aftermath the most, aren't I? And one of my men founded our new intelligence organisation." He nodded at Mustang. "With one of yours, of course."
"New intelligence organisation?" Hauser said, his face flushing.
"It's not military," said Mustang.
"Why the fuck not?" said Hauser. pulling a cigar from his pocket and snipping the end off.
Armstrong dropped her head back to look at the ceiling. "Tell us what they want."
Maden cleared his throat. "They say—"
The door opened, and all turned to look as Vogel entered. He seemed unperturbed by the shocked and hostile stares, and he pulled a chair from against the wall so he could sit down with the generals.
"Morning," he said.
"I wasn't aware that Führer Grumman was supposed to be joining us," Armstrong said. The council had been ordered to convene, but not with the understanding that the man who issued the order would be in attendance. He had instead requested notice of their decision, and he would abide by it.
It was an extraordinary amount of liberty that no previous führer would have allowed.
"He won't be," Vogel said.
"I can see that," Armstrong snapped.
"Is he ill again?" Fischer asked.
Mustang looked down at the wood grain in the table rather than at anyone else, for he knew that Grumman was far from ill that day. No, he was attending to family matters, and Mustang could imagine the cries of incredulity and accusations of nepotism that might arise from the full extent of such a revelation.
"He's busy," Vogel explained. "He wanted your decision relayed, and I am to carry that out."
"Busy?" Hauser shouted. "We're dealing with a murdered ambassador. What the hell could he be doing that's more important than—"
"Considering you didn't think he would be here at all," Vogel said with a glare, "I'm curious about why you're so upset that your expectations have been met."
Hauser blustered and puffed his cigar. "Well, it just—"
Mustang, eager to steer the conversation away from the Führer's whereabouts and health, said, "Let's hear about this statement."
Maden cleared his throat once more. "They put the fault on us for not containing the threat when they first appeared." A series of grumbles followed, and Maden waited for quiet before continuing, "They would like these…terrorists apprehended."
"Good." Armstrong slapped her hand on the table and rose. "Good meeting."
"And sent to Creta to stand trial."
The weight of such a demand settled over the gathering. Armstrong lowered herself back down.
Vogel nodded in agreement with all Maden had said. "Our own ambassador is standing by to convey our answer."
"What?" Hauser said.
"Do they doubt we'll have our own trial?" Mustang asked.
Fischer shook his head. "Fine."
"No!" Hauser cried.
"What's the difference? Murder and conspiracy to murder…We catch these people, it's not going to change whether they stand trial in one or two countries. They rot in prison either way."
"We can't do that."
Maden crossed his arms. "If we don't comply, they're going to eject our own ambassador."
"No," Hauser said, and Mustang was upset that he agreed, "that's insane."
"We can't extradite," Armstrong said. "The crime was committed on our soil by our citizens. They have no claim."
"Their dignitaries were the victims," Fischer said.
"What kind of precedent does this set?" Mustang said. "What about our sovereignty? What happens the next time a tourist is killed here? Do we follow the same extradition process?"
"We're shooting tourists now?" Hauser said.
"This wasn't a tourist," Fischer said. "It was an ambassador."
"In their embassy," Maden pointed out. "By law, it's their territory."
"Wasn't the whole point of the damn party to inaugurate the embassy or something?" Hauser scoffed. "Does it even count as their territory yet?"
"Creta certainly believes it's theirs," said Maden.
"Is extradition listed in our treaty?" Mustang asked.
All turned to look at Vogel, who helpfully replied, "No."
"Great," Hauser said, as if it were the end of the matter. "We can refuse." He tapped the end of his cigar absently, spilling ash into his lap.
Vogel said, "The whole point of setting up this diplomatic exchange in the first place was to improve relations between the two countries. We can't outright refuse. We just established our embassy, and—"
"How vital is extradition to Cretan relations?" Armstrong asked Maden.
He pressed his lips into a thin line. "Things are escalating on the border."
Fischer shook his head. "Damn it."
