I can safely say, this is the darkest fic I've ever written.

I have re-written the first few chapters and will make revisions as best I can.

This story is turning out better than I imagined! I hope you will give it a chance and if you do, I know you'll enjoy it.

Summary : After sleeping with a German girl he thought was his Winry, he is thrown into many twisted events. Can Ed cope with working as a bodyguard? Can he really trust the people working at the brothel?

Ed must see through the lies and cover ups to find out what's really going on in the life of 'Winry'. But does he really want to? There's murder on the prowl.

Chapter 1

With a stretch and a sigh Alphonse looked at the clock and groaned. "Two more hours."

Ed came up behind him carrying a large wooden box, he laid it next to his co-worker. "You know, if you say that every hour, it going to seem longer till clock out time." He grabbed a piece of thin metal out of the box and held it close to Al. "Is this good?"

Taking the scrap from Edward he held it up to the hole he was patching. "Perfect." Visor back down he proceeded to weld. "Are you drinking with us tonight?" He asked through the sparks spilling on the table he was working on.

"A little." He wasn't fond of drinking too much, falling in automail was painful.

"It's my eighteenth birthday, you should let loose a little. You can be so uptight." Al snickered as he finished one side. "...other side." He flipped his faceless piece of metal around to complete the job.

"I am not uptight." Ed said frustrated. As he said so, a female co-worker passed by, smiling as she did so, smiling at him. Ed paid her no mind.

Al held out a hand. "See! She showed interest and you didn't even take a second to talk to her." He said quitly as she walked away.

Ed huffed. "I'm not interested. I have other things I want to do."

"And what might that be?" Al said, turning his full attention to his roommate. "Getting out of this world and back to your own?" His voice sporting a little frustration.

"Yeah. So, you believe me now or something?" He folded his arms and watched Al's expression change from frustration and back to work mode, mask down.

Al fired up the torch again and sparks spat out. He shrugged. "Regardless of what I think, you need to do something with the life you have now. What if you never find what you're looking for? You'll have spent all this time looking for nothing. At least if you never get old life back on track, you won't have wasted this one, get more involved with it."

Pretending he did hear anything Ed glanced off to the work floor, the other employees were talking and chatting. He thought that if he had more connections with people, maybe someday he'd come across someone who knew something of his old world. Maybe he could even locate his father who seemed to have fallen off the face of the planet. "You're right."

"I am?" He finished his piece. "I'm never right." He removed the barrier covering his face and smiled at Ed. "So you'll drink with us?" Since he was turning eighteen, he was allowed to drink the hard liquor and want to do shots.

Ed got a remorsful expression. "Fine. But not like last time."

"What's wrong Ed, didn't like the Napolean Rum? Or just some bad memories of a certain night?" Al grinned wide.

Edward shook his head. "No, just of the following morning." Ed's eighteenth birthday was celebrated with a bottle of the rum in question; he woke the following morning to discover that he had broken automail and a hangover that could end all hangovers.

"Yeah? Well, I'll remind you then, you have to help me up the stairs tonight." He said, taking his welded metal and dipping it in a near by water bucket.

"How so?" Ed raised an eyebrow.

"You're returning the favor." Alphonse shook the water from the patched metal and walked off.

He thought. "Oh." Ed tried hard to recall his birthday back in Febuary many times, but after one o'clock, it was vague.

The final hours came and went quickly and the whole team headed to their usual spot after a long work day, this time, it was rented out to the whole factory for the evening. Waitresses in busty outfits and carrying mug after mug of delicious beer buzzed buzily around the floor. "Come on Ed." Al said, slipping an arm around his shoulder. "Two beer? Not enough." He held a shot glass over Ed's other shoulder. "Have another." The shotglass slipped from his hand and landed in Ed's mug of frothy beer. They both looked in with a disapointed expression.

Ed sighed. "Get." Ed nudged him away and looked down into his beer, the rum had mixed with it. Tilting the half gone beer to his mouth he drank the concoution in a few big mouthfuls. "Not bad." That said, he watched Al dizzily drop a shot glass in his own and drank up. "I didn't mean to do it."

He took a swig. "I did anyway." He turned around and grabbed another beer from the waitress walking by and seemlessly complete the rotation then stuck the beer in front of Ed. "Again."

Through the violin, the rum and the laughter it was amazing either of them only forgot one thing. "The bloody stairs!" Al exclaimed.

"Damn." He had, on one hand, an arm that not only couldn't feel anything but was now being poorly coordinated, he had Alphonse on the other, with the promis of getting up the stairs in one piece. "Have another you said. It'll be great. Not doing this again." He was ready to complain about anything. The stairs were fuzzy, in memory, and even putting the key in the lock wasn't something he could recall, but there was one thing that stood out. It was those bold blue eyes. Those long lemon locks. Ed stood in awe for a few seconds.

"What?" She said, examining his face. "Can't figure it out geinus?" She said plucking the keys from Edward's clumsy grip. "I swear..." She snarked as she unlocked their apartment door for them; Al made a break for the coach.

Ed held his hand out, rather this girl picked it up, and placed his keys hard in his palm, fingers clutched shut for him. She held on for a little to long for him not to notice, also long enough for him to notice her eyes locked on his. "Did you want to come in?" He said, confused, obviously.

It was morning. Ed shifted in his bed, his head still swiming from the night before. What had happened? He tried to recall for a while but nothing came to mind. Deciding then was good a time as any to sit up he rose and his blankets slipped to the waist. Lifting his left hand to feel for his collar he found that his shirt was gone. A memory struck Edward, one that made his eyes shoot wide open despite the darkness, inviting the girl in, a couple of steamy moments and then nothing else. Had he slept with this girl, pants being nowhere to be found he assumed so. 'Was it...no...couldn't be.' The thought that for a second he had found Winry on this side of the gate, the probibility was far too slim. Whoever it was, it looked a lot like her; but then again the city had a lot of long blond haired beauties, it could be anyone. Whoever she was, she was gone. Swinging his legs to find the floor he blindly grabbed his bottom drawer and femoved cloths for the day, figuring all in all he should shower.

A hot shower at least got him awake, now making and consuming coffee to help with the hangover. Hot coffee in hand he sauntered into the living room to see Al on the coach, mouth wide, snoring loudly. "If I got to deal with it so do you. Get up." He smirked. "Just because someone buys them for you, doesn't make them any less painful the next day, does it?"

"Not as painful as buying a whore." He said casually.

Ed was taken back by the odd remark. "What?"

"Yeah, said you'd have to empty your account, but...ya got her." He rubbed the sleep from his eyes and sat upright.

Only taking a second to process. "She was..." It was a prostitute he got to come in, all that 'it was Winry' stuff drained effortlessly from his mind and reality gave him a swift kick in the boys. "I..."

"I was wondering about that, I mean, we don't get paid for another week." Alphonse stared at his older roomate who laid his coffee down on the end table and buried his face in his fists. Al pat him on the back. "Don't worry, Gracia won't mind helping out with food, she has before."

"Thank you, but damn, that was so stupid. Where did she go?" Ed didn't see anyone else in the house.

"She had to leave, but she told me she'd be back by noon. She was pretty mad, made a lot of noise too."

"Noise?" Ed went to his room to see what it could have been. He fliped the light switch to see books pulled off the shelf, drawers opened, papers were all over the floor and a couple boxes were flipped open. "What the hell...?"

"See, told you...mad."

"Apparently." He ran a hand through his hair and scratched his head. Whoever they were, they wanted their money.

All the same information just delivered in a different way.

Lets see what you think.