There was silence in the room for a moment as Edward gathered his thoughts. "When I was young," he began thoughtfully, weighing each word, and darting his eyes about the room as if not quite sure who he should look at, "People, a lot of them, used to come to my apartment. I didn't realise it at the time, but looking back now, most of them I only saw once or twice and they were obviously studying me." He made a face, "It was one never-ending stream of doctors, blood tests, endurance tasks, problem solving... some of them would just come to talk to Ana and Nick, but they would watch me closely as I played games. I remember they used to scare me, with the way they never seemed to focus anywhere else but me." He gave a weak laugh. "Most kids would love that kind of attention." He paused, wondering if he should go on.

Winry opened her mouth to interrupt, however, Mustang held up his hand warningly and the girl closed it again. Edward gave Mustang a slightly appreciative look before sighing and continuing. "I didn't. Mostly because I thought they had confused me with someone else. They always called me Gabriel.'

"It didn't make sense to me at all until I was about six. I walked in on Ana and Nick talking about something called the Gabriel Project. They seemed worried about it, but when I asked them what it was, all discussion on the matter stopped. I don't know what the project is; only that it was something to do with me."

"Which you picked up from that boy." Mustang filled in seamlessly. Edward nodded at him and Winry bristled.

"Ed, what the hell are you talking about? Gabriel project? Scientists? Would someone fill me in here?" She exclaimed, looking at him threateningly.

Fearing for his well-being, Edward answered her. "I don't know that much about it either, Winry. But it seems to me that Ana and Nick knew something that they couldn't tell me." He grinned weakly. "Three guesses as to what it was." He gave a weak half flap of his wings to make it obvious. "I had all but forgotten about the doctors and tests until that person brought it up."

Mustang scowled at the door through which the young man had gone. "And who is that young person, Edward?" His tone was not unkind, but it still sent a slight shiver over Edward's skin, almost like he was being judged. Alphonse rested his hand on Edward's arm and received a grateful look for the thought.

"His name is Ling Yao." He missed Winry's startled look as he watched Roy for the man's reaction. He received a nod in return. "No doubt, you already knew that though." He said with a slight bitter tang.

Winry was thoroughly lost. "So... you knew Ling?" She asked with a slightly confused tone. "But I don't see how that would work. I mean, I only met him a few months ago when we were at the training camp."

Edward winced.

"Yes, I knew Ling." He said to cover it up. "He was a playmate of mine when we were both young. We never really got on; he would try and take command of the situation in his backwards, manipulating way and hated it when I caught him at it." He said quietly. "Mustang, he's the son of the richest man on Earth."

The angel in question nodded. "I gathered he was somewhat important from the battle. His unwillingness to answer our questions proved tricky, however."

Edward snorted. "Shows what you know. Social standing had nothing to do with it. You said to take someone out as the signal and I did. I just refuse to kill." He hoped that remark stung on the man, he truly did. Once again, he failed to notice the shocked look of realisation on Winry's features. "He's one of the most prominent heirs to the fortune as well, so he'll probably prove valuable to you lot."

Winry coughed, and this caught Edward's attention. "You were... a part of that battle? Not just watching?" She seemed crestfallen.

"I am an avian." Edward said it like it was the most obvious thing in the world, and this time he caught her wince.

"I had hoped..." She said, and then shook herself. "No, it's alright. Let's just keep going with the story?" Edward made a face at her but didn't press the issue. Winry would tell him what was wrong if it was truly important.

"Anyway. Nothing really happened to me in those sessions so that's pretty much all that I know on the matter." Mustang gave him a calculating look, but it appeared the man trusted him, for Edward didn't feel the familiar pressure behind his eyes that meant the man was extracting information from his thoughts.

"What about the name Gabriel? Why did it give you such an adverse reaction?" The man asked instead.

"To be honest, I don't know." Edward replied. "It hit some sour note, but I'm not sure why. There's too much about this that I don't understand. The thing that bugs me the most, is why did Yao care what happened to Ana and Nick?"

Mustang 'hmm'ed. "There's always the possibility that..." He collected himself and shook his head. "No, it is too far-fetched. Why would anyone go to that much effort?" A thoughtful frown crossed the man's features and for the first time, Edward realised that he wasn't hiding behind his mask. Mustang was showing what he was thinking.

That shouldn't have made Edward's breath catch.

"Well," Said Winry, breaking the uncomfortable moment for Edward. "I don't remember any of this. As far as I know, the first time I met Ling was a few months ago." She said it matter-of-factly, in such a way that suggested that Edward was wrong. Displeasure flickered across Al's features and Edward shook his head slightly at his little brother, warning him against incurring Winry's wrath. "Seeing as I've lived next to you for most of my life, you'd think I'd remember at least some of these visits if you can." She said to Edward.

