Hello, everyone! A new chapter for you! And if you haven't read the bonus FMA chapter, go find it. It's so sweet, I cried a little.

Heavy italics in this chapter- sorry if they're hard to read.

Ed frowned. "You okay with him hearing all this?" he asked, pointing to Arborthal, who was eyeing him warily from behind the bench.

Roy glanced over his shoulder at his subordinate. "You repeat a word of this, and I'll kill you," he warned. The soldier nodded quickly. "Alright, Fullmetal. Start talking."

The ghost scratched the side of his nose and huffed. "Okay, so after I went after Pride, we ended up in that big room where the Homunculi had been making base and all that. We were really getting into the fight and then he broke out those tentacle things-" Ed wiggled his fingers to demonstrate "-and things started to get all nasty from there."

Roy looked away and bit the inside of his cheek. He knew just how nasty things had gotten with Pride.

Clearly, Ed hadn't noticed. "So I ended up get caught in the tendrils, but I was close enough to activate Marcoh's circle and destroy Pride. But there was some, ah, backlash and I got kinda beat up."

Mustang's eyes narrowed. Don't think about it, Mustang! Repress! he told himself firmly. Thinking about That Night and all the mess that went with it would not help the situation.

Ed was obviously still oblivious to the general's body language. "And so I was going to use alchemy to heal myself, like I did up at Briggs when I got impaled, but..." Ed paused and scowled and clenched his automail fist. "He showed up."

Roy glanced back up at Ed. "Who?" he asked, confused. All the Homunculi had been taken care of, so who had Ed run into down there?

"Father," Ed snarled.

Oh shit. Roy's eyes widened and he jerked to his feet, putting himself eye level with Ed. "What! He was down there?"

Ed looked startled at Roy's reaction, but managed a nod in response.

Roy stared at Ed for a moment before groaned and sinking back onto the bench. "Damn! I forgot about him," he moaned, rubbing his face with his hands.

"Obviously," Ed muttered, crossing his arms across his chest.

"What happened then?" Roy asked, almost dreading it. Whatever Father did was obviously the cause of Ed's death, and he really didn't want to hear that. Ignorance was bliss, and he didn't want to know.

Ed sighed. "He just came at me. I didn't know what he was going to do, so I activated the circle again and grabbed him when he was close enough." The alchemist paused and examined his fingers. "I don't know what happened when the circle activated. Everything went white and there was a lot of screaming, and pain. It felt like I was on fire- everything hurt." Ed broke off and glowered at a wall, uncomfortable with having to reveal the fact that he had been in pain. "I think it was a backlash. When I came to, I was inside Father."

Roy felt his stomach drop. "Inside him? In the stone?"

The ghost nodded. "But it wasn't really him. It turns out that the stone Father used was too big for the circle to destroy, so all the souls inside him ended up bound to the disc the circle was etched onto."

"Holy crap," Roy whispered. He hadn't been expecting that. "But I didn't see his body anywhere near yours." The words were out of his mouth before he could stop them.

Ed shifted uncomfortably and looked away. There was an awkward silence before Roy cleared this throat and gestured for Ed to continue.

"That's because the stone was what held his body together, and when the souls left, the body fell apart," Ed explained. "I'm not sure why, the removal from the stone to the circle seemed to have awakened all the souls that were fueling Father. They went berserk and they smothered him."

Roy slowly got to his feet. "So, technically, he's still alive."

Ed nodded. "He's trapped in the circle, but it's only a matter of time before he overpowers the souls and takes control of all of them… including me."

It was impossible to miss the waver at the end of Ed's sentence. The thought of being used as energy for Father was scaring him, and Roy could hardly blame him. And the fact that Father already had a year to work made it even worse.

"Is that why you've been harassing the workers in the sewers?" Roy asked. "To get someone to come looking?"

"Yeah. I figured if I made it creepy enough, an alchemist would get sent in, and I was right," Ed explained with a smirk. "But my soul can only go so far from the circle and this is the first time I could really get in contact with anyone." The ghost raised an eyebrow. "Y'know, if it takes you this long to fix a sewer, then you're doing a really crappy job at running the country."

