Manami was returned to the room she shared with Ed, but didn't return to her bed right away. Instead, she wheeled over to Ed's bedside.
For once, he looked peaceful… it was sort of strange.
But suddenly, to her surprise, Ed let out a soft groan.
"?!" Was he waking up?!
Sure enough, his eyes started to crack open. His golden, foggy eyes slowly moved to look at her.
"... Winry..?"
"..." Manami could only stare at him, her mouth slightly open.
"Uh, no… it's me… Manami." She finally said.
"... oh." Ed blinked away the fogginess in his eyes. "Ah, sorry… I guess what they say is true..."
"Huh?" Manami raised a brow, and the blonde closed his eyes for a moment.
"The first person you think of is supposedly the one you care about the most…" He opened his eyes and gave her a strange grin. "Isn't that right?"
"Um…" Manami's face twisted awkwardly. "I… guess..?"
That doctor woman wasn't kidding… Ed was definitely loopy.
"Damn right I'm right!" Ed's silly grin only grew bigger. "I heard you back there! 'Someone help! Alphonse!'"
Manami's jaw dropped even lower this time, her face turning a bright red.
"Wh—… you were conscious at that point?!"
Ed could only giggle in response.
"Alphonse, take my locket! Alphonse, save me!"
"Shut up!" Manami snapped, which only made Ed laugh harder.
She absolutely wanted to die from embarrassment.
"Boy, I feel great…" Ed changed the subject, much to Manami's relief. "I could go punch Kimblee in the throat, or maybe even punch that Truth bastard in the nose."
He paused, eyes widening like he just realized something.
"Manami…" His automail arm reached up to grab her sleeve.
"... Truth…" His cheeks puffed as he stifled a laugh. "Doesn't have a nose…"
"..." Despite how mad she was at him, Manami couldn't hide her grin at that comment.
"The doctors weren't kidding..." She shook her head. "You're a totally different person when you're on morphine."
"Oh, so this is morphine!" Ed's demeanor quickly changed. "Ugh… I'm starvin'... do they have beef stew here?"
"Um… I don't know?" Manami blinked. "We're not at a hospital; we're at the home of some doctors…"
"So... why they wouldn't have beef stew?" Ed gave Manami a look like she was stupid.
"... nevermind." She sighed.
This was going to be fun. She just prayed that Ed wouldn't bring up Al again.
After a week passed, Ed and Manami were on the front pages of every paper... as wanted fugitives.
Manami made sure to read every daily paper, not only to keep up with the news, but part of her hoped that there would maybe be a report of Al's whereabouts... but that hope never saw fulfillment.
Another month passed. Manami was finally able to walk again, while Ed had just started managing to get out of bed, and start building the strength to stand and walk.
Ed woke up one day to look over to Manami's bed, where he saw someone he didn't recognize sitting there and reading the daily paper.
Crimson red hair… and glasses?
"Huh?" Ed went to rub his eyes to help clear his vision.
"Manami?"
Sure enough, she looked up from the paper in her hands and smiled a little.
"Took you a second to figure it out, huh?"
"What the hell?" Ed rubbed his eyes again. "What—"
"It's a disguise, duh…" Manami rolled her eyes. "We're fugitives, remember?"
"You better not have gotten hair dye for me, too."
"As a matter of fact, I did!" Manami grinned. "Out of all the choices, I figured black would look best on—"
"Absolutely not." Ed cut her off. "I am not dying my hair black."
"But you wouldn't be recognizable if you did!" Manami insisted, going to tap the newspaper with her knuckles.
"I'm just doing things different from the descriptions they're using to look for us!"
"Give me that!" Ed reached forward with a grunt of pain and ripped the paper from her hands, and his eyes narrowed at the sight of him and Manami plastered on the front page.
"The Wind Alchemist, described to be a young female, wearing a blue shirt and black coat, with short brown hair." Ed read aloud. "The FullMetal Alchemist, described to be a young male wearing a red coat, with blonde hair in a braid… and short?!"
