Chapter sixty-two
Roy just looked up at the stranger, seeing the way that her eyes were very similar to his own. Everything was hurting and he was feeling an overwhelming guilt at the way that he had been so selfish to just have chosen that this woman had been less worth than his sons without even having given her a heads-up about it. He had simply decided to have done this without having consulted the woman who had raised him and had only thought that she would have been happier about it. "I-I must disgust you for choosing that your work in raising me was less worth than my own limbs."
At that, the woman just sighed heavily again. "Quite the contrary, Roy... You just gave me a very big compliment and showed me just how much I actually meant to you by trusting me not to take this the wrong way. Adding in the way that you found just your memories of me equivalent to the value of both your sons' lives, then I really don't have anything to complain about."
Roy just stared at her. He could hardly believe his ears. But it made sense now. It made sense why he had chosen like had done. Why his relationship to her had meant so much.
"Daddy, she's right, and you hafta hug her," Ed whispered. "And you've got snot and blood on my hair, so we should go to the bathroom and get you cleaned up."
Roy chuckled tearfully, feeling unusually and devastatingly confused... He was going to get hugged by a stranger after what he had done and he had never been hugged by a parental figure for as long as he could remember and he was still feeling feverish and sick.
Then he was getting pulled up to his aunt's chest and found himself sobbing against her after just three seconds as she stroked up and down his back, rocking back and forth gently. "You know, Roy, I think your boy's right. You look like you could both use a bath, so I suggest that we do it just like when you were Ed's age and things went wrong."
"A-and what was that?" Roy asked shakily, still leaning heavily against her, soaking in the hug from the woman that he needed so desperately right now because so much was going on all at once.
"You find your swimming trunks, sit down in the bath, and then I find a facecloth and help you out myself... Because with what you've just put yourself through, you obviously need some coddling as if you were a child." Then she sighed again, still feeling her stroking up and down his back in the way that Roy would do with Ed. "Because you've got a lot to catch up on, so let's move now before Hughes appears because Riza called him too."
A thought struck him at that in between all the emotional torment and confusion. Because Riza had obviously asked Maes to come her, but so that she could talk to him because they were Roy's friends and needed to find out what to do with Roy now.
And Riza probably just needed someone to keep her company, other than the dog.
"I'm really happy that Brother had such a fun day today... After the library, he needed something like this..." Al told her gently, his soul smiling.
Riza nodded with a smile of her own and then frowned as Rolf began speeding up for the final stretch down the corridor to their room.
She didn't even spare a glance at Al before she unfastened the puppy's leash and pulled out her gun.
Then Al carefully unlocked the door and the sight that met them made her freeze. Edward was throwing a tantrum with Roy nowhere in sight with a knife on the floor, a glass of blood on the coffee table, and a large transmutation circle in the middle of the room unlike any other she had encountered before.
She got a very, very bad feeling about what it meant, especially as Al had frozen in recognition.
Riza instantly locked the door, and Fullmetal pointed towards the transmutation circle with his entire face red from crying and frustration and he was kneeing a pillow-man in the groin where he sat. "YOU SHOULD HAVE TOLD ME THAT WE WERE DYING! AND NOW THAT STUPID COLONEL HAS GONE AND HE'S GONNA TAKE OVER THE CONNECTION BY GIVING UP HIS MEMORIES OF THE FIRST FIFTEEN YEARS OF HIS LIFE AND ALL OF THEM OF HIS AUNT AND HE WAS CRYING AND BEGGING ME TO HELP HIM!" the boy shouted tearfully, throwing a tantrum with far too grownup words, really. It was a surreal scene.
And Riza found herself too horrified to move, also because she had no experience with anything like this. She didn't want to admit it, but she was completely out of her depth here and was simply waiting for orders from the tantrum-throwing fifteen-year-old.
"Why hasn't Dad come back yet, Brother?!" Al asked, obviously just as scared.
The tantrum obviously wasn't deterred by a simple question like that. The boy was seriously maiming his pillow and screaming and that seemed to be his main goal in life at the moment. "AND THAT STUPID COLONEL MADE IT CLEAR THAT HE WAS BEING EVEN MORE OF A STUPID BASTARD THAN USUAL, BECAUSE HE DID THAT SELFLESS-NOBLE THING BY CALLING HIS SELFLESS ACTIONS SELFISH AND SO I WAS BACK IN FRONT OF THE PORTAL AND I'M GETTING MY ARM BACK AND I'M GETTING IT ADDED TO MY HEIGHT POTENTIAL BUT DO YOU KNOW WHAT'S THE WORST THING ABOUT IT ALL IS?!" the boy shouted desperately.
Then he pointed at Al with his left index, breaking down into furious sobs, revealing his right index to have been placed inside a strange cast-like thing that he had obviously transmuted. "I SAW YOUR BODY, AL! AND IT'S SKINNY AND GREYISH AND BONY AND SAD AND IT TOLD ME THAT HE COULDN'T COME WITH ME BECAUSE I WASN'T HIS SOUL! SO I FOUND IT AND THEN I JUST GOT DRAGGED BACK INTO THE PORTAL AND ENDED UP HERE ON ALL FOURS AGAIN! SO YOU SHOULD JUST LIE DOWN IN FRONT OF THE TRANSMUTATION CIRCLE AND GET READY FOR YOUR STUPID, SELFISHLY SELFLESS DAD TO DRAW UP A NEW BLOOD SEAL WHILE I NEED STITCHES!" Then he began punching his pillow-man again with a frustrated roar of being emotionally overwhelmed.
