106 - Dichotomy of the Two
With his cheek pressed against the glass, Al let his sleepless eyes tumble out the window. The sun had finally cracked the horizon, lighting the dew coating the eastern Amestris landscape. The endless stretches of shimmering morning would eventually be flooded by the warm swell of daylight and Al wasn't sure if he was thankful for the sun's rise or dreading how it would highlight the state they were in.
Trying again to let himself relax into the pillow jammed in between the back seat and the door, Al was still unable to sleep. Peeking out from beneath half-fallen eyelids, he stared up at the headrest behind the driver's seat in front of him. As boring as counting sheep, his tired golden gaze travelled through the seams of the fabric, dipping into every needle puncture point he could find in the stitching, until his mind grew disinterested and his eyelids dropped away.
How the heck did his brother manage to sleep in every nook and cranny and weird position in all those years of travelling together? Al couldn't do it. His mind refused to shut off.
Digging out a fragment of energy, the younger brother pulled his eyelids up halfway and heaved his tired pupils across the back seat to Brigitte. Major Hawkeye had taken the pillows and bedsheets from her motel room and spread them out between everyone who wasn't behind the wheel enroute to East City. Brigitte had her pillow wrapped in her arms with her face planted in the soft cotton; she was curled up and embedded in the corner like Al wanted to be. He was so jealous when she'd fallen asleep.
His teacher was asleep in the passenger's seat. At least, Al was hoping she was. Out of everyone in this vehicle, she was the one who needed it the most - the ill grey colour of her complexion under the town lights had really unsettled him. But, they had to get out of Xenotime and couldn't afford the time needed to find any medical help for either her or the brigadier general. Al dearly hoped Izumi wasn't lying when she had said she was okay enough for a drive into East City.
What a gut wrenching sight it was fleeing Xenotime like they had, watching the mountainside burn behind them. No one could place Dante in the aftermath and they all worried that the size of the targets on their backs put the entire town in jeopardy. For everyone's safety, they left as quickly as they'd found their vehicles.
Rolling his head back to the window, Al tried to peer beyond Officer Falman's shoulder. If he pressed his face hard enough into the glass, he could see both tail lights of Major Hawkeye's car leading their two-vehicle procession.
Somewhere in the chaos of his overtired thoughts, Al concluded Dante must have vanished into the underground tunnel system.
Where would she go from there? She was hurt, would she seek medical help? She could probably do most of it on her own, Al assumed. Did she have any Philosopher's Stone left outside of Aisa to her to recreate her hand? Find a new body? Would she follow them into East City or head straight into Central? How much time did that give them?
Al's tired thoughts latched onto a single, central concern: where was his brother? Did he go back to Armstrong and get sent north with Winr...
No, Al stopped that thought. His older brother wouldn't willingly put himself in that situation. He wouldn't let anyone try to send him away after what had happened.
Al's concerns began to flourish - was Ed making his way east on his own? Were they going to intercept each other at some point?
Getting out east was a task easier said than done. With the city shut down and the trains hardly running, how would his brother get transportation? He could hitchhike, but that wasn't the most reliable option. He could drive if he found a vehicle that was robust enough to hold up over a long highway drive, but most of those were limited to freight carriers and military commissioned cars or other vehicles. Did his brother even know how to drive? Did they have cars beyond the Gate? That was a strange question to have to ask, but Al didn't honestly know if they did.
"Did you want something to eat?"
Al's eyes fluttered around at the low voice that caught his ears.
Softly smiling into the driver's side mirror for the passenger behind him, Falman pushed a bag sitting between the two front seats towards the back, "There should be something in there you can munch on."
Extracting himself from the warmth of his uncomfortable corner, Al drooped forwards and quietly started to look through the bag.
"Have you had any sleep?" Falman asked as the car bounced.
"No," Al pulled out a slightly bruised banana. This would do, he didn't have the energy to put much effort into chewing, "Are you doing okay after driving all night?"
The officer laughed lightly, "Don't worry about me, I've done lots of long shifts in the military, this is nothing."
Sinking back into his corner pillow, Al put his head down against the window and slowly started peeling, "Is Sensei sleeping or is she just being polite and pretending?"
Glancing to his shoulder, Falman answered quietly, "I'd say she's asleep."
"Good," the young Elric nibbled on the end of his breakfast, "how far do we have to go before we get to East City?"
"We still have a ways to go," Falman returned his attention to the road and the tail lights ahead of them dimming in the slow rise of the early morning sun, "we've been going at a good clip, we should get in some time in the afternoon."
"That's still forever away," Al grumbled.
"That's still plenty of time for you to try and get some sleep," Falman said.
The young Elric's gaze tiredly wandered out the window again and found the blur of field fences flying by, "I have too much on my mind to sleep."
"It's been a hectic time," Falman glanced into his mirror again, "anything particular you can't shake?"
Anything particular? Al's eyes glazed over as he tried to chew and think at the same time. Where was Dante? Where was his brother? What was going on with his brother? Was the brigadier general going to be okay? How hurt was Sensei really? How was Brigitte actually holding up with all this? Had the townsfolk managed to contain the fire back in Xenotime?
Al stopped mentally writing his list of concerns - he was okay just imagining how gigantic the full list was.
"I don't know, lots of things," losing his focus in the early morning landscape, he mumbled, "I just wish I could talk to my brother right now."
Falman grinned and kept his tone light for his overtired passenger, "You know, I think the brigadier general's going to be really disappointed when he finds out he missed seeing Ed in uniform. It was quite the sight."
Slouching into his pillow, Al's chin landed on his chest, "He used to tease him that they didn't have a uniform small enough to fit him."
"Right," Falman mused softly, watching Al slump further in the mirror's reflection, "that used to make him really mad."
The corner of Al's mouth curled slowly as he drifted into memories filled with the exaggerated, explosive reactions his brother used to give in response to anyone mocking his height, "He's taller than the brigadier general now."
The officer laughed lightly, keeping an eye on his drifting passenger, "I'd imagine he was really pleased with himself when he started to grow."
Somewhere between a stretch of thinly dressed trees and another blurry fence, Al fell into his imagination and set his mind free to create what it must have been like when his brother had finally started growing. He didn't know the London scenery, or what the house his brother had lived in was like, so his imagination concocted something arbitrary for the setting. Even if Al had very little he could contribute to the daydream, he could at least offer his dad, and he could stick himself there too, because it would have been fun to enjoy that time in his life together with him.
Sheska had been out less an hour before she'd turned around and went right back home.
