The Golden Sun: Chapter Fifteen: Magnetic Attraction

AN: Looks like everyone enjoyed the Papa!Roy moment despite the guy not even actually being in the scene, I guess he's lucky like that. And Ed doodling Ling's clan symbol was easily one of the cutest things he's done to date in regards to his crush on Ling, but, worry not, there's always more.

The Rush Valley arc in canon is not the one you're going to be reading about in here, the pregnancy is a year away and Ed and Al have things to do, so they're not sticking around long.

For all the lesbian Winry fans, who are no doubt thirsty


"What're you doing here?" Ed demanded loudly. Luckily, the train was mostly empty, but Al elbowed him with a low "Ed!"

Winry's eyebrows rose in surprise at the sight of them, grinning as she approached only to narrow her eyes at Ed, jumping to his automail arm. Ed shifted as far away from her as he could manage. "It's a free country, isn't it? Nothing wrong with getting on a train, is there, Edward?"

Ed grumbled under his breath as she settled beside Al. "So, what've you guys been up to? Any closer to getting your bodies back?"

"Actually," Al said brightly, "we might have something on that front."

"Really?" Winry asked interested before shooting her arm out and snagging Ed's automail arm.

"Hey!"

She shook it and something rattled inside of it. "Did that screw come loose completely? I told you to come to Resembool before that happened! You're lucky that the nothing else came loose!"

"Why're you getting so mad? It's not like I completely destroyed it!" Ed fired back.

"You're useless!"

"He didn't want to bother you so he was just going to get a patch job in Rush Valley," Al offered helpfully, or incriminatingly, definitely one of the two.

"Al!" Ed snapped in outrage.

Winry's lips twisted. "I'll bet he was…all right, hand it over, Ed."

"What? No!" Ed hugged the automail limb to himself like he was afraid she was going to literally going to take it off him.

Winry arched an eyebrow. "You were going to get it looked at anyways, besides, I can probably figure it out faster and get it fixed before you even get to Rush Valley." Rush Valley was still a couple of hours out, so it wasn't like any of them would be doing too much to start with.

Ed pursed his lips in annoyance before finally sighing and relenting; it wasn't as though Winry wasn't one of the best.

After a minute of fiddling, she popped it off and settled back in her seat, fiddling with a screwdriver over the metal plating. "So, anything new going on with you guys?"

"I don't know…should we tell her about Ling?" Al asked his brother in an all-too-knowing voice and Ed's face flared with heat, much to Winry's surprise as the train pulled out of the station.

"No! Absolutely not!" He shook his head violently, his face glowing like the setting sun.

"Ooh, that sounds interesting." Winry's eyes gleamed as she looked from Ed to Al. "Who's this Ling, Al?"

"Ling's a Xingese prince who thinks Ed's very cute," Al informed her with an almost sly glance towards his brother who tried to hide his face behind his journal, though doing it one-handed wasn't quite as effective in hiding how much his cheeks were burning. "Actually, that was the first thing he said to you, wasn't it, Ed?"

"Shut up!" Ed squeaked from behind the journal.

"He was doodling Ling's clan symbol in his journal yesterday," Al confided.

"Al!"

"Aw, that's so cute!" Winry grinned widely. "Where's he now?"

"He had to go back to Xing," Ed muttered, lacking the strength to speak at a normal level, apparently. "He just came here with Fu to get Lanfan."

Winry's brow furrowed in confusion.

"There was this child trafficking ring that I helped take down," Ed had to explain as she shook his automail arm to get the loose screw out. "I ended up following the guys in charge into the Eastern Desert at the same time Lanfan got kidnapped from Xing pretending to be Ling, so they were planning to hold her hostage in Amestris, that's how we ran into each other."

"You saved her?" Winry wasn't really surprised; that was what Ed and Al did.

But Ed scoffed. "Lanfan saved herself, she's scary tough. I gave her a ride back to Amestris and helped her cross the border illegally so she could get her broken arm looked at."

