The Golden Sun: Chapter Eight: Sleepless Nights

AN: Addressing some questions: yes, Ed, Al, and Hohenheim are people of color in this fic which differs from canon, but Xerxes was a desert civilization so it didn't make as much sense to me for them to be white. The sun allusions are strong in this fic, especially in regards to Ed with his sun-dark skin, his golden hair and eyes, and the symbol of the sun against his throat. I guess if you're trying to figure out his exact color…I'd say lighter than Paninya and darker than Winry, but if you go on my tumblr I've tagged a lovely fanart that I based Ed off of.

Al's body doesn't exist on the physical plane, you can't have a soulmate made purely of metal with nothing but a soul attached to that metal. Mei's mark doesn't exist because Al's body doesn't, it will return when he gets his body back.


Ed didn't know why, but it really bothered him, the idea that other generals dropped their paperwork on Mustang because they didn't like his ambition. There had to be more to it than that. It seemed like it would be a lot of effort to punish someone for having ambition; Ed's ambition had once cost him almost everything and now it was the only thing keeping him going.

"Why don't you ask the other generals why they give us so much work if you're so curious?" Breda was deep into his pile when Ed had piped out the question.

He was settled across from the burly man, now, instead of sitting in Mustang's office, doing his paperwork there. After lunch -and checking in on Al to make sure that he was okay- he'd declared he could only stand so much of the Bastard Colonel and had taken the spare seat beside Hawkeye, trying not to show his relief at the sight of the throw rug over the spot where his blood at once pooled.

"And have them try to con me over to being under their command?" Ed scoffed loudly. "Yeah, like that'll happen."

Feury furrowed his brow from the other end of the table. "But you're always saying that you hate the Colonel…"

Ed sputtered, his embarrassment rising up his neck to flood his cheeks. "I JUST DON'T LIKE THE HASSLE OF CHANGING!"

"Edward," Hawkeye reprimanded lightly, "please keep the yelling to a minimum in the office."

Ed quailed and swallowed thickly. "Yes, ma'am."

He'd seen Hawkeye threaten Mustang with her gun when he was being a rather terrible slacker, and he'd seen how good of a shot she was…making her mad wasn't the safest option for him at this point.

"Go take this to Colonel Mustang," she ordered swiftly, handing him a packet of papers in a folder. "Tell him he needs to have them signed in the hour."

Ed made a face, wanting to avoid Mustang after the whole 'why does all of Eastern Command think I'm your kid' issue, but then he was curious, taking it from her. "Why's he only getting it an hour before its due?"

"If I gave Colonel Mustang any more time he'd never get it done," Hawkeye said flatly. Her eyes had a twinkle, though, that made Ed snigger while Havoc and Breda had to hide their snorts when Hawkeye's eyes flicked towards them. "In fact…tell him he has half an hour, would you, Edward?"

Ed's smirk turned positively devilish. "No problem, Lieutenant."

"Oi! Bastard Colonel!" Ed kicked the door open. "Lieutenant Hawkeye says you need to sign these in the next thirty minutes!"

There was a loud "She said what?! Give them here, Fullmetal!"

Ed tossed the packet onto his desk and didn't bother hiding his laughter at how Mustang did a mad scramble for the paperwork, his pen at the ready. Ed didn't wait around for him to start sniping, because he knew how Mustang got when he had a deadline and Ed was interrupting him in the middle of it. That had happened once and Ed swore Mustang had tried to kill him, even if Al didn't believe him.

He was still sniggering when he shut the door on Mustang's complaints, muffling them but in no way silencing them.

Hawkeye was hiding her smile, but it was still there when the phone on her desk gave a shrill ring. "Colonel Mustang's office, this is Lieutenant Hawkeye speaking…oh, hello, Alphonse."

Ed gave a startled jerk of surprise at his brother calling instead of coming to see him. He'd only seen Al two hours ago when he was on his lunch break. What could he possibly be calling about?

"He's right here, hang on—" Hawkeye held out the phone to Ed and he took it with his flesh hand.

"Al? What's up? Didn't want to make the trip to Colonel Bastard's office?"