"Creta and Drachma have their own alliance," Armstrong said. "If one declares war on us, the other will follow."
"We managed a war with both for years," Hauser snorted.
"You didn't." Maden snapped. "War never reaches Central."
"Except in newspapers," Armstrong agreed.
Mustang doubted that the Central newspapers even reported the extent of the violence seen in Maden's West and Armstrong's North. They barely mentioned the blockaded railroad in his region, except as a small mention on a slow day.
A memory occurred to him, one of a decision he had made in pursuit of a certain Ishvalan hunter of State Alchemists. He had considered in that case that an arrest might not have been possible. "We also have to consider that we may not be able to extradite."
"You've already given up?" Hauser sneered.
"I'm saying they're armed," Mustang said, and he added, slowly for Hauser's benefit, "They may not go down without a fight."
Armstrong nodded in understanding. "The Flame Alchemist here is suggesting there might be nothing left to extradite."
Mustang swallowed, for it was not an idea that sat well with him. But he had done worse, and he would continue to do worse for Amestris. "Trials or body bags. Either way they get their justice."
Maden nodded. "It may be the only way around it." He huffed. "Well, if they're dead, then we don't set the precedent of extraditing every criminal in our borders and invalidating our own fucking sovereignty."
"Ask them," Fischer said to Vogel, "if we are unable to apprehend them alive, will they accept…corpses."
"What about fair trials?" Vogel asked. "We don't even know who they are. We can't just play judge, jury, and executioner for everyone we suspect—"
"And why not?" said Mustang. "We did it for years."
"You've more practice than most of us at it, Mustang," Hauser said, and Mustang felt the urge to pull on his gloves and practice again.
Vogel shook his head. "What about the constitution? If it—"
"What about it?" Maden cried. "The fact is, we have two choices. Do whatever Parliament wants us to do about jurisprudence and go to war, or damn Parliament and do what we have to do."
"Maden," Vogel said, reason in his tone, "if—"
"No!" Maden took a breath. "No. If we go to war with Creta, the people of the West will feel it first. My people will feel it first. And I will not have that." He shook his head. "So if I have to fuck a constitution that isn't even law yet, then fuck the constitution, fuck Parliament, fuck this whole charade!"
"But on suspicion?" Fischer said. "We could be killing innocent civilians who just happen to have the wrong pamphlet in their houses."
"The hell is wrong with you?" Hauser pointed his cigar at his usual ally. "You've gone soft."
"I just want to make sure—"
"What's the problem? Our job is war!"
"Our job is security!" Mustang shouted as he pounded the table. He winced at the hot pain that shot through his wounded side. "And that is not done with brute force alone. It's strategy." He took a shaky breath and forced down the bile that threatened to spill if he dwelt too long on the thought of the real human lives at stake, on the thought of compromising morality and idealism for the only path forward. "So, we're going to ignore the constitution—it hasn't even passed yet, so I don't care what it will or won't say. Maden will not go to war with Creta, and Armstrong will not go to war with Drachma." Both of them voiced their agreement with this sentiment. "So unless one of you wants to handle a war in their stead…" He looked between Hauser and Fischer, daring them to volunteer. "No? Good." He then looked to Vogel. "We agree, but stress that we need time." He turned his attention back to the council and met each pair of eyes. "And amongst ourselves, we intend to send Creta a collection of coffins. And if some innocent people in the wrong place at the wrong time happen to be in them…" He closed his eyes. "They died for their country. Better a few dead than thousands." He slumped forward in his chair, feeling the spasms return to his hands. He hid them beneath the table as he worked the muscles. "Relay that to the Führer."
Madden and Armstrong nodded over folded arms, and Fischer mumbled his assent. Hauser glared at Mustang from the seat he had taken at the head of the table.
"Oh, for fuck's sake, Hasuer," Armstrong said. "Get over yourself."
After a moment, Hauser ground out, "Fine."
Vogel made his notes, and when he had gone, armed with one reply for an ambassador and another for the führer, the silence hung heavy in the room. One by one, they dismissed themselves with few formalities, until only Mustang and Armstrong remained.
