It was supposed to have been simple.

Complaints of ruined barns and missing livestock had come in from the rural villages northwest of East City. Pillagers, though Colonel Roy Mustang, stealing the produce of their hardworking neighbors and reaping the benefits for themselves. A juvenile case, compared to the other missions on Edward's file, an easy pass, or whatever kids these days were saying. Mustang could not understand the boy's irate reaction to the briefing.

"This is not what I agreed to!" The Fullmetal Alchemist made to jab the index finger of his right hand into the manila folder lying open upon the colonel's desk, caught himself just in time, resigning the action to hovering the tip of his finger over the white papers poxed with minute letters of black ink. The colonel was slightly disappointed. He would have loved an excuse to subtract another ninety-three hundred cenz from Fullmetal's research funds, but he supposed the kid's last incident with the colonel's furniture still lay fresh in his mind. "This has nothing to do with the Philosopher's Stone. It doesn't even involve alchemy! Make one of your university-dropouts do it, it's all they're good for.

"You agreed to become a certified alchemist of the state, with access to the collections of data from advanced experiments unattainable by the general public, and the impunity to perform such advanced experiments to culminate such data. In return, you must act as an officer of my regiment, and my subordinate, until such a time when you no longer desire the knowledge only the military can provide."

His speech was met with a silent glare.

"Oh, I'm sorry, Fullmetal. The abnormal lack of capacity in that undersized brain of yours escaped me. You probably can't understand any of the big, grown-up words I'm using. Here, let me break it down for you."

The colonel leaned across his desk towards Ed, adopting an expression of mock sympathy.

"You will accept this assignment because I told you to, and I, in fact, can tell you what to do, Fullmetal. So I suggest you read the transcripts in that file," he nodded towards the open folder, "or get used to getting rejected from a lot of libraries and laboratories."

Edward didn't move for a good five seconds, but Roy saw the desperately suppressed panic flash in those yellow eyes, and knew he'd won. Finally, after he couldn't keep his eyes fixed with that rebellious light any longer because they were tearing up from their owner's refusal to blink, he snatched the folder with his left hand, purposefully slamming his palm down and whipping the staunch material in Mustang's face, and hid his own countenance behind it. Ed then took the opportunity to blink rapidly and scrub the wetness from his vision.

"Oh, come on, Fullmetal," the colonel said, this time sincerely, as he sat back in his soft military-issued chair. "It won't take long. A week at most. And I'll give you three to finish it. Take the chance to visit that girlfriend of yours down in Resembool. You'll have plenty of time to fight, break up, kiss, and make up with her again, and whatever else your generation considers 'romance'."

The bait fell short. He tried again.

"Besides, won't it be nice to be back in your element? You grew up a country bumpkin, didn't you? You'll know how these guys think. Especially since there's practically no difference between the two of you."

There was a terrible crunching sound.

"I'll go get Al. We'll catch the next train to Isfara and head east from there." Edward placed the now demolished folder, which he had crumpled and rolled in his automail fist, on the oak desk, turned around, and walked out of the colonel's office without waiting to be dismissed. Only when he was gone did he allow himself to wipe the cold sweat from his forehead and gingerly deliver the mashed case file to the waste basket.

It was supposed to be a lull in the roaring current of their recent missions.

Ed would admit it to nobody, but he enjoyed the clearness of the air and the openness of the fields, not to mention the home-cooked meals they received from the families whose farms had been struck by the animal thieves. And the colonel had been right, it didn't take them more than four days to find the pillagers' hideout, and with minimal effort. The farm robbers turned out to be impressively stupid men, what with their holding pen for the animals a mere cave by the river, which was not at all big enough to accommodate the number and size of the creatures being kept there, and the distraught brays of the cows and sheep echoing from the tiny tunnel, and the stench of manure permeating the air.

It was supposed to be an invitation to a pleasant reprisal.

The men ran, of course. As soon as Al's steel suit of a body reached the threshold of the cavern, the two scraggly men in stained overalls posted there as guards started howling to their cohorts about a giant gray bear eating the livestock. It was hilarious how the other pillagers had arrived with pitchforks and cheap handguns, only to break tongs and waste bullets on this apparently invincible bear that walked on its hind legs and tried to convince the gunmen not to shoot for their own sake ("It'll ricochet, you see, they can't go through, so they'll just bounce off," Al sais as the men shot upon seeing him, and then almost immediately began rolling on the ground, cursing in pain caused by their own ammunition).

Needless to say, the brother subdued them quickly. Within the hour, the thieves were bound in rope meant to tether cows and horses. Their own rope, Edward thought satisfactorily. Ed demanded to know the pillagers' number. He received the answer of six. Ed counted five men tied down.

