To Trade in Alchemists

Chapter Six

A New Turn

Nineteen Months Later

Roy sighed as Riza put more paperwork on his desk. He groaned and continued working. It had been so busy over the last month, especially the paperwork. He had no idea what the rest of the world did with its time, but he was stuck in his office signing things and filling out papers. Such a boring part of the job. He was about to fall asleep when there was a knock at the door. He jerked awake and looked up to see Havok standing there.

"Sir, you have a visitor," he said, and nodded behind him where Alphonse Elric stood in his armored visage.

Roy nodded, pushing the chair back and looking up. "Yes, send him in."

Al came in and sat down, head tilted even though he had no real eyes to look at Roy with. "Colonel, I have to ask you something, and you can say no, but I need your help. I'm going back home."

Roy nodded. "That's understandable. Do you think taking Ed to Resembul will help?"

Al looked up, metal face inscrutable. "Sir, I…I don't want to take him with me. I'm leaving him in Central. I…can't do it. It's been nearly a year and a half, Colonel. He's not better. He hasn't said a word since we brought him back. He just sits. Colonel, that's not my brother anymore. I don't know who it is, but it isn't brother. I just…I have to get away for a while."

Roy blinked and stared at him. Al was wanting to give up on Ed? He couldn't quite grasp it. "Where are you leaving Ed while you're gone?" he asked. Of course he'd come back. He was Ed's brother.

Al hesitated. "I…I was thinking of putting him in the psychiatry ward at the hospital."

Roy frowned. "Alone?" he reacted.

"See, Colonel, that's why I came to you. I wanted…I wanted to ask if you would care for him so I didn't have to put him away. If…if he goes in there, he'll never come out, both of us know that, Colonel. I've nearly given up, sir. I have. I feel terrible, like a failure, because I haven't been able to do anything for him. He barely eats, he just exists. I can't do it anymore," Al said, and despite the armor, Roy knew he was crying inside.

"Okay, Al, I will. I'll take care of him for you," Roy said without even thinking about the statement.

Al nodded once and stood. "I'll bring him and his things to your house tomorrow afternoon."

Before Mustang could say anything else, Al was gone. Riza came in and looked at him. "What was that about, Sir?" she said, watching him disappear out the door.

Roy swallowed. "I think I just agreed to become Ed's caretaker…"

Riza arched a brow and looked at him. "Sir?"

He looked at her and wasn't sure what to so. "I…I couldn't say no, Hawkeye. I couldn't let him…be put away in some ward to die. I couldn't stop it from happening to start with. If I'd been better…"

Riza shook her head and put a hand on Roy's shoulder. "Colonel, don't do this again," she said softly, squeezing his shoulder solemnly. "You've tried, convicted, and executed yourself far too many times already for what happened to Ed. You did everything you could, we all did."

"I should have done more," he said quietly.

The last year and a half had been hard for all of them. At first, Al would report back everything that happened, everything the doctors said, everything the therapists told him, and then some. He'd bring Ed to the office and he'd do things with him. Then, slowly, as the weeks turned to months, Al stopped coming by, then the updates stopped coming, and after the first year passed, it was almost like Al and Ed never existed. They became this huge thing that no one in the office would talk about but everyone was thinking about.

They all worried about the Colonel. Even Riza would go easy on him these days when she'd catch him standing at the window staring in the distance. They had all seen brutal things in their lives, but none compared to watching the brilliant, strong willed alchemist be reduced to nothing but a shell of his former self. Ed, whose razor sharp tongue got him in more trouble than his quick temper, Ed, who they all believed would persevere no matter what because he was so determined. Ed, whose smile could brighten a room when he graced someone with it.

The all missed that, but there was more to it for the colonel. He had taken care of them from the start, but they all knew that he kept a soft spot for Edward Elric. He let the boy get away with things that no one else could ever manage. He looked the other way when others would have stopped him. No, he wouldn't admit it, but he cared for that boy than he did for anyone else. And Riza, for one, was wondering if it was more than just duty driven. She wondered if something had pierced the thick emotional hide of their colonel. Could the colonel care that much?

