Companion fic to YAJJ's Some Sacrifices. I provided the original concept, YAJJ did all the heavy lifting and actually wrote the thing, and then I popped in to add this little guy onto the end :) I hope you all enjoy!

Roy landed heavily, and somehow, not heavily at all.

He rocked gently forwards on his feet, the breath leaving him in a gentle wind, and for the first time, it didn't hurt coming back in. That, somehow, was what more striking than anything else- the sudden lack of pain.

He'd been hurting for weeks. Months, probably, if he cared to be more accurate… which he really didn't. But now…

Now, all the pain was gone.

He smiled wryly, scratching at the back of his head.

I suppose that makes sense. Me being dead, and all.

Roy glanced slowly around the white expanse, stomach twisting a little in a faint itch of something close to apprehension. This was it, then. The end. He'd been through Everything- and now he was here at nothing.

The same fate he'd condemned so many hundreds of others to… and now, he was finally here himself.

"Hmm," he murmured aloud. His voice came out somehow more confident than he'd felt in a very, very long time. "It's not as hot as I expected." It'd probably be crass to to protest, and to nothing but thin air, too, but he was still reeling, didn't know what to think, and for a moment that was honestly all that could cross his mind- that this was better than he deserved.

"I can't believe the first thing out of your mouth is a morbid, self-deprecating crack like that."

Roy's non-existent world ground straight to a shocked halt.

"I mean really, Roy! Haven't you ever heard that a little positivity can do wonders? Really- try being positive about yourself, just for a day! See what happens… I can guarantee that it won't kill you."

For several seconds, Roy remained too completely shocked to even move.

And then, his legs like jelly, his feet numb, but his body moving as if possessed, he forced himself to turn around, and beheld the speaker for the first time in over a year.

"Maes," he said, mouth dry.

Maes just grinned back at him.

Roy opened his mouth, then shut it, then opened it again, working his jaw like a gasping fish. It felt like he'd just been struck in the stomach with a bat. A bat that Hughes had been yielding, and all the words had left him with that one blow to leave him stuttering and blinking like a dumb brute, while his best friend just beamed straight back at him with a smile strong enough to outshine a lightbulb.

"What, no hello? And I thought you would've missed me!"

Roy blinked dumbly. "M… Maes," he finally said again, voice limp and half-dead.

His best friend, without even waiting for a more satisfactory response than that, then smartly strode across the small space between them, reached for him, and pulled him straight into a rough, unyielding hug.

Roy stood there limply, still blinking in disbelief and too taken aback to find the words he was probably supposed to say. He silently stammered through another failed start, feeling Maes' unbelievably warm hand dig into his shoulder, and for several seconds really was too shocked to respond. When he finally could swallow back his surprise, he still didn't have the right words. I did miss you, he thought, but somehow didn't know how to say it.

"I… you. …I…"

Maes's hand roughly patted him on the back, so hard it might've bruised if he could feel the pain of it. "I know," he said quietly, quietly enough for him to hear the thick sincerity under the smile. "I know, Roy." His hands then slid to his shoulders, pushing him back enough to look him in the eye, but somehow the warmth of the hug stayed draped around his shoulders like a blanket. "I missed you, too."

Roy swallowed again, smothering back the conflicted mass of feelings inside him and the still smarting wound in his heart. "…Thanks," he finally managed past the lump in his throat, the word awkward, but there was really no sense in trying to insist on being strong any more, and so Roy stepped back forward in the next moment and hugged him back.

It took him several seconds to find the right words upon releasing him, and when he finally did he still wasn't sure how they came out; he barely recognized his voice as his own. "Do you know what happened? How I… died?"

It felt unbelievably surreal to hear himself say that, for those words to be able to come out of his mouth. He'd been planning this for months but still now that he was actually here, it was almost too much to believe. And too final not to believe, because whether he'd processed it or not did not change the reality of things: he was dead, and there was no going back.

At the uncertain question, Maes' smile faded into a solemn nod, something almost sympathetic forming in his sad eyes. "I do."

