Alphonse sighed and started down the flight of steps in front of Central Library in disappointment. There hadn't really been anything of use there. He'd been searching for what felt like hours and it was already mostly dark outside. It seemed that Mustang had already checked out every book on chimeras that the library owned... but perhaps he'd just been hoping that there was one that both he and the librarians had overlooked. Whatever the case, coming to the library had been a complete waste of time.

He was so frustrated. He'd been so eager to get here and see his brother again, but now that he was here he felt just as lost and alone as ever. Mustang had been working so hard to help Edward, and Al had done next to nothing... he wanted to help, he was desperate to help, but the transmutation had still been a dud. Mustang had been counting on him to help him break through the block and he hadn't been able to. Then Mustang had sent him to do research and he couldn't even do that. He was utterly useless, and had been ever since Ed went missing.

He sighed again harshly and kicked a pebble from one of the steps sullenly. Once again, he was going to have to go back to the colonel empty-handed. This reluctance must be something like what Edward must have felt every time he had to report in to Mustang after each failed attempt to find the Philosopher's Stone. No wonder Ed hated coming in to work, if he felt even half as worthless as Al felt now...

"Alphonse!"

Al looked up to see Lieutenant Colonel Maes Hughes waving at him from the bottom of the steps. In spite of himself, Al's spirits lifted a little to see him. He really liked Hughes. He was a very sweet man who could always make him laugh. Al had silently wished more than once that Mustang could be a little more like Hughes and loosen up a bit. Al didn't think that he'd ever seen the colonel really laugh at anything when he wasn't being ironic. Hughes, though, could go from serious soldier to all smiles at the drop of a hat. He was caring and kind and trustworthy, everything that Al felt a good man should be.

Al smiled and waved back as he trotted down the steps to meet him.

"Good evening, Lieutenant Colonel!" he greeted warmly, glad to see a friendly face when he was so sick at heart. As he approached, though, Alphonse tilted his head to the side curiously. Hughes didn't look good. His eyes were red and he looked a little on the pale side... in spite of this, he was still smiling brightly, so Al shrugged it off. Perhaps he had a cold. It was easy to get sick this time of year. "How are you?"

"I guess I can't complain," Hughes shrugged cheerfully, "How about you?"

"I've been better, to be honest..." Al replied darkly, "I mean, I'm so glad to be back here with Ed... but I feel like I'm just dead weight and Mustang's doing all the work. I really want to help, though..."

"Well... well maybe the best thing to do then is just stay out of the colonel's hair for a while, don't you think...?"

"I guess... I do want to go back and spend time with Ed, though..."

"I really think you should leave Ed to Roy, Alphonse," the man said with a sudden seriousness that took Al a little off-guard. Hughes seemed to sense his surprise and immediately his bubbling smile returned to his face, "Say, why don't you come over to my house for a while. I'm only a few blocks away. I'm sure Elysia and Gracia would both love to see you!"

"I don't know..."

"Oh, come on! You've been gone for so long! You haven't seen any of the latest pictures I've taken of my little angel!"

"No really, I think—"

"Nope! I'm not gonna hear it," Hughes declared, grabbing Al's arm and starting to tow him down the sidewalk, "Elysia will be so happy to see you! How can I deny her such a joy?"

Al considered resisting, but then gave in and let himself be dragged down the block. He knew there was no point in arguing this matter with Maes Hughes. And so, with only a little bit of reluctance, Alphonse moved to walk beside him, half-listening as the man produced a thick stack of pictures from his wallet and babbled about how amazing his daughter was.

Something about the way he was talking didn't sit right with Al, though. The exuberant smile on his face didn't quite reach up to his over-bright, bloodshot eyes. He looked distracted and the light tone in his voice sounded forced and maybe even a little choked...

"Her birthday's only a month and a half away you know!" he gushed, "I'm thinking of getting her a puppy this year, what do you think?"

"Sir, are you okay?" Al asked suddenly, worry touching him as he looked down at the man.

The corner of Hughes' mouth twitched. "Who, me?" he asked flippantly, quickly averting his gaze.

"...Yeah. Your eyes are all red."

