ALL REVIEWERS: Thank you for all of your contribution! All of those seconds or minutes you spent reviewing for me! Will you please remain faithful and check out my new and hopefully improved version of this story?

A/N: LAST UPDATE FOR THIS STORY. I will be re-writing this story after some consulting with a friend of mine who has nothing to do with . Thank you for all the lovely reviews and feedback for this story! I hope the new one I have just published will suffice! This chapter was already written and I liked it, so I'm going to share it with you before leaving it to collect dust forever.

I have just had an epiphany after reading some criticism, and I'm going to change this whole story completely. Will you please read and review as well as share your thoughts? I promise all of the same funny and touching stuff that was in this one! But this time, I hope to keep you all guessing!

Disclaimer:Nothing to disclaim. FMA is mine and mine alone. /sarcasm

DONT REPORT ME FOR SARCASM IT'S MY MIDDLE NAME. D:

Avaricious

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| Commendable… |

Chapter 9

Reaching Out

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There's a smooth and sticky feeling ushering itself in her lower body. Speaking of which, that body kept moving, swaying to and fro in a traipsing motion. Was she walking?

No, that can't be. Her waist should have been too weak to sustain her upper body weight. To sum it up, she was feeling pretty spineless as of the moment. So she was being carried. But by whom?

Lashes tickled the nape of the neck her face was slung over, and the owner of the neck adjusted itself for questioning.

Her gray irises fluttered open and close, rinse and repeat. Finally they stayed open, and she visually discerned broad shoulders that her bare arms were draped around.

Wait, let's recap for a second.

Broad shoulders? Bare arms? She was being carried?

Slowly her face drew away from the black hair of her rescuer, but when she tried to move her legs she realized they were straddled against this person in a piggyback fashion. "…What the hell…LING?" She instantly accused, recognizing the hairstyle and body form.

"Hey there~" It was exactly so. The young man smiled at her, retaining his signature squinty eyes.

As the blood rushed to her face, she was about to shout at him and demand he release her from the embarrassing predicament, however when she tried to force a stern voice, her gut began seething with pain again. "Urgh…" Catalena grit her teeth together, clawing at the front of Ling's bare chest with one hand and holding the dressed wound with the other.

"OW, OW, OW, THAT HURTS!" He cried as her nails struck his skin.

She ignored his plea of course. As her colorless eyes winced downward, she realized her sleeves were missing and her gloves were gone again. Apparently the Xingese prince tore off of her sleeves to stop the bleeding, but she had no idea where her alchemy gloves went. Well either way, did she ever give him permission to violate her clothes like that? Noooooo.

She would have to get them tailored.

Ling stopped in his tracks, his neck craning towards her writhing figure, "Are you okay? Does it hurt too much?"

Catalena bit down on her tongue, loathing that she was so useless. The last thing she remembered before passing out was Bradley stabbing her, and before that, Ling leaping out of a building with the injured Lan Fan. After all of that, she collapsed on the rooftop, awaiting her demise.

How pathetic she must appear in front of Ling. Usually she would stride so confidently, like she owned the whole damn world. But now she was being forced into a piggyback ride, bleeding her innards out on the person she had originally sought to protect.

Some friend she was.

"Hell-oooo. Catalena?" That particular being repeated; now becoming fully attentive to her condition.

She was shocked for a moment, but her only response was to wrap her now bloody hands around Ling. And bury her face into his neck—as if holding on as tightly as possible would fix everything. "I'm fine. Just keep moving. I'm possibly dying; but I really don't give a shit."

That was all Ling needed to hear before he began sprinting through the sewers; Catalena had figured the area to be. Well that explained the smell. Glancing through the curves of his neck with her one open eye, she began to ponder what the hell happened and why he had come back.

"Where's Lan Fan?"

"The blonde lieutenant has her. I did escape from that Führer guy with Lan Fan, but…I had to leave her behind for a moment to capture the homunculus."

"You actually got him? How the hell did you manage to do that?" Was she envious? Yes, one could say that.

Ling spoke humbly, but it still irked Catalena that she failed to capture him herself. Well, she SORT of did, but then she left him there. "I forced a bomb down his throat. And when it detonated and he imploded, I had Ed make me some cable to tie him down with once he started regenerating again. He, Lan Fan, and that woman are waiting up above for us in a car."

Catalena further buried her face into the surface of his skin, trying to hide the flush he obviously couldn't see, "If that's the case…why did you come back for me? What if Bradley finds you guys because you had to take a sudden detour?"

Her eyes widened in fury as she unraveled the possible outcomes.

Catalena forced her neck to stretch farther against him, so that she could scream into his ears, "What the hell is wrong with you? What if you got yourself killed, DUMBASS! You should have left me behind—you—!"

