Did I say this would take me one week? What I meant to say was five...o.O

Thanks to my reviewers Lain Blackchurch (THANK YOU FOR YOUR 52 FLAVORS. It's so awesome. UPDAAAATE. I need more paternal Roy goodness), Crysalazer, Kane-chan, K a w a i i - S y a o r a n, kurama-sweetheart, smeg1, angry-kitty, Dixie Cup of Doom, (Yeah, that's right Fitchy. I see you lurking there) Kellen, and Nelja. I luff you all very, very much.

Some quick questions answered:

Why hasn't Roy been replaced?

SPOILER!

When Roy says "The Fuhrer's secretary herself came to visit and told him to take the night off," those of us who have seen the whole series know that the Fuhrer's secretary is actually the homunculus Sloth. Later, Lust says Sloth was supposed to take care of everything. So, there was never actually a replacement for Roy on the way.

SPOILER OVER!

Why is Lust there?

I think I was trying to imply that she was visiting him to make sure he was okay (because he is valuable after all). You know, just to make sure he wasn't dead or anything. However, in this chapter, I think I imply that she was taking him somewhere...This is before the Lab 5 Arc, so if she was taking him anywhere, it probably had something to do with that. I honestly am not sure, so you can believe what you like. :D I was trying to focus on Roy's relationship with Edo in this fic anyway.

I'm so glad you guys liked the way I portrayed Roy. That made me feel good. :luffs:

Again, don't own it.

So without further ado, here you go, a terrible, terrible, LONG conclusion.

Enjoy.

"Damnit . . . " Roy breathed harshly, smoke from the fire already filling his lungs. It wouldn't be long before a real nurse came, Roy reassured himself, it wouldn't be long until help came for Edward. Edward . . . Edward who was currently gasping and cradling his aching stomach with his flesh arm and supporting his shaking body with his automail one. Edward who needed his protection. Edward who was trusting him in a rare moment of absolute vulnerability.

The very Edward that he wasn't doing a damn thing to help.

He had tried to move, really, he had, but his legs felt heavy, cold and Roy knew that if he had taken a step, he would have ended up on the floor, face-down in a puddle of Ed's vomit. Before long, sweat was pouring down his face, and he was trembling fiercely against a nonexistent chill.

The minutes ticked by, and still no help arrived.

How could he be so useless? This was fire, his own element, staring him in the face. He wanted desperately to bound in and to be the hero, to save his young charge, gaining a level of trust and dependance in the process. He wanted to–but that was rather hard to do when his legs had stopped working.

"I'm surprised. Somehow I thought you would be more interesting to fight," a dramatic sigh, and then, "this will make killing you much less interesting." The fire was spreading now, flicking onto the drapes, singeing the ceiling a dark and dirty gray. Roy gulped again, trying to moisten his parched throat, selfishly wallowing in his own despair and mentally cursing his suddenly-weak mentality.

Lust broke from her nonchalant stance against the wall and began moving, as if in slow motion, toward Roy. Her steps were steady, elegant, and graceful. Every time her tall stiletto heel made contact with the cold linoleum floor, the resulting sound echoed hollowly in the room, and Roy was surprised to find he could hear the clicking of her heels over the low roar of the flames.

No one would help him. He would die here, and then Edward would follow him, and that would be that. No . . . He could die, he most likely would die, but Edwardwould not die with him. And with that decision now fresh in his mind, Roy felt the feeling in his legs slowly returning to him, giving him a renewed sense of determination and vigor to win the battle at hand.

He wasn't just fighting for himself anymore. He wasn't allowed to be selfish. There was someone else that he needed to protect, and he would simply not allow himself to be killed. Not yet, not until Edward was out of harm's way. And for one of the first times in his life, Roy was amazed to find he wasn't thinking of himself; he was thinking of Edward. Ed risked his life every day for his brother and for his beliefs and it only seemed fair Roy return the favor. Ed deserved that much, at least.

Ed wasn't going to last much longer and Roy could tell. He had been emptying the contents of his stomach onto the floor for the past two minutes of tense silence, and now he was heaving miserably, nothing left in his stomach to regurgitate. Roy tentatively took a step forward, testing the strength of his legs before re-entering the fray. Upon confirming that everything was still working properly, he felt considerably stronger.

