Worlds Collide

A/N: To my reviewers, Nomme de Plume, that scene has been running around in my head since I first started this. Actualy his name is Frank, but for the sake of not having everyone hate him, I used Stephen, just like I called Wrath by that name in narration instead of Ulysses for the sake of confusion. (my excuse is that as a good spy, he wouldn't want to accidentally refer to himself as Frank). Amethyst-eyed Koneko, glad I surprised you. I worried every time I put a little hint in that maybe someone would figure it out early on, so I held of most of them until this chapter. Seek, I'm updating this soon so it won't take forever for this clifhanger. Oh, and the feeling with the right arm was not planned as long as the scene with Roy and Stephen, but once I got the idea for it, I really wanted to write it. Don't tell my boss I write fanfic at work, and I won't tell yours you think about it. The lemons aren't the easiest thing for me to write, but glad the two scenes came off the way I wanted them to, with Roy/Ed hot and passionate, Wrath/Edward awkward and inexperienced. kuragari75, I surprised you. Now that you know who he is, hope you can still think he's okay. nette, yep, you got it right.

As for the fate of the guys. That is here to follow, and I'm going to duck under the nearest desk for cover from the reviews that will probably come from this chapter.

Chapter 15

Crash

Roy didn’t know how the hell the bastard had ended up intact, following behind him, a look of concern on his face. At the moment, all he knew was someone had told him something was wrong with Ed and he couldn’t get there fast enough. He ran to the front half of that craft, that thing this Archer called a rocket. The entire thing had landed on top of much of the Drachman army that had been still alive and uncaptured by Roy’s army and those that remained untouched by the crash were retreating. Knowing Ed, Roy was certain his husband had been ahead of the battle, trying to keep the other soldiers from having to kill by staying as far in front as he could.

Looking at the flaming wreckage, Roy thought he would be sick at the thought that Ed had somehow been in the middle of this, been crushed by this.

He continued to mumble to himself, “Not again, not again, not again…” Images of Riza, the bullet wound to her head, the mess of blood and dirt and mud and other fluids kept running through his mind. The image of Riza was replaced with Ed, and it took all the control and self restraint that the fuhrer had within himself to keep the tears gathering at the corner s of his eyes from falling. Behind him, he heard this blond Archer crying out for Edward. What the hell right did he have? Who did he think he was?

Then, Roy saw it, a large body, bloody, broken, but alive, sobbing over something smaller, something Ed-sized. He couldn’t have told anyone what was going on to either side of him as he ran toward the blood-drenched blond head being held in massive arms, toward the wreckage, toward the sound of pained sobs and cries of loss he was all too familiar with.

“Not again.”

Getting close enough, he tried to touch the head of the small man in the larger one’s arms, only to be met with a feral growl, watching as arms that should have been broken in a million pieces tightened their hold on the body, shifting it enough to allow the older man to see a shattered yet still recognizable face on the lifeless form.

“No,” he said, quietly, feeling his ability to speak fading while he was still trying to remember he was a commander here, that he was not supposed to break down. How many out on that field continued to fight finding out that their husband, wife, son, daughter were killed on the battlefield. Why should he be different? Why should he think he had the right to crack when he demanded obedience of his soldiers?

And why did he think he could fight his grief?

Roy fell to his knees, once again trying to touch the face, Ed’s face. Only partially, he realized that the face seemed thin in death and his hair, where had his hair gone? He extended a gloved hand to touch that head to find the injured man so guardedly holding onto Roy’s husband nearly bite him for it.

“Ulysses,” a voice behind him said. “Please, if he can be saved, someone is going to need to see.”

A set of violet eyes tried to look back at the blond Archer, tears streaking through the blood-covered face, only to be covered in more of the bright red liquid from a cut bleeding near the center of the man’s forehead.

“Please, Ulysses,” Roy said, using the man’s name, “please, let me see him. Let me see Ed.”

“Mine,” was all the man said, trying to once again squeeze the small body close to him, but it seemed the man with the dark, bloody hair was losing his strength.

