Title: Changeling

Author: Madyamisam

Chapter 3: An Awkward Introduction.

Edward took out a phone in his pocket and slowly typed out a text message. He picked up his laptop that was resting on the study table. With a sigh, the old man sat back into the thankfully intact plush chairs of the now ruined Prince Albert Suite. The laptop, now in front of him on the coffee table blipped back to life and he laced his gloved hands together, waiting patiently for his younger companions to follow suit. Sherlock had done so without a word, seating himself on the sofa. In fact, John noticed, Sherlock had suddenly fallen silent ever since the attack on them. He would normally start rambling deductions left, right and centre but such habits were markedly absent.

"As you both know my name is Edward Elric and it's a pleasure to finally meet the infamous Sherlock Holmes and Dr John Watson." The elderly gentleman gave a discerning glare in Sherlock's direction. "You aren't as tall as the media makes you out to be."

"The trick is having a long coat and a-" Sherlock cut himself off abruptly, stiffening which baffled John. He had only ever seen Sherlock stutter like that and that was in front of a naked woman who's career repertoire included blackmail and bondage. "Well… the media tend to exaggerate." He concluded deftly avoiding speaking out his previous train of thought. Judging from the murderous glare that Edward was flashing towards his direction, it was clear that Sherlock had narrowly avoided stepping on a landmine.

"So it seems. Just as well, I hate tall people and it wouldn't do for us to start off on the wrong foot, Mr Holmes." Edward muttered under his breath reminiscent of what John had pictured a cantankerous old man was supposed to be.

"No, of course not." Sherlock replied pursing his lips as if another word would result in the old man giving another demonstration of his previous wrath against his kidnappers. John, wanting to relieve Sherlock of his discomfort decidedly went to move the conversation along, namely, the reason why he and Sherlock had been contacted in the first place.

"So was all that about the letter a ploy or are you really my grandfather?" he asked, placing the letter in question on the table. Edward flinched at the piece of paper being presented to him and the cracks revealing his vulnerability even after his earlier show of strength. His expression was an amalgam of emotions. Fear, sadness, regret and finally, after staring at John for a very long time, determination.

"Yes. I am." He whispered finally and John felt the gravity of the situation finally started to sink in.

"Well, tell us a little about yourself." John said throwing a glance towards Sherlock and daring him to protest. As much as the detective would like to get straight to the point on why someone was after the doctor, John needed to know about this and he didn't really want to start an argument with Sherlock but the detective remained silent watching the elderly man in front of him intently. A grimace etched itself on Edwards face and another flood of different emotions appeared on his face. Sentiment was something that John knew the Holmes brothers tended to look down upon but Sherlock showed remarkable patience and restraint considering his usual attitude towards clients. Maybe it was because of his age but Sherlock wasn't one to make exceptions like that. In fact Sherlock being 'considerate' seemed out of the realm of possibility.

"I was born in a quaint little town called Resembool and I lived there with my mother and younger brother Alphonse." Edward began, a hint of fondness as he spoke about it. John had never heard of such a place. It sounded very exotic but he could not pin what country the town may have come from. "There were many good memories, even more tragic ones, one of the most painful particularly being my mother's passing. As a result, I made a decision, a very foolish one, which resulted in me permanently leaving that town with my younger brother Alphonse when I was 12. I joined the military shortly afterwards as a field researcher."

"At 12? On your own?"

"I had Al." Edward reasoned. "Child protection laws were very lax from my time and even if they weren't they made an exception with me." John burst into a fit of giggles at the thought of two young boys wondering around the countryside, one of them hefting a great big hunk of metal where his arm used to be. How they managed to get by in the world was a wonder and John was itching with curiosity of hearing about all sorts of stories they must've had. It almost paralleled his own ventures both through the war and his time living with the eccentric consulting detective who was unusually docile next to him. At this point, Sherlock would've normally started rolling his eyes at the tale as he did with most clients but he appeared just as enraptured with the tale.

"Are you sure you're not Sherlock's grandfather?" John asked jokingly.

