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“Fuck.”
Maes froze. Since he was currently eating an ice cream cone, this resulted in a rather comical pose with his tongue poking out and ice cream dripping onto his shirt.
“What was that, Princess?” Maes asked as calmly as he could. Surely he’d misheard. Elicia didn’t know any bad words. She hadn’t said fuck, she’d said something else. Like yuck. Yes, that must have been it.
Elicia frowned at the ice cream splattered on the ground. She looked up at Maes with tears pooling in her eyes and an expression that made his heart melt. How could he have ever thought his sweet, innocent Elicia knew such a bad word? She was far too cute and perfect for that.
Her lips began to move. Maes smiled at her encouragingly. Yes, she’d said yuck, that was quite obvious, and she was probably about to ask her daddy to buy her another ice cream, which of course he’d gladly do—
“FUCK!”
“I think you’re overreacting.”
Maes stared down at the phone in horror. “How is this overreacting, Roy? Someone, somewhere was swearing around my little girl!”
Roy, the traitor, did not sound sympathetic in the slightest. “This was bound to happen sooner or later. Every kid learns swears eventually. Given your occupation and typical company, it shouldn’t be surprising that she picked one up this early. It’s not the end of the world.”
“Not the end of the world?!” Maes gesticulated wildly, almost catching his arm in the phone’s cord. “Who knows what the long-term effects of swearing so young will be? Her young mind, exposed to filth before she can even begin to comprehend it? It could ruin her entire ability to function in life!”
“I’m sure it’s not going to be all that bad.” Roy said conversationally. “I mean, I learned plenty of inappropriate words at a young age, which I remind you, you should already be aware of. I’d say I turned out well-adjusted enough.”
“Did you?”
Roy paused. Several seconds of silence passed.
“That isn’t the point.”
Maes tightened his grip on the phone. “Then what, may I ask, is the point?!”
“My point,” Roy said in that irritated voice that usually meant the rest of his team had stopped working to eavesdrop on Roy’s half of the conversation, “is that Elicia is going to be fine. You and Gracia are wonderful parents, and learning one swear isn’t going to stop Elicia from growing up to be a respectable young woman you can be proud of. Do you hear me? Everything is going to be perfectly, completely, one hundred percent fine.”
Maes stopped and considered Roy’s words. It was true that Maes intended to do everything in his power to give Elicia the best life possible. And while he wasn’t always entirely sure what he was doing, he had zero doubt that as long as Gracia was by his side they could handle any situation thrown at them.
“You’re all supposed to come over to Central for an exercise soon, right?”
“More like for a waste of time, if we’re being honest,” Roy said. “Why?”
“Good.” Maes straightened. He was going to be the best damn dad in the world. Step one was making sure no one ever messed with Elicia, and that meant making an example of whoever did this to her. “You may all consider yourselves to be suspects. I’ll meet you at the station. I suggest making it clear to your team that if any of them are responsible, it will go much better for them if they confess.”
“Hughes are you fucking kidding me—”
Maes slammed the phone down. He doubted Roy would be too mad at him for ending the conversation like that, but if he was he could get over it. He’d hung up on Maes in the same way enough times; he had no business complaining about it.
“Sorry, Roy,” he said softly. “You’re my best friend and I trust you to always have my back, but you all have had more opportunity than most, haven’t you?”
Maes forced himself to keep smiling as the train pulled in. Elicia was on his left, her hand in his. Gracia was on Elicia’s other side holding her other hand. She’d looked skeptical when Maes had told her what he was planning to do, but she hadn’t fought him on it. She’d just said if anyone could figure this mystery out, Maes could. Maes wondered if she was only humoring him. At any rate, whatever Gracia’s motives were for going along with this, Maes was glad he could have his family with him today. He wasn’t technically here on duty, but he had an investigation to pursue nonetheless. The sooner he got started, the better.
Also Elicia was thrilled to go out and watch some trains. It was a win-win, really.
“Look, Daddy!” Elicia yelled. She started pulling on her parents’ grips. “It’s here! It’s here! Let’s go!”
“Not yet, Sweetheart.” Maes said. “Do you remember what Mommy and I told you?”
“I don’t wanna wait!”
“Now, Elicia,” Gracia said, “Uncle Roy and his friends will meet us here. Daddy wanted to talk to them a bit without getting in the way of everybody else on the train.”
“But that’s forever!”
“It won’t take long at all,” Maes assured her. “Do you want to have a snack while you wait?”
Elicia lit up. “Yeah!”
Gracia laughed a little. “All right, young lady, let’s see what I brought for you today.” She dug in her bag, playing the mystery up. “Oh, what a surprise! We have some raisins! Do you want some raisins, Elicia?”
“Yeah! Yeah!”
Maes felt his smile grow more genuine. He loved getting to see these moments. If only he could spend every moment of every day with his family like this.
Several minutes passed while Elicia ate her raisins. Before too long, a familiar group of soldiers approached, led by Roy himself with Hawkeye following close behind. Elicia perked up and started pulling on Maes’s arm again. This time he let her pull him along.
