10. Three hours later they were on a train to Rizenbul. It was either that or wait another whole week and Roy wasn't sure he could stand living with Edward in his house for that long. Ed slept for the first two hours of the journey and Roy just stared out the window, willing himself awake just in case they missed their destination. The landscape was dull and repetitive, like the paper reels of background they used whenever they needed to film a chase scene in a theater picture. Roy wasn't used to taking the train during the day unless he was being shipped out to a war. That's how it always was- send the soilders in during the day, take them out in the middle of the night. Amestris had been at peace for nearly a decade, but there was still something unnverving about sitting in a train car (as empty as it happened to be) with the sunlight streaming through the windows. Something that made that old, familiar pit of dread settle heavily at the base of his stomach.

Across from him, Edward stirred and yawned awake. He still stretched like a child. Roy wasn't sure what was so child-like about throwing your arms over your head and kicking your legs out in front of you, but he did know that adults stretched in less obvious ways. They rolled their heads across their shoulders and arched their backs casually. It was less refreshing, but part of being an adult was the sacrifice of comfort and satisfaction in favour of apperance and poise.

"Drinking makes you feel like shit." Edward concluded loudly, twisting in his seat to stretch his back before falling back into his seat, loose as a ragdoll.

"Well, not everyone chooses to drink twice their mass in one night, Edward." he almost let it rest at that, but the insult slid off his tongue on it's own, "Not that it takes much more than one rather tall shot to put you under the table."

Edward opened his mouth, but snapped it shut again as if deciding that he was too mature to take that particular bait. Instead he smirked and admitted, "Well, maybe I drank a little too much, but I didn't realize that the alcohol in Amestris was so potent. In Germany everything was so expensive that they just watered down all the alcohol in the entire country- I could have drank ten times what I did last night and not even felt woozy."

Edward Elric admitting that he had been foolish? Roy felt a little bit of irrational pride in the boy and couldn't help but smile back at his companion. However, something about the comment resonated in his mind and piqued his curiosity.

"Edward, where is Germany?"

He had expected the boy to be hesitant, but he hadn't expected the stark-white, wide-eyed, cat with it's back arched horror that Edward displayed upon being asked the question.

"What makes you ask that?" he coughed into his hand and his voice went high pitched at the end of the sentence.

"You've mentioned it several times already. I'm just curious as to where you've been all these years."

The horror drained from his face replaced by a sort of sad repose and he rocked forwards in his seat, "Germany... is a country."

"I'd gathered that."

"It's..." Edward studied his hands and was so quiet that Roy wondered if he was hoping the question would just go away if he took too long to answer.

"How far away is it?" he tried again, "Is it on the other side of Xing? Above Drachma? Across the ocean?"

"No." Ed's fingers tightened around his knees, "Germany is much further away than Xing."

"Across the ocean then?" Roy knew that he was grasping at straws, but he also knew that the only way he was going to get anything out of Edward at this point was by backing him into a corner. Edward was like a dog in the respect that once you backed him into a corner he would fight back at you tooth and nail. It wasn't something to be proud of, but Roy found that Ed was easiest to control when he was in that corner.

"Further than that." Ed murmered, "You probably can't even imagine how far away."

Roy reached out and gently pushed Ed's face up with his index finger. He smiled wryly once the blonde met his eyes, "Try me."

Ed stared at him for a long moment before pulling away and shaking his head vigorously, "There is no way I'm talking about this with you. No matter how I phrase it you're just going to think I'm crazy and say something like: 'Oh, Edward, that's ridiculous! You must have imagined it all! All that unrestricted alchemy use must have finally sent you over the edge!' So how about this: I was further away than Drachma, further away than Xing and further away than across the ocean and we just leave it at that."

This was certainly a delicate situation. Edward wasn't like most people. Most people would be burning, practically dying with the need to tell everyone and anyone what exactly happened to them no matter how insane others thought they were. Most people would refuse to tell the story only to make it seem all the more sensational when they finally told it. However, Edward was the sort to let sleeping dogs lie. Once he decided against telling you something, he was stubborn enough to stick by his decision- perhaps it was the mark of someone who had faced real trauma that he had no desire to talk about it. Whatever it was, Roy admired it in him. But, but- "Are you just going to avoid the subject everytime someone attempts to bring it up?"

"Yes."

If that wasn't a typical Edward answer, Roy wasn't sure what was. He decided (not so) wisely to drop the whole issue and return to staring morosely out the window. Silence reigned for longer than Roy cared to count. A few handfuls of awkward minutes until Edward said, unprovoked and completely out of context, "Sometimes I think that it would be better if Al never regained his memories at all."

Roy turned slowly to look at the boy- young man- slouched in his seat, brows furrowed and eyes watching the world from so deep inside his head that Roy wondered if the blonde had even meant to speak aloud at all.

Roy decided not to pursue that particular line of conversation either.