The train ride was long and uncomfortable, but the two teenagers managed to find some time to sleep in the middle of listening to Amelia's songs. Edward woke up after a while, and he noticed that something didn't… quite feel right. He glanced over to his side and saw Amelia's head resting on his shoulder in her sleep. It looked like she was still out, her earphones still in and her "phone" still playing music (he still didn't understand why she called it that). But the thing that bugged him was the fact that she was just… laying her head on his shoulder, and it was oddly intimate. He could feel his face turning red already, he wasn't used to being so close to a girl that this happened. He wanted to get up and jump across the seat, but wouldn't that just wake her up? Still, it would probably be better than her waking up to see him stuck like this…
He could hear the engine hissing as it started to slow, and he took his chance, quickly standing up. Amelia fell onto the seat, gasping as she woke up, looking up at Edward as he stood up from their seats to reach for their bags above them, "What's going on?" She asked, her voice slurring slightly from sleep as she took out her earbuds.
"The train is stopping, we're close to Central," Edward said, and she looked out the window to see the familiar cityscape she had come to know. He was glad she was more focused on that as he tried to calm down since he knew his cheeks were still burning and his face still had to be red. Amelia took her time stretching and slowly waking up, the seats were stiff and uncomfortable, but at least she had managed to sleep a little bit. It was probably pretty late at night since it was dark outside, but at least they hadn't had to stop a day like they had the last time she had traveled with them to Resembool.
She stood up, taking the small number of things she had been carrying the last couple of days and watched as they pulled into the station, the city night landscape being replaced with the brightly-lit hallways of the train station, with a few people scattered around waiting for their chance to either get on a train or get it ready to run again in the morning. She stepped off with Edward and they made their way into the city.
"So, you're staying at a hotel, right?" She asked as they headed down the streets together. The streets were pretty empty of cars, and there weren't too many people out and about that were sober, those they saw were either nursing a bottle or walking down the road to the next bar.
"Yeah, we can afford it with the money I'm getting paid by the state." Edward said, "You'll get my room and I'll sleep on the couch."
"Well… again, you could just give me Al's room, but I guess that would be more up to him than you." She shrugged, not in the mood to point out Al's body and how it wasn't exactly normal. She looked out into the road, "I don't suppose there are any taxi services this time of night?"
"I'd say no," Edward replied. "We're walking, but it's only a couple miles, not too far."
"It didn't feel that far when we left," Amelia said, feeling like a few miles would be killer on her feet.
"When we left, we were in a car." Edward pointed out dryly.
"Yeah, I know, I know." Amelia sighed and kept walking with him, "So… what should I expect? I mean, I'm sure the Major's family must have brought some of my stuff over in the time it took us to get here. He probably called someone."
"Probably, and Winry's there with Al, so I'm sure she'll chew me out too for not calling or telling them I'm okay in the middle of all of this." Edward's hand went up to the back of his head, rubbing at one spot with his flesh hand as he thought about it. "And I'll have to tell him that we're taking you on now. I don't know how he'll react to that."
"I don't think it will be so bad," She said, "Your brother is pretty nice, and I get along with him a little bit better than you."
"Well, Al's always nice," Edward replied.
The two of them chatted a little bit as they kept walking, mostly trying to figure out how the new situation would work with her, Edward, and Alphonse now that they were going to be working together. She was warned that, whatever the Major had brought over for her, she would need to keep it to the essentials since they would be traveling a lot for their own reasons, mostly because of either their duty to the state or because they wanted to follow some kind of lead for their alchemical research. She doubted the Major could have brought over that much since she didn't really own more than what she had with her when she first came, but she could guess he let her have some of Catherine's old clothes.
When they arrived at the hotel, Winry was at the front desk in clear view of Edward and Amelia, speaking on the phone to someone. She was nodding her head, saying something like, "Yes, sir. Of course, Mr. Garfiel," and mostly just looking sheepish as she talked with him.
"Hey Winry," Edward called out to her in greeting. She turned around at the sound of his voice, her eyes wide and she rushed over to him after slamming the phone down on the receiver.
"You idiot!" She wailed at him.
"Wha- hey!" Edward panicked and backed up, "If this is about my automail, I didn't break it!" He readied to defend himself as she ran over behind him and started pushing his shoulders towards the stairs.
"Not that! You need to hurry up and go see Al!" She said urgently.
"What?" Edward was confused, this was all on his face, and he looked back at Winry to ask for an explanation, but after seeing how concerned she was, he followed along with her and started rushing up the stairs, Amelia following behind them, curious as to what had happened, also. They got up to their room, and Alphonse stood up when Edward opened the door, seeing his brother on the other side, though… he was missing an arm. And the lower half of his helmet was covered up, and there were plenty of deep claw marks on the arm that was still attached to his body. Edward stared at it for a second, seeing the damage on his brother's body, before loudly exclaiming, "WHAT THE HELL?!"
"I'm sorry, Brother," Alphonse said as Edward dropped his bags and came over to him, his eyes wide as he looked over this damage that happened from who knows what, worrying over his little brother.
"You-! How are you this beat up?!" He asked, and a distinctive sound of someone biting into something crunchy got his attention, and Amelia looked over to see a couple of people who she could guess were some kind of Asian sitting and eating around the coffee table with some food that undoubtedly came from room service, "And you!" He pointed accusingly at the male of the couple, "What the hell are you doing here?!"
"Eating a delicious dinner." The boy replied, as if it were obvious, his mouth half-full with a chicken wing. Edward didn't seem to care at all as he reached over, grabbed both the strangely-dressed man and woman by the backs of their collars and pulled them out of the room, tossing them outside and slamming the door behind them.
"Um… who were they?" Amelia asked, confused as to who those two people were.
"It's a long story," Edward grumbled as he went back to his brother.
"Amelia!" Winry looked over at her, and so did Alphonse, both of them noticing that she was here, "When did you get here?"
"I came here with him. Hello to you, too." Amelia replied dryly, and Winry's cheeks blushed shamefully.
"Sorry, I was just worried about Al, and… I didn't even realize you were there."
"It's no big deal, don't sweat it." Amelia smiled at her before looking back at Alphonse, who was being sat down and inspected by his brother, "But man, what happened to you? I don't know that you've looked this bad since… well, since the first time I ever really met you?" She was starting to wonder if being beaten up and losing limbs was a problem Alphonse experienced more often than she saw, considering the last time she spent an extended amount of time with him, he had basically lost his entire right side.
Alphonse sighed, "Well… it's kind of a long story." He said, and Edward looked up, clearly ready to listen to whatever the story was. Alphonse took some time to explain what had happened in Edward's absence, how he had come across Colonel Mustang's sting operation to draw out the killer that had framed Maria Ross. Apparently, it had been part of a long-time plan involving someone named Barry the Chopper, who was similar to Alphonse in that he was also a soul trapped in a suit of armor. Alphonse relayed the tale of how Barry's body had been sent by someone to fetch him, with another soul tied to it, and how they followed it back to the third laboratory to find a homunculus that attacked them (thus the damage to Al's body). The Colonel managed to kill the homunculus with its unusual regenerative abilities by burning it to death over and over again until there was nothing left. The colonel imparted what knowledge he had learned about the homunculus, which was that they were made with Philosopher's stones as their "core" and only by making them use up all its energy could they be killed. It was what allowed the homunculus to have such inhuman powers, as well as survive through almost any attack they shot at it. In all of that, he managed to discover that his body wouldn't last as it was, that his soul would eventually be rejected by the armor he currently resided in. And the reason that Ling (who Amelia learned was the guy they kicked out of the room) was involved was because he made a deal with Barry to help in transporting Maria Ross as part of this overall scheme.
"A homunculus and Barry the Chopper," Edward sighed when he heard it all, "And just to throw a cherry on top you find out your body might reject your soul!" Winry brought over Al's arm that had fallen off that night for Edward to transmute back on.
"Well… can iron really reject a soul?" Amelia asked, "I mean, wouldn't it be more accurate to say that Al's soul could reject the body that wasn't originally his?"
"Does it matter?" Edward snapped at her, clearly not happy with all of this information.
"I'm just saying his soul would be the reason…" Amelia muttered.
Edward had his brother hold up the shoulder to connect to his torso, clapping his hands and pressing them to the metal, "I'm going to have to extend what little you have left of your armor…" He said as he watched the blue lightning fly from the metal as he had it reconnect with everything else and fix up his brother's armor to cover the holes and damage that was there. He stepped back, watching as Alphonse tested out his shoulder, making sure everything connected the right way and moved the right way, rolling it and bending it at the elbow.
"Ed…" Winry's soft voice came up behind Edward, "He'll be able to get his body back, right?"
"Yeah, of course, he will." Edward said with ultimate certainty, and Winry's unease seemed to lessen at his words, "I told you I'm gonna get it back." He looked up at his brother, remembering all the things he had seen in the last few days, and knowing that for all he's learned, he doesn't have that confirmation he needed. He took a seat and let out a small sigh, preparing to tell him everything.
"By the way, Amelia," Alphonse spoke up, stopping Edward as he decided to address her, "Someone from the Armstrong family came by to drop off some things for you, he said that Brother had taken you on as a student."
"Uh, yeah." Amelia nodded, "We, um, we had a talk while we were gone, and Ed agreed to take me."
"Really?" Winry looked surprised, "What about Major Armstrong?"
"It wasn't working out," Amelia shrugged, "Because of things that happened recently, he's been overwhelmed with work and there wasn't really any room to fit me in, and as much as I appreciated his effort in getting me through the basics, he couldn't really do that and his job at the same time."
