The Pleas Of The Crown
A gift fic I wrote for Mebh a while back. Crossposted to my fanfiction.net account.
The gloves felt heavy on his hands, the skin-tight rubber pinching around his tobacco-stained fingers, the thick, cut-resistant material causing his palms to sweat and itch. He had been putting on gloves exactly like these for over seven years now, but the heaviness never failed to annoy and surprise him. So unlike the ones he had worn when he was still practicing medicine, those had been as light and flexible as his own skin, or very nearly, always made of whatever latest cutting-edge polymer the State’s pet alchemists had designed. Knox knew he was likely idealising those surgical gloves, mistakenly remembering them to be so much better than the ones he had now, but he couldn’t help it. Things had been better then.
Dr Knox sighed harshly, stubbing out his cigarette and running tired eyes over the file he had been given for the latest body to grace his morgue. No photo for this one, but then, the corpse had only been discovered the night before. It was yet another soldier, not even into his thirties, if the ID was correct. Shot dead on the streets of Central, only a few streets away from military headquarters, of all things. Something about the name written across the top of the file sparked a hint of recognition in his mind, but he couldn’t seem to place it. Insistently, the name conjured up images of sharp green eyes behind thin frames and a wide, friendly smile and he sighed again, shrugging his shoulders in defeat. No one he knew ever smiled like that.
Knox pulled open the double doors leading to the morgue, breathing in the cloying scent of formaldehyde and the sharp sting of disinfectant. Above him, the florescent bulbs were blinking out an erratic Morse code of sickly yellow light, its pulsing luminescence beating in time with the throbbing nerves at the doctor’s temple. No amount of painkillers or cigarettes ever seemed to stop his headaches, just as no number of sleeping pills ever helped him get a good night’s rest.
He turned again to the file in front of him, glancing over the data the crime scene’s investigators had sent over.
....Body discovered in a phone booth at ten pm last night by a woman wanting to make a call... core body temperature of 32°C at time of discovery... the victim was last seen in Central Headquarters at 6.30pm, injured with a cut to the right shoulder and seemingly in a high state of distress...
That last fact was written scrunched up messily at the bottom of the report, as if the author were unwilling to acknowledge it. The investigator’s own conclusion- rather hastily drawn, in Knox’s opinion- was that the soldier had been a victim of a mugging gone wrong, or some kind of personal grudge. Something about that didn’t seem right to Knox, didn’t seem to fit the facts that had been established. But Knox had, both during his time in Ishval and his current work as a coroner, learnt that the State had no reservations about covering up events that showed themselves as anything less than the wise, benevolent rulers they pretended to be. The investigations he carried out here in his morgue often had very little to do with bringing killers to justice and much more to do with the State twisting the results of his pathology reports to find the facts that suited them. Knox had long ago given up trying to protest this. After all, as Chris Mustang’s boy had commented darkly after a long night of drinking several years ago, in a country where war criminal such as them could walk free, what hope was there for justice for anyone else?
Done searching through the notes, Knox turned back to the body waiting on the sterile steel dissecting table, still hidden under the dull white shroud of the hospital sheet. Carefully, he peeled back the sheet, unveiling the cooling, greying corpse below, and felt, for the slightest of moments, his breath stop in his throat. Shock beat its frantic wings inside his chest as the memories came rushing back to him, memories of exactly where he knew the name on that file from.
Lieutenant Colonel Maes Hughes. Best friend to Roy Mustang, the boy he had watched grow from an impish child to a haunted, self-loathing young soldier and then to a driven, relentless officer. Knox hadn’t known Hughes all that well, hell, he hadn’t even recognised the guy’s name, but he knew what he had meant to Mustang. They had been pretty much inseparable during Ishval, Hughes’ cheerful nature and optimistic outlook having been exactly what Roy had needed to balance his natural tendency towards dark contemplation and to keep him sane during that unbearable time.
