A/N: I'm sure many of you were reading this and thinking, "There is just not enough drama in this story. Shit isn't complicated enough for these characters. I wish they were more confused about what is good and right and best. Why the hell is this story called The Metaphysicist's Club, anyway?" So I decided to make things more complicated.
XI. Murphy's Law
Getting Russell on the next train out of Xenotime was not terribly difficult. Perhaps at first, Russell was reluctant to go. He was in the middle of a big step in his campaign to have the handles removed from city pumps contaminated with red water—it was time for city council elections, and Russell had plotted a small crusade to launch upon the candidates, complete with testimonials from Fletcher Tringham, who was not above a little histrionics to further his brother's cause. Edward explained that the trouble with Xenotime was, you know, problematic and all, but this was bigger than Xenotime. How much bigger? Well, Edward did not explain that, at that moment, he had five dead women potentially poisoned with red water, which would not weigh very well against the 75,000 citizens of Xenotime exposed to small levels of red water every day. But he did explain that he needed someone who knew his way around red water, knew what it looked like and how it behaved.
In the end, Edward had to make a short series of concessions in order to convince Russell to come to Central:
First, Edward had to rattle off some business about Russell being the premier specialist on red water in the country.
Second, Edward had to understand that Russell had his own work to pursue, and pursue it he would while also working with the Central contingent.
Third, Edward would have to house not only Russell but also Fletcher and Fletcher's fiancee, Sophia.
This last one was asking an awful lot. In the few weeks preceding, Winry had ostensibly moved in with Edward and Alphonse. And while she did not take up that much space—and she did laundry regularly!—her energetic presence in the house was, indeed, a presence. She was another body around and, more importantly, she was girl in the brothers' home. And that just changes things.
Winry was, all things considered, a delightful house guest. In the evenings, she did repairs to the toaster, percolator, and stove. She picked up Edward's articles of clothing and belongings as he shed them from the front door to the refrigerator. She packed Alphonse's lunches for him. And on some days, when Edward came home looking particularly haggard, she would greet him at the door with a friendly, Wow, you look beat, Edward. Do you want a back rub? Or head?
Gosh, how do you say no to that?
The addition of three more bodies to the equation was going to be a stretch, Edward knew, and in the same conversation in which he unloaded all of the facts of the case up to that point, he also informed Alphonse that the Tringhams and the future Mrs. Tringham were going to be crashing with them for a while. And Alphonse, being Alphonse, told his brother what an absolutely terrible idea that was and that he would be as accommodating as he could be.
The Tringhams and Miss Reynolds arrived in a taxi followed by a truck that Russell had hired to drive all his equipment from the train station to Ed's house. This was quite a relief to Edward, who had been trying to think of some way to get past the military's Accounting Department a suspicious, single, massive withdrawal from his slush fund, which he would subsequently use to furnish his secret basement lab.
Sleeping arrangements came up as soon as Alphonse and Russell brought in Miss Reynold's trunk and dropped it heavily in the foyer.
"I was thinking we'd put Fletcher and Sophia in the guestroom and Russell on the couch," Edward said, jabbing a thumb over his shoulder and up the stairs toward the guestroom down the hall.
Sophia clapped her hands over her cheeks and turned away. Fletcher put his hands on his fiancee's shoulders. "Maybe that's how you do things in Central, Ed, but we have some propriety in Xenotime," Fletcher said, his face flushed. Had Fletcher not seem so sincerely affronted, Edward would have rolled his eyes.
"I thought maybe Miss Winry and I could share a room," Sophia offered, still pink as a peony under her hands. "Like a slumber party."
Edward and Winry, who were standing side by side at the foot of the stairs, looked at each other, the same oh, shit expression mirrored on their faces. Alphonse snorted very loudly and slapped a hand over his mouth, earning himself a combination of glares and puzzled expressions for it.
"Oh," began Winry, who was the only one who could handle this with some delicacy, and she gave it the old college try. "Well, you see, I don't have my own room. Edward and I share one."
Edward felt the impulse to sling an arm around Winry and declare that they have sex, really good sex, and lots of it. And the Tringhams and the future Princess Tringham would probably have to listen to them. So too bad. But he restrained himself. Instead, while Sophia fled the room in mortification, Edward resolved that she would have the guestroom, Fletcher would take the couch, and Russell would get a pallet on the floor of the parlor.