"Where's the other one, ass face?" he growled, grabbing a random captive by the collar of his shirt and tugging forward. The man spluttered out some words in a thick rural accent, and it took Ed a few seconds to translate the garbled recording into understandable speech.

"Lil' Jon's on feed duty. He's getting' the hay from t'other cave upriver."

Edward cursed and threw the man onto the clay floor of the cave, making sure he landed face-first for good measure.

"Keep an eye on these ones," he said to Alphonse, jerking his thumb at the five apprehended thieves. "I'll go after Little Jonny, or whatever the hell his name is."

They met each other halfway. Jon was stumbling his way along the riverbank, a square bale of hay resting between upon his back, held in place by straining arms stretched over his shoulders. The man, or boy, he was significantly younger than his fellows, looked up as he sensed Ed's presence. He stared ahead dumbly, as if Edward was a particularly odd-shaped tree, then his eyes widened at the realization of his discovery, which inspired him to promptly throw the hay over his head, turn on his heel, and run in the direction he then found himself in. Edward guessed the hay was meant to deter him. If so, Jon was a terrible throw. The bale landed three feet from where it was set free into the air and rolled pitifully onto its long side with a puffy hiss of dead grass. Ed left it there and went after Jon, who was running northeast, across a shallow part of the river. The cow stealer led the alchemist on a chase that brought them to the very edge of the woods the river fed and the pillagers' cave was nestled within. Edward thought that maybe Jon was hoping to lose him in a sprint across the flat, unobstructed fields that lay beyond. Neither of them made it that far.

As he was about to make the leap that was the transition from forest to meadow, Jon's knees suddenly buckled in mid-jump, sending him sprawling into the ivy that grew along the edge of the tree line. Ed snorted in amusement at the boy's clumsiness and was trying to think of a nice, stinging remark to throw at him once he'd reached the fallen pillager, when Edward's own feet ceased to exist beneath him. Izumi Curtis's training immediately took hold and Ed's hands shot in front of him. The maneuver was meant to have the alchemist's palms meet the ground, then have the muscles of his arms redirect the momentum from his fall into a propulsion that would bring his body upright once more. Instead Edward's left arm burst into fiery pain that stole his guard completely, and Ed found himself collapsing into the loam head-first. In a last desperate attempt to save his dignity, Ed threw out his right hand instinctively for some form of purchase. He was rewarded with a face full of mud, a bleeding left arm, and a fresh new pain from his right shoulder. He rolled in the mulch of soil, plants, and dead leaves until he could see Jon. The boy lay staring at him, face devoid of expression. Jon blinked, and Edward glared.

"Don't you dare say a word."

Jon shook his head (a police interrogation would later reveal the boy's sprained ankle, even if he had tried to resume his escape, little would have come of it) and dropped his head to the ground, pointing his gaze towards the sky. This was how Al found them twenty minutes later.

It was supposed to end there. An insignificant come, catch, and go operation, leading to nowhere and leaving nothing memorable.

It didn't.

XXX

"It was not funny, Al."

"I'm not laughing, Brother."

"It was not funny."

"You're right, it wasn't."

And yet the entire staff of the East City Command Center wouldn't stop laughing. Ed had quarantine himself for the next week after the assignment, resigning himself to the military apartment he and his brother shared until the itchy pink patches on his face had healed. He hoped that wherever that punk Jon was, he had a good blistery rash buried beneath his ankle cast where he couldn't scratch it.

The colonel had nearly fallen out of his chair when Edward had entered his office for his follow-up report. It had taken every ounce of self-control (and Alphonse's steel grip) to keep him from tearing the amused smirk from Mustang's face. Al ended up being the one describing the outcome of the assignment, though it may not have been necessary, only Truth knew whether the colonel actually heard him over his own laughter and Edward's eccentric threats. Upon their departure, Roy had offered a piece of advice: "Next time, Fullmetal, remember that the diaper goes on the opposite end of your body." Al had grabbed his brother and yanked him out of the office and down the hall before he could retaliate.

It was a common practice for farmers to border their property with coils of barbed wire wrapped around the trunks of the trees or nailed to wooden posts placed intermittently along the path of the desired barrier, forming a wiry fence of sorts. It was a very good way of keeping wolves, foxes, and feral dogs from helping themselves to the livestock while they were grazing. It was also a good way of inflicting pain upon one's fellow man. In the event of Ed's and Jon's encounter with the invention, a portion of the iron string had rusted from years of exposure to the elements, and a good tug had broken the weakened bond holding the wire to its restraints around a nearby tree. Consequently, Ed's skin caught on the tiny thorns tied into the line, and his subsequent rolling to right himself brought the loose wire around his arms and chest, leaving him hopelessly entangled and pierced in dozens of places, sore in pride and body. Al, worried by his brother's prolonged absence, had stepped outside of the cave to watch for Edward's return with Jon, heard the pained swears in his brother's voice, and had run, clanking, to where the alchemist and thief lay sprawled together. Al had wasted no time in freeing Ed from the prickled snare, and begged to let him carry his brother back to the cave. Edward refused, insisting that Jon was the one needing to be carried due to his swollen ankle, and Alphonse complied only because it was obvious that the boy couldn't walk on his own. Edward had planned on the fiasco vanishing into the realm of darkest secrets. Instead the entire military knew. Ed blamed Jon and his blabbering mouth.