Knox had seen Mustang several times since Ishval. He was a regular at Chris Mustang’s bar, after all, and an old friend of Chris’, so they’d occasionally run into each other, often when Mustang’s thoughts tended to dark recollections and he’d come to his mother’s place in search of comfort. It was on such a night that the kid- and Knox could never stop thinking of him as Chris Mustang’s kid, despite all that had happened to them both- had ended up telling Knox his plans for the future of the country. He had been more than slightly drunk and his voice had been clouded by regret and weighted down with sorrow, but when Mustang had spoken of his dreams, Knox had once again seen the bright eyed youth who had so admired him, both for his role as a doctor and for his place in the military. That night, Knox had made a silent promise to himself to offer whatever support he could to Mustang, for the sake of an old friend and for his country, but most of all for the naive, hopeful young boy who had once made him so proud.
But Knox had always known that he was not the only one to offer support to Roy Mustang’s impossible dream. That young Hawkeye girl had been haunting Mustang since long before Ishval and he leant on her and her quiet, devoted strength more than he would ever admit. Chris had told Knox that the last time she had heard from her son, ‘Elizabeth’ had still been with him, as fierce and dedicated as ever, and he was very glad to hear it.
And Hughes... Hughes had always been the one that Chris would call when her son’s melancholic moods had grown too extreme, had always been the one to ground Roy, too help him see his way clear of despair. He had been the first person to pledge himself to Roy’s dream, had helped that dream grow from a fragile seed of an idea in a disillusioned young soldier’s mind to a grand ideal that had gripped the hearts of so many brave and worthy individuals.
And now he lay on a cold slab of steel in the city’s largest mortuary, the life that danced behind those green eyes extinguished forever. It shouldn’t matter to him, Knox told himself, Hughes was just another soldier that he had barely known and his association with Roy Mustang should not affect the way Knox felt about his death. Knox squeezed his eyes shut tightly, trying to regain some measure of calm, abruptly snapping them open again when images of cold, pain-filled, dark eyes swam in to replace the void left by his vision. Roy’s grief should not matter to him. Roy was not his son; he was nothing more than the adopted child of an old friend. But still, such rational reasoning could not stop the aching sympathy he felt in his chest when he thought of the boy dealing with the loss of his best friend.
Sighing, Knox turned his mind away, forcing himself to concentrate on the task at hand. He motioned to his assistant standing the other side of the large glass window and she hurriedly moved to join him in the morgue, carrying a notepad and camera. She was a rather timid, softly spoken girl, fresh out of medical school and still learning that dead bodies were not always as clean and inoffensive as they’d seemed on first-year dissection tables. Knox had often wanted to ask her what had caused her to choose such a grim, morbid profession, but had always stopped from actually doing so, reminding himself that not everyone viewed his job with the same distain as he did.
His assistant- he believed her name was Nicola- reached his side just as he finished removing the sheet that covered Maes Hughes’ corpse. The Lieutenant Colonel’s body was naked, his clothes having already been removed for use as evidence in whatever sham of a forensic investigation the military saw fit to conduct. Knox could clearly see the entrance wound of the bullet that had killed him, a small, innocuous-looking round hole almost directly above the centre of his heart, encircled by a black ring of gunpowder and cordite. Nicola passed him a voice recorder and he switched it on, speaking quietly but clearly into the microphone, his gravelly voice sounding tired and miserable even to himself.
“Nine thirty five am, tenth of September, nineteen fourteen. Commencing post-mortem examination of a white, Amestrian male currently identified as Lieutenant Colonel Maes Hughes of the Amestrian military.” Knox glanced down at the file in his hand. The investigations officer at the scene of the crime had made some basic measurements, height, weight, those kinds of things, so it wouldn’t be necessary for him to repeat them here.
“The victim’s height, weight and appearance are all in keeping with the identification as Lieutenant Colonel Hughes. The body shows indications of full rigor mortis, as is to be expected as the victim was discovered eleven hours ago.” Again, Knox consulted the file. The pathologist who had been present at the scene had been very thorough; he was clearly well practiced at his job. Knox supposed he’d been one of Hughes’ own men.
“Observations taken at the scene of the crime show only early stages of rigor mortis, with only muscles of the face, neck, hands and lower arms in a state of rigidity, suggesting that the victim was killed somewhere between two and four hours previously. This supports witness evidence that Lt. Colonel Hughes was seen at military command at six thirty that night.”
