Maes stepped into Roy's apartment as quietly as he could manage, trying to keep the paper sack he was carrying from rustling too much as he gently shut the door behind him and crossed the living room to the kitchen. Halfway there, he did a double-take and looked back at the couch to see his best friend sleeping soundly on the cushions. Maes set his burden on the kitchen table and then moved back into the living room to peer down on Roy's slumbering form.

He was lying on his side, pressing himself close against the couch's backrest as if he wished the soft fabric could just swallow him whole. His face was almost entirely obscured by pillows, but Maes could see his brow knit as he shifted to burrow himself against the couch even more. He made a soft, distressed sound in his sleep, clutching his blanket to his chest like a child caught in a bad dream, desperately trying to find solace in anything he could hold on to.

Maes bit his lip and reached forward to grip Roy's shoulder, shaking him awake.

Roy twisted and sat up quickly as if shocked, casting his bleary eyes around until they landed on Maes. He stared at him for a moment in confusion, then let out a great, relieved breath and flopped back onto the couch.

"Fuck, Maes. You scared the hell out of me," he grouched, rubbing his face with his hands.

Maes smirked. "I think you were having a nightmare, you can't blame me for that. All I did was wake you up."

Roy grunted and flung an arm over his eyes. It was nearly eight o'clock and the dull sunlight, while still cold and grey from the overcast sky, shone in from the window brightly enough to bother his tired eyes.

"Why are you out here on the couch?" he asked curiously with a wry smile, "Did Ed kick you out because he couldn't stand your snoring anymore?"

Roy lowered his arm enough to give Maes a dirty look, but it was plain to see that his heart wasn't in it.

"I don't want to share a bed with him anymore," he said after a beat, closing his eyes again, "I should have been sleeping out here from the start."

"Why? He likes sleeping with you. It comforts him, you said it yourself."

"It doesn't matter," he mumbled, rolling over to bury himself against the couch again.

"...It does matter, Roy." Maes looked at him for a moment, then ventured, "Look, I know you're mad about the block or whatever, but don't take it out on him..."

"I'm not!" Roy snapped, sitting up and facing him again.

"You're ignoring him! You were doing it last night, too; don't think I didn't notice. You're upset that you might not be able to fix him, and I understand that, but he needs you to be there for him, especially now!"

"I just... I don't want to get too close to him..." Roy said for the second time since Ed had been brought to live with him, his tone flat and hard.

"It doesn't matter what you want!" Maes bellowed at him, suddenly incensed. Roy blinked in groggy surprise, taken off-guard by the outburst. "Do you think I want this? Don't you think this is hard for me, too? Yeah, I know it would be easier to distance yourself from him and pretend that everything is fine, and sometimes I envy your ability to just shove everything aside and say that it doesn't matter, but you can't do that to him!"

Roy stood, his face contorted with anger. "Where the hell do you get off—"

"He LOVES you, Roy! No matter how painful it might be for you to realize that, you can't just turn your back on him. Don't you dare turn your back on him now, as if he's already dead."

"Then what do you propose I do?" Roy shot back, his face inches from Maes', "I'm listening, Maes. I'm all ears. Just tell me what to do. Tell me how I can fix this. Tell me how I can make everything better. Tell me how I'm supposed to look at him, knowing that I've failed! It doesn't matter what I do now, nothing matters!"

"It matters to him!"

"He's a dog! He doesn't understand half of what I say to him anyway, so what's the point of saying anything to him at all?"

It was all Maes could do to keep from hitting him. Roy couldn't possibly believe that. He was just afraid and sad and hopeless and looking for any excuse to not have to confront those emotions. He really was willing to turn his back on the poor boy just because he couldn't handle those terrible feelings. He didn't want to deal with it and so he simply just didn't.

Maes opened his mouth angrily to form a biting reply, but a figure in the corner of his eye stopped him. Roy and Maes both turned to see Edward creeping out from the dimness of the hallway, his eyes wide. Maes felt Roy stiffen beside him as his own heart shuddered in his chest. How much had he heard?

