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kashiwrites(See Chapter 2, part 2)
“Daddy! You’re home!”
Maes shut the front door behind him just in time to bend down and scoop up an armful of four-year-old as she hurtled in stockinged feet down the hall toward him, brown pigtails bobbing.
“Hel-lo my angel of cuteness!” he cried, gathering the little girl against him. “Have you had a good morn – aaagh!” He made exaggerated strangling noises as his daughter closed her arms tightly around his neck, and she giggled. It was their regular noon-hour ritual, whenever he could manage to get home at lunchtime.
“I killeded daddy!” Elysia hollered over her shoulder toward the entrance of the kitchen, toward which Maes now proceeded, carting his bouncing burden with him.
“Well, stop killing daddy and tell him the soup is getting cold!” came another voice from inside the bright room at the end of the hall. Gracia appeared in the doorway, smiling as she wiped her hands on the apron around her waist.
Maes planted a big, very loud kiss on Elysia’s plump cheek, making her giggle again. Then he shifted her toward his right hip as he leaned forward and curled his left hand behind Gracia’s neck. He pulled her toward him and kissed her much less noisily, but much more thoroughly, drawing back in time to enjoy the bright colour now suffusing his wife’s face. He straightened his suddenly crooked glasses and grinned at her.
“Nice appetizer,” he remarked, and she gave him a light punch on the shoulder.
“I’m sure you’d like to eat something much more substantial,” she said, turning in the doorway.
“Not till Elysia’s gone to bed,” Maes quipped, and received another punch. Gracia’s cheeks were positively red by now.
The booster seat was in its usual place, on the chair along the curve of the table between Maes’s and Gracia’s chairs. The man set his daughter into the seat, tying the sturdy cloth ribbons around her waist. “So, have my girls had a good day so far?” he asked.
“I coloured, daddy,” Elysia announced proudly. “I coloured a kitty for Al!”
“Oooh, what a lucky guy,” Maes crooned, finishing off the tying with a big bow. He kissed the girl’s forehead before pushing her chair closer to the table. “Alphonse is going to love getting a picture of a kitty from you. A picture of his favourite pet from his favourite girl. He’s going to be so happy he won’t know what to do with himself.”
Gracia grabbed a dish towel and used it to shield her hands as she took hold of both handles of the soup pot and brought it from the stove over to the table, setting it onto the warming pad in the centre. The aroma of tomato and basil rose from it and enveloped the table. Pristine white plates had already been set out for the three of them, with the soup bowls on top, and the woman picked up the ladle, preparing to spoon the liquid into the bowls. But Maes motioned for her to sit down, and went around the table to push her chair in. Taking off his uniform jacket and draping it over the back of his own chair, he picked up the ladle himself.
“Me first, daddy,” said Elysia.
He paused. “What do you say, sweetheart?”
The little girl favoured him with her sweetest smile. “Please?”
“All right. Here you go.” Maes poured a little spoonful into a small bowl, and crinkled some crackers into the thick red liquid. “Now, you wait just a moment longer until I give some to mummy, and then I’ll feed you some spoonfuls. It’s a bit hot, so we need to be careful.”
As he ladled a bowl of the soup for Gracia, she shook out her napkin and asked, “Is everything all right out there? I guess it’s a good sign that you’re home for lunch.”
“Depends what you mean by ‘all right’,” he remarked. “It was an empty building, like all the others. So no casualties this time either, thank goodness.” He spooned a big ladle of soup into his own bowl, and finally sat down. Looking soberly at his wife across the table, he added, “The problem is, it’s just a matter of time. The arsonist seems to be trying to make sure nobody’s in the buildings before he torches them, but…sooner or later, he’s going to miss the fact that someone’s there. And then it goes past property damage and into murder.”
“Daddy! I’m hungry!” Elysia interrupted him, reaching for her spoon.
“Oh no, daddy is wasting time, isn’t he?” Maes cried, deftly removing the spoon from her hand and dipping it into her bowl. “Just for that, I’d better make sure you get lots of spoonfuls before I eat anything. How’s that?”