“Hi, Uncle Roy!” she called.
Roy smiled, plastering on his best attempt at a good-with-children persona. It was, as usual, hilarious to watch. Roy would never admit to it, but he had zero confidence in his ability to interact with small children. Perhaps it was because the children he interacted with the most often were the Elrics. Those boys were, to put it mildly, an exceptional circumstance. Even Roy knew better than to talk to Elicia the same way he talked to them. Knowing what not to do didn’t translate to knowing what he should do, though. He always seemed a bit awkward, as if constantly afraid he would do the wrong thing. If Maes was being honest, that fact made Roy himself seem like an unlikely suspect in this whole mess. The poor man was too careful with his words around Elicia to accidentally drop a curse.
At any rate, Elicia had long ago figured out Roy was harmless—or more accurately, he was harmless when it came to Elicia specifically. And where Roy failed at natural social interactions with small children, he at least understood and was happy to exploit the next best way to win a child over.
“Look what I’ve brought you today, Elicia,” Roy said. He extended his arm toward her, today’s present in his hand. “It’s a train!”
Elicia shrieked happily and tore the toy from his grip. Indeed it was a train. It was a little wooden steam engine, painted black with a single horizontal yellow stripe. The overall design was simple, but it looked solid enough to not get broken by an unfortunate temper tantrum so simple was probably better.
Maes felt smug. He knew Roy paid attention to every word in every phone call. Elicia’s train phase was a relatively recent development, and yet the Colonel still came prepared.
“What do we say, Elicia?” said Gracia.
“Thank you!”
“Oh, yes, thank you Roy!” Maes grinned. “How ever did you know what to get?”
Roy’s smile grew slightly more strained. For a moment Maes thought he could hear muffled giggles from Havoc and Breda, but those were swiftly silenced when Hawkeye looked back at the group.
“So did you all have a good trip?” Gracia asked. “I do hope you all behaved yourselves.”
“Everything went smoothly, Mrs. Hughes,” Hawkeye said amicably.
Maes tuned out the small talk and kept his attention on the soldiers. Fuery, he instantly noted, appeared to be nervous. He was fiddling with his uniform a bit and his eyes were rapidly flicking between Roy, Maes, and Elicia. Havoc, on the other hand, looked unbothered. Maes wouldn’t say he was relaxed, exactly, but his demeanor was more of an alert soldier who kept full awareness of his surroundings. Breda actually did look relaxed, but Maes knew him well enough to suspect that was a ruse. Falman, to Maes’s surprise, was the one paying closest attention to Elicia, who was currently crawling on the floor with her train making choo-choo noises. Falman’s gaze was fixed on her, brow furrowed in intense focus.
Elicia, for her part, didn’t care what Roy’s team was doing. Instead, after deciding the train wasn’t moving fast enough for her liking, she gave it a big push. It rolled farther along the floor than Maes would have expected. Before it got far enough to risk Elicia separating from her parents while chasing after it, Havoc sprang into action. He smoothly positioned himself in front of the train and placed his boot directly in its path.
“Hey, squirt,” he said with a smile. “You like the train, huh?”
“Yeah! It’s fun!”
“Good to hear.” He knelt down, grasped the train, and flipped it around so the front was now facing Elicia. “Mind if I play with you?”
“Okay!” Seeing where this was going, Elicia positioned herself to catch the train, arms out and ready to reach. Havoc nodded and pushed it directly toward her. Elicia easily caught it, then tried to send it back to Havoc. Her aim was a bit off, forcing Havoc to lunge to the left to catch it. Elicia giggled.
Maes smiled a bit, then turned his attention back to the other three. Fuery and Breda were obviously charmed by the scene in front of them. Fuery looked like he was about to start cooing, while Breda only smiled softly. Falman still had a focused expression, but now he seemed torn between staring at Elicia and staring at Havoc.
The best choice, Maes decided, was probably starting with Fuery. It would be best for the poor man to get it over with. Elicia’s general adorableness did a lot to help him relax, but the distraction could only last for so long. “Sargeant Fuery? If you wouldn’t mind, would you come with me for a moment?”
Fuery immediately tensed back up. Breda gave him a hearty pat on the back. “Don’t worry kid, you’ll be fine,” he said lightly. “The Lieutenant Colonel’s a fair man.”
“Um, yes sir!” Fuery wrung his hands. “Where are we going, sir?”
“Just follow me, Sergeant,” Maes said firmly.
There were few places in a train station where you could have privacy. Fortunately for Maes’s purposes, the station did have restrooms. After almost dragging a frightened Fuery to them, Maes checked each stall to make sure they were alone before turning to the shaking man before him.
“Don’t worry,” Maes told him. “This isn’t an interrogation, really. More like a friendly chat. I promise.”
Fuery nodded wordlessly.
“So tell me, Sergeant Fuery,” Maes leaned forward. “How is it that my darling Elicia has learned her first naughty word already?”
“I-I’m sorry, sir,” Fuery squeaked. “I don’t know who’s responsible for swearing around Elicia. I promise it wasn’t me! But that’s all I can tell you.”
