AN: Thank you to the two reviewers, you rock!
Chapter 3 - Nerves
Ed made it through the trunk of books he brought with him on the train ride.
Havoc was still watching him as if he was the world's most interesting science project he had ever seen. To be fair, they hadn't talked beyond ordering food since boarding.
They had an hour left when Ed closed his last book, "Do you have a problem, Second Lieutenant?"
"I've never seen a kid read so much. Are you even retaining any of that?" Havoc asked.
"Why would I read it if I couldn't retain it? If I wanted to waste time I would sleep."
Maria ignored them both, flipping to the next page of her novel.
Havoc huffed, "You're a strange kid."
"I'm not a kid and, in case you've forgotten, I outrank you."
Havoc rolled his eyes, "You haven't really earned your stripes, kid."
"Yes, he has," Maria said without looking up from her book.
"Because he caught one bank robber?"
Maria put down her book, "Ed's been helping our office with translations and investigations since he was twelve."
"Hughes let you help him with work?"
Ed snorted, "Of course not. Maria is overselling it."
"No, trust me, I'm not," Maria said. "I know how much work you've done because your handwriting is neater."
Havoc raised a brow, "Really?"
"I have to draw perfect circles all the time, are you really that surprised?"
"That the Lieutenant Colonel let you help him, yes, that surprises me," Havoc said.
Ed shrugged, "At the end of Gracia's pregnancy, she started having trouble. Dad started falling asleep at his desk. So I started stealing some of the reports and finishing them up. It wasn't that hard, anyone would fall asleep with those summaries."
"Didn't he notice the handwriting differences?" Havoc asked.
"I used to make an effort to make it look like his," Ed said. "I stopped when he figured it out though."
"You stopped doing the reports?" Havoc asked.
"No, he started using legible handwriting," Maria said. "By then Elicia was born."
"And if it was choosing between more time with his daughter and letting me take some of the spillover..." Ed shrugged, "There are some uses to being a child prodigy."
Havoc smirked, "I thought you weren't a kid?"
"That was a few years ago," Ed said, his attention drawn by the familiar landscape.
They fell quiet for a while and he had almost forgotten he wasn't alone when Maria asked, "Are you alright, Ed?"
"Sure," he said, then at looked them both without direct eye contact. "Would you mind going food shopping at the local market? I'll give you the Rockbell address, I just… I just want to talk to them before they learn I joined the military."
"We can do that," Maria agreed easily.
"We are supposed to guard him," Havoc protested.
"It's Resembool," Ed said unamused. "I will be okay for the half an hour I'm alone with the automail mechanics."
"I'll get some ingredients for a stew my mom used to make. She used to say it had anti-inflammatory properties," Maria said.
"Thanks, all I'll be able to eat for a while are soups."
"Why?" Havoc said.
"Because he will be healing," Maria said.
Havoc flushed, "Sorry."
They rode the rest of the way in silence, and when the train stopped, the two officers did just as they said, they gave him space.
Ed's anxiety built as he walked to Winry's.
Would Al be home? Would Hohenheim?
Would Winry kill him for not reaching out to her in five years?
Ed didn't reach the house before he saw her.
She was on the lawn with Den.
Den noticed him first, running at him while barking madly.
Winry looked up and froze.
Ed held out his flesh hand to Den.
Den's tail wagged madly as his gaze stayed on Winry.
"Hi, Winry," Ed said softly.
She blinked up at him with big blue eyes that filled suddenly with tears.
She rose to her feet and tackled him to the ground with a hug. Squeezing him tight, she said, "I didn't think you were coming back, you idiot."
He hugged her back, "I never meant to hurt you."
They stayed like that a little longer, before she stood and dragged him up with her. "We thought it might be you when we got the order for a right arm and left leg. Plus it's always advised to have the original mechanics replace the ports."
"Yeah," he said, following her up the steps. "I figured it was time I stop being a coward."
"At least you admit it," Granny greeted dryly.
"Hey, Granny."
She harrumphed at him, "Glad to see you are alright."
"Have you both been alright?" he asked.
"Yes, business has been good," Winry said.
There was an awkward silence and while fighting to keep from fidgeting, Ed asked, "If it's okay with you both, I would like you to be my primary mechanics again?"
"Do I want to know why you wanted military-grade steel?" Granny asked in an affirmative while still berating him.
Ed grimaced, "Because I may have joined the military?"
"You became one of their dogs," she stated.
Ed pointed at Den, "I thought you liked dogs."
Granny gave him hard eyes, "After what happened to my son, you wanted to become a part of the destruction of Ishval?"
