Gracia is no expert in alchemy, and although she's seen Edward, Al, and Roy all do amazing things with it, she's never seen anything like this before.

The massive array she stands in hasn't stopped glowing, even though Edward, JJ, and Derek have all apparently vanished. A wind that seems to be from the array itself blows around her, the blue-white lightning of alchemy dances around her while, in front of her, her arm is outstretched into nothing, apparently cut off. She thinks she should be more terrified of that, but even though she can't see it, she can still feel it. When she moves her fingers, she can still feel them move. It's unnerving to see her arm ending so abruptly, but it's not bleeding, there's no pain at all, no loss of sensation. It feels like an optical illusion, and she's pretty sure her mind is treating it as one until proven otherwise.

Maes is supposedly on the other side of that invisible place that she isn't in, but that the others have vanished to. Al paces around the outside of the array, looking unusually serious, almost grim.

Alchemy is not magic. It is a science. How many times has she heard one of the boys say that? Heard Roy insist it? Yet standing here, in this glowing circle filled with lightning that doesn't shock, with wind blowing from below her feet, cold and almost hot enough to burn at turns, it's hard to believe that it isn't magic.

Despite her long exposure to alchemy, despite Elicia being interested in it, wanting to learn it, insisting in a very Edward-like manner that it's a science, Mom, she feels like she doesn't understand it at all. If it can bring Maes back, does she really care?

When Edward told her what a soulbond would entail, how it would link her and Maes, her heart jumped at it. Maes is her soulmate, her other half. There would never be any question of tying her soul to his, not a heartbeat of hesitation when he suggested it.

She feels a hand, large, heavy, a little rough, on her forearm, and she grasps the forearm—large, a man's, hairy, let it be him, let it be him, let it be him —and the tattoo on her wrist heats up, and she feels a wrench at something deep inside of her. It feels like something is opening up her chest, tearing into her heart, but it's also somehow right.

Crying out, she pulls. She pulls with all of her might, only distantly aware of the array around them turning an eerie red that she's pretty sure she's going to see in her nightmares.

The pain in her chest suddenly feels like a hook catching on the back of her ribs, and warmth fills it. She hears Maes in her head saying Gracia, Gracia, my darling, my wonderful . She doesn't want to hear it in her head or her heart or however she's hearing it. She wants to hear him say it, wants to hold him in her arms, wants to kiss him like she needs him to breathe because she doesn't know that she's actually taken a full breath since he died.

So she pulls, stepping backward, and from the nowhere her arm had been, it becomes visible with a hand first, then an arm, then she's staring into Maes's green eyes. The same green eyes she treasures in their daughter, that she loves more than anything, that she never thought she'd ever get to see again, stare back at her. He falls into her arms, and they roll outside of the array. His hand grasps the back of her head, protecting her, and she begins to cry as they stop.

It's him. The scent of him, the size of him, the warmth of him, the feel of him. Gracia can't describe how she knows, but she knows with every fiber of her being that this is her Maes, that it's really him. Tears blur her vision, but she's afraid to blink them away because she doesn't dare close her eyes.

"Maes," she says, and she's not sure if she speaks his name or just thinks it, but he clearly hears her.

Tears pour from Maes's eyes, and he gasps out, "Gracia," as a choked sob, but Gracia thinks it might be one of the most beautiful things she's ever heard.

She takes his face in her hands and kisses him, tasting him and the salt of their tears, but it's him again. It's him, it's him, it's him.

When they break, it's only to breathe, and Maes asks, "Elicia?"

"She's good," Gracia reassures. "She's so good, Maes. You're going to be so proud."

"I'm so sorry I've missed so much—"

She hushes him with a kiss. You're here now, that's all that matters, she thinks.

I'll spend the rest of our lives making it up, she thinks she hears in reply.

It'd better be a long one.

The longest, he promises.

JJ definitely does not remember this white void. She isn't really even sure it's white so much as an utter absence of color. It makes her feel cold under her skin, like a bad fever does, and she hates it immediately. She's been in circumstances that made her feel small and insignificant in the context of the world and the universe before, but never like this. Just being here makes her want to be sick.

