I don't own FMA
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Maria could have sworn Ed was walking to his death. His face had a grim expression drawn across it, his feet dragged more with every step, and his shoulders were slumped in defeat. She watched Denny following behind the painfully slow pair while she waited patiently for them to walk up to the hall leading to Roy's apartment.
"If you need anything call, okay?" Maria commanded as she walked into the apartment building ahead of Ed, Al, and Denny.
She could hear the nodding of Al's helmet, and knew Ed was scowling—he never wanted anyone to think he needed help.
"I'm not going in there a minute before 1900 hours," Ed grumbled, crossing his arms over his chest.
"That's fine, we don't mind waiting," Denny replied, earning himself a scowl in his direction. Maria knocked on the door marked 1A.
Jean answered with a book in his hand. "Are all of you taking over?" he asked looking a little confused.
"No, just the Elrics," Maria replied.
"Oh, well, I've still got about ten minutes, and I'm only allowed to leave him alone when I answer the door," Jean said and left the door open for them to enter.
Maria and Denny stood behind Ed and Al waiting. "You heard him—ten more minutes!" Ed explained.
"Don't be an idiot, Brother," Al said, and, much to Ed's displeasure, shoved him through the threshold. Before Ed could escape back into the hall Al closed the door with a thank you directed to Maria and Denny.
Al ventured down the hall while Ed sulked on the couch claiming he wouldn't go into that room until he had to.
Jean was soon sitting next to him. "He's pretty much just sleeping. I didn't sleep that much when I was sick, but I guess different people react differently."
"Great, now he's going to get me sick," Ed complained, throwing his arms into the air in frustration. He let himself sink further into the couch.
Jean looked at his watch, grabbed his water bottle, and left the fuming alchemist alone in the main room.
Maria had been about to leave when someone called her name. She looked at the entrance of the apartments and saw a man with red hair approaching. "Ken?" she asked.
A smile broke out across his face, and Denny groaned in his place at her side. "Sorry I didn't make it earlier, but I just got off," she explained while he shook her hand.
"Do you live here?" he asked.
"No, you?"
"No, I'm visiting a friend of mine. Would you mind if I took a couple minutes of your time?" he asked. "You're welcome to join us," he said extending his hand to Denny.
Denny used his most forceful grip as they shook hands, and was pleased to see the writer quickly pull out of the handshake. He didn't hesitate to tag along with them, and he followed Ken's lead to an apartment marked 3A.
"Who're they?" a man with long brown hair tied into a ponytail asked.
"This is the beautiful Maria Ross and her er—"
"Denny Brosh," Denny supplied, pretending not to hear Ken's remark about Maria. He studied the man and tried to place the familiar face, but he couldn't remember where he had seen it before.
"So, this is who you were going to tell?" Jeff mumbled.
"Tell? Tell what?" Denny panicked.
"Why don't both of you take a seat. I'll explain from the beginning," Ken told them, and pulled out a chair at the table for Maria to sit in. Jeff took up his habit of providing everyone with something to drink, and took the remaining seat at the round table.
"Remember what I told you at the books signing about the characters?" Ken asked. When she nodded he explained about everything. Riza and Roy being Elizabeth and Joseph, dropping the books off for Riza, and Scar abducting her.
Ed sifted through the drawers of Roy's desk and grinned in triumph at the set of indelible markers he found. He stuck the flimsy box in his coat pocket and made his way to the bathroom. He let out a cry of joy at the tin of shaving cream, package of dental floss, and tube of toothpaste.
He entered his sleeping commander's room with an evil glint sparkling in his eyes. "This will be fun," He told his brother as he started to pull the collected items from his pockets.
Al tried to dissuade him, "Brother, I don't think that's a good idea. What if he wakes up?"
"Havoc said he's sleeping like a rock," Ed informed Al. He then demonstrated. First, he shook Roy's shoulder. Then, he clapped loudly inches above the man's face. For his final test, he shook the entire bed, but the sleeping man did not stir. " If I have to be here, I might as well get some entertainment out of it," Ed defended his ideas.
Al watched Ed empty the pack of markers onto the bedside table. Ed picked up a dark green capped one and carefully drew lines extending out from Roy's nose. Then, he picked up the black marker and began to color Roy's entire nose. Ed laughed at Roy's attempts to shoo away what was tickling his nose while he slept. Ed snickered--the final stage of his plan would work. Ed discarded the black pen and picked up a red one. He used it to write out the word 'useless' in big capital letters on Roy's forehead. Underneath that he used a blue pen to write 'in the rain' in print so small one would have to use a magnifying glass to read it.