"...Stop fighting..." Edward requested tremulously, turning his gaze from one to the other, "It's bad."

Maes turned to look at Roy and the man seemed to wilt a little, looking both relieved and sad. It seemed Ed hadn't heard anything at all and had just been awoken by the yelling.

"We're not fighting," Maes told him, lying through his teeth, "we were just having a discussion. It's okay."

Ed looked at Roy uncertainly and he nodded silently in agreement with Maes' words, swallowing hard and averting his gaze. His anger and hurt had fled once more, hiding somewhere within him where he wouldn't have to acknowledge it. He turned and, without saying anything at all to Edward, retreated to the kitchen and stood at the sink to get himself a glass of water, his back to both of them.

Maes clenched his jaw and looked down at Ed. The boy was watching Roy's back, but made no move to follow him. "Need to go outside," he told Maes softly, not moving his gaze from Roy.

Maes went to the back door unquestioningly and opened it. Ed followed after a moment, but then paused on the threshold.

"Colonel is mad at Ed?" he asked quietly so that Roy wouldn't hear. His voice was so completely miserable that it jerked sharply at Maes' heart. How could he not think that Roy was mad at him, given the man's sudden shift in behavior toward him?

"No, sweetheart... he's not mad at you. He's just upset. Really."

Edward nodded, looking as if he didn't really believe him, and limped out the door, heading toward the oak tree. Several young-looking squirrels were scampering around the roots and Ed turned to look at them with interest.

Maes watched him for a tiny, thoughtful beat, then turned his attentions back to Roy. The man was still standing at the sink, head bent as if in deep contemplation. Maes sighed and stepped into the kitchen, his shoes echoing desolately on the cold tiled floor. He stopped in front of the table and rummaged through the paper bag he'd brought in until he found what he was looking for.

"Here," he said, setting it down loudly on the counter next to Roy, "I bought you more coffee."

Roy looked over at it passively, then turned away again as Maes continued rummaging through the grocery bag.

"Thanks," he said finally, but his tone was certainly less than grateful.

"I thought maybe if you got your caffeine fix, you'd start being less of an asshole," Maes snapped at him.

"What do you want from me, Maes!?" Roy exploded, whipping around to face him.

"I want you to stop acting like you don't care what happens to him! I want you to stop hiding and comfort him, for fuck's sake! He thinks you're mad at him!"

"No he doesn't."

"Yes he does, he just told me!"

Roy stopped, looking abruptly stricken. "I'm not mad at him..."

"...I know, Roy," Maes conceded tiredly, his shoulders slumping, "I know you aren't mad and I told him that... But it's not hard to see why he would think such a thing. You can't just withdraw from him like this. He needs you. Even if it turns out..." he paused to clear his throat, "Even if it turns out that you do have to euthanize him... that's no excuse for you to be acting like this."

Roy closed his eyes and turned back to the sink, his hands resting on either side of the metal basin, and said nothing.

"I know it's hard, but you'll regret it for the rest of your life if you don't spend time with him now," Maes rasped, his heart aching. "Just try to make him happy until Al gets here and we figure all this out. That's all I want you to do."

Roy bowed his head a little further, but remained silent. Maes exhaled harshly and started pulling things out of the grocery bag and setting them on the kitchen table with a little more force than was necessary. The sounds of his frustrated movements were impossibly loud in the small, otherwise-silent kitchen but Maes didn't care. He felt like screaming at the top of his lungs. He'd tried to be stern and he'd tried to be nice, but Roy was stubborn as a mule... especially when he was upset. There was probably nothing that Maes could say to him to make him try and re-adopt his newly budding relationship with Ed.

Finally, after what seemed an eternity, Roy looked over his shoulder to watch Maes. He just stood there, looking at him with an implacable expression until curiosity compelled him to ask:

"What the hell are you doing?"

"I'm making some goddamned pancakes, is that okay with you?!" Maes shouted, his anger still not entirely spent, "Ed can't subsist entirely off of that broth crap you give him and you need something more than toast! So just shut up and get me a mixing bowl!"

