Chapter 3: Small Price
Edward Elric cracked one eye as he heard the bedroom door creak open--and shut it immediately at the bright morning sun filtering through the window flooded his bleary vision with unwelcome glare.
"Winry?" he muttered.
The warm weight under his left arm shifted slightly, murmuring. Having affirmed all was right with the world, Ed heaved a sigh, closed both eyes tightly and burrowed further into his wife's hair.
He had almost managed to nod off again when he heard a soft pattering noise. Ed resisted the urge to groan. It sounded quite a bit like small feet creeping stealthily across his bedroom floor, despite the fact that small feet had no business in his bedroom so early in the day.
Fortunately, he had enough experience with the phenomenon that he didn't start when a hand patted at his face. Ed merely closed his eyes tighter and prayed that the early morning apparition would take the hint and make itself scarce for another ten minutes…
Now little fingers were trying to pry his eyes open. "Dad?" a voice whispered. Of course she's whispering, Ed thought ruefully. She learned early on that Daddy's the one who'll put up with this kind of nonsense. Not to mention that NOTHING short of an earthquake, a flood, and an act of God wrapped up together had better wake her mother before seven in the morning…
The hands were getting more insistent, tugging at his hair and shoulder.
"Tri-shaaa," Edward moaned pitifully into the back of Winry's neck. "It's too early for this."
His daughter didn't acknowledge the simple truth of his statement. In fact, she seemed to take her father's semi-coherent groan as encouragement. Trisha hooked both hands around his arm, braced her feet against the bed frame and heaved at her recalcitrant father, trying to roll him over.
"You said…urg!...that we…unh!...were going on the train!…meh! Today!"
"I said today, Tri, not at the crack of dawn." Ed, refusing to be moved, was still speaking to the back of his wife's head.
"Wha…?" The movement from Edward being shaken by the nine-year-old had finally woken Winry.
"Your daughter's trying to haul me out of bed," Ed growled in her ear. "Despite the fact that I slaved for three weeks at East City just so I could get back to this bed. At the hands of General Bastard, no less."
"My daughter? Are you shirking your responsibility in this just a little bit?" Winry shot back sleepily. "Are the other two mine, too? Or are you trading her for them?"
"Anything that wakes me up this early is completely your fault."
"Uh-huh. How come?"
"Dunno. Wasn't it in the wedding vows somewhere…?"
"Mom-my." Trisha was appealing to the higher power. "Make Dad get up."
"Win-ryyyy." Ed locked both arms around his wife, using her as an anchor against the small body throwing itself backward against his weight. "Make your daughter get out of my room."
Winry only chuckled and pried at her husband arms. Edward, believing he sensed a reprieve, relaxed his grip…and was caught utterly by surprise when his wife gave him a sudden hard shove toward the edge of the bed. His daughter gave an especially hard yank on his arm at the same time, and their combined efforts achieved what Trisha alone could not. With a squawk, Edward flailed and fell sprawling onto the floor.
"Ow…" Ed looked up into two pairs of eyes, one an anxious gold, the other a pitiless sky blue.
"You heard your daughter, alchemy freak. Go get dressed."
He growled in response and stood up, rubbing at his bruised backside.
"You okay, Daddy?"
"Peachy." Winry was already snoring. Ed toyed with the idea of grabbing the blankets and yanking his wife off the bed…but only for a moment. Winry's wrench wasn't anywhere to be seen, but that didn't mean it wouldn't be introduced to his head within thirty seconds of his wife hitting the floor.
"Go get dressed, Tri. I guess we'll take the early train."
Cheering, his daughter pounded out of the room.
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An hour later they arrived at the station, just barely in time.
Most of that hour had been spent prying four-year-old Alfons Nikola and a pouting, stubborn William off their father's legs so he could actually move out of the door. Both the four- and the seven-year-old were resentful at Trisha's being allowed to go on a trip with their father while they stayed at home. The fuss woke up Al's six-year-old twins, who were staying with their aunt and uncle while their parents were out in the field. With a teary wail of "Please don't go too, Uncle Ed!" Louis and Richard added their weight to the assault.
Winry hadn't been any help at all. When the four younger children heard the door open downstairs (Edward had no idea how; he always tried to sneak out of the house without a fuss, but the kids had ears like bats) they all came barreling down and commenced pleading and whimpering to come along. And there was Winry, standing at the kitchen door, giggling and snapping pictures while Ed alternated between prying children from his boots and shaking his fist at his wife.
Trisha, on the other hand, had attempted to help by prying Niko off. That is, she tried to, but her little brother only whimpered and released one hand to snag her braid in his strong little fist. At this point Ed's patience, never extensive at 7:30 in the morning, wore thin. He started out the door, dragging the entire mass of squalling humanity with him.
They hung on grimly all the way to the road, the twins attached to his arms and William clinging like a burr to his left leg, forcing Ed to swing the limb like an awkward egg-beater to avoid braining the boy against the opposite knee. Niko brought up the rear, content to be dragged along on his behind by his father's coat hem. Still firmly attached to his fist was a pleading, scolding Trisha, walking bent nearly in half so that her little brother wouldn't snatch her bald.
Rounding out the impromptu Elric family circus was their audience. The inhabitants of Riesembul, being mostly small farmers, usually rose before dawn. Therefore most of the neighbors were awake to see Edward Elric, Fullmetal Alchemist and hometown hero, trudge by them with his own and his brother's progeny in tow.
Some of the women, (particularly Nelly, who had a large brood of her own) gave Ed commiserating looks as he passed.
Everyone else paid their respects by laughing themselves sick at the sight of him.
Eventually the three cups of coffee Ed had downed kicked in and granted him access to his sleep-numbed brain.
"If the whole lot of you don't let go and go home RIGHT NOW, I am going to alchemize ALL of your desserts into BROCCOLI for as long as you LIVE." The menace in his voice promised they might not have to endure the dreaded vegetable for very long.
Within a few minutes, the only sign of the boys were four dust trails on the horizon.
It was amazing, Ed marveled, how children complied with one's wishes when properly motivated.
They made good time after that, but he still had to sprint the last mile with Trisha on his back and a suitcase under each arm.
He dashed up to the ticket booth, gasped out "Two tickets", picked them up with his teeth and sprinted for the train. An amused conductor, long used to the sight of Ed's headlong dashes for the eight o' clock to Central, obligingly punched the tickets without removing them from Ed's mouth.
Edward skidded to a halt at the closest alcove, puffing, and leaned back so Trisha could slide off onto the seat. He heaved the suitcases onto the overhead rack, then flopped down next his daughter.
"Rehhhh." Edward sighed and sagged back, closing his eyes.
"Either you're getting too big, or I'm getting too old for this."
"You're not old, Dad!" Trisha stated indignantly.
Ed chuckled, putting his arm around her. "Thanks, Tri."
His daughter leaned into his side, and he brushed her fine, golden hair out of her face. His eyelids were already at half-mast, and he was hoping to nod off once the train started moving.
With one last cry of the whistle and the squeal of metal against metal, the train lurched forward. Not anticipating the sharp movement, Trisha would've flown head-first out of her seat but for her father's vast experience of train departures and his reflexive grab for her collar as she went shooting forward. He chuckled quietly as he pulled her back onto the bench.
His daughter's coat was the same that he had worn and Al had worn in his turn during their adventures all those years ago. True, Al hadn't been able to wear it long (much to Ed's chagrin, his brother had managed to outgrow it much faster than he himself had), but it had been kept safe and lovingly repaired, a tangible piece of their travels in both worlds.
It had been Trisha's favorite thing to sleep with until she'd been barely big enough to wear it (Winry had finally gotten tired of the way it dragged on the floor, and asked Arelana to hem it), and after that had worn it as often as she could.
From the time she could talk, Trisha had been demanding stories about her father's and uncle's adventures. And she was always so infernally easy to talk to, Ed thought wryly, taking it all in with those big, knowing eyes. Ed reflected that he'd told his daughter things when she was five that Winry had had to pry at him for years to know.
