7/2/15 A/N: I've been out of sorts lately and time for writing has suffered. I can tell you what's holding me up on updating some of my stories is I'm stupid enough to delve into subjects I'm not familiar with and have to research a bit. Then procrastination sets in and well, that's my excuse.

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I did find that in captivity, the record lifespan of a giant panda is 38 years, so there you go Xiao-Mei.

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Chapter 2: This Recondite Truth

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"Your visions will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes."
― C.G. Jung

Winry remained awake through the whole terrifying ordeal. As Pitt Renbak worked to stabilize her neck and her babies wailed, she couldn't stop the vision, the sight of Edward's cold yellow eyes piercing her heart as his strong hands squeezed her throat.

This cold, blank look wasn't a foreign one, she'd seen it a few times during their marriage when a nightmare roused her husband from his sleep and before he fully awoke. Ed often thrashed about, shouted and became drenched in sweat when the nightmares occurred. Winry learned not to crowd him or try to shake him as the man often involuntarily lunged before realizing he only dreamt of an attacker. When these demons took hold of Ed, she'd let him fight them until he woke then she'd console him, hold him until either he went back to sleep or he'd feel the need to talk about it with her. They both knew that the real-life horrors he and his little brother endured during their attempt to resurrect their beloved mother and everything after burned deep scars in his mind, scars you couldn't see yet remained there waiting to shake him from his sleep.

Edward confessed some of these scars. Often, the he relived the whole human transmutation event, watching Alphonse disintegrate and the base elements become that horrible creature he believed to be Trisha Elric. He'd recall the sensation of losing his leg and the smell of his blood as he made the seal to bind Al to the suit of armor. Winry knew that nightmare should have been enough to make her beloved scream out at night but something more drove his unconscious insanity, something he refused to talk about. Over the years, she'd pinned down the time period the horrors originated. Though Ed evaded her attempts to understand the source, she came to realize it must have been an event right before he disappeared in Baschool and obtained that blasted scar on the left side of his body.

"Winry?" Pitt sat back on his legs. "Your windpipe and larynx are crushed..." His mind rolled over what he needed to do to stabilize her and he knew the mechanic's astute mind calculated her own treatment and prognosis. "...We need to get you to the clinic to make sure your airway stays open." Dr. Renbak made sure to say this only loud enough for his patient to hear. He didn't want the Elric brood to come more unglued. He knew she could no longer speak so he leaned closer. "Don't even try to talk, you won't be able to..." Pitt couldn't finish as the woman obstinately ignored his order and began mouthing words frantically.

"Please! Go to Ed!" She knew her wounds were acute, but since Pitt didn't find any breaks and she remained awake despite having her head smashed into the floor, Winry rationalized she'd recover. Yet her husband lay in a heap too far from her to be able to see any movement of breathing.

"You!" Pitt hollered at Devin and Buck. "I have a stretcher in my wagon, bring it up, we have to get your mother into town!" The boys wasted no time sprinting out of the room and down the stairs.

"Doctor Renbak?" Sarah pleaded, somehow able to read her mother's lips. "Mom wants you to check on Dad...please?" David stood behind her, his hands on her arms as if anchoring her body to the spot, keeping her standing vertical.

"Right." He stood and took the few steps over to Edward. "Winry, do not move." Pitt pointed his index finger in emphasis then leaned down to examine the man, brushing aside some of Ed's fringe to ascertain the seriousness of the wound on his head. The doctor took a small flashlight from his pocket with his right hand and raised up one of Ed's eyelids with his left, shining the light, then repeated in the other. "Pupils are both dilated fine...I'd say that he has a concussion." He considered it a small miracle the man's skull had not been beaten in by the enormous wrench on the floor...the one with splatters of blood. "Same hard-head as when we were kids..." The doctor mumbled.

"Momma?" A small voice shattered the quiet. Trisha, the youngest Elric clung to her sister's dress and hid behind the much taller Sarah only to peek by the curve of the young woman's hip. Her emerald eyes overflowed with tears.

"Sarah?" A second child tugged on the girl's skirt hem. Mary placed a small hand on Trisha's shoulder – ever the protector of her baby sister. Tears stopped flowing from her golden eyes when she realized she'd have to be stronger than Trisha. "What's wrong with Momma and Dad?" Little Sister Trish leaned her auburn head on her Big Sister Mary's shoulder.