"I know, okay?"

With her mouth slightly agape, she stared blindly at the side of his face.

"You can call me an idiot as much as you like," Ling didn't turn to look at her, instead focusing straight ahead. However still his words touched her almost passionately, "But it doesn't change the fact that I wouldn't forgive myself if I left you behind. Not only did you come to help me in the first place, but you're my friend, Catalena, so I won't abandon you."

Her eyes seemed to pulse as they began switching between the point of astonishment and composure. Those annoying butterflies had also seemed to get lost and ram against the walls of her stomach again.

"Even if I tried." He sighed, out of breath.

She paused as he pushed himself forward again, this time walking leisurely. It was almost as if he were trying to savor those few tentative moments forever as the ladder leading to freedom appeared just a few yards away from them.

And throughout all those sensitive moments Catalena could only hang her mouth open in dismay. Complete and utter numbness inhabited her already injured body. Why was she freaking out from a simple reply? Catalena's inexperience with close relations between people she cared about was evident from the awesome look on her face.

Thus, the result from being subject to a sadistic and singularly realistic man does not help the cause. When people hear you were trained under that Mad Bomber guy from the Ishvalan war, they suddenly don't accept your cens. [1]

Of course after a little coerce she was capable of making them graciously accept her money.

Finally reaching the ladders to the open surface, Ling motioned at her, his neck straining again. As he spoke, it was obvious that he too, was out of breath. Her eyes widened again when she saw his face bleeding from a visibly recent cut, "Are you too wounded to climb up these steps or am I going to have to lift you up?" He seemed all too happy at the possibility.

She hadn't responded, instead being too entirely focused on the large incision upon his cheek.

"Hey? Are you still there? Did you pass out on me again?"

With cold, outstretched fingers, Catalena slowly reached her bare hand out towards Ling's face, her already bloodied fingertips wiping at his seeping cut. Of course, it was only a scratch, but it had somehow attracted her.

Ling's own figure completely froze at the sudden gesture, and his eyes peered out of the corners of his periodicals to stare absent-mindedly at the uncharacteristic action of his female friend. A few soft and gentle brushes with her chilly fingertips and she wiped away the blood clean.

As Ling looked towards her for questioning, he was further disturbed by the sudden act of her bringing the hand dirtied with his blood to her lips, eyeballing it with an indifferent look before actually lapping her tongue around it, licking it clean as well.

Sadistic much?

"Um…what was that for? It was just a scratch."

Like a magnet she was drawn back to earth. Glancing at the hand that was now clean with her saliva, she desperately tried to come up with an excuse, "I-It was…your face is just warm and the blood was bothering me." She mumbled, wrapping her arms around his neck and burying her face behind his nape again.

"Ah, really? I thought you were getting this weird, sadistic thrill off of tasting me." Ling joked, but she didn't really know if he meant it or not.

Such is the way with Ling.

"N-oh wa-hy." She mumbled, words colliding with each other at the surface of his warm skin.

Attempting to steal an insightful look at her as he tried to spot the girl creeping against his back, he ushered a cheerful grin.

"So how do I taste, Catalena?"

She was offended by his inquisition. She answered anyway, to prove that she wasn't that weird sort of sadist, "Disgusting."

"Whaaaat~?" Ling whined, propping one of his feet against the bars of the ladder. He was about to climb up with her clung onto his back? How moronic.

Catalena's head lifted, staring up at the entrance of the manhole. The rays of afternoon light blinded her, and immediately destroyed the guilt that wanted her to get out herself. "…I'm not a vampire or anything. It was just something Kimblee used to do, and I had taken a habit to it. However, this is the first time someone's actually questioned me on the subject."

Ling used one hand to grasp her legs, the other curled around the ladder's bars with a steel grip, "Oh, yeah? So you just did it because of this Kimblee person? Is he an Amestrian celebrity or someone I should know?" The young prince used both his feet and one hand to slowly ascend upwards, and Catalena could finally smell something other than stink.

"That's a story for another day. Considering we both don't collapse into a pile of limbs together on the sidewalk." And she would mind if they actually toppled on top of one another exactly so.

Ling chuckled, finally pulling the both of them up. As expected, once he managed to stand erect again, there was a car with a blonde woman driving and two other occupants waiting within the shadows of a nearby alleyway. Ling trotted over, helping Catalena into the front seat beside the blonde and placing a firm grip on one of her hands.

"You'll have to tell me that story once we get you patched up." Ling, still holding her hand that was dried with blood, began unwrapping a few of the bandages that he had wrapped around his wrists. He thrust the bundle into that hand, and then pressed it to her bleeding side. When she looked from his hand to his very serious face, he added, "I would dress it for you if we had time, but to be frank we're still on the run."

