I am stupid. So stupid that I click the wrong button and lose a whole chapter and have to rewrite it before I get to post it. But yay, it's finally done! Now I hope my stupidity didn't make the chapter stupid as well... By the way, I seem to have hit a small writers block so next chapter might take some time, though I'll try to get over it fast. I'll just type up a lot of rubbish until I find the right way of thinking again. Who knows, maybe that'll result in some nice one shots ;D Though my main priority is still this story so don't worry, I'll do my best to keep it going :)

Just realised I forgot the magical sentence:

Thanks for the reviews! :D

Chapter 25

Conversation Between Those Who Forgot The Food On The Stove

After a moment that felt like eternity but really wasn't that long, Ed slowly walked over to the kitchen door and looked after the colonel, but Mustang was already out of sight so he looked at the three women standing in the hallway. Like him, they were still a bit frozen in surprise.

Winry looked kind of shocked and confused; she probably never expected that Mustang was able to get upset or freak out. Much less because of the question of who had or had not killed. Soldiers weren't well liked out here in the east anyway and ever since her parents died in the Ishval War she had seen the state's dogs as emotionless, even cold blooded murderers who didn't care about how many lives they took and killed on command without flinching. Because of Ed she had warmed up to some of them, like Hughes and even Hawkeye to some degree, but Mustang was still part of her stereotype view. It hadn't helped that in the early days Ed had loved to rant about the colonel being a promotion obsessed bastard who only cared for himself.

Pinako was smoking her pipe, one eyebrow raised in a thoughtful expression. She was old, she had seen a lot of different people, she might have thought farther than Winry and realised there was more than a living weapon underneath that blue uniform. Ed couldn't tell. Though he could see that she nodded wryly because she was content. Content to know that Ed was under the wing of a state alchemist she could respect because the man still cared about lives being taken. She glanced at Hawkeye, trying to see how the lieutenant who knew her superior much better than them all reacted to his behaviour. Ed followed her gaze because if there was anyone who knew what to do now, it would be Hawkeye.

At first sight the lieutenant only looked baffled and a bit confused. She was not used to Mustang stomping away like that, ignoring her as he rushed past, no, she was used to him dealing with the situation with a cynical comment and then later go home early to vent whatever emotion he had hidden without witnesses because he would never allow people to see what affected him. Underneath that baffled look though Hawkeye seemed sad, even as she donned up her calm and collected exterior again. Ed didn't know why she was sad, maybe it was because her friends were upset, maybe because she was upset herself because she had been in Ishval as well and was now reminded of her deeds. Anyway, it made him feel worse for causing all this by arguing his point until Mustang snapped.

"I'll go after him and convince him to come inside again, if I leave him to calm down on his own he'll stay out there until he catches a cold from the rain." Hawkeye finally sighed, sounding like an exasperated babysitter and therefore doing an excellent job of playing the situation down by pretending that her superior was just a whiny one who always overreacted. It was a simple trick to make it seem like the sour spot of Mustang that was hit was barely worth mentioning and no good ammunition against the colonel. The ever present political tension in the military ranks in central over the years had taught her to act like this almost on instinct, always set on protecting her colonel even in the most subtle way. Only things like him not doing his paperwork made her exasperated for real.

Now Hawkeye walked into the kitchen to gather Mustang's jacket, but Ed beat her into it. Grabbing the thick blue fabric he finally decided on what to do. "I will go after him. It's my fault he ran out."

Hawkeye shook her head and extended an arm to stop him. "No, I think it's better if I do that. You see, the colonel isn't exactly easy to deal with when he is like this, I don't know if you can handle what he throws at you when you're upset yourself."

"The bastard's never easy to deal with," Edward said with a small smile. "Just let me go and try."

The lieutenant just looked at him for a long moment, then slowly nodded once. "All right, I'll trust you to bring back our colonel with his brains inside of his head."

