Typically, the graveyard was deserted at this time of night. It was Roy's favorite time to stop by. They say that graveyards were for the living, for their own piece of mind, but at this time of night, it seemed that the dead were very much present and listening.

At least, some distant, less-cynical corner of Roy's mind liked the think so.

The predominant part couldn't help but see the weeds and the shadows and the bleached tombstones of hundreds of the very dead, ears far too decomposed to listen, and hearts too long stopped to care, and insisted he was wasting his time.

"Hughes," he greeted softly, the cool night breeze tearing the whisper away before it had a chance to reach the words carved in marble.

Maes Hughes

1885-1914

The hoot of an owl almost had Roy jumping out of his skin, pure fear trying to yank his heart out of his throat. His eyes landed on the large bird perched in the tree not far off, golden eyes glinting in the moonlight. Roy panted for air, the panic not entirely unfamiliar to him, but very much unwelcomed.

A dark sort of smile twisted his lips as he gasped for air. Hughes had always hated that smile, though, so he tried to remove it. "Posttraumatic Stress Disorder. That's what they say I have. Apparently you don't barely survive scrapes with homunculi and walk away without a bit of trauma . . . guess that makes sense, though."

Roy's eyes flitted around his surroundings briefly, just to check. Hawkeye was waiting in the car at the front gates, conscientious enough to give him his space and her presence all at once. He was lucky to have her. She had been shaken by the events with Lust, too, but she was handling it much better than he was. She'd even promised to camp out in his living room until he decided he was in control enough to be by himself.

He wondered if he'd ever be in control.

Roy was a nervous wreck. He managed to hide it well enough, but at the end of a long day of therapy and paperwork, it wasn't quite as easy to keep a lid on it.

It was the little things that set him off. The sudden spray of a faucet, a head of dark wavy curls passing by, sudden noises . . . they all put him back in that room with water raining down on them and Havoc bleeding to death on the floor beside him.

Of himself bleeding out.

"The psychologist said talking about it will help," Roy offered the headstone. "I'm not sure if you're able to listen or not, but I'd rather talk to you than that imbecile. Know what he made me do this morning? He had me draw out my feelings. In crayon. What sort of nonsense is that? If you were here, I'm sure you'd be giving me grief about it . . . of course, if you were here, I wouldn't be in this predicament in the first place."

Anger suddenly burned behind his eyes, but he breathed past it.

It wasn't fair. It wasn't fair he was doing this alone.

It wasn't fair Hughes had died.

"You hear that?" Roy asked aloud, hands clenching in his pockets as his voice strangled out, the former panic making his grief all the more striking. "It's not fair you're dead. It shouldn't be you, Hughes. Don't you see . . . Maes, I really need you right now," his voice broke at the end. He took a rattling breath. Lately he'd been on the verge of tears. The psychiatrist had called it a side effect. Roy called it embarrassing. "It shouldn't have been you, Hughes. I don't understand . . . If you were still here, we'd be in your study. I'd be crying on your shoulder like a little girl, and you'd just pat me on the back until I was finished, then tell me to man up . . .

"Wait, who am I fooling? You'd be at my house bugging me for a least a couple of weeks . . . just long enough to drive me crazy."

Roy sighed, running a hand through his hair. "I haven't been this screwed up since the war." A weak smile twitched his lips. "Pretty pathetic, huh?"

Hughes didn't respond. The wind whistled, but everything else was silent.

"Havoc's paralyzed now," Roy told his friend quietly. "He says he's resigning. I told him we'd go on, but I'd expect him to catch up. What sort of a heartless jerk says things like that? I just got a hole punched through me, but Havoc . . . Hughes, he can't walk anymore. It's bad." Roy took a shaking breath. "And it's all my fault. Just like you . . . why you're not here . . ."

Roy put his hands in his pockets, hating the feeling of drowning in his own sorrow. "I'm sorry, Hughes. I . . . guess I'm just at the end of my rope. I'm tired of losing people. Sometimes . . . sometimes I wonder if this silly dream is even worth it."

Movement in the corner of his eye had him turning, heart again launching up to his throat. He saw a slight figure moving through the stones and trees, steps light as he made his way a few rows ahead of Roy. Roy watched and tried to get his panic under control.

He slowly came to a halt in front of a gravestone, face turning slightly and allowing Roy to see, with some surprise, that it was none other than Doctor James Silas now standing before the marble construct.

Roy was fully prepared to ignore him, to say goodnight to Hughes and disappear into the night.

An irritating nudge in the back of his mind encouraged him to go nearer. Roy scowled at the tombstone. "It's none of my business, Hughes."

No response, except his eyes being drawn inexplicably to the small doctor's form.

The wind picked up, pushing against his back.

"Fine, fine! I'll go. I'm not through with you yet, though," he promised, the threat falling flat in the silent night.

Silas didn't react as he approached, aside from a tilt of his head to acknowledge that'd he'd in fact heard him and sneaking wouldn't do any good. With less hesitation, Roy stepped up beside him, eyes examining the stone.

