Sixth Avenue Heartache
Chapter seven: Somewhere in Between
Edward woke up some time later to find Winry and Alphonse sitting next to his bed side watching him. At first he felt lost and wondered why they were watching him so closely, but then the previous night's events flowed into his mind. He felt so embarrassed; the whole house probably saw what happened. Ed tied to get up, but Al jumped at his sudden movement and forced him back down.
"Don't even think about getting up brother," Al told him firmly. Not really having the will to put up a fight, Ed obeyed and did what he was told.
"What the hell happened last night, Edward?" Winry suddenly questioned. She didn't seem angry, just sad. He hated it when ever she was sad and it was worse since he was the cause of her sadness. "Answer me! How can we help you if you don't tell us what's wrong?" she began to shout.
"Winry…" Al tried to calm her down.
"No! Alphonse, he has to tell us at least something. This can't go on anymore," she reasoned.
"I know, but it won't do any good to push him," Al retorted.
"You saw him last night! He needs help," Winry argued back. Al could see that she was right, but he still hesitated to press his brother for answers. Although part of him was desperate to know, the other side was afraid of what he'll find out and last night's events only increased his fear.
"Winry don't worry about it, it was nothing," Ed tried to dismiss the matter entirely. This made Winry furious, how can he say that? She thought in anger.
"What the hell is the matter with you?" she snapped. Enough was enough; Winry couldn't let this go on any more. It was obvious that what ever Ed was keeping to himself was eating him alive. "Edward…" she sounded desperate for his answer.
"Drop it," Ed said sharply. Winry reluctantly shut her mouth and let him speak. "Now you listen to me, both of you," his tone was still harsh, "this is my problem, not yours. I'll deal with it. So, just stay out of it." Alphonse and Winry stared in shock at him.
"Brother! Do you even know what you're saying? We can't just 'drop it' you moron! Not when we can obviously see that something's wrong with you," Alphonse shouted as his fists clenched tighter and tighter with every word that left his mouth. "We're only trying to help you!"
"I'm afraid it's too late for that," Ed spat out cynically.
Al and Winry looked puzzled by his statement. "What do you mean?" Al asked quietly. He didn't answer; he just sat there in silence, refusing to say anything else. "What did you mean Brother?" Al raised his voice so that his question was heard clearly.
Edward exhaled heavily and fell back down on his bed. He dreaded telling them what had happened to him and what was worse, he feared their reaction. It was bad enough that his terrible memories plagued his sleep and every waking moment, but to have them know about it would only cause them to look at him differently. But Alphonse was right, he did need help and the last thing he wanted to do was push them away. Minuets passes as Edward was thinking and by the time he made his decision, Al and Winry were about to give up and walk out the door.
"Beyond the Gate," Ed started slowly, "I was in a country called Germany." His friends paused as he spoke quietly. "While I was there, I stayed with a guy named Matthias and his family. They were so kind to me; they took me in when I had nowhere else to stay and treated me as if I belonged there with them." Ed turned his head briefly to face his brother and friend. They stared at him intently, listening to every word he said as they silently encouraged him to continue.
"In the five years that I was gone, I had stayed with them for almost four years. But things happened and I had no other choice but to leave," Edward tried to explain with as little detail as possible. The other two occupants in the room became confused at his words.
"What forced you to leave?" Winry asked warily.
"The country had just gotten out of a war and were vulnerable, so when he came to power, most of the people foolishly followed his lead," Ed began to rant as he stared off at nothing in particular. "I never thought that things would've gotten that out of hand; I had no idea." Edward's expression was mixed with sorrow and bitterness. "They started the genocide. Everyone started to turn on each other; reporting people to authorities because of what they were," he clarified.
"And what were they? Those people that were being reported?" Winry whispered, afraid of the answer.
"Anyone who wasn't seen 'fit' to breathe the same air as the rest: Jews, who were the main targets, gypsies, Russians, Poles, homosexuals, common criminals, and the disabled, both mentally and physically," Edward paused after he said the last one, but didn't bother to look at Winry or Al. He didn't want to see their faces; whether it's shock or disgust on them, he still couldn't bear to look as he finished telling them what they wanted, no needed, to hear.
"Once we got word of how bad things were getting, Matthias and I agreed that it would be for the best to go our separate ways," Ed said with regret.
Winry, who mistook his tone, grew angry at this part, "so they let you go to fend for yourself? They didn't help you?" Edward looked shocked at her words, but let out a sigh.