“Are you sure? Could you have said something when you didn’t know she was listening? Or perhaps overheard bad language on a day you knew she was around somewhere?”
“I don’t know!” Fuery wrung his hands in clear distress. “I don’t think so, but I don’t always hear everything when I get focused. If I was busy, someone could have easily said… that word, and I wouldn’t have even noticed.”
Maes looked at Fuery. Fuery avoided his eyes and adjusted his collar minutely. Maes kind of felt like he was accusing a little puppy of mauling an entire squad.
“Sergeant, could you do something for me?”
Fuery snapped to attention. “Of course, sir! I’ll do whatever I can to help!”
“Could you just say fuck yourself? Right now?”
“Sir?”
“Humor me.”
Fuery’s eyes went wide, the effect only enhanced by his glasses. After a moment he frowned and started moving his mouth. “F… fuh… um…”
Maes sighed. “Never mind.”
“No, I can do it!”
“How in the world have you lasted this long in the army without being able to handle a little swearing?”
“I can swear! No one would last ten minutes in communications without swearing!” Fuery protested. “That one just doesn’t work!”
Maes paused. He blinked and went over Fuery’s words again. They still didn’t make sense. “Pardon?”
“The equipment is alive, Lieutenant Colonel. When the radio misbehaves, it needs to be put in its place! Yeah, sometimes it really is properly broken and needs to be fixed, but other times all you need to do is hit it and tell it it’s being a piece of shit or a little bitch. But it’s got an attitude, too. If I go too far and call it a—an F-word piece of shit or an F-word bitch, or even something like a mother-F-word, it gets mad and won’t work at all!” He paused. “Lieutenant Hawkeye glares at me if I use bitch though, so usually I stick with piece of shit.”
Maes was not sure what to do with this information.
“So yeah, I can too swear!” Fuery pouted. “I just don’t use that one.”
Maes rubbed circles into his temples. He felt a headache coming on. “... You’re dismissed, Sergeant.”
“Thank you, sir!” Fuery bolted out of the restroom. Maes waited for a few moments before groaning and rubbing at his forming headache some more. Learning about the swear superstitions in communications was not something he’d expected today.
When Maes returned to the rest of the group, he found the dynamic had changed slightly. Elicia must have grown bored playing with Havoc and had wandered back to Gracia, still holding her train tightly. Breda had joined the chat between the two women, saying something inaudible that had Gracia laughing and Hawkeye rolling her eyes. Havoc had returned to keeping a watchful eye on his surroundings, but now he was grinning as he did it. Falman, to Maes’s discomfort, was still paying close attention to Elicia, although his gaze was wandering often enough to indicate he was at least thinking about other things now too. Maes wondered if Falman’s behavior was due to guilt. Was he looking at Elicia because he was ashamed of his own actions?
Mind made up, Maes approached him. “Warrant Officer Falman,” he said. “I’d like to speak with you for a moment, if you wouldn’t mind.”
“Yes sir!” Falman snapped into a salute. “Whatever you need me for!”
“There’s no need for that, Warrant Officer,” Maes said. “I’m not on duty and this isn’t official business.”
“Understood, sir!” Falman said, still not dropping his salute.
Maes sighed and returned the salute. “Now please, if you would follow me.”
The walk back to the restrooms felt a bit awkward. Falman’s typical behavior was easily the second-most professional of the group, beaten only by Hawkeye, but Maes had enough of a personal relationship with Hawkeye for that to not feel like a barrier. Falman was not someone Maes had spent nearly as much time around. Fuery’s nervousness had stemmed from an inability to see Maes as anything except an upset superior officer, and while Falman was better able to handle superior officer interactions, that could also make it more difficult to get useful information out of him. Perhaps he should try to make the man relax a bit first.
“Well, Warrant Officer,” Maes said after checking each of the stalls again, “I’m glad you all made it here safely.”
“Me too, Lieutenant Colonel,” Falman replied. “An uneventful trip is always a pleasure.”
“Is there anything you’re planning to do while you’re in Central? I know you’ll all be busy, but you should still have some free time.”
“Truthfully, when we’re not working I’d just like to catch up on sleep,” Falman said sheepishly. “I don’t want to complain about it too much though, especially not to you.”
“Oh?” Maes wiggled his eyebrows playfully. “Am I so scary that you think I’ll accuse you of slacking off just because you want a nap?”
Falman shook his head. “Not at all. It just seems ungrateful, all things considered. I’m given to understand that parents of young children commonly suffer from sleep deprivation. A typical human adult requires at least seven hours of sleep, but having a child makes this much more difficult to accomplish. Complaining to you about sleep feels a bit like complaining to a starving man about the quality of cafeteria meals, if that makes sense.”
Maes understood what Falman was getting at. He and Gracia had both been eternally exhausted while Elicia was still a little baby, both of them constantly busy and neither of them ever having a chance to sleep for more than an hour at a time. While they could get a bit more sleep now that Elicia was older, they were still much more tired than they had been before they became parents. A more than worthy sacrifice, of course, but if he’d heard a soldier complaining about not getting enough sleep on one of those really bad days Maes could imagine himself getting irritated enough to give him a good tongue lashing.
