Update: After the funeral, Ed moved to a town in the middle of no-where, even more unrecognized than Risembul. A small profile is as follows:
Seth Daniels
Eyes: Dark grey
Hair: Black, short
Height: NOT IMPORTANT!!
Weight: NOT IMPORTANT!!
Age: approx. 20 years
Birth date: May eighth, year (I don't know how they keep track of years)
Occupation: Student, studying automachanics (see below)
Location: Caros, unknown town; Lives in rented house
General Background: Moved to this town for practical study as instructed by sensei, who said (And I quote) : "I can only teach you so much, the rest you have to screw up first." Has small clinic in the front area of his house, and once in a while messes up, but learns very quickly how to fix it. Appears less crude and has an almost aristocratic manner.
Chapter Six -- Almost eighteen Months After the Funeral
Ed sighed, thinking as her started down a dusty sidewalk. 'I miss home.'
Because, no matter how nice it was, this town wasn't home. Caros was a small town, akin to Risembul; Farms, family owned businesses, everyone knew everyone (Except Ed). He lived in a mid-sized house in the middle of town that satisfied the basis needs for a bachelor. Walls, doors, and a roof. Kitchen, bath, den, bedroom, and spare (just in case; you never know what could happen). And he never had want for anything; He was basically guaranteed work.
But it still couldn't be home.
It wasn't as though he felt lonely. Quite the contrary, as the older lady named Mrs. Kalm who (along with insisting she be called Gram) lived down the street seemed to have adopted him. Her excuse:
"You seemed to lack the attention young men need to build proper confidence; You'll end up alone if you become withdrawn."
And so, Ed found himself visited by her at least once a day. Most often, he'd open the door and walk to, say, the bakery for some bread, and meet her along the way, and they'd end up walking together and chatting familiar things. Soon, Ed realized he started looking for her when he left his home, and now, they regularly entertained each other in a town where very rarely anything of entertainment happened. And so Ed existed in the simplicity, and desperately wished he could travel with Al again; After almost four years of travel, then the year or two of rest, he'd been looking forward to a trip they'd been planning for a few months.
But then this happened.
Ed paused, feeling suddenly sick; A familiar tug in his chest begged him to forget about it-- About the gun, the chill in the air, the warmth of Roy's arms...But the illusion wouldn't disperse, and Ed found himself gasping for air, willing himself not to start crying; Not here, not now.
He continued down the street and almost missed the doorway. He knocked softly, as a basic courtesy.
"Come in, it's unlocked."
Ed rolled his eyes, mentally scheduling a lecture for Gram; The more she said that, the more brightly the big sign flashed 'Come in, The Door's Unlocked, and I'm a Helpless Old Woman!!'
He wasn't prepared to walk in and see Jean Havoc laughing with her.
And neither apparently did the second lieutenant; He looked up and visibly paled, though it was only obvious to Ed.
"Ah, Seth, I believe I've told you about my grandson?" Came an encouraging voice.
Ed blinked, then smiled. "Ah, yes. I've heard a great deal about you, though names have a manner of escaping me. Seth Daniels. I apparently was adopted by your grandmother." Ed (Seth) said, suavely extending his hand with a look that said 'I'll kill you if you screw this up'.
'Identity change.' Jean reminded himself, looking at the one person he wasn't sure he'd ever see again. "Jean. Havoc, that is. It's nice to see ole' Gram helped someone before she died." He said, stretching out his own hand and shaking Ed's.
Until his grandmother promptly hit him with a cane (never far away). "I'm still alive, you idiots of my acquaintance."
Ed's mind was pouring out of his ears. 'Wasn't the whole point of me moving here to avoid contact? How did this happen?'
But he just laughed, having become a fine actor in the last few months. And so, the visit went smoothly, with Jean playing his part equally well, explaining all the things about himself Ed already knew. And so, when Ed excused himself to return to his shop, he mentally congratulated himself on passing the third-hardest chance encounter he could have, the hardest being with someone who thought he was dead. Followed by one with Roy.
Once inside his shop, however, he found himself shaking. That close...He'd been so close to his past. Closing his eyes, he let his imagination run loose.
He'd just left the Central Command building, after chatting with Jean. Soon, Al would walk in, trailed by either Winry or Sheiska, and most definitely Elysia. Ed would tell Al how much he hated work, and Al would point out the obvious; He could just leave the military. So Ed would just sulk, saying he had nothing better to do. If Winry was there, she' check his automail, showing him all manner of new upgrades. Sheiska would begin a crusade over the abuse of old books, and explain how her plans for her book recovery shop had advanced; She'd probably finished the cleaning lab, and was planing the--
A loud knock brought him back to reality.He turned, and walked back to the door, opening it carefully. Though he knew who was there.