"That's not it," he started, "You see, Matthias and his family were Jewish. They were targets as much as I was, if not more, and it was hard to hide from the officials when you had such a large group of people."
"What happened if they caught you?" Alphonse asked. Edward hesitated for a few moments, trying to find words to put the explanation delicately, but found none.
"They put you in the ghettos for awhile," Ed told them, "and if you didn't die in there then they sent you to a concentration camp, or as the prisoners referred to it, the death camps." His tone was sharp and stabbed his listeners. Silence loomed over them as Edward's word sunk in. Winry stood there shaking and Alphonse remained motionless.
"I had saved up some money and bought four tickets to a ship that would take you across the sea to another country," Edward continued his story. "It was all I could do for Matthias and his family to repay their kindness. I knew that, alone, I would be able to survive somehow, but they wouldn't. His wife was seven months pregnant and wouldn't have survived in the ghettos for long and their daughter, Lena, would probably end up like the rest of the kids her age, dead on either the ghetto streets or in a hole located on one of the concentration camps."
"You gave them the tickets so they could escape?" Winry said softly in both admiration and shock. Edward's face once again became bitter and his tone harsh.
"I wish that I hadn't," he said furiously as he balled his fists up. "If I hadn't done that then they wouldn't have gotten caught. Those damn Nazis stopped the ship before it sailed more than ten miles away and raided the whole place, looking for everyone who should've been sent to the ghettos," Ed looked down in sadness. "They didn't bother with sending their new prisoners to the ghettos; apparently they weren't dying fast enough so everyone was sent straight to the camps. As far as I was concerned, I sent them to their deaths. That's all anyone knew; people began to panic because their means of escape were being blocked. I didn't mean for that to happen, honestly I didn't know that they would stop the ship," His tone was desperate at this point and his eyes pleading for some type of forgiveness.
Winry was about to sit next to Ed and comfort him, but thought better of it. He needed to get this off his chest right now and she could comfort him later.
"I managed to stay hidden for some time, but it was no use. Everyone was watching you. There was no place to hide. The officials took me and threw me in a truck with a few other people they had caught that night. I'm not sure how long we were in there, but by morning I was placed on a train and taken to Auschwitz, where I was registered and branded," Ed unconsciously rubbed his tattooed forearm as memories flooded back to him as if it were yesterday. The smell and taste of death that flowed throughout the air was so overwhelming and the look on many of the people's faces, the look of a prisoner sentenced to death.
"Auschwitz?" Al asked in confusion. He had no idea about the place, how the mere mention of the name made so many people in the ghettos cower in fear.
"It was the worst of the worst out of the entire camps total," Edward explained in a dull tone, "Experiments were done daily on the prisoners by the so called doctors and the four gas chambers worked daily by the time of my arrival. Hundreds of people were killed in those damn things. Once the gas was turned on, there was no way to survive," his tone became sad as he went on, "the dead bodies were either burned or we, the remaining prisoners, were forced to burry them in mass holes that we had dug up earlier."
Edward paused for a few moments, and said nothing. Winry and Al looked at him with misery. "How sad," Winry managed to say as her eyes welled up with tears.
"It's more than just sad," Al added, his own tears threatening to fall.
Edward's silence was broken by is sobs, "We had little food there, so by three months, everyone looked like skeletons, some even died of starvation. None of them deserved that. It didn't make sense to any of us. As time went on in there I had tried to not lose hope, I didn't want to die there in that miserable place," His shoulders began to shake uncontrollably as his tears flowed down his face as they had last night. "Then one day, while I buried more bodies, I found Lena in one of the piles."
"You mean Matthias' daughter?" Al asked unbelievably.
Ed nodded his head in response, "I thought she had died awhile ago. They usually shot the children as soon as they came in, but there she was." He closed his eyes tightly as he tried to block out the unwanted memory, but continued with saying, "one of the guards, who was near by me, started to laugh once he realized that I knew her and told me that they had done some experiments on her. Apparently, the good doctor wanted to see if it was possible to change a person's eye color by injecting some chemical in her eyes." Winry gasped at this. This place was horrifying to her and it kept getting worse.
Burying his head in his hands, Edward continued to cry. Realizing that it would be best for him to stop there, Al and Winry sat by him and tried to comfort him. They sat there listening to Ed cry out his grief. "She shouldn't have died, she was just a kid," he chocked out, but both Alphonse and Winry couldn't find words that would ease his pain.
