This next chapter will contain some graphic description of violence and foul language.

Please give me feedback on the format. I'm still trying some different ways to make it easier to read! :-)

The flames ingulfed his body. He felt them catching onto his arm, and then onto his leg, pinning him down to the floor. The pain was excruciating, and they would not let him go.

«Mom!» He yelled, voice breaking. The thick, black smoke forcing his troat shut.

Where was his mom?

«Help, mom!»

Still nothing.
Edward turned his head to look around the room.
Alphonse, he remembered. Where was Alphonse?

Fuled by the thought of his helpless baby brother, he forced himself to break through his chains of fire. Getting back to his feet, he saw the roaring fireplace, expectorating spitballs of fire through the room. The sight of the ominous stonebuilt fireside, previously associated with cozy and warm evenings spent with his family, made him paralyzed with fear. It had large flaming teeth, eating away at anything that came close to its mouth. It grabbed a hold of his right arm. Ed screamed from hurt and panic. A wicked laughter came from the beast, before Ed finally was able to break free. He gasped as he realized it had chewed his arm off. A warm liquid started to dribble from his eyes, and he grasped at where is arm was supposed to be.

«Nononono.» Ed cried, and looked up with tearfull orbs at the monster that was eating his body.

His family.

His entire life.

Ed's eyes shut open widly, when he saw what it had started to devour next. Inside of the flaming gap of fangs, he saw his mother, holding his young brother tightly. Her face looked twisted as the flames tore at her clothes, dragging her down to her knees. She screamed.

«M-mom! Get out of there!» Ed shouted as loud as his small lungs could muster.

«Let go of them!»

Ed ran towards them, but stopped dead in his tracks when his mother's skin started to melt off of her skeleton. His brother bawled his little heart out, and the sound broke Edwards heart. Two flamy arms reached out of the side of the gap, and grabbed onto Alphonse, forcing the child from the embrace of their mother. Her eyes widened, and kept widening until they were unaturally big. The skin peeling off her face, her bones showing and blood bursting out from underneah the burnt flesh. Her mouth followed her eyes, jaw unhinged, as a high pitch howl escaped her body, and uncontrolled hysteric sobs made her body shake. Melting arms tried to reach for her young son. Ed stood and watched in terror. His tears had frozen in his eyes, despite the high temperature.

"M-mom..." he finally managed to say, and his mom's dissolving body turned around to look at him. That was when her eyeballs dropped from her skull.

"What have you done?" His mother's voice sounded like it had dropped an octave, as it sneered towards him.

"Mom."

"You devil child."

"Please."

"You evil, good for nothing..."

"I'm sorry."

"Just like your father. You destroy everything you toutch."

The fireplace got the hold of his leg.
Ed cried.
His mother's body withered in front of him, and her bones started to poke out from her body.

"Poisonous..."

"It hurts!"

"Little piece of shit."

Ed startled awake, gasping for air with tears sprung from his eyes.

Every night.

He wiped some sweat on the edge of his duvet, catching his breath while covering his face. It's all my fault. I deserved everything I got. He hid for a while, waiting until his tears stopped running, when he heard the heavy snores. 'It sounds like at least someone is getting a good night sleep.' he thought, but feeling as if it sounded too close to come from the room on the other side of the hall.

Wait.

He peeked over his duvet. Roy layed, fast asleep, slung over his bed, seated in a chair pulled close to Ed's bed. 'That perv... Oh, right'. Ed realized he had probably cried out in his sleep again. His pillows were placed on the footing of the bed, where he knew they probably hadn't originally been. So, Roy had checked in on him. Ed felt embarressed, but could not deny feeling some warmth in his chest by the gesture. Then, it turned into guilt. He had worried Roy, and been an inconvenience. Disrupting the man's sleep. Probably his whole life too. Why was he even still here? Ed frowned, and even though his mind was not quite ready to go back to sleep, his body was very much so.

"I am sorry Roy." He whispered, and laid back down.

"I mean... bastard."

