It was early May, a week before the State Alchemist Exam, and Yukio had just finished packing his bags to leave for Xing. He was lucky enough to be accepted into a school for Alkahestry, and Roy had promised to pay for his needs while he was over there by giving him access to his bank account.

He snapped his last suitcase close and sat down on his bed. He looked up to see Rin sitting across from him on his own bed. A sad smile crossed his face. There was a silence between them for a few moments."So I guess this is it then," he said.

"Yeah…" Yukio muttered.

"Off to bigger and better things."

"uh-huh."

"..."

"..."

"...You know It'll be weird not having you nagging me all the time," Rin said, "But I guess I'll still have Dad for that." He laughed awkwardly before the room fell into silence again.

"Rin?" Yukio finally said.

"Yeah?"

"Promise me you won't get into too much trouble," he said.

Rin smiled cheekily. "When have I ever been a troublemaker?" he asked. Yukio glared at him. "Ok, Ok," he said holding up his hands in defense, "I really will try to keep out of trouble, Ok?"

"Good," Yukio said, "Also….Please, try to not upset Dad too much." "I know Dad's going to be pissed about this whole state alchemist thing regardless. Don't even try to deny that," he said, "But you know he loves and cares for us. Don't push him away just because he's going to be angry."

Rin sighed. "Yeah...I know," he said looking down and away. There was a moment of silence before he spoke again. "Now come on," he said forcing a smile, and hopping off the bed, "Let's go get you to the train station before you're too late and have to spend another day with us losers." He clapped his twin on the back and picked up one of his suit cases. Yukio smiled back and him as the headed to the door.

….

the train whistled loudly as it prepared to leave the station. "Good luck!" Al called, "Be safe!" Everyone was standing at the station to wish him well. Not just the Elric brothers, but Uncle Hughes, Riza, Roy, and the colonel team. Alex was currently crying, blowing his nose in the background.

"I will!" Yukio shouted from the window.

"Make sure to teach us and tell about Alkahestry when you get back!" Ed Holland and tells he waved.

"You got it!" he chuckled in amusement.

The rest of the group also started to call out their goodbyes as the train left the station."Say goodbye Elicia!" Maes said, lifting her hand up to wave at him.

Yukio smiled at his Uncle's antics. Then he spotted his Dad among the group. He was smiling brightly but Yukio could see there was some sadness. "Bye Dad!" he called, "I'll be back soon. I'll make sure to call before I reach the desert!"

Roy nodded before waving goodbye. He watched the train until it was out of sight. This whole day had been a strange mix of emotions for him. He was very proud of Yukio. When he had first gained custody of the boy, he had never imagined he would end up being invited to study in a school in Xing! Still there was a hollow feeling inside of him that grew a bit larger as he watched the train leave. He couldn't quite place the emotion. It was mix of sadness and worry...and there was just a hint of a sour thought lingering in the back of his mind. A foreboding sense that things were going to change and never be the same.

He pushed it aside though. There was no point in distressing himself about something he couldn't hope to change. He just had to stand up and keep moving forward as always. Though that didn't stop his smile from falling as the train disappeared from view and the hollow feeling to grow deeper.

Then, all of a sudden, there was a hand on his shoulder. He looked to his left where he saw Riza standing next to him. While she didn't smile or say anything, there was still a comforting look in her eyes. Roy nodded in thanks before turning to go.

….

Over the next week, Roy had noticed how quiet the house had been. Which was strange, considering that Yukio was the quieter of the two. He had expected it to get noisier without Yukio to keep Rin in check, but it didn't. However, it did get messier as expected. Clothes now hung off of chairs and dishes were left out. He'd already had to yell at Rin three times to pick up his things.

A few arguments had sprung up here and there, but the week had gone mostly smoothly. That didn't stop Roy from being surprised when he woke up monday morning to find Rin preparing breakfast. He had woken up completely confused by the smell of frying grease. At first he thought an oil fire might have started, but found that was not the case at all.