Knox broke off his note taking to examine the pattern of dark red marbling that stained the lower half of Hughes’ torso and the bottom of his legs. The bruise-like pattern was not quite as dark or as extensive as it would normally be- testimony to the large quantity of blood the man had lost. “Livor mortis is consistent with the position in which the body was found, showing that the victim was killed at the scene of the crime and was not moved... this is in keeping with forensic evidence found at the scene.”
He reached over to the small table next to him and selected a pair of brass callipers, watching Nicola take detailed photographs of the body as he did so. Knox walked over to Maes Hughes’ body and, trying not to look directly at the man’s face, proceeded to examine the bullet wound, making notes as he did so. “Cause of death is almost certainly due to the gunshot wound located directly above the heart... there is no exit wound, suggesting that the bullet was low-velocity. The entrance wound is...” Knox strained to read the numbers on the callipers, his poor eyesight and the flickering light making the task far harder than it should have been. “...0.45 inches in diameter, suggesting that the bullet used was a .45 calibre low-velocity bullet, the kind commonly used by the Amestrian military for semi automatic handguns. The patterns of burn marks around the wound are consistent with the attacker being roughly three to five feet away from the victim...”
Knox broke off as he heard voices coming down the corridor, the shrill, clearly unhappy tones of his secretary and another, low, commanding voice that he knew all too well.
“I assure you, ma’am, Dr Knox will allow me access to the morgue at this time. Yes, I am aware that he is currently conducting an autopsy, that is exactly why I need to talk with him. It’s a matter of significance to the military.”
“But Colonel Mustang, I’m afraid this is completely against regulations! Unless you can provide an explanation of the military significance of your visit, I’m going to have to ask you to leave.” His secretary really did have a very grating voice, Knox considered. He supposed he’d better intervene before the kid did or said anything to land him in serious trouble. His stomach churned heavily and his palms felt suddenly itchy at the thought of seeing Mustang again, of meeting those cold, expressionless eyes and having to explain to him how his best friend was killed.
“I’m afraid that information is highly classified, ma’am. However, if you have any suspicions as to the truth of my assertions then please do not hesitate to contact my superior, Lieutenant General Grumman, at East City. I am sure he will be more than happy to listen to your concerns.” Mustang’s voice was smooth and confident and Knox struggled to suppress a smile, aware that Nicola was watching him with curious eyes. Even now, as shaken up as the kid had to be, he could still manipulate those around him effortlessly. The footsteps grew louder, Mustang’s heavy, measured steps countered by the anxious scurrying of his secretary as she struggled to catch up with him. He could make out another set of boots against the tiles, too, soft, careful steps a few paces behind that put him in mind of blonde hair and sharp, amber eyes. Hawkeye was with him; that, at least, was good.
Knox walked over to the double doors, grimacing slightly as a twinge of pain shot through his back as he straightened up. He opened the doors just as Mustang was a few yards away, his secretary, a mousy, middle aged woman he only knew as ‘Mrs Lawton’, trailing just behind. He spoke clearly, with all the authority he could muster given how tired he’d been feeling recently.
“It’s okay, Mrs Lawton, let them through. I was aware that Colonel Mustang was likely to visit today. I apologise for not informing you in advance, I’m afraid that it slipped my mind.” His secretary narrowed her eyes at his words, clearly still suspicious, but she was not about to start questioning him here. She nodded tightly and turned away. Knox imagined he could hear the petulance with every step she took. God, sometimes he hated that irritating woman.
Mustang stepped into the morgue while Hawkeye hung back outside the doors. His eyes darted all around the blank, sterile room, stumbling hurriedly over the sight of the body lying on the dissection table before coming to rest on Knox himself. Mustang shot a brief, surreptitious glance at Nicola, who stood bemusedly by the table, a pen still poised to write in her hand. Knox understood his look and ushered the girl out of the morgue, making some excuse about needing a new tape for the recorder. When she was gone, Mustang finally turned to Knox, his pain-filled black eyes meeting the doctor’s own. Knox swallowed uncomfortably, tearing his eyes away from the intensity of the gaze. Mustang’s eyes were as cold and lost as he had imagined, and the sight was not any way less painful in reality.
