He wanted to vomit.
"Winry… listen. I've done a lot of thinking –– yeah yeah, I know, I do that all the time, but this isn't, you know, alchemy or anything. Anyway, I've been thinking a lot about stuff. About us. And… other things. Err… yeah, so…" He took a deep breath; his lungs hurt, like there was a rock pressing down on them. "You know, back on that day I left for West City… you remember what you said? Well, 'course you do, dumb question. But, uh, you said you'd give, well, you'd give me your whole life, and I was thinking… that's not fair. Damn," he attempted an easy laugh, but the sound came out stunted and squeaky, "that sounds dumb. What I mean, Winry, is… well, that seems a lot. You know, a lot on your part. You're giving me everything. What am I doing to you? Er, for you? Aside from, you know, eating your food. And messing up your library. And bickering with Granny…
He could have gone on. He didn't.
"But, Winry, what I really mean to say, is… well…" Breathe, dammit. He grinned in an effort to mask his flushed cheeks, swallowed to wet a tongue that had gone as dry as the Great Desert. His heart hammered like a steam piston. He dug his nails into the heel of his palm to keep his nerves in check. He fished around in his pocket, smile stapled almost painfully to his face as he tried to affect a cool and composed exterior that definitely didn't go any deeper than the skin. He cleared his throat. "What I mean to ask, is…
"Will you…"
The words faltered. Frowning, he patted at the lining of his pocket. His fingers brushed lint, paperclips, what felt suspiciously like a pulpy piece of fruit. A pencil. Some balled-up alchemy notes.
"Oh, no…"
It was missing. Where the fuck did it go?
Edward Elric's golden eyes bulged. He felt panic curl its warty fingers around his throat. Before he gave himself time to consider the apocalyptic implications of his screw-up, he flung off his coat. Muttering obscenities to himself, he pulled pockets inside out, turned over his shirtsleeves, fretted at the inner lining until the stitches threatened to tear.
Meanwhile, Ed's audience looked unimpressed. For a dog, Den managed an expression of complete and utter disdain rather well. His tail thumped against the hardwood as Ed scrambled frantically for the item that had cost him the better part of his ever-dwindling State Alchemy stipend and had shot enough nerves to give even Lieutenant –– Captain, he corrected himself –– Hawkeye pause for thought. But the object remained elusive, and Ed almost sobbed in frustration.
"Looking for this?"
Ed's head snapped up so quickly his braid smacked against his skull. He imagined he felt the whiplash. Pinako Rockbell –– small, bespectacled, not known to suffer fools or Elrics gladly –– stood under the lintel, pipe hanging from her lip, the smoke trailing behind her like the tail of a sullen comet. One hand rested on her hip; the other held a small box.
A small, black, velvet-lined box.
Pinako elected for the time being to keep any sarcastic admonishments to herself, though Ed had no doubt they were there, steeping like steak bits.
"You ought to be more careful with your things, Ed," she muttered, peering over the rim of her spectacles, her voice as rough and ashy as her tobacco.
Ed nodded glumly. "Wrong coat?" A part of him wanted to point out that the mix up wouldn't have happened had Pinako not forced him to invest in several variations of tweed, rather than letting him keep his dashing red cloak, which, incidentally, had deep pockets where small, easily-lost mementos were likely to remain.
But though he was given to belligerence, even Ed knew the battle belonged to Pinako. It wouldn't do to push her capacity for leniency.
"Yup. Found it in the wash. You're lucky I got to it before a certain other someone."
"She isn't due back from Rush Valley until this afternoon," he protested.
"Fortunately for you."
Ed bowed his head, an acknowledgement of the simple sagacity in Pinako's words. The blush in his cheeks had suffused to the tips of his ears and the roots of his butterscotch-gold hair. Behind the brume of his embarrassment, Ed wondered how long Pinako had been standing in the doorway, watching him mime his proposal to an indifferent dog, stuttering to the point of unintelligibility. He looked over to her, and any wells of confidence dried up at the sight of her pursed mouth, a frown that, while too mindful of Edward's pride to attempt pity, still managed to convey a dry sympathy. Ed left his coat on the floor and slunk over to the old woman. He peered down at Pinako, but the look she gave him made the former alchemist feel like he was four foot nine again.
"I'm sorry, Granny," he muttered, one hand extended. Pinako sighed, smoke pillowing her pinched, myopic face, and dropped the box into Edward's palm.
"How long has it been since you asked me, Ed?"