After a few hours, Edward had managed to fall asleep while Winry and Alphonse stayed by his side. Sadness washed over them as they sat still in the now quiet room. While they were living their quiet lives, Ed was thrown into hell.
Edward woke up some time in the night by a knock on his door. Mumbling in acknowledgement for the person to come in, he slowly sat up in bed as Winry walked in carrying some tools and his auto-mail. Noticing the shocked look on his face, Winry giggled and sat next to him to explain.
"You're finally awake," she declared. "I thought that you might want to move around on your own at some point, so I decided that today would be as good of a time as any to install your auto-mail," she explained.
"Yeah, alright," Ed responded. He wasn't expecting her to act so normal around him, especially after that morning.
"I made this one really light so it won't put too much strain on your body," she ranted as she got the needed tools out of the box. "Once you're more recovered I'll upgrade it so that the metal will be stronger, but for now this will at least enable you to move around more smoothly and use your right arm," Winry finished her explanation. Edward suddenly felt a swell of gratitude towards her.
"You must have worked really hard to make it," he started.
"What? Oh no! It wasn't that hard," she tried to mask the effort that was put into the arm and leg, but Edward easily saw through it.
"Thanks Winry."
"Don't worry about it, and besides you'll need it for tomorrow," she hinted towards him. Ed looked confused at this and waited for Winry to be more elaborate. She giggled again and said, "Tomorrow's your birthday stupid. Don't tell me you already forgot."
"It is?" he questioned. "Oh, so then it's Elysia's birthday too. I'm guessing that there'll be a massive party," he tried to start a light conversation.
"Nope, Mrs. Hughes thought that a small party would be better this year," Winry informed him with a wide grin on her face. "Mr. Hughes was about to die of a heart attack when she mentioned it to him," Ed couldn't help but smile at that, but then started to worry about the people that were coming. His reappearance in Central wasn't supposed to be public just yet. Winry seemed to notice his sudden change in moods and cleared up his worries.
"It'll only be Mustang and his subordinates that are coming, besides us, so don't worry." Ed was relieved at that.
"So, are we going to get my auto-mail attached now or later?" he asked. Truthfully, he couldn't wait to install them. It had been so long since he had an arm or leg that worked as well as auto-mail.
"Now, if that's alright with you," she told him. Nodding his head in approval, Winry got to work to install his auto-mail.
The next morning Ed was once again woken up by a knock on his door. He had trouble sleeping the previous night, so it wasn't much effort to get out of bed and answer the door. Getting up, Edward walked towards the door and opened it with his newly installed arm. Alphonse greeted him on the other side with a bright smile on his face.
"Happy Birthday Brother!" he called out cheerfully as he held out a large, brightly colored box in front of him. Edward smiled at him and took the box from his hands.
"Do you want me to open it now or wait for later?" he asked.
"Open it now, I'd get embarrassed if you opened it in front of the others," Al flushed as he said this. They both walked towards Ed's bed and sat down. As Ed untied the ribbon on top and ripped of the bright paper, Alphonse sat next to him, anxiously waiting for him to open it. After taking the top off the box and removing the unwanted tissue paper, Ed's breath caught in his throat.
Watching Ed's expression, Al explained, "The military had found it when they were clearing out the remains of Lior and found it. Mustang gave it to me and I fixed it up," his blush deepened as Ed continued to stare at the silver pocket watch. Gently picking up the item, Edward examined it from every angle until he finally opened it to see "Don't Forget 3. Oct. 10."
"I thought I lost it," Ed said quietly. "Thank you."
"It's was nothing, really," Al scratched his head in embarrassment. "There's one more thing brother, at the bottom," he remembered and told him excitedly. Edward looked surprised at this at searched the box once more. Finally finding the object, Edward pulled out a square book. Opening it up, he saw that it was a photo album filled with photos that he didn't recognize.
"All of them were taken while you were gone," Al explained, "Since you weren't there with us, I took a lot of pictures for you so when you came back you could see everything that went on. This way, you wouldn't be left out of our memories…," he trailed off. Edward looked at Al, who was redder than a tomato, and pulled him into a brotherly hug.
"Thanks Al."
"Your welcome," Al replied and added, "You should come down stairs soon. The party can't start without you." Getting up, Alphonse left the room quietly as Edward continued to look through the photo album.
DING DONG…
"I got it!" Elysia cried out as she rushed to the door to welcome the people in. Opening the door she saw Mustang, Hawkeye, Havoc, Furey, Breda, Falman, and the ever cheerful Armstrong.
