One week later found Edward sitting on a high medical bench almost embarrassedly as his prosthetic arm was poked and prodded by Maes Hughes, the ship's intelligence officer. Sitting in only his boxers, he watched as the black haired, bespectacled man bent each finger and joint in turn. "So, What now?" Edward asked.
The avian with light grey wings, flecked with speckles of brown, looked up at him with a small, wry smile. "Well." He said, flexing Edward's thumb, "Normally, I would request a removal of the arm in question, for a proper inspection by both myself and the captain. But, in this case..." He looked at Edward over the rim of his glasses, revealing sparkling purple eyes. Edward had reacted terribly the first time he has seen them, for their similarities to Nicks had been almost unbearable. Now, the boy didn't even flinch. "I'm guessing that removal of the arm would be quite painful?"
"No." Said Edward. "But putting it back on would be."
"Well, in any case, the arm would require dismantling, and something so fragile, component-wise might not take too well to that. Then there is the inspection itself which might cause unwanted damage, and finally there is the chance that we might not be able to put it together again when we were finished."
Edward winced.
Hughes offered him a bright smile, his eyes crinkling. "Exactly." He ruffled Edward's hair, not in the least bit fazed when the boy jerked back slightly. "Which is why, and this is against my better judgement, mind, we're going to let you keep the arm for the time being."
Ed's sigh of relief was almost inaudible. He happened to be down in the hospital wing, that day, helping Hughes's wife, Gracia to treat the patients, when a sharp series of pains had raced down both his back and his chest simultaneously. Even though he hadn't cried out, or made the slightest sign that it had happened, Gracia had noticed and had forced him into another room for a brief examination. Upon taking off his gloves and long sleeved shirt, Gracia had predictably found out about his arm and summoned her husband at once. During the inspection of his arm, the throbbing pains had become more and more insistent and Edward had stayed silent.
Both Gracia and Hughes had noticed, however.
"However," Said Hughes, drawing Edward back to the present. "I will have to inform Roy about the recent turn of events, because with someone who has lived most of their life on Earth, we can't take any risks."
Edward nodded. The catch was expected and not unwelcome.
"And now, Young Sir!" Hughes grinned violently. "Tell us about the reason you have been flinching on and off for the past hour and a half!"
"It's nothing." Edward replied in a clipped tone.
"Aha!" The older man exclaimed. "You are lying, Mister Edward. I should know. My Elysia tries the same thing!"
Edward groaned. Already he had been victim to at least six rants on the merits and beauty of one Elysia Hughes, Gracia and Hughes' three year old daughter. If the girl was even half of what her father made her out to be, the whole catholic religion could find themselves with a new saviour. He decided to cut off any blathering at the source and answer the man's question. "It's just my back and sides. They only hurt every once in awhile and I'm perfectly fine."
"Ahh." Said Gracia, coming back into the room, sipping from a tall glass of water, "So that's what it is."
"What is?" Asked Edward.
She smiled at him brightly, and with almost the air of a mother surveying her son. Edward squirmed under the look. "Your development of adult wings is about to begin." She informed him.
Edward looked at her in a bemused fashion. "My what?" He demanded, and she shook her head lightly, along with her husband.
"Your Adult, or secondary wings, Edward." Hughes informed him. "They grow in, replacing the original white down ones around your age." He looked slightly white, as Gracia smiled at him like a predator seizing up her prey. He gulped, and when Edward looked at Gracia again, the look was gone.
He thought he heard Hughes mutter something like 'I'm in trouble.' Under his breath, but the man didn't reply to his curious gaze.
"You'll be happy to know," Said Gracia, "That the pain is perfectly normal, a part of growing up that Evolution decided we should experience for some reason." She smiled that motherly smile again and she too ruffled his hair, much to his annoyance. She headed to a small pharmaceutical-type room just off the room where Edward and Hughes sat.
After a moment, Hughes asked, "So, isn't my wife just the most beautiful woman in the known universe?"
Edward stifled a groan and an urge to throttle him.
