Double-update incoming! Not only was this chapter short (out of necessity - for spacing purposes later) but one of my amazing readers over on AO3 made a fanart for me the other day, and nobody has EVER done that for me before. So consider this a surprise gift because of Cambria on AO3, who is completely lovely and amazing. :3
Bright and early the next morning, before the sun had even fully crept over the horizon, the four left Resembool behind and returned to Central. Ed was practically bouncing in his seat with how urgently he wanted to get to the library, so they went straight there from the station. Yet when they rounded the corner and approached the enormous building, Lissa got the strangest sense of…loss. "Hey, Ed… Something isn't right," she tried to tell him but he was already running on.
"What is it, Lissa?" Al asked her, looking down at her anxiously. "Did you… What do you think is happening?"
Around the next corner, which would put them directly in front of the library, Ed suddenly let out a horrified cry.
They found him standing in front of the burned remnants of the National Central Library's First Branch, his jaw hanging in complete and utter shock. Lissa came to stand beside him, grimacing at the tang of ash and burned parchment in the air. So this was what she'd sensed. It was odd to feel something so acutely, but then again, this had nothing to do with emotions—it was pure loss of knowledge, nothing more.
"Dr. Marcoh's research… It's all gone!" Ed wailed.
"What could've happened here?" Al wondered, walking towards the ruined building. He paused at the steps and peered inside, clearly confused, and Lissa didn't blame him. "Why would somebody burn the library down? You don't think…"
Lissa followed him, Ed right behind her, and muttered, "I don't like to believe in coincidences. We get a solid lead and the whole library gets burned down?"
"Sounds like a bunch of bullshit to me," Ed grumbled. He passed Al and strode up into the burned building, and Lissa followed him hurriedly, knowing the other two would come along as well. She just didn't want Ed to get too upset and do something crazy, that's all. "I mean, to burn it down this completely…"
"It'd require an accelerant," Lissa pointed out, as he knelt down to examine a charred shell that had once been a book. "There's no way an accidental fire burned hot enough to do all this damage."
He nodded wearily. "Yeah. Look at this…" Ed picked up the burned book and it crumbled between his fingers, completely ruined beyond anyone's skill to repair. "There's nothing here but ashes. Everything's gone."
"Major Armstrong!"
Lissa turned, reflexively sticking her arm out in front of Ed even though he could protect himself now—but she lowered her arm when she saw a couple soldiers standing in the doorway, saluting crisply. She wondered what they were doing here, but soldiers weren't a real threat, at least.
Alex inclined his head towards them. "Oh, Second Lieutenant Ross and Sergeant Brosh. To what do we owe this pleasure?"
Ross, a woman with dark, short-cropped hair, answered him in a clipped, proper tone. "You have been ordered to report back to the command center, sir."
"We'll be taking over supervision of Edward Elric, his trainee, and his brother, effective immediately," Brosh added on, in that same super-formal tone that made Lissa twist her nose up. It was the right way to address a superior, she knew that, but at the same time it could rub her the wrong way. Or…maybe it was just the feeling of being handled doing that.
Alex didn't argue for a moment. "Very well, they're yours."
Ed groaned and raked a hand across his hair. "What is this?" he almost whined. "Just when I think I'm home free, they saddle me with more bodyguards? This is getting old!"
Definitely being handled.
Alex loomed over him, making Ed quail and shrink back against Al's armor. "It is an honor to be guarded by such fine soldiers as these!" he boomed. "You will take what is given to you, Edward Elric! Be grateful!"
Lissa grinned and patted his arm. "It was good seeing you, Alex. I'll make sure to stop in before we go anywhere else, promise."
His demeanor changed immediately as he turned and swept her into an embrace, which she laughed and accepted, even though it felt like her ribs might crack under the pressure. "Then I will see you around, Lissa." Alex rested his hand atop her head a moment, and then headed off back towards HQ, not one to delay on his orders.
