Disclaimer: I don't own it, so I don't.

Thanks to the wondrous Thousandsunnylyon for her beta work and ongoing support with all things FMA – She's a wonderful author in her own right and well worth a gander - mwah!

This is it: the last in The Rascal Boy cycle. I sincerely hope you enjoy it, and thanks for waiting! I'm in the middle of a delightfully complicated and protracted move, so apologies for the delay in getting this up.

*the formatting's gone all weird on the poem - so sorry it's a pain to read... That's what I get for being lazy and just copying and pasting!

NB - Here Dead We Lie hasn't been abandoned either!

Also, please do check out the deliciously dark new fic by disastergirl – Blood Brothers... ach, sure you can't beat a bit of Roy vs The Forces of Evil, can you? :)

Cheers for reading folks – tally ho!

Rich, cherry-scented smoke wafted through Roy's open bedroom door; a smell the child had long come to know his father by. It filled his nose moments before the man arrived, and lingered – fondly – long after he left a room. Roy loved to sit and watch his dad labour lovingly over his briar pipe: plucking little tufts of tobacco from the jar and pushing them far into the bowl with strong, capable fingers. With the click and flare of the lighter, Roy marvelled at how the strands caught and glowed with his father's mere breathing in, and wished desperately to be older so that he could try it. To him, this was what it meant to be a man - to be strong and wise.

"Well lad," his father said, gently placing the pipe on the tallboy by the door. "You all ready for bed?"

Roy nodded and scooted over, making room for his dad – a man that seemed to him bigger than the world and all the planets.

Oscar Mustang sat and smiled down at Roy, who often feigned shyness at bedtime and was now hiding nose-deep beneath the soft, blue covers. Outside, one car passed and the neighbour's bellicose spaniel barked hoarsely. It was always barking.

Roy whined as his fringe was pushed back by calloused hands. Sentimentality turned his father's eyes to little dark creases. "Your hair's a state," he laughed.

"Oscar," Roy whinged, his voice muffled by the blankets.

His father encouraged in him the unconventional habit of calling him by name, which Roy did – happily. It's what his friends called him after all: the quick men and women who visited their house from time to time. But his mother was always 'mummy'. It was proper that way.

"Oscar... can I have..." Roy trailed off, weighing his father's patience with his shining black eyes, "five stories?"

Oscar scowled and pinched the little globe of his son's belly beneath the sheets. "Five!" he exclaimed in mock incredulity. "You're getting cocky, chap. I bet you thought if you asked for five you would get at least three, huh?"

Roy popped his head up from the covers and his grin said it all.

"Thought as much." Oscar ruffled his son's fringe and sat back against the headboard. Roy, in a bid to be manly, tried the same only to be pushed gently back to lying by a strong hand. "A-pa-pap..." the man chided softly. As an extra precaution, he tucked Roy in further – good and tight.

"A new one!" Roy chirped, wriggling in his place – little legs kicking excitedly, keenly. "Oscar, a new one, Oscar!"

"Roy Mustang!" His mother's voice sounded from just across the landing. She had the uncanny ability, Roy realised some time ago, to move about the house without sound.

"Sleep child!" She called, and Roy could imagine her folding the fluffy laundry and placing one bundle preciously atop the other. In the morning, she would pull a warm, fresh towel from the hotpress and wrap it around him, singing in her accented, delicate voice.

His father indulged him in a look that said: we'd better do what she says, and fast.

"Okay, little man," said Oscar, his dark eyebrows raised in question. "A new one?"

Roy nodded vigourously, legs kicking again, and he could tell by the way his father clenched his jaw that he was trying to recall some new tale to tell. It didn't matter much to Roy though. He could listen to his dad talk all night, even if it was just about the neighbour's dog or the price of oil.

"Alright... okay... let's see... what about the time your mother and I missed the last train from Sin Ji?"

Roy, despite his best efforts, must have made a face, because his father sighed and folded his arms, his brows knit in concentration.

"Heard it, huh?" he asked his son, who nodded with a benevolent smile. He understood why his dad suggested that story, it was a really good one. "Some Kipling maybe?"

Roy stopped kicking. "Kip lean?"

A laugh: hearty, chest expanding, then. "Kip-ling. He's a poet, mind, but he's not so bad – not at all. He was just like your dad here..."

The boy's eyes lit up as his father continued.

"Went East when he was sixteen, thinking himself old enough just because he could grow some whiskers. He found his true love in Literature out there, and I found mine in your mother. Well," he chuckled and threw his eyes to the door. "She found me actually."

Roy liked the sound of this a great deal. He thought of himself: older and dressed smartly, travelling East to find his true love. So he snaked an arm out, tugged on his father's sleeve and yelled brightly: "I want Kipling!"

His mother tutted outside the door, then called in: "Boys!"

Roy could tell she wasn't really mad though. He could always hear when she was smiling.

Oscar rolled his eyes and shook his head. "Oh, I don't know... maybe we should just call it a night..."

Call it a night? After that build up? Roy was outraged. He whined and jiggled furiously where he lay.

"Please, Kipling. Oscar, Kipling! Daddy...!" He caught the sly smirk that shaped his father's lips, and promptly paused his struggling and huffing. He didn't much like being made a fool of, especially at bedtime when he was most vulnerable to his father's tricks and games. "Oscar..."

