Author's Note: This one is a bit longer than 3,000 words, but I hate editing things out, so I haven't. If you're one of those people who get teary, you may want a tissue for this chapter. One more chapter after this, within any luck... do I really mean that? It's almost over? O.O

Anyway, enjoy!

Alphonse jumped in surprise when the door burst open with a bang. His surprise was mixed with confusion as Colonel Mustang stormed in, his hands poised as if he was expecting a fight and his expression was grave, stony and all together unsettling. Al was then filled with bewilderment when Lieutenant Hawkeye and Winry rushed in behind the agitated colonel.

"Wha- What's going on?!" Al asked worriedly.

Mustang didn't reply, but stared at Edward. The bound alchemist stared back, a challenging look in his eyes. Both sized each other up and neither backed down from the other's glare. When it became obvious to Mustang that Ed wasn't going to disclose any information without encouragement, he spoke.

"Where is it, Fullmetal?" he demanded.

"Where's what?" Ed retorted, but a glint in his eyes showed Mustang that he knew.

"Lieutenant Hawkeye's cufflink... where is it?" he repeated, not eager to play games.

"Don't know what you're talking about," Ed stated smugly, an evil-looking gleam in his eyes.

Al looked from his brother to the colonel and back. Then, when neither spoke again, he turned to the two women, hoping for an explanation. However, Lieutenant Hawkeye was looking around the room, trying to find something that was lost on Alphonse.

"Winry? What's going on?" he whispered softly to her.

"There it is," Winry declared, her eyes locked onto the tiny, plainly decorated piece of gold.

Without a second thought, Winry walked up to the spot and knelt down. She picked up the cufflink and turned round. It was certainly a distance from Ed left side and she didn't think he could throw it this far.

Ed smiled at her maliciously and stretched his hand towards the leather strap by his waist. That was where Winry saw the transmutation circle. Her face fell as she realised how far she was away from the others she was, and she saw who was between them and her.

A flash of light erupted from Ed's bed which dissipated after a second, revealing an unbound alchemist. The leather straps were lying loose on the bed. Ed passed her a self-satisfied smirk, showing her mistake.

Without further ado, Ed shifted, turning his body away from Winry and toward his right. He moved his human, left hand towards his metallic right, a clap sounded across the entire room. He moved his left hand upwards towards his shoulder, where the connections that Winry had loosened were. A second flash threw the room into blue light and a strangled scream of pain echoed from Ed.

Mustang rushed forward, determined to do something to stop what he knew was about to happen. He was, however, unprepared for Ed to sit up and throw a punch with his newly repaired right arm. The metal fist landed squarely on Mustang's chin and he was sure he felt something in his jaw go crunch. Regardless, Mustang reeled back and ordered his disobedient eyes to focus and to stop watering.

Ed then joined his hands and reached for the connections in his leg, which were restored within the next seconds. Fully mobile again, Edward leapt off the bed and raced towards the paralysed Winry. He darted behind her, placing her between him and the others, and wrapped his arms around her.

For a moment, Winry thought he was going to hug her and that she'd feel his head pressed against her back as he used her as support. She thought he was coming to her because he faintly recognised her and wanted to feel protected. She thought differently a second later.

Ed's hands made contact and he slid his left hand over his right. The wrist guard buckled slightly and then began to change shape. A smooth, sleek, sharp blade extended past his hand and stopped at a point. It was Ed's usual blade, and it was pointed at Winry's jugular.

Everyone in the room froze. They stared fearfully at the predicament before them. One wrong move would prove fatal for Winry. No one dared to move.

Lieutenant Hawkeye observed the situation with great deliberation. Winry's terrified face and trembling body revealed nothing to Hawkeye that she did not already know. However, when she studied Edward, she found something interesting.

Ed was shaking as hard, if not harder than Winry was. He was breathing rapidly and shallowly. His eyes were wide and his pupils were dilated. His sight darted across the room, taking in every movement that anyone made. He was more afraid of the situation than anyone else was, even Winry.

