She had blue skin, and so did he.
He kept it hid, and so did she.
They searched for blue Their whole life through,
Then passed right by-
And never knew.

-Shel Silverstein

I awoke to the sound of footsteps on hardwood accompanied by hushed murmurings and the clicking of shutters on cameras. The were people in my living room, and their voices were familiar. My mind was still trying to clear the fog, and I couldn't open my eyes yet, but I felt safe. I was cacooned in soft warmth and had something wet and cool on my forehead and even though my head was still spinning and my stomach felt weak, a clean and musky scent hit me and I felt wonderful. I could hear Ed and Mustang -who never went anywhere without Riza in tow- conversing with people who I could only assume were from homicide. Havoc would deffinatly be here, and there was a good possiblity that Col. Maes Hughes from Investigations would be here as well, offering his shrewd mind and observant eye along with an endless display of pictures of his adorable three year-old who's finger he was securely wrapped around. I heard Elrics's strong and smooth voice coming closer, but it was muffled and I couldn't make out what he was saying. A doorknob turned, and that's when my mind realized where I was. I was in Edward's bed. His voice lowered upon entering the room.

"She's been out for more than an hour, but she'll be okay." The wet object that rested on my forehead was removed much to my dismay. The coolness was so refreshing. I heard the sink in the bathroom run for a moment and then as if reading my mind I felt a warm hand smooth my bangs aside and the wet object -a washcloth- was brought back to my skin, now colder than before. The warm hand lingered for a moment to softly stroke my hair. It was heaven. Roy Mustang's stern voice interrupted my paradise.

"Be careful there, Fullmetal." The hand went away. Footsteps signaled the men's exit and the door softly clicked shut behind them. It was then that I found I could crack my eyes open and peer into the darkness. A sliver of yellow light from the living room slashed across the floor and molded over the chocolate fur blanket I was under, giving me just enough light to see around me. The guest bedroom of my apartment had always been empty, except for the occasional time when Granny Pinako would visit, have too much whiskey, and need to sleep over. I'd always kept it neat and tidy, with eggshell walls and crisp white sheets, accented by sandy neutrals in the throw pillows and the duvet cover. Edward moving in had changed its appearance quite a bit.

It was still kept tidy, but the small bookshelf holding cook books and scented candles now also was home to miniature boxes of bullets and swiss army knives. The copies of The New Yorker that I usually had on the nightstand by the table lamp were now copies of Guns and Ammo Magazine and Modern Science Monthly. He even changed the linens on the bed. My crisp white sheets and honey blankets were neatly folded on the top shelf of the closet and replaced with charcoal and black egyptian cotton, and from the feel I was guessing the thread count was roughly a billion. The fur blanket pooling over me was soft, lush and heavy. Guilt surged in my stomach when I began to suspect that the fur was real. My arms slid along the cool sheets to snake under the pillow as I stretched, and thats when my hand connected with something cold and hard. Edward's gun. Most of the service men in Central carried guns, Hawkeye would keep hers on the dinner table next to her glass of red wine. But what kind of work did Elric do that afforded him this kind of luxury bedding and also forced him to sleep with a gun under his pillow? The bedroom door slowly opened again, and Ed came in and shut the door behind him, bathing us in darkness. The only light source was the bright moon outside. Having just emerged from behind the clouds, it poured its soft white beams into the room and I drew my eyes to the golden gaze that cut through it all.

"Welcome back." He said quietly. The mattress sank a bit as he sat down next to me. I still hadn't managed to sit up, but I was awake. "How's your head? You've hit it twice tonight, I was starting to think you'd been concussed."

"Still a little foggy, but better. Why didn't you put me in my room?"

"Our friend was blocking the door." He responded darkly. Memories rushed back and my stomach lurched. The man standing in my apartment was dead. The only reason he looked tall is because he had been suspended from the ceiling, and we couldn't see his dangling feet in the dark. Someone had broke into my home and hung a person in my living room. There had been a note stapled to the man's shirt, with typed letters saying 'Come to the Promised Land with me.'

"Mustang and his men removed the body and are bringing it back to central for evaluation. We can already tell the guy was dead before he was strung up."

"How do you know?" I asked.

"There's a big-ass hole in his chest, my guess is someone got him with a sawn-off." I shot up in bed and my hand flew to my mouth, my head spun and I thought I was going to be sick. Edward threw the fur blanket off of me and moved me to sit on the edge of the bed next to him. My head was pushed down between my knees.

"Breathe." He ordered calmly. My hair was pushed off from my neck and I felt something cold and hard wrap itself flush against my nape. It wasn't the washcloth, that had fallen on the floor. And it definatly wasn't one of Ed's guns, but I couldn't place what this was. A minute later the object was moved from my neck and I slowly began to sit up.

