I'll Love You More, Ch. 6
Title: I’ll Love You More
Chapter:#6, Without a Hand to Guide Us
Previous: 1, I, 2, 3, II, 4, 4.5, 5
Genre: Drama/Romance
Rating: oh geez, I have to rate this? It’s safe. It’s totally safe, there’s no sex in this chapter. But there is some blood. What rating does blood get?
Spoilers: for the entire series. But everyone knows how the series ended, right?
Summary: After six years, the brothers are finally reunited, but will Ed be able to adjust to a world that has long since moved on without him? This is an AU that ignores the movie. Pairings for now are an Ed/Win Al/Win triangle of sorts, with some implied Ed/Hei on the side. Sometimes if you squint you can see some Roy/Ed but that’s just my guilty pleasure :P
Chapter Summary: So many things have changed and so many people are gone… things may feel familiar but nothing will ever be the same
Chapter Six: Without a Hand to Guide Us
Al felt as if his bones were going to crack, but he grit his teeth and said nothing, letting his brother grip his hand tightly, watching as he squeezed his eyes shut, gasping raggedly. In the corner of his vision he saw Winry jumping up to adjust the IV she had running antibiotics and painkillers directly into his bloodstream. His eyes did not move from his brother’s face as he watched her lay a hand across his forehead, swiping his damp bangs off of his face. “That should help a bit,” she said, her voice comforting, reassuring, and Ed nodded, his eyes still tightly shut, but loosened his grip on Al’s hand just slightly. “I’m not doing any more today, I can’t stress his nervous system any more than I already have,” she told Al quietly. “In a few more days he’ll be ready for another round.” She leaned her face down, close to Ed’s ear. Although his eyes were shut she knew he was still conscious. “I just upped your morphine,” she said to him. “You should stop feeling so much pain within a few minutes. If it’s not enough, promise you’ll say something.”
He nodded, once. She could tell he was feeling the effects already; his hand went limp in Al’s and his eyelids fluttered, opening in dull gold slits as his facial features relaxed a bit.
Winry looked down at her hands. Her fingers were stained rust colored with blood; she could see it in the creases of her fingernails. She didn’t need to look further to know that there was blood splattered across the front of her surgical smock as well. “I’m going to clean up,” she said to Al, leaving the surgery room that was adjacent to her workshop.
She scrubbed at her hands at the sink, and looked at her reflection in the cloudy mirror. Her hair was covered in a bandana and her surgical mask was still around her neck from where she had pulled it down after she finished for the day. Her skin was pale and her eyes looked sunken, with dark circles under them. Why do I look so terrible? she thought briefly. I’m not the one who just endured massive trauma to my nervous system. I’m just the one who inflicted it. She felt herself shudder, and her stomach lurched uncontrollably now that the surgery was over. Machines were so clean, so precise, so predictable, and the human body was so volatile, with different surprises and different problems. It was a different kind of machine, she supposed, and she told herself time and again that she could handle it, she could handle the blood and the frayed muscles and the cut off bones, the unnatural way the body healed off the stumps of missing limbs. It was part of what she did, it was part of her life, and she was strong and she could handle a little bit of gore as long as it meant she was helping someone. Not everyone is cut out for this, her grandmother had warned her. But her parents were. Her parents were doctors, her parents had seen these things every day, these things and worse, things even worse than seeing a metal suit of armor speaking with her best friend’s voice, carrying her other best friend in its arms, bloodied and mutilated and dying-
Strong arms wrapped around her waist, familiar hands clasped around her middle. “Go upstairs and rest,” he told her softly. “I’ll stay in here with him.”
“I don’t need to rest,” she said, with no force in her voice. “I need to stay in here with him, make sure he doesn’t develop a fever.”
“I’ll come get you if anything changes.”
She shook her head, pulling away from him and returning to the surgery room. She could hear his footsteps behind her. She re-checked the IV, re-straightened the sheets on the bed, and pulled the second chair over and sat down. “I’m just going to stay here,” she said, the sound of her words becoming lost in the roaring in her ears. “I’m fine,” she thought she said, but the next moment her stomach was dropping out from under her and Alphonse caught her before she slid to the floor.
“You’re exhausted,” he said firmly. “We’ve been in here for twelve hours.” He had pressed a cold glass of water into her hands, and she sipped it gratefully. “Give yourself a break.”
“Al-“ came Ed’s hoarse voice, and Al was at his side in an instant.
“Brother?” he inquired softly.
“’M thirsty,” his brother whispered, his words slurred and slow from the medication. Al put a hand on his forehead, more for comfort than to check for a fever, and slipped a chip of ice between his brother’s lips.
“Better?” he asked.
Ed nodded.
“Do you want another?”
He nodded again. “Win?” he asked, his voice cracking.
She jumped out of the chair and was at his side in an instant.
“Go rest,” he instructed, before Al slipped him another bit of ice.
In the end it was Al who stayed up through the night, watching over both of them. Winry dozed kneeling on the floor by the bed, her head resting on the edge and her hand on Ed’s good shoulder. His brother slept fitfully, waking every half hour or so and speaking very little, but Al knew his dreams must have been tormenting him, because he would cry his brother’s name or call for his mother, and in the dark Al could see a different scene in front of him, superimposed over this reality; one where his own soul hovered over the bed, watching his brother, tied to this world only by an intricate array drawn in blood on a suit of armor, wanting to offer comfort but unable to feel any contact and fearing that his insensitive leather gauntlets would hurt rather than help the small form in the bed. He reached out his human hand, wrapping his fingers around his brother’s palm, and felt a delayed squeeze. Ed was not asleep. Al hadn’t thought he was. He stroked his thumb soothingly across the back of his brother’s hand, his only hand, and hoped that his presence was enough.
Al’s bed had become Ed’s bed, after Winry was through with the surgeries and had finished installing the automail ports. He wasn’t allowed to get up until his body had fully healed around them, which he had known from the beginning, but that didn’t make him any less restless. He could only read every book in the house so many times, he could only demand descriptions of his brother’s military missions until he knew Al’s life almost as well as if he had actually been there with him, and it didn’t help that his energy level was so low that even if he had been allowed to get up, he would have been tired out as soon as he was out of bed. The days began to run together in a haze of painkillers and feverish dreams interspersed with hours of waking boredom and quiet conversations.
He was sitting, propped up on several pillows, staring at the book in his lap but not reading it when his brother interrupted his listless state.
“Brother?” he questioned hesitantly. “Don’t be mad, but-“
“Why would I be mad?” he interrupted, frowning. Not that he hadn’t been irritable with both Al and Winry, constantly, snapping at them for stupid things and causing them to tiptoe around him even more than usual. Not that he wasn’t a real treat to take care of, he was certain of that. Best patient in the world, he was.
“You’ve got a visitor.”
Ed snapped the book shut with his one hand. “Al,” he groaned, “I feel like shit, I don’t want to see anyone right now.”
