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The Big Bang Theory
Chapter Ten
Internal Cohesion
- mirage-
Ed first learned he could move his toes when he was outside trying to step on black ants crawling along the deck.
The best thing about automail was how it was meant to respond like your previous limb, and in the midst of what Ed would call stomping, but looked more like a toddler waddling, his metal foot stepped forward to catch an ant scurrying off before he told it to. It was a synchronized response to his nerves and brain, and Ed began yelling for Alphonse at the top of his lungs.
Alphonse was not the only one to respond to Ed's screaming. Pinako had been climbing into the shower, and ran for the deck wrapped in a towel. She found Ed grinning from ear to ear, and boasting about his accomplishment. He was talking before she arrived on scene, before Alphonse, who came thundering through the back door. Before Winry, who followed wearing enough costume jewelry to weight down a small animal, and carrying an armful of stuffed toys.
"Did you see what I did!" Ed was hysterical with excitement. "I stepped with it! I stepped right on the ant! I moved it all on my own!" Alphonse seemed confused, but Winry dropped her toys cheering. She wrapped Ed in a crushing hug, and he ignored her, prattling on and on about how amazing his automail was. Winry couldn't agree more, and began a fast, I know, I know! It's so great! I know, I know!
Pinako left the kids with orders never to yell so loudly unless they were hurt, and returned to the shower.
Over the next week Ed continued his therapy, and continued to be weaned off medication. The side effects were slight and short-lived. The sudden decrease in two of his pain medications left him vomiting for a day, and the change in muscle relaxers gave him terrible head aches for several. They would come quickly, and any light or movement was awful for him. In bed he would lay in a darkened Post Surgical with a cloth on his forehead waiting for it to pass.
On Thursday it rained and stormed terribly, and Pinako had candles and lanterns ready expecting the power to drop at any moment. The children enjoyed the storm, and made a fort in the living room. It was impossible to build one big enough for Alphonse, so the armor lay on the floor and stuck its head in. Winry carried snacks into the fort, and Ed was whining uncontrollably. He didn't want to play with food he couldn't eat, and kept shoving it out, or tossing it into Alphonse's armor when Winry wasn't looking.
After two hours of continued tension, and Winry's refusal to use other foods, Ed limped his way to Pinako. She was enjoying a moment of respite away from the children in her bedroom. With a hot cup of tea, and a good book, Pinako tried to ignore Ed when he hobbled in wearing a costume police hat and carrying two of Winry's dolls.
Ed announced himself loudly with, "Hey, old lady!" and Pinako lifted her gaze from the book's pages and considered him. "When do I get to eat cookies and stuff again, huh? This is really unfair. Really, really unfair."
Ed was frowning in the doorway. Still in his bathing suit and wearing a tee shirt Trisha had sewn for him when he was much too young to wear it, his complaints brought a smile to Pinako's face. Gracefully, she used her raised book to hide all but her eyes
"It's unfair is it," Pinako said dryly. She had made chocolate chip cookies that afternoon, three batches, and they were delicious.
Ed nodded. "Yeah, it is." His tone was full of conviction. "Winry's downstairs eating cookies, and it's unfair I don't get to. She brought them into—she's cooking—keeps cooking them for dinner because she wants to eat them, so I am not getting any dinner, because I can't eat them!
Pinako was unable to remain stoic, and began laughing softly to herself. Ed barely noticed, and continued his complaints, adding that Alphonse also could not eat the cookies.
From downstairs Pinako heard Winry run to the bottom of the stairs, and she called up a loud, "Ed! Do you know where the babies are!" She sounded worried they were missing.
Ed back peddled two limped steps to look down the stairs and held the babies up. "I have them!" he answered. "Alphonse said he was going to work so he gave them to me to watch, and I had to come upstairs." Winry found this perfectly acceptable. She only wanted to know if they were fed, and after a brief undecided pause, Ed decided they were. "Tell Alphonse to make a sword for me!" he called. Winry left skipping from the stairs to the fort. "Do it out of the kitchen chair leg cause I want it long, to slay things! I am the militia!"
Pinako tipped her head back and rested the book to the bridge of her nose, laughing to herself. She was in her mother's rocking chair, and because it was old and special to her she kept it in her room and rarely used it. Ed returned, shuffling to her side, and leaned into it. When she lifted the book to consider him, he smiled widely.
"Please ask Winry to make something else for dinner," Pinako said kindly.
Ed's smile fell a bit. "Okay I will, but I still think it's probably okay for me to have cookies."
"Chocolate and greasy items aren't usually done yet, Ed," Pinako said. "They can irritate you."
Ed gave a heavy sigh. He reached up and adjusted his police hat when it slid to the side and accidentally dropped a baby. "Yeah well," he said, bending down slowly and lifting it by the leg. "I think…I am okay with that risk."
Pinako didn't know if it was because it was late, or simply because Ed looked so cute, that she surrendered. She took him to the kitchen, found the cookie with the least chocolate chips, picked out any visible chips, and gave it to him.
Ed was so happy he dropped both babies to the floor, and cradling the cookie in his palms, went quietly to the living room to eat it slowly.
Reading disturbed, Pinako found herself doing the dishes when Winry stomped her way into the kitchen, yanked the babies off the floor, and stomped back to the fort. Her fingers were stained with chocolate.
