The Heist

AN: Thank you to those who reviewed and added my story to their Favourites or Alerts. It really means a lot!

As a thank you gift, I shall give you a fun fact about this story.

Fun Fact: When this story was but a wee seed of an idea, Henry Chu's business was supposed to be an online matchmaker. However, it was corrupted by wealthy clients who didn't use it for honest purposes, but bribed Chu to match them up with a person they'd like to date, even if they weren't compatible. Ling thought he was going to expose this by signing up himself, except that he got paired up with Lan Fan. Lan Fan on the other hand is a Psychology student who was researching on the dubious ways of online dating. So, well, the irony is that both Ling and Lan Fan are trying to prove how the whole thing can't possibly work, but ended up falling in love, which sorta screwed their external goals.

So yeah. It was more of a romcom. Now, instead, you have psycho-Chu and a more angsty Lan Fan with dark secrets.

The first hoax was scheduled on the last Friday of the month. Timed at just a little over midnight, it was a chilly foray into darkness as they all cluttered around one of Auto-Mail's datacentre in the business sector of Rush Valley. Even at night, the area wasn't asleep. Street lamps burned bright with white light – not yellow like in the suburbs – and there were buildings still alive with the bustle of night-shifters. It was good, Ling assured himself. They would have been much more conspicuous in an abandoned maze of alleyways, driving car loads of hard drives and servers.

This datacentre was small compared to the other centres Auto-Mail used, and thus it was the safest one they could sacrifice as the point of investigation. It was also the only one they could move in a single night. Ling stood inside the room where people were busy packing up, and tried not to imagine what the other centres looked like as he viewed the tangled mess of cables hooking the machines together. He watched as old man LeCoulte and several other of Auto-Mail's tech support were finishing the backups and reformatting.

Ling leaned against one wall, trying to keep out of their way. Lan Fan was standing beside him, eying the process with an interested glint in her eye.

"I don't suppose you know anything about server migration, do you?" he asked her. "Because I can certainly use a couple of tips."

"I have no idea," Lan Fan admitted. "But I'd like to."

Winry came in, bearing an empty box for the hard drives containing the backed-up data. "I don't know much myself," she jumped in. "All I know is that we have to get these back-ups downstairs and loaded in the cars soon. Ed needs to know which cars will hold the real stuff, and which ones will carry the decoy so he can assign the proper routes to Metso."

"Speaking of decoys, do we know of anyone planning to ambush us tonight?" Lan Fan piped up. She was dressed in simple gear, a tucked in shirt doubled by a well-fitting sweater. No hood. Nothing that anyone could potentially grab. Her hair was tied in its usual bun though it looked neater, and Ling knew that his mother probably had a hand in it. So to speak.

"We've heard rumours that The Jesters have gained knowledge of our endeavour tonight," Winry said. The Jesters referred to a loose band of black market entrepreneurs, reputed to piggy-back on other underground networks through larceny and espionage. "I don't know if they'll show up though."

"Anyone else?"

Winry shrugged. "I hope not," she stated. "Jean Havoc called and said that the Colonel made sure that no other State Military officers would be randomly roaming our path to Metso, so at least we don't have to worry about prematurely running into them. Colonel and his team would be the only ones deployed down here tomorrow morning so hopefully, this would go as smoothly as possible."

As much as Ling hoped the same thing, he doubted that that wish would be granted at all. Auto-Mail data was very valuable. Even if they did not run into officers, he was sure there would be people other than the Jesters trying their luck tonight.

When Winry exited the room carrying her load, Ling followed her to the hallway.

"Winry!" he called, and she stopped before descending the stairs. She looked fine now, with her hair tied back neatly in a ponytail that matched Ed's. Her blue eyes were bright with apprehension and wit, but it was only a few days ago when she and Ed crashed his home in as haggard a state as he'd seen either of them.

He remembered listening in silent horror as they related what happened during their meeting with Chu. Lan Fan could barely contain herself in outrage, before fleeing from the room minutes only after their story began.

"Are you alright now?" he asked.

Her features softened with a smile. "I am, thank you for asking."

Ling nodded, knowing full well that Winry was sturdier than she seemed, and that she was in good hands. There would be many people – many, many people – whose wrath would claim the world ten times over if anything bad happened to Winry, not the least of them was Ed. Ling included.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I didn't mean for things to get out of hand so quickly." He had known the kind of tactics his father resorted to, had warned both their military and black market teams that Chu was a serpent incarnate. Still, he bore the responsibility for whatever trouble they might face. Operation Greed was his brainchild. To abandon his friends to the consequences of his not-so-bright ideas smelled a lot like a Chu, not a Yao.

"You haven't stopped apologizing since we came back last Saturday," Winry said, half grinning. "Ling, cut yourself some slack, won't you?" With that, she headed down the stairs.

Ling was surprised when he turned around and found Lan Fan standing beside him, frowning at the spot Winry had occupied at the top of the stairs. She hadn't talked to him as often after their planning session the week before, but considering that she wasn't the talkative type in the first place, he tried not to let it bother him. Though he highly suspected that it was probably because she felt uncomfortable with all his prying.

Not that it helped him any; last time he checked with Mei and Alphonse, they haven't gotten around to studying the small sample of Red Stone he gave them. The truth was that he wasn't close to discovering anything even remotely significant.

"Hey," he said. "She'll be okay, I think."

Lan Fan looked at him, eyes shadowed by doubt and concern. "I hope so. Your father is usually much more trouble that he seems at first."

Ling nodded, knowing that if what she said wasn't ture, there wouldn't be an Operation Greed 2.0 at all. He hooked his arm lightly with hers, and led her down and out of the building.

