Chapter Two: Sympathy

The train route from East City to Rush Valley was almost five hours long, with three stops in between. Ordinarily Ed would have spent that time stretched out on his seat fast asleep while Al would count the cows and sheep that passed outside. But with the Wagner siblings sitting with them it was impossible to do any of this.

For the first ten minutes after the train left the station the brother and sister continued to bicker about Isaac's carelessness with his auto-mail and Helene's persistence in tagging along with him. They even got loud enough for a steward to come over and tell them they were disturbing the other passengers with their noise. Then they decided to give each other the silent treatment and focused on pretending the other wasn't there. Helene had the window seat and was frowning at the glass she could not see through, and Isaac had his face hidden behind his newspaper pretending the weather report was interesting.

The tense silence made Ed and Al feel rather uncomfortable. It was unusual for them to have companions when they traveled, and it seemed strange to be sitting with people without talking with them. Ed decided to use this quiet time to eat the meal Al had bought for him, so his mouth was busy chewing a ham sandwich. Therefore it was Al who finally decided to start a new conversation.

"Um, so, have you guys always lived in East City?" He asked this to no one in particular, but he hoped Helene might answer. He didn't get many chances to talk to cute girls his age, particularly ones who weren't put off by his giant metal exterior.

But it was not to be. Isaac lowered his newspaper enough to look at the large suit of armor and answered his question. "We're originally from New Optain. We moved to East City about ten years ago."

"Really? We've been to New Optain before, haven't we, brother?" Al nudged Ed slightly, urging him to participate.

Ed picked up on his brother's hint and swallowed the piece of sandwich in his mouth. "Oh yeah, but we were just passing through from Youswell. Seemed like a nice place, though. Kinda reminded me of Resembool, only not as green."

"We've never been to Resembool. Is that where you guys are from?" Isaac asked.

Ed nodded his head. "We were both born and raised there. So was Winry, my auto-mail mechanic."

"Is she the mechanic you're going to see now?"

"Yup. She moved to Rush Valley a while ago, to learn from the pros. Hey, that reminds me. Isaac, who's going to fix your arm?"

Isaac set his newspaper in his lap with a frown. "I don't really know…The guys at the base didn't tell me who to look for."

Ed snorted and rolled his eyes. "Pff. You can't just trust anybody to fix something as important as your auto-mail. You'd think the military would be smart enough to tell you that."

Just then Al had an idea. "I know! Why don't you come with us to see Winry?"

Ed inhaled so hard that he nearly choked on his food. "What?! No way!" he exclaimed. "Al, you know how Winry is! Once she sees Isaac's arm she won't be able to keep her hands off it! She wouldn't get around to fixing my arm until who knows when!"

"But who else could fix it for him?" Al calmly pointed out. "The only other mechanic we know in Rush Valley is Mr. Le Court, and you know how he is."

Ed groaned. Why did Al have to be right all the time? It seemed Winry was Isaac's only option for repairs, which meant the Elrics would be staying in Rush Valley longer then they first planned. That would slow their quest down, something Ed did not want at all. Then again, it would be wrong to deny Isaac the help he needed. The cadet in training probably needed to return to boot camp at a certain time, and would get in trouble with his superiors if he didn't make it. And his little sister was with him, too. Their mother would doubtless be worried about her if she didn't return home soon.

"Oh, the heck with it!" Ed sighed and waved a hand at Isaac. "It's your arm, take it where you want!"

Isaac grinned and launched into another bout of geeky admiration. "Thanks a lot, Ed! It would be so cool to get my auto-mail fixed by the same mechanic as you! Then we can be auto-mail buddies!"

"Yeah, yeah, don't mention it." Ed said, intending the statement literally.

Al could have jumped for joy. Having Winry fix Isaac's arm meant that he would have the chance to spend even more time with Helene. As the older boys continued to talk, Al just sat there gazing at the girl with unabashed hope in his eyes. She seemed to be listening to the boys now and there was even a hint of a smile on her face. For most of the trip Helene kept her blind eyes closed, but occasionally she would open them and let them drift about as if she were looking at things no one else could see.

Sometimes they paused briefly on one of the boys talking, but they settled the longest on Al who was sitting straight in front of her. He almost wondered if the blindness was all an act and that Helene really could see him in his monstrous body, but if that were true she didn't show any signs of fear or revulsion. Did she really like him as much as he hoped she did? Was she thinking the same things he was? Had she really meant it when she said she wanted to get to know him better?

If Isaac had known Al was thinking any of this about his little sister he might have said something about it, but he was far more interested in whatever Ed was talking about.

"So, Isaac," Ed was saying. "How'd you wind up with auto-mail, anyway? You get beat up by the older recruits or something?"