It was unfair of him, he knew, born of the fact that Ed saw a lot of himself in his daughter. He knew their bond would be strong, even when she was grown.
Her eyes were what gave it away. Gold as his own, wide-set and curious, they were eyes that always sought to understand, eyes that always asked why.
Strong eyes that look like they're gazing off into the distance… He smiled quietly to himself.
Edward's duster, on the other hand, had been a present from Winry in the same year he and Al had finally returned home once and for all.
The new cloak was a more sober red than the old one, made with tough, mid-weight duck for the outer layer and with soft black flannel lining the inside. It was a good weight, and suited all five-foot-six of Edward perfectly. The Flamel was emblazoned in black on the back and the left shoulder. Al had received one as well, its only differences being that the outer fabric was a soft gray (not to mention longer; Al had managed to top Ed in the end by a good six inches).
They were vast improvements over the old jacket. Winry showed them how both coats had a high collar and a hood that could be attached or detached by black, stylized steel catches no wider than Ed's thumb. The lining could be unbuttoned and discarded in warm weather. The last two inches of both hems were sown all the way around with tough-yet-supple black leather to discourage fraying. There were several large, well-concealed pockets both inside and out. The dusters were tough enough to wear in all weather, but the fabric was of good enough quality that the brothers could (and did) wear them for military functions.
Edward and Alphonse had been amazed by the craft and detail in them. It was as though Winry had committed every random complaint Ed had ever made about the cloak to memory and improved on all of them.
"Is it alright?" Edward remembered her asking when the brothers had had time to look their gifts over. She had been half afraid of encroaching on something that was to be shared only between them. Both brothers had eyed at each other, grinning, then looked back at Winry and declared in unison, "It's perfect."
Winry had been very relieved, and had gone on and on about how gray brought out Al's eyes, then commented slyly that now at least people would see Ed coming, as he was still just a bit on the short side. That got a rise out of him as she had known it would.
What Winry hadn't known was that Ed had caught the sudden gleam of tears in her eyes, and had carried on deliberately so she could recover before Al noticed.
Later that night she told him that to her the coat had been a reassurance. When they had worn it, he and his brother had always come back home.
"I know it's stupid. But I know you can't leave the military, at least not yet, and I wanted to…I can't go with you, but I want to be with you…and you always came back when you two had that coat… I guess I'm not making any sense…" She had laughed a little, not looking at him.
Ed had taken her chin in his hand, lifted her eyes so that the starlight over Riesembul picked out her tears, shining like seed diamonds in her pale lashes. "You do. I'm not going anywhere, Winry.
He had held her, rocked her, his own eyes brimming.
"Not ever again."
He swore then that he would wear that damn coat everywhere.
Edward's daughter shifted against him, bringing him out of his half-doze.
"Dad?"
"Mm?"
"What's this?" When Trisha moved her head, something hard had stirred inside her father's duster. She patted the spot curiously, and the something gave a muffled clunk against the shoulder plate of his automail.
"Just pictures."
"Pictures? Can I see?"
Edward shrugged carelessly. He groped inside his cloak pocket and brought out a scratched and dented steel case, which he passed to Trisha. The case had done time as a military-issue canteen before Edward alchemized it to suit its new purpose. His daughter pried at it with her finger nails until the lid gave a "pop!" and went skittering into a corner of the compartment. She lifted out the first one, and Ed leaned in for a look as well.
The first picture was of Winry, holding a very new, very wide-eyed baby. Ed didn't have to look at the date on the back to know which infant this had been. Only one of their children had opened her eyes and actually stared around avidly when she was born.
"Who's this?"
"That's you and your mom. The doctor was very impressed that you could focus on things when you were so new. Most babies can't."
His daughter grinned and hauled out the next one. "I know who this is!" she crowed.
Ed grinned too. The picture in question was one of him sprawled across the sofa, limbs dangling off the side, snoring with a book over his eyes and his mouth wide open. Sprawled belly-down and boneless across his father's chest was a two-year-old Niko, his mouth open just as wide as Ed's.
The next photograph was the only one of both Elric brothers together with all the kids save Niko. Ed remembered the day very clearly. It had been in the aftermath of the Great Bug Zapping Incident (as Al had termed it), when it was decided that all the Elric children were going to receive alchemy lessons twice in a week that either their father or their uncle was home. When school was on break, lessons were stepped up to every day at least one brother was around.
The short version of the Incident was that Ed had caught five-year-old Trisha doing alchemy outside in the dirt while four-year-old William looked on. That in itself wasn't so bad, despite the fact that Ed strongly discouraged his brood from using alchemy when he or Al wasn't around to supervise (Trisha especially was guilty of this; it was one of the few instances where Ed profoundly wished his daughter weren't so like him).
The bad part was that they had been using one of their father's arrays to blow up ants.
That was the only time Edward had ever taken a hand to his children. Once he realized what his son and daughter were so intent on, he'd collared both of them with his automail hand, laid them across his knee, and whacked them each once, hard, with the flesh and blood hand.
It was over almost before the kids had registered what had happened.
They certainly didn't have time to cry. Their father set them immediately in the dirt and explained to them that the pain in their backsides wasn't a trillionth of what the ants had felt. Edward grimly proceeded to tell them in graphic detail just how that array broke organic matter apart, shredding molecules into their component elements. Edward kept all of his notebooks under lock and key when they weren't in use, which meant that Trisha had once again alchemized her way past whatever barriers he divised. The purpose of the array she had obsconded with was to keep the household drains from clogging.
By the time he'd finished his explanation, both children were pale and round-eyed. Will had started to cry. Trisha was dry-eyed but shaking, staring at the ground, eyes refusing to stray anywhere near the array.
"Trisha, look." Edward commanded, then lay his automail hand across the array.
His daughter only had time to emit a strangled yelp before the array went off.
Then Edward lifted his steel hand out of the cloud of vapor, blackened but intact.
Now he yelled. "What if William had put his hand in the array? What if you had? Do you know what that would do to me and your mother? How you'd feel if one of your cousins or your friends stepped on this by mistake?"
Trisha couldn't pull her eyes away from her father's smoking prosthetic hand.
William was bawling in earnest now, and suddenly Trisha's face crumpled and she was crying too, hugging her brother and sobbing "I didn't mean to! I didn't mean to!" over and over.
Edward closed his eyes, hurting at what he'd done, and that doing it had been necessary. He had gathered his sobbing children in and held them silently while they cried themselves out. They clung to him like drowning men, Will clutching at his shirt and Trisha wrapped around his neck, apologizing over and over.
Will, as four-year-olds are wont to do, finished crying and immediately fell asleep. Ed held his son against his shoulder while the last of Trisha's hiccupping, wrenching sobs petered out. Then he explained in a quiet voice that the role of an alchemist, the role of a good alchemist, was to help the world around them, and to respect life in whatever form they found it.
"And it's not just you that you have to look out for. You're the eldest, Trisha. You're going to have to be responsible before Will is. You have to look out for him too, when your mom and I aren't there. Promise me?"
Ed had felt a quiet burst of pride when his daughter nodded solemnly, her face determined. "I will."
Two days later Alphonse had come home. Edward related what had happened and both brothers agreed that it was high time their kids had some instruction.
There was no time like the present, so that same day Edward and Alphonse had rounded up Trisha, Will, Louis and Rick and taken them off into the woods to practice.
The lesson had gone very well. All of the kids had a strong aptitude for alchemy, and Al and Ed kept things interesting. Then one of the twins had misdrawn their array and sent a glob of mud flying straight into Ed's face.
There had been a hush while the guilty twin gaped, frozen stiff as his uncle clawed mud out of his nose and mouth. Alphonse took one look at his brother and started laughing so hard that tears streamed down his face. His brother's eyes smoldering at him through their layer of sludge only set the giggling fit off all over again.
