remialcsiD: oN I od ton nwo siht cif uoy ees, siht cif thgir ereh si ton yb em! dnA fi uoy hsiw ot yas m'I gniyl, eveileb uoy em fi ti erew eurt, ym yenom dluow eb gniylf!

. that was fun!

Chapter 5

RING!

With a blink, a moan, and nearly rolling off his bed, Ed's ears rang with the sound of the phone that was still echoing in the distance.

"Someone pick up the phone!"

Ed frowned as Pinako's voice carried throughout the house, but he was glad to hear that the phone had stopped ringing.

"Brother!" Al's voice carried up the stairs, "It's for you!"

Ed looked up to his brother's bed trying to register why in the world Al would be up at such an hour. Swinging his legs out of bed, he pulled on his pants and took a look at his pocket watch, which told him that he had actually been the one to sleep in, being as it was nearly noon.

Ed dragged his feet down the stairs, his eyes barely halfway open as he tried to think of who would be calling him. By the time he got downstairs and to the phone, his brain had finally caught up with logic, and he realized that there would probably only be one person calling him. He picked up the phone.

"What do you want?"

"I don't think that's the best tone to use with the person who funds you"

Ed nearly gagged at Roy's almost cheerful response, "Just tell me"

"I'm merely calling to make sure that you wish to keep your job?"

He growled, "What? I still have two days left…"

Ed could hear Roy tapping his pen on his desk.

"Yes… but you're usually back by now, and I was beginning to get worried that you might not be coming back. You never know what dogs will do when you let them roam for too long."

"You don't have to worry about your dog running away, Colonel. I'll be back when I'm back."

"Well besides that, I'm not too happy with what I'm seeing on your fund write-offs, the military is not paying you to—"

Ed smiled with the satisfying click of the phone, and the abrupt silence of Roy as the line went dead.

"What did he want?" Al walked up managing to look slightly worried, even without expressional features.

Ed let his breath out in a sigh, "Nothing… he was just checking up."

Al looked down, knowing that that probably wasn't all Roy wanted.

Ed sat down at the kitchen table and swirled the cereal in front of him. He forced down the first few bites after realizing that he hadn't really eaten much of anything the day before. He was distracted shortly though, by the distinct sound of sparks flying.

Ed found Winry out back, hard at work with something she was molding… or sharpening, on a Grindstone.

When she noticed him coming up she nearly dropped what she was doing –literally. She hurriedly tried to cover her work with a sheet she had lying around, and tried not to be too obvious about it.

Ed noticed, but didn't care to question her actions. He made a quick decision and decided to go with it, "Get changed… we're going into town" maybe he could bribe some answers out of her.

Winry eyed him suspiciously, "But I got everything I wanted yesterday…"

"I'll buy you a new welding torch." He let the tempt linger in the air, knowing that she wouldn't be able to resist.

Winry turned her head to the rusty and nearly useless torch she already had, and bit her lip. "I'll be ready in a second." She jumped up, brushed off her pants, and ran into the house. A moment later there was a yell from inside the house, "And don't touch any of my things!"

Ed smiled; this was going to be easy. He decided to look around for any more ideas he could use for bribery, fighting the urge to lift the sheet and peer under at what Winry was working on. His reserve was nearly about to brake when Winry came out of the door, dressed in a white tank-top and her black skirt.

She cleared her throat, "So what were you saying about getting me new welding tools?"

"Hey, wait… I only said I would get you—"

Winry brushed passed him with a wide smile on her face, making sure to state clearly that she really wasn't listening to a word he was saying.

Should he ask her now? She seemed so happy, picking out the highest quality of torch. He figured he should probably start questioning her before she got it… he wasn't that sure it would be the best subject to bring up while she had fire in her hands. But it could possibly be more painful to bring it up while she was so happy; she usually had a wrench somewhere on her at all times.

As Ed contemplated his options, Winry purchased one of the smaller, gas efficient, and expensive welding torches she could find. She walked out of the store with a wide smile on her face, to see Ed starring at the ground in deep and difficult thought.