The power went out not forty minutes later with the thunder crashing and the lightening ripping across Resembool's fields. When it was time for bed, the children followed Ed to Post Surgical. Alphonse, untired, read at Ed's bedside and Ed and Winry fell asleep curled up in a nest of Winry's stuffed animals. They looked so comforted Pinako didn't have the heart to wake them, and Ed went to bed without being weighed, and Winry without changing into pajamas.
Pinako was glad the children could find such rest together. Summer storms no longer gave her peace, and now only reminded her of that night, and that thing. Feeling silly, she had the shotgun on the table and bullets in her pocket to calm her own nerves. As she went about the house trying to keep her mind busy her eyes strayed to the windows, and always she was looking for it. With each flash of lightning the road was empty, and from what you could see of the Elric house it was dark.
It was never there, but in her mind it haunted her. She saw it, white bulging eyes staring back at her, mouth yawning open, screaming.
The next morning everything was drenched. Pinako made French Toast for Winry and fruit oatmeal for Ed with the children outside playing. Winry was wearing a large sweatshirt over her sundress and rain boots. Ed's pair had not been retrieved from the Elric house, so he was in Winry's extra set, and the children warmed Pinako's heart.
The farm over had a baby lamb born two days ago, and their young son Gregory brought it over for Winry to see. Pinako was good friends with the family, and Winry often went with her when she helped them can items and plant. Winry had fawned over the mother lamb, and when she learned it was pregnant was especially excited. On this very wet Friday it was released in their backyard, and went frolicking and crying out through the mud as if it were having the time of it's life. Gregory also brought a basket of thirteen baby chicks, and Winry was in a tizzy.
Pinako could hear her granddaughter squealing with joy as she knelt along the basket picking up each chick and laying her cheek against it for a hug, before setting it in the wet grass.
When Alphonse came around the side of the house, tromping through the mud without a care in the world, Ed was at his side. Bundled in his own blue sweatshirt and wearing Winry's pink and yellow rain boots, the boys were playing, but Winry interrupted them, yelling as if there was a fire.
She was calling for the boy's with overwhelming excitement, and they came running. Ed was slow, but Alphonse wasn't, and they had learned to work together. Alphonse would drop his knuckles to the ground, let Ed step into his fingers, and Ed would hug the armor's arm and ride it. Like this they raced to Winry's side, and Pinako stood at the kitchen window laughing as Ed began picking up the tottering fuzzy yellow chicks and sitting them on Alphonse's feet.
Gregory took the lamb home after an hour, but he couldn't get the children to give up the chicks, and they were allowed to stay for the day. This was long enough for the kids to feed them, for Winry to snap her pink barets into their hair for fashion, and for them to coax Alphonse into holding them.
With it so wet, and with so much commotion, Pinako could barely get them all to sit and eat breakfast and lunch. The chicks were left on the deck, always peeping loudly, and Winry was restless and couldn't focus with them out there.
Pinako had Ed do therapy in the living room with it so damp outside, and he carried the chick he called his in with him. It went wandering about the living room in endless circles cheeping and pecking at nothing as Ed did his exercises on the floor. It was more a distraction than anything else, with Ed occasionally stopping to reach over and push it away from the underside of the couch when it tried to wiggle in, but Pinako didn't have the heart to take it away from him.
If she had known what she would have found later, she would have.
After lunch and Ed's therapy, Winry put as many chicks as could fit, and would stay, in her baby carriage. She carried some of her dolls and her tea set out to the deck, and was playing with Alphonse for over half an hour before Pinako realized Ed wasn't with them. She found this strange. She checked Post Surgical and the lavatory before stepping out the front door. The kids had been back and forth from the side of the house where the gardens were planted, to the back deck all day.
The air outside was light and smelled of sweet wet grass and farm country. The sun was faint, shining through constant cloud cover, and so Friday was remaining wet from the rain. The wind of the storm had tossed the front flowers about, causing some of them to look as if they had been kicked down.
Wearing sandals Pinako descended the steps and crunched out into the walk. With Ed recovering she wouldn't smoke inside, but her pipe was always with her. Staring out at the rolling hills she lit it and puffed a soothing blow. Things had for a time looked rocky, but now appeared to be settling, and this day seemed proof of it all. Somehow Pinako felt she had been in that first stormy night all this time, and was just now stepping out into the rejuvenating spring where it would all clear.
On her fourth puff Pinako heard a sound from the side of the house, and strolled lazily toward the vegetable garden wearing a pleasant smile. She was expecting to find Ed and she did. He was sitting on the side of the garden's box, hugging his knees. His hair was a bit of a mess from all his play, and bundled in his large sweatshirt he was just a speck in girl's rain boots. Face in his arms, looking half asleep, Pinako could just imagine him sitting down and taking a quick ten minute snooze. Now that he was out of bed, and not restrained to constant rest, he had been coming closer and closer to being unable to fulfill the day without some form of nap. It wasn't until Ed sniffled heavily that Pinako realized he was crying, and she lowered the pipe from her mouth with saddened surprise.
"Ed?" she asked softly, stepping up to him. His head snapped up, and his eyes were pink and his cheeks wet. "Good heavens, what's the matter boy?"
