When it's Time to Change

Thanks for the feedback: Eboni, CreamyMimi, Mint Pizza Queen

Eboni: Sorry about the confusion, I inserted a new chapter after the funeral to try to make it a bit more clear as to what happened. Let me know if it helps.

Mint Pizza Queen: Thanks for the note, what happened was that automatically adds the newest chapter to the end and sends of the alerts. Meanwhile, I was moving the chapter I'd just up-loaded to ch. 8 (so ch. 9 and 10 were from an earlier update, while ch. 8 was new).

Disclaimer: Characters and setting are the property of Hiromu Arakawa. I'm just borrowing them for a bit of non-profit angst.


Colonel Mustang glared at his desk. It was covered with all the petty pointless thing he was expected to do; aka paperwork. Outside of the office, outside of Central there was real work that he should be doing, but this was Central not Eastern Command and his staff couldn't cover it up if he went missing for a week or two here.

Roy chuckled bitterly at the irony of the situation. When they'd sent him to the Eastern Command he'd called it a demotion, now he was sulking because they'd brought him back to Central. Of course he knew why they'd done it. His actions had raised suspicions so he'd been moved to a place where he could be kept under tighter surveillance. And that meant, among other things, that Hawkeye felt he had the time to do his own paperwork again. Irritably Roy threw his pen down on his desk and stalked out of his office.

"Sir, is there something you need in order to finish the expenditure reports?" Hawkeye asked crisply. Her hand strayed toward her holster. Roy interpreted her question as: "Unless those reports are done you had better have a damn good reason for being away from your desk… sir."

"I'm going to see Ed," he replied shortly.

Riza's face softened and her hand slipped away from her pistol. "Tell him hello from all of us," she said. "And please remind Mrs. Hughes that she's welcome to bring Edward and Elysia by the office any time."

Roy nodded. Fifteen minutes later he smiled as Elysia greeted him by pouncing on him the minutes he walked through the Hughes' door. A second later a larger impact knocked Roy clean off his feet. Roy sighed and ruffled Edward's bangs. "You really are too big to do that," he said.

Edward grinned brilliantly. Then his expression turned somber. "Have Mom's doctor's said anything?" he asked.

"She's doing better," Roy lied with the ease of long practice. "But she still isn't ready to come back. Alphonse is taking good care of her and they both miss you."

Ed nodded acceptingly. 'Equivalent Exchange,' Roy thought. They'd traded Edward's belief that he was being kept away from his family as a punishment for a story about his mother being ill.

In the revised history they'd devised for Edward his father had gotten one of the letters he wrote after his mother became ill and had come home. He'd sent Edward's mother far, far away to receive treatments and Al had gone with her to keep her company while Edward had gone to Central with his father since the hospital wasn't willing to house two rambunctious boys. Roy was still working on resigning himself to the roll of Daddy…it helped that Edward looked closer to twelve than his actual seventeen years.

Roy set Elysia aside and pushed Edward off him. "I thought you might like to work on your Alchemy some more," he offered.

Edward immediately jumped up to get his supplies. Roy caught his wrist. "Not here, I think you're ready for some of the more advanced theories."

Ed considered it. Theory wasn't as fun as practical but the word 'advanced' appealed to him. "Okay Dad."

Roy covered a reflexively wince. "I need to tell Gracia I'm taking you," he said. "Get your coat and shoes. I'll be right back."

Ed nodded and dashed away with Elysia two steps behind him.

Gracia gave Roy a suspicious look when he explained. "Roy Mustang, what are you up to?" she asked.

Roy shrugged. "So far I've been teaching him to do party tricks without accidentally pulling extra material from his surroundings into his transmutations by accident; how to do kid stuff as if he were actually a kid or a fourth rate Alchemist. I thought I'd try teaching him some real Alchemy today; see if I can jar any memories loose."

"All right," Gracia said. "Just be careful with him. I'd rather he stay a child forever then have him revert to the lifeless puppet he was before the funeral."

Roy promised, collected Edward and brought the boy to his personal library. Roy paused at the door and waited then he realized that Edward wasn't quite at the stage were his intense desire to know would overwhelm any hint of manners he'd ever possessed upon being invited into another Alchemist's library. Alchemy was still a game to the boy, not his life's blood and his obsession. He was actually going to wait for Roy to direct his studies rather than attempting to consume every scrap of knowledge within the library without pause.

Roy considered for a moment then picked out a text. He frowned at the book's cracked spine and remembered throwing it at a wall after failing his first attempt to gain a State Alchemist's license. It was one of the last general Alchemy texts he'd mastered. After throwing the book he'd sat down and figured out why he hadn't made the cut. He analyzed what the State wanted. Roy snorted softly. He was a good alchemist but he was a great tactician; after that first failure he remembered to go with his strengths. A year later he took the exam again and that time the examiners fell over themselves to offer him his certification, after all he'd showed them that he could be a weapon; a fast, devastating, flexible, thinking weapon. Then they sent him to Ishbal and he learned what being a weapon really meant.

He handed Edward the text then decided to make Hawkeye's day by working on one of the reports he owed her. Ed cheerfully settled into a corner of the couch. Roy took the desk and an hour passed in comfortable silence.

Roy took notice when Edward's eyes glazed over and he stopped turning the pages in his book. Roy stopped working on his reports to watch the boy more closely. Some time later Ed seemed to wake up from his trace. He glanced around the room and muttered. "He must be playing with Nina again. How's Al think he's going to pass the exam if he doesn't study? Oh well, probably better this way."

Edward turned his attention back to the book in his hands, read about half a paragraph then exploded. "What the hell is this! Are you saying I'm some sort of little kid!"

Roy hid a smile from the fuming blonde and mentally patted himself on the back for such a good idea. "You've already studied that one?" he asked blandly.

"When I was nine!" Ed complained.

Roy glanced over his shelves and selected the most advanced of the volumes he'd obtained during his own foray into human transmutation. "I believe this is the book you were looking for?"

Edward took it. "Yeah, I guess. I would have thought Mr. Tucker would have had it…" He paused with a puzzled look on his face.

Roy took that as his cue. "Perhaps it was damaged?" he suggested.

Edward thought about that for a few moments then his expression cleared. "Oh yeah, Nina used it as a coloring book."

Roy thought it was a bit scary how good Edward was getting at lying to himself.

And gradually a new equilibrium emerged. Once Edward burned his way through the library with all the voracity of a wild fire Roy started taking him to the National Library to get more. When Alphonse's absence could no longer be explained away by "playing with Nina," Ed remembered that Shou Tucker had not been a good person and concocted a story about Al escorting Nina and Alexander back to Resembool where they would be looked after by Winry and her Grandmother. Ed further reasoned that Al might have stayed for a bit to help them settle in. And really it was all for the best. Ed was the older brother; it was his responsibility to fix their bodies. He'd never really wanted Al to come to Central with him anyway. It was better this way, with Al home, safe and definitely not dead.