A curious sort of look came to Mustang's face then, Edward thought that it must have been because some sort of light bulb went on in the man's brain. It flickered across his face for an instant and then died. Alphonse eventually broke the settling silence. "Brother remembers because he is an avian. But that doesn't make full sense, because for Brother to remember..."

"...The people who visited him would have had to change Princess' life significantly." Edward flinched at the name, but didn't explode for fear of injuring his leg. "They couldn't have been random scientists who were merely studying Edward for their own benefit."

Edward's smile was weak when it broke his features. "Yeah, you're right Mustang." He said quietly, with a sort of dark humour. "They weren't just your ordinary doctors and scientists. They were the ones who were doing the genetic research for the government." His smile twisted into an ugly grimace.

"Oh... Ed..." Winry breathed, removing her hands from his wound and picking up the fresh linen dressing on the bed. "You can't possibly mean..."

Edward looked at her briefly, then turned to Mustang, meeting black eyes with a dark ferocity. "They were the ones who made Ana and Nick. They were the ones who unleashed a monster on the streets and destroyed the life of Nina Tucker."

The ward fell silent, for no one could express their feelings at this dark statement. It was broken finally by Edward as he said quietly, "I'd say they changed my life pretty significantly, wouldn't you, Mustang?"

The man couldn't find the words to answer.

"Okay, Ed, they're gone! Let's get out of this place." Winry tugged at the injured boy's arms after the two angels had left. Edward had insisted she stay with him again, and while she caught herself wondering why they were actually listening to him, she was also thankful for the opportunity. "When we get back home, I can get you an automail leg." She said to tempt him.

He smiled weakly at her. "Are you blind, Win'?" He asked, somewhat rudely, "I can't exactly go home." He flapped the monstrous red wings he'd picked up somewhat ruefully and she scowled at him, feeling a hot rush of anger at the fact he thought she would care.

"So? It's not like Granny and the others will care that you're an angel, is it?" She shrugged. "It's not like you can help what you are. We all don't care, and just because these angels kidnapped you doesn't mean you can't go home with me."

He stiffened. "I can't go back." He said quietly and coldly.

Winry made a face at him. "Ed, they won't care. How many times do I have to tell you?" She smiled. "You can't help the fact you're an angel any more than I can't help the fact I'm a human." Her smile grew. "Granny will be so happy to see you again."

The air around the boy grew a degree colder. "I can't, Winry."

"Why not? They'll all understand, Ed, just you wait and see!" She didn't understand why he wouldn't say yes, it was perfect! She had found him, and now she could take him home again. Sure, she hadn't found him how she had expected, but the wings had nothing to do with who Ed was. "I mean, you're practically a human anyway, you've lived as one and you're fighting for our side."

He gave her a small, almost miserable look. She faltered.

"You are... fighting for our side, aren't you Edward?" worry overtook her. It was probably groundless; Edward wouldn't betray anyone, let alone the humans. Not for something as stupid as a pair of wings.

He sighed, and straightened in his hospital bed. She had never seen him look so downcast, like he was about to do something he wished he didn't have to. "Winry..." He said, and his tone put her on edge immediately. "Do you think that if they kidnapped me, they would bother to take the rabbits?"

Something froze inside of her. He couldn't be saying what she thought he was.

But it makes sense, doesn't it? A nasty voice inside her commented, The way he was acting the day he went missing. You've never seen him so excited before, have you? She remembered the half-smile on his face that day, the way he appeared to be bubbling with something barely contained.

"No." She said forcefully. "They kidnapped you!" But she didn't even believe it herself anymore.

He shook his head and something in her snapped. "Edward, you can't be serious!" She growled at him, "Stop joking and let's go."

"I'm not going, Winry. I belong here. Can't you see it?"

She didn't believe what she was hearing. "No, I can't." She said coldly, eyes narrowing. "And do you know why? Because I can't see you giving up Granny and me and Nina for these winged bastards!" She had started speaking in a whisper, but ended in a shout. "Are you seriously going to give up Nina for some overgrown birds who think they're better than us?"

Edward smiled as if he deserved the verbal beating. This served to infuriate her more. "I am one of those 'overgrown birds', Winry. Look at me." His voice remained calm and almost sad. "I belong here. I have a brother." He smiled at her, and it made her feel sick in her stomach. "A real brother, Winry. Do you know how amazing it is to have him?"

"A brother? A BROTHER? You call that bird out there a brother?" She glared at him, pointing her finger square at his chest. "Edward, your place is at home with us. Not with the enemy!"

Edward growled. "Insult me all you want, Winry, but leave Al out of this." He said quietly, acid lining his words. "My family is here. My responsibility is here. I belong here."

"You are NOT my enemy, Edward. I refuse to believe it!"

He sighed. "Winry, unless you've had a sudden change of heart and are planning to join the Avians... then, I am."