“Let me see him!” the fuhrer ordered, no longer possessing the patience to deal with this man who refused to allow Roy to see his own husband.

“Damned Neanderthal. What the hell do you think you’re doing Armstrong?” A familiar voice said in the distance. “Do you haul Rose around like this? If you do, I’m surprised she doesn’t divorce you. And are you trying to hurt me? First you try to crush my chest hugging me so hard. You’d think you hadn’t seen me in a month. Now you’re going on about me being dead or something. What the hell, you big walking fireworks display?”

The short alchemist was planted firmly on the ground by the large general, who was already crying at having found him.

“Roy, did you have him do this? I was rounding up the last of the retreating soldiers, and he just grabbed me…”

Roy rose to his feet, but only long enough to drop to his knees again in front of his husband and grab hold of the smaller man’s waist, burying his face in Ed’s stomach, the rough material of the blue uniform scratching against Roy’s cheek. The older man feeling the gloved hands running through his hair.

“Shit, Roy, what’s got you so spooked? I’m right here.”

“I thought… I thought you were him.” Never had Roy felt he was glad someone else had died, but at that moment, despite the cries of the man who struggled to cling onto that Ed look-a-like, Roy was relieved that the one lying in his arms was not his husband.

********

Ed looked down at the bloody mass in the strange man’s arms, then heard a voice, one he’d hoped he’d never hear again.

“How is this possible, Edward?”

Ed looked up to find Frank Archer, years older, a bit weathered, skin just as pale as before, eyes as blue, but his hair and eyebrows a shade of pale blond. “You,” he hissed at the man while helping the one at his waist to his feet. Though he partially understood the man’s trauma, he couldn’t let the entire army see their fuhrer like this. “How did you get here intact? You should be dead.”

“Look,” Archer said, “I don’t know why everyone thinks I should be dead or dismembered, but I’m not.”

“Good,” Ed said, taking off his uniform coat quickly, revealing his white sleeveless undershirt, as he refused to wear the dress shirt beneath as some of the men did. “Then let me remedy that.” He pulled off the gloves and watched the man’s eyes go to his arms. “Don’t act like you’ve never seen automail before. You were half this, you freak.”

“You aren’t him. Then, that really is him. Please, let me go so I can get Ulysses to let go of…” The man’s swallowed, his eyes blinking entirely too much. “Edward.” The man’s expressions, his misery made Ed stop, question whether he really wanted to hit this man. He knew he’d never heard Frank Archer utter the word “please” with any genuine intent.

Ed turned his attention to the man with long, thin braids in his hair, still fighting with anyone who came near him and the body he held in his arms. Ed reached down and squeezed Roy’s hand, then moved to see who it was that he was being mistaken for. “Listen, Ulysses, was it?” Ed said, none too kindly. Everyone was babying this giant of a guy, and he was injured, not to mention whoever it was he clung to so tightly. A pair of amethyst eyes looked at him fiercely, a mouth baring a set of white, flat teeth. Ed couldn’t explain it, but some part of him had expected to see a mouth of pointed, animal-like teeth.

The harshness in those violet eyes melted as Ed finally recognized the man looking back at him. “Wrath.”

“Ed,” the man said amid sobs, loosening his grip on the person he’d been holding in his battered arms. Looking down in shock, Ed saw his own face, lifeless at his feet. “We’ll get the two of you to the medic. See if we can help him, okay?” Ed knew that even with Raine’s ability, his near twin laying lifeless below was beyond hope. Wrath, his body stretched behind him, immobile, looked around. Two of the soldiers went to help the tall man onto a stretcher, but he would have none of it until the smaller one was taken care of.

“Stephen…” Wrath muttered out, blood gathering at the corners of his mouth. Ed knew he wanted to take care of this other man, but if he wasn’t soon under the care of a doctor, even he wouldn’t be helped.

“Ulysses,” Archer said, “do you want me to take him?” The braided head nodded, just slightly. Ed watched as Archer looked up at Roy, blue eyes actually pleading. “Please, he was my friend. And so is Ulysses. He won’t go as long as Edward is still laying there.” Roy nodded to the two men holding Archer, Ed trying to protest, but had not choice but to look on in surprise as this Archer put a hand on Wrath’s shoulder delicately, then pulled off the cloak he’d been wearing to drape it over the body before picking it up carefully. “I’ll just carry him like this. He’s never been much of a burden.”

