Roy doesn't like leaving Reid with Maes, but he can admit, at least, that he doesn't think that Maes is in any physical danger from Reid.

He's surprised when he enters the room and Garcia is still on the screen. She offers him a small wave. "Hi, Roy," she says.

"Ms. Garcia," he says, feeling a little bewildered. He's certain that the last time she addressed him, it was as Mr. Mustang , so he's not sure what has happened in the last fifteen minutes to change the level of familiarity.

"You can call me Penelope," she says. "Ed does."

Roy actually knows that because it's how Ed talks about her at home, but it's not worth the argument. "As you please, Penelope."

She gives him a slightly strained but sincere smile.

Since Roy does not know what has caused the sudden change of heart, and the abrupt change from Public Enemy Number One to congeniality is throwing him, he turns his attention to Rossi. "Dr. Reid says you wanted to see me?"

Rossi clears his throat, but before he can say anything, Prentiss speaks up. "We did," she says. "Garcia found something that we think may be pertinent to the case at hand, that might be… Kimblee. Your experience and opinion would be welcome."

He looks from her to Rossi, to Seaver, whose expression is almost approving , back to Penelope, who looks so earnest it's almost painful. Unsettled—he honestly isn't sure if the open and honest antagonism is better than whatever this is—he clears his throat again and tries not to ignore the feeling of waiting for the other shoe to drop. "What did you find?" he asks.

"Well, you said he was a psychopath who thinks he's an artist, right?" she asks, seeming to leap on the information, just as eager to have something more substantial to talk about as Roy is.

"I did."

"Did he, by chance, happen to be into making things explode?"

Roy is taken a little aback. He's heard Ed's stories about how much information Garica can gather, and how unnerving it often is, but it's one thing to hear Ed talk about it, another entirely to see it in action. "Yes," he says carefully. "He was called the Crimson Alchemist, but his specialty was in explosions. How did you know?"

"Well, I do have not one, not two, not even three , but four different accounts of one Kimberly Zolf being found with explosives that he should not have been in possession of before he got his very dishonorable discharge," she explains.

"I'd have been more surprised if he didn't have that history," Roy admits. "Do you… have the ability to track down recent purchases of items that could be used to manufacture home explosives?"

She flashes him a smile that's a little bit more sincere and a little bit less strained. "Do I?" she asks. "If you doubt me, then Ed hasn't been saying enough nice things about me."

"I assure you, Miss—Penelope," he corrects himself at the last moment. "Ed has nothing but praise for your abilities and a healthy amount of respect for how frightening those abilities might be should we be on the receiving end of them."

Her lips quirk in what looks like a reflexive grin at that, and she says, "Well, I'll be honest and tell you that it's something of a relief to hear that you're actually from another world and don't have any records beyond nine years ago. There aren't a lot of things that can make people disappear that completely, and none of them are good."

She's been typing while she talks, and Roy finds the signs of multitasking oddly comforting, used to Ed bouncing between tasks.

"I know that Ed has found himself at a loss when you come up at a loss." He's laying it on a hair thick, but Garcia isn't a profiler and she seems slightly more susceptible to a little honest flattery than he's sure the rest of the team would be.

"Penelope's the best," Prentiss says, a little awkwardly, but obviously trying. "We always find ourselves a little at a loss when she comes up dry."

Blinking at the undeniable attempt to be at least neutral if not exactly friendly, Roy feels like he's fallen through another Gate and is in the wrong world.

"Anyway," Garcia says, apparently aware of the extreme awkwardness of the situation, even through the video, "aside from looking for the most common things your do-it-yourself bomber might buy, is there anything else we should be looking for?"

"Are we sure that he does have that knowledge of how to build a bomb from scratch?" Seaver asks, but it's with the tone of a genuine question, not at all confrontational. "There wasn't anything in his background suggesting that he had the training to do so, was there?"

Pausing in her typing, Garcia pulls up some information only she can see, her eyes shifting to another screen. "Uh, it looks like that although Zolf was caught smuggling or attempting to smuggle explosives on numerous occasions, I don't see anything here that would indicate he was taught to make them. Or, at least, if he was, it wasn't by us. Gimme a hot second to check into the classes he took in college—"

Roy shakes his head. "There's no reason to. Whether or not he took formal classes to learn is irrelevant. If he remembers our world, he remembers what elements are required and how to combine them in order to create his desired explosions."

"But if he knows how to make his own, why steal so many?" Garcia wonders.

"Expediency," Prentiss suggests.

"But that doesn't make sense," Rossi contradicts her, and it's odd, but nice, to be the one who isn't being contradicted and questioned. "Military ordinance is closely monitored and guarded. In a lot of ways, getting the raw materials to make bombs from scratch would be easier than stealing explosives."

