Fullmetal/ Dr. Who

Maes blinked hazily as he stumbled from the building, shaking his head in an attempt to rid himself of the dizziness and the darkness at the edges of his vision. Phone- he needed a phone. There should be a phonebooth around here, somewhere, he knew there was one somewhere.

There!

And either he was hallucinating, or the thing had a huge light on top. Useful, really- Maes decided not to question it, because if it was his mind lighting it up like that, he really needed one. He blinked at the unfamiliar design- he'd never seen a Police booth before, but that really wasn't the issue just now. If the civilian cops were experimenting with emergency response methods, it was certainly useful.

He clutched his shoulder tighter as he pushed forward, shoving his good side into the door and grunting as it stuck. He backed up an inch and slammed forward, groaning as the door flew open and he collapsed to the ground inside.

Right- phone, there should be a phone in this thing.

He pushed himself up slowly, growling in irritation at the fact that the door was hanging open and the other walls were- weren't. They simply- how had- he was- huh?

Maes felt the world twisting around him as he slammed back into the ground, bewildered. He'd entered- entered a police box, right?

Which meant it should have a phone inside, but this was just a really big room, with weird… things all over the place and not a person to be seen. This wasn't what he needed! He needed a phone!

Damn police box. Why did the civilian police have to mess with a perfectly good phone system, anyway? Phone booths were good. Phone booths were helpful. Phone booths had phones. Police boxes held… Maes wasn't sure what it was this stuff was, but it definitely wasn't a bunch of phones!

He should get on that, really, he should- finding a phone- but he was- he was tired. That was the blood loss, his brain supplied helpfully, and he wanted to tell it that yes, he knew it was blood loss, and he didn't care very much at the moment because he was tired and needed a nap.

Yes, well Amestris was going to be destroyed while he napped, his brain sneered at him. Maes frowned and told it to be polite and stop exaggerating, to which it gave him a disbelieving silence.

He would have glared, the glare that made people get nervous and go very quiet, but it was his mind he wanted to glare at and that wouldn't work very well. Hmph.

He forced his eyes open, made himself look around blearily, but there wasn't a phone visible from the floor and he was pretty sure he wasn't able to get up to find one, anyway.

Mm, nope. There was the darkness at the edges of his vision again, only now it was pretty much all of his vision and he felt… floaty.

He floated for a while, knowing it was a bad thing and unable to do anything about it because somewhere in the time he'd been cursing the police box for not having a phone, he'd apparently gotten automail installed in place of all four limbs because he couldn't move them.

He stayed there, floating and dreading the moment when that woman found him again, for- well, it had to have been a while even with every second feeling like an hour. The floor wasn't uncomfortable, once he got used to it, and he found himself resisting the hands that were trying to push him and pull him and were they trying to take off his shirt?

"M married," he mumbled, uncertain as to why someone would be undressing him wherever he was but well aware that only Gracia was allowed to do that, thank you very much.

"Yes, well, you won't be much longer if I don't get you looked at," an unfamiliar, accented voice told him, and he was unable to keep the frown from his face as he tried to process that.

Why in the world would Gracia leave him for staying loyal?

"Hold on, now," the voice told him, and Maes identified it as a man.

He didn't even like men. Or know who this was, for that matter. He had standards.

"Yes, well you don't have to like me, I just need you to stay alive, got that?" The man said, amused, and Maes mumbled his agreement. Alive was good. Gracia probably wouldn't like him if he was dead. "I'm the Doctor, by the way, we'll just get you moved and then we can fix you up."

Mm, yes. Fixed up was helpful. And a doctor- that was good, too. He needed one of those.

"Stay awake now, there's a good chap- how did you even get in here, anyway?"

How did he get in? His brain sparked a few times, trying to figure it out- ah, yes- "Us'd th' door."

A laugh, and Maes wondered what was funny. Did this man use some other way of getting into the police box? …. He was in a police box for a reason, wasn't he? There'd been something he had to do, call someone. It wasn't Gracia, because he wouldn't have left the maps- oh, yes, he'd wanted to call Roy.

"Phn?"

"What's that?" The man grunted, and Maes hissed a breath out as his arm was jostled. "Sorry, sorry- right, did you say something?"

"Ph- phne?" Maes mumbled, his lips slurring the word until it was barely recognizable and the man who was carrying him had to be a genius for figuring out what he'd said.

"Phone? The Tardis doesn't have a- oh," The man said, clearly coming to a realization, "You were hoping for an actual Police Box- well, sorry, this's just my Tardis so the best I can do is fix you up, yeah? We're about at the infirmary now, so hold on just a bit more."

"Mmh," Maes mumbled. Fixed was good enough, then he'd be able to tell Roy himself that there was something wrong with Amestris.

The man lay him down on something that was… admittedly not soft, but it wasn't cold, either, and there was a pleasant numbness spreading through his body now.

That… was a bad thing, he decided, and it was a very good thing that the doctor was now able to do his doctory things, because Maes wasn't going to be even a little bit helpful anymore- he wanted a nap.

The last thing he heard was the doctor yelling frantically.

Maes blinked slowly, wincing at the light in his eyes. He felt… foggy. And like he'd been- oh. Oh, yes, he actually had been stabbed, hadn't he?

He'd survived, though, and judging by the fact that he'd collapsed somewhere he didn't recognize, it'd been close.

Maes's eyes slid closed again, and he dozed for a while, a distant whirring relaxing his body and urging him to sleep. It was a nice bed he was on, he thought at some point- nice and soft so he could just float on it. Well, the floating could just be the blood loss, though.

He twitched as he heard a door open, frowning at the thought that it hadn't been his imagination.