Tears blurred her vision and cascaded down her cheeks as she turned to run out of the room. She still heard him say to someone she had previously not seen, "Put her with the others." There was a noise of agreement and his oh-so-familiar sigh. "I had hoped she would understand."

Her eyes were still red and puffy later, as she made herself relatively comfortable in the small holding cell in the bowels of the alien ship. Sniffing slightly, she made herself as small as possible on the cot-like bed and looked at her knees grimly.

"Isn't it amusing," a voice said from across the corridor, and she looked up to meet eyes with Ling Yao. He was smirking. "How little regard Humanity can have for its own kind?" Winry scowled at him, returning her gaze to her knees. She suddenly didn't care what this person thought; even though for the past few months they had become good friends. Edward was still at the forefront of her thoughts, the way he had looked as he broke her dreams of finding him and going back home to escape the war. A familiar laugh came from the cell across from hers and she heard Ling move forward.

She could see him in her mind's eye. His hands would be wrapped about the bars; he would be smirking smugly at her in triumph. She hugged her knees to her chest and curled up as tight as she possibly could, falling to her side on the small cot. The cells were clean, she noted, then wondered where the thought had come from. She could still feel Ling's squint-eyed stare pressing into her back. She wondered where Ran was for a moment before deciding she didn't care.

"Someone can be loyal to humanity for years, as their life dictates," Ling drawled, and Winry winced, trying to block his voice out. "But then, the human heart flutters madly once, and they turn away from it all, their family, their friends... everything really. And what for? Because they want something. They want to find something or someone as the case may be." He laughed; it was not a pleasant sound.

Winry was trying her hardest not to listen to the person on the other side of the hall. The words were still puncturing her conscious though; settling heavily in her gut and making her feel sick. Ling spoke in riddles at the best of times, but now that he ha given up all pretence of being an idiot, the riddles were ten times worse, and she couldn't help but listen.

"Don't you think it strange, Miss Rockbell, what the human heart is capable of?" She thought she heard his voice rise in enjoyment but she couldn't be sure. "How is it that it can blindly lead us pathetic creatures into battle? How can it betray every sane thought and desire on a mere whim? The heart... I fail to understand it really. It can forget revenge that has been burning in someone's gut for years and replace it with the deception that is the concept of love. It turns the smartest of people into fools." A dry snort issued from his cell. "For, even in a relationship where one of the parties has no hope of ever winning over the other, the heart will still hold on to a flimsy hope that there is a chance. Even when affection will never be shared even in the slightest, the heart continues to hope, continues to fog the mind and fool the senses into something almost like belief. The heart will still love on unhappily; still blindly follow the cause of all its pain and suffering like a little lost lamb being led to the slaughter."

Winry fought the tears that threatened to spill from her. She couldn't fight back the sob, however, and it escaped, half strangled, from her. Ling was getting to her, as much as she hoped he wouldn't. His words hit her, each one like a physical blow. He was trying to break her, the way she had seen him break others, and worse still, she didn't know why.

"The heart leads us to abandon our heritage and our roots, Winry Rockbell." She looked up briefly and found him cheerfully grinning back at her, his eyes pressed closed as if he wasn't trying to tear her soul to shreds with his words. "It would make even a normally bright young girl's ambitions for family vengeance fall to nothing as she betrays her race in a moment of passionate fury. Which, for some people would be disappointing because I know they are smarter than that."

She frowned at him. "Are you trying to tell me you believe I'll abandon the human cause for Edward?"

Ling graced her with his laugh again. It was a light, boyish sound that chilled her. "I was merely commenting on the fickleness of humanity and the heart, Winry Rockbell. But I do request that you remember why you joined the military next time you wish to follow it. Will you do that for me?" He unwound his arms from the bars and sat back on his heels, glancing at her once before heading to the other side of his cell to lie on his cot.

Winry shivered and curled in on herself once more. More than anything she wanted to talk to Ed, but the thought of him on the angel's side chilled her more than Ling's words or laugh ever could. The memory of scarlet wings, the same colour of blood haunted her vision, stemming from either side of him on the hospital bed.

She straightened out suddenly, realising something that nearly made her heart stop. All angels, she realised, were her enemy. Even Edward. Ling was right.

Sobbing and laughing hysterically, Winry realised something she had always known at least subconsciously, Edward was the one who had attacked the Mars training camp.

Edward was the source of the fire in her nightmares.

He was also sitting up in a hospital bed at that moment, slowly seething with silent anger at one Ling Yao. His earlier fear of the teen was mutating into a simmering, burning hatred that stemmed partly from his own inability to do something about it, being hospital bed bound as he was. He sighed as thinking about Ling took him to thinking about Winry and the unfavourable reaction she had had to the news he gave her. What had she expected, after all? He had found a place where he belonged and he wasn't going to give that up to fulfil her desires of being a family again. He had a new family. Al, Hughes and Gracia, hell, even Mustang were people he both looked up to and respected, and as much as he missed Nina and Auntie Pinnako, they wouldn't accept him for who he was now, no matter what Winry thought.