"Hm… I wish." Sherlock murmured under his breath. Had John not been paying particular attention on his friends he would've missed the quiet little confession and suddenly, it all seemed clear. It was unfathomable that Sherlock Holmes, Sherlock bleeding Holmes showed any form of respect to anyone but it was obvious here that he was like a teenage girl meeting her idol for the first time. After an awkward moment of silence, Sherlock snapped. "What?"

"Oh my God, you're fanboying." Sherlock looked affronted by the statement, his cupid bow lips curled in on itself in what was most definitely, in John's mind, a pout.

"That's not even a word."

"You are though." John chuckled as a tinge of pink appeared on the otherwise gaunt pale face.

"Well 'Professor' Elric just happens to have written several publications that are actually competently written compared to the rest of the drivel by 'so called' scientists these days. All of them under a pseudonym, right?"

"Right," Edward fondly. "But 'Mr' Elric will be fine please. Professor just makes me feel old. I hope this revelation doesn't frighten you, John,"

"Not at all. I've never seen Sherlock admire someone outside of him himself. I'm quite impressed."

"Quite? He was the reason I got into chemistry, John. He was one of the leading developers in modern forensics and actually got me through the tedium during university."

"Are you done prancing about my grandfather like a puppy?" John meant for his chastisement to sound sterner than it was but he couldn't help but shake with laughter at Sherlock pouting again and muttering something under his breath.

'… not the only one who does that…' he didn't hear the rest of what his friend had to say as he turned his attention back to Edward Elric, the brief pleasantness quickly gave way to confusion when Edward looked wistful once more.

"And the name Fullmetal?" John asked sitting up expecting to hear stories about spies. Blue eyes alighted with interest as his mind whirled with the potential of writing an extremely fun adventure filled blog entry.

"As part of my military enrolment at the time, it was the code name I was given." Edward explained slowly pulling off the gloves and revealing the metaled marvel of his prosthetic arm. "You like it?" It was more of a statement than a question really. John couldn't help but rub the back of his head unconsciously embarrassed. Sherlock had always criticized him for being completely transparent but it wasn't like he could help it.

"Well, it does sound rather appropriate and… um gritty?" John replied a little pink around the ears. Edward's reaction was at first perplexed but he smiled appreciatively.

"It is a name that I am personally quite fond of. Though I suppose it pales in comparison to one 'Three Continents Watson'?" John fully blushed this time particularly at the wry, knowing smile of the elderly gentleman. It turned into confusion when the detective had suddenly kneeled to the floor and pushed up his left trouser leg exposing more metal underneath.

"Two limbs… there's always something." Sherlock muttered to himself, cupid bow lips on the verge of an epic pout that he had not deduced that.

"Sherlock!" John cried appalled at the man's disrespect for personal space.

"Engineering of the anatomical structure is outstandingly accurate. It's made with an unusual metal alloy. Durable yet…." Sherlock lifted the leg up. "surprisingly light. It's taken a bit of battering over the years but the quality of the workmanship suggested the person had predicted this would be the case and specifically adjusted it for practically any condition it was subjected to as there was a possibility that you might never meet someone with the same capabilities again. Probably made by someone who knew you quite intimately…" John rolled his eyes as he pulled the tall detective back and fixed him with the death glares that ended all death glares much to the amusement of the elderly Edward.

"I am…. so sorry about that…" John said while Sherlock stared at the floor.

"It's perfectly alright John. I'm sure curiosity is something rather essential in that line of work." Edward chuckled before nodding at his mechanical arm. "As Sherlock said, they were made by a very close friend of mine. A genius in her own right that I have failed to appreciate for a long time until I found myself without her expertise and… well… "Edward looked pained and it didn't take someone like Sherlock to figure out the obvious attachment the elderly gentleman had for the maker of his prosthetic arm. "I named your mother after her, you know." John blinked and smiled. The name Winry was rather unusual but John had a particular fondness and familiarity for it even though he and his mother weren't really close.

