Worlds Collide

A/N: bloodhill, thanks. hikaru_9, of course these guys are going to be overprotective of her, and the fact that she's showing interest in an Armstrong, adopted or not, would make any parent nervous. Kuragari, I tried to make their reaction as nice as possible. The twins are definitely a force to be reckoned with when they were together. SadlerGirl. I'm glad you like this and For Her. For Him. So much. I love hearing what people think, for good or not. I've never been sure about Roy/Riza, but I like her as a character for being a kickass female character when so many in anime are idiots. I'm going to be updating this as quickly as I can, without the quality suffering. (I have no beta, so revisions fall on me to do). Hope you continue to enjoy.

Chapter 28

Encounters

Three months later

Kain woke up, the heavy weight of his taller boyfriend on his chest. The alarm had yet to go off, but as always, Frank was curled protectively over Kain’s body. Frank’s leg was draped over both of Kain’s, his head resting on the younger man’s bare chest, a muscular arm tightly embracing Kain’s entire body.

He struggled to pull his arm out from the man’s grip, a few times nearly giving up until finally, he had his right arm free. He moved a hand up to the black hair that in the mornings jutted up in all directions. The older man’s hair was thinning a bit, not something Frank was incredibly pleased with, but Kain didn’t care. It wasn’t the hair he’d fallen for, it was Frank. He moved his hand again, reaching for his black-rimmed glasses on the bedside table, tired of early morning fuzzy vision.

As he put the glasses on, the alarm on the table began to sound, jerking Frank awake with an almost violent start.

“Hey,” Kain said, when the icy blue eyes focused on him.

“Good morning,” Frank said, smiling, then kissing Kain on the cheek before shutting off the ringing clock.

Frank sighed, climbing out of the bed. Today wasn’t going to be easy on him, and Kain knew it. He reached up and grabbed hold of Frank’s hand, giving it a light squeeze. “Are you certain you can go through with this?”

“I don’t have much choice.” Frank began stripping off his pajamas, Kain forgetting for an instant that he needed to do the same while he enjoyed the view. Frank pulled on his boxers, then sat on the bed with a hiss.

“I did hurt you last night,” Kain said, inching his way across the bed to put his hand on Frank’s shoulder.

“I asked you to,” Frank said, resting his head against Kain’s for a moment as he pulled his pants on. “Well, not to hurt me, but… well, you were there.” Kain draped his arms over Frank’s neck. Since they’d decided a few weeks ago to finally become lovers, Kain had bottomed only twice, mostly out of guilt, rather than at the insistence of the older man. Apparently, Frank preferred the pampering and care that went along with being bottom, at least when Kain was top, and the younger man quite honestly enjoyed being in a position of power.

“But really, Frank,” Kain said, pulling away from Frank so he could get dressed. “Are you certain you can face them?”

“I’ve studied all I can on the other Frank, and his parents have just learned their son is still alive. Four months we’ve stalled. We can’t any longer.” He patted Kain’s cheek. “You need to go and get a shower.” Frank had already taken his. It never failed that after those boneless moments happened, Frank would take a shower, rather than lay around messy. If they didn’t end up showering together, Kain only cleaned himself up enough to make Frank happy and would go back to bed.

“I’m not going to be far away, if you need me.”

“You think that I can’t handle myself?” Frank said from within the undershirt he was pulling over his head.

“For support.” Kain slid off the bed, going to the bathroom, looking back at his lover, seeing the anxious look on his face. Frank had never gotten to know his father, and it was little wonder that there seemed to be a part of the older man that was looking forward to finally meeting him.

********

Ed and Al stepped off of the train in Youswell, grateful to be traveling together once again. As fathers, the two didn’t get the opportunity to interact as brothers. Getting to talk to Al, Ed was surprised to find out that his brother was considering adopting yet again, even after the struggles he and Winry had gone through with the biological father of Robert, their son. Still, as Ed listened to his not-so-little brother talk about his family, it made the sacrifices worth it.

“Wonder what they’ll think now that you’re not a giant suit of armor?”

“Mr. Elric!”

Ed winced, fearing, for a moment that he’d been found by another reporter. He turned to find a young man with brown hair, waving excitedly at him.

“You don’t recognize me,” the young man said. “It’s Kyle, Halling’s son.”

“With the hotel,” Ed said, remembering.

“Dad told me to meet you here. He said you’re looking for some minerals in the mine. I’m to show you around. I don’t think you’ll recognize the town.” Kyle tried to grab Ed’s suitcase.

“You don’t have to. I have people waiting on me every time I go somewhere. I can handle myself.”

“What about you, Al?”

“I’m okay.”

“Really good to see you outside of the armor. Must have been terrible being alchemically stuck in it.”

