Roy and Ed met the others at the only café/restaurant that the town has. Roy had called the hotel late last night. Leaving a message with the innkeeper to inform Alphonse as to where to meet for the day. They planned to get an early start and be the first ones there. However, Ed had another nightmare that had kept them up for the better part of the night. It led to them sleeping past when they had meant to get up. Which then lead to a mad scramble to change their sorry attire and get out the door before Alphonse and the others began to wonder.

"I'm sorry," Ed said, not for the first time. "I didn't mean to keep you up."

"It's okay, Ed," Roy said. Not for the first time. "I understand." Roy was about half a step ahead of Ed. He felt his pseudo-son grab his sleeve as they got closer to town. The blond did this every time the pair approached anywhere close to civilization. Roy wished he would relax a bit; but understood why he couldn't. The sounds of the town rose and surrounded them, like a blanket wrapping around one's shoulders. And as suffocating as said blanket being wrapped too tight. Roy shuddered. For all that he wanted Ed to relax, he wished he could as well. He resisted the urge to don his gloves, to prepare to fight. There was no danger, just people.

But people were danger.

"They aren't here yet," Ed observed. Roy looked down to see Ed pointing to the still empty café. Roy was glad to know they hadn't kept the others waiting. Maybe the innkeeper hadn't delivered the message. Maybe they were still sleeping, despite the sun's height in the sky. He couldn't imagine that they, minus Alphonse, weren't exhausted from their travels. He still wasn't entirely sure how far out from Central they were, but he assumed it was far enough to drain anyone.

To Ed he said, "We better grab a table to wait then." Ed, surprisingly, bounded forward to pick a table. It was by the rails that surrounded the patio, near the box flowers. Roy smiled. Ed was overly fond of flowers. He frequently picked them when he and Roy went exploring in the woods. They'd die the next day. But for that one day, the kid was happy. Or as close to it as Roy had seen.

A waitress came over quickly. Both Roy and Ed knew her and gave small greetings.

"What can I get you two?" she asked, pulling out a notepad and pen. "Maybe the house special? I can cut you a deal." She tried this both previous times that the pair had eaten here. The house special, as far as Roy understood it, was a large platter of almost everything else on the menu. She always tried to get them to buy it because they were 'nothing more than skin and bone.' He refused each time.

"Sweet tea and pancakes for me," Roy said.

"Lemonade, and chocolate chip pancakes?" Ed asked.

"Ed…" Roy said warningly. Ed hunched his shoulders, crossing his arms over his chest. "Ed," Roy rebuked.

Ed sighed. "Glass of milk," he added, making it sound like a pain.

The waitress chuckled. "I'll get y'all your orders in," she promised. She cast a glance at the remaining empty seats. "Y'all waiting for some others?" she asked.

"Yes, actually," Roy said. "We had some friends roll into town recently. We haven't seen them in quite some time." The waitress continued to speak with Roy for a few minutes. She was overly curious about who their 'friends' were. In a town where things rarely happened, it wasn't surprising for the locals to be curious. Ed took the time to braid a small strand of hair. He let it hand for a couple minutes before he got bored and undid it. He had just started re-braiding it again when the waitress slid a blank sheet of paper and a pen towards him. He looked up at her in vague confusion.

"Draw something," she prompted with a smile. "That's what I always did when I was a kid at a restaurant."

Ed pursed his lips, eyebrows furrowing. "I can't draw though," he said, lifting his automail arm as proof.

"Well I can see your problem," she said, smile never dropping from her face. "That doesn't mean you shouldn't try though. I broke my wrist at one point, couldn't write anything. Taught myself to write with my left hand," she waved her fingers to emphasize. "It wasn't easy. But now I can use both my hands to write. Even if it felt impossible while learning to do so."

Hesitantly, Ed picked up the pen in his left hand. His grip on it was shaky, but he was holding it. He gave the woman a small smile and a nod of thanks. She left them be and Roy watched Ed carefully draw a few circles. He noted that they weren't transmutation circles, but just the loops that kids made when they were bored. The lines wobbled horribly, and they really couldn't be called circles at all.

Ed let out a frustrated sigh after the twelfth 'circle'. "I wasn't really good at drawing when I didn't have automail," Ed confessed. Roy perked up a bit, listening. It wasn't often that Ed spoke about any time 'before' he and his brother tried to resurrect their mom. Roy wasn't one to ask questions, but he was curious. "When Al and I first started learning alchemy, I'd always make him draw the circles."

"Oh?" Roy said. "And what did you do?"

