I know I said this would be posted on Saturday, but a family emergency happened.
Everything's okay. My dad's truck broke down when he and my dad were getting ready to put flags in the forest so I had to go and save them in my mom's car, which they then took to go drive around in the woods. This meant I spent the day at a hotel in the middle of the woods waiting for them to get back.
None of that is a joke.
Anyway, it's done now… so… so…
I don't know.
Back to Causatum, I guess.
The doctor had planned to keep Edward in the hospital through his physical therapy, but after a short demonstration of his routine exercises for his automail (with Alphonse's help when his muscles became uncooperative), the doctor gave him permission to return to Roy's townhouse.
On one condition.
"You must take your medication. Yes, the muscle relaxant, too," the doctor said, his face serious. "Just because your muscles are healing does not mean they're healed. You're still at risk for spasms and the muscle tissue needs stillness to close all the tears from the spasms you've already had."
"I can handle pain -" Edward started to say, but the doctor cut him off with a stern gesture.
"This isn't about your pain tolerance. If your muscles break down much more, your kidneys could shut down."
That made go Fullmetal silent for a moment.
"What… what do my muscles have to do with my kidneys?"
"Muscle tissue is toxic to kidneys," the doctor explained. "The more muscle tissue tears, the chances of particles from the muscles entering the blood stream increases. The size of the structure of the parts of muscle cells are too large for the kidneys filter out of the blood. They clog the vessels and block proper blood flow throughout the kidneys and starve them of oxygen and nutrients. If that happens, you'll have to be put through dialysis, which means a lot of needles for a long time. Am I understood?"
At some point in the doctor's explanation, Edward had shrunk beneath his blanket as if he was trying to hide from the lecture, but the mumbled, "M'kay," from beneath the blanket proved that he'd been listening.
This did not stop him from grumbling about the wheelchair.
"I can do it myself," he had groused, trying to wave Mustang's and Alphonse's pestering grips away from the handles so he could grip the wheels with his hands.
Well, hand.
His flesh hand was still weak and sore, not to mention limp from the God-damned diazepam he'd been forced to promise to take. This meant he could only really put any force into his right hand, which led to him spinning his wheelchair in a pathetic circle. Having meant to propel himself forward, he ended up turning around to face the colonel's amused eyebrow and his brother's polite silence. Hawkeye blinked nonchalantly, then looked down at Hayate, who had "insisted on accompanying them" according to Riza, and made a clicking sound with her tongue and jerked her head towards Edward. Hayate leapt to his feet with a happily obedient wag of his tail and trotted across the distance from his mistress to the pup who still smelled of oil and metal but not so much of sickness anymore. Upon reaching him, Hayate promptly hopped up onto Ed's lap, landing with a force that made Edward produce an "ooph!" and curled up on the boy's legs.
Adding a flourish, Hayate opened his jaws in a leisurely yawn and rested his snout on his paws and closed his eyes.
"Sorry, Brother, you know the rules," Alphonse said stepping behind the wheelchair and gripping its handles to turn his brother around towards the hospital's exit. "When a floof sits on you, you can't move until they get off."
Mustang and Hawkeye both stopped and stared at Alphonse.
"A what?" Roy managed when he found his voice.
"A floof," Al repeated casually as he maneuvered first his brother into the revolving door of the exit and then himself. "Brother got tired of keeping track of all the animals we come across, so he just started calling them all 'floofs.' Then I made the rule that if the floof sits on you, you have to stay put. It's a great way of getting him to slow down enough to eat and sleep. Even if he feeds half of his food to the floof."
Roy didn't know which was funnier - the mental image of the Fullmetal Alchemist feeding a sandwich to a kitten or the real image of the Fullmetal Alchemist being pushed through a revolving door like he was on a carousel. The Fullmetal Alchemist must have suspected what the Flame Alchemist was thinking because Edward gave Roy a glare powerful enough to kill a zombie through the glass.
This did not stop Mustang from smiling at the way Ed's left hand absentmindedly scratched the now snoozing Black Hayate behind the ears.
XXX
The shots still weren't easy and the antibiotics would sometimes give Edward indigestion, but none of it was anything an anecdote about Havoc's failed love life and some yogurt could fix.
"So we were there for three hours and we kept telling him that she wasn't coming and that he got stood up and he should just come play poker with us. He had three tall beers - which you cannot have until you are eighteen -"
"Why would I ever want to drink that rotten bread-piss?"
"Edward! Language, please. Be a good example for your brother."
