"Riza? Oh, fuck." She wasn't even in here! Roy couldn't believe it; Haven had tricked him? And after he'd suffered all night and done all their little stupid tasks just to make those assholes tell him where they were hiding her... Damn it! Holding his sleeve over his nose and mouth to prevent himself breathing in too much of the smoke which filled the shanty, Roy gave it a final once-over.

It was only one room, no bed even, though there was a pallet of blankets on the floor in the corner; he wondered if that had been were a guard had slept, probably with a gas mask if one had slept there-the smoke filling this room was intense; apparently somebody had purposely stopped up the fireplace on the eastern wall, then lit the fire to fill the whole place with smoke. Idiots! That was a good way to burn this whole place down! If Riza had been hidden here, it would have mattered.

There was also a sink that looked too old to run water anymore, several piles of medium-sized boxes and trunks in various corners and in the middle of the floor (none of them were large enough to hold a full-grown woman, so Roy didn't bother checking), and there was a small door on the opposite side of the room from the entrance, probably a closet or a WC.

Roy turned around and walked back toward the open doorway, but hesitated in the frame and stood still, listening. He had a gut feeling, and when you were a soldier, your gut was right as often as your head.

Aha! A small noise that didn't belong in a slummy shanty at city limits in the middle of the night: the sound of someone shifting their weight atop a creaky piece of wood. Roy turned around and looked for the source of the movement; his eyes moved to the door to what he'd thought was the WC. Duh, they'd hidden her in the closet.

Roy opened the little door and with a surge of relief found the one he was seeking. Riza had been restrictively tied in six different places and was also tied to a heavy trunk-looking thing that was sunken partially into the floor of the closet and had heavy-duty metal rings attached to its surface. Riza's ropes were knotted to these 'anchors.'

Ha, Roy had known she would have had to be unconventionally tied; kudos to Haven for not underestimating her.

She was blindfolded and semiconscious; she made a groaning noise that sounded like she was trying really hard to say something and not succeeding. Thankfully, aside from some rope-burn which was probably self-inflicted by her struggling, she appeared none the worse of wear.

Riza was tied at the wrists, the ankles, and knees; the standard places you were supposed to tie a hostage, however she also had a rope around her upper torso, pinning her arms to her sides, and there was also a complicated knot that basically pulled her knees to her chest in an inescapable fetal position. Her head slumped forward, resting on her knees, and her hair stuck every which way wherever it wasn't held in place by the blindfold.

"Riza," he said to initiate a response; he wanted to confirm just how awake she was. Apparently she was only faking the semiconsciousness, because she lurched forward and head-butted Roy crouching in front of her.

"Ah! Ow, my nose! You really got me good there, Hawkeye."

"Ah... Col... General," she said in a weak and hoarse voice. Even though she'd been drowned in smoke for three days like a colony of bees at a honey farm, she didn't seem to have much trouble keeping a clear head. Roy wondered if it was due to sheer willpower, or the amateurism of Haven. Actually, now that he thought of it, if they'd really left her in a smoky closet for three days she'd have died, so either she hadn't been in the closet the whole time, or they hadn't been smoking up the shanty the whole time, or a little of both.

"Sorry, Sir. Thought you were the other guy." She coughed; it made a horrible dry, rough noise that was sick to think about. Huh... Maybe Haven was less amateuristic than he'd thought.

"Yeah, well, I guess I was asking for it, getting in your range like that." He reached forward and yanked her blindfold down. Now it hung loosely around her neck. He'd untie it properly in a few minutes. Then he gave her ropes a once-over and chuckled. "Look at how they wrapped you up. You must've put up one hell of a fight. Of course, I didn't expect anything less."

"Not important, Col-General; what are you doing here?"

"Not important," he dismissed her question like she'd dismissed his. Roy reached into his pocket and found a pen and a pocketknife. He stared at both objects. Magical or manual, that was the question.

After barely a second's consideration, Mustang put the pocketknife away and went to work sketching little transmutation circles on the ropes holding her to the trunk's anchors. This looked like Manila hemp, if he wasn't mistaken, and he knew its composition fairly well even though these sorts of objects weren't his forte to transmute.

The pieces of the rope where he'd drawn circles glowed and severed themselves. Wanting to get out of the smoky room quickly, Roy didn't undo every single rope just yet, only the ones that held her to the 'anchors,' then he hoisted Riza up and ran her out of the shanty, rushing into the cool night air outside. He set her on the sidewalk (there was no grass in front of the shanty, just concrete) and went about undoing the remainder of the ropes with somewhat less urgency.