"Morning!" Rin called as he saw the bleary eyed man staring at him in disbelief.

"Rin?" he asked, "What are you doing up so early?" he glanced at the clock. It was only six in the morning. Usually Roy had to wake him up.

"Couldn't sleep very well," he admitted, "So I decided to get up and make breakfast."

"Why's that?" he asked.

"Oh, just couldn't get comfortable is all," he responded, "You know, it was just one of those nights." While his first answer had been true, his second was a lie. The written exam today had been on him mind all night, only allowing him a few hours of rest. Finally he had gotten sick of worrying and decided to cook to calm himself down. Plus it wouldn't hurt to have his dad in a good mood before he went out and defied him in possibly one of the most life changing things he'd ever done.

"Well thanks," Roy said, still rubbing the sleep from his eyes as Rin brought the frying pan with hash browns to the table. He scooped out his own portion and began shoveling it down as Roy grabbed his own portion. Once he was finished, he quickly threw his shoes on and ran for the door. "See ya Dad!" he said, "Have a nice day!"

"Where are you going? It's not even seven yet!" Roy called.

"I'm going to central command to wish Ed and Al good luck. Then I'm going to the park with Nina till the test is over and meetup with them after," he lied.

"...Alright…" Roy said furrowing his brow. There was nothing wrong with what Rin had said, but he couldn't help but think there was more to it than that.

"Alright bye!" Rin called as he shut the door behind him, leaving a still half awake Roy alone in the house.

…

The three boys looked up at the building apprehensively. Rin's guts twisted in nervousness. Nina and Alexander stood beside them. He had never been good with tests, Give him a demon anyday over a test to take! He took a deep breath. At least the worst that could happen is that he failed and could forget this ever happened, and Roy would be none the wiser. "I guess this is it…" Ed said.

"Yeah…" Rin breathed, "Good luck guys."

The brothers nodded. "You too," Al said.

"Thanks…" Rin said giving a dry laugh, "I'm gonna need it."

The three began to take the first step up into the testing building. "Wait!" Nina said, stopping them, "I have something fo you!" She reached into her coat and pulled out three pieces of paper, handing one to each of them. On each one was a hand made drawing of them and her with the poorly spelled words "Good Luck" scrawled at the top of each one.

"Aw!" Al said, "Thanks Nina!"

"Yeah, this was really sweet of you," Ed said.

Rin smiled down at the piece of paper before going to hug the girl. It was a simple drawing, but it meant a lot that she would take the time to make it for him. "Thanks Nina!" he said, "I love it!" He then let go of her and folded it up to put in his pocket.

"Well," Ed said, "Time's a wastin." With that he turned and headed up into the building. Rin nodded and followed after him, confidence renewed. He sat down in his seat as the tests were passed out and took a deep breath. Whatever happens, happens. At least he had people there to support him afterwards. With that thought, he opened the test booklet and began his test. Yeah. Things were going to go ok.

….

...That went horribly. Rin's shoulders slumped as he trudged out of the building. He had never taken a harder test in his life. Nina was back from her time in the park with Alexander and her father. "Awe you guys ok?" she asked.

"No," Rin stated bluntly, sounding as tired as he felt.

"I didn't even finish…" Ed bemoaned.

"I finished, but I have no idea how I did," Al sighed,

"At least you guys came close!" Rin lamented, "I only got half way through the test before they said five minutes left! I just started furiously filling in bubbles after that! I really hope there isn't a guessing penalty...not that it matters. I probably failed."

"Nooo!" Nina cried, "Don't say dat!"

"Yeah…" Al said, "You might have done better than you thought. Either way, you probably did better than someone else in that room. There were so many people in that room that looked upset afterwards. I'm sure you weren't the only one who did bad."

Rin shrugged, not feeling much better. "Whatever. I'm gonna head home," he said, "I'll see you guys tomorrow."

….