"Easier," Roy agrees, "But less elegant. From what I understand of the manufactured explosives, they can be incredibly precise."

"Can't homemade be just as precise?" Seaver asks.

Rossi pinches the bridge of his nose. "Morgan is our explosives specialist. He would know better."

Shrugging, Roy says, "I'm sure that with enough skill, even homemade explosives can match the commercial ones, but I think the materials required in order to manufacture the more powerful ones may be more difficult to get the base supplies for, though." He spins a few arrays and elements through his head, but all of his arrays are building off his flame alchemy, which, while explosive, is not the same as the kind of explosive-oriented alchemy that Kimblee used. Ed would probably know better arrays specifically meant to induce explosions and the elements required to do them.

"I think it's safe to stay with the most common items," Prentiss says, surprising Roy yet again by agreeing with him. "Kimblee doesn't have a lot of people he can rely on or money. He shouldn't have a lot of resources. Everything about his profile says he's a loner."

"He is a loner," Roy agrees. "But he can be quite charming when he decides to be. He'll be well-dressed, well-spoken. His artistic sense doesn't just extend to his explosions, but it also applies to his personal appearance."

Rossi raises a surprised eyebrow at him. "You almost sound like a profiler," he says, and for once, it's bemused, not needling.

The random change of heart is getting on his last nerve, making him feel paranoid, and he doesn't need to feel paranoid on top of everything right now. He honestly thinks the open hostility would be better than this strange civility. "Who do you think originally taught Ed how to read people?" He's baiting them; he knows he's doing it, and they should be far too smart not to realize he's doing it as well.

Rossi and Prentiss exchange a look, but Roy catches it, and while he knows that they were discussing Roy—if not necessarily Maes—while they were out of the room, he is absolutely done with feeling like they're talking behind his back when he's in the fucking room with them.

"I… hadn't thought of that," Rossi begins carefully.

Ready to chop his nose off to spite his face, Roy barrels on ahead. "Ed has always been brilliant, but his people skills historically have been rather lacking. He was far too honest and straightforward, expecting everyone to be equally as transparent in their feelings and motivations."

They look uncomfortable now, and Roy is glad that they do. He's almost eager to spread the discomfort.

Seaver clears her throat. "Mr. Mustang," she begins, "I think there's been enough hostility, don't you?"

"As I have been the only one who has been the target of said hostility—"

"You're absolutely right," she interrupts. "It's been entirely unfair to you, but more importantly, it's been very unprofessional of this team, and we owe you an apology."

Roy feels like he could be knocked over with a feather. Whatever he imagined she might say, that is not it. But then, she is also not the senior agent here, or even close to it. Except for Garcia, she is quite probably the lowest rung on the seniority ladder, and it makes her apology, however sincere it appears to be, a hollow platitude.

He's not sure if his assessment shows on his face or Prentiss is just good enough of a profiler to guess at his response, but she says, "Seaver is right." His eyes move toward her, openly skeptical. Her shoulders rise as she takes in a visible breath then braces herself like whatever she's about to say is going to be painful. "We haven't been fair to you. We've been treating you like an unsub, like an antagonist, like someone we have to work around instead of someone we should be working with. "

It's not an outright apology, but it is an admission of wrongdoing, which is close enough.

The part of his mind that is always planning, always preparing, always moving pieces into the places that are to his best advantage tells him to accept the apology with grace. It tells him to let them off the hook and be the bigger man, that while he doesn't need these people, he does, in fact, need their resources.

The worst part is that he understands why they've behaved the way they have. It's misplaced protectiveness and stress and scrambling for anything that's in their control, in their wheelhouse.

"I would like very much to accept your apology if you had actually made one," he says, and he knows he's moved closer to checkmate by the subtle flinches from both Rossi and Prentiss, who are the only ones he's watching, and honestly, the only ones he cares about at the moment. "You should be glad that Ed hasn't been here to see your behavior."

Rossi opens his mouth, probably to toss another barb about how Roy seduced his subordinate, but he visibly bites down on it. It doesn't bank the self-righteousness in his eyes, but he at least pauses before he says, "You're right. He was quite upset when we were suspicious of you upon first meeting, and I'm sure, were he here, things would be very different. But he's not here. We don't have him to work with, we have to work with you. Our… personal feelings about your relationship and its nature aside, we want the same thing: to get our people back."

"We need your help and we've been unprofessional, and we… apologize," Prentiss follows up, though it sounds like someone is stepping on her foot to make her say the right thing. Roy is familiar with that feeling.

Roy would really, really like to keep pushing it, but it's far more than he expected to get at all, and if he's honest, he isn't going to get better. "I appreciate your apology," he says. "I would like it if we could work together better. I know how important this team has been to Ed. I should very much like to see more of the people he spoke so highly of."

