The sound of the train's whistle roused him and he blinked wearily into the darkness, lifting his head. "Are we there yet?" he asked groggily.

"No," said an equally sleep-filled voice. "Go back to sleep."

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His skin hadn't been burned significantly, just small patches were slightly red. She still put some salve on the areas that she could see. The worst was his feet. He wasn't used to walking about barefoot in the middle of the city, so they were rather tender and uncallused. Walking on burning wood did not help the matter at all.

As soon as his adrenaline receded, his headache was back in full-force and he was coughing from slight smoke inhalation, and his feet burned like hell. She gave him his hangover medicine first and then some cough syrup from her cabinet.

"Is this a good combination?" he asked, after he'd ingested both, followed by two full glasses of ice-cold water.

She shrugged nonchalantly and went to work on his feet. She cleaned them with lukewarm water, getting rid of the ash and dirt that had gotten into the skin. He was already starting to blister.

"Ow," he said rather loudly, when she pressed too hard against one of them.

She said nothing, only Hmm'd in indifference as she opened the salve once again and smeared it over the bottoms of his feet. She massaged it in gently, but he winced nonetheless.

When she got to his toes, he suddenly pulled his feet away and she looked up at him, blinking. His face was turned to the side and looked a bit red. He said nothing, just cleared his throat.

Riza cocked her head to one side before it clicked in. "Did that tickle?"

"Of course not," he said adamantly, frowning, and she let a small smile grace her features.

"Well, give them back, I need to put bandages on them."

He reluctantly slid them back over to her and she wrapped them up in gauze, firm but not too tight, and not too loose. He sighed heavily.

"What?" she asked.

He thought about his words for a second. "You haven't yelled at me yet."

"Do you want me to?"

"Not particularly."

He listened to her pack the first aid kit back up and then place it back near the sink.

"Are you going to?" he asked at last.

She paused, staring at her reflection in the mirror. "No."

Roy blinked. "You're not?"

"No," she repeated, letting out a breath. "You saved that boy's life, and possibly more."

"Mm..."

"I'm going to make sure everything's packed," she said abruptly, and left him.

He stood up using the bathroom wall and gingerly put his weight on his feet. He could feel the blisters blooming on the pads but he couldn't feel the pain then. Still, he gently hopped back to the bedroom and over to his bed.

Riza had pretty much packed away everything in the past week, and he had lain there listening to her move around, bemused that he couldn't help. This time was no different. He plopped onto his bed and sighed again, staring unfocused up at the ceiling.

"Lieutenant."

"Sir."

"What time is our train?"

"Eight o'clock tonight."

"What time is it now?"

"Twelve noon."

He left her alone after that, just silently listening to her squirrel around. Hayate, ignored by his master and sulking, got up on his bed and laid against the length of his recently-acquired master's left side. When the headache medicine kicked in, along with the cough syrup, Roy curled up on his side, breathed in her scent on his pillow from last night, and dozed off.

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"Colonel."

"Colonel."

He shifted uncomfortably, his arm stinging. "'m not a Colonel anymore," he said sleepily.

"Brigadier General, get up and eat."

He'd only managed a thirty-minute nap. He sat up unwillingly and gingerly walked into the kitchen for a sandwich.

The rest of the afternoon passed by in a blur. The men had come in immediately after that to take their boxes, and revealed to them something the two hadn't thought about. A newspaper.

"Look, boss, you're on the front page!" Breda gloated.

Roy scowled. "I can't look, Breda."

Breda blinked before shrugging. "Falman can read it to you, then."

And so Falman did, reciting it in a monotone voice for the first paragraph before Armstrong tugged the paper away and started reading it aloud himself, doing great justice to the extravagant adventure story printed within of a gallant, handsome hero that jumped into a flaming inferno to rescue a scared child, doused the flames with alchemy, and then dramatically disappeared.

At the end, Roy sat there, one eyebrow raised incredibly high. "And... who did that again?"

"You did!" Armstrong said, posing himself. He had acted out the whole story whilst reading it, even though Roy couldn't watch.

"Yeahhh..." Roy said vaguely.

"Well, at least it's good for publicity," Fuery said pushing his glasses further up on his nose. They had become askew when Armstrong had chosen him for the child's role and had flung him all over the place.

They all helped carry the boxes out to a truck. There weren't too many boxes, just a few, but added to the already-loaded truck filled with the other men's boxes, it looked like a lot. Then, they pretty much loitered around the house, talking to each other about what they'd never forget in Central, memories and the like.

And now they were on the train, dressed in casual clothes but with their own compartments. Falman, Armstrong, Breda, and Havoc shared one (a disaster in the making), and across the aisle were Riza, Roy, Fuery, and Hayate.

Fuery, the type to fall asleep immediately in any type of vehicle, laid down and promptly dozed off, Hayate curled into his stomach.

Roy tried to stay awake, but his head kept drooping until it finally banged against Riza's shoulder.

"Ow," he said softly, rubbing his eye.

She grabbed his arm and tugged him down and he fell sideways onto her lap. He blinked in amazement. "Lieutenant?"

"Go to sleep."

He lay there awkwardly, before he scooched down a bit so that only his head was on her legs, his own limbs bent so that he could fit onto the rest of the seat.

"Good night," he said lamely.

"Good night."

It took him awhile to doze off, his heart beating too fast, but he managed to fall into a deep slumber, unconsciously rolling over onto his side so that his forehead was against her abdomen. Riza, too, over time, leaned her head against the window, the coolness on her temple pulling her into her own darkness.

Fuery opened one eye and looked at them. Hayate picked his head up and they glanced at each other. Fuery put a finger to his lips, smiling, before they both settled back to sleep.