Roy laughed nervously, suddenly unable to truly meet his gaze. He could still feel Maes' eyes worried eyes on him for several seconds, but somehow only managed to find his voice again when he saw Maes was reaching for him, trying to move him. He already wasn't sure what he was saying but suddenly, seeing Maes like this had the words tumbling out, the guilt he'd realized ever since he'd connected Maes' sacrifice wit his own complete lack of ability to even try to make it worth it. "None of this- wait, I- it wasn't supposed to happen this way. Maes. It wasn't- I didn't want, or, or plan for- I had no idea, I would've told you, stopped you from- this just-"

"Roy- hey, Roy. It's okay, calm down… I know." Maes gave him another crooked sort of a smile, and something about the familiarity of it made his chest flip and his heart squeeze. "I know."

He laughed nervously again, still somehow thrown by the way Maes was looking at him. On one level, he understood- of all the things he'd done wrong in his life, this was probably the only one he could be considered innocent in; it wasn't his fault this time- Maes had died long before he'd gotten sick, and Roy had had absolutely no control over the diagnosis. He hadn't squandered Maes' sacrifice for him; he might as well have gotten hit by a truck or blown up in a freak accident… but knowing that still didn't stop him from feeling as if it was, somehow, his fault. As if there was something he could've done, or at least some way he could've known, so he could've stopped Maes from giving up his life to only buy Roy a year. He wanted to somehow make it right, apologize… no matter how long past he was a time where apologies could still fix anything any more.

"Listen, Maes- I'm sorry. What happened… that's not how things were supposed to go. You weren't supposed to- to die for me- and I'm sorry I wasted it. I'm so sorry that you died for me, but I couldn't even do anything with it… that it wasn't even w-worth it. Not that it ever could've been, but… that you wasted… I tried-"

"Yeah, yeah, I know, Roy-boy. You tried, and you know? That's good enough." There was that crooked smile again, one that somehow managed to stop the hesitant words in their tracks, with Maes holding him in place with nothing but that stare alone and waiting until Roy'd fallen silent to continue, hand on his arm now. "Hindsight's twenty twenty, you can't take responsibility for something you didn't do, everything happens for a reason- I can give ya platitudes all day if you want me to. Fact is, there was nothing either of us could've done. So- now, I know it's hard for you, you self-loathing maniac- but, just for once, try being satisfied with what you did. Yeah? That's all- just be okay with what good you did manage to do, and nothing else that was just out of reach." He paused, giving him another beaming grin and sarcastic sort of wink that had always used to infuriate him and make him laugh all at the same time. "I promise, it's not as hard as you like to make it out to be."

All of this, of course, was said with such an annoyingly self-assured, confident grin it felt like Maes was all but forcing the words down his throat, and it felt as if Maes' own belief in the proclamation was so infectious he could feel it spreading into him with each word.

Roy blinked, still staring at that irritating, blinding smile and those still oddly bright eyes, and, for the first time in a very long while, allowed himself to remember how much he really, really hated his best friend.

"You're an asshole," he finally said, some of the tightness in his chest finally relaxing into something that he could bear. "You're… you are such an asshole."

"I know! It's great, isn't it?" Maes exclaimed, beaming, and again thumped him on the back so hard it probably should've bruised, but it didn't hurt; nothing hurt, anymore, and this time, when he started to be tugged towards sitting down, Roy allowed him to get his way.

It was okay. This was how things had to be- and, bewilderingly, he found that he could actually be okay with this. This was the path he'd chosen…. and the hart part, really, was over. He'd survived this path in life.

All he had to do now was continue to bear it now in death.

He could do this.

"I really did miss you," he finally admitted, glancing over at his best friend with a weak sort of half-smile. "…Everyone did."

Maes joined him, crossing his legs on the floor, or ground, or plane of existence, or- whatever it was. "So I heard." He paused uncomfortably, giving Roy another heavy look, that earlier smile finally fading into something that recognized the old pain and loneliness behind what he'd said; that Roy had missed him for more than something that words could heal. "I really appreciate you trying to look after my family."

"You saw that?!"

Maes chuckled again, smirking a little. "I'm not blind, Roy."

"But-" Roy twisted around in disbelief, blinking at the empty space again as if a giant mirror back to the real world, to life, might just burst up out of nowhere, but there was nothing. "But you're- I mean-"

"Yes. Dead. I know. So are you." Maes paused again, a grimace pulling at his features as he seemingly hunted for words, whatever brief enjoyment he'd gotten with screwing him around gone now as he really faced what was at hand. "This isn't hell, Roy, contrary to whatever you first thought. I don't think that exists. This is just where everyone with unfinished business ends up… which I'm starting to think is almost everyone to begin with. Until we're… ready to pass on." He gave another slight, bitter sort of shrug, with a smile that was half acceptance, and half old, tired pain. "I have to say, even though I'd already planned on looking after you- I wasn't very surprised when you turned up here. I figured neither of us were headed on until we could see a Fuhrer we supported. I was hoping it'd be you, but… I guess we can't have everything, can we."

