Roy Mustang awoke the next morning in a quaint little room. There was no glass in the windows, letting the curtains flutter in the breeze. Thankfully the sun was shining, and it was warm enough that he would've chosen to keep the windows open anyway. The air was surprisingly clean, nothing like Central's. Obviously there weren't factories or cars here for miles. The floor was bare wood, and the walls were almost entirely devoid of any decoration. Nothing seemed to give any hint as to who this home could belong to, though a persistent thought at the back of his mind reminded him that Hughes had found him, and he doubted anyone else here would willingly take him in. Naturally then, this must be Hughes' house, though it hardly seemed like it. There wasn't a single photograph to be seen in the room, and it made Roy uneasy. Maes Hughes. What on Earth was he doing here? How had the two of them ended up in the same place like this, anyway? It made no sense, and on top of that, his mind felt oddly unsteady here. Like he'd just finished cramming for exams and his brain was still trying to sort out all of the information. His brain wasn't happy about it, either; he felt a little dizzy. The feeling didn't sit well with him at all. Instead, he tried to concentrate on the giddy feeling that came from knowing that Hughes was not dead. At least things weren't going badly, for what little sense they made.

He dropped his feet down over the edge of the bed, and stared down at his pants on the floor. There was no way he was going to wear those again. They were embarrassing. Then again, walking around everywhere in only his boxers would probably also be embarrassing. Oh well, Hughes would have a plan. He stood up and stretched his arms. Automatically, his hand went to where King Bradley, the Fuhrer, had pushed his sword through his shoulder just the night before. There was no blood. It wasn't bandaged, it didn't even hurt. He looked down at it, confused. Only a faint scar remained. He began to wonder how long he'd been asleep, but the smell of breakfast lured him out of the bedroom. There were too many things to figure out at once, and his stomach reminded him that it would like to be fed before he sat down to do any serious thinking.

Hughes stood in front of a small stove making scrambled eggs and toast, humming to himself. Occasionally he would slide across the floor in his socks to grab something out of the refrigerator. Roy walked up behind him and prepared to poke him in his side. A menacing grin crossed his face. Tickle-attacks were Hughes' biggest weakness. He was within centimetres. He was prepared for Hughes' yelp and girlish scream, when suddenly the person in front of him disappeared with a poof of smoke and he was tackled from behind.

"Very cute, Mustang. I'm glad to see that you're adjusting so quickly," Hughes pinned Roy to the floor, kneeling on his back and pulling his arms back.

"Hey, hey, go easy on me. How on earth did you do that?"

"What? Go easy on you? When I've finally got the upper hand? You're not injured, are you?"

Roy was relieved to see that, despite the lack of pictures around, Hughes was at least still his usual, happy-go-lucky self. This disappearing and reappearing stuff that people kept doing was really beginning to unnerve him, though. He gave a kick, hoping to knock Hughes off balance, but his hold stayed firm.

"Okay, okay. Enough." Roy relaxed under Hughes, and the man stepped off. "You owe me a lot of explanation right now."

Hughes turned back to the stove and nodded.

"I also owe you clothes. I think I'd like to take care of that first. I can't have you wandering around my house in only your boxers." He emptied the eggs from the pan onto two plates and garnished them with crustless toast. "But, before that: breakfast."

He steered Roy over to the table. The living space was small, so the table was situated in the area between the kitchen and the couch. The front door opened almost straight into it. Roy wondered how people lived in such Spartan places. It lacked so many important things – like books. He stared down at the toast.

"There's no crust…"

"Oh," Hughes looked vaguely sheepish. "I used to do that for Elysia on all her sandwiches. I guess I sort of kept the habit."

Roy smiled and picked up a piece of toast. It was dry without butter, but it was food. He looked down at the eggs ravenously… then he noticed the utensils.

"Hughes?" he looked up across the table at his friend, who was happily eating the eggs. "Chopsticks? For eggs?" He picked up the two sticks and poked at the eggs. They fell apart into smaller pieces, almost as if to mock him.

Hughes stared back at him, his mouth full of food, and made a sort of grunting response. "Sorry, no forks here."

"You have got to be kidding me. You know I can't use these!"

"Hahaha, I know, I know. I remember that one time we ordered in from that Xing place down the street. I tried to show you how to use them, but in the end you just transmuted the chopsticks into a fork."