Seeing the arms sticking out through the door, she recognizes Will's immediately. She's not sure how exactly she's so sure, but she feels this pull toward it, and she just knows.

When Hughes runs toward a door that closes, the thing that appears sends a chill of pure terror goes through her. It's white, but somehow doesn't blend into the nothingness surrounding them, and JJ doesn't understand why it doesn't. It almost seems like a paper cut-out instead of a person, but there's still a differentiation that lets her see it. There's no face to speak of, just a mouth, and JJ thinks that it should look almost like a cartoon, but there's something distinctly menacing about it.

When it opens that mouth that has far too many too perfect teeth to speak, it sounds like a thousand voices all speaking at once, and JJ's mind can't separate any one voice out from the thousand others. It makes her head hurt trying to listen, but Ed seems undaunted and unafraid.

Until the thing tells him that it won't accept Ed's sacrifice. Just as Al predicted, Ed's alchemy is no longer a toll that it's willing to accept.

God, she didn't want to do this, had hoped and prayed that it wouldn't be necessary, but she has to. Ed didn't tell them this is their one real chance to get home, but she knows that it is on an instinctual level, so she steps forward.

"I can pay," she says. Her voice sounds far more sure and solid than she feels, but if the choice is going home and being stuck forever in Ed's world, there is no choice to make. She doesn't want to pay this price, but to go home, she will.

"Oh?" the thing asks, turning toward her, tilting its head in a mockery of curiosity. The toothy grin is going to haunt her nightmares, she knows it. "And what do you think is an equivalent price to going home?"

She hears Derek beside her say, "JJ, no—" but she ignores him, taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly.

"Derek and I go home to our world, Mustang and Ed go back to their world," she says.

Aside from the mouth, there are no facial features on the blank head, but she feels like it raises an eyebrow. "And the exchange for that?"

"In exchange…" The words catch in her throat, she pauses, swallows, and tries again, "In exchange, I give up my ability to have any more children."

"JJ, no!" both Derek and Ed say, sounding horrified.

The white thing grins.

She turns to face Derek, ignoring it. "It's… it's not fine," she corrects, but keeps going forward. "But if Will and I want more kids, we can adopt. It's more important that I get home to raise the kids I have than it is to worry about kids I don't know that I'll ever have."

"I won't let you do it," Derek says, turning to face the thing. He holds up his left arm. "I'll give my arm. Me and JJ go home, Ed and Mustang go home, everyone else in one piece. For my arm."

"You're both idiots!" Ed snaps. "What the hell are you thinking. I'm not letting either of you give those things up." He steps between them and the thing, and says, "What do you want from me this time?"

"Ed, no." This time it's Mustang who says it. He's wearing an eye patch that she doesn't remember.

"There's nothing I want from you anymore, Alchemist," the thing says, derision in a thousand different voices.

"What about me?" Mustang demands. "What if I offer an exchange?"

"Roy!" Ed's cry is so pain-filled, it makes JJ's chest hurt.

"You've already paid your toll, Flame Alchemist," the thing says dismissively, turning its attention to her and Derek. She's not sure how she knows that it's her and Derek it's looking at, with no eyes, but she's certain it is. "The alchemists have paid their toll. The stone is equivalent for the little dead man and for alchemists to return to their world. All that remains…" It laces its fingers together, reminding JJ of nothing so much as an over-the-top Bond villain, but this is very, very real, and she is never going to see that motion and not be distrubed by it again. "... is what to do with the two of you."

"I said you can have my arm—" Derek says. "Ed did that for his brother, right?"

"For his brother's soul, yes," the thing agrees, some of the voices calm and some of them almost like crying screams. "Not for his whole body."

"You took just my leg for trespassing here," Ed snaps.

The head turns toward Ed again. "You were clever to bring them here again," it acknowledges, though Ed doesn't seem pleased with the compliment. "You accessed your own soul to deconstruct and reconstruct them perfectly, to avoid most of the cost of the exchange, because there was no change in material, just in place. Tricky, tricky."

