DISCLAIMER: I do not own Fullmetal Alchemist. Obviously.

Author's Note: This is an AU where I totally disregard the movie.

Chapter 1

It was one of the first things he'd asked when he woke up- if you could call the first pain hazed moments of consciousness being awake. "Where is Edward?"

Riza, her arm in a sling and her eyes swollen from tears, had told him that they were searching for him, and he had nodded and turned his attention to more pressing matters: getting well and keeping his men and himself alive and out of prison.

("I'll find that person and defeat him. I will destroy the Philosopher's Stone.")

It was two days later, when he asked again, that Riza admitted they had located Alphonse a few days before Roy had first woke. A too young, flesh and blood Alphonse with no memory of anything that happened after his and Edward's failed human transmutation. Roy had suspected it then, but it had only been two weeks, so there was still hope. Fullmetal had done the impossible before, and he would never abandon his brother.

("Is there something more important than your dreams?"

"There are always things like that. Things more important than yourself, than your dreams.")

A week after Roy was released from the hospital Winry showed up to collect Edward's things from his dorm. Roy and Riza accompanied her, Roy limping heavily, using a cane and swallowing his pride when Riza took his arm to help him up the stairs. The Elric brothers hadn't owned much, just Edward's clothes, some books and a few odds and ends they must have picked up on their travels. Central had not been their home; home was a luxury they had not allowed themselves.

Winry had packed each book carefully, gathered up all of Ed's notes with shaking hands, making sure to keep them in order. Her eyes had teared only once, when she had stumbled across a photo album Hughes had given the boys. It was filled with newspaper articles on the Fullmetal Alchemist's exploits, pictures Hughes had snapped of the boys when he had managed to catch them unaware. She had clutched it to her chest, blinked away her tears. Then she had smiled at them. "Blackmail," she'd said.

It had been two months, but Winry still had hope, so he could too, right? Besides, "I won't die before you, Shit Colonel," Edward had promised. Edward always kept his promises.

("Farewell.")

In the end, it all came down to proof. Nothing added up quite right and no one knew where to place the blame. They thought that he killed the Fuhrer, but there was no proof- no body, no motive and no witnesses. It was his word against theirs. He was a war hero and a model officer with an excellent record, and with fragments of the truth about Ishbal, about Bradley, slipping out, the military could not afford to punish him without absolutely solid proof. He escaped a court martial, avoided the firing squad, and was darkly amused that despite how hard he fought to clear his name, there was a part of him that was disappointed by the outcome.

Three weeks after the charges against him were completely dropped he sat in his study at his desk with a half-empty bottle of scotch and the gun he'd never had to use to defend himself (just a snap of his fingers and they went up like bonfires on a beach, sinew and bone and melting fat, and god, the smell) and wished he'd never used at all. This time there were no arrays scrawled across the floor, no reek of animal blood making his room smell like a butcher's shop in high summer, no gunshots still echoing in his ears. Instead, there was a newspaper on his desk (Its title, partially obscured by the bottle of scotch, read 'People's Alchemist Presumed De-'. Under the title was a photo of Edward, scowling and staring at the camera head on, his expression challenging. His brother was a looming presence behind him.) and next to it a framed photo of him and Maes. There was the memory of a little boy's neck snapping, the memory of another boy, not so little anymore, staring at him with burning eyes and slapping his hand lightly away.

He made sure the gun was loaded.

He put it under his chin. No more Marco. No more Maes. No more Edward. No one to talk him back from the edge because there was no longer anyone who could fathom how close to it he was.

He put his finger on the trigger.

No longer a goal to allow him to justify taking his next breath.

He glanced down at the newspaper, met determined eyes. Edward's expression looked disapproving- disappointed. Roy thought, You wouldn't understand. Edward had been so strong, stronger than Roy would ever be, could ever be, able to get back up and keep walking no matter how far he had fallen.

The newspaper, of course, said nothing.

Please understand.

The gun was cold and hard against his skin. Familiar. How many times before had he sat like this, his sins bearing down on him, grief and self-disgust thick in his throat?

Please forgive me.

From the back of his mind, Edward's ghost told him, I can't forgive you if you're not around to forgive, you stupid bastard.

In the end Roy put the gun down, once again not brave enough to pull the trigger. He picked up the majority of his self, tried to fit the broken pieces back together in some semblance of who he used to be. When he saw Riza the next day, she nodded once, relieved.

In his mind, Edward nodded too, grim and approving, before turning and walking away- leaving them- in a swirl of gold and red.