Edward turned the box over in his hand. There was a matching set inside, two bands, one gold and the other obsidian. The former had belonged to his mother. The latter had belonged to Urey Rockbell. Not a matching set, perhaps, but Ed wouldn't settle for anything else. Winry and Ed were hardly a matching set, either –– their similarities ended in the colour of their hair and the roof over their heads.
But he was in love with her. She was in love with him. And sometimes, things didn't make a great deal of sense.
"Two months." Ed considered for a moment. "Well, two months and a week since I asked. Two months since you said yes."
Pinako nodded; the question had been rhetorical, Ed realised: she had kept meticulous count, like a financier ticking off days in a ledger. "You've been carrying that thing around for two months," she affirmed, taking another puff of her pipe. "One of these bright days you're going to lose it and it's not going to turn up again."
"I'm… I'm just waiting for the right moment." Faced with a skeptical eyebrow, Ed protested, his voice going a bit shrill: "It has to be perfect!"
"Edward, if everyone waited for the perfect moment to do something nothing would ever happen. It's all very well to stand on ceremony but what happens when you fall off your soapbox?"
His younger self would have made a scene at the mention of standing on soapboxes, but Ed merely grit his teeth. "I want it to be memorable. A big show. Just giving it to her… I mean, it's––"
"Unostentatious?"
"I was gonna say anticlimactic."
"Nothing the matter with that. We're simple people, Ed, and perhaps you could do with a little bathos in your life." The corner of Pinako's eyes crinkled. "We should all consider ourselves lucky you're not an alchemist anymore. Doubtless you would have transmuted my home into something suitably flash and garish by now. Baroque gothic was always your taste, if I remember correctly. All spirals and steeples. It wouldn't match my the colour of shutters."
Ed's expression soured, his eyebrows bunching. "I always enjoy our talks, Granny." He rested his back against the wall, bending one automail leg. Crossing his arms, Ed looked down at his shoes. "I just…" he sighed, and was struck for a moment with how tired he sounded. He wasn't a teenager anymore, but it wasn't like he was in danger of his back going out or developing arthritis. So why did he sound like Mustang after a particularly tumultuous all-night bender… "I just want it to be special."
Pinako's expression softened. Den padded over to her, and she scratched the dog absently behind the ears. Den whined his pleasure. Not looking up from her ministrations, Pinako said quietly:
"Ed, you're going to propose to Winry." She hmphed to herself, the sound wholly ambiguous –– not quite a laugh, but not quite a hum of belief. "I think that's plenty special."
Edward felt his stomach turn. He counted himself strangely fortunate he hadn't managed to choke down any breakfast. Just the thought of food made him want to void the contents of his stomach, and he doubted Pinako would thank him for vomiting all over her waxed hardwood floors. "Oh crap," he breathed, the words hissing through his teeth; his eyes bore into the floorboards and for a moment, he completely forgot about his company, "what if she says no?"
"Pardon?"
Ed knew he must have looked absolutely horrified, because Pinako started when he turned to face her. "Granny, what if Winry says no? What if…" he swallowed and his saliva seemed to burn like battery acid, "what if she throws me out? And I have to leave? Alphonse is all the way out East in Xing, he can't take me in… and you and Winry would never want to see me again…" He looked down at Pinako, bright eyes desolate. "What… what would I do?"
Pinako acknowledged Ed's concern with a small tilt of her head, but she was far too wise to his colourful episodes of melodrama to indulge them. "You would manage. You always do."
"My life would be over…"
"Don't exaggerate."
"But how… how could life keep going on after something like that?"
"Because that's what life does, Ed," Pinako answered simply. "You keep going with it or you get left behind. It's not a difficult concept."
Ed withered, running a hand through his hair, mussing it until strands of it exploded from his braid in all directions, as though he enjoyed poking fork tines into the light sockets. His bangs flopped limply over his forehead, plastered there with a sudden cold sweat. Ed began to pace in agitation, mindful of the low lintels as he passed underneath. After his most recent growth spurt, his hair brushed the top of the doorways. That fact, at least, was some small comfort.
He had grown taller, broader, in the years following the Promised Day. His once wiry little body had filled out, contours of muscle bunched where before there had only been ropey tendons like a bad cut of meat. He supposed he had Pinako to thank, in part. While she acquiesced to his sojourns in their little library, pouring over old alchemy texts scavenged from the remnants of Central Command and whatever arcana Al shipped home from Xing, Pinako had been adamant about putting him to work. Chopping wood, retiling the roof, fetching water and pigs of iron for Winry when she was called into emergency surgery… sometimes Ed fell asleep with the weight of an ax in his hands or the water carrier pressing down on his shoulders. The work had been hard, but over time, it had transformed the scrawny, pale State Alchemist into someone Ed almost recognised…
A square-jawed man with golden hair and ancient eyes.
