Seems I am not the only one watching the Olympics obsessively right now. Though I do admit I decided to opt out of watching the basketball one so I could finally take a quick nap. When the Olympics are on I do not sleep until they are doing something I am not interested in, otherwise I am up and watching every aired sport.

Rika: His dreams do have a purpose, as does the reason why he forgets some of them, or parts. He'll start to realize why much later on. Some of them may become parts of chapters, some of them may just have a message for him to learn from, and some may just be me messing around.

mutantpenguins: Edward is a smart cookie, he knows how to pace himself when necessary. And yeah... Poppin is a rather unfortunate name.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Edward had finally started moving again, heading east along the river. Common sense dictated he should probably walk through the shallower parts of the water, so he would not leave tracks. However he was more interested in self preservation up to the point where he could walk in the water. His flesh leg was still a nasty tangle of various discomforts.

"This is me taking it easy, Mustang. Look, I'm not walking against a current." Edward chattered on to himself as he shuffled.

With each step it was becoming easier, and his movements less jerky. But it would be possibly another hour or two of walking before he would be able to move without restriction again. Not including the time he was taking to stop and rest.

His head was aching something awful, and it wasn't helped by the persistent growling of his stomach that had decided not to long ago that water was no longer a suitable substitute to distract it.

Ed decided to distract it with something else. Else, distract his mind with something else.

The air here near the river was denser with a marginal amount of humidity. That meant it would theoretically be easier for him to try and form water out of the air. He still couldn't succeed with normal air, but perhaps to start out with he needed the wetter air one found near a water source. This was one sort of transmutation that he was determined not to let allude him or alchemists as a whole any longer. He'd be needing the ability to form water from the air if he was to get across the desert alive and still be able to defend himself in the crossing.

He could write research on his success for his next State alchemy review, whenever it was he'd actually be having one of those.

But he wasn't going to try it while moving, it would be a waste of his strength right now. All that bending down and getting up to move again. He'd start attempting it again once he took his next rest.

That next rest ended up coming sooner than he'd planned.

But he sank down next to the riverbank regardless. He would listen to what his body needed for right now. Otherwise he'd be in bad shape if another bounty hunter attacked him. But this feeling of being so restricted did not sit well with him. It seemed that he'd be distracting himself from more than just his hunger.

Edward took a moment to relax his mind and think about how best to try this. Technically he already instinctively knew all arrays he could ever need or use, but finding the right one would be the challenge. And just because he knew all the possible arrays, did not mean they'd work. He'd invented his own, and improved already existing ones, so this was not a cut and dry process of elimination.

Hydrogen… oxygen, it seemed simple enough. Yet if it were alchemists wouldn't have problems with it.

Ed's brow furrowed and he mentally chose an array before clapping his hands together and focusing the energy outward, instead of straight into the ground.

"Evidently not." Ed muttered as the air crackled and sparked instead of forming water.

He had a feeling that he'd tried too hard, if that was even possible. The reaction he was needing was a gentle coming together of molecules, not a volatile reaction. The energy wasn't the issue, he always used the same energy level unless he was trying to really blow something sky-high. He did not want to create a geyser, so that left him with the array itself.

Theoretically he could have used the wrong array, so he switched to a more neutral one. The array he instinctively knew he normally used when he altered organic materials of one nature into another. With that resting in the back of his mind as easily as breathing, he tried again.

Blue light flashed, and to anyone else it would seem as if nothing had happened.

However Ed knew better. Something always happened when he performed alchemy, he'd never had a transmutation not work. Even if his ingredients were off something happened, usually in the form of a rather spectacular explosion. Which in turn caused him to blow things, including himself, sky-high even unintentionally.

Edward reached his flesh hand forward towards the air where he'd directed his energy. He pulled the hand back with a thoughtful look on his face. The air was dry in that area, no longer humid. He'd done something to the water, but not what he'd wanted.

Now he knew he had the right idea for the array, it was one he'd perfected himself. An array design quite unlike anything that was in an alchemy book. He brought the image to the forefront of his mind and closed his eyes as he puzzled over it. Really the only thing he could alter without entirely voiding the array were the number of angles.

He'd done something similar before, and so he knew he could do it again. So he halved the angles and readjusted the array in his minds eye. The transmutation circle flared to life inside of him as it joined his file cabinet of arrays that would come as swiftly and easily to him as thinking or breathing. He had to admit, there were several advantages to not needing to draw out the circles. Once he developed a new one and made it his own, he'd never have to think about it again unless he wanted to. It would come to him instinctively.

It was time to try again.

Edward clapped once more, and directed the energy into a different area of air that still was humid.

Again, it didn't look like anything had happened, and Ed reached forward, and yanked his hand out before wiping it dry on his jacket. He'd made the humidity soar in that area.

It seemed as if he had the right idea, but the power was still not what it needed to be to mesh together all the potential water molecules and create tangible liquid that he could drink.

Time to ponder this through, he doubted it was as hard as he could make it out to be. He sincerely doubted that he needed to use a level of energy that he normally used to create mass destruction. He was attempting to create a life sustaining substance, not destroy life.

"I'm working with only basic elements, trying to do nothing too fancy…" Edward muttered to himself as he thought about this. He was nearly there, but this little roadblock was proving a slight headache.

Finally Edward decided he needed something to bind the humidity, and thus the water molecules in the air together. He could increase the moisture levels in the air, but he had no way to compound them and create what he wanted.