"I won't lose to you." Click. Another step forward.

"Oh?"Click.

"No." Click.

"If you say so." Click. She was close enough to lop off his head now. He could feel the warm mist of her breath against his skin, but he bravely stood his ground."You won't kill him."

"My dear man, who says I'm going to kill Edward?" She turned to look at the boy in question; he was currently flat on his back on the floor, desperately attempting to cling to consciousness.

Roy faltered, embarrassed surprise evident on his face for a moment, before it was once again replaced with an expression of grim determination. "You . . . you're not going to kill him?"

"Well certainly not yet. He's far too valuable for that."

Roy froze, an expression akin to absolute horror on his face. "Valuable?" She whipped around to face him, hair flowing in a graceful arc behind her.

"Yes. Valuable." It was then that the much-needed fire alarm and overhead sprinklers chose to react to the smoke that had long since filled the room, and Roy chose to take advantage of them.

He leapt, catlike, around Lust, bending over and gently gathering Edward into his strong

arms. Edward was barely conscious now; his listless, glazed eyes seemed to gaze right past Roy.

"Ful– Edward?" An anxious hiss of a whisper. He couldn't be dead already . . .

"Con . . . el . . . ?" Suddenly, there were two hands clinging to Roy's military jacket, one was weak and could barely grasp the material, the other was almost too strong–inhumanly strong, clinging as if his very life depended on it.

"Shhh . . . don't talk Ed. It's going to be alright. You can sleep. Close your eyes." It seemed absurd to be telling him everything was going to be alright. At this point, everything did not look as if it were going to ever be alright. Everything looked as if it was going to blow up in his face if he didn't do something soon. But Edward took priority over all else at that point, and feeling Edward's febrile heat against his chest seemed to take one of the heavy burdens off his shoulders. For now, at least, he was safe in Roy's arms, and Roy could take comfort in that.

Edward nodded slowly and deliberately, as if needing Roy's words to confirm his safety, and then slowly faded into unconsciousness. Roy watched him do so with a growing sense of pride. Ed trusted him enough to fall asleep in his arms.

They were being drenched by the steady downpour of the overhead sprinklers, and water trickled down Roy's nose onto the small, limp, and now sleeping (or rather, unconscious) form he was cradling. Lust approached from behind (click, click, click) and Roy held the small frame defensively close.

"You need to get him out of the water." Roy looked behind him and gave her a puzzled stare.

"W.. What?"

"The pipsqueak's already sick. The water isn't helping him any. You should get him somewhere dry." If Roy was confused before, now he was utterly dumbfounded. He rose slowly, still cradling the silent form against his chest, deciding it was best not to argue with the dangerous temptress. If she wanted him to help Ed, then damnit he would. He wasn't going to argue about that. The fire had finally begun to die, and the smoke had begun to disperse, and Roy figured that everything in the room would take care of itself.

Lust held the door open for him, and they exited together, an odd pair indeed. Luckily, there were no doctors in the hallway and there were no nurses lingering in any neighboring rooms. The recovery wing was silent.

Roy started off to the south of the room, making a beeline for the elevator, and hopefully, a lower floor, a blanket, and dry clothes for Edward. He desperately jammed the button to open the door of the elevator, arms aching with the effort of supporting the burden already. But he refused to give in to fatigue.

"Come on, COME ON, GODAMMIT!" The dial above the elevator read one, and then two, and when it hit three he heard the footsteps approaching from behind again. They were still slow, still sure, and still irritatingly loud. It was positively aggravating.

"This little game of cat and mouse is starting to get irritating, Mr. Mustang." When the dial hit four, her hand was on his shoulder. By the time it hit five and the doors were sliding open, he was writhing in pain beneath her grasp, her long, clawlike nails piercing the delicate skin at the juncture of his collarbone and shoulder blade. He squirmed silently, but the precious burden resting in his arms remained there. "You're making this more difficult than it has to be."

Ignoring her entirely, he made a mad dash for the door of the elevators, feeling her fingers rip from his tissue as he did so and sending a spasm of pain through his shoulder and blood rushing down his arm. He never made it to the doors.