In a small government building, somewhere on Earth, a very different conversation was taking place.
"You have two choices." Winry winced at the government official's comment. He was standing so that his face was half-cast in shadow, and that made her definitely uneasy. "The Mars battlefields or the in-space combat units."
She nodded, and being unable to watch the man any longer, cast her eyes about his office. The room she was seated in was hardly the type of office you'd expect of a member of government. It was a small, cramped and poorly lit room, full of filing cabinets and so cluttered that there was only really room for a medium-sized desk and two wobbly, precariously placed chairs. The desk (as well as the floor and the tops of the cabinets) was littered with thousands and thousands of memos, computer printouts and small, holographic trinkets that Winry couldn't work out for the life of her. She didn't dare put her hands anywhere but by her sides, there were a couple of nasty looking stains around her, some which looked like mildew, others, smaller and better hidden, looked like dried blood. The whole office stank.
"Sir," she enquired bravely, "I'd been hoping to get a post on Earth somewhere, so I could look for my missing friend in my spare time."
The man nodded. "Ahh yes, that Edward boy, wasn't he?" He enquired. "It was all over the papers when he went missing. The people working on the Gabriel Project were just furious! And then the whole issue of slipping out under the Government's nose of course..."
Winry let her brows draw together in a puzzled frown. There had been no word of Edward's disappearance on any of the papers or news broadcasts that the lower societies could get a hold of, but then, the news system for the upper class was a strange thing. Why would Edward's disappearance get into their papers, but not the ones she read? She rubbed her arms self-consciously. "I..."
"I'm afraid it's out of the question, My Dear." The man said, with a sick, half-hidden smile. "The Angels simply do not come into contact with the Earth enough to merit there being more ground forces then there already is. You will have to choose between Mars and the 'In-between' I hear the troops are calling it..."
Winry's dislike of the man she was corresponding with was growing greater by the minute. The man radiated jolly acceptance of everything, while underneath his smugness and superior air shone through his mask.
She sighed. "Are you sure there's nothing that can be done to get me a post on Earth?" She asked softly, but her hopes were plummeting.
"I'm sorry. There's nothing that can be done." He repeated, not sounding very bloody sorry. Winry glared at her hands bitterly.
"Then I don't really care where I go." She replied. Winry had signed up for the War as soon as she was able, but this having occurred after Edward's strange disappearance, she had struggled to gain a position in the Earth forces to maintain her so-far fruitless search for her best friend. The police had been no help, they were too corrupt to care, and Winry and her grandmother did not have the money required to make them at least pretend. It didn't help that Edward had been poorer than they were to begin with, his home and its computers legacies from earlier times with his parents.
His apartment had been cleared, Winry had all his belongings back home, and refilled with a young, noisy group of tenants who had more than once tried to convince her to come into their apartment for 'a spot of mattress dancing.' They couldn't be less like Edward was.
"I'll sign you up for Mars then." The man said, with a delighted smile. "That's where all the main fighting is."
Winry suddenly felt sick. "Yes sir."
"Good girl. See my secretary on the way out. She will put you forward for further recruitment training."
"So what's this growth enhancer meant to do exactly?" Edward enquired of Hughes. They had moved into a small, dimly lit room, almost as if the darkness was meant for comfort, rather than fear. It was bare, except for a small mattress-like contraption in the middle of the room, which Hughes had insisted Edward stand upon.
The man blinked for a moment, before sharply exclaiming, "Oh! I keep forgetting! You don't know all these things, do you?" He slapped himself suddenly on the forehead. "Well, the growth enhancer is basically a drug that forces the body to grow at an alarmingly fast rate. I think it's two weeks or so in five minutes."
Edward nodded, with a raised eyebrow. "So why do I have to take it then?"
Hughes frowned thoughtfully. "You don't, really, but it will save you a lot of time. The average growth-span and recovery-span are covered by the dosage that Gracia makes."
"Does it hurt?" Edward asked, more out of curiosity than anything. His sides chose that moment to give a particularly nasty throb and he gasped.