But it had only been three months, so there was still a chance he would come back.

(There was no body- no proof.)

A month later, there was a funeral. Roy went numbly. It was a beautiful day. Rays of sunlight shot through perfect white clouds to begild row after row of graves. The summer air was sweet with the scent of flowers and freshly cut grass. So very different from the last funeral he had attended, which had been damp and cold with pregnant grey clouds above them. The sharp pain in his chest was the same. So too the anguish welling up in his throat.

Once the mess with Lior and the Fuehrer had been cleared up- or, more accurately, covered up- it was decided that Fullmetal was a hero, not a deserter, so Lieutenant Colonel Edward Elric had been buried with full honors. Of course, Edward had always been the people's hero, as was evidenced by the sheer number of people who showed up to mourn him.

It's too soon to be burying another friend, but at least this casket is empty. Only Roy was wrong. The casket they lowered into the ground might not have held Edward's body, but it held Roy's ambitions. It held his hope.

Alphonse was not there. "He keeps saying that Ed's alive. I want to believe him, but sometimes I can't," Winry had said. "There's no body," she had added by way of explanation. She wouldn't believe Edward was dead, but she'd come anyway, because she just might have been wrong.

Roy stayed longer than anyone else did- even longer than Winry, who had been lead away by a silently crying Gracia. He stood and glared down at the words on the headstone: a name, a rank, a title and two dates that were too close together. You liar, he thought. You liar, and then, I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Ed. He had watched Edward run off into the sunset towards a monster he wasn't sure he really comprehended. Roy had doubted his own ability to survive. He hadn't allowed himself to doubt Edward. Maybe he should have.

It should be you burying me, Edward.

Riza stepped up next to him. Her eyes were wet but she wasn't crying anymore. "Sir." When he did not respond, she touched his arm lightly, said, softer, "Roy."

"They deserved better. They fought so hard, worked so hard. Didn't they deserve better than this?"

"Alphonse has been restored. That's all Edward really wanted."

Roy stared at Edward's grave for a few more minutes. Was it worth it to you, in the end? Of course it was. You loved him more than anything else. "I want to see him." I need to see him.

Riza her head on his shoulder, slipped her arm around his waist. "Me too."

A few weeks later they arrived at the Rockbell's. Pinako answered the door at Riza's brisk knock. They had not told her they were coming, but she didn't look surprised.

"General. Lieutenant." She greeted, not respectful but not rude, just resigned. "I am assuming that you are here to see Alphonse?"

They nodded. "I am sorry to intrude," Roy said, and he was. He had caused this family enough grief, but he had to see for his own eyes the result of the brothers' long journey.

Pinako sighed. It was a sad sigh, and it made her look her years. "No. It's fine. You deserve some closure, too."

Closure. The word echoed through his mind, and he forgot the polite train of words that he'd had lined up just a second ago.

"He… truly remembers nothing?" Riza asked.

Pinako shook her head. "Nothing beyond the night they brought their mother back… or so he says. I think there is something more, but he won't tell us." She pursed her lips. "Perhaps he would tell you."

Roy smiled humorlessly. "I can't see why he would trust us more than he would trust his own family."

Pinako shrugged. "His brother trusted you." She stepped aside, gestured them in. "Please, have a seat. I'll go get him."

They sat in the living room and waited. There was a photo on the coffee table beside a wrench and a trashy romance novel. Roy picked it up without thinking, needing something to do with his hands. Ed, Alphonse and Winry beamed up at him, all limbs present and accounted for and covered in mud. Winry was sandwiched between her boys clutching a very filthy Den, her smile carefree and innocent. Next to her Al was holding a shirt behind his back, his smile sheepish. Ed's smile was not sheepish at all, but full of impish delight. He had one muddy hand on Winry's shoulder and the other on Den's collar.

"We got in so much trouble for that."

Roy looked towards the doorway where Winry stood, wiping her hands on a rag that she then tucked into her tool belt. She walked over and took the photo from Roy, smiled at it.

"Ed had gotten the brilliant idea to give Den a bath." She laughed. "Well, he had been clean, for all of five minutes, and then Ed shoved a handful of bubbles down my shirt, and Al leapt to my defense, and it all sort of went downhill from there. I think it was when we dragged the laundry down in our chase that Trisha put a stop to our mudslinging." Her smile faded and she looked from the picture to Roy.

He didn't know what to say. He never knew what to say to her. I'm sorry would never be enough.