"I see…"
"Well, in any case," Alphonse pointed, "I had them put all of your things in my room, so you could have easy access to them. And you can have my bed, too."
"Are you sure? I don't want to be any trouble, I know you guys don't have a lot of space." Amelia figured Edward would have spoken up about it to offer his room instead, but for the moment he just seemed to be mulling over a few things in his head.
"It's alright." From the sound of his tone, Amelia could easily picture a polite smile on the armor as he spoke, "I tried to set up everything, so it would all be comfortable for you."
"Thank you, Alphonse. That's really sweet of you." Amelia smiled at him, and he let out a pleased hum in response. She reached to adjust her small bag and headed over to the room he had pointed out to drop it off.
"Al, I need to tell you something." Edward said, and Amelia paused with her hand on the doorknob, "I dug up the body we transmuted in Resembool."
The silence was almost deafening as Winry and Alphonse stared at Edward as he told him this, and Alphonse's armor clanked as he pushed himself to stand up.
"What?!" He gasped, "Why would you do that?!" He sounded so angry, and so confused, and hurt at the notion that he would bring back the thing that had caused them so much pain and suffering.
"Because Al, I found out the thing we buried wasn't really our mother." Alphonse heard this and was quiet other than the sound of his armor moving to sit back down again. "Amelia was there, she helped me dig it up." she looked over at the sound of her name, wearing a solemn expression as she knew that information couldn't be easy to hear.
"But… hold on a minute," Alphonse's hands went up to his helmet as he tried to process this, "Then that means…"
"The thing we made, I don't know what it was, but we made something completely different," Edward said.
"But if it wasn't-? What happened to me?" Alphonse could hardly get out his questions as he tried to wrap his mind around this.
"That's just it," Edward said, "This has actually convinced me that we can return you to normal."
"Ed, are you sure?" Winry asked, her and Alphonse leaning closer at this news. Up until now, they had mostly been running off of hypotheses on what to do with no real proof that it could be done, and no experiments to risk trying it just yet, but now he came forward with the promise of something a bit more solid than what they had before.
"Yeah, but before I start explaining how…" Edward's cheeks burned a little bit as he tried to get out this question, "Well, uh, Winry? Do, um, uh, do you remember when Al and I got into a fight when we were kids about… who'd marry you?"
"You did what?" Amelia's face lit up, knowing this clearly embarrassed Edward, who scowled at her when she made her comment.
"Huh? The fight we were talking about before?" Alphonse asked, and Edward turned back to him.
"Yeah, that one." He turned to Winry, "Al told me you turned him down."
Winry nodded, "Mm-hmm. Turned you both down."
"Whatever, so the question is for both of you, then. What was your reasoning?"
Winry and Alphonse looked at each other as they tried to remember.
"She said…"
"Hmm…"
They spoke at the same time, "I just don't like men who are shorter than me."
Edward let out a horrified gasp and Amelia couldn't help guffawing and laughing. It was a dumb reason that any kid would have said, but the fact that Edward was freaking out about it now, years later, was what was so funny about it.
"You can't judge a man for something he can't help…!" Edward wailed, and Alphonse let out a sigh as if embarrassed for his brother, and Winry shared a similar expression, if also a little confused. "Stop laughing!" He shouted at Amelia.
"Oh, come on, that's funny!" Amelia said between her cackling.
"Uh… I don't really see how this has anything to do with getting Al's body back." Winry said.
Edward calmed himself down before he responded, "I had to be sure. Al had a memory of something I don't recall, and you seem to clearly remember it the same way, Winry, which means that it happened without a doubt." He looked over at his brother, "So now that we know that you remembered something real, then we also know for a fact that really is Al bonded in there." He grinned, "I pulled you out, Al. I actually did it. I know it was only your soul, but that's just it. If I was able to pull that much of you out, then I've got a hunch your body's still in there, and I can pull it out."
"You think my body's still in the portal?" Alphonse asked, "Existing separately from my soul?" He gasped, "Like Barry's body!"
"Right!" Edward reached up and tapped his knuckles against his chest plate, "Try to think back. Can you remember what happened with the Truth unraveled you?"
Alphonse was quiet for a moment to recall the experience, "I reached out…" he looked down at his hands, "And it was me! It was my hand I grabbed."
Edward grinned, "I knew it. It doesn't look like we're done with the Truth yet, Al." He put his hand on Alphonse's chest plate, "We're gonna get in there and pull your body out!"
"Brother… After the portal, I remember looking at you from inside that thing. The thing we thought was Mom." Edward's eyes widened.
"You were inside of it? That thing was you?"
"I think so, but my soul didn't bind. It must have rejected me right away." Alphonse straightened up a little, "And that means… we didn't harm anyone else's soul after all."
Their epiphanies were interrupted by a knock on the door. "Mr. Elric?" The voice came through, "You have a telephone call from Izumi Curtis."
"Why would Teacher be calling us now?" Alphonse asked.
"She's probably getting back to me…" Edward said, heading for the door and Alphonse followed behind him. Amelia was left alone in the room with Winry, and the two girls met each other's eyes without really speaking for a little while. Neither were really sure what to say to the other, given that they didn't know each other very well.
"Do you want any help getting your stuff in your room?" She asked, and Amelia glanced back at the door.
"Oh, uh, no. I can handle it." She said, turning around and heading back to the door, "I'm sure it's no big deal." She opened it up and saw her room filled with… well, with a lot of things that definitely weren't hers. The room had the standard hotel furniture, nothing spectacular, but the bed was covered in dresses, blouses, and skirts, and even piles of undergarments, all neatly organized on top of the covers. Even more, there were lines and lines of bouquets on every single surface of her dresser, a desk, her wardrobe, all of them large, extravagant, and filled with red roses. "What… the… fuck…?"
"Yeah, they brought up a lot of stuff for you." Winry mentioned, "I had no idea that the Armstrongs gave you such a huge wardrobe."
"I wasn't…" She trailed off and stepped inside, looking at it all, dropping her bag at the side of the bed, "Jesus, what the hell is all of this? These aren't mine." She said, looking over the dress pile on the bed that easily came up to her chest, "They couldn't have that many old dresses of Catherine's, did they?" Winry went to one of the bouquets on her dresser.
"They left you a note with the flowers." She said as she reached for it, Amelia came over to take it, looking over the writing.
Amelia -
We wish you the best of luck in your endeavors. Have some of Catherine's old clothes! You will have one for any occasion! Make sure to see a tailor, as well!
-Yours sincerely and with most heartfelt care,
Strongine, Amue, Catherine, and Alex
"Jeez…" Amelia looked back at the piles of clothes on the bed, taking up a few on their hangers and going over to the small closet the hotel room had, "They could have at least put these up." She opened the closet to already see it stuffed to the brim with more dresses and blouses. She went over to the dresser to put in there, but she saw every drawer was stuffed full of clothes, plenty of dresses, skirts, pants, undergarments, and socks. More than she would ever wear. She sighed and dropped the dresses she had back on the bed, putting her head in her hands, "They gave me… everything."
Winry went over to the dresses, picking up the one on top and smiling, "That's so generous of them. I never would have thought the Armstrongs were like that."
"Yeah, that's all well and good, but where am I going to put it?" Amelia asked, "I'm going to be traveling a lot, and this is… insane! I can't take all of these clothes with me everywhere I go!"
"Well… could I have some?" Winry asked, "I can take them back home, and I know I'd probably never wear them, but it's never a bad thing to have some dresses."
"Yeah, sure, take 'em." Amelia said, sighing again, "This is nuts… I didn't think they would give me so much stuff for staying with Ed and his teaching. They overdo everything."
"Yeah, I guess they are a little eccentric about it." Winry agreed and Amelia let her put a few dresses over her arm, but saw one and she reached out.
"Oh, uh, not that one." She said, reaching for a periwinkle dress that she was about to take, pulling it back, "I um… I really like this one." Winry smiled and didn't put up a fight for it, taking the dresses back and out to another room, "You're staying with the boys?"
"Yeah, Alphonse said I could have Ed's room for as long as I'm here." She said, dropping them off on the other bed, "He figured Ed would take his bed, but since you're here now…"
"Ah… yeah, I guess he'll get stuck on the couch." She glanced at it, the little gathering space in their room. "I hope it's comfy enough for him."
"Well, I'll probably only be in town for a couple more days, so he won't have it for too long," Winry said. "I need to head back to work."
"Yeah, I heard you're an apprentice now?" Amelia asked, and Winry nodded, "Congrats, I'm sure that's full of hard work."
"Yeah, Mr. Garfiel is really good at what he does," Winry said, "And it helps that I'm able to go and see Mr. Dominic, too."
"I don't know who those people are, so I'm going to assume they're automail engineers you work with," Amelia said, and Winry smiled.
"Right."
As Winry put away the clothes she had taken off of Amelia's hands, the other girl looked around and noticed the boys still weren't back yet, "I hope their phone call won't be too long."
"I can't imagine what it would be about." Winry admitted, "Their teacher is one of those people I can't really figure out."
"I think it's probably because Ed called her earlier," Amelia said, "He wanted to ask her about her own experiences with human transmutation."
"Oh, he can call his teacher, but he can't call us and tell us he's okay?" Winry huffed and Amelia let out a small chuckle at her response. "Did he even try to call us before?"
"I think he figured Pinako would do it and just didn't want to hear you guys chewing him out." Amelia shrugged, "I'm sure if he knew what had happened with Al, he would have come over right away, to hell with the rest."
