Disclaimer in previous chapters. Please see Author's Notes at the end.

- x -

It had been a mistake to let him come.

He cracked open the small box, rifling through the contents a moment before finding a packet of the right shape. The car rumbled to life beneath him, which he ignored as he tore open the paper envelope, spilling two small, white pills into his hand. He popped them into his mouth, swallowing them even as they tried to stick to his dry throat. It would take a while for them to provide any relief, but they had the entire drive back to Central.

Just before they started a manhunt for a cripple without legs that could probably effortlessly decimate an entire legion of soldiers.

He leaned back in the seat and tried to ignore the throbbing in his head as the car lurched forward, turning in the circular gravel driveway before finding the harder-packed dirt of the main road. He knew he should probably clean himself up, but for the moment all he wanted to do was remain still.

It didn't really help. Nothing helped. This pain reached into his upper and lower jaws, reached into his neck. Reached the very back of his skull. It hadn't hurt this badly when he'd originally lost half the eye.

Of course, he didn't really recall the bullet, and the wound had had days to heal before he woke the first time.

It would have been nice if that scenario had repeated itself.

Edward had been almost silent since their escape, and he didn't say anything now. His eyes were straight ahead, on the road, and both his hands were on the steering wheel. He wasn't nearly as pale as he had been, which meant he was probably fully recovered from whatever poison they'd given him –

It hadn't been the same stuff that had killed the woman. The symptoms were completely different. Whatever had been given to Edward the first time had been meant to incapacitate, but there was no doubt if he hadn't done what he just did, he would be dead in that room instead of her.

But the idealistic Elric probably didn't see it that way.

They'd found the chemical she'd used, in a clay pot on the wooden table where the powder had once been. It had been unlabeled, and other than being an evil, oily green liquid, he had no idea of its makeup. He supposed one of them could have transmuted it, but Edward wasn't in any condition to explore the area.

And neither was he.

It turned out the channel the stairwell had circled was actually an elevator, which had been a welcome discovery. The hiss of steam had greeted them when they'd arrived at the ground floor of the cottage; a pot of noodles was boiling over on the gas stove. She'd been cooking a meal.

That was why she'd had a paring knife, rather than an actual weapon. She'd just been out to nick Edward, it probably would have been enough. Whatever it was had killed her so quickly –

And there was no doubt it was a homemade poison. The old alchemist had made two of them. But more than that, his laboratory, all but lined with ingredients, some elements and some unknowns –

Compounds. Probably like what he'd transmuted. He'd picked up a small crystal of it when he'd been showing him his 'finished product,' so obviously it wasn't a poison that could be absorbed by the skin or breathed, but that didn't mean it wasn't harmful.

He had heard of an alchemist that specialized in transmuting custom compounds for alchemic ingredients, but it couldn't be the same man.

The Fusing Alchemist was only in his fifties or early sixties, at the eldest. That ancient man had been at least ninety. It was possible he was the sensei, and the Fusing Alchemist that had registered with the State was merely his apprentice –

But then again, the Fusing Alchemist was missing, and had been long before Scar had started killing State Alchemists. Many had suspected the man dead.

Perhaps he'd had a run-in with the Gate. If his sensei had known about human transmutation –

It was obvious the woman had, at some point. Given what he'd heard of it, and Edward's reaction when he'd seen the thin, impossibly long black arms –

Since you had to trade something every time you encountered it, maybe that was what had happened to her voice. Maybe it was scar tissue she was swallowing around.

Of course, what had she then gained? Unlike the old man, she had been wearing transmutation circles. And she hadn't transmuted a forest of arms, either. Just three. Three she hadn't been able to control independently. While one was moving, for the most part the other two were still. He wasn't sure if she had an amplifier herself or not, but if she had been using one, she wouldn't have had enough alchemic power to transmute herself out a cardboard box otherwise . . .