This solution was, ultimately, ideal. Fletcher did not look like he could climb the stairs regularly.
Almost immediately, Edward, Russell, and Alphonse began unpacking Russell's equipment—which included another generation of red water samples—and setting up in the cellar. The space was definitely not ideal for their purposes. Xenotime's Occupational Safety and Health Administration had declared that, while red water could be bottled and studied in a lab, it would require a litany of precautions. Russell explained the ventilated hood in his lab and full-coverage gear mandated to his research team as they unpacked microscopes and Bunsen burners in the dim, windowless single room of the basement. The floor was bare earth. They had to pipe in electricity from the hallway above. The nearest source of running water was the half bathroom up the stairs and down the hall.
Russell drove a heavy-duty screw hook into a joist overhead and hung the oil lamp they had been using from it. Lengthening the wick as much as he could, he turned a circle around the room. The yellow, dancing light plastered harsh shadows of their equipment on the walls around them. Edward had, a day or so prior, raided the local thrift stores for every table he could find, and the perimeter of the room was lined with tables of all different dimensions, some of them as low as mid-thigh and others stopping at his solar plexus. The tables created some work space for them, and every stretch of flat surface was occupied by the usual lab apparatuses. It did not look too terribly much like a laboratory, but it certainly looked like some manner of furtive operation, and that was half of the goal for which they strove.
"Do you think it will do?" Alphonse asked as he and Edward stood by the stairs, admiring their labors.
"It's going to have to," Ed replied, dusting his hands off. "Takes you back a bit, doesn't it?" Edward gambled.
Alphonse chuckled. "Not really," he replied. "That's a mistake you only have to make once."
Edward looked at his brother despite the dissenting faction in him that told him not to, not to confirm that it happened or to remember. He took him in, considered the now. Alphonse had hit a growth spurt between sixteen and seventeen like puberty was a speeding train and he was a flock of sheep strolling across the tracks. The kid was taller than Ed now, with square shoulders and a frame made out of bundled wire. While Edward had gotten their father's broader, sturdier build, Alphonse had taken their mother's side of things, all altitude and sinew. Al kept his hair in a shaggy, sand-colored mop that worked only because he had that perpetual babyface, round features and big eyes the color of a storm.
It wasn't perpetual, Edward amended. He could take perpetual for granted, but Edward knew that Alphonse, who often seemed as reliable as the sunrise, had not always been as such. It was a hard lesson to learn at ten-years-old, that sometimes people go. Sometimes, it's your fault. And sometimes, you take the people most important to you and make oblations of them to an impartial deity who doesn't notice you and doesn't care and doesn't exist at all.
What the hell was he thinking, building a homemade lab, dragging in civilians, implicating his brother? More than implicating, he thought as he heard Fletcher shuffling, cane in hand, across the floorboards overhead.
"We should start cataloging the red water samples," Alphonse offered, gesturing to the two wooden crates they had set in on the floor by the door.
"I agree," Russell said. He reached up and turned the knob on the lantern once more, pushing the wick as long as it would go. "Enough homesteading."
Edward wanted to tell Russell to fuck off, point an accusing finger and ask him how dare he do this when Fletcher was right there, shambling across the parlor with the help of a woman. Had he no shame? Did he not carry around the same bale of guilt on his back that Edward did? Did he nightmare the moment when Fletcher took, full force, a geyser of red water like Edward nightmared that inclement night in the basement? But Russell and Al were already prying the the lid off the oldest crate with a crowbar, and Edward knew it would take a handle of whiskey, an empty house, and an anniversary before he would ever pose those questions to Russell.
That evening, all six of them crowded around the kitchen table for an inaugural dinner of thick beef stew, crusty bread, and beers. Sophia took tentative sips from her drink while Fletcher thought better of drinking and had Winry's homemade iced tea instead.
