Roy stayed in his room for the rest of the day.

As he'd told Maes, he was not scared. He wasn't frightened of the consequences waiting for him downstairs. He understood that there was no punishment at the ready, soldiers standing at attention to shove him into a straitjacket or drug him senseless or lock him in a tiny room and throw away the key.

He knew, based off his previous experiences, that all that was waiting for him was awkward silences, and his men (that he could not remember being his) heavy-handedly, even more awkwardly trying to assure that he was okay.

That did not mean he could actually convince the tiny, terrified streak of instinct making his hands shiver, or that he wanted to be down there any time soon.

Maes, however, stayed with him.

It was a fact that he found as odd as it was comforting. He knew the man had work to do, and certainly wasn't doing any of it sitting in here with him, but- he actually didn't seem to mind it. He really didn't seem to have any issue just sitting up there in his old room with him, sitting on the bed across from him, talking on about anything and everything with seemingly no deeper motivation than just to keep his mind safely distracted and occupied. He seemed to be choosing his topics carefully, things that Roy could hear without being disturbed at what he'd forgotten or unsettled at the things he didn't know but should've- his young daughter Elicia had somehow absorbed up a whole hour. Hell, he'd even gone to go grab something for them to eat and bring it back upstairs for him so he didn't have to see the others.

Ed, once Al had arrived, had finally been convinced to go rest for a bit in his own room. It had taken some persuading, but once his brother was there to be with him, and Ed had been able to see that Maes was staying with Roy- that had been all that was needed for him to finally calm down just as Roy had been, and consent to going to rest himself.

It was touching in a way Roy couldn't really define, both Ed's reluctance and Maes' stubbornness, and more reassuring than he had words to say.

Before he'd left, Maes had hugged him. It had been tight and warm and unfamiliar in so many ways, but Maes had looked at him with such a confident smile he couldn't say no to it, and despite how miserable he'd been at the prospect of being alone beforehand, he'd found himself powerless to do anything but smile back, and promise that he'd be okay. Maes had sacrificed his entire day for him, just to try and help him feel a little more safe and at home- the least Roy could do was drag together enough strength to smile believably for him, and tell him that it had worked.

And, it was after the entirety of this harrowing, miserable, but strangely uplifting day, that Roy found himself sitting up late at night, utterly worn out- and utterly unable to sleep.

He'd been tired enough to curl up and sleep far earlier than usual that night, still shaken by everything that had happened that morning, He'd woken with a jolt to find himself sore, foggy-minded, but calm again, Maes' heavy jacket dragging around his shoulders like a blanket... yet also alone.

He'd expected it. Ed stayed the nights with Al, now, and Maes, reluctant or not, left every night to go home to his wife and daughter. This left Roy by himself. Ordinarily, he was fine with this. Knowing Ed was safe, of course, Roy had come to be able to appreciate the privacy at night, turning to quietly practicing his alchemy or reading over his old's rooms books or mulling over the blue of the jacket and the family that now surrounded him whenever he couldn't sleep.

And now…

Roy sighed, rolling onto his back to glare up at the ceiling.

Now, he'd already burned his hands badly enough to need to stop the alchemy, at least for today.

Now, he was tired of staring at these four walls all day long- tired of being confined, self-imposed or not, after straight months of it already, and his skin itched and crawled, and he was tired of it, and wanted freedom.

He rolled onto his side, glaring miserably right at the wall- then, with a heavy huff of air, just pushed himself upright.

He couldn't just sit in here anymore.

He rolled out of bed, a little unsteady on his feet and sore to the bone but simply too irritated with himself to give a damn. He slid his arms through the soft, worn sleeves, grateful Maes seemed to be bigger than him, big enough he could wield the thing like a blanket, and hugged the warm jacket to himself as he poked out into the hallway.

Ed and Al's room was just down the hall from his, so he went there first. Just crept along as quietly as he could, lingering just outside the shadow of the cracked open door to listen in. He heard nothing to be alarmed about, so, with another shaky breath, trying to steady the low wave of panic that seemed to always flutter through his chest, Roy closed his eyes, calming himself, and moved on.

In his earlier explorations of the bar, Roy had found it to be mostly deserted. Apparently, with the martial law and curfew laid down on the city, hers wasn't the most lucrative business to run; it was probably a bit selfish of Roy, but he was grateful for it. He craved the privacy. He luxuriated in it- and especially right now, because the way he'd felt today, he was just glad to be able to creep through the hallways alone. He wasn't sure how many people other than Maes and Ed he could face right now.

Roy moved on silently, turning his focus towards the small balcony he knew waited at the end of the hall. Maybe some fresh air would help clear his head… or at least help him to feel a little better. He frowned quietly to himself, still heading along towards the waiting door, huddling a little more under the jacket-

Then stopped, the instant the balcony came into view.

"I-" His heart lurched uncomfortably, sticking in his throat like tar and his feet nearly tripped into each other. "I'm sorry- I'll- I just- I didn't know-"

"Good evening," Madam Christmas said, and grinned at him. "Stop babbling."