"Here's the stretcher!" Devin and Buck burst past their siblings with the wood and canvas they'd use to carry their mom. The boys set the thing down next to Winry and made movements to pick up their mother.

"No!" Pitt stopped them. "David and I will carry her to the wagon. David, I need your help getting them both safely there...we need to take care of their necks until I can formally rule out any spine injuries."

"Right." David replied as both he and the Doctor took careful steps to move Winry and get her safely in the wagon, then the same for Edward.

With both patients loaded, Pitt Renbak took out his handkerchief and wiped his brow. He scrambled up to the seat and took the reigns of the single horse. "Sarah, David, I want you both to come, I'll need your help in the clinic." Six pairs of eyes widened at the implication not all the Elrics could go to the clinic.

"Wait a minute!" Devin burst forward to take charge. "There's no way in hell I'm staying here!" Once more, the fiery youth was stopped by David's strong arm.

"Please...you need to stay here until we come fetch you." Sarah spoke softly and pleaded with her brother. Bucky placed a hand on the younger brother's shoulder.

"It's alright, Dev, we need to take care of the littles." Buck thumbed over his shoulder to Trish and Mary standing in the open doorway, the youngest still crying. The only thing Charles Buccaneer wanted to do was hole up in his room and cry too...he so worried about both of his parents and couldn't believe in a thousand years he'd be the one to take his old man down...ever.

Ed awoke with a start and jumped up. "Winry!" His head hurt and his memories fuzzy, but he did remember Kimblee...and his wife. A pain shot through his heart as the vision of her lifeless body next to him appeared in his head. "Was it all a dream?" His thoughts betrayed him and at that moment, Edward couldn't decipher which visions were real. He tried once more to sit up, to get out of the bed but soon realized cold steel encircled each of his wrists, keeping him tethered where he lay. The man also realized he wasn't on a bed at all, but a stretcher of sorts, like the kind they shuttle hospital patients around...and each of his hands were handcuffed to the metal rails on each of the sides.

"Winry!" Ed screamed.

"He's awake." A gruff male voice boomed through the narrow corridor. "Can I take him now?"

"Let me get Doctor Renbak, I can't discharge Mr. Elric, only he can." A female answered and quickly exited the stark white hallway.

Edward's fuzzy vision started to sharpen and he finally figured out he was in Resembool's tiny medical clinic, the corridor off from the waiting room, actually. He'd been through here dozens of times as one child or another suffered a bump, cut or sickness. The familiarity of the place actually helped soothe him a bit, but not much. He heard a door open and some more familiar voices, then footsteps coming closer and closer. Suddenly, a face appeared in his line of sight, a bespectacled man with curly hair was leaning over him. Another familiar face helped calm him down – Pitt Renbak.

"Pitt!" Ed nearly shouted. "My kids? Are they ok?" He knew Winry was dead, he could only hope that his children did not suffer their mother's fate. The father felt tears welling up and wondered if he should even fight crying.

"Edward." Pitt's voice remained calm. "All your children are just fine...scared but fine." The doctor took out his small flashlight and once again, studied his patient's pupil dilation.

"Did...they...did they see Winry?" For the rest of his life, he would never, ever forget the image of his own mother laying cold and dead after succumbing to her illness. Edward hoped his own children escaped the sight of their poor mother's death.

"Most of your children are at home, the older boys are watching the girls." Pitt stowed the little flashlight in his pocket, satisfied that Ed's head injury was not life threatening. "Sarah and David are with Winry now."

"Wait...what?" Maybe he did dream it all. "Is...isn't she..." He loathed to verbalize it. "Isn't she dead?"

"Ed, she's alive and will recover..." Pitt stared at the former alchemist with confusion. "But..." His tone changed. "You crushed her windpipe and voicebox." He paused, wondering if he should have sugar coated the news as Edward's expression changed from surprise to painful guilt. "You pounded her head into the floor and gave her a concussion." No. He knew the pain Winry Rockbell Elric suffered at Edward's hands and the need to vindicate his childhood friend's torment surged in the good doctor. "She may never be able to talk normally again...if at all." The man's voice pierced his patient's already injured heart.