Winry burst into laughter. She didn't know why but somehow that was even more funny. "What'd Mustang say to that?" He was a Colonel, after all, he shouldn't've really been totally down with his subordinate helping someone cross the border illegally.

"He pretends he didn't hear anything about it," Ed snorted. "Not that anyone could prove they were even here in the first place…so she calls her grandfather and he crosses the desert with Ling and of course he passes out and the first thing he does is call me cute and then pass out again."

Winry snorted and Al giggled.

"And then Al leaves me with like ninety-pounds of delirium in a five-pound bag and straight up vanishes, leaving me to lug his ass to the hospital—"

"But, Brother," Al said so innocently that Winry knew it had to be good, "you looked like you were enjoying yourself…you both looked pretty cozy."

Heat flared up in Ed's cheeks again and he decided that the best way to hide his face to completely twist his body where he was laying spread across the entire bench to bury his face in the seat cushions. "I hate you both, and I want to die," he muffled there, but he was certain that they both heard it, regardless.

"Aw, I think he's shy!"

Ed flipped her off without even turning to face her.

Ling had, quite possibly, ruined him for men. He wasn't used to anyone paying that kind of attention to him. He'd met a general or two whose eyes had lingered on him, of course (he'd decided not to tell either Al or Mustang about that, which was probably for the best), and Mustang gave him and Al his fullest attention, but that was always with a bit of a paternal air that Ed was slowly coming to terms with.

None of them had been like Ling's. Ling's attention made Ed choke for breath and want to avert his eyes or never look anywhere else again. It was like…magnetic attraction, like drowning and finally learning how to breathe.

Ed didn't understand any of it. He didn't understand how a tingle could've run down his spine when Ling had held his automail hand, gently roving his fingers over the steel with interest. He didn't understand why being so close to Ling had made him so flustered.

And he really didn't understand how cute Ling was…it was un-fucking-real. He had that cute head tilt when he talked and his looks? Someone should go ahead and kill Ed because next time he saw Ling he definitely wasn't going to be able to handle how flirty he was.

"Ugh," Ed groaned. "I'm so gay."

"Same, dude."

Ed rolled back to glare at Winry, but it was useless, being a lesbian was a point of pride for Winry. Ed didn't think he'd ever met someone so grateful that they'd never be attracted to men. ("I'm sure you and Al are super broken up," Winry had said when they were nine and Ed had stared blankly at her, never having had much inclination for romance, let alone romantic feelings for the girl who was probably the closest to being his sister than anything else, and thinking about Al who was generally more preoccupied with avoiding bullies due to his shy and soft nature than thinking about people being cute, not that anyone cared too much about that at that age.)

"But really, Ed? A prince?" Winry arched an eyebrow. "How much are you trying to one-up me?"

"I'm sure you'll find your soulmate before either of us," Ed replied with a roll of his eyes, "don't worry so much."

Winry ignored that, returning her attention instead to the arm. Ed had never cared too much about soulmates, even now she doubted he cared. Sure, this Ling might be cute, but Al still came first, Al was his priority. She both admired that and felt sad about it.

"What're you doing on the train anyways, Winry?" Al asked curiously, letting her tinker for a few moments in silence.

"Oh, same as you," Winry grinned. "Granny finally okayed me to go to Rush Valley for an apprenticeship! She gave me a letter to give someone named —" Winry had to check the name on the letter briefly. "—Atelier Garfiel."

"That's great news!" Al clapped his hands together and Ed nodded fervently. Getting an apprenticeship in Rush Valley had to be a dream come true for Winry. Ed and Al were always expanding what they new with alchemy, there wasn't a reason that Winry shouldn't do the same.

"Thanks! I'm really excited about it!" She looked it, but then her eyes shifted towards Ed and her grin turned positively devilish. "It's a good thing you're here, Ed, I can use you as an example!"

"Of what?" Ed eyed her warily, getting the feeling that he wasn't going to like where this was going.

"Your arm and leg!" Winry waved his arm with emphasis, which probably wasn't the best idea, since she was still in the middle of fixing it in the first place, but Ed thought it best not to comment. "Proof of my skills! Maybe if he sees your arm and leg he'll take me on!"