Riza had nearly finished with washing away the chalk lines, by the time that there came a new set of knocks on the door to the suite. She didn't really know what to say or do about Roy, and she was ashamed of herself for the way that she had purposely avoided looking at him.
And for the moment, the chalk was being a lot harder to completely remove than she had thought. The transmutation circle was about three and a half metres in diameter, the size easily explained by the need for enough space to make the complicated writing on the edges completely legible. It had required a lot of detail and to make everything exactly right, or otherwise it could have rebounded and have resulted in disaster. The fact that Fullmetal, as she had decided to make it easier by following Roy's example in keeping the two soul parts separate, had been able to have made this was something that still left her stunned.
And so, no matter how horrible and wrong this transmutation circle was, she found herself both scared by it and in awe of it. It had been a transmutation circle that had brought Roy to meet God. Literally. Both him and Fullmetal.
...Just by pressing their hands to a lot of chalk. A lot of chalk which had reduced the Flame Alchemist to begin sobbing as he now sat in the bathroom with his aunt and his sons.
And Riza had to say that this transmutation circle was both horrible and glorious because it meant that the boys wouldn't become steadily ill. They wouldn't have to worry about Ed eating too much. His body was his own and it would get to grow up without anything interfering with it. His food would be his own. His sleep would be his own.
...And Roy was figuratively speaking carrying his son on his back.
The transmutation circle had been made through the help of excessive amounts of chalk and that meant a lot of cleaning without smudging the chalk out by not changing the object one washed it away with often enough.
Meaning that Riza had a roll of paper towels, one bucket of water and one bucket of spent paper towels, as she had been dabbing at the transmutation circle to erase it.
And so Riza looked at Rolf, trying to see from the puppy's behaviour if this was friend, foe or hotel staff.
Rolf yapped twice in a friendly fashion, and so Riza walked over and unlocked the door, knowing that it could only be Maes then.
It was a great help that the Roy-thing couldn't reproduce people's scent, because that meant that Rolf could alert them instantly if someone wasn't who they claimed to be.
As soon as Maes looked at her he frowned, his eyes filling with dread. "Why are there tears in your eyes?" He turned deathly pale as the sounds of Roy sobbing could suddenly be heard, and he went inside and closed the door, terrified. "Please don't tell me that one of-?" he began, but Riza interrupted him.
"No one is dead... It's just that Roy paid the price for keeping it that way... So he's with the boys and his aunt, and I just..."
Maes sighed heavily with relief, even if still worried as he placed a hand on her shoulder. "You wanted someone to talk to yours-," he froze at the sight of the remainders of the transmutation circle. "What the hell has he done?! Don't tell me that he actually performed human transmutation?!"
"It's a long story, but he performed it on a living being, or three in this case, because we found out earlier today that Al's body still exists and that Ed has been sustaining someone three times his age and it was killing him..."
Maes just looked back at her in just as much horror as before, obviously feeling sick at the sobs from the neighbouring room. "What did he pay?!"
"His memories from the first fifteen years of his life, as well as all his memories of his aunt..." She felt her stomach churn, not able to keep her thoughts off the terror as they had returned. "He's crying like that because his body is reacting to having a second, severely malnourished and sleep-deprived body to sustain... And all the while, he doesn't remember ever getting comforted by a parental figure, even if he logically knows that he definitely has."
Maes went even paler than before, but there was obviously one last thing that he was worried about. "So Roy decided to just draw up a human transmutation circle out of the blue?"
Riza shook her head. "No, We found out something else too this morning... Because it turns out that you can't just delete parts of a soul, and so the fifteen-year-old Edward Elric suddenly asked me what the hell was going on as Ed sat on my lap. None of them remembers what the other one does because they're not going parallel with each other. It's like flipping a switch, because it's still just that one soul... But because of that sudden switch, mixed with the knowledge of Ed sustaining Al's body-," she explained, but she was cut off by Maes's words.
"He was afraid that that meant that Ed's body was so weakened that he wasn't even able to keep his soul stable... I can see why he was so scared..." He shook his head, looking pained by the information, mixed with Roy's uncontrollable crying. It made sense that it would be like this, a lot of emotional processing was in need of some reorganising. His body and mind and soul were all at war with each other, all of them knowing that things were wrong and that things were missing. "So now he's gone and actually shifted that burden to himself?"
Riza nodded. "Yes. He..." Once again she felt a jerk in her stomach at the thought of just how much those boys had come to mean to her. The thought of Roy having actually met Al's body... Had given him his uniform jacket...
...It made her happy and horrified at the same time.
And she couldn't help but feel guilty for not being able to do something more for the bodies of her honorary nephews. She had cared for them long before this.
...But never in this way. Never in such a...
Wolf-ish way.
Like they were her boys too.
Which was a very odd feeling indeed.
And so she sighed and told Maes the full story about what had happened as they finished cleaning up the chalk. Then they sat down on the couch with a bottle of fizzy drink each, hearing that Roy's sobs had subsided, his body now thankfully seeming to not find everything that was happening as a partial attack to his well-being. "It's strange..." she began, but then decided to just say it. She didn't really have anyone else to talk to about this, not even Al. Because unlike everyone else within her already very limited social circle, Maes had been there during the Ishbalan War of Extermination. Riza had been there.
