I'm not a Boy, my name is Roy

Travelling had never been something he'd like. Roy was used being in one place and staying there, everywhere he needed to go only a short walk or drive from what he had designated 'home'. He hated trains especially. The rumbling vehicles that took him away from his childhood home, from his master's house, from his naive ideals and misplaced patriotism. It gave him an odd respect for Fullmetal who spent most of his cross-country goose chase on trains rather than off them.

He could never fall asleep on them and the constant teeter left him slightly nauseous and even disoriented at times. Sometimes he would read to pass the time or talk with any travelling companions, if any, but mostly he would gaze out the window and watch the world slip by. Sadly, none of those were an option.

The carriage was near empty, or at least it sounded so. Roy was travelling alone, having slipped away amidst the aftermath of the Promised Day. Truth's toll had robbed him of his sight, leaving him in a world of darkness. He should count himself lucky, though. Truth took his sight but not his eyes. That left him with a better chance of recovery.

(He could have been able to see again, if he had taken the offer. But in all honesty, would he have really? Could he have let Marcoh use a Philosopher's Stone to restore his sight when it had been made of the people he massacred? When one of his own men remained lame at his own fault?)

Roy was in the darkness, in a rumbling and shaking world, alone. (As it should, after all.)

"You mind if I sit here?"

Roy smiled in the approximate direction of the voice. "Not at all Miss-" But he faltered and his lips drooped. He knew that voice. "Haw-"

"Elizabeth Berthold." She said. "And who might you be?"

"Leroy Dudley." He responded in kind. "Please, sit. I wouldn't mind the company."

Elizabeth Berthold, or rather Lieutenant Riza Hawkeye, joined him on the thinly cushioned bench.

They had both been raised in a life of codes and false words, the daughter of an alchemist and the nephew of an infobroker. Even the aliases they had exchanged sent a clearer message than a string of dialogue. 'Elizabeth Berthold' was a combination of what Roy had once thought 'Riza' was short for, which it was not, and her father's name. She was mad at him for leaving suddenly and would be filling him full of lead in any other situation, a cold fury like her late father's temperament. However, she was more angry about him leaving her behind and would continue to follow him, whether he explained his actions or not. 'Elizabeth Berthold' was a confirmation laced with a question, 'Leroy Dudley' was a response and explanation. 'Dudley' was a name his aunt was rather fond of, what she would have named her own child and what she had nearly placed as his middle name. When Madame Christmas had been ousted as the colonel's informat, she and some of her girls fled west to Table City. Table City also being the final destination of this train. 'Leroy' was an altered combination of Roy's name and his birth mother's. Riza was the only person besides Madame Christmas who knew the full truth behind his heritage. Maes had known, but then again, dead men knew nothing.

(Both Roy and Madame Christmas had been so sure that his parents'...ability had skipped his generation. Signs of the ability would appear during childhood and was considered non-existent if nothing happened before one's eleventh birthday. His eleventh birthday came and went without any oddities.

But the damage Wrath had done to his hands, piercing straight through his palms. He should not have been able to curl his fingers, let alone perform alchemy. Roy had been consumed by the heat of the moment so he hadn't noticed his injuries, or rather lack of them. Wounds like that don't just disappear and leave no scars behind, not without equivalence. Unless, though, magic was involved.)

{~~~}

A shout of "Boy!" was the only warning Roy had before he was glomped from behind. Normally he wouldn't be fazed. He knew exactly who had grabbed him, only Madame Christmas and his older 'sisters' ever called him just Boy, but between the waves of voices and bumping bodies that filled the darkness it was so easy to forget.

Mindless chatter devolved into screams and shouts of commands. There was a burning smell, smoke from coal he had tried telling himself. It was coal. It was coal. It was corpse. Someone had grabbed him from behind. Assassin? Yes, definitely. It had to be. An inexperienced one though, they didn't aim for the gloves. He still had his gloves. Roy's fingers posed to snap-

Someone grabbed his hand before he could complete the motion.

Shi-

"Who might you be?" Riza's voice was enough to dispel whatever scenario his mind had conjured. "It's not exactly safe, jumping people from behind. Someone could easily draw the wrong conclusion in this crowded train station." Her emphasis on last few words were for him. Sir, this is not Ishval. He could practically hear her say. There are no orders to kill.