With a guilty-come-amused look that Roy sometimes mimicked in his mirror, his father began. Roy sank into the blankets, closed his eyes and loved his father so fiercely his chest burned.

"If you can keep your head when all about you

Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

But make allowance for their doubting too;

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,

Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,

Or being hated, don't give way to hating,

And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise..."

Roy chanced one eye open and shut it again swiftly, seeing his father was in serious 'bedtime' mode now.

"If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;

If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster

And treat those two impostors just the same..."

"What's a - impostor?" Roy asked, trying very hard to keep his eyes closed.

"It's eh, like someone who's pretending to be something they're not..."

"Like Loo-pendant General Bradley!" Roy cried. He was very proud of himself for having recalled such an important and worldly fact.

Oscar froze.

Roy felt the muscles in his father's side tense and he ghosted his eyes upwards to regard the man. He felt suddenly very naughty, like when he dropped a glass or scribbled on the walls.

Oscar took Roy's shoulder and looked at him, eyes harsh – or scared. Roy couldn't decide which, but he hated being the focus of that gaze.

"Roy," Oscar said, his jaw working. "You must never repeat what you hear at our parties. Not ever. You shouldn't even be listening." He shook his head. "The General is a very bad man, son."

Roy swallowed. He pulled his arm back under the covers and even though he tried very hard, he whimpered – just a little – at his grand error. He sank further under the blankets."Sorry, Oscar. Sorry... But you're... you... just – You said it... You said it, Oscar..."

"Promise me, Roy, that you won't speak of these things ever. Not even to me," Oscar said. His eyes darted back to the open doorway, where the sounds of his mother busying herself had stopped. "This is very important. You must learn to hold your water, do you understand? You have to keep things like that to yourself."

Fingering the edge of his pyjama top under the blankets, Roy nodded sadly. He only wanted to say something smart and wise. "I promise."

His father squeezed his shoulder then sat back again, forcing relaxation. "Good boy."

And though Oscar continued with the poem – voice as steady and sonorous as always – Roy's heart trembled. Somehow, shockingly, danger had entered his room for those few brief seconds. The poem, beautiful and curious as it sounded to him – began to feel like something more than a poem, like there was something more to it; that it meant more. Roy was reminded of the Drachman dolls on the mantle-piece downstairs; one doll hidden inside the other until you reached the strange little nugget-woman in the middle. "The real deal – no mystery," his father had said of her.

"If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken

Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,

Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,

And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools..."

Oscar sighed, and scrubbed a hand down his face. Roy flushed with embarrassment. He didn't mean to rattle his dad – he didn't.

"It's okay," Roy said softly, wishing that he hadn't insisted on Kipling at all. Or any story. He noticed the thin trail of smoke no longer rose up from the pipe. "I'll sleep now. I'll go to sleep. It's okay."

His father smiled then pressed his lips together, eyes sliding down to regard Roy. "Calm down, chap," he said through another, more buoyant smile. "This is the best bit. This is the bit you're going to grow up and remember and think, 'Wasn't my dad a cracking fellow?'"

Roy wriggled closer and pressed himself as tightly as he could against his father's side. He stared hard at him, took his cue and tried to etch into his memory every line and detail of this very moment.

"If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,

Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch,

If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,

If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute

With sixty seconds' worth of distance run -

Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,

And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son..."

Oscar finished quietly, like a clock winding down. With one hand, he cupped Roy's head and leaning low, kissed him 'good night.'

And for the world, Roy didn't want him to leave, or for the light in the hall to blinker out as it inevitably would.

OoO

Two hours later, the boy was yanked free of a fitful sleep by the vicious sound of barking. Not the neighbour's dog as he first thought, but a fire cracker. No, a gun -

Five reports in total, and for him, his whole world was extinguished: a blink in the echoing darkness.

"It's Oscar, Chris. I had to call you as soon as I heard. It's Jun, she - your little brother has grown up. I'm going to be a Daddy, Chrissy! Can you believe it? Me! - a Dad!"

Someone yelled on the street outside and Chris woke with a start. Oscar vanished along with the cotton warmth of dreams, leaving nothing of him behind – not even an echo. Her heart ached, stirred by the memory of his reckless enthusiasm, his bright burning self. Her little brother.

Chris groaned and cracked one eye open, spiting the morning and the cool light it threw between the gap in her curtains. Issuing a sigh-come-yawn, she turned where she lay and paused, her eyes falling on a small figure in the blue gloom.

Roy was sitting, back propped against her door, doodling busily in his neat, paperbacked sketch book. Beside him lay a glass, a ruler and an eraser, all within easy reach. In his concentration, he failed to notice her wakefulness, but instead, tilted his head this way and that, as his pencil continued scratching against the paper.

In the wake of Knox's disclosure, Chris knew why the boy was there. Guarding, watching – confident in the belief that his presence meant the absence of bad things. It was faith only a child could have in the power of their own simple being.

Chris jumped as the boy growled and snatched the eraser from the carpet. He scrubbed furiously at the page, the door behind him rattling in its frame with his efforts, and only when he looked wholly satisfied that the error was undone did he relax his shoulders and pick up the pencil again. He sniffed and looked up.

