#but has nothing to do with either the captain or the brigadier

[galacticlamps]

Your creative process is an interesting one my dear. You live dangerously and I respect that lol. It isn't so disorganized as I previously thought when we talked before, now that I understand it better, but even still, interesting!

Also, I'm very curious about hte Ghost based WIP.

haha, thank you! although I feel like "interesting" is a tad on the generous side... then again, "process" might be too lol

I can't honestly call it organized, every once in a while I do legitimately have trouble finding a particular idea (especially if I can't remember a word-for-word phrase I can ctrl + f) - but I think I wound up doing it that way in the first place to encourage myself to actually write things down no matter how small/insignificant the initial idea was - somehow it was less daunting to tack a few lines onto the end of an existing document than create a new file every time I had an idea, because then I'd usually talk myself out of it like, 'nah, I probably wouldn't really develop this anyway, it'll just be something I daydream about for a while & that's it, it's not worth saving a file for.' And I should admit I learned this the hard way - there were entire fandoms I wound up having multiple, fairly developed concepts for - sometimes even with specific lines of narration & dialogue - that lived entirely in my head until I eventually forgot the details one day. I'd always considered writing them down - some I remember actually starting to type out - but then I decided against saving any of it, because that just felt like too much of a commitment, somehow. Two of the biggest casualties actually being Good Omens and Broadchurch, weirdly enough (and unrelated to one another, even though that seems to've become a bit of a crossover fandom since then? that's always amused me, because in my mind the venn diagram between them is david tennant & ill-fated fic ideas)

But the Ghosts one, yes! Unfortunately, very little to do with Ghosts - it started life as a typical "they wake up in bed together the morning after getting drunk at a party thinking 'oh no what did I do?'" scene - but everything's fine, there's some more generally embarrassing details but nothing went on between the two of them they'd be ashamed of. I always pictured it as a pretty modern party, but for some reason taking place in a older mansion-type home (in my head the bedroom had tall windows, molding on the walls, a canopy bed, and, crucially, the softest sheets Jamie'd ever seen) so when I got around to watching that episode of Ghosts, seeing Button House in that context made me go "oh, right! I had a fic a bit like this" and start working on it more seriously. It still doesn't have too much in common with the episode, other than a similar location - it's now set in the near future (2030's, I think) in an old mansion-turned-event-space that UNIT had to co-opt as a base to deal with the monster of the week causing havoc in a nearby town. After that's sorted but before Two, Jamie, and Zoe can get a ride back to London where the Tardis is parked, the relieved locals celebrate with a party that takes over most of the mansion, and since they've been living there for the time being too, they don't have much choice but to attend.

One of the reasons I haven't finished it yet is because the more I wrote of the party itself the less it became about the morning after - not that it was ever a hangover-style mystery, exactly, but proportionally, I've strayed pretty far from the original idea, and I want to decide if I actually like its new structure, since it came about a little unintentionally. But, for the moment at least, it's got Zoe very excited about seeing a party from what would've been her grandparents' generation first-hand, a bartender flirting with Jamie, and Two getting much drunker than he ever intended - I'm not extensively versed in Time Lord lore, but the bit about the Doctor being able to get drunk off of ginger ale always seemed funny to me, and I love the comedic potential of ordering a mixed drink not for the liquor but the mixer instead, and as the night wears on eventually asking for the last one to be "not too strong" - which any sane bartender would interpret as 'less alcohol & more mixer, please' even though that'd be exactly the opposite of what the Doctor wanted. It's a very silly detail but it was begging to be written in a comedy of errors way

[aquietwritingcorner]

Writers Month Day 2: Cold/Coffee Word Count: 2203 Author: aquietwritingcorner/realitybreakgirl Rating: G/K Characters: Major Miles, Olivier Mira Armstrong, Captain Buccaneer Warning: NA Summary: Ephraim Miles has been transferred to Fort Briggs, and is more than a little unsure of his position there. Notes: I know that the idea of Miles being married and having a wife is due to an early fan translation and not the official translations of the manga, but I find it fun to play with! AO3 || ff.net

 _________________________________

 Cold/Coffee

 Whoever had told Ephraim Miles that Fort Briggs was cold had been wrong. Fort Briggs was colder than the underside of an ice cube. He had never felt a cold as deep as this, which, he supposed was part of the reason he was here. Miles was under no illusions as to why he had been transferred not only to the north, but specifically to Fort Briggs.

It was because of his Ishvalan blood. It was because he was a risk to the military. It was because they were suspicious that he could be a traitor to the military in favor of Ishval. (Could he be sure that they were wrong? Even he wasn’t sure.)

He had settled his wife and daughter in a home in North City. It wasn’t much, but it was what they could find at the time. People weren’t as willing to rent or sell to him when they saw his looks. It had been difficult. Karissa was going to look for them a better home while he was gone. She was a smart, strong, shrewd woman, and Miles has confidence in her abilities. He trusted her judgement. She would be alright. His daughter would be alright.

He just hoped that he would be alright.

Miles squinted and looked out at the frozen ground beyond him He had been dropped by the transport at the beginning of the road that led to the fort. Apparently, he was to walk the rest of the way. Well, so be it. It wasn’t as if complaining about it would make any difference. Shouldering his pack, Miles began the journey.

The wind cut through him as he walked, freezing him down to his bones. He distracted himself by going over what he knew about his new posting and his new commander. Fort Briggs was, basically, a giant wall that stretched from mountain to mountain in one of the more passable areas of the Briggs Mountains. For about five miles or so beyond it, the land was contested between Drachma and Amestris. Both countries claimed it. Neither had been quite willing to start a war over it. Both had people on it. There were regularly skirmishes on it.

The fort was currently under the command of Brigadier General Olivier Mira Armstrong. She had been in command of it for the past three years. Within those past three years the fort had gone from being regarded as little more then cannon fodder that would allow time for an alert to be raised and Northern Command to be mobilized to a force that would hold its own and beyond, giving no quarter, leaving no weakness, and using Northern Command as their back up.

The change could be laid at the feet of General Armstrong. She was one of Amestris’s elites, blonde haired, blue eyed, and, according to rumor, ruthless and cold. She came from a noble family, a wealthy family, who could trace its roots back to the founding of Amestris. Her family had a strong military tradition. She, herself, had been a member of special operations units, worked undercover missions, led troops in the west, and was successful in all that she did.

…Which made Miles wonder just what she was doing up here.

That wasn’t really his concern, though. He knew why he was here, and why she was here wasn’t important. What was more pressing to him, was what she would think of him. He had been sent to be her adjunct, and that meant that they would need a good sense of trust. And that was where his concern came in. She was a pure-blooded Amestrian with a pedigree that was impeccable. He was a mixed-breed mongrel with obvious roots of an enemy the military was fighting. He couldn’t discount the possibility that she would look at him, sneer, and immediately dismiss him.

It wouldn’t be the first time.

He could only deal with scenarios that could be for so long. He had braced himself for the worst and spent the rest of the time focusing on the landscape around him. He had been warned to stick to the road, and so he did. There was snow everywhere. It was an icy landscape, although, he noticed, not a barren one.  There were enclaves of trees dotting the landscape, and here and there he could see animals or the traces of where animals had been. The land itself had small dips and rolls in it, hard to see in the pure whiteness of the ground around them. They left him with the uncomfortable feeling that he was being watched, followed, and to be honest, he wouldn’t be surprised if he was.

It took him a few of hours of slogging through the snow to arrive at Fort Briggs. Learning to move through it had been tricky at first, but it really wasn’t that different then sand, once he got the hang of it, at least as far as the slickness of it. The difference was that in some places his footsteps sunk down in the snow as he walked. He quickly learned how to look for the places in the snow that looked either packed down or iced over enough that he wouldn’t sink. By the time he arrived at the fort, he was exhausted, sweaty, and absolutely freezing.

The fort itself was the most imposing building that he had ever seen. It had looked big when he got his first glimpse of it. It had grown larger and larger, rising to impossible heights. But more imposing than that was the woman who was waiting on one of the landings of the Fort.

She stood there, her hair down, her coat open, both blowing in the wind. A sheathed sword was in her hand, the sheath resting on her shoulder, and he had the distinct impression that she knew how to use it well. Her full lips were pursed, scowling, and her blue eyes pierced him, somehow colder than even the snow that was pelting his face. Behind her stood a hulking giant of a man, black hair in a mohawk that ended in a braid, a thin mustache, and a look that immediately told Miles where his loyalty lied

“We expected you sooner, Major,” her voice rang out, and command in it was clear. This was a woman used to commanding people and having orders followed. Her eyes swept over him.

Miles immediately saluted. “Apologies, General,” he said. He offered up no excuses or reasons for his apparently late arrival. He had none, and she didn’t think that this woman would accept them anyway.

For a moment, she said nothing, then just snorted and turned away. “Buccaneer! He’s all yours.”

“Yes, General, sir!” the hulking man said. He grinned down at Miles even as General Armstrong walked away. Somehow, Miles was not reassured. “Welcome to Fort Briggs, Cub,” he said. “Let’s see how fast you learn.”

Fort Briggs, Miles quickly learned over the next few weeks, was brutal. The rule of the land was survival, and the force driving everything was General Armstrong’s iron will. She was a terrifying woman, and he had barely had any interactions with her yet. He couldn’t figure out if that was because she rejected him as her adjunct, which meant that he shouldn’t count on staying here for long, or if she was just waiting for him to get through with his training period.

Miles had learned from Buccaneer that everyone who arrived at Briggs went through a six-week training period. It taught them the dangers of the mountains, of the winter, and the workings of the fort. Survival skills were heavily emphasized, as was an intimate knowledge of the fort. General Armstrong insisted that everyone know how the fort functioned so that in emergencies anyone could step up. According to Buccaneer—who wasn’t a bad fellow, just a little rough around the edges, and demanding in his requirements—even the general had gone through the same training when she arrived. It wasn’t an order then, though. She had chosen it herself, so that she would be able to understand and command effectively.

Miles could respect that.

However, the woman was still confusing to him. She clearly commanded the loyalty of her troops, almost to a fault. The men were both terrified and in awe of her. The only bad things anyone had to say about her were actually compliments from them, or things that they just brushed off, as one did a minor inconvenience.

She still had barely done more than glance his way.

Today, though, as he trudged back inside the fort, he stopped short in surprise. General Armstrong was standing there, looking over the troops as they came back in. Her eyes immediately darted to Buccaneer, who was being helped in by Stodds and Worshel, even as Lieutenant Jamin was speaking quickly to her. Her eyes met Miles’s for a moment, and he felt as if he were being assessed. Then the moment passed, and he was seeing to the rest of the patrol coming in and she was issuing orders.

The fort was locked down tightly. Everyone went on alert. Northern Command was contacted and anyone coming was ordered back. No unnecessary communications were permitted. It was standard procedure after a patrol was attacked by a Drachman patrol. Miles stayed up most of the night, writing his report on the incident and checking up on Buccaneer, who, Doc assured him, would be fine. He took his turn on the top of the fort during the coldest hours before daybreak. Aside from feeling as if he were freezing his sideburns off, nothing happened, and when he was relieved of duty, he gratefully came back inside. He was barely a dozen steps in, however, when he was suddenly stopped.

“Major.” He blinked, looking over at General Armstrong. She stood there, as if she had been waiting on him. “Walk with me.”

All he really wanted to do was find something warm to drink and go to bed, but all he said was “Yes, sir,” and followed her.

For a few moments, they walked in silence.

“Buccaneer told me what happened out there,” she said. She glanced at him. “He was rather complimentary of the way you took command.”

“Very kind of him, sir,” Miles commented back, non-committally.

She hummed. “Your training period is almost up,” she said. “You were assigned here to be my adjunct. But I don’t take commands on assignments in my fort from anyone.”

Miles just gave a neutral sounding noise. Here’s where it came. She was going to dismiss him or reduce his role. At least if he worked in the lower levels he’d be warmer. He hoped Karissa hadn’t put in an offer on that house yet.

“Instead,” she continued, “I wait until the training period is over, look at the data and recommendations, and then make the assignments from there. Just because Command thinks someone will work in a position doesn’t mean it holds true here at Briggs.”

That, Miles had to agree, was probably true. Briggs was definitely its own ecosystem, and there was no way that Command could accurately assign people to it.

“However, based upon your performances and Buccaneer’s recommendation, I have already made my decision on you.” She paused. “For the last week of your general training, after you finish, you will report to me for your training in how to be my second in command.”

Not expecting that, Miles’s feet stuttered, not exactly tripping, but definitely not a steady gait. “Sir?” he said, questioning.

She didn’t miss a beat. “You’ve proven yourself capable from the beginning. When you first arrived, you were late. It was because you were not provided with the proper equipment. Your coat was substandard, and you were not given snowshoes as you should have been. And yet you persevered and gave no excuse for your tardiness. It was ignorance on your part, I know, but your determination was still impressive. You approached every ounce of training with focus and attention, learning the workings of the Fort as well as survival here in Briggs quickly and without complaint. You’ve proven that you are intelligent and think on your feet. You are capable of accomplishing tasks even without the right tools.”

She pushed open a door, and gestured for him to follow her, continuing to talk. “You are exactly the kind of man we need here at Briggs, and the kind I need at my right hand. It will be a demanding job, but you are up to the task.”

They were in her office now, he realized, and she was waiting on something from him. There was, really, only one thing that he could say to that. He saluted. “Sir, it would be an honor.”

One side of her lips tipped up, as if she had been expecting this. “Good.” She turned away for a moment, and then faced him again, holding out a cup of coffee to him. “Let’s discuss your new duties.”

Miles took the cup, letting its warmth spread out on his hands. Maybe, just maybe, this was going to be a better posting than he thought.

[blackswaneuroparedux]

Anonymous asked: Like many from across the pond in the USA I have been astonished at the amazing story of Captain Tom Moore who at the age of 99 years old walked back and forth across his garden to raise a fantastic amount of money for your national health service (NHS) and into the hearts of your nation. It’s the kind of eccentricity we love about the British. The British media referred to him as Captain Tom Moore so as a former army veteran yourself I wanted to know do you get to use your officer rank after you retire from the British Army? Did you keep your rank after you did your time?

For those who don’t know who Captain Tom Moore is let me briefly recap. On 6 April 2020, at the age of 99, Captain Tom Moore - an army veteran of the Second World War - began to walk around his garden in aid of NHS Charities Together during the COVID-19 pandemic, with the goal of raising £1,000 by his 100th birthday. By 26 April he had raised over £29 million. He quickly became a popular household name in the United Kingdom generating much interest in his life story, and earned a number of accolades. After the his amazing feat, he featured in a cover version of the song “You’ll Never Walk Alone” with proceeds going to the same charity. The song topped the UK music charts and made him the oldest person to ever achieve a UK number one. At present there are plans to celebrate his 100th birthday with the honour of a RAF flypast and a postmark. There is also public pressure for the Queen to knight him - a worthy honour indeed.

I would use many superlatives to describe what Captain Tom Moore’s did - heroic, marvellous, and bloody brilliant comes to mind - but one thing I would never call what he did is eccentric. There is nothing eccentric in his outstanding example. Rather I think it typifies the British character to a tee. I think the way the British people have responded to Captain Tom Moore’s heroic example is partly indicative of how the British still like to see themselves in a time of acute crisis. His example rightly inspires many and reminds us of who we are too. Forgive me but my intent is not to sound too jingoistic because I’m also broadly impressed with how the French have responded to this crisis (since I live in Paris) with being good and helpful neighbours and showing grace and easy humour; indeed every night at 8pm sharp we residents all over France faithfully clap from our open windows and balconies in support of front line workers. The French, like the wonderful singing Italians and the other Europeans, have their own strength of character to get through this awful pandemic.

Perhaps it may sound corny to some but to me it gives me faith that even as Britain has gone through a bitter fight over Brexit and our uncertain place in the world I know that when disaster strikes us all with our backs are against the wall we come together. We don’t panic. We just get on with it with little fuss. Keep calm and carry on is more than a meme. If you don’t believe me Captain Tom Moore’s example is one of many people from all walks of life doing what they can to raise money for charity. There are so many people who have taken the creative initiative to do what they can to raise money for the work of our amazing front line workers (doctors and nurses and support staff). Some are doing online challenges - push ups or squats for charity. I know of many veterans who have responded to the call to come back and support the NHS. My eldest brother, a veteran, has been a volunteering with Team Rubicon UK, a military veteran charity, who are now helping to co-ordinate other veteran volunteers to use their skills to support hospitals in the logistics of delivery of medical and food supplies. There are so many mini-Captain Tom Moore’s out there. It’s heart warming.

And so to your question.

Do British military veterans keep their rank after they leave or retire? It’s complicated. There’s no legal reason why they can’t, but the more junior the officer rank, the more gauche and pretentious doing so it is perceived as.

In the old days - according to my grandfather who was a very senior officer in the army - customs were dictated by social class. A commissioned officer such as Lieutenant was considered to be a Gentleman and therefore allowed to use two titles: either ‘Mister’ or ‘Lieutenant’. The rank of Gentleman is considered to be socially superior and so Subalterns (2nd and 1st Lieutenants) were generally referred to as Mr Smith, rather than Lt Smith, even when they are still serving. Once they left the Army these junior officers would drop their socially inferior rank and go with being addressed as ‘Mister’. If an officer became a Captain then he was considered equal in rank to an Esquire and so a Captain was never addressed as ‘Mister’. But using the title Captain after leaving the army was also seen as gauche and so many didn’t - unless others showed them that due deference rather than they insisting upon it.

When we get to the more senior ranks the customs change. Senior field officers like a Major or Colonel were allowed to use their rank after they retired. You quite often found a Maj (Ret’d) Smith, for example, working for a military charity or writing angry letters to the Daily Telegraph or the Times or even more popularly turning up in a Agatha Christie drawing room murder mystery.