"I'm…" He could see the bruise. Right there. He could see the damn bruise. It was dark and irritated and swollen, a mark on the side of her face in what was unmistakably a punch, a strike that the mere sight of made his hand suddenly ache and his stomach suddenly drop. "I didn't mean to- to-"

"In case you didn't notice, I'm over it by now, Roy-boy. Sort of have to be- you can't run a business predicated on throwing out drunk men who get a bit too aggressive without learning how to take a punch or two."

"But…"

"Come on," Christmas said, smiling up at him again, then waved for him to step outside. "You clearly came down here for something- don't let me scare you off." She took another deep drag off her cigarette, tapping at it restlessly, and throughout it all, continued to simply just... watch him. There was clearly no room in her gaze for anything but compliance.

Roy swallowed tightly, uneasy and cold in the doorway. He shivered, still hugging himself in the warm, oversized jacket, but somehow in the face of that heavy stare, very swiftly found himself with no choice but to step outside.

He sat stiffly down on the edge of the other chair, skin still crawling, and tried not to look as supremely uncomfortably as he felt. The fact that he'd mostly come looking for more privacy than anything else went leaden and unsaid on his tongue.

He suddenly missed Maes and Ed very, very much.

"Want a smoke?" she asked him at length, when Roy had managed to accomplish a sum of total of nothing besides just sit there like a useless, ineffectual lump. She reached over to offer him a second cigarette at him without looking. "You always did say they calmed you down."

Roy tensed again. It was far above the last thing she'd offered him, at least, though… probably even less healthy, if he thought about it... But, she was just sitting there holding it out and looking at him and just waiting, and as much as he couldn't help but fidget and flinch under her inescapable eyes- after what he'd done to her that morning, he didn't have it in him to say no to her.

And so he reached out and took it. He stared uselessly at it between his fingers, heart thudding uncomfortably and a lack of words still sticking in his throat. He still felt vaguely sick.

"I smoke?" he asked at last, allowing her to light it. He breathed in tentatively and a warm, almost unbearable wave struck him head on, dragging him to pull in another breath that made him shiver at the sensation. Yes, he smoked, all right.

Christmas, however, shook her head- albeit with a small little smirk of her own. "You used to. You quit years ago, though- you were trying to get that Hughes friend of yours to quit and figured the only way was for you to ask him to do it along with you. I don't think he ever suspected your true motives."

"Hm." Roy glanced down at the jacket still slung around him, then pulled the cigarette from his mouth, staring at it as well. "How… selfless of me." For a moment, he wondered if he should reconsider the wisdom of indulging, but- well, apparently, Roy Mustang had smoked. And he was Roy Mustang, wasn't he? He breathed in deeply again, running his finger along the warm edge. "I guess I'm nicer than I look."

"Yes, you'd think that, wouldn't you?" She laughed quietly at him, almost mockingly, and Roy felt his face warm. "For approximately the first three hours, you were such a nice boy I could be proud of raising you. Then you spent the next four to six months driving everyone around you to the brink, and Hughes right along with you. You gave each other so many black eyes that adjutant of yours was worried about brain damage."

Roy blinked uncertainly again, gaze shifting again from his aunt to the cigarette. He'd… well, then. "That's-" He breathed in deeply, coughed a little, then forced himself to settle back against the chair, ignoring the faint stinging of pain along the still healing burns. "Oh," he murmured again.

Well, at least the violence seemed to have been mutual, this time.

A warm silence settled between them, somehow just a little bit easier than it had been before. It was chilly outside, expected at this time of night, but Christmas didn't seem to care, and Roy simply pulled his jacket a little tighter, at last relaxing enough to actually look around the small balcony and the street below. If everyone was to be believed, this was his childhood home, here- this, more than anything else, was what he was supposed to recognize. Maybe it had been decades, maybe it was the middle of the night and the street was deserted, and everything was different than the way it had been, but this had been his home for many years, and he was meant to know what it was. He was meant to recognize it all.

He recognized Riza.

He recognized Maes' jacket.

He recognized Ed.

He did not, however, recognize any of this place.

He did not recognize Christmas.

He didn't know his own home.

Roy huddled a little more into himself, aching fingers curling in his jacket, and planted his eyes down on his knees.

He wanted to remember, but he couldn't.

"…I'm sorry," he murmured after a long silence, sinking back further into the chair. "I didn't mean to… hit you. I shouldn't have."

"Okay," she said easily, gaze still heavy on his shoulders. "I'm guessing Hughes made sure your hand was okay?"

Roy stared down at his hand, turning it over in his lap so he could eye the bruises across the back and the faint burns on his fingertips. Maes had brought him a cold washcloth at one point, helping him bring the swelling and irritation down, probably not as much as ice would've, but at least he'd been able to bear that. "It's fine," he heard himself say, voice faint and distant, still unable to look at anything other than his lap.

That was how everything was, nowadays. Not as horrific as it had been, not as terrible as he remembered- but missing everything he felt like he was supposed to be and feel.

It was fine. He could be this way.

He was always fine.