He didn't recognise anyone in the room, it made sense that he was scared. But Hawkeye hadn't imagined that he'd be this scared. She silently mused if he had always been this frightened but he had hidden it well, or if it was that no one had been bothered to notice.

Regardless, everyone knew now, and Colonel Mustang took in a deep breath to clear his mind and calm his unsettled peace. He looked undauntedly at Edward.

"Take it easy, Fullmetal," Mustang ordered calmly.

"Stop calling me that!" Ed barked, ignoring Winry's flinch. "Stop pretending that you're people I know!"

"You do know us, Fullmetal. You know each and every one of us, quite well I might add," Mustang insisted, keeping his voice low.

"I know who you're all pretending to be," Ed admitted softly. "But I know that you're not those people! You can't fool me!"

"We're not trying to fool you, Fullmetal," Hawkeye interjected. "We are who we say we are. I am Lieutenant Riza Hawkeye, that is Colonel Roy Mustang, behind me is your brother, Alphonse, and the young lady you're currently holding is your friend and automail mechanic, Winry Rockbell."

"SHUT UP!" Ed shouted, tightening his grip on Winry's left shoulder, causing her to grimace.

"Please Brother..." Al begged. "You might not recognise Winry, but I know that you don't want to hurt her."

Ed looked around suspiciously, not once taking his eyes off the people in front of him for more than a second. He saw an obvious problem that he had to address, and quickly. There was only one way in and out of the room, and that way out was currently behind three people that he neither knew nor trusted.

"Move away from the door," he instructed in a very quiet voice.

"Fullmetal-"

"MOVE AWAY FROM THE DOOR!" he shouted, not wanting to hear anything more from them.

Unsure of how to proceed, Hawkeye turned to look at Mustang. She hoped he would look at her and provide instructions. When she received none, she turned her attention back to Edward. Apart from the slight movement of her head and eyes, no one had moved.

This did not satisfy Edward and he drew his bladed automail nearer to Winry's throat, causing her to catch her breath. She had also stopped shaking, making his tremors all the more evident. While it was obvious that Ed had snapped at some point today, he hadn't lost it completely... yet.

"Sir," Hawkeye murmured quietly.

Mustang inclined his head slightly towards Hawkeye. He paused for a moment and then returned his head to its former position.

"Full- Edward," he spoke softly, slowly, and calmly. "In the morning, the doctor will tell us what it is that's been affecting you like this. He'll be able to give you a set of medication that will fix this problem you're in."

"Problem?" Ed scoffed. "I know what the problem is. It was that raid, when I was covered in that dust, only it wasn't dust, now, was it?"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Like HELL you don't!" Ed yelled. "This whole thing started then. I was duped from the very second I came into contact with it, I really believed you were all people I knew. But my body started fighting it, it started to break down, and I saw you all for who you really are: imposters!"

Mustang couldn't reply. His mouth hung openly slightly in shock, as did Lieutenant Hawkeye's mouth. Neither of them could believe how backwards he'd thought the whole situation. They couldn't believe that he thought he was getting better, and that suddenly made the dilemma a thousand times worse.

"Now... if you don't move away from the door, I'm going to slice this girl's throat open!" Ed threatened, earning a terrified squeak from Winry as he edged the blade another fraction closer to her.

"Okay, Edward!" Mustang yelped, raising his hands in defeat. "Just... take it easy. We're moving away from the door, okay?"

As he said that, he did indeed take a sidestep away from the door. He nodded to Hawkeye and Alphonse to follow his lead. Reluctantly, they too moved to give Ed a clear path to the door. Three pairs of eyes followed Ed as he pushed the compliant Winry to the door. All the time, he held Winry between him and them. Then he reached the door, and realised a problem.

He either had to release Winry or he had to lower the blade. He was wasn't confident to do either, and had to find another option that didn't involve him changing the positions of his arms.

"Open the door," he hissed into Winry's ear.