"Just a little hay-fever, I think. I've been sneezing all day! So anyway, about the puppy..."

Al stopped walking and looked at him skeptically. When Hughes realized that Al wasn't at his side he also stopped and turned around.

"...Nothing is blooming in Central this time of year," Al said slowly.

"What?"

"You said that you have hay-fever... but there isn't any pollen or anything in the air right now. It's too cool and damp."

"...Well, maybe it's a cold, then," the man said nervously, though he tried to play it off with a careless shrug. Why was he nervous? "What do I look like, a doctor? Come on, let's get going before it gets any darker."

Al didn't budge. Hughes was lying. Something was wrong... something was really, really wrong and Hughes was lying about it.

"Why are you lying to me...?" Al asked, his skepticism turning into anxiety.

"I'm not! It's nothing, really. Just a cold. Please, let's just go."

"You're keeping something from me!" Al insisted, "I'd thought that Mustang was keeping something from me when I was talking to him on the phone a few days ago and now you're doing it, too!"

"Al, please—"

"If it's something to do with Ed, I should know! I'm all he has and I have to take care of him!"

Hughes didn't say anything to that. Al couldn't hide the sudden fear in his voice and the force of it seemed to slam into Hughes like a wave. He just stood there, looking at Al with so much pity worn into his pale face that it was painful to look at.

"...You're trying to keep me away from Mustang's place..." Al realized slowly, "That's what this is all about... that's why he sent me here. He knew I wasn't going to find anything..."

"Al... Kid, you have to understand..." Hughes began, but then stopped as his voice broke mournfully.

"No... Something's wrong, isn't it? I'm going back over there."

"No, please wait!" the man begged grabbing him by the arm again to keep him from leaving, "Don't go, Al. Please. I promised him."

"What are you talking about? Just tell me what's wrong!"

"I can't."

Al tore his arm from Hughes' grip and turned to bolt down the street. There had to be a reason that Hughes was trying to distract him from going back to see Edward. Something must have happened... or something was about to happen that Hughes didn't want him to see.

"Alphonse, stop!" Hughes cried, running after him as it finally started to rain.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Roy was lying on the floor in the basement. For several beats, he couldn't remember why. He felt disconnected from his body. He couldn't feel anything, couldn't move, couldn't focus on anything over than the roaring in his ears, the pounding in his skull, and the taste of blood in his mouth.

Had he passed out? Fallen asleep...? God, he was so tired...

But then he came back to himself and felt Edward's limp body enclosed in his arms. He shut his eyes again tightly and buried his face against the top of his lifeless blond head. He didn't want to let go of him. He didn't want to have to look at what he'd done to him.

He was surely dead by now... A quick glance toward the open door at the top of the staircase told him that night had fallen in the world outside. At least an hour must have passed since the transmutation and Ed had probably had only minutes left before Roy blacked out... Roy hadn't even been conscious for him as he died...

He shuddered and wound his arms even more tightly around the child, pulling their bodies together, too overcome to even weep. The body was still warm and Roy clung to that warmth desperately, trying to embrace that last, failing sign of life...

But then he stopped.

If Ed had been dead for nearly an hour already, the body should have gone cold ages ago... it shouldn't be warm at all...

Roy let go of him and rolled him onto his back, hauling himself up onto his hands and knees to look down at him. Ed's eyes were still open and glazed, fixed vaguely on the empty space over Roy's left shoulder. He was pale as death and the smudges and streaks of dried blood on his face made him look even more colorless. Roy put a hand to his cheek. He was warm... really warm. Unnaturally warm, as if he had a fever. Roy's heart stumbled and he leaned his face down against Edward's lips, holding his own breath as he checked the body before him for respiration.

A faint current of air was flowing from Edward's mouth... hitched and uneven, but there.

"No..." Roy moaned softly.

He was still alive.

Roy should have felt an unnamable joy to see that the boy he'd just murdered still breathed, should have at least felt some relief at knowing that his ravaged body yet lived... but he didn't. He felt like he was going to throw up.

"Ed?" he called, waving a hand in front of the boy's face slowly. Edward's dull eyes started to follow the movement of Roy's hand vaguely, unfocusedly, like a newborn baby trying to make sense of what he's seeing...but then he seemed to lose track of it and fell still again to stare blindly at nothing.