"It's fine. It's fine. It's always like this." Roy said as nonchalantly as he could manage. He felt shame bubble in his stomach. He had nearly fried one of his sisters because of an ill-timed lapse. What would have happened if Riza hadn't been there, he didn't want to think about. "Elizabeth, this is my older sister Paige. Paige this is-"

"Oh, no need for introduction Boy!" She said. Her cheery tone pushed heat into his cheeks, reminding him how common 'Elizabeth' was in his personal code. It was common enough to convince most the girls that Elizabeth was a real person. Why didn't he put more thought into choosing code names? "I know all about Elizabeth, your little sweetheart from Central. Boy here doesn't send a single letter home without him mentioning his dear Elizabeth."

"I'm surprised he talked so much about me." Riza said, taking the remark in stride. So much for pretending she was a kindly stranger helping a blind man. "He's always so private about his family life." There was too much mirth in both their voices for his liking.

"What?!" Paige said with an overdramatic screech. She grabbed him by the shoulders. "You haven't told your dearest about your sisters?! Oh Boy, oh boy, what happened to the sweet child we raised? Is my little brother ashamed of me, of us all?!"

Roy could practically feel the attention they were drawing. Paige's love for dramatics had stemmed from her years in theatre, before her time with Madame Christmas. He had found it amusing as a child but now he couldn't help but groan.

"It never really came up." Roy said, gently pushing Paige forward, hopefully towards the exit and not towards the tracks. "Now don't we have somewhere to be?"

"Oh yes! We can't keep Auntie waiting!" And with that she grabbed his arm and pulled him in the opposite direction. "I bet she'd love to meet Elizabeth!"

The crowd parted for them, the sound of people shuffling to the side was enough of an indication. Roy was careful to keep himself sure footed and head trained forward. Paige hadn't noticed how unfocused his eyes had been or at least, hadn't voiced it. Hopefully no one here would discover Truth's toll.

Behind him, Roy could swear he heard Riza chuckling.

{~~~}

"Boy!"

And almost immediately following the cry, Roy found himself tackled to the ground of the safe house. Judging by the pressure there were at least three bodies on top of him, all his sisters. He was careful to keep his arms by his side to make sure he wouldn't accidently grab anything girls wouldn't mind but they would tease him relentlessly afterwards. That was something he would prefer Riza didn't see.

"Okay girls, that's enough." Paige's voice called, somehow sounding clear beneath the smothering arms with a sense of authority that didn't hint she had done the exact same thing earlier.

Roy was better prepared for the contact this time around, mentally reassuring himself that the coming physical contact wasn't hostile. Just in case, though, Riza took his ignition gloves to prevent any instinctual snapping. It didn't leave him completely defenceless, Roy still had 'clap alchemy'. While he was yet to master it, he could still use it effectively. The additional movement also gave him the time to think his actions through.

Reluctantly, his sisters piled off him with Riza helping him back onto his feet. Roy counted the grumbling voices. One bubbly yet steady, not too fussed about having to release him. Another that was deeper and mumbling under her breath. The final one giggling with a tone that warned him that he might be tackled again.

"Simone, Katrina, Chloe. It's been too long." And in all honesty it had. These were the sisters that helped raised him, all a good ten to fifteen years older than him. Roy knew that they had moved on with their lives, searching for bigger and better things beyond The Bar just as he had.

"Too long? You could barely reach my shoulders the last time I saw you." Chloe said, giving his hair a good ruffle. He could feel her leaning on him just to reach his head, probably on the balls of her feet. "I used to give you piggyback rides! Now it looks like it's the other way around."

"Behave Chloe." Katrina said, the slight 'eep!' from the other girl implying she had been pulled back. "He could have been feeding pigs for the past several years for all we know."

"Technically, I've been playing lap dog." Roy said with a slight laugh.

Simone didn't say anything. Instead he heard two pairs of footsteps slinking away, almost missing it over Chloe and Katrina's banter. Simone and Paige were the oldest, the most observant. They could have noticed his new-found disability, seen how clouded and unfocused his eyes had been.

Katrina led him and Riza around the building while Chloe ran off to find Madame Christmas. Roy kept his steps even and measured, counting between each of Katrina's announcements. Luckily, the safe house only had one floor so there were no stairs to worry about.

"And this'll be your room." His sister stopped at a door farthest from the entrance yet was just around the corner from Madame Christmas's room. "Elizabeth can have the next room over. Remember, Boy, a woman is entitled to her privacy. Respect that or you'll be bunking with one of us."

"Katrina!" Roy yelped, his cheeks heating up. If there was one thing he missed, it was definitely the teasing.

