"So how long are we going to just wait for Sleeping Beauty to wake up?" Will asks, already frustrated by everything he's run into in the last day or so, and no less frustrated to find Mustang out could. The tattoo on his wrist glows an eerie ruby red that makes Will think of blood, and he hates that association. He wants to touch it, to poke at it, to see what it does, how it works because it has to be some kind of trick.

Except something inside of him tells him that it's very real. Will grew up in the deep South in the supernatural hub that is New Orleans. While there are skeptics and just blatant nonbelievers there, they're the minority. For the most part, you don't grow up in a city where the dead rest above ground without learning a healthy respect for the things that don't have mundane explanations.

Which means that this magical alchemy thing? It's not that hard for him to believe. He's seen some questionable things from voodoo practitioners at home, so he's not the type to dismiss the supernatural out of hand. And that red glow? It makes his skin crawl almost as much as it draws him in.

"When we saw it yesterday, Hughes said we shouldn't touch it," Rossi repeats, not for the first time. Will should probably feel bad about asking the same questions over and over and expecting different answers, but he's so damn exhausted and his head is so filled with fuzz from the things he's learned that he thinks he can be forgiven for hoping the answer might change.

"So are we really just going to… what? Go to sleep and wait till he wakes up in the morning?"

Rossi and Emily trade looks, as if they might actually be considering doing just that, and however tired Will is, that is simply not an option for him. He can't sleep without getting some answers, without knowing that JJ is okay. He needs explanations, and since Mustang is apparently the only one who really can give them to him, he needs to wait for Mustang to wake the hell up.

Will is usually pretty patient, but right now? Under these circumstances? He's completely out of patience.

"Think if I dump him in the shower and turn it on cold that it'll wake him up?" he asks.

"Maybe we start a little simpler?" Rossi suggests in a calming tone. "Like, maybe a glass of water to the face instead?" He's apparently decided that Will isn't going to just go to bed, which is good because Will isn't just going to go to bed. No matter how much that sounds like it might otherwise be a good idea. He knows if he goes now, he's just going to toss and turn, mind tangled up with what could possibly be happening to JJ.

Will doesn't wait for Rossi to approve the suggestion he just gave, he just makes a beeline for the dinky little standard motel bathroom. He sighs when he doesn't find any cups of any kind there. Then again, it is a motel, and they don't provide much that isn't bolted down, and usually with good reason.

Well, he did bring spare clothing for Mustang anyway, he reasons. He goes back into the room, flips the blankets off Mustang, then bodily hauls him up.

"What are you doing?" Emily asks, alarm in her voice.

"I can't find a cup, so I figured the next best thing is to dump him in a cold shower," he says, trying to make it sound like the rational decision he thinks it is. As he shifts Mustang in his arms, trying to get a better grip on him—he's not small and deadweight is deadweight—his wrist bumps Will's arm.

It makes him think of watching a TV channel trying to get through past static. He can't really hear anything except the grating white noise of interference. Images of Mustang and Ed flash through the static. They're sitting on a bed in a room. He tries to focus, to make sense of what he's seeing, but with each glimpse he catches, something has changed, they're farther apart, reaching for one another, the walls fall away…

He's not sure what jars him out of the weird vision, but Mustang hits the floor with that loud, distinct sound that bodies hitting the ground have, and Will manages to find the bed to sit his ass down on instead of the floor.

The light from the tattoo is gone, and Mustang groans, eyes fluttering open.

"Well, it looks like that worked," Rossi quips, even though he sounds mildly irritated.

"What worked?" Mustang asks, getting his elbows under him to lever himself up slowly. "And why am I on the floor?"

"You're on the floor because Will was going to try to wake you up by throwing you in the shower," Emily informs him almost gleefully.

Mustang's eyes swing over to find him, and he closes his eyes and sighs. "Was it really necessary to wake me up?" he asks, sounding slightly put out himself.

"Yes," Will says emphatically. "It was. I have questions about what's happened to my wife, and, as I understand it, you're the only one who has the kind of answer that I'm aiming to find."

