FMA Fanfic: Giving Up the Ghost
x-posted:
[LJ] fma_het
[LJ] fma_rare
Giving Up the Ghost.
by arcanewinter. G 2049 Roy x Gracia. Fullmetal Alchemist. future!fic.
Roy would rather suffer than betray his memory, but neither turns out to be necessary.
Roy would never know exactly what happened the night he finally told her, the night his vision suddenly lost focus, like a man without his glasses.
He’d been alone that night, not because he had no choice, but because he had politely refused an invitation to dinner with a beautiful woman and her endearing daughter. He would have enjoyed himself–they all would have, but Roy couldn’t allow it. Not with her.
Instead, he alleviated his conscience, as always, through isolation in a lonely and empty house. He’d been reading a book when it happened, the small, printed text going just far enough out of focus that he couldn’t read it. Rubbing his eye didn’t help; squinting did, but just barely.
Still in his thirties, he could only attribute it to weariness catching up with him a little more abruptly than was usual. He wouldn’t have been much of a dinner companion tonight anyway, it seemed.
But as he got up to return the book to its shelf, for now useless, the headache descended on him like a hammer, and the sound of the book hitting the floor nearly caused him to follow it. He reached out, groping the air for something, anything to keep him upright, and his hand struck the chair at his desk.
He staggered the short distance to it. His limbs felt as though they were rapidly solidifying to lead, too heavy to move, chained to an anchor that he vaguely registered as his own flesh and bone. Concentration was agony, but he rounded the chair carefully, finally releasing his weight to it and nearly collapsing. His chest was expanding and contracting as usual, but it seemed impossible that it should do so.
For a long while he lay with his head on the desk, feeling as though he would be sick. Everything was so heavy, so alien, yet somehow familiar.
. . . Familiar. Why shouldn’t his own body feel familiar?
He remained still, counting the seconds of a ticking clock, breathing slowly. The painful constriction began to abate.
Brow furrowed, he opened his eye with hesitance. The brightness of the desk lamp was alarming, but almost welcome; still, its light fell on blurred objects he recognized only from memory, and the pain persisted, though now a dull ache, leaving him in a daze. Physically he felt light again, but his thoughts moved like moisture in a fog. Could his injury have affected more than they thought, even years later? Could he be going fully blind now?
But the ornaments on the desk were easier to see than the rest of the room. There was a photograph standing just beyond where his head still rested, the wood grain of its frame clear and sharp at this proximity.
He lifted his head slowly until the glare from the lamp slipped off the glass, revealing the three friends he often viewed, two men and a woman whose recognition heralded another surge between his temples. Cringing, he prepared for the pain he couldn’t rationalize.
But there was no further pain. Instead, with his attention resting on the woman, he became so full of feeling that it seemed he was merely a vessel meant to spill it, not keep it. It was a focused, incensed delirium, an elation that had no limit, a complete devotion that needed no justification or explanation.
It was love.
It was love, only he barely recognized it. It was love without his cynicism and his self-protection, and it was a love that completely eclipsed the growing affection he knew he felt for this woman, an affection that he stamped out whenever it rose up, for it was betrayal, and it was a desire he should not feel.
But this, this was different, and he was remembering–remembering–what it felt like the day he became a father, thinking he could not possibly contain more emotion than at that moment only to discover that it grew with every passing day in her tiny, perfect presence.
It was too much. The ache had moved to his chest, and though it was no longer painful, it was harder to bear.
And underneath it all, Roy knew none of this was making sense. But he couldn’t think clearly, could barely think at all, and his attention was already drifting against his will, sliding to the left, passing over the bespectacled man at the center to find the man at his side.
It was Roy’s own image. He knew in the back of his mind that it was his younger self, but he perceived him with detachment, though it was far from objectivity. The inexplicable torrent of feeling had returned, and though this love didn’t know him like it knew her, it could have. It was strong enough for it.
Again the unbearable ache, the loss, but none of this was important, he had a higher task to accomplish.
What higher task? he demanded of himself, forcing a moment of pause, but there was no answer in the tenuous stillness. Why couldn’t he trace the line between his own thoughts? Why couldn’t he follow them? He was surely losing his mind; something had broken; a shard of bone or bullet had to have worked its way back into more sensitive tissues.
But there was no more time for analysis. The searing pain in his skull had returned, swelling to full force in a heartbeat, and he was sinking in it, consciousness forced out of him like air from his lungs. His vision faded to nothing, though he knew it was not blindness, and last thing he heard was his own voice, breathing an apology.
* * * * *
When Roy woke again, he felt more like himself. He could think clearly; he could see clearly. He felt in control again.
This time, however, he was not alone.
“Gracia,” he murmured, blinking up at her worried face as he lifted his hand to his head, not to ensure physical soundness, but to be sure the patch was where it belonged. “Why are you here?”
