"ED!" Al moved toward Ed's limp form, but Havoc was already there. He scooped Ed up and slung him over one shoulder.

"I've got him," he said, breathing hard. "I'm out of ammo, and you've got alchemy."

As much as Al wanted to be the one holding Ed, he knew that they weren't out of danger yet. It wouldn't do Ed any good if they were all caught now. He gave Havoc a tight nod and strode across the room, away from the passageway where they'd entered.

"Exit's that way," Havoc said, already halfway toward the opening. Al looked back, saw Ed hanging limply over Havoc's shoulder, and almost left right there and then. But there were still five alchemists trapped in the next room, one of them a child. He couldn't leave them now.

"The alchemists," he explained, and Havoc nodded. Al hurried into the next room and scanned it quickly. No guards, just a large cell in the corner of the room. Five people huddled inside, and when they saw Al come in, they drew away. Al sighed, used to the reaction.

"It's okay," he said, raising his hands soothingly. "I'm a friend. You met my brother, Ed, earlier. I'm an alchemist too, and we're here to free you."

"F-free us?" said one of the prisoners, a young man with dirty blond hair and a skeptical look. "This isn't some kind of mind game?"

"No trick," said Al, stepping forward and drawing another circle on the lock. He pressed his hands against it, and it popped open and fell to the ground. The prisoners inside gasped with disbelief.

"Where...where do we go now?" one of them asked, still looking around fearfully.

"Get on a train. Just...get out of here. Go anywhere."

"We don't have any money."

Havoc frowned and reached into his pocket, but came up empty. "Um-" He then put his hand into Ed's pocket, and came up with a handful of cens. He eyed Ed carefully, clearly half-expecting him to wake up and protest being robbed, but he didn't even stir. He handed one of the alchemists the money.

"Thank...thank you sir."

"It's nothing," Havoc said. "Just find yourselves somewhere safe to go."

Havoc started to leave, Ed still slung limply over his back, but then suddenly paused and turned back around.

"Wait. I have a friend here, Meggy. She works at the inn, but she doesn't like what the town is doing. She helped us find you, and if they end up finding out that she helped me…. If you could go to the inn before leaving and contact her, it would mean a lot. She can get you food, and any more money that you'll need for train tickets. I'm sure she'll want to come with you, I just don't want her to get hurt…."

But the alchemists were already nodding. "We'll get her," one of them said. "Don't worry about that."

"Thank you," Havoc said, looking relieved. "We couldn't have done this without her."

Havoc left the room then, Al following close behind. The two of them started running up the tunnel that led back to the surface, Havoc still carrying Ed. Al kept his eyes out for any more of the villagers, but he seemed to have gotten them all when he first burst into the room.

"Ed…?" he finally asked, terrified to hear Havoc's response.

"He's alive," Havoc said.

Al looked over at his brother. He didn't look particularly alive. His eyes were closed, and he was so pale Al could see the veins on his neck. Blood from a small wound on his temple trickled down the side of his face. Al couldn't tell if he was breathing.

"Are you sure?" Al asked.

Havoc hesitated. "We...we just need to get him back to East City. As soon as we can."

They broke through to the surface, finally, and the festival was still in full swing. Throngs of people were everywhere. Al had no idea how they were going to get Ed through the crowds without someone noticing, but he supposed at this point that was the least of their concerns.

"Here," Havoc said. "I need to try to get us a car."

He lifted Ed off his shoulder and unceremoniously dumped him into Al's arms. Ed's eyelids flickered faintly, as if he were struggling to wake up, and he coughed a few times like he couldn't catch his breath anymore. Al cradled his brother against his chest.

A few paces away, Havoc yanked one of his empty guns from its holster and waved it in the air. "Amestrian military, coming through!" he yelled. "I need a car!"

The townspeople scattered in alarm. Al didn't blame them. Havoc was dressed in civilian clothes, brandishing a firearm and yelling in a crowded square. The blood trickling gently down his face from a few cuts along his cheek and forehead added to the aura of insanity.

"It's state business," he shouted. "You will receive full compensation from the military but I need a car RIGHT NOW!" He glared menacingly at the startled citizens.

"Mine's parked by the curb," squeaked an older man, drawing away from Havoc's gun. "The keys are inside…"

"The Amestrian military appreciates your sacrifice," Havoc said, already running to the curb. Al followed him, a little shocked that the yelling had worked. As he ran, he cradled Ed a little tighter, wanting to avoid jostling his brother. But Ed didn't even stir through the bumping and shaking. All the color had leached from his face, and his breathing was coming in shallow, uneven gasps. Al clutched him tighter, hoping that Ed knew that he was there.

