The Golden Sun: Chapter Eleven: Too Good

AN: To the one that was worried…I dream about this fic at night, I'm pretty sure its safe in terms of being abandoned, though I've only got a few more weeks until school starts up and everything gets put on the backburner.

Ed could've fixed the truck but what use is that if he can't drive it? Besides, Ed grew up in the country, handling a horse-drawn cart is probably preferable.

Everyone loving the stuff with Xerxes and Ishval is great because eventually we're gonna hit that hard…might be part three when that finally happens, though, we'll have to see ;)


Roy wasn't expecting it. It had only been a few hours and he wasn't really prone to worry, but after a few hours had once almost cost Ed his life, it was safe to say he was a bit paranoid. Ed did have a tendency to run off on his own, but did that mean he wasn't going to worry? Of course not!

An annoyed sigh parted from his lips. He was going to blame Hughes for that line of thought; his fatherly aspirations since Elicia's birth was affecting Roy.

He'd barely made it into his house when the phone gave a sharp ring and Roy didn't even bother kicking his door shut before grabbing it up and answering with a crisp "Roy Mustang."

"East City General Hospital, Colonel Mustang," came the swift reply and Roy's uneasiness spiked. "You're to be notified about Major Edward Elric's medical status any time he enters a hospital, yes?"

Roy blinked. He'd almost forgotten when he'd added that to Ed's file. It was mostly a precaution, seeing as he had a tendency to not inform anyone about his injuries or how serious they were. He wasn't as good about fooling Al, but occasionally he did pull one over on the boy, and Roy would rather not have Ed pass out suddenly in his office because of injuries he didn't want to admit.

"Is he seriously injured?" Roy asked, mentally preparing for the worst.

"No," the voice said on the other end and Roy released a silent sigh of relief, "he's having a few lacerations stitched up and bandaged. He's a little banged up but nothing serious. We're keeping his companion for a week at most, though, she's got dehydration and malnutrition on top of a broken arm."

Roy had no idea who they were talking about, but he thanked them anyways, hurrying out of the house just as quickly as he'd entered, sending word to Al where he was probably sitting in Ed's room waiting to hear news from Ed and trying to keep busy by looking through the number of books they had piled there. Al would want to know that his brother was safe and sound.

He probably almost crashed the car -which Ed would laugh about the traitorous little imp, like he actually knew how to drive- on the way to the hospital, but it was so late that there weren't all that many cars out on the road, so Roy didn't have to worry about getting into an accident when he skidded into the parking lot.

Finding Ed wasn't that hard, all Roy had to do was follow the loud complaints.

"I'll sign myself out, thanks," Ed's voice was full of venom.

"An adult needs to do that," the doctor tried to counter and Ed growled.

"I'm a State Alchemist and a Major, I can sign myself out!" he all but snarled and the doctor clearly thought it was best to make a retreat in face of Ed's fire, which was probably a wise decision.

Ed blinked when Roy finally rounded the corner to get a good look at his temperamental subordinate. Ed's hair had fallen out of its braid and he'd evidently given up on tying it off again, there was a thick bandage over his arm and another one on his thigh, just barely visible under the hospital gown.

"What're you doing here, Colonel Bastard? Shouldn't you be getting so shut eye?" Ed appraised him critically. "You look like shit."

Leave it to Ed to say things like they were, but it wasn't like he was wrong. Roy's insomnia had been pretty terrible the past week and it was starting to show in the bags under his eyes.

"You're one to talk," Roy scoffed, striding forward to tilt Ed's chin and get a good look at the bruise blooming across his face, the darkest over his left eye. "I'd hate to see the other guy."

Ed started in surprise before a downright demonic grin morphed onto his face. "I left him and his buddy with the police."

Roy dropped his hand to his shoulder. "How's your leg?"

"Fine," Ed said too quickly for Roy to believe it but he didn't have the chance to argue because they both heard the tell-tale sound of metal clanging and Roy stepped back so Al could rush to his brother's side.

"Uh, hey, Al—"

"Why are you so reckless, Brother! You're always telling me to go get help when I need it, you absolute hypocrite!"

Ed's jaw unhinged as he gaped at his brother, sassing and shaming him like it was his business. Al had never been meek about telling Ed what he thought, but Roy didn't think that he'd actually heard the boy ever call his older brother a hypocrite.

"I didn't need any help! I had it all sorted!" Ed insisted.

"Didn't you crash that truck?" came a tired voice from the second bed, bearing a Xingese girl about Ed's age that Roy hadn't quite noticed when he'd entered. She had an arm in a cast and was hooked up to an IV.

Ed's eyebrow twitched and stabbed a finger in her direction. "Not helping, Lanfan!"