When an officer becomes a General officer - from Brigadier (one star general) onwards to Field Marshal - they retain their rank in retirement from the army because they really have earned it.

So all this old school but I think the the rule of thumb used today is that anyone using their rank below the rank of Major is considered bad form.

These days almost no ex-officer retires from the world of work. No one really gives up work and becomes a pensioner, pottering about in the garden or playing golf. Many of course move into a second career, where it simply is not the custom to be addressed by your rank in your new civilian place of work. I suppose an exception might be the private security and defence industry where rank is a signifier of experience and professional competence.

I know I have never used my officer rank in my civilian life as I don’t think it’s socially appropriate nor advantageous to do so in my line of work (no one would frankly care). Of course it comes up in social settings or when I’m entertaining corporate clients but I swat it aside as quickly as it’s raised by downplaying it. I feel genuine embarrassment because even if they are ignorant of this military etiquette faux pas, I am not - and that bothers my conscience.

In the village my parents live there is a retired brigadier and retired general and everyone, including myself, have gone out of our way to address them as such out of respect.

In the building I live here in Paris one of my French neighbours who lives below me is a retired highly decorated army general. I always address him as ‘mon Général’ out of deference.

He has crusty aristocratic manners and can come across as a fussy old fart. He’s a widower and a proud old soldier seasoned in the bloodiest of wars. He’s not easy to warm to but the effort is worthwhile.

I volunteered to get him his food shopping during this pandemic and at first he was too proud to ask but I persisted. And he’s very particular about his food and so I have to trek to particular boutique shops to satisfy his gourmand palate.

He scowled in polite disapproval when I told him I was in the army and saw action as he’s old school and doesn’t believe women should serve on the front line. But gradually I have been winning him over. I sometimes cook for him or he cooks for me and we chat about military history and politics and we play chess regularly (whilst respecting social distance). We have big disagreements about certain battles or military campaigns for instance but he respects that I can hold my ground….until he pulls rank on me when he’s clearly backed into a corner (!) but again out of deference I let him have the last say as I bow down to ‘mon Général’.

It’s interesting to note that Princess Anne’s former husband Captain Mark Phillips was often derided for choosing to use his military rank in civilian life. But I’ve been told by Donkey Walloper** officer friends that cavalry etiquette is unique to their horsemen heritage and so it was common for Cavalry officers to keep their rank into retirement.

Now to get back to Captain Tom Moore. He has never served in the Cavalry regiments because as I understand it he served with the Duke of Wellington’s Regiment and later with the Royal Armoured Corps. So I suspect the newspaper media were ignorant of the existing etiquette and basically mainstreamed his veteran status and labelled him as Captain Tom Moore. No harm no foul as they say. Because in my book after his walking heroics he can call himself whatever he likes. Truth be told I hope he does get knighted because he is deserving of it.

Thanks for your question.

**Donkey Wallopers is the nickname of cavalry regiments.

[beesramblings]

You should see me in the crown modern!kylo x reader

                                     ты должен увидеть меня в короне 

                                                          Ch 1

“Ben Solo is a fucking dirty cop, and he’s working for Queen of the Damned, I know, it... it sounds crazy Rey. But please, please, believe me,  we have to tell Captain Organa and Sergeant Solo.”  Finn pleaded to Rey over the phone, blood dripping from his nose and mouth, both blending in the rain. He caught the dirty bastard in the middle of a drug exchange in the back alley of some bar, “Rey I saw him, with one of her girls, he spoke something to her, and then…he saw me... I don’t know how, but he did and I’m bleeding, I can’t tell if it’s a lot or a little, but that fucker is dirty Rey.” She sighed into the receiver, “Finn, you’ve been trying to get this guy on something for months if not years, but, Finn to go off something without evidence, you could be on desk duty for who knows how long or you could be fired, I just think it’s a bad idea, with you and Poe up for promotion this could derail everything.” Finn looked down at a puddle outside his cruiser, “I’ll get evidence somehow Rey. I swear to you.” He heard her hum in agreement, “I’ll see you later Finn, I have a report to write.” He nodded, knowing that Rey can’t see his actions through the phone, the line went dead. Finn leaned his head on the cool leather of his steering wheel. “Fuck, I can’t believe that fucker, he’s working for her, I know he is.”

Kylo saw through the visor, Finn was still there “What a little pest…” he seethed. ‘The Queen won’t be happy about our encounter. Be more careful next time Ren, or I will let her know.’ Those were the last words Phasma said to him before speeding off. How did that goodie two shoes follow him out here, he was boiling over, She would have his head or his body. Whichever one that would make Королева happy, Kylo was willing to give to her, even though he has never seen her, she has seen him, and she made sure Kylo knew. He jumped on his motorcycle and sped off in a different direction back to his hole of an apartment, he knew in the back of his head that she was going to send one of her “men” to rough up Finn and himself. He cursed under his breath, “какая чертова сука, она разрушит мою жизнь”  As he pulled up to the apartment he took notice of a few fancier cars in the car park, “Fuck. Phasma told someone…”  He quickly unclipped his gun from his holster, he had a feeling that something would go down in his apartment. He quickly ran up the stairs to his door, keeping his back close to the grungy walls, ‘God, this apartment is disgusting, I need to move soon, somewhere clean and orderly.’  He thought to himself. He saw that his door was unlocked, which sent a cold shock of anxiety through his body, his heart fell to his stomach. He slowly pointed his gun around the corner of the door. “Kylo you better get that thing away from me,” Automatically Kylo knew that voice from anywhere, “Hux what are you doing here,” Kylo growled menacingly, he hated his partner, both at the precinct and in the ring “you need to get out before I make you.” Kylo threatened while lowering his gun slightly.  Hux removed his grey peacoat and discarded it onto Kylo’s black couch. “ You had a little колючка follow you to a drop location” Kylo grimaced “I didn’t know that he was following me, мышь I know he has an inkling of something-” Hux closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose and hung his head “Idiot. Now he has proof of you meeting someone. And that someone is a known drug-runner for the biggest mafia and drug rings. How could you be so careless.” Hux scolded Kylo like a young child. Kylo felt the bubble of rage start to boil in the pit of his stomach, he clenched his jaw in anger trying to quell the urge to choke Hux, he craved to bring him close to the brink of death. Then Hux would know who is truly in charge of their operation. Hux’s voice kept droning on in the back of Kylo’s head until both of their phones chimed with an identical ringtone, both hands reached for their phones.  

глупые парни перестают спорить, разрешают женщинам вызывать выстрелы. следующая капля 3:30 утра угол Итора и Тариса.

Hux’s green eyes fixed upon Kylo’s amber eyes, “She is calling you stupid.”

 That was the final straw for Kylo, he grabbed Hux by his pristine grey colored collar and slammed him up against the drywall, “You don’t know SHIT, to what she is referring to you cretin. All I know is that you are forgetting to who you fucking report to. Both in uniform and out of uniform. “ Hux’s face was turning a slight shade of blue, ‘Delicious’ thought Kylo. Hux’s feet began thrashing and for one final act of humiliation, Kylo spat in the man’s face and then dropped him, Hux began sputtering trying to catch his breath. “ Get up you swine, and get out. You are so very lucky I didn’t kill you. It would be far too much paperwork and would cause quite a stir with the Lady.” Hux caught his breath and stood up, and grabbed his coat, “Fuck off Solo, and see you tomorrow.” He quickly ran out the door before Kylo could catch him. All the hairs on Kylo’s neck bristled when he heard his “real” last name, a name he had to use at work but had no real meaning to him. He quickly decided to pour himself a glass of whatever was left in his fridge while he waited to go out for the drop. His phone buzzed again, a call from his superior officer/ older drug kingpin.  

“Hello, Snoke,” Kylo said through slightly bared teeth. “To what do I owe the honor of speaking to you.” Snoke chuckled over Kylo’s sarcastic, yet apprehensive comment. “Ren, I will be expecting you and Hux over at Neskar tonight. I know ‘Королева’ has a drop tonight and I expect that you and Hux will be getting me what I need. She took something very valuable from me, so we will be taking something of slightly… lesser value from her.” Kylo exhaled quickly, it was difficult being a triple agent of some sort; a cop, an underboss for Snoke, and a ‘brigadier’ or a бригадир for Королева. And she has been good to him since she came to power. “Of course Don Snoke. I am willing to do anything for the family.” He heard another bone-chilling chuckle. “Good, good. I will see you tonight.” Kylo hung up the phone after that, ‘God I can’t wait to get rid of the old fucking man.’ Kylo thought, ‘If Snoke died under mysterious circumstances in the precinct Kylo would be fully in charge and once Snoke fell as Don in the family he could take over and try and unite both mafia’s if Королева would have him.’  Tonight was going to be a long night for Kylo. 

In your apartment, you were overseeing any possible attacks that would happen if Snoke tried to get his dominion back, which you would expect. “где, черт возьми, Хакс, моя сладкая фазма.” you cooed to your tall and silver-haired companion, though you two never were ever physically attracted to her, you were attracted to her power and the strategic mind she wielded. Her undying loyalty to you and her absolute brute force solidified her easily as your right-hand woman, in business and friendship. “Мой дорогой Hux went to go after the idiot Kylo.” Your eyes flicked up from the papers in front of you “What did he do.” Phasma looked over at you “Darling, it’s truly nothing to worry about, Hux and I will fix it.” You slammed your fists onto the desk “Tell me Phasma, as your Королева I demand it.” Phasma clenched her teeth, “He was tailed by someone, Kylo scared him off but not for long, it’s definitely someone who works for Solo and Organa.” Rage boiled in you, how dare that half-wit be fucking followed especially by a cop. “Hux assured me he would talk some sense into him.” You felt yourself stand up at your ornate table “Phasma, Kylo will not listen to anyone, especially that vermin Hux. Kylo could eat him alive.” Your partner took a deep breath in “ I know.” You screamed in anger “That fucker works under Snoke as a cop, and I know he is somehow involved in something, he must be stopped, and eliminate that thorn that followed Ren. We can’t have any chance.” You pushed the papers off the table. “Phasma, we were on the brink of an all-out war with Snoke, after I had the girls take his warehouses and help his ‘property’’ You practically spat out the last word, the idea of a man owning women and abusing them for other men’s pleasure was the reason you craved to bring him down. You needed to create a new order to this city and if that meant to take down the God-like man, with all officers either being too stupid to realize that Snoke was the puppet master, or most turned a blind eye to him. You knew that you were his Lucifer, and God willing you can bring him down one way or another. “ We will be in all-out war if the police, Snoke, or that Kylo Ren try anything tonight.” Phasma cupped your elbow, hoping it would bring you back from the brink of murdering anyone.  “I have a good informant, they said that Hux and Ren have meaning to meet with Snoke at Neskar, before our drop.” Your jaw gritted together making your lips into a thin line, deep in thought “ We will be there tonight, I should meet one of my бригадир in the flesh. It would be nice to put a face and flesh to their names.” You felt your breathing slow to a more controlled and still slightly enraged, you closed your eyes and pinched the bridge of your nose, “Phasma, I want them to all know who, they are dealing with. If that means we have to go all-in with how we dress and how I interact with all of the men, then so be it. But I cannot have any of them forget who we are, and what they are dealing with.” The storm was brewing inside you, as it was brewing again outside. Snoke’s family, the NYPD, Hux, and Kylo had no clue what was coming, and for now, they were in the eye of the storm. 

[catgluue]

Chapter One: Coincidence

Happy Royai Week! In the spirit of pushing myself to do ridiculous things for no reason, I’m using the prompts as chapters in a longer fic! No promises that I’ll actually complete it this week, but I’m certainly going to try. 

Read on A03

Chapter One: Coincidence

Riza Hawkeye hadn’t expected to see the spring of 1916, and yet here it is.

It’s not quite spring - not yet - but it’s headed swiftly in that direction. The days are getting longer, she’s seeing green return to the trees, and she recalls that this time last year she was glorified secretary to a homunculus, awaiting The Promised Day.

It’s strange how life now is both normal and irrevocably transformed. The team, excepting Falman who chose to remain in the north, is back together but with new ranks and a new office. In his new capacity as Brigadier General, Mustang has merited a private office, which in Riza’s mind only impedes her ability to make sure he stays on task. If anything he’s more distracted when removed from all possible stimuli, and she sometimes invents reasons to check up on him just to make sure he’s not sleeping at his desk. It’s happening less and less, though, and she knows this means he’s able to sleep more at night.

She is too, although her sleep is still punctuated by nightmares. Recently it’s been nightmares of Ishval, which is a refreshing change of pace from the nightmares of the gold-toothed doctor and the General’s stricken face deep under the streets of Central. This is undoubtedly because they’re heading to Ishval as soon as summer is over, finally, to begin the long and futile process of redemption. She both dreads and longs for the penance of rebuilding something they’d once destroyed, knowing that absolution is impossible but hoping to find it anyway, somewhere in the desert.

She’s early to work again today, in part because of another nightmare, and goes to the mail room as a matter of course. There’s letters for the General as always - he actually gets fan mail now, which is a concept she finds so wholly repulsive it’s all she can do not to throw the letters directly into the trash. Mustang, for his part, doesn’t seem to mind, even reading parts of the amorous letters aloud, usually while throwing furtive glances in her direction. She always does her best not to react, unsure why he is under the impression that she cares. She doesn’t.

Maybe a little, only because they distract him from work.

Her heels click against the tile in the mostly empty hallway as she heads to the office, leafing through the mail, and she almost stops when she sees something addressed to her. She has no family to speak of, and her friends are all here in Central. Winry sends her regular letters but this one has a distinct lack of crayon drawings on the envelope. Who does that leave to be sending her mail?

She’s still poring over it when everyone else starts to come in. First is Fuery, a minute or two early, still yawning as he puts his bag down and gives her a casual good morning salute.

“Captain Hawkeye,” he says. “What’s that?” she folds the letter more times than is necessary and places it in a drawer.

“Nothing much. How is your report on the potential for crops in Ishvalan soil?” she asks; a far less prying question. He launches into an explanation as the letter in the drawer of her desk throbs in her mind like a heartbeat.

Captain Riza Hawkeye,

Apologies for interrupting your busy schedule, but I must relay that this past week suspicious activity has been reported on your estate. On one occasion figures were seen near the house but frightened off by the constable. I have of course ordered that a closer watch be kept on the house but it is my opinion that it may be time to sell the property as it’s been in disuse for so long.

Regards,

Ernst Meyell

Mayor

In all honesty she has half-forgotten that the manor house, probably falling down and overgrown, is her responsibility. She hasn’t given the old house much thought at all in years, apart from a nightmare she sometimes has wherein she wanders the empty halls like a ghost, calling out for her parents. She has to think harder to remember Ernst, finally recalling that he’d written to her a few years ago, saying he had taken over Mayorship of Werthem, the small town northeast of East City that Riza is from. As the others trail in and Fuery’s attention shifts, she pulls out a leave form and hastily fills it out, being purposefully vague. The General will know what was going on by the look on her face alone; this is purely a paper trail.

She waits until he comes in, says his hellos, and disappears into his office before slipping in with a coded knock. He doesn’t even look up, the knock telling him all he needs to know.

“Captain,” he says, by way of greeting, eyes still fixed on his pile of paperwork. “What can I do for you?” she slides the request on top of the pile and directly under his nose, before stepping back, hands clasped behind her back. He studies it for a moment before responding teasingly, “You’re getting sick of me already?”

“I need a week to clear out my father’s house before I sell it,” she says, and the tense silence that follows is palpable.

“Is that so? Are you going alone or is Catalina going to help?” he asks, knowing full well Rebecca is far too busy as the Furher’s assistant.

“Just me,” she tells him. “It shouldn’t take long; my father didn’t keep much around the house.” He looks like he considers this for a moment - looks like being the operative phrase here - and leans back in his chair, thoughtfully tapping his pen against the top of the desk, and her ears prick up. Tapping is their way of cluing the other person in that there’s going to be code or subtext in the talk to follow. This is an old practice, from when they still needed a signal, but one they’ve carried on for years.

“You know I’ve been thinking about taking some time off too,” he says casually and she resists the urge to roll her eyes.

“I think you should hold off until I get back,” she tells him pointedly, and he meets her even gaze with his own. He’s steepled his fingers and is peering over them as though they were in a chess match and he’d just made a bold move. “Someone has to run the office.”

“And what makes you think I’ll get anything done with you gone?” He asks, a smile ghosting his lips. They often joke about his lack of work ethic, how ‘useless’ he is without her (and he isn’t useless, only unmotivated) but something about his tone now gives her pause. He sounds almost flirtatious but underneath something in his eyes causes her stomach to knot and she realizes they’ve been practically glued to each others sides for a year.

“You’ll live,” she says sternly. “I’m sure you’ll cope how you always cope and waste time talking to some woman or other. Anyway, will you approve it?” A smile slowly spreads over his face at her implicit approval of a few coded phone calls, and the sickly-sweet feeling in her stomach intensifies.

“All right,” he says at last. “I guess we’ll have to manage somehow.”

-x-

The house is just as she remembers it, and a lump forms in her throat as she walks up to the front door, getting the key out of her pocket and fitting it into the lock with hands that nevertheless remain steady.

It’s like walking into a tomb - everything frozen in time, sheets still over the furniture from when she had placed them there almost ten years ago. She’d been a child then, she thinks, moving through the house and pulling the sheets off furniture, opening curtains to let the light in. Everything of her was pretty much gone from this place - she had taken what few possessions she wanted and simply left the rest. Her father wasn’t a material man but even after his death she’d stayed away from the study. Even now she isn’t looking forward to clearing it out.

So she doesn’’t, not yet anyway, choosing instead to start on the ground floor. She had decided on the train ride here to sell the place furnished, and so it’s only a matter of taking small things, sorting them into boxes to either donate or throw away entirely. Photos, books, knick-knacks. She does not have a box for things to keep.