"Tsk." A man clicked his tongue disapprovingly, and Maes cracked an eye open to glare at him. The man blinked, then grinned widely and clapped his hands. "You're awake! You had a nasty bit of trouble there, you know- really lucky I decided to come home when I did or youd've bled out before I got home."

"Who're you?" Maes grunted, not really up to putting in more effort for conversation.

"Right, yes, I'm the Doctor," the man said, and Maes frowned.

"Helpful," Maes muttered, frowning harder at the man's laugh and then giving it up because glaring was just going to take more energy than he had at the moment.

"That's what I go by," The man explained, "I'm called the Doctor."

"Right," Maes mumbled, already drifting back to sleep.

"You'll be alright," he heard the Doctor say quietly, and gratitude rooted itself in Maes as he fell into asleep.

After that, Maes found himself slipping in and out of consciousness periodically as he healed, learning more about the Doctor who'd saved him as he woke up again and again.

The man was a traveler, who went to interesting places and seemed to find trouble nearly everywhere he went. He was a cheerful man, who'd seen the darker side of the world and probably walked through hell a few times, judging by his eyes. That was okay, though, Maes had seen Hell, too.

The first time he tried to leave, nearly a month after he'd shown up, he found out very quickly that there was more to the Doctor than it seemed. Maes was pretty sure there wasn't any place in Amestris that had flying cars, and he was sure he'd have heard about it if they'd been developed pretty much anywhere, really. That sort of technological advance was fairly hard to miss, after all.

The trouble came when the Doctor was forced to sheepishly admit that he really wasn't sure where or when in standard galactic time he'd picked up Maes. The Tardis had apparently moved itself while the Doctor was focused on keeping Maes alive. Which left a number of planets and times to visit and only limited time to search them in. Maes might grow old and die long before they found Amestris again. The anxiety in his gut only tightened with each planet that wasn't his home. What was happening to Amestris, without him there?

Maes missed his family.

"What in the-?"

"What's up, Doc?" Maes asked, leaning over to peer at the blaring alarm the Doctor was frowning at.

"This- the Tardis says there's a Dalek nearby," the Doctor said, bewildered.

"Dalek?"

"Creatures that only know hate," The Doctor explained, "Having one on a little planet like this? It could wipe out the entire population before they even knew what hit them."

"Well, that's- wow. Anything I can do?"

"Unfortunately," The doctor said, "My stash of weapons is a bit, ah, nonexistent at the moment, so no. Not really."

"Right," Maes agreed, "I'll keep her ready if we need to make a quick exit, then?"

"Sounds good," the Doctor agreed, facing the door grimly.

It was a long wait as Maes sat tensely in the Tardis, the minutes passing with agonizing slowness as he waited for a verdict.

When the door clicked open and the Doctor finally poked his head in, grinning widely, Maes could do nothing but grin.

"All good, then?" He asked.

"Yep!" the Doctor chirped cheerfully, a twinkle in his eye. Maes didn't worry about it, the man was always excited about something else. "Want to come out and meet some interesting people?"

"Sounds good," Maes grinned. He always did, just in case he was home, just in case he'd finally found-

"Roy?" He breathed in shock, staring wide-eyed at the people in the room the Doctor had somehow come to. "Roy!"

"Don't move another inch."

Maes froze, shocked, as he stared at the men and women in the room. Why were they pointing their guns at him? Even Edward was there, several years older than when Maes had last seen him, his eyes full of fury as he bared his automail sword.

"Roy?" He asked, "Roy, what's going on?"

"Maes?" His friend asked warily, examining him with muted hope and glancing hesitantly in the Doctor's direction. The man nodded, grinning. "Is it really you?"

"I'm back," Maes breathed, unable to stop the tears in his eyes, "Roy, I'm back- shit- Roy, there's something wrong with Amestris! There's a huge transmutation cir- Have you LOST YOUR MIND?" Maes roared at his friend- why would his friend be laughing about something like this?!

"Someone call Gracia," Roy said, clearly forcing his chuckles down, "Let her know Maes is alive."

"Alive?" Maes asked, going very still. "Roy, what's going on?"

"You've been missing for nearly three years, Maes," Roy explained, embracing him tightly. "And we know about the transmutation circle."

"Then why aren't you doing anything?" Maes demanded, pushing himself away, "Roy, this could-"

"We destroyed it six months ago," Roy grinned. "It's good to have you back."

"Oh. Well, good." Maes grinned and hugged his friend again, and then the spell in the room was broken as he was swarmed with hugs.

It only got better, because twenty minutes later he was hugging Gracia and Elysia and they were all crying and laughing and that wasn't going to change any time soon.

The world was finally, finally right again.

Omake:

Maes gaped at the cars flying over the city far above him, unable to comprehend what was going on. At last he turned to gape at the Doctor.

"Did you- what the hell?" He asked.

"Surprise?" The Doctor tried, and Maes glared flatly. "Oh, don't give me that look, It's not like I kidnapped you, you're the one who broke into the TARDIS! I'm a time traveler. This is the TARDIS. Time and Relative Dimensions in Space."

Maes blinked over at the blue police box, then the Doctor- then he realized what he'd just seen and refocused on the Police Box. He rubbed his temples slowly and limped back inside for an ice pack and the whiskey he'd found two days ago.

"Alchemists," he muttered vehemently on his way in.

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I never expected to come out with a second chapter on this thing, but what do you know? This was inspired by… some story I read at some point. I can't remember which one, who wrote it, or when- it was a while ago. Regardless, I ended up with the idea that what if Maes found a Police Box instead of a phone booth, wrote this little beauty, and realized how perfectly it fit in with what is now the first chapter.

As I hope you've gathered, I messed with the timeline and the cannon reality a wee little bit. Read on, and I hope you lovely folks enjoy this. If you have any ideas for further extensions, I'm happy to take suggestions though I can't promise I'll manage to turn it into anything worth posting.