No... Oh, please, no...

This was worse... far worse than killing him. Far worse even than leaving him as a chimera. As a chimera, at least, he'd had some intelligence... had been able to communicate and understand things on a basic level. But now... oh...

Roy had destroyed him. Had completely broken him and yet had failed to kill him. There was still something left of life in him, but it was small and severely damaged. He was even less than a dog now... he was a vegetable, lacking any sort of thought or feeling.

How many ways could Roy possibly fail this boy? He hadn't been able to keep him out of trouble in the first place, then had failed to find him for over four months, during which time unspeakable evils had been done to him. Then even after he'd been rescued, Roy continued to fail him. He hadn't been able to give him the comfort he needed in his vulnerable, depressed state. He hadn't been able to make him human again—and he'd tried so hard, he really had—and now, at the end of it all, he had even failed to kill him. He had plagued him with something far more terrible than death rather than ending his suffering.

No wonder Ed had always hated him before this whole clusterfuck of tragedies had occurred; Roy had been a complete failure in everything he had ever tried to do for him.

Roy clenched his jaw hard against the sob threatening to burst from him and lowered his head, resting his aching brow against Ed's bare chest. He was going to have to kill him again. He couldn't leave him like this, not after swearing not to leave him as a chimera. How would he do it, though? He was too weak to attempt another transmutation... there wasn't enough morphine left to end him painlessly... He had a gun upstairs; it would be easy enough to blow the kid's brains out. Just one second, BANG! then nothing.

It would be simple...

He'd shot people before...

He'd killed before...

...God, this shouldn't be so fucking hard!

He shook his head, wrapping his arms around the boy once more. No, he couldn't do it again. Someone else had to do it. Anybody else. Let Maes do it. Let Armstrong do it. Anybody but him. It had been hard enough the first time and he just couldn't... not him... not again.

He was such a fucking coward.

Maybe Maes had been right the whole time. Maybe Al really would have been willing to take care of Ed in his dumbed-down, barely cognizant state... Maybe Ed's pain could have been controlled with heavier drugs and maybe he and his brother could have lived happily together for years to come. Maybe Roy had been wrong from the beginning and should have discussed everything with Alphonse the way that Maes had wanted him to... Maybe Al would have...

Oh, god... Al.

Alphonse was probably going to be back soon if it was already getting dark out. Maes was a terrible liar and Al was smart; it wasn't going to take him long to figure out Roy's ruse and when he did he'd certainly fly back here as quickly as his metal body could take him. He couldn't see Ed like this, lying on the floor of the basement in bloody disarray, his hair matted to his face... That would be too cruel a thing to do to him... and hadn't he been dealt enough pain? Wasn't the situation terrible enough without leaving Ed's still-living body on the ground, encircled by a sticky pool of his own blood? Roy had to get him upstairs and cleaned off at the very least... it was the only decent thing he could do at this point, after so many mistakes that he could never even bring himself to beg forgiveness for.

And so, sluggishly, Roy attempted to lift Edward's limp body from the ground. He was weak and he was tired and he was so heartsick that he almost gave up before he started, but somehow he managed to throw the motionless body over his shoulder and stagger to his feet. The basement swayed in his vision but he forced himself to remain standing, focusing all of his attentions on the door at the top of the stairs.

One slow, lurching step at a time, he crossed the room. Roy felt heavy in both body and soul and the weight of the dead-but-not-dead child on his back was almost unbearable, but he finally made it to the stairs and paused on the first step, gasping and fighting against the cold, fuzzy blackness that was trying to enshroud his vision. He shook his head to try and clear his failing sight, but that didn't do much more than intensify his vertigo.

He took a breath to steady himself and started up. The pulsing darkness at the corners of his eyes deepened but he continued to push himself until he thought his heart would rupture from exhaustion. He hated this damn staircase. A frantic, giddy voice in the back of his head suggested that he should install a ramp instead. He almost laughed aloud at the thought, but he was too busy placing once foot in front of the other to allow himself any kind of emotional outlet.

