Warning: Gore and angst throughout. Read with caution!

Wonder

The light bulb approximately thirty feet from his position was flickering. It would need fixing immediately.

He wasn't the type to rush. However, he had been patient for so long. So so long and now it was his time to finally emerge - an ember from the ashes.

Kimblee smiled and thought of the old nursery rhyme he had been humming all week. The other staff found it incessantly irritating, but to him it was soothing. It spoke of passion and burning (although not in a sexual context) to overcome all adversity. To strive to become...perfect.

His plan had been perfect (as he had expected from the start). Everything was in position. He could now begin Phase II.

The way that Kimblee strutted into the cell with his ego worn on his sleeve was the first indication that something was wrong.

-Oh you only assume that things are wrong now, don't you little dumbass.-

Kimblee was smiling. A sinister and evil thing.

Edward recognised that smile anywhere. The Colonel Bastard invented the damn grin. It meant: "I've fucked you over and there's nothing you can do about it."

He had been talking with his brother. However, while their conversations had used to flow so naturally, as if he was talking to his shadow or soul-

-Nothing but a soul. You damn brat.-

However, now there was an element of...attachment associated to Al. He was like a strand of ivy coiling around a tree. Inseparable, even at Ed's expense. He wasn't one to complain-

-Saying you who wanted to die.-

Wanted. Do you hear the past tense, you bastard? Wanted.

-Hmmm, as you say so.-

Even now Edward could feel Al's arm grip around his neck on the left side, where the infection was a little (such a fucking understatement) better, meaning it hadn't devoured his skin whole yet. It was as if his body was on a train ride straight into the pits of Hell. He could see the broken tracks ahead. There was no way to jump off the train and survive. The only chance he had was to hold on and fall-

He had to bury his head into the insurmountable pain and live through it all.

Which was especially hard considering each breath was a thousand molten daggers digging into his ribcage, excruciating to live with every second of each damn day. Every time he moved, his body would stiffen and writhe and his back would arch trying to eradicate the pain from his soul but that only made the pain worse and his body would contort into weird and wonderful shapes much like his mangled, broken bones. And his mind was breaking too when would there be an end in sight could they reach Hell already-

NonononoNOnonoNONO.

Breathe.

But how could he focus?

With his brother attached to him like a lifeline, Ed knew he had to try to protect his little brother even more. And push beyond his limits a little further...

(Break and crash and burn.)

However, Ed's mind was rushing with constant adrenaline. There was the itching trepidation that each time he saw NoName, he would be attached to the machine and that goddamn fucking monstrosity called "alchemy" would ricochet throughout his bloodstream. Whenever the lights switched on he closed his eyes really tightly; he was afraid he was going to see something he didn't want to see but he would have to see anyway. He had to look into his brother's eyes and see pity reflected within those poor, hollow depths. Al, barely able to stay awake, found it a struggle to lip-read and slurred his way through his limited vocabulary to avoid his words becoming an aimless jumble.

Edward even pitied his brother.

But nobody should pity him.

He was dirt.

His very skin was a parasite.

His lungs were engines rattling with the wheeze of death, slipping into and out of its clutches each second.

He was the decay and mould that flies were attracted to.

His brother was sunshine while he was ash.

And Al was holding onto him...No.

Don't hold me.

Edward writhed and struggled against the chains that bound him. Kimblee was smiling and coming closer. He could feel Al wince and close his eyes tighter. Lucky bastard. Ed's amber eyes blazed with fury and hate and he was about to spit at the man when Al's grip tightened on his shoulders and he realized that he had skin contact with another human being. Not another human being because he was filth.

Don't touch me.

Kimblee pulled out a knife. It was the same blade he had transmuted at the hotel (so long ago) and it was still crusted with ruby red blood which sent shudders down his spine. It all started with that knife. This entire nightmare started with that goddamn thing.

