Oh, by the way, folks, I forgot to mention something: This is Royai. It's not the main focus of this fic, but it's there. Nothing even vaguely explicit, I promise, but they are said to be dating and such.

Disclaimer: Don't own it.

~.~.~.~

At six o'clock, Riza Hawkeye came by again to drop off a second copy of the devastated paperwork from earlier that day. He invited her to stay for dinner—though initially somewhat wary of him sugaring her up to escape the ever-present torture of paperwork, she agreed to stay.

"How is Edward doing?" Hawkeye asked curiously, taking a seat in the kitchen. Her eyes slid around the kitchen and she raised an eyebrow, adding thoughtfully, "Where is the folder I brought you?"

"He's as well as can be expected and it's in the trash," Roy responded firmly as he pulled up a seat of his own.

A second eyebrow joined the first in the upper regions of Hawkeye's forehead. "Would that be because of some complete and utter hatred for all paperwork there ever was or because of a more founded reason?"

Mustang looked away and leaned on the table, his gaze boring a hole into the wall of the kitchen. "A more founded reason, I'd hope. I don't trust Fluegal enough to take his word for Ed's condition and I believe I've already proved a portion of it false."

"And how did you manage that?" Hawkeye probed, her eyes sharp.

Mustang gestured to the bowls in the sink. "He ate soup for lunch. Didn't throw it up. Fluegal's file claimed he could only eat birdseed."

Hawkeye gave him a flat glare just long enough to make Mustang think he'd seriously screwed up before she sighed heavily and shook her head, looking exasperated. "Did it occur to you that on the off chance that Fluegal was right, you could have made Edward seriously ill?"

The only response Mustang had was to blink and open and close his mouth guiltily.

Hawkeye sighed again and stood, her expression giving the distinct impression of a mother dealing with a troublesome child. "Please, sir, think things through. The closer things get to your heart, the more you need to keep control of your emotions. It's not just you with issues here." Mustang winced at the critical words delivered in a tone only slightly less formal than Hawkeye's usual to soften the blow.

"My apologies. Logic before emotion, of course." Really, he should have listened to more reason… But chimeras were never the best thing to have around to keep his wits about him.

"I'm checking on Ed," Hawkeye established, and set off toward the upstairs; Mustang rose from his seat and followed her up the steps to Ed's room.

The door was open, as before. Through the gap between the door and its frame, Mustang could only see a sliver of the wooden flooring. Hawkeye pushed the door further open and he saw that for once, Ed wasn't curled up in the closet: he was sitting on the bare bed, wings lying limply at his sides with the feathers splayed almost elegantly across the mattress. Ed was facing away from them, staring at who knew what out the window.

"Ed," Mustang said, speaking by force of habit and some helpless hope, "dinner will be in about an hour."

Ed didn't turn around at the sound of his voice, and a small but visible nod was all Mustang got for his trouble. The military man put his hand to his face and rubbed across his eyes before glaring at the bedpost as if it were the thing at fault. Ed just wouldn't quite understand, wouldn't respond—

"Did he just… nod?" Hawkeye breathed in disbelief, and Mustang's downward spiraling train of thought slammed on the brakes. At Hawkeye's incredulous observation, Ed stiffened across the room and looked over his shoulder at them. His eyes were wide and some base fear hid in the depths, but there was no doubt that his reaction had been directly correlated to the words and the messages, not just the tone of voice.

"Ed?" Mustang asked hesitantly, stepping forward and reaching out. "You… you can understand?"

Ed cringed away from his approaching hand and scrambled to the other side of the bed, his beak clacking in distress. He was making those sounds again—kee, kee and whistling like a demented tea kettle. Golden orbs were wide with fright and Mustang cringed with the realization that the chimera was scared of him. He slowed his advancement and locked his gaze with Ed's, trying to communicate nonverbally that he was no threat.

"It's me, Ed, come on, you have to recognize me. Please." Mustang was no longer sure what exactly he was doing, but approaching Ed like an animal in need of calming, though against the grain of his vision of Ed, seemed to be the best approach.