“But today is-“
“I don’t care,” he said, knowing his voice sounded harsh and immediately regretting it when he saw his brother’s hurt expression. “Sorry, Al,” he said, forcing his voice back to something more neutral. “I’m not exactly in the best mood right now-“
“I noticed,” Al said dryly, leaning against the doorframe. Then he shrugged. “But we love you anyway, and that’s why we put up with you.”
“Thanks,” Ed muttered sarcastically. “So why the hell would you want me to inflict my foul mood on anyone else?”
Al raised his eyebrows. “Actually, I told him not to come, but he insisted. I’m sure he knows you’re not exactly a ray of sunshine right now.”
His brother just glared at him.
“Please don’t tell me he came all the way from Central and you don’t even want to talk to him,” Al insisted, letting his eyes widen in a way he knew his brother couldn’t say no to.
Ed leaned his head back on the pillows, turning his glare to the ceiling. “Ugh, not that bastard!” he protested. “I don’t want to see him, and I don’t want him to see me like this!”
“Why not?” Al asked innocently. “I thought you were friends.” His brother’s expression did not lighten, and Al changed his tone. “Brother,” he said quietly. “If you really don’t want to see him-“
Ed gave a heavy sigh. “Fine, Al,” he grated out. He looked as if he was going to add something else, but he remained silent.
Within a few minutes General Mustang strode into the room, pulling a chair up next to the bed and sitting down. “Hello, Edward,” he said, fairly pleasant, but not without his characteristic smugness. “How are you feeling?”
“About as good as I look,” he said sullenly, looking down at his single leg stretched out under the blankets.
Roy handed him a package, wrapped in plain brown paper and tied with a string. “Happy birthday,” he said simply, and Ed took it from him, forcing half a smile onto his tired face.
“Thanks.” He pulled at the string, thankful that it was just a simple bow that he could untie easily with his one hand, and slid his finger under the paper to rip it off. However, the paper was thick and wrapped in several layers, and Ed ended up sighing and handing it back to him. “Do you mind?” he asked crossly.
Roy did not apologize; just finished unwrapping the package and set its contents, a pile of books, on the bed next to him. He watched as Ed picked up the first one.
“Huh,” he said, still listless. “An alchemy book,” he observed, setting it aside.
“It’s new, its from-“ Roy began, but Ed had already picked up the second one, and his expression brightened.
“Hey, thanks!” he said, his voice genuine this time.
Roy blinked in surprise. “You know, I didn’t really believe Alphonse when he said you liked those,” he began, and Ed looked at him quizzically. “They’re kids books,” he said. “And besides, I never figured you for fantasy.”
Ed just shrugged one shoulder, already turning the book over to read the back. “People change, you know,” he said distantly. “Besides, when I was a kid, I was reading stuff grown people have trouble understanding. I didn’t have time for anything like this.” He picked up the last book and his eyes widened. “What’s this?” he demanded, holding it up between two fingers, as if he didn’t want to touch it.
Roy gave a light laugh at his reaction. “I’ve read it, it’s wildly entertaining and horribly inaccurate. I thought it would amuse you.”
“The Life and Times of the Fullmetal Alchemist: Edward Elric, Alchemist for the People?” he read, his expression incredulous. He flipped it open. “By anonymous? What the hell? What did the guy write that makes him not want to give his name? Is he afraid I’ll come after him once I read this?” He opened the book to a spot near the middle, and read a few lines to himself, and actually laughed.
Roy smiled. “It’s very entertaining, believe me.”
“Thanks, Roy,” he said again, and they lapsed into an easy silence.
“So,” Roy began, after several minutes had passed. Ed arched an eyebrow. “Remind me how old you are?”
“I’m twenty-seven,” he answered evenly.
“You don’t look twenty-seven,” Roy observed, immediately wanting to take the statement back. He didn’t come here to torment Ed while he was sick, but it seemed automatic, of course he should tease him about his appearance. To his surprise, Ed just shrugged again.
“Well, that’s good, isn’t it?” he asked. “I’m not supposed to be this old anyway.”
“Twenty-seven is hardly old,” Roy assured him, feeling relieved.
Ed narrowed his eyes, looking cockily back at him. “Aren’t you going to be forty soon?” he asked devilishly, with a trace of spark in his eye.
“No,” Roy snapped, but he let Ed laugh at him anyway.
They both turned to the door when they heard Al and Winry’s hushed voices in the hall, and Ed groaned and rolled his eyes when they began to sing. “Guys,” he tried to protest, but Roy joined in as well, and despite his objections a large cake was soon placed in front of him with twenty-seven lit candles. He did not blow them out right away, trying to continue to look annoyed, and Al, who had been carrying Kaiya, sat her down on the bed next to Ed. “Help him with the candles, Kaiya,” he instructed her, but she just waved her hands in delight at the little flames. Finally Ed allowed himself to grin, and took a deep breath, blowing out all the candles.
Winry leaned over and kissed him on the cheek, whispering, “happy birthday,” to him, and Al picked up Kaiya and sat down on the bed next to his brother, sitting her in his lap. Ed leaned over and awkwardly hugged him with one arm. Winry clasped her hands together. “Don’t you look cute, the three of you like that,” she exclaimed. “Stay like that, I want a picture.”
Ed rolled his eyes. “Don’t take a picture,” he protested. “Just cut the cake, it looks really good. You didn’t make it, did you?”
“Al made it,” Winry confirmed.
“Ah, good,” Ed said, earning himself a smack on the back of his head. “Hey, be nice to me, it’s my birthday!”
After the cake had been eaten and Roy had left on the last train to Central and Winry was putting Kaiya to bed, Al remained next to his brother in his bed. Ed leaned his head on his younger brother’s shoulder and sighed.
“Do you feel old?” he inquired.
“Nah,” Ed said contentedly. “I feel happy.”
“You do?” Al asked, surprised.
“Yeah. I mean, other than the fact that I can’t really get up, that is,” he amended. “Sorry, Al, I know I’m a bad patient.”
Al spread his hands. “Hey, don’t apologize to me, Brother, say you’re sorry to Winry. You’re her patient.”
Ed just leaned further into his brother, feeling the warmth of his body on the side of his face. His body ached dully where the ports had been screwed into his bones, but it was a familiar ache, and he sighed again. “You know what?”
“Hm?”
“Ever since… the whole time we were searching for the stone, Al? Part of me didn’t really believe I’d ever be this old.”
Al frowned. “Don’t say that, Brother,” he admonished. “I always believed in you.”
Ed looked up at him. “Did you?”
Al nodded. “Of course.”
“How do you know?”
Al tipped his head. “What do you mean, how do I know?”
Ed was silent for a few minutes. “You do remember some things, don’t you,” he said quietly, not really asking as much as stating it as a fact. “Not when you’re trying to, but you do remember a little bit.”
“Sort of,” Al admitted. “Mostly emotions, though. Images, here and there.”
