Dead on Arrival

Edward Elric had been dead for five minutes.

Edward Elric was completely incensed.

"I don't care how it happened, I'm not taking another step!" Ed shouted at the white figure looming before him, so bright that even the whiteness around it was gray in comparison.

"Truth," as it liked to be called, sat before the Gate, the only other discernible object in the painfully white expanse. Ed could make out no expression on its face, but Ed couldn't care less if the immortal being was pleased or annoyed.

"If I didn't know any better, I would say you didn't understand how this works," Truth said, its multi-toned voice most certainly annoyed. "When you die, Alchemist, you are dead. You don't get to stop and negotiate on the way out."

Ed thought fast, mind spinning through scenarios and possibilities. "If you weren't interested, you would have sent me on through by now. But here we are! So, what, you're bored, right? What will it take, huh? What kind of stupid game do you want me to play?" Anything. Anything to get back to Al.

"Anything?" Truth asked, a cheshire grin slowly appearing on his otherwise blank face. "Is that so?"

Truth's sudden willingness gave Ed pause. He watched the white figure, but all he could see was that unsettling smile.

Ed had learned over the years that when dealing with Truth, Truth always won. Somehow things always worked out in its favor, and Ed could either accept that and leave Alphonse behind, or defy it.

Without Al, what did he really have to lose?

"What did you have in mind?" Ed asked cautiously. He could offer up a kidney, but for some reason he didn't think a kidney quite equated a human life. He didn't have time for another automail surgery, either. Things were moving too fast, changing. This stupid side mission of Mustang's had been nothing but trouble since the beginning—a major distraction from getting Al's body back in the first place—and with the homunculus starting to act up, Ed needed to be at the top of his game.

Being in the game at all, though, would be a good start.

"How about a friendly wager?"

Ed narrowed his eyes, because nothing Truth ever did was 'friendly.' "Like what?"

"How about I give you one week to solve your own murder? If you do, then you get to live again. If you cannot find your murderer in that time, then I get of yours whatever I want."

Ed didn't have too much recollection of the actual event. "I was murdered?"

Truth offered a half shrug. "It's a simple bullet wound to the neck. You died from blood loss. It's nothing a few blood transfusions wouldn't fix. With immediate aide, you might have lived."

So all this from a lousy bullet? And if Alphonse had been allowed to be there with him, Ed might not be in this mess in the first place?

Ed was going to kill Mustang.

"And all I have to do is find who pulled the trigger?" That sounded much too easy. 'Easy' wasn't Truth's style.

"That will be harder than you think," Truth informed.

That did make a fair amount of sense. Things always were. "So I have to go find my killer. How does this work? Do I get my body back?"

Truth made an irritated noise in the back of its throat. If Truth even had a throat. "Your questions are starting to bore me, Alchemist."

"Hey, I'm going to be making an informed decision here! What happens to my body?"

"Your body is unavailable at the moment. You'll get it back when you complete your objective. In the mean time, you will get along just fine without it."

Ed grunted. "That sounds like load of crap. What does that even mean?"

"You are a self-proclaimed genius, Alchemist. I trust you can figure it out."

Ed would be getting no more answers on that front, then. "And what will you be helping yourself to if I don't make it in the time limit?"

At this, Truth's grin returned full-force. "I haven't decided yet."

Ed tried and failed to suppress a shudder. "Two weeks."

Truth's smile evaporated. "One."

"Ten days."

"One week, and not a minute more. Remember, Alchemist, I don't need to bargain. I can easily just force your soul through the Gate and move on with my day."

"And what fun would that be?" Ed muttered under his breath.

"Do we have a deal, Alchemist?"

Ed didn't like Truth's eager tone of voice. But what choice did he have? If he died, he would be breaking his promise to Alphonse. He had to get Al's body back. There was no way he could leave him like that.

He had to try. He owed Al at least that much.

"Answer one more question," Ed said, crossing a flesh-and-blood arm over the metal one. "Why? What do you get out of this, besides whatever body parts you're going to harvest if I don't make it?"

Truth smiled again. "To put it simply, the world is not ready to part ways with Edward Elric just yet. There is more yet for you to do, and if you are diligent, you'll have more than one week to accomplish it in."

Ed frowned. "You're being awfully unspecific, Truth."

"Answers are for those who have sought first."

"What kind of poetic nonsense is that?!" Ed demanded.

"A final warning: you will not find yourself in the world mere minutes after your death. It date is now the twenty-first of April."

" Three months?! I've been dead for three months?!"

"Your body is safe, but only for one week. Good luck, Alchemist."

That smile was the last thing he saw before the white dissolved into black and he was no longer standing in front of the Gate, but in a vacant field. It was dark, the sky above black and heavy with threatening clouds. Lightening briefly illuminated the surrounding forest, trees lighting up like dozens of pale skeletons before darkness once again consumed them.

The light had lasted just long enough for him to get a look at the green grass beneath his slightly transparent body.

Crap.

"Well," Ed said to the dark sky. "This is going to suck."

Warning: Brief mentions of suicidal thoughts.

Edward Elric had been dead for three months.

Roy Mustang sat on the edge of the bridge, considering the revolver in his hands. It felt foreign in his grip, the way a gunman might regard a sword suddenly thrust upon him. Roy was used to wielding fire instead of firearms.

He had thought about what had happened, of course. He still thought about it, even though it had been three months. The weight of his guilt pulled at him every waking hour, and haunted him in his sleep. Some days Roy didn't even get out of bed.

This was a better day. If one could call cradling a revolver on the edge of a bridge while contemplating a sudden end to his life "better."

He glanced down, past the gun and into the rolling river below. The Longwaters River flowed through East City and on into Angren, where Roy had been spending a lot of time these days. He stared down south, squinting at the way the late day sun reflected off the water like million glass shards. A few hundred kilometers in that direction led to Resembool.

Roy didn't want to think about Resembool at the moment.

They had been on a bridge very much like this one. They were walking, Ed by his side and Hawkeye behind him. Ed stopped suddenly, golden eyes widening in surprise as scarlet fluid burst from his neck. The bullet went straight through, lodging itself in Roy's chest cavity. Roy had no strength to reach out and grab the boy's extended hand before his body tumbled off the bridge and down into the water below.

Roy shut his eyes. He didn't want to think about Ed, either.

"Sir."

Roy flinched at the sudden greeting, the hand without a gun raising instinctively to snap. But no glove covered his pale hand, and no spark flashed between his fingertips.

His eyes rose to meet Riza's. She stood on the narrow footbridge, dressed in civvies with a paper bag of groceries balanced on one hip. Several months ago, he might have commented on how lovely and very domestic she looked in her stylish black trousers and delicate-looking green blouse. But recent events, the stern look in her eyes and the sidearm she clutched in her free hand forestalled any attempt he might have made to flirt, no matter how half-heartedly. "Sir, it isn't safe for you to be out in the open like this."

He offered her a thin smile, folding one leg under him and grabbing on to the railing with his free hand. "I thought you said the sunshine would be good for me," he countered, hoisting himself to his feet, careful to keep his weight mostly on his right. His left leg still wouldn't take much.

Riza had removed two bullets from his body, but Roy had taken three hits. One went through his l thigh, one was halted by his hip bone, and the other—the kill shot—stopped just a few inches below his collar bone.

If Ed's neck hadn't been there, it likely would have been in his heart. And Roy wished more than anything that Ed's neck hadn't been there.

Riza holstered her weapon under her jacket at the small of her back and grabbed his cane from its place against the railing. "It would if you don't get shot." He tried not to wince at the thought. She offered it to him and he gratefully accepted, releasing the railing and transferring his weight onto the stick.

"Thanks," he said, holstering his own revolver at his side, hidden safely under his own coat. He noticed her eyes lingering on it in a careful sort of way until it was out of sight. "Anything to report?"

She shook her head. "No. The town is quiet. No sign of military personnel anywhere."

"Did you get it?"

Riza sighed and reached into her paper bag, pulling out a wrapped paper parcel, presumably bacon fresh from the butcher shop. "Not that this is in any way healthy."

Roy's smile was a little more genuine this time. It was easier to not succumb to his depressive thoughts when she was near. "Come on, Riza. If the bullets didn't get me, I doubt a little bacon will."

"Your body is still recovering. You need proper nutrition to heal."

"Humor me."

Riza frowned, but didn't comment further. It was no secret that Roy's appetite hadn't been what it should be. All the previous batches of bacon had been thrown out less than half eaten, but Roy kept requesting it and Riza kept buying it and berating him, despite knowing he hardly ate it. He didn't even know why they did it. Riza wasn't one to delude herself. Roy supposed it had become a sort of pathetic game where they pretended something was normal while the rest of their lives fell apart around them.

"We should get back," she said, eyes scanning the surrounding trees, her caution returning. She had always been the careful one, but since the incident, she had become almost paranoid. Roy was certain that his behavior hadn't helped anything, either. He hadn't exactly been the most supportive and reliable as of late.

Roy nodded, taking a few hobbling steps forward. He felt her concerned eyes on him, but did his best to ignore it. The old boards creaked under his shuffling steps as he made his slow way off the bridge and onto solid ground. "How long has it been, Riza?"

"This is our ninth day in Angren."

"Feels like a month," Roy said absently. They'd never stayed anywhere for more than a week since his recovery. "I meant, how long have we been on the run?"

Riza slowed her steps to walk beside him. "From the time of the incident, almost three months."

The "incident" had given him his generous limp, a hundred nightmares and taken Edward Elric from this world.

It had been a completely routine inspection. There was no reason to have been concerned. There had hardly been a reason to have two alchemists on board, except that Edward had just gotten back from another mission that ended in complete disaster. Edward had entirely demolished a government building, offended three foreign officials, and had earned himself a lifetime ban from the city of Parteros. Roy decided that the brat needed a lesson in diplomacy and had taken him along with Hawkeye for instruction. Alphonse had been left behind because Roy wanted to witness Ed's lack of restraint for himself without Al's interference. The boy had to learn to control himself without his little brother, and Roy intended to assist him.

All Roy had assisted him in doing was taking a bullet.

A bullet meant for Roy's heart.

Roy didn't remember much after the fact. Riza told him that he hadn't been responsive for much of the time afterward. She had somehow managed to drag his useless body into the brush and hide them for almost eight hours while the small team of men in Amestrian uniform that had fired on them searched the forest. Then, under the cover of night, she found an abandoned shack and makeshift supplies, dug two bullets out of his body and wrapped his wounds, all while listening to his feverish babbling about Ed needing help. Riza Hawkeye managed to keep a cool head while watching a child die, then caring for her gravely injured commanding officer while he acted like a complete lunatic.

She was the strongest person he knew. These past months had not been his proudest moments, but she had stayed. It would have been far safer for her if they had split up. She could have disappeared easily on her own, but he was both recognizable and injured. Still, she insisted it was her duty. He hadn't even asked.

"We'll need to keep moving soon, Sir," she said as they walked down the dirt path. A cold wind suddenly picked up, throwing dust at their backs.

"It will be a shame. I really like this house," Roy said with a sigh. Truthfully, the thought of walking to the next town made his leg cramp up in dread. He certainly didn't have the stamina he used to.

"Sir, you transmuted it. You can make another like it."

"Don't you find that a tad suspicious? Identical-looking houses, one town after the next?"

"You're right. I suppose you'll have to just tear yourself away from it."

The town of Angren was sparsely populated, and mostly by country folk. Their presence had been noted, but with the town so far off the beaten path, the danger of discovery by the military was slim. The only military presence was a lone elderly gentleman with whiskers long enough to sweep a floor and the eyesight of a bat that "guarded" the outpost between his naps. It was as safe as any place, but Riza was probably right. It was time to move on.

Roy's eyes wondered to the cluster of buildings below them. The country around them was predominantly hills and forest, and the town, gathered mostly in the valley below, was spread out along the meadow. The house that Roy had constructed was far enough away that they could see trouble coming from the village, but close enough to get him his bacon supply.

"I don't suppose there was anything from Hughes?" Roy asked, navigating his way around a sizable rut in the road.

Their only communication with anyone from home were adds posted in The Central Times. Hughes kept them updated on the manhunt via discreet messages shared in the classifieds. The last they had heard from him was over a week ago. Alphonse was still missing. The military was still actively searching for Roy and Riza under the guise of finding a pair of MIA soldiers, but there was more to it. Someone wanted Roy dead, and they were high enough up in the military to get away with it.

Roy didn't know if Ed was supposed to die in that process, but he supposed it didn't really make much difference at this point.

"The Central Times doesn't run in Angren but twice a week, sir. You know that," she chastised lightly. "I'll pick up a paper tomorrow."

The small knoll Roy had constructed their "house" on was just steep enough to give him plenty of trouble. He more or less dragged his useless limb through the grass, Riza watching him struggle but having the decency to not say anything or offer help. He had suffered enough humiliation these past three months to last him a lifetime.

Roy made it to the summit, panting at the pain and exertion, his free hand moving to grasp at his hip. The muscle there would cramp often, probably from all of the scar tissue and perhaps bone fragments left in the bullet's wake. He tried to steady his breathing, inhaling deeply, the way Riza told him to whenever the pain threatened to steal his breath away.

"Sir?"

Roy opened eyes he didn't remember closing. "Hmm?"

She stared at him with thinly-veiled concern. "It's better to take a break occasionally than to push too hard."

He tried to give her a smile, but judging by her stern expression, it probably came across as a grimace. "I'm fine. Just need to catch my breath."

She wasn't at all convinced, but she didn't respond. Instead, she scanned their surroundings with a sharp eye.

The house was a simple construct of wood and not much else. Roy was thankful for the unseasonably warm spring they had been having, because his craftsmanship was nothing to write home about. The planks were ill-fitting and uneven. Drafts cut through the two roomed house like blades, and despite Riza's best efforts to make the hovel seem like a home, any visitor could tell that the place was lacking in both charm and comfort. Riza had even been gifted a flowerpot by an old woman in the village with a few wilting daisies in it. She had placed it on the front porch in an attempt to brighten the ramshackle construct, but the cold nights were quickly doing the plants in, too. There was nothing about the house that didn't scream "dilapidated."

But Riza's gaze didn't stop on the house. It rested on the line of trees just behind it. She only stared for a moment though before she looked away, back the way they had come. "We have a problem, Sir."

A cold sensation settled in Roy's gut like a coiling snake. He couldn't say that he particularly cared if he died at the moment, but Riza being in danger was another matter entirely, and a dormant protective instinct stirred. "Oh?"

"One unidentified persons visible, likely male. Can't make out much else."

Roy leaned over his cane as if to further catch his breath, eyes wondering over the forest brush. He saw nothing. She really did have a hawk's eyes.

"I don't suppose you believe him to be friendly?" Roy asked.

She looked unimpressed. "As friendly as anyone hiding in the shadows ever is, I suppose."

He grunted. Fair enough.

Even while Roy hadn't been interested in living, much less escaping from threats, Riza had still planned for events like these and kept her head about her. She rifled through her sack and removed a couple of things before replacing them, pretending to look for something and not find it. "We'll head back into town and leave from there. Alous isn't too far away."

Alous was at least a two day's hike to the east and Roy dreaded it. The trains were not too reliable this far from Central, and though the security wasn't something they wanted to deal with anyway, they didn't have time to wait for one. They needed to get out of town as soon as possible.

Roy nodded, turning to start back to town the way they had come.

He stopped when he saw the man standing in their path.

Riza stopped too, her fingers twitching toward her gun before she firmly wrapped them around her grocery sack.

"Good evening," Roy greeted as smoothly as he knew how. Ed had always said that he could charm a wet cat. Roy had teased him relentlessly about his hick country sayings, but the memory now left him hollow. Roy turned his attention back to what was in front of him, where it should have been. Focusing was sometimes more difficult in the wake of the incident.

The stranger was a man around his late thirties with auburn hair hidden mostly under his cap. He was slight of build, something that would be considered odd among a soldier, if he were military. His slight eyes were dark, like coffee, and his nose looked like it had been broken once or twice from the crooked way it sat on his narrow face.

"Good evening," he replied in a low baritone voice, a broad smile on his thin lips. Wind ruffled his visible hair. "Lovely night for a stroll, isn't it?"

Roy made a show of glancing at the sky. The sun was just dipping below the hills in the west, the sky turning from blue to a dusky purple color. Night was approaching fast. Clouds were stacking one on top of the other off to the northeast, lightening flashing in their depths. It was too far away to hear the thunder, but if the wind were any judge, it would be upon them in less than an hour. Some sort of backdoor cold front coming through? It wasn't exactly what Roy would call 'lovely.' "Of course. Is there something we can help you with?"

The man shrugged his shoulders, his coat moving upward over his body and catching against his side. A hidden weapon, maybe? "Just wanted a chance to talk to you and your lovely wife. Those groceries must be heavy!" he said to Riza. "Did you walk all the way from the village with them? Here, I'll help you."

"No need—" Riza began, but he snatched the bag from her.

"I insist! I'll just follow you in. My, these are heavy!" He turned to Roy. "Why aren't you carrying these for such a beautiful woman?"

Roy bit back a heated reply and waved his cane in explanation.

"Oh, my apologies," he said, almost managing to sound sheepish. "Well," he continued, turning back to Riza, "I'm sure your husband would have carried them for you if he could."

The words stung more than they should have, especially coming from some rat-faced stranger.

If this man or his friend behind the house wanted them dead, they would have been shooting by now. Perhaps they needed to confirm their identities? Or maybe they were hoping to take them alive? Maybe they thought someone from the village below might see something if they shot them here. Those were the only logical reasons Roy could think of for this man to want get in their house.

"I'm sorry, what did you say your name was?"

"How rude of me. Just call me Michael."

Roy didn't bat an eye at familiarity this man imposed on them. That could be explained away. The man was an odd duck. Roy didn't even flinch at the "wife" reference that Michael had used. It was a logical assumption. Many in the village had made it multiple times these past days, and in every other town they had stopped in. What made him uncomfortable was the man's tone of voice, his posture, everything. It was wrong somehow, not military, but something else similar and worse. A hired gun? Someone working outside of the law?

Roy eyed him for a moment longer. "This way, please," he said, turning his back when his base instincts screamed at him not to. He made his slow, careful way to the porch, using the railing to help get himself up the stairs. His hand pulled away with a couple of splinters.

"What a lovely home," Michael commented admiringly, turning his gaze that was just a little too bright to view the flowerpot of dead daisies next to him.

Roy disliked him and really wanted to light him up like a bonfire, or at the very least shoot him. Instead, he invited him in through a thin smile.

Michael stepped over the threshold. Riza caught his eye on her way in, sharing with him a warning that Roy both understood and ignored. He was going to let this man inside, and then he was going to interrogate him. He would find out who sent the little rat-faced sleaze-bag to their home, and then he would incinerate him and their whole stupid house.

By the time Roy closed the door and turned back around, there was a gun in his face.

Michael smiled. "So tell me, do you know a Colonel Roy Mustang?"

Edward Elric never thought of himself as being particularly lucky.

So he supposed that Truth dumping him out in the middle of nowhere after being shot to death three months ago was to be expected.

Ed decided that his first order of business would be to figure out where, exactly, Truth had left him.

After that part, he had no idea what he was going to do.

He trudged through the field and into the forest, heading for the faint glow against the dark sky. That kind of light meant there was either the last remnants of sunlight, or a decent-sized village. Maybe he would be able to find help there. Or at the very least, figure out where he was.

Despite the dark, Ed noticed that he didn't have too much trouble seeing. With the clouds and only occasional flashes of lightening, it should have been a lot darker than it was. He stepped over a fallen tree and lifted a hand to his face. It looked real enough, the metal and wire visible in the dimness, though he could make out the faint outline of trees behind it.

So, what, he was a ghost? Some sort of spirit? Ed had never believed in such things, but maybe that explained why he was able to see clearly despite the dark. It wasn't like a spirit really had corneas and cones and lenses to interpret light with, right?

But how did that even work? Truth said he could get along fine without his actual body, but Ed had been screwed over by Truth before. What kind of limitations would his current state set on him?

Of course, that was all conjecture, because ghosts didn't exist.

But if he were an actual ghost, he was going to kill Mustang.

"Stupid Truth and his stupid games," Ed muttered, shoving his hands inside his pockets.

He finally came through the trees to a precipice. Below him, nestled in the valley, sat a small town, lights burning defiantly against the oncoming storm.

It was as good of a place as any to find help.

Ed eyed the steep drop underneath him, wondering what would happen if he jumped. Would he die again somehow? Despite the improbability, Ed wasn't about to test his lack of luck further to save himself half an hour walking around it. With an irritated sigh, he picked his way down the rugged path.

As he did, the rain started to pour down.

"Great," he growled. "This is real helpful, Truth!" he shouted at the sky, picturing that smug immortal being with it's annoying smile sitting up there laughing.

After a few more steps, he realized that the rain wasn't soaking into his coat, or dampening his hair. Actually, he couldn't even feel it against his face. All he felt was a strange sort of chill as it passed right through him to wet the stone under his feet.

He shivered, and not from cold. It was just creepy.

The path before him leveled off, and up on the knoll above him, he saw a house.

Ed didn't know why it caught his attention. There wasn't anything especially remarkable about it, aside from how decrepit it was. It looked like something a tornado had picked up, spun around and deposited from a hundred meters in the air, then someone came in behind it and sandblasted it for good measure. Light glowed from a small window, casting faint shadows on the grass that the lightning above obliterated with each flash.

Since Ed wasn't in the habit of questioning his instincts, he took the hill at a lope, coming to a stop only when he reached the porch. The floorboards didn't so much as whisper under his weight, which Ed found terribly odd, given how shoddy they looked. The wood was scaled, the way that quick or poor transmutations usually were.

He paused outside the door, listening. From inside, he heard a voice, and he knew without a doubt it belonged to Mustang.

Hot irritation swelled inside of him. Though Ed didn't remember what, exactly, had happened, he just knew that the idiot was responsible for him being dead somehow. So now he was hiding out in this dump? Probably got kicked out of the military for getting the youngest State Alchemist in history killed. Good.

When Ed got in there, he was going to give that lowlife a piece of his mind.

Speaking of, he wondered if Mustang would notice the way the light passed right through him, or his complete lack of shadow. It was unsettling, to say the least, and if Ed found it odd, Mustang would find it doubly so.

Steeling himself, Ed reached out to pull the door open, wrapping his fingers around the wooden handle and . . .

They closed together in an empty fist.

Ed blinked.

He stared at his hand. It looked like it was closed around the handle, but he couldn't feel the handle. Only a chill, like the way the rain felt as it passed right through him.

Unfortunately, it made sense that if he couldn't touch rain, he couldn't touch anything else either.

Unfortunately, people were bound to notice him just walking through a wall.

That was Ghosting One-Oh-One, right? Ghosts walked through things.

Ed groaned, running a hand down his face. The fact that he was even addressing this situation as if there was logic to be had was insane. That, and there were no such things as ghosts. He might not have a body per se, but he was as real as anything else. He was able to have limited interaction with his environment, like the ability to stand on the front porch. Why the door of the house was different was completely beyond him at the moment.

He was still holding out for this all to be some stupid dream.

Ed tentatively put his hand up to the door and pressed his fingertips against it. Instead of halting against the alchemized wood, they pushed on through. It felt like digging his fingers into ice, the frigid sensation both numbing and burning at the same time.

Well, this proved his walking-through-walls theory.

With one more long sigh, Ed pulled his hand back and took a steadying breath. Then, he inhaled and stepped through the wall. That strange and uncomfortable sensation happened again, but on a much larger scale, burning and numbing his body all at the same time until he pushed through on the other side. With a yelp of pain, Ed shook away the sensation and looked around the room.

Now again, Ed had never thought of himself as being particularly lucky. He had managed to keep himself and Alphonse alive—up until three months ago, anyway—but since he had joined to military, he seemed to just have a knack for walking in on trouble.

So when he found himself in the front room of some poorly alchemized dump with both Mustang and Hawkeye sitting at the table and a gun trained between them, he didn't regard it as an especially fortuitous situation.

Call him a pessimist, but it stood to reason that this whole situation was somehow Mustang's fault. He was Ed's only lead, so if Mustang died, then he'd be up a creek without a paddle.

Besides, Ed wanted to shoot him himself.

And even though he had just passed through a wall, no one even bothered to look at him.

Actually, one even looked up.

Their conversation didn't even falter.

The only reaction he even sort of got was the way Mustang glanced at Hawkeye, then back at the man with the gun.

Was that even a reaction? Or did the gunman just say something particularly insulting?

Ed had the nagging feeling in his gut that maybe they just couldn't see him at all, but he couldn't actually be a ghost, could he? Sure, he could walk through walls, but maybe that was just a perk of being dead with his body "unavaliable," as Truth had put it. Actual ghosts, like the kind Ed had heard stories of as a child and the kind that Feury claimed haunted Warehouse thirteen didn't actually exist. They were myths, concocted to ensure that teenagers didn't stay out too late where they didn't belong and small children stayed safely tucked in bed. There was no such thing as ghosts.

But what was a ghost, except a soul without a body?

Ed felt a little sick, but he didn't know if he even really had a stomach to be sick with. Maybe that was another perk of being dead. Was this the kind of existence that awaited Alphonse if Ed didn't get his body back?

Thunder cracked and Ed jumped before focusing back on the task at hand; save Mustang and Hawkeye first, succumb to spiraling depression later.

Ed took a moment to study the man with the gun. He had his back to him, so Ed couldn't make out much, but he certainly didn't recognize him from behind. He was a slight man, with long limbs and auburn hair stuffed under a cap. He looked like a scarecrow from the back. Well, then, Ed was going to just have to take full advantage of their obliviousness.

Something simple and elegant. Like pulling the floorboards up to restrain him.

With a self-satisfied smirk, Ed brought his hands together in a clap, then leaned down and slammed them against the floor.

Nothing.

There was no hum or spark of alchemic electricity. There was no brilliant blue light that heralded a transmutation. The floorboards didn't even groan under the force of his hands.

Ed tried again, and again nothing happened.

He turned his eyes to the ceiling. "Is this some kind of joke, Truth?!" he demanded.

No one so much as winced. No one shifted or turned their head as if they had heard him. He was invisible and inaudible and there was nothing he could do about it.

In a last-ditch effort to try to throw the odds in his friends' favor, Ed sucked in a breath and leapt, landing right in the gunman's face. "Boo!" he shouted, waving his hands over his head in the most ghostly way he could manage.

But embracing his ghostly state accomplished no more than denying it. All he succeeded in doing was getting a good look at the creep's face and an unsettling feeling as the man's coffee-brown eyes stared right through him.

He looked like a scarecrow from the front, too.

"I haven't got all evening, Colonel Mustang," he was saying, the gun waving impatiently by Ed's left ear. "If you would just be so kind as to tell me who you were working with, I can be on my way."

Ed turned around to see Mustang and Hawkeye and he saw them in a way he hadn't until now. They looked tired. Hawkeye looked like she had been through the ringer, her eyes bloodshot and hair too untidy for the Hawkeye Ed had always known. She had rings under her eyes, dark shadows that stood out on her paler-than-normal face and gave away just how little she had been sleeping lately. Still, though, she sat in her chair, ramrod straight and defiant in her own, quiet, tired way.

And if Hawkeye looked bad, Mustang looked positively awful. He had always been pale due to how much time he spent bossing people around from behind a desk, but now he looked almost translucent. He leaned heavily the cane propped in front of him, like it was the only thing keeping him from falling out of his seat. His hair was disheveled, very much unlike the proud man Ed knew, with dark stubble prickling his jaw. He looked just a little bit too thin and too fragile and too unlike Mustang. His eyes, though, were the worst of it. Even with his eyes trained on the gunman with a foggy sort of interest, they still looked lost and broken, like a man back from war. Haunted.

And these two were matching wits with some crazy armed scarecrow?

"Mustang grimaced. Ed didn't know if it was in distaste or pain. "I still don't know what you're talking about. Could you be more specific?"

Scarecrow narrowed his eyes. "Alright, I'll play along. Over three months ago, you received a letter. Inside was a map. I want to know who sent it to you."

"A map?" Mustang asked flatly. "You're telling me that you're going to put me in my grave for a map?"

"I believe you're aware of just how sensitive the information on it is."

