A/N: This occurs within the same universe I established in "Pieces" and "Home," just farther down the line. How far down the line, even I'm not too sure about. You're all free to decide for yourselves. Enjoy, and Merry Christmas all!
"Unforgiven"
Elizabeth Elric wasn't aware that her father was different until she noticed that all her friends' fathers didn't have one automail arm and leg like hers did.
Like any six-year-old faced with something beyond her conception, Elizabeth decided she needed to know why her father was different. So one afternoon, as she and her father were walking home from school, hand in hand, Elizabeth craned her head back and looked up at him.
"Daddy?"
"Yeah Lizzie?" Edward asked, looking down at her with a half-smile.
"How come you got a automail arm an' leg?"
Ed was obviously surprised by the question, his gold eyes widening and his gait slowing. Eventually, he stopped altogether, looking down at her as if he didn't quite know what to make of her. Elizabeth stared up at him, her pale eyes patient. She had the unique ability of being able to identify with and understand both her parents. Consequently, Elizabeth knew that her father would soon answer her question in a satisfactory manner, he just needed a few moments to collect himself. And sure enough, his expression soon evened out and his lips pursed thoughtfully.
"Well Lizzie," he said finally, voice quiet, and the little girl immediately knew this was serious, because her father only used his quiet voice when he was saying something important, "Daddy did something bad when he was very young, and he was punished."
"Really bad Daddy?" Lizzie asked, eyes wide, and she watched her father's throat work as he swallowed.
"Really bad," he affirmed.
Elizabeth's eyes fell on her father's gloved right hand, the one she held. She'd never really thought twice about his automail appendages. Her mother was an automail mechanic, and Elizabeth had inherited her mother's fascination with all things metal and moving, so she inspected her father's arm and leg at every opportunity. She'd thought it was neat—she'd had no sense that such things might not be other people's normal.
"But you're sorry, right Daddy?" she asked, looking back up at him.
He nodded.
"Then how come you're still punished? You an' Mommy only punish me for a little while when I'm bad."
Her father sent her one of his odd, melancholy smiles, the ones he gave her sometimes when she caught him staring into space. When she'd asked her mother about Ed's strange behavior, Winry had told Elizabeth it was best to leave him alone for a little while.
"Because, Lizzie," he said quietly, "what Daddy did was so bad, he can't ever be forgiven. He's punished for the rest of his life."
Elizabeth couldn't imagine what her father could have done that was bad enough to warrant permanent punishment. Her mother did complain that he was too reckless, so maybe that had something to do with it. In the end, however, it was enough of an explanation to suit a six-year-old, and she looked up at him and said,
"Okay Daddy."
He smiled down at her and gently squeezed her small hand.
"Okay," he returned, and they continued on home, Elizabeth telling her father what she'd done at school that day.
When Elizabeth was ten, she began getting peculiar looks from her classmates. Investigation into this development revealed disturbing information about her father, information pertaining to his automail limbs.
When Elizabeth arrived home, her parents were seated at the table, eating a late lunch and discussing a recent customer. Ed still didn't understand the appeal of automail, but he helped Winry around the shop with simple tasks, and with the attachment process. They looked over when Elizabeth barged into the house.
"Lizzie?" Winry asked, rising, immediately realizing something was wrong. "Where's your brother, what's wrong?"
"Lizzie?" Ed asked when Elizabeth didn't immediately reply.
Elizabeth's gaze went back and forth between her parents before settling on her father.
"Kids at school've been saying things about Daddy," she announced, voice quiet.
The mood of the dining room became suddenly very oppressive. Winry's eyes flew to Ed. Ed met his daughter's gaze, then smiled humorlessly and rose.
"Let's go for a walk," he said.
Father and daughter walked to the cemetery in silence. Elizabeth immediately knew where they were going; as she'd gotten older, she'd noticed her father would walk in the direction of the cemetery when his melancholy moods fell on him. She'd followed him once, curious and a little concerned. Ed always got so grim and solemn when those moods struck, so different from his usual manner. It was as if he became a different person. She'd asked her uncle Alphonse about it, and he'd told her a troubled man always consulted his mother. Now what Ed consulted the departed Trisha about, the younger Elric had no idea, and he'd said it was none of his business or hers, and he'd advised his niece to allow her father his privacy, which she had.
They reached Trisha's grave, and stood silent before it. Elizabeth waited for her father to begin speaking, explaining. A part of her wanted to know his secrets, but a larger part of her was terrified to. She didn't want the awful things the kids at school had said to be true, and she had a bad feeling they were—she remembered, all too vividly, the afternoon four years ago when she'd first asked about his automail.
Ed lifted his right hand and slowly removed the glove, then held it up and looked at it, face grim. He opened and closed his hand slowly, as if he hadn't realized until that very moment that his right hand was not flesh and bone like his left, but metal and wires. Elizabeth watched his hand, her feeling of unreasonable terror growing.
"Our mother died when me and Uncle Al were still little kids," Ed said quietly, his voice far graver than Elizabeth could ever remember hearing it. "We didn't have any family left, so we moved in with your mother and Granny Pinako. We'd been living with them for a while, when Izumi Curtis and her husband happened through Rizembool and saved the town from a flood after we tried and failed with the little alchemy we'd picked up from studying our father's books. We begged her to take us in as her students, and she did, after some resistance. So we studied alchemy under her. Then, we came back."
Elizabeth knew all this already, having heard the story of how her father had met his teacher several times, having heard many funny stories about his training. But she kept quiet and waited for him to continue, despite the churning of her stomach and the nausea rising in her. When his pause stretched on, Elizabeth looked up at her father's face.
Ed's eyes had a far away look in them, though they were riveted to Trisha's tombstone, and Elizabeth was suddenly overcome with sharp, aching regret. She wished desperately now, seeing the haunted look on her father's face, that she hadn't said anything; Ed wouldn't have kept the truth from her, and she'd known that. Her every dealing with her father had always been honest.
"Do you remember," Ed said finally, voice almost a murmur, "last year when you started studying alchemy, you asked me about the taboos?"
Elizabeth nodded slowly:
"Yes Daddy," she whispered, voice shaking.
"Transmuting gold…and human transmutation." Ed said, and Elizabeth's eyes filled with tears.
"I decided to bring our mother back. Uncle Al tried to talk me out of it, but I thought…I was so sure I could do it."
Another pause.
"Do you remember what I said about human transmutation?"
"'You'll never make an equal exchange until you're willing to give up all of yourself.'" Elizabeth dutifully recited, voice quavering, tears falling.
Ed nodded.
"I didn't realize that until too late. The transmutation…failed. That wasn't Mom. I lost my left leg…and Al lost his body. I gave up my right arm for his soul, and I affixed it to a suit of armor."
Silence fell between them. Elizabeth sniffled and barely managed to keep from sobbing out loud; Ed was silent, his eyes on his mother's headstone.
"Uncle Al got his body back," Ed murmured finally, shaking his head a little as if coming out of a dream, and even sounding a little dazed, as if he'd just awakened, "and I kept my automail limbs—my punishment—so that he could." He lifted his right hand up to the sky, fisted it, then turned it around slowly, watching it, inspecting it. "And that's a taboo, Lizzie. And this is punishment."
Ed fell silent, and the dying afternoon lay quietly around them, broken only by Elizabeth's sniffling. Eventually, Ed's right arm lowered, and then his hand hung limply at his side, the red-orange sunlight gleaming off the shining metal. Elizabeth watched the hand that had fascinated her her whole life, tears dribbling down her face. He didn't sound like her father—the Ed Elric she knew didn't speak in such a dead voice. The Ed Elric she knew didn't speak of his brother with shades of regret coloring his tone. And that was when Elizabeth realized just how precious little she truly knew about the man she called her father.
The blonde girl reached out a trembling hand and took hold of her father's automail one. He flinched visibly, which only made her feel worse. She fell to her knees and brought his hand to her cheek.
"I'm s-s-sorry, Daddy," she choked out, "I'm sorry I'm sorry."
Ed went rigid for a moment, then quickly squatted down and gathered her to him, tucking her under his chin, cradling her the way he used to when she'd come to him after a nightmare. He crouched down before his mother's grave with his daughter in his arms for a long time before she pulled back enough to look up at him, face sorrowful. He smiled sadly at her, cupped the side of her face with his left hand and used his thumb to wipe tears away.
"Don't be sorry Lizzie," he said quietly.
She sniffled, then hugged him tightly, arms around his neck. He returned the hug, kissing the side of her head.
"I love you Daddy," she said, voice muffled.
She didn't see his smile, but she heard it in his voice when he returned,
"I love you too, Lizzie."
He squeezed her once more, then rose, and settled her against his hip comfortably and kissed her cheek.
"Let's go home," he said, and she nodded, head settled against his shoulder.
As they were leaving the cemetery, Elizabeth reached out, took hold of her father's right hand and squeezed it, then threaded her fingers through his. She heard him snort faintly, an amused sound.
"Automail freak."
"Don't forget 'alchemy freak'," she returned smartly, and Ed chuckled.
He'd never be quite whole and he'd never be quite forgiven…but the acceptance of an innocent had a way of making him think that both might be possible.