Isaac blushed and scratched his head. "Er, not exactly…See, there was this training exercise where we had to defuse a bomb and, well, obviously I didn't do it right!" Hearing this, Helene rolled her sightless eyes upward and wondered why in heaven's name her brother was freely telling people about his own stupidity.

Ed nearly choked on his sandwich again, this time from laughing. "Hah! Oh, man, that sucks! How did you mess it up this time?"

The older boy turned even redder. "Um … catching a live grenade …" This time Helene closed her eyes completely and shook her head, still unable to believe Isaac was actually talking about this.

Ed doubled over and laughed even harder. "Bwa hah hah! That sucks even more!"

"Yeah, no kidding!" Isaac said, laughing off his embarrassment. "At least it stayed in one piece this time! Hey, Ed, you told me how you broke your auto-mail, but you didn't say how you got it. What kind of accident did you get into?

Ed stopped laughing instantly. He had to make up a lie and fast. "Er, that's top secret military info! If I told you I'd have to kill you!"

Isaac shrugged and snickered. "Fair enough. Can I ask you something else, then? If you're an alchemist, why can't you just use alchemy to fix your auto-mail?"

This was a much safer question to answer. In fact, it was the kind of question Ed loved to answer because it allowed him to show off his scientific genius. He bit into his apple and chewed, answering between bites. "Cuz alchemy doesn't work that way. For one thing, I'd have to know auto-mail as well as a mechanic. But I still couldn't transmute any missing parts."

"Why not?" Isaac asked. "Can't alchemy create things out of thin air?"

It was Al's turn now to feel embarrassed about his brother. He shook his head and sighed deeply, knowing exactly the lecture that was coming.

"No." Ed replied, in full scholar mode now. "That goes against the Law of Equivalent Exchange. 'To obtain, something of equal value must be lost.' That means alchemy can't create something from nothing. It only works if the right materials are around to transmute." He swallowed the fruit in his mouth and held the half-eaten apple up. "For example, I'm taking pieces out of this apple as I eat it. If I want to put the apple back together, I need all of its pieces to do it. But since I've eaten them already, that's impossible."

"Oh…" Isaac said, looking at the apple and trying to process Ed's explanation. "So you need a mechanic to repair your auto-mail because you don't have the right pieces?"

"Exactly!" Ed said with a grin. "Congratulations, you just learned the first basic principle of alchemy! Add about ten more years of study and you're on your way to becoming an alchemist yourself!"

"Hah, I don't think so!" Isaac laughed. "I never had a head for books. It must take longer then ten years of studying to become a State Alchemist. Hey, what exactly do State Alchemists do?"

Ed took another bite of his apple before he answered. "Oh, lots of different things. Research, experiments, pretty much whatever we want, unless someone higher in the chain of command gives us orders." He grimaced at this point, as if the fruit in his mouth tasted bitter. "That's why we're called Dogs of the Military. If someone calls us to war, we have to drop everything and go. They even sent a whole bunch of State Alchemists to Ishbal!"

All of a sudden Isaac's face went pale and his jaw went slack. Then he looked down at his boots, his eyes hidden behind is brown bangs. His entire body seemed to have gotten heavier and was sagging on the bench like a sack of wet flour.

Ed frowned. This was not at all like the tall, smiling boy's previous behavior. "Uh … did I say something wrong?"

Helene, who had remained silent by the window all this time, now put a hand on her brother's shoulder. When she spoke her voice was solemn. "Ed …We lost our dad in Ishbal."

Ed's stomach twisted itself into a knot so that he didn't feel like finishing his apple anymore. Al's mood became sullen as well. The two brothers knew exactly the kind of pain Isaac and Helene were feeling. They thought of Winry, who had lost both her parents in the war, and how much she had cried when she heard the news. They even thought of the loss of their own mother. She had not been killed in the war, but her death had still been the most devastating event of their lives.

For a long time the four of them remained silent and listened to the noise of the train. Outside the scenery was changing to a dry and rugged landscape and the sun was sinking lower and lower, while the temperature inside their car was going up. Ed became hot enough to strip off his red coat. Then he began to doze off and finally slumped against Al's side fast asleep. Helene also drifted off, her head resting on Isaac's shoulder. He had one arm around her and was still wide awake. His face was still very serious, but it was hard to tell just what he was feeling.

It would have been nice for Al to escape into sleep like the others, but the nature of his body prevented this. Like Isaac he was wide awake and felt the dark clouds hanging over them getting heavier. He tried to think of something to say that would lighten the mood, but none of the things he thought of seemed right.

It surprised him when the other boy looked up at him and spoke. "Al…can I ask you a question?"

Al sat up straighter. "Um, sure, go ahead."