Christmas sighed, the sound long and heavy in the night around them. She leaned forwards, tapping her cigarette into ground ash against the edge, not looking to him again, at least giving him that much, and there was another gentle stretch of silence. Then, out of the corner of his eye, he saw her smile, just a little. "It's been thirty years, and you really don't seem any different than you did as a kid, Roy. You did that all the time… just found some corner to hide in and tried to disappear. You know, your first teachers at school thought you had some sort of disorder, you were so quiet- you never shut up around Vanessa, you just got so fidgety around strangers…" She laughed quietly again, the sound familiar and not at the same time. "Took you a year to open up to others."

Roy coughed a little, a heat growing along the back of his neck again. His gaze darted up as if dragged, landing back on his foster mother and jumping off her almost immediately, something uncertain and uncomfortable squirming in his stomach. What was he supposed to say? What was he supposed to do? "I…"

So this was familiar to her, even if it wasn't familiar to him. The way he was acting. The silence that always haunted his throat and taciturn hesitancy that shrouded his every thought, his every move- she knew it. She had seen it in him before.

Shuddering, Roy looked down at himself, trying in vain to wrap his mind around it... how she could know him so well while he barely even knew himself. This Vanessa, too, this supposed sister of his when he hadn't even known he'd had a sister- and not even by blood, apparently, none of them were his family by blood. He wasn't like Ed, who had his flesh and blood brother right next to him right now. Everyone here with him, all the support they'd given him, but none of them were like Ed and Al- and he just didn't remember any of them.

No matter how hard he tried, no matter how many days he sat here and talked to these people that were supposed to be his team, his friends, his family-

He never knew them.

He tried with everything he had, straining his mind until it hurt. There just wasn't anything there to grasp.

"How do you know me?" he asked finally, the words just unable to be stopped. "How do you know all these things about me? I know you're my- my foster mother, but-… I'm sorry. I don't know what I'm trying to say. I-…" Roy groaned, rubbing a frustrated hand over his face, trying to orient his mind around the impossible words, but just couldn't. "I don't…"

There was a long pause. Christmas watched him still, he could see it out of the corner of his eye, her gaze never leaving him even as he found it impossible to look at her. She just sat there and watched him, waiting for him to find the explanation or the questions or the words he had to say- and when he failed at that, she spoke, without needing for him to give her a reason why.

"You had trouble remembering things as a kid, too. It was normal back then- nobody remembers anything from when they were five, no matter what drugs or fancy alchemy they got themselves mixed up in." She took another drag off her cigarette then tapped it against the edge again, hot ash dusting gently against the brick. "Like I told you, we don't have any blood relation. I never knew your family. I can tell you what I know, but… it may disappoint you, Roy. What I know, and how little of it that I know."

The words were foreboding, quietly cautioning that he approach this with more than a hint of caution- but Roy found himself nodding before she'd even finished speaking. His head was dragged into a nod and his heart started hammer before his mind had even grasped what she was trying to say because the decision had been made months ago before he'd ever met her. The decision had been made since those damn nurses had refused to answer his questions, when he'd asked who he was and all he'd been told was that he wasn't allowed to know. He'd known he wanted to know no matter how painful or horrible it was- because it was even more unbearable not to.

"I want to know the truth," he said.

He didn't care about all the reasons not to.

All he cared about was the truth of who he was.

And Christmas, like Riza, took one long, evaluative look at him, her dark eyes that looked nothing like his unreadable but dangerous enough that he knew this story would hurt, but Roy looked her head on and did not falter no matter how hard his heart quaked in his chest. He looked at her as she watched him, quietly judging him, deciding whether or not he could handle this, and he sat there straight-backed and sure and held her gaze, because out of everything else, this was one test he had to pass.

There was another long moment of quiet.

Then, she slowly took another breath of her cigarette, and told him.

"Your parents are both from Xing. They slipped into Amestris illegally some thirty years ago… I think you were born here, but that's just how the math works out- I honestly don't know."

He nodded slowly, the uncertainty clenching in his chest again- but somehow, this was bearable. For it to have always been uncertain, for him to never have known, rather than have it maliciously kept from him for so long. He could take this. He must've his entire life- so he could keep going with it now."All right," he murmured guardedly, still waiting.

Christmas sighed, lowering her cigarette from her lips again. This time, she was not looking at him. "An immigration raid picked you and your mother up during the influenza of 1890. She was sick, and… wasn't doing well. Amestris has never been kind to immigrants, but even if they'd wanted to, there wasn't much they could do for her- I don't think she'd ever been very healthy anyway. She was dying."

Roy stiffened. His breaths, already somewhat unsteady, caught weakly in his throat, and for a moment it felt like he'd just been hurtled off a train track into a ditch.

Dying. Dead? Dead?

Well- god, he wasn't sure what exactly he'd expected, being raised by a foster mother and all, of course his parents were dead, but- but-

"Like Ed's mother…" Roy murmured aloud, the realization stumbling past his lips before he could even think to stop it. That was what Ed had told him, wasn't it? His mother had fallen ill and died… just like his own? She was dead?

He blinked, then, realizing Christmas was looking at him oddly, and quickly shrugged it off as best he could, arranging a strained sort of smile back on his face. "Sorry," he murmured, trying not to think. He had to keep her going. Couldn't be too affected now. He had to know. "I'm sorry. I just- never mind. Go on."

His foster mother let out another sigh, turning away with a frown. "I got involved because I had a friend who worked in immigration, in the military, and they called me over for you, Roy."