"That's not a bad idea. Do you have any paper?"

"Your unwillingness to learn is depressing."

Roy walked over and tore a sheet of paper from a notebook sitting on the table, and grabbed the pen from on top of it. He quickly sketched two concentric circles with two triangles inscribed, the larger one pointing up. It was a slightly different version of the array he used to create fire. Instead of controlling the air elements though, it concentrated power to rearrange the elements. He took it over and set it down on the table, and moved the chopsticks on top of it. He placed the tips of his fingers on the edge of the lines and concentrated on moulding the two bits of wood into a single, more usable utensil.

Hughes stared at the reaction occurred. A blue light rose from the lines on the paper, and the two chopsticks merged into a fork. Alchemy had always amazed him, and though he wouldn't admit it, it was part of the reason he kept Roy so close by. He'd always hoped that maybe he could pick up some of it if he watched for long enough, but he'd watched for years, even understood the concepts, but he'd never seemed to have any talent for it at all. As Roy picked up the new fork and started eating, an odd realization crept into Hughes' mind. He tucked it away and reminded himself to ask Roy about it later. The rest of breakfast passed with relatively little conversation, Roy making an obvious effort not to press Hughes about what had happened. He knew it was best not to push Hughes for information when he wasn't ready to give it.

When they were finished, Hughes picked up the dishes and dropped them in the sink. Unlike most home inhabited by only one male, the whole place was stunningly clean, almost like it had barely been lived in at all. Perhaps his years with his wife and daughter had domesticated him. Then again, a shinobi would probably only need a house for eating and sleeping anyway, and those activities usually left only small messes.

Outside the window people were milling around the streets. Every so often, a few people would rush by, jumping from rooftop to rooftop to avoid the crowds. Everything seemed to be coloured with pale earth tones, and there was something about the entire village that seemed to keep people from concentrating on it too much, like you'd only notice it if you knew it was there. His eyes fell on the giant carving on the side of the mountain that made the northern border of the village. Four giant heads stared down over the village, watching. They were obviously former rulers of the city, or something similar to that. Roy shuddered at the thought of a giant picture of the Fuhrer staring down on Central city. He silently thanked his city for never coming up with such an imposing idea.

His attention turned back to Hughes as he finished up the dishes. It took a lot of willpower to do the dishes right after dirtying them. Hughes had always been the sort to do tedious things like that without putting them off, though. Roy idly wondered what he was going to have to do about clothes. That was their next project, it seemed. Clothes before explanation seemed a bit odd, but he went along with it. Apparently Hughes was no longer as comfortable with seeing him in his boxers as he used to be. Another side-effect of domestication, he guessed. There was little else he could do but play along, and he'd be foolish not to trust Hughes' information-gathering. If Hughes didn't know what was going on, there wasn't much of a chance that he would be able to figure it out by himself within the next eternity. Indeed, it had taken him months to figure out what Hughes had figured out that had scared the homunculus so badly that they decided to kill him. Admittedly their guard was up against that weakness afterwards, but finding the information had been nearly impossible, and he knew he had only been allowed to learn the truth when they were ready for him to know it, anyway. They'd forced his hand, and though he'd done his best to beat them at their own game, it seemed they'd won out in the end anyway, even though it wasn't directly their doing. He hoped he'd been able to make some difference by killing King Bradley. Maybe, without the Fuhrer, the country would be able to right itself and fix all the wrongs that had caused all the pointless wars to rage on for years... And he hoped more than anything that Ed had managed to save Al, and that the two of them had returned home safely.

"Yo, Mustang!" Hughes waved a hand in front of Roy's face and whistled, blowing a few strands of hair out of his face. "Are you even awake?"

"Hmm? Yeah?"

"You've been staring straight through me for the past five minutes."

"Sorry."

"Anyway, we've got to find you clothes. The clothes make the ninja here. Your rank, your clan, your specialty… all in the clothes. And… what is it? Why are you staring at my feet?"

"Hughes, are those my socks?"

"Well…" Hughes feigned innocence. "What if they are?"

"Why are you wearing my socks?"

"You have no idea how hard it is to find socks in Konoha."

"And?"