Ed bristled at the mental image, for a moment forgetting that Pinako was in the house with him, watching his anxious circuits through the kitchen with a patient forbearance. He caught a flash of his reflection in the chrome refrigerator and he harrumphed. Until the day he abandoned every scrap of his pride and consented to wearing spectacles or, Truth forbid, growing a beard, height and broad shoulders nonewithstanding, every time Ed looked in a mirror, he was consoled somewhat by the fact that it wasn't Hohenheim staring back at him.
Small mercies.
Still, Ed mused sadly, passing the velvet-lined box from hand to hand, he could have done with his father's advice right about then. No matter how desperately he tried to convince himself otherwise, no matter how many times he wished he could be more like Alphonse, Ed had been slow in forgiving Hohenheim for the many years of absence, for all the unanswered questions and uncertain hearsay –– a task Al, on the other hand, had accepted with his usual stubborn optimism. But there was one simple, incontrovertible truth regarding his father Ed would never besmirch: Hohenheim may have been a bastard, but regarding his love for Trisha, there was no ambiguity, no doubt or diffidence.
Ed sighed again, holding the engagement ring out in the palm of his hand.
Hohenheim would have known what to do.
"How did he propose to my mom?" asked Ed quietly, searching Granny's face. He didn't have to specify who.
Pinako, as ever, kept her expression schooled. She blew a few murky smoke rings, like points of an ellipsis, some linguistic antecedent trailing off into the silence. She seemed lost in thought for a few long moments, and after a while, Ed was worried he wasn't going to get answer. That Pinako couldn't remember… or didn't want to remember.
"Under that old oak in the front yard," she said softly, eyes hazy behind her glasses. Filled with memories. Her words were watery. "Trisha said he didn't even get on one knee. Just pushed her on the swing, and when she drifted past him, he pressed a ring into her hand. I guess they didn't need to say anything, your parents." Pinako smiled, then. The small motion fissured lines into her mouth. "I think Hohenheim was even more frightened than you, Ed. He couldn't even pluck up the courage to find the words."
In another life, any nugget of information regarding Hohenheim's discomfort would have given Ed a grudging sort of pleasure. Like a petty child, thought Ed ruefully. Now… it just made him sad.
You and me both, old man.
"You could phone General Mustang," suggested Pinako, wrenching herself from her reminiscence. "He's known you and Winry for the better part of the last decade. His insight might be worth considering."
Ed just gaped at her.
"You look as though I've just said a rude word."
He spluttered: "What the hell would Mustang know? He doesn't even know I… that I…"
"That you're in love with my granddaughter? I assure you, pipsqueak, he knows."
The wear-worn nickname had the intended effect. "Don't call me that."
"Then perhaps you ought to be a little more mature in matters concerning your former superior. Regardless of your personal disinclinations for the fellow, he may yet surprise you. The General has a good head on his shoulders."
How Pinako managed to keep a straight face was quite beyond Edward. In fact, she wore her usual mask of implacable calm, as though they were talking about soup recipes and the Resembool sheep fair and the weather.
"The bastard isn't even married," grumbled Ed.
"No," she conceded, but added shrewdly, "but that doesn't preclude him from giving you a bit of friendly advice. As much as you two go at each other like a couple of roosters in the barnyard, he cares about you, Ed."
"The feeling isn't mutual, believe me."
"Uh huh."
"Are we even talking about the same person? He's a rake! He sleeps around like he lives in perpetual mortal terror of someone pushing a celibacy bill through the Congress. What the hell would he know about commitment?"
Any other crusty septuagenarian would have been scandalised; not Pinako Rockbell. "There's no law against it, Ed. Perhaps he's just looking for the right girl."
Ed let out a very uncouth snort. "Oh, he's found the right girl already. But he can't marry her, so he wanders around feeling sorry for himself."
"Much like you're doing now?" asked Pinako, eyes twinkling.
Ed glowered. "I am not phoning Mustang. He'd annoy me into an early grave."
"I know the feeling."
"If Hughes were still around, maybe he'd…" Ed's train of thought trailed away; he didn't have Gracia's phone number, and even if he did, he didn't think he had the wherewithal to interrogate her about her deceased husband's marriage arrangements. Ed may have been in desperate need of certain social graces, but he wasn't a complete moron.
He rounded on Pinako, trying to push a sudden surge of sadness down into the pit of his stomach. "How is it that all my friends are miserable old bachelors?"
"Perhaps you frighten their spouses."
"Very funny."
