A/N - Three more chapters left after this one! Things are not going well for our group :)

Riza winced as Roy shuddered, eyelids flickering. Her hand hadn't left his shoulder since they'd gotten back in the car and he'd slumped against the window, arms wrapped around his stomach. She knew he was still awake, because his shoulder was tense beneath her hand and every so often she could see his throat work as he struggled not to vomit again, but he didn't open his eyes or talk to her.

The car swerved a little, and Roy moaned quietly in response. He turned his head further into the window, pulling away from Riza a little.

"Sir-" Riza went after him, now placing her hand on his back and starting to rub it again. He made a small sound of protest, but she could feel his muscles relax beneath her hand and she continued.

The car swerved again, and Roy pitched forward more, his head knocking against the window with a gentle thud. Riza saw his shoulders hunch up around his ears, and his jaw locked. She moved towards him again, shaking her head in annoyance at all the swerving. Carefully, she pulled the Colonel away from the window, wrapping her fingers around his shoulders and half-resting his side against hers.

"Could you try to keep the car pointed a little straighter?" Riza asked. She didn't know how rude she came across. She wasn't exactly trying to sound mean, but at the same time she didn't really care.

"'Kay," Havoc said.

"Thank you, Jean."

No response, and Riza turned her attention back to Roy. He seemed to be struggling to decide if the effort it would take to move back to his own side of the car would be worth losing the comfort he was currently getting from her. Riza wanted to tell him it was okay, he could rest now, but she'd worked with him long enough to know that wasn't going to work either. He may still decide to pull away at some point, if he could work up the strength.

"We can pull over if you need to," Riza reminded him gently. "Just let us know, and no one is going to mind…."

This was true, but she knew it was partially for selfish reasons. No one wanted the Colonel to be uncomfortable, but also if he was going to throw up everyone would rather it be on the outside of the car.

He made an annoyed sort of hum in the back of his throat. He seemed really out of it, and Riza realized they would probably need to take their pills in the next couple of minutes. That...she couldn't imagine Roy being able to swallow something right now, but he didn't exactly have much of a choice. She wondered how long the pills took to absorb. Hopefully it was pretty quick, in case he wasn't able to keep them down….

The car jerked sharply. Havoc had been struggling to drive smoothly the whole time he had been behind the wheel, but years of time spent in combat told her that this was different. Her exhaustion vanished under a sudden spike of adrenaline.

Riza had a split second to register that they had left the road. Not even enough time to cry out. And then they were stopped short as the front of the car slammed into a tree.

The front windshield exploded into a spiderweb of crystals. Riza was thrown forward, and her breath left her as the seatbelt cut across her chest.

For a few long, panicked heartbeats, no one spoke or moved. Riza unbuckled her seatbelt with fumbling fingers, but she was hardly aware of the motion. She leaned into the front seat of the car, intense panic making her feel almost numb.

Ed wasn't moving, but his wide, confused eyes met hers. She didn't know if he was injured yet, but he was alive, at least. Next to him, she saw Havoc stirring vaguely. So he was alive too.

"Jean," she whispered. She still hadn't fully managed to get her breath back. "Jean, what happened?"

What she meant was 'are you alright,' but a look of horror and guilt turned Havoc's already-pale face white. "I...think I fell asleep for a second."

Riza opened her mouth, not even sure what she was going to say yet, but she was interrupted by the sound of retching. She turned back to Roy, who was clearly fighting hard not to vomit.

As she reached out for him, he lost the battle, leaning over the seat and gagging as he spit bile onto the floor of the car. He whimpered, one hand braced on the side of the car and the other clutching his stomach.

"Are you hurt?" Riza asked him, but he didn't respond, just continued retching. In the front of the car, she could see Ed moving slowly, rubbing his eyes in obvious confusion. Next to him, Havoc was hunched over in the seat. He was staring straight ahead, and didn't seem to be moving or processing much of what was happening behind him.