Roy swallowed tightly, glancing around the empty space again. This space that reminded him of the Gate that he'd just left, but now there was nowhere to go, no urgency, no… anything, really. He glanced to his best friend again, then beyond him, something uncertain collecting in his chest. "Hawkeye will be a good Fuhrer. It may take her a little longer than it would've taken me, and it was never really who she wanted to be, but… she promised. She told me she'd do it." He bit his lip, almost nervously meeting Maes' eyes. "Can you… does she… do it, I mean? Will she be okay?"

"How should I know?"

"You're- w-well- you're-"

"Yes. I'm dead," Maes said again. "That doesn't mean I know the future, Roy. It doesn't mean I know everything, either; I'm not an omnipresent ghost stalking all of you twenty four seven. I don't know anything more than you, and if it's about Hawkeye, honestly? I'd wager you know a little more than me."

Roy hesitated, breath catching painfully as he forced himself to turn his thoughts back on what Maes was really asking. The future of those he'd be leaving behind was something that had just hurt him to think about; it had hurt him in the same breath as him asking Riza to take over for him, a dream that had never been solely any of theirs to rest solely on her shoulders because she was the only one left. He thought of how he'd asked her to take the torch from him, of how he'd asked her to be there by his side the night before he'd killed himself, how he'd taken away whatever they could've had in his last three months and the look in her eyes when they'd both had to accept he was dying.

He thought of the look on her face as he'd headed down to his basement, and she'd known that she'd never see him alive again.

That hadn't been the look of someone who was going to give up.

Brokenhearted. Devastated, maybe, he thought with an agonizing pang to his heart.

But not defeated.

"She can do it. She… she always believed in me, and I believe in her, Maes. She can-" He swallowed hard, steadying his voice and willing back the emotion that threatened to make it crack. "She will make it. She will be okay. I know it."

She and Maes had both believed in him, and now, he and Maes both had no choice but to believe in her.

Maes gave him another encouraging smile, but it was gentler this time, softer. "I think so, too."

Roy took in a rough breath, trying to steady himself once again, although who he was trying to save face anymore, he had no idea. "I'm sorry," he forced out, again he had no idea to, or for what; he figured it hardly mattered, after everything he'd done wrong in his life and how many apologies he owed. For god's sake, Maes had died for him and Roy had been an utter waste of that sacrifice- but he already could see in his best friend's eyes that the apology wasn't wanted, because in Maes' eyes, he hadn't done anything to apologize for. But- but didn't he? He'd led Maes to his death then turned around and died himself, wasting all the support and blood he'd given him… he'd hurt and betrayed Riza, made her watch him die only to then hand the reins to her… the Elrics-

His breath caught painfully again, heart stuttering his chest.

The Elrics.

"Ed and Al." He stopped, voice thick in his throat as he tried to find the words. "They'll… they'll be okay. R-right, Maes?"

Maes' eyes softened sadly again, the words he'd already heard ringing in his ears again; that Maes didn't know, Maes couldn't know if the brothers would be all right. Truth had promised a fighting chance, but that was all, just a chance…

I could only buy them a chance…

"Whether everything pans out or not," Maes started gently, "that was a noble thing you did for them, Roy. You didn't have to. Ed and Al… you just gave them their lives back."

Roy shook his head weakly, averting his eyes. He already didn't like where this was coming. "Don't give me so much credit. They'd more than earned it. I just… helped the process along."

"I think you did much more than you're willing to credit yourself for."

He shook his head again, swallowing the lump in his throat. The words, again, evaded him, and he lowered his eyes down to his feet, shoulders hunching a little as if part of him just wanted to hide from the praise he didn't truly deserve. It took him a few moments again, unsure of how much or what to tell him, but sitting here across from his oldest and dearest friend, a man he'd believed he'd never see again, he opened his mouth and truth came pouring out in a way he hadn't allowed himself since Maes' death.