Despite the furor Central City was bubbling with, she desperately hung onto her daily routine and was rewarded with the welcoming 'Open' sign hanging in the window of her favourite corner coffee shop that morning. To say it was packed was an understatement. Men, women, and children of all walks of life, who were more than prepared to fill the streets in protest of everything that morning, had crammed inside one of the few places with opened doors.
In the middle of the busy hubbub, a single radio report silenced everyone. If Central itself weren't in enough chaos already, it was about to get a whole lot worse.
The morning sun had barely begun wrapping around the front of her building when Sheska flung herself through the front door and the aged wooden stairs of her apartment cried as she thundered up them. Booting her door open with her hip, she stumbled into her apartment out of breath.
"Ed!?"
There was a long pause before Ed's muffled voice replied.
"... Yeah?"
"Have you been listening to the radio?"
Sheska flew around a wall of books into her tiny living room and staggered to a stop. At the heart of her suite bursting at its seams, Ed was accumulating a hearty collection of papers of his own. Stacks of loose sheets had been piled on her coffee table and garnished the floor around it. It was a substantial amount more than he'd had out yesterday. Sheska examined the blankets and pillow neatly piled on her sofa and questioned if he'd slept last night.
"Ed?"
The bathroom door popped open, "What?"
Sheska swung back around and rushed through her apartment, "Have you been listening to the radio!?"
"No?"
Flying around her literature walls, Sheska stumbled into Ed's exit from her bathroom, watched him latch the belt on his slacks, caught a glimpse of him without his shirt on, and promptly fell sideways into her kitchen with a clatter.
"O-oh… well, uhm," Sheska fumbled around with her glasses on her face and scrambled to straighten herself out.
"I can't concentrate with the radio on," Ed explained. Following Sheska into the kitchen, he scratched one of her flower-print towels through his soggy hair, "What's going on now?"
Sheska glanced up at the half dressed Elric, then to her cracked tile floor, over to the window, back to Ed drying himself with the towel, then locked her eyes straight ahead at her kitchen sink. Wait, had he cleaned everything in the sink after she'd left this morning!?
"The, uh, government is falling apart in Xenotime," she sputtered.
Ed slowed as he wound his hair up into the towel, "Falling apart how?"
Fluttering her hands around at her sides, Sheska snuck a glimpse of the shirtless obstacle standing between her and the radio in the main room beyond, took a deep breath, and flew past Ed into the core of her apartment as he settled the towel bundle on top of his head.
"There was a massive fire in Xenotime!"
Concern in his voice flared like Mustang had snapped his fingers and Ed chased after her, "What!? What kind of fire?"
Scampering over to a cluttered table of books and plants at her front window welcoming the 8am sun, she turned the dial on her radio and bumbled around with the tuner. In the middle of an merciless stream of grinding static, the realization struck Sheska that she was going to be responsible for delivering the news to him.
She paled; she'd run home to tell him about it, but in the heat of the moment, she hadn't exactly thought that through. Was there any way to soften it? Ed had obviously been agitated about whatever the heck the predicament was in Xenotime actually was and she wasn't sure how he was going to react. He'd flown off the handle when she'd revealed Hughes' passing without realizing he didn't know, but now this involved his little brother. It wasn't like she thought Al was dead, but there was no way to know if he was hurt or not, so it would be better coming from her than if he casually found out from the inhuman radio.
"I went to grab coffee before heading in and the radio in the shop said they'd gotten a report overnight that there'd been a fire in Xenotime. News outlets have been trying to get another line into the town, but no one's been able to confirm or deny the report yet."
Sheska didn't have to turn around to feel the discontent that flooded her apartment - it radiated in waves off of him. Ed's hardened voice only amplified it.
"What are they reporting, exactly?"
Finding a merry interlude on one of only three stations still broadcasting, Sheska checked the time and figured nothing would come back on again until the bottom of the hour. She snuck a curious peek again at Ed in the corner of her eye; he stood firmly at the side of her sofa, jaw locked and firm, gaze narrowed with focus, hand up at his mouth, his fingers slowly scratching through his chin, everything about his presence firmly engaged with her words.
What in the world was actually going on? There was a wild disaster unfolding in Xenotime that had ties in some way to this man standing in her apartment. Looking at Ed only cemented Sheska's belief that there was a much larger mystery going on that she wasn't being told about and every inch of her tingled at the prospect of what that might be. No power on earth existed that would convince her that this guy was actually seventeen. How the heck was she going to find out what was really going on?
Lamenting that it wasn't the time or the place to start accosting him with a thousand wayward questions, Sheska shoved her imagination aside to remain focussed on the concerning topic at hand.
Slowly, she turned herself around to face him - at least he was less imposing with one of her flowery towels bundled on his head, "Now, remember there was no one to corroborate this, but the report said that the entire Xenotime laboratory, where all the government officials had been set up the last while, burnt down overnight. This one whole single report with no supporting evidence said that people died because they couldn't get out of the building. The fire had spread to the forest and they were working on putting that out. Apparently, a huge dirt wall sprung up between the lab and the town and it was containing the spread of the fire well enough that they aren't worried about it going down into the town."
The ticking of the tiny pendulum in her table clock morphed into an overwhelming gong that felt like it was counting down to the point where Sheska's company would lose the reins on his composure. Submerges in a poignant moment of silence, a spark of clear frustration was freed in his eyes and, for a second, she wondered if Ed now possessed the power to destroy something with only a single thought. It startled her enough that the clock was silenced and she almost missed how he cursed before storming out of sight, vanishing behind her walls of books as he marched through her apartment.
"How many people died?" the harsh question filled the hollow spaces in the suite.
"They didn't say," Sheska stepped away from the radio, but didn't follow him out of the front room. Listening to Ed rummage around in her bathroom, she raised her voice to try and calm the mood, "But they were confident that the dirt wall protecting the city was done by a skilled alchemist, because there was no other way it would have gotten there. I'd bet my bottom dollar Al did that, so I don't think you need to worry, I'm sure he's fine."
"Right," Ed's voice rumbled, "do they know what caused it?"
She hesitated on her reply, knowing the answer wasn't going to do anything to help the situation, "The unconfirmed report said that something in the laboratory blew up."
No acknowledgement, no sound at all, came in response to the statement for quite some time, until Ed's weighted steps on the wooden floor made their way through the suite again and he came back into view. While his hands worked their way through the buttons of his shirt, Sheska's eyes travelled up, past his collar, cautiously examining the angered and frustrated look swelling in Ed's gaze. Knitting her fingers together, she watching the molten cores of his golden eyes churn.
