When had things changed? When had Ed ceased to be a sweet, if good-looking teenage boy, who Roy may have occasionally had inappropriate feelings for but felt a stronger urge to project, to preserve his remaining innocence?

When did Roy Mustang suddenly feel as though he really and truly wanted Edward Elric - and that nothing would surpass that want?

Unfortunately, not until Ed was beyond his reach.

It had been a few years since Ed had disappeared. He was older now, Roy assured himself; he refused to listen to the people who said that Ed had died. There was no way that the homunculi or their leader could have killed him, especially not when Ed was able to succeed in giving his brother back the body that he had fought for tooth-and-nail for years. Unfortunately, Al was not the same; he'd lost the years he'd spent traveling with and fighting alongside his brother, and he couldn't tell Roy or anyone what had happened in that ballroom below Central where he'd been found.

But Roy knew, deep down, that Ed was still alive.

For one, they'd never found the body. Riza - now Captain Hawkeye - had told Roy that he read too many books, that he pinned too many of his hopes and despairs on how these things turned out in fictional worlds. But he'd been right about Hughes. The soldier who dotes on pictures of his girl back home doesn't make it out alive. And while their campaign against the homunculi wasn't a war in the strictest sense, it got Hughes murdered in cold blood with a picture of him with his wife and daughter by his side.

If his books could be right about the sad things, about the depressing and torturous things, couldn't they be right about the good things?

And those novels always showed that when a body wasn't found, it meant the person was still alive.

But that wasn't the only reason that Roy held onto hope about Edward's life continuing on.

They say that absence makes the heart grow fonder. It is true - but that aphorism never goes into detail, as it should.

They never mention how it aches, how it longs, how that increased fondness (far too minor a word) is tinged with the sickening haze of desperation.

Roy was desperate. He was oh, so desperate.

He would do anything to get Ed back again, and it eventually dawned on him that it wasn't just because he was a talented subordinate who'd already lost so much. It wasn't because of the kind, determined child that Ed had been when he'd first taken the State Alchemist exam.

Roy supposed it dated from when Ed and Al had run off to Lior, the second time - the time they weren't supposed to, when it wasn't their assignment. (The one Roy would always regret. What was he doing, sending an idealistic fifteen-year-old off to meddle in such complex, fraught matters as religion? But that said it all, didn't it... it was so easy to forget just how young and naïve Ed still was. Had been.) Roy was mad with concern. He was good at masking it, to himself and his other subordinates alike, as rage - and it turned out, even Ed and Al themselves were fooled. But he was actually dashing off to protect them, to explain his frustrations that Ed hadn't sought out his help. And once he'd had the words out of his mouth... that was clear.

But even then, he hadn't been able to acknowledge the feelings for just what they were. He figured his concern was of some sort of, well, paternal variety. Didn't Ed and Al need a father figure, with that seat once again vacated by the death of Maes Hughes? Didn't they need someone to look out for them, in that way? He wasn't quite old enough to be an actual father, but he could play the part, Roy was sure.

It should have been clear there in Resembool, when their actual father showed up, that he couldn't. Hohenheim of Light had never been a good father, that Roy knew. But he cared enough and there was a difference in the way he cared about his elder son, and the way that Roy cared.

But Roy still didn't get it. At least then, there was an easier explanation; he was focused on his coup, focused on ironing all the details to take over the country, to burn the homunculus running it (and didn't it say everything that Roy had believed Ed on that?) to a crisp. He pulled all his energy into his planning skills, into chartering the perfect course for him and his team, into his love for his country, for a concept, for a goal. Roy hadn't had time for love for a person.

Because that's what it was, wasn't it? Love.

And it became abundantly clear in the weeks and months after, when Roy had succeeded in killing... Pride, was that his real name? ...and was recuperating in the hospital, and had nothing to do except think. Think, think, think. Think about how he actually enjoyed his arguments with Ed sometimes, and on the rare occasions when they had a more civil, involved conversation, how refreshing and relaxing that was. How he wished he could talk to him for an extended time about their mutual histories, or discuss alchemy or the country's political situation or...whatever. Ed had preferences in entertainment like everyone else, didn't he? Surely on those missions he'd had the time to hear some music, or catch the occasional picture show. He'd had time for some fun. Right? And they could talk about that?

But it wasn't just the idea of talking that crept into Roy's mind. It wasn't just Ed's indomitable personality - his fierce intelligence, his focus and determination, his unending love and loyalty for his brother and the rest of his family and friends. Roy had always admired his youngest subordinate for those things, that was nothing new. It was when he began to fixate on his physical qualities - his flowing, angelic golden halo of hair; his amber eyes, so exotic and unexpected, like nothing Roy had ever seen on anyone else; his always sun-kissed skin, his body's perfect combination of lithe and yet still tough and masculine... He dreamed about all these things, imagined Ed in front of him, though it took a long time before he would dare to let himself dream of touching him.