"I didn't know what to do. When I found out I was… dying, I mean." He shook his head bitterly, turning his gaze away even more from the sympathy he could just glimpse in his familiar eyes. "By the time I found out I was sick at all, they told me it'd already spread from my lungs to my heart. I think I wanted to laugh when they told me that… Truth's ironic way of killing me, you know? Making my heart sick? Only someone really screwed up has their own heart turn on them." He laughed amusedly again, all the while determinedly ignoring the look on Maes' face.

"I was in shock when I found out, I guess," he finally went on, "but… six months isn't long enough to let yourself be in shock for. The treatments weren't helping me feel any better… Hawkeye didn't know what to do, either… I think she was honestly having a harder time facing it than I was." He shrugged slightly, still fighting back the emotional quiver to his voice. Riza had been… just devastated. To sit there by his side every day, and know something was killing him, something that she could not save him… some days, he'd felt as if each failed treatment had brought her as close to death as it was him.

But that didn't matter, anymore. He'd sat with her, those final days, and they'd both agreed that she would have to carry on- that she could carry on. It had torn her apart but Riza Hawkeye was someone who did what needed to be done, and Roy knew he couldn't have left his dream in any hands more capable than hers. He believed in her.

It just hurt, knowing the pain that he'd put her through.

Roy cleared his throat again, forcing his mind back on track and to his best friend. Part of him wanted to stare at him and never look away again. The rest of him almost wanted to turn and run or hide, shirking away from telling him the full truth of his own death. His own suicide. But there was nowhere to run and nowhere to hide, and Roy wouldn't have really been able to do it to Maes, anyway, which left him just with sitting here, and spelling out the story of how he'd taken his own life to the man who'd once promised to always be there to stop it.

"I ended up in Knox's office, at some point, and I think he could tell I was… struggling. He offered to let me tour a hospice center he helped out at. So I could… see what I was headed for, I guess. And it… Maes, it was just…" He gestured with a trembling hand, shaking his head at the mere memory of it. "It was room after room of people dying. That's what it was, Maes. They were all in pain and miserable, letting that hospital etch out just one more day and losing themselves with each hour of it, but they were all dying, and Knox told me I'd be one of the ones in tremendous pain, and I saw them, Maes, and… that wasn't me. I couldn't be that. I can't-… couldn't just lie down in a hospital bed and let myself die."

Maes nodded gently, but Roy barely saw it under the weight of his own memories. The crushing realization that that was his future and there was no escaping it, the days or weeks he was condemning the people who loved him to sitting there watching him die… that he was supposed to just crawl into a hospital bed and waste away…

He'd been able to accept dying. The way he saw it, he'd been living on borrowed time since the war, anyway.

But he hadn't been able to accept dying like that.

"The Elrics showed up a few days after," he finally went on, shrugging pathetically again. "I still didn't have a clue what I was thinking. Hawkeye could barely look at me. I'm pretty sure those kids knew something was wrong, too, but didn't think much of it; Ed just kept yelling at me and Al was trying not to laugh, Ed just trying to find some new and inventful way to insult me into giving him a better lead on the stone and it just- just hit me. Right then. Watching Ed shout his head off… they needed bodies, and I didn't need mine anymore. That's all it was, Maes. I've been trying to help them, all this time, and… now I finally could."

"You know they won't see it that way."

"Oh, of course not! I know Ed'll be furious- I know if I'd given him a choice, he'd have said no! And so would Al! But they deserved it, Maes!" He finally drove his gaze up to meet his eyes again, heart hammering his choice and all but skipping a beat at the warm familiarity there, the affection he'd made himself lived without but had missed like a fucking limb. "You and I, Riza, we all made horrible mistakes and did horrible things, over and over, and we were trying to atone for them- but the only sin Ed and Al committed was wanting their mother back. And they were going to spend the rest of their lives paying for it! What justice is that, Maes? What equivalent exchange is that? I know this isn't what they would've wanted- but they at least deserved a chance at happiness! They had theirs taken away when they were just kids, damn it, and I'd watched them still try so hard for so long to try and earn it back- they deserved to be able to live their lives, Maes, and I could finally give that to them! It was one last chance to do something good with my life, to finally, really help them, and I- M-Maes- I had to do something! I couldn't sit back and die when I knew there was still something I could do to save them!"

Roy didn't know if it was some sort of righteous anger that made his voice break, of it it was the remainder of grief from when he'd held Ed in his arms for the first, and last, time. But his voice did crack, shuddering as the enormity of what he'd just done finally hit him in the chest with the weight of a sledgehammer. He gasped once, vision whiting out with the hot claw of anguish that gripped his heart.