"Ed, I'm sure Al's fine."
"Yeah," he snapped his shirt straight. Scratching his hand through his chin and up his jaw line, Ed eventually smoothed his hand over his face, "Anything else?"
"Um… the prime minister is in the hospital and is really out of sorts because they couldn't find his daughters," she offered.
"Okay," Ed abruptly sat down on the sofa and adjusted a few of the top pages on the coffee table, "are you still heading out to Mustang's operation today?"
The unexpected question sidetracked Sheska's concerns. Was she? Was it even worth it at this point? Dragging herself away from the front room, she wandered over to Ed, "I was going to, but there's not much I can really do, they're sort of in the middle of overthrowing the government I worked for and betrayed. It's not like I have a job to go to… it's not like I have any job now at all," she gave a deflated shrug, "I don't think anybody's paying me to do anything, I might as well stay home."
His focus securely locked on his paperwork, Ed idly scratched his hand through his face, before running his fingers off the end of his chin, "You interested in helping me work through some final kinks in this a bit later?"
Yet another unexpected question left Sheska a little baffled, "You want me to help?"
"Yeah," Ed nodded, "I need someone around to help test something with."
She narrowed an eye curiously, "Test what?"
"Alchemy stuff."
Sheska's shoulders cautiously ventured up to her ears over the vague response, "Sure, I guess."
"Thanks."
Yes, she was going to stay home all day. There was definitely, absolutely, without a doubt, something extra strange going on and she wanted some way to start figuring it out - she had a feeling it was far, far more interesting than any page in one of the thousands of books she had decorating the empty spaces around her. Sheska placed the questionable Elric in her investigative eye; staying home and helping him might begin unlocking a few answers and she left him with a parting thought to make sure he didn't forget to call on her later.
"Let me know when you're ready for my help," she smiled.
At some point sometime later, Al awoke somewhere else. The sound of a door clicking shut made its way through his closed ears, and Al realized all the unfamiliar sounds and smells he'd been perceiving had actually been coming in from outside his dreams.
Her lower lip caught sheepishly in her teeth and a glass of water in hand, Brigitte stepped away from the door, "I'm sorry."
It took Al's tired mind far too many seconds to process that she'd given him a basic statement in English.
Picking his head up out of a warm pillow, Al watched Brigitte sit herself down in a nest of comforters piled in a corner. A few cushions wrapped in a sandy-coloured blanket had become the bed he'd woken up on. Lost golden eyes drifted tiredly through the small room lit only by hot daylight seeping in from around the fringes of dark curtains shielding a small window. There was noise - faint, nondescript chatter of people and sounds of life filtered in from beyond the walls. Other than the two children on the floor, the only additional things filling the room were an old wooden dresser up against the wall near Alphonse's head and an iron bed frame holding the mattress Izumi slept on.
Al let the image of his teacher sink in and he stood up.
Walking up to the side of her bed, Al peered in at his teacher. She was sound asleep. Even in the weak light, her complexion was still drained and the wide patch on her cheek emphasized the look. A few bandages were wrapped around spots on her arms and the rest of her body was hidden beneath a blanket.
The weight of his thoughts encompassing the last week caused his posture to sag and Al turned back to look at Brigitte.
She was watching him.
There was no way for Al to explain to her what had happened to them in Xenotime, but the jarring escapade clearly took a great deal of energy out of her sails too. 'I'm sorry' was the first thing she'd said since he'd last heard her scream. Brigitte probably needed someone to talk to about the millions of feelings she didn't know what to do with, but there wasn't anyone around who'd understand her. There were a lot of reasons for her to be scared and no words he could use to make her feel safe.
The door to the room creaked open, startling them both.
Major Hawkeye poked her head in, "You're up."
The familiar presence eased the sudden apprehension in the room.
"Where are we?" it was the foremost question Al had.
"Safe in East City," was the whispered answer before the officer's gaze locked firmly on the young Elric, "Al, can I speak to you out here for a moment?"
"Sure."
Crossing the room and reaching out to take the door from Hawkeye, Al abruptly stopped. Staring at his hand while the edge of the door settled in his fingertips, Al's mind was suddenly racing so fast he couldn't collect his thoughts. There was something in his head. It felt like a noise, but it had no sound. There was information mingling his thoughts that wasn't his own, but there were no words. A sensation pounded in his chest, mirroring his heartbeat, but when he put his hand down he felt nothing. He felt out of breath, but he hadn't been running. What was going on?
"Al?"
A bewildered look flashed up to Hawkeye, "Sorry, I think I'm still half asleep…"
No, he was wide awake. Something was wrong, he just didn't know what.
Stepping out into a stout, low-lit little hall, Al breathed in the household air rich with a mixture of cinnamon, fresh baking, and pipe smoke. Looking at the closed doors flanking them, he listened to the abstract sound of activity happening in an open room he couldn't see around the corner. The undefinable sensory feedback in his head was making his heart race and Al made no attempt to explore the building until he could figure out why.
"Is the brigadier general going to be okay?" he opened his mouth and put to voice the first thing that came to mind, hoping to settle himself.
Forcing a smile, Hawkeye's tone remained solemn while she quietly latched the door, "We'll know more over the next couple of days. Red water isn't a stable substance and its toxins can be tricky. It's illegal for a reason."
Tightening his jaw, Al tried to focus his hectic thoughts, attempting to push away the invasion of wordless meanings so he could think of something he could do to help, "Last year, after everything with Laboratory 5, Lt Colonel Armstrong said that Dr. Marcoh had colleagues working under him who'd also have knowledge on things like the Philosopher's Stone and red water. Mr. Hughes said he'd look into it, but we told him not to. If Dr. Marcoh was hiding in East City, are there any of his associates hiding here that we can reach out to for help?"
Hawkeye's smile softened at the suggestion and she let her posture ease, "Yes, there are. One of them is taking care of Lieutenant Ross and another is with the brigadier general now."
"Oh…" Al's shoulders fell; of course they'd already known who to seek out, they'd always known about the red water to some degree. There wasn't really anything else for him to offer - there wasn't anything he could really do like this. He just had to sit around and wait, but there was too much at stake for him to be idle like this, "Major, I want to head into Central City ahead of you and-"
"Alphonse."
The younger Elric was quieted by the uneasy tone in Hawkeye's voice. She kneeled down, presented her closed hand between them, and Al watched her fingers uncoil to offer the final remnants of the Philosopher's Stone in the palm of her hand.
