"NOOOOOOOO," Riza howled, and Hughes's body was moving slower than his brain and he had time enough to think that he'd never heard her sound like that before. Then, she was squeezing off shots, dropping three guards in as many seconds.

But there was one more, one she hadn't seen. Hughes realized almost dreamily that the gun Havoc had given him was up, aimed at the back of the hidden man's skull. He pulled the trigger, and the man fell, the shot meant for Riza going wide.

Riza heard the sound, and looked back at Hughes with wide, panicked eyes. She didn't seem able to fully process that he had saved her, but that didn't matter. He had. There were no more guards left, Hughes didn't think, not one alive in the whole building. Now the only thing was...it was just….

"No, sir," Riza said, dropping to her knees beside Roy's prone form. "Please, no, not now, you're going to be okay…."

Hughes felt like everything was moving in slow motion. This couldn't be happening. The bullet must have missed him, he was fine, he was just stunned….

He wasn't even sure Roy had seen him. He had gone to all this work to rescue him, and now he might not even ever find out that it had worked. That Hughes was alive.

He and Havoc stumbled forward. Havoc let go of him, and Hughes immediately fell to his knees - all the strength seemed to have gone out of his legs. He crawled the last few paces to Roy's side, and looked up into Riza's tear-stained face.

"Is he-"

She didn't answer - she was still fumbling for a pulse. But after a single heartbeat that seemed to last a lifetime, she nodded.

"He's alive."

Riza could feel Roy's pulse in his wrist, but it was fluttery and weak. The weight of his own body seemed to have slowed the bleeding when he'd first been hit, but that wasn't enough anymore. Blood was leaking out from beneath him in an ever-widening circle, making the knees of her pants sticky.

Right now, all she could see was his back. She knew she needed to get a look at the wound. She didn't want to - she was terrified that it would be something there was no coming back from. But the not knowing was worse, so she rolled him onto his back.

Blood coated the front of his uniform. His eyes were shut, his face slack and pale. There was so much fabric and blood that it took a moment for her to locate the actual wound, but as soon as she did, she started putting pressure on it. Red liquid continued to bubble up between her fingers. He definitely needed actual medical attention if there was any hope of getting the bleeding stopped, but at this point she thought he would die if they moved him. She simply wasn't sure what else to do.

"Colonel?" she said, her voice small. "Colonel, can you hear me?"

To her surprise, his eyes fluttered open. But there wasn't a hint of recognition or understanding in them - all she saw was panic and pain.

"Stay with me, sir," she begged him. "Please, please…." She wanted to reach out and touch his face, or his shoulder, just a gentle reminder that he had people with him, people he couldn't leave behind. But her hands were buried in the wound in his stomach, and she couldn't move them even to offer comfort.

A few tears splashed on Roy's shirt, instantly lost among the blood, and Riza knew that they were hers but didn't care. Maybe if she couldn't lift her hands to bring him back to her, her tears would do the job instead.

Riza knew the last dregs of the Praxapan were making her extra emotional, and it was hard to think around the panic and pain building up in her chest. This wasn't the time to be crying but she…she just….

"Roy, come on, buddy…." Hughes was beside Roy now, opposite from her, and she could hear her own pain echoed in his voice. He pushed himself to a shaky kneeling position, reaching out to Roy's face with trembling hands. Roy's eyes were still open, but clearly blank. As Hughes' fingers made contact with his skin, there was a hissing intake of breath. Riza knew that if Roy had had more strength, he would have flinched away from the unexpected touch.

Hughes clearly knew it too, and his face fell. "Roy, it's just me. It's Maes. You did it, you...you saved me…."

Riza closed her eyes for a moment, tears spilling over her cheeks as she did. She could still feel Roy's blood oozing up between her fingers, and that meant that there was nothing she could do. He was going to die here, in this hallway, and Riza would still be sitting here uselessly watching his lifeblood trickle through her fingers. The unthinkable was becoming crystallized into fact right before her eyes, and she didn't know how she would go on afterwards.

"Wake up, guys! We have to get him to the hospital." Startled by the sudden sharp tone, Riza opened her eyes, half-certain it had come from Roy even as she knew that didn't make any sense. Suddenly, Havoc was across from her, pulling on Hughes' arm and beginning to heave him upright.

"Al, you're gonna have to take the Colonel. Lieutenant Hawkeye, help Ed out, and I'm taking Colonel Hughes. We have to hurry."