“Don’t worry about it, Warrant Officer,” Maes shot him a winning smile. “It’s been much better lately, especially since Elicia’s been potty trained. Besides, the Elrics come by often enough that they can take a little of the pressure off. They always insist on doing a bunch of work around the home when they stay over, and Elicia loves them. Gracia and I almost feel like functional adults again afterwards!”
“I see.” Falman frowned. “Even so, it feels a bit gauche to complain.”
“Really, it’s fine. Although…” Maes trailed off.
“You wish to know if I was responsible for Elicia saying fuck.”
Maes’s smile turned a bit sheepish. “Yep, you got me.”
“I promise I would remember if I used vulgar language around your daughter. On that note,” here Falman gave him a pointed look, “I would also remember if anyone else on the team had done so in my presence. I don’t remember anything like that happening, so if it did, I wasn’t there when it happened.”
“Ah.” Maes felt foolish. “Yes, I suppose that is true, isn’t it?”
“Is there anything else you need, Lieutenant Colonel?”
“I still have one question, actually.” Maes leaned against the sink as casually as he could. “Why were you staring at Elicia so hard when you arrived?”
Falman shook his head. “I wasn’t.”
“You obviously were.”
“I was looking at the toy train.”
Maes was already opening his mouth to argue before Falman finished his sentence, but hearing that made him falter. “The train, you say?”
“Yes.” Falman nodded decisively. “The design is seemingly simple, but the details put into carving each piece show an incredible amount of care put into its creation. You saw how far it can travel with a single push: that took careful work. Furthermore the paint job is immaculate, smooth as can be. It seems to be inspired by a specific train engine that used to be in service in the East in the years before the war. To a casual observer it probably looks like an ordinary toy, but the craftsmanship in that toy in particular puts it above most similar toys you’d see out there. The Colonel went out of his way to get the best quality present for Elicia. I hope you appreciate the effort he put in. Sir.”
As Falman’s speech unfolded, Maes felt a warmth growing in his heart. Roy put on a tough guy act, but he really was such a softie, wasn’t he?
“I do appreciate it, Warrant Officer,” Maes said. “And I thank you for your information.”
“I’m sorry I couldn’t help more.”
“Don’t be.” Maes opened the door and gestured for Falman to follow him. “What you’ve been able to give me instead is still valuable.”
The dynamic had changed again by the time Maes and Falman got back. Elicia looked crankier than she had when they’d left. Gracia had the raisins out again and was trying to coax her into eating them, but this time Elicia wasn’t having it. Roy looked distinctly uncomfortable. He hadn’t moved too far away, but it was obvious he had removed himself from the conversation to escape the likely incoming toddler tantrum. Hawkeye, if you knew what to look for, appeared amused by Roy’s discomfort. Havoc had taken up a position closer to Roy, much more obviously holding back a laugh at his expense. As Maes watched, Breda removed a bag of peanuts from one of his pockets and began making a show of taking slow, purposeful bites. If Maes had to guess, he meant to try and help encourage Elicia to eat. Fuery had been left holding the train and looked a bit lost.
“What did I miss?” Maes asked as soon as he was close enough to Gracia.
“She got bored of the train and didn’t have anything else to do,” Gracia said. “You know how it is. I tried to distract her with the raisins again but she’s not having it.”
“I wanna go!” Elicia complained. “I’m bored.”
“Just a little bit longer, Princess,” Maes soothed. “Do you have this, Gracia? If we need to, we can put the rest off for later.”
“I think she’ll be fine for now,” Gracia said. “But if she starts screaming we’re going to wait outside.”
“If you say so, dear.” Maes took Breda by the arm and tugged. “You’re up next, Lieutenant. Off we go.”
“Now?” Breda sputtered. “Do I get to bring my peanuts, at least?”
“Yes. In fact, you can consider that an order.”
“An order, eh? Thought you weren’t here as an officer today,” Breda grumbled. “Ain’t complaining, though.”
“Come on, Lieutenant.”
Maes kept his face impassive for the entire walk back to the restroom. Breda, sensing something was amiss, decided to keep quiet. As soon as they entered, Maes took a deep breath and gave Breda the most stern look he was capable of.
“I realize,” he said softly, “that you were not going to share your peanuts with Elicia in any case. Even if you’d offered one, Gracia would not have allowed it. But Elicia does sometimes demand the food she sees someone else eating instead of her own food, and she will throw a fit if you say no. Given the whole point of the raisin offering was to try and stop her from throwing a fit, that was a deeply counterproductive move.”
“Ah.” Breda winced. “Didn’t realize that, Lieutenant Colonel. Sorry. I s’pose it’s lucky she didn’t want any. But if I may ask, why is it so important that Elicia not have peanuts? If she had an allergy, someone would have said something earlier, right? To make sure we never have anything around her.”
