No Regrets

Ed left Roy standing in the rain, staring at a piece of paper he didn’t even realize he’d lost yet. Soon, he was out of sight, blue uniform and blonde hair disappearing amidst the sheets of water that poured between them.

He should just give it back, Roy thought, looking down once more. Ed would be looking for it later, and surely be grumpy and cross. He seemed to be trying so hard to be… something… something altogether different from himself. It seemed rather cruel to goad the temper Ed was trying so obviously hard to keep under lock and key.

In the end, worry overruled logic. Something was wrong, terribly wrong for Ed to just suddenly change this way. He decided it was better to brave the young mans spastic anger than to let whatever this wrong was slip by unnoticed. In the end, he trudged home, paper in hand, offering it some small protection from the rain.

X

Roy couldn’t help but wonder how anyone was supposed to read this, Ed included. Codes were one thing, but between that and the handwriting, it wasn’t even legible. It felt vaguely ridiculous, poring over a random paper that Ed had dropped, that he shouldn’t even have, like it held the secrets of the universe.

As he tried to read the words, Roy noted the paper itself. It was yellowed and frayed at the edges, like it had spent months in Ed’s pocket. There were places where the ink was almost rubbed off, as if Ed spent a lot of time looking at it, touching it, and that was enough in and of itself to make Roy think it meant something very important.

Failing to decipher the code, Roy set about copying it into handwriting that could be read without straining your eyes and brain, so at least he had something legible to work with. It was then that he noticed the names. He’d thought it was part of the code at first, but that didn’t make sense. Perhaps they weren’t part of the code at all, and so he took them at face value.

Al

Hughes That was decidedly confusing seeing as how the man was long since dead.

Winry

Scheska

Riza the scribbles beside her name were the ones crossed out.

Roy

If he hadn’t seen what was written atop the page, Roy might have thought it was some sort of very complicated Christmas list, but something about those two words made his stomach turn. Since when did Ed’s personal life matter to him anyway? Wasn’t he still being useful?

Roy shook his head, realizing it had been a long time, indeed, since he had only cared about Ed for the ways he was beneficial. Ed had indeed grown on him, like some sort of weed, choking out all other possibilities, until Roy was just as fond of him as he was of the rest of his team. Things had been changing for a while, and he could almost, almost call them friends because Ed didn’t yell and fume around him quite so much, and he didn’t feel like he had to tease Ed quite so often, and at least they were generally civil.

Civil didn’t merit rifling through something that Ed held close enough to write in code, though, and for that, Roy felt a little guilty. At least now, having a copy of his own, he could return it, and Ed would be none the wiser to his attempts to decipher it.

X

“You asked to see me?” and there was the uniform again, crisp and neat and all the things Ed never was as a general rule. He’d left his hair down, and it practically sparkled in the sun shining through the window of Roy’s office. He looked rather stunning if a little subdued, and Roy wondered haphazardly why he didn’t wear the uniform more often.

“You dropped this,” Roy held out the paper. Ed’s eyes widened for a fraction of a second before his gaze slipped into something indecipherable.

“Thanks. Is there anything else?”

Roy wanted to keep him there, wanted to tie him to a chair and make him explain what all this was about, but he doubted he’d get the answers he wanted that way.

“No,” he finally answered, and Ed was out the door before he had the chance to change his mind.

X

That couldn’t be right, Roy sighed, tossing another failed attempt at cracking Ed’s code in the trashcan. Riza looked up rather doubtfully at him.

“Your desk is rather less clear than it was yesterday, sir,” she frowned. Roy thought about it for a moment, before something clicked.

“I could almost kiss you, Hawkeye.”

“I’d really rather you just did your paperwork, sir,” but she was rolling her eyes and smiling as she went back to her own work.

Roy looked back over the paper, guessing that the crossed out line had something to do with Ed’s behavior these last two days, something that involved Riza whether she realized it or not.

It seemed to be a list of something… nice Ed wanted to do, and so he thought about what might make Riza happy that had anything to do with Ed’s antics. He cocked an eyebrow and frowned as he realized he’d been utterly played. Riza liked it when work got done, and he’d of course been so startled by Ed being weird that he’d rushed to finish so that he could leave and find out what was going on.

He had to hand it to the younger man, though. He’d certainly learned a few tricks to pull one over on Roy Mustang. That was what he was doing, right? It couldn’t be some sort of innocent byproduct of another, more serious intention, could it? The fact that there was any question at all, what Ed had intended, worried Roy to no end, and he found himself rushing to complete his work once more to figure out what the older Elric brother was really up to.

Why did everything having to do with Ed need to be so complicated, anyway?

X

He was just about to leave, hoping Ed would be at the library once more, when Scheska practically bounced in, looking for all the world like a young woman about to announce she’d just eloped with the man of her dreams, who owned a mansion made of books and she’d have to leave and go have her happily ever after now, thanks.

Instead, she came to a halt, just in front of his desk, wringing her hands in worry or excitement, possibly both.

“Will you thank Ed for me, Brigadier General Mustang, sir?” it came out in a frantic jumble.

“Thank… Ed?”

“There were all these books, and I’ve looked everywhere for them, you see? No store in all of Central carried them, but they showed up on my door step, every last one of them. There wasn’t a note or anything, but Ed’s the only one I told about a few of them, and so it has to have been him. I wanted to tell him thank you, but I can’t find him anywhere. He’s not at the library or the dorms or…”

“I get it,” Roy finally cut in. “I’ll tell him,”

“Oh thank you!” Scheska beamed at him, a smile that was probably meant for Ed, and only directed at him in lieu of it’s proper recipient, but he smiled back anyway. At least now he had a good excuse to go talk to the young man.