"No!" Edward tried violently to free himself, to go into the room, to see his wife. "I saw her! Kimblee killed her!"

"Kimblee?" A second man in the room questioned as Pitt jumped away from Ed's thrashing body.

"Who's Kimblee, Ed?" Pitt nearly yelled. "There was no one there but you and Winry"

"Doc, want me to restrain him more?" The voice carried with it the bruit strength of the man speaking. A firm hand flew up from the doctor, stopping him from getting closer to Edward.

"Your kids saw it all, Ed!" Pitt silently stewed, evidently the small flame he carried for Winry since they were children never completely extinguished.

"What?" Edward's eyes finally focused on the two men in the hallway with him. The second man he immediately recognized as Brom Cunard...the Constable.

"I said...your children, Ed...they saw you attacking Winry." He took a deep breath. "Charlie B was the one who kept you from killing her. Your boy had to clock you with a big wrench."

"No one...no one else was there?" Forgetting the handcuffs, Edward tried to run his hand through his hair, yet the chains stopped him. He calmed down. "Pitt, can I get up?" He knew that he had to remain composed to get out of that bed.

"Settle down Edward...I'll unlock you." Brom slowly unlocked Ed's right hand, allowing the ex-alchemist to raise his body up. The constable began working on the left.

"I swear, I thought I was fighting an old enemy...not Winry." Edward kept his golden gaze upon the doctor's own cold stare. He heard the click of the cuffs coming off and he bolted. He knew his wife was behind the big wooden door and it wasn't going to stop him from reaching her. There was another reason he had to see her, a secret, a deep trust he and Winry shared with no other. Edward Elric feared his world would end unless he reached his wife about this recondite truth. However, he ended up finding out something about the constable instead: Brom Cunard was left handed. Ed next discovered his own left hand still tethered to something and his forward momentum became reversed, his body turning around and his face suddenly came in contact with a large, hairy fist.

"Not so fast!" Brom shouted as he socked Ed in the right eye with his left fist. "You're coming with me until all this is sorted out." Edward slumped to his automail knee and he saw his left hand was shackled to the right of the officer.

The alchemist scanned his office one last time, hoping he'd remembered everything needed for the excursion. Sparkling light of morning filtered through the crisp linen drapes and a cool breeze filtered into the room. The golden-haired man relished the sweet scent of spices and wildflowers wafting into the room and he thought to thank his wife for airing out his normally stuffy abode before they left.

"I can sense nervousness in you...your stomach is full of it, Alphonse." May sidled up to her husband and joined him in staring over his writing desk and out the open window at the sunrise. "You are always a little scared right before a journey...isn't he Xiao-Me?" She smiled at the elderly panda she carried in the crook of her left arm. Xiao-Mei squeaked in response.

"You know me well." Alphonse Elric turned and kissed May on her forehead, having to bow down to her diminutive form to do so. "Even after all those years of traveling with Brother and long after, my nerves go crazy right before I leave." He tickled the panda. "But, I think it's more excitement and not fear."

"Yes!" The Xingese Princess's eyes sparkled. "It's the joy of not knowing who you will meet and what adventures you will find!"

"Exactly." His golden eyes took in the former Chang clan princess before him. No longer a child, she'd grown into a strong woman and understood him like no other...even better than his older brother. "Are Lance and Jin ready to go?" He hoped their boys were as excited about this summer's archaeological dig of the Xerxes ruins as he.

"They'll warm up to it...you know how they are." She smiled and resumed looking out the window. "I also think there's a certain young lady the two don't want to leave in Xang-Tao this summer." May elbowed her husband's side.

"Girls?" Al honestly didn't know where the time went. His boys used to be fascinated by alchemy and alkahestry yet now something just as magical stole their attention. "Really?"

"Husband, you are not so dense as not to see?" She squished her nose up in a cute little wrinkle that made Alphonse's mouth form a wide smile. "Wasn't your brother a little younger than Jin when he realized he was in love with Winry?"

"Shhhhh!" Al placed his hands on his wife's shoulders. "You're not supposed to know that." Ed would clobber him if he ever knew his brother let that information slip. That, once, in a post coital discussion about love, Alphonse Elric confessed to his his new wife that the former Fullmetal Alchemist realized his love for his mechanic during their cold and dangerous stay in Fort Briggs.

