*me four hours ago*: I think I'll get a little writing done.

*Willem Defoe explodes my house*: FINISH IT FINISH IT

This chapter was really hard to write because it's based on some pretty painful memories. Once I started getting into the nitty gritty, I just wanted to get it over with, so I'm not sure I really like how it turned out.

It looks like TSS is winning the vote so far, so… research time, I guess.

Edward was glad to have the stitches out.

They had itched horribly, and despite his best efforts, Alphonse would often have to grab his arm to stop him from scratching. Winry was less sympathetic. She had threatened to cover the tips of Ed's fingers with metal caps if he didn't leave the healing incision be.

"What's stopping me from taking them off?" Edward had asked, his right arm in Winry's grasp. He raised his left hand in its stead, which was quickly caught by Winry's own.

"There's this new trend going around, using staples instead of stitches to close wounds. I've been dying for an opportunity to try them."

Edward knew she wasn't joking and made a conscious effort from them on to keep his fingers away from the wound - when Winry was watching.

XXX

His braid was a small price to pay to hide the bald spot.

Besides, as Al had pointed out, it was only temporary. In a month or two, he would be back to pinning his hair behind him rather than on the top of his head. In all honesty, the whole experience wasn't as bad as Edward had imagined it to be. It was definitely preferable to not be collapsing at random intervals throughout the day in convulsions, then have to go to bed, forfeiting the rest of the day to headaches and weakness. Though he never admitted it out loud, he found himself grateful to Doctor Holly and her staff for solving the problem so swiftly and completely.

He wouldn't admit his gratitude until they undid what they had done to his brother.

Alphonse had been oddly apologetic over what Doctor Holly said, as if he had somehow broken some secret promise by not being perfectly happy in his true body. Edward had never expected the transition from metal and bolts to skin and bones to be easy, but he certainly hadn't expected his brother to be sorry for it. It was a bit like watching someone be apologetic for their absence while away at university.

"Sorry, Brother," he would murmer when he crawled into the bed they shared on nights when he tried to sleep alone. Edward would mutter something along the lines of "Shu' up an' go sleep," then would roll over and do just that. When the feelings and sensations of the world became too much, Al would curl into a ball in a darkened room, hiding himself beneath one of Granny's heavy quilts. He would gasp tearful pleas for forgiveness when Edward would sit with him, letting his brother lean on him and feel his warm body with his own. Again, Edward would tell him to shut it and would hold him until Alphonse's shaking had faded or they both fell asleep, whether they were on or beneath a bed or simply laying on the floor.

To Edward's consternation, when the doctor called them to check on their "progress," Alphonse told her these things and she praised him, as if Al's routine falling to pieces was a good thing.

"She wants to talk to you, Brother."

"So she can tell me that the fact that I sneezed this morning is a sign that I have an internal conflict with squirrels and I should take medicinal tobacco until I'm eighty? No, thanks."

"That's not fair, Brother," Alphonse huffed. "The medicine is helping and you know it." Then, "Squirrels?'

Edward had no idea why his brain had picked squirrels for his example and he became suddenly desperate to continue the conversation before Alphonse asked him a question he couldn't answer.

"I don't need to talk to her, and neither do you. She did her job and now she needs to leave us alone."

"I like talking to her, Brother. It makes me feel better about… about everything."

Edward would never admit his gratitude because that would mean that Doctor Holly was right, and if she was right, then she was able help Alphonse in a way that he could not.

It meant that Edward was not enough.

It was childish and the opposite of all they had learned in the past few years, but equivalent exchange demanded that if Alphonse was enough for Edward, then the reverse should also be true.

"You don't seem to feel better."

"Doctor Holly says that tears are a sign of healing."

"And Havoc says that girls like guys who follow them home and watch them sleep, yet he has a police record and can't make a relationship last more than a month."

That got Al to drop the matter, though Ed doubted it was for the reason he'd intended.

XXX

"Ed! Phone!"

"Who?"

"For you!"

"No, thanks, we already have one."

"Get your sassy ass down here and get it before I give you something to be sassy about it!"

Edward grumbled words that would have earned him several whacks with a spoon when he was a child. In recognition of if chronological maturity, Granny only gave him one as he passed the kitchen on his way to the wall phone.

Ed did not want to talk to anyone. For the past few weeks, whenever he engaged in conversation, the subject always was or eventually became about him - specifically, "how he was doing."

How was his head?

Any more convulsions?

Did his new scar hurt?

Had there been any further incidents of any kind that he hadn't told them about?

Edward did not want to talk about his stupid body. He wanted to talk about the new flavor of ice cream soda at the drugstore. He wanted to talk about how, with the impending arrival of autumn, harvest season would soon be upon them, which meant work, which meant money, which meant things to buy.

They would not let him leave the house for a catalogue.

It was ironic that being treated like he was made of glass had made him incredibly likely to shatter.

"What the hell do you want?" Edward barked into the receiver, not knowing and not caring who was on the other end.

