A/N: this is the edited version, in case anyone might have (although it's unlikely) read the older version a while ago! I came back and edited it because the way I wrote it the first time around was starting to bother me, heh. So it's back now, hopefully it'll be better. I'm also back to writing fanfiction for FMA, which I wasn't doing for the longest time…

Other important stuff: this is set in the world Ed and Al are from, but there are also some little (big) changes at the same time. Like Alphonse and his body. PS, I haven't finished the manga or Brotherhood yet so I'm not trying to build off of the ending or anything, I'm writing in the first anime universe! Thank you, and please review if you'd like! (Also: I do not own FMA, obviously)

Chapter 1
Snow

"Meghan!" called Lee, shining a flashlight at his partner to grab her attention. "I found something–come look!"

Shielding her eyes, the girl stood up. "Coming!" she shouted, starting to trudge through the snow and wincing as the landed on her eyelids.

As she approached him, she was about to speak, but she stopped at the sight of Lee brushing snow off half-buried limbs. Two male bodies donned in winter clothes started to take shake as she knelt down to help. Both the boys' eyes were closed. One was draped over the other, as if in a feeble attempt to keep him warm.

Although Meghan had seen incidents like this all the time with travelers who easily became victims of the bitter cold, she'd never seen any of them be this protective. Normally travelers were so desperate to reach the town that they'd forsake the companions that were probably their friends. They were always selfish, Meghan had decided.

"We shouldn't take anything," said Lee.

"Why?" she asked, startled.

"They're actually alive, somehow. I checked their pulses" he answered, hauling one of them out of the snow as carefully as possible. "If you don't believe me, you can check for yourself."

"No, no, I believe you," said Meghan, holding out her arms in her offer to take the boy. At least, she wanted to believe Lee. The boy she was holding seemed lighter than she'd expected. She wrapped his arm around her shoulders and helped him stay up with her own arm around his waist.

"That one's probably the younger one," Lee grunted as he lifted the other. "God, this one must have metal in his pockets or something! It's a good thing the town isn't far from here."

Meghan laughed uneasily at her colleague's complaints as she began dragging herself and the boy through the thick layers of snow. "Ready?"

He nodded. "Yeah, but Meg, we should really hurry," Lee huffed, already panting after a few feet of walking by Meghan's side. She almost wanted to disagree, but she knew that Lee would not be happy if she told him to take it easy when these two boys' lives were at stake. At the same time, she, too, wanted to hurry.

"Mhm," Meghan nodded as they both picked up the pace a bit. The boy on her shoulder was certainly far from being warm, but after a bit she could feel his breathing strengthen as she chest pushed out and filled with more air each time. Slowly increasing. Meghan was about ready to sigh in relief.

The air froze her throat as she inhaled, then thawing when she exhaled. Moving that whole breathing job to her nose did nothing but turn her nose hairs into temporary icicles. Fatigue was setting in quickly; she tried distracting herself, concentrating on warm fireplaces and blankets that waited for her back home. And walking-she focused on that task, too.

"Almost there,"

Meghan looked over at Lee as he exhaled huge clouds of air each time he took a step.

"Okay."

Their arrival at the gate shocked the guards. It wasn't as if they were surprised over the fact that Meghan and Lee returned safely. They were more startled over the bodies that the two scouts were carrying. The most out-of-the-ordinary thing that they'd brought home consisted of a lie of bags, full of treasure they'd taken from frozen-to-death travelers, as gruesome as it was to think about. But Meghan and Lee never brought people home in their entire careers as town scouts.

"Any IDs on them?" The thick and burly guard Buck opened the door to the guards' station as the Meghan and Lee entered, carrying the two boys with them.

"I didn't find any," Lee said breathlessly. The warm air of the station rushed over him and nearly burned his freezing ears. Meghan shivered and welcomed any burning feeling as long as she could still feel her fingers after all.

"We should…set them down…by the fire," Meghan put her person in a rocking chair, brushing snow from his clothes while Lee gently kicked another chair over and did the same. Meghan warmed her hands by the fire and used her somewhat heated palms to cup the boy's face with, hoping to help warm him. Or thaw him.

Buck returned, bringing cups of tea. He set one down next to Meghan. "For him," he said, placing another at its side and glancing at Lee. "Him, too. Vivian left your favorite tea here for your return."

"Thank you," said Meghan, putting her hands on the mug for extra heat.

"I supposed it's better for them to have it, isn't it?" asked the guard with a friendly smile on his face.