"You can believe that the world is flat for all I care," Mustang said irritably. He was behaving more like the gunman had interrupted his nap rather than threatening to interrupt his life. The man had lost it. He was going to get both himself and Hawkeye shot.

Scarecrow raised his eyebrows just a fraction. "I don't think you're taking this seriously."

Crap.

Mustang didn't pick up on it quite as fast as Ed did. "You're right," he replied. "You're about to shoot me over a map. I think you're taking it a bit too seriously."

Scarecrow smiled. "Oh? Am I?"

Then he turned the gun on Hawkeye and shot her.

Ed dove for Hawkeye, but even if he could have done anything, it was far too late.

Hawkeye didn't utter a sound. For a moment, the only indication that she had been hit at all was the color draining from her face and the red stain forming at her shoulder, billowing across the fabric of her blouse like a poisonous flower.

Then her lips slackened in shock and she crumpled forward in her chair. Her hand went to her right shoulder in a vain attempt to staunch the bleeding, but red leaked out between her fingers, soaking through her shirt completely and falling in thick drops to the floor.

Ed looked on, powerless to do anything but watch.

Mustang moved faster than Ed had previously thought possible. "Riza!" he cried, the cane falling from his loosened fingers as he dove forward, on his knees in front of her, his own hands moving to cover the wound. She moaned at the new pressure, sweat breaking out on her pale forehead. "Riza, hang on," he said, words laced with desperation.

Mustang turned his suddenly clear gaze on Scarecrow, eyes brimming with cold hate. "Why?"

"Are you taking this seriously now?" Scarecrow asked with a cool smile. "I asked you a question earlier, Colonel Mustang. I expect an answer. Who sent you that letter?"

Mustang continued to glare, but whether he didn't know or just refused to say, Ed couldn't tell. He kept one hand pressed firmly against Hawkeye's shoulder, the other one wrapped behind her back. "Who are you working for?"

Scarecrow sighed, and from this close, Ed could see his finger flick over metal, throwing the safety off again. "Still not willing to cooperate? Maybe a bullet in her leg will convince you."

Again, Mustang moved, and Ed didn't see it coming.

In one, fluid motion, he pulled a gun out from behind Hawkeye's back and shot Scarecrow in the chest four times.

Scarecrow's eyes widened as the bullets found their mark, four holes drilled neatly in a cluster over his heart. Blood spread like a dark red tide and his eyes rolled back into his head. The gun fell from his loose hand, clattering to the floorboards and his body quickly followed, dead before it hit the ground.

Ed's nonexistent stomach lurched. No matter how many times he saw death, he would never be used to it, nor the casual way the people he knew doled it out.

Mustang watched the man fall, that cold hatred still burning in his eyes. Ed might admit that it was almost frightening, if he were prone to admitting such things. Finally, when it was clear that Scarecrow wasn't breathing, Mustang threw the gun on the table and turned his attention back to Hawkeye, the coldness of his gaze melting into worry.

She opened her mouth, pale lips forming pain-weakened words. "We . . . antiseptic, bandages . .."

"Shh, Riza, it's through and through, you'll be fine," Mustang assured her, or maybe it was himself he was assuring, Ed didn't know. Mustang took her weight against him and pulled her forward, helping her in a slow collapse to the ground. She noticeably bit back a cry as her shoulder was jostled. "Shh, you'll be fine," he said, repeating himself.

"Need—ah!" she gasped, face crumpling. Ed had been shot before. Once the shock wore off it was no picnic, and he grit his teeth, frustrated by being unable to even hold her hand while she was in so much pain. "Ah . . . get the . . . the kit. In my bag."

Mustang nodded. He struggled to his feet, hands wet with her blood. Watching him walk was about as painful as watching Hawkeye get shot. He took graceless, uneven strides, almost dragging his left leg behind him as he hastily tried to cross the small house without the aide of his cane. What had happened? What had reduced him to this, an angry, crippled man with ghosts in his eyes?

This wasn't what Ed expected to find. None of this was what he had expected to find. He had been gone three months. How had they come to this in three months?

After listening to some rustling and thumps, and Hawkeye's ragged attempts at deep breathing, Mustang finally reemerged from the back room, the bloodied kit and towel in his hand, the other grasping at his hip as he made his way back to Hawkeye's side.

He collapsed next to her, his stony expression undermined by the pained lines carved in his face. "Here, let me see," he said, prying her clawing hands away from the wound.

When he started tearing away her blouse, Ed looked away out of respect. His gaze wondered out the ill-fitted window. He had a perfect view of the town about half a kilometer down the hill, misted over by a haze of rain. The lights spread out like golden marbles spilled in the valley below, round and fuzzy with precipitation. At some point the rain had gone from a light patter a few moments ago to a heavy pour, lashing down on the roof and leaking on through. A sizable puddle was already forming just to Mustang's left.

Lightening flashed, revealing a shadow moving by the tree line.

Ed felt the hairs on his neck raise. He glanced down at Mustang. The man was still completely absorbed in tending to Hawkeye. He looked back up and waited for another flash.

Again, the land was illuminated by white light. The shadow was closer.

"Mustang, you idiot," Ed breathed. He looked around the barren room. A crude table with two chairs sat right beside the two soldiers. Behind Ed, a long bench with some simple bowls and cooking utensils and a bucket of fresh water. A gas stove took up one corner. Then there was the dead body and two guns. Absolutely nothing of use for an immaterial ghost.

Ed gritted his teeth and went through the front wall.

"Gah!" he yelped as he passed through, the bitter cold of it stinging and burning like nothing Ed knew. He shook the pain off and leapt off the porch, the rain immediately plummeting right through him with as much discomfort as tiny insects striking his skin. Tiny insects with stingers.

He pushed that thought from his mind, too, focusing on the task at hand. He leapt off the front porch and ran across the grass toward the moving shadow, a thousand instincts screaming at him to run the other way. It didn't take long for him to get to the shadow of a man. He stopped only a few meters away, not feeling winded in the slightest.

The dark did nothing to impair his vision this close. He could easily make out the man's features, as well as the sleek black of the rifle slung across his back. He was of average size, clothed entirely in black, lending him the look of an animated shadow. He was all lean muscle and sharp angles, his black hair swept up in a short tail that only served to accent his high cheekbones. Eyes the same blue as frozen lakes stared right through him, locked on the window of the house.

"Okay, creep, what are you up to?" Ed asked to himself. He didn't recognize the newcomer, but he doubted in the wake of Scarecrow's little stunt that this guy was good news.

The man frowned, and Ed turned to see what he was frowning at. No one was in the window. Maybe he was looking for Scarecrow? Was he Scarecrow's backup?

The man started moving again, footsteps silent in the loudness of the rain. Ed quickly backpedaled out of his way, then followed him back toward the house. He skirted the hovel, climbing up the porch with careful steps and pressing himself against the side of the house, clearly not wanting to be seen. Most likely hostile.

Then he pulled a small sidearm from his chest holster.

Definitely hostile.

Ed dove back into the house. "Mustang, I really need you to pay attention right now!" Ed said, coming up beside the older man. Mustang was still over Hawkeye, bloodied hands shaking as they tried to wrap her shoulder. "Mustang!" Ed shouted, knowing it was useless and doing it anyway. "Come on, for once in your miserable life, would you just listen to me?!"

Mustang frowned as he worked, his steady, methodical approach to caring for Hawkeye a sharp contrast to Ed's racing heart.

Lightening flared, throwing a shadow across Mustang and Hawkeye's prone form. The shadowed man was in the window. Ed jumped, his sudden appearance inciting a panic that Ed almost choked on.

Mustang and Hawkeye were going to die, and there was absolutely nothing Ed could do about it.

Time seemed to slow down, as if giving Ed one last chance to take in every morbid detail.

The shadowed man raised his gun, the barrel throwing several droplets high, catching in a flash of lightening like diamonds.

Mustang remained absolutely oblivious, tying off the bandage with his shaking hands.

He would be the first one shot.

Ed threw himself on Mustang, a stupid, futile attempt to save him from the incoming fire.

Or so he thought.

The sensation was different from the sting of walking through things. It was like flopping into water, the surface giving and forming around him, but with a bite.

He felt off, his body feeling bigger and lighter, like before automail. His center of gravity was higher, his limbs aching and body chiming in with a host of horrible complaints, leg throbbing mercilessly, and there was this terrible sense of loss and hopelessness that threatened to drown out his concern.

He looked down at his hands and saw Hawkeye's blood.

These weren't his hands.

These were two whole, complete, flesh-and-blood human hands, with long, slender fingers and callouses from years of paperwork and a thousand snaps. Under the blood were a half dozen scars Ed didn't recognize, old burns and wounds and scratched palms from recent falls.

These weren't his hands, but he recognized them.

They were Mustang's. He was actually possessing Mustang's body.

Ed didn't have time to contemplate it further. The shadowed man had his gun trained right between Mustang's eyes. Ed clapped Mustang's hands together and slammed them to the ground, a circle he had used a million times burning in his mind.

Stone shot up from the ground, busting through the floorboards in a shower of splinters. Ed shaped it, forming a shield between Mustang and Hawkeye and the incoming bullets.

The window shattered as the gun barked three times, two bullets striking the rock, one ricocheting off with a high whistle.

Then, it was as if Mustang somehow woke up and Ed was thrown out of Mustang's body. The force of it was the same as if Armstrong had punched him in the chest and just as pleasant.

Ed landed in a heap on the floor and looked up in time to see Mustang snatch the gun from Scarecrow's side, lean around the shield and empty the clip. The muzzle flash lit the room in bright bursts, round after round of lead punching through the window and wall until the gun clicked empty.

Ed took a steadying breath through his nose. The smell of gunpowder drowned out the sweet smell of rain.

What had just happened?

The silence was louder than the gunfire, and that had been deafening. Ed shook his head, stepping over Hawkeye and his shield and looking through the window.

The shadowed man was nowhere to be found.

Ed turned back around. Mustang was still kneeling on the ground. He took a moment to just breathe, chest heaving up and down like a hare after narrowly escaping a jackal. Slowly, he lowered the gun, eyes still glued to the window.

"Did . . . did you get him?" Hawkeye asked, the pain in her voice now mixed with concern.

"No," Ed answered.

Mustang hesitated. "I don't think so. Can you stand?"

She slowly propped herself up on one elbow. Roy watched her with barely veiled concern. The morphine he had just injected into her arm a minute ago should have started to take effect.

She struggled to sit up, wincing a bit when she was finally righted. "I think so. We should go."

Mustang nodded. "We should wait for daylight. The last thing we need is to get ambushed in the dark, and getting soaked wouldn't do us any favors, either."

Hawkeye looked like she wanted to protest, but thought the better of it. "Shall I take first watch, Sir?"

"Not a chance," Mustang huffed. He retrieved his cane from the floor beside him and struggled to his feet, which didn't look any easier than it had the first time. He offered Hawkeye a hand and slowly, gingerly, helped her stand. Any color that she had gained immediately drained from her face. She took a faltering step back, then collapsed in the chair.

It was time consuming and slow going, but Mustang managed to coax her into the back room, presumably helping her to bed.

Rain pounded the roof and Ed waited, keeping his eyes far away from the body in the middle of the room.

Mustang hobbled in shortly after, dragging a chair away from the table to the other side of the room. He put it next to the stove, turned it around and sat in it heavily, looking like a man of ninety instead of one in the prime of his life. His haunted eyes watched the window.

Ed slumped to the ground with a weary exhale as he settled in to wait. He ran a metal hand over his face before turning his gaze up to the ceiling. "You couldn't have just taken a kidney?"

Ed wasn't sure how long they sat there, himself sitting on the floor, Mustang in his chair. It could have been minutes or hours, or possibly days, since nothing else seemed to be obeying the laws of physics recently. As Ed watched Mustang watch the window, he had plenty of time to think.

Ed had already concluded that he only had limited ability to interact with his environment. He walked through walls, couldn't even touch a doorknob, but somehow, he had been able to possess Mustang's body, for lack of a better word. Or maybe that was the perfect word. He had actually taken control of Mustang's body, until Mustang woke up and threw him out. And, on top of that, he had been able to perform alchemy without a circle with Mustang's own hands. How did it work, though? Could he possess anyone? Was there some sort of time limit, or did Mustang just somehow regain control? The colonel hadn't acted like he knew what Ed had done. Hawkeye didn't even react to Mustang's sudden use of clap alchemy. She must have been hurting pretty bad if something like that got past her. Regardless, it was the most Ed had been able to interact with the physical world so far.

But possessing Mustang, of all people . . . Ed suppressed a shudder. Eww.

Still, with more experimentation, that was bound to come in useful later.

Mustang suddenly moved, jarring Ed out of his thoughts.

It was brighter outside, the sky lightening from black to predawn gray. Thunder still growled in the distance, the rain still pattering softly on the roof and gathering in an intangible puddle under his body.

It felt like he had just sat down.

Mustang leaned forward, put his head in his hands and let out a soft curse Ed could barely hear over the rain. Then he sat up straighter and rubbed his eyes like they were aching, one hand drifting down to massage his hip.

Ed understood. Under normal, less-dead conditions, the weather usually made his port-sites ache as if his surgery had been weeks ago instead of almost four years.

It was sort of interesting how people acted when they thought no one was watching.

For example, Mustang acted terribly human.

Ed hadn't been in the military all that long, but over the past years, he had developed very strong opinions about Mustang: the man was a self-righteous glory hound and Ed had about as much use for him as he did yesterday's newspaper. The only thing Mustang was good for was a lecture and for tracking down potential leads on the Philosopher Stone.

So naturally, it came with some surprise that Mustang was capable of being, well . . . human.

"I can feel sorry for you and still hate your guts," Ed said aloud, though he didn't sound quite that confident. Actually, he was a little bothered by how comfortable he was becoming with talking aloud to himself. "The first step in going crazy," Ed muttered, then scowled at himself. That really was getting to be a bad habit.

But it wasn't like he had anyone else to talk to.

Well, except Mustang.

He glanced over to see the older man smirking grimly to himself; probably at some situationally inappropriate joke, because the idiot had no sense of decency.

Mustang grabbed his cane from beside his chair and used it to slowly leverage himself to his feet. He let out a soft hiss, face creasing in pain as he did. With another curse, he began a painful shuffle into the back room.

Instead of waiting around, Ed decided it would be more useful to look for signs of their attacker or any other hint of trouble. He rose fluidly to his feet, feeling none of physical pain that Mustang was struggling with, yet somehow feeling guilty about it. He reflexively brushed off his coat and stepped outside.

XxXxX

Mustang had a lot to think about as they trudged through the forest.

First and foremost, Riza.

He had patched her up as best he could that morning, redressing her shoulder and fastening a sling for her out of his spare shirt before they left, but it had become apparent when they set off that morning that Roy wasn't going to be very helpful to her, physically. He could barely get around himself, much less carry more than his small supply bag. Pride stung, he had begrudgingly let her take the two other bags on her uninjured side and let her lead the way.

He shot what he hoped was a furtive glance at her for the millionth time in the past hour. She had quickly grown weary of what she called "hovering," and two hours into their journey, declared that if he didn't stop fussing over her, she would shoot him herself.

So he had to settle himself for just watching. Watching the lines of pain deepening her face, and the way she winced on every jarring step, the subtle way she cradled her arm on their frequent rests.

Roy hated watching.

He hated her being hurt.

And even more, he hated her being hurt because of him.

The second thing he thought about was why they were in this mess to begin with.

Michael. Mustang didn't know him—had never seen him before in his life—and yet he had tried to kill Hawkeye.

He knew what letter the man was referring to, of course. He remembered it, but only because he had found it so odd. The letter was sent from Hughes, though he wouldn't have known by the return address. It was marked as being sent from Northern Command, but the handwriting was unmistakably Hughes', and Roy knew for a fact that Hughes had never spent a day in the North.

The only message inside read "Urgent. Will call soon." Behind the hastily-scrawled note was a simple map of Amestris. There were some markings in the same blue ink, circles and notes, a few dates notated in the margins, but Roy had literally been on his way out the door when the letter on his desk had caught his eye, and Roy hadn't had time to call Hughes to question him or he would have missed his train to Isparta, and then Ed would have never let him hear the end of it. Now, he really wished that they had missed that train . . .

This all had something to do with that map, but what, Roy didn't know. Hughes had never bothered to mention it in their limited communications, and Roy had never thought to ask.

The final, especially irritating thing he had to think about, was strolling along beside him, hands shoved in the pockets of his garish red coat, blond hair gleaming duly under the overcast sky, and golden eyes blazing like flames as they scanned the trees around them.

Sometime during the conflict last night, Edward Elric had risen from the dead to haunt him.

Not literally, of course, because though Roy knew ghosts were all too real, that's not how it worked. Ghosts haunted you in your dreams and nightmares, in the flashes of gunfire and loud noises and the eyes of Ishvalan children and bridges and the sound of running water and every glimpse of red and gold.

Ghosts did not walk next to you in the forest, whistling the Fürher's March with unparalleled pitch accuracy while making derogatory comments about Roy, someone named "Truth," the weather, and Roy again.

Roy had lost no small amount of sleep over Ed's death. Generally, it was all he could think about. It plagued him the way Ishval had plagued him, except worse. He had been responsible for Ed, and despite all of his bravado and posturing, Ed had trusted Roy, if no further than trusting him not to put him directly in harm's way.

Roy hadn't deserved his trust.

And as if to punish him for his failure, his mind had conjured up this hallucination to plague him. Except, in some ways, the boy next to him seemed more real than a hallucination should.

For instance, last night.

Roy had seen the boy appear from the wall, the way one would expect a ghost would enter. He had noted it with a numb sort of surprise. It wasn't as surprising as perhaps it should have been, though. After all, Roy was suffering from sleep deprivation, constant pain and the frayed sort of paranoia that being on the run naturally induced. He had expected the illusion to evaporate as quickly as it had materialized and Roy could get back to focusing on the man with the gun.

But it didn't evaporate. Instead, the illusion had approached, asking questions, walking around the room, and reacting to the situation as if Fullmetal were really present.

After Riza had been shot, Roy wasn't taking any more chances. He ignored the illusion completely, devoting his full attention to the situation at hand. He had eliminated Michael soon after and then turned his attention to Riza.

That was when Roy was first aware that maybe this wasn't a run-of-the-mill hallucination.

Roy became certain of that fact when Edward had jumped into his body and performed clap alchemy.

Roy could not do clap alchemy, and even if he could, he didn't have enough working knowledge of mineral-based alchemy to be able to shield himself and Hawkeye with stone on the fly like that. All evidence pointed to Edward Elric, and that just didn't make sense.

Unless the hallucination wasn't actually a hallucination.

"Sir," Riza called, her tone making him certain it wasn't for the first time.

Roy looked up. She was watching him, sherry eyes irritated but hazy from the morphine keeping her on her feet, and her pale face was covered in a sheen of sweat.

"Yes?" he asked. "Do you need a break?"

Her lips pursed in a hard line, irritation blazing in a way that made him think she was more annoyed with herself than him, and that maybe she actually did need a break. "I asked if we should reconsider our destination."

Roy found a raised bit of earth with a large tree jutting from it. He slid down to the ground, slow and painful, leaning heavily against the tree, his cane propped between his knees. He couldn't quite keep the grimace off of his face, but when his leg finally stopped throbbing, it actually felt pretty good to be off of it.

Riza was watching him, her look knowing. Finally, she sat down gingerly in front of him, wincing with the movement. "Sir, what is our plan?" Her tone suggested she was asking for a longterm strategy. "We can't keep doing this. They got close last night."

Close to killing them, she meant. Roy rubbed his eyes. "I know."

But what else could they do? They were slowly moving toward the border, toward the desert. Short of fleeing the country, there wasn't much they could accomplish in their current state, and this cat-and-mouse game was going to get them killed.

"Find Al."

Roy glanced in Ed's direction through a veil of fingers. The boy was hovering just beside Riza, golden eyes burning into his.

Roy looked to the side. "I guess that depends on what our goal is now. If it's figuring out who in the military is trying to kill us, then we should be heading to Central City. If it's surviving, we should be booking it toward the border as fast as possible."

"Al can help," Ed insisted.

Roy tried to ignore him.

"So, we head to Central."

Roy almost pulled a muscle turning too fast, eyes wide. "I'm sorry? Come again?"

She arched an eyebrow. "You said yourself that if we want to figure out who is out to kill us, then we should head to Central City."

"I would have thought the survival option would sound the most appealing." Not that Roy personally had much to lose, but when Riza was in the equation, he had everything to lose.

Ed glared over Riza's shoulder. "Since when did you become a quitter?!"

"If survival were so appealing, I wouldn't be here," Riza said, soft voice a sharp contrast to Ed's outburst. She held his gaze a few moments, then looked away.

That seemed to shut the Ed hallucination up. His aggressive stance shifted just a bit, incensed glare sliding to Riza with something more subdued.

Rain started to fall, pattering against the leaves and dirt and grass. A drop slid down Roy's nose and made a dark spot on his jacket.

"What about your goals, Roy? Our goals?"

Roy looked away.

The reality of it was, he would never be what he was before. How could he possibly rise to the top as he was, a cripple with psychosis and enough post traumatic stress disorder to fill a psych ward? He couldn't even save Ed, much less a country. What did she expect him to do?

But this wasn't a battle he wanted to fight right now. "If we head to Central, we'll be heading right to the heart of it."

"They won't be expecting it."

"We'll run into our tail if we backtrack," Roy said. "You're usually the cautious one, Riza."

"And you're usually the brazen one," she countered. "We can't run forever. We have responsibilities; people that count on us."

"I know. You're right." And she was. Roy just didn't know if he was capable of protecting her anymore. "What do you suggest?"

"I suggest that we steal a car and head to East City. From there, we get in touch with our team and find out what we know."

"Steal a car. That's something I'd like to see," Ed muttered, crossing his arms. "Like Mustang could hot-wire a car. You're both going to get shot again. You need Al."

Roy fought the urge to bristle at the commentary of his own overactive imagination. "And what about our shadow?"

Riza's hand brushed against her sidearm, but Roy wasn't sure if it was conscious or not. "If he were in any position to kill us, he would have done so last night. He obviously has other things to worry about for the time being."

There was no use speculating. They had absolutely no idea where their second attacker from the previous night was. For all they knew, he went to the forest to bleed out, or was leading a whole platoon on their heels.

But still, indecision plagued him. Roy wanted nothing more than to get Riza to safety, even at the expense of their goals, dreams and his very life, but he didn't know if he could handle her disappointment in him if he failed, especially after all she had sacrificed for them to get this far. It was throwing all the blood, sweat and tears back in her face, saying that he burned her back for nothing.

And it was with his lingering guilt that he looked her in the eye and inclined his head in a slow nod. "Alright, Riza. Let's steal a car."

From over Riza's shoulder, Ed groaned. "You can't be serious!"

"You're going to get shot," Ed said for the millionth time.

For the millionth time, Mustang ignored him.

Ed didn't even really know why he was talking out loud. It was obvious no one could hear a word he said, but he still felt the need to say it. Maybe it was nerves, or maybe his desperation was showing, but he was pretty certain that tonight wasn't going to end well.

"Look, I have firsthand knowledge of crazy country people," Ed continued from beside Hawkeye, talking over the thunder rolling in the distance. Clearly the storms weren't over, though Ed found the constant rain to be an unnecessary nuisance. It definitely slowed down Mustang and Hawkeye, at any rate. "They'll shoot you for stealing a chicken. Think what they'll do over a car."

They didn't listen. Big surprise there.

Mustang and Hawkeye had passed only four farm houses through the day. One had no car—only a lone mule and a rickety-looking cart—and one had no visible mode of transportation at all. Two had vehicles, but Hawkeye had refused to steal a car from the elderly, and since the night was nearing its end, Mustang decided that this one was the best option.

Now Mustang and Hawkeye crouched at the edge of the forest under a stand of cedar trees and surveyed the farm, looking all the world like the thieves they were becoming.

Albeit kind of pathetic thieves.

The car was a dilapidated pickup truck with flaking blue paint and wooden rails around the bed. Rust had all but consumed half of its body, giving it a mottled sort of appearance. It was parked in a shed that was missing its front wall, standing about a dozen yards from the run-down house. They surveyed the area from their vantage point at the edge of the forest, but as far as Ed could tell, all the lights were off, as to be expected at this time of night.

His eyes returned to the truck. It really was a sorry sight.

"And here's a question," Ed volunteered, gesturing to the truck with an open hand. "Will that thing even start?"

"Think it will start?" Hawkeye echoed. Ed gave her a petulant look she couldn't see, feeling slighted even though he knew there wasn't much reason to. After all, it wasn't their fault they couldn't see him.

"Better hope it does, or it's the mule," Mustang said, leaning heavily against a tree. A day's trek through the forest had done him no favors, and he looked even more pathetic than before, hair still damp from the rain throughout the day and maybe even a bit paler, though Ed couldn't be sure. The older man could hardly put any weight on his bad leg without grimacing.

Ed turned his attention to Hawkeye. She wasn't much better off. She, too, looked pale, but it could have just been a trick of the blackened overcast sky, though she had to be tired. Both of them were exhausted and dirty and running on empty, and Ed couldn't help but feel a little guilty that he felt completely fine. He suspected that he could have sprinted to Briggs and back without stopping and not even break a sweat.

Dead perks.

Still, as Ed stared at the two of them, he knew that they needed this car. There was no way they could make it on foot for more than another day.

It didn't mean that Ed had to like it, though.

Mustang pulled his collar up against the damp spring wind and turned to Hawkeye. "Do you know how to hotwire a car?"

Ed made a noise that could have potentially been attributed to a strangled cat. "Shouldn't you have thought of that before it got to this point?! I said that hours ago!"

Hawkeye looked at him. "I read an article about it in one of Fuery's journals. I believe with a bit of trial and error I can manage."

Mustang nodded. "Alright. Are you ready?"

"Sir."

"Let's move out."

Ed watched them make their slow way down the hill to the farm below and thought a moment.

What was he even doing here? He was already well over twenty-four hours into Truth's week timeframe. Unless this went off without a hitch and they made it up to Central—easily a four-day ride nonstop—then he was pushing it. If he had any sense, he'd head off to find Alphonse.

But then what? Al wouldn't be able to see him either, unless as a soul with no body of his own he was able to see what no one else could.

Like Ed would get that lucky. Didn't Truth mention something about him being able to "get along just fine" without his body?

He turned a dark glare up to the dark sky. "You lied to me! You sorry, lowdown, pathetic excuse for—"

Lightening split the night, a thunderous crash on its heels. Ed jumped a mile, vision bleached for just a moment with the brilliance of it.

"FINE! Fine, I won't say it!" he promised, waving his hands in a surrendering motion. The thunder retreated, rolling into distant rumbles. "But that doesn't mean I won't think it," he muttered, glaring at the sky once more before stuffing his hands in his pockets and following Mustang and Hawkeye down the hill.

Roy thought this whole venture was a little ill-conceived, but options were limited.

Still, Hallucination-Ed brought up a couple of good points. Not that Roy would ever admit it, even to a hallucination.

He really hoped the truck would start.

Roy and Riza reached the truck undetected, the open field easy enough terrain to cross, even with their given physical ailments. Thunder growled and snarled from a distance, with the exception of a particularly close burst that made Roy jump, eyes darting to the house to make sure no farmer was at the window with a shotgun pointed their way.

Finding no one, he pressed his side to the wall of the shack, peering around the open corner to the house while Riza turned her attention back to the truck. Riza approached the driver's side, quietly pulling the handle, but when she tried to open the door it let out an unholy shriek that Roy was certain woke the dead.

As if to illustrate his point, Ed appeared beside him. "Maybe you guys could be louder? I don't think everyone in Xing heard that."

The little smart aleck was mouthing off even in death. Unbelievable. If Roy survived this, he was going to therapy.

A low rumble rolled out from the darkest corner of the garage.

It wasn't thunder.

Roy froze. Riza froze.

They locked eyes, hers wide.

"Oh, great," Ed hissed.

All three looked at the corner and saw something big and black shifting in the shadows, like ink taking shape. White gleamed and Roy could make out an impressive row of teeth bared at them, a dark paw padding against concrete as the shadow materialized into the biggest dog Roy had ever seen.