"Edward Elric!" was the only warning he got before he received a second, harder thwack! on the head from the unmerciful wooden spoon.

"Hello to you, too, Fullmetal," Roy's amused voice said into his ear. "How have you been?"

Ed heard nothing past the word "how."

"Shut up! It's none of your business, so leave me alone!"

"It is my business when I get a phone call from your physician telling me that you have failed to contact her."

"Wha - why did she contact you, bastard?!"

"Because, unlike her and your brother, I don't care about your personal comfort. If something that needs to be done will result in someone hating you, it's wise to employ a third party who has no love to lose. Now, you're going to tell me why, exactly, you have failed to keep your caregiver up to date on your needs."

"She's not my caregiver. She's a nosy bitch who needs to learn to keep her nose where it belongs."

"Watch your tone, young man. That's no way to speak to a lady."

"Good thing she's not a lady, then."

Edward heard the telltale thump! of Mustang standing up so violently that his chair fell over behind him. Ed flinched out of habit. That, more than anything else, was how he knew he had crossed a line.

"Edward Elric."

Oh, he was dead.

"You will call Doctor Holly. You will tell her what she needs to know. You will follow any instructions she gives you."

Perhaps he was a dead man walking, but that didn't mean he would go down without a fight.

"What are ya gonna do about it, huh? I'm retired. You can't do anything to me."

"I'll come down to your little hick village and escort you to the good doctor myself, even if it means throwing you over my back like a sack of potatoes."

"You can't do that! I'll report you for assault!"

"I'm the Brigadier General. As long as I have the best intentions in mind, I can and will do whatever I need to."

Edward knew he was right. He also knew that, if it came to it, Alphonse and Winry would aid in his abduction - they'd done it once before already.

The thought filled his mouth with the bitter taste of fear.

"I am fine."

"I know for a fact that you are not."

"Ha! I've heard better bluffs from Al!"

"It was Alphonse who told me."

The bitter fear turned into nauseous betrayal.

"What? But…"

"Alphonse called me the other day expressing concern for your well-being… especially your temper, which, I must say, must be considerably bad if your brother is bothered by it. He informed me that he signed a waiver with Doctor Holly granting her permission to tell me anything she believes I need to know concerning their conversations."

Edward thought he might me sick.

Alphonse had been talking about him to Doctor Holly and not him. He had been talking about him to Mustang and not him.

The betrayal morphed into a kind of horrified despair. It rose up into his throat, clogging into a lump that sent quills through his neck from the inside out and tears blurring his eyes. He slammed his lids down in a desperate attempt to keep them contained and tried to swallow the spiky ball back into his stomach.

"Fullmetal? Are you still there?"

Roy did not sound angry anymore. In fact he sounded sympathetic, as if it was occurring to him that what he'd told Edward might not have produced the reaction he'd been expecting.

It was that sympathy, that pity, that was one more straw than Edward could handle.

He replaced the receiver onto the cradle, not bothering and not able to give Mustang a farewell, and stumbled across the hall to the front door.

He thought he heard Granny call after him, but he couldn't care enough to stop.

XXX

Edward was worse than not enough for his brother.

Edward was causing his brother distress, enough so that Alphonse needed others to relieve him of the burdens that Edward had created. It was like finding out what he had thought to be medicine was actually poison.

He didn't know why his instinctual reaction to this realization was to leave - it wasn't like he had anywhere to go - though the thought did occur to him to go to the station and board the next train to only God knew where. Perhaps it was a leftover reflex from his pre-Promised Day life, and his mind thought the answer to his problems could be found through field work and library-hopping.

Perhaps his subconscious was right, insofar that is brother's stress would be alleviated by his absence, considering that the cause of Alphonse's stress was his presence.

If this was true, maybe it didn't matter where he need up as long as it was away from Al.

Just as the absurd idea became somewhat appealing, he remembered that he had walked straight out the door, not pausing to grab any belongings, noticeably his wallet or money of any kind.

He also wasn't wearing any shoes.

He would have to hide in one of the luggage cars. It might be for the best. Purchasing a ticket would leave a paper trail for Alphonse and Winry to follow. He knew they would try to follow him, if only because they assumed it was what they were expected to do as his family.

Then again, depending on what Al had said to Holly, and by proxy Mustang, maybe they wouldn't bother. Maybe they would understand that he just needed some space and that he would come back when he was ready.

Edward huffed to himself in sarcastic amusement. It was more than likely that they were already looking for him. If they found him, they would scold him and then coddle him even more than they had been. He would probably be confined to his room until Roy came for him.

The thought sent shudders of anticipated restlessness through his body.

He turned, walking off the path and away from the train station. He needed to find a place to hide, at least until they assumed that he already had a significant head start and stopped searching. Something caught his eye in his peripheral vision and this time his amused huffed was not sarcastic at all.

His bare feet had taken him to the Sweets' farm. The shape that had caught his attention was the barn that he and Al (mostly Al) had repaired at the start of all this.

They would never think to look for him there.

