"Grandma!" Winry let out a whoop of joy as she bounded into the apartment complex, hunting out the arms of her small relative. Upon finding them, she zealously flung herself into an open embrace and both parties held onto each other like the world was falling about their heads. "I missed you so much!" said into the woman's shoulder, from where she was kneeling and clinging, her long blonde hair tailing on the ground behind her.
Pinnako was equally joyous, though slightly bewildered, hands playing with golden strands of hair as she said nothing, simply content to hold her returned granddaughter.
This scene was all watched by the brothers Elric, who stood in the doorway of the apartment, wings hidden, hands folded uncomfortably in front of them. They were both waiting in awkward silence to be noticed and reacquainted (Or introduced in Alphonse's case) with the old woman. Alphonse had his eyes cast outside the apartment like a sentry, watching in case someone should spring upon them suddenly.
Edward was-- looking about the apartment, noting small changes to the otherwise similar room. There were more pictures up on the wall, and cardboard boxes in the corner, stuffed with what looked like paper and his belongings. (He wasn't going to ask, Pinnako would tell him if she could unwrap herself from her Granddaughter for just a moment. He made an impatient noise.) He was partly lost in reminiscence, the smell of the apartment block as he had hopped slowly up the stairs to the flat plaguing his nose with urine and alcohol, not to mention countless other things, all disgusting, but so familiar he couldn't help but feel like there was a sense of his home about this place. There was the smell of tobacco plaguing the apartment. Pinnako had taken to smoking inside during his absence apparently.
He gave a frustrated and angry sigh and finally decided to break up the little reunion that had been preventing him from getting things done. "Mrs. Rockbell?" It came out almost shyly, which disappointed him; he'd been aiming for authorative. The woman jumped, startled as if she hadn't expected anyone else to be in the room. She looked over Winry's shoulder, dropped her hands, and stepped back. She removed her glasses and cleaned them before placing them back on.
He did his best to keep his balance and smiled sheepishly at the look the old woman was giving him. "I kinda need your help." He said, ready for a verbal beating.
"Saints be blessed!" Cried Pinnako, leaping forward to pull him into a hug equally as fierce as the one she gave Winry. "Edward! My dear child, you're alright!"
The fierceness of the hug had thrown Edward off balance and he toppled over.
From the ground, he heard Alphonse snicker.
"What ELSE did they say?"
"Something about a key and something about gene locks and that's it I swear! Please stop looking at me like you want to kill me and eat my brethren, Mrs. Curtis. It's rather off putting."
Havoc trembled as Izumi cracked her knuckles threateningly above him. "And where is my son?" the housewife demanded, rope-like hair swaying in the artificial breeze. Her wings were folded deceptively calmly behind her, and Havoc thought he wasn't sure which was worse, the explosive and draining anger of Edward, or her calm seething. "And my student? Where is he?" She smiled dangerously. "Have you told them all of what you have told me?"
"I don't know, with him and not all of it, no! They disappeared before I got a chance to fill them in on the rest of it!" Izumi, for all she was several inches shorter than Havoc managed to loom over him then and he trembled. "Look, I've told you everything I know. I've already mentioned the fact I wasn't paying attention!" The man pleaded, trying his best not to sound terrified. "The human and Mustang were playing mind games and like I told the Boss, my brain shuts down when that starts to happen. So my guess is Edward's gotten something more out of the conversation than I did and is off tramping around the Earth countryside with his brother in tow." He frowned, starting to feel a bit more confident about his place in the world. "So instead of trying your best to scare me into submission, which while it may be satisfactory to you really won't help much, why don't we... I don't know... look for them?"
That was the longest sentence I do believe I've ever heard." Izumi said with a mildly impressed-by-your-stupidity look on her face, before she shook herself and rounded on Havoc again. He actually took a step back, only just managing to stop himself from shaking. It was at times like this that he had a little more respect for Alphonse and Edward for having to put up with this woman on a regular basis. "Look for them!" Izumi demanded and the man gulped, knowing that if she was really determined he wouldn't have much of a choice in the matter. "But before you GO look for them, I want you to tell me every last detail of this meeting. No matter how small and insignificant you think it is. Do you understand me?" She rounded on him again and he stepped backwards, wings coming around slightly defensively.
