Disclaimer in previous chapters. Please see Author's Notes at the end.

- x -

"On Friday morning at 3:17 am, an experimental device detonated within the People's Research Facility in Central, mere hours before Parliament was to vote on its use in the ongoing conflicts in northern Amestris."

"That's a very impressive sentence," Vato noted from the other side of a steaming mug of coffee.

"Isn't it though." Breda shook his head as he scanned the rest of the headline article. It was a collection of very impressive sentences, all told. Considering he was standing in Mustang's offices in Central, less than three miles from the detonation site, and everyone knew the bomb was supposed to have obliterated the entire city with several towns to spare.

"Was anyone injured?" First Lieutenant Ross looked significantly more alert than Falman, but then again, she'd been the one making the second pot of coffee when he'd stumbled in around three-thirty, which meant she'd probably consumed the first one almost entirely herself.

Injuries . . . he scanned the newspaper until he came to the fifth paragraph. "The detonation injured three technicians and two doctors. They are undergoing treatment in the local military hospital, and are expected to make full recoveries."

"That was unfortunate," Denny noted quietly from his desk, spreading jam on a piece of toast. "Someone could have been seriously injured."

"Well, someone had to witness that the bomb went off by itself," Breda pointed out. "Otherwise there'd be merit to sabotage claims, and the whole thing would just get messier."

"And did they?"

The article went on to quote several top-ranking Parliament representatives and General Hakuro himself, but ultimately it really had no other useful information. "Doesn't say. Hakuro is launching a full investigation, but we'd have heard something by now if it had gone south."

"If what had gone south?"

None of the officers snapped to attention, but it didn't seem to bother the colonel. She located the pot of coffee and a mug, helped herself, and dropped into a chair at the conference table besides Falman. For a moment, the only sound was Sheska, diligently working behind her typewriter.

"The investigation into the detonation in Research," Brosh finally replied airily. "But I'm sure after all that playing around with it they did, it was only a matter of time before it went off. Bad job all around."

Hawkeye just blew on the surface of her coffee, trying to cool the hot liquid and ignoring the implied question in Denny's comment. "I'm certain that is what his investigation will reveal," she agreed distractedly.

"In fact," Maria said carefully from the opposite side of the table, "given the comments from Parliament, it looks as though they're finding the entire situation quite embarrassing."

"Of course. They can't pass a budget resolution in less than a month, but offer them a doomsday weapon and they can convene and pass legislation in three days?" Vato made a derisive noise. "Then their magical weapon goes off in the middle of the night and doesn't destroy a single building? I wouldn't be surprised if they barred further research into that kind of technology altogether."

"It really was a shame General Hakuro's technician involved the Parliament," Kain offered, coming in from the small kitchenette area with more toast. "If it had remained a purely military investigation, the press never would have gotten a hold of it."

He offered the plate to Maria, who accepted a slice, and began to pass the platter around.

"When Amestris' neighbors read this . . ." Heymans Breda shook out the paper and laid it on the table, taking a piece of toast from the pile. "I wouldn't want to be the General this morning."

From down the entrance hall, the door chime rang out.

Sheska unwound herself from behind the typewriter, hurrying over to the main door. Her squeak gave everyone else in the main room just enough time to set down their coffee and breakfast before none other than General Hakuro himself stalked into the offices.

Unlike when the colonel had trudged in, everyone – including Hawkeye – leapt to their feet with crisp salutes.

"Good morning, General, sir!" she barked, the hints of a pleasant smile on her face.

He surveyed the room even as his two lieutenants marched in from the hallway. "Where is he?"

"To whom are you referring, sir!"

Hakuro looked rough. His salt and pepper hair looked as lackluster as his skin tone, and the haggard wrinkles around his mouth and eyes told of a long night. None of the officers could drum up a single thought of sympathy, however, considering they too had been dragged from warm beds far too early in the morning with the news that the bomb had gone off.

However, once the damage reports came in, there hadn't been much for them to do. One laboratory was wrecked, but the structure was completely stable. Windows had been broken, lab benches scattered and destroyed, but outside of that, the bomb had proven to be significantly weaker than even a regular armor mortar.

The general, on the other hand, had probably been scrambling all over Central in a mad – and hopeless – attempt to redeem himself.