“I just... had to see him for myself,” Mustang spoke very softly, almost a whisper, all traces of confidence gone from his voice. Knox felt a pang of sympathy shoot though him despite his determination to remain uninvolved. Mustang suddenly sounded so young...
“I was told late last night,” Mustang continued. “We came to Central on the overnight train. But I already knew long before military saw fit to inform me. He was trying to call me, you see, he needed to tell me something important. But before he could...” Mustang broke off, taking a deep, shuddering breath. He was staring at the floor now with a so uncharacteristic hesitancy the doctor felt quite taken aback. Mustang looked so desolate and lost. Knox had expected the news of the murder of his best friend to evoke in the young man the same smouldering, barely suppressed rage the doctor had seen dancing in his eyes after Ishval. But Mustang seemed to be in too much shock right now to even know how to act.
Mustang glanced up. “Can I...look at him?” Knox wanted to shudder at the uncertainty in his voice. The kid wasn’t supposed to be like this, it wasn’t right. Even in Ishval he’d never seemed quite so lost.
“Sure.” He wanted to say something comforting, but what could he say at a time like this? Mustang had no need for empty platitudes. He almost found himself reaching out towards Mustang, perhaps to put his hand on his shoulder in some weak imitation of comfort, but he stopped just in time, remembering the gloves he was wearing. The gloves that had touched the corpse of Mustang’s best friend... the boy would hardly want to receive comfort from such hands.
The young man moved slowly towards the table, his ungloved fists clenching unconsciously at his sides. His face was coldly impassive as he stared down at the body of his best friend, his eyes roaming over the dead man’s once cheerful face, now contorted in the pain of his final moments, frozen by death. Mustang’s hand shook almost unnoticeably as he brought it up to hover above the bullet wound that had stolen his friend’s life away, before his fingers moved to gently brush Hughes’ forehead. Knox saw him flinch as his hand touched the cold flesh. It was always quite shocking to realise just how much colder corpses were to living people. Mustang closed his eyes, and if Knox didn’t know better, he’d have sworn that the young man was praying, he was so still and calm.
Finally, Mustang opened his eyes and turned away from the table and Knox could see a determination in his eyes that had not been there before.
“Thank you,” He said softly. “Do you have any idea who might have done this?”
Knox shook his head. “None, although the entrance wound for the bullet suggests it’s a .45 calibre, the same type as used in all standard military handguns, as I’m sure you’re aware.” He spoke quietly, well aware that he shouldn’t be giving out the information. If this had been any other situation, the risk to his job would have made him much more unwilling to help the kid, but he couldn’t bring himself to be completely uncaring at a time like this. He was probably just getting old and sentimental.
Mustang nodded tightly. “That’s as I’d suspected. I’ve always thought there were those in the military who couldn’t be trusted. At least now there’ll be a chance to see how deep the corruption runs.”
Mustang walked back towards the exit, his footsteps heavy and resigned. Just before he was about to push open the door, he paused and turned back to look at Knox. A shiver ran through the doctor as he faced the young man he’d watched grow from a child. There was the calm, carefully controlled rage he had known he would see eventually. But it was far colder and more focussed than Knox had ever witnessed before, even in the dusty, bloodstained aftermath of Ishval.
“I will find whoever did this, Knox,” Mustang promised softly, his voice completely calm. “And when I do, I will kill them. I can promise you that.”
“I know.” Knox replied hoarsely, feeling far older at that moment than just his fifty years. He had known for a long time that the world was a cruel and unforgiving place, but it seemed there were still many ways in which he could be reminded of this, every now and then. He watched as Mustang walked out of the door, calling sharply to his lieutenant, and listened as their footsteps slowly faded down the hallway. He sighed, the sound seeming to fill up the whole of the dismal, white space, and wondered how long it would be before it was the kid’s own body that he found waiting for him on the morgue’s cold, steel table.