"Sir, are you injured?" Riza asked desperately, steadying Roy as he wobbled and looked like he might fall.

Roy shook his head, grimacing as his eyes seemed to lose focus slightly. "No," he whispered, then bent back over the floor of the car. He clearly wasn't going anywhere, not right now. Riza rubbed his shoulder, slowly starting to realize how much her chest and shoulders hurt from the sudden jerk of the seatbelt against her body. They were lucky it hadn't been worse, she knew that much, but...she had to make sure everyone was alright, she had to see if the car was still usable….

Riza closed her eyes, overwhelmed as Roy convulsed beneath her hand. It was hard to know what to do when she didn't even really know what had happened, and hard to make a plan when she couldn't even get Roy to stop throwing up. She just needed a second, and then she would be able to fix everything, as usual. And as usual, she didn't have a choice, because no one else was going to do it.

Havoc stared through the web of cracked glass in front of him, trying to figure out what the hell he was supposed to do next. His entire body felt like one giant bruise, but the pain was a dull ache behind the enormous guilt of what he'd done. He'd had one job, one fucking job, just to drive the car in a straight line until they got to their destination, and he'd somehow failed at even that.

Through his fog of confusion, exhaustion, and guilt, Riza's voice filtered through. It sounded like she was speaking underwater, but he managed to make it out.

"We need to get out of the car." As she talked, Havoc could hear a car door opening. With an immense effort, he twisted, looking over his shoulder to see Riza grab Roy under one arm and pull him towards the open door.

"We're...leaving?" Ed sounded confused, and when Havoc looked back towards him, he was struggling to sit up, looking like every movement pained him.

Any pain that Havoc had been conscious of previously receded, replaced with a chilling terror. Crashing the car was bad enough, but hurting Ed - that was unimaginable. He'd thought that the young alchemist was alright, but maybe he'd been wrong. As the car had left the road, Jean had woken up long enough to have a split second to react. He'd thrown his arm out in front of Ed, and he'd thought that he'd taken the brunt of the impact. But he could be wrong, and Ed could be hurt, and then he didn't know what he was going to do….

Moving with a speed he didn't think he was capable of, Havoc grabbed Ed by the shoulder and turned the kid towards him, beginning to check him over for injuries.

"Hey," Ed protested weakly. "Get off."

Ed pushed at Havoc's arm. Normally, this would have been no big deal, especially considering the kid was so weak right now, but this time, a shock of pain radiated all through Havoc's side. Havoc gasped, and then managed to put the pain aside.

"Are you hurt?" Havoc asked, using the hand that wasn't throbbing to take Ed's face and turn it from side to side.

"I-"

Havoc quickly patted down both of Ed's arms, feeling for breaks, then immediately felt stupid when he remembered that one was made of metal. The other one seemed undamaged, anyways, and Ed seemed exhausted but unharmed aside from that.

"You're okay, right?" Havoc asked.

"Think so."

Ed opened the car door and slithered ungracefully out of it. The comedown from the Praxapan must still be affecting him, because his legs instantly gave way beneath his weight, and he landed in a heap on the ground. He didn't even seem to have the strength to arrange his limbs into a more comfortable position, let alone actually move.

"Jean?" he heard Riza call from outside the car. "Are you coming?"

Finally, with a sick sense of dread, Havoc forced himself to look down at his arm. The sudden spike of pain had worried him, and he had half-expected to see that his wrist was completely deformed, or maybe that there was a piece of bone sticking out. Instead, it just looked swollen, and the skin was already a deep purplish-red.

Not that that was much better. Havoc had broken bones before, more than once. He knew what they looked like. He must have cracked his wrist when he had thrown his arm out to catch Ed.

"Jean?" Riza asked again.

Havoc slowly started to make his way out of the car, trying to put as little pressure as possible on his injured wrist. "I, uh, I think my arm is broken."

"What?" Riza said sharply.

Havoc unfolded himself from the car, clutching his arm to his chest. "It's not too bad," Havoc said helplessly. "I don't think."