Lanfan snorted, relaxing back into her pillows.

"That's Lanfan," Ed added helpfully, "she was being brought to Amestris because the guys who grabbed her thought she was the Yao Clan heir and they wanted to leverage the clan for money and power…we kinda ran into each other."

Lanfan waved helpfully with her good arm.

Roy arched an eyebrow. That sounded like there was a political vacuum in Xing, if an heir was already being leveraged for power. Then his eyebrow twitched.

"Did you sneak an illegal alien into the country?" he asked Ed sharply.

"Does it really count as sneaking if they just didn't see her?" Ed's eyes glowed with mirth, his teeth bared into a grin.

Roy pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed while Al went up to Lanfan, thanking her for his brother and understanding that he could be a handful.

Lanfan had been amused by that. "You've never met Ling Yao," she said, eyes crinkling in the corners, "if you turn your back on him he's gone."

"Sounds like my kind of guy," Ed managed to say before pushing off Roy's hand where it ruffled the top of his head, growling, embarrassment coloring his cheeks.

For some reason she found that hilarious.

"Did you ever get to call home?" Ed asked her, looking around the room for his rather terrible choice in clothes.

Lanfan bobbed her head. "Grandfather said he'd come for me right away…I'm not sure what he's going to do about the young lord, though…knowing him, he might just tag along. He should be here in about a week, less if he hurries." She shrugged. "I think I'm going to be stuck in here for about that long."

Ed nodded in understanding, finally finding his clothes and shaking them in Roy's general direction. "Why're you here, anyways?"

"Given your rather…reckless nature, every time you appear in a hospital, I'm informed," Roy informed him flatly, eyes sharp.

"That's—!" the rest of Ed's furious words were stifled quickly by one of Al's gauntlets and he glared up at his brother furiously.

"Al," Roy directed his attention towards the saner of the two Elrics, "I think you two will be staying the night at my place, given your brother's proclivity for running off despite his injuries."

"Mmph!" Ed complained angrily beneath Al's hand.

They'd stayed over at Roy's place exactly three other times and only because Ed had been about to pass out on his feet and Roy's place just so happened to be closer than the dorms. Al liked it, mostly because of the books Roy had on alchemy could keep his interest while his brother slept on.

"Thank you, sir, that's very generous," Al said, his voice dripping in saccharine as he looked down on his brother. "Isn't that very generous, Ed?"

Predictably, Ed quailed under those eerily glowing eyes. Roy hid his smirk; very few people could incite that kind of response out of the headstrong alchemist, but Al was definitely at the top of that list.

He stepped past the brothers who were beginning to squabble to stride to Lanfan.

"Thank you," he said to her swiftly, "Fullmetal has a tendency to get into trouble. Thank you for seeing that he got home safely."

Lanfan smiled faintly. "He was the one that knew where to go and convinced me to come here rather than run off towards Xing without any supplies. We helped each other."

Her eyes flicked towards the brothers, a crease appearing between her eyebrows. "Is the boy hiding in the metal suit Ed's younger brother Al?"

Roy could understand the confusion, when he'd first seen Al, he'd been pretty confused too. You wouldn't expect such a young and gentle voice to come from such an imposing figure. "Yes," he said, "that's Alphonse Elric."

He waited for the question that always came after, but she didn't ask, she merely nodded in comprehension. "I can't tell if they love each other or hate each other," Lanfan told him with a frown, watching Ed punch Al's chest plate with an automail fist, nowhere near hard enough to damage the metal, if that was even possible (it was a privately known fact among his subordinates that Al was the stronger of the two, a fact that Ed always remarked on with such pride).

A bubble of laughter escaped him. "Definitely love," Roy could say that with absolute certainty.

What other reason would Ed had put himself through hell and back for his brother if it wasn't love?

"All right, come on you two!" Roy turned away from Lanfan and grabbed Ed by the ear -making him squawk loudly in outrage and hooking an arm around Al's gauntlet. "Time for one of you to catch up on sleep and the other to read his way through my library."

Al laughed and Ed grumbled "That should be you, you fucking insomniac—!"

Roy ignored that comment.


Predictably, Ed had passed out by the time Roy had actually driven the pair back to his place, helping scoop the fourteen-year-old half-metal boy up to place in the cocoon of Al's arms before making their way to the door.

(Ed would sleep just about anywhere and Roy had found him passed out at least twelve times in his brother's lap while Al read from a book, apparently unencumbered by his elder brother's presence. "I think he worries," Al confided in Roy, "since I can't feel anything…he doesn't want me to feel alone." Those brothers were too good for each other)

"He must've been really tired," Al murmured to Roy as he maneuvered carefully through the door, making sure Ed's head wouldn't hit anything. "He doesn't usually fall asleep this fast."