Manami snatched the newspaper back as Ed growled under his breath.
"You can't make yourself any taller, so—"
"I'll wear a different coat, and I won't wear my hair in a braid!" Ed yelled at her. "But I'm not dying it freakin' black!"
"Don't yell at me because you're cranky from your morphine withdrawals!" Manami yelled back.
"I'm yelling at you because you're asking something unreasonable of me!"
"It's not unreasonable! It's smart!"
The door suddenly burst open.
"Would you two shut up?!" Heinkel poked his head in. "You want to be smart?! You can start by not yelling so loud that the whole damn building will hear you and know where you are!"
Ed and Manami both huffed and crossed their arms.
"Whatever."
Heinkel glared at them, but then noticed something about Manami.
"A-Are those my spare glasses?!" He gasped. "I've been looking for those!"
"Oh, yeah…" Manami walked up to him to hand him two pieces of glass lenses. "I'm gonna borrow them for the disguise. I didn't need the lenses, so I swapped them out for some regular glass."
"Wha—" Heinkel stammered. "You broke my—"
"Not broke, altered." Manami corrected him. "I'll put them back to normal and give them back to you when I'm done. Promise!"
"..." Heinkel swiped the lenses from her hand. "Unbelievable…"
And with that, he walked out and shut the door behind him.
Manami turned to walk to the window, leaning her forehead on the cold glass. The sun had set, but she watched the snowflakes falling from the sky.
"..." Ed sighed softly. "We gotta leave soon."
"When you finish healing." Manami told him, looking back at him with an expression that said that this was not up for debate.
She heard him start to talk, but she cut him off.
"I'm impatient too, you know." She said. "I want to stop imposing on these doctors' livelihoods. I want to find Al..."
She averted her eyes for a moment at the thought of Al.
"But... this will be all for nothing if we leave too early and you land in some other hospital or doctors' clinic for another month, all because you pushed yourself too hard now."
"But—"
"You'll prove that you're healed enough…" Manami walked to the table in between their beds to pick up a brown bag. "When you can successfully walk with me to the market, get food, and bring it back. Until then…"
She dug in the bag until she grabbed a roll and she threw it at him. "I don't want any argument."
Ed frowned as he caught the roll with his automail hand and put it to his mouth to take a bite.
"Geez… when did you get so bossy?" He asked, with his food in his cheek.
Manami simply huffed. "When I learned I have to be bossy in order to get your stubborn ass to listen."
Ed said nothing, knowing he couldn't argue with that.
A few more weeks passed, and Ed got to the point where he could walk with Manami to the market, sporting a tan coat and wearing his hair down. Most strangers thought he looked like a girl. Manami figured that if Ed preferred this than dying his hair black, that was his problem.
It was a few days after the New Year that Ed finally walked with Manami to the market and carried the bag of food back to the clinic without any struggle.
"Good." Manami nodded to him with approval. "Then we set out tomorrow."
They had already come up with a plan that they would initiate the following day.
Darius was sent to the bank with Ed's pocket watch and a letter to withdraw funds from Ed's account to pay the doctors. Meanwhile, Manami and Ed made their usual, yet final trip to the market. This time, they picked up more food than usual, mostly preservatives. Ed carried a bag while a second bag was put into Manami's knapsack. Ed even got himself a kabob that he munched on as they walked back.
They approached the building of the doctor's clinic where they saw men in military uniforms getting out of a car and going inside.
"Right on time." Manami hummed, eyeing the car.
"Alright..." Ed looked to her. "We'll be out in five minutes."
"I'll be ready."
As Ed went inside, Manami nonchalantly made her way to the car. She reached to open the driver door, which to her surprise, was unlocked!
"Well, that definitely saves time." She grinned to herself as she got inside the vehicle, set her knapsack in the back seat, and inspected the steering wheel.