"Right…" Winry let out a small sigh, "We better go and make sure they're not making their teacher mad or going off to go and see her or something. Knowing those two, it could be anything."
"I guess so," Amelia replied, following her out of the room and to the stairs. As they approached the top of them, they could hear the armor that was Alphonse's suit clanking. "Oh, they're done." She said, and just as she spoke, the clanking stopped, and the two of them peeked around the corner to see Edward turning around to look down at Alphonse from his place ahead of him on the steps.
"Al?" He called to him, looking at where his brother stood at the bottom of the stairs.
"...This entire time, I've been blaming myself for what happened." Alphonse said, and Winry moved back, knowing this conversation wasn't one she or Amelia should butt in on, but Amelia kept listening, "I thought it was me… I thought I was the one who killed Mom a second time." His voice shook like he was crying, and he brought his hands up to his helmet, covering his metal face.
"And so did I, Al…" Edward admitted.
"Thanks, Brother…!" Alphonse spoke in that shaking voice, "Thank you…! I wasn't the one who killed Mom after all." Amelia frowned as she heard all of this, knowing how easy it must have been for the two boys to blame themselves for what happened. Now that they knew the truth about human transmutation, a massive weight must have been lifted from their shoulders.
"But still, none of this changes the fact that I'm the one who put you in that body." Edward said, "And I don't care what it takes, I'm gonna make you normal again-"
"Brother," Alphonse interrupted him, looking up at Edward, "I was right there with you, and I knew that there were risks, so quit trying to shoulder all of this on your own! I can't watch you suffer like this, not on your own. I can't just stand back and watch other people get hurt over what I've done... like what happened to Mr. Hughes." Amelia winced at the memory of that night, having avoided it since her breakdown at the Armstrong reunion, shrinking back as she tried to forget the images of blood, of a warm body growing cold as she tried to calm herself down, "I felt like it was my fault when I found out he was dead." Amelia could relate to that, she shouldered a lot of guilt from that time on her own. "And I told myself that if it meant other people getting hurt, then I don't even want my body back." Edward nodded, agreeing with that sentiment, even as his eyes watered at the fresh memory of their lost friend.
"Brother… I've met other people that weren't exactly human, but they still managed to live their lives with a purpose. And even in this body, it hasn't stopped other people from treating me like I'm still human. This body could reject me any time, but it's the same with being human: you never know when you might get sick or die in an accident. So, I can still get by like this, I can live a somewhat normal life, and that's how I've managed to keep going. But now… I can't take it anymore." Edward started walking down the steps to come back to his brother, who continued speaking, "Because… I can't… I can't take all the nights by myself…!" The light in the hallway shone down on his armor, making it seem like streaks of light where tears pouring from his eyes as he spoke, "It's too lonely… And that's why I have to get back to normal."
Amelia took all of this in, having not thought about what it would be like to be alone all night. It would be one thing when you're asleep, and you expect to have a bed to yourself, but alone by yourself for an entire night for two or three years? She could sympathize with wanting to be sure you never have to do it again, with wanting to be able to go to sleep and make the nights go faster.
Edward smiled at his brother, "Sure, and you're going to." He promised, knocking his fist against his brother's chest plate, and Alphonse looked up at him and his smile, seeming to perk up a little bit, the two of them making their way back up the stairs again, "We'll knock that Truth jerk on his butt! And then we're gonna pull your body right out of that place!" He declared as they reached the top of the stairs.
"Yeah!" Alphonse agreed, following behind his brother back to their room, Winry and Amelia made to follow after them, but Winry paused as she looked at Edward's back, wondering when his shoulders had gotten so broad.
She caught up to them quickly enough, and they all headed back to the room and Edward looked over at Amelia, "Oh, did you unpack already?"
"Kind of." She grimaced, "The Armstrong family decided to give me a lot more than the bare necessities."
Edward frowned, "How much more?" Amelia gestured that he follow her and they went into the room where she would be staying, and his eyes widened at the sight of all the clothes, as well as the bouquets, "They couldn't fold them away or something?!"
"They did. This is all that wouldn't fit." Amelia said, and Edward's face grimaced at the news.
"Jeez…! What are you supposed to do with all of this stuff?"
"I don't know! I let Winry take some, but there's still all of this, I think I have to give some back, but knowing them, they'd be all," She put on a fake deep voice to imitate the Major, "But Amelia Seymour, we provided these with the knowledge that anything could happen! We want you to have all these things out of the generosity of the Armstrong family that has been passed down for generations!" She coughed at the end since she couldn't keep up that voice for too long.
"Nice impression," Edward chuckled. "You got him down pat."
"I should hope so after living with him for so long." Amelia laughed. She looked over at the bouquets, "The plants are my biggest concern, though. Just think about how many flowers I'm going to have to dump once they all start to die and rot away?" Those words caught Alphonse's attention and he gasped.
"...What if I've started to rot?" Amelia and Edward looked back at him, and Winry did too.
"What?"
"I doubt that my body's getting any nutrients, or any sleep either!" Alphonse said, "So even if we get it back from over there…!"
"Okay, whoa, whoa," Amelia stepped in quickly, knowing that image wasn't one they wanted to see, "Let's not lose ourselves here and start picturing the worst shit… although, admittedly… it's a good point." They had no way of knowing if Alphonse's body was even livable, and as far as they knew there wasn't any means for food, or for resting in the Truth.
"Is he right, Ed?" Winry asked worriedly.
Edward hummed, thinking for a second before he spoke, "Now, this is just a hypothesis, but I was thinking about the transmutation and trying to retrace our process." He said, "You remember how we mixed our blood to create a blueprint for Mom's soul?"
"Yeah," Alphonse nodded.
"Well, right after that, we passed through the portal, where we were both deconstructed." Amelia grimaced at that image, wondering what it was like to be deconstructed alchemically. Her mind immediately produced the image of Kate she had seen in her dreams, of her body unraveling as if it were made of silk, seeing the red of her insides from where it was taken and pulled away, seeing the little flaps of her skin that floated like paper in the air. She shuddered and tried to push the memory away, "It's a slim chance, but I think it's possible our spirits may have gotten tangled up in the process."
"What does that mean?" Amelia asked.
"I'm trying to explain that our bodies might be connected somehow, even though I'm here and Al's body is over there." Edward continued, "I'm somehow supplying the nutrients his body would need. See, that might actually explain why I'm so sho…" His expression fell into a sort of despair, "Sho…" And it only grew worse as he tried to force the word out of his mouth, "...Short."
Winry's eyes went wide and Alphonse leaned closer to his brother, Amelia was in a similar state of shock. After all those tirades about how he wasn't small, it was incredible to see him actually say that he was small and offer a scientific reason as to why that might be.
"He admitted it," Winry said in a state of awe.
"He's starting to face reality…!" Alphonse agreed as he looked at his brother.
"Okay, but… that doesn't seem like the most plausible theory about your size being what it is." Amelia said, and Edward frowned and looked over at her.
"Well, do you have a better explanation?" Edward snapped.
"Could be you just haven't hit puberty yet." Amelia shrugged, which only made Edward's face contort into a scowl.
"No, that's not it," Winry said, dismissing it right away.
"Thank you, Winry." Edward sighed in relief, thinking she was on his side.
"He doesn't grow because he refuses to drink his milk."
"Don't start with that again!" Edward complained.
"Well, it's true!" Winry said, "Milk is supposed to be good for helping your bones grow, so when you don't drink it, you're going to stay at your normal height."
"Could you just drop it already?!" Edward was in no mood to hear this.
"Not until you start drinking it!" Winry persisted, "You have to."
"It's not gonna happen!"
"Drink it, Ed!"
"No!"
"Fine, stay a runt!".
"I'm not a runt!"
"You need to start drinking it."
"I won't!"
"I can make you!"
"Just try!"
"Okay, can you guys chill?" Amelia's voice rose over the arguing pair, "Can we just run with this theory for now? So what if it makes Edward feel better about his height? It's not like we have any proof against it."
"We also don't have any proof that it's not just the milk, either," Winry said.
"Yes, that's true, but can we maybe just drop it, so we can all go to bed? It's like two in the morning." She was admittedly tired, and once she mentioned it, she could see that Edward and Winry were realizing just how tired their bodies were, too.
"Oh… yeah, I guess it is a little late." Winry admitted, and she let out a small sigh, "But at least we can all rest easy since Alphonse is okay." They all got up and started to head off to their respective rooms to sleep for the night.
Amelia had some time moving her clothes off of the bed, sighing to herself as she moved it over and put it away in random corners. Alphonse came over to her door, "I figured you might have trouble with all of that."
"Yeah, I don't know why he gave me such a massive wardrobe…" Amelia sighed, "I'm pretty sure I've never seen or worn 95% of these clothes." Alphonse let out a small laugh.
"I thought it was excessive, I said as much to the people who delivered it." He said as he stepped inside, ducking his head under the door and coming over to pick up some more of the clothes that had been placed on her bed. "But they all insisted you needed these clothes, and all the cosmetics they left, too."
"Cosmetics?" Amelia hadn't even seen those, looking around the room.
"They should be over there." Alphonse pointed to a chair filled with clothes, underneath it was a small case, and when Amelia went to pull it out from underneath, she saw that it was filled with all kinds of makeup, some perfumes, hair products… even accessories like ribbons and bobby pins. It was stuffed to the brim with them, and the bag was easily the size of her old backpack she had been using when traveling.
"Jeez…" She sighed, closing it and pushing it back where it had been, "I don't understand any of this, none of these are mine, and I definitely don't need this many clothes." Alphonse just shrugged, "Who was it that came by? What did he look like?"