“I didn’t mean to take your memories, Al. I don’t know if they were part of what I traded, or if they’re just gone because your body can’t remember things it never experienced. I’m sorry-“
“My soul remembers,” Al said softly. “Stop apologizing. I wouldn’t be here at all if it wasn’t for you.”
Ed reached for his brother’s hand, squeezing it tightly. “I love you Al.”
He leaned his cheek into Ed’s hair. “I love you too.”
“Be careful,” Al warned, holding his older brother steady as he grasped the crutch firmly in his hand, pulling it under his shoulder and resting most of his weight on it.
“I am being careful,” Ed said through gritted teeth. He wanted to tell his brother to let go of him, that he wasn’t going to fall, that he was plenty used to walking on one leg and one crutch, but the truth was it had been nearly four months since he had stood upright and his balance was admittedly shaky.
“You all right?” his brother asked, grey eyes full of concern.
In truth, the heavy ports were pulling at his newly healed skin causing it to sting uncomfortably, and his bones ached and his muscles throbbed, and at this moment he couldn’t imagine having actual mechanical limbs attached to these ports that felt more massive than they really were. He knew it was impossible for the metal to rip from his body, clattering to the floor with bits of bloody skin and muscle still clinging to them, but it sure as hell felt like it.
“It’s okay to say no,” Al said quietly. “Do you want to lay back down?”
Ed shook his head stubbornly. “No, I want to get out of this room.”
“O-kay,” his brother agreed, continuing to support him as they made their way slowly down the hallway and down the stairs, stopping twice for Ed to rest. Once at the bottom of the stairs, Ed surveyed the living room, which he also hadn’t seen in four months. Winry was sitting on the floor with Kaiya between her legs, doing one of those puzzles with the little knobs on each of the large, brightly colored pieces. Other toys of Kaiya’s, including a set of plastic tools in a brightly colored plastic toolbox, were strewn about the floor. Kaiya babbled a few syllables and dropped the puzzle piece, stretching out her little hand in Ed’s direction and shrieking a few more incomprehensible sounds.
Winry looked up and saw Al helping Ed down the last step, and she stood up immediately. “I didn’t say you should come downstairs, Ed!” she said worriedly. “I said you could get up, you know, to go to the bathroom or something!”
Ed smirked, his expression still cocky although he felt physically drained. “Yeah well, I got so excited by taking a piss all by myself that I just got carried away,” he said sarcastically.
Winry threw up her hands, shaking her head, and looked him up and down, taking a quick stock of his well being. “Sit down,” she ordered, pointing to the couch. “You’re exhausted.”
“I want to sit on the floor,” he said stubbornly, and she rolled her eyes.
“Fine, sit wherever you want,” she said, clearly wanting to avoid an argument.
Al helped him sit carefully down in front of the couch, and watched with concern as his brother winced when the stump of his leg hit the floor. “Are you sure you wouldn’t be more comfortable on the couch?” he asked.
Ed shook his head. “Nah, I wanna play with Kaiya without worrying about her crawling off the edge of the cushions,” he said. She had started crawling early and ever since it had begun Ed had been terrified, somewhat unfoundedly, that she would crawl off the edge of his bed without him being able to stop her. He folded his leg in a half-cross legged position and patted the floor next to him. “Hey,” he said to her, “want to come play over here?”
She turned the last piece of her puzzle and watched it snap into place, and said excitedly, “Ma-ma-ma-ma!” and overturned the whole thing, scattering the pieces over the floor again.
Winry crouched down beside her daughter. “Very good!” she said encouragingly. “You’re very smart, you know that?”
“Ma-ma-ba-ba!” she responded, picking up a puzzle piece and banging it on the floor.
“Ba-ba?” Winry repeated.
“Ba-baba-ba,” Kaiya confirmed, dropping her puzzle piece and staring at her mother. “Ma!”
Winry looked over at the brothers. “Do you think she’s saying bottle?”
Al shrugged. “Ba-ba?” he tried.
“Ma-ma-ba-ma!” she said again, and became suddenly very absorbed with her puzzle again, piling the pieces on top of each other.
Al smiled. “Ah, you want your ma-ma to get your ba-ba,” he translated, looking over at Winry with a grin.
“Ba-ba?” Winry said to her, but Kaiya had become disinterested with the conversation. She looked at Al. “I think she’s just making sounds, I don’t think she’s really saying bottle,” she said. Then Kaiya pushed her puzzle aside and began her lurching crawl across the floor in Ed’s direction. When she had begun crawling it had been as if she was in some kind of race, and would propel herself across the floor faster than her baby’s coordination would allow, causing her to fall face-first into the floor fairly often, but she seemed to have mastered her speed-crawl and scrambled over to Ed, crawling into what had become “her spot” between his legs. Winry stood up. “I’m going to get her some juice anyway,” she said. “Maybe that really is what she wants.” Ed wrapped his arm around Kaiya, and for a few minutes she was content to be held, but soon she was squirming out of his grasp.
“Brrroooo,” she announced.
Ed touched her nose. “Broo,” he said back, smiling.
Winry came back with Kaiya’s sippy cup and handed it to Ed. “Here,” she directed, “you can give her this. Don’t let her throw it across the room.”
Ed laughed. “Don’t throw your cup, Kaiya,” he said, letting her take it out of his hands and bounce it on the floor.
Winry immediately crouched down and picked it up. “I said don’t let her do that,” she said crossly, putting the cup back in her daughter’s hands. “Hold on to your juice,” she instructed.
“Ma-ma-ma-ma,” Kaiya responded.
“She didn’t throw it across the room,” Ed protested, defending her.
Al switched the radio on, and together they listened to the news broadcast from Central. There had been another bombing earlier in the week, and there was still no information, at least that was made public, about who or what was behind the attacks. Eventually, Ed admitted that the floor was not terribly comfortable after all, and Al helped him onto the couch, ignoring his protests that he was fine and could get up on his own. They sat around the coffee table listening to music and played a few rounds of go fish, which had been a favorite game of the three friends ever since they knew what card games were, and then Al suggested that they open up one of the wine bottles they had been given for the holidays. “To celebrate just being together,” he said, and poured the three of them a glass.
Ed took a sip and set his glass aside, out of Kaiya’s reach, afraid that the wine would make him even more tired than he already was. It was stupid, he thought, frustrated, that he should be so tired, it wasn’t like he did anything other than sit around for a few hours rather than lay around upstairs. He leaned his head back on the couch and stretched his leg out, propping his foot on the coffee table and letting Kaiya hang on his knee.
“She’s gonna start walking soon,” Al said about the baby, watching her sway back and forth against Ed’s knee.
“No she’s not,” Winry told him. “She’s way too young to start walking, no babies start that young. She’s only eight months old.”
“She’ll probably start walking before I do,” Ed said.