Ed had the mental image of him stripped down to his underwear so that both his arm and his leg could be easily seen. Ed really didn't like that idea.

He didn't have the time or energy to voice that because Winry had cheerfully said "All right, all done, ready for me to put it back on?"

Ed grimaced. Every single time, no matter how hard he tried, he passed out. There had yet to be a point where reconnecting the nerves didn't send a flare of pain through his body so strong that it made him pass out instantly. Of course, he'd actually broken his leg apart a few months ago, and that had been just as bad; Al had to carry him to safety when he'd passed out in an alley.

"Better get it over with," Ed decided with a sigh, pulling himself up into a sitting position as Winry could sit beside him, fitting the catches into place. He gritted his teeth together, ready for the pain.

"One, two, three!" Winry reconnected the nerves. Ed's eyes blew wide, his spine stiffened, and then he pitched forward, with only Al moving fast enough to catch him and settle him back against the cushions. Winry threw his coat over him as he breathed in and out evenly, his eyes fluttering beneath his eyelids.

"He'll be up and about in an hour," Winry decided after checking his pulse and his breathing, nothing seemed abnormal, or at least, didn't seem too abnormal. That was usually how long it too Ed to come around after the nerves were reconnected. "So, you guys have been doing pretty well?"

"Mostly." She could almost hear Al's smile. "We're doing a lot of research into Alkahestry and Xerxes, though, we think there might be some value in that."

"Oh, yeah, didn't Aunt Trisha like hearing about Xerxes, too?" Winry had a hazy memory of one time where she'd slept the night over at the Elrics and had woken up in the middle of the night to toddle into the room. Uncle Van had been telling her stories by the light of the fire and Aunt Trisha had settled Winry on her lap while listening to Uncle Van talk enraptured. Winry didn't remember much about what he'd said, just the tone, the soft and somber way he spoke, like remembering something that was long gone.

Al's helmet creaked as he turned to look at her. "I-what?" he asked in total confusion. "Mom was interested in Xerxes?"

"Maybe?" Winry scratched her head. "I was really young and its kind of hazy…" Winry thought there'd been something about Xerxes, though. "I think your dad told her something about a place called…Persepolis? He said into was the true center of Xerxes."

"What else do you remember?" Al had never sounded quite so eager.

"Not that much," Winry shrugged her shoulders helplessly. "I drifted off after a while."

Al remembered less when they were kids, but he was absolutely certain that Mom completely understood any of the alchemy jargon they'd said in front of her. The first time Ed had attempted alchemy and it didn't work he'd become so flustered and upset that he almost burst into tears but then Mom had come along and helped him correct the array.

"You had all the parts right, see?" she'd pointed out kindly, kneeling down beside him, fingers darting over the various elements Ed had scrawled out. "You just need to space them out a bit more evenly."

She'd rubbed the chalk off Hohenheim's wood floor and shown how to correct it and sat beside Ed as the air crackled with electricity.

Talking about alchemy at the table had become common place after that.

How much about alchemy had Mom even known, though? All those books in the study…were they just Hohenheim's, or were they hers as well? The older they got, Al felt the less they knew about their parents. Hohenheim had the excuse of just disappearing, but they'd had Mom until she died.

("What a tragedy, to die so young, to leave her children so young," was murmured in Resembool, but, unbeknownst to Ed and Al there were others that looked on that illness with a suspicion.)

What did they really even know about Trisha Elric? They knew she'd lived in North City when she was little before the family moved out to Resembool and that she'd still had trouble with the summer heat, because she'd always wave them off when they wanted her to come outside and play with them, fanning herself, flushed in the face.

"Oh, just because you're from the desert, doesn't mean we all are, dear!" she'd once snarked at Hohenheim, making him chuckle faintly, even if there'd been something in his face that Al had thought was…off, something sad, something somber.

Her family was all dead, or she was estranged, though Al couldn't imagine anyone being estranged from Mom, she was far too nice. She'd never talked about any family, hardly at all, only talking about them when she talked about when she was a child…from what Al could remember, she was an only child and her father had been a soldier at Fort Briggs.