After a couple more hours of waiting for everything to be packed and loaded, Ling boarded one of the cars on the driver's seat. Beside him sat Lan Fan, and in the backseat was the only other occupant of the car. He was Hunter Manos, a volunteer Winry found from their pool of vise-admins who would be willing to help out on both parts of the operation. With very little to lose, he was one of the people elected to leave behind personal marks on the scene, and lead Mustang's team on a chase in the next hoax. Before entering the car, Ling noticed that Manos purposefully left behind an empty beer bottle by the driveway, as if someone in a hurry might have forgotten it there.

He only seemed a few years older than Ling, but looking at his calloused hands and hardened features, Manos seemed accustomed to the hardened life of the South City backstreets. With a quick, easy smile and a way with words, he exuded an air of mischief. Especially with the way he hadn't stopped staring at Lan Fan since he first saw her.

"Winry said if all goes well tonight, I will be appointed Official Tattler," he was saying as Ling began the half-hour long drive to Metso.

"Don't be too excited," Ling warned. "Being the Tattler would take a lot more work than what we're going to do tonight. You're going to be interviewed by officers not involved in the operation, officers who, shall we say, don't have very much patience towards those who partake in the black markets."

"Oh I've interacted with that kind plenty of times," Manos revealed. "If that's what you're worried about, I suggest you don't."

Once they wove their way out of the cluttered city of Rush Valley, browning fields of grass replaced well-used pavements on the side of the roads. For a while, the ride was uneventful, with Lan Fan leaning against the window watching the scene pass by, Manos in the back seat humming to whatever was on his player. There were several other vehicles on the road, which eased Ling.

It was only when they have rounded the ramp of the exit nearest to Metso that the roads cleared of other cars and the intervals between lights widened. Though not as small as Tobha, Metso was first and foremost a residential town, with most of its population commuting out to nearby cities for work each day. By this hour, there was very little traffic in and out of the town. Ling sat up straighter in his seat, concentrating on driving them to the address of the datacentre.

Strangely, a little after he has merged into the smaller roads of Metso, there came a pedestrian who planted himself straight at the center of the road. Ling was about to slow down, but Manos threw off his earphones and told him to turn right instead of stopping.

"Typical Jester trick," Manos explained. "Works all the time in South City where the streets are narrow, and the driver doesn't have any other option but to stop. As soon as we slow down, they're going to mob us."

However, when they've turned down the other street, they were welcomed by the same sight, another individual standing in their way.

"Let me revise what I just said. I meant any driver who cares a little too much about interpersonal relations." Manos growled. "If you're not one of those, you can always run him over."

"We can't do that," Ling protested, finally stepping on the brakes to slow down.

"Wait, that's exactly what they want you to do!" Manos exclaimed. "They'll –"

Before he could finish what he was trying to say, their slowing car rocked to the side as something hurtled against it. From the side mirrors, Ling saw shadows moving against their car. A thudding on the roof told him someone managed to climb up.

"Ugh, really?" he muttered under his breath. "I'd have thought they would go after the larger vehicles. Those ones are clearly carrying more things."

When a gun shot erupted, and Ling felt the car skid to the left, he knew they'd blown a tire. Trying to remain in control of his steering, he was forced to take a narrow street and skid to a stop there.

"They obviously think we're trying to fool them," Lan Fan said. "They must have assumed that the trucks are decoys and this car is loaded with the real stuff." As soon as she finished saying this, someone came up to her side of the car and pointed a gun straight at her. She didn't even flinch. Reaching out of her window with expert swiftness, she disengaged the gun from his hand and threw it behind her. Manos yelped.

When the man backed away, Lan Fan stormed out of the car to deal with the men trying to open the trunk. Ling half wanted to see the expressions on their faces once they find out that this car was one of the decoy vehicles all along, but on the other hand, knocking them out would probably be the safest option to take. With a resigned shake of the head, he unbuckled himself from his seat and came out as well, delivering a well-timed punch as someone tried to make away with a box of fake plastic hard drive cases. The box clattered to the ground.

"Eh, be careful with that!" he exclaimed heartily. "Those things inside are priceless!"

He looked around, finding several motionless bodies littering the ground around the car, including the one who had stood in their path just a few minutes ago. Lan Fan was engaged in half-hearted combat near the back of the car, where it seemed that the source of most of her difficulties was trying to retrieve the stolen boxes and machines from the arms of the men she fought with. Amazing though her skills were, carrying heavy packages would be rather hard for anyone with one arm.

"Help out here, Manos!" he called to the young man still inside the car. "We didn't hire you for your good looks."

Ling bent down to lift a server out of the arms of a still groaning woman, who bore a growing blue bruise on her cheekbone. After depositing it safely back inside of the car, he then strode next to Lan Fan, slipping by her side to pull out the stolen goods from the grasps of the thieves in between her dealing blows.

When the last man fell down, Ling was about to go back into the car when he heard the unmistakeable sound of feet slapping against the pavement in haste.

Lan Fan looked at him. "Should I even bother?"

"There's no harm in giving him a chase, I guess," Ling said. "Regroup with us in five minutes."

Lan Fan ran down the alley from which the steps were echoing.

"Make him fear for his life as if he carries a gigabyte of your selfies!" Ling called after her, before getting back in the car.

-o-

Lan Fan pursued the man with cheerful vigour. Occasionally, she let out a menacing "I'm going to get you!" or a frustrated "Come back here, you villain!" to which the man sped up like a hunted prey. Lan Fan almost laughed; people actually believed those kind of taunts? She sounded like a bad guy in a poorly directed movie!