"It's my sin that brought them here," Ed demands. "I'm the one who should pay the toll."

JJ has no idea how a blank face can emote the feeling or rolling their eyes, but the thing does so incredibly well.

"I already told you, Alchemist. There's no price I want from you."

Derek puts his hand on Ed's shoulder, making him turn toward them. "We've got this."

"You did nothing wrong—" Ed starts to say, but Derek shakes his head.

"Maybe not," he says. "But sometimes there are prices to pay, and someone's gotta pay them." He looks longingly toward the hand next to Will's. It's Spencer's hand—JJ thinks she'd recognize those long, gangly fingers anywhere—complete with a tattoo just like Will's. In an odd way, it makes her heart feel fuller, warmer, to see Spencer's hand there beside her husband's. They may have been together for years, but they keep their affection subtle, not wanting to draw attention to their relationship. That Spencer had not only allowed himself to be tattooed but that he is willing to agree to have his soul bound to Derek's, solidifies her own need to get them home.

"I offered first," she says, stepping up on Ed's other side. "I think between the two of us, we have more than enough offered." Willing sacrifices. Things they're willing to get up. Things that will hurt to give up, as Al told them they had to be.

"They're way too much just for traveling here," Ed says, voice low and angry. On their behalf, probably. "You know it, and so do I."

The thing hums, and revulsion goes through JJ at the sound. A thousand-thousand voices are in that sound, and some of them are curious, some amused, but many are terrified or sobbing. "You may be correct, Alchemist," it says. It turns to face them, and JJ knows that whatever it's going to take, it's not going to be what they offered, and they aren't going to like it at all. "Go, little humans. Take your partners' hands. Complete the transmutation."

She and Derek exchange a suspicious look. They don't trust the thing, and neither does Ed.

"Ed…" she starts to say.

He gives her a quick glance with those strange golden eyes, eyes that seem even more golden in this hellish void, and gis gaze softens a little.

"You should go," he says.

"But—"

"Don't look Truth's gift horse in the mouth," he interrupts. "Go!"

They hadn't really said goodbye before trying this. They should have said better ones. If this works, this will be the last time she sees Ed, her friend. Someone who is part of their ragtag BAU family. He doesn't have to tell her there won't be another meeting, that they won't see him again. The impulse to try to save everyone pulls at her, the same one that made her run into a fire after a teenage girl only months ago. It's not enough to survive—she wants everyone to survive as well.

"Go!" Ed repeats.

Reaching around Ed, Derek grabs her arm and starts to run toward the open door, dragging her. After a few steps, her mind starts to catch up to her body and she's running toward the door, toward the arms, toward Will and home and her family.

Just as they reach for the arms of their partners, the thing behind them says, "Oh, yes. Just one thing."

"No!" Ed yells, but it's not enough time, not enough warning. Her hand clasps Will's forearm, the tattoos align, and a pain pierces her chest just as a different pain stabs her leg. When she looks down, she sees her left leg missing from below the knee. As she stares, it begins to bleed, and she falls as something seems to catch beneath her ribs and pull her forward.

She doesn't have time to scream as she falls forward, as the soulbond opens up, sends her warmth and love and worry and hope and fierce determination. Will's arm pulls her, through the door, through the universe that pulls her apart an atom at a time before reassembling her in her own world. Her eyes meet Will's, and she has a moment where she's flooded with utter relief before she feels the terror roll through him like a wave. Soon, Will's yelling, Emily's yelling, Spencer and Derek are all yelling. She glances over and sees that Derek's own right leg is missing below the knee, mirroring hers, and she has to roll aside to be sick, even as Spencer and Will pull their belts out to make tourniquets.

In her mind, she can sense a wash of thoughts and emotions that must be Will, fear and love and an iron will holding him together. She loves him all the more for it.

"Don't worry, baby. You're home. You're safe. We're going to get you to the hospital ASAP," he tells her.