"The brigadier general found this in Aisa's remains. I think it might be yours."
The intangible disruption Al had been feeling swept into focus and his eyes were sucked into the potent hue of the tiny stone's fine edges. This was what was resonating with him. It was so tiny in the palm of Hawkeye's hand, yet the presence of the stone somehow felt massive and intensely… alluring? He couldn't quite put his finger on a word to describe his attraction to it.
Pulled into the draw of the gem, the red of the Philosopher's Stone was something that exceeded description - like it was the kind of red all other shades aspired to be, but could never quite achieve. The longer Al stared at it, the more he started to wonder if it was going to devour the gold in his eyes.
Al picked it up out of Hawkeye's hand.
It was entirely different than how he'd felt at the Gate when it was still forming inside Aisa. He didn't know how to explain the sensation looking at it left him with; how could look at something and, without giving a thought to it, undoubtedly know 'yeah, this is mine.' The only other experience he could liken it to were the fundamental understandings he'd received at the Gate, he just knew facts for no reason other than it was simply so. And this stone was his.
"I don't want this."
The words came out freely, practically startling him, but that feeling was as inarguably true as the fact it belonged to him.
Al tore his gaze away from the stone and looked at Hawkeye, "This isn't going to help me with anything."
"It gives us, gives you, some options," Hawkeye offered, "we don't know what remaining resources Dante has available to her."
Al's shoulders fell. They had no idea what the extent of Dante's assets were, but what they did know was that Aisa represented her most recent atrocity - a remnant from the horrors of Ishibal and Lior. Neither calamity would have happened if Dante's resources hadn't become limited. Aisa wouldn't have existed like she did if Dante had other options to crystalize his Philosopher's Stone. Xenotime wouldn't have been a choice if there were better ones. Everything suggested that Dante's resources were limited and that left Al fearing the existence of this shard had the potential to do more harm than good.
"I understand that, but everything is complicated enough. We need to get rid of it, so there's zero chance Dante can ever use it."
Rising back up to her feet, Hawkeye let her gaze travel through the seams of the wall, considering his sentiment, "Before your brother vanished last year, he'd told us he was going to find a way to destroy it. That's an option you can explore."
Looking into his hand, Al stared at his reflection shining back at him in a stone made out of countless lives sacrificed to fulfill someone's unending greed for life.
When the journey began, the brothers had set out together with coinciding motives: to retrieve each other's bodies. The task required the Philosopher's Stone, but no matter how hard they searched, they couldn't find a way to create the stone without a significant human sacrifice, and neither one of them would entertain that cost. The stone was created anyway and landed in their hands through circumstance.
While the older brother had decided to destroy the stone, the younger brother had done the complete opposite - he'd used it.
Al had been used by Tucker to create Nina's shell, but then he used up the remainder of the Philosopher's Stone Gluttony hadn't eaten to revive his brother. And he didn't harbour any guilt about that. He could see where his brother was coming from, and understood why he felt the way he did with his desire to destroy the stone, but Alphonse didn't feel the same way.
There wasn't anything either of them could have done to bring the people sacrificed back and the creation of the Philosopher's Stone wasn't their crime, they were simply caught up in it. Forsaking the stone just meant forsaking so many lives to a nothing end, so Al used the stone as it was meant to be used and brought his brother back.
The application of his morals was different from his older brother and now there was another piece he found himself responsible for.
"No. Destroying it wastes these people's lives again and offers no better legacy for them than Dante using it. I don't think they'd want that… I wouldn't want that," Al looked into the reddened hues of his partial reflection in a stone made pure by mankind's suffering, "these people were forced out of this world. Their minds were snuffed out, their bodies can't return to the earth, and their souls won't go wherever our souls go - they shouldn't end without meaning like that. All that's left of them is in this stone," he shook his head lightly, feeling his bangs sweep across his forehead, "if I had any say over what the last spark of my life could offer, I'd want it to be put to good use."
Al looked up and met Hawkeye's concerned gaze. Dante paraded herself around as a pharmacist, someone who should have been helping people, and if she wouldn't willingly care for the world she lived in, Alphonse would force her assets into the role. Repurposing a shard once meant to extend the life of a single person who'd already lived beyond her years, Al offered the final fragment of the Philosopher's Stone back to Major Hawkeye.
"Anyone with significant training in the applications of red water or the red stones should be able to use this. I don't know how much use we can get out of a stone this small, but we have a bit of power to help some people. Anybody in East City who needs care from one of the doctors is free to get it until the stone runs out. Can you and the brigadier general make sure that's what happens?"
Alphonse already had what he wanted. The brothers' sought the Philosopher's Stone to retrieve their bodies and they had that. It wasn't perfect, in fact it was quite flawed, but they had their bodies and they were alive and they were both so close to home. But, the benefits the stone offered couldn't ensure they'd finish getting home - that was up to them. Whatever was left in this fragment could heal bodies, save lives, and give others the joy of going home to family as well.
Standing silently in the hall for a moment, Hawkeye gazed down at a tiny golden Elric firmly acting far older than his youthful visual suggested, "Are you sure?"
"Yes."
Hawkeye's expression softened. Reaching down, she collected the stone out of his soft palm, "I'll take care of that for you."
Al smiled and gave back the most coveted alchemical creation to the hands of people he trusted, "Thank you."
Sheska put her hands on her hips, "Okay, what do I do?"
Moving a stack of papers from the coffee table to the floor, Ed remained seated on the sofa, "Sit on the table."
Shuffling over, Sheska did as she was told, sat down on the edge of her coffee table facing Ed, and put her hands on her knees.
It was a little comical how eager she was to help him, Ed had to admit, she'd asked him a couple of times throughout the day if he'd needed her help yet. He hadn't even considered asking for her assistance until now, he was already imposing on her enough, but the news of the morning both clogged and cleared his head.
How the hell had he gotten to the point where he was comfortable not crossing every T and dotting every I? Dammit, he was an alchemist - a scientist - and his life beyond the Gate had made him complacent with his craft. It was a world where alchemy didn't function and he'd gotten comfortable assuming conclusions. Considering everything they were up against, the luxury of confidence wasn't something he could afford. Once he got his head out of his ass, Ed was fairly annoyed with himself for his arrogance.
He needed to be certain about assumptions.
Something had happened in Xenotime and the framework for it was entirely different in his mind than Sheska's. There were so many additional pieces involved that added layers to the news and he couldn't allow himself to dwell on his worries in a negative mindset, especially ones he had no control over. He needed to remain focussed on what he could control, because if the news was right and Dante had been reported as missing, what did that mean going forwards?