Feeling herself run out of time, she slowed down as he turned a corner, then fully stopped chasing him. Yes, let him think he lost her. He'd probably start fiddling with those hard drives as soon as he could, only to find out they were loaded with episodes of Aerugan dramas. She laughed quietly to herself, feeling warmer after the pursuit. She turned around to try and return to Ling, when suddenly from around a small curb leading into the residential houses came a sprinting figure who collided with her, sending her to the ground.

She fell on her left side, making it difficult for her to break her fall. She landed on the pavement with an impact that left her breathless for half a heartbeat. The person who bumped into her went sprawling across the street beside her. Lan Fan pushed herself off of the ground as soon as she was able, and immediately assumed a defensive stance as her assailant slowly pulled himself to his feet. His head was covered with the hood of his sweater, but from his built, Lan Fan could tell that he was only slightly taller than her, with a lean frame narrower than Ling's.

Shouldn't be a problem.

His hood fell back and revealed a head topped with cropped, black hair, and pale Eastern features that marked him as Xingese. And he was looking at her as if he had seen a ghost.

"You!" he exclaimed, sounding incredulous. His eyes were fixed at her lifeless left sleeve.

Lan Fan was taken aback by his exclamation. She studied the man's face again, probing her mind to see if she'd encountered this person before.

"Lan Fan?" he asked, quieter this time, and it was his voice that shattered the haze clouding her memory, bringing her back to what happened two years ago, the image of them so clear and fresh as if it had been just last hour.

She didn't know his name... she probably never cared enough to learn, and she definitely didn't care now. Some ember of anger in her burst back into flames, and all she wanted to do was claw his eyes out.

"What are you doing here?" she asked instead, steadying her stance even more. The warmth she felt just a few moments ago evaporated in his presence, and Lan Fan felt chilled again by the autumn wind.

A small smirk came over his face, and dread came over her in turn, though she didn't know why. She wasn't weak anymore. She wasn't even injured or trapped. "So it is you! I'm glad you remember the time we spent together." He gave her a cheeky grin, and started walking forward. "I was afraid you wouldn't. You were a little... groggy after all, weren't you?"

"Stay back!" Lan Fan said, even though she was quite confident that she could take him on by herself. She was very different from the last time they had met, surely.

"Stay back?" he continued, sauntering over to her. "I helped cure your shoulder, for your information. Don't you have nicer things to say to someone who did that for you?"

Cure her shoulder, he said! He did a lot more than just cure her shoulder, and how many iterations had they done before her shoulder patched itself up?

She took a big gulp of air to pacify her racing heart. The effect was immediate, and her pulse slowed, her head cleared. No point in getting caught up in the past now. Ling was not more than a couple of blocks away. He was waiting for her, and her five minutes had long expired.

"I don't have time for this," she said and she was pleasantly surprised to hear how even her tone was. "If you're planning to stir up some trouble, it's the wrong time for you, I can assure you that."

He grinned again as if she was an amusing entertainment he couldn't quite get enough of. "Oh, don't you worry. Whatever trouble I might be planning is long over." He made a gesture as if to pat the pocket of his lose fitting sweatpants, but paused when he couldn't discern whatever he was trying to feel. Nervously, he pushed his hand in his pocket, waved it around, then felt the other pocket. When it was clear he didn't find what he was looking for there either, he started patting his back pockets and the front pouch of his sweater.

"Looking for this?" said a voice from somewhere above them, and Lan Fan looked up to find Paninya crouching expertly on top of a lamp post.

"Paninya!" she exclaimed, surprised even more to find her acquaintance in town, than to see her balancing on a metal rod narrower than the width of her own feet. The dark-skinned girl was holding up a keychain on which a collection of memory sticks were hanging instead of keys.

"Hey, that's mine!" the man said. "Give it back, thief!"

"I don't think so," Paninya replied. "First of all it's not yours. You stole it from the truck three blocks away. Which makes you a thief too, though I have to admit, not a very good one. What kind of thief allows their goods to be stolen back from them? Especially when they're the real deal too." The agile girl jumped from her perch on top of the post, almost ten feet high according to Lan Fan's estimation. She landed gracefully, arms outstretched.

"What are you doing here?" Lan Fan asked as Paninya walked to her side.

"Oh, Future Mrs. Edward Elric planted me here in Metso yesterday night. For incidentals, she said. Took you all long enough to show up, by the way."

"Ha, you're an Auto-Mail rat?" the young Xingese man pointed at Lan Fan. Then he let out a cacophonous laughter that made Lan Fan worry if someone from the residential houses across the street would yell out for him to shut up. "Wait until Dad hears about this!"

"Dad?" Paninya mumbled. She looked at Lan Fan. "You know this punk?" she asked so casually, as if she and Lan Fan were talking about a barista serving them coffee.

"No," Lan Fan lied, and her edginess returned. "Paninya, do me a favour. Go to Ling with those flash sticks. Tell him I'm fine. He should go to the centre if he can."

"Okie!" Paninya gave her a thumbs up, and ran in the skippy way of hers, as if she was a little girl out frolicking in the fields.

"What do you want from me?" Lan Fan asked as soon as Paninya's footsteps had faded.

"Nothing!" he said, bringing his hands up in a defensive wave. "Honestly, I didn't expect to see you here. Which is why I think Dad would love to hear about what you're up to."

Dad... now that was going to be a problem. She knew that Ling wanted to have as clean a process as possible tonight, but all of them participating in the hoax knew that it was quite an unachievable goal to strive for. Anyone who attempted to intervene with their migration posed as a potential hazard to their plans; leaving them alive could mean witnesses to their trickery, but killing anyone would arouse further suspicions as to why the State Military weren't coming down on black markets more vigorously. It was a difficult scale to balance, but Ling told her that it was safer to leave witnesses – those who confront them tonight wouldn't willingly go to the State Military to confess anything.