Hughes let himself be pulled upright by Havoc, looking very unhappy about the situation, but reluctantly letting Roy go as Al stooped down. Ed was on the floor again, behind Al, looking almost as horrified and shaken as Riza knew she herself did. The only one who seemed to have any command of the situation was in fact Havoc, and Riza knew that he was making sense, making the kinds of decisions that she should have been making, but she didn't want to let go of Roy. Not even for a moment.

And then Al was in front of her, leaning down to collect the Colonel into his arms. "Lieutenant…we have to-"

"I know," Riza said quickly, cutting him off and helping him pick up Roy as gently as he possibly could. As much as she wanted to keep tight hold of Roy, the best chance of his survival lay with Al. She was not about to let herself be the reason that they delayed.

Still, it was impossibly hard to let him go, one of the hardest things she'd ever done, and she found herself wiping away more tears as she stood.

Ed was standing shakily on his own, looking like he might collapse at any minute. Riza moved numbly to his side and put a hand around his shoulders. She realized he was trembling slightly, whether from the drugs or the shock she wasn't sure.

"How did you guys get here?" Al asked. He was walking a few paces ahead, sounding remarkably calm for someone who was holding the dying Colonel in his arms. "Do you have a car, or-?"

"We walked," Havoc said. It sounded like every word was a struggle. Riza realized that she was having a hard time thinking, and she seemed to be shaking almost as badly as Ed. It probably wasn't long before she ran out of Praxapan and collapsed. "Car's gone."

"Oh, um...that's okay. Mr. Hughes and I came in a car. I don't think any of the guards left afterwards, so I bet that's still here. We can use that."

They moved towards the exit. Al had to pick his way carefully over the rubble, and Riza couldn't help but worry about how much this was delaying them. Would these few slow minutes mean the difference between life and death for Roy?

"He'll be okay," Ed whispered, stumbling along beside her. "He'll be okay."

They made it to the front of the building, and saw the car that Al had mentioned. It was smallish, only four seats, and Riza winced. They were about to need to make some very difficult decisions.

"I can drive," Hughes said. Havoc nodded at him encouragingly, and let him take a few steps forward on his own. Immediately, Hughes' legs gave way beneath him, and he reeled into the side of the car. He swallowed convulsively for a second, looking like he might vomit.

"Could you drive?" Hughes asked, looking imploringly back at Havoc.

But Havoc shook his head vigorously. "Nope, not me," he said. Riza realized his teeth had started chattering. "I'm gonna pass out in...I don't know? A minute or two? There's no way I can drive. In fact, you don't even need to take me. I'll be just fine. Ed was fine. I'll just be passed out."

And Riza realized that in two minutes, she was going to pass out as well. She also couldn't drive. She also would be fine.

If there were only four seats in the car, none of them should go to her.

"I'll stay here too," Riza said. "For the same reasons as Jean."

Her heart felt so heavy it didn't even feel like pain anymore. This might very well be the last time she ever saw Roy. And he was unconscious, and she was so drugged out she couldn't even formulate a proper goodbye.

Silently, she put her hand on his wrist, which was tucked limply in the crook of Al's elbow. She could feel Roy's pulse, weak as it was, and the feeling simultaneously scared her and brought her comfort. He was still with her, and she could feel that, but he was beginning to slip away.

"We need someone to drive," Hughes said, and he sounded almost as lost and desperate as she felt.

"Al could learn, right, Al?" Havoc asked, still sounding horribly on edge, hard to hear through his chattering teeth. Normally, Riza thought that she might have some sort of objection about a fourteen-year old in a suit of armor learning how to drive a car in a thirty second crash course, but it was clearly their only option to save Roy.

"Umm...yes," Al said, hesitant at first, but his voice grew in confidence by the end of the word. "I won't let you guys down."

"Thank you," Hughes whispered, voice cracking slightly. He cleared his throat, and Riza thought that she could see tears clouding his eyes behind his glasses. She couldn't be sure, due to the haze in her own eyes. "I'll...I'll be right beside you, Al."

And then Havoc was helping Hughes to the car, and Al was beginning to walk away. Riza felt Roy's hand begin to leave her grasp, and it took everything she had not to cling onto it. She knew that he had to leave, and she knew that she had to stay. She was the one who'd suggested it in the first place, but that didn't make it any easier. It felt like her heart was being ripped from her chest, and she couldn't even find a way to tell him.