“No, there’s no allergy,” Maes said. “But she’s too young for nuts like that. They’re a choking hazard. So many foods are—I mean, we only just started on the raisins—but nuts in particular really need to wait until she’s four or five.”
“Shit. Didn’t even think about that.”
“There’s all sorts of things you don’t think about until you become a parent.” Maes felt his shoulders slump. “I tried to get as much information as I could, but I still don’t feel like I have enough.”
“Hey, I think you’re doing great.” Breda gave him a grin and a thumbs up. “So you’re worried about how Elicia picked up her first naughty word, right?”
“Well, yes.” Maes forced himself back into his usual posture. “But as Warrant Officer Falman pointed out, he would remember if it happened while he was around. So I suppose the first thing I want to know is, how much time have you spent around Elicia when Falman wasn’t present?”
Breda’s eyes narrowed in concentration as he thought. After a few seconds, he shrugged. “Honestly, I don’t think it was all that often. I’m not uncomfortable around kids or anything, but I don’t know much about them, so I don’t go out of my way to interact with them. I don’t think it was me, but I sincerely could not tell you for sure. I was never alone with her; if she was around, I know for sure at least one of you, the Colonel, or Hawkeye definitely would have been there. But Falman? It’s entirely possible for Falman to have been somewhere else.”
That was an unsatisfying answer. Maes didn’t want a probably not but maybe. He wanted to know, without a shadow of a doubt, when and where Elicia had heard that word. Maes went over the information; if he’d been present, he would have taken immediate notice. If Hawkeye was present, she would have made her displeasure obvious enough to make it stick in Breda’s memory. Roy? God, Maes did not want to imagine Roy letting that pass by without comment. That was his best friend, and a damn good officer if Maes said so himself. Despite what passerby probably thought on a typical work day, Roy had built a team that was remarkably disciplined when it actually counted.
“I suppose,” Maes said, “that’s the best we can expect you to remember.”
“We can’t all be Falman,” Breda said wistfully. “Can you imagine how useful it would be to remember everything? I gotta be honest, I’m envious.”
“It would help,” Maes admitted. It would save him a lot of grief to never find himself wondering where he’d put his glasses this time.
“I’m guessing Havoc’s next, right?” Breda flashed him a devilish grin. “That should be fun.”
“... What do you mean?”
Breda’s grin grew wider.
Havoc strode toward Maes as soon as they were back, already prepared to join him for their chat. The swiftness of the swapover meant Maes didn’t get much chance to analyze the current situation, but he was relieved to see Elicia had calmed down. For some reason she was paying close attention to Falman, who was animatedly gesturing as he talked about… whatever he was talking about.
“Anything interesting happen?” Maes asked as he led Havoc to the restroom. “I see Elicia’s doing fine.”
“Nah. Falman’s just regaling her with train facts. Did you know Drachma has a line that goes for over nine thousand kilometers?”
“I didn’t.” Maes put his hand on the restroom door handle and pushed it open. “Why did Breda seem to think it was so funny that I was going to talk to you?”
“Because he’s an ass who’s trying to fuck with you?”
“Please take this seriously.”
“Aw, hell, Lieutenant Colonel, It’s not like I did it.”
“Are you sure?” Maes shook his head as they strode past each of the stalls. “It’s not like it would take much. You did seem pretty willing to play with her in a way most of your team wouldn’t. And you aren’t Falman, after all. Would you even remember?”
Havoc chuckled. “Really, now? You think it could have been me? I won’t say any bullshit about how I’m the best role model or anything, but I do know how to not accidentally cuss around kids.”
Maes felt his headache start to come back. “You have sworn how many times in the last minute, Lieutenant? What in the world makes you think so confident it wasn’t you?”
“I come from a big family.” Havoc smiled softly, an expression Maes wasn’t used to seeing on him. “Not too unusual out in the sticks. I had to watch younger siblings and cousins all the time. Like I said, I’m not the best role model. I will fully admit I taught a couple of ‘em some cusses—”
“You what?” Maes wailed. “Lieutenant!”
“—but that was when I was a dumb kid, and it was on purpose. I kept control of myself around the really little ones. And you know what happened? Ma found out what I did, and she was fucking pissed. No offense Lieutenant Colonel, but as scary as you try to be about Elicia, you are not as scary as her. Not even the goddamn Fuhrer himself would be able to keep his head up if she gets mad enough.” He nodded sagely. “I have never sworn around kids again.”
Maes looked at him skeptically. “Never, huh?”
Havoc shifted his weight uncomfortably. “I mean, not including the Elrics. But I think Fullmetal might know more swears than I do, so I don’t think that should count.”
Maes turned that statement over in his head and groaned. “You know, I can’t argue with that.”
Havoc let out a guffaw. “Exactly! If you ask me, Fullmetal’s the most likely suspect. You gonna track the little bastard down and interrogate him, too?”
“This is hardly an interrogation, Lieutenant—”
A squeaky voice made a noise from one of the stalls. Maes and Havoc slowly turned in the direction it came from. One of the stalls slowly opened, revealing a wide-eyed boy. He looked to be around ten. He stared at them in apparent terror for a moment before scampering out of the restroom without washing his hands. Maes exchanged a long glance with Havoc, who looked panicked.
