"So Cruz," Mustang starts from the backseat while Emily pulls the car out.
"Yup," she says tightly.
"Realistically, how long do we have before he really starts raising hell about his missing team?" he asks.
Frowning, Emily admits, "A day. Maybe two. If we're lucky." She catches a glimpse of a wince in the rearview mirror and wholly agrees with how bad it is.
"Do you have a plan for what you will tell him if we don't have this resolved in two days?" he asks.
Flicking her eyes down to the navigation, she shakes her head. "I don't have any great ones, since the whole magic—"
"Alchemy."
She continues ignoring his interruption. "Thing is the last thing I want to try to explain to my boss. He's going to think we've all had some sort of mass hallucination."
"Tucker Maes's body rather demonstrates that something happened," Seaver points out.
"I don't even want to go down that rabbit hole," Emily admits. "We don't have any good explanation for that. We don't have any evidence for what happened to all of Tucker Maes's victims. We…" She trails for a moment, adding up all they knew and balancing it against everything they didn't know, and had to laugh ruefully. "We've got almost nothing."
"That can't be right," Will pipes up from behind her.
"No," she disagrees, "it's exactly right. We have a complete dead end, no bodies—except for Tucker's—and no one would believe those wounds are self-inflicted by way of god-like being." Just the thought of it rubs all the old parts of her that were raised Catholic cringe. "We have Elric's partner—who none of us knew about a few months ago—here, saying that it's all magic. " From the corner of her eye, she sees Seaver grimace and has to assume that the boys are doing the same in the back. "I've seen it and I barely believe it. Cruz will definitely think the stress of losing half of our team has made us all crack."
For a long moment, the only sounds in the car are the sounds of it running. "I could demonstrate for him," Mustang offers tentatively.
"I would really rather leave that as a last resort," Emily admits.
"Ed and I have been here for nearly nine years. There's simply no way I can guarantee that he'll find a solution to get everyone home in a day or two," Mustang warns her.
"We know that," Seaver interrupts in a calming, even tone. They aren't arguing, not really, not yet anyway, but the tension is rising in the car, and Emily doesn't mind the diffusion. "What's the biggest barrier to you going back? Now that you have your alchemy?"
Emily suddenly wishes she weren't driving so she could watch Mustang's face more closely as he hesitates before answering her.
"Up until now, we simply haven't been able to access alchemy at all. Our best efforts have found no alternative to accessing the Gate to travel back. But now…" A quick glance in the rearview shows him sat back, chin cupped in a gloved hand, a thoughtful expression on his face. "Now it's just the toll, I think."
Frowning, Emily says, "Toll? You've mentioned a toll, I think. When did you mention a toll?"
"What is this Gate you're talking about?" Will asks, sounding irritated.
Mustang sighs as if put upon, but they're answers that Emily would like to know. Given the circumstances, she can appreciate why he would be so reticent to discuss it with them, but they're at the point where keeping secrets is counterproductive. He must realize it too because he says, "It's the… source of alchemy, if you will. It's the place between places, where Truth lives. If live is a word that can be applied to it." He adds the last sentence with a bitterness that might actually rival his disdain when talking about Kimblee.
"So to get to your world, there's like a literal door?" Will asks, sounding skeptical.
"I'm sure Ed could explain it much better, but in laymens' terms, yes. That's exactly what it is. Only with a capricious god watching over it. One that isn't particularly fond of me and even less fond of Ed."
Emily can't help the chuff that escapes her. "Why do I have no problem believing that Elric could try the patience of a literal god-thing?"
It gets her a soft sound of amusement in response from Mustang. "Ed can certainly try the patience of a saint," he agrees, then continues on a more serious note. "But no, this isn't anything so mundane or benign. Ed and Truth have a history going back to Ed trying and failing to resurrect his mother when he was a child. It's certainly antagonistic on Ed's side. How antagonistic it is truly on Truth's…" She hears a rustle that she takes for a shrug. "It's hard to say."
"But Ed believes it's antagonistic?" Seaver asks
"I…" Mustang begins, then pauses. "You know, I haven't ever considered if Ed's antagonism toward Truth is honestly reciprocated or if it just appears to be. He has made a habit of ending up at the Gate more than anyone on record ever has."
Though she'd love to get more details on that, Emily's also reasonably sure that it doesn't really matter to the current case. That there is a history there is relevant; she doesn't think the exact details are. "You said there was a toll?" she prompts.
Without looking, she can imagine that Mustang is settling himself back into lecture mode. "I explained earlier that alchemy is based on the principle of equivalent exchange."
"You did," she says, resisting the urge to make a hurry it up motion.
"The important thing to remember is that it is equivalent exchange, not exact exchange. There's latitude, room for interpretation, opportunities for ambiguity. To cross into Truth's domain, to cross the threshold of the Gate, there must be a toll, a price to be paid. In my experience, and from what Ed's told me, there is nothing measurably equivalent for that action."
"So if there's nothing that's exactly equivalent, what's the cost been?" Will asks. "What kind of cost can we expect to have to pay to get our people back?"
She hears Mustang shift and glances back in the rearview mirror again, not surprised to catch him sitting upright and very military-proper. He even looks like he has his fingers laced and set on his knees. "Historically, in order to access the Gate, one must first commit the taboo—human transmutation. The tolls for that have been limbs, organs, senses."
"All of which our Tucker Maes lost," Seaver says, partially as a reminder, but probably also to explain to Will.
"Yes," Mustang says, then falls silent.