He turned to her. "Put me in for my vacation time. Things are quiet. I should take a week while I can," he said, his voice too soft and unsure.

"Of course, sir. You deserve some time off, I'll handle the paperwork," she said, smiling. He looked at her and nodded. Of course, that was all the confirmation from her he needed.

-oooooo-OOOOOO-oooooo-

Roy was nervous, and that surprised him more than anything. He rarely was nervous, but as he sat in his small apartment waiting for Al to come by with Ed he felt it. Why should he be nervous? Just because the last time he saw Ed as Ed and not as the vacant void shell he'd become had been over a year and a half ago, and he'd been sitting beside him as three men…

The doorbell rang and he stood up, swallowing and pushing away the memories. Of all the horrors he'd seen in his life, why did these plague his nightmares?

He opened the door to see Alphonse standing behind the wheelchair that Ed had been in since he'd come back on the train. He looked the same, of course. Al cut his hair, and kept it braided just like he always had, and he dressed him in his favorite red coat when they went out. But his eyes were still wide and distant, and very much not like Ed.

"Al, Ed, come in," Roy said, trying to ignore the fact that Ed wouldn't acknowledge him anyway.

Al pushed the chair in and sat down a suitcase. "Everything is in there, sir. I've put the books and other things in storage, the key's in the back with the unit number…if…you ever want to go there. Um, I'm meeting Winry at the station later. I guess…that's it."

"When will you be back?" Roy asked, glancing at Ed's bowed blonde head and back to Alphonse.

Al hesitated. "I…I don't know. I'll call."

With that, he turned and left quickly, closing the door behind him, not even saying a word to Ed. For some reason this made Roy's heart ache more than anything. Ed was gone to him… Alphonse had grieved and moved on in the last year and a half, and he didn't believe that anything would ever change. He didn't believe his brother would ever come back. At first, Roy was angry at this realization, then he just grew sad again and turned toward Ed. He pushed him into the living room and sat down on the couch in front of him. His eyes didn't seem to follow anything at all.

He reached into the bag and pulled out the copies of the medical files he'd gotten earlier that day. Some vacation, he spent the whole day coming up with reasons he needed the medical records and notes for a state alchemist that was currently on medical leave. He thumbed through it. "Profound catatonia. Unresponsive to stimuli. Suspected trauma induced mutism. Suspected drug induced hypnotic state. Suspected neural pathway breakdown." Suspected. But they didn't know. None of the doctors were sure exactly what had caused the state Ed as in, and none knew what to do with it. Wait and see was all they could agree on. They'd tried medications, injections, foods, everything, and nothing made a difference.

He looked over the report on Ed's most recent physical and frowned at something. He quickly pulled out the other visits and found something he wondered why no one else had.

The brand on his back had never healed.

They commented that the scarring was red rather than normal burn scarring. They commented that the healing was abnormal. Looking at the picture, though, Roy knew it wasn't that at all, the brand had never healed at all. Roy looked over at Ed and then got up and pushed him into the bedroom. He lifted him easily up onto the bed and rolled him onto his side and lifted the light t-shirt he was in. He put his hand against the round brand and it felt warm to the touch. He frowned and kneeled down to get a better look. He grabbed the table lamp and pulled it closer where he could see the mark was raised, just slightly, above the rest of his skin, but it didn't feel like a burn to Roy. Roy knew burnt flesh, very well, but this wasn't a burn mark, not by a long shot. This was alchemical. Why hadn't the doctors realized? What if this was the problem? What if it wasn't all in Ed's head as every single one of the doctors kept saying? What if Ed was there after all but trapped?