< /lj-cut>
The gloves felt heavy on his hands, the skin-tight rubber pinching around his tobacco-stained fingers, the thick, cut-resistant material causing his palms to sweat and itch. He had been putting on gloves exactly like these for over seven years now, but the heaviness never failed to annoy and surprise him. So unlike the ones he had worn when he was still practicing medicine, those had been as light and flexible as his own skin, or very nearly, always made of whatever latest cutting-edge polymer the State’s pet alchemists had designed. Knox knew he was likely idealising those surgical gloves, mistakenly remembering them to be so much better than the ones he had now, but he couldn’t help it. Things had been better then.
Dr Knox sighed harshly, stubbing out his cigarette and running tired eyes over the file he had been given for the latest body to grace his morgue. No photo for this one, but then, the corpse had only been discovered the night before. It was yet another soldier, not even into his thirties, if the ID was correct. Shot dead on the streets of Central, only a few streets away from military headquarters, of all things. Something about the name written across the top of the file sparked a hint of recognition in his mind, but he couldn’t seem to place it. Insistently, the name conjured up images of sharp green eyes behind thin frames and a wide, friendly smile and he sighed again, shrugging his shoulders in defeat. No one he knew ever smiled like that.
Knox pulled open the double doors leading to the morgue, breathing in the cloying scent of formaldehyde and the sharp sting of disinfectant. Above him, the florescent bulbs were blinking out an erratic Morse code of sickly yellow light, its pulsing luminescence beating in time with the throbbing nerves at the doctor’s temple. No amount of painkillers or cigarettes ever seemed to stop his headaches, just as no number of sleeping pills ever helped him get a good night’s rest.
He turned again to the file in front of him, glancing over the data the crime scene’s investigators had sent over.
....Body discovered in a phone booth at ten pm last night by a woman wanting to make a call... core body temperature of 32°C at time of discovery... the victim was last seen in Central Headquarters at 6.30pm, injured with a cut to the right shoulder and seemingly in a high state of distress...
That last fact was written scrunched up messily at the bottom of the report, as if the author were unwilling to acknowledge it. The investigator’s own conclusion- rather hastily drawn, in Knox’s opinion- was that the soldier had been a victim of a mugging gone wrong, or some kind of personal grudge. Something about that didn’t seem right to Knox, didn’t seem to fit the facts that had been established. But Knox had, both during his time in Ishval and his current work as a coroner, learnt that the State had no reservations about covering up events that showed themselves as anything less than the wise, benevolent rulers they pretended to be. The investigations he carried out here in his morgue often had very little to do with bringing killers to justice and much more to do with the State twisting the results of his pathology reports to find the facts that suited them. Knox had long ago given up trying to protest this. After all, as Chris Mustang’s boy had commented darkly after a long night of drinking several years ago, in a country where war criminal such as them could walk free, what hope was there for justice for anyone else?
Done searching through the notes, Knox turned back to the body waiting on the sterile steel dissecting table, still hidden under the dull white shroud of the hospital sheet. Carefully, he peeled back the sheet, unveiling the cooling, greying corpse below, and felt, for the slightest of moments, his breath stop in his throat. Shock beat its frantic wings inside his chest as the memories came rushing back to him, memories of exactly where he knew the name on that file from.
Lieutenant Colonel Maes Hughes. Best friend to Roy Mustang, the boy he had watched grow from an impish child to a haunted, self-loathing young soldier and then to a driven, relentless officer. Knox hadn’t known Hughes all that well, hell, he hadn’t even recognised the guy’s name, but he knew what he had meant to Mustang. They had been pretty much inseparable during Ishval, Hughes’ cheerful nature and optimistic outlook having been exactly what Roy had needed to balance his natural tendency towards dark contemplation and to keep him sane during that unbearable time.
