The alarm bells seemed to be coming from everywhere. He struggled up from the thick, fuzzy blackness, slowly, his arm reaching out in a vague search for the alarm clock. It was only when he felt the hard surface beneath him, and began to push himself away from it, that he realized it wasn't the clock making the noise.

He gasped for breath, for some reason needing the extra air. "Gracia…get the phone…," he managed, labouriously shoving himself up onto his hands and knees. It took about three tries, with shaky hands, before he could straighten his crooked glasses on the bridge of his nose.

And then he remembered.

Maes sat back on his haunches, slapping his hands to his face and frantically feeling his cheeks, his hair, down the front of his shirt. Nothing burned. Everything intact. So Roy hadn't burned him. What, then?

He took another gasping breath, automatically turning his head toward the cool breeze blowing across the kitchen. As he saw the wide open window, he understood: Roy had altered the composition of the air somehow, probably cutting off the oxygen, just long enough to knock him out and leave him sleeping.

Until the infernal racket woke him up. He struggled to his feet, staggering toward the phone. "H-Hughes h-here," he gasped.

"Hughes? What are you doing th – never mind."

It was Havoc, sounding almost as groggy as Maes felt. He leaned back and tried to focus on the grandfather clock. It was 4:30 a.m. – he had to have been out for about four hours. But Havoc was speaking again. He had to concentrate.

"Look, is Roy there? I hate to bother him again tonight, but there's another fire."

"He – he's not here," Maes faltered. He took another deep breath to try to clear his head further.

"Damn. We might not even need him – it's getting hard to tell an ordinary accidental fire from one of the arsonist's jobs – but I thought I'd better call. Where is he? Is he with Riza? I called her, but she's not answering."

Maes blinked and forced himself to think. "I don't know where either of them are, but I'll come anyway. Roy might even hear about it himself, and come to help," he added, maintaining the fiction for a little longer. The thought of telling Havoc what had really happened made him quail. "Tell me where to go, and I'll get there."

After Havoc gave him the address, he hung up the phone and pressed his forehead to the wall beside it.

Roy.

Another fire, and not very far away from here either. Another truncation of the spiral. And after Roy had knocked him out to get away.

His face had looked – staring into his palms, entranced just by the thought of fire – his face had looked –

Maes could hardly bear to contemplate the possibilities. Fighting down a surge of grief, he gathered his strength and ran as quickly as he could down the hall. But he jerked to a halt with a sharp gasp as he recognized someone in uniform, lying on their face on the sidewalk at the bottom of the porch.

Riza Hawkeye.

"Roy – Roy, what have you done?" he whispered, leaping off the porch and kneeling beside the fallen woman. He rolled her over, feeling for a pulse on the side of her neck, his own heart racing in fear.

But she was alive, and breathing. And when her eyes finally flew open, and she sat up with a gasp, his arm around her shoulders to steady her, she began looking around, her agitation rising. "Roy! Where is he? He was just here – he came out and when I tried to find out where he was going, he just said he was sorry, and then – " she frowned, trying to remember. "I think he knocked me out or something."

"He did," Maes nodded. "And he wasn't 'just here' – he took off at least four hours ago. In fact…Riza…," he said, his throat constricting, "I think he's started another fire."

Another terrible grief tonight – the look on Riza's face as she absorbed the news. She knew as well as he did what this probably meant. The painful side effect of knowing Roy as well as they did.

They took Maes's car, and drove mostly in tense silence, especially when they turned onto a main street and could see the bright, flickering glow casting an angry red light in the area several blocks down.

As she stared at the nearing light with bleak eyes, Riza murmured, "When he came outside, I thought I could stop him. I've always been able to talk him out of things if I had to. I never thought he'd ever…and…he was crying…" She stopped herself, biting her lip.

Maes wasn't the only one who was losing something precious tonight. He swallowed hard, and asked, not looking at her, "How long have you known?"

