Hello again! Sorry about the uneven update schedule, but I'm still recovering from my surgery.
Disclaimer: I do not own Fullmetal Alchemist.
Chapter twenty-seven
"Sir!" Hawkeye exclaimed as Hohenheim fell to the ground, still looking confused.
"Dad!" Al exclaimed, although Roy wasn't really sure which one he was referring to.
Hohenheim sat up, holding his cheek, confusion tripled. He was looking straight at Ed. "Edward? What happened to you? Last I heard you were a State Alchemist."
Roy was still seething with anger. If this really was the man that had left those wonderful boys of his twelve years ago, then he had some explaining to do. "Why the hell did you leave them?"
"Excuse me, but who are you?" Hohenheim asked.
"I'm their legal father."
The man froze.
"What about Trisha?"
"Mom's dead and has been so for ten years!" Ed yelled. Roy was pretty sure that if he hadn't been restraining him, Ed would be pouncing on Hohenheim with no regrets.
Then the man looked away and Roy saw tears streaming down his cheek.
Al had just frozen.
Hohenheim stood up, brushing off his clothes and wiping his cheeks. "How did she die?"
"She got sick," Al said, gaining Hohenheim's attention for the first time.
"Who are you in the armour?"
"It's Alphonse."
"Well, you certainly got big. What happened to Edward?"
"For your information, your son was kidnapped a few weeks ago and experimented on and tortured until he was left as his five-year-old self." Roy couldn't keep away the venom in his voice as he said it. This man had chosen to abandon his sons, not even returning for their mother's funeral. And here he was, asking them to explain what had happened to his sons after he left their lives?
Hohenheim's face hardened. "I see. I'm sorry to hear that, Edward."
"AS IF YOU CARE! YOU LEFT US! YOU'RE NOTHING MORE THAN A BASTARD! YOU WERE NEVER A REAL FATHER!" And so Ed struggled out of Roy's grip and ran away in between the legs of the busy crowd inside the train station.
Roy panicked.
He ran shouting through the hordes of people, uncomfortably reminded of how Ed had run of the day they found him. What if the boy ran into trouble? What if he fell and hurt himself? What if he wandered into the road? Roy knew that Ed was a smart kid, but something could still happen. Roy heard a lot of shouts from Alphonse and Hawkeye too, all of them were searching for Ed. After an hour of steadily increasing dread and panic, Roy heard a series of small sobs from behind a large row of trolleys. Roy immediately went over to the source of the sound and found Ed curled up on his side, his hands covering his ears, sobbing. The relief Roy felt was indescribable. He sat himself down beside the sobbing form and gently began stroking his back. Ed yelped, but then he looked up at him and the next second, Ed had thrown himself around Roy's waist and was sobbing into his lap. Roy just put his arms around him, pulling him up to his chest and kissed his forehead.
"Edward, you can't run off like that. You could get hurt," Roy said softly.
"I'm sorry, Daddy! I just didn't wanna look at him anymore, but then I couldn't find you and people were pushing me all over and I just had to get away! I'm sorry I made you worry."
"Sh-sh-sh, it's okay. Just don't run off like that where I can't find you, okay?" Roy could understand how Ed had reacted by fleeing. He would probably have done the same if it had been him. Meeting his father like that after all this time must be really upsetting.
Hell, Roy had hit the guy just from learning his identity.
"Why did he have to be here?!" Ed cried.
"It's just bad luck, Ed."
"He hadn't even bothered to make sure that Mom was alive!"
Roy just stroked his back slowly, still taking in the relief of finding Ed safe. He listened to Ed's complaints and outrage, letting the boy just empty himself of all his pent-up anger and frustration. He let him express his anger and hurt until he had sobbed himself dry and Roy finally stood up and carried Ed out into the crowd again. Hohenheim was nowhere to be seen.
He found Alphonse and Hawkeye quickly enough, and the four of them were soon out of the train station and walking in the direction of Madame Christmas's bar. They came upon the familiar building after a thirty-minute walk and besides the odd look that Roy got from a passing stranger as he entered the building with a five-year-old holding his hand, it went pretty smoothly. Roy opened the door and was quickly embraced by one of the girls working there. "Hi, Roy!" Vanessa said, smiling widely.
Roy was suddenly in a rather uncomfortable situation, seeing as how he now had his two sons staring at him in shock. Which meant that he couldn't just greet the girl as usual. Thankfully, the solution came as she then stooped down and pinched Ed's cheek. "And you must be Edward!"
Ed glared at her, shoving at her hand. "Don't."
Roy heard his adoptive mother laughing as she came into the room. "I see your boy is a lot more immune to my girls's charm than you are, Roy."
Ed looked up at the woman. She didn't really look too pleasant. But she was smiling at him, so Ed waved at her, having recognised her voice from the phone. "Hi, Grandma!"
"Hello, Edward." She turned towards Al. "Which I guess makes you Alphonse. Good to meet you two."
"It's very nice to meet you," Al said.
Daddy had warned them that Grandma could seem a bit scary, but that she was kind all the same. Ed could understand why, she looked a lot like she could be some sort of criminal, and she sounded it too. She did, however, seem like she was really sharp and that she would be hard to fool. Ed went over to her and shook her hand, followed by Alphonse doing the same.
Ed looked up at the cheek-pincher. "Who are you?"
"This is Vanessa, she's one of the girls who work for me. I asked her to stay here to help out making the place ready for you four. She was just about to leave," Grandma informed them.