And Roy was the Hero of Ishbal.
She sighed again, not looking over at Maes to her left as both of them faced the bathroom door.
Then she made up her mind, finding that she couldn't really avoid it if she wanted to have the conversation that she needed to. And Maes Hughes was a family friend now. He was a fellow honorary sibling of Roy's. Their relationship had changed a lot too what with the boys. "Can I talk to you about something that I don't want you to mention to anyone else?" she asked quietly.
Maes paused and looked over at her. "Does this have to do with how you knew Roy before Ishbal?"
Riza just nodded and then opened the top buttons of her shirt so as to reveal the top of the tattoo on her back. She felt her stomach clench at the reminder of the day she had got it. She could tell that Maes had frozen at her revelation. "My father was the one who made this array on my back. He was Roy's alchemy teacher and he was the one who created flame alchemy in the first place... My father scared me when he worked on his alchemy, he was like a man possessed... And so I didn't protest it much when he tattooed the array on my back and then threw all of his research into the fireplace... I suppose I found safety in it, knowing that I could hide it from the rest of the world and keep something so terrible and dangerous away from people... To keep it from making others into someone like my father. And don't get me wrong, he never did anything other than that tattoo to harm me directly. He provided me with a good education and so I faced neglect, rather than abuse."
Maes just stayed quiet, obviously not impressed with Berthold Hawkeye at all. "My father died on the same day that Roy came to ask him to share his research so that he could become a State Alchemist... He refused before he suddenly began coughing up blood and then he told Roy that I held his research and that I would let Roy have it if I trusted him..." She felt awkward at the part that came next. "And his last words consisted of him begging Roy to look after me as he apologised to me over and over again... Roy gave me his card by the gravestone and he told me about his dream... And so I trusted him with my back, hoping that it could be used for good and to protect this country..."
She suddenly felt tears well up in her eyes slightly. "When the Ishbalan War ended, I asked Roy to burn my back and make the array illegible to free my from my father's burden. There are therefore several patches of scarred skin that render it as close to harmless as possible..." A small, sad smile found their way to her lips. "He could never get himself to do anything beyond what was absolutely necessary... And so he entrusted me with his back in turn once I decided to stay a soldier and told him why I chose to do so..." She then sighed. "He told me that he trusted me to shoot him in the back, should he stray from his path to becoming Führer and completing his goals... Which in turn included his original goal about putting those that were praised as war heroes on trial as war criminals instead..."
Riza rebuttoned her shirt and looked back to the bathroom door, a genuine, fond smile finding its way to her lips at the thought of Ed. "But then again, Ed's titles are sacred, and so I have made it clear to Roy that I am disobeying orders because of a small child who would be very upset if Auntie Riza were to shoot his Daddy right now."
"Ed has that effect on most, it seems... He even caused Scar to halt in his attack against one of the State Alchemists who have caused the most death and destruction of them all..." Maes said, his voice carrying that faint sigh of fondness and tiredness, before he turned towards her directly. "Thank you for telling me, Riza, I won't breathe a word of it to anyone."
Riza just nodded and then smiled slightly back at him, before they synchronously turning back to face the door. "Even though it's the first, and so far the only time I've seen Roy use clapping alchemy, he also used it to create... For the first time in my life, I have watched Roy doing something so selfish as to throw away his principles, throw away his militaristic dreams and altruism... And the result is that legally he should go to prison for saving his sons' lives, which in turn shows how twisted this organisation that we are a part of is... Don't you agree?"
"Why do you think I decided to follow Roy within a few seconds of hearing him express his altruistic goals and then glaring at the Führer of Amestris?" Maes replied, obviously smiling.
Riza smiled fondly herself. "But it's nice to see him give up on something so important, but this time for himself. And now he's able to use a whole new form of unbelievable power to create, rather than what his flames do..." She felt her stomach clench once more. "I would say that in that regard, he has come a long way... Just like my father, he gained a lot of power that resulted in him branding his child's back... But, unlike him, he did it so as to take his child's burden away from them, even if he sacrificed a large part of himself in the process..."
Another a fond sigh escaped her lips. "Which is why I call it so strange... Because it says a lot about Roy that he can do the most wonderful things when he can just choose what he wants to be selfish about... He pushes everything away in order to fulfil his goals in making this country better... He has sacrificed so much of his innocence in his want for peace and justice... And now that he has given up on most of his remaining innocence through performing transmutations that are actually based on my father's teachings. Now that he has been granted so much more power than ever before, he is finally able to create, rather than destroy... I hate that he had to give up what he did just now, I really do, but at least he got something truly good back for it this time. He got to save the lives of his sons, and it was the first thing he used his new powers for..." Her stomach clenched once more, though her smile still remained. "And so it's both strange, sad, and just a bit amusing that he left Al behind with his back covered by his uniform jacket... But it's still wonderful and it will be so for Roy once things settle and he gets used to it... His aunt will look after him, just like the rest of us w-," she broke off as the bathroom door was slammed open by a sopping wet Roy Mustang in a pair of swimming trunks who was running for his bedroom with a form of fearful glee as an equally sopping wet, naked Edward Elric-Mustang with a hyphen chased him, giggling and shouting in a sing-song voice.
