The Golden Sun: Chapter Sixteen: Lieutenant Colonel

AN: Ed's gay, Winry's gay, and Al's just sitting there trying to be a normal teen in a metal body, just trying to live his life. There's a lot of excitement about Trisha's character, which is good, because she has a really interesting past.


Ed and Al lost Winry somehow in the sea of automail mechanics and amputees, but were either of them really all that surprised? No, definitely not. Ed had to literally pry himself away from three automail mechanics that were incredibly interested in his automail, and one that wanted him to upgrade his to a bulkier and stronger model, none of which made Ed too happy. There were too many people touching him and Ed might be a bit touch-starved -which was absolutely nothing compared to Al- but he wasn't a fan of people grabbing his arm and trying to get a look at the automail or try to convince him to change it.

"The train's leaving soon," Al said in worry, "we'll miss saying goodbye to her if we can't find her."

"She's gotta be here some- oh! There she is!" Ed pointed through the crowd to where the train was sitting at the train station, ready to leave in a few minutes. "She's—"

They both stared. Winry was sitting rather close to another girl, their heads close and smiles painted on their faces. They could easily see Winry's flush.

"I swear, she must be the luckiest girl we know," Ed told Al. "Comes to Rush Valley for an apprenticeship and winds up with a girlfriend."

Al laughed. "I think its sweet!"

Ed shrugged careless as he and Al strolled up to the bench where Winry was waving her arms emphatically. The girl she was with was pretty, but then so was Winry, and Winry's hands were smoothing over her automail legs with intrigue and awe while the girl tried not look too pleased about the attention.

"Hey, Win, we're heading out," he said right next to her and Winry jolted in surprise, making the girl look up.

"Guys!" She completely disregarded what Ed had said to tug them both forward in excitement. "This is Paninya! She's my soulmate!"

Paninya smiled broadly and waved, allowing them to see the figure eight on the inside of her wrist. "Hi!"

"The little twerp is Ed and the sweet one is Al," Winry told her, "they're my best friends."

"WHO YOU CALLING LITTLE TWERP YOU—!" Ed's temper sparked high and hot and Al had to literally lift his brother off the ground to keep him from strangling Winry, even while she was laughing.

"Cool," Paninya said, giving them another little wave.

"Its nice to meet you," Al said, far kinder than Ed, "I'm sorry about Ed, he's got a short temper."

Ed's eyebrow twitched. "What was that? You wanna die, Al?"

"Ed's a menace," Winry told Paninya conversationally as Ed continued to threaten his brother with murder, which Al easily pointed out that he had yet to best him in a fight so the chances of Ed killing Al were pretty slim.

"They seem like fun," Paninya said brightly watching them squabble violently enough for people around them to opt to give them a wide berth.

"They are," Winry grinned only to see them jolt at the last call for passengers. "Bye, guys! Don't forget to call every now and then!"

"Yeah, yeah!"

"We promise!"

They barely made it onto the train to wave from a window.

"They won't call," Winry rolled her eyes, turning back to Paninya, "they're useless like that."

"We can't all be perfect," Paninya grinned and she was looking at Winry.

Predictably, Winry blushed.


Ed always thought he looked like an idiot when he was in the Amestrian military uniform, and nothing had changed, but at least no one questioned why he would want to use the call center which were on all trains and restricted to military personnel, and, even more thankfully, there was no one in the room to listen to him call Eastern Command.

He'd called Mustang the previous night to inform him about Yoki and his scam of the Youswell people, but maybe he was antsy about being in the same room as the Fuhrer.

"Two calls in two days, I must be a lucky guy."

"Oh, shut up," Ed grumbled to hide his embarrassment. "I've got a file on Yoki's dealings, am I supposed to just hop on a train after I'm done here and bring it to you in person?" Ed had left the file in his suitcase with Al, who was getting steadily more excited the closer they got to Central, mostly because…the cat. Al was looking more forward to the cat than anything else.

