Roy woke up a second time with an unsurprising headache and the dizzy fog of medication trying to gently coax him back to sleep. He ignored the lull, sitting up carefully before his muscles failed him and he fell back into the bed. He noticed absently that the bed he was in was more comfortable than the sheeted cardboard of St. Angelique's, and cast his eyes around the room.

Wooden walls painted a warm rose, and end table with an empty vase. A comfortable bed with clean white sheets and a blue quilt gently tucked under soft pillows. He had passed by this room once or twice, even if he had never been in here. Ed's house.

"What the hell am I doing back in this hellhole?" he muttered quietly.

"Preparing to be stabbed by a scalpel, I'd say." An annoyed voice replied from the doorway. Roy looked over to see Edward stepping inside, Hawkeye and Havoc hovering behind him.

"Edward?" Mustang asked dumbly, attempting to sit up again.

Ed rolled his eyes. "Normally I go by that name, but considering what I accomplished, I do believe you can call me Jesus Christ your Lord and Savior. Don't bother sitting up, they put enough drugs in you they may as well have slammed you with a block of concrete."

Roy leaned back in bed. "Ugh. That explains why I feel like I've got the hangover from Hell, at least." He looked down at himself- or what he could see under his now ill-fitting uniform. Too many clothes to see any real changes, and too much of a headache to notice how his new body felt. Aside from the fact that he was for some reason hyper-aware of his toes, but that might be the drugs.

"Uh, yeah. The drugs explain the headache. Certainly." Ed mumbled, pointedly not looking at Mustang.

"I think I have too many toes. You gave me too many toes, Ed. I feel like I have like, at least eight," the Major General mumbled, rolling his head back onto the pillow.

Ed winced, looking at the medical chart they had sent to him when Mustang was transferred out of St. Angelique's. What exactly had he been given again...? "Um. You don't have eight toes. You have ten, I promise."

"Ten? That's twice as many as I want! What have you done?"

Havoc and Hawkeye exchanged worried glances. "What exactly did you do, Edward?"

"I didn't do anything weird- it's just..." He flipped through the medical chart hurriedly. "A LOT of morphine. I don't see how he has a headache. Or can speak, actually." Ed defended, drawing his eyebrows together. "This can't be legal... Stein just gave him this much to fuck with me, didn't he?"

"What the hell am I doing back here, Edward?" Roy asked, trying not to pay attention to his toes. It was proving rather difficult.

Hawkeye gently pushed past Ed into the room, and stepped to the bed. "Dr. Stein recommended that you be brought to your personal physician, as Dr. Elric would know more about your body than him and could pinpoint anything was wrong more easily." She said gently.

Roy rolled his eyes. "That sounds like a cop-out if there ever was one."

"Yeah, it's a cop-out. Stein's kind of a dick sometimes," Ed agreed. "Especially since the fucker KNOWS there's nothing wrong with your body- I'm way too good at what I do to make a dumb mistake like that." He said with an air of smug annoyance. "Anyway, you should probably go back to sleep until the morphine wears off. I really don't need you going off about how much you hate me and my goose or something weird like that."

"It's not my fault your goose is a whore, Edward." Mustang grinned. "Sleep is good. Maybe I'll think about my toes less."

"That's probably for the best. Would it help if I promised you have the exact right number of them?"

"Nooooo." Roy mumbled into his pillow. "That's a lie. There are a billion. And your goose is a dirty whore."

Hawkeye cast a concerned glance at Ed, who was currently rolling his eyes. "Fucking Stein and his drugs. Lucky he didn't dissect Mustang while he had the chance."

Hawkeye sighed and looked back to her commanding officer. He was already sleeping peacefully.


Roy woke a third time since the operation completely lucid and with a minor headache. Which he could now attribute to Edward beating him into unconsciousness before the operation. He swore silently to himself; Elric was gonna pay for that one.

He could hear voices from the waiting room; ones he recognized. His head swiveled to the end table where the clock rested- just before five in the morning. It was Sunday, why the hell were people actually awake at such an ungodly hour? And why were Havoc and Hawkeye still there, to think on it?

He ignored the thought, trying to sit up. His muscles protested weakly, claiming they had no idea what this "sitting upright" was or why he would want to do such a thing. He ignored them, glancing at the sunlight streaming gently through the windows as he made it up fully.

"Someone get in here and help me stand up," he called out, wincing at the sound of his own voice. "And bring a mirror."

"Should I bring you breakfast in bed as well, your highness?" A voice shouted out in response.

Another chided it quickly. "Edward! Don't be rude, he just got an entirely new body!" Hawkeye's voice rang sharply.

"Shove it in your ass, hag. It's five in the fucking morning- no human should be awake, much less making demands!"

"Oh, God, Riza, put the gun away! He didn't mean it, let's get some coffee in him and he'll be fine!"