"I hope dogs love you as much as you love them, Mustang," Ed whispered, earlier exasperation now definitely apprehension.

"Sir?" Riza asked tightly.

"Get in the car," Roy hissed, not daring to move. "Slowly."

Roy was all-too aware of the beast's yellow eyes locked on him, burning with animal hatred as it took another step forward, ears alert and short muzzle curled in a snarl. The thick black fur on its neck stood on end, looking more like a hairy mountaintop instead of a dog's massive shoulders.

Roy had seen smaller buffalo.

"Good dog," he murmured, backing up one step, reaching out blindly to grasp at the door handle while the other hand reached for his gun, hoping the whole while that a boom of thunder wouldn't set the animal off. His sweaty palms slipped against the cool metal of his sidearm and the weapon tumbled over his fingers and to the ground with a loud clack

The dog took a single, lunging step forward with a malicious growl.

It took everything in Roy's power not to jump back in response. "Okay, okay! Nothing to get excited about . . . just a little gun . . ."

Riza was already in the driver's seat, her own gun drawn, but she didn't have a clear shot. "Sir," she said, her voice strained.

"It's alright, Riza," Roy assured her, but really, he was just trying to assure the dog. And himself.

The animal took another step closer, and it was only a matter of moments before it was going to lunge, and then Roy would have more than a bum leg to worry about.

Then, Ed stepped between Roy and the dog.

The dog paused, growl coming to a rumbling halt.

"Good dog," Ed said. "I want to bite him too, but that won't solve anything, okay?" The dog's snarl eased, but the growl came rolling again as it took a hesitant step back.

And its eyes were most definitely locked on Hallucination-Ed.

Well. This certainly gave Roy something else to ponder.

"Wow. Guess dogs really are smarter than people, huh?" Ed said, stepping forward. The dog retreated again, making as if to go around Ed and get at Roy, but Ed cut him off again. "Now if only Colonel Idiot would get in the truck already."

Roy could take a hint, even from his own subconscious—albeit his subconscious was doing a bang-up job of acting like the tangible world right now. Regardless, Roy bent down to pick up the gun, watching the dog warily as it made for Roy again and again was halted by Ed. Without wasting any more time, Roy yanked open the truck door and threw himself inside.

Riza gave him an indecipherable look before putting her gun on the dash and bending down to yank lose a handful of wires underneath the steering wheel. "What stopped the dog?"

"Maybe my boyish good looks and rugged charm?" Roy tried, looking back outside at where Ed was still corralling the dog, keeping the beast from getting any closer to the truck. Roy was somehow projecting some sort of supernatural Edward Elric doppelganger with his fragmented, hindered mind.

Actually, Ed being a ghost actually made more sense.

Roy was going to stop thinking about it now.

"If you could see my face, sir, you would know that I'm not convinced."

"Something has him spooked," Roy said instead. "Are you finished?"

"Almost," she said, her knife deftly peeling off the insulation on a pair of wires. She twisted them together, the cab light blinking to life as she did. Then she pulled one more wire free from the bunch, tapping it against the other two.

Sparks flew and the engine coughed, sputtered, then caught.

The dog lost its mind, barking and roaring, jaw snapping repeatedly as spittle flew in strings across the windshield.

"Uh, Riza?" Roy asked nervously as Hallucination-Ed threw himself bodily through the back door and onto the bench seat with what sounded like a pained yelp.

She dropped the wires, moved the stick shift and hit the gas, rolling out of the garage at speeds the truck probably hadn't seen since Drachma owned North City.

All of the commotion was enough to bring the dog's owner to the window with a shotgun.

"Riza," Roy said again, this time with more urgency. Or maybe panic.

"Shut up, sir!" she snapped, throwing the stick shift again as a round of buckshot slammed against the passenger door.

Another salvo cracked against the steel bed as Riza floored it, the dog pursuing in their wake, teeth flashing in the dark until it slowly disappeared behind a sudden veil of rain and mist.

Roy panted, one hand gripping his cane, the other his gun. His hands shook from adrenaline, breath forming wispy clouds against the passenger window. The rain picked up speed, pattering at a sharp staccato against the windshield as they moved down the country road, covering in a minute what they could have barely made in an hour.

"Well," Hallucination-Ed said at last. "You didn't get shot."

To say the ride to East City was uneventful after the excitement of their getaway was an understatement.

It was nearly mind-numbing to just sit and watch the dark, shapeless scenery fly by past the dirty windows. In the wake of the adrenaline rush of their escape, Roy had crashed hard. He was surprised by how very tired he was, the months of grief and running—not to mention his physical injuries—taking a very obvious toll on his endurance. He fought to stay awake, though, because Riza had to be awake. It was only fair.

Roy was content to let the numbing silence continue, and almost got lost in it, if not for Hallucination-Ed.

"Are we there yet?" Ed asked for the millionth time. Roy wondered if the hallucination expected some sort of response.

All the same, Roy felt his eye start to twitch because it was the seventh time in the past hour. Despite being only a hallucination—and Roy would repeat that until he absolutely believed it was a stress-induced hallucination and not a complete mental break, thank you very much—Ed was doing a fantastic job of being just as annoying as he used to be when still alive.

His headache certainly wasn't doing him any favors, either.

"How much farther?" Roy asked after a moment, if only to get the hallucination in the back seat to shut up.

"A couple more hours," Riza answered, one hand on the steering wheel, the other pressed to her stomach. Her arm was probably causing her no small amount of discomfort at this point, and she'd had nothing more than over-the-counter painkillers to help keep the pain at bay.

Hallucination-Ed made an exasperated noise, then threw himself across the backseat. "I only have five and a half days left, and I'm still stuck in this car," he groused.

Roy had no idea what that was supposed to mean, nor why his subconscious was feeding him such information, but that was honestly the least of his worries. The fact that he was having this complex and highly believable hallucination at all was much closer to the top.

"Doesn't this thing go any faster?" Ed asked, and Roy wondered why he kept talking when Roy was doing such a good job of ignoring him. If he was a proper hallucination, why was he so obnoxiously interactive?

"When we get there, what's the plan, sir?" Riza asked, distracting Roy from his unsettling thoughts.

"Yeah," Ed added. "We're all dyingto know what kind of genius plan you're coming up with."

Roy couldn't help but grimace at the comment. It wasn't even remotely funny. His subconscious was certainly sick. "This was your idea, remember?" he said to Riza. "What do you suggest?"

She thought for a moment, Roy able to make out the frown on her face in the darkness. He also saw the lines of pain around her eyes and tried to smother his own guilt. "We have to stay out of sight. You are far too recognizable, and we don't exactly look like we've been part of respectable society." She was right about that. Between them, they had enough bandages to wrap up a hospital ward. "Our first order of business should be finding a place to stay. We need privacy to reach out to our team."

"Do you think that's necessary?" Roy asked. He would just as soon leave them out of this. They had been chased by the military, or at the very least, men dressed in Amestrian military uniforms. They had no idea how far up the chain of command this went, and the last thing Roy wanted was to bring this down on the heads of his friends.

"Doing this alone would be foolish, at best," Riza reminded him. "We need back up."

Roy's lip quirked in a cynical sort of smile. "You may be right. So where are you thinking?" Roy asked. "We get to East City and find some cheap motel?"

"Ordinarily, yes. But motels do not usually have a phone. Phones are risky, but if we assume we're still being followed, we unfortunately do not have the time to be subtle." They would have to settle for cautious, then. "We would have to find a payphone, and moving about puts us at even greater risk in a city with such a large military presence."

Roy fought the urge to make an impressed noise. They'd been on the run so long that Roy had almost forgotten how to think tactically, and here she was with a detailed plan, or at least the beginnings of one. "Go on."

"We'll break into Lieutenant General Grumman's house."

"Anotherbreak-in?!" Ed groaned.

Roy groaned, too. "We can't just go breaking into General Grumman's house!"

"Of course not. We'll tell him first."

"Well, of course."

Riza didn't seem deterred by his sarcasm. "You know as well as I do that he would be willing to do anything to help as long as it didn't fall back on him in any way." Was it Roy's imagination, or was there a hint of irritation in her voice that had nothing to do with Roy's comment?

Riza's relationship with her grandfather had always been . . . rocky, at best. Roy knew her when she was barely a teenager, and from what he had gathered in passing conversation in his time in the Hawkeye household, there had been some bad blood between Grumman and her father. Roy didn't know specifics, but Riza seemed to be harboring, if not a grudge, then a subtle disapproval of the man and his methods.

In his time at Eastern Command, he had gotten to know Grumman fairly well. The old man was as eccentric as he was clever. He was almost as ambitious as Roy, and like Roy, had attracted a fair amount of criticism over it. Now, he liked to play things close to the vest, doing all in his power to usurp the Fuhrer without doing anything that would call attention to himself in the process.

Actually, as begrudging as Roy was to admit it, harboring fugitives against the State seemed like Grumman's kind of scheme.

"Do you think he knows we're alive?" he wondered aloud.

Riza's eyes narrowed marginally, but Roy wasn't sure what the expression meant. "Doubtful."

Roy sighed. "I guess it's as good of a plan as we're going to get, at this point."

"Why can't we just find Al?" Hallucination-Ed demanded from the backseat again, bringing Roy once again back to his other, possibly less-pressing, problem. Roy ignored Ed, because he sure wasn't going to acknowledge him now, after last night.

After he was pretty sure he and the dog had seen the same thing.

Interspecies mass hallucination? Unlikely, at best.

Roy had seen a lot of ghosts since his time in Ishval, but none of them had ever been so . . . well, real.

What was he supposed to make of it? If he were to tell Riza, she'd look at him like he'd finally gone off the deep end. He had, admittedly, not been in the most stable frame of mind as of late. The recent bout of action had helped him regain some sense of composure, but he knew he was dangerously close to some sort of mental break, like after Ishval. The guilt he felt over Edward's death was a black cloud that he could not seem to shake. That, combined with a lack of purpose, was slowly eating away at him.

Well. He'd just have to focus on the task at hand and completely ignore Hallucination-Ed until he could think of a more plausible reason that he was seeing the boy, aside from being either crazy or haunted, because he was comfortable with neither.

And as he came to that decision, something exploded.

The truck skidded, Riza cursed, and the vehicle was airborne.

XxXxX

Ed may not have been able to feel pain, per se, but summersaulting down a shallow ditch inside the body of a truck made him uncomfortably aware of what it felt like to be a tossed salad.

Ed braced one hand on the ceiling, one on the seat, wondering how that much was possible, and wondering if it was possible to be sick with an immaterial stomach.

Ed's conditionlet him take in details he was sure Hawkeye and Mustang were missing. He watched the dark, starless sky become the ground, the world outside turning through the windshield as both Mustang and Hawkeye whipped around like rag dolls in a dog's teeth. Hawkeye's head cracked against the window on the first roll, the truck turning one more time before smashing into a tree with an ear-splitting shriek of ripping metal and shattering glass.

The sudden silence was deafening.

It took him long seconds to summon the courage to move, frozen in place with shock. A fine drizzle of mist rolled in from the broken windows, making the air shimmer and drifting through his incorporeal body.

Finally, Ed shivered, breaking the spell. He twisted onto his shoulder, his legs following him down in the upside-down cab, shaken more emotionally than physically. He landed in an uncomfortable heap on the glass-strewn roof and leaned forward, panting for no other reason than that he was scared.

Scared for Mustang and Hawkeye.

Neither were moving, suspended from above by their seatbelts. "Mustang?" he tried out of reflex, before reminding himself that the action was completely futile. Still, a thrill of panic ran up his spine when no one responded. He couldn't see anything but the backs of their heads.

With a curse, Ed rolled right through the back door, noting that it was so distorted that even if he could, it probably wouldn't have opened for him.

Though he had been able to brace himself against the ceiling . . . but this wasn't the time to ponder that.

Shaking off the extreme pins-and-needles sensation from passing through solid objects, and the disorientation of being upside-down, Ed glanced around. The darkness was not a problem for his eyes, but he didn't see anything out of the ordinary; just trees and shrubs and the dirt road they'd fallen from just a few meters up the slope, broken bits of glass and metal strewn along the truck's path like macabre confetti.

But they hadn't crashed for no reason. Hawkeye was nothing if not perfect at nearly everything she did, and driving was no exception. Besides, his sixth sense for trouble was practically shrieking in the back of his head like a siren.

Someone was out there.

When nothing out of the ordinary manifested itself, Ed circled the truck, coming around to the front. He got down on all fours and looked inside, staring past the jagged edges of glass that looked like broken teeth to the unsettling picture framed before him.

Hawkeye was the worst off, as far as he could tell. Her side door rested against the tree, conformed around it and effectively trapping her between it and the center console. A rivulet of blood streamed down her forehead and disappearing into her hairline from a cut in her temple, but she was breathing, features slack in unconsciousness.

Mustang looked better, but not by much. Ed couldn't make out anything aside from a few gashes across his pale face, blood languidly dripping on the glass below. Mustang was already rousing though, a low groan slipping from his throat and a slow frown gradually contorting his features.

"That's right," Ed encouraged uselessly. "Get your lazy self together, Mustang."

Getting to his feet, he sprinted up the slope to the road, cresting it just in time to see a figure dressed in black moving out of the tree line, a shadow congealing into solid shape.

With him, Ed could make out the unmistakable silhouette of a rifle in its hands.

Swallowing the urge to duck out of sight, Ed glanced back down at the truck, finally understanding.

One of the back wheels was completely destroyed, its rubber strewn across the road before him in chunks and slivers.

This dirtbag had shot out their tire.

"Great,"Ed muttered. Even from here, he could make out the short ponytail. It was his friend from last night. Ed glanced back down to the truck below, Mustang and Hawkeye vulnerable inside.

He didn't have much time.

With another curse and an ill-formed plan, Ed dove back down the hill and back to the front of the truck. Mustang hadn't made much progress, his eyes still screwed tightly shut. "Mustang, I know you suck at listening to me like you suck at everything else, but I'm going to possess you for a minute, and I really need you to cooperate."

As predicted, Mustang ignored him.

So, Ed got back on his feet and launched himself at his commanding officer.

And wow, did it hurt.

Aside from the discomfort Ed remembered from the other night, and the strange sense of othernessEd got from suddenly being inside a body that was not his, the sudden onslaught of pain and misery had him choking back the desire to vomit. His head screamed at him from the building pressure of being upside-down, and his shoulder felt like it might have been dislocated. Every breath brought a wave of fresh pain, bruised or broken ribs straining against the seatbelt. Actually, there wasn't anything that did not feel like it had been hit by a train, and Ed almost wanted to pass out then and there.

But he reminded himself that Mustang and Hawkeye were about to be executed if he didn't get it in gear, so he opened Mustang's bleary eyes and reached with Mustang's clumsy, too-big hand toward Hawkeye.

"S-sorry 'bout this," Ed said with Mustang's voice, his lips feeling slack and the words coming out a slur. He was sure Hawkeye would shoot Mustang if she had been awake for touching her, period. He reached inside her coat pocket and grabbed the gun she'd kept holstered there, all the while painfully aware of the time crunch he was on.

Ed absently wondered if this was what it was like to be drunk, large hand painfully working at the piece in her pocket until, finally, pulling it free of the fabric.

In the back of his mind, Mustang stirred, a warm, fluttering sensation that pushed forward before receding back. Clearly, he was just too lazy to wake up all the way. Completely useless.

Ed tried to squash down the voice that was really, really worried about that.

He placed the weapon on the roof of the car over his head in a bed of shattered glass, then clapped his hands and turned the seatbelt holding him hostage into a pile of fabric scraps. He barely caught himself in time to save Mustang's head from an uncomfortable encounter with the hard metal as he fell from the chair.

"Ow," Ed groaned, too distracted to be disturbed by how weird the word sounded in Mustang's voice. Everything hurt. He twisted, the motion much more difficult now that he was in Mustang's larger frame, bringing his feet down from under—above?— the console and ignoring the accent of pain he felt in the older man's right shoulder and side. He simply didn't have time to coddle Mustang's battered body.

He scrabbled out of the missing windshield, earning Mustang a few more cuts in the process, and got to his feet as quickly as he could.

The man's left leg gave out and sent him back to the wet ground.

Mustang's mouth cursed in a way the colonel's mother might have disapproved of. Ed looked back into the cab of the truck but did not see the cane. He clapped his hands, drawing a familiar circle in his head and pulling a crutch made of metals up from the earth below him. Ed was more comfortable with a crutch, anyway.

He got to his feet just in time to see the shadowed man appear over the top of the hill.

Both of them froze.

Then, without a word, the man brought the rifle up to his shoulder.

Ed had never liked guns. To him, they were all but unpredictable, the bullet out of his control as soon as it left the chamber. Alchemy was much more reliable, but Hawkeye had insisted he learned how to use one, taking him and Al out to the range every Saturday they were in East City to practice.

Now he was pretty grateful, because Ed wasn't sure Mustang's body could have gotten to the ground that quickly for a transmutation and gotten back up again.

Ed raised Hawkeye's handgun, flicked the safety, and squeezed off three shots.

The sound in the quiet night was enough to make Ed's ears ring, each bark a staccato to his already-splitting headache, but the man immediately retreated from the ridge and out of sight, taking cover from Ed's barrage.

Ed backed up toward Hawkeye's side of the truck, squeezing off two more shots before placing the weapon on top of the undercarriage and clapping his hands. He placed them on the truck, the metal peeling away like sharp petals of a flower.

A bullet struck the truck maybe six inches in front of him, golden sparks burning his eyes.

"Do you mind?!" Ed shouted, his irritation purely panic-induced now. He ducked behind the cab, Mustang's hip protesting.

"Come on, Hawkeye," he said, another transmutation taking care of her seatbelt as another bullet ricocheted off the truck. Mustang's shoulder screamed at him, but he pulled her as gently as he could afford to from the battered cab.

Something flared in his head, a wave of hot panic that wasn't his own.

Then Mustang promptly threw him out.

Roy wasn't quite awake, but he knew a dream when he saw one.

His hands were reaching for Riza, pulling her from the cab of the truck. He didn't remember it crashing, but here it was, upside down against a tree, beaten and shattered like a broken toy.

A bullet struck the frame and Roy shouted something, but he didn't know what or how.

And dream or no, he suddenly felt like he wasn't alone here in his body. He felt a presence, something hot and energetic that wasn't him at all, and with a burst of sheer panic, he rushed forward, the sensation like waking up after a falling nightmare to catch himself, but the memory was too real and too vivid and he wasn't sure if he had imagined it all or not.

But here he was, standing on a slope with an unconscious Riza in his throbbing arms, a crutch—crutch?—supporting him, and a bullet whistling past his head.

And there was Hallucination-Ed, sprawled in the grass in a heap of mismatched limbs and a burning fear in his voice. "What are you doing?!"

What was he doing? He had absolutely no idea.

"Run,you idiot!"

Oh, yes.

So, with his body aching, and his heart racing and Riza thrown over his shoulder, he hobbled deeper into the trees, ducking behind a stand of aspens until their pursuer temporarily stopped in his onslaught with a crackle of alchemy.

Roy didn't know if the two were related, but he wasn't about to stop to find out. Readjusting Riza's dead—no, not dead, don't say dead—weight, he stumbled forward toward the darkness.

XxXxX

Ed gathered himself and raced back up the slope, because if he didn't do something, Mustang was going to die and take Hawkeye along with him.

Stupid, idiotic, insufferablecolonel.

A half-dozen useless alchemy circles flew through his mind by reflex, but none of those were going to do him any good unless he found a body to possess, and judging by the way Mustang kept kicking him out, he wasn't sure if he'd last in their assailant's body very long.

Still, it wasn't like he had many options at the moment.

He would have maybe one shot at this, and then Mustang and Hawkeye were on their own and very screwed.

He crested the hill, not hesitating in the slightest as he hurled himself forward, running headlong into the would-be assassin like a runaway train.

With one flying leap, he was in the man's body.

Being inside this man was different than possessing Mustang. Where Mustang was fire and pain, this man had a murky, almost poisonous feel to him, like the scum around a pond. Again, the center of gravity was higher than Ed was used to, but the only discomfort Ed could pick up on was a throbbing in his left shoulder. Perhaps Mustang had hit him the night before?

It didn't matter, because Ed didn't have time. He dropped the rifle, clapped his hands and threw them to the ground, bringing a wall of stone up and around himself, encircling his body like a small fortress. The goal was to completely incapacitate him and give Mustang and Hawkeye time to escape.

A familiar spike of alarm, and Ed was out before the transmutation could be completed, thrown right through the half-formed wall with a familiar sizzle of pain.

Ed picked himself up off the ground in time to see the shadowed man stare at the incomplete wall, expression a mixture of fear and confusion. It was almost up to his chest, it's walls thick but flaking from the interruption and not nearly high enough to keep him contained.

Ed glanced back down to the broken truck below and his broken comrades just beyond. Mustang had passed the tree line, but was not nearly deep enough in. Once the assassin had a chance to collect himself, it would be all over.

Ed jumped at the man again.

He had control for almost a whole second before he was back sprawled on the ground.

"What . . .?"the assassin gasped, eyes wide and a shiver racking his body, gaze casting about for a cause but unable to see Ed, just like everyone else. Which was a bit frustrating if Ed stopped to think about it, which he didn't.

With another shudder, the man picked up his rifle.

Maybe Ed should have destroyed thatfirst.

The man spared another glance around him before leveling the weapon against the wall Ed had so conveniently provided.

Hot fear coiled in Ed's stomach.

They were going to die, and Ed couldn't do a thing.

No, if he timed this right, maybe he could throw the man's aim. It wouldn't work forever, but it was something.

"Mustang, down!"Ed screamed, more out of reflex than any certainty he'd be heard.

But several dozen yards below, Mustang dove behind a tree anyway.

Ed didn't have time to consider it. He turned back around.

Just in time to see several hundred pounds of steel armor barrel into the stone wall and into the back of their very surprised attacker.

"Alphonse!"

Alphonse didn't react to Ed's shout. He picked up the man like he weighed nothing, tossing him over the crumbling remains of the wall, one gauntleted hand ripping the rifle from the man's grip and crushing it into wooden splinters and crumpled metal.

The assassin was on his feet in an instant, drawing a long, curved blade from his side and striking out. Alphonse blocked the blow easily, the blade screeching off of his forearm, drawing a shower of sparks and a gash in the metal.

Al swung one huge fist, fierce and unhesitating. The blow caught the man in the chest with an audible crack, sending him flying. He landed on the ground with a pained grunt, curling in on his side, hand cradling his ribs.

He stayed down.

"Who are you?" Alphonse asked, voice flat and hard and sharp as razor wire. It didn't sound like Ed's baby brother at all.

The man gritted his teeth and glared up at him. "Are you working with Mustang?"

With only an expressionless suit of armor to work with, Ed wasn't sure of the exact sentiment behind the venom in Alphonse's response. "No,"he spat. "Who are you?"

The man seemed to consider his options for a moment, until Al took a threatening step forward. "My name is Victor. I'm just a hired gun."

"Hired by who?"

Again, Victor paused, frozen blue eyes narrowing. "I don't know. That's part of the deal. The contractor remains anonymous."

Alphonse brought a heavy gauntlet down on the man's gut.

"Al!"Ed shouted, "What are you doing?!"This wasn't like Alphonse. Not at all. Al didn't kick people when they were down, assassin or no.

Victor cried out, coughing and sputtering through the pain.

"That's not good enough," Al said, voice as warm as Briggs. "Who are you working for?"

Victor panted for a moment. "I . . . I was hired . . . by a woman. That's . . . all I can tell you."

Alphonse raised his fist again.

A pale hand stopped him.

Al froze, turning to see the Colonel, beaten and bloody, standing next to him.

Mustang stared up at him, eyes dark but gentle, imploring.

"Alphonse," he said softly.

For a long, tense moment, Ed was afraid that Al was going to hit Mustang.

Then, Al lowered his fist, rusted metal creaking, and took a step back.

Mustang sighed in what could have been relief, turning to face Victor. If it weren't for the resolve in the clench of his jaw and the calm in his eyes, it would have been hard to take him seriously, the way he swayed on his crutch with blood leaking down his face. "Describe the woman."

Victor regarded Mustang, lips twisted in a snarl of contempt and pain. "Black hair, black eyes. It was dark when we met."

"Why does she want us dead?"

"I don't know."

Mustang considered this. "Were you working with Michael?"

"Yes."

"Did you shoot Edward Elric?"

Ed and Al both flinched. After the scream of rusted armor, the silence in the cool night air could have been smothering.

Was this the man? Was it this easy? He just had to find his murderer, right? If Victor killed him, he'd be back in his body and properly reunited with his brother before sunrise.

But if he was his killer, then surely Ed would already be back at the Gate by now.

Victor looked like he was considering something, then finally said, "No."

Ed felt his ethereal heart sink in his chest.

Another silence stretched between them. "Anything else?" Mustang finally asked.

Victor shook his head. "That's all I know."

Mustang nodded. "Very well."

Then Mustang raised Hawkeye's pistol and shot him in the head.

The body slumped to the ground with a sick thud. Ed staggered back, knowing it was only his lack of stomach that kept him from throwing up then and there. Though Ed was no stranger to death, he usually didn't witness it so close.

The worst part about it though was the way Alphonse didn't even flinch.

Mustang turned to face Al, pocketing the weapon. "Alphonse," he said, that same gentle tone back, dark eyes softer than Ed had ever seen them. "Are you alright?" Ed got the feeling he wasn't talking about physically.

Al looked at him with expressionless soul-fire eyes. "Yes." Ed had always had a knack for knowing what his brother was thinking, but he was still getting nothing. It was almost like looking at a stranger.

Mustang nodded, not looking convinced. "Where have you been? Hughes has been looking everywhere for you."

"We should get off the road," Al said instead of answering. He turned and started down the hill, leaving Mustang standing alone with Victor's lifeless body and Ed's intangible one.

"What happened to him?" Ed wondered aloud. Surely Ed's . . . well, his death, hadn't done this to him, but what else could it be? "Is this because I died?" he asked, to no one but himself.

Coincidentally, Mustang made a low humming sound in the back of his throat, eyes glued to Victor's corpse. With no small amount of trouble, he lowered himself beside the body, rummaging through his pockets and finding nothing but a lighter, a half-gone pack of cigarettes, a few cenz, and some lint.

"Helpful," Ed muttered, watching Mustang pocket the cenz and the lighter before turning back to watch his little brother. Alphonse finally reached Hawkeye where she was propped behind a tree and was bent down beside her. It looked like he hadn't run proper maintenance on himself in months, his metal body scarred and rusting in places. His loincloth was in shreds, barely hanging on his waist by a thread. His gloved hands had a finger missing and holes worn in the palms.

What had his brother been doing for three months?

"Where has he been?" Ed asked aloud. "Who's been looking out for my little brother?" He had just assumed that Al would be safe. He didn't doubt that East City was in an uproar with Mustang and Ed's disappearance, but that wasn't an excuse. Al was just a kid. How could Mustang's men leave him on his own like this?!

Had Al spent the past three months wondering the countryside? And doing what? Looking for Ed? Looking for Mustang?

Looking for revenge?

No, that wasn't Al. That wasn't his little brother.

But . . . Ed saw the way he'd treated Victor.

Maybe Al had changed. Ed knew loss could drive you to do terrible things. He knew it firsthand.

"I'm sorry."

Ed turned out of reflex, but he knew better than to think Mustang was talking to him. He had his eyes on the corpse below him, having somehow gotten back to his feet. He positioned the crutch under his arm, then headed back down the slope at a snail's pace.

Ed looked at Victor one more time before following.

XxXxX

The walk was awkward, to say the least.

Mustang took point, traveling through the trees along a worn deer trail as quickly as he probably could, which was to say, not very fast. Alphonse trailed behind him, carrying an intermittently-conscious Hawkeye delicately in his arms. Hawkeye was quiet when she was awake—more so than usual—only answering a couple of questions before staring dazedly at the passing scenery and ignoring Mustang and Al all together.

The way Alphonse held her; it was more like the way he'd hold one of the many kittens he liked to pick up. It was the closest to "soft" Ed had seen his brother since his sudden appearance. Ed was worried about Hawkeye of course, but he also had other things on his mind, too.