"Well, there were a couple of men in suits, I think they were butlers," Alphonse said, "And there were these three women… two of them looked just like the Major, it was kind of disturbing."
"Really?" Amelia was a little surprised to hear that all three of the Armstrong sisters came to deliver her things, "Those were his identical sisters Amue and Strongine, and they must have brought Catherine with them, too."
"Is Catherine the small one?" Alphonse asked, and Amelia nodded, "She was really sweet," He brought a hand up to the back of his helmet, and Amelia could easily picture a bashful expression from his movements, "She kept complimenting me on filling out my armor so well for 14."
Amelia laughed, "Yeah, I think she mentioned liking big, muscled guys like her brother." She said as she put away the other clothes, sighing as she looked at the remains. She didn't really have much space with this massive wardrobe, and it didn't help that all the surfaces were covered in bouquets of roses, "You know, we should probably get these out of here. Otherwise, they're just going to wilt and take up space." She said, reaching for one. She watched as a card fell out of it as she picked it up, and she put the vase down to grab it.
Amelia-
We are still practicing your songs when you're not here. I hope one day you can come and hear us play, and I hope we meet your expectations!
-With hope and heartfelt care,
Catherine Elle Armstrong
Amelia looked down at the card, thinking it was nice of her to write this down for her in what must have been her own handwriting. She looked at the next bouquet and pulled out another card. She had only gotten past her name when Alphonse spoke up.
"Do you want to move them out into the living room?"
"What?" She looked over at him, "Oh, uh, yeah… I guess?" She looked over the bouquets, wondering how many others had notes for her, "Um… we can do it tomorrow morning. I'm too tired to do it all now."
"Alright then," Alphonse said, "I'll see you in the morning, sleep well."
"Yeah, see you." Amelia watched as he shut the door behind him, looking down at the second note she had pulled from the bouquet.
Amelia-
I hope these flowers and their lovely scent bring you some peace. I still feel terrible over what happened at the reunion, but your strength in moving forward is inspiring to me.
-With tender love and care
Strongine Bellatina Armstrong
Amelia smiled, knowing that her break down at the reunion wasn't Strongine's fault, but it was kind of her to worry. She reached for the next bouquet, rummaging through the flowers until she found the note and read it next,
Amelia-
These roses are hardly a comparable gift to your company, but I hope they bring you happiness as you did to me when we would discuss in my favorite books.
-With joy and sincere care
Amue Isabella Armstrong
Amelia held onto it and reached into the next one, picking it up and reading another sweet message from one of the sisters. Each one was a message of hope for her success, or reciting a short, happy memory. She saw she even had a bouquet from the heads of the household Josephine and Philip who both wished her the best in her efforts. She picked up each note until she came to one bouquet of roses and saw it was much longer than the others, the writing so small, but legible.
Amelia-
I am writing this a day after I arrived in Central from the train station. I want you to know that you have our complete faith, and I also think of you as a member of my family. In just the short few months you have joined us, it feels strangely empty when I cannot find you in your room at the estate. You are an excellent alchemist, and under Edward Elric's tutelage, I am sure that you will become a fantastic alchemist worthy of the highest honors. You have an incredible determination, intellect, and kindly heart. Though I do not know why it was so difficult for you to be open with us sooner, see the back-
-I hope that we will be able to speak as equals one day and you will be able to join the Armstrongs for another reunion or perhaps a family dinner where we will make sure your seat stays reserved. You will always have a place among us, and if for any reason you find it difficult to become a state certified alchemist, our family will fight tooth and nail to make sure you do not spend long in prison. You have walls around your heart, you do not need more around you. You are always welcome in our home, and we care deeply for you. I am certain you will be a success, and will not require any assistance in achieving your goals, but we are always here for you. You may always rely on us.
-With sincerity, and melancholy, heartfelt hope, and love,
Alex Louis Armstrong
Amelia had to sit down after reading it, her eyes growing blurry as she read it. She didn't realize she had left such a mark on the Armstrong family that they cared so much, but to see her own teacher's words saying what he thought of her and how much he cared about her, she felt a little overwhelmed. She reached up to wipe at her eyes before her tears fell, but she held all the notes in her hands. She didn't think she would miss the Armstrong family so much, but now she wanted nothing more than to return to their estate and join them in their home again.
She could always rely on them… and they wanted her to succeed at whatever she did. Was this what it was like to have a normal family? She didn't think she would matter so much to them after just a few months, but it felt like a small lifetime that she was with them. She kept the little cards close as she lay back on the bed, looking up at the ceiling fan as it moved above her, the light shining down. They had been so good to her, and so had all of their staff that stayed with them, even after all that she had been through with them. She closed her eyes, trying to stop more tears from welling up as she took a deep breath to calm down as she could feel her body wanting to cry from this… genuine love she was feeling from them. Every note was hand-written, with unique thoughts and messages of encouragement for her. She wasn't sure she had felt so whole in a long time.
Before she knew it, she had drifted off to sleep on the bed, holding all the cards to her chest.
She woke up a few hours later, growing uncomfortable from where she had been sleeping, and went about slinking under the blankets and the clothes on top of it. She stayed there until the following morning, getting up and looking around her room. She let out a small sigh as she looked at the remaining mess of clothes, but the bouquets would be the big one to worry about. At least if she moved them, she would have more surface space for all these outfits. She got out of bed, stretching and slowly letting her body wake up before heading out of the room. Disheveled and still a bit tired, she came to an empty apartment suite.
She looked around, seeing the other doors were closed, and Alphonse was nowhere in sight. She went to one door, hoping it was the bathroom, and instead found another bedroom, "Oh, this must be Ed's." She said and closed the door… and then opened it again, peeking her head inside. No one was here, so maybe it wouldn't be so bad if she did a little snooping? She stepped inside, seeing that the room had the same basic furniture that hers had, though admittedly not covered in piles of clothes.
She could see a suitcase off to the side that was filled with Winry's clothes, and she decided to leave that alone for the time being. She looked around at some of the books, most of them about bio-alchemy, and bio-alchemical theory. There were a few other books on alchemical theory that she flipped through, but nothing really caught her attention. She put it down and noticed a small, black notebook on the desk. She had seen it before, whenever Ed was on the train and bored, he would always write in it. She reached for it, opening it up and reading through a couple of pages. She quirked an eyebrow as it seemed to be some kind of journal, but nothing was dated. All of it seemed to speak about the places that Edward had visited. She didn't think he would be the type to keep a journal like this…
She flipped through a few pages, seeing various names of places, Resembool, Central, Zoltov, New Optain, etc. A lot of places she had never heard of. She noticed he had written down the names of various stores as well, and in fact… it all seemed to be listing his time in specific places for traveling, talking about a few alchemical reasons for being there, but not much else. There were a few mentions of monuments and sightseeing, but-
"Wait…" She noticed something odd. On one page he mentioned seeing the Monument to Zolotov in the city of New Optain, and on another page, he talked about seeing it in Yodgy. That couldn't be right, could it? She started to wonder if this was actually a travelogue, and not something else.
"Hey!" She jumped when Edward snapped at her, snatching the book out of her hands, "What are you doing in here?" He glared at her.
"I was looking for the bathroom." She said, watching as Edward stuffed the booklet into the pocket of his leather pants.
"You're not going to find it in there, it's the door next to this one." He said, pointing her out of the room, and Amelia left to go and use the facilities like she had originally planned to do before she did a little snooping. When she came out, she found Edward sitting on the couch with his arms crossed, Alphonse just across from him, and a box sitting on the table. "What's that?"
"It's breakfast." Alphonse said cheerily, reaching for the box and opening it to reveal a plate full of pancakes, "We got it from the kitchen for you."
"Oh, thanks." She said, coming over and taking it out, along with a little butter and some syrup, starting to dig in. The entire time Ed was glowering at her from his seat.
"What were you doing in my room?" He asked, and Amelia frowned as she chewed her bite of pancake.
"I told you, I was looking for the bathroom."
"You were reading my book, what were you trying to do?"
"What's the big deal?" Amelia asked, "It was just your travel journal." Edward seemed to relax at that a little bit.
"You shouldn't go through other people's things without permission." He said.
"Other people shouldn't leave their stuff out where anyone can look." Amelia shot back, grinning a little smugly when she saw that angered Edward a little.
"And you should avoid other people's rooms that aren't yours!" He snapped at her.
"These are great pancakes," Amelia said, changing the subject, which only enraged Edward further.
"I'm not letting you just get away from this, you know! I'm going to have to punish you, as your teacher." He said, and Amelia scoffed.
"What are you gonna do, take away my bathroom privileges?" She snarkily replied.
"No, I'm gonna drill you like hell." Amelia scowled and stuffed another bite of pancake into her mouth. "Besides, you need all the drilling you can get."
"I don't suppose you would change your mind if I said sorry?" She said as she swallowed her bite.
"Apologizing is one thing, but you have to mean it," Edward said.
"Alright, alright, look." Amelia put down her silverware, turning to face Edward completely from where she sat down, "I doubt this is going to make a difference, and I will admit that what I did was wrong, I didn't realize you would take this much offense to it. I'm sorry, and it will never happen again." The entire time she said it, she had a serious expression on her face, showing she was actually trying, and she did seem to mean it. Edward sighed and relented.
"Okay, thank you." He said, "But I'm still going to drill you to hell and back."
"God, you're such a dick!" Amelia went back to her pancakes, flinging a forkful at him.