Roy decided to work at home the next day. He always carried a messenger bag of paperwork, just in case he would actually feel like doing some work at home. Ed had been placed in the sofa in Roy's home office, his ankle tightly bandaged and rised on an pillow along side a stable of books he had picked out from Roy's library. He had shut off again, but not because of trauma this time. The many books in Roy's home had swallowed and devoured the kid completely. Roy smiled as he gazed across the room. This was the first time in the last 24 hours he had seen the boy relax. He clearly needed it. Roy needed it too. This morning Ed had woken up with a bad chough and a runny nose. His leg wasn't looking any better either. Actually it looked worse, and that worried him.

The rest of the day went by mostly uneventfull. Roy had worked for a couple of hours, and Ed had been reading. They were even being sivile towards eachother. Some quarreling had occurred, but that was to be expected. They had also decided that Ed's best method of transportation around the house was on Roy's shoulders. At first it had been a challenge. Ed's wounded pride coming in the way. But then it seemed like he started to enjoy it. Ed was curious about everything, and seated on Roy's shoulders, he could follow along without being too much of a hinder.

After getting Ed off to bed that night, Roy could not sleep. He had felt so inadequate last night, while today had been kind of fun. That was just as unsetteling for Roy. Tomorrow he had to go back to the office, and Ed couldn't stay home by himself while sick and injured. He probably had to bring him. Maybe he should take Ed to the infirmary to look at his leg while they were there. Roy sighed. He could already hear Havoc and Breda's comments about him becoming soft. Maybe he was, because when did he start to care about what those clowns thought? Hawkeye would be pleased with him though. Roy caught himself smiling. He shook his head. Naaaah, he definetly didn't care what she thought of him.

Okay, maybe just a little.

Ed sat on Roy's shoulders as they arrived at the HQ the next morning. He was not too happy with having to tag along to Roy's office, so Roy had left out the part of Ed seeing a doctor. Ed had been very assertive that he could take care of himself. But eventually Roy had talked him into coming willingly, bribing him with the HQ offical library.

At least they seemed to be the first ones arriving, Ed thought, a bit self conscious about his place on the colonel's shoulders.

"Good morning." Hawkeye greeted automatically, not lifting her eyes from a form in front of her.

Ed had been wrong.

"Good morning, first leuntnant." Roy answered, seeming unfaced by her presence.

"Morning." Ed chimed in. At first, Riza did not seem to react to the new addition to the office, but after a couple of seconds she arched her eyebrows, looking up at the strange couple. She looked them over, before setteling into a small smile.

"Nice to see you Edward." she told the boy, and gave Roy an affirmative smile.

"He sprained his ankle." Roy felt the need to explain, as he realized it might look a bit weird, giving a, no matter how small, 16 year old a piggyback ride. He knew Riza would not judge, and was clearly just satisfied that Roy had ended up taking care of the kid after all.

After about an hour of work, Roy finally brought Edward to the library as he had promised. Edward almost jumped off his back with eagerness as they entered the comfortably lit room. Still with the boy sitting on his shoulders, Roy got a couple of military files out of a locked office drawer. While reading silently, he stood by Ed's choice of bookcase, letting him look through the shelf. After a couple of minutes, Roy looked up from his reading.

"Have you found something jet?"

"Uh..."

"Hey!" Roy closed his file, catching the boy in reading it from his position over the Colonel's head. "These are confidential!"

"Sorry." Ed smiled in emabarresment. "What does debellatio mean?"

"I am not discussing military buisness with you, Edward." Roy snarrled.
Ed still looked like he wanted to say something, but decided against it when hearing Roy's threatening tone. In stead, he grabbed a book, balancing it between himself and the back of Roy's head, and then picked up another one.

"Kay, done."

Roy turned around to leave the library when seeing Havoc standing by another bookshelf, smoking his cigarette as he usally did. What did seem different was the surprised look on his face, that had replaced his regular carefree and crooked smile. It was not hard for Roy to understand that it was because of his new sligtly unconventional neck piece, Edward.

"Lt. Havoc." Roy adressed his subordinate, as he passed him by, while Ed gave an overly ceremonial, but probably sarcastic, salute.

"You know, Edward," Roy said, while they walked down the long hallway connecting the office area and the library. "Giving a salute with your left hand is considered extremely insulting." Ed answered with a slap in the back of the Colonel's head.