Mustang winces, but sits up with care, as if checking to make sure that everything was in place and in working order. It should be. Will didn't drop him that far, and it didn't look like he hit anything on the way down, so at worst, he should be a little bruised from the landing. "Right," he says, then blinks and asks, "Did you bring some spare clothing like I asked?"

"Your partner is missing, and that's really your chief concern?" Will demands, incredulous. "Clothing?"

Pushing himself to his feet, Mustang sets his clothing straight, and Will realizes it's rumpled from more than just sleep.

"I know where Ed is," he says, voice gravelly with sleep. "I know he's okay. I know he's working on a solution for the problem, and, at this time, there is very little I can do to help with any of that. So, yes, my immediate concern is getting a clean set of clothing because I have been in the same clothes for the past three days, and I feel disgusting."

"You can have your damn clothing when you tell me what's happened to my wife," Will replies.

Mustang runs his hand through his hair, and Will can't help but lock his eyes onto his wrist as he does. It's almost odd to see the tattoo be… normal. It's not even red ink, just a normal, black tattoo that he'd expect to see that kind of fine linework and detail with.

"Fine," he grouses. "What do you want to know so I can go back to sleep?"

Will blinks, a little caught off balance at just how quickly Mustang caves. He expected a fight, an argument, not this mildly irritated response.

"Where is JJ?" he asks, because that's the most important question.

"Has anyone explained to you where Ed and I are from?" he asks first.

"That Hughes guy said you were from another world. He said that you think JJ's there?"

Mustang nods, apparently relieved that he doesn't have to drop that bombshell at least. Will may believe in the supernatural, but the idea of other worlds, that people can literally cross into, physically, is not one that he knows how he feels about. He's not sure if he's relieved that Mustang is backing up what Hughes said or not, but at least they're being consistent.

"Your wife, along with Agent Morgan and Ed are all in our world. From what Ed told me, they all appear to be in as perfect of health as they were before they went through the Gate."

Rossi startles. "You spoke to Ed?"

Frowning, Mustang asks, "Was the tattoo not glowing?"

"It was," Will rushes to reassure.

Seeming relieved, Mustang says, "I think it's safe to assume that if my tattoo is glowing, then I'm communicating with Ed. And yes, I spoke to him. He confirmed that they are all in our world, with people we know and trust. For the time being, they are safe."

Encouraged, Will asks, "Did you see them? Were you able to talk to them—"

Mustang starts shaking his head midsentence, and Will lets the words trail off. "Ed and I have a soul bond that allows us to communicate, but I can't see or interact with Agents Morgan or Jareau."

Will blinks at him. "But I saw you," he says.

Mustang goes very still for a moment before he asks, "What do you mean, 'you saw me'?"

"When I picked you up. Your tattoo must have bumped me, because I saw you and Ed both."

Lacing his fingers together, elbows resting on his knees, Mustang focuses on Will. The full weight of Mustang's attention reminds Will of Hotch, as if the man is seeing through you, as if he's judging and dissecting you, as if he knows what you're going to say before you say it. He doesn't like the comparison. At least with Hotch, Will was always sure he had his team's best interests at heart. He isn't sure of any such thing where Mustang is concerned.

"You saw us? Both? When you came into contact with the array?"

"Array?"

"The tattoo on my wrist," he explains quickly and with obvious impatience.

"Yeah, I saw you both. Just for a couple seconds, though."

"Did you hear anything?"

Will shakes his head. "It was like static," he says.

Mustang's index finger taps on the other hand and his eyes unfocus, going distant before he sighs. "I wish I had more time to talk to Ed about all of this," he says.

"Why would Ed necessarily know more than you?" Will asks. "I mean… as far as I understand it, shouldn't you be the one who's the master here?"