The car that Havoc had commandeered was pretty standard, meaning there was almost no room in the back seat. Al wedged himself into the car, still holding Ed. Unsure how to arrange himself to offer Ed the most comfortable position, he ended up placing Ed curled in his lap.

Ed looked even smaller than usual, pale against Al's metal body. His hair fell over his face, and Al reached out and brushed it away as Havoc turned the car on and sped off. Ed's eyelids fluttered, and he mumbled something unintelligible.

"Brother?" Al asked softly, but Ed's eyes drifted closed again and he didn't respond. Al placed his hand on Ed's forehead, but he couldn't feel whether or not Ed was feverish. He thought he was, his skin looked clammy and his hair was limp with sweat, but he just wished he could feel...anything.

Havoc swerved around a tight corner, blasting his horn, and Al wrapped his arm around Ed to prevent him from spilling to the floor. He winced as his brother's head flopped limply back and forth. If he hadn't been watching for the shallow rise and fall of Ed's chest, he never would have known that his brother was still alive. As gently as he could, he wiped away the blood on the side of Ed's face. But his glove didn't do what he wanted, and he just ended up smearing Ed's cheek with blood.

Beneath Al's hand, Ed twitched weakly and coughed a little. When he breathed in again, Al heard his breath catch, and he coughed more violently.

"Brother!" Al held Ed's shoulders, watching helplessly as he convulsed with the effort of coughing. His lips parted, and red spittle flecked his cheeks. Al froze, and Ed coughed again. More blood bubbled from his lips, and Al gripped his shoulder desperately.

"Ed! Can you hear me?" He didn't answer, and Havoc craned his neck to look into the backseat.

"What's happening? Is he okay?"

"He's...he's coughing blood," Al said, unable to keep the panic out of his voice.

The car lurched slightly as Havoc accidentally jerked the wheel. "A lot of blood?"

Al didn't know exactly what counted as a lot in a circumstance like this. But blood was currently staining the whole side of Ed's face from whatever internal damage he was sustaining, and more trickled out of his mouth every time he coughed. It certainly didn't seem like a good sign to Al.

"I…I think so," Al said, rubbing his brother's back in a way that he hoped was comforting.

"He just needs to hold on for another hour or two," Havoc muttered, Al thought more to himself than anything. He pushed the car a little faster.

Al continued to cradle his brother, trying to protect him from any bumps in the road. He brushed Ed's sweaty hair off his face, and tried to situate him in a more upright position so his breathing would be easier. Aside from that, all he could do was wait.

Ed wasn't entirely sure what was going on anymore. He remembered fighting, he'd been trying to save some people, he thought. He remembered being on the ground, and he thought he remembered seeing his brother. Then, nothing.

Now, Ed thought he was in a car. He could feel the faint thrum of it underneath him. His body jostled a little every time it went around a curve. He didn't know whose car it might be. He wasn't sure where it might be going.

He thought Al was with him. Every so often, he would hear his brother's voice, and it would be slightly comforting to him even if he couldn't make out the words. Sometimes, he would feel Al's hand touch his cheek or his shoulder. The metal was cool, which was nice. Ed figured he must have a fever, although he wasn't entirely sure how to tell.

Mostly, what Ed was aware of was the pain. The pain in his head was still there, intense enough that he wasn't sure he would be able to see, even if his eyes were open. But that was accompanied by another kind of pain, a new kind. Now, it felt like his insides were being ripped apart, like some animal had its claws in his organs and was tearing them up. This pain was intense enough that he could scarcely breathe around it.

He coughed again, and he felt more blood bubble up from his shredded insides and trickle down his chin. He wanted to wipe it away, but he couldn't. He was too weak. There was no way he would be able to move his arms that much. Maybe if everything just hurt a little less….

He felt Al's hand brush his bangs out of his face. He opened his eyes a little bit, but all he could make out were a few blurry shapes before the pain forced them closed again.

"Hey, brother, can you hear me?" Al asked, voice tight and anxious. Ed wanted to respond, but he couldn't bring himself to.

"He's awake?" Ed heard Havoc say from somewhere to the left.

"No," Al said sadly. "He's already gone again…."

Ed wanted to tell Al that he could hear him, that he wasn't gone, but all he could do was cough. He groaned as the movement wracked his aching body, tearing up his organs even more. He felt the blood on his lips, and part of him knew that this had to be a bad sign, but he couldn't really focus on why.

Above him, Al said something else, but he couldn't catch the meaning. He heard each sound, but he couldn't make it add up in his mind. It was just white noise in his brain.