"Al, I'm going to need a little bit of this," Ed said snipping of an inch of the length of horse hair hanging off Al's helm. Ed sat the hairs on the bedside table and after a simple transmutation had a paintbrush. Ed squeezed some of the toothpaste into an empty cup and began to dab it onto Roy's face.
"Brother!" Al protested.
"And you say I'm a heavy sleeper. He'll wash this off and freak out when he sees the marker," Ed cackled.
After ten minutes of dodging Roy's hand and painting Ed stood back to survey his work--a blue faced Roy Mustang. Al walked out of the room. "Where're you going?" Ed called.
"I don't want to be in here when he wakes up," Al explained.
Ed grinned maniacally as he dumped a generous amount of shaving cream onto each of Roy's hands. Then he took a piece of floss and slid it across Roy's nose. The man's nose twitched. Ed repeated the action. The man's nose twitched again. Ed repeated the action a third time. Roy's hand flew up to shoo away his source of annoyance. Ed laughed silently. After a minute or two of unstoppable laughter tears began to form in his eyes.
Al peeked back into the room. "He's not going to wake up." Ed commented as he walked past Al down the hallway. "I need something to drink, I'll be back."
Ed stuck his head in the fridge. Tea, no he didn't want tea. Milk—gross—he was tempted to dump it down the sink, but decided to let the bastard drink his cow secretion. His gloved hand wrapped around the carton of orange juice—pulp free—perfect. He took a swig from the carton and put it back in place.
He joined Al back in Roy's room where he informed Al that the jerk at least got one thing right with the pulp free orange juice. He took his discarded piece of floss back up in his hand.
Al panicked when Ed suddenly slumped over, still clutching the string of floss, and face-planted into a pile of the shaving cream.
Al quickly cleaned Ed's face. With his metal body he couldn't feel for a pulse, but he did put a metal finger beneath his brother's nose and sighed in relief when the clean metal fogged up from Ed's breaths.
"I got back early that morning, but the woman that was there said I couldn't talk to him, and I tried to contact you as soon as I could," Ken finished his rendition of the events of the past twenty-four hours.
"I have to call General Sierra," Maria said as she shot up from her seat—her eyes had already spotted the telephone in the corner of the room.
"General Sierra, please," she said as she finally got through the proper security codes to an operator.
"He's not in? Please direct me to the next in command. A sergeant, where is everyone else? Yes, please connect me with him. Thank you. This is Second Lieutenant Maria Ross. Yes. At Mustang's? Yes, thank you, I'll be there." Maria put the phone on its hook and, and she left Jeff's apartment without a word to her companions.
Denny, Ken and Jeff followed her to Roy's apartment. The door was opened before she had a chance to knock.
"Miss Ross, I don't know what happened—one minute Brother was uh, fine, and then he just collapsed. General Sierra is on his way. He said a doctor is coming with him," Al explained as the group charged into the apartment.
"Al, what was the last thing Ed did?" Maria asked as she led the way down the hall to Roy's room.
Al gave a nervous laugh. "Well, he was, uh, playing a prank or Colonel Mustang—I think something is wrong with him too."
Maria spotted Roy just as Al finished talking and turned around to him. "Alphonse Elric, what did you two do? Nevermind, what else did Ed do after we left you here?"
"Nothing, wait he had something to drink. Uhm, orange juice," Al recalled. Maria was watching him, she was sure that if he was in his real body his face would have gone through a complex series of expression changes as he thought about what he next said, "He's been poisoned hasn't he?"
"I can't say for sure, but he just collapsed, no odd behavior before hand? The doctor might be able to find out," She addressed Al and then turned to the group behind her. "Don't drink anything here." Maria looked over at Denny—she contemplated telling him about the drug, but she couldn't say anything in front of civilians, especially a writer.
"Is there anything strange about his sleep?" Denny asked.
"No, you know he's a heavy sleeper, but isn't Colonel Mustang easily wakened? Ed colored on him, and painted his face with toothpaste—" Al stopped when he noticed the stares directed at him. "What?" Brother can't stand him!"
A knock interrupted the silence that lurked after Al's outburst. "I'll just go get that," Denny said, backing out of the room.
Julie couldn't stand it—she had to make sure Riza was out of the picture. She looked at the only framed picture she had in her apartment. A woman with raven-black hair and inky eyes stood next to a man with peppered hair and blue eyes. "You were right Mom, it's the only way to keep them." She searched through a pile of papers while she thought about her father's unfaithful ways. She remembered waiting in her mother's car while her mother rushed into the blond woman's apartment. The next day her father had been devastated, and he'd confessed his trespasses. Julie remembered listening to her father beg for forgiveness as she stood outside their bedroom door. Her mother forgave him, and kept him in line until he passed away. Julie let go of the memory as she folded the document with Riza's address into a neat square and shoved it into her pocket.