The familiar smell of smoke assured him as such. He stepped aside, motioning the lieutenant in; It wasn't as though they were strangers. Though, technically, they had to be. But after closing and locking the door, switching a sign to 'CLOSED', and making sure none of the neighborhood rascals were hiding about, he walked over to Jean and lightly punched his arm.
"Well, I'm definitely not crazy." Ed noted, smiling slightly as he returned to his real dialect.
"That's a bit debatable, Ed." Jean said, smirking back. "Or Seth, whatever."
"Closed the door for a reason." Ed said, turning slightly. "I've got coffee."
About five minutes later, Jean was settled at a table and Ed was pouring coffee.
"Ed?"
"Yeah?" Came a reply as Ed turned to his fridge.
"Out of coriousity--" It mid sentence, Jean seemed to switch thoughts, "Are you putting milk in your coffee?"
"Hm? Oh, yeah. You dearest grandmother decided to have a bunch of people hold me down and force feed me milk twice daily." He made a slight face, then continued, "Until one day I just got it over with and downed it myself. Now, she accepts the fact that as long as I drink milk in my coffee, she won't force me to drown in the cow juice."
Though a moment later Ed wanted to drown Jean in milk when he started laughing at Ed's admission.
"Drowning you in milk?" He laughed again. "Man, the worse I got was a lecture about not eating beef for six months."
"...Why not?" Ed asked, handing him a coffee cup.
Jean shrugged. "Got bored."
After a moment of the 'oh, aren't you smart' look in Jean's general direction, Ed asked, "So what have I missed in the last year and a half?"
"Hm, let's see; Two marriages, a first kiss, a birthday, and of course someone being brought back to life." A moment later, "But not in that order."
"... Care to elaborate?" Ed asked in an almost idiotic way.
"You remember Maria Ross?" Ed nodded. "So you know how she 'died' and went on vacation in Xing. Well, she came back. And married that Lieutenant Brosh."
"Okay, that's 2 out of 4; What about the first kiss?"
"OOooOO." Jean said, doing a grand impression of a third grader. "Elysia got a boyfriend."
"...She's how old?" Ed asked.
"About 6 and 1/2. I think."
"...Maes would murder the poor kid." Ed said, shaking his head.
"Or marry them right away." Jean said.
"True." Ed noted, drinking some of his coffee. "So who else got married?"
Jean smiled. "I have pictures."
Ed found himself staring at pictures of Riza looking very feminin in a white fluffy-ish dress, next to none other than...JEAN HAVOC!!
"You are looking at Mr. And Mrs. Jean Havoc, as of 1 year and three months." Jean said, grinning.
...tick tick tick tick tick "You DOG!!"
And such began the traditional 5-7 minutes of men being weird about marriage and the like.
"So who's birthday did I miss?" Ed asked, beaming slightly. And I thought it'd be hard to talk to him after all this time...
More pictures. Jean had a daughter, named Sierra. As Jean enjoyed pointing out, she had fair hair and green eyes.
"You know," Ed mentioned, crawling out of a small mountain of pictures, "If you're not careful, you'll be the next Maes Hughes."
"Is that a problem?" Jean mocked, running a hand through his hair absentmindedly. "Far as I can tell, everyone liked him."
Ed nodded. "Have you seen Al or Winry lately?"
"Try Al and Winry." Jean said. "Winry was in my wedding," Ed noted how much Jean seemed to brag about the fact, "and Al's in Central helping Roy."
"...Helping Roy do what?" Ed asked, looking thoroughly perplexed.
"Figure out you killed you."
For some reason, Ed flushed. He still hasn't given up? "How are they?"
"Fine. Winry keeps trying to kill people that mention the fact that she looked hot in the brides'-maid dress." Jean said, grabbing a particular picture to prove his point. "Except Al, if he says it, and she goes red and beats Fuery with her wrench."
"...Why Fuery?"
"He's usually about to say something important, like, 'Riza shot some innocent civilian'. Not that specifically, but it's the basic idea." Jean replied, rolling his eyes. "Every time someone gets shot, Fuery thinks Riza did it, and comes to tell me to...How did he put it?...Oh, 'Get my wife home and teach her to behave'. Or something..."
Ed laughed. 'It's probably the other way around.'
"So, um..." And once again, Ed flushed without reason.
Jean gave him a side-ways glance, then smirked. "Roy's been keeping busy. He's been working personally with the Investigation Squads in charge of your case to figure out who was behind the assassination. I think being one of three people to know you're alive keeps him working so you can come back. Of course, most people just assume he wants to make it seem like he's noble so he gets promoted."
Ed avoided looking at Jean. 'I would've thought the same thing if I didn't know better.'
Jean sighed, saying, " I think I have something you should see."