Chris smiled. "Good morning," she said.

Roy stared at her, stared at his book, then back at her. Away from the silence between them, birds fluttered and sang outside, and the bright noises of a waking kitchen chimed from downstairs. Chris coughed.

"Is Charlie Knox still around?"

A sigh. "No."

"And how are you today, Roy-boy?"

Quite primly, Roy set the sketch pad aside, then the pencil, and stood. Still staring, he quietly retrieved all his belongings, peeled the door open with one toe, and left.

"Huh."

Rolling up and onto her side, Chris flicked a loose strand of hair from her face and grabbed for her watch. 7am.

"Well shit," she said, and just seven seconds later, lit up.

OoO

After her strange awakening, Chris put the day away handsomely, catching up with with her old friend Albert Grumman over a fierce dose of expensive Eastern cigarettes and the occasional single malt. Now a Lieutenant Colonel, Grumman sported his newly grown-in moustache almost as proudly as his stars, and he took great pleasure in sharing all the gossip from Chris' old stomping ground. Doris Sweeney got fat, Libby Gordon got poor and Tommy Matheson – an erstwhile lover of Chris' and accountant of questionable virtues – got thrown in the clap for siphoning money from the state treasury. She couldn't say she wasn't pleased with the news. Tommy really was a dog. And ginger to boot.

After lunch and full of the warmth of a couple of whiskies, Chris tried to coax Roy from his room with promises of sticky iced fingers and cream soda, but he was having none of it. He declared from the other side of the door that he was doing art, and if Chris wasn't mistaken, even told her to 'shoo'. When she attempted to bargain with the company of Grumman's granddaughter, Roy sounded positively horrified at the notion, calling the poor babe 'snottery' and 'fat'. He affirmed this by slamming his back hard against the door.

Chris responded with a completely mature and not at all uncalled for, 'You're snottery', before slipping off and away from her moody inheritance.

Now, ensconced in the dining room full to the rafters with hungry guests, Chris handed her duties over to the capable Emilia while she took a seat with her visitors. A beaming Bertie Grumman sat to her left, chatting to one of her younger waitresses with his particular brand of clumsy charm. Across the round table from Chris, the straggly Berthold Hawkeye was nursing a glass of water – cold eyes judging. To his left was his wife Ellie, and on her knee, the plump loveliness of little Elizabeth Hawkeye. The girl, all of two years old, was making good headway into a patter of butter, scooping off small mounds and pawing them into her mouth.

Between Ellie and Chris, with chin resting on the white linen and fingers curled around the lip of the table, Roy was under strict surveillance. He'd been grouchy all day and had cast more than the occasional moody glance at the delightful Hawkeye girl. Chris couldn't be sure, but she'd be willing to bet, Roy Mustang – home schooled and desperately aloof – hadn't spent much time around other children. His sketchpad, for the moment at least, lay forgotten by his side plate.

Starters were presented and devoured with gusto. Only Hawkeye pushed aside his half finished portion with a meek turn of semi-apologetic lips. Roy had his usual fill of steamed carrot batons, whining and squirming in his place when Emilia tried to slide anything else onto his plate. The adults laughed while the diminutive gent scowled, and the toddler, on a different planet entirely, mashed her own small plate of vegetables into an inviting brown paste. She offered some to her mother with a squeaky, "A bih?"

In the warm wash of the evening summer sun, plates were collected and chatter filled the room like an alighting flock of birds. Waitresses reset the tables for mains and filled wine glasses here and there, darting in their splendour: a school of bright fish. Madame Christmas' may not have been the Central Merchant but she never scrimped on dinner, or wine. Fresh game from the New Forest and syrupy, full bodied wine sourced from the abundant lowlands of Southern Amestris – her menu was just about as modest as her girls were.

Though, Chris supposed, it wouldn't always be to everyone's tastes.

"Your guests, Ms Christmas, are comfortable having their dinner served by these women? Girls?" Hawkeye asked quietly, ignoring the stern look of his young wife. "It seems strange, mixing both... activities."

Chris smiled. Warm, natural. "Mr Hawkeye, there are 120 eateries to choose from in Central's merchant district alone, and so I can only assume that if my patrons take a table here, they're comfortable with the conditions. At least!" She picked up a stray carrot baton and offered it to Roy in jest. He refused with an incredulous shake of the head, kicking the underside of the table with his patent shoes. "Besides, they're both desires of the flesh, aren't they? Perfectly natural."

Hawkeye cleared his throat. "Some would call that vice."

"Some?" Chris took a sip of wine and winked at Grumman who smiled back with twinkling eyes. "Or you?"

Again, like so many times now, Chris felt the hungry black eyes of her nephew weighing on her. He'd taken up the cold carrot after all, and was nibbling on it delicately as he watched the interchange.

"People of a certain propriety."

Ellie laughed suddenly; a plosive, uncomfortable chirp – well practised – and leant towards Chris, almost crushing her daughter against the table as she did so. The girl was made of stronger stuff it seemed and pushed back, her chubby fingers wrinkling the table cloth and brushing against the neat pages of Roy's sketchbook. Roy's eyes shot to the book, his fingers skittering at the fringe of the linen cloth.