He probably shouldn't needle, should just let them sit with the fact that they obviously feel like they've been in the wrong, but he hasn't been treated like this much of a suspect since Bradley caught him trying to overthrow him. He's tired of it. He didn't expect better of Bradley, but he did expect better from this team.

Judging from the glare in Rossi's eyes, his final push hasn't gone unnoticed. Perhaps he shouldn't have done it so soon after telling them that he was the one to teach Ed about reading people. That was, perhaps, a miscalculation on his part, but they don't have the market cornered on bad decisions made under stress.

"We too," Rossi says, "Would like to see more of the man that Ed loved and defended so sincerely." It's not exactly an accusation, but it is a reminder that Roy hasn't exactly been on his best behavior. He would like to see them handle it better, but he knows that's a lot to ask for.

A beep comes from the monitor, and Garcia startles, "Oh, uh, it looks like I have a hit. It's back toward the DC area though."

"That's only about four hours from here," Roy says. "Maybe a little less."

"I'd prefer not to split the team up if we can avoid it," Prentiss admits. "But what do you have for us?"

"A series of localized explosions. Homeland Security is responding due to the potential terrorist threat, but no one was injured and the timing seems a little suspect."

"He's in the right area too," Roy points out. "What's the closest library?"

A few quick taps before Garcia replies, "The Library of Congress."

Rossi perks up. "Ed said that our Tucker Maes would have frequented libraries. That he would have lurked, maybe acted like a student but never took anything out. But what if he wasn't posing as a student? What if he went to a library that doesn't allow people to take out the books? People spending hours upon hours in the Library of Congress is hardly unusual. They don't loan books to individuals, only other academic institutions."

"It would be an ideal place for Tucker Maes and Kimblee to meet," Roy concedes. Ed had taken a few trips to the Library to search for knowledge on alchemy in this world and come up frustrating short on each account. "Is there someone local who could check in, or M—Penelope, could you work your magic and see if we can find Kimblee or Tucker Maes visiting?"

"Your wish is my command," she tells him.

A phone rings, and Prentiss pulls hers out, sighing when she sees the screen. "It's Will," she says, and looks at Rossi. "What do we tell him?"

Rossi sighs. "If we'd been dealing with a missing team member under normal circumstances, we would have called him by now."

"You called me when Ed had been missing for twelve hours," Roy reminds helpfully.

"Right, but these aren't normal circumstances," Prentiss points out. "If I tell him that she's in another world, he's going to come charging up here and demand we all get our heads examined."

"I think you have to tell him the truth," Seaver volunteers. "It's going to sound insane, but we have powerful supporting evidence."

Prentiss gives her a look that says she wants to do anything but.

"Can we put him to work?" Roy asks. "We may need someone to stop in D.C. and coordinate from there."

Sighing again, Rossi says, "Will is a police officer, not an FBI agent. We can't just randomly drag in law enforcement officers who are not associated with the case at hand. Will is not going to laugh off his wife being missing."

Deciding not to point out that he'd seen Ed deal with kidnappers who had deeply regretted the decision on more than one occasion, Roy says, "JJ is not Ed, and there is nothing Mr. Lamontagne can do to help, even if you tell him the truth. All it will do is stress him out and make him feel powerless."

"You're all so helpful," Prentiss says, rolling her eyes at him, taking the phone and stepping out.

Rossi raises an eyebrow at him and says, "Have a lot of experience with your people being kidnapped?"

Seeing no reason to lie, Roy says, "Our world is quite different, but yes, my team, including Ed, have ended up in enemy hands before."

"And did you always laugh?"

"On more than one occasion, Ed's kidnappers begged to be put in jail if it meant they got to give him back," Roy says.

Staring, Rossi asks, "Didn't you have to tell anyone?"

"Tell who?" Roy points out. "I was his commanding officer, his brother was usually with him, Ed was a legal adult, and corded phones are still fancy new things that few people in rural areas have. There was no point in contacting next-of-kin unless we had a body."

Rossi's brow furrows. "Let's hope that's not the case with this one."

"Ed is with them," Roy says, meeting his eyes. "Have faith in him. He will get them home."

Something in Rossi's eyes changes as he looks at Roy. "Your faith in him is truly unshakeable, isn't it?"

Tempting as it is to tell Rossi that once you've seen a man make literal miracles, faith is easy to have, he just asks, "Isn't yours? Has he ever given you reason to doubt him?"

Rossi eyes him for a long moment, as if waiting to see if he will flinch or falter, and Roy knows that his mind says You. You are a reason to doubt him. But he's not sure anymore if it is, so he says, "I suppose not."

"I know this is new and terrifying to you, but I've told you: Ed will find a way out of this. I know he will."

Shaking his head as if in disbelief, Rossi says, "I hope you're right."