Accidents Will Happen
By Rurouni Star

Summary: And finally, we look into Ed's brain. Uh huh - been wanting to, haven't you?

Chapter 12:

After hitting his head on the hard tile of the restaurant floor, there seemed to be a small period of time missing. Ed had spent an entire minute trying to figure out where he was once he woke up – at the end of that minute, he realized not only that he was moving, but that there was someone under him doing the moving.

The fact that Colonel Mustang was toting him into the office with a scowl didn't penetrate his fuzzy mind until Havoc got up to open the door. Or… had that been Fury? He couldn't really remember.

At this point of realization, Ed had decided that as soon as he was let down, he was either going to run like hell or create a distraction and then run like hell (perhaps by transmuting Roy's desk into something flowery, instead of picking on the poor credenza again). Because it wasn't possible that the man hadn't noticed a few things by now, in spite of all possible precautions.

His plan, unfortunately, was shot all to hell as he was dumped onto the couch. His head, loose a few wires, was telling his legs to get up. His legs were being obstinate.

Plan B being 'pretend to forget the whole damn thing', Ed looked up at him and blinked.

"What are you doing here?" he asked.

Mustang frowned at him. "It's my office," he said, clearly exasperated. Ed hoped this was not an indication of discovery.

"I know that," said Ed. "But what are you doing here? Where the hell did the restaurant go?"

"You knocked yourself out."

The hell I did. You call that knocking myself out…

Ed remembered Plan B just in time to stop himself from saying this, but realized very soon that his memory actually did blank out at strange intervals. The thought cycle went something like this:

Ed: All right. I'm going to forget everything.

Brain: Yes, indeed, Ed, you are.

Ed: What was I thinking about?

Brain: I don't know. I have a headache. Ask him.

Things went on in this vein until Ed squinted up at the colonel again and remembered to talk.

"Oh."

There was a long, long pause this time. Mustang eyed Ed suspiciously.

"Who am I?" he asked.

The devil incarnate? A sadistic tempt-you-with-lunch-and-knock-you-out freak? "The bastard colonel?" It was best just to stick with the old good ones when your brain was unhinged.

Mustang looked visibly relieved, which was funny. Ha. Maybe this whole joke of an incident would teach him to stop calling people 'girlish' and such…

Ed narrowed his eyes at him.

"And I'm not pretty. You're pretty." Right.

At the colonel's new change in expression, Ed closed his eyes for a moment, thinking the thing through again. He had a feeling he'd missed a step of logic somewhere, his brain floating around all disjointed and aching in his skull. Then, of course, the thought hit him that the narrator was retelling something that had already occurred once.

Narrator? his brain had said. What are you thinking?

Well it was weird enough that people may want to know the thought processes behind it, the narrator had reasoned. Besides which, why write a story about Ed without doing something from his point of view at least once? It only makes sense, brain.

Yeah. That entire exchange still weirded him out.

Hey wait, his brain said suddenly. You just called Mustang pretty.

Ed's eyes snapped open.

"Did I just call you pretty?" Ed asked, appalled that some badly thought out insult had taken control of his mouth while his brain went on sick leave.

Mustang looked just as shocked as he imagined he did.

Fury said something from the doorway. It sounded somehow muffled from where Ed lay. Possibly because one of his ears was to the couch, and possibly because his head was pounding like a bunch of drummer boys had taken up residence there.

Mustang put his face in his hand, and Ed blinked.

"I broke Ed," he said, the words muffled. For a moment, Ed thought his other ear had somehow been pressed to the couch too, but then he realized that Mustang's mouth was partly covered by the hand as well.

More Fury-mumbling. The door thudded shut.

Ed turned over, the dots in front of his eyes blinking with each beat of his poor brain.

"There's something wrong with me," he moaned, wishing with a strange and sudden fierceness that the weird thoughts in his head would just disappear so he could at least be left alone with the pounding there.

Mustang jerked his head back toward him, pulling on one of the eyelids. Ed meant to say something scathing, but what came out instead was some kind of half strangled noise.

Luckily, Mustang seemed more intent on his one open eye, which was twitching uncontrollably in the need to shut again and also because Ed wanted to hurt him very badly.

"Concussion," the colonel muttered, sounding truly put out. "God damnit."

A couple of possible responses ran through Ed's head: "You just now figured it out?" was one, and then there was "Well sorry for ruining your day, King Mustang." Oh yes, and – "Hey, where the hell's my apology?"

What came out was: "Hey. Let go." Because, apparently, having a concussion made him slightly more polite. Or perhaps that was pure humiliation.

For once, Mustang obliged him. Ed realized a moment later that he'd probably been a little hasty, as his head thudded against whatever he was laying on.

Ow. Ow, ow, ow, ow-

"You trying to kill me today?" Ed demanded, trying to go back over it to look for other suspect instances. The colonel's smirk earlier when he'd mentioned poison rang a bell. Bell. Bells in his head. Good god, his head was ringing.

It was ringing in a pattern, though. If he'd wanted, Ed could have hummed along to it. Instead, he found himself laughing almost insanely.

Even in his hazy, pained, dot-vision'd state, Ed had one clear thought in his head:

I am going to kill Psiren.