"Then… can I…" John asked tentatively. "You know… professional curiosity and all that." Sherlock slumped against the couch dejectedly. Whether it was out of petulance of being dragged away from something interesting or just the fact he was extremely fatigued, John wasn't sure of but he kept an eye on his friend in case of the latter. Edward happily obliged and he took the metal arm reverently and examined the inner workings and wires. His eyes widened as he recognised how Sherlock's initial assessment was an understatement. "Are those wires… actual…"

"Nerve connections, yes. The instruments are tuned to enough electrical output from my own body to be able to be able to move it like it was my own arm. Outside of more delicate functions such as writing with a pencil, I can practically do anything with this automail."

"Automail?" John asked. It was a term that sounded familiar yet not. It was certainly the first time he had come across the term as it had never been mentioned in the medical field.

"That is what it's called but I doubt you'll ever come across it anywhere in the bio-mechanical engineering. It's indeed one of its kind. I have offered it up for reverse engineering but no one's quite figured it out yet or if they have, they are short on volunteers who are willing to undergo such a procedure to graft it on" Edward replied matter-of-factly.

"I suppose, it would've been an extremely painful process to reconnect everything. The entire procedure would have to be without anaesthetics for it to have effective results." John mused and his eyes widened at the implications of what Edward must've gone through both an arm and a leg graft. Edward looked smug when he slipped the glove back on. "Anyway, we travelled around a lot then after our children grew up and had families of their own, Alphonse moved to England while I decided to settle in Japan. I purchased a couple of properties here as well." Edward's eyes hardened as he rested his bearded chin on old interlocking gloved fingers. "One of which was in Northumberland."

"A cottage surrounded by a woodland area just outside of Kelso?" John asked shuddering a little as he recalled the area in which he spent hours alone. It was an isolated medium sized cottage surrounded by a woodland area which looked, for all intents and purposes, a place out of a fairy tale story book. Despite it's seemingly idyllic location that was everyone's dream, John had hated the place. The word 'surreal' came to mind during that time living there with no one but Harriet for company and the brief escapes to school was not enough to keep the oppressiveness away. Even though it was secluded, John felt like he was constantly being watched there which was why he wanted so desperately to leave. Whether it was university or the army, John couldn't have waited to get away sooner.

"Are you alright?" Sherlock's deep baritone cut through into the oppressive thoughts and John jolted back to the present.

"Yeah, yeah. I'm fine. Carry on." Edward closed his eyes pained as if he could read John's mind and realised it was a less than pleasant experience living there. Steeling himself, Edward opened his laptop and after a few clicks turned it around to face them. It was a photo of some burnt ruins that looked both alien and familiar to John. A shell of the old cottage charred and exposed to the outdoor elements, the insides scattered and charred black. He had not gotten involved in the aftermath of the incident and felt a pang of guilt that Harry had to deal with the legalities while he was traversing hot desert and binding wounds. *

"Two people supposedly died in that fire that day." Edward explained. "My daughter and son-in-law."

"Supposedly?" John felt a chill at the word and a feeling of dread as he was about to ask the question. "What do you mean by that?"

"The fire was a cover up." Sherlock explained, omitting his tendency to slip in an insult about intelligence. "The burn pattern has signs that there was a use of an accelerant, proving arson rather than an accident and it was situated in the centre of the house but the most telling is not what's there but what's not." Mercurial eyes gazed intently at molten gold ones with the sense of knowing that John had come to be familiar with since the first day that he met the consulting detective at St Bart's.

"Sorry, what's not there?" Then John caught it when he looked at the picture and doing a double take at the darker burn stains that scattered all over the floor interlocking patterns of what was likely to be petrol being poured from a can all across the floor. Then he noticed that distinct lack of a shape of where a couple of bodies should've been. Heart leaping to his heart, John worried his lips and looked between the two other men coming belatedly to the same conclusion that they had. "My parents weren't there when the house was burnt. Or at least their bodies weren't." He reeled at the thought while his two companions waiting patiently as John processed through the possible notion that Sherlock might not have been the only person in his life to fake his death. There was anger but also laced with a slight sense of hope.