She stood first, but before she left, she said, "You sounded almost competent just now."
He gave her a smile he did not feel. "The highest of praises."
He was alone then, and he sat for a time until he decided that he might as well face the Führer's officer on the other side of the door and head to the hotel.
But to his surprise, the officer was nowhere in sight.
"Hawkeye!" he cried upon finding waiting in the hall. She was a most welcome and lovely sight, her hair just brushing the shoulders of her pressed uniform.
She saluted. "Sir."
"You're back," he said, delighted.
"Yes, Sir."
He waited for her to elaborate, though naturally she did not. "Everything went well?"
"Yes, Sir," she said, and before he could press further, she asked, "How are you feeling?"
"Discharged this morning." He did not add that he had discharged himself, against the advice of doctors and nurses. But her gaze flickered to the meeting room behind him, and he said, "Oh, that?" He waved his hand, as if the meeting had been of no consequence. "I'd like to think on it for a moment, if you don't mind."
He let her support him through Central Headquarters, and she chided him only a little when he needed to stop and rest before moving on.
"I suppose he had you dropped off here," he said, changing the subject from her insistence that he return to the hospital.
"At the hotel, Sir. I drove."
"Oh, that's lucky." There would be no need to call for a cab, and he could lie down in a proper bed sooner.
When they had finally reached the bottom of the front stairs and he was settled into the passenger seat of the automobile, she asked him if he had been discharged with any medications. He admitted that he had been in such a hurry to reach the meeting, he had forgotten to stop at the hospital chemist. She would have to call for them to be delivered. "Pills," he explained. "Massive ones. Supposed to take them three times a day. And there's some foul cream. Stings like a bitch once it's on."
"How often?" she asked as she drove.
"Every two hours, while I'm awake." He gave a short laugh. "Can barely reach it on my own to apply it. Pulls at the stitches too much." He watched the buildings pass by. "Don't I merit a private nurse?"
"Certainly, Sir," she said. "I could place a call and arrange that."
When they had almost reached the hotel, his exhaustion fell heavy on his shoulders, and he could hardly keep his eyes open. He insisted on immediately taking the lift upstairs so he could lie down and sleep.
But when she had sat him on the bed, instead of trying to sleep, he blurted, "We're going to kill them, Hawkeye. Hunt them down." He ran a hand down his face. "Creta wants them for trial, so…" He shrugged. "We're trying to prevent a war and look strong in the midst of political instability and…They have to be stopped."
She pressed her lips together as she considered this. Then she said, "Yes, Sir."
"Before they do anything else."
"Yes, Sir."
"They're radicals," he explained. "Dangerous, violent radicals."
She had nothing to say to that. Ishvalan protesters had once been called the same. It was old rhetoric, the kind they had not needed to convince themselves of for years, but they were skilled at the convincing all the same.
"And someone—Someone has got to make sure Amestris is even around at the end of all of this, so—" He nodded. "We're going to hunt them down. And if they resist arrest, and they will, then there was no other choice and we had to use lethal force. And if they don't resist…"
"Then they resisted," she finished, and she sat next to him. "We dirty our own hands so no one else has to."
He studied her profile, the tightness in her jaw, the furrow in her brow. "You're still coming with me?"
She turned her head to look at him, and in a soft voice, she said, "After all this time, you have to ask?"
Warmth filled his chest, and he reached out to brush her hair back from her cheek.
She moved away from his touch, and the warmth within him, as quickly as it had come, went cold. He let his hand fall to his to the mattress, and he rubbed his fingers together, as if he could rub the lingering softness of her cheek into his skin forever.
He swallowed, licked his lips, and looked away. "You should pin that up. It's past regulation length."
"Yes, Sir," she said, her voice tight. She took an audible breath, and he felt the mattress shift as she stood. "I'll call the hospital about your medication. And a nurse."
He closed his eyes and reached for a way to dismiss the tension in the air. "An attractive one, please. Brunette."
"Of course, Sir."
