A series of loud banging on his door abruptly ended Roy's sleep. Groaning he rolled out of bed and glanced at his clock, 2:17 it read. Nothing good ever happens after 2 am, he thought pulling on his bathrobe and slipping one of his ignition gloves into a pocket.

The banging on his door continued incessantly. Is someone taking a battering ram to my front door? Roy briefly wondered. Reaching the door he paused for half a second to prepare himself then yanked the door open.

That half second wasn't nearly enough preparation for what, or rather who, was standing on his front porch. Shocked he looked down at Edward Elric. Later he'd wonder how Ed knew where he lived, but he wasn't quite awake enough to worry about that.

"Fullmetal what-" he'd been about to say are you doing here? But then he took a closer look at his youngest subordinate. Edward's hair was falling out of it's braid, his clothing was tattered, his automail hand was exposed he still held it slightly raised ready to continue knocking and his flesh arm was clutching his side. Even in the dim lighting Roy could see that his glove was soaked in blood and that the wound was still bleeding.

"'bout time bastard." Ed spoke shoving his way past him and entering the front hall.

"Fullmetal what the hell happened to you?" Roy demanded, leading Ed to the kitchen.

"What do you think dumbass? I got into a fight." Edward snapped back at him as they reached his kitchen.

"Stay there I'll be right back." Roy said turning to leave.

"Hey wait!" Edward exclaimed, a hint of panic in his voice, "Where do you think you're going?"

"To get bandages. I can't have you bleeding out on my kitchen floor!" Without waiting for a response he headed to the bathroom, concern for the kid eating away at him. Reaching under the sink he grabbed the first aid kit and rushed back to the kitchen.

Upon returning he found Edward standing right where Roy had left him and had removed his black jacket and dropped it onto the floor. In the improved lighting Roy could see that Ed was extremely pale and swaying slightly. Blood loss. "You're not gonna faint on me now are you?" Ed glared and opened his mouth to say something but before he could Roy cut him off. "Enough of that take your shirt off."

This time Edward really did speak, "Bastard why the hell should I?"

"Well I'd rather not have you bleed to death on my kitchen floor!" He paused "Come on Fullmetal take it off. I have to clean and bandage your wounds."

Glaring at him the whole time Ed pulled off his shirt, careful of the wound on his right side, dropping his shirt carelessly on the floor next to his jacket with a wet plop.

Wincing at the mess the kid was making Roy took a look at the extent of Ed's injuries. His chest and back, as well as his left arm were covered in small, angry looking scratches. They wouldn't require much just a little disinfectant. The wound on his side however, was more concerning. It began on his belly, curving up to his back. The cut itself was red and still oozing some blood. Upon seeing the full extent of his subordinate's wounds Roy was furious. He wanted to track down whoever had done this to Ed and make them burn. Unlike most commanding officers, Roy looked out for those beneath him.

Forcing those thoughts out of his head Roy pulled up a stool "Alright here sit on this while I bandage you up." Silently Ed complied. Roy got to work, starting with the large cut on his side. Inspecting it he frowned a bit. "You're lucky, this isn't going to need stiches." No response. He knew from experience that Edward was only this quiet in three situations. The first two were sleeping and researching, but the third was when something had seriously upset him.

Grabbing the disinfectant Roy tried to get some information out of him. "Fullmetal, what are you doing here anyways? Why'd you come here?"

"Your place was the closest," he hissed as Roy began to clean the cut "Bastard."

"And what were you doing that got you cut up like this?" He calmly asked. If he pushed Ed he'd never get the truth out of him.

"That's none of your damn business!"

Evasiveness. That all but confirmed for Roy that something was eating away at the boy. "It became my business when you showed up bleeding on my doorstep. Tell me what happened Fullmetal." Silence. Roy sighed, "Come on, tell me."

After a second Edward spoke in a low voice "I got into a fight."

"I can see that." He said dryly.

Fixing a glare down at the colonel, who was currently kneeling on the floor in order to see Ed's injuries better, "Bastard let me finish." Edward sighed "I went looking for a fight. I needed to vent some frustration and I figured I could find some asshole who deserved a fist in their face. It didn't take long before the three guys started harassing me. It started out as a fist fight, they weren't very good and were rather uncoordinated with their attacks. I knocked one guy out and one of them over the head right after that. I guess that's when they drew their knives. One of them got me on the side. I started getting really reckless in my effort to end the fight quickly, that's where the scratches came from. Then I knocked them out and came here." In typical fashion the report was atrocious.

While Ed was speaking Roy tried to not focus so much on all the scars that marred the young teen's body. The most prominent was, of course, the ones from the automail, but there was several others scattered all over him. Some of them Roy recognized from their descriptions in Fullmetal's medical reports. Roy felt a sharp pang of guilt at seeing those. You didn't put them there so why are you feeling guilty? Said a little voice in his head. If this was any of the other men on your team you'd accept the scars as a result of being in the military. Roy wanted that voice to shut up.

Finished with the disinfectant, Roy reached for the bandages and began wrapping them around Ed's torso. "Why were you looking for a fight in the first place?" he asked.

"I-" Ed began, cutting himself off, "No reason.

He'd arrived at the root of the problem. Mustang sighed. "Fullmetal you don't go looking for a fight for 'no reason', now tell me what happened. Finished he stood up and got a good look at the fourteen year old's face. Edward was looking down, trying to hide his face behind his bangs, but Roy could still see the guilt on his face. What's he feeling so guilty about? After several seconds Mustang spoke again, "Look Fullmetal, I really don't want to but I could order you to tell me what happened. I have every right to do so, but then you'd have to write me a report. So choose. You can tell me now and have it stay between us, or you can tell me in a official report, that would require a visit to the doctor for documentation of your injuries."