"Hey!" He went to grab at the glob of the pancake to throw it back at her, but Alphonse's hand slipped out and stopped it from hitting Amelia.
"Brother, I'm pretty sure you're not supposed to get into a food fight with your alchemy student." He said, and he turned to Amelia, "I thought you were going to get better about picking on my brother."
"It's not picking on him if he's just being a dick of a teacher," Amelia said, quickly stuffing her mouth and finishing off her plate before getting up. "I'm going to shower and get dressed." She left the two brothers alone in the living room, with Edward scowling and his arms crossed as he glared at the door of what was once his brother's room.
"I'm really surprised at you," Alphonse spoke up, "I didn't think you would take Amelia on as a student, at least not so quickly."
"Yeah, well…" Edward reached forward to get the plate of pancakes and stuffed the remains back in the box they came in, picking it up to throw it away. "I felt kind of bad for her, she didn't really have anyone but the Major. And I guess I do still kind of owe her from before…"
"What do you mean?" Alphonse couldn't think of a time where Amelia had done something for them.
"Back with Scar," Edward specified as he tossed the box away, "If she hadn't rushed in when she did, maybe I wouldn't be here right now." He shrugged as he came back over to the couch, "So I figure if a few alchemy lessons are all she needs, I don't mind doing them to pay her back."
"Really?" Alphonse was surprised that he would think of that one moment, despite the fact that he and Amelia always seemed to butt heads. "I would have thought she annoyed you too much, even with that in mind."
"She does." Edward grunted, "She's bratty and spoiled, she doesn't know anything about taking care of herself." He looked over at his brother, "But she also got you that book, the one you kept rereading for so long." He shifted a bit, "And then there was what happened in Resembool… she was tired and sore, but she still helped me with… with what we transmuted. I guess that was you for a little while." Alphonse nodded, "There's parts of her that aren't so bad, and I guess… maybe she'd be a decent student on top of all that."
"Oh, really?" Alphonse's voice took on a teasing tone, and Edward's cheeks turned red. "I never knew you had those kinds of thoughts about being a student, brother."
"It's not like that!" He snapped.
"Are you sure? Because it sounds like it!" Alphonse teased him again.
"You shut up! It's not like that at all!" He grabbed a pillow and started knocking Al's helmet with it, all the while hearing his brother laugh and get up, defending himself from his brother's blows.
Amelia finished washing up and getting ready, dressing in a pair of pants and a simple cotton shirt before she started the rest of the day. She and Alphonse worked on clearing the bouquets from her room, especially now that she had all the notes from them safely tucked away where only she knew about them and gave them out to different people in the hotel, so they wouldn't go entirely to waste. They ended up keeping one at Edward's insistence since they could use it for some bio-alchemy drills as part of Amelia's training/punishment for reading Edward's Diary (which was what Amelia was calling it from now on just to irritate him).
He had her start with taking a flower and telling her to transmute it into wheat, and take what water was in the vase to turn it into bread. It mostly just turned into lumpy messes of dough and flour, and it continued that way until she got some slightly brown flour mush on her last flower transmutation. She ended up exhausted and tired and since they were out, there was no reason to continue that part of training anymore.
"You're really terrible with bio-alchemy." Ed noted, "You need to be able to work better with living proteins if you ever have to use it on a person."
"This is kind of the first time I've ever tried it," Amelia said, collapsing on the nearest couch and letting out a long groan.
"The Major didn't teach you anything about bio-alchemy?" Edward was a little surprised to hear that since it was a basic facet of alchemical sciences that shouldn't have been too difficult to teach.
"After I saw a chimera for the first time, I swore it off," Amelia explained, "By the time I changed my mind, he was too busy to teach me."
"Well, we'll add that in for sure, then," Edward said, and he went to get his coat on, Amelia watching as he donned the red coat she was familiar with but hadn't seen in their last few days.
"God, that's such an ugly coat." She muttered, and Edward scowled at her.
"It's kick ass!" He defended his fashion choices, "Anyway, get up. We're going to the hospital."
"What? Whyyy?" Amelia whined, clearly not wanting to move from her place on the soft couch cushions.
"Well, the colonel is still in the hospital," Alphonse explained, "We figured we should go pay our respects, and see if he's found out anything new from that experience with the homunculus."
"Knowing him, he's probably got something." Edward sighed, clearly not happy talking about the man, going over to Amelia, "Alright, get up, let's go." Amelia groaned and reluctantly got up, following the two brothers out.
"Hey, where's Winry?" Amelia noted that she hadn't seen the other girl all day.
"She went to go visit the Hughes' family while she's here." Edward explained, "She and Alicia have gotten really close, so she wants to spend as much time with her as possible before she has to go back to Rush Valley."
"Oh..." She was quiet after that. The Hughes family… she hadn't thought about them much since the funeral. He had a wife named… Grace? No, Gracia. And her little girl, she was so small… Hopefully, she had moved on a little bit since that day. As much as a kid could, anyway. She could feel the weight of her own guilt about that day starting to weigh down on her again, and she let out a slow sigh. There was nothing she could do to change the situation now, it had happened, and it had finished, and there's nothing more to do than to try and move on from it. It helped ease that feeling a little, but not by too much.
She traveled with the boys to the hospital, talking to Alphonse a little bit as they walked. He decided to make small talk with her, asking about her trips, her alchemical training with the Major, and with Edward. She would have thought that he would disagree about the drills Edward had treated her to, but apparently, their teacher did the same thing to them once they got the basics down, so he was just following her example. She chatted with him a little bit, asking him about the book she had bought for him all that time ago and what it was about, gladly hearing him talk about it and the story it had, what he liked, what he didn't like, what he thought could make it better, and so on.
It made the trip to the hospital seem faster, and before she knew it they were heading into the front entrance. As they came up to the door, they could hear someone call out, "Hold the door please!" And they stopped, turning around to see a shorter (but still taller than Edward) man with large framed glasses, who looked rather young in a military uniform, rushing towards the door.
"Sergeant Feury!" Edward held the door open for him and he walked in with them.
"I heard you guys were back in town." He smiled at Edward and Alphonse like an old friend might. He turned to Amelia, keeping a polite smile on his face, holding out his right hand to her, since his left hand was carrying a rolled-up sheet of paper, "I don't think we've met yet. I'm Master Sergeant Kain Feury."
Amelia reached out and shook his hand, "Amelia Seymour, I'm the uh, new student of Edward Elric." She said, nodding to him.
"Really?" He looked over at Edward, "You refused the apprenticeship offered by the state the first time."
"I changed my mind." Edward said with a shrug, "Besides, the Major's workload was getting a little intense."
"I heard about that, too." He said, and they all made their way down the hall, "Are you here to visit the colonel?"
"Mr. Havoc is recovering, too." Alphonse answered, "We figured we should pay our respects. I definitely owe it to the colonel, he saved me right at the last second."
Edward looked over at the sergeant, "Are you also dropping by for a visit?"
The Sergeant smiled and held up the rolled-up paper, "And bringing a little present." They turned a corner, following the Sergeant as he seemed to be walking a path he knew well already, and soon enough they were opening a door to a room where the dark-haired colonel sat in his bed with his blonde companion in another, his bed guarded by a blonde woman.
Amelia smiled as she instantly recognized Havoc, "Hey, man!" She said, coming over to his bed, watching the older man's face broke into a grin at the sight of her.
"Hey, if it isn't my prison buddy with the weird-ass stories!" He held out a hand and she gave it a high-five. Edward gave him an odd look at the description he had for Amelia, "I was wondering when I'd see you again."
"I heard you went through some shit on this secret mission." Amelia said, noticing how he was tucked neatly into the hospital bed, "How are you doing?"
"The hospital has some pretty nurses here, so I can't complain." He said with a grin, and Amelia sighed.
"Gross," She chuckled a little bit. She looked over at the bed next to him, seeing the dark-haired colonel she had met once before, "And I hope you're doing well, too, Colonel."
"About as well as can be expected." he replied before looking over at Sergeant Feury, "What's that you have, Sergeant?"
"It was requested by Lieutenant Hawkeye, sir." He said, giving him a salute, and Roy waved off his stance of attention to relax as he spread the paper out in front of him, Amelia coming around to get a look at it with everyone else as it revealed it was a map of an area outside of Central marked off with a circle, with the Third Laboratory building at the center.
"Lieutenant?" Roy questioned her, wanting an explanation.
"I counted the number of steps it took to get to the basement of the Third Laboratory," Hawkeye explained, "And I was able to calculate the approximate location of that doorway." Amelia had to think for a moment before she remembered it was likely the doorway Alphonse mentioned that they came across, where they had their run-in with the homunculus called Lust. "It's not exact as the hallway curved, but I was able to deduce a radius with the lab at the center." She said, pointing it out on the map. "This would have been roughly where we found the doorway." She dragged her finger down the line to another area in the corner, where the radius of the circle cut off the corner of a building that got everyone's attention.
"That's Central Command… but this is even more alarming…!" Edward said as he looked at it.
"Why?" Amelia asked, "What is it?" She could clearly see the words that pointed out what building it was, but apparently, one specific room was cut off into the circle.
"It's the presidential estate," Alphonse answered her, "Right above where we found the homunculi…" Amelia's eyes widened a little bit as she looked at that one corner there.
"Which means there's a very real possibility the Fuhrer is connected to them," Roy said, crossing his arms as he looked at the map, thinking deeply about what was just revealed by this piece of information.
"But that doesn't make sense. Why did he kill Greed and his group if he's connected to them?" Alphonse asked.
"It's strange he killed them, anyway." Edward said, "Why would he slaughter them before interrogating them?"