Winry shrugged. “She might,” she agreed. “I think Granny said I started walking by myself at fourteen months. How old were you?” she asked both brothers at once, looking from the younger to the older.
Ed thought for a moment. “I don’t know,” he said finally.
“You don’t know?” Winry repeated, startled at his answer.
Ed shook his head. “No, I don’t. And I don’t have anyone to ask, either.”
“Do you know how old I was, brother?” Al asked curiously, realizing that Ed was right, there wasn’t anyone around they could ask about their early childhood firsts. If they didn’t remember it, they’d likely never know.
Ed was still shaking his head. “I don’t know how old you were, Al,” he said, his mouth twisting up in a fond smile, “but you started crawling exactly like Kaiya, trying to get everywhere first, and smashing your face into the ground on the way. Only you cried about it more,” he added. “And I would come running and try to pick you up.”
Al laughed. “Maybe that’s why I cried so much, because I wanted your attention,” he told him.
“Ed, you cried a lot too,” Winry told him teasingly.
“What?” he demanded. “I did not!”
“Yes you did,” Al and Winry said in unison.
“No I didn’t,” Ed insisted.
“Whenever you didn’t get your way, you cried,” Winry said.
Ed narrowed his eyes. “That was a long time ago then,” he said stiffly. “I was too little to remember that.”
“I remember it, Brother, so you couldn’t have been that little,” Al said, smiling as he took a sip from his wine glass.
His older brother frowned, but was ultimately too tired to continue denying what was apparently true anyway. His eyes snapped up when he heard Al gasp.
“You’re bleeding,” was what he said, and Ed looked down, startled, seeing the wet redness seeping through his shirt. Winry was at his side in an instant, insisting on knowing why he didn’t say anything if his shoulder was hurting him and pulling the collar of his shirt open to dab at the cracking skin with a piece of tissue.
“My shoulder always hurts, I didn’t know I was bleeding!” he told her defensively, leaning back on the couch and letting her inspect the area around the port.
“You stay there,” she instructed, “I’ll be right back.” She left the room to retrieve a few medical supplies from her workroom downstairs.
“It’s not like I can go anywhere,” he hollered after her.
Al looked carefully at his brother, noticing how pale and tired he looked. “If you weren’t feeling well,” he admonished quietly, “you should have said something.”
“But I liked being out here with you and Winry and Kaiya like a normal person instead of laying around upstairs in that room!” he said miserably.
Winry returned with some gauze and some antibiotic cream for the irritated skin around the port. “Its too soon for you to be moving around this much,” she declared. “I shouldn’t have let you come down here, you need to be upstairs in bed. Your body is still too stressed from the trauma of nerve surgery.”
“I wasn’t moving around,” he protested, “I was just sitting here!”
Winry was looking down. “I’m sorry, Ed,” she said, remorseful. “I should have told you right away to go back to bed.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Hey, you did, remember?" he asked, trying to make his voice light. "I just didn’t listen.”
She put a hand on either side of his face, looking at him critically. “You’re exhausted. You were tired just from coming down here. You need to go to bed, it’s late anyway,” she directed.
The fact that he didn’t object made it all the more clear just how tired he was. Sighing, he reached for the arm of the couch and flinched as he tried to stand up.
“Be careful,” she warned.
“But my good shoulder is fine,” he mumbled.
“Your whole body is connected, you know that,” she told him. “You’re going to start bleeding again.” She glanced at Al, who wrapped an arm around his brother’s waist.
“I can carry you upstairs,” Al offered.
“I can get upstairs on my own!” Ed said, but his voice was lacking its characteristic stubbornness.
“I know you can,” Al said quietly. “But you don’t have to, that’s why I’m here.”
“You can’t carry me.”
“Brother, you probably weigh about half of what I do right now. Just let me carry you.”
Ed didn’t say anything, and let his younger brother heft him carefully up in his arms. Al was briefly alarmed at just how light Ed really was with only two limbs, but carried him slowly up to the bedroom and laid him gently on the bed.
“Do you want me to stay here with you?” he asked hesitantly.
Ed pulled the covers up to his chin. “Nah, I’m about to fall asleep as it is,” he said, yawning as if to prove his statement.
“Okay,” he said, lingering for a moment at the side of the bed. “Good night,” he added.
“’Night, Al,” he answered, his eyes already closed.
Winry stood at the top of the stairs in her nightgown, leaning over the railing. “Al,” she called down to him. “Come to bed, it’s almost one in the morning.”
Al was picking up Kaiya’s toys that were still strewn about the living room. “I will, lemme just finish up in here,” he said, gathering the playing cards and stacking them neatly, putting them back in their box and away in the drawer in the end table. Then he picked up the wine glass Ed had discarded earlier and downed the contents in one long, slow gulp, and put the cork back in the bottle. When he went upstairs to the bedroom Winry was already in bed, curled up on her side with her head on one pillow and the other clutched in her arms.
Al undressed quickly, putting his clothes in the hamper and diving under the covers, wrapping his arms around her and whispering in her ear, “hey you. Gimme back my pillow.”
She rolled over, swinging the pillow in an arc over her head, landing it squarely on Al’s face. “Thanks,” came his muffled response. He was asleep within minutes.
Winry lay awake, watching the shadows on her ceiling, listening to Al’s rhythmic breathing. If she listened hard enough she thought she could hear Kaiya sleeping in her crib, and Ed sleeping in the next room. “We’re really alone, Al,” she said in the darkness, even though she knew he was already asleep.
Al had forgiven her, just like Ed said he would, because Al loved her; loved them both. But even with Al at her side, she was suddenly and painfully aware of how alone she was. I don’t have anyone to ask, Ed had said earlier, and the conversation had stuck with her, eating away at the back of her mind all evening. None of them had anyone to ask. Granny was not there to tell her she shouldn’t have let Ed get out of bed so early, to tell her it was normal for him to bleed around his ports, to tell her exactly how long she needed to wait before attaching the actual automail. Neither her grandmother nor her mother was around to tell her at what age Kaiya should be learning to walk, and her heart twisted, not for the first time, knowing that her daughter would never know her grandparents.
Is this what adults did, she mused, make everything up as they went along? Is that what her parents had done? No, they had Granny to guide them along, to tell them what to expect with their daughter. She didn’t want to guess with Ed, to play things by ear. She didn’t want to do a single thing that might cause him any more pain than she already had to; she wanted to know for certain that she had done the surgery perfectly, that he would have perfectly functioning limbs in the end, but there was no certainty in anything anymore. She didn’t want to guess with her daughter, to cross her fingers and hope she was doing right. Kaiya couldn’t even speak yet, and Winry was already dreading the day she would have to answer her questions about why she has three parents when the other little kids have only two. “We’re totally alone,” she repeated. “None of us has anyone to ask.”
“What are you talking about?” Al mumbled blearily, sitting up in bed, looking at her worriedly. She hadn’t meant to wake him, and she sighed.
“Nothing,” she said finally, and he lay back down. “Go back to sleep.”
