Chapter five

Roy sat there next to the kid's bed. He was still out, his upper body wrapped in bandages equivalent to if his right arm had been amputated again, but that was all hidden by his sleeveless hospital shirt. All of it hidden, except for the small protective cast around his port that Roy had transmuted to be stuck to the bandages, meaning that it was made so that there was a transmutation circle drawn on top of the cast for when he needed to change the bandages.

It was odd how Roy was for the first time realising just how small Edward Elric really was. He had teased him about his height more times than he could count for the past one and a half years.

...But that was probably what this was all about. Because all those times, Fullmetal had had that fire in his eyes. That fierceness. Even when Roy had lifted him out of his wheelchair, had the boy looked bigger than this.

Now the kid looked almost like an infant. He was lying on his left side, his eyes closed, facing Roy, and there was this odd stab of guilty and frustrated realisation that hit him at that moment.

Because the reason for why Roy felt that the kid looked so small, was that this was supposed to be his daughter.

Roy's own kid, and they hadn't even been there for twenty-four hours before Freddie Hadleigh had been attacked with a dagger.

If their psychopathic killer had been a bit less of a psychopath, then Edward Elric might have been lying in a morgue instead.

"Could we... Could we talk in private, Mrs Hadleigh?" came Dylan's voice behind him, and Roy turned around to see the boy sitting on his bed with his arm around his side and with a bandage wrapped around his forehead. The kid was wearing hospital clothes and his skin was a bit paler than when Roy had first met him outside Rosebuds, and Roy had thought that he had still been asleep.

There was fear and guilt in the boy's eyes, and Roy found himself getting just a bit resentful and distrustful about the young man.

...However, the fear and guilt wasn't the type that came with knowingly having led someone to get attacked.

There was just too much desperation in the kid's eyes for that.

And Hughes had said so too.

And the kid was obviously in pain just from having sat up like he had just done. He was also hooked up to an IV and looked frankly miserable.

Roy swore inwardly and got to his feet. "Yes, though I don't want you to strain your injuries, so you just sit back down right now and I'll tell the doctors and nurses about it before locking the door.

Mr and Mrs Eastaughffe had already been sent back home by their son after his explanation about how he really didn't want them to fuss over him with everything else that was going on. He had then whispered something to them that had probably had to do with how Mrs Hadleigh was probably already reminded enough as it was about her loneliness in relation to her husband's death and Freddie having lost her limbs. Having Dylan's happily married parents stay there just to rub it in would in many ways have been insensitive to the extreme when Freddie had been in so much pain and fear that she had needed to have been sedated immediately.

Either way, Roy felt his stomach clench at the thought of how during this mission, this kid was supposed to be his kid, and to be treated as such.

...And so Roy couldn't help but feel like he had failed Edward Elric tonight.

And severely.

Because Winnifred Hadleigh was his daughter for this mission. His orders from the Führer himself had been that Roy take care of him as his own.

Which meant that he needed to do everything that he could to make things right. He needed to make the kid feel safer around him. To keep him safe.

Because the Fullmetal Alchemist's greatest weapon had now been stabbed away.

And so the kid was a lot less able to defend himself when his automail was gone and he was injured.

Dylan looked up at 'Mrs Hadleigh' as they locked the door to their hospital room. It was only occupied by Ed and Dylan himself, obviously due to the two of them being witnesses and Ed had been targeted by a serial killer that they were currently investigating.

"You had better not have had any ulterior motives tonight, Dylan," came a threatening baritone as the man turned the key to the room.

Dylan froze, shaking his head furiously, only to feel dizzy and make his head wound throb. "I-I swear, sir, this was never what I had planned for to happen! I was only trying to use the quickest route that didn't coincide with any shady places or drunks! And it was supposed to be safe... With how they've operated before, it should have been safe for us to walk like that on a fully lit road and with you safely sitting at Rosebuds with plenty of people to protect you and keep you from going outside..." He couldn't help the way that his eyes were beginning to sting at the sight of Ed lying there, facing him. "P-please believe me, sir... I never meant for this to happen..."