He wasn't about to cut off his wings and become a human again. Not when he'd tasted flight and seen the main hall. Not when he had everything he needed within the ship. Winry would probably want nothing more to do with him now anyway, now that she knew where he wanted to stay.

He was disturbed by the fact that that didn't upset him as much as it probably should have. It scared him, but the fear stemmed more from a lack of familiarity in the fact there would be no Winry to fall back on, rather than that he would loose her as a friend. He was somewhat shocked to discover he had already resigned himself to loosing her when he chose to go with Mustang that day.

Al was currently by his bedside, watching over him with the eyes of a hawk and talking to Cain Feury, someone Edward really only knew in passing. From what he'd seen of the avian, he seemed likeable enough and Mustang valued him enough. Edward didn't know what they were discussing, they were speaking in what he had come to recognise as the avian dialect. He also didn't particularly care, his thoughts too occupied with other things.

His thoughts, strangely, found their way to Ana and Nick. He wondered how they were and was overtaken by such a sudden and strong desire to go see them that he nearly choked. He wanted to talk to them in the way he used to, before all this had happened, before he'd had to choose family over friendship, before he'd been truly aware of what he was. He played with the flamel around his neck, rubbing his fingers over its near-smooth snake and the slightly rounded points of the crown and cross. Ana and Nick had known he was an avian, he was sure of that now. Had they cared for him anyway? Had they loved him like a son? Or had they just been fulfilling their appointed role in the government syndicate in place to keep him tethered? He couldn't believe the last of them, no matter how hard he tried.

Not for the first time, he wondered why they had been chosen for the DIGIT trials. Now, more than ever, it didn't make sense. If they had been loyal to the government and looked after him, while watching him, it didn't make sense for them to be forced to participate. It would mean the Government would loose the leverage they had over him in an instant. With Ana and Nick gone, Edward had a free reign, as he had proved when mustang contacted him.

If Ana and Nick had still been human, he might have never come with Mustang that day. He shuddered, and was ashamed at the fact that that thought scared him more than the thought of two seemingly innocent people being forced to become genetic mutants. He let out a growl of frustration.

The two people talking above him glanced down worriedly.

"Brother?" Alphonse asked, then seeing his dark look continued, "What's wrong, Brother?"

"Al, let's go visit the rabbits."

Alphonse blinked, and then frowned. "Brother, you're not well enough. Your leg has to heal over before you can do anything like that."

How do you explain to your little brother that you just need something familiar that isn't out to kill you for betraying it? He thought sadly.

"I don't care, Al." He said quietly. "I just need to be with them now." He couldn't meet his brother's gaze out of fear he'd betrayed another person he cared about. He also knew the answer he would find in those grey eyes would be no.

.
A/n: Okay, guys, can I have a moment of your time?

I've noticed some of you are complaining about the rating of this fic. You seem to have made the assumption that I'm a NICE person who has rated her NICE fic too high.

...BAHAHAHAHA

Okay. I've calmed down now. But it's come to my attention that you all think that my fic is going to stay at the rating level it is at now. It is NOT. Ask anyone who knows how it's going to end. (There are... four of us I think.) The ending lives up to the rating that this fic has had from the start.

That said, anyone who does not like violence, blood and gore, please, walk away from this fiction right now and imagine yourselves a nice ending full of no war, happiness and all that stuff that would make me fart bunnies of the non-mutant kind. From this point on (Well, not quite this point. One more chapter until the nasty stuff) things are going to get awfully messy. Loose ends will be tied. Characters from the first few chapters will make a re-appearance. It will NOT be pleasant.

To give you an idea of what it will be like, I hate me for it, and I'm the one who wrote it.

That said, you always need to trust the author on what he/she believes the rating will be AT THE END OF THE FIC. At this point, I agree. It's hardly bloody at all. It doesn't deserve the rating. But I know what's coming. I know that that rating will be fully justified in a few chapters' time. If you have further complaints about the rating, wait until the end of the fiction to voice them.

Thankyou. Leave a review? -tin rattle-

PS: contest winner, can you please email me? I need to write you something, don't I?

PPS: in response to other Reviewers, Ling and Ran Fan (Ran Fun depending on your translation) are MANGA ONLY CHARACTERS. They come in in Volume 8 of the manga, where the anime splits off from the plotline and takes a completely different track to the manga. The Fullmetal Alchemist Manga is NOT finished yet, so if you've seen the end of the series and want more FMA, I recommend the manga wholeheartedly.

Oh, and for the reviewer who thought I was skydark: I have never been more flattered in my life than to be put in the same league as her, but I'm not skydark, my LJ SN is hakuneko. Skydark is so much better than I am.