Ring! Ring!

"I'll get it!" Lance's voice carried through their one floor home effectively disrupting his father's musings. "It's for me!" The fourteen-year-old scrambled to beat his older brother to the phone table and managed to just barely grab the handle before his golden eyed sibling could. Jin, the loser was rewarded by seeing his brother stick out his tongue. "Chang-Elric Wellness, this is Lance!" He nearly screamed the salutation both boys memorized since they were able to talk.

"Who is it, moron?" Jin goaded.

"Sarah?" Lance's face turned from annoyance with his brother to a serious countenance which served to stave off said brother's pestering. "Ok. I'll get dad." He set the receiver down and yelled with all his might. "Dad! Dad!"

"The tube has to stay in until the swelling stops." Pitt gave Winry a stern look, he knew she was uncomfortable and wanted to talk. "I think in the long run, you'll appreciate this more than a tracheotomy." He surveyed the bruises encircling the woman's neck which grew more blue and purple with twinges of yellow each hour. Despite the metal and canvas neck brace, the tale-tale marks of her husband's hands burned through and into a terrible vision he'd never forget. He knew she'd not forget anytime soon either. Still, the bruised skin would heal, but had he done the tracheotomy and made a hole in her neck so she could breathe, a visible scar would linger. Also, as long as he lived, Pitt Renbak would never forget the woman's eyes – the whites of which blazed eerily red, the tiny vessels having burst during her struggle with Edward. Yet, inside the blood and crimson, her brilliant blue irises radiated a determination and strength of will the doctor could not understand. Winry's injuries would heal, but he had to get to the bottom of why Ed would do such a thing. That, and another important matter he had to discuss with the mechanic. The doctor pulled up a chair and sat close.

"Let's establish a form of communication until you are strong enough to use a slate or pen and paper, ok?" Winry followed Pitt with her eyes. "Blink once for yes and twice for no. Understand?"

Blink.

"Good." Pitt tried not to grimace or show his repulsion to her unsettling red eyes. Instead, he rifled his hand through the curls on top of his head then leaned in again. "I asked Sarah and David to go back to the house and get some things for you and some clothes for Edward...he was in his skivvies when you two came here." The thought of Edward Elric locked up in the town jail wearing nothing but blue boxers seemed comical but he forced himself not to smile. He decided not to tell Winry her husband currently sat in Resembool's only jail cell.

"Do your children know you are pregnant?" Pitt didn't have time to send a blood sample to Central to test for pregnancy, but after seeing Winry's small baby bump so gently hidden beneath her night clothes, he knew. The mechanic had come to Doctor Renbak for all her prenatal care after Pinako passed away, yet she and Ed kept him ignorant of this new child.

Blink. Blink.

"Ok. I'll keep it that way. And, the baby is fine, as best as I can tell." He heard the woman exhale with a loud puff in relief to that statement. However, Winry still remained agitated.

Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink.

"You're trying to get me to understand something?"

Blink!

"About the baby?"

Blink! Blink!

"About Edward?"

Blink.

"Did you and Ed have another big blowout?" Winry and Ed's fiery relationship was kept no secret. Most of Resembool had heard one of their heated arguments at one time or another. Yet, the fact that they kept littering the county with progeny told the good doctor that they must make up as fiercely as they fought.

Blink. Blink.

"Ok. Ed told me he saw you dead, that he was fighting someone named Kimblee...but there was no one else there but your children." Pitt didn't miss a look of pure horror mask the woman's face for a short second before her blue eyes turned hard with resolve. "Does that name, Kimblee mean anything to you?" She didn't need to answer, her piercing eyes confirmed she knew exactly who this person was.

Blink.

"Do you think Edward was having a dream?" A few of his elderly patients served in the military during the Ishvalan War and had told him of their "shell shock" outbursts and bad dreams. He'd studied a bit about post war stress when he was in medical school as well. However, Edward didn't serve in the military during any war. Pitt knew the fiery man once did serve Amestris and had been lauded for his contributions as the Fullmetal Alchemist during the coup attempt in the Bradley regime and the alchemical weirdness that fell upon Amestris on the day of the coup. Could something as traumatic as combat be plaguing the man? "...does he have dreams he acts out...violently?"