"I joined the State to prevent more of that, and to help the Ishvalans. The only way to stop the military from the outside is through more war. Despite the corruption, there are good people in the military who are actively trying to do better."
"Your brother won't be happy," Granny said.
"Is he still in Resembool?" he asked, his stomach turning over.
"No, they left a month after you did," Winry said. "They haven't come back since. But they, unlike you, write to us."
He winced but knelt to open his trunk and pull out the envelope he had brought with him and held it out to her.
Winry took it and shook it out on the table.
He pulled out another one filled with the needed payment for the surgery and the new limbs.
"I feel like I shouldn't take this money," Granny said.
"Because I'm a dog?" he asked bitterly.
She hummed.
"Take it," he said. "Take it, on the off chance that everyone in the military isn't scum."
She took it, and a hard lump eased from his throat.
He didn't love the military, but he loved Maes, and he had hoped that maybe, if there were more people like Maes and his team, they could change the future.
"Ed," Winry gasped.
He and Granny looked over at Winry who was staring at the pictures and stamps he had placed in them. Maes had taught him the importance of photographs. Of memories held and shared.
And, maybe, a few pictures of the years they had been apart could make up -even just a small bit- for cutting contact with them completely.
She looked up at him with tears in her eyes, "Who are these people?"
"My adoptive family, the Hughes." He walked over to her and pointed them out, "This is Maes, Gracia, and their daughter, Elicia."
"You left Al and us, to replace us?" she asked.
Ed shook his head. "Mom died without Hohenheim. He left with no way to contact him when she needed him and he came back too late."
"Al forgave him," Winry said.
"I remember Hohenheim more than Al does. Even when he was here, he made her sad and he never cared about us."
"Hohenheim is a strange man," Granny said neither in support nor defense.
"I left because I endangered Al. We were meant to do it together and we could have lost everything… I messed up, and I wasn't about to go running back to Hohenheim because he finally remembered we existed. I also couldn't make Al choose between us and I couldn't… I am not who Al needed."
"You're wrong," Winry said.
He looked up at her, "If I had been paralysed below the waist, and you had an experimental automail that could let me walk and feel again, would you have installed it?"
"Of course," she said without hesitation.
"Even if you knew that there was a high probability of paralyzing me completely and an even higher chance of killing me?"
Her breath caught.
He smiled sadly, "I was willing to take that gamble with Al's life because I was arrogant, selfish, and naive. I thought I was smarter, more clever. I was hurting afterwards, angry and ashamed. I don't know what I would have done but I wouldn't have been a fit guardian."
"Ed, you were eleven."
He nodded, "I know. And Hohenheim was there. But I would have rather died than let that man help me."
Part of him still would rather die than ask for his help.
Winry took Ed's hand, understanding colouring her tone, "It's okay, Ed. It's okay."
Ed squeezed her hand but looked away. With his free hand tapped on the envelope. "This is my current address, and our number is here if you ever want to reach me in the future."
"I'm surprised you let someone help you," Granny said.
"I was kind of stranded," he said. "And Maes… he's a good person, he helped for nothing in exchange."
Granny snorted, "And I'm sure your new father just loves that you joined the military at sixteen."
"Well, no, not the sixteen part, but I could have passed that test at twelve. I waited till sixteen because he asked me to."
"You actually listened to someone?" Winry asked with a gasp, probably only half faked.
He smirked, "Yeah, well, I learned the hard way how stupid I can be when I don't listen to others."
"Well, look at that, you can grow up, even if you are still short," Granny said.
He glared at her while biting his tongue.
Granny smiled, knowing how hard it was for him to hold his temper.
"You never said how he felt about you entering the military," the old lady poked.
"He's a Lieutenant Colonel in the military, not an alchemist, but really, I joined his profession. He said, and I quote, 'If it wasn't this, you would probably find something more dangerous.'"
"Well, he does know you," Granny said.
There was a knock on the door.
Granny gave Ed an unamused look as Winry opened the door to the two officers.
"I am sorry," he told them both.
Granny shrugged as she got down to business, "The internals on the leg will need to be changed, but your shoulder will need to be completely replaced. It hurts more coming out than in."
Ed sighed, "I'll take a bit. But I'm going to call Maes before the surgery."
"You haven't eaten?" Granny asked.
"Not in the last twenty-four hours, just juices."
Throwing up on an open wound and/or your mechanics wasn't sanitary or polite.
"Excellent," Granny said. "Winry, take his measurements and then you can make your call while we set up. I would prefer to have the sunlight."