"We need to talk about this." Ed started, "I know it's scary, but I need you to pull yourself together. I can't have you passing out or having panic attacks every five minutes. There's still more that Investigations and Homicide needs to do outside your room, dusting for finger prints and stuff like that. We can't go walking through there so for tonight you're gonna stay in here with me."

I could feel the heat rising to my cheeks and I was silently thanking the darkness around us for hiding it.

Edward had loaned me a black, short-sleeved cotton t-shirt to wear to bed since I couldn't go in my room yet. I took the opportunity to change while he was in the shower. His shirt smelled like him. Clean and crisp and a little earthy. A slight muskiness that sent involuntary waves of warmth through my stomach. The guest bathroom was a similar size to the master bath, and originally had a tub but no shower. When I moved in I immediatly saw that the bathrooms be updated with glass shower stalls that reached from floor to ceiling. This was now proving to be both a blessing and a curse as Ed had left the bathroom door open a jar to vent, and I had accidentally caught a glance at his naked form. To call him sexy would be an understatment, and I knew falling asleep next to him that night wouldn't be easy.

His long golden hair fell free from its usual restraint and clung to his muscled back. His narrow hips were rooted under sculpted obliques and his ass was every woman's dream. A ball of fire raged straight down to my lady. But before I could get myself too wound up I noticed two alarming abnormalities. The first of which, was that he was covered in scars. Everything from the great to the miniscule, slashing, dotting and smattering across him in every direction, on his back and legs. Wounds bad enough to leave tissue so discolored that I could notice from across the bedroom. I couldn't see the front of him, but I could only suspect with despair that it would be more of the same. The second abnormality, far more curious than the first, were his limbs. Two of them were fake.

His right arm and left leg were prosthetic. I had seen many soldiers at Central come back from war and be fitted with artificial limbs, but none had ever resmembled these. These were made from a gleaming metal alloy, and matched the size, shape and length of his natural limbs. His fake leg resembled a real one, starting from mid-thigh it had a sculpted calf muscle and and a molded acheillies tendon covering a connection to his foot. He even had individual toes.

His arm was even more impressive. Like his leg, it had a completely normal range of motion and his movement was as natural and voluntary as it was with his organic limbs. Long, gleaming fingers were rinsing suds from his hair and my eyes fell down to the plates that made up his forearm and led to his elbow. His elbow and upper arm were bolted over with long steel plates that began to shingle at the curve of his large shoulder, like tiles on a roof. All of this came to rest at base plating that encased the periferie of his arm socket. Wide spans of steel with ragged, uneven edges were bolted roughly into his shoulder blade and followed under his arm to his ribcage. I could only suspect that his front would have similar plating bolted over his chest and probably even anchored into his clavacle. Realization slammed into me at that moment.

This was why he wore that black glove on his hand. This was why I never saw him in short sleeves, or bare feet, even though he'd been here for a month now. This is why his foot falls sounded different from eacother, one hitting the ground more solidly than the other. I was brought back to reality by the whine of the faucets being shut off and the sound of the stall door opening. I scrambled into bed and grabbed a copy of The New Yorker and flipped to a random page. My heart fluttered in my chest wildly. A few moments later the bathroom door swung wide and Edward came ambling out in a cloud of steam, shaking a towel over his head to dry his hair. He was fully clothed in sweats and a long sleeves again, and the glove was back. My heart was tugging at the sight of this. He didn't need to hide from me. I didn't care about the limbs, and I didn't care about the scars. Shame filled me as I realized that I now knew something extremely intimate about him, a sensitive subject no doubt since he was always covered up, and he knew nothing about me. Even though he was clueless to my discovery, I couldn't help feeling guilty.

The stoic expression he wore earlier was replaced by a furrowed brow and a scowl as he turned off the ceiling light and climbed into bed. He turned his face from me, and he rolled over to shut off the table lamp on his nightstand. Bathed in darkness, I began to sink down under the sheets when his stern voice sliced through the quietness.

"You shouldn't go sticking your nose where it doesn't belong, Rockbell. You may not like what you find."

I froze. He knew what I had done, and he was angry. He looked back at me over his shoulder through large, menacing eyes and his voice became low and level.

"Don't EVER spy on me again."

And just like that, the room was quiet again and he was facing the window once more. I layed there, propped on my elbow, utterly stupified and trying to figure out how in God's name he had known I was looking. My heart clenched and I slipped under the covers. Falling asleep was indeed difficult that night.

A/N: Many thanks for all of the heart-warming reviews. To answer a question presented to me by a reader, I'm not exactly sure how I got the inspiration for this story. I simply decided to write the kind of fanfiction I wanted to read. And many of my ideas come to me while riding the subway to work everyday. Updates will come regularly, I've written most of this story over the past several months and pour over the chapters constantly until i'm satisfied with them. 'Hot off the press" writing is not something I'd ever upload, and I have no intentions of leaving this story to rot forever without an ending.