With Alphonse's help, Edward managed to half-hop, half-fly out of the hospital ward, and down the short corridor to the main hall. Next came something more difficult, he balanced on the edge of the walkway that wound its way around the hall and made the best leap he could make with only one leg, flapping once and landing awkwardly on a tree branch. He nearly lost his balance, reaching out and grabbing hold of his little brother for support which was easily given. He felt weak, but it was reasonable, he'd been putting most of his energy stores into healing, after all. They progressed this way slowly throughout the Main Hall, Edward holding on to whatever he could with his hands to keep balance. The holding block was down a few levels from where they were, and on the other side of the hall, so it took them a fair while reach it.

Once there, Edward rested on the wall, panting furiously, feeling as though someone had pressed a hot iron to his injured leg. The first shadow of doubt made itself known on his consciousness, if it hurt this much to simply cross the hall, how would he manage on Earth?

He shoved the thought from his mind angrily.

"Brother," Al said after a moment, looking at him carefully, "Can I ask you something?"

"You just did." Edward replied, still trying to catch his breath and fight back the pain from his leg.

"What do you have planned?" Alphonse ignored the snide comment. "If you know that we are walking into a trap, why are you...?"

Edward grinned at his brother, but feared it was more a grimace than anything, his leg not stopping in its relentless throbbing. He straightened as best he could, and he would deny later that he left his hand on the wall to keep himself steady as he started a painful hop down the seemingly endless corridor. His wings ached from being cooped under him for three days and suddenly having use demanded of them. Gritting his teeth, he continued the awkward hop onwards. "Winry?" He called out, uncertain to which cell she was in. "I want to talk to you."

"Go away." A sulky and familiar female voice replied. He flinched at the coldness in the tone. "I've got nothing to say to an angel." He frowned, flapping his wings and pushing himself off the wall to get to the cage she was in. His leg gave a particularly painful throb and he winced once more, head spinning slightly. He landed unsteadily and caught the bars in front of him to push himself upright. Alphonse came striding up behind him, placing his hand out for support.

Edward peered into the cramped confines of the cage. It was dark, he could barely make out her outline, huddled in one corner and looking out at him. Her eyes were dull; there was none of the happy spark about her that she usually held.

"Hi!" He said, falsely bright and happy, grinning at her while leaning heavily on the bars of the cell and trying desperately not to at the same time. Anxiously, Alphonse stepped slightly back from the bars, sliding around behind Edward in case he fell. Edward assumed Al thought he was doing it discreetly. Edward returned his attention to the girl in the cell. "I need your help, Winry."

She glared at him so venomously, that he gulped, fearing an attack from her weapon of choice. It never came; she just turned her head away and glared at the wall instead of him. "No thankyou." She said as politely as possible. She sounded so not-Winry-ish that Edward was quite taken aback.

His eyebrows knitted together. "Winry?" He asked, confused. She was now doing her best to ignore him, sitting cross legged and not even bothering to look his way when he called her name. He tried to hide his confusion as best he could as he attempted a new track of conversation. "You need my help too, don't you? To get out of here?"

"No."

The tone was final. Edward frowned and pressed onwards anyway. "We can help each other. Let's help each other, Win'." He paused for a moment to allow her to reply, but she said nothing. There wasn't even recognition of her nickname. Sighing, he continued. "I'll take you home, you help me out, and we're even. Equivalency, see?"

Winry spun, stood and approached the bars so suddenly, Edward jerked back in surprise. Alphonse gripped him tightly to prevent him from falling. There was livid hate in her eyes, something Edward would have never expected in a thousand years. "Why should I help you?" She demanded, stopping just out of reach of the bars. "Why should I even trust you?" She spat at him, but it fell short, landing at his feet. A weight seemed to crush him, and he reeled back slightly, deeply hurt. She hadn't finished yet. "You're an angel." She said coldly. "You're evil."

Edward opened his mouth a few times, but his throat had stopped working. He swallowed. "I..."

"I don't want to talk to you." Winry said, turning to stalk back to her small cot.

"You're not being quite fair." Alphonse said to her. Edward shook his head at his brother, deciding on a different way to get Winry's compliance.

"Yeah, well, you don't have a choice in the matter." He snapped. "Just like I didn't have a choice in the matter every time you decided you wanted to hug me to death before I had wings." The girl flinched. She stopped where she was, but didn't turn back to face him. "As far as your freedom is concerned, I'm your only hope. I'm your only chance at ever seeing your Grandmother again." She turned to look at him and he frowned determinedly at her. "You're lower class, Winry. Everything you do will be ignored by the government. It's the way human society works. We both know this."