He had a million questions but no way to ask them, so he settled for studying his brother and trying vainly to read his thoughts through his steel visage.

Mustang wasn't helping either. He had tried talking to Alphonse, but Al only answered in short, clipped sentences, a strange heat bubbling just beneath the surface of his replies. Ed didn't know what to make of it. Was he mad at Mustang? At Hawkeye?

At Ed?

The sudden thought almost made him stop in his tracks.

Did Al blame him for dying? Was this his fault? Because he was careless, because he wasn't looking over his shoulder the way he should have?

Because he left Al alone?

"Alphonse," Mustang said after over an hour of silence.

Al looked up from the ground, his step faltering just a bit.

"What happened after we left East City?"

Al didn't immediately respond, and Ed wasn't sure if he would at all.

"I left," he said finally.

"Why?"

"I had to come see for myself." The reply was as hollow as his armor.

Mustang nodded. "I'm sorry, Alphonse. About Ed."

Ed felt icy claws rake through his insides. "I'm right here!"he said, though he didn't know why. "Don't say things like that! I'm going to come back, you hear me?!"

A small, depreciative smile curled Mustang's lip. If Ed hadn't noticed the self-loathing behind it, he might have been even more furious with him.

"Don't," Al whispered. "Don't talk like he's dead."

The smile turned down at the corners. "Alphonse . . . we saw him go into the river."

"I said stop!"Al snarled, but the rest of his response came out more broken, more halting. "There's no body, so you don't know that. . . you don't know that he's not here!"

"I'm right here, Al!" Ed said, reflexively trying to grab his little brother's steel forearm only to have his hands pass through like smoke. He gritted his teeth, helplessness combined with frustration warring for dominance and just making him feel sick instead. Al was hurting and he couldn't do anything about it.

Mustang stopped in the trail, forcing Al to stop behind him. He turned around, onyx eyes clouded with pain and pity. Ed wanted to slap the look off his face. "Alphonse, is that what you've been doing all this time? Looking for your brother?"

"Leave him alone!" Ed snapped. He couldn't bear to watch Mustang trample his little brother's heart more than it was, especially when he was so wrong. Ed was right here.

"There's no body," Al answered feebly, voice hushed and strained, broken in ways that were palpable, like daggers to Ed's chest.

Mustang grimaced. "If he were alive, don't you think he would have turned up by now?"

"We're not having this conversation right now." The command was more of a threat than anything, like a hiss from a cornered animal. "We need to get Lieutenant Hawkeye to a doctor."

"The longer you resist it, the more painful it's going to be," Mustang replied softly, eyes filled with an intimate knowing Ed wasn't sure how to interpret, but it raised his temper all the same. "It will haunt you for the rest of your life."

Ed placed himself right between them instinctively and pointed a metal finger in the older man's face. "I'll show youhaunting,"he hissed. This wasn't what Al needed right now. How darehe tell Ed's little brother what to think? What right did he have?! "Back off!" The fact that anything Ed said was a complete waste of breath did nothing to dispel the hot anger pulsing in his throat.

"It's best if you just accept it," Mustang whispered.

"If you think you can just manipulate Al into believing your crap, you've lost your mind!"

Mustang looked at Ed.

He lookedat Ed.

Mustang locked his tired, bloodshot eyes on Ed's and Ed stopped breathing.

"And why else would I be seeing the dead?"

“You . . .” Ed huffed.

Mustang didn’t move. He didn’t even breathe, eyes wide, like he couldn’t believe what he had just admitted aloud.

Ed couldn’t believe it either.

“You,” Ed repeated, voice shaking. “Are you trying to tell me . . . YOU COULD HEAR ME THIS WHOLE TIME?!” Ed screamed, pulling back an automail fist and throwing it right at Mustang’s face.

Mustang flinched, Ed’s punch passing right through his pale, stupid face, doing no more than make him shiver. Ed didn’t even get the satisfying shock of impact, only a tingling through his shoulder nerves.

Mustang quickly averted his gaze, looking up at Alphonse. If possible, it ticked Ed off even more.

“LOOK AT ME WHEN I’M SCREAMING AT YOU!”

 “What?” Al said from behind him.

“Nothing,” Mustang said quickly, turning away. “We should move. It’ll be daylight soon, and I’d rather already be in town.”

“I will possess you!”  Ed snarled. “I will possess your body, throw off your clothes and streak through Central Command if you don’t turn around and look at me right now!”

Mustang continued to ignore him. But Ed knew that he could see him, and since he knew that, so many other things over the past couple of days were starting to make some sense. The way he ducked when Ed told him to, the way he winced or frowned as if in response to something Ed had said . . . it all made sense.

And now he was pretending he couldn’t see him again?!

Ed jumped in front of him, Mustang halting in surprise. “Cut that out, I know you can hear me now!”

“Is there something wrong?” Alphonse asked, his earlier bitterness almost forgotten, it seemed, in light of Mustang’s nervous breakdown.

If it was possible, Mustang looked paler. “No. Everything’s fine.”

“Everything is not fine! I swear, you are the biggest pain in my neck, Mustang! Why are you ignoring me?!”

“This is crazy,” Mustang muttered aloud. “I’m not losing my mind right now.”

“You lost it a long time ago, this is nothing!” Ed said. “I need you to get it together! I’m not some hallucination, I’m dead, but if I can find out who murdered me, I can come back, but I need . . .” Ed wanted to swallow arsenic rather than say what he was about to say, but that would be redundant. “I need your help, you idiot!”

Ed ran a hand down his face. “Truth is the absolute worst! I can’t believe you’re the only one that can see me. Ugh, and I can’t believe my salvation is hinging on a complete moron!”

Mustang flinched, but finally met his gaze again. Ed could see him processing behind those dark eyes.

“Colonel?” Al tried again.

Mustang’s eyes didn’t waver. “Later.” The comment was said for Al, but directed at Ed. “Let’s get moving. We should arrive at East City before daybreak, if we hurry.”

So, Mustang just wanted to ignore him in public, huh?

Ed proceeded to call his commanding officer a slew of unflattering names, but followed him anyway, keeping a close eye on his little brother as he did.

After all, he didn’t have a lot of options.

XxXxX

They arrived in the city much later than Mustang had predicted. It was well past noon, and Mustang looked positively exhausted, hair disheveled, clothes rumpled, and bags under his eyes. Hawkeye was also worse for wear, sitting quiet in Alphonse’s arms. Just as quite as Alphonse was, actually.

Upon their arrival, Mustang took no chances. He immediately led them through a back alley, down a vacant side street, then into an abandoned warehouse, gaining them entrance by smashing a brick through the rotted planks of a boarded-up window, then peeling back the wood in a shower of dust and splinters.

Not quite as refined as alchemy, but Ed supposed there was no point in complaining about it.

Alphonse went in first, his metal body sheltering Hawekeye as he backed through the opening, a spike of his armor scraping against the concrete frame with a piercing shriek. Hawkeye flinched from the noise, face contorting in pain.

Mustang had a lot more trouble entering, given the height of the window and his leg, and it was painful to watch. Ed wanted nothing more than to give him a boost and not have to see it, but that was out of the question. Eventually, Alphonse came out and gave him a hand, much to Mustang’s obvious chagrin. Ed actually felt bad for the idiot that was still ignoring him.

With one last look around to check for any curious eyes, Ed stepped through the wall, shivering through the frigid sensation.

The inside was almost completely bare. They had entered into what was probably once some sort of office or storage closet, but aside from a pile of wood and debris and an inch of dust over the concrete floors, there was nothing much to say about it.

“Charming,” Ed commented, his eyes drawn to the corner as something skittered out of sight through a crack in the wall.

“We’ll stay until night, then we head to Havoc’s,” Mustang announced. He looked at Al. “I hate to ask it, Alphonse, but do you think you could round us up a few things? All our supplies were left back in the truck.”

Al nodded. “Water, food, painkillers. I’ll see what I can find.”

Mustang pulled a few wrinkled cenz from his pocket and pushed them into Al’s leather gauntlet. “Thank you.”

With another glance at Hawkeye, Al slipped out the window, armor scraping concrete and then he was gone.

Mustang all but collapsed on the floor beside Hawkeye, putting a hand to her forehead, cracking open her eye to stare at her dilated irises. “Riza?” he asked.

Ed had the feeling he shouldn’t be witnessing this and turned to examine a spiderweb spanning an impressive length of the ceiling. It didn’t prevent him from hearing, though.

Hawkeye groaned something that could have been a “sir.”

“Rest now, Riza, I’ll wake you up when Al gets back.”

She mumbled something else, then there was silence. After a few more moments of it, Ed turned back around to see Mustang studying him closely, dark eyes rimmed with exhaustion, but still sharp in their scrutiny. Hawkeye seemed to already be asleep at his side. “You’re dead,” he finally said.

“Can’t get anything past you, can I?” Ed said, stepping closer. Mustang stretched his leg out in front of him, looking like the movement pained him no small degree. Ed looked at Hawkeye to avoid watching it. Seeing Mustang in pain bothered him, despite how much he’d been seeing it the past few days. “Will she be alright?”

“I’m no doctor, but I think so. She should be.” Ed didn’t miss the underlying desperation under his tone and finally looked at him again. Onyx eyes stared back, unrelenting and disquieting. “Why are you still here, if you’re dead?”

“I . . . it’s complicated,” Ed said. At Mustang’s arched eyebrow, Ed explained about Truth and the Gate and the bargain he had made.

After a few moments of thought in which his frown gradually deepened, he said, “That doesn’t explain why I can see you, but no one else can.”

“That’s just Truth’s idea of a sick joke.” There was little doubt in Ed’s mind about that. “Maybe it has something to do with proximity when I died, or your questionable mental state.”

“Hah,” Mustang said blandly. “I thought I was losing it. I might still be.”

“You are.”

“Hilarious, Ed. But you’re real, right?” there was still a hint of desperation there, an urgency that didn’t match up to Ed’s image of Roy Mustang. It was a weakness, a glimmer of humanity that Ed had seen way too much of over the past thirty-six hours.

“I’m as real as any ghost, I guess.”

Mustang frowned. “There are more?”

Ed shrugged, staring past his slightly-transparent feet at the cracked concrete. “Not that I’ve seen. But that probably doesn’t mean anything.”

“So,” Mustang began after a pause, “If we find your killer, you get to come back?”

“That’s pretty much the gist of it, yeah. But I’ve only got five more days.”

Mustang frowned. “That’s not a lot of time.”

“Tell me about it,” Ed muttered. “And you ignoring me didn’t exactly help.” Ed didn’t mean for it to sound as petulant as it did, but it was too late to backpedal.

Mustang winced. “Sorry. I just . . . like I said, I thought I was losing it. Why five days?”

“Because Truth is a dirty, lowlife, pompous pain in my—”

An unnatural gust of wind whipped through the broken window and into the tiny room, picking up dust that had been undisturbed for months and throwing it into the air.

Mustang coughed on a lungful, but Ed just closed his mouth, considering. “He hates it when I call it how it is,” he finally muttered.

The older man regarded him with watering eyes. “Alright, then. Any idea why he’s doing this? Why bargain at all? You didn’t exactly have anything to bargain with, and it’s not like Truth doesn’t know who shot you.”

Ed had asked himself the same questions and hadn’t come up with anything that satisfied him. “Maybe he’s bored. Maybe he sees the world going a certain way and wants it to not go that way. I only have theories.”

A humorless smile quirked the corner of Mustang’s lips. “I guess if there’s going to be anyone to change the course of history, it would be you.”

Ed blinked. “Is that a compliment?”

“Would you believe me if I said yes?”

“No,” Ed muttered. “So when Al gets back, you going to just keep on ignoring me?”

The older man pressed his lips together. “I don’t think telling him will convince him of anything but my faltering mental state.”

Ed groaned. “Are you serious?!”

“Fullmetal, I don’t have a lot going for me right now. Alphonse . . . well, something’s not quite right with him, but I can’t tell if it’s because he hates me or because you’re . . . well, dead.”

“Probably a little of both,” Ed sighed. He didn’t want to think about that at the moment.

“But if you can tone down the commentary on the choices I make, that would be great.”

“The way you put your boots on is ridiculous, and you know it. You square them up in front of you with your socks like you have some sort of compulsion, and then you put on one sock, then one boot, then the other sock and the other boot . . . it’s weird, Mustang.”

He rolled his eyes. “And how do you put your boots on?”

“Socks, then shoes, like a normal person!”

“Is it also normal for someone of your age to be wearing platform shoes?”

“They’re just normal boots!”

“With two-inch soles. Don’t worry, though, they’re hardly noticeable. Even with them, you’re still short.”

Ed ground his teeth. “You know what? I was starting to feel bad for you, but I take it all back. Every single nice thought I had.”

“I’m touched.”

“Stupid, pompous, arrogant excuse for a—"

“Hey, Fullmetal?”

“What?!”

“I’m sorry. That you’re . . . you know.”

The sudden shift in topic left Ed’s mind reeling for a moment. He covered for the fumble with irritation. “What are you apologizing for, Mustang? Did you actually shoot me or something?”

“You don’t remember?”

Ed shrugged, dropping to the ground on the other side of Hawkeye. “Not really. I know I was shot in the neck.” His automail hand slipped up to subconsciously rub just below his jawline. He let it fall to his lap.

“Hmm,” Mustang grunted, slumping further against the wall behind him. “That’s all?”

“I don’t remember any of it. Truth just told me.”

Mustang looked like he was debating whether to tell Ed something or not. “The bullet was supposed to hit me. You were just in the way.”

Ed didn’t know that. “So that’s why—” Ed gestured to his leg.

“Shot three times,” he explained. “Thigh,” he pointed to a place high on his leg, “hip,” to what Ed guessed was the source of his limping, “and this,” he said, tapping a place just below his collar bone, “is the bullet that got you.”

Hearing it and seeing it was surreal to Ed, like someone explaining an important early childhood event that he didn’t entirely recall. Mustang said it with a detachment that he possessed when he talked about the War, like the gruesome details were no more significant than the weather. Any vulnerability that had been present when he apologized was gone, evaporated in the wake of this cool objectivity.

Ed knew all about that. It was the way Ed talked about that night he and Al had tried human transmutation on their own mother. It was the way he referred to automail surgery and what his little brother had to go through in that suit of armor. It was self-protection, detachment through and through.  Ed didn’t know how healthy it was, but he couldn’t fault the older man for it.

“So, I’m dead because someone missed you?” he sighed. “Great. Not like I didn’t know it, but that’s just great.”

“We tried to go back for you,” he said, the coolness cracking, almost dangerously, to reveal a hot, painful center. “Riza did. I was . . . occupied. She couldn’t find you.” He tilted his head back, staring at the ceiling. “We had a funeral for you.”

Ed didn’t want to hear this. He didn’t want to hear any of it. “Oh.”

Mustang continued, like if he didn’t get it all out now, he might never talk about it again. “We didn’t have anything to bury, so we just made a cross out of some sticks. I know you don’t exactly claim to be religious or anything, but we didn’t know what else to do. It’s out in the middle of nowhere, but under the circumstances, we couldn’t get to Resembool.”

“I’m sure the military threw me a real nice one,” Ed said in a vain attempt to lighten the mood. He was beyond uncomfortable.

“I’m sure you’re listed as MIA. It could be months before they decide you’re not coming back.”

That wasn’t the point, but Ed was happy to be back on more solid footing. “I guess MIA is as good of an excuse as any for me not to be around.” In fear of Mustang elaborating more on his funeral, he made a point of looking Mustang up and down. “You look terrible. Get some sleep, I’ll keep watch.”

Mustang looked at him blearily. “Shouldn’t you get some sleep?”

Ed arched an eyebrow. “I’m dead. I don’t sleep.”

“Oh.” He nodded, then worked his way down the wall so that he could lie next to Hawkeye, close enough that they were touching in a show of affection that he would never have displayed in front of Ed—or anyone—had he been in his right mind. Ed watched as the older man closed his eyes. “We’ll fix this,” he promised, but Ed wasn’t sure who he was talking to.

Mustang was asleep in no more than twenty seconds, leaving Ed to the rattling of the wind and his own uncomfortable thoughts.

Ed wasn’t sure how long they’d been asleep before somewhere deep in the building, a window shattered.

And knowing Ed’s luck, it wasn’t Al.

Roy was startled awake by something.

He stared around the warehouse room wide-eyed but saw nothing, save for Riza at his side and Ed nowhere in sight.

Had Ed been a dream? Had yesterday been a dream?

He panted, trying to slow the heaving of his sore ribs to better listen. He didn't have time for an existential crisis at the moment. Something had awakened him.

He'd always been a light sleeper, a talent he'd developed during the Ishvalan War, when it wasn't unheard of to find an Ishvalan assassin in your tent in the middle of the night. It only took one such instance to iron the habit into him, and it had served him well since. For the past three months, sleep had been elusive on the best of nights, traumatic on the worst, and Roy found that even the gentlest of breezes or the lone cricket were enough to rip him from his slumber.

Now he was awake, and he listened. He heard Riza's soft breathing beside him. The brush of the wind on the metal roof.

The scrape of rubber across concrete.

The hiss of fabric.

Closer.

He fumbled for the pistol strapped to his side, cocking the hammer back as a shadow fell across the doorway.

Roy flinched, finger twitching against the trigger.

The figure froze.

"Roy," the man said gently, like Roy would break if startled. Or shoot.

Roy knew that voice. He knew those eyes, but it didn't make sense.

"Hey, Mustang, relax!" Ed said, materializing from behind the man like the ghost he was. Where had he been? "Look, it's just Hughes!"

Roy's eyes darted from Ed to the man behind him. "Hughes?" Roy asked, incredulous. It couldn't be Hughes. Hughes was in Central, they were in East City. Was this some sort of trick? He felt his arm lower, the pistol sinking just a bit. "Is that you?"

It didn't look like Hughes, though.

It looked like Hughes would have if he'd been to Hell and back.

The man was dressed in civvies, dark slacks and a green button down under a black coat. His hair was combed back in his usual style, but what struck Roy the hardest was the haggard appearance of his old friend.

Behind his squared glasses, his eyes were sunken, ringed in purple like he'd spent more nights awake than not. His cheekbones were severer, face hollowed out by weight loss and stress. His hazel eyes, normally bright and friendly, were now hard and sharp, like pounded metal. There was a harshness there, melded into the very core of his being, that Roy wasn't accustomed to seeing in Hughes, even in Ishval.

How could this be Hughes?

"Are you blind, old man?!" Ed demanded, sounding more nervous than put out. "Of course it's Hughes! Don't you dare shoot Hughes!"

"Yeah, it's me," Hughes said, voice low and hushed. He took a cautious step forward, and when Roy didn't shoot him, another. Ed moved out of the way as Hughes approached until they were only separated by inches.

"I thought . . ." Hughes began, sinking to his knees, eyes searching Roy's, holding him like a spell. Hughes reached out a hand and placed it over the pistol still in Roy's grasp, lowering it to the ground. It clattered on the concrete floor. Some of the ice melted from Hughes' gaze as he took in the sight of him. "When I didn't hear from you . . . I thought you were dead, too."

Then, Hughes was embracing him, arms wrapping tightly around Roy, and he felt real.

"I thought you were dead," Hughes said again, this time his voice sounding thick, and Roy thought he felt his collar go damp. His body chimed in with a host of complaints at the pressure on his ribs and hip, but Roy didn't move.

Hughes had always been more of the touchy-feely type, but even Roy would have been remiss if he'd said it didn't feel good to be held. In the beginning, after Roy had been shot and Ed died, Roy had hazy memories of Riza obliging him, sometimes holding his hand or even allowing him to curl next to her as the pain and fever kept him delirious. After he'd healed though, she became more distant, less inclined to initiate contact for no reason. He didn't ask her about it, but he did quietly miss it and quietly speculate.

But now, his old friend was here, and Roy felt all the safety and the certainty he hadn't known in three months.

An eternity later, Hughes pulled away, holding Roy at arm's length and studying him through watery eyes. He sniffed. "You look terrible."

Roy huffed a short, slightly hysteric laugh. "Speak for yourself."

XxXxX

Ed was feeling more and more useless by the second.

There was no one to possess, nothing to do except sit and listen as they waited for Al. Now that Hughes was here, Mustang was ignoring him again, and though Ed was curious about what had been going on in the world since he'd been dead, he was tired of being ignored.

So he sulked in the corner, keeping an eye out for Al as he listened to the conversation and glared hard at Mustang's stupid face.

Hughes explained that one of his people had received a report from a concerned citizen about a seven-foot-tall suit of armor wondering through the warehouse district. He'd come as fast as he could, and when he'd found the broken window planks the trio—Did Ed actually count? —had used to break in, he knew he'd found his target.

"But I went through the front, because why on earth go through the window?" Hughes asked.

"We were going for stealth," Mustang replied.

Hughes arched a skeptical eyebrow. "You, a seven-foot-tall suit of armor, and an unconscious woman, were going for stealth?"

Mustang rolled his eyes, and Ed thought it was the most energetic expression he'd seen on the older man's face since this whole mess started. "We worked with what we had." Mustang shifted on the floor, wincing at some pain or another. "Why did you think we were dead?" he asked after a moment, his gaze sliding to Hawkeye's slumbering form. "We hadn't even received your reply in the Central Times yet."

Hughes narrowed his eyes but didn't comment on Mustang's apparent injuries. "I received a report from an informant in Angren this morning."

"How is it possible that you get information that fast?" Mustang demanded.

Hughes offered a sharp grin. "Information is my job, Roy."

Hughes was a sly fox, and Ed had learned a while back that he always knew more than he let on.

Mustang looked unsure, but didn't comment. "I guess they found a body."

Hughes looked away, rubbing a hand down his face, fingers scraping over a thick layer of stubble. "That was the last place I knew you were. The authorities said it looked like alchemy was involved."

"I guess that means they'll be looking for us, once they find out their men are dead."

"Who's they?" Ed demanded.

"Men?" Hughes questioned.

Mustang glanced Ed's way, then back to Hughes. Ed wanted to kick him. "You'll probably be hearing a report sometime soon about another man dead, a few miles outside of town. An assassin, hired by a dark-haired woman."

"An old flame?" Hughes guessed.

Ed cackled and Mustang gave them both an exasperated look. "Unlikely."

"Just a guess. Was there anymore to that description?"

"All he had was black hair and black eyes, but he said it was dark, so I assume that means any number of hair and eye color that could be construed as being dark."

Hughes frowned. "That doesn't help us out a whole lot."

"At least it rules out blondes."

Ed groaned. "Why are you like this?"

Hughes' lips quirked, then he stopped. Ed listened, picking up the sound of clanking footsteps approaching, a shadow falling over the hole in the window.

Al stepped through the window in a series of halting motions, rusted metal shrieking in protest. Ed winced, mouth opening to tell him to take it easy before closing again. There wasn't much point.

Alphonse looked around over the paper bag in his arms, glowing eyes landing on Hughes. "Mr. Hughes," he greeted, voice lacking its usual warmth.

Ed hated seeing his brother like this.

Hughes had gotten to his feet, looking like he might have gone to embrace Al, but the chilly reception stifled the idea. "Hey, Al," he said instead.

"Why are you here?" Al asked, placing his bag on the ground and crouching down over it. "I thought you were in Central." Was it just Ed, or did Al not really sound interested? Ed stepped closer, wanting to place a comforting hand on his brother, but he stopped. Would it somehow interact with his blood seal? It wasn't something he was willing to risk.

Hughes and Mustang exchanged a look. "I'll fill you in on the details on the way to Havoc's. Think you could manage to help Riza to my car? I'll get Roy."

Al stopped, like he was considering something. Then he nodded. Without another word, he grabbed the bag up in one arm, then gently scooped Hawkeye up with the other. She shifted at the jostling, and Ed felt better about her condition to see it. She hadn't moved very much over the past few hours, and her coloring wasn't much better, but Ed would take whatever encouragement he could get right now.

Mustang picked up the crutch from next to him and allowed Hughes to help him up. He grimaced, jaw tight as he dragged his left leg under him. It was hard to watch, so Ed was certain it wasn't fun to experience in person. "Come on, old man," Ed said by way of encouragement. Encouragement wasn't exactly his strong suit, he realized.

Mustang side-eyed him before letting Hughes take some of his weight and hobbling out of the room.

Ed followed and wished he could do more than that.

XxXxX

Out of the smallest thread of respect he had for Mustang, he waited outside in Havoc's living room while the Second Lieutenant examined both him and Hawkeye, putting his scant medical knowledge to use. He'd had a lot of training in field medicine that Ed had utilized more than once when he was trying to avoid a hospital stay, but Ed knew enough to know that there wasn't a lot of point in it. Most of Mustang's injuries were too old to be treated by anything other than surgery, and Hawkeye's concussion, without more advanced medical equipment to evaluate it, would be something she had to sleep off.

At least, Ed supposed, Havoc could clean up their innumerable lacerations and cuts.

In Havoc's tiny living room, Al seemed to be ignoring Hughes. The bespectacled man had tried to start a conversation with him, but to no avail. Al sat on the ground in the farthest corner possible and responded in short, monosyllabic answers that left Hughes with little to grasp. Ed had never really entertained the thought of his death past what it would mean for Al getting his body back, and he was about to decide that this was for good reason. Alphonse was more than physically lost now, and Ed wasn't sure how to get him back.

And sitting here with him so close but so completely out of reach was the most torturous of all.

Finally, the guest bedroom door opened. Havoc stepped out, the corner of his white sleeve soaked red but nothing else out of the ordinary, aside from the dark rings under his eyes and the subtle fragility he gave off, like he was one crisis away from making a bad choice.

There was a lot of that going around.

Mustang followed, crutch secured under one arm as he limped out, shutting the door behind him. His gaze flitted to Ed, then away to the rest of the room.

"Fill me in," he said, sitting heavily on the sofa like a man thrice his age, pain obvious in his eyes but not his voice.

Ed gingerly tested sitting on the same sofa in an unoccupied corner, found it solid beneath him, and leaned back into its cushions. It felt like leaning into a small electric current, and the material did not react to his weight at all, feeling more like sitting on wood than fabric.

Being dead sucked.

"I think you know most of this," Hughes stated from the overstuffed gray chair in the corner, "but over three months ago, you went missing. Official reports stated that you snapped and started shooting at our own." He glanced at Alphonse, then continued. "You shot Ed then Hawkeye before being taken down."

Al flinched, but then again, so did everyone else to some degree. Even Mustang.

"Buck up, Mustang. I'm sitting right here."

Mustang didn't react beyond a tightening of his eyes.

"Because there are no bodies, you are all still being listed as MIA, but you are assumed dead at this point."

"So why is someone still trying to kill us?" Mustang asked.

"Good question," Havoc said for the first time, pulling a cigarette from his breast pocket. He placed it between his lips and leaned back further into the beaten loveseat across from them. "Right now, Breda and I are with Lieutenant Colonel Manning here at Eastern. Falman and Fuery have been transferred Hughes' office in Central."

"I requested them, and Grumman didn't seem to mind," Hughes explained. "Falman is the one that's been watching the papers, and Fuery has had his ears to the ground for anything strange happening. He was actually the one that heard about the body in Angren."

A sharp smile quirked Mustang's lips for a moment. "Of course he did."

"I know you two have been laying low for a while, but why move now?" Hughes asked. "I thought we were going to see what was going on first."

"They moved first," Mustang said, rubbing a hand over a bandage above his right ear. "Someone found us in Angren. Two people, actually. The other tried to kill us last night on the way here." His dark eyes met Hughes'. Ed felt a cold wave roll up his spine. "What was that letter you sent me, Hughes?"

Hughes' eyes narrowed. "You think it's related?"

"I think it's too big of a coincidence not to be."

Hughes glanced around the room as if making sure they were alone. "I kept it vague on purpose. I was going to call, but then all this happened."

He leaned forward, resting his knees on his elbows, eyes strangely distant. "I recently traveled up to Briggs. There was a suspicious death on base, and protocol demands that an investigative entity from another command center look into it, and since the Scar case had gone cold, I didn't have a good reason to not be sent.

