A/N: Oh my gosh...over 1000 views...*sits in shocked corner for a while* Seriously, I have no clue how this happened, I totally flipped when I saw the view counter (and I also thought how cool it was that chapter 10=1000 views XD) I just wanna tell you all how incredibly grateful I am for the following, viewing, favoriteing, reviewing. You are all so awesome \(*^_^*)/
And to show you how awesome you are, I'm gonna stop babbling and get on with the story XD (Thanks for understanding the lateness, hope you all had a good thanksgiving :D and if you don't celebrate it, I hope you had a good week ^_^)
On to the horizontal bars!

Greed never liked to admit when he'd made a mistake. Even if he knew he had, he would always avoid the subject till it was either forgotten or given up on. But this time he couldn't bring himself to deny it. Somehow, he'd screwed up, badly.

When Mary got to be a half hour late, the gang started to get worried (Not to mention hungry) and went out looking for her soon after that. The group split up to cover more area but they all quickly learned that tracking someone in a city was a lot harder than they'd originally thought. Greed was trying to heighten his senses to help but with no ability to filter unwanted information, it just ended up giving him a headache. He was trying to come up with a new strategy when he heard scuffling not too far away and decided to check it out, more to give himself a break than anything else. What happened next was a bit of a blur to him but it didn't take an idiot to figure out that his actions had terrified Mary.

The whole way back to the Devil's Nest, Greed fervently hoped that she was just in shock from being attacked and would relax soon. But she didn't say a word to him the entire time. The bar offered no solace from the tense silence either, they were the only ones to have made it back by then, so Greed ended up helping the teenager treat her injuries. Mary stayed quiet through that too; no complaints, no sounds of discomfort, she just sat there still as a statue. After he'd finished, Greed told her she didn't have to make dinner that night and he wanted her to ice the bruise around her neck, the girl muttered a quiet "Okay" and disappeared into her room. She didn't come back out till it was time to open the bar.

Greed wasn't sure what he felt, he was still trying to wrap his head around the incident. But he did know that he really didn't want the chimeras getting involved and complicating things, not till he'd figured out what exactly upset the girl so much anyway. He was very relieved to see that Mary must have felt the same way, having donned a dress with a high collar so no one would see the marks. When the rest of the gang asked what happened, the pair had also come to some unspoken agreement to say that she got lost and leave it at that.
Despite those synced decisions though, Mary's behavior toward him continued to grow distant. They opened the bar together, as usual but the girl wasn't herself. It wasn't that she was rude or adversarial, in fact, that was the problem. The teen was quiet and polite, like she was dealing with a customer or stranger and not the "spiky-haired-bastard-boss" She'd come to regard him as. And no matter how much Greed made jokes and teased the girl that she should shut up and be polite, he wasn't liking the real thing one bit.

Life continued like that for another week. Greed would never admit it but for all he complained about it, he liked it that the girl was a brat. He didn't even understand it himself but he missed the arguing, mocking, scolding, dodging her pitiful attacks, he missed it all. Things didn't get any better as the days passed, Mary seemed to be purposefully avoiding him and when they had to interact, she was always brief and painfully polite.
It was starting to eat away at him. Greed was losing a possession. He could feel his ever present emptiness grow a little every time he saw her, it was infuriating. He just wanted life back to the way it was before but he couldn't very well order the girl to act normal. No matter how much he wanted it to, that wouldn't change anything. It was one of those rare time's that Greed wanted something and had no clue how to get it, and it was driving him insane.

0*0*0

The rest of the gang wasn't oblivious to the problem though; they didn't even need their modified senses to tell something was wrong. If they hadn't been so worried, they probably would have felt insulted that Mary and Greed thought they wouldn't notice.
But the chimeras could tell the situation was delicate too, so they had to time, cornering the two and forcing the truth out of them, carefully.