“... So,” Maes drawled, “you never swear around kids.”
Havoc was beginning to sweat.
“And of course you would know if you did before today.”
“I purposely came in swearing more than usual!” Havoc blurted. “I was planning on doing it to mess with you! Breda knew and thought it was hilarious! I don’t usually swear that much! Lieutenant Colonel, I promise that’s unusual. You have to realize that, just ask anyone else on the team, Lieutenant Colonel please—”
Maes thought Havoc looked like his Number One Suspect at this point. That, however, didn’t mean he was going to make any premature conclusions.
Roy gave him a look as Maes led him into the restroom. “Is all of this actually necessary, Hughes?”
“I'm just being thorough,” Maes said. “Are you absolutely sure you've kept a handle on your language around Elicia?”
“Of course I have.” Roy leaned against the sink, making no effort to hide his annoyance. “And I'm sure you would have noticed if I hadn't. Or, if you weren't present for that particular moment, the Lieutenant would have noticed. If that happened, the only reason she'd refrain from shooting me then and there is because she'd wait until Elicia was no longer in the vicinity. This applies to my entire team, by the way. You have a million better uses for your time than interrogating us.”
Maes shook his head. “I don’t give up that easily. You know me better than that.”
Roy rolled his eyes.
“I have to figure out where this came from, Roy. Elicia needs good role models. You have to understand.”
“And you let her spend time around us?” Roy snorted. “Believe me, we’re a lot more fucked up than just the word fuck can express.”
“Aw, Roy,” Maes gave him a pat on the back. “Give yourself some credit. At the very least, Lieutenant Hawkeye keeps you from being too bad.”
“That is her job,” Roy agreed. “But make no mistake, she’s fucked up too. She’s just better at hiding it behind professionalism. I doubt your talk with her will take too long.”
Maes stilled.
“Where are you going to have that talk, anyway? You can’t bring her into the men’s restroom. Well, you could try, but she wouldn’t follow you. And she’ll judge you so hard for trying.”
“I…” Maes laughed awkwardly. “I wasn’t going to ask her, actually. I just assumed she couldn’t be responsible.”
Roy stared.
“Don’t tell me you disagree with my assessment.”
Roy groaned. “I don’t, but what happened to being thorough?”
“All right, all right.” Maes reviewed his mental map of the area. Where could he talk to Hawkeye privately?
“For what it’s worth,” Roy said in a low voice, “I don’t think it was anyone on my team. Including Havoc. If you won’t believe in them, I’d appreciate it if you believed in me. Or, if you don’t believe in me, believe in Lieutenant Hawkeye’s ability to keep everyone out of trouble. Maybe if they all made a habit of visiting you outside of military business it would be different, but they’re all good people. They know Elicia is important to you. If one of them screwed up, someone else would know too.” He broke into a sardonic grin. “And then the Lieutenant would inevitably find out even if they tried to keep it a secret, and then she’d shoot them.”
Instead of looking at Roy directly, Maes looked at him through the mirror. He looked confident. To Roy, the idea of his team disappointing him was unimaginable. Even if Roy himself didn’t understand why Maes was so upset about this, the fact that it was important to Maes was enough to convince him to take it seriously. That was why he was so sure his team was innocent. Because if Maes was disappointed in them, Roy would inevitably be disappointed too.
Maes counted himself infinitely lucky to have a friend like Roy.
“Elicia’s probably been waiting too long,” he finally said. “We can find a chance to go over things with Hawkeye later. For now Elicia needs to leave soon, and you all probably need to get going.”
Roy lifted an eyebrow. “So soon?”
“Yeah. Although if you don’t mind,” Maes smiled weakly, “do you know if the Elrics are anywhere nearby?”
“They’re not needed for the exercise,” Roy said, “but they’re supposed to check in soon, and they know to come to Central instead of East this time. I doubt they’ll forget; they’re always so excited to see you and Gracia. One of these days you need to tell them to let you know they’re coming ahead of time.”
Maes shook his head. “They know they’re always welcome. Why should they?”
“You’re impossible.”
On the day the Elrics were due to come in, Maes brought both Gracia and Elicia with him to visit Headquarters. When he first entered he heard several soldiers grumbling about “teambuilding exercises” being useless, but nobody said anything untoward.
But how easy would it be for someone to let slip a curse? To let a moment of frustration about a wasted day come out in a word no soldier would flinch to hear? They could have every intention of behaving themselves in the presence of a child, but all they needed was to not notice until it was too late.
It was with a sense of relief that Maes reached the room Roy and his team were using. They all greeted his family enthusiastically. Whatever tension might have remained from Maes’s questioning had evaporated. They just seemed happy to see them again. These, at least, were good people who could be trusted to have his family’s best interests in mind.