"So…what now?" Alphonse asked uncertainly.
Ross gave them a curious look. "What were you looking for here, anyway?" she inquired. "Maybe it was moved elsewhere before the fire."
"No, it was here," Ed asserted. "It was someone's personal notes."
Clearly trying to move past Ed's sullenness, Brosh put on a brighter face and told them, "Well, our orders are to escort you wherever you need to go. And seeing as I don't think you'll find anything in there, we should probably get going. Our car is just around the corner."
Lissa kept her hand at the small of Ed's back as they walked, aware that he could very easily fall into total devastation at the loss of their clue. She even sat beside Lieutenant Ross in the car, facing Ed so she could keep an eye on him—and, well, because Ed and Al together took up the whole bench in the little military car. She didn't really have a choice.
"All might not be lost," Ross told them encouragingly, as they drove away. "There's a woman who was well-acquainted with the materials in the first branch." She glanced sideways at Brosh for a moment. "Unfortunately…she wasn't working there anymore."
Ed crossed his arms and scowled out the window. "That sounds incredibly helpful," he muttered bitterly.
Brosh just kept staring at Al, his jaw tight, like he was trying to figure something out.
"Um… Is something wrong?" Al asked him worriedly.
The Sergeant's eyes widened. "Oh, it's nothing," he dismissed quickly. "Although…if you don't mind me asking… Why are you wearing a suit of armor?"
Lissa shared a panicked look with the boys. That wasn't good…
"It's a hobby!" the boys chorused like they'd rehearsed it.
Are you kidding me?! A hobby?! Lissa glared at them while Ross and Brosh exchanged completely baffled, freaked-out looks. A hobby. Well, now their new bodyguards thought they were total freaks. She was really going to have to work on their lying skills, honestly, that was just a pathetic attempt.
Ignoring the boys' attempts to change the subject, Lissa turned to Ross and asked, "Do you think we could still talk to this woman? She's the only lead we've got so far."
"Sure." Ross leaned back and gave their driver an address, for a neighborhood not far from them. Lissa recognized where it was—it wasn't the best neighborhood, by any means, but not totally sketchy at least. They'd be okay there, even with bodyguards who weren't actually alchemists.
She did wonder at that… Swapping out Alex with two non-alchemists who'd be totally lost against someone like Scar. Lissa hoped it was because someone higher-up knew it was ridiculous to keep the three of them under guard, and had assigned these two as a formality, not because they were actually necessary. Otherwise…that meant they really were being watched like children.
Less than ten minutes later, their odd little party headed inside the apartment building and searched out this woman's unit. A knock on the door got them nothing, so Ed, forgoing societal boundaries as always, merely opened the door.
Lissa's jaw dropped. Books. Books as far as they eye could see, darkening the interior of the little apartment and walling it in like a damned labyrinth. She'd never seen this many books in such a small place—in a big library, sure, but not here, in some tiny little apartment, crammed in so there was hardly space for an actual human being…
"Oh, wow," Ed breathed, as stunned as she was. "There's gotta be a million of 'em!"
While Brosh and Ross delved right in, forced to walk sideways to actually fit through the rows of books, Lissa stuck between Ed and Al, a bit ashamed that she could walk frontwards just like Ed. They were both small enough to fit, it seemed. Poor Alphonse barely fit at all, so it was slow going for him.
Lissa was just about to follow Ed down the next row when Al's timid voice came from behind them. "Um…brother?" He was stopped at a gap between a couple shelves, pointing down the row at a messy pile of books sitting at the very end, against the farthest wall of books.
And a hand was sticking out the top.
"There's somebody under there!" Al yelped.
All four rushed into action, frantically digging through the pile and flinging books aside left and right, until they'd finally uncovered a woman at the very bottom, gasping for air and a little battered, from being stuck underneath all the books.
