Edward Elric woke up to a pounding headache, it felt like he'd been on the wrong end of a wrench.

Blinking his eyes open he tried to get his swimming vision to focus, but it refused to.

"You woke up kid, good."

Edward turned his head slightly, the motion making his world spin. If he hadn't already been laying down he would have fallen over. He opened his eyes again, confused as he tried to think of what exactly he was doing on the ground.

"Hey, kid, how do you get this stuff off of you?"

The voice, one which was old and crackly and definitely not familiar, had said something.

Edward opened his eyes again, pleased that wherever he was, was nice and dark. With the way his head was pounding he appreciated it.

Still trying to clear his vision, but failing to do so completely, Edward stared at the source of the voice.

She was old, and weird looking, and she smelled weird too. Or maybe that was Edward, or wherever he was. He couldn't quite get his brain to think properly.

"You dumb?"

Edward was starting to get irritated, why wouldn't she shut up, her voice hurt his head. Blinking sluggishly at her he tried to mentally will the woman to stop.

Thankfully she did. Edward closed his eyes. He felt so tired and everything hurt and felt weird. He just needed a nap and then he would get back to whatever he was supposed to be doing. It was blessedly quiet for a few moments.

There was a jerk on one of his arms. It jostled his head and the pain spiked. He tried to move away, but his movements were weak and had little effect. Looking over he saw the woman was pulling at his automail.

"Stahp," Edward mumbled out, speech slurred.

The woman thankfully did. But the next moment her fingers were digging at his ports. It hurt.

Weakly swinging his arm out, Edward swatted at the hands. It did very little to deter them though. Thin appendages pried at the connector and for a moment it seemed like they would successfully dismember Edward from his arm.

Then they fell away. Edward closed his eyes, relaxing slightly as he heard footsteps moving away. He needed to move, to get somewhere safe. The urgency however was dulled by the pain in his head and the growing exhaustion he felt creeping over him.

The footsteps returned. Edward flicked his eyes open. Through blurry vision he saw the woman standing above him with something in hand. It was long and thin and metal. It took Edward a moment to realize that it was a crowbar.

The seconds it took for his mind to make the connection, the woman had already knelt and had placed the tool at the joint of his automail. She levered it down using all of her body weight.

Edward threw open his mouth and screamed.

Several hours earlier…

Alphonse was being ridiculous. Edward could perfectly well take care of himself, he wasn't "too" reckless and didn't "needlessly endanger himself". It didn't help that the argument had gone down in Colonel Mustang's office and that the office had ganged up on him, all siding with Alphonse.

Edward had burst out of the room, indignant and a little hurt that he'd been alone on his side of the argument. He got results didn't he? There was a reason the name Fullmetal Alchemist was being hailed as the Hero of Amestris. Edward thought it was a bunch of bullshit, but all the same, he was doing his job and he was doing it well.

Storming down the street, Edward barely paid attention to where he was going. This whole day had been a wreck, from the very start.

This morning he'd woken up late and been grilled by the Bastard. Then he'd somehow gotten gum stuck in his hair, followed by missing lunch and then losing his report and getting grilled once again by his godforsaken superior.

It had all been topped by Alphonse deciding he wanted to have it out in the office with an entire audience to chime in.

At least his day couldn't get any worse, he thought. Slowing his pace, Edward glanced around. He wasn't sure exactly where he was, but he knew he could find a trolley easily enough and those all headed toward the central area of the city. It wouldn't be hard to get back to headquarters.

Frowning, he began to look at his surroundings, paying attention for once to what was around him. His nose scrunched up as the smell registered. The streets here weren't as clean as those toward the military headquarters. The people here were also, Edward didn't want to say dirty as well, but they were mostly bums and most followed Edward with their eyes in a way which made Edward suddenly much more conscious of his surroundings.

Maybe running off in just about any direction hadn't been a good idea. He'd just been so angry.

