Alphonse knew the experience of loss all too well, but for him at least...well, there was always a reason for Fate to flip the bird on him.

Not that it was too personal, at least for him.  His daughter was in London, or somewhere along the lines of the isle, probably living a good life or working in a brothel.  Either way, he had done all he could on his part.  To take care of himself and perhaps others that could still use a good haven, he had a body and a plane to work with, as well as a team of other like-minded people.  They'd probably turn on him if they knew what kind of life he lived not a few years ago...

Oh.

It [i]was[/i] too bad he forgot to smuggle the coffee...or did he?

Alphonse came back to the hangar in record time, with a cup o' joe in his hands.  Call it an airman thing, but coffee never ceased to exist in any place, as far as he knew it.  In a world full of change, perhaps coffee was the only constant left.  It was the reason why there was an aluminum beaker among his other articles, why he always had a surplus of water.  The bonus was that because of his (supposed) leprosy, many hesitated to share a drink.  So he drank and drank, waiting for everyone else to leave.

"Roland," Alphonse grunted as he made his way over to his leader, once everyone had asked their questions, "I'm not going to console you.  To be frank, their lives were in their hands, and the anti-air turrets had the responsibility of this base.  Those who used the turrets failed their job, and paid for it with their lives.  Our job was to make a haven to prevent things like this from happening, and I know everyone has their own reasons to do so."

He glanced over at the other pilots trying to get a moment of respite.

"I personally think it's impossible to achieve without scraping the tainted flesh away, if you know what I mean.  For a fact, I know that Bram's flock will be looking for retribution, so getting a start to this cauterizing business isn't going to be hard.  If the worst-case scenario comes about, and so far it always has, we'll be in the sights of people like the Red Baron one day.

I could be wrong though.  Your guilt may actually have some weight, if your vision of the Sky Warriors included us being the shining knights in white armor that lived by seeing things through, not just trying our best.

I'll leave that for you to answer on your own time."

Alphonse took a few gulps, and hacked.

"My only question is this :

Are you [i]going[/i] to be our ace or not when this shit hits the fan?  If [b]you[/b] want to [u]do[/u] more, [u]be[/u] more, [b]you[/b] have the responsibility of turning us into more than the sum of our parts, which means [b]you[/b] have to do it when we can't.  The ace covers his wingmen's slip-ups, not cheering for what little we are expected to do."

In retrospect, this was nothing close to Alphonse's true feelings about the matter.  If anything, he couldn't give two damns less if Roland was still a bad pilot at his full potential, but the truth said otherwise.

He had to push Roland to be something more than he ought to be; that's how Alphonse himself got to where he was right now.  Had he congratulated himself for raising a sane girl in the most deplorable place in the world, he would've ended up as some lecher among lechers.  Resisting his temptation brought him to the level of "any father that would", meaning he only hit the borderline of "normal".

What if you took a "normal" and pushed him to be something more?