His fuming sibling retaliated by clapping his hands and dumping a wall of river water on him. Al, sputtering indignantly, slapped his hands together and shouted "You're not getting away with that!" He caught his snickering brother in the ear with a particularly rank patch of muck.
"Al, you backstabbing little traitor!" Ed roared as he struck the ground with open hands. Mud erupted around Alphonse.
But one flash of light later Al was safe behind a stone barricade. "Who's little?" he caroled back gleefully.
The mud fight—or rather, mud war—had begun.
Rick and Lou had backed their father up, while Trisha and Will joined the scrimmage on Ed's side. The kids soon defected, ambushing Ed and Al with alchemy-induced waves from the river. They managed to erect a barricade and scuttle behind it before either brother could retaliate.
The war soon degenerated into a squealing, yelping, mud-pitching free-for-all with the kids being sorely outmatched. Ed and Al didn't need arrays to sling mud; the only way the kids could keep up was to throw it. Al was keeping them pinned down behind their wall by way of a small, mud-lobbing cannon, and Ed was doing his part by constantly shifting the ground beneath them, making it impossible to draw an array.
Then one of the kids (Ed suspected Trisha) had the bright idea to transform their stone and mud wall into a monstrous, gaping mouth of sludge that lunged for the older Elrics. At the same time, Ed and Al constructed huge earthen hands that emerged out of the ground beneath the kids. With no one defending against either attack, everybody went flying into the river.
The trek home was slow going, both sets of cousins picking gobs of mud off their clothes and flinging them at each other. Ed and Al weren't any better. The brothers sparred and wrestled cheerfully all the way, with the kids occasionally jumping in to make it a six-way melee.
When they finally got back they had missed lunch by two hours. Every one of them was so clotted with mud, sticks and leaves that the only way to identify anybody was by height and eye color. Spotting them, Winry had grabbed the camera and Arelana had grabbed the hose.
Winry bullied them all into two lines, small Elrics in front and not-so-small in back.
That was the image Edward kept in the case in his cloak pocket: him and Al, with their arms around the other's shoulders and caked with enough mud that if someone tossed seed on them they would probably have sprouted, beaming at the camera with their four grinning, articulated globs of dirt.
Ed also remembered what had come after the picture.
Winry snapped two shots, then Arelana, who had snuck up behind them, unleashed the hose.
Click, click--fwa-WHOOOSH!
The two adult Elrics bore the brunt of the assault, yelling and cursing (mostly Ed), tripping over each other or the yelping horde, alternately trying to scatter or wrestle the hose or the camera away from their respective wives. Unfortunately for them, Lana's aim was uncannily good. She kept them well away from herself and Winry.
Those pictures, Ed knew, were the ones Winry kept framed over her work bench. One shot, a close up of Ed, was her particular favorite. Blinded by water, he'd run into Al, who had just started to stand back up, and gone flying over his brother's back…just in time to get shot in the face with the hose once again.
The picture caught Ed in his moment of flight, arms and legs outstretched on the air, his face totally obscured by the blast of water.
Hence the mischievous glint in his daughter's eye when she looked up at him.
"I like Mom's picture better."
Ed snorted. "Yeah, I just bet you do. You and your mother love seeing me make a fool of my…self…" He trailed off, suddenly aware of someone standing behind him. That someone had, in fact, been standing behind him for some time.
Edward turned back toward the aisle and locked eyes with a woman attired in an expensive-looking, dark blue suit.
"Is this seat taken?" she asked. Ed's eyes narrowed at her voice, which was a little too sweet and deferential to suit the cold behind her eyes. But he shrugged and nodded at the empty bench. "Go ahead."
Trisha, oblivious, had pulled out the next picture. "There's Uncle Al and me! I'm so little."
"You still are."
"Am not! I'm taller than Louis and Rick and Will!"
"Shorter than me, though," her father pointed out, tongue in cheek.
"Not for long! I'll be taller than Uncle Al before I'm through!"
Edward leaned down and kissed his huffing daughter on the crown of her head. "I know you will. That's why I'm teasing you now."
"Hmph." Trisha folded her arms and tried to glare, but her grin refused to be banished.
Just then the serving cart rolled up, pushed by a jolly-looking, middle aged man, and stopped before their alcove. "Sweets? Treats? Something to tide over the little miss there, sir?"
"You hungry, Tri?"
"Dumplings and syrup!" The aroma from the cart had informed his daughter that her favorite treat was aboard.
"I suppose that's a yes." Grinning, he turned back to the man to order, only to see a look of recognition spreading across his face.
Oh, great…Ed thought.
"Mr. Elric? Are you Mr. Elric the Fullmetal Alchemist, sir?"
Ed sighed and tried not to wince. Should've worn my jacket inside out. Bloody flamel's too recognizable. "Yes."
Fortunately, the older man interpreted Edward's expression and acted accordingly. He leaned in and said very quietly "The conductors, the engineer and the firemen told us pullmen that any Elric gets complementary service." He grinned, showing two gold teeth. "And I would've anyway sir. I was working this train when the Eastern Rebellion tried to kidnap that General.
He straightened again and grinned, flashing a golden tooth. "Your money's no good here, sir. And if that little lady belongs to you, she gets free eats, too."
"Yeah! Dumplings an' syrup!"
"Yeah, she's mine." No matter how many times he said that, Ed always felt like throwing out his chest and crowing. He held up three gloved fingers. "Three sticks each, then."
"Here you are. And here you are, sweetheart."
"Thanks, mister!"
"Thank you." Edward nodded to the man.
"Thank you, sir. Couldn't have you thinking trainmen have short memories, now could we?" Chuckling, he trundled off down the aisle. Ed kept his eyes on his food, fighting the temptation to check if anyone was peering around their seat at him.
"How's the food, Tri?"
"Good!"
"Ahh, your hands are already sticky. Here, hold mine while I pick up the pictures. And don't eat 'em; I didn't get breakfast, either."
Edward was bending down to pick up the photos that had fallen on the floor when the woman finally spoke.
"That's a very nice set of pictures, Mr. Elric. Where were they taken? At your home?"
"Just out in the sticks." Edward waved his one gloved hand casually toward the window and tried to look bored, but his jaw clenched. There was something about the way this woman talked that really bothered him…it reminded him too much of the coolly superior tone the Colonel had taken with him when he was younger. And made him bristle just as it had back then…
"Is this your brother? The so-called Soul Alchemist?" She was holding out a picture of Alphonse, laughing as the twins tried to wrestle him to the ground (Al had let them win).
Edward all but snatched the picture out of her hand. So-called, huh?
"Yeah. That's him." He bit the words off, irritated. If Trisha hadn't been with him, he would have ignored the woman until she returned the favor. But he didn't want to look rude in front of his daughter.
"Since you already know my name, it's only fair you tell me yours, Miss..?"
"Merel. Ms. Abigail Merel," She offered it with a cool little smile. She seemed very aware that her questions irritated him. Sometimes Edward wished he were a little less transparent.
"A pleasure, I'm sure," he mouthed the words tonelessly, but met her eyes as though he were trying to bore through them into her brain. What the hell does she WANT?
Suddenly he had a brilliant idea. "Trisha, you can have the rest. I want to get some sleep before we get off."
"Okay!"
"Don't make yourself sick," Edward added. He leaned back and closed his eyes. Ask your pointed little questions now, lady, he challenged smugly, but silently.
But Ms. Merel had one more ace up her sleeve. After almost ten minutes had ticked by she spoke again, this time to the smaller, feminine version of the man doing his best to pretend Merel did not exist.
"So your name is Trisha? That's a pretty name," she said, too-sweetly. Edward nearly "woke up" to glare at her.
"Yeah," Trisha replied. Ed smirked inwardly. Adults learned early that condescending to his daughter was a big mistake. Tri hated being treated as though she were stupid. And she the same degree of restraint when she was angry as Ed himself had at her age: precisely zero.
Ed resolved to sit back and watch the fun.
"And how old are you, sweetheart?"