As Edward's self-consciousness grew, a little bit of fear grew in him. He didn't feel safe here and he also wasn't entirely sure where he was at. Great, he'd gotten himself lost, in a part of the city which wasn't safe.

The eyes following him made his skin crawl. He spied an alley opening and quickly entered. Glancing over his shoulder, Edward felt himself relax a little. No one was behind him.

Turning to look forward he was surprised to come to face three men. Each had something in hand which could be used as a weapon.

"Hand over what you got little boy."

Edward felt his heart pick up. But he shook his head, he was a state alchemist and he could perfectly defend himself. Raising his hands, he prepared to fight.

The men laughed. Edward frowned. Something hit him hard against the back of his head and he immediately collapsed, falling unconscious.

Now...

Edward passed out when the woman started working on his leg.

When he came to, it was raining and his entire body was chilled. The pain was worse, but his head felt more fuzzy. He was too tired to think of moving. His brain too muddled to be able to think about his brother or anything besides a faint fear.

He couldn't remember how he'd gotten here, or, if he tried to strain to reach back into his memory, what today was or what had happened.

There were footsteps again. Edward sluggishly blinked his eyes open, his cheek resting against the ground. There were black boots, they were familiar somehow. Voice sounded out, but to Edward they sounded filtered and unintelligible. He felt hands, much more gentle than the old woman's, and then he was being lifted.

Pain blossomed anew in his head and his damaged automail ports. He let his mind drop into unconsciousness.

Several hours earlier ...

After Edward had charged out of the office, acting like a complete whiny teenage brat, Roy resisted the urge to force the boy back and spank him like Madam Christmas had done so often when he himself was younger.

Alphonse went running after.

Instead he gritted his teeth and shook his head and mentally cussed the boy out. Everyone in the office was a little irritated, or extremely amused in Havoc and Breda's case. Fullmetal was just being Fullmetal and hadn't been willing to listen to his brother express logical and very necessary concern over the boy's behavior. How in the world did a twelve year old have more common sense than his dumb ass genius older brother?

Roy tried not to take his anger out on the papers in front of him. It was barely half way through the day and Hawkeye would have his head if he wasn't productive.

Around two hours passed when he heard the door slamming open again. If Fullmetal had come around for a third time acting like a tiny asshole, Roy was going to murder him.

It wasn't Fullmetal though, it was Alphonse. Roy heard the younger Elric ask everyone in the office if they had seen Edward recently. His anger mutated a little, he was still furious but now he was a little worried.

The knock came at his door a moment later.

Alphonse entered.

"Sir, have you seen brother?"

Alphonse sounded terrified.

"No, I'm sorry Alphonse."

"He ran off, and I followed him for a little bit, but then he yelled at me and I got mad and left him. I thought he'd come back, he always does, he hates making me mad. But he hasn't and I'm really worried! What if he was hurt or injured or something else bad happened!?"

Alphonse was a mess, and if the boy could be crying, Roy was sure he would be. It didn't reassure Roy either. If Alphonse said Edward would be back by now, he would've been. Edward was a pain in the ass, but when it came to Alphonse he never stayed mad long and usually tried his best not to make his brother worry.

"Can you help me find him?!"

Roy found himself agreeing, if just to make the boy calm down a little.

When they stepped out questions were asked, and within thirty minutes the entire office was on the streets looking for Edward.

The search had dragged on for almost three hours and no one had found the boy yet. Alphonse had decided to stay back at the children's abode in case Edward returned on his own. Meanwhile, they were all carrying radios with them to communicate.

How Fullmetal managed to be such a pain in the ass, Roy would never know.

They'd all split into groups.

Roy was with Hawkeye, Havoc and Breda and headed off together, and Fuery and Falman were working together.

Falman had used his brain to devise, based on Edward's direction and the time elapsed, most of the areas the boy could've gotten to within the time he'd left. It was a rough map, but it was better than traipsing around the city blindly.

Currently Fuery and Falman were making their way down a street. It was dirty and had a lot of bums. Neither were particularly comfortable, but both were worried about Edward.