"TICKLEMONSTER JUNIOR IS COMING TO GET YOU! TICKLEMONSTER JUNIOR IS COMING RIGHT AT YOU! TICKLEMONSTER JUNIOR IS GONNA GET HIS DADDY! 'COS TICKLEMONSTER SENIOR IS GONNA GET HU-UGGED! AND TICKLEMONSTER JUNIOR IS GONNA SNUGGLE UP TO YOU! AND POKE YOU IN THE STOMACH! AND POKE YOU IN THE RI-IBS! AND POKE YOU IN YOUR NE-ECK! 'COS THAT'S WHAT TICKLEMONSTERS DO TO TICKLEMONSTER SENIOR!" Then he raised his hands above his head in a sort of supposedly scary pose, still chanting. "TICKLEMONSTER JUNIOR! TICKLEMONSTER JUNIOR! NANANANANA-NA! TICKLEMONSTER JUNIOR!" Then he raced after Roy inside the bedroom.
"...Speaking of both strange, sad and still just a bit amusing things," Maes said weakly, eyes wide in his surprise, though the corners of his lips were quivering just a bit in a barely repressed laugh.
...Ten minutes earlier...
Roy leant heavily into the hand that was rubbing so smooth and gentle circles into his back, Ed on his lap, his son already looking less burdened by the strain on his body. Like he was a bit less subdued. And Roy was feeling more and more of the painful and agonising misery ebbing away with each gentle stroke of the soft flannel against his back. Fullmetal had been right, his initial reaction had been a lot worse than what it would be like in general.
Not that it wasn't bad enough as it was.
Hence Ed sitting on his lap like the best little soft toy ever devised by man, one which he hoped would soon be joined by Al's body too.
He hugged Ed tighter to him, his body fitting so well on his lap as he pressed himself into Roy's chest, tears still stinging in his eyes. "Well, Roy, I'm glad you chose me, at least," Aunt Chris said.
Actually, it was Auntie Chris now. He hadn't expected the 'ie' to mean that much, but it was giving Roy a slight sense of regaining some of his now lost childhood. Just like Ed called Riza 'Auntie Riza'. Roy was basically getting the same as he in turn had given to Ed. "I should at least have warned you before I did it. Said something about it before you were just gone... I'm sorry."
"As you might remember Roy, Al has already quoted you word for word, and phoning me while committing a crime which is punishable by death when the military seems to be up to something shifty, doesn't really make it worth it for you to say something to me directly that you wouldn't even remember."
Roy just nodded and hugged Ed even tighter, earning a kiss to right below his right collarbone because that was the closest part that Ed could easily reach.
It was an extremely sweet gesture. An extremely sweet gesture beyond compare, in fact.
And it made it even clearer to him that in the end, he would never regret doing this. Yes, he was sad and scared.
Terrified, actually. And things were hurting so much and he had lost a lot of his life.
So in a way it helped that Roy hadn't actually had people that he had kept in touch with from his childhood years other than his aunt.
He had nobody but her who could get hurt about him forgetting them. Yes, there were some very odd memories of being with Ed and/or Al together with his aunt that felt so strange. Yesterday, he had been thinking about calling his aunt as he had stood without talking as Ed had eaten his ice cream. It was a clever trick, that. To have Roy forget what it had been like to talk with Auntie Chris, he had also forgotten what he had talked about with her. After all, whatever he had told the woman had never happened. Because how could he forget his aunt, if he could remember his replies?
...And so the result was that Roy now had a lot of memories about not making phone calls. A good example was that he remembered having been smirking as he had gone inside a phone booth and had stood there without having done anything but just having moved about slightly, and then having picked up the phone, and just hadn't dialled a number, and had then just watched his surroundings. Then he had put down the phone, and had walked back out.
...Basically, he had been admiring the view from a fair few phone booths and his desk.
Everything else was just blank.
Even her phone number.
And he had been a very interesting patron when he had been visiting the bar.
There were some exceptions, like when someone else had talked to her. But even then, his memories were warped. Because he didn't remember how he had felt at the time. Not towards his aunt, only towards his son as Ed had for instance spoken into the phone with his imaginary friend.
Though thinking back to his conversation when he had introduced Ed to Auntie Chris over the phone was now very strange...
"Hey, Ed? Would you like to talk to your new grandmother?"
Ed froze, looking up at him with teary eyes. "Your aunt? The one who adopted you?"
Roy smiled, happy to see that the offer was obviously intriguing to him. "That's the one."
"Okay."
Roy stood up and carried Ed over to the desk, sitting down with Ed, still careful of his bottom. He picked up the phone and held it up to Ed without doing anything else.
Ed rubbed the tears out of his eyes as he rang the non-existent person, and Roy sat with it to his own ear as he smiled down at his son on his lap, listening to the complete silence and watching Ed react to things that nobody was saying.
"Daddy? Can I talk to her now?" Ed asked, obviously getting tired of only listening to the conversation instead of actually talking to what had to be a fascinating woman.
Ed looked up at him hopefully as Roy waited a few seconds for no reason, before he handed the phone to Ed who took it with an interesting mixture of eagerness and caution. "Hello. This is Ed speaking."
Roy smiled at how his son was so sweetly reacting to talking with the phone and pausing for no reason because nobody was saying anything.