"Twenty." Edward was hard put not to laugh at that one.
"You're quite a big girl, then," the woman continued blithely, rolling right over the sarcasm. "Does your Daddy teach you alchemy?"
"Sure."
"Are you very good?"
"I'm better than everybody except Dad and Uncle Al."
"Who else can do alchemy in your family?" The woman put a marked emphasis on can, as though she suspected that the little girl was puffing up her abilities at the expense of the non-alchemists in the family.
Trisha snorted. The lady had pricked her pride. "I'm better than William and Lou and Rick. Niko doesn't count yet 'cause he's a baby.
"But I'm the oldest," she added. She wanted to be fair; Will was a whole year and a half younger, and Louis and Richard were half a year behind him.
"Are those your brothers?"
"Will and Niko are my brothers. Lou and Rick are my cousins." Said as though any idiot could have figured it out. Ed could have whistled in gleeful admiration.
"Your brothers didn't come with you?"
"'Course not. Will came last time, and Niko's too little." Spoken from a lofty nine years of age.
"So they're back at home in Mallowpool?
"Riesembul," Trisha corrected. Her father winced mentally. She had just unwittingly confirmed what he hadn't wanted the woman to know.
But Merel seemed to back off. "Of course. They must've been sad to be left behind."
Ed felt Trisha shrug. "It's Will's turn to go next time."
"Did you know your Daddy's very famous?"
"'Course. He's the best alchemist ever." Again, Edward stopped himself from smiling by the skin of his teeth.
"Do you know what he's famous for?"
"Dad and Uncle Al tell me stories."
"But do you know what he's most famous for?"
"Being the youngest National Alchemist ever. Everybody knows that."
"Really? I heard it was because he's the only National Alchemist to ever murder a city."
Ed stiffened—
"You're a liar, lady." Edward snapped his eyes open to see his daughter standing, all clenched fists and hot yellow eyes.
"Trisha." When Edward spoke, he got a hot stab of satisfaction out of seeing the woman twitch.
"We're moving. Get your coat." He handed his daughter her suitcase, shot the woman a hard look and moved out into the aisle, turning back for his daughter.
Trisha stood with her suitcase in one hand and her coat in the other. Edward was startled to realize she was trembling. He reached out a hand to her, his voice gentle. "Trisha sweet, it's all right. She doesn't know anything about Al and me."
His daughter wasn't listening. She stared at the woman.
"You don't know anything," Trisha said, her high child's voice piercing the coach's sudden expectant silence.
"My dad never hurt anybody."
Edward took her hand, and Trisha allowed herself to be led from the compartment.
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It was a relief when the train finally ground to a halt two transfers and five hours later at Central Station. Trisha hadn't spoken since they had found new seats, and Edward had seethed in silence the entire time. Father and daughter had picked up their belongings and stepped off the train without a word.
Edward walked along with his suitcase slung over a stiff shoulder and one hand in his pocket, grinding his teeth and not really watching where he was going. He was sufficiently menacing in this pose, though, that he didn't need to; people on the sidewalk were giving him a very wide berth. Trisha followed in his wake, eyes on the ground. She was thinking very hard.
"Dad?" she murmured suddenly.
Her father stopped so fast that she nearly walked into him, but he didn't turn. "What is it, Trisha?" He was fighting hard to keep his voice level. It wasn't Trisha he was angry with. Hell, he wasn't even that angry about the woman had said; he'd heard it all before, and worse. He was angry that the fact that his family could be hurt because of him had once again shoved itself his face. He was absolutely furious that some strange woman had dared to drag up Lior in front of his little girl. As many times as it had happened—more than a few—it never failed to make him furious.
Mostly because he believed hearing these accusations over and over would instill in his children an inevitable question. And he was afraid this was the one his daughter was about to ask.
"Dad, did you really kill those people in Lior?"
After that question, it would not matter that he had not. The doubt would always be there. Edward couldn't turn, fearing if he did he would see that doubt in his daughter's eyes.
"Dad, why don't you tell people about Lior? About the scarred man and the Fuhrer person, who wasn't really human?" The words came flooding out, impossible to halt.
"People always say mean things about you, and Uncle Al too, sometimes. And it's not even for something you did! Why don't you tell them you didn't do anything?"
Trisha balled her fists and looked at the ground, squeezing her eyes shut in a transparent attempt to hide tears. She hated crying, especially where someone could see her. It was an odd point of pride that she shared with her father.
"Trisha…" Ed stopped. She still believes me. Still believes in me.
To say he was relieved would have been the understatement of the century.
Oblivious to the people around them, the Fullmetal Alchemist knelt on one knee before his daughter and trapped her hands with his own. Then he started again.
"Tri, I've never lied to you and I'm not going to start now. People will always say things like that about me. You don't know how sorry I am that you and your brothers have to hear that crap and be hurt by it." I'd put a stop to it if I could, he thought fiercely. "I'm sorry, sweetheart. It's not meant for you, and none of it is your fault."
"How come they do it, though?" Trisha forced herself to look her father full in the face.
The tears his daughter was screwing up her fierce little face to hide hit Edward like a knife shoved in his guts. He groped for a way to explain.
"Huh. Well…you know that General Mustang cleared me when I came back from across the Gate. He was there, and told the people who run things now what really happened, so I didn't go to jail.
"But a lot of people died at Lior. And their families didn't really have any proof that it happened the way Mustang and I said it did. Scar had been killed. He could never stand trial or answer for everything he did, so people couldn't really resolve anything. The families of all the soldiers couldn't know for certain that they had died for a reason.
"I was there, I had something to do with what had happened, and the government had classified the entire business. That's all anybody really knew, so it's not real surprising that some people drew their own conclusions about Lior."
There were some, Edward knew, who believed that he himself had caused the disaster, and the blame had subsequently been placed on Scar so that the military wasn't forced to imprison one of its most powerful and useful alchemists. He wished that the theory didn't make such awful sense.
Trisha sniffed and scrubbed at her face with her sleeve. "That's not fair."
Her father sighed. "No, Tri, not really." Fair never had anything to do with Equivalent Trade. And I did earn the bad feeling for Lior; I didn't lay the array on the city, but I couldn't do anything to stop it, either. "But that's the way it is."
Tri scowled. She didn't much care for the way things were. "One time when you weren't home, Reggie Brookley came over with his cousin. His cousin said that you should've been put in jail 'cause you killed our soldiers and helped the Liorans escape."
Ed frowned. It was the first he had heard of this. "What happened?"
"I punched him in the face."
Trisha made a face half-proud, half-embarrassed when her father chuckled. "I was angry! But after that Reggie's mom wouldn't let him play with us any more."
Glancing down suddenly, she addressed her next question to the sidewalk. "Can't you just get everyone together and tell them what really happened? Doesn't it hurt you too?" Trisha pleaded quietly.
Edward's memory flashed back to a moment from three years ago. He remembered the way his six-year-old daughter had held out the cart-crushed kitten hopefully, trusting that he could make everything better again. He remembered how her small face had crumpled when he had taken the mangled scrap of fur from her and shaken his head.
Can't you fix it, Daddy? she had asked.
Ed pulled his daughter in and hugged her tightly, feeling tears soak through his shirt when she buried her face in his shoulder.
"I'm sorry, Tri. It only really hurts me when my kids get hurt by it." He kissed the top of her head, absurdly grateful for the way the people around them didn't acknowledge their presence outside of an occasional knowing smile. "I thought being thought of that way was a small price to pay for getting Al's body back to him and getting back home.
"But I have your mom and you and your brothers and Al and your aunt and your cousins." Ed held his daughter out so he could look at her in the eye. He had to know she understood.
"Next to that, nothing else matters. So I can take anything people want to say about me.
"They could say I wear pink ribbons and dance naked in the moonlight and I wouldn't give a damn."
His daughter looked at him wide-eyed for a minute, startled, then burst into giggles.
Edward climbed to his feet, smiling the secret, quiet smile reserved only for moments like these. "Better?"