-oooooo-OOOOOO-oooooo-

There are many definitions of hell. For Ed, though, he was trapped in what he believed was the worst one in all of existence. His body was not under his own control. From the moment they burned the brand into his back, he started to feel different. By the time he had been a week back in central, he had no control whatsoever. He could see, hear, and feel, but he couldn't speak, move or even blink in response. He was completely trapped in his own body.

He watched as the doctors and nurses gave up on him. Al tried so hard for so long, and then, to his absolute anguish, Al gave up. It was slow, and he started leaving him alone for longer and longer periods. Ed wanted to scream and cry and he couldn't do anything.

The worst, though, was that Envy started to show up when Al and everyone else began to abandon him. Envy would giggle and laugh and tell him that Ed was his little puppet now, and that things had worked out nicely, and Ed could do nothing as Envy did whatever he wanted. He asked Ed if he wanted Greed to come visit, then giggled at that thought. Every week, Envy would appear at least once, or more if Al left for long periods of time. Al never noticed when Ed was in a slightly different spot when he came home. Envy told Ed that he did that on purpose, to prove that Al had given up. And Al had given up.

"You're nothing, Ed. Not anymore. You're my puppet, I pull your strings. You have nothing, you are nothing," Envy would whisper in his eat as he used him again and again. The mark on Ed's back would hurt when Envy was near and somehow, Envy could make Ed's limbs move. So he was nothing more than a puppet. He was nothing but a puppet to a cruel master.

Envy loved to hurt him, leaving him in pain once he was gone. He'd twist his arm; pull his shoulder, or something that would hurt incessantly for days. Al had no idea anything was wrong, and Envy made sure to stay away the weeks before he was at the doctor's. He couldn't even weep. He truly was nothing.

Then Al had disappeared and come back and packed up all their things. Envy had said that Al was getting rid of him. He said Al was going away, without him. And Ed didn't want to believe it. But that's what happened. Roy? He had been glad, thinking that Roy might keep Envy away. Roy might keep him safe. He didn't expect Roy to immediately put together what was happening. His heart ached but he wanted to hope that Roy could figure out the truth.

It wasn't that he would have been back to his old self, he even knew that. He didn't want to talk. He didn't want to respond. The fact that he couldn't even if he had wanted to, though, was horrifying. He felt Roy's fingers on the mark and he wanted him to just put things together. He wanted to cry. He wanted to scream, though it would have been silent.

Then Roy left him, and he wondered if Roy had given up on it. He didn't want him to give up. Al had given up on him; he didn't want Roy to give up on him. Time seemed to pass, and slept again, as usual, simply when he needed to do so, it happened upon him.

"Chibi…wake up Chibi…" came an unwelcome voice.

Ed's eyes opened and he was sitting up on Envy's lap, stripped of his clothes already, and Envy was licking his neck. "Chibi, I almost lost you, imagine my surprise when you were given to Roy Mustang! But as much as he works, we'll have more time together, I do like playing with the toy I made," he said, shifting Ed's body and slamming up into him. Ed's head lolled back on Envy's shoulder, and he wanted to scream but it wouldn't matter anyway. Roy was at work, he wouldn't be back.

So it was with great surprise that a shot cracked through the air right over Ed's nose and slammed into Envy's head. Of course, it was a momentary distraction for the homunculus, recovering and jumping up and away from Ed as a gout of flame shot through the air as Ed's body fell back into the bed, his eyes stuck on the ceiling. He heard Envy cackling and then crashing through the window, pieces of glass spraying back into the room.

"Son of a bitch! Hawkeye, go down the front! Catch that bastard!" he heard Roy yell, then felt Roy's hands turning his face toward him and he was looking up at him.

"Ed, I'm sorry, again, I've let you down again," he said, leaning forward and to Ed's surprise, planting a gentle kiss on his forehead. "I won't let it happen again," he said, and he grabbed the sheet and bundled him up in them, picking him up easily and heading out into the front where Havoc and Breda had come in.

"What happened?" Havoc asked.

