Hours had passed after finally reaching the office. A more thorough examination had been done on Edward for the sake of Riza and Roy, who were both beside themselves with worry, but holding it in pretty well. Winry had already done a full assessment of the damage done to the leg and declared nothing could be done until she could get a look at the state of the remaining pieces of the limb that had yet to be delivered. After giving Ed the okay that he was only suffering from a knock to the head, the two "doctor's" closed the office doors for the day and allowed Al to sit with his brother, who was still confined to bed rest and hating every second of it.
"Have you made any progress on research for the stone?" Ed asks hopefully, changing the subject after having to answer question after question fired at him by his brother for the past hour.
"Oh, yeah. I haven't really made any progress," Al admits sheepishly, looking down to avoid Ed's penetrating gaze. "Don't look at me like that brother! You were here only just yesterday, you know how long and hard researching is. I need more time!"
The young alchemist lets out a sigh and leans his head back against the head rest of the bed he is currently sitting on with it reclined up. "I know Al," he finally says, his voice betraying all the emotions he was attempting to hide, all the pain and guilt and sorrow, "I just can't seem to do anything correct right now."
"Don't be like that brother," Al begins to say, before getting cut off by the sound of the front door of the building opening.
"Hello? Is anyone here?" A voice Ed recognizes called out, putting the boy into a panic.
"Al quick, you need to hide," Ed whispers harshly towards his brother.
"Mr. Carters? Mr. and Mrs. Johansson? Winry? Ed?" Haven's voice reaches them through the door as she begins to walk towards the room Ed is sitting in.
"There's not enough time to hide!" Al whispers back, realizing the severity of the situation.
"Quick, stand in the corner. Don't move and don't make a sound!" Ed insists after giving the tall armor a slight push towards the corner.
"Haven, I don't think you should be going back there without permission, what if someone's in there," Jane's voice trails forward behind Haven's.
Before any response can be given towards Jane's worry, Haven's head pokes through the doorway and makes eye contact with Ed.
"Ed!" She all but shouts, then comes into the room fully, showing the bag full of metal parts in her hand.
"Hey Haven. Jane. Brent. Tyler," Ed gives a small strained smile at the four that enter the room, saying their name as a greeting as they pass through the door. Brent is carrying his own bag full of metal while Jane is carrying what appears to be two large pieces of Ed's leg and Tyler is carrying some small scraps in her hands.
"How are you feeling Ed?" Brent asks as he sets the bag down on the side of the bed beside the bag Haven had set down.
I feel like you all should go so my brother doesn't have to hide, Ed thinks to himself before responding cordially, "I honestly feel fine, though I am hating being confined to this bed right now."
The group began to laugh at Ed's words as if he were making a joke, even though he was completely serious, but to keep up the act Ed laughed slightly along with them. A knock at the closed door leading further into the building draws the attention of everyone in the group.
"Hey guys, I'm coming in to check on Ed," Winry calls through the door before it opens to her poking her head in. A look of shock crosses her face at the sight of the crowd now gathered in the room she had left with only two occupants in it earlier. Quickly composing herself, she opens the door all the way and steps in before shutting the door behind her, chancing a glance in the corner behind the door to see a tall suit of armor standing still as a statue. Winry's heart went out to Al, she could only imagine the pain he was going through currently having to hide who he is like this.
Turning back to the group assembled before her the young mechanic put a smile on her face. "Hey Haven, Jane, Brent, Tyler," She says each name in turn.
"Hey Winry, we got all the parts to Ed's leg! At least all that we could find," Haven tells Winry, while passing her bag to the expectant girl.
Winry took the bag and dumped it out on a table at the foot of Ed's bed next to the remaining part of Ed's leg she had detached earlier. Just seeing the damage got her blood boiling, if only she had gotten to Ed a second sooner, she could have stopped the idiot who had thought it was a smart idea to just cut Ed's leg into pieces rather than detach it from the stump.
After dumping the remaining parts given to her by the remaining three she made a mental assessment on the damage done.
Ed, unbeknownst to everyone, had sat forward in the bed to look at all the pieces.
"That does not look good," he commented, causing the four to jump after having scooted closer to inspect the parts with Winry, though for what reason they knew not.
"I'm going to be honest," Winry states, looking up into Ed's eyes as if she expected him to be exactly where he is," Even if all-nighters are pulled, this would take at least four days to repair, if not more. They did some serious damage to it, this is probably the worst I have ever seen it."
"It's strange hearing you admit a length of time such as that, especially since there has been times when the damage has been worse," Ed tells her, forgetting for a moment that there are other people currently in the room.