"Col—General, is this supposed to be your idea of a rescue mission?" Riza demanded while he worked.

"Yeah, pretty much; I followed Haven's instructions and they led me to you."

"'Haven' are the people who kidnapped me?" she verified.

"Yeah. Anti-coup terrorists. I'm ashamed to say we underestimated them. It's all my fault this happened." He sighed heavily at this confession.

"Sir, there's something I need to..." She broke off and coughed wetly.

Knowing the effects of smoke damage pretty well, Roy was expecting this. He wished her could take her to a hospital right away, but as he helped her stand and they went back to his car, Roy knew there just wasn't that much time. "I'm not here as a military officer," Roy reminded her, "Riza, you don't have to..."

"Fine then, Roy! I was just going to say that if you're here and not in that junkyard then there's no longer any doubt in my mind that you're an idiot!" She leaned back against the headrest while Roy gunned the engine of this car that just did not want to go that fast. Her hands came up and started rubbing her temples.

"Headache?" Roy asked when he looked over at her and noticed what she was doing. He clenched his teeth; panicking just a little. His mind went straight to the chemical content of your average smoke—carbon monoxide?

"Don't change the subject," she said crossly. "You shouldn't be here!"

She'd mentioned the junkyard. How much did she know? "Sorry, but I had to prioritize!"

"That's what you call ki-" She broke off coughing and shook her finger at him with a look that distinctly said, "Just you wait, Roy Mustang, as soon as I'm done coughing my lungs out you'll get a piece of my mind!" Roy waited until she was done hacking and wheezing, then she picked up right where she'd left off. "Is that what you call letting people die in my place? 'Prioritizing'?"

"Of course not!" he said defensively. "What kind of an asshole do you think I am?"

"Oh? What's your excuse this time, Mustang?" She folded her arms under her breasts and glared at the windshield.

"I'm counting on Edward's ability to not die right off the bat," he explained quickly, before she had a chance to interrupt. "I had to decide which of you had the greatest chance of survival, and he was it. Right now I'd love to take you to the ER at Central and have them take a look at your lungs, but there's just not time."

"You're going to the junkyard," she realized.

"Yeah. Hey, do me a favor and check out the backseat, Riza," he said with a small smile in his voice.

"What?" she muttered and twisted to see what he was suggesting before breaking into a smile of her own. Sitting on the bench seat in the back was the gun she always kept on her person, the same one she'd used when she'd unsuccessfully tried to defend herself from her Havenite capturers, along with way more ammunition than she could even carry on her person. He'd cleaned it, apparently, since there was no longer blood on the butt of the gun where she'd struck one of the men in the back of the head. "You went to my apartment? And got my gun?"

"You haven't been without a weapon of some kind for what, a decade? More? I figured you'd be uncomfortable without it."

"You're right." She reached back and grabbed the gun, ejecting the clip into her hand to look at it. Empty. Mustang hadn't refilled it. The only reason she had been captured by Haven in the first place was the fact that she didn't normally go to sleep with extra cartridges on her person (yes, they'd sunk low enough to break in at night) and she'd run out of bullets.

Well, that was easily fixed; Riza reached into the backseat again and started reloading with the extra ammunition that was there. It looked like her stuff as well. "Are you driving straight down to the junkyard?" she asked as another thought occurred to her.

"Yeah, Riza; this isn't exactly a leisurely joyride," he said sarcastically.

"Make a detour," she told him.

"Sorry?"

"Didn't Ed tell you where he was staying when you met up with him yesterday?"

How much did she know? Everything? "Yeah, the Hamick, but that's hardly relevant..."

"Make a detour." He started to ask why, but Riza cut across him with her explanation. "Alphonse won't want to be left behind."

Haha, look at me, so sick and out of it that I posted the chapter without an AN or even the next chapter preview! There are a lot of things I'd like to talk about this chapter, but my chest cold whispers things to me, like "Fuck ANs; take a nap!" Anyway, I don't own FMA, I appreciate your reviews and readership, and here's your preview:

"So, Mustang chose his girl over you, eh, Elric?"

"Roy Mustang has his own priorities. I'm here under the impression that my family will not be harmed if I… cooperate, is that correct?"

"Sure."

"Sound a little more convincing, why don't you?"

"Your brother and the Rockbell mechanics will be fine. I'm surprised you're not more concerned about yourself."

"My life isn't as important as theirs to me."

"Heavy words, coming from someone who was involved in the conspiracy that killed an innocent man and his young son in cold blood just to gain power!"

It was hard to argue with the gun in his face, but then Edward Elric never missed an opportunity to piss somebody off.