Unfortunately, it wasn't the State Military this boy would go to, and that made it worse.

Without giving it too much more thought, she leapt towards him, hand poised to deliver a quick punch, but like she'd already expected, he dodged it expertly. He swiveled to her left, trying to take advantage of the fact that she couldn't protect her left side, but she matched his pace and turned before he could exploit her weakness.

She saw him frown, and reach for something from his ankle-high boots, but she was one-step ahead of him when she blocked the knife he pulled from his footwear with one of her own.

"I see you still favour knives," he joked, as he leaned in for an unsuccessful slash.

"I see you still do too," Lan Fan retorted in disgust, trying to keep her mind from recalling things that a person in the middle of a fight should never worry herself with.

He made several slashes in quick succession in an effort to catch her off guard, but she managed to block them. When she aimed for his thigh, he blocked it with yet another knife, held in his left hand. She looked up, and caught his smirk.

"I guess the difference between us is that I can use two," he smiled widely, and brought the knife down, but she jumped out of the way, distancing herself. He only laughed, and was about to lunge in again, when his strike halted in mid-air, and his eyes bugged in surprise.

Or pain.

Lan Fan looked down to see the tip of a knife extruding from his belly. His hands unclenched, and his own weapons clattered to the ground. She blanched, took a few steps back, and was shocked to see who was behind him after he'd fallen down on the ground, clutching his wound.

"Grandpa," she whispered, shocked.

Well, who else was here that nobody bothered to tell her about? And how did her grandfather travel all the way to Metso in time to kill this man? How was he even walking? Why was he even here?

She shook her head, trying to clear it. Too many surprises. "What are you doing here?" she asked for the third time that night.

"I don't like being idle," he said briefly. Which probably meant that he didn't want to be absent on yet another one of her supposedly dangerous missions. And considering who she met tonight, she couldn't exactly say that his instincts were wrong.

"But..." she was about to protest, when he took something from his coat pocket and tossed it to her. It was his medicine.

Down to its last quarter.

"You drank that much?" she asked, horrified. "Grandpa, you should have stayed–"

"Enough, Lan Fan," he growled. "You know what he would do if he lived. Unless you were planning to finish him off yourself."

She wasn't, but at the same time she didn't exactly know what she had planned to do with him either. Her mind was working at a turtle's pace, and all she could do was look at the growing pool of blood beneath the man who fought her.

Lan Fan was knocked out of her stupor by sounds of running feet, and she turned to see, with disappointment weighing her heart, Ling enter the area with Paninya behind him. The girl was gesturing wildly, shrugging her shoulders exaggeratedly as if to tell Lan Fan without words that she had tried to stop Ling from coming.

Ling stopped a few paces away, wide-eyed with wonder at seeing her grandfather hale and able to stand with no help. Then his eyes traveled to the bloodied knife in the old man's hand, then finally to the body now lying motionless in between the two fighters.

"Who is that?" he asked quietly. He looked disturbed. He reached over to get a better look at the man's face, then paused for a long moment, his eyes becoming even wider that Lan Fan was actually able to see the whites around his irises.

When he stood up, he looked at her grimly.

"It's one of my older half-brothers," he said quietly, and she felt another blow of shock. She didn't expect Ling to be familiar with him as well. And definitely not as a brother. "What happened?"

He turned to her, gaze intense with worry, and Lan Fan found herself desperately checking if there lingered any accusation in it. She opened her mouth to try and say something, anything, but she couldn't find the words to possibly explain that someone who had once threatened her and her grandfather's lives showed up and picked a fight with her. To save her from the trouble, her grandfather spoke for her.

"He threatened to tell your father about this," the old man said, which Lan Fan couldn't deny being quite true.

"Oh," Ling said, shaking his head. He looked back at her, and it became clear to Lan Fan that he wanted to hear things from her specifically. "I don't understand... what was he even doing here?"

"He stole this from Ridel's truck," Paninya explained, pulling the keychain from her pocket. "They're the back up of the old configurations for the databases we're moving. I don't think he's part of the Jesters though."

"No, he wouldn't be," Ling said softly. "Not if he said he would tell my father about us." He rubbed his hands over his face, clearly agitated by this turn of events.

"Ling..." Lan Fan started, and he nodded at her to continue, probably relieved that she was finally taking the responsibility of explaining something. "Look, my grandfather and I... we didn't mean..." she paused, and reworded what she was trying to say, since obviously a knife to the gut was not something that could have been 'not meant.' "Well, it was dangerous to let him go." And it was, though she knew that Fu didn't do it to save the operation.

Ling slowly nodded, and placed a hand on her shoulder. "I know. I'll have to call Mustang to explain." He motioned for the rest of them to get back to the car.

"We're just leaving him here?" Paninya asked.

"We can't bring him anywhere," Ling said.

"What if someone sees him and calls the police?"

Ling pulled his phone out and began dialing. "That's why I'm calling the Colonel now so that if someone reports it they'll know how to take care of it."

After Ling had sorted that out, they made the short trip to the datacentre in painful silence. Once they were there, they were too busy helping set everything up in the new office that they didn't have time to go over the incident. When dawn was about to break, Lan Fan received a call from Winry, who was in a decoy vehicle destined for three other towns to provide sufficient evidence that Auto-Mail was trying to throw off military pursuit. She and Ed got a message from Fuery that they were now being deployed.

