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Edward believed himself to be a smart kid, a prodigy. How was it, then, that he had not realized what was about to happen until the moment Havoc threw an arm out in front of him, defensive.
“Look out!”
A shot rang out not a second later. Both Ed and Havoc stumbled backwards, before Havoc turned his whole body to face the teenager, his face screwed up in pain.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered, barely loud enough over the sounds of blood roaring in Ed's ears, before he was pushed as another shot rang out. He tried to grab Havoc as he felt himself lose his balance, but Havoc was suddenly gone. The last thing he saw before he fell was the older man whipping out his pistol to return fire, one arm dripping blood from the wound that would have killed Ed otherwise.
Ed tried to shout for Havoc, but by the time he processed the fall, he hit the water below - it wasn’t too high of a fall, but the water was barely warmed by the sun - and all sounds fizzled on his lips as the shock of cold water froze him for a bit.
It was so difficult to breathe, at first. The water felt crushing, his lungs felt too tight, but he forced himself to take a deep breath once he breached the water. It was then difficult to stay afloat with his automail weighing him down more than his loose clothing.
“Havoc!” He shouted as the water pulled him away from where he had fallen, where Havoc still stood, fighting. The older man was just a small figure growing steadily smaller and smaller with every passing second, even as Ed tried to fight the current.
“Get to the safe house!” He heard before the figure was too small to see.
Edward and Havoc were given a small, supposedly typically easy assignment to complete together. It wasn’t related with how Ed and Al could regain their bodies back, which was annoying right off the bat, but Colonel Bastard apparently had his hands tied about the required personnel. Apparently, he and Havoc had been called on specifically for the assignment. Some bullshit about experience and adaptability, or that’s what Mustang said.
The assignment was to find the location of an escapee, a young man who had been originally arrested for the kidnapping and endangerment of orphans. The escapee had been known as a well-liked guy, before it was found out he was endangering orphaned children that he took forcibly off the streets. At least that was what the paper said about the situation, but it was a little too vague for Ed’s liking. He remembered seeing newspapers of the arrest, seeing the young children reaching out for the man like they would to a loved parent, and recalled a radio interview that had been done with the eldest orphan, who got riled up every time the interviewer insisted that they had been kidnapped.
Because of his nature - nosy, petulant, always needed to get the truth - Ed somehow complicated the assignment the moment he started poking the holes he found in the story of the kidnapping and endangerment. Havoc did his best to keep them on track, but when he understood what Ed had dug up, even he couldn’t give a blind eye. The older brother in both was too strong for either of them.
Somehow during the investigation of where the escapee could have gone, the two learned they weren’t the only military personnel assigned to the case of finding the young man. Which led to them being targetted when, instead of arresting the young man again when they had come across him, they had asked a simple question and let him walk away with growing confusion and suspicion.
“Are you their legal guardian?”
“I was before the MPs learned I was part-Ishvalan.”
After that, Havoc and Ed had become targets to the other soldiers who had been tasked with arresting the escapee, simply because they learned the truth about the situation.
Which is why Ed fell off the small cliff to the water below while Havoc fought off the soldiers attacking them.
It took Ed forever to finally make it to shore, to find solid ground under his feet and be able to keep his head above water, and he dragged himself out of the water, shaking from the cold air freezing the water that clung to his skin and clothes and hair, or maybe shaking from the exertion it had taken just to reach a shore some distance from the cliff.
He wanted to slump there on the shore, his limbs shivering and spasming from the water and adrenaline seeping out of him, but he wasn’t sure how safe he was. Havoc’s last order rang in his head, replaying over and over again, pushing him enough to get his arms under him, and then his legs, until he was able to stagger to his feet. His teeth chattered as a light breeze passed through him, making it more difficult to keep what little body heat remained.
Ed staggered away, his mind only thinking of Havoc’s order. He had to reach the safe house. He had to call someone, to help Havoc. He couldn’t hear the gunfight, but he didn’t know how many enemies had found them when he had been pushed away.
He had to get rid of his clothes and get into something properly warm before he froze to death or got hypothermia or pneumonia.
He had to save Havoc, no matter what.