Meghan nodded. "Definitely. Thanks." She tilted the boy's head back, attempting to part his pale, icy lips. Taking the spoon, she dipped it in the tea and brought it dangerously close to his mouth.

"Hey, hey, what are you doing? It's hot! Just wait for a little," scolded Lee.

"Oh…sorry," she hastily slurped it down instead. "Ow! That was hot!"

"Yeah, imagine what that would've done to him," he sighed. "Meg, it looks like they're warming up."

"Why do you say that?"

"First of all, they're starting to drip…"

"Oh…" she looked down to seetiny water droplets falling one-by-one off the boy's coat. "Towels…we need towels. Otherwise they'll just freeze up when we go back outside,"

"Right you are," Lee nodded. "I'll get some from Buck. Why don't you take off their coats? Maybe they'll dry faster?" he suggested just before disappearing to find the main guard.

Meghan first took off the younger boy's coat, being as speedy as she could and putting it up on the hanger. She did the same for the older boy, although she paused when she noticed the glint from inside his jacket. After a second, she pulled the sleeve away and found herself staring again. Not just the metal itself, but the fact that the metal was his arm. His entire right arm was automail. Meghan was used to seeing people with automail; not that many, but they never were travelers she'd find. Not to mention that travelers from the outside weren't particularly common in the first place.

"What an idiot," she whispered, pulling off his coat completely. "Did he not know how cold it can be here at night?" But then she laughed. Lee was right, he actually had metal on him-in the literal sense.

"Automail?"

Lee returned, with a bunch of towels hanging in the crook of his elbow. He tossed one to her.

"Yeah," she said as she caught it. "Pretty dumb, don't you think?"

"No kidding," Lee knelt down after placing one of the towels around the guy's neck. "From what I can tell, it isn't suited for this kind of weather. Harry should be able to fix this, though, for sure. We just have to get him there as soon as possible."

Meghan nodded and took her eyes away from her friend as she dabbed at the boy's damp, light brown hair. As she wiped a few melted snowflakes off his eyelids, she felt them start to flutter underneath her fingertips, and she could feel how warm his head was. "Lee!"

No response.

"Lee?" She tried again, looking over at him this time. And of course, he was rubbing the boy's automail, seemingly in a trance. That was the town's best mechanic-in-training, no doubt. "Um, Lee."

He jumped. "What?"

"I think he's waking up." By the time she said it, a pair of grey eyes were peering up at her, wide and unmoving from her face. "Scratch that-he's awake, there's no mistake. Oh jeez-" she stumbled backwards as he sprung forth, eyes wild as she looked around, back and forth between Lee and Meghan and the other boy. Meghan hit the floor instantly but lifted a hand in his general direction, "Hey, calm down-"

"Where am I?"

"Cosmo Town," said Lee.

"Who are you two?"

"I'm Lee," he continued, "that's Meghan. We found you in the snow. Hey-HEY-just calm down. We didn't do anything to you, you have all your fingers and toes and limbs and whatnot so sit back down before you hurt yourself."

Meghan lifted herself into a crouch again, rubbing her right shoulder. The boy kept glancing around nervously, and Meghan could tell that he didn't completely trust them yet. A few more seconds passed and he was still standing, but his gaze rested against the other traveler's exposed metal arm. There was a look of disbelief on his face, like something that wasn't supposed to happen had, well, happened.

"You're sick, you should sit down," Meghan started. Whether or not he was listening to her wishes or doing it because of his own volition, he obeyed. "What's your name?"

He hesitated. Meghan handed him the cup of tea at his side, hoping that by now it was safer for a chilled mouth and wouldn't provide instant teeth-cracking. Lee went back to polishing the other's automail. "My name is Alphonse."

"Nice to meet you Alphonse," she said. At least they were getting somewhere. Kind of. She was about to say her own name when she remembered that Lee had already taken care of it. The other questions swirling in her head were ones she had a feeling he would be equally as hesitant over as the name one, the easiest one. Right now seemed like a bad time. "Lee, is he awake yet?"

Lee shook his head, supressing a sigh just as Meghan was about to do. Alphonse cut her off. "Is my brother going to be okay?"

"He's your brother?" Meghan asked, although once he said it, she could see the resemblance perfectly. And then she remembered Alphonse's temperature. "Um, you know, you should worry about yourself right now. Do you feel okay?"

"Me?" his eyebrows lifted innocently. "I'm fine! Please, don't worry about me."