It felt very comfortable with all of them together despite their rocky start. Sophia, apparently, had deigned to befriend Winry, and they sat side by side at the round table, slipping off into separate conversation frequently. Edward evaluated the set up from his arc of the dinner table and remembered that only a short time ago, he was having BLT's with just his brother at that table, his house dark and quiet. It was only the first night, he thought, and more adjustment was to come, but when Winry scooted her chair closer to his and leaned back into the angle created by his chest and his arm tossed over the back of the chair, Edward resolved that, at least, right then, he felt fulfilled. Like maybe Winry was right—it might have been the beer, but if this was not belonging, he didn't know what was.
x
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x
The feelings of comfort, unfortunately, were short lived in the face of six adults living in a three-bedroom house with a water heater and fridge designed for, perhaps, a family of four, and Edward was starting feel rather like the conductor of an orchestra where the instruments were all a half-step sharp or flat. They settled into a sort of routine in some ways. The Elrics and Elric-affiliated women showered at night while the Tringhams and Tringham-affiliated women bathed in the morning. The one up side: Winry suggested that she and Edward begin showering together to conserve hot water.
"I'll take one for the team," Edward sighed when Winry proposed it while they changed for bed.
She smiled and looked at him out of the side of her eye. "You wouldn't feel up to taking one for the team right now, would you?" And Edward knew that hygiene alone wouldn't put that glint in her eye.
Almost as soon as she put the idea forward, Edward began to feel quite up, indeed.
Eventually, the result at the end of this long, crowded equation was a house full of entropy. Edward and Winry both worked longer hours, clocked more overtime, and spent more than a few nights at Winry's apartment while Alphonse, who was now on summer holiday, took on more volunteer responsibilities at the Letoist church. Russell devoted himself to his projects. Fletcher devoted himself to Russell. And Sophia tided up the flower beds in Edward's front yard.
Aside from that, Her Highness Tringham-to-be took three-quarter-hour showers every morning; Fletcher was an early riser, which meant lots of scraping and scuffling at sunrise; and word of the alchemic basement brouhaha was bringing in the riffraff. More specifically, late in the morning of the second Saturday the Tringhams were in Central, Brigadier General Mustang arrived on Edward's stoop in his civvies, ready to tinker with red water samples and see what all the appeal of this Tringham character was.
On his second knock, Winry hurried from the kitchen where she and Sophia were mixing up the filing for a blueberry pie for their various boys.
"General," she said with a smile.
On the opposite side of the screen door, Mustang stood with his hands in his pockets, his coat draped over his arm, and his shirt sleeves rolled up. So casual, like he belonged there, and Winry was starting to expect that that was simply the General's default affect. He could belong anywhere.
"Good morning, Miss Rockbell," he said, with a smile on his modified, half-hidden face.
"Come in," she said, reaching forward and pushing open the screen door. She could feel the General subtly looking her over, noting her apron and fine dusting of flour. "Can I take your coat?" she asked as he stepped over the threshold.
"Yes, thanks," he answered and handed it over. "Am I too early for Edward?"
Winry took his coat and schooled her face not to react when his hand brushed over her bare forearm. He didn't respond either. "No, he's puttering around somewhere." As she hung his coat on a hook by the door, she added, "Do you know the Tringhams?" and gestured over her shoulder toward the parlor where Russell and Fletcher had been sleeping for the last two weeks.
Mustang peered into the parlor where Russell, Fletcher, and Sophia were folding up and stowing the linens from the night before. Russell looked up at the mention of his name. "By reputation only."
Russell passed his folded sheets to his brother, dusted off his hands, and came into the foyer.
"Brigadier General Roy Mustang, this is Russell Tringham," Winry said, waving from one to the other.
They shook hands, nice and civilized-like. Winry knew then that they both knew only stories of one another, and she couldn't help but chuckle quietly when they both seemed to be a little surprised to meet the man behind all those rumors. They took only a moment to exchange pleasantries before alchemy came up, and that was when Winry excused herself to the kitchen.
While she was painstakingly weaving strips of crust over her pie, she heard Edward dragging his bare, heavy, Saturday-morning feet down the stairs. They had a loud, chummy exchange of salutations and insults and wasted no time heading through the cellar door, which had a big, handwritten sign—made from a cut-up cereal box—reading "NO GIRLS ALLOWED." And Winry resolved not to take it personally that Edward couldn't say good morning to her.