"When I got there, I found something interesting." His hazel eyes met Mustang's, and Ed saw a wariness there, like what he was about to say was particularly dangerous and he knew it. "In Armstrong's war room, there were maps. Most of them were older, but it outlined the various wars and skirmishes our country has been a part of for the past century. It wasn't that big of a deal really, but when I saw it all in front of me, it seemed like there was a pattern."

Ed frowned. "To the wars?" He didn't like Hughes' tone of voice.

"What pattern?" Mustang demanded.

"I haven't researched it completely yet," he admitted, voice quiet with an edge. "But don't you find it odd how our country is shaped into a circle? It doesn't make much sense, given that it doesn't follow the lay of the land that well."

Ed had wondered about it as a kid, but just figured the powers that be had a thing for shapes and had completely dismissed it. He had to admit, now that he was older, he did find it kind of weird. No other country was so symmetrically shaped.

But could that mean . . .

"What are you implying?" Havoc asked, jaw tight and tone uncertain.

"You've said it yourself, Roy," Hughes continued. "All this country does is get into senseless wars. Maybe they aren't completely senseless. Maybe the military has to build and maintain this circle for some reason."

Mustang's expression was frozen.

He couldn't possibly be implying what Ed thought he was implying. Because that was impossible.

"Are you suggesting that this has something to do with alchemy?" Mustang asked quietly.

"I'm saying it's possible."

"But it's not!" Ed protested, standing up. No one so much as glanced in his direction. "The amount of power it would take to activate an array the size of a country would be immeasurable! Even a Philosopher's Stone wouldn't help. The backlash of an array that size could wipe out a whole city!"

Mustang seemed to be listening to him, even if he refused to look at him. "That's not possible," he agreed.

"Are you sure?" Hughes pressed. "Because I would hate to be caught up in a circle like that if it were to somehow be activated."

Mustang still wasn't moving. "Why? Who would do something like that?"

Ed's genius mind was racing a mile a minute. "When was this letter sent, exactly?"

Mustang glanced at him, then back to Hughes. "Your letter arrived right before our mission."

"If someone found it," Ed continued, "someone that knew what it was, they'd want it to be kept quiet. That's why Scarecrow was asking who sent the letter . . . he was tying up loose ends . . . but that's crazy. No one could pull off a circle like that . . ."

"A few months back, Ed showed me a circle he'd found in Lab 5."

Ed tensed. He'd never told Mustang about Lab 5. As far as Mustang knew, they'd spent their time in Central in one library or another before he'd been sent to Parteros, and then the inspection that ended with him dead.

He glanced at his brother, but Al had no reaction. Ed wasn't even sure he was listening.

"Lab 5? In Central?" Mustang asked. "That lab has been closed for years."

"It's been used alright," Hughes said. "Only it was being used for illegal human experimentation."

Ed didn't want to think about that night; the night he almost did the unthinkable for the sake of his little brother. Al would have never forgiven him for that, just like he wasn't sure Al would forgive him for dying. Especially if he didn't make it back.

"Jean, do you have a map?"

Havoc reached for the bookshelf beside him, dropping a thin atlas down on the coffee table and flipping to Amestris. "It's a few years old, but it should be adequate."

The country stretched out before them, major cities and roadways labeled and the regions colored in muted grays.

"Did you know that some of the bloodiest conflicts take place all around the border in an almost perfect circle?" Hughes began. "Riviere, Cameron, Fiske," he dragged his finger around the country, "Wellesley, South City, Ishval, Fotset, Pendleton, Reole, and Briggs. Why is that, do you think?"

Ed was afraid he saw a familiar pattern too, and he didn't like it.

"The circle," he breathed.

"This is the circle Ed showed me from the lab," Hughes said, plucking a pencil from the tabletop and tracing a star, ten points that intersected neatly with all the cities he'd just listed.

"How could . . . how could anyone . . .." Ed trailed off. It was unthinkable. He wasn't sure what a circle like that did without the missing pieces, but he knew it wasn't designed to increase crop yields and human happiness.

"He also said there were creatures down there, human-like, but not human," Hughes continued.

"Homunculus."

All eyes snapped to Al.

Now Alphonse was paying attention. "The homunculus," he repeated.

"They're dangerous," he continued. "I don't know how many there are, but one of them can take the shape of anyone else. One of them has skin that can transform into an impenetrable shield, and one has fingers that can stretch into claws. All of them have regenerative abilities and super strength."

It was more than he'd said in the past two days, and though he still sounded lost, it was the most interest he'd taken in anything besides any mention of Ed.

"And when was someone planning on telling me this?" Mustang asked, eyes on Hughes but Ed knew the words were for him.

"It was an isolated incident," Hughes explained. "There was no need to say anything until I'd had a chance to investigate further. The Fuhrer knows, and I hadn't had a chance to meet with you in person since the incident."

"What he said," Ed added.

Mustang still looked annoyed, but took a deep breath, exhaling long through his nose. "So, we think these . . . homunculi are involved?"

"It stands to reason," Hughes said.

Armor screeched and everyone looked to see Al stand up.

"Al?" Havoc asked.

"This has nothing to do with me anymore," he said quietly. "I'm leaving."

"No!" Ed snapped, standing up and darting to his little brother's side. He looked at Mustang, willing him to fix this. "Say something!"

"Alphonse," Mustang began. "Why don't you come with us? You would be a lot of help, especially with your expertise."

Al shook his helmet. "I don't owe this military or this country anything more," he said, voice burning with a quiet venom. "I'm going to go find my brother."

Mustang flinched.

"Al," Havoc began. "You're brother—"

"If he's dead, I'll find his body!" Al hissed. The rage, hot like flame, diminished as quickly as it had arrived. "But if he's alive . . ." he looked away. "He needs my help. Either way, I'm bringing him home."

"Al, I'm right here," Ed whispered. Then he rounded on Mustang. "Make him stay!"

Mustang shot him a helpless look, then turned his eyes back to Alphonse. "Al—"

Al stepped past him, passing the three men as he headed for the door, Ed trailing after him. "Mustang!"

"Al, wait!" Mustang pressed, getting to his feet with a few staggered steps.

Al didn't stop. He walked down the hallway, steps away from the front door.

Desperation clawed at Ed's stomach. If Al left, there was no telling what could happen to him, even if Ed did find his murderer and get back into his body.

He couldn't let his brother go alone. He couldn't let that happen again.

"Al!" he cried out, transparent fingers reaching for his little brother's shoulder. They passed through with an electric sizzle as Al wrapped a worn gauntlet around the doorknob.

"Alphonse."

Ed wasn't sure what it was about Mustang's voice. The tone was different; low but strong, like a mountain in a storm.

Al turned, just slightly, soul fire eyes gazing past massive shoulders to meet Mustang's.

Mustang took a slow breath.

"Ed is here."

Roy considered himself a lot of things, but until recent months, he hadn't considered himself crazy.

Now, here in Havoc's tiny living room with everyone staring at him, including the ghostly specter of his youngest subordinate, Roy was fairly certain he was certifiable.

You could have heard a pin drop in the ensuing silence after his announcement.

"This," Al hissed softly, "is your fault."

The accusation hit him like a ton of bricks, knocking the air from his lungs. That was not the response he was anticipating. "Al," he said, "let me explain—"

Al turned to face him, drawing up to his impressive seven feet. Roy had never been afraid of Al before, a boy so much softer than the metal housing his soul, but now he knew Al could break him without exerting too much effort.

And Roy was afraid.

Al's huge gauntlet grabbed him by the collar, lifting him off the ground before Roy could so much as protest. "Alphonse!" he yelped, hands scrabbling at the boy's impossibly strong grip.

"Al!" Hughes shouted, but Alphonse didn't flinch.

"You were supposed to protect him. I trusted you," Al snarled, giving him a punctuating shake. His hip flared with bright pain. "He trusted you. He hasn't trusted anyone since Mom died, and he trusted you!"

Roy didn't know that. He knew that Ed trusted him, to a minimal extent, but he didn't quite realize how rare that kind of trust was coming from Edward Elric.

But he also wasn't sure he had time to ponder it, because it was very possible that Alphonse was angry enough to kill him.

"Alphonse," he began, hearing an edge of fear in his own voice. "Ed is here. I can prove it."

A harsh, twisting sound seeped from the armor, and it took Roy a long moment to realize that Al was laughing. "I trusted my brother to a lunatic." There was enough self-depreciation in that statement to rival even the most seasoned of war veterans. "That's the funniest part of it all, isn't it?! It was my fault."

The scraping laughter continued, and Al released his grip on Roy's collar. Roy dropped like a sack of potatoes, the impact bending his leg at just an angle to let him appreciate a whole new dimension of pain. He saw white for a few seconds, and it could have just been him, but he thought he heard a scream wrench its way from his throat.

"Mustang!"

Ed's voice was right in his ear.

Roy shook his head in a vain attempt to clear his vision.

"Brace yourself!"

Then Ed slammed into him.

XxXxX

Mustang's body was a terrible place to be.

Breathing through an intense amount of pain, Ed snagged the fallen crutch at his side and scrambled to Mustang's unsteady feet. His leg gave out, sending him crashing into the wall, but he managed to stay upright.

Wow, that hurt.

His little brother was almost back to the front door. "Alphonse!" he shouted, his voice coming out in Mustang's pain-strangled baritone. "Get back here and stop being an idiot!"

Ed didn't expect it to work, but Al stopped. He didn't turn around, though. "You've got a lot of nerve," he growled.

"It's me!" Ed snarled. "Me, Al! And I'll prove it to you if you'll stop being an idiot for two minutes!"

Al did turn around now, his red eyes staring with something between fury and surprise. "You've lost your mind, Mustang."

"I'm not Mustang right now!" Ed screamed, desperation mounting into rage. If Al would just listen. "I'm your brother, and I can prove it to you!"

And with that, he clapped his hands and dropped to the ground. Mustang's hip screamed, but Ed ignored it, pressing his hands to the floor. Blue light blazed, the transmutation activating with the sharp wreak of ozone. He opened his hand, drawing iron from the earth below to form the gaudiest spear imaginable, complete with a gargoyle head and dragon wings decorating the hilt.

When the rest of the energy crackled and died, the room stilled.

They stared at one another.

"I . . . I don't understand," Al whispered.

"Al, I got shot on that bridge, but I made a deal with Truth," Ed explained. "Right now, I'm a soul without a body, but if I can find out who killed me in the next fi— well, four-and-a-half days, I can get my body back."

Al didn't move for several long moments. Then, he took a step toward Ed, then another. Ed looked up at the towering suit of armor, his baby brother.

Al lowered himself before Mustang's body, searching dark eyes that didn't belong to Ed for a trace of deception or truth. "This doesn't make sense. How could . . . if you're Ed, how could you be in the Colonel's body?" Al didn't believe him yet, but the raging anger had given way to doubt, and Ed could work with that.

"It's Truth's idea of a sick joke. This bumbling idiot is the only one that can see me." Ed was pretty sure he felt a flare of irritation coming from Mustang's corner of their shared mind, but he ignored it. "I'm pretty sure I could possess anyone, though, until they kick me out."

He glanced over Mustang's shoulder, spotting Hughes and Havoc just behind him, their eyes wide and jaws slack. "Would you mind if I borrowed your body for a second?" he asked Havoc.

Ed wasn't sure it was possible, but Havoc's eyes widened even further. "W—what?"

"Did I stutter?" Ed growled. "Can I borrow your body? I'll give it right back."

Ed had never been in Mustang's head while he was conscious long enough to have a conversation, but he could have sworn he heard a voice like a loud memory echoing through his head.

Oh, sure, you ask him for permission.

Shut up, he thought back. "Hughes?"

Hughes looked at him like he'd sprouted a second head. "Roy, what's gotten into you?"

"I'm going to choose to interpret that as consent."

Ed hadn't ever left a body on his own accord. He lurched forward, but the motion only took Mustang's body with him. "Um, little help, Mustang?"

With pleasure.

Ed was propelled forward, landing in an unceremonious heap on the floor.

Roy slumped against the wall, dropping Ed's masterpiece of a spear on the floor with a sharp clank! "And stay out," he muttered.

"I heard that!" Ed snapped back before diving into Hughes.

Ed had possessed exactly two people in his life, Hughes being his third, and if Mustang was fire and pain, then Hughes was a stark contrast. Ed wasn't sure how much of possession was sharing a body or sharing a mind, but Mustang's head had a chaotic feel, a tornado contained in polished glass. Hughes was just glass; solid, methodical, structured.

Hughes was even taller than Mustang, and the height difference had Ed stumbling. The lack of pain was a definite plus, though. Before Hughes could throw him out, Ed clapped his hands, long boney fingers pressing together, then slapped them against the coffee table.

Ed's specialty was metal, but he crafted the wood into a fearsome statue about hip-high, with jagged teeth and angry eyes, wooden hands tipped with claws. It was a nice accent piece in Havoc's boring living room. Despite what anyone said, Ed was an artist, and his work spoke for itself.

"See, Al—," Ed began, but Hughes flared to life in a blaze of panic, and Ed was on the floor once more.

"But I asked permission!" Ed objected, picking himself up and indignantly brushing nonexistent wrinkles from his coat.

Hughes stared around the room wide-eyed, searching until he locked eyes with Mustang. "You were serious!"

Mustang's returning smile was aloof, a sharp contrast to the burning in his eyes.

Ed looked back at Alphonse, willing him to understand, to see him.

Alphonse looked around the room, too, finally glancing to Mustang, then following his gaze to Ed. "Is he . . . like, a ghost?" he whispered. "Is he there?"

Mustang nodded. "Right there."

Alphonse crossed the living room slowly, like he was afraid the ground would give out under his feet. Ed waited for him, letting his little brother come to him, relishing in the feeling of being seen even if it was a false one. Al stopped a little too far to the left, so Ed closed the distance, standing right in front of his brother, lining up with his crimson gaze. "Al, you believe me, right?"

Mustang echoed his words and Al nodded. "I believe you." He reached out a hand, and Ed hesitated only a second before placing his on top. He could just feel the faint tingling of interacting with something solid, but it was enough for him. "Ed . . . I'm sorry, I should have been there," his voice ended in a tearless sob. "This is my fault."

"Shut up, Al, this isn't your fault."

"He said it's not your fault."

"Word for word, Mustang!"

Mustang rolled his eyes. "He prefaced it with 'shut up, Al'."

Al made a choked laughing sound. "That sounds like Ed."

"Now, can we please find out who shot me, so I can get my body back and kick their—"

"Language, Fullmetal," Mustang warned.

Ed turned a baleful eye on his commander. "Now? I'm dead, and you're worried about cleaning up my vocabulary?!"

Mustang ignored him. "He's ready to go find out who, ah, shot him," Mustang explained, wincing as he tried to get to his feet, using the wall to support himself.

Hughes stepped over to help him, his hazel eyes locked in roughly the area Ed was standing in. "Why is everything always a complete freakshow with you two?"

Mustang stumbled hard, Hughes taking almost all of his weight. "Yeah, well," Mustang grunted, the words tight with pain, "All in a day's work for the Fullmetal Alchemist."

Ed gave a derisive snort.

"Did I really just get possessed?"

"Yep." Mustang drew the word out in a lazy drawl.

"That . . . was the creepiest thing in the world," Hughes said with a shudder. "These things didn't happen to me before I knew you. And Ed?" he called.

"What?" Mustang relayed Ed's unenthusiastic response.

"Stay out of my body."

"Oh, don't worry," Ed said with a grin. "I plan on sticking with Mustang from now on."

Mustang scoffed. "As if."

"I saved your life!" Ed protested.

"After almost getting me shot."

"It's not like I had options!"

"The whole one-sided-conversation-thing is getting creepy, Colonel," Havoc said, and Ed realized he hadn't moved in a while. He was regarding them with an expression some mix between numb acceptance and unequivocally disturbed, his cigarette nothing but ribbons fraying from his lips.

"Are you alright, Havoc?" Hughes asked.

"No," he said. "I am not paid enough for this."

Hughes and Mustang both exchanged a smirk.

"How do we find out who . . . shot Ed?" Alphonse asked, hesitating on the word shot.

Hughes deposited Mustang back on the sofa, and the raven-haired colonel gave him a grateful look. "Okay, so we know that this has something to do with a woman with dark hair and eyes, Lab Five, and a circle of unknown purpose."

"And the homunculi," Ed put in.

Mustang nodded. "Yes, that too."

"Still creepy," Havoc said.

Mustang's onyx eyes slid to meet his. "The homunculi are involved," he relayed. "They seem to be at the center of things of late, if the Elrics know what they're talking about."

Alphonse wasn't nearly as offended as Ed was. "Hey!"

"So, what's the plan?"

All eyes snapped up to Hawkeye. She was leaning heavily against the doorway to Havoc's guest bedroom, arm in a fresh sling, sherry eyes sliding in and out of focus and squinting as if in some pain, but her jaw was set like it wasn't going to stop her. A bandage wound around her pale forehead and sweat glistened from her temple.

Mustang looked torn between being thrilled she was up and telling her to sit down. "Ri-Hawkeye—" he began.

She beat him to any protest he might have made, taking a few shuffling steps to sit on the couch in Ed's old seat.

"Does she know?" Ed asked.

Mustang glanced between them. "How much did you hear?" he asked her.

"Enough to finally have an answer for how inattentive you've been recently."

Ed, Hughes, and Havoc snickered. Al had the common courtesy to look away, back at the space where Ed was, if a few degrees off. And, was it Ed's imagination, or did Mustang turn a shade pinker?

"I have not been inattentive," he growled.

"You've stared off into space more times than I could count for the past two days," she pointed out.

Mustang looked like he wanted to launch some sort of counteroffensive, but came up short of an argument. "Look, he's distracting. See if you can concentrate with him whistling The Fuhrer's March in your ear!"

Oh, yes, Ed was absolutely cackling now. "It's so much better now that I know you could hear me the whole time."

Mustang gave him a dirty look that promised if he wasn't already dead, Mustang would kill him.

Hughes cleared his throat. "Back to business?"

Everyone settled down, Havoc and Hughes taking their seats, Al sitting there on the floor right next to Ed and glancing over every now and again, as if trying to catch sight of him out of the corner of his eye.

"Okay, so homunculi are involved. Do we know what they want?" Hughes asked.

"They said something about Al and I being important sacrifices," Ed said, Mustang repeating with a disturbed look in his eyes.

"Sacrifices for what?" Havoc asked.

"Like I know, they were too busy roughing me up for me to ask questions."

"Maybe we can use that," Al said. He looked at the ground thoughtfully, and Ed didn't like where he thought Al's mind was going. "We know they were in Central. Maybe they still are. Maybe I can lure them out."

"Absolutely not!"

Mustang narrowed his eyes but didn't relay Ed's exclamation. "What did you have in mind?"

"No way, Mustang!" Ed snarled.

"If you couldn't guess, Ed is protesting vehemently," Mustang said with a bland look Ed's way. "Let's hear him out."

Ed started telling Mustang exactly what he thought of the idea, but Alphonse was already talking. "If I'm important for something, that means they won't want to kill me, at least not yet. So, all I'd have to do is go to Central, be seen, then start doing something reckless."

"Alphonse, so help me—"

"Something reckless," Hughes said, tone thoughtful. "Like, say, get in a fight?"

"The flashier the better," Al agreed.

"Colonel, tell him no!"

But Mustang was not listening to Ed at the moment. "That might work."

"No. No, no, no, no, NO!"

Mustang finally looked at him again. "Are you saying you wouldn't do the same for Alphonse?"

"Of course, I would!" Ed said. "But that's my job, not his!"

"Brother," Al said, his crimson gaze directed just a bit too low, which was annoying for so many reasons. "I can't get my body back without you."

Ed's mouth clamped shut.

"So, I'm going to do everything I can to find who did this, so we can get your body back, then mine."

Ed's jaw worked up and down for a few moments.

Al sent an uncertain look Mustang's way. "What's he saying?"

"Absolutely nothing," Mustang supplied, his tone a bit too pleased for Ed's liking. "I think you won this round, Alphonse."

Ed dragged his slightly transparent fingers down his face. "Mustang, if anything happens to my little brother, I will throw your body off of a cliff."

"That's fair," Mustang agreed. "We're on a limited timeframe. We rest tonight, then tomorrow, we gather our men and supplies and leave for Central."

"But I have a date tomorrow," Havoc objected.

Mustang gave him an incredulous look. "Cancel it."

"But . . . she's the most beautiful girl in the world!"

"No offense, but I doubt the most beautiful girl in the world would be going out with you, Jean," Mustang said, like he thought that would be comforting.

Havoc got to his feet with a dejected moan. "I guess I'll go call her," he sulked, dragging himself to the kitchen phone.

"Uh, Ed?"

Ed turned, Hughes sort of looking at him. "You going to do something about that?" he asked, pointing to Havoc's ruined—or upgraded, as Ed liked to think—coffee table.

"Sure, I just need a body," he said to Mustang with a toothy grin.

Mustang scowled. "Don't even think about it."

It was weird, not needing to sleep.

There had been one point in time, before he fully understood what it entailed, where Ed had envied his little brother on that particular front. While Ed had to tend to his own physical needs, Al could keep researching all through the night, accomplishing twice as much as Ed could in a day.

Now, though, being completely unable to interact with anyone or anything while most other occupants of the house drifted in slumber, Ed was unequivocally, devastatingly bored.

The only plus in this silent misery was that Alphonse was there with him.

And it was a really sad sort of plus, because Al couldn't see or hear him.

Alphonse sat on the floor, looking out the window. Lamplight pooled in from the deserted street outside, casting a sharp, jagged shadow behind the suit of armor. If Ed didn't know any better, he'd think the armor was inert, the only sign of life two gently burning pinpricks in cold eye sockets.

Ed sighed and crouched down to see the view beside him, looking past the rooftops across the street at a handful of stars glittering from the heavens. He'd admit, the world was peaceful while it slept.

"Pretty, isn't it?"

Ed jumped, because Al couldn't see him. "How did you do that?!" he demanded.

Al still didn't move. A clock ticked somewhere in the kitchen and Al kept his silent watch.

"Really, this feels kind of stupid," Al admitted softly, after a long pause. "I don't know if you're here in this same room, or really, if you're even here at all. Maybe you're asleep, if ghosts sleep."

Another pause, and all Ed could do was listen.

Al kept his soulfire eyes glued to the sky. "I'd like to think you're here, though."

"I'm right here, Al," Ed promised, unsure why he said it aloud.

"Did you know that when Breda told me you were gone, I punched him in the face?"

Ed blanched. "Alphonse!" Punching people in the face was Ed's method of operation, not Al's. Maybe he'd been a bad influence . . .

The armor sighed. "I don't know why I did it, really. I thought he was lying, but he kept insisting . . . they all did. He said that the report said Colonel attacked you and you were dead." Al made a sound like a shuddering breath. "I know that the night we tried to bring Mom back was the worst night of our lives, but that was the worst night of mine." He took a steadying breath. "I ran all the way to Isparta, but couldn't find you, the Colonel or the Lieutenant. I just . . . I didn't know what to do when you weren't there, Brother."

Ed's nonexistent heart squeezed tightly. "I never meant to leave you alone, Al."

"I spent three weeks looking down the river, to see if I could find you. I was so scared that I was just going to find your body." He paused, like he was picturing Ed's lifeless body twisted on the rocks somewhere. Ed could picture it himself. "When I didn't find you, I spread out to the surrounding towns and villages. I thought maybe you hit your head, like in that old adventure book we read when we were little. Maybe you'd forgotten everything and were staying in some village, or maybe you were hurt really bad and stuck in a hospital somewhere.

"At some point, I realized that I hated the Colonel." There was a rawness there that was unusual for Ed's little brother, like his own fury both surprised and scared him. "I hated him so much for taking you away from me. I didn't think that he'd intentionally hurt you, but I knew you wouldn't have been in that situation if he hadn't of taken you without me. I don't know if I still hate him or not . . . I don't know what I feel."

He made a sound like a sigh, then resituated his legs. "I know it always freaks you out when I don't move for a while," he said with a sad smile in his voice. "I wish I could hear you, or see you."

"Me, too," Ed responded quietly, letting his legs fold under him to sit on the floor next to his little brother. "I'm sorry you had to go through that."

"I still can hardly believe it," Al whispered. "You always said ghosts weren't real, and a part of me wonders if this is all some sort of crazy plan to lure me back. I don't know why they'd do that, and I don't know of anyone else that could perform clap alchemy, except for Teacher. Mister Hughes can't even perform alchemy, so that would be hard to fake."

He shook his head. "This goes down as the craziest situation you've ever gotten us in, Brother."

Us. Not yourself, but us.

Still us.

Ed smiled. "And I'll get us out of it, Al. I promise."

"I miss you so much," Al said suddenly, fiercely, voice cracking over with emotion. Ed wanted to reach out a hand to touch him, to hug him, but he was powerless to do anything that Al would feel, and despite touching his hand earlier in the evening, he was still worried about an interaction with his blood seal. He was a soul bound to a suit of armor, and Ed was a soul free to roam—if one could call being tethered to Mustang as his only form of communication freedom. Ed knew that he couldn't exactly just push Al's soul out; the blood seal would prevent that, but he wasn't sure that he couldn't compromise the connection in some way.

"I'm scared," he whispered. "I'm scared you're not really there, or that I'm losing my mind, or that you are there and somehow, we don't figure it out in time, and you're just like this the whole time. I'm scared."

Ed swallowed, feeling just as hollow as his little brother.

"I'm scared too, Al."

Silence stretched between them.

"I trust you, though," Al said finally. "I trust that you're there, and I trust that we can figure this out, even if I can't see you, I trust you, Brother."

Ed smiled, the tension he hadn't even realized he was carrying in his shoulders slipping away. "That's more than I could have asked for, Brother."

Side by side, they watched the soft glow of sunrise bleed over the night sky.

XxXxX

If Ed were honest with himself, he might admit he was a little bit grumpy, but that it wasn't necessarily Mustang's fault.

But Ed was rarely honest with himself in any way that painted Mustang in even a semi-positive light, so he decided to be annoyed with Mustang anyway.

They had decided that, due to the time constraints of Ed condition, it would be best to take the train. The roads between Central and East City were largely unpaved, and without a military vehicle, would have taken anywhere between two and three days to traverse. Ed just didn't have that kind of time. The train would take about a day, even with stops, and that just seemed a lot more appealing.

Unfortunately, certain aspects of their group stuck out in a crowd.

Mustang's crutch cracked loudly against the bench as he tried to slide into their seats, drawing the eyes of a couple sitting a few rows down.

"Could you maybe try to blend in a little bit?" Ed griped.

Ed might have sounded a little less annoyed if he'd taken the time to note the older man's sweat-drenched face and the pain around his eyes before he opened his mouth, but Ed wasn't in a generous mood. "Says the brat in the red coat," he hissed back, sitting heavily on the hard-wooden bench.

The reason Ed was possibly a little bit grumpy was that Mustang had demanded that he sit with him and Hughes, not with Havoc, Hawkeye, Breda, and his little brother two train compartments down.

Mustang had explained that Al drew attention, and that anyone looking for them would be looking for Mustang first, then him and Hawkeye together second. And since Mustang was the only one that could see or hear Ed, it was a good idea to stay together for the sake of communication.

Ed was bound and determined to make him regret that decision.

"Also, your hair looks ridiculous," Ed said, slouching on the hard bench across from Mustang and next to Hughes. It was uncomfortable, like sitting on steel wool.

Mustang glared out from underneath a swath of hair that had been alchemically transmuted into a dark brown color. "I would thank you to kindly shut up."

It had been Hawkeye's suggestion that they do something to alter their appearance. They already didn't quite look themselves in Ed's opinion, between the hollowed cheekbones in their too-lean faces, haunted eyes, and hair that was already shaggy from lack of upkeep. Mustang even had a bit of stubble around his chin, making him look more like a homeless drifter than any sort of officer in the military.

Hawkeye had opted for a light auburn color that Alphonse had transmuted for her. He'd helped Mustang with a bit more hesitation, but Ed couldn't deny that both of them looked very different.

Or, in Mustang's case, just really weird.

"Roy," Hughes began, placing his suitcase on the rack above their heads as the train started moving. "I hate to be that guy, but it's really weird when you start talking out loud to someone nobody else can see."

