Greetings! This will be the last time I greet you guys for a little bit. Yes, this is my last planned chapter of this fic. But never fear! As soon as this gets uploaded, I will begin work on my next FMA fic, a lovely little angsty Al-centric story that might actually have (gasp!) a plot! I will start posting it when have all/most of it finished. Feel free to PM me or contact me on AIM (rosie2282em) andthreaten meto keep me working on it!
Ahuge GIGANTENORMOUS thanks to CaptainKase, my new beta! When I dedicated the first chapter to this amazing authoress, I had absolutely no inclination that I would be blessed with the honor of having her advise me on my work. Many many hugs for you dearie!
Sera and Tails: Thank you so much! Yes, of course the chapter had to be written with love... it had the world's two best brothers in it:-D
CaptainKase: I won't talk your ear off here, since we have chatted much since your review and OMG THANKS FOR THE BETA! But yay for record length reviews! -dances- And now I will never be able to read that chapter without imagining Al bursting into flames. Thanks. :-P
Angel Spirit: Hurray for no Elricest! Yet another kindred spirit! -hugs- I agree that Al was probably the more protective brother in this timeframe... but even throughout the series, I think that "protectiveness" was a two-way street between them. They just expressed it in different ways.
please-knock: I love the pie:-D I would have made it key lime pie (yummy X 100) instead of apple, but I'm not sure if they grow those in Resembool. Ah well. Glad you liked it!
Beboots: Yes, we fastforwarded in time. :-/ I would have loved many more chapters of convalescence... but I would have eventually run out of things to write about, and then chapters would have started sounding the same.
Child of a Pineapple: Yay! Glad you enjoyed it! -hugs- Here's the next chapter for you!
Medical Disclaimer - Again, I am no medical expert. I try to be as accurate and realistic as I can, but don't take things I say for exact medical truth. However, make I make note that many areas of this chapter are, in fact, based on fact. I had a friend once who had a disease that shot her nervous system, and she had to regain her fine motor skills. She was able to tell me about the process (such as the little exercise Ed goes through!).
To Train the Body
"Touch my finger, touch your nose. Touch my finger, touch your nose. Touch my finger…"
"Hey Al, remember what Teacher always told us? About training the mind?"
"Touch your nose… she told us that to train the mind you must also train the body."
Ed snorted as a cold, metal finger poked his nose. "Makes you wonder what awful things this is doing to my mind, doesn't it?"
"You're slowing down the pace. Stop talking," came Pinako's voice from across the room.
Al tensed. "Yes ma'am! Touch my finger, touch your nose. Touch my finger, touch your nose…" and so continued the monotonous chant.
According to Pinako, this exercise was vital to gaining accurate mobility in his automail arm. So she trained Al to help Ed perform this exercise three times a day for thirty minutes. Not that Al needed much training. His job consisted of sitting in front of his brother, perfectly still, with a hand raised and one finger extended, repeating, 'Touch my finger, touch your nose.'
Ed, meanwhile, would attempt to follow these commands. As easy as it sounded, the task was monumentally difficult. Al's index finger had never before seemed smaller or farther away. Hesitancy was not permitted during this exercise. The rate at which he needed to obey Al's directions was relentless.
Almost constantly, Ed would unsteadily reach out with his automail arm, shooting for that reference point –
- and miss completely. These moments always infuriated him. How hard is it to tap a damn finger? Not only that, but bruises were beginning to form where Ed had bypassed his nose and jabbed himself in the eye.
Ed could see it now. He'd finally make it to Central to take the National Alchemist Exam, and the first thing Lieutenant Colonel Mustang would notice would be the dark smudges under his eyes. 'Oh – no, no,' he could picture himself saying. 'These purple blotches aren't from lack of sleep. I only punched myself in the eye a few hundred times during physical therapy and was in such a rush to get here and kiss your ass that they didn't quite have time to heal.'
What a joke.
Both Winry and Pinako assured him that it would get easier as time went on. The new, fragile nerves in his arm, they said, needed to be conditioned before they could acquire any semblance of precise movement. Until then, the movements of his automail were errant and likely to misfire.
All Ed knew for sure was that he was sick of it all.
Ed reached out on a 'touch my finger,' and only hit air. He growled and tried again. The endless cycle of boredom and humiliation continued, broken only when Pinako declared the thirty-minute workout complete.
