Chapter 10-

By the time Fuery and Edward made their way to the infirmary room, all the officers had been dismissed and allowed to go home. After all, it was pretty late- or extremely early, depending on the point of view. It was also the first time that anyone had seen Edward actually enter through a door. Fuery took his leave also, leaving Edward, Mustang, an unconscious Al and Hawkeye left in the double infirmary room. Hawkeye had apparently insisted on staying.

"Fullmetal, you can't keep doing this. I can't hold my tongue any longer," Mustang said in response to Ed's bloodied appearance, "You need to stop attacking people!" Hawkeye looked over as he spoke.

"Whatever you may think, 'attacking people' is necessary in order for me to live. Deal with it," Edward replied sharply. Judging by his attitude, he hadn't had enough to eat… or drink, or whatever it was that he did.

"I've been thinking about that. I might have a solution to that problem," Hawkeye interrupted the argument before it could start. "Wait here." She put her papers down and swiftly strode out of the room. Ed was tempted to leave, simply because he didn't like being ordered around, but he stayed. He'd come back for a reason.

Edward headed over to Al's hospital bed. Before Mustang had a chance to object, Ed put his right hand up to his mouth and nicked his palm using his fangs, creating a small cut. He then held out his hands with his fingers spread apart, putting his left hand over his right with both palms down, like the hand motion used in CPR. He placed them against Al's forehead and closed his eyes, apparently concentrating. Mustang curiously watched in silence. Alphonse moved, for the first time since he'd been rescued, and his expression changed. At first he grimaced uncomfortably, but it soon faded into a small smile. The Colonel was surprised- he hadn't seen Fullmetal actually do anything, but Al was definitely waking up.

After a moment, Edward removed his hands, casually licking blood off the right one. Some blood from the cut on Ed's hand was smeared slightly on Al's forehead- it was glowing a light blue colour around the edges. Ed put out his arm out straight, so his right hand was palm-down with his fist closed, above and parallel to his brother. Gradually, he opened his hand fully, and raised his hand slightly. Al breathed in and slowly opened his eyes in unison with Ed's hand movements. His eyes were glowing the same baby-blue colour as the blood, but that quickly faded, leaving Al's eyes as their normal colour. The blood on his forehead turned to dust and blew away in the slight wind, leaving no trace.

Al blinked and smiled sleepily, not completely awake yet. "Brother? You found me! I always knew you would."

Ed crossed his arms and looked away. "Whatever…" Al smiled again and yawned.

"Go to sleep," Edward told him firmly, but Alphonse's eyes were already drifting shut.

"Mmmkay…" his breathing levelled out, and just like that, he was asleep. Not in a coma as he had been before- he was actually sleeping this time.

"What did you do to him?" Mustang asked interestedly.

Edward shrugged. "I temporarily transferred some of my healing abilities to him, through my blood. It communicated with the brain and sped up the accumulation of nutrients until it reached a normal level, out of the danger range." He glanced down at Alphonse. "But sometimes it confuses the mind a little. So you have to sleep it off."

Mustang noted that Fullmetal was being rather talkative today. "What he said wasn't because he was confused by your healing trick. He really believes that." Ed began to answer, but was interrupted by the door opening.

Hawkeye entered, holding a glass and a small jar full of red liquid which was way too dark to be blood. "I recently heard about a trial being run here at the military Headquarters' infirmary. The doctors here never have enough donated blood in stock; so the medical science branch invented this." Hawkeye put the jar and glass down on a nearby table. "You pour about a centimetre of this stuff into a cup, add water, and it will act in the same way as real blood when given to a patient. I've heard it imitates blood all the way down to smell and taste." She reached for the jug of water sitting on the bedside table beside Mustang and poured water into the glass, having already added the red liquid. The colour of the 'fake blood' lightened considerably.

Ed scoffed as Hawkeye handed him the glass. "I'll see about that." He eyed the glass disdainfully, as if he thought it was poisonous. Hawkeye and Mustang both held their breath as he took a small sip. If he liked it, then he wouldn't need to keep attacking civilians for their blood. There was a moment of silence.

"It's… different than normal," Ed looked thoughtful. "Definitely sweeter. I mean, it's just as good as normal blood… actually, it's probably tastier." He sounded astonished- he thought fake blood would taste like crap.