"Me?"

"Yes, you." She scowled darkly, fingers twitching. "Like I said, Amestris has never been kind to immigrants, but they were especially cruel thirty years ago. Your mother was half-dead and contagious, there was no point in sending her anywhere, and so that left just you- and Amestrian law was absolute. All adults who enter the country illegally are kicked out. All children who do the same, unless they can find an Amestrian citizen to foster them, were given the same fate- and no Amestrian would ever foster a Xingese child. They knew that when they wrote the law… it was a death sentence in everything but name and they meant it that way." She shook her head with a quiet sense of disgust, her face still just as calm and her cigarette still tapping oh so gently against the stone, but her eyes, silently burning with a long festering sense of injustice. "It was cruel and barbaric. But there also wasn't any question about it. Without your mother you'd have stood no chance, Roy- you just would've keeled over somewhere in that sandbox and dropped dead. And I was the only shot you had to get out of there any other way."

Roy blinked again.

For an impossible few moments, he sincerely tried to wrap his head around it, looking down at himself and trying to see a much younger boy, alone and lost in a desert he did not remember without a mother that he had never seen. He tried to grasp what he had once been, but it was such a dizzying, wholly strangle impossibility it felt like sand slipping through his strings, and after another heartbeat, he just shook his head and stopped trying.

He swallowed hard, more shellshocked than anything else, and by the look in Christmas' eyes, his expression was worrying her- but he just didn't know how he was supposed to react. What he was supposed to feel. A shiver ran down his spine and he huddled deeper back into his chair, clinging to Maes' jacket, and blinked several times to the night sky just so he wouldn't have to look at her.

"…so you saved my life," he managed finally, his mind and understanding so impossibly distant it felt as if he wasn't even the one saying it at all.

Just out of the corner of his eye, he caught one slow, grave nod.

Roy swallowed hard again. "…Thank you."

"No. There's nothing to thank me for. If anything, thank my friend in the military, who keyed me in to what was about to happen to you." She smiled slightly at him again, but there was a hard edge to it, a cold, brutal sort of thing. "Most children who get picked up have their parents with them- it was cruel and unfair, but with their parents helping them, at least they'd live. It'd have been crueler for me to foster those children but tear them away from their families but- you didn't have a family anymore. You just needed a second chance… hell, you needed a first chance. I was happy to give that to you. Our government shouldn't have taken it away from you in the first place."

Another thank you rose in his throat, sincere gratitude that was only just held back by a wave of emotion. He blinked and tried not to cough, struggling to hold as still and unaffected as possible- but as much as he tried, even he could not hold back the slightest waver in his voice as he spoke again. "Vanessa?"

Thankfully, Christmas understood what he was asking for without needing any more explanation than that. "Runaway. I picked her up when she was fourteen and a prostitute… just a few months before I found you, actually. She wasn't illegal, but she needed a home just as much as you did."

"And the- the others?"

She sighed heavily again, voice lower than before. "Similar stories, all of them. Jacqueline ran to get away from the civil war in Creta… Annalee's parents died and she lost her arm in the same accident." Christmas paused for a moment, mouth tightening into an angry, stern line. "I found Mei in the sex trade."

There was a dark silence. Another cold shudder slithered down Roy's spine.

"I wouldn't feel too bad you don't remember very much," she went on gruffly after several moments, turning her eyes away, and Roy was grateful for the chance to regain his composure. "Like I said, you never really remembered your parents, kid… you were just too young when I took you. You came here when you were five, and- and, Roy, there's really nothing much to even thank me for. I didn't do much more than give you a safe place to sleep at night, because you just managed everything yourself…" She smirked a little, amused eyes landing on him again. "Precocious little brat. You spent your childhood being as self-sufficient as a kid can be, left home when you were just thirteen- wanted to go out east to find yourself an alchemy teacher, you did, so we found you a master to train under, and you've never really come back since."

Roy tried to wrap his mind around it, shivering still and more than a little lost. "Hawkeye?" he asked, the word strange in his mouth. He knew Riza, of course, but when reminded of his so-called alchemy teacher, no face or name came to his mind whatsoever.

Christmas confirmed it straight away, though, making the weight on his heart a little easier as she smiled encouragingly and offered another steady nod. "So you've already talked to Riza. Yes. The Hawkeyes. You spent a few years out there, writing back whenever you remembered a pen had uses besides magic. Then you ended up back in Central in the military academy where you met that Hughes friend of yours- and from then on you've been running in and out of the city on duty. Gotten plenty of drinks here, but you haven't stayed here since you were thirteen, Roy." She offered him another small smile, reaching over to pluck the already slowly crumbling cigarette from his hands so she could smush it out against the railing. "I wouldn't feel bad that you can't remember us. I certainly don't blame you for it."

"…I see," was all he could say. He sat there unsurely, certainly not sure of himself anymore, and continued to avert his eyes just because he still didn't think he could face her. He looked down at his strange hands, his pale, injured, guilty hands, and swallowed again, struggling to stumble over the enormity of what he'd just heard.