“We don’t need anyone else,” Al said, sounding defensive. “We’ve always been fine on our own.”
Winry rolled over on her side. “You’re such an Elric,” she muttered, pulling the covers tight around herself.
“Were you expecting something different?” Al asked, clearly puzzled, but after a few minutes she heard his breathing return to the slow rhythm of sleep, and continued to stare at the shadows on her ceiling.
Zwischenzeit III: Walking Forward but Standing Still
Note1: you may be wondering what was up with Ed and the books. Like, why was Ed all about the Harry Potter book (yep, that’s what the kid’s book was :P) and totally disinterested in the alchemy book? Ed is an alchemical genius, always has been. Part of it was natural talent, part of it was because he voraciously devoured every alchemy text he could get his hands on, and part of it was because he had innate information inside his mind that he had seen in his first encounter with the Gate. The way I see it, Ed’s been through those doors so many times that there isn’t a single thing about alchemy he doesn’t already know. Even if it’s the newest, most advanced theory to hit Amestrian libraries, its nothing new to him. That’s why he just puts it aside.
Note2: you may be wondering what on earth is going on in Central, and what’s up with Roy and Riza and the others, and the explosion and the red stones and the pyramids and all that. I’m getting to that part. Also the part where Al gets mad. It’s coming too, don’t worry.
Note3: this is the first chapter of this story that I actually wrote completely in one day. Usually I take forever. This one is really short compared to the last few, but I think they were too long anyway.
Chapter:#6, Without a Hand to Guide Us
Previous: 1, I, 2, 3, II, 4, 4.5, 5
Genre: Drama/Romance
Rating: oh geez, I have to rate this? It’s safe. It’s totally safe, there’s no sex in this chapter. But there is some blood. What rating does blood get?
Spoilers: for the entire series. But everyone knows how the series ended, right?
Summary: After six years, the brothers are finally reunited, but will Ed be able to adjust to a world that has long since moved on without him? This is an AU that ignores the movie. Pairings for now are an Ed/Win Al/Win triangle of sorts, with some implied Ed/Hei on the side. Sometimes if you squint you can see some Roy/Ed but that’s just my guilty pleasure :P
Chapter Summary: So many things have changed and so many people are gone… things may feel familiar but nothing will ever be the same
Chapter Six: Without a Hand to Guide Us
Al felt as if his bones were going to crack, but he grit his teeth and said nothing, letting his brother grip his hand tightly, watching as he squeezed his eyes shut, gasping raggedly. In the corner of his vision he saw Winry jumping up to adjust the IV she had running antibiotics and painkillers directly into his bloodstream. His eyes did not move from his brother’s face as he watched her lay a hand across his forehead, swiping his damp bangs off of his face. “That should help a bit,” she said, her voice comforting, reassuring, and Ed nodded, his eyes still tightly shut, but loosened his grip on Al’s hand just slightly. “I’m not doing any more today, I can’t stress his nervous system any more than I already have,” she told Al quietly. “In a few more days he’ll be ready for another round.” She leaned her face down, close to Ed’s ear. Although his eyes were shut she knew he was still conscious. “I just upped your morphine,” she said to him. “You should stop feeling so much pain within a few minutes. If it’s not enough, promise you’ll say something.”
He nodded, once. She could tell he was feeling the effects already; his hand went limp in Al’s and his eyelids fluttered, opening in dull gold slits as his facial features relaxed a bit.
Winry looked down at her hands. Her fingers were stained rust colored with blood; she could see it in the creases of her fingernails. She didn’t need to look further to know that there was blood splattered across the front of her surgical smock as well. “I’m going to clean up,” she said to Al, leaving the surgery room that was adjacent to her workshop.
She scrubbed at her hands at the sink, and looked at her reflection in the cloudy mirror. Her hair was covered in a bandana and her surgical mask was still around her neck from where she had pulled it down after she finished for the day. Her skin was pale and her eyes looked sunken, with dark circles under them. Why do I look so terrible? she thought briefly. I’m not the one who just endured massive trauma to my nervous system. I’m just the one who inflicted it. She felt herself shudder, and her stomach lurched uncontrollably now that the surgery was over. Machines were so clean, so precise, so predictable, and the human body was so volatile, with different surprises and different problems. It was a different kind of machine, she supposed, and she told herself time and again that she could handle it, she could handle the blood and the frayed muscles and the cut off bones, the unnatural way the body healed off the stumps of missing limbs. It was part of what she did, it was part of her life, and she was strong and she could handle a little bit of gore as long as it meant she was helping someone. Not everyone is cut out for this, her grandmother had warned her. But her parents were. Her parents were doctors, her parents had seen these things every day, these things and worse, things even worse than seeing a metal suit of armor speaking with her best friend’s voice, carrying her other best friend in its arms, bloodied and mutilated and dying-
Strong arms wrapped around her waist, familiar hands clasped around her middle. “Go upstairs and rest,” he told her softly. “I’ll stay in here with him.”
“I don’t need to rest,” she said, with no force in her voice. “I need to stay in here with him, make sure he doesn’t develop a fever.”
“I’ll come get you if anything changes.”
She shook her head, pulling away from him and returning to the surgery room. She could hear his footsteps behind her. She re-checked the IV, re-straightened the sheets on the bed, and pulled the second chair over and sat down. “I’m just going to stay here,” she said, the sound of her words becoming lost in the roaring in her ears. “I’m fine,” she thought she said, but the next moment her stomach was dropping out from under her and Alphonse caught her before she slid to the floor.
“You’re exhausted,” he said firmly. “We’ve been in here for twelve hours.” He had pressed a cold glass of water into her hands, and she sipped it gratefully. “Give yourself a break.”
“Al-“ came Ed’s hoarse voice, and Al was at his side in an instant.
“Brother?” he inquired softly.
“’M thirsty,” his brother whispered, his words slurred and slow from the medication. Al put a hand on his forehead, more for comfort than to check for a fever, and slipped a chip of ice between his brother’s lips.
“Better?” he asked.
Ed nodded.
“Do you want another?”
He nodded again. “Win?” he asked, his voice cracking.
She jumped out of the chair and was at his side in an instant.
“Go rest,” he instructed, before Al slipped him another bit of ice.
In the end it was Al who stayed up through the night, watching over both of them. Winry dozed kneeling on the floor by the bed, her head resting on the edge and her hand on Ed’s good shoulder. His brother slept fitfully, waking every half hour or so and speaking very little, but Al knew his dreams must have been tormenting him, because he would cry his brother’s name or call for his mother, and in the dark Al could see a different scene in front of him, superimposed over this reality; one where his own soul hovered over the bed, watching his brother, tied to this world only by an intricate array drawn in blood on a suit of armor, wanting to offer comfort but unable to feel any contact and fearing that his insensitive leather gauntlets would hurt rather than help the small form in the bed. He reached out his human hand, wrapping his fingers around his brother’s palm, and felt a delayed squeeze. Ed was not asleep. Al hadn’t thought he was. He stroked his thumb soothingly across the back of his brother’s hand, his only hand, and hoped that his presence was enough.