She stuck to the shadowed streets as she made her way to the address she had recorded from the personal files. She didn't notice the dark-skinned woman pursuing her in the darker shadows.
Julie was surprised to find hte apartment unlocked, and, after a quick search, unoccupied. What made her smile were the two pistols sitting on the floor along with a familiar pair of sunglasses. She locked the apartment as she left in search of Scar. Her first destination was the Ishbalan hiding grounds—an old abandoned warehouse on the other side of Central.
Shelly withdrew from the shadows and followed her estranged friend. She gripped the handgun in her pocket as she entered the warehouse minutes after Julie.
Kain picked up his pace to keep himself from being dragged by the small black and white dog attached to the leash he held. "Heel. Heel Hayate, heel," Kain commanded, but the usually obedient dog didn't comply. Instead, the dog strained even harder against the leash and lead Kain through the park to the other side of it and down a familiar street. They passed an open air market when Kain realized where they were headed—Riza's apartment. "Oh, your worried about your mommy," Kain said. Hayate stopped, turned around to look at Kain, wagged his tail, barked in respeonse, and then continued on his way.
Kain knocked on the door again with a puzzled look on his face. When she didn't answer he went to the next apartment over—the one he didn't hear arguing coming from.
"Hello," a soft voice answered his knock.
"Hello Miss, do you know if Riza Hawkeye is out?" Kain asked while Hayate pranced at his neighbor's feet.
"Of course she isn't, young man. She's injured—couldn't even go out for her own groceries if she wanted to. I got a weeks worth of shopping done for her yesterday," the old woman replied as she bent down to rub Hayate behind his left ear. "What's your name, young man?"
"Kain Fuery, Miss," he stated, almost slipping into a salute at the commanding tone her voice held. "I'm taking care of Black Hayate while she's out of commission. I came by to visit, and she isn't answering her door. That's not like her. I'm worried," He admitted.
"Kain, huh?" she paused as if recalling a long forgotten event. "Oh, yes the wire technician. You gave her the ball of fur. Wait here a minute," she said as she straightened up. Kain nodded, and a few seconds later she let him in to Riza's apartment.
His eyes caught two guns lying on the ground, and some sort of debris on the wooden floor. He took it as a bad sign. He called her name as he walked down the hallway, but got no reply. Hayate jumped up, putting his forepaws on Kain's legs. He led Kain to the bathroom. The young man wearily pulled aside the eggplant colored shower curtains. Flakes of a reddish brown color flecked one side of the tub. Kain didn't find anyone in her room either. Kain knew a crime scene when he saw one, and called out for the lady not to touch anything.
Kain's first instinct was to call his commanding officer. He closed his eyes as he tried to recall the number Roy had given him back when they planned their poker night.
The phone rang three times before someone picked up.
"Hello," A gruff voice said.
"R-Roy Mustang please," Kain answered.
"I'm sorry, he can't speak with anyone with now, do you have a message?"
"Can you have him call Kain Fuery at—" the man cut him off.
"Fuery, Sergeant Kain Fuery?" Kain nodded as he answered in the affirmative. "Fuery, this is General Sierra. You've got a mission tonight, be at my office by the end of the hour," Andrew commanded and ended the conversation.
"Bu—but," Kain stuttered to the dail tone. "Miss, will you watch Black Hayate," Kain asked the woman staring at him.
"Sure, just stop calling me miss—I'm old enough to be your grandmother, young man."
"Thank you, mi-am," he caught himself just in time as he answered. He followed her back to her apartment, and advised her not to open the door for anyone else.
Hayate whimpered as he watched his spectacled savior walk away.
"Who are you?" Andrew asked the vaguely familiar red head sitting next to the man he had seen in Roy's apartment just two nights before.
"He's a witness," Denny answered as he led the group down the hallway.
"You'll have to explain, but first," Andrew paused and turned to two of the men in uniform behind him to give orders, "Jacobs, test all the liquids in the refrigerator."
"Yessir!" the shorter of the two men replied—Denny recognized him as one of the men Maes had trained.
Andrew told the other officer to help Jacobs, and then he continued down the hall. He stood frozen in the doorway watching a strange scene—Maria Ross was using a damp cloth to wipe a blue mask off Roy's face. A white substance dotted various places on both alchemists—more so on the older one. Maria's gentle scrubbing revealed writing on Roy's face.
"I see that they were able to contact you Lieutenant Ross."
Maria turned around and looked at the general with wide eyes. "General Sierra, Sir." She got to her feet and saluted—the blued rag clutched tightly in her left hand behind her back.
"What is the current situation?"