The pain from her missing leg is so intense, she's pretty sure that her mind is just refusing to process it, so she focuses on the new bond, on how much her husband loves her, how relieved she is to be home. She's probably in shock, and she knows she's going to miss the leg, but to be at home, in her husband's arms, surrounded by her family, it seems a price worth paying.

Watching the legs disappear from Morgan and Jareau as they got pulled through the doors is not the worst thing Roy has ever seen, but it definitely makes the list.

"You fucking monster," Ed says, starting to stalk toward Truth. Roy covers the distance between them, and pulls Ed in for a hug, relieved to have his beloved in his arms again.

Truth laughs, a vile, sadistic sound. "You didn't think there would be no exchange, did you?" it demands. "There must be a cost."

Ed tries to lunge at it, but Roy holds him fast, though just. Ed has always been the physically stronger of them, and that's no different in this world than any other.

"It didn't have to be from both of them!" Ed shouts as if watching his teammates' losses physically pains him. It probably does. Ed's empathy is a much deeper well than Roy's is, and for all that he can be a harsh bearer of truth, he empathizes with others on a level Roy knows he's incapable of.

"They were the ones who transgressed first!" Truth informs with something near glee in its myriad voice. "They touched a power they should not. They traversed a world they should not—"

"You could say the same for us!" Ed argues, and Roy really would like him to stop arguing with the being closest to God. As much as he regrets that there had to be a price, there's no question he'd rather Ed's teammates pay it than Ed or himself if it could be avoided.

"Ed," he says, squeezing tighter. "Please."

Truth falls silent, watching them with that lack of face that is somehow not the same as a lack of expression, but Roy can't figure out its thoughts or emotions from the shape of its mouth alone. "Your tolls have been paid," it says after a long moment, holding up the red stone Roy had given it. "Now leave my domain. Should you trespass here again, Alchemist, you won't be leaving."

There is nothing but them, the doors, and Truth, but something that feels like a giant hand shoves at Roy's back, pushing him forward, through the door in front of them. He clings tightly to Ed, even as Ed continues to spit obscenities at Truth, until they fall through the door.

They land on an array in the sand. A boom, like an overhead clap of thunder, makes the very air tremble, and the circle beneath them breaks, a crack running through it. Roy sees the afterimage of alchemical light fading, as if it had generated the thunder.

"Ed!" one voice calls. "Roy!" "Brother!"

Hands pull them from what was clearly an array, but they cling to each other, afraid to let go, as if letting go means they will be parted again.

Slowly, he looks up, seeing Maes and Gracia first, arms around one another, as afraid to stop touching as they are, then Al.

"General," Al says, worried. "Your eye—"

Roy lifts a hand. "That was before," he says, not touching the patch. He looks down in his arms, takes an accounting of Ed from what he can see. "Did you—"

"No," Ed says, already following his thoughts. He makes a sigh that's almost a sob, then opens his eyes. "I don't think it took anything from me."

Trying to move every muscle he can think of, Roy replies, "I don't believe from me either."

"So Agents Jareau and Morgan made the exchange?" a man asks, not eager, but very interested in the answer. It takes Roy a heartbeat to recognize Al, whole and healthy and quite a bit older, but still very much Al, just not the version Roy had in his memory.

Ed's head snaps up to stare at his brother. "You knew," he says. "You knew Truth wouldn't take my alchemy. That's why JJ and Morgan had something prepared to sacrifice! You told them they needed to!"

Al is unrepentant. "You've paid enough, Brother," he says.

For a moment, Ed looks like he's going to argue, but his eyes move to Maes and Gracia instead, and he slumps, defeated. "They won't have a chance to get them back. Their prosthetics aren't as good as automail," he says, sounding wearing and far too old for his age. It's a tone Roy is sadly familiar with.

"Maybe not," Al agrees. "But you can't pay the tolls for everyone all the time."

This close, Roy can sense Ed's stubborn insistence that he can pay everyone's tolls, see if he can't, but he doesn't say anything. The broken array behind them coupled with Truth's pronouncement, should you trespass here again, you won't be leaving, seem proof of Truth's word.