Several successive blinks were Ed's response, each a full squeeze of his eyelids before looking again, as if he thought that if he could only blink hard enough than the poor chimera's worry and confusion could go away. His beak was still clacking open and closed, but his distressed keening had halted. His chest rose and fell almost frantically in quick, frightened breaths and his wings and back were pressed against the headboard of the bed by the window.

Mustang carefully set his hands on the chimera's shoulders—or what was left of them, after the wing's rotation along to his back—and looked him straight in the eye, locking onto the golden irises as wide as dinner plates.

"Edward, you are safe now. Nod if you understand me."

Ed's beak opened one more time, and then his head went down in a show of defeat.

And then, almost torturously slowly, it came back up in a definite nod.

The relief that slammed into Mustang at that moment was beyond anything he'd felt since realizing that Riza Hawkeye would survive the battle under Central; he couldn't honestly believe that there was any god watching them from above, but he threw thanks up to whatever was up there for allowing Ed to return to them, even in a state such as this.

"We've missed you, Ed," Mustang whispered, and pretended that there was no wetness on his cheek, pretended he didn't see the confusion and utterly dumbfounded expression the former alchemist had at seeing Mustang's moist eyes.

Roy Mustang didn't cry. After all, he was useless when wet.

Well, maybe just this once.

~.~.~.~

After a breakthrough such as the one Mustang had so recently experienced with Ed, he couldn't bear to leave the room just yet. Hawkeye had cautiously come forward, her movement locked in Ed's equally cautious gaze, to sit on the bed near him and now the chimera was leaning almost contentedly—Ed never seemed quite comfortable while under scrutiny—against her shoulder. His eyes were still wide and fixed on Mustang as if just daring him to come closer, but his breathing was no longer the hyperventilation it had been before and he seemed almost relaxed.

Mustang tried asking questions, and at first, Ed had seemed to respond. The most common one, "do you understand me?" was now mostly just a reassurance, and every time Ed nodded in response he seemed a little more certain. Other questions were simple as well: "Are you in pain?" was meant with a thoughtful expression and then as slight shaking of his head; "Are you hungry?" was met with a definite nod enthusiastic enough to make Hawkeye smile and smother a chuckle. Mustang repeated the fact that dinner would be done in about an hour and attempted on with his questioning.

However, once he hit the question, "Do you know what happened to you?" Ed immediately clammed up, his eyes flashing in abject terror as he snuggled closer to Hawkeye and tried to hide his face from his interrogator. A shared glance between the two soldiers in the room, complete with raised eyebrows, led them to the mutual consensus that Ed indeed did know but was terrified enough by the fact that he didn't want to establish as much. And as the questions proceeded into less certain bounds, the chimera reverted back to his nearly catatonic state. Mustang slumped down to sit against the wall.

"Ed?" Mustang said, for the fourth time in thirty seconds, but the chimera simply stared off at something two inched to the left of his face. "Edward, can you understand me?" Mustang enunciated clearly, and that finally seemed to do the trick.

Ed turned back to face him and blinked owlishly; slowly he nodded, but his earlier certainty was gone and now the action seemed to be more of a jerk than a smooth assurance.

"Why won't you speak?" Mustang whispered, musing the question practically to himself, but the comment was audible to all three occupants of the room. Ed flinched noticeably and cringed away from him, wings hunching over his body more as he turned his face to Hawkeye again. She reached an arm around and patted him tenderly on the shoulder, offering maternal comfort to the quaking chimera.

Finally, Mustang let out a nearly inaudible sigh and stared accusingly at the ceiling. This session of whatever interrogation he'd managed to arrange was over—as cooperative as Ed had suddenly seemed to be, one too many prying questions would make him retreat to where they couldn't bring him back to them. Whether he was fighting against the bird he'd been transmuted with or against some other thing they didn't understand, they couldn't bring him to what he was before in a single night.