"Amestris changed their immigration laws a few years ago," Christmas went on quietly, and this time, her hand was close enough to move over and pat his. He didn't flinch, but it was a near thing. "A faction in the military campaigned for it to win back some public support after the war, trying to appeal to whatever sense of morality this country has left. They stuck you up as the posterboy. Hero of Ishval and illegal child of immigrants, all at once… it's my understanding you and that Hughes boy just manipulated public sentiments to pull it off- I remember you being incredibly annoyed at the time, but Hughes made you stick with it." She smiled a little, an expression that he wasn't sure what to make of, and patted his hand again before pulling away. "That's really what you've spent the last several years doing, with him and Hawkeye. Putting on a good face to let the military use you while you pull strings and manipulate them right back, for the greater good. You're rarely proud of it." She paused. "I think you should be."

There was a long, uncomfortable silence. Roy continued to look away from her, so many things so hard these days and facing his own family seeming to be the hardest of them all, perhaps only challenged by this newer struggler of facing himself. He thought of Riza, her burned back by his hand but her request. He thought of Maes, who avoided his questions more often than not, dodging them because the answers had to be something that would hurt to hear.

He thought of Christmas, sitting right there next to him, with a bruise on her face because he couldn't control himself.

"…Who is my father?"

Christmas didn't respond. She didn't even stiffen at the question, or if she did Roy couldn't see it, unable to make himself look at her head on and instead just staring out to the deserted street and black sky, hands clenching over and over around Maes' jacket. She didn't answer him so Roy couldn't look at her, his stomach twisted into knots and throat suddenly aching and dry, but the words were still there and ready at the tip of his tongue and they had to be said. "You said you met me and that I was with my mother, but you didn't mention my father. Who is he? …was he?"

For several moments, Christmas didn't answer him.

Then, instead of a reply, she merely reached a hand over to his, and handed him something. A picture. He blinked. It was a picture. A small, black and white picture stuck in a protective sleeve, but now in his hand, with hers still resting over them both.

"I've been waiting for you to ask me about this for some time," he heard her say, the words distant underneath the muted roar in his head, but Roy barely processed it, his attention too focused on that single picture to even remember she was there.

He fingered the protective sleeve, squinting at it in the low light. It was clearly very old, but had been taken care of extremely well. The snapshot appeared to be a woman and her child, a small, fragile family in black and white sitting underneath a window, a pale-skinned, dark-haired boy in an even paler, darker-haired woman's lap, both shrouded in blankets and clothes too big. There was a medical mask over the boy's face and gloves over his hands, though it was the woman who looked sick, while the child looked to be on the verge of tears.

Roy swallowed hard, his thumb brushing over the edge of the boy's face.

"That was the last night you were able to stay with her," Christmas said quietly; only some small part of him could even hear her, the rest of him still so transfixed by that photo. "Until that day, she'd been hanging onto the hope that your father was going to come back for you and I wouldn't have to take you. He'd been at work, when the raid happened, so it was just you and her, but she was hoping... they spread the word around that neighborhood that they were looking for him. If he'd turned himself in, he would've had to leave the country, but at least he could taken you with him."

There was a short silence. This time, Roy kept his gaze on the picture, because for the first time, he already knew where this story was going.

So he hadn't shown up, then.

He'd never showed, and Roy had gone into a stranger's arms, because there'd been no one else there to take him.

"That night," Christmas told him quietly, "was when she signed over custody to me. We never did find your father, and I think she'd finally accepted that he wasn't coming." She gestured to the picture in his hands, voice never wavering even as the careful, calm facade that Roy was clinging so tightly to did. "That night she said goodbye to you, and asked for me to take that picture so you'd always be able to remember who she was. Then she took you over to the window so you could see, and she picked you up and told you that she was going to have to go away soon, but whenever you got lonely, you could look up into the night sky and see her watching over you." There was a beat of silence between them, his foster mother joining him in looking down at picture of his first one, and again, Roy found that he just didn't have the words.

"It's a Xingese fable," she told him. "That the ancestors and your family join the stars when they die so they can always keep watch on the living. She told it to me after she told it to you... she wanted you to always have at least that much of where you're from, even if you were going to have to lose everything else."

Roy shifted, shivering a little in the cold air. The words hit him in more ways than one and he had to unclench his fingers, letting the picture drift down to his lap before his hand could tense and ruin it. His heart pounded sickeningly hard, and for several breaths he felt too overwhelmed to even think.

"Keep it," Christmas told him, not even waiting for him to try and hand it back. "I have plenty of copies of it- just in case."

Roy swallowed again, throat tightening to the point where he couldn't even thank her, and for several moments was powerless to manage anything more complicated than a tiny, choked sniffle turned cough at the last moment.

"...Thank you," he said quietly, voice still a struggle to force past the lump in his throat but it had to be done. His hand trembled as he fought not to squeeze and ruin it but he couldn't put it down all the same, gaze still fixated on that tiny piece of memory that had somehow became all he had.

Except, that wasn't all he had anymore, was it?

Roy took in a deep breath, gaze still fixated on that picture but thoughts leaving him to travel elsewhere. Maes was here with him everyday, no matter how difficult Roy was probably being, no matter his initial- if unintentional and highly regretted- attack on his wife. Riza was here, no matter their checkered past, intensely loyal even if he could no longer remember why that was. There was always Ed. He didn't have to even question that.