Ed didn't answer her, instead his expression buckled inward with more tears and he wrapped his flesh arm about her leg and hugged it. Pinako bent down and set her pipe on the wood of the garden box before taking a seat next to him. She wrapped her arm about his back and squeezed lovingly. "You speck, just what could have possibly happened to have you out here all worked up?" she asked. She wasn't alarmed until he sobbed in response. Then she bent to face him, trying to straighten his position upright, but he resisted. He was curled into himself, and she whispered, "Ed, what's gotten into you?" She left her seat and crouched before him. A bit of fear inside her awakened, and she was scared. Scared he was dipping back into the depression he'd found earlier about Trisha and Alphonse's body.
It was then she saw it.
Sticking out from between the slender metal fingers of the automail hand was bright yellow fuzz, and dangling from the bottom, a motionless pair of baby chicken feet.
Ed was crying softly, at the end of his tears, and in a soft shaky voice he whispered, "It's stuck." Pinako didn't understand. She thought she understood quite clearly he was holding a dead little chick, and seeing it in the metal hand no explanation was needed. There was a myriad number of intentional or unintentional events which could have caused the automail to close involuntarily. Ed could have shivered, stumbled, or exercised a firm grasp with the flesh hand. With automail reflexes out of control, it was easy, and the metal hand would have tightened, curled, and crushed the baby to death.
"Oh, you poor little thing," Pinako whispered, heartbroken. "My little Bean, don't you worry about this, it was an accident." She lifted Ed's chin and pet her hand over his wet cheek with care, but he didn't calm.
"It's stuck," he repeated, sniffling heavily before looking to his metal hand. Slowly he tried to uncurl it, and it was apparent he couldn't and had been trying, because part of the chick's feathers were caught in the seams of metal. It's dead body was stuck in his hand. "I smooshed it," Ed cried, staring down at the chick. "It was peeping, and then it stopped in my hand."
Pinako reached forward and worked the metal fingers off the limp fuzzy corpse. Ed's fist had crushed every bone. The wings, legs, and head were loose flopping appendages, and she carefully wiggled it free and set it in the grass.
She didn't know what to say, although she understood she would have to say more to comfort him. That was her role in all this, and she sighed heavily feeling the weight of that role. She looked to Ed, and his pinkened eyes were watching her with need, before he leaned forward and hugged her.
He kept his metal hand awkwardly extended, as if his fingers were sticky, but the rest of him curled into her shoulder, and they didn't need words.
By the beginning of the next week Ed was up and moving himself around almost entirely independent, and it was a godsend. Once his toes kicked into gear, his ankle awoke completely, and Ed had two working legs. This was fuel to his fire, and Pinako realized suddenly, and uncomfortably, that Ed had reached a state appropriate for discharge. She felt blindsided!
This epiphany happened when she watched her teasing granddaughter, who had become used to Ed's inability to move, run screaming after irritating Ed enough he got up and was throwing things at her. Ed hobbled down the deck, down the stairs, and into the grass yelling and chasing Winry. Then Ed was tired, and had Alphonse carry him back up.
Washing vegetables at the kitchen sink Pinako realized just how far Ed had come, and she made the necessary call. In doing so she crossed out the two messages left by the soldier, and wrote in Monday 10:00 A.M. train.
Winry stood in Pinako's bedroom door, watching Pinako pack her suitcase, before yelling, "Why can't I come!" Winry was angry. "This is stupid!"
"Winry, you'll be bored out your mind!" Pinako closed her truck harshly. "What in the world would you want to come for!" Pinako pushed around Winry and left down the stairs for Post Surgical. They were on a time limit, and there just wasn't room for this silliness.
"I don't want to stay here all by myself, Grandma!"
"Well someone should!" Pinako said, shooting Winry a look of exasperation. "Trisha's speck of a first-born is cleaning out our bank account, and it would be wonderful if we could take a job or two, and pay for one less train ticket while we're doing it."
Winry was half way down the stairs and still in her sparkly slippers. "So that means I have to stay!" Winry asked with shock.
"Well Ed's not going to leave Alphonse behind," Pinako said flatly.
Winry stomped her feet. "So!"
Pinako rolled her eyes and went to Post Surgical. Under her breath she muttered a miserable, "You'd think we were going on vacation," as she yanked open Ed's dresser. Winry came stomping to the doorway of Post Surgical and stood frowning as Pinako pulled a few of every article Ed would need from the drawers. "We'll only be there one or two days, Winry." She gave Winry a scolding look. Then she carried Ed's clothing to the duffle she had set out earlier, and packed them in. "Ed will go, be poked by a bunch of doctors, and come back."
"Ed doesn't even need to go, Grandma," Winry said, tone snotty. Pinako stopped packing and looked over with surprise. "Well," Winry said quickly, looking guilty. She gave a faint shrug. "Well, not really."
"Of course he does!" Pinako resumed packing and zipped Ed's duffle. She had packed it with four outfits and pajamas. "You want a lawsuit! We got to clear our names!"
"Yeah, but Ed wouldn't do that to us."
"That's Rockbell policy." Pinako ended it there and slipped by the girl carrying Ed's bag. "Edward, is going to stir up even more controversy for us once he's out in the world walking around. Any mechanic who sees him, or any snotty reporter for that reason, might start asking questions about why a child as young as he is has such advanced automail. So we have to do this right. I know just as well as you he'd never come back at us financially, but it's better we keep this up so everyone else is off our backs," Pinako said. "I ain't having them draggin' our names through the mud cause we did what we did to save him. Some of 'em won't see it our way, girl." Pinako tried to keep the immense irritation for this ignorance from her voice, but it was hard. "They'll see child abuse," she said sadly. "Hell, his mother wasn't even here to consent for him, we did! So really, that means he didn't have a choice, did he?"