Dante had her claws entrenched in the government; she used it as a shield and as leverage to flaunt her presence. If she'd broken away from that cover, what was her reason? Speculating she'd died was too much of a reach for a woman of her skill who'd lived as long as she had, so Ed concluded she needed mobility that was out of the public eye. She needed to be able to operate without either being burdened by governance or having to pretend she was the child of someone with a high profile. If Dante had achieved any success, or even if she still had Al, Ed didn't doubt she'd have strung heads up a flagpole to show off her position. She'd have found a way to publicly taunt him with it. The opposite of that was happening, which bolstered his belief that Al and everyone were actually fine. Where did that leave Dante, then?
The most logical conclusion was that Dante was actually on the run. Where would she run to if she'd suffered some kind of loss - where does anyone run when they're not at their best?
Home.
That was certainly where Ed wanted to go. But, for Dante, it wasn't a country field in Resembool, and it wasn't the childish bedroom in the government manor, it was that other one. And he was a lot closer to it than she was.
Ed cleared his throat, "Have you ever tried alchemy, Sheska?"
"When I was a kid," she laughed, "I can't do it though, does it matter?"
"Nope," he shook his head.
"Okay," Sheska rolled her shoulders back and sat as attentive as she could.
Cementing his resolve, Ed eased out a slow breath, "I need you to tell me if, at any point, you notice changes in your environment."
Sheska's brows knotted up curiously, "What kind?"
Humming his thoughts, he verbalized a few possibilities, "Unusual sounds, visual changes, sudden smells, invasive mental imagery, intrusive thoug-"
"Invasive mental what!?" she squawked.
Ed hesitated as he searched for a way to reword her concerns, "Hallucinations."
That wasn't much of an improvement. The corners of Sheska's mouth folded down sharply, not liking his amendment, "Am I going to have to try drugs or something?"
"No," he dismissed the worry, "I'm just going to clap my hands and I want to know if it affects your environment at this proximity."
Sheska's brow rose with fascination, "Like, for alchemy?"
Ed nodded and waited for her to silently reconcile the thousand questions he could see her mind's eye toiling with, "Ready?"
"Okay," she shook her thoughts away.
Locking his focus onto Sheska, digging his eyes in to study any changes to the look behind her glasses, between their faces at nose level, Ed clapped his hands.
The apartment was too stuffed to get an echo out of the handclap. The afternoon silence wrapping tightly around his palms pressed together, Ed drilled into Sheska's gaze, searching for anything that gave away a change in her thought processes. All he ever saw was the fascination she looked back at him with.
"Nothing?" Ed asked.
Sheska shook her head, "Nothing."
Releasing a breath he hadn't realized he was holding, Ed brought his hands down and placed them on his knees, "Good."
"What would you have done if I'd started hallucinating?" the curious question rushed at him.
A curl found its way into the corner of Ed's mouth and he smirked, "I wouldn't have done it if I thought you would have. It was just a theoretical side effect."
Sulking over the non-answer, Sheska let things move on, "Is that it?"
"No," Ed collected his focus and picked his hands up again, "I'm going to do the same thing, but this time I'm going to put my hand on your forehead after I clap."
"Wait. Waitwait wait waaaiiiit," Sheska's pupils tried to fill her glasses, "if you clap your hands for alchemy then touch me, isn't that like human transmutation?"
"Not for this scenario," Ed reached out and firmly put his left hand on her forehead, "I'm not executing a transmutation. What I'm testing for is if I trigger any of the previous symptoms I outlined, but when I touch you. I won't transmute you in the process."
Uneasily pinching her expression, Sheska's shoulders drew up to her ears, "But… you don't expect anything to happen, right?"
Withdrawing his hand, Ed sat back, "Right. I wouldn't be doing it if I thought the chances were high enough that something would, I'm just testing to make sure of that."
Slapping her hands down onto her thighs, Sheska straightened herself out, "Okay. Test me."
Ed's dulled handclap popped in the apartment, and nothing was heard when his hand landed on her forehead.
Again, Ed dug his focus into Sheska's eyes, looking for any sign of something out of the ordinary. As confidence settled in that she hadn't experienced anything, Ed studied her gaze one last time and suddenly realized she was very intently staring right back at him. Caught off guard by the assertive behaviour, Ed popped his hand off her forehead and sat back.
"Um, anything?"
Sheska adjusted her glasses, "Nothing."
Ed narrowed an eye, "You're sure?"
"Yup."
"Good," shaking his thoughts free of her quirky behaviour, Ed scratched his fingers along his chin before he picked up a sheet of paper from the seat cushion next to him, "Thanks Sheska. Now, there is one last thing I'd like your help with."
Nodding, she remained perfectly attentive on the coffee table, "Sure!"
Ed handed a list of names he'd written down over to her, "Do you recognize anyone on this page?"
Turning the sheet around in her hand, Sheska's nose wrinkled as she started scanning the list, "What for?"
"They're resources," Ed said, "I'd like to know if any of them are alive and if they're in Central."
Her eyes charging through the page, Sheska read the sheet from top to bottom, then bottom to top, before her eyes drifted off the page in thought. Puzzled about why her focus had wandered away, Ed leaned in to try and corral it again.
"Sheska?"
The page abruptly landed in her lap, "How old are you?"
Ed's expression collapsed, "What?"
The look on her face souring, Sheska punched her question into the Elric seated across from her, "How old are you, Edward Elric?"
His eyes flying wide, Ed garbled his words. It wasn't like he was going out of his way to keep her from knowing, it was just easier if he never brought it up. How the hell was he going to explain it anyways? His hand scratched through his hair, "What's that got to do with anything?"
Slapping the sheet of paper against her chest, Sheska folded her arms and secured it there, "Every time I look at you it gets harder to find ways to rationalize how you could be seventeen. At this point, I'm just making stuff up."
"W-"
"I'll tell you what I know about these people," she cut him off, "I just want to know how old you are first. Equivalent exchange or something."
"That's not…"
Ed's hand clawed through his face. The list of names he'd remembered his father mention over the years was something he could easily replicate, but he was going to have to concede to Sheska's whims if he had any chance of finding out if these people were accessible. Ed dragged his hands down his face and scratched his fingers along his chin, lamenting the predicament.
"Stop scratching your face!" she chirped, "it's turning red!"
Ed slapped his hands down on his thighs, "It's itchy!"
"Why's your face itchy?"
