Mustang doesn't want to set the tattoos until they're back at the Maes house. Emily had Seaver take him down to inspect Kimblee's corpse, and he seemed satisfied that Kimblee was well and truly dead. Though the house itself is still standing, the barn was a complete loss. The area between the house and barn are completely churned up and disrupted by both Mustang and Kimblee's battle, and the firefighters who came in their wake. Stone walls that shouldn't be here still jut out of the ground.

It's cool out, dreary, the sun already setting. Emily pulls her coat closer around her. When Mustang claps, she actually jumps. He kneels down, putting his hands to the ground, and it begins to move, like something out of a sci-fi or zombie movie. The stone walls disappear back into the earth, and the torn-up ground smoothes back out into a larger, flat area, nothing visibly disrupting the mud.

"Warn a girl before you that," Emily chides as Mustang straightens and dusts his hands off.

"My apologies," he says, going to the side of the ground to find a long and suitably thick stick. He tests the heft, then hands it to Hughes. "Why don't we go inside?" he offers. "It'll be as easy to draw the tattoos to set them inside as out."

Emily doesn't really want to be in the house again. It might be standing, but it looks much worse for the wear. It's also a place where they spent a miserable night, hoping and praying one of their own wasn't going to bleed out and die. Still, Mustang goes inside, not appearing to share her reserve.

"It'll be warmer inside," Will suggests kindly as Hughes follows him with no sign of hesitation.

"I know," Emily replies, not bothering to hide her own grumpiness, not with Will at least. "I just really want this to be over."

"We all do," Will says, his calm, reassuring drawl making her feel like she's being petty and stupid about this.

She knows that her feelings about this place, about this whole endeavor, are not irrational, but it's hard to believe it when they're here, in this place yet again. When Rossi isn't here because he's still in a hospital bed, and Seaver is still there with him, running interference with Cruz if necessary while they do this.

When this is all said and done, she's going to have to explain what happened to Mustang and Elric. Hughes can probably vanish. Dead men don't come back to life after all, and she's successfully dodged mentioning him to this point. She's not going to be able to as easily disappear Mustang and Elric.

"Come on," Will says, putting an arm around her shoulder to guide her in.

Emily pointedly does not look in the side room where they spent most of a night keeping Rossi from bleeding out, instead going to the rickety kitchen table that Mustang had set up. Hughes had sat down first, left wrist up on the table.

"Ed is going to put the tattoos on the right wrists," Mustang says, papers bearing a design that looks identical to her eyes, but given the way Mustang has carefully set out one from the others, it must not be. He pulls a pen out of his pocket, then begins to draw the symbol on Hughes's wrist.

He works in sure, even strokes, checking his work often against the drawn example. There are notes around the outside of it in a language she doesn't recognize, and she doesn't really try to read it. If Emily's honest, she doesn't want to know any more about alchemy than she's learned at this point.

In a surprisingly short time, Mustang claps his hands, then puts them on Hughes's arm. The ink on his wrist lights up, and when it fades, it's obviously no longer a drawing but a tattoo.

"Tickles," Hughes says, standing.

Patting her shoulder, Will takes his place, and the process repeats. When Will is done, Reid reluctantly rolls up his sleeve and sits.

Seeming to sense Reid's nervousness, Mustang says, "You don't have to do this."

"I do if I want to get Derek back," he says. He meets Mustang's eyes.

Mustang shuffles for the last paper, sets it up, then begins to draw.

"I thought you said that the location of the transmutation doesn't matter?" Derek asks as they tromp out into the desert.

"It doesn't," Ed says over his shoulder. "I just don't want to do it in the city just… in case."

In case something goes wrong, he doesn't say, but he doesn't need to. Derek glances at JJ, whose arms are tight around her. It's just the three of them, Gracia Hughes, and Al. Al, who—though keeping pace with Ed—keeps looking back at them as if to remind them of their talk last night.

"You both look so glum," Gracia says, kindness in her voice.

"You're not worried about this at all?" JJ asks.

Gracia looks upward, where the sun is setting. "I trust Edward," she says after a moment.

"It's that easy?" Derek asks, but he can't help smiling slightly.

She shrugs, somehow making slogging through the sand look almost graceful somehow. "If the options are 'doubt Edward' and 'believe in Edward,' I'm always going to believe in Edward."

JJ gives a small, somewhat forced chuckle and says, "If those are the options, then it's easy," she says in reply.

"I suppose it's easier when you've seen Edward do impossible things," Gracia concedes, which is more of an olive branch than they probably deserve, all things considered.

Al looks back at them again, something questioning in his eyes. Have you figured it out yet? Have you decided what you're going to sacrifice? As if Derek and JJ hadn't been up all night trying to decide what was the appropriate thing to sacrifice. Like they hadn't sought out Izumi later to get as unbiased of a perspective on things that could be sacrificed as they could.

