Chapter 12: Flower's Grave


The little girl's face was wet with tears, and Alphonse felt like a heel. Still, he had to know, he had to get through to her. "I promise, I'm not going to be angry," he said. "All I want to know is why you've been following us. Can you tell me that? Please? It's really important. I need to find my brother and our friend. You can help me with that."

"Al, you're scaring her," Lena whispered over his shoulder.

He wanted to scream that he knew he'd scared the girl, but he was scared, too. Brother and Winry wouldn't just vanish, without anyone knowing where they were! This little girl had been following them for a reason, Alphonse knew it. "Please," he whispered.

The girl sniffed, rubbing her nose on the back of her wrist. Alphonse wished he had a handkerchief to offer her. "S'posed to be a secret," she mumbled, so softly, he nearly missed it.

"Sometimes, you have to tell secrets," Tony said in encouragement. The little girl squinted at him and rubbed her eyes with her other hand.

"He's right," Lena said. "Especially when it helps people. You'd like to help Al, wouldn't you?" There was an almost inaudible boom as her hand landed on his shoulder plate.

She swallowed, and sniffled again. "I s'pose. But Mr. Steinkuhl might get mad and take back my flower."

"Mr. Steinkuhl?" Alphonse hoped Lena might know the name, but Conway was a big place.

"Mmhmm. He asked me t-to watch you guys." The little girl stuck out her lip in a pout. "He gave me a flower to watch you!"

"I'll have my brother buy you a bunch of flowers," Alphonse promised, "if you can take us to Mr. Steinkuhl."

"Maybe we should find her parents first," Lena murmured.

Alphonse ignored her. Edward and Winry could be in danger. The little girl was his best chance – his only chance so far – to find them. "Can you show me where Mr. Steinkuhl is?"

After a few agonizing seconds, the curly head bobbed. "Yes," and Alphonse was glad he didn't have a mortal body. He was afraid he'd be collapsed on the sidewalk if he did.

"Can you take us right now?" Alphonse asked, nearly begged, and the little girl stared up at him for a long minute before taking hold of a gauntlet finger and tugging. Alphonse got to his feet, hunching down to let her keep hold of his hand. "Could I carry you, and you tell me where we're going?" Her eyes went wide and she nodded so hard, her hair flew everywhere. Scooping her up, Alphonse was careful to make sure her bare legs didn't get pinched when he bent his arms to hold her close. "All right, which way do we go?"

The little girl pointed down the street, away from the hotel. Alphonse glanced at Tony and Lena. "Try to keep up," he said to them, tightening his grip on the girl, and starting off. As she told him to turn at the corner, Alphonse picked up speed. He was going to find his brother and Winry, and they'd be okay.

They'd be okay. The chant kept running through his mind. They'd be okay, or Alphonse would make sure someone paid.


They were crouched together, just at the top of the stairs, little faded daisies crumpled over. He'd heard their voices, knew he didn't have a lot of time. The military police could be convinced the female's call was a prank, but he had to act now. He charged toward the pair, the agony in his feet and legs leaving him as he approached his prize.

Fear finally gleamed in the female's eyes. He laughed at the sight of it. The male's petals shifted, and his mouth moved. The daisies drifted together, a strange, windless dance, as Steinkuhl raised his knife, sweeping it down. Their petals twisted, and there was a horrible sound, metal ringing against metal, and the blade shivered out of Steinkuhl's hand. He roared, grasping his wrist, the pain nearly sending him down to his knees.

"Ha," the male panted up at him, "din't expect that, didja?"

He cried out, grabbing for the blade, his fingers not working right.

"No you don't!" The female's roots moved, striking the knife, spinning it across the room to thunk into the baseboard of the wall.

Steinkuhl screamed at her, a wordless shout of rage, and scrabbled across the floor after it. The female daisy flung herself after him, grabbing for his ankle. Ignoring the pain, he kicked, hearing her yelp, but her strong fingers didn't let go.

"Winry!" the male yelled.

He ignored them both, reaching for the blade. His fingers brushed over the back of it, making it wobble. Steinkuhl kicked at the hands clutching at his ankle. Grunting, he stretched harder, managing to curl the first joint of his longest finger over the blade. The edge cut him and he gritted his teeth. The grip on his ankle tightened like a vine around his foot. He kicked again, screaming, hearing another sharp cry in response. He refused to look back, blood slicking his fingers as he tried to pull the knife to him. Straining with effort, Steinkuhl fingered the edge of the blade.

"No!" The female daisy fought to drag him back.

"Winry, ge' away from him!"

Steinkuhl grunted, managing to get a finger-hold on the knife blade. He tried to roll, kicking again. His foot struck air.

"Winry!"

So many noises! Why were these daisies fighting so hard? He twisted, stabbing with the blade, making the female daisy squeak. She dropped his ankle and Steinkuhl rolled the rest of the way, getting to his knees.