He could hear Breda and Havoc sniggering at the insult, as they always did, while Falman muttered under his breath about how improper and against protocol it was to insult a superior officer, while Fuery decided to just keep his head down and out of trouble.

"Brother, I have an idea!" Al's voice was far too cheerful on the other side and Ed was picking up a lot of static, though, from what he couldn't quite say. "And you're going to hate it."

"Yeah?" Ed's tone was a touch too sardonic and he hoped that Al didn't notice it. "It this is about the shortage of Xerxes-related books, I already—"

"Well, kinda," Al admitted, "I just remember seeing a book or two on Xerxes in Dad's study and—"

"Alphonse." Ed's voice turned sharp like it always did when Hohenheim was brought up and he turned away from the prying eyes of everyone in the freaking room.

"Sorry, I know you don't like to talk about Dad, but there's probably something you should know…"

Ed's steel fingers creaked as they clenched into a fist. "Al…what did you do?"

He could practically feel the stares on his back, but he ignored them as best as he could.

"Well, see, you called after you got certified and then when you got home and we burned down the house because we didn't want a reminder of…you know?"

"Yeah…" Ed drawled out the word slowly, getting the distinct feeling that he wasn't going to like where this was going.

"Um…before we burned it, I took out all the books in Dad's study, some pictures, some things that Mom liked, and I hid them at Granny's." It all came out in a rush and Ed had to blink twice, trying to comprehend what had been said.

"You. Did. What?!" he demanded loudly.

"So, I'm off to Resembool! See you in two weeks, Brother! Love you!"

"Al!" But his brother had already hung up, so shouting was useless. He growled as he tried hard not to slam the phone down on the receiver, storming over to the door, his abdomen aching from the sharp movements.

"Where're you going?" Havoc asked, vaguely startled by his sudden anger.

"To East City Train Station!" Ed snarled, his hand tightening around the door knob.

"You won't make it in time."

Ed twisted around, golden fire in his eyes and Hawkeye met his eyes steadily without flinching. "If your brother was calling from the station then the train would've left by the time you actually got there. Alphonse knows you well enough to know that he should call almost exactly before his train would leave so you wouldn't be able to catch him." Hawkeye's words were patient and understanding, like Mom placating Ed when he'd felt like she liked Al more.

Ed shoved that thought out of his mind as hard as he could, glaring back to the door.

"Al's eleven," he finally managed to force out, "he's alone, and—"

"Edward, come with me and we'll get this paperwork sorted out," Hawkeye said loudly and Ed had to stare at the juxtaposition, but her expression brooked no argument and when she looked over her fellows, they quickly busied themselves.

She dropped the papers in Ed's hand before he had the chance to counter and pushed him lightly out of the room. For a moment nothing was said and then Hawkeye asked, "What did Alphonse say that upset you so much?"

Ed scowled, his lips twisting. "After I got my certification…we burned down our house." Hawkeye seemed surprised but not too surprised, so he got the feeling that she was expecting something like that. "We didn't want to look back, or have a reason to go home…or maybe we were just really ashamed of what we did." Ed shrugged helplessly. They'd been so sure in the moment, they'd been so sure before he'd been certified, but Ed couldn't help but feel like it was half a lie to themselves to make them feel better. "I didn't want a reminder, but I guess Al didn't feel the same."

Hawkeye arched an eyebrow.

"He took the books out of Hohenheim's study and some other stuff before we burned it down and didn't tell me about it." He couldn't help but feel a spike of annoyance towards his brother. Al had probably known how he could've reacted, though, which was definitely why he hadn't told him. Ed couldn't really fault that reasoning; Al had been rather spot on. "And then he runs off and -he's eleven!"

Al was actually almost twelve, but that was beside the point.

"You run off and you're not much older."

Ed had an excuse worked up -he was older, there were two of them together so that didn't count- but they all fell a bit flat when he twisted his head to glower at Hawkeye and she leveled him with a steady stare. Ed clammed up again.

"Your brother is very good at taking care of himself, you're usually the one that's reckless," Hawkeye pointed out and Ed could feel his abdomen ache were the stitches were. Granted, the reason for him having those stitches wasn't his fault, but Ed had been stitched up before, often, in fact. He was generally pretty mindless when throwing himself into a fight. He didn't care how much he got injured, just so long as Al was all right.

