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Between the Lines
Between the Lines
Part I of II - Read All About It
No-one had lived in this dump for an age; she had to step between newspapers going to
the colour of tea as she made her way upstairs, shaking off her umbrella, fumbling with
handbag and notebook and notes and -
She shrieked involuntarily as one wet heel caught the edge of a stair and grabbed for the
banister, which creaked a warning under her grip. Papers and handbag dropped to the
stairs and she leaned quickly into the wall, tested the twist of her ankle, looked down at
the wet umbrella that had landed on her notebook and said, " Damn it . . ."
The first thing she said when banging into the room at the top of the stairs, trailing her
umbrella behind herself and with a wad of disorganised paper in her arms was, "This
place is a death trap. Why didn't anyone tell me-"
"Yeah, you wanna watch yourself on the stairs," the man at the window said, without
lowering the camera from his face. All she had was the back of his gingery-brown head.
"You bring any coffee?"
"Luckily not, or I'd have third degree burns now." she said, dropping her umbrella
against the wall. More stacks of newspaper, bare floorboards and peeling wallpaper.
This place really was a dump of the highest degree . . . or the lowest degree, really . . .
"Huh. Pity. Still, if you stay on surveillance I can go out for doughnuts . . ."
She sighed, and dragged her fingers through her damp, dark hair as a rough comb. "Look,
let's start this off properly if we're going to be stuck on this project for however long. I'm
Alisa Luis."
"John," the photographer said, still focusing out of the window. "And I don't know about
how long we'll be 'stuck' together for. I've had three journalists mysteriously quit on me
already."
"Well, not me." Alisa said firmly, dusting off a newspaper with her notebook to put her
handbag on top of it, and approaching the window with the papers still clasped to
herself. "I need this assignment."
"For the recognition? For the awards? For the sake of openness, freedom and Truth?"
Her journalistic pride and integrity fluttered miserably in her stomach and she admitted,
"For the money."
"Ah. Good reason. Just close your eyes and think of the money and it all works out . . ."
"Is that why you're doing this?"
"D'you think this is my work of choice?" John said, finally raising his head and lowering
his camera. Older than her, chubby-faced, stubbled around the chin and lined around the
brown eyes, and a very determined glint buried in there. "Already spent four weeks
spying on possibly the world's dullest family. If something doesn't happen soon . . ."
"John . . . Henning? Are you -"
The man waved a hand at her almost in a go away gesture. Alisa stared.
"But - John Henning ? I saw your photographs from Ishbal while I was still at school - they,
they were one of the reasons I-"
"Yes, well, that was then, wasn't it?" John said tetchily. "No wars under this Fuhrer, you'll
notice. And I get to repay him for that by stalking his weird little family." He turned the
camera out of the window again and began to focus it. "Ah. Here we go. Come on, first
sighting of your prey . . ."
Alisa stepped forward, crouched awkwardly at the window and screwed her face up,
determining not to wear so high heels or so tight a skirt tomorrow. Coming up the street
through the dull running rain was - a figure topped by yellow -
The yellow tipped back. A rather short man, yellow-blond hair in his face, with a toddler
riding on his shoulders holding a yellow umbrella over them both and talking to the
man's ear. The man had his head tilted attentively. He picked up speed very suddenly,
pelting the last few feet to the path, and she had to imagine the whooshing noise as the
little boy laughed and the umbrella bounced and a long tail of blond hair flew back -
"Oh that's adorable," she murmured, as the man opened the gate, set the child on the
path, and they both ran for the door to get out of the rain.
"No, wrong thinking, very wrong thinking." John lowered his camera again and scowled
at her. "You were a schoolgirl while I was in Ishbal? Damn, it shows. They are not
adorable , little girl, they are your subject . You-"
The urge to slap him actually jerked her hand but she held it down. Being young and
female can go both ways for you in journalism, and Alisa had to learn to sit on her
loathing and her rage sometimes, and she knew it . . .
"Don't get involved, okay? Because the best thing that can happen for us is for something
bad to happen to them , you do get that, don't you? The beautiful contradiction of
journalism." He grinned, and took a box of cigarettes from his shirt pocket. "We don't do
the things we do because of happy kittens and adorableness . We do 'em because the
world's gone to crap and someone needs to point that out."
"Or we just invade the privacy of perfectly happy families because they happen to
contain the head of state." she said flatly.
John shrugged and struck a match. "Look at it this way. You want a decent paycheque
and the chance of ever getting off this assignment? Then you hope to hell that they do
something newsworthy." He flicked the matchstick way across the dust-furred
floorboards, spotted damp-dark now from Alisa's dripping passage across the room.
"One of them could have an affair. Or get ill. Or they could split up. Or, damn, the Fuhrer
could knock 'im up again. That would be perfect . C'mon, Fuhrer, do your duty . . ." he
murmured, cigarette clamped in his teeth, focusing on individual windows of the house
though his lens.
"You are sick ."
"I'm a realist. And the same to you, by the way, little girl."
Alisa swallowed and breathed hard through her nose for a moment, and unclenched her
hands. "I suppose that is what everyone wants," she said sullenly. "All the gory details of
how he even ended up pregnant in the first place."
"'Alchemical accident'." John said, camera still moving slowly along the front of the
house. "And never a word since on how it happened or how that even works . I mean . . ."
Alisa raised an eyebrow at his gut and said, "You could fit a kid in there, maybe."