"Thank you, thank you!" she gasped, bowing over and over on her knees. "I'm so sorry, I got myself trapped under a whole mountain of books!" She sat up and put her glasses on, blinking at them through the lenses, still seeming a bit dazed. It wasn't surprising. "I thought I was going to suffocate under there. Thank you so much."
Lissa glanced at Ed, wanting to see his thoughts—only to purse her lips to hold back a giggle as she realized he had a book sitting on his head. She removed it and brushed her hand atop his head to fix his hair, absently, though she noted after the fact that his cheeks dusted pink at her touch.
Oops. I really have to watch that.
"So, uh…" Ed cleared his throat. "Are you Sheska?"
The brunette nodded. "Yes."
"And you worked at the library?" he pressed.
Immediately, Sheska's eyes took on a dreamy, faraway look. "Ah, the library!" she sighed happily. "The word itself is so beautiful! I've loved books my whole entire life, ever since I first learned to read as a girl… That job was heaven. But…" Her face fell and she bowed her head. "I forgot that I was supposed to be working, and all I ever did was read. So they fired me. If I don't find another job, I'll never be able to move my poor, elderly mother into a better hospital… But I'm hopeless! The only thing I can do well is read! I'll never find another job as long as I live! I'm useless, good for nothing! More pathetic than pond scum!"
Lissa leaned in towards Ed's ear and muttered, "Stop her before this goes too far, please…"
He winced and slowly lifted his hand, trying to get the woman's attention. "Um, excuse me… There was one thing we wanted to ask you…"
Immediately she snapped out of it. "Yes?"
"Do you remember seeing any research belonging to someone named Tim Marcoh?" Ed pressed, seizing the opportunity quickly.
Sheska tapped her chin thoughtfully. "Let's see… Tim Marcoh… Now where do I know that name from?" She then grinned brightly and snapped her fingers, her demeanor brightening in an instant. "Oh! Yes, of course! I remember now!"
"You do?" Lissa glanced at the boys, hopeful.
"Oh, yes," Sheska confirmed with a quick bob of her head. "I'm absolutely positive. There were some handwritten notes stuffed into a bookcase where they didn't belong."
Ed sat up straight, his eyes wide with elation. "The notes really were there after all! So he wasn't leading us on! But that means…" He sank back down and pressed both hands over his face. "Oh no… That means they burned up along with everything else in the library… Dammit…"
"Did you want to read them? Is that why you're asking?" Sheska inquired, frowning.
Sighing, Ed rose to his feet, Al and Lissa following suit. "Yeah. But it's too late now, they're nothing but ashes."
"Sorry to bother you," Al added dejectedly.
"Um…but…" Sheska got to her feet as they began to walk out and gave them a curious look. "I remember everything that was in them. Would that help at all?"
"You what?!"
Sheska shrugged a bit helplessly. "It's just how I am. I'm able to remember the content of every book I've ever read. It'll take a while, but I can write them all out for you."
Lissa stared at her in shock while the boys fawned a bit, both overwhelmed by the idea of getting these notes back. "And you're sure you can do a perfect recreation?" she clarified, holding Ed back by his hood as he went to probably hug the poor woman half to death. "They might be a bit complicated or confusing, I don't know…"
"Oh, it'll be no problem at all," the woman dismissed, beaming at her. "Just give me a few days and I'll have them ready!"
—
A few days turned into five, by which point Ed was a nervous wreck—a struggle only compounded when Sheska's transcription revealed alchemists' notes coded into recipes. But having the notes on hand gave Edward enough of a boost to resolve that they'd decode Dr. Marcoh's research and figure it out themselves. Lissa admired the determination, she really did… But after over a week working on these stupid notes, she was starting to get exhausted of it all. Her back and neck hurt, not to mention her wrist from all the writing, the endless writing…
"I think I'm gonna die in here," she mumbled on the tenth day, resting her forehead on one volume of the notes—something about baking bread, or maybe it was muffins, she could hardly remember—and shutting her eyes. "Not all of us have unlimited stamina or an automail hand to switch to when your arm starts to ache, you know."