Hughes gave a sympathetic look. "Well, let's put it this way, shall we, Ed my boy. Getting your wings come in is like taking off a rather picky band-aid. You can go slow and steady, and peel it off a portion at a time. Or, you could rip it off, as fast as anything, and not bother with care. Either way, it hurts like HELL."
"Oh. Gee. Thanks." The younger avian replied in a clipped tone.
The older laughed somewhat sheepishly. "I personally think it's better to get it out of the road in one big hit." He said. "Roy did, when he was a child. So did Hawkeye I believe. Neither regretted it, especially now that they've seen people who didn't opt for the treatment."
"Are you traumatising my patient, Maes?" Gracia said on her approach back into the room. "It's really not as bad as he's making out, Dear. And it's completely natural for the growth to happen." She smiled slyly. "We just speed it up a little is all. Hold out your arm please."
Instantly, alarm bells went off in Edward's brain. "Why?" He asked warily.
Gracia Hughes, who had so far only given the impression to Edward that she was a kind, motherly figure with a light sense of humour, held out a small syringe filled with a faintly opaque blue liquid. Edward froze in an instant, the original image trashed by the massive betrayal of trust he was experiencing. She expected him, to sit still, while she jabbed that thing in his arm?
Not a chance in HELL.
"NO!" He cried, snatching his arm back and staggering away from the two avians. "I'll wait the two weeks if it means a needle!"
"Don't be a child, Highness." Gracia said, moving forward with the instrument of doom outstretched in her hand. She didn't seem to understand that what she was holding was a lethal weapon, and there was no way it was going anywhere near Edward. "It's just a small little jab. You won't even feel it." She cooed, as if trying to calm a frightened dog.
"That's just what you want me to think!" Edward yelled at the top of his lungs, scrambling away as far and as fast as he could. However, not looking where he was going, he managed to manoeuvre himself into a corner of the room, and he looked about, terror running through his bloodstream. He whined piteously.
Hughes held him down while Gracia efficiently administered the jab. Then, as one, they led him back to the mattress and stood him upon it, wishing him good luck before taking their exeunt. Edward was suddenly quite alone.
After a long moment, Goosebumps trembled all over his skin, slowly morphing into small pricklings of bearable pain. It trailed down his body in an unusual way, odd, but not too uncomfortable, and pooled just below his arms, over his ribcage and around the small of his back.
Next came a disorienting feeling, not unlike the rippling of water, or the barrage of hard rain, except once again restricted to the three areas. Startled at a strange feeling surrounding his fingers, he looked down. Before his eyes, his nails grew noticeably longer. "Well. That's disturbing."
Almost after Edward had said it, a boiling pain tore through his back and sides. It wrapped around him, dipping sensually through his abdomen, and up until just barely under the start of his prosthetic arm's port. It was nearly unbearable, it felt like liquid lead had been poured over his skin and his blood rushed so fast he could swear the friction would boil it. He fell to his knees, biting his lip to keep from screaming, and tasting blood at the same time.
A second wave of angrier fire drew him to the ground with a grunt.
The flesh around the region affected the most began to feel as if it were bubbling, while a thousand stabbing pains raced over his skin like hot knives ground into his skin unnecessarily. He screwed his eyes shut, and clamped down on the yell threatening to escape his throat. He would not let this beat him.
A roll of peace, a momentary reprieve washed over him, before with a sickening lurch and an even worse crunch, the pain came back, throbbing at his sides and making him gasp for his air. Some part of him told him to roll off his side, and he did so, drawing a shaky breath at the pain it caused to lace through him.
With a disgusting pop, immediately followed by a strange splat, something exploded sharply from his sides, something large and overly heavy. The pungent smell of blood filled the room, the think; congealing liquid coating Edward from head to foot and the vast majority of the room was at least speckled with it. Edward's stomach rolled disagreeably, and he resisted the urge to throw up.
He whimpered.