Hannah Silas

1889-1915

Silas smile, sharp blue eyes still glued on the stone. "Ah, Roy! Beautiful night we're having," he observed, shaggy auburn hair hanging over his face as he crouched down to wipe at a smudge of dirt on the shining marble. His eyes almost seemed ethereal in the darkness, like the owl's, picking up faint light reflected off the moon.

Roy wondered briefly how Silas could be standing at the grave of an obvious relative and claim that the night was beautiful, but he didn't comment on it. "Good evening. I thought I recognized you."

Silas finally looked at him, his smile brilliant amidst the dark chill of the graveyard. "Ah, yes, well, Fridays were always date night." He turned back to the stone in front of him, and Roy noticed for the first time his eyes fell on a smaller one just beside it.

Jenny Silas

1912-1915

"Just us and the little one. You know how girls are about wanting to go on date night, too," he said, his smile now not as devoid of pain as it was before, but still bright.

Roy swallowed hard. Elysia had always loved date nights with her father and mother.

"What happened?" the words were out of his mouth before his brain could advise against it. Silas turned to look at him in mild surprise and Roy immediately turned away, sheepish and annoyed with himself. "Sorry. None of my business."

"Secrets are for the living," Silas said with a smile, a quiet, sincere wisdom in his voice. "My girls . . . oh, they were beautiful, Roy." He sat back in the grass, planting his hands in the overgrowth and tilting his head up to the sky, eyes smiling gently.

"Hannah. I met her when I was just a boy. She was always smiling—no one had a smile quite like hers, Roy. They were a missionary family, the lot of them, until her father joined the military. See, they're both buried right next to her," Silas pointed to the other side of Hannah's grave. "Anyway, the man became a priest in the army when she was born. Hannah moved to Aerugo to work with an orphanage for a few years after she graduated, and all I could think about was how much I missed her. I asked her to marry me the day she got home! Ha, I couldn't believe she said yes! I asked her in the rain. Ever the romantic, she was.

"Oh, and then we had Jenny!" he exclaimed, eyes lighting up with his grin. He patted the grass beside him, and Roy only hesitated a moment before sitting beside him, the grass cool beneath him as Silas continued. "I never thought I could love someone more than I loved Hannah, but oh, how wrong I was! Jenny was adopted, you see. Couldn't have any of our own, but that girl had me wrapped around her finger! Jenny loved ponies . . . her favorite color was purple. She insisted that was what color unicorns were, but I told her that was rubbish. Unicorns are pink, you see."

He laughed good-naturedly at Roy's incredulous look, eyes moving to her headstone. "We got her when she was almost one. Ishvalan refugee, from the war. Hannah always had a soft spot for children. I was skeptical, but after Jenny, we both decided that we were going to adopt more." He gave Roy a conspiratorial look, leaning close as if to keep the words from his wife. "I wanted twelve, but she was the one that reigned in that particular notion. Said that we'd look into it after the first two."

He looked back at the headstones fondly. "Ah, but we'd only finished the paperwork for out next adoption that day. We took them down to the office to turn them in. On our way there . . . well," his voice softened. He swallowed. "Sometimes . . . cars don't always stop when they should. Sometimes, bad things happen . . . sometimes." His voice wavered and broke and he blinked, eyes suddenly glistening.

A familiar pang ran through Roy's heart. An empathizing hurt of someone who knew what it was like to lose something important.

"I couldn't do anything, of course. Was knocked unconscious." He looked down at his lap. "The coroner said . . . said they'd been alive for a while. Both of them. Both of my girls." He took a breath. "All the medical skill in the world, and I couldn't help because a bump on the head." Silas gave Roy a watery smile. "That's how it goes, isn't it? You can save lives day in and out, but when the ones you love are on the line . . ." his voice dwindled and faded into nothing.

Roy's eyes wondered to look at Hughes' gravestone, the weight of Silas' observation heavy in his chest.

He breathed a moment, then looked up, offering Roy another weak smile that seemed too fragile to last. "Well, I suppose no sense dwelling."

Roy averted his gaze, unable to keep looking grief in the man's eyes and not see his own reflected back. "I'm . . . sorry." It was a lame offering, a band aid for an amputation, but Roy could think of nothing else.

Silas beamed back at him, like he'd given him something heartfelt and deeper than the trite phrase. "Thank you."

They sat in silence for a while, just listening to the wind and watching the stars.

"Sorry," Silas said suddenly. Roy turned to look at him, finding all the grief he'd seen earlier pushed back into some corner and all but forgotten. The man was smiling again, that kind, irritatingly-selfless smile that made Roy angry for some reason. Could the man not have the decency to just be angry or sad or something? Not so stupidly, irritatingly understanding.

It made him think of Hughes, and it hurt now more than it should have.