"I like to wear socks. That's why I wear sandals without open toes, unlike most of the other people here. I can slide across floors in them. Like in the kitchen." It was hard to tell if Hughes was entirely serious.

"You wear socks… so you can slide across the kitchen floor? Wait. Those are sandals?"

"Yes."

"They look like boots. And you stole my socks."

"You didn't miss them until you saw them on me anyway."

Roy sighed. There was no use in pushing Maes' silly little arguments any farther than they needed to go. He had a tendency to start little fights just to exercise his mind, it seemed. The more ridiculous they were, the more he enjoyed them. He positively revelled in it. Roy looked up at the man and tried to ignore the amused twinkle in his eyes. This was not going to be fun. "All right. Let's get this over with. If your taste in clothes here is anything like yours at home though, you know I'm more than a little worried. Really Maes, ducky pyjamas? Don't you care what people think?"

Hughes ignored the jab, walking off into the bedroom. Roy followed. He'd only bought the pyjamas after Elysia was born, anyway. The pirate clothes issue had, surprisingly, not been mentioned. Roy loved to mock Hughes about his taste in civilian clothes. Here though, there didn't seem to be too much to mock. He was dressed in the same black shirt he wore underneath his military uniform at home. Undoubtedly he'd kept it to remind himself of where he'd come from. Instead of dog tags, a black band of fabric was tied loosely around his neck. The front had a metal plate with the leaf symbol of the village on it. He'd seen all the other ninjas wearing these, too, though most wore them on their heads rather than around their necks. In a way though, Roy was happy Hughes chose to wear his around his neck. He imagined it would make him look silly otherwise.

Over top of it, he wore a green flak jacket, which looked to Roy like a sort of bullet-proof vest. It seemed out of place… he knew that those were usually only useful against bullets. It was still possible to stab through them with a knife. The wonder of the fabric normally used was that it absorbed the force of the bullet, keeping it from hitting the body and penetrating. Things made for cutting, however, were a different matter. Clearly this would have to block sharp projectiles instead. It looked amazingly light for any material he could imagine that could serve that purpose. Roy watched Hughes as he started to open all the drawers in his dresser, sorting through the clothes. An odd mark on his arm caught his attention. He tried to get a better look at it.

"Hughes? Is that a tattoo?"

"Oh," he looked over onto his left arm. "Yes."

"Why?"

"It denotes the people that have been part of the Anbu."

"Anbu being…?"

"A group of hunter ninjas. We basically go out and hunt down spies and runaways." Hughes skirted around the issue of actually killing the people they went after. He figured there were some things Roy shouldn't know yet. It would only worry him more. Roy turned his attention back to the clothes.

The rest of the outfit looked rather mundane. The overarching theme seemed to be black on black, with more black on the side. It didn't surprise him. There were reasons for some clichés, and that was because they worked. The pants were short, seeming to stop just below the knee where wrapped athletic tape, the only white showing in the entire outfit, went down to the ankles where Roy's socks were bunched up. Not paying them any more mind however, his attention moved to Hughes's hands. He wore a pair of long black gloves with the fingers cut out which came to the middle of his forearm. They made him look almost like a thief, or assassin. Strapped onto the right arm, black on black and barely noticeable if you weren't looking for it, sat Hughes' knives. It was comforting to see that at least they had followed him here. He had pondered over the device many times, marvelling at how it responded to the lightest flick of the wrist, sending one of the small knives down into your hand. Roy had tried it once, but only ended up cutting himself. It had been slightly more embarrassing than Hughes' vain attempts at using his flame gloves, snapping his fingers and glaring at the back of his hands, trying to will the sparks into flames. Each had his own way; their weapons seemed to be suited only to them.

Roy was unexpectedly hit with a shirt as Hughes rifled through his drawers looking for anything that would suit Roy. It seemed that in the past few months he had somehow managed to amass quite a large collection of black clothing. Black pants, black shoes, an amazing array of black shirts, and a lonely pair of white socks were scattered across the bed. Roy looked over at the piece of clothing that had landed on his shoulder. He stared, made sure Hughes was watching him, and continued staring for added effect. He pulled the shirt off of his shoulder and, looking at him through the holes in the fabric, gave Hughes the most incredulous look he could muster without laughing. It took him a few tries to get it right.

"Um, Hughes?"