The heavy lumps were growing, lengthening, and they stretched at his stomach horribly, drawing on reserves he didn't know he had so that they could extend. Sharp pinpricks ran along them, and Edward realised with a groan that they were a part of him, two new limbs and that pain transferred through them as easily as everywhere else. Spikes exploded outwards from the now long and slender shafts, additional spines spinning off them to form into strange, red feathers, coated in fresh blood, the same blood that was rolling in rivulets down Edward's back.
The drug began to heal now, instead of cause excruciating pain, and all of his wounds became almost unbearably itchy. Some of the blood had pooled at the nape of his neck and was slowly seeping into his hair. It would be hell to get out, Edward thought, absolute hell.
He coughed twice at the coppery stench that plagued the room, overly glad that it wasn't bright, as the darkness soothed the headache that was starting to form just behind his temples.
"Alright, Edward?" Hughes' voice called out to him.
"...Ow." He replied weakly, all too choked and hoarse for his liking, moments before he let himself go to a dead faint.
"We figured he'd be a bit finicky about letting others wash him, so we decided to wait until he wakes up."
"It's been two days. Surely you could have at least semi-cleaned him up. He looks like a dead body or something."
"Well, Gracia says he's still alive at least."
"I know he is. I'm just telling you to get that fucking blood off his wings so that I can see the colouring without having to choke on the stench."
"He's red. As red as his father was before him."
Edward had long since registered the fact he knew the voices arguing above him. He just for the life of him couldn't remember where he knew them from. There were rabbits decidedly stomping on the inside of his skull, and a hazy sensation had wrapped its way around his brain, reminding him almost of being drunk.
"Red? Well, I guess it will suit him." He knew that voice, that smirky bastard-like voice, but he couldn't put his finger on it, and the fuzzy thing he was wrapped in was so very warm...
"You don't sound too pleased."
"It's not the colour I expected. But it'll do."
"Oh stop it with the smug bastard act, Mustang." Mustang. Mustang. He knew that name. It was important somehow... "You were right, I was wrong, and I owe Hawkeye dinner for the next six turns."
"Gracia can't be too thrilled about that."
"Don't be too certain. I owe her foot rubs for the next five years."
Edward felt a groan bubble up through his throat, far too raw to be healthy. He slid his eyes slowly open, blinking at the harsh light twice before closing them and scrunching them up tight. After a moment, he attempted the action once more, this time with much better results.
"Welcome back to the land of the living, Princess." One of the coloured blobs in his vision said. The voice sounded triumphant as if it was very, very pleased with the situation at hand. Edward made an indistinguishable sound.
His sides felt stretched too far as the blobs in front of him slowly focused to form real people. He felt sticky all over, and his teeth had that fuzzy feel that indicated they needed a good cleaning. He slowly tried to sit up, but an unexpected force held him down. He let out a confused mewl and attempted the feat again with the same result.
"Calm down, highness." Said a woman's soft voice to his right. The words made no sense, but they sounded pretty, so Edward tried to focus on them instead of the two now-distinguishable black haired people hovering over him. "You two, back away from him, give him some room to breathe." There was something soft and matronly in that tone.
The two faces did so, one retreating to his side and suddenly a gentle pressure was lifting him up into a seated position. Two large weights either side of his body wanted to pull him down again, and he mewled, leaning against whatever was holding him up.
"Hey! Princess! Get off me!" And there was the pretty smirking voice again. If only he could make out the words. They sounded kind of awkward. "He's getting dried blood on my clothes."
"Then be grateful it's not wet, Roy." Said the female again. "And don't you dare even think about letting him go. He's gone through a rough period; he doesn't need any further stimuli before he's had at least a little sustenance."
"He's going to kill me when he wakes up. This is all going to be my fault, I just know it."
Oh, now didn't that smell nice? Edward forced himself to look downward, where there was a creamy spoonful of something making its way towards him. He looked up, meeting blue eyes which were warm and bright. "Eat." That was one command, he recognised at least. He slurped up the little liquid that was on the spoon, immediately wanting more and rumbling his impatience. The blue eyes, however, appeared to be taking their time. "Not so fast, Edward, or your body will reject the soup and you'll throw up.' He couldn't make out the words, but the tone was condescending.
