Wow! I can't believe that this fic has already got 20 favs, thank you!

And I'm sorry about the shorter chapter, but I just thought that it was a funny way to end it.

Disclaimer: I do not own Fullmetal Alchemist.


Chapter Twelve

Roy had heard that you lost a lot of sleep when you had small children. He had found it not to be the case with Ed. The boy had nightmares of course, and a lot of them, but he never stayed awake for long afterwards. And so Roy suddenly found himself having a minimum of nine hours of sleep each night. Ed still wouldn't sleep without having him there, even after two weeks now, but Roy wasn't going to force him. Which meant that Roy would usually be asleep by nine o'clock in the evenings, unless Ed needed to talk. It was sort of funny how easily Roy found himself falling asleep, but he guessed it had something to do with some basic human instinct. He did find it very relaxing to have the small, warm form curled up against his chest each night. He also found it to help with keeping away the nightmares about Ishbal. In a way, he saw Ed as a way to make things right again. To pay back some of the debt that he owed after all the children that he had killed.

The only problem was that he did have one nightmare, a recurring one that left him with so much guilt and pain that he would wake up shivering. It had begun a week ago, after they had met the thing that made itself look like Fullmetal.

He would find himself back in the derelict surgical theatre, but instead of finding Ed, he would find Fullmetal bound to the chair. He would be sitting there, blood dripping from where his automail had been, so thin that Roy could count each of his ribs. The fire in his eyes was extinguished. He would look up at Roy, eyes full of tears. "You left me to die. You just let them do this to me." Each breath was obviously causing the boy pain. "I trusted you, Colonel, but I guess you really were a bastard after all. An incompetent, selfish bastard that couldn't even keep a kid safe." Roy would try to move forwards, try to get to the boy and hug him, to save him, but he would find himself tied to a chair himself. Then suddenly Ed would be sitting there on his lap, hugging him tightly. "I love you, Daddy." Fullmetal would look at him, crying. "Why do you deserve him after what you let happen to me? How can you live with yourself? How can you say that you'll protect him, when you couldn't keep me safe? You're just gonna fail me again and you know it."

The door would open, and Roy would see himself walking inside the doors, holding a scalpel. He would walk over to Fullmetal before slitting his throat. "You killed me, Colonel," Fullmetal would say before his eyes would dull and all that could be heard was spluttering until that, too, stopped. Roy would be watching as the other him would then walk over to the boy sitting on his lap, pulling his head backwards and slitting his throat too. Ed would be staring up at him, dying, bleeding, choking and Roy couldn't do a thing about it. "Why, Daddy?"

Then Roy would wake up, panting. He would hug Ed closer to him, sometimes unable to repress the tears. He would lie there, talking to the sleeping child. "I'm so sorry, Fullmetal. I'm so sorry."

But tonight was different. Tonight Ed actually woke up, looking at him with those golden orbs. "Daddy? Why are you crying?" Ed asked him, reaching his right hand up to dry his tears away.

"I'm just still hurting, Ed. And it makes me afraid of losing you again."

"Oh. But you won't lose me, because you made a promise not to. You shouldn't blame yourself. It wasn't you who did this, it was Lillian and Grant."

Roy just bent his head and kissed his forehead. "I still feel that I should have kept you safe."

"How many times do I have to tell you, you shouldn't blame yourself, Daddy! If I felt that you were guilty, then you wouldn't have been my Daddy, would you?" Ed huffed.

Roy had to say that that was quite the argument, seeing as how it really would take a lot to reach this boy's father standards. But Roy would never be able to forgive himself for what happened. He was just going to make life as good as he could for his boys now that things were as they were.

"Okay, Ed. Thank you."

Ed sat up on his knees, stretching out his arms before he practically attacked Roy in a hug, tilting him over on his back and landing on his chest, laughing. Roy couldn't help but smile at the childish glee. The boy really knew how to cheer him up. "Just remember, Daddy, that I'm not dead and that I will be okay, alright?"

Roy put his arms around him. The boy was right. Edward Elric wasn't dead. He had never been killed. He had just been changed. He had been changed into this wonderful little boy that needed Roy. It just hurt that he hadn't been there to prevent it from happening. Roy wasn't going to fail him ever again. Neither of his boys.

"Alright. I'll remember it," Roy told him.

