"Fullmetal." Roy called out to the young boy as he finished his own shower after the whole ordeal, putting away the reading material that had been scattered around while doing so. "You're gonna stay over tonight." Edward's face, at that news, was a mysteriously funny mix of utter horror, worry, and disgust. The last part somewhat bothered Roy, however it seemed there was no helping the first interpretations children would get from what adults said at times. "Stop looking at me like that, I don't enjoy the idea either, for your information."

"Then just let me go back to my hotel room." Edward simply stated. "Al is probably waiting for me anyway."

"That he is not." Roy guaranteed as he explained the fact that he had called Alphonse earlier to explain that Edward would be sleeping over. However, the amount of concern in Edward's eyes as soon as he finished talking caught him slightly off guard.

"But Alphonse, he's...!"

"Don't argue with me, Fullmetal." Roy tapped his own right shoulder. "Neither of us are in any condition to go there." It was true, even if Edward wasn't feeling sick from the rain, Roy was too tired to properly drive at two in the morning and he wouldn't willingly endanger their lives just because the kid was too damn stubborn.

"Unless, of course, there's something you feel like explaining to me. Perhaps it's related to why you haven't been sleeping correctly?" Started Roy, showing his true intention for bringing Edward to his apartment: trap him in an environment where Roy could ask him something without him trying to escape.

However, Roy stared at Edward with worry as the child seemed to not have registered what Roy had just said and his eyes started glazing over until he snapped out of it and rushed to Roy's toilet, dry-heaving violently from the lack of aliments in his stomach. Though Roy was aware that automail users suffered the effects of barometric pressure change more than people with normal limbs and joints, he hadn't seen it taking such a violent toll on the bearer before. It was most likely due to Edward hiding any signs of pain whenever he could.

The military man sighed as the younger boy who confirmed he was in no state to head outside slowly forced himself back up when he stopped dry-heaving.

"Go and rest, Fullmetal."

Edward wanted to argue, but he knew better than to stupidly say he was okay when he had accidentally demonstrated what he wasn't doing okay at all. His head was starting to hurt badly so he decided to silently accept the offer without waiting for the confirmation of where he'd be sleeping and headed for the couch.

Roy briefly headed back in his room to retrieve a spare pillow and blanket, throwing them on Edward who was caught off guard by the action before turning off the lights and returning to his room.

The rain was still pounding heavily against Roy's windows, but thankfully it seemed no storm would occur tonight.

Despite his vain attempts at falling asleep to have enough energy to continue dealing with Edward the next day, Roy was paying a lot more attention to the noise the rain was generating than usual and found himself sitting on his desk's chair with a glass of whiskey in his hand. Not even he was quite certain of what he was doing and for what purpose as he went through alchemical papers while he drank his whiskey; the papers were quite old and were fairly creased now since they were written by Roy himself back when the Ishbal Civil War was still fresh and new in his mind.

Perhaps it was that Edward's presence reminded him of last week and what happened to cause last week's events. His worn out eyes would sometimes shift back to picture frames that were on the edge of his desk, but one stood out in particular.

A picture that represented both himself and Maes Hughes, his best friend since military school. The picture only depicted them both in their military uniforms with the bearded man smiling a lot more as he lifted his hat than the clean-shaven one who only slightly smiled in his very soldier-like position. Roy's eyes were filled with sad nostalgia as he took another gulp of the comforting amber liquid as he read on, slowly losing consciousness on his desk the more he read as the clock ticked time away.

But what the usually sharp man hadn't noticed was that Edward had had trouble sleeping as well, and was currently observing his sleeping figure, as well as what laid bare on his desk.

"Colonel..."

The papers Roy had dragged him away from were theories on human transmutation, Edward realised with slightly widened eyes though he wasn't actually that surprised.

After reading the papers that sat on the desk Edward usually would have felt anger and disgust, he would have lashed out on the idiot who wrote those theories for ever considering doing something stupid like that. And he wanted to do just that as he clenched his teeth so hard and his metal fingers were clenched so tightly you'd think the boy was trying to break them.

With his trembling flesh hand, he picked up the frame containing the picture that Roy had occasionally been looking at, and on his face laid an expression no teenager should ever make.

It was flooded with sorrowful regret because he couldn't blame Roy for looking into human transmutation. To him, his whole situation...

...no matter how much he tried to justify it...

"It's... my..."

...was his own fault, after all.