With every spoonful the woman gave him, Edward felt himself become more and more alert. He was in a brightly lit, well furbished room with soft, leafy plants aligning the outer walls. There was a small bench next to the hospital-type bed he was in, which had a plate stacked with what looked like meaty pastries gently steaming. The 'fuzzy thing' was a woollen blanket that was now spooled around his legs, and he was leaning...
...On Roy Mustang.
This fact took another moment to register in Edward's brain, and he tried to move angrily before realising that he was pretty much immobile and therefore, helpless.
"When I can move again, you're so dead, Mustang." He growled, knowing that somehow that man had set this whole thing up.
Mustang looked scandalized. "YOU were the one who leaned on ME"
"Yes, but I'm not the thirty year old pervert here, am I?"
"I'll have you know I'm only twenty-nine." Roy snapped back.
Gracia smiled at the two. "When you children are finished?" She commented in a truly reprimanding tone. They both looked up at her mildly guiltily. "Do you want any more soup, Edward?"
"No thanks. I'll get it when I can move again."
Mustang let out a snort of laughter at Edward's predicament. Gracia swatted him sharply over the shoulder. "When you are in my hospital wing," she said, "You follow my rules. And that includes not poking fun at the infirms."
Hughes coughed politely from where he was going unnoticed. "Gracia, I think it's time you let the captain and Edward have a little chat." He said determinedly, taking in Edward's embarrassment at having the woman defend him. "His highness needs a briefing, and he's not going to get it with you hovering over his head." He gently took his wife and led her (reluctantly) from the room.
As soon as the two were gone, Mustang looked at Edward who was still leaning against him. The boy was bright red with a mixture of anger and embarrassment, and, being unable to move, he was stuck.
"So." Mustang said. "Do you believe me now?"
Edward growled at him, bristling. "Yes. Whatever."
Fucking bastard. He thought scathingly.
"That wasn't very nice." Reflected Mustang, staring off into space. "I may have a reputation, but I do have legitimate parents."
This caught Edward off guard. "Huh?"
Mustang laughed. "I can read minds, Edward. And I can manipulate heat, and gas concentrations in the air. Create fire, if you will." The man sounded all too smug when he said this. "Though reading minds is much more useful."
"I knew there was a reason why I hated you." Edward bit out, muttering it under the anger he felt running through him.
"What?" Mustang demanded, and then laughed once more. "Why is the fact that I can read minds grounds for hating me?" he asked, absently taking one of Ed's wings between his fingers and separating the feathers.
"It's cheating." Edward said. "You don't have to ask what someone is thinking, or even guess. You can just open up their mind and see for yourself. It's lazy. And not only that, but it implies no one can have their privacy, even in their own head where they think things that they would never say. If someone can read thoughts, what's the point of that?" He glared at Mustang.
The man gave a small, wry grin before replying, "However, you're from the house of Elric, Edward, and therefore your power would be worse than mine. Your red wings have proved your lineage."
"That means what to me?" Edward asked with a sharp edge.
Mustang's eyes flicked heavenward for a moment. He rested a hand on the small of Edward's back, it seemed almost on impulse, and rubbed in smooth circles when Edward tensed. The younger avian allowed himself to slowly relax under those hands, for not once in his whole stay had someone tried to hurt him.
If he had thought back on that, he would have realised how odd it was, how odd his behaviour had been while on this ship. He had, for some reason immediately trusted these creatures, people, whatever they were, without question. That was something he had never done before.
"Because," Mustang said, "Elrics create illusions, they manipulate reality through the brainwaves of others. Sometimes they don't even realise that they are doing it." Edward tried to bristle again at that, but the hands had moved to another part of his back and were gently rubbing out one of the many knotted muscles present. Edward sighed.
And this isn't manipulation? He asked himself.
"No, actually, it's not." Replied Mustang to his thoughts and Edward scowled at him.
"In any case, I haven't used that power and I don't plan to." He continued the conversation, not wanting to linger on the merits of back-rubbing.