Mary was walking back to her room after making breakfast. It was still very early but she planned on leaving for school anyway. Greed, being how he was, didn't think of it but the situation was taking just as much, if not more, of a toll on the teenager. She had spent as little time as she could in the Devil's Nest the past few days in effort to get away from it all.
The girl rubbed the right side of her chest in memory and winced, regretting she'd touched the spot at all.
The bruise on her neck was one of the few things her and Greed exchanged words over anymore, he would make sure she was icing it because it seemed the most severe, but it was the pain from the place where she'd been kicked nearly brought her to tears every day.

She entered her small room and went for her school bag while considering seeing the school doctor, when the door slammed behind her. The teen jumped then spun around, she saw Martel standing near the threshold with one hand on the door she'd just shut.

"Martel-? Wha-Am I going to have to put up a 'keep out' sign or something!?" She snapped, thinking of how many times she'd asked (or in Greed's case, demanded with multiple curses.) That they stay out of her room.

"Alright, spill it." Martel said, ignoring Mary's objections completely. "What happened between you and Greed?" The girl jolted.

"W-what do you m-?"

"Oh, don't give me that shit!" The woman hissed, crossing her arms. "I'm not oblivious ya know, I plan on going after Greed about this too, so talk. And don't you dare say it's none of my business!" She snapped when she saw Mary open her mouth.
The girl clamped her jaw back shut. She stared into the eyes of the tall woman near her. Mary could always have lied or refused to tell but the anger and deep look of concern Martel had dispelled both of those ideas. The teen took a deep breath as the idea of how relieving confiding in someone would be crossed her mind.

'Martel's my friend' She reminded herself, the incident had inadvertently made the girl feel wary of all the members of the Devil's Nest. 'She's not Greed, she's her own person. I can trust her.'

0*0*0

Mary and Martel sat next to each other on the girl's narrow bed. The top few buttons on Mary's shirt were undone, revealing the thick bruise circling her neck. Martel stared for a while after the teen finished speaking and deliberated what to say next.

"Bastard." She finally hissed, making Mary jump. "You get this son of a bitch's name? I wanna go finish what Greed started." The chimera said while cracking her knuckles.

"I-I'm pretty sure he's in jail by now…" The younger woman stuttered, wondering if her attacker knew how much the bars he was behind were protecting him. "Greed called the cops after we left."
Martel sighed.

"Look Mary, I know you're freaked out but anyone of us would have reacted the same way." She gestured to herself "Admittedly, with Greed it's probably scarier to see but-"

"It's not just what he did Martel." The girl suddenly interjected, eyes cast down.

"Huh?" Martel blurted, a little out of step from her train of thought being thrown off like that.

"Believe me, this is all I've been able to think about lately. I know that you guys would have flipped too. Heck, people from my own family would have attacked. But…how Greed looked…" Mary gave an involuntary shiver at the memory of the murder in Greed's violet eyes. "Then there's what he said."

"Said? To who?"

"The guy he was choking." Mary answered before lifting her gaze and staring Martel in the eye. "Martel, he said 'Are you trying to take what's mine'"

The chimera stared for a moment, processing. Then stopped and had a fantasy of slapping the over-possessive homunculus silly.

'How could he let himself slip up like that?' Martel thought as she groaned and gripped her forehead in exasperation. 'He knows how strict she is about boundaries and he's still dumb enough to call her "Mine"!?' She had to take several deep breaths to cleans herself of the anger driven day dreams. When she was finally calm enough to speak again, she looked back to the distressed teenager.

"Mary…" She began, then bit her lip. "You should know by now that Greed doesn't really…express himself as a normal person-"

"You weren't there Martel." The girl said simply. "The way he looked, the way he talked about me…it made me feel more like I'm something in his eyes instead of someone." Mary cast her face down again.

'That's 'cus it's really the only way he knows to care.' Martel had to bite her tongue to keep from saying it aloud. She searched desperately for a way to explain that to the girl without revealing what Greed really was, she didn't want to get her involved in that mess. But there wasn't one, not one that wouldn't have scared her off even more at least.

There was a long strained silence, which Mary eventually broke.