And the other apprentice, the young man. If Roy knew whether he had repaired the ceiling or merely lit the chandeliers, he'd have a better idea of his relative ability. If only the old man was using an amplifier, it would be bad enough, but if he'd given one to his lackey –

And of course, if the old man was slipping in and out of lucidity, and realized that the alchemist he was looking for was dead or otherwise not in Central . . . they could expect a hell of a fight when they found the two of them.

And Edward Elric had demonstrated he didn't have the stomach for that kind of fight.

Which was mind-numbing. As a twelve year old child he'd killed an alchemist named Majahal, albeit accidentally, then destroyed several of the Homunculi as well, including the one created from the transmutation attempt of his own mother. Roy knew from reading the briefs that Edward had reacted thoughtlessly when he'd realized his research in the world beyond the Gate was being used to exterminate humans. It had been a completely illogical move that, luckily for him, had actually resulted in his returning to this world.

And now he would barely use alchemy at all, fearing that it was wasting the lives of those that had died on the other side of the Gate.

His resolve to save his brother had once given him the courage necessary to kill, and to live, but it appeared now that his first journey was finished he didn't see the need anymore. Even when he was faced with his own death, he hesitated. Roy wasn't sure, if Edward had been alone in the room with her, whether or not he would have been the one to walk out.

And that was unacceptable. He couldn't take someone into battle he couldn't trust to survive.

Mustang took a deep breath, surprised to find that the ache in his head was slightly subdued. Getting his heart rate up, both watching Elric's short fight and even just moving around, had caused everything to throb deafeningly. That sensation was slowly fading. He wasn't sure if that was the painkillers or just his stillness, but it was welcome.

And probably something he should take advantage of while he could.

He focused more clearly on the first aid kit they'd gotten out of the back of the car, surprised at how it made his left socket ache. As if it was trying to focus muscles that weren't there anymore. That was just phantom pain and he knew it; he'd seen what the old man had removed, and he knew from the deepness of his pain that he'd cleaned it out pretty thoroughly. Just recalling it made everything hurt worse, and he gritted his teeth and unwrapped a foil packet containing an alcohol pad.

He wished the kit had also come with alcohol for consumption.

The only mirror around was the passenger side mirror, and he rolled down the window, readjusting it so he could see his own reflection. He was just going to pack the socket, and probably didn't need to see it to do that, but he did need to get the worst of the blood and other fluids off his face. If he was very careful, he might be able to hide this from the general public.

After all, he had a dozen eyepatches, all the same. Only his doctors and Hawkeye really knew that there had been anything left the first time around, so even if it was discovered later that he was without it, nothing would seem amiss.

The idea of 'amiss' and 'Hawkeye' in the same sentence brought him back to more pressing matters. He and Edward had left the house only ten or so minutes after Fullmetal had freed him, and both had been surprised to see his car was still parked where they'd left it. There hadn't been a car visible when they'd pulled up, and there were no other tiremarks in the loose gravel.

It didn't look like anyone had come looking for him.

And since Riza had confirmed with him the number of officers to bring, and gotten his bodyguards off his back to let him sneak out the back door –

Then what had happened?

And what had really happened to Edward?

Mustang held his breath as he inserted the alcohol pad into the socket, grinding his teeth as the stinging sensation built into something much sharper. It died back after the alcohol shocked the nerves into numbness, and he tore open another one, packing it in also. It would encourage more bleeding, probably, but at least it would kill surface germs. It was the best he could do, for now.

Going to a hospital, at least until he knew where the old alchemist was, was out of the question.

When he was sure his voice would be reasonably steady, he opened his mouth and spoke.

"Were you feeling sick earlier today?"

There was no point in beating around the bush; neither of them was in the mood to play games. And Edward Elric was no longer a child. Even if he was still the same stubborn person he'd been when he was eleven.

Maybe he wasn't, anymore. Maybe that was the problem.