When Roy came home that evening, he could tell that Rin was upset, but why he didn't know. He seemed tired and defeated. Was he sick? Had something bad happened? Maybe this had to do with him not getting enough sleep. Roy carefully observed him as he lounged about that day. Roy originally hadn't said anything, but just started making dinner as Rin definitely wasn't in any sort of mood to.

Once dinner was on the table he finally spoke up. "So…" he said, "Are you going to tell what happened today or am I going to have to make you?"

Rin froze in his picking at his food. If he had been eating he would have choked. Had he been caught? Had Roy figured him out. "What do you mean?" he asked.

"Don't try to lie to me," Roy said, "You're clearly upset about something, now what is it?"

Rin relaxed a little as he realized he hadn't been found out yet but that hadn't lasted long as he realized he'd have to explain himself. "I-it's nothing," he brushed off hoping to end the subject, "I don't want to talk about it."

Roy raised an eyebrow at that as a warning went off in his head. "Rin," he said carefully, "What did you do?"

"Huh?" Rin's voice cracked as he realized just how much of a hole he had dug himself in, "Nothing! I swear! I didn't do anything wrong!"

"Then what is it?" he said, a scrutinizing look on his face.

"I…" he started, "I got turned down by a girl!"

Roy blinked in surprise. He stared at Rin for a moment before snorting with a wry grin.

"Is that it?" he said, "And here I thought you might be in trouble."

"more than you realize," Rin thought. He fake pouted. "Hey! Don't belittle me! Rejection hurts!" he snapped.

Roy got up and patted him on the shoulder as he went to put his plate away. "Don't worry," he said, "You'll figure out how to speak to women eventually. You're barely a teenager. You'll learn sooner or later."

Rin rolled his eyes. "Yeah right. This coming from the guy who has had girls falling all over him all his life," he retorted.

Roy shrugged. "If you want to blame anyone for that, blame my Aunt Chris," he said, "Being raised by her was like being put through a perpetual charm school." "Still you shouldn't worry," he said as he went to head upstairs, "You're young. You still have all the time in the world to figure it out."

Rin smirked. "And you just admitted you're old," he pointed out.

Roy gave him an irritated look before shaking his head. "Here I am trying to give you good advice and you're poking fun at me," he said with a sigh, "Well I guess worse could have come out of your rebellious phase." He then turned to head upstairs to his study.

Rin's smile fell as his back was turned. "I'm more rebellious than you realize," he thought to himself, "though depending on whether I did good enough to pass, you might not find out."

….

"Are you kidding me?! Father still wants this kid in the State Alchemist program?!" Envy shrieked as he followed Wrath down the hall, "He did horrible on the test!" He extended his arms out into the air, gripping the test packet in one hand. "He was supposed to get a seventy percent or higher to pass and the kid barely gets half right!" he ranted, "Granted, it's not the worst of these damn things I had to look at today by far...but still! Look at this shit! He just put down 'C' for the entire second half of the test!" The smaller homunculi tried to show the larger what he meant but Wrath just glared at him and knocked the packet out of his hands.

"It doesn't matter what he got on the test, Father needs him on a close leash to monitor him!" the fuhrer stated, "If he remains a civilian, then we have next to no control over him! We already lost almost all influence on his brother when he went off to Xing. We can't afford both of them to end up off the radar."

Envy huffed and glared at him. "Are we even sure this kid is worth our time?" Envy said, "Cause to me, he just looks like some courageous idiot who happens to be surrounded by weird shit. His brother looks like he has more potential than he does, even with that strange blue fire thing." "Or better yet, maybe we should be focusing more of our energy on the white coat bastard that brought them here in the first place!" he continued, "Please tell me I'm not the only one who remembers that we still have no idea what the hell he is!"

"Shut it, Envy!" Pride hissed from the shadows, startling him, "It is not our place to question Father's will! Though I agree the boy is an idiot, I can still sense a great potential inside him." "It's happened on several occasions," Pride explained, "one moment everything is as it should be and then his emotions become unstable and I feel a power rise from him. We've all seen it from what happened to Gluttony. The child burned him without alchemy. We cannot brush this aside! Imagine what this could mean for us! A way to manipulate the universe without alchemy."