"Please ignore Berthold, Ms Mustang," said Ellie, resting her hand on top of Chris'. "Your place is lovely – much nicer than anything in Sion Mills. I've never seen so many types of wine!"

Hawkeye coughed and leaning forward on one elbow, pointed a boney finger at Roy. His shoulder jutted against his thin shirt and the pale flash of a hard collarbone stole an appearance.

"You raise that boy here?" He asked, eyes bright, critical, shrewd. Roy, still nursing his carrot, looked up to Chris.

"My nephew. I try." She shrugged. "A drove of women dressed in their summer slips doesn't bother him much. He tends to take no heed."

"Art," Roy affirmed with a mumble then held his grubby hands aloft to be wiped clean. His eyes slid sideways, watching with a deep set frown how Riza struggled in her mother's grasp, desperate to reach the table again now the woman had sat back.

Chris wiped Roy's hands roughly, dropping the dirty napkin into Emilia's palm as she flashed by like a minnow. "We'll see how long that lasts. We might have to lock him up when he hits twelve if my brother was anything to go by. Consider sending him to a monastery in Liore or something... Maybe shepherding..."

Grumman laughed in his cawing, gentle manner and slapped the table with both palms. "Oscar Mustang: oh my stars, he was something else entirely. I'd never seen a chap with that many handkerchiefs... I didn't even know aquamarine was a colour until I met Mustang. Not to mention that bloody pipe!" He shook his head and clicked his tongue – a tic, laden with regret. "He really was something else, your brother. Something else..."

It was strange, Chris thought, how her brother's death stole upon her even in the rush of a busy dining room. As Grumman dipped his head with his half remembered sadness, a cotton lull fell about the table – gentle, soft – the silent shroud of snowfall at night time. Hawkeye leant back in his seat, lifting his glass but not quite managing to take a drink, while Ellie wrestled with the oblivious toddler in her lap. Scents of the main course, full and spicy, wafted into the room and the chatter of the other guests sounded as though they were all under water, so distant and irrelevant.

A light jingling broke through the noise, and it took Chris a few confused moments to work out what it was. Her eyes found the glasses on the table, where a small quake was making them jitter against the cutlery. Beside her, Roy was trembling. Not violently, not notably, but there he was, filled to the throat with that same unnameable energy he'd carried since that awful night. Small white fists bunched the table cloth.

The baby grabbed. The bough broke.

In an ungainly swoop, Riza's chubby arm clipped her mother's glass and toppled it. Wine spattered – gushed and covered the bright white linen with a vidid flood of red. Roy's pristine sketchbook, proudly covered with crisp brown backing paper was sodden in moments. It was a deep, uncanny stain of burgundy ruin.

The table jolted, as Roy – panther quick and vicious – swiped at the girl. A nasty, clawing strike that caught her soft curls and pulled them downward with a violent jerk. Riza squealed in her mummy's embrace, wee arms windmilling to loosen herself from the dark child's savage hold.

A collective gasp followed by the boy's name chorused in shock, echoed around the table.

Leaning back to allow their mains to be set, the guests paused – curious eyes, knowing eyes staring at 'Mustang's boy.' Chris' new, complicated pet. They'd heard about the poor lamb – read about the whole thing in the papers. Terrible thing. Oh! A tragedy. But wasn't the man stupid, sticking his nose in where it didn't belong? And what was the woman thinking? That sly looking immigrant from far across the desert. No cause at all to be involved in things like that.

Roy released Riza with a hard grunt and harder shove. Chris – panicked and embarrassed – snatched for him, but he was away, sliding from his seat and pushing out from between the chairs. Distantly, giddily, Ellie Hawkeye was saying, "It's alright, she's okay! Oh, she's okay! Please!" while Grumman struggled to free himself from his place.

A beat later, a deafening crash shook the room. Some plates shattered while others rolled off, coiling in tighter and tighter circles until they settled with a dull rattle. Piles of steaming food clung to the carpet and now the whole room was gasping, the whole room was staring.

There was Roy, crouched amongst the chaos, shadowed by the figure of Emilia stood indignantly above him. In her right hand, only one plate remained. She flung it to the floor with something like a shriek. And there, curled into her mother's breast, Riza Hawkeye screamed on – red face streaked with hot, shocked tears. Chris was stunned. Frozen. Powerless. She couldn't do this. She couldn't!

Roy reached forward, kneeling in the warm mess to retrieve one of the fallen plates and muttered a shaky, "Sorry." Then, catching himself, he dropped the plate to offer his hand to Emilia in penance, just like the big men did at his mummy and daddy's funeral.

"Sorry," he said. "Sorry Emmy." He scooted forward and turned the plate the right way up, scooping some of the hot dinner onto it then shaking his stinging fingers to cool them. He caught himself again, wiped his hand on his shorts and offered it to Emilia once more. "Sorry," he repeated. The plate was picked up – both hands now – and dropped again. He tutted, fussing. He tugged at the leg of Emilia's trousers. "Sorry... Emmy, sorry. Emmy... Emmy... sorry..."

Emilia, with eyes ferocious, glared down at Roy and the mess strewn across the floor. Riza's wailing filled the room. Some guests valiantly tried to return to their conversations. Chris staggered to her feet.

"Roy... Child..." she whispered.