“You need to eat too,” the girl told him earnestly, shaking her head. He blew across the spoon to cool down the liquid, then stuck the end of his pinky into it, to test the heat. Finally judging it to be safe, he held it to Elysia’s mouth.
“Little sips,” he warned, “until you feel like it’s not too hot.”
Gracia was buttering a slice of the crusty roll she’d cut and put into a basket on the table. “Did you find any more clues this time?” she asked, continuing their interrupted conversation.
“More than zero?” Maes smiled ruefully. “Still zero, I’m afraid. My people are ready to tear their hair out.” He knew he shouldn’t really be breaching confidentiality and sharing information with her like this, but the way things were going right now, he felt like he needed to tell somebody, or he’d explode. And anyway, Gracia would keep it in confidence, knowing how important it was.
“So what happens now?” she asked, watching him across the table.
“I’ve got an idea or two, but nothing I can really talk about yet,” he answered, chuckling inwardly at the strange lines he was suddenly drawing, between confidential and non. But to reveal today’s theory would be too much like betraying Roy’s privacy, so he really didn’t think he could tell Gracia about it just yet. Giving Elysia another spoonful of soup, he inquired, “How’s that, sweetheart? Is it good?”
“It’s nummy!” the girl pronounced. “Your turn to eat.”
“Your wish is my command,” he told her with an extravagant flourish of his hand, and quickly took a couple of sips from his own bowl.
“How’s Roy taking this?” Gracia asked, almost as though she had guessed what he’d just been thinking. “He was pretty upset before he took his leave.”
“And he could easily get just as frazzled again, now that it’s started up again,” Maes sighed. This much, at least, he could talk about. “He’ll hold it together for a while, I’m sure; it’s what he does. Maybe we can finally solve this thing before it gets to him again.”
“He does have a way of taking everything onto his own shoulders, doesn’t he?”
“I think he would this time, no matter what. Since it’s all about fire.”
“He needs to learn that he doesn’t actually own fire, and maybe he could let some things go.”
Except this time, Maes reflected in sudden gloom, Roy thought he really did own the fire. The idea that there could be another Flame Alchemist out there, plotting to use Roy’s own skill against him, wasn’t just a matter of ownership – it was downright frightening.
Maes gave Elysia another couple of spoonfuls, beaming at her as she made “Mmm mmm” noises. Her eyes smiled back at him as she eagerly took the soup and swallowed.
“Maes,” Gracia said, “you look tired. You’ve been up for so long, is there any chance you could grab a nap before you have to get back?”
“I wish,” he sighed. “I’ve got to get to police headquarters and have a chat with them, as soon as I’ve had lunch. Maybe I can turn in early instead.”
“I wish this wasn’t happening. These days are always so exhausting for you.”
“At least it hasn’t happened for a while. And even if these fires are going to keep going, the guy tends to wait a week or two between. So I can start catching up on sleep tomorrow.” Maes grinned suddenly. “Or I should say, the guy or the woman waits a week or two. Lieutenant Hawkeye suggested we shouldn’t just assume it’s a man. And then Roy went off about all those women he’s dated in the past, wanting revenge that he stopped dating them, or something like that. I tell you – if we were looking for someone like that, the whole city would be on fire! What a guy. Leaving a trail of heartbreak behind him.”
Gracia’s hand stopped halfway to her mouth, drips of red liquid falling slowly from her spoon into her bowl. “Why on earth,” she asked, “would you be looking for someone wanting revenge on Roy?” She set the spoon back down, eyes widening in alarm. “Is that what’s going on, Maes? Someone is doing this to go after Roy?”
Damn, what an idiot he was. He wiped a smear of soup from Elysia’s cheek, and sighed. “I shouldn’t have said that. Don’t mention it to anybody, okay? We don’t know if Roy has anything directly to do with this, but that’s one of the theories. There are other theories too, so we just can’t say anything for sure yet. I wasn’t going to bring it up until I had something more concrete, but…” he smiled wanly across the table, “…me and my big mouth, as usual.”
