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The house occupied by the Prime Minister and the First Lady was certainly less intimidating than the mansion once lived in by the Fuhrer and his family. Likely not just because it was a significantly smaller building, Ed thought as he climbed the steep stairs. The front door was decorated with a heavy brass Amestrian dragon–Ed rolled his eyes; he could make a guess as to who made that particular design choice. He rapped it hard, twice, and was only a little surprised when the First Lady herself answered the door.
“Hello, Edward,” Riza Hawkeye greeted him with a soft smile.
–
“White or red?” Riza asked as she led Ed to the stately living room.
“Red, uh, please,” Ed said, settling into a plush armchair she pointed at wordlessly. Hawkeye disappeared into the kitchen, and Ed let his eyes drift around the room. It was large, but modestly furnished, and he recalled the time he had visited Hawkeye at her old apartment; the living room hadn’t contained more than a plain table with a set of chairs, and unpacked boxes had been stacked against the walls. Just like then, there was nothing that made the room seem very personal. Riza returned before he could mull over that unsettling thought, and she passed him a glass of wine before settling into the couch across from him.
“I’m sorry, I’m a little earlier than I told you I’d be,” he said sheepishly. “The train actually came on time for once.”
“Not a problem, Ed, I have the day off, and Roy shouldn’t be too much longer.”
Ed regarded her as he sipped his wine. Riza looked more relaxed than he’d ever seen her; she sat on the couch with her legs curled under her, not straight-backed with her feet planted on the floor like she would have in the past. And it was strange to hear her call the Prime Minister by his first name. A thought occurred to him.
“Hey, I don’t know what to call you anymore,” he leaned forward with a grin. “Are you Colonel Mustang now? I wasn’t even invited to the wedding!”
Riza frowned. “I certainly am not. I was Colonel Hawkeye until I retired to work for the Parliament. Besides, Edward, you haven’t worked for the military for nearly ten years–Riza has always been fine. And if it’s any consolation, no one was invited to our wedding. We went to the courthouse the day we resigned our commissions, with Roy’s aunt as our witness. Not remarkable in the slightest, you would have hated it.”
Ed raised his eyebrows. “That was a risky move. Mustang resigned, married his former subordinate, and announced his candidacy for Prime Minister, all within twenty-four hours. I’m sure there were people who didn’t like that.”
“I don’t think it helped him in the polls at the start,” Riza sighed in a way that made Ed think that it had been a topic of contention between her and Mustang at the time. “But here we are, two years later.” She set her glass down on the coffee table. “How long are you in Central for?”
“Just three days,” Ed said. “I’m going to Dr. Aysha Fry’s lecture on alchemical metallurgy at the university tomorrow, and then visiting Colonel Ross the day after.”
“It was kind of you to visit us while you’re here on such a short trip.”
Ed set down his glass and shrugged. “Yeah, well, it would have been pretty rude of me to have been in the city and not come to say hello.”
Riza smiled fondly. “It’s still so striking to me how much you’ve grown up. I don’t think you would have said that ten years ago.”
“A lot’s changed.” Ed felt his cheeks burn. “One of the reasons I came by–I thought you should know–Winry’s pregnant.”
Riza’s smile became wider than he’d ever seen. “That’s wonderful, Ed! You must be very happy.”
Ed thought of Winry, laughing and shooing him onto the train early that morning. “Yeah, we are. She’s due in December.”
“I’m sure the next five months will fly by.”
“Yeah,” Ed looked down at his hands. “It’s weird–her parents and my mom all died when we were really young, and I didn’t really know my dad until the end. We didn’t have our parents in our lives for very long, and now we’re about to be parents. It’s a little scary, to be honest.”
He didn’t mean to share so much, but there was something about Riza that always made him want to be honest and open with her. Maybe it was because she had done it first, all those years ago.
“I can understand why you might feel that way,” Riza said thoughtfully. “But losing your parents young doesn’t have to reflect on you as a parent. You're a passionate and protective person, I think you’ll do just fine.”
It came to him that, while she knew nearly everything about his past, he knew nothing at all about her life before the war. “Are you close with your parents?”
Riza’s lips twitched almost imperceptibly. “My mother died when I was two, and my father when I was seventeen.”
“Oh, sorry. Were you close with him?”
Riza straightened and absently touched a hand to the small of her back. “No. He was… not a kind man.”
Ed shifted in his chair. “I’m sorry,” he said again, “I didn’t mean to push.”
Riza’s soft smile returned, and her posture relaxed. “You didn’t. It was a very long time ago. It does make me think, though, even if your parents weren’t in your life for very long, you’ve had plenty of good role models–Pinako Rockbell, your alchemy teacher, Colonel Ross–”
“You.”