"Ah, don't bother with that, we'll be seeing each other rather soon, anyways," Mustang waved him off.

Ed frowned in confusion. "What are you going on about?"

"We've been approved for the transfer to Central," Mustang's tone was caught somewhere between proud and smug…which was typical of him. He'd been vying for that transfer to Central for as long as Ed had known him.

"Oh!" Ed blinked. "Congrats." Was there anything else he could say to that? He doubted it.

"Thank you," Mustang nearly preened on the other end, the utter peacock. "Of course, there's still things to finalize on both ends, so it might take a week or two for us to actually make it to Central…but you remember Lieutenant Colonel Maes Hughes? The one that worked in Investigations and came to take your statement after the Chopper incident?"

Ed felt the involuntary shudder down his spine at the memory of that man, his crazed eyes. "Your soulmate? Yeah, I remember him, why?"

"He's agreed to pick you boys up from the train station, but you can give him the file; he'll see that it gets to the right place."

"Oh, okay."

"And if he shows you a lot of pictures of his daughter, don't be surprised," Mustang added with just a hint of exasperation.

"Does, uh, does that happen a lot?"

There was a lamenting sigh on the other end that was eaten up by static. "More than you can imagine."

"Uh…okay?" Ed scratched the back of his head awkwardly.

"And remember to be respectful of the Fuhrer," Mustang added quickly, like he was afraid that Ed was going to hang up on him, "mind your manners, like you're dealing with Lieutenant Hawkeye and she's annoyed."

"What was that, sir?" Ed could just barely make out in the background.

"Well, he's never respected me, I needed someone that he does!"

"Sir, you need better analogies."

Ed couldn't help the smile that warmed across his face, it was almost like being back in the office with them, watching Mustang quail under Hawkeye's stare, her hand on her gun, ready to threaten at any time.

"Thanks," Ed said before Mustang could be murdered by his right hand, "love you, bye!"

He slammed the phone down, a flush creeping up his throat as his words only just caught up with him. "Fuck," he muttered to himself, putting his head in his hands, though it did nothing to ease the heat flooding through his face.

It was the kind of quick response that he would shout to Mom on the way out the door, thoughtless and not thinking twice. Ed had only ever told his mother and Al that he loved them…and maybe Hohenheim a few times before he left, but never anyone else.

Stranger still…Ed didn't think that he minded too much. Mustang had a picture of him and Al on his desk, he called them 'his boys' to other MPs (Ed and Al had overheard him and stopped counting after the fifth time), he practically forced them to check in once in awhile if the mission they were on was going to take an extended amount of time (usually acquired through Al who promised for Ed's sake), he ruffled Ed's hair and patted the top of Al's helmet.

Ed scratched his cheek feeling sheepish and awkward. He'd sort it out later.

"What'd the Colonel say?" Al asked when he returned to his seat.

"He said his soulmate is gonna pick us up and we can leave him with the paperwork instead of just bringing it in to Eastern Command," Ed said, his attention focused on a loose string he'd found at the end of his sleeve.

"Oh, Lieutenant Colonel Hughes?" Al leaned forward with interest. "I didn't really talk with him last time…what was he like?"

Ed furrowed his brow, sinking lower in his seat. That had been a bad day. He still had nightmares about bleeding out on the office floor, nightmares of leaving Al alone, trapped in that suit of armor.

What a terrible type of immortality to possess.

"He was all right, I guess," Ed finally decided, "not like the Colonel much, though."

"What d'you mean?" Al's head canted faintly.

Ed's first thought was that Mustang didn't seem as soft-hearted as Hughes…but that wasn't quite right. He'd seen how Mustang was with Hawkeye, distinctly softer than he was with his other men even though they never brushed their shoulders when they walked, or spoke sweetly to one another…there was never anything unprofessional about them. He remembered how Mustang patted the tops of his and Al's heads (having to coax Al into bending down), and he knew he'd carried him up the stairs after the incident with his soulmark.

Mustang was soft, just not like Hughes.