"Tell me, Dylan, why exactly are you so eager to help us? Why, if you figured out Fullmetal's identity so quickly and was so eager to help, why wouldn't you just leave him alone? Why are you playing the perfect sidekick, and then you just accidentally come across the killer, and then you can suddenly tell us that there are two of them? Why should we trust what you say, when you might as well be the one who stabbed Fullmetal as you are currently the only conscious witness? You are definitely the one who is the most suspicious here... The way that you so casually tried to get to know Freddie Hadleigh... The way that you invite her to your party and have your family greet her just like that... And now you're telling us that the serial killer, or killers, according to you, did something that hasn't happened before, not even anything close to it, and it just so happened to have been inside the forest where the other victims had been found... Why should we believe that you aren't A) working with the serial killer, or killers, or B) is being forced to do so? W-?"

"BECAUSE I'M SCARED!" Dylan interrupted him, the threatening and cold voice making his stomach churn with terror. Then he bent forwards with a pained grunt, clutching his injured side from the stab of pain that his outburst had brought. He felt tears beginning to run down his cheeks as he looked at the soldier's back. "Because I learnt last year what it feels like to think that you're gonna die... I can still remember the way that I had a steel rebar fastened to a large piece of concrete headed straight for me... I can remember Mum's scream as she realised what was about to happen, but without any chance of us surviving... I've had nightmares about it... I've relived the terror of that piece of concrete having fallen on my parents instead... Just standing there, seeing the blood trickling out from under it..." Dylan looked down, holding his side even tighter. "...And that is why I'm trying to do what I can to help, because I remember the fear of thinking that I was going to die, and I don't want that to happen to anyone else... I don't want people to die... I don't want for anyone else to know that feeling, and especially when it includes them looking their killers straight in the eye..."

There was silence for a few seconds from the other man.

"I suppose that that explains why you were disregarding your own injuries to such an extent in favour of trying to save Fullmetal tonight."

"He... He was in agony... I couldn't even see what was happening properly... I thought he was bleeding to death at first, I could barely get him to speak to me..." Dylan whispered shakily, his insides twisting sharply at the memories. "P-please believe me, sir... I never... I wouldn't ever want to cause someone to go through pain like that..."

"Fine, then," came the answer about ten seconds later.

Dylan barely choked back a sob and found himself with some tissues being shoved into his hand.

Ed felt dull throbbing from his right shoulder that began to intensify as he became more and more aware of it. There was sharp prickling and like a nail was being shoved inside it, but it was also like he couldn't care less about it, but he could definitely also not continue sleeping.

He slowly began opening his eyes, but then clenched them shut at the brightness of the lights.

He was in pain. He was in pain and lots of it.

Then a hand gently found his cheek and began stroking it. "Hey, Ed, how are you feeling?" came a vaguely familiar and gentle voice.

"Lieutenant Colonel Hughes?" Ed asked sluggishly, now noticing the way that his upper body was bandaged in the same way as after he'd lost his arm. He felt pretty similar too for that part, and a horrifying thought struck him and his eyes widened slightly, though his surroundings stayed blurred as he closed his eyes again at the still cruelly bright light. "Did you amputate parts of my shoulder?!" he demanded, terrified, and he moved his hand to where his shoulder was, being met by a hollow sound and a round-ish object covering his port. "Where's my arm? What's going on?!"

"You were attacked a few hours ago, remember?"

Ed couldn't help the blush that rose to his cheeks. Hughes had found him as he had been more or less sobbing into a lump of moss. He opened his eyes once more and froze as he realised that it wasn't the same black-haired man that he was talking to that was stroking his cheek. "What the hell, Colonel?!" he demanded, sitting up sharply, only to wince and yelp at the pain that shot through his right shoulder like lightning.

It didn't help that the Colonel's reaction was to move his hand from Ed's cheek to his waist as the other found its way underneath Ed's left armpit and gently lowered him down to the mattress again. "Fullmetal, just take it easy... We're on a mission, we both need some training for if you wake up like this while we're in public."

Ed felt himself blushing even more, but then glared at his superior, very uncomfortable about the warm hand that was still gently resting on his right side. "I think I've earned myself a break from that crap for at least a few minutes after whatever the hell that was," he mumbled.

The Colonel sighed heavily and removed his hand, and Ed spoke up again, finding that the pain and the lack of his arm made him feel both vulnerable and lonely, and especially when his brother had apparently been swapped for Mustang. "Speaking of that, what was it that actually happened to me?"

"So you don't remember much?" Hughes asked, obviously concerned.