He listened to her footsteps on the carpet, to the creak and firm latch of the door. Then he fell back on the bed and, finally, sleep took him.
Breda had spent his morning, again, in interrogation. This time, his subject had been Ben Neumann, and Breda had not spent long with him before he knew that he would have to deliver Mustang the unhappy news that Neumann was a perfectly normal, if sappy, person with no discernible involvement in the plot to murder the Cretan ambassador.
He had connections in Parliament, which Breda had known, and he had worked briefly with the late Minister of State, which had secured him an invitation to the inaugural party at the embassy. He had planned to use the event to promote his candidate, Mustang, before the wealthy and powerful of the country. It was all very above board.
In fact, the only thing he had said of note was in response to Breda's question of why, if Neumann had spent so long working parliamentary election campaigns—and for the now-dissolved, fixed military seats, at that—he had decided to take on the challenge of working a campaign for the führer's seat.
"Because this one matters," Neumann had said. "I think that's why the whole team is here, you know? A politician is a politician and a paycheque is a paycheque, but Mustang has plans and ideals. And I couldn't pass up the chance to work toward a government I actually believe in."
When Breda had released Neumann, satisfied that his only real crime was being a dopey idealist with too much personal interest in Riza Hawkeye, Breda sat and stared at his notes and wondered. He wondered if Hawkeye had seen anything else, even something she might have dismissed as insignificant. He resolved to speak with her again.
He gathered his things and made his way by city tram to the hotel and to the storey on which he knew Mustang was staying. But when he neared the room, he saw Hawkeye stepping out and softly closing the door.
"That's your room, is it?" he said, and she jumped.
She turned to face him, and there was the slightest pause before she half smiled and said, "Not too loud, Breda. I've only just put him down for his nap."
He snorted. "Hungry?"
Hawkeye nodded. "Starving. Is it really only noon?"
Breda turned back toward the lifts and they fell into step. "I'd say the hotel has a café, but I'm afraid I just put down a deposit on a flat."
"Congratulations." Hawkeye pressed the call button. "So no more sleeping in your office, then?"
Breda shook his head. The lift door opened, and they stepped inside. "The landlady even has an old bed I can use until I get one of my own." The lift operator began their descent to the lobby, and Breda asked, "Did you ever get to explore this part of the city?"
"No," Hawkeye said. "I was kept quite busy at headquarters when we were here last."
Breda hummed. "You didn't miss anything. All overpriced and underwhelming." She smiled, and he continued, "There is a nice public house around the corner, though. The food's cheap and not too bad. And it has all these quiet alcoves for a nice, private chat."
She shifted ever so slightly, a quick look from the corner of her eye to indicate she took his meaning, and she said, "It sounds lovely."
They passed the remainder of their journey engaged in pleasant smalltalk, and it wasn't until they were seated in such a private alcove and had sent the server away with an order that Breda introduced his reason for taking her away from her post.
"I interviewed Neumann this morning." She nodded, and he continued, "Mustang'll be unhappy to know that he's a perfectly nice man. You came up in his story, of course."
"Of course."
He folded his arms on the table. "Are you sure there's nothing else you saw?"
She shook her head. "I told you the door was open, and—" She swallowed. "It all felt wrong, and I knew there wasn't time."
"Anything at all," he pressed.
"Breda."
He waved his hand. "Maybe you can help me with a different problem. Two days ago, I requested the census records from the East. Sciezka's finally getting around to rewriting them for the Central Library."
"Couldn't she do that from memory?" Hawkeye asked.
"Sure," he allowed, "but there's a problem. See, Mustang wasn't counted in the 1905 census here."
"No?" she asked, as if she were asking about the weather.
"No," he confirmed.
She hummed.
"Hawkeye," he said in a low voice, "you know I know." He leaned forward and hissed, "I don't care how small it is. A census record in the East is a paper trail."
She rested her elbows on the table and laced her fingers together.
"So we're copying things over. Taking his name out of the Eastern records and pasting it into Central ones."
