Only a thick, glass wall separated them. All else in their respective, small rooms was white, eerily similar to a cell. There were no windows, and only one door for each of their sides of the room.

But the worst thing was, Brother refused to talk.

Stubbornly he sat, back against a white wall, arms crossed over his chest as he glared at the door opposite him, as if it would melt under his hot, fuming amber gaze. He didn't look at Alphonse, he didn't say a word.

And Alphonse, no matter how hard he wanted to reach out, kept from speaking as well, because he knew what his brother was doing.

Trying to prove that they didn't know each other.

Time was lost. It swept by, unknowing and uncaring, and the longer Alphonse and Edward sat there, ignoring each other for the sake of each other's safety, the harder it was to not break down and sob and want to reach out for each other's comfort in this unknown situation. The silence was beginning to bear down on them, cold, heavy, desperate and frightening.

They had fought bad guys before. At least, a little bit. But they hadn't been kidnapped like this. Hadn't been forced to undergo this torture of being by each other's sides for so long, and suddenly forced to act like total strangers.

But time still crept on.

On.

And on.

…and Brother still didn't say a word. Still acted like he wasn't there.

Alphonse was beginning to wish they would just forget this half-brained scheme. It wasn't working, anyway—they weren't convincing anyone. On a side-note, what were these guys trying to prove by this?

But Alphonse was too afraid to move. Too afraid that at any moment, their crazy idea would work and a man in a ski-mask would walk in, declare himself bored and let one of them go. If he spoke up now, would he ruin their chance of success?

So time still ticked by.

Edward fell asleep at one point.

By the time he woke up, he had gone back to ignoring his brother. And time still dragged ever onward, cold and unthinking, tortuously heavy.

Edward fell asleep again. (Did that mean two days had passed?)

They didn't bring Brother food. Alphonse supposed that was a slim hope that maybe a day hadn't passed since their captivity. Of course, that could also just mean they were starving him. But what for?

What did these guys want?

…and time still passed.

It went by, slow, foggy, dreary like molasses. Alphonse didn't know what to do. Part of him, at times, forgot why they were being so quiet, forgot and just stared, because pretending they weren't there was easier right now than constantly remembering his brother was right beside him, and not talking to him.

On.

And on.

Brother slept once more.

He woke up.

And yet ever onward, time inched by.

And finally, when it slithered forward one more bit, it became too much. Bowing his armored head, Alphonse sighed, tightly and painfully. How long had it been? Two—three days? Of just sitting here? Like an idiot, staring at that door, hoping and praying that they would tire and let them go? He couldn't pretend anymore. Couldn't act like he didn't care.

Brother, I'm sorry…

But just as he was about to speak, the door to his part of the room opened, and at the sudden sound, both Elrics looked up sharply, jumping.

Alphonse could hardly breathe with excitement. Did it…did it work? Did it actually work? He couldn't believe it. Suddenly, it was all worth it—the silence, the heartbreaking closeness and fragile tension. It was all worth if it meant that they could get help, and get out of this and then just continue walking on with their lives.

But the man who walked in was a complete stranger. Tall, bold features, short brown hair and a slight fuzz around his chin that wrapped around his mouth and under his nose as well. He had glasses on, too, and a highly intelligent look in his dark brown eyes as he gazed at them.

Or…was that insanity?

The stranger sighed, motioning to one of the ski-masked fellows behind him. "It seems that your acquaintance was right. You two are rather strangers, aren't you?"

There was something in that tone that caused warning bells to go off in the deep, dark, backwater parts of Alphonse's mind—but he couldn't concentrate on that right now, too distracted by the joy that leapt within his soul at the prospect that they might just get out of this.

He moved to stand, but before he could, the ski-masked man moved more briskly, lashing out with his foot and swiftly kicking off his helmet. In the span of a second, Alphonse felt his hand grab the back of the neck of his armor, shoving it to the wall as a knife—and he could feel that knife, so close to his one place of vulnerability, and scaring him more than he would ever care to admit—angled itself towards his blood seal.

Edward snapped.

"NO! Don't touch him!"

With fury, he spun towards the heavy glass wall separating, them pounding both automail and flesh against it as he shouted, frantic, angry…fearful?

The ski-masked man and the stranger with glasses froze, before the latter slowly, lazily grinned, as if he had been waiting for that reaction all along. "Ah…so you do know each other." Angling his head slightly, if only to get a better view of Alphonse's insides, he muttered, "…and I wonder, Edward Elric, isn't that your own blood keeping his soul bound?"