He coughed again, and the searing pain in his lungs made him forget everything else. He was slowly being ripped apart from the inside out, and he couldn't even bring himself to panic. The pain was all he could think about, and he couldn't really think much at all anymore.

Ed curled in on himself as he continued coughing, unable to catch his breath, blood flying from his mouth and pain racking his body. He felt Al's hands circle him protectively, and he shook against his brother's armor as blood spattered onto the cold metal. Finally, mercifully, the coughing subsided, and he was drawing ragged gulps of air, ignoring the pain in his lungs.

"Is he okay?"

"I don't know...he's still coughing blood…"

That was Al's voice, Ed thought, but he still couldn't find the meaning. Breathing was enough of a challenge right now, and he wasn't sure he was even up to that.

"We're almost there. Just...keep him alive."

Ed felt Al smooth his hair again. "Hurry," his brother whispered.

Ed stared at the blackness behind his eyes and struggled to force his lungs to inflate. But the influx of air set off another cough, and he felt more of his insides fight their way up his throat. He choked, and he was dimly aware of Al yelling, but he was more focused on the coughing that he couldn't stop.

Ed felt his body shake and blood escaped in a gush from the sides of his mouth, and then he was in the air with Al's arms around him. He bounced up and down as Al ran, and he coughed with each step his brother took.

There was a part of Ed that realized that if he passed out now, he might never wake up again. He took in another shuddering breath and tried to wrench his eyes open. He wasn't ready to die right now. He just needed to...to stay awake a little longer….

"Bring him in here!" he heard Havoc yell, and then he felt his body jostle as if Al were climbing stairs. The air changed, Ed thought he might be inside now. He opened his eyes for a split second, but all he saw was bright light. Even keeping his eyes open for that fraction of a heartbeat caused the pain in his head to mount to a breaking point, and he cried out.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," he heard Al murmur above him. Ed tried to focus on his words instead of the pain mounting in his chest and head. But it was impossible. He writhed in Al's arms, wishing there was something, anything, he could do to get it to stop.

"Brother, please stay still," he heard Al say, sounding a little alarmed. But Ed couldn't even really figure out what he was talking about.

"Hurts," he mumbled, using his hands to pull at his clothes as if he could somehow simply yank the painful parts out.

"I know it does, just hold on a little longer…."

Somewhere in the distance, he thought he heard Havoc's voice. It sounded like he was yelling. Was he angry? Ed wasn't sure. Maybe he was scared.

Some time went by, and Ed focused on breathing and nothing else. At one point he started coughing again. His mouth tasted like salt, and some part of him knew that was a problem although now he couldn't remember why.

He felt Al laying him down on something. He didn't remember what was going on exactly, but he did know that he didn't want to be split up from Al. He reached one weak arm out in the vague direction of his brother.

"I'm right here," he heard Al say.

Ed started coughing again, and the movement made the pain in his head rise to unbearable levels. He couldn't even tell if his eyes were opened or closed anymore. He couldn't remember what he was trying to do. He couldn't remember his name. He couldn't even remember how to breathe.

He groaned slightly. He didn't care about anything anymore except ending the pain. The one thing he wanted in the entire world was for it to stop. He knew he had been trying to stay awake before, but now, he couldn't remember why.

He let himself slip into darkness.

"ED!" Al screamed his brother's name again, but he still didn't answer. As the doctors took Ed away from him, his brother's body shook violently. His eyes were sunken into his face, and Al could see them twitching behind Ed's closed lids. He'd stopped responding on the way into the hospital, and all Al could do now was trust the doctors to do their job.

They laid him on a gurney and Al watched painfully as Ed's convulsions became more and more violent. Unable to stop himself, he reached for his brother again. But a doctor motioned him back.
"Ed," Al whispered. "Please…"

On the gurney, Ed's back arched and Al saw his hands clench on the blankets. Al thought he could see veins pop in Ed's forehead, blood rushing through them far too quickly. Suddenly, Ed's muscles seemed to loosen. He collapsed back onto the gurney, where he lay still.

Too still. Ed...wasn't breathing. Al could see from where he was standing, Ed's chest was completely still. He started forward as a doctor began pressing rhythmically on his brother's chest, trying to restart his heart.

"Ed! Edward!" Al struggled to reach his brother, certain that if he could just touch Ed, let his brother know that he was here for him, that he was right beside him, then Ed would wake up and everything would be okay. Everything had to be okay. He and Ed had been through hell together, and Ed was the only reason that Al was standing here right now. He couldn't lose Ed, too. Not after everything else.

And then a doctor was in front of him as the others tried to get Ed to breathe and he was pressing on Al's chest, trying to force him back. "Please, wait outside, we're doing all we can."