"Thanks. So … how are you doing?"
More of Ed being cute to silence.
"You're Daddy's Mom, but also his Auntie. What's that like?"
Ed listened to the silence with a small frown on his face. "You still think he's a kid? But he's – how old are you, Daddy?" Ed looked up at him with confusion, obviously realising that he actually didn't know how old his father was.
"I'm twenty-nine, Ed," Roy said kindly.
"If he's twenty-nine, then he's not a kid any more. Is he?" Ed sounded a bit unsure.
Then he kept frowning in confusion and obviously still struggling to understand how Roy had been young, just like Roy had heard kids did when thinking about their parents being small, though Roy had never done anything of the sort himself.
"Oh, I didn't think about that! But I guess you're right." Ed studied Roy's face for a few seconds before he put his left hand on Roy's cheek. "But it's still weird that Daddy's been small."
More friendly and confused frowning at the silent phone.
"Then it will be the four of us. Auntie Riza is with us too. Daddy and her are our bodyguards."
The frown softened and took on that look of a child who is going to convey some very important information.
"Yes. Apparently I used to be really annoying and put many people behind bars and some of them would probably like to attack me. Besides, we still don't know where Lillian went. Daddy thought we should come visit you when we're done here in East City."
More silence, but Ed was obviously not approving of something that the silent phone was telling him. "It's not Dad, it's Daddy."
A few more seconds as Ed kept frowning. "Yes. Because the man I knew as Dad left us and made Mom cry. Daddy isn't like that."
A few more seconds, and then Ed lit up. "See yah, Grandma!" Then the phone was hung up and Ed was grinning at Roy. "She sounds really grumpy, but she isn't."
Roy had to admit that that particular memory was now unnerving, more than anything else.
His head wasn't happy with any of this. It was screaming at itself and Roy had been raised for a couple of years by the waitresses of the building that his non-existent aunt had lived in.
No, everything inside his head was wrong. He was missing some major pieces and it made him realise something terrible.
...The one thing that didn't leave him questioning himself, was alchemy. Alchemy left him completely at ease and his knowledge was only built on himself and what he had learnt from people while on his own. Alchemy was safe.
Raising the boys had become a lot more complicated because he barely had anything to base his raising them on, in terms of gut feeling built on having been a child himself. But the boys had guided Roy a lot. The boys, Riza and Maes.
He couldn't help but laugh shakily. "No wonder God himself called me an arrogant fool! I've gone and provided myself with an existence where the least scary thing that doesn't make me question my own abilities, is alchemy! I've been taught one hell of a lesson about humanity... Because you can't really function and stand on your own two legs when all you know are cold, hard facts... I-I've gained independence at the cost of me now needing to ask everyone for help in actually functioning... Insecurity is creeping up on me because my entire body can tell just how malfunctioning I've made myself through trusting alchemy over people..." He couldn't help but smile as tears went down his cheeks. "But because I also did it to save my sons, I've pleased God enough to not leave me unable to ask for help even so... I've still got people around me who won't abandon me, and I've gained knowledge that can be used to both push you all away, or to help you so that I can keep you close..."
There was a pause at that point, nobody else talking.
...Until Al spoke up and brought up the subject that made Roy feel his stomach churn slightly. "Which means that you're the most powerful alchemist in the country that we know of, and that that is going to to be an easily known fact as soon as you use your clapping alchemy..."
Roy sighed heavily and shakily and hugged Ed even tighter to him, tears going down his cheeks again. Every little thing that made him sad or scared right now made him instantly produce tears, it seemed. Especially when his entire body was constantly hurting like this. He was still dizzy and emotionally exhausted and thereby easily overwhelmed because everything was just pain and fear and his body...
...His body was literally a walking and talking life support system for his eldest son. Because even though Fullmetal was older than Ed, Fullmetal was also not his son. Ed was his son, just like Al.
...Fullmetal had no '-Mustang with a hyphen' at the end of his name.
He wasn't the one that Roy had adopted, even if Roy would have done so in a heartbeat, no questions asked, should Fullmetal have wanted him to.
But right now, Fullmetal was still used to only being Roy's subordinate.
...Still Roy's subordinate who had decided in less than five minutes to have helped Roy in having performed human transmutation in order to now sustain his brother's body for him. Fullmetal, who still very much thought that Roy was a creepy bastard, had also entrusted him with the task of keeping not just his brother safe, but also his five-year-old self. Once Roy had told him about the toll that he would have been paying, the boy hadn't hesitated.
He had just been angry and upset beyond words.
The kid who had been teasing Roy and had been an annoying brat for most of the time... Was trusting him with his life. Had taught him how to care for his brother.
And now said annoying brat had helped Roy to have become the most powerful alchemist in the country.
Roy didn't really like the thought of what it meant. That he had so much power now.
...And yet a childish part of him wanted to drive outside the city and make a giant crater.
Because no matter what, Roy was a bit excited to try out his newly gained clapping alchemy. Because he had been able to tell from having activated Al's new blood seal, that he could now channel a lot more energy into his transmutations.
And he could create so many things almost at the same speed as with his flame alchemy.
And with that ability mixed with said flame alchemy, that was what made him such a powerful alchemist unlike anyone else they knew of.