Maes waited until Hawkeye was finished complimenting Elicia’s dress. As Elicia preened over the praise, he pulled the Lieutenant aside. “Ah,” he said, “this is a bit awkward, but, well…”
“Do you wish to question me, Lieutenant Colonel?”
“It’s more like…” Maes shuffled his feet, but refused to look Hawkeye anywhere but her eyes. “... I realize I may have gone overboard, but it does seem unfair to question everyone else and not you.”
“I understand, sir.” Hawkeye’s expression was blank. “What questions do you have for me?”
“Was it you?”
“No.”
“Do you think anyone on the team could have done it?”
“No.”
“Well then.” Maes shifted his eyes back to Elicia. “I think we’re done, don’t you?”
“A most sensible decision, sir.”
“What, that’s it?” Breda called over with a laugh. “Why bother giving all of us the third degree when that’s all it takes to convince you?”
“I should have been more willing to trust all of you,” Maes said. “Besides, Hawkeye really would have shot you if you’d done something, right?”
“Not necessarily,” Hawkeye said smoothly. “If Elicia was in the room, I would have found a different form of punishment.”
Gracia sighed and put her hand on Elicia’s shoulder. Elicia, not bothering to pay attention to the adults, was currently enthralled by Havoc balancing a pencil on his finger by its point. Maes laughed. “The point stands,” he said. “It’s just like how I didn’t worry about it being any of my people. They know the consequences of poor behavior on the job.”
Fuery looked up from the radio he had (silently, thankfully) been working on. “Wait, what consequences do you have for them? How can you be so sure none of them did it?”
“I’m sure,” Maes said, “because I’ve made it quite clear to all of them that if they speak to Elicia in any way I wouldn’t approve of, I’ll send Major Armstrong to give them a stern talking to.”
The whole team winced. Breda chuckled nervously. “Yeah, that would do it.”
The time passed uneventfully. Maes was determined to do his best to slack off today, but he did need to leave and do actual work on occasion. Even so, he spent every spare moment back in the office Roy’s team had holed up in. When he managed to be present for the moment the Elrics arrived, he had the pleasure of seeing Elicia’s face light up.
“Big Brothers!” she shouted as she threw herself at Ed. He looked surprised for a moment, but his face lit up just as brightly and he hugged her back.
“Hi, Elicia,” he said. “It’s great to see you!”
“Hi, Elicia,” Al echoed. “And hi, Mr. and Mrs. Hughes! We didn’t expect to see all of you this soon!”
“Hello, boys,” Gracia said. “I hope needing to come to Central didn’t interrupt your plans too much.”
“Oh, not at all!” Al assured her. “It’s always worth our time to come here. We get to see you, after all, and the Central library is the biggest one so it’s always worth checking to see what’s there that we might have missed.”
“Too bad we have to see the Colonel this time, though,” Ed complained.
“Speaking of, you should probably get that over with,” said Maes. “After you’re done, I’d like to talk with you both, if that’s all right. It’s a personal matter, nothing military related.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Ed let go of Elicia and grumbled as he and Al went to the back of the room to Roy’s temporary office.
As soon as they’d disappeared through the door, Gracia gave Maes a worried look. “Are you really going to give them a hard time? I thought you’d decided not to keep making a big deal out of this. They’ll hate to think they disappointed you.”
Maes took off his glasses and began wiping off the lenses. “I’m not going to accuse them of anything. But it’s true they spend time with us at home and are a lot more likely to mess up than any of the regular soldiers. I just want to tell them what happened, and ask them to be careful and not accidentally help her pick up any more words. I’ll make sure they know they aren’t the only ones I’ve talked to so they don’t feel singled out.”
“If you’re sure.”
By the time the brothers had left Roy’s office, Roy and Hawkeye both trailing out behind them, Ed had managed to put on an impressively annoyed expression. To his credit, he managed to clear it up as soon as he caught sight of Elicia. “So what did you need us for, Lieutenant Colonel?”
“Just a quick chat,” Maes said as calmly as possible. “I’ve had a similar one with everyone else here already. But did you know, Elicia’s learned her first bad word?”
Al’s helmet rattled as his head shot up. Ed frowned. “She has? I thought most adults were really careful about how they talk around kids. I mean, Granny never was, but she’s not most adults.”
“Can you, uh,” Al glanced in Elicia’s direction. “Not say it, but hint at which one it was?”
“A pretty big one,” Maes said. “Not a mild one for sure. I don’t know how it happened, but your typical soldier has enough of a potty mouth for plenty of opportunities to have come up. I’m asking everyone to be extra careful about their language from now on.”
Ed nodded seriously. “We can do that. Don’t worry, we’re on the case. Do you want me to punch anyone if we catch them swearing around her?”
“That’s unnecessary. Just make sure you behave yourselves.”
“Easy peasy. We got this, right Al?” Ed slammed his metal fist against Al in his typical gesture of affection. When Al didn’t respond, Ed frowned. “Al?”
Al jolted, then shrank in on himself in that way Maes never understood how he could pull off. “I, um. I think I know what happened, actually?”
Maes’s head snapped over to the armor, disbelief flooding through him. “Al. Alphonse. You didn’t.”
