Holy Crap! I updated and it hasn't been over a week! has heartattack and falls to floor... then jumps back up I'm good!

Since I finished typing this long before I expected to, I decided I'd be kind and update before I leave tomorrow night. I'm going up to some place that's really cold for two days and two nights. I'll be back sometime Sunday. I'm going abseilling. That is, if the weather improves. It's been raining for two or three days straight now, not that I'm complaining! Goodness knows we need all the rain we can get during this drought.

Discaimer: I don't own FMA! If I did, the last episode and the movie wouldn't have stunk so bad and there would've been tons and tons of Royai. That, and I wouldn't be sitting here finishing up my science report that is due tomorrow that I have been working on since Tuesday. That's two days out of two weeks! Man, I'm lazy!

Also, just a question: Do any of you guys live in Australia? More specifically, Queensland? Cuz' I've got this wierd feeling that I'm being followed...

Warnings: Ed is probably OOC in this chappy. Sadly, if he is, he needs to be otherwise the following situations would not work. So... just go with it.

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Chapter 15

And People Actually Fell for It / They Don't Give Acting Lessons in the Military

Li lay absolutely flat and still on her back with Ed, on his back, on top of her. She had one arm across his waist holding him still and the other hand was holding his mouth shut to muffle his screams.

Below her in the alley, she could hear the man moving about, digging through the pile of crates and generally making a lot of noise. Li was glad that the man was making so much noise, otherwise he would have heard Ed screaming and crying.

How she'd managed to get up onto the roof of the abandoned apartment building she was on by climbing a ladder whilst holding Ed, muffling his screams and being completely silent was beyond her. What stumped her even more was that she'd done it in less than 10 seconds. She just decided to mark it up to fear and adrenaline doing weird things.

Only God knew. And only God knew ho she'd gotten out from under those crates so quickly.

She waited until she heard the man go back into his building before she dared to move.

Once she was certain he was gone, she sat up. She glanced down the edge of the building and stumped herself even more. She'd managed to climb up six (6) storeys to get to the roof.

"How the…?" she muttered. She shook her head and decided to figure it out later.

She looked at Ed. His eyes were screwed shut and tears flowed from his eyes. He was still trying to scream so Li kept her hand firmly over Ed's mouth.

She stood and made her way over to the door that led to the stairwell that led down through the building and to the ground floor.

Naturally, the door was closed.

Li studied it. It looked really old. She gave the door a well placed kick and it flew off of its hinges. She manoeuvred into the stairwell and carefully made her way down to the ground floor.

When she finally made it to the bottom floor and was out the doors and outside again, she was pleased to discover that Ed had quit screaming. Now he was just crying. It still made noise, but not as much as screaming did.

"Some 'human weapon' you are," Li mumbled.

She took her hand off of Ed's mouth, picked him up and hefted him over one of her shoulders. She was quite strong for someone her size.

After she got him settled on her shoulder, she took off into the alleys again, taking the fastest route she knew of to get to downtown Central. She didn't particularly want to go there, but it was the nearest people-filled area with phones.

It took her 15 minutes to arrive at her destination. It should've only taken 5 but she'd had to stop a couple of times to catch her breath and shift Ed. That and she got lost a few times.

When she erupted into downtown Central from the alleys, she didn't slow down.

She thought she must've looked so odd. A very short woman in a military uniform running down the streets very quickly with a boy slung over her shoulder.

Li was glad that it was midday. There weren't as many people to contend with as she made her way down the streets. There were still lots of people, but not as many.

She was looking for a particular place but it was hard to focus with Ed crying constantly.

Finally, she had enough and stopped. She dropped Ed to the ground and knelt down in front of him. Every time she went to speak to Ed to calm him down, someone would come over and ask if Ed was okay. Each time she answered that he was fine.

A group of people had gathered around the two.

Another person moved forward.

"Is he okay?"

"Look, everyone, just back off! He's," she paused "He's my little brother and he's just upset because we just got some really bad news! Okay!"

All of the people seemed to accept this despite the fact that Li and Ed looked nothing alike.

"Ed," Li said "Ed! Edward!" Ed continued to cry "Edward! Edward Elric! Calm down this instant!" He kept crying.

'SMACK'

Li slapped Ed across the cheek with her gloved Automail hand and he stopped crying and simply sat there shocked.

People in the crowd started to murmur and whisper about them.

"I'm sorry, Ed, but you left me no choice. You were drawing a crowd," Li told him.