Trisha nodded and slipped her free hand into his. He squeezed her fingers, smiling when she squeezed back fiercely.
"Good. Now, off to General Shit so I can make him regret cutting my leave short."
"Dad?"
"What?"
His daughter flushed and looked down at her boots. "I just think…I just wanted to tell you…I think you're really brave."
—Al screaming, his fingers crumbling like ash as the gate swallowed him—blood rushing from the stump arm where his arm had been—blood on his hands as Greed's dying breath bubbled red from the homunculus's mouth—watching as Al read through another night spent without sleep, without a body, guts clenching as guilt and the fear that he would fail his brother ate him from the inside out—Scar's branded hand reaching out of the dark—Envy's jaws closing on his father—soldiers—screaming—hate—pain—fear. Fear always riding him, the only constant through most all of his life.
"I think you're really brave."
Edward Elric swallowed and closed his eyes against the memories. He faced his daughter instead, here and whole and real. "I try to be, dearheart," he said softly.
"I've always tried to be."
---------
The door gave a very satisfying crash as Ed threw it open and stormed through like a blond thunderhead, aimed unerringly for the dark-haired occupant of the vast desk set before the far window.
Brigadier General Riza Mustang, working at another desk to the right, acknowledged the Fullmetal Alchemist's entrance with a faint sigh. Yet however exasperating Colonel Elric could be, the general always had a smile for the young girl trailing in his wake.
Riza caught Trisha's eye and patted the front of her desk in mute permission. Trisha smiled and scrambled up to sit on the edge. Riza's orderly desk was the best seat in the house for the impending exhibition of verbal abuse.
"Mustang! What do you mean by giving me a week's leave and then cutting it off four days later? You bastard! I've got better things to do then hang around here with you." The you was spoken as though a tribe of incontinent baboons would be infinitely preferable to sharing the same air as the general, let alone the same room.
Ed caught his daughter pulling a face at him, the same one her mother made when she informed him that he acted more like a kid himself than someone with kids of his own. He winked in return.
Mustang merely leaned back in his chair, wearing the expression of careless arrogance that he did so well. The eye patch added a roguish touch. Despite the comment he had made ages ago that Mustang's headwear didn't suit him, with it Ed could see him swaggering up and down some captured frigate, complete with cutlass and evil chuckle, jabbing hapless victims off a plank. The patch had only made the pirate more visible.
"You should be grateful, Fullmetal. If I didn't remember to pull you out of the sticks once in the while, I might forget why I pay you."
"Like you could when you have me up here for months doing the work of three alchemists by myself and send Al to the ass-end of nowhere so I can't even compare notes with him.
"How the hell am I supposed to research what you tell me to research when I'm doing everybody else's work, and when I have free time to do research you make me come running back up here?" This was bellowed at the top of his voice, which was enough to make pens rattle on the desk. Edward's lung capacity was the envy of every drill sergeant in the Amestrian army. "You ever think of that, you incompetent, irritating, smug-faced, piece-of-shit excuse for a matchstick!"
Mustang pointedly studied his gloved hands, bringing two fingers and a thumb together in a vaguely menacing way. "Careful, Fullmetal. I've always been curious to see what you'd look like without eyebrows."
Ed thrust his chin out defiantly and snorted, unimpressed. "Take your best shot. It'll be worth it to see Winry beat your head in."
"How like you to hide behind your wife, Fullmetal, knowing that I am a gentleman who would never stoop to upsetting a lady."
"Who hides behind whose wife, General My-Wife-Actually-Does-All-the-Work-so-I-Can-Strut-Around-and-Not-Get-Shot-for-Incompetence, sir?"
Edward got a quiet chuckle from Riza for that one. He refolded his arms and smirked, knowing he had scored a solid point.
Roy's eye narrowed speculatively, causing Ed's smirk to falter a bit.
"As I was saying, it sounds to me as though I've been giving you too much paperwork, Fullmetal. Perhaps latrine duty would be better suited to a man of your…standing."
Ed's eyes narrowed. Had the bastard just made a shot about his height? "You make me shovel shit, you shit colonel, and it'll just end up in your office."
General Roy Mustang glanced up at Edward (the only time Ed got to look down on Mustang was when the older man was sitting and he himself was standing) and the younger alchemist's golden glare bore right back into his face.
They locked eyes like that for half a minute.
Then they both smirked.
"God, Edward. I must be slipping when an upstart like you can actually get the better of me."
Ed snickered. "Getting slow, old man."
"Only you could mistake age for maturity, Fullmetal. Who's that with you?"
Ed grinned and stepped to the side, revealing the small, red-clad form seated behind him. "Trisha came along for the ride this time. Tri, say hi to General Shit."
Young Trisha had met Roy Mustang for the first time when she was three. Ed had finally brought the toddler up to Central in the wake of a dispute with Breda and Havoc. Breda had voiced the opinion that a three-year-old couldn't possibly do alchemy, Ed insisted that his daughter could, Havoc informed Edward companionably that he was full of shit, and things had escalated from there.
Neither Havoc nor Breda voiced their doubts about Trisha's abilities after that (they still weren't sure what Ed had turned their uniforms into, but the two men had smelled worse than skunks for weeks and had no desire to repeat the experience), but Ed brought her along to prove it anyway.
Everyone immediately conceded to the beaming father that little Trisha was indeed exceedingly cute (which she was, but no one would have dared to not say it after what happened to Jean and Heymans). Mustang had gone so far as to say it was lucky she took after her mother, but he was the only one who could insult Fullmetal with near-impunity.
Once Edward set his daughter down Trisha, fearless in the face of strangers, ran straight to Mustang and peered up at him intently. Roy had looked disconcertedly down at the bright-eyed toddler who, despite what he'd said, lookedfrighteningly like Fullmetal when faced with a particularly complex problem of alchemy. Or when he considered just how he would pull off some expressly forbidden stunt…
"Kol…kol-nel…" Trisha attempted, her face screwed up in babyish concentration.
Her normally dignified father was nearly jumping up and down in pride and excitement, drawing incredulous looks and chuckling from Farman, Breda and Havoc. "Look! Look, she knows you and she's never even seen you before! MY LITTLE GIRL IS SO SMART!"
Mustang couldn't resist contributing to the general amusement at Edward's behavior. "It appears we have a true heir to Hughes in our midst. I'll remind you, Fullmetal, that an excess of five family photos carried on your person is in violation of this office's policy." The snickering from the peanut gallery choked off when Ed leveled a glare at them that might have scorched paint even divided between them.
The subsequent quiet allowed Edward's daughter to be heard with exquisite clarity.
"Kol-nel," Trisha repeated. "Kol-nel Shit."
Well pleased with her accomplishment, Trisha toddled the rest of the way over to Mustang, hugged his leg, grinned up into his astonished face and burst into peals of laughter.
All eyes turned back to Edward, who was staring wide-eyed and slack jawed at his daughter.
"I…" He swallowed. Riza was giving him The Look… "I didn't teach her that, I swear."
They eventually worked out that there was a picture of Mustang and the Elric brothers back in Riesembul. This picture received a great deal of abuse at Ed's hands, who, when summoned back to Central weeks before his leave was up (which he often was) or reassigned to complete or review someone else's project (which often happened), was in the habit of pointing at it and bellowing "Damn you, Colonel Shit!"
He hadn't realized that Trisha could see this picture from her perch in the high chair, where she was spooned her food while Ed tried frantically to finish whatever he was working on before he had to rush back to Central.
Edward babbled his confession hoping for clemency from Riza, who was giving her pistol a speculative look. "Please don't tell Winry," he begged unabashedly. "She'll kill me." He was fully aware that Riza and Winry enjoyed comparing notes on their children.
Mustang had raised one black eyebrow at Ed, then stooped and picked up the toddler attached to his leg. Unbeknownst to the general, Trisha loved to be held, had the tensile strength of elastic and could, much to her parents' dismay, climb like a monkey. The little girl immediately wrapped herself around Roy's head.