Roy shoved a hand in his pocket to fiddle pointlessly with the chain on his pocket watch before rising from the floor. "I should go start dinner. Any preferences?" he asked the room at large, only expecting an answer from one of the blonds in the vicinity.

He was correct. Ed didn't appear to have heard, though he easily could be faking that sentiment, while Hawkeye tilted her head to the side in a show of consideration. "Not particularly," she replied. "Are you making it yourself or getting takeout?"

"Takeout," Mustang said decisively from his position in the doorway. "Xingese." He raised an eyebrow at the small tug of a smile on her mouth as she rolled her eyes at him.

"Reminiscing our first date, are we?" she teased, and Mustang put on his most obviously innocent face as he turned around—not to fool her, as she knew him far too well, but to continue the tease.

"Why would I need to reminisce?" He leaned against the doorframe with a cocky smirk. "It's not as if it was our last."

A full-fledged smile was threatening to break out on Hawkeye's face, and she shook her head at Mustang and shooed him toward the door with a flippant hand gesture. Ed had resurfaced from his momentary panic and was now blinking curiously at Mustang as he grinned for the first time in what seemed like a week before he slipped out the door. Hawkeye shared a look with the somewhat confused chimera that clearly exchanged the hopelessness for a man like that as she continued to calmingly stroke the golden feathers.

"He better be quick about it," Hawkeye said aloud, and although there was another mostly-fine-well-then-partly human in the room, she felt like she'd spoken to air with the only person to hear being herself.

~.~.~.~

Mustang was fairly quick about it, as a matter of fact, and within half an hour he had the still-steaming boxes of thin cardboard on the table, opened to expose the rice and meat inside. Hawkeye had made her way out of the guest room with a rather clingy Edward at her side. The wings were wrapped around her stomach so it rather looked like she had a feathered golden skirt around her person. The chimera's head was still nestled against her upper arm.

When the impromptu pair entered the kitchen, Mustang raised an eyebrow at them, apparently amused at the strange embrace. Then he crossed his arms and fixed Ed with a mock-stern glare.

"Are you trying to make me jealous or something?"

Ed blinked at him with wide eyes, looking almost like he was going to hyperventilate, while Hawkeye scoffed at the older man's antics. Thanks to Hawkeye—and it certainly seemed that any action was due to her perseverance only, inside the office or out—they did get settled down to eat.

Mustang set about wrestling his chopsticks into submission (why he'd gotten Xingese, even if it was Riza's favorite, was currently beyond his reasoning) as Hawkeye elegantly began to eat her own meal, suppressing a grin at Mustang's ineptitude with this particular brand of etiquette. The atmosphere had changed drastically within the past hour; where there had been a hint of desperation and nearly abandoned hope, Ed's retained mental faculties had brought a new light to the situation that Hawkeye was quite glad of, for the sake of everyone involved.

The chimera was picking at his food with his beak, to which Hawkeye glanced at Mustang, saw his lack of reaction, assumed this was to be expected, and continued one with her own meal. Ed seemed particularly interested in the meat, worrying at it insistently before settling away from it with a slight huff, moving on snitch up the rice in his bowl.

Mustang ferociously impaled a piece of teriyaki chicken, almost smirked triumphantly, and frowned with a glare as it slid off the wooden stick. He paused in his ongoing battle with his chopsticks and glanced up at Ed, cocking an eyebrow before rising from his seat to retrieve a fork from a drawer on the other side of the kitchen before returning.

"Giving up?" Hawkeye queried, her tone quite formal but her eyes glittering in amusement. Mustang sniffed at the disparaging assessment of his chopstick skills.

"As if," he established. "Ed had trouble with the beef in the stew earlier, but I think maybe if I…" He trailed off, acting on his epiphany rather than explaining it, and shredded one of the chunks of teriyaki beef in Ed's bowl of Xingese food. "Can you eat that now, Ed?" he asked slowly.

Ed considered the newly arranged meat for all of two seconds before his head darted forward and he'd gulped the shredded beef down.

