Disclaimer: Definitely not mine. Anyone believing I could create this world and characters needs even more help than me.
AN: Well, it didn't turn out quite so good as I wished it would, but… oh well… I'll share anyway. Honest opinions appreciated.
Homecoming
They left en masse, a single train filled with the world's deadliest weapons, an amalgam of strengths, powers, and purposes that had almost managed to camouflage both Roy's youth and his arrogance.
They came home in waves.
The first wave of returning alchemists was soft, a lover's trial kiss, with many a shattered limb but only one flag-draped coffin.
Hughes had breathed a sigh of relief when Roy's name wasn't on that list.
The second wave was stronger, more demanding, driving home the reality of what was happening just as brutally to those on the station platform as it did to those on the front line. Fewer limbs had been shattered that time, but more hands were missing, and three flag-draped boxes rode the wave home.
Apparently the Ishbalites didn't need to believe in something to determine how it worked.
Once again Hughes sighed in relief when Roy's name was absent from the list.
The third and fourth waves came together, crashed upon one another in a deafening symphony of haste and destruction. One came at night, a relayed list of deserters, men who would never meet their families at the station, 'cowards unwilling to fight for their country'.
The other came in the morning, blank, pale faces attached to still bodies. Some of them actually had physical injuries. A few matched Roy's description of rebound victims.
None of them spoke.
Hughes wasn't sure whether he should weep from fear or relief when Roy's name appeared in neither wave.
The fifth wave saw all but two of the alchemists home, some of the returnees weeping as they fell into family's arms, some of them cold as ice, some of them simply blank, all of them indelibly… changed by something.
They also bore a new name, one that had been steadily increasing in popularity among the common people. No longer was being a national alchemist an honor… the deserters had changed that opinion quickly. Now those who remained were dogs of the military, despised as murderers, traitors to their cause… for wasn't alchemy about improving life, rather than taking it?
Hughes suppressed the urge to scream and curse when Roy's name was absent from the fifth list, as well.
Finally, though, the last two alchemists, the most volatile of the entire group, were shipped back home, a perfect picture of the chaotic organization that defined the military.
One came in chains, burns covering a large portion of his body, well-trained guards keeping his hands carefully away from all objects, most especially organic ones. He was the one that waved happily to the crowds on the platform, to the families eagerly awaiting the reunion with their loved ones. He was the one that grinned and laughed as he was led to his court-martial… the reason why some families that should have been there celebrating instead mourned in graveyards.
The other… the one that Hughes had waited patiently, so patiently to see on the list… the other came home bedecked with metals, his skin somehow even paler than when he had left, his slimness turned to an almost angular fragility. No hint of a smile or even his trademark smirk touched his face as he stepped off the train and onto the platform.
It took Hughes more than a moment to recognize his friend, even longer to muster up a smile to hide his unease.
"Roy! Hey, Roy, welcome home!" Hughes waved eagerly as he threaded his way gently through the crowd, trying his best not to disrupt anyone else's homecoming.
The young man he was attempting to reach didn't so much as hesitate in his steady walk toward the exit.
"Hey, Mustang, wait up!" Hughes maneuvered his way even faster through the crowd, true concern beginning to collect around his heart.
Why wouldn't Roy answer, or at least acknowledge his presence?
"Roy!" Hughes was beginning to attract attention from the families around him, as well as some of the loners who had already made it to the exit that Roy was approaching so steadily. There was no way Roy shouldn't have heard him.
Steeling both his voice and his heart, Hughes let fly a different name, one he had only ever seen on paper.
"Flame, wait up!"
Hughes regretted the move as soon as the command left his mouth. Roy stopped, all right, moving mid-stride into an attention posture, a slight trembling traveling through his entire frame.
"Roy." Hughes closed his hand over the younger man's, nearly pulling his hand back in surprise at the feel of rough gloves where he had expected warm flesh. Roy never wore his gloves unless he was training, keeping them in his pocket until they were necessary.
Finally Roy met his eyes, and Hughes almost stepped back in shock. There was nothing of the man that he had placed on a train east left in that dark gaze.
Instead of falling back, though, the older man held his ground, keeping a firm hold of the young alchemist's hand, preventing him from leaving.
For a long moment Roy's eyes remained dim and dark, focused in another world that Hughes couldn't breach… didn't, truly, want to breach, wary of the nightmares and truths that lurked inside it.
Then the façade crumbled, and Hughes just barely resisted the urge to wrap his arms around his younger friend, to do anything to ease the haunted suffering in those eyes.
"Maes." Roy swallowed thickly. "Please… please don't ever call me that."
Hughes forced a small grin, hoping to lighten the mood. "Then learn to respond to your own name, Roy. Now come on. Gracia's preparing a welcome-home dinner for you. Her cooking is second to none, you know."
Hughes tugged gently at his friend's arm, wanting to get Roy as far away from anything related to the military as quickly as he could for the young man's own well-being.
Roy slowly shook his head. "Not today, Maes."
Hughes shrugged. "All right. I can understand you being tired. How about tomorrow? I think Gracia's gotten even more beautiful in your absence. You're going to be jealous when you see her."
Roy didn't respond, his head lowered just enough to keep his eyes from Maes' view.
"We've missed you, Roy." Hughes kept his voice gentle, remembering all too vividly the faces of those who had come before, the silence, the paleness even under dark tans… the follow-up reports that flowed over Intelligence desks like a wave unto themselves…
Both the suicide rate and the experimental death toll among National Alchemists have increased significantly since their employment in the front lines of the eastern conflict…
"Roy…"
"I'll see you later, Maes. I just want to go home and… sleep now."
Without another word, Roy turned and walked away, leaving his oldest, closest friend staring after him with a mixture of fear and confusion, knowing that with the old Roy letting him go for a few days would be best, uncertain if that policy still held for the stranger that had stared at him from a familiar face...
"Do you know him from before?"
Startled out of his reverie, Hughes turned at the soft female voice, finding himself face-to-face with a blond female soldier… a sniper, by the looks of her uniform, and if she could even match Roy's age Maes would turn in his commission.
"If you do know him, he really needs someone right now." The young woman paused, continuing in a barely audible whisper. "They all do."
The young woman saluted briefly before turning and walking off, the same cool control that had marked Roy's step present in hers.
For a moment Hughes stood dumbfounded amidst the press of soldiers and their families, a cold rage rising inside his heart.
He was, by nature, a patient man. Anyone who could stand Roy for a long period of time had to be, or else the Flame Alchemist would have them in a nearly homicidal rage every time they met. His patience had limits, though.
He had placed a brash, arrogant young bastard with a good heart on the train to Ishbal.
The military had returned a near-broken dog to him, complete with a silver leash and collar, a dog that even a girl so young could see was injured.
No matter what it took, Hughes would ensure that nothing like this ever happened again, not to kids so young.
First, though, he would have to take care of Roy Mustang, because Maes Hughes would be damned long before he allowed the young alchemist to become another statistic in the orchestrated massacre that was claiming as much from its perpetrators as it had from its victims.