Edward was moving away. He didn't account for the pain. He couldn't comprehend or understand what he was doing. Fear was a powerful motive, and he was following it blindly.

He's going to hurt me and I know it I should be protecting my brother. Why am I running away? I'm not just a coward, I have become his toy. A very broken toy and now he's going to break me forever. I might become attached to that machine for eternity and what would it matter everyone can survive without me. I'm a shadow gone with the night. They see me and then they don't. What does it matter if one half-human, half-machine contorted alchemy freak vanishes from the world?

Don't feel me.

Please.

Have mercy.

"Alchemy freak!"

"Dummy!"

He was a dummy. How true was that.

Ed's mind was a fog of pain. The infection lacerated across his body. It was a mass of pus and debris and material wedged into his skin. The wires had swollen beneath his skin so they jutted out blue, clearer than veins. Clearer than the Sun in a bright blue, blue sky. Like her bright blue, blue eyes...

Bright blue, blue uniform of soldiers...

Would he be rescued?

Not from this Hellhole...but...maybe...from his own mind?

Just for a second.

He would exchange anything.

But who would exchange dirt with dirt? People stood on the dirt - on him - and laughed a merry jest or two before walking down their own paths. Edward would be left to rot with nothing but his slipping sanity for company.

"It's done, Edward," NoName was crooning as if trying to tame a wildcat (some things simply didn't happen), "I need you to come with me now."

No longer was he being treated as a "guest".

(Hell he was never a guest in this place.)

Even if Edward had the desire to move, he was unable to do so. He was so weak and exhausted from his fight...to do just about anything. He was too tired with it all. He could see his life's light dimming to nothing but a faint glow, while Kimblee's shadow elongated and spread its velvety touch across Edward.

Disorientated, Ed suddenly realized he was feeling a hand on his leg-

Don't hold me.

Wincing, he turned around, avoiding the gaze of the taller man. Al was muttering again: "Badbadbadbadbadbadbad."

He was beyond reasoning.

Edward held his hand up, the effort causing him to grasp desperately for breath. The manacle was loosened from his bony wrist. He was lifted like a sack of flour and brought over to the machine by Kimblee. And then, as he expected, below one of the knobs operating the voltage, there it was - the array he had been searching for for days. It was a simple design but so bloody powerful.

He was going to break the damn contraption here and now.

Kimblee wasn't paying much attention; his mind was occupied elsewhere in a daydream as it usually was.

All that Ed had to do was move closer, reach out with his left hand...

And break it.

Like how he had been broken.

Equivalent Exchange.

His closed his eyes and as a gallant hero would do, he pushed himself forward, gritted his teeth and prayed. He felt Kimblee's grip loosen in shock; nobody was expecting dirt to fight back.

But he would.

Oh he damn would this once.

His hand flung outwards and with his hideously long nails he clawed vertically down the array, watching it sparkle a faint blue for a second before vanishing. The machine whirled.

Ha!

He'd done it!

It was broken!

Experimentally, Ed feebly (with shaking hands) drew a circle, but from his Teacher's training he had been forced to endure the most arduous conditions without alchemy, and so he should be able to manage with alchemy. Years of practice had perfected his technique, and a simple array blazed on the ground, a rock pillar shooting out of the earth like a comet. A fistful of rock pummeled into Kimblee's gut, and the man crumpled to the floor, breathing heavily.

The move had exhausted Edward.

Alphonse was across the room.

He had to get to his brother and steal the key and get out of the door and out of this fucking facility why was there so much to do why couldn't reality have been easier-

He started to hop over away from the machine. Towards Al. He was always moving towards Al. He was shuddering and afraid and needed his big brother to protect him.

Ed stumbled. He didn't give a shit and started to crawl, letting his body inch forwards across the floor-

His port rubbed against the ground at that instant.

He breathed-

FUCK.

PAIN. PainPAINpain.

Swirled in front of him. A chaotic void.