XXX

He had to be careful of splinters in his right foot. His left was made of metal and couldn't be punctured by anything short of metal cutters, but his right was very much flesh and blood and prone to infection.

It was the afternoon, so the sun was bright and hot, making Ed's shirt thick to his skin with sweat and his brow slump over his eyes to shield his sight from the light. The inside of the barn was noticeably cooler, if a bit stuffy, and the smell of manure made Ed's nose and eyes burn. He kept his eyes on the floor, making sure he didn't step on a loose nail or a suspicious lump of brown or black, then performed a strategic maneuver of testing each rung of the ladder to the hayloft before putting his foot down fully to avoid the dreaded splinters.

He wasn't sure what he planned on doing when he reached the top - this seemed to be the theme for this day - but he certainly hadn't planned for the lurch of raw terror when he climbed into the loft and the whole structure shook under his weight. He knew it was meaningless, that it was just physics doing the only thing it could do, but his spine didn't seem to care. An almost itchy sensation had sprouted from his back and was pulsing through the rest of his body in waves, an urge to grab on to the nearest solid thing and hold on for dear life.

You are going to fall.

Edward snarled to himself and knocked the intrusive thought out his head. He was not going to let what happened earlier that summer happen again.

It took more effort than he expected to cross the loft to the nearest bale of hay, each careful splinter-aware step sending the wooden platform trembling and each tremble sending itchy tingles through his limbs. When he reached the hay, he collapsed onto it like it was the mattress of luxurious bed.

It might as well have been, he realized, because there was little for him to do but sleep until it was safe to come down.

Ed curled it himself and closed his eyes to do just that.

XXX

His head was too loud for him to sleep.

It certainly didn't help that the hay was uncomfortably itchy and pokey no matter how much he tossed and turned.

Every noise, every barking dog and braying heifer and anything that remotely sounded like a human voice, made him open his eyes and tense his muscles. Knowing that this was probably one of the last places that anyone would look for him made him ironically even more jumpy. If they were desperate enough to check the Sweets' barn, then they would be equally as frantic and dramatic when they caught him. He didn't think he could bear seeing Al's face stretched in any more fear or his voice laced with any more anger.

The part of his brain that was still capable of thinking rationally pointed out that the fact that he knew that what he was doing would only make his brother's concern all the worse was proof that he was doing this out of selfishness rather than what was best for Alphonse. The less rational and currently dominant part took this as evidence that he really could do nothing but hurt his brother and that he was, in a roundabout way, doing the right thing.

Sleeping was pointless.

He sat up and started occupying himself by seeing if he could make twine out of twisted straws of hay.

He had started over five times and only just managed to make his string at least a foot long when he heard the bang of the barn door and the sound of boots on the dirt floor.

The footsteps weren't hurried or powerful, assuring Ed that whoever was making them was not worried or frightened in the least. It was probably just Farmer Sweet on his way to muck out the stalls and lay down fresh hay.

Which meant that he would come up into the hayloft.

Edward scrambled across bales to drop behind the stack. He doubted the farmer would go any further then he had to and would probably just grab the bale closes to the ladder.

The loft shook with every step taken on the ladder, sending more itchy pulses of dread through him. He shivered with each one, shaking the tingles away like clinging insects. Ed heard the thump of Farmer Sweet stepping onto the platform, his grunts and the creaking of wood as he pulled at the nearest bale, the puffy hisses as it bounced its way down. Then the old man made his way back down, the beams trembling in reverse order than before. Edward started counting to one hundred, meaning to only come out if he reached the number and Sweet didn't come back. It would be foolish to simply assume that the man was gone and then risk popping up in front of him.

Teacher had taught him better than that.

He got to fifteen when the loft, and Edward with it, fell apart.

XXX

Being an old man, Farmer Sweet did not scream.

He roared.

That did not make his outburst any less humiliating to him.

Then his humiliation melted into fiery anger when he remembered why he had roared.

"Who's up there?! I didn't give you leave to be on my property!"

The answering thumping of a heavy body and the high-pitched squealing sounds made Sweet think that the intruder was some kind of animal - an injured bird or a wild cat.

Except neither birds nor cats made such terrible screeching noises.

Well, house cats didn't.

"Damn varmint!"

Sweet had lots of experience with lynxes, mostly through missing chickens and bloody lambs left to rot. The creature, he supposed, must have decided to take a rest in the hay. Perhaps he could end this situation without his rifle, if he could scare the animal into leaving. Sweet had kicked the support beam to knock off a glob of mud off his boot, the reverberations from the kick revealing the unwanted visitor's presence. Deciding to continue what had already worked, Sweet grabbed the rake for mucking out the stalls and gave the wooden beam a healthy strike. The squeaking became a squeal, a sound that kept going, with the occasional stop and start, as each hit with the rake shook the platform and sent the Timbers and nails rattling.

Then the squealing stopped permanently, a heavy thud coming from outside the barn a few seconds later.

