A/N - This is actually going to be thirteen chapters! The action starts to pick up a bit after this chapter, so I will try my best to start posting faster. Trigger warning for (not super graphic) vomiting in this chapter.

When the men came back, the Lieutenant Colonel was asleep. Al had watched with concern as over the past few hours, Hughes seemed to become more and more affected by whatever the IV contained. He'd been holding his head and moving more gingerly, until eventually he'd pretty much stopped moving at all. Al didn't know if the headache was from the drugs, or Al's punch, or the loss of his glasses, but Hughes was clearly struggling. He'd fallen asleep about thirty minutes ago, and Al had been sitting quietly, trying to let him rest. But as soon as the door opened, Hughes shot upright and settled into a defensive position so fast that Al wasn't sure if he'd ever actually been asleep at all.

Hughes squinted towards the door as the two men stepped through, clearly struggling to see them without his glasses. They walked forward, into the center of the room, and Al saw the leader scowl.

An imaginary chill ran through him, and Al forced himself to stay still and silent. Did they know they didn't have Fullmetal and the Flame Colonel? Had the military given them up? If so, what was going to happen to them now?

"What do you want?" Hughes said, sounding world-weary and vaguely annoyed, as if the kidnappers were unannounced and unwelcome visitors. Al spent a second trying to remember where he'd heard that tone before, and was surprised to feel a tinge of amusement as he realized that it was usually how Roy greeted Ed.

"The Amestrian Military has been a little...ah, reluctant to pay the ransom we set."

"That makes sense." Hughes was still trying to sound sort of carefree, but Al could tell he was worn out and a little ill. Still, he thought he would be the only one who knew Hughes well enough to tell. Everyone else would probably think he was just annoyed. "This was a terrible plan, the Military doesn't give a shit about us individual soldiers…."

"You are not just a soldier. You are a State Alchemist."

"Doesn't matter. They still aren't going to bend the rules for just one guy…."

"I do not believe that is true. I believe they will pay the ransom, they just need a little bit more...motivation. They think we aren't serious. But we have kidnapped two State Alchemists. And I can guarantee, they should very much be taking us seriously."

Hughes swallowed hard. He seemed, for once, at a loss for words.

"Your friend's body is invulnerable," the man continued. "He would be difficult to damage, although I believe we can do it if we try. But you…."

The man made a sharp gesture with his hand, and the other guy handed him a phone. The slack vanished from the cord as the leader stepped forward again, closer to Hughes.

Al went to wrap his arms around himself, a useless gesture of comfort left over from when he had a body. But the shackles around his wrists stopped him short.

The leader dialed a number. Al couldn't tell what it was, obviously, but from the way he talked to the person on the other end of the phone, Al knew it was a member of the Military. They seemed to pick up a conversation from where they had left off, so Al could guess this was the same individual the leader had been negotiating with last time.

"Do you have anything to say to your superiors, Colonel Mustang?" the man asked, leaning down and holding the phone to Hughes' ear.

Hughes really did sound panicked now, and he wasn't even trying to hide it. He knew what was coming as well as Al did, and there was nothing either of them could do to stop it.

"Don't give them anything they want, okay?" Hughes said frantically. "I know the policy as well as anyone. We refuse to give an inch when we're negotiating with terrorists. If you give in here, people will just be kidnapping soldiers left and right-"

The man hit Hughes. Hard. The phone clattered to the ground, and Hughes hit the floor with a soft thump a heartbeat later. Al hadn't noticed the man was wearing a ring until blood started to pour down the side of Hughes' face.

Al forward against the chains that kept him anchored to the wall. He gasped, unable to stop himself He kept himself from making any more noise. As much as he wanted to scream at the men and tell them to stop, to leave Hughes alone, he knew they wouldn't. Yelling at the kidnappers would just give them what they wanted, and Al couldn't see how that would do the two of them any good.

Hughes looked up from the floor, locking eyes with the man who'd hit him. Blood was coating one side of his face now, trickling under his eye and making tearlike tracks down his cheek. Still looking at the man, he raised his voice, addressing whoever was on the phone.

"Don't give them shit," he snarled. He began to push himself back to a sitting position, and the leader's foot shot out, snapping Hughes' head back and sending him to the ground again.

This time, Hughes let out a small, involuntary whimper, his hand going to his mouth and coming away tinged with red. He spat on the floor, leaving a small puddle of bloody saliva.

Once again, all Al could do was watch. He felt his hands work their way into fists, but he didn't have any way to intervene as Hughes panted for breath on the floor.