"John?"

"Keep going." John growled, his eyes hardened but determined.

With John up to speed and Sherlock now fully engaged in the case, Edward clicked on the laptop for the next picture. This time it was an aerial view of the remains and it seemed even clearer that the fire was deliberate but a certain area was also circled; a figure of a bespectacled man in a dark suit and slicked black blonde hair, set square jaw with a perfectly cut beard and it gave John an allusion of a snake about to strike out an unsuspecting prey. Some could've mistaken the man as an innocent bystander but by the way he had looked up towards the helicopter with a quirk of one side of his lip rather than the wreckage that was the house was what was most disconcerting.

"That man there is the aforementioned Charles Augustus Magnussen, but there was no major media coverage of the incident outside a small section in the local papers."

"So… he was involved in the cover up?" Edward hunched over as the hate for the business man was evident.

"I said Napoleon of blackmail, John. So it's obvious what he was doing at that time. It's his way of acquiring what he called 'assets'"

"What asset though? What was there that needed to be kept secret?"

"This." Sherlock replied as he grabbed a pen and paper and sketched a familiar looking pattern that John had seen earlier then held up the paper next to the screen of the laptop. John was confused but then as his mind adjusted, it made sense. Amidst the rubble, there was a distinctive shape that was engraved underneath it all; a circle with disjointed parts inside and it matched the Sherlock's drawing exactly. John recognised the patterns that had littered all over the floor of 221B, photo shots of the different locations that scattered across London. "I perceive that Mr Elric knows the significance of this little phenomenon that's been popping around all over London and that Magnusson learning about it is what lead to his death. Yet somehow, you just heard his name being crowed out of a mercenary hired to kidnap you and John."

Heart racing, John looked at Sherlock. Outwardly, he seemed indifferent but John could tell the subtle nuances as mercurial eyes were alight with excitement. The heavy bags became darker as his mind raced with deductions. It was not the typical 'just about to start a rank 8 and above case' kind of excitement. It was, well, John wasn't sure what it was but it was disturbing, more disturbing than watching the detective jump off a roof or the so called "danger" nights he got alerted about by an overprotective elder brother. John thoughts went back to 221B at the papers and photographs plastered on the wall, completely obscuring the wallpaper and all depicting the same pattern across several different, unconnected locations. He reflected upon the waves of frustration coming from Sherlock until he all but collapsed onto his sofa in complete exhaustion. John reeled from the implications of possible links to his own past and while at first, he felt eager to learn more about it, seeing Sherlock the way he was right now, he was a little afraid. Edward obviously caught on from his reaction as well as the more subtle change over Sherlock. He closed his eyes letting out a slow breath.

"Crap…" he whispered to himself. Snapping the laptop shut.

"We'll take the case." Sherlock said not hearing the man mutter to himself. John blinked as Edward had not even told them exactly what he wanted Sherlock to do.

"No." Edward snapped and the possessed look on Sherlock disappeared into confused surprise. Edward glared at the detective, the hardened war veteran in him returning and reminding John that he had just tossed six very heavy mercenaries into the bathroom with one arm. "I believe I've made a mistake gentlemen, I apologise for wasting your time." Sherlock visibly blanched making him look even sicklier than before and Edward slowly shifted to his feet taking the laptop. Sherlock reached out placing his marble coloured hands over gloved ones.

"Mr Elric, just give me the opportunity. I know you want discretion, I can give that. If you would enlighten me about the circumstances of this-"

"There is no case, Mr Holmes!" Edward barked, voice carrying an air of authority that John was used to hearing in his time in the army and something he had used on Sherlock sometimes. It made Sherlock flinch pulling his large hand away as if Edward burned it by the sheer ferocity of his voice and he sat back like a reprimanded child. A moment of silence and the old man stood up with a sigh, slipping back to his frail demeanour and started to shuffle away. If John wasn't in enough shock by what had just transpired, with Sherlock literally begging for the case or that he was rejected so thoroughly.