Out of all the things he could think of, and it was quite a lot, he decided the most simple one to try would be pure pressure. It made opposite sense to him, since clouds were formed together by moisture, yet were at an altitude with little air pressure. But he often did things that made opposite or little sense and had them actually work.

And really, what else did he have to do? He was resting, healing, he may as well do this.

So Edward attempted again, focused on binding the moisture together with lots of pressure.

Still no reaction, and again, Ed inserted a hand into the area he'd practiced on this time.

"Oh!" Edward suddenly exclaimed and almost laughed at himself. "Of course, I didn't even think about that." Quickly he located another patch of still humid air.

This time, when Edward applied the pressure, he added something else along with it. Cold.

He'd been pressurizing moisture with heated air. Naturally the moisture would dry up and leave him with dry air again, no humidity.

When he had finished this time, he grinned and watched with thoughtful golden eyes as the tiny ice crystals showered down to melt instantly when they touched the hot sand.

"Too cold, and definitely not enough." Edward observed.

It seemed that to get the quantity of water he would want would require him to convert a large amount of air. It was possible, he'd barely been messing with a cubic foot just then, and the quantity hadn't been that bad. But even so, he'd managed the reaction.

Now to try for water.

After several adjustments of cold pressure, Edward found and logged away the correct transmutation circle combinations he'd be needing.

His hunger forgotten, Edward stood back up and resumed walking east as he continued to practice what he was quickly learning.

Flashes of blue light continued to appear, getting progressively slower in their happening. Edward was learning better control over the water he was creating. He was quite pleased with himself, and knew he'd have been able to get it had he applied himself to puzzling this over sooner. But he'd never had the need to until now.

He realized now why Mustang loved his fire so much, loved manipulating it in the air and just plain toying with it at random. Almost like an unconscious habit. He was currently making a steady small stream of water no bigger than a quarter inch in circumference twist and leap between the fingers of his flesh hand.

It vanished eventually, but his control at keeping the water coming was getting better. He wasn't sure how long it had taken Roy to be able to keep his fire present for as long as he wanted, and not even pay much attention to it, but he was determined to at least get close to that marker.

Again and again Edward toyed with the water alchemy, feeling a sense of pride at his success. There was something to be said for being able to control main elements, it could come in handy. Really, his respect and love for Roy had just grown even more, if it was possible. He felt in some strange sense that this had brought him even closer to the man he loved.

Eventually though Edward forced himself to stop playing around with his alchemy. He had to rest after all, even in the alchemic sense. And the sun was nearing the noon zenith, he needed to conserve his strength and energy while the hottest part of the day readied itself to bake the land once more.

Edward did not see the vultures slowly rising to circle after him again, always staying out of the sight of a human eye. They were not keen on letting him get out of sight, he was their meal ticket.

Central

Roy Mustang was finally free.

Though he was covered head to toe in children-borne germs. It seemed that the orphanage had been going through the cold season, and the children had clung to him with their runny noses and bleary eyes. The hands surely breeding germs and covered in dry snot.

Yet the children had been delighted to see him, and eagerly listened to him while he read story after story to the accompaniment of sneezing and coughing.

He was willing to risk not being back on time to the office in order to run home and shower, as well as get changed into a clean uniform so the one he wore now could be disinfected and sterilized. There was no way he wanted to be spending the upcoming weekend abed and with a large box of tissues.

Grumbling, and feeling like a walking virus, Roy Mustang headed home.

As much as he wished he could stay there, as he sat on a counter in the kitchen sipping a lemonade, he really couldn't skive off for the rest of the day. He still had meetings to attend, a blonde alchemist named Edward to worry about, matters of unrest along the Drachma border to attend to, and preventative medicine to take.

Once the lemonade was finished, Roy was out of his house again for the second time that day. But this time with car keys in hand. He'd be able to make a bit of time if he drove instead of walked back. Normally he preferred to hoof it, but there were just some times when driving was more convenient.

As Roy pulled out onto the street out of his garage with the car's engine purring pleasantly he smiled faintly. The last time he'd driven this thing had been to transport he and Edward out to the mountains to the north of the city. The car still bore a few minor dents that only they knew about, sometimes their alchemic sparring for practice reasons had gotten a bit rough, and his car had been pelted by several nice sized rocks. It even still had the "camping" smell inside of it. Smoke from the campfire, pine, fresh earth and melted sugar.

It was nostalgic for him, and he found his thoughts dwelling on Ed as he drove.

Those days where they'd been able to just lay out under the stars together talking seemed so far away. They had been some of the best days of his life, and not for the first time did he now regret that he'd not said anything to Edward at the time about his feelings for the other man. Even if his confession had been met with anger, that was really no credible reason to keep the knowledge from Ed.

Sighing softly, Mustang pulled in at last to Headquarters and parked his car in his space, the one clearly bearing his last name across the cement partition.

As he made his way into the building he was zeroed in on by Breda.

"Hawkeye was expecting you to be back ten minutes ago. That woman can be scary when you're late." He muttered as he fell in step with his Fuhrer.

"And let me guess, she threatened all of you to look for me?" Roy chanced with a grin.

Breda nodded.

"Well I doubt she would have come back straight away if she had been sneezed all over by adorable gremlins."

"How exciting for you. Stay away from me." Breda joked.

"Want a hug?" Mustang smirked as Breda shuddered, "back to work with you." He said and turned his own steps towards his office.