Mustang, of course, was more delicate about the sexual division in the house than Edward could ever hope to be. After putting in almost two hours in the dank, musty basement, he emerged at the head of the pack, Ed and Russell griping for lunch. He first commented on how superb the kitchen smelled with the pie cooling on the windowsill, and he then helped Winry and Sophia slice tomatoes and cook bacon for seven people's worth of BLT's. While the radio by the fridge filled the air with the gravelly voice of a smoky-sounding alto, Mustang switched between humming and singing lowly along. Sophia sang a crystalline harmony, a misty soprano to his deep-sea baritone.
Edward found himself standing in his kitchen door, watching his superior and his girlfriend assembly-lining sandwiches, and he convinced himself not to be bothered when, in the process of setting up the table for lunch, Mustang and Winry had such a risible time staying out of each other's ways that, upon bumping together for the third time, Mustang took her hand, put a palm on her waist, and foxtrotted her around the kitchen to the radio, Winry's head tossed back and her warbling laughter spilling over them. He was happy to see them getting along, Edward told himself. He was glad to see Winry so comfortable.
After lunch, Mustang divided his time between determining the limestone content in red water samples and talking about cosmopolitan things with the girls—things like wine and politics and stuff.
x
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x
Before lunch on the following Sunday, Winry and Alphonse coordinated an outing to the Letoist church. They were slated to begin sanding down all the donated pews mounted in the main hall of the church, and it was a project, Alphonse explained, that took no skill and would get done faster with more people. So they loaded up into Edward's car with Alphonse driving, Winry in Edward's lap riding shotgun, and Russell, Fletcher, and Sophia—who seemed determined to wear her Sunday dress regardless of what activities were planned for that Sunday—rode in the back.
Upon arriving, they extricated themselves from the car and were welcomed to the church by the Reverend Umar Lawrence, wearing what might have been a pristine suit before the early summer heat got to it. He looked wearier than the last time Edward saw him, more heavily-lined and, perhaps, thinner. And he still needed a shave.
Repositioning a shining lock of hair that drooped across his forehead, Lawrence came up to the entrance of the church as Edward and the others entered. The sanctuary was coming along, Edward noted. The stained glass windows were installed, depicting various scenes from the Book of the Sun. The walls were completely whitewashed, and electric lights hung from the ceiling high overhead.
"What have I done to deserve this? Two Elrics? This must be a blessing!" Lawrence announced jovially. He spread his arms in a gesture of welcome. "Alphonse, so many able bodied men you've brought me today!"
Al grinned. "These are our friends visiting from Xenotime." He gestured toward Russell and Fletcher. Sophia was somewhere behind Fletcher, gripping his sleeve.
Lawrence raised his eyebrows. "Xenotime? What brings you so far from home?"
Edward felt his mind go blank of everything save the truth, but Russell did not miss a beat. "A mutual friend of ours is having a birthday, and we haven't seen Central in... what? Four or five years?" he asked of his brother.
"At least," Fletcher answered.
"We were due a visit. Russell Tringham," Russell said, offering his right hand, which Lawrence accepted. "This is my brother, Fletcher Tringham, and his fiancee, Miss Sophia Reynolds."
Lawrence hesitated and then flashed Russell a pearly, white smile. "Then are you the Mr. Tringham behind the essay in—when was it?—the January issue of Alchemic Agriculture?"
Russell blinked. "Actually, yeah, I am," he said as he stood up a little straighter.
At that point, Edward, Winry, and Alphonse made meaningful eye contact with each other and slunk off to join the other volunteers working on the pews. They picked up sheets of sandpaper, stapled them to small blocks of two-by-four, and found an unfinished section of pews away from the others. While Edward worked away at the curved back of the seats, Alphonse and Winry knelt on the opposite side and sanded the seat and front.
"Look at him," Edward muttered. "You'd think he was talking about the time he saved a baby from a runaway train."
Winry snorted. "Jealous at all, Ed?"
Edward got up on his knees and glared over the pew at her. "No!" he snapped. "You know what his article was about? It was about synchronizing agricultural alchemy with moon cycles and planetary movements and shit."
Winry curled her lip. "Really?"