"The serious and worried personality doesn't suit you, "Catalena joked. All the while locking her gray eyes with his squinted ones. Now that she mentioned it, she wondered what color his irises were.

Giving her a smile, Ling closed the door and, after sending a gesture to the blonde driver, threw himself over the backseat. He sort of leaned over to look straight ahead since there was no roof to the car, between Lan Fan (Who was unconscious) and the bonded Gluttony.

"If you've taken care of your business, I'll be heading to our destination, now." The silent woman finally spoke, and when Catalena glanced over her shoulder she looked dumbfounded at Hawkeye's rather simple disguise.

"We're ready. Get moving." Ling requested with a sigh.

And so all that dirty business seemed to be taken care of from Catalena's point of view. Unfortunately for her, it led to even higher heights.

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.

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Lan Fan's smothered cries still reached them while Doctor Knox was operating on her injuries.

It didn't faze Catalena, who was sent off with just a dressing on her lower abdomen, but her friend was taking it rather harshly. It wasn't that he was clawing at his head, regretting every single decision he had done. Rather, he accepted it as his own responsibility, but Ling couldn't help but mutter that he wasn't ready for something like this.

She was feeling sympathetic, and the emotion was unfamiliar to her.

"…Ling, will you be alright?" Edward Elric, who had also retreated to the same safehouse after the recent events, stuck his head through the secluded doorway.

"I'll be fine. Don't worry about it." Ling remained mentally immobile. He wasn't open to sharing his feelings with anyone, much less Edward. The blonde had left without another word, taking in the unvoiced message clear as day.

Catalena and Ling were the only two in that tiny confined room. Ling had his head leaned over, elbows propped on his knees while he stared quietly downward. When Lan Fan's screams reached their ears, she noticed his brows quiver slightly.

She couldn't forget; he still was only a child, after all. And still he had already so much responsibility he carried with him, so much ambition that drove him forward.

Catalena admired him for that.

"Are you regretting your decisions?" She managed to slip into the silence, crossing her arms against her chest and sitting upright with her back pressed against the wall, merely observing him.

His squinted eyes seemed to squeeze even tighter shut, as if in contemplation, before they returned to the already disturbed state of mind, "It wasn't my decision. Lan Fan made the decision I was too weak to make."

"Do you regret agreeing to that task?" Catalena asked another question, displaying no emotion in that dim light.

There was an elongated moment of silence, before his fingers, dangling loosely, chose to intertwine to release tension, "No. Lan Fan and I accepted it fully—it was the very reason I even came into this country."

"If you don't regret either of those, then why are you acting so depressed? I don't understand it."

In the blink of an eye, his neck sprung upwards, facing Catalena with wide-open eyes. "It's true that I don't regret anything that's happened so far, but I wasn't prepared for it!" He suddenly fired at her, all that pent-up emotion being expressed, "I know I'm supposed to make sacrifices…for the greater good…" Ling hunched over again, this time setting on of his knees in front of him to lean his chin against.

"…"

"But this…I wasn't ready for this…"

Catalena straightened her arms out, watching him with apathetic eyes. He didn't bother saying anything more, so she stood up, seating herself beside her troubled friend. The brown coat he was wearing instead of the usual goldenrod was sliding off of him, so she thought it necessary to straighten it out. Catalena's fingers gripped the soft fabric of his jacket and adjusted it so that it covered his still shaking shoulders.

Ling slowly relaxed at the sudden gesture, heaving a great sigh.

Catalena smiled softly to herself, probably feeling more at ease to do so since he wasn't focused on her face, "You're still young, like me. You aren't supposed to be fully prepared for the things to come. That's why you have to keep evolving."

Her fingers still gripped the scruff of his jacket, pulling it more closely to his cold neck, "…So that next time, you won't feel as much remorse." Soft fingertips gently caressed his skin as they danced along by, "…Because no matter whatever shit you do…don't regret it."

Before she could pull her hand away, he covered it with his own, causing her to go into an alarmed state. Gray eyes traced to the periodicals, and she was surprised to see his slanted irises open to reveal black pupils. "…Hearing you say this makes me feel like you have experience in the matter."

Not mocking, more of a question. Ling was asking her what she regretted doing. And on regards of her somewhat two-sided personality, he just knew she was hiding something.

Catalena gulped, staring at Ling with neutral but awake eyes, "…Kimblee."

"Your weird, malicious teacher?" Ling chirped, releasing her hand that slid back to rest on her thighs.

