Roy snuck out of work early on Friday. "Snuck" being relative in this case as his boss wasn't aware but Riza certainly was. She'd glared at him and mouthed "tomorrow" and he'd had no choice but to nod in agreement before he darted off down the hall and into the beautiful sunshine. Hawkeye would give him a five minute head start before she released the team. It would be rude to make them stay if he wasn't willing to do it.

Which was why he was here now, Saturday morning, to make up for the time off. And if he started early enough he could get another afternoon to himself to enjoy the rest of the late summer heat.

He paused halfway into his office. Something was different. Something... out of place. His eyes did a quick sweep of the room, spare coat was missing from the rack, weird, and someone moved it to the … couch. Ah. Interesting. For some reason there was a sleeping blond haired alchemist using his coat as a blanket. Super weird. Really really super weird. Why the hell was Ed sleeping on his couch? Last he'd heard the kid was going to go on his first date last night, so why was he here now?

He crept over to get a better look stopping just out of arm's reach. It was definitely Ed, even curled up under his coat he could see the braided hair and partially exposed automail foot. Signature boots placed off to the side and thankfully not on the upholstery..

"FullMetal?"

A grumble, a groan. Ed rolled from stomach to side, facing Roy, eyes still closed. No indication of consciousness, and then Roy's coat slipped off behind... her?

A dress, FullMetal, makeup, FullMetal, breasts, FullMetal, bruises! Why the fuck did Ed have a black eye?

As the forefront of his brain raced to understand what he was seeing the detached part was a bit jealous of Ed's ability to sleep through anything. Could it be because the kid always had some sort of backup? No reason to be on guard when your brother's soul was trapped in a constant state of wakeful-

Fucking what the shit fuck god damn bullshit was this? Here we go, Roy's emotions kicked in and geared up for an internal temper tantrum. Who the fuck was this? FullMetal was a woman? How had he missed it? Was she always a woman? There hadn't been any noticeable attitude change after that final trip through the gate, and if you're turned into a woman unexpectedly there would have definitely been an Elric sized event. So this wasn't new, he just hadn't figured it out. And now here she was, bruised and hiding on his couch under his coat after some kind of altercation. An altercation on a date?

His heart lurched, apparently it was faster at choosing sides than his brain was. Ed, small, inexperienced, trusting Ed, had gone on a first date and was now hiding in his office. A quick spike of anger flashed through him and he clenched his jaw then forced it away. At least Ed was here, not in a hospital and not in jail. Though the second might also explain the hiding, his stomach dropped. Oh god, was there a dead body out there somewhere? Was he going to have to call his team for cleanup? Fuuuuuucckkk. This was too much too early. He turned on his heel and walked himself out of his office and into the adjoining room to acquire caffeine. This entire situation was going to have to wait until he'd had a second cup of coffee.

He needed to think. The visual of a small, sleeping, vulnerable, damaged Ed was pulling hard on his heart-strings… However, a small, sleeping, viciously defensive Ed would probably kill him if he got within arm's reach.

Roy suddenly heard the window in his office slam and he abandoned his dark roast decision making attempts to check on Ed.

The couch was empty and in three quick strides he was at the window looking out onto the courtyard. There she was, not even trying to hide. Roy watched for a moment as Ed hobbled off toward the barracks, boots in hand. Limping. Well, not like he didn't know where she was going. Coffee first.

!-

Finally awake and rounding the corner in the barracks Mustang arrived at Ed's door. Or would have, had there been a door. He sighed and transferred the almost empty mug to his left hand, digging a piece of chalk out of his pocket with his right. Why did FullMetal always have to make everything so difficult?

It was easy to get in, but he had to do four separate arrays to manifest the door back into place. He closed it behind him silently and turned to find he needed to do the same thing to the bedroom wall. He sighed at the annoyance but had no actual qualms about breaking into her room. In fact, a wall was more of an invitation because if it was a locked door he would have had to knock.

The chalk tapped across the cement wall and seconds later he was in, not bothering to repair the missing door this time. He put his empty cup down on the bedside table before sitting at the head of the bed, dangerously close to a curled up FullMetal.

"I don't know if you know this jackass, but usually a room without a door is a big indicator that you're not fucking welcome."

Roy realised that he hadn't actually thought about what he wanted to say. Ed was obviously looking for some sort of conversation despite the hostility, but other than showing up, there was no plan. He looked her over as he sat just above her head space, she was curled up face down in the middle of the bed, unchanged and covered in her own red coat this time, a comforting blanket. "Says the woman that broke into my office."

There, he'd said it. Out loud. Ed was a woman. The following silence was thick as fucking molasses as he waited her out. He knew it wouldn't take too long, Ed had a compulsion to speak, frequently.

"Sorry." It was muffled by the mattress.

That was it? Mustang raised an eyebrow. "Sorry?"

"Yeah. Sorry. You know, an apology. I'm apologising for not telling you earlier. It was just easier to get in if i lied. To put Al back together."