"And don't come back," the man growled, then set the rake next to the wall and hefted the hay bale over his shoulder. He shuffled back the way he had come, squinting as he stepped out of the shaded barn and into the bright summer sunlight. Perhaps it was silly, what with the grass in the pasture being fresh and green, but more food for the cows meant fatter cows, and fatter cows meant more money at the market.

Sweet rounded the corner of the barn, whistling to himself as he worked.

He stopped whistling, dropped the hay in the mud, and ran to the house to phone for the doctor.

XXX

It wasn't always convenient for Pinako to be the town's doctor as well as the Eastern region's automail mechanic.

This time, it was very convenient.

Pinako had listened in to Edward's less-than-positive call - she was too old for proper things like eschewing eavesdropping - and realized that the already unpleasant conversation had become more than unpleasant when it suddenly stopped. She'd poked her head out of the kitchen in time to see the front door close behind him.

Pinako huffed and went back to kneading the dough for dinner's bread. If Ed decided to breathe some fresh air to calm himself, she had no intentions of stopping him. The fact that he had actually chosen a healthy coping mechanism to deal with his frustration was evidence that she had not been entirely unsuccessful when raising him.

When Alphonse and Winry returned from the market with the meat and vegetables Pinako had requested of them, she told them of Edward's whereabouts to keep them from worrying. If Alphonse attempted to hide his worry, he failed miserably, but he nodded his understanding and pledged to search for him if he wasn't back by dinner. Winry didn't seem to particularly care, preoccupied as she was with the order she was putting together for a client. Upon dropping off the ingredients, she closed herself in her workshop, returning to her screws and bolts. Alphonse went upstairs to read, but Pinako knew that he was going to take a nap.

Pinako huffed again and said nothing. Al's capacity for sleep was just as large as his brother's and she knew that an hour's rest wouldn't interfere with his sleep schedule.

The dough had risen and she had just plopped it into a pan and pushed it into the oven when the phone rang.

Pinako wiped her floury hands on her apron and went to the hall.

A minute later, she was shaking Alphonse awake while Winry grabbed the medical kit.

XXX

Edward wondered why he kept ending up in the Sweets' bean room.

He knew the colonel - brigadier general, he reminded himself - would have a ready answer to that question.

He wished Mustang was here and then immediately hated himself for it.

"There, there. It's all right. You just keep your head between your knees. No falling asleep."

Edward did not know why the old woman thought that smooshing his face into his legs would help. It was already hard enough to breathe when is face was uncovered, but folded onto himself in the most uncomfortable "comfort" position made him feel like he was drowning in his own sweat and clothes. He tried to lift his head for the fifth time and Mrs. Sweet pushed it back down for the fifth time.

God, this was humiliating.

"It's all right, love. You're all right."

No, he wasn't all right, he was trapped in the bean room with an old bat holding him hostage.

Edward wasn't hurt. He was fine. He had landed on his back, his elbows taking the brunt of the impact and keeping his skull from breaking open - again. It probably wouldn't have, anyway. The dirt outside of the barn was soft with tilled earth and the distance from the loft hadn't been anything significant.

He tried to lift his head for the sixth time. Mrs. Sweet pushed him down for the sixth time.

His skin was scraped and he couldn't feel his arms, but that was fine. The bleeding would stop on its own and the tingling was only temporary.

Just like his sudden inability to breathe and the slobber and tears he couldn't control and he'd fallen, he'd fallen, and he was fine, but it had happened, and if it happened now it would definitely happen for a third time, and then he might not be fine the third time, it would be like the first time, he was going to fall, he was going to die, and there was nothing he could do -

"Shh, shh. Try to take deep breaths."

Edward tried to tell her to do it herself if she wanted it done so badly. The terrible moaning sound that came out instead had the woman covering him with her own body.

She smelled like spices and candles and everything else generally old-lady-y. It was very different from the smells of snow and sweat and blood, but the restraining hold was just similar enough to make that obnoxious, gibbering voice at the back of his head to go from babbling to screaming.

You're going to die I told you so and now it's too late how could you do this to us I told you so how could you do this to Al I told you so how could you do this to Winry I told you so I told you so I told you so I told you so

Edward screamed at the screaming, trying to shut it up or at least out-scream it so he couldn't hear it over himself.

Mrs. Sweet let go of him as if he had bitten her. Edward wasted no time in scrabbling away from her, intent on escaping this stupid bean room and get somewhere quiet and secluded, at least until whatever this was stopped, so that no one had to see him like this. If no one saw this, then it wasn't real.

He didn't throw himself out of the loft window in an attempt to run away from a bunch of shaky wood, and even if he did, it was definitely on purpose and not because he had just started running and had completely forgotten that he was on the second floor.

Unfortunately, Mrs. Sweet was intent on making this real, because she grabbed his arm before he could stumble out of the door he'd flung open and tugged him back into the room. Edward tried to growl at her, since sound seemed to intimidate her. It came out as a petulant whine.

He really needed to figure out that he couldn't control his voice right now.

