"Do you want coffee? I need coffee," Roy said darkly, pulling himself up from amidst the massive sprawl of papers and books littering his table, his couch, and the floor space surrounding the two. Maes nodded, stifling an impressed grin as he looked down at the papery carnage that spanned nearly a three-foot radius around where Roy had been sitting on the floor. He chuckled as Roy moved past him and he set his burden of files from the lab on the arm of the couch where they wouldn't get lost in the chaos.

It was still fairly early in the morning. Maes had arrived back home from the lab sometime after midnight, taken a shower, and then collapsed into bed for a few hours, snuggling with his wife until the sun prodded him awake again by peeking in at him through his open bedroom window. Not that he really minded; he had wanted to bring the files over to Roy's house early this morning anyway, though this was quite a bit earlier than he'd intended. To Maes' surprise, though, Roy was already awake when he arrived...

Well, more specifically, he hadn't gone to bed at all yet.

The two men moved into the kitchen and Roy went about making coffee, massaging the side of his stiff neck with one hand. Maes sat at the table and watched him, frowning gently at his friend.

"You really need to get some sleep, Roy. You look like hell."

A sigh. "I know, I know... It feels like I haven't slept in weeks. I haven't had more than two or three hours at a time since before Breda and I went down to the lab." He put the coffee grounds into the filter and switched on the machine with a huge yawn.

"...Has your research led anywhere yet?" Maes asked and Roy gave another quiet sigh, seating himself at the table across from him.

"No, not really... I've found a few things here and there regarding chimera-reversal, but it's all disjointed and I can't make much sense of it. I decided to go through all the loose notes and scraps first because that's certainly going to be the most frustrating part of all this and I want to read it all before I get too burnt out... but—shit, Maes—half the time I don't know what this bastard is talking about. It's all disorganized and a lot of it is way over my head."

He yawned again and looked blearily over at the clock on the wall above the kitchen sink. It read just after seven A.M. and he gave a low, unhappy laugh. "I've been at this for nearly twenty-four hours straight..." he mused sourly, "Time flies when you're having fun, I guess."

Maes gifted him with a lopsided smirk and Roy lowered his head down onto the table, his brow bumping the wooden surface with perhaps a little more force than he'd intended it to and he gave a soft "Ow," in complaint. Maes chuckled and reached over to tousle his black hair affectionately.

"Take a break for a few hours and go to bed, Roy," Maes encouraged, "Reading this stuff while exhausted isn't going to help you to understand it any better."

"...Yeah. I'll take a nap after Edward wakes up. After he eats something and takes his pills, maybe; the meds make him groggy, so he'll probably just want to go back to sleep anyway."

Maes nodded and then looked around, "Where is he, anyway?"

"In my bed," Roy said with a shrug, his head still down on the table and his eyes closed, "He prefers it to the couch. It took me forever to get him to sleep last night... he wanted me to go to bed, too but I was still working, so I had to lie in there with him for like an hour before he finally dropped off. He slept through the rest of the night, though. I don't think he's even moved an inch."

Maes laughed quietly. "Now you know what it's like to have kids. When Elysia was a baby, she was just the same way. Didn't want me out of her sight for a second, not even to sleep."

Roy turned his head to the side and looked at Maes blankly, his cheek pressed against the cool surface of the table. He looked as if he were mulling over what Maes had just said, his gaze distant and vaguely disturbed. But then he shook himself and straightened again, glancing over at the coffee pot to see if it was done yet. It wasn't.

"So how is he doing? Any change at all?" Maes asked quietly, leaning his chin on his hand.

"Well..." Roy began, rubbing at his neck again, "He doesn't really do much but sleep and eat. Mostly sleep. He still can't remember my name."

"Has he said anything?"

"Not a whole lot. He says 'Ed' quite frequently, mostly when he's just mumbling to himself. He thanks me when I help him up onto the couch or the bed... at least, I think that's what he's saying... and he's figured out that if he says 'outside', I'll let him out into the yard so that that he can... use the bathroom... but that's just about it. Sometimes he just repeats whatever I say. He's quiet most of the time, but he'll give me yes and no answers if I ask him questions. I've tried asking about the alchemy that was used on him, but he doesn't seem to understand..."

"I see," Maes said sadly. They fell silent for several beats, listening to the harsh gurgling of the coffee pot echo in the small kitchen.

Roy worked his jaw for a moment then said, "I'm going to need to find him some better painkillers. The ones he has hardly do anything for him. His shoulders and his hips seem to bother him the most; he has a bad limp and he cries out whenever he has to stand up." He closed his tired eyes and rubbed at them with the heels of his palms thoughtfully, "I have some connections at Central Hospital... maybe I can get him some kind of opiate..."