Mustang nodded with a barely suppressed grateful sigh. He wasn't sure about avian anatomy, but humans needed protein, and he'd rather not have to go hunting for a vegetarian diet that would provide such. If Ed could digest a human diet with only a few alterations needed in the preparation of the meal itself, that would be one more load off of their shoulders.

"You certainly are hungry, aren't you," Hawkeye said softly, her voice kind. Ed looked at her, and his blink and quiet whistle were almost imploringly thankful. Mustang was inwardly slightly miffed: he has the idea and she gets the thanks? But honestly, he couldn't bring himself to care quite that much if it meant that things were looking up. And so soon, too—

Had it really only been the night before that they'd found Edward Elric at last? It seemed like an eternity.

They finished their meal in silence, but it was no longer the funeral quiet it had been. Hawkeye flashed Mustang a grin as Ed swiveled his head to look between the two, blinking in confusion with his eyes giving the distinct impression that he was missing some key point of information. Which he was; the anti-fraternization law had been abolished after Ed had disappeared, so he hadn't been present when Mustang and his ever-loyal subordinate had become a public couple.

"Edward," Hawkeye said softly, looking to him with a gentle expression. Ed seemed to respond well to the mildness of her approach and cocked his head to her amiably. "You've been gone for a while. Alphonse has been looking for you."

The chimera's feathery body straightened abruptly at the name, not so much with fear as some anticipation that was utterly different. His beak opened and closed slowly, and though there was no sound, Mustang could have sworn up and down that if it had been vocalized, the word heard would have been Al.

"Alphonse left Amestris when we couldn't find you—he seemed intent on searching the world until you showed up one way or another. We can't contact him now, we don't know where he is, but he'll be back soon enough. And he'll be ecstatic to know that you're alright."

Mustang hid a slight grin into his palm at Ed's relaxed figure and set his chopsticks down across his empty bowl. Causally, he glanced back up with a shadow of a smirk on his face, only for it to disappear abruptly. Hawkeye's smile had frozen in place, and Ed…

He was a chimera, wasn't he?

Then where had the feathers gone?

Indeed, in a split second Ed was suddenly the boy they'd last seen a year ago. Shoulders where they should be, no feathers to be seen, his mouth (mercifully human, no beak marring his face any longer) was lifted into a smile at the prospect of his brother. The modified hospital gown hung oddly on his human frame—

Ed's smile slipped from his face as his eyes widened and his muscles tensed. He glanced edgily from Hawkeye to Mustang and back, then down at himself, as if just realizing what had just happened. Rather than looking pleased, however, he looked downright terrified.

He launched himself from his seat with a flurry of feathers that Mustang could have sworn sprouted right out of his arms, and he'd thrown his shoulders back, no, they'd just twisted around… As quickly as Ed had appeared human, he'd reverted to his chimera form and let out a ear-piercing, definitely avian, screech.

The two soldiers were left frozen in the kitchen as Ed careened backwards, upending his chair and colliding into the counter so hard it must have been painful. The chimera staggered to the side, body trembling, and then it must have been too much—the golden eyes rolled back in his head and Ed collapsed to the floor in a dead faint. Silence reigned for several moments before either of the two left conscious could get their voices to work again.

"Did he just…" Mustang didn't finish his sentence, debating the notion that he'd just hallucinated what he'd wanted to believe.

"Yes," Hawkeye murmured. Mustang finally recovered—somewhat—from his shock and scrambled from his seat to where Ed's prone form lay on the tile flooring. He scooped the chimera up, Ed's head lolling to the side as the golden hair spilled over his wing in a bright cascade.

The chicken slipped from its position pinched between Hawkeye's chopsticks as comprehension dawned on her face. "Oh, of course…" she murmured. "I'd forgotten." She sounded almost nostalgic, and Mustang glanced at her sharply from his position kneeling on the kitchen floor.

"Forgotten what?"

"Heinkel. Darius. Do those names ring a bell?" Hawkeye's carmine eyes were staring at Mustang as he propped Ed up into a position he could be lifted in, then looked over to meet her gaze.

