Waiting twenty days was just, to put it very simply, painful. Reason being, Ed didn't have anything to entertain himself with since he had pretty much read every single book in the library open to public, and since First Branch had burnt down...

Ed groaned, frustrated at how slowly the days were going. Honestly, were they running at snail speed?! Wait, screw that. The speed the days were made a snail look fast!

"Come on...!" Ed whined quietly to himself.

Well, he could have just read Doctor Marco's research, since it technically was a book, but Ed was bored to tears by cooking books, and he hated reading about how the Philosopher's Stone was made.

Glancing to the book once more, Ed picked it up, sighing. "Well, better than doing nothing."

The first five days of waiting could have actually be considered fun, since Ed had to duck into alleyways and go ninja everytime his younger self came by, and run everytime he was spotted.

Next ten days were boring, since his younger self was inside the library decoding Doctor Maro's notes. And Sheska probably was paid quite a huge sum of money, if the yells of "DID HE MISS A DECIMAL POINT SOMEWHERE?!" Were any clue. Call Ed crazy for throwing around his money like that, but the work Sheska did was equivalent to the amount she was paid.

Last five days were painful. Literally. Apparently, when his younger self snuck in to the Fifth Labratory, 48 dealt some extra blows, much to Ed's annoyance, because damn, that hurt! Good thing the pain only lasts for three seconds or so, else Ed would have gone crazy.

During the last five days, he had pretty much moved camp to the bushes near to the phone booth where Mr Hughes was murdered by Envy. That guy had pretty much dug his own grave the last time Ed saw him. Note to self, never cross Mustang like Envy did, or he'll light your sorry butt on fire. Painful, from what Ed had seen.

If Ed recalled correctly, Mr Hughes died when Ed was visiting Teacher, and now that his younger self had been discharged from the **** hospital, he was probably on his way to get his ass kicked. Ed couldn't actually remember the date Hughes was murdered, since no one bothered to tell him, so that's why he would spend his time hanging out near the phone booth.

And so, when Mr Hughes stumbled to the phone booth covered in his own blood, Ed knew that it was time to completely change the timeline. During those painful days of waiting, Ed thought about the Butterfly Effects that his actions would cause. Mr Hughes's death, as much he hated to say it, was essential for all the events that happened thereafter. If Hughes didn't die, Mustang would have never dug into his death since he wasn't dead, which meant the Homunculi wouldn't have framed Maria Ross, which meant Maria Ross wouldn't have her death faked, which meant Mustang would have never gone 'fishing', which also meant that Ed would have never gone to Xerxes, which meant that he would have never met up with his father, and therefore wouldn't have found out about how his human transmutation was impossible, and so on. Talk about complicated timey whimey stuff.

Which would bring Ed to the next question: How was he going to get thing to move along once he saved Mr Hughes?

Eh, Ed shrugged mentally, seeing 'Maria Ross' who probably was Envy. I'll figure it out later.

The question about Maria Ross's identity was quickly solved when 'she' pointed a gun at Mr Hughes, removing the safety.

"I need you put down the receiver Lieutenant Colonel." Ed heard 'her' say as he slowly moved forward, hoping to catch Envy by surprise. "Please sir, just hang up."

"You look just like-! But, you're not. Who the hell are you, lady?" Hughes gritted his teeth.

"I'm second Lieutenant Ross, sir. You've lost too much blood." 'Maria' spoke, a smile that definitely that did not look right growing slowly. Yeah, that was no doubt Envy.

"Drop the act already. Second Lieutenant Ross has a mole under her left eye." 'Maria' looked stunned for a moment, before a smirk that was Envy's stretched out across her face. "I see, I can't believe I forgot." Ed had to say, hearing Envy's voice from the lieutenant was pretty disturbing as he reached up and tapped the area where the lieutenant's mole would have been, red lightning flashing as the mole appeared.

"There how do I look now?"

Hughes gasped in surprise, his eyes widening in horror as he leaned against the public phone heavily. "Please tell me this isn't real, please tell me I'm hallucinating or something."

"You really are a smart man, lieutenant Colonel. Did you ever think that was going to be the cause of your death?"

"C'mon," A grim smile etched itself into Hughes's face as he slipped out a knife from his jacket sleeve. "I've got a wife and kid waiting for me back home. And the last thing I'm going to do, is die on them!"

Spinning around prepared to throw out his knife, he stopped dead in his tracks as he came face to face with his dear wife.