"I'm sure he had a trying day." Roy's lips twitched faintly. Ed would have to tell him the whole story tomorrow and explain how he'd gotten so cut up and bruised in the first place.

It was short work to get them situated. There weren't any extra clothes for him to wear tucked away in Roy's guest room, so Roy settled for pulling off Ed's shoes and then bringing up the sheets around him as he snoozed on, happily buried in the blankets, nuzzling into the pillow in a manner similar to Hawkeye's new puppy Black Hayate, barely wincing from moving his injured leg or arm too much.

"Brother probably won't wake up until morning," Al told Roy as he unlocked the library -though calling it a library might've been a bit much, it was little more than a room full of books. There were books within it that he was oddly protective of, books that his master had given to him with a promise that he would keep them safe. Now, even years after his death, Roy was still keeping that promise. "He sleeps a lot."

He remembered when he'd been like the Elrics, more focused on alchemy to the point of obsession and he'd seen them both scrawling out new arrays with chemical compounds that no one had ever tried before, like the drive to create was something in their blood that they couldn't suppress. Roy's desire to do the same with alchemy had remained untapped in recent years, waning in the place of his ambitions.

"I've noticed," Roy chuckled, thinking of the many times when he'd found Ed slumped against every surface known to man, including Roy's couch in his locked office. He'd come into work early one morning to find Ed slumbering there with a book on alchemy over his face and promptly had a heart attack. "You'll be all right in here on your own?"

"Of course, I'm usually alone at night," Al assured him, though it was far too sad to be reassuring. "But you look tired, Colonel, are you sure you're all right? Ed says you have insomnia."

Roy blinked a few times, trying to mentally reassert himself, the exhaustion getting to him, but every time he shut his eyes, it was like a gun was going off in his head, flames bright before his eyes, vacant red eyes and white hair stained with blood. "How does he know I have insomnia?"

Ed had stopped calling him a slacker, Roy realized belatedly. When was the last time he'd called Roy that? Was it a year ago? He still remembered Ed frowning when he found out that Roy got the most paperwork out of the other Colonels in Eastern Command, and the look on his face when Roy smelled cooking meat -burning flesh- and was violently ill. Ed might not notice as much as Al, but he still picked up on a lot of things.

"I think Lieutenant Hawkeye told him around the time he figured out how to forge your signature and started helping with your paperwork when you're sleeping," Al said, not really looking at Roy as his fingers trailed over the spines of the books he had in the shelves.

Roy was sure he was gaping. "He's been doing my paperwork?"

"We both have. Ed's better at signing your name than I am, though. I am very good at sorting, though," Al said brightly. "I sort all the paperwork by importance when we're in East City."

Roy imagined that Fuery, Havoc, and Breda were grateful of that, while Falman probably sputtered about how that went against protocol. Then he pressed a hand against his face.

"Colonel?" Al's voice was colored with concern. "What's wrong? Are you upset?"

"You boys," Roy finally said, his voice raspy with emotion, "you really are too good to me."

And then he coaxed Al down so he could pat the top of his helmet like Ed so often did. "Convince Ed to let me get a cat and we're even," Al promised, all warmth and brightness that he could rival the sun in voice alone.

That made Roy laugh. "I don't think cats are allowed in the dorms."

"They're not," Al agreed conversationally, "but we've been debating actually getting our own place in Central, that way we can actually have a place to leave all of our books and stuff…Ed's got a problem with putting down roots, though, mostly because he doesn't want me to get a cat."

The cat, evidently, was the priority.

"You're thinking about getting a place in Central City?" Roy's brow furrowed.

Of course, Roy was always vying for a transfer to Central Command, mostly because it meant that he was getting closer to the top. This time around, though, Roy had learned that there was a possibility of an opening for him to transfer to if he played his cards right. But Ed and Al had never really cared much about where they were, as long as they were together.

The last house they'd had they'd burned down when they were twelve and eleven respectively. Roy hadn't even been made aware of that fact until Hawkeye had brought it up in passing about why Ed had been so angry with Al for running off to Resembool and not telling him that he'd removed all the books from their father's study before it went up in flames.

(Roy thought it best to keep out of that brotherly squabble, though it had sorted itself out rather quickly -Ed was a flake and Al was very rational-, and Ed liked to pretend there wasn't a picture of him and Al when they were younger on his desk, mostly because the first time he'd seen it, he'd tripped over his tongue and glared at Al who was rather unrepentant)

"Because you and everyone else is going to be stationed there eventually." Al shrugged his large armored shoulders, like he was stating a simple fact and not making Roy's heart constrict and make wheezes leave his throat. "Uh…sir, are you…okay?"