Ed reached a hand up and touched his cheek where Lita had slapped him. He looked over at her. Her sky blue eyes looked pained and some of her greyish-black hair had come loose and was hanging freely about her face. He looked around at the crowd and jumped slightly. He looked back at Lita. 'Oops,' he mouthed, clearly meaning the crowd.

Li nodded. 'Yeah, oops,' she mouthed back.

"Thank you for that, Li," he said aloud "I needed that. I don't know what came over me.

"You're welcome, little brother," Li said as she moved her hand up next to her face in a gesture that to the crowd would've looked like she was waving, without the movement. Ed, however, knew that it was a field signal meaning 'that way'. She was pointing at the crowd.

Ed nodded to show that he understood.

The two stood up. Li quickly hugged Ed and Ed, catching on quickly, hugged back.

"Don't worry. I know. I read the file," Li said, low enough that only Ed could hear her.

"Good. So you know that he tried to kill me a few weeks ago?" Ed replied, equally as low.

"Yeah. So Mustang didn't tell you it was Barry?"

"No."

"Bastard."

Ed snorted as the two broke the hug.

"How 'bout I buy you a treat?" Li announced trying to sound normal.

"That sounds good, sis," Ed replied, playing along.

The two walked away as quickly as they could without looking suspicious. They had thoroughly embarrassed themselves back there.

After they rounded a corner, Li decided to speak.

"We never speak of this again."

"Deal," Ed said.

They continued to walk until they found a nice little coffee house a few streets away from their little 'brother/sister' scene.

They took a seat in a far corner of the restaurant where they weren't too likely to be seen or heard. They both ordered the same thing, an extra strong black coffee.

"Wait here, Ed. I'll be back in a few minutes. I need to go make a call," Li said while they were waiting for their coffee.

"Okay," Ed replied.

Lita got up and left the coffee house. She walked for a few blocks along the same street until she found a phone box. She dialled the number for the main desk, gave her security codes and got patched through to Mustang.

"Mustang."

"Hello, sir. It's Private Lita Cortez."

"Ah, Cortez! Where are you? Why are you calling me from a normal line?"

"Look, sir, we found her. She's there, but she doesn't look to good. Fullmetal and I have stopped at the coffee house on… Hang on a second," she leaned out of the phone box and looked around for a street name. "We're at the coffee house on Sakura Street. Could you please send a car for us in ten minutes, sir?"

"Why ten minutes?"

"We need some time to calm down, sir. We've just been through quite an ordeal."

"Okay, 10 minutes. Be ready."

"Yes, sir. Oh, and sir?" she said before Mustang could hang up.

"Yes?"

"I apologize in advance for this and am willing to accept any punishment you see fit," she took a deep breath "I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU DIDN'T TELL HIM YOU BASTARD!"

She slammed the phone onto the hook and huffed. She then blinked and looked at all of the people who'd stopped to stare at her when she'd yelled.

She sweatdropped and laughed nervously while rubbing the back of her head and waving her other hand.

People just turned and left to continue their business and leave the strange, short, big-chested, military woman alone.

"Phew," she sighed and left the phone box.

She arrived back at the coffee house a few minutes later to discover that their order had been filled.

She sat down across from Ed and quickly took a sip of her coffee.

"Oh god I love coffee," she sighed.

"I agree," Ed said.

As they drank their coffee, Li informed Ed that someone would be there to get them in a few minutes. She also showed him her Automail and explained that she'd lost her left arm up to just below her elbow after being bitten by a venomous snake when she was 11.

8 minutes later, Jean Havoc walked up to their table and informed them that their ride had arrived.

Li and Ed quickly downed the remainder of their coffee. Li went and payed for the coffee while Ed and Havoc went outside to wait in the car.

As soon as she was in the car, she took the front passenger's seat, Havoc started the drive back to HQ.

"Well?" Havoc asked, eager to know. Mustang had told him nothing except where to pick Ed and Li up from before, quite literally, shoving him out the door.

"We found her," both Ed and Li responded.

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A/N: The doctors couldn't save that part of Lita's arm so it had to be amputated before the venom spread further. She got Automail shortly after. She wears gloves. Her chest is severely out of proportion to her body.

NNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! They came back! My headnoise came back from vacation!

Ahem. Sorry about that.

Anyway, the bit about loving coffee is dedicated to my friend who practically lives on the stuff.

See you next update!