Some of you may be wondering- wow- sure has been awhile- wonder why fluffykitty12 hasn;t updated yet.

And the answer is because- I wasn't sure where this fic was going tbh. I felt like everything was getting too predictable. But then inspiration struck, and so I got my Papa Roy, and my BAMF Ed all rolled into one with this chapter, coupled by some clueless normal people who don't understand Edward Elric is a BAMF. Enjoy!

It was either very, very late at night, or very, very early in the morning. Roy wasn't exactly sure which.

None of his team had shown up at the hospital yet. That both worried and intrigued him. normally he'd at least have called him by now.

But right now his priority was Edward- his reckless major.

Ed had been relocated to a hospital room at some point- and Roy, exhausted as he was, had trudged alongside and waited as the boy was settled into his gurney, still comfortably sleeping.

Roy alternated from leaning back and dozing in his hard-backed chair beside the boy's bed and watching the kid sleep.

Every now and then Ed would snuffle or shift a little in his sleep, and Roy found himself holding his breath, watching the moonlight dance across the boy's peaceful expression and the medicine drip, drip, dripping of medicine into the IV line tucked into the boy's pale hand that rested dazedly on the sheets.

Every now and then Roy would reach over, blinking tiredly and brushing the boy's blond bands from his face, enjoying the fact that Ed was still there and in front of him, real as could be, and almost as unharmed as he could be, given the circumstances.

"Mr. Elric?"

Roy looked up. Framed in the light from the hospital hallway, a young nurse with auburn hair that made her look ethereal when she was framed in the light like that.

"Yeah?" he was too tired to bother with the formalities right now, and too entrenched in his duty as Ed's "father" to consider flirting with him.

"Is Edward still resting comfortably?"

"Huh... um, yeah."

"That's great. I have a few more forms that need to be signed- Edward's doing fine but his platelet count is a little low, the doctors wanted to give him a transfusion before they discharge him in the morning. We just need a few more signatures on the documents. And perhaps a cup of coffee? I know we have some in the staff room."

Roy must've looked more haggard than he thought.

"That... sounds good." he admitted sluggishly, getting to his feet.

He cast one last glance behind him at Ed, making sure the boy was sleeping peacefully, before he was following the nurse into the staff room.

Two cups of surprisingly well brewed coffee later, he'd read through and finished off the last of the paperwork surrounding Ed's care. The nurse who'd escorted him there had drifted off- that wasn't surprising, though, considering there were relatively few staff on the night shift. They were probably needed.

He was ambling back towards Ed's hospital room when a muffled cry caught his attention.

"Sharon! Sharon!"

He couldn't help himself. He paused outside the closed hospital room, palming the door open to the hospital room to see two nurses- the one from earlier, and a brunette he didn;t recognizze, standing before the impossibly small bathroom each hospital room was equipped with.

"Mr. Waters, please calm down- you'll wake the other patients!" the dark haired nurse tried to soothe.

Looking past them, Roy could see Mr. Waters- a rather large man, in his late forties, probably, at least two hundred and fifty pounds- not a fat fellow, just built like a bull- with broad shoulders and well-muscled arms, as well as a thick bandage wrapped around his head.

"Sharon! I can't get up!" the man cried out again, paying the nurses no heed.

"Leah, help me with him." both nurses moved to try and help the man- he seemed to have managed to stand himself up and buckle his pants, only to lose his balance and end up flat on his back, wedged in the impossibly small space between the toilet and the wall. He was stuck so that he had no room to get his hands or legs under him and right himself.

"Where's Sharon!? I can't have other women in the house, you're not my wife!" the man only yelled louder.

The nurses stopped trying to lift the man, winded and frustrated. "He's too heavy for us. We'll have to see if Dr. Linder is in the next ward..."

"Sharon! I don't know these women Sharon, you're my one and only!" the man was still looking agitated and confused at his predicament.

It was then Roy decided to make his presence known. "Need a hand?"

"Mr. Elric." the auburn haired nurse looked relieved, and Roy stepped forward cautiously, crouching down to see where the man was situated.

"Hey there buddy. You seem to have gotten yourself in quite a predicament here."

"I sure have. I don't know who these strange ladies are, but Sharon will have my head if she finds them in our house. I'm a one woman kinda guy, you know..."

"I'm sure you are, Mr. Waters." Roy reassured him, looking to the nurse, who nodded her permission.

Roy stepped closer. "Would you mind if I gave you a hand and helped you get back to bed?"

"I can stand on my own! They dropped a brick on my head, my legs work just fine!" the man protested, reminding Roy of Ed for a moment.

Roy smiled. "I'm sure you can. It's not your legs that are the problem- it's the position that you're stuck in. You can't get your feet under you. If you were to let me pick you up, you'd be able to get your legs under you and stand."