"I started wondering, even before he went to Xing. I hoped I was wrong. I hoped…" She pressed a hand over her eyes, and shook her head, unable to speak further.

This building was rather different from the others, and Maes could see immediately why Havoc wasn't sure whether this was arson or an accidental fire. This one was smaller, another two-storey building that only took up a quarter of the block. It wasn't even a warehouse, but likely a small block of offices. And somehow, just standing looking at it, Maes could tell that this would be an easier fire to put out: the water wagons would be adequate for the job, probably not even needing the bucket brigades, though they were already here.

So. A fire that would not need Roy, to put it out.

That should have been encouraging – it should have meant that this was just an accident, a regular fire. But as Maes met Riza's uneasy eyes, a heavy dread settled into the pit of his stomach.

Neither of them took part in the firefighting activities this time. Despite being fatigued from their earlier similar exercise tonight, the city firefighters had things well in hand. The bucket brigade took care of any small hot spots caused by floating debris outside (it really did seem to be an office; there was a lot of singed paper wafting through the air on the hot updrafts), and the water wagons came swiftly enough to put out the fire inside the building fairly quickly.

Not long after Maes and Riza arrived, Havoc joined them, and all three stood across the street, watching in silence. The city workers were soon soaking down the outside of the building just to make sure nothing flared up again, while a few firefighters concentrated on a last persistent fire – someone said it was around the boiler room – that was taking a little longer to die down.

Maes realized after a few minutes that he had his arm around Riza's shoulders again. She stood shivering beside him and barely seemed to notice, her attention fixed on the burning building. The only time any of them spoke was when Havoc met Maes's eyes and said softly, "Roy's not coming. Is he?" But Maes couldn't bring himself to answer.

When everything was over, and torches and lamps had been set up (though the sky was beginning to lighten above the buildings in the block to the east of this one), Maes assigned two of his Investigations people to work with the fire department, but told them to let the fire and police officials take the lead this time. Again he saw Havoc glance at him, eyes narrowing in speculation.

Then, when his investigators went back to the building to begin their work, Maes saw Police Chief Martin coming across the street, once again frowning grimly, and he knew that the moment he'd dreaded had finally come. His arm tightened instinctively around Riza's shoulders. She already stood rigid at his side, eyes bruised, watching the man come toward them like an angel of doom.

The three of them followed him into the building, bypassing the stairs that had burned away, climbing instead down one of the firefighting ladders into the boiler room. The fire had clearly been fiercest in this spot. Two firefighters stood by with a couple of lamps that turned the extremely humid air almost white as the light diffused through it. Part of the floor above had fallen in, the wood now lying in soggy, steaming piles as moisture dripped from the jagged beams that remained above.

Because of the low mounds of wood and the clumped piles of soaked paper, it took a moment before they saw the body. And then it was all they saw.

Charred almost beyond recognition, it lay face down on the cement beside the burst boiler. The face was mercifully turned away, wisps of what might have been black hair visible here and there on the head, the remnants of clothing hardly more than papery layers spread over the skeleton. Yet the figure wore leather boots that were still recognizable: military-issue. And from the shape and spread of the papery remains of cloth, it was clear that the dead man had been wearing a military uniform.

Chief Martin knelt near the head and shoulders and pointed wordlessly to the left hand, curled on the floor near the back of the person's neck. Somehow it had been protected from most of the fire, and they could see the glove, now lightly browned but once clearly white. And on the back of the glove, in a much darker shade of brown, the colour of dried blood, the clear tracing of the array for flame alchemy.

Riza fell to her knees and began to sob uncontrollably, brokenly. Maes reached out in his blind grief and found Havoc already reaching for him. The two men leaned against each other and wept.

Major Vanova had taken some persuading, but she wasn't as unsympathetic as Maes had expected. When she realized that his official story was going to be that the arsonist had finally attained his ultimate goal – trapping Colonel Roy Mustang in a building and killing him there with fire, his own weapon – she came to Maes's office to ask what he was doing.