"You thick, nasty little boy!" Emilia hissed. "You wretch – always underfoot!"

"Sorry, Emmy..."

The woman lunged for Roy, bore down on him with eyes blazing – hot with unshed tears.

The boy flung his arms to his head and cowered, quivering.

"Mummy!"

It was a carnal, terrified screech. Pure instinct – an childish cry for comfort, for protection. Protection any little boy deserved. A scream into a happier, safer past.

A sound like no other, it shattered the chaos, made nonsense of everything up until then. Everyone froze in their places. Riza's squealing stuttered and quieted: she understood well enough. Ellie's arms held her tighter still.

The silence was crushing, then -

"Mummy?"

Roy's forefinger hooked his lip and he looked about him, wide eyes glistening.

A room full of eyes looked on, paralysed by the grief made incongruous by the lingering smells of roast venison. Emilia pressed a shaking hand to her mouth.

Chris swallowed. Why couldn't she move?

Roy turned on the spot. He approached a stout gentleman. "Mummy?" he asked, as though the man might reveal the woman's whereabouts, produce her from behind a dark magician's curtain. The man shook his head dumbly.

Roy staggered forwards a little and turned again, free hand tugging on the bottom of his fine blue waistcoat.

"Mummy?" He asked the room. A whole restaurant full of adults, and not one of them could find the strength to speak. A few people coughed and cutlery chirped when it was fingered uncomfortably.

Roy cocked his head, one way, then the other. "Mum?" He asked quietly. "Mummy?"

"Oh my," one lady sobbed at the back of the room.

The levee broke. The boy's chin puckered.

"Mummy!" he howled, a long drawn noise like an old tree falling. "Mummy!" Again, screeching, tearing at every soul in the room. He sobbed once, then pulled in a shuddering breath that sounded for the world like an engine failing. One fat tear spilled down his cheek, then another. There came a second, chest-deep sob.

"Chris," a voice whispered.

The woman turned and saw Grumman reaching for her, pushing her from her place.

"Go to him," he said gently. "Chris." He gestured with his hands, a gentle coaxing motion.

Chris tripped forward, totally unaware of the silent, watchful eyes of her guests. Behind her, Riza mewed, clinging to her mother.

"Roy..." Chris said, falling toward him – eyes fixed on the tiny, trembling figure lost amidst a room of distant sympathies.

He was crying now – fully, breathy squawks. "Mummy." The word sputtered out of him, lips shaking. Sobs grew, swelled in his heaving breast.

Before she knew it, Chris had him. She hoisted him up, she clung to him – she pulled him against her breast until her arms strained with the effort. He bawled against her, trying to thrash but failing. She had him now, she had him. There was only her.

"Shh..." she whispered, cooed and cradled.

"No..." he screamed against her. "I want my mummy!" His breath hitched in a strange airless hiccup.

Emilia stood aside, a silent invite. Leave, it said.

Chris moved past her, the tiny body twisting in her clutches, the curved spine shuddering with upset.

Bird-like chatter of speculation raced into the room before she'd even crossed the threshold to the kitchen. Chris failed to notice as she went, the Hawkeye man reach for the wine soaked sketchbook that had been the cause of the whole affair. Grumman moved to Riza and Ellie, arms wide open – look! Everything is okay!

Chris didn't see the ladies fetch their bags, sick of the drama and ready for a drink elsewhere. She didn't see her girls fall upon the mess of food and crockery like an army of ants. Truthfully, she could scarcely see anything at all. Her world was all a-mist, her ears stopped to everything but the sobbing of her brother's only child.

This boy, this enigma of cheek, gall, spit and grief was suddenly, startlingly, her most precious burden.

OoO

Smoke – damp and peaty – filtered through the open window; a common scent of the early morning. The girls downstairs would be firing up the boilers for the guests' showers. The pipes would start chirping soon as the central heating sprang to life, and any minute now, the grocery men would begin yelling 'good morning' outside the storeroom door. On his hands and knees, Roy grumbled and slid further under the bed, feeling for something. His fingers brushed, then snagged on the warm leather of a sturdy handle. Leaning back, he pulled out a small suitcase. It was a toy suitcase really; one that came free with the humongous, smartly attired teddy-bear his father bought him just a year previous. Oscar Mustang, spurning a missed opportunity, had cut it loose and gifted it to Roy separately: "You're a man now, chap. Good grief, look at you!"

He'd laughed then, his father, and ruffled his hair in a way that suggested – to Roy at least – that he was still, very much so, just a boy.

Standing sharply, Roy flung the suitcase onto the bed and hopped up after it. Preciously, he snapped open one brass clip, then the other, and teased open the case. His nose stung with the scent of cherry smoke, and Roy groaned at how the smell blended all too quickly with the darker smoke from the open window. Inside the case, nestled on crisp blue tissue paper, was his father's pipe and beside that, his mother's simple bone hair clip. She had been wearing it, he knew, when the bad men came. That was why it was scuffed, stained and broken. The clasp no longer closed. Auntie Chris said it was because his mummy banged her head really hard when she fell.

Auntie Chris.

