North City was almost a day's walk away, and night was already falling.

"He's more likely to last if we keep him stable and warm…" Heinkel shifted his hands under Fullmetal's limp legs to keep the kid secured to his back. "…than trying to move through the cold night."

By now, the last few Briggs soldiers had gone back to their base, and they'd left in a hurry. There wasn't much left in the abandoned office Kimblee had been planning in, earlier that day. But the building was well insulated, and a bit off the main room was a former storage space. It was small and easy to warm with a little fire, no windows to cover to keep the light and heat in, only one entrance to guard. Best of all, the hallway leading to it was long and echoing — easy to hear if attackers were approaching.

"We need to stay in these forms," Heinkel continued, even as he grimaced at the thought of trying to sleep in his lion form. "We don't have much food."

The meager military rations they had found left behind were barely enough for humans, so definitely not enough for chimeras — and the more they changed between shapes, the more food they needed.

That wasn't the only reason they needed to stay shifted, though.

Darius took the first watch, so Heinkel lay Fullmetal out on the ground, keeping his wounded side toward their little fire. Then, as awkward as he felt about it, he curled around Elric's other side, his lion fur warming his own body as well as blanketing the kid's.

Without much kindling they could safely burn in such an enclosed space, they needed to use body heat to make sure Fullmetal survived the cold night.

Even through the fur, Heinkel flinched a little as he came in contact with the cold alloy of the kid's automail arm. It took a few moments to warm up, even with the fire, which was more than enough time for Darius to realize what Heinkel's hiss of discomfort was about.

"How the hell does a teenager lose not just one, but two, limbs?" Darius murmured, eyes tracing over the glimpses of metal through Elric's torn pant leg.

"Honestly? I can think of plenty of ways people, especially soldiers, lose limbs," Heinkel answered, keeping his voice as low as possible. Not that he expected it to matter — the kid was out cold, colder than the snowy night outside. "And all this kid needs is particularly bad luck, for that to happen to him twice. But how the hell did he become a State Alchemist so young?"

"The People's Alchemist," Darius quoted, the flickering firelight haunting his simian features with shadows. "Heard so much about him over the years. Everything I read in the newspapers, everything he did, everything people say about him, it just seems so…big." A particularly ape-like huff followed a human's nervous swallow.

Heinkel hummed in agreement, looking back down at the kid. "Too big."

The kid laid out by his belly seemed far too small to be the most acclaimed alchemist in Amestris, to be the hero of the people, to be a major in their military.

"Hard to believe he outranks us," he continued.

Darius snorted, a half-laugh darkened not by his primate vocal chords, but by worried disbelief.

Kids had no business being in the military and outranking monsters like them — not even child prodigies, no matter how combat proficient they were.

Though that just begged another question:

"Where the hell did this kid learn to fight?"

As Heinkel's latest question hung over the waning fire, Darius shrugged.

The gorilla chimera kept his gaze focused on the flames warming his hands and feet, even as he kept one ear cocked towards the doorway. "Maybe it's related to how he lost his limbs?"

Thinking of only a few ways those could be related, Heinkel shuddered at the thought.

"None of this explains why he became a State Alchemist, either," Darius continued. At Heinkel's visible confusion, he elaborated, "Kid fought hard, and was willing to hurt us bad, but he was trying not to kill us. Who the hell joins the military when they refuse to kill people?"

"That…is actually a very good question. " Heinkel tried to think of an explanation, but each one he could come up with was worse than the last. "But a very disturbing one, too."

Darius sighed, the sound coming long and loud from his half-gorilla lungs.

"Well, we'll need to keep him alive if we want answers," Darius said. "And we can't do that if we're too exhausted to get him to a doctor. I'll take the first watch, and we'll go in shifts of-"

"How're you gonna know when to wake me up for the second one?" Heinkel asked.

Darius looked speculatively at the kid. "State Alchemist, right? He'll have a pocket watch on him."

Heinkel started to reach over to rifle through the kid's pockets, but then realized with his paws, he might actually wake the kid up. Darius must've realized this, too, waving off Heinkel as he stepped around the little fire and used his much more primate fingers to find and extract the silver watch. The state dragon engraved on its front gleamed in the firelight, as if it were a spark away from coming alive.

Such a powerful symbol had no right looking so tiny in his hand.

The clasp was stuck, so Heinkel ended up needing to reach out and help. It took two tries with his claws to pop it open, and once he did-

"Is that an engraving?" Darius asked, squinting at the inside of the cover of the watch. He tilted it away from Heinkel, towards the firelight. "Don't Forget," he read aloud. "October 3rd, 1910."

"Wonder what happened?" Heinkel muttered.

"Well, I'll wake you up in…three hours?" Darius said. Heinkel nodded, the tips of his mane brushing over the kid's unresponsive face. "Three hours," he confirmed. "So get some sleep."

As Darius hunkered down on the other side of the fire, Heinkel curled up a little tighter around the kid, fighting the strong urge to wrap an arm around him like he was a particularly violent teddy bear.

You better live the night, kid, Heinkel thought, closing his eyes as exhaustion started to seep in. I have so many questions for you.

Not that he really cared that much for answers — just that the kid be well enough to tell them.