"Winry get back!" the male daisy shrieked. His petals pressed together, that strange, bell-like noise ringing out, a bright blue light flaring.

Roaring, Steinkuhl swung the blade at the female daisy, her wide eyes staring at him as the blade came down.


"Winry, ge' away from him!" Focusing was so damned hard, and Edward knew he had just a split second to get this right. The room blurred and twisted in front of his eyes. He could see a smear of yellow – Winry's hair – and the greyish blob that had to be the guy who'd kidnapped them. The sounds coming from the man made the hair on Edward's neck prickle. He heard a thump and Winry squeal, and yelled, "Winry, get back!"

He clapped his hands together, dropping them to the floor. His sight cleared, just for that second, and Edward could see Winry sprawled on her hip, the asshole raising a huge knife over her head. The transmutation circle flared in Edward's mind, bright and clear, and he sent the wooden fist smashing up out of the floor and into their kidnapper.

"Ed!" Winry screamed.

He turned, too slow, far too slow, seeing her sliding down into the indentation his transmutation created in the floor. The wood groaned at her weight. She scrabbled at the rim, her fingers catching and holding on to the rim. Edward lunged across the floor, grabbing for her wrists. "Hold on!" The wood popped and he wondered if they were both going to crash through the floor he'd weakened with his transmutation.

"You." The man picked himself back up, bloodied and bruised. The floor crackled as he staggered toward them. Edward wondered inanely what happened to his knife. He pulled at Winry, trying to drag her back up out of the hole.

"Ed," she whispered. Her eyes were so huge, like they'd swallowed her face. Tears – no, no tears! – glistened in her eyes. Edward couldn't remember what was beneath this floor. Tables? That horrible basement prison? If Winry crashed through, she'd land hard, maybe breaking bones or her spine, and there wasn't a way to transmute a safe landing for her. Grunting, Edward tried to pull her back, his stump thumping on the floor.

The wood groaned and, out of the corner of his eye, Edward caught a glimpse of the crazy man, moving toward them. His weight made the fragile flooring shudder and quake. "Get the fuck back!" he yelled, "you're going to kill us all!" Winry's fingernails dug into his flesh wrist. Edward locked his automail fingers around her wrist, gritting his teeth at the throbbing in his skull.

"My daisies," the man crooned, taking another staggering step toward them.

How the fuck was he even moving, still? His legs were nothing but raw meat. Edward panted, not wanting to take his eyes off of Winry's face, but he was forced to look where the asshole was now. "Shit!"

The man had his leg pulled back, ready to kick. The floor bucked and rippled, and the groaning wood nearly drowned out Winry's scream.


"There!" The little girl pointed ahead, and Alphonse tracked the line of her finger. Something dark lay scattered on the sidewalk in front of the shop marked, 'Steinkuhl's Flowers'. If he had a heart, Alphonse knew it would've skipped. Instead, he slowed, setting the little girl down. "You go back for my friends," he said, leaning down to meet her gaze. "Is that okay?" He couldn't even see them, knowing his speed had left them far behind. Alphonse couldn't wait for them, didn't want Lena to see any of this. Something was wrong, something even he could feel without any senses to make use of. "Can you do that?"

She looked back the way they'd come, then nodded solemnly. Alphonse patted her head with its springy curls and started for the shop she'd pointed out. "Sir!" she shouted.

Alphonse turned back.

She twisted one of those curling strands around her forefinger. "'Member the flowers!"

He waved a hand at her, already striding on, dreading what he might find ahead.

A ceramic pot lay shattered on the sidewalk, the glass in the door exploded out from the door. Someone inside the building had thrown it, but Alphonse couldn't see any sign of someone within the shop. "Brother?" he called. "Winry?" He tried the door, almost out of habit, then realized, shoving his shoulder through. The door groaned in its frame, shattering around him. Alphonse stood in the room, looking around. So far, it seemed almost normal, a flower shop with a broken door, nothing more. He raised his voice, "Brother? Winry?"

Something made the floor judder, and Alphonse could swear that his metal suit rang like a bell. He swung, seeing an open door, a strand of ribbon tied to it, and went through the doorway, ducking his helmet and turning sideways to fit. It led to a back room, and a table, shoved up against the wall near another doorway. Another ribbon trailed from the table leg down the stairs behind the doorway.

Winry's scream echoed up the stairwell and Alphonse charged down. The narrow stairway forced him to go down sideways but didn't slow him much. "Winry!"

The sight that greeted him as he burst through the doorway to the lower floor made him freeze. As Alphonse watched, Edward rolled sideways, letting go of Winry's hand. She shrieked, banging along the sloping wall of wood, a crevasse opening below her hips, part of the wood falling away, her legs dangling through the hole. A man fell down on his backside, over-balanced from a kick, the weight of his body crashing to the floor making the wood wail. Alphonse clapped his gauntlets together, dropping them down to the floor.