And it was when he had time to do things other than think, think, think, when people visited Roy in the hospital and he could talk, talk, talk to them, and most of that talking seemed to revolve around whether there had been any word on Ed's whereabouts.

He was a man possessed.

It initially horrified Roy when he started to realize the turn his thoughts had taken. When had he begun to see Ed this way? When had he begun to see his youngest subordinate, who was a barely-pubescent preteen when he had entered Roy's command, in such a lustful...such a sexual way? It was clearly much, much more than that, but that element was there and it worried Roy sick at first. What had he become?

And he reacted by reaching out to anyone who would take it. At first, that was Lieutenant Hawkeye. Roy knew about the fraternization rule, but wasn't too worried; he was due for a demotion anyway, because of the numerous questions floating in the air since that fateful night, so Hawkeye wouldn't be his subordinate for too much longer. He'd managed to pull together a story about attempting to save the Führer, but failing, but Roy knew it wasn't airtight enough that everyone would buy it. He'd never been a particularly loyal supporter of Bradley, and he knew that those who were had their eyebrows raised to the roof and lips dripping with ready queries.

Plus, Roy knew that Riza had been smitted with him for a long time. The stoic woman was good at hiding it, and he was sure no one else in his command had noticed, but having known her since adolescence, Roy was a bit better than most at seeing through Riza Hawkeye's masks. So when she was at his bedside nearly every day, he reached for her - literally and figuratively - and she took him, and by the time Roy had recovered the two had some semblance of a relationship. And it was nice, and normal, for a short while. It got his mind off the thing that he wanted to escape, the fixation much more dangerous than any fraternization law.

But it was destined to go down in flames, and it wasn't too long before it did. The thing about seeing behind masks because of their years of familiarity was very much mutual, and Riza quickly divined that Roy wasn't interested in her. And then it was confirmed one night when, in his post-coital slumber, Roy had murmured Edward's name into his pillow. Riza didn't want him to know, but she had heard it and she knew what needed to be done. She let him down gently.

After that, Roy had got back up to his old womanizing habits - taking various lovers, mostly women (it was too easy with another man to be reminded of the man he really wanted), all people who were quite aware of the particular contract they were signed. The sorts of girls Roy would sometimes steal from Havoc, the blushing naïfs, were consigned to the past. He had nothing to give and wanted others who were similarly uncommitted. They were worldly lovers, usually around Roy's age though occasionally a bit older, sometimes even caught up in other loves of their own. They were used to this sort of thing, and asked for nothing more than a quick, passionate, but ultimately meaningless affair. Which was all Roy wanted.

Though he'd get into the old routine still, buying them fancy dinners followed by tickets to the cinema or the symphony or the opera. But if they were more interested in the star baritone than they were in him, that was all the better.

His last date, before Roy decided he couldn't take it anymore, before he made up his mind to go up north and lick his wounds, was to the picture show.

The woman he was with was petite and blonde, with little in the way of breasts or hips. He'd had a habit lately of picking those, and it was no mystery why.

Roy had had time to come to terms with his attraction to the Fullmetal Alchemist, and decided it wasn't so horrifying after all. Edward was mature for his age, it had been a year or so, and he was brilliant and it was hard to deny his beauty. It made sense. He wasn't the first to be smitten by the young man, he knew; he'd heard the stories of what happened every time he'd rolled into town and demonstrated why he was called "the People's Alchemist."

No, the only problem was that Ed was gone somewhere, and Roy would probably never see him again. That was what he had to come to terms with, that was what he had to learn to accept. That was the horrifying part.

So he chose lovers who looked like him and tried not to slip up and call them by Ed's name during sex.

The woman had picked this film. It was some sort of science fiction story about a post-apocalyptic world. Some rogue alchemist's experiment had gone haywire and it had resulted in a pandemic that was killing off the world like flies. The main character, a busty brunette named Lucy, was one of the few remaining survivors.

In the middle of the film, her love interest - a blond, but short-haired, tall and bulky, nothing like Edward - had gone missing. Everyone presumed he was dead. Everyone except Lucy.

Because they hadn't found the body.

And Lucy had turned out to be right. At the end of the film, they found him wandering in a ditch. Sick, delirious out of his mind, but alive. And as the lovers embraced and the credits began to roll, Roy's mind began to spin again, and his date was barely there.

And Roy knew he couldn't lie to himself any more.

Edward was alive, somewhere, and Roy was in love and he would find him and his life would be whole again.