Alphonse, however, won in a contest of talkativeness between the two.

"Brother, you're bleeding."

"You should really wash those scratches, they'll get infected if you're not careful."

"Ed, stop scratching, you'll only make it worse!"

Worn down by Al's motherly pestering, Edward finally allowed his brother to wash the rips in his skin and smear ointment on the rashes he had gotten from the poison ivy growing around the barbed wire fence. He nearly transmuted his brother into a giant trash bin when Al insisted on disinfecting his scratches with rubbing alcohol.

Alphonse's armor body made him very hard subdue, and so Ed spent the following days sulking, refusing to speak to his brother and keeping his ravished arms and stomach safely tucked away in a hunching slouch.

That morning, however, Edward was lying flat on his back in his bed.

Ed's throat was hurting. It had started hurting two days ago and had refused to let up despite his patient waiting. The other night he had woken in a cold sweat, his heart pounding wildly in his chest, and though he couldn't remember any, he had suspected bad dreams to be the cause. He began to question those suspicions throughout the day. He did not stray far from his curled pouting position on the bed, where he sat reading alchemy books and pointedly ignoring Al, but his pulse didn't lessen, and its aching pounding shook through his body as he turned page after page of arrays. And now, as he lay prone, he was aware of his muscles' constant twitching.

They had done so more often than was normal for the past few days, he admitted to himself, and he had simply let it pass without a thought. He couldn't do that now. The twitching had evolved and now, every few pulses, the muscle would stay that way, tightening into a cramp, and Edward would have to flex and stretch the muscles to get them to loosen. He contemplated telling Al. He also contemplated the stupidity of the idea. As if Al needed to know that he had a Charlie Horse. Besides, it was probably just the strain that the automail put on his body that made it act that way. He grimaced as the tiny bit of bicep he had left on his right side added to the bizarre minute contractions permeating beneath his skin. The trim of flesh that was glued to the metal of his automail port was hurting badly. It was a hot sort of pain, like that bit of his body had been exceptionally exposed to summer heat, and yet tingled as if he had slept on his port and the stump had been denied proper blood flow.

But his ports hurt often, and for various reasons, and he gave it little meaning. No, it was probably just dehydration or something dumb like that. It would fix itself in given time.

His brother's knock at the door made him jump. Ed's calf pulled tight in a vicious cramp and he swore.

"You okay, Brother?"

"Yeah, Al, I'm fine." Ed brought his knee up to his chest and his calf relented.

"The colonel called. He wants to talk to you tomorrow. He didn't sound happy. I think it might be because of the way you've been slacking this week."

"I have not been slacking! I've been…relaxing." He said this as he scratched the fading remnants of a rash below the collar of his shirt. "Besides, Colonel Bastard told me I had the next two weeks off."

"You'll have to take it up with him, Brother. I can't do anything about it."

"Okay, okay, I'll talk to him before lunch, all right?"

"Okay then, Brother. Are you hungry?"

"No."

"I'll go make you a sandwich."

"Thanks, Al."

Edward's fingers started twitching spasmodically as Alphonse clanked away from the bedroom door.

XXX

Edward kept his head down as he trudged his way to the Command Center. Whenever he saw the tips of shoes that weren't his own would appear in his view of the sidewalk, he would swerve out of the way to avoid a collision. The method seemed to work, he'd only bumped into two people so far. One of them hadn't particularly minded when Ed's downturned head buffeted them in the side. The other one… Edward may have knocked himself into their ribs a second time, possibly intentionally. But he did not show his face and kept his visage in the shadow of his hood, which, despite the warmth of the day, Ed had pulled up over his head. Or at least, it was supposed to be warm.

"It's going to be kind of hot today, Brother. You sure you want to wear your coat?"

"Have to. My trademark."

"And why are you mumbling? Mom always told us that it's polite to speak clearly when you're talking to someone. And to look them in the eyes!"

Edward's response had been a half-hearted shrug and a tug on the hood of his coat.

"Kind of hard to do that with you, Al."

"What?"

"Nothing. Be back tonight." And he'd sauntered out of the dorm and down the hall, leaving his younger brother in a state of confusion and annoyed worry. Al always worried about Ed.