It was approaching midday, which told him how long this might take. So he nodded his assent. He would have to tell Maes he wouldn't be able to call back until the following day.
oOo
Jean Havoc knew that automail could be painful. He knew people of money who lost limbs often didn't get automail.
But he really hadn't understood until he walked into the Rockbell home and Edward Elric-Hughes, the youngest State Alchemist ever, said offhandedly 'I'll take a bit.'
Jean didn't even understand what that meant fully until Doctor Pinako Rockbell pinned them with a hard look after they put away the food.
"You are both soldiers," she asked, though less as a question and more as a preface to a dressing down.
"Yes, ma'am," he said.
Pinako squinted at him, "So blood won't bother you."
Again, less a question, more an expectation.
"Yes, ma'am."
She seemed to think them over, Maria was handling this address better than Jean was as they stood at attention.
"Then you will help," Pinako stated.
"Yes, ma'am," Jean and Maria said in unison.
Pinako took a pull from her pipe, then exhaled a long bloom of smoke, "You're lucky. Ed's not a screamer. I'll have you keep water boiling, provide clean rags, and ensure Winry and I have drinking water at hand."
Jean paled at the comment, Ed's not a screamer.
Mostly because he finally understood what the Alchemist meant when he said, I'll take a bit.
The two of those things in combination meant this was truly going to be painful for the newly minted Fullmetal Alchemist.
Jean only now realised how condescending and potentially demeaning that moniker had been.
What would it be like to be defined by your disability?
Defined by something that caused such a great deal of pain that very few people understood.
Fuck.
"Ed!" Winry Rockbell called. "Let me take off your limbs, you can talk to your new dad while you catch your breath."
"Still a sadist!" Ed called back cheerfully.
A few minutes later, there was a muffled grunt and the youngest Rockbell emerged with a leg and an arm in either hand.
The preparations were nerve wracking. Jean kept glancing at the scalpels beside the wrenches and blow torches and decided that the people who didn't get automail were perfectly sane individuals.
Ed emerged looking reserved but not an inkling of the fear that Jean would have felt in his place.
"We have some extra books Hughes gave us," Maria offered.
Ed offered her a soft smile in return, "Tomorrow, this isn't going to be a short day."
Jean blinked as they set Ed up on the table.
"No pain killers?" Jean asked.
Ed flashed him a pitying look, like he thought this would be hard for them.
"We need to get at as well as attach the mechanical sensors directly to the nerves," Pinako said. "There isn't a sedative that would keep him asleep and not deaden the nerves."
"Pain is worth being able to actually use the limbs," Ed explained. "Automail is more than prosthetics. I can feel with the limbs, not precisely hot or cold, or pain, unless it reaches the joint. But I can feel the difference between something fragile and hard. I can feel if something touches me. Some of it is mental, like having a phantom limb, but I have limbs, ones that run and function in accordance with my brain. So in all, it's worth the pain."
Pinako held out a strip of rubber.
Edward took the bit.
They started with the leg, but the shoulder was far, far worse.
Jean decided then he would never address Edward as anything but by his title or Boss.
And never use the stupid moniker Fullmetal.
Not because the Major wasn't that badass, but because it wasn't given with respect, and Major Elric-Hughes deserved absolute respect.
oOo
"Get him on the couch!" Granny ordered.
Havoc and Ross wasted little time, both pale and looking as if they wouldn't trade positions for Ed for the world.
Winry didn't blame them. Ed would need one more port change when he was fully grown. The one they had given him today gave him some room to grow into.
Ed wasn't that tall but he had grown a lot since the last time Winry had seen him.
Edward had shouted a few times into the pain but he hadn't truly screamed nor cried. It was hard to discern how much pain he was in but not having your patient screaming into your ears while you were trying to do nerve manipulation surgery was a bit of a reprieve.
Even if she felt shaky now, she sat beside Ed, a cup of tea in one hand and the pictures in another.
Granny and the others did clean up. Well, mostly Granny put away tools and bossed around the two soldiers Ed had brought home.
Winry didn't mind the soldiers as much as she thought she would. She hadn't been sure Ed would ever return home nor had she been sure he would ever smile again.
What he had done… It had been awful and when Ed stopped talking to Al while he was healing, she had begun to lose hope.
No matter how Al had begged or cried, Ed had shut himself away.
Hohenheim had been there for Al but Ed had pretended he didn't exist.
It had been as if Ed hadn't survived what he had happened, and that all of them were just ghosts.
It wasn't a surprise when he ran. She supposed they should be grateful he had left notes behind.
It would have been better if he had kept in contact but just knowing he had landed on his feet, that he had found a family and home…
Even if it wasn't them, even if it had gutted Al to be separated from his older brother, Winry was so relieved Ed had found help.