He had no peripheral vision to his left, so he couldn't see Edward's reaction at all as he tore open a third pad, using this one to mop at his face. He could feel the thick, dried blood crumbling off his face, and he referred to the side mirror to make sure he was getting it all.

He'd seen the socket before; he saw it every morning after he showered. At first he had shied away from looking at it, but he'd quickly gotten over that. It was rather fascinating to see what his body looked like on the inside, and besides, once a day he'd had to apply salve to the remnants to prevent them from drying out. At least that time – and cost – was no longer an issue.

On the plus side, he could probably get a false eye, now. Maybe he could put an Ouroborus on it, and complete the picture.

"No," Edward replied into the prolonged pause, as if he'd been worried about his own voice. "I didn't feel sick until after we'd been standing in the chamber for a few minutes. I thought maybe it was the heat."

It had been hot, but it had been only a little warmer than the lecture hall earlier that day, and he'd watched Edward speak while standing for two hours without the slightest indication of sweat or discomfort. Obviously, if he'd been that sick, there would have been some evidence of it then. Besides, the way the apprentice had moved towards Edward as he'd fallen –

They'd been expecting it. They'd definitely slipped him something, but the question was when. And how.

"When did you ingest the drug?" Surely it had to be on the other man's mind, and if it wasn't, he needed to get Fullmetal to stop dwelling on the girl and start thinking clearly again.

Once the area around his eye was cleaned up, he went back to the kit for some gauze and tape. It was going to be terribly obvious until he was able to replace the eyepatch, but he'd have to stop by his home for another pair of ignition gloves before he confronted the old alchemist anyway. He could swear the soldiers there to secrecy.

Ed was even slower replying to this question than the last, and when he finally spoke, his voice was reluctant. "I've been thinking about that." He heard Ed's hands shift on the wheel, but he didn't look. Instead, he used his teeth to tear off a strip of tape, wincing as the usage of his jaw caused the pain to swell.

"I didn't touch anything you didn't," he continued. "Besides the car," he added, almost as if it had just occurred to him. "But I don't think the old man knew who I was."

Clearly he'd known Edward was an alchemist, though – or maybe not. Maybe they'd just pinned him to the wall like that because they'd already done it to him. His memory of being removed from the rock was foggy at best; he was pretty sure he was just propelled along the floor through the stone until he found himself against the wall of the other room.

And he knew that right before he'd passed out like he meant it, Edward hadn't been with him. Which could have been when the old man had checked out Fullmetal's armor –

Apparently Edward had still been out, as it had been news to him. The fact that he couldn't seem to transmute with that arm was a problem – perhaps the alchemist had done something to it, just in case? Maybe he hadn't been able to fully remove it, and had been afraid it hid a transmutation circle?

Either way, in an academy full of alchemists, how could they have guessed which he would bring with him?

Or maybe they hadn't guessed. Maybe they'd just affected the whole academy?

But how? He'd been there the entire time. If something was airborne, he'd have breathed it as well. There was no guarantee that everyone would touch the same doorknob, or –

Of course, he'd been wearing his ignition gloves the entire time.

Bradley used to wear gloves all the time as well.

So it was something Edward had touched.

Mustang carefully pressed the tape around his eye, careful not to catch his eyebrow. Even if something at the academy had been coated, there was no guarantee everyone would touch it. Tampering with all the doorknobs would probably get quite a few people, and technically Edward's had been a fairly early class, so it was possible no one would have shown symptoms before he had, but that kind of wide-scale attack didn't seem to be the old alchemist's style.

Edward's voice almost startled him as the man continued. "And I don't think the alchemist would have known you were coming to the academy to attend a class. I didn't." It was meant to add some levity, but his tone was still somber. "The only thing of his that any of us had was the envelope. I think it was on the letter. 'Anyone included bears their own risk.'"

Mustang didn't even pause as he finished taping up the patch.

It was probably as simple as that. Mailcarriers always wore gloves, both the civilian post and the military. All paper-handling professionals did. But anyone who read the contents of the letter would likely have touched it, and since Bradley normally wore gloves, he'd be immune.