"Yeah. I'm surprised he didn't endorse taking your shoes off and singing supportive hymns to the plants while he was at it," Edward said, just dripping with disdain. Winry laughed into her hand.
"That's not fair, brother," Alphonse said. "He put forward some interesting theories."
"Phbbbt," Ed scoffed, "Yeah, and maybe the sun really is a big old guy in a dress who tromps across the sky everyday."
"Brother!" Alphonse hissed. He looked around to make sure no one had heard Ed. "I know it's painful for you, but have you ever considered tact?"
"The truth hurts," Ed concluded, a self-satisfied look on his saw-dust filmed face.
Winry rocked up onto her knees and peered over the pews at where the Tringhams and Lawrence remained standing by the door. "Jeez, they're still talking," she said. "Sophia looks like she could use an out."
"I'm surprised the Duchess came with us at all."
"Brother!"
Eventually the Tringhams and Sophia joined the others sanding, although Sophia and Fletcher soon took a seat on the unsanded pews and chatted while everyone else worked. It was, after all, volunteer work.
As the day progressed and the work got more and more tedious, Edward and the others became rather punchy. When Winry and Russell's sanding race dissolved into a draw that could be resolved only by an arm wrestling match, Edward and Alphonse decided that they had clocked enough hours at the church for one day. Edward pulled Winry to her feet and backed her up, flailing, as Fletcher wrestled Russell away.
"You're pretty lucky," Winry said, jabbing a finger at Russell. "Your kid brother just saved you from some serious hurt!"
"That's quite a threat coming from a girl," Russell retorted as he disentangled himself from his kid brother. He straightened his collar and righted the shoulders of his shirt where they had bunched under his suspenders.
"Oh, really?" Winry barked with Edward's arm cinched around her ribs. She fought to get back, but Edward was not relenting. "Looks to me that you're awfully doughy and delicate from that pointy-headed job of yours."
"Doughy and delicate?"
Edward, Alphonse, and Fletcher then left as surreptitiously as they could, Winry and Russell in tow, while Sophia tried to make herself invisible. They gave their brief goodbyes to Lawrence and crept out, ignoring his questions about where they were staying, when they would be returning, and if they needed more buttering up like dinner at his house.
"Four hours of sanding is too much for anyone to bear," Alphonse said as he turned the key in the ignition once they were all stuffed back into the car. "Let alone you jerks."
When they arrived home, the Tom Collinses were passed around with dinner, and tensions began to ease. And that night, when Winry and Ed tested their compatibility in a way that Fletcher and Sophia could only imagine, she declared so loudly that she loved him that Edward could not help but repeat it back to her. His declaration, unlike Winry's, was not mid-coitus. It was quiet, close to her ear, with her arms and legs wrapped around him. He pushed her sweat-dampened bangs from her forehead and blew cool air across her skin. And it didn't bother him to think of Winry and Mustang dancing in his kitchen.
Later that night, at about 1:30 in the morning, Winry woke up to a loud noise downstairs, like a hand interceded in her dreams, grabbed her by the throat, and yanked her back into Edward's bed under the window. Her eyes shot open, and she was instantly wide awake, her heart thudding away at the start. The streetlamps outside of Edward's window cast an unnatural yellow glow on the foot of the bed. At first, she told herself, it was Fletcher shuffling toward the bathroom as he often did in the night. But the more she thought of it, the more it sounded like a door being opened, more like the tumblers in a lock being persuaded. She rolled to her right and jostled Edward.
"Wake up," she whispered.
Edward remained listless and unresponsive until Winry hissed, "I think there's someone downstairs, Ed." That woke him up. "I thought I heard the front door opening."
He sat up abruptly and clapped a hand on Winry's arm. "You sure?" he whispered. Winry only nodded.
Edward rolled out of the bed and pulled on his pajama pants from the floor. He then went to his closet where his shoulder holsters hung from a hook on the back of the door. He pulled both his handguns free and came back to the bed.
"Here," he said, pressing one of the pistols into Winry's hand. "I'm going to turn off the safety, and I want you to keep this pointed at the ceiling." Winry swallowed and nodded as she closed her fingers around the handle. "If you need to, I don't want you to point and shoot. I want you to point and kill. You got that?"