The Fullmetal Alchemist froze as suddenly, their folly dawned on him. Fists clenched against glass, gold fringes outlining his face also brushing against its surface as he bowed his head.

"I wonder why you even tried to fool us at all, when the evidence of your acquaintance with each other was so obviously there. Tell me, who's soul is this?"

Edward pressed his lips together once, a flicker of hesitation passing his face—the shadow of which Alphonse could barely make out, his vantage point split between helmet and a body of armor.

The man sighed. "I'm afraid keeping secrets has done you no good. If you don't tell me—"

"—he's my brother." The voice came out as a snarl, and the golden head tipped upward, eyes blazing like raging, roaring fire as he hissed through the glass. "He's my little brother, and if you hurt him, I swear I'll make your life hell!"

"Hm."

That was all he said.

The man walked forward towards the glass, squatting so he was down to Edward's eye-level from where he knelt on the floor in the other side of the room. And for a long, awkward moment, the brunet stranger just sat there, staring. Holding Edward's attention reverently as he looked at his eyes so much so, and so intently, that the alchemist didn't realize two more ski-masked men had snuck up behind him in his side of the room.

Before they struck, knocking out his brother cold, Alphonse, even as he cried out a warning, could hear the stranger's voice, oddly lilting and…oddly, twistedly, fascinated?

"Such a fierce love…I was right; you two will be the most fun I've had in a while."

"…I'm sorry, Brother. This is all my fault."

Edward blinked in the darkness. Hearing his younger brother's voice coming from all around him was something that, despite how long he'd already been encased inside, he was still getting used to. "How do you figure that? It's no one's fault, Al. Except for those guys who kidnapped us, of course."

"No, but—" There was an odd, hitching note in Alphonse's voice. Edward felt something inside of him—that internal older-sibling-protectiveness thing—cringe and yearn at the sadness there. "—I…I should have done something. I keep replaying what happened over and over again in my mind, and…and I can't help but think that maybe if I just didn't do what they said, and fought back, we could've escaped. I mean, I could have done it. I'm just a suit of armor, now. But—"

"—Al." Edward's voice was tiredly resigned. "We've been through this. They didn't leave you a choice. It was either you do what they said, or they killed me. So you made your choice. Don't go regretting it now."

I'm the only one who's supposed to be having regrets, anyway.

Alphonse's voice simulated a sigh—something he still did even though there were no lungs from which to expel air. "I know. But…" A brief pause, before the suit of armor decided to plunge on before he denied himself from saying it. "…I'm scared, Brother. For you."

Edward scoffed. Something about that notion was so unpleasantly unnerving to the twelve-year-old. It trickled down his spine, dainty and disconcerting like spider legs. It just simply wasn't supposed to happen. "Al, please. We've got 24 hours. A full, freakin' day for Mustang to find us. Besides, he promised us he'd be here in a couple of hours, and it's been…what, one?"

"Maybe. What does the pocket watch say?"

Picking up the object in question (he had taken it out of his pocket and simply left it beside him and the walkie-talkie, seeing as how it was too much of a hassle to get out with one arm the first time), he popped open the lid and strained his eyes to catch a glimpse of the small black hands on the ivory surface.

He hesitated, before finally mumbling, "Actually, it's almost been two hours." With a click, he closed the lid, placing it beside the walkie-talkie next to his curled form. "So either they're knocking on our door—really close to us, or…or that jerk's running late."

Edward cleared his throat to rid it—and perhaps the memory—of how his voice oddly hitched at mentioning that alternative.

"They'll find us, Brother. I know they will. Mustang made you a deal, right? He'll follow through."

He won't leave you here to die.

The blond sighed—and tried not to think too much about the current ease with which he still had to take in that deep breath and exhale it—would it still be so easy for much longer?—and nodded, blonde hair brushing against the inside of Alphonse's back. Keep calm, he told his heart. In, out. Slowly—in, and then out. "Yeah," he muttered, and allowed himself to swallow. Keep calm, keep quietly breathing. "I know."

I just wish they'd come soon.

"Sir…we have a problem."

First of all, Mustang reflected, it should not have taken two hours to find 1696 Bearburn Lane. So of course, naturally, they've encountered a problem. Of course it wouldn't be so easy. But forcing himself to look beyond his frustrated emotions, he straightened his back from where he had been hunched over the map of the housing districts of East City, looking at the wide circle they had drawn around Bearburn Lane—he barked into the radio that Feury had handed him. "What is it, Havoc?" There was time for little else banter. Already, he was running short on time, biting back his own promise to have rescued the Elrics in a few hours.