The only other people that had handled it bare-handed were Fullmetal and Hawkeye.

That was why no one had followed them to the alchemist's home.

She hadn't gotten the chance to tell them.

Hawkeye had opened it before she'd given it to him, and had received it just as the class had started. The name on the outside of the envelope had made someone think it was better screened by his head of security before being passed to him, to determine whether or not it was an old piece of post containing sensitive military information, or just a smartass citizen. Edward's class had lasted two hours, which was a little longer than the time it had taken them to get to Mount Vesper. But there was no telling how far into the class she had opened it.

Which meant she'd probably gotten as sick as Edward had . . . just minutes after he'd left her there.

Which meant –

Which meant nothing. She would have collapsed in an academy full of people, almost on top of the military hospital at HQ. There was no point in worrying about it. She was either dead, or she wasn't. No amount of hurrying would change that now.

"And if that's true, it means –"

Now Mustang understood his hesitance.

"That we know why no one arrived as planned," he cut the other man off.

Edward didn't say anything else.

Mustang wet down the remaining blood on his face and skin with the last of the alcohol, fishing a handkerchief out of his pocket to clean it off. The front of his uniform was stiff with it, and he knew part of his exhaustion was shock. He was in no condition to take on an alchemist in a fight, particularly one with already amplified techniques. Perhaps he could try talking the old man down . . . ? He could bring Armstrong and Russell Tringum in, but it would probably be better to leave Edward with Alphonse. Knowing him, even with his brother missing he was probably finishing up his work on Cobb Street.

That was as good a place to leave Fullmetal as anywhere.

"Head to the east side of the city."

They were driving through some of the more winding hills on their way into Central. He expected the city to be within sight in around twenty minutes. He was probably fit to drive, and if he kept his elbow on the windowframe of the car and his hand over the missing eyepatch, it was possible he could get through his own security without their really seeing –

Of course, if Hawkeye had gone down without anyone knowing about the letter, and he had disappeared without a trace –

It was likely that by now the Parliament had been alerted that he was missing, and it probably looked like an assassination attempt.

Possibly a successful one.

What a goddamn mess.

"You think that's where the old man went?" He heard Edward shifting, but he didn't look over at the other man. Anger was coursing through him; anger at himself, for not waiting ten more seconds, or wanting to risk scaring off the alchemist with a military entourage. Anger for not listening to his better judgment and letting Elric come along. Anger for not being able to protect him. For not being able to protect himself.

When had he gotten so stupid?

When had he gotten so embroiled in politics that he couldn't see a bad decision staring him right in the face?

Just the fact that he hadn't noticed Edward tailing him should have been an indication that he wasn't as sharp as he'd once been, and now –

He forced a deep breath. It was probably just the shock, his exhaustion, and the pain talking. Losing his temper wasn't going to help this situation.

He had to think.

Clearly, this time.

"Did you recognize him?" Edward pressed. "You called him a 'renown alchemist,' but never by name."

"No," he responded shortly. Then again, if Edward was already past killing someone, enough to have put the letter and the sickness together . . . maybe he could use a nice, logical approach to everything.

After all, Edward had been out long before the alchemist had really said much at all.

"He said Bradley had fooled his sensei." Mustang swallowed as his voice started to crack again. He really shouldn't be talking at all, but soon enough he'd have to come up with an alibi and repeat it thirty times, so he was just going to have to accept that he was going to be completely voiceless in a few hours.

It actually hurt to speak. In all the years he'd been in the military, he'd never shouted so forcefully that he'd actually torn a vocal chord.

"So he was taught by someone Pride was using . . . to transmute a Stone?"

