A/N: So because I had this part written in my mind already and I know what happens, I didn't think about leaving you guys on a cliffhanger last time and then telling you that I wouldn't be back for at least two weeks. So… it turns out I am evil and I am sorry about that.

Warnings for this chapter are the same as before: descriptions of the deaths of children, kidnapping/torture situations, descriptions of wounds and illness and some pretty terrible stuff. Probably shouldn't read if you have panic attacks. Let me know if you think I should bump the rating up.

Impossible Things

"Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!"

― Lewis Carroll

Hughes had awoken with a start that morning. He knew he had been dreaming of the case, but the details slipped away as soon as his eyes opened. He then realized he had overslept and quickly began getting ready for work. He tried to push the terrible feeling aside and carry on as he normally did, but something was eating at the back of his mind. There was something important, but he couldn't quite put his finger on it. The feeling stayed with him while he got ready for the day, ate breakfast and kissed his family goodbye. He felt as though he had forgotten something and it filled him with a deep sense of dread.

He was so distracted, that when he arrived at work, he didn't even hear it when his receptionist told him that he had already missed two phone calls from one Colonel Mustang. Still with this feeling of anxiety in the pit of his stomach, he called his friend, but it took him a moment to focus on the conversation. Roy was telling him something about contacting Edward early this morning and Maes quickly tuned into the meaning of his friend's words.

"What did you just say, Roy?" He felt like something had misfired in his brain. This didn't sit right at all.

"Fullmetal isn't in his dorm and his brother has informed me that he left to report to me nearly an hour ago."

"Where is he?" Maes asked, even as his gut seemed to turn in slow dawning realization. There was a heavy pause as Roy switched the phone from one hand to the other.

"I thought he might be with you."

Maes glanced around the room as if Ed would materialize in front of him. "He's not here."

Roy swore loudly under his breath and Maes thought he could hear Hawkeye saying something in the background.

"Have you looked for him? Maybe he stopped by the library on his way to you?"

"Havoc is out looking for him now; he's already checked the library."

"Roy, where would he go?" He couldn't hide the despondency in his own voice. He didn't hear Roy's response because the words came back to him then that he had been dreaming about.

"I will take care of it."

"What?" Roy asked, clearly confused by the statement.

"He told me 'I will take care of it.' Damnit, he said that and I thanked him!" Hughes stood up from his seat and began agitatedly stacking errant papers into a pile, as if he would find something useful there that would help him or prove him wrong.

"What are you talking about?" Roy asked, forcing a calmness in his tone that he didn't actually feel.

"Edward. I thought he was agreeing to talk to somebody about what was going on, but he said 'I will take care of it.' He was- Roy he overheard us talking about the river to the North." Maes gestured to the map pinned to his wall, even though his friend couldn't see him.

"He went after the kidnapper himself." Everything clicked into place.

Hughes shoved his stack of useless paperwork to the side. "I will get some men together for a search party and I will meet you in your office as soon as I can. Maybe we can find him before he gets himself into trouble." Before he ends up in pieces.

"We will be ready to go as soon as you get here," Roy hung up without another word. Maes hung up the phone and took a deep breath. He needed to stay calm. Panicking now wouldn't help. If he lost it now, he wouldn't be able to save anyone. He would fail Edward just as he had failed all of the other children and he didn't know if he could live with himself if he let that happen.

The first thing Ed was aware of was that he couldn't draw breath properly through his mouth. The second thing was the pain. He couldn't pinpoint its source, as it was really a more of an all over kind of hurt. The third thing he noticed, and the realization was what finally jolted him into full consciousness, was the fact that he was missing his red coat, shirt and boots. He felt the slightest sense of relief to still have his trousers on, but it was short lived when his eyes adjusted to the dark around him and he was able to take in his situation.

He was in some sort of large wooden shed with no windows. Going by the few dusty pelts nailed to the wall, it seemed to be an abandoned hunter's shack. The floor under his bare foot was dirt and the only furniture was a large wooden table to his right and the chair he was currently tied to. Several strips of cloth had been tied together to form a sort of rope and his legs were bound with numerous overlapping pieces to the legs of the chair. His arms were tied behind his back in a position that wrenched both of his shoulders uncomfortably.