“Heh,” Al faintly laughed, that was the best excuse they could use for why he’d traipsed around inside of a suit of armor for so many years.

“So you guys are both parents now. We read about you in the news all the time.” Kyle began chattering away. “Did you know that the guy who wrote that terrible article about your daughter showed up here looking for a room at the hotel? Dad threw him out, wouldn’t serve him, treated him—”

“Sort of like he did me when I first came here.”

“Well, we didn’t know there were decent state alchemists out there. But then there’s the two of you.”

“I’m not officially a state alchemist. I just freelance,” Al said.

“Well, you know what I mean.”

Ed listened as Kyle droned on, enjoying the time alone with his brother as he hadn’t gotten to do for ages, but part of him missing his family. It was one thing to be away for a day or so, but Ed was now at over one week, and it would be more than two before it was said and done.

********

There was a party at school, balloons everywhere, Nicholas sat next to his sister, listening to their new teacher drone on about some idiotic thing or another. The woman hadn’t, first of all, learned to listen to the other teachers when they told her the twins needed to be separated. Aideen looked over at him, a warning that after two full weeks with their new teacher, she could take no more. As a part of the party, the teacher was trying to include a quick lesson, discussing the prism of light as she held up one of the decorations, a crystal that created rainbows on the wall behind her.

“Some colors absorb light, while others reflect light. The reason we see colors…”

Nicholas visibly yawned to his sister. He enjoyed going to class with kids his own age, but the simple fact was that he was more capable of teaching it than the woman currently at the front of the classroom.

“But water’s blue,” one of the children said, apparently in response to something the teacher had said.

“Actually, water reflects the blue of the sky like it does your image when you look into it.”

Nicholas looked over at his sister, as though to say, “Do you want to take it or should I?”

Aideen rolled her eyes and raised her hand.

“Miss Mustang.”

Aideen stood, taking a deep breath before rattling off the correct answer. “Actually, water is blue. It absorbs red, and reflects blue. The blue is faint, and can only be seen in large quantities, but if you filled a white pool in a white room with no windows, the bottom of the pool would still appear slightly blue.”

Aideen sat back down, looking over at Nicholas. He’d taken care to correct most of the incorrect information yesterday, when the woman had insisted that the Isballans worshiped a sun-god similar to Lior, Nicholas having to point out that Ishbal was nowhere near the same as Lior’s Leto.

Things went well enough, the party at least giving Nicholas and his sister a break from correcting their teacher, at least until one of the students picked up a balloon and began sucking out the helium to change the sound of their voice. The moment the woman began yelling at the other student, Nicholas knew what was coming and elbowed his sister to point out the truth.

“Inhaling helium ruins your vocal chords. Why do you think it changes your voice?”

“You’re actually more in danger of passing out if you inhale it for long periods of time,” Aideen said, not even waiting to be called on this time, “since it isn’t oxygen. Actually, your voice changes because helium is lighter than traditional air, and your voice vibrates faster in the lighter air, making it sound higher.”

There was a look on the teacher’s face, one the twins had seen their fair share. It essentially meant their papa was going to be getting a phone call.

********

Frank stood outside of the meeting room, a lump in his throat so big he thought he might not be able to speak. He was going to meet his father, or at least a close approximation of him. Frank could barely remember the man, memories turning the man into images from photos superimposed on giant shadows from a six-year-old perspective. No, he didn’t remember much about the man, knowing him more from the stories his mother had told him than actually recalling them himself.

Opening the door, Frank saw a woman who vaguely resembled his mother, though he hadn’t seen his mother in years. After a slip-up in the military, they’d told her he was dead, and to save her the grief of knowing he was actually a spy and possibly putting her at risk, he’d left it that way. This woman, despite being years older, looked thinner, more drawn. Perhaps it had been the years of thinking her own son was dead, or the fact that the Frank Archer of this world had not been remembered as a hero.

The man beside her, however, looked incredibly healthy. He wasn’t as tall as Frank had expected, considering how large he’d remembered him from his childhood. But everyone looks huge to a six-year-old. Even Ed.

He mentally chided himself for that one. Thoughts like that usually led to him blurting something of the like out in public and got him in major trouble with the short-tempered alchemist.

Drawing himself out of his thoughts and looking at the parents that barring other circumstances would have been his own, he smiled, the mother rushing to him to throw her arms around him, the father staring at him coldly.

“I’m so sorry I couldn’t tell you that I was okay, mother,” Frank said. “I didn’t know you thought I was dead, and I was working on a mission for the country.”

“I’m just so glad to have you home.” The man at the back cleared his throat. “Oh, I’m sorry, son. I should know better than to gush like that.”