Edward turned to say something that was most likely disrespectful to the second lieutenant, saw her prepping the syringe, and the blood drained from his face.
"He's not wrong, Lieutenant, the stuff is nasty until you've acquired the taste of it. Wine and mead are the best to start with. Beer isn't until you've learned your body's limit. And for Havoc, that's three," Roy said, quickly recapturing the major's attention and making him forget, if only superficially, about the impending sting. He would never say so out loud, but Roy was quite proud of how quickly he'd learned to handle the boy's various moods and mannerisms.
"So he had three beers and finally said, 'Fudge it, deal me in -'"
"He didn't say fudge."
"How do you know? You weren't there."
"I've heard Havoc say the F word at least five times in a single day at the office."
Roy was unaware of this.
"What? When?"
"After you and Hawkeye give out the day's paperwork and go into your office. He always flips through all the papers and then looks up and says - Fuck!"
Riza deftly pushed the plunger on the syringe and pulled it away, making sure to remove the needle and dispose it into the carefully placed wastebasket by the bed. She made no comment on Edward's slip of tongue; the expletives he would bark upon being given the antitoxin was the one exception she allowed his use of vocabulary.
Roy did what he did next with the ease of someone who had done it several times before - which at this point, he had. He gently reached out and placed a hand on Edward's left shoulder, guiding the boy back against the stack of pillows against the headrest as Ed's eyes glazed over in a vasovagal trance, then moved his hand to kid's own and gave it a grounding squeeze. He waited for Edward to take his three calming breaths and confirming swallow that he wasn't going to pass out or vomit.
"He told us to deal him in at the table on the next round. So we did. And then, when we were in the middle of it, who should just walk in but little Miss Ma'am herself. And when she saw Havoc, sitting at the table with his face all red and smelling like beer and with his shirt off, she just about screamed the roof off -"
"Poker." Ed's voice was shaky but strong when he said the single word. "Poker's illegal. 'S gamblin'. Gamblin's illegal."
"Playing for money is illegal and we weren't playing for money. We were playing for Knick-Knacks. You know, watches, snacks, cigarettes. Havoc had worn one of his fancy shirts with silver buttons on it for his date and it was the only real thing he had to add to the pot."
Edward wrinkled his nose, his hazy gaze rapidly clearing as his growing mind came up with yet another question to ask, as it was wont to do.
"Why were you playing for cigarettes?"
"Only Havoc plays for those."
"But you said he only had his shirt."
"He only had his shirt that night. He'd already smoked his whole pack waiting for his no-show date. So he smelled like tobacco smoke on top of alcohol. So it was pretty hard to defend him when this lady called him a brute and a reprobate. But then she saw the poker game and started accusing all of us of being criminals, and you know, we could't let that go. So we all got up and started yelling back at her and throwing all her nasty comments back at her -"
"You shouldn't yell at women, sir."
"She started it!" Edward interjected. "Besides, people should be willing to take what they give. Gender has nothing to do with it." He then turned back to Roy, looking at the colonel expectantly.
Roy stifled the urge to laugh or tousle the kid's messy hair.
"Actually, that's what some random guy said. He walked up to us and started telling us off for talking sh - smack to a lady," Roy strategically looked away when Hawkeye cast an angry glare in his direction, "so we started telling him off for not minding his own business and now the lady's crying but she's obviously not really crying, she's just basking in the attention… And I don't know who threw the first punch. I think it was the guy, but it could've been Breda. But someone punched first and then Havoc starts punching and then I have to protect my men -"
"Did you really?" Hawkeye challenged, a golden brow raised skeptically.
"Of course!" Roy said at the same time Edward said, "Well, duh!"
Riza rolled her eyes.
"So we were all punching each other and soon there were random people who had nothing to do with anything who were punching and the bartender ended up calling the police. Except we were the police so when the officers got there they had no idea what to do. That's when they brought in the lieutenant. She got everyone to stand down and got them to tell her what happened - or at least, what they thought happened, no one really knew. So all the random people and the guy who started it got arrested for assault and disturbing the peace, and the bartender kicked all of us out and told us were all banned for life. But that's not the best part," Roy saw Ed lean forward, his once cloudy eyes now eager for the promised plot twist. "The best part is that the lady who was supposed to be Havoc's date was actually a launderer."
Ed tilted his head in confusion.