"Yeah, but what about you? Why are you so special as to order me around, highness?" She snapped at him, glaring.

Edward felt like he'd been hit with a physical blow. "You're lucky I have that influence, Winry." He said, speaking very politely and coldly. He kept his temper as well as possible; a hard feat considering it was threatening to boil over inside him. "If I was anything less, the avians would just leave you here to rot away. They can't see past the fact you don't have wings, any more than you can see past the fact that I do." He snarled at her. "And you're also bloody lucky that I haven't picked up that prejudice as well. So before you act all high and mighty at me, you might just want to consider your options here!"

"It seems to me that you have picked up that prejudice, Edward." Winry returned icily. "I mean, blowing up buildings, stealing motorbikes... fighting battles that were never yours to begin with..."

Edward growled low in his throat. "I saved your life!" he barely managed to stop himself from yelling, "Twice!"

"In a mess you caused!" She snapped back.

He glared at her bitterly. "What did you expect me to do Winry, really? Tell me. I'm fucking interested." He wrapped his hands around the bars or her cell block. "Because, you know, I can really see myself Settling down and living comfortably in a world full of people who would shoot me on sight."

"It's always about you, isn't it Edward? You always get the big breaks. You always can heroically sweep in and save the day." She glared angrily at him. "And then you can go back to your pitiful little angsty world, not telling your psychiatrist a single important thing, and then moping that nothing changes. Everything's always about Edward and his problems and the wonderful things he has done in spite of that." She spat again. "No one ever concentrates on what other people do because we have to pity the poor orphan who struggles on in spite of everything."

"You know nothing about my brother!" Alphonse yelled at her, wings sweeping forward both angrily and defensively.

"No!" Winry snapped, "You know nothing about him! You don't know his deepest, darkest secrets. You don't know his fears! You don't know his hopes and dreams and you certainly don't know how easily he can betray someone." Her voice trailed off to a near whisper. "How easily he can break their hearts."

Edward froze for a moment. "Winry..." He said softly, reaching through the bars, uncertain what to say. He'd never expected something like that to come out of his best friend's mouth. The girl turned away from him, stalking to the darkest corner of her cell.

Slumping against the wall, she looked at them both. "I'm not going to help you." She said. "Find someone else to make you a new limb."

Edward closed his eyes, initiating an illusion. He knew to her that his wings faded, and his clothes took on the appearance of one of the outfits she had bought for him, a high necked, red shirt, Asian in design and made of soft silk on black cotton pants. The sleeves were long and wide, covering up his hands, which were gloved. "How am I any different to what I was, Winry?" He said it very softly, letting the illusion fade. She didn't respond, but he saw her body shake slightly as she tried to muffle a small hiccough.

He shook his head, turning away.

"Brother?" Al asked uncertainly.

His leg throbbed painfully and he cringed. "See that she's bound and bring her with us." He said without a trace of feeling.

"But brother, she said no!" Alphonse said.

"Yes, I know." Edward said, and a touch of sadness found its way to his voice even through him trying to hide it. "But her grandmother didn't."

He flapped his wings once to regain his balance and started the awkward hop to the other end of the corridor. He heard Alphonse sigh behind him, but he ignored it.

He was too busy trying to figure out a way to let Winry down easily to care about his brother's protests.

His leg was screaming at him to slow down, pain was rolling up his side and stabbing angrily at his temples, but he just couldn't slow down. He spiralled through the forests, darting around trees, breaking above the canopy every so often and looking at a sea of green before diving back through the leaves and screaming down so fast that if he had been one second later in breaking the dive he would have crashed and broken his neck. He kept going. He had to keep going. To stop was to think and to think was absolutely forbidden of him at the moment, because he would dwell on one of two things.

He was running away from his problems and he didn't care. He just suddenly didn't want the responsibility on his shoulders, it was all too much. He was only 16 and they expected the impossible of him!

All he wanted was to be safe. For Roy to be safe. For Winry to have not all but declared her love for him so that they could be best friends. He wanted the war to be over. He wanted Hughes to still be alive. He wanted Alphonse to tell him everything was alright.

He just wanted Roy with him.