The leader bent down and picked up the phone, dangling it by the cord. It swung back and forth in front of Hughes' face as the man stood up, looking down at him with seeming disinterest.

"I can always damage him more," the leader promised. "Right now, he's still a perfectly functional asset. But if you continue to waste my time, I'll be forced to take his fingers. Just one hand, of course. Maybe I'll even let you have him back at a discount, then."

Al saw Hughes' eyes widen, right before the man kicked him heavily in the ribs. There was a sickening cracking sound, and Hughes' breath left him in a sudden wheeze. His eyes were wide and scared.

"Hurry, if you want him back in one piece. My patience grows thin."

With that, the leader hung up the phone, and he and the other man left the room, leaving Hughes alone with Al. The Lieutenant Colonel was still gasping on the floor, blood trickling out the side of his mouth and staining the wood red.

"Are you alright, Colonel?" Al gasped.

"I'm fine," Hughes said quickly. His voice was a little slurred, and Al felt something inside him tighten with worry. Hughes had taken a punch and a kick to the head, both strong enough to make him bleed. And that was on top of being knocked out by Al yesterday. If he hadn't had a concussion before, he surely did now. And that, along with the side effects from whatever drugs were in the IV...Al didn't know how much longer Hughes would last.

"Are you sure?" Al asked desperately. Al tried to get to Hughes without thinking, and was jerked back by the heavy chains set into the wall. "You just-"

"I'm fine," Hughes whispered again. His eyes were closed now. It could have been Al's imagination, but one already looked like it was swelling. "I'm fine."

Al watched as Hughes started to laboriously push himself into a sitting position. It took a while - he was clearly dizzy and weak, and it took him some time to even find the wall again, let alone leverage himself upright. He had to pause at one point to spit out a small mouthful of blood. Al winced.

Finally, he managed to lean himself gingerly back against the wall. He wasn't a small man, but he looked somehow tiny now, and very, very fragile. Al knew there was nothing he could do either way, not here, but he didn't look like someone who could be considered "fine."

Al prayed Ed and Roy had found something, that they were on their way. If they were going to be rescued, it was going to need to be sooner rather than later. Hughes couldn't take much more.

Riza and Ed were at their planned meeting spot before Roy and Havoc. Riza told herself that they were fine, and that wasn't a problem, but still, she was relieved when she saw them coming from the other end of the street.

And then she was less relieved, when she realized how terrible they looked. Ed looked more or less the same as he had when they'd woken up this morning - tired and drawn, but fine. But Roy seemed to have declined sharply in the past hour. His tremor had gotten worse, and his steps seemed somehow more hesitant. And almost worse, Havoc looked like he had been visibly crying. His eyes were red and glassy-looking, and his skin was blotchy.

"What...happened?" Riza asked cautiously. She had no idea what could possibly have transpired to make Jean actually cry, and she wasn't sure that she wanted to find out. "Did you not get the Praxapan?"

"No, we got it!" Havoc said cheerfully, rubbing at his reddened eyes. He held up a small white bag and shook it.

"Unfortunately, it's the same thing that we took in Ishval," Roy followed up, looking morose. "Only one dose each."

"Oh," Riza said quietly, some of her questions still unanswered. "Jean, are you...feeling alright?"

"Huh? Yeah," Havoc answered, looking at her in confusion. Roy looked at Jean, apparently realizing why Riza was concerned, and sighed.

"The pharmacist was reluctant to give out Praxapan to two strangers. Havoc...convinced her."

"I fake cried and said the Colonel was gonna fire me," Havoc explained bluntly. "How did your thing go?"

"The break-in went smoothly," Riza told them, producing the phone records. "At least, I think it did. I'm positive that these files contain the approximate location that the kidnappers called from, but it may take me some time to understand them."

Roy looked somewhat taken aback when she mentioned the break-in, but he thankfully didn't comment. Riza assumed that Roy knew that she had done what she had to, and, as her superior officer, didn't want to know any further details.

"So what now?" Ed asked, badly concealing a yawn.

"Now we should find somewhere private to read the phone records," Riza told him, mentally trying to calculate how far they were from her and Roy's respective apartments.

"Hey, we're pretty close to my place," Havoc exclaimed. As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he looked as though he deeply regretted saying them. "Not that we have to do that. I'm sure one of you guys probably has a better idea, and if you do we should go there."

"Your place it is," Roy said definitively, cutting Jean off before he could get any further. "Let's go."