"Or, more likely," Pinako went on as though she hadn't heard him, "they spend so much time bandying with hypotheticals they miss their window of opportunity. They're so frightened they choose to barricade themselves behind some delusion of dignified aloneness rather than take the risk. Take the chance."
Ed cast around for a suitable expression, some face to mask his frustration, and his shame, but finding nothing adequate, settled on a tight frown. "I'm gonna wait outside for Winry," he said. He didn't care that he sounded sulky.
"She's not due home for another few hours."
He brushed past Pinako. "I need some air."
He felt Granny watching him the whole time, could even smell her tobacco lingering in the air, like an afterimage. Hands in his pockets, Ed parked himself on the front step of the Rockbell's automail shop. As the door banged shut behind him, Ed blew his bangs out of his face.
Granny was right. She so often was. He knew Winry couldn't care less about grand romantic gestures and lavish surprises. The biggest bash she had ever been to had been Elysia's third birthday party and even that, Winry had admitted, had been a bit overwhelming. His hesitation had nothing to do with any obsessive compulsive attention to detail. He could stick the ring in Winry's toolbox during a fitting and it would have been enough… provided she didn't throw a wrench at him.
No, Ed thought grumpily, resting his head on his knees. He wasn't fussy. He was just very scared, and he wasn't sure whether the fear came from the prospect of Winry saying no and kicking his sorry ass to the curb… or from the prospect of Winry saying yes.
He heard Pinako moving around inside the house, the occasional crash of pots and pans against the countertop as she prepared Winry's welcome-home dinner. She traveled to Rush Valley on commission every couple of weeks, spending a few days covering for Garfiel, and Granny always made a big fuss of her coming home. In a while, Ed knew Pinako would ask for his help chopping vegetables or cutting firewood for the stove. But, in the meantime, he was in no hurry to leave his stoop. He stayed silent, stuck in his dark well of thought.
It was strange, Ed decided, that Pinako had suggested Mustang. Allowing himself a small moment of grudging honesty, Ed had considered the possibility himself. Rather, Ed had considered phoning Riza Hawkeye. She was a trusted confidant, a friend, and for all her stiff propriety, Ed respected her for her unwonted insight into the beautiful miscellany of other people's lives –– even as she reserved none of that compassion and empathy for herself, Ed thought sadly. But if the Captain was involved, sooner or later the General would be, as well. And Ed, who never expressed any emotion halfway, wasn't sure if he was ready to bear his heart to someone like the Flame Alchemist. Swaddled, sheltered things stood a better chance of not getting burned.
He breathed in, eyes closed, mulling the smells of grass and fertiliser, mouldering, organic matter and growing things. If Ed looked up, he almost expected to see Roy and Riza's faces watching him. Not smiling. Not frowning. Just aware, a patient sort of judgement in their eyes, one pair black like a polished beetle and the other amber like a glass of scotch.
You love Winry, don't you? Hawkeye had asked him once, after Bradley took her away.
Yes, Ed had wanted to tell her, but, of course, didn't. Yes. With my heart. My sanity. My soul. With everything.
But he didn't know if everything was enough.
Finally, Ed reopened his eyes. The sky was overcast, a heavy slate-gray. The fields of Resembool cascaded over the hills, a quilted chequerboard of greens and browns uninterrupted for as far as the eye could see. There was a pasture at the bottom of the Rockbell's drive, across a weedy, dusty old road. The sheep rested and grazed, their progress unhurried, drifting sluggishly between tufts of grass; Ed watch them for a while, not for the first time marvelling at the sedateness that hung over everything like a thick, wooly blanket. The effect was almost stifling.
From the Rockbell's porch, Ed could look down into the town centre and the train station, beyond that, more fields punctuated only by the occasional picket fence, and at the edge of the horizon, acres of conifers swaying in the wind.
He heard the train whistle sound from the tracks, and watched as the locomotive began its slough through the countryside. Ed smiled: the long column of white steam reminded him of Granny, puffing on her pipe.
Ed's attention was broken from the departing train by Gerret, one of the farmhands from the neighbouring estate. His cart, pulled by a couple of furry draft horses, all hair and flies, came to a shuddering halt at the bottom of the Rockbell's drive. Gerret frequently ferried visitors to and from the train station for a few extra cenz. Ed wondered who had come to call...
He smacked his forehead with enough force to leave a welt. Something fierce and strong pressed itself on Ed's sternum, making him gasp, like he was having an asthma attack. He was an idiot, he thought savagely. It was Winry; it had to be. She was home early, and Truth help him, he wasn't ready yet.