"Edward, at least an eighth of the pieces are missing from your leg, usually there is more to work with. Haven, Brent, Jane, and Tyler did a great job collecting all the pieces, but some parts are going to have to be ordered for this to be done," Winry explains, much to the confusion of afore mentioned group.
"Wait, so do you like know something about automail Winry?" Brent asks, causing a snort of laughter to come out of Ed.
"You could say that," he says with a chuckle, looking at the empty space where his leg would normally be.
"What's that supposed to mean?" Brent creases his eyebrows in confusion at Ed's words.
Ed raises his head and shares a look with Winry." Should I tell them? Or would you like to?"
Winry releases a sigh before shaking her head softly. "I'll tell them." She then turns to look at the four giving her equal looks of confusion, "My- our grandmother used to be an automail mechanic, one of the best around. At least that's what everyone would say. I always loved the smell of the oil, the feel of the metal," Winry's eyes take on a dreamy look before refocusing, "She taught me how to craft automail. After Ed got in an accident not to long ago and decided he wanted to replace his leg, I took it upon myself to be his mechanic, and to give him back the ability to walk."
Silence fills the room as everyone takes in what Winry just said, not completely a lie, but not totally the truth either. Just when it seemed as if it were about to get awkward due to the silence Haven practically shouts, "That's so cool!"
"It is?" Winry and Ed simultaneously ask in shock.
"Yes!" Haven shouts this time. "You're like a superhero! No! Even better, you're like that kid that's a state alchemist! The one with the automail arm! Man that kid is awesome!"
Before Haven had a chance to continues gushing about the person sitting in front of her, although she didn't know that, Brent cut in.
"Why did you guys not say anything sooner? About you having automail and you being a mechanic?"
Ed quickly comes up with a story on the spot. "We were out casted by our classmates," he begins to explain. "No one wanted to be friends with the boy with one leg, or his sister that made him a new one. When we moved here we swore to our parents that we would tell no one."
"Lucky for you then that this happened today or else you would have had to think of something to explain for gym tomorrow," Haven tells them.
Winry shares a look with Ed before saying, "I don't know about lucky, but this does excuse us for the next few days from school. Our uncles are giving us excuses for however long we need out."
"Lucky you," Tyler speaks up for the first time since school, "I wish I had uncles that could excuse me whenever we wanted."
"Speaking of your uncles," Haven cuts in, "Are they brothers...? Or are they like more than that? Because they don't look that much alike."
"They are most definitely brothers," Ed rushes to say, not wanting to think about what else she could be referring to with those two, "They are our mom's older brothers."
"Why did you ask Haven?" Brent questions her, looking a bit affronted, "Do you have a problem with people like that?"
Haven's face reveals the shock she feels. "Of course not! I believe people should feel free to love who they want to love, it's just that they don't look very much alike... In fact, none of your family looks very much alike," Haven comments to Ed and Winry.
"Well we are obviously fraternal," Winry begins, making up her excuse as she talks, "I've always been told I look a bit like our mom when mixed with our dad, so it's a bit up in the air there, and everyone always says that Ed looks like our grandma on our dad's side," This causes an exclamation from Ed but Winry chooses to ignore it while holding back her laughter, "And our mom and uncles were all adopted, so there's no saying what genes could have been passed on through them."
This explanation causes a round of nods from the group as they readily accept the story.
After letting out her mental sigh of relief that they believed her story Winry grabbed the chair that Al had previously been sitting in beside Ed's bed and moves it over in front of the table and sits down. "I need to get to work on this leg if it's ever going to get done. If you guys want to stay and chat with Ed you can, but don't expect to much conversation out of me," Winry explains to the others before pulling her tool chest out from under the table and putting all focus on the hunk of metal sitting in front of her.
"So anyone want to talk about anything in particular?" Jane asks timidly.
"I know something I want to talk about, we should talk about the Fullmetal Alchemist," Haven gushes, taking a seat on the side of the bed and making herself comfortable.
Ed feels his blood run cold as he tries not to let his expression change, trying to remain impassive.
A groan comes out of Brent before he says, "You talk about him in class all the time, what else is there to talk about?"
Pouting, Haven crosses her arms, "Ed might not know anything about him."
"Who is it we are talking about again?" Ed asks, hoping they would honestly just drop the conversation.
"The Fullmetal Alchemist Ed, come on, stick with the program." Ed receives a glare from Haven for making her repeat herself.
"Oh, him? Yeah I've heard of him before," Ed says off-handedly hoping to discourage them from continuing.