Roy reached the top of the staircase, but did not let himself stop and rest. If he did, he might never be able to get himself going again. He didn't want a repeat of what happened the last time he had so exhausted himself through alchemy. He didn't have time to pass out again. He had to get Edward settled and cleaned up. He had to. He had to do it before Al showed up.

But, damn, what a lame gesture it seemed to want to present Al with a tidier version of his invalid brother... Would it even make that much of a difference to him? If Roy left him as is, would he even notice the blood, sweat, and dirt on his face, or would he be too distracted by the harrowing fact that Colonel Roy Mustang had extinguished his brother's beautiful mind in a covert attempt to murder him? In that case, maybe it would be better if Roy just allowed himself to collapse... to black out and not have to witness Alphonse's reaction to his brother's empty body. Oblivion was easier to withstand than that terrible inevitability...

As if in response to Roy's dark, surrendering thoughts, his tired legs tried to give out from under him and it was all he could do to catch himself on the kitchen table without dropping Ed. Even so, Roy stumbled as he grabbed the corner of the table, re-opening the gash on his right hand with its wooden edge. He hissed out a low curse at the renewed pain, then steadied himself and pulled Edward down from his shoulder as carefully as he could, placing him in one of the sturdy wooden chairs.

Edward's head lolled against the back of the chair and his arm hung bonelessly at his side, but he remained more-or-less upright where Roy had propped him. After checking to make sure his dead weight wasn't going to slump to the floor the minute Roy turned his back, he went to the sink and ran cold water into the basin. He splashed his face with it, trying to clear his muddled and frantic mind. The water in the sink quickly darkened to a brown-red, both from Roy's injured hands and from the dried lines of blood that he'd just discovered trailing from his nose and down over his mouth.

That probably isn't good, he thought to himself giddily, reaching under the sink to grab a large metal bowl and a dishrag. Once again he had to fight against the sudden impulse to laugh, but he managed to hold it back. He straightened and filled the bowl with the cold water gushing from the tap, then carried it back over toward the table unsteadily. As he approached, he glanced back up at Ed's face and nearly dropped the bowl.

Ed was watching him. Staring at him.

His eyes were unfocused and inconstant in their gaze—seeming to slide from their intended target for a bit before they forced themselves to rise again and latch on to Roy's movement—but still, he was watching.

Roy set the bowl down on the table hard, his shaking hands unable to do it any more gracefully. Water sloshed over the metal rim and spread across the table in a cool puddle, widening until it reached the edge and dribbled down onto the floor.

It sounded like rain.

Edward turned his head slightly, his sluggish eyes trying to find the source of the sound. Seemingly unable to find it, Ed's eyelids fluttered and slid half-closed in defeat and he returned to staring at nothing.

Was that a good sign? Roy honestly didn't know. It was purposeful movement, right? So it had to be a good thing, didn't it? And it was clear that he could hear the water dripping off of the table... but maybe that didn't really mean anything. Being able to hear didn't mean that he understood what he was hearing... Moving around a little bit didn't mean that he was anywhere close to being okay.

Roy closed his eyes tightly, quelling the brief flash of desperate hope that had touched him at Ed's movement. He should know better than to hope. Hadn't he learned his lesson earlier? It was a waste of time and energy. Hope had been at fault for landing him in this situation to begin with. If he hadn't hoped, Edward would already be dead... safely dead and not a drooling idiot as he was now. Roy had been a fool to ever hope that he could make this right again. He could never do anything right when it came to Edward and Alphonse. Maybe he loved them too much to think clearly about them. He didn't even want to care for them. He didn't used to care. What the fuck had changed over the years?

He shook his head, burying his feelings under the pain in his skull where he would have to think about them. Physical pain was far easier to tolerate than that indescribably agony.

He dipped the dishrag into the bowl of water, then bent over the catatonic boy and started wiping the blood from his face. His eyes opened again fully at the cool sensation of the cloth mopping his cheek and rolled over to look at Roy's hand. Roy pulled the cloth away to rinse it in the water again and Ed's tired eyes followed, riveted to it. Roy tried to ignore him, but still his pulse quickened at each sign of life that Ed was dimly displaying.

