The Ties That Bind
Chapter Four:
Explanations to an Officer
"Colonel Mustang! Lieutenant Hawkeye! We weren't expecting you so soon." Alphonse exclaimed as he opened the front door on them.
"Hello, Alphonse. We didn't come at a bad time, did we?"
"No, not at all." Alphonse said cheerily. He then stepped aside and invited the two officers inside before shutting the door behind them and leading them to the living room. They seated themselves on the couch as Alphonse walked toward the stairs. "I'll go get Brother. Would you like anything to drink?" Alphonse asked politely, paused at the bottom of the stairs. Both officers denied politely, and Al walked quietly up the stairs.
Roy noticed that Alphonse moved very... gingerly, and walked extremely soft, even in the creaky old Rockbell home. He also made sure to make eye contact with whomever he was talking to, which was something he hadn't done six months earlier when Roy briefly met with him before Rose brought him here.
"He seems... different." Riza said quietly after Alphonse's light footsteps disappeared up the stairs.
"Yes. His mannerisms remind me a little of how he acted when sealed into the armor." Anything else Roy might have said was cut off by a strangled yell from above them, then the 'thump' of someone hitting the floor, followed by the sound of something wooden being thrown. A handclap soon followed, and the faint crackle of alchemy was heard for a few seconds. About a minute later, the sound of a few heavy wooden steps was heard, heading toward the stairway. Alphonse appeared coming down it first, who smiled a bit before sitting down in a chair in front of the military officers.
"Brother's on his way. He damaged the ports on his shoulder and leg, so he'll have to undergo surgery before he can even use a wooden prosthetic. So, he has to use a crutch."
"Did he just throw the crutch at the floor?" Roy asked with a faint smile. Alphonse nodded.
"Yeah. He's been doing that a lot, actually. It frustrates him to no end to have to use it, and he hates it."
"You don't have to talk about me like I'm not here." Edward said, paused about halfway down the stairs. Roy and Riza didn't even realize he was there, and jumped slightly as they turned to look at him. He was dressed in his black pants, the left leg tied at around his knee so he wouldn't get the crutch tangled up in it, and his old jacket, the black one with the silver clasp, long hair falling loosely around his face and shoulders. His left hand controlled the crutch under his left arm as he finished descending the steps and walked over to the empty chair beside his brother. He shoved the crutch underneath his chair after he sat down, and took in Roy's new eyepatch before giving a smirk.
"I can't say that I'm not glad to see you, Colonel. Six months is too long to wait to insult you." Roy smirked back him.
"I'm Brigadier General, now, FullMetal. Even after six months, though, you haven't grown a bit." Alphonse, predicting Edward's reaction, gently held his right shoulder down.
"Brother, why don't you explain what happened." He hoped to defuse the situation. Ed just scoffed a bit before glaring again at Mustang.
"I went to the Underground City. I fought Envy. I died. Al used the Philosopher's Stone to bring me back. He disappeared. I sacrificed myself to get Alphonse back. I woke up on the other side of the Gate. I found a way to get back and here I am."
"That's it?" Roy asked after a minute of silence.
"Oh, and Alphonse has all of his memories again." There was still something else, but Roy didn't know what it was. There seemed to be a cloud of self-loathing around Edward, and he realized that it wasn't connected to his partial disability. Surrounding both Elric's, though, was a cloud of discomfort and unknown guilt, and Roy and Riza both sensed this. It was almost tangible, the feeling so overwhelming.
"There's something else." Roy honestly expected Edward to deny the accusation he stated, and then Alphonse would convince him to tell his old commander. However, Edward looked away and to the floor in front of him.
"Yeah." He took a deep breath, as if to prepare himself to face some unseen anger in Roy, before looking up, almost gently, at Roy. "Do you sense anything different about me?" Roy stared at him blankly, glanced briefly at Alphonse, before reassuring the boy.
"No, FullMetal." He answered honestly. Riza gave a negative reply also, neither officer comprehending the odd question. Edward smiled a bit.
"I'm glad, but that makes this a little harder..." He said almost under his breath as he reached up and deftly unbuttoned the single clasp on his jacket. He turned his attention back on the floor as he flipped the hair on his left shoulder back behind it before pulling the jacket back a little, showing them the Ouroboros and soul-binding circle over his heart. There were two almost inaudible gasps.
"...What... the... hell?" Each word increased in volume a little, and a bunch in intensity, before Edward, who had closed his eyes, heard a rustle and the sound of a gun being cocked.
"No! Don't shoot him!" Alphonse yelled, jumping up and standing in the path of Riza's handgun. Edward's eyes snapped open and saw Al's back.
"Al, what did you do?" That accusation ticked Edward off.
"Alphonse did nothing! Don't you dare accuse him of anything!" Edward yelled, standing up on his one leg, glaring daggers at Roy. "I brought this on myself." Alphonse still stood protectively in front of his older brother, who was now holding onto his shoulder to keep himself balanced.
"Please, let us explain." Al pleaded, and Roy placed a hand on Riza's gun after a moment, forcing her to lower it. She looked at him in bewilderment, but she holstered her weapon anyway, and the brothers' sat back down in their chairs. Edward showed off the symbols again.
"You overlooked the soul-binding circle. Somehow when I was fighting within the Gate to return here, my body went through the transformation from human to Homunculus. I'm not sure how or why, but I'm pretty sure I probably never will fully know, and I honestly don't really care. My soul was reattached to this body, which makes me different from Bradley and Envy. I still have my soul." Al, seeing the look of doubts still on the officer's faces, tried to convince them further.
"Brother proved that it was really my soul bound in the armor by having me tell Winry things I remembered when I was little that Brother couldn't know about. I did the same thing to him and it's really Brother."
"I believe you." Roy said after a few tense minutes of silence. Ed and Al looked at him in shocked disbelief. "After everything you two have done, I think it's possible you found a way to keep your soul even though your body had to be transmuted to be returned here." Ed smiled a bit.
"Thanks."
"But what about the other Homunculi's need of incomplete Philosopher's Stones?"
"It wasn't a need, I don't think. The Stones gave them the ability to regenerate and survive for so long, but since I don't have any inside me, I can be killed with one shot. My body, for all practical purposes, is human. If I did manage to get a hold of the Stones, I think that they'd probably drive me insane, like they did with Wrath." Roy nodded. The theory with about the Stones wasn't something he could test, so he accepted it as a high probability of being accurate, since Ed and Al knew more about the Homunculi than he would ever hope or want to know.
"What do you two plan on doing now?" Roy asked after a minute.
"Well, Winry has to repair Brother before we can do anything, but we'll probably visit Teacher again."
"You don't plan on returning to the military?" Edward shrugged.
"The only reason I joined was so we could search for a way to get our bodies back to normal. I'm pretty sure that no matter what I do now, there's no going back. Besides, I'm not going to sacrifice thousands of lives for myself. I liked helping people, but I just don't know what I'll do now."
To Be Continued
And there's chapter four! Sorry it's a day later than promised, but my internet messed up last night, so I wasn't able to upload it.
Thank you to my reviewer! This actually does have a plot, and it's revealed next chapter.
Next up: The Enemy of Old on Saturday May 10th!
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Shadow Kat-Lyn