And there was Madam Christmas and his sisters, too.

Blood or not- they were his family.

And...

Roy stared down at the old, precious photograph once again, then tilted his head back, smiling up to the dark, overcast sky up above. Even through the clouds, there was still a faint gleam of misted silver.

He wasn't alone.

No matter how much that hospital had tried to make it seem like, he was not alone here anymore.

"Thank you," he said again finally, curling his bandaged hands around the photo. For letting me come home... and for giving me a place to come home to.

He couldn't spell it out with his already weak, wavering voice, emotion tightening his throat past the point of speech. But when she nodded to him, hand on his shoulder again, murmuring, "You're welcome, Roy," he knew she'd heard everything he couldn't say, that all his friends had after all this time, and that was good enough for him.

"But I'm worried about him-"

"He can take care of himself!"

"Where is he going? It's the middle of the night, he- I should follow-"

"There's nowhere for him to go. The team's watching every entrance, Brother..."

"But... he was upset earlier today, I don't want-"

"Brother." The suit of armor- somehow- took in a great big breath, situating himself around so Ed would have to somehow manage a leap over his head if he wanted to make it to the cracked open door to his room. "Colonel Mustang is fine. You are the one that is not fine, because you're still hurt, and if you try and go searching for him now you'll end up getting no sleep again and you'll feel terrible for it tomorrow. Again." Al shifted around a little more to more thoroughly block his way, Ed still sitting up on the bed and nervous, unable to help himself from twitching, worrying about Roy, because what was he doing this time of night, where was he going...

But Al didn't seem to be about to move. And, worse than that, his brother was technically right. There was nowhere Roy could go that would be a problem here, and hell, the bastard had even promised him he'd be okay. Roy didn't have someone like Al to keep him company- he was probably just going to find someone to talk to.

He took in a shaky breath, gripping the sheets a little tighter, and tried to still the tremors still growing in the base of his spine. Roy was okay. Roy was... always okay, really. Or at least more stable than Ed was.

It was Ed who was the screw up.

He took in a deep, slightly wavering breath, re-situating himself on the bed to try and find an at least marginally comfortable position. His back still hurt, it always did, but he was accustomed to the pain by now, curling with the blankets to lean against the wall. His brother hesitated for a few moments, watching him, seeming to be judging whether or not Ed was going to head out after Roy after all, but when he did not, Al relaxed, too. With a clank of metal, he moved from the floor to the bed opposite him, sinking onto it despite it being about a third his size.

Ed smiled for a moment, the sheer incongruity of the sight dragging the expression onto his face, something of the tension fading with the lightheartedness. "Do you actually use beds?" he asked. leaning back against the wall. He didn't want to close his eyes just yet, he found. "I mean, you can't sleep, so..."

Al shrugged with another gentle clink of armor. "Not really, but it's easier to pretend. We used to try and get a room with just one bed, when we were traveling? But people would always look at us weird, and then they'd start asking questions we couldn't answer... it was just safer this way. We even had a second bed moved into your room at the dorms for appearances." He looked at Ed in a way that made it feel like he was smiling at him, eyes warm as a blanket even in that cold, unmoving face. "It's a little weird, but... well, most of what we do is. We're used to it by now."

Again, Ed had to grin at that. "I'm sure we are," he chuckled, but the levity quickly faded as he looked over his brother again, the strange sight of him on the bed and how at peace and normal he looked in a situation was screwed up as this. "But if you don't sleep, then... what do you do? All night long, I mean? That's- that's a long time... I know you've been studying in the nights right now, but you can't really do that all the time."

For some reason, however, Al seemed to actually find this funny. The suit of armor, instead of answering, suddenly ducked his head, the light of humor burning in his soulfire eyes as his huge shoulders slunk loudly down, as if he was trying to make himself smaller even while being three times Ed's size alone. "It sounds crazy, doesn't it? Well... I actually... I actually did, Brother."

Ed blinked blankly..

His brother gestured a little around the room, a weak smile forming on his helmet in a way Ed was just finally starting to get used to. "You know how you have automail? Well, it was really hard on you to get- you were sick and trying to sleep it off for a long time. This was a while ago, you know, years ago... but back then, you'd already promised me we were going to get our bodies back. That was the last thing you said to me before you get the automail, the very last thing, and- I-" He broke off for a moment, turning away under the the haze of a long distant memory that was nothing more than an indistinct cloud, to Ed... but a very present, very vivid, and very real memory to Al.

Ed scooted forward a little more, arm wrapping around himself as he straightened up in earnest, and listened on.

"I wasn't going to just let you do it alone," he sighed finally. "Because I knew you were going to try to. I knew that the very second you could get your eyes open, you were going to start researching with or without me, and so I decided I was going to start first." His voice wavered a little bit, hesitating over the emotion in a way that was startling and somehow, so very human, but he kept forging on without even the slightest pause. "We still had all the books we'd used to bring Mom back... I just got them again and started reading. Whenever you were awake I'd be with you but- but if not, I was working."