And it was that thought that made him stop suddenly, just missing colliding with a tree. He shook his head to clear it, that thought had been haunting him far too often in the past few weeks for it to be fully normal. The throbbing pain running up what remained of his left leg slowly brought him back to the present. He took to the nearest tree, sitting on one of the lowest limbs he could find, balancing as best he could. He pressed his hand to his eyes, trying to alleviate the burning pressure he felt behind them. He needed Roy at a time like this, his mind was telling him. He needed the man to be there to support him. To yell at him, to insult him. He needed the man to tell him what to do and to smile at him when he did it right, and to smirk and blow it off when things didn't go quite according to plan.

He couldn't do thi... "Edward!" His head snapped up, darting around and looking for the source of the cry. "Edward! EdwardEdwardEdward!" He pinpointed the location of the noise and watched in amazement as Ana wormed her way out of a nearby shrub. She was disgustingly filthy, her original colouring lost under all the brown and black muck that she was covered in. Her hair had a few twigs and leaves in it and it was slightly longer than he remembered it being. There was fruit juice staining her lips and he realised that he was near where their food bowl was placed every day. She was bouncing with excitement, her cried of "Edward" rising in pitch to shrill shrieks.

Edward's heart felt like it would snap in two from the need to comfort and be comforted, to just simply be Edward again as he looked at her. She bounded to the tree, jumping at the bark excitedly, trying to get up to see him. He opened his wings and slid off the branch, landing in an undignified heap on the ground near her. Instantly she was rubbing her face against him, and getting him absolutely filthy. He laughed uncontrollably and ran his hand through her hair, the coarse feel of it under his fingers bringing him relief from the stress that had been building up in him for months without his realising.

She pulled away. "Edward." She said again, and he nodded, reaching out his hand to touch her. She stayed out of his reach no matter how much he tried to coax her over. "Edward, Edward listen. Listen." She said slowly and steadily, working the words out as articulately as possible. There was a rustling sound behind her, and Edward looked over her shoulder to see Nick emerging from the undergrowth, as filthy as Ana was. He took a position just behind Ana, not participating in his usual exuberant greeting. "Edward. Listen. Listen Edward. Edward Listen."

"I'm listening." Edward said, watching them both curiously.

"We sorry." Said Ana. "You Angel. Edward Angel. We know. From Start. Know from start." She made a keening noise. "We sorry. No time tell."

Nick made a motion with his head that could have been a nod of agreement. Edward wasn't sure. He looked at both of them, feeling the need to touch them and furious that they wouldn't come closer. "I figured as much." He said quietly to them. "It seemed too hard to believe that you wouldn't know."

Ana tilted her head to the side, clearly not comprehending. She tilted it back. "Not supposed to tell." She said as if it explained everything. "You not supposed to know." She gave a sound that could have been a laugh, bouncing up and down for a moment. "No tell, no know! WANTED TO TELL!" Her last statement was screeched and Edward jumped at its suddenness. "Wanted to tell. Wanted to know. Wanted."

Edward was trying his best to follow the disjointed speech. "You wanted to tell me I was an avian?" He asked, but she didn't understand him even then.

She seemed frustrated at being unable to think up the right words to use. To be unable to speak her message properly. Nick seemed equally frustrated, looking around as if searching for some way to explain it. "We want to say. They not want us to." Ana said. "They... They..." She shuddered. "They kill us." She shook her head suddenly and took on the appearance of thinking hard. "That. Wrong. Not kill. Not. Good as kill." She shook her head.

Edward felt something stab at his heart and reached out to her. She avoided his arm. "Listen Edward! LISTENLISTENLISTENLISTEN!" He quickly went back to his seated position, hand falling to his side in surprise.

At this point in the rather strange conversation, there was the thump of an avian landing behind him, and he turned, to see Alphonse standing there with Winry in front of him. Alphonse looked rather bewildered at the situation he found Edward currently in. "Brother...?"

Nick surged forward and Ana jumped up and down impatiently. "LISTEN!" She yelled and Edward returned his attention to her and her newfound ferocity. Alphonse moved forward, but was stopped by the other rabbit. Ana did her best to smile. "We Edward love." She frowned and paused a moment before shaking her head. "Not right. Not right." She made a frustrated noise. "We love Edward." She said, and then smiled brightly at her own success in getting the words out right. "Edward was son. We not hurt him. Never hurt. Never." Nick came to stand next to Edward, gently bumping his muzzle to Edward's wings. Edward simply stared, dumbfounded as Nick avoided touching his hurting leg with a gentle care, even as he stepped back.