Even Edward was impressed (though he would never, ever admit it) by how Mustang managed to maintain his dignity in the face of Trisha Esmé Elric, the human cockle-burr. The trio had no such restraint. Breda roared flat out, pointing and holding his sides, and was quickly joined by Fury's high shout of laughter and Farman's deeper chuckle.
Mustang's voice was somewhat muffled by red corduroy, but still intelligible over the din.
"I see she takes after her father after all. God help you, Fullmetal."
Mustang came around his desk and bowed with a flourish, offering his hand. He always played the consummate gentleman with Trisha. Trisha, as always, bypassed the hand and hugged him like she was trying to squeeze the breath out of him. She liked Mr. Roy, and even though her father complained about him and at him all the time, his stories made him a hero too. She secretly thought they were a lot alike, though she was careful never to make that observation out loud.
Ed watched Mustang's face soften and smiled at the wall. If he ever harnessed his daughter's hugs as a weapon, he could doubtless rule the world.
"Trisha, it's good to see you again. You've gotten really tall…" his eye slid lazily to Ed "…unlike your father, who never bothered to grow up."
Edward didn't screech, but a vein stood out strong in his forehead. He gave Mustang a carnivorous smile.
"Better watch it, old man. Assessments are coming up, and battle assessments are still optional."
The general just smirked. "I'm not worried."
"I can fix that."
"Trisha, would you mind terribly if I turned your father into a torch?"
"I don't, but Mom might kill you with her wrench." Trisha grinned cheekily at her glowering father.
"It's a pity, Fullmetal, but I think I'd as soon avoid being beaten to death by your wife."
Roy cut Edward's snarl off as it began by turning to Riza. "It's about time to break for lunch, isn't it?"
His wife consulted her watch. "The Performance Review is due tomorrow morning, and the report from the Northern Intelligence branch needs to be--"
"I think we should break for lunch now," Roy stated, managing to sound blissfully unconcerned by a report that was easily worth seven hours of review and consideration. Riza sighed stoically.
"Young lady," Mustang addressed Trisha, holding out his arm. "How would you like to have lunch at my home? I'll even invite your father, though he's never done anything to earn the honor." Roy threw Edward a careless look over his shoulder.
Ed's eyes narrowed, but he let the sally pass. He wasn't one to jeopardize an invitation for free lunch.
"Dad, can we?" Trisha asked excitedly. She was practically swinging from Roy's arm. "I want to see how Mr. Roy's gloves work!"
Roy lifted a questioning eyebrow in Edward's direction.
"I described how your gloves worked once. Trisha's really keen to know what they're made of."
"I thought a prodigy like yourself would have figured that out, Fullmetal."
Ed smiled in a way that might have made a man quail, had he a lesser constitution than Roy Mustang. "Who's to say I didn't? But giving a nine-year-old the means to set things alight with a snap of her fingers didn't seem like the smartest thing, somehow."
"Dad said I could do it if I could figure it out for myself," Trisha added, pouting.
Roy smiled, but chose not to comment.
---------------------------------------------------
Mustang and Riza lived in a two-story house in the old district of Central. The foundations were heavy granite, with warm tan and cream brickwork above it. It wasn't the biggest home, nor the smallest, and one of the least pretentious. Its one outstanding feature was the huge, high-walled garden surrounding the house.
It was a beautiful April afternoon, so they set up a card table out back and had lunch in the sunshine. Mustang skinned out of his uniform jacket and gave Trisha a demonstration of his alchemic prowess in his shirtsleeves, culminating in a whirling procession of hundreds of tiny flares and sparks that split and ignited more of themselves, spinning through the air like demented fireflies. Another flick of his fingers and the flares winked out like bursting stars. The General bowed as the trails of afterglow faded, not even breathing hard, his cocky half-smile firmly in place.
Even Ed, knowing the sheer concentration and fine control it took to feed and coordinate the tiny pockets of oxygen, managed to clap grudgingly out of professional appreciation. Trisha whooped and demanded to see the general's gloves.
It was only after lunch, when Trisha had been summoned away from the table to demonstrate her own alchemic talent at Riza's behest, that Mustang revealed the true reason for inviting them to his home.
"Fullmetal, I have to know if you or your wife ever told anyone about how the Rockbells died."
Ed's head snapped up, eyes widening. "What?"
"You heard me. Did you?" Roy's face was utterly expressionless, but his voice was colder than a glacier and twice as dangerous to cross.
"No." Edward sat with his mouth open, trying to get the gears of his brain to mesh. His surprise had thrown him enough that he hadn't even thought to be angry at the accusation. "Nobody knows except me and Winry and Al. No one ever will." Edward closed his mouth and leaned forward on the table, looking Roy dead in the eye. "I swear."
Ed waited until the measuring look in Roy's eye faded before he turned away, watching Trisha practice.
"General…Roy…Al and I would still be stranded across the Gate if you hadn't figured out what we were attempting to do. I haven't forgotten, and neither has Winry." Ed's eyes lingered on his daughter chattering at Riza, bright and laughing and happy. Ed thought about how much colder and poorer his life would have been without her, or William, or little Niko, and felt icy fingers wrap around his heart.
"I didn't leave Winry alone. I was there when all three of my children were born. I was there when Al's sons were born." Edward Elric spoke to the table, his voice barely above a whisper but somehow more piercing than his customary furious shout or hiss of disapproval. "We got to tell Elysia ourselves what her father did for us. We got to come home."
Edward lifted his chin and looked the older man in the eye. "All of that. It's your fault, you shit colonel. I haven't forgotten. And I refuse to stay in debt to such a bastard." He growled the last with a sour grimace that nearly succeeded at hiding his smile.
Roy sat back in his seat, relaxing out of his mask of the cold-eyed, implacable general. The tiniest smirk flared to life and crept slowly across his face. Leave it to Fullmetal to make gratitude sound like a threat.
Edward frowned at the smirk, eyes narrowing. "What is that? What is that look?" His eyes widened. "You bastard. Did you just put me through that shit for fun?"
He choked off the rest of his tirade as Mustang held up his hands and shook his head in mute appeal. "I apologize, Edward. I would not have done it if it hadn't been necessary to verify you were not the source of the information leak."
"What leak? What do you mean?" Ed hated manipulation in any form, and his tone warned that Mustang had best explain himself quickly.
Roy's eye glanced at him, then flicked away to Riza, who was smiling at the mastiff-sized stone lion that Trisha had just alchemized. One of Black Hayate's descendants sat at her heel.
"A woman came to my office last week to interview me for a newspaper. She danced around it for a while, but finally asked why the military covered up your responsibility for Lior." Mustang paused as Ed grimaced, watching him carefully.
"When I told her that she had been misinformed, and it had been Scar, not you, who laid the array on Lior, she asked if covering for you had been the price of your silence about the murder of Rockbells."
Edward's breath hissed from between his clenched teeth. "What did you do?"
The tightness in Roy's face faded, and his smile became sincere as he looked at his wife.
"I didn't do anything. Riza chased her off." His eye flicked back at Ed, and now he looked concerned.
"You had best keep your ears and eyes open. Whoever she is, she seemed out for blood."
"Did she say what paper she was with?"
"She's the main reporter for the Central Distributed's so-called investigative column. A scandal writer named Merel. I didn't find out until later."
Ed sucked in a breath, feeling a scalding surge of rage. "That's who that was?"
"What?"
He shook his head angrily. "Damn it. I wish I'd known that earlier. A woman named Abigail Merel came up to us on the train."
"What happened?"
Roy resisted the urge to lean away from the patch of air that suddenly seemed to boil around younger man. His face had twisted into a malevolent mask, a fanged, fire-eyed avatar of wrath that the Flame Alchemist remembered with a certain amount of trepidation. The fourteen-year-old Fullmetal had certainly had his moments of infamy, especially when it came to remarks on boy's height. But Mustang had discovered that a thirty-something Fullmetal who had fathered three children was a far more formidable animal.