"I told you!" He whined bitterly, "I wasn't paying attention!" He realised he was shaking all over and fought to control it.
"You better hope your subconscious was." Izumi Curtis replied, the fury of a frightened mother fuelling her strength and determination.
Havoc trembled once, and then went back to cowering, praying that the woman would be kind to him.
He didn't have much hope in that though.
"Mrs. Rockbell, I..."
"Auntie Pinnako." The woman sternly corrected him. "And tell your younger brother he can call me that too." Edward blinked at her from his precarious position on the edge of a rather high workbench in the sterilized prosthetics lab that belonged to the grandmother/daughter team. It had been a spare bedroom in the apartment and they had converted it to support their trade. They had a larger shop downtown, but for personal customers, it was easier to work from home.
Pinnako was studying Edward's leg stump curiously as he sat there, stripped down to white cotton boxers. "Just because you've been away for so long I thought you were dead doesn't mean you can escape your family ties, young man." It was funny how the woman behaved as if she hadn't even noticed the large, feathery appendages growing from Edward's sides.
"But..." Edward said, highly dazed from the reception he was receiving. He had expected a milder form of Winry's wild arm waving and yelling, or denial and disgust, but the woman had merely lit her pipe upon his unveiling of his wings, said something about expecting as much from the way that Ana and Nick behaved when he had acted oddly and gone back to preparing lunch from them all. There was nothing more said on the matter as they all sat and waited for their stew to finish cooking.
Pinnako sighed and looked at him, easily anticipating his objection. "Right. Seeing as you're so convinced there's a problem here, you little brat, let me set one thing straight. Angels, before you lot came along, were considered to be the heralds of God, commanding His saints and carrying His message to the people. Never once was it mentioned in the bible that they were evil or murderous or unkind. That is a stigma that gets applied to the enemy in any war. You have seen both sides and I believe that the Angels believe us as evil as humans see them."
Edward nodded at this, it was true.
"And boy, may I remind you that I fed and changed you when you were 5 months old. And I've watched you grow up, as an older brother to my granddaughter. If you were in any way evil, I would know by now." She frowned and Edward flushed with embarrassment. When Pinnako said it, it all seemed so obvious. "If you should ever turn out to be, or associate with evil," The woman continued sending a pointed look to Alphonse, hovering about the doorway, "I should very much be surprised."
Ed smiled. "Thank you, Auntie."
"Now." She lifted up his leg and tested its range of movement in her old, tobacco stained hands. "Does it hurt when I do this?" She prodded a pink and still healing area with her forefinger.
Edward gritted his teeth and pursed his tongue before finally managing to bite out "No." It was a lie and he knew that he wasn't fooling the old woman with it.
Pinnako laughed and made a quick note on a hand held computer that she carried with her at all times. It had all her patients' files on it. However, she had shuffled it out of sight before Edward had a chance to look so the information remained hidden. "And how long since you sustained the injury?" She asked as she took her place in a chair by the steel bench.
"Three days." Edward replied. "I think. I'm not sure of the exact amount as I was unconscious for a fair amount of it." He frowned thoughtfully. "So it could be anywhere from three to five really."
Pinnako's eyes widened considerably. "Days you say, boy?" She frowned at him. "If that is a joke, my boy, it is a bad one to make. Injuries such as this one take months to heal, sometimes even years. Even then it is with horrendous amounts of scarring and most times skin grafting surgery." She pinned him down with a glare through her round glasses. "Boy, if your leg was burnt with flames so concentrated that they could rip flesh from bone this easily and precisely, it would have taken you three months at least to get it to this stage of healing."
"But it only happened in the last battle on Mars!" Edward insisted angrily, looking down at the woman below him like she had some sort of brain defect. "It's healed in that time. If you don't believe me, ask Al or Winry about it!"