“Never mind, dear, I won’t say anything. I just hope that theory’s wrong. Because it makes this whole business even worse, somehow.”
“You’ve got that right.”
They continued eating in silence for a while, broken only by Elysia’s occasional interjections. Once Maes was sure the soup was cool enough, he let his daughter finish spooning it out for herself, even if it meant a lot more smears on her face and some dribbles on the napkin he’d tucked under her chin. He looked down at his own white shirt, and finally smiled apologetically across the table.
“Sorry, Gracia, I should have taken my clothes off completely before I started eating something red,” he grinned, wiping in futility at the soup dots that had somehow gotten splattered down the front of his shirt. “Of course…I might not have gotten around to the soup at all if I did that.”
Gracia merely rolled her eyes at him, laughing as she bit into her bread.
After the soup, there was a very filling chicken salad. Already, her tummy filling up with food, Elysia was getting sleepy, her eyes starting to droop. Long before he was done the rest of his meal, Maes pushed his chair back, pulled his daughter from her chair, and took her upstairs to tuck her into bed for her afternoon nap.
He should have undone her pigtails first, but he knew from experience that it would pull too much if he tried to remove the elastics. Elysia didn’t seem to be uncomfortable, sleeping on her side with one chubby cheek pressed into the pillow, a hand lying beside it, fingers curled. As he bent to kiss the fingers, he had to admit that it was awfully tempting, kneeling at her bedside, just to lay his head down on the pillow beside her and allow himself to drift off. But after he’d sat there on his knees there for a few moments, he heard the phone jangling downstairs, and sighed. Duty was about to summon him again, he was sure.
Gracia came to the bottom of the stairs as he descended. “Sorry, dear,” she said, “it’s the police chief.”
He nodded, walking back into the kitchen and picking up the receiver where it laid on the counter. After a quick, terse conversation, he replaced it and turned back toward his wife, seated again at the table. She raised questioning eyebrows at him, and he sighed. “Gotta eat quickly,” he said. “I need to get over there and compare notes. It’s really weird,” he added, slipping back into his own chair, “they’ve got their own odd case they’re working on. Some body snatching from obscure graves at the edge of some of the cemeteries.”
“How awful. I don’t suppose there’s any connection between their case and yours?”
Maes shook his head. “I really doubt it. They suspect some overzealous medical students at the school, and I think they’re right. But their having to put extra patrols near all the cemeteries is going to put a crimp in what I was hoping to ask them for. But we’ll work it out, I’m sure.”
He gobbled as much of the rest of his salad as he could, as quickly as possible, and then stood up, grabbing his jacket from the back of his chair.
“Dear, at least change that shirt,” Gracia chided, standing as well and coming to join him.
“I don’t have time,” he shook his head, throwing the jacket on. “I’ll stay buttoned up instead.” He pulled his wife into his arms and held her for a long moment, a haven of stillness in the midst of the storms that were beginning to swirl around him. “Mmm, that feels good,” he murmured. “I wish I could stay for the afternoon and…nap.” Again he grinned into her face, his green eyes sparkling with mischief. “Or at least…spend time in bed doing something or other.”
Gracia laughed. “You’d better get going, or I may decide to make you late.”
“I wish I could let you. But hold that thought – I’ll be home as early as I possibly can.”
Another quick kiss, and he was off again. He pulled the front door closed behind him and paused briefly on his front steps. Straightening his glasses, he took a deep breath and set out once again, to solve yet another mystery with Roy Mustang at its centre.
(See Chapter 4)
“Daddy! You’re home!”
Maes shut the front door behind him just in time to bend down and scoop up an armful of four-year-old as she hurtled in stockinged feet down the hall toward him, brown pigtails bobbing.
“Hel-lo my angel of cuteness!” he cried, gathering the little girl against him. “Have you had a good morn – aaagh!” He made exaggerated strangling noises as his daughter closed her arms tightly around his neck, and she giggled. It was their regular noon-hour ritual, whenever he could manage to get home at lunchtime.
