Chapter twelve

Roy watched as Edward was carried downstairs by the young girl. What Roy had seen that Edward hadn't was that she had been crying the whole time since she came into the house, and she had clearly been crying a lot since Edward called the Rockbells yesterday. Her face was red, her eyes bloodshot, and her nose was practically glowing with the raw redness from having been introduced to much too many tissues in a short time.

And yet she seemed to be focused on one thing and one thing only.

To help.

It was a normal reaction to grief. There were those who stood still and shut everything out as their actions reflected their inner torment and they found it easier to just wallow in it. There were those who continued their normal way of being and broke into tears at a simple reminder about what had happened, like a shirt or something that was noticeably different than before because the person they were grieving wasn't there to keep up the normal procedure. Then there were those who, like Miss Rockbell by the looks of it, refused to stop moving as it worked as both a distraction as well as giving them a purpose while their emotions were going haywire and it was a very real possibility that once the grief caught up to them, then it was like a volcano erupting. There were a lot more ways to deal with grief, and it was different for everyone, but it was never something that could be ignored without it one day coming back to bite you in the arse in Roy's experience. And right now, it seemed that Miss Rockbell was doing that desperate "I need to do everything I can to help or I'm failing Alphonse" way of dealing with her loss, so she seemed just a tad bit obsessive. And from what he could see, Mrs. Rockbell seemed to go with the approach of someone trying to stay strong for their loved ones so that they could grieve all they needed to, while the old lady would merely shed a few tears in public and probably display her grief through anger at the world while being soft and caring around her relatives.

Which meant that Roy was most likely in for a severe talking to. Well, he deserved it.

No, what worried him was Edward. Roy had a nasty feeling that the kid was honestly thinking that his own life and his own feelings didn't matter compared to Alphonse. That meant that they needed to keep a close eye on him, as Roy was afraid that he would otherwise let himself just rot away. What was also a major cause of concern was that the kid hardly seemed to be particularly bothered by his own blindness. He would have small moments of grief over the fact that his eyes were gone, but it looked like he wasn't actually letting it sink in because he was so caught up in it being a "fitting punishment" for what had happened to his brother.

However, Roy could see that it was slowly beginning to crawl in on him. The way his breathing had become just a bit faster when Maes turned out to not be where he had thought he was, the way he flinched slightly every time he was wrong about his surroundings. The kid was growing more scared by the hour as he found himself to not be in as much control as usual.

And Roy could only guess that it had something to do with the way he was usually putting on his strong, cocky, quite bratty mask to stay strong for his brother. Roy had for months now suspected the boy to be softer than he usually acted, simply because of how kind Alphonse was, because they were still brothers and Edward might be brattishly teasing and joking with everyone, but Roy had spotted a few times the way his features softened just slightly every time his little brother spoke up.

And seemed like that now when his little brother was gone, his mask was crumbling due to his loss as he couldn't keep it in just how much it was affecting him.

And every single reminder that he couldn't support the lie of that tough mask as he couldn't move like he used to or that he miscalculated distances and surroundings, seemed to make him even more stressed than he already was.

Roy could only guess how much losing his mother at age five would have affected Edward. He knew that the kid was definitely the type to take on the role of big brother/parent to try to give Alphonse a good childhood. Which meant that the kid must have taken on the "strong mask" since age five, no matter how wrong that was.

After eight years of that, it probably meant that Edward hardly knew what to do without it. And all those reminders of how he couldn't stay that way because he needed something as simple and basic as help from those around him must be making him even more on edge than before.

Of course, these were all assumptions, but they did seem to fit.

The question was only when Edward's mind would truly catch up to the fact that his vision would be gone forever. Because right now he seemed to treat it as a challenge against his pride instead of a disability that he needed to learn to adjust to. And yet every time his assumptions about his surroundings were proven inaccurate, Roy saw the frustration and fear growing.

So Roy was wondering just what would happen once Edward reached his limit.