His men had involved Parliament. He had pushed for the bomb test. He had promised that his physicists could replicate the bomb.

Who wanted to replicate something that had proven to be so ineffective? And apparently the material it had been created with, uranium, was extremely toxic and very dangerous to mine and refine. The costs of manufacturing these types of bombs seemed to far outweigh their value.

Yes, it seemed like all the General's promises had gone up in smoke, literally. It really was a pity, with the Prime Minister elections coming up, that he had embarrassed the Parliament so completely.

"Don't get smart with me, colonel," Hakuro growled, coming to stand within inches of the still-saluting Hawkeye. "You know exactly –"

"What's all the noise?"

No one had heard his door open, but all eyes turned to see the Major General standing in his doorframe. His uniform was straight but slightly wrinkled, and there were dark circles beneath his eyes. He didn't exactly snap to attention; Breda wasn't sure if that was to show disrespect to the General or because he was currently too stiff to do so. He still pulled himself to attention and saluted, but the motion lacked much energy.

Hakuro didn't appear to interpret it as a slight, and he turned dismissively from the colonel to the major general, waiting until they were nearly nose to nose before he spoke again.

"You're behind this somehow, Mustang. I'm sure of it."

The major general didn't even smirk. His expression was almost like it had been four years ago, when they'd visited him at the northern outpost. Weary.

Breda knew he'd been holed up in his office since they'd all gotten in, but he wasn't sure Mustang could really account for all his time last night. Unless someone had been in the office to see him –

Then again, he really wasn't completely, entirely sure that Mustang was responsible for this. For one, if he'd somehow rigged the bomb, he was pretty sure the colonel would have shot him by now for taking the risk. Even if it had been successful.

Besides, how would you rig something like that? Was the bomb simply a dud? Wouldn't there be evidence that it had been tampered with, even if he was an alchemist?

"Nothing to say?" Hakuro demanded, after a long silence.

Mustang just lowered his hand. He remained in parade rest, dealing with the general as he always did – by the book. "I don't know to what you're referring, General," he answered, because in this case he had to say something. His tone wasn't particularly animated.

"You know damn well what I'm referring to." Hakuro's self-control was visibly frayed. "And I'll prove it."

Roy's eyebrows quirked slightly, but otherwise he had no outward reaction. "If the general is referring to the unfortunate incident in Research, I would suggest he inspect the visitor's log in the hospital, the base access log, and interviews my staff. I believe the general would find all my time accounted for, sir."

Oh, of course. When he left Al's room last night the guard would have made note, and when he entered this area of the base to head back to his office, the guard station would have recorded his vehicle's passing. So long as the span of time between was reasonable, they'd call it travel time. And with the offices being almost three miles away, it would have taken him at least twenty minutes to get there and back, and it left little time for sabotaging something secure enough that so many people were working on it at three in the morning.

Then again, the major figured he shouldn't be surprised. Mustang had always come up with excellent plans, he was just getting a little better at sticking to them.

Of course, if his time really was all accounted for, that begged the question of what had really happened . . . was the bomb really a dud?

"That's a lot of overtime to work," the general murmured thoughtfully. "I wonder, might I see what you were working on all night, Major General?"

Mustang bowed at the waist, and disappeared into his office. Hakuro did not follow him, but Roy reappeared fairly quickly with a sizable vanilla folder filled with papers and reports.

"Alphonse Elric briefly regained consciousness last night, sir, and was able to give the lieutenant colonel and me some information on enemy movements over the past four years." He offered the gathered paperwork, and with a sharp nod from the general one of his lieutenants accepted it.

"Is that so."

Mustang bowed again, again at the waist. He was laying it on thick. "It was Elric's belief that he had permanently sealed the enemy's gate to our country, but he was not able to give me the exact details before he lost consciousness again. I spent the evening drawing up probabilities and analyzing the technique he described using to determine if it was sufficient. My findings are summarized at the end of the report, sir."

The lieutenant flipped open the folder, showing the top documents to the general, and Breda caught sight of something that looked very much like a transmutation circle before the general returned his glare to the major general.

"If they closed the Gate to this world, then did Alphonse Elric have an explanation as to how he and his brother managed to return here?"