But he didn't think there was much else she'd told them about herself…was there? They'd been born in North City, that much he'd remembered, and shortly after he was born Mom packed up her bags and she and Hohenheim decided to take them back to Resembool, but he was to young to remember that, Ed probably was too; it was a long time ago.

He definitely remembered the look on her face -closed off and lined with tension- as she patted the top of Ed's head. "One day we'll talk about your father," she had said after too many questions after he'd left.

She died two weeks later.

"Winry?"

Winry hummed.

"Do you ever feel like you didn't really know your parents that well?" Al asked her curiously before abruptly realizing that maybe he shouldn't have asked; Winry had lost her parents too, not like Ed and Al, but it didn't take the sting away.

But Winry considered his words. "Yeah," she finally sighed.


Ed's dreams were a mess of confusion, but that was nothing new, it was almost more preferable to dreaming about the Gate or the thing they'd transmuted.

It was like a jumble of memories that Ed couldn't make sense of, it was like being dragged underwater as a wave struck, not sure what was up or down.

In the end Ed just sank down deep and drowned until he jerked awake with a start.

"Brother? Are you all right?" Al asked quietly and Ed scrubbed aggressively at his face.

"Fine," he muttered, making sure to keep his voice low when he saw that Winry was napping against Al's side. "Just a weird dream."

He sat up, testing his automail like Winry always had him do after she reconnected the nerves.

"Brother…do you think knowing about Xerxes is really dangerous?" Al asked him suddenly.

"Maybe," Ed said quietly. His thoughts drifted to Lieutenant Hawkeye, thinking about what she'd said about her father being intrigued by it. "Why?"

"Winry…Winry said something about hearing Mom talk about it with Hohenheim," Al said softly and Ed jolted.

"When was that?" Ed asked, startled.

"Dunno? Sometime before he left and Mom got really sick?" Al wasn't really sure and he doubted Winry was either.

Ed cupped his chin thoughtfully, his brow creasing. Thinking too much about his mother -about what they'd done- made him feel like there were knives in his chest, but Ed had to remove himself to think clearly. "So was Hawkeye's dad…the Lieutenant said he died a little after Mustang joined the military…"

"You don't think it's a coincidence that no one can find anything on Xerxes and the people that do end up dead, do you?" Al sounded so concerned and Ed felt for him. Nothing about the path back to their bodies was easy, but nothing was without sacrifice, Ed and Al had learned that the hard way. Al was hard to kill but Ed was still flesh and blood, and it wasn't like no one had gotten close to killing him before. But Ed wasn't too keen on a repeat of that experience.

"Maybe…we should try to keep on the down low to be safe," Ed sighed.

"But what about going to Xerxes?" Al pressed. "We're still thinking about doing that, right?"

"Of course, we are, Al," Ed scoffed, "we need to get answers somewhere and that's probably the best option…we just need to make it look like we're not."

The balls of light that were Al's eyes narrowed into slits in his helmet. "You're not very good at being subtle, Ed."

"What? Of course, I am! Take that back!"

"Nu-uh!"


Rush Valley was everything Winry wanted and then some. It was like coming off the train and entering a dream, which made her wonder if she was even awake.

"Pinch me," she told Ed in complete awe and Ed rolled his eyes, poking her in the ribs instead. "Hey!"

"I heard 'poke me'," he said innocently with that shit-eating grin of his and oh, was he so full of shit. "You're lucky the train doesn't even leave for another hour, is all I'm saying."

He shifted uncomfortably, straightening the glove over his automail arm. He didn't like to draw much attention to it, from what Winry could remember.

"You don't have to come with me," Winry said finally, "I just thought, you know, it would be a good way to showcase my skills."

Ed scowled. "If it gets you the job, then I'll do it, but not in front of everyone."

Winry positively beamed before grabbing his wrist with one hand and Al's with another, dragging them forward. Al was intrigued by the different types of automail on display, though Ed was marginally less enthused by all the modifications clear to see. Ed liked his automail the way it was, mostly because he could easily hide it under his sleeve and people didn't really notice it initially. Winry played to that desire when she'd crafted his arm and leg the first time.