"Great," Havoc muttered to himself. "Yay. I mean, yeah! Let's all go to my apartment! Can't wait for my bosses to see that. Yep."

Riza ignored him, not sure how else to respond. At this point, speed was more important than any other consideration, and Havoc had offered. She half-expected Ed or Roy to say something (likely pointed), but Roy was stumbling along looking half-asleep and Ed wasn't much better. She truly didn't think either of them had noticed.

Havoc's place wasn't as close as she had hoped - it took them about twenty minutes to get there. Granted, it probably would have taken forty to get to her or Roy's. It also wasn't as dilapidated as she had feared. It wasn't Roy's sleek complex, or her quaint, bright studio, but the outside of his building looked well-maintained, if a little cheap and old.

On the inside, Havoc's apartment was the same. There was a crack high up on one wall, a stain on the couch, scratches on the floor where the door didn't quite sit flush with the frame. But he had furniture, and none of it was boxes or milk crates. There were a few decorations on the wall. Everything was clean.

"You can spread the phone records out wherever," Havoc said. "I have a kitchen table."

He gestured vaguely towards a hallway that Riza assumed led to a kitchen. It hadn't occurred to Riza that Havoc might not have a kitchen table. But she supposed it was nice to be sure.

"The floor will do just fine, thank you," she said, and began spreading out the phone records. She heard Havoc offer Roy and Ed a place to sit, then some food and water. Ed ended up eating a bowl of stovetop ramen, and Roy, as far as she could tell, ate nothing. Havoc offered her some food too, but there was so much material to go through that Riza couldn't afford to get distracted.

"Do you want some sleep, chief?" Havoc asked after a while. Riza glanced up, and saw that Ed seemed to be nodding off sitting up.

"Yeah," Ed said, and flopped over sideways on the couch.

"I mean...you can take the bed."

"Too far," Ed moaned, eyes already shut.

Riza turned back to the phone records. She had spent years answering phones for Roy, and she had occasionally had to go through the phone records to get the exact time of a call. But then, she had always had a pretty accurate idea already, and usually the callback number too. And if she was only going through her own calls, there were usually no more than four or five a day to look at, whereas the Military HQ received hundreds of calls an hour. She could mark off any calls that were less than two minutes, as she was sure whoever picked up the phone would have tried to negotiate. She could mark off any calls from numbers that she noticed had also called the HQ previously. After that...it was mostly just a tedious process of checking the location of each call's transfer station, and cross-referencing that with a map of Amestris, until she found a call that matched both the timing and the possible location.

The sky got brighter. The alarms went off once, and then went off again. After a while, Roy crouched down next to her. "I'd like to help," he said.

Riza glanced over at him without saying anything. One hand was braced shakily on the floor, one hovered near his temple in a way that spoke of headache. He was greyish and clammy-looking, with sick circles under his eyes. He looked like he was barely able to stay upright, let alone help her read phone records.

But his exhausted eyes held a glint of desperation, one that Riza was very familiar with. Right here, right now, Roy wasn't doing anything to help find his best friend. No matter how much he'd done to get them to this point, no matter how much he might do afterwards, all that mattered now was that he was useless. And Roy hated feeling useless.

Riza knew full well that Roy wouldn't be any help decoding the phone records. He might, in fact, prove to be a hindrance. But she couldn't stand the look in his eyes. Silently, she passed over a file.

Roy took the papers with shaking hands, giving her a grateful look. Quickly, Riza explained what she was doing, and Roy nodded along with her. She didn't think that he absorbed much, if any, of her explanation, but it didn't really matter. As he clutched the files closer, she saw some of the distress leave his eyes, and his hands steadied slightly.

"Okay," he said, his voice sounding a little stronger. "I can do that."

"Thank you, sir," Riza said quietly, and he shot her a tiny smile. Taking the file, he sat down on the floor, leaning his back up against the couch. He peered at the file, clearly straining his eyes, and grimaced, his free hand going to his temple. Undaunted, he continued, frowning at the papers that he clearly didn't understand. Leaving the Colonel to it, she returned to her own files, continuing the long task before her.

Hughes was staying still. At least, unless the floor of the cabin had somehow turned into the deck of a ship, he was staying still. But it didn't feel that way. Somewhere in the past hour or so, the world had started tilting violently around him. He thought it would settle eventually, but so far, it hadn't.