"I dunno…more easy-going, I guess." Ed shrugged. "Apparently he's got a daughter he won't shut up about."


Central City was a lot like East City and Ed remembered being startled by it the first time he'd come there for the State Alchemist Exam and being completely thrown off because not even Dublith was as busy as Central was.

Ed almost regretted getting a house in Central, but at least the busyness of the streets appeared to be centered at the train station.

"Yo, Elric Brothers!"

Ed recognized the voice and the person it was coming from. Lieutenant Colonel Maes Hughes hadn't changed much in the year that Ed hadn't seen him; eager green eyes behind rectangular frames, dark hair slicked back with a single forelock hanging free, with a short scruffy beard.

"Lieutenant Colonel Hughes," Ed said about as conversationally as he could manage when they finally made it through the crowd to reach his side.

"Hey, there, Ed, doing better?" Hughes winked and Ed narrowed his eyes, wondering how much Mustang had been carrying tales.

"All right," Ed conceded, before jerking a thumb towards Al. "I dunno if you actually met Al last time, but this is my little brother, Alphonse."

"Hello!" Al said brightly, giving Hughes a little wave.

"Hello, Al, yes, I remember your brother worrying about leaving you alone for too long." Hughes smiled broadly and Ed pressed his hand against his face as Al laughed. "Heard you two need a lift to Central Command?"

"I do," Ed corrected, "Al just wants to be dropped off at the house."

Confusion spread across Hughes' face briefly, then his eyebrows rose with dawning realization, snapping his fingers. "Oh, that's right! Roy said you guys got a place over here!"

"Does the Bastard Colonel tell you everything?"

"Ed!" Al admonished, nudging his shoulder.

Hughes grinned widely. "What can I say, I like to pry and Roy's more talkative about you boys than he is about himself."

"Really?" they said as one, surprise clear. Mustang didn't seem like the type to take more about anything.

"Well, not as much as I talk about my dear Elicia!" Hughes practically bubbled as he whipped out a picture of a baby that looked somewhere between the ages of one and two, with green eyes his exact color and brown hair that she must've inherited from her mother. She was waving cheerfully at the camera and watching Hughes coo over the picture Ed finally understood the warning Mustang had given them. "Just look at her! Almost two years of utter cuteness!"

Ed wondered if it was possible for someone to explode at perceived cuteness, but he supposed that Hughes would be the first to try to.

They had to endure exactly ten minutes of Hughes shoving his picture in their faces before they finally made it to the car.

"So, moving to Central? That's a big step," Hughes cast a glance towards Ed (Al had been relegated to the back since he was the only one that could fit back there, forcing Ed to sit in the front with Hughes). "You don't seem to like the city very much."

Ed didn't, not really. Honestly, he and Al preferred the slums of the city to the cities themselves. But that was where the Ishvalans were. Ed and Al had long since grown used to not being considered true Amestrians, their skin sun-kissed, their eyes golden to match hair almost the same color. No one in Amestris had that color for eyes, it wasn't an Amestrian color, and the color of their skin was almost as dark as the Ishvalans.

In Resembool, most people didn't care who they were or who they looked like. Ed and Al had grown up with Ishvalan children in their classrooms and working in the fields and fixing roofs and offering vegetables in stalls at the market. Most people in Resembool were the honest kind, who worked to eat, and they didn't care too much about the color of your skin. Resembool was close to Ishval and had suffered during the war, but most people in Resembool had been against the war that opening its doors to refugees had never been an issue.

The only people that seemed to take offense were the ones passing through from the big cities, they were the ones with the big opinions about how people should look and act in Amestris.

Ed had stomped on the foot of one man that had made Al cry by acting like he was diseased; the man in question had received a very cold reception from the people of Resembool who knew of Al's kind nature during his stay there.

Ed had met a vast collection of very strange and very different people in his search for the Philosopher's Stone, but by far the most intriguing were the Ishvalans.