Izumi really hadn't been all that unbiased. "I agree with Al," she had said. "Ed shouldn't be the one paying your price this time. He's already lost his leg and given up his damn right arm twice, not to mention his alchemy. Al's probably also right that Ed's alchemy won't be enough this time. Ed might be the more brilliant alchemist, but Al's got more common sense in a finger than Ed's got in his whole tiny body."

Derek holds out his forearm in front of him, eyeing the arcane symbol that Ed had carefully drawn on his skin, then transmuted into his skin. There's something beautiful about it, and had been something rather mesmerizing about seeing Ed—who had such terrible handwriting—effortlessly draw a circle on his skin.

The tattoo itself is surprisingly small, maybe the size of the bottom of a glass, fitting perfectly on the underside of his wrist. Spencer is going to be on the other side of that array. It's going to bind their very souls together. Derek isn't sure how he feels about that. What will it mean for them, for their relationship, to have their very souls entwined? Part of him is actually oddly excited about it. Spencer has been his other half, a piece of his life he didn't know that he was missing, that he needed, until Ed shoved them together. He hopes that this doesn't change anything between them, or if it does, it only makes it better.

Gracia is moving more quickly than them, getting closer to catching up to Ed and Al than with them. Noticing it makes Derek realize he's matching JJ's pace and she's deliberately dragging her feet.

"You nervous?" he asks.

She barks a humorless laugh. "As if you aren't?" she replies almost bitterly.

He reaches out to squeeze her shoulder in reassurance. "We're going home," he says, as if he says it enough he can will it into truth.

"Yeah, but we're going without Ed," she says.

"I know," he says, squeezing again. His heart is heavy about it too, but he also knows what she knows. "But this is his home. This is where he belongs." Not with us, he doesn't say, not because it would hurt to say but because it doesn't feel like it's true. Ed did belong with them, for as long as they had him, but he isn't theirs alone.

It's impossible to be here, in this place, and not see how many people recognize Ed even after being gone for the better part of a decade. Where Ed goes, heads turn, faces light up, shoulders loosen. He thinks he understands Ed a lot better now than he ever did before, the way he just expects people to respond to him—and more irritating—how he's usually right. Even in their world, where Ed is no one at all, people respond to him. Here, in this world, where he's an infamous hero, his innate charisma is only magnified.

"Have you figured out what to give up?" JJ asks, low, for Roy's ears alone.

Taking a shaky breath, Derek says, "I think so." He squeezes again. "You?"

Biting her lip before she answers, JJ says, "I don't want to sacrifice anything."

Derek can't help the soft chuff of agreement. "Me neither."

"But to get home… to get back to my boys… if I have to pay a price…" She turns and meets his eyes. "If I have a price to pay, I'll pay it."

Nodding, Derek gives her shoulder a final rub, then drops his hand. "Let's go catch up."

Ed has made what looks like a whole dias out of the sand, complete with stairs up to it, and JJ climbs them with a mix of anticipation and dread. She wants to go home, wants to be back with her boys more than she wants almost anything else. That does not mean she is not terrified of the price she might have to pay in order to get there.

Once they crest the top, Gracia is sitting on a bench while Ed is making a large array in chalk on the flat floor he's created. JJ and Derek walk over to Gracia and sit.

"Why is he drawing it in chalk?" Derek asks.

Gracia shrugs, reminding JJ that she's not an alchemist. "It's just what alchemists seem to prefer."

"We can't use alchemy to create the array," Al calls over, stepping back. Ed works silently and efficiently, it's almost eerie to see Ed so completely locked in. She's seen it before, but not often. Al comes over to them. "It won't be long now," he says like he means it to be reassuring.

"So walk us through exactly what's going to happen again?" JJ asks, trying to focus on information instead of guesses.

It took Mustang the better part of an hour to draw the array on the ground. It took another half hour before he seemed satisfied that he'd done it correctly. Now they've been maneuvered carefully into places within the circle itself. Will feels like he can feel static in the air, but he doesn't know if it's just in his imagination or not.

"Dr. Reid," Mustang says, drawing Reid's attention. "I need the red stone."

Will holds his breath, given how Reid has resisted giving it up. After a long moment, Reid pulls it out of his pocket, leaning out to put it in Mustang's hand. It reminds Will uncomfortably of Golem and the One Ring, the way his fingers seem to cling to it, the way it seems to drop heavily into Mustang's palm.

"Can I ask why you need it?" Reid asks, but at least he does it after he's already given it up.

Mustang holds it up, and it refracts the light oddly. "When committing the taboo, there is always a price to be paid," he says. "This is our toll."

He puts it in his pocket, checks his watch, nods, then claps.