" Hey , little girl. You can leave the personal out of it."
"Then you can stop calling me 'little girl'." she said, as a light flicked on in the ground
floor room of the terrace opposite them.
"Damn modern women." John muttered. "Look, I don't want the gory details. I don't
want to know the first thing about it. It's weird enough that the ruler of our country is -
you know - without him actually having a kid by - you know -"
"I'm not sure I do know. What is 'weird' and how is it weird?"
"Damn modern women journalists. Don't ask me questions. I am not your subject. Focus
on them - and I'll get us some coffee."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
John already had a schedule of the movements of the house - they rarely changed - but
someone still had to be there absurdly early just in case, just in case . . .
He'd pinned a note to the wall next to the window: They Are Not Adorable. She tore it
down and crumpled it up, and threw it to the papers stacked against the wall to rot with
them.
Weak early-morning sunlight like water seeping across the street, and a cat padding
underneath a parked car. Alisa yawned and huddled over her coffee, because the only
piece of advice she'd felt she'd needed to take from John was to bring a flask. She had a
pair of binoculars, and her notebook, and coffee, and an endless supply of yawns . . .
The curtains jerked open in one of the rooms at the top of the house. She raised the
binoculars quickly; the blond haired man, Edward Elric, with loose long hair, and a
toothbrush hanging out of his mouth as he shoved the curtains open. He looked about as
drowsy at the morning as she felt. There was movement behind him, another figure in
the room, and he turned and threw the toothbrush at it in the same second, shouting
something.
She really wished she had some sound to work from . . . but bugging their house was
beyond simple invasion of privacy and into a whole new territory that she didn't even
want to think about.
No more movement, for a long time, and then a car pulled up at the foot of the path and
the cat fled from its hiding place and disappeared into the bushes at the foot of
someone's garden. A blond man got out of the car and leaned against its closed door,
lighting a cigarette. The front door of the house opened and as John's notes had said -
there was the Fuhrer, in full uniform, and Mr Elric hiking up the boy into his arms, and
she didn't need to be a good lip reader to know bye-bye Daddy when she saw it. The
Fuhrer touched the back of the boy's head and said something, then looked to Mr Elric,
Edward, again, who said something with a half-annoyed smirk. The Fuhrer gave a full
smirk and murmured something back and just smiled at his scowl, and kissed him.
Eyes closed and quiet together.
And then he walked down the path, and the driver ground out his cigarette and opened
the door, and they exchanged a few words before he got in too and the car moved away.
The little boy waved bye-bye from his . . . father's? . . . arms, and then Edward said
something to him, and kissed the side of his head, and closed the door behind them.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"They do that every morning?" she said, as John tossed her a paper-wrapped sandwich.
"This better not be egg. I hate egg."
"Don't worry, princess, it's cheese. And yeah, every morning." John gave her a level,
unimpressed gaze. "You're thinking, 'oh, but that's adorable ', aren't you?"
"Shut up." she said, and unwrapped her sandwich. "They seem like a really nice family."
"A really nice all-male family. That can't be right."
"Why not? I've only been watching them two days and already the one thing I know is
that they love that little boy."
"Well, that's nice and all, but you do know that that's not what people want to read, right?
Plenty of people in this country wouldn't be surprised to read that they're neglecting the
kid in some way-"
"Don't. Just don't, that's sick. They're a good family ."
"Children need a mother."
"Children need to be loved. And he is."
"Most people wouldn't be surprised to read that the kid's really messed up either, you
know. Two dads? That's just-" John wrinkled his forehead.
"There are cultures out there where children are brought up collectively by women and
almost never see a man until they're grown." Alisa said calmly. "The kids grow up fine."
"And is there any culture out there where the kids are raised by men alone?"
"You know that's not the point." Alisa could barely fit her mouth around the brick of a
sandwich but she was hungry . She chewed for a moment and then said, a little muffled,
"My best friend in high school was only brought up by her dad. She was fine."
"She wasn't brought up to believe that that's normal, though, was she?"
"How do you know he is?" She didn't know why she was feeling so defensive about this.
"He's four years old, what does he know about 'normal'? And just because it's not usual
doesn't mean it's not-"
"I wouldn't let my ex-wife bring up my two little girls with another woman," John
muttered, polishing off his own sandwich while Alisa was still trying to get her mouth
around bite number two.
Alisa had a mean thought about why anyone would want to divorce this man, but said,
"What would be the problem? Why shouldn't he be brought up by his dads?"
"Kids need a mother. To learn - well. He'll grow up messed up."
"By 'messed up' do you mean gay? Because I really don't think it works like that-"
"Hey. Movement."
John had already crouched and brought out his camera, focusing down at the front door,
and she turned quickly, keeping ducked behind the windowsill. Out came the boy in his
little yellow raincoat, and out came Edward carrying a closed umbrella and a paper bag
of . . . she couldn't tell. The boy ran for the gate at the foot of the path and Edward called
something, and the boy waited there as the door was locked and Edward hurried to his
side to let him out. They walked together down the street, through yesterday's puddles
underneath a grey sky.
"They're a nice family," Alisa insisted, and tore another mouth-very-much-ful off her
sandwich.
"What we need is to talk to the kid." John said. "See if he is messed up."
"For god's sake ," she muttered, and didn't care how unladylike blaspheming through a
mouthful of bread and cheese was. "Do they go on a walk every day?"

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