His world. Before his eyes. Like the Gate. But worse.

His body. Burnt. Singed and folded and contorted into magnificent shapes trying to alleviate his pain (againagainagain). There was no voltage there was just his stupid damn body and he couldn't even crawl through shit.

Damn it HURT.

It was like someone was ripping out his organs one by one. Pulling each of his blood vessels from his body, like hair from his scalp. Someone had taken hold of his soul and was wrenching at its fibres so damn hard he was going to fall apart like a doll.

The damaged toy that no child wanted to play with.

PAINPAINPAINPAIN MAKE IT STOP.

Knives and daggers and swords - molten - were being embedded into his skin, making a wet sound as pus exploded from the wound. Blood erupted forwards shortly after, dribbling and spattering across the shit-stained floor and his legs crumpled and he fell into the stuff and he couldn't cry out or even whisper into the darkness.

He buried his head and cried. Cried at the futility of fighting the infection. His mind was still fighting, but his body had LOST.

Loser. Pathetic. Fool.

Damn monster useless without alchemy invalid cripple murderer-

"Bad boy."

Kimblee. Grabbed him. Grabbed him by his right shoulder port. Wedged a knife.

Right. Into. The. Wound.

"aaaahhHHHHHHH" Edward screamed.

Worse. The worst.

Imagine a needle being shoved down your throat, feeling it poke against your heart.

Ed's heart was pounding so fast it could burst like a balloon. Grey walls and blue sparks of alchemy danced before his eyes.

The core site of his infection was screaming by his side. His body screamed when he didn't have the strength to. He blinked in and out of consciousness, dots swimming like little fish before his eyes.

"Bad boy."

Bad.

BadbadbadBADBADBAD B A D.

"You're coming with me. Now," a bark. An order, "However, I'll have to teach you a lesson first."

"Nnghhmmm," Edward mouthed and stuttered, trying to enunciate his words carefully but failing, always failing, "Not him."

"Not him," Kimblee nodded. Did he nod? There were approximately 52 Kimblee's in front of Edward, each drawing a knife out of his shoulder port and wiping the pus off of the metal carefully. He did not sheathe the weapon. He moved, swifter than a shadow. He was the shadow.

And with a yank, a swift stroke, all of Ed's hair, save for an inch, was swept off his head. His golden locks fell like dead straw to the floor, his golden hair the colour of sun-ripened barley.

"Phase II here we go!"

Damp. The air was damp. Even in his subconscious state, his first sensation was of dampness. It possessed a smell - a dead carcass left to decay for too long at the bottom of a swamp.

He also smelt...waste. Human waste. Not just...that type. There was also infection, as stifling as a parasite. The stench caused his eyes to unwillingly open.

He blinked, the dim haziness of darkness surrounding him. The world was a blur of twilight shades - inky blacks and navy. It was the colour of an eternal nightmare. At least Hell was colourful; this absence of colour scared him.

When was the last time he had properly been "afraid"? It could have been when Lieutenant Hawkeye threatened to shoot Havoc if she caught him smoking again on the train. Or it could have been when Major Armstrong drew him into a beefy hug which had nearly succeeded in suffocating him to death. Unfortunately, in the back of his mind, persistent as an itch, was the real last memory he had had of being afraid.

It was when he had seen the waxy white daffodils that spilled out of the box delivered to Colonel Mustang, followed by a bloodied sack of wires, metal and flesh. He instantly recognised Edward's automail limb and he had struggled against the wave of nausea surging through his body.

Kain Fuery reached to rub his eyes, missing the touch of his glasses, and failed miserably as he pulled at the restraints. Give him a radio (or for that matter any piece of technology) and he was a veteran in understanding it's function like a mechanic with automail. But he wasn't one for fighting...why did he have to be so weak when his team members needed his help?

Feebly lifting his head, he tried to navigate his way around a room like he was reading from a map. However, he couldn't retain his focus as the walls wriggled before his eyes. His throat was desperately dry. He had only had a large cup of tap water on the train...