“I killeded daddy!” Elysia hollered over her shoulder toward the entrance of the kitchen, toward which Maes now proceeded, carting his bouncing burden with him.
“Well, stop killing daddy and tell him the soup is getting cold!” came another voice from inside the bright room at the end of the hall. Gracia appeared in the doorway, smiling as she wiped her hands on the apron around her waist.
Maes planted a big, very loud kiss on Elysia’s plump cheek, making her giggle again. Then he shifted her toward his right hip as he leaned forward and curled his left hand behind Gracia’s neck. He pulled her toward him and kissed her much less noisily, but much more thoroughly, drawing back in time to enjoy the bright colour now suffusing his wife’s face. He straightened his suddenly crooked glasses and grinned at her.
“Nice appetizer,” he remarked, and she gave him a light punch on the shoulder.
“I’m sure you’d like to eat something much more substantial,” she said, turning in the doorway.
“Not till Elysia’s gone to bed,” Maes quipped, and received another punch. Gracia’s cheeks were positively red by now.
The booster seat was in its usual place, on the chair along the curve of the table between Maes’s and Gracia’s chairs. The man set his daughter into the seat, tying the sturdy cloth ribbons around her waist. “So, have my girls had a good day so far?” he asked.
“I coloured, daddy,” Elysia announced proudly. “I coloured a kitty for Al!”
“Oooh, what a lucky guy,” Maes crooned, finishing off the tying with a big bow. He kissed the girl’s forehead before pushing her chair closer to the table. “Alphonse is going to love getting a picture of a kitty from you. A picture of his favourite pet from his favourite girl. He’s going to be so happy he won’t know what to do with himself.”
Gracia grabbed a dish towel and used it to shield her hands as she took hold of both handles of the soup pot and brought it from the stove over to the table, setting it onto the warming pad in the centre. The aroma of tomato and basil rose from it and enveloped the table. Pristine white plates had already been set out for the three of them, with the soup bowls on top, and the woman picked up the ladle, preparing to spoon the liquid into the bowls. But Maes motioned for her to sit down, and went around the table to push her chair in. Taking off his uniform jacket and draping it over the back of his own chair, he picked up the ladle himself.
“Me first, daddy,” said Elysia.
He paused. “What do you say, sweetheart?”
The little girl favoured him with her sweetest smile. “Please?”
“All right. Here you go.” Maes poured a little spoonful into a small bowl, and crinkled some crackers into the thick red liquid. “Now, you wait just a moment longer until I give some to mummy, and then I’ll feed you some spoonfuls. It’s a bit hot, so we need to be careful.”
As he ladled a bowl of the soup for Gracia, she shook out her napkin and asked, “Is everything all right out there? I guess it’s a good sign that you’re home for lunch.”
“Depends what you mean by ‘all right’,” he remarked. “It was an empty building, like all the others. So no casualties this time either, thank goodness.” He spooned a big ladle of soup into his own bowl, and finally sat down. Looking soberly at his wife across the table, he added, “The problem is, it’s just a matter of time. The arsonist seems to be trying to make sure nobody’s in the buildings before he torches them, but…sooner or later, he’s going to miss the fact that someone’s there. And then it goes past property damage and into murder.”
“Daddy! I’m hungry!” Elysia interrupted him, reaching for her spoon.
“Oh no, daddy is wasting time, isn’t he?” Maes cried, deftly removing the spoon from her hand and dipping it into her bowl. “Just for that, I’d better make sure you get lots of spoonfuls before I eat anything. How’s that?”
“You need to eat too,” the girl told him earnestly, shaking her head. He blew across the spoon to cool down the liquid, then stuck the end of his pinky into it, to test the heat. Finally judging it to be safe, he held it to Elysia’s mouth.
“Little sips,” he warned, “until you feel like it’s not too hot.”
Gracia was buttering a slice of the crusty roll she’d cut and put into a basket on the table. “Did you find any more clues this time?” she asked, continuing their interrupted conversation.