Ed frowns at the array, absolutely certain it's right, hoping like hell that Roy's is as equally perfect. Roy is good with arrays, but he's not Ed, and he doesn't have Ed's experience with these types of arrays. They crafted three unique, very similar arrays to do this.

Taking a deep breath, he has to trust that Roy got it right. If he didn't, well, that isn't worth thinking about. He got it right.

Shaking, he steps into the anchor of the array. Both arrays have two anchor points, though his is different from Roy's. Reid and JJ's husband need to be part of the array, but not pulled into Truth's domain. So does Gracia. Hughes and Roy, JJ and Morgan all need to be pulled into the actual Gate to travel. Ed needs to be there for the sacrifice, but he has to be anchored in their world. If the other anchors get pulled in, they could get lost. If he's done everything right, five people should be visiting Truth, but only four of them should be traveling.

Ed doesn't often wish he had someone to pray to, but at times like these, he really wishes he had a better option than Truth.

Clenching his fist, he makes himself let out a long breath to still his tremble. This is the last time he's likely to have alchemy at his command again. Al's wrong about it being a sacrifice. He may be able to live without it, but he loves it, and losing it, yet again, just when he's finally had it back? It's a sacrifice.

He just hopes it's a big enough sacrifice.

"Ready to be deconstructed down to the last atom?" Ed asks, then claps his hands and hits the floor before they can respond.

The world shatters, shreds, falls apart, piece-by-piece, and then he's put back together, faster, if possible.

When he opens his eyes, they're in the white hell of Truth's domain.

So is Roy. From the door behind Roy, there are two arms sticking out, men's, by the look of them, both with soul-red tattoos glowing on them.

Ed turns in place and finds JJ and Morgan, as well as sees an arm sticking out of his own door. "Go!" he tells them. "Go, now!"

"Maes, go!" Roy yells.

They start to move, though hesitantly, as though they aren't quite ready. Ed can't decide where to focus on—his own team or Roy or the fact that Hughes really appears to be alive.

The doors slam shut and Truth stands between them. It wasn't there a moment before, and Ed doesn't think he blinked, but Truth stands there.

Truth seems to take them all in before focusing its eyeless face on Ed. "I'd say welcome back, Alchemist, but you are not welcome here anymore."

"I know," he says. "We just want to pass through."

"Is that all?" Truth asks in a voice that is a thousand, million voices all as one, and it hurts Ed's head just to hear it. Judging by the way Hughes and the others are cringing, they're not faring even that well. Truth's lipless mouth stretches into a terrible smile. "You know the rules, Alchemist. Equivalent exchange. If you want these people to pass, there is a price to pay."

"I have a red stone!" Roy says, drawing its attention. He holds up a red stone, and just looking at the damn thing makes Ed want to be sick. He knows the price of that stone, how many lives it cost. Though if it belongs anywhere, it belongs with Truth.

"That will pay for you and the dead man to move through," Truth says.

"Maes goes first," Roy demands. "When he goes through, I will give you the stone."

Truth tsks. "Your soulmate has learned bad habits from you, Alchemist," it says. "But it's an adequate price. Go, dead man."

"He'll be alive when he goes through?" Ed demands. He doesn't trust Truth as far as he can throw the damned thing.

How something that has no eyes can roll them, he doesn't know, but Ed definitely gets the impression that it does. "Yes, yes. Go, little dead man. Live again."

Behind Ed, the door opens, and Gracia's arm reaches out again.

Hughes hesitates, opens his mouth to say, "Roy—"

"Go!" Ed and Roy say in unison.

"I'm getting bored…"

"You're immortal and timeless," Ed shoots back. "You can wait."

Despite obviously being torn, Hughes meets Roy's eyes, sees something in them, then runs over past Ed. He puts his hand out, is careful to line his tattoo up with Gracia's, and clasps her forearm. Soul-red light flashes from them both, like the one Ed remembers, and then Hughes is gone, and the door is closed again.

"Now, Flame Alchemist," Truth says, holding out a hand.

Roy reaches out and drops the red stone in. Their soulbond lights up, a visible line connecting them here. Ed feels his heart settle a little bit, despite Truth turning its attention back to Ed.

"Now, Alchemist, your toll. What is equivalent exchange for binding two more souls and sending them back to their worlds?"

Resolute, Ed says, "My alchemy."

Truth laughs as though he's told a wonderful joke. "Your alchemy? Your gate? Oh, no. Not again. That's not equivalent to linking souls together or people traveling across universes. You have been without and lived well. That is not equivalent. When you first gave it up for your brother's body? Yes. Certainly. Now?" It shakes its head. "Try again."

Ed's heart sinks into his feet and he wonders if he throws up in Truth's domain if it'll raise the price. He really hates it when Al's right.