Her hand was surprisingly strong for being so small and papery.

"I can't let you go, little one, not like this. You're not right. You could hurt yourself."

Ed snarled and threw himself away from her, not able to care that she was old and frail, only caring about the burning, stabbing desire to get away -

She let him go, whether to save herself or him he neither knew nor cared, and Edward barreled out of the bean room and into the open air - and straight into Farmer Sweet, who grabbed him by the shoulders and held tight.

Edward yowled in frustration and tried to shove the older man away. This was all his fault, anyway. Why did he have to shake the loft? Why couldn't he have just left Edward where he was, breathless and dazed, instead of sending for help and chasing him down when Edward had tried to shuffle away into the fields?

Why couldn't they just let him disappear so he couldn't ruin Alphonse's life now that he had finally had it and he couldn't be guarded by Mustang like an eagle with its egg and the constant threat of something, anything, and everything couldn't find him?

Edward hadn't realized his legs had given out until Farmer Sweet caught him.

"Brother!"

The sound of his brother's voice was the opposite of comforting.

Embarrassment and shame and anger boiled together into panicked nausea and Edward tried to kick the farmer in the hopes that he would drop him and Edward could scurry off and vanish like he was supposed to at the beginning of all this. Farmer Sweet grunted but didn't let go, holding Edward like a disobedient child with his hands under Ed's arms, even as Edward tore at his stained overalls and clawed whatever skin he could find.

"Brother, stop! Stop it!"

There was another pair of arms on him, smaller and softer, and Edward shrieked, baring his teeth and spraying spit into his brother's face. Alphonse jumped away from him, his still gaunt face hollowing further with horror. The sight created a strange kind of positive reinforcement, where the knowledge that he had very nearly attacked Al made him thrash and fight even harder, even sinking his teeth into Farmer Sweet's arm to make him let go. Farmer Sweet didn't react to the bite beyond the slightest stiffening and then Mrs. Sweet was shouting at him, adding her hands to the fray to pull Edward's jaws off her husband's arm. Alphonse, confused and enraged at Edward's choice of behavior, started punching his brother in the spine to make him let go.

"STOP IT!"

Winry's voice was hoarse with the power of her scream, a scream so full of authority and righteous fury that it was unmistakable that she was a Rockbell. Pinako, who had seen her dead son's expression on her living granddaughter's face, knew what the expression meant and kept well back, letting her son and his wife fulfill their purpose through their daughter.

Fulfill their purpose she did. Alphonse and Mrs. Sweet let go of Edward as he had bitten them as well. Farmer Sweet did not loosen his arms anymore than Edward loosened his jaws.

"Drop him," Winry commanded, her eyes dark with anger. The darkness was strong enough to make even Farmer Sweet step back in deference, and he obeyed her quickly. He let go of Edward, who let go of Farmer Sweet and dodged behind the farmhouse, finally disappearing as he'd meant to.

"What kind of an idiot restrains a patient with soldier's heart experiencing a conversion reaction?!" she spat, glaring at Farmer Sweet, who's arm was beginning to swell, as if she wanted to tear his heart out and stuff it down his throat.

"That's a little harsh, Winry," Pinako commented with a frown, walking up to her with the medical kit. "The man's a wrangler. Of course his first thought would be to wrangle 'im."

Winry seemed to deflate a bit, acknowledging that her grandmother had a point - then turned her ire on Alphonse.

"But you - I expected better from you."

Alphonse trembled under her gaze like a mouse beneath a cat's paw.

"But… but you've restrained him before -"

"To keep him from hurting himself during procedures. We never use restraints on a patient in hysterics, especially not during a conversion reaction."

Alphonse shook his head, his eyes filling with confused, distressed tears. Winry seemed to calm upon seeing that Al truly did not understand what he'd done wrong.

"I'll explain later. Granny, could you take care of them? I'm going after Edward - alone."

Granny nodded, walking up to Farmer Sweet and rolling up his sleeve to look at his arm. Alphonse made a hiccuping sob, falling into Mrs. Sweet's arms when she took him in her arms.

XXX

It wasn't hard to find him.

Winry knew that Edward - or rather, Edward's instincts - had been searching for place where he could be safe. Growing up with him meant that she was familiar with such places, and with Granny's house of the question and the direction that he'd run off towards, Edward might as well have named his destination out loud.

He was curled up under the tree, his eyes distant and unseeing. Winry didn't go near him, pausing at her parents' graves as if she had come to the graveyard for that reason. She didn't remember much about them, just like Edward no longer remembered much about his parents, a reality that often left her chest feeling like her heart had been dug out of her chest. She didn't have their memories, but she had their journals, from which she had learned the tricks of her trade many of her colleagues thought were odd or even irresponsible until they saw they results.

Her parents, through their journals, had taught her about soldier's heart and conversion reactions.

Never restrain and never chase. Sedate as a last resort.

If it wasn't for her confidence in finding him, she would have turned to that resort rather than letting him run.