Winry couldn't understand this argument because she was young, and didn't know the bite of the world. She didn't understand how something good and done to help, could destroy someone just the same. Looking confused, Winry said, "Well, I guess not. But who else was supposed to sign his consent waiver?"
"Nothing changes the fact it wasn't signed by a legal parent or guardian," Pinako said plainly, carrying Ed's bag to the door with Winry following her. "Nothing changes the fact his mechanics signed it, and some people will see that as greed instead of charity."
"But that guy Brickingham is helping to give us good publicity!" Winry said, following. "And our papers have gone over really well, Grandma! Maybe some people don't understand, but we know to ignore those letters." Winry was optimistic, but Pinako scowled when the mail was mentioned. Since they'd begun publishing on Edward all sorts of automail responses had come to them. Most was positive fan mail, compliments, begging apprentices, and other mechanics seeking tips for cases they were considering, but some was negative, and there was no kind way to phrase it, it was hate mail. Letters from those wronged by automail, those who had children reject parts and suffer greater loss. The growing body of a child was delicate, you could maim it, deform it, or destroy it, all with one incorrect automail application. This was a cruel and stark reality, and it was why many mechanics simply refused to do patients under the standard fourteen, if not sixteen safety zone.
"Ignorance is dangerous, Winry. Especially when we got nothing to retaliate with," Pinako said sharply.
"So you're having him go through discharge in the big city so...no one will question why we gave him the automail?" Winry asked. "That's why Ed's discharge is so particular?" Pinako tossed Ed's bag to her own at the front door, and signed heavily. She gave Winry an exhausted glance, and left to Post Surgical and Surgical for the medical supplies she wanted to bring, but Winry was relentless. "It's to prove that we did…the right thing?" Winry sounded completely out of her element trying to grasp the professional game they were playing.
"You ever hear of a younger automail case that wasn't to save a child's life!" Pinako called, moving quickly.
Winry rolled her eyes. She was well aware of aged automail procedures, and how they'd crossed the line with each one of them on Ed. Sounding pleased with herself, Winry said,"I am putting it on my resume."
"I am not missing my train."
"Then I am coming too!" Winry ran from the doorway and returned a minute later. Wearing a green sundress she was smiling widely. A packed pink duffle bag slung over her shoulder.
Pinako groaned, but she didn't have it in her to argue any longer. She finished zipping supplies into the correct storage bags, and handed them over. She needed someone to carry things out and load them in Mr. Fitzgerald's wagon. The man needed to pick it back up by four that afternoon, and she needed to catch her train by ten this morning.
Winry was so thrilled she sprinted out the back door, and skipped down the deck with Ed's blue bag saddled alongside her pink one. Humming happily she gave Ed a bright smile as she passed, and sung, "Guess who's coming!"
Ed hobbled up from the deck chair he was resting in, and once on his feet, filled his lungs, and yelled, "Oh no, you're not!" Alphonse had helped dress Ed for the trip, and Ed wore jean shorts, a simple tee shirt, and sandals. He looked entirely composed fully dressed with the automail clean and moving naturally. Grabbing her own bag, Pinako watched Ed stagger his way to the deck railing where crutches had been set for him."You're not coming Winry!" He was furious.
From off in the side of the lawn where Mr. Fitzgerald had pulled his wagon, Winry taunted a happy, "I am too!"
"Granny!" Ed yelled for Pinako at once. "Granny!" Next the tone became accusatory, because if Winry was coming, it was only because Pinako had given her permission.
Pinako lifted a hand to her face and rubbed at her temples. Alphonse entered through the front door, finished with closing up the outside, and Pinako turned to him. With an exhausted sigh, she said, "Get him in the wagon."
Out in public Pinako was reintroduced to the Edward Elric she had not seen in weeks. The assertive independent little boy, who insisted on doing everything himself. This rattled Pinako. She tried to keep him close to her as they entered the busy train station. She worried even the simple brush against a stranger might knock him over, but Ed made this difficult. He was determined to assert his freedom and ability to care for himself, and while desperately trying to achieve this, he routed every available avenue. For the better half of the ride to the train station he was working on talking his way there, and was unbearably obnoxious. With the station scheduling only a few trains, the platforms were crowded, and Ed made Pinako more than nervous trying to move entirely on his own. He refused the crutches, and he refused help. He was once again a young boy and didn't want his grandmother holding his hand or guiding him along. With insult and embarrassment Ed yanked from Pinako, shrugged from her, and boasted obsessively to Winry, his only ear. It didn't help that Winry ate up every word with sparkling eyes.
Ed was snotty if Pinako asked something of him, argued if she ordered something of him, and was all around a pain in her ass. Regretting their early arrival, Pinako felt immense relief when their train finally pulled to the platform.