"Alright, thanks," Lan Fan said, before hanging up. She caught up with Ling and told them it was time to go.

He still looked stressed. When he sensed her eyes on him, he lifted one of his shoulders in a half shrug.

"Look, it wasn't like I was fond of the guy anyway," he told her quietly. "What makes me worried is that my father sent someone here to confirm Auto-Mail's efforts to evade the government investigation. That means he found a reason to doubt Winry and Edward during their negotiations and interview last week."

"You said he was paranoid," Lan Fan offered. "Maybe he does this all the time, you know? See how his investments are faring?"

"Maybe," Ling acquiesced, but the worry in his eyes didn't leave. "We still have to tighten up our operations."

-o-

The ride back to Ling's mansion was a hot pot of inner turmoil. The panic she felt when Ling's brother appeared and taunted her had seeped so deeply within her that she could still feel it echoing in her bones. To her right, her grandfather sat in poor spirits, at least seemingly so from her vantage point. He was withering, which told her unwelcome deductions about the Red Stone. He'd gurgled more than half of it to save her hide, and Lan Fan wondered if her life was even worth 2500 sens.

They had dropped Manos off in Rush Valley. It was quieter in the car without him.

Ling drove silently, eyes blinking in rapid succession to keep drowsiness at bay. Lan Fan herself was sleepy, but she knew that with her hands still clammy from nerves, sleep would never overtake her. She wondered why, for an introverted person, was she always so confused. Didn't people like her have some kind of introspective grace to organize the thoughts in their heads? Something that would tell her, 'Lan Fan, you ought to feel guilty for killing Ling's brother.' But she hadn't killed him. Her grandfather did. But for all her finger pointing, she knew that she was more to blame than anyone else in the operation last night, and if she hadn't been there, perhaps Ling's brother would have lived, his ignorance saving him.

Still, there was more burdening her than just the guilt (or lack thereof), and she felt its weight in her pants pocket the entire ride home. She itched to bring it out, test it now, because something had dawned on her and it frightened her a little more than having been caught by Big Brother.

When Ling finally eased his car into the garage beside his house, she hopped out of the vehicle impatiently, fetching her grandfather from the opposite side. He didn't seem to need her help though, but she thought it best that she walk him up to his room, and make sure that Rosé had all that she needed to look after her grandfather. Fu wasn't a needy man, wasn't even that picky or sensitive. Sometimes Lan Fan wondered whether she was wasting Ling's money by hiring Rosé, but Ling assured her that it was a win-win situation. Her grandfather had an extra eye watching over him should he need it in their absence, Rosé was making money to pay for her studies, and Lan Fan didn't have to worry about her grandfather that much when they were out. And if Ling didn't mind what happened to his money, Lan Fan supposed she shouldn't either.

After chucking her dusty outerwear and slipping into the homey clothes she'd worn the night before, she made her way to the bathroom on the second floor. Clasped tightly in her only hand was the bottle of Red Stone. She locked the door behind her, and braced herself against the sink.

It didn't make sense that her grandfather had finished three quarters of the Red Stone. Not at the usual rate that he did so. Even if he had consumed more the previous evening to be able to travel and fight for one night, it shouldn't have taken so much. And the effects shouldn't have worn off in just a few hours. She dreaded the two implications she could think of: that her grandfather was becoming worse or that the medicine was becoming less effective. She didn't know which one was worse.

Taking a deep breath, she opened the medicinal closet above the sink, and took out a pair of foldable scissors. She unfolded it and spread the handles apart to expose the blades in between. In a calculated, downward flick of her wrist, she cut open her skin on the upper part of her inner arm, below any vitals. It wasn't deep enough to earn a grimace from her, but it would be deep enough for her experiment.

She snatched the bottle of Red Stone, ignoring the drops of blood that stained the sink. Though she loathed to do it, she tried to remember the time when she herself had been an indigent patient of the Red Stone, and tried to estimate how much it would have taken her – at that time then – to cure a small cut on her arm.

Two teaspoons had cured her entire gorey stump of a shoulder.

A drop or two should easily heal this tiny gash.

Slowly, she tilted the bottle over her mouth, watching the progress of the liquid carefully as it inched its way to the edge of the bottle. Using her pointer finger to tap the glass, two drops fell onto her waiting tongue. She swallowed, watching the cut intently.

Nothing happened.

Lan Fan took a calming breath. She focused momentarily on applying the cap back on, setting the Red Stone aside. She glanced back at her arm, half hoping to see an unblemished skin in place of the cut. She couldn't stop the sinking feeling as the bleeding, split skin instead welcomed her sight.

What was wrong? It should have been healed by now.

Heart thudding, she waited a moment more, blinking back her nervousness. She looked around. At the shiny white tiles decorated with blue and pink flowers. The tub at the opposite end of the room. The clean towels stacked on the metal rack. Everything was white and pastel. So starkly different from the bright crimson of the blood drops accumulating on the sink's counter.

The cut was still there.

Harried by the ineffectiveness, she opened the bottle again, and grudgingly telling herself that she'd have to pay for another bottle soon anyway, she took an entire gulp of the crimson liquid.

Shakily, she stoppered the bottle, eyes never leaving her arm.

Her breath caught at the sight of the edges of her flesh twitching, and for a moment she second guessed herself if she actually saw them move. But in the next slow expanse of time, the edges began to fold together starting from the right most corner of the wound. As they met, they left behind a perfectly seamless patch of skin. Lan Fan watched, unsmiling, knowing what it all meant, when suddenly the cure stopped. Halfway across what was once the cut was now healthy skin and tissue, while the other half was still split open, sporting a bloody clot.