He started up the steps to the doors of the Command Center. When he was halfway up, his right leg turned stiff and he fell with a slurred curse. He struggled back onto his feet and shook his leg viciously, as if something had crawled into his pants from the cuff and he was enthusiastically trying to expel it. His leg was hard and floppy, and if anything the cramp only worsened. Ed cursed again and dragged himself to the top of the stairs and through the doors.

When a passing sergeant met his gaze and adopted an expression of alarm, Edward realized that he had forgotten to replace his hood. He dropped his head and threw the scoop of fabric over his hair and quickened his pace. The perplexed sergeant watched him go, surprise still covering her face.

XXX

"Colonel, Alphonse Elric's on the line. He wants to speak with you. Something about his brother."

"Give me the phone, Lieutenant."

Hawkeye handed him the receiver and Mustang held it to his ear eagerly. Any reason to defect from his paperwork was a welcome one. His lieutenant colonel cast him a glance of disapproval as she returned to her desk. Roy destroyed any sign of thankfulness within his body language and replaced with blank indifference, then focused on the sound of Al's static, tinny voice rather than Riza's condescending glare.

"Yes, Alphonse. What is it?"

"I'm sorry to bother you at work, Colonel, I know you're busy."

"No trouble at all." Hawkeye grunted a warning and he quickly checked himself.

"What can I do for you, Alphonse?"

"Well, it's Brother. He's acting strange today. Well, stranger than usual."

"Your brother is incessantly 'stranger than usual', you'll have to give me more detail than that."

"Oh. Well, um… he spent a long time in the bathroom this morning-"

Mustang's ears turned pink.

"Alphonse, I really don't think-"

"No, not like that! He was muttering to himself about something and whenever I asked him if he was okay, he would just say, 'uh-huh', and then he would keep muttering. And then he wouldn't look at me-"

CATHUNK!

Roy nearly dropped the receiver. Fullmetal was swaying at the threshold to his office. He limped into the room, leaving the door wide open; where his face should have been was a balloon of red cloth with golden bangs of hair hanging from underneath.

The entire regiment had ceased all activity and stared as Edward hobbled towards the colonel's desk. The boy seemed able to sense the attention he was attracting and shrunk inward, hunching his shoulders and lowering his chin to his chest. Hawkeye was the first to collect her bearings.

"Edward-"

"M'fine."

"You sure, chief? You're not cold or nothing, are you?" Havoc said, eyeing the red hood covering Ed's face.

"No. Okay."

"Colonel? Colonel, are you there?"

Al's voice echoed throughout the room, the receiver hanging in Mustang's neglected grasp. He quickly snapped his hand back into position.

"Yes. Yes, I'm here. I'll keep my eyes open. If I find anything out, I'll let you know."

"But Colonel-"

Roy threw the receiver at Hawkeye. She caught it deftly and replaced it without taking her gaze away from Edward.

"Hello, Fullmetal."

"Colonel."

There was an awkward pause.

"You called me here?" Ed's words were soft and slurred, as if he was trying to speak without moving his lips.

"I did. You returned from your last assignment a little over a week ago, correct?"

"Yes. Reported in."

"You did. But you never came in for further orders."

"You said to take two weeks off."

"I suggested you take the opportunity to visit your hometown before returning to the Command Center. Instead you came straight back and reported in. As long as you're within city limits, I expect you to be on duty. Understand?"

Edward's shoulders arched slightly and his reply was spiced with the beginnings of a temper.

"Can't I take time off in the dorms?"

"No. The military apartments provide accommodation to those actively serving in the military. I'm not going to let you take up space meant for hardworking soldiers coloring pictures and listening to the radio explain the fundamentals of counting to the number four."

"What 'bout Al?"

Mustang had to consider the question before answering.

"In all technicality, Alphonse isn't even supposed to be on military grounds. The only reason why he's permitted anywhere on base is because he has you as a military escort. If you want to waste the precious resources of the state by sleeping in a bed that doesn't belong to you, your brother might as well head back to Resembool. I'm sure that mechanic of yours would be willing to put up with him."

"S' not fair." The words were barely discernible, if Roy hadn't been waiting for Ed to say something he would have mistaken the slithery spat for a sneeze.

"I don't care if it's fair or not, it's an order from me, and it will be followed."

"Bas'ard."

"Keep talking like that and we will have a problem, Fullmetal. Now, let's discuss your next assignment-"

"No."

Someone in the room stifled a gasp, but not before it reached the colonel's hearing. Mustang glanced briefly at Breda's reddening face, then brought his attention back to the subordinate before his desk.

"Excuse me?"

"You promised me two weeks off." The boy's hands were halfway curled into fists.

"And I said, not while you're on my base."

"T' hell with what you say."

Roy stood up so abruptly that his chair fell over backward behind him.

"Fullmetal, you-"

"Colonel!"

"What?!" Mustang snapped, swiveling to meet Hawkeye's terrified face.

And he heard Edward fall to the floor.