"Al…" She paused, hesitated. "Al doesn't remember. He doesn't know what happened. All that- all the things they did and lost and- everything. He doesn't remember." She looked right into his eyes. "Don't tell him. Please. It wouldn't do him any good to know."

Roy held her gaze for a minute. She had her mother's eyes, filled with quiet pain and resolve. "Alright." He owed her that much at least, didn't he? And he had a feeling that were Edward here, he would ask the same.

She sighed. "If he ever remembers on his own, then that's fine, that's good. But you know how they are. If he knew that Ed- that Ed gave himself, that he- Al's too young, now. He'll just feel awful, he'll think Ed's-" she stopped suddenly as they heard the back door swing open and muffled voices, followed by a baby's giggles.

They stood, and Roy barely noticed Riza's careful hand on his elbow steadying him.

"Come on, they're in the living room." They heard Pinako say, and few moments later the woman walked into the room, Alphonse just behind her.

He was as young as the reports had told him to be, his face rounder than his brothers, his hair darker. Large grey-bronze eyes that would probably never hold the bitter cynicism his brother's had swept over them. Even though Roy had just been looking at a picture of Al as a boy, had known what to expect, it still made a feeling that wasn't awe and wasn't horror, but something painful that lay somewhere between the two, well up in his throat. Alphonse looked at Roy and Riza, took in their uniforms. "Winry?" He sounded cautious and confused.

"These are friends of your brother's," Pinako told him. "They wanted to see you."

Alphonse stepped towards them, excited. "You know my brother?"

He was looking at Roy, and Roy knew in some part of his frantic brain that he should respond, but he was too busy staring, taking in every detail of Al's appearance, from the dirt on the knees of his jeans to the carefully wrought features of his face. Riza came to his rescue. "Hello, Alphonse. I'm First Lieutenant Riza Hawkeye," she said. "This is Brigadier General Roy Mustang." She shook Alphonse's small hand politely, keeping her shock behind a kind smile.

Roy didn't shake Alphonse's hand. He couldn't imagine it. He crouched down and hugged the boy. His eye was burning, and his throat was tight because it was now that he was holding Alphonse- flesh, beautiful, whole- that he could deny it no longer. Edward Elric was gone.

"I'm sorry," he told Alphonse, all his grief, all his guilt welling up. "He's gone. I'm sorry. He's gone."

Alphonse hesitantly reached up to hug Roy back. "It's alright."

No. Roy thought. It's not alright. This isn't alright at all.

It was a little over two years before Roy saw Alphonse again. Roy had got up and went to work early, done his work diligently, and then left the office late. This new work ethic failed to impress Riza, who almost seemed to miss browbeating him into submission.

On his way home, he stopped at the corner store for some groceries. The young woman who worked there knew him by name, knew roughly what time of day he would come in and what he would buy. He flirted with her, but never asked her on a date. He doubted he ever would. Roy had not dated anyone since he and Riza's relationship had fallen apart, and wasn't looking to try again any time soon.

He had just changed into more comfortable clothes- loose khaki pants and a worn grey sweater that Riza had given him when they were still in Academy. It was Riza he had been expecting when he opened the door. Instead, there was blonde hair and a worn red duster. It made Roy freeze, caught off guard. He didn't think it was Edward for a moment, but that didn't mean it didn't hurt.

"Um…. Brigadier General Mustang, sir?" Alphonse's voice was sweet and clear and did not echo at all.

"Alphonse. What brings you here?" He stepped back. "Come in."

"I'm sorry to bother you so late in the evening. I just got into town and I guess it took me longer than expected to find your house."

"That's alright." He led Alphonse to his living room, offered him some tea or coffee. Alphonse declined politely, and Roy sat down, gestured for the boy to do the same. Alphonse sat down gingerly on the couch across from him. "So, what can I do for you?" He watched the boy struggle for a minute, watched his eyes dart around nervously. Every flicker of expression across Alphonse's face was wonderful simply for the fact that Al now had a face that could show expression.

Beneath the sharp pang of grief Alphonse's unexpected appearance and borrowed wardrobe had caused there was pride in Edward's accomplishment.

"Well... Winry told me that brother worked with you- for you. That you were his commanding officer and you helped him get sponsored or sponsored him or... well, you know, he trusted you and..." Al rambled, twisting the edges of his coat- Edward's coat- in his hands. When he realized that he was rambling, he blushed and tried to sit up straighter. "I actually, um, came to ask a favor of you. I was wondering if you would be willing to sponsor me to take the National Alchemist's Exam, like you did for my brother."

