Epilogue

B.J. Hunnicut looked curiously at Pierce, who just continued to stare at the cards in his hand. He liked his new roommate, definitely, but even after months at the 4077th, the man still mystified him at times.

Last night was a good example. Pierce had woken up, panicked, from what had apparently been a roaring nightmare—not exactly unusual, considering the kind of gory sights the doctors were subjected to pretty much every day—but what had been unusual was his response. Normally, he'd get up, leave the tent for a few moments, and come back, but this time, he'd decided that going to Rosie's and getting absolutely smashed was a better idea. He'd come back to camp with a gigantic hangover, performed his normal rounds in spite of it, and then returned to the tent. B.J. had finally managed to coax him away from his pile of medical journals and into a game of poker, but only after Pierce had spent a good hour staring blankly at the same three-year-old article on digestive tract infections.

"What's eating you, Pierce?" B.J. prompted. "No lies, now. The truth."

Pierce let out a small, hollow laugh and continued staring at his cards. "The truth, huh? You don't want to know."

A knock sounded on the door of the Swamp. "Hey, can I come in?" Radar's voice asked.

"Sure," B.J. said, before Pierce could say something rude.

"Eddie's doing better," Radar said, smiling, as he walked in.

Pierce finally looked up, the slightest hint of a smile on his lips. "He is, huh?"

B.J. was rather pleased himself. "Eddie" was the nickname Pierce had given a young Korean boy who'd lost a leg to an infection after being shot. He'd been at the 4077th for a few weeks now and his determination to walk again had endeared him to most of the doctors and nurses.

"Made it across camp on crutches," Radar confirmed. "I still don't see what about him reminds you of Ed, though. He's too quiet."

"Ed?" B.J. asked.

Radar blinked in surprise. "That's right, you never met him!"

Pierce, meanwhile, had laid down his cards and was rummaging through the locker at the foot of his bed.

"Here it is!" he said at length, holding up a slightly rumpled photograph, then handing it to B.J.

In it, a large group of people crowded in front of the camera. Klinger, wearing a gigantic sunhat, stood next to a tall man with small eyes, wearing a uniform B.J. couldn't recognize. Others throughout the picture wore it, too—a bespectacled man with black hair who stood next to Radar, a stocky, light-haired man standing behind them, and, oddly enough, a pretty, light-haired woman who stood between Father Mulcahey and another man, who B.J. recognized as Henry from the pictures Radar had showed him. Pierce was in the picture too, sandwiched between his former tentmate, Trapper John, who B.J. also knew from pictures, and another man, wearing the same strange uniform as the others, but otherwise looking very much like Pierce himself, save a few subtle differences in facial structure. Standing in front of the trio were Margaret—Hot Lips—and a boy who looked no older than twelve, dressed in black.

It was this strange-looking boy who Pierce pointed out. "That's Ed."

B.J. studied the boy. He had long, messy bangs and the end of a braid draped over his shoulder, his hair the same pale shade as his eyes. Even though he grinned widely at the camera, there was something a bit forced about his expression.

"How'd he end up here?" he asked at length.

"His unit transferred here," Radar stated, as if that should be obvious.

"What do you mean—"

"Ed was a member of his country's military," Pierce explained, cutting him off. "The people in his unit—the ones wearing the weird uniforms—were sent here on a diplomatic assignment. His uniform got messed up before the picture was taken; otherwise, he would've been wearing one, too."

"He can't even be thirteen yet!" B.J. exclaimed.

"He was fifteen when we met him, but twelve when he joined up," Pierce said. "Believe me, I got upset about it too. But Ed insisted that he knew what he was doing, and after a while, I started believing him."

"He's not in the regular army, anyhow," Radar added. "He's a researcher."

Pierce nodded, though the amused smile on his face suggested that he knew something that Radar didn't. "I didn't like that he was in the army, but, from what I understand, he didn't have a lot of other options when he enlisted. Plus, at least he had Mustang looking after him," Pierce added, pointing to his look-alike in the picture.

"Mustang?"

"His C.O.," Pierce explained. "Came off as a real regular army stick-in-the-mud at first, but he turned out to be an okay guy."

"So, who's the woman?" B.J. asked.

"The second in command, if you can believe it," Pierce said. "Their country doesn't really mind women in the regular military, and, from what I was told, Lieutenant Hawkeye was one of their best sharpshooters, period."

B.J. raised an eyebrow at that.

Pierce shrugged. "Go figure," he said. "Anyhow, the big guy's Heymans Breda—absolutely terrified of dogs, but pretty sharp for someone who looks like a meathead. The one with his eyes closed is Vato Falman—he didn't say much, but he seemed like an okay guy; the short one with glasses is Kain Fuery, who was a lot like Radar, come to think of it."

"So you got along with them?" B.J. ventured.

Pierce looked a little sheepish. "Not at first," he admitted. "I tried to rip Mustang a new one for recruiting Ed, and managed to tick both of them off. But I apologized and we got to know each other better…they were good men. Well, good men, woman and kid, but you know what I mean."

"Were?" B.J. asked. "Did something happen to them?"

Radar looked alarmed. "Not that I know of!"

"Nothing happened to them," Pierce said quickly. "But I don't think they're going to be coming back to Korea anytime soon. Their country has its own problems, from what they told me."