"Martel-" She stuttered quietly. "If I do leave…" She gulped. "W-would you hate me for it?"

Martel gazed in shock, Mary stared back looking on the verge of tears.
If she really wanted, Martel could have easily taken advantage of the girls fragile emotional state and bought them another few days at least, but one look in those sad, dark, grey eyes made it impossible. It was true, she'd grown to like the girl a lot in the past few months and if she quit, she wouldn't be able to attend the university anymore and they'd probably never see each other again. She wanted the cheery teenager around but Martel's fondness of her was a double edged sword. The chimera couldn't bring even her cold blooded heart to manipulate a scared and confused friend.

"I wouldn't be happy…" Martel sighed. "...But no, I wouldn't hate you." She said after a long, strained pause. The tension in the younger woman's face relaxed some.

"Thank you Martel." She said with a sad smile as she re-buttoned her shirt. "I really should get to school now."

"Yeah, you don't wanna be late." Martel replied, watching the girl retreat into the hallway as her thoughts span wildly, trying to figure out if there was any way to salvage the situation.

"And you didn't think to tell us this!?" Dolcetto roared at Greed, slamming his fist down on the kitchen table. It was later that day and Roa, Bido and the screaming one himself, had cornered Greed in much the same way Martel had done to Mary.
"Where's this guy now?" The chimera growled, reaching for his katana.

"Pipe down, dog boy." Greed snapped quickly, expecting that sort of reaction from Dolcetto. "I called the cops right after we left, he should already be in jail or…the hospital." He couldn't stop the little satisfied smirk that crept onto his face. The hot tempered man relaxed a little at that confirmation.

"So that's why she's avoiding you?" He questioned, returning to the seat he'd jumped out of earlier. "Sounds like she should be thanking you."

"Yeah, but she's just a kid, ya know?" Greed replied, still heartily convinced that Mary was younger than she said. "I must've scared her." He sighed, remembering how Mary had looked at him, when he was through almost killing her attacker. People had looked at him in fear like that before or at least, he was pretty sure they must have. But that horrified gaze from the girl had buried itself in his brain somehow and he did not like thinking about it at all.

"Still…it doesn't' all add up." Roa said, contemplatively holding his chin. "Mary's not the kind of person who'd shut down after just that. Did you say anything?" He asked, looking the homunculus in the eye.
Greed thought for a moment, something he'd said? He didn't think that would matter considering how little the girl actually listened to him but recounted what he could remember anyway.

"Are you an idiot!?" Dolcetto jumped up and shouted again. "That girl would not go two steps with you till you promised you wouldn't touch her, locked her door at night for the first month she was here, nearly attacked someone with a wine bottle for touching her ass last week, and you're still oblivious enough to go around calling her 'mine'!?"
Greed stared wide eyed at the huffing chimera, he hadn't been expecting that outburst. Normally, he would punch any man who talked to him like that, silly but right then, he was much to confused to try. That was what had Mary so upset? That's why she wouldn't even talk to him?

"But she is mine, so I don't see-"

"She's not gonna think about it the same way you do." Roa interrupted before his more impulsive friend could yell at Greed more

"Yeah, the possessive talk still gives us the creeps sometimes too." Dolcetto affirmed, having caught his breath. Greed stared back in even more shock.

"You humans are always making these assumptions and I'm the pervert?"

Dolcetto dropped his head onto the table in defeat.
"You're impossible…" He mumbled while Roa explained to Greed how human girls are taught from a young age to avoid violent and/or possessive men.

"She honestly thinks I'd do something like that to her?" Greed asked scandalized after Roa recounted an old but true story that was traditionally used to caution teenage girls. In all honesty, the homunculus felt hurt, the girl was always calling him a demon but he'd believed Mary thought at least a little better of him than that. In addition, he was a bit offended. Sure, if she offered he wouldn't turn her down but there were dozens of other, easily accessible, women lining up; did she really think he needed her to feel like a man? The teenager had her assets but she wasn't that attractive.

"It's just an example, if she thought you were that bad, she wouldn't still be here." Roa finished bluntly.