She gets the first phone call about half an hour after arriving, and as she heads to the phone, still sitting on the table off the hallway, she thinks wryly that someone must have checked the train times. It certainly wasn’t information she’d included in her leave request.

“Hello?” she answers neutrally to be safe, unsure if this is an official phone call or if it’s General Mustang trying to reach his old flame Elizabeth.

“Elizabeth, it’s been a long time,” a flirtatious baritone dances down the line and her annoyance melts away.

“Yes, Roy, it has,” she replies in kind, slipping easily into the familiar character. There’s only a slim chance now that his calls are being listened to - slim, but possible - so she plays along. She, Riza, has never referred to the General by his first name in her adult life, but Elizabeth is another story. It’s almost thrilling, and while she isn’t sure she imagines that he enjoys it as well. “To what do I owe the pleasure of hearing from you?”

“The workload is light this week; my Captain is out of town,” he explains. The Captain in question leans against the wall, holding the old fashioned earpiece up with a smile playing across her mouth. “I hope I’m not bothering you.”

“Not at all,” she replies, tone light and breezy. “I’ve just been doing some packing.”

“Packing?” he replies. “Not moving, I hope?”

“Not me, my cousin,” she tells him smoothly. “I just got back from her place. I was about to take a shower, actually.” Elizabeth is shameless. “Moving is hard work, it turns out.”

“I bet,” he says and she can hear him grinning. “Well if you never need any brute strength I’m available this weekend,” he offers and she knows it isn’t directed towards Elizabeth. “You can save all the unpleasant work for me, I’d be happy to come help.” She’s quiet for a moment, thinking of the study that needs to be cleaned out eventually.  “Elizabeth?” his voice comes through, softer this time. “I mean it. Say the word and I’ll help any way I can.” She takes a shaky breath.

“Thank you, Roy,” she says, and means it. “But I- we’ll be fine. There’s not too much left to do. It was nice hearing from you,” she adds. “Feel free to call me more often.”

“I will,” he says. They say their goodbyes, her managing to squeeze in another use of his first name, and she returns to the work at hand, feeling somewhat comforted by the coded phone call.

The second call comes around dusk, surprising her as she’s leafing through a photo album that had to have been her mother’s. Pictures of Riza as a small child line the album, and stop abruptly when she’s about eight. Her father had clearly had no interest in finishing the book. She makes her way to the phone, wondering for only a second who it could be.

But of course, she knows.

“Checking up on me again?” she purrs into the mouthpiece of the old-fashioned phone, already in character.

“Multitasking,” he says briskly. He wasn’t calling Elizabeth, then, and she feels a flush of embarrassment for jumping the gun. “Captain, we’ve gotten orders to check up on Munin, and then we’re moving on to Werthem on the Fuhrer’s orders. I guess there was a break in at the house of a retired state alchemist and for some reason Grumman thinks Werthem could be a target.” She can hear the shrug in his voice, but without him in front of her it’s impossible to read what he’s thinking. It’s no accident that Grumman is sending Mustang’s crew to her tiny hometown; he would of course know precisely which alchemist lived in Werthem and would have reason not to want that alchemist’s work stolen. “We should be there in the morning.”

“Do you mean you’ll be in town or that you’ll be here as in my house?”

“I’ve got to go, Captain, have a good night!”

“Wait, General-”

There is a click as he hangs up and Riza slams the receiver down, irritated. She wants to believe he’s smart enough not to bring their entire team to her father’s house. She wants to, but she isn’t sure he has that kind of restraint. She spends most of the night cleaning up the ground floor, looking for any traces of him in the tarnished frames and worn leather albums. It’s not until she’s dug deeper, clearing out a disused drawer in the kitchen that she finds a solitary piece of paper with alchemical equations scrawled lazily in familiar handwriting. She means to throw it away, but instead fondly folds it up and tucks it into her pocket.

-x-

Chapter Two: Mortal/Immortal

[hlwim]

Not All of Me Will End [3/3]

Summary: Nothing remains of her but what must be left behind. Tags: Character Death, Cancer, Tragedy, Angst, Bittersweet, Post-Canon Pairings: Royai, Edwin, Havolina AO3  ff.net

who tells your story

From the peak of the roof, Ed can see the long and lonely stretch of the rail line disappearing into the mountain. He still loves the cool whisper of its whistle far-off and heading in, but it doesn’t fill him with a longing for the road the way it used to. He’s a husband now, and teacher frequently and village councilor sometimes, and soon—alarmingly soon—a father.

The nearness of coming change is what’s driven him up a ladder, to straddle the shingles and, with nails clamped between his teeth, to patch holes and join new trestle to old. The house is getting cramped—the front half’s a real clinic now, with a proper doctor hired in from Rush Valley and the automail shop having swallowed all the basement. They get patients and clients and more visitors than they reasonably have beds for, and three months now Winry’s been asking when he’d get around to building that extension. He tried putting it off until Al was back, because of course alchemy will speed the work, but excuses are excuses are excuses.

“I’m not holding my knees closed for another four months!” she’d said, jabbing dead-center of his chest. “You’re plenty handy at carpenter work, and you’re owed about a million favors in town.”

And this was true—Ed never liked charging for his services, as the dregs of his state stipend are enough to keep them flush for ten lifetimes. But people around here insisted on showing gratitude in practical ways, like extra pounds of meat from the butcher or hand-wrought yarn for Granny’s knitting. Ed had had a crew up for most of the day: boys that hang around after class to hear his stories and poke at the holes, and the girls who spend summers baling hay and shearing sheep. In the space of a morning and an afternoon, they’d raised walls and laid the floor and wedged in a dozen or so windows. He sent them off to their homes for supper and admonished them not to return tomorrow, knowing anyway that there would be a cart of eager hands on its way back by dawn.

He sets the hammer against his knee and leans back, breathing deep. The breeze carries to him the quiet lull of church bells, and then Winry’s voice.

“There’s a telegram come for you,” she calls up, as Ed slides down the ladder and tosses his work gloves over a rung. She’s getting slower, huffing and waddling adorably, which Granny keeps mentioning is a sure sign the baby will be along any day now. “It came in with the invoices, but I didn’t open it.”

“Brigadier General Mustang,” Ed snorts, raggedly tearing the envelope open with his thumb. He only reads the first line before his fingers go numb, letting the delicate carbon sheet flutter to the ground.

“Ed, what is it?”

Breath seems suddenly hard to come by—though not from exertion.

“It…”

He wants to read it over again and won’t.

“It says Riza Hawkeye’s died.”

He has to be the one to tell Al. No telegram is going to find him in the chaos of the Chang clan’s village. It takes long enough to connect a call—Ed listens to the tick and buzz and tick for a good twenty minutes, and he holds the telegram flat beneath his hooked thumb and index finger. The words flash disconnected in his gaze: regret and informand Hawkeye and died. Funeral tomorrow—the telegram was a day late in arriving.

Mei Chang’s grandmother answers, and Ed has to negotiate with the little Xingese he knows to be passed from house to house and reach his brother. Al answers with a breathy laugh, expecting happy news.

“I can’t remember the last time I saw her,” he says, voice cracking.

“Me either,” Ed replies quietly. The kitchen is black with night, and the light switch is too far for him to reach. “I think it was Central. Their engagement party? She looked so happy.”

“She did.”

There is a long silence where they can both cry, quietly, connected even through this distance.

“I’m going to have to decide soon, aren’t I?” Al asks helplessly. “I can’t have two homes forever. When I’m here, I feel like I should be there. And I should be, now, of all times…”

He takes a shuddering breath.

“I can’t believe she’s gone. Just… someone else we didn’t get to say goodbye to.”

Winry refuses to be left behind, so Ed pays extra for the private sleeping car, where cushions keep her from jostling left and right with the train’s sway. They’re west-bound, to some spit of a village called Wellesley and then ten miles farther. He’s received the instructions from Jean Havoc, who answered the telegram’s indicated number with a thick sigh.

“How long was she sick?” Ed had asked, twisting his empty hand against his leg.

“Not long,” Havoc said. “But too late to do anything about it.”

“How is he?”

“Bad. You’re probably going to miss the funeral, but there’s a thing after, at their house.”

“We’ll come.”

He expects the platform to be busier and maybe wreathed in black drapery, but it’s a little place hardly bigger than Resembool’s station. There are two benches inside, empty and facing the only window—rosette, perched high in the roof beams.

The village is small and packed densely, houses circled close against the encroaching trees. Half the streets are paved, but enough mud has tracked across the cobbles to paint them the same indistinguishable red-brown. Ed hates the car ride, for the way the poorly-upholstered bench forces them tightly together. The temperature seems to rise as they crawl farther and farther west—he’s the first to step out of the car when they arrive, and humidity nearly knocks him back against the fender.

The front door of the house is closed, and it seems no one is waiting to let them in.

“It’s lovely,” Winry says, huffing her way out with the help of Ed’s hand. “Except for the trees, we could almost be home again.”

Which is bizarrely true—unlike the wattle-and-daub look of West City or even the river-stone cobbles of Wellesley, the Hawkeye house rears back symmetrical and clad in white, imperiously simple in its understated decoration of blue paint on its shutters and doors. The windows look mottled in the sunlight: glazing thicker at the bottoms of each pane and fogged up, with the vaguest of colors and shapes moving behind them. He expects somehow for the house to extend up into the clouds, but it stops after two stories, beneath a slate tile roof and a chimney that lists against the tide of winds high above the trees.

Ed helps the taxi driver stack their bags on the grassy pavestones.

“Do we go and knock?” he asks, but Winry is already halfway up the walk. The door opens before she can reach for the knob—Jean Havoc on the other side, looking somewhat narrower than the last time they saw him, in his dress uniform and black sash.

“You made it,” he says, leaning in to Winry’s greeting hug. “I hope it wasn’t too hard.”

“It was nothing,” Winry says. “But we’re not imposing?”

“No, there’s plenty of room to stay. Someone’ll get your bags upstairs. We thought—”

He sighs, stepping aside to let them pass. The house is many degrees cooler than outside, despite the quiet hum of the implied crowd further in. The hall extends straight through to the back of the house, splitting two rooms on either side, and it is lined with tastefully sparse chairs and hanging lamps.

“We thought, it was better he wasn’t alone.”

“Where is he?”

“Kitchen, I think. Führer's receiving in the sitting room here. If you’re hungry or something, there’s food set out banquet-style, so help yourself.”

“Is—is she…?”

Ed can’t quite form the thought into words. The air is dense with cold and feels closed, dusty, disused.

“We buried her this morning,” Havoc says. “Real nice place, by some trees. Rebecca and I were here the day before she—”

It’s a visceral reaction, a wince that travels to a shudder.

“She didn’t want people to see her like that.”

“I wish we could have said goodbye at least,” Winry says.

“You did. Last time you saw her—whenever that was, that’s how she wanted you to remember her.”

At the far end of the hall is a closed door, puzzled together out of narrow squares of glass. The garden beyond bounces sunlight off its leaves and paths, tainting the white paneling green and yellow. No one outside—the wind that bothers the treetops can’t reach the ground, and the world enveloping this house is motionless as a painting.

“Let’s go on through, and you can get some food,” Havoc says. “I have to get back to Rebecca.”

He heads for the front room, and they follow. Winry keeps a hold of Ed’s hand.

The room is too crowded for furniture—he can guess at the location of a chair by the awkward gap between mourners, but for the most part, the memorial is standing room only. A sea of dress uniforms broken by the occasional black hat or short veil. The führer is sequestered behind his guards on the far left and snuffling into a handkerchief, surrounded by a crowd of lower officers Ed doesn’t recognize.

“Let’s go over to Mr. Armstrong,” Winry says. “Didn’t that other man there with him used to work with General Mustang?”

“Falman, yeah. He stayed up at Briggs after the big fight.”

Lieutenant General Armstrong is concealed by her brother’s broad, bowed shoulders, and she keeps one hand resting habitually on the hilt of her ceremonial saber, but her frown seems a different inflection.

“Hello, Fullmetal,” she says. “They weren’t sure you’d make it.”

“Gave up that title a few years ago. Now I’m just Ed.”

“Of course, Edward.”

Alex, gravelly and grave as ever, turns slowly to bring them into the small circle.

“I hope your journey here was not particularly arduous, considering your current condition.”

“Oh, I get into more trouble now than I did before,” Winry says with a small smile. “Lieutenant General, ma’am, I’m sorry for your loss.”

“It wasn’t really mine.”

But her gaze doesn’t quite connect.

“Captain Hawkeye was a gifted officer—one of the finest I’ve had the privilege to serve with. She performed her duties as adjutant admirably, and she left me with a decent replacement.”

“I try my best,” Falman says, briefly tipping his wine glass. “It all happened so quickly towards the end—I saw her only a few months ago, and part of me was so certain this was all a hoax or a big misunderstanding. She never wavered. Never looked ill. It’s madness that she’s gone.”

“I gather it was a family affliction,” the lieutenant general says. “Her father died in a similar way, although I understand he had a little more time.”

Ever so lightly, Winry touches the back of Ed’s hand.

“I think I’d like to find a place to sit down.”

She won’t want company, but it’s as good an excuse as any to duck out. Winry finds an empty seat in the corner, on some antique-looking lounge, and she waves him aside.

“Go on,” she says. “Plenty of people around to get me whatever I need.”

He bends down to kiss her hairline and then straightens up again, catching the eye of Heymans Breda across the room.

“He’s not going to thank you for being here, but it really means a lot to him, to have us all around.”

“Havoc told us not to make arrangements for lodging,” Ed says, keeping his wrist straight and grip firm. Breda’s always been a bit of a hand-crusher, but Ed’s grown enough now to equal him out.

“Plenty of bedrooms,” Breda confirms. “Falman’s gotta go back with the Armstrongs, and the führer should be leaving any minute. But me, Havoc, you guys, Rebecca, and Gracia are all set upstairs. Not that you have to stay—if there’s something more pressing back home.”

“No,” Ed says. “We’re here, and we want to be here.”

Breda jams his hands back into his pockets.

“So how’s it been, being back home? Kept man—you miss the road at all?”

“A bit,” Ed says with a shrug. “But not enough to go out again. Al’s stories are enough for me.”

“His name’s always coming up in reports from Xing,” Breda says. “He thinking about making the move permanent?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think he could be away from home like that. I think he likes going between. Especially now, with little niece or nephew on their way.”

“Congrats, by the way. We put your postcard up on the wall at work.”

Ed thanks him, and they fall silent for a while.

As predicted, the führer is gradually making his exit and filtering the crowd of most unfamiliars. Ed shifts slightly, half-wishing he had left his hair down to better hide his face. His gaze falls on a collage of photographs littering the wall to their right—shots of buildings and crowds and the insides of pubs he’s never seen. Only one of just the two of them that he can see: embracing in a snowfall, surrounded by friends.

“When were they married?” he asks.

“Right after they moved here. They were planning on a long engagement, until she made major and got moved out to Central as Armstrong’s proxy. Sounded like it was only a few weeks away, when…”

Breda grimaces.

“I hate this. I really hate it.”

They watch the führer and his guards file out. The old man walks heavily, leaning most of his frame on an ornate stick, gold-tipped and dark wood.

“Granddaughter’s fucking funeral, and he still has to show off his trophies.”

“That’s seditious,” Ed says, eyebrow raised.

“Who gives a shit? He’s gonna retire in a couple months anyway, and then we’re under Armstrong’s thumb.”

“Really? Not…?”

Breda shakes his head.

“So who would take over Briggs?”

“Whoever’s next in line, I guess. Funny how we put in all this work, and nothing changed.”

“I don’t think that’s true,” Ed says. “A lot of people down around us are talking about organizing district conventions.”

“That should be fun to watch,” Breda sighs. “First woman führer in the history of this country, toppled by democracy.”

The entourage passes by Armstrong, but she doesn’t glance, keeping that imperious chin high in the air. She doesn’t look bored, exactly, but contemplative—as though always waiting for the start of the next engagement.

“I should go find him,” Ed sighs. “Tell him… whatever the hell you’re supposed to tell someone.”

“Look for Gracia. He’ll be nearby.”

She is found not far from the closed kitchen door, and she hugs him long enough that Ed can still smell her perfume after she steps back.

“It’s Mrs. Cotter now, actually,” she says, a bit sheepish.

“Oh, that’s—”

He stutters his way through it.

“I’m so happy for you. Is he… here?”

“No, he stayed back home to mind the shop. We have a bookstore together. He—”

She half-smiles.

“Herman and I met at a social group for widows and widowers—he lost his wife young, to sickness, and all of this��� it’s too close for him still.”

She falters a moment, and then brightens again, like instinct.

“He’s really a wonderful man. They didn’t have children of their own, but he loves Elicia so dearly. And he likes Roy, and he liked Riza, too, but—someone had to run the shop.”

“What about you?” Ed asks. “Are you alright?”

“Maes was different,” she says, after a pause. “It was sudden. There was a lot we hadn’t had the chance to talk about, and there was so much left… undone. With this—with Riza, and with Herman’s wife—there was time. Decisions and plans that could be discussed.”

“Hard to know which one’s worse.”

She smiles again and gently squeezes Ed’s hand.

“He’s just in the kitchen. He needed some time away from the crowd, but you can go in.”

The door is heavy and seems only recently white-washed. The kitchen beyond is dazzlingly bright and decorated with jar after jar of wildflowers. Roy Mustang sits at the table with a faraway look in his eyes, one hand upturned and held loosely by Elicia. She has a canvas and palette set out and idly paints a quiet meadow scene.

Ed pulls out a chair, and as he drops into view, Roy blinks, suddenly focused.

“Have I seen you already?” he asks. “It’s been such a long day.”

“No, we just got here,” Ed says. He feels obligated to speak softly, to half-smile with sadness and temper his gaze with gentle understanding—but that is not, and has never been, how they were with each other. “I’m really sorry, Roy. But I wish you’d told us.”

“It wasn’t on purpose this time, I promise.”