Winry gulped. She feared what would happen to her if she didn't do what he said, but realised that she was as afraid of what would await her in the corridor. She didn't move for a moment and then caught Mustang's eyes on her.

His face was calm and collected, but his expression wasn't devoid of emotion. He was clearly worried about her, and Edward. Once he knew that he had her attention, he inclined his slowly before raising it again. He didn't speak, but the look in his eyes only spoke one thing to Winry: trust me. Everything will be alright.

She breathed in and slowly reached out for the handle. She could see Ed glaring suspiciously between her and Mustang. As she turned the handle downwards, she could feel the locking mechanism in it click open. Carefully, so as not to spook Ed and make him do something potentially fatal towards her, she opened the door by a crack.

She stopped when she felt Ed shift slightly to look over her other shoulder. She knew he was checking the corridor, obviously to confirm that it was indeed safe for him to venture out of the room. She heard him whisper to her to open it further, apparently satisfied.

When the door was open just enough for the two of them to slip through, Ed pushed her roughly through the gap. Winry managed to see Mustang's face looking sternly at them. He suddenly looked up to the ceiling and the next thing Winry saw was the empty corridor.

Ed moved his automail arm away from her and he grabbed the door handle. He slammed the door shut, leaving Mustang, Hawkeye and Alphonse in the room.

Winry looked up the corridor and saw double doors not too far away. Her eyes widened as she realised what Mustang had asked her to do. She shifted her frightened gaze to Edward, who seemed more interested in which way to go than her. His bladed hand was still holding the door handle. She decided to take her chance.

She inhaled quickly and deeply. She raised her right arm up slightly and then brought it back down, shoving her elbow into Ed's gut. She felt him let go of her shoulder and she sprinted towards the doors.

"Hey! Stop!" Ed shouted from behind her in an angry, panicked voice.

But his shouts only fed her desire to get to the doors and she ran faster. She reached the doors and slammed into them with all her might. They opened easily and she ran to the stairs. She numbly knew that she was going higher, mainly by the fact that she had to raise her legs higher than when she lowered them and she could hear Edward's calls coming from below her. She no longer knew what he was saying, nor did she care. All she wanted to do, her only goal was to get as far away from him as she possibly could.

As she twisted round the landings, only too eager to climb the next set of stairs, she suddenly saw herself running out of staircase. A door stood in front of her and she couldn't stop herself running, full pelt, into it.

However, even with all of her momentum, the door did not open. Winry managed to catch herself on the railing before she started tumbling downwards. She panted heavily, feeling the stinging pain of contacting the door on her arms and face.

"Wait!" she heard Ed calling from below her, his mismatched footsteps echoing frighteningly close.

Winry slammed against the door again, feeling her level of blind panic escalate ever higher. When the door didn't budge, she banged on it with all her might. All the time, the frenzied echo of a flurry of footsteps coming ever closer brought her nearer and nearer to desperation and she screamed in terror and brought her hands down onto the door one last time, throwing her entire weight into it.

The door burst open and Winry landed on a concrete surface, knocking her out of her senseless fear. The concrete was warm and something warm was falling on her skin. Sunlight. It was sunlight. She'd managed to get outside. She'd managed to get to the roof.

The footsteps that were practically on top of her made Winry get up and continue running. She knew that by being on the roof, she had no means to escape, but she knew that she didn't have much of a choice but to run. The footsteps were only a few paces behind her, and she could feel her body beginning to falter.

Her foot caught on something, and she cried out in surprise as she fell. She didn't have a chance to rise. A moment later she felt a pair of mismatched hands grab her and hauled her to her feet. The human hand returned to grip her shoulder painfully while the metal one, the one that was her own creation, pointed a sharp blade at her throat.

"I don't know what you were trying to pull, just now," Ed growled. "But, that was the wrong move."

"Fullmetal!"

Ed's head whipped around to see who had followed them up to the roof. It was Colonel Mustang, followed by Lieutenant Hawkeye and Alphonse. Mustang had an exceptionally dark look on his face.