"We both know that that wasn't what happened," she'd said quietly, after closing his office door so no one else would hear. "And we both know who was really setting the fires. Don't we, Maes?"

Maes's response had been abrupt and harsh. "The man is dead," he had barked, green eyes hard as emeralds as he focused them on her face. "It's over. Do you really want to destroy the final reputation of a very sick man – a man who was a hero to half the population, and became so sick because of his role in serving his country? There was no way we could have helped him. You must know that, after all your work with Kimbley. Can we not at least do this one last thing for him? Leave him with some dignity, some shred of reputation?"

There had been much more discussion than that, of course. But in the end, she had agreed not to contradict his official version of the story. And she had paused at his door, eyes sad behind her round glasses, and told him, "I grieve for him too, Maes, and what was done to him in Ishbal. I'm so sorry you've lost such a good friend. I'm sure you'll never want to talk to me about how you're feeling, but be sure you have someone else to talk to, to help you get through this. And find help for Mustang's other friends."

The next day, Investigations officially announced that while they would diligently continue seeking clues to the arsonist's identity, it was very likely that the fires had stopped for good and that he had departed the city, now that he had achieved his goal.

Two days after the fire, Maes sat in his office, going through the motions, helping to make arrangements for the funeral. He had asked to be in charge of organizing the event, and asked for Mustang's people to be assigned to him for this task. It was all that kept them going, through that first period of shock. He wondered what would happen to them the day after the funeral.

Riza had already announced, stiffly, her eyes dull, that she would be resigning from the military. Most of the others weren't entirely sure why, since she'd always seemed such a devoted military person, and the possibility of the colonel's death had always existed. But Havoc watched mostly in silence for the first day, and then had cornered Maes, telling him they were going to have a long talk after the funeral was over. It seemed that he, too, would have to be told exactly what had happened to Roy. He had probably already guessed.

Kain Fuery was almost inconsolable, and Havoc was trying to help him; it was likely one of the things helping Havoc himself to make it through these terrible few days. Breda had had a couple of good bouts of drinking himself through the evenings, while Falman faced his grief in his usual stoic fashion. Maes knew that Breda was actually more controlled than he looked, keeping watch on how far he went, and wasn't likely to maintain the heavy drinking for much longer.

Maes himself, on the other hand, knew he would have fallen apart completely if Gracia hadn't kept him standing. But he still spent enough time, over the two days after the fire, bawling on her shoulder whenever Elysia was in bed.

This was what Roy had meant, wasn't it, when they'd talked a bit, after the visit to Kimbley? What had he said? Think of Gracia and Elysia instead of me. There's nobody in this world more sane than you, and you're going to be fine, no matter how this turns out. That's the one thing that helps me, while all this is happening – knowing that in the end, you've got them, and they're going to make it all right for you.

And he'd been right. Every moment Maes spent with his wife and daughter, he silently thanked them for their love, and for their very existence. He hugged and held both of them even more than he had before, if that was possible. But he couldn't quite bear to take pictures. Not just yet.

Roy had known, even then, how this was likely to end. How many more reasons, Maes wondered, would he discover, to make him cry for his friend?

Roy's funeral was in two more days. Maes just had to hold everyone together until then. And then…well, he'd try to hold them together a little longer, he supposed. Vanova had been right about that. Somehow, he felt it was his job to find a way to help them get to the other side of this tragedy. It was one of the last things he could do for Roy, and he knew his friend had counted on him for this.

But there was another of Mustang's people whose reaction he still hadn't encountered. Just before he left to go home for a late lunch on the second day, he looked up to find Edward Elric standing in his office doorway, face drawn with exhaustion, gold hair fraying out of his braid, bright eyes alive with grief and pain.

"You didn't wait," the young man rasped. "Why didn't you wait for me?"