"Father doesn't need equivalent exchange. He can practically do that already," Envy retorted.

"But Father has the power of thousands of souls and an eternal body," Pride argued, "that boy has but one weak, human soul trapped in a weaker carcass. We are dealing with an impossibility."

There was a pause as Envy processed this. "Fine…" he said picking up the papers, "I'll put down a seventy one for him or something. But if this kid ends up being a waste of time, I get to kill him."

….

Rin sat outside Mustang's office, waiting to hear how Ed and Al had done. They would be debriefed on it today. He didn't bother heading to General Raven to pick up his grade. He already knew he had failed. He had made peace with that thought last night. Instead of wasting his time hoping on something that was never going to happen, he was going to be there for Ed and Al.

It had been a good fifteen minutes before they stepped out of the room. Their faces were hard and blank(well, with Al that was a given, but still...). They stood there for a few moments before Rin broke the silence. "So how did it go?" he asked, "Did you pass?"

The two shared a serious glance before Ed spoke up. "We passed," Ed said.

"But I still can't become a state alchemist," Alphonse explained solemnly.

Rin stood there, looking at them in confusion. "Why the hell not?" he demanded, "You worked so hard for it! Shouldn't you be able to-"

Ed put a finger to his lip and glared at him before he jerked his head to the left. Rin looked around and realized the office was full of people. He then gave Rin a "follow me" gesture and headed for the door. Rin nodded and headed after the two boys.

…

"You're serious?" Rin said, "There's a physical exam?" The three were sitting in an empty hall on the third floor of the building.

"Yup," Ed said crossing his arms and scowling, "Even after you pass, since you're joining the military, they need to have your complete and up-to-date health history for safety reasons. This is the reason why they have a physical exam afterwards."

"Damn it…" Rin said looking down, "And you guys worked so hard…"

"Yeah…" Al muttered.

There was a silence between them. Then Rin's eyes lit up. "Hey, at least you didn't fail," he offered, "You proved you were smart enough to pass. Most people can't do that! That's something right?"

Alphonse turned to him. Rin could see the smile in his soul fire eyes. "Yeah...I guess you're right!" he said. There was another silence before Al spoke again. "So how did you do, Rin?" he asked.

Rin lowered his head and frowned. "I...probably didn't pass," he said.

"Oh...I'm sorry," Al said.

Ed crooked an eyebrow. "Wait...probably? What do you mean probably?" he asked, "didn't you go to check your test score?"

"Nah…" Rin said giving a dry laugh, "I didn't bother. With how hard it was for the two of you and all the adults in the room, I kinda figured it'd be pointless in the end. Besides, I'd like to imagine I at least got close to seventy percent. I don't need to go down to General Raven's office and find out I got a thirty instead."

Ed frowned. That wasn't the Rin he knew! He wouldn't just give up like that! He shouldn't. Ed opened his mouth to tell him off, when someone came running down the hall.

"Excuse me? Are you Mr. Mustang?" a voice called. They turned to see a short brunnette girl running towards them.

"Uh...yeah? Why?" he asked.

She held out a document file for him. "General Raven asked me to get this to you," she said, "He had hoped you'd come by this morning to pick it up, but you didn't show up. He had a meeting so he asked me to get this to you." She handed it to him.

"Uhhh….Thanks…" he said, taking it. The woman bowed and headed off. Rin stared at it for a moment before opening the file. His eyes widened slightly. Inside was his test packet.

There was a pregnant pause as he could feel the stares of the elric brother's boring in on him. "Well?" Ed said.

"Aren't you going to open it?" Al asked.

Rin shrunk under their gaze, "W-well I already know what it's going to say so…" he started.

"Don't be such a baby!" Ed jabbed at him.

"Come on," Al said, "We'll be right here for you."

