A/N: Hey look! This chapter didn't take an eternity to write! It's a miracle. Or possibly a sign of the apocalypse. But just so you know, my chapter posting will probably be a little erratic for a while, since I had the brilliant idea to return myself to the brutality of calculus and added on the evilness of physics (actually I like physics, but god, it's soooo much work!) and economics of doom. Point being, I have lots of schoolwork and not nearly enough time to do it in, and this story takes a lot of work, so it's going to take me a little longer sometimes to finish chapters. But I still have lots to write in this story (I have at least vague ideas of where I want to go for the next 4 or 5 chapters), so I will persevere. To this I must add a humongous gigantic thank you to everyone who reviewed the last chapter - I was worried my horribly long absence had driven off all my loyal readers, but you guys proved me wrong! You are incredible and awesome. I will you all find peace, happiness, and FMA plushies.

Disclaimer: I offered to sell my soul to Hiromu Arakawa in exhange for FMA, but she wouldn't bite. Something about damaged goods and poor condition. I wonder how much I could get from the devil?


Chapter Nine: Who Was That Masked Man Anyway? – Part Three

Roy resisted the temptation to run a hand nervously through his hair. He had put up quite an argument against Hughes' suggestion that he go outside and check on the young man he had seen fight. However, Hughes had pointed out that the man could be seriously injured, that no one else showed any signs of going after him, and finally that it would allow Roy further escape from Flossy, so the Colonel had grudgingly consented. Now he stood awkwardly in a small courtyard ringed by trees and flower gardens on one side and the wall of the palace on the other. The small lamps mounted on the wall cast a dim illumination over the courtyard, and on the young man who slumped on a bench at the far end.

Roy cleared his throat uncomfortably. "Excuse me, are you alright?" No point in beating around the bush, was there?

The voice was a growl, so low as to be almost imperceptible. "I'm fine. Go away."

Roy took a step closer. "There's no need to be rude," he said casually. "I'm just being friendly."

The man snorted loudly. "I don't even know who you are. Why should you care if I'm alright?"

Roy paused for a moment at that – it was a valid question. He couldn't think of anything in particular, so he responded with the offhand remark, "We'd hardly look good in front of our allies, not to mention our enemies, if one of our soldiers got killed at one of our events."

"Well, I'm not going to die, so you can go back in there in, tell them that and leave me alone," said the man forcefully.

Roy smirked, although he knew the man probably couldn't see it in the gloom. "I don't think so," he said. He slow movements had, by this point in the conversation brought him only a few feet away from the bench. "You see, I have this innate curiosity – part of being an alchemist, I suppose. I don't think I can leave until I get an answer out of you."

He couldn't see the glare, but he could feel it. "What are you talking about?"

"I want to know what possessed you that you would challenge Robert de Vassali to a fist fight. The man is certifiably insane. Not to mention that you did it at the most important diplomatic function of the year. Not subtle, are you?"

Just as he couldn't see the glare, he couldn't see the young man flipping him off; that didn't mean it wasn't happening. "It's none of your business why, bastard. And even if it were, there's nothing to tell. The guy just pissed me off."

Roy raised an eyebrow. "Judging by the way you were throwing yourself at him, I think he did more than call you names. Really, why did you do it?"

"Stop being so damn nosy. It's none of your business, so just forget about it!"

Roy glanced down at the man. "I don't see why you should care so much. You said it yourself – you don't know me and I don't know you. Even if it's personal, what can I do when I don't even know what you look like? It won't hurt you to tell a total stranger."

The young man sighed audibly. "You're not going to leave me alone until I tell you, are you?"

"No."

The words came out as a rushed mumble; Roy couldn't even begin to pick out actual words. "What?"

Another glare – he was on his way to setting a record. "I said, that jerk insulted someone I know and started threatening him. So I decided to defend him. Which is stupid, because I completely hate him. Completely and utterly, I hope his head explodes and he jumps off a bridge before being eaten by piranhas, hate him."

Roy whistled. "I'm impressed. Why such strong feelings?"

"Let's see…he's superior, he's sarcastic, he's manipulative, he's cold and selfish and self-absorbed and obsessed with promotion, he tries to control everything I do and he acts like he knows everything about me, he likes to make fun of me and humiliate me, and he doesn't give a damn about anyone. I hate everything about him!" By the end of this tirade, the man was gasping; his voice has risen to a furious shout and he was slamming his fist against the stone bench. "And you know what I hate the most about him?"

"What?"

Then he looked away, and his voice dropped back to a whisper. "I hate how much I love him."

For once in his life, Roy was caught off his guard, and found himself completely speechless. The young man didn't seem to notice, as he continued in his rant.