Just as quickly as it came, the surge of panic receded. Ed looked again, harder, his eyes narrowing. The newcomers did not include Winry. The strangers, two of them, nodded a thanks to Gerret, who continued on his route. They were both about the same height, dressed in pristine Amestrian military blue. Soldiers, Ed realised, unable to shake the sudden sense of unease, a leftover from battles fought long ago. As they approached, kicking up dust from the rain-starved earth, Ed picked out their features. One was gangly, stooped, with an unkempt head of straw-coloured hair. The other was slimmer, smaller, dark hair cut close to the scalp, with wide eyes just a touch too earnest to affect complete professional disinterestedness. The dust from their footsteps and Gerret's cart eventually settled, and Ed's gnawing anxiety became cold, crippling dread.
First Lieutenant Maria Ross and Master Sergeant Denny Brosch were grey-faced and tight-lipped as they approached the Rockbell's porch. It had been a long time since Ed had seen them look so grave, and for all their many months apart, the former Fullmetal Alchemist was not entirely pleased to see them.
"Hi, Ed," said Maria, flashing a small, kind smile. The two soldiers planted themselves to attention at the bottom of Pinako's steps. "It's good to see you again."
"Wish it could be under better circumstances," murmured Denny, dragging his boot on the footpath, upsetting the dust again. He seemed determined to avoid Ed's eyes.
Edward looked between the pair. Any happiness that came from seeing his two friends and comrades again was unceremoniously snuffed out as suspicion crystallised into certainty. Ed's body felt numb; the disquiet was there but he couldn't feel any pain, no anger, nothing at all. In some respects, it was kind of nice. For a moment, Ed felt as though he was sleeping. Like he was dreaming and any moment now he was going to wake up and roll over to see her––
"It's happened, hasn't it," Ed muttered. It was not a question.
Ross hesitated, then nodded. Her voice was paper thin and brittle: "We're… we're not clear on the exact details. It was the manservant who alerted Grumman. She is refusing to let anyone near him. She's terrified."
"Evidently the episodes have been happening for a while," added Brosch grimly. "Führer Grumman was livid when he found out. Armstrong and Catalina had to keep him from storming the woman's house himself."
Ed crunched his knuckles, and the numbness was replaced by the slow burn of battle adrenaline, as efficacious as it had been on the Promised Day. His arm, the resurrected one, began to ache. The memory of old automail grafts was as real as a phantom limb, and just as painful.
"She promised," said Ed, his voice pitched low, nearly a growl. "She swore if there were any relapses, she would tell Grumman. Dammit!" He pulled the grass out in a dry tuft and flung it away. "She promised."
"We know."
"That's why we've been dispatched."
"We need you back in Central, Ed."
Edward found himself gripping the splintery boards of the porch, clutching it like he was adrift in the ocean and it was the only thing left afloat. "I… I know, it's just…" he hung his head, "Winry was supposed to come home this afternoon."
Ross rested a hand on his shoulder. The weight was comforting. "I'm sorry, Ed. I really am."
"It's been five years. Five years…"
"We don't know how long Mrs. Bradley has been shielding him from us," said Brosch, words heavy with tacit apology. "But we can't afford to sit by and let this get any worse. Amestris can't. It could be the Father stuff all over again."
Ross nodded. "We can't let these monsters finish what they started."
Ed knew the truth of it. Perhaps, he thought suddenly, perhaps this was the reason for his anxieties, his disquiet. He wasn't afraid of proposing to Winry –– it was just his battle instincts flaring up, a grim premonition, screaming at him that something had gone wrong, that a great evil had been allowed back into the world, and that he was duty-bound to set it right.
He almost had himself convinced.
Regardless of the reason, even though Ed had prided himself his entire life on never being beholden to anyone, never answering to anyone, it occurred to him then that ensuring Winry lived in a world free of the sins of the past was the only thing he was bound to do. Perhaps the only thing he had been bound to do since defeating Father.
"Alright," he said; he sounded stronger, more assured than he'd felt in a long time. "I have to let Gran –– Pinako know I'm gonna be gone for a while. I have to write Winry a note, and get my stuff."
Maria nodded her understanding.
Ed opened his mouth as though to say more, but then quickly shut it again, his words failing him. He knew what had to be done. Those two soldiers knew, as well. Edward had made a promise in the aftermath of the battle with Father and the Homunculi, and he knew Führer Grumman had every intention of holding him to it, no matter the cost. The safety and security of Amestris depended on it.
Edward Elric forced a deep breath, preparing himself.
Against reason, against all probability, somewhere in the mind of Selim Bradley, a homunculus was stirring again.