"Honestly, what do you think you're going to do once you get down there?" Roy collapsed onto the floor, falling backward flat onto his buttocks. He felt the lump that was his silver pocket watch in his back pocket collide with the floor.

"I would…get help…" he panted, Edward now laying limp across his lap as he clutched his bleeding right shoulder and wincing slightly with each intake of breath.

"How naive. You actually believe that there is anyone left in this hospital to help you? Haven't you noticed that no one came to help when that fire you ever-so-intelligently started set off the alarm? There's no one here you silly boy, no one…conscious anyway. They've all been taken care of."

"But wh…why would you go through so much trouble for one kid?" Roy investigated the wound on his shoulder using fingers sticky and damp with blood; it wasn't too deep, perhaps the length of his thumb, he gauged, so it hadn't pierced the skin on his back. It hadn't hit any major veins either, so he wasn't in real danger as far as blood loss went, but God did it hurt like hell.

"I said before. He's valuable." She glowered at him, and seemed to be enjoying herself far too much. Her violet eyes sparked with a deep, sick, convulsed sort of pleasure. It made Roy nervous. He knew the type, the type that would divulge their plan in him and then rip him limb from limb (or leave him in a crumpled heap on the floor, permanently brain damaged – always a popular option).

"Please…explain?" He would take advantage of her willingness to divulge her secrets. Heck, maybe by the time she was done, the lightheaded feeling he was getting would go away, and he could put up a proper fight.

"Now what would the point of that be, wasting the few hours of night that I have left?" Hell…what was the point! Point…point…point…

"Come now . . . sure . . . you could tell me something? I am about to die, aren't I?" He pouted, bottom lip protruding piteously.

She looked at him, amused, "Do you honestly believe I'm that stupid?" Shit.

"I had hoped, actually, yes . . . " A wry grin was all that he could muster; he couldn't imagine that it looked very mocking or self-confident as he had intended it to look, though. Probably just painful.

In his lap, Edward groped the air momentarily with an expression on his face that suggested he was not pleased to have been so suddenly wrenched from Roy's heat-giving embrace. He finally found what he had been looking for – Roy's jacket – and pulled himself weakly into the fabric, pushing his face against Roy's chest in a desperate attempt to acquire warmth. He moaned pitifully, and Roy couldn't help but smile at the thought of how positively mortified Ed would be if he could see what he was doing. Lust watched, interested, and remained silent.

"That boy is a mystery."

Cautiously, " . . . How do you mean?"

"When you've observed someone as long as I have, you start to notice things." Roy tried to stop the images that came to his mind – a young Edward being stalked by a dangerous woman . . . a woman who could have, at any point in time while she was stalking him, slit the unsuspecting boy's throat without him ever having seen it coming.

"Habits. Quirks. Emotions." A sort of sadness Roy had not though her capable of flickered over her features, but it was gone as quickly as it had come, and she was looking like a smug bastard again within seconds.

But now, Roy could see another opportunity for a distraction forming itself, and he gladly

seized it. "You don't know him," there was a venomous bite to his tone that the Flame himself found a tad surprising.

"Oh don't I?" Roy shook his head. "I think I'll know him better than you ever will, dear Mr. Mustang."

"You're lying." Now things were getting personal, and this wasn't just a distraction for Roy anymore. It was a challenge.

"Am I? Do you know what happened on October the third, 1910?" Roy tentatively shook his head; he couldn't recall any particular event, but Ed did seem to be especially bitter in that long month of October. He had always wondered . . .

"They burned their house to the ground. Little, eleven-year-old Edward said it was resolve, that he would move forward and never back. Silly . . . if you ask me. They left a very unhappy looking little girl behind though. I'm sure you know her." Images of a blonde haired, blue-eyed girl at the bedside of a broken little boy flashed before his eyes. Yes . . . but why was she . . . ?

"Never mind," she waved her hand dismissively, "Don't think too much about it. I'm sure you'll find out eventually." Roy quickly decided he didn't want to know. "Do you know his mother's name?" He'd read it in a file once . . . "His birthday?" Not the exact date . . . sometime in winter, he supposed . . . "He dislikes milk?" Well in all fairness, how the hell was he supposed to know that . . . ?