Lan Fan let out a breath, not with the relief she was expecting to do it, but with utter frustration and anger.

He had lied.

And what had she expected, really? All this time, hadn't he backtracked on his word every step of the way? The Red Stone used to be free! A form of apology, he'd said. A good bargain, what a deal it had been! And in a span of two years, she went from merely physically crippled to also being financially so.

Now he diluted the medicine!

How long had it been like this? Had her grandfather been masking some of his pain to make her believe that one bottle per month had been enough? What if he'd never shown up at the hoax? She would never had suspected anything.

Lan Fan placed the bottle back in her pocket. She looked up, and was startled to see her aghast, pale face reflected back from the mirror above the sink. Her hair was disheveled, her face still dusty from the fiasco last night. Somehow this curdled her mood even more, and she swiped furiously at the blood on the sink, before spinning around to open the door.

And she bumped onto an absolutely half-naked Ling.

"Whoa!" he exclaimed, just as she recoiled back in surprise. She felt him grab her on the waist to steady her, while his other hand fumbled with the towel haplessly tied about his hips. "Sorry, I didn't know you were in there. Ma's using the bathroom upstairs," he explained. He still looked a little somber. Then to her extreme mortification, she noticed a bloody half-formed hand print smack dab on the left side of his chest. Gasping, she reached out before she could think things through in an attempt to wipe it off.

"I'm so sorry!" she cried, watching in horror as her wiping did nothing to clean his chest, but rather spread the mess around all the more. "Oh gosh, it should be drying, there's not that much!"

Ling grasped her wrist to stop her from making things worse, and noticed the cut on her inner arm.

"Hey, I didn't know you were injured. Did my brother do this?" he said, looking curiously at her arm, then on his chest, then past her into the bathroom. Then his eyes widened with some kind of dawning realization.

Lan Fan looked back, and saw the scissors lying on the sink and the blood stain on the counter which she'd both left in her disturbed haste.

"I'm sorry, I'm going to clean that up, and uh..." she trailed off, as she watched Ling's already weary expression darken with dreadful concern.

"Lan Fan," he said softly but urgently, his brows knotting together. "I know life is rough sometimes, but you're not alone anymore, and oh god, I'm not at all prepared for this and I've no idea how to handle it, but you can always come to me and talk to me. I don't want you to feel as if this is your only option and – "

"Wait, what?" Lan Fan asked, trying very hard not to allow the blush to rise to her cheeks, aware though she was of how close he was to her. And, oh dammit, he was in a lousy towel, and now he was making crazy assumptions! "No, no, this is not what it looks like at all."

"Is this about my brother and what I said earlier? Look, I might have made a bigger deal out of it than it deserves, okay? Or is this about your grandfather? I know I might not be the most trustworthy looking guy around, my eyes are so shifty and small, but I promise you this Lan Fan, I am here to listen– "

"No, no! Ling, whatever you're thinking, it's not true. I was just..." she paused wondering how she could possibly say that she was experimenting with her grandfather's medicine. He didn't even know that she had once used it herself. If he knew that she had more knowledge about it than she was letting on, he'd have even more reason to be suspicious of her. And that wasn't what she needed right now.

"Then what is it about? Did something happen last night?" Ling persisted, placing a hand on her upper arm, and the other – since she had no other arm – on her waist.

"No! Honestly, why can't you just leave it alone? Why do you have to ask so many questions?" she said, exasperated.

"I'm trying to help you," he said, eyes narrowing just a little from his wide-eyed worry.

"As a what, an investigator?" she spat.

"As a friend!" he cried back, his face now losing all tender concern out of anger. It took her a moment to realize that he wasn't angry, more than he was... hurt?

"Ahem!"

Lan Fan jumped, startled, head turning to where Yuna was watching them from the bottom of the stairs that led to the third floor. Her wet hair was combed back neatly, the ends of her locks ending in a clean straight line. She was wearing an ironed blazer and dress pants to match.

"I hope this isn't what it looks like," Yuna continued, eyes mildly reprimanding, lips curled in unsure amusement.

Lan Fan returned her attention back to Ling and herself, and crimsoned to the roots of her hair as it dawned on her how things might have seemed, with him hovering over her, towel barely clinging onto his hipbones, their faces close enough that had she stood on the tips of her toes, they could have kissed.

Immediately, she backed away, mind racing with embarrassment.

"No!" she cried out, hand waving out before her in an effort to emphasize her point. "I mean, yes, it's not! I mean I would never – I couldn't... this isn't what's going on at all! I'll never – " She ceased babbling, and with one final, pained glance at both Ling and Yuna, she fled to her room and shut the door behind her.

Stupid!

Lan Fan placed her hand on her cheek to try and cool the heat she felt radiating from the skin. She wished some dead ancestor would come and claim her soul, so at the very least, she didn't have to be here, in this moment in this place. She'd blundered through the entire thing; and she didn't know if she was more ashamed to have been caught, not once, but twice in a compromising situation, or to know that she couldn't even stand up for herself and explain herself gracefully.

She had blundered her way through the past twelve hours. Ugh.

She landed, face first, on her bed and groaned. Her sharp hearing caught the voices outside. Ling and Yuna seemed to be arguing about something, and trying to wonder what it was about made her insides clench with humiliation.

Only a moment later, she heard a knock on her door. She froze. Technically this wasn't even her home. Was she even allowed to claim that her bedroom was her private space when Yuna was the one who owned it? Ling and his mother had never treated her as if she couldn't do anything around their house, but she also knew that she would be stepping severely out of place should she act as if it was her property.

With reluctance, she rose from the bed and opened the door.

Yuna was on the other side with a tentative smile. "Can I come in?"