Ed smirked across at her. "What, you're giving up now?"
"I'm not giving up, dummy. I just hurt, all freaking over. At this point I think I'd rather spar with Al for twelve hours straight than write another word." Lissa shot Al a quick smile, just so he knew it wasn't mean-spirited.
"Why've you been writing so much anyway?" Ed asked her, raising an eyebrow. "I haven't seen much of what you're doing."
Lissa sighed and pushed her notebook over to him, watching as his golden eyes flicked over the words as quickly as he possibly could, trying to take in everything at light-speed as always. "I've been making notes of all the egregious errors in the recipes, see… Anything that stands out. I'm not the best in the kitchen but I know about baking, it's all science, you see, ratios and stuff. I wondered originally if these were workable recipes, and some of them seem to be, but not all of them. So I've been compiling all the strange things in these recipes, noting which volume and page, and what I'd suggest the correction to be, just in case that helps."
"Woah, Lissa," Al murmured, peering over Ed's shoulder to get a better look. "I hadn't even thought about looking at it that way… I just assumed it was all code, not real recipes."
Edward's brow was furrowed in thought as he scanned through what she'd written, his tongue poking slightly out of the corner of his lips. He stared in silence for so long she actually began to wonder if what she'd done was useless—until he looked up at her, grinning. "This is…a totally different perspective, Liss. I know you're tired but do you think you could work on this volume I've been using? I'm familiar with it and I'd love to see what you turn up, it's helping me look at it a different way."
And just like that, she was totally lost. "'Course I can, Ed. Here, hand it over." Lissa wanted to smack herself for giving in that easily, but when Ed beamed at her as he passed her the volume he'd been working on, she remembered exactly why she did things for him.
A few hours later, Lissa needed a break before her hand cramped up, so she left the boys working—Edward had her new set of notes to look through, so he was nicely distracted—and after making a loop of the building with Lieutenant Ross tailing her, she got it in her head to call Winry and check in. So she found the public phones down in the lobby, since it was part of Central Command, after all, and settled in to make her call.
"Rockbell Automail Outfitters, how can I help you?"
Lissa grinned and bit back a laugh. "I should probably make a deposit for the next time Ed ruins his automail, but that's not actually why I called."
"Lissa!" Winry's tone brightened immediately. "I'm so glad you actually called. I'm not used to getting updates, Ed and Al never bother picking up a phone. So how's it going? Did you find that lead you were looking for?"
"With a little difficulty, yeah. It's all coded, but we've been working on cracking it, so I'm hoping we'll get somewhere within a few days." Lissa twirled the phone cable around her finger, smiling to herself. She'd never had anyone to call and update before, and it felt…nice.
"Oh, man. You've been working on it all this time?"
Lissa leaned into the wall behind her. "Not exactly, no. I mean, the first five days we were just stuck waiting around. So it's been…ten?" She groaned to herself and passed a hand over her face, the world turning pink-red a moment as her glove flashed past her eyes. "Ugh. That sounds worse than it's felt, I swear. It isn't too bad, working like this, it's a big part of being an alchemist."
"I'd say that sounds boring, but the amount of work and research I had to do learning about automail was pretty daunting too," Winry laughed.
"I bet. I don't have as much stamina as Ed and Al, though," Lissa admitted, shrugging to herself. "I figured since I was taking a break I'd check in, otherwise my hand was gonna cramp up—I don't think I've ever been jealous of Ed's automail until now, honestly."
"Aw, well, don't let the boys work you too hard, okay?"
Lissa snickered at that. "I'm more worried about them, I keep having to remind Ed to eat or the dummy forgets completely. Don't worry, though, between me and Lieutenant Colonel Hughes, we're keeping them fed." That was true—after Hughes caught wind of their task earlier in the week, he'd started sending lunches to the little library room every day. It was sweet, and it saved Lissa the trip out, too.
