A/N: I really need to take the time to thank each and every one of you for your reviews and incredible support. Until I can find the time, THANK YOU SO MUCH! They definitely keep me going and they don't go unappreciated.

Chapter 13

"I don't know how, but this is somehow you're fault," Edward snarled at the older man. He was perched on the passenger side of the jeep, rain pelting the canvas roof aggressively. Roy's face was bland as his dark eyes rolled to meet the boys.

"While I appreciate your vote of confidence, Fullmetal. I really don't see how this is my fault."

"Well, it's your fault I'm in this stupid army and that I'm stuck in this stupid war," Edward snapped, flipping open the old journal sharply and pointedly. Roy's frown sharpened the gauntness of his cheekbones.

"This wasn't what I wanted, Edward," he almost whispered. The boy just turned a page pointedly. The older man looked out the window, the plants were blurred by the droplets on the glass. It reminded him of some paintings from Aerugo that Hawkeye had forced him to go see with her on one of their awkward dates following the war. Roy sighed as he tried to shift in the small vehicle, resting his knees on the wheel. He let his eyes slip shut with the sun, trying to sleep as they waited out the storm. The boy next to him proceeded to make all matter of annoying but familiar noises, sucking on and grinding his teeth as he read in the fading light. Roy lost himself in sleepless thoughts. Edward just tried to not think too hard.

The symbols and diagrams slowly slid into darkness and his head hurt from squinting into the shadows and there was a familiar ache in his flesh hand from gripping the pen too long. The code wasn't broken yet and the rain still poured outside. Hail had begun to strike the car, shaking the roof with it's percussion.

To his left, he could see the silhouette of Roy sleeping, chin having fallen to his chest, his frame rising and falling with each frail breath. He had a hard time reconciling this Roy here and the one that had not so long ago staggered through fire all blood, hard muscle, and rage. Earlier had had felt for himself how sunken this Roy had become, and it wasn't so long ago the man's breathing was punctuated with silence in his sleep. Edward thought he would die of fear when the man woke, fever-eyed and gasping in his sleep. He had run through the snow in the dead of winter night, barefoot and coatless to the med tent.

"He's dying!" He had cried until a nurse pulled him aside while the others went back to the tent to check on the Colonel. The Major made himself small and curled in a chair, icy cold even with the rough wool blanket around his shoulders. No one spoke to him, even as the man was carried wild and gasping inside, blue with bloodshot eyes that couldn't see.

This is how he must've looked to Roy so many years ago; small and sick, lying in the bed. Medics held down Roy's wrists and ankles as he fought the oxygen mask they pressed to his face.

"Calm down, Sir! Just breath!" one girl tried to coax through his fever. Others began packing snow around the mans feverish form, trying to cool him. Edward just wanted to vomit at the smell of sickness that followed him, even back to their tent. Not even the ice wind that seeped from the bottom of their door could purge the sticky sweat from his sleep.

An explosion, a flash, started him from his half-awake dream and the car rocked. In his head, people were screaming. Beside him he saw Roy awake, fingers at the ready and breath hissing, blessedly easy, through his teeth. There was silence, punctuated by a steady pattering on the canvas.

"The fuck was that?" Edward stuttered as Roy cracked open his door and peered onto the roof.

"Just a branch, Fullmetal. There're no monster's under the bed. Go back to sleep." Edward snorted.

"Easier said than done, Colonel Shithead."

"I know, just try." The man said with all the patience of a tired sick man, and closed his eyes once more, coat pulled tight around his body.