Ed shook his head slightly, valiantly ignoring the spike of pain from the slight movement. "There was a scream sounding like when a woman sees that her child is gonna die, but it was cut off mid-scream, so we ran inside the forest... I got blinded by this bright flash of light, heard Dylan shout at me to 'watch out' before he suddenly yelled with pain followed by a thump and then I had somebody running up from both in front and behind me. There was something that made me trip and fall and they pinned me to the ground so they were obviously two grownups, and they shoved something underneath the automail plating on my shoulder blade and from there I could barely think or listen to anything and I remember telling Dylan to go fetch you... How is he, by the way?"

"He got a deep cut across his forehead and in his left side. He's been sent out of the room to give a second recount of the events so as to corroborate your statements without any of you potentially influencing the other's... Do you remember any of the attackers speaking to you?"

"No... I vaguely registered some yelling before they got off me and Dylan came over and started tapping my cheek..." Ed frowned and looked up ay Hughes. "I couldn't see him, but his voice was definitely that of someone who was really shaken and not in on something like that."

"Yes, I got that impression too," Hughes replied with a sigh. "As for what happened to you, someone shoved a dagger sideways in under the back of your automail plating after you fell because of some tripwire. They knew what they were doing, pinning you in that position so that there was a small gap underneath the plating that usually gives you normal range of movement. It suggests that they had some sort of advanced technology that let them see in the dark."

"So that stuff was a damned dagger?!"

"Yes, so I suggest that you don't start switching your automail hand-threats to metal knees instead, because making you behave more nicely when it comes to language and actions was the entire purpose of the attack... And they also called you a 'doll', so it would seem that you two have succeeded in drawing the killers' attention at least. And it seems that we are dealing with two culprits, so at least we've got something from it... The fact that they had known about your threats would have been something that could have pointed towards the identity of the killers, hadn't it been for the fact that just about everybody in town knew of it because your classmates must have told their parents, because Roy met plenty of people at the bar who were laughing and congratulated Rita on her daughter having made such a forceful introduction. Most of the locals are having a ball with the thought of it."

Ed just nodded, wincing slightly again at the sudden stab of pain from his shoulder port. The more he got his bearings, the weaker he felt. He'd actually been sobbing. He'd been sobbing in front whatever soldiers there had been there when he'd been found.

Rescued, actually.

He had been reduced to a sobbing mess on the forest floor with moss in his face because of some stupid flash of light and a tripwire.

Ed immediately sat up in his bed, glaring at the Colonel in front of him as he moved to stop Ed from doing so as Ed let out a grunt of pain at another sharp stab that shot through his port. "I'm not some snotty, stupid child, dammit!" he said sharply, batting away Mustang's hand before pulling away his duvet to get out of his bed. He just got angrier and angrier at the continuous spikes of pain that his movements caused, and then stumbled as he got to his feet.

Mustang grabbed him under his remaining armpit to keep him on his feet. "What do you think you're doing, Fullmetal?!"

"Let go of me, Colonel! I'm not gonna just lie there and listen to your condescension because I'm the novice of the mission that does everything wrong!"

"Hughes, I think you should leave us alone in here, we obviously need to have a conversation that doesn't concern you," Mustang said with a sort of irked calmness.

Hughes didn't say anything as he left the room, and Ed just glared up at the Colonel who was still holding him under his armpit. "Let go of me, Colonel! I can stand on my own!"

"You have a deep wound across your shoulder blade that you shouldn't be putting too much strain on if you want to recover as quickly as possible. The sedative still isn't entirely out of your system and the last thing you need is to fall and cause further damage," Mustang said sternly.

"That doesn't mean that you get to sit there and stroke my cheek like you actually care, you bastard! You're a womanising egomaniac and it got us stuck here and like hell I'm gonna just accept it when I get stabbed and you're so morally corrupt that you just see it as the perfect timing to get a bit more practise! What the hell is wrong with you, Mustang?!"

The Colonel paused slightly. "I do care about my subordinates, you know," he said in a low voice.

Ed scoffed. "Yeah, so much that you just have to rub every damned mistake I've done in into everything that you do." He locked his eyes on Mustang's. "And so you need to follow up with every damned lie as you go along, resulting in you needing to practise for later... And now you obviously need to learn what it means to actually see what it's like with the automail! Now you need to learn how to relate to the past that never existed! It is your fault that I'm stuck with you on this mission, so the least you owe me is to leave me alone when you're not Rita!"