"I don't know who that is," Winry told her honestly, sounding amused, "but thank him for me next time you see him, will you?" She sighed wearily and added, "Thank you for looking after them, Lissa. Really. It's so good to know they aren't handling all this alone."
She tightened her fingers on the phone cord just a bit. "They look after me too, y'know."
"I know. And that's good to know too." There was a clang in the background, and Winry muttered something unintelligible. "Ugh, I gotta go. This new model of a leg I'm working on is giving me some trouble… But it was so nice hearing from you, really. Thank you so much for calling."
She hadn't expected so much…genuine gratitude, especially since it was just her calling and not the boys… But Winry really sounded happy to hear from her. Lissa resolved to make a point of staying in touch with her, because clearly the other girl worried about the boys a lot. If she could help, then she would. "It's no problem. I'll try to keep you updated, Winry. And uh… Good luck with the leg."
Winry snorted a laugh. "Thanks, Lissa. I'll talk to you soon!"
"Bye, Winry." Lissa hung up and swung her legs off the bench, rising to her feet and stretching her back out as Ross approached.
"Friend of yours?" Ross asked her curiously.
Lissa nodded, just offhand, though she wondered if that was really true. She didn't know Winry very well yet. "She's a childhood friend of Ed and Al's, actually. I met her when we visited Resembool a couple weeks ago, and I promised I'd try to keep her updated on them since they never actually pick up the phone and call."
Ross smiled at her. "That's sweet of you, Cadet. It's nice, how you look after those two."
Cadet. Ugh. "I'm not a cadet," Lissa muttered, scrunching her nose up unhappily. "I'm not anything until I get to take my exams next year."
"Sorry," the Lieutenant apologized quickly, though she looked amused. "I gotta say, it's a bit weird working with such young alchemists. You and the Elric brothers are younger than anybody else we've been assigned to before, so we're…not always sure how to address you, I guess."
Feeling a bit bad for her gut reaction, Lissa flashed a smile and told her, "Honestly, first names are fine. None of us really fit in with the whole…titles and ranks stuff you see in the military."
She grinned back. "I'll try it, but I can't make any promises. Edward is technically a Major, after all, so he's a higher rank than Brosh or me. Most of the other state alchemists like going by their ranks, like Colonel Mustang, for example, or Major Armstrong."
"Yeah, but they're really active in the military itself," Lissa explained as they headed back towards the room. "Ed, Al, and I are just…researching, really. So it's a bit different for us, I guess."
"And you and Alphonse aren't technically enlisted, right?"
"Right. I will be, though, as soon as I turn sixteen." The thought still made her feel bitter, though she didn't let it show in her voice. Lying was going to be a big part of her life—she might as well get used to the habit, for her own protection. The only people she didn't want to lie to were Ed and Al, but that was different, really, they were her friends… Her family.
Ross frowned at her. "And that's…not a good thing, for you?" she edged, apparently picking something up. Lissa would have to work on that.
"No, it'll be nice to have a little freedom," Lissa dismissed quickly. Ross was active military—and even though she was one of Alex's soldiers, she didn't want to push her anti-military ideas on the Lieutenant. It just didn't seem fair.
Though Ross didn't seem to believe her, she didn't argue the point further, thankfully, and soon enough Lissa had stepped back into the small library room and found herself under Ed's curious golden eyes. "You were gone a while," he observed, his left hand still poised above his own notes, pen grasped between his fingers. "Everything okay?"
"Yeah, I just called Winry to let her know we're okay," Lissa told him, smiling as she slipped back into her seat. "Since you two wouldn't do it." She peered across at Ed's notes curiously, seeing that he'd been scribbling some additions of his own onto the ones she'd passed him, which… Did that mean she'd been useful? "Make any headway while I was gone?"
He grinned at her. "Actually, we did. I noticed a pattern in the things you wrote down, the parts of the recipes that wouldn't work in real life, and I've been following that… We figured out some of it and I think I'm pretty close to cracking what he has listed as the ingredients for the stone."