"Did you know that every Sunday he leaves his brother for a few hours, and purchases a lavish meal for two at the most expensive restaurant he can find?" She smiles, "He never eats both . . . just . . . looks at the one across from him with a pitiful expression on his face and eats about two bites of his own. Occasionally he'll cry a bit, but that doesn't happen too often. Just after a particularly bad week . . . like when you sent him on that mission to . . . Drachma, was it? Awful things going on in Drachma, Flame. Awful things. The waitress had to bring him a hankie that day, I believe." Roy just looked at her incredulously. How could anyone take such delight in a young boy's misery? He unconsciously pulled Edward closer to his chest and slumped against the elevator doors.

"Did you know he's only visited his mother's grave once since he left his little hometown? That was particularly boring to watch, as you can imagine. About two hours of staring at a stone. I was ready to let Gluttony eat it just to stop his staring, already." She examined her nails. "That was actually only a few weeks ago, come to think of it."

"He keeps a picture of his little brother in his coat pocket, and he'll sneak a peek when he thinks that the younger one isn't looking. He keeps a picture of his mother in his research journal, but he's only looked at that picture once as far as I can tell. That one time, he vomited." Her tone was dry as she counted off Edward's sorrows on finely manicured fingers.

"He's always particularly sour after he leaves the military headquarters, and usually stops by a park to eat something – he especially likes noodles, I've noticed. He hasn't gained any weight since he performed the human transmutation, though. He won't eat save when he absolutely has to, and even then, the portions are meager." Roy was steadily becoming more horrified . . . how could he not know this!

"He's constantly plagued with nightmares. Not mild nightmares, mind you. Well, I imagine they're not at least, because he usually ends up sobbing into his pillow until dawn when Alphonse "wakes" up and rubs the junctures where automail meets flesh for a while. Those bothersome limbs do pain him something awful, you know." She then nodded in a horrible kind of mock sympathy, and Roy finally decided he had heard plenty about Edward's miserable life outside of the office.

"He – "

"ENOUGH!" Roy roared as he massaged his aching shoulder again.

"What? Can't handle it? Just admit that you don't know him. You only think you do. Most of what you see is a facade – a happy, stubborn mask that he puts on for the rest of the world."

Roy was ready and waiting with his response, something he had concluded from listening to her recount Ed's troubles and from the expression of sadness he had seen her face form when she spoke of emotions. "I may not know everything that there is to know about him – but at least I can understand what he's feeling." Her eyes widened and the smile that had been plastered to that beautiful face was promptly wiped away. "You can't, can you?" She just stared at him, awestruck.

"Do you know why he burned his house down? He obviously didn't want to be stuck in the past. He wanted to move forward. Plus, now that he had attempted a forbidden act in his own home, he believed he had tainted all the happy memories he had there."

"How about why he orders two meals? Why he vomited when he looked at his mother's picture? Why he's plagued with nightmares? Why he won't eat? You don't understand, and I don't think you can, am I right?" Roy was able to understand all too well what was going through Ed's head as Lust had made her points by recounting miserable stories of Ed's past. He had been subject to the same flood of emotions during the Ishbal Massacre.

"Happiness, sadness – "

"Stop." A low, dangerous growl.

Roy's voice only grew louder, stronger in response, "Depression, guilt – "

"Be quiet!" Her tone grew urgent, desperate even.

"Disgust, hatred, self-loathing – "

"I SAID, SHUT UP!"

"YOU CAN'T DISTINGUISH ANY OF THEM!"

"You think that makes you better than me? Would you like to know what I can feel?" Roy was scared now. He had pushed it too far, and now Lust was mad, her voice a harsh and unfamiliar whisper in his ear. It had lost its alluring quality, and she was more intimidating now that he was injured and she had been provoked. Shit.

"I can feel anger. And I can feel your BLOOD beneath my fingertips. And I'll be DAMNED IF I NEED TO FEEL ANYTHING MORE THAN THAT!" Roy was on his feet and sprinting down the hall adjacent to the elevator doors with Edward in his arms before she had a chance to unleash those deadly claws of hers.

