A/N: I do love this series. It's just so awesome. ^.^ Anyway, the lyrics featured in this story are from several different songs. If you want to know what lyrics are from what songs and who sings them, feel free to ask in a review!

And here I go again,

Struggling the same way I did before.

Stuck at the same dead end

But finding that I'm liking it here more and more.

The door to the library swung open, a loud bang letting everyone in there know someone had just entered the building, as Edward stalked inside. No one bothered to tell him to 'keep it down' like they did with the other people there. No one even looked up at him. They were all used to his attitude by now; he came in almost every day after all. It would be hard to get accustomed to him.

He made his way over to the same table that he always sat at. It was still filled with the thick volumes that he'd been going over the last time he stopped by. The librarians never moved his books any more, it was just easier to let him put them away himself when he was finally finished with them. Edward slid into his seat; one hand flipping open a volume written almost completely in Xingese, the other pulling out his pen and note-book from his jacket pocket.

Edward had been slowly struggling through his currant selection of books, eight large things that had been so covered in dust it was easy to believe they had never been opened before, for almost three months now. He could tell there was something in them, hidden behind all the warnings and complex calculations, but he hadn't been able to actually find what he was looking for.

The funny thing was, he didn't really mind spending hours in the library any more. It was one of the few, if not the only, building that he could get near-complete peace. One of the only places that his state of mind wasn't so filled with blood and horrors he should never have seen that he could actually think. Actually focus on the important things.

It's so repetitive-

All the words that spill out of my tongue.

I hope that you don't mind.

I sing it all the time.

He pushed the door to Mustang's unit-office open, an uncaring look plastered on his face. The steps across the near-empty office, filled only by the ever-faithful Second Liutenent, were so familiar it hurt. They were the same steps he took every day.

Mustang asked for his report, the usual slips making fun of the younger boys writing slipping easily into the demands, and Edward returned with the same vigour and the same anger that he always did. No one could tell how much of it was fake.

He didn't want Mustang to notice, to actually realize, that it was always the same banter these days. That the words Ed used that day were the same ones that he had used the day before and the day before that and the week before that...

He sent a remark about Mustang being 'useless' in the Colonol's direction before turning and stalking out of the office. But his heart wasn't in it that day and even the way he walked, normally proud and filled with an anger that no one could put out, was sluggish and defea-no. Not defeated. Just a little off.

We spent so many nights trying hard to fix what wasn't right.

But it was only time, and time away is time spent on the run.

But I was crumbling.

My words were stumbling.

The truth was humbling

And all it took was just one more chance to say.

Alphonse and him had spen so long trying to fix their mistakes. Their sins. Change their lies. Night after night had been spent by Edward, sitting at the desk in their crappy dorm room, trying to find the way to fix it and bring his little brother back.

But it was that time, the sleepless hours that filled his days, that was slowly driving him insane. The time that he spent on the run; searching the whole country, chasing down false leads, fighting people that he wished he'd never met. And it was in those times, when he was running for his life, that he realized what was happening.

He was falling. His movements were stiff, his vision blurry, his whole body ached in tiredness. Everything hurt all the time. There were days even when he was barely able to lift his automail enough to get him out of his bed and down to the library. He was crumbling.

The words that he said to every one, the 'I'm fine's and the 'don't worry about me's, were turning into blatant lies. The people around him were starting to notice that it wasn't real. That something was wrong with him.

And everytime he passed them, heard their whispered murmurs, the Truth was more than happy to tell him how right they were. He was never going to be able to bring his brother back, he was just going to kill himself trying. He was losing the Game.

So when Mustang caught him that day, sleep deprived and hurting, outside of the library...He answered his question without struggle.

Run fast for your mother,run fast for your father
Run for your children, all your sisters and brothers
Leave all your love and your longing behind,
You can't carry it with you if you want to survive.

"You run fast to keep your life, Colonol. You run and you try to win the race so that you can protect your family and the people that you care about. It's why we fight in this war.

"I'm not going to pretend that I know what you run for. I'm not going to pretend that I care either. I don't want to know who you're trying to protect or what you want to save."

"I know who I run for though. I run for my brother. Simple as that. I run for Alphonse and I'm gonna keep running for him."

"You leave everything that you have ever loved behind you when you start to run. You leave everything that you've ever wanted to accomplish, all of your goals and your dreams, behind you when run."

"You can't keep it with you if you want to win the race you started. Not if you want to survive. What you're trying to protect has to be everything to you or all those challenges that Life throws at you, they'll trip you up and knock you down. Alphonse is what I run for and he's everything to me. I'm just trying to keep him safe, Colonol. I'm just trying to keep him safe."

But I can still remember what his face looked like
When I found him in an alley in the middle of the night

It had been a late night at the office. More paper-work than he usually had to sign, something that he was sure that Riza did to him on purpose. And while Roy had no idea what he'd been signing he clearly remembered taking the short-cut to his house, one of the many back allies in Central, and what he found that night.

Golden hair loose from it's braid; the tangled tresses framing his face like tattered curtains framed a broken and boarded up window. The skin on his face, far more pale than it should be, was pulled tight into a look of pure misery. And his eyes...His eyes were almost too painful to look at. So full of hurt and a look that screamed 'I've given up, I'm done'.

Did some things you can't speak of,
But at night you live it all again,
You wouldn't be shattered on the floor right now,
If only you saw what you know now then.

Mustang took Edward home that night, layed some blankets out on the couch, and told him to get some sleep. He couldn't tell if the look on Ed's face was one of gratitude or not. But he couldn't help but think about what was doing this to the younger alchemist.

The flaxen haired boy had done a lot of things that he shouldn't have, things that no one his age should ever have had to do, and it had been stupid of Roy to think that those images didn't affect him somehow. It was obvious to him now though that the thoughts of death and of blood haunted him at night. The way he was tossing and turning and already twisted beyond belief in the blankets was proof enough of that.

The young alchemist was shattered, broken into thousands of pieces that no one could ever completely repair, by all that he'd seen and done. And his younger brother was none the wiser, just like Roy had been not to long ago. And it shouldn't have happened.

If only he'd known what he did now back when everything started. Back when he tried to bring his mother, and then his brother, back to him. He wouldn't be trying to run in an impossible race if he did; wouldn't be laying broken on Roy's couch...

He thought that he was a monster and this was his payment for his sins.

It's all right,
Just wait and see,
Your stranged lights are still bright to me,
Oh, who you are is not what you've been,
You're still an innocent...
You're stil an innocent.

Roy sat himself down on the edge of his couch, one hand brushing a strand of hair out of the younger boy's face, a small frown on his face. "It's all right, Ed."

If the boy would just give it a little bit of time, he'd heal. If he'd put himself up on the same level as his brother, instead of at the bottom of his concerns, and cared for himself a little bit, it would get better. He just had to give it a little time.

Edward's lights, the bright determination that had shined off of him the day they had first met, had faded but they hadn't gone out. At least, not in Roy's eyes. The younger boy might have thought they were gone, all but destroyed, but to Roy they were shining brighter than ever. It took real strength, real determination, to keep himself as low on his list of concerns as he was.

Who Ed was is not what he'd done or where he'd been. He wasn't a killer. He wasn't a Dog of The Military. He wasn't a warrior or a scholar or a defender.

Edward was just a little boy trying to save the last person he had. Just a kid trying to keep his brother alive and happy, even if it meant that he wasn't. He was still innocent.

"You're still innocent, Ed. You're still innocent."

The End

A/N 2: Yeah...Sorry...I know that was aweful.