At this point, he had no idea if the bigger problem was the drugs he was on, or the violent blows he had taken to the head. Maybe both together. Probably both together. Either way, things were...not going well. He didn't want to freak the kid out. But he couldn't last so much longer here. And if they cut off one of his fingers...god, he shuddered to think about it.

The nausea had settled in around the same time as the dizziness. He had no idea how he could be nauseous. He hadn't taken anything by mouth in...what, had to be almost thirty-six hours by now. The needle feeding into his arm must be giving him some sort of nutrients too, because otherwise, he doubted he'd still be able to sit up.

Of course, he was hardly even able to sit up now. Currently, he was slumped heavily against the wall behind him, handcuffs trailing from one wrist and IV line from the other. If he'd tried to move away from the wall, he would have fallen. When he opened his eyes, he struggled to tell which way was up. His vision was always a little blurry without his glasses, but it had gotten even worse after the repeated blows to the head.

Hughes felt the world around him tilt again and snuck a hand down to the floor, spreading his fingers wide across the pine boards. The accompanying jingle of the handcuffs startled him, the noise driving into his head like a steel spike. Hughes winced, and heard Al cough quietly from across the room.

"I bet they're coming soon."

Hughes peeled his eyes open, trying to focus on the vaguely Al-shaped blob of darkness against the far wall. His vision warped and wavered, and the nausea crept into the back of his throat. He nodded tightly, swallowing hard.

Al sighed. "I know there's nothing I can do about it, not really, but you're looking awfully sick. Do you want food? Or water? They're trying to keep us alive, so they would probably give you something, if we asked…."

Hughes knew that he should want food, after going without for a day and a half, but he couldn't imagine eating. He also knew that if the men hadn't offered him food by now, they probably weren't going to give it to him.

Hughes shook his head, gulping again as the motion sent his vision swirling. The vertigo made him shudder.

"Okay," Al said, sighing again. "Just...just let me know if there is anything I can do, alright? Like maybe I could talk? Would that help?"

Even through the nausea, Hughes felt a smile grow. Ed was certainly a good kid underneath all the terrible parts, but Al was one of the most incredibly selfless people that he had ever met. Dammit, he was supposed to be the one looking out for the child, not the other way around….

"Thanks, Al, I think-" That was all that Hughes managed to get out before the rising bile choked off his words, and he managed to lean to the side just in time. He retched, coughing a burning mouthful of bile and water onto the ground beside him. A cracked rib he hadn't noticed made itself known with a vengeance.

"Ouch," Hughes whispered, staying slumped against the wall and panting heavily. He coughed again as more bile pushed its way up his throat, choking at the stinging sensation. The hand with the IV wrapped protectively around his injured rib, Hughes squeezed his eyes shut and waited for the nausea to subside.

It didn't.

A second later, Hughes was leaning over slightly and vomiting again. Throwing up was supposed to help nausea, right? That had always been his experience. But this time, the world was still tilting violently around him, and he couldn't imagine much of anything helping. He was just too damn dizzy.

"Colonel?" Al said worriedly.

"I'm alright, Al," Hughes said. He realized that somewhere along the way, he'd started panting for breath. He was sure that wasn't helping his ribs but...there was only so much he could do about that at this point. "I think...think it's just another side effect of the medication…."

"But-"

"Nothing we can do."

Hughes dry-heaved, then gasped at the pain. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he registered that things were getting bad. Their situation had been dire before, but now….

The nausea and vomiting could very well mean he had a concussion. Which wasn't surprising, considering all the knocks he had taken, but it certainly wasn't good. Escape had been unlikely before, considering that even if he could get out of the cuffs, he would collapse within an hour of leaving the cabin. But now, it was even more unlikely, because there was just about zero chance he could even get out of the cuffs in the first place.

He was also sure the IV drip must be feeding him some kind of fluids, or he would be half-dead by this point. But it had been able to keep up with him sitting quietly in a cool room. He wasn't sure it would be able to keep up with him throwing up. There was a fair chance he was about to become dangerously dehydrated, possibly before the guys who had captured them even came back to check on them.

And mostly, he just didn't want this. He didn't want to spend the next...however long before they were rescued or killed dry-heaving, too weak and dizzy to even sit up all the way. That sounded miserable. He was miserable.

"I can ask them for water, or maybe...maybe they can give you something for the nausea. There's a shot for that, Ed had it once when he had food poisoning-"

Hughes knew Al was rambling at this point, probably just trying to keep Hughes from feeling less alone. It was working, kind of. He was glad to hear the kid's voice.

Hughes coughed uncomfortably, and shook his head.

