"Red"

Okay... the last chapter of this storyline... you will see why later. I just decided to finish it off.

Warning:
Serious Major Angst. Seriously don't read if you don't feel like crying. I know I did.

Kind of RoyRiza but also kind of RoyEd.


"AL!"

Ed was pissed, as usual.

"WHERE THE HELL IS MY WATCH?"

He searched all of his pockets frantically.

"Ahhhhhhhhhh!"

He sighed and gave up after a few minutes, and began to walk again.

Damn! Must have lost it in that fire…

Which by the way was not in any way shape or form set or enabled by him... (A/N: Sarcasm…)

It had been necessary though, and one warehouse was a pretty small thing to give up in exchange for a whole town not being smashed to bits. Of course, it was entirely his fault, though. He groaned at the thought of the townspeople.

Damn ingrates! I save them from being some damned chimera's lunch and they kick us out of their town, which wouldn't even exist anymore if I hadn't been there…

Some people just didn't know how good they had it. Granted, that warehouse was their only source of income for the rest of the year…but life was more important than money, right? He sighed, and wondered just why exactly they had to go back to Central.

Getting back to Central was always a hassle, for some reason or another. Maybe if he just hid out here a little longer, they would forget about him…


As they approached the train station, they could barely make out the time and date above the entrance. They had been training in the south for a while, but had no real perception of time without any calendar. They could have used Ed's watch to count off days, but it had just occurred to them that they could have done that when Edward noticed that the watch was missing.

It was almost 12:30 in the afternoon, and they would need to hurry if they were to get to the station and buy their tickets on time. As they came closer, Edward could make out the date, although it was a little fuzzy. What was it……? He could hardly tell.

It started with a 'J'… July?

So it had been less than a month. It sure had felt longer than that.

Wait. No….

He almost fell over when he read the month.

JANUARY?

"You've… got… to be kidding me!"

The sign clearly stated that it was 12:38 on January the 21st. He paused for a moment and counted out the months on his fingers. His hands shook slightly.

Have we really been gone…. For six months?

He hadn't really noticed the change in seasons, after all, if you went far enough south, it was pretty much hot all the time, year round.

Six Months!

He refused to believe it. Six months… He wondered vaguely if anyone in Central was worried about their absence. He cringed at the thought of all the paperwork that Hawkeye would have stacked on top of his desk. Hopefully he could get away with not filling most of it out.


Hopefully, the train ride would be uneventful. The last few times he had to get on a damned train, it was hijacked, derailed, and once, Al-as-cargo was taken off at the wrong stop. He bitterly wondered what was going to happen this time. It was going to be a long couple of days on that damned train…

The train uneventfully pulled into Central some days later. When they got off the train, they expected to be greeted by some military personnel or something, but then again, how was the military to know that they were getting back today? It had been a while since Ed bothered to make a phone call to Central.

He flung his suitcase over his shoulder and proceeded to walk towards the exit, starting the long haul to the complex. Unfortunately, since no one knew they were coming, there was no nice, cozy car waiting to drive them back to the building.

It was getting to be past twilight, and the sun was setting, making the sky glow with pale colors of pink and orange. It had been a long, arduous journey all the way across the city.

Well, not really. Ed liked to exaggerate. In reality, it had only been a casual hour or so of peaceful, uneventful walking, save the few odd glances that Al had received from passing strangers.


Trying as inconspicuously as possible to get into the residences on base, they stealthily made it down the hallway to their old room.

Home…

He looked around nostalgically. Everything was just as he had left it.

Is this really home…?

He dropped his bags, and they fell onto the floor in a messy heap. Right now it felt like he could sleep for a million years and never wake up.

Flopping down on the bed, he put a hand to his stomach. He felt it rumble and heard it make somewhat disgusting sounds. It was then that he realized that he was starving. Sleep would have to wait for a few hours. He went out in search of food.

Edward walked down the hallway towards the cafeteria. It had only just gotten dark about an hour ago, well, he really didn't know because his watch was missing, but he was sure that there must be something left over from dinner. Hopefully, he wouldn't get stopped by that Colonel with a god-complex on the way there.

Turning out into the main area of the building, he came across an obviously disheveled woman in uniform. Edward sighed for a second in relief that it wasn't Mustang before he got a closer look at her peculiar appearance.

Her hair was down, and you could tell by the slight stains on her face that she had been crying. The uniform was askew, and she made no attempts to fix it.

He saw her mouth the words, "Oh God." Before she turned and ran. Edward didn't know what had come over him, but he felt compelled to follow her, and he did before he had time to stop himself. She was headed toward the… hospital wing?


Trying to follow her through the winding labyrinth of hallways was more tiring than he expected, plus he was already tired and hungry. He was about to give up when he heard voices coming from a room a little further down the hall. He was nosy, and couldn't help but approach the doorway.

"Colonel… a-are you awake…? Mustang….?" She gulped audibly.

"…Roy…?"

He heard the click of a gun and Ed silently hit his head against the wall.

Duh! How could he not have realized who she was when he saw her? Riza really looked different with her hair down and glasses on though.

Waitasecond….

He burst into the room without thinking. There was something not right with this picture.

Hawkeye never cried.

Mustang never got hurt.

And Edward had never felt this horrible in his life.

But sure enough, there was Riza, not even trying to hide her tears, Mustang in a hospital bed, and Edward having a weird choking feeling in his throat, like he wanted to cry or scream or something.