"Not a clothes-washer," Roy clarified, realizing the misunderstanding. "She was a money launderer - she disguised money made from criminal businesses like smuggling and assassins into legitimate income by replacing it with money from a legal source. So what she would do was she would make a guy with lots of money or access to a lot of money think she like them, then meet with them and cry and cuddle on them until she gave them a loan. Then, she would go back to them a few weeks later and pay back the money. Then when the authorities asked her where the money came from, she would just give a name and claim they paid her for her services. The men were always too embarrassed to confirm or deny her statement, so they couldn't prove she was lying."
Edward blinked.
"Why would men meet a random lady for 'services?'"
Roy's mouth went dry as he felt Hawkeye's angry eyes fall on him. He had not had the foresight to look away that time so he had to endure her scrutiny.
Roy had not thought of this.
Roy wondered how in the world this kept happening.
"You know… regular woman services. Cooking… cleaning… not that cooking and cleaning is all women are good for -"
Riza's eyebrow was traveling dangerously up her forehead. This was not going well.
"Why were they embarrassed to pay someone to cook and clean for them?"
"Because… because some men are very prideful about their… their independence?" Roy waited to be called out on his bluff, but Edward seemed to accept it unconditionally and, even more heartening, Riza's glare was beginning to soften into curiosity.
"Some men… they like being able to take care of themselves all the time. They like being able to do everything themselves and being strong and… and… resourceful." Yes, that was the word. "But no one can be good at everything, so when these men have to ask someone else for help, they feel embarrassed. They try to keep it a secret so they can pretend that it never happened and no one has to find out. That way they can keep on pretending that they're good at everything all the time."
Edward took a moment to process this information.
"Well, that's stupid," he concluded.
"It sure is, Brother. Everyone needs help sometimes. Especially State Alchemists who don't think they need to take their medicine.
Ed stuck out his tongue at his brother as Al entered the room, carrying a bowl of beef stew for his brother. Alphonse had told Hughes that it was his favorite food, and when the doctor had prescribed Edward a strict diet of constant red meat, protein, and carbohydrates, the colonel had taken it upon himself to ask his wife if she would lend her cooking skills until further notice. She was more than happy to comply - on the condition that she be placed in charge of supervising Edward's ablutions.
"He purrs when his hair's brushed. It's the sweetest thing," she'd said, bouncing baby Elicia on her lap while Roy helped himself to the pot of stew she'd made.
"He does it if you pet him when he's sleeping, too," Al added, fulfilling his purpose as a younger sibling and revealing humiliating facts about his older brother when the opportunity presented itself. "Sometimes he starts talking. Usually about Winry."
Roy felt his face heat with second-hand embarrassment and Gracia burst out laughing. Riza tried to hide her giggles behind her spoon. His job done, Alphonse had left to deliver his brother's dinner.
That had been three days ago.
Now that his jaw slackened, Ed was able to feed himself without spilling his meal into his hair. Chewing was still difficult so those meals were limited to liquids and soft foods, but Edward didn't care as long as he didn't have to aim for the small space between his teeth.
Besides, any excuse to have ice cream for breakfast consistently was a good one as far as he was concerned.
Roy had since gotten bored of stew but Fullmetal ate it like a staple.
"At this rate, you might just eat just that for the rest of your life."
Edward stared at him mid-bite, tilting his head as he considered. He nodded and swallowed with the wisdom of a sage. "Okay. Hey, stop laughing!"
Roy did not stop laughing. Ed glared.
"Why do you keep laughing at random crap?"
"Because you have the unique talent of making even 'random crap' hilariously bizarre, Fullmetal. They should have called you the Arbitrary Alchemist."
"And they should have called you a lobotomist."
"Edward!"
Hawkeye's rebuke was as sharp as her aim and Ed did a strange ducking motion like he was trying to hide behind his bowl.
"He started it," he mumbled, shoveling another spoonful of stew into his mouth.
"He did," Alphonse agreed with a shrug. "Teacher says not to throw punches if you can't take them."
"Which is why you need to learn to take 'em," Ed finished the maxim with a pointed scowl at Mustang, who smiled genially.
"Then you'd better start practicing."
"Why, you -"
Ed made as if to sit up, his motion grating to a halt when the movement jostled his healing hip. Alphonse managed to grab the bowl before his brother could add burns to his list of issues. Roy's smile disappeared and he immediately reached for the bottle of pain medication. Ed waved him off angrily.
"I don't need that -"
"Edward." Whatever pronoun Ed was going to use was forgotten at Riza's expression. "You promised."
Edward seemed to consider staring her down for a half second before remembering what would happen if he continued to refuse. He took the medicine begrudgingly but he took it.