Roy hissed, cheeks reddening at the stark memories of the previous night. Shame, hot terrible shame, raced up his neck and stung his eyes. Auntie Chris had cried and cried, lying beside him as they fell asleep, sobbing together. She missed Oscar too, and cared for mummy dearly, but now Oscar was gone and mummy was gone. She was so sad, and – Roy thought – angry. He said, "I'm sorry," and she had laughed sadly and said, "It's not your fault, baby. Please don't say that. It's not your fault at all."

He had been bold though, and mean. He was bold and he was mean. He was a bad boy. He'd been a good boy before, but now he was a bad boy.

He cuffed his eyes and hopped back down from the bed, tottering across to the chest of drawers. With a couple of stiff tugs, he yanked his underwear drawer open – because whities were always most important – and pulled out a few pairs. He trotted back and packed them neatly into the open suitcase, being careful not to damage the pipe or the clip.

Auntie Chris was gone when he woke up that morning. She had things to do, Roy imagined, because she was always very busy. People sometimes called him a 'handful', but Auntie Chris' hands were always full of other things: trays, money, bottles, coats... She only had the two hands, and they didn't seem like nearly enough. He was always underfoot – that's what Emilia had said.

He only realised he'd started crying again when a tear dropped onto the tissue paper, darkening it in an outward swelling ring.

Someone knocked at the door.

"Art!" Roy shouted, but his voice sounded full of lies. "Go away!"

The door creaked. Roy turned, and there in the frame was the fair woman from the night before: Ms Ellie.

Her blonde hair was down, and catching the light from the doorway, it looked buttery and soft. Pinching his fingers together behind his back, Roy remembered the feel of the oh-so soft curls of the little girl's hair as he pulled on it. His eyes pricked yet again and he strained to push the lump in his throat back down, deep into his belly.

The woman smiled, dimples showing at the corners of her mouth. "Good morning, Roy," she said. "May I come in?"

Roy looked at the suitcase on the bed and played with the quick of his thumb. He shrugged.

"Are you off somewhere?" She asked, and even though Roy hadn't answered her, she came into the room anyway, one hand still resting on the door.

"Always underfoot," he answered, moving so he stood in front of the suitcase. "I'm a handful. Auntie Chris is very busy."

Ms Ellie simply smiled, warm eyes resting on Roy. He remembered what Oscar looked like when he read his books, concentrating. He thought her look was a lot like that. It made him feel chilly and bare.

She breathed in and held it for a moment. "I have... someone to see you. She has something to tell you," she said. "So maybe you shouldn't run away just yet?"

There was a scratching presence on the other side of the door.

Ms Ellie looked back and called, "Riza?"

Roy's heart leapt: the little girl. He'd hurt her, but she ruined his art. His book. She'd been restless and naughty and knocked that horrid, smelly wine all over his work. His important work. He didn't mean it – he didn't! She was naughty too...

A chubby creature, adorned in a yellow dress that puffed at the bottom, tottered into the room unsteadily. Black shoes that shone in the brisk morning light were a contrast to the bright white socks that frilled just above her ankles. Her white-blonde hair curled around her ears and about the nape of her neck, and there on her right temple were four vicious looking scratch marks.

Roy shrank back. Shame piled on shame. Poor Auntie Chris. Poor baby Riza. Bad, bold Roy.

The girl hand something in her hands, and jerkily, she thrust it at Roy with a noise that sounded like, "Sorry."

He blinked. She repeated herself, looking up to her mother to check if she was doing okay.

"Berthold cleaned it – with alchemy. He didn't believe your aunt when she said it was yours. She told us you did those drawings all by yourself, without any help at all. My husband was very impressed. He said it was incredible."

Roy cocked his head and inched forward to take the book. Riza giggled and stamped her feet. Her smile was all broken crockery – a mess of small teeth dotted here and there.

"A bih?" She squeaked, still offering the book that Roy had already taken hold of. There was a gentle tug of war before he captured the book. A silence stretched between them as Roy assessed this weird, bright creation in front of him.

Ellie had moved to sit on the bed, patting the sheets in invitation to Roy. He clambered up beside her, being careful to leave a respectable distance. Oscar always said how important that was with ladies.

Riza whined and toddled over to her mummy, allowing herself to be yanked up and onto the woman's knee. She grinned at her success and clapped both palms to her mother's face before dropping them to fidget with her own dress.

"My husband is an alchemist of some reputation," she said, then leant to whisper sneakily to Roy, "That's why he's so grumpy – they say all alchemists are grumps." She rubbed the back of Roy's head and he fought the urge to squirm away. The little girl was staring at him strangely. Her nose was dosed with snot.

Roy flicked open the book to inspect the work, and sure enough, barely a trace of the accident was left. There was just the faintest disc of pink on the first few pages. It seemed to Roy, like a miracle. Just like his daddy's pipe: the click of the wheel, the smell of flint, the glowing tufts of tobacco, the first cloud of cherry scented smoke...

"Roy," the woman was saying, "he really was very impressed." She laughed. The sound was so bright and lovely. The little girl laughed too and smacked a hand on Roy's arm. "Don't look so shocked! Berthold thinks you're a genius if his gawking face was anything to go by. I think he wants to throw you in our cases and spirit you back to Sion Mills. Your Aunt would snap him like a twig though."

Allowing himself a smile, it was only another moment before shame sneaked back on Roy. For now Riza was pawing at the pages of his book, and a familiar rage built in his breast. He swallowed tightly.