Blink.

"Ok..." His eyes softened as he caught a dual tears escape the corners of each of Winry's. "I'll speak with him, we'll get everything straightened out, don't you worry." He rest his hand on her wrist and squeezed to encourage her. "I want you to rest and heal up, you need to be strong for that baby."

David never felt happier to see the Constable's office as he did now. He'd driven that small horse cart of Dr. Renbek's back to the Elric-Rockbell house as fast as the little pony could take them. Sarah leapt off of the cart before he even came to a stop then the girl's hair whipped like a blond ribbon in the moonlit night as she scurried up the front steps and into the house. Once inside, he witnessed Buck break down, falling to his knees in relief when his sister let him and the others know that both of their parents still lived. The young man barely had time to find her uncle Alphonse's telephone number in the family address book kept tucked away in the single drawer of a round table off the kitchen before she flew back down the stairs carrying her mom and dad's things in a leather satchel. David quickly dialed the numbers to connect them with Xing then Sarah succinctly relayed the story her uncle and asked him if he could come to Resembool right away. Before he realized it, the girl had dragged him back out into the darkness and goaded the tired pony to carry them back into town.

"You need to slow down or you'll make yourself sick." The young man called after her as she made fast for the door.

"I'll rest when mom and dad are both home." Sarah voiced the same strong determination she knew her parents possessed for her or her siblings. With those words said, she burst into the jail office. The sight before her would linger in her mind for the rest of her life. "Dad?"

Edward sat on an industrial metal cot inside the single jail cell. Clad only in blue boxers, he evidently ignored the crisp pile of folded linens, blankets, and gray flannel shirt and britches given to inmates. With is back to the entryway and his head against the stark white cinder block wall, he didn't answer his daughter's call.

"Constable? Sarah marched forward, finding the law man at his desk across from the cell. "I'm here to take my dad home." Her words stuck like succinct darts, each hitting their mark. Brom barely raised his head from the paperwork before him.

"Miss Elric." Cunard didn't try to disguise his annoyance. "I'm processing the papers to charge your dad with domestic abuse...I can't just send him on his way."

"But, there is a reason...mom will tell you too..." She pleaded with him.

"Your mom's voicebox is crushed, she's not telling me anything any time soon." He bit back. "Let me tell you something and you can judge for yourself." He scooted his rolling chair over to an adjacent table and grabbed a large, leather bound book. "When I took this job, I reviewed some of the old daily logs. Forty-seven." He dropped the log book on top of his paperwork. "Forty-seven incidents of public arguments involving your parents. Seems like my predecessor was pretty complacent about it. seems like a lot of people in this town turned a blind eye to it."

"Respectfully, sir!" David couldn't stand it any longer. Sure, Edward Elric and his wife had spats, but Ed had never laid a hand on her. "I've never witnessed Mr. Elric harming a hair on Mrs. Elric's head. They just like to fight...loudly."

"Mr. Cunard." Sarah managed to keep herself calm, despite the horrible remarks the constable uttered. "Look at my dad...look!" Unlike her younger siblings, Sarah and her older brother Ethan knew that her dad lost his leg because he and his brother tried to use alchemy to bring their mother back to life. Edward and Alphonse made sure to tell their story to her especially because she also excelled in alchemy and they wanted to her to know the consequences of human transmutation. In a few years, they would sit Devin and Buck down and tell them the same. Now, Sarah pointed to Edward, specifically his bare back. A single tear fell down her left cheek as her index finger seemed to trail down one of the many ugly scars marring the surface of the man's skin. "He's been beaten, he's fought hard and been hurt physically. Can't you see the terrible scars?" She turned to the officer. "And through all that pain, suffering and fighting do you know he never took a single life? Not killed one person?" She could tell that Brom mulled this info over in his hard head. "Now why would he all of the sudden want to harm my mother?"

"He's an abuser! Clear and simple and it's my job to make sure he doesn't hurt his wife or anyone else!" He crossed his arms. "If you want to talk to him before I lock up for the night, you better do it now." Brom Cunard abruptly scooted his chair closer to the desk signally the conversation over.