Lan Fan nodded, opening the door a little wider so that Yuna could enter. They sat on Lan Fan's bed not speaking for a while, before Yuna broke the silence.

"Are you okay?" she asked tenderly.

Lan Fan nodded.

"My son wasn't... accosting you, was he?"

Lan Fan chuckled. "No, not like that at all. He... meant well."

Yuna nodded, eying her closely. Then she smiled a little. "Good, because I would be severely disappointed to know that I had raised a lech. It's odd with him, you know. He's not a particularly reserved individual, but I think he's afraid he'd be like his father."

Lan Fan understood. "Ling is a good kid," she allowed herself to say. Overzealous perhaps. Maybe a little over the realistic side. Okay, even crazy, she wasn't going to mince the truth to herself. "He's been kinder to me than anyone I know."

"Thank you," Yuna said. "That's good to know." She reached out and combed her fingers through Lan Fan's hair, arranging it so that it fell in a neat heap on her back. It felt strange to Lan Fan, but not uncomfortable.

"Grandpa killed Ling's brother," she said, somehow feeling as if Yuna should know. Yuna's fingers froze in her hair.

"And you're upset about that?" Yuna asked. Lan Fan wished she didn't, because she honestly didn't know how to feel about it.

"You have to remember," Yuna continued. "That you and your grandfather came from a clan of warriors and soldiers. Probably the best in Imperial Xing. You might not think it's a big deal since you didn't grow up in that kind of culture, but your grandfather would surely remember what it's like to face a threat and think that the only option is to kill."

"And you think that's okay?" Lan Fan asked.

"I think... your grandfather is very old," Yuna answered with a small smile. "But because of him, I have one less person to worry about for my son's sake."

"Can I ask you a question?" Lan Fan said, hoping Yuna would not get offended by what she intended to ask.

"Shoot."

"Why did you marry him? Henry Chu, I mean."

The older woman's smile widened to a devilish smirk. "I was paid."

Lan Fan's jaw dropped, and she felt the oncoming onslaught of embarrassment creep up to her face again. But Yuna just laughed, waving away her imminent mortification.

"Oh it's not so bad!" she trilled. "Really, it would have been much worse if I had really married him because I was in love. At least in my opinion. This way when things got ugly, and they got ugly pretty quickly... perhaps they were never pretty at all, actually, I didn't bear the responsibility for it. You might think me childish, but that's how I truly feel."

Lan Fan hesitated, thinking that she might be sticking her nose into something that wasn't for her to know. But Yuna just quirked her eyebrow at Lan Fan, encouraging her to spit out her question.

"Why did you agree to something like that?"

"It wasn't exactly my idea. Henry made the deal with my father. When Xing imploded after the late emperor had died without establishing the succession, and the Xiaos were the ones who managed to seat themselves on the throne, Henry became a target of assassination. Obviously, since he was supposed to inherit before the Fifty Wives System disintegrated. Everyone knew he'd like to take it back any way he knows how. Me, on the other hand, was born here in Amestris, since my mother fled Xing during the Oblique Era. I'm the Yao Chief's fourth daughter, so I wasn't that important. When Henry offered money to my father in exchange for refuge, he took it. He used part of the money to keep himself afloat during the tipsy times, and the rest he sent to mother and me to catapult us into affluence here in the West."

She ended with a casual shrug, almost as if things like that happened all the time. And perhaps they did, in Xing, but Lan Fan found it quite alien to the customs within which she'd grown. Her parents had been in love. At least that was what she heard. And though Grandpa Fu would jest time and again that he'd been too poor to afford multiple wives, he and her paternal grandmother had been very close, at least as faithful partners, if not as a passionate couple. Maybe it had something to do with them being warriors; why care about money and status when they died too early to enjoy it?

But the people of the island of Tong Hua had been culturally different in many of their practices and values anyway. That was why they'd demanded independence for a long time. Now they were only marginally part of Xing, a satellite state with even their own ruling body to boast. The Xingese empire was a vast amalgamation of conquered peoples that one could easily travel by foot and reach a village that did not speak one's dialect. Perhaps with the Yaos, their closest neighbours across the strait, marriage was nothing more than monetary contract.

"Eh don't look so somber!" Yuna teased, bumping her shoulder against Lan Fan's. "Remember, no matter what we think about Chu, he gave me one thing I'm eternally grateful for."

"Ling?" Lan Fan hazarded a guess.

"That's right," Yuna nodded. "I mean, sure, I was hoping for a girl but I can't imagine being happier with anyone else."

"Aren't you worried?"

"About what?"

"Well, about all these crazy things he gets into. What if he gets hurt? What if he dies?"

"That's what you're here for, aren't you?" Yuna asked, and even though Lan Fan knew she wasn't being entirely serious, Lan Fan still felt the weight of responsibility crash on her shoulders.

-o-

Ling fell into a deep slumber after his bath, forgetting to wake for both late morning breakfast and lunch. By the time he regained consciousness, the sun was on its path down the West, the sky a glowing ember of orange. He scratched his eyes and wriggled on his bed, feeling lethargic and achy. The events of the previous night ran through his head, and though he didn't want to think when his head was throbbing with lack of sleep, he couldn't help but try to probe their moves for any loopholes.

Maybe Lan Fan was right. Maybe his father was just paranoid and wanted someone to check how Auto-Mail was faring with their evasion. He would not send someone to steal database configurations, of all things! His brother had been there for a different purpose.

Now he was dead, and that would definitely tell his father something as well. With luck, Ling hoped that his Dad would assume that Auto-Mailers were simply ruthless.

