Okay I really do have to apologize for this chapter. It's really not all that AlMei-ish... and I really am sorry about that. This is an ALMEI story... but in my defense, this chapter puts something into motion that will be significant later in the story. And plus you can't really write a story about what happens after the series without mentioning something about this. So if you are really bugged by the fact there's not a lot of AlMei fluffs in the chapter, I AM sorry, but at the same time I hope you like it.

"Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth?"

"I do."

"Then please be seated."

Al sat down in the chair and squirmed slightly. Did the chair have to be so uncomfortable? Was that somehow supposed to convince the witness to tell the truth? Tell the truth and be released from the chair?

"Mr. Elric, you are currently the Ambassador to Xing, correct?" The defense lawyer was fairly tall, with dark hair and eyes that seemed to calculate everything down to the last twitch. He was supposedly one of the best lawyers in Amestris. He would have to be for this case. It was easily the biggest court case of the decade.

And Al was a witness.

"That is correct."

"And you were appointed by the late Fuhrer Grumman when he heard that you were planning on spending some time in Xing, correct?"

"Yes. I was traveling to Xing to learn more about alkahestry and was planning on staying at the palace. Fuhrer Grumman had heard that I was someone he could trust and appointed me to be an acting Ambassador until they could find someone else to fulfill the role. They never actually did."

"So after Fuhrer Grumman's retirement, you served as Ambassador under Fuhrer Mustang."

"Yes."

"For how many years?"

"Let's see… 18 years now."

Roy Mustang's defense lawyer whistled. "That's a long time."

"Yes, yes it is. I like to think it means I've done my job well."

"And during these 18 years, did Fuhrer Mustang ever express the slightest desire in provoking a war with Xing?"

"No."

"Did he, in fact, help craft a treaty that would ensure the long lasting peace we enjoy at this very day with Xing?"

"Yes he did."

"And in your entire professional career did he ever express any ideas that would suggest inclination towards violent treatment of this nation's citizens?"

"No. Well. Only my brother, but Ed would always just threaten him right back." There were some light chuckles in the room. "Of course neither of them actually meant it."

"Yes of course. And did the Fuhrer ever, in any of your conversations, discuss the topic of the Ishvalan War of Extermination?"

"… Yes."

"And in these conversations, did the Fuhrer express any feelings of longing or fond reminiscence for the war?"

"No. Not in the slightest. He was haunted by the war."

"Did he ever attempt to hide from you the things that he did in Ishval?"

"He's never lied or denied his involvement in the war as a human weapon, no."

"I see. I'm done, Your Honor."

"I have no questions for the witness at this time," the prosecutor said, nodding at the judge, who nodded.

"Very well, Ambassador Elric, you may step down."

Al did so, joining Ed in the crowd watching the trial. It had been going on for a week now and there hadn't been any verdict. Both lawyers kept providing more evidence, calling more people to the stand. Ed had been called as a witness yesterday, Al today. Every single member of "Team Mustang" had been called, along with Riza and Chris. It seemed like everyone from the man who brought him his coffee to his deceased grandmother was being called to the stand.

True to Mustang's predictions, and plans, one of the first actions the new democratic government did was to bring Ishvalan war criminals to trial. They had made their way through several of the soldiers already, the punishments for the average solider mostly forgiving. There had been a few prison sentences, among them the sniper Riza Hawkeye.

Her trial had lasted almost three days to itself. The defense and prosecution had bandied about over orders and body counts and lives saved and the danger that she possessed to the country today verses the time she had spent protected it… until the jury finally sentenced her to life imprisonment. She was given generous visiting hours in the name of her 17 year old son.

After trying the First Lady, they began the State Alchemists. There were so few left though, killed in action, killed by Scar, or already imprisoned, that there were only two of them left to be tried. Armstrong was let off since he deserted and had since served faithfully and honorably.

Then there was Roy.

The Flame Alchemist, Hero of Ishval (Twice), and former Fuhrer.

It seemed like the strategy that the prosecution seemed to be taking was describing the inhumanities of his actions in Ishval. Even in wartime, they were cruel and unusual. The lawyer had called in experts on burns and even Ishvalans that had been burned in his attacks. Some of them were gruesome. One man almost didn't have a face. Other witnesses lost family or friends to the fire.

Roy always looked each of them straight in the eye, and Al knew that apology and self-loathing was tattooed in those eyes.

Then the defense would pull witnesses describing the efforts that he had gone to to rebuild Ishval. Witnesses describing his determination to make the country better, a world where something like that would never happen again.

The prosecution would present evidence of the danger he posed to the country if left free.

The defense would present evidence on how much safer it would be free. Maria Ross had almost an entire day to herself trying explain that Roy didn't kill her because he thought that she killed Hughes but in fact only pretended to kill her to save her life because he knew she was innocent.

Ed testified for how hard he had worked to make the country better. Chris testified that he had always been a loyal father and he had heard his father wake up in the middle of the night after having nightmares about Ishval. Other Ishvalans that had come to know Roy while he was rebuilding it spoke about his remorse for the entire war.