With the help of several soldiers including Armstrong and Roy, Ed got the large body of the former homunculus onto the stretcher, his legs dangling off the edge. “Let’s get them onto an ambulance.”

********

Riding in the bumping ambulance, the thin blond in his arms, Frank—God, how long had it been since he last even allowed his own mind to think of himself by his name?—wanted to crack for the first time in his life. He’d trained himself not to think of death, not to make friends. This was why. In war, in battle, in espionage, people die. People always die. And now in his arms, he cradled just one more reminder of why he’d been so strict on himself.

A good spy never lets his true name be spoken aloud, even convinces his himself not to use it to ensure it never slips out by accident. An experienced spy learns not to make attachments. A true spy obeys his orders and does not defy them to go on a joyride inside of a rocket.

And spies that have been working as such for over twenty years don’t cry, but he was crying now, too, trying to hide his face from Wrath. If the young man actually saw the intelligence expert crying, he would know the truth, know the loss was real.

Making it worse was that this man with the same face as Edward was looking at him so hatefully it nearly literally stung. He didn’t understand why this Roy and Edward were so different from those he’d known, but both seemed to have a vendetta against him. And, he couldn’t help but notice through the tears he continued to fight off that they were sitting, hand in hand, not to mention that display earlier when this Roy had clung to the blond when he saw he wasn’t dead.

Closing his eyes and breathing in deeply, Frank tried to ignore the warm, wet sensation all over his body from Edward’s blood, tried to ignore the body growing colder in his arms. He had to regain himself, to consider Wrath. To remember the hurt was not his alone, and that in order for the young man to survive, he couldn’t know, not now.

The bouncing vehicle came to a stop, and Frank stood, forgetting just how small, how frail Edward had always been but never seemed. It was nothing to lift the body as he rose, looking over at the still small, much more solidly built duplicate opposite him.

“We’re going to have to go out first,” Roy said. “The troops will need to see Ed so they know that man isn’t him, and we’ll need to explain they shouldn’t shoot you.”

“Yet,” the small blond said.

The rear doors of the ambulance opened, the two men who seemed to be a couple hopping out first. A shout could be heard from just outside. “Brother!”

“Gah!” Edward’s voice said, somehow manipulated into a raspy shout from that other man’s mouth. “Al, you’re squeezing me to death.” Frank looked out of the doors, seeing a rather tall man who looked much like both Edwards, somewhat reminding him of Alfons, picking the small blond off the ground in a hug. “Damn it, at least Roy had the decency to come down. You tall freaks keep picking me up.”

“Brother, I thought you were…” A set of large brown eyes spotted Frank. “Him? How?”

“We don’t know,” Ed answered as he was set on the ground.

Frank jumped to the ground easily, seeming to surprise the faces of the gathering crowd. “I don’t remember you being so athletic, Archer,” this Roy said. Frank didn’t even acknowledge the comment.

“The gate, Brother? They came through that?”

“Yes, and so did Wrath. The soldiers are going to need help getting him out. He’s been injured pretty badly.”

The taller man nodded, walking by Frank with a cold expression on the face that had been so warm greeting his brother. Frank moved through the soldiers, following behind the small man with the long blond braid, feeling as though he must certainly be the most hated man on the face of this planet, but not knowing why. Then, he heard the cocking of a gun, and found himself met with a man with blond hair, and blue eyes like his own, holding a gun inches from Frank’s left eye.

“Why don’t I blow your eye out like you did the fuhrer’s you bastard,” the man said, eyes narrowing.

They thought he’d shot Roy. Admittedly, he wanted to after the way the man had betrayed Wrath, but to have actually done it, they surely were mistaking him for someone else.

********

Nicholas found it incredibly funny that those guards thought they could actually hold him and his sister in the conference room with the rest of the civilians in the building. Did they have any idea whose son and daughter they were? If there was a way out, they’d find it. And they wanted to know what the big explosion was, if their parents were okay, if the fighting was over.