"He is unbearably annoying," Mustang said by way of defense.

"Come on, now, I'm just a kid," Ed said with an innocent smile, except the smile felt a bit too sharp on his face to be wholly classified as 'innocent.' "Surely you're not being bested by a teenager?"

Hughes gave the seat next to Mustang a questionable look. "I know you—"

"He's over there," Mustang pointed to the seat by Hughes.

Hughes shifted his gaze, but it was still too far to the right. "Uh, I know that you two haven't always been the best of friends-"

Ed snorted. "To say the least."

"—but," he continued right over Ed, "you two could take this opportunity to try to get along. After all," he said with a thumb jerked in Mustang's direction. "That guy's your only line of communication with the outside world."

"I'm so screwed."

"He's even more annoying in death," Mustang sighed.

"Oh, yeah?" Ed sneered. "Who's haunting who?"

"Whom."

Ed blinked. "What?"

"The correct grammar would be who is haunting whom."

"Are you . . . are you serious right now?!"

"If you're going to try to insult me, at least be grammatically correct."

Mustang started and looked up. Ed followed his eyeline to see another man standing over them, his eyes locked on Mustang. A quick look at his green-and-white uniform told Ed he was the conductor; an older, round gentleman with a tuft of white hair sticking out from under his cap and a pair of glasses perched on the nose of his round face. He held his ticket punch out in front of him like he'd forgotten what he came here to do.

"Don't worry about him!" Hughes exclaimed with his too-wide smile, brandishing two tickets from his front pocket. "He's just, uh, practicing for a play!"

"Oh," the older man said, clearly relieved to not have a madman onboard. He accepted the tickets in his chubby hands and punched them. "What play are you in?"

Mustang pasted one of his politician smiles on his face, all smooth and ominous, and Ed immediately tensed. "It's a modern retelling of Hamlet, except instead of the King sending his nephew to avenge his death, dear Prince Hamlet is sent by the ghost of diminutive, excessively violent garden gnome with a height complex and no grasp of Amestrian grammar."

Ed dug his fingers into the bench so hard, his fingertips bypassed the physical world entirely, meeting in a blaze of hot static.

"That sounds like . . . a unique interpretation," the conductor said uncertainly, handing the tickets back. "Break a leg in your production, sir!"

"Thank you."

The conductor walked away to the next row, and Mustang regarded Ed with the smuggest expression Ed had ever seen on his already-unbearably smug face.

Ed's lip curled, and, was that static sparking through the air?

"The second I get my body back," Ed hissed, "The very second I sit up, I am going to punch you in your face so hard you won't remember who you are. I will tear out your ribcage and wear it as a hat. I will climb the wall of Briggs and throw your body off the watch tower. I will—"

"I take it Ed's not happy?" Hughes ventured.

"His threats are starting to get creative."

"I'm going to throw your body off of this train," Ed snarled. "How did I get stuck with you in this? Why is this happening to me? Why you of all people?!"

"I've asked myself that," Mustang agreed somberly. "I believe I've been cursed."

"I will show you a curse, you incompetent, self-important, egotistical, lousy excuse for a human being!"

"Roy," Hughes began. "As much fun as this half of the conversation is, I really think you two should go on radio silence." His sharp hazel eyes scanned the near-vacant train car, lighting the couple across the way that glanced away when Hughes met their gaze.

"I'm afraid I'm going to have to ignore you," Mustang said to the window. "For safety, you see." He sounded entirely too self-satisfied about the whole thing.

If Ed wasn't so completely enraged, he would have noted that it was probably a good idea. "Yeah, you go ahead and stop talking. Meanwhile, I think I know a little song that you might enjoy."

Mustang's narcissistic smile dimmed noticeably. "Don't."

With great deliberateness, Ed put his lips together and whistled out the first bar of The Fuhrer's March.

Mustang sank low in his seat, dragging a pale hand down his face. "Could you . . . Hughes, could you just shoot me?"

Ed didn't stop, though it was hard to whistle as much as he wanted to grin.

"Just ignore him," Hughes said to Mustang with false sympathy in his smile.

"Unbearably annoying," Mustang repeated, glaring out the window at the scenery flying past.

Ed could safely say he won this round.

XxXxX

Four stops and the whole day later, they rolled into Central Station. As planned, Ed stepped straight through the train wall—with no small amount of physical discomfort and a strangled, possibly unmanly yelp—and scouted out the station. He found nothing of note, which was not uncommon for this time of night. Their train was probably one of the last few that would be in that day, and Ed decided the young couple rocking their baby on the platform probably didn't pose too much of a threat. A lone military grunt leaned against the wall, supposedly providing security for the station as he tried hard not to doze off but failed miserably. Even as Ed walked by, the man's eyelids slipped shut and his head sank forward.

Taxpayer cenz at work.

He met Mustang and Hughes at the train's exit. "Nothing," he reported to Mustang. "I think we're good to go to the next step."

Mustang nodded, leaning hard on the crutch and maybe a little bit on Hughes. Ed noted with begrudging sympathy that his leg probably hurt a lot after sitting all day long. It seemed to take hours for Ed to stretch out the knots long train rides usually left in his automail leg. At least he didn't have to contend with that himself this time.

Another dead perk.

Alphonse, Hawkeye, Hughes, and Breda ambled toward them after exiting their own car, eyes scanning the near-empty station as the approached. Havoc and Hawkeye were playing a couple just so the blond man would have an excuse to keep an arm around Hawkeye and steady her.

When they were within earshot, Mustang said, "We're clear to proceed."

"Right," Breda said. The portly man rapped a hand against Al's breastplate. "Know what to do?" Ed was a little pleased to see that the man didn't seem to be holding a grudge after his little brother punched him in the face.

Alphonse nodded. "I'll see you later. And don't worry Ed," he added in no direction in particular. "I'll be fine." And with that, he turned and headed to the train station's front entrance.

Ed watched him go, his heart shriveling in his dead chest.

"He'll be fine," Mustang assured.

"You don't know that." Ed's answer sounded a bit more vulnerable than he would have liked.

"You're right," Mustang agreed. "But I trust him."

Ed's jaw tightened.

Mustang looked around him. "Let's go," he said, moving toward the back exit with his people in tow. Ed lingered for just a moment longer, watching his brother exit the front gates and turn left, then disappear toward the warehouse district.

Subtlety was still a priority. If the military interfered with them before they could draw out the homunculi, Mustang and his team would be arrested, Hughes included. The colonel would probably be either imprisoned for life or executed, and the others wouldn't escape unscathed. There was a lot riding on this beyond just Ed getting his body back. It was also proving Mustang's innocence and bringing Ed that much closer to getting Al's body back. Failure would doom Ed to a bodyless existence, whatever that entailed, but it might also just doom his little brother to essentially the same, and that was unacceptable.

He took a deep breath. "I trust you too, Al."

He turned and followed Mustang's team out the back.

Ed appreciated a punch-first-ask-questions-later approach as much as the next person. It was very much his life's motto, but that was because it was usually just him and Al, and his little brother was a tank and Ed could take care of himself just fine.

But even he had some reservations about the plan.

"You know," Ed began, glancing down at the empty square below, "if this goes south, it'd be great if I could borrow your body to—"

"Forget it," Mustang shot back, eyes stuck in a pair of binoculars as he scanned the streets for life. The city was asleep by this time of night, and Central Square was the perfect place for an ambush; as one of the oldest parts of the capitol, the roadways were narrow and there was no vehicular access, meaning less traffic in general. It made it ideal for a small shootout, with less risk of injuring innocent passersby and less chance of them being overwhelmed by a large force, military or otherwise.

Ed groaned, crossing his arms and stalking to the far side of the rooftop to check the alleyway. Al should be showing up any minute. "Don't think I'm going to ask permission if I need to save your sorry life again."

"That's the nicest threat you've ever made to me."

". . .Shut up, Mustang."

"Is he wanting to possess someone again?" Hughes asked conversationally from the other corner of the roof. Instead of binoculars, he was surveying the area through the scope of a rifle. Ed didn't know the man was a sharpshooter.

"Are you volunteering?" Mustang asked.

"Nope. Maybe there's a stray cat down there he can take over."

"That's . . . a bizarre mental image," Mustang said, clearly just as disturbed as Ed felt.

Ed suppressed a shudder. "Hughes doesn't get to offer suggestions anymore."

"Agreed," Mustang said.

Hughes didn't ask, he just stared through his scope with a dumb grin on his face.

At least, if Phase Two didn't work out, Ed would be able to be directly involved in Phase Three.

Mustang put a hand to the headset Fuery had outfitted them with. Both the Master Sergeant and Falman had met them there in the square with some 'borrowed' military supplies, having already scoped out the area earlier that day in preparation for their ambush. "Fugitive One to Three, check in, over."

There was a pause, then a muffled, "Three here," from Hawkeye. Ed gazed across the rooftops to the old church tower to the north across the square, it's marble walls almost glowing in the bright moonlight. She was stationed at the highest point, with strict orders not to leave her post unless absolutely necessary. Fuery was there too, to provide her with additional support and to be a more mobile piece in the game Mustang had set up. Ed knew that the Colonel didn't think she was well enough to be out here period, and that condition had been the only way Mustang allowed her in the field. "No signs of movement, over." she reported.

At least, Ed thought with a side-eye to Hughes, Mustang had the decency to assign himself a babysitter, too. The man wasn't exactly in combat shape.

"Fugitive One to Four, check in, over."

"Four here," Havoc's voice drawled, probably around a cigarette. The man was stationed to the south of the clocktower, to Ed's left, high up on the roof of a tall judicial building. "Nothing here, over."

"Fugitive One to Six, check in, over."

"Six here, all is quiet, over," Falman replied crisply. He and Breda were positioned ground level below Hawkeye, dressed in black and ready when the time came.

Now, where was Al?

"One, this is Three, we've got movement coming up Renoir Street, over." Hawkeye said.

"Four here," Havoc said. "I've got eyes on it. Our bird is in flight, over."

"Copy that," Mustang said.

"Your radio names are the dumbest thing I've ever heard," Ed muttered.

Mustang swung his binoculars to the mouth of Renoir Street, brushing his newly brunet hair from his eyes as he did. "Funny, I don't recall asking you."

Ed still wasn't over the brown hair, and was about to say as much when he caught a glimmer of moonlight off metal, and then Alphonse appeared from the shadows of the alleyway, walking like someone was trailing him and he knew it.

"Someone's following him," Ed said.

"As long as they're homunculi and not military," Mustang said, then into the radio, "Fugitive One to all units. We've got potential hostiles tailing our bird. Stay sharp, over."

A chorus of "copy," and "romeo," sputtered from the device before it went silent.

Al stepped into the middle of the square, then tilted his head, the squeak of metal impossibly loud in the stillness of the night.

"Six, Five, Two, Four," Mustang murmured into the radio. "Commence Phase Two, over."

Another round of acknowledgement, then Falman, Breda, Hughes, and Havoc opened fire on Alphonse.

Al may have been a tank, but Ed's noncorporeal stomach still twisted when the bullets hit.

The shots ricocheted off of his armor in a shower of sparks. Al brought up his arms a show of defense, then he ran for the fountain in the middle of the square, clapping his hands and pressing them to the ground. A shield of stone blossomed around him, effectively blocking their fire.

Hughes' rifle went silent, everyone else following suit.

The quiet was deafening.

"Come out with your hands up!" Falman's voice called. Ed had to lean over the railing to spot them just below, Falman and Breda advancing with weapons drawn on Al's cover.

"This is why this is a terrible idea," Ed said.

Another clap, a flash of blue, and stone spikes were racing their way, forcing the two to dive for cover in the awning of a building before the light had even faded.

Alphonse charged forward, the gunfire resumed, but it was very obvious that Alphonse was holding back.

Like, way back.

Like, Falman-and-Breda-should-have-been-broken-bodies-on-the-ground-in-that-first-attack back.

"Nobody's going to buy this," Ed said, gesturing widely. "Anybody with half a brain cell could see he's holding back. Even you can see he's holding back! Let me go before they see right through this!"

Mustang blew a long breath from his nostrils. "All units, we are commencing Phase Three, stand by."

That's all Ed needed to hear.

He sprinted to the back of the building and vaulted over the railing in one smooth leap, landing on the fire escape below. There was no shriek of metal to announce his landing, and the steps didn't even shake underfoot. He ran down three and a half flights, then jumped the last half to the ground.

He was quickly developing some theories about being dead and physics. It seemed that as he was immaterial, he couldn't have an effect on the outside world, and it couldn't have an effect on him unless it he assumed it would have an effect on him. He thought it might have had something to do with expectations, like he expected to not sink through the roof of the building, and he expected to be able to sit on a sofa; mind over literal matter.

That being said, it seemed like he expected gravity to hurt.

He landed hard, his metal ankle taking most of the force by habit. It didn't break, but the nerves in his thigh screamed in protest like his leg had been asleep and he'd stuck his toe in an electrical outlet.

A brief shout of pain and surprise tore from his lips before he could clamp his jaw shut.

Then he remembered absolutely no one but Mustang could hear him. So, he screamed a few choice words into the night as he hobbled to the square in a broken run, turning the corner and heading straight towards Breda.

They had practiced a few times before, when they'd first arrived in the square a couple of hours ago. Breda had handled the experience better than Falman; the older man kept reflexively throwing him out no matter how much warning he got. Breda accepted him in with a lot of complaining, but Ed was just happy to be back in the game, even if his host was unwilling.

It was their backup plan because the experience was, in Mustang's words, unpleasant, and he wanted Ed as close as possible for communication, just in case.

Well, Ed could communicate just fine when he had a body, and it wouldn't be just to Mustang. If anyone asked him, the old man was paranoid.

Mustang had also prattled on about not wanting to subject another human being to Ed's presence more than necessary, and Ed had valiantly resisted the urge to possess the Colonel and strangle him to death with his own hands.

Breda's mind had the same feel Ed associated with mountains; cool, unwavering, sharp. His center of gravity was closer to what Ed was used to—not saying it was lower or anything, just better.

And despite appearances, Breda was fast.

Ed stopped Breda's body, turned on a cenz, and faced Alphonse.

"Alright!" he called out, Breda's voice booming off the stone buildings as he played up the drama. "Enough playing! I'm a very dangerous alchemist, so you'd better surrender, or else!"

Al peeked out from around another barricade. "Bro—I mean, oh!" he said, stepping out to fully face Ed. "Alright! Come and get me, then!"

Ed grinned, then immediately obliged, darting forward in Breda's body to meet Al head-on.

Easy, kid! Breda thought his way. Watch the knees!

So, you're old too, huh? Ed thought, but he did feel a slight twinge in the man's knee when he leapt off the ground to plant a kick in Al's face. He didn't get as high as he might normally have had he been in his own body, but he managed to plant a kick square in Al's middle. Al twisted out of the way before Ed could follow up, coming back inside Ed's defenses to make a swipe at his head. Ed blocked it with his right arm out of reflex.

But wow, that hurt.

Hey! Not everything's made of metal! Breda shrieked.

"I noticed!" Ed snarled in Breda's voice, jumping back out of the way of Al's next swipe and cradling the smarting limb.

Once Ed figured out that he couldn't attack with his left leg and right arm without consequence—and that Breda's body wasn't in quite the same physical shape that Ed's was—, he entered into a familiar rhythm with his brother. They had sparred so much over the years that it was a well-known dance. Even the alchemy they fired at one another was predictable, the only uncertainty the order.

Ed almost got lost in it when Breda got his attention.

Something's wrong, he said. Look up.

Ed backpedaled out of Al's incoming blow, shooting a hasty glance upward. He couldn't see any sign of Mustang or Hughes, or of anything amiss, but Breda had good instincts and Ed trusted the man's intuition.

"Six, radio One!" he called to Falman over his shoulder, darting forward to plow a foot into the armor's abdomen. Al used the opportunity to snatch his leg and twist. Ed followed the momentum, spinning in Al's grip and letting Breda's other leg fly, taking Al's helmet from his shoulders. It sailed through the air, bounced off a building, then clattered to the ground like an empty metal bowl.

"My head!" Al cried, spinning Ed flat on his rear and clamoring after it.

"Sir!" Falman called.

Ed got to his feet with a groan. "What?"

He looked at Falman's face and all of his irritation evaporated.

"They're not answering," he said, a waver in his voice. "None of them are."

XxXxX

Roy's first indication that something was wrong was Havoc's lack of confirmation when he ordered Phase Three.

He picked up the radio.

"Four, this is One, come in, over."

No answer.

He peered out across the square to Havoc's building, but the man's sniper nest was well hidden on the roof and Roy had never been able to see it in the first place.

"All available units, anyone have eyes on Four? Over."

A pause, then, "Three here," Hawkeye said. "No eyes on Four, over."

He peered down into the square. If Breda's new acrobatics were anything to go by, Ed had taken over his body. He and Falman were indisposed at the moment and wouldn't be able to see Havoc from their vantage point anyway.

"You think something's wrong?" Hughes asked beside him.

At the verbal suggestion, Roy became aware of something uneasy gnawing on the inside of his stomach. "Yes."

Roy didn't have to look at his friend to know he agreed.

Roy hadn't liked posting Havoc alone, but Havoc was one of his most capable men in combat, and it had been by necessity. They needed another set of eyes in another location, and both Roy and Riza were not well enough to be here on their own.

He prayed his decisions hadn't just gotten another subordinate killed.

No. Don't think like that.

"Hughes, can you check it out?"

Hughes hesitated, looking torn between wanting to do what he'd asked, and not wanting to leave Roy's side. Finally, he nodded. "Radio it in, will you? I don't want Riza to shoot me." He left his rifle and stand behind, drawing his sidearm and heading back to the fire escape.

"Three, this is One," Roy said into the radio. "Four is not responding. I'm sending Two to check into it, over."

Silence.

Something cold dropped into Roy's gut.

"Three, do you copy?"

He looked across the square to the old church, unable to make out anything in its shadowed recesses.

Still no answer.

Then he saw muzzle flash light up the bell tower, the sharp bark of gunfire striking his ears a half-second later, six, nine, twelve times before everything went quiet.

The cold thing in his gut launched up to crush his lungs.

Riza.

"Well, well," a low, sultry voice purred.

Roy whirled around, heart in his throat and hand raised to set someone ablaze.

A devastatingly beautiful woman stood on the roof not three meters away, alabaster skin shining in the moonlight, a dark dress hugging every dangerous curve of her attractive figure. Her black hair cascaded down her back in graceful waves, a few curls perfectly framing sharp, violet eyes and bloodred lips.

But what Roy really honed in on was the crimson tattoo circling just above her generous chest and, more notably, the inhumanly long claws sprouting from her fingertips, bridging the space between them, coming to rest at the hollow of Roy's throat.

"Colonel Mustang," she said, full lips curved in a dangerous smile. "And here I was hoping you were dead."

"What do you mean they're not answering?" Ed asked in Breda's voice.

Time to go, Breda thought in his direction.

Wha—

A second later, Ed faceplanted on the cobblestoned street. He lifted himself up to his elbows, much lighter and much more annoyed. "Breda!" he protested, even though no one could hear him anymore.

Breda looked to the Warrant Officer behind him. "Come on, Falman, we gotta . . . Falman?"

Falman wasn't looking at Breda.

Both Ed and Breda turned, following the older man's eyeline, and the hair on Ed's neck pricked.

In the middle of the square stood a figure that was vaguely humanoid in shape, the moon shining off of his bald head and a feeling of just plain wrongness roiling off of him in waves. He had a short, round body, and a pair of enormous arms hanging from his enormous shoulders, leaving his knuckles to almost drag the ground. A vacant stare completed the whole creepy ensemble, and a disquieting grin split the creature's face, sending alarm bells ringing in Ed's head.

"Homunculus," Al said, coming to stand next to Falman.

The homunculus sniffed the air. "Something smells good," he said, a childlike quality in his voice that was a sharp contrast to the evil oozing from his being.

Breda spat a curse. "This is one of them?" he asked Al, pulling his firearm from its holster.

"It has to be," Al confirmed.

"I'm going to eat you now," the monster said, the same earie grin frozen on his face.

Then he moved forward with more speed and grace than anything his size should allow. His jaws parted, an unnaturally large tongue lolling out to the side, ropes of saliva trailing behind as he flew at them.

And if there had been doubt of his identity before, the red circular tattoo on his tongue spoke for itself.

Falman and Breda let loose a salvo of fire, but the assault had about the same effect as a swarm of gnats, the wounds sparking red and closing an instant later. Ed scrambled up off the floor, briefly wondering if he could possess the homunculus' body, but Al had it covered.

Alphonse clapped his hands, slamming them to the ground and sending a stone column straight into the creature's face. The homunculus hit it like a train, rock shrieking on impact as he was driven back across the square.

Ed craned his neck to look up at his younger brother, but as he did, movement caught his eye and he glanced up.

There, up on the rooftop, he saw the familiar slope of Mustang's shoulders against the night sky, his back turned to the square and his brown hair billowing in the wind. Why wasn't he facing the square, and why was he exposing his back like that? Where was Hughes?

Unless . . .

Unless this homunculus wasn't here alone.

Well, of course he wasn't there alone. This was Ed's sort of luck, after all.

Ed looked between his brother, Falman and Breda, and the slobbering, snarling monster that had recovered and was once again coming at them full force.

Then he looked back up at Mustang on the rooftop, alone.

Ed trusted his little brother. Al could handle himself, and with Breda and Falman, there was no way they would lose to a third-rate homunculus like this.

And Truth curse him for it, he made a decision.

A body would have been really helpful right about now, but he couldn't compromise the current battle unfolding by swiping Breda, and Falman wouldn't accept him anyway. He'd just have to figure it out when he got back up to the rooftop.

Besides, having an actual "plan" sounded a bit too much like Mustang for Ed's taste. So, Ed turned, throwing himself between two buildings with only a prayer and his immaterial spirit, heading to the back of the building and up the fire escape.

A shadow moved two flights above him, and he could just discern Hughes making his way slowly up the stairs, his footfalls soft on the metal steps, gun drawn and catching menacingly in the faint light.

Ed didn't make a sound even though he traveled much faster. He caught up easily, standing behind the older man and following his gaze up to the lip of the rooftop. They couldn't see Mustang at this angle, or anyone for that matter. "What's going on up there?" he asked, his brain irritably reminding him for the tenth time that no one could hear him. It seemed he got a little too used to having an actual voice for someone to respond to every time he got a body.

Hughes, predictably, didn't acknowledge him in the slightest, taking a few more quiet steps then halting, cocking his head like he was listening hard.

Perturbed and wanting to get eyes on Mustang, Ed stepped through the outstretched arm Hughes held against the railing, earning him a shiver from the older man and an electric rush to his middle that was uncomfortable to say the least.

"Ed? Is that you?" Hughes whispered, and if Ed hadn't been trying so hard to hear what was going on up above them, he might have missed it.

Ed turned to see Hughes staring vaguely in his direction. Instead of responding verbally, Ed passed a slightly transparent hand through Hughes' shoulder.

Hughes shivered again. "Must be," he grunted. "One of those things is up there with Roy," he said. "A woman with dark hair."

Lust.

Coldness seeped into Ed's bones. She wasn't quite as bloodthirsty as Envy, but she was more than capable of killing Mustang, especially in his condition.

"She's got him pinned down with some freaky claws to his neck," Hughes continued. "I'm going to distract her, and I want you to grab Roy, do some of your alchemy mumbo-jumbo and get him space to blow her away. If you can handle that, freak me out once for yes."

Well, that sounded about as good of an idea as any.

Ed ran his hand through Hughes' neck.

Hughes' shiver this time was both silent and spectacular. "Great," he hissed through gritted teeth. "Let's go."

Hughes passed him with another shiver and Ed followed him up to the rooftop.

And that's when things completely fell apart.

XxXxX

Roy may not have been a genius like Ed, but it didn't take much to deduce that the woman standing before him was the dark haired, dark eyed woman Victor had referred to.

Roy swallowed hard, feeling the woman's claws brush against his jaw.

"Who are you?" Roy asked, voice brittle, fear coiling in his gut like a snake. Roy had encountered monsters before, but this woman . . . there was something otherworldly about her, inhuman and dangerous, attractive and repulsive, her gaze sending a sharp rush of primal fear down his spine that had nothing to do with the claws at his throat. Had this woman done something with Riza? With Fuery, Havoc?

Her smile, alluring in its own way, never wavered as her violet eyes narrowed in amusement. "Surely you've heard of me? My name is Lust, but Jean would know me as Solaris."

His mouth went dry. "Jean?"

"Your handsome blond friend, of course," she purred, her free hand moving to rest on a voluptuous hip. "Not much going on underneath that hair, but you would be proud, Colonel. He's a loyal dog. He wouldn't say a word about you, despite how persuasive—" she shifted her generous bosom "—I can be."

This was the date Havoc had cancelled on, the very woman that wanted them dead? She had been seeing Havoc just to keep tabs on him and his team?

That meant she had followed them here from East City.

"Why do you want me dead?"

She tilted her head thoughtfully, a move that made her collarbone do interesting things—how was it that she could be so distracting and terrifying at the same time?! "You want some closure before you die?" A claw scraped against the apple of his throat and Roy flinched, feeling a slow warmth swell and drip down his neck. "How can I resist a request like that, coming from a man like you?"

Roy wasn't sure how to answer that. He glanced to the side, some small part of him hoping Hughes would appear from the shadows, but no one was there.

"I came to your office to gather Jean for lunch a few months ago," she began. "When I arrived, your office was empty, and I took the opportunity go through your paperwork as I always do."

As she always did?

"You've been in my office before." It was more of an accusation than a question.

Her laugh was sultry and smooth, like poisoned honey. "Don't think someone like you can escape our notice, Colonel Mustang. I've been watching you for a long time. You are a very interesting man. Strong, intelligent, ambitious, attractive," the same claw moved to caress his cheek, it's touch as familiar as it was alien, sharp like a razor. "I like that in a man."

He hobbled back a step, his back pressing against the concrete wall behind him. He could hear the sounds of battle down below, but he didn't have the attention to spare to make out details. Roy only hoped that someone would look up, notice his position, then come to his aide. He needed a distraction if he was going to set this woman on fire, or else she would cut his throat before he made so much as a spark.

"So shy," she laughed again, deep in her throat. "This is not at all how I imagined our first meeting would go." Her gaze was predatory, and Roy felt his pulse tick up a notch. "Can you guess what I found on your desk?"

"A map."

"Bingo. And I am very interested in knowing who sent it to you."

Years of chess and politics had made Roy a very good liar. "If you found the map, I'm sure you saw the envelope as well. There was no name."

"Yes, but it is not a stretch to assume you have in informant in Briggs. One that might send you interesting maps with dangerous information."

"I don't know."

Her ruby lips turned down into a pout. "Pity. I suppose once you're out of the picture, I will have to pay a visit to Briggs and find out myself."

At least Hughes would be safe then. Hopefully.

Roy took a steadying breath. "What is so important about that map that people need to die?"

"I'm afraid that isn't something I'm allowed to discuss, no matter how imminent your death."

He locked eyes with her, as commanding as he knew how. He wanted confirmation.

Then he would do something reckless.

"You sent Michael and Victor after me. You killed Edward Elric."

Something like regret flickered underneath her thick lashes. "Yes. The Fullmetal boy. Unfortunate, because he was one of our perfect sacrifices. I suppose we will just have to find a replacement. Don't worry though, the man that killed your precious subordinate has been taken care of. I do not tolerate sloppiness."

He was dead? Did that mean . . . how would Ed find his killer if he was already dead?

Did that mean Ed was trapped, a spirit without a body?

No.

No, because Roy wouldn't allow that to happen. He couldn't think about that now, though.

Roy dreaded his last question, but he needed to know.

"Where are my people?"

Her lips twisted into a smile that was as stunning as it was terrible. "I'm afraid I don't know about your dear First Lieutenant and the little scrap, Kain. Gluttony was sent to deal with them, but Jean . . . well," she raised her free hand to her lips, and for the first time, Roy caught sight of something glistening from the pointed ends of her fingers. She ran her tongue over the pinky, slow and sensuous, and Roy could finally make out what it was glinting in the moonlight.

The air left Roy's lungs in a rush.

Blood.