Roy looked startled for a moment, but Maes ignored him, focusing on getting the bag of flour open without making the white powder fly everywhere. His hands were shaking and he was still so full of heated emotions that half of him just wanted to tear the bag apart and throw the ragged, powdery product in Roy's face. After a few moments, though, Roy appeared at his side with a metal mixing bowl and Maes felt a tiny fraction of his anger dissipate. He sighed and took the bowl from him without looking up.

"Where's Ed?" Roy asked after a very pregnant pause.

"Out in the yard. Probably watching the squirrels."

"Ah."

An awkward, shamed kind of tension formed between both parties. Maes knew that he was being too harsh and Roy knew that Maes was entirely right, but neither wanted to apologize first, so the uncomfortable feeling between them just continued to mount.

The phone chose that opportune moment to give a shrill ring and the sound reverberated in the cold quiet of the house.

"It's probably Al," Roy said, his voice barely loud enough to be called a whisper. Maes nodded and Roy exited to go answer it.

Maes closed his eyes tightly for a moment, then straightened and continued with his task.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"What do you mean, 'his leg came off'?" Al gasped into the phone incredulously, the high, shocked tone of his voice drawing the gazes of a passing woman and her young daughter. Al was huddled just outside of a train-station's telephone booth that he was too big to fit into very well, waiting for the nine o' clock northbound train to arrive.

"I mean just what I said," the colonel answered sharply, "His body rejected the front leg and it finally came off yesterday morning right after you called."

"What about the other leg?"

"Well, that one's still there. It doesn't look long for this world, though. He's lost some feeling and I think that--"

Al listened to the colonel describe the physical wellness of his brother's limb, but was distracted by something in his voice. It wasn't something wrong, per se, just a little odd. He sounded on edge. Clipped. Alphonse got the feeling that he really didn't want to be on the phone. He sounded like he had better things to do than tell a tin can about the wellbeing of his dog-brother. He sounded tired and irritated... but, then again, he always sounded tired lately and often sounded irritated... Still, Al was an intuitive boy and something just didn't seem right.

"Is something wrong?" he asked suddenly, interrupting Mustang.

The colonel stopped talking. There was a pause on the other end of the line and Al knew a moment of fear. Mustang was a man who rarely hesitated to say something. The one and only time that Al had ever heard him pause so awkwardly before speaking was a few days ago when he'd told Al of Ed's transformation. The fact that he was hesitating again could only mean that something was wrong.

Mustang sighed after a moment. "I hit a block with Edward yesterday," he said finally.

"...And you can't get past it?" Al asked after a beat, absorbing what this might possibly mean.

"I tried again this morning. Still nothing. I don't know what to do."

Al pulled the phone away from his helmet a little, balking from the uncharacteristic uncertainty in the man's voice. That's what Al had been hearing in his voice, uncertainty and frustration. Possibly even fear.

"Tucker didn't happen to mention anything to you and Ed about blocks in life alchemy while you were living with him, did he?"

"Not that I recall..." Al said slowly, still startled by the half-concealed hopelessness that he was hearing through the phone lines. Alchemic blocks were frustrating, but they could almost always be bypassed eventually. Al just did not understand why he sounded so upset. Then again, he probably wasn't as well versed in life alchemy as Al and Edward were... maybe he just didn't know how to get past them and was starting to panic. "But blocks aren't all that uncommon, Colonel... I'm sure we can get past it. Don't worry. I think that you and I together could do it, no sweat."

Mustang fell silent again as if thinking deeply. "...You're right," he said finally, all trace of doubt—all trace of any emotion, really—gone from his voice. "Forgive me."

A deep, almost painful chill ran through Al then. He should have felt glad that he'd apparently strengthened Mustang's faith, but he didn't. Instead, a dark sense of foreboding flooded him. It was just something about the way he'd said it... "forgive me". Not that it sounded like he didn't mean it... it sounded like he meant it too much.