Roy scowled. "I'm not running it yet, Edward," he snapped.

"What the hell are you waiting for? An invitation?"

The Flame rolled his eyes. "I don't feel like explaining the current political situation to someone who's been living in the sewers for a year."

Ed gave him the finger.

"Anyway, show me where the circle is," Roy said, cracking a knuckle. "We have to do something about him."

The ghost's eyes narrowed before he nodded and began to glide back towards the entrance to the inner chamber to Father's lair. Roy grabbed the lantern and hurried after, trying to ignore the cold, creeping feeling in his stomach. Going back through those doors was going to bring back a world of memories he really didn't want to remember, but he had to suck it up and deal with this newest complication.

"Wait for me!" Arborthal came splashing after them, whimpering like a kicked puppy.

Ed glanced over his shoulder and scowled. "Where'd you get that one?" he asked.

Roy sighed. "He's my newest recruit, courtesy of the Brass."

"So he's my replacement?"

"Pretty much, yes."

Ed's expression darkened even more. "He's a sissy," he growled out. "You've got some work to do."

Roy couldn't suppress his snort. "I know."

They had passed through the entryway to the central chamber. The place was still a mess, the floor littered with piles of rocks and cement. Roy slogged his way through an inch of water, eyes on Ed's back as the alchemist made his way through the maze of rocks.

"So, you're a ghost?"

It was Arborthal who had finally spoken up, much to Roy's surprise.

Ed glanced over his shoulder. "Not really. Technically, I'm a disembodied soul, which I suppose could be considered a ghost," he replied.

"Then how can you change what you look like? You nearly scared me to death the first time!" he exclaimed, indignantly.

The blond snorted. "I had to make sure you did what I told you, so scaring you shitless was my best option," he smirked. "But I seem to be able to give my soul a shape because I'm an alchemist who's been through the Gate and I don't need to draw circles, which would be almost impossible for a ghost to do. So instead, I use my knowledge from the Gate to refract and bend light to create my form." Ed shrugged. "It's a theory. Part of it might have to do with the fact that I haven't been trapped in a Philosopher's Stone for several hundred years and lost all memory of my human body."

"Makes sense," Roy said, mulling over Ed's speculations.

And then they were there. Ed was hovering a couple of inches above a large pile of rocks. "The disc was buried under all this mess. I'm not really sure what exactly happened after the backlash, but it probably caused some damage around here."

Roy crossed his arms across his chest. "You always knew how to make a mess," he muttered, eyeing the heap of debris.

Ed scowled and crossed his arms. "It's not all my fault!" he shot back.

Roy held up his hands in defeat. "Alright, Fullmetal. Don't get your panties in a twist," he replied, ignoring Ed's eyeroll. "Arborthal, help me move these rocks."

As much as alchemy would have helped, Roy didn't want to risk doing something to the circle and possibly making the situation worse. So he and Arborthal began to tear down the pile of rocks one by one, with Ed watching closely. It was hard work, and Roy was pretty sure he'd pulled a muscle by the time the two of them rolled the last boulder away.

"…That's it?" Arborthal asked, blinking down at the small metal disc.

Roy nodded and slowly picked it up. It wasn't cracked and the circle was intact, but the surface was grimy and covered with mud. He carefully wiped the surface, eyes tracing the design. "So, what do we do this?" he asked Ed, who had come closer when the circle had been found.

Ed's expression hardened. "I want you to destroy it."

Roy glanced up from his examination. "Destroy it? But all we're after is Father, right? How do I just get him?"

"Are you really that dumb or are you trying to ignore the obvious, Mustang?" Ed snarled.

Roy jerked back in surprise; he hadn't seen Ed this livid in quite a long time. "What are you talking about?"

Edward's eyes narrowed to slits. "You can't pull just Father out of that thing," he said. Roy continued to stare, so Ed continued. "To get rid of Father, you have to destroy the entire circle."

Something clicked in Roy's brain. "Wait, but if I destroy this, then-"

"Yes," Ed cut him off and stalked forward until the two of them were face-to-face. "You'll destroy every single soul inside."

And this is where the angst starts. Hooray!