Roy's right hand was still bleeding from where he'd torn it open again on the table and it twinged as he used it to wipe Ed's face with the cloth. Blood had started dripping from it fairly heavily, the scarlet droplets hitting the floor and mixing with the water that had already been splattered onto the tiles. Roy rinsed the cloth again and lowered it to efface the smears of blood on Edward's chest. Again, Ed's eyes followed as best they could and his brow furrowed very slightly.

As Roy moved to rinse the cloth again, Edward's hand shot out and caught him by the wrist. Roy dropped the cloth and it slapped against the floor wetly, but he made no move to pick it up. He was frozen, every ounce of his attention focused on Edward, too full of shocked hope—damned, contemptible hope—to even realize that he was holding his breath.

Ed didn't do anything for a moment, just stared at Roy's bleeding hand as if not quite sure what it was. Roy could see his mind trying to work again, fighting to understand... Ed's grip was weak and his fingers were trembling and clumsy, but Roy did not dare to pull away from him, afraid of interrupting whatever divine power was allowing Ed this vague kind of thought.

After what seemed like an eternity, Ed leaned forward a little and brought Roy's open palm up toward his face. He studied it again for several beats, the furrow in his brow deepening into some emotion crossed between confusion and concern. And then, to Roy's horror, he opened his mouth and started to lick up the blood seeping from the gash in his hand.

Roy wanted to snatch his hand away from him, but was prevented from doing so by a deep, sick kind of paralysis. So he just sat there dumbly, eyes wide as he watched the child lap at the wound, cleaning it just as a dog would. This was a completely natural thing for a dog to want to do. It was instinct, simple and pure... but for a child to be doing it—even a child who had all too recently been mostly dog—it was a truly terrifying thing to witness. It would be a perverse and stomach-twisting thing for any random bystander to see, but for Roy it was even more terrible.

Ed's body was nearly human again, but now—Roy noted with rising alarm—it was clear to see that his mind was still in the dull-witted clutches of the dog. Perhaps in the pain and terror of the transmutation, Ed's mind had fled behind the dog's consciousness. Roy had seen it happen once before to a lesser extent, that day when Ed had attacked him by the oak tree... Perhaps he was doing it again now, burying himself so profoundly in canine thought—in a dog mind that was clearly just as damaged as Ed's human body currently was, slow and bordering on severe retardation—that he saw nothing wrong with what he was doing. Even in the beginning, right after he'd been rescued from the lab, Edward's mind had never been dragged so low as this.

But then that could mean that Ed might still be in there somewhere... suffocated and locked in the dark, but still there, cowering behind the sparse, remaining fragments of the dog's failing consciousness.

"Edward...?" Roy ventured softly, his voice breaking, "Are you there?"

Ed was swaying from side-to-side like some kind of poisoned beast or a madman on the streets lost in his own insanity. He ignored Roy completely and continued to lick the wound, daubing his lips and teeth with dark red. The stinging sensation of the child's tongue sliding against the gash was so unspeakably wrong that Roy made a gentle attempt to pull his hand away, but Ed's weak grip on it tightened and a low, warped growl rumbled from his throat.

Roy had to swallow back bile before he could make himself continue.

"Come on, kid... please answer me..."

No reaction.

Roy's heart was beating hard, hoping—just hoping, pleading, praying against every inkling of defeat and logic that dwelt within him—for any kind of response. His imprisoned hand twitched in Edward's grip, making dark red lines trail down past his wrist as he resisted the abrupt, savage urge to strike him, to physically wound him, to damage the degraded thing that he had become...

The degraded, mindless thing that Roy had turned him into.

"ED!" Roy shouted finally, brokenly.

The name echoed in the room, ricocheting off of the cold tiled floor, off of the cabinets, and off of the white walls of the dimly-lit kitchen. It echoed against the small window over the sink, against that tiny view of the night sky as the clouds finally decided to give in and let go of the rain they had been suppressing for days. Droplets of rainwater pattered against the glass, the only sound that remained after the resonation of Roy's frantic, anguished voice fractured and faded into silence.

The boy still gave no reaction for several beats, but then paused in his lapping as if it had taken him a moment to process Roy's exclamation. His dazed, blood-darkened eyes wandered back to Roy's face and regarded him blandly, then returned to the crimson-smeared hand he was holding.