"Thanks again, Al, but I'll be alright." Hughes' repeated it like a mantra, even though voice was scratched and raw-sounding, and he couldn't seem to speak above a whisper. "I'll...I'll be just fine."

Havoc leaned back against the wall, trying to muffle a yawn. Riza had been at it for almost four hours now, poring over the records that only seemed to make sense to her. The Colonel had been trying to help for a while, but it had been pretty obvious (at least to Havoc) that he'd had no idea what he was doing. Now, he'd transitioned to mostly sagging against the couch, looking ill and headachey. Ed was still asleep - he was getting as much rest as he could in between the alarms going off.

Havoc was just starting to wonder if maybe he should try to get some sleep as well when Riza stiffened, paper crinkling in her hand. Roy snapped out of his stupor, and both he and Havoc turned towards the Lieutenant.

"Do you have something?" Roy asked, the hope in his voice almost tangible.

"I think so," Riza said, grabbing a local map off the ground and scanning it frantically. She stabbed an area with her finger, then looked back at the phone records, then up at Roy. "I found the area code the kidnappers called from. It's an hour away, and about ten miles across."

Roy made a small, startled-sounding gasp, his eyes widening in disbelief. "Get Ed up," he said hoarsely.

"Wait, um, do we have a plan?" Havoc asked. Ten miles was a lot of area to search, especially when none of them had gotten more than a few hours of sleep in over 36 hours. Havoc figured Riza must have something, but he just...wanted to know what it was before they started driving.

"I think we should start at the phone tower that received the incoming call. That's the center of the area we have to search. From the map, it looks like it's mostly forest, so we may not be able to explore every inch of the area in the car, but any man-made structures should be pretty noticeable."

"So we're starting at the tower and driving in circles until we find them?" Havoc clarified. He thought this was pretty similar to the plan he had suggested the night before, when they'd been trying to brainstorm, but he decided it was best not to mention this.

Riza nodded slightly, and Roy stood unsteadily and started rolling up the map and papers they would need. Havoc made his way to the couch and shook Ed awake.

Ed rolled over with a groan. Then he seemed to register that Havoc was waking him up, not the beeping of his stopwatch, and a look of confusion crossed his face. He pulled his stopwatch out from underneath his shoulder - he seemed to have somehow rolled on top of it - and stared at it blankly.

"I still have twenty minutes to sleep," he said. There was a slight slur to the words.

"Hawkeye figured it out," Havoc said. "She knows where they are."

It was like Ed became a different person. He sat up and swung his legs over the side of the couch in the same movement, and a second later he was standing. He'd balled up his jacket to use as a pillow - Havoc had a lot of things, but pillows for his sofa was not one of them - but now he grabbed it and tugged it on. In about ten seconds flat, he looked wide awake and ready to go. Then he seemed to register that Riza was still on the ground and Roy was still rolling up papers. He frowned.

"Come on, come on," he said, sounding almost angry. "Let's move it, people."

Havoc had to agree. He wanted Roy and Riza out of his apartment with no sofa pillows and only the cheap kind of stovetop ramen. He wanted to get Al and Hughes back so this whole thing could be over, and then he wanted to sleep for the next twelve hours. He wanted to be doing something, even if it was driving in circles, because he'd spent the better part of the last six hours sitting on the floor and watching Riza read.

Ed beat him to the door, standing there and nearly vibrating in his impatience. "Let's go, let's go, let's go," he snapped. "I just wanna hurry up and get to Al, okay? He's probably worried about me."

From the way Ed was acting, he seemed to think that finding Al would be instantaneous, but they still had an hour's drive before even getting to the tower. And even after that, the circle plan would take time. Still, if Ed could maintain this level of energy throughout the entire car ride, who was Havoc to discourage him? He kept his mouth shut.

Riza collected whatever belongings she had and joined the rest of them at the door. Near the couch, Roy finished rolling the papers and stood unsteadily, turning towards them.

"Let's go get them," he said quietly, the exhaustion on his face joined by a flicker of hope. His eyes were still glassy, as though he hadn't quite managed to conceptualize what they'd found, or possibly was still struggling to process it. Either way, he looked like he couldn't believe that this was almost over. Havoc understood that - he wasn't as drained as Roy, but he was starting to get tired enough that the world was blurring around him. The phone records would have been confusing to him at the best of times, but when he'd looked at them a few hours ago, they may as well have been written in a different language. Havoc could feel his energy waning, and like the rest of them, he just wanted this to be over.