Now that she had found him, she watched him out of the corner of her eye, waiting for the sign that he was ready for her to approach, or at least that his body's desire to run had been satisfied and he would not reflexively bolt if she came close. She received the sign when she sensed rather than saw him shift, moving from his perched position into one that was closer to sitting.

He was shaking with exhaustion and residual energy and wet with sweat and tears. She commented on none of it and sat down on the other side of the tree so that they were at right angles at each other.

"What was that?"

The choked whisper of his voice told more about his exhaustion than his shaking did.

"You had a conversion reaction." She said it matter-of-factually, doing her best to keep her emotions out of the conversation. She would deal with them later, the grief and the anger she felt towards Alphonse and the farmer. She had been Edward's feelings in the past, crying for him when he refused to cry for himself, hurting for him when he refused to hurt, but this was something more basic, more primitive than human emotions.

Edward had lost control, so Winry would be in control because that's what he needed her to be.

"Con… convert?"

"Perceived threats. You… well, your body converts your sense of danger into an action, like attacking or running. Like when you forget that your hand isn't made of metal anymore and you stick your hand in a pot of hot water to get a potato. You turn the pain from the burn into dropping the potato and yelling swear words at it."

Winry had made the reference to test how out of it Edward still was. She heard him shuffle his feet and mutter something about, "That was one time." She let herself smile at his lackluster reaction and scooted along the trunk so she was slightly closer to him.

"Why… why did I… convert…"

"Your body perceived danger and did what it had to to keep you safe."

"No… Why… Why did I think… There was no danger."

"It's a part of soldier's heart, Ed. It's normal."

"No, it's not."

"Yes, it is."

"If it was normal, it wouldn't have a name."

Winry shifter further along the trunk.

"You're going to send me away. Like how Mustang sent Fuery away."

It was a statement, not a question.

Winry knew that he had been thinking of that, fearing that, that they had all been thinking and fearing it, since they first learned about the hospital. Hospitals for the mentally ill were far from new and far from coveted or useful. They were a place for families to throw away their defective parts, to hide away the mistakes of their blood where no one would have to know about them. The "patients" would be left there to starve in their own filth, the nurses only dealing with them to bring them water or medicine or to collect their corpses.

It had always been a possibility that he would committed, what with his missing limbs and erratic nature, but his position within the military made that possibility too small to be considered.

Now, though, after what had just happened…

"I'm not sending you anywhere, Ed."

"The Sweets will tell the police and I'll be taken away. That's what's supposed to happen to the town maniac."

"You are not a maniac."

"I just bit a guy because I fell out of his barn."

"You bit him because you trying to get to safety and he was stopping you."

"Farmer Sweet wasn't going to hurt me."

"But he was keeping you from escaping a perceived threat."

"There wasn't a threat."

"Your instincts thought so."

"My instincts are stupid."

"Yeah, they can be."

She shifted once more and reached around, feeling bark until she felt skin. Edward did not pull away.

"But it's better to be stupid than dead."

She heard Edward huff in humor that had no amusement. He had said those very words to her after she yelled at him about how he had turned his automail into some kind of lance during one his many skirmishes, destroying the wiring in the process. If he hadn't, he probably would have gotten off with more than a ruined arm and a few bruises, a point that she had conceded when she had let him explain himself.

"You are not going anywhere," she assured him, giving what she thought to be his arm a squeeze. "If anyone comes for you, Alphonse will use alchemy to make their clothes disappear and then they'll have to go home naked and empty-handed."

"Eww."

"He would. You know he would."

"He'd probably just have to punch them. Kid's got a damn good swing."

Winry's tiny bit of momentary happiness furled slightly as she remembered how Al had beaten his brother.

"Yes. I had… words with him."

"Oh, no. Not 'words.'"

And the happiness was back, in the way that only Edward could rekindle it.

"My worst, I promise."

A pause.

"He was only trying to stop me from hurting Farmer Sweet."

Winry snorted.

"That lunkhead deserved. He shouldn't have tried to hold you down."

"He was trying to keep me safe."

"He wasn't doing a very good job of it."

Edward turned so that she could his face. His cheeks were rosy and his eyes were red and glassy with tiredness.

"This isn't the first time this has happened. Remember the guy in the market? Am I supposed to just… let this happen? Walk around going ape and beating the crap out of people?"

"If they pick you up like a sack of flour? Sure."

"Dammit, Winry, I'm serious!"

"So am I!" She pushed herself away from the tree, sitting on her legs and moving her hand from his arm to his own hand. "Edward, you are not dangerous. You are not insane. You are you, with your own needs and problems and past, just Alphonse is Alphonse and Granny is Granny."

Edward glanced down at their joined hands. Winry stopped that thought before he could think it.

"You will not hurt me. If I get hurt, it'll be my own stupid fault, just like it was Farmer Sweet's fault."

"I don't want to hurt you."

"Did you want to bite Sweet?"

Edward made a face, as if only now understanding what he'd done, then turned his head to the side and spat. Winry laughed as he continued spitting the taste of sweat and mud out of his mouth.