Hawkeye's expression darkened slightly, and after a moment, Heymans caught on. If he couldn't get Mustang, he'd go after the Elrics?

"The Law of Equivalent Exchange," Mustang replied. "The last of the invading forces died in custody a few weeks ago. Since we no longer had that side's forces, ours were returned as well. Alphonse Elric had transmuted a piece of his soul into one of the armors in my hallway when he and Edward speared the commanding airship four years ago, so his soul was drawn back to a place it had previously occupied."

Hakuro had spent the better part of the last four years slowly weeding subordinate alchemists out of his command, blaming them for his failure to defeat . . . well, Havoc, during the Northern Rebellion. So the General would now be hard-pressed to call whatever Roy had scribbled on those pages bunk. At least not in the very near future.

And even to Breda's admittedly ignorant ears, that sounded like a great big pile of bunk. He'd buy that Al had transmuted that particular suit of armor and that was why he'd suddenly appeared in it, but that there was some natural law that had just sucked him right back here . . . and the time discrepancy . . . and the fact that Ed had come along . . .

Mustang must have been tired indeed.

Or maybe he really was teasing the general.

Hakuro seemed to sense that the line of crap he'd just been fed was exactly that – crap. "I'll have your findings analyzed. Are you certain you don't want to look them over one more time before submitting this report?"

Mustang remained motionless. "No, sir. You will find everything in order."

"You and I both know the Elrics were directly responsible for the damages and casualties suffered during the Thule invasion," the general growled. "If they were so careless as to invite the enemy to attack us again from within Central herself, I will have them charged with treason and executed."

Roy bowed again.

Breda was about to open his mouth when Riza moved very suddenly, directly in front of him.

This was going too far. He'd seen Roy fight the general fair and square, but now it just seemed like he was letting himself be bullied, and that was going to make Hakuro think he was guilty –

So he was doing that on purpose.

If he'd really done something, why would he be acting like he had?

There was a quick answer; he wouldn't. So Mustang was covering for someone else. He knew damn well what had happened, and he was willing to take the heat for it.

. . . because there was no way the General could prove that Mustang had done it. He'd spend all his resources going over every second that bomb could have been touched by Mustang, and ignoring the real culprit.

Hakuro seemed off-put by Mustang's quiet acceptance of his little speech. In reality, by the time the Elrics were charged and a trial had taken place, the Prime Minister would have been elected, and probably had say over the penalty. Assuming that was Mustang, the Elrics really had nothing to worry about.

"And speaking of the Elrics," he pressed, "I will be taking jurisdiction over their case."

At that the familiar spark reappeared in Roy's eye. "Of course, sir. Might I inquire why?"

"You may not," he snapped, pleased to have been able to refuse something. "You're dismissed. Remain in Central until further notice."

Mustang again saluted, and when he said nothing else, Hakuro eventually turned and stormed out of the offices. All the officers waited until the front door chimes rang out, followed by a slam so powerful one of the suits of armor clanked in protest.

As one, they slumped back to their seats. All but the colonel and the major general.

Riza was watching her commanding officer carefully, and as soon as he saw it the major didn't study it any further. Something was going on, and they were being left in the dark. He'd been there before, and it had usually turned out for the best, but now . . .

"Falman, Breda. Your duties herefore are being restricted to escorting the major general until the completion of the Parliament's elections."

Roy raised an eyebrow. Breda and Falman glanced at one another, then sat up straight in their chairs and saluted. "Aye, sir!"

Mustang didn't even argue it. He just leaned on his doorframe and jammed his hands into his pockets, watching them all. He stared at them for such a long time that Breda was beginning to think he'd fallen asleep with his eye open. When he spoke, his voice was thick and slow.

"Keep your heads down and your paperwork clean. Assume you will be put under surveillance beginning the moment you leave these offices today. Falman, Breda, consider the colonel's orders to be a request."

Heymans Breda glanced again at Vato, finding the solemn man had done the same. Roy didn't usually come right out and say those sorts of things. Hakuro was a lot of things, but he didn't seem dirty enough to start picking off officers. And it would be terribly obvious if he tried to reassign all of Mustang's subordinates so close to the elections.

"Duly noted," Vato rumbled for both of them.