Edward nodded too, a silent promise, then left with the jacket over his arm. The boy wasn't exactly sure what to think of Hawkeye's last sentence but he was determined to talk to Mustang even though he was afraid that he might just upset the colonel even more. He went down the hallway to the front door and grabbed his red coat from were it hung, casting a slightly worried look at the black coat of the colonel that still hung on its rack before taking it as well. After a last glance at the women still standing in front of the kitchen door he marched out into the rain. He looked up at the dark clouds pouring water down on earth like they were trying to drown everything and huffed. Stupid weather trying to be dramatic and fit the situation. Then he set out to retrieve his commanding officer, still not entirely sure what to expect and what to do once he encountered the unexpected.

Hawkeye's words made sense when he finally caught sight of Mustang. He found the colonel with the barrel of his small black military issued gun against the side of his head, staring thoughtfully into the air in front of him. Ed froze on the spot and felt panic rise. There was no indication that Mustang was about to pull the trigger, but Ed wasn't reassured by that in the slightest. It needed just a twitch of that finger to set the gun off! He swallowed. He was used to being taken care of by the colonel, not the other way around... What should he do now? How was he supposed to behave now? Scream and yell and jump at Mustang to knock the gun away? No, that might startle him into accidentally pulling the trigger. Fall down on his knees and beg him not to do it? No, Ed was no good at begging. Cry and just tell him that he wanted him to live because he was important to Ed and the boy cared about and would miss him? No, that sounded so cheap even though it was true. He watched the colonel as he sat, motionless, against the trunk of the tree that sheltered him from the rain. Taking in a deep breath Ed decided on an approach that would fit his colonel bastard.

"No matter the situation, you'll always find a bit of shelter from the rain so you won't be a useless wet match, huh?" he said, though his tone lacked the mocking the words implied.

Mustang finally looked up, with a rueful smirk, and patted the pocket that contained his alchemy gloves. "Can't get these wet. My gloves are my weapons, my weapons are needed to defend myself and those I care about, so my weapons are my life."

"Not if you turn them against yourself," Ed concluded, glancing at the pistol.

Mustang chuckled bitterly and dropped the gun into his lap. "You're right. But then I'd never pull through with this anyway. In the beginning because I was too much of a coward and now because I have a damn lot of responsibility towards my subordinates. Nowadays I just raise this gun 'cause it helps me think and remember what I'm standing for. I never put off the safety though." He held out the gun and Ed could see that the safety mechanism was indeed still in place.

The boy sighed in relief. "That's good," he mumbled. Then he sat next to the colonel under the tree. He threw the blue jacket and black coat into Mustang's lap. And punched the colonel in the arm. Hard. With the automail.

The black haired man yelped. "Ouch! Hey! What was that for?!"

The blond crossed his arms in front of his chest and looked away. "So your arm hurts too much for you to raise that gun and scare me again."

Mustang blinked in surprise and stopped rubbing his arm. He looked thoughtful while absentmindedly putting the gun back in its holster on his belt. "Sorry for scaring you. Didn't think you'd come out here. Thought it'd be Hawkeye, she knows my idiosyncrasies." He then apologised, softly but sincerely.

"Right, she's your babysitter, huh?" Ed mocked, though friendlily. If they were mocking each other then everything was alright again and Mustang would know the apology was accepted. Ed knew he did when the colonel glared at him a lot less intensively than he would have done if Ed had said the babysitter line any other day. So for a minute they just sat there, content.

"I'm sorry I upset you." Ed then finally spoke what he had been thinking since Mustang left the kitchen, chewing on his lip and feeling guilty. "Should have realised earlier you had a point and stop arguing."

"Nah, it was I who upset me by myself," Mustang said with a shrug and leaned back against the tree trunk. "Kinda worked myself up about it."

"You always think everything is your fault, don't you?" Ed good-naturedly rolled his eyes.

A black eyebrow twitched. "Look who's talking!"

Ed laughed. "In the end were both stupid, huh?"

"I am not stupid. But I agree that I don't always act the optimal way," Mustang admitted, grinning when Ed laughed once more. While the boy calmed from his laughter the colonel started to put on his jacket again, then the coat. But he stopped, dropping the black fabric back into his lap.

"Damn. Fullmetal?"

"Hmhm?"

"We are stupid."

Ed blinked. Roy Mustang changing his mind about him not being stupid didn't happen every day. "How come?"