"I'm sorry, Ms Ellie," he whispered, eyelids heavy. "I'm sorry, Elizabeth Hawkeye."

Ms Ellie sighed lightly, then smiled. She moved the book aside, then with some effort – for the toddler was almost as big as Roy – she moved Riza to sit between them.

"Oh, I'm sorry," said Ms Ellie, "You two have never been properly introduced. Riza?" The girl bleated. "This is Roy Mustang. Roy, this is Elizabeth, but you can call her Riza. You're old pals now, see? You've already had your first fight!"

A childish, snotty handshake was exchanged between the pair. But still, Roy's breast felt heavy and sad. He'd hurt this little thing. He was a bad boy.

"Roy," Ellie spoke softly. "I know you feel bad for what you did last night."

Roy glanced up, scared by the turn in the conversation, then nodded. "Sorry," he muttered miserably.

"I know... that, you didn't mean to do that, not really. Riza knows that too – she does, Roy."

Riza squeaked at the mention of her name, both hands holding onto the toe of one shiny shoe.

"I think sometimes when we're sad and lonely, it's easy – and tempting – to lash out," Ms Ellie continued. "Sometimes especially easy when people are smaller than us, but looking at you now – I know it's not in your character, Roy. Your Auntie Chris told me what a little gentleman you are – oh, she's so proud of you, like you wouldn't believe."

Another fat tear splashed on the back of Roy's hand. This was terrible. Shameful. Shameful.

A course thumb rubbed the bad tear away.

"You've had to grow up so quickly child, and I'm sorry. Your mother and father: your losing them – it is a terrible, sinful thing, and it would break my heart were it to happen to me. But when I look at you, my god, you're so like your father. So bright and hopeful, and so willing, I know, for things to be right and good."

She shifted and before Roy knew it, Riza had been thrust into his arms. The child, to give her credit, looked just about as surprised as he was. He hurried his arms around her to keep her from falling. The weight of her was almost unbearable as she wriggled then settled in his lap. Ms Ellie stroked his fringe from his eyes, then Riza's from hers. She let go of her daughter, who breathed noisily in Roy's lap, but seemed largely – amazingly, content.

"Look, see? If everybody looked after everybody else the way that you're looking after Riza here, wouldn't the world be a wonderful place? It's nice, isn't it, to look after people and keep them safe?"

Roy nodded, his chin tickled by Riza's soft hair. The toddler squirmed a little and freed a hand to explore Roy's interlocked fingers about her belly. He laughed – surprised even at himself – when she tried to shove her own small fingers amongst his. When he acquiesced, Riza squealed with delight and threw her head back to beam at him with her charmingly messy grin.

"See how you shine, Roy?" Ms Ellie took his shoulder. "Just like Oscar. Just like your father, Roy. You are such a good boy. You are a very, very good boy."

Soon Roy was weeping again, holding on tight to the plump, chirruping anchor on his lap.

Ms Ellie rubbed his back, while Riza's fingers grasped tighter.

"What's say you stick around a little longer, Roy? Put that suitcase back under your bed and look after your Auntie Chris the way you're looking after this wee mite here?"

Roy nodded, a sob sputtering from him, and rocked Riza on his knee. She made a plaintive 'aw' sound and bounced where she sat.

When his upset stilled, the trio sat together a while longer; Roy and Ms Ellie chatting about some of Roy's favourite things: trains, the leafy patterns of frost on glass, the tall serious men who commanded attention around his Aunt's bordello... And the boy felt so at ease, truly happy, that when the army-man Grumman called for his daughter from down the hall, his stomach gave a violent twist.

He was a good boy, she'd said.

As Ms Ellie made her way to the door, Roy stretched back to his case with urgent, panicking fingers to dig amongst the tissue paper.

"Ms Ellie!" He called, slipping off the bed and running towards her. She turned, adjusting Riza's place on her hip.

Roy removed his hands from behind his back and held them out to the smiling woman. There, nested in his small palms, was his mother's simple hair clip. In the brisk light, it looked so fine – like an offering to the gods.

"To say sorry," he said.

Ms Ellie's smile turned sad. "Oh Roy, we can't accept that – you'll regret giving it away."

Roy's tummy gave another nasty jerk. "No!" he said, taking another step forward. There was a debt to be paid here, he knew that. This was right. He threw his head back to this sketchbook lying open on the bed. "For that. It's fair, Ms Ellie." He struggled to make himself understood. "One for one, Ms Ellie. Please." He nodded and raised his offering even further until his shirt rode up.

The woman's face changed like the sun coming out from behind a cloud. "Berthold would be impressed," she said, then smirked at Roy's confused frown. "Okay, Roy. Thank you for this wonderful gift. We'll look after it very well – it's beautiful."

As she took it reverently from Roy's outstretched hands, he grew suddenly self-conscious. "It's broken!" he exclaimed.

Ms Ellie's eyes crinkled at the corner. "We'll look after it even more then."

Roy smiled and offered his hand. "Thank you, Ms Ellie. Good bye."

To free her hand, the woman placed the clip into the hungry grasp of her daughter. She gave Roy's hand a firm shake.

"Good bye, Mr Mustang. I expect we'll meet again."