Honestly, Ed had lost too much faith in a higher power that it was awing and incredibly humbling to see the Ishvalans still possess so much faith in their goddess, Ishvala.

"After the war, how could you still believe?" Ed had asked one of the Ishvalan men in Resembool on one of the rare occasions that he'd come back for maintenance, a farmer named Gerah.

"Faith has always been important to my people…no matter the deeds of men, my people still thrive with Ishvala's blessing," Gerah told Ed. "A broken body is not a broken spirit or a broken soul. I don't believe that everything happens for a reason, I can't believe that anymore—" Gerah's sister had been killed in the war with his parents. "—but I do believe in peace and justice, and one day this country will have to acknowledge what it did to its own people."

Ed had frowned then in confusion.

"There were no free men in that war, why don't you ask your Hero of Ishval if he even enjoyed a second of his time there?"

Ed had never asked. He'd thought about it, but it was too personal, too prying to consider, and Mustang had enough nightmares and PTSD that he could guess the answer was 'no'.

The War of Ishval was a sticky situation for everyone involved, that much Ed could tell, but his parents had moved to Resembool right before everything really got heated in Ishval, so he didn't know all that much about it, and neither Mustang nor Hawkeye talked hardly at all about it.

"It has its perks," Ed decided finally, just barely remembering that Hughes had asked him something.


Hughes' had wished Ed luck when he dropped him off at the front of Central Command, taking the file on Yoki's dealings off Ed's hands before shooing him off.

A few short minutes later, Ed found himself before the ruler of Amestris.

It was awkward, there was no denying that, but the Fuhrer seemed ironically very approachable.

Ed saluted, as was expected of him, taking Mustang's advice and being respectful, like if Hawkeye was in front of him, debating on shooting him (she wouldn't actually shoot him, but the fear was very real).

"Ah, Fullmetal!" Fuhrer Bradley said with a kind smile.

("King Bradley is a snake," Mom had once said, late in the night to Hohenheim, anger burning cold. "I don't trust snakes.")

Ed was more inclined to trust her judgment than anyone else's, and it left him feeling on edge.

"I hope your trip was uneventful."

Ed thought about Winry's bright face to match Paninya's.

"Pretty much," he conceded. "Colonel -Mustang (Ed had to pause so he wouldn't slip up and say Colonel Bastard in front of the goddamn Fuhrer of Amestris) told me I'd need to come here in person to tell you if I wanted to accept the promotion or not."

"And?" Fuhrer Bradley probed.

There was a bet going on in the office about if Ed was going to take the promotion or not. Mustang, Hawkeye, and Falman all thought he would, but Breda, Havoc, and Fuery doubted it; Ed didn't know if he was annoyed or not about it.

Ed had considered his options, especially since his talk with Hawkeye about taking Al into consideration.

"I've decided to accept it," he said at long last.

The Fuhrer nodded approvingly. "I'm glad." He handed over a small box and Ed took it, opening it to see two stars -one to go on each shoulder- and a line of ranking pins. "There is something I'd like you to be a part of, if you're open to it."

Ed arched an eyebrow, confusion splashed across his face.

"The State Alchemist Exam is upcoming in a few weeks," Fuhrer Bradley explained, "and I'd like you to be one of the proctors."

Yeah, that would go over well. Having a proctor that was at least half the age of the applicants (perhaps more, because Ed definitely remembered a man with a white beard at his) was a great idea.

But, then again…Lieutenant Colonel at fourteen had never been done, State Alchemist and Major at twelve had never been done. And alchemy was his strong suit, it made sense for him to be a proctor.

Ed two years ago would have been arrogant enough to want to shove his accomplishments in the faces of prospective State Alchemists, but time had tempered him, ironically enough. That was probably mostly Mustang's influence, Mustang and his team, and nearly being killed had probably also helped too.

It was hard to think yourself above God when someone almost succeeds in assassinating you, when the last thing you remembered before waking up in the hospital was drowning in a pool of your own blood.