"More pictures?" Ed questioned, almost fearfully.
"Nope--Well," He said, surfacing from a bag at his side, "Some what."
After returning the mountain of pictures to a neat and orderly pile, Jean dropped a large file in the center of the table.
"What's this?" Ed asked softly, reaching for it.
"Your file. Everything about the case, starting from the day of your 'death', including all press released information, as well as...everything else." Jean said, moving his pictures to a specific compartment in his bag.
Ed blinked, bemused, then wondered, "Why are you carrying this around with you?"
"...So I don't lose it." ... "...Again."
"...I won't ask." Ed said, shaking his head as he opened the file. "But what's the story so far?"
" Our theory is that a group of extremists from Lior, who think that it's your fault their former 'paradise' fell to pieces," Jean replied with a somber expression. "Organized a plot to get rid of you, as well as everyone else in connection to you." Ed started to say something, but Jean interrupts, "Yes, that mean Al was in danger. Another reason he's in Central now. Not that he knows that."
Ed nodded, flipping through some of the papers.
"You were at the funeral, weren't you?" Jean questioned suspiciously.
"Blame your wife." Ed said, placing a small pile of newspapers on the table. "She asked if we could wait until after the funeral to leave, I said as long as I didn't have to wait in some weird hiding place. So I went." He thought for a moment. "Do you suppose she knew your grandmother lives here, and moved me here on purpose?"
Jean paused, then said, "Probably. That would explain why she insisted on placing you herself."
Ed rolled his eyes, and saw a picture of the funeral on the front page on a newspaper. 'Fullmetal Funeral Gone Bad' the headline read.
'As the country said good bye to one of the heroes of our time, the peace was shattered by a man suspected of the crime.
On March 23th, Edward Elric, the youngest State Alchemist who merited the title 'Fullmetal', was shot on his way to see his superior. He died shortly after reaching the hospital from blood loss, survived by his younger brother Alphonse, and childhood friend Winry Rockbell (pictured together at left) among others. While quietly mourning their loss, a man of unknown origins and showing extreme disrespect for the state boldly exclaimed, "You all are fools! The world will be much better without this blasph--'
Ed shook his head, then asked of Jean, "Did they learn anything from this guy?" He held up the paper.
Jean nodded. "He told us that no matter what we did to him, his mission was complete, and now his 'brothers' would be at peace." He tipped his head back at the memory, a if it made his neck sore. "That was where our conspiracy theory came from. Luckily, he wasn't as tough as he seemed, because then he went on to tell us, 'This is just phase one; Next comes the younger Elric, and all you dammed DOGS!!' And so on and so forth." Jean finished dully.
"So the guy had a vendetta against alchemists?" Ed mumbled, then continued to dive into the file.
"Yup. You gave the group a bad impression of alchemists apparently." Jean said, shaking his head with a slightly amused look. "After that, Roy started his infamous campaign starting with having Armstrong go to Lior himself."
"Why?"
"Because," Jean said, "At the time we thought it was a State Alchemist thing, and Roy trusted Armstrong could hold his own against assassins. And he was right. A group of five tried to kidnap him so they could bury him in the desert. Needless to say--"
"Armstrong crushed them and promptly came to Central with them each in their own little box." Ed mumbled.
"Pretty much, yeah." Jean said. "And the results of that expedition and others are in that folder."
Ed nodded again, finding he had nothing to say.
Jean watched Ed for a moment. 'Does he think he's going to memorize it?'..."Ed, you're not going to do something incredibly stupid because I showed you that file, are you?"
Ed glanced up. "Nope. Ed's dead, remember? I'm Seth, and the most incredibly stupid thing I've done was tried to attach someone's automachanic-leg to their arm."
"...That is pretty stupid..."
Jean found himself tackled to the floor a second later. "I KNOW IT IS!!"
When Jean prepared to leave a few hours later, he kept an even eye on Ed. Something was telling him that Ed had something important to say, but for some reason wasn't putting into words.
"Um, Jean?"
Finally. "Yeah, Ed?"
He turned to see Ed, though he didn't even look like Ed anymore. Gone were the black cloths covered by a red jacket, replaced by simple dark blue pants and a black button down shirt. Black hair, grey eyes. He was standing in the middle of a doorway looking very out of place to Jean. Like Ed should be standing in the doorway of an office in Central, not some shop down the street from his grandmother
Ed flushed, for the third time he noted. "Could you, um...When you get to Central--"
Jean smiled softly. 'It's not like he's used to asking people to speak for him.'"I'm going to talk to Roy about a few things when I hit Central."
Ed sighed. "Thanks."
"For what, Seth?" Jean said, penning the door innocently. "I should thank you for watching my grandmother for me."
Ed smiled, nodding. "Until next time, then, Mr. Havoc."