Pinnako looked puzzled and held up her hands in a placating manner. "The last Mars battle took place only five days ago." She said. "There is no way a wound would heal this fast unless..." She frowned once more. "Hold out your hand." She reached for a scalpel nearby.
Edward did so, curiously and she, as quickly as a snake reached out and slashed his palm with the blade of the medical tool. With an enraged howl, Edward wrenched his hand back and Alphonse came barrelling into the ward only to come face to face with his brother clasping his hand quite pathetically to his chest, curled up in a tight ball on the end of the table.
Alphonse shook his head and walked out again, muttering something about his brother overreacting to the smallest little things.
"What was that for you old hag?" Edward demanded, still clutching his hand to his chest defensively, but slowly coming out of his curled ball. He glared at her, the very picture of indignation.
Pinnako merely tutted at him. "Give me your hand again."
"Like Hell I'll trust you with it again!" Edward nearly screamed at her.
"Shut up, you stupid little brat and give me your hand!"
"In all politeness, fuck off you crazy old bat!"
"Tiny idiot!"
"Micro Hag!"
"Stupid ant!" Edward was too caught up in the insult war to notice Pinnako's hand slowly creeping out until it was too late and with a quick snatch, she once again had his wrist in her possession. This time the scalpel had been placed on the bench between them as the woman wrestled with him, eventually, her age-defying iron grip winning out over Edward's fierce struggles. She flipped the hand over, tapping his knuckles twice with her pipe. "Open." She said.
He did so, reluctantly, revealing a palm smeared with blood. Pinnako procured a damp cloth and wiped it away, revealing a hand marked only with a faint white scar where cut skin had been not thirty seconds ago. "Now." Said Pinnako, suddenly serious, "Is this an angel thing, or an Edward thing?"
"Truthfully, Auntie, I don't know." Ed replied, looking at his hand in wonder.
They stood on the balcony, two brothers in the cool breath of night, staring out over a city landscape once familiar to the older one.
"It's nice. You have a family here." Said the younger and the older nodded and sighed.
"Yeah."
White wings beat against the cold night air, the moonlight glittering down through the smog and glinting off them, casting an eerie glow. The red of the older one looked like dried blood because of the smog.
"You could have lived here happily, you know." Alphonse said. "You never had to come with us."
Edward laughed. "And what would I have done when my adult wings came through? I wouldn't have been able to show myself anywhere, without cutting them off again." He frowned and leant on the rail of the balcony, makeshift prosthetic hooked around his real ankle. His wings were folded and he looked out into the night air at the glittering shield of atmos bugs that could have been stars but weren't. "Al, I'm going to have to leave tonight."
"I know, brother." Alphonse said. As little as he knew about the enigma that was Edward Elric, Alphonse had learnt about his brother's need to sever connections to move forward. Edward burnt old bridges before building new ones.
There was a quiet noise like a glass door sliding open but neither brother turned to look around, instead, staring out over the city and all the many sparkling lights that glinted cheerfully back at them. Edward's hair danced on the breeze.
He was wearing his coat. The red one. The one that he had been given upon his arrival in the ship. Alphonse was wearing a matching blue one and he thought of how appropriate that seemed. Fire and water, anger and calm, Iron and Copper. The night was doing strange things to his mind.
"You're leaving, aren't you?" Winry's voice spoke from behind them and it did nothing to shatter the serene and surreal atmosphere that had surrounded the two brothers upon their stepping out onto the balcony.
"Yeah." Edward said in his non-committal way. His whole demeanour had been much the same. Far too casual about a life changing decision to go into a dangerous mission like this. "I'm leaving again."
Winry sighed and shook her head. "Don't do anything dangerous."
She sounded like a resigned lover. Alphonse felt a pang of jealousy which he'd later deny.
"And make my little sister cry?" Edward replied, not looking at her, but not looking anywhere, really. His eyes were forward and out of focus, his back to her and everything. Alphonse felt another level of conversation was going on beyond what he could hear, like there had been a development he had not been around to watch. He wondered if this was more ritual than anything real between the two.