"I take it Farmer Sweet isn't so sweet after all?"

"Like peppermint," Edward said sarcastically, wiping his mouth with his sleeve.

They both laughed.

"Come on, taste-tester," she said, using the tree to stand up and pulling Ed up with her. "Let's get some actual food in you. You need fluids and sleep. Granny's making stew and bread for dinner."

XXX

They came home to a kitchen full of smoke and loaf of burnt bread.

Granny opened the windows, pulling the blackened bread out of the oven and tossing it out the window to the birds.

"Sorry, Granny," Ed said, an apology that was immediately refused.

"Shut up and go help the others with the stew. I'll head down to the bakery and get fresh one. Won't be warm or wet, but it'll be edible."

Winry and Alphonse were cutting the vegetables and meat out on the porch since it was currently impossible to breathe in the house. The cutting boards were positioned precariously on their laps as they sat on the porch chairs with the pot between them, into which they would periodically scrape slices into. Den greatly approved of this arrangement, especially since Alphonse kept "accidentally" dropping a few choice bits of beef onto the ground. Alphonse looked up as his brother stepped out onto the porch and almost instantly looked away, his eyes shadowed with guilt. After an awkward silence that was broken only by the sound of Winry patiently chopping up leeks, Al took a breath and started speaking at the same time Edward did the same.

"Brother, I'm sorry -"

"Don't you dare apologize."

Al's brows pinched together in an expression that only siblings could understand.

"I shouldn't have hit you," Al said, determined to prove his guilt.

"I was biting Farmer Sweet. What else were you supposed to do?"

Al opened his mouth to answer, closed it when he couldn't think of one, chopped some more meat, "dropped" some more meat for Den, and then looked back up at Ed.

"I should have… I should have tried to calm you down or take you from him, not… not what I did."

It was Edward's turn to look away. He studied the green fields tinted red in the setting sun, the grass waving in the welcome breeze.

"He's… okay, right?"

"Farmer Sweet is fine, no thanks to himself," Winry grumbled, scraping the chopped remains of a leek into the pot and pulling another one from the basket next to her chair. "You didn't break the skin. His wife is more upset about it than he is."

Edward was surprised that he felt anxious at the thought of Mrs. Sweet thinking badly of him.

"Oh?"

"She's worried, not angry," Alphonse assured quickly. "I mean, maybe she's a little angry, but I think she's worried more than anything else. Like the time you stuck your hand in the potato pot and Granny just about cut your hand off."

Edward threw his hands in the air with a bark of frustration.

"That was one time!"

XXX

"No one is under arrest."

This, of course, meant that someone was most certainly under arrest.

Edward decided to leave the room before Alphonse transmuted their clothes off. He had no wish to see Mustang naked, and while Hawkeye was certainly pretty, Edward hadn't thought of her that way since he was twelve.

Edward caught Alphonse's eye as he passed.

"It wasn't me, Brother," he said, though Ed didn't think it mattered who it was.

He doubted he ought to pack, since he was probably not going to be allowed any of his personal belongings in the ward, but the action let him pretend that what was happening wasn't what was happening, like he was just going on a holiday or a traveling for an appointment. He got to his room, found he could no longer pretend, sat on his bed, and waited.

It was okay.

He had gotten Al's body back. He had done everything he'd meant to do. He'd always suspected that his brother's future might not include him, but as long as Alphonse had a future, then it was okay.

He wondered if they would throw him in a room and forget about him or if they would try to tame him first. Maybe they would hook him up to a shock machine to reset his nerves or they would try to wipe the insanity out of his brain.

What were those called? Something about lobsters.

Maybe they would drug him until he couldn't swallow and spoon feed him for the rest of his life.

That was okay. Any of that would be okay because he was done. He was done and it was over and Al didn't need him anymore.

Then there was a knock at the door and Mustang let himself in without waiting for permission and Edward realized that he had still been pretending.

"Do lobsters hurt?"

Mustang, who had opened his mouth to speak, closed his mouth with a clop and stared at Edward as if the boy had suddenly turned into a lobster.

"What?"

Edward hadn't meant to ask, but the childish question had been sitting in his (possibly soon to be scrambled) head since he had considered the possibility.

"The… the head thing. Not what they did earlier, the…" Edward mimed how he thought (and hoped he was wrong about how) the procedure went.

Roy watched him, first with confused concern, then apologetic horror.

"No - No, Fullmetal, no one is getting a lobotomy. They're illegal. I helped make them illegal. Why would you - " Roy silently answered his own question and closed his eyes, rubbing a hand over his face like he could wipe away how badly he had botched this visit or capture or whatever this was.

"You are not under arrest," he said again. "The colonel and I were already on our way here when we heard… when we heard about what happened."

Edward felt his face turn to fire with shame and self-loathing. He looked away from Mustang and studied his knees.

"Fullmetal -"

"Are you taking me away?"