And going back on his word was something he simply refused to do.

Havoc—bless his soul—came through restrained, calm, but there was no doubt the panic and failure underlining his voice. "1696 Bearburn Lane doesn't exist."

Silence.

Confusion.

And then came denial. "What do you mean it doesn't exist? A house can't just be there, and then disappear, Havoc—"

"—I know! But I'm staring at the houses right now, Colonel! It goes from 1694 to 1698. There is no 1696. Not even on the other side of the road, where the odd-numbered houses are. It just simply isn't here."

How—how could that be?

Without thinking, Mustang pulled the paper that Feury had before him, lying on the desk opposite their map, with on it, a compiled list of all the details they knew concerning the Elric's capture and burial—don't think like it's for the dead, that they had a funeral, because they didn't they're alive and they're waiting for them, dang it—not even bothering to turn it right-side up as he gazed at it with such fiery intensity, begging the address that Alphonse had given them to reveal the truth behind its secrets.

And…quite miraculously, it did.

But perhaps, only because he was gazing at it upside-down in the first place.

"Havoc," Mustang muttered into the radio, hoping and hoping and hoping he had this right, even as Hawkeye and Feury listened with eager, equal intensity. "Go further down the lane, look on the other side of the road. Try to find a 1969 Bearburn Lane instead."

Startled silence answered him first, before Breda's voice came on the radio. He could already hear the car engine already running again—Havoc back behind the wheel—and felt a swell of pride at how quickly his team was responding. They truly were incredible soldiers. "We're on our way, sir. You think they had the numbers flipped?"

"Anything to slow us down." And Mustang had to hand it to their unknown adversary—thought had gone into this game, this morbid play of lives.

But still, the loud, screaming question rang out—why?

Then, immediately, Havoc's voice was back, happy and confused at the same time. "You were right, Colonel! 1969 Bearburn Lane—it's right here. The only difference is that all the shutters are blue. They're not red."

Still think it's the same house?

But now Mustang was on a roll—he was on to this man, to this stranger who dared challenge his intellect. Straightening, and feeling a sense of adrenaline in his system, he couldn't help but pace even as he ordered, "Scratch the lower-level shutters. They might be painted over. Edward mentioned one of the shutters had been blue—when the two arrived, they might have been in the middle of the process of covering the red up."

Another advantage for us—the fact Edward had noticed it at all.

The interim of silences became shorter and shorter, the more little victories were won. "You're right! Ha ha! You're a genius, Colonel! How did you know that—you know what? Don't answer that. I really don't care. We're going in, now. Over and out."

"Over and out," Roy, amused, responded.

And now—now came that horrid agony of waiting.

Another half-hour ticking by…Mustang felt himself leaning over the desk, staring at Feury's radio with dwindling patience. Feury began to fidget with his hands, turning his pencil over and over again in his hands—a nervous habit. Only Hawkeye remained perfectly still, and for the world to see, completely calm.

But anyone who knew her knew beneath the blank face burned fury and impatience equal to that of her commanding officer's. If not more because dang it, these were their boys on the line (she tried not to think about how she had been so tempted to say "her boys"—no, that was simply unprofessional and quite untrue).

Then, Falman's voice suddenly came over the radio, calm and slightly bothered. "Colonel, there's a note for you—it's all they left behind."

Something uneasy crawled in Mustang's stomach. They knew we were on to them? How else could they move everyone so quickly and efficiently? Are they even sweating? "Don't read it over the radio. Bring it to base."

He couldn't risk the possibility that their adversary was tapping their lines—tapping their lines and, in doing so, knowing the Colonel's reaction to the note. That would give too much away, would give them too much ground and too much information on the next step for them to take, knowing how their prey was responding. The game couldn't reach that level of loss on their end. Not now. Not yet.

Not ever.

"Affirmative. On our way. Over and out."

The click of the radio signaled the end of their feed. All they could do, once more, was wait.

Crystal's Notes: I'm still in awe of how nice you guys are! So I'm trying (trying very hard) to make sure each chapter is longer and longer, because I know people like longer chapters (I, myself, am quite a fan of longer chapters, too). Hopefully this is a better length for some people? I was going to make it longer, but then I thought that there was already so much going on in this chapter, that I should probably wait to include the biggest plot development so far for next chapter. So it's on its way. Worry not; things are picking up while at the same time, falling apart. And yet, isn't that the sad irony of all stories? I hope you've enjoyed! Until next time!