And then he remembered. Being shot is something people don't tend to forget. And he wasn't the exception.

He held his breath. And with his tightened wrists he felt across his stomach. Fuery winced as his hand dampened with blood. His blood. Well of course it was his blood who else could it belong to he was the weak one who fell...

At least the blood flow had stopped, although the congealed crimson mass heavy beneath the touch of his jacket illustrated just how much he had been bleeding...

He should have died, he realized and shuddered as the morbid thought fleeted by.

Oh goodness-

The others-

The others!

The Lieutenants, Lieutenant Colonel, Colonel! What if something had happened to them?

Panic captured him, his breathing becoming erratic and especially hard to control. His pulse accelerated as if he was a horse being whipped. Isolation was something he feared above all else he had been alone before he couldn't be alone again not here not now-

"Colonel Mustang? Lieutenant Hawkeye? Hughes? Jean...Ed...anyone?" His voice was lost as a hoarse whisper, brittle against the heavy air. He sounded like a corpse oh what if he was dead he couldn't be dead he had kept a promise to those people dearest to him who were his closest friends-

"Oh you're not alone, little Sergeant..." a hollow voice whispered, "I apologise for speculating however for one of the Flame Alchemist's subordinates you are also quite short..."

Fuery shifted his body, his abdomen screaming in protest and he held on to every inch of resolve he possessed to stop himself from crying out for pain. He didn't hate many things in this world but this feeling of loneliness was one of them! However, he didn't linger on those pessimistic thoughts; he was a logician and had to think this situation through. He had been drilled through the protocol of becoming a prisoner of war or being captured to be interrogated for information. Even if he was a lowly pawn, he wanted to make his mark and ensure that his colleagues were alright-

"You arrived earlier than expected, young Fuery. Otherwise we would have had the room...better equipped for your time with us," the shadow said.

The room's lights flickered on as if remotely. Fuery had to admire the ingenuity of the design; especially in a building like this...there was no word to describe "this". Grey walls. Grey floors littered with blood, urine, excrement...pools of pus and vomit and discharge...every bodily fluid...

And hair. Lumps of once gorgeous golden hair.

A familiar face cropped in the forefront of Kain's mind. It was a smiling face of a boy in a red coat clapping his hands and beaming, handed over a pristine radio set. It set the status quo for radios - and for Fuery this was no minor matter.

"Thank you, Sir!" He had managed to choke in appreciation and awe as he had started to take in the smooth black design of the communications device. However, the design had been tweaked (the changes were barely noticeable from a glance) but the radio was slightly smaller and more compact. Its coat shone with a lustre as if it had been infused with gold. The edges had gained a more curved shape, and the dent he had made in the side when he had dropped it arriving late to work had been fixed too. The work was flawless and perfect.

"Man, I've been really rusty on my transmutations recently," Ed had shrugged away the complement as he drooped his shoulders.

Fuery had gained the impression from the Colonel that Edward was slacker and an outlandish boy who never did what he was told and was a nuisance to the military. While that was true to a certain extent, Ed was also incredibly humble. If he hadn't had his troublesome lifestyle, growing up and losing his limbs in the war, then perhaps he would be able to see what a gentleman he was under a true light.

Edward-

Alphonse-

Everyone!

"Where are they?" Fuery said defensively, but his voice emitted the words little louder than a squeak.

"Safe," NoName said.

"Who are you?" Fuery interrogated. He had to get some information, any information but he was hurt really badly...

"Nobody. A doctor. A monster," the man chirruped, "the usual."

Sweat was splashing down his forehead. Kain wanted to bite his nails, a terrible habit he had developed in attempt to control his anxiety. He focused instead on the pain, as the military protocol had stated, as a means of "escaping from the mind". But it only succeeded in making Fuery feel sicker.