Maes grabbed his coat, grabbed Ed's arm, and almost dragged the kid home with him, where he discovered that Alphonse was already visiting and had gotten the news. Elysia was still up after her lunch, so they had to maintain some semblance of cheerfulness for her, and postpone the discussion.

But the moment Gracia picked up the little girl, cradling Elysia's sagging head against her shoulder as she took her upstairs, Ed turned back to Maes and demanded raggedly, "What happened to him, Hughes? Your people told me when I got into the office that he was – was – but I know it wasn't some arsonist who got him. There's only one way he could end up – there. Where he… Hughes! What happened to him?"

"This is really terrible, Hughes," Al said. "I didn't know Colonel Mustang was in such trouble."

Maes sighed and made the brothers sit down, while he pulled up a stool in front of the couch and sat before them, to tell them the tale of Roy's final two days. It had grown a bit cool in the house, since it was rather overcast and rainy outside, but he shuddered at the very thought of starting a fire in the fireplace. He hadn't been able to bear having a fire there ever since…

He tried to tell Ed and Al what happened as concisely and emotionlessly as possible, just reciting the facts, but of course it was impossible for him. He already had tears in his eyes when he described the hours with his friend in the bathroom, described how the compulsion Roy couldn't fulfill drove him half mad. Gracia, returning from Elysia's room, came up behind him and stood with comforting hands on his shoulders, but there was no comfort to ease the pain of this story.

By the time he told the brothers about that last night – that last confrontation, where Roy had finally explained the nightmare he'd been living – the tears had begun to roll down Maes's cheeks. Again. He felt like he'd been crying for two solid days.

"I think," he said, staring through the blur at the hands twisting together in the space between his knees, "I knew as soon as I woke up that he was going to do…what he did."

"You should have waited for me," Ed whispered. By now he was hunched over, elbows on his knees, both hands burrowed in his hair.

"How would that have helped, Ed?" Maes asked softly. As Ed lifted his head to look at him incredulously, he went on, "What could you have done? Would you have killed him? Or if you managed to defeat him without that, would you really have wanted to see him in prison, treated like Kimbley and going insane because he couldn't fulfill the urge when it came over him? Ed – that would have been sheer torture. I don't think you'd want to send him to that. And I really don't think you'd want to be the one to kill him."

"I – I could have done something. There must've been something I…could've…" Ed clenched his fists on his knees, gulping noisily as he tried to swallow a sob. Looming at his side, Alphonse visibly drooped.

"I've really been thinking about it, the last two days," Maes went on. "And I don't think you could've done anything, Ed. I sure couldn't help him. Riza couldn't. Even though we've always been the ones…" He grimaced. "I hate to say this, but...Roy was probably right when he told me there was no hope to fix this. He…he may have made the only right choice there was."

"The only right choice! To kill himself? To do it – do it like that?" Ed's control was quickly crumbling.

"Well, you know Roy," Maes managed a bitter smile through his tears, "he did like the drama. And – and he made it so I could save his reputation, if I wanted to. I think – I think he was asking one last favour of me. Another favour that he's ducked out of repaying, the stupid jerk." He tried to laugh, but it came out as a sort of hiccup, and he buried his face in his hands.

The brothers stayed for the afternoon and then, when Elysia woke up and wanted to play with them, they stayed for dinner as well. Again they tried to behave more cheerfully, for her benefit, but when it was finally her bedtime, the mood sobered again. Maes really didn't want them to leave; somehow it was a comfort to be able to talk to more people who knew the whole story. It had been hard, the last couple of days, talking to Gracia about what had really happened, but then having to go to the office and maintain the other story in public. He'd managed a few moments now and then with Riza, but she wasn't in a talkative mood about anything.

It was a long evening, trying to console the brothers, when Maes could still barely manage his own grief. Al had never had the same antagonistic relationship with Roy that Ed had, so in a way his sadness was more 'pure', not so tinged with guilt. Ed, on the other hand, was sure he should have guessed the truth sooner, and maybe somehow he could have helped save his superior officer. He seemed to be discovering – too late – how much he had secretly admired the man, and wished for his approval.