Ed jumped, placing Winry between himself and the enraged colonel. Any pretence Ed had once had was now gone. All he was showing was a completely terrified young man who had found himself in boiling hot water. He almost looked like a hare caught in a car's headlights.

"This has gone on for long enough, Fullmetal," Mustang stated, his expression softening slightly when he saw Ed's expression.

"Don't- Don't come any closer," Ed warned, absolute terror lacing every word. "If you do, I'll-"

Dink.

Ed was instantly silent, and stared at the blade on the automail. There on the blade, just below the girl's chin, was an odd distortion. It was a tiny bubble and was barely noticeable, but he'd noticed it.

Dink.

There was another, not too far from the first. As he blinked, he suddenly realised that the two distortions were tiny droplets of water. Two water droplets had landed on the automail. He almost looked up the sky, thinking that it was about to rain, but from the heat on his back, he knew that there wasn't a cloud in the sky. He tried to rationalise why two water droplets had landed on the automail.

Dink.

Make that three droplets.

This time, he saw where the third droplet had come from. It had come from the girl. She was crying, and she was shaking uncontrollably. A small cut was on the side of her neck and one side of the blade was a tiny red line of blood that was crawling down towards him.

"I understand that you're afraid, Fullmetal," the man pretending to be Colonel Mustang stated calmly.

Ed couldn't understand how the man could be so calm and collected when his own world was falling apart at the seams. He was glad that the man had stopped glaring at him; that would have been all Ed needed to carry on running and leave them a horrid mess to clear up on ground level.

"I understand that you're afraid, and that you don't recognise any of us," the man continued. "But, you have to trust us, Edward. We're not here to hurt you."

"I don't believe you," Ed spat, desperate to sound angry and unafraid. "I DON'T KNOW YOU!"

"No?" the man cocked an eyebrow. "Well, suffice to say that at the moment, I'm not sure that I know you either. I doubt you'd even recognise yourself!"

Ed clenched his teeth in response to the man's raised voice. But something struck in Ed's mind, something that made him curious, and fearful, to know the answer. He wanted to know why the man had said what he'd said.

Slowly, Ed pulled the blade away from the girl. She'd stopped crying and she was no longer shaking, which seemed odd to Ed. Regardless, he raised the automail up slightly and then, after much deliberation, he twisted the arm slightly.

Ed let go of the girl and his arm fell lifelessly to his side. He vaguely noticed that the girl stood there for a moment and then bolted away from him. She was caught expertly by the blonde woman and Ed could hear her crying loudly into the woman's chest. The woman held her comfortingly.

He numbly looked up from the automail. He stared at the giant suit of armour, and felt that that was his safest bet. He had the least chance of getting that wrong.

"Al..?" he asked weakly. "Is that... Is it really you?"

"Yes, Brother," the suit replied, stepping forward. "It is me."

Ed didn't respond as the suit approached him. He dazedly watched the metal get closer to him. When the suit stopped, he held out his right hand to touch the torso, not realising and not caring that he wouldn't be able to feel anything.

"Will you get rid of the blade, Brother?" the suit asked patiently.

Ed removed his hand from the suit and joined it with his left. He calmly slid his left over his right and watched the blade retract from view and disappear. Once the blade was gone, he let his arms dropped to his sides and he stared into the vacant space that was left.

"Why... Why can't I see you, Al?" he asked, tears falling silently down his face.

The suit didn't reply. He lifted his left hand and gently lowered it onto Ed's back... just like Al always did. That was when it finally hit home for Ed. This suit of armour was Alphonse. He did know all these people who were around him.

A sob broke out from Ed as his face twisted into an expression of anguish. He raised his arms and slammed his hands into his face. He hid behind the mismatched fingers as his tears fell and his crying echoed out across the roof. Amongst the sounds that came from himself, Ed heard someone talking.

"It's going to be alright, Brother," Al promised. "Everything's going to be okay."