"Palpitations. Exocrine working well," NoName rattled, "oh I apologise, I am so used to being tight-lipped in front of our other guests that I couldn't help but let slip!"

"Get me out of here!" fear spoke for the Sergeant.

"I'm afraid I cannot do that. But do not fear...your colleagues are alive," NoName promised, but Fuery refused to be gullible. He was always so gullible! He had even believed that one time when Havoc said he had proposed to a girl he had met on his first date and she had said yes...Why was he so cowardly and weak?

He had to hold his ground. Not only for himself, but for the others which gave his life meaning. Like his radio.

"My radio - where is it?" Fuery suddenly demanded, staring around loosely, his head still pounding and stomach curling inwardly in protest and pain.

"Oh, that! It's design is incredible, and especially useful for my own purposes. I'll be taking it for the meanwhile," NoName whistled a tune (which must have been his own habit).

"I need that - it's very important to me!"

"A radio is more valuable to you than your own life? You're not precious enough then? Hmmm interesting," NoName seemed to be scribbling notes. Kain's mind flashed back to the journal and he had to suppress a wave a nausea lodged suddenly in his throat.

"No, I'm not," Fuery mumbled. He was speaking his thoughts, damn he wished he could just keep his mouth shut!

"But you're needed, young one. For the big plan - the biggest one yet! And I promise, you won't feel a thing," the shadow whispered, and retreated, and Kain was left trembling in the silence of his mind. A particularly horrified mind.

-He said he was "taking" it. Not borrowing it. Unusual choice of words, don't you agree?-

I'll get it back...

-You're not going to get it back. That's the point.-

Edward gave it to me and I intend to repay my debt back!

-I realize now. It made me wonder why you were the pawn. The pawn has the potential to be the most powerful piece...but equally the weakest. Like with any coin tossed heads or tails, it depends on fate which side it lands on. And for you, in this game, you're the weakest of the lot.-

Fuery couldn't answer.

"Sir, sir!" There was someone shaking his shoulders. He stared up, expecting to see the miniskirt angels waiting to greet him from the great beyond. However, he grimaced slightly when he saw a solemn Hawkeye sternly looking down at him. What bad luck he had in the afterlife...he still had his own personal Hawkeye to taunt him to complete his ghostly paperwork...

"Sir!" Desperation. Pleading. Longing? So much emotion poured into few words. Why was she so upset?

And then he remembered-

NoName.

The flames.

Seeing Fuery being stabbed in the gut mercilessly by a phantom figure.

"Sergeant!" Roy cried, sitting up instantly, and regretted the migraine which swarmed over his soul rapidly afterwards.

He was with Hawkeye. Sunshine was radiating upon his face he wasn't alone and he wasn't captured and there was no NoName in sight-

"Where is he?"

He referred to Kain, Maes, NoName, Jean, Ed, Al -

"That man," Hawkeye gritted her teeth and momentarily lost eye contact with her superior. Roy could feel the weight of her pain on his shoulders, a weight greater than lead. What a burden to continuously carry.

"Where is he?"

"The Lieutenant and Lieutenant Colonel have gone in pursuit of the stranger and Fuery. I remained here with you, Sir," She answered in the clipped military tone.

"How long?" He demanded.

"Thirty minutes, Sir. You would not be revived by all means we tried, Colonel," Hawkeye's face had turned a deathly white, and she lifted out a hand to help Mustang to his feet. He was on the edge of the alley, the dull stench of burning rubbish heavy and putrid in the summer air.

He could hear the crowd of spectators babbling to themselves.

So much for this being an undercover mission.

He would have to see that the remaining members of his team in Central prevented the news from spreading further than Turinene.

He could trust them to do that.

There were other more demanding thoughts on his mind at that instant: thirty minutes.

Damn weak bastard.

Colonel Bastard.

"We move now, Hawkeye," Roy exclaimed. No other words needed to be said.

"Yes, Sir."