"Especially after you just got out of the hospital! Sorry I couldn't be your doctor for that particular stay." He gave Roy a grin. "Completely booked. I'm actually on my lunch break right now." He grimaced. "Almost midnight, isn't it? Well, accidents normally aren't decent enough to follow a schedule, yes? I hope you're faring alright?"

Roy looked away, suddenly feeling trapped and angry.

How could he be so happy and content when he should obviously be even more miserable than Roy?

How could he just sit there in front of his dead wife and child and be so . . . cheerful?

Was it something wrong with him, something so twisted by so much grief that this sad, delusional dream-world was the only way he could cope? Or was he truly so uncaring, so blasé about it that he could actually sit there and have the gall to be happy when he'd lost the ones he loved?

"What . . . what is wrong with you?"

Silas slowly tensed beside him, like a child that had just spotted a snake in the grass. He frowned, expression uncertain and cautious. "I'm sorry, but I'm not sure I understand . . .?"

The man was an idiot. Had he no grasp of human emotion? Absolutely no deference for how things were supposed to be? "You sit here like nothing's wrong. Everything's wrong, Silas!" he hissed, anger burning the back of his eyes. "They shouldn't be dead! And Hughes . . . none of them should be dead. How can you just sit here like this is how it should be? And you have the audacity to act like you're happy!"

Roy was on his feet before he realized it, letting the nightmare that was the past few weeks fuel his anger. The past few years, with all of the atrocities and grief and pain, all of it tumbling out through spiteful words.

And Silas, the spineless sap, was just sitting there and taking it!

What right did he have to be happy when the world was so hopelessly bleak? "There's no reason . . . no reason! Get your head out of the clouds and look around for once! They're gone, and they're not coming back!" he spat, face twisted in a snarl and hands shaking. "They're never coming back. They're not coming back . . ." Hughes wasn't coming back.

Drops splashed on the toes of his boots.

Funny. He didn't realize it was going to rain today.

Silas stared back at him with wide eyes that slowly, slowly softened into something sad and understanding.

He stood up, brushing the grass from his trousers and smiled at the sky. "I suppose you're right . . . that sometimes, the bad wins, doesn't it?"

Roy didn't respond, turning away with a heavy gaze, angry at himself and Silas and the world at large.

"As a doctor, I see days like that all too often. Some days, evil wins. Everything falls apart, and you hit rock bottom. Some days, all that you have left is a broken heart and a scream you've no one left to listen to.

"But then there are some days—oh, Roy, there are some beautiful days—when the good wins," he breathed, voice awed and hushed, as if exalting the stars above for their unwitting brilliance. "Days when in the end, the world is forever changed. When the stars burn and the sun rises and everything is perfect. Days when no one dies."

He gave Roy a sidelong, yearning gaze, blue eyes bright and clear. "Oh, I live for those days." He smiled again, eyes lowering to look at the headstones, the marble bleached by moonlight. "I'm looking forward to them. Maybe I won't see them until I'm dead and gone, but I'll be here as long as I can, doing my best go give people those days. Days where their whole family goes home safe and sound. When they don't have to say goodbye just yet."

He sighed, pulling a golden pocket watch from his trousers, squinting at the face in the moonlight. "Well, my next shift is about to start. I have a patient in the ICU to check on." He grinned at Roy. "Tell Hughes hello for me."

Roy's jaw might have hit the floor, but he was too shocked to notice. "You knew Hughes?"

Silas shrugged, smiling. "Not too well, but with Hughes, that was enough, wasn't it?" He straightened his jacket over his slim shoulders and offered Roy a hand. Still a bit numb, Roy gripped it in his. "Goodnight, then!" Silas exclaimed, clapping him on the shoulder and turning away.

Roy watched him go for a moment, the slight man jaunting lightly over a hill and toward the gates. Roy turned and trekked back to Hughes, mind heavy with new thoughts, but . . . somehow lighter.

He stopped at the familiar stone and stared down at the words engraved in it, an accusing frown marring his features. "You sent him, didn't you?"

The breeze slipped past, gentle and cheerful, somehow.

A small smile pulled at Roy's face. "Well, can' say that I'm all that upset about it. He gave some of the same philosophical crap you probably would."

Wind ruffled his hair, questioning.

He sighed, defeated. "Yeah, guess it kinda helps. But don't make a habit of it. One can only take so much cheer before punching someone's lights out."

Roy ran a hand through his hair. "Yeah, I think I'll be okay . . . maybe not today . . . but maybe someday. When we've finally made this world a better place. Someday's better than never, right?"

Roy received no response, though he hadn't really been expecting one. He turned to leave. Hawkeye would be waiting on him, and he'd kept her long enough.

"Goodnight, Hughes. See you someday."

I miss Hughes ;-;

Silas is a cheesy guy xD Love it c: Yes, this was an elaborate attempt to hear Silas' backstory. Because I love him and I couldn't help myself. Hope no one minds ;D

I suppose that's enough gushing over my own OC. I'll chill now.

Hope you enjoyed! If you have time, drop a review and I'll respond as soon as I can :)

God Bless,

-RainFlame