Dyslexia: Language disability.
Summary: Hohenheim comes back and Ed tries the transmutation on his own. Unable to forgive himself, Ed strikes out on his own and Hohenheim raises Al. Time shifts a bit differently and adopted by Maes Hughes, Edward Elric is going to define a new path for Amestris.
KEYnotes: Maes does not die. Nor key the others. Alfonse loses nothing, so Ed pays with both leg and arm. Homunculi are made by the Dwarf in the Flask, not failed transmutation.
Major AU: The timeline is different. The Dwarf in the Flask's plan is delayed. Alfonse and Hohenheim are in this, just toward the end of the second half of the story.
Prologue
Large arms scooped him up, and a voice he hadn't heard in a long time called out into the vacuum of Ed's shock, "Al! Run to Granny's! Tell her to have a table ready!"
Ed stared down at the thing he created.
"Mom?"
The monster reached for him, and Ed watched the life die from its eyes.
Had he brought her back just to die a monster's death?
Hohenheim shushed him, "It's not your mother, Edward. Nothing can bring the dead back to life. She's gone."
Ed wished for death, he was going to have to tell Al, tell him there was no hope because Ed had been wrong.
So very wrong.
And somehow, that hurt worse than anything.
Worse than losing his mother.
Knowing that he let his little brother down. That Ed would be the one to hurt him.
Hohenheim had closed the wounds on Ed's amputated limbs so that he wasn't bleeding out as he was carried into the Rockbell's home.
Winry was crying.
That was Ed's fault too.
He got one night to lie awake to find his words, words that tumbled out of him in the morning, unintelligent and destructive.
Words that brought tears streaming down Al's face, making Ed feel like a monster, just like the one he had created from Mom's remains.
Al apologized to Ed, when Al had done nothing wrong. It was a damnation that Ed doubted he would ever recover from.
It was hard to believe he could feel smaller, feel like more of a failure than he already did, until Hohenheim called Al out to let him rest.
Al ran to the bastard who had abandoned them, who hadn't been around to save Mom.
The man who had betrayed them.
Ed realised then that Al would forgive him too.
Forgive him for everything and anything.
But some things shouldn't be forgiven.
Ed began to make plans, and as he waited for his automail to take, and Al became more and more trusting of their bastard of a father, Ed decided that they would be better off without him.
It took Ed record time to relearn how to walk. Once he could walk unaided at a distance, he stole away one night, he had still been healing, but he needed to leave. He made it to the train station with no intention of ever returning.
He left notes, and the only thing he asked of his brother, the Rockbells, and Hohenheim, was that they let him go.
Perhaps Al was right to forgive Hohenheim. There were worse things than leaving.
Too bad it wasn't in Ed to forgive.
Chapter 1 - Son of Hughes
Maes Hughes watched in adoring apprehension as his adoptive son stepped into the sunlight of the Central testing grounds.
Maes had exactly zero concerns about his passing, and every concern Bradley would take too great an interest in him.
Edward Elric-Hugues was nothing if not a young man with the flare for the dramatic.
Though, Maes considered it a small miracle that he had gotten Ed to wait until he was sixteen for this.
He had managed it by the skin of his teeth, pushing every research project he could at the boy. Feeding him more knowledge about alchemy than anyone he had ever known. Ed could shame most researchers.
His son's room was more of a library than a bedroom. While Ed knew exactly what Maes's goal had been with his unabashed aiding and abetting of such serial book reading, Ed rarely called him out on it.
No, the difficult task over the last five years had been keeping Ed a secret from Roy.
He loved Roy, but he didn't want Ed to be used the way that the other State Alchemists were. Fresh from his return to Central City from Ishval, Maes hadn't even had an apartment when he had taken Ed off the streets.
Roy was a wonderful and driven person, someone Maes wanted to put on the throne but Roy was too savvy to meet Ed, understand his capabilities and not use him.
Maes wasn't even sure it would be a bad thing, but Ed needed to grieve his past, his childhood. If he had been given a mission at eleven when Maes found him, he would have shoved all that pain and healing aside.
At sixteen, Ed was restless, but being a literal genius and having a stable home life —excluding whatever he had run from in his past— he had a good head on his shoulders and wasn't likely to let anyone lead him around by the nose.
No, in truth, the military was about to inherit the greatest problem that even their worst nightmares couldn't prepare them for.
"Who is that?" Roy Mustang asked from beside him.
Maes had invited the team to see. One, because celebration was well past due, and two because he would rather get the conversation over and done with.
"The greatest Alchemist this country has ever seen," Maes said in all seriousness.
Jean Havoc scoffed, but Roy and Riza Hawkeye knew Maes well enough to pick up on his tone.
He wasn't being facetious, if anything, he was underselling Ed's potential, the boy was a verifiable genius.
When people realized how quickly Ed had passed that test there might be rumours, but not as many after watching his final trial.
"Hey isn't that the boy who shows up in some of your photos of your daughter?" Vato Falman asked.
Maria Ross and Denny Brosh, Maes's direct underlings, were the only ones to have met Ed and know who he was to the Hughes family.
Maes shot a smirk at Roy, "He's my son."
And, as if to prove his point, the procter called out, "Edward Elric-Hughes, you have one hour to complete your demonstration.
Roy's eyes widened with shock, then frustration that poorly masked his hurt.
Riza, bless her, said, "We met him at Maes and Gracia's wedding."
Roy did a double take, but there was no mistaking Ed, hair that was a little too gold to be Amestrian, eyes too gold to be brown, Ed was unique and hard to forget.
"Why didn't you tell us?" Roy asked, really asking, Why didn't you tell me?