"C'mon, Sarah." David led her to the cell.

"I want inside!" She yelled so that Brom could hear.

"Not happening." He grumbled above the paperwork he'd resumed completing.

"It's never easy, is it?" David winked and took a piece of white chalk from his pocket. He scrawled a teeny transmutation circle over the lock and quickly activated it. The door opened with a pop." The two quickly scrambled to get inside.

"Hey!" Brom stood up. "You'd better not have broken that!" He made movements to come toward them.

"Calm yourself, Mr. Cunard." David smiled. "I'll fix it right back...please let Sarah have moment with her dad. I won't let anything happen to her or let Ed out, I promise." His level-headiness coupled with the officer's need to finish his paperwork and go home worked to diffuse another fight.

"Fine. Five minutes." Brom plopped down in his seat and began scribbling.

"Dad?" Sara sat on the cot next to her father while David stood to the side. "I brought you some clothes, let's get a shirt on you, it's too cold."

"I'm fine." Edward muttered.

"Quit being so despondent! You are alive and mom's alive! If you get a cold you know mom's gonna whack you with her wrench for not taking care of yourself!" She pulled a pale blue button up shirt out of the leather satchel and raised it over her father's shoulders. That big red scar encircling his right arm always bothered her and tonight, it made her feel more uneasy.

"I almost killed your mother...I deserve a cold...I deserve worse."

"Nonsense!" She forced his left arm into the sleeve and moved to do the same with his right. "We know what happened. We know it was another one of those horrible dreams...the worse one yet." She tugged at his right wrist making him slip that arm into the sleeve then she pulled the shirt up. Sarah stood and walked around to sit facing her father so she could do up the buttons.

"Renbak said she may never be able to talk again." His golden eyes glassed over. Sure, most of the time Winry spoke to him, her words were taunting, but he loved her voice. Worse of all, it was his fault he may never hear it again.

"Dad, I thought about that." For the first time, she saw his face and his golden eyes now dull with sadness. When Sarah caught sight of the mean looking shiner around Edward's right eye, her own twitched violently with anger. "Brom Cunard!" She turned around to yell at the constable. "What happened to his eye?"

"He resisted arrest!" Cunard quipped back.

"Dad!" Sarah scolded her father and hoped he's argue back with usual sass. She exhaled in defeat to his silence. Finally, she finished buttoning up the shirt, got back up and walked to sit at his back again. Deftly, she pulled a boar's bristle hair brush from the sack, one with an elastic band wrapped a few times around the handle. She removed the band and held it in her left hand as her right began working the knots out of her father's long hair. "Don't be mad."

"Why?" Edward closed his eyes as his daughter brushed his hair. She'd loved playing with his long locks, even as a toddler. The grown man had worn many a ponytail and pink ribbon to make his little girl happy.

"I called uncle Al." She succeeded in pulling all his blond hair into a high ponytail and began wrapping the elastic band around it.

"Great." He slumped his shoulders more. Ed would have told Alphonse himself but he just didn't know how to confess to his brother that he had hurt Winry. Alphonse was her best friend too and there was not telling how he'd react.

"He was on his way to the Xerxes ruins again for the summer anyway. He, Aunt May and the boys just have to travel a little bit farther..." She released the elastic with a snap, then pulled a pair of trousers out of the bag and plopped them in her father's lap. "Now, we just have to get you home and then mom and Al can heal her up...everything's going to be fine..."

"It's not going to be fine." Ed nearly shouted, startling his daughter. Before anyone could stand, David appeared in between Ed and Sarah.

"But it will be ok." His kind eyes soothed Edward for a second.

"No...as long as I can hurt her when I'm asleep, it will never be ok." He seemed very close to tears.

"Your mom...you kids...you're just too precious to me to be put in danger that way...I won't let this happen again, ever!"

"Dad?" She couldn't believe what she heard. The young girl's heart crumbled because she understood what her dad implied. He may get out of jail, but he wasn't coming home.

"Go home. Both of you." Edward leaned back against the wall. As his daughter stood.

"Daddy?"

"Five minutes!" Brom stood and began marching toward the cell. It might have been less than five minutes but he was done with the documents and he had a warm bed at home waiting for him. "Now fix the damn door and scram!"