Needless to say, Maes and Roy were sort of beyond freaked out after what Ichigo had just done. So much so, that Gracia had to be the one to 'man up' and get the girl off of the floor because they were too damn freaked out to even try touching her to pick her up and do it themselves.

Well...Roy tried to nudge her towards the couch with his foot.

But his actions had obviously pissed Gracia off because she wound up slapping him upside the head hard and glaring at him in such a frightening way that the man had nearly bowled Maes over simply trying to scamper to safety on the other side of the room.

Joke was on him though.

Gracia had a very long reach, and he was more than a willing minion. Most of the time anyways.

As it was, once Gracia had managed to get Ichigo laid out on the couch, she'd turned on the two men so quickly that they had grabbed each other and cowered in fear. She'd tore into them both. And quite colorfully too. Her annoyance with the two of them having finally hit it's limit.

And then once she finished giving them the tongue lashing that neither man would soon be forgetting- she had stomped off to collect Alicia and then left the apartment after growling at the two to fix this. Whatever this was.

After the two men were sufficiently cowed by her display of temper towards them, they both sat themselves down to figure out what they were going to do now.

Roy outright told Maes that he wasn't sure if letting Ichigo continue to stay with him was the best idea. Mostly because now he was afraid to have her close to him.

Maes...while still freaked out somewhat, didn't think that the kid was something to be terribly worried about. Despite their lack of knowledge or understanding as to what she really was, Ichigo had already more than proven herself to be a kind, compassionate and fairly honest person.

This was of course excluding the badass way that she had handled the homunculi earlier.

So she had maybe (if she even remembered everything in the first damned place) omitted a few...select truths about herself. And after seeing what she had done to the philosopher's stone- he couldn't exactly say that he totally blamed her for it. She obviously had a lot to hide.

Especially since she was probably trying to make as little trouble for herself and others as possible by pretending to be as human as they were.

Roy seemed to understand this fact as well, but was still wary of her and was firmly against her staying with him any longer. So after some deliberation, Maes had been about to offer to let her stay with him and his family.

It wasn't like it would be a terrible ordeal for them. He made more than enough money from his job to support another kid. And it wasn't as if Gracia would mind much, all things considered.

And she...well...his daughter was already attached to her.

In fact Alicia had been talking none stop about her ever since his second day in the hospital. She'd sat in his lap and talked endlessly for nearly three hours about the nice lady that had saved him.

She had told him that when she and Gracia had fist gotten to the hospital that she'd been really upset and the nice girl had taken her from her mom and sat down and put her in her lap and told her stories, and even sang to her.

She'd bought Alicia and Gracia both food. And given her a juice and her momma a coffee and had told them repeatedly that he would be just fine. But what had really got him to thinking was the fact that Alicia let it slip that Ichigo had remained in his hospital room just in case someone came after him again.

She had been guarding him.

He'd been so curious that he'd asked Gracia about what Alicia had said once his daughter had finally tuckered herself out and curled up on his hospital bed to nap for a bit and had been shocked and maybe even a little bit surprised to hear Gracia admit that Ichigo had asked her if it was okay if she hung out in the room or at the very least outside of it.

She'd thought that the girl had been playing at first. Especially when Alicia had cried that she wanted to protect her daddy.

She'd then confessed that Ichigo had quieted her by telling her that that was what she was there for. And then told the little girl that she could be her second in command and help watch the door. Gracia had admitted that she had thought it cute at first, how she had made a game to help sooth Alicia's anxiousness.

However after a little while of watching the girl, she had noticed something peculiar.

Despite the fact that she was 'playing' a game to make it seem as if she were 'protecting' him for the benefit of their daughter- she had kept herself between him and the door at all times.

He'd forgotten about this particular conversation until now. But he supposed that between the attempt on his life, and everything else that he'd recently learned about the girl- that it made a great deal of sense.

Now that he recalled the conversation and managed to add one and one together, he felt somewhat foolish for not giving the kid the benefit of the doubt before now.

He opened his mouth to offer to let her stay with him and his family when Roy suddenly blurted out, "I'm going to have her stay with the Elrics." Causing Maes to visibly bristle at the mere suggestion.

The Elrics were a couple of kids no older than Ichigo herself was. And while Ed and Alphonse were both very accomplished alchemists- they traveled constantly. And had very little time to devote to another person's health and well being.

They also tended to get themselves into more trouble than absolutely necessary for kids. Especially since Ed was a little savage. In all honesty between the two boys- Alphonse was the one who was not only the brains and beauty, but he was also the only one in that duo that had any damned common sense.

Don't get Maes wrong, he liked the boys. They were fun to tease and talk too. And they were polite enough, when Alphonse hit Ed hard enough for him to recall his manners in the first place. But they didn't exactly have the most safe or stable lifestyles.

Ichigo would either suffer a mental breakdown, or up and murder Ed within a week's time. And then what would poor Alphonse do with himself? Ed was not only his brother and best friend, but his only real means of entertainment nowadays.

And turning his weird attentions to Ichigo could get the poor kid turned into scrap metal. Of course, he'd laugh the whole time she was shredding his armor, but that wasn't really the point.

The point was that foisting her off on those two was a disaster in the making.

"Alright! I have a plan. Ed and Alphonse will be here in another day or so- they mentioned coming here to visit for a few days- in the meantime, I'll get the legal documents and such out of the way that way Ed can be the adopted father of a bouncing baby...er, whatever the hell she is..."

Maes didn't know what happened after that, he was so pissed off that Roy was going to foist the girl on two semi irresponsible teenage boys that one moment he was sitting and then next- he heard a sickening crack and his knuckles hurt terribly.

Probably not as much as Roy's jaw though.