Levi looked upon the blond boy before him, concern etched upon his face. He sighed, sweeping red locks away from emerald eyes before he moved forward. "Hey..." he whispered, kneeling. "Calm down, alright? You know us and we're not them. Remember?"

The boy before him had wild eyes, frightened with a spark of insanity shining bright. His arms were held behind him, Fullmetal had restrained him after recieving a nasty blow to his right cheekbone, much to his chagrin. Fullmetal was not taking any more chances with him after that incident.

Edward looked around him, questioning.

"Did you really think you could hide from us after The Incident?" Fullmetal inquired, voice deep yet light and airy simultaneously.

Levi leveled a glare at Metal, green eyes piercing, screaming a silent warning. When he looked back at the boy, his eyes returned to the soft tenderness the held before. "You know we wouldn't let you handle this on your own. That's why I'm here, Edward. I'm the caretaker, it's my job to make sure that you're alright. Fullmetal's just here because he helped me find you. You know how good a tracker he is."

A pause.

"Are you calm now? If you are, Metal will let go of you, just so long as you don't try to punch him again."

Edward looked at Levi, recognising his red and green color scheme and the kind, slightly crooked smile upon his face. Tensed muscles relaxed and he nodded.

Levi beamed, nodding to Fullmetal who released the blond's arms and stepped back.

Edward looked at the person who had held him down.

He had a physique resembeling Scar's and features that were definately Xingese in origin, though his eyes were a striking gunmetal gray instead of the deep brackish brown the easterners usually possessed. His face was stern, impossible to read, but for a slight slant of his brow. He was concerned. Though this wasn't unusual for Fullmetal and Ed had become accustomed to it after the months he spent in hell.

He appeared just as his name; Fullmetal, indeed.

"You're not allowed to go missing like that again, Edward." Fullmetal ran a hand through his short hair, black strands somehow still retaining their smoothed down appearance.

Levi nodded, "Not again. Not like this- without warning or telling us where you'll be or even what's going on." He placed a large hand upon Ed's head, ruffling it. "Hell, just tell us you need time to be alone or something and we wont ask questions. It's just...we worry about you Ed. I mean after-" he cut himself off, voice stuck in his throat.

It was silent and everyone understood.

There would be no talk of that place in here.

Not with Edward.

A week had passed and there had been no sign of Edward. News had yet to reach Fari.

Fari had been 'forward', as he called it, the entire time and was beginning to worry.

This worry had manifested itself in the creation of origami.

Paper cranes, cats, dogs, stars, frogs and what Roy swore up and down was an exact replica (small scale, of course. Perhaps one tenth the size.) of Alphonse Elric (the armor he had previously animated) covered the hospital room Fari had been staying in. With the lack of any news from within, and the bedrest and morphine either driving him crazy or screwing with his mental capability respectably, the action of doing something with his hands (well, hand really, his automail was still vacant) allowed him a slight cease of the stress.

The fact that he had created a paper version of his brother without the use of alchemy one handed had impressed those who entered his room. Which were few, namely Roy and the hospital staff that tended to the boy.

Alphonse and Winry had only been informed of Edward's rescue three days prior and were due to be arriving in only a few hours.

Roy was hoping that things between the trio wouldn't be awkward with Fari forward instead of the blond the two were expecting.

Fari was merely praying to all of the nonexistant gods he didn't believe in that he was not going to get a wrench to the face the second Winry entered the room and discovered what had happened to her beloved automail.

Fari had just finished up a pleated paper top hat from two large sheets of paper he had glued together by placing a royal purple lily on the side before he placed it on Roy's head. A small, amused smile was placed upon the blond's face at Roy's dower expression, only made amusing by the incredible hat Fari had just made.

It was at this point that a knock sounded and Alphonse flew into the room, preventing a startled nurse from entering.

"Brother!"

"Alphonse? You're here quite earlyyy-OW! OW OW OW!" Fari shouted as Alphonse hugged him close.

Al jolted and loosened his grip. "Sorry Brother. It's just..." He trailed off and took a step back, noticing Roy. "Why are you in a paper top hat?" the younger Elric looked back toward his brother, taking in his features.

Blond hair covered his left eye and a small amount of stubble had grown onto his features, left unshaven from his stay. He was relaxed, though slightly tensed, not as much as he usually was, and there was papercraft everywhere.

"You know..." Alphonse started, picking up an origami cat, "You should really find another way to vent your stress, Fari. Imagine all the trees it took to make all of this paper."

Roy started, surprised at the revelation. Though he honestly should have expected Al to know.

Fari merely looked away from his brother (Roy offhandedly wondered how the sibling relationship worked in their unique case), "It could always be some sort of terrible habit, though. Honestly, I could just as well be burning people's houses down with combustible lemons. Which would you prefer, the origami or burning people?"

The room became silent as Fari and Alphonse stared each other down.

"Did you just imply that you have created combustible lemons?"

"Yes. Yes I did. What do you have against my combustible lemons?"

"I don't have anything against them."

"Obviously you do, judging by the perturbed look writ upon your face."

"Actually, what perturbs me more is the fact that you've somehow convinced the Colonel to keep that paper top hat on for this long. Also the fact that you even came up with the idea for flaming lemons disturbs me."

"I've also created a device that allows the user to get between 2 points in the shortest distance by making aforementioned points the same point."

Roy looked between the two, after removing the ridiculous hat, wondering what was going on.

"Really, now? The following sentence is false. The previous sentence is true."

"What? But that doesn't make any sense! If the second sentence is false, then the first must be true, but then if the first sentence is true that means the second is false. There is absolutely no logic there! How would you even figure that out?" the elder Elric muttered to himself for a short while longer, "You know what? Fuck your paradoxes!"

And with that, Fari placed his head down harshly on the pillow, faced the wall, and promptly went to sleep.

Hopefully, you guys understand all of the references at the end there. If not, then feel free to PM me and I'll explain.

sorry for the sporadic update schedule, it's going to stay like this indefinitely, due to the fact that I work and watch younger siblings during the day, leaving little time for sleep let alone writing.

Animus: honestly, we're supposed to be sleeping now, cause we've gotta be up in about 3 hours to catch a plane!

so be happy I'm updating right now for you guys! Sorry if any of this doesn't make any sense, it's about 12:40 AM my time, and I've been running off 10 hours of sleep for the past 3 days.