"You look surprised!" His 'wife' grinned.

Shaking, Hughes could only say, "What the hell are you?!"

As his 'wife's fingers tightened against the trigger, Hughes knew, that by the time he recovered, it'll be too late. I'm going to die!

Death seemed so unrealistic. He could have died during the Ishbal civil war, but he didn't. And now, he was going to die in a time of relative peace. The thought bounced around in his head mockingly, telling him that he would never see his love or his angel ever again. It would take a miracle to save him now. And from what Hughes knew, there was no such thing as miracles.

But apparently, just this once, it did.

Just before the trigger was pushed, the person was kicked back, gun tilting upwards, and while it still fired, at least it didn't hit the intended target. Unfortunately, the roof of the phone booth was made victim. Oh, well. At least there wasn't a mess of crimson to clean up later.

"Made it in time." A familiar voice sighed in relief, Hughes's eyes widening slightly in disbelief. A miracle actually happened?! Well, that was a first.

His savior, was undoubtly the same person who had dropped Nina off at his dorm back in East City.

Looking back at Hughes, he spoke. "The Colonel just answered, so you might want to respond before he gets a heart attack."

As Hughes quickly lifted up the reciever and spoke into it, Ed glared at Envy, not as if said Homunculus could see it though. "Don't you dare Envy. I won't let you kill him."

If Envy was surprised at how Ed knew who he was, he certainly didn't show it as he simply grinned, saying, "So you're the human Lust ran into at the library. You're interfering with our plans, so I'll just get rid of you, before I move to the lieutenant Colonel."

Envy fought dirty, so it was actually kind of easy to figure out what he would do. But it still sucked that Envy could make use of his shape shifting ability to change some parts of his body into weapons, not to mention different, particularly poisonous animals. Oh, for the love of-!

As Ed ducked under an arm-turned-blade, he failed to dodge getting kicked in the face by Envy, and he more or less flew back, crashing onto the sidewalk painfully as he heard something snap. He winced, feeling his ribs. Ouch... They were either bruised, or cracked, and quite frankly, Ed hoped that it was the former.

Scrambling to his feet, he barely managed to dodge a blade that would have taken off his head, and while he did dodge, his hood managed to get torn in the process, revealing his face.

"Shit!" Ed cursed under his breath, but it was too late. The damage was done, and Envy had seen who he was. Oh well, might as well look cool.

"You ruined my coat. I really liked that coat." Ed commented dryly, inspecting the damage done to his coat, and despite the calm image he was portraying, he really was freaking out inside. Oh... This was bad. Envy was probably going to tell Father about this, and then comes a hell lot of trouble Ed really hoped he wouldn't have to go through. One time was bad enough, thank you very much.

Honestly, this was the second time Ed had ever seen Envy look remotely surprised. First time was when his Automail had broken down at the fifth Labratory.

Envy's eyes narrowed sharply. "Huh, I thought it was weird Gluttony said there was someone else like the Fullmetal Pipsqueak, but I didn't think-" Envy was cut off as he dodged a roundhouse kick. "WHO THE HELL ARE YOU CALLING SHORT, YOU BASTARD?! SCREW MY COVER, YOU'RE PAYING FOR THAT!" Ok, maybe Envy didn't insult him directly since he was referring to his younger self, but still, they were the same person!

Ed clapped his hands, slamming them to the ground and transmuted a barrage of stone fists, which slammed into Envy, sending him flying.

Ed clenched his fists, fuming. "YOU DON'T CALL ME SHORT! BE IT 1914 OR 1915, YOU DON'T EVER CALL ME SHORT! AND BESIDES, I GREW! SO DON'T COMPARE ME WITH MY YOUNGER SELF!"

Just as that slipped out, Ed realized his mistake. Ah, crap. He didn't intend for that last bit. You see? This is why Ed tried to reign in his temper during his little time traveling adventure. Some good it did him, having his secrets revealed in front of an enemy no less.

Fortunately, before it could continue any longer, lights from nearby housings started to flick on, hearing the ruckus as well as seeing the bright lights of alchemical transmutations.

Envy cursed. Seeing that his mission failed, there really was no point for him to hang around any longer. Hughes would have already informed Mustang about what he had discovered. And besides... Envy's gaze drifted to Edward. He would need to report this situation to Father. A second Edward Elric running around could prove both disastrous and beneficial to the plan. They would just have to keep a closer eye on him.

With that, Envy ran off into the night, shape shifting into a civilian so as to avoid detection.