He then realized that the reason he couldn't take a deep breath was because he had a gag tied tightly around his head that pulled the corners of his mouth back painfully. The cloth between his teeth tasted sour and, as his tongue pushed against it, he could make out the metallic taste of blood. He didn't know if the blood was his or if it had been on the cloth before it was used as a gag. At this thought, his stomach turned and he became aware of the throbbing pain in his head. He felt like there was something sticking his hair to his face and he wondered if it was drying blood from a head wound.

Other pains began to make themselves known and Edward realized that the red he was seeing in his peripheral vision was blood streaming down his left arm. His stitches were gone, cut or ripped out forcefully, he couldn't tell through all the bright crimson.

Panic set in and Edward knew he had to free himself. He began to struggle, surely his automail limbs could break through rope made from strips of cloth? But as he began to move he felt that something was wrong with his automail leg. Ed blinked hard and realized he could see bits of metal and wire sticking out from slashes made in the material of his trousers. Someone had started to destroy his automail around the knee and it had more or less done the trick. He felt he could move it, but he couldn't get any strength behind the action. No.

Edward shifted his gaze to his automail arm. It looked like it had been in a fight without his knowledge, pieces of it were missing and the port was hurting him, as if someone had tried to yank out his arm without knowing what they were doing. Ed's struggling increased as fear began to overtake him. He needed his arms free, he needed to transmute… if he could free his arms… Yes, his automail arm was damaged, but he could move it, if he just put in enough effort he could pull on the cloth enough to loosen it and get his hands free-

A strong pair of hands wrapped around his neck from behind. Stupid, stupid, stupid. How could he not realize that he wasn't alone? How did he miss the sounds of someone else breathing right behind him? How did he not feel their eyes watching his every move?

The grip tightened for a moment and Edward froze in terror. As soon as he stopped moving the grasping hands vanished and Ed breathed air in greedily through his nose. The shadows to his right shifted as a man came into view. He was dressed plainly in brown slacks and a loose fitting shirt. Ed took note that he didn't look as filthy as the last time he had seen him. His light brown hair had grown out, nearly hiding his eyes, which were still a sharp blue that lit up the dark.

The man pressed one finger to his lips, signaling Edward to be quiet. Ed stopped breathing. He placed his hands on either side of the boy's face and roughly held him still. Ed's reaction was to jerk his face out of the man's grasp, but the man's fingers dug into his skin and the back of the chair restricted Ed from moving backward. The man stared into his eyes for a long moment and Ed was finally able to shake his terror long enough to glare back. He wanted this man to stop touching him. He wanted to break his fingers so he couldn't touch anything ever again.

The man's eyes widened and he let out a sudden bark of laughter. Ed jumped in surprise, but really couldn't move far at all.

"Ed," the man said in a hoarse whisper. "I know you… I remembered you… I looked for you." He finally released his grip on Edward's face and stood up tall with a wild grin on his face.

"I wasn't sure it was you. You've changed, but I remember… you looked at me just like that… I looked for those eyes for so long… so many… Now I found you again."

Ed made a noise in his throat in response, but all sound was muffled by the cloth gag. He began carefully turning his wrists back and forth behind his back. If he could just get them loose…

The grin slipped from the man's face and he tilted his head to one side as if listening to something far away.

"This won't work. Won't work." The man reached for Ed's face again and Edward tried to move away, but he was caught forcefully and his head spun as he felt pressure put on the painful spot where he must have been struck before and knocked out. Ed shut his eyes against the throbbing pain and tried to keep his watering eyes from spilling over in tears. Suddenly, the gag was being removed and Ed was able to take in a breath, coughing on the sudden influx of oxygen. He glared at the man, but didn't feel like he was able to take in enough air to actually speak. He worked his jaw, trying to get rid of the soreness there. A sharp twinge made him realize that the cut on his cheek had been opened again. He couldn't tell for sure, but he assumed the stitches there were gone as well and the dampness he was suddenly aware of was fresh blood seeping from the wound.

The man had turned away from him. He stood at the large wooden table, sorting through something Edward couldn't see. From the sound of metal hitting the tabletop, Ed thought he must have some sort of tools there.

"My name is Warren. I never told you before. Didn't tell you before. You ran away before." Warren turned to face Ed again. He had a large hunting knife in one hand that he motioned with casually. "My little golden boy that ran away," he said wistfully and he seemed lost for a moment, staring off into space. He shuddered and looked at Edward again and then started moving resolutely forward, the knife glinting in his hand.