After a few, uncertain moments, Ed scooted himself a little closer. He wasn't sure if he could bring himself to touch him, to make the initial contact himself, but whatever it was inside him that was so skittish and downright frightened nowadays was quiet enough for him to at least sit closer to his brother, and for that, he was grateful. He hesitated, biting his lip as those words turned over in his head, curling with a sudden quiet yet intense flare of protectiveness in his chest, a flare that was as surprising as it was... familiar.

He smiled a little, glancing up at his brother. "I probably yelled at you a lot for trying to do it, didn't I?"

To his surprise, however, Al laughed again, shaking his head in a gentle clank of metal. "No, actually, it wasn't you. Don't get me wrong, you would've yelled if you'd known, but you didn't. I didn't want you to know. You had so much to try and deal with and you're right, you would've felt so guilty if you'd known, I didn't want that on your shoulders too... I just hid it from you." He managed another attempt at an apologetic smile, but it was fragile, this time, no more convincing than Ed found himself these days, and again he found himself recognizing something of himself in his brother.

"I don't really know what I was thinking..." Al sighed unhappily,, still avoiding his gaze. "I guess, in my head, it was pretty simple. I didn't have to eat or sleep or move. I wasn't hurt like you, I didn't need to rest. I didn't have anything else I had to do but devote every single moment to helping you." He paused again, hands wringing together absently in his lap. "I... think I remember those couple of weeks about as well as you do. I started forgetting how to move... I'd try to talk to Winry about you and all that would come out was Paracelsus' theory of reconstruction."

At this, Al laughed a little again, smiling reassuringly down at Ed. He was clearly trying to make light of it and put him at ease at the same time, assure him that it hadn't really mattered and laugh it off as no big deal.

Ed wasn't so sure he got the joke.

"In the end, Pinako took all the books away." Al shook his head with another small, wistful sort of smile. "I pretty much threw a tantrum, which made Winry cry, and Pinako told me I wasn't allowed to be so loud in your room and kicked me out. I was still pretty out of it, I guess, I'm still not sure how it all happened, but at some point Winry came along and took my helmet so I couldn't stop her and ran outside with me. We sat under this tree near her house and she put me in her lap and said I wouldn't get my body back until I agreed to listen to her. And then..."

He sighed wistfully again, head tilting back as he shifted around a little as if on autopilot, moving behind Ed. Ed froze, a nauseating sort of unease curling deep in his stomach at the suddenness of a person at his back, moving in a way he could not see and touching him in a way that he could not defend against, but no pain came, no violation of trust of any kind. Instead there was just the gentle shifting of his hair, long pieces of it carefully pulled back behind his shoulders in the softest, carefullest way imaginable, tugging so lightly at his scalp, pulling his head just the slightest inch back...

It felt familiar. It felt like something he'd sat still for before.

It felt right.

An unasked for smile was suddenly slipping onto his face; he felt it curling up his lips before he understood what was happening, tugging at his heartstrings just as Al pulled through his hair, and before he knew it, he was crying a little, too.

He was braiding his hair.

"We sat out there for a long time. She was still crying, and... and she just kept begging me to stop. That she knew I couldn't sleep anymore but I was still hurting myself and she couldn't let me do it anymore." His hair was pulled gently again, so gently it didn't even hurt at all, and Ed just knew his brother was smiling. "I wasn't listening to her at first, I was just as upset as she was... I think when she realized that she was just quiet for a while. Then, she just started pointing out constellations in the sky to me. It was a Risembool tradition, stargazing, moms were supposed to teach their kids how to read the skies in case they ever got lost out there- Winry's mom had done it for her, and ours did it for us... she said she knew it wasn't the same, but knew we all remembered snuggling under a blanket together and rubbing our eyes and nodding off under the night skies together, and even if I couldn't sleep right now I could at least do some of the same now. That there was something I could do, and if I got lonely she'd do it with me. That there'd... there'd always be people willing to help me, and all I had to do was agree to let them."

Again, Ed realized, he was crying. He didn't want to draw attention to it but trying to wipe it away, so instead simply just found himself sitting stock still, letting them slip slowly and painfully down his cheeks, a fist squeezing his heart so hard he wouldn't have been surprised if it broke.

"...she sounds like a great friend," he forced out at last, only letting himself when he was absolutely sure his voice would come out steady.

Al's hands shifted through his hair again, the wonderful smile on his face still evident in his voice alone. "She is. And soon you'll remember that for yourself. And she really did save me that night. She was right... just because I can't sleep doesn't mean I can keep going for forever. If I truly wanted to help you, if I wanted to do anything besides punish myself, I had to be strong enough to put the books away sometimes and close my eyes... and she was the one who made me understand that."

Ed, heart still clenching so tight in his chest it was nearly all he could do to just breathe, forced himself to sit still, allowing his brother to continue to comb through his hair. "So that's what you do at night, then?' he asked, albeit, again, only when he could get the words out without them breaking. "You look at the stars?"

