So, this update is a bit unusual, because I really just said something as a joke, got an idea, and turned it into a small one-shot that I'm putting at the bottom here because I don't really know if I will get to use it otherwise, but it is a part of this story, at least kind of.


Chapter forty-eight

"Roy! You know what day it is?!" Hughes practically shouted into his ear via the phone. Roy groaned sleepily. It was six in the morning and Roy had been sleeping peacefully just two minutes ago and was certainly not ready to start his day just yet. At least he didn't have to go down to the reception desk as the suites had their own phones.

"No, Maes. Now please, I've been spending three days on a train and I'd really like some sleep –"

"IT'S MY LITTLE ANGEL'S THIRD BIRTHDAY!" Hughes squealed. "You haven't forgotten, right? Because she is going to be soooo disappointed if her Uncle Roy and her big brothers aren't there now that you're in town!"

Roy groaned. He knew there was no way he'd be getting out of it, and Elicia did have feelings that could be hurt, Maes was right about that. "Okay, Maes, but just prepare her that Ed might not be up to staying through the entire party." Roy rubbed his forehead, still feeling pretty emotionally drained himself after the week in Resembool and then being stuck on the train before being able to really process what had happened. "Me neither, for that part," Roy added, sighing.

"Roy? What's wrong?" Maes was sounding worried.

"Ed's nightmares were acting up for the entire stay and then we were stuck on a train for three days. None of us have been sleeping well for a while now." Roy paused a bit. "… And we buried Fullmetal's limbs four days ago."

Roy heard Hughes take a deep breath. "Where?"

"The Rockbells's garden. Listen, Hughes, I just want to go back to sleep. We'll be there, but just keep it in mind. It wasn't a countryside vacation we were on."

"Of course, Roy, I'll tell her. See you at three!" His voice rose slightly at the last word, clearly not able to keep a lid on his happiness. Roy put the phone down and took a deep breath. Al was looking at him from over by the couch where he was scratching Rolf's belly. "Dad?"

"We're invited to Elicia's third birthday party at three. I'm going to get some more sleep and then we'll go out to find her a gift, okay?" Roy said, giving him a little smile to show him that he wasn't angry, just tired.

"Okay, Dad. Go get some more sleep."

Roy saluted jokingly and smiled at him. "Then I'll see you in a few hours, Son."

Al nodded and so Roy walked back into his and Ed's room and got back into bed. He pulled the blanket back over them and brought Ed closer to his chest. Ed instinctively snuggled up to him and Roy smiled a little.

He was a bit worried about when Ed would begin sleeping on his own. Roy was afraid that the longer they put it off, the harder it would get for Ed to actually get to a point where it was okay to be alone at night. At the same time, Ed's nightmares were getting fewer (not counting Resembool), and not letting him have the comfort he associated with safety might cause him to need even more time to get used to sleeping alone and just cause them a major setback instead. Because Roy knew that his smell alone was enough to make the boy relax.

They had had a highly interesting discussion yesterday about smells. Roy knew that Ed had grown a lot more sensitive about smells after his captivity. Every single thing that didn't smell like the hospital and the Pentons themselves were a constant reminder that he wasn't imprisoned anymore. Also, Ed had lived a rather sheltered life in the countryside, only to be thrown into the major cities of Amestris. There were tons of smells he had never been subjected to before. It was hard to imagine how it must have been for him, to first be starved of the smells of his five-year-old existence in Resembool… To sit in a puddle of his own drying blood for four days, his nose assaulted by the smell of the two strangers constantly hugging and patting him while threatening to take everything away… Ed had told him the smells of that place made him sick and Roy had no trouble imagining that. Then there was the fact that the Roy-thing hadn't been able to recreate Roy's smell, apparently. The clothes smelled new and unused. Roy found it to be an interesting and possibly useful fact, but he guessed it made sense. Everyone had their own smell since birth that, among other things, allowed their mothers to recognise them. For some unknown creature to be able to instantly recreate that smell was ridiculous. Especially the scent of clothes as they absorbed all the smells that they had been exposed to. To recreate that just by looking at someone was even more of a scientific impossibility than being able to transform into someone else and that itself sounded like a work of fiction.

Roy still felt equally sick and angry when thinking about that thing scaring his son while wearing his form.