Maybe it was some way to punish himself for what he did that night, punishing himself for locking his little brother in an iron cage and failing to find the key to unlock it.

It seemed like every lead they found was a dead end or disappeared too fast for them to pick it up. Ed didn't like it, Al didn't like it, but he was quieter about it.

"What if something happens?" he asked instead. "What if—?"

Hawkeye's smile was soft and kind and Ed was thrown off, remembering a similar smile when Ed and Al had shown Mom two little misshapen horses that they'd made with alchemy. "Listen, Edward," she said patiently, "Alphonse is careful, he knows he isn't invincible and he guards that weak spot, but one day the two of you will need to be able to work separately, just think of this as a trial run of sorts…I'm guessing he left to get a look at those books for a good reason…" She cast an eye in his direction.

"Yeah," Ed grumbled, still not pleased about it, "we're looking into Xerxes and there wasn't anything in the public library or here so he thought there might've been something—"

"Xerxes?" Hawkeye's eyebrows rose in surprise. "The City Under the Sun?"

Ed blinked in confused surprise. He'd never heard that term before. "Huh?" he asked intelligently.

"You're talking about the origin of alchemy, the place where it was created?" Hawkeye pressed on.

That made Ed pause and consider her. Hawkeye always seemed to understand more than most about alchemy. But never said why or how she knew such things. Of course, Ed had always been curious, but there were some things he'd learned to never ask about, and Hawkeye's past definitely was one of them.

"Yeah, we thought there might be something there, but we haven't been able to find any books on it." Ed gave a helpless shrug. "Hohenheim had a book that talked about how the Philosopher's Stone destroyed the city of Xerxes in a single night…that was where we got the idea to search for it to get our bodies back."

If a stone like that was strong enough to destroy a civilization, it had to be strong enough to return them to normal, but most days it felt like they were chasing ghosts.

"Maybe you'll get lucky."

"Maybe," Ed muttered doubtfully.

"Just don't be too hard on your brother, all right?" Hawkeye suggested. "He's trying to share the burden and do his part."

Ed huffed, puffing out his cheeks as she handed a packet of the papers Ed was holding to one of the secretaries.

"Besides, you couldn't follow him even if you wanted to, you're still on medical leave," Hawkeye reminded him and Ed's expression soured further.

"I hate the military," he grumbled under his breath, but he only half meant it.

Hawkeye hid another smile.


None of the other phones were in use, so Ed didn't feel about borrowing one at Eastern Command to make a call to Resembool.

"Rockbell Prosthetic Limb Outfitters," came the aged voice he knew so well.

"Hey, Granny."

He could hear the huff of a laugh or possibly just the inhale of the pipe on the other end. "Long time no hear, Ed, don't tell me you're calling because you messed up your arm again?"

There was a loud and angry voice in the background "What d'ya mean he messed it up again! I just fixed that!"

"No, its fine, I haven't broken it," Ed said quickly to appease them both, real fear morphing on his face even if they couldn't see it. "Al's just coming to see you."

"Al's coming to see us," Granny repeated dubiously, "alone?"

Granny didn't quite approve of the path they'd taken to get their bodies (Al's body) back, especially being a part of the military that had once escorted her son and his wife to the battlefield and returned with a letter informing her of their deaths. If she could've convinced them to find another way, she would've, but Ed and Al were too stubborn.

"Yeah, apparently you're hiding some books he wants to look into," Ed drawled out and he could practically see Granny's expression on the other end.

"Ah," she said, comprehension dawning, "finally found out about that, did you?"

"Yeah." Ed gritted his teeth together. "Tell him when you see him that I'm not mad."

"Uh-huh."

"I'm not as mad," Ed corrected. "I just want to know that he got there safe and stuff."

"Ed, Al rides on dozens of trains when he's with you, I doubt this'll be any different," Granny reminded him.

"Yeah—" Ed's words caught in his throat. "Just tell 'im, would ya?"

Granny hummed in agreement. "Yeah, yeah."