Gush?

Frank stepped forward, extending a hand to the man he’d wanted to meet his entire life, only to have it smacked away.

“So, after your name has been drug through the mud by these people,” the father said, “multiple times, you would side with them and continue to work for them? What happened to rising to the top? You actually allowed them to bust you down to major?”

“I never rose above major, sir. Now that I am no longer working on classified information, I hope a promotion will be coming soon, but honestly, I am simply happy to do my job.”

“You cannot possibly be my son,” the man said, scowling. Dear Lord, had he figured it out? “A disappointment to the end. I am ashamed of you. You should have demanded they at least make you a colonel. Now you serve under a man nearly nine years younger than you, and from what I’ve heard you serve him in many ways.”

“First of all, I am quite happy where I am. Happy. As far as Lieutenant Colonel Fuery, he is an excellent officer and I gladly serve under him. Secondly, I do not care if you are my father or if you were the fuhrer himself, you have no right to dictate who I love and who I don’t.”

“You would disrespect me this way?”

“You disrespect me. Because of that monstrosity that people mistook for me, I have spent months just trying to regain a good name. I have friends who are loyal to me, and have managed to get the fuhrer and his husband to overlook past transgressions. I am working hard to gain honor, respect, all of the things that you so obviously do not understand or you simply disregard. I suggest that if you want me to respect you, you offer me just a modicum of the same.” He stepped closer, looking down at the man he’d held such hero worship for as a child. “You may have been capable of intimidating me before, old man, but I will guarantee you that I have met far colder and more vicious than you in my life, and you are nothing more than an annoying pest.”

He looked over at the woman who looked at him in fear and disappointment. “Mother, I am sorry you had to witness that, and I want you to know that should you need me, I am always available for you.” He patted her on the shoulder before leaving the meeting room, slamming the door behind him and going into the room next door, away from prying eyes.

“Frank,” he heard the moment he opened the door, seeing Kain standing there. He’d apparently been listening through the intercom and watching through a two-way mirror.

Frank held a hand up, palm out to stop his lover from approaching. He was angry at the moment and not at Kain. The last thing he wanted was for the lieutenant colonel to think he was. With a quick turn to the wall and a punch that did enough damage he’d need to see an alchemist to repair the cracked plaster, and someone to probably see to his soon-to-be bruised hand, he began cursing, nothing in particular at first. It was just a stream of words at first, connected by incoherent ramblings. Then, as tears, the first he’d shed since Edward, began to fall, he felt Kain’s hand on his shoulder.

“I wanted to meet him my whole goddamned life. I wanted to know my father, be raised by him, and if I had…” Frank pounded the wall again, but with less force. “I’d have been that bastard.”

“Your father could have been different.”

“I don’t think he was. The man I met in there was everything my mother described, everything that was always hidden between the lines.” Over and over he hit the wall, no longer doing real damage. “All I wanted growing up was to know my father, and that’s the son of a bitch I worshipped.”

Before Frank knew it, he was being pulled into arms that wrapped around his chest, arms and back, and he felt the cold and unintentional poking of a pair of black-rimmed glasses against his cheek. Nothing was said, just that embrace until the stinging tears ended.

Finally, Kain pulled away, looking up at Frank. “I know you’ve been through a lot lately, and what I’m about to say is going to make me sound like a girl, but I have to do it.” Frank looked at Kain strangely, waiting for this stunning revelation. “But you said you loved me.” Kain was grinning, almost stupidly, from ear to ear.

“So what if I did?” Frank said, kissing the smaller man. “It wasn’t like I didn’t make it obvious before.”

“I love you, too.” Kain was blushing once again. “I just wanted to say that.”

Frank kissed Kain’s forehead before pulling away moving to the door. “I think it’s time we go back to the office. People might be wondering what we’ve been doing in here for so long.” As his superior officer passed, Frank ignored the need to keep interactions professional as he brushed his hand along the right cheek below those glasses.

********

“I’m rather glad you came, Sir,” the redheaded teacher seated at the desk across from Roy said. “I understand you are a very busy man, probably the busiest in the country, but I was pleased that even with your husband away one of the children’s parents was able to make it so soon.”

“I spoke to the twins before I came in here, and what I’m curious about is exactly what your issue is.”

“Well, I feel that perhaps your children need moved up to a more advanced level. I feel they are beyond other children their age.”

“You are probably right, but they need the social interaction with children their own age.” Roy glanced out the window of the door to the class, seeing a dark and a blond head, as well as two sets of eyes watching intently.

“Sir, they have, over the two weeks I’ve been teaching them, managed to interrupt me or questioned me nearly five times daily.”