Blue lightning erupted from beneath his palms, racing along the wall and wooden stairs. It crackled and screeched at the pressure of the transmutation, the wood roaring as Alphonse bent it to his will. Winry and Edward were thrown up out of the crevasse, and the man squalled as a band of wood wrapped over his torso, holding him flat on his back and unable to move.

"Brother!" Alphonse started across the floor, hesitating as the wood groaned.

"You're mine! You're my daisies! You can't do this!" the man shrieked, desperate in his attempts to free himself. His mouth was a cavern riddled with strings of spittle, like stalactites linking his upper and lower jaws together. "You're my daisies!"

He howled louder when Winry rolled over, picking herself up. She grabbed Edward's wrists, pulling him across the floor. Her shoulders shook as she moved, her hair blocking any view Alphonse might have of her face. Edward's automail leg was missing, and his flesh leg bent and flexed, as if he was trying to help Winry by pushing himself along. Winry collapsed at the foot of Alphonse's stairs, pulling Edward closer, so his back lay on her thighs, and his head was pillowed on her chest. She wrapped her arms around him, burying her face in his blood-stained hair.

Alphonse desperately wanted to ask what had happened, why they were here, but he lay a comforting hand on Winry's shoulder, not surprised when she nearly shuddered it off. Edward's flesh hand rose, trembling, but twining a strand of Winry's hair around his fingers. He tugged lightly, as if to let her know he was all right, then his hand dropped, landing with a thud on the floor.

"Ed!" Alphonse shouted, reaching down to grab him as Winry let out a sob and the man screamed from his wooden prison across the room.


He wasn't aware of much; darkness, and light, and the urgent buzz of voices he didn't recognize swarming around him like bees at a disturbed hive. Something burned into his veins, and something else probed the horrible, yawning ache in his skull. Edward remembered yelling at the pain, fighting to get free of it, images flashing of Fuhrer Bradley, his sword raised and cutting down Winry; of the Truth, opening its mouth and snapping those broad teeth closed on Alphonse's armor, slicing it completely in half; of his mother, her expression disappointed as she said, "I asked you to look after your little brother, Ed. Why did you let him die?"

Her voice rang in his ears as his eyes snapped open, the beat of his heart thundering in his ears. For a few seconds, he couldn't figure out where he was, then the sterile scent, not quite hiding the stink of urine and feces, or death itself, and the soft sound of a machine, beeping in time to the rhythm of his heart, clued him in. "Hospital," Edward breathed, his sweating head falling back into the hard pillow beneath it. He groaned at the impact, eyes closing tightly, then opening again at the needle pricks of pain shutting his eyes tight caused. "Shit."

"Brother?"

Edward carefully turned his head, spying the hulking steel of his brother's armor. The clatter as Alphonse rose to his feet surprised Edward, and he wondered dazedly how long Alphonse had been sitting there quietly, not needing to move. Guilt stabbed through him at the idea. "Hey," he rasped out, balling his automail hand into a fist and raising it up for Alphonse to bump. "Why'm I here?"

"You have a pretty bad concussion," Alphonse said, tapping his fist against Edward's. "The doctor said you might not remember everything that's happened these past few days, but if you lost those memories, they'd come back."

"Hnn." Edward didn't like that at all. He needed his memories. How the hell had he gotten a concussion? Trying to think back, Edward closed his eyes. The strain of frowning hurt, but also helped focus his thoughts, and he jerked his head, looking up at Alphonse in horror. "Winry!"

Alphonse raised his gauntlets in placation. "She's fine, Brother! Scared, and waiting to see you. She's been sleeping on those hard hospital chairs, waiting for you to wake up!"

"She's alone? With that," Edward groaned as he tried to sit up, the room spinning horribly.

"Stay down, Brother!" Alphonse pressed him back into the bed, and Edward realized he was too weak to fight back. His stomach roiled, even though it felt empty. "She's okay. Tony's with her." The name sounded familiar, though Edward couldn't quite place a face to go with it. He glared up at Alphonse, wanting to see for himself, to be able to know Winry was okay. "Brother, I'll get her for you, all right?" He waited until Edward nodded, winced, and stopped fighting before removing his weight from Edward's torso. "Don't move." Alphonse wagged a finger at him as he walked out of the door.

Edward tried sitting up anyway, panting with the effort. As he toiled against gravity and his throbbing skull, he probed his memories. Mustang sent them so Winry could take a look at his automail, and they'd gone out to get something to eat. And Alphonse had gone with them…no, he hadn't. His head ached as he tried to cudgel his memory into giving him the information he needed.