"Screw you, Colonel fatass."

"My... my ass isn't fat."

Edward's last comment had made their next stop a lot easier. In stead of going into the offices, Roy made a turn and opned a door that revield a stairwell. He followed the stairs down two floors to the basement. Opening the next door, they immidietly left the feeling of an office building behind. This was a hospital. Roy felt Ed's hand pinch the top of his head, grabbing onto his hair.

"Ouch, stop that!" He sneered, brushing Edward's hand off.

"W... Why... why did we come down here?" Ed sounded pleadingly.

Roy let out a deep breath.

"Your ankle is looking worse everyday." he explained with forced patience.

"N-no, it's better. It's fine. I'm sure." Ed stuttered, being awfully on guard, turning his head at every sound in the steril enviorment.

"It'll be fine Edward, they're just going to look at it. Maybe an x-ray. It's nothing to worry about."

A young man in a white coat approched them. He was a bit shorter than Roy, had his blonde hair cut pin-short to cover up primature balding, and was wearing glasses with frames that was way to big for his small head.

"Colonel Mustang, nice to see you." he smiled, and shook Roy's hand before turning his attention at Ed.

"You must be Edward. I'm Dr. Leroy Munch."

Fittingly enough, Ed thought, looking for the man's hairline.

Dr. Munch reached his hand to formaly greet the boy with an overwhelmingly positive attitude, but Ed's stubbornes made sure that the gesture went unanswered. Roy was secretly enjoying Ed's reluctant behaviour towards the young doctor. He was a very nice man, for sure, but he deffinetly adressed Ed as much younger than he actually was.

Ed refused Roy to come in to the examination room with him, which was fine with Roy. He contemplaided between going back to the office and having them call him when they were done, or nod off in the waitingroom for a while. The choice had been easy, if it was not for his blonde haired first leuntnant arriving through the door, just a couple of minutes after he had sat down. Roy scoffed, unwillingly getting off his chair. Something in her eyes made him slightly worried.

"Sir?" she said, walking to him, looking around the room. "Is Edward with the doctor?" she asked.

"Yes, they just went in."

Just a little white lie, in case she was here to scold him for avoiding his work load.

"Do you think there is somewhere we can talk in private?"

Roy peered at her, before taking the lead to the reception to ask for a vacant office or meeting room.

Riza locked the door behind them.

"What's going on, Lt?" Roy asked. "You're making me worried."

Riza turned around and looked at him, letting out a deep sigh.

"I was going to talk to you about this yesterday, but you weren't in."

Roy sat down on a chair by a wooden table, and folded his hands on his stomach.

"Continue."

Riza was acting strange, a bit frantic. She sat down on the chair beside Roy.

"When Edward left the office two days ago, I decided to do some snooping around."

And that explained why she was acting franticly. Investigating without an order.
Roy nodded his head deeply, now understanding her strange behavior.

"I wanted to see if maybe there were someone back in Risembool that could take the boy in. Some neighbors, friends of the family etc, you know." she couldn't keep her hands still, tapping her fingers on the manila folder she'd been hugging as for dear life ever since she had come into the infermary.

"Riza," Roy made a motion with his hand that told her to stop. "Calm down! Please."

She closed her eyes for a couple of seconds, before continuing with a newly found ease.

"I looked into a couple of their closest neigbors, and found a family that seemed to have close ties with Hoenheim. They are called the Rockbells."

Roy wasn't sure how he felt about this.

"They already did adopt a little boy from an orphanage close by, some years ago."

She finally let go of her death grip on the manila folder, sliding it over to Roy.

Roy opned it carefully, and was met with a picture of a toddler, clipped to what he recognized as adoption files. Lifting the picture to read the content, he suddenly froze, and
looked up at Riza in disbelief. She nodded slightly.

"I don't think Alphonse Elric is dead."

Thank you so much for reading! I would love some feedback on how you guy's are feeling about this story's development. Also, I was wondering if I should change the story's K+ rating. I have no idea how these ratings work, as we only use age limit's in Norway. I'd love for anyone to explain this to me.

The next chapter will be up within a couple of days!
Stay Awesome!