"NO! I have to be with my brother! I need to be with my brother!" Al yelled. He resisted the urge to simply knock the doctor into the wall and run to Ed's side.

"You can't be in the room if you're going to make a scene," the doctor said firmly. "Anything that can be done for your brother, we will do. Please stay quiet."

Behind him, the doctor doing chest compressions on Ed raised her head and called for adrenaline. There was a flurry of movement, and Al wavered. He still wanted to be next to Ed, but he knew that he'd just get in the way. And being in the room was better than pacing outside, waiting for the worst.

But then the doctor working over Ed heaved a sigh of relief, and everyone in the room seemed to relax, just a fraction.

"Is he-"

"He's breathing," said the man in front of Al. "We'll take care of him. Now, you really have to go."

Reluctantly, Al left the room, looking back for one last sight of his brother, surrounded by doctors and nurses, machinery and tubing, and looking very small indeed.

"I sent you to watch over Fullmetal, not to help him hide his illness and nearly get him killed! If I send you out on a mission like this, I expect you to report everything to me, not just what's convenient to you. I'm very disappointed in you, Fullmetal could have died!"

"At least save the yelling for outside the hospital room, Colonel," Ed heard a familiar female voice say. "He's still sleeping. He doesn't need to wake up to this."

"I will not stop yelling when my subordinate is being an irresponsible child who thinks that he can risk the life of-"

Ed's eyes flickered, and somewhere off to his left he heard Al gasp. "Colonel, quiet! I think he's waking up!"

Ed groaned slightly. Every part of his body hurt. He felt like he had been hit by a train. And almost worse, he wasn't entirely sure what was going on. He remembered getting in a car with Al and Havoc, he remembered them stopping...somewhere…..

He opened his eyes for a few seconds and winced at the light. He no longer felt like his brain was seconds away from splitting open, but his head was still pounding thickly and it was hard to focus. Even just opening his eyes for a couple of heartbeats sent spikes of pain radiating through his skull. The light felt too intense just now. He groaned again.

"Brother?" he heard Al say. "Brother, can you hear me?"

"He doesn't look very awake to me," the Colonel said from his other side, sounding somewhat disdainful.

"I'm up," Ed managed, a little shocked at how weak his voice sounded. He opened his eyes again.

Four faces were hovering worriedly above him. Al was the first one he saw, leaning over him and looking at him as intensely as if he thought he could lend Ed strength through only his gaze. The Colonel and the Lieutenant were at his other side, Riza looking worried and Mustang looking rather angry. Havoc was in the corner, hair drooping over a white bandage wound around his head. He was pressed against Al, looking worried, but also like he was trying to stand as far as physically possible from Mustang.

"How do you feel?" Al asked.

"I'm...I'm alright," he said. He tried to brush his bangs away from his face, but when he lifted his arm he realized that it was connected to an IV. So he was in the hospital. "What...happened, exactly?"

"Do you remember getting the alchemists out?"

"We...we freed them?" Ed certainly remembered that they had been going to free them. But he thought that he had blacked out before that final step had actually happened. He was desperately glad that they had actually succeeded in the mission, that their entire stay in the unsettling town hadn't been in vain.

Havoc nodded. "I heard from them this morning. They made it to Central, and they've already found a place they can stay for a little while while they get back on their feet. Meggy was with them, did I tell you that? She's so selfless to want to help them, and so brave…."

"How long have I been here?" Ed asked, cutting Havoc off.

"Around two days," Al said.

Ed shifted his head slightly so he was looking at the Colonel, trying his best to ignore the wave of pain that rolled over him at even the smallest movement. "And has he been here the whole time?"
"I was only informed of your condition this morning," Mustang said stiffly. "Because someone failed to report properly."

He looked pointedly at Havoc.

"I'm sorry, sir," Havoc said a little snappishly. "When would you have liked me to check in? After the gunfight? Or maybe I should have stopped on the way here to make a phone call?" He slumped down into a chair out of Ed's field of vision, and Ed heard him mutter "I tried to call you, it's Ed that cut the phone line…"

Mustang's head swiveled back to Ed, and Ed thought he saw the Colonel's eyes light up a little.

"What is this about...cutting the phone line?"

Ed coughed pathetically, hoping that he could distract the Colonel. No such luck.

"Fullmetal…did you disconnect Havoc's call? Well?" Mustang's eyes shone with the unexpected gift of another lecture. He tapped his foot against the tiles of the hospital floor and looked expectantly at Ed.

Ed closed his eyes, the pain in his body seeming to multiply. Above him, the Colonel cleared his throat.

"Aww, man," Ed muttered, wishing that he hadn't woken up quite yet.