"I'm not your little anything," Ed bit out. The return of his voice surprised the both of them. There was only a moment of hesitation before Warren struck Edward across the face, causing the boy to see stars. He felt a hand grab his braid and pull hard to the side. As soon as his shock wore off, Ed began to struggle, but then the tugging on his hair worsened. Before Ed knew what had happened, the pulling stopped. His head jerked forward sharply from being suddenly released. No, released wasn't right. Golden strands fell forward in Edward's face and he realized his braid had just been crudely cut off. Ed took too long to take that thought in and then the hand was back, grabbing at clumps of hair on the side of his head. He saw the knife flash out of the corner of his eye and attempted to pull away from its gleam. Edward could hear the knife cutting through his hair by his ear and he squirmed desperately.

"Get away from me!" Ed finally shouted. But his voice didn't sound nearly as forceful as he meant it to. To his dismay, he sounded like a scared child on the verge of tears. Surprisingly, Warren stopped and turned away from him. He walked back over to his wooden table and was placing Edward's hacked off locks down with a kind of reverence. After studying them for a moment, he turned back towards the boy and began to raise the knife again.

"A-Adalbert," Ed rasped loudly. Warren stopped and looked at Ed quizzically. "Adalbert was a little girl you took. Wh-where is she?" Edward needed to stall. He hadn't made much progress with the cloth tied around his wrists.

"The little one." Warren said quietly. "She's a ways from here. I'll have you together soon."

"Where?" Ed demanded, eyeing the knife that had started to be lifted up again.

A grin spread across Warren's face and he studied Edward for a moment. He carefully knelt in front of Ed and placed one hand on the boy's flesh knee. The knife was then slowly brought up and the tip of the blade was set a few inches above Edward's belly button. The boy held his breath and went incredibly still. One wrong move and he could end up with his organs spilled out in front of him. Without even realizing, his wrists stopped twisting in his attempt for freedom.

"Central Command Headquarters," the blade cut into Ed's soft flesh just enough to carve out an 'X' in his skin. "Central City," the blade made a larger circle around the X. "The river," a line was cut above the upper right of the circle. "Across the river," another line was drawn away from the rest, trailing up to over Edward's heart. Blood was dripping down his stomach now and Ed made a strangled sound in the back of his throat. "In a cave, behind the waterfalls," several short slashes were made. "She sleeps there," another 'X' was cut into his flesh, this one much bigger than the first. Warren grabbed Edward's torso on either side as he studied his work. "Where should I leave this for them? They will want to know where she is."

Warren took one hand and trailed it over the cuts he had made, smearing the blood down Edward's chest and stomach. He stood quickly after that and turned back to his table. Once the knife wasn't pressed against him, Ed took a shuddering breath and began to loosen the cloth bindings again. His flesh wrist complained as it was rubbed raw from the movement, but his automail arm couldn't feel the pain and he twisted it as desperately as he could.

Warren picked up the cloth gag that had been discarded on the table. He gave it a twist and came at Edward with it again. Ed's struggling increased.

"Get away from me!" Edward threw his upper body to the side as far as he could.

Warren calmly shushed him as he took the few steps forward and went to tie the gag around his head again. Edward resisted, twisting himself the other way.

"Don't touch me! Don't you dare touch me!"

Warren stomped on his bare flesh toes and ground them into the dirt floor. Ed let out an involuntary yell, which gave his captor the opportunity to shove the dirty cloth back in his mouth and quickly tie it behind his head again. It was in that moment, that he felt a sharp intense pain in his flesh wrist. His automail arm had slid further in the loosened bindings and Edward assumed a broken metal piece had just pierced his skin. Ignoring the pain, it only registered that he could pull his arms free. He pulled his automail arm forward, but it wasn't moving as well as it should have and it got snagged up on a bit of the cloth. Warren had turned his back again as he picked up the knife from the table. Ed could still see its glint, though it was dulled by his own blood marring the surface. Warren took a step forward, his eyes widened as he realized Ed had nearly pulled one arm free. His face turned ugly. He gripped the knife tightly and lunged towards Edward. Without thought, Ed yanked both of his arms out from behind him, the sound of fabric ripping soon drowned out by the sound of Edward slapping his hands together and throwing himself forward onto the ground. The chair was still tied to his legs and it tipped over on top of him as he slammed both hands to the dirt and transmuted without thinking.