But Ed told the Fuhrer none of that, instead he said, "I'd be happy to, sir."

"Good, good! And there's something else I need of you before you go."

Ed felt a spike of unease as the Fuhrer reached into his desk to withdraw a pile of papers. He was starting to understand why Mustang hated paperwork so much.

"I have twenty-six requests for transfers from various generals, all vying to have you under their command in the stead of Colonel Mustang," the Fuhrer explained.

"Oh." Ed blinked. Mustang had said a few generals would've preferred the up-and-coming State Alchemist to be under their command instead. "Uh, I'm happy where I am."

"Not eager for a change of pace?" Fuhrer Bradley's single eye seemed to gleam and Ed felt uneasy.

"No," he said. "I like where I am."

A few minutes later, he left the room on certain ground until he heard the Fuhrer say "Its always a pleasure to have an Elric in the military."

That left him uncertain and confused and Ed struggled to not let it show.


Ling was morose and lamentable the entire trip back to Xing, Lanfan would've almost preferred him never meeting his soulmate, as least then she wouldn't've had to listen to the young lord wax poetic about Ed's hair or Ed's eyes or Ed's…you got the picture.

Lanfan could concede that Ed was pretty and most certainly Ling's type, though she very much doubted he could ever be hers; Lanfan didn't really have a type. Not having a soulmate in Xing wasn't a big deal, but Lanfan couldn't help but think that her lack of a soulmate was on purpose and she didn't mind in the slightest.

"Young lord, I know Ed was pretty, but if I have to listen to you gush about him for the whole rest of the way to Xing, I will literally go insane," Lanfan informed him sharply and Ling sighed, slumping forward on his horse.

It wasn't like he could help it! Anyone would be lucky to have a soulmate like Ed, and Ling hadn't even gotten around to telling him about that bit!

Next time, maybe it would be safe enough to, maybe then it would be safe enough to tangle his fingers into Ed's thick golden braid and kiss him so long that he forgot his name entirely.

Next time. And Ling would be waiting impatiently for that day to come.


The house was pretty decent, Al supposed, it wasn't really like the only three houses that he had really been in -Mustang's townhouse and the house they grew up in in Resembool and the house the Rockbells had-, but it appeared to be functional, and that was what mattered most. There was a kitchen and a living room with bookshelves and a soft couch and armchairs on the first level, with the second level having all the rooms.

Al would've liked it better if he could feel the texture of the couch or the counter in the kitchen…but all he felt was empty and stretched, like a string pulled taut that was fraying at the edges. He wasn't sure if he should tell Ed that, it would probably just make him throw himself into research with a vigor that he'd probably just end up getting himself terribly injured or worse.

Al couldn't rid the image of his older brother laying in a pool of his own blood from his mind and it was a fear, he knew, that would stick with him.

They'd had the books they usually ended up piling in the dorm room and Mustang's office sent over so Al busied himself with sorting them appropriately into the shelves when he heard Ed's footsteps -one heavy, one light- passing over the threshold.

Ed took one appraising look around the house before nodding approvingly and striding towards Al. "Close your eyes and hold out your hands," he told his brother, and though he was incredibly confused, Al did as he wanted, not questioning why it seemed that Ed was hiding something behind his back.

He felt a weight drop into his hands. It wasn't very heavy and it was moving.

If Al could positively beam, he would've.

"Okay, open your eyes."

Al found him looking on a rather tentative slate-grey kitten with green eyes that tilted its head to look at Al and let loose a "Mrow?"

"Brother," Al said with about as much emotion as he could muster, "I love you."

Ed rubbed the back of his head awkwardly, a sheepish smile on his face.


AN: Al finally has a cat! He strikes me as the kind of nerd that would name all his pets after elements on the periodic table.

It'll be a bit before Ling and Ed meet again, unfortunately, but Ed is officially a Lt. Col. :) This might be the last update for awhile, I'm going to be busy making nursing school clinical my bitch.

As always: PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE REVIEW!