He doesn't expect Mustang's response to that question to be a rueful chuckle. "Ed has always been the superior alchemist," he says. "I'm quite certain he's forgotten more about alchemy than I will likely ever know. And soul alchemy?" He unhooks his hands and taps the tattoo on his wrist. "I am convinced there is no one alive with a fraction of the knowledge of soul alchemy that Ed has."

Will turns that information over in his head, trying to slot it into what he knows about Ed, Mustang, and what he knows about their relationship. It does make a kind of sense, really. If Ed were that advanced, it would bring him to the attention of people who were older and ostensibly more accomplished. He would have expected a lot of jealousy rather than attraction, but… intelligence is incredibly attractive. He can well imagine that to someone like Mustang, it's probably even the single most attractive trait.

"So your soul alchemy thing is why you and Ed can communicate?" he asks, just to be clear. Mustang nods. "If I was able to see you when I touched your tattoo while you were communicating, is there any reason why I couldn't use it to communicate with JJ?"

Mustang blinks at him again, as if that hadn't occurred to him, and his eyes go distant again for a moment before he replies, "What exactly did you see?"

Shrugging, he says, "You and Ed sitting on a bed, in some weird room. It felt kinda like I was looking into a dollhouse," he says. He tries to recall the exact images he saw, but they're fading rapidly. "I saw the walls fall and you reach for each other…" He thinks back, then adds, "Your tattoos were glowing."

Frown creasing his brow again, Mustang takes a moment to process that. "I think as soon as you touched the array, you made our connection unstable," he says. "I don't think we'd be able to use the bond to allow you to communicate with each other directly, though Ed and I can certainly act as intermediaries. I hope that we find a solution for the problem well before we have to do so, though."

"What else?" Emily asks, her dark eyes fixed on him.

"Pardon me?"

"What else are you thinking of. You don't think that the bond would work for communicating, but you're thinking of something else," she says.

He sighs. "I don't think you can use Ed and my soul bond that way. It's a bond between our souls. You simply can't tap into that connection without involving yourself in it directly," he says.

"But?" Will prompts, seeing now what Emily was seeing—that Mustang is holding back, is hiding something.

"But," Mustang says, voice taught with annoyance, "it might be possible to link the two of you with your own soul bond and communicate that way."

Hope leaps in Will's chest. "Then let's do it—" But Mustang is already holding a hand up in a stalling fashion.

"A soul bond is not minor alchemy. Once joined, separating it will almost certainly kill you both," he says. "It isn't something I would suggest just so you can communicate."

"Is it possible," Emily interjects, "to use a soul bond to bring JJ and Morgan back?"

Mustang snorts. "I wouldn't bet on it," he says. "If it were that reliable, I should have been pulled back to Amestris with Ed to begin with."

The hope in Will's chest deflates. "Would it be worth trying?"

Glaring, Mustang repeats, "Soul. Bond. Your souls would be literally bound. Your lives permanently entwined. Your mutual destruction almost certainly assured."

"You did it," Will points out.

Huffing like Will has purposefully and completely missed the point, Mustang says, "At my next opportunity, I'll discuss it with Ed, but the soul bond is not what opened the way back to our world, and I think it's unlikely it'll be the solution for our problem. Even if it were, it would be incredibly risky and permanent. Few people are prepared for that level of commitment."

Will doesn't waste time telling Mustang that he'd do it in a heartbeat. If it would work, if it'd be the path, he wouldn't hesitate at all. JJ is his soulmate, literal soul bond or not, but he won't push it if it won't actually solve the problem.

"So what did you learn talking to Ed?" he asks.

"Beyond that, your loved ones are safe with him in our world?" Mustang asks with a snide tone. "Te most important thing I learned is that Ed has his alchemy back."

Rossi asks, "I thought Ed was an alchemist."

"He is, but—long story short—he sacrificed his ability to do it over a year before we came here. We thought he might have it back, but we couldn't get alchemy to work at all, so we couldn't confirm. He confirmed that he has his alchemy back, and that, I assure you, Mr. LaMontagne, is very good news indeed," he says with a fierce, almost manic grin. Will hopes he's right.