Carrying Ed's bag with her own, Pinako ushered the children on. Ed wanted to lead, but couldn't step over the gap between the platform and train car, so Alphonse, who had been carrying Ed's crutches, added Ed to his arms. Then, being so small, Ed could easily navigate down the narrow aisles without putting too much pressure on his leg. This kept his balance and coordination much stronger inside the train than in the station. With Alphonse behind him, lumbering in an odd slanted shuffle, Ed followed his ticket to their seats and stopped.
There was nothing fancy about them. Pinako didn't have the income to grant the luxury of first class, but she had booked an average booth of four chairs, each pair facing the other. Standing in front of them, Ed looked to her for directions, and she gestured he enter.
"Ed, sit by the window," Pinako said, making her way over. All three children were waiting, but Ed immediately resisted her direction with a snotty argument she interrupted. He managed only a protesting, "I don't want to sit by the window, I want to sit on the aisle," when Pinako used a strong hand to press him into the booth. To keep his balance, Ed stumbled forward and sunk into the window seat. "Sit where I tell you," Pinako said, gesturing for Winry to get herself seated. She didn't want Ed on the aisle where people could bump him while walking about, she wanted him shielded. Winry took the parallel window seat looking pleasant, and with Ed fussing, Pinako took the aisle next to her.
"Don't get pushy," Ed said angrily. He shot Pinako a hot look. "Don't tell me what to do. I know what I am doing."
"Ed." Pinako felt her patience give out. "I am not taking your lip on this trip any longer, and I mean that. So mind the warning."
Ed scowled. He squirmed uncomfortably in his seat and averted his gaze to the window to watch the passengers board. He had been cooped up for several weeks, and was eager to see life and other people again. The train was boarding quickly. Resembool did not have a wealth of scheduled stops, and those that existed were well used. Passengers were filing in, and Ed watched lifting his chin to look over the seats, and leaning about for a better view.
"Alphonse, switch seats with me."
Pinako hadn't managed to organize their bags, and was still in the process of slipping her purse off when Ed continued his disobedient tirade.
"Stay where you are, Alphonse," Pinako said, making the irritation obvious in her voice.
Ed slouched back in his seat, grumbling to himself. "Whose side are you on, Alphonse?" he complained. "You can't tell me where to sit, Granny. I want to move my seat."
"You'll both keep yourselves right where you are," Pinako said, leaving her purse in her chair, and stepping into the aisle to slide their bags into the overhead storage compartments. Ed gave Winry's seat an irritable kick, and displeased, Winry asked him to stop it. Ed responded with a few more, and they were arguing. Winry wanted Ed to keep his legs on his side, but Ed mocked her requests, and told her to stop whining.
Pinako sat down, settling her purse in her lap, and ignoring the children while reviewing a metal checklist of needs. She doubled checked that she had locked the house doors, closed all the windows, watered the garden, picked the vegetables that might drop to the dirt while they were out-of-town, and brought everything they would need. That list was fairly short, some extra money, clothes, Ed's medical supplies, and her fat-mouthed grandson who now sat jabbing Winry with his crutch. Winry was whining excessively to Alphonse for this to stop, and swatting at Ed's attempts to poke her. The armor was engaged, rattling about as it moved, and scolding Ed and Winry both.
Chafed, Pinako tolerated this for nearly a minute to see if the kids would calm themselves, but things only appeared to be escalating. Several passengers walking past glanced with disapproval and annoyance, and it was all Pinako could stand.
She took a stern grip on the end of Ed's crutch, halting it, and leaned forward with a sharp, "All right!" The effect was a blade through their connection, and all three of them silenced. "I have had enough," she scolded. She turned to Winry first, and Winry looked apologetic and uncertain. "Take out your sewing," Pinako said sternly, keeping a stare of displeasure on the girl as she retrieved her cross-stitch from her bag. Pinako turned to Alphonse next, and with a tone of disapproval simply spoke his name, "Alphonse." It was just as effective with him in the armor, and the large metal suit hunched its shoulders like a puppy lowering its ears. "I want good behavior for the rest of the trip," she told him, keeping her firm tone.
She turned to Ed last and took a moment to pause. He was glaring daggers at her, determined to continue his resistance in plight of autarchy, but she'd had enough. Lifting a finger in a stern warning point, something she reserved for the death of her forbearance, she said, "I warned you, and I was serious, Ed." Dealing with this type of chaotic public defacing she would not tolerate. "Now, one more argumentative event out of you, and you're getting a spanking."
Ed was outraged, and his jaw dropped with shocked insult, before a look of embarrassment took him. "You can't spank me," he balked.
"Don't test me, Ed."
"I am almost twelve! That's—you can't!" Pinako set her purse aside with quick anger, as if to get up, and Ed surrendered with a fast, "Okay!" He scooted away from her, and close to the window shaking his head. "Okay," he said. "Okay."
"Then be quiet."
Ed turned his face away, blushing and looking humiliated. Winry giggled, and Pinako shot her a glance. She ordered Winry to return to her sewing, and politely Winry continued the red embroidery cardinal, and everything settled. The train ride was eight hours, and Ed fell asleep leaning into Alphonse's side, with the armor watching the scenery. Pinako read for most of it, enjoying the peace and quiet as much as one did when confined to nothing, but used to a schedule of everything. Winry entertained herself, finishing her cardinal and reading as well. Ed slept for almost seven full hours, and during the last hour of the ride, awoke looking groggy and miserable. Pinako wasn't surprised considering how hard the harsh treatment of the seats, and jostling movement of the train would be on his aching body.