Edward continued watching his legs. How had he never noticed that his left one was longer than his right one?

"I'm taking you with me."

Edward jumped up so quickly that Mustang flinched away from him, his arms coming up just a bit as if to defend himself from an attack.

"Winry won't let you. She promised me."

Roy lowered his slightly raised his hands, pity limning the wrinkles in his too young face.

"Fullmetal -"

"Alphonse will make your clothes disappear."

"Full - wait, what?!"

"I'm not a maniac!"

"I'm homeless!"

"Winry said - wait, what?!"

Roy raised his hands fully and it was only then that Ed realized that the brigadier general was not wearing his gloves.

His hands were bandaged.

"Someone threw a rock through my window - not everyone is happy about the Ishval Reconstruction Program. It was the middle of the night. I was sleeping, I heard a noise, I woke up and… and I couldn't see."

Roy's voice choked on the last words and Edward realized where this story was going.

"I couldn't see and I knew someone or something was there so I pulled on my gloves and I snapped. I set my bed on fire. The next thing I knew, the whole house was burning."

"You sleep with your gloves?" Edward wondered why that was the part of the explanation he was stuck on.

Roy grinned humorlessly.

"I keep a pair under my pillow. Can't sleep without them. I was taken to the hospital for my burns and…"

Roy took a deep breath and Edward knew what he was going to say. That didn't make it any easier for Roy to say or for Edward to hear.

"I am to report to the Hughes Memorial War Hospital by the end of the week. It occurred to me that… If I'm to be incapacitated for a while, I wanted to know…"

"The colonel's going, too?" Edward's mouth was dry as he asked the question. He knew that Hawkeye and Mustang were practically connected at the hip, but he was thinking of what Riza had told him in the hospital room with Doctor Holly before his surgery.

Mustang nodded.

"She… she's been living with me. Temporarily," Roy said quickly when he saw Ed's raised brow. "She's been evicted from her apartment. She keeps involuntarily shooting the walls. And the windows. And the doors. Needless to say, she's been placed on medical leave until she's a little less… trigger-happy."

Of all the emotions Edward had expected to feel at this news, relief certainly wasn't one of them.

"I am taking you with me, Fullmetal, because this is not something either of us can just wait out. You… we are not going to get better by just moving on. Something is keeping us in place and until we nip that something in the bud… well…"

"We're gonna be a mess," Edward finished eloquently for him, sitting back on the bed and studying his hands instead of his knees.

Roy sighed and leaned against the doorframe.

"Yes. We will be a mess."

Contemplative silence.

"What about Al?"

"He can come, too. Actually, it's probably best if he does."

"What about Hayate?"

"Second Lieutenant Ross will take care of him until Riza - the colonel - oh, don't you look at me like that, Fullmetal!"

It was too late.

Edward jumped off the bed and pointed accusingly at Mustang.

"I knew it! You sick son of a -"

"Says the kid living in his mechanic's house. I thought there were rules about that kind of stuff."

"I've lived here since I was little, peabrain! That doesn't count!"

"Have you been sleeping in her bed since you were little?"

Edward was about to answer in the affirmative when he processed the question.

"How… how did you know about that?"

Roy looked just as horrified as Edward felt. Then his face split into a wicked smile.

"I didn't."

XXX

Riza hadn't said a word since their arrival.

Winry made her a cup of tea. Alphonse offered her a place to sit. They both noticed the gauze on her hands. Both were too afraid to ask.

"How's Hayate?" Alphonse asked, eager to break the silence. Hawkeye had never been the most talkative person, but this quiet felt wrong, like the quiet at a funeral rather than the quiet of a forest on a winter night.

This was the wrong thing to ask.

Riza's eyes filled with pain and she took a sip of her tea.

"Oh," Alphonse said, grief gripping his heart. Winry abandoned propriety and sat beside the colonel, taking the woman's hand in her own.

"He… he was a good dog," Alphonse said, though he knew it would bring little comfort.

Then Riza was laughing tearfully and wiping at her eyes.

"He's not dead," she explained in response to their confused expressions. "He's staying with a friend while I… I'm can't really take care of him right now. I just… I just miss him."

Winry and Alphonse exchanged a glance. Something terrible must have happened, they knew, if Hawkeye was being this open, even with them.

Then the shouting started upstairs and Mustang came sprinting down the stairs, his own bandaged hands struggling to grip the handrail, and a frantic Edward following close behind.

"Don't you dare, bastard, I told you, it's not like that!"

"Good afternoon, Miss Elric. Or is it Rockbell-Elric? Elric-Rockbell? Are we doing it alphabet -"

Seeing Winry hit Mustang over the head with nearest object, even if it wasn't her wrench (Roy was lucky it was only Winry's own empty cup), was something Edward did not know he needed to see.

When Mustang, clutching his head with gauzy hands, looked at his colonel imploringly, Hawkeye just took another sip of her tea.

"You deserved that, sir."

I've only had a sandwich and a coffee and some juice today so I'm very hungry.

I eat food now.