She didn't know whether to laugh or to be concerned.
Winry had spent the last forty-five minutes closed away in her room organizing screwdrivers into numerical order by size. It had been a while since she'd given her toolbox a good cleaning. There was still so much to be done! The power drills had yet to be cleaned and the wrenches were in need of a good polish.
So it had come as a sudden unwelcome distraction from her work when she heard a shouted "Dammit!" coming from the room next door.
"What is it this time, Ed?"
Fully prepared to be angry and annoyed beyond belief, she stormed down the hallway, throwing open the door and planting her hands on her hips.
"Ed, what – " A flash of white at her feet caught her eye. She looked down at the substance in question, and found that it was powdery and grainy, spider-webbed across the floor in a very familiar way. Chalk?
"Don't even think about laughing, mechanics junkie."
Truth be told, Winry was too puzzled by the scene that greeted her to cook up a comeback to his remark.
Edward sat in the middle of the floor with a wet mop in his hands. The bucket of soapy water lay on its side, and the amount of liquid splashed on Ed explained the shouted curse. He was clad in nothing but a pair of boxers, which seemed to be soaking up more water from the puddle on the floor than the mop, and a gray collared shirt that hung on him solely by the left sleeve. His hair was messily tied up with a rubber band, several tangled strands hanging loose over his pouting face.
He was a mess.
Beside him lay some piece of dishware that was shattered beyond recognition. Winry's attention was drawn back to the chalk on the floor.
Not being able to help it, Winry raised an eyebrow at the wet, sulking boy before her. "You've gotten yourself into strange situations before, Ed, but I have to say, this one takes the cake."
"Shut up," Ed growled. Gripping the mop, he tried to use it to level himself to his feet, but he seemed to be having trouble getting the automail leg to bend beneath him. Before long, he gave up and flopped defeatedly back down in the puddle.
Winry sighed. She knew that he must have slipped, because otherwise he would not have been on the floor. Despite how much he had progressed with the physical therapy (he could walk steadily now, albeit with a slight limp), he still had a long way to go. Standing up from a chair was difficult for him – standing up from the floor would be near impossible.
Striding over to him, Winry took the mop and leaned it against the wall. "Come on," she said, "let's get you up off the floor so you can tell me all about how you got into this ridiculous mess."
She held out both hands, braced her feet as he grasped her wrist (though the fact that he hadn't yet mastered his metal hand was apparent when he grasped just a little too hard) and offered her strength to help him pull himself up. He swayed as he stood. Winry was patient, serving as his support while he regained equilibrium in his unbalanced body.
As soon as she was sure he was steadied, Winry released her hold on him. Pulling open his dresser drawers, she began fishing for some dry clothes. She noticed how he leaned up against the wall. It was apparent that he didn't want to go through the trouble of sitting down again. He was toeing idly at the broken pieces of dishware.
"I didn't know you'd started using alchemy again," she said suddenly.
Ed looked up, his eyes wide. Then he sighed and thunked his head back against the wall. "I haven't. Not yet, anyways."
"These are transmutation circles, aren't they?" Throwing a pile of clothes onto the bed, she pointed to the lopsided chalk drawings on the floor.
"Barely. Why do you think the plate is still broken?" Ed scowled. "Not even an idiot would attempt alchemy with one of those crappy things."
True, they were far from the clean, stark circles she'd seen him draw in the past. The various wobbly lines and shapes she saw here looked like a toddler's scribbling.
"Which hand did you draw with?"
"What?" Ed blinked. The question had startled him. "My right," he said promptly, as if the answer was obvious.
"There's your problem," Winry replied, feeling a little guilty for not bringing up this particular subject with him earlier. "Automail generally can't perform such fine motor skills like drawing and writing. You should have used your left."
"But…" Ed frowned. "Winry, I'm right-handed."
A short no-nonsense "hmph" came from the doorway as Pinako walked by. "Then you're going to have to start training your left hand, boy," the old woman said, adjusting her glasses. "You still haven't finished cleaning that scientific drivel from my floor, I see."
Ed grabbed a drinking glass from his nightstand and hurled it in her direction, but by the time it approached its destination, Pinako had already shut the door and continued down the hallway. The glass smashed harmlessly against the flat, impassive wood.