"When do we get off?" Ed asked, watching Winry read. Winry had curled up in her seat and was cozy with a cute lap blanket and stuffed rabbit. Ed was irritated by this. "I want to get off now."
"Soon," Pinako said. Ed turned to Alphonse, and the armor seemed to understand Ed's expression of discomfort. Pinako was sure Ed's body was paining him right down his spine and behind his thighs. It would be a restless sensation, as if he needed to move and stretch, but also a sore throb that warned he shouldn't.
"Alphonse, can you move so I can lay down?" Ed asked Alphonse softly.
"Are you going to sleep some more?" Winry asked Ed with disbelieve. She lowered her book and gave Ed a quick once over with her eyes.
Ed jammed his expression into a look of utter disgust, and yelled, "Shut up Winry!" His exhaustion gave him a miserable temper, and Winry looked annoyed with the response but kept silent.
Alphonse moved and Ed lay across the two seats trying to find comfort. A journey wasn't the best thing for Ed, and a journey this long was almost ill advised, but there was no other way to get Ed to Central. Estimating how this would affect him was difficult, and the only thing Pinako felt certain of, was how greatly the travel would knock Ed off his feet. The constant movement, excitement, and stimulus would become a crippling exhaustion
"Alphonse." Pinako addressed the armor standing in the aisle watching Ed. "Fetch a glass of water, would you?"
"I don't want medicine," Ed said quickly. He wasn't stupid, and in an unprecedented halt of his holy routine, had gone the past seven hours without his ports being checked, his muscles being touched, or his temperature being taken.
Pinako worried unnecessarily without the confidence of Ed's vitals, and she stood up and pulled his duffle from the luggage compartment. Ed watched looking concerned, before protesting when he became certain he knew where this was going, "Let's wait till we get to the hotel," he said. Pinako ignored this. "Can we wait? We're almost there." Pinako unzipped Ed's duffle and accessed his medical bag. It was nestled safely between his clothing and had everything she needed. "It's not much longer." Ed was whining. "You said so yourself." Pinako pulled out a thermometer and Ed groaned in protest.
"When we get back, Ed, you graduate," Pinako said, offering it to him. He begged her not to do it in public, and then lay with the stick in his mouth. "I won't hassle you any longer then," she said, feeling his shoulder before about his thigh and knee. Ed's eyes darted about self-consciously, looking to passengers to see if they were watching him, but not many people paid notice as soon as you removed Alphonse. Pinako found Ed's muscles were very tight, but not to the point she was alarmed. "After this we'll have all the metrics ever needed to evaluate your receivership and strength." She felt his forehead, dispensing five pills, and took his thermometer back. "You're stable," she said, more than pleased. Smiling she watched Ed put each pill into his mouth, waiting for Alphonse, and felt relieved. "Stable is a wonderful, wonderful thing." Ed was less than impressed, and drank down the water before passing back out.
When they arrived at Central it was hard to wake him. With the train unloading, and Alphonse and Winry waiting by the open door, Pinako sat patting Ed's face and trying to get his eyes to follow her finger. Although his dosage was familiar from just a few weeks ago, she was good at gradual declines that made sudden spikes a shock. The Rockbell system weaned medication efficiently, with few reactions, and unintentionally Ed's system was sedated. When they left, Winry carried Ed's crutches, and Alphonse carried Ed. Like a pleased three-year-old, Ed hung off Alphonse watching the bustle of people with his eyes, and didn't say a word.
The sun was already setting when they caught a cab to the closest hotel to Central General Hospital and left for their room. They had two with an adjoining door. Pinako shared one with Winry, and Ed and Alphonse took the second. They kept the connecting door open, and Ed slept through the night hanging onto the metal arm resting in his bed.
Pinako had booked two twin beds for each room, even though Alphonse didn't use one at the farmhouse. She couldn't find it in herself to exclude him, and said nothing when Alphonse ignored it. He preferred to sit next to Ed's bed, the way he often did in Post Surgical, and for an hour after Ed's bedtime, the boys whispered back and forth to one another, before Ed fell asleep. Laying in her own bed, Pinako listened to them, waiting to make sure Ed could sleep, and pleased with Alphonse's vigilance. He was her best, and most dependable baby monitor.
The next morning they ordered breakfast to the room. Winry lazily hung around in her night-gown with the simple pleasure of having nothing on her agenda. Sitting in Alphonse's bed, she ate a fat stack of pancakes making brief conversation with Ed while he ate oatmeal. He was sleepy from the travel and yesterday's exhaustion, and ate slow. Pinako showered and dressed before hurrying him along and ushering him out of bed. Stiff, and careful when getting to his feet in the morning, Ed managed independently, and seamlessly began the morning's exercises he was taught. They stretched him effectively, and his body came into motion like a good car with an old motor.
Three times Pinako emphasized they were on a time limit before Ed dragged his duffle from the side of the bed and began limping slowly to the lavatory with it skidding along behind him.
"Ed, take a bath and scrub every inch of you." Pinako instructed.
"Okay," Ed said, curt and miserable with the fussing.
"Wash your hair too."
"Okay!" Ed was insulted. "I know how to take care of myself!"
"We leave in one hour."