She sighed, "I'm not going to tell you anything…"

Ed looked up at her quickly a little shocked, "How did you--?"

"I figured I would wait till you bought me the torch before I told you that you weren't going to get anywhere with me with bribes."

Ed tried to look at her with pleading and honest eyes, "You have to tell someone, I wont let whoever did what they did to you, get away with whatever they did…" he chewed on his words for a minute, trying to figure out if he had said that right, he growled, "I don't even know who I'm mad at or why!"

Winry laughed lightly at Ed's frustration, but her lightheartedness was quickly taken away when she remember the seriousness of the situation. The memory was brought back threefold when she heard a clap, and saw Ed go flying to the side away from her. Mr. Leaning came into view and blocked her vision of him.

She let out a half scream when he grabbed her arm yet again, and forced her to look at him.

"You told someone! Didn't you?" he shook her.

"I didn't tell anyone!" She started to cry, what was going on?

"Don't lie to me!" He squeezed her arm harder, "Someone tried to kill me!"

"I didn't tell anyone!" she sobbed.

The man growled in fury, "I told you what would happen if you said anything…"

Winry closed her eyes tightly and willed everything to be a dream.

Ed rolled over on the ground and tried to shake his head of the cloud that was filling it. What happened? He blinked a few times and caught a glimpse of someone holding Winry; that was all it took to get him on his feet and running towards her, blade at the ready.

Before he got to her, he heard a clap and watched as Winry fell to the ground, the man looming over her for a second before he started to walk away as if nothing had happened. With the streets as empty as they were, he had no reason to fear anyone seeing him other than Ed.

Ed was torn between wanting to go to Winry or going after the man. And decided that he would take care of Winry first, and once she was ok, he would be able to ask her about what had really happened to her and he would get answers this time.

He put a hand on her shoulder, "Winry?"

She shuddered and opened her eyes slightly; she saw Ed looking over her worriedly before she slipped into unconsciousness.

"What do you mean you don't know what's wrong with her?" Ed nearly screamed into the face of the doctor that had spent the last hour performing tests on Winry, He was standing in the hall of a Rizenbul hospital, trying to figure out how people could be so incompetent.

"I told you Mr. Elric, there is a form of poison in her body that we have never come across before. It's as if her own body were working against itself. Luckily we've found that it's only accruing in her left arm, it's moving quite slowly, and we may be able to stop it from spreading with amputation."

Ed starred into the face of the man talking to him with a sense of shock, "luckily'? 'AMPUTAION'?" he let his fist hit the wall none to lightly, cursing himself. She said she hadn't wanted to lose her arm… and he said he wouldn't let that happen. He didn't know whom to blame either, himself for taking her into town and letting this happen, or her for not telling him earlier so he could have prevented it. Ed opted for blaming the man. He must have used alchemy to poison her, probably turning the natural enzymes in her body into something toxic. If he knew how it had been done, he might have been able to reverse the effect.

"I'm sorry sir… but it seems it seems like our only option at the moment, and we don't really have time to find another one."

He swallowed hard, "Do whatever you have to do…" He turned away from the doctor and walked back to the waiting room, "Call me when you put her in her own room."

Ed asked the receptionist if he could use a phone. And now, as he stood starring at it, he dreaded the conversation awaiting him.

Ed swallowed with the sound of someone picking up on the other end of the line, "Aunt Pinako?"

"Hmm?"

"There's been an accident, Winry and I are at the hospital right now and we probably wont be able to leave till tomorrow."

"I won't ask what happened. Should Al and I come?"

Ed twisted the phone cord, "I don't know if they'll allow more than one person in her room at a time, but you could stay in the waiting room."

"Mmhmm, we'll come when we can."

He heard a click and the line went dead.

a/n sure… "Expressional" is a word, but Noooo you can't use Alchemizing! When the bloody hell am I ever going to use the word Expressional? And what I just used it for in the fic doesn't count…