He'd died- was dead- and he'd done it for those boys.

He'd just wanted them to be happy.

Maes' hands were on him again, first on his shoulder then pulling him closer in a rough hug. Those unbelievably warm arms wrapped around him again, holding him close, one hand tangling in his hair as Roy took in another shuddering breath, only knowing this was the steadiest he'd felt in three months and the warmest he'd felt deciding exactly when and how he would die.

"I- I loved them, Maes," he stammered out, the words stumbling past the lump in his throat.

Maes ran his hand slowly up his back again. "I know."

He'd just wanted them to be happy.

His best friend said nothing at first, just sitting there with him in this place between life and passing on, carefully running his hand up and down his back in the silence. Roy found himself unable to speak, had opened and closed his mouth pathetically several times but nothing coming out save for stuttered, stricken breaths, and when the silence just kept dragging on Maes shifted, holding him just a little bit tighter and lowering his head to rest it on Roy's shoulder. "You should be proud of yourself, Roy. You did a good thing, and those boys are going to be able to grow from it for the rest of their lives. They'll know you loved them."

He swallowed tightly, finding himself shaking his head in denial though he still wasn't sure why. "I could've done more. No, I could've- I sh-should've-"

"You did enough, Roy. Whether you can accept that or not, you did enough- for me, and for Hawkeye, and for Ed and Al. It was more than we ever could've asked for." He was squeezed gently again, the hand on his back curling slowly into his shirt. "Let that be enough for you, Roy."

Roy fought out another shaking breath, squeeing his eyes shut to cling to Maes' every word.

Riza was alive. He'd spent every waking moment with her that he could, giving her whatever he could to try and give her the strength to go on, and he'd looked at her and he'd known she could do it. Ed and Al were alive. They had as much of their bodies as he could give them back, and while he didn't know what they would do after that, he knew Riza would pass on to them that all he'd wanted was for them to live and be happy. And Maes- Maes was sitting right here, telling him that despite everything, it was enough.

He'd done a wealth of wrong in his life, things that could never be made up for-

But he'd also finally done something right.

It was… enough.

Roy held sill, shutting his eyes to just lean against Maes' shoulder and breathe until his heart had stopped pounding quite so hard. He waited until he could re-orient himself again, be steady in this new, next step he'd found himself in, this second chance with his best friend he'd never dared hope for or believe he deserved, and let himself start to accept that he'd done the right thing.

Ed and Al, regardless of all else, were going to be okay.

Maes must've finally the change in him, or sensed something else, because his friend slid his hands to his arms and pushed him back a little so he could look him in the eye. "And there's nothing wrong with your heart, you melodramatic moron," he announced, poking him right there in the chest with a roll of his eyes and a beaming grin. "With your head, maybe, but your heart's just fine."

Roy's apparently perfectly fine heart clenched again, squeezing in his chest, and he found his face slipping into a weak smile again. "You're a huge sap, Maes."

"Yeah; exactly what you need to talk some sense into you."

Roy ducked his head to swallow a laugh, the lightest one that he'd felt in a long time. "If that's what you need to tell yourself." He stopped for a moment, letting the emotion swelling in his throat fade away at last. When he knew he could manage it and still be at least somewhat stoic, he glanced almost nervously over to meet Maes' eyes again, fingers clenching together in his lap as his heart gave another little thrill of joy. God, he'd missed him so much. "So… you said, earlier, that we could… could see some of what goes on? Of what… of the people we left behind?"

Maes blinked a little, for just a heartbeat looking surprised before it shifted into a knowing look and a smile. "I may've mentioned something about it."

Roy gave a fake little cough, smoothing his shirt down in the most business like manner he could. "Well, then?"

This time it was an almost criminally boisterous laugh, and it was an infectious laugh that he'd missed so damn much he almost could not help but laughing back as Maes abruptly shot up to his feet, his hand already held out to pull him up straight after him. "Come on, then. It's been pretty lonely up until now, I'll be honest- death's not really the most happy place to be, but with you here with me, I think we'll make do. This place does take some figuring out, though, so I'll lead the way for now- so come on, you would be guardian angel you. You catch me up on what I've missed, and I'll show you how you can keep a watchful eye down on Ed and Al."

And Roy, finally beaming himself, took his hand, and took his first steps after him in this new journey after life.