Ed slammed the lavatory door, and Pinako looked to Winry. The girl had a plate in her lap and was chewing with bulging cheeks and lips sheen with syrup. "You'll stay here with Alphonse," Pinako said. Winry gave a thumbs-up before plunging her fork into her meal. "Don't attract any attention while we're gone." Pinako was just a bit nervous leaving Alphonse unguarded in the city. "I don't need any more complication than I already have."
"What's Ed going to be like when he comes back?" Winry asked, forking up a piece of breakfast sausage. Pinako thought this over for a minute and tried to envision Ed returning. Most patients underwent this final stage of discharge and that was it. She didn't hear from them again until they wanted maintenance. They often found other mechanics since Resembool was not a convenient spot to keep visiting, and commonly transferred. As a result this was where she saw many of her patients for the last time. The Rockbells were well-known for some of their engineered pieces, and also for a few select surgeries. Of these they were specialty mechanics, but for everything else, they were simply automail mechanics with a good reputation. In a city like Central, you could find a dozen others. So beyond this stop most of them existed further only in papers she published, or parts she designed and patented, but not Ed. Ed was a whole new ball of wax with the fuss his age had caused. Ed was also coming back, and Ed was still just a boy.
"Tired." Pinako left it at that.
Central's dominant hospital, Central General, was massive compared to Resembool's single clinic. It was larger than the biggest farm, the town fair, the church, and certainly the largest building Edward had ever been in. There were people coming and going, constant ringing phones, and the bustle of the city coming in through the door. They had taken a taxi to the hospital and Ed had his faced pressed to the glass the entire time. He was dead silent as he absorbed the city for the first time. Although Pinako had done quite a bit of traveling when she was younger, Ed was just a farm boy, and the excitement and urban development rendered him mute with both awe and cautious fear.
When they arrived, Ed held her hand without complaint, because Central's sidewalks were busy with life, the streets were full of cars, and he knew no one. At Central General they took the elevator to the Automail Ward on the sixth floor. Automail care in Central topped Rush Valley in quality, but was second to Rush Valley's variety and ingenuity. Nowhere else in the country was it as financed and developed. This made the change from what automail mechanics referred to as Flesh-Only care, to Flesh-Mechanic Care stark. The automail lobby was designed with wider chairs, several waiting benches, and support rails about the walls. It was made for people having automail attached, suffering with automail attached, or entering the automail world for the first time. To the untrained eye the design was obscure and unpractical, but to automail patients it was perfect, compensating limbs that needed to be elevated, supported, or were larger and heavier than human ones.
Central General's Automail Ward coloring was a soft yellow, and so all staff wore the same optimistic, but faded Easter color as they rushed about. Like all of Central General the Automail ward held the large conglomerate air of the establishment, with field appropriate lighting and floor tiling, and no expense spared on the first reception desk. It greeted you in a high counter where several young nurses were rapidly completing paperwork, filing charts, and managing the client flow.
Pinako registered for their appointment at the counter with Ed a few feet from here staring wide-eyed into the Automail lobby of patients. He was still ignorant to his new appendages, despite his research, and for the first time in his life, was seeing other people with the same affliction he had.
Pinako was glad there were only a few, and almost all of them senior users. There was a young girl with a slender arm and elaborate elbow reading a magazine, two young men engaging each other in low cheerful conversation, one with a massive arm, and the second with both his arms strong dominating models. There was an older gentleman with an old school model Pinako guessed he'd had for probably two decades, another Central traveler, looking to be from the country with simply a hand, a well suited Central business man wearing a suit with his automail completely concealed, and there were only two children. Both were with their parents, and when Pinako left the reception counter Ed was staring at them with transfixed fascination.
Pinako approached Ed's side and gave his shoulder a playful shove that startled him out of his gawking. He looked up at her quickly, as if expecting her to be a stranger, and immediately took her extended hand with relief. Through a soft smile, and under her breath, Pinako said, "Don't stare, Ed."
Together they took a seat in the lobby and were left undisturbed for almost forty minutes. Pinako was surprised to find that she felt tired once seated. It was early morning and they'd had a good night's rest. Ed had done well with the trip down. His temperature had remained stable, and he was following his routines almost independently. Without Pinako asking, he weighed and lotioned himself with his prescription after his morning bath, and then waited patiently for her. He had dressed himself in sandals, jean shorts, and a white long sleeve shirt under a red tee shirt. Pinako was surprised. She had specifically included long sleeve shirts and jeans for him in his duffle so he could hide much of his automail if he wanted to, but he was comfortable with it, and she was happy.
After a half an hour a young mother exited the elevator in a rush with a fifteen year old boy holding his arm in tight pain, struggling to keep himself composed. His mother spoke quickly to reception, keeping her voice down, and a loving hand on the boy's shoulder.
Ed noticed this immediately. The boy was the closest in age to Ed, and Ed was leaning half out of his chair trying to get a better look at him. Biting her tongue, Pinako was trying not to scold him.
"Ed, it's not polite," she whispered, when she couldn't take it anymore. Ed looked like the concerned witness to a farm accident. His expression was tense because the boy's pain resonated in Ed's mind. The boy's right automail was shaking, as if with malfunction, and the boy had his head bowed and was groaning toward the floor where he stood next to his mother. His flesh hand was holding a hot pack to his shoulder, and several nurses came quickly, and escorted them away.
"What happened to him?" Ed asked, twisting around in his chair to watch the boy leave.