“More than zero?” Maes smiled ruefully. “Still zero, I’m afraid. My people are ready to tear their hair out.” He knew he shouldn’t really be breaching confidentiality and sharing information with her like this, but the way things were going right now, he felt like he needed to tell somebody, or he’d explode. And anyway, Gracia would keep it in confidence, knowing how important it was.
“So what happens now?” she asked, watching him across the table.
“I’ve got an idea or two, but nothing I can really talk about yet,” he answered, chuckling inwardly at the strange lines he was suddenly drawing, between confidential and non. But to reveal today’s theory would be too much like betraying Roy’s privacy, so he really didn’t think he could tell Gracia about it just yet. Giving Elysia another spoonful of soup, he inquired, “How’s that, sweetheart? Is it good?”
“It’s nummy!” the girl pronounced. “Your turn to eat.”
“Your wish is my command,” he told her with an extravagant flourish of his hand, and quickly took a couple of sips from his own bowl.
“How’s Roy taking this?” Gracia asked, almost as though she had guessed what he’d just been thinking. “He was pretty upset before he took his leave.”
“And he could easily get just as frazzled again, now that it’s started up again,” Maes sighed. This much, at least, he could talk about. “He’ll hold it together for a while, I’m sure; it’s what he does. Maybe we can finally solve this thing before it gets to him again.”
“He does have a way of taking everything onto his own shoulders, doesn’t he?”
“I think he would this time, no matter what. Since it’s all about fire.”
“He needs to learn that he doesn’t actually own fire, and maybe he could let some things go.”
Except this time, Maes reflected in sudden gloom, Roy thought he really did own the fire. The idea that there could be another Flame Alchemist out there, plotting to use Roy’s own skill against him, wasn’t just a matter of ownership – it was downright frightening.
Maes gave Elysia another couple of spoonfuls, beaming at her as she made “Mmm mmm” noises. Her eyes smiled back at him as she eagerly took the soup and swallowed.
“Maes,” Gracia said, “you look tired. You’ve been up for so long, is there any chance you could grab a nap before you have to get back?”
“I wish,” he sighed. “I’ve got to get to police headquarters and have a chat with them, as soon as I’ve had lunch. Maybe I can turn in early instead.”
“I wish this wasn’t happening. These days are always so exhausting for you.”
“At least it hasn’t happened for a while. And even if these fires are going to keep going, the guy tends to wait a week or two between. So I can start catching up on sleep tomorrow.” Maes grinned suddenly. “Or I should say, the guy or the woman waits a week or two. Lieutenant Hawkeye suggested we shouldn’t just assume it’s a man. And then Roy went off about all those women he’s dated in the past, wanting revenge that he stopped dating them, or something like that. I tell you – if we were looking for someone like that, the whole city would be on fire! What a guy. Leaving a trail of heartbreak behind him.”
Gracia’s hand stopped halfway to her mouth, drips of red liquid falling slowly from her spoon into her bowl. “Why on earth,” she asked, “would you be looking for someone wanting revenge on Roy?” She set the spoon back down, eyes widening in alarm. “Is that what’s going on, Maes? Someone is doing this to go after Roy?”
Damn, what an idiot he was. He wiped a smear of soup from Elysia’s cheek, and sighed. “I shouldn’t have said that. Don’t mention it to anybody, okay? We don’t know if Roy has anything directly to do with this, but that’s one of the theories. There are other theories too, so we just can’t say anything for sure yet. I wasn’t going to bring it up until I had something more concrete, but…” he smiled wanly across the table, “…me and my big mouth, as usual.”
“Never mind, dear, I won’t say anything. I just hope that theory’s wrong. Because it makes this whole business even worse, somehow.”
“You’ve got that right.”
They continued eating in silence for a while, broken only by Elysia’s occasional interjections. Once Maes was sure the soup was cool enough, he let his daughter finish spooning it out for herself, even if it meant a lot more smears on her face and some dribbles on the napkin he’d tucked under her chin. He looked down at his own white shirt, and finally smiled apologetically across the table.