"This is just like I said when we were coming back from the desert!" Amelia said, a little glad that her thoughts had some value after all, "I knew it was weird that he would just slaughter them like that, but even weirder that the leader of your country went out of his way to do all of that to begin with! You don't send in your king to take out your enemy's pawns." Edward nodded in agreement, seeing evidence for what he had originally just called a conspiracy theory. "What would he want with them? They don't seem to have any open motives, this is all really weird."
"It's strange, alright." Mustang agreed, "Damn, inscrutable." He looked up from the map, "One thing's for sure: the enemy's infiltrated high up the command so extreme caution is necessary at all times. And Fullmetal," He turned to Edward, "Watch yourself."
Edward nodded, a little surprised that the colonel was telling him to look out for himself when he normally thought he wouldn't care.
"I guess this is one of those conversations that doesn't leave the room," Amelia commented.
"And if it does, I'm sure the prisoner in federal custody will be responsible." The Colonel commented back, and Amelia frowned at him.
"I'm not some gossip-happy blabbermouth, I know better than to go talking about any of this," Amelia said, a little offended that he would bring it up.
"But what's our next step here?" Edward asked, "We need to do something, I'm not just going to sit around and wait for these guys to show up again."
"If we're going to plan our next steps, they're going to be careful ones," Mustang replied. "I don't want it seeming like we're suspicious of all of this. The homunculi should have killed us by now, but they haven't. There's a reason for that, and I say we take advantage of it by laying as low as possible for the time being." Edward scowled at that idea. "If we keep a low profile for a long enough period, then I'm sure we can take that time to figure out exactly what we need to do."
"Or we could just find them in the laboratory, kick their asses, and get some answers!" Edward fired back.
"Fullmetal, we had a full team go in there and we barely got out alive." Mustang's voice was stern, "We stay low, and that's an order." Edward's scowl deepened.
"Fine." He conceded, and he turned around to walk out. Alphonse took a moment to say a quick thank you to everyone with a brief bow before following his brother out, waiting for Amelia to join them. She walked with the two brothers down the hospital hallway and back outside.
"So… I guess that's it?" Amelia asked, glancing back at the building behind them as they made their way down the street. She turned to Edward, "Or do you have something in mind?"
"I'm not just going to sit on my ass and wait for the enemy to make their next move." Edward replied gruffly, "We're going to a little investigating."
"Without raising any red flags? How exactly do you plan to do that?" Amelia asked.
Amelia and Edward walked around inside the Third Laboratory, with one of their scientists telling them all about the various projects they were working on in different rooms. Their investigation would start with a direct interrogation on one of the homunculi. So far, Edward and Alphonse were only aware of a few of them, but there was more. They knew three by name, and only one of them was alive as far as they were aware: Lust was most definitely dead, Greed had disappeared and was assumed dead, but the only one that hadn't seen any combat was Envy. Edward had described him from his time in the Fifth Laboratory as someone who looked like he was about their age (he assumed it was a "he" anyway, he said it was hard to tell), with long hair and the Ouroboros mark on their thigh. The only other homunculus they knew of was a fat one with the tattoo on his tongue who they could only guess was named Gluttony, he had tried to eat Lieutenant Hawkeye in their sting operation.
They figured a good way to find him, or the other one would be to follow their footsteps from their last homunculi encounter. The basement of the third lab had to have some kind of entrance down into where they were hiding, so they would start looking there. The people in the building seemed to be indifferent to them for the most part, which was surprising considering how they had acted when Edward had shown them his silver pocket watch and asked for a tour. The receptionist at the front desk had gotten so flustered, and she stood up to lead him into the office of some management leader, who immediately welcomed him with a hearty handshake and a small speech about what "an honor it is to have you here today! We'd be more than happy to show you around, it'll be good to get the opinion of a certified alchemist on our work here today."
He was now walking around with Edward and Amelia in tow, and Amelia listened as he listed off the various projects they were doing currently. A lot of it involved combat and weaponry, about how to make alchemy more efficient for soldiers in the field, as well as creating unique new weapons; though to Amelia it just sounded like they were making tear gas, and some other stuff for riot control maybe. A lot of it mostly was uninteresting to her, since she and Edward were there to find that entryway that Alphonse had described. Nothing really stood out, until she felt a nudge from Edward as they walked down the hall, and she looked over at him to see him call out to their tour guide to ask about a room to their right. They started going into detail about it, but they never entered. Amelia looked around the area, thinking Ed must have wanted to point out something to her…
And then she saw it on the wall, the tell-tale signs of a transmutation. She had seen them on plenty of her own work, lines of blocks of material that had been stacked and replaced over the original material, and the better the transmutation the less you could see them. This was a hasty work, to be sure; it was done at the last minute and sealed up the wall, but the lines were only really visible towards the bottom. To the untrained eye, it would just look like the wallpaper was cracking in strangely-straight lines. She looked back at Ed, and he nodded at her, glad that she saw it, too.
Whoever had made that entryway had used alchemy to seal it off, and probably the rest of their way down from that facility. They were covering their tracks and it wasn't going to be easy to find that place again.
It was well over an hour before their tour finally ended, and Edward was able to create a map based on what they had seen. The Third Lab had just the two floors, but there was no sign of a door leading to a basement or even any mention of any work happening underground. Amelia had even brought it up, asking if they used a basement for storage, but their tour guide just dismissed it and said they had their own places throughout the building. If there was a basement, they weren't going to show them, or they just weren't aware of it.
Night had already fallen by the time they had finished, and they walked outside to meet with Alphonse. He had been waiting since it was decided that he would stand out too much, especially considering he was only there a couple of nights ago. He turned as he saw the pair coming out, "How'd it go?" He asked.
"Easy," Edward replied, "I told them I was a state alchemist and they let me in with no questions asked." As he spoke, he pulled his hand-drawn map of the building out of his pocket.
"Did you find the basement?" Alphonse asked.
"We didn't, and they said they didn't have one," Amelia answered. Alphonse's helmet jerked slightly from his surprise.
"But we did find a trace of some hasty alchemy." Edward continued, "It was stupid of us to think they wouldn't seal up the entrance."
"I guess so," Alphonse said, disappointed, "Where else are we going to find a homunculus if we can't get down there?" The three of them started walking down the street together, discussing their plans.
"I'm not sure," Edward admitted, putting his hands into his coat pockets as they walked.
"These guys like to hide," Amelia said, thinking out loud, "They're not going to make it easy for us to just stumble on their hiding places…" She crossed her arms as she tried to think, "It's hard to figure out your opponent when you know next to nothing about them, or what they want."
Edward hummed in agreement, and the trio was silent for a moment before Edward spoke, "Al, remember how they told me I was there sacrifice, and they needed me alive?"
"They told me the same thing," Al recalled, "Lust told me that when she found out I opened the portal."
"Well, there's one piece of the puzzle: They're looking for alchemists that managed to open the portal and make it back out alive," Edward said, and Amelia sighed.
"That doesn't really tell us much, though." She said. "We don't even know what they're sacrificing you to."
Edward nodded in agreement, "The real question is why they want to sacrifice us." He grinned and pulled up his flesh hand, tightening it into a fist in his glove, "So, we'll have to beat an answer out of them!"
"That's not really the most accurate interrogation technique…" Amelia sighed but didn't say anything else about it, even though Edward looked ready to argue with her about it.
Someone came running around the corner towards them, someone they all recognized, "Edward, wait!"
"What the- Is that Sergeant Brosh?" Edward asked, seeing the man rushing towards them with a paper bunched up in his hand. He stopped in front of them, bending over with his hands on his knees to catch his breath.
"I'm glad I found you…!" He said between panting breaths.
"What's your hurry, Sergeant? What's wrong?" Amelia asked, and he held out his paper to Edward, who took it.
"You should go back to your hotel right now." He said urgently as he stood up straight, with Edward reading over the paper, "I can escort you if you want me to."
"What?" Amelia was so confused, and she looked back at Edward's paper, reading it over his shoulder.
ATTENTION: ALL MILITARY PERSONNEL
IT HAS BEEN VERIFIED THAT "SCAR" HAS RETURNED TO CENTRAL
THREE CASUALTIES HAVE BEEN REPORTED
ALL CONFIRMED AS STATE ALCHEMISTS
ACCORDING TO EYEWITNESS REPORTS HE IS DESCRIBED AS AN ISHVALAN WITH AN X-SHAPED SCAR ON HIS FOREHEAD. OTHER IDENTIFIABLE MARKINGS INCLUDE A TATTOO ON HIS RIGHT ARM
"Scar's back in town?" Amelia grew a little worried. She remembered her very brief encounter with the man from when she was just starting out as an alchemy student and then intervening in the middle of his fight with Edward and Alphonse. She had never been more terrified for her life than when she had charged him in her attempt to stop him. Thankfully she didn't have to do it for too long, but she wasn't eager to see him again. She put her hand on Edward's shoulder, "We should hurry back to the hotel." He didn't seem to move from her gesture, "Ed?"
"What? Uh, yeah." He put the memo in his pocket and looked up at the sergeant, "We'll head back to the hotel without an escort, Sergeant." Brosh saluted him and Edward walked off, Alphonse and Amelia following behind him as they headed straight back to where they were staying, not wanting to run any risk with Scar in town again.
They didn't say anything as they headed back, not really a good idea to talk about your plan to find a group of dangerous non-humans while also running for cover at the same time. When they got back to the hotel safely, they relaxed a little bit, though Edward still remained silent.