Pinako reached over and gently pulled Ed to sit correctly. "His arm is healing," she said.
Ed looked concerned. "He's bleeding." Pinako had not noticed this. Ed was visually wincing. "Where's his mechanic?"
"I don't know."
"Shouldn't she be here?" Ed asked with confusion.
Pinako gave a heavy sigh. "He or she may not need to be here. The boy's mother is with him. It's hard to diagnosis his condition just from sight, Ed. Don't worry so much." She gave him a kind smile. "Do you think you are the only one who has had a hard time? Everyone does."
Ed frowned. "His arm was bigger than mine."
"Ed, he was bigger than you."
"Don't call me small," Ed said, pinching his expression with anger. "I am not too small to have an arm that size." Pinako laughed softly to herself. "I am big enough to have an automail ten—twenty times bigger than his."
Pinako kept her comments to herself. She lapsed into a comfortable silence and let her gaze remain active in the lobby. Although Ed didn't realize it, with his automail right hand and left leg visible, the other patients had noticed him. Unlike Ed, they were not ignorant to standard procedure, and their expressions ranged from envy to concerned disgust someone would unnecessarily threaten Ed's healthy growing body with skin splitting steel weights.
Pinako decided she liked Ed's ignorance, and was not going to enlighten him to the stares he was oblivious to. Slouched down in his chair swinging his flesh leg absently, Ed let the minutes tick by. The lobby didn't bleed the smell of antiseptics like the floors below them, instead something between rubbing alcohol and motor oil drifted faintly.
After a long casual silence crossing ten minutes Pinako asked, "Do you feel okay?" Ed hadn't been complaining, but away from Resembool he was far outside of the routine his body was used to. He was standing, walking, and moving far more, and with expectancy he don't have in her farmhouse. At home, if he was tired he could sit or lay down wherever he wanted, but in Central he was in public, and he would need to wait until they returned to the hotel.
Ed shrugged.
"Ed?"
"Yeah."
"Just so you know, Bean, you're going to have a few shots." Ed stopped swinging his leg, and gave an irritated shift of his weight. He loved to deny his fear of needles, but they both understood she knew better. "They're going to take some blood also." Pinako scanned her brain for what might be better disclosed to him now. With Ed being so young, she was disheartened to find she felt more at ease keeping him in the dark until he was confronted with the nonnegotiable procedure. Then she could support him through it. "You won't have any female physicians or mechanics while you're here, Ed. I added that as part of your care plan to be courteous to you, so try not to be shy."
"How come Alphonse couldn't come." Ed complained. Pinako smiled. Ed wanted his brother. "He could have come," Ed said, sounding nervous without the armor. "There's nothing wrong with him coming."
"I didn't want his hollow body about so many doctors," Pinako said, lowering her voice to a discrete whisper. "You'll see him when we get back." Ed grunted miserably before lifting his gaze to meet Pinako's. His expression was consumed with deep consideration, and Pinako could see a large idea bouncing about behind his pupils before he tore them away and resumed swinging his leg. This time, at a faster pace.
"Will you come in with me?" Ed asked quietly.
Pinako felt touched he'd ask. She took her hand from her purse and dropped it into his hair with a loving chuckle. "You're not going to want me in there with you, boy."
Ed was quiet, with his gaze resting comfortably in his lap. "Yes, I do," he said. Pinako became serious. This was uncommonly straightforward and honest, and she felt a bit of concern develop while she tried to consider what would have prompted such a request. Briefly she felt guilty for not having discussed more of Ed with him medically. If Ed was nervous enough about his own automail he thought she needed to be in the room, than she had not done her job well. He needed to be a secondary master with his own limbs, so if stranded apart from them, he could still get the care he would require to live.
"Are you sure, Ed?" Pinako asked. At that moment Pinako's soft and caring tone was the voice Ed knew to be his grandmother, and he wanted her with him. Central felt very big, and everyone held the air of the important, marching ahead with focused unseeing eyes to a map and tempo that was foreign out in the country. It was intimidating, and it made you feel small and alone. The thought of separating from Pinako to leave with a bunch of strangers in an area Ed didn't know, was more nerve-wracking than he would admit.
Pinako understood this, but she also recognized that Ed was a young boy and having her in the room while he was examined would be awkward for him. Although she was as much Ed's physician as she was his mechanic for the time, she understood and expected this to change as he grew older, and more independent. For the time being he was stranded at her house, but in the future he would have the option of seeking a facility he chose, and she felt certain it would not be her humble home back in Resembool.
A single doctor crossed the far lobby to reach main reception, and his white coat was like a flag to the room. All eyes turned to him, anxious to see whose appointment was being disrupted with the rather unexpected mother and son. The man spoke to a young receptionist before taking a chart from her. He was reading for only a minute before quickly beckoning from the direction he had come. When two other doctors joined his side Pinako felt the sinking sensation of a stone in her stomach. That was Ed's chart they had, she was sure of it.
Curtain falls on Chapter 10.
I don't think I need to hint as to the upcoming chapter's content. It will be more of life outside Resembool, what do you think so far? I think the kids are just adorable, traveling and following Pinako like little chicks after a hen. How can you not find this adorable.
Chapter 11: On the Stage Beneath the Objective, will be posted next Friday 03/21/14. Hope to see you there.