Nightmare

Review Replies: chelzi, well, you'll see where this goes just a little behind when I do. MustangsHavoc, glad you like Anton, well, as a villain. Loqui, thanks so much. I'm trying to make it believable. Amethyst-eyed Koneko, Yes, Anton's a bad thing for Ed. And I figured we needed some humor. As for the guards, it means that there are definitely others who side with Roy. I'm sure Ed would appreciate some hideous gargoyles. No one said the boy had decorating taste.

Nightmare

Chapter 9

“So you expect me to drop the charges against Edward Elric?” Anton asked, and not for the first time in his life, Heymans hated the difference in their height. Anton was fairly tall, and Heymans was just on the short side of average. It gave the blond the ability to look down upon the redhead at every encounter.

“I do,” Heymans answered. “Because there is no denying that the major was held against his will. All a person has to do is look at his medical records to see that. He definitely did not leave of his own free will.”

“And what of his other crimes?” Anton asked. “There are other things in his past that I find highly suspicious.”

“He has been a fairly upstanding member of the military, and one that has never had to even be brought up on review.”

“I do not know what you intend to prove by digging through the major’s records,” Heymans said, “but do you really think he’s going to go anywhere while you hold him for false charges?”

Anton folded his arms, his face thoughtful for a moment, but Heymans had a feeling he had anticipated this. There was no need for the show of thought on this subject. He’d expected this, and it irritated the hell out of Heymans “Will you agree to him remaining under house arrest with the brigadier general?”

Heymans nodded. “As long as his brother remains there as well.”

Anton shrugged. “Fine. Though you should be aware that I’m paying Mustang a visit.”

“You can’t right now. He’s just been through a reaction to his medication.”

“I do not believe there is anything in Amestris law preventing me. And as the prosecuting attorney, I do have the right to interrogate him.” And then, Anton smiled that annoyingly smarmy grin, giving Heymans the slightest bow of the head as he left, leaving the redhead following behind, absolutely fuming and raving at the man he’d once worshipped in law school.

********

Riza rubbed a cool cloth over Roy’s head. “How are you feeling today?”

“In pain,” Roy said. “Why can’t I have the medicine they gave me at the hospital?” he asked.

“Because they don’t trust me to administer morphine, Roy,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

“What do they think you’ll do? Kill me? I’d think Captain de Havilland would be happy to see that happen.”

Riza said nothing, but she continued to rube over his forehead with the damp washcloth. She looked at the man who had been a part of her life from the time that she was a teenager. Everyone always assumed that she and the man she was currently taking care of would one day marry, but he was too much like her older brother. Just as she shook her head and disapproved of everyone he dated, he was overly intrusive about finding out about her own relationships.

It was why Roy trusted her to care for him as he had so far. Riza was more than aware of how precious trust from Roy Mustang really was. The group that truly had his trust were those he kept closest to him, and it seemed Edward Elric.

“How is Ed?” he asked.

Riza said nothing about it, but more and more often, Roy had been calling his teenaged subordinate by his first name. “Fullmetal” had faded into the background. “He is doing as well as can be expected.”

“He didn’t seem afraid of me yesterday. I would have thought he would be.”

“Edward has a comfort level with you that he doesn’t with anyone else. I am grateful for it. Not only is he calmer when you are around, but he managed to keep you from putting on a strip tease for all of us here.”

Despite the pain, Roy turned red at that. “Just what I need. Charges of indecent exposure added to all of this.”

“Thankfully, we all just saw your boxer shorts,” Riza said with a smile as she went to dip the cloth in the bowl of cool water. “And Ed only saw your bare chest. Nothing embarrassing about that.”

“For you,” Roy said. “You know, if Ed had been his old self, I’d have never heard the end of the flab at my middle.”

“Is Roy Mustang insecure?” Riza said, a hint of teasing in her voice.

“No.” Roy shook his head, then groaned. “When is the doctor going to be here?”

“I don’t know, Roy,” Riza said, moving the cloth down to his neck. “The hospital is trying to find an effective alternative painkiller right now.”

She could hear noise coming from downstairs and wondered what could possibly be going on.

She saw a man, with blond hair slicked back with incredible precision. His movements were, fluid and yet not. She couldn’t put her finger on it, but there was something familiar in his walk, aside from the fact that the man evoked a brief memory of Frank Archer.

“You cannot interview him in this state,” Breda said to the blond as he tailed behind him. They were nearly to the entrance of the library, and she saw the taller man glance into Ed’s makeshift bedroom before making a start for the stairs.