"It's so stupid! The world isn't supposed to work like this; the world is supposed to be rational and logical, and this is just stupid! It's stupid and irrational and it doesn't make sense and I hate things I can't understand and explain! And I can't understand why I love him, because I hate him, but I do."

Roy recovered himself then enough to ask vaguely, "Does he feel the same about you?"

The man's voice was bitter and self-mocking. "The bastard? I finally got up the nerve to confess how I felt about him, and you know what he did? He didn't even have the decency to tell me he didn't reciprocate; he let me think he felt the same, and then the next day, he blew me off by saying he'd been drunk."

Roy found himself growing inexplicably angry at this. "This guy sounds like a jerk. You're probably better off without him."

"You think I don't know that? I thought I'd hate him after what he did to me. I wanted to hate him, because of what he did. I paid him back for it – I mean, it's Equivalent Exchange, right? He hurt me, so I hurt him back. But even then I didn't hate him. I tried to, but it didn't make a damn bit of difference! Even after what he did, I can't just wave the white flag and surrender; I can't just forget the feelings I have for him because he doesn't feel the same. I still love that damn bastard."

Roy found that he couldn't meet the young man's eyes after that outburst. After a moment's thought, he asked gently, "What do you plan to do?"
The man choked off a harsh laugh. "I don't really know. Leave, I guess. Never see him or talk to him again, try to forget this whole thing ever happened. What can I do, besides try to move forward? It's pretty pathetic, though."

The way he sat – hunched over, head bowed, arms wrapped around himself – made Roy think at first that he was crying, and he didn't think he could cope with that. Thus he was rather relieved when further observation revealed that the young man was not crying; it was just as though his emotional display had taken so much from him that he lacked the energy to say anything more.

The silence was quickly growing painful, and Roy didn't know how to break it. He had no idea what to say to the young man slumped before him. He had only intended to tease the young man about the fight, to release a little of the lingering fear and tension he probably felt after what had happened. He hadn't anticipated a confession like this, and he didn't know how he was supposed to react. People who needed advice and comfort went to Hughes, not him – and where was that jerk when Roy needed him? Emotional displays made Roy uneasy; he never knew what to say or do. Normally he would have just walked away, but now he found himself, unaccountably, wanting to offer the young man reassurance. He wanted to tell him that everything would be alright. However, he didn't know how to help him, so he just stood there, staring at the ground at the man's feet, unable to break the silence.

He saw the first drop fall, and simply stared at it bemusedly, wondering what it was as it slowly spread into a small circle on the dark ground. It was joined by a second, and Roy thought the young man had broken the silence by finally breaking down and crying. When the third fell, it occurred to him that it was too thick and dark to be tears, and then his brain finally caught up and supplied the word he had been searching for unsuccessfully – blood.

"Blood – you're bleeding. He hurt you, didn't he? I knew it, I told you, you should've…damn it!" he babbled absently, words spilling out without bothering to ask his brain for permission. His mind was occupied elsewhere – namely, running up the man's body, trying to find the source of the blood. Finally his eyes fell on the man's face; dark blood was welling up from a hitherto unnoticed gash across the cheek of his red mask.

"That looks ugly…you should let me take a look at it to make sure it's not too serious."

Roy bent down to examine the young man's face. One hand reached up to cup the mask as the other reached behind his head to untie it. The mask had only begun to fall away when he saw it – the young man's irises glowed a warm golden color. There was only one person he knew with gold eyes.

"Edward?"

"Roy?" Roy had a brief glimpse of hawk-like eyes that widened in shock and then darkened in anger. Then he felt hands slam against his shoulders and a booted foot shove against his chest, and he tumbled backwards. The young man – Edward, he thought dully, it's Ed – stood, blind hatred radiating in every inch of his stance.

"You sick bastard. What the hell is wrong with you?" he asked flatly, voice trembling with rage. "Is this just some kind of twisted game you're playing with me? Well, screw you, alright? I'm out of here."

And indeed, Roy thought blankly, Ed was leaving, was walking away, in a few seconds he would be across the courtyard and through the door and gone, and Roy would have done nothing to stop him. Not that he wanted to stop him; a day ago he would have been completely happy if the boy had walked out of his life forever and not looked back, and nothing had changed.

'Are you really going to let him walk away?' Asked his irritating internal voice, which sounded suspiciously like Hughes.

'Why should I try to stop him? He made his choice.' Ed was halfway across the courtyard now.

'You blew your first chance. If you blow this, you won't get a third, you know.' He really hated his inner Hughes sometimes. The man could at least answer his damn questions.

'I don't want a third chance. I didn't want a second chance. After what he did – he blew it, not me.'