Mustang just gave the room another once-over, and then turned on his heels and re-entered his office. The door closed with a soft click.

The officers glanced around at each other for a moment, and Riza came back to the table and stiffly took her seat.

"Are you going to tell us what happened?" Maria asked the other woman lightly.

Hawkeye picked her coffee mug back up and stared at the dark liquid as if it was doing something interesting. "The general suffered a very deep disappointment today," she replied. "It would be unfortunate at this juncture if any accidents were to happen. No one walks alone at night, even on base. I assume the committee will shortly raise the security level citywide, to combat any advantage our enemies believe they may have after the failed bomb test."

"What about Ed and Al?" Denny was toying with his cold slice of half-eaten toast. "Is it safe to leave them with Hakuro?"

The colonel took a sip of the liquid, then made a face. "I wish the rest of you liked tea," she muttered, and then paused. "As for the Elrics, I believe they'll be released later today."

The conference table was quiet a moment.

"Because . . ."

Sheska tapped a couple papers neatly on the conference room table, and looked inordinately pleased with herself. "Because the Amestris military has no legal right to hold them or charge them in an investigation."

Breda stared at her. "Because . . ."

She held up the papers she'd just arranged. "Because they've been legally dead for years," she replied.

Beside him, Denny began to laugh. "That's right. Ed was declared missing presumed dead immediately after the Lior incident, and Alphonse was tacked onto the missing presumed dead citizens' list after the Thule invasion."

Sheska folded the papers and tucked them into an envelope. So that's what she'd been typing up since four am. "First their identities need to be confirmed, followed by their birth confirmed – which, by the way, will be almost impossible, as their parents are dead and Ed's birth records were lost with all the other National Alchemists' when the First Library burned."

"So they're untouchable until at least after the elections."

Maria grinned broadly. "This is excellent news! Do they know?"

The colonel nodded, adding another packet of sugar to her coffee. "Havoc told them they were both dead earlier this morning, and also notified their physician."

Breda whistled. "The lieutenant colonel's been on duty for pretty much forty-eight hours straight."

Hawkeye stirred her coffee and tried it again. "He will be relieved shortly by Hakuro's men," she assured him. "The rest of you, be sure to work your full shifts, and do not get caught without something to do."

So much for the sugar sweetening her up.

- x -

"Try it now."

He obediently moved the arm, and she listened carefully to the metal. She was pretty sure no matter how they did this the elbow joint was going to pinch his skin, but there wasn't much she could do about it now. It was a design flaw, and they didn't really have time to correct it. She'd have to redesign the entire middle joint, and of course, there'd need to be more room for the suspension system –

Winry tucked her pony tail behind her and bent over the tablet, scribbling down some more notes. Her eyes ached, but she didn't dare close them for another second more than was necessary.

Frankly, she was surprised she'd even been given this much time, and unless he was really careful with it, he was going to break it within the first ten minutes of waving it around. God help them if he decided to use it like he had the old automail –

"It's great," he said tonelessly, letting the metal limb drop back to the mattress.

"Keep in mind the real thing's going to be a little thicker, and a little heavier," she said aloud for probably the fifth time. "You're going to need to work your left harder to keep yourself from looking like an idiot."

"Do you really think that'll help?"

Winry gripped the pencil harder. She wasn't sure what was worse; his silence or his attempt at jokes. She was just too . . . tired for this.

She was so tired.

"Give them a spin," and she waved vaguely at the room, keeping her head down and near the paper. She just needed to stay focused until she was sure the rigged armor wasn't going to fall off him during normal use, and then she could go back to Riza's, get some sleep, and head straight back to Resembool.

He clomped rather metallically around the room, but the sound was surprisingly . . . akin to real automail. Badly tuned, cheaply made, poorly designed automail, but automail all the same. She never would have thought they'd be able to get it so convincing-looking in four hours, but there was no doubt it wouldn't hold up to combat.

Hell, properly designed, full automail didn't stand up to combat with Ed. Then again, at least he'd be sparring another human being instead of a suit of armor.

Oh, crap. That was probably the first thing the brothers would try to do. They always did that. And Al with his body finally fixed –

"You can't spar Al in that," she said aloud, just in case it wasn't implied.