"...You want to give the kid narcotics?"

"Do you have a better idea?" Roy asked acidly, suddenly irritated, "It's not like I'm trying to get him high; I'll just give him enough to ease some of the pain, Maes. He needs it."

"...I know," Maes murmured, sagging a little, "Sorry. I know that I keep questioning you, but this whole situation... it's still a lot to absorb."

"Yeah..." Roy agreed darkly then looked over at the coffee pot again hopefully. It was done brewing. Roy stood and took two mugs down from the cabinet, saying, "I can probably get my hands on some morphine without too much trouble... and that I can dilute and give to him orally so that I can control the dosage better. I'm not too worried about him becoming dependant on it and as long as I keep the dosage low there shouldn't be many side-effects."

Maes nodded uncomfortably but didn't say anything. He just sat there and watched Roy pour the coffee. The man's hands were shaking almost imperceptibly. Maes frowned a little at that.

"Are you okay, Roy?" he asked after a long, calculating pause.

"Me?" he queried, pausing in the middle of putting sugar into Maes' coffee, then he shrugged, "Yeah. Yeah, I'm fine. My arm hurts where he bit me and I'm just really tired. Fullmetal makes it hard for me to sleep."

"Why? Does he wake you up a lot or something?"

"No... He just..." Roy trailed off, bringing the two cups of coffee back to the table and sitting down. He looked both thoughtful and a little awkward as he handed Maes his cup and continued, "He really creeps me out, I guess. I'm starting to get used to it, but it's still..." he trailed off again, searching for an adequate description, but then he shrugged and gave up, "well, I'm sure you know what I mean."

Maes did know. It was probably like the ominous feeling that he'd had in the lab, that gut-twisting sensation of dread and disgust. The lieutenant colonel didn't think he'd be able to sleep either if he were sharing a bed with something that gave off that feeling.

"Ed...?"

Maes jumped a little at the sudden voice behind him and looked around. Speak of the Devil; Edward was moving slowly out of the short hallway that led to Roy's bedroom. He stepped into the kitchen, his shoulders hunched and his tail tucked. He looked up at Maes warily as if not quite sure what to make of him, then plodded over to Roy and leaned against his leg like a shy child taking comfort from a parent.

"Good morning, Edward," Roy greeted, his voice casual and even as if speaking to a co-worker rather than to a tortured chimera-child.

"...Muh-huh-orning, Ed-ward..." the boy tried to repeat, still looking sidelong at Maes.

"Hello, Ed," Maes said to him quietly, doing his best to fake nonchalance as his heart constricted painfully. Ed didn't reply, but looked up at Roy uncertainly.

"It's okay," Roy assured him, "Say hi."

"...Hi," Ed mumbled to Maes timidly after a grudging pause.

"Good. Now, do you remember my name yet?" Roy asked him.

Ed heaved a sigh and didn't respond, choosing instead to bury his long face against Roy's leg apologetically. Roy reached down and put a hand on his golden head tenderly, a gesture that struck Maes as both out of character and painfully sweet.

"No, then?"

"...No..."

"That's okay. We'll try again later," Roy said, taking a sip of his coffee and gracefully concealing his disappointment. "...Are you hungry?"

"Yes."

"Alright," Roy said, getting to his feet and moving over to one of the cabinets, "but pills first."

"No."

Roy paused and looked down at him in surprise, "No?"

"No pills. No, no."

"...You have to take them, Edward. I don't care if you don't want to."

"No!"

Roy glanced over at Maes again, looking both irritated and pleased at the same time. "Even as a chimera, he's still arguing with me... he must be feeling a little better this morning. He's never done this before..." he said, a wry smile tugging the corner of his mouth but then he quickly sobered himself and turned back to Ed. "The pills will make you feel better, I promise. They helped a little yesterday, remember? Just take the medicine and then I'll give you something to eat, okay?"

Ed did not look pleased, but he nodded obediently and Roy went back to rummaging through the cabinet. The chimera turned to Maes again and the man plastered a friendly smile onto his face.

"He's mean, isn't he?" Maes asked in a low, playful voice, trying to endear himself to the boy and put him more at ease.

"...Mean...?" Ed mused, his tawny brow slightly furrowed in thought. Maes could tell that he recognized the word, but didn't remember what it meant... then Ed's yellow eyes brightened in understanding. "Yes, mean!" he hissed, turning indignantly to glower at Roy's back, "Mean! Pills, mean!"