"Well, uhm, Fullmetal isn't very fond of Colonel Mustang, so he—"
Andrew motioned for the doctor to check out his new patients and interrupted Maria, "No, not that, Al informed me of that over the phone. Sergeant Denny mentioned a witness. What is he claiming to have seen?"
Maria explained about Scar's abduction of Riza, and Ken following them, but left out all mention of the books and characters.
After the doctor confirmed that both alchemists were fine, Andrew made his way back to the main room. The shrill ringing of the phone stopped him from grilling the witness. Something was missing from the puzzle—he just couldn't figure it out.
"Hello," he barked into the phone. When the short conversation ended he called HQ for two medical transports.
"Everyone here is going to HQ. Jacobs, are the results ready?" he asked.
"Another minute or two."
"Sergeant Brosh keep on eye on these two. Jacobs, give me the results when they're ready. We'll move these two to the infirmary until they wake up." Andrew turned from the group and addressed the doctor, "Thank you for coming on such short notice again. We'll keep doing business with you in the future." He shook the doctors hand and ushered him out of the apartment.
"I've got the results, Sir. All liquids have tested positive. We're lucky Fullmetal didn't drink the milk. With his bodyweight it would have been a lethal dose for him. If it was the last thing Mustang drank he will be out for at least nine hours," Jacobs explained.
Jean may have been called slow on more than one occasion, but when Kain walked, practically ran, right between him and Shiezka without so much as a forced smile he decided that whatever was on the man's mind was more important than landing his first kiss with Schiezka. "Let's find out where the fire is," Havoc suggested as they turned and followed Kain. His mind was on his two commanding officers as they made their way towards HQ.
Julie fiddled with the black string around her neck as she searched the empty warehouse. She kicked an upturned box in frustration. "Where've they gone? They were here just a couple weeks ago my darling Roy," she spoke to the new medallion she caressed, a red plastic pouch tied closed with a black string, that rested in her cleavage.
"You won't be able to find us again," Shelly said as she stepped out of the shadows. "Did you really think we'd stay in the same place after you threatened us? You would have been dead the second your threat reached our ears if master hadn't forbade it. He doesn't like unnecessary bloodshed. Scar has asked for you. If I ever see you seeking out our home again I won't hesitate to disappoint Master."
Julie went along peacefully since it was Scar she wanted to see, but she couldn't deny her curiosity. "Why are you helping Scar if he is going against your master's wishes?"
"Because he has our brother," a voice from behind her announced.
Julie whirled around. "Who're you?"
"My older brother," Shelly answered. "I'm not stupid enough to take on an armed military officer on my own."
"What do you mean he has your brother?" Julie asked.
"Scar's got something up his sleeve, and Ben almost freed it. Scar won't let anyone get in his way, not even family. I'm taking you to him in exchange for Ben."
Riza cast her eyes to the boy sitting in the corner. She quickly deduced that he must not be any older than Ed. His hair was a platinum blond—in fact it almost seemed to have no color at all, if not for the white wall she might have thought it white. "Why did you try to help me?"
He raised his red eyes to meet hers. "The military will never let us live in peace if he kills you," was his simple reply.
"I was trained to get out of situations like this," she told him while her fingers worked at the knots Scar had retied when he discovered the boy squeezed behind her. What Scar hadn't known was that the boy hadn't untied any of the ropes. He was in sitting behind her in shock that she had freed herself.
"Why didn't you escape earlier?" the boy asked.
"I need the element of surprise on my side when I escape, and I need a little of his trust. If I had run earlier he would have been able to catch me since I'm unarmed and injured," she explained. After a moment she added, "Since I didn't try and run while I was unbound I've gained a little of his trust—he believes that I won't try anything."
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A.N.-Finally. This chapter is almost twenty pages long, bringing this fic to a whole 94 pages so far. Credit for the face painting with toothpaste goes to Paca on the Royai Forum. As for that red plastic pouch Julie is wearing around her neck, anyone care to guess where she got the red plastic from or what's inside it? Dailenna is the one who influenced that idea. Thanks to Last.Alchemist.Standing for brining up the question to Julie's behavior. I hadn't really touched on it yet. Andrew is General Sierra's first name for anyone who is confused. The next chapter should tie everything up.
Thank you for reviewing: Momiji-K, Breion, WinglessFairy25, Jennlyn78, UnheardGoodConscious, Perrenial Rhinitis, Last.Alchemist.Standing., Yun Min, Bizzy, Dailenna, Your Favorite Plushie, Dancing Nightmare, One More Bite, Riza Hawkeye 9, MoonStarDutchess, BlueRose.xoxo, AnimeLuvr8, OTP, AAR, SmokerBabe, OblivionEclipse, Mirage992, and Anne Packrat.