“You told me to come over immediately.” Her voice was reserved, but her green eyes were sharp with concern as she appraised him. “Are you all right, Roy?”
Roy. Gracia. His conscience allowed them at least these.
“I’m fine,” he answered, attempting to collect his faculties as swiftly as possible despite what had happened, and what he had yet to sort out. Try as he might, he could not extinguish the urge to impress her, and he was far from impressive lying on the floor. The less prideful parts of him would rather have remained in her arms, but they submitted all too easily under his practiced denial, and he moved away from her as he sat up. He took the time now to rub at his temple, but the pain there was just a phantom, a memory. How exactly had he ordered her here without his knowledge? “What else did I say?”
She frowned, hesitant. “You don’t remember?” She obviously didn’t agree with his self-prognosis, but she seemed reluctant to answer his question for other reasons.
Roy paused, earnestly re-thinking the events just before he’d blacked out, but the result was the same. He had no recollection of contacting anyone, let alone Gracia.
“I must have hit my head,” he muttered, rising warily. It embarrassed him to have to say such a thing, but he had no other excuse that made sense. He extended his hand to her and helped her to her feet, releasing her at the proper moment. It felt too soon.
She brought her hands together in front of her. His hung awkwardly at his sides.
“It’ll come to me,” he added. He didn’t want to upset her. Still, the words that followed seemed to pain her, though she spoke them lightly.
“You told me . . . You told me you missed me. And you asked for Elysia–you said you needed to hear her voice. But she was already asleep.”
Gracia’s hands tensed as she kept her gaze on them, her expression shifting subtly.
Roy repeated her words in his mind, but they triggered nothing. Was it possible someone else had called her? Had it been some coincidental, unrelated prank? His anger spiked at the thought of it, but her unsettled expression plainly told him there was more.
Involuntarily, he stepped closer to her, as though to protect her from what had already happened.
“What else did I say?” he prodded gently, studying her face.
“Oh, Roy, are you sure you don’t remember?” She seemed distraught as she met his gaze again, searching him as he searched her, needing an assurance he didn’t know how to give.
“It’s coming back to me,” he lied tentatively. He had to know what she had heard, why she was upset.
She bowed her head again. Roy thought he saw the color rising in her face, but the light in the room was too dim to be sure.
“You told me . . .” She paused, then went on carefully as though to assure herself she’d only have to say it once. “You said you had something very important to tell me.”
And she lifted her eyes to him with a veiled hope that nevertheless cut deep into Roy’s chest. He didn’t know what that something was. He didn’t know what to tell her, or what she wanted him to say. What was she hoping for? What did she expect from him when she hurried to him tonight? What was she so afraid of leaving here without?
Roy frowned, staring hard at the floor to think, but there was only one revelation there for him: there was nothing he could make up that wouldn’t be a disappointment to her. He could only tell her the truth.
“Gracia, I–”
Though he didn’t dare meet her gaze, he could still sense the brightening of her expression.
“I don’t know what it was, Gracia,” he said gently, though even he could still detect some of his usual gruffness. “I don’t know what happened tonight.”
He was still unable to look at her in the silence that followed. He hated that he didn’t have answers for something he was responsible for. He hated that he couldn’t be honest with her, that she had somehow become involved in his confusion tonight.
But the silence was not a long one.
“One of the neighbors is watching Elysia for me. I should be getting back if you’re sure you’re all right.”
Roy nodded stiffly. “Thank you for coming by.”
She smiled somewhat wistfully and turned to leave, but not before Roy saw her lose that smile completely.
He stepped forward, helplessly. “Gracia, I’m sorry–”
“You know, it’s funny,” she interrupted, and though her voice was quiet, something about it commanded his stillness. “I guess I’m bound to think this of everyone sooner or later, but you–when you called–” She turned back to him hesitantly, her voice unsteady and her brows knitting as she tried to maintain a more pleasant expression. “You sounded just like him.”
As Roy watched, her expression finally fell, and when she reached out for him he received her with a growing numbness that finally burst through him, a chill that left his nerves on end as tingling, half-formed thoughts seizing in his brain.
‘Like him.’
He held her close against him. He could feel the grief shuddering through her, the need, but his heart was stumbling over a brighter obstacle, a tease of a riddle that promised reward even if he couldn’t answer it exactly right.
He’d been given permission, hadn’t he? Not even permission–an order. Roy hadn’t set this up, but someone had.
Savoring it, he let his arms surround her more tightly, inhaling with just the beginning of freedom the scent of her hair. “Gracia,” he murmured to her, “I know what it was I wanted to tell you.”
When she lifted her eyes to him, too guarded now for hope, he had no words prepared, but it was his kiss that told her, and her kiss that soon answered.
Roy would never know exactly what happened the night he was finally told, the night his life gained focus like a man without his guilt.
But he had his theories.