Riza scoffed. “I’m hardly a good role model.”
Ed shrugged. “You were always kind to Al and I. It meant a lot to us. It still does.”
She smiled at him, although it seemed to Ed that it was meant to placate him, rather than agree with him.
“Have you and Mustang ever considered…,” the words were out of Ed’s mouth before he could stop them, and he dearly wished that he still had his alchemy to transmute a wall between the two of them. He risked a glance at Hawkeye. She didn’t appear to be angry, but her posture was rigid again. He thought maybe her eyes were a little sad.
“No,” she said firmly. “No one who has murdered children should have any of their own.”
Ed felt his old annoyance rise. It was all so tangled and unfair. He knew the facts: Hawkeye had been plucked out of the military academy and bussed to the front lines of Ishval when she was only nineteen. She had killed hundreds of innocent people, and she loved someone who had killed thousands. But also true was that she was gentle, and kind, and he cared about her. It was a difficult thing to reconcile. And there was something else that had been pulsing in his mind like a dull headache since he had seen the front page headline the week before–a headline that had made him book his trip to Central that same day.
“We still get newspapers in the boonies,” Ed said quietly after a long silence. “I can’t believe he’s actually going to do this.”
Riza sighed and reached for her wine glass. There was another long moment before she spoke. “I told you ten years ago that this was our goal. Nothing has changed since then.”
“But starting the trials in the middle of his term? There’s no way anyone will vote for him in the next election.”
“Edward,” Riza’s voice was gentle and sad. “He might not be alive for the next election.”
Ed’s stomach dropped. He was twenty-six years old, and he had never felt more like a child. Riza sat calmly across from him, a soft expression on her face, as if she felt sorry for him. He wanted to take her by the shoulders and shake her–to tell her she should scream and break things and be angry. He wanted her to take his hand and say, sorry Edward, you’re right, we won’t go through with this. He wanted for her to have not done the terrible things that she had, he didn’t want her to go to prison, or to stand blindfolded in front of a firing squad. He didn’t want things to be the way that they were.
It surprised him to realize that he was crying.
“Ed,” Riza said firmly. “The trials will be a good thing. If your children can grow up in a world where people are not slaughtered for the benefit of the few, where those who have committed unforgivable acts face justice for what they have done, then I will be content–regardless of what the outcome is for myself and for Roy. We’ve taken so much, and I would like to give even a little back.”
The sound of the front door being unlocked made them both turn their heads. Ed wiped his sleeve across his face–he wasn’t about to let that bastard see that he’d been crying.
Apart from some greying at his temples, Roy Mustang had not changed much since Ed had seen him last, several years prior. He still entered the room like he wanted all eyes on him, and he wore a suit that was far too nice for a Wednesday evening. But when his gaze landed on Riza, everything changed. Ed didn’t think he’d ever seen Mustang with a grin that couldn’t be described as “shit-eating” before, but his smile for Riza was warm and genuine, and his eyes were soft and fond, a look that was mirrored on Riza’s own face. Ed felt uncomfortably like he was intruding on a private moment, and coughed awkwardly.
“Ah, Fullmetal,” Roy’s face settled into the smug smile that Ed was much more used to. “I can’t imagine you’d come into my home without that money you owe me. I am the leader of Amestris and we are now a democracy–wasn’t that the deal?”
“The deal’s changed,” Ed retorted. “I’ll pay you back when you come out on the other side of your trial.”
Mustang looked stunned for a moment, and his eyes flickered to Riza and back to Ed, before he chuckled and shook his head.
“I’ll be charging interest,” Mustang drawled. He glanced at the two mostly-empty wine glasses on the table. “Seems we’re in need of another glass, and a bottle.”
Ed waited until Mustang shed his coat and went to the kitchen, and then leaned across the table towards Riza. He met her eyes–steady and true.
“I may not agree with what you’re doing,” he said quietly. “But I do understand why.”
Riza’s smile returned. “Thank you, Ed. You have so much to celebrate in your life, promise me you won’t spend your time worrying about us.”
“I promise,” Ed said as sincerely as he could, even if it wasn’t entirely true. “I’m mostly worried about how much interest that asshole is going to charge me. Kids are expensive to raise, you know.”
Riza laughed and Ed couldn’t help but grin. There were difficult times ahead. But good things were coming, too. He looked at Riza, whose eyes were shining with amusement even when she might be only months away from her imprisonment or execution, and decided that if she could carry that weight, he certainly could too.