"See you later, Roy!" Vanessa said, smiling widely as she left. Ed was just confused. If she wasn't working that night, why was she flirting with Daddy?
"Well, I suppose you should take your luggage to your rooms," Grandma said.
Daddy nodded and Ed followed him up two flights of stairs. Daddy was carrying both their suitcases. Ed was interested to see how things were looking here. It was pretty exciting for him to get to know a new home that sort of belonged to him now. It did when she was his Grandma after all. "We'll be staying in the room that I had when I grew up, Ed," Daddy said, leading him down a hall and over to a door that had three multi-coloured letters glued to it, spelling out "ROY". Daddy sighed upon seeing them. "She still hasn't removed them, no matter how many times I tell her to." He had a slight smile on his lips as he opened the door.
The room had dark red paint and a few bookshelves. There was a diploma from Daddy's graduation from the military academy and a few pictures of open landscapes with sheep. They reminded Ed of Resembool. He walked over to the bookshelves as Daddy hung their clothes in the wardrobe and picked some of them out. Many of them were children's books that were easily read. Ed found it fascinating to walk inside this room, it was proof that Daddy had once been a kid after all. Ed opened a drawer and found a photo album. He picked it up, sitting down on the large bed and opened it on his lap. There were a lot of pictures of a baby with black hair and onyx eyes. Ed's eyes grew wide. His eyes fell upon a picture with him feeding a dog, smiling. "Daddy! You were actually a sweet child!"
Ed looked up at him, finding Daddy looking both amused and embarrassed, judging by his red cheeks. "So you found one of the old albums?" Daddy sat down beside him and lifted Ed up on his lap. They looked through the pictures, Ed laughing at quite a few of them. It just showed a side of Daddy that Ed hadn't seen before. "I really like this one," Ed said, pointing. Daddy was just a bit older than he was, and they were obviously on a beach. Daddy was standing with the water reaching his waist, smiling widely while he held up a shell.
"Ah, I remember this. I had been helping out with the housework a lot so I got that trip as a reward. I was about seven, I think."
"That's so cool! Do you think we could do something like that?"
"Of course. We could do so this week if you want."
Ed felt a bubble of glee burst in his chest. "Can we?!"
"Yes. We'll have to buy some gear and swimwear of course, but I think it would be fun. We're taking a break this week after all. We could even make a fire and grill sausages if you want."
Ed put down the album and twisted around before he hugged Daddy. "Yay! Will you teach me how to swim?"
"Of course." Daddy was hugging him back.
This was going to be great! Hohenheim had never taken them to a beach which just showed how Daddy was Ed's proper Daddy.
Roy sat there, hugging Ed to him. Looking through those photos had been odd for him. He hadn't looked at them in years, but it was sort of nice. And going to the beach would be really fun. It was a proper family thing to do. He just hoped that Al would enjoy it too. Well, they would of course go to the beach when he had his body back too.
It was an odd thing, looking forward to doing family stuff. He hadn't done that in years. And never as a father. It would be nice. And judging by Ed's reaction, definitely worth it. Maybe they could go in two days? They could go shopping tomorrow. The weather was supposed to be nice.
And once again Roy was reminded of how much his life had changed. Tomorrow he would be out shopping for swimming trunks for his son. How odd, really.
He bent down and kissed Ed's head.
There were three knocks on the door and Hawkeye spoke. "Sir? The dinner is ready."
"Thank you, Lieutenant, we'll be right there."
Ed didn't seem to want to leave the hug, so Roy just carried him downstairs and into the living room, sitting down at the table. Ed would usually sit next to him while they ate, but Roy assumed that it had something to do with meeting Hohenheim earlier today. And so Roy just sat there, Ed on his lap, doing his best to avoid sauce dripping down on Ed's head as they ate.
The Madame looked curiously over at Al who of course wasn't eating, but she didn't say anything. Roy did have a feeling that she was going to corner him later to make him explain. Roy was just thankful that she wasn't asking any questions right now. Al had given him the all clear to explain about his body, but it would make the conversation slightly awkward.
And so the evening passed quite nicely. The beach idea was received well and they agreed that they would go shopping tomorrow. Roy did manage to drop a spoonful of ice cream with chocolate sauce straight onto Ed's head, which made the boy laugh heartily as Roy tried to remove as much as he could with a napkin.
And so it was straight to the bathroom and soon Roy was sitting there, gently trying to get the ice cream out of Ed's hair, Ed still bursting into giggles at times because "Daddy lost his ice cream!" Roy couldn't help but laugh too though.
And so, after helping Ed with brushing his teeth and getting him into his pyjamas, Roy carried him out of the bathroom. He ran into his adoptive mother in the hallway.
"Roy, about Alphonse, why doesn't he eat?"
"He doesn't have a body," Ed said sleepily before he yawned and snuggled his head further into Roy's chest.
"Ed and Al tried bringing back their mother four years ago. The transmutation failed and Ed lost his leg and Al lost his entire body. Ed paid with his right arm in order to bring Al back and bound his soul to that suit of armour. We're looking for a way to get Al back to normal, which is why I couldn't explain this over the phone." Roy explained it with the facts as they were, his adoptive mother would just pick out the details anyway.
"I see. Well, Roy, I'm happy you took those boys in, they deserve a break after what they've been through." She patted Ed's head twice.
"I'll see you tomorrow. Good night."
"Good night, Roy."