"You'll make me cry if you leave." Winry scolded. "Even if you don't do anything dangerous." It was meant to be a joke. Something to lighten the mood, but the night stripped all colour from it. Alphonse turned to look at her, and her face was distraught and heartbroken all in one. She looked like she wanted to reach out and hold onto his brother and never let go. Alphonse resigned himself that he was an impostor on what was meant to be a fiercely private moment.
"I'm sorry." Edward still hadn't turned around. Alphonse could see his face from where he stood and wondered at the way it could be so carefully stripped of all emotion. He was struck by how much more like the Captain Edward was in this moment than ever before. "But you know why I have to go."
She nodded. It was a resigned action.
"I don't want you to be upset." Edward said quite suddenly. Alphonse started and so did Winry. It seemed the routine had suddenly broken. A breeze blew through before Edward said more. "But I can't help it, can I? What can I be for you, Winry?"
"There was a time when I thought you were totally insane." She said, looking at him. "Then there was a time when I thought you were a traitor and an evil person. What are you, Edward? Why are you so hard to read, even after I've known you my whole life?"
"I once said," Edward returned quietly and patiently, "That the world runs on electricity. That the world wouldn't know what to do when a black out struck."
"Which are you, Ed?" Winry asked, and Alphonse could tell just from her face alone that she was wishing for him to turn around and face her, maybe hold her and tell her that everything was alright. "Are you the electricity or the blackout? I don't know anymore."
Al saw him smile, but he didn't answer her.
It was a while before anyone spoke. And it was finally Winry who broke the silence. "Be safe." She said. "I can't stop you, but I can tell you to come home if you must."
He nodded, finally turning to face her. Surprising them all (even, by the looks of it, himself) he wrapped her up in a fierce, bone crushing hug and wrapped his wings around them both, eyes viced shut, breathing ragged. Her eyes slid shut and she made no move to hug him back. "Thankyou." He said, placing a gentle kiss to her cheek. It was a totally platonic action, more like a brother kissing a sister goodbye or in praise of their efforts. "Thank you so much for everything."
"Edward?" Winry looked as startled as Al felt.
"Bye, little sister." He said, turning away from her again.
"You've changed." She accused, and then her voice softened. "You'll come back, right?"
He didn't answer, instead, swept his wings open and flapped twice, taking off into the night. Alphonse quickly followed suit, looking back at the girl on the balcony who had fallen to her knees, slumped and with her hands pressed over her eyes.
"Goodbye, Winry." Edward muttered so quietly that Al wasn't sure he heard him. But Al couldn't hear much over the flames of a burning bridge.
.
A/n: Argh. That last scene. So. Mushy.
Sorry about that. The scene used to be more upbeat and lighthearted, but then I thought, that's not what it would really be like. Edward's about to go do a mission that in all honesty would be certain death for a normal person and Winry knows this.
She wouldn't be happy about him leaving, she wouldn't be cracking jokes and trying to lighten up the mood. So the original scene got axed.
If there's enough interest I might post it and the other axed scene which featured the ship crew. But I couldn't put it here, because I've already dragged this on long enough and I'm sure you all want to know what happened to the big black idio... I mean... Roy... -cough-
And for you non-scientists:
"Iron and copper"
Copper when it oxidises goes a pretty green-blue colour, but depending on the purity of the copper this varies from bottle-green to bright blue. It also depends on whether the copper was copper 2 or copper 3 but I won't go into that side of things. Most commonly, however, it goes blue.
Iron, when it oxidises goes either red or green. Red for iron 3 and green for iron 2. Iron 3 is far more common and stable, iron 2 only hangs about for a small while before it becomes iron 3 again. So most of the rust we see is red.
Red and blue. In case you didn't get the theme.
-Is relying on her foggy memories of year 12 chemistry here, so that might be wrong-
Anyway. Leave a little review? -tin rattle-