It was going to take a long time, Maes thought forlornly, before any of them recovered from this. They'd have to stick together – all of them, Roy's people, Riza, these kids, him and Gracia – they'd have to help each other for a good long while.

And they'd all have to know, he decided. Sometime after the funeral was over, he'd bring them all here, and the three who didn't know all the facts yet – Fuery, Falman, and Breda – and Havoc, if he still hadn't put it all together – would have to be told. Roy's loyal followers and friends deserved the truth about him, even if no one else could be allowed to find out.

Rather than allow the brothers to go home in their current state of grief, Gracia insisted on making up beds for them in the spare room. When Maes suggested that Ed follow his own lead and have some warm milk to help him get to sleep, he endured a mild explosion (quiet enough, at least, that it didn't wake Elysia), and discovered for the first time exactly what Ed's opinion was of milk. Somehow this led to a bit of laughter, even if it soon dissolved into tears. As Gracia finished spreading out the last blanket, Maes pulled Ed into his arms and just held him for a while, letting him cry. It was a measure of the young man's genuine grief that he allowed himself to be held.

When morning came, Elysia gleefully discovered that "her" two favourite visitors were still there, so breakfast was loud and entertaining, and they managed to laugh a little more. They sobered right down again, of course, when the boys left with Maes to go to the office.

The next two days were mercifully busy, with all of Mustang's people (now including the Elrics) running errands, making arrangements, coordinating with the city, and so on. Officials of the city decided they wanted to honour Roy by shutting down some main roads and having his coffin taken along the route in an open carriage, so as many people as possible could bid farewell to the man they perceived as a hero for his recent actions concerning the fires.

While in the midst of a discussion with these officials in the central planning room, Maes glanced up to find Vanova giving him a wry smile across the room, from where she was helping to make other arrangements. He had to blink back tears and look away; empathy from any source was enough to make him let loose right now.

At last the day arrived, clear and bright, and the coffin containing Roy's body was lifted into the ceremonial military carriage, and a funeral began which was normally reserved only for the highest officials in the country. All of Roy's people, smart and polished in dress uniform, walked as an honour guard, three on either side of the carriage. Even Ed had donned his military uniform today, possibly for the first time. Maes and Alphonse, as close friends, had been given special dispensation to join him walking behind the carriage to complete the honour guard.

The procession was a massive affair, with townspeople lining the streets, weeping, as the flag-draped coffin moved slowly by. It took so long that Maes's nerves were almost ready to snap, a good while before they finally arrived at the military cemetery. But Gracia was there with the other military spouses, having left Elysia with a babysitter. And once Roy's closest friends and associates had taken the coffin from the carriage and carried it to the gravesite, and had set it on the broad straps stretched across the open grave, Gracia slid her arm around Maes's waist, taking her place beside him. Maybe he'd make it through the ceremony now.

After the long procession through the streets, the ceremony itself was mercifully brief. Both the Fuhrer and the Mayor of Central gave short speeches extolling Colonel Roy Mustang's great service to his country and the city, but that was about it. Roy's people had been asked earlier if any of them wished to speak, but all of them had known that they'd be pretty much incapable when the time came, and so declined. They knew, among them, exactly what they all had thought of their colonel. And it didn't matter to them if they couldn't express it to the rest of the onlookers.

As the first clods of dirt began to be shoveled down onto the lowered coffin, Riza stepped to the edge of the hole, reaching into her pocket. As she and Maes had arranged, she pulled out the two pairs of spare ignition gloves they'd found in Roy's side table in his bedroom, and dropped them on top of the coffin. They had cut a chunk out of each array on the backs of the gloves, so they could never be used by anyone again, to create fire.

Almost immediately Maes heard a sobbing gulp at his side, and reached a blind hand out to settle it on Ed's shoulder. He blinked away his own tears until finally he couldn't stop them any longer. He stared down into the grave, at the warmly polished coffin gradually being covered over.