Ducking through the hallway with the expert skill of two children who had practically grown up at the headquarters, the twins hid behind desks, under chairs, into little alcoves. They did their best to remain hidden from the officers and Falman, who seemed to be keeping an especially wary eye out for the two.

“Major Falman,” Fuery said, sticking his head out of the fuhrer’s office door. “Could you come in for a moment?”

Nicholas knew by the look on Fuery’s face that something was wrong, he looked over at his sister to find she was already gone and had tapped into the wall of their father’s office. Saying nothing, she handed him a sort of receiver she’d alchemically created to listen in on what was going on inside.

“According to some of the men removing the wreckage, there have been many injuries, nearly all Drachman, but we’ve also received reports that Ed may have been injured, possibly even dead.”

“No.”

“They found him in the wreckage, and were fairly certain it was him. He wasn’t moving and there was someone with him, keeping medics from getting very close.”

Nicholas let the receiver drop to the floor and ran to the nearest wall, clapping his hands and transforming the stone into a slide that led down to the ground below.

“Nicholas!” Aideen yelled after him, following him down the rough slide that tore at his pants.

He could hear the shouts of the soldiers as well, but there was no stopping him. If his father was… was anything, he wanted to know. He could hear the steady pace of his sister’s footsteps behind him. He hoped as much as he could that it was a different Ed, but there was a sickening feeling in his stomach that it wasn’t, that they were talking about his father.

Soldiers spotted the two children and tried to catch them, but the two were fast runners and excellent fighters, meaning they were hard to grab and impossible to restrain. They ran to the medic tent, crawling through the crowd of soldiers until Nicholas spotted their uncle Jean with a gun pointed to another man’s face.

“Why don’t I blow your eye out like you did the fuhrer’s you bastard,” their fathers’ friend said, glaring at the slightly taller blond. Nicholas was confused; he’d been told that the man who’d hurt his father’s eye was dead, so how was he here now, and who was it that he was holding that was bleeding so bad. Someone underneath that fabric had gotten hurt bad, worse even than Nicholas when he’d broken his arm. The person was small, probably not a lot taller than the nine-year-old. And then it struck him.

“Daddy?” he asked. “Is that…” Havoc lowered his gun just a bit, Nicholas looking up at the man he’d known all his life. “Uncle Jean, please, tell me. Is he… is he…”

“Is he dead?” Aideen finished for him, a rim of wet tears at the bottom of her eyes.

“What are you two doing out of the office? I told Falman and Fuery to keep an eye on you.” The twins ran to Roy, gripping their papa’s waist.

“Please, Papa, tell us that Daddy is okay,” Nicholas said.

“You tell me,” Roy said, pulling his children off of him and pointing to Ed who was maneuvering back through the crowd to his children.

“You little shits,” Ed said, not even seeming to notice that it wasn’t the most appropriate language. “What are you doing out here? Your papa and I told you to stay at headquarters.”

“But we… heard… them say… you were…” Aideen was sobbing, finally crying as hard as Nicholas had been the instant he’d seen their papa, begging him to tell them Ed was okay.

“Come here,” he said, holding out his arms, the two children instantly burying their faces on their father’s chest. “Do I feel alive enough to you?”

Nicholas saw out of the corner of his eyes as the blond moved through the crowd, Nicholas’s papa at his side, ordering his men not to shoot. Behind him, several men, including Uncle Al were carrying a large man on a stretcher to the tent where he could see Auntie waiting.

“Daddy?” Nicholas asked. “Are they going to be okay?”

“I hope so, buddy.”

“You’re lying,” Aideen said. Nicholas didn’t know how she did it, but she always knew when their parents, and Nicholas himself, were lying. “The person under the cloth wasn’t moving.”

“No, he wasn’t.” He held the two closely to his body, obstructing their view of the injured soldiers. “You don’t need to be here.”

“That man is dead?” Nicholas asked, looking up at his father, dark eyes still wet with tears.

“Yes.”