Roy froze and looked down at Ed, then he turned to glare at Maes over his shoulder. "Oh thanks, Maes," he muttered sarcastically, pulling Ed's medication from the shelf, "That's a big help."

Maes laughed knowing that he wasn't really angry. He knew that Roy was trying to stifle it, but a genuine smile had still found itself tugging at the corners of his mouth.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Medicated and fed, Edward meandered out into the living room and lowered himself stiffly onto the floor beside the coffee table, resting his chin on a haphazard stack of documents. Maes and Roy followed him, coffee cups in hand and Roy picked up the files that Maes had placed on the arm of the couch, frowning.

"This is all you could find? Just these four files?" he asked, disappointed. He had been hoping for more... but he supposed that he would take what he could get at this point.

"Yeah. The place was pretty well cleaned out of paperwork and these were the only files that had anything to do with chimeras. I think we're lucky just to have these," Maes replied with a shrug, "At least Ed's file was still there..."

Roy nodded and opened Edward's file. This was encouraging, at least; if Roy could discover how exactly Edward had been transmuted, then it would certainly be much easier for him to figure out how to reverse it. Even just flipping through the file quickly, Roy could see that there was a lot of useful information here. It was heartening to see the theorems and transmutation circles drawn out on so clearly on the crisp white pages; this would certainly be easier to read than Tucker's scraps...

"So how much of this have you read so far?" Maes asked, carefully stepping around the scattered papers so that he could seat himself on a bare corner of the coffee table next to where Ed had settled himself on the floor. Ed looked up at him and then thumped his tail contentedly, knocking a few sheets of paper from a pile.

"I don't know... maybe a fourth of it. It's hard to say," Roy mumbled, closing Ed's file and setting it back on the couch with the others. "Like I said, I've only been reading the loose notes so far... I haven't even begun to delve into his books yet."

Roy looked over at the thick volumes of Tucker's alchemic theory and his shoulders slumped; he was dreading those. In Roy's most humble opinion, there are few things in the world duller than academic alchemy... even if it involved fire. Applying alchemy was great, but simply reading about it was absolute torture. Roy loved alchemy and he loved reading, but the combination of the two was both boring and frustrating. He preferred to do his research through experiment rather than books, but he did not have the time or the resources to get his own results at the moment. He wanted to get Ed back to normal as quickly as he could, so using the Sewing Life Alchemist's notes was a much more prudent course of action... but still, it was unpleasant.

Roy yawned and rolled his sore, stiff shoulders. Maes was right, he really should take a break for a while; he wasn't much help to Edward in his current state of exhaustion and irritation... but god, he had so much to do still, potentially days of work ahead of him.

Maes picked up one of the books and opened it curiously, flipping through the pages. Roy watched his aimless skimming wistfully, wishing that the man could help him with his research but knowing that he would be more of a distraction than an aid. Hm. Maybe Maes could at least help sort everything out to make the information easier to go through...

"Why don't you just go through the books first?" Maes asked, turning back to the front of the journal, "The information here might be more complete, right?"

"...True," Roy admitted, "But chances are that I'm going to have to read everything here anyway, so I might as well get through the worst of it first."

"But what if you just started flipping through the table of contents and saw a chapter called something like 'Changing Back Chimeras' or 'How to fix Ed'...?"

Roy smirked bitterly, "That'd be nice... but, unfortunately, life is never that easy."

Maes sighed but then nodded in agreement, returning his gaze to the book glumly as Roy took another pull at his coffee. But then suddenly his green eyes widened and a disbelieving smile stretched across his face, "Oh ho! I think that I'm about to prove you wrong, my friend..."

"...What?" Roy half-sputtered, inhaling some of his coffee.

Maes grinned again evilly and turned the book toward Roy stabbing his finger down at the page, "Chapter eighteen, read it and weep."

Roy snatched the book from him and looked at the header on the page, holding his breath. And there it was. Written on the top of the page in bold-faced type were the words:

"CHAPTER XVIII: Chimera Reversal"

The colonel's mouth went dry and his heart gave a startled little lurch. He read it again, thinking that perhaps his tired eyes had deceived him. But no, the words were really there, mocking him.

"...Maes, you son of a bitch..." he breathed, raising his gaze to his friend. Maes was absolutely preening, pretending to polish his fingernails on the front of his shirt and still grinning. "I don't know whether to kiss you or kill you..."

"What can I say? I'm blessed," Maes sniffed demurely.

"...No, I'm just an idiot," Roy half-laughed, half-seethed, "See? I knew there was a reason that I kept you around, Maes; you counterbalance my stupidity."

Maes gave an amused little wince. "You aren't an idiot... you're just over-tired. You're probably just not thinking right. Seriously, go to bed or something now that we've made some headway. I'll look after Ed."