“Yeah, Havoc said as much. That it’s how she wanted it.”

Roy nods, and beneath his elbow, Ed can see the glint of silver.

“You smoke now?” he asks. And Roy looks down, following the point of Ed’s finger, surprised almost to see the lighter.

“No,” he says. “It was hers.”

Something is engraved on the front, but it’s probably rude to ask. Elicia mixes blue and green on her palette.

“Where’s big brother?” she asks.

“He’s in Xing. He couldn’t make it back in time.”

Her nod is as slow as Roy’s was—she still wears her hair in twin bunches, but it’s long enough now to plait over each shoulder, and she doesn’t bother to look up. Her brush moves the canvas slightly on the polished wood, but she doesn’t let go of Roy’s hand.

“You know you can’t call me little brother anymore,” Ed says. “I’m gonna have a baby soon.”

“Mommy told me. She said you’re having a girl.”

“We don’t know that.”

“Well, I know it,” Elicia says. “I know everything. What’s her name gonna be?”

“We’re still not settled on one.”

Roy has returned to the blank stare—although it has shifted to the window and the empty garden beyond.

“I should go out,” he says, wearied by exhalation.

“Grumman just left,” Ed offers. “It’s probably safe.”

Elicia lets go without a look upward, focused solidly on her artwork. It’s encouragement, not callousness, as Roy closes his eyes and then stands, scraping the chair back. Every movement seems drawn up from a deep well of pain.

“Winry’s here?” he asks, focusing on Ed. They’re the same height now, but the hunch of shoulders shortens Roy—his uniform is hanging so horribly loose.

“Yeah, in the parlor. She needed to rest her feet a bit.”

He feels, half-heartedly, that he should offer a shoulder for Roy to lean on, but, soldier that he is, Roy straightens up, takes a breath, and steps through the door with shoulders square. No one notices—or at least they all have the courtesy to pretend otherwise—and Roy exhales, eyes focused on the floor. He still holds the lighter tight between his fingers, little flashes of silver catching Ed’s gaze now and again.

Winry is alone, but someone’s brought her a glass of water and a plate of little pastries. She smiles at seeing them and Ed smiles back, half-relieved, before realizing that Roy is no longer beside him.

He must have looked up at some point, and landed his gaze squarely across the room, on an over-large portrait of Riza Hawkeye. Ed can’t remember if he himself had noticed it until now—the führer had been standing in front of it, with his coterie of hangers-on, and Ed had always done his utmost to never again attract the attention of military men. Maybe there’d been a curtain draped across it.

It is clearly a depiction of Riza—blonde hair, brown eyes, pointed nose and chin, sharp jaw—but something about it is fundamentally, unshakably , flawed. He remembers a piercing gaze that could read a room and every man’s intentions in ten seconds flat, a quirk at the corners of her mouth that betrayed the arrival of a rare smile, and a squareness to her shoulders, as though she couldn’t fathom any posture but parade rest. The woman in the portrait wears Riza’s face, but she isn’t. Distant, demure, wrapped in some old-fashioned frock the color of sour milk. This woman sees nothing, feels nothing—sits silent and unblemished, pressed like a dead flower between sheets of cracked wax paper.

“Why?”

Roy is ash—unable to break the painting’s stare, knuckles white, swallowing hard against the tears watering his eyes. Gracia materializes at his elbow, arms ready to brace him from dropping like a stone.

“The führer wanted it out for display,” she says quietly. “I tried to tell him no.”

“All her pictures—”

“They’re safe. We’ll put them back up.”

“It’s not real.”

His voice breaks barely over a whisper, and Ed looks away, half-ashamed and unsure why. It seems most of the guests had the same instinct—only Breda and General Armstrong are watching, silently angry in their own separate ways.

“That’s enough for today,” Gracia says. “You don’t have to do anything else. Let’s just go upstairs, alright?”

He is, in so many ways, diminishing by the second. He speaks to no one as they move back through the parlor to the hall, and Ed has a vision suddenly of a hammer suspended by spider silk above a sheet of glass.

Winry slides her arms around his shoulders as he sits heavily on the cushion beside her.

“Everybody said the service was nice,” she tells him.

“But it wasn’t her?”

He feels her shrug and leans into it.

“Funerals are more for the people left behind. They’ve always been.”

A door closes somewhere upstairs, and Breda crosses the floor, seizing the painting at the corners. It lifts awkwardly, and he turns it to lean face-down against the wall, exposing an expanse of white paint and a series of empty nails.

The house empties in a trickle not long after—enough will be taking the same train back to Central that any residual mourning can be wrapped up at the station. Havoc takes up the mantle of awkwardly gracious host, shaking hands at the door and thanking each guest for their exit. Rebecca gathers Winry up to deal with the kitchen. They’ve been eating small plates all day, with no time to stop for a proper meal.

“Come on,” Breda says to Ed. “Let’s put things back the way they were.”

The portrait goes first—they carry it into the cellar together, to the pile of paper wrapping and snapped twine that had clearly been protecting it from view.

“When was this made?” Ed asks, draping the scraps as best he can.

“Couple years ago, I think. I guess he had one made of her mom once. Riza hated this thing.”

“They didn’t put in the scar on her neck.”

“Does that surprise you?” Breda sighs.

“No.”

The oil lamp hanging from the ceiling is set too high up—the shadow of a floor joist cuts sharply across the face, from cheek to cheek.

“I’d hate it too,” Ed mutters.

There’s several couches and tables to carry up and arrange, rugs to unroll, and lamps to dust off and plug in. Sunset floods the room as Ed adjusts the final cushion, frowning, and Breda stands at the empty wall with a handful of photo frames.

“I don’t know what order they were in,” he says, when Ed joins him.

“Does it matter?”

“I think it did.”

They try—the position of each nail gives a hint at the pattern, but something in the arrangement is definitely wrong to Ed’s eye. The muted swirl of colors, when viewed from a distance, are unbalanced, but he can’t think how to fix them. There isn’t even a common theme in the photos themselves to act as guide: flowers, rainy street scenes, crowded bars, books spilling from shelves all take equal space in simple frames. Breda gives up with a shrug.

“That’s gotta be good enough.”

Dinner is stew and bread at the table where Elicia’s left out her paintings to dry.

“I’m going to give one to Herman,” she says, kneeling on her seat to reach equal height with the adults.

“Can I have one?” Ed asks.

“If you pay me,” Elicia says with a shrug.

“Hey, I have to save money for the baby.”

“That’s not true. Uncle Roy says you’re loaded.”

Breda laughs, and smiles slip across a few other faces.

“You were an alchemist like him,” Elicia accuses. “And he said alchemists get lots of money from the military, so you’ve got lots of money to pay me.”

“Darling, please,” Gracia scolds, biting down her own smile. “It’s rude to discuss money at dinner.”

“Someone’s gotta fund that tuition,” Havoc says quietly.

Winry reaches beneath the table and squeezes Ed’s hand. He wonders if she’s thinking too of similar quiet moments of levity after a hard day of mourning. After Mom’s funeral, Granny had made them dinner and tucked them in and read funny stories from the newspaper until they all fell asleep. He’d felt wrong laughing, but it helped some.

Havoc and Rebecca are sorting through stacks of condolence cards and telegrams at the opposite end of the table, organization as soothing instinct. One pile is for strangers, diplomats, and sycophants—and a much smaller pile for the few that merit response, although Ed doubts Roy will be writing them himself.

“Poor kid,” Havoc sighs, setting another telegram on the response pile.

“Fuery?” Breda says, and Havoc nods.

“Where is he?” Ed asks.

“Middle of the Aerugian sea. Testing long-range communications. Still has six months on the tour.”

“That’s awful.”

Havoc nods at the piles.

“Especially now.”

Having picked the chair nearest the hall, Ed is the one to see the front door creak open, though Havoc hastily excuses himself to greet the newcomer—a large, stately-looking woman wrapped in black furs and a veiled hat, who sets down a pair of polished cases and envelopes Havoc in a hug.

“That rotten bastard had all the rail lines shut down like he was the only one who needed to be here. Where’s my boy?”

“Upstairs.”

“His mom,” Breda says quietly, to Ed’s unasked question. “Call her Christine.”

She leaves her bags for Havoc and takes each step heavily.

There’s no call for nightcap. Everyone is tired—Gracia collects plates as though to wash them, but Breda stops her.

“This isn’t important. It can wait for morning.”

Elicia leads Ed and Winry upstairs to their room: a study at the end of the floor, with desk and chairs pushed against the wall to make room for a low bed. A fireplace is set between the windows, but only as facade. The grate has been bricked over, and the old opening covered by a decorative screen.

“Mommy and me are next door,” she says. “Other side’s a bathroom and then Uncle Roy’s room. You got enough blankets?”

“We’ll be alright,” Winry replies for him. Elicia kisses them both on the cheek and closes the door—she has to use both hands and walks backwards to manage the weight.

Ed can’t find sleep. Winry hardly has a choice in the matter, barely settling on the mattress before she’s out. He doesn’t mind, though, loving the sweet openness of relaxation that smoothes every wrinkle of worry from her brow. He sets a hand on her belly to check, but really he hopes the baby will let her sleep.

Unfamiliar houses at night always seem to belong to another world entirely—he steps with care, knowing he has no chance of predicting which footfall might produce a creak. Every door is pulled shut, and there’s no sliver of light beneath any to betray whether he’s less alone than he feels.

Breda took the the sitting room for himself, and Ed hesitates at the top of the stairs, waiting in a long silence until the radio is switched off, and the rustle of fabric and cushions has stilled. He will not be able to explain to anyone who asks what he is doing, or why it must be done now, when stillness has closed over the house.

He at least remembers that the door to the basement is inside the kitchen, and that a box of matches is sitting beside the oil lamp at the bottom of the steps. It’s as cold as he’d expect, and he curses himself a bit for not bringing shoes. His automail foot might not mind, but the flesh one is burning on the dusty flagstones.

The portrait has already shed some of its paper veil—there must be a draft down here—and the peaks and valleys of paint pick up the lamp’s approaching glow and begin to glitter.

Again, he thinks, it’s not really Riza. Just the ideal of her: a porcelain mask with her lips and nose and something like the serious tilt of her brow. He’d only seen her hair down a handful of times—never styled in such old-fashioned curls. The dress as well is an oddity, lace and low-cut and gathered at her shoulders in little puffed sleeves. It reminds him a bit of Winry at five, in the church dress she ruined with mud.

Too much is missing. That thick line of flesh on her neck which stretched from ear to clavicle, the little spray of freckles perched at the end of her nose. She even had a thin scar on her cheek—he presses a finger to that stretch of canvas, knowing it’s wrong, knowing that he is diminishing what was intended as perfection. But hadn’t Breda said she hated it? And of course she would, knowing better than anyone the futility of hiding from all the ugly little truths she had to carry with her every day.

Ed wishes the artist had painted her looking away. The effect of unreality is greatest in her eyes, its eyes, with that dead stare straight forward, soulless and immobile. He would expect the sensation of being tracked—but shifting left and right, the pupils don’t seem to move. Fixed, forever. He wants to look over his own shoulder, seek from the shadows what must be lurking, what must be holding that frozen gaze, but he won’t.

She looked like this and not like this at the end, he’s certain—though he couldn’t bear the idea of asking, when the memory of his mother’s face is swimming so close beneath the surface. The stitched-shut eyes, the puffy dusting of powder to hide her already sinking features, the hands linked by fingers that were too stiff to bend right. It fills him with an aching hollow to think of Riza the same way. Like a scissors set beneath his ribcage and sawing straight across.

He cannot remember the last thing he said to her—it may have been as simple as good night.

Before leaving, he turns the portrait to face the wall, letting the shreds of paper spread limply across the floor beneath.

Only an hour of rest—then he’s up again, defeated, braiding back his hair and sliding uncomfortably into yesterday’s clothes. The sky outside is just beginning to gray, and he doesn’t want to bother anyone with running water. Breda’s still asleep in the sitting room. His snore rattles the glass a little, and Ed smiles, nudging into the kitchen door.

Someone else is awake. The coffee on the stove is warm, and there’s fresh crumbs of bread beside the butter dish. An apple core, perfectly cylindrical and neat, rests upright on the counter, just beginning to brown. But nothing else in the kitchen is disturbed—the chairs are pushed in, the dishes stacked in the sink, the empty jars lining every window sill sparkle with dust. Ed takes an apple for himself and pours a cup of coffee, not bothering to reheat it first.

The house seems to have gotten smaller somehow, overnight. The steps between the study upstairs and the basement could have covered a quarter mile, but now he hesitates even to lean against a table, as though the smallest scrape of sound will jolt everyone sleeping on the other side of a fragile curtain.

Haze dabbles the garden. The sun will have to work its way up through the trees, so lingering shadows fill the lawn like fallen leaves. Ed stands as close to the windows as he can, staring blankly through the mottled glass, thinking of nothing.

It takes a moment to notice the little bistro table sitting outside, one of its chairs askew on mossy flagstone. There’s a mug on the table, and an empty plate, and half a folded newspaper spilling from the cushion. Early risers always seeking solitude of some kind—he can smile at this, knowing it now so intimately himself.

From the right, Hayate suddenly enters the frame, trotting purposefully, sniffing out a path. And, behind him, swinging a stick to throw and be fetched, is Roy: gaunt, pale, grayed out and wavering through the window, like a branch caught beneath rushing waters. He whistles, and tosses the stick high, and then he returns to the chair and the table, neatening up his discards and pulling a thick leather satchel Ed hadn’t noticed, from the seat of the unused chair.

Their eyes meet through the window, and Roy raises a hand, either greeting or goodbye. Grateful he’d thought to put on his shoes, Ed crosses quickly into the hall and then outside, breathing the dewy air deep and coughing.

“Hey,” he says, wary.

“Hey,” Roy replies. “I didn’t wake you, did I?”

“No. I didn’t sleep much.”

Ed feels the sting of rudeness. What does that matter? Roy only nods, and Ed half-expects his head to shear from his neck completely, like tearing wet cardboard.

“I didn’t want to bother anyone,” Roy says. “They all did so much yesterday. Figure they need their rest.”

“What about you?”

Roy glances down at the satchel, slung over his opposite shoulder. There’s something inside, something bulky and solid.

“That part hasn’t hit me,” he says. “I know it’s coming. Grief is exhausting, and your body doesn’t know what to do but sleep—but I’m not there.”

The yet doesn’t come. They stare at each other, fifteen feet apart, shoes sponging up every bit of water clinging to the grass. Ed feels a knot balling up in his stomach, and Hayate comes trotting back from the brush, happily depositing the stick at Roy’s feet and leaning against his leg with a contented huff. Roy’s fingers drum against whatever’s in that satchel.

“Listen—” he says, and stops himself with a grimace. “There’s something I need to do.”

Ed’s fingers go cold.  He shoves them into his pockets, hoping to hide the blanch.

“Could I come with?” he asks, knowing either answer is pointless to his intentions.

“Yeah,” Roy says, as a little awful smile flits across his mouth. “I think she’d like that.”

They go on wordlessly. Roy leads, stepping into the brush while Hayate gallops back and forth, more interested in the worried birds than the stick Ed helplessly tosses ahead. A twinging part of him worries about poison oak, so he follows almost directly in Roy’s wake, figuring he’ll at least get some warning this way.

The trees rise up fast around them, dense almost as soon as they leave the lawn. It’s not too dissimilar from the forests at home, if a bit thicker, and Ed is warmed by the sudden rush of memory, of trailing along behind his mother while she scoured the forest floor for blackberries.

Distantly, crows scream themselves awake and are answered by the trill of songbirds irritated at the interruption. Vaguely, Ed can see rodents scampering through the branches and starting fights over the meaty rinds of not-quite-ripe walnuts. The branches overhead protected everyone from the night’s rain, and the air as well feels thinner and cooler threading through his lungs.

Roy stops suddenly and points up.

“Do you know what that is?” he asks, and Ed can see a small, sturdy lashing of planks jutting out from a tree, maybe fifteen feet up. No ladder, but the greenish remains of rope hang from one corner, hinting at past ascensions.

“No,” he says.

“It’s a deer blind.”

Roy is smiling, eyes fixed on the wood.

“She built it. And then it collapsed, so she built it again until it stayed up. She never had anyone to tell her how—she learned it all in books. What to do.”

“How old was she?”

“I think seven or eight. It was before I met her, anyway.”

Ed feels a little strange for having assumed the place belonged to Mustang—which of course made little sense in the context of Mustang’s money and the sparse living style Ed had seen of Hawkeye’s apartment in Central and, later, her quarters up at Briggs. He’d always felt a kind of kinship in pragmatism with her.

Of course Roy is city-bred—it shows mostly obvious in his shoulders and the casual disregard of his stride. He’s moved a few steps, close enough to rest a hand on the tree’s mossy bark.

“Sometimes I’d climb up with her, when I was bored or her father was in one of his moods. I’m sure I always ruined hours of work—drove every animal in a square mile far away with the noise I made climbing up. But she liked it. She’d ask me to read sometimes. So I’d bring whatever text I was studying and just drone. I don’t know how it didn’t drive her crazy.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“What?”

“You grew up together.”

Roy shrugs.

“Sort of. I asked her father to take me on as his apprentice in alchemy, and he agreed.”

Ed cranes his neck up, as though he could see the top of the blind with just a shift of perspective.

“Sometimes I’d bring her food, if she’d been out a while. We’d climb down at night, and she’d always stop to check her traps before going. I never understood how she could see, but I think she just had it memorized.”

Roy laughs a little—he looks down, and Ed follows, seeing now the narrow, clear path of dirt sheltered by overgrown weeds. They turn back and walk on, and Roy eagerly points out various landmarks that barely rise above the overgrowth. A split-rail fence where she used to walk and balance and then overtip in his waiting arms, a jagged boulder which marks the end of the property in only a technical sense, a tree that forks half-dead and points on one end to a deep pool.