He ran a hand through his now dried hair, grimacing when he realized that his pillow was now drenched in that distinct wet-hair smell, then finally rose.

He was up for only a few minutes, when he heard a soft knock on his door.

"Come in, I'm awake now," he called. He wasn't entirely surprised when Lan Fan reluctantly poked her head in, looking down on the floor as if it was the most interesting thing in his room.

"Uh, I made you a snack," she said, looking at him briefly. "Crunchy noodle soup in the kitchen."

"Thanks, Lan Fan."

"Uh..." she hovered by the doorway, a pale face framed by two black fringes floating between the door and the wall.

"Anything else I can do for you?" he asked as he folded his blankets.

She then stepped inside and closed the door shut.

"Yes, actually. I wish to apologize."

"Oh?"

She flushed and for a moment seemed tempted to look down again, but she held his eyes and took a deep breath.

"I'm sorry for what I said earlier. You have been very good to me, and you didn't deserve to be brushed aside like that." She clamped her lips after that, standing so stiffly that Ling wondered if she was trying to impersonate the door beside her.

The thought that Lan Fan had scripted that and memorized it before coming to him flitted through his mind. He almost smiled, because knowing exactly how secretive Lan Fan was, he was sure it had not been easy for her to decide to have this rather personal conversation.

Ling sat down on his now well-made bed. "Apology accepted. Only if you accept mine too."

"Huh?" her eyes snapped up to meet his again.

"I jumped to conclusions, I admit that. I shouldn't have done it. Someone who assumes things without knowing the entire information... that's not the kind of person I want to be. And that's not the kind of person I want you to think I am. I should have let you explain."

When she just stood there, likely surprised by his own apology, he added, "Only if you want to." He didn't want her to think he was using his apology to force her to open up, even though he was quite curious about what she was doing in the bathroom.

"It's alright," she whispered. "I didn't keep my wits about me either."

He shrugged. "We were tired."

"And..." she fished for something in her pocket and pulled out the bottle of Red Stone. Ling perked up. "I was upset. Grandpa's medicine isn't working as well as it used to."

Ling raised his eyebrows. "He was up and stabbing people last night."

Her flush darkened. "I know, but it shouldn't have taken this much. Remember when I said that several months ago we were still able to keep him healthy for three days straight? That took half as much as what he took last night. And now he's back in bed, with a fever."

"Is he getting worse then?"

"I don't think so," Lan Fan said with a conviction that sounded as if she wasn't making a conjecture at all. "I think it's the medicine. Look, I don't know what's happening, but I think the safest path to take right now is to make another deposit to buy a new bottle for Grandfather."

A part of Ling itched to bring up the topic again of getting someone to help her. It was so clear to him that whoever her seller was, he was taking advantage of Lan Fan. Why did she let him? She had so many resources now. But knowing how his suggestions have been received before, he thought that maybe he should lay off for now.

"Do you need a ride? I'll take you there."

"Oh, sure!" she said, a small smile flitting across her lips. "Thank you." She fiddled with the hem of her shirt, her sleeves being too short to touch without reaching up. She was about to turn around to exit his room when he called out.

"Lan Fan?"

"Yes?"

"We are friends though, right?" he asked, looking at her, trying to keep her eyes from darting back to her favourite spot on his carpet. A part of him wondered if he was just pushing things too far; they obviously weren't bound by loyalty yet, and there was a lot he didn't know about her. But people had to start somewhere. They always did. Most people didn't come baring their souls and hearts wantonly to strangers.

"Yeah," she answered, and gave a small shrug. He winced, wondering if she was trying to say she didn't really much have a choice, or she didn't care either way if they were friends or weren't. "At least you're probably the closest to one that I've ever had."

The image of Lan Fan as a lonely little loner at her school crossed his mind, but he checked himself and stopped the idea from taking root. He didn't know much about how Lan Fan grew up, and he meant every word when he said he would not jump to conclusions anymore. Yet he was still moved by the feeling that though they were friends, they weren't even truly close at that, and that was all she'd had.

Before he knew it, she was in his arms, and he was glomping her so hard she squirmed.

"Ling!"

"I'm sorry, I'm just... give me a moment, okay?" he said, cheek resting against her hair. "It's been a terribly strange and exhausting twenty four hours."

"Are you crying?!"

"No, of course not!" He let her go and she blushed furiously, unable to meet his eyes. For some reason he couldn't quite fathom, he found that incredibly funny. He started laughing, which earned him a glare from her. "Alright, no more hugs for you. Gosh, you're a lot like Ed." And she glared even harder.

AN: Gah! This chapter flew out of my system like it was claustrophobic. It took me exactly 7 days to write, and that's a record. It never takes me that short to write a 15 paged chapter.

There were two more scenes I had planned to write in this chapter, including what the team decided to do with Ed and Winry's interviews, because let's face it, they kinda got the short end of the stick last chapter. I wanted to bring it up to a better note, because Ed would never let things go unchecked especially when he and people he cares about are treated badly. Suffice it to say, they do have a plan for that, but it'll come next chapter.

I never expected these two scenes (Hoax # 1 and its aftermath) to take up so many pages. I think what happened is that my outline was so plot-driven that I didn't realize how much characterization I needed to support the events. Lan Fan bumping into an almost naked Ling came out of nowhere, by the way. But considering how fast the scene evolved in my head, it was begging to be written. (If I were in the habit of naming chapters, this one ought to be called "What Are You Doing Here and This is Not What It Looks Like.")

The only thing that I'm worried about is that it threw off my scene arrangement in each chapter.

Anyway, if you've managed to get this far, I sincerely thank you! I'd love to hear what you think.