Al shrugged a little, though the move somehow didn't jostle him by his hair at all. "Yes. It's kinda funny, actually... for a while, it was helping me, but it was hard to just turn my brain off, you know? I spent so many hours just watching the stars move, trying not to think about anything but that... eventually I got so interested in it I started writing a paper on it, trying to make an argument for a heliocentric hypothesis instead of a geocentric one. I was about to send it off, had it under a pseudonym and everything, but then you just asked me if I was okay, that I'd been distracted lately, and I realized I'd just traded one obsession for another." He sighed, one hand slowly trailing away from Ed's hair to rest down on the mattress, something quietly resigned lilting through every word. "That night, I threw the paper away. All I let myself do now is look up at the stars. Meditate if I can. ...I think I'll start it again, someday, but I've already decided I'll only do it when I can sleep at night."

Ed swallowed hard again. Some part of him felt very sure that if Al could so much as glimpse the look on his face right now, he'd find himself tugged right into another bone-crushing hug. Somehow, he wasn't even positive that he'd mind it. "...I wouldn't mind reading that paper," he said, when he could trust himself to speak again. He tossed a grin over his shoulder, reaching back to touch his foot. Boot. Whatever. "Sounds interesting."

"Oh, it is! And you will read it someday!" Al let go of his hair, the half-formed, loose braid straggling apart as his hand went to his shoulder instead, brother beaming at him brighter than the goddammed sun. "But not until we both have our bodies back- and you have your memory back."

"And Roy."

Al stilled for a moment, staring quietly at him- and then, somehow, he was beaming even brighter. "And Colonel Mustang," he agreed, squeezing his shoulder.

There was another peaceful moment of silence. It was, without a doubt, the happiest that Ed had felt in weeks.

However, it was only that- just one moment.

Because a heartbeat later, Al was suddenly on him, shaking his head and trying to gently guide him back down onto the bed, already shaking out the blankets and somehow fluffing the pillow at the same time. "I saw that, Brother!"

"W-what? Al-"

"I saw that yawn! I knew it, you're tired!"

"I-" He'd yawned? Since when? How had Al seen it before Ed had even known? "Come on, Al, I..." ...okay, he actually was a little tired, but...

"No buts!" Al said firmly, shaking out the blankets firmly before standing back, all but ordering him to squirm underneath them. "You know you need the sleep, Brother, you've been exhausted this whole time I've been here; I won't let you try to stay up all night again. Colonel Mustang's fine, you're fine, I'm fine, and now you need to sleep. Okay? Everything will be better tomorrow morning."

"You... jeez, Al..."

But he was already being tucked in, and then his brother was already sitting firmly down on the floor across from him, leaving the dim lights on and the door still cracked open without even the slightest attempt to change it and clearly settling himself in for the long haul.

And Ed knew, somewhere deep inside him, he wasn't supposed to like this.

He wasn't supposed to like being told what to do. He wasn't supposed to like being ordered what time to go to sleep and sat down in bed, door open but it didn't really matter, because if he actually tried to leave to find Roy, Al would stop him.

And he especially wasn't supposed to like being told to do something for his own good.

But... it was his brother.

It was that simple.

If Roy told him to do something, he'd do it, because he trusted Roy.

If Al told him to do something... well, he'd try to do it, too.

He trusted Al.

So he'd trust Al right now, and he'd let himself settle back down underneath the warm, comforting blankets, and shut his eyes.

...

He shifted a little, back too hurt to turn over so he just kicked unhappily at the mattress again.

...

He clutched his fingers irritatedly around the blanket.

...

He hugged the spare pillow to his chest.

...

He opened his eyes up again, and glared.

And there was Al. Right there, like he'd always promised to be, sitting across from him and waiting like he had nowhere better to be in the world. He smiled sympathetically. "Can't sleep, huh?"

Ed withered a little more under the sheets, hugging the pillow as tight as he could. "Not really," he mumbled. He was so used to being drugged senseless that some days, it felt like he'd forgotten how to sleep on his own. He'd skipped the sleeping pills as much as he could in the beginning, but after they'd shoved him into that straitjacket... that room... when the drugs had just come in needles they'd stabbed into him without his consent...

"...Brother? Are you okay?"

He jumped, shuddered, then forced out a short, almost violent nod, wrenching himself away from that place and back next to his brother as quickly as he could. "Yeah," he mumbled roughly, the thick word muffling itself into the pillow, and said nothing more.

There was another uncomfortable sort of silence. Al's smile had faded now, and to Ed, Edward Elric the fucking screw up as always, it felt like the little slice of peace he'd last managed to grasp had just been turned around on its head and dumped right on the floor. He felt miserably sick and guiltridden, cold out of nowhere under the blankets, and for few moments, couldn't say anything at all.

Then, with much clanking of metal and thudding on the floor, Al maneuvered himself around on the floor to sit with his back against Ed's bed instead, scooted himself so he was sitting right by Ed's head- and lifted a hand to point out the clear window out to the night sky.

"The first star Mom taught us about was the North Star. You see it, Brother? It's the brightest one, right over there... that's right. Scientists call it Polaris, but Mom called it the North Star, because if you can find it, no matter where you are, you know you're looking north, and you know you can find your way home." Al smiled at him again, lowering the hand pointing out the window to rest on the edge of the bed again, just near enough for Ed to feel it. "It's actually one of the first stars I studied for my hypothesis. Mom told us that it's special, because it's always in the same place in the night sky... that even when everything else has changed, and everything else is different, no matter how lost you are... you'll always have at least one thing that's the same to guide your way home."