“She said we couldn’t go too far,” he says, pausing to whistle Hayate back. “I never found out why, but I think she was just messing with me. She did that a lot. I knew nothing, and I was a fun target for teasing.”

He breathes deep, with a ragged half-smile.

“We’re almost there,” he says. “Over left.”

The path slopes down and turns craggy—Ed follows Roy’s cautious lead in picking his way down the jutting stones and roots. Somewhere very nearby, a creek is whispering its way through pebbles. Roy stops about ten feet down the incline, jostling between the satchel and Hayate’s thumping tail, and he pulls aside a section of hanging leaves.

“Here,” he says, nodding at Ed to step through first.

On the other side of the curtain is a strange, squat room lined in crumbling stone and mortar. A few wood beams remain of a roof, and flowered ivy grows thick as thatch across. Part of the collapsed wall on the eastern side forms a narrow shelf, and Ed can see a series of dirty glass jars and small animal bones strewn across it as decoration. The stream must be nearby—it echoes quietly around his ears.

The floor is half stone and half dirt, pitted with moss and soft under every step. Pollen perfumes the air, and the haze of coming sun swamps the small space.

He feels—enveloped. Warm, solid, as though the air could take shape and form itself into comfort. The quiet here is reverent, a stillness so close to the peace of an undisturbed pond moments before a pebble stumbles from the shore and breaks the surface.

“What is this?” Ed breathes.

“It used to be a mill,” Roy says, dodging. He nudges a patch of moss, revealing the cool glisten of old leaves beneath. Decay, but a sweetness of promised renewal. These ruins sit untouched by rot.

“A mill?”

“Probably a hundred years ago. They dammed the river up in town, and all the little creeks like this one dried up. You can still see the wheel outside.”

He points, and then indicates the shadow of a long pole past their feet.

“They’d hook a donkey to a harness, and he’d drag the wheel into the water and out, as they needed.”

Roy goes silent, and Ed nods.

It’s a nice place—this deep in the woods, truly indistinguishable from home. Here, Ed can conjure the memories of stick forts he’d built with Al as easily as if he could step back through that curtain of vine and find his baby brother, mud-splattered and impatient to play.

“This was her temple,” Roy says quietly. His voice is thick—he’s staring down at the leather satchel on his hip, and Hayate leans patiently against his leg. “When she was little, they taught her about Xerxes—how they had a hundred gods, and all the gods had temples. But she got it wrong. She thought—she thought that the people built the temples first, and then waited for the gods to show up.”

There’s the slightest streak of blackening against one wall—a fire she built as she built the blind? Where she might have sat and she might have watched, willing the effort to be something less than vain?

“So she made this. She’d used it before, as a place to rest during a hunt or as a shelter when her father was in one of his moods. But she thought it would do good as a temple—she planted those vines and cleared space, and tried to assemble an altar.”

Even now, gone, Ed cannot picture her as anything but the woman she was. Full grown, she parts the veil and passes through, solid determination painting her face as she gently twists the flowering vines around the roof beams, as she gathers wildflowers into the glass jars, as she arranges the littlest bones into the vague shape of an invented summoning ritual.

“But no one ever came, of course. So she gave up on it. She kept using the place because she needed it, but she said it sometimes felt a little like failure. When she first brought me here, and told me, there was so much disgust for herself in her voice… but I thought it was the sweetest thing I’d ever heard.”

The satchel unbuckles beneath his careful fingers, and then Roy is lifting a small vase into the air—a flat, reflectionless glaze stoppered with a dark wood lid. No bigger than a milk jug, and hefted so perfectly in the cradle of Roy’s palm. He catches Ed’s stare and nods.

“Yeah. She told me, when it came down to it, what happened after was my choice. Funerals and burials—she said whatever it was, I’d be the one who had to live with it. When she wanted to come back here, to—”

The tiniest little split. It had happened, it was happening, even now. Even with all that she was, contained in so small a space.

“To die,” Roy finishes, as though the word might pull all his insides out. “I knew immediately this is what I wanted.”

“Did you tell the old man?”

“No,” Roy says. “He thinks he buried her next to her mother and the man they both hated. He has no right to this.”

A sentiment Ed can find no fault in.

“I always thought we’d…”

A tear escapes, twisting towards the corner of Roy’s mouth and then disappearing down his chin.

“I thought if we had a daughter, we’d bring her here.”

He rotates the urn around in his hands, gently caressing the surface.

“This is where you should be,” he says to it, and then steps forward, clearing a little space between the jars and bones, and he nestles the urn at the center.

The sun follows them back to the house, tracing their steps and silence. Even from the edge of the lawn, Ed can see movement inside the kitchen. Winry will still be asleep, and hopefully it’s early enough that no one will have thought of sending a search party.

Roy pauses at the table on the patio, still with its dirty plate and folded newspaper.

“I wonder,” he says, “if I could ask you a favor.”

“Anything.”

Too quick—Ed winces, hoping it won’t fester into regret.

“She spent a lot of time writing. Towards the end.”

“Memoirs?”

“Some of it.”

Slowly, imperceptible maybe from the right distance, Roy is beginning to crumble. It’s over, and it’s just starting to catch up with him. Without a thought, Ed sets one hand on his shoulder and the other on his arm, and he guides Roy to sit in the empty chair, clearing the cushion of the other for himself.

“She had so many ideas,” Roy says. “Things she wanted to say, things she wanted. Not for herself—for everyone. The future of the country.”

The last he says like he’s quoting something. Tears fill his eyes and spill over—more blind now than when he crossed through the Gate, all those years ago. Ed wonders, idly, fleeting, if she’ll wait for him there, if she’ll rise and meet him with hand outstretched, all time and distance collapsed to the infinite they still step through and see together.

“I can’t look at it. Not yet.”

A ray of light hits his eyes directly, and Roy blinks, shutting it out for only a moment.

“But it’s not right to hide it. Everything she wrote is important, and people should see it.”

The door behind them opens: Gracia steps outside with a cup of coffee, approaching them slowly.

“I had ulterior motives putting you and Winry in the study.”

“So you need an editor?” Ed asks.

“Only if you’re willing.”

“I’m honored that you asked.”

Gracia crosses to his side, glancing at the empty bag between his feet.

“So it’s done?” she says, rubbing gently between his shoulders.

“Yeah. Ed came with.”

“It was beautiful,” Ed says with a nod. “It felt like the right place.”

“I’m glad.”

“I’m tired,” Roy sighs. “I think I’m going to sleep now.”

He rises with a sudden heaviness, as though his center of gravity has suddenly rushed upwards above his heart. Hayate curls along beside him, a brace to rest against once or twice on the long walk back inside the house.

Everyone else is up and filtering through the various rooms, maintaining a reverent silence. Even Winry, having folded the bed linens neatly at each corner before heading into the bathroom. Through the walls, Ed can hear alternately the thrumming chant of water rushing through the pipes and the indecipherable murmur of Elicia’s voice.

He closes the door and crosses to the desk pushed up against the wall. Too dark or too distracted last night to notice, he sees now the cascade of papers spread across its surface.

This cannot be disturbed just yet—he feels this commandment sharply, so instead he simply looks. Leaning over, scanning his gaze across the jumbled words, picking up only flashes of the sentiments contained within. A torn shred, somewhat standing free of the pile, makes him turn his head against his shoulder to read more closely.

It’s a list—of titles, by his guess. Anarchist from the Deathbed, Non Omnis Moriar, Rights of the Amestrian Citizen: strong, stout, even a little seditious.

The chair is still pulled out a little ways, and with a bit of effort, he manages to sit without moving it. The window on his right pours sunlight across the desk top. A pen lies between his hands, he realizes, tossed against a seam of parchment and then rolled back to rest in a crease, sideways, careless of a dribble of ink, as though any moment she might return and take it up again.

He sets his fingers along the grooves—she was right-handed, and held the tip between three fingers, leaving her little finger to trail on the page, to guide the lilt of her writing.

He holds it just the same. He breathes. He pulls the first, the last, of her words forward, and he begins to read.

And did you get what you wanted from this life, even so? I did. And what did you want? To call myself beloved, to feel myself beloved on this earth.

“Late Fragment” by Raymond Carter

[the-canary]

Mausoleum - B.B (Epilogue)

Summary: Well, this was certainly one way to go about a museum date with your historical crush. (Reader/Bucky Barnes).

Masterlist

A/N: This is for @jaamesbbarnes. here’s where the story ends! thank you for taking the time to read this and i hope you enjoyed their journey. 

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6

Sometimes, I think it was all a dream, Steve. She’s too vivid not to be real. But, sometimes...I think my mind was playing tricks on me.

Steve has heard this a hundred times before since Bucky had gone through his treatment in Wakanda, since they had come back to New York. While, the words that HYDRA had implanted within him no longer worked, Bucky still questioned a lot of his memories and the things he had done as the Winter Soldier, though he remembered it all. However, there was something more recently that he had questioned -- a woman that seemed to have traveled with him for a short while.

Bucky Barnes questioned whether he had actually known this woman or whether she was just a figment of his imagination -- something to stave of the loneliness he had known for more than 70 years. Some days, he welcomed her with open arms and told Steve or Sam about something that they had done together -- traveled through France, gone to Monet’s House, to the beaches of Normandy. Bucky talked with a softness in his voice that Steve had never heard before.

Other days he cursed her name, cried and yelled her out for leaving him alone -- for making him feel something that he had no right to, especially for something imaginary.

However, both Steve and Sam knew that she was real -- that she was one of the ways that they had found him in Romania when everything went to hell. And while Steve knows that Bucky isn’t a child, he is still protective of his best friend once he realizes who she is connected to --Everett Ross. The memories of the Accords and what that man had done to all of them still stung too deeply and even though things had been soothed between both the Avengers and the US Government -- Steve wasn’t willing to take that chance just yet.

Steve Rogers just didn’t expect for Everett Ross to make the first move before him.

“Steve,” Sam calls out to him, after looking through the newest missions that had been handed to them by the UN, “There’s something here personally for you.”

“What?” Steve can’t help but look over the couch, Bucky flickering a glance from his personal Stark Pad. Since coming back to the States and since he wasn’t an active Avenger, Bucky Barnes often spent his time learning and researching everything he had missed out on. Yes, he had learned some things from his time on the run, but his current lifestyle gave him more leisure.

“An invitation from Ross,” Sam states, a tone of confusion to his face, as Steve gets up and grabs the letter from Sam’s hand. Bucky’s back stiffens like a coil for a moment since he doesn’t have a good memory of either Ross, though Rhett and a giggle make him soften after a couple of minutes.

“What is it, Steve?” Bucky can’t help, but ask after the thought --or memory-- he isn’t quite sure. As Steve sighs before showing it to him, Steve knew he couldn’t hide it forever.

“An invitation,” Steve states simply, as he places the tickets and letter on the countertop.

THE LIVES AND AFTERMATH OF THE HOWLING COMMANDOS ON PRESENT DAY UNITED STATES.

You don’t talk to Everett in the aftermath of his unit finding you in Slovenia. He knows where you had been and with who, but at the sight of you crying and pleading, he asks nothing of the subject or what had happened to you since arriving in Antwerp, which seems like a lifetime ago. Something in his eyes tells you that he regrets it -- you just aren’t sure what. Nevertheless, Ross keeps you safe -- this hopeless mission is never spoken of again and as he leaves you in New York, he promises that he’ll come visit you soon.

He doesn’t, at least not for a long time as you struggle with work and everything that rattles in your head and the cold pain of your right shoulder, but you’ll bounce back -- you always do.

However, that doesn’t stop the nightmares and guilt from eating at your very core. It doesn’t stop the nightmares from coming back every night. It also doesn’t help that Secretary Ross suddenly seems interested in you as well, so you run away -- heading to the West Coast before moving into Canada for a good long while, though still working with American museums here and there when you can.  

You are helpless during the Accords and still have no way of contacting Everett, though you’re siding with Captain America more than anyone else, but this isn’t your fight -- you know that well enough.

Ross doesn’t contact until your newest exhibit in New York is about to open. Bright eyes reminding you of the old Air Force Tech Sergeant  you used to know with that pretty blond woman --Sharon Carter, if you remember correctly-- at his side, and in that moment you know that something has changed within Everett Ross. He has a new lease on life, though he doesn’t tell you why. You think it has something to do with his time in Wakanda since he was seen more with King T’Challa since the announcement at the UN had been made.

“You should come back home,” he states as you give him a confused look, like he has forgotten the past couple of years, “With the acquittal of Barnes, they won’t come after you. I’ve made sure of it.”

“I believe that’s what you said last time,” you explain, looking outside and into the streets of Toronto, only to hear him sigh, “And then I had government agents at my apartment asking what I had done in France.”

“All papers in regards to you have been destroyed,” Everett remarks with an exasperated voice, as Sharon smiles -- never seeing this side of him before, “Mistakes were made, but I am trying to redeem them now, I swear.”

You look at him and then at Sharon before placing your folded hands on top of the table: “Ms. Carter, do you stand as witness to my dear friend’s remarks?”

Sharon laughs as Ross groans, while she gives you her answer, “I don’t know what happened in Wakanda, but he is trying his hardest to make amends, even with Captain Rogers and Sergeant Barnes, in his own way.”

You frown for a moment at the sound of that familiar name, though only Ross seems to notice. He knows that he has no right to ask and while he probably never say it out loud, he knows he owes a great deal of gratitude towards the man for whatever he had done for you -- whatever he instilled in you to keep on living. You let out a dramatic sigh.

“I’ll think about it, especially since they want me in New York for the opening night,” you explain with shrug as Ross gives you a smile , while you keep on talking to Sharon about everything she had done and how exactly she is connected to Everett Ross, much to his annoyance.

Oh, but if only you knew what he had planned -- to make due somewhat on all of the things he owed you.

 The Museum of the City of New York wouldn’t be considered one of the most glamorous museums within the city, but it was filled with a lot of information on and about New York and some of its most important inhabitants, that was some of the reasons why it was one of Bucky’s favorite parts to go and see when he wanted to know just a little bit more on the decades that had passed him by within his old running ground. However, tonight was different -- tonight, he was one of the subjects that was to be looked up to.

The opening gala at the request of the curator had been for immediate family and invited individuals only. Steve and Bucky as the only surviving members of the said unit were a pretty big deal with all the other Avengers coming and Tony making sure that they were all dressed to the nines for said event. Bucky wasn’t sure how to feel about the whole thing, while he was curious to see about the others’ lives, he also didn’t feel like being an object on display -- he didn’t have to do that anymore. And while he had connected with some of his family from his sisters’ marriages, he still wasn’t ready for that.

Bucky ducked for nearly the whole night, much to Nat’s and Sam’s disapproval, reading up on all his comrades and those he didn’t know after the fact.

He reads up on how Dum-Dum became a novelist a la Hemingway. He reads up on how Gabe stayed in France after the world, as part of the growing group of American expats there. Morita went back home and fought for the rights of those like him that had fought in the war or had stayed in the internment camps, until his dying breath. Falsworth stayed in active service until he became Brigadier General and one of the foremost experts on WWII history, even teaching courses in Oxford. Dernier traveled most of his life, teaching others how to use bombs and when the time came -- how to disarm them as well until he disappeared to god knows where.  

Bucky reads up on those who took the mantle of the Howling Commandos after he and Steve “died” and how Peggy fought for the establishment of S.H.I.E.LD, though not much can be said of her time there.  He sees Steve haunted by his own information section with Sharon Carter not that far away. Then, he finally comes to his own -- James Buchanan Barnes in script that reminds him of the Smithsonian exhibit, outside of things he remembers, everything in that section is a blur followed by an empty blank because unlike the rest of them -- Bucky’s story even after 100 years still isn’t over yet.

“James Buchanan Barnes was acquitted of all charges against the United States in 2018,” Bucky repeats to himself over and over again, like a prayer -- like this is something he doesn’t deserve as his eyes feel like they are burning as his vision gets blurry.

“100 years and what do I have to show do it?” he can’t help but murmur to himself because after everything is said and done he is still a broken man with nightmares of the people that he killed and while he is still alive and breathing, how could he ever surmise to his fellow comrades?    

“I think you standing here is a lot to show for,” a voice --one that he had only heard in his dreams-- speaks up from behind him. Bucky swears, hoping that this isn’t a fucking dream again. He turns around and sees a woman with noticeable changes to your appearance but the smile still the same as ever, “Being alive, being able to recover isn’t something to shortchange, Bucky.”

“You’re..” Bucky can’t seem to keep going with his sentence, as he rushes over to you, while you welcome him with open arms, “Real! You’re really here.”

“Yeah, I am,” is all you can say, unsure of what he means by that though unwilling to ask for now, “And so are you, Buck. You should be so proud of that.”

Bucky doesn’t say anything to your reassuring words, as he simply rests his head on your left shoulder, arms curling into the rest of your body like it was a missing puzzle piece to his own. Keep your back to mine, ringing loudly in your head, but taking a different meaning for the moment as you take in his appearance -- not as homeless looking as before, but still with his long hair and stubble that remind you of your time together. Bucky Barnes wasn’t the same person anymore though, but neither were you.

“Did you like the exhibit?” you ask, trying to move from a lighter subject, “I worked my butt off, ya know?”

Blue eyes look up, as you roll your right shoulder for a moment, before he asks: “You did all this?”

“This is my day job,” you explain as he stands up to look around once more but with a different sense of everything he had seen due to knowing this was all your hard work and research, “ Most of the time .”

“Why did you?” Bucky asks, before stopping and staring at his own unfinished exhibit though you understand what he was asking.

“Back in Normandy,” you start as you look straight into his bright blue eyes, “You asked what had happened to everyone, I felt like this was a mission for me afterwards. To show you --in some way-- what had happened to them...that they lived their lives to the fullest.”

Bucky stays silent, as you take his hands from around your waist and had them tightly: “And that even after everything, you can live one too, like you’re doing so right now.”