"Do you think we'll find him?" Fuery asked softly.

Falman looked over to the younger man. He thought for a moment.

"Yes, I believe we will find Edward."

Fuery gave a small nod of his head. The bespectacled man was worried. Edward, despite how vivacious and capable he was -far beyond Fuery's abilities- was still a child. Fuery couldn't comprehend how the boy had survived what he'd gone through in his life so far.

Kain knew he wasn't as strong or brave as he would like to be, but when he'd joined he had hoped to help protect the people he loved and to make a positive difference in the world. He knew he was naive, but he hoped that with people like Colonel Mustang he would realize his dream.

As they were walking, they passed an alley. Kain didn't think anything of it at first, but for some reason he decided to back track. Falman stopped, and followed.

Looking into the alley, Kain narrowed his eyes. It was starting to get dark and the twilight lighting made it difficult to see well. A figure on the ground however caught his eye.

"Falman, do you see that?"

The older man gave a nod of his head. Carefully approaching Kain's eyes widened as he recognized the figure.

He ran over.

Edward's eyes were wide and blank, he was soaked from the rain and under his head was a pool of water darkened red with blood.

"Falman!" Kain shouted, snapping himself out of the stupor the sight had put in him.

He knelt down, heart beating painfully, as he was afraid that the boy was dead. Being as gentle as he possibly could, he reached out and placed a shaking hand against the boy's neck. He felt a pulse. An ironband around his chest relaxed slightly.

"He's hurt," Falman said, kneeling down.

Falman began to examine Edward, he didn't seem to be freaking out at all like how Kain sort of felt like he was doing. How could Falman be so calm?

"Call the Colonel, we need to get him out of here," Falman said.

"Wh-where is his automail?" Kain asked faintly, eyes glued to the automail ports.

Whatever had removed them had done it violently.

"Fuery, call the colonel," Falman repeated, his voice calm but firm.

Kain felt sick. He gave a nod of his head and stood up, taking a step away. He pulled up the radio, one he had made specifically for the Colonel and his office, and pressed the button.

"We found him, he's hurt," Kain said into the receiver.

There was crackly static and then a moment later the Colonel responded.

"Where?"

"Picard street," Kain blinked, realizing he wasn't exactly sure where.

He pulled up Falman's map, it was water-logged, and peered at it.

"Just before the intersection with Kelsington."

"We're going there now."

Kain gave a small nod in affirmation before realizing that his superior couldn't actually see him do the motion.

Falman stepped past him, Edward in his arms. Kain stared. The boy looked so small without his automail.

Standing on the sidewalk they waited. Breda and Havoc had the car and arrived first. Kain helped get Edward into the back of the car and Havoc took off immediately.

"How is he?" Breda asked.

Kain said nothing, his mouth dry. He glanced down at Edward and wondered at how close to death the boy looked.

"He received a head injury and someone removed his automail improperly."

Falman still sounded so calm, even with the boy's body draped across his lap. Kain watched as Falman kept his eyes on Edward, a hand carefully holding his head in place and the other arm curled protectively around the child.

Kain was a little jealous, and disappointed in himself. He hadn't kept his cool as well as he'd wanted to and he felt like he'd let Edward down.

It was silent in the car, the atmosphere heavy. Havoc's driving pushed the speed limit. They arrived at the hospital. Breda had already let the Colonel know where they were headed.

Edward was whisked away by medical personnel. The four men sat in absolute silence as they waited. Hawkeye and Mustang arrived twenty minutes later. Hawkeye was the one who called Alphonse.

They all waited anxiously.

Soon enough a doctor came out and announced that Edward would be okay.

Everyone collectively relaxed. Within the last year Edward had become an important part of their group. He was their little brother, the second youngest and most vulnerable member of their family.

The Colonel would chew Edward out, they would have to call Pinako and one of them would accompany Edward out to Resembool. Everyone would be a little on edge, would watch Edward more.

For now though, it was enough to enter his hospital room and be grateful that he was alive.