"I bet you're right." Mr. Waters conceded.

"Well that settles it then." Roy stepped forward, one knee on the ground, and settled his arm beneath the man's bent knees and the crook of his back. "On three. One, two, three."

Roy took a breath and heaved- the man wasn't as heavy as he looked, and Roy managed to get the man into the air- the man managed to rest his palms on the wall and Roy tilted, letting the man get his feet under him.

As soon as the man looked relatively steady, Roy slung the man's arm over his shoulder. "This isn't the first time I've done this, you know." he admitted as he walked the man towards his empty bed. "But this is the first time I haven't been to the pub first."

The man barked a laugh, shakily settling himself on the bed. "I'll have to buy you a few sometime." he conceded.

"No trouble at all." Roy waved over his shoulder, ducking out of the room. The dark haired nurse had already begun fussing over the man, tucking in his blankets, and Roy found himself striding next to the auburn-haired nurse back towards Ed's room.

"Thank you for your help. There's just two nurses on the night shift, we have a hard time with the heavy lifting. Mr. Waters is a kind man, jsut gets confused- he's a construction worker, got hit in the head with a falling brick, poor man. You're very helpful."

Roy shrugged, hands, in his pockets as he strode along. "No trouble. It's the least I could do, with you taking such good care of my Ed."

They both stopped walking for a moment.

"You really are something, Mr. Elric."

"Thanks. But the name's not Elric. It's Mustang. Roy Mustang."

"But Edward..." the woman looked up at him, blue eyes full of confusion.

"Is my subordinate. A prodigy, I'm his commanding office. He's... he's like my..."

"Son?" the nurse finished for him.

Roy closed his mouth but nodded solemnly, and the nurse beamed.

"And to think, I thought Ed just got his looks from his mother. I was going to ask you about your wife, but I didn't want to bring up painful memories."

Roy chuckled. "No, actually- the position of 'wife of Roy Mustang' is still, in fact, open. You never told me your name either, Nurse...?"

"Aubrey. Aubrey Chance." the nurse said bashfully.

Roy nearly drowned in her blue eyes for a moment. And her skirt- it was just above her knees, but it was white, so clean and pristine...

He was torn out of his thoughts by a clang in the distance.

They both jumped at the sudden noise, Aubrey looking behind them in alarm.

"Mr. Waters?" she looked back cautiously.

Roy was already striding forward. "No, it came from over here..." closer to Ed's room...

A blood curdling scream split the air, and Roy was running. "Ed!"

There was another metallic clang- metal on metal- Roy fumbled into the doorway, the nurse hot on his heels, only to turn on the light and find Ed flailing on the ground and blood on the floor.

He'd been sleeping. And Mustang had been with him, just like he'd promised. He hadn't left. And sometimes, if Ed made a funny face and scrunched up his nose- Roy would reach over and pet his hair. He didn't know why, but it made him feel warm inside when Roy did that. So sometimes he'd make a funny face even when he was mostly awake, just to steal those little touches of affection he was too prideful to ask for while he was fully conscious.

But mostly, he slept. He was warm under his blankets- the medicine made him feel nice and fuzzy, and sleep came easy to him, so he let it.

He woke up to someone hugging him. Only it wasn't a nice hug- whoever was holding him didn't smell like Roy. He'd expected the scent of bourbon and leather and old alchemy books that was Colonel Mustang.

But before he'd even opened his eyes, he knew the smell was wrong- the rough fabric he was held against, the smell of cheap alcohol, cigarettes, and the acetone tang of cheap aftershave. And the hold he was in wasn't right either- the hands were too rough and careless. Whenever he'd been carried before, he'd always been handled carefully. There hands were rough and careless, grabbing him tightly enough to leave bruises.

Still, all his addled mind could manage was a "Mmmm... whazzat?" as his sleepy brain turned back on.

"Molchi, Mal'chik." a harsh voice rasped sharply.

A large hand grabbed his wounded arm rather roughly and squeezed, and he cried out in pain and surprise.

"Ctop! Bud Yeschche!"

He was already struggling, because though he was still too asleep to understand what was going on, he knew it wasn't right.

He was thrown roughly over someone's shoulder like a sack of potatoes- he started to kick and flail, his automail leg managing to strike the man in a tender spot in the torso, earning a sharp exclamation from his handler.

Get away. Get away. He's trying to take you- fight!

He slammed his automail fist down on the back of the man and was roughly dropped- he nearly lost his footing, still drowsy disoriented, and he was able to see his assailant in the moonlight.