"Are you alright, Ed?" Amelia asked, "You've been really quiet."
"Do you remember what those Ishvalans said?" Edward asked her, and Amelia had to pause before she recalled what he was talking about.
"In the desert?"
"Yeah, they said the guy who… did it had tattoos on his right arm." Edward said. Amelia frowned.
"Uh, so? Tattoos are pretty common, Ed." Amelia said as they walked up the stairs with the two brothers. When they reached the top, Amelia noticed the boys were both looking at her oddly, "What?"
"They're not common. At all." Edward said, "How many Amestrians have you met with tattoos?"
"Well, there's…" Amelia paused, unable to think of anyone she had met that could have had a tattoo on their body, "I'm sure someone has a tattoo, I mean this is the military. Where I come from, it's pretty common to find plenty of tattoos on army and navy guys." It was body art, it was a form of self-expression, and some people would turn their nose up at it back home, but she knew plenty of "rebels" who got tattoos just to make their parents mad, or for various other reasons.
"That's not how it is here." Edward said, "You can't really be military with a tattoo here, and the only people that have them are usually bad news." Amelia was a little surprised by that news.
"Really?" She walked with them back to the hotel room, they noticed pretty quickly how quiet it was there, Winry was missing from the room, "Where's Winry?"
"She's asleep." Alphonse said, "She's getting as much as she can before she heads back to Rush Valley tomorrow."
"Oh." Amelia went over to the couch and sat down, Edward pacing near the couches, "Ed, we don't know that it was him. Madame Shan said she didn't recognize him, and her description of him was pretty vague at best."
"She also said his face was covered in bandages." Edward said as he paced, "Why else would that be unless he had that scar already there?"
"I really think you're reaching here," Amelia disapproved.
"What are you talking about?" Alphonse asked, coming over to sit on the couch across from Amelia, "Who's Madame Shan?"
"She's an Ishvalan I met out in the desert when we did our rendezvous with Lieutenant Ross." Edward explained, "She stopped a group of Ishvalans from attacking and kidnapping Amelia and me, she did it because she knew the Rockbells in the war." He stopped pacing, leaning against the arm of the couch and crossing his arms, "She said she saw the man that killed them… she said he had a right arm covered in tattoos, and a face wrapped in bandages. And from the description we have on Scar…"
Alphonse was quiet for a rather horrified second before he spoke again, "So… you're saying that Scar killed Winry's parents?" He asked.
"I don't know for certain, but that's the way it looks," Edward said.
"Or not. I know they meant a lot to you, but you don't know that this is him." Amelia insisted.
"How do you know it wasn't?" Edward shot back, "We don't know anything about him except that he was an Ishvalan, and he was old enough to be alive during the Civil War if anything that just points him out to me even more."
"Okay, okay… but none of this is confirmed." Amelia said, not wanting to admit that he made good points, "You can't just point him out as the murderer of Winry's parents just because he also happens to murder state alchemists. I'm just saying that it's out of his pattern."
"What would you know about the patterns of serial killers?" Edward scoffed, and Amelia opened her mouth to reply, then stopped. She would probably just be mocked if she told him she had watched a lot of crime drama shows back home that talked about profiling and analyzing criminals. "It looks that way… and it might be him. There's a good chance."
"Poor Winry…" Alphonse said, and then he straightened and looked over at his brother with an urgent worry, "Brother, you weren't planning on telling her, were you?"
"Of course not, Al." Edward said quickly, his expression becoming a bit more pained, "I couldn't stand to be the one to make her cry again."
"Neither could I." Alphonse agreed.
"It probably wouldn't be best to tell her, not without some kind of proof," Amelia said, trying to be somewhat realistic about it. Winry would need closure for her parents' death at some point, but not when they only have theories, and not really any actual facts about what happened, other than a hearsay story.
Edward stood up from where he was leaning, "It's the last thing I want to do, but we have to confront Scar."
"Uh, what?" Amelia looked at Edward with wide eyes, "Why?"
"To find out if he did it?" Alphonse asked.
"Well, that's one reason," Edward turned around to face the pair of them, "But there is another: We're gonna lure out the homunculi."
"We're going to what? I'm sorry?" Amelia couldn't believe what she was hearing out of him.
"Well, they need us alive for their sacrifice, don't they?" Edward asked, gesturing to him and Alphonse, "So I doubt they'll be willing to stand by while Scar kills us."
"You think so? Sounds like a pretty big gamble, to me." Alphonse said.
"And a massively reckless one!" Amelia agreed, "That's super dangerous, Ed."
"Well, it's much better than doing nothing!" Edward replied.
"You sure? Because, if you'll recall, the last time you fought Scar he, quite literally, tore you apart!" Amelia said, and Edward's determination seemed to falter at the memory.
"Y-Yeah, but Al and I have grown stronger in these past few months…" He said.
"A few months doesn't mean you're tougher than he is, I'm sure this guy has been working just as hard as you have in all that time." Amelia said, "And let's say this ridiculously dangerous plan of yours even works, how are you going to capture a homunculus if they show up? It's not like you can just," She clapped her hands, "Transmute a cage and catch them! These guys are super strong with crazy powers, not to mention the fact that they basically can't die!"
"Can't die? Was that hyperbole?"
"Or are they actually immortal?"
Amelia let out a scream when she heard two voices coming from out of nowhere, seeing two Asian-looking people sitting on the edge of the windowsill of Edward's hotel room. One was a rather lanky-looking boy dressed in a yellow jacket, and the other one had a colorful mask on their face, covered in black clothes. Amelia recognized them from when she and Edward had first come back to Central as teacher and student, they had been eating on his floor before he kicked them out. "What the fuck?!"
"...Why don't we lock the windows?" Alphonse asked with a defeated sigh. The two just walked in, and Edward put his hand on Amelia's back.
"It's fine, we know these guys." He reassured her. Amelia wasn't really sure what to make of them as the pair came completely inside, "Amelia, this is Ling and Lan Fan. Ling is some kind of Xingese prince and Lan Fan is his bodyguard."
"That's hardly an introduction," Ling said with his arms crossed. Edward shrugged it off and Ling came over to Amelia with a friendly smile, "My name is Ling Yao, I'm the twelfth son of the Emperor of Xing." He placed his hand on his fist and bowed to her.
"Oh, cool…" Amelia said, mirroring his action, "I'm Amelia Seymour." She looked over at the other one, Lan Fan, and she was only met with a silent nod as a greeting. She supposed that was good enough. He still smiled at her, and Amelia got a better look at him, seeing his long black hair pulled back into a ponytail, with some shorter hair coming down over his face that couldn't quite make it back, maybe just some poorly cut bangs or the like. He had slanted eyes, and a generally friendly appearance and Amelia found herself pretty comfortable with him as she moved over to the couch to sit next to Alphonse while Ling and Lan Fan sat across on the other couch.
"So, tell me about these people who can't die." Ling started.
"Why are you so interested in them?" Amelia asked, curious.
"I came to this country seeking immortality," Ling explained, "And having an immortal with me when I return can guarantee my place on the throne if I offer it to the emperor."
"Oh," Being the 12th son, she could imagine that there was some competition for succession, it made sense to her. She couldn't imagine how many brothers and sisters he had, though. Or what women gave birth to them all, some of them must have been sets of twins or triplets, maybe…
"We're planning something kind of reckless," Edward said, "We know these homunculi are planning something, and that they need Alphonse and me to do it. We're going to go into town and try to find Scar, see if we can get him to attack us. His entire reason for being here is to kill state alchemists like me, and if I die I know they lose something important. My plan is to draw them out by putting my life at risk, and hopefully try to capture one so we can interrogate it."
"I see," Ling said, seriously considering his plan, "And it would probably help if you had a few extra pairs of hands to assist with that."
"Right," Edward nodded.
"So, about these homunculi, what prevents them from dying?" Ling asked.
"They have these fast regenerative abilities from having philosopher stones as the core of their bodies," Alphonse said, "The one I met was named Greed, I watched his head get cut off, and in a matter of seconds it had grown back completely. It's almost an instantaneous regeneration, but the bigger the wound, the longer it takes to heal it." Ling nodded, carefully considering everything about this, "We just want to figure out what their plans are, and what they intend to do with us, and maybe with the rest of the military. They've somehow infiltrated it to a very high level to where we're not sure who we can trust among the senior staff. We're worried that they're going to work their way up to the Fuhrer, and maybe try to take over the country, or something much worse."
"The frustrating part is these guys have some kind of chokehold on the government to where they can take out whoever they want whenever they want." Amelia said, and she shifted in her seat, "We've actually already lost someone to them because… well, I guess they thought Ed and Al were getting too close to figuring out some things. Though, I really don't think this is what we should be doing," She gave Edward a pointed look, "We were told to lay low, and I think that's our best option right now."
"I'm not going to wait for them to just make their next move on us without some kind of information." Edward snapped back, and Amelia scowled at him, "I refuse to just sit and wait for something to happen."
"Fine…" Amelia sighed, and she looked back at Ling, "Edward and Alphonse can probably handle Scar. They need to stay with him long enough to get their attention, though we don't know how long that will take. But we have no idea how to get one of these homunculi captured, on top of having these super regenerative abilities, they also have some pretty crazy powers. From what we heard, one of them was able to create a near-impenetrable shield over his skin, and another was able to stretch out her fingers into sharpened spears. We think there's another one with this big mouth that just likes to eat people… our information on them is unfortunately pretty limited, but the only thing that marks them as homunculi is the mark of the ouroboros."
"What's that?" Ling asked.