...Which meant that Führer Bradley couldn't risk losing such an important human weapon as Roy now was. Meaning that if whatever they were to discover about the Stone that the military had even kept secret from the Hero of Ishbal, Roy now had enough room to even kill a few corrupt generals.
Not that he would, though. Not when he had promised Ed that he wouldn't kill anyone. But if Roy really needed to, say in order to stop the Roy-thing from killing people, then he would have to go back on his word.
Because that bastard had left a scar on his boy's throat, and Roy wasn't going to let anyone do that to Ed again.
And now Roy could stop them through using his flames, and then trap them with his clapping alchemy.
He felt so odd. So empty and warm at the same time. And grateful and sad and terrified and happy.
And he had an unbelievable amount of power. He knew now how to create vast amounts of gold through a simple clap of his hands. He could become one of the greatest criminals of Amestrian history within just a few months. He could gain incredible amounts of power, fame and money.
...And nobody would probably be able to stop him.
Unless it was raining. That would severely limit his offensive capabilities enough for him to possibly be brought in by the other State Alchemists if they were to gang up on him.
But even then, Roy now knew how to clap his hands and make a long series of tunnels beneath those that wanted to bring him in, and by sending his flames through them...
It was daunting. Daunting beyond words.
Which was why Roy was severely happy that he had a pair of kids whom the public were very interested in knowing were happy.
...And people wouldn't like it if Roy were to be sent out on the battlefield again in order to commit mass murder in the name of the Amestrian military... While the ex-Fullmetal Alchemist would be left behind and terrified as the military had failed to look after the Hero of the People once more.
All in all, breaking the five-year-old boy's heart by making him spend a lot of time with his brother as they knew that their newly gained parent was being forced to slaughter thousands of people, and do so by the orders of the military that had failed said brothers once already, was really bad PR.
Especially as Roy didn't doubt it that Ed wouldn't give a damn about any gag orders about the Pentons having been military officers. And he would definitely get away with it because of his age. In fact, Ed still didn't like or understand just why the military had given them gag orders in the first place. And Roy had to admit that he found Ed's logic a very good one. Because Ed was wondering why he wasn't allowed to tell people about something that hadn't had anything to do with the military, but just a pair of criminals who had happened to have worn uniforms outside the hospital while their actions hadn't been based on their military careers.
But the result was still the same: Roy wouldn't get sent out on the battlefield because it would show how they didn't give a damn about the young boy that they had failed to save before he had lost the past ten years of his life. After all, people tended to dislike it when five-year-old torture victims had their only parent ripped away from them to commit mass slaughter.
He instinctively bent down and kissed the top of Ed's head in his gratitude.
Because Roy was now damned scared of simply going to bed because his memories contained a lot more death and destruction and heartbreak and hellish sights than ever before.
Or at least he thought so. Or had thought so.
He felt like throwing up at the realisation that his nightmares were suddenly going to be a lot worse and more frequent than what had been normal for him, now that eleven of those fourteen years had been devoted to the military.
Now that Ishbal made up one-fourteenth of his life.
...And where he had only had his colleagues to have leant on when he had been coping with the nightmares and the aftermath of that damned war.
His stomach clenched violently as another terrible epiphany hit him. "He told me he'd show me the truth of my actions, and I'm beginning to realise that he wasn't necessarily calling me an arrogant fool for what I just did... He hates it when people try to play God, and though I didn't do it this time, I have done it plenty before... And now I'm stuck with most of my life being marred by my career in the military... And what I did in Ishbal..." He stopped, reminding himself that Ed was only five and shouldn't hear him speak about matters like this.
...Because Roy had never felt so much like a monster as he did right then, and he-
And he was assaulted by a pair of small hands to each side. "TICKLEMONSTER JUNIOR! TICKLEMONSTER JUNIOR!"
Roy gasped and did the only sound thing at that moment, namely to get both of them out of the jacuzzi because Ticklemonster Junior should not be in a place where he would feel extremely guilty about causing Ticklemonster Senior to partially drown and take all the fun out of Ticklemonster Junior's attack.
And so Al thankfully grabbed Ed so that Roy could get out and do the thing that made the most sense right then.
...Giggling madly as he ran in gleeful fear towards the area that safely allowed Ticklemonster Junior to be as Ticklemonster Junior-y as he wanted.
Al didn't really know what to think about any of this.
Dad had given up his memories and he had met Al's body. The first thing that Al would do once he got his body back, would be to feel Dad's jacket around him. The first sensation that he'd be introduced to after years of not feeling anything, would be the wool that had been there to keep him warm.
He hoped desperately for it to happen soon.
And in the meantime, he looked at Grandma, unable to keep himself from feeling guilty about it all. Guilty and happy all at once. Because his body still existed.
...But Dad had paid his memories to make it so that it would stay alive while they worked on how to get it back.
He had a hard time believing what was going on. That Dad had just lost his memories like that... But he had given Al a look that had told him how they would talk some more about it once Brother was asleep.
Which was why Al volunteered for being the one to phone the Rockbells. The lie was a simple one.
A very simple one.
And one that was strongly rooted in the truth.
Then the phone was picked up at the other end and it was Winry who answered, which probably meant that she was still pushing herself far too much. It probably had something to do with the grave in the garden so that she had a distraction from her grief. But it was also late enough for her not to answer as though she was still at work. "Hello, this is Winry Rockbell."
"Hi, Winry, it's Alphonse."
