Roy sighs as he settles into his desk. The day had just been very, very long. It had started off shitty with lingering silence between him and Ed, and gone from bad to worse from there.

Two teachers are out. Cheyanne had come down with strep throat and is going to be out for at least a week, leaving Roy to have to help cover her grading in addition to his own while she's out, then Luisa's husband broke his hip, so she is going to have to take a short leave until she can get her brother-in-law to come and stay with them, which means Roy will have to cover the Science Club until she comes back. Janelle, his star chemistry student, lost her father to a heart attack over the weekend and will be out, and even when she comes back, he has no idea how she'd be affected.

He'd forgotten to charge his phone last night because his charger wasn't in the guest room with him—where he had slept, alone, without Ed—so his phone died while he was trying to order flowers to Janelle's mother as a condolence—Janelle is an only child, and both of her parents have been very involved and very supportive of their daughter's scholastics. He'd plugged his phone in at work, only to have Griffin James—who was lucky he was astonishingly good-looking because he certainly had nothing else to offer, Roy rather thought he'd make very smart lady a nice trophy husband someday—klutz around and spill his coffee on the cord and short it out. He was lucky it didn't kill Roy's phone, but it did mean that his phone was dead.

He meant to bum a charger off Mercedes—who had five kids and collected spare chargers like they were flint in the wilderness—but a couple of freshman girls had gotten into a hell of a catfight in the middle of lunch and had required Roy and Annette, the women's PE teacher, to pull them apart. They'd still been trying to get at each other as they were unceremoniously frogmarched to the principal's office when the fire alarm went off.

It was a couple of jocks smoking weed in the bathroom who set it off. Roy couldn't decide what was more infuriating, the massive chaos and confusion caused by the unexpected alarm—while trying to keep kids responsible from sneaking off as they waited for the fire department to clear the building—or the sheer unoriginality of the idiots who had set it off. Smoking . In the bathroom .

Really?

He didn't know either of the boys, but that was hardly surprising. Roy wouldn't have tolerated that level of stupidity in his classes.

And, because someone must have been stupid enough to challenge the power of worse, the coffee maker in the teacher's lounge broke. The universe's final fuck you to end a shitstorm of a day.

Which means that by the time Roy finally manages to steal a spare charger off Mercedes—only after the abbreviated Science Club meeting—and get his phone charged enough to even turn on, much less do anything else, Roy is extremely cranky and undercaffeinated and seriously reconsidering his current career. Surely it isn't too late for him to take over a military dictatorship? There are days Roy is convinced it would be easier than trying to wrangle teenagers.

He misses Ed with a pain that is almost physical, and his wrist has itched all day. Finding out that Ed had done something as reckless as running into a fire still hurts, but, really, the worst part is… he's not surprised. Not really. Ed has never told him everything he gets up to while out on assignments, shrugging aside fights and injuries and dangers that would have left less hardy people catatonic, left out details that Roy only learned in Amestris because of his own network of informants. He isn't really surprised that those tendencies haven't changed, regardless of Ed's access to alchemy. Maybe the problem is that he's not surprised. Disappointed, yes, but not surprised.

Nearly nine years in this world that doesn't have alchemy, and Roy still has to remind himself that this world doesn't have alchemy . That makes it both safer and more dangerous for Ed. Safer, because Ed isn't dealing with people who are messing with the very fabric of reality at times—like the asshole alchemist who got them dropped in this world to begin with—but neither does Ed have the near-miraculous skill with alchemy to protect himself. His automail is more fragile because if it breaks, really breaks , there's no one who can repair it here. No one who can replace it. Ed is the most knowledgeable person about it, and he had to reverse engineer a lot of his knowledge painfully.

It terrifies Roy, sometimes, knowing that Ed is out there chasing the sickest and most crazed of humanity. At the same time, Roy has a terrible faith in Ed's abilities, in his brilliance and resourcefulness and his sheer pigheaded stubbornness. Edward Elric literally beat a god to death. It's hard to imagine anyone merely human being a serious threat.

And yet… Ed has always been a magnet for danger. But he's also always fought back, overcoming and overwhelming the danger, annihilating it. Being deprived of his alchemy has not changed that.

Perhaps the one Roy's really mad at, is really punishing, is himself. He knew from the moment that he kissed Ed that if there could ever be an us , it wouldn't be a quiet life. Edward is a pulsar, spinning erratically, a source of tremendous power and unpredictability. Even if Roy hadn't had his own ambitions and goals to pursue, goals that would likely make him more enemies than friends, life with Ed was always going to be an adventure. The siren song of the university managed to keep Ed mostly tethered in place for four years, but Roy had seen the agitation, the wanderlust, the need to be moving. It had caged Ed, but only temporarily.

The BAU with their unpredictable but near-constant travel seemed custom made to ease Ed's restlessness. It's high-stress and challenging and even dangerous, so basically everything Ed thrives off of, though he'll be damned before he admits it. They've never, in almost a decade together, ever really talked about why Ed didn't leave the military after the Promised Day. Why he stayed, even though he still spoke horribly of it, still barely minded orders. Why he accepted the promotion and even his own team. Roy thinks he knows though.