"He… he drifts in and out…" Riza managed to say choking in between the tears.

As if reading his mind, she continued. "He's been… like this… for almost… two weeks now…" Her efforts at holding back the tears were not working.

While they were talking, Roy managed to gain a semi-conscious state. They turned around quickly, and Riza rushed to his side. He turned his head to look at Edward, his gaze weak and eyes only half-open.

"Red…" was the only thing that he said.

It didn't quite come out like he had wanted it to. What he had actually meant to say was, "Welcome back, Little Red Riding Hood." but only the word 'Red' had managed to escape his lips.

They both assumed that he was referring to the color of his jacket, but they didn't really know. Roy was really out of it, to be putting it lightly. More like teetering on the line between life and death.

Suddenly out of nowhere, he said another random word. "Postcard…"

Again, what he had thought hadn't matched what he had said. He had wanted to say, "You could've at least dropped us a postcard, shorty.". He was supposed to be sarcastic, condescending, not so weak he could only say one word at a time.

If Roy were just a little more aware of himself, he would have been incredibly embarrassed at the thought of anyone seeing him so… weak like this. He tried with all of his might, which was not that much at his current state, to at least sit up. He couldn't figure it out, but for some reason it tired him out immensely. He fought to stay conscious.

No… don't… sleep… so… tired…stay…awake…not…tired…not...tir-

He managed to say one more word before his head fell back against the pillow and he drifted out of consciousness.

"Scar…." He said, hoping that Edward would interpret it as "Scar did this to me, so go out and kick his ass for me, wouldn't you? You, too, Hawkeye."

Riza thought about this. If Scar had really done this, wouldn't he be dead already? Like Tucker or Nina or Gran… She tried not to think about all the people that had been lost to him. Not Roy too…..


She glanced at Ed, who was already plotting. He grinned, transmuted his arm, and ran out the door. Hawkeye had a pretty good idea of where he was going… she wasn't going to follow. She sat down in the chair by Roy's side and held his hand.

Several hours later, Edward staggered back to his room. His vengeful Scar-hunting had not gone well. He had wasted time running around the city in hysterics trying to find that bastard and severely hurt him. More than likely, if he had run into him, he was going to be the one severely hurt.

Vengeance just wasn't his thing. It put him down to Scar's level. Hadn't he himself asked why we couldn't just be content and live while we could?

Before he collapsed from lack of sleep, he decided to check in at the hospital wing again with Hawkeye.


Hawkeye was lost in thought, and the steady beep-beep of the heart-monitor thing was slowly lulling her to sleep. She almost didn't notice when the comforting sounds stopped.

The warmth faded from his hand, and the color from his face. She looked up with horror and watched as his breathing slowed, and she put her head on his chest. The slow rising and falling motion stopped, and he exhaled slowly, one last time.

It took a moment for the implications of the moment to sink in, and only when she heard the steady, unwavering beep did she finally grasp the gravity of the situation. She tried to move, but it felt as if her head was a huge weight that refused to move. All she could do was bury her head in the covers and cry.

It was at that moment that Edward threw back the door. He heard the steady sound, and saw Riza, collapsed into Mustang's chest.

No… No..!

His face was paler than usual, and he noticed that his chest was not moving up and down like it should.

He tried to scream, but instead ran from the room, tears beginning to well up in his eyes. He ran at a breakneck sprint speed all the way back to the dorms on the other side of the building. Slamming the door shut, he leaned against it and exhaled deeply. Tears were streaming down his cheeks uncontrollably, soaking his gloves and parts of his jacket, some landing on his boots.


What he needed was something that would calm him down a little. Somewhere warm, where he could relax and think. Or try not to think. He walked into the bathroom and turned on the hot water for the bathtub. It was only on the rare occasion that he ever took a bath. Showers were quicker and more efficient, but right now, he couldn't give a damn about actually getting clean. A bath was a perfect place to wallow in his own guilt, doubt, self-pity, sorrow, grief, and angst if there ever was one.

Sitting, soaking in the water, a thought provoked his mind. What was it like to die? You would never know until you did, and once you did, it's not like you could tell anyone how it felt. He wondered if there was some kind of afterlife or something. Just where did all the dead people go? Sure, their bodies were buried or cremated or burned or just left to rot, but what about someone's soul?

Normally, Ed wasn't one to think about all of that metaphysical philosophical crap, but the at the moment he couldn't help but wonder. Would it hurt? Could he see his mother onemore time? Would he find his friends there? Was death just the end, or the beginning?

His thoughts took a more morbid turn. What did he have to live for, now, anyway? Here he was, a half-metal teenager with a suit of armor for a brother. He had sacrificed everything to bring someone back to life who he wasn't even sure was his mother. His father had left them years ago. It just a matter of time before the whole country collapsed. Hughes was dead, now Roy too. More of his friends and comrades were bound to die every day. Vengeance begot vengeance, the hatred only spawning more and more hatred. The world was morally corrupt, and what could he, a short, insignificant, ignorant, half-metal child do about it?

Nothing, he realized. Absolutely nothing. Nothing that he thought, said or did could change anything. Nothing and anything at all. Worthless…

He returned to his original thought as he slid his head slowly and silently under the surface of the water.

What was it like to die?

He felt that now was just as damn good a time as ever to find out.


... no comment

...'Taters?...