"Please, sir. Stay alive," she whispered, as Al took him away from her. "Please."

It was stupid, she knew. The words sounded hollow and meaningless. She just had to believe that the others would be fast enough, that this wouldn't be the last time she saw him.

It hurt to put her trust in anyone other than herself. She trusted Hughes, of course, and Al, and Ed, but Roy's life was the most important thing in the world to her, and she had promised him that she would always be there to save him. She didn't know how to deal with the fact that now, the only way that she could keep that promise was to hand it off to someone else.

Roy was in the backseat of the car now, and Riza could see Ed's ridiculous hair antenna poking up through the back window as he bent over the Colonel. Al climbed into the front seat, joining Hughes, and Riza felt even more tears begin to stream down her cheeks. She didn't even bother trying to stop them, which she figured could probably also be blamed on the Praxapan.

In front of her, the car pulled away. She watched it disappear down the drive, the Praxapan giving her a shaky focus that kept her attention on it long after it had left her view.

"Do...do you think he'll be alright?" she asked softly, knowing even as she said it that Havoc wouldn't have an answer. It was probably unfair of her even to ask, since she was his superior officer and, if anything, should be the one to comfort him.

Havoc did not respond. Riza turned around, another question on the tip of her tongue, just in time to see Havoc's eyes roll up in his head. His knees buckled, and he collapsed facedown on the ground.

Riza registered that he had fallen directly onto his broken arm, and that probably had to hurt quite a lot. In fact, she was pretty sure she'd seen Havoc shoot with that arm too. There wasn't much that could be done now, but she was sure that would have made it worse, and the fall couldn't help either. He didn't need medical attention as badly as Roy, or even Ed or Hughes, but she hoped they wouldn't forget to tell someone they were out here, that they would also be able to get to a hospital soon….

Riza took a halting step forward. She had the vague intention of trying to roll Havoc onto his side, so his broken arm wouldn't be trapped beneath him, but that idea suddenly got fuzzy and vague. Black spots started to crowd her vision.

Riza felt her legs start to crumple, and then everything went black.

"Hang on, buddy!" Hughes said frantically from beside Al. "We're almost there. Just a little longer."

Al wasn't sure that was true. They had been driving for probably about three minutes, although it felt like a lifetime. Al didn't think he'd gone above twenty-five miles an hour yet, and he still kind of felt like he was seconds away from killing them all. He was caught between a rock and a hard place - if he went too fast, the risk of crashing the car went up, but if he went to slow, Roy could very well bleed out in the backseat.

"Mr. Hughes?" Al asked nervously. "What am I going to do when I need to turn?"

"Just slow down a little and crank the wheel. I know there's a town up here with a private hospital, but it's still a little ways away. I'll tell you when you need to turn."

"A-alright."

"Ed?" Hughes said. He sounded almost sick. "How...how is he doing back there?"

"I don't know." Ed sounded terrified. Al wished he could turn and look back at him, but he didn't dare take his eyes off the road. "He's...I mean, he's alive. I think he's going into shock."

"Shock? That's...Al, do you think you could drive any faster?"

"Sir," Al squeaked, "I'm not sure that's a good idea…."

All of a sudden, two alarms went off from the back seat, startling Al so badly he jerked the car across the road.

"What is that?" Hughes yelled. Al didn't want to look away from the road, even for a second, but he could hear the panic in Hughes's voice. Out of the corner of his vision, he caught sight of Hughes twisting awkwardly around, trying to see the backseat.

"Kyrenol," Ed said shortly. Al grimaced at the thought of his brother taking the same substance that had so severely impacted Hughes, but he knew that Ed at least actually needed it.

"Can it wait?" Hughes asked, through the beeping, collapsing heavily back into his seat. "We'll be at the hospital soon, you can get the attention you need, both of you…."

"No. I...I gotta take it every hour. If I don't, I'll be useless by the time we get to the hospital and Colonel Mustang…I'm not gonna be able to help him."

Al heard Hughes swallow hard, and there was the sound of Ed struggling with a pill bottle. Al winced, partially because it highlighted just how weak Ed was, and partially because he knew that for every second Ed tried to open the bottle, Roy was losing more and more blood.

"I got it," Ed finally said, sounding deeply out of breath, and Hughes immediately craned backwards again.

"Are you okay? Is Roy okay? What's happening?"