Ed smacked Roy on the shoulder lightly, hearing the teasing tone in the elder's voice. "I wasn't napping, if that's what you were thinking. I was the one who did the reading. Al loved to read, but he could never remember what he had read that long." Ed looked down at the piece of paper. Five more circles had been added since the start of their conversation. "Now Al remembers everything he reads, says, and does. It was kind of unnerving at first. Later it was the best thing ever. Al did a ton of reading at night since he can't sleep." Ed chuckled ruefully. "He actually corrected me more often than not on alchemy."

"Speaking of Alphonse," Roy said. Ed looked up and turned to where Roy was looking. Sure enough, Alphonse and the rest had arrived. A quick head count showed Hawkeye to be missing still. Ed pursed his lips, wondering where she was. Maybe after yesterday she hadn't been comfortable with showing up? He glanced back to Roy to see a furrow of his eyebrows, his thoughts probably on the same line as Ed's.

"Hey, Ed. Mr. Mustang," Alphonse said cheerfully. "Sorry we're late. Havoc wouldn't get out of bed."

"It's called a hangover, Alphonse. You should never pull someone out of a bed who has one." Havoc slumped in a seat to Roy's left, his head hitting the table with a soft thunk. "Especially me."

If Al could roll his eyes, Ed thought he'd be doing so right now. "Sure thing, Havoc," Al said. His brother took the seat to Ed's right, pushing his chair close to Ed's. The blond didn't mind the move, though he did look to Al nervously. This was his brother, Ed tried to reassure himself. His brother would never hurt him. He knew this. Yet he couldn't help the slight tensing of his shoulders. It was closest a person had been to him, who wasn't Roy, in a while. Thankfully, Al hadn't noticed the instinctive motion. Too busy paying attention to the others. Roy had noticed though and set a hand on his son's shoulder. Ed looked up and flushed a little in embarrassment. Roy gave a gentle squeeze before releasing his grip.

"What are you writing, brother?" Alphonse asked curiously.

Ed felt his flush deepen as he quickly crumbled up the piece of paper. Pocketing it, he said, "It's nothing."

Al shrugged a metal shoulder, accepting the answer.

"Where's Hawkeye?" Ed asked, the rest of the table going silent at the question. Maybe they hadn't been talking in the first place. Whatever the case, he just became hyper-aware of people staring at him.

"She's waiting on a phone call," Al said. "So, she'll catch up with us later."

"We were going to leave Havoc," Breda said. "But we didn't think he was going to answer the damn phone if it ever rang. He'd probably have just gone back to bed."

"You are absolutely right," Havoc added helpfully. "Now do we have anything to help with hangovers?"

A glass of water was placed in front of Havoc by the waitress, having returned with Roy and Ed's meals as well. "Anyone else want anything?" She asked after giving the pair their food. Some of the other placed orders. Mostly coffee. Roy hadn't had the beverage in months. It was too expensive to get another caffeine addiction. Ed probably would like coffee.

"We want you to come back to Central," Al said twenty minutes later, being the only person not eating. For obvious reasons. "We don't want you to run somewhere else."

Roy quirked an eyebrow. "And what if we didn't want to return to Central? The military will be waiting for us with open arms. And as we established yesterday, we have no intention of going back to fighting."

"But didn't you want to rise through the ranks?" Havoc protested. "I thought that was your goal. To surpass everyone else."

"Havoc," Fuery pleaded.

"Things have changed," Roy said with a touch of ice in his voice. "That tends to happen when you've been a POW."

"But you had to have been through worse than this," Havoc went on.

"That's not your place to say," Roy countered. "None of you here have been through what we've been through. You can't just come here and start ordering me around like that. Now, if this was all you wanted to discuss; then we're done here."

"No, wait. That's not it," Alphonse said hurriedly. Roy and Ed sank back down into their seats, having half-risen from them at the end of Roy's statement. "We're not here to talk you into going back to the military. We just want you guys to come back home."

"That's not as easy as you make it sound, Alphonse," Roy said. "We're enemies of the state. We're deserters."

Alphonse held up his hands, his mind reeling back to yesterday. He wasn't about to fall into this sink hole of a conversation again. "Please just give us a chance, Mr. Mustang. We're working on getting you two to Central without having to get arrested or go back to the military. Besides," Al reasoned on impulse. "If it comes to it, we can just hide you two in Resembool for a while. Granny and Winry will be able to hide you."

"Or Ed could hide out there while Roy returns to Central to properly withdraw from the military," Breda added. "I mean. You have served a full term and after what happened, no one would blame you for withdrawing. Even if we don't know the full details." He said the last part with a touch more aggression than he had the previous sentences.