"Mr Elric," Edward flinched and John retracted. "Grandfather, give him a chance, people held you hostage earlier. Now, there is clearly a threat to you and -"

"Go home John," Edward said quietly, placing a gloved hand on his shoulder giving a light squeeze, a sad but proud smile on his face. "I'm sure your pregnant wife will appreciate the candlelit dinner you planned for her."

"How-"

"It's a good looking suit and I saw a receipt to Mothercare hanging out from your jacket pocket." Edward replied. His gaze turned cautiously over to Sherlock as he slipped on a coat. "You too, Sherlock." Sherlock had snapped out of his daze at Edward's verbal shut down and pursed his cupid lips as beneath the emotionless face, his mind went a million miles an hour.

"At least, allow me to use the skill I built my entire career on." Sherlock said abruptly stopping the old man from leaving. "For shits and giggles." He sneered as he spat it out. John had never heard the detective to swear, it was usually seen as beneath him so it was clear that for the first time Sherlock was extremely angry and at the end of his tether. Mercurial eyes glowered gathering every little detail from the old man.

"Judging from your resigned posture, you don't want to find out what really happened to your daughter and son-in-law because you already know what happened and you also know why they disappeared. Investigation of the matter would reveal something significant about the markings left over by the fire which you swore secrecy to." Sherlock paused for dramatic effect. "Since you are extremely well versed in making ciphers, codes and other means of creating hidden messages, you have kept that secret well from the prying eyes of the British government and several other organisations so I 'deduce' that this secret is potentially, world changing and we all know how fucked up the world is already without this kind of knowledge." Sherlock rolled his eyes as he was pacing around the room with a disturbed John following his every movement. "You've dealt with all of them. MI5, CIA, FBI, Interpol but this? This latest attempt sent by the apparently dead Charles Augustus Magnusson was a new development." Edward huffed, but had not made any further attempt to leave nor argue with the detective. "You don't know who this new group is and that was what compelled you to seek me out. A desperate last resort to not to find your children but to protect your grandchildren. John… and Harriet."

John looked at Sherlock in alarm at the mention of his sister and the realisation that she might be in some sort of trouble as well. Thinking about it and how things were transpiring it shouldn't be surprising and he kicked himself for not recognising the threat. Seeing the old man twitch in reaction to Harriet's name being mentioned, John knew that Sherlock had hit it on the nail. He quickly sent a text to Harriet while Sherlock continued his monologue.

Are you at home? Call me back

"But of course, you can't risk me finding out about it either right? That's why you shut down all of a sudden after calling me here because you're afraid of what I'll find. Of what I'll figure out. Well let's me tell you something." Sherlock started grabbing broken shards of shattered crockery of cups and plates from the fight earlier and placing them on a tray in what looked like cleaning up. In this bizarre act, blood started to stain the bits of porcelain pieces much to John's alarm.

"Sherlock! What are you doing?"

Sherlock grabbed the pen and the paper once more and completed drew some more images, this time the formation of images filled and seemed to slot together as the previously incomplete design shaped into a diagram of strange words and phrases and connections. Edward's eyes widened with recognition as he completed then placed the tray of broken pieces on top of the table and slamming his hands down either side of the paper.

A blue glow immediately started to gather and a strange smell emitted as something pulsed and made John's heart thump in his chest. Air blew and whipped around like a small whirlwind and the sound of something crackling. The blue glow turned bright and electrical in nature before it filled the room in a blinding flash. Just before it did, John could almost see the shards vibrate and shake then slowly merged and float up in the air. Just as the light appeared it disappeared and in place of the tray of fragmented pieces of ceramic laid a perfect looking tea set. Sweat had appeared on Sherlock's brow. He looked even paler than ever, his cupid bow lips were now completely devoid of colour and he looked on the verge of passing out.

"I figured it all out when I was 6 and I don't give a crap about your fucking alchemy."