His gaze sharpened and his eyes flew open wide. He jerked back from Roy and threw his hand down with a soft, horrified cry. He clapped his hand over his mouth, turned his head and vomited hard. Stomach acid tinged red with blood—most of it Ed's, some of it Roy's—splashed to the floor and mingled with the spilled water. Ed's frail, bony back heaved and he made tiny, frantic noises between retches.

In spite of the tragic, terrible sight playing out in front of him, Roy's heart leapt with joy. There had been horror on Ed's face. Horror. Dogs' minds were not complex enough to experience true horror. Fear? Yes... but horror is deeper than just simple fear. Horror is beyond fear, for it connotes a deep, revolted understanding. A dog couldn't comprehend horror. It was a human emotion.

A strictly human emotion.

Ed wiped his mouth on the back of his trembling hand and curled in on himself, shuddering.

"Ed...?" Roy asked when he could make himself speak, still not entirely believing the sight of Ed resurfacing before him, "Are... are you okay?"

The boy turned his head slightly to look at him. His eyes were huge, the lids still encrusted with dried blood and as Roy watched, they filled with tears.

"No..." he whispered, his thin chest lurching as he gasped in air. He shook his head, the blood-tinged tears streaking down his face. "No... n-not okay..."

He clutched the side of his head with his one shaking hand and doubled over in the chair, his eyes still wide and haunting as he mumbled to himself, the words too low for Roy to understand over the roar of his own heart pounding in his ears. Edward understood now... fully understood what had been done to him, reflecting on the past few months with a suddenly human mind. The terrible knowledge was written all over his face, flashes of newly remembered torture tightening his jaw and over-spilling from his frightened—horrified—eyes.

Roy reached out a timid hand and placed it on Edward's trembling back, too overwhelmed—both with disbelieving elation and deepest sorrow—to make any sort of attempt at vocalizing comfort. Edward had spoken. His eyes were still bleary and unsteady, but he was alert and he was talking in his own voice. It was not the voice of a chimera that he was hearing, but the voice of a child. Edward's beautiful, unforgettable voice.

"H-help me..." Edward sobbed, curling in on himself even further, "Help me, please..."

"...I'm trying, kid," Roy managed to rasp, his voice thick and wavering. He lowered himself down onto his knees in front of the suffering boy, unheeding of the cold mixture of blood, water, and vomit that soaked into his trousers. He took Ed's face in his hands and forced him to meet his eyes. "I'm going to fix you, Ed. I swear it. I won't give up as long as you won't, okay? I promise... I promise..."

Edward stared at him, then closed his eyes tightly and practically threw himself on the bigger man, wrapping his arm around Roy's neck and pressing his face to his cheek as he finally broke down and wept hard. Anguished and a little startled, Roy hesitated before he could bring himself to reciprocate the embrace, but then he wound his arms around his as tightly as he could, gritting his teeth against his own emotions. He pulled the boy down onto the floor with him and held him, quietly promising him over and over again that he was going to be okay. He'd be fine. He was strong and brave and beautiful and Roy would never let anything like this happen to him ever again. He was safe, now. He was home.

Roy wasn't sure how he did it in retrospect, but somehow he managed to get his feet under him and carry the child in his arms back into the bedroom. It took some gentle coaxing to convince Ed to let go of him, but then he settled him on the bed and sat next to him, rubbing his back until he was able to get a hold of himself and stop crying. Ed quieted after a few minutes, clutching the dark sheets in his hand and breathing hard, moaning softly.

"...Are you in much pain?" Roy asked gently, finger-combing Ed's tangled hair away from his face. Ed nodded tightly.

"It's bad," he half-sobbed, "it's really, really bad right now..."

That wasn't surprising, given how much his body had been forced to change in this one transmutation. The pain after that first fated transmutation days ago was nothing compared to the pain that Ed must be feeling now. Roy's own body was still too beleaguered by adrenaline and shock to feel the full extent of the pain he would most certainly feel tomorrow—though his head was killing him and his injured hands stung—but he knew that Ed's pain must be far worse now, and it was only going to get more intense the more he came back to himself.

