Hughes might be my best friend, but sometimes it's hard to avoid setting his photos on fire, I mused as yet another was shoved in my face. I'd long ago learned to tune out most of his babble, but if I didn't keep at least half an ear on it he tended to surprise me with questions about what I think of this or that titbit of Elysia's progress. When I was unable to answer he would subject me to the full set of pictures, again.

A familiar stomping tread reached my ears from the hall. Ah, Fullmetal's back. Back and angry, judging from the stomping. The door slammed into the wall, and the dulcet tones of my youngest subordinate reached my ears. "Hey! Bastard Colonel! Al and I just rescued a kid. You're helping us find a place to stay. And that lead was a total dead end. I am never going Outside again, everyone there is too stupid to live! And they've all bought into this cult thing where they do alchemy through twigs and call it magic!"

Someday I should make him fix the dents his method of announcing himself causes when the doorknob hits the wall, but I haven't done so yet. My first thought upon seeing him was definitely not rescue,* but I was glad to see him. So he didn't think much of the outsiders' wizards either. No one does, what with their ignorance of Equivalent Exchange.

"Well that's why we've left the Xerxesian barrier up; even Xing agrees that the Outsiders are stupid, and they have one of the anchoring arrays just offshore." I answered. Then the other half of what Fullmetal said sank in and I did my best to conceal my shock. What did he say about a kid?

I was so surprised that I barely registered his response. He should mutter more often, it makes a nice change from the usual yelling.

The giant suit of armor that was his younger brother entered at that moment.

I wonder if I should feel sorry for whatever fool encountered Fullmetal's particular brand of mayhem. I thought. Since Fullmetal's mayhem tended to include his ability to transmute with a simple clap of the hands, and rearranging the landscape/architecture/ whatever was in his way, and he had more than once been known to trap whoever incurred his ire in a giant fist made of stone, this was reasonable. Then I thought again. Nope. He usually has a good reason for mayhem, and I don't have to pay for it this time. Hmm… I wonder how long before he realizes that I only need the bills for his damage to track him, and I don't spy on him at all hours? Not that spying on him would be appealing anyway. I have better things to do with my time; such as think of new ways to rile him up, track leads to help those two, dream about Riza, and plot my ascension to Fuhrer…

"This is Harry. We rescued him." He was acting out again. Damn, it was going to be One of Those Days. Did he have a scorecard or something? That would be childish, and one would expect better of the youngest state alchemist in history, even if he is twelve. He goes out of his way to annoy me, which is just unreasonable. I never did anything to him.

By then I had conveniently forgotten the incident with the train hijackers, the general, and the Elrics.**

"You rescued a kid? I want details. Fullmetal, give me a short summary of your report," I said. Mount Edward blew. Even if it did make my Hughes induced headache worse, score one for me!

In the next moment I almost felt sorry for Fullmetal as Hughes shoved the photos of Elysia at him. There are only so many baby pictures one can stand, especially of the baby that's eating. It's just wrong to see Gracia like that! Riza is the only one for me. Or the baby in the bath. I hope the new camera cost him something, I thought vengefully.

"Al was cuter," Fullmetal said, and the room froze. Unable to resist I turned towards Al, as did everyone else. Fullmetal contradicted Hughes over the words Elysia and cute. It's an unwritten rule: don't contradict Hughes over the baby pictures! But Fullmetal just did. Is he insane?

The child, Harry? stirred at that point, and Al took him down to the cafeteria for some food, at which point we demanded an explanation. Fullmetal obliged, in his own inimitable fashion. "The people Outside are divided, alchemists hide from non-alchemists, they do alchemy through sticks and call it magic, and there was some terrorist who didn't like people who weren't born to alchemy learning it."

Well that was… strange.

"The kid's credited with stopping the terrorist when he was one, even though his parents probably did it, and the old bastard everyone looks up to so much that he might as well be officially in charge, decided the kid was an important weapon and dropped him with abusive relatives, planning to swoop in and rescue him in about six years. The old guy was the only one who might know where the stone was so I went to ask him politely,"

I suppressed a snort. Fullmetal was rarely polite. He was polite to Riza, but most of the time I wondered about his lack of manners. One would think he'd been raised by wolves! Just how polite had he been? Slightly less evil tempered than usual?

"But he decided he wanted a pet alchemist and tried to make me a slave so I stuck him to the wall, took the kid, and came back." The younger alchemist paused, looking dreamy. I hoped to never see that look on his face again unless the Philosophers Stone was inches from his face at the time. It was disturbing. "I wonder how long it'll take them to get him out of the wall…"

I squelched the impulsive rage that anyone would try to enslave one of my subordinates, much less the youngest one. Fullmetal could not only take care of himself, but was capable of causing trouble for me if he thought I was protecting him, and then he'd demand I take care of myself. I spoke up, covering my lapse, "Someone actually thought they could take you by force? You'd better not have given me more paperwork, Fullmetal."

"Edward, what are you going to do with a small child?" Riza broke in.

Fullmetal's answer was very unhelpful. "We're gonna take care of him," as if it were that simple. As I thought through the implications of him being responsible for a child, even with Al to help, I winced. I could see the kid, ten years on, bringing home twice as many strays as Al, backing Fullmetal up with the mayhem instead of trying reason first like Al, and throwing off sparkles. Wait, what? How did sparkles get there?

Shuddering, I resolved to never let the child meet Armstrong.

After a long silence Hughes, ever irrepressible, broke the silence with, "Well, you're staying with me and Gracia while you work things out. I'm sure she wouldn't mind taking care of him long term if you need somewhere for him to stay while you travel."

"Thank you Hughes," I said, reserving my doubts about the lovely Gracia's reaction to being informed that her husband volunteered them to adopt Fullmetal's newest stray.

"Oh it's no problem, besides, it'll be good practice for when Elysia grows up!" Damn! I thought I was safe, but nooo, he had to come back around to the topic of Elysia! I resigned myself to my sad and sorry fate.

Fullmetal vanished, the traitor, as Hughes produced more photos. And Riza, how could you abandon me! "And I need to show you the rest of the pictures!" my best friend squealed.

*Yes it was. He just won't admit it.

**Fullmetal Alchemist series one, episode five.