Havoc held it out for Riza's inspection, wincing as even the slightest motion sent a spike of pain through his whole body. She looked it over as gently as she could, then nodded slightly. "I think you're right," she said.

Havoc leaned back against the car, closing his eyes against a sudden wave of nausea. "You're alright, right?"

"I'm alright," she said softly.

Havoc forced his eyes open. Roy was kneeling on the ground a little way from the car, looking unsteady and pale.

"Is he-"

"He's alright too," Riza said. "Just...sick."

The alarms chose that minute to go off. Havoc closed his eyes again, the noise overwhelming him and overloading his exhausted brain. He reached for his alarm and shut it off, then pulled his wrist back towards his chest, guarding it with his other hand and feeling his headache swell. He knew that he should be paying attention, probably helping with...something, but he couldn't even bring himself to open his eyes at the moment, much less do anything remotely useful.

The other alarms clicked off as well, all but one, and he heard Ed make a distressed sound. "I...I can't find my pills."

Something stirred vaguely in the back of Havoc's memory, and he finally opened his eyes. "I think...I think I have them. When you were out, I gave them to you…."

Without thinking, Havoc went to pat his pockets. His broken wrist sent a searing pain up his arm as his hand hit the pills at his side, and he yelped softly.

"Jean? Are you alright?" Riza asked, her already-worried expression darkening further.

He wasn't, not really, but they needed him to be. None of them had time to worry about a fractured wrist, and so Havoc simply swallowed hard and nodded.

"Yep. Just...found the pills." Havoc reached carefully across his body with his uninjured hand, reaching into the opposite pocket and fishing around for the pill vial he'd taken from Ed. He managed to extract the bottle with only a few minor bumps and hisses. He tried to be subtle about it, but he was pretty sure that at least Riza noticed.

Havoc held the vial out proudly, then looked at the lid, then looked at his injured wrist. "Oh. I, uhh, I can't...open it."

God, he was useless. He'd not only managed to destroy their sole method of transportation, but he'd effectively sidelined himself in the process. He wished that he could think of some way to fix it, but thinking wasn't really his strong suit.

"That's alright," Riza said gently, taking the pills from him and unscrewing the cap. She handed a pill to Ed, who took it, looking faintly ill. Havoc just watched them, feeling pretty ill himself.

"Alright," Riza said with an exhausted, resigned sigh that made him feel about a thousand times worse. "I looked at the map. Luckily, we're very close. We still have about two miles to go, and I think we can make it. It'll be difficult, certainly, but doable."

Havoc looked down at Ed, who was still slumped on the ground. "Can you walk, Chief?"

"Yes," Ed snapped defiantly, making absolutely no move to get up from his current position.

Riza swallowed visibly. "I can carry Ed."

Ed scowled. "Are you calling me small, you…." The protest trailed off, and there was no heat behind it. This would have been worrying, if it wasn't somewhat expected. Ed was stubborn, but he wasn't an idiot. He was visibly struggling not to fall asleep again, and he was entirely too weak to move. There was no way he would actually be able to walk two miles.

Riza squatted down. Ed couldn't do much more than blink dazedly as Havoc and Riza manhandled him onto Riza's back. Havoc used his good hand to help her stand. She stumbled once under the weight, but then regained her balance, face grim and set. Havoc knew from experience that the metal limbs made the kid heavier than he looked, but not overly so. They didn't stop him from being short.

With Ed more or less taken care of, Havoc turned his attention to Roy. He was still kneeling on the ground, staring fixedly at a point between his hands.

"Did you take your pills, sir?" Havoc asked, trying to keep his voice polite.

Roy nodded shakily, but didn't say anything, and Havoc realized that Roy probably had taken them and was now trying very hard not to vomit them back up. Havoc gave him a moment.

"Can you, uh...can you walk, sir?"