"Fuck you, Jean. I won't hurt him badly, just a little graze-"

"Bring it, bitch!"

"Both of you, for the love of GOD-"

Roy tried to stand up, hoping to stop whatever fight was breaking out before any shots were fired. He failed, his legs quickly giving way as he fell out of bed with a loud "thump".

Fortunately, the sound of his body hitting the floor was enough to break up the fight, and the three shuffled into the room.

"Are you okay, Roy?" Ed asked, helping him off the floor.

He shook his head, groaning. "I'm fine. The mirror- a full one, if you can. Please," Mustang pleaded, starting to unbutton his coat. Ed nodded, stepping back from the bed. He clapped his hands, and the metal bangles around his right wrist leaked to the floor in a puddle, before standing up into a paper-thin sheet of reflective mercury, as good as any mirror.

Roy avoided looking at it. Not until he could see everything at once. He pulled off his coat, starting on the buttons of his shirt.

"Your muscles will be weak for a little while- I had to build them from scratch, same as everything else, so they probably aren't strong enough to support you." Ed offered, reaching out to help with the buttons Roy's new fingers, thinner than he was used to, were fumbling with. "But I did manage to put you back together with some muscle definition, so you won't have to start from scratch. A bit of exercise should get you in shape easily."

Roy nodded, trying not to look at his own body. He unbuttoned his pants and stepped out of them, underwear as well, and stepped towards the mirror. He took a deep breath and opened his eyes.

The first thing he thought, was, oddly, that he looked like his mother. It was a little disconcerting, actually. He was looking at a naked woman in the mirror, and it was him. He was looking at his own body. A delicate white hand reached out, touching the mirror gently. His hand. A woman's hand.

He looked at his reflection carefully, studying it. He was shorter than before, but not by too much. He had never been a very tall man, to be honest, but it was relieving to know he was at least a moderately tall woman. His skin was smooth and completely flawless- not a single callous or scar, and even the bottoms of his feet were soft and vulnerable without the toughened skin of age protecting them. He twisted slightly to check to see if he still had a mole on his side- he did. It was a small comfort.

He had definitely been with women more curvaceous than the one he was looking at, but that was the price of having so much Xing blood in him. Same reason he had never been tall. In exchange, he needed to shave half as often as other men, and a quick glance at his arms and legs told him he wouldn't need to learn to navigate a razor around kneecaps, either. Another small comfort, though one he could easily do without as well.

Short legs and smaller breasts than most of the women he knew, but still pleasantly full. They were a nice set, actually. He rather liked them. Just not on himself, so much.

His eyes at last landed on his face. He was relieved to see that the differences were subtle- all in all, he was still easily recognized as Roy Mustang. Softer features, fuller lips, a rounder jaw. His eyes were the same- still Roy Mustang's eyes. Somehow, that was a bigger relief than anything.

Roy stepped back from the mirror and glanced at the room behind him- empty. Apparently, the others had deigned to give him privacy, something for which he was grateful. He put his shirt on, buttoning it carefully, and stepped out into the hallway. He found Edward, Hawkeye and Havoc in the waiting room, downing coffee like it was a prophylactic to cancer. For some reason, the only thing he could think to say was, "My scars are gone."

They looked at him. Ed nodded. "Yeah- I had to rebuild you body altogether with your new genetic pattern, so anything that wasn't included in the gene code wasn't included. Your hair's the same because the tissue was already dead, so..." He took another drink of coffee, glancing away. "Maybe you should put on pants?"

Roy glanced down at himself, as if to confirm his lack of clothing, even though he knew he wasn't wearing any. He wasn't really concerned with his lack of pants right now- he was thinking about his scars. Every scar was a memory- mistake made, a battle fought. He hadn't been proud of all of them, but they were important reminders of where he'd been and what he'd done. From Ishbal, from the Homonculi, form the military academy. Reminders of where he came from.

And all of them were gone, leaving him with a clean slate. Even the callouses on his fingers from the rough ignition cloth were gone. He was virginal in every way.

"...I've been re-hymenized." He mumbled quietly, trying not to be surprised by the softness of his own voice.

Ed raised an eyebrow. "That's one way to look at it. Come to think of it, you actually do have a hymen now." He took another sip of his coffee. "Also, women weigh less then men, and as we all know matter can neither be created nor destroyed, so... Do you want the spare parts I took out?"

There was a brief, uncomfortable silence. "What?" Havoc asked after a moment.

"Spare parts. Excess bone and muscle mass that did not fit into your new body. Right now it's just in a bucket in the fridge next to the blood bags, so if you want it back, it's there."

"....What?" Hawkeye scoffed, eyes wide.

"That's a joke, right?"

Ed smirked. "Anyway, you should probably think about new clothes. I don't think your uniforms fit anymore.

"...There's not seriously a bucket of muscle tissue in your refrigerator, is there? Ed?"

--