"Wait, the actual list of ingredients for a Philosopher's Stone?" Lissa clarified. She leapt out of her chair when he nodded and darted to stand behind him, wishing she could make sense of it the way he did—but she wanted to see it anyway, even if she couldn't quite understand it. "Ed, that's amazing. If we can figure out the ingredients then maybe…"
"Maybe we can make one ourselves," Al finished eagerly. "Exactly."
Lissa gripped Ed's shoulder tightly as he delved back in, her eyes darting across the handwritten lines, trying to see the pattern and the solution he was seeking. Some of it she could understand based on the annotations he'd done on her own notes—certain ingredients in the recipes corresponded to elements on the periodic table, which she assumed were parts of the stone itself. A significant portion seemed to be pretty reasonable to find, as well. It all just felt so possible that Lissa found herself just drowning in hope, truly believing this might work…
Until Edward staggered away from the table, his face contorted in horror, knocking his chair to the floor as he recoiled. "No…no… It can't be…"
"Ed?" Lissa glanced between him and the notes, baffled. "What's going on?"
He shook his head faintly. "Al… Please… Tell me that doesn't say what I think it does… It has to be something else…"
"Isn't what, brother?" Al asked him, getting up from his seat and going to check Ed's notes. Lissa stood just behind Ed, confused but unwilling to leave his side yet, not until she knew what the hell was going on here.
Al gasped and stepped back, horrified—then he sank down onto the floor and dropped his head into his hands. "Oh, no," he breathed.
Lissa had a horrible sick feeling in the pit of her stomach. Something was…wrong, so very wrong, but she couldn't piece it together. "What is it?" she asked softly. Ed looked at her, one gloved hand pressed over his mouth, and just shook his head at her. He couldn't voice it. So Lissa stepped past his fallen chair and leaned down to see his notes. She stared for a moment, trying to piece together what he'd found out, deciphering his handwriting and finding what the corresponding part in Dr. Marcoh's notes, her mind scrambling to understand.
Then it hit her. She could see it all, could understand the truth Dr. Marcoh had been so afraid to share… The gruesome truth within the truth.
"Human souls… The Philosopher's Stone requires…human souls?"
"As a sacrifice," Ed spat. "Our cure, the thing we've been hunting for three years now… It requires death. We'd have to use souls that have been ripped and reshaped from live humans to get our bodies back. Human lives, Lissa. That's what Dr. Marcoh was hiding. They killed people to make the complete Philosopher's Stone."
Lissa stared at him, covered in cold chills and shaking faintly. "B-but… There has to be another way, you haven't decrypted all his notes yet… There could be more, Ed, something else, another method for creating the stone…"
"Don't you get it?!" he snarled. "Everything we've been working for was fucking useless!"
She flinched as he lashed out, kicking Al's chair and sending it flying into the wall. Then he aimed for the research on the table, swiping it off and to the floor, and rammed his automail fist down on the surface. "Dammit! All that time, all the searching… For nothing!" Ed let out another angry cry and slammed his heel into the nearest book, splitting the spine, before he whirled and aimed to ram his fist into the bookcase behind him.
"Edward, stop it!" Lissa yelled. She shot towards him in a burst of blue alchemical energy and grabbed his wrists, holding him back from his onslaught.
He shook his head fiercely, looking so…unhinged it terrified her. "We have nothing now! All of this was just…" He wrenched free of her and stalked towards the table again, still wrathful. "To hell with it! All of it!"
Lissa shifted again, cutting across his path—but this time when she grabbed for him it was like all his energy left him at once. He crumpled against her, clutching at her shoulders for a moment, before his legs gave out and Ed dropped straight to the floor, head bowed, completely lost. She knelt beside him and touched her hand to his back as gently as she could, still in shock herself. How could this be true? How was it fair for this to be the end of their searching? Hadn't the boys suffered enough to deserve getting their bodies back?