"Look at it from her side Mr. Greed." Said Bido. "She's only known you a few months, and you did nearly kill somebody in front of her."
Greed looked at the small man and thought. Putting himself in someone else's shoes was never a skill of his, but he was vaguely starting to understand what the group was saying to him.

"What would you think any other guy was getting at if he called Mary 'his'?"
That final question from Dolcetto broke through Greed's obliviousness.

'Damn it.' The man groaned and put a hand to his face. 'I guess it is easy to jump to that conclusion.'
"Okay, okay, I screwed up." He conceded. "Now that, that's been established, what do I do about it?"
The group was silent. Greed barely ever asked for advice from anyone and when he did, it was always for something trivial or easy to solve. They'd never had to deal with something like this before.

"Maybe…maybe you should tell her the truth? About us and you." Bido finally spoke, nervously. "She might listen she knows the whole story but without it…" He trailed off and fidgeted with his fingers when the others stared at him.

"Hm, since it looks like she'll be here for a while, it might be better just to tell her." Roa added after a few minutes of deliberation. "It'd be a lot worse if she suddenly found out by accident, she's probably close to figuring some of this stuff out on her own anyway."

"But do we really wanna get her dragged into all out shit?" Dolcetto asked darkly with his chin resting on his hands. "Maybe it'd be better if-" But the chimera never got to finish his sentence because right then, another burst through the door. Martel stood on the threshold, looking very cold and very angry.

"There you are! Where the hell have you been?" She snapped at Greed as she strode foreword.

"Huh? Have you been looking for me or som-"

"Never mind!" She cut off again and jabbed a finger at his chest. "You messed up. Fix it."

"Wha-?" Greed faltered. Was it 'Disrespect the Boss' day or something?

"Mary you idiot! She told me everything this morning!" The woman shouted. "You're the one that started this, so you're the only one that can get her back."

Greed froze, yet again not able to bring himself to put his mouthy subordinates back in their place from surprise. Martel was acting different from ordinary angry (which he'd seen many times before, she was as temperamental as Dolcetto) She wasn't just mad, the snake chimera looked angry, confused, sad and a little scared all at the same time. The homunculus let out a groan.

"Yeah, I know. I'm an idiot. Believe me, we've been over that." He sighed and massaged his temple. Conceding, for a part, because he really didn't want to find out how starting an argument with Martel in that state would end. "So what do I do about it?"

"Hell if I know." Martel said, then pointed commandingly at the door she'd just come through. "But go. Get her."

"Wait, what?" He stared wide eyed for what felt like the millionth time that day.

"She take's the route past the factories. It shouldn't be too hard for someone like you to find her."

"Why-"

"She's close to making up her mind. This morning she asked me if I'd hate her for leaving. You don't have a second to lose."

Everyone tensed a little at Martel's statement. Mary was as stubborn as the best of them, if she came to a decision, there'd be little hope of ever getting her to go back on it.

"...Damn it." Greed muttered, donning his sunglasses as he headed for the door. "That brat sure is way more trouble than she's worth."

Mary walked slowly through the industrial district of Dublith. The route was much longer but it avoided some of the more dangerous parts of the city. Considering she was in no hurry to get back to the Devil's Nest lately and that she was still shaken from the attack just a week prior, it had become her regular path.

The girl heaved a sigh and rubbed her chest. The whole situation was making her head and her heart ache as much as her ribs.
No matter how much she whined and cursed about it, the teen had really grown to really like her position as the Devil's Nest's resident cook. She was even warming up to bartending, in a weird Stockholm syndrome sort of way at least. She snickered a little as she remembered the second sign Greed had put up on her account. "Piss off the Barmaid at your own risk." Mary soon saddened again, that had been barely two weeks ago.

She wanted things back to normal so badly. She wanted to sit with the whole gang and dinner and make jokes about who's food she'd poisoned that night. She wanted to be at the bar with Dolcetto and Martel, while the two betted on how many women they could scare away from Greed. (Whether by convincing them he was gay, a woman, had a secret family; the rules had been fairly loose.)