Knox had seen Mustang several times since Ishval. He was a regular at Chris Mustang’s bar, after all, and an old friend of Chris’, so they’d occasionally run into each other, often when Mustang’s thoughts tended to dark recollections and he’d come to his mother’s place in search of comfort. It was on such a night that the kid- and Knox could never stop thinking of him as Chris Mustang’s kid, despite all that had happened to them both- had ended up telling Knox his plans for the future of the country. He had been more than slightly drunk and his voice had been clouded by regret and weighted down with sorrow, but when Mustang had spoken of his dreams, Knox had once again seen the bright eyed youth who had so admired him, both for his role as a doctor and for his place in the military. That night, Knox had made a silent promise to himself to offer whatever support he could to Mustang, for the sake of an old friend and for his country, but most of all for the naive, hopeful young boy who had once made him so proud.
But Knox had always known that he was not the only one to offer support to Roy Mustang’s impossible dream. That young Hawkeye girl had been haunting Mustang since long before Ishval and he leant on her and her quiet, devoted strength more than he would ever admit. Chris had told Knox that the last time she had heard from her son, ‘Elizabeth’ had still been with him, as fierce and dedicated as ever, and he was very glad to hear it.
And Hughes... Hughes had always been the one that Chris would call when her son’s melancholic moods had grown too extreme, had always been the one to ground Roy, too help him see his way clear of despair. He had been the first person to pledge himself to Roy’s dream, had helped that dream grow from a fragile seed of an idea in a disillusioned young soldier’s mind to a grand ideal that had gripped the hearts of so many brave and worthy individuals.
And now he lay on a cold slab of steel in the city’s largest mortuary, the life that danced behind those green eyes extinguished forever. It shouldn’t matter to him, Knox told himself, Hughes was just another soldier that he had barely known and his association with Roy Mustang should not affect the way Knox felt about his death. Knox squeezed his eyes shut tightly, trying to regain some measure of calm, abruptly snapping them open again when images of cold, pain-filled, dark eyes swam in to replace the void left by his vision. Roy’s grief should not matter to him. Roy was not his son; he was nothing more than the adopted child of an old friend. But still, such rational reasoning could not stop the aching sympathy he felt in his chest when he thought of the boy dealing with the loss of his best friend.
Sighing, Knox turned his mind away, forcing himself to concentrate on the task at hand. He motioned to his assistant standing the other side of the large glass window and she hurriedly moved to join him in the morgue, carrying a notepad and camera. She was a rather timid, softly spoken girl, fresh out of medical school and still learning that dead bodies were not always as clean and inoffensive as they’d seemed on first-year dissection tables. Knox had often wanted to ask her what had caused her to choose such a grim, morbid profession, but had always stopped from actually doing so, reminding himself that not everyone viewed his job with the same distain as he did.
His assistant- he believed her name was Nicola- reached his side just as he finished removing the sheet that covered Maes Hughes’ corpse. The Lieutenant Colonel’s body was naked, his clothes having already been removed for use as evidence in whatever sham of a forensic investigation the military saw fit to conduct. Knox could clearly see the entrance wound of the bullet that had killed him, a small, innocuous-looking round hole almost directly above the centre of his heart, encircled by a black ring of gunpowder and cordite. Nicola passed him a voice recorder and he switched it on, speaking quietly but clearly into the microphone, his gravelly voice sounding tired and miserable even to himself.
“Nine thirty five am, tenth of September, nineteen fourteen. Commencing post-mortem examination of a white, Amestrian male currently identified as Lieutenant Colonel Maes Hughes of the Amestrian military.” Knox glanced down at the file in his hand. The investigations officer at the scene of the crime had made some basic measurements, height, weight, those kinds of things, so it wouldn’t be necessary for him to repeat them here.
“The victim’s height, weight and appearance are all in keeping with the identification as Lieutenant Colonel Hughes. The body shows indications of full rigor mortis, as is to be expected as the victim was discovered eleven hours ago.” Again, Knox consulted the file. The pathologist who had been present at the scene had been very thorough; he was clearly well practiced at his job. Knox supposed he’d been one of Hughes’ own men.
“Observations taken at the scene of the crime show only early stages of rigor mortis, with only muscles of the face, neck, hands and lower arms in a state of rigidity, suggesting that the victim was killed somewhere between two and four hours previously. This supports witness evidence that Lt. Colonel Hughes was seen at military command at six thirty that night.”
