You Have To Let People Help You

I don't own FMA, nor do I own the cover image.

Enjoy.

Roy Mustang walked into a wall in his bedroom for the third time in the last three days. His younger bodyguard, Emily, stood beside him. She had a hand on his arm and was attempting to guide him out of the room. Both his arms were held out in front of him as if he were a zombie looking for its next victim.

He felt the wooden doorframe to the outside of his room. He finally entered the hallway of his house, needing Emily's guidance to find the stairs.

"Sir, don't worry, you'll get used to it." She said, as if she knew everything about it.

She only knew half of it.

She eased him down the stairs and brought him into the kitchen/dining room where she sat him down at the table and walked to the kitchen to make breakfast.

Roy couldn't even make breakfast for himself. A 14 year-old girl had to do it or him.

Never mind that she was the youngest state alchemist ever and younger sister to most respected state alchemist ever Edward Elric.

Never mind that she was one of his two body guards, the other being Riza Hawkeye.

"Why are you doing this Major?" He asked her calmly.

"Because I understand the feeling of needing help. And I owe you that help." She replied as if it were a simple 'good morning.'

"You don't owe me." He replied.

"Yes I do. And so do my brothers, but I owe you the most." She said, flipping the pancake she had in a pan.

"What do you owe me for?" He asked, sure she would trip up and admit to not actually owing anything.

"3 years, 2 months, 1 week, 5 days, 17 hours, 15 minutes, and 12 seconds ago. Do you remember? I was captured by terrorists while investigating with my brothers. It was about a year after we joined. I didn't come back from that mission. I was captured. Do you remember that Sir?" She asked, remaining focused on her pancakes.

He didn't answer.

"Well I do. I remember it like it was yesterday. Those bastards tortured me for information on the military. Things I didn't know. They shocked me and cut me. They came this close to killing me," she held up two fingers about a decimeter apart from each other, "But they all believed I could be valuable, so they didn't kill me. Instead they left me in a broom closet. They brought me out once a day to shock me a few times for info. But then they'd leave me to bleed in that broom closet. I almost died in there from blood loss alone. But I knew I couldn't give up, someone would come."

"I was there for 11 months. By the time my brothers found me I had gone into a coma. I then spent the next 3 months in that coma, and another month after I woke up recovering. I needed physical therapy." She moved the pancakes onto a plate. "But you convinced the Fuhrer not to discharge me despite the fact that I was virtually useless in that state. You then proceeded to make me one of your bodyguards. Granting me a position of safety from something like that ever happening again. So, yes I do owe you." She finished, brining the food over to the table.

"What does that have to do with understanding how it feels to need help?" Roy asked, searching the table with his hands for his utensils.

"You know, Ed didn't leave my bedside once the whole 4 months I was in the hospital. When I did wake up, I could't walk. People needed to get me things, they needed to do things for me. I hated it. I hated that feeling of helplessness. It's how you feel now, and I can tell you it won't always be like this." She smiled, even though she knew he couldn't see it.

"But you can walk now. I won't be able to see again." He replied.

"You think I don't still feel them sometimes? The scars those bastards gave me. Sometimes I just want to lie down and be babied by everyone because I got hurt. But I don't because, if my big brother has taught me anything, it's that when you fall you need to stand back up." She placed the fork under his right palm and the knife under his left.

"And you have to let people help you."

It was only a month later that Emily Elric was reported missing. Gone just like that. Edward and Alphonse didn't know.

But Mustang knew where she was.

Where her body was.

He didn't tell the brothers because he couldn't listen to Edward and Alphonse break down.

She was lying dead in a ditch on the outskirts of East City. Major Armstrong had found her there. Roy had convinced him not to tell the brothers.

But they would find out eventually.

She had been murdered...

...by the same bastards who had nearly killed her years before.

And they would pay.

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