Then finally, the sentence.

Life imprisonment.

His actions were too heinous to be allowed to walk free, but his attempt to fix his mistakes saved him from death. He would be given the same visitation rights as his wife, seeing his son and wife for a few hours every Saturday.

As the man was led away from the courtroom to his prison cell, where he would spend most of the rest of his life… Al didn't think he had ever seen Roy Mustang look so… free.

"Alphonse, I wasn't expecting you!"

"Hello, Mrs. Hughes. I'm actually here to see Chris… I wanted to check up on him after yesterday."

"Oh." Gracia's face fell. As the boy's god-mother, she had custody over him until he was an adult in a year. "He's understandably upset. I think it's horrible, but… at least he still gets to see them. They aren't being executed, thank goodness."

"Yes… I know they both expected that."

Gracia shook her head. "It would be more of a crime to execute them after all they've done than anything they might have done in Ishval. I know Maes would agree." She glanced over to the mantle where there was still a picture of her husband squeezing his three year old tightly. "He loved Roy like a brother. He used to tell me all the time that Roy was never going to forgive himself for what he did. And then I'd ask him if he, Maes, if he would forgive himself. And he answered… smiled and told me he wouldn't have married me if he knew he didn't think he'd be able to move past it."

She smiled herself and shook her head. "But anyways, Chris is in his room. Second door on the right."

"Thank you."

Al knocked on the door when he reached it before opening it. Chris lay on his bed with a dismantled gun on his flat stomach. His black hair was spread all around him on the pillow, not long enough to put in a braid or ponytail, but long enough that Gracia had probably told him to cut it several times already. His black eyes looked up when Al entered.

"Ambassador Elric?" His voice was a lot deeper than it was last time Al had talked to him when he was 12. Though he had admittedly seen quite a few pictures of him in the meantime.

"Hey, Chris," Al said nervously.

Chris directed his attention once again to the pistol. "Have a seat."

Al sat down on the end of the bed stiffly. "Thanks."

They sat in silence for a moment before anyone said anything.

"Mom said this was supposed to relieve stress." He gestured at the gun. "It's not working."

"It probably worked for her," Al said, cracking a nervous smile. Chris didn't seem amused.

"Care to time me, Ambassador?" he asked in a would-be casual voice. Al shrugged and held his hand out for the pocket watch Chris handed to him. He paused once it was in his hand, however. He ran a finger over the familiar insignia. "This is your father's, isn't it?"

"Yeah. Dad gave it to me right before they chucked him in jail to rot."

Al popped the pocket watch open and ran his finger over the smooth inside cover of the watch.

"The inside is smooth."

"Why wouldn't it be?"

"Well, the last time I held one of these it was my brothers. Uncle Ed was the—"

"Fullmetal Alchemist, yeah, I know."

"Ex," Al corrected gently.

"Right. Ex."

"On my brother's pocket watch, he engraved 'Don't Forget October 3rd' on the cover."

"A date?"

"A special date." Chris looked absolutely confused and Al smiled gently and closed the pocket watch lid. "How much of our story do you know, Chris?"

"Your story? The one about you being in the suit of armor?" Al nodded. "Not much. You and Uncle Ed performed human transmutation. You lost your whole body and got your soul attached to a suit of armor and he lost his arm and leg."

"Close enough. You see, our father left us when we were very young—" Chris winced and Al just smiled again. "Don't feel bad, I long got over it. But our father left us and we were raised almost completely by our mother. And then she became very ill and died. We were both heartbroken of course. Granny Pinako, Aunt Winry's grandmother, stepped forward as our guardian and raised us until we became apprentices to our alchemy teacher. She had no idea that we were planning on trying to bring out mother back to life, or she never would have taken us on. But that was what we were planning, and when we were done, we came home and tried it that night."

"But that Taboo is impossible."

"We didn't care. We thought we were cleverer than that, that we had figured it out. And we suffered because of it. The Gate took my whole body and Ed's leg—"

"What do you mean the Gate took your body?" Al couldn't help his eyebrows from raising slightly.

"Your father never told you about the Gate?"

"No."

"Hmm. No I guess he wouldn't have. The Gate is something that we all have inside us." Al put a hand on his chest and noted Christ looking down at his own. "It is, in a sense, what allows us to do alchemy. Imagine a great white expanse… and that's it. Just white everywhere."

"Nothing else?"

"Just two other things. A giant slab of grey rock extending up behind you and the Gate's… guardian, I supposed. He's nothing more than a white figure with a smile and calls himself Truth. When you perform human transmutation, it's not like a normal transmutation as you can imagine. There is nothing equivalent to the price it would take to bring a human soul back from the dead. And the price of attempting it is severe. Most people die. I almost did. If Ed hadn't sacrificed his arm to attach my soul to a suit of armor in the corner of the room, I would have been dead."

"But he did."

"Well, I'm sitting here on the edge of your bed, aren't I?" The corner of Chris's mouth twitched up slightly and he finally sat up all the way.