Maes lowered his voice, "I took him in the night I arrived back from Ishval. At first, I didn't want you to talk me out of adopting an eleven year old—" Maes had been twenty-two at the time. "—And by the time I learned what he was capable of, that he was legitimately too intelligent for primary school, I… I did everything I could do to persuade him from this path."
Understanding and more hurt flashed across Roy's face, "You thought I would use him."
Maes met his gaze directly, "Now that he's here," he motioned to the rink. "You would be a fool not to have him on your team."
"You kept us apart because you didn't want him to join me?" Roy asked, eyes narrowed.
"I didn't want him to be a State Alchemist, nor have Bradley's attention on him." Irritation filled Maes because he knew his family were targeted while he was part of this coupe, knew that Ed not finding his way to the most problematic situations was impossible, but he was a father, dammit, and he loved his children more than anything on this planet. It was his right to protect them.
And the only reason he put them in danger by supporting Roy was because he wanted to give them a future.
A future that didn't include anything like Ishval.
"Nor having him do anything shady."
Roy gave him a sharp look, "But now it's alright?" He motioned to Ed who had chalk on a stick walking outward in a growing array.
"He's sixteen," Maes sniffed, knowing if it was Elicia he had be panicking right now but Ed was more mature and more competent than most soldiers he'd ever met. "He's an adult, legally."
They all gave him the side eye and Havoc said, "If he passes, he will literally be the youngest Alchemist ever. I heard someone say today is his birthday."
"Oh, it is, we are all going out to dinner tonight to celebrate," he said brightly.
"Hughes," several voices chided.
He sighed, "He could have passed this test at eleven, you have no idea how much bribery it took to convince him to hold off."
"Your adoptive son exploited you?" Haymans Breda asked, outraged on his behalf.
Denny and Maria laughed outright.
Maes smiled fondly, "We threw quite the library at him."
Denny snorted, "Plus the kid is like the go to babysitter. He watches Elicia, and her friend Nina all the time. Ed's great with them."
"Which explains the pictures," Falman said.
"Yeah, but not why you thought I wouldn't respect you as his guardian," Roy said.
Maes looked at him, "Because when I met Ed, he was searching for a cause to die for. He would have made up his own mind when he figured out the scope of your goals. He still will now, but hopefully…"
Hopefully joining Roy's team would be something to live for.
Understanding shone in Roy's eyes, "He's had a hard life."
Maes looked back at his son who threw the stick and chalk aside. "He's older than he ought to be," he returned, remembering how Ed had taken care of Maes as much as he had him after the war.
Sometimes, Maes thinks it's why Ed stayed at all, not because he needed help, but because he had been needed.
Ed made a mean cup of coffee and didn't really understand what it meant to be idle. He was an inspiration.
Ed clapped his hands and everyone went quiet, then he placed his hands down on the array.
From a stone courtyard, formed a circle of polished stone, then metal pipes shot out of the transmutation lightning and the rest unfolded like a contractor's fantasy. A thirty foot metal fountain, intricately made with levels of pools and carvings of children playing at the bottom level formed from what appeared to be nothing. Two dogs howled at the top which with two final sparks of transmutation light, began to flow water, the fountain filled and jets of water shot up. The engineering of the fountain was so well done that even the sound of the fountain was lovely.
Maes let out a sigh of relief. He had told Ed that he should do something impressively complicated while holding back on how skilled he was in combat.
Of course if you knew anything about alchemy…
Roy hissed at Maes as the bystanders clapped, "The array he drew couldn't have made that."
Maes smirked, "Guess you'll have something to discuss with him."
"Money's on him becoming the Architect Alchemist," Breda said.
Maria sighed, "I wish, but with talent like that Bradley won't let him slip away with something that doesn't sound more intimidating."
Maes winced because, yes, he knew, even with something as benign as a public fountain, the Brass would be dreaming up how to weaponize it.
The beauty of his show though was that even from the array, no one would be able to pinpoint what Ed's main element was, be it mineral, metal, or water.
The answer was all of them, naturally, because Maes maybe hadn't considered what feeding a mind like Ed's with every rare alchemy text and journal he could get his hands on could do. Nor what the subsequent dropping him off at the library for research would provide the boy's arsenal of knowledge with.
Ed walked over, looking momentarily humble until they heard the regulators refusing to take down the fountain.
"Hey Dad," Ed greeted with a grin, sending happiness through Maes. Ed hadn't started calling him that until Elicia was born, it had been like the admittance that not only did he accept that he belonged with the Hughes Family but he was deserving of love. "Maria, Denny."
"That was insane!" Denny exclaimed.
"I saved a lot of money on pots and plumbing over the years," Maes agreed cheerily.
"I would accuse you of violation of child labour laws but it meant a trip to the book store, so no complaints," Ed said with a fond smile at Maes which he returned in full.
"Ed, I would like you to meet Roy Mustang and his team," Maes began introductions.
When everyone was named, Roy said, "Quite the impressive feat for a single array."
Ed's smile turned to more of a self-satisfied smirk, "Who says I was only using one array?"
Roy looked flummoxed and Maes grinned, delighted at how much it would annoy Roy not to understand that Ed didn't need a drawn array to do Alchemy, and likely more frustrated when he realized just that.
Throwing an arm around his son's shoulders, Maes said, "Come on, Elicia and Nina are likely beside themselves waiting for you to come home."
Ed laughed, "Who are we to keep royalty waiting?"
Despite his worries, Maes felt so incredibly grateful for his loved ones and the life they shared together.
AN: Please review with comments on the chapter and story if you are interested, pretty please?