Isaac hesitated for a moment. He looked at his sister to be sure she was asleep, then looked back at the large suit of armor across from him. "I've heard that alchemists aren't allowed to bring back the dead. Why is that?"

This simple question hit Al with the force of a falling anvil. It wasn't hard to guess why Isaac had asked him this, but it was nearly impossible for him to come up with a decent reply. He sat there staring blankly at the older boy, trying to gather his thoughts enough to give a proper answer. "Because it's … it's really dangerous. Transmuting humans is the most dangerous thing an alchemist can do ...That's why anything related to it is against the law."

He paused, seeing that Isaac did not yet understand. He needed to hear an example, like when Ed had used the apple to explain the Law of Equivalent Exchange. Fortunately Al remembered something that could illustrate his point; the tale of the city of Xerxes.

"Thousands of years ago, there was an alchemist who tried to bring someone back to life, but his whole city was destroyed in the process." Al lowered his head and stared down at his body, the product of a similar experiment that had gone horribly wrong. "Ever since then, alchemists have said that no one should ever try to transmute a human being…or terrible things will happen."

The story was enough for Isaac to understand. He lowered his head as well. Again there was only silence between the boys for a long time. Again it was Isaac who broke it first.

"My dad…" he began, his voice tired but steady. "When he went to fight in Ishbal, we all got really scared. We didn't want him to go away and not come back." He raised his head slightly, revealing an expression of the sort of grief that never truly left. "But he said he was doing it for us ... If he could help win the war, it would make our lives better."

He looked at his sister, still fast asleep on his shoulder. A small smile formed on his lips. "I guess that's the same reason I decided to be a soldier. I wanted to make a better life for my family, too."

Al looked at the older boy. For the first time he saw Isaac looking at Helene with affection instead of annoyance, the kind of affection only a big brother would have. He was willing to risk his life in battle for her sake, and already had a prosthetic arm to prove it. Not so different from his own big brother, who was currently snoring on his arm.

Suddenly Ed's head jerked upward and his eyes blinked open. "Brother?" Al said in surprise. "What's wrong?"

Ed yawned. Then he made a very serious announcement. "I have to pee."

He got up from his seat and shuffled into the aisle, yawning even more as he went. When he was gone, Al and Isaac couldn't help snickering to each other. Just like that the dark mood hanging over them was gone and everything was fine again.

Then Isaac started yawning. "Why don't you get some rest?" Al suggested. "It's still a couple more hours until we get to Rush Valley."

Isaac rubbed his eyes with his knuckles. "What about you? Aren't you tired?"

Al shook his head. "Nah, I'm used to long train trips like this. Besides, somebody's got to wake you guys up when we get there."

"Okay, then. Here, you can read my paper if you get bored."

Isaac handed the rolled up newspaper to him before resting the side of his head against the top of Helene's and closing his eyes. When Ed came back, Al was busy reading it.

"Ugh, I can't take another minute on this thing." Ed complained, flexing his sore arms and legs before sitting down next to his brother. "I swear all feeling in my butt is gone. Hasn't anyone ever thought of putting cushions on these crappy old seats?"

Al didn't have anything to say about this. He had found something in the paper that was rather unpleasant news. "Brother, I think you better see this." he said seriously.

Frowning, Ed looked at the article Al was pointing to. The headline read 'Terrorist Group Escapes from Prison', and underneath it were pictures of some very unsavory characters. One man in particular stood out from the others. His right eye was covered by a patch, his long hair was pulled into a ponytail, and he wore a mustache and short beard. There were also burn marks on his skin, which looked like odd gray splotches in the photo.

Ed stared at that picture for a long time. "I swear I've seen that face before…" he muttered aloud. He read the first few lines of the article, which stated when and how the terrorists had broken out of prison and that their current whereabouts were unknown. It also listed the names of the men.

Ed recognized only one of them, the group leader. His eyes grew wide in shock. "Bald?? Isn't he the guy who hijacked the train we were on that one time?"

Al waved his finger in front of his face to shush him. "Shh! Yeah, I remember that. We had to fight him and all his men to save the passengers. Colonel Mustang sent them all to jail when it was over."

Ed scowled at the newspaper. "Looks like he did a lousy job, as usual. If I know that lazy bum, he's gonna send us out to catch these guys."

"Then it's a good thing we won't be back in Central for a while, huh?"

Ed's head snapped upward with a big grin. "You're right! We won't be back in Central for a while, thanks to these two!" He pointed to the sleeping Wagner siblings across from him.

"Well, it was my idea to take them to Winry." Al's voice chuckled inside his armor.

With a snicker Ed bumped his right fist against his brother's. "You're a genius, little bro! Just like me!"

To be continued…