Then came the painful twist of pain as he remembered it turning itself into Fullmetal. And the panic it still brought that Roy wasn't sure if he would have the stomach to burn it if it was using Fullmetal's voice. If it was to protect his sons, then he would have to do it, he knew.

And deal with the nightmares that would follow.

Roy sighed, knowing that he needed to talk with Maes about what happened in Resembool, he just wanted to do so face to face and alone.

Roy put his face in his son's hair, breathing in his smell and feeling his strength return somewhat, his head clearing a bit. Ed had told him some interesting things about hugs and their smells as they sat in the jacuzzi and Roy had to agree that he was right, now that he thought about it. He loved Ed's scent. It was hard to describe, but it was really just warm and soft. Just like Ed was. It was a scent that made him smile with fatherly pride as it really just smelled of his sweet, lovable son.

Roy placed a kiss in those golden locks and hugged him tighter. According to Ed, there were different kinds of love and different kinds of hugs, which was why he was a selective hugger. There was also good love and bad love. Ed was sure, no matter how twisted and wrong it was in the way it was practised, that Lillian and Grant Penton did actually love him, but that it was a bad love. Ed had been awkward about it and seemed disgusted by it, though. Roy understood why, although not to the extent that Ed did, how unpleasant it must feel for Ed to think about the Pentons. Not just the terror of the nightmares and the torture, but the mere fact that there were two people (although only one after Grant Penton's execution) that thought they owned him. That hugged him and acted as though he was theirs. It made the hairs on the back of his neck stnad up just thinking about it. That was why Ed had told Roy that there were "good love hugs" and "bad love hugs".

Roy was at least happy to hear that his own were always the good ones.

Ed shifted a bit in his sleep and placed a small hand on Roy's waist, hugging him back, filling Roy with warmth and love and sleepiness instead of thoughts of anger and hate.

Roy smiled into his son's head. "Thank you Ed," Roy whispered. "You may need your Daddy, but trust me, Daddy needs you boys too."


Dublith, ten years later...

Nina woke up and threw her long, dungaree blue dress on before she stepped into a pair of sandals. She looked at the picture on her nightstand like she did every morning, taking in the three people kneeling beside the beloved dog between them. Mum and Dad were smiling along with her, all of them scratching Alexander's belly together. Uncle Mason had been kind enough to take the picture for them. "I miss you, Alexander," she said, picking up the picture and placing a kiss on the dog's head. She did so every morning, even if it had been two years now since he died. He was her greatest childhood friend after all, seeing as how Ed and Al were really more of her brothers than anything else.

She smiled at the dog one last time and then went into the bathroom, soon finding herself in front of the mirror where she undid the two long plaits, revealing masses of brown hair that reached all the way past her bottom. When it was loose like this, she really had to be careful that she didn't sit on it because that stung like nobody's business.

She brushed it carefully before parting it at the middle and remade her plaits, remembering sitting on her Dad's enormous lap as he gently taught himself how to plait her hair back when she was four. It had been surprising for her at first to learn that Sig Curtis may look big and scary, but her father really had a heart of gold and he was no grizzly but a gigantic teddy bear.

That was when nobody threatened his two girls that is...

She smiled at the thought and completed her plaits, deeming them satisfactory.

She walked downstairs and into the kitchen where her Mum stood frying an egg, undoubtedly having heard her waking up.

"Good morning, Nina, have you slept well?" she asked kindly, turning to her with a smile before returning her gaze to the egg in the frying pan.

"Yes, very."

She made pleasant conversation with her Mum as she ate before Nina washed her hands thoroughly in the kitchen sink before walking through the house to the door to the back of the shop. She smiled as she opened the door with her elbow, finding her father in the back of the shop, already working on a large piece of lamb. "Morning, Dad!" she said as she put on her apron and tied it behind her back.

Nina didn't expect him to turn around, after all, they prided themselves on their level of detail in preparing the meat. His voice was gruff and the bass nearly made the house tremble, but it was kind and full of love. "Morning, Sweetie, you wash your hands?"

"Of course, Dad!" Nina said, still smiling, knowing that he was really just teasing her as she completed the knot on her apron.

As usual, the knife came flying through the air and she caught it deftly between her index and middle fingers without really looking, before throwing it into the air, catching it by the shaft as it came twirling down again. She walked forwards and over to the ham on the bench and stood next to her father as she began expertly cutting through the meat, trying, once again, to convince him about giving her a puppy for her fifteenth birthday.