Just a heads up here. I might not follow some of the anime/manga story line, nothing major though, it's just Roy is in Central when he is supposed to be in the East, and Hughes -spoiler- is alive -okay that one's major-.

Anyways. Enjoy.

Disclaimer: Do not own FMA.

Counterfeit

"Stop it!"

Roy Mustang raced his way through the falling debris shielding himself with his arms along the way, seeing the burning house yards away he hastened, hoping that its resident was still alive.

"Help me, please!" Someone said.

Roy stopped and saw toward him a pregnant woman, her load was too heavy to handle that her attempts on running were just mere wobbles, her face strained in determination to take her and her child as far away as possible from the hellfire behind her. Roy running as swiftly as he can now trying to get to her.

BOOM!

"WATCH OUT!" Roy managed to yell out as a giant debris fell its way toward them . . .

---

"Colonel!"

Roy Mustang snapped awake at the voice of his subordinate. Still, groggy from his 'short' nap hestraightened himself and his desk up, peeling the paper that was glued to his face due it resting on the desk, he looked at the lieutenant who was now standing in front of him with a worried look on her face. Mustang was curious, since nothing seemed to phase the woman, except right now.

"Is anything wrong lieutenant?" he asked trying to hide the tone of curiosity in his voice.

Hawkeye didn't seem to notice, "Sir," she said "this report came from Lieutenant Colonel Hughes just a few minutes ago."

"Hughes?"

"It concerns Edward Elric, Sir." she said giving the file folder to Mustang and also trying to hide the worried tone in her voice.

Taking the folder from his assistant he looked at her curiously, again the woman was acting strange, looking at the file he realized why. A wave of shock coursed through his body as he looked at the photographs that came along the report, blood and chaos on every picture, reading the file, it said that a fight occurred overnight, between Elric and someone currently unidentified.

. . .Elric was found barely breathing and wounded in the room. His wounds included a large gash in the back, a blow on the head and several scars all over the body, he is now being treated in Central Hospital . . .

Another wave of surprised overcame him, Edward Elric severely wounded, the attacker unknown, Roy's first thought was it might have been Scar, yet if he was the culprit, Fullmetal would have been found dead with his head blown up, other than Scar there would be no other culprit.

"Lieutenant," said Mustang standing up from his chair, "I'm going out for a while."

"Where to, Sir?" asked Hawkeye.

"To visit Fullmetal," he replied "I'll be back after a while."

---

"What do you mean he's not here?" Roy asked the receptionist.

"Edward Elric is not in this hospital, sir." she replied. "He was probably transferred somewhere else."

"Do you have any idea where?"

"Sorry sir but I don't."

Roy cursed under his breath, "Thank you for your help."

Mustang started to leave, turning around he met face to face with none other than Doctor Matthews himself, "Ah, so you must be Colonel Mustang," he said "I tried calling you not to long ago but they said you weren't there, I didn't expect you to be here."

"And you are?" Roy asked

"I'm Doctor Matthews, and Edward Elric is my patient."

"Do you know where Fullmetal is then?" Roy asked hopefully.

"Of course I do, what kind of doctor would I be if I do not know where my patients are."

"Could you please tell me where he is?"

"Oh, yes," said Matthews "Due to lack of rooms in the hospital a friend of yours agreed to let him recover at his home, I quite remember his name was Maes Hughes."

Roy was relieved, thanking the doctor he immediately left the hospital, walking, or more rather sprinting, his way to his friend's house.

That's when he realized they live on the other end of town.

"Damn . . ." he said; for he doesn't have a car.

Pain. Unimaginable pain greeted Edward in his dreams. Being thrown and whacked around like a rag-doll by some unknown assailant in his slumber wasn't all he had to endure; it was the pain that came along with his scars and bruises that was the torture.

"Argh!" he gasped, sitting up straight.

Waking up for the first time since he was attacked, Edward Elric looked around his surroundings. Panting from the nightmare as he did so, he noticed that he was in a bedroom; very comfortable, he commented to himself, a small table full of what seemed to be medications were arranged right next to his bed, and along with it a tray of food that, Ed guessed was just placed there a few moments ago. A choir of birds can be heard from the outside which seemed to help Ed recover from his shock, looking around the room one more time, he realized he wasn't alone.

"Hi, Big Brother!"

A little blond haired girl was standing at the foot of his bed, her whole face seemed to beam with happiness when she caught Ed's attention. "Remember me?" she said pointing at herself "I'm Elicia!"

"H-hi, Elicia . . ." said Ed staring at the little girl curiously. "What am I doing here?"

"Big Brother's been sleeping for a long time now!" she said "Mommy and Daddy were getting worried."

"Mom and Dad?" Elicia nodded.

"Daddy took you here because he said you were very sick" said Elicia while trying to get up the bed. "Are you okay now, big brother?"

"I guess . . ." Ed replied, Elicia smiled again.

"So now that big brother's okay, do you want to play?"

"Okay," he said and started standing up, a sharp pain ran through his body that he instantly fell into bed again, clutching his chest with his right hand he realized, with great surprise, that his arm was metal.

"Big brother?" said Elicia looking very worried "are you okay?"

"Yeah . . ." he panted "Elicia, why is my arm like this?"

"I don't know," she shrugged and changed the subject "well, if big brother can't stand up, let's just play sitting down! Can you play 'Patty Cake'?"

The door creaked open and Gracia entered the room, "Elicia!" she said "I told you not to play here -! Oh goodness, Edward you're finally awake! Thank God!"

Gracia immediately walked her way through the room and sat right next to Elicia at the foot of the bed, "Wait till, Maes hears this" she said "he's been worried about you! Are you feeling all right Ed?"

"I'm all right . . ." he replied ". . . Mom."

A/N

-ahem- I have nothing to say about the last part, except: I'm sure that you guys' probably figured out what's wrong with him.

FMAlover : Thanks a lot for the review, I really appreciate it, I'll try to update sooner but since school's about to start I can't guarantee that I would. Unfortunately I can't post the original version of this fan fic, because the moment I came home from church camp I deleted the whole thing and rewrote it the following day. Basically there is barely any difference to the original and this one, the only thing I changed was the scene Ed being attacked in the library, in the original he was raped, beaten up and left to die by the person who attacked him. Since guilt beat the living daylights out of me during church camp, I decided to change it.

Reviews would be appreciated.