"It's a symbol of a snake eating its own tail," Edward said, reaching for the table and quickly drawing it out on a small napkin that happened to be there, showing it to Ling, "They'll have it somewhere on their body, their leg or their chest or their tongue or something." Ling nodded, very serious, as he took in all their information. "Al and I can handle Scar for as long as we need to, we should be able to keep him distracted long enough for these things to come in and take care of him. We just need help with capturing one of the homunculi and getting it out of there, so we can interrogate it, figure out what plans they have for the military, and just how deep they've gone into controlling it. We need to know what people they already have."
Ling's smile returned, "Sure, count us in! We'd love to help you guys."
"Why's that?" Edward asked.
"I can't say I care about the military stuff," Ling explained, "But it sounds like these homunculi are just what we've been looking for." His smile fell as he watched Edward's expression change from curious to dubious, "What's wrong? You look kind of skeptical."
"Don't get me wrong, I am grateful for the help you've already given, but this…"
"You've got better odds with more help." Ling interrupted, and he looked directly at Edward, "I'm serious about this, this could be what rescues my clan."
Edward looked at Ling for a long moment, thinking over his options about this hasty, reckless plan he had come up with. It wasn't a perfectly thought out one, he would admit that to himself (never to Amelia), but Ling was right in that they all had better odds about this working out with more people involved. Besides that, he had seen Lan Fan's combat skills in action, with that alone she could probably easily trap a homunculus, or at the very least make it so that it couldn't move for a while. She was clever, and Ling was annoyingly persistent but that was just his determination for all of this. He smiled and leaned back.
"Alright," He said, "Just remember, we're in this together."
Ling's smile returned, and he relaxed back in his seat, "I promise not to run off with them. I owe you that much."
"What for?" Edward asked, wondering when he had ever done something for Ling that he felt like he owed him. Ling reached into his yellow jacket to pull out a scroll of paper, unrolling it and presenting it to Edward. As he took it and read it over, his eyes went wide, his face went pale, and he found it almost impossible to speak. At first glance, he thought it was a paper menu of the room service offered at the hotel, but upon further inspection, it was a receipt for every single item bought off of the hotel room service that had been charged to his room, under HIS NAME. "Is this for room service…?!"
"Thanks for the meal!" Ling said with a charismatic smile, which just angered Edward all the more.
"YOU'RE DAMN RIGHT YOU OWE ME!" He shouted at the pair, grabbing Ling by the collar of his jacket, looking ready to throttle him in his rage. Lan Fan jumped up, holding a knife, ready to strike, Alphonse stood up and was reaching out to Edward to pull him off of Ling before he did something stupid, Amelia was sitting back on the couch, away from the group.
Suddenly, the door opened to reveal a very angry Winry, holding her pillow and standing in her pajamas, "WILL YOU GUYS SHUT UP?! DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW EARLY I HAVE TO WAKE UP TOMORROW?!" She shouted, her voice pushing through the room and stopping the chaos that had been about to happen. Edward and Alphonse looked at her a little sheepishly, realizing that all this commotion must have made a lot of noise for her.
"Oh, right, I forgot. You're catching an early train to Rush Va-" He stopped, remembering the damage Scar had done to his arm the last time they had met, and he wouldn't get very far without his engineer to fix it should he break it again. He turned to her, "You know what? You should cancel that. Why don't you stick around and relax?"
"Huh?" Winry just looked confused.
"I mean, it's just that - you know… well…" Edward awkwardly started, he didn't want to get her involved, but he knew it would be easier if she stayed an extra day in case something happened to his arm or leg in this fight. "There's always a chance my arm could get broken… or even… destroyed-"
As soon as that single word left his mouth, Winry pulled out a wrench and hit him with it on the head, knocking him down to the floor as she gripped the equipment in her hand tightly, "Are you planning on destroying it?!" She snarled out, and Edward held the spot she hit, wincing all the while as he backed up into Alphonse, who didn't look exactly eager to protect him from the wrath of Winry and her wrench. "I can't believe you…!" She huffed out a breath, clearly not happy about any of this, but her expression softened as she looked at the two brothers, "Just promise you won't do anything too dangerous."
Amelia gave the two boys the side-eye, waiting to see their response. They seemed a little flabbergasted that Winry's temper had left as suddenly as it came, and she decided to take this moment to take the lead, "They'll be okay, I'll make sure of it." She promised Winry, the blonde girl looked over at her, and Amelia pointed her thumb at the two of them, "You can't really promise them not to do something stupid and dangerous, because they're both really dumb like that-"
"Hey! I'm not as bad as Brother is!"
"Alphonse! What the hell?"
"-but I can promise you I'll make sure they both come out of it okay." Amelia continued, giving her a smile, "They're just a little hopeless that way."
Winry's shoulders slumped as she relaxed, smiling back at her, "Right, they are pretty hopeless." The two girls shared a brief laugh before Winry readjusted her grip on her pillow, "I'll go back to bed, though. Maybe I'll take tomorrow to go and see Gracia and Alicia again."
"Yeah, that sounds nice." Amelia said, walking around the couch and leading her out of the room, "Go ahead and rest, I'm sure they'll love to see you tomorrow, and you can show up well-rested and ready for that afternoon train ride." She closed the door behind Winry and turned around to see Edward, Alphonse, Ling, and Lan Fan all looking at her. She dropped the smile as she turned to them, pointing at Edward, "You owe me for that one. I haven't had to be that kind of charismatic since my fourteenth birthday party." She went back to her seat and plopped down. "We need to finalize this plan, we can't just have it be a bunch of vague details about what we're going to do, we need a better strategy than that."
With her more serious approach, she got everyone's attention and they all started to take a seat as she spoke, "We don't know who they're going to send after you, and we won't know exactly how to capture them unless we know who we're dealing with. I think that big, fat one you guys mentioned, the one that attacked the Lieutenant? Based on what I remember, he doesn't seem very smart, she mentioned that his speech seemed a little stunted. I think he might be the easiest one to catch." She looked over at Ling, "I'll leave those details up to you, but we'll give you what limited information we have so we have a better outcome for success." Ling nodded seriously, "And as for you, Ed, we need to figure out how exactly you're going to get Scar's attention tomorrow and exactly how you'll need to fight him. Once that starts, it's going to get a lot of attention from people around you, and they'll probably call the Military Police to try and deal with Scar, so you won't have to. If we want this to work, we need to make the fight last as long as possible, with as little interference from the military."
"Right, and I think I know how we might do that…"
The five of them spent the next hour or so strategizing, figuring out exactly what needed to happen in order to make sure this all worked out. They had the basics of a plan, but it was a bit more detailed once Amelia inserted herself into it. With Ling, she worked with him to figure out the best vantage point while Edward and Alphonse would be on the ground, working on attracting enough attention to get Scar to come their way. She worked with them, managing to strategize things to where they could find the best spot to fight Scar in a place that would benefit them by keeping him in one place, but also giving them a way out if they really needed it. By the end of it, everything had been worked out, except for Amelia's role in all of it.
"I think you should stick with Ling," Edward said, surprising her. "I know that it's better for you to stick with us since we're supposed to be monitoring you, but Ling and Lan Fan have pretty decent combat experience. Plus, you should be able to point out the homunculi to them."
"Oh… well, I guess that could work, but won't there be questions when anyone you know sees that I'm not with you?" She asked.
"I'll tell them I locked you in the hotel room as a punishment, with handcuffs and everything." Edward replied with a smirk, "I'll make up something believable." Amelia frowned.
"Just don't say I was punished for something stupid, or I'll give you a damn good reason to lock me away for a while." She threatened, narrowing her eyes at him, but once everything was figured out, she relaxed, and it was agreed that Ling and Lan Fan would meet them in the morning for breakfast (with him paying for his OWN food this time) and then they would set off to start looking. Once that was settled, the two foreigners made their way out of the hotel room and to wherever they were staying, leaving Amelia alone with the two brothers. After confirming everything, they decided to head off to sleep and they went their separate ways.
"Amelia?" She looked back at Edward's voice, "When did you get so good at strategy?"
"I've always been good at it." She said, "Well, no, that's not true. But after a while, I learned it's always good to go somewhere with a plan, so you know exactly what to do, when to do it, and when to end it." She shrugged, "Just the life of a kid being dragged to parties all the time, I guess."
Edward looked at her for a moment, looking directly into her eyes from where he stood, "Were those parties where you learned how to smile and pretend like that?" He asked, and Amelia frowned, "You promised Winry we'd be okay, but you know you can't keep it."
"I know," She sighed, "But it was easier to let her believe that than tell her that I couldn't hope to keep you guys safe." She crossed her arms, "It's… irritating to know that I'm good at that part, but if it helps us out then I'm okay with it." Edward nodded quietly.
The more he looked at her and noticed things about her, the more he saw. In Amelia, he could easily see a child that had been neglected, a child that reached out for her parents and was never bothered with, but at the same time he saw someone who rejected those efforts, who chose to become something else, something better than the people who thought they were too good to help her in the ways that she wanted. She was hardy underneath that exterior she wore of a bratty child that had been spoiled rotten, and maybe underneath that she was still that little kid waiting for her parents to reach out for her as she reached out for them. This was someone who wanted to be accepted, but at the same time refused to let anyone too close if it meant she would get hurt from reaching out to them and not having them return the gesture. He didn't want to admit it, but he saw more of himself in her than he realized, and he chose to ignore most of those thoughts as he let her leave for her room. "Goodnight, Amelia."
"Goodnight, Ed." She closed the door behind her and prepared to have a restful night before their chaotic day tomorrow.