"Alright... I guess this is the steering column?" She clapped her hands to use alchemy and remove the paneling under the steering wheel, and a bunch of wires fell out and dangled in front of her.
She looked over the wires for a moment before jumping at the sound of gunshots. She then looked up to see Heinkel and Darius with with Ed running towards the car.
"Get in the back!" Heinkel yelled at her.
Manami quickly turned to climb in the back seat, as the men got in the front and Ed got in the back next to her.
"Thanks for the extra time, Manami!" Darius grinned to himself as he quickly finagled with the wires and managed to get the car started.
"If anybody asks, you guys are a bad influence on me." Manami joked.
"DRIVE!" Ed yelled as he saw soldiers run out of the building and spot them in the car.
The tires screeched and they were off. Shortly after, another military car had caught up with them and was on their tail. Ed glanced nervously behind them out the back window.
"Go faster! They're gaining on us!"
"I'm going as fast as I can!" Darius yelled.
But it wasn't fast enough! Up ahead, a truck starting pulling out into the road.
"GAH!" Darius swerved, throwing around the kids in the back seat... but he at least managed to dodge the truck, much to everyone's relief.
"Take this right!" Ed leaned forward to point at the street coming up.
"What?!"
"Just do it! And park as soon as you get on there!"
"Grahhh! Hold on!" Darius yelled as he obeyed.
Manami closed her eyes and gripped the seat in front of her as the car lurched. She heard Ed clap his hands and a transmutation ensued around her.
Once the car stopped, she opened her eyes to see their pursuers coming towards them, and she held her breath. In the last possible second, Ed had changed the exterior of the car to look unrecognizable.
Once they zipped past them, everyone sighed in relief.
"That was close…" Heinkel groaned.
"Now change the appearance back to something normal." Darius said.
"Why?" Ed asked, and Manami looked out the window to see greens and oranges on the outside of the car.
"How they didn't see through this... is a miracle…" She chuckled weakly.
"What?! I think it looks cool as hell!" Ed frowned at her.
"We're not here to look cool, we're here to look subtle!" Manami frowned back at him.
"She gets it." Heinkel muttered.
"Fine…" Ed groaned and clapped his hands, transmuting the car to look normal, but still different than the original model.
"Where to now?" Darius asked as he started driving once again.
Manami looked to Ed. They hadn't gotten this far in their plan…
"... you do know where to go next, don't you?" Heinkel asked, looking back at them.
Ed folded his hands over his mouth, his eyebrows furrowing as he thought.
"..." Manami thought too. The only place that she could think that Al would be was...
"Central." Ed finally announced, before she could say her idea..
"Central?" Darius asked, looking at them through the rearview mirror.
"The abandoned house where we rendezvoused that one time…" Ed said to Manami. "I just have a feeling he would go there to meet up with us."
Manami made a face that said she didn't quite agree with his logic.
"What?" Ed saw right through it. "Do you have a better idea?"
"Well…" Manami shrugged. "I just thought… maybe Resembool makes a little more sense…"
"Not to be biased, but I've come to learn that her ideas make a little more sense in general." Darius said, moving his eyes back on the road.
"Me, too." Heinkel nodded in agreement.
After all, all of this was mostly Manami's plan.
"Aww..! Thanks guys!" Manami grinned, very flattered.
"I don't care about your bias, I'm his brother!" Ed argued. "I think I'd know him better than she would!"
Still, he grew quiet for a moment, as he considered her idea.
"No…" He shook his head. "Resembool is just too obvious… the military would look for us at our hometown. Al would be more discrete..."
Manami's lips pursed, not entirely convinced, but she nodded anyway.
"Okay… if you say so..."
"Central it is." Ed declared.
"... 500 Cens she's right." Darius muttered under his breath so that only Heinkel could hear him.
"I'd bet, but I agree with you." Heinkel replied at the same volume.
"Huh?" Manami blinked. "Did one of you say something?"
"Nope."
"Nothin'."