"Fine," Roy wheezed, wondering how someone so pure and good as Al had ever graced his miserable life. What did a man who had once killed children with his blaze do to deserve the Elric Brothers looking up to him enough to want to move to the city he wished to be transferred to. "But I think I'll leave you on your own and attempt to get some shut-eye."

"Good luck, sir!" Al called sincerely and quietly -so as not to awaken Ed- after him and Roy gave a half-hearted wave, shutting the door behind him, rubbing at an eye tiredly. He went to his room and shrugged off his uniform into something a bit more comfortable before pausing at the door to the guest room and silently creaking it open after a moment's deliberation.

The light from the hall cast shadows across the room and Ed had finally maneuvered himself into the best sleeping position, curving his body away from the door. Roy could see his shoulders moving with every breath; the kid must've really been exhausted from the events of the past day.

Roy always liked to joke about how small Ed was, but it was still true; Ed was small and young and carrying the weight of the world -the weight of his own sins- wouldn't change that.

Roy reached out a hand, pausing before his fingers could brush against the boy's hair. He'd been toeing the professional boundary with the boys for as long as they'd been under his command, and while Ed was still a soldier serving under his command, he was also the boy that had silently sobbed into Roy's jacket.

Roy had gotten too soft; Hughes must be so proud.

He relented and dropped his hand to Ed's hair, patting the top of his head gently. Ed mumbled something in his sleep, but he didn't awaken.

"Get some sleep, kid," he muttered under his breath. "You earned it."

Then Roy leaned back and debated whether or not he should attempt to sleep in his own bed that night, but given his proclivity to insomnia in that bed…maybe he should just cut his losses.

Roy flopped down into the armchair on the opposite side of the bed that was comfortable enough.

And the dreams that had been evading him for so long came quickly as he settled himself into a slightly more comfortable position and finally fell into a dreamless sleep, oblivious to the world.


When Al came in very early into the morning, a book tucked in his hand, moving quietly so as not to awaken either of them, he found a blanket that Ed wasn't using and carefully draped it over Colonel Mustang's slumbering form.

If Al could smile, he would've.


Fu's options were limited, unfortunately. It was relieving and surprising to hear Lanfan's voice over the phone. She was resourceful enough to make her way back to Xing without too much trouble, but he should've considered that she'd been drugged for the better part of a week and hadn't gotten much food or water and had a broken arm to boot.

He was proud when she'd told him that the would-be kidnappers no longer drew breath. He wouldn't have to worry about taking care of them himself.

Her story was indeed intriguing, mostly because she met up with a young alchemist that appeared to be Xerxian, despite being from Amestris, one that had to smuggle her into Amestris in order to take her to the hospital.

It was that kind of chaotic spirit that Fu felt he needed to meet in person to be absolutely certain he existed because Fu had never heard of an Amestrian willingly smuggling an illegal alien across the border for medical assistance.

"Edward is a character," Lanfan had agreed with a snort, "but you'll see when you meet him."

There was no question that Fu would be crossing the Eastern Desert to collect his granddaughter -he'd arrive the day she should be discharged from the hospital, unless he moved quickly, then it would be earlier- though he was certain she could make the journey on her own…Fu was supposed to look after her, he promised he would.

The biggest issue, then, lay with Ling Yao, who had been lying low since rumors had spread about his -Lanfan's- kidnapping.

Fu couldn't very well leave the young lord behind undefended, what would be the point of that? Especially when they went through all that trouble to make sure he was safe in the first place.

He had considered it briefly, though. There were men in the guild that had trained him that he still trusted, but they worked for other clans and it was kill or be killed in Xing for clan heirs at this point.

"Pack light," he told Ling, "we're going to collect Lanfan in Amestris." Collect probably wasn't the best way to describe it, but it was going to be difficult to get into the country on their own without a kindly alchemist to lie to military personnel for them.

The eager light that glowed in Ling's eyes at that made Fu sigh. He'd always had such an adventurous spirit, always searching and seeking, like he was looking for something or someone…

Fu's thoughts lingered on the soulmark over Ling's heart.

Maybe Ling would find what he was looking for in Amestris.


AN: The scene with Ed sleeping was based off the scene where Hohenheim looks in on Ed sleeping when he's in Resembool after going to Xerxes and stops short before he touches his son. Al and Roy are a great dynamic to write, though, and Roy literally can't handle that Al is honestly the sweetest kid he's ever met.

There is more to see with Lanfan, unfortunately there wasn't much of her this chapter, but there should be a few more scenes with her before we don't see her for a while, but she and Fu and Ling are kinda important characters in the story, so, worry not, you will see more of her interacting with the Elrics and their support system.

But Ling is coming to Amestris! How exciting!

As always: PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE REVIEW!