Granny had said it best, 'That boy was too clever for his own good. He had Hohenheim figured out before he could talk and would have done anything to keep his mother and brother happy. But as smart as he was, he was still a boy, not the man of the household. Hohenheim failed him when he left and Trisha failed him when she didn't give him time to accept she was dying. All he ever wanted was to make his brother happy, and when he instead endangered Al, he came to the harsh reality that he wasn't an adult. He failed and he could no more forgive himself than he could forgive Hohenheim. Too clever by half, and with none of the wisdom to understand that weakness is not a sin.'
Winry stared down at the man who had saved Ed. He wore wire-framed glasses, had a trimmed beard, and smiled into the camera as if he could tell the viewer in an expression, I adore you.
In the first few pictures, Ed was as tiny as Winry remembered, hunched in on himself in physical and mental torment. He didn't look up into the camera, but he did stay pressed against Maes Hughes's side as if he were the only shelter in a storm.
After that photo, there were a few pictures of Ed surrounded by books with chalk smudges on his face. Another of him covered in flour with a pregnant woman mid-toss of another handful of white powder.
After that, Ed's particular smile, the one where he was so happy and his grin so big his eyes appeared closed. He was holding a baby, helping a baby walk, and having a sleeping baby in his arms as he read a book.
Then a lot of pictures of him and two sweetly smiling girls, one with pigtails, the other in braids.
It made Winry's heart ache.
Ed had always been good with kids, and it didn't surprise her at all that it was two little girls that taught him how to smile again. That he had remained the world's best big brother.
But it hurt that Ed and Al had been separated.
Winry wasn't sure how long she drifted in thought but her mug was empty when Ed reached for her hand with his only hand in the darkened room.
He spoke without opening his eyes, "Thank you."
She squeezed his fingers, "I'm so happy you came back. That you were okay."
He squeezed back and said again, "Thank you."
Not long after, Ed succumbed to a well-deserved sleep.
oOo
Ed learned how to read Xing writing in a week. Or more accurately he learned to translate the few books Maes had given him on the differences between Alchemy and Alkahestry.
Maes had no idea what these books would spark when he convinced Granny to let Havoc and Maria take him up to the old house. And by take him, he met they literally had to wheel him up.
In a wheelbarrow, because the wheelchair just couldn't take the hike. Granny had hinted that even after he attached the limbs, he might still be stuck in the wheelchair for some time.
The nerves were healing just fine, it was the redrilling of the bones that had done the damage. On the bright side, Ed had ordered extravagantly expensive automail parts that Winry had not disappointed in spending for. His automail was much lighter, temperature resistant, and just awesome.
And that was before he got to put it on.
The house was as he had remembered it. Hohenheim had cleaned the place, but it obviously had been abandoned since then.
Maria helped him gather up the pictures, given Al hadn't returned for any of them and they were all covered in dust, he supposed they wouldn't be missed by them.
Still, he planned to split them between Maes and the Rockbells.
Winry was more home than this place now.
Next, Ed went to the library, where with older eyes, he felt that everything he thought he knew of Hohenheim was thrown out the window and replaced his loathing with fear.
Ed might have been the idiot to try human transmutation.
But Hohenheim was the a-hole who had these books and left them in reach of his two young and curious sons.
Havoc helped him sort books, a pile of the benign and the screwed up, and an uncommon collection of what Ed now knew to be books on Xerxes.
He was surprised by Havoc's willingness to help, but then he supposed he made a pitiful image. Ed had been so focused on sparing Maes the price of automail, he had forgotten how long it would take to heal from this.
He literally was using up all his sick leave before his first day and his first day was looking like he would be spending it, and a few fair weeks after it, in a wheelchair.
But it was hard to be upset about that while he reread Hohenheim's journals on human transmutation, chimeras, and homunculi.
The only saving grace, and the reason he wasn't planning to chase Al down and have Hohenheim arrested was because Hohenheim's notes painted a picture of someone who wasn't trying to do human transmutation, but how to undo it.
How to undo a chimera.
How to turn a Humculus into a human.
Chimeras basically had to be killed, the pain of binding was so immense that it was only humane to put the creatures down. Though, human chimeras seemed a bit different, well, not really, being a chemira seemed impossibly awful. But animal on human mutation seemed survivable, only why anyone would want that miffed Ed.
He found the book he had used to try to bring his mom back, and he forced himself to reread it, memorise it, before tossing it into a bonfire on the last night he was at the Rockbells.
As Granny had predicted, Ed couldn't put weight on his leg or lift anything substantial with his arm. The pain was endurable, but it was the type of pain that warned if he kept at it he would wind himself up in a hospital bed where Maes would most definitely strap him down.