Edward clenched his fists and for a second Roy thought he was going to either of those, but then he took a deep breath and spoke in a voice so low he had to strain a bit to hear him, "Al and I had a fight."

Oh. Roy had heard about a fight between the brothers once before. Apparently the fight was brief, and ended when Alphonse got angry and yelled at his brother before storming off. Ed was unable to cope with that and began to emotionally self-destruct. "Fullmetal I'm going to need more than that." Why? Said that voice again. Ypu have all the information you need, so why are you concerned? He really wanted that voice to shut up. It's because I need to assess his emotional state and see if he should be allowed to be in the field. Roy was lying to himself and he knew it. While Ed was known to lose it if he felt Alphonse was in danger, a fight between the two would cause him to emotionally shut down. "Just tell what the fight was about, okay?"

"Al-, he-," Ed paused and took in a shaky breath. "He asked me about our dad, ya know the whole 'What was he like?' and all that crap." This wasn't going where Roy was expecting it to, and he was no longer confident that he could effectively handle the problem at hand. That was more Hughes' area of expertise than his. "I yelled at him, askin' him why he would want to know anything about that bastard. He left and didn't even bother to show up for Mom's funeral." Roy really, really wasn't the person to help with this. "Al said he could barely remember him, said he wanted to know. So I shouted at him that I couldn't remember anything either. And that's when I left and went looking for a fight."

"Thank you Fullmetal, that's all I needed." Mustang paused, "You're in no condition to return to the dorms, so you can crash on my couch if you'd like." He said rubbing the back of his neck.

"No thanks. I've spent way too much time near you, stay here much longer and I'll forget to not punch you in the face."

That stung. Why did it sting? "Well tough, cause I'm not driving you back to the dorms. Here let me grab you something to sleep in." smirking Roy added "Although you'll probably have to transmute it to fit."

Ed stood up "WHO ARE YOU CALLING A PEA-SIZED RUNT!" Stumbling a bit he leaned on the stool. "Alright, fine."

It'd taken a lot of effort but Roy had finally managed to get Edward into some borrowed clothes (he did end up having to transmute them) and onto the couch, where he was now, presumably, asleep.

Roy was finishing cleaning up the kitchen. He'd already called Alphonse to tell him where his brother was and that he'd be back in the morning. Turning off the lights he headed back to his bed. As he passed through the living room Ed spoke.

"I lied."

"What?"

"I lied to Al. I actually do remember stuff about Hohenheim, like how he was always in his study, but it's the stuff I don't remember that I can recall the most."

That was confusing.

"I don't remember him ever holding me or Al. I know he held me at least once in a family photo, the only one ever taken with all four of us. I can't remember him ever talking to Al or me either. I can only remember him looking at us once. Al had woken me up really early one morning, cause he had to go to the bathroom. Mom and Hohenheim," Ed spat the name with such venom that it surprised Roy. "were standing by the door, Mom asked us what we were doing out of bed, I think she was gonna put us back to bed, probably didn't want us to seewhat was coming next. Anyways he turned his head with this… this expression on his face. It's my clearest memory of him. It wasn't a pleasant expression on his face that's for damn sure. He was glaring at us, or maybe it was a scowl, or maybe a sneer. I don't fucking know. I was really confused at that moment cause he actually looked at me, that's how I knew something was up. Then that piece of shit bastard turned and walked out the door. Later that day at lunch Al noticed there wasn't a place set out for him and asked Mom when he was coming home. She changed the subject. You know that whole 'I'm gonna get you' thing parents do with their kids? That's what she did. It distracted Al, but I could see the tears in her eyes. That's when I knew. He wasn't ever comoong home. For a year and a half Mom pretended that he'd be home soon and I pretended to believe her. She was depressed though, I don't think Al knows that. We started learning alchemy cause it made her smile, cause it reminded her of him. But in the end it wasn't enough, she still withered away and died on us."

Ed was quiet for almost a full minute. "Did you know I look exactly like Hohenheim. Al looked a lot like him too but he had shaped more like Mom's, they had more green in them too. He had her smile and he's a lot more like she was personality wise." Ed paused again. "I've actually met a few people who knew him, they all say I'm just like him."

Finding his voice, "Ed why are you telling me all of this?" Roy whispered. The boy had not only talked about his past, but he'd also hinted at some of his fears about himself.

"I don't know. Combination of blood loss and temporary insanity maybe. And you better not repeat anything I said either you bastard."

"I wouldn't dream of it. Don't worry what you told me will not leave this room." Yawning he said goodnight to him. Roy didn't get a response, nor did he expect one.

Crawling back into his own bed, Roy was inexplicably happy about Edward opening up to him. It's cause deep down you think of both of those boys as your sons. That made him start panicing he was only 28, too young to have teenagers. That's what you worry about, your age? That voice mocked him. Well there are worse things than being a father figure to those two, he decided. His mind wandered back to all those scars covering Edward. Suddenly he asked himself, If his physical scars are that extensive then what are his mental scars like?

Alright I know Ed never lets anybody in like that and he prefers to keep it all bottled up inside, but you can only keep that shit bottled up for so long. Poor Roy is just standing there silently panicking. And one thing to note that I think of 'Mustang' as the cool-headed military officer but 'Roy' as this dork who cares for his friends more than anything else. I hope my characterization of them wasn't too horrible. The beautiful thing about all of the characters in fma is that they're really complex and they have so much more to their character than what you see most of the time...the thing that sucks about that is they're also really hard to write. And just a little hint of parental!RoyAl at the end there cause you know he cares about both of them