Bucky gives you a smile like he doesn’t believe your words, while you frown before huffing out a breath of air in annoyance. However, he can’t help but be mesmerized by the light that seems to shine from you, so different from the person he had meet all those years ago, though it is something that he would like to get to know better from now on.       

“I don’t--”

“Those are the last words I wanna hear from your mouth, James Barnes,” you remark, pulling on his left hand with your right one as you drag him out of the exhibit and into one of the darker parts of the museum. He follows unsure but excited, as he sees your true personality blossom before him.

“Doll,” the word is unfamiliar to him as it tumbles out of his mouth, but it just feels right to call you that, “where are we going?”

You turn back to him and give him an even bigger grin, as you can see Ross shaking his head from the corner of your eye before he walks away: “I’m gonna show the rest of the museum and then we’ll see where the rest of the night takes us. How about it?”

Bucky hesitates only for a moment before grinning: “Anything you want.”

“I’m gonna make you regret those words,” you say before laughing and disappearing into the hallways of the museum, just like you had once before.    

However, this time you were going to show him that he was worth more than old paintings and hollowed out stories, Bucky Barnes was worth everything and more -- and you were okay with spending the rest of your life showing him not to regret a single moment any longer -- and truth be told, he was okay for doing the same for you too.            

[tanoraqui]

this is so sappy that I’m almost embarrassed, but, anyway, some Roy/Riza headcanons:

Roy couldn’t do such precise aim with his flames in the Ishvalan War; he learned afterwards, after Riza asked him to burn the flame alchemy notes off her back, because he wasn’t going to touch her until he knew he could control the fire like a surgeon’s blade

he didn’t quite mean to do it until he was doing it, but the way he set the sheet of flames against her back, an instant of pain so bright and fast that it didn’t hurt until afterwards…the burn ended up looking a lot like half-folded wings

“Just like a hawk,” he joked weakly, as he held up a mirror for her to see. 

(Just like an angel, he did not think then. One of the old sorts, guiding and righteous and needing to say “Be not afraid” first thing, each time they appeared to mortals.)

He might have thought it a bit later, when she accepted his offer for a job. She didn’t until he’d burned the patterns off her back. That’s when she knew he was serious. She offered to follow him into hell the next day, while her back still stung under her uniform.

(Riza is no alchemist, but obviously the diagrams on her back weren’t her only knowledge of flame alchemy. She was her father’s note-taker for years, as his hands grew unsteady and his coughing fits worse. Too much smoke in his lungs, from before he’d perfected the flames.)

honestly, I’m content with them never being in a real “romantic” relationship. Why do you need that, when you already have “If you’re going to shoot me, shoot me. But then, after you do that, Lieutenant, what are you going to do?” “I can tell you, I have no intention of carrying on my myself. This fight will be my last. After this is all over, I intend to kill myself, and remove my secrets of flame alchemy from the world.” I’ll follow you into Hell if you ask (if I have to send us both there myself, so the world never has to face anything like us again.)

the answer, of course, is that they don’t NEED to, but it…might be nice. Good for them. A bit of happiness. A bit of openly loving each other, and by proxy, themselves. Imagine a world where Roy gets to say, one evening, “I once said that I never feel more human than when I’m fighting real monsters. I was wrong. This…” (he holds her a little closer) “This is even better.”

“Are you admitting you were wrong, sir?” Riza teases.  “It happens on occasion, Captain,” he replies loftily.

(yes, she’s gonna get promoted, though not that much - go too far, and you have to stop being an aide. Yes, she draws the pay of a brigadier-general anyway, because everyone knows what her job really is. Yes, they will use military ranks in bed. Why would you even doubt that.)

I’ve given it a lot of thought and if those last few episodes didn’t get them to kiss, nothing dramatic will. No “I thought you were dead” moments for Roy and Riza. Nah, I’d Josh&Donna them - if this romance is going to be the Unexpected Happy Thing, that’s how it has to start. They get a bill through Parliament to seriously defund the military, or a major step towards Ishvalan reparations, or, hell, it’s a holiday party. There’s been a bit of alcohol, though not much for either of them - just enough that Roy is tipsy. He notices Hawkeye is gone and he finds her outside, leaning on the balcony in the moonlight, and he thinks once a sniper, always a sniper and he thinks, I should probably go back to schmoozing. But mostly he thinks, as she stands there in the moonlight, keeping watch over the darkness and smiling at the warm light and sound of the laughter and glasses spilling from inside, god, she’s beautiful. So of course Roy “symbolically and temperamentally associated with fire from Day One* Mustang is the one who kisses her first. Then stumbles back apologizing, retreating to formality and leaning on his alleged drunkenness, and it’s been so many years that it takes a few days for even Riza “associated with clear sight in every literal and metaphorical way” Hawkeye to realize that maybe this isn’t the world’s worst idea.

Anti-fraternization rules still exist, but they know what they’re doing and literally who is going to challenge them? Nobody, that’s who. 

[compassionate-captain]

☁ five times my muse has thought about yours, and the one time they do something about it. (i'm super curious, but don't feel obligated)

send me a symbol for…

☁  five times my muse has thought about yours, and the one time they do something about it. (Not accepting)

Mike glared, unimpressed at the Private. Yes, Captain Jack was allowed to walk about UNIT headquarters, flirting with whomever he wanted, even the men. But that was less a matter of him having permission to do so, and more to do with the fact that if he chose to do such a thing, there was nothing that the Captain nor the Brigadier could really do to stop him. Being under the banner of Torchwood, it gave Jack a certain kind of immunity from UNIT command, and while he could be punished by his privileges being taken away, the truth was that they needed Jack to be able to operate with Torchwood at all. Still, Mike swore that Jack was going to be the death of him. He probably didn’t mean to do so, but the more Jack hung around, the harder it became to keep the men in line. After all, while Mike had grown to respect Captain Harkness, he still somehow managed to cause controversy wherever he went among the ranks.

Captain Yates and Sargent Benton gave one another sidelong glances across the table. The Doctor had been complaining all morning, and the two soldiers could do nothing but listen to it. As the Captain pretended to listen to how much of a buffoon he was for the fifteenth or sixteenth time this week, Mike could not help but to think of their civilian counterparts in Torchwood. Mike knew that Jack had known the Doctor in the future. Did he have to deal with even half of this belittlement? He couldn’t help but to wonder how the Doctor would have treated him if UNIT was not a military organization. He knew that it was a futile exercise, but still. Every once in a while, he couldn’t help but to imagine. Maybe he should join Torchwood. Maybe he should go over to Jack’s side instead. He wasn’t going to any time soon, but sometimes he thought it the better option. At the very least, it would probably lead to him being nagged at less.

“No!” Mike shouted, extending a hand towards the man as the bullets tore through him. Falling to the ground, Mike crawled to the fallen soldier, trying his best to ignore the blood and viscera of his freshly dead ally staining his uniform. Checking the man over, it was just as he suspected. He had died immediately. Hearing the order off in the distance, Mike watched as his men moved forward, advancing towards the enemy. Many of them were going to die. A necessary sacrifice, but a sacrifice nonetheless. Taking off the man’s dog tags, the Captain let out a sigh. “Too bad you can’t just regenerate, right?” He half-smiled as he spoke to the corpse. “Not everyone gets to be Captain Jack, I guess.” Giving it a nudge he joked, “We should really get ourselves one of those. A soldier who could never die…” Mike lazily leaned against the side of the trench. “Would save us a lot of trouble. Send him on suicide missions… Put him on the front lines… If we could have one soldier with his ability to heal, we could save…” Mike shrugged. “Well… You know... Countless lives. Or I guess you wouldn’t. You’re already dead.”

He was at an impasse. Mike didn’t know what to do. Either he could push for what he felt was right and betray everyone he cared about. Or he could continue to live in a flawed world that was going to collapse around them. He didn’t know what to do. Looking back at the past, he could only see a long string of mistakes leading to a bitter and corrupted present. And it sickened him. As for the future… He knew it must be a bleak one. He knew that it existed. He knew people who had been there. But what they said... What the Doctor and Jack had said about it... It didn’t sound like a future worth living in anymore. For a moment he wondered. If he tried to stop the future from happening now, what would happen? It didn’t matter. Not to Mike. Not anymore. Even if it meant no future for himself, nor mankind, he needed to fix it. Even if it meant that UNIT would come to see him as a traitor... Even if Jack would have never been born, it was what he needed to do. For all of mankind.

In his old age, Mike looked at the photograph. He was standing in uniform with a shy smile on his face as Jack was grinning broadly next to him. Setting the photograph down, he let out a deep sigh, letting the nostalgia pass over him like a wave. What he wouldn’t give to be like Jack. Even for a little while. Able to live for so long without having to worry about dying or growing old. Mike knew that Jack hardly looked a day older than the day they had met all those years ago. Jack never changed, and while Mike knew and accepted it, sometimes it was still hard to think about. Mike had changed a lot since those distant times, running around, trying to save the world together. He stared at the phone for a long moment before deciding to leave it alone. He couldn’t call him. Not today at least.

Poping his head in through the door with a smile, Mike waved to Jack, almost ignoring the Brigadier. “Hey, Jack, the men and I are going out for drinks. Want to join? We’d love to have you.” He knew that the Brigadier and Jack had been discussing logistics for hours, but that didn’t mean that either of them should be left out. He figured that the Brigadier, being as busy as he was would probably refuse this time. But certainly Jack could spare a few hours. “Jack, you may not be an official member of UNIT... But that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t be treated to some of our famous UNIT hospitality.” With a wink, Mike turned on his heel. “We’re leaving in ten. If we don’t see you by then, we’re leaving without you.”

[lightsaberss]

The Meaning of Death

So I had an idea for an AU where Riza goes missing after the Promised Day and is presumed dead, and then two years later she turns up with no memories. I started writing it, and this is what I ended up with. I might continue this as there’s so much more I’d like to do with this idea, but for now, here’s a one shot.

The rain was cold and relentless, and she was running.

Her mind was blank, and she was running as if she knew the streets. Running as fast as she could, running so fast that her chest hurt and her legs ached. She didn't stop. Couldn't stop. Not until there was silence behind her, and she could still hear footsteps and shouts, so she had to keep going. Had to keep running. She'd run until she bled, until the floor was smeared with vomit, if she had to. She wasn't going back. She'd die first.

No. She wouldn't. Something nagged her, she wasn't allowed to die. She'd clung to that thought through beatings, bright lights, injections, through pain and distress. She didn't know what it meant anymore, but she knew it was something she wasn't allowed to do. So she kept running.

***

Captain Jean Havoc could think of a million things he'd rather be doing than going to pick up Brigadier General Roy 'I've fallen into a whiskey bottle and I can't get out. Again' Mustang, but somebody had to. Breda had drawn the short straw last time, and Fuery was on a date with a nerdy chick from accounts, so while he had better things to do, it was him or no one. Well, maybe Becca, but that normally lead to bitter screaming matches in the middle of the street, and Havoc wanted that even less.

He couldn't blame the man, not really. They'd gotten their bodies back in working order, they'd saved the country, and Ishval was being rebuilt back to it's former glory, but the cost had been high, and they all felt it like a bitter ache in their chests. The General though, he'd been a broken man ever since they'd been given the news. Sure, he worked hard, but Havoc couldn't remember the last time he'd seen the man crack a smile when he wasn't Acting The Part, or whatever it was she'd called it.

The she in question; Riza Hawkeye, had died two years ago, and nothing had been the same since.

Havoc was lost in thoughts, about Riza, the General, Rebecca, and their grief, when a terrified and bloodied woman run into traffic, causing him to slam on the breaks. Hard.

She stared at him. He stared back.

Long blonde hair was plastered to her face, and her clothes (they looked like surgical scrubs, Havoc thought) were soaked through to the point where they were clinging to her body. There were bruises on her face and arms, and she was splattered in blood, but there was no mistaking those impossibly wide brown eyes.

Riza Hawkeye. The woman who had died on the Promised Day, was alive, and staring at him.

"What the fuck?" He muttered, before opening the car door, and stepping out into the cold rain. How long had she been out in this? She must be freezing.

"Riza?!" He asked.

"Who?" She asked. "Please, I need help. There's… I can't explain, but please?"

There were so many things wrong with this scenario, and if it got him killed then he hoped Rebecca wouldn't hold it against him. He couldn't leave her here though, not when every sense was screaming at him that this was his friend - his sister in arms. Even if it was something else, they'd need to get to the bottom of it.

"Get in." Havoc said, and got back in behind the wheel as she jumped into the passenger seat.

"Drive." She ordered, and okay, the evidence that this was Riza just kept adding up. She used the same tone when giving orders, that's for sure. Still, he did what she asked, and he drove.

***

The tall man was silent, and for some reason it bothered her. Like he should be chatting, or at least asking her questions. It wasn't normal for women to run out into traffic like that, was it? But something kept him silent, kept his thoughts from becoming questions that she didn't even want to answer, and it was annoying. Still, she was grateful that he was driving her away, and he'd even put the heating on when she'd started to shiver.

"Thank you." She said, eventually. After the silence became too much, and looked far too relieved that she'd started to speak. This was his car, he could've started the damn conversation if he wanted to.

"No problem." He said. "So. What happened?"

Blood. Screaming. Fire. She didn't know what she'd done, not well enough to explain it to a stranger that didn't sound crazy.

"I escaped." She said, as if that was an explanation, which she knew it wasn't.

"Well. No offence, but I can see that." He said. "Fuck, Hawkeye, we thought you were dead, and then you just run out into traffic like that. What the fuck is going on?"

Hawkeye? And what had he called her before, was it Riza? It felt alien, but she mouthed the names to try to get a taste for them, to see if saying them felt familiar, but it didn't. It felt hollow and strange, like the name of a person she'd never met before.

"I don't know…" She said. She didn't know him, she didn't know who this Riza Hawkeye person was. All she knew was the bright lights, and the pain that had been her constant companion for what felt like her life. "I don't know anything."

"Right. Okay. Right." He said. "We're going to get this sorted."

"We?" She asked. "And why? And who is this Riza person? And who are you?"

"That's a lot of questions," He said. "Right. Fine, it's fair, this whole situation is fucking weird anyway-"

Well. She couldn't argue with that.

"Okay, I'm Jean Havoc. Riza Hawkeye - who looked exactly like you - was my colleague." He - Jean - said.

"Colleague?"

"Yeah." He said. "We were in the military - well, I still am - but she died a couple of years ago. Which is why you looking like her is pretty fucking weird -"

"I'm not dead." She said, quietly.

She wasn't dead. She'd clung to life, sometimes with the tips of her fingernails digging into it, holding onto it out of desperation, and she couldn't remember why she'd been so desperate to keep living, other than she didn't want to die.

"I'm not allowed to die." She said, her voice still quiet.

Jean slammed on the breaks, and stared at her in surprise. "What did you say?"

"I - why did you stop?"

"What did you just say?" He repeated.

"I'm not allowed to die." She said, her voice stronger this time and she stared at him defiantly, as if he was one of the people from the lab. One of the people that wouldn't break her - but had they broken her? Had she just forgotten?

"This is so fucked." Was all he had to say, and he started driving again.

He didn't answer anymore of her questions.

***

Rebecca Catalina was actually used to being dragged out of bed in the early hours of the morning by Jean Havoc, but those phone calls were normally a lot more What Are You Wearing? And a lot less Come To This Safe House And Bring Extra Clothes And A First Aid Kit And Don't Tell Mustang But Oh Shit Someone Needs To Pick Him Up. If this turned out to be some sort of weird sex thing, she was so going to punch him.

Grabbing the duffle bag from the back seat, she made her way to the front door and knocked. The rain still hadn't let up, and she pouted as her curly hair started to get wet. She was holding the bag over her head when Jean opened it, and whatever snarky comment was about to come out of her mouth without thinking died right there on her tongue.

"What is it?" She asked, softly. He never looked this worried, that was normally more Breda's thing. At least it had been since… but she didn't want to think about it. "Is it the General, has he done something stupid?"

"It's not Mustang." He pulled her into one of the rooms off the hallway and closed the door. Okay. Weird.

"So what is it? Did Breda get the idiot home safe?" Rebecca asked.

"Yeah." He said. "Look. This is going to sound crazy, and believe me, I know, but I was driving to pick him up from Madame Christmas's and this woman ran out in front of me and I swear it's Riza."

Rebecca felt like her mind had stopped. The duffle bag fell from her hand onto the floor with a thud and she stared at it. Was that why he needed the clothes? The first aid kit? Was that why they were here? Was Riza here?

"That's… where is she?" Rebecca asked. "I want to see her, Jean."

"Upstairs. She wanted a shower, and she was pretty bloodied up. She didn't tell me what happened but…" Jean shrugged. "Look, Becca, she doesn't remember anything. Not her name, not me, and I mentioned you and… nothing."

The amount of terrible things that could've happened to cause that would've been overwhelming if Rebecca let herself think of them, but she blocked them out and blinked back the tears that were stinging her eyes. She couldn't fall apart. She wouldn't fall apart. If it was her, Riza would keep it together.

"Is that why you called me instead of him?" She accused.

"No. Well. Partly." Jean admitted. "I just think right now she needs someone to patch her up and… be a friend. The General drunk off his ass isn't who we need right now."

Rebecca nodded in agreement, a drunk Mustang was the last thing any of them needed. She picked up the duffle bag and walked up the stairs and knocked on the bathroom door.

"You decent?"

"Um, sure."

It was Riza, sitting on the edge of the tub and wrapped in a towel. A little skinnier, a little more bruised, and some of those scars hadn't been there before, but it was Riza. Rebecca had to physically restrain herself from launching herself at her best friend. Instead she just tried to smile as warmly as possible, and hoped it wasn't coming across like a crazy maniac smile.

"Do you remember me?" Rebecca closed the door behind her with a click and got out the first aid kit.