"Are you joking? I can't sleep now, Maes," he said excitedly, starting to scan through the first page of the chapter, "Not after finding this. Not when I'm so close..."

Maes sighed, "Roy..."

But Roy ignored him and shoved aside some of the files covering the couch and seated himself. This was too important to be delayed by fatigue. He could not rest when the answer was in his hands. Edward's salvation depended on this and to stop now, even for a moment, was an unspeakably cruel thing to do to the boy. This would not be delayed any longer. Roy had made a promise to fix Ed and with this first lurching step, that promise was beginning to morph into reality.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Roy sat on the couch unmovingly, mumbling to himself every once in a while as he flipped back and forth between the files that Maes had taken from the lab and Tucker's academic journal. It was fascinating to watch him gather his information like this, but his intensity was also a little alarming. It was like he was in a trance, feverishly taking notes and sketching out rough transmutation circles on a scrap of paper. Maes' discovery had rejuvenated him, lending his bright onyx eyes a manic sort of animation as they traveled across the dense, information-laden pages. Maes could almost see how Roy's clever mind was making connections and positively sucking in everything that he was reading, absorbing it, owning it, tearing it apart and putting it back together again in every conceivable pattern until it told him exactly what he wanted to know.

"...Is this it, then?" Maes asked after an hour or two of bemusedly watching his friend work, "Is this really what we were looking for?"

"Shh. Maes, please," Roy mumbled without looking up. He would not be distracted.

Maes sighed and turned from his perch on the coffee table to look down at Ed. The kid had fallen asleep again not too long after Roy had begun reading, drugged and most likely unaware of Roy's desperate search for his cure. He was sprawled contentedly on the floor, one paw outstretched so that it touched Roy's bare foot. Roy either didn't notice or didn't care, too absorbed in his reading to register the child's vague affections. Ed was snoring very softly, his gentle exhalations accompanying the crisp rustling of papers in the otherwise-silent room.

Maybe Maes should just go home. He was tired... surely not as tired at Roy, but still more than willing to crawl back into bed with his wife before she got up. It was Saturday, after all... and it wasn't as if he was going to be missed here. Roy was so involved in his research that he probably wouldn't even notice if his house caught fire and Edward was dead-to-the-world asleep. Maes was about to tell Roy that he was going to go home and get out of his hair, but before he could do so Roy shot to his feet and moved distractedly over to the closed door on the far side of the room, his notes in hand.

"Where are you going...?" Maes asked, a little startled by his abrupt movement after hours of contemplative stillness.

Roy turned, his hand on the knob of the door. He looked at Maes while really looking past him, his thoughts a million miles away. "But I might need... maybe a pen..." he mumbled to himself distantly, then opened the door and began to descend down the dark flight of stairs to his basement.

Maes half-considered following him, but then decided against it. The basement was Roy's alchemy workroom and Maes had learned the hard way not to disturb the man when he was in the middle of a project. Maes shuddered at the memory; he'd thought his eyebrows were never going to grow back... If Roy needed his help, he'd ask for it. Otherwise it was a good idea to just stay out of the Flame Alchemist's way when he was working.

Instead Maes moved to the couch and took the seat that Roy had just vacated, leaning his head back against the soft cushion and closing his eyes. He might as well get a little shuteye until Roy came down from his alchemy high. His passion was encouraging, though... maybe he'd already figured something out and that's why he had gone down into his workroom, to implement some of the knowledge that he'd just gained. He certainly seemed both excited and entirely consumed by what he'd been reading. Perhaps Edward's salvation was only a few moments away... Perhaps Roy already knew how to change him back and free him from his animal prison...

Maes must have dropped off for a while, for the next thing he knew someone had smacked him in the arm to rouse him from his doze. He forced his eyes open and looked around blearily until his gaze landed on Roy, his lithe form silhouetted by the warm mid-afternoon sun that was streaming in through the window. In Maes' sleep-hazed eyes, he looked like a god, immortal and victorious, eager to show the world his power.

"I finished it," he said, his voice lilted by the huge smile stretched across his lips.

"...Wha?" Maes responded unfocusedly, pushing his glasses up so that he could rub his eyes. "Finished what?"

"I can change him back now, Maes. I know how," he said, his words quick and excited as he grabbed Maes and hauled him to his feet. "It's all ready, so come on."

Roy headed back toward the basement and Maes followed groggily, his mind still in the drowsy clutches of his nap. Ed was already awake and, at Roy's gentle coaxing, he plodded down the stairs after the colonel and Maes followed suit, doing his best not to stumble on the dark steps.