Al’s bed had become Ed’s bed, after Winry was through with the surgeries and had finished installing the automail ports. He wasn’t allowed to get up until his body had fully healed around them, which he had known from the beginning, but that didn’t make him any less restless. He could only read every book in the house so many times, he could only demand descriptions of his brother’s military missions until he knew Al’s life almost as well as if he had actually been there with him, and it didn’t help that his energy level was so low that even if he had been allowed to get up, he would have been tired out as soon as he was out of bed. The days began to run together in a haze of painkillers and feverish dreams interspersed with hours of waking boredom and quiet conversations.
He was sitting, propped up on several pillows, staring at the book in his lap but not reading it when his brother interrupted his listless state.
“Brother?” he questioned hesitantly. “Don’t be mad, but-“
“Why would I be mad?” he interrupted, frowning. Not that he hadn’t been irritable with both Al and Winry, constantly, snapping at them for stupid things and causing them to tiptoe around him even more than usual. Not that he wasn’t a real treat to take care of, he was certain of that. Best patient in the world, he was.
“You’ve got a visitor.”
Ed snapped the book shut with his one hand. “Al,” he groaned, “I feel like shit, I don’t want to see anyone right now.”
“But today is-“
“I don’t care,” he said, knowing his voice sounded harsh and immediately regretting it when he saw his brother’s hurt expression. “Sorry, Al,” he said, forcing his voice back to something more neutral. “I’m not exactly in the best mood right now-“
“I noticed,” Al said dryly, leaning against the doorframe. Then he shrugged. “But we love you anyway, and that’s why we put up with you.”
“Thanks,” Ed muttered sarcastically. “So why the hell would you want me to inflict my foul mood on anyone else?”
Al raised his eyebrows. “Actually, I told him not to come, but he insisted. I’m sure he knows you’re not exactly a ray of sunshine right now.”
His brother just glared at him.
“Please don’t tell me he came all the way from Central and you don’t even want to talk to him,” Al insisted, letting his eyes widen in a way he knew his brother couldn’t say no to.
Ed leaned his head back on the pillows, turning his glare to the ceiling. “Ugh, not that bastard!” he protested. “I don’t want to see him, and I don’t want him to see me like this!”
“Why not?” Al asked innocently. “I thought you were friends.” His brother’s expression did not lighten, and Al changed his tone. “Brother,” he said quietly. “If you really don’t want to see him-“
Ed gave a heavy sigh. “Fine, Al,” he grated out. He looked as if he was going to add something else, but he remained silent.
Within a few minutes General Mustang strode into the room, pulling a chair up next to the bed and sitting down. “Hello, Edward,” he said, fairly pleasant, but not without his characteristic smugness. “How are you feeling?”
“About as good as I look,” he said sullenly, looking down at his single leg stretched out under the blankets.
Roy handed him a package, wrapped in plain brown paper and tied with a string. “Happy birthday,” he said simply, and Ed took it from him, forcing half a smile onto his tired face.
“Thanks.” He pulled at the string, thankful that it was just a simple bow that he could untie easily with his one hand, and slid his finger under the paper to rip it off. However, the paper was thick and wrapped in several layers, and Ed ended up sighing and handing it back to him. “Do you mind?” he asked crossly.
Roy did not apologize; just finished unwrapping the package and set its contents, a pile of books, on the bed next to him. He watched as Ed picked up the first one.
“Huh,” he said, still listless. “An alchemy book,” he observed, setting it aside.
“It’s new, its from-“ Roy began, but Ed had already picked up the second one, and his expression brightened.
“Hey, thanks!” he said, his voice genuine this time.
Roy blinked in surprise. “You know, I didn’t really believe Alphonse when he said you liked those,” he began, and Ed looked at him quizzically. “They’re kids books,” he said. “And besides, I never figured you for fantasy.”
Ed just shrugged one shoulder, already turning the book over to read the back. “People change, you know,” he said distantly. “Besides, when I was a kid, I was reading stuff grown people have trouble understanding. I didn’t have time for anything like this.” He picked up the last book and his eyes widened. “What’s this?” he demanded, holding it up between two fingers, as if he didn’t want to touch it.
Roy gave a light laugh at his reaction. “I’ve read it, it’s wildly entertaining and horribly inaccurate. I thought it would amuse you.”
“The Life and Times of the Fullmetal Alchemist: Edward Elric, Alchemist for the People?” he read, his expression incredulous. He flipped it open. “By anonymous? What the hell? What did the guy write that makes him not want to give his name? Is he afraid I’ll come after him once I read this?” He opened the book to a spot near the middle, and read a few lines to himself, and actually laughed.
Roy smiled. “It’s very entertaining, believe me.”
“Thanks, Roy,” he said again, and they lapsed into an easy silence.
“So,” Roy began, after several minutes had passed. Ed arched an eyebrow. “Remind me how old you are?”
“I’m twenty-seven,” he answered evenly.
“You don’t look twenty-seven,” Roy observed, immediately wanting to take the statement back. He didn’t come here to torment Ed while he was sick, but it seemed automatic, of course he should tease him about his appearance. To his surprise, Ed just shrugged again.
“Well, that’s good, isn’t it?” he asked. “I’m not supposed to be this old anyway.”
“Twenty-seven is hardly old,” Roy assured him, feeling relieved.
Ed narrowed his eyes, looking cockily back at him. “Aren’t you going to be forty soon?” he asked devilishly, with a trace of spark in his eye.
“No,” Roy snapped, but he let Ed laugh at him anyway.
They both turned to the door when they heard Al and Winry’s hushed voices in the hall, and Ed groaned and rolled his eyes when they began to sing. “Guys,” he tried to protest, but Roy joined in as well, and despite his objections a large cake was soon placed in front of him with twenty-seven lit candles. He did not blow them out right away, trying to continue to look annoyed, and Al, who had been carrying Kaiya, sat her down on the bed next to Ed. “Help him with the candles, Kaiya,” he instructed her, but she just waved her hands in delight at the little flames. Finally Ed allowed himself to grin, and took a deep breath, blowing out all the candles.
Winry leaned over and kissed him on the cheek, whispering, “happy birthday,” to him, and Al picked up Kaiya and sat down on the bed next to his brother, sitting her in his lap. Ed leaned over and awkwardly hugged him with one arm. Winry clasped her hands together. “Don’t you look cute, the three of you like that,” she exclaimed. “Stay like that, I want a picture.”
Ed rolled his eyes. “Don’t take a picture,” he protested. “Just cut the cake, it looks really good. You didn’t make it, did you?”
“Al made it,” Winry confirmed.
“Ah, good,” Ed said, earning himself a smack on the back of his head. “Hey, be nice to me, it’s my birthday!”