"We all have doubts sometimes, don't worry about it..." Al said timidly, not exactly sure why he felt so suddenly timid. He cleared his throat needlessly, one of the many habits of having a real body that he'd never really broken. "So, Lieutenant Colonel Hughes said that Ed seemed better yesterday..." he began, trying to turn the subject a little.

"Other than his leg falling off... yes, he's doing well," the man replied stonily, "Since the transmutations over the past two days haven't really worked, his pain isn't as bad. I've been sitting here watching him harass the squirrels in the backyard since you called."

"That's good." Al knew that Ed had been spending most of his days sleeping both because of physical exhaustion and the fact that his medicines made him sleepy. It was heartening to hear that he was up and about more today. "How does he look?"

"Honestly? He looks like a werewolf with mange."

"I see."

"...He does look much more like himself now, though," he added after a brief pause, as if in apology for his harsh description.

"Well, he'll start to look better once we work past the block."

"...Right."

Again that strange feeling enveloped Al, that cold feeling that something just wasn't right. He ignored it. "So... uh... any other news?"

"No, not really," Mustang sighed, "I just—"

His words cut off and for a moment Al thought they'd been disconnected. Before he could say anything, though, Mustang spoke again.

"...The hell is that kid doing...?" he mumbled curiously, most likely distracted by something Ed was doing. There was another stretch of silence, followed by a gasp and a loud curse. "Oh god, you'll have to call me back. I think he's trying to eat a squirrel."

And with that, the phone line went dead. Al looked at the phone blankly, then hung it up, wondering what Mustang was keeping from him.

He sighed. Maybe he was just being paranoid. Thankfully, in two days he'd be back in Central and then he'd feel better. He was sure that it was going to be hard to see Edward as he was now and was more than a little nervous about seeing how bad off he actually was... but he and the colonel could fix him. They had to.

There was no other option.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Maes froze where he stood with mixing bowl in hand, mid-whisk, as he stared out the door to the backyard that Roy had just so speedily run through.

There were many things that Maes had never expected to see in his life:

Colonel Roy Mustang, barefoot, wearing only pajama bottoms and a t-shirt, streaking across his backyard at full speed, screaming "Don't eat it, don't eat it, don't eat it!" at a dog-boy with a bloodied squirrel in his mouth was definitely one of those things.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"Drop it, Ed!" Roy commanded, coming to a halt in front of him.

Edward gave some sort of cheerful reply, but whatever it was, it was too warped by the rodent in his mouth to be understood.

"Come on, hand it over," Roy tried again authoritatively and Ed obediently dropped it into his awaiting hand. Roy looked down at the torn creature, quelling a brief wave of revulsion. Oh god, it was still alive...

"It's for Colonel!" Ed said brightly, uncaring of the blood dripping from his short muzzle as he sat back on his haunches. "Skuh-werl not loud now. See?"

"I see," he said, forcing himself to give the boy a tight smile, "Um... thank you...?"

Ed beamed at the half-hearted thanks, looking oddly relieved. "Colonel not mad now, yes?" he asked hopefully, butting his nose against Roy's hand.

Roy clenched his jaw. What Maes had said was true, then. Ed thought that Roy was mad at him... and perhaps this was his way of trying to make amends. The human part of Ed understood that Roy hated the squirrels for waking him up all the time and the dog part of him was more than happy to bring his master a trophy... these factors must have combined in Ed's twisted mind and his skewed logic decided that presenting Roy with a dead squirrel would be the best way to get back in his good graces.

It made perfect sense in a depressing, sickening way.

"I'm not mad," he said quietly, "...Not at you, at least."

Ed's remaining length of tail thumped the ground happily, "Caught it! Caught it for Colonel. Skuh-werl very fast."

"I can imagine..." he mumbled, looking back down at the twitching, gasping squirrel in his hand and wondering how the hell a sick, three-legged chimera had managed to catch it in the first place. The squirrel looked young, so perhaps it had been cocky and had gotten too close. The stupid little thing.

"Colonel is proud of Ed?"