"'Cause I need to shave it!"
"Since when did you need to shave!?"
Ed had to bite his tongue on that reply.
He hadn't been around anyone who didn't already know how old he was, so there'd been no reason to think up an excuse. He'd be a fool to ignore Sheska's observation skills - bolstered by her sharp memory she'd have had more than enough time to puzzle over him by now. Lying about it would only drive her suspicions through the roof and the last thing Ed needed was her to get too curious and start asking people at Mustang's group if they knew anything about him. On top of all that, he had no other resources available to tell him about the people on that list…
Ed let his shoulders fall in resignation, "I'm twenty-two."
Pursing her lips and wrinkling her nose, Ed watched Sheska process the improbable answer. Sinking back into the sofa, he watched her eyes shoot to the corners of her apartment as she aligned all of her suspicions up with the response. Ed sighed and waited for Sheska to come to, then accept, all her conclusions and move on to a question that was a whole lot harder for him to answer.
"How?"
"It's complicated," he replied, then stubbornly tucked his gaze away beneath a flat brow and blocked an avalanche of information he didn't have time to explain, "and you never said I had to tell you how."
Sheska backed off from the question and resumed mentally reorganizing her thoughts, her face twisting and contorting with every realignment she made.
Reaching down, Ed picked up a pencil from the floor and interrupted her thought processes by slipping it into her hand, "All except one of them are reputable scientists. You can cross out the names of anyone who's passed away, there are probably a few."
Sheska spun the pencil through her fingers as her thoughts continued to run.
Ed continued unfazed, "The only person I'm certain is alive is the one at the bottom, so I just need to know where to find him. For the rest, I'm looking for anyone who's alive, if they're in Central, and where I can find them."
Glancing at the name at the bottom of the list, Sheska's eyes flashed back into her glasses frames, "twenty-two?"
Ed sighed, "Yeah, twenty-two."
Cautiously opening the bedroom door, Al peeked in, "Hi."
Propped up in the bed, a book in hand, Izumi lifted her attention to her visitor.
Al smiled.
Apparently, his smile looked guilty, because he got 'that look' from her and Izumi put the book down.
"So?"
"Sooo… " ensnared in his teacher's interrogative stare, Al dragged out his last syllable nervously and slipped into the room, shutting the door behind himself, "Rose is outside with Major Hawkeye and Lieutenant Havoc. She's going to take Brigitte to stay with her and the Tringham brothers since Central's a big mess."
"Hopefully lightning doesn't strike twice for that group," Izumi's sentiments came out reluctantly.
Everyone was in agreement, even if it was begrudgingly so, that hiding Brigitte away in East City was the safest option, until they could either settle Central City down or pin Dante. There was an air of confidence amongst the military officers about their strengths in East City and that sentiment wasn't lost on Al.
"It should be okay. Brigitte seems pretty worn out, anyways. It'll be best for her to stay put for a while with people she recognizes."
Running her gaze over the Elric in her room, Izumi lifted her brow to peer beyond the foot of the bed to his feet, "Where'd you get those?"
Glancing down, Al laughed, "They're Fletcher's shoes. Rose brought them. Major Hawkeye mentioned I was barefoot and Rose knew my shoe size. I think this was the first time in six years where I was actually glad to be putting shoes on my feet."
"Don't lose these ones, you have to give them back," her words scolding him before he could commit any offense.
"I won't lose them," Al grinned sheepishly, "it was really neat running around barefoot though, it was like I'd forgotten what-"
"So?"
"So…" Al deflated.
Izumi could tell from a mile away when he had something on his mind to say and was avoiding it. Honestly, Al thought, how was he supposed to expect her to have any confidence in him if he wasn't showing it himself? That was half the challenge with his teacher most of the time, believing strongly enough in what he wanted to accomplish that it overshadowed the fear of her repercussions. Maybe that was why she acted that way with them, to make sure they had fortitude in their resolve.
Huffing his next breath, Al straightened himself out, put his shoulders back, and walked to the foot of her bed, "I'm going to head back to Central with Lieutenant Havoc shortly."
"Al," Izumi's tone was deep, voicing a firm statement, "I don't want you running off. We need everyone to stay together."
"It's important that I go ahead," Al contested, "just like it's important for you and the brigadier general to take the time you need to recover."
"No," the refusal was abrupt, "we are going to find your brother, but I don't want you-"
"Sensei."
Al spoke before he was completely ready and he tightened the seam of his lips. Waiting to see how his teacher would react to cutting her off like that, he watched her sit in the bed, sheets bundled at her waist, book in her lap, and choose to do nothing. Maybe Al was wishing she would hit him, it was honestly easier to cope with than listening to all the sentences he was composing in his head. All of them made him anxious, worried, and nervous.
But, his teacher continued to offer the speaking floor to him and she waited for the younger brother to explain himself. Al tensed when he opened his mouth again.
"Sensei, I think my brother showed Wrath the Gate."
Izumi stared back at the young Elric addressing her like she thought she'd heard him incorrectly.
Al clenched his hands, "And I think that's what caused the change in Wrath's behaviour you saw before he left."
Hesitantly processing his words, Izumi tore into the boy with her eyes, trying to find some way to further dissect what he'd said, "Explain."
A deep breath was needed for his answer, "Dante said that he clapped his hands and showed Wrath the Gate and I don't think she was lying. The more I think about things that were said, by Dante and by my brother, and the more I think about what went on, the harder it is for me to look at the information and think she was wrong. I don't know how it works, but I think he has some kind of access to the Gate and, if that's the case, I don't think he went back to see Lt. Colonel Armstrong after he fell out of the van," Al shook his head while he thought back, "communication is broken across the country and we have no reliable way of reaching anyone in Central. My brother could be anywhere by now - I'm the most able body we have here at the moment and I need to get back to try to find out what's going on."
Alphonse's explanation lengthened the moment of time the room remained submerged in anxious silence. The urge to leave East City was swelling inside of him, doing nothing but making him feel like he was falling farther and farther behind the longer he waited, because there was no telling what Dante's next move was or what his brother had the potential to get up to. Every important hour spent out east was another hour Al lost.
Izumi eventually organized a few of her thoughts into words, "The knowledge Ed came back with is information we aren't meant to have here. It could be possible that he has a level of control over his alchemy that-"
Al slowly started shaking his head and stopped her, "I don't think that's it."
The visual interrogation by his teacher again demanded an answer.