After the cake had been eaten and Roy had left on the last train to Central and Winry was putting Kaiya to bed, Al remained next to his brother in his bed. Ed leaned his head on his younger brother’s shoulder and sighed.
“Do you feel old?” he inquired.
“Nah,” Ed said contentedly. “I feel happy.”
“You do?” Al asked, surprised.
“Yeah. I mean, other than the fact that I can’t really get up, that is,” he amended. “Sorry, Al, I know I’m a bad patient.”
Al spread his hands. “Hey, don’t apologize to me, Brother, say you’re sorry to Winry. You’re her patient.”
Ed just leaned further into his brother, feeling the warmth of his body on the side of his face. His body ached dully where the ports had been screwed into his bones, but it was a familiar ache, and he sighed again. “You know what?”
“Hm?”
“Ever since… the whole time we were searching for the stone, Al? Part of me didn’t really believe I’d ever be this old.”
Al frowned. “Don’t say that, Brother,” he admonished. “I always believed in you.”
Ed looked up at him. “Did you?”
Al nodded. “Of course.”
“How do you know?”
Al tipped his head. “What do you mean, how do I know?”
Ed was silent for a few minutes. “You do remember some things, don’t you,” he said quietly, not really asking as much as stating it as a fact. “Not when you’re trying to, but you do remember a little bit.”
“Sort of,” Al admitted. “Mostly emotions, though. Images, here and there.”
“I didn’t mean to take your memories, Al. I don’t know if they were part of what I traded, or if they’re just gone because your body can’t remember things it never experienced. I’m sorry-“
“My soul remembers,” Al said softly. “Stop apologizing. I wouldn’t be here at all if it wasn’t for you.”
Ed reached for his brother’s hand, squeezing it tightly. “I love you Al.”
He leaned his cheek into Ed’s hair. “I love you too.”
“Be careful,” Al warned, holding his older brother steady as he grasped the crutch firmly in his hand, pulling it under his shoulder and resting most of his weight on it.
“I am being careful,” Ed said through gritted teeth. He wanted to tell his brother to let go of him, that he wasn’t going to fall, that he was plenty used to walking on one leg and one crutch, but the truth was it had been nearly four months since he had stood upright and his balance was admittedly shaky.
“You all right?” his brother asked, grey eyes full of concern.
In truth, the heavy ports were pulling at his newly healed skin causing it to sting uncomfortably, and his bones ached and his muscles throbbed, and at this moment he couldn’t imagine having actual mechanical limbs attached to these ports that felt more massive than they really were. He knew it was impossible for the metal to rip from his body, clattering to the floor with bits of bloody skin and muscle still clinging to them, but it sure as hell felt like it.
“It’s okay to say no,” Al said quietly. “Do you want to lay back down?”
Ed shook his head stubbornly. “No, I want to get out of this room.”
“O-kay,” his brother agreed, continuing to support him as they made their way slowly down the hallway and down the stairs, stopping twice for Ed to rest. Once at the bottom of the stairs, Ed surveyed the living room, which he also hadn’t seen in four months. Winry was sitting on the floor with Kaiya between her legs, doing one of those puzzles with the little knobs on each of the large, brightly colored pieces. Other toys of Kaiya’s, including a set of plastic tools in a brightly colored plastic toolbox, were strewn about the floor. Kaiya babbled a few syllables and dropped the puzzle piece, stretching out her little hand in Ed’s direction and shrieking a few more incomprehensible sounds.
Winry looked up and saw Al helping Ed down the last step, and she stood up immediately. “I didn’t say you should come downstairs, Ed!” she said worriedly. “I said you could get up, you know, to go to the bathroom or something!”
Ed smirked, his expression still cocky although he felt physically drained. “Yeah well, I got so excited by taking a piss all by myself that I just got carried away,” he said sarcastically.
Winry threw up her hands, shaking her head, and looked him up and down, taking a quick stock of his well being. “Sit down,” she ordered, pointing to the couch. “You’re exhausted.”
“I want to sit on the floor,” he said stubbornly, and she rolled her eyes.
“Fine, sit wherever you want,” she said, clearly wanting to avoid an argument.
Al helped him sit carefully down in front of the couch, and watched with concern as his brother winced when the stump of his leg hit the floor. “Are you sure you wouldn’t be more comfortable on the couch?” he asked.
Ed shook his head. “Nah, I wanna play with Kaiya without worrying about her crawling off the edge of the cushions,” he said. She had started crawling early and ever since it had begun Ed had been terrified, somewhat unfoundedly, that she would crawl off the edge of his bed without him being able to stop her. He folded his leg in a half-cross legged position and patted the floor next to him. “Hey,” he said to her, “want to come play over here?”
She turned the last piece of her puzzle and watched it snap into place, and said excitedly, “Ma-ma-ma-ma!” and overturned the whole thing, scattering the pieces over the floor again.
Winry crouched down beside her daughter. “Very good!” she said encouragingly. “You’re very smart, you know that?”
“Ma-ma-ba-ba!” she responded, picking up a puzzle piece and banging it on the floor.
“Ba-ba?” Winry repeated.
“Ba-baba-ba,” Kaiya confirmed, dropping her puzzle piece and staring at her mother. “Ma!”
Winry looked over at the brothers. “Do you think she’s saying bottle?”
Al shrugged. “Ba-ba?” he tried.
“Ma-ma-ba-ma!” she said again, and became suddenly very absorbed with her puzzle again, piling the pieces on top of each other.
Al smiled. “Ah, you want your ma-ma to get your ba-ba,” he translated, looking over at Winry with a grin.
“Ba-ba?” Winry said to her, but Kaiya had become disinterested with the conversation. She looked at Al. “I think she’s just making sounds, I don’t think she’s really saying bottle,” she said. Then Kaiya pushed her puzzle aside and began her lurching crawl across the floor in Ed’s direction. When she had begun crawling it had been as if she was in some kind of race, and would propel herself across the floor faster than her baby’s coordination would allow, causing her to fall face-first into the floor fairly often, but she seemed to have mastered her speed-crawl and scrambled over to Ed, crawling into what had become “her spot” between his legs. Winry stood up. “I’m going to get her some juice anyway,” she said. “Maybe that really is what she wants.” Ed wrapped his arm around Kaiya, and for a few minutes she was content to be held, but soon she was squirming out of his grasp.
“Brrroooo,” she announced.
Ed touched her nose. “Broo,” he said back, smiling.
Winry came back with Kaiya’s sippy cup and handed it to Ed. “Here,” she directed, “you can give her this. Don’t let her throw it across the room.”
Ed laughed. “Don’t throw your cup, Kaiya,” he said, letting her take it out of his hands and bounce it on the floor.
Winry immediately crouched down and picked it up. “I said don’t let her do that,” she said crossly, putting the cup back in her daughter’s hands. “Hold on to your juice,” she instructed.