She slapped him on the back and laughed, leading Riza into her room to help her unpack. Roy sighed and began feeling around for the door handle, latching onto it and entering the room. A slight breeze hit his face, meaning that a window had been left open. Given the wind was blowing directly on him, it was probably on the opposite wall. He expected the room to be empty, it was supposed to be a guest bedroom after all, but then he stumbled over something, causing Roy to lose balance and fall into something else. His suitcase flew out of his hands, landing on the ground with a slight pop that told him that it had burst open. Great, now he had a mess of clothes to clean up.

Roy pulled himself up, using whatever he fell on as a leverage. It was long, thin and had several 'arms' branching out from one end...a coat rack. He started grouping at the item to confirm that yes, it was a coat rack. Similar to the one he had in his childhood bedroom but not exactly the same. What was on the rack, however, was a little too familiar for comfort. The tattered fabric over a circular object could only be the old fedora one of the partons had gifted to him. It had been too big for a little Roy back then but he had grew into it during his teenage years. By now, it should be too small for his head yet it fit perfectly, covering his dark hair and foreign features. The others items he identified easily. Two worn pieces of knitted cloth that had to be his childhood scarves, one knitted by Madame Christmas while the other was one of the few things left to him by his birth parents. Like that hat, they should have been too short for him to wear but he was able to wrap both comfortably around his neck.

The feeling of warmth and nostalgia and home was overwhelming.

Roy scrambled across the floor, looking for other remnants of his childhood with no care for the scattered clothes or how undignified he appeared. He found the blanket Aunt Chris had found him in, the plush animal that he couldn't even identify even when he had his sight and the alchemy book. The handwritten text by Nicolas Flamel himself that had introduced him to alchemy. The book he had argued with an old storekeeper to have her sell it to him and the riddle he had to solve in order to win it.

All is one and one is all.

I am a small part of the world but the world is a part of me.

Years of military training and service couldn't stop Roy from crumbling into a ball, his childhood treasures at his chest. He had been so blind. He was literally blind. The full realisation of his disability, of Truth's toll, slammed into him.

Roy could not see.

"Roy-bo-...oh bloody hell."

Roy couldn't see but Madame Christmas could. She found her nephew in the room filled with the few things of his she had saved from Central. She found her boy truly looking like a little boy, curled into himself with all the fabric in the room, from his clothes to the bedsheets to even the curtains, wrapped around him like a barrier. Like a giant cloth creature giving him a hug. The rest of the room looked like a whirlwind had swept through with even the heavier objects, such as the desk and cabinet, displaced.

This was the freakishness...the magic that had been present throughout Lily's childhood yet completely absent from Roy's. Now,it had chosen to reveal itself.

{~~~}

Roy woke up to the feeling of the sun of his face but, of course, he opened his eyes to complete darkness. He took in a deep breath and slowly counted to ten. There was no need to panic, this was what the rest of his life was going to be.

Slowly, the blurred memories from the previous evening came to his mind. The trip to Table City and the impromptu meeting with Riza, his mental lapse at the train station, and…

Roy was lying on something soft, tucked in with his sheets snuggly like he had when he was a child. Someone must have put him into bed after his…lapse of control. One of his sisters or, most likely, Madame Christmas. Well, at least now he didn't have to worry how to approach the topic of magic.

Magic. The word left a bitter taste in his mouth. Roy was a military officer, an alchemist and a man of science. Such a concept was childish and unrealistic, beyond the scope of truth. How ironic, then, was its role in his past. He remembered openly laughing at his aunt when she revealed what his parents had been. It had been so soon after Ishval that everything barely felt real, like an eternal foggy dream.

His parents had both been wizards, practitioners of magic, meeting at a magic school and getting murder by a magical racist terrorist. It had taken Roy several moments and stern glares from Madame Christmas to realise that this was the truth and not some weird joke.

Slowly pulling himself into a seating position, Roy couldn't help but marvel at how painless he felt. The Promised Day was barely a week past and the injuries he had sustained would have had him aching for months, maybe even years, yet Roy felt more energised than he had felt in years. Even the years-old pains from Ishval were gone.

"Good morning young man."

Roy snapped into alertness, jumping out of bed on the opposite side the voice had come from. The array for atmospheric combustion spun in his mind, loaded and ready for him to fire with a clap of his hands. Instead of combusting the man like his instincts told him, Roy demanded, "Who are you?!"