"I can't spar Al now anyway," he answered dully. "I'm still not allowed in his ward."

She decided not to remind him that the poor lieutenant colonel had visited them not two hours ago with the news that they'd both be released that day anyway, and once they went into 'private care' Al could magically recover.

"All right. Take it off and put it back on."

He rattled back over to the bed, sitting lightly on the mattress and fingering the metal that covered his right arm and left leg. She had to admit it was a good idea, fooling the rest of the world into thinking his limbs were still missing. Riza got lots of points for suggesting it. It just sucked that they'd gotten about an hour and a half of sleep between the two pots of tea they'd drank and getting that phone call at three-thirty in the freakin' morning.

She was not a morning person, necessarily, but she was accustomed to sleeping odd hours. And she was also keyed to the ringing of a telephone. Once she heard it, she was up, and there was nothing that could be done about it. So when she'd stumbled bleary-eyed into the hallway and found the colonel hurriedly pulling on her uniform jacket, she'd abandoned all hope of going back to sleep.

But again, if she wasn't dealing with an alchemist, she could never have fashioned hollow automail in four hours.

She hoped Rush Valley never got wind of what she'd done here. It would change automail manufacturing forever.

Ed was getting better at removing the pieces, and she glanced at her watch, timing him. Despite that fact that he moved like he was in a dream, he still got everything off and back on again in a little under thirty seconds.

And again, this was the beta design. When she perfected the mechanism, it would be easier to get in and out of, and significantly support his motions.

Winry Rockbell leaned back as far as she could on the backless stool and regarded Edward a moment. He was adjusting one of the inside straps, but as soon as he clipped down the adjustment door, it was impossible to tell that the arm was really nothing more than four millimeters of metal, perfectly shaped to match his real arm underneath.

Which was good, because they hadn't told Patterson that he'd recovered his limbs, and there was some chance the meddling doctor would check her work over.

This was not going to stop him from looking for inflammation at the imaginary ports, however. She hadn't figured that one out yet. Wasn't the doctor a friend of one of Mustang's subordinates . . .? Maybe he'd just play along.

"It'll probably take me a week to get the first real beta model built," she continued, when he just sat there silently, staring at the wall across from him. "Do you think you'll be coming to the shop, or do I need to bring it here?"

Ed took a breath, then looked at her squarely. "Why are you doing this, Winry?"

She blinked, completely taken aback. He was really looking at her, with those sad eyes, and he was asking her why she was helping him?

She picked up a wrench before she remembered that she couldn't beat on his automail – she'd dent it. "Because this is the only way I can keep my favorite cash cow," she snarled. "As ungrateful as you are about all the time I've spent on this, you can be sure that the new mechanism will cost as much as the full automail limbs. There's a lot of design and precision that's going to go into the strength amplification, and of course I'll have to train you how to use it –"

"Why are you here?"

She trailed off, unsure of how to respond. What was he really asking? Was he asking why she'd just sacrificed a week to no sleep, little food, possible mortal danger, and as much emotional turmoil as she could possibly stand for him? For the brother that never confided in her, never said goodbye, and left her so thoughtlessly behind, over and over again?

Because that was a really fucking stupid question. And no matter what he'd been through, he should have known better than to doubt that. Doubt her.

The door slammed open, making her jump, and Winry completely lost it. "WHY CAN'T YOU PEOPLE LEARN TO-"

But as she turned, looking at where the doctor's, or the soldier's, or the nurse's head should be, she found only an enormous chest. Her eyes trailed almost up to the ceiling before the muscular neck came into view, and the blonde curl on the top of his head brushed the doorframe as the tower of brigadier general powered into the room.

"EDWARD ELRIC!" the enormous Louis Armstrong cried joyfully, and before either one of them could do more than exchange a single look of dread, the Strong Arm Alchemist had enveloped Edward into a bear hug.

There was a very suspicious-sounding crack, and Winry wasn't quite sure whether it was the armor or Edward.

- x -

"He's an excellent physician. I'm sure you'll agree once you meet him," Patterson was prattling on, and it took every ounce of patience Al possessed not to just close his eyes and feign sleep.

Now that he could finally move, he couldn't. It was annoying beyond belief.

