A/N: Sorry to say, ladies and (although I rather hope not, because the idea of fanboys very slightly scares me) gentlemen, but this is the very last chapter! After this, there will be no more. I would like to add a big humongous thank you to those of you who have been reading - I did not expect to get this many hits or reviews, so I love you all! I hope this chapter lives up to all expectations of greatness (okay, so I'm arrogant. I'm a Leo, what do you expect?)Read! Love! Review!

Disclaimer: Not even the mighty Spoons of Time could make me the owner of FMA, much as I might wish it were so.

III.

For a long time, they tried to keep it a secret. Roy believes that it was partly out of denial; if no one knew, they could pretend that it was nothing, that it meant nothing, even though they both knew it had become something a long time ago.

It was easier not telling. It was simpler. There would be no awkward conversations, no attempts at explanations, no averted glances that way. As much as Roy trusted his team, he wasn't entirely sure he could trust them with this.

Part of it, Roy has to admit, was merely that they both enjoyed having a secret. It was nice to think that they were being mysterious, nice to know something no one else did, nice to smirk at the wild speculation thrown their way. It made what they were doing more of a challenge, and Roy loved a challenge.

So in the office they kept up the façade that nothing had changed. It would have been easy to avoid each other completely, pretend that they hated each other, but that would have exposed them within a day. They did what was much harder: the carefully modulated voices that revealed no unexpected emotions, the eyes that had to meet without looking away or staring too long, the touches that had to be accidental and insignificant.

They made up for it on the evenings that they still pretended were just a chance to pick up girls. They went out, to restaurants or movies or for coffee, or even just to the bar. One night they went dancing, and Roy laughed at him because he danced for hours without putting out his cigarette.

The swirls of smoke were beautiful, though.

At some point, Roy realized that it wasn't a secret anymore. Everyone knew, everyone had known for a long time. He's still not entirely sure what gave them away. Maybe it was that weeks passed without him crying over another broken heart. Maybe it was that for the same weeks, Roy no longer loudly bragged of his many conquests, most of them stolen right out from under his nose. Maybe they realized the day one irritated glance from him did what Riza's threats couldn't, and got Roy to finish his paperwork. Maybe it was the day they were walking to lunch, and he tripped, and Roy caught his hand before he could fall. Somehow, they knew.

Roy suspects it was the smoke.

The smoke gave them away, because the smoke no longer belongs to him. The smoke belongs to both of them now.

The first time Roy woke up with his arms wrapped around him, he noticed that the bed smelled like smoke. The bitter, sweet, familiar scent was like a second blanket entwined around the two of them. It made him feel comfortable, right, safe, just like the man next to him who was now blinking and stretching and driving off all thoughts of smoke.

Somehow the scent of smoke has filled Roy's life. It was subtle at first, so faint he thought he was imagining it, but now he is certain. It is not just his bed any longer. When he opens his drawers, all his clothes smell of it, even the freshly laundered uniform shirts he buttons on every morning.

When he goes down to the kitchen for breakfast, the first thing Roy notices is not the savory odor of frying bacon or the sound of someone singing loudly and off-key. The first thing he observes is that the kitchen is full of smoke; everything slightly blurred and clouded by it. Roy doesn't entirely know how he can tell the difference between smoking for comfort and smoking from elation, but he can.

One night he wasn't there; he was out on assignment, a minor recon mission with Hawkeye. Roy sat alone in his living room, drinking coffee, and couldn't help but acknowledge that his presence lingered in the scent of smoke that now filled every room of the house. There was no place he could go to escape it, no place free of memories and smoke.

After the tears had all left him in a storm of jerky sobs, Roy was willing to admit that he was comforted by the smell of smoke.

Roy thinks they finally knew because of the smoke. Because his clothes, and his hair, and probably his skin bear the taint of smoke now, traces he can't smell on himself but that he knows are there. Riza looked at him oddly one day, when they were working together and she stood close, and Roy knows it was because she could smell it on him.

They never decided to tell everyone, not really. They decided to kiss, one day, in Roy's office. They decided to forget about locking the door. They decided to do it when they knew Riza was about to come back and Hughes was about to come in.

They both decided that actions would speak louder than words, and require less explaining.

Roy can't believe that nothing changed after that, but it's true. No one seemed surprised and no one seemed to care, and Roy was almost disappointed that something he tried so hard to hide would be taken so much in stride by everyone he hid it from.

Smoke was never part of his element; he was wholly fire and nothing else. Roy knew that to be true, but now it isn't so. Smoke is part of what defines him now. When people think of smoke, they think of him, as always, but they also think of Roy, which they never did before, and most especially they think of the two of them, together.

When people want to find Roy now, they do not look for him, but for the blue clouds of smoke, because that is always where he will be found. It has even become a joke in the office; Roy knew it would, the day someone was looking for him by following the hazy trail and instead found him and Roy, lips pressed together, eyes shut, surrounded by rings of smoke.

Roy doesn't see why it's so funny, but everyone laughs when someone opens the clichéd phrase, and the laughter nearly drowns out whoever finishes the line. He doesn't think it's all that funny, but when he looks over at him, their eyes meet and neither one can help smiling, because they both know it's true.

Sometimes, if he doesn't think anyone will notice, Roy mouths the first line across the room

Where there's smoke

And he grins and exhales smoky spirals and around his cigarette, he mouths his answer,

There's fire.

Owari