Catalena pushed her back against the wall, the rear of her head knocked against it as she tried to stare overhead. "…The very same. You know, I was the one who suggested the apprenticeship. That crazy fuck Kimblee was reluctant at first, but…" She smirked, even chuckling a bit under her breath, "…I was stubborn, too."

"…Tell me about it."

Catalena's pupils lowered down to glance at him, and then her eyelids shut for a moment. A few comfortable seconds passed, and she reopened them, still staring at the ceiling, "He just…attracted me. When I got into the State Military School, my knowledge of alchemy became apparent. Before I knew it, alchemy was my primary subject; they wanted me to know everything I could about it."

Ling watched the woman beside her, quiet.

"There were a bundle of alchemy specialists in Central at the time. Kimblee was the most appealing to me because of the way he handled things." Her eyes shut close again, and her head lowered down to Earth as she cracked a smirk, "He was admittedly sadistic, but as a child I would never understand that. Being the idiot I was, the only thing that I could see in him was his nihilistic viewpoints and witty, cynical nature. I'll even admit the man had a sense of style, too."

"So you're into posers."

"No." Blinking to lock a gaze with Ling, she pointed towards her face with one of her thumbs, "…Did you think I got this tongue of mine from my father? Are you freaking kidding me? That guy was as loyal and soulless as a dog; he was subject to the military, body and mind." Her hands relaxed, and she stared downward again, "…I'm tired of Command, of Briggs, North, East, whatever. All I want is to live life my own way, out of that invisible countrywide barrier this place feels to have."

"…"

"…All I want…is everything I couldn't have. And then more. Isn't that how all humans think?"

"Perhaps. What specific things do you desire?" Ling inquired, folding his hands within each other. His emotions were content at the moment—Catalena succeeded in drawing him away from that dark place.

Her gray eyes retained a glint when she peered up at him, grinning a small, sharp smile, "Money I can never run out of, all the food I can eat, power that strikes fear in others…" Catalena paused, her list cut short.

Ling opened his mouth to say something, but she beat him to it,

"And of course, I want everyone to love me. I may seem introverted, but I truly love being surrounded by people. Unfortunately for me, they tend to avoid me. I blame Kimblee."

"That all sounds pretty selfish."

She shrugged, lifting her thin eyebrows proudly above their individual eyes, "I never said I was a giving person."

"I think I remember you mentioning that it was hard for you to make friends…isn't that something you don't have?" Ling had a very small smile on his face, and he probably secretly hoped that Catalena wouldn't spot it.

"Friends…I have one friend right now. Guess who? It's you. So yes and yes." Catalena sighed, folding one of her legs over the other and crossing her arms over her chest.

"Maybe instead of trying so desperately for people to get attracted to you, you should try softening up a bit. Edward talked with me about you once; he said that you were terribly abrasive and inconsiderate of others' feelings."

"Am I? I came to talk to you, didn't I?"

Ling raised his index finger, speaking in a doting manner as he lectured her, "I don't count. I had always liked you from the start."

Ignoring the incoming blush growing on her cheeks like a flame, she quickly asked him, "…What exactly are you saying to me?"

Ling's brows dropped, and he merely stated the obvious, "…You need to be more kind, Catalena. Or else nobody will want to be your friend. Stop blaming your faults on your teacher; he's in jail, right? So you should be moving on."

"…"

"You're already a very pretty girl; this shouldn't be very difficult."

Ignoring the fact that he called her 'pretty', Catalena considered his solution for a moment, but then sighed again, staring at the wall that opposed them.

"…Even though my reputation is possibly already thwarted…I guess you're right."

"Good!" Ling beamed, his cheery personality taking over. "You should treat others the way you would want to be treated."

Her gray optics peered at him from the corner of her eyes, and she smiled heartily again, giggling slightly, "You should stick to that personality. The serious and worried face and diction don't suit you."

At that point, Ling's expression dropped, and he instantly remembered the incident prior. The Xingese Prince slumped over, burying his face into his knees as he hugged his legs to his chest, sulking.

Catalena merely facepalmed.

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[1] - The currency used in the FMA world. At least in Amestris, for all I know.

A/N: And thus is our close for the story Avaricious. But not Catalena. Want to continue reading her story? Erase all of the text that you have memorized from this story, and please read our heroine's new version of Rapacious. Read and review for that, thank you and have a wonderful day.

Question! Do I take criticism well?

Of course I do. If I didn't, I would continue writing the plotline I have right now, when it clearly has faults. I refuse to continue to write badly when the mistakes were already made clear to me. Why should I practice to be perfect if my practice only results imperfect? /perfectionist

It's called evolving. Embrace it. Smell it. Eat it. Yum.