"While we're still on the subject of Edward though, tell me Roy, why DID you welcome him into your little military party?" Roy kept running, blood from his shoulder splattering the floor occasionally. Lust walked after him casually, scraping her nails against the wall and creating a horrible grating noise in the process that made Roy's head ache. He didn't answer.

"Was it really your original intent to help him?" A short bark of laughter. The only response was the silence of the hospital corridor. "What, afraid to admit that you're only exploiting him? Afraid to admit that you might be just like me?" Roy stopped dead his tracks, panting heavily from the long sprint. Edward was nuzzled into the nook of his elbow, breath hitching occasionally, fever still present, and shaking uncontrollably from the layers of wet clothing he was still covered in, but looking blissfully content otherwise.

"No! Of course not!" A blatant lie. Had it been true, Roy might not have sounded so desperate.

"Oh? Wasn't that why you recruited him? A Promotion? Glory? An increase in social status?" Fury bubbled inside Roy and upon touching his face to get a bothersome piece of hair away from his eyes, he found streaks of hot tears lining the creases of his complexion.

"You have no idea." Whirling around to face her, he was surprised to find that she had been hovering inches from his ear, shrouded by the fog that was Roy's anger.

"Oh, so you brought an eleven-year-old boy into the military for his own good, did you?" Edward squirmed slightly in Roy's arms, as if he could hear what was being said about him.

"Of course." His voice betrayed his emotions, and wavered.

"Liar."

"No!"

"You wanted your little promotion, and so you brought a little boy into the army, where he's been subjected to countless atrocities, horrors, and hatred on top of all of the horrors he'd suffered before. But he's loyal to you, isn't he Mustang? As much as you may torment him, he's always been like a puppy on a leash."

"You're wrong." The response was little more than a harsh whisper, hurt and broken sounding. "Ed never sold his soul. I could never control him . . . the way I . . . "

"The way you want to?"

"The way I first intended to!"

"You don't intend to control him anymore?"

"He's more than a puppet, I realize that now."

"Now, you don't really mean that, do you?"

"I do! He's a human being! He's a hurt little boy, with thoughts and feelings!" Roy was beginning to find it hard to believe he had ever found this woman attractive. Now, in the dark, the only light being the pale moonlight from the window behind him reflecting on her even paler face, she looked utterly mad.

"That may be true, but in the end, he's a tool for both of us. I intend to use him to the fullest extent, to accomplish means of my own. After I'm through, you can have him for yourself...that is...if he's still alive." Consumed by fury, Roy decided quite suddenly to act on a whim, and thought at the back of his mind that had Hawkeye been there, he would have been scolded. Nevermind...if this works...it's damn well worth that risk.

"YOU WON'T! I WON'T LET YOU! " he roared, and with that, gathering what little

strength he had left, he swiftly and firmly kicked her square in the center of her rather plentiful chest. She was swept backward into a vacant broom closet, occupied only by several mops and a few buckets filled with some filth that Roy didn't care to identify. She stumbled, and fell, momentarily dazed by the unexpected assault. Roy took off down the corridor again, but this time, he headed straight for the tiny window at the end of the hallway.It looked into the alleyway behind the hospital, he knew, but he had no idea what was below it. It was a chance he just had to take.

"I'm sorry Edward . . . " And with that, he slammed his shoulder into the glass of the window pane, his delicate bundle colliding with the glass as well, though Roy took care to make sure it was his automail leg and not his real one that made the first impact, he knew that the cold, sharp, and unforgiving shards of glass would take their toll on the already frail boy.

Soon after, he was floating, filled with a sensation of absolute weightlessness in the blessed moments before he made impact with the ground. At some point in time during the too-long fall, Edward opened his eyes and blinked at Roy, groggily asking, "S' the gate 'gain?" Roy didn't know what the hell he was talking about, and as such, didn't know how to respond, so he just held Edward closer as the boy closed his eyes against the unrelenting air current, stroking his silky hair through unfeeling spark gloves.

The impact wasn't nearly as bad as it could have been, they had landed in something soft. But Roy took most of the force from the fall because he chose to led Edward fall on top of him. Blood gushed from the searing would in his shoulder, and it was all Roy could manage to make sure that someone was coming for them before he joined Edward in unconsciousness.

Make sure you all read the epilogue! Thanks for reading, and I really appreciate reviews.