Of all the conclusions Al had come to throughout the day, this one scared him the most, "The Gate wouldn't let me bring him home, because he wasn't supposed to come back. The Gate made sure I understood that, even though I didn't like it or agree with it, it was a fact. The thing is, Winry was with him, but the rule didn't apply to her. So, it wasn't anything to do with coming or going between the sides of the Gate - it was specific to him. The only reason I couldn't bring Winry home separately was because I transmuted her with him and they arrived as a package. So, the only way he could have gotten through the Gate was if he'd done something to override the restrictions - if he'd made some kind of deal with the Gate so he could come home again."
Al's last syllables faded away and the foreboding silence dimmed the room again. Watching his teacher's eyes flicker around with her thoughts, something she rarely allowed him to see, Al sighed and walked around to the side of her creaky bed. He sat himself down on the edge of the mattress.
"I asked him shortly after he'd gotten back what he'd done to get home and he just joked and brushed it off."
Izumi's brow creased when she shut her eyes, "He knows what he did."
That was the worst part. His brother knew something, something important, and had kept it to himself. If he knew he could clap his hands to reach the Gate, was that why he played up his alchemy as being so dangerous that he shouldn't do it around people? He couldn't have kept that a secret for long up north, at some point he was going to have to try to perform alchemy again. Why would he have shown the Gate to Wrath in the basement if he'd been so emphatic to not clap his hands in a space where people could be involved. Did he actually have some level of control over what he'd done, like his teacher had started to suggest?
How did having access to the Gate relate back to overriding the conditions preventing him from coming home?
"Sensei," frustration and disappointment flooded into Al's voice, "I don't know if I'm furious with him or terrified for him, but I have no idea what he's thinking or what he's doing."
Slowly shaking her head as the volume of the information Al offered digested, Izumi could only find one suggestion to help him, "If Armstrong hasn't sent Winry north yet, talk to her. She was with him at the Gate and might be able to tell you something."
Al nodded slowly, "Yeah, I'm going to find her when I get back."
"Al…"
A light hand landed on top of his head when the younger brother looked to his teacher. Despite the age he felt inside and all the burdens that kept coming his way, Al didn't really mind when she decided to treat him like his childish size and fluff his hair.
Izumi softened, "I'm sorry."
"It's not your fault." Al shook his head, "I just hope he has a good explanation for himself when I find him."
A light laugh preceded Izumi's sentiments, "When you find Ed, whether or not you like his answer, hold him until I get there. I went easy on him when we were in Central."
Al gave a nervous grin to his teacher's intentions, "I'd like to still have a brother when you're done with him, please."
Izumi only smiled in response and ruffled Al's hair.
In the darkened sliver of an alley between Sheska's building and the next, Ed grabbed a metallic garbage bin at it's handle and base and dumped it out into the street. Picking the empty container up, he walked to the other end of the alley next to the escape ladder and placed the emptied can down. Scaling the rusted metal ladder, Ed sat himself on the lowest platform and looked down at the can positioned below his feet.
Ed sighed in disgust of himself, "I hated when people did this to me, now I'm doing it to myself."
Reaching behind, he picked up the first stack of papers and dropped them off the fire escape into the noisy tin can below. Despondently watching a few scattered sheets flutter away into the alley rot, he shook his head at what he was doing and grabbed another stack to drop. Everything that hit the tin garbage can went in with a clatter.
In total, four piles of work were sent into the trash that night. Left looking at the scattered mess of white sheets of paper that had tried to flutter free into the alley below, Ed leaned his shoulder against the wall and put the side of his head down against the brick wall.
Al was fine. Ed told himself that again. He'd been telling himself that all day - all week. Mustang was fine, his teacher was fine, Brigitte was fine… he had to believe they were all fine. He needed to have more faith in them. The vague circumstances lined up to weave a story that made him confident that they were.
Al could take care of himself. He was an amazing alchemist, sometimes the older brother forgot that behind the memory of the younger brother he felt responsible for. Admittedly, sometimes Ed wished Al wasn't as strong as he was, because he wanted to take care of him.
And Al wasn't just alive - he was thriving - in a life Ed had given to him when he'd surrendered his own life in exchange. It wasn't that Ed had wanted to be dead, it was just he didn't believe he should be the one of their mother's two sons who'd gotten to live. He was the older brother and had the responsibility, had the duty, of protecting his younger brother. Ed didn't regret the decision in the slightest and watching Al now did nothing but cement that.
Shortly before he'd set out to find Hermann Oberth, their father had told Ed that the reason he'd woken up on the other side of the Gate, was because he'd done something subconsciously. It was a sentiment that sounded like his old man was just trying to be kind, because the more Ed learned, the more he realized that the explanation didn't make sense.
The people who journeyed beyond the Gate had their bonds broken: Hohenheim, Ed the first time, and then finally Winry. But Ed hadn't broken his bonds to bring Al back, he'd offered his life. His mind, his body, and his soul; his present and his future - his fate - was given to and belonged to the Gate in its entirety. He became its property. Just like Al's body had been, like his arm and leg had been, except in Ed's case the Gate now had all three essential parts. The only plausible reason he could think of that would explain why he'd woken up on the other side of the Gate, and why he'd had to make arrangements with it to get home again, was because he'd crossed at the Gate's discretion. Nothing else added up.
Because he was supposed to be dead, yet he wasn't.
It wasn't like Ed had tried very hard to live when he first found himself in London. Eventually, he motivated himself to keep going, to actually get out of bed every day, by trying to find a way back to the life he did want. He wasn't supposed to be alive, but he was and he didn't want to live his there or live it on his own, so he could only motivate himself to keep going by trying to get back something he'd lost. No, something he'd given up. He wanted to get home to be with Al again and to be around people he trusted - people he believed in and people he had faith in.
People he hadn't given appropriate value to until he didn't have them anymore. They were what motivated him.
Yet, here he was struggling to trust that they could manage what they were up against. The harder Ed looked at that feeling, the more he began to acknowledge the source of his doubts.
He'd seen a very ugly side of humanity assert itself without respect for the value of a life beyond the Gate. A horrific war he'd woken up in the middle of, the pompous arrogance of victors flouting their success, and the discontent left to brew in a country of people that were struggling to rise after defeat. All of it happening atop countless graves. People saw themselves above others for no logical reason other than it suited them and the constructed narratives had started to flourish on an enormous scale.
His time away hadn't shaken his belief in Al, or his teacher, or any of them out in Xenotime, but had changed him. The journey had made him acutely aware of the way people and their morals could be corrupted to serve a selfish interest. How easy it was for someone to arbitrarily strip someone else's life of its value when it suited them and the echoes of gunshots rang in his ears to remind him of it.