That would have made his 'sensei' even older than he was. Marcoh wasn't old enough, he needed to go back for several generations –

There was always Hohenheim, but he was fairly sure Edward's father had never worked for Pride. Considering he'd created a few of the Homunculi himself, and apparently been present shortly before the alchemist Dante had disappeared, he had probably been involved in directing Pride, not the other way around. At the very least, he would never have been tricked by a Homunculi into doing anything.

"What that girl transmuted . . . was that what the beings in the Gate look like?"

This time he looked towards the younger alchemist, surprised to see that Edward's eyes were clear, still focused on the road. His expression had eventually melted from the blank, slightly shell-shocked look he'd been wearing as they'd left the house, and now reminded him a little bit of how the young man used to look when he'd been given a clue on a Stone.

"Almost exactly. And I don't think she could have gotten that close from just description," he muttered. "But then why did she need the earrings, if she'd seen the Gate?"

It was true; she could have just completed the circle the same way other alchemists that had survived performing human transmutation did –

"Perhaps she wanted to be like her master, and not have to move to transmute," Roy pondered aloud. "I don't think the old man had a circle in his cloak. I never even saw the energy."

That was interesting, actually. That he hadn't seen the energy. Even with the Stone, there would be light produced by alchemic reactions. It was a byproduct of energy release, so unless –

Unless the reaction had been going on inside the rock . . .? If the reaction didn't have to travel from the alchemist himself to the point where he wanted to being transmuting, then the light produced by alchemic reaction would simply take place as the molecular bonds were broken.

So he was definitely using an amplification device.

And as talented as he seemed to be with compounds . . . and the fact that a fairly weak alchemist had seen the Gate, and the transmutation circle on the back of the letter –

Clearly he'd purposefully wanted them to think he had a Stone. But did he actually have the knowledge to transmute one, or more importantly, did he have the knowledge of how to create one without using human life? Had he used his assistants as payment so he could study the Gate, or possibly get something from it as an ingredient rather than human lives?

Was that where his legs had gone?

And once he'd no longer had anything of his own to trade, he'd started using them?

"So the energy never traveled from him," Edward muttered aloud. "When Dante used what was left of her Stone, I saw the energy around the rock serpent she created. I never saw Al using it, but . . ." He trailed off. "Is it possible he's not using a Stone? He's made something else?"

But what else would power alchemic reactions? If Hohenheim's theories were correct, and it appeared his sons had already proven that, alchemists had an ability to channel energy from the other side of the Gate to power their transmutations. It satisfied the principles of Equivalent Exchange as well as physics, which theorized that energy could neither be created nor destroyed, so clearly it was being brought into play somewhere –

And that energy was the energy released when a soul was detached from a human body. That energy was created when a human died.

What if that energy was created during certain other types of bond-breaking? Hadn't that been the theory behind Husskinson's fission bomb? Breaking certain molecular bonds released tremendous amounts of energy?

"It's possible," Mustang agreed cautiously. "He also said that Bradley had fooled someone named Timothy by changing his appearance, which makes me wonder if Pride didn't actually look the same every time he aged –"

"Pride wasn't that old," Edward interrupted. "I think the one we knew was actually the first version. He was called Pride because Dante considered him the most perfect of her created humans. He wasn't the youngest Homunculi, but he certainly wasn't the oldest. Envy was, and he might not have even been four hundred years old."

Pride had appeared to be in his fifties or early sixties, though the military records put him at forty-eight. Assuming fifty as a median, he was in the military for thirty years, records showing he'd joined at eighteen. So he would have needed eighteen years prior to that to wait to 'age' again, if he'd faked his own death and returned with a different face –

Of course, that was assuming he didn't look the same every time he aged.

"Timothy . . ." Edward murmured. "The only alchemist named Timothy in the State records for the last two hundred years was Dr. Marcoh."

And he wasn't nearly old enough.

In fact, Marcoh was in his late sixties, at the worst, when he'd met his end.

"How old would you say that alchemist was?"

Edward cocked his head to the side, slightly. "Ancient. Ninety? Older?"