"You did it, you know," Maes says, looking down on them fondly.

Ed lifts his head up to look at them, pain and a sense of failure heavy on his shoulders. "Did what?" he asks.

"What no one else could do," Maes says, grinning the grin of the deliriously happy. "You've committed the taboo, and this time, you even brought a man back from the dead."

"That wasn't me," Ed says, but the reminder that Maes is there, alive, whole, healthy, is a powerful one, and some of the self-loathing Roy senses backs off.

"Wasn't it?" Maes asks.

"That was Truth being capricious," Ed says.

"Maybe. But if it were just Truth's caprice, I don't think it would ever have let me come home," Maes says. "That was all you, Edward Elric. And for that, I can never, ever thank you enough."

They get to their feet, and Ed lets go of Roy long enough to erase every line of the broken array from existence, till it's returned to the sand it started from. The desert is dark and cool, the heat quickly fading from the sand as the sun's light is barely a sliver against the sky.

Between the endless illusion of the desert itself and Roy's new lack of depth perception, he's not sure how far they are from the walls, but they're quiet as they walk back toward them. Even at a distance, Roy can see that the walls are grand and strong, looking almost new.

"Decided to just fix the walls?" he asks softly. Al is giving both couples space, and something about the desert reminds him of the intimacy of their dreamscape.

Ed huffs. "Wasn't that big of a deal." But he can feel the little bit of warmth that Roy noticed and guessed.

As they get closer, Roy notices that it's not just statues waiting outside the city, but people. A rather lot of people. They don't speak, but all of their steps pick up. Out front, there is a young woman that Roy thinks might be Mei, and—

Is that Elicia?

"Elicia?" Maes echoes his thoughts.

"We didn't tell her," Ed says. "We didn't dare. We couldn't get her hopes up."

"It looks like someone might have," Roy says, because Elicia breaks away from the woman and starts running at them full-tilt. It seems like a sign because soon adults are on her heels, but they don't seem to be chasing her as much as following her.

"Daddy!" her voice carries across the sand. It's still Elicia, older, but still her in some indefinable way. And she's so big now.

"Elicia!" Maes doesn't break from Gracia, but he practically hauls her along, only dropping her hand to catch Elicia when she jumps into his outstretched arms. She's almost too big for him, more young woman than child, but he catches her as if she were still two and holds her close, tears spilling down his cheeks for a second time. He only lets go long enough to pull Gracia in and hold them both so tightly, it has to hurt, but Roy knows it's perfect.

The woman, Mei definitely, gets to them first.

"You weren't supposed to tell her!" are the first words Ed says, but his own eyes are wet.

"As if we had any doubt you would bring him back," she replies, giving him a hug that tells him she couldn't help worrying.

Others crowd forward, and Roy recognizes a lot of faces, gets greeting and back pats and handshakes and hugs, but the most welcome of which is Hawkeye. She stands at attention for a moment before relaxing.

"Welcome back, General," she says, a small smile twisting at her lips.

"I'm glad to be home, Lieutenant Colonel," he says, recognizing the rank.

She lets herself smile, then leans forward and gets a hug. "You were missed," she says softly, almost lost in the noise of the people around them. Letting go, she steps aside to go to Maes, who still has Elicia perched on his hip and shows no sign of letting go.

"All right, all right!" Izumi Curtis's voice rises above the noise. "Everyone's here. All in one piece. Let's head back and eat! This calls for a celebration!"

She's met with raucous agreement, and they begin the walk back to the heart of the city.

Derek wakes up to the feeling of someone stroking his wrist and a pulsing of fear, worry, pain, sorrow, love, love, love in his mind. He feels cotton-headed, which tells him that he's been under anesthesia. Spencer seems to realize that he's awake, because he gets him a cup of water with a straw and lets him take a few sips.

"How are you feeling?" Spencer asks.

"Like I got hit by a bus," Derek admits, but he smiles, reaching over to cup Spencer's face. "I'm so glad to be home, pretty boy."