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After a good five minutes of utter panic and despair—which Roy was pretty sure he deserved, given that he'd just been to The Gate and gone blind—he finally managed to pull himself together, mostly by remembering that his new disability was not going to gain him any sympathy from the enemy. Actually, it would just let them kill him faster, unless he figured out how to work around it. How could he work around it?

"Are you all right?" an unfamiliar voice asked. It was male and deep, but there was something just a little familiar about the inflection and the timbre…it almost sounded like an older version of Ed.

"Van Hohenheim?" Mustang asked aloud.

"Yes, that's right," the man replied.

Mustang didn't let his displeasure show on his face…but honestly, he had to meet the man now? He had to look like an idiot, crouched on the ground and still half-panicked. It was especially frustrating given that promise he'd made to himself regarding Hohenheim, back when they were at the 4077th…but then again, there might be a way of still keeping it.

"C-can you help me up?" he asked, forcing a waver into his tone. Van Hohenheim didn't know him well enough to know it was fake.

"Of course," the man said.

Mustang felt a large—and surprisingly calloused, more like a craftsman's hands than an alchemist's—wrap around his left arm and pull him upward. Carefully, he rocked his body weight onto the toes of his feet and attempted to straighten his legs, feeling awkward and disoriented the whole way. He made a mental note that if he got his sight back, he was going to need to decrease his reliance on it—it could end up as a serious liability. Of course, that was assuming that he'd even live through the Promised Day…

He was nearly on his feet when he extended the arm that Hohenheim had used to pull him up and wrapped his hand around something thick and covered in smooth, probably-expensive fabric. It felt about the right size and shape to be a bicep, though Roy was surprised at how high it was—if it was his bicep, that made Hohenheim just a little bit taller than he was. How on Earth had Ed ended up so short, then?

Still, he had Hohenheim where he wanted him. He took a deep breath, carefully slid his right foot outward so that his stance was just a little more balanced, balled the hand not around Hohenheim's upper arm into a fist, and then punched Hohenheim in what he assumed was the face. The loud, satisfying crack that sounded after he did that and the slight, resultant ache in his knuckles indicated that he'd hit something hard, at least.

"Colonel?" Ed asked, a little faintly.

"Did I get his face?" he asked aloud.

"Yes, you did," a female voice—Izumi, the Elrics' teacher—said flatly. "You want to explain why you punched him in the first place?"

Roy shook out his hand. "That," he stated, "was for screwing with my subordinates."

"Wha-?" Hohenheim asked blearily. Roy was a bit pleased with himself—he'd managed to actually disorient the man.

"From what I gather, you seem to have thought you had legitimate reasons to leave them, so I'll leave that alone," Roy said. "But when you returned to Risembool…you knew that what you said would make Ed curious enough to try to dig up that grave, didn't you?"

"Yes," Hohenheim replied tonelessly.

"Wait, he what?" Ed demanded.

"You're a horrible father," Roy said.

"I know," Hohenheim said, sounding very tired.

Roy took a deep breath. "But for right now, we're on the same side. I just thought that I should say that…in case there isn't another opportunity for us to speak."

"So, in case we all die?" Izumi asked. "You're really a morbid one, huh?"

"The odds aren't exactly in our favor," Roy pointed out.

Izumi made a comment about what the odds could do with themselves. Roy was beginning to see why Ed turned out the way he did.

"Ah…aren't we supposed to be trying to save the country at this point?" Hohenheim ventured.

"Yes, of course," Roy said. "Not too many hard feelings, I hope?"

"I think, in your position, I might have done the same thing," Hohenheim replied.

"Stop talking and fight!" Izumi shouted, as the crackle of alchemy filled Roy's ears. It sounded quite close, so he stretched out a hand and felt a stone wall forming itself before him. Through the barrier, he heard a muffled shout.

"Finally, a plan I like!"

Mustang shook his head. Ed had grown up considerably since he was twelve, but some things about him had stayed the same. And, if he was honest with himself, he appreciated that.

Still, he hoped that he would have the chance to witness how Ed continued to change as he aged, an opportunity only available to him in the event that Amestris lasted through the Promised Day. If he wanted the Elrics to have the chance to grow up, he was going to have to fight for it.

There was the matter of his sight holding him back, of course, but if Ed could hold his own against Envy on a wooden leg, Roy had no excuse for not figuring out how to fight blind. The 4077th and Ed had taught him a lot about the differences between difficult and impossible, and how often people mistook the first for the second. Without his vision his alchemy would be messier than usual, less controlled and more dangerous, but as long as it worked, it worked.

First, he needed to get used to doing alchemy without a circle, then he'd worry about aim. He'd start with something basic, like reinforcing the wall in front of him, then move on to fire alchemy.

The image of a transmutation circle filled his mind as he raised his hands to clap.

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A/N: And that's all folks.

Thank you all so much, it's been a wonderful journey and I've appreciated all the reviews deeply. I hope you've enjoyed this as least as much as I have.

If any of you have a TV Tropes account, go on the FMA Fanfic Recs page and mark this thing as complete, please!

I'll ask for reviews one more time, I guess, for old times' sake—if you enjoyed your protracted ramble through what somehow continues to be the only FMA/M*A*S*H crossover on the internet, feel free to tell me about it.