“I can interview him as the law allows me,” the stranger said. He glanced up and saw Riza standing there. “Ah. First Lieutenant Riza Hawkeye, granddaughter of General Grumman and wife Louisa, daughter of fire alchemist Benjamin Hawkeye and his wife Elise. Sharpshooter and sniper during the Ishballan rebellion. One of the youngest members of the military to be put into active service, prior to Edward Elric.”

Riza looked down into the piercing, pale blue eyes. “Sir?”

“Captain Anton de Havilland,” he said. “I’m here to question the Brigadier General.”

It was all the lieutenant could do not to look at the man in complete shock. “Sir, you can’t just go in there. He is still withdrawing from his pain medication.”

The blond smiled at her. “I completely understand that fact. However, this is the time I had set aside to speak to him.”

Riza wanted to argue, but there was no hope in that. She could see it in Breda’s face.

“As his attorney,” Breda said. “I will be present. And I will also stop the questioning if it becomes too much for the brigadier general.”

The captain chuckled. “So protective of him. Is he really worth it?”

“Yes, Sir,” both Breda and Hawkeye answered in unison.

Anton smirked at that. “We shall see, won’t we?” He looked to Riza. “You must stay outside.”

The woman watched as the two men went into Roy’s room, but she stayed nearby.

********

Ed’s right hand was clenching tight to the railing of his bed, as he did every time something reminded him of his time being held prisoner. That voice…

“Sir,” the unknown man said, “I do not know why you are so certain about the Fullmetal Alchemist’s current threat level, and I know better than to question. However, I do fear what will happen if you have me continue with the experiments at the new lab.”

“It is not your job to question,” the bastard fuhrer said. “My master and I did you a favor, covering for you when you made that mess. She even took the blame for your creation. You should be grateful.”

“More like took the credit,” the stranger uttered.

“Pardon me?”

“Nothing, Sir.” There was a pause. “My concern is the type of specimen you continue to offer me for these transmutations. I hardly consider some of them really the type I would like to give such immortality. In a sense at least.”

“I will admit that the one was a bit unpredictable, but the brothers served as a good guard for quite some time.”

“And what of a red stone? Mine is entirely used up and my loyalties are not so strong that I would give up a limb.”

“I know how strong your loyalties to me really are. However, you are a self-preservationist, and I know your loyalties to yourself are unbreakable.”

“Correct as always, Sir,” the stranger said. “But as I said, the stone…”

“You will have another one. I have no desire to see you lose more limbs. What use is an alchemist to us if he has to keep returning home to replace parts?” The fuhrer chuckled, but the stranger did not.

“Brother?” Al asked. “What is it?”

Ed did his best to open up his eyes, which he had unintentionally closed shut. He saw his brother with his adult-looking face and concerned brown eyes looking at him. Ed tried to calm his breathing. He wanted to tell his brother what he knew, but it was so difficult to get out. And he wasn’t even sure that he knew this for certain. The conversation between the man with that voice and the fuhrer had seemed like it should have made sense to him, and yet it didn’t.

“Brother?” Al asked, getting closer.

“That voice…” Ed looked out into the hallway. “It was familiar. From… before. I heard it then. It was an alchemist.”

Al moved to the door. “I will ask Riza,” he said. “She might have a better idea.”

Ed realized Al would have probably been out there finding out who the unknown person was, but with Ed’s reaction to the voice and the memories it brought back, Al would never have ventured from the room.

The tall teen left the room, and Ed was left alone. He didn’t know who the voice belonged to, but he’d heard it, less clearly, on other occasions. It was nearly as distinct as the fuhrer’s own voice was. Ed shuddered, not wanting to think about that man’s voice ever again. He didn’t want to think about anything about that man.

He could hear Al and the first lieutenant talking easily with one another. He had only ever heard Mustang speak so casually to her, and he wondered at first why his brother was granted that same level of familiarity.

But as soon as the thought entered his mind, the reasons for it followed quickly behind. Of course they talked to one another like that. They understood a great deal more about where the other was coming from than anyone else in the world possibly could. Both had been held captive, both now were having to care for someone close to them, and both had been on the front lines of the revolution while Ed had been a captive. It made sense that the two of them would be so friendly with one another.

When Al returned, he had a serious expression on his face. “She said that was the head of the military legal department,” he said. “He’s fairly young and only a captain, but apparently, he got all of the pull in the JAG early in his career.”