Roy sighed inwardly. Pinako had sent him monthly updates since his visit. It was through her that he learned that Alphonse was still convinced his brother was alive. "So I take it you've completed your training with Mrs. Curtis?"

Alphonse looked startled that Roy would know what he had been doing. "Yes. My teacher… passed away a few months ago."

"I'm sorry," Roy said sincerely.

"She taught me all she could, but it's not enough not find my brother."

"So you're going to follow your brother's example and become a State Alchemist in hopes of gaining access to information that will help you find him?" Alphonse nodded, determined, and Roy thought, This is Alphonse, the boy Fullmetal loved more than anything. More than his own life. Roy would protect him like he hadn't been allowed to protect Edward. "No," he told Alphonse.

"What? Why?" It came out more desperate than Al had wanted, and he tacked on a calmer "Sir."

"Edward wouldn't want you to do this. He'd want you to find your own path." He would want you to move on and live the life he returned to you, Alphonse. Not chase after his ghost.

Alphonse glared at him. "I'll find him. He's alive and I will find him."

Now the expression was a familiar one. Desperation. How did I ever think, even for a moment, that you could be whole without him? "I know you will, but I can't let you do this. Besides, two years after your brother passed they changed the rules. You have to be eighteen to take the test now."

"I…." Alphonse fisted his hands in his jacket. "This was my only clue. I don't know where else to look. I can't remember."

Roy wished he could tell Alphonse what had happened, but he didn't know. No one knew but Edward.

"Alphonse, have you ever been to Yousewell?"

I can't give him back to you, but I can at least let you know him again.

Alphonse visited the General often after that. He would come to the man with the rumors and stories of his brother he had learned from the people Edward had helped, and Roy would tell Alphonse the version of those same stories that Edward had given Roy- minus the foul language and wild gesticulations. Sometimes Alphonse came for no reason other than the fact that he enjoyed the General's company. Sometimes he came because he had a sneaking suspicion that the General missed Edward more than he let on.

One night he got up the courage to ask, "Just what was brother to you, really?"

The General had looked up at him, thoughtful. "He was…." What had Edward been? He'd been a rude, ungrateful, obnoxious, opinionated pain in the ass. At the same time, "He was one of my men. He was a member of my team." No, that didn't sound right. Edward had been more than that.

"That's all?"

"He was my friend." Yes, that sounded right. Edward, for all his sniping and dirty looks, had been his friend in the end.

"Did you love him?" Alphonse asked.

"I believed in him."

The phone ringing dragged him out of his nightmares. "Hello?"

"General."

"Alphonse? What's wrong?" Roy sat up, immediately awake.

"I had a dream, but I don't think it was a dream at all. And- and-" Alphonse sounded close to hysterical.

"Shhhh. Calm down. What was the dream about?" Roy asked.

That was how it started. Alphonse's dreams of his and his brother's journey. Always sharp enough for Alphonse to know they were memories, but too vague to make sense. Alphonse would almost always call Roy, needing someone to tell him where the places he was seeing were, needing someone to fill in some of the gaps, needing the voice of someone who wasn't years dead- which was the only thing Roy could really give him.

"Sometimes, I think he meant for me to forget," Alphonse said one night.

"What makes you say that?" Because sometimes, I think you're right.

"In the dreams he's always so sad, but he smiles anyway. I don't think I saw it then, because if I had I would have stopped him, but when he smiles at me it's not a reassurance. It's an apology."

Alphonse stopped calling him with his dreams after that. He stopped traveling so much in search of stories, of rumors, of any clues as to his brother's whereabouts.

"I lied," Al said out of nowhere.

The General looked up from his scotch. "About what?"

Al twisted the edge of the coat- that is how Roy thought of it, The Coat, an eye catching symbol of desperation and the brother's determination to do the impossible - and looked at the spot just over Roy's shoulder. "When I said I didn't remember anything after we attempted to transmute our mother."

Roy said nothing, but he did reach out and still Alphonse's hands.

"I… I remember touching the circle, feeling the array activate- and then I was standing somewhere, surrounded by white light and there was a Gate behind us."

"A Gate?"

Alphonse didn't seem to register the question. "Brother was with me, but he looked different. Older. Taller. His hair was longer and he was…" Al cast around for a suitable word, came up with only "Sad?" Alphonse's voice trembled a little. "No. That's not strong enough. Broken. He was broken."