She brought her linked hands up to cover her mouth and closed her eyes. It struck him how she looked like a penitent worshipper, deep in prayer, though he would never make the mistake of thinking her religious.
Now he came to it: "Look, he told me there was nothing tying him to a childhood in the East, and he was wrong. So now I'm doing what I should've done from the beginning and asking you. Is there anything else? Anything at all?" He waited for her to speak, to open her eyes at least, but she did not move. "Hawkeye?"
Finally, she murmured, "Medical records."
"Medical records?" he repeated, to be sure he had heard. When she did not correct him, he asked, "Whose?"
She opened her eyes then. "Mine."
He shook his head. "Why would your medical records…" Then a thought came which made his heart hammer against his ribs. But, no, it couldn't be, for it would be very bad for all of them. If she had ever undergone a particular procedure…"Hawkeye," he said carefully, "were you ever—"
"No!" she said, and she did look at him then, with perfect understanding and horror. "Nothing like that." She shook her head and swallowed. "It's part of my physical exam. Identification records."
He let out a sigh of relief. "Right." Then he remembered their conversation from weeks ago, how she had explained why she didn't wear one of her medals. She had attributed her wounds to "friendly fire," as apt a description as could be found. He had understood her then, and he understood her now. He nodded and said, "Unique scarring," while she, at the same time, said, "Unique markings."
He started. "Markings?" It was an unusual choice of words to describe scar tissue.
"They would be early," she explained. "From when I first entered the Academy."
His head spun. If these "markings" as she called them were from before Ishval, then they had nothing to do with "friendly fire" at all. "What do you mean by 'markings'?"
She leaned forward, her expression serious. "Can you make them disappear?"
Or perhaps they had everything to do with "friendly fire." "Hawkeye—"
"Can you?" she repeated.
He stared at her as he rolled the new information over in his mind. After the Promised Day, she and Mustang and Rebecca had insisted that no field doctors attend to her, and they had insisted instead that Doctor Knox be called with one of his trusted nurses. He and Havoc had thought it odd that they had called for a mortician to work on the living, but now he only wondered at how deep the connection ran. "How much does Rebecca know?"
"Rebecca doesn't ask questions."
"Right." He sat back and decided not to press further. He'd find out for himself soon enough. "I can get rid of them."
She leaned back as well and nodded. "Good." She swallowed. "And he didn't…It's not what you'll think when you see it. It's not," she said, as if she had already given too much away and he might already know what horrible secret markings she might have. "And I know they're sealed, but if somehow the wrong person saw…They might misinterpret."
"Misinterpret." He wished for a moment that she had been pregnant at one point, as he had initially suspected, for at least that would be understandable. Just when he thought he had everything about the two of them figured out, he learned something new that suggested he knew nothing about them at all. "Anything else?"
She shook her head. "You already spent your time snooping in Amlingstadt."
"Yes," he said, glad of the change in subject. "There was a…" he paused as he tried to recall. "Charlotte was her name. She was telling local reporters that she and Mustang had been sweethearts in childhood."
Hawkeye almost laughed at that. "No."
He smiled. "I thought not."
"Paid her off?"
He shook his head. "Something like that." Threats were sometimes more effective than any cheque. "You didn't like her."
Hawkeye raised her eyebrows and hummed. "She didn't like me."
He smiled, for he had heard more than one comment about the "crazy alchemist's weird daughter." And though he thought that fifteen years of working together should have allowed her to trust him a little, and though he knew from experience that a lack of trust in one direction ought to be reciprocated, he said, "She seems a poor judge of character."
Hawkeye smiled at that, and they finished their meal in more pleasant, familiar conversation.
A/N: New year new me new year new me new year new me new year new me new year new me new year new me new year new me new year new me new year new me new year new me new year new me new year new me new year new me new year new me new year new me new year new me new year new me new year new me new year new me new year new me new year new me new year new me new year new me new year new me new year new me new year new me new year new me new year new me new year new me new year new me new year new me.
Let's just say 2023 didn't happen, shall we? That way, it's not been more than a year since I last updated.