She blinked. Seriously? "We found you buried in the snow. That's kind of a cause for concern, in case you didn't know. People don't usually make it to our town," she added.

"This is Cosmo Town, right?" he asked, and Meghan nodded. "Thank you."

"If you don't mind me asking," she shifted so that she was standing now, walking over to the coat rack. "What business do you two have here?"

Alphonse averted his eyes. He didn't say anything until Lee piped up. "Hey, is this what I think it is?"

"Don't touch that, it's my brother's!" Alphonse half-shouted, right before collapsing into a fit of coughs. Meghan put her hand against his shoulder. His lean body shook with each one that came through his throat; Meghan had to hold onto the mug of tea for him so it wouldn't spill.

"Take it easy, Alphonse."

"Is this a State Alchemist watch? That's what they get in Amestris," said Lee, trying to speak over Alphonse's fit of coughing, but it only crescendoed. "Does this have anything to do with you being here? Hey, Alphonse-"

"Lee, give him a break, he's sick."

"Meghan, our country has a stressed relationship with theirs already! Having these State Alchemists here is only going to upset our town!" Lee objected.

"So what do you suggest?" Meghan was close to yelling, as she came back over to Alphonse. She had her hand on his arm, hardly noticing that it made him feel just a tad uncomfortable. "That was just throw them back out into the snow and let the weather deal with them? They're just from the potential enemy state so who cares if they freeze to death-is that what you think, Lee?"

"Meghan, stop that. You know I don't care about politics."

"Sure seems like you've started to in the past minute or so."

"I'm just thinking about our town. It doesn't matter what I think-like I said, having these State Alchemists here is going to make everyone else nervous."

Alphonse started to calm down, taking a gulp of warm tea before speaking. "I'm not a State Alchemist. Only my brother is."

Lee glanced at the watch in his hand, tossing it in the air and catching it again. Meghan noticed the apprehension in Alphonse's features; how they scrunched up and relaxed as the metal fell back into Lee's palm without any damage. "It's still not a good idea."

"I don't care what you think, Lee," she held Alphonse's coat out for him, helping as he slipped each arm into a sleeve, reluctantly. "I'm bringing Alphonse over to the Drapers'."

"Be careful," he said. Or at least, he tried. Meghan was out the door, arm around Alphonse's waist, before he could say much else. He tucked the State Alchemist's watch back into his shirt pocket.

Once the door was closed behind them, Meghan wrapped her own scarf around Alphonse's neck. "Sorry about that. Lee is a nice guy, really. No, he's not just a nice guy, he's a great one."

Teeth already chattering, Alphonse nodded. "I didn't-didn't think he w-wasn't." His eyes were almost glossing over already. In her mind, Meghan started to map out where they kept the best fever medicine back home.

"The house isn't far, no worries," she exhaled a smooth cloud of condensed air in front of her face. "He thinks about the town over almost everything else, though. That's one of his downfalls, I guess."

The rest of their walk was quiet, save for the sounds of their boots crunching in the snow, and the sound of rumbling stomachs. Alphonse surveyed the town through his hazy eyes and a headache that was just beginning to take behind his forehead. Cosmo Town was covered in a blanket of snow that appeared natural the way it piled up around roads, on roofs, on sidewalks, on people's porches, and nearly everywhere else that hadn't been cleared up. There weren't many people out, it must have been too cold, even for the locals. Barely any lights were on besides the streetlamps. Maybe it was merely late, and the locals were in their beds, sleeping.

"You really don't look so good," her grip on him tightened when she needed to fish something out of her pocket with her other hand. Alphonse blinked a few times until he was staring through an open, dark doorway. Meghan helped him across the threshold and switched a light on. "Eh, my friends might be a bit startled, but they're good people. They wouldn't kick you out or anything," she said with a laugh as they entered the living room, seating him on the couch. "I'll take your coat, you take this blanket. Alphonse?"

"Is my…is my brother going to be okay?" he asked, eyelids heavy. Soon, the warmth of the room was suffocating him. Or his head was truly getting to him. Or it was both. "Meghan, is Brother okay?"

Meghan covered him with the wool blanket and made sure the pillow was secured under his head. If Lee didn't show up soon, she would surely have to go find out, herself. "Just try to get some good rest. Don't think too much."

Without a response, Meghan pulled a chair over, sat by the window, and anticipated Lee's arrival. With Edward, or else, she thought. Meghan rested her arms and chin against the window sill. In all honesty, though, she was never particularly good at issuing threats.