Alphonse Elric waited patiently, careful not to tense his muscles or otherwise show that he had any more motor function than he'd had the night before. The exams had been a little more difficult to withstand, now that he could feel when the doctor poked the sole of his foot with a needle, but he'd managed to clamp down on his reflexes pretty well.

If Edward could do it, so could he.

Al took a deep breath, wishing more than anything that he could just get up and walk down the hall. Havoc had come to visit him, and assured him that Winry and Hawkeye had hatched a plan to prevent Ed from being discovered, which was something. At least Winry was with him.

He just wasn't sure that was going to be enough.

What if they left Ed alone too long, and he spent too much time dwelling? Al knew it wasn't just the memory of the pain that was bothering his brother. It was the knowledge of the human experiments that had been going on under his nose.

Please, let them have been going on without his awareness. He didn't think Ed could hide that kind of thing from him, but in the last few months of their stay in Europe, he'd spent more time in the lab and less off the base –

If his brother had known about the experiments, and done nothing because it risked the bomb . . . no. Nii-san would never have made a decision like that.

If anything, he was kicking himself for not finding out about them sooner.

What if he became non-communicative again? What options were there that didn't include almost killing him?

Al resisted the urge to snort. He knew, intellectually, that Mustang had done what was best for Ed. And he'd done it unflinchingly. He was a good man, and he'd make a good Prime Minister. But he'd just been so damn matter-of-fact about it. It irritated him for some reason. At least he and Mustang had the same build – the major general's uniform had fit him almost as well as the long-distant Fritz Einheart's had.

Had that really been a week ago? A week ago he had been standing on another world, in a stolen uniform, attempting to destroy a bomb?

And in this world, he'd succeeded.

Al closed his eyes, not caring if it upset Patterson. He'd significantly weakened the protein cap on the battery that held the electrical charge necessary to start the fission reaction, but he hadn't meant for all those people to be in the lab when it went off. Memories of the dead miners flashed across his closed lids, forcing him to open them again. He'd rendered the uranium into several other materials, keeping the same mass, obviously, but he'd had to leave enough intact that it would be detected on the bomb remnants. It only needed to be decomposed a little bit.

Just like he'd only needed to be decomposed a little bit. An ounce, and suddenly the bomb was as worthless as his body had been.

But if those technicians got sick like the miners had –

It would be his fault.

He'd returned to the hospital and given back Mustang's uniform hours before the bomb had detonated. They'd pulled off the stripes, so it had just been a generic uniform on the off chance he had been stopped, but sneaking into the research facility had been even easier than the German one. As hesitant as he'd been to put Mustang in the position of taking the blame for this – or even being found in his hospital room wearing nothing but his boxers - it really had been a good plan.

He wasn't sure when he'd gotten so damn good at sneaking. Must have been nii-san's influence –

Al took a deep breath, blinking up as Patterson smiled and waved goodbye. He'd totally missed the man's last few sentences.

Oh well. He was certain whatever 'private doctor' had been chosen was someone loyal to Mustang, so at least it meant he could get up. Talk to Ed. Help him.

It would just take time. And since, technically, they were both dead, they were probably going to have a lot of it on their hands. Edward couldn't even check out books from the libraries – no identification card. No National Alchemist watch.

Al let his eyes wander over to the window, and he relaxed on the new, dry mattress, staring out at the blue morning sky.

His question to Mustang last night was still unanswered.

What now?

- x -

Author's Notes: Hahhaha! Look, a short chapter! To the point! Let's see . . . Hakuro is screwed, Ed is safe, Al is safe, the bomb is destroyed, the Parliament isn't going to fund any more in the near future . . . all that's really left is to wrap things up. I think I can do that! Next chapter, roses. Promise.

Thanks for sticking with this ridiculously long one-shot! I found . . . no typos on my read-through, which means I missed all of them. I'm sorry! Next chapter will cover some in-depth conversations explaining the Gate in more detail, some resolution between the brothers, the brothers and Winry, the brothers and Mustang, Mustang and the Parliament . . . all kinds of goodness! If you've got a question or a plothole you want wrapped up, this is your last chance to mention it!

. . . and against my better judgment, I'm also opening the floor up to pairings . . . just in case anyone requires one to have a truly happy ending . . .