"Well... we were so fixated on feeling guilty, we didn't consider that maybe you didn't use these souls after all. I mean the transmutation...failed. Your stone didn't work out. So it was a fake, and who says that fake was made out of souls? Maybe that's why it didn't work, because if it was the real thing then all these souls should have been payment enough, right?"

A tiny flame of hope flickered in Ed's heart but his analytic brain stomped down on it immediately. "Maybe. But then what if there were souls in there but just...not enough or something? I mean, even if it was not as powerful as it is supposed to be, that thing still was pretty powerful. I thought our fake stone was like the one that priest Cornello had back in Liore, though just a little bit better made, because it didn't fail when we tested it. You see, Cornello's stone could do quite a lot of things, he even transmuted chimeras with it. And even if in the end his stone failed, it did work for a while and we never found out what it was made of. So maybe there too were souls, just not enough to reach the power of a full stone. Or maybe they were bound to the stone the wrong way or something, a prototype, a test for the creation of the real thing. Or maybe the guy we took the stone from had already drained a good part of the souls' energy before we could get our hands on it and we didn't realise it? And..." he swallowed because this was the theory he hated the most, "who says the souls inside can't kind of rebel against being used? I mean, what if they just hated me for using them without acknowledging their sacrifice? What if they wanted to be used for a greater good than just the wish of a selfish boy and his brother? What if they didn't want to be used at all?"

He watched as the colonel thoughtfully stared into the rain for a while before finally speaking. "If I was a soul inside of that stone I wouldn't mind to be used for the purpose of regaining the body of a child. Because I don't think these souls still have a body or a family to return to. And before I'd be trapped in a soul cocktail for the rest of eternity I'd gladly give up existence for a good cause, even if it's a small one. So even if there were souls capable of deciding what they are used for in there and you didn't acknowledge them because you didn't know about them, I don't think they hated you for it. I think they were happy you set them free." Mustang smiled ever so slightly and Ed couldn't help but feel better. It was funny how he had worked himself up about this thing so much and here the colonel calmed him down so easily, even though Mustang usually did the opposite, riling him up with short jokes and the like. Now though they shared an amicable silence, tension slowly dissolving because they knew the other could talk their worries away if they just indicated they needed a bit of a cheer up speech. It was nice. Very nice, Ed decided as he relaxed a bit.

"I guess we'll just never really know what exactly went wrong..." he said after a while, leaning his head back against the trunk of the tree and watching the raindrops catch in the leaves above them. He felt calm because even while he was sad that he'd probably never know, it didn't drive him crazy or made him angry anymore.

"We could try and find out a bit more than you already know about the origins of that fake stone, but that's all we could do I think," Mustang agreed.

Ed thought about it for a moment. Well, going out there and facing the world again would give him something to do and help him get back on his feet, wouldn't it? "Hm, I think I'll try that. Would make a nice first mission, eh?" The boy grinned wide like a Cheshire Cat for the first time in a long time.

The colonel just raised an eyebrow, then smirked. "You think you're up for missions again?"

Ed huffed, "Of course, why wouldn't I?"

"Maybe because less than two hours ago you tried to squeeze me to death because you didn't want to be away from me?"

"ARGH I didn't squeeze! You're just a little sissy who couldn't take a very manly thank-you hug!"

"Little sissy? I'm sorry Fullmetal but I think I'm still taller than you. Like almost every other living being on this planet."

"WHO ARE YOU- wait! Ha you didn't object to being a sissy!"

"Why should I bother with the words, it's obvious I'm not a sissy. That small offence just isn't worth any defense."

"Small offence? Did you just call me small again?!"

"Maybe."

"...Mustang?"

"Yes?"

"I hate you."

The colonel just laughed and reached out to ruffle Ed's hair. "Yeah, I hate you too."

They sat there for a while longer, smiling contently until Mustang stretched his arms above his head and finally made to stand up. "Come on, this ground isn't really comfortable to sit on. Let's go back inside and eat din-" His face lost a little colour. "OH DAMN IT I FORGOT THE FOOD ON THE STOVE!"

And with that they sprinted back towards the house where they were greeted by three women who all looked ready to lecture them for various reasons.