Dark, curly hair and silver eyes danced in the moonlight, and rough, black clothes- a uniform of some type- made Ed's stomach drop. There was a prickling in the back of his mind- the man grabbed for him...

Ed ducked to the side, running on pure instinct. He punched- his automail fist found the man's jaw, and the man staggered back a few steps, hissing a curse, before he looked up, silver eyes burning with rage.

He dove forward, tackling Ed- Ed fell back into the metal IV stand, and it fell over with a clang, the IV tearing from his arm with a sting.

They were wrestling on the ground- the man was much larger than Ed, but Ed grabbed the metal pole on the ground, bludgeoning the massive man on top of him and forcing him back enough so that he could get up.

They were both on their feet, facing off...

The man backhanded Ed with a meaty fist- Ed's head snapped to the side, his makeshift weapon of the IV pole slipping from his grasp and clanging into the metal of the hospital bed rails.

Ed stumbled back, and the man had him in a headlock- static crept into his head, and Ed panicked, flailing and trying to scream but not having the air to.

The man hissing a series of commands in a language Ed couldn't understand. Ed's basest instincts took over- he bit down on the meaty forearm holding him in a headlock, sinking his teeth into the flesh as far as he could. Warm blood flooded his mouth, the man was beating him on the head with his other hand, but Ed didn't release until his teeth hit the rock hard bone.

The man barked something at him, but he hadn't let go, only loosened his grip, and so Ed bit him again, sinking his teeth into the man's arm and feeling the headlock dissolve and the hand stop tearing at his hair. He finally let go, dropping to the floor in a boneless heap.

It was only as he sat on the ground, spitting out blood that wasn't his own, that he managed to grasp the situation fully and find his voice.

"Don't touch me!"

A hand had grabbed his hair again, but he lunged, flailing and kicking and screaming wildly. "Let me go let me go let me go! You bastard! Mustang- help me!"

All at once, the hold on him vanished. The sound of booted feet on the tile faded into nothing, and a moment later the room exploded into activity as a familiar blue clad figure and someone else rushed into his room, throwing on the lights.

"Edward!"

That voice. Ed knew that voice. "Roy!"

Roy had burst into the room - he wasn't sure what he'd find, but it most certainly hadn't been this.

Edward was sitting on the floor- his IV pole was discarded and dripping saline onto the floor from the discarded line. Ed's bed was as a crocked angle from where it'd been knocked aside. The sheets had been discarded in a ball on the floor, and were smeared with crimson. There was blood on the floor, smeared on the bed rails, and it was all around Ed's mouth...

Ed only had eyes for one thing, though. He threw himself at Roy, grabbing onto the man like a drowning cat in a rainstorm and clinging to him.

"Edward? What happened? Are you alright?"

Ed said nothing, just holding him and trembling.

"Ed? Sweetie? Did you have a nightmare? Oh Roy- I think he bit his tongue, his mouth is all blood..." Aubrey said sadly.

The other nurse had come running, and she and Aubrey were both taking in the scene in shock.

"Ed. What happened?"

"He was going to take me." Ed managed, pulling back and looking up at Roy. "He almost got me. I was asleep, but I realized it wasn't you- I had to fight."

The nurses looked at them both with pity.

"He was so angry. He was speaking a language I couldn't understand..."

Roy nodded, simply pulling Ed closer to him and holding him tightly as he took in the chaos of the room and the blood smeared on the tiles.

"Does he always have such vivid nightmares, Mr. Mustang? Maybe I should page the doctor for a stronger sedative..." Aubrey spoke up.

But as she spoke, a chill wind blew into the room from the open window, rustling the curtains and sheets on the floor and startling everyone, and Roy knew with a sinking feeling Ed really had almost been taken.

"No! I can't sleep- he almost got me!" Ed burst out.

Roy looked over at Aubrey and shook his head, nodding toward the window. "Someone was here. He wasn't dreaming."

The dark-haired nurse gasped, and Aubrey rushed over the shut the open window, looking surprised. "But Mr. Mustang, we're on the second floor? How is that possible?"

Roy ignored her. He was peeling Ed off of him now- Ed kept his hands firmly gripping Mustang's shoulders and turned, spitting a mouthful of blood onto the tiles.

"Did he hurt you anywhere?" Roy asked, charcoal eyes searching the boy up and down for injuries.

Ed shook his head.

"But all this blood..." the dark haired nurse looked around in shock.

"It's not mine." Ed said simply.

"Roy. He tore out his IV and he had a night terror, it looks like..." Aubrey spoke up, reaching towards them. Roy could see the blood on Ed's hand from where he'd torn out his IV, but he ignored the nurses again, looking back at Ed wand cupping the boy's chin in his hand, scrutinizing him.

"What happened to your mouth, Ed?"