'That game sure didn't last long.' She thought, chuckling a little. 'He got mad at me too for being their "accomplice"' Though that was technically true, Mary had been the one to get the girls drunk enough to believe their ridiculous lies.

She sighed again, which made her chest ache but the pain had become so common that she didn't pay it mind anymore. Mary wanted it all back, but how Greed had looked in that alley, what he'd done, how he talked about her, she couldn't just forget it. After a whole life time of hearing about domestic violence horror stories, she knew she didn't' want to get sucked into a nightmare like that.
What made everything even worse was that she'd completely lost faith in her own judgment. When Greed had promised he wouldn't touch her, she'd really believed him and, while she was aware he knew she was a girl, he never seemed to regard her like that, that much at all. He preferred to have an easy and willing woman and to him, she was just a half pint brat. At least, that's what Mary had thought.

The teens head was spinning again. She just wished she wouldn't have to worry anymore but that would require making a decision and she couldn't bring herself to it. Quitting would be the simplest, safest option but she knew doing that would mean leaving Martel, Dolcetto, Bido and Roa, her friends, behind. She didn't know any details, but she could tell by then that they'd all experienced some kind of trauma or loss in their pasts. Leaving when they were just starting to get really attached would probably hurt them even more than it would her.
And, while few would guess it, Mary actually counted Greed as a friend. A perverted, womanizing, bastard-of-a-boss, friend but a friend all the same and she didn't want to just abandon him at the first sign of trouble.

But she knew she couldn't stall much longer. All the tension was becoming too much for her to handle, just earlier that day she'd just barely stopped herself from having a complete emotional breakdown in the middle of class.

The girl was about to fall into another round of self pity when something caught her eye. She was passing through a part of the industrial area that was built on multiple levels for efficiency. Just ahead of her there was a bridge spanning some of the lower tiers, on it stood two hooded figures and the catalyst of all Mary's stress himself.
Greed hadn't noticed her yet, so she decided to just hang back and watch. For all she knew, the masked pair could just be some more of his friends.

Then the punch was thrown.

Mary tensed but Greed caught the assailing fist easily. The girls concerns quickly changed in favor. She knew very well that Greed could handle himself, it was his attackers she was worried about now. However, much to everyone else's surprise, he let the persons hand go with just a light push.

"Sorry sweetheart." He said, putting his hands back in his pockets. "I don't beat on women."

'Huh? So they're girls?'

"Then I guess it's up to me!" Another figure suddenly appeared from an alley and charged.

It was good not much was up to the man, considering he had Greed's fist in his face.

"Sending these little ladies straight at me, then sneak attacking yourself? That's pretty low dude." Greed said casually as he strode over to the man he'd just thrown to the ground. "Look, I'm in a rush so…" He raised his knee high, like he was about to ram his boot into the man's already abused face. Right before he let out the crushing kick, his gaze flicked up slightly and he locked eye's with the teenager across the street.

Greed froze, leaving his leg to dangle in the air.
That's second of hesitation was all it took for the hooded women to act. Using their combined weight, the pair smashed into Greed with enough force to push him off the small bridge.

"Greed!" Mary screamed, unable to control herself as she watched the man slip out of sight. In an instant she was leaning over the guard rail, not able to remember running over there and giving no thought to the dangerous trio right next to her. The girl cast her eyes around, but wasn't able to see where Greed had landed on account of all the supports beams in the way, so she vaulted for the access stairs.

0*0*0

"She saw us, what do we do boss?" One of the women asked while helping the man up.

"She doesn't know what we look like, just leave her." He muttered through his mask as he tried to quell the blood flowing from his nose. "She looked upper class, if anything happens to her, the cops'll get involved. But Nobody but her's gonna be sorry to see that bastard Greed go."

0*0*0

'Why are there so many damn stairs?!' Mary cursed as she dashed down the fourth flight. Finally, she turned the last corner and was able to see a dark figure laying on its back on the concrete, a few yards away from the fifth, short staircase.