Edward Elric is not a man designed to sit on the sidelines. He is a catalyst—a person who ignites a reaction, who makes things change . The military gave him far more room to be that initiator than any civilian career could.

If Roy is entirely honest with himself, he also thinks Ed stayed for him. To be with him, support him, give Roy another pawn on the board, not realizing he's not a pawn but a queen . Versatile, sneaky, powerful . In Amestris, Roy had been too grateful to ask. In the United States, there seemed no point.

Perhaps he is owed that answer by now.

He could just head home, but he wants to get at least some of Cheyenne's grading done, and he won't with that stressed silence distracting him at home. Besides, Ed accidentally broke off his phone charger in the car's port three weeks ago, and Roy hasn't had a chance to get it fixed yet. His phone vibrating as it turns back on startles him. Amazing that he once would have found it difficult to imagine a telephone that was so portable, much less any of the amazing things it can do. Now he feels entirely out of joint when it dies.

He has two missed texts from Ed and a missed call with voicemail.

Roy swipes to the text first that he would have gotten not long after getting to school had his phone been charged. It's the typically short OOT. PA. message that Ed usually shoots off when he's called into the field. Out of town , and the state he'll be in, mostly so Roy knows what time zone to account for. The second text is a Pennsylvania address. He goes to the voicemail and hits play.

"C'mon, pick the fuck up," the message begins. There's a stress, a tension in Ed's voice that Roy hasn't heard in years , and his stomach drops . "I know you're in class, but I wouldn't fucking bother you if it wasn't important. I know you're mad, but fucking call me, okay? This is… It's our stuff. We might have a way home. Even if you're still pissed off at me or you don't…" Ed pauses, and Roy can hear his deep inhale. "Even if you don't want there to be an us anymore… I think you'd still want to go home, if you can. I'll text you the address. Just… call. Please?"

The voicemail ends, and Roy feels cold in his bones.

Ed left that voicemail around lunchtime. It's after four, coming up on five, and there are no other messages. He quickly navigates to Ed's contact and calls.

" The number you have called— " Roy hangs up, tries again, and gets the same message.

Normally, that wouldn't leave an aching hollowness in Roy's stomach. Ed ends up in a lot of weird places, and it's not that unusual for him to be out of range. Except never before had Ed left a message like that.

This is… it's our stuff .

Alchemy. It's alchemy . Alchemy which even Ed hadn't managed to make work in this world.

Feeling the beginnings of real panic starting to claw at the back of his throat, Roy navigates to Rossi's number and calls it.

"Mr. Mustang?" Rossi answers, surprised, but, well, the reason Roy has Rossi's number is because Rossi has called him before.

"Where's Ed?" Roy asks, by some miracle managing not to demand or yell or sound desperate. It's only by the slimmest margins.

Rossi doesn't immediately answer, which is only stringing Roy's nerves tighter. "Mr. Mustang, I've been trying to get a call out, but service has been erratic up here—"

Roy cuts him off. "Where is my partner, Agent Rossi?"

There's a noticeable hesitation again before Rossi says, "Mr. Mustang, we need you to come to Pennsylvania."

PA . That's where Ed is. Was.

The itching on Roy's wrist doesn't feel like a normal itch anymore, not the vague kind of irritation he sometimes notices when Ed's been gone particularly long or he's gone particularly far. This is something else, this is— power . Alchemical power. He shifts the phone to his shoulder as he begins gathering up his work, shoving it into his bag far more carelessly than he should.

"Give me the address," Roy says. If he has to, he'll catch an Uber to Ed's office and take his car.

"I've already got an agent coming to meet you," Rossi says.

Roy stills. "I'm still at the school."

"I figured. She's en route."

"Agent Rossi," Roy begins, fear creeping up on him. He forces it down with anger. "What has happened to my partner?"

"Her name is Special Agent Ashley Seaver."

There's a knock on his doorframe. He looks up, hand reflexively trying to snap, even though it's been nothing more than a sound for nearly a decade. A slim blonde woman stands in the doorway.

"Mr. Mustang?" she asks. "Special Agent Ashley Seaver." She pulls out her badge for him.

"I expect answers when I get there, Agent Rossi," he says into the phone, and he doesn't pretend it's anything other than the command it is.

"We have some questions for you as well, Mr. Mustang."

The line goes dead. Roy unplugs the charger, closes his laptop, and shoves it into his bag. He takes the charger with him, promising to give it back later.

… if there is a later.

It's our stuff .

He takes a look around his desk for a long moment, tries to think if there's anything at it he might possibly need or want. He thinks about their home, what's there, if he needs anything, but the most important things, like his gloves and the few important pictures, are already kept in his bag. He and Ed had built a life here, but this isn't home.

"Agent Seaver." Roy inclines his head. "Roy Mustang." He almost adds his title but manages not to. For the first time in years, it feels strange not to preface his introduction with his military title. A sign of things to come, perhaps?