Winry nodded again, her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth.
"After I go, I want you to go to Sophia's room and stay there, okay?"
"Okay."
With that, Edward stood up and motioned Winry to follow him. She stood up, slipped on her underwear and Edward's robe, and took his gun in both of her hands. She did as he said and kept the muzzle pointed upwards as they moved toward the bedroom door. Winry could feel her hands shaking.
In a blur of motion, Edward threw open his bedroom door and rushed into the balcony over the foyer. Winry darted behind him and ran for Sophia's room.
Edward had only an instant to interpret what he saw below him in the parlor. He bolted halfway down his stairs and fired at the shadowy figure he saw standing over Russell, where he slept on a pallet on the floor. In the light from the streetlamps, Edward thought he saw a bottle in the figure's hand, hovering over Russell's open mouth.
One bullet tore through the intruder's shoulder, throwing him back into a spin that left him spilled on the floor. Edward jumped down the rest of the stairs and fired again, grazing the figure's thigh and lodging a bullet in the sheetrock in the foyer. Edward put himself in front of his open front door, braced and ready to take the full force of a retreating man, fueled by desperation. When the assailant, dressed from head to toe in black, collided with Edward in his scrabbling run for the door, Edward gripped the figure by the forearms and slung him hard against the wall.
The shadowy body hit the wall hard and slumped for only a moment. He popped back up, though, and brandished a knife. With his pistol, Edward was almost helpless in close combat, and the intruder slashed out in a wide arc. Edward felt the stinging bite of the assassin's blade across his right cheek. The blow had been aimed at Edward's throat, but he had brought up a forearm in time to deflect. And by the time he recovered from the strike, he heard his screen door clapping shut and hurried footfalls across the porch.
Edward pushed himself up and flew out into the street. From the sidewalk, he saw the black-clad figure flash through a pool of light from a streetlamp a few buildings down, and Edward emptied his magazine at the retreating figure's back. He thought another bullet hit its mark, but Edward could not be sure. By the time Ed had run down the street to where he saw that figure last, there was nothing but a small splattering of blood on the pavement.
When he returned to his house, everyone was awake. Alphonse and Russell stood over Fletcher, who was stunned but unharmed on the couch by the wall.
"Are you all right?" Edward asked as he barreled into the foyer. "Do you have a weird taste in your mouth?"
"I'm fine," Russell said as he stood and met Edward by the door. "What the hell was that?"
Edward opened his mouth to answer but was cut off by Fletcher. "Where's Sophia?" he asked, propped up on his elbows on the couch.
A bolt of fear shot through Edward, from the searing pain in his cheek all the way down his spine. He took off at a sprint up the stairs, Russell close behind. He reached the guestroom and tried the door. It was locked. With his automail foot raised high, Edward kicked through the door, sending the splintered remains of the door jam showering inward.
They found Winry on the floor, wedged into the space between the bed frame and the wall. She had one arm wrapped tightly around Sophia, who was hunkered down and whimpering into Winry's lap, and Edward's gun pointed right at the door.
Russell scooped up his future sister-in-law and laid her trembling on the bed while Edward snatched the gun out of Winry's limp hand. He flicked the safety on without thought and tossed the pistol into the hall as Winry flew into his arms. She hit him so hard that he collapsed to the floor, and he pulled her into his lap.
"You're okay," Edward reassured her as he ran a hand down her spine. She was shaking in his arms.
"Don't you ever give me a gun again, Edward Elric," Winry murmured in his ear.
He squeeze her tight around her shoulders and knees. "I won't," he said, "I promise."
x
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The next morning was silent and surreal. Only Winry and Edward had obligations, and they moved through the finally sleeping house like they were underwater, making coffee and oatmeal sluggishly and as quietly as they could. Winry had nothing to say to Edward, her mind too sleep deprived and distracted to string words together, but when she did speak, they stood side-by-side in front of the percolator. They cradled their individual cups of coffee close when Winry turned bloodshot eyes on Edward and whispered, "What happened last night?" After being disarmed, Edward had guided Winry back to their bed, and she had, after many dark hours, fallen into a fitful sleep, curled tight against his side.