Ed slammed the table with his automail hand on the table, rattling the silverware, plates, and everyone seated at it. "Where Roy goes, I go," he said simply. Simply and a tad desperately.

Roy grabbed Ed's shoulder, as if to hold him down, or just to give comfort. "It's okay, Ed. I'm not going anywhere. We're not going to be separated." Ed grabbed the end Of Roy's shirt, looking almost scared that someone would take him away. Al felt a pang of emotion. He didn't know what the feeling was, but it wasn't good. He was sad for Ed to be so easily made afraid. He was also sad that Ed sought comfort from Mustang of all people as opposed to Al. Was he not enough for his brother?

Al shook it off as best he could. After all, he hadn't been with brother over the past few months. And it was obvious that something bad had happened to him. It made sense that Ed would want Roy. But… Al thought of his brother calling Mustang 'dad'; and it hurt. He could logically see why Ed would do that, and why he would want to say that again. Emotionally though, Alphonse felt like Ed was trying to cut away his old life. Cut away Alphonse.

Breda held up his hands, receiving glares from most everyone at the table. "Sorry," he said sincerely. "I didn't know I'd set the kid off like that."

"It's fine," Mustang sighed, rubbing Ed's back soothingly. "Lets all just avoid plans that involve Ed and I going to separate destinations."

"Does this mean you will go back to Central with us?" Falman asked, keying into Roy's phrasing of the last sentence.

"If there's a way then I don't see why not," Roy admitted. He looked to Ed, as though looking for permission. Ed gave a small nod and smile before Roy continued. "I think it'd be easier if we were back in familiar territory. Not under the watch of the military, or as fugitives."

"That can be arranged," Hawkeye said, joining the group at the table. She smiled, bags under her eyes attesting to a night spent without sleep. "I just got off the phone with Maes. It's been arranged that King Bradley honorably discharged you and Ed from service. It's in light of the hardships the two of you have faced. Roy, you were already at the end of your mandatory service, so you were fine to retire anyways. Ed, you never should have been allowed to be a state alchemist. In light of that you received payment for your retirements and that's the end of it." She shrugged her shoulders and stole Havoc's coffee mug. She downed the rest of it in one monstrous gulp, ignoring Havoc's protest.

Roy stared, his mind frozen. Was that really going to be the end of it? Had it been that easy all along? No. It couldn't have been done, just like that. "But… There's no way that we'd have been let go just like that. I mean, your reasoning is correct but what would ever make them just let us go like that?"

"Bradly may, or may not, have been aware of a certain someone's plan to rise through the ranks. Having one less talented alchemist after his position is a great boon." Hawkeye looked to Ed. "Even if it means losing some of his most talented people."

Ed looked away from Riza, rubbing his arm in discomfort. He didn't want the reminder of what he couldn't do. Not that Hawkeye had meant to bring that to the forefront of his mind. She couldn't have been trying to be that cruel. If anything, the blond meant it as a compliment to him. Right now, all he felt was pain about it.

Roy ran a hand through his head, leaning back in his chair. "I… I really don't know what to say. Thank you, Hawkeye."

She inclined her head. "There are people who miss you two and would have you back home, no matter the changes that need to be made to make that happen." There was a chorus of agreement from the others gathered at the table.

Roy thought about it. Going back to Central wasn't going to be that easy. For one thing they'd probably face a lot of hate from the military for leaving, honorable discharge or not. However, at Central Roy had a house. A house that could easily house Ed; and would allow for Roy to better provide for him than some cabin they broke into. Plus, the money from the discharge would keep them sitting comfortably for some time, as opposed to living on the road.

Would it truly be better for them to return to Central?

Yes. It would be.

"Ed?" the blond turned to look at Roy. "You want to go back to Central?"

The youth wasn't sure he wanted to return to Central. Returning meant acknowledging how different he was since he had left. All the things that had changed in him. All the things he now lacked. His strength, abilities, and will power. He couldn't just say no though. Everyone else wanted to return, even Roy did. What could he say? No?

Besides, he needed to at least be somewhere Al could find him. He didn't want to make his brother worry. He wanted to still help Al too, in any way he could. Even if it meant learning to use alchemy again. And the best place to do that was Central.

But still…

A hand gripped Ed's under the table. Roy's hand. Roy gave his own a squeeze before releasing. It was a silent promise. One to not leave, one that Ed doesn't have to worry. It was a promise that things were going to be okay, so Ed could relax.

Ed smiled, the butterflies in his stomach settling. "Yeah. Let's go home."