"Greed!" She shouted again, making a run for him. About halfway down, she tripped over her own feet in her hurry and slid the rest of the way.

"Gaah!" The girl cried out when she hit the bottom, half from shock and half from the agony that shot through her chest on impact.

"...Ah…ah!" She gasped as tears streamed down her face and she curled into a tight ball, like she was trying to shut the pain outside.
The young woman would have probably stayed like that for hours if Greed hadn't suddenly let out a low moan.

'He's still alive!' It took all of Mary's willpower to force herself out of the fetal position. But another low, pained groan from Greed gave her enough worry and hope to saunter over to him as fast as she could. When she reached his side, she nearly threw up at what she saw..

If Greed was still alive, it was an absolute miracle. He was splayed out on the concrete, blood streaming from his ears, nose and the back of his head. That wasn't the most horrifying part though, it was the revelation that on his way down, Greed must have hit one of the numerous support beams and the force had shorn his lower legs clean off.

"Gr-gr-greed…" She breathed, dropping to her knees. "N-no, no you'll be alright!" The girl said hysterically. It was the most ridiculous lie she'd ever told, by all accounts, he should have been dead already. But the teenager just couldn't admit that to herself.
"No! Stop it! Don't you dare die!" She barked, tears pouring out of her eyes again though this time not from pain, as Greed's chest stopped moving. "It-it…..things can't end like this…" The girl chocked through a stifled sob.

"Wait! Al-alchemy!" She babbled "I can fix you with alchemy!" Mary told herself and stumbled over to what was left of Greed's legs. When she was a few feet of, she fell again.

She knew it, the girl couldn't fool herself any longer. Greed was dead and there was nothing she could do about it. Still, Mary reached for one of the mangled lower legs with a violently convulsing hand.
She received the biggest shock of her life when it turned to dust beneath her fingers.

"Wh-what?" She muttered as the flesh and bones blew away with the wind, leaving nothing but torn leather and a pair of fancy boots. Suddenly there was a loud static crackling, like the sound of someone performing a transmutation. Mary twisted around and received a shock that put the last one to absolute shame. The teen had looked just in time to see skin reconstructing itself over Greed's new legs. The whole process took barely a second, then there was more crackling around his head and shoulders.

A few heartbeats after the red static stopped, Greed gave out an almighty gasp that made Mary nearly jump out of her skin.

"Shit, that hurt." The resurrected man groaned as he rolled over and pushed himself to his feet. "Man, and I just bought these pants." He pulled at the ruined fabric. "And-Gah! Those f-ing bastards knocked my sunglasses off t-!" Greed turned around in search of the lost item, it was only then that he realized Mary was there.
"Uh…" He stuttered. He had absolutely no clue what to say. What do you do in a situation like that? The girl stared at him, looking about ready to scream or faint.

"…G-greed..?" The teen quietly spoke. "Wh-...what the hell?..."

A/N: And ta-da! I hope it was worth the wait! :D I hope Mary's responses to last chapter didn't seem too extreme (I know that I'd be really freaked if somebody talked about me like that)
I also am crossing my fingers that the others were in character as well (The interrogation, or whatever, between Greed and the guys got re written several times XD)
Oh Greed, how are you gonna handle this one? I shall have the next chapter out as soon as I can so we may find out! X3

Oh, I don't really think it's necessary, but for all I know I should stick this in in case of any legalese nonsense. Ahem,

I Pandoru, do not own Fullmetal Alchemist or any of its franchises or cannon characters. I am more broke than my OC

MC: I resent that! Even if it is true and you give me a cool abbreviation!

Thank you all again for reading this story :D I never thought something I posted would actually get noticed ^_^ (1000 views! Oh my gosh!)As always, reviews and other such things are not required but they are like precious jewels in this land of fan fictions.

P.S. Why it took Greed a while to re generate will be explained in the next chapter (And you thought I wouldn't catch that, didn't you? XD )