The general had first witnessed this darker aspect of Ed's personality when he had dared infringe on the unspoken, inalienable agreement that Ed would always be present for his children's birthdays. Roy had failed to note the date and sent Edward off. The mayhem glinting behind the yellow eyes was dismissed as Edward's usual attitude of willingness and cooperation.
When Edward returned to Central, things started exploding. When Roy touched his food with his fork, when he opened a filing cabinet, when he went to the men's room (that incident had been by far the most mortifying), whatever he came in contact with would explode in his face.
Roy, not wanting to show weakness (and unable to catch Ed in the act) had endured this for three weeks before he finally snapped and threatened Colonel Elric with a court martial. Ed failed to show the slightest bit of repentance. In fact, when Roy accused Edward of regression to his twelve year old brathood and disregard for property before threatening to toss him in the stockade to teach him better respect, Ed had jumped up, stuck his face in his superior's and bellowed at him semi-coherently for ten minutes straight. The majority of the tirade was a torrent of abuse against Mustang, his ancestry and his personal habits. Yet from it the Flame Alchemist was able to glean that the trigger for his three weeks of hell at Fullmetal's hands had been when Ed's reassignment caused him to miss his youngest son's birthday.
Neither man had apologized, but objects ceased to spontaneously combust in the General's presence after that. Mustang, realizing that when it came to his progeny Colonel Elric was clearly unreasonable, uncompromising and utterly irrational, had his wife call Winry. He requested that the brigadier general take down the birthdays of all the Elric children and never fail to schedule Edward's leave to coincide with those dates (he assigned the duty to Riza knowing that if she forgot, her pistol inspired far better behavior in the colonel than he, a general, ever had).
When this monstrous aspect appeared, it only could only mean some perceived slight had been dealt Ed through his children, and that an unfortunate someone was about to buy the heavy end of the hammer. Mustang hoped it wasn't him; he had been the one to pay for damage inflicted by Colonel Elric the last time. He wasn't certain his office budget could bear that sort of strain again.
"She told Trisha that I was best known as the State Alchemist who had murdered a city." Edward half-hissed, half-growled the words.
It was Roy's turn to look shocked. "In front of Trisha?"
"To Trisha. I was trying to ignore her so she'd leave. But that bitch started talking to my daughter and I didn't have the sense to get out of there," Ed rumbled, closing his fist so tightly against the table that his knuckles cracked. "Bad enough that I thought she had lost somebody at Lior. But to have it turn out to be one of those bloodyrumor mongers…" Mustang watched Edward impassively, making a mental note to smooth out the dents Fullmetal's namesake was leaving in the table.
"Are you talking about that scandal writer?" Riza asked quietly, making Ed jump. He hadn't heard her walking up behind him. She stepped around the table to lay an unobtrusive hand on Roy's shoulder, who covered it with one of his own. Edward checked to make sure Trisha hadn't followed Hawkeye, but his daughter was still out on the lawn playing with the Hayate look-alike and two puppies who had decided to join in the haphazard game of fetch-and-chase.
"Yeah. I was telling Roy that I'd had a run in with her on the train here this morning. She…" Ed trailed off. "It wouldn't have mattered if Trisha hadn't been with me. I'm supposed to protect her from crap like this."
Ed put a hand over his eyes, getting a grip on himself. After a minute his temper had cooled enough to let him realize what his metal hand had done to the table.
He caught sight of the damage and winced, avoiding Riza's gaze. Hurriedly he slapped his hands together and reformed it. "Sorry," he apologized, still not quite looking at her. He hadn't lost control like that in a long time.
"It's all right." Hawkeye nodded calmly. "Did you talk about Alphonse and the Southern border yet?" she asked her husband.
Roy would've sworn he could hear Ed's ears pricking up. "What about Al?"
"Jean called and said that Al's mission went well enough. He wanted me to relay the Lieutenant Colonel was fine before you called and harangued his aides."
Edward flushed. He had indeed done exactly that when his brother was new to his post. Later Al had calmly demonstrated to his older brother that he was at least as capable of taking care of himself as Ed by wiping the floor with him, in public and with prejudice. Which was probably why it had happened only once.
"Which brings me back to why I tapped you before your leave was up," Mustang continued. He leaned forward, speaking more softly. "They found human chimera."
Edward sucked in a breath. After a minute he said: "Was I right about why those kids were disappearing?"
"I don't know," Roy replied, just as soberly. "Jean didn't want to say much, even over a secure line. But Badenmeyer's team was recovered, and it seems the men who survived were…altered."
"Damn," Ed swore feelingly, though quiet enough that his voice wouldn't carry to Trisha playing on the lawn. "Did they get the alchemist who did it?"
"It appears so. Jean wanted you and the MPs on standby when Talbot ordered them back to Central." Mustang straightened, half-smiling. "Aren't you glad I cut your leave short?" he asked ironically.
Before Ed could reply, the sound of a door slamming inside the house made the adults turn. "That'll be Maes," Riza said.
"Mom? Dad? Are you home?" A boy's voice called from inside the house.
"Out here, Maes."
Edward watched as a raven-headed boy, hair thoroughly mussed and already halfway out of his school uniform, emerged from the house. Riza's chestnut eyes, sharp chin and serious demeanor were strong in his face. Yet the eleven-year-old, Ed noticed with a smirk, had clearly inherited his father's swagger.
Maes squinted at the blond newcomer, then broke into a run. "Uncle Chibi!"
Mustang smirked as Ed pretended to growl in protest of his son's pet name, but smiled all the same as the boy skidded to a halt. When Ed and Al returned from whatever lay on the other side of the Gate, Maes had been one year old, and his "Aunt" Winry had been a babysitter and willing admirer during the Elric brothers' absence.
At first Edward had been less than enthusiastic about Mustang-spawn being underfoot for an occasional weekend or the rare campaign that called for the General and Hawkeye but not Ed himself. He hadn't been shy about saying so, either. Yet as the years had passed, Ed's complaints became rarer and less vehement, seeming more and more like a show of reluctance than the genuine article. It wasn't until Riza had gone to retrieve her son from the Elric household at Central and caught the colonel breaking down complex principles of alchemy for an eager, dark-haired nine-year-old along with his own tawny-headed imps that Ed's display of annoyance stopped entirely.
"Hey short stuff," Ed smirked back. "How's school?"
"Dull. Thanks for those alchemy books you lent me. They got me through religious studies without dying from boredom." Ed imagined that Roy's eye-roll had looked much the same when the general had been his son's age.
"You've been reading in class again?" Riza's tone could have made a rampaging bear stop in its tracks.
"No," her son replied, too quickly. His father winced. Ed grinned. "So busted."
But fortune intervened on Maes's behalf.
Trisha had been eager to practice an array of her father's she had been trying out secret. It worked by pulling common elements together to react and propel a neutral object. Taking her chance to try it while the adults were occupied (and thinking it better to ask forgiveness than permission), Trisha had been using the array to make the ball fly upward. The aim wasn't that accurate, but the ball went far. A little too far, as a matter of fact…
Uh oh… Trisha thought.
The only warning the adults had was a yelp of "Look out!" from the younger Elric and a descending whistle from above. Edward (whose reflexes had been honed by his adventures as well as a near decade of child-rearing) immediately flung himself away from the card table.
Riza backed to a safe distance, but when Mustang tried to shove his chair backward its legs caught on the grass and flipped him onto his back. He watched helplessly as the ball descended toward his face. It impacted with a thud three inches from his right ear and rebounded high into the air, bouncing merrily across the lawn until it rolled to a stop just short of the bay doors. Roy sighed in relief. He hadn't wanted to explain that he'd lost the other eye to a nine-year-old with her father's penchant for experimentation.
And then the dogs stampeded. The puppies, fortunately, were still fairly small, but the older dog leapt up, cleared the table…and landed squarely on Roy's chest, knocking the wind out of him. Then the general had an excellent upside-down view of three canine backsides as the dogs pelted across the yard after the ball, not sparing him a backward look.