"You'll write us back?" Winry said.
Ed had left Al a package that hopefully, he would receive one day, though Winry said Al rarely if ever included a return address for Winry to return any type of correspondence.
"Of course, I will. I won't always be around to answer the phone but you can call too. Just wait for a few paychecks to go through before you visit and I can take you shopping. There are some really great automail and mechanic shops I think you would like."
Winry squealed before hugging the life out of him, "You are the best!"
He smiled but still couldn't stop the apology, "I'm sorry—"
She whapped him over the head, "Shut up. It's done now and you're never going to do it again, that's apology enough."
He pulled her into another hug, "Thanks, Winry."
She hugged him back, mindful of his shoulder. "Follow the physical therapy guide, see another doctor, and you should be good to resume your normally insane activity sooner than you fear."
He nodded, gave her one last hug and waved to her as Havoc maneuvered him onto the train that clearly wasn't intended for wheelchairs.
He spent the time reading, trying to understand what he could from Hohenheim's theories and notes that weren't written in a dead language. The books from Xing Maes had gifted him helped Ed understand some of it, what was on the surface more of what appeared to be primitive alchemy.
The only thing that pulled his thoughts away from the new wealth of information that he had been saddled with was Elicia screaming his name when they arrived at Central.
Being both physically and mentally tired, Ed decided he would save the pictures for Maes's birthday which was only a little over a month away.
Maes look of weary stress at seeing him in a wheelchair was difficult. Luckily, Maria and Havoc backed him up in reporting that he had been the perfect patient, for probably the first time in his life.
oOo
Roy felt like the floodgates had opened when Ed left and Maes's anxiety had built with each passing day, even after he spoke to his son.
It made the rest of his and his team's move to Central pale in comparison.
Even if Brigadier General Basque Grand was their commanding officer and Alex Armstrong couldn't stop talking about the prowess of his family line.
Of course, Roy would take Alex over his sisters any day of the week. The younger one wasn't so bad but she truly didn't seem to understand her own strength. Which was its own type of scary compared to the nightmares Briggs held.
Roy was relieved therefore when Havoc came to make his report.
Maes had told him more about Edward than he would ever want to know about anyone, but Havoc would be an unbiased account.
The whole team stopped what they were doing to listen to Havoc's report.
Of course, Havoc didn't spill the gossip.
"Well," Roy began. "What happened?"
Havoc sighed. "He'll be in tomorrow, he won't be cleared for fieldwork for another month though, at least."
Roy raised a brow, "Hughes said Fullmetal bounces back within an hour of automail attachment."
Something tightened around Havoc's eyes and he took the cigarette out of his mouth, looking far too serious, "The bone is healing, Sir. The pain isn't a problem for him, but the bones need time."
Roy narrowed his gaze, not at the words, that made sense and it also matched Maes's worries. "Resembool is where he's from?"
"Yeah," he answered.
"Spit it out," Hawkeye snapped.
Havoc sighed, rubbing at his face.
"That bad?" Breda asked.
Havoc dropped his hand, "His birth father is Van Hohenheim."
Roy could only stare.
He really hadn't put that together, though in hindsight, maybe he should have. Roy had gone to Resembool five years ago, looking for the legendary Alchemist who was more myth than man. He had even spoken to the Rockwells where a very small woman had chased him off with a broom shouting that Hohenheim had moved on and there was nothing left of him here.
The Fuhrer himself had sent Roy looking, and all he had found were angry Rockbells and an empty house. After determining the house had been unlived in for at least a few months, Roy had moved on.
Now that he thought of it, he remembered a few pictures.
If Maes had introduced him to Ed, would he have recognised him?
"So, he's a son of a genius," Hawkeye said dryly, zero respect in her tone.
Her father had mentioned Van Hohenheim with reverence.
No wonder Edward had run away. If he was anything like Riza's father, Hohenheim didn't deserve a son, much less the boy that Maes was so proud of.
"Were there any complications with the boy's surgery?" Roy asked.
"No," Havoc said. "Though after seeing him…" his voice trailed off. "If I lose a limb, I doubt I would have the procedure."
"He scream that bad?" Breda asked more to mock Havoc than Ed.
"No," Havoc said without a trace of humour. "He didn't scream or cry at all. I honestly don't know what it would take to break him."
Roy's brow rose higher, but Havoc didn't add any more. Roy dismissed him, certain he could discover everything else he needed from Fullmetal himself.
oOo
AN: Thoughts, hawks, or feedback, pretty, pretty please?