The doors flung open, and Ross and Brosh stepped inside, looking around themselves in confusion. "Woah, what did you guys do to this place?" Brosh asked with wide eyes.
Ross gave the three an odd look. "Don't get angry because you can't crack it. Throwing things won't help," she advised. But she didn't know… Neither of them had any idea what had just transpired, they didn't know the extent of what they'd found…
"We did crack it," Al told them miserably. "We cracked the code and decrypted the notes."
Brosh looked between them in surprise. "Really? You did? But that's a good thing, isn't it? I thought you'd be celebrating."
"There's nothing good about it, dammit! This is the devil's research. It should've been destroyed," Edward snarled, slamming his automail fist on the floor. "Dr. Marcoh was right. It's evil." He brought the same hand up to his face, pressing it there, hiding whatever he was feeling from the soldiers. But Lissa knew. She knew him better, knew how badly he was hurting… She slid her arm across his back and leaned into him, lost but determined to help somehow. Even if it was futile.
"What's so evil about it?" Brosh pressed, still not putting it together.
Edward shuddered faintly underneath Lissa's arm. "The main ingredient for a Philosopher's Stone…is human life."
It was as though the air itself tinged with blood. The soldiers' shock pushed down on Lissa, hard, static across her skin. She didn't blame them. Nothing could make this okay.
"In order to manufacture even a single stone," Ed continued in a ragged voice, raking his hand down his face and staring unseeing across the room, his breathing unsteady and harsh, "you have to make multiple human sacrifices."
Brosh and Ross took a step back, reflexively. "How could the military authorize research into something so horrible?" Brosh gasped.
"I can't believe it," Ross breathed, shaking her head. "This is awful."
Ed shifted, his hand falling from his face, and let out a deep sigh. "Do us a favor… Don't speak to anyone about this."
Brosh bent to look at him anxiously. "But, sir…"
"Please." His voice cracked, and Lissa swallowed hard, suddenly on the verge of tears. "Just pretend you never heard any of it."
Lissa understood why—he was protecting them. The military's involvement in this, in the creation of a complete Philosopher's Stone… It was a horrific conspiracy that could ruin all their lives if it got out. There was no sense in dragging Ross and Brosh down with them, if this got out. Edward was trying to keep them from being involved. It was too late for him, Al, and Lissa… But he was still trying to protect as many people as he could, even when he was shutting down emotionally like this.
As Brosh opened his mouth to protest, Ross interjected before he could speak. "All right," she agreed softly. "We'll pretend we didn't hear anything." She sighed and looked around the room, surveying the chaos and destruction from Ed's anger. "Listen… Why don't you three kids head back to the hotel. Sergeant Brosh can escort you. I'll clean up here."
"But… Lieutenant," Lissa tried, not wanting to leave her to do it alone.
Ross shook her head. "It's all right, I've got it handled. You should all get some rest, though, you've had a rough couple weeks and it's late anyway."
Lissa nodded and stood up, stupidly hoping the boys would follow suit—but neither of them moved. She couldn't blame them. "Ed, Al, come on," she murmured, reaching out to rest her hand atop Al's head for a moment. "Let's go to the hotel, okay? Please?" She stood there helplessly as Alphonse stood up, finally, though Edward didn't move at all.
"Brother…" Al touched his shoulder gently. "Lissa's right. We should go."
Ed sighed roughly. "Yeah, okay." He shoved to his feet and jammed his hands into his pockets, and Lissa went to take his arm—only for him to step past her and make his way out of the door alone. She stood dumbfounded, her heart aching in her chest. He'd…never pulled away from her like that.
"Brother's just hurting, Lissa," Al told her softly. He carefully put his arm around her, dwarfing her with the size of it, and guided her out of the room to follow Ed. "Just give him a little time."
A little time… I don't know if time will fix this one, Al, I really don't.