Hawkeye smiled, with just a touch of triumph. "Of course." Well, she said of course; she really meant I told you so.

Hawkeye handed him the jar. "Come and see me when you need more," she added.

Mustang was staring at her strangely. "How the hell did you get that? Isn't access to that product restricted to General and above?"

"Not when you know the things I know," Hawkeye actually smirked, and Mustang sweatdropped. He didn't want to know. He glanced over at Fullmetal, just in time to see the teen wince.

"Are you injured?" the Colonel hurriedly asked him, and received a scowl in response.

"I'm fine!" Edward exclaimed as Hawkeye walked back over to him. She scanned him over carefully, and he frowned. After a moment, Hawkeye seized Ed's left arm and pulled his bloodied, black long-sleeve shirt away from his shoulder. Her eyes widened as she saw the wound hidden beneath, as she came to the abrupt realization that some of the blood covering Ed was his own.

There were seven claw-like marks sliced into his shoulder, all perfectly parallel to one another, and all exceptionally deep. It appeared to be an old wound that had been re-opened, rather than a new wound, and it reminded the two officers of all the horrible injuries Edward used to show up with- only to have them heal the very next day. There must be a reason why this one wasn't healing properly.

"How long have you had this wound? Why hasn't it healed like your other ones?" Hawkeye demanded.

Ed frowned at her. "Wounds won't heal if there's something preventing them! I just can't get the stuff out…" he trailed off peculiarly. Hawkeye sat him down on the edge of Al's bed and fetched some spare bandages and a pair of tweezers. Edward realised this was going to hurt, but it didn't bother him- he was used to pain.

"How did you get that, anyway?" Mustang frowned as Hawkeye began to pull what appeared to be tiny shards of metal from the teen's shoulder. She was confused but didn't show it, instead assuming an unreadable expression.

"In a fight, obviously," Ed rolled his eyes, holding still to allow Hawkeye to treat his shoulder. He became so still that he appeared to be a statue; even his breathing stopped, which began to alarm Hawkeye slightly.

"Don't stop breathing!" she said firmly.

"Hmm?" Edward looked at her. "Oh." He started breathing again, like he'd hit an on switch.

Mustang sighed, "Why were you fighting in the first place?"

"I was defending the rest of the Clan from the Homunculi's soldiers," Ed said dismissively. The two officers stared at him.

"The Clan?" inquired Hawkeye.

"Homunculi's soldiers?" asked Mustang at the same time.

Edward sighed, as if they should already know all of this but were too ignorant to figure it out. "The Clan is a group of vampires. All the vampires that lived in Central as humans, were created in Central or have moved to Central since." He paused. "Well, there are some who decided not to live with the rest of us, but not many."

Mustang and Hawkeye stared at him, shocked. "… How many vampires are there? I mean, we would notice if a large amount all congregated together." Mustang said. Fullmetal smirked.

"As if- the Clan's been here for millions of years and humans haven't realised. And there are thousands of us." He commented.

"In Amestris?" Hawkeye queried.

"In Central," Edward clarified, and her eyes widened.

"Wait, what about the soldiers of the Homunculi?" Mustang intervened. He was more concerned about the Homunculi building an army- he recalled the conversation he'd heard earlier that night, down in the tunnels where those horrifying creatures were being kept.

"The Homunculi hate us. And we hate them- it's a long story, but vampires and Homunculi have been at war for thousands of years. Although it's strange… I hadn't seen that Homunculus Envy before he attacked Alphonse, but I know about the other six…" Hawkeye noticed Edward was still calling his brother Alphonse, not Al. "Anyway, they send wave after wave of these soldiers that they create. The Homunculi imbed weapons and powers into them, like guns or the ability to create sunlight- it's bothersome. And I'm one of the fighters for the Clan- it's the job I chose to take on." Edward stopped, apparently not about to elaborate.

"The soldiers- they don't happen to look like tall, pale, human-like zombie creatures, do they?" Mustang leant forward, intent on Edward's answer.

The teen suddenly looked interested. "Yeah, actually, they do. How'd you know?"

Mustang answered his question with a question. "And you also said… that the Homunculi create them? How?"

Edward glanced at him. "Well, they use humans, of course."