"What exactly have you heard?" Haven prompts, looking for an answer.
"Um." Shoot, I'm trapped moo, what do I say? Ed hears a faint rattle and can see Al's armor slightly shaking, but is unable to tell what the reason for that is. "I know that he travels around with his younger brother and that his last name is Eric?"
"Uh oh," Jan whispers, drawing a confused look from Ed before he turns back to look at Haven to the look of terrified surprise on her face.
"You really don't know anything," Haven whispers in disbelief before sitting up straight. "Everyone better make themselves comfortable because I'm about to give a thorough education on the Fullmetal Alchemist."
Brent releases a groan of annoyance as he plops himself down on the floor, closely followed by Jane and Taylor. "This is not how I thought I would be spending my afternoon," Brent declares.
Haven simply sticks out her tongue out at him before turning back to Ed and begins to tell the life story of the Fullmetal Alchemist, or at least what she was told was the life story.
"Ahem. So the Fullmetal Alchemist, one Edward Elric, was born as an alchemical prodigy. It's been told that he started performing alchemy merely hours after birth, though that part may not necessarily be true due to the fact that he couldn't draw circles that young, but it is said that he doesn't even need to draw circles. He just claps his hand and can transmute things, so maybe he could have started that young... Back on topic. About a year later his brother Alphonse was born, not as much of a prodigy but still very much skilled in alchemy. Now not much is actually known about his younger years, except for the fact that he lost his arm during that time, probably due to an accident from abusive parents?"
The rattling of the armor stops, leading Ed to believe it had previously been laughter causing it to shake.
"One can only speculate how he lost his arm, but it's a part of who he is, much like how his little brother wears that large armor, and may I say he hit such a growth spurt in his early years to be able to rival the height of the strong-arm alchemist like he does."
This causes the armor to start up rattling again, Al knowing full well Ed's thoughts on the height part. The four friends all look at the armor in confusion as it continues to rattle.
"Ed, is there something going on with that armor over there?" Haven asks, still looking at it.
"Just ignore it, that's where our uncle's kitten likes to play, it rattles like that from time to time," Ed explains in an off handed tone, still thinking about what Haven had said so far.
"Okay, then let's get back to the story," Haven says, but keeps one eye still on the armor as she continues," Anyways. The young Fullmetal was recruited by none other than the legendary Flame Alchemist Roy Mustang, how they initially met isn't known. But Fullmetal went and took the test beside his brother. It's said that they both passed the first and hardest part of the test, but something came up and the younger brother quit. People say he probably got to intimidated by the test or something like that. But yeah, so that's how he became a state alchemist. And apparently he's saved hundreds of lives, and he's only like I think fourteen or fifteen. It's really hard to tell because of how short he is."
The last comment draws a twitch of anger from Ed for being called short, but Haven either doesn't see or doesn't care and continues on with what she has to say.
"It's apparently really easy to recognize him. Short guy, he wears a red coat over a black shirt and pants, he always wears his hair back in a braid, and he has the strangest golden eyes. Oh, and of course he has his automail arm and is always next to his brother who always wears his armor. But yeah, that's basically all that you need to know about Edward Elric."
"You know," Tyler speaks up from her place on the floor next to Jane, "If you think about it, there are actually quite a few similarities between Ed and the Fullmetal Alchemist."
Haven leans in real close to Ed's face, almost touching noses with him, causing him to lean back before she finally pulls back. "I guess there are a few similarities," she admits, still looking him over.
"You're right Tyler. Think about it, he has the golden eyes and hair, he's always wearing his hair in a braid. Although I can't imagine him to be one to wear red, he seems to prefer dark clothing. His name is Edward, and he has automail. Although his last name isn't Elric, the automail is on the wrong limb, and he doesn't have a brother," Brent ponders aloud, going back and forth on the similarities and differences. The four quietly share looks with each other before bursting out laughing at the audacity of it all.
"Oh that's a good joke you guys," Haven finally says after catching her breath from laughing so hard, "As if our Ed here could be the Fullmetal Alchemist." Haven let out a chuckle that just couldn't be suppressed before sighing, then says. "But in all seriousness, Edward Elric is my inspiration for learning alchemy"...
TBC
When you realize you can post off your kindle where the original drafts are saved.
Anyways, cliffhanger again today, sorry. I actually wrote all this the day the last chapter was posted, but it's like everything fell apart all at once. I wanted to post this before I move tomorrow because I don't know when I'll have time to write and or post anymore for a while. Thanks for everyone who has stuck with me for this long and just be patient with me, I will not give up on this story :)
Have a good day and thanks for reading.