But Ed didn't relax until a few hours later when Al called back to tell him that he'd made it to Resembool safely. Hearing Al chatter on was far more relieving than empty assurances.


Xing had been volatile for years, it felt like Ling had lived his whole life afraid that something terrible was going to happen. The other heirs, most of the other heirs, the older ones, they were the ones power-hungry enough to kill their half-siblings for the chance to be the Emperor's successor.

Ling didn't like any of them, well, any that he'd met. Xing didn't need another power-obsessed ruler and Ling was swinging between wanting to be Emperor to make Xing better or wanting to be as far from Xing as possible.

Sometimes he found himself rubbing his fingers over the dark circular soulmark on his chest, wondering if his other half could feel it, could feel what he was feeling in that moment, could feel how relieved he was in the days after his mark had nearly faded completely at the sight of its color returned. He doubted it, but one could always hope.

Ling was still working on sensing chi, but he wasn't as good at it as Fu was, and given the state of Xing, it was something he should've been expecting.

But he still startled at the feel of something thin being drawn tight around his throat. His hands shot up immediately, clutching at where the thin wire was embedding in his throat. His eyes went wide and he couldn't force the air into his throat.

"Young Lord!"

There was blood trickling down his neck from where the wire had been, but the wetness against his back had to have come from Fu slicing into whoever had attacked him, but Ling still fell, clutching at his bloodied throat.

He barely saw Fu shout for an alkehestrist before he passed out.


Ed shot awake in the dorms, a scream lodged in his throat, feeling like he was eleven again and back in that white void, the Gate opening behind him, thousands of tiny black hands tugging him through.

(Quiet child, this is what you wanted, isn't it?)

He ran to the bathroom, but by the time he'd made it, his roiling stomach had abated. He felt feverish and his stomach ached in a way that Ed was sure had only half to do with the stitches there.

Ed's fingers fumbled with the taps, letting the water run over his mismatched fingers, feeling an odd sort of detachment as he looked down at them, interlocking the flesh fingers with the automail ones under the spray of water.

It'd cost him one arm to pull Al's soul out of the Gate…how much more would he have to give up next time if the Philosopher's Stone didn't pan out?

Ed shook himself out of those dark thoughts, cupping his hands together and splashing the water up against his face.

But when he opened his eyes, he had to blink twice, stare in incomprehension, and then abruptly lean over the toilet and vomit up what remained in his stomach, because where the black mark on his throat had once been so obvious to see, now it was just a faint outline.

Now Ed could hazard a guess as to how his soulmate had felt when he had lay bleeding out on the floor of Mustang's office, and it was so much worse than he'd imagined.


Roy was no stranger to nightmares, the Ishvalan Civil War had given him enough fuel to burn the fire of his nightmares for decades to come.

He'd killed so many, he'd never be able to wash the blood from his hands, but this time there was a new twist.

A piece of curved metal with a soul-binding array made in blood, tiny fractures splitting through it, rendering the array useless.

Long blood-stained blond hair and vacant gold eyes, blood pooling around him.

Roy bit his tongue and tasted copper as he awoke, silently and quietly, belying the fear coursing through his veins. He had never dreamed of the Elrics' deaths, it wasn't really something he had even considered. Al was an indestructible suit of armor, Ed was a reckless ill-tempered alchemy nut who had gone through multiple experiences that could've killed a weaker man. They were too stubborn together to die, but believing they were invincible was going to be the thing that killed them.

Roy rubbed his hands into his face, knowing his sleep patterns well enough to know that he wouldn't be getting back to sleep afterwards.

He checked the clock at his bedside. It said it was four fifty in the morning, which was about as lucky is he was going to get with his sleep cycle, so he just grabbed up his uniform and headed into the shower.

Roy wasn't about to call up Hawkeye -who usually drove him around- to take him to Eastern Command so early in the morning, so he'd settle for driving his own car, as terrible as he was at driving it.

Honestly, he was very impressed to find that when he reached the cafeteria it was already lit and there was someone sitting at one of the tables. The cleaning and cooking staff weren't due to show up for at least another hour, and he couldn't help but be surprised to see Edward Elric slumped over a table, his coffee cooling between his fingers.