Roy's fingers pressed together, ready to turn this woman into a human torch, and he only hesitated when movement behind Lust caught his eye.

A black figure emerged from the shadows, only the moon on his glasses giving away Hughes' identity. Gunfire cracked three times, the flash enough to temporarily blind Roy in the dimness, and the sound close enough to leave his ears ringing.

Instead of collapsing on the ground with blood pooling around her dying body, Lust just smiled.

Then two things happened at once.

Edward appeared out of nowhere, throwing himself at Hughes with a strangled cry.

And Lust turned and ran two clawed fingers through Hughes' chest.

"Maes!"

Hughes' eyes went wide, jaw slack. A lone dagger slipped from his fingers, clattering sharp against concrete.

No. No no no.

He fell to his knees with a breathy gurgle, dark blood bubbling over his lips. His eyes drifted past Lust to Roy and Roy felt his chest bottom out, heart falling hard into his gut, cold and crushing.

Hughes looked back to Lust and his hands twitched, quivering, reaching together as if to clap, and realization slapped Roy across the face.

Ed was in there.

It wasn't just Maes. Ed was in there, too, and Maes wasn't strong enough to throw him out.

Whoever was in control of Hughes' body couldn't hold it and let his hands fall. He looked to Roy, mouth opening as if to say something but only releasing another foaming wave of blood. His body convulsed once, eyes snapping wide in agony as shuddering muscle contorted around the unmoving spears embedded in his flesh. Roy wasn't sure if it was supposed to be a grin or a grimace the way his lips twisted, baring bloodied teeth as his eyes settled back on Lust.

Both an eternity and a second passed before Hughes quivered and slumped forward, the spears in his chest the only thing holding his body upright, and he stilled.

Roy couldn't make out the rise and fall of his chest anymore.

Roy saw red.

His fingers snapped before his mind had the chance to catch up, engulfing the homunculus in an inferno bright enough to sear his eyes and bleach the dark a burning white. The claws at his throat disintegrated in the heat as the creature screamed, flesh sizzling, hair turning to ash.

Ed was dead, and so was Hughes.

And Roy wasn't going to die without taking this monster with him.

Lust turned on him as the flames died, reeking of smoke and burnt flesh. She was unrecognizable; skin mostly gone, ashen bone visible in places, but despite her head being more skull than face, she straightened. Red sparked and washed over her mutilated body, weaving a layer of muscle, pale skin and a flawless dress where burnt bone had been just a second before. Her eyes, no longer gaping sockets but once again filled with fluid and irises and malice landed on him. "That wasn't very gentlemanly of you, Colonel Mustang."

He snarled and snapped again.

Once again fire swallowed her, lashing at skin and muscle beneath, hot enough to kill, and Lust screamed but she didn't drop. She stepped backward, nothing more than a mangled humanoid shape robed in flame, and Roy followed, sending another wave her way, driving her back step after step. She raised a smoking corpse-like arm to send her claws at him, but even as it sparked red to heal Roy set it ablaze all over again.

Roy passed Hughes, the body now face down and still on the ground, but he couldn't look at him.

He couldn't. He could break down later, but he couldn't look right now.

Roy drove her back, incinerating the claws she sent his way and her monstrous body time after time until she was right at the fire escape.

Then she turned and ran.

From below, a gun barked twice and fell silent.

After a split second of surprise, Roy followed the reflection of flames dancing on the metal railing, his steps uneven and painful. He made it onto the top landing and stopped.

Lust was below him at the base of the stairs, fire finally fading into wispy smoke curling around her head.

Riza was there, a single claw running through her injured shoulder from behind, another impaling her hand. Her sidearm lay where it had fallen at her feet, her only free hand wrapped around the spear protruding her shoulder, slick with blood as she clawed weakly at the sharp blade. Her eyes were screwed up in rage and pain and reflected Roy's terror right back at him.

Lust smiled, and there was only hate in her eyes. "It would appear we are at a stalemate, Colonel."

XxXxX

Edward Elric had been dead for five minutes.

And he was just as incensed as the first time.

"Again?!" he screamed into the white void, but there was no response. He turned a full three-sixty, squinting into the sourceless light, but nothing.

Where was Truth?

"Well."

Ed jumped a mile, whirling to see Truth seated on whatever passed for the ground in the Portal, that big menacing grin—the only thing brighter than all the white—splitting its otherwise featureless face. "Looks like you did it, alchemist."

"I didn't even get to—wait, what?"

"You did it," Truth repeated. "You found your murderer."

Ed's eyes narrowed as he tried to coerce his brain into shooting something other than blanks.

He remembered hiding in the shadows and listening, following Hughes up to the rooftop. He remembered that homunculus, Lust, shifting her weight ever so slightly, and he'd known what she was going to do before she even did it. He remembered panicking. He dove for Hughes, merging with him just as a pair of claws speared his lungs.

Which, if he recalled, hadn't felt very good.

"It was Lust?" he asked, his sluggish mind recalling snippets of the conversation he'd overheard between her and Mustang. "She didn't pull the trigger, though."

"You alchemists are always so literal," Truth said, resting his chin on a hand. Ed's hand, to be exact. "I'm sure you gathered that the homunculus Lust orchestrated the whole thing."

"Why?"

"There are some things to know, and there are some things to learn."

Ed made a strangled sound in the back of his throat. "Why are you always like this? What does that mean?!"

"It means that you will have to find that out for yourself, Edward Elric."

Ed glared at the immortal being until another thought struck him hard and fast. "Wait, did you summon me here somehow, or did I just die again?"

"One would think you'd grow tired of it," Truth agreed dully, then he tilted his head, almost managing to look thoughtful. "You knew you couldn't remove your soul from a body unless your host removes you. Interesting that you decided to die in the place of Maes Hughes that way."

Ed was feeling a lot of things, but blinding panic surged to the forefront, breath hitching. "Hughes! Is he—"

"Your friend is still breathing. But you of all humans know how quickly that can change."

The panic eased into a dull sense of disquiet. Why did Truth always have to be so ambiguous about everything? Ed wouldn't be getting any more information on that front. "You said that if I found who killed me, I would get my body back."

Truth's grin returned full force, sending Ed's anxiety up a few notches. Truth's glee rarely boded well for Ed. "A deal is a deal, alchemist," it agreed, and with a gesture, Ed's body just appeared. If Ed had blinked, he would have missed it.

It stood before him, dressed in black and red, blond hair done up in his usual braid, white gloves covering its hands. Ed could have sworn he was looking into a mirror if it were not for the way his body was absolutely soaked, water dripping from its hair and nose. There was also a dull lifelessness in his body's eyes and a surprising amount of blood smeared underneath his jaw and down his neck.

Well, that just figured.

"You've had my body for months and you couldn't even bother closing the wound?!"

"That would cost extra, Edward Elric." Truth's grin gained an edge to it. "Is there something you would like to offer in exchange?"

"You say alchemists are literal?!" Ed shrieked. "My friends are back there risking their necks and in way over their heads. What am I supposed to do with a half-dead body?!"

Truth sighed, like he was already bored of the whole thing. "Hopefully attempt to keep it alive this time. Take your body and be gone, al-chem-ist."

And Ed froze.

He stared at his body and it stared back, it's skin chalky and lips blue, blood trickling down its neck, coloring the tiny streams of water running down under the collar of its shirt a dark pink.

Ed would be lucky if his body made it from his arrival straight to a hospital, never mind if his friends and Al were too caught up in a fight to immediately take him. And Mustang, Hughes . . . what if Lust actually hurt them?

What if she killed them?

And what would happen to Al if he lost Ed, Mustang and Hughes, all in one night?

"No."

Truth perked, lifting his head just a fraction, smile melting a degree. If he'd had eyebrows, they would have been raised high on his forehead. "No?"

"No," Ed repeated. "Send me back."

"My, this is interesting," Truth purred, leaning forward. "You want to go back without your body?"

"Did I stutter?" Ed snapped.

Truth's grin stretched wide again and he laughed, the sound sharp and undulating and disturbing to witness, making the hairs on Ed's neck stand on end. Ed knew that sound would probably be making an appearance in his nightmares if he ever got to sleep again.

"Well, well," Truth said, sounding one part impressed and one part menacing. "Your wish is my command, alchemist."

Ed bared his teeth in a grin.

"I'll be right back."

“Riza,” Roy whispered. There was no way she could have heard him, the distance too great and his plea too soft, but her eyes found him all the same, wide and in pain.

Lust twisted her wrist like a maiden twirling a rose, screwing her claws into Riza’s flesh. She bit back a cry, grinding her teeth against the onslaught and only made a tremulous whimper to what must have been agony. The sound went straight to Roy’s gut, and he bit back his own cry. It would fall on deaf ears.

This woman thrived on weakness. Roy wouldn’t be giving her the satisfaction.

“Now what?” Roy asked, his voice barely more than a snarl.

Lust’s full lips pulled into a deadly smile as she leaned around her human shield. “Now you die, Colonel. But don’t worry, your brave Lieutenant will be right behind you.”

Then, Hughes fell from the sky.

His arms were extended, black coat billowing in the wind like some sort of avenging angel. It happened so fast that Roy barely registered the way he brought his dagger across Lust’s wrist from above, severing it completely from her arm. In the same motion, he wrapped his other arm around Riza, pulling her down with him as he fell in between the brick building and the fire escape, falling through the lid of the dumpster below with a heavy thud.

Lust made a sound that was more snarl than scream. Her hand regenerated fast, flesh, bone and muscle filling in where empty air had been, and she turned her murderous eyes on Roy.

“Enough!” she spat, claws cutting through the night, straight for his head.

Roy braced himself, raising a hand to snap.

It would be too little too late.

And then Ed fell from the sky right into Lust.

XxXxX

To say Ed had a plan would be a bit generous.

A plan involved close attention to detail, weighing risks, formulating responses, predicting probable outcomes.

What Ed had was, at best, a hunch, and he wasn’t all that thrilled about potentially being right.

But what Ed hadn’t quite predicted was how painful the experience would be. Like catching your consciousness on a sawmill.

Lust’s body felt like falling into chaos. Everything was pain and panic, hurt and hate, a burning desire that seared like hot coals and raked across his consciousness like claws. There was a hunger, a yearning, so aching and so deep, unlike anything Ed had ever experienced before, and even as he grappled with her consciousness it felt like his own spirit was being pulled apart into tiny fragments, splintering into shards of himself.

It wasn’t pleasant. And as he’d predicted, she wasn’t going to throw him out.

She couldn’t, because the Philosopher’s Stone that made up the very core of her being drew his soul toward it like a magnet, and since he wasn’t willing to be absorbed it proceeded to shred his soul like confetti.

He wouldn’t last very long at this rate.

It was a force of will to stay Lust’s hand, halting her claws mere inches from Mustang’s eyes. His vision flickered in and out like a bad radio signal, and Lust’s hand spasmed under his control, the tip of one claw raking against Mustang’s cheekbone and drawing a line of blood.

“Do it,” he hissed, his voice Lust’s and his mind spinning. 

From up the steps, Mustang stared at him, eyes wide. “Ed?”

“Torch her!”

“What about you?!”

You!

The voice from inside startled him. It wasn’t a question. It was more like an accusation, and she surged forward with more power than Ed was ready for. She forced his consciousness aside and down, where the Stone tore at him with renewed force, the heat searing, and every ghostly nerve singing with agony. Like drowning men fighting in stormy waters, he surged up, forcing her back down, using her consciousness as a buffer between him and the Stone.

He opened Lust’s mouth, the entire frame of her shuddering with the internal struggle. “I can’t hold her long!” Her voice shook under his control, and he bit her tongue, tasting dust instead of blood. Their shared mouth sparked red. “Do it!” The consequences of him being unable to hold her back were fairly dire; she would go on to slaughter Mustang, then Hughes and Hawkeye if he didn’t. But if Ed died by Mustang’s fire, theoretically he’d be sent back to Truth.

If she overtook him, he wouldn’t be thrown out. He’d be absorbed into the Stone.  

But yeah, he knew what he was doing.

Mustang looked torn, his hand hovering, posed to snap but eyes wide and scared. Of all the times for the idiot to grow a conscience.

Ed didn’t have the time or the ability to explain properly. Even as he tried, Lust rushed forward again, knocking his mind off balance, but he didn’t let go. He floundered though, the Stone burning him and he hissed with Lust’s voice. “Mustang,” he gasped, and it might have come out more of a sob. He tried to move, but Lust was fighting him, and it took all of his effort just to speak. “Kill her or she’ll kill me!”

The wavering in Mustang’s eyes stilled. The fear was still there, but he clenched his jaw, afraid but back in control. He raised his hand and snapped.

Ed would have liked to think he had experienced enough pain in his life to be able to form an accurate rating system. So, on a scale of one to ten, with ten being automail connection, he’d say having his soul shredded while the body he possessed was set on fire ranked about a fifteen.

Yeah, Ed had all the fun.

He and Lust both screamed as Mustang burned them alive.

XxXxX

As much as Roy wanted Lust to suffer a few minutes ago, now he wanted nothing more than to make her death as quick and painless as possible. Not for her, but for Ed.

Roy didn’t understand what was happening. He didn’t understand how, after what he’d seen, Hughes could be alive. He didn’t understand how Ed’s soul had been gone one minute, and back the next. He didn’t know how Ed survived Hughes’ death, nor how he planned to survive Lusts’.

But he trusted Edward Elric. Maybe he would jump out at the last moment, or maybe there was some other metaphysical answer Roy couldn’t grasp. The kid knew things, things Roy couldn’t even begin to fathom, and he must have a plan.

Roy prayed Ed had a plan.

The homunculus looked like she was shaking apart, every move more of a spasm, lips parted in a scream as Ed held her body hostage and Roy sent wave after wave of flame to engulf her. Her body sparked and healed, but Roy just removed her flesh all over again.

He just had to burn up her Philosopher’s Stone. That’s what Ed had said. If he forced her to use it up, she would die and Ed would be safe.

But what that would mean for Ed, Roy didn’t know. He hoped more than anything that Ed couldn’t feel the half of it, even as he sent a bolt of flame into her open mouth, down into her lungs, blowing away half of her chest from the inside-out.

She stopped screaming for a bit after that.

The next spark of red seemed to take longer, but he didn’t give her the chance to recover. Her torso healed and closed and he blew her apart again, this time from the side. Her claws got close, then veered off to the side to shred the metal stairs behind him, Ed clearly saving his life yet again.

The steps under his feet shuddered and dropped a few inches. He grabbed the railing as it sank, suddenly aware of the damage her flailing attacks and the heat of his flames were doing to the fire escape.

It was about to collapse.

He had to end this quickly. Despite the precise aim of his blows, the metal under Lust’s feet was heating, warping under the assault, melting into molten slag and dripping down into the alleyway below. Even as he thought it, one of Lust’s feet slipped into the soft metal. Roy wasn’t sure who was in control of the body when it screamed in pain as the hot iron caught the hem of her dress on fire, the flames travelling up her legs.

He hoped it was Lust.

More fire, more claws that seemed to miraculously pierce anything but him. The fire escape gave another alarming shudder, the acrid scent of burning metal and smoke searing the back of his tongue, cloying in his throat. He coughed, snapping again. Just how much power was left in her Stone? Surely she was almost dead?

The fire escape lurched to the side, pulling away from the building with an angry shriek. Both Roy and Lust staggered, slamming against the railings.

“Roy!” Maes screamed from below. “Get out of there!”

Roy stumbled back up the first flight of stairs, but he was far too late.

With one final scream, the whole thing wrenched away from the building and they were falling.

Time seemed to slow, like the mind’s last-ditch effort to savor a final moment. Wind whipped Roy’s hair as they fell, his heart sliding up into his throat and he looked at Lust, mere feet away. She clung to the railing just like him as they fell backward into the darkness, and when Roy looked at her face he saw Ed, eyes wide and as frightened as Roy felt. Then the lines of her face hardened, and Roy couldn’t tell if it was resolve or Lust, but her hand slipped behind her back even as one gripped the railing, and Roy didn’t have the time to think about it.

Roy swung his legs through the rails to the outside of the fire escape, coming out on top a beat before it slammed into the ground.

Metal shrieked, twisting, shredding the earth and Roy’s body with it. Roy cried out as his injured body smashed against the metal stairs, his hip screaming, vision bleached white, ears ringing as pain sang through his body.

He wasn’t sure how long he lied there, unmoving, twisted on the metal staircase like a corpse, the night sky and the buildings towering over him swirling, making dreamlike patterns amid smoke and glowing flames.

It was kind of pretty.

“Roy!”

Roy flinched, suddenly aware of Hughes’ bespectacled face in his field of vision, registering his hand on his shoulder a moment after that.

“Roy, come on,” Hughes said, clothes and hands smeared with blood, fear and fire reflected in eyes. There was a tightness in his voice that Roy didn’t quite understand. Did something happen?

Roy looked to his left, not quite sure why but freezing when he saw Lust.

She lay on the wreckage, one arm pinned behind her twisted body, cooling metal wrapped, splattered against her flesh and clothes, her dress smoldering in places, burning in others. Fire ate away at her middle as her Stone sparked and healed, but it was slow, delayed, half as good as it should have been.

And through her chest, her own claws jutted from her ribs like a grisly alter, and grasped in their tips, a glowing red stone attached to her by a few thin black ropes of tissue, still sparking, still trying to heal the body that Roy hoped was beyond saving.

Hughes helped him stand, his body firmly telling him it was a bad idea, but he couldn’t just sit there while Lust was dying.

While Ed was dying.  

He stumbled closer, unsure what to do, a pit forming in his stomach that had nothing to do with physical pain.

Violet eyes blinked lazily at the sky, unfocused and dim. “I hate losing,” she said quietly, and Roy knew it was Lust talking.

She began to disintegrate, her body turning to dust at the edges, blowing away on the night breeze between fiery embers, dissipating like mist.  

“And it wasn’t even at the hands of a man like you, but a child,” she murmured, skin chipping away, fracturing, crumbling. She was half gone now.

But where was Ed?

“Ed?” he asked aloud, like that would call him forward, out of her body.

Her mouth twisted, even as her flesh completely disappeared and only black sinew and bone remaining. Roy could only tell it was supposed to be a smile by the way her muscles pulled, skeletal grin widening. “The boy is being swallowed by the Stone as we speak. I’m afraid neither of us will be here much longer.”

Roy didn’t know if it was the right thing to do, but he snapped his fingers, completely severing her link to the Stone.

With a sigh, she dissolved into the darkness and was gone, the Stone following suit a moment later, and Roy was left staring at the gnarled ruins of a half-melted fire escape.

Roy stared hard at the empty space. Ed had to be there, someway, somehow. He was a ghost, maybe he’d just sunken into the debris, his transparency difficult to see in the fading glow of the dying fires that dotted the alleyway and the rooftop.

And Roy stared even as someone hobble up beside him. He thought he could hear the familiar clanking of armor and some panicked babblings. Someone may have been talking to him, but he wasn’t in a place to listen.

Roy needed to focus. His men were hurt, and the military would be here any moment. He needed to take charge, give orders, to lead.

Even as he told himself that, he collapsed to the ground, ignoring the outcry from his ruined hip and the hand that found its way to his shoulder. He leaned forward and waited.

He waited for Ed to come back.

And Ed was dead again.

Truth leaned with his chin in his palm and looked positively bored. "What's that expression you mortals are so fond of? 'Third time's the charm'?"

"Something like that," Ed said, irritated by Truth's implications. Like this was something he had much choice over. He didn't quite remember what he'd done that got him back here—the last thing he remembered with any clarity was being back on the rooftop alone, looking for Mustang and the others— but he knew that whatever he had done was out of necessity, and ending up here was what he had intended.

He really was a self-destructive idiot.

"Tell me al-chem-ist, does dying get old?" The immortal being was just as expressionless as ever, but Ed thought he detected a note of genuine curiosity in the multitoned voice.

"To put it mildly," he agreed, crossing his arms. "I'm ready for my body now."

Truth grinned. Ed hated that grin. "Certainly," he said, and in the blink of an eye Ed's body appeared there before him, his mirror image except for the dead-looking eyes, like an animated corpse. It was more than a little disturbing.

It was also still soaking wet, still bleeding.

Still barely alive.

"I wonder if you'll make it to the hospital," Truth mused, like he was wondering about dinner plans and not Ed's life. "That's a nasty wound on your neck."

Ed wanted to scoff, but he really couldn't when his body looked so . . . well, dead.

"Should I be expecting you again any time soon?" Truth asked pleasantly.

Ed gave the immortal being a glare. "Not if I can help it." Thrice in less than a week was more than enough for him.

In . . . less than a week.

"Hey! Just a minute!"

Truth didn't move.

He just grinned.

"Hang on." Ed ran a hand through his disheveled hair, eyes darting from white space to white space as his mind raced. "You said I had seven days to find my killer."

"That is correct, Edward Elric."

"But I did it in just over four."

"And we're all very impressed."

Ed fixed his gaze on Truth once more. "That means I've got three days left."

"Would you like to do it again?" Truth purred.

Not on his life. Or anyone else's. "Where's the Equivalency in that, huh? I want to trade my three days."

Truth leaned forward with the same fervor as a child examining candy at a shop. "And what exactly do you think a day is worth to an immortal being, al-chem-ist? It isn't a lot."

Why was he so eager?

What was Ed missing here?

Ed looked back at his own body. It wouldn't last long, in the shape it was in. Truth was right: how would it even make it to a hospital?

Wouldn't that be hysterical? To get his body back only to die again on the way to the infirmary?

Ed thought hard, mind working a mile a minute to come up with something, anything to get him out of this.

Truth was playing a game. To win, Ed just had to get the right answer.

A memory, one that seemed a lifetime ago, surfaced in his mind.

"To put it simply, the world is not ready to part ways with Edward Elric just yet. There is more yet for you to do, and if you are diligent, you'll have more than one week to accomplish it in."

That was it.

Ed looked up, back at the immortal being, and grinned, the expression wide enough to rival Truth's own. "It's worth a lot weighed against the future, isn't it? You wanted me alive for some reason. Kind of counterproductive to let me die after all this trouble."

"We do not get something from nothing. A toll must be paid to receive reward."

"Use the three days to heal that stupid hole in my neck."

"I am afraid a mere three days is not nearly enough for a task like that, Edward Elric. But throw in your other hand and we have ourselves a deal."

Ed's left hand instinctively pulled in close to his body, clenching into a fist as he suppressed a shudder. "Pass."

Truth's shoulders raised and lowered, like a disappointed sigh. "Then I'm afraid there is nothing else to discuss. Take your body and go, mister al-chem-ist."

Ed looked back at his body, considering. Then back to Truth.

"Is it enough to get me to a hospital?"

Truth went still.

The that grin—that manic, terrifying grin—split his face in two.

"Your mind is as impressive as always. Till next time, Edward Elric!"

XxXxX

Roy waited for what felt an eternity, but Ed never came back.

The military police showed up along with ambulances. Roy knew they were talking to him, asking him questions, maneuvering him onto a stretcher, but their questions didn't make sense. He looked past them, looking for Ed until the ambulance doors slammed shut and he was driven away.

Everything after that was a blur, too. He tried to listen to what the paramedics were telling him, but he couldn't quite make himself listen. Not enough to understand. He felt like their questions were coming from the bottom of a well or the far end of a tunnel, distorted and delayed, and by the time he could make sense of one comment, they were on to the next. He soon gave up entirely and let his mind wonder back to Ed.

Would Ed still be waiting for him when he got back? He really hoped so, because he would be pretty hard to find again if nobody else could see him.

Distant thoughts of the same nature chased themselves through Roy's mind like dead leaves tumbling in the wind, chaotic and disordered until, in the quietness of the dimly lit hospital room, he finally drifted off into a restless sleep.

Until he was startled awake by a thunderous crash.

Roy sat up so fast he ripped out his IV line. He looked over the edge of his bed and saw Ed on the floor.

Everything suddenly snapped into clarity like a cold bucket of water dumped over his head. He knew this hospital. He knew Riza was in the bed next to his. He knew there were two MPs posted outside of his room and that he was under arrest. He knew Havoc was still in surgery, and he knew Hughes and Fuery were down the hall. He knew Alphonse was drifting between rooms like a lost soul.

And he knew that Ed was here in the flesh, sopping wet, hands pressed to his neck as he bled out on the floor.

"Nurse!" Roy bellowed, or maybe he screamed.

He almost fell out of bed, his hip giving out as soon as he put weight on it. He let the pain sink him, hitting his knees as he scrabbled to Ed.

Ed was flailing, golden eyes wide and darting, gasping like a fish out of water and making a terrible whistling sound as he did, red blood bubbling between his fingers and pinkish water over his lips.

"Nurse!" Riza's voice, her unsteady feet staggering past him to the hall.

Roy ripped off the thin hospital shirt, balling it up and peeling Ed's slick hands away to press it against his neck. Ed thrashed under him, eyes wide and panicked, and Roy pushed, fighting to apply pressure when holding him down was like wrestling a wet eel. His grip kept slipping, and he finally pinned him to the ground with a knee, trying to lock Ed's gaze to his own. "Ed, stay with me!"

Ed's eyes landed on him, and Roy had never seen him more terrified, fear carved into every line of his face.

Ice settled in his gut.

"I will not bury you a second time," Roy snarled, pressing. Ed squirmed under him, gasping, gurgling. His eyes traveled the room again, darting, losing focus.

Losing blood.

Could he even breathe?

"Do you hear me?!" Roy snapped. Ed's eyes wavered, then locked with his, wide and panicked. "Stay with me. That's an order!"

Ed held his gaze, even as he made a breathy whimper. Ed's body didn't stop its writhing, clearly in far too much pain to simply stop, but his flesh hand wrapped around Roy's wrist, tight enough to hurt. Roy would have held it if he wasn't so busy trying to keep Ed's blood on the inside of his body.

A swarm of nurses descended on them then, a slight woman pushing him back, taking Roy's place as they hoisted Ed onto a stretcher and carried him off, shouting at one another as they did. Ed held onto Roy until he was pulled away, but he kept his eyes fixed on Roy's, scared and pleading.

Roy tried to follow, but an MP stood in the way, barring the door.

"Please," Roy said, his voice more a plea than a command. "He's a kid."

The man looked sorry but didn't waver. "You're under arrest. You cannot leave this room."

Roy watched them go down the hall, nurses moving out of the way as they carried their fragile load around a corner and out of sight.

"Please," Roy asked again, begged.

"That's the Fullmetal boy, isn't it?"

All Roy could manage was a nod.

"I will find his brother. Someone will stay with him."

If Roy had anything to put up a fight with, he would have spent it there, but Riza put a hand on his shoulder and stopped him from pressing it. They were one bad decision away from being locked up with the key thrown away, and Roy knew it.

So, Roy did what he hated more than anything.

He waited.

XxXxX

Ed woke up and absolutely nothing made sense.

The last thing he remembered was standing before Truth, so when he opened his eyes and saw white ceilings and white walls and white floors, he thought he was still back at the Gate.

It took a long few minutes for the physical world to cut through the mental fog, but when it did, he became very cognizant of the fact that he could not breathe.

Except that his lungs were moving, which again, didn't make any sense.

The ensuing panic that he would have expected to follow such a thought didn't arrive immediately. Instead, he noted it with a numb sort of curiosity, like he might have noted the angle of the sun. It was interesting and nothing more.

His eyes wondered the room, taking in little details; the closed door with shadows passing underneath, the slow beep of a heart monitor and the hiss of machines, the faintly medical, antiseptic taste clinging to his tongue, silvery moonlight pooling on the floor through the window coverings, thick slatted shadows on the cold tile floor and across crisp, white bedsheets, the gleam of soft light on Al's armor.

Oh.

His brother was here.

The sight was more relieving than Ed felt the situation warranted, but Ed couldn't say why. There was a significance here that was evading him, just out of reach of his fuzzy, sluggish mind.

Sluggish. That would be the drugs, right? That and all the white . . . he'd either finally bitten it, or he was in the hospital.

He smiled to himself. Yeah, he felt sluggish, but he also felt nice, the warm glow of it permeating his stomach and limbs, gold and smooth like honey. He couldn't remember the last time he felt this relaxed. He couldn't exactly remember anything else much either, but . . . well, if the medication made him feel this great, then they could keep it coming.