"It looks like you bit your tongue pretty badly." the dark haired nurse piped up.

"I wasn't asking you." Roy said stiffly, not even glancing at her. He looked to Ed for an answer.

Ed spit again- he hated the metallic taste in his mouth. "He had me in a choke hold- I couldn't get out- so I bit him. And then I bit him again. He finally let me go and I started screaming."

Roy nodded, grabbing the discarded bedsheets from the floor and using them to wipe away the excess blood and saliva from Ed's mouth.

"You said he spoke a different language? Do you remember anything about it?"

"It was short and clippy. He sorta just barked stuff out at me. I've never heard it before, I didn't understand it..."

Roy's mind was already working a mile a minute. Ed wasn't a linguistics major, but he was a smart kid. Someone broke into his room on the second floor and tried to abduct him, speaking a harsh, choppy foreign language. Edward had nearly been taken by a Drachman operative.

"Isn't this a little bit of an extreme reaction to a night terror?" the dark haired nurse asked, looking at Ed tentatively as she steeped forward. "Let's get Edward back to bed..."

Roy bristled, and had to actively bite back the urge to explode at the nurses. They were nice, they'd given him coffee, and they really did mean well. But as far as Edward was concerned, he was in charge.

"Ed's not staying in this room tonight. A Drachman operative tried to abduct him- they may come back. We're going to need a new room..."

"Roy. Is this really necessary?" Aubrey spoke up. "I know this is a bit frightening, but Edward's still a child, he was just shot, it wouldn't be unheard of for him to have a night terror..."

"I'm a Lieutenant Colonel. Edward Elric may be a child, but he is a State Alchemist and he holds the rank of Major in the amestrian military. I'm much more inclined to believe my Major. Either we get a different room or I'm moving him to a more secure location tonight."

Roy rose to his full height- Ed didn't miss the opportunity to cling to the man, burying his face in his uniform. This was the smell of safety- of bourbon, leather, and old alchemy books. Ed inhaled it greedily.

"Okay. Alright, Roy, if you say so, we can do that. Ed needs to be int he hospital for now, we both know that's what's best for him." Aubrey said.

"I want him to stay here, but you have to understand- Ed's not just a child. He's a valuable asset to the military. I take his word seriously, and so should you. Don't write him off because of his age. He's seen worse than most adult soldiers."

Roy absently stroked the messy head of blond hair, looking down at the tired form and sighing.

"I know you're tired, Ed."

Ed mumbled something so muffled into Roy's coat that nobody could understand it. Roy sighed. "You have to come out from my coat if you want me to be able to understand you, Ed."

Ed pulled back to look up at him, childlike fear and exhaustion on his face. "I said that creep is going to come find me again!"

Roy's eyes darkened. "Let him come. I'm with you, Ed- I have my gloves. You need to rest."

Ed nodded, seeming to relax at Roy's statement, leaning more heavily on the man.

The dark haired nurse had already left, presumably to get a new hospital room ready for them, and Aubrey busied herself picking up the bent IV pole and straightening out the room, which had been fairly torn apart.

The only thing that was really left intact was Roy's uncomfortable plastic chair, and he sat, pulling Ed into his lap and letting the boy lean against him while they waited for the new room to be made ready.

Aubrey tried not to watch the two- Edward had an automail fistful of Roy's coat and seemed to be fighting the pull of sleep, and Roy didn't seem to mind the exhausted teenager in his lap at all- rather, he watched Aubrey like a hawk as she moved about the room, cleaning things up.

"I'm sorry if I seemed harsh and unreasonable, Aubrey. but Edward's safety is of the utmost importance."

"I understand, Mr. Mustang." Aubrey said simply, continuing to clean. "We all see him as a child- you're the only one who can see the soldier in him right now."

The remark stung slightly, but Roy took it without complaint. He had to play it safe- had to believe Ed- because his Edward was nearly always right.

"I need one more favor, Aubrey."

"Yes, Mr. Mustang?" Aubrey was looking thoroughly unamused at him.

"This hospital has a laboratory, I'm assuming. I want swabs taken of every blood smear in this room and sent there to be typed."

Aubrey sighed. "I'm trying to be patient here Mr. Mustang, but I really don't understand you."

"I'm a military man, Aubrey." Roy looked down at the child in his lap, brushing some of Ed's golden hair from his face. Aubrey softened slightly at the gesture. Here he was, feared Lieutenant Colonel, giving out unweildly orders while his subordinate slept in his lap.

"I run off of facts and information. Edward was fighting for his life in this room- you don't know Edward. But I do. I want every blood sample run and typed in your medical laboratory- because trust me, most of the blood in this hospital room isn't Edward's."

Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.

(Please review!).