Ed didn't even seem to notice Roy as he approached, moving past him to pour himself some coffee. It was a fresh pot, so Ed must've heated it up himself. Roy didn't think he liked coffee, let alone drank it.

"Are you awake?" Roy asked cautiously, sitting down directly across from Ed, and that made Ed blink and mentally shake himself.

"Hm?" His brow furrowed and then he scowled at Roy (his typical expression when faced with his superior officer), though his confusion was still clear to see. "Shouldn't you be sleeping, Bastard Colonel?"

Roy arched an eyebrow. "Tough talk coming from you."

Ed conceded the point with a grunt. He straightened up a bit more fully and the movement should've highlighted the mark on his neck. It was an attention grabber, black with thick lines, like it had been painted on with a brush. It was one of the first things that people noticed about Ed, apart from the golden hair and eyes, and fiery personality.

Roy knew he didn't like the attention that his mark sometimes drew and had once suggested he cover it up so it wouldn't be seen if it bothered him so much, but Ed had simply screwed up his face in annoyance and said he wasn't going to hide a mark that had been part of his life since he was one year old.

(Roy thought it best not to bring up how he preferred to hide his automail hand beneath a glove, but he was sure that it had a different meaning to Ed)

But what had drawn his eyes so much was the fact that only the barest of an outline could be seen against his neck, a sure sign that his soulmate was near-death, that his soulmate was dying.

It was harder when you didn't know who your other half was, but if Roy's mark was fading, he could easily call the Hughes' in Central and find out what was going on.

"Take today off," Roy told him and Ed blinked in confusion.

"What? Weren't you the one that put me on desk duty in the first place?"

"Kid," Roy sighed loudly, "your soulmark is almost faded—" Ed flinched. "—you're nearly white, which is impressive for you, you look like you're about to keel over, and you're still wearing your pajamas."

Ed looked down at himself, suddenly surprised, like he hadn't realized what he was wearing, which was a bit more concerning.

Roy took a few more sips of his coffee before leaving it to help pull Ed into a standing position, clasping an arm around his shoulders and practically steering him in the direction of the dorms. "C'mon, kid, the only thing you need is rest."

"I'm fine!" Ed was trying to insist vainly, but after watching him struggle for a solid minute trying to lift his leg to try to attempt the stairs, Roy just hooked an arm under his knees and behind his back. He grunted slightly, not expecting how heavy the automail was.

"You're heavier than you look," he told Ed, who still had enough strength to glare at him.

"Weakling," Ed muttered half-heartedly, his eyes sliding shut.

"Brat," Roy retorted, heaving the kid up the stairs. He'd always made jokes about Ed's short stature but he didn't think he'd ever really appreciated just how small he was, and holding him in his arms, that fact had never been made more obvious.

Ed ignored him, his cheek smushed against the breast of Roy's uniform, his breathing evening out as he slipped from consciousness at long last.

It there was one thing that kid definitely needed, it was sleep. Roy would let him off just this once (He'd let him off every time).

He opened the door to Ed's room -majors and up had the opportunity to have their own room, though you could room out of the dorms once you hit first lieutenant, which was why Havoc and Breda still slept in the dorms while Hawkeye had her own apartment- with a bit of difficulty, making Ed's head loll against his chest, but finally Roy had made it into the room.

It was pretty orderly for belonging to an almost-thirteen-year-old, but Ed could fit his and Al's possessions into a single briefcase, so he probably didn't have much to create a mess with.

Lowering a half-metal sleeping kid onto his bed took a lot more effort than Roy would've thought and he was reminded of a time when he'd gone to see Hughes and Gracia after Elicia started sleeping through the night and the same kind of diligence he was using with Ed, Hughes had displayed when putting his daughter down to sleep.

Roy didn't want to think about what that meant.

He just set Ed down carefully and pulled his blankets up. "Get some sleep, kid," he muttered quietly in the silence.

He definitely needed it.


AN: So, there's probably going to be one more chapter before we skip a year forward, but I think that's the longest skip you'll see in this fic, but who knows. Ling's got a scene or two more before the time skip and I'm still debating a lot of changes to canon, apart from the gay and the parental fluff :)

As always: PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE REVIEW!