In a perfect mirror image of Ed, Roy nodded again but made no move to actually get up. Ed could be carried in a pinch, but Roy really could not be, so Havoc felt his stomach twist at the sight.

"Can you get up?" he asked tentatively.

Roy got one foot braced beneath him, lurching horribly to the side while he did it. He started to straighten up, but he couldn't seem to get there - his balance was all shot to hell.

"Too...dizzy…," he ground out.

Havoc reached out with his good hand without really thinking, wrapping that arm around Roy's waist and helping to pull him to his feet. Roy leaned shakily against him, breathing hard and trembling violently.

"I...I can help you walk," Havoc said. "But I won't be able to carry you."

"I know." With some effort, Roy managed to loop an arm around Havoc's shoulders. The weight wasn't easy for Havoc to manage, especially when pain stabbed him in the arm every time he so much as moved wrong. But he could bear it.

"I think we're ready," he said to the group at large. He started to move forward slowly, Roy in tow. He could hear Riza's heavy footsteps behind him, struggling with the weight of Ed. Maybe, if they were lucky, nothing else would go wrong. If they were lucky, they were walking towards the right place, and Hughes and Al would be there waiting for them, and they'd be in time. After everything that had happened so far, Havoc thought the universe probably owed them a little luck. Unfortunately, he was desperately worried that the universe wasn't going to feel the same way.

Riza had always considered herself a strong woman, in both a figurative and a literal sense. She'd consistently beat out the women (and a good chunk of the men) in the Academy, and she'd been careful to keep herself in near-perfect shape even after graduating. She was stronger than most of the soldiers (excluding Havoc) on Roy's squad, possibly stronger even than the Colonel himself - he never lifted anything, so it was a little hard to tell.

Riza knew that she was strong. But that didn't matter much now, because it seemed that she wasn't strong enough.

Ed was...heavy. He was heavy, and she was small. Not nearly so small as Ed, but small enough that carrying the completely limp alchemist was hard. He seemed to be a tangle of limbs, and Riza was constantly worried that his dangling feet would hit her knee, or ankle, or somehow catch on the ground, if she let him dip too low. If they did, she would fall, and she wouldn't be able to catch herself with the added weight of Ed.

Havoc had been able to carry Ed easily, and even though she knew the Second Lieutenant had about six inches of height and a considerable amount of strength on her, she'd let herself hope that she would find carrying Ed doable, if difficult.

It had been, at least for a while. They'd been walking for about thirty minutes, and had made it roughly a mile, but Riza wasn't sure that she could keep on much longer. Ed seemed to grow heavier with every step, and she could feel her fingers aching and her wrists beginning to shake with fatigue. Her back hurt, her legs hurt, even her neck hurt from where Ed's chin was digging into it. She wanted to stop, to take a break, but she knew that if she put Ed down, she wasn't going to be able to pick him back up again.

Riza took what she'd intended to be a deep breath, but all she managed was a tortured wheeze. She told herself that it had helped anyway, and she continued to slog forward. She would just keep going, because she had to. She had no other choice.

Riza took another step, and went to her knees as her leg buckled beneath her. As she sank to the ground, she lost hold of Ed, and her stiff fingers couldn't regain their grip. He tumbled off her back, rolling slightly as he hit the ground. His eyes fluttered open, and he looked at her, confused but seemingly unhurt.

"Oh god," Riza whispered, her hands shaking uncontrollably now that they weren't holding Ed. Her legs felt like jelly, and her shoulders were on fire as the tension in them relaxed enough for the pain to make itself known.

She looked up in time to see Havoc stop walking. Roy didn't seem to notice what had happened - the hand that wasn't looped around Havoc's shoulders was covering his own eyes, and he seemed desperate to block out as much sensory input as possible. But Havoc took in the situation with concern and fear in his eyes, and then dragged Roy back a few steps to help her.

"Take him," he said.

"But-"

Havoc just shook his head slightly, and Riza swallowed hard. She couldn't take Ed, and he couldn't take both of them. She staggered to her feet, and wrapped her arms around the Colonel. He didn't say anything, but she thought his arms might have tightened slightly around her.