"The homunculus. I was right. The brand is alchemical, and it did something to him, it let that homunculus track him here, we don't know what it can do," Roy said, shifting Ed, up so the sheet fell down his back where the brand was nearly hot to the touch.

Havoc touched it and pulled back his hand. "That's the weirdest thing I've ever seen…you're right boss, it doesn't look like any burn I've ever seen."

"What does the homunculus want with him?" Breda asked. "I mean, what purpose does…" he started, the he blinked and turned away. "I see."

Havoc started to say something then stopped. "We have to do something. If that thing keeps…keeps finding him…how do we stop it?" he said instead.

Roy shook his head. "I was gone two hours to research what the mark could be, at the most. This building is restricted access. He had to come in pretending to be someone else. He said he'd made him his toy. We should have taken his words more seriously, dammit," Roy said, clutching Ed's body against him.

The next few hours were a whirlwind of work for Roy's crew. It took longer than he would have liked to find a couple experts to try and figure out if there was a way to remove the brand on Ed's back. They didn't even know if removing it would help. They really had no idea. Roy's apartment was soon evacuated in favor of a state safe house with more alchemical protections than Roy could count. He still held Ed wrapped in the sheet from his bed, though, and had refused to let go of him for any reason until they'd arranged a room for them. Finally, he put Ed down on a larger bed and a couple alchemical theory experts discussed the mark on his back after diagnosing it as best they could.

"Fire," the first one said, looking at Roy seriously.

"What?" Roy said, frowning.

"The mark wasn't applied with heat, but with alchemy. The only way to remove it is with alchemical flames," he said, nodding at the large round mark on his back.

"You're kidding, that could kill him, and I'm…" Roy let the sentence die on his lips. He was the only alchemist capable of producing that kind of flame anywhere close to Central.

The two theorists nodded sadly. "I'm afraid that is the only way to destroy this type of alchemical mark. It is as though it was applied with that specific purpose, as though your alchemy was to be the key to removing it only."

The two theorists excused themselves and Roy sat down on the bed beside Ed's still body. He placed a hand on Ed's back and sighed. "I'll do it, Ed, and I'm so sorry because it will hurt a lot before I'm done," he said quietly.

He got up and went to the door and told Havoc what the plan was and to have medical sent in to help him with the procedure. It didn't take long before it was finished and Ed had been strapped down on a table. They'd tried to put him out, but whatever the mark was, it interfered with sedatives. So they'd given him pain medicines, but it might not help, as the mark went through all layers of Ed's skin.

"Let's get this over with," Roy said, shaping the flames to his will.

It took nearly an hour for Roy to complete burning out the mark. He tried to be precise and keep the flame to where the mark was, but it was nearly impossible to be that accurate completely. Finally, it was done, and he stepped back while the doctors cleaned and bandaged the new wound. They moved him to the bed, leaving him on his stomach to keep the wound clear.

Roy stayed with him, though, refusing to leave even for a moment, even when the doctors came in to re-examine him. What they found was troubling, of course, because they realized that Envy had been no doubt coming to Ed quite often while he was unable to resist. It wasn't something they had ever checked for, because there was no reason to think he was still in danger. Roy knew this was his fault too, because he should have seen this for what it was.

So, he had to make up for this now. He lay beside him and turned his face toward him. "Ed, I'm so sorry, I've failed you," he said quietly.

It was dark, the room had no windows, and the only light came from a small lamp by the bed. Roy's eyes had almost closed when he felt Ed's flesh hand touch his face. Roy's eyes shot open and he found that he'd moved enough to put his hand against Roy's cheek and his eyes, still cloudy and wide, were somewhat focused on Roy's face. Roy reached up and put his hand on Ed's.

"Ed? Oh, Ed, you're still in there, you are," he said quietly, squeezing Ed's hand.

Ed didn't speak, he didn't want to, but he wanted Roy to know that he was there. He closed his eyes and fell asleep holding onto Roy's cheek. Roy refused to let go of his hand.