There Edward froze, his face pressed into the dirt and mind going strikingly blank. He breathed in and then out through his nose. He moved his arm slightly in an attempt to remove the gag from his mouth, but his automail wouldn't cooperate, the fingers weren't working right at all. He felt something wet hit his face and Edward twisted his head to look above him.

He really hadn't thought it through, he had only reacted and his hasty, defensive transmutation consisted of several spikes that protruded sharply from the ground. He was lying at the base of one of the larger ones and directly above him was the slack face of his captor, eyes still open, blood beginning to steadily pour from his mouth. One of the spikes had caught him directly in the chest and Ed imagined it went all the way through. Some of the blood fell from his gaping mouth and splattered into Edward's eyes.

Edward began screaming.

Though with the gag in place, he didn't make much noise. It was a sort of agonized, muffled keening that escaped him. He desperately attempted to push himself up, but neither of his arms were working. He turned his head in the dirt to look at his other side, at the flesh arm that was betraying him. There was blood there and it looked like too much. Ed felt bile rise in his throat, but knew that if he was sick now, he would only choke on his own vomit as he had no way of expelling it from around the gag.

His legs were still tightly bound and he felt like he was pinned by the back of the chair pressing into his shoulders and there was so much pain now, as if he was the one that had been impaled in the chest. He felt his vision start to darken, he couldn't draw enough breath and there was so much blood everywhere and he wasn't sure who it all belonged to anymore. He couldn't breathe. He couldn't breathe. Blood dripped on his cheek and near his nostrils. It was too much. He was going to drown in it.

…

…

Somebody was calling him. The thought drifted through Edward's hazy mind. He couldn't focus on it though, all of his thoughts seemed to flit by him and he wasn't able to hold on to any of them. He let them all go. It was better to be in the darkness than to have to concentrate and feel more pain.

When the door was kicked down to the rundown little shack, Roy didn't know what he was expecting to see. There had been signs of a struggle not far from there and then a trail of something being dragged to this dilapidated building in the middle of the forest. He had forced his way in when nobody answered his calls. His worry had been that this was some hunter's cabin and the drag marks were merely from some animal he had recently killed. But Roy found he didn't much care if he was breaking into an innocent person's home, the whole thing didn't sit well with him and perhaps it was some sort of instinct that told him this was the place and he had better be ready for a fight.

He had entered with his gloves on and ready, but it had taken a moment for his eyes to adjust and once they did, he couldn't wrap his mind around what he was seeing. There was a man impaled through the chest by a spike in the middle of the room. Other spikes protruded from the ground and had caught him in other places, causing the man to hang there like a puppet with his strings cut. Directly beneath the man's lifeless face was his subordinate, crumpled on the floor with a chair tipped over on top of him.

Hughes had reacted first. He had not left Roy's side while they searched the woods, even though they probably could have covered more ground if they had split apart. Maes had sworn loudly and pushed past Roy to kneel by Edward's left side. His hand went to the boy's neck as he felt for a pulse and Roy felt a cold swell of fear when Hughes didn't report anything right away. There was a dangerous moment when Roy felt like he would torch the whole forest if he was too late and the boy was dead.

"He's alive, Roy." Maes looked up with relief clearly in his eyes. With those words, Mustang came back to himself and entered the room in a rush. He knelt by Edward's other side to take stock of his injuries. Hughes quickly began to cut away the bindings that held the boy's legs to the chair. Roy glared at the cloth that was tied tightly around his head as a gag. He began to untie it, but there was blood there matted in his hair and Roy moved slower than he wanted to, worrying that he would make his head injury worse. Once his legs were free, Hughes tossed the chair to the other side of the room in disgust.

"His braid is gone," Maes stated dully as he helped to pull the cloth away from Edward's mouth.

"Yes," Roy answered through clenched teeth. "Fullmetal, can you hear me?" Roy called leaning to get a better look at Edward's face. Ed's eyes were partially opened, but he just stared into space, not showing any sign that he heard them or was even aware of them.

"Fullmetal! Can you hear me?"

"Roy… his arm is bleeding badly." Hughes had begun to put pressure on the wound, but it was too much and he didn't have any medical supplies with him.

"Not all of this blood is his. Edward! Can you hear me?"

The light from the door was suddenly blocked and Roy turned to see Havoc and Fuery standing in the doorway.