Rin glanced at them both before nodding, filling with determination. "Ok then…" He steeled himself before shutting his eyes tight, "HERE GOES!" He flipped the packet open and slowly opened his eyes, expecting the worst. His eyes became the size of saucers at what he saw. In bold black ink, the words read "71.5%".

Rin was dumbstruck as he stared down at the page, mouth agape. "I did it…" he breathed.

"Rin…" Al said, voice filled with joy for his friend.

"I really did it!" Rin cried, eyes shining. He then hopped up and began jumping around with delight. "WOOOHOOO!" he shouted, "This is amazing! I'm going to be a state alchemist!"

Ed smiled at him. "Well done, Rin," he said, getting up, "You're half way out of the woods."

Rin turned to him, beaming. He then suddenly pulled them both into a bone crushing hug, "COME HERE!" he cried, "ThankyouthankyouTHANKYOU!" "If it wasn't for you two, I would never have passed!" he continued, hugging them tighter.

While they were happy about his gratitude, they weren't so much about his expression of such gratitude, "That's enough!" Ed gagged, already blue in the face, "You're crushing my lungs and my automail!"

"I think you're denting my armor!" Al whined.

"Sorry…" Rin said, backing off, "I guess...I'm just happy I got this far!"

"It's ok," Al said, picking up the file that spilled onto the floor. "Hey, it looks like you're demonstration time is tomorrow, right after brother's!" he said.

"Sweet! Guess we'll get to watch eachother then!" Rin said, "And I'll have an excuse to be there for Dad! Sweet!"

Ed frowned. "That reminds me," he said, "How do you plan on telling the Colonel?"

Rin faltered. "...To be honest,..I hadn't really thought that far…" he admitted. Ed and Al practically fell over from shock. "But I guess I'll cross that bridge when I get to it," Rin continued, unperturbed by their reaction, "I think I'll just have to wait for the right momment. Hopefully it will come on its own."

….

Roy relaxed as he found a space to watch the demonstrations in the hall. He sighed as he leaned against a post. It had been a long morning. No, it had been a long week! For some reason, he had been more swamped than usual with paperwork, giving him next to no time for breaks, particularly under the hawks watchful eye. In short, it had been hell. He never wanted to see another notice to sign for the next six months, He just managed to squeeze on in now to watch Ed's demonstration because he forced himself to come in early and get at least twenty minutes of extra work done, plus a forty minute nap at his desk because Riza had yet to come in. He hoped Rin didn't mind him being there in the morning. He seemed pretty jumpy the night before….

Edward's demonstration promised to be quite a spectacle. Everyone was buzzing with excitement as the youngest child to pass the State Alchemy Exam stood ready to present. Even the fuhrer showed up! Roy watched in awe as Edward clapped his hands and summoned a spear from the ground without a transmutation circle. It was quite a sight to behold! And the way he demonstrated his fighting abilities by facing off against the fuhrer after that certainly caused a few gasps from the audience and Roy to almost facepalm. He shook his head. Ed was lucky he wasn't taken as a threat by the man. ZThat boy was going to be a handful…

Once Ed's demonstration was over, he was about to leave when he noticed something...no one else was. Everyone who had turned out for Ed's performance had stayed, even the fuhrer! Roy furrowed his eyebrows. What were they doing? Surely they knew nothing could top what they had just seen. It's not like there was another child prodigy that applied….or so he thought.

"Next up, Rin Mustang!" Basque Grand called.

Roy froze and his blood ran cold...What?! He shook his head, surely this was a mistake. It had to be! He just heard the brigadier general wrong, right?...Wrong. Roy could feel his stomach sinking as he saw a young man walk through the door. His heart stopped as he could no longer deny who it was as his fears came to life.

"RIN?!"

this...was a really hard chapter to write. And the next one is going to be even harder. In my opinion, arguments and tention are not my strong point. Still I hop you enjoyed this chapter. Sorry for any OOCness on Roy's part. The guy is a pretty complicated character, thats for sure! Still, have a nice day guys, and let me know what you think!