Al's burning gaze was currently fixed on the far wall, probably meditating or something. Ed tried to call out to him, but instead of his throat wrapping around words and phrases, it pressed against something solid.

Ed looked down, only then noticing the . . . thing wrapped around his neck, a thin tube protruding from his throat, connected to a much thicker tube hanging off the side of the bed.

Was that . . . was that in his neck?

A machine hissed.

His lungs moved up and down without his consent.

He panicked.

The burst of adrenaline smashed through the haze of drugs, the world snapping into sharp, terrifying clarity. His body jolted like an inanimate corpse struck by lightning. He raised both hands to claw the tube out and breathe, but something stopped him, staying his hands.

He couldn't breathe.

His panic doubled, tripled. He yanked his arms, metal clattering, and he was suddenly aware of something soft biting into his flesh wrist.

"Brother!"

Al's voice was almost enough to ease the terror.

Almost.

He jerked his hands again, the tube in his throat rubbing, scraping, forcing more air into his lungs, the sensation as lifegiving as it was suffocating. Something mechanical whirled, wheezed, and he felt the warring pressures in his chest, him trying to suck in a breath while something tried to yank it back out.

It's not how you're supposed to breathe, it's not.

He couldn't breathe.

Al was next to him, leather gauntlets wrapping around his own hands, one metal one flesh. "You have to relax, Brother! Don't fight it, please, just calm down!" Al sounded on the verge of hysteria himself, and Ed wasn't sure why. He tried to ask, his body feeling like a live wire, pressure building somewhere ready to burst from his lips, but he couldn't speak; his throat just hissed and rasped around that tube, and Ed wanted it out of him right now.

His chest moved and he would have screamed if he could.

"Brother, you're on a ventilator."

Ed's brain took its dear sweet time processing that.

Ed looked to the side, the boxy machine sitting innocuously at his bedside, whispering quietly as yet another breath puffed into his chest against his will.

Finally, some of the tension bled out of his hands, as panic gave way to understanding, terror easing into a pervasive discomfort, and Al gently pushed his arms back down to rest on the bed. That's when Ed noticed the handcuffs, tanned leather straps encircling his pale wrists. Ed made a valiant effort to tamp down on the anxiety that rose in his chest at the sight, the machine pushing in another breath. He squirmed, like he could get a different angle and get away from it.

Ed searched his fuzzy memory, trying and failing to come up with a logical reason for him to be here. Despite the clarity he had achieved a moment ago, the drugs pumping through the IV in his hand had washed over him once again like a swollen river over a sandy bank, muddying his thoughts behind a haze of silt. The last thing he remembered with any clarity was standing before Truth and the immortal being agreeing to drop him off at the hospital—pretty generous, for Truth.

But that didn't explain why he was tied to the hospital bed and on a ventilator.

He looked at Al, silently begging his little brother for some sort of explanation.

Al could always read him like a book. He rested a worn leather hand on Ed's arm, the gesture meant to soothe. It worked. "Colonel Mustang said you just appeared in their room. You almost gave them a heart attack," he said, a quivering sort of smile in his voice. "You were bleeding everywhere, and there was a hole in your windpipe, water in your lungs . . ." Al trailed off for a second, like he was trying to distance himself from the thought. "You were shot on that bridge . . . do you remember?"

Not really, but he remembered being told about it. He tried to nod, but was suddenly made aware of something wrapped around his neck. A . . . brace?

Wonderful.

He blinked at Al, hoping he would interpret it as a yes.

"The Colonel said that's . . . that's where you were shot. In the neck. I guess you came back with the same injuries you left with."

Ed rolled his eyes to convey sheer irritation.

"Do you remember going into surgery?"

Ed frowned. No.

"The doctor said the bullet hit one of your vertebrae, fragmented, and ricocheted. One piece tore your windpipe, but most of it passed on through. They removed two fragments and patched up your trachea, but they're leaving you on the machine for a couple more days to give you some time to heal."

Al looked down in a way that made Ed think he wasn't really looking at anything.

When he spoke next, his voice was soft, lined with fear. "It missed your carotid artery by two millimeters, Brother," he whispered. "There would have been nothing they could have done for you then. The doctor said you were really lucky."

Ed tried to breathe to say something, his lips moving to comfort his little brother, but it took another half second for his lungs to inflate, and on the exhale he couldn't seem to push enough air to make his vocal cords vibrate.

Frustrated and annoyed, he reached out a restrained hand, his automail just reaching to clank gently against Al's metal wrist. Alphonse looked up, then back down, wrapping his huge leather gauntlet around Ed's hand. "I was so scared," he said, voice thick with tears he couldn't shed. "I was afraid I got you back only to watch you die again. I'm . . . I'm glad you're safe, Brother."

Ed offered him what he hoped was an encouraging smile. Even if he could have spoken, he wasn't sure what words could fix something like this.

Instead, he defaulted to a traditional tactic when dealing with something uncomfortable: he changed the subject.

He lifted his flesh hand and looked from the restraint to Al questioningly.

"The doctor was afraid that you might rip out your trach when you woke up."

Funny. That's exactly what Ed would have done. He feigned innocence anyways, eyebrows tilting in a "who, me?" expression.

Al's tone of voice conveyed an eyeroll more than anything. "You know you would have. Anyway, you'll probably have to sleep with them on, but I guess we can take them off while you're awake. As long as you promise not to do anything stupid."

Ed glared at his little brother.

Al did not seem fazed. "Promise?"

Ed rolled his eyes, but blinked in agreement.

Al started on the cuffs, his large hands seeming to make the task difficult.

Any bit of lightheartedness they'd managed to establish suddenly took an edge, the air shifting almost imperceptibly. Ed could tell by Al's hesitation, like he was trying to figure out exactly what to say. Never a good sign.

"You're probably wondering how everybody else is doing."

Ah. There it was.

Ed felt a little selfish to admit that he hadn't yet. In his defense, he was probably on some pretty great drugs, given that he was not hurting as much as he probably should be.

"Breda and Falman are alright. Our homunculus disappeared before we could do any real damage, but we probably got lucky." Al could wipe the floor with anybody any day. Ed found it hard to believe that they just "got lucky," but didn't comment for multiple reasons. "I've tried to piece together everything, but the whole team is separated and under arrest at the moment, so it's kind of hard to figure out exactly what happened."

Under arrest? Well, he supposed that was the most logical outcome. After all, Mustang was wanted for Ed's murder, but surely now that Ed wasn't quite-so-dead anymore it would exonerate him rather quickly?

But that would also mean they would need a cover story to explain why he suddenly went off the radar for three months.

. . . and how Ed ended up a bloody mess on the floor of Mustang and Hawkeye's hospital room.

But Ed's head was fuzzy with drugs and exhaustion, and cover stories were above his paygrade. Making up ridiculous nonsense to cover up incomprehensible nonsense was more Mustang's speed anyway.

"From what I gather," Al continued, successfully freeing Ed's left hand, "Lust ambushed Havoc first. He . . . she used her claws." He paused in his work, hands hitching a moment. Ed felt dread, both cold and hot, coiling in his gut. Hughes had gone to check on him, right? "Mr. Hughes saved his life. If he hadn't of gotten there when he did . . . It's bad Ed, but I don't know how bad yet."

Cold dread pooled in Ed's limbs, an uninvited sensation against the warm haze of medication. If something happened to Havoc, it would be Ed's fault. Havoc had been there to help him, after all.

"The doctor won't let me in to see him, but it's only been a day. Maybe I can go visit him tomorrow." The hope in the statement was small, like a candle against a moonless night, but Al was good about holding on to it in the face of adversity. He'd practically written the book.

Al finally got the other cuff off. Ed immediately rubbed his flesh wrist with his metal hand. Not like the leather had really chaffed or anything, but more just to keep from reaching up and yanking the tube out of his throat. Al didn't move from the spot, and Ed waited for him to continue.

"The First Lieutenant and Sargent Fuery were next. Lust gave Fuery a concussion and knocked Hawkeye out the window. I'm not sure how she did it, but Hawkeye managed to hold on and climb back inside after Lust left, stabilized Fuery, then came looking for the Colonel.

"You probably know the rest of it. Hughes got stabbed . . . but he was somehow okay." Al turned his gaze on Ed, soulfire eyes burning, but Ed wasn't sure if it was with rage or something else. "That was you, wasn't it Brother?" he asked quietly. "And the way Lust died?"

Ed wasn't sure what kind of answer his little brother was expecting. He offered a half-shrug around the neck brace and a quick lift of the eyebrows in response.

Al stared at him.

"You're an idiot."

Ed blinked.

There was real heat in the comment. Where had that come from?!

Al's large hands grasped the extra folds of hospital sheets at Ed's side, tight enough that the fabric gave a little squeak of protest. "If you didn't have that tube down your throat, I'd punch you in the face right now for being so stupid."

Ed glared and rapped his knuckles against Al's wrist twice to convey his overall displeasure. You weren't supposed to call your older brother stupid. Or an idiot, for that matter.

"You are stupid!" Al snapped, and this time the searing heat gave way to fear and a rawness that hadn't been there before.

Like he would be crying if he could.

And that's all it took for guilt to override any offense Ed might have taken.

Al had been terrified. His little brother had heard about . . . well, the stupidity Ed had committed, then Ed had disappeared for who knew how long before coming back all bloody and half-drowned, and on top of all that, Al then had to sit by his bedside for presumably days, wondering if Ed would ever wake up again.

Maybe . . . maybe Ed really might have been an idiot. An idiot that had been really desperately low on options at the time, but an idiot, nonetheless.

This time, Ed reached out his automail hand, wrapping it around Al's fist. His little brother's grip on the sheets loosened almost imperceptibly, then he released them, reaching both hands to envelope Ed's one, and Ed was pretty sure if it had been his flesh hand it might have cracked under the desperation of Al's grip.

Al made a sound like sobbing and Ed's heart shattered into a million pieces.

He could hear it on the heart monitor.

"I'm so glad you're safe, you big fat idiot," Al hissed, leaning his forehead against Ed's hand, like if he pressed hard enough he would be able to feel it. "You stupid, stupid big brother."

A little heavy on the "stupid," since Ed couldn't even defend himself properly, but he supposed he could let it slide for now.

Until he got this stupid tube out of his throat. Then he might have a few comments to make about stupid little brothers that went out and wondered the stupid woods on their own and didn't take care of themselves for months.

Oh yeah, he would let Al have it.

When both of them were in a better place.

For now, he contented himself to let Al hold on to him while he let his flesh hand rest against Al's arm, just as much a reassurance to him as it was to Al.

Of all the perks of being a ghost, none of them could quite compare to the simple joy of being able to hold his little brother's hand.

It took two weeks for Mustang to show up.

And two weeks later, Ed was surprised at how much being alive still hurt.

His ports ached something fierce, his stomach felt like it was in knots, his lungs burned, and every single muscle in his body felt like someone had wrung it out like an old washcloth, then beat it against a fencepost for good measure.

And then there was the tube speared through his throat.

Al tried to comfort him, reminding him that his body had been through a lot. After all, he'd had a hole in his trachea, bullet fragments in his neck, water in his lungs, and he'd been in shock. A little recovery time was to be expected.

Other than all that, he was doing pretty good.

He'd managed to walk almost two laps around the hospital floor yesterday, and even with the oxygen it had felt like a herculean effort and afterward he'd napped for three hours straight. It was definitely progress though; just last week his walk to the door and back had wiped him out completely.

He was improving. He'd finally gotten rid of the stupid neck brace during waking hours, and he'd gone from the machine breathing for him to breathing on his own—still through the trach, and with a trach mask feeding him a steady flow of oxygen—but even with a hole in his neck he would take it over that machine any day. It still felt wrong, but it didn't feel like he was suffocating anymore. Even now he only had to have the mask during the night, and he was expecting the daytime nurse to drop in and remove it at any minute. They were supposed to let him try breathing without it for twelve hours today, then after that a full day.

After that, they would plug the trach and see if his nose still knew what to do.

Familiar clanking gave away Alphonse's approach. Ed put a finger in his book to mark the paragraph he'd left off on and looked up from his nest of scattered notes, crumpled papers and pillows, grinning at his little brother as he stepped into the room with a tray.

It was really nice to be seen.

"Hey, Brother!" Al greeted like he hadn't left only five minutes ago. Al tended to get a little clingy when Ed was in the hospital. Granted it was usually because Ed had almost scared the soul out of his armor.

He shut the door and stepped closer to the bed, placing the breakfast tray on the nightstand.

Ed turned an accusing glare at his brother.

"Look, there aren't that many options," Al said defensively picking up the two glasses. "It's either broth or milk."

]Why did he even bother?

Ed took the broth from his brother and set it on the nightstand beside him, then made a shooing gesture with his automail hand.

Ed knew Al would be rolling his eyes if he could. Instead, he tilted his helmet back, the first light of dawn glinting through the window and off his metal jaw. "Brother, the more you eat the faster you heal. And milk is good for healing."

Ed was currently on a steady diet of whatever mush they pushed through the feeding tube in his nose and a sad ensemble of liquids masquerading as solids. The water and broths he got had enough thickener in them to pass for jelly—he even had to eat them with a spoon.

Ed decided that he'd rather choke than eat this crap for much longer. As soon as he was out of here, he was eating three steaks and all the sides and desserts he could cram down his throat.

"I stopped by the nurses' station on my way back. Miss Laura will be here to suction your trach after she finishes with Mr. Wilkins."

Ed suppressed a shudder.

"It's not that bad, Brother. Miss Laura is really good."

She was definitely better than Juliette. That woman wielded a suctioning tube like a rapier.

Ed almost didn't see him around Al's girth—there was no knock, not immediate greeting—but when Al shuffled aside, there Mustang was.

Ed couldn't tell much improvement between now and when they were on the run. Mustang still looked just too pale and too thin and almost sickly, his frame slumped in a wheelchair, his body canting to the side like his hip was really bothering him. His chin was shadowed with overgrown stubble and his eyes were dark, almost hollowed out, giving him the appearance of a skull without the benefit of flesh.

But when Mustang met Ed's eyes, Ed thought he saw a half dozen years bleed off of him.

The orderly behind the colonel looked between him and Al uncertainty, like he wasn't quite sure what he was supposed to be doing. The whole thing was odd because Mustang was supposed to be under arrest, so Ed wasn't sure what he was doing out of his room in the first place.

"Colonel!" Al greeted, voice pitched higher in both surprise and joy. He certainly forgave fast, now that Ed was back. "They released you?"

"Just this morning," Mustang said, a small smile playing on his lips. His dark eyes landed on Ed, something both soft and calculating glinting just beneath the surface. Ed fidgeted under his stare, wishing all the world he could tell him off for it.

Then the look evaporated and Ed knew they were back on familiar ground when the smile became a smirk. "Hey, shrimp."

Ed scowled, lips twisting into a silent snarl.

He absolutely loathed this man.

Mustang's responding grin looked a little more natural this time. It had been a while since Ed had seen him wear the expression. It fit like a favorite shirt, and some tension between Ed's shoulders eased at the sight. Mustang tilted his head to look at the man behind him. "You're dismissed," he told the orderly. "I'm sure Alphonse can wheel me back when we're finished."

Al nodded eagerly. "Of course."

The orderly gave a quiet "yes, sir," before leaving, closing the door softly behind him, and then they were alone, left in some kind of awkward staring contest that didn't seem to have any rules.

Ed's gaze drifted from Mustang to Al and back again. Why wasn't anybody saying anything?

If Ed could, he certainly would have filled the silence.

Al had done his best to keep everybody updated on everybody else's status. Apparently, all had been released from both the hospital and arrest, except for Havoc and Mustang. Havoc wasn't under suspicion any longer, but he had no feeling below the waist. Al had gone to see him multiple times and said he was in good spirits, but Ed found that hard to believe. He knew what it felt like to lose function of your limbs, but he'd always had automail to fall back on. Automail required active nerve endings to hook up to though, and there wasn't anything to be done for nerves that didn't signal.

Ed felt sick if he thought about it for too long.

As for Mustang, the man had already had two surgeries to try to repair the damage in his hip. The surgeon was hoping that the man might even walk away from it without much of a limp, given time and therapy.

But Ed was real curious about how he'd weaseled his way out of prison time. He knew the basics of the story Mustang had asked Alphonse to spread: they were attacked, both he and Ed were injured, they laid low and got lost in the forest, then contacted their colleagues to help them reach Central, where they were attacked yet again and barely lived to tell the tale.

There were at least a couple of points that were true. But when it came to the military, unless public opinion or treason was a factor, they didn't typically accuse one of their own for very long. And even they had to admit it didn't make much sense for Roy and the others to desert, only to come crawling back to Central, especially when it was very clear that Mustang hadn't murdered Ed.

Even with that sorted, there still remained one very large, very complicated hole to fill:

How did Ed appear in the Colonel's hospital room without witnesses in the state he'd been in?

But it seemed the conniving officer had an answer for that one, too: he and the Lieutenant were asleep when it happened. He had absolutely no idea.

Ed thought that sounded a little ridiculous himself.

But the military police didn't have any plausible theories either. It wasn't like Mustang could have smuggled Ed in under his coat, and Ed didn't really remember waking up gasping and bleeding all over Mustang's hospital room, so he couldn't really hurt or help the story.

So in lieu of a more conceivable alternative, it seemed the military police had no choice but to buy it.

The world really was run by morons.

"He went without the oxygen mask the past two days," Al informed, armor clanking loudly in the awkward half-quietness of a hospital in the early morning, the familiar sound drawing Ed from his musings more than anything. "The nurse will be by soon to remove it again. They're going to try to deflate the cuff in his throat and cap the tube soon. The speech therapist said he should be able to talk then, with some training."

Mustang gave Ed one of those smug grins that was all sharp in the lips and soft in the eyes. "And here I was enjoying the peace and quiet."

Ed opened his mouth to tell him exactly what he could do with his peace and quiet before he remembered himself, crossing his arms over his chest and glowering from his pillows. If looks could melt, Mustang would have been a puddle on the floor under the searing glare Ed sent his way.

It was ironic that Ed had spent those four days ranting and railing at Mustang just to get him to look at him, and now that he was finally back in the land of the living, the colonel was staring straight at him and Ed couldn't say a word.

Irony sucked.

Mustang was still looking, that softness still there, still staring at him like he couldn't quite believe Ed was alive and in one piece. It was unsettling. "When do they think the tube can be removed?"

Alphonse stepped closer, resituating the book that was starting to slide off to the side. Ed brushed him away irritably. He could reorder his own workspace.

Al was unfazed. "The doctor said as early as next week, as long as there are no complications. And if Brother does what he's told."

Wasn't it just like Al to pick on him in front of Mustang when he couldn't defend himself? Ed put his hands together, fingers touching to form a ring, then hovered them over his head in an approximation of a halo.

Mustang made a 'tcht' sound at his teeth. "No one buys that, Fullmetal."

"Nope," Al agreed.

Ed rolled his eyes and made a show of going back to his book.

"I think he misses talking more than real food, but it's hard to tell."

Ed gave his little brother a pleading look. Of all the times and ways for Al to pick on him. Ed should have raised him better.

Mustang just chuckled, rolling his chair a bit closer to Ed's bed. Ed's body shifted backwards just a bit of its own volition. "Would you mind waiting in my room for the First Lieutenant to show?" Mustang said to Alphonse. "She or Hughes should be here shortly, and I'd like a word with Fullmetal."

Ed blinked, eyes darting between Mustang and Al. He smelled an awkward and entirely one-sided conversation heading his way if Al left, and he wasn't sure he was in the mood for it.

But Al either didn't notice or didn't care about Ed's discomfort. "Sure. Maybe you can get Brother to drink his milk."

Ed glared.

Al tilted his helmet in a way that said if he'd had lips he'd be smirking, then the suit of armor turned and trudged out into the hallway, leaving Ed alone with Mustang.

The traitor.

The oxygen machine whispered, almost loud enough to mask the squeak of a passing cart out in the hallway.

And Mustang just looked at him with that analyzing stare, like he was splicing him apart with his gaze alone, ripping away what was in front of him to get at Ed's soul beneath.

Yeah, this was definitely uncomfortable.

Ed stared back, but his poker face wasn't nearly as good as Mustang's. After all, he wasn't a two-faced sociopath. He shifted uneasily against his pillows, automail fingers fiddling with the pages of his book.

"You saved my life again. Maybe twice."

Ed's eyes widened before he looked away, raising a hand to rub the side of his head. "Look," he said, or rather tried, lips moving even though no sound came out.

"You know I can't hear a word you're saying," Mustang said, amusement in his voice.

Ed looked at him again, both annoyed and maybe a little desperate. It was not a stretch to say he'd rather be eating rusted staples than having this conversation.

It reminded him of standing over Mustang in that old warehouse just a couple of weeks ago, when Mustang started telling him about how he'd died and how they'd had a funeral for him, and how somewhere out in the hills there was an empty grave, a small wooden cross bearing his name sunken into the cold earth where his body very well might have been, had things turned out differently.

Yeah, he didn't like following that particular train of thought, but Mustang seemed dead set on forcing him down it anyway. Maybe the man needed some sort of closure and thought Ed did, too.

Well, Ed most certainly did not, and as soon as it got overwhelmingly awkward, maybe he could just asphyxiate himself or something.

"Guess you'll just have to listen for a minute," Mustang continued.

Ed's lips twisted into a grim line and he redirected his gaze out the window in silent surrender.

The faster Mustang started talking, the faster he left, and the sooner Ed could pretend that this conversation never happened.

"I . . ." Mustang began, but stopped. Ed looked back at him, just in case he'd had a stroke. No such luck. "It was my fault, what happened to you in the first place, and—"

Ed picked up a wadded piece of paper and lobbed it at him.

It struck Mustang on the forehead. "Hey!"

Ed just shook his head. They'd already had this conversation and he had no desire to repeat it. He made a "move along" gesture with his hand.

Mustang scowled at him. "Fine. Anyway, I . . . I think," he looked over his shoulder like he was afraid somebody would be listening, then pitched his voice lower. "Things are different than they were. Are you aware?"

. . . to be fair, Mustang didn't always make sense on the best of days.

Ed's confusion must have been broadcasted across his features, because Mustang's own expression tightened. "Edward. There's something going on here that's a lot bigger than you."

Ed bristled.

"Not like that. There are things happening . . . that map, this country . . . Ed, we got lucky," he said, one hand grabbing the bridge of his nose. And was it just Ed, or was there a slight tremble in his fingers?

"You died." Mustang's voice cracked on the word. It took him a few seconds to start talking again. "Jean almost died. Riza, Hughes, Feury and I almost died. If what we're theorizing is true, this corruption goes above my head. I . . . I can't protect you from this, Fullmetal."

Fullmetal. In this kind of context, it was a sure sign Mustang was trying to disassociate from the conversation.

"I know how much you want to get your bodies back," he continued. "But after you get out of the hospital, I want you to take some leave."

Heat pooled inside Ed's gut like a flame springing from smoldering embers. Mustang wasn't even looking, though. Ed picked up his notepad and scribbled on the page, adding enough pressure to push the pen tip through the first page a few times.

"I want you to go back to Resembool and keep a low profile for a few months until this all plays out. There's too much going on right now . . . too much uncertainty. I want you two out of it until we can—hey!" he barked, the paper projectile hitting him between the eyes. Ed wasn't such a bad shot after all. "Stop throwing things!"

Ed gestured to the note with his pen, irritation carving tangible lines between his eyebrows.

Roy glanced between him and the paper, picking it up from his lap like it was a grenade. He unfolded it, the paper crinkling in his hands. "No?" he asked aloud, but Ed was pretty sure he'd put an exclamation mark at the end of that statement. He went back to his notebook. "What do you mean, 'no'? This isn't up for debate, Fullmetal." Telltale signs of anger heated his voice, making it lower than usual, tighter. "I want you and Alphonse as far away from this as possible. You want your brother safe, don't you? And you know as well as I do that he won't stay put without you."

It was a low blow and Mustang knew it.

Ed threw his next note.

Mustang caught it this time, scowling, opening it with a bit less trepidation and a bit more impatience. Ed kept writing. 'Al can take care of himself and so can I. We don't need a babysitter.' I beg to differ Fullmetal, but . . . can you stop writing for five seconds and listen?!"

Ed did no such thing. He had a lot to say, and less than seventy-five legal pad pages to say it in.

He was going to make this moron see reason if he had to write it on his eyeballs.

"Fullmetal." Before Ed saw it coming, the older man snatched the pad from his automail fingers, drawing a sharp slash across the page from Ed's surprised hand. Ed blinked then scowled, a snarl pulling his lips, but Mustang was already talking.

"Do you know what would happen if we lost you, you stupid brat?!" he hissed.

Ed paused, taken aback by the rawness of the question, the simple sentence laced with enough acid to melt steel.

Mustang was looking him in the eye now, and his gaze was powerful enough to hold Ed's own, dark eyes black with pain and fear, displayed in a way Ed had seen glimpses of during their time on the run, but now it was brought to bear on him like artillery. The Colonel looked away, over to the side, but it was too late to hide it.

The older man breathed through his nose once, twice, but composure seemed to be beyond him at the moment.

"We did lose you, Ed. We lost you for months! And I almost lost you again when you showed up on my hospital floor. And before that, with Lust, I had to-" his voice crumpled like a tin can, crushed with sharp edges.

Ed wasn't exactly proud that he had put Mustang in a situation where he had to, in effect, kill him. He would also be lying if he said he hadn't woken up from a handful of nightmares of being on fire, Truth's terrible voice laughing in the background while Ed writhed and suffocated on smoke . . .

It was a dumb, desperate stunt that ended up saving lives. Ed didn't regret it, but that didn't mean he had to like it.

Evidently Mustang was on the same train of thought. He stared at his hands in his lap, one thumb slipping against his middle finger almost mindlessly, a blankness in his eyes now that Ed wasn't sure he liked any more than the rawness.

"This isn't a game, Edward. These people, these things, they are very real and very dangerous, and just because one of them is dead now . . . we don't know how many are left and what they're planning on doing, and I know I can't keep you out of all of it, but I can make it as difficult to get to you as possible. Just some space between you and the military right now would give us a chance to—what?"

Ed gestured at the notepad.

Scowl returning, Roy looked down at the paper in his lap.

"You can't chase us away from this. We're involved now, we're already 'perfect sacrifices, or whatever, and a few hundred miles isn't going to change that. I—" Mustang looked from the note to Ed, his hand loosening it's white-knuckled grip just a fraction, the anger melting into something closer to understanding than it had been a second ago. Ed felt heat in his cheeks but held his gaze until Mustang directed it back to the note. "I'm not going to lose any more family, and that unfortunately includes you, you self-centered, scum licking, scruffy looking old—"

Mustang blinked, then swallowed. A strained smile pulled at his lips. Somehow, the expression softened the haunted look in his eyes by a fraction. "That last part was just excessive."

Ed smirked. They were once more back on solid ground.

And Ed didn't even have to pull the asphyxiation card.

Mustang slumped in his chair, propping his head on his fist and giving Ed that look that felt like he was staring right to the core of him. "You are too stubborn, Fullmetal."

Ed relaxed back into his pillows and arched an eyebrow.

Mustang regarded him a few moments more. "And there's nothing I can possibly say to convince you?"

Ed shook his head and resisted the urge to roll his eyes. It seemed childish at the moment.

"I want you boys safe," Mustang continued quietly. If Ed hadn't been staring right at him he might have missed it entirely.

The irony of it was, with a target on their backs, there was probably no place in this country safer than here, right in Colonel Roy Mustang's shadow.

Yeah, irony sucked.

Without a voice, Ed reached out his flesh hand and patted the older man on the head.

Mustang scowled, but didn't brush him aside. "Now you're mocking me."

Ed grinned and gestured for his notepad back. Mustang obliged, leaning in to look over Ed's hand and read aloud, "I just remembered I owe you something." Mustang looked up at Ed. "What's that?"

Ed smiled sweetly.

Mustang squinted suspiciously.

Then Ed hauled off and punched Mustang in his stupid, smarmy, could-see-him-the-entire-time face.

Being alive, Ed decided, certainly had its perks.

Fin.