Havoc leaned down, and gingerly started to adjust Ed into a position that would get him on his back. Ed's eyes were opened, but they looked blearly, and he still seemed completely unable to move his limbs.

Havoc put too much pressure on his injured wrist, and Riza watched him reel back with a hiss of pain. This seemed to get Ed's attention.

"Wha's happenin'?" he asked.

"Nothing," Havoc said. He sounded stressed, but also somehow soothing. "We're just...shuffling a few things around, okay?"

Ed hummed slightly, and didn't say anything else.

With a grunt of effort, Havoc stood, Ed on his back. He was using his good arm to hold Ed's left leg securely, but he was clearly having more trouble with the right arm. He was mostly just using his elbow to squeeze Ed's leg tight to his side. Riza wasn't sure this position was sustainable, as it must be causing Havoc excruciating pain. But he seemed alright for now.

"Jean, I'm sorry, I didn't-"

Havoc shot her a mournful look that clearly asked her to stop talking. She understood, in that second. They were all just getting through this the best that they could. Havoc was, somehow, still strong enough to take Ed, and so he would. She shouldn't apologize, but she should be grateful.

She nodded at him slightly, and he nodded back.

Then they started walking again.

Roy didn't know how long they had been walking. He sort of remembered Riza saying they were two miles from the new address, but he was pretty sure that couldn't be true. They had been walking at least five miles since they'd left the car. Maybe more like ten. Every time that Roy took a step, he was pretty sure he wouldn't be taking another one, but he somehow forced his feet to keep moving forward.

"There it is," Riza said with a whisper, and it took Roy a second or two even to process that she'd said something. Finally, her words pierced the fog that surrounded his brain and he looked up. They were standing at the end of a long dirt road, staring up at a warehouse. It didn't look like it had been used in a very, very long time. Roy supposed that was a good sign - Hughes and Al were much more likely to be in some kind of abandoned facility.

"Is this it?" Ed's voice was slow and sluggish, but he was talking. That had to be good.

Roy turned slowly towards Ed and Havoc, every inch of his body aching. He was perpetually surprised by how much energy it took for any amount of movement, how draining even the smallest action proved. He felt Riza turn with him, and the tiny part of him that wasn't consumed with exhaustion paused to be grateful to his Lieutenant.

Roy finished the agonizingly long process of looking towards Ed. The young alchemist was still perched on Havoc's back, but he was at least holding onto Havoc's shoulders now. Ed still looked about half-dead, with horribly dark circles under his eyes and a faint tremor running through his body, but he didn't look quite as bad as he had before.

"Is this it?" Ed asked again, hands tightening on Havoc's shoulders.

"Let's find out," Riza said, and they made their way up the drive, trying to keep to the treeline. Roy let her lead, concentrating on walking and trying to keep an eye on Havoc. His Second Lieutenant looked dramatically worse than he had before, and now that Roy was thinking about it, he remembered something about a broken wrist in the crash. At the time, he'd been concentrating most of his efforts on not throwing up and hadn't really been paying attention.

"Are you alright?" Roy asked quietly. He was barely able to summon the strength to form words, but he needed to know if he was pushing his men too far.

Havoc just blinked at him a few times, pain-glazed eyes standing out in his pale skin. He adjusted Ed on his back, swallowing hard as Ed's right leg slipped slightly. "Yeah," he whispered.

He probably wasn't alright. None of them were, Roy knew that. They would be, once they took the Praxapan, or at least they would feel like they were for a while. Roy knew from experience that the Praxapan high could wipe out the pain from even severe injuries, and make you fully functional until the crash came. He didn't want to ask Havoc to do that, but he also knew he wouldn't have to. Hawkeye and Havoc had come this far, they'd gone above and beyond what Roy had any right to ask of them, and they would go further. And that would be worth it, if they could save Hughes and Al.