“Now, my husband and I have agreed that the children are never to question your authority or to correct you when you give instructions or define something in a way that the other children can more easily understand. However,” Roy could feel his official tone coming out, “we do give them right to correct misinformation. If they are questioning what you are teaching that often, I would guess the problem does not lie with my children, but with you. The most recent incidents, I believe, involved two wives tales concerning water and helium. I commend your efforts to stop children from taking down decorations for the sake of a comical voice as well as the fact that they would pass out from lack of oxygen. However, you are in error if you think I will blame my children for pointing out your mistakes.

“And, had it merely been these two simple wives tales, I might forgive the lack of knowledge, but the question is: why you were so intent on teaching, and belittling other religions when you taught them to your class last week. I am an atheist, as is my husband, but we have many friends who practice some of the religions you disparaged. Now, that said, I would like you to know that I’ve already spoken to the headmaster of the school, and he will be speaking to you the moment I leave.”

Roy stood, nodding his head to the teacher and leaving the classroom, Aideen grabbing his hand, Nicholas running excitedly in front of him, backwards.

“You really told her off,” Nicholas said, practically jumping through the halls as he moved. “There are definite perks to being the kid of the fuhrer.”

“It had nothing to do with who Papa is. Our teacher was an idiot, and totally against religion.”

“Aideen, you shouldn’t call people idiots,” Roy chided. “But her prejudice against religions is less forgivable.” Roy had been working so hard to make headway in his people's stubborn prejudices, and he certainly didn't need his children's teacher proclaiming otherwise. “Come on now, why don’t we eat at the diner?”

Nicholas practically leaped down the hall as he shouted out something to the effect of “ice cream with chocolate sauce,” followed by a list of toppings that seemed to run the gambit of the diner’s entire menu.

“Is it okay if I call him an idiot?” Aideen asked, looking up at Roy with those molten lava eyes of hers. “As long as I’m kidding?” Roy moved his hand and squeezed her shoulder in a tiny embrace as they walked out of the building, Nicholas on a pre-sugar high already bouncing inside of the official fuhrer’s vehicle.

********

Lothian, Scotland

Alex Armstrong was black as pitch, tired, but despite the fact that he’d entered the mine before daylight and left it after the sun had set, he was anxious to get to be with his family. He’d been married to Rose for four years now. She’d been widowed only a year after her first marriage, when her husband had been killed in a mining accident. After giving her the proper time to mourn, he was an Armstrong after all and had the honor of a clan with a background in Scottish lore, Alex had pursued his new wife, trying to convince her of what he already knew. They were meant to be together, even if she’d sworn to never again be with a miner.

He walked by his tiny home, one that seemed all the smaller considering his massive size. He waved to Rose inside the home, as she held up their son, only two, while their other son—it didn’t matter to Alex that by all rights Phillip wasn’t his by birth—ran outside to get some rags for Alex to clean himself with.

“Son,” he said, as he got to the tiny yard, “we’re nearly out of soap.”

The boy nodded, Alex feeling just a bit guilty to know that he was so close to being pulled into the mines himself, even at his young age.

“Alex Armstrong?”

“Aye,” he answered, looking to find a man with a syringe, attacking him before he could react, pumping enough of the substance into his veins that he was unconscious immediately, able to signal the oldest boy to go back inside and hide before collapsing into darkness.

“The Thule Society is in need of your services.”

********

Amestris

“We may have to consider having the kids pushed up a grade or two.”

“Maybe, but the teacher needed fired.” Roy said, listening to his husband’s voice on the phone.

“True.” Ed had already spoken to the twins earlier in the evening, giving Roy the opportunity to talk to him alone, as an adult to an adult without young interlopers. “So, any word how Wrath’s doing down with the Tringhams?”

“They seem to be making progress in the underground city. I spoke to Fletcher today. He’s not handling being underground as well as his brother.”

“He specializes in plant alchemy. What do you expect? Russell’s the one who’s gone all research. A plant alchemist several feet underground? Doesn’t work.”

“Anyway, he said that Wrath and Russell spend a lot of their time arguing or debating, but he said it as though that were a good thing, so I would guess they keep it all friendly. Though he said he’d never heard a pen scratch so hard as when Russell says something that get’s Wrath especially upset.”

“Good.”

“So what are you doing right now?”

“Laying on the bed in my hotel room. Talking to you,” Ed said.

“And taking too long to hand his brother the phone so he can talk to his wife.” Al’s voice could be heard in the background. “So don’t get any ideas, you two.”

“I guess phone sex is out of the question,” Roy said, chuckling.

“I don’t think Al would appreciate it. Love you,” Ed said.

“Love you, too. And I miss you.”

“I’ll be home in a few days.”

“I’ll be waiting.”