Another bunny I was working on mutated into this. I have no idea how it happened. Still, it's been a while since I've wrote, so here you guys go! It's Gen for once, but I think the Roy x Ed fans on my list would still enjoy this.

Title: Well Met
Genre: Gen, Introspective
Summary: Roy muses on the strange boy he just met with mixed feelings and no small amount of guilt.
Warning: VAS, but mostly because it's Roy's POV and he seemed to rather ignore Al himself at the start. Bad Roy!
Rating: PG
Beta: The talented nsiva_llataq and zalia



Well Met



When he first laid his eyes upon the boy, it was like an epiphany. A moment of perfect, utter, shock.

Roy had expected something completely different after what he had found left on the blood-soaked floor of that cold basement. For what he had discovered had been a gory display of unparalleled brilliance and talent... and an absolute lack of morals.

Before he saw the boy, he was utterly disgusted, both with the perpetrator and with himself. He knew all too well the dark deeds that could drive a person to try something so arrogant. He had almost walked that road himself.

Only the mad attempted human transmutation.

The person who had attempted that particular one obviously had no respect for not only the law, but also basic human decency, he had thought, coldly, still feeling a bit sick to his stomach. Roy rapped once on the door and let himself in, trying not to look at the name on the sign outside and determined to do what he must.

To his surprise, he found not a monster, but a child. A pitiful small boy, bandages wrapped around most of his body and limbs missing. He had been laying against sheets almost as pale as his own flesh, pretending to be asleep.

Distantly, he found himself remembering the contents of that letter, the one that had brought him here to this town... this cursed home... so far away from his own.

Mother is very very sick, Father. Please come home!

Only a boy. Children.

Perhaps it was pity that caused Roy to make his offer. That was a normal enough reaction to seeing a fellow human being suffering. Or perhaps it was surprise. It had been a real shock, that moment, after all. Roy had met a kindred spirit for the first time. Both were stained, it was just that Roy was able to hide his marks better.

Later, on his darker days, he would admit to himself that it had been his own damn guilt that had moved him.

He had to help.

****

Weeks after he had left the boy behind, his mind still processing the entire incident, the alchemist had done research on the matter of automail limb replacement. Books spread across his kitchen table, Roy sipped his already-gone-cold coffee and rubbed his temples. It had been years since he had bothered to research much of anything. He now remembered why.

Dangerous--

Dangerous, painful, and a long road to recovery, all the books on the subject had said. Not an operation for the faint-hearted, and certainly not one for a child. Even among the steel-willed, few could take that sort of pain willingly.

Coming across yet another disgusting illustration on nerve connections, Roy grimaced. Suddenly he was glad he had skipped dinner that evening. The description of the operation wasn't much better, either. He could hardly imagine what it was like to actually go through it.

The dark-haired man prayed, anew, that he had done the right thing... urging the youth along this particular path. His words by that bed-side had been spur of the moment, but the repercussions most definitely would not be. Roy only hoped that it would all turn out for the best.

He couldn't bear another suffering child haunting him.

****

Roy had to admit he was damned impressed.

It wasn't that he wasn't expecting to see the Elric boy again, oh no. He knew the type all too well, and there had been no doubt in his mind that they'd meet again in the future. But despite his self confidence in reading people and personal awe at the boy's amazing alchemy, he wasn't expecting it to happen quite so fast.

He thought he had at least until the child was 17. That was a few years later than the usual recovery time for the operation... Roy made allowances for Edward's age. After all, the brain might be brilliant and the spirit willing-- but that was only a child's body after all.

Now Edward Elric was standing before him, grinning cockily. He was standing steadily on two legs, and hands were resting on slender hips as the boy looked curiously around his office. The operation appeared to be a success, and the child unharmed and somehow, despite everything-- cheerful.

If Roy didn't know any better, he'd think the whole boy-alchemist before him was no more than the average and happy child. The type more likely to be found at a playground or school-house than the office of a officer of the military. An innocent, chumming around with his equally young friends... his whole life ahead of him still.

That is, he thought that until the boy opened his mouth, too-old eyes shining with determination.

"I'm here, Lieutenant Colonel. Now what?"

He had made the right choice in the end, after all. What a relief. The boy was fine. At that moment, Roy had no doubts Edward really would accomplish the impossible... yet again.

He'd help him every step of the way, too.