The man turned around to face him, a few more black shirts in slightly different cuts were thrown hanging over his shoulders.

"Fishnet?"

He smirked.

"What? Is there a problem with it?"

"Don't tell me you wear this."

"Well…" Roy let the implication slip by, not wanting to push the clothing issue into even more illogical territory. Hughes continued anyway, almost mocking him. "It makes a good undershirt when it's too warm to completely cover your arms, and too cold to keep them bare."

"Very… utilitarian, I guess. Other people really wear this?" The question was mostly rhetorical. Roy had seen other ninjas as he came into the village, even though they supposedly weren't able to see him. Hughes and the other ninjas had explained it as some sort of "genjutsu," a way of manipulating people into believing they were seeing what you wanted to them to see. Fishnet seemed to be an overwhelmingly common fashion statement.

"Don't worry. I won't make you wear it if you don't want to. I've got plenty of other stuff here."

"Thanks, I think I'll pass on the fishnet."

He tossed the fishnet top back to Hughes, and began looking through the range of black clothes on the bed. At least he didn't have to worry about matching anything. None of the clothes seemed like they'd suit him, though. When he wasn't at home – and it was rare that he was ever at home for longer than a few hours to eat and sleep – he was almost always in a suit or his military uniform. These t-shirts and thick cotton pants seemed far too casual, but they'd have to do. Reluctantly he pulled on one of the smaller black t-shirts. The sleeves stopped at the edge of the shoulders, but he decided he'd deal with it. Most of what Hughes had was about a half-size too big for him, so he'd have to take what he could get. He wasn't bitter about being smaller than the other man, and he'd learned to compensate for his smaller stature by being intimidating in other ways, but when it came to sharing clothes it was a bit of a disadvantage. He pulled on the only pair of full-length pants and looked down at his bare feet. Shoes were something he'd have to find a way to buy later. Clothes that were too big could be dealt with, but shoes were an entirely different matter.

Roy Mustang walked over to the closet door and looked into the mirror. He shifted his weight and stared back at himself from the mirror. He made a face at himself.

"I look like I'm ready to go rob graves or something."

"Really? I never pegged you as the type."

"Would you stop being so glib? You've dressed me. Now explain to me what on earth is going on here."

Hughes looked him up and down again, looking vaguely disapproving. He looked over at the dresser and picked up a pair of smaller black gloves. They too had the fingers cut out, but they extended no farther than the wrist. Roy took them and put them on. They were different, but the feel of something covering his hands was familiar, and anything familiar was in a way comforting. He stared down at the back of his right hand, and traced circles over it with his fingers.

"Do you have any paint for these?"

Hughes smiled.

"No, sorry. Though I wonder if you even need that here." Hughes watched for what type of reaction his hint would elicit from Roy. He'd seen him use alchemy twice here now, once without an array. And the colour of the light he made had now changed from yellow to match Ed's blue.

A hint of a smile crossed Roy's face at the thought. He hadn't thought back to the encounter he'd had with the two other ninjas after Hughes had found him. How had he done that? Could he do it again? The scientific, logical part of his mind did its best to crush the idea, telling him it was nothing more than a fancy. He'd been half unconscious from the blood loss at the time, something must have just been weird. Swamp gas or something. Then again, Ed had been able to control his alchemy without an array. The idea wasn't completely farfetched…

"Hmm, something's still missing." His pensive look matched Roy's for a moment, and then the light of inspiration appeared in his eyes. Throwing open the closet door, he pulled a blue vest off of a hanger and tossed it to Roy. "There. Colour."

During the brief moment the closet was open, Roy thought he spotted a dirty blue uniform hanging in the back. Thoughts swirled in his head as he tried to sort out this new clue. He pulled the vest on and looked into the mirror again. At least it had a collar. Turning around, he saw that a strange symbol was printed on the back, undoubtedly a clan symbol. He frowned at his reflection.

"What's this?"

"You don't recognize the symbol of your own element?"

"Ah… oh." Roy smiled. "I see. Appropriate."

Hughes turned and led the way into the living room. The wood floors were a little chilly on Roy's bare feet so, against his pride, he snatched a pair of the white socks from the bed and pulled them on. He then followed Hughes into the living area.

"Now, I suppose I owe you an explanation."