Knox broke off his note taking to examine the pattern of dark red marbling that stained the lower half of Hughes’ torso and the bottom of his legs. The bruise-like pattern was not quite as dark or as extensive as it would normally be- testimony to the large quantity of blood the man had lost. “Livor mortis is consistent with the position in which the body was found, showing that the victim was killed at the scene of the crime and was not moved... this is in keeping with forensic evidence found at the scene.”
He reached over to the small table next to him and selected a pair of brass callipers, watching Nicola take detailed photographs of the body as he did so. Knox walked over to Maes Hughes’ body and, trying not to look directly at the man’s face, proceeded to examine the bullet wound, making notes as he did so. “Cause of death is almost certainly due to the gunshot wound located directly above the heart... there is no exit wound, suggesting that the bullet was low-velocity. The entrance wound is...” Knox strained to read the numbers on the callipers, his poor eyesight and the flickering light making the task far harder than it should have been. “...0.45 inches in diameter, suggesting that the bullet used was a .45 calibre low-velocity bullet, the kind commonly used by the Amestrian military for semi automatic handguns. The patterns of burn marks around the wound are consistent with the attacker being roughly three to five feet away from the victim...”
Knox broke off as he heard voices coming down the corridor, the shrill, clearly unhappy tones of his secretary and another, low, commanding voice that he knew all too well.
“I assure you, ma’am, Dr Knox will allow me access to the morgue at this time. Yes, I am aware that he is currently conducting an autopsy, that is exactly why I need to talk with him. It’s a matter of significance to the military.”
“But Colonel Mustang, I’m afraid this is completely against regulations! Unless you can provide an explanation of the military significance of your visit, I’m going to have to ask you to leave.” His secretary really did have a very grating voice, Knox considered. He supposed he’d better intervene before the kid did or said anything to land him in serious trouble. His stomach churned heavily and his palms felt suddenly itchy at the thought of seeing Mustang again, of meeting those cold, expressionless eyes and having to explain to him how his best friend was killed.
“I’m afraid that information is highly classified, ma’am. However, if you have any suspicions as to the truth of my assertions then please do not hesitate to contact my superior, Lieutenant General Grumman, at East City. I am sure he will be more than happy to listen to your concerns.” Mustang’s voice was smooth and confident and Knox struggled to suppress a smile, aware that Nicola was watching him with curious eyes. Even now, as shaken up as the kid had to be, he could still manipulate those around him effortlessly. The footsteps grew louder, Mustang’s heavy, measured steps countered by the anxious scurrying of his secretary as she struggled to catch up with him. He could make out another set of boots against the tiles, too, soft, careful steps a few paces behind that put him in mind of blonde hair and sharp, amber eyes. Hawkeye was with him; that, at least, was good.
Knox walked over to the double doors, grimacing slightly as a twinge of pain shot through his back as he straightened up. He opened the doors just as Mustang was a few yards away, his secretary, a mousy, middle aged woman he only knew as ‘Mrs Lawton’, trailing just behind. He spoke clearly, with all the authority he could muster given how tired he’d been feeling recently.
“It’s okay, Mrs Lawton, let them through. I was aware that Colonel Mustang was likely to visit today. I apologise for not informing you in advance, I’m afraid that it slipped my mind.” His secretary narrowed her eyes at his words, clearly still suspicious, but she was not about to start questioning him here. She nodded tightly and turned away. Knox imagined he could hear the petulance with every step she took. God, sometimes he hated that irritating woman.
Mustang stepped into the morgue while Hawkeye hung back outside the doors. His eyes darted all around the blank, sterile room, stumbling hurriedly over the sight of the body lying on the dissection table before coming to rest on Knox himself. Mustang shot a brief, surreptitious glance at Nicola, who stood bemusedly by the table, a pen still poised to write in her hand. Knox understood his look and ushered the girl out of the morgue, making some excuse about needing a new tape for the recorder. When she was gone, Mustang finally turned to Knox, his pain-filled black eyes meeting the doctor’s own. Knox swallowed uncomfortably, tearing his eyes away from the intensity of the gaze. Mustang’s eyes were as cold and lost as he had imagined, and the sight was not any way less painful in reality.