Ed shook his head. “No. He is an alchemist. One who works with redstones. I’m sure of it.”

“Brother, you were only hearing a voice when you were in a terrible situation.” Al took a seat next to him. “You can’t be sure.” Ed could tell by the look in Al’s eyes that even if he argued that he was absolutely certain, he couldn’t prove it to his brother. Al was being very good to him, but Ed couldn’t help but believe he was being treated like a child. At least when the darker-haired teen wasn’t feeling so guilty that it gave off an oppressive atmosphere throughout the room Ed had called home these last few months.

He could easily find a way to convince Al by invoking that guilt, reminding his brother that he had gotten his body back while Ed was still missing his arm and leg and mentally was even less whole than he had been before. Ed had used that card once or twice just out of sheer bitterness toward his brother. It wasn’t mature, but after everything, Ed wasn’t feeling all that mature.

“I just have to ask, Al, did it look like he had automail?”

“It didn’t look like it, but I wasn’t looking for it like Auntie always told us to do. Even if he was, he would be wearing the very best. His movements are… smooth.”

Ed nodded. “I don’t like this, Al. If he’s the lawyer and I’m right… I don’t like it.”

Al sat by Ed’s bed and put his hand up on the bedrail. It was as comforting a gesture as Ed would normally allow from his brother. He looked at the hand, far larger than Ed’s were now, longer, leaner. He had managed to put his hand on Mustang’s arm, so why was it still so damned hard to touch his brother with a hand that couldn’t feel?

Ed lifted his right hand and made a motion to try to just lay the automail on his brother’s hand. He wouldn’t feel it, and Al would never intentionally hurt him.

And he put his hand on Al’s for the first time since his rescue.

********

Roy looked up through the fog of his current pain at the blond man and Breda. “What the hell… I’d say I was hallucinating again if I didn’t know for a fact that I was off my pain medication. Because it certainly doesn’t make sense that you’d be here at the moment.”

“Well, interesting way of introducing yourself,” the man with the white-blond hair said.

“Pardon me if withdrawing from pain medication while still suffering from a bullet wound and a stab wound has me a little on edge.”

The man smiled, and Roy knew he didn’t like that smile. It was one that was carefully trained to all those loyal to the fuhrer. Juliet Douglas—or rather, Sloth, as he’d been told—had been an expert at it as had Frank Archer and even Zolf Kimblee despite his insanity. Even Roy, on occasion had sickened himself at his ability to use that same smile. “Naturally, this isn’t the best of times for you, but I would be negligent in my duty if I did not at least make an attempt to speak to you about the recent death of our fuhrer.”

Roy’s single eye scowled at the man. “What duty?”

“I’m so sorry. I am Captain Anton de Havilland, head of the Judge Advocate General office’s military attorneys.”

“I always expected that post would be given to someone with a bit more experience,” Roy said, trying to keep the conversation focused as far away from himself as possible, even if it made it look as though he’d never seen one of the many photos of the military attorney.

“Well, one would say the same about the position of brigadier general, would they not?”

“Perhaps, but I did start out as a major,” Roy said. “But not everyone is a state alchemist.”

“Not everyone wants to be,” Anton said, and Roy realized that there was a level of understanding in that statement. This man was a lawyer, had always been, so why did he talk as though he had a knowledge of state alchemists of which most were oblivious to in the country.

“So what do you have to ask me?” Roy asked.

“Well, you see, I am willing to let your little major’s AWOL charges drop,” Anton said. “The problem is that your charges are something far more serious. You unequivocally admitted to assassinating the fuhrer. That isn’t exactly something we can just ignore. Nor does my department particularly want to ignore it.” Anton’s eyes remained cool as he looked between Breda and Roy. “However, if you were to bring your major to testify at your hearing or court-martial, I’m afraid we might have to investigate into the alchemic accident that cost him his arm and leg and his brother his body.” Roy wondered what kind of tactic this was. He couldn’t possibly have known… “Or should I say that it cost him his leg? I would imagine that the barely legal practice of attaching his brother’s soul to the armor was what cost him the arm.”

Roy’s eye widened and the muscles beneath the patch moved the same way, causing a stinging sensation throughout the left side of his face.

“I just wanted to inform you of where my case stood, in all fairness.” Anton bowed his head. “Thank you for your time.” He bowed his head and left the room.

Roy’s hands fisted his sheets as the man left. He and Breda needed to exchange only a single look to let them know exactly what this meant: If Ed took the stand, he would find himself questioned and then charged with attempting human transmutation.