"No. Sorry. I don't remember Jean either." Okay, Riza calling him anything other than Havoc, that was going to take some getting used to.

"I'm Rebecca, we went to the Academy together." She explained. As if that scratched the surface of their friendship together, the late nights complaining about men, the shopping trips, the bottles of wine and Xingese food they'd consumed by the bucket. "We were friends."

"Oh." Riza said.

"Hey, don't feel bad about it." Rebecca said, and she took Riza's hands in hers. Her fingers her calloused and her knuckles were bruised. Had she fought her way out of somewhere? "Do you remember anything?"

Rebecca rubbed antiseptic lotion over the grazes, and gently inspected her friend's arms, legs and feet for any other cuts. Where she found them, she cleaned them gently, and she listened as Riza started to speak.

"An old house. A man locked behind a door. A boy with black hair. A library. Needles. Sand. Fire. Guns. A dog. A storm. A metal man. And I'm not allowed to die." She listed quietly. Rebecca stared at the floor for a moment, trying to piece it together and also trying not to burst into tears.

"That's something." Rebecca said. "Or at least it's a start. We can help you put it together and get your memories back."

Riza nodded, and pulled the towel around herself tighter. "I was held in a lab." She offered. "I could probably find it again."

Rebecca stared at her, she hadn't even thought about going after the bastards that did this. She'd been thinking about getting her friend back, not sending the fuckers to hell for turning her best friend into a person that looked at her like a stranger. "Good." Rebecca said. "We'll find them, and make them pay for this. But first, let's check your back for injuries."

The fact that Riza had a tattoo on her back wasn't a surprise, Rebecca had seen hints of it over the years, and she'd stopped buying the whole 'scars from Ishval' excuse for avoiding backless dresses about six months after she came back. This, however, was not what Rebecca was expecting. The blood red ink, and burn scars, there was a story here that Riza couldn't tell her, a part of her life permanently etched onto her skin that she had forgotten.

Mustang probably knew about it. She'd seen that symbol on his gloves enough times to know what it meant.

"Do you know what it means?" Riza asked. "The tattoo. I saw it in the mirror but I don't remember. Obviously."

"You never told me about it. It was something private," Rebecca answered honestly. "But Mustang might know."

"Mustang?"

"General Whatever. He was your superior and you guys had a weird history." Rebecca said.

"Right." Riza frowned. "Can I get dressed now?"

"Oh, uh, sure." Rebecca said, and dragged her eyes away from the flame alchemy array on Riza's back. "There are clothes in the duffle bag. Come downstairs when you're ready and we'll have food."

Rebecca left the room feeling more confused than she had when she went in. It looked like Riza, sounded like her, but she never thought she'd live in a world where Riza Hawkeye didn't know who General Mustang was. She'd never been his biggest fan, but that - more than anything else - proved to her how serious this was.

Riza might be back, but without her memories who was she? And where had she been?

[leftrightleftallthetime]

Episode 20 or Raj meets his future in-laws (I couldn’t resist)

Episode link: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=sO48-VjM2No

At the Ahluwalia house, Raj introduces himself and asks if Mrs Ahluwalia is Naina Singh’s mother. She begins to deny it but Mr Ahluwalia tells her to let him in.

Inside Raj begina to explain why he’s come when he spots a family photo with Naveen. He’s shocked and asks if this is Captain Naveen’s house, are they his parents?

Mr Ahluwalia confirms it angrily, asking what Raj will do with the knowledge. Will he throw Naina out of the academy? Isn’t the military happy with taking his son’s life.

Raj reassures them that he’s come on a routine check, he didn’t know Naina was Naveen’s sister (and again, I’m not quite certain why he didn’t at least suspect). Mrs Ahluwalia wants to know what he’ll do now, what more will be taken from them?

Raj tells them he was Naveen’s batchmate, and I do like how from here he swaps to calling them Aunty and Uncle because it speaks to the depths of his friendship with Naveen that he can’t think of them as anything else. Raj tells them he was on a mission at the time of Naveen’s death and Mr Ahluwalia sarcastically says that if he’d been here he would have come when Naveen died. No, he would not have come because nobody came due to the accusation against Naveen.

Raj states that he definitely would have come. Mr Ahluwalia asks him that since he knew Naveen and studied with him, was their son a traitor? Raj says this is what he heard, it’s what the evidence said. Mrs Ahluwalia wants to know what he thinks though.

Raj stands up, telling them that he just came to verify Naina’s address and he should go. He doesn’t have an answer for them.

Outside, Bunty tells him that he’ll have to tell Brigadier Chandok that Naina is Naveen’s sister and she can’t stay in the academy. Bunty reminds him that he was suspicious of Naina since the beginning and now they know she’s a traitor’s sister and the spy. Raj states confidently that she is not the spy and Bunty reminds him that there’s no place for a traitor’s sister in the academy. Clearly upset by the morning’s events, Raj kicks the tire of the car and they leave.

Lolitaji is conducting an exercise on pride and honour with the cadets where she is going to make them polish the academy’s trophies. It’s a funny scene but nothing of note happens.

Later in their room, Pooja asks Naina if she posted a rakhi, does she have a brother? Naina says that there’s nobody even as tears come to her eyes. She offers Naina an extra Rakhi in case she wants one before speaking about how Ali is the only brother of five sisters and how he’s her best friend. Pooja hasn’t quite got the point yet. Naina comments that Pooja is lucky, it’s not so easy to find someone to support you.

At night, Ali can’t sleep, thinking about Pooja. She shines a torch at their window and he goes to wave as Alekh asks what he’s doing and Ali gives excuses. Alekh tells him to tell his girlfriend to stop waving the torch as he wants to sleep. Ali asks Allah to forgive him and Alekh tells him it’s done - but ask him to give Pooja some sense too.

The next morning, Ali is admiring the Rakhis his sisters have sent. Alekh comments that it looks like the whole of Kanpur has sent them to him. Ali asks Alekh to tie the Rakhis for him and Alekh tells him not to meet Pooja today.

Yudi walks in and jokes that Alekh should tie him a Rakhi too, singing an old film song. Huda tells them he’s worn a full sleeve shirt just so that nobody can tie him one today. Huda talks about his sisters - but it turns out he’s talking about his buffaloes.

Yudi says he won’t go home to tie Rakhi because of his mum and dad but he won’t allow his sister to come here either, he knows enough of brotherly responsibility to keep her away from Huda.

Naina places her rakhi on the eternal flame, apologising for having forgotten earlier.

The cadets look at the marks board, Yudi is upset that even Alekh is ahead of him. Naina comes and sees that she’s been given the lowest marks and the other cadets comfort her. They remind her there’s still 3 tests left and she’ll do well. It’s Dr Mishra’s year for them today.

Captain Rajveer arrives back and runs into Dr Mishra who asks if he wore the uniform to impress her. Raj asks if he can be present during Dr Mishra’s test in order to understand the cadets better. She agrees that he can attend.

There is a call for Naina just then and Raj looks at her, knowing what it’s about. Her mother tells her that Captain Rajveer had come to their house.

[kalinara]

As you know, I've been rewatching Rory (Williams) Pond... and damn, I don't want him and Amy to leave until Matt did (of course I watched them as they aired). "Closing Time" is next (so, almost all of it will be fast forwarded) and then "The Wedding of River Song", then their last 5 eps. What did you like and dislike about Rory and Amy, Rory and the Doctor? How would you like to have seen them written out? What would you have liked to see with them? Any headcanons for Rory, or Rory and anyone?

I've always liked when the Doctor travels with multiple characters rather than just one companion.  When the Doctor travels with one companion, it tends to follow a very similar formula, IMO.  The companion, usually female, is a cheerful, energetic acolyte of the Doctor.  She brings her own talents to the table and an individual attitude of course, but it's kind of the same dynamic all around.

It's different when there are multiple companions.  Then you have one enthusiastic apprentice in the standard style, and at least one wild card.  The "Tin Dog" as Mickey puts it, but that's actually a really interesting role because it can go so many ways.

It can be a hapless comic relief sort like Harry Sullivan or Mickey Smith.  It can be a traitor or mischief maker like Turlough.  It can be another playmate like Captain Jack.  Or it can be a voice of sanity like Ian/Barbara.

And Rory's particularly interesting because he gets to challenge the Doctor and be RIGHT.  And I think the Doctor really benefits from having someone in that role.

I do wish though that we got a little more of the Doctor-and-Rory dynamic on their own.  Most of their interaction is done through Amy.  And Amy's great, but I think the Doctor doesn't necessarily think about Rory as a separate being from Amy.  It's Amy, or Amy-and-Rory.  It would have been interesting to see an episode where maybe Amy could spend significant time with River (explore the mother-daughter bond a bit more) while the Doctor and Rory might interact without the women.

For that matter, I'd have loved to see more with Rory and River.  Though weirdly, when I think about them, I don't feel like they've been neglected.  There were only little moments: Rory seeing River shoot people in Day of the Moon, their interplay in the beginning of Angels take Manhattan, but I feel like I have a good idea of how they interact anyway.

I don't know how I'd write them out, honestly.  Angels take Manhattan was fun, but full of some really obvious holes.  (Couldn't they travel outside of NYC?  Couldn't the Doctor park in New Jersey and then walk?  Couldn't they fake the gravestones?  How do the gravestones work as a fixed point when Amy's name wasn't on it until she got zapped back?)

At the same time, they really did need to write the two out in a really dramatic way, I think.  Doctor Who set up a really interesting dynamic in season seven that the Doctor's never had with anyone but the Brigadier.  Rather than having Amy and Rory as constant companions, they were part time travelers.  The Doctor, when he needed them, would go to them and pick them up.

That meant of course that the Doctor now had a constant place of sanctuary.  How might the introduction of Twelve gone differently if he and Clara could have gone to them for help too?  (There's nothing to say he couldn't have recruited Clara as a more long term companion and still had Dinosaur on a Spaceship style visits with Amy and Rory.)  And well, consider Demon's Run.  If the Doctor ever needed an army again, well, he has both of them at his beck and call.

Basically, I think the show wrote itself with a corner with the Ponds.  The season seven situation could have continued indefinitely.  And the Doctor shouldn't really have that kind of support base.

I think the only change I would make to Angels take Manhattan is: I would have left out the cemetary scene at the end:  Rory and Amy jump off the building and then that gorgeous fall, a flare of white.

And then nothing.  The Doctor and River find each other, but there's no sign of either Pond.  I guess they could keep the letter at the end of the book: Amy does not, for whatever reason, tell the Doctor where and when they ended up, but that they had a long and happy life.  If they need closure.  But I kind of like the idea that they just disappear in that flash of light and we don’t know what happened next.  Leave it a sad mystery.

My headcanon and what I would like to have seen is: the Ponds meet Captain Jack.  Amy would get along with Jack PROVIDED they met before Vampires in Venice.  Afterward...well, he REALLY needs to stop hitting on her husband.  :-P

[oneshul]

Beshalach: The Egyptian Version

Despite a strong defence and adverse weather All arms combined magnificently together.

--Robert Graves, “The Persian Version of the Battle of Marathon, Greece”

Scene: The Egyptian Bank of the Sea of Reeds, up near the Nile Delta. Off, we hear cries of triumph by Israelites, singing, led by Miriam the Prophet, Sister of Moses. They are celebrating their successful Crossing of the Sea, their general liberation from Egyptian Slavery, and so forth. Before us is a Regiment of Egyptian Light Cavalry“Sobek-the-Crocodile-god,” commanded by Lieutenant Setep-en-re. A MAJOR comes riding up on a dun-colored charger. The lieutenant, only recently graduated from the Royal Egyptian Military Academy (Thebes branch) with a degree in Chariotry, salutes enthusiastically.

Lt: Save Ra! Save our Holy Pharaoh! What is the Major’s pleasure?

Maj (curtly, businesslike): Lieutenant, you are to hold your position here, as Reserve Forces, backing up my command, the Regiment “Horus-the-Killer-Hawk.” I will take my regiment and proceed directly into that breach between the waters (pointing). Depending on the Situation, you will either proceed, or no. Most importantly, wait for my further orders. I repeat: do nothing without orders from me.

Lt: I will hold fast here, as per your orders, Sir! If it please the Major, what is our objective, Sir?

Maj: Our objective? Why, to gather that Rabble of Slaves, killing those who resist, and herd the remaining men, women, and children back to the treasure-cities of Pitom and Ramesses. They will resume their rightful labors, and their wretched lives. Understood, Lieutenant?

Lt: Understood, Sir!

Maj: Very good. Hi-ya!

(He strikes his mount with a quirt and gallops off, heading toward the Sea. The Lieutenant remains behind, as per orders. A Corporal, acting as Charioteer-Driver to the Lieutenant, salutes him and asks:)

Corporal: Sir, begging the Lieutenant’s pardon, Sir. Are we to understand that we are not allowed to engage the Enemy?

Lt (Sighing, eager to fight): Sadly, Corporal, that is correct. We are acting as Reserve, this time. Reserve only.

Corporal (He is in his late teens, and joined the Army to see action): Oh, Sir! How I wish that we, too, could storm into the surf and have at that—that—Hebrew Slave-Gang. How they and their Invisible God have laid waste to our beloved nation!

Lt: That is true, Corporal—hold the horses steady, can’t you? They are disturbed by the salt smell emanating from the waters. Here (He scribbles an order on a slip of papyrus)—send that to Lt. Waset, with my compliments, and tell him to bind cloths around the horses’ mouths, to prevent their smelling the Sea.

Corporal: What if we are ordered into action, Sir? Cloths will make it difficult for the horses to breathe.

Lt (with exaggerated patience): If we are ordered into action, we will take the cloths off.

Voices off: See the three Regiments of Horse enter the surf, there! How their armor gleams in the sun! How magnificent they look—All honor to our Royal Egyptian Cavalry!

Color-Sergeant (from the next chariot over: he is a grizzled veteran of twenty years’ service): Aye, shine like the sun in his glory, my brave boys!When I was Riding-Master in the Luxor Stables, I trained those boys to straighten their lines; I did, indeed! (Under his breath:) There, there you go, Lieutenant Khendjer, there you go, Captain Mernef; smartly, smartly. Hold your lines steady—steady, steady....

Voices: See the horses buck and rear!

Color-Sgt: Aye, well, they are not used to water; they require hard-packed earth to do their job as proper chargers, they do.

(Sound of horses bucking and snorting. Voices: How I wish we were going in, too! Just watch me—I will make those evil Hebrews go down in the depths like a stone. Killing and booty—that’s for me! Oh, hush up, Private Senusret, can’t you? You have never been in battle! etc.

Lt: Hold your lines, Men! We are in Reserve, this mission; do not dare move, unless and until I give the word. Let one man break orders and move his mount forward, and I will see him get one hundred strokes of the cat-o’-nine-tails!

Corporal: Sir, Sir, do you see what I see?

Lt: What is it, Corporal (Shading his eyes)?

Corporal: A strong east wind is blowing, and—and—it is all very curious, Sir. The water—the walls of water—are collapsing upon our men and horses!

Lt: What Israelite sorcery is this?

Corporal: Oh, it is terrible—our bold and brave horsemen, drowned in the Sea!

Lt: Yes, now I see them: all drowned, poor fellows. Wearing that heavy body-armor, steering our heavy chariots—they never had a chance, poor devils.

Corporal: That Invisible God of theirs blew with His wind, and the sea covered our comrades; they sank like lead into the mighty waters.

Color-Sergeant: Woe! Our chosen captains are sunk in the Sea of Reeds.

(The Troopers mutter excitedly: “We must exact revenge”—“Just let me and my horse charge into the surf, and I will slay Hebrews, right and left!”—“Woe! My best friend, Nehesy, was standard-bearer in “Osiris the Afterlife” Regiment, and he is drowned!”)

Corporal: Lieutenant! Begging the Lieutenant’s pardon, Sir, but may we not charge into the fray, and slaughter those thieving, murdering Israelites?

Lt: Listen to me, you mutinous Dog: our orders, delivered by Maj. Wegaf himself, are to hold fast, right here! Until the Major or a superior officer contravenes those standing orders, what can we do?

Color-Corporal (sadly): It matters not, Lieutenant: no orders will be changed. The Major and three Regiments of Royal Egyptian Horse are drowned, all dead....

(A Brigadier General gallops up; all salute.)

General: I am Gen. Hetep, of the King’s Royal Household Guard, “Thoth of Magic.” Listen, you men! We are Egyptian soldiers; we never lose. You survived the greatest battle fought in recent memory. Here is my plan. Regiment—reverse course! We will return to Thebes the Capital, and declare this battle to be a famous Victory!

Lt. (stammering; he cannot believe it): Are those—are those your orders, Sir?

Gen: Yes. Those are my orders. All salute! (They do so) Ra save our beloved Pharaoh, Ramesses the Great!

The Regiment (in one voice): And our Blessed Nation.

Gen: Regiment—forward to Thebes and our Monarch’s palace, for a splendid parade!

(Egyptian Horsemen and Chariots exit, harness-bells jingling and wheels creaking. Israelites continue dancing and singing, on the Sinai bank of the Sea of Reeds.)

Rabbi David Hartley Mark is from New York City’s Lower East Side. He attended Yeshiva University, the City University of NY Graduate Center for English Literature, and received semicha at the Academy for Jewish Religion. He currently teaches English at Everglades University in Boca Raton, FL, and has a Shabbat pulpit at Temple Sholom of Pompano Beach. His literary tastes run to Isaac Bashevis Singer, Stephen King, King David, Kohelet, Christopher Marlowe, and the Harlem Renaissance.

[solarbird]

Some days later; a conference room, MI5's Fleet House, London

"There's always a degree of uncertainty with low-resolution scans like these, of course, but it appears to interface throughout her motor cortex, not just on surface, and to be tied into reflex reaction points here," he illustrated, "here, here, and here."

"And its function?" asked the woman at the head of the conference table.