LINE BREAK

Hughes really didn't know if he was hallucinating. It felt real, but seemed too unrealistic to be real. First was that Homunculous Ed had told him about. Second, Ed, of all people, appeared and saved his life. Wasn't he supposed to be on a train to Dublith?!

When Mustang answered to phone, Hughes couldn't get a word out. He wanted to, his mouth opened to speak, but no sound came out.

And finally, when that monster left, he finally got a good look at Ed. He looked like at Ed, but at the same time, he didn't. No, Ed looked younger, but this Ed, he looked exactly as how Hughes imagined Ed would look like when he was older.

But... How? None of this seemed to make sense.

With that being his last thought, the night finally took it's toll on him before he passed out, slipping into darkness.

LINE BREAK

Edward wished he could have beaten the crap out of Envy, but there were more important things to tend to. Mainly Hughes, since he was kind of bleeding out at the moment.

Hughes was staring at him with wide eyes behind his glasses, as his hand gripped the telephone reciever in a death grip, his knuckles turning white with the force, before he passed out, most probably from blood loss.

"Crap..." Ed muttered as he reached over and checked Hughes's pulse. It was still steady, which was a good thing. The next thing he did, was gently prying the bloodied telephone reciever from his hand, lifting it up to his ear.

Hearing Mustang's now frantic yells for his friend, Ed spoke, silencing the Colonel. "Hey, Colonel Bastard."

"Fullmetal?! What are you doing there?! Where's Hughes?!"

"Mr Hughes is fine. He just needs to get to a hospital." Ed responded, wishing the Colonel would hurry up and finish, because he really needs to get Mr Hughes to the hospital or something.

"Fullmetal, what happened?!"

"First of all, drop the Fullmetal. I'm not Fullmetal. At least not the one you know. Secondly, Mr Hughes was very nearly murdered, so you might want to drop by Central to get the full story from him. He has something important to tell you."

"What-?!"

Ed didn't give Mustang anytime to finish, before he abruptly hung up on him. Staring at the reciever for a moment more, he lifted his hand off it, looking down at Hughes's unconscious body.

"I guess I should get him to a hospital..."

LINE BREAK

Mustang's hand shakily placed his phone back onto it's holder, his face pale. Hughes was nearly... Murdered?

How could that be? Suddenly, Mustang realized that he could have very well lost an extremely close friend that night. Not Hughes. Anybody but him.

And then... What was Fullmetal doing over there? Why was he there? It made no sense at all. And what was it that Fullmetal had said? "First of all, drop the Fullmetal. I'm not Fullmetal. At least not the one you know."

What did he mean by that?! If he wasn't Fullmetal, then who was he?! He sounded exactly identical to Fullmetal. Hell, he had even used the degrading nickname Fullmetal always uses for him. Did Fullmetal have a long lost cousin or twin brother?

Well, there was only one way to find out.

Grabbing his military coat, he was preparing to leave, when Hawkeye walked in carrying yet another stack of paperwork, much to Mustang's horror. One thing he'll never understand about paperwork, is that once he completes one stack, two more stacks would have arrived to taunt him.

Hawkeye raised an eyebrow at Mustang, not a single emotion showing on her face. "Sir, aren't you supposed to be working?"

"I have to go to Central, lieutenant. Hughes was almost a victim of murder tonight."

Too anyone else who had been looking, Hawkeye's expression would have been seen as impassive. However, to someone who had known her for as long as Mustang, he could see she that she was clearly worried.

"Very well, Colonel."

With that, Mustang hurriedly left the room, intent on getting onto the first train to Central. He should hurry though, seeing as the next train leaves in about four minutes.

[A/N Ok, this chapter was definitely better than my last chapter. Hughes lives! I was actually considering letting Hughes die, to show that Ed can't save everybody, but then I thought about Gracia and Elicia. So I pretty much went, aww, let Hughes live since he has a wide and kid. That, and because I don't want you guys to possibly maul me to death.

So yeah, this chapter is actually where it pretty much diverges more from canon. And by the way, the last chapter was pretty much a spur of the moment kind of thing. I don't actually plan my chapters :). I just think up of the whole story line, but I never bother to fill the gaps until I have to write them. But there are some exceptions, and this chapter is one of them.

Thank you to you all who didn't unfollow or unfavourite me because of that last chapter. Oh yeah, is it me, or are the Reviews sections in all books broken?

~ Gwntan12]