Atrocities existed in Amestris, all he had to do was look to Ishbal and Lior for a recent example of that, but nothing quite reached what post-war Europe felt like. That… whatever that had been, didn't exist here. The Great War was a calamity created by humanity, but Amestris and its people were manipulated by Dante.
Maybe she actually scared him now. Not because of anything new she'd done, Ed was just able to put her in a different context, and that was probably a good thing.
Ed pried himself away from the wall and climbed down the fire escape ladder. Picking up the papers that had tried to flee, he struggled to shake the sensation that left him feeling horribly detached from the place he really wanted to be any time he thought about the journey he'd taken.
Crushing a few sheets in his hands, he tossed them into the garbage.
"Ed?"
The call of his name bounced off the brick walls and he craned his head up to the second floor window.
Sheska leaned out, "What are you doing?"
Tossing a few more crumpled sheets into the garbage, Ed looked into the bin full of paper. It didn't matter that he was the only one who could read it, he would be the last person on either side of the Gate to know the scale of it. He reached into the pocket of his slacks, pulled out a matchbook he'd taken from Sheska's kitchen, and flipped it open.
"Anything you want to cook?"
"What?" Sheska tipped her head.
Ed laughed at himself, struck a match, and tossed it into the bin, "Nevermind."
"Don't burn the garbage!" Sheska squawked and vanished from the window. A few moments later she was clamouring down the fire escape stairs, "Garbage collection is in the morning, what are you doing?"
Picking up a few final sheets from the alley, Ed crumpled them and tossed them to the fire as Sheska scrambled down the bottom rungs of the ladder, "Saving some waste from filling the dump."
Dropping down into the alley, Sheska gawked at the man who'd started the fire and watched him casually shrug his actions off. Cautiously peering into the glow growing in the belly of a tin garbage can in a dark Central City alley, the firelight began dancing around in the reflection of her glasses, "Hold on, is this all the work from the living room?"
"Yup," Ed nodded.
Sheska spun around abruptly, "Why are you burning it!?"
He wasn't going to argue that burning it was a shame, but, "Nobody can read it anyways and I don't need it written down anymore."
"You wrote it in a code language," Sheska argued, peeking back into the busy fire, "who the heck was going to read it!?"
"Doesn't matter," Ed grinned - it was nice to have someone seem so offended over his work going up in flames. Maybe he would have read it again for fun every couple of years, but there were a few formulas mixed in there that he wasn't interested in anybody imagining a context for. Turning his attention down the alley, Ed started to walk away, "but I'm not running the risk of finding out. At the end of the day, the safest place for the information is in my head."
Sheska watched as Ed picked up the lid to the trash can from the ground, "What sort of information?"
Spinning the lid in his hands, Ed flashed a wide grin, "Alchemy stuff."
Her head drooped, "I hate that answer."
Ed chuckled and walked back up to his burning garbage bin of work, "Everything I know needs to stay in my head. It's too complicated and too dangerous to have out there for anyone to try and interpret. If someone wants to know what I know, they'll have no other option but to go through me for it."
Strumming her fingernails on the edge of the warming can, Sheska's brows slowly lowered until they flattened atop her eyes. She pinched her expression, "Ed, I ran from a liquid creature inside the electrical conduits of Central Headquarters that Winry told me had the face of your deceased mother…"
Oh there was a memory he'd tried to bury under a million other memories he didn't want either. Ed sighed and felt his shoulders grow heavy.
"... who was the Fuhrer's secretary and whose alias could be linked back to Mr. Hughes' murder. Go ahead and make things dangerously complicated for me."
Ed ran his hand over his chin.
Sheska glared at him warningly for it.
Lifting his hand off his face, Ed looked at the orange glow dancing in the silver metal can, "I'm going to head out tomorrow morning."
"W-wait, hold on," Sheska sputtered, "that's not the complicated I was going for. I'm not going to kick you out for burning the garbage either."
Spinning the lid in his hands once more, Ed's focus lingered on the warm, burning light, "I have those leads to follow up on and the radio this afternoon said that the prime minister and his entourage were on a train back to Central. There's something I want to be prepared to take care of before things get out of hand again."
Tightening her lips, Sheska couldn't stop the concern from filling her expression, "Are you sure you want to head out tomorrow? The city's a rioting mess. If you're ducking the folks at Mustang's operation, this is at least somewhere safe to sleep. I have a second set of keys you can borrow."
Ed smiled, the offer letting him feel a little lighter, "No, thanks though. I'll be alright. And thanks for letting me stay in your living room as long as I did."
Shezka's brow twisted in the middle, "Did you ever sleep?"
"I tried," he shrugged.
"Well, try harder to get some tonight."
"I'll try."
Sighing, Sheska shifted her attention hesitantly between the growing fire and the man who started it, "before you go, can you at least tell me how you're twenty-two now?"
"Nope."
Ed grinned watching Sheska puff up next to him as he continued to leave her in the dark on everything. Someday later he'll explain himself, but not right now. There was too much going on and knowledge of what it was had become the most dangerous element.
"Did you finish it?"
Ed came out of his thoughts and looked at her, "Finish what?"
"What you were working on," Sheska gestured into the burning garbage can, "the bonfire work."
Picking up his brow, Ed tipped his head and gazed into the bountiful pit of curled papers feeding a caged, hungry fire happily devouring the stress relief Ed had kept himself occupied with. The flames warmed the metallic container, coating the internal greys in lively orange hues, and lighting the brick walls containing the two standing in the alley, throwing the dark shadows of the fire escape skywards along the wall. Allowing the scene to polish the shine of his eyes, relaxing in the glow, a magnificent Elric grin curled through him proudly and Edward finally gave Sheska an answer.
"Yeah, I think I did."
To Be Continued...
Author's Note:
Maybe this is more of a note to myself, but Ed had always done something unspoken at the Gate to get home. He was vague with both Winry there and then Al later. It wasn't something I came up with when I revisited the story. What that was and how it plays out is what I've been able to explore this year though :) I was kind enough to leave myself a vague open plot point when I left the story years ago haha
My day-job is wrapping up a project through the end of November, so it's going to be all kinds of hectic on my end (me trying to use NaNoWriMo to get ahead on fic blew up in my face LOL), but I have a few weeks off in December to balance it out :). I'll put the next chapter on Dec 12 just in case (4 weeks instead of 3). It's started at least, I did manage to use the first few days of NaNo productively!