Ed put his elbows on Roy's chest and leaned over and kissed his cheek before looking sternly at him. "Good." Then Ed lay back down on his chest. Roy put his left hand on his head. "You know, Daddy, I'm sad too. I'm sad about Mom. I'm sad about losing the last ten years of my life. I'm sad about not watching Al grow up. I'm sad that there's so many things and so many people that I don't remember. But seeing you be sad about it being your fault, when it's not, that makes me sad too. So if you don't want me to be sad, then you have to stop blaming yourself. Can you do that for me?"

Roy honestly had to say that he hadn't thought about it that way before, but Ed was right. The boy could be empathetic as hell sometimes. Roy hugged him tighter. "I'll try, Ed."

"Good. Now you need to sleep."

"Both of us. We've got a lead on the Philosopher's Stone after all and our train leaves at ten o'clock tomorrow."

"It would be great if we got Al his body back, wouldn't it?"

"It would, Ed. It really would."


The week with the Curtises had been a nice one. Roy had got to know his boys a lot better, and Al had begun calling Hawkeye by her first name, too. Izumi certainly knew a lot about alchemy and the trip had been highly interesting, as well as giving them a sneak peek at family life.

Roy had been very happy to find out that Edward's blood tests all came back negative. There was just one thing that worried Roy, and that was that Ed still seemed to eat for two people and he slept much more than the average five-year-old. Roy couldn't figure it out, Ed seemed perfectly healthy except for the periodic anxiousness caused by the Pentons.

When Roy woke Ed the morning of their departure, Ed just blinked once and then shut his eyes against the light in the room. "Hmf … Too bright," then he dug his face into Roy's undershirt. Roy smiled at the blonde boy that was still lying on his chest.

"Come on, Ed, we need to wake up, otherwise we'll miss our train."

"Can't you just carry me?"

"Hmm, depends … just let me check how heavy you are today." Then Roy lifted Ed up over him, and Ed, despite being hard to wake in the mornings because of his refusal to actually wake up, began giggling slightly at the ridiculousness of it. Roy began turning him left and right and lifted him up and down slightly, faking a look of deep concentration as he "evaluated" him. "Maybe," Roy concluded, earning another giggle from Ed. Roy let him back down on his chest, hugging him, chuckling a bit. Ed hugged him back, a lot more awake. Roy didn't really know where the idea about the "weight check" had come from, but it was obviously appreciated by the boy.

This last week had been very educational for him when it came to fatherhood, because even though the Curtises didn't have any children of their own, they were very knowledgeable when it came to parenting. They could also tell him a lot of useful things about the time when Ed and Al had been training with Izumi.

All in all, it had been a good trip, but now that they had a lead on the Stone, it was time to move on. It was Breda who had called them about this priest performing miracles in a desert town back East and they figured that it was worth a shot.

And so Roy carried Ed with him to the bathroom, locking the door behind him. Roy was, after all, only wearing his undershirt and boxers and wasn't too keen on meeting his hosts. It wasn't that he was unfit, he was actually pretty well-trained, so that wasn't the issue. No, it was the fact that Sig made him feel sort of … puny … and it helped his pride to be wearing his uniform when talking to him.

Roy had to say that the morning bath had become a kind of parental highlight for him, and it usually involved a lot of foam and jokes and laughter. Today, however, they would have to settle for a scrub with a washcloth. Ed did somehow find out that it was a good idea to lean over the edge of the tub and hug him when he was full of soap, making the pair of them nearly crash to the floor as Ed's legs were rather slippery and he slid sideways, only just getting saved by Roy who had thankfully reacted with pulling the boy backwards instead of falling sideways along with him. He therefore found himself covered in soap, laughing along with Ed who was clinging to his neck.

Roy was actually a bit surprised by how much of a hugger that Ed was, but he supposed that it too had something to do with the Pentons and his wish to feel affection from someone who wasn't torturing him while calling themselves his parents. And having been starved of paternal love at that age was obviously a contributing factor. And Roy didn't really mind the hugs, he cared a lot about his boy after all.

Oh, God … I'm turning into Hughes.


And I would just like to add that having a smaller, warm weight against your chest/stomach, works like a charm. I don't have any experiences with parenting, but I did have a fat guinea pig (not our fault, she was that way when we bought her) that slept on my stomach once as I lay on the couch, and I was out like a light within ten minutes.