And if Mustang secretly found the way his mouth would slant into a relaxed smile and how his demeanor seemed to soften around the edges endearing, no one needed to know.
XXX
The doctor re-examined Edward's leg at the end of his first week out of the hospital.
"Congratulations," he said, opening the bag he'd brought with him and taking out a pair of wooden crutches. "You have officially graduated to experimental walking. Experimental walking," he emphasized when Ed tried to snatch the crutches out of the man's hands. "You will only walk when you must and you will use both. Your upper body has healed enough to support you for awhile and getting some stimulation will help you heal faster, but too much would be counter-productive."
"So basically you can go to the bathroom by yourself but the library's still off-limits," Al explained, giving his brother what would have been a pointed look if he'd had eyes.
Edward's face fell for a moment, then reignited when he remembered what particular freedoms he'd regained.
That was why Roy Mustang found his subordinate sleeping beneath a blanket of candies and chocolates the following morning.
"I thought I hid those," Roy said, aiming his disapproval at the suit of armor resting between the floor and the wall with a book in his lap, who shrugged unapologetically.
"Not really. I remember you putting them on top of the ice box and saying 'It's not like he can walk over here anyway' and just left them there. Besides, they're his. The students of East City Primary School worked hard to get those for him."
Roy noticed the marble eyes and button nose sticking out from under Edward's arm.
"I thought he lost that."
"His name is Stanley. He goes missing during the day and Brother always manages to find him at night. It's a mystery, really."
Roy smiled.
"A truly unsolvable one."
XXX
"You didn't have to do this, sir."
"Nonsense."
"But you have so much work to do -"
"What are the boys back in Central going to do? I'm the head of intelligence. If they complain, I'll just let their wives know how many cups of sugar they're getting from their young, single neighbor every day."
"Maes."
"Fine. The girls, too."
"Maes!"
Edward didn't know where they were going.
The most Hughes would say were things about "fresh air" and "stretching the legs," upon which Alphonse pointed out that Edward was, in fact, forbidden from strenuous exercise and Maes had to assure him that the words had been metaphorical.
Roy had agreed to the escapade with enough readiness that Edward knew that he had some idea of what was going on. Riza had seemed confused at first, then had read some kind of silent message from him and also acquiesced, though with a bit more reserve. However, she was traveling separately due to the lack of space in Hughes's car. Edward tried to pretend that he didn't wish she was there.
It was silly, really.
There was no way they were taking him back to the hospital.
He'd been good. He'd taken his medicine. He'd barely had a chance to try out his crutches, but he'd only used them for fetching things back to his room - Roy's guest room, he reminded himself, not his.
Was this because of the chocolate?
But those were his, weren't they? Alphonse said so.
Then why were they being so secretive?!
"Brother. Stop bouncing your leg. You'll hurt your hip."
It was weird, not having anything attached to his port. The doctor had recommended that Edward not have his leg reattached for another week, maybe two, to keep the weight of the device from aggravating his hip. Even when he was having his automail worked on, he would wear a prosthetic. Now there was nothing, the metal end exposed like a bone with skin peeled back. The pants leg covered it well enough, but the flat emptiness compounded with the lack of weight at the end of the stump made him sure someone would notice the unnaturalness of it as much as he did.
"Ah, here we are," Hughes said and Edward had become suddenly conscious of the fact that the car had stopped.
A pulse of fear raced through Ed so powerfully that he tasted it in his mouth. He glanced out the window, ready to see the fake cheerfulness of the hospital banners and a contingent of staff smiling falsely, waiting to take him away.
He saw Nurse Dorothea with a wheelchair and tried to stand up, forgetting his missing leg and the fact that he was belted to his seat.
"Woah, hold on, Ed-Boy! It's just in case you get tired. You don't have to use if it you don't want to."
Alphonse had caught his arm and pulled him back against his seat and Hughes had parked the car, grinning in what he probably thought was a calming way. Mustang was watching him intently, for signs of pain or discomfort or whatever else he might be able to pick up form Ed's body language.
"Fullmetal. She's not a nurse today."
Ed stared at him stupidly.
"Then what is she?" he asked, as if her role had somehow changed her species.
"She's… an escort… no, wait, not that, don't tell the lieutenant -"
Maes was laughing too hard to open the car's doors. Roy let himself out, his face the color of a tomato. He opened the door for Alphonse, who crawled out and helped his brother onto the pavement, handing him his crutches from where they'd been laying on the floor of the car.
Dorothea smiled at him. Edward couldn't bring himself to return it.