Oh Roy.

Friend, companion, brother, through their years at the academy and all the years since, surviving Ishbal and its aftermath, supporting each other through a thousand trials, sharing a thousand joys. Best man at his wedding. One of the few people in the world who knew and understood him. One of the few Maes would have given his life for, without question.

What torments Roy had gone through, those last two nights. Physically ill with compulsion and denial, shaking on the bathroom floor one night. Sitting at his kitchen table the next night, weeping as he agreed with Kimbley that there was no more hope for him.

He'd said it was time to take the burden off Maes's shoulders – the burden he believed his friendship had been. But Maes hadn't wanted this. Never this.

Still, he'd meant what he said to Ed and Al: this might have been the only correct choice it was possible to make, heart-wrenching though it was to admit it. In the end, Roy might have been wise in choosing this as his way out.

And at least now…he was at peace. The rest of them would mourn for a long time, especially knowing the things that had tortured him these last months. Ishbal had, after all, claimed yet another victim. And Kimbley had another death on his list of "Ishbal alchemists."

But Roy himself was free of it all. At last.

As the ceremony ended and everyone finally dispersed, Maes made sure to gather all of Roy's people and tell them they were to come to his house for dinner the next day. Once dinner was over, he'd decided, he would tell them all the whole story. But for now he just wanted to get home. Home to his little girl, and the first quiet evening he'd had with his family in what felt like months.

It was almost suppertime when he and Gracia got in, so while she quickly began to arrange soup and sandwiches for them, Maes played with Elysia. And he took pictures. He hadn't done that in a long time, either. He even built a fire in the fireplace, determined to restart his life properly.

When the phone rang, he almost jumped out of his skin. Walking into the kitchen, he met Gracia's eyes, and they smiled ruefully at each other. At least this time it wasn't the middle of the night, and it would never again be the calls they'd learned to dread. Just the ordinary, run-of-the-mill disasters from now on, he thought, in a burst of near-hysteria.

He picked up the receiver, "Hughes here," he said, smiling down at Elysia as she joined him, hugging one leg.

"Martin here," said the police chief. "I didn't know if I should bother you, right after the funeral, but I wanted to offer my condolences. I don't think I really have yet, what with all the preparations and so on."

"Thanks. I really appreciate it," Maes answered. "It's been hard on a lot of us. But don't worry, I wasn't bothered. I know you've really had your own hands full the last little while, helping with our case as well as your regular cases."

"It's been a tough time all around, recently, hasn't it? But speaking of that…we even had another development with our medical students."

"Oh? What sort of development?" Maes grabbed one of Elysia's pig tails and twirled it through his fingers.

"They swear it wasn't them, and they must be right, because we still had them in custody. But if it wasn't them…well, who knows? It was the darnedest thing, Maes. There was another body-snatching. We were all so busy with that last fire that I forgot to mention it. This time it was one of the bodies that they'd already taken, some black-haired fellow we were keeping in the morgue for re-burial. The body disappeared right out of the morgue, would you believe, the same night as the fire. We were so busy we didn't notice till we took Mustang's body there. And so far we haven't found out who took it, or where. So the mysteries never end, do they?"

"No," Maes answered faintly, his fingers still. "They don't."

"Well, I won't keep you. I just wanted to say how sorry I am about Mustang, because I know you were good friends. If there's anything I can do for you in the future, just let me know."

"I will. Thanks."

Maes replaced the receiver. Behind him, dimly, he could hear the sounds of Gracia's preparations and Elysia's happy chatter to her mother as she stood with a casual arm around his leg. And a moment later, he began to hear Gracia's voice as well, asking, "Maes? Honey? Something the matter?"

He remained as he was, facing the wall, incapable of movement, thought, anything. A wave of cold washed over him, from his scalp to his toenails as he stared blankly at the wall.

Oh, Roy, he thought.