“Ma-ma-ma-ma,” Kaiya responded.
“She didn’t throw it across the room,” Ed protested, defending her.
Al switched the radio on, and together they listened to the news broadcast from Central. There had been another bombing earlier in the week, and there was still no information, at least that was made public, about who or what was behind the attacks. Eventually, Ed admitted that the floor was not terribly comfortable after all, and Al helped him onto the couch, ignoring his protests that he was fine and could get up on his own. They sat around the coffee table listening to music and played a few rounds of go fish, which had been a favorite game of the three friends ever since they knew what card games were, and then Al suggested that they open up one of the wine bottles they had been given for the holidays. “To celebrate just being together,” he said, and poured the three of them a glass.
Ed took a sip and set his glass aside, out of Kaiya’s reach, afraid that the wine would make him even more tired than he already was. It was stupid, he thought, frustrated, that he should be so tired, it wasn’t like he did anything other than sit around for a few hours rather than lay around upstairs. He leaned his head back on the couch and stretched his leg out, propping his foot on the coffee table and letting Kaiya hang on his knee.
“She’s gonna start walking soon,” Al said about the baby, watching her sway back and forth against Ed’s knee.
“No she’s not,” Winry told him. “She’s way too young to start walking, no babies start that young. She’s only eight months old.”
“She’ll probably start walking before I do,” Ed said.
Winry shrugged. “She might,” she agreed. “I think Granny said I started walking by myself at fourteen months. How old were you?” she asked both brothers at once, looking from the younger to the older.
Ed thought for a moment. “I don’t know,” he said finally.
“You don’t know?” Winry repeated, startled at his answer.
Ed shook his head. “No, I don’t. And I don’t have anyone to ask, either.”
“Do you know how old I was, brother?” Al asked curiously, realizing that Ed was right, there wasn’t anyone around they could ask about their early childhood firsts. If they didn’t remember it, they’d likely never know.
Ed was still shaking his head. “I don’t know how old you were, Al,” he said, his mouth twisting up in a fond smile, “but you started crawling exactly like Kaiya, trying to get everywhere first, and smashing your face into the ground on the way. Only you cried about it more,” he added. “And I would come running and try to pick you up.”
Al laughed. “Maybe that’s why I cried so much, because I wanted your attention,” he told him.
“Ed, you cried a lot too,” Winry told him teasingly.
“What?” he demanded. “I did not!”
“Yes you did,” Al and Winry said in unison.
“No I didn’t,” Ed insisted.
“Whenever you didn’t get your way, you cried,” Winry said.
Ed narrowed his eyes. “That was a long time ago then,” he said stiffly. “I was too little to remember that.”
“I remember it, Brother, so you couldn’t have been that little,” Al said, smiling as he took a sip from his wine glass.
His older brother frowned, but was ultimately too tired to continue denying what was apparently true anyway. His eyes snapped up when he heard Al gasp.
“You’re bleeding,” was what he said, and Ed looked down, startled, seeing the wet redness seeping through his shirt. Winry was at his side in an instant, insisting on knowing why he didn’t say anything if his shoulder was hurting him and pulling the collar of his shirt open to dab at the cracking skin with a piece of tissue.
“My shoulder always hurts, I didn’t know I was bleeding!” he told her defensively, leaning back on the couch and letting her inspect the area around the port.
“You stay there,” she instructed, “I’ll be right back.” She left the room to retrieve a few medical supplies from her workroom downstairs.
“It’s not like I can go anywhere,” he hollered after her.
Al looked carefully at his brother, noticing how pale and tired he looked. “If you weren’t feeling well,” he admonished quietly, “you should have said something.”
“But I liked being out here with you and Winry and Kaiya like a normal person instead of laying around upstairs in that room!” he said miserably.
Winry returned with some gauze and some antibiotic cream for the irritated skin around the port. “Its too soon for you to be moving around this much,” she declared. “I shouldn’t have let you come down here, you need to be upstairs in bed. Your body is still too stressed from the trauma of nerve surgery.”
“I wasn’t moving around,” he protested, “I was just sitting here!”
Winry was looking down. “I’m sorry, Ed,” she said, remorseful. “I should have told you right away to go back to bed.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Hey, you did, remember?" he asked, trying to make his voice light. "I just didn’t listen.”
She put a hand on either side of his face, looking at him critically. “You’re exhausted. You were tired just from coming down here. You need to go to bed, it’s late anyway,” she directed.
The fact that he didn’t object made it all the more clear just how tired he was. Sighing, he reached for the arm of the couch and flinched as he tried to stand up.
“Be careful,” she warned.
“But my good shoulder is fine,” he mumbled.
“Your whole body is connected, you know that,” she told him. “You’re going to start bleeding again.” She glanced at Al, who wrapped an arm around his brother’s waist.
“I can carry you upstairs,” Al offered.
“I can get upstairs on my own!” Ed said, but his voice was lacking its characteristic stubbornness.
“I know you can,” Al said quietly. “But you don’t have to, that’s why I’m here.”
“You can’t carry me.”
“Brother, you probably weigh about half of what I do right now. Just let me carry you.”
Ed didn’t say anything, and let his younger brother heft him carefully up in his arms. Al was briefly alarmed at just how light Ed really was with only two limbs, but carried him slowly up to the bedroom and laid him gently on the bed.
“Do you want me to stay here with you?” he asked hesitantly.
Ed pulled the covers up to his chin. “Nah, I’m about to fall asleep as it is,” he said, yawning as if to prove his statement.
“Okay,” he said, lingering for a moment at the side of the bed. “Good night,” he added.
“’Night, Al,” he answered, his eyes already closed.
Winry stood at the top of the stairs in her nightgown, leaning over the railing. “Al,” she called down to him. “Come to bed, it’s almost one in the morning.”
Al was picking up Kaiya’s toys that were still strewn about the living room. “I will, lemme just finish up in here,” he said, gathering the playing cards and stacking them neatly, putting them back in their box and away in the drawer in the end table. Then he picked up the wine glass Ed had discarded earlier and downed the contents in one long, slow gulp, and put the cork back in the bottle. When he went upstairs to the bedroom Winry was already in bed, curled up on her side with her head on one pillow and the other clutched in her arms.
Al undressed quickly, putting his clothes in the hamper and diving under the covers, wrapping his arms around her and whispering in her ear, “hey you. Gimme back my pillow.”
She rolled over, swinging the pillow in an arc over her head, landing it squarely on Al’s face. “Thanks,” came his muffled response. He was asleep within minutes.
Winry lay awake, watching the shadows on her ceiling, listening to Al’s rhythmic breathing. If she listened hard enough she thought she could hear Kaiya sleeping in her crib, and Ed sleeping in the next room. “We’re really alone, Al,” she said in the darkness, even though she knew he was already asleep.
Al had forgiven her, just like Ed said he would, because Al loved her; loved them both. But even with Al at her side, she was suddenly and painfully