He had turned off the last light. There were no curtains that impeded his sight, and he could see the night sky through the large glass panes of the windows that led to his balcony. There was no reflection of his furniture, now that it was completely dark inside.
He sat in his sofa, a glass of wine in one hand, the fingers of the other drawing patterns on the soft fabric of his couch. With a sigh, he leant back his head. He should have gone to sleep a long time ago, but he just couldn't get himself to stand up.
Instead he kept on staring outside. Gas lamps lit the road that ran behind his house, and the darkness was frequently disturbed by the headlights of passing cars, though the last one had been a while ago. Even here in lively Central City, things came to a stop at two in the morning.
Now he could see the stars from where he was sitting. Only a few though, only the brightest ones. People here had no trouble whatsoever to find the constellations. Any child could point out the Plough, the Hunter, the Sisters.
There had been a different place. A place where the whole sky was covered with tiny specks of light. A dazzling spectacle, beautiful and fascinating. And disorientating. Always disorientating when you had to rely on the sky for your navigation, searching for the brightest of stars, ever unsure if this or that twinkling light was the right one.
Soon he would have to go back to that place. He had agreed to go, had never hesitated really, but while he had prepared for his return for months, he had to admit that he was frightened now.
People were looking at him to fix things, to make things better. He knew it was his duty, his goddamn duty after all he had done to destroy the very land he would return to. But they didn't understand. It was so much harder to decide what to do, how to act, when you knew there was more at stake than just the rehabilitation of a province, the attempts at peace of a new government.
He softly laughed, even though there was no one there to hear. How much easier life was for those who believed a few constellations were all that existed.
They did not have to worry about the manoeuvrings in the dark of those who wanted to oppose this new policy. They did not need to think about getting sufficient food to the area, about stimulating long term economic development, about getting the local people to actually believe in the possibility of peace between them. Still he had to. If he really wanted to make up for his crimes, he had to.
He wasn't afraid of the magnitude of the task that awaited him. No, the time was right to start this effort, and he would find plenty that supported him.
He was afraid that he would lose his way.
It wasn't like it hadn't happened before. Only recently, he had lost himself in hatred, in revenge. Who knew, it could happen again.
In that place, it would not be hard to lose himself in self-loathing, in regret, in grief. If that should happen, he would not be able to do anything for the people he had so miserably failed before. He knew that.
Once, when he was just a dog of the military, lost in the desert, he would have used his compass to help him identify the right route.
Now he had refused to ask her to join him on this mission. She had already been through too much because of him. He would have to find another way to keep him on course.
With a thud, he put his empty glass on the small coffee table. He stretched out and yawned, but grimaced as his abdomen reminded him that his skin wasn't as supple anymore as it used to be.
Funny that his largest scar dated from long after the war. He had somehow thought that he had seen the worst of combat there in Ishval, he again had been wrong.
He stumbled towards his closet, taking out his futon. He rolled it out and tried not to think on the fact that he would have to rise again in a mere four and a half hours to get to work in time.
He closed his eyes and fell asleep, the curtains still open, the stars still twinkling above. Nothing had changed, and yet everything would.