A thick black sludge surrounds Ed. He tries to swim through it, fighting what feels like long dark arms that struggle to hold him back, pull him away from whatever destination lies in the direction he is swimming.

Just a little further. Come on Edward!

Ed grits his teeth against the strain of fighting the hands, and puts in an extra burst of energy, feeling triumph as he sees a whole in the darkness give way to a bright white light.

Almost there! Don't give up now!

Giving one last push forward, Edward pushed out of the black sludge, into the light, where he found himself falling.

oooOOOoooOOOooo

"-he's lucky to even be alive," a gruff voice from nearby said.

Edward felt like a bucket of ice cold water had been dumped all over his body as he slowly drifted back into consciousness, hearing the unfamiliar voice speaking.

"You said that the bullet barely missed his heart and lungs?" Another voice, softer, speaks from the same area. This one sounds strangely familiar, yet not, all at the same time.

Ed keeps his eyes closed, attempting to use his hearing and the voices to determine where he's at.

"A centimeter in either direction and he would have been dead," the gruff voice confirms.

The voices are slightly muted, there's nothing for them to bounce off of. We must be in a tent of some kind. A small one at that, the distance they are standing is not too far. There's also the faint sound of voices and walking outside, we must be in a tent city.

"How long until he should wake up?" The softer voice asks, the sound of steps coming towards him alerted Edward of their movement.

"He should be rejoining the world of consciousness any time now. To be honest, I wouldn't be surprised if he were already awake, and just feigning sleep to get a better grasp of his surroundings," the gruff voice tells, causing a surge of panic to course through him. A brief pause followed before the sound of laughter emitted from where the gruff voice was coming from, then the man continued over his laughter, "As if he would be smart enough to do that. I would easily be able to tell if he were, and let me just tell you, if this kid was dumb enough to take a bullet dead on, he's too dumb to feign sleep."

A quieter, less assured laugh joined the gruff man's, the sounds fading as the two of them exit the tent, leaving Edward in complete silence.

Counting to one hundred slowly in his head, Ed opened his eyes and sat up looking around. He was indeed in a tent, a small tent that consisted of a few cots, and not much else. The other cots sat empty. Turning his head towards the entrance flap, the blonde man nearly jumped out of his skin to see a tall man quietly watching him from right inside the door.

"I thought you were awake," he said in a soft voice, with a slight smirk placed on his lips.

Ed instantly recognized it as the second voice from earlier.

"Who are you? Where am I?" the blonde alchemist demanded, before feeling a twinge of pain in his chest, forcing him to keel over.

Footsteps quickly approached him, and the man's face appeared next to him, a look of reserved concern flitting across his features.

Edward gritted his teeth, looking up at the face of the other man, only to feel the blood rush from his own face as he looked into familiar dark eyes.

"Roy?" He chocked out, confusing taking over as the seconds passed.

The man seemed to not hear the name, as he sat back on his heels upon realizing that there was not much he could do for the blonde man. The strange man turned to look at the entrance flap, racking a hand through his tied back black hair that reached past his shoulders and was falling out of it's tie. Sighing, he turned his achingly familiar dark eyes back on Edward, before speaking.

"Ordinarily, I would be required to not answer those questions, and instead would be asking them to you, but as circumstances seem to be that you are clearly disoriented, I will assist you. My name is Alexander… Alexander Hamilton, and you're in the middle of the American revolution."

Yes, I know! Alexander Hamilton looks nothing like Mustang. Hamilton had brown hair and blue eyes, Mustang has black hair and black eyes. But you know what? I'm rewriting history :P

Thanks for reading this, this is just a small side project, so posts will only come if I get inspired, which will be far and few between sadly.

Please leave a review and tell me what you think so far!

Thanks and have a wonderful day!