AN: I'm back. And this time, I have another FMA fic. Surprise. Yeah, this one might be a bit different, but nobody really follows me anyway, so who cares.

There is No House

Summary: There's nowhere left for them to go, and she wishes she wasn't all right with that. 2003verse.

When Rosé Thomas lost her lover, she thought her life was over. When she was raped, she thought her world was over. When Edward Elric died right before her eyes, murdered by someone who had been abandoned by the world simply for the crime of existing (just like her), she thought that she might be okay after all.

She had screamed, but she had no idea who she was screaming for. Was it Ed, lying blankly on the ground, hopes and dreams shattered? Was it Alphonse, who would never see his beloved brother again? Was it Envy, whose problems could have been solved if someone had just told him that he mattered? Was it Wrath, lying on the floor, two limbs missing, with no family anymore? Was it herself, for all the things she'd been through? Was it Lyra, who she'd never met, whose life had ended before she'd even seen her face? Was it Dante, who was a human, and had made mistakes, but had still stayed with her son, despite everything? Was it Gluttony, who hadn't even comprehended that anything had happened?

Or was it the child in her arms, the baby whose gender she did not know, because she'd been too afraid to look? The child who would either grow up ignorant, or grow up knowing that its mother hadn't wanted it. She would love it, of course, because that was who she was, but there would always be a tiny bit of resentment in her heart, towards the child who had done no wrong, and she thinks that maybe that's how Dante felt. She hopes so, because she doesn't want to believe that a human being could be as needlessly cruel as Dante is, but somewhere in her heart, she knows she's wrong.

And so she watches, as Al and Envy both throw their lives away in a desperate attempt to see their goals fulfilled, as Edward returns and sacrifices himself for Alphonse, as Dante flees the room, pursued by Gluttony…

As Wrath lies miserably on the floor, wondering what to do next. Rosé wants to offer him a home, but she knows she can't. She has no home. Lior was destroyed when Scar turned Al into a Philosopher's Stone. She looks down at the baby in her arms, wondering what to do, and she hears Ed asking her to take care of his brother.

It is said that the most powerful sentences in the human language are composed of three words: "I love you" and "I hate you". But now, Rosé found she only needed two.

"I will."

And she does. She takes Alphonse home, reunites him with Winry, and smiles and laughs and pretends that she isn't dying inside. Rosé loves being with Winry, loves having a friend like that, and knowing that she's not alone anymore.

And when Ed comes back, he doesn't say goodbye to her. He doesn't say anything. She never even sees him. But it doesn't matter, because Ed is safe, and Al is safe, and Wrath is with his mother.

But Winry will never see her boys again. Mustang will never fully recover from the things that have happened. Rosé's baby will never know its namesake (for she will name it after Ed, be it 'Edward' or 'Edwina'). Envy will never know that there was someone who cared about him (even if she barely knew him, Rosé didn't think that anyone should be so alone). Dante would never get the chance to tell her side of the story. And Rosé would never really smile again.

She'll stand tall, and keep moving forward, because that's all she can do now, really. Because she's found a house, and she's found a home, and she's found a family, but there isn't a roof over her house, no welcome mat for her home, no love for her family.

And a house isn't really a house if it doesn't keep the rain out.

AN: So, that was depressing. Ah, well. Yes, there was a bit of Rose/Envy. I ship it, even though it's total crack. There are a couple of paraphrased tributes to 'Dark Humor' and a Naruto fanfic that I forgot the name of, but it's mainly about Rosé. As for spelling, it's 'Reole' in the manga, 'Liore' in Brotherhood, and 'Lior' in the first anime. Also, 'Rosé' is the spelling the wiki uses, so it's the spelling I use. And yes, it's 'Winry', not 'Winly' or 'Winery' or 'Winrey' or whatever else you think it is. Rosé's child is never given a name or a gender, so I didn't bother. Envy's name is never revealed (though I prefer 'William' over the obnoxious Simpsons' joke), and he's not too important here so it doesn't matter anyways. I wrote this partially because of how annoying it is to watch Rosé's haters going on about how 'pathetic' and 'easily manipulated' she is. I mean, what the hell, guys? Cut the girl some slack. She was a minor character in the manga, even more so in Brotherhood, and the first anime didn't portray her as a helpless damsel in distress – it portrayed her a real girl, who'd gone through way too much shit, and had come out damaged because of it. She didn't 'steal' Ed from anybody else – that dance scene made it pretty clear that whatever feelings she had were mutual, and Ed doesn't have a set love interest in the 2003 anime anyway. So seriously, leave Rosé alone. Her only crime was becoming a thief in a manga omake, because Ed told her to 'use her legs'.