Edward couldn't remember the exact instant that he had lost consciousness. It may have been thirty years ago, or thirty minutes, or thirty seconds. In Hell, time was infinite and his greatest enemy.

He didn't have much time.

He never had much time.

His eyes adjusted to the harsh glare of the room he was in. He was manacled (no surprise), but he was also gagged, and no matter how hard he tried to, he couldn't scream through the gag. It was wedged far down his throat to the point where he felt like he was going to be sick but didn't quite have the stomach to retch up his sorrows.

Dried crusted blood lined his arm and leg and torso (dribbling down his damn face most likely too) and fresh pus oozed from his wounds. He didn't have the strength to lift his head, but his gaze still wandered across the room.

He was forever the curious scientist, the foolish, bad golden boy who stepped carelessly past the boundary to Heaven.

He was thrown back into Hell.

This room was his Hell.

It was so clean.

So perfect.

The air stank of perfume and disinfectant.

Light from an actual fucking window billowed through a set of curtains.

There was a set of table and chairs. Upon which sat crusted and shriveled white daffodils.

And beside him was a machine, although this machine looked oddly familiar to him. He had no idea why it was so familiar to him...he was too damn parched to be able to think rationally for the past few days. Each coherent thought he possessed felt like an epiphany, separate and miraculous.

He shook his head loosely, but the touch of hair against the back of his neck, protecting and warming him like a blanket was gone. His hair. Gone gone gone.

Bad bad bad.

Bad bad bad...

Bad...

"Bad..." Edward understood that someone was talking from behind him, "you're a bad boy, Edward Elric. Although, you have done very well. With this, phase II can be completed and as a result, I can bring Roy Mustang in for phase III and then-"

The man was rambling. Insanely rambling, excited, even more feverish than before. So many countless times before.

"Do you like the room? I designed it especially. Enlightenment - warm colours," Kimblee gestured to the bright window. He drew a hand past the curtains, and the halo of blue blue sky glittered through the glass. It washed over Ed's face, and he was suddenly reminded of somewhere warm and safe, and her lovely blue blue eyes back home in Resembool.

What was his talking about?

This Hellhole had become his home.

How his mind liked to wander...

"Let's begin!" the man shouted to nobody in particular, but himself. And to his left, the wall suddenly became transparent, and trapped inside a glass tank, gagged also and wrestling against his restraints...was Fuery.

-You dragged them all into this. You wanted the attention. You're the golden boy.-

-Look at him - he came here for you.-

-How many people will have to suffer for you?-

-Or are you a sadist? Do you enjoy watching their suffering?-

-Oh, this is going to be fun.-

The older Elric recoiled. His back was pressed against his chair, and he couldn't move freely (his body was too damn dizzy). He tried to scream and cry and plead, stamping his foot against the floor.

Kimblee was standing at the glass boundary between the two cells. He whistled lightly, the sound the definition of evil.

And then on the other side of the glass, someone completely swathed in black walked into the room. Fuery's eyes widened in shock and he started to wrestle harder against his own restraints (heart thudding, adrenaline coursing, time slowing). The stranger punched Fuery in the stomach. And from the man's muffled screaming, Ed knew how much it hurt.

His body was a time bomb, and he was slipping into and out of consciousness. The act before him was like a dream. Fuery getting beaten. Blood spraying against the glass. Kimblee grinning his Chesire grin.

Edward's eyes widened. He paused. His heart stopped. His breathing stopped.

Breathe...

Focus...

However, Ed had one of those fucking morbid epiphanies.

He stared at the radio next to him.

It was his gift to Fuery.

And now...it was being used as the hub for initiating the alchemic reaction, inducing that fucking voltage.

Realization kicked him. HARD.

No.

No...

NO!

"NO!" Ed lashed forwards, his body being forced back against the restraints. He attempted to drag himself free of the restraints, but it was to no avail. They were tight.

NonononoNONONO.