Roy was going to say, "I hope so," but he didn't quite get the chance. He and Ms Ellie were too busy laughing at a joyful Riza, who had quite unabashedly shoved the clip into her mouth.

Such a pity, that in years to come neither child would remember the encounter, and sweet Ms Ellie Hawkeye would be gone.

Chris stood at the broad kitchen window, watching steam rise from the gleaming wet cement after a deafening summer shower. The light cut the dissipating clouds and glanced off the water dripping languidly from branches and overhead wires, each drop a spectrum as bright as a falling star. Behind her, Emilia was preparing the day's special – a steak and kidney pie – and the slap-slap of worked pastry gave soundtrack to the scene outside.

A moment later, she heard the turn of the stiff door handle and seconds after that, a shock of black hair bobbed past the window.

Roy waddled awkwardly into the yard, arms full of a laundry basket three times his size. His skinny legs bent as he lowered it carefully to the ground, then he skipped back and a while later, returned burdened with a chair.

Four weeks had passed since the incident in the dining room, and in that time, her nephew had developed something of an obsession: 'looking after'. The evening following the event, when she found all her porcelain ornaments stuffed into his small room – each wrapped in newspaper – she'd been shooed out by an anxious four-year-old stinking of polish. "Not yet, not yet!" he'd chastised. "It's a surprise, Auntie!"

He fussed over everything now: straightening pictures about her place, moving her shoes from where they'd been abandoned in the porch to their more proper place on the rack, chasing salesmen from the door, small fist pumping... And while the art remained, he now shared his interest with anyone who would listen, including the unfortunate cats. He had become a self-titled genius and reminded everyone he came across that he was actually rather incredible. Charlie Knox thought it was a gas, while Emilia grumbled and warned Chris that she would have another type of monster entirely on her hands if she didn't curb his enthusiasm.

Her thoughts were broken by the scrape of wood on concrete. Roy had dragged the chair over to the far left and was clambering onto it to hang up the first item of laundry. When he'd seen the sky darken a little while before, he'd squealed and run outside to fetch down all the drying clothes. Getting things wet was the worst. He'd told Chris off one morning, just because she'd simply let the freshly washed items get soaked where they hung.

Another scrape and up he went again, fingers struggling with the clothes pegs.

"Can't say it's all bad," Emilia deadpanned behind Chris.

Chris smiled and waved at Roy who waved back energetically, almost toppling himself off the chair as he did so.

Much later, with hair spiked comically from his bath, Roy toddled into Chris' room to be changed for bed. The nightly ceremony that Chris once dreaded, had now turned into one they both cherished and looked forward to.

She dried him off, changed him into pyjamas warm from the hotpress, and combed his hair into a more sensible arrangement. He skipped off to his room, chattering as he went about how the veins on the leaves outside were just like the veins in Polly the Cat's ears. "All patterns!" he exclaimed.

Where other children were read stories from a colourful book, Roy and Chris indulged in stories about the great Oscar Mustang and his journey eastward. How he met the beautiful Jun Xia and stole her away while bands of Xingese horsemen chased them across the desert. Sometimes her eyes would dampen and sometimes his would, but these days, the child always fell asleep smiling.

"What are we going to talk about tonight then, Roy-boy?"

Roy's legs rose beneath the sheets in keen anticipation, ten small bumps showing where his toes were. "Mmm... do you know... Kipling?" he asked.

Chris shook her head, smirking. What was this all about now...? "Nope, can't say I do, kid."

"That's okay. I'll tell you. I remember Kipling real well," Roy rushed out.

Chris sat back against the headboard and closed her eyes, her hand resting on the crown of Roy's head. "Go ahead, wee man."

"Well, Oscar knew him from Xing," Roy paused at Chris' doubtful eye on him. She closed it again when he challenged her with a provocative shrug. "... and he smoked a pipe and all that, and went East and fell in love with a load of books. And he had whiskers, like a cat or Mr Grumman."

"Mmm... terrific..."

Roy nudged her harshly. "He said you have to be able to wait real good and not bother with what other people say about you, and dream big big big! But you have to watch out for your dreams too, because sometimes they can take over... If you do all of that stuff, and know how to keep quiet about it – because you have to know how to hold your water, Auntie – the whole world will belong to you. You'll be like a – like a king! He was really smart, like Oscar and me. He was probably a genius too."

"Sounds like it," Chris laughed and mussed her nephew's hair forward. He grouched up at her, running busy hands through his dark strands to put them right again.

"Mm-hmm."

"What about you, Roy? Would you like to fall in love with books like Kipling, or girls like your daddy did?"

Roy threw his head into his hands and kicked his legs under the covers. He groaned, disgusted that she would even ask him such a thing. "No," he whined. "Books Auntie Chris! No snotty girls!"

Chris laughed, and Roy laughed too. Oscar's smile flashed before her, and Jun's pretty, knowing eyes. She flicked off the light as Roy slid further under the covers, then kissed his forehead and stood.

"We'll be okay, Roy-boy."

The boy looked indignant in the scant light. "I know, Auntie." He turned on his side to face her, black eyes glistening. They were full of fierce promise, of resolution. "I'll look after you."

Thanks chaps! Please drop a comment if you have half a chance-een! :p