“I just... had to see him for myself,” Mustang spoke very softly, almost a whisper, all traces of confidence gone from his voice. Knox felt a pang of sympathy shoot though him despite his determination to remain uninvolved. Mustang suddenly sounded so young...
“I was told late last night,” Mustang continued. “We came to Central on the overnight train. But I already knew long before military saw fit to inform me. He was trying to call me, you see, he needed to tell me something important. But before he could...” Mustang broke off, taking a deep, shuddering breath. He was staring at the floor now with a so uncharacteristic hesitancy the doctor felt quite taken aback. Mustang looked so desolate and lost. Knox had expected the news of the murder of his best friend to evoke in the young man the same smouldering, barely suppressed rage the doctor had seen dancing in his eyes after Ishval. But Mustang seemed to be in too much shock right now to even know how to act.
Mustang glanced up. “Can I...look at him?” Knox wanted to shudder at the uncertainty in his voice. The kid wasn’t supposed to be like this, it wasn’t right. Even in Ishval he’d never seemed quite so lost.
“Sure.” He wanted to say something comforting, but what could he say at a time like this? Mustang had no need for empty platitudes. He almost found himself reaching out towards Mustang, perhaps to put his hand on his shoulder in some weak imitation of comfort, but he stopped just in time, remembering the gloves he was wearing. The gloves that had touched the corpse of Mustang’s best friend... the boy would hardly want to receive comfort from such hands.
The young man moved slowly towards the table, his ungloved fists clenching unconsciously at his sides. His face was coldly impassive as he stared down at the body of his best friend, his eyes roaming over the dead man’s once cheerful face, now contorted in the pain of his final moments, frozen by death. Mustang’s hand shook almost unnoticeably as he brought it up to hover above the bullet wound that had stolen his friend’s life away, before his fingers moved to gently brush Hughes’ forehead. Knox saw him flinch as his hand touched the cold flesh. It was always quite shocking to realise just how much colder corpses were to living people. Mustang closed his eyes, and if Knox didn’t know better, he’d have sworn that the young man was praying, he was so still and calm.
Finally, Mustang opened his eyes and turned away from the table and Knox could see a determination in his eyes that had not been there before.
“Thank you,” He said softly. “Do you have any idea who might have done this?”
Knox shook his head. “None, although the entrance wound for the bullet suggests it’s a .45 calibre, the same type as used in all standard military handguns, as I’m sure you’re aware.” He spoke quietly, well aware that he shouldn’t be giving out the information. If this had been any other situation, the risk to his job would have made him much more unwilling to help the kid, but he couldn’t bring himself to be completely uncaring at a time like this. He was probably just getting old and sentimental.
Mustang nodded tightly. “That’s as I’d suspected. I’ve always thought there were those in the military who couldn’t be trusted. At least now there’ll be a chance to see how deep the corruption runs.”
Mustang walked back towards the exit, his footsteps heavy and resigned. Just before he was about to push open the door, he paused and turned back to look at Knox. A shiver ran through the doctor as he faced the young man he’d watched grow from a child. There was the calm, carefully controlled rage he had known he would see eventually. But it was far colder and more focussed than Knox had ever witnessed before, even in the dusty, bloodstained aftermath of Ishval.
“I will find whoever did this, Knox,” Mustang promised softly, his voice completely calm. “And when I do, I will kill them. I can promise you that.”
“I know.” Knox replied hoarsely, feeling far older at that moment than just his fifty years. He had known for a long time that the world was a cruel and unforgiving place, but it seemed there were still many ways in which he could be reminded of this, every now and then. He watched as Mustang walked out of the door, calling sharply to his lieutenant, and listened as their footsteps slowly faded down the hallway. He sighed, the sound seeming to fill up the whole of the dismal, white space, and wondered how long it would be before it was the kid’s own body that he found waiting for him on the morgue’s cold, steel table.
< /lj-cut>