Roy considered his options briefly, then turned his head and eyed the thin box of hypodermic needles that was still sitting on the other side of the bed. He reached for it and pulled one out.

"I'm going to give you a shot for the pain, okay? I know you don't like needles, but it'll help you sleep," he mumbled, stomach turning at the all too recent memory of trying to inject Ed the first time. Edward opened one eye tiredly as Roy sucked the clear fluid into the syringe—less than a fourth of the amount that he'd attempted to use on him earlier.

"What is it?" Edward panted, his voice hitched and gravelly.

"Morphine."

Edward nodded his acquiescence and let his eye fall shut. But then his eyes opened again suddenly and he stared at the needle. Roy was sure that Ed remembered when he'd tried to inject him earlier with this same drug. Perhaps he noticed that this dosage was drastically smaller than the last, a fact that made his eyes go wide in silent realization and look up at Roy questioningly. It is a common fact that high doses of morphine induce a swift and painless death and Roy had no doubt in his mind that Ed knew this.

"I'd lost hope," Roy responded to Ed's unasked question as he slid the needle into his shoulder and dosed him. Ed didn't say anything to that. He didn't look angry or frightened at the thought of his superior trying to kill him. He looked as if he understood, as if he didn't blame Roy in the slightest. He looked as if he wasn't quite sure how he was supposed to feel and so closed his eyes again as if too tired to deal with it at the moment. He'd think about it later.

There were a lot of things that he was going to have to think about and come to terms with later, but for now he just needed to let his poor, ravaged body rest as it struggled to cope with what had been done to it.

"I'll let you sleep now," Roy said quietly, getting to his unsteady feet and making to exit the room.

"Ngh, wait..." Ed mumbled, forcing his eyes half-open even as the blissful drug started to pull him down into painless slumber.

"What?"

"Something... I wanna tell you..."

"...What?"

And then, to Roy's surprise, a fatigued smile found itself pulling at the corners of Edward's mouth and, very quietly, he spoke three little words that Roy would never forget as long as he lived.

Something within Roy Mustang—something that had been pulled taut over the past several days—was about to reach its breaking point.

"...Go to sleep, Ed," he forced himself to say after a long, breathless pause, turning to quickly leave the room with his hand over his mouth. Ed had already succumbed to the morphine by the time he responded and didn't hear his departure.

Roy stumbled back into the kitchen, feeling lost and engulfed by everything around him. He dropped exhaustedly into one of the chairs and stared at the shining wetness of water on the table. And then, in the cold silence of his kitchen, the tightly pulled thread of his hard-won composure finally snapped.

He took a deep breath and buried his face in his hands, biting into his injured palm to keep himself quiet.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Maes ran after Alphonse through the thickening rain, soaked to the skin by the torrential downfall, legs pumping and heart in his throat. He had stopped trying to get Al to listen to reason three blocks ago and had resigned himself to simply pursuing him as he ran toward his brother's dead body. Roy had certainly killed him already. It had been over two hours since Maes had gone to wait for Al in front of the library, more than enough time to end a child's life.

Maes had still failed his friend, though. He knew Roy very deeply and understood that his request for time was not so that he could steel himself against what he had to do... he wanted to use the time to collect himself afterwards. But Maes had failed to keep Alphonse away and he had no doubt that they were about to burst in on a wrecked man in deep mourning for what he had just done.

Roy's house came in to view and Al ran toward it with a renewed burst of speed, Maes hot on his metal heels. Al reached the door but didn't even try the knob. He knew it would be locked and so just opted to break it down with one solid blow from his massive fist. The door caved in with a deafening crash. Al stormed into the house and Maes dodged around him to get in front of him and ran into the front room.

"I'm so sorry, Roy!" Maes shouted, eyes darting around for his friend, "He figured it out, I couldn't keep him back. I—"

But then his eyes landed on Roy and he stopped. The man was sitting at the kitchen table, head in his hands and shoulders quaking violently. He was keeping himself almost completely silent, but his trembling form was enough to bring tears to Maes' eyes.

It really was finished, then.

Al had come to a halt next to Maes as if he, too, were struck by Roy's emotion. Perhaps seeing him like this had brought him to the same conclusion that Maes had reached.