"I'll leave it at the door if you think you don't need it," she said by way of greeting, then, "How are you? You look like you're feeling a lot better."
Thinking of the last context he'd interacted with her, Edward said the first thing that came out of his mouth.
"My back is all itchy and peeling, but the lotion helps."
Hughes sounded like he was dying.
"That's wonderful. Pressure sores tend to heal quickly once you're moving around again. Speaking of which, we should get moving. Samuel and his friends love cake and I'm not sure how long the others can keep them off it."
"Cake?"
Dorothea giggled and nodded.
"Yes, cake. In the dragon exhibit."
Edward didn't bother asking. He started across the sidewalk, moving at a pace his armpits protested and eventually his brother and the colonel as well, forcing him to either slow down or resort to the wheelchair. By then, Edward had recognized the white pillared building across the way.
His confusion lasted a moment, after which, he turned with consternation to the colonel, who had put his hands up in a gesture of surrender.
"This wasn't my idea. Well, it wasn't at first."
"Samuel and his friends have been so worried about you," Dorothea took over, pushing the wheelchair with a force that belied her petite frame. "They kept asking after you and if you were well and when they could see you."
"I was just trying to set up a… an assignment," Roy said, uncharacteristically modest. "Something simple, to get you out of the house and give you something to do. I made a few phone calls but someone was listening in," he cast a glare at Hughes that didn't have any temper in it.
"I told my people to keep me updated about calls concerning the boys. So I poked Roy until he talked -"
"You tapped my calls."
"That is literally my job, Roy, why are you surprised?"
"Sirs? Is everything all right?"
Hawkeye approached, the cab she'd taken driving off behind her. Black Hayate trotted dutifully beside her, stopping when she did and sniffing the air. Riza looked from Mustang to Hughes and then to Edward, Alphonse, and Nurse Dorothea with the wheelchair.
She saw the confusion on Ed's face and realized what was going on.
"The lieutenant colonel heard about your request and the requests of the children at the school and decided to take care of both of them at once. The school and the museum were more than happy to accommodate."
"It's not as big as the dragon exhibit in Central, but it's a good place to start," Roy said, regaining control of the conversation. "As soon as you're able, I expect you at Central University making notes on your findings. I want a full report upon your return. Is that clear, Major?"
Edward blinked and Alphonse, who had been silent until then, spoke up.
"You threw a party for Brother?"
Roy felt his face grow warm for the second time that day.
"Well… it wasn't me…"
"It was me!" Hughes proclaimed proudly.
"It was a joint effort," Riza said. "Come on, they're waiting for us. Nurse - Miss Dorothea worked hard on the cake."
Miss Dorothea flushed and mumbled something about the icing being too dry.
"Wait."
The group stopped as soon as they started and Roy looked back, concerned, and watched Edward hand the crutches to his brother and gingerly settle himself into the chair. When he caught Roy looking, he shrugged nonchalantly, though the slight embarrassment in his eyes gave him away.
"I just… We'll be faster if you don't have to wait for me."
"Of course, Brother," Alphonse said, accepting the answer before anyone could push the matter further. "Let's go have some cake and look at dragons."
XXX
That day, Samuel Meyers became the most popular kid at East City Primary School.
The fact that the Fullmetal Alchemist knew him by name would have been enough. With the addition that Sammy's mother had "saved" Edward Elric by nursing him back to health until he sprang back to life through the power of Nurse Dorothea's tender, loving care, all the other children were begging Samuel to come to their birthdays and would he like to come over after school and could he bring the Fullmetal Alchemist with him since they were obviously best friends?
Nurse Dorothea would not let anyone sit on Edward's lap, not even for a ride in his wheelchair, but Alphonse was more than happy to take his place, letting children climb onto his shoulders and reach up and touch the dragon bones with the tips of their fingers. They were, of course, not supposed to do that, but with the contained chaos that always follows children, the adults were a bit too distracted to notice. When Edward inevitably ate so much cake he fell asleep, his head lolling on his shoulder, the most popular attraction at the party became taking turns drawing on the sleeping alchemist's face with the pen that Colonel Mustang had "dropped" and the children had grabbed before he could get it back.
By the time Lieutenant Hawkeye was done helping children off Al's armor and reminding them not to touch the exhibits, the Fullmetal Alchemist had a bunny, a flower, a colorless rainbow, and a heart with someone's initials inside it on scribbled on his face. Riza snatched the pen away and gave it to dutiful, calm Hayate, who promptly ran outside with it to bury it. The children ran after him, their attention spans filled with the excitement of a "doggy." The grown-ups and Alphonse ran after them, desperate to keep the chaos contained.