"Is there something wrong, Al?" she asked urgently. It made sense as getting a phone call out of the blue at eleven p.m. wasn't exactly a good sign.
"I just wanted to ask you if you and Granny could come here to Central for a visit? ...We met Lillian's sister at the National Central Library yesterday, and our arms were full, so Brother ran and got lost in the crowds..." Al was worried, really worried. But at least he'd have some good news to offer too.
But Ed was still making him worried and it was one of the saddest things for him to watch.
Also because he wasn't sure if Brother would actually dare to be on a train for so long any more and then be out in the open landscape of Resembool, which could mean that they wouldn't be able to visit Resembool again for a long time. "He's really scared about being everywhere where there are strangers now, because he's afraid of Lillian hiding there and waiting to attack. So crowds are especially bad... Granny remembers him the best from when Big Brother was five the first time, so maybe she knows something that could help him... So Ed's probably going to feel too scared for it to be a good idea for us to go on any long train trips, at least not right now."
There was silence in the other end for a couple of seconds, and they were quickly explained by the slightly shaky breathing as Winry spoke next, she too realising that this could mean that they wouldn't get to have Ed visiting for a long time. "I'll ask Granny right away, but how is Ed doing now?"
"Either asleep or playing Ticklemonster Junior... He's had a very fun day, actually, he's just scared by crowds and unknown and large places, but when he's around people he knows, then he's not acting much differently. We just needed to come up with an alternative for him when he can't come with us when we do our research, so he's been very happy having spent the day at Grandma's together with Riza and a new friend of his and her mother."
"He's made himself a new friend?" Winry asked, obviously cheered up by the news.
"Yes, her name's Charlie, she's five too and she's pretty shy and doesn't like to be around a lot of people either, but they get along really well and they've been bonding over turtles. We had dinner with her and her family a few days ago and they're really nice people."
"Well, that's really good to hear..." Winry's voice was both fond and sad, and she sounded near tears. Al could understand why, before now, Ed's childhood friend who had been the same age had been Winry herself. But then her voice grew worried. "But why would Ed be awake so late? He never did that when you were here, and after he's been playing with his friend all day, then he definitely should be asleep by now... There's another reason why you're calling so late, isn't there?" she asked with a tearful and scared sternness.
"We found out why Brother was eating and sleeping so much, and Dad found the solution while we were out and walking Rolf, so things are just settling down a bit after that," Al said, trying not to tell them too much about it over the phone.
"What's wrong with Roy?" Winry asked, obviously not completely calmed down by Al's words. "What's going on, Al?!"
"Al, give it here, I've got this," Dad suddenly said a bit croakily as he came walking out of the bedroom. His face was still red and his eyes still puffy as he walked towards him. He was wearing a pair of light blue pyjama trousers and a white T-shirt, and there were bags under his eyes. He looked completely exhausted, both physically and mentally. "I should probably talk to them myself now that I'm physically able to not break down into sobs... Ed told me to take over the phone while Auntie Chris reads him a fairytale... He's too anxious to fall asleep without making sure that I'm okay, and he doesn't want me to make Winry and Pinako more scared than necessary."
"Al, answer me!" came Winry's voice, obviously not calmed down by Al's sudden silence after such an important question.
"Dad's here, Winry, he'll tell you himself."
Roy sighed heavily as he took the phone from Al, having figured out a clever explanation that wouldn't matter much whether their phone was being tapped or not. "Hello, Winry," Roy said, feeling that this may actually not work after all as soon as the first sounds escaped his lips. He felt pathetic. He was the Flame Alchemist, the youngest colonel in existence...
...And he had been crying like a little kid.
But, then again, he hadn't had the emotional development that he ought to have had. He was in many ways being reintroduced to a semi-preteen stage because he hadn't ever gone through that phase.
Everything was both new and yet not and it was leaving him an emotional wreck at the moment, even if he was calming down.
But he felt so wrong.
So, so wrong.
"Roy, what's going on?! Why do you sound like you've been crying?" Winry asked anxiously.
"Like Al said, I figured out why Ed was eating and sleeping so much..." Roy needed to keep himself from thinking about Al's body. Keep himself from thinking about how close his sons had been to death.
Because he hadn't gone through the stage of his life where he had gently learnt how to handle fear.
And he already knew that there was no way in hell that he'd be able to sleep without a nightlight on.
And so he took a deep breath. "You see, there was something wrong Ed's metabolism after all, but it wasn't physically obvious. But it was like it was sped up equivalent to that of when he was fifteen, so the strain was getting too overwhelming, which is why he has been sleeping more and more... So I found a way to fix it during our time at the library today, but it required a lot of alchemical power. But to do so, I needed to pay a toll with a value equivalent to what I wanted to achieve, or it would have proved itself potentially deadly due to the vast chances of a rebound unless one knew what one was doing... Because this particular type of alchemy concerned tapping into one's soul itself to achieve the desired results because of its vast potential... So I was basically experimenting with my own soul because I knew that it was sound because Al and Fullmetal had been looking into it already for the past few years in relation to Fullmetal regaining his limbs."