"Edward only one." Ana announced. "Only one who can." She bounced impatiently and Nick stood just out of reach as if waiting for a cue. "Edward human. Edward Angel." Ana giggled. "Human angel human angel human angel angel human!" Edward simply stared. Nick slowly walked past him at this point and Edward watched in wonder as the large mutant gently head butted Alphonse's leg, and then the leg of his captive, Winry. "You only one who can." Ana said again. Alphonse and Winry looked as confused as Edward felt. "Humans. Angels. Together. Edward only one who can."

"But..." Said Edward, trying to dispel the constriction that had made itself known in his throat, "I'm just one person. What can I do to stop a war?"

Nick gave his equivalent of a proud smile, while Ana continued her speech behind him. "You are one person. Power of billions. Unlocked in you. You strongest. You only one." Ana moved to stand in front of him, a disturbingly knowing glint in her eyes. "You everyone wants."

"I don't know what you want from me!" Edward demanded, suddenly angry in the face of his confusion.

"Edward will know when time comes." Ana said, stepping away from him, and turning to walk back towards the underbrush. Nick stayed a moment longer, looking at Edward with the same unusually focused glint in his eyes that Ana had had.

"We... p...ppp... proud o...fffff... you." He stuttered out. He turned to follow his partner, leaving Edward open mouthed in amazement in their wake.

All was silent for a long moment, before Alphonse let go of Winry to help Edward up. The two other adolescents looked as shell-shocked as Edward felt.

"The engines are engaged, Brother. It's just a matter of your word now." Alphonse said from where he sat at the helm of the small transport vessel.

"Thank you." Edward said, looking around quickly to make sure everything was secure. He strapped himself tightly to his chair after finishing his double check and nodded. "Let's go." He said.

His leg throbbed and he grit his teeth as discreetly as possible in the current circumstance. The engines of the small vessel roared into life, making the ship rattle with their power. Winry made a distinct noise of complaint; Edward did his best to ignore her.

The screen at the front of the vessel lit up and an avian that Edward didn't recognise spoke to them. "The first set of vacuum doors have been closed. Opening outer hangar doors." There was a pause and then seemingly seamlessly, the doors in front of the ship opened slowly. "Good Luck." Said the avian on the screen, sounding like they truly thought they would need it. The channel closed.

"Launch ship!" Edward cried and they were forced back into their seats as Alphonse did just that. Focusing on the monitor, Edward watched the Tenshi fade as they slipped away from it, it became smaller and smaller on the backdrop of the red planet it was orbiting. He sighed and rubbed the still hurting stump of his leg. Alphonse looked over at him curiously.

"Brother?" The boy asked, "Are you alright?"

"I'm fine!" Edward said, sounding falsely bright. He forced a smile for Alphonse's caring expression, cursing his momentary lack in lustre. 'Just a quick mission, right? Get the bastard, get a new leg, drop off Winry, and go home. Simple."

Alphonse wasn't buying it. "I asked you if you were alright, brother. Not for a false answer and a rundown of the mission." He said it almost rudely and Edward flinched. "I'm concerned." Alphonse continued, "You can't be as cheerful as you're pretending to be, it's just not right."

Edward blinked at him, stunned.

Alphonse sighed at him and explained. "There's just been too much happening today for it to not have had some effect on you, Brother. Mr. Hughes is dead! And the captain..." Alphonse shook his head sadly and returned his focus to the monitor. "Your hopes can't be any better than mine." He said sadly.

"He's not dead." Edward said quietly. "Mustang isn't dead."

"Even if he's not, Mr. Hughes still is. We'll never see him again, brother. You're acting like you don't even care." Alphonse sounded torn. "And what will happen if we get to Earth and the Captain is dead too? What will you do then? Cry once and then return to normal like you're trying to do here?"

"Mustang isn't dead." Edward repeated, somehow knowing that it was true in his gut. "I know he's not dead."

"No," said Alphonse, "You think he's not dead. You hope he's not dead. You don't know. But I do know this. You're acting like Mr. Hughes wasn't even important to you. We should be back home and grieving, brother! Not going to rescue someone who in all likelihood we won't ever see again."