'Are you willing to lose this forever because you're too petty to forgive him?' Ed was only a few feet away from the door. A few more seconds, and it wouldn't matter anymore; it would be all over, with no going back.

'I can't forgive him! Not for what he did!' But he knew his resolve was weakening.

'To hell with your pride! You will regret this for the rest of your life!'

'But…' How could he be losing to himself, damnit?

'You can't let him walk away!'

The first time Roy tried to say it, his voice failed him; all that came out of his mouth was a hoarse, inaudible croak. The second time, however, the word tore out of him in an unintentional shout.

"Edward!"

Somewhat to Roy's surprise, Ed halted at his shout and stood still, back to him, one hand outstretched to the door.

"Ed, I don't…you can't…I mean…please…" Roy took a deep breath. "I don't want you to leave like this. Not again. Please."

The blond whirled around, hands clenched into fists at his sides. "Why should I give a damn what you want?"

"Don't I at least get a chance to explain myself?" Roy asked him. "You did."

"What could you possibly have to say that would make any difference?" Ed demanded.

"I don't know. But I do know that if I let you walk away like this I'll regret it for the rest of my life."

"Why? You didn't seem to have any second thoughts last time, so why should it matter now?" It would have been better if he shouted, Roy thought; the low, furious tones of Ed's voice were almost painful to hear.

"The things you just said…I didn't know you felt that way." Roy answered softly.

"You're a liar, Mustang. How could you not know how I feel when I told you to your face that I loved you?!" Ed's voice cracked on the last words.

The resentment and guilt that Roy had been fueling for weeks washed over him now, making his next words far sharper, almost cruel. "You were drunk, Ed. You didn't know what you were saying."

That statement seemed to stop Ed cold; he simply stood blinking for several seconds. His response, however, when he was finally capable of making one, was not what Roy expected. "What the hell are you talking about?! I wasn't drunk at that party; that was you, if you don't remember."

Roy answered him coldly, "Don't try to lie to me, Ed. I tasted the alcohol on your breath when I…when I kissed you. And I don't know why you would think I was drinking, because I sure as hell wasn't."

Ed snorted. "I was trying to get drunk. The bartender realized I was a minor and cut me off before I even managed to finish one drink, though. And you told me the next day that you'd been drinking, bastard."

"But I never…" Roy's angry reply trailed off as a look of dawning comprehension spread over his face. He let out a laugh that was more bitter than amused. "This is so…typical, Ed. Only you could so completely misunderstand what I was trying to tell you."

With a spiteful glare, Ed said, "What are you trying to tell me now? Or are you just screwing with my head, like always?"

Shaking his head, Roy replied acerbically, "You always have to make things complicated, don't you Ed? You can never just let things go the way they were supposed to. I was trying to give you an out after that spectacle at the bar, because I knew you didn't mean it. And you were supposed to appreciate that I did it and spared you from being humiliated. You were going to walk out of my office and never mention it again, so that we could go back to just being Flame and Fullmetal. But you can't let anything be that simple, can you?"

He knew instantly that that had been the wrong thing to say; the violent flaring of Ed's temper was visible, even before he opened his mouth again, even though he was still barely raising his voice. "You complete and utter bastard. What gives you the right to decide that?! And how in hell, after what happened, after what I said,after what I did, could you think I didn't mean it?!"

A different sort of person would have screamed it dramatically, or sobbed it out amidst tears; Roy, however, kept his voice perfectly level.

"I don't deserve you."

"What?"

Roy wondered if saying that had been a mistake, as well, but he couldn't take it back now, no matter how much he wanted to.

"I'm not going to repeat myself, Ed. You heard me perfectly well, I'm sure. But that's why I knew you didn't mean the things you said before; because I knew you couldn't love me."

"Why?! What's stopping me? Why can't I love you?" Ed challenged him, and the sight of those golden eyes filled with hurt and fury was too much for Roy.

"You can't love me…because you're too good for me. Because you're too perfect. Because you're too beautiful. Because I want you too much." He paused then, his voice barely a whisper, his dark eyes stubbornly refusing to meet Ed's. "You can't love me…because I love you, and I don't deserve that."


A/N: Gah, an evil cliffie of doom!! This was going to be the end of this three-parter, but in conference with Jane Austen Girl and hanjuuluver, it was concluded that this was a good place to end the chapter, so here you go. The next chapter shall be the conclusion of Who Was That Masked Man Anyway (not of The Dance Lesson, just of the events at the ball), if all goes according to plan. In the meantime I leave you all to speculate on Ed's reaction to Roy's confession. Because I'm just that evil. PS: Review! Oh, and bonus points for anyone who can guess the EdRoy AMVs I was watching on Youtube that gave me ideas for about half this chapter. I seriously need to get a normal life.