Title: You Find Friends In Weird Places

Disclaimer: Don't own.

A/N: Lots of time passes between the last chapter and this one, and not everything has been resolved. But they will! Like that strange arrancar that has absolutely no relation to Ed… cough Anyway, I got the inspiration from Edward-Elric-13's pic Edward Elric as an Arrancar on DeviantART, so if you want to see a picture go there. By the way, Darpaka means Pride. So now I'm confusing the crap out of everybody.

Warning: Zaraki Kenpachi appears in this chapter. That should be self-explanatory.

Wish: REVIEWS! Special thanks to Finallife for my 100th review and to all my other reviewers! Let's go for 200!

God it felt good to get out of the office, or at least Roy Mustang thought so. It certainly wasn't helping that the atmosphere in the office was a thick as pea soup. Edward Elric had had another brief encounter with death even though he didn't know it, and his coma was well into its fourth week. Hawkeye was so stressed out she wouldn't even kiss him, and even though Havoc had probably changed in the time since Mustang had died, he definitely hadn't changed into a morose, gloomy man.

He stuck his hands together through the sleeves of his clothes, feeling the piece of paper in one of them. Kidou could do some seemingly useless things, but they certainly helped sometimes. Seeing a group of women, he approached them, pulling out the paper. "Excuse me, but have any of you ever seen this man?"

He was treated with the slight hatred he was used to, both as a shinigami and State Alchemist. One of the older women glared at him. "Why?"

Now was the sucking up part of Mustang's act. He smiled softly. "He was my best friend who died before me. Have you seen him?"

The corners of the mouths of all the women there lifted. Now this was new. They hadn't ever seen a shinigami act like this. However, all of them still shook their heads or said a variant of no.

They were about to depart when a young woman ran up, panting. "Excuse me, has anyone seen this woman? My dad and I are looking for her."

Mustang turned to the young woman. "Have you seen-"

Both froze. Mustang stared at a young woman with her dirty blond hair in a long ponytail and perfect eyes a shade of teal that Hitsugaya-taichou would be jealous of. She stared back at him. "Uncle… Uncle Roy?"

"Elysia?"

The young woman leapt at him. "Uncle Roy!" She grabbed him in the largest hug her petite figure could grab him in, causing both of them to drop their pictures. She started dragging him off, oblivious to everything else. "Come on, Daddy will be so happy to see you! Maybe as happy as he would be to see Mommy!"

The women smiled as they saw how the two pictures had fallen. The people in them were staring at each other in a quite lovingly way. Rukongai's form of a love story struck again.

Roy laughed as he finally got Elysia to slow down. "Elysia, what's going on? Where are you taking me?" Now looking at her, he realized she only looked about sixteen.

Elysia was still grinning like it was Christmas. "To Daddy! He'll be so happy to see you!"

Roy's heart almost stopped. "Maes… he's here?"

Elysia smiled. "Of course he's here! And now we're looking for Mommy!"

Roy grinned. "Take me to him."

Elysia grinned along with him. "This way! We're almost there!"

The two of them ran down the streets, looking quite ridiculous. Finally they reached a small slightly run down house in a street full of run down houses, trash littering the streets. Elysia ran in. "Daddy! Guess who I found!"

An achingly familiar voice sounded from another room. "Gracia?"

Roy smiled. "No Maes. Guess again."

There was a slight blur, and all of a sudden all of the air was forced out of Roy's lungs. Maes finally let go and put his hands on Roy's shoulders, grinning like a madman. "You had me worried there. I was starting to think maybe you'd offed yourself again before we could find each other."

Roy raised a questioning brow, and Maes tilted his head towards Elysia. Roy smiled. "Did you really think I would be depressed enough to off myself two times in a row?"

"No, but I thought that something else might…" Maes was cut off by a set of racking coughs. Roy grabbed him by the shoulders and held him steady. "I'm fine… don't worry."

Roy looked at him worriedly. "No you're not fine. Have you seen a doctor?"

Maes shook his head. "Aren't any. Besides, we don't have any money."

"Well then, I'll take you to a doctor in Sereitei. I'm a third seat, so I should be able to get you one. If I can't, then Riza should be able to. Even if she can't, we just need to get you within hearing distance of Unohana-taichou and have you cough. She'll be on you like a fly to honey."

Maes smiled. "Fine then. It doesn't sound as if I have much choice now does it?"

It took longer to get to Sereitei with Maes and Elysia then it would have if Roy were alone, but they still made good time. Once at the gate Jidanbou gave them no trouble, but shortly after they ran into a little problem… okay, not so little.

"MUSTANG! I HEARD ABOUT YOUR SHIKAI! I WANT TO FIGHT YOU!"

"YAY! KEN-CHAN'S GOING TO FIGHT SPARKY!"

Roy's face grew ashen. "Of all the times for him to show up…"

"Who?" Maes asked.

"You really don't want to know."

Suddenly the monstrosity that was Zaraki Kenpachi thumped into the ground in front of the trio. A pink-haired girl poked her head over his shoulder. "Oh! Sparky's got friends with him!"

Little red hearts appeared around Maes Hughes's head. "OH MY GOD SHE'S SOO CUTE!!"

Zaraki nearly dropped his sword in shock. "Hu-ba-duh-wuh?"

"She's just like my little Elysia! When my little Elysia was little, that is! And that hair is so cute! What's your name?"

"Yachiru!" Yachiru announced.

"Yeah, um, who the hell are you?"

"Maes Hughes, best friend of Roy Mustang over there and father of Elysia Hughes, also over there! Please, let me give you my fathering advice!"

"That would be so damn helpful. How do you get them to stop chewing on people's fucking heads?"

"Elysia never did that, but together I'm sure we can find a way!"

Elysia was just plain confused, but Roy had long since keeled over in a dead faint.

Now that Roy though about it, he should have seen this coming a mile off. Beneath the fight obsession and the insanity and the blood and the swearing… beneath a lot of things actually, Zaraki Kenpachi cared about Kusajishi Yachiru quite a lot thank you very much. Granted, he didn't take pictures, but there were rumors that he had a scrapbook full of hair samples from each of Yachiru's 'playmates' dated and labeled.

Really, it should have been quite obvious that the weirdest friendship ever was bound to happen. And after Elysia had managed to wake him back up, Roy realized that. Silently the two had left Zaraki and Maes to their talk.

"So, what happened after I died?" Roy asked, trying to stir up conversation.

Elysia sighed, looking at the sky. "It knocked us all for six. Mom never quite got over it. She liked you, you know," she added, looking over at Roy. His face remained impassive. "She never told you though because she felt guilty, about you being Dad's best friend and all. And then Uncle Jean died a year later, and that didn't exactly help things. Anyway, after everything that had been happening in the military and such, and then the scandal came out about how you had killed Aunt Riza and then killed yourself, and then when it was discovered that it was a plot created by another general to get you out of the way, everything went downhill from there. Things degenerated into a huge civil war, and they were still flogging the dead horse when I died. Drachma certainly wasn't helping either. I think they were hoping we would fight ourselves to oblivion and then they could come down and take everything in one fell swoop."

"I thought it was something like that. I was drugged, wasn't I?"

"There was never any proof, but that's the general consensus yes."

Roy paused, looking ahead. "Well, what's done is done. This is Fifth Division. Let's go see Aunt Riza and Uncle Jean, eh?"