The intruder chuckled, voice deep and elderly like General Grumman and most likely a dangerous as the man. "At ease, my boy. Sit down." There was the scrapping of a chair, probably pulled from the desk next to the bed if the room was composed like Roy's old one, as the man helped himself to his own seat. "I am Albus Dumbledore, Headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry and a friend of your parents. I can't help but notice that you are the mirror image of James, if not for Lily's eyes. You've grown into quite the striking young man Harry."

"Don't call me that." Roy said, his stance remaining tense and mind whirling. James, Lily, Harry. The man knew those names but that didn't mean that Roy trusted his claims to be a 'friend'. He was either telling the truth or was a well researched assassin. "And how did you get in here? Did my aunt let you in?"

"Reluctantly so but yes." That caused Roy to relax slightly. If Madame Christmas trusted this man, or at least deemed him enough for her boy to handle in a pre-caffeinated state, then he could give this 'Dumbledore' a measure of doubt. "We have been searching for you for over thirty years. When we heard that your home had been attacked, we rushed to the scene as quickly as possible. Three bodies were found inside and we thought all was lost. Two were your parents but the third was too large to be a child's, to have been your corpse. Then traces of a portkey were found. Though Voldemort had killed your parents there was hope that you were still alive-"

"Portkey? Voldemort?" Roy knew vaguely what those were but feigning ignorance was his best option at the moment. Dumbledore wanted to win him over, if his overly familiar actions were anything to go by, and ignorance coupled with stubbornness would be enough to see if this man was trustworthy without being manipulated. "My parents died in a car crash, no magic or wizards involved. How old do you think I am?"

There was a subtle yet sharp breath. "Who told you that, Harry?"

"My aunt." But in actuality, Madame Chirstmas had told him nothing about his parents' death when he had asked as a child. So instead, Roy had created many outlandish tales about how his parents died and how he ended up in a brothel whenever someone asked. The car crash story was the one he used whenever he wanted to swindle a couple cenz and sweets from pitying strangers. "And stop calling me Harry. I've never used that name and never plan to. My name is Roy."

"And who gave you that name?" Dumbledore asked almost too sweetly instead of accepting the information and moving on like Roy expected.

"One of my aunt's sponsors, he said something about boy not being a proper name." Roy said it in a joking manner, a smile creeping across his face as he remembered all the silly banter between Madame Christmas and the then Colonel Grumman over his given name. He expected for Dumbledore to add his own quip but the man remained silent.

"...I believe that it's best that you take this." The man said finally.

Roy did his best not to grab blindly at whatever Dumbledore was offering him and took the object, an envelope of course material, probably parchment. He fiddled with the opening, a real wax seal with some sort of crest imprinted on it.

"Did your aunt ever discourage any certain behaviours?"

That caused red to slowly bleed into the darkness of Roy's vision. He knew that tone all too well from the self-righteous overly pitying patrons to the nosey social workers who tried to rip him out of his aunt's custody. How dare this man waltz into his room and accuse his aunt, who forgave him for breaking her heart and welcomed him back home despite all the blood on his hands, of abusing him of all things. "No. In fact, she encouraged it." Roy straightened his posture and once again pictured the arrays in his mind. "I do believe I haven't introduced myself properly. I am Colonel Roy Mustang, the Flame Alchemist of the Amerstian Military. And you, Mr Dumbledore have overstayed your welcome. Unless you wish to return to your Hogwash school in an urn, I suggest you leave now."

"Harry I-"

Roy brought his hands together with a clap and snapped at the man's approximate location, sending a stream of flames at the wizard. There was a hollow pop and the fire scorched the back wall, its target having apparently vanished.

Roy sighed and slumped onto his bed. He may have lost his only lead and solid source on magic but no amount of knowledge was worth compromising Aunt Petunia's honour.

{~~~}

END OF PROLOGUE

{~~~}

And done!

This was not supposed to come out this late but thank you for all your patience. I jumped perspectives from Moody to Dumbledore before settling on Roy and the last scene...from a battle of wills in the living room with Riza, Madame Christmas and the Order of the Phoenix to a generally civil meeting at a cafe to a hostile encounter in an alley...at least it's done!

A big thank you to everyone who voted on the poll, it gave a good idea perspective wise on what you wanted to read. I've seen stories that focus just on one side and others that jump between the two so I was curious to see what everyone preferred.

Shipping wise, I have no idea. Romance isn't my forte so any pairings will be dependant on the established canon and how I interpret the characters and will most likely be accidental.

Also, since I've been playing through Pokemon White, I've been thinking...truth or ideals? What would you prefer? There'll be another poll up on this.