Edward glared and gritted his teeth. "Alphonse Elric," He forced out between them, "Do not make the mistake of assuming I don't care that Hughes is no longer with us. Of course I do. It's hurting me as much as it's hurting you." He snarled. "I just know that while our captain is still alive I will not rest until he is back amongst our number. It's not the time for mourning yet. That time will come once everyone is safe and together and we can give him a proper memorial, with his best friend there."

"But Mustang betrayed you!" snapped Al. "I didn't want to have to be the one to say it but everyone has been thinking it. He betrayed you by going down there without permission and trying to do a prisoner swap that no one cared about."

"So he betrayed me because he tried to stop a war?" Edward demanded, looking at his brother's reflection in the monitor. "Is that it?"

"NO!" Cried Al. "He tried to kill you, Brother! He's done everything backhandedly since you've been on the ship!" Alphonse was yelling.

"Don't talk to Edward like that!" Winry said firmly.

"Don't talk to me at all, Human." Alphonse replied in an instant.

Edward frowned, and watched his argument with Al become one Al was having with Winry in the space of about three seconds. He sighed, "What is the opposite of war?" he asked quietly.

It came from just far enough out of left field, that Alphonse and Winry stopped bickering.

"The answer," Edward continued, his tones turning instructive, "Is not peace, but tolerance. What's so different between avians and humans? What makes it so we can't find peace within us, so we can't quiet that little voice that says 'different is dangerous?'" He looked out the window to the stars beyond. "Are we really that different if both our species find the stars beautiful and mystical, even though we know exactly how they work?"

There was a brief moment of silence before Al mumbled "I'm sorry." And returned to watching his screen and navigating the ship. Winry stared at Edward a moment longer.

"I'll make your leg, Edward." She said suddenly. "I think you're an idiot and you're going to do something stupid and dangerous and you might not survive, but you just reminded me something I had forgotten."

Edward looked at her. "What's that?" He asked, curiously.

"You're my best friend. No matter if you have wings or not. That and you're a complete and utter idiot who would go do this mission thing no matter what I say. So all that I can do is make you whole so you don't have too bad a disadvantage."

Edward laughed at her. But she hadn't finished talking yet.

"He went down to stop a war." She said quietly. "He was going to trade himself so you could live in peace. He did it because he loves you."

"You don't have to tell me that, Winry." Edward returned quietly, "I know."

.
A/n: Recently, I've gotten a lot of people asking me (In emails, reviews and the like) why I called Riza "Lisa" in this fic.

One, spell-check agrees with it, but more importantly, the real reason is consistency.

See, when I started writing this fic, it was before the American dub had been released, so Riza's name hadn't been made official yet. There was much debate amongst fans and fan-subbers alike about what Riza's name was.

One argument was "The katakana spelling is "Riza" This is the spelling we shall use." This was a valid point.

But I, like so many others argued that other Katakana spellings weren't used. We didn't see "Aruponsu" or "Edowaado Elerikku" or "Uinrii Rokuberu." (Occasionally you would see a Winly or a Winri, however.) This was because it was fairly obvious what the names really were. It was in dispute for a long while, was Riza's name Riza? Or was it Lisa? I thought it was the second one; it just seemed to make more sense.

Funimation settled the argument quite effectively when they dubbed the series, making Riza the canon name. We who thought it was Lisa had a bit of a tantrum but eventually we got over it. By this time, I was well into writing and planning future chapters of AWWA. 'Lisa' had already made her first appearance and I was too lazy to go back and change the name for by then, I was already a few chapters in and in full swing.

So, I decided that rather than go back and change the name in previous chapters, running the risk of missing one of the 'Lisa's' and managing to confuse people, I would just continue to use that name for this fiction, and switch to the now-canon name in any new fictions I started. I wanted to be consistent in this fiction at least to avoid confusion.

My actions seem to have accidentally caused the confusion I wished to avoid, and for that I apologise. But now I just wanted to clear up the facts. Calling Riza Lisa was not a mistake on my part, nor was it a deliberate name change. It was a choice based on what I assumed was a logical deduction made before Funimation officialised the name.

I have watched and loved this series since long before it officially reached American shores (I was introduced to it around the time episode 10 was first aired in Japan,) and thus the name change was a very tough thing to remember at the best of times for me. I'm trying my best; however, sometimes old habits die hard.

In other news:

Uni and new Manga make Haku a slow updater again. -Just recently bought the whole of both Jing: King of Bandits series'-

Leave a little review? -Shakes her tin and gives the puppy-dog eyes-