They reached the bottom of the stairs and Roy watched as the young girl headed for the living room where Roy knew that Maes had taken the others. He kept some distance as they walked and he stopped in the hallway behind the two teens as the girl ceased babbling about automail and suddenly changed her tone of voice into something gentler and quieter. "Okay, Edward, we're in the doorway in front of the living room, and to the left, there's a dinner table with eight chairs, three on each side and a chair at each end. The walls are painted a dark blue and there are two large windows facing the garden in the middle of the room with white frames. In front of them are two black couches, both for three people each and they're facing each other with an oak table between them. To the right there's an armchair and two large bookshelves in the corner nearest to us, and as you go along the wall, you find a turntable on top of a black sideboard. In the right corner furthest from us is a white door that leads to the garden. Mister Hughes is sitting with Al in his arms on the couch furthest from us next to Lieutenant Hawkeye. Granny is sitting on the nearest one next to the right armrest. I'm going to take you over to her and then I'll go fetch you the spare leg, okay?"

Roy had to say that the girl did an admirable job with trying to make Edward aware of what his surroundings looked like and Roy was getting a bit frustrated with himself for not having thought of doing the same before now.

"Oh... Okay, Winry ... Thanks," Edward said quietly and Roy could hear how hard a time he was having to keep himself from breaking down into sobs.

And so the girl carried him over to the couch and placed him about twenty centimetres away from her grandmother and then she left the room, her head down as she walked past Roy with her shoulders shaking with silent tears.

"G-Granny?" Edward asked once the younger Rockbell left, as if he had been afraid of speaking before that. Roy could only guess that he was trying not to make his friend cry even more, or that he needed some time to gather himself enough to trust himself to speak without breaking down in tears. Everyone else had been completely silent, not wanting to say or do anything and just letting Edward direct the conversation. It seemed that everyone were instinctively trying to give Edward back some tiny amount of control over his surroundings.

"Yes, Edward?" Mrs. Rockbell said kindly, gently moving forwards to take Edwards hand in hers.

At that simple touch, everything seemed to shatter as the boy practically threw himself at her and pressed his face into her shoulder, sobbing.

Roy watched as a tear went down Hawkeye's cheek and Maes instinctively hugged Alphonse tighter, focusing his attention on the infant in his arms, obviously hurting from watching Edward cry like that.

Roy didn't dare to move. Didn't dare to speak. Everything seemed to just stand still as the boy sobbed into the old lady's shoulder as she hugged him, putting a hand behind his head and stroking his back. "It's all right, Edward."

"It's not, Granny!" Ed sobbed. Everything hurt and his chest was exploding and all his resolve had just gone out the window as soon as she took his hand and spoke up because Ed just couldn't take it. "Nothing is all right! He's gone!" Ed didn't even care that there were other people in the room. He didn't care about anything right now because Al was gone. Al was gone and right now he was with the only family he had left and he could hardly breathe from the pain of losing Al. He felt even worse than when Mom died and everything was just crushing agony.

"I know, Ed, I know, but you're going to be all right even so. It might not feel like it right now, but it will be someday. And you still have your brother, even if things aren't going to be like they were."

"He was scared, Granny!" Ed said without thinking. He needed to talk to someone about it because the sound of Al's shout as he fell into the pool had been torturing him for the past twenty-four hours and he thought he would lose his mind if he didn't tell someone. But he didn't trust the others. And he didn't want Winry to know. "He knew he was gonna die! He knew what was gonna happen as he fell in and he was scared! He was scared just like when the transmutation failed and his body was being disintegrated and I failed him now just like I did then! I got him killed a second time and now he's gone because I fucked up all over again and I trapped him inside that hell for two years only to let the last thing he knew be that his brother had failed him once again! And now we can't come back to Resembool and we don't have our bodies like I promised and I'm sorry, Granny!" Ed said urgently before another wave of pain had him gasping for air as he sobbed loudly into her shoulder, whispering "I'm sorry," over and over again in between breaths.

"Edward, stop apologising. I know Alphonse would never blame you and he never has, so stop torturing yourself like this," Granny said sternly. "Al would never have wanted you to, so all you're going to accomplish is to distort the memory of your brother."

"G-Granny," Ed choked. Everything was pain and twisted and he knew she was right but also wrong and why wouldn't anybody yell at him for playing god once again?

"No, Edward. It is very simple. Don't start warping your memory of your brother because of your stupid survivor's guilt, so pull yourself together and sit back as we attach the spare leg, because right now it seems like you have some explaining to do."

Ed was confused and surprised and his mind was foggy by tears. "Wh-what?" he said weakly as Granny stubbornly leaned him back against the couch.

"For a genius, you can be pretty stupid kid, because Lieutenant Colonel Hughes is sitting two metres away from you and you have certainly not gone with the official version of what happened."