"I did arrive at the same conclusion but thank you for confirming. Actually Ed, i came here to make sure you were ok."

Silence.

"Ed? Can i see your bruises?"

She let out a long suffering sigh into the mattress, like he was going to make a bigger deal out of this than she wanted. Which definitely meant the damage was worse than he'd seen. She stuck her arm out a little and he tried to catalogue the bruises he could see, and then she pulled her coat off.

Roy felt his heart stop. The straps on the back of the dress did nothing to hide two giant purple bruises in the shape of an X across her shoulders. "Jesus fucking Christ Ed."

"Yeah, I'll get over it."

"What the hell happened? Wasn't this just a date?"

Ed shuffled but still didn't look up to face Mustang, "Sooooo about that, it wasn't a real date. Hawkeye and i were looking for this group of guys that have been attacking women and we thought i had a pretty good disguise if i went as myself. I could let the leader or whatever pick me up at the bar then get him to bring me to the others."

Roy never thought he'd have to murder his first Lieutenant. He took a breath to slow his pulse then did his level best to keep his voice calm, though knowing Ed, she'd pick up the anger in it anyway. "You went on a date, for work purposes, to look for trouble?" Ed flinched. So much for sounding calm.

"Well. Roy. It's not as simple as all that. Hawkeye was supposed to meet you yesterday afternoon for details but you disappeared. We decided together, since i'm 23 and we're both adults, that we could take on a few assholes and if anything went wrong she'd shoot them." Ed finally shifted carefully onto her side to glance at him but didn't wait for a response. "I didn't have to 'look for it' because we'd already figured out where these guys were picking their prey from. All i had to do was paint my face, put this dress on, and stand around." She gritted her teeth, "I'm short enough that i look like an easy target, so they took the bait almost as soon as i walked into the bar."

The idea of Ed using herself as bait so quickly after learning her true age and gender sent a wave of hot anger through his system and he had to breathe deep before he could prompt her to continue. "And something went wrong."

Ed grimaced, "Only for me, fortunately Riza's alright. She had to stay in hiding because she's pretty recognisable and it took her a few minutes to catch up with me."

Roy was relieved to hear that Hawkeye was safe, even if he still wanted to kill her later. "And then you followed protocol and called for backup when you realised you were outnumbered."

Ed snorted. "Yeah, that's exactly what happened, except replace 'called for backup' with 'got punched in the face'." She winced slightly as Roy placed his hand on her chin to tilt her head and check her black eye. "They hit me a few times while i was down but then Riza showed up. She shot two of them in the leg and one in the arm, then the last just surrendered."

Mustang carefully outlined the bruise with his thumb as Ed watched him, unblinking. He pulled away but didn't remove his hand, "So Hawkeye called for backup and now they're in lock up?"

"Fucked if i know. I was pretty out of it. I think she said something about prison hospital before we made it to your office where she dumped me on your couch."

"Hawkeye brought you to my office?" and here he'd thought Ed had gone there on her own for comfort.

"Yeah, she said 'stay' but i got kinda nervous when you woke me up looking angry. Though probably jumping out the window with a bad back was a terrible idea."

"You don't say?"

"Shut up jackass."

He ignored her, "Turn back over and i'll get some ice for your shoulders." The black eye was still making his blood boil and he needed to go stick his head in the freezer. This was bringing back all of his memories from his Aunt's place. The injured women, the screaming, the men he had to remove from the building… and now Ed, literally putting herself in that situation for the sake of a job he'd pulled her into.

Roy adjusted Ed's coat to fully cover her and left the room, taking some time when he was out of sight to get a better handle on his emotions. He'd get some ice, make some tea, find the painkillers, hopefully get Ed to sleep and heal. There's no way his office couch had been good enough.

It worked almost too easily, she'd passed out as soon as the drugs kicked in and a half hour later Riza showed up to find him sitting at Ed's kitchen table, his head in his hands and lost in thought. It had taken her a while to finish the intake-and-incident paperwork and when she saw Roy's office was empty she quickly figured out where Ed had run off to and why. Since Mustang should also have been at his desk.

She looked him over and and a grin spread across her face. "You like her."

Roy let his head fall to the table with a soft thump. Speaking into it much like Ed had done to the mattress an hour before. "23? Really? And you just let her run off into trouble?"

"She pulled rank on me."

He lifted his head, staring at her in disbelief.

She rolled her eyes, "Sir, this really was the easiest way. The meeting you missed was where she was going to tell you who she was. Not ask for your blessing to do the mission."

"I would have stopped her from going. I'm not going to use my team as bait Riza."

Hawkeye shrugged, "Then she would have done it without backup."

Roy groaned, picked his head up and let it flop backward off the back of the chair so he could stare at the ceiling. He didn't see Hawkeye's smirk.

"You know, i told her to go to her dorm room first, but she said she'd rather sleep in your office while waiting for me. Something about it feeling safe. She was pretty out of it though, so maybe i misheard."