"I'm quite afraid we're not sure." the neural interface specialist replied. "It's heavily shielded. I'm not even as confident as I'd like about what I'm showing you, but it's the best we have - you're looking at composite of data from Heathrow, an assortment of scanners hidden inside CCTV, outer-ring military security, and so on. The consulate data, sadly, was unusable."

The head of the table prompted, "But it's not any type of web."

"Oh!" said the specialist. "Definitely not. We wouldn't have even these shots were it a web. Her brain would look like a big, smooth egg."

Brigadier Shukla turned to her attache. "Have we ever encountered a Talon agent without a web?"

The second lieutenant brought up the small list of scanned Talon agents. "Not that we know of, ma'am. Certainly not in the years they've been known active - no exceptions in that record."

The operations agent at the table jumped in. "They could be anticipating our analysis. Can't we bring her in, do a deep probe?"

"Sadly, no," said the specialist, shifting the primary display. "This may not be a web, but it goes quite deep, and either this is defocused, or it's surprisingly diffuse. Anything strong enough to get past the shielding wouldn't be safe for the subject."

"Damn," spat the Brigadier.

"But," he continued, "I really don't think it's Talon. They know what we have, they wouldn't let a full agent out like this. Of that much, I'm confident."

"We can't rule out her being some kind of delayed-target human bomb. of course."

"No. But explosives say the payload would be poor - there's just not enough mass, even with exotic deliverables. We think it's unlikely."

"All right, let's leave out Talon for now. Omnium?"

The Omnic specialist in the room just laughed, and then sobered immediately. "Sorry, ma'am. No, ma'am. It's not Omnic. I'd bet my life on it."

"You might well do," the Brig replied, sternly.

The specialist nodded, but held her ground. "I would walk up to this carrying known vulnerabilities and not worry. It's not Omnic."

"If I might jump in, get it out of the way," said the corporate entities analyst, "It's not Vishkar either. They don't need hardware."

"Thank you, specialist," nodded the Brig. "So. Foreign powers aside, who's that leave?"

"...aliens?" said the young, short-brown-haired agent near the end of the table, one of the Americans. "Or not aliens, strictly, but beings from other worlds, possibly multidimensionally accessed worlds," he continued, excitedly. "It's been theorised for years, and the Winston files make it clear he considered dimensional travel a distinct possibility - it's how he found the time distortion that..."

"Thank you, agent," said the Brigadier, firmly.

"It's either that or somehow Winston did it himself, from the moon," he interjected.

"Or," said his eternally-exasperated partner, "it's a foreign government."

He turned to the other American. "Come on, why would a foreign government go to these lengths for..."

"Thank you, agents," the Brigadier repeated, more firmly. For once, the Americans took the hint.

She turned back to the presenter. "So, in the opinion of your department, she is most likely not a Talon agent."

The presenter nodded. "In our opinion, it's very unlikely. This just doesn't look like their work. If nothing else, it's too flashy." He changed screens. "See all these extensions around her torso, and down her legs? They glow. Talon wouldn't do that."

"There is one other possibility," said a data analyst, flipping through pages of data. "This new actor, Sombra. I'm not sure why, but it reminds me a little of her work."

"Go on," said the Brig.

"She'd have to have a lot of help - we mostly know about her software, and she doesn't do bioware. At least, not as far as we know, ma'am. But," they looked at the display with intense concentration, "something about it just reminds me of her code."

The intergroup specialist jumped in. "She's too new on the scene for that degree of cooperation with any of our known actors. It takes time to build up those sorts of connections. She hasn't had it."

"So," said the Brigadier, "we're most likely dealing with either a foreign power - which MI6 thinks unlikely - or, god help us," - given the source, she continued with great reluctance - "Winston. Somehow. From the moon."

"Or inter-dimensional beings," said the more annoying American, from the back.

"Thank you, agent - your suggestions have been noted."

-----

"So, Brigadier - what do we do with our little problem?" asked the Group Captain, back in the Brig's office.

"If she'd been in my Forces, I'd bring her in and disassemble her," said the older woman, quietly. "I don't care what the specialists think, I can't rule out the Omnium completely. We're one major incident away from another Omnic war, and I won't have it start on my watch."

"Yes, ma'am. But the air group won't have it. We all protect our own."

The Brig nodded, understanding. Loyalty made commands work. "So, option B. Watch her, let her roam. Don't get too close... just see what she does. It only took a week for the Widowmaker to activate, so." Speculating, she continued, "Or, perhaps she's a slow burn. Perhaps we have some time."

"That's our opinion as well, ma'am," said the G/C.

"I can't believe the consulate cleared her to fly into Heathrow. Who knows what she is now? If it's even her."

"Personal decision of the ambassador, I'm afraid," said the group captain. "Apparently, she has quite a winning personality. Hardly our fault."

"Small consolation had she taken five thousand people down with her."

"It won't happen again, ma'am. She's been listed."

"She keeps trying to come to us," the Brigadier mused.

"Indeed," the G/C replied. "You know, we could just let her."

"Let her waltz right in to some high-value target? I think not. No, keep her off, keep up surveillance, and run every piece of data we collect through deepest analysis. Let's see what we can wiggle out."

"So far, she's mostly just been trying to get undeclared dead through the military. Hardly high-value."

The Brig frowned. "No. Not even if she goes through civilian channels. No recognition, no help, nothing. Block her at every point." The Brig fiddled with her glasses, cleaning the lenses with a small, lintless cloth. "If she's alive, the Overwatch investigation is alive, and we simply can't have that fiasco re-opened."

An old photo of her flight crew awarding Lena Oxton the callsign "Tracer" spun slowly in the air.

"Assuming she's not carrying a payload, she'll need some sort of status eventually," the G/C insisted.

The older woman frowned. "Eventually. But not now. Not until we have some idea what she is - if she has to be disassembled, I don't want to do that to a legal Briton. Until we know more..." She shook her head, contemplating her options. "Official recognition is just too great a risk."

[follow the american agents out of the conference room, here]

[mustangtaisa]

Hollow (1/3)

Part 2

This is also posted on Fanfiction.Net and AO3. 

Pairing: RoyxRiza Genre: Angst, Drama Word Count: 1013 Summary: Roy and Riza run headfirst into a trap and are taken hostage by an insane man that wants nothing more than to see them suffer for putting him behind bars. Their resolve and loyalty to each other are tested and somehow their captor manages to tear them apart.

Warnings for violence, suggested violence, and mild language.

-------------

It wasn’t until it was far too late that either of them realized it was a trap.

Doren Finch, a notorious serial killer, rapist, and thief, managed to break out of jail with the help of his mob and the first thing on his agenda was taking revenge on Roy Mustang, the man responsible for his being sentenced to life in prison.

Roy had overheard someone talking about Finch and his whereabouts while walking home from headquarters and decided to act on the gossip immediately. The man needed to be caught before anyone got hurt and Mustang did not want to waste any time.

The only other person from his team in the vicinity was Hawkeye, but their lack of backup didn’t deter them. Both knew Finch was dangerous and smart and wouldn’t fall for just any kind of trick. It had been hard enough to catch him the last time. They needed to act fast and had no time to wait for the rest of their team.

This was to be their downfall as they arrived at the bar where the Finch Mob was supposedly spending the evening and were immediately surrounded. Outnumbered and taken by surprise, it was only a matter of time before Mustang and Hawkeye’s valiant efforts to fend off their assailants proved futile.

When Riza was ripped from Roy’s side, he practically snarled at the men who would dare handle her so callously. His gloves were torn and his arms were held behind his back by several members of Finch’s gang to ensure he couldn’t use his clap alchemy. It was like the Promised Day all over again and Roy almost felt sick just thinking about that horrible experience in the tunnels beneath the city.

Riza put up quite a fight, but was ultimately taken down the same way as Roy and she bit back a yelp when one of the men struck her across the face with the butt of his gun. Roy shouted her rank and struggled against the men that held him.

“Let her go,” Roy growled at Finch, his glare so fierce it would have brought a lesser man to his knees. But Finch was too ruthless and malicious to so much as flinch under the Flame Alchemist’s piercing gaze. “I’m the one you want, right? She has nothing to do with this.”

“And give her the chance to tell someone of your predicament?” Finch barked a laugh. “I think not. And what do you mean she has nothing to do with this? She is the one that was with you that night five years ago, is she not? I almost didn’t recognize her. That act she put on with that skimpy dress and flighty attitude certainly fooled me, I’ll give her that. I had no idea she was your dear lieutenant. Oh, I’m sorry, she’s a captain now isn’t she? Forgive me, it’s been so long since I was on the outside. And who’s fault is that I wonder?”

Riza tried again to pull away from the men that held her and Finch scoffed at her, walking over casually and kicking her in the gut. She coughed and gasped from the air being knocked out of her.

“Stop it, damn you!” Roy hollered, unable to contain the rage bubbling up inside him.

Finch was known to enjoy playing with his female victims before eventually killing them in some of the slowest and most painful ways imaginable. Roy knew this and tried desperately to get to Riza again. He didn’t want to think about what might happen to her if Finch decided to take her away. It was his fault she was in this mess. Roy had been so focused on catching Finch, so confident they would have him behind bars again by the end of the night, that he hadn’t thought about the fact that Finch might have expected them to track him down. Was counting on it, even.

Roy was punched in the face for his efforts at breaking free and blood spurt from his nose onto the floor and over the front of his uniform.

“General!” Riza shouted despite still being doubled over in pain.

“How touching,” Finch said, voice laced with fake sincerity. “The more you struggle to get to each other, the more injured you will become… But, as much fun as it is to watch you two, I’m afraid I’d going to have to cut this party short.”

Finch motioned to Riza. His men lifted her and dragged her away while she kicked and twisted and tried to get them off of her. One of the men clocked her in the side of the head with his gun again and she sagged as she fell into unconsciousness from the force of the blow.

“Captain! Damn you bastards! Where are you taking her!?”

“That’s something you don’t need to know, General,” Finch sneered, wagging his finger at Roy in such an annoying manner that it made the brigadier general want to set him on fire. Finch directed his attention to his men and motioned with his hand. “Take him to the other room.”

Roy was then dragged off in much the same way as Riza, kicking and fighting and trying his best to escape. His attempts were fruitless though and he was shoved into a windowless room, the only light coming from a single bulb in the center. Finch’s men strapped him into a chair beneath the bulb and promptly left him, slamming and locking the door behind them.

Roy struggled against his bonds, but it was useless and only wore him out. Eventually he gave up and slumped in the chair, breathing heavily and staring at the ground in concentration, trying to come up with some kind of plan to get out. For all his strategical logic and tactical knowledge, Roy could not come up with a single idea that would allow him to break his bonds and rescue his captain.

Once again, he found himself utterly useless when it came to protecting the people he cared about.

[doctorwhonews]

The Mind Of Evil (AudioBook)

Latest Review: Novelization By -Terrance Dicks (based on a story by Don Houghton) Read By - Richard Franklin Released: 6th April 2017 Available On DIgital Download, or on CD - (4 CDs) Approx Duration - 246 Minutes BBC AUDIO This unabridged recording is the latest such release from BBC Audio to cover the novelizations of the Third Doctor Era, following different adventures featuring Daleks, Axons, and The Master (as here depicted in typically brilliant fashion by Chris Achilleos, on the retained book cover).  --- Mind is a distinctive adventure in that whilst it immediately followed Terror Of The Autons, it was strongly implied that the Doctor, Jo, and UNIT all kept very busy, looking to consolidate their role as a professional group of defence - both for their native country, and the wider world in general. The Master also has kept himself occupied, and (for once) chooses to use a pseudonym in ‘Emile Keller' which gives no hint at his true nature. The original TV story was for many years notorious for having a paucity of actual colour material, and yet by being in black-and-white it actually took on a more adult and 'horror-surreal' tone, than Don Houghton or Timothy Combe ever intended. Eventually it became 're-colourised' for DVD release, and works well enough in the format it was intended to be shown. Some Doctor Who stories have only mildly above-average scripts, but become strong or even outstanding due to first-rate work by their director. I would certainly place the opening and closing stories from Season Thirteen in that bracket. With Mind, there was a potential story idea to rival the first effort from Houghton, but the tale as transmitted did have some consistency and logic issues. It mattered little, as virtually the whole cast and the production values are as robust as any from the Jon Pertwee Years. This adaptation comes courtesy of Terrance Dicks; which was the case for so many TARGET books at the time. The first half of the book seems to signify greater effort from the story's original script-editor, in terms of expanding on the characters and explaining the overall set-up of the story. Thereafter, nothing vital is lost, but opportunities to get into the inner thoughts of the principle characters, as well as to really explore the threat to Earth in terms of the missile and the shaky political situation are not really seized upon. However, choosing to keep the titular monster/machine as mysterious as possible is a good move, as much of its creepiness lies in the lack of clarity behind how it is alive, and how it is able to kill with greater ease as the narrative progresses. Jo Grant in her second story would rarely have such strong material again - only The Curse of Peladon, and most of her final season would again see such heights of maturity, quick thinking and sheer likeability. Whilst Katy Manning never turned in a half-hearted televisual interpretation, she was forced to often portray a semi-helpless damsel, needing aid from the Doctor or one of the supporting characters. The Doctor’s ‘Moriarty’ is rarely better than here, being both ruthless and generally very sure of himself, with only the autonomous Keller Machine getting him truly flustered. At one point, he is totally convincing when he threatens the Doctor - "You'll do nothing, or I'll put a bullet through both your hearts." Surely this is one of the few ways that a regeneration can be cut off and thus lead to a Time Lord's premature demise. (Turn Left gave us another example). And during the finale, the brutal manner in which the Master escapes a trap laid by the Doctor - partly due to the after-effects of his machine being tested on the hardened criminal Barnham - is a notable moment where a fictional character created for escapism, feels chillingly credible as a threat. The biggest problem I have with the story - apart from how the Kellar Machine actually helps with the ‘World War Three plan - is the portrayal of the Chinese. The Talons of Weng Chiang has come under fire in the years following its transmission, but this story does itself even less favours. The sheer number of repeated references to a "Chinese Girl" (which is already suspect,given that she is an adult woman) are carried over into this novelisation. There is also some broadly played humour over the Doctor being able to speak to Fu Peng, but the Brigadier completely struggles to understand a single word. Also, the Doctor's somewhat boasting references to meeting Chairman Mao seem to be a somewhat questionable choice of political commentary by Barry Letts and Dicks, and have only become further awkward over the ensuing years. Finally, the TV cliffhanger for Episode Two was risible in the extreme. I could never credit a world-weary diplomat having any kind of phobia of a ceremonial symbol like a 'Chinese Dragon'. That Dicks tries to explain this away as a strong distrust of the Chinese in general perhaps was acceptable when the book was published, but is glaringly dated now. And for good measure, it really makes no sense that the others who intervene on Chin Lee (channelling the Kellar Machine) in this assassination attempt would see the same thing. In this novel version the Master having a chauffeur of Afro-Caribbean roots is barely acknowledged, but then the original TV story gave no dialogue to the character either, and furthermore he is simply missing by the end of the story. Whether he was hypnotised or simply on good pay was also left to one’s interpretation. This is a more minor reservation I have, however,. The Master really does make a great initial appearance with cigar in hand, whilst cruelly giving his latest destructive orders to the mesmerised Captain, from the comfort of his limousine. Also slightly disappointing is how economical the author is when it comes to UNIT ‘turning the tables’ at Stangmoor. A fantastic set piece - indicative of the TV production being so polished as to qualify as a borderline TV movie – is condensed to its barest details. This was presumably due to the restrictions of page count that the author had to meet. The Invasion of Time, (previously reviewed on this site), had many moments that could be condensed down, or left without embellishment, as the original story was made in trying circumstances and did not fully justify six episodes. But this 1971 action-thriller had a lot more meat on the bones – partly due to the three major plot threats - and more expansion was needed, instead of the opposite. But now to turn to some praise. The depiction of all of the principle criminals that feature, is very nicely done by Dicks, with evocative and entertaining back stories. I also appreciated how Professor Kettering was depicted as a virtual quack, and was made far less likable in general than the original TV version. Whilst the Doctor would not have wanted him to lose his life, (and especially in the manner he did), there is consequently a tinge of poetic justice owing to how this man carelessly helped the Master with his scheme, with nary a concern for wider society. As an audio book, this is a solid effort. Sound effects for the riots, the various high-speed vehicles, and the brutal gun shots, all manage to bring the right feeling of tension or excitement. As for the ‘Mind of Evil’ itself, the audio dressing used for this creepy monster/device is perhaps a little stripped-down compared to its TV counterpart, but still effective nonetheless in selling the threat it poses to both mental and physical well-being. Richard Franklin does fine work in the overall narration of the story. I found his takes on Jo and Benton better than his previous interpretations of these two roles, (which in the parent TV show were classic cases of the actor and character being very close indeed to one another). He is at his very best when breathing life to the self-assured Third Doctor, and of course to the very familiar Yates persona. The Brigadier gets a passable interpretation, but will always suffer in comparison to Nicholas Courtney's superlative voice. However Season Eight was a distinctly marked downturn in the character's initiative and general intelligence. (Whilst The Three Doctors had some infamous moments, it did not actually signal anything new at that point). As a result, the rather more lackadaisical take Franklin has on Lethbridge-Stewart is reflective of the change in depiction of this long-standing character in the show's history. --- SUMMARY: This story is entertaining and a definite change from the standard formula of many a Doctor Who tale. Whilst never getting to the dizzy heights of Inferno - or indeed a good handful of other Third Doctor stories - it is always worth a revisit. This digital and CD production is especially convenient for a person with some other tasks requiring attention, and likewise is a good listen when ‘on the go’. Thus, it ultimately succeeds as being a worthy alternative to one of the better stories, which featured the ‘Earthbound’ Doctor on increasingly prevalent colour television. http://reviews.doctorwhonews.net/2017/05/the_mind_of_evil_audiobook.html?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=tumblr