Edward and Roy were left with the mostly eaten cake and the skeletons of dead dragons staring at them accusingly.
"Giving me grief even in your sleep, eh, Fullmetal?"
Since the dragons had no eyes, they didn't see the contradicting smile on the colonel's face.
XXX
It was quiet without the Elrics in his house.
Roy was surprised how hard it was for him to let them go.
He'd gotten used to them: Alphonse, with his quiet, constant presence, and Edward, with his grumpy but lovable prepubescent attitude.
They left with little fanfare. The morning after the doctor gave the go ahead for his leg to be reattached, Edward walked with his crutches to the kitchen, ate his breakfast, announced they would be leaving that day, thanked Roy in the most crisp way Roy had ever heard, took his brother and his things and left.
Roy had gone back to work and tried to pretend that the last six weeks hadn't happened.
He was surprised - and disheartened - by how easy it was.
"Hey. Colonel. Hey! Wake up, loser!"
Roy opened his eyes to a couple of crinkled sheets of paper being waved in his face.
"I've got that dragon report you wanted. You gonna keep sleeping tax money away or are you going to do your flipping job?"
"Fullmetal."
Roy tried to sound as bored and disinterested as possible. The twinkle he caught in Ed's eyes told him he'd failed.
He took the papers, still feigning indifference, and pretended to scrutinize them.
"Messy, as always. Where's your brother? Where's your crutches?!" he asked, looking at the boy properly this time.
Ed waved him off.
"Trying to find us a place to stay tonight. It's cleaning day at the dorms and it's too loud to hear myself think in there and the hotel is full."
Roy raised an eyebrow.
"The cleaning crew should be gone by nightfall and there's more than one hotel in East City."
Ed's face turned as red as his coat and he looked away, watching his metal hand open and close.
"Well… we didn't want to wait that long. And… and the hotel that's full is my favorite…"
"Do you want to stay at my house tonight?"
Ed's face shot up so fast that Roy caught the shakiness that lingered in his muscles. His face was gaunter than it had been, his cheeks and collarbones poking out of his skin. The sight sent pain running through Mustang's chest.
It will get better.
He just needed a little more time to heal.
"Go get your crutches and you and Al can crash at my place tonight."
Ed snorted and turned away, but Roy caught the way his body, always ever so slightly tense nowadays, somewhat slumped in relief.
"We don't need you… but okay. And I want ravjul for dinner."
" Dinner's at six. Get your crutches."
"Fine! Geez…"
"And no running! No str -"
"'No strenuous exercise for the next two weeks.' I was there, Mustang, I know what the quack said," Edward shot over his shoulder as he limped out of the office, clearly favoring his right leg.
Mustang rolled his eyes and picked up the "report" on his desk, trying to fold out the wrinkles and make the papers somewhat presentable.
He noticed the last line on the second page.
Special thanks to Colonel Roy Mustang, Colonel Maes Hughes, and Liuetenant Colonel Riza Hawkeye, without whom this research project would not have possible.
It was obviously scripted, copied verbatim save the names from an older research report the kid must have used as a template. But anyone who knew, really knew, the Fullmetal Alchemist knew how much he hated professionalism and pleasantries, even in the most consequential of circumstances, so the fact that Edward had tried - deliberately tried, because this was not Alphonse's neat yet blocky penmanship, so Roy knew Ed had done this himself - to do something that Roy would approve of, even appreciate, told Mustang everything Edward was trying to say.
And if the archivists in the records room didn't noticed the papers they received were typed copies, they certainly didn't need to know that the original prints were framed and hung on the wall in Mustang's guest room.
I don't know what to put here because I really didn't think I'd get this far. But y'all kept coming back so I kept going and here we are.
When I started this story, I was lonely and scared. I had just started my first year of college and was depressed and heartbroken over the death of my teacher and friend. I started this story as a distraction from the constant sick feeling inside me. It went from being a distraction to my life line. I kept going, through college, through my grief, through a toxic work life to now. I now have a degree and a job I love and well on my way to fulfilling my dream of becoming a special education teacher and professional writing.
And I owe it all to you guys, who waited patiently for each annual update, who started reading this stupid story when you were teenagers in high school and continued reading through your own graduations, your own experiences in college and entering the workforce and generally becoming adults.
I guess you could say we grew up together through this.
Well, that's enough philosophical delving for one night. I'm going to go watch In Space With Markiplier and drink a milkshake.
'Til we meet again.