Emily glances back at him again, taking advantage of needing to turn at a stop sign to actually turn around and get a good look. When she does, his eyes are staring straight ahead but they're certainly not seeing the seatback in front of him, much less Seaver in it. "What did you just think of?" Emily asks, actually checking to make sure she's clear to turn before she starts driving again.
"I think…" he begins slowly. "Ed has accessed Truth without committing human transmutation."
"I thought you said that human transmutation was a requirement?" Emily asks, confused.
She hears Mustang sigh behind her, a sound of frustration. "That's what I understood from Ed, but I'm just now realizing… Ed has stood before Truth more than he's paid tolls for it. I can think of… at least three—no, four. At least four times— five, if you count coming here…" He trails off. This time when she glances back in the mirror, his hand has moved over his mouth.
"What?" she demands, a little sharper than she probably should, but this is her team and her family at stake here. She can't just let him hold back on her if he has critical information.
"I think… I think Ed has been through the Gate without paying a toll before," he says it slowly, like he's not quite sure of the words coming out of his mouth, as if he might be wrong. Perhaps more precisely, that he's afraid he's misremembering.
"That's good, isn't it?" Will asks. "If Ed's been through without a toll before, then why couldn't he do it again to bring everyone home?"
Emily rues the fact that she decided to drive. She should have let Seaver drive so she could actually watch Mustang's face and body language and profile him while he is telling them these things.
"I… I don't know," Mustang says, sounding strained. "Everything we know about alchemy says that there is always a cost to a transmutation. There has to be an exchange in order for the change to occur. And yet…"
Before the silence can become awkward, Seaver says, "You think Ed's done it without a price before."
"Maybe?" Mustang replies, but it's more of a question than a confirmation. "I need to talk to Ed about it," he adds quickly.
"If he can do this without a toll, I would think that'd be ideal," Will says, a little bit tongue-in-cheek, but a little bit sincere too.
"Trust me," Mustang says with a humorless huff. "If anyone can find a way to do this without a toll, it would be Ed, but I don't trust it. Everything I know about alchemy says there has to be a cost."
"Does that cost have to be body parts though?" Will asks. "Is there something else that this Truth thing would accept?"
Mustang makes a noise of frustration. "I need to talk to Ed."
"We've established that," Will says, but softly, far less antagonistic than Emily would probably be if she had said it. "But outside of that, what have you thought of?"
She hears Mustang take a deep inhale, hold it for a count of five, then exhale. "Alchemy," he says. "To successfully complete a human transmutation, Ed sacrificed his alchemy."
"What did he sacrifice it for?" Seaver asks, leaning around the seat to look back at Mustang.
"His brother's body."
"His what?" Emily demands, frustrated. She thought she was following along, and then he says that?
"It's complicated," Mustang says in a quick, don't misunderstand tone. "And it's also not really relevant in this case—"
"The successful human transmutation isn't relevant?" Emily can't help but ask, tightening her grip on the wheel.
She gets another sigh from Mustang. "When Ed and his brother first committed the taboo, Ed's arm was taken, but Al was also taken. All of him. Ed was able to sacrifice his arm to get Al's soul back—which is where his expertise with soul alchemy starts—but he would sacrifice his alchemy entirely later to restore Al's body. And yes, I know exactly how insane that all sounds to you. It was insane to us as well, but we had an empty suit of armor walking around with the voice of a little boy and clear sentience to help us get over the sheer impossibility of it."
Emily pulls the SUV over onto the shoulder and throws it into park so she can turn and face Mustang fully.
"Let's pretend I believe you," she says, doing her level best not to yell or tell Mustang how completely insane all of this is. She's seen him make an entire floor come to life, has felt the wood wrap around her and trap her as sure and strong as if it had grown that way. Emily wants this so badly to be a lie, to be just the ramblings of a madman, but she's seen the evidence firsthand, and she just can't in good conscience dismiss what Mustang is telling her out of hand, no matter how much she might want to. "Is it possible that you and Elric can sacrifice your alchemy again to get JJ and Morgan back?" she asks, meeting his eyes squarely.
They both know that she's not just asking if the sacrifice would work; she's asking if Mustang and Elric would be willing to make it for them. If the cost of getting JJ and Morgan back is alchemy, would they do it?
In Mustang's eyes, she sees a battle wage. "If I had to sacrifice my alchemy to get Ed back, I would," he says. A truth. He would do it for Elric.
"For JJ and Morgan?" she asks outright. It really isn't a surprise he'd be willing to do it for Elric's sake, but from what he's said, that only gets them Elric back. Elric is one of her team, but he's still new, and he's not family the way JJ and Morgan are, not to Emily, anyway. She's only really known him for a few months and more as a boss than a friend.
"I'm not convinced that even Ed and I both sacrificing our alchemy would be enough get all three back in their appropriate places," Mustang says.
"That's not a yes," Emily replies, holding his gaze.
Mustang doesn't flinch. "It's not a no, either," he says. "We want the same things here, Agent Prentiss. We want everyone back where they belong. And we will get there."
But you won't sacrifice your alchemy unless there's no other option.
Neither of them say it that explicitly, but she turns back to the front and resettles into her seat, turning off the hazard lights and putting the car in drive. "Tell me more about Kimblee," she says, pulling back onto the road.
She doesn't like the answer she got, but she can respect it. In Mustang's place, she wouldn't want to give up that power unless it was absolutely necessary either. She wishes that knowing Mustang would sacrifice it if necessary was enough to reassure her. It isn't. There are still simply too many unknowns.
Forcing herself to focus on Mustang's words, she puts her foot down a little heavier on the accelerator. It won't get them there much faster, but she needs a sense of movement, even if it's only to the next town.