His words were met by a deep frown. "On a scale from one to ten, exactly how much pain are you in right now, Edward?"

Ed felt another burst of anger. "So now you're just gonna blame it on the pain that I'm telling you what a bastard you are?! But that's just how you do things, isn't it?! Always finding excuses for why other people find faults with you! I'm just a damned tool in every way, and screw everything else but your career and you needing to get back into the Führer's good books after your egomaniacal ways have finally caught up with you!"

"I am talking about the fact that you have the same sort of look in your eye as a prisoner of war I rescued in Ishbal after he'd been tortured for three days. Now tell me exactly how much pain you are in, on a scale from one to ten, and answer me honestly. And that's an order!"

There was genuine worry in his eyes. Worry and frustration, and Ed knew that he would be able to tell if he lied to him. "Seven, okay?! On a scale from one to ten, the honest answer is seven!"

"Which is why you lost your balance when you tried to walk. Now get back into your bed while I ask for the nurses to bring you something for the pain and then we'll talk about this in full."

"Me being angry with you doesn't have anything to do with me being in pain, you know!"

The Colonel's voice became both soft and stern as he spoke. "Maybe not, but I don't like seeing my fourteen-year-old subordinate in so much pain that he didn't even notice that I was stroking your cheek to dry away the tears before Hughes could see them, which is also why I insisted on staying closest to you because I figured that you didn't want Hughes to see how you still have yet to notice how tears of pain have been going down your cheeks for these past two minutes."

Ed froze, only now becoming aware of the wetness on his cheeks and his slightly hoarse voice, having been a lot more focused on being angry to try to get his mind off the continuous and nauseating pain.

"I'm not thinking that you're weak for being injured like that, and I don't enjoy just uselessly looking at a kid who is still being subjected to unrelenting torture that we can't fix. There's one part of this mission that you seem to be overlooking that counts for both Roy and Rita, and that is that I failed you tonight because you are in my care, Ed." He sighed heavily, the look in his eyes softening. "I'm sorry, because it's obvious to me that I am doing a piss-poor job of it when this also means that I wouldn't have been able to have kept my own daughter from getting stabbed... This isn't about professionalism, this is about me having had an epiphany while watching you wrapped up in bandages after I've been entrusted with your well-being."

Ed frowned, not really knowing what to think, because the Colonel actually seemed sincere.

"Are you feeling all right, Colonel?" he asked slowly.

"You're injured, still technically being tortured while in my care, I haven't slept all night and it is six in the morning and I have a slight rash from the brightly coloured non-alcoholic cocktail with the pink sugar along the edge of the glass and the tiny umbrella, the pink part of the sugar being my best guess as to the culprit... Now please just take it easy, Ed, and lie down."

"What's up with calling me by my first name?" Ed asked sceptically, wondering just a bit if the small allergic reaction to the non-alcoholic cocktail was also the culprit in his slightly off behaviour.

Then it dawned on him that the reason had probably been that it had been a non-alcoholic cocktail that had given him a rash so that he had spent the entire night awake, continuously itching, and with Lieutenant Colonel Hughes having guilt-tripped him, whether consciously or subconsciously didn't really matter.

Which just made it even worse. Because guilt was the only reason for the bastard to show signs of not being so much of one.

"Like I said, you are in my care and not just my subordinate during this mission, and so you're technically off duty when you're not Freddie."

"Then let go of my arm, Colonel, I can get into bed on my own," Ed told him with a glare.

Mustang frowned and then let go of Ed's arm with a heavy sigh. "Fine, but just stay in bed while I'm fetching the nurses."

Ed scoffed. "Yeah, yeah, whatever, now just leave me alone, because you've forgotten that if I'm off duty, then that gives me even more reason not to have to deal with you."

"We still need to talk even so, Edward."

Ed just grunted at him, the Colonel's words and actions only leaving him feeling patronised and little else.

lillyfrog06: Thank you so much! I really hope that you'll keep enjoying the story!

CallMeWaffle: I suppose you could say that my writer's block is at least temporarily over, I have a fair few ideas suddenly brewing and so I hope that this chapter lived up to you expectations! Thank you so much for your review!

And thank you to the rest of you readers, favouriters and followers, and please leave a review, they're great sources of inspiration! (But no flames, please as they tend to have the opposite effect)