"The chimeras that saved you under Central." And then it clicked into place. "They could shift from looking human to their adapted animal forms. You're saying Ed is like them?"

"It would certainly seem so," Hawkeye said thoughtfully, "which would mean that Ed can speak, even if he doesn't. And…" Her eyes darkened. "Not every corrupted person with military connections was killed or caught on the Promised Day. Whoever created those chimeras is still doing so." Her eyes locked onto the table and her brow furrowed slightly in frustration and sorrow.

Mustang closed his eyes and took a deep breath to expunge the torrent of ugly emotions the words brought, shifted Ed into a remotely more comfortable holding position, and made his way to the door. "We should get him to his room."

Hawkeye nodded her agreement and rose to follow him. "Was this shifting in Fluegal's file?"

After a brief moment recalling the words within the folder, Roy had to shake his head. "Nothing."

"Then Ed must not have shifted at all while in his facility," Hawkeye reasoned, holding open the door to Ed's room for Mustang to walk through.

The response was a frown. "Or Fluegal was hiding that bit of information," he challenged.

Hawkeye brushed a strand of flyaway hair behind her ear and sighed. "You said he thought Ed couldn't speak or understand? That's what we thought. Maybe simply because we know him it allows Ed to show something more."

"Then what about the other chimeras?" Mustang argued, setting Ed carefully on his bed. "Fluegal's experiments have always been dubious at best, although it's true I've never heard of him using humans in them. But none of the chimeras can speak or understand, according to him, yet we have evidence already that contradicts this."

"I see where you're coming from," Hawkeye surrendered at length, "but I think we need to figure out why Ed won't speak before we can continue making assumptions. And that means we're going to have to wait for him to wake up."

~.~.~.~

They sat in the living area while waiting for Ed to wake again, checking every five minutes for any change. After twenty-five minutes, they were rewarded.

Ed wasn't sitting still when Mustang pushed open the door to his room. The chimera was by the window looking out over the back of the house and was pecking and scratching at it insistently with a quiet, keening whistle. Mustang and Hawkeye exchanged a glance and by unspoken agreement it was Mustang who entered first, slowly and stopping a few feet from the door. Ed heard him coming and spun around, overbalancing on his mismatched legs and tumbling to the floor in a golden feather heap faster than Mustang could catch him.

Wetting his lips, Mustang whistled softly, remembering how Hawkeye had calmed him on the roof. Slowly he continued his approach with his arm partially extended, crouching a few feet away, not close enough to reach out a hand and touch him but close enough to command the chimera's attention. He whistled again, and Ed blinked at him and whistled back. It would have felt nice—communicating in any way with Ed, who seemed just beyond their grasp—except for the fact that Mustang had no idea what they'd just said, if they had said anything to each other at all.

"I can't understand you, Ed," Mustang said softly, "but you can understand me. Why did you run?"

Ed was breathing too quickly to be as calm as his stillness suggested, and his eyes were glazed with fear. He didn't respond.

"Edward, can you understand me?" Mustang asked gently. Seconds ticked by, and then Ed nodded jerkily and relaxed slightly. Cautiously, Mustang scooted forward and wrapped the unresisting chimera into a hug, stroking the long golden tresses on his head. "You're safe, Edward."

At the innocuous statement, Ed gave a soft kee that held a kind of hurt Mustang couldn't quite comprehend. The chimera wriggled closer into his arms, and Mustang could feel the rapid heartbeat against his own.

He had no illusions that he had any idea what was going on inside Ed's head. But anything he could give Ed—simple comfort of a hug, a place he could be safe—to help him along, he would.

Ed leaned his head against Mustang's shoulder. An oddly trusting gesture that he would have scoffed at from the Ed he'd once known, but whatever had happened had completely changed that.

He rested a hand on Ed's head as the chimera fell into an exhausted sleep.

~.~.~.~

Thanks for reading!

-Rydd Rider