The door opened with a squeal, Winry pushing through it. "Ed!" Alphonse was right behind her, blocking out any sight of the hallway beyond, then Winry managed to blot out the sight of Alphonse. She leaned over the bed, her hair spilling over her shoulders, the cool silkiness of the strands pooling on his arm. "Are you okay?" She looked so worried, and there were dark circles under her eyes. Sleeping probably wasn't what she'd been doing on that hospital chair, Edward thought.

"Yeah." His voice sounded rusty, even to his own ears. "What about you?"

Winry laughed, a little shaky, and straightened up. "I'm fine!" It sounded light and airy even for her. "You were the one with the concussion." Her smile vanished beneath a layer of guilt and she twined her fingers together, ducking her head to hide behind her bangs. "It's my fault, Ed. If I hadn't…he wouldn't have…"

"Winry!" Edward winced at the way his head felt when he yelped out her name. She wasn't crying, was she? "I…I can't remember. Can you tell me what happened?"

She raised her head, her expression miserable. "A guy…we went out for dinner. And we were walking back to the hotel when a guy stopped us. He wanted…he said he knew something about Tony's girlfriend, Anne. Do you remember?" Winry glanced at him.

Edward breathed out slowly at the name. "Tony. I remember him." And his girlfriend, who looked a lot like Winry. "We were trying to help find her."

"Yeah." Winry nodded, and raised her eyes to Alphonse. Alphonse's shoulder plates rattled as he raised them in a shrug. "We found her, Ed. And a lot of other women."

"Huh?" Ed couldn't remember any women. "How?"

"The guy…his name is Devon Steinkuhl." Winry took a deep breath. "He stopped you and me when we were coming back from dinner. He'd been watching us, I guess, since we got to Conway. And he knocked you out and took us to his house. He was going to kill us, Ed, but we got away." Her fingers were twisted so tight together, her knuckles were white.

"Winry." What wasn't she saying? "Did he hurt you?" Edward reached over, covering her hands with his own. The needle in his arm burned, but he could ignore it. "What happened?"

She shook her head, her hair lashing from side to side as she backed away from the bed, her hands pulling free of Edward's. "It's my fault, Ed! I-I nearly got you killed…I distracted you and he hit you with something, a club? I don't remember, but you went down so hard and…"

Horrified, Edward wished he could run away from her emotions. Alphonse stood with his head bowed, looking off to the side, as if there wasn't anything he could do or say, and Edward wondered if he'd heard this before. Winry probably told him, and even if Alphonse had said it was okay, she might not have believed him. Edward wasn't sure she'd believe him, either, but he had to try. "Winry, I'm okay! I mean, we got out of there, right?" He attempted a smile, knew it didn't work as well as he wanted it to from Winry's expression. "We're okay," he insisted. "Yeah, we got – I got put in the hospital. But we're still alive." That was the important part, wasn't it? "And you said we found Anne."

Winry and Alphonse exchanged a look. "Brother," Alphonse said, his voice ringing around in the steel shell of his body, "Anne's dead."

The room spun for a few seconds, and Edward fell back into the mattress. "She's dead?" he whispered, begging Winry with his eyes to tell him that Alphonse was kidding, even if it was a horrible joke.

She swallowed hard, shaking her head. "The guy, the florist," the word sounded like a curse, the way she said it, "had been k-killing people for years. The M.P.'s found a…a lot of bodies, Ed."

"He was in custody," Alphonse said in a curious tone of voice.

"Was?" Edward pounced on the word. "Did he break free?" Again with them looking at each other, making him want to gnash his teeth.

Alphonse said, "He's dead, too."

Winry wrapped her arms around herself as if she was cold. "He hanged himself with his bedsheet," she said, her gaze latched onto something on the floor.

Stomach clenching, Edward gasped, knowing there wasn't anything inside he could throw up, though his body wanted to. "Damn," he choked out. Somehow, he knew Alphonse was looking at him with sympathy, even if his metal helmet couldn't show expressions in any way. And Winry stared off into the distance, her jaw flexing as if she wanted to say something, too, but didn't trust herself. Edward wished he could remember what happened. There had to be more they weren't saying. "Winry?"

She made herself smile as she turned back his way. "It's okay, Ed. We got out of there…you saved me. Again." But her expression was as haunted as when he'd had to tell her about Scar, and her parents.

The door swung open before Edward could open his mouth, a nurse appearing in the doorway. "Mr. Elric, you're awake!" She gave Alphonse and Winry a look, pushing past them to take his pulse. "How do you feel?"

"We…ah…we'd better go, Brother," Alphonse said, laying his hands on Winry's shoulders to guide her out of the room. "We'll talk to you later." And they were gone through the swinging door before he could say anything to make them stay.

"Now then, Mr. Elric, tell me how you're feeling," the nurse said, her bright eyes focused on him like a pair of searchlights, and Edward sighed, knowing he'd have to answer, or risk never get out of this place.