"There it is!" Winry jabbed a finger in the direction of the curved lettering above the shop in question.

Mr. Garfiel, it turned out, was a man with eyeliner game on point and suspenders that he probably didn't need to keep his pants up. Honestly, Ed was more impressed with his eyeliner. Apparently, he had only met Granny a few short years ago but had impressed her with his style of automail and ability to adapt to specifics that clients requested, something Winry had a lot of trouble with.

He chatted with her for about a good half hour, about how Granny was, how she'd gotten started with automail, what changes she'd made since she'd begun, probably trying to gauge if she was a good choice for apprenticeship.

It was about that time that Mr. Garfiel came to admire Ed's arm.

"Would you consider this arm sturdy?" he asked Ed.

"Well, I fight with it and unless it's a really bad fight, it holds up," Ed snorted before he was coached into a few exercises to showcase how the different plating worked together to function adequately.

"Its very well made," Mr. Garfiel complimented and Winry's face glowed with pleasure. It was one thing for the Elrics and Granny to compliment her work, but it was another thing for someone else entirely to do it. "I think you would be incredibly well suited for an apprenticeship in my shop."

"Really?" Winry bounced on the balls of her feet, pure delight oozing from her entire being. "Oh, thank you so much! I have to tell Granny!"

Mr. Garfiel watched her run off with a bit of bemusement. "Your friend is very excitable."

"Well, she loves automail," Al conceded with a shrug.


"—and he gave me the apprenticeship right off the bat!" Winry jabbered away without even drawing breath, she didn't think that she'd even given Granny the chance to talk since she'd picked up.

"Well, that's good to hear," Granny's dry voice came through the phone dryly.

"It was probably a good thing that Ed and Al were on the train, I used Ed's arm as an example of my skills," Winry replied brightly.

"Ed and Al were on the train and didn't stop by?"

Winry sniggered. "They were hoping to get a patch job in Rush Valley instead of coming home."

"Ah," Granny said in realization, "Ed was hoping to avoid the wrench."

Winry nearly cackled. "It was just a screw loose, but I got it sorted out on the train, no worries."

"Mmhm…are you going to want me to sent some of your things to Rush Valley now that you'll be staying there for an extended visit?"

Winry had a few days' worth of clothes tucked in her bag, but Granny was right, that wouldn't last her for very long.

"Please and thank you!"

"Have fun, dear, and learn as much as you can," Granny told her.

"I will!" Winry promised, hanging up from her and running into someone as she stepped back. "Oh, sorry!"

The girl teetered for a brief moment before righting herself and Winry caught a glance of sunlight shining off of her automail leg through a hole in her overalls. This girl, she realized with horror, was unbelievably cute. Her blue eyes were so dark they were almost black, her skin was darker than Ed and Al's, and holy hell, the muscles of her arms…were they even real? "No harm, no foul."

Winry was so gay.

Then her heart positively stopped. "Oh, holy fuck," she said, shooting an arm out to grab the girl's wrist to see the tight figure eight there and then brushing the hair back from her left shoulder, where its twin sat.

The girl's eyes glowed and she brushed her fingers over the mark. It was electric and magnetic and Winry tried hard not to shudder. "Paninya," she said to Winry.

"Winry," Winry replied, her throat suddenly dry, "oh my god, you're even better than I imagined."

Paninya laughed and Winry turned beet red. "Oh, fuck, was that out loud?"

"Don't worry," Paninya assured her, her smile broad, "I wasn't expecting my soulmate to be this cute either."

Winry could practically feel the heat coming off her cheeks but it didn't come close to matching how impossibly wide and bright her smile was.


AN: Trisha's backstory is so different and so interesting but it'll be a couple of chapters before you see the boys actually figuring anything out about it. There was almost a HUGE canon change, but I realized it might be a little difficult to pull off, so I scrapped it, but Trisha is definitely an interesting character to write in this fic.

As always: PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE REVIEW!