"Someone broke in," Edward said. Had he his full wits about him, he would have known better than to tell Winry the full truth. However, after only a few hours of sleep and a larger dose of adrenaline than he had ever had in his own home, he was still a bit unsteady. "At first, I thought they were here for me," he heard Winry make a quiet squeak in her throat, "But they would have known I wasn't sleeping on my own floor. I think they were here for Russell."
"Someone was trying to hurt Russell?" Winry asked, her voice nothing more than a few nutshells rattling in a closed palm.
"I think so," Edward said, watching the patterns the cream was making as it swirled across the surface of his coffee.
"Oh, my God," Winry murmured, putting a hand over her eyes.
Edward knew immediately that he had said too much. He curled a hand around the back of her neck and pulled her close. "We're all okay, though," he reassured her in a voice that he hoped came off as calm and certain. "No one got hurt except the bastard who broke in."
"You shot him?"
"I shot him."
Edward did not feel particularly like consoling anyone, but Winry's over-bright eyes in the creeping morning light begged for some comfort. And Edward could pretend like he had something more to give for her sake. He kissed her on the forehead. "No one got hurt," he repeated.
"You got hurt," Winry replied, ghosting her fingertips over the cut on his face.
Edward blinked. He had forgotten.
"What are we going to do?" Winry breathed.
Edward was quiet for a moment before answering, "I don't know." He heard Winry sigh and felt the breeze from her mouth across his throat.
"Talk to the General," she said. "He'll know what to do."
x
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x
Edward took the car that morning. He dropped Winry off outside her office a couple minutes late, and after she was done kissing him goodbye on the sidewalk, she was even later. It was grounding though, to feel the pavement beneath him, Winry's fingers curling into his arms through the fabric of his uniform coat, her desperate lips on his. He left with the quiet resolve to put his head down and plow through the day so he could hurry home to her.
Storm clouds rolled in from the east that day, casting the office in a shade grayer than it normally was. It was not dark enough to turn on their desk lamps or the overhead lights, and so the gray crept in with nothing to push it back. Perhaps had Edward not advertized how unreceptive to it he would be, his colleagues would have inquired about the fresh cut on his cheek. Despite his determination to get the General alone that morning and tell him what had happened, he never had the chance. They began the week with a stack, twelve deep, of cases that needed their investigation. More than that, Mustang had them divide up to tackle the cases individually, leaving Edward with nothing but his own head to help him sort through things. Not that he would tell Ross or Havoc about the break in—the less they knew, the safer they were—but they could have provided some very welcome distraction. Instead, Edward was collecting statements from victims of a potentially alchemy-related arson all morning. And as hard as he knew it was for the witnesses as they cried to him, begged him to bring the perpetrator to justice, he could not bring himself to give a damn.
By lunch, the day was dark and unseasonably chilly. Havoc took the lunch his wife had packed for him to the cafeteria, and Ross—who was just now beginning to return to her original comfort level after being forcibly dismissed by the General a few weeks prior—followed along, leaving Edward and Mustang at their desks, no break in sight.
Mustang did not take lunch breaks, Edward was noticing. While Edward flipped sightlessly through one of his cases, he stole sidelong glances at his superior. Mustang was leaned back in his rolling chair, his fingers pressed to his forehead, while he read this report or that form.
The man did not look like he wanted to be disturbed, but Edward had never let something like that stop him before. After enough time had passed for Havoc and Ross to be a good distance down the hall, Edward closed his folder and looked at Mustang.
"My house got broken into last night," he said. If there were a better way to introduce the subject, it had not occurred to Edward.
Mustang looked up, taken aback. "What?"
"I said my house got broken into last night."
The General sat up straight, his hands on his desk. "Is Winry all right? And Alphonse?"
"Everyone's fine," Edward said, nodding. "I unloaded a whole clip at the bastard, but he got away."
"Did he take anything?"
"Nothing," Edward said. He started to explain that this was no common thief, but the phone rang just then. Mustang put up a hand to pause Edward and answered.
"Abuse of Alchemy," he said, "Mustang speaking." He was quiet for a moment. "Miss Rockbell," he began. "Yes, he's right here."