It was a clever lie. An extremely clever one. Because no matter what, he was too invaluable to the military to get into trouble for it. "Because the soul is able to unlock the secrets to channel a much larger amount of energy when one transmutes, I needed a way to learn how to do so without it killing me, before I could use it to fix Ed's metabolism. And, because my purpose was to save my son's life by him not being killed by the way that he had been given a second childhood while still having the metabolism of a fifteen-year-old, I decided to give up my own childhood. So I paid all my memories of the first fifteen years of my life to gain the knowledge of how to save him from the burden that came with the first fifteen years of his life." Roy felt tears beginning to build and then immediately go down his cheeks as the lump in his stomach only grew even more.
And so he took another few steadying breaths. "And then came the second part, namely that in order to apply the knowledge of how to channel so much more energy into my transmutations, I needed another significant toll..." He found himself wiping away his snot on his free hand and then sniffed. "Which means I figured that as I was doing it in order to keep being Ed's father as Ed grew up at a normal pace, that for me to keep raising my boys that I should lose the memories of the one who had raised me... So I basically used some of the same theories as Fullmetal had done when he had learnt how to clap to transmute, so now I'm able to do so too..." He choked on a sob that he just couldn't hold back and swallowed hard to keep more of them at bay. "But I decided to burn the book as it was too dangerous to keep lying about when there are a lot of State Alchemists who would be more than happy to learn to do the same in an attempt at simply becoming powerful and then abuse that new power... And there would be many who would also underestimate the toll and get themselves killed, so I might seem a bit hypocritical, but I felt like it would have been irresponsible of me to have left it there as it could potentially have cost so many lives."
It was a very good excuse. He was extremely powerful and if someone were tapping his phone, then they too couldn't deny that Roy was absolutely right, even if no book like that had really existed and the closest things to it had been burnt down as the boys had left Resembool three years ago.
"And so, yes, I have been crying... And a lot of it... Because I've lost a lot of my emotional development and have never had a parental figure of any kind comfort me and I have spent almost eighty per cent of my life in the military and received my first paper cut at age fifteen..." Roy wiped his face on his hand again, before sniffing loudly once more as he barely kept himself from sobbing. "So that's basically it... But it's worth it because there was just no way in hell that I would have let Ed die and he had already begun sleeping for four hours more than he had originally done when we had first found him..."
He found himself chuckling weakly and tearfully. "So I'm a bit of an emotional wreck at the moment, but it's getting better with each minute as I get used to it. My aunt came by with some albums about an hour ago and she's thankfully not angry with me... So I just have a lot to learn all over again, but I've got enough memories for me not to be helpless because I've still got the behaviour down and my manners and vocabulary as it has all been built on my childhood, so I just don't remember how I learnt those things... But I'll be fine, I've got a lot of people who are supporting me, and, like I said, it's getting better and better as I get less overwhelmed by everything..." He swallowed a lot, admitting defeat. "But I think I'll leave you to Al now because I'm..."
"...I understand, Roy," came Winry's tearful and soft reply.
"Mhm," was all that Roy could get himself to say before Al took the phone from him.
Then he sank to his knees before he curled up on his side and began sobbing into his fist so that Winry wouldn't hear him.
But he just couldn't stop it this time.
And his body was beginning to ache and he felt icy cold.
He noticed hands on his shoulders and on his forehead and someone's voice sounding as if from far away. He couldn't tell who it belonged to, but people were talking.
"He's boiling up!"
"Winry, I'll have to call you back tomorrow, Brother wants me to say good night."
"We really should get him to a doctor."
"We can't phone for an ambulance, Roy's lie doesn't explain how his body's responding! The last thing we need is for him to be found out!"
"And Brother's going to be terrified of going to a hospital... He won't let Dad leave without him, but we can't do that to him after yesterday!"
"Wait, didn't you say that Charlie's father is a GP?"
"He is!"
"Question is if he's trustworthy?"
"Yes, Maes, I believe he is so..."
"Then we need to ring him right away..."
Roy felt his word spinning and dark spots were forming at the corners of his eyes and he just gave in to it because everything was just hurting and spinning and making him nauseous and he was so cold.
Riza dialled the number quickly as Maes kept checking Roy's condition. He was falling asleep on and off and he was trembling violently.
"This is Audrey speaking," came a familiar voice.
"Hello, it's Riza, could we speak to Terrence? We've got a bit of a medical emergency going on with Roy and we don't want to bring him to the hospital unless it's absolutely necessary because of Ed."
"I'm on it!"
It was just ten seconds later that Terrence was picking up the phone. "What's going on?" he asked quickly, obviously not finding it to be comforting that they were having a medical emergency that they couldn't really go to a hospital for.
"Roy's been researching some new form of alchemy and it turned out to require a lot more energy than originally planned, so now he's showing symptoms similar to starvation and dehydration all at once and his temperature is rising quickly at the moment and we're barely able to keep him from falling asleep."
She was given a few instructions and a couple of questions, including the number of their hotel room and then a promise to be there in fifteen minutes.
echznmay:Thank you! I hope that you enjoyed this chapter too, despite the sadness there is to it :)
CallMeWaffle: Thank you so much! Out-of-the-blue reviews like that are always tremendously uplifting, so thank you!
Also, I would really love some extra reviews at the moment because my grandfather just had a small stroke. And though he's mostly fine and back home from the hospital and he seems to mostly just have the right side of his face sagging a bit, I'm still worried and so is my grandmother, also because he has some heart problems and they live in another city so I can't visit them as easily as I'd like to, so I could use something to cheer me up right now.