"Alphonse." Roy placed his hand on Al's shoulder, kneaded.

"He spoke to me. He told me, 'You go on ahead. I'll follow.' Only he didn't. I woke up alone and he didn't come back. He didn't come back."

Roy visited Maes and Edward's graves every other Sunday. Sometimes Riza would accompany him. Alphonse, to his knowledge, had never visited his brother's grave. He refused to think his brother was dead. Therefore, Roy was very surprised to find Alphonse crouched next to his brother's headstone, fingers lightly tracing the letters of his brother's name.

He did not approach the boy right away. He visited Maes first. He always brought daisies for Maes, because they had been the man's favorite. He brought tulips for Edward, because Edward had transmuted some for him once, when he had been late for work and needed something to distract Riza with. The unexpected gesture had thrown Roy off guard and made him realize that maybe Edward didn't hate him as much as he thought the boy did. Maybe Edward, in his own way, thought of Roy as a friend, too.

He reached Edward's grave just as Alphonse was standing up. He set the flowers down. It dawned on him, as he was standing there, that Alphonse was 15, almost the same age Edward had been when he died. It had been five years. It seemed like more.

"I remember some of it now," Alphonse said suddenly. "I remember… Nina? I remember facing Scar. I remember that night at the 5th laboratory. Martel and the Fuehrer. You and my brother fighting. Dueling? You and Armstrong cornering Ed and I by the river near home. Not very clearly, and it's all disconnected. I can remember pieces of the events but can't string them together, can't make sense of them. Except-" Alphonse's voice broke.

"Al." Roy reached out to comfort Al, but hesitated. He never knew what to do when it came to the Elric brothers.

Alphonse continued, "I remember a old woman and a young girl, and somehow I know they're the same person, and even if I can't remember her I hate her because- because brother, my brother-"

"Al."

"-he died. He died. I saw it. That thing killed him. And-"

"Al." Stop it. I don't want to know. Knowing won't change the fact that he's dead.

"-I tried to bring him back. I failed, I must have failed, but I don't remember, and even if I did he'd still be dead!"

"Al." Roy pulled the boy into his arms and held him while he cried. "Alphonse." But what could he say? There was nothing he could have done, nothing either of them could have done, nothing any of them could have done from the moment Edward decided to get Alphonse's body back. "He did it for you, Alphonse. Everything he did was for you. All he wanted was for you to be happy." It was all he let himself want, but you don't need to know that.

"I was happy with him," Alphonse cried.

Roy had nothing to say to that. When Alphonse had cried himself out, Roy lead him to the car and had them driven home, where he made Alphonse eat and go to sleep. Roy himself did not sleep, but stayed by Alphonse's side all night.

I would give him back if I could. I would do anything to give him back to you.

The next morning he drove Al to the station. Before Alphonse boarded the train, he asked, "My brother would want me to just keep walking forward, right?"

"Yes," Roy told him.

Alphonse's smile was watery. "It seemed a lot easier when he was with me." He blinked to clear his eyes. "Well, goodbye General."

"Goodbye, Alphonse. Take care."

Alphonse returned to Resembool. He wrote weekly, but he did not visit Central as often as before. His search for his brother had finally stopped. After Alphonse left, Roy felt like he lost something. It took a while for him to realize it had been the last of his hope.

The shrill ring of the phone woke him late enough that it was almost early. "Hello?" He was expecting Alphonse with more nightmares.

"Colonel?" barely over a whisper and slightly accented.

He was still half-awake and thinking of fire and monsters but the voice was almost familiar, only it was too uncertain, too soft. "Who is this?"

A sigh that hitched at the end. "Colonel. I… I'm- Is- Did it work? Is Al all right? Did it work?"

"Fullmetal?" Roy asked.

"Did it work? Please. Please tell me something worked right, after all this. Please." And it was Edward's voice but he'd never heard Edward so close to the edge, never heard Edward beg and had never wanted to.

"Yes. It worked." There was another sigh, this one relieved. "Fullmetal. Where are you?"

"We're in Central." Edward paused. "I… I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do anymore. I'm sorry. I-I-"

"Edward." Edward, not Fullmetal, because Fullmetal was such a heavy title and Roy didn't think Edward was in any shape to carry it just now. "Give me the address." A neighborhood in old Central, not too far away from the church Alphonse had supposedly been found in. "Stay there, alright?"

"Don't worry. We're- I doubt we're going anywhere."