"Ms. Elysia I wish you a very Happy Birthday!" Armstrong cried out as he picked her up and spun her around. Elysia let out a squeal of delight as he spun her around. Mustang and everyone else said their hellos and happy birthdays to the little girl as they walked in the house.
"Hi everyone, dinner is almost ready," Gracia came out to inform everyone with Hughes following behind her. Mustang walked over to him to ask him about Edward, but before he could say anything, Hughes answered his question. "He's better today. Winry had attached his auto-mail yesterday, so he's been walking around," he said quietly as to not attract anyone else's attention.
"Did he say anything? Like where he was and what happened to him?" Mustang asked hopefully.
"Actually he did, not to me, but to Al and Winry. They told me yesterday," Hughes replied grimly. "We'll talk about it later, okay?"
"Alright," he confirmed as everyone shuffled into the living room. Walking into the room, they saw Edward, who was laughing slightly, sitting on the couch as Al and Winry continued to tell him a funny story.
"Edward Elric it is truly great to see you once more!" Armstrong announced as he walked up to him. Ed got up from where he was sitting and went over to greet everyone.
"It's good to see you too Major and the rest of you as well," he said calmly. It felt weird to be talking to everyone again. He hadn't seen any of them in so long.
"How are you feeling Edward?" Hawkeye's tone was both gentle and concerned.
Ed looked at her and gave a hesitant smile, "Much better," he lied. He was sure that they already knew about his breakdown from the other night, but Ed didn't want to make it obvious. He knew that he already looked bad enough, what with his skeleton like body, but he didn't want them to know that he felt much worse. His clothes hung loosely on him and his eyes had dark circles under them from his lack of sleep.
"Big Brother looks better already, doesn't he, Uncle Roy?" Elysia asked cheerfully from besides Mustang.
"Yeah, he looks less like a zombie now, don't you think?" Mustang teased the little girl. No one knew if it was alright to laugh at the joke, seeing how Ed might not find it as funny. Their doubt was soon cleared up when Edward laughed quietly at the joke.
"Yeah, it might take a little longer to get back to my normal weight," Ed joked. "Even longer for my hair to grow back, come to think of it," he mumbled. Al, who was closest to him, heard the remark and laughed as everyone started to walk into the dining room for dinner.
Dinner went by uneventfully as everyone sat down and talked about their daily lives and thing like that. Edward sat quietly, listening to everyone else, as he tried to eat his large portion of food, which everyone had insisted that he eat. As good as it was, Edward's stomach couldn't hold as much food as it once did.
"Are you not hungry Ed?" Winry had unfortunately noticed his lack of an appetite. The question brought unwanted attention from the table towards Ed.
"No, I'm really full," he said shyly.
"But you barely touched your food," Havoc said. It was strange for them to not see Ed inhale his food.
"My looks aren't the only thing that had a drastic change," he responded in a low tone. Seeing the conversation going in an awkward place, Hughes decided that it was time for cake.
"Hooray! It's time for cake!" Elysia exclaimed as she got up to follow her dad to the kitchen to retrieve the cake. Moments later Hughes walked out with a massive cake with lit candles that read: "Happy Birthday Edward and Elysia!" as Gracia turned down the lights.
"Happy Birthday to you…," everyone started to sing.
Edward stared at the cake with a sad smile while everyone sang.
"Happy Birthday to you,
Happy Birthday to you,
Happy Birthday dear Edward,
Happy Birthday to you!" the group finished.
"Don't forget to make a wish Uncle Eddie!" Lena shouted with joy as Edward inhaled and thought of a wish. Once he had one, Ed blew out the candles on the first try.
"Hooray!!" the table cheered. Edward looked around him and saw Matthias' wife holding a camera. In a blink of an eye, Matthias and Lena had leaned in towards Ed as the camera flash went off.
"That'll be a good picture, don't you think Ed?" Matthias asked him with a big grin.
"Yeah," he smiled back.
"Happy Birthday to you!" their singing had stopped.
"Make a wish you two!" Gracia called out as both Elysia and Edward inhaled and blew out the candles after making their wish.
Author's Note: I'm done with this chapter!! Woohoo! So yeah, I sacrificed my math homework in order to get this chapter complete for all of you! I hope you enjoyed it! If I'm lucky, and school doesn't weigh me down with homework, I'll get the next one up soon! So submit a review!! I'd love to hear from all of you!!