"Princess, untrained Elrics use their influence without even realising it. The illusions they create are directly implanted into the minds of others. While it does take training for these illusions to become completely effective, the ability to manipulate is something they exhibit from early childhood onwards. Reading minds is far better than controlling them, wouldn't you agree?"
Edward suddenly felt a sickening lurch. What if, what if he'd controlled people all his life? He distinctly remembered incidents, mostly when he was very young and particularly selfish where he'd gotten his own way no questions asked. And What if he'd manipulated Winry? What if she'd realised and hated him, but couldn't say anything because he'd still been manipulating her? He tensed immediately, panic flowing through his veins as he wondered if each and every person he'd ever come into contact with...
"Calm down, Edward." Mustang ordered. He obeyed without question. "Look, you may have manipulated people in the past, but that was only due to your lack of training, and the effects wouldn't be to the grand scale that you are thinking. They would be more of a nudge in the direction you wanted, not overall manipulation."
"Stop fucking reading my mind." Edward bit out through gritted teeth.
Mustang shrugged.
They were silent for a moment. Mustang's hands moved away from his back and back to his wing where they started stretching and compressing the muscles gently. The uncomfortable physical-ness of the situation was outweighed by how highly skilful Mustang's hands were.
The man shifted slightly for better access. "I heard you didn't scream during the growth of these." He said, indicating Edward's wings with a small incline of his head. There was a degree of respect in his voice that caught Edward off guard.
He nodded, once he had recovered from the brief shock. "Well, back about two years ago," he said, unsure why he was speaking, but talking all the same, "There was an accident. I lost my arm and a little girl nearly lost her life. This was before Ana and Nick were DIGITised, and they were there beside me while I was getting my prosthetic arm, telling me it was okay to scream when the pain got too much. I knew that they wouldn't think I was weak if I called out, but I still couldn't. Every time the pain got enough for me to want to, I would think of that little girl, sitting in a hospital bed in great pain and dying. Some part of me kept telling me she was in more pain than I was, and that to cry out would be an insult to her. We both survived in the end, but she had to give up her humanity and become a dog-human hybrid. I've never really forgiven myself for being unable to help her more."
He looked down at his hands, and realised they'd clenched into fists. With an effort, he loosened them, his limbs still not truly willing to agree with him.
"Princess and beggarman." Mustang said as if talking to himself.
"What?" Enquired Edward.
"Princess and Beggarman." He repeated, a soft and sad look in his eyes. "When I was given the serum, I cried out, I couldn't stop. It was the most painful experience I'd ever had." He smirked weakly. "Being raised in a high class, I'd always been a privileged child. I had everything I always wanted. I never knew what it was like to be poor, or in pain, or separated from those I cared about. In fact, the day that I saw you for the first time, my greatest concern was how to bluff my way through a report on the fairytale Princess and Beggarman."
Edward gave him a puzzled look.
Mustang laughed. "I'm just surprised. You're meant to be the most noble and privileged of all Avians, yet our lives, in comparison were very different. You were raised in the poorer ends of a human society, and you've had so many hardships but you've never let yourself be considered the victim."
Edward grinned. "You have no idea what you're talking about, Mustang. I wasn't the victim. So many people in that society had it worse than I did."
Mustang laughed. "You're a very hard person to read, Edward Elric. Even with the power of Telepathy."
Edward went rigid for a moment, loosing what little mobility he had regained. "Elric? My last name's Elric?"
Mustang looked up, brows crinkling. "Yes. Edward of the house of Elric. Weren't you listening?"
Listening was the furthest thing from a shocked Edward's mind. I have a last name. He thought, overwhelmed.
I belong.
.
A/n: -dead, just dead-
Ed Muse: -prods with stick- Hrmn. 12 pages. You wouldn't think something that pithy would kill her.
-revives- Shut up, short ass.
Ed muse: WHOAREYOUCALLINGA... Wait, you're the same height as me.
Yeah. I know. Anyways, -shakes her little review can- Feed a hungry Authoress while she puts Edward back in his box?