"Dammit!" cried Ed, punching the wall with his flesh fist. "Nobody told me I had to relearn how to use both of my hands!"
A sick feeling coiled in Winry's stomach. "I'm sorry, Ed."
He swallowed tightly, as if physically stifling his displeasure. He let his hand slide from the cracked paint on the wall – yet more collateral damage from his stay for Pinako to get upset about. "Don't you go getting emotional on me. Not your fault I'm stuck with the motor skills of a four year old."
Ed's mouth twisted into a wry grin that didn't reach his eyes. A lock of gold hair fell into his face. He swiped it out of the way and shoved it back through the rubber band. "Damn hair," he muttered.
"Ed," Winry leapt at the opportunity to change the subject, "if you don't like your hair long, why don't you cut it?"
"You're joking, right? You saw how I handle chalk. Put a pair of scissors in my hand and the only thing that will get cut is my jugular," he sneered, trying to tighten the rubber band, but he was getting increasingly frustrated as more strands kept falling out. That sad excuse for a ponytail was not going to serve its function well, and they both knew it. Winry decided not to press the fact that he could have always asked either she or Pinako to cut his hair for him.
"May I…?" she asked hesitantly, fearing to tread too far lest she reawake his temper that had only just begun to calm. Surprisingly, he gave in and nodded, ripping the rubber band out of his hair and handing it to her. There were still a few shredded strands coiled about it in knots.
Observing it for only the briefest of moments, Winry took it and tossed offhandedly it into the garbage can. "Well, to begin with, you shouldn't use rubber bands. They'll damage your hair. Use one of these." She pulled the soft elastic band out of her own hair and held it up for him to see.
"Okay," Ed's face was blank as he shrugged. "You know, it's not like I'll need to know any of this in the future. If I can't even draw a circle without it looking like a mutated egg, how am I supposed to tie my hair back?"
Winry glared at him. "It's not like you're permanently crippled, Ed!" She grabbed his shoulders and turned him around so she could start fingering through the snarls in his hair.
"Oh sure, just five more months of 'therapy,' and I'll be just peachy." He yelped as she yanked on his hair. "What was that for?"
"Stop being so pessimistic!" Winry insisted, pulling his hair through one more loop of the band. "There!" Turning him to the side so he could see himself in the mirror, she showed him the low ponytail. "If you actually tried during your exercises, maybe you'd be able to do your own hair someday."
"What makes you think I'm not trying!" Ed demanded, pulling away from her. "You have to understand. 'Someday' is not going to cut it. I need progress now, dammit!"
"Impatience isn't going to get you anywhere." Walking over to the pile of clothes on the bed, she pulled out a black tank top. She balled it up and tossed it to him along with a fresh pair of boxers. "Now come on. Let's get you dressed. You're still covered in mop water."
Ed glanced down at the shirt she had thrown at him. "What's wrong with the shirt I have on? It didn't get wet."
She contemplated laughing, but one look at Ed's expression told her that was a very bad idea. The gray collared shirt was still draped loosely off of his shoulder. Rolling her eyes, she said, "You haven't got it on. You've got only your left arm through the sleeve. The tank top will be easier, for now, until you've got more mobility in your arm. It doesn't have buttons to trip you up, either."
"I thought you said I needed to try harder?" Ed let the sarcastic quip roll off his tongue as he struggled out of the gray shirt.
"One step at a time, Ed," Winry said, heading out of the room so he could have privacy to get dressed. "Don't mistake blindly pushing yourself forward with improvement. One step at a time."
A couple of months after she had found Edward soaking in a puddle of mop water, Winry had all but forgotten this particular exchange. That is, until Ed burst into her room with a huge grin on his face. Winry, startled, leapt to her feet. She opened her mouth to say something, but paused when Ed turned around excitedly to show her his hair.
Trust Ed to outdo even the most ambitious of results.
Not only was his hair pulled back, it was plaited. Ed had managed to twist his growing, blond hair into a loose but tidy braid. The work was meticulous – it would have required painstaking control by both uncoordinated hands. Winry couldn't help but wonder how long it had taken him.
"So, did Al do that for you?" She teased.
"Very funny," Ed grumbled, but he couldn't keep the corners of his mouth from pulling upwards into a smile.