Al clenched his fingers tighter around the wheel, really wishing that Hughes would just focus on the road. He didn't have any idea what he was doing, and he was becoming increasingly sure that with one false move, he would send them all to their deaths in a pile of burning metal. They were beginning to near signs of civilization, and with that came an increase in confusing road markers.

"What's that?" Al shouted, gripping the wheel even tighter as a crossroad loomed in a distance. "Do I turn?"

Hughes snapped back around, looking ill, and shook his head. "No, keep going straight. But faster. You're, um, doing good, buddy."

"What's that?" Al gasped, suddenly spotting a sign at the crossroads. It was large, red, and labeled with the word STOP. "What do I do? There aren't any other cars around…do I stop?"

"No, hit the gas," Hughes said, glancing back again at whatever horrifying sight was in the backseat.

"Are you sure!?"

"Floor it, Al," Hughes said grimly, looking back at the road ahead. "We're running out of time."

Al really, really hoped that Hughes knew what he was doing, and that he wasn't about to kill Roy. Still, if he slowed down, then that could kill Roy too. Al hit the gas.

It was harder to keep the car going straight once he was going faster. Everything suddenly felt so much more immediate - the occasional other cars, the road signs, even curves in the road. He found himself jerking the wheel in an attempt to overcorrect, and he knew he was swerving but he couldn't seem to help it.

"Al!" Ed yelled. "Can you drive straighter?"

"Brother, I'm trying-" Al couldn't keep the panic out of his voice. He couldn't see Roy at all in the mirror, and he didn't dare take even a second to look back. But he had a horrifying image of his swerving sending Roy careening all over the backseat, making him bleed more, possibly breaking him apart….

"Can you feel his pulse, Ed?" Hughes asked frantically.

"Yeah, yeah, I think so. My hand keeps slipping, it's really bloody…."

"Al, can you drive any faster?"

Al checked the speedometer. He was already going forty miles an hour. He wasn't sure how much faster the car could go, and he didn't want to risk getting in a crash before he could get Roy to the hospital. But he wasn't sure what else to do, and he tentatively pressed down on the gas.

"You're doing a good job, Al."

Al wasn't really sure that was true. But he was sure doing the best he could.

Ed was sitting upright in the backseat, twisted slightly to the side so he could get at Roy's wound, and Roy's head was in his lap. Normally, Ed would have been horribly embarrassed about this. It would have been completely untenable. But now, this position felt like the only natural thing. It felt like the only way to make sure Roy stayed with him.

Ed knew Roy wasn't dead, even if he was clearly on the way there. But somehow, he hadn't even completely lost consciousness. At first, when Ed shifted to put pressure on the wound, Roy's hands had twitched slightly, in a vague attempt to push Ed off. Ed figured the pressure must hurt quite a bit, especially when Roy didn't understand what was happening and his body was already so worn down. But there was no place for gentleness here. If Ed stopped putting pressure on the wound, Roy would bleed out.

Around the time Ed had taken his most recent dose of Kyrenol, Roy had gone completely limp. It was hard to tell, with Roy so still and weak anyways, but Ed figured the paralysis must have kicked in. That didn't seem...good, especially since Riza had strongly implied that they should already be at the hospital when this happened, so they could be monitored. But there was no way in Hell Ed was going to try to get Roy to take a pill at this point. He highly doubted Roy would have been able to swallow anyways.

Now, Roy's eyes would occasionally slide open, and he would stare up at Ed for a few seconds before closing them. There was no recognition in his gaze, but he was clearly afraid. At first, Ed had found it kind of creepy, but now, when Roy's blood was coating the backseat and it was happening less and less often, all Ed wanted was to see his eyes again.

Al swerved, again, and Ed gasped as Roy slid to the side. Ed's bloody hand lost its grip with a slight squelching sound, but Ed grimly found the wound again.

Ed was no stranger to blood, and the amount of blood currently surrounding him was still nothing compared to that awful night in the basement, but it was still too much. Not quite too much for Roy to survive, but getting there. Humans were made up of mostly liquid. They could only lose so much.

"Hang on, huh?" Ed muttered, staring into the Colonel's slack, blood-streaked face, desperate for any sign of recognition. "We're gonna get you to the hospital. You're gonna be okay."

Roy's eyes flickered open once again, staring blankly up at the roof of the car. Ed knew that Roy hadn't heard him, but he continued anyway. Maybe somewhere, there was some part of Roy that was still listening. Maybe Ed's voice could get him to stay a little longer.