Which would have put him in his forties, earliest, before he ever would have encountered Marcoh. Who would have been high on Bradley's radar for his work on the Philosopher's Stone, so it would make sense that would be the 'Timothy' the old man had referred to, but –

Something about this wasn't adding up.

"What if he's not as old as he looks?" Edward was the first to say what they were both thinking. If he'd known about human transmutation, had traded his legs and then parts of his apprentices to the Gate for knowledge or something else . . . well, hadn't Al left a piece of his soul in the Gate as a payment? Why couldn't someone use part of their lives? Ten or twenty years, twice traded, could result in the man appearing decrepit even if he was only fifty or sixty.

He had said a generation of alchemists. But if he had been ninety, Mustang would have been two generations removed, not one.

So it was possible Marcoh would have been one of his colleagues, not one of his students.

And if they were wrong about the number of times he traded years of his life to the Gate –

Then he could actually be the Fusing Alchemist.

Which meant the sensei he'd been referring to actually could have been Marcoh.

"He said he was looking for a childhood friend. The only other alchemist that was focused in an area of alchemy Bradley would have been interested in." And Pride had been single-mindedly interested in the Stone. If the old man had been working on a non-Stone amplifier . . . but what would have been the other piece?

Which alchemists had Pride singled out?

Dante and Van Hohenheim were off the list. All the State Alchemists were fair game, and likely, because it gave Bradley more power over them. The list of older National Alchemists that had attracted homunculi attention included Tim Marcoh, Shou Tucker, Basque Gran, Nash Tringum, the elder Armstrongs, his own sensei, Majahal . . .

Almost everyone on that list was dead, and if they had made something for Pride, it had probably died with them.

He didn't know much about the Fusing Alchemist, besides his proper name. Quite suddenly, Roy wished Sheska was tucked into the back seat. She'd have the answer for him in five seconds or less.

"He could be the Fusing Alchemist, Johan Irvin." It had been so long since he'd seen these records . . . and even thinking back made his head hurt. "He's been missing for over a decade. He'd only be in his sixties."

He heard the rather pleasant clink of metal on metal, and turned to see Edward was opening and closing his right fist, staring at it thoughtfully.

That brought up another question, of course.

Why couldn't Ed transmute with that hand?

He'd tried it twice, as far as Mustang had seen. Once to transmute the manacle on his right wrist, and once to decompose the carbon arms the young woman had been using to crush him. Both times he'd failed, though he'd completed both types of transmutation with his left hand.

Yet Edward always transmuted without a transmutation circle, forming the circle by bringing his hands together. He'd always thought at that point alchemic energy had to pass through both hands, but he supposed if the source was the body then that could explain why he was able to complete his circle while still being unable to then transmute through the metal.

The question was, what had the old man done to the 'automail' to prevent Ed from using it to transmute? It was easily fixable; a call to Winry Rockbell and a spare arm. But it was only five months into Edward's return, too soon for him to be seen wandering the streets with a human arm. And it had already proven to be a disadvantage in a fight.

Another reason to leave him with his brother.

"Something wrong?"

Edward fanned his fingers in fluid succession. Then he laid it back on the wheel. "Just out of adjustment."

They hadn't stopped to readjust his armor prior to their leaving the old man's cottage. Roy really wasn't sure how delicate the mechanism within the faux automail were, but then again, it was obvious the old alchemist had done something to it.

"Mustang."

Roy glanced up at Ed's face, but the younger man was staring fixedly out the windshield. As he followed his gaze, he saw that they could now glimpse the skyline of Central.

Thick columns of smoke were rising towards the sun, concentrated in the center of the city.

- x -

Author's Notes: Well, not much plot here. But lots of thinking, possibly a name for the old alchemist, and a guarantee that the action is about to pick up. Usual typo disclaimer and apology applies – they're in there. Watching. Waiting. I know it . . . but I can't see them. Like velociraptors in a wheat field . . .

(I think I need more sleep.)