"...Where... where is he...?" Alphonse moaned quietly as if he didn't really want to know.

Roy did not lift his head to reply, but raised one badly shaking hand to point toward the bedroom. Al turned and fled in that direction, calling for his brother in a high, frantic voice.

"Al, maybe you shouldn't see..." Maes pleaded desperately, about to follow.

"H-he's fine..." Roy said suddenly, his voice warped—not by tears as Maes would have assumed, but by an odd, frightening kind of laughter. "He's gonna b-be okay..."

"You mean...?"

"I couldn't do it," he giggled into his hands, clearly overtaken by some giddy form of hysteria. "I tried. I... but I..." he cut off, laughing too hard to complete his sentence. Maes stepped over to him cautiously, not knowing what to do and more than a little alarmed. Roy finally lowered his hands and looked up at him, his eyes bright with exhaustion and tears. His face and hands were covered in blood but he didn't seem to care, too overpowered by his tragic mirth to give it any heed. After a moment, he was able to hold back his laughter enough to tell Maes what had happened and he listened closely with both relief and distress.

"But he's alive? He's okay?" Maes asked in disbelief.

"No. He's not okay... but he will be," Roy said. He took a deep breath as if to try and steady himself but then slipped into another disturbing about of laughter, trembling like a leaf.

"Roy, you need to calm down..." Maes tried to sooth, putting a hand on each of his shoulders, "You're hysterical..."

"I know I'm hysterical! And the s-scary thing is that I've been t-t-trying to calm down for the past fifteen minutes!" he howled, wiping his eyes and laughing even harder, "Besides, you're always telling m-me that I need to laugh more!"

Maes bit his lip. He pulled another chair over and seated himself close to his friend, running a hand up and down his back as he fought to get himself under control. He looked ready to either pass out or vomit.

"Come on, just breathe for a minute..." Maes said, "Its okay, just calm down..."

Roy covered his face with his hands again and took several slow, unsteady breaths.

"You w-wanna know the last thing he s-said... said to me before he fell asleep just now?" Roy asked, his voice sounding closer to tears now that some of the laughter was beginning to subside.

"What did he say?"

"He said, 'You do snore.'"

"Well..." Maes said warily, "You do."

Roy choked and then cracked up again, laughing like a madman. Maes almost joined him, but resisted the urge to give into the contagiousness of his friend's hysteria and instead put his arms around him, holding him in what he hoped was a calming embrace.

And soon, as Maes had hoped, the manic laugher died down into a soft weeping and then into silence.

After a moment, Roy pulled away and wiped his face on his sleeve, his expression drawn with fatigue and mild embarrassment. He was in control again and he gave a curt nod of thanks to Maes. Maes smiled at him worriedly and got to his feet.

"I'll be right back; let me go make sure that Al is okay..."

Roy nodded distractedly and wiped his eyes again.

Maes went into the bedroom cautiously. Al was sitting on the bed, looking down at his brother in silence. He raised his head a little when Maes stepped in.

"He... he looks good," Al rasped, gesturing toward Ed's sleeping form as if he didn't quite believe it. And Ed did look good. At first glance, Maes might have mistaken him for completely human, but then he noticed the dark claws at the ends of Ed's slightly misshapen fingers and how long his nose still looked. Overall, it was definitely an improvement. He looked smaller somehow, though... even more frail than he had been. His skin was too white, his arm and leg too thin, his once-muscular belly concave with malnourishment. But, oh, he was still so beautiful.

"Roy says that he's going to be fine..." Maes informed him, "He's not completely fixed yet, but he's very close."

Al nodded silently, then looked up again, "Is... is Mustang okay?"

"Yeah," he sighed at length, "Just your run-of-the-mill nervous breakdown, I think. He'll be fine."

Al didn't look very soothed by that answer and Maes smirked at him. "I'll leave you two alone, then," he murmured, and backed out of the room again.

He returned to the kitchen again to see Roy with his head resting on the table. His back rose and fell with slow, dreamy respiration. The exhausted man had calmed himself admirably, it seemed.

In fact, he was asleep... and snoring very softly.