Since when did he need an excuse to talk to his subordinate, anyway?

X

It turned out, Ed wasn’t actually at the library, hadn’t been there all day in fact. Roy mulled over the other possible placed Ed might have gone, settling for following the path they’d walked the day before.

On a whim, he turned into the park, where their path had ended. It wasn’t the only place around the area where he might have gone, but it was the closest. Roy strolled along one of the walkways, keeping an eye out for a head of blond hair.

In the end, Ed was there after all, sitting at the edge of a pond, staring at the water, possibly. Roy couldn’t tell from where he’d stopped behind the young man, who hadn’t seemed to have heard his approach.

“Books for Scheska, huh?” Roy spoke up, deciding it was probably less creepy than standing there staring at the way the sun glowed on Ed’s hair, the way it draped over his shoulders, contrasting quite beautifully with the blue of his uniform jacket. Ed jumped at his words, but did not turn around.

“Last I checked, what I do with my paychecks isn’t a military matter,” he mumbled.

“She asked me to thank you,” Roy responded casually.

“She… what? How did she even know it was me?” Ed did turn then, glaring accusatorially at Roy.

“Apparently you didn’t cover your tracks well enough, or make sure you weren’t giving her books that you were the only one who knew she wanted,” Roy smirked.

“She wasn’t supposed to know it was me,” Ed frowned.

“Does it matter that much?” Roy asked, taking a step closer.

“No, I guess it doesn’t really. I just…” Ed paused, searching for words that wouldn’t come.

“Do you like her?” the question was out of his mouth before he realized it, and Roy felt like kicking himself, not really sure he wanted to know the answer.

“Scheska?” Ed spluttered, and suddenly asking the question was entirely worth it, just for the expression on the younger man’s face.

“That seems to be the general reason for giving a young lady gifts of that magnitude,” Roy offered.

“She… no! It’s just that she did a lot to help us out, and I figured I kind of owed her, and… I don’t know.”

“I see,” Roy listened carefully, filing away every word for what help it might offer later in decoding the infuriating slip of paper.

“So, couldn’t you have just told me tomorrow?” Ed asked after a few moments of silence.

“It would have been rude of me to make her wait to have her message delivered,” Roy responded smoothly, somewhat surprised at the skeptical look Ed gave him.

“You did that on purpose, yesterday, didn’t you?” he asked Ed, changing the subject.

“Did what?”

“Made me all…” Roy realized belatedly that he hadn’t yet found a good way to let on what had resulted without coming off as worried or mooning over Ed, which he most certainly was not. The great Roy Mustang did not moon over anyone, thanks so much. He especially did not moon over nineteen year old young men who were worrying everyone sick and were really sort of beautiful when they kept their mouth shut.

“Made you all what?” Ed looked nervous, and Roy decided he’d most definitely said the wrong thing.

“Made me have to rush through my paperwork just so that I could find out what was wrong in that alchemy addled brain of yours,” Roy finished, hoping Ed would buy it.

“Why’d you do that? I wasn’t trying to make your job harder,” Ed sounded dejected, and painfully honest, and Roy wondered, if that hadn’t been his intention, what exactly was? It wasn’t as if he could come out and ask without letting on that he’d looked at the note, more than just looked at it, really.

“Sorry,” Ed mumbled, and something had to be terribly wrong because Ed was polite and gentle, like he was afraid of leaving a bad impression, and he was neat and tidy, and apologizing.

“You’re sorry I did my job?” Roy asked, trying to lighten the mood. Ed offered a small smile, like it was some sort of peace offering, and silence fell between them, awkward, but companionable.

“Why here, anyway?” Roy asked finally.

“It’s quiet, far enough away from the path no one bothered me. No one but you, anyway,” Ed responded, staring at the water with a faraway look in his eyes.

“You’ve been spending a lot of time alone, lately,” Roy noted, more to himself than anything.

“I’ve just… had a lot on my mind,” Ed conceded, “I didn’t want to worry Al.”

“I imagine he’s more worried that you are gone than that you’re deep in thought, Ed,” Roy marveled at the fact that Ed was actually having a conversation with him, even if he was turned away and staring at something Roy couldn’t see.

“He sees right through me. I can’t risk him finding… I just don’t want him to worry any more than he already does,” Ed finished.

“So you leave him, leave us all in the dark, instead?”

“Some things you just have to do on your own,” Ed shrugged as he spoke before tilting his body back, coming to rest against the grass.

Roy avoided asking about the project Ed was working on, tried to tread the least confrontational ground that he could, and settled on quietly watching Ed stare at the clouds, wondering when he’d gone and grown up, and why he hadn’t noticed it before.

“It’s so quiet out here, sort of peaceful,” Ed said, his voice all but a whisper. “It sort of makes you want to just, be close to someone, share it, you know?”

Roy said nothing, only raising an eyebrow.

“I wonder what it’s like to have time to really love somebody,” he murmured at the heavens, echoing a question Roy asked himself all the time.

“You’ll have Al back to normal, soon, I’m sure. Then you’ll have all the time in the world for that,” the words were foreign on his lips, and it had to be Ed, being all weird. It was contagious, because that was the only possible explanation for this… whatever it was between them. At least if he could make friends with the younger man, maybe he’d be let in on whatever it was that was happening.

When he finally turned to look at Ed, the younger man looked stricken and sick.

“Are you alright?”

“Fine,” Ed muttered. “I have to go.”

Once again, Ed walked away, leaving Roy alone to wonder why.