“Sorry, Gracia, I should have taken my clothes off completely before I started eating something red,” he grinned, wiping in futility at the soup dots that had somehow gotten splattered down the front of his shirt. “Of course…I might not have gotten around to the soup at all if I did that.”
Gracia merely rolled her eyes at him, laughing as she bit into her bread.
After the soup, there was a very filling chicken salad. Already, her tummy filling up with food, Elysia was getting sleepy, her eyes starting to droop. Long before he was done the rest of his meal, Maes pushed his chair back, pulled his daughter from her chair, and took her upstairs to tuck her into bed for her afternoon nap.
He should have undone her pigtails first, but he knew from experience that it would pull too much if he tried to remove the elastics. Elysia didn’t seem to be uncomfortable, sleeping on her side with one chubby cheek pressed into the pillow, a hand lying beside it, fingers curled. As he bent to kiss the fingers, he had to admit that it was awfully tempting, kneeling at her bedside, just to lay his head down on the pillow beside her and allow himself to drift off. But after he’d sat there on his knees there for a few moments, he heard the phone jangling downstairs, and sighed. Duty was about to summon him again, he was sure.
Gracia came to the bottom of the stairs as he descended. “Sorry, dear,” she said, “it’s the police chief.”
He nodded, walking back into the kitchen and picking up the receiver where it laid on the counter. After a quick, terse conversation, he replaced it and turned back toward his wife, seated again at the table. She raised questioning eyebrows at him, and he sighed. “Gotta eat quickly,” he said. “I need to get over there and compare notes. It’s really weird,” he added, slipping back into his own chair, “they’ve got their own odd case they’re working on. Some body snatching from obscure graves at the edge of some of the cemeteries.”
“How awful. I don’t suppose there’s any connection between their case and yours?”
Maes shook his head. “I really doubt it. They suspect some overzealous medical students at the school, and I think they’re right. But their having to put extra patrols near all the cemeteries is going to put a crimp in what I was hoping to ask them for. But we’ll work it out, I’m sure.”
He gobbled as much of the rest of his salad as he could, as quickly as possible, and then stood up, grabbing his jacket from the back of his chair.
“Dear, at least change that shirt,” Gracia chided, standing as well and coming to join him.
“I don’t have time,” he shook his head, throwing the jacket on. “I’ll stay buttoned up instead.” He pulled his wife into his arms and held her for a long moment, a haven of stillness in the midst of the storms that were beginning to swirl around him. “Mmm, that feels good,” he murmured. “I wish I could stay for the afternoon and…nap.” Again he grinned into her face, his green eyes sparkling with mischief. “Or at least…spend time in bed doing something or other.”
Gracia laughed. “You’d better get going, or I may decide to make you late.”
“I wish I could let you. But hold that thought – I’ll be home as early as I possibly can.”
Another quick kiss, and he was off again. He pulled the front door closed behind him and paused briefly on his front steps. Straightening his glasses, he took a deep breath and set out once again, to solve yet another mystery with Roy Mustang at its centre.
(See Chapter 4)
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Date: 2008-11-07 02:50 am (UTC)Maes manages to balance his fatherly duties with his much more serious conversation very well. I'm a bit hesitant about his feeding Elycia like that, though. My piano teacher's son is less than two years old, and he has no problems feeding himself. I know kids learn things at different paces, but Elycia should know this skill by now. Unless she's just acting the baby to get more attention from her parents, which I can't see Gracia allowing very often.
Even after setting such careful lines for himself and for how much to reveal, Maes stepped over them. I've always picked Gracia for an observant woman, and it seems just like her to notice a little slip like that.
Oh lol, innuendo, Maes :P
Body snatching from graves, eh? That could turn out to be completely irrelevant, or very significant, and I don't think I'm going to give time to decide which one, because then I'll just be disappointed when it's the other! Next chapter, yaay :B
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Date: 2008-11-11 06:52 pm (UTC)