Roy looked up again at the question, his heart feeling suddenly confined. He started to reply, but then had to stop, his throat too tight to form words. God, what a question... Why did he have to ask that? Why did he have to be so forgiving and sweet? Why couldn't he just be the way he was supposed to be, a little punk with no respect for authority? But no, that Edward was dead... and this Edward would soon join him in the grave. Alphonse had his hopes, but Roy knew in his heart that there would be no recovering from this—Tucker's notes had more-or-less stated that. He was too badly damaged, both in body and mind... and Roy just could not let him stay this way, no matter what Al said, no matter what Maes said.

This had to end... and, oh, how it hurt. It hurt so much. It was unbearable and yet, he had to bear it. Maes had been right about that, at least. He couldn't just distance himself from Ed because it would make it easier when he eventually had to end his life. It wasn't fair to Ed and he had already suffered enough. None of this was his fault and it was wrong for Roy to treat him as if it was.

He closed his eyes tightly for a moment, pained, then cleared his throat and, very sincerely, said, "...Colonel is always very proud of Ed."

Ed grinned broadly and Roy tried to smile back, but couldn't quite summon the willpower. Ed didn't really seem to notice, though, and got to his feet again unsteadily. He turned and headed back toward the oak tree, most likely with the intent of catching another squirrel for his Colonel. Roy wasn't too worried, though; the things would probably recognize Ed as a danger now and know better than to get too close.

So Roy just let him go and went back into the house. He looked up and saw Maes standing in the doorway, watching him with an expression of deepest sympathy. He'd probably been watching the whole time. He didn't say anything, just stepped aside as Roy came in and seated himself carefully on the couch, the tiny squirrel still cradled in his hand.

It didn't have much longer to live. Roy was a little surprised that it was still alive at all, as much blood as it had lost. It just continued to pant out its last few breaths, the puncture wounds that Ed's teeth had made in its fragile chest bubbling with blood. Its black eyes were half-lidded and dim, knowing nothing but darkness and mortal pain.

"...You have to understand, Maes," Roy rasped to his friend, still looking down at the dying creature in his hands, but thinking about another dying creature entirely, "That I'm not trying to be like this... but sometimes bad things happen..."

He stopped, vision blurring. He reached down with his other hand to press his thumb and index finger against the sides of the squirrel's neck. He gave it a sharp little twist and felt the tiniest, nearly intangible crack as its neck snapped. The thing fell still and quiet, it's suffering ended, it's life snuffed. "Sometimes evil triumphs over good. Sometimes I just can't win and I'm sorry... but that's the way it has to be."

Maes sighed gently and moved to sit next to him.

"I do understand that, Roy," he whispered, pulling a handkerchief from his pocket and carefully taking the dead animal from his friend. "I'm not an idiot, nor am I naïve. I've seen death, I know the ways of the world, and I know how terrible it is to go in to something with the knowledge that you are probably going to fail... but that doesn't mean that you can stop trying..."

He wrapped the squirrel in the handkerchief and set it on the coffee table reverently, placing its still-bleeding body down on the wooden surface with great care.

"You can't give up yet, Roy. That's all I'm saying. I'm not giving up, Al isn't giving up, and Ed certainly isn't giving up... You said yourself that there was still a chance that this could work, that maybe Al could help you... Just, please, don't lose hope just yet. We still have time."

Roy worked his jaw hard, fighting back a mélange of emotions that he frantically did not want to recognize. But, finally, he nodded. Maes was right. Maes was always right... one of the reasons Roy liked keeping him around. He was one of the few people who wasn't afraid to knock some sense into Roy when he seemed beyond reason... and Roy loved him for that. And, while he didn't really have much hope left within him, he understood that he still had to push forward, even if just for that slight, one-in-a hundred chance that Ed could still be saved. He owed the kid that much.

The colonel wiped his eyes quickly on the back of his arm and stood.

"...I need to wash the blood off my hands," he stated, his voice breaking slightly.

He retreated to the bathroom and closed the door firmly behind him. He turned on the sink and plunged his hands under the cold spray numbly, watching the bloody water slide from his skin and spiral down the drain.