"Shit," Havoc swore at the sight before him.

"Fuery, tell the others we've found him and get the medical team here. Havoc, find Alphonse."

They had medics standing by, but they were hoping that they wouldn't need to call them from their position at the edge of the forest. Alphonse had been included in the search for Ed and he had quickly separated from the adults in the group, moving deeper and more quickly into the forest than most of them had gone. Both men responded with a "Yes sir!" and departed rapidly back through the trees.

Hughes had started to use the strips of cloth that had tied Ed to the chair to bind up the boy's arm.

"Roy, this isn't rope."

"I can see that."

"No, you don't see it." Hughes stopped his work and caught Roy's eye. "It's cloth. Bits of cloth ripped up. It's from the clothes of the other victims." And Hughes looked like something had broken inside him. Of course Hughes would recognize it for what it was. He had been tirelessly going over reports for days that described what the children had been last seen wearing. Roy tried to ignore the cheerful flower pattern that decorated the gag he had pulled from Edward's mouth.

"I'm moving him," Roy stated suddenly.

"You don't know if it's safe to. He could have internal injuries…"

"I don't care! I'm not letting him stay here in a pool of this bastard's blood. I'll carry him to the medical team myself. Help me turn him over."

Against his better judgement, Hughes and Mustang gently rolled Edward onto his side and then onto his back.

"What the hell is that?" Roy asked angrily. There was blood smeared all over the boy's front, but it looked like there was some kind of pattern to it. Roy placed a gloved hand over one of the deeper cuts, but was startled when Edward emitted a sharp gasp and tried to get away from the touch. The boy flailed his arms weakly, but neither made it far off the floor.

"Ed, relax! It's me! It's Hughes and Mustang!" Maes set his arm across the boy's chest, trying to keep him from moving and injuring himself further. Edward stopped moving abruptly and recognition shown is his dull eyes.

"Hu-Hughes?" Ed asked quietly and tears began to spring up in the corners of his eyes.

"Yeah, Ed. You're going to be all right," Maes looked up at Roy with concern and that's when it dawned on Mustang that he was trying to block Edward's line of sight from the impaled man hanging over the both of them.

Mustang began to remove his military jacket and he nodded at Hughes to let him know he understood. He placed his jacket over his subordinate's bleeding torso and carefully tucked it around his shoulders. Ed started to struggle at the feeling of being confined again.

"It's just my jacket, Ed. I'm going to carry you and you'll want something once we get outside."

"I want my coat…" Edward said brokenly and the tears spilled down his face, leaving tracks in the drying blood. Roy gave a quick glance around the room, but didn't see any of Edward's clothes.

"We'll get your coat later," Maes lied helpfully. "The Colonel's going to pick you up now."

Edward didn't respond to this, but he began to shake as the tears started to overwhelm him. Roy slipped one arm behind the boy's back and the other under his knees. Ed cringed at the movement, but didn't cry out in pain. Roy stood as quickly as he could with his injured burden.

"Let's get the hell out of this place," Roy mumbled and Hughes nodded, but cast a look at the corpse decorating the room.

"I'm going to have to get a team out here," he muttered as he followed Mustang out the door.

"He's dead Hughes. He's not going anywhere," Roy said in a hollow sounding tone.

As they moved through the trees, Maes kept one hand on Mustang's elbow, supporting him as he moved through the more difficult brush and reminding him constantly that he was there by his side.

Nobody said anything about Edward's quiet sobbing, but Roy held him more tightly than he needed to, as if he could hold the boy together by sheer force of will.

"It will be alright," Hughes said in a hushed voice.

Mustang couldn't tell who he was talking to or who he was trying to convince.

"Yes," Roy answered.

To be continued…

A/N: I am a horrible person. You have no idea how great it was to write parts of this. I've had it in my mind for years and it's finally freed from my brain! What a relief. Please be forgiving of mistakes. I try to catch them myself, but I know I always miss some.

Originally, this chapter was supposed to be longer, but I split it into two. The next chapter will take a while, I have several school projects to do and I put off a lot of homework to write this. It was worth it though. Please leave me a review.

I just wanted to say that I have never had a story put on alert as much as this one. Thank you so much! It's great because many of you aren't the reviewing kind and I keep worrying that you don't like it. I love seeing all the alerts though. That makes me happy.