Bad.

Fuery's glasses were smashed and some of the fragments fell into his eyes. The man screamed again.

"STOP THIS OH GOD PLEASE," no sound came out.

He looked. He was forced to look. There was no where that he could turn.

He listened. He listened to the screams.

He wasn't listened to.

His golden eyes stretched open in horror as Fuery's teeth fell out due to the impact of the punches.

In the meantime, Kimblee had moved to his side. The wires were attached to his temples, those wires connected to the machine...

"Sometimes suns die," he whispered.

And voltage.

The pain fuelled the alchemic reaction. Edward could feel his soul expend every ounce of energy he possessed to help Fuery, the Sergeant who was so shy and introverted, but loved his team like his own family. The alchemy fed off his pain and anger and bitterness against this cruel and empty world. The energy rushed out of him and into Kimblee, who was laughing maddeningly.

"STOP THIS!" Ed's unspoken words did not disturb the silence.

Torture was a horrific thing. But silent torture, without the crying or screaming, made it that damn worse.

They were going to die unheard. No last confessions.

He was going to die.

And he was fucking afraid.

Even after everything-

"PLEASE STOP HURTING HIM!" Fuery's gag had come loose, "Leave Edward alone...please...he's just a boy...don't hurt him..."

Ed's eyes glistened with tears. Tears shed from his soul. They pattered to the ground and he choked and gagged and retched the pitiful disgrace of a human he was-

Even in his state, Fuery was still trying to save him when he didn't have a soul worth saving.

Two voices sounded together: one aloud, one silent:

"PLEASE STOP THIS. MERCY. STOP."

"It hurts."

They were unheard - people didn't listen to dirt.

The figure in black had pulled out a gun. He shot it straight into Fuery's leg.

Ed's vision suddenly brightened, and he was paralyzed. This was further than any alchemic voltage had taken him before but HE DIDN'T FUCKING CARE DON'T HURT HIM.

He couldn't scream.

Another shot. Bang. Bang. Bang.

Leg. Arm. Abdomen.

Ed swayed forwards, and began to choke on his vomit. It hurt. Bits dribbled out of his gag, and the tears would not stop falling. He kept trying to fight to be free and help his friend.

His friend.

-Sit back and enjoy the show.-

NOOOO!

The world in front of him continued to brighten, and he had not seen so much colour in over a month. It was like a thousand fireflies lighting up the night sky, twinkling as bright as stars. Ed could see the figure lift the gun, and point it at Fuery's head.

"Please...let him be...Ed..." Fuery sobbed, and stared over at Ed.

Time stopped. Edward's vision stopped dancing for a long moment, and he could feel the beat of his heart slow to a halt. In that one second, the space between Sergeant and Fullmetal seemed to melt away. They were together in their suffering. They understood each other. And not just through the constant damn pain. They had memories, experiences shared in which they had laughed, become bitter and cried. One: bold and reckless. The other: shy and quiet but get him out of his shell and he was enthusiastic and lively and those black eyes stared gently into his. Always too damn kind-

Bang.

Fuery's skull shattered into a thousand pieces.

BANG... BEAT. PAIN. NO.

BAD.

He could hear laughter. He could hear the rush of alchemy. His vision swayed...and brightened...all he could see was white...white daffodils...

And everything went black.

"Thank you, Sir!"

Ed shuffled uneasily; he hated receiving praise, "Man, I've been really rusty on my transmutations recently."

But the way Fuery's face seemed to shine, radiating his happy aura meant that Ed had no choice but to smile.

"Ed. Call me Ed."

Fuery smiled a little more, stood up and gave the blond alchemist a massive hug. And for once, Ed sighed, and didn't push him away.

A/N: Oh goodness what was that...Poor lil' Fuery. Poor sweet child...Ahhhh I hate the plot bunnies right now.

Chapter 9 White Daffodils should be up soon. I'll avenge Fuery. I promise.