Trisha squealed. "Mr. Roy! Are you okay?" She came running up to them.
By then Mustang had rolled to his feet with as much dignity as a man who'd been trampled by seventy six pounds of dog could muster. Which wasn't much. Salvaging his pride in the face of an eleven-year-old sniggering at him and the merciless laughter of Fullmetal was like assaulting a fire-storm clad only in cotton swabs. It was futile, it was painful, and you were going to look like an ass despite all your efforts.
Even his normally stone-faced wife was attempting to stifle a giggle as she leaned over to help him to his feet.
"Nice shot, Trisha," Ed snickered as his daughter ran up.
His daughter shot him a look as she went past, but schooled her face into something more apologetic as she came up to Mustang. "I'm really sorry," she said.
Mustang shrugged, smiling faintly, but eyed her father opaquely the entire time. Ed noticed the stare and gave his superior a toothy smirk. That seemed to decide Mustang, who immediately spun on his heel and marched into the house.
Riza watched him go, wondering what her husband was up to. There'd been a glint in his eye that didn't bode well for someone…She caught Edward's attention with a glance; he was still snickering as Trisha insisted nearly getting brained and then stampeded was not funny.
"If I were you, I'd find out what he was doing before I regretted it," she informed him bluntly.
Ed looked up, concern flitting briefly across his face. "What is he doing?"
"I don't know, but he's on the phone with someone. And I just heard your name."
Concern ignited into full-fledged alarm. Ed jumped up and sprinted into the house, his tied-back hair snapping out like a banner of war.
"What're Dad and Mr. Roy doing?" Trisha asked as she came up behind Riza. As she spoke there was a bellow from inside. Maes looked around expectantly as his mother sighed and Trisha started, recognizing the yell for her father's.
Riza sighed again as another bellow echoed across the lawn. "I suspect we'll find out shortly."
Maes grinned. He knew you couldn't pay for entertainment like his father and the Fullmetal Alchemist. His grin got wider as the yelling got more articulate.
"WHAT THE HELL DID YOU DO THAT FOR, YOU BASTARD?!"
"Honestly, Fullmetal, one would think you would thank me for the chance to be fawned over by your fellow alchemists--"
"THAT'S EXACTLY WHY I DON'T GO! EVERYONE COMING UP AND GAWKING AT ME, YOU ASSHOLE!"
"If you're thinking about calling and backing out, don't bother. I already called Winry."
"YOU—"
Mustang suddenly emerged from the house, looking smug but walking fast.
"—SHITHEAD—"
A blonde streak shot through the doors, teeth bared, flesh and metal arms each outstretched for the general's throat. Mustang abandoned his pretense at walking and broke into a sprint, moving impressively for a forty-year-old who was laughing his head off.
"—COLONEL!"
The chase ended as abruptly as it began. Riza, knowing it was only a matter of time before one of them resorted to alchemy and destroyed her yard, drew her pistol and aimed it unerringly at Edward. The younger man caught the flash of metal and reacted accordingly—he yelped and threw himself flat. However, he had been close enough to Mustang when he dropped that his steel hand caught Riza's husband across the ankle. For the second time that day, the general went flying.
Riza thought her husband's arc through the air was rather graceful, even if the way he planted himself face first in the ground spoiled the effect.
They sprawled there, unmoving. Riza wondered if they were both too mortified at their behavior to get up. She doubted it, but there was always the possibility.
Eventually Roy spoke. "Well done, Fullmetal." It was amazing how he could manage to be sarcastic even through a mouthful of dirt.
"Shut up, old man. You can thank Riza that something worse didn't happen to you," Ed growled back, still face down in the grass.
Riza sighed. "Roy, stop antagonizing Edward and explain why you want him at the convention. I'm going to clean up." She and Trisha picked up the dishes. It only took a glance from his mother for Maes to grab the tablecloth and follow them inside.
Hearing Hawkeye's footsteps retreat into the house, Ed sat up and brushed grass off his vest with short, irritated smacks. "You actually have a reason for this besides torturing me?"
"Ha." Mustang smiled crookedly over his shoulder, rose to one knee and stood. "That is a bonus.
"But the real reason is that this convention will have a special exhibition for youths exhibiting talent in alchemy. They were planning to showcase only those over ten, but I suspect that rule is being broken into small pieces as we speak."
Ed gave him a nonplussed look. "So…?" He knew Roy wouldn't have looked nearly so pleased with himself if this weren't something more than showing off the kids' skill in alchemy to dried-up, pompous old men.
"So I've been dropping a few hints to some of the more prominent professors of alchemy that this would be a prime opportunity to scout for talent. I was hoping one of the universities would offer Maes a scholarship. There'll be some politicians looking for publicity as well, so if you promise to be on your good behavior, perhaps I can convince them you aren't the monster that Merel is making you out to be. Even if everyone knows otherwise." His smirk grew a little wider as Ed glowered at him.
"So Colonel Elric, do I have your cooperation?"
Ed huffed, sighed, smirked wryly. "One day we should play poker instead of chess. Then I'd definitely win."
"It will never happen, Fullmetal. This general knows better than to pit himself against Elric luck. Or Elric slight-of-hand." Roy shot back just as wryly. Ed pretended to take offense.
"Speaking of Elrics," Mustang added. "I need to inform Alphonse about the convention. Unless you want to tell him?"
"Yeah, I will. He's coming back from the Aerugan border tomorrow. Arelana too. That's the only reason I let you drag me back up here." Ed threw Roy a shark-eyed look.
Roy merely sighed tolerantly, as though indulging a ferocious kitten.
He added, "It's formal wear, so come prepared."
"Ah, damn." Ed raked his fingers through his hair, disgusted. "I hate dress uniforms."
"That's reasonable. You lack the air of maturity needed to carry them off well." It wasn't true, but Roy simply couldn't resist such a tempting target.
"WHO'S SO SHORT HE HAS TO RETAILOR UNIFORMS BECAUSE HE CAN'T WEAR NORMAL SIZES?!"
The quarrel might have started all over again if not for a timely save by Maes.
"Dad! Mom says to tell you that if you can't play nice with the other kids, she'll have to shoot you both," the boy sang out cheerfully from the door.
Mustang shrugged at his son and smirked at Ed, who gritted out a smile that was all tooth. "Please tell your mother that won't be necessary.
"As I was saying, it's formal wear, but no uniforms. We shouldn't look tied, visibly at least, to the military. Not with Hakuro there, and not with the sentiment some civilian alchemists have against those employed by the military."
Ed's eyes narrowed thoughtfully. "In order to give the kids the best chance, without getting singled out by bias against me or you."
Roy smiled faintly and nodded. "If that's avoidable at all. It's probably…a wasted effort."
"Is Hakuro getting to be that big a problem?" Edward made an educated guess as to the reason for Mustang's caution. His tone was concerned, and for good reason. Hakuro was still one of the strongest of the old faction of the military, what had been the Fuhrer's sycophants and most ardent (and most corrupt) supporters. Even with the new democracy firmly in place, that faction still wielded a great deal of political power. General Hakuro in particular had made his animosity toward Mustang clear. It was due in large part to him that Mustang's every promotion and commendation had been a struggle.
Mustang shrugged nonchalantly, not meeting Ed's eyes. "It's enough that he went out of his way to tell me that he'd be there."
"Huh…" Ed frowned, considering, then grinned abruptly. "Wait a second. He's trying to make you edgy at an alchemy exhibition? Is he an idiot? Why don't you accidentally set his hair on fire, or better yet, let Maes do it."
Hearing laughter, Riza peered through the kitchen window into the backyard. She smiled, snorted a little in amusement and went back to scouring the pot in her hand.
"What's happening out there, Mom?
"Nothing. I was just making sure the laughter wasn't because one of them killed the other."
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End of Chapter 3. Hoped you liked it, Frauen und Herrn