"You can't imagine how devastated we were. You know the taboo is impossible, but we didn't. Nothing had gone right at all. Ed found himself all alone, me gone, dead, and all he had gotten out of it was a deformed corpse. It was completely charred black, the organs were exposed in plain sight, the arms and leg bent at impossible angles—" Chris looked almost sick, but Al knew he had to continue. This wasn't something he could go easy on. He had to make his point.

"We had traded everything for something nonhuman. The three seconds it lived, I was inside it. My body was taken by the Gate and my soul entered what we had created until it, I, died. That was when Ed sacrificed his arm to attach my soul.

"You have to remember, Chris, I was ten years old. I was the same age Nina is now. And all of a sudden, I'm seven feet tall. Everything I touch I'm afraid of crushing. I can't feel when someone touches me. I can't feel cold, I can't feel hot, I can't eat, I can't smell. I can't sleep or dream… but I still have nightmares. Everything seemed like a nightmare for weeks."

"What happened?"

Al smirked. "Your dad, actually. He had heard rumors about a great alchemist in the small town of Resembool and wanted to offer to let us join the Sate Alchemist program. He had no idea that we were just kids, he thought we were full adults. But he first arrived at our house and saw what we had created. He knew exactly what we had done and stormed over to Granny's house, where we were recovering. He told Ed about the State Alchemist program and the opportunities it would give us to get back onto our feet. Ed took him up on the offer. He got automail surgery for his arm and leg and we went to work recovering. After a year, he left for Central where he had the exam and he passed.

"Ed returned the youngest State Alchemist ever. And we left home." His hand tightened around the watch. "To show our resolve and our determination that we would never give up on the road to get our bodies back no matter what, we burned down our house. That was October 3rd."

"Why would he engrave that on the inside of his pocket watch?"

"I only found out that he had put that in there years after the Promised Day. He kept it alchemized shut whenever he wasn't using it and I never wanted to pry. Ed put that in his watch as a reminder to himself of what we had done. A reminder of our sin, what we had done, and of our resolve to never go back.

"For him, I think it became a bit of a burden that he felt he was forced to carry around. Ed always blamed himself for what we had done, because initially I didn't want to do it. He felt like he was the one who convinced me so it was really all his fault." Al shook his head.

"I was alongside with him, performing the sin just as much as he was. But he felt like it was mostly his fault and the only way he could ever atone was to get our bodies back. Maybe, maybe then, he could feel as if he had managed to set things straight. October third became a symbol of that to him.

"You know most of the rest of the story. We traveled for years, trying to find a way to get out bodies back. We eventually discovered what a Philosopher's Stone really was, and then we discovered the homunculus' plans. We fought in the Promised Day, and I sacrificed my soul for Ed's arm so that he could win the battle. Then he sacrificed his Gate to bring my body and soul back from the Gate."

"That's why he stopped doing alchemy."

"Exactly. He literally can't. And he's okay with that. I told you that I didn't find out about the engraving until years later, and that was one of the happiest days of my life when he showed me. Because when I looked at that pocket watch and the look in Ed's eyes… I knew that we had finally managed to move past it. The charred ashes of our house are still there… but do you know what? There are flowers growing there now. We had finally managed to forgive each other and ourselves for what we had done and continue on with life."

Al opened the lid of the pocket watch once more and ran his finger over the lid.

"You know what your father did in Ishval."

"… yeah. I do. But that was orders, it wasn't his fault, he's regretted it ever since! He regretted it then! With everything he's done for this country it isn't fair! He shouldn't be… going along with it."

"Chris," he said as gently as he could. "Your father may have never engraved anything in his pocket watch, but I can promise you that he carried the memory of those sins around with him just like Ed did. There is only one atonement in their minds. For Ed it was getting our bodies back. For your father, it's exactly what he's doing now. What he's done for this country and turning himself in now is the only forgiveness he feels can be equivalent to the lives he took." Al closed the lid and held the pocket watch out to Chris, who hesitated but eventually grabbed it.

"This is his way of wiping the pocket watch clean, if that metaphor makes sense."

There was silence as Chris ran his own fingers over the surface of the pocket watch.

"He wouldn't give me a blood stained watch," Chris said eventually. "Not unless… not unless he thought the blood had been paid for."

"Exactly."

Silence reigned once again before Al clapped him on the shoulder and stood up. "Well, I have to be on my way. I promised Mei I would make dinner tonight."

"Are you making pasta?"

"No, a dish from the East. Why do you ask?"

"Whenever Mom made Dad cook, he would make pasta." Al smirked before an idea occurred to him.

"Do you want to join us? We have an extra chair and I'm sure we could rustle up an extra plate." Chris paused, thinking about it. "My quiche isn't as good as Gracia's though, I'm afraid."

"No one's quiche is as good as Aunt Gracia's."

"Too true, my friend. Too true."

"… Aunt Gracia!"

"Yes, Chris?"

"I'm going to the Elrics for dinner tonight! I'll be home around nine."