There are lines of stress and worry around Spencer's eyes, and he takes Derek's hand in his. "You and JJ both lose part of your leg."

Derek knew that, somewhere in his mind. It's academic knowledge though, still. It hasn't sunk in. He does say, "I think that's better than my arm?"

Spencer looks even more pained, so the joke falls flat. "Why did you have to lose anything? What happened?" he asks.

If Spencer didn't see that hellish void, that hellish being, Derek doesn't want to tell him about it. Maybe one day, but not now. It's too fresh and too terrible. Instead, he says, "There was a price to pay to get back to you—"

"You shouldn't—"

"And if you think there's a price I wouldn't pay to get back to you, you're sorely mistaken, Spencer Reid."

"I just don't think you should have had to pay a price at all," he says.

Derek thought about that thing in the void again, thought about how inhuman it was, how it argued with Ed. He thought about it taking Ed's arm and leg. That god-like thing didn't play fair or nice, and Derek felt a little relieved to escape with only part of a leg missing. He's sure that later he will resent it more. When he has to learn to deal with the missing limb, on the nights there are phantom pains. He wishes he had Ed to talk to about them, now, wishes he knew sooner that Ed dealt with them.

What he says is, "If Ed could do this job with one leg, you really think I can't?" He strokes his free hand over Spencer's hair and is relieved to have both.

"I know you can do it," Spencer says, meeting his eyes, determination there before sadness seeps in. "I just wish you didn't have to."

Pulling Spencer forward till their foreheads touch, Derek says, "Me too, pretty boy. Me too." He leans in enough to give Spencer a small peck before pulling back. "How's JJ?"

"Still asleep," Spencer says. "Last I checked, anyway. The doctors said they'd never seen limbs sheered so cleanly, but it made tying off ends and—"

"Whatever else they had to do," Derek interrupts. He knows Spencer's probably spent hours looking up the specifics or grilling any nurse and doctor he can corner, but Derek doesn't want to know them. Not yet.

Spencer seems to get it, and he gets a whisper of amusement to accompany the small smile. "Yeah. Anyway, it made it pretty easy, so hopefully recovery can start sooner than later."

"Small blessings," Derek says.

"Yeah," Spencer agrees, turning Derek's wrist to face him, and placing a soft kiss on it. He's not usually one for intimacies like this, at least, not outside the privacy of their home, but Derek can still feel his anxiety echoing in the back of his head, so he doesn't say anything about it. "Do you think Mustang and Ed made it home okay?"

"They must have," Derek says. He refuses to believe anything else. "The other guy definitely did."

"I'm glad," Spencer says.

"Me too," Derek replies, and means it. "How's Prentiss explaining all of this anyway?"

That sends a spike of morbid amusement ringing in his mind. "I'm not sure, but she's not telling." Derek couldn't help but share the smile, and leaned forward to kiss Spencer again, even though it made his leg ache. He was home, with his partner, his now-literal soulmate, and if he wanted to kiss him, he would.

Bellies full around a fire, Roy savors Ed's weight as he leans into him. The welcomes have been warm and almost too much after having been thought unremarkable for so long. Maes and Gracia and Elicia have all said thank you so many times, Roy thinks Ed's head might explode if anyone else is nice to him.

"I hope they're okay too," Ed says, just loud enough to be heard over the music.

"I'm sure they are," Roy reassures. The agents are strong and resilient—they'll be fine. They're also beyond either of their help now, so he leans over Ed a little and murmurs, "God, I missed you."

Using the arm around Roy's waist, Ed squeezes. "You too," he says, then buries his face in Roy's chest. "So much."

Roy holds him, stroking his hair, surrounded by the people that are probably the most important to them in the whole world, and feels a sense of rightness fill his chest. There will be new nightmares from this task and this trial, and once they resettled in their world, they're going to have so much more work to do, but as long as they're together, Roy has faith.

Truth may be the thing closest to God, but Roy has a better god to believe in.

He has Edward Elric.