“What? Of course he didn’t!” Ed thought for a moment, then gasped and turned onto Al. “Or did you? Al, you didn’t, right?”
“How could you say such things around my daughter, Al?! You’re supposed to be the well-behaved one!”
Ed flipped to face Maes, his face turning red. “He ISN’T!”
“He really isn’t,” Roy said mildly, leaning against the wall and watching the proceedings. “Polite, yes, but it turns out that’s quite different from well-behaved.”
“Will you all just listen!” Al stomped a foot. The sound of metal slamming against the floor quickly drew all attention to him. “I didn’t swear around Elicia! But… well…I know who did.”
Maes took a deep breath. Calm down, he told himself. Elicia is here watching and doesn’t need to see her Daddy looking scary, and you already decided you weren’t going to get mad at the Elrics. “Okay. Well then. Who did? And how do you know?”
“Um.”
“Tell ‘em, Al,” Ed said with no small amount of exasperation. “Spit it out already; you’re going to give Hughes a heart attack if you make him wait too long.”
Al shifted uncomfortably. “Well, the thing is, we really do stay with the Hughes family a lot, right? And Brother needs to sleep, but I don’t. And somehow Elicia figured that out? So every once in a while when we’re there, Elicia has a nightmare, and she started coming to me so she wouldn’t have to wake anybody up.”
“Aw.” Maes’s heart melted into a puddle. “That’s very sweet of her,” he said softly. “She knows I don’t mind if she wakes me up after a nightmare, right?”
“Oh, I’m sure she does, Mr. Hughes,” Al assured him. “But she likes me, I think. Anyway, last time we were here, she came and I was trying to distract her with a story about the time Den stole Brother’s favorite shirt—”
“HEY!”
“—and we heard someone getting up to use the bathroom. I asked Elicia if she wanted to go talk to her Mommy or Daddy instead since one of them was awake anyway, and while she was thinking about it something fell down and hit the ground hard. And that’s when we heard it.”
Oh.
Oh no.
Maes felt his face growing hot.
“She asked what the word meant, and I wasn’t sure what to say, you know?” Al began wringing his hands. “I told her it was a mean word and a lot of people get really upset when you say it, so she shouldn’t. And then she said, ‘But Daddy said it, and he isn’t mean!’ so I told her people sometimes say mean words when they’re feeling something really strongly, and that doesn’t make them mean, but Daddy makes sure to not use words like that very often because he doesn’t want to upset people, and I messed it all up didn’t I?”
Maes buried his face in his hands.
“You did fine, Alphonse,” Gracia said gently. “That was just the right thing to say.”
“It really was,” Havoc said, sounding impressed. “How are both of you this good with kids?”
Roy was barely muffling his laughter from across the room. “Well,” he managed to get out. “I suppose that solves the mystery.”
Hawkeye glared at her superior, then gave Maes a much more relaxed look. “I think this whole thing was handled about as well as could be expected. Don’t you agree?”
“Oh, yes,” said Gracia, who wasn’t even bothering to try and hide her amusement. “I’m glad we finally found the horrible monster responsible.”
Maes threw his hands up. “All of you are terrible.”
“It is kind of funny,” Breda said.
“Very funny,” Havoc added.
“Don’t worry, dear,” Gracia said as she patted him on the back. “I’m sure I’ll have my turn to make a mistake soon. You feel free to give me a hard time when that happens.”
“You?” Despite his embarrassment, Maes laughed. “We both know you’re the better of the two of us.”
“Yes, but,” Gracia swooped in and kissed him before pulling back. “I’m afraid I’m only human. I’m doomed to be imperfect.”
“If it helps,” Al piped up, “I don’t think this is actually that much of a problem. I mean, like Brother said, Granny’s the worst potty mouth we know, and the Rockbells all turned out okay.”
“Yeah,” Ed agreed. “It’s not like learning a few bad words early is going to ruin Elicia’s life. It didn’t stop Winry from becoming an amazing automail engineer, or her dad from becoming an amazing doctor. We’ll still try to be good, but everything’s gonna be okay.”
Maes held his head high. “You’re right, boys.” He ignored Roy grumbling something about that’s what I said at the beginning of all this. “Everything’s gonna be okay. So!” He clapped his hands and grinned at his family. “Who wants ice cream after we’re done today?”
“I do!” Elicia jumped up and down excitedly. “I want it now!”
“After I’m done with work,” Maes repeated. “But you can play with your big brothers while you wait, does that sound fun?”
“Awww.” Elicia pouted. “I don’t wanna wait.”
“Hey, it’s been a while since we’ve seen you,” Ed poked her cheek. “Don’t you wanna tell us what we’ve missed? It’s so hard to keep up with everything. We’re gonna need your help.”
“But ice cream!”
“This one’s on you,” Gracia said.
Maes shrugged. Yeah, mentioning ice cream this early in the day was probably a mistake. But he was starting to think parenthood was just a series of countless mistakes and muddling through anyway. Roy really had been right at the beginning of all this. Everything was going to be fine.