When Mustang held out the receiver, Ed stood up. He felt his shoulders tense as series of nightmare scenarios flashed through his head. As he rose, though, Edward reminded himself that just because his home had been trespassed upon did not make every place dangerous. Just because Winry had been put at risk the night before did not mean she was at risk everywhere.
"Winry," he said once he'd taken the phone. He stood over the General's desk and stepped as far he could, hoping that Mustang could not overhear his conversation. "Are you okay?"
"Um," she began, "Yeah, I'm okay."
She didn't sound very convincing. "What's wrong?"
"I wanted to let you know that I'm going home early today."
Edward furrowed his brow. "Is everything all right?"
She was quiet for a moment. "Yeah, yeah. I'm still a little shaken up from last night and," she paused. Edward could hear her breath trembling into the phone. "I fainted this morning."
"What?" Edward barked into the phone.
Winry made no effort to placate him. "I threw up, too."
"Hold on. I'll come pick you up right now," Edward said, ready to hang up the phone and leave without a word.
"No, that's okay," Winry assured him, her voice thin and weary. "I called a cab already."
That was unexpected. And hurt a little. "Winry," he began.
"Edward," she said, her voice spilling over him, a lachrymose confession. "I've been meaning to tell you," she managed. "But after what happened last night, I couldn't keep it in anymore." He knew he probably wanted to be seated before she continued. But his desk was too far to reach in time before Winry said as stolidly as she could muster, "I think I'm pregnant."
"W—wh—what?" Edward sagged against Mustang's desk, ignoring his superior's meaningful look.
"I'm sorry," Winry managed. "I'm sorry to tell you over the phone."
"A—are you sure?"
"No," she admitted. "But... Edward... I'm two weeks late."
Edward thought he might vomit. He didn't stop himself from pressing into his eyes with his flesh hand. "Okay," he said as rationally as he could. He swallowed hard and tried his damnedest to sort his thoughts. "Okay," was the best he could do.
"I'm so sorry, Edward."
He drew in a long, bracing breath. "Go home and rest. We'll figure this out."
Winry hung up before Edward could say goodbye. He returned the phone to the hook and found his way to his chair. Edward put his elbows down heavily on his desk and slumped forward into his hands.
"That didn't sound like a very welcomed call," Mustang said after a long silence.
He shook his head. "It wasn't."
"Edward, is everything all right?" the General hazarded, sitting forward in his chair.
Ed swallowed hard. He tilted his head down, threaded his fingers through his bangs. "She thinks she's pregnant." Were it not for the series of blows Edward had been dealt in the last twelve hours, he never would have said it.
The quiet was long and weighty. Mustang laced his fingers together and leaned into his knuckles. "You know, Ed, when I told you to seek out some feminine attention, I didn't mean go forth and be fruitful."
Edward bolted to his feet. "Fuck you, Roy," he cried as he slammed his palms down on his desk.
Mustang held up his hands. "I apologize. That was insensitive," he said, laughter thinly veiled in his voice. He watched his twenty-three-year-old subordinate, still just a kid, seething at him. He thought, too, of Winry, who was so much less of a child than Edward was. "Is it simply a possibility or is it serious?"
Edward furrowed his brow. "What?"
"I mean, what are the chances she's right?"
Edward sank back down to his chair. "I don't know."
Mustang couldn't help but chuckle, earning himself a very dark scowl. "What do you mean you don't know? You didn't take any..." Mustang hesitated, waiting for Edward to catch his meaning before he had to feed it to him, "precautions?"
Ed blinked at him. "Precautions?"
This was, apparently, significantly more serious than Mustang thought. "Wow," he breathed. "I suppose this is what happens when you grow up without a father."
That was an awfully low blow, and Edward knew that, while Mustang was clearly mocking him, he was also being critical. "And I guess you're what happens when you grow up in a whorehouse," Edward snapped.
If that stung Mustang, he didn't show it. Instead, he smiled a compassionate smile. "Go home, Ed," he said. "Install better locks on your doors."
Edward did not need a second prompt. He snatched up his briefcase and stormed toward the door. "And Fullmetal," Mustang called. Edward paused and looked over his shoulder. "If you need anything," he began.
"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Edward grumbled with a dismissive wave.