"If you'll follow me?" It's phrased as a question, but it's not one.

Roy manages not to scratch at the array on his wrist as he follows the agent out the door.

.o0o.o0o.o0o.

Dave sighs and closes his phone. Prentiss and Reid are staring at him, their own anxiety all but radiating from them. They've had team members go missing before, but never three of them at once. Never when the only lead they had was the brutally dismembered corpse of their unsub, a traumatized local LEO, and a man who had apparently come back from the dead.

"They're on their way," Dave confirms. A tiny bit of tension eases from their shoulders, but not a lot, not enough. Mustang has some part in this, just as Ed does, but knowing that isn't exactly a relief.

He can feel eyes on them. Deputy Annabelle Crawford is at the hospital, being treated for shock, and no small wonder, considering what had become of the man she once thought would be her brother-in-law. Hugh Maes had been checked out by a thoroughly unnerved local EMT and given the all-clear, so he's at the station with the BAU. All of the locals are giving him a seriously wide berth.

No, not Hugh Maes. He says his name is Maes Hughes. Lieutenant Colonel Maes Hughes. He's not completely panicked or unnerved by everything that's going on around him, watching it all with clear, intelligent eyes. They found Hugh Maes's glasses in Crawford's desk, shoved in the back of an unlocked drawer. They not only fit Maes Hughes, they are apparently the right prescription.

Hughes has tried to play off his confusion, being overly friendly and seemingly open, but the BAU are not fooled. This is a clever man in an unknown situation, trying to angle his way into information without asking for it outright.

Emily steps between Hughes and Dave, keeping her back toward him. "Crawford said he asked after both Mustang and Elric—like he knew them both, right?" she asks, not for the first time. She's just comforting herself with the repeated information, telling herself that Mustang will be able to help, will have answers.

"If Deputy Crawford is to be believed, he asked after an Agent Mustang. And an Alphonse." Reid's lips flattened into a thin line.

Prentiss's phone rings and she picks it up, keeping herself between Hughes and the phone. "Go ahead, Penelope."

"Well, I looked into Roy Mustang like you asked," she begins, and they close in more tightly to avoid Garcia's voice carrying. "Not that I maybe hadn't already looked into him before, after Ed introduced us."

"And?" Prentiss prompts, impatient.

"And nothing. He took community college classes, tested through a lot of physical sciences and chem classes, managed to get a teaching degree, originally working in admissions before landing a teaching gig in a related community college—I'm guessing Mr. Hot and Dignified must have talked his way into the position—while Ed was a student at Pitt. When they moved out here, they did so together , not surprisingly, since they've lived together for as long as I can find in their history. Nothing outstanding while he's been in his current role as a chemistry and physical sciences teacher. Now for the weird part." The words spill out, though with a stressed undertone Dave isn't used to hearing from Garcia.

Dave looks up and exchanges nervous looks with Prentiss and Reid.

"Emily, you may not be aware of Ed's backstory, but officially, he grew up in a tech-hating, off-the-grid- maybe cult. I can't find… anything about it to validate, but if they really are wholly off-the-grid, that might actually be the case?" She sounds like she doesn't know if she believes that she can't track down any information. Given the miracles he's seen her pull off, Dave's not sure he believes it either. "But here's the weird thing—I cannot find any, and I mean any background about Mustang prior to he and Ed getting their GEDs. His official identity, as far as I can tell, is entirely forged. It's a really good forgery, but as far as I can tell, Roy Mustang didn't exist before he and Ed hit the scene."

"He's definitely ex-military," Prentiss says. "Could his original identity have been burned?"

"I had that thought too, my most brilliant leader-lady, but if he was, it seems unlikely that he was US-based. I haven't found anything, guys. Absolutely zip, zilch, nada. It's downright creepy. It's the same for Ed, by the way."

"Did you find anything with someone named Alphonse while looking into Ed?" Reid asks.

"Alphonse? Ed's brother?" she asks.

"Ed has a brother?" Dave asks.

"Well, I mean, he's only mentioned him once or twice. He always gets really sad when he does, so I assumed he passed. But I didn't find anything on him either—not that I expected to. Why, where'd you hear about him?"

"Hugh Maes," Prentiss says, grim.

Penelope is quiet for a moment before she says, "Why would he know the name of Ed's brother when you didn't?" she asks.

"That's a very good question," Dave says.

"Did you get anything on Maes?" Reid asks before they can get entirely derailed.

"Pretty much anything you want, O original genius boy," she says. "Hugh Maes was pretty much an open book. And I got nothing for a Lieutenant Colonel Maes Hughes. That's another big whoppin' zippo. Can you stop finding people who don't exist?"

"We'll do our best," Prentiss says. "Keep digging and see if you can find anything else."

"Will do, wonder woman," she says, then adds in a tone thick with unease, " You all stay safe."

"We will. Thanks, Garcia."

"If there's anything you need, just call."

"We will."