Title: Long Odds

Author: S J Smith

Rating: K+

Disclaimer: See me sitting in my house in Southern Indiana? Not Japan? That's part of the reason you should know I don't own any of this.

Summary: Jean doesn't understand alchemy.

They could argue over who had it worse, if they wanted. Jean Havoc was in his wheel chair, his fingers laced together, while his one-time commander, Roy Mustang, sat tailor-fashion, with his arms crossed, in a hospital bed. He had bandages wrapped around his hands, and his eyes were grey with sightlessness. The boss had lost nearly everything, Jean knew, sight and alchemy and life and, maybe, more than anything, Riza Hawkeye, who rested in the next bed over, a necklace of gauze wrapped around her neck.

But there was something else. Mustang said there was a way to cure his spine, make it so Jean was able to walk again. A way that he'd be able to see, and use his hands, with the tendons all severed in them. Jean wasn't sure he believed it, but he'd seen weirder things. Alchemy, after all, was pretty damned amazing. Look at Alphonse Elric, who'd been nothing but a suit of armor and a voice, and now was a flesh and blood kid again, although Jean thought Al needed to put on about three times the body weight he had now. And Edward came out of that battle with a flesh arm, where there'd been a metal one before.

"It's like magic," he'd muttered, and Ed had heard him, and made a deep sound of disgust.

"Not magic, Havoc. Alchemy. Equivalent exchange. I got my arm back and Al got his body back because we itraded/i something worthwhile to get them." And the kid's eyes went to some far off place Jean didn't know. "That's how alchemy works. Not magic. You've got to offer up something equal to get something back."

So now, Jean sat in a wheel chair, in Mustang's room, waiting for some doctor guy to come in and tell him how he, and Mustang, could get their bodies working again. If they were playing poker, Jean would know how he'd bet. The odds were against it happening, but he still sat here, nervous as an idiot on his first date.

"Stop fidgeting," Mustang grumbled. "Dr. Marcoh will be by, and he can answer all of your questions."

"Yeah, thanks, boss," Jean said, but it wasn't the same. What could he even begin to offer to get back the use of his legs? He wasn't that smart, and, sure, he was a good shot. If it was money, well, he wasn't sure there'd be enough money in the Havoc family to get him his legs. What else did he have? He guessed he could offer up his gratitude, but that wasn't enough. Nothing could be enough.

Maybe he should've asked Ed and Al what they'd traded, but he wasn't sure they'd talk about it. It seemed pretty personal, and Jean didn't feel like he had the right to dig into their lives like that. It was one thing to tease the kid about his feelings about stuff, but another entirely to go into that sort of talk with him.

Mustang cocked his head, and Hawkeye's head came up. They heard something he didn't, and then, he did – footsteps in the hall. His stomach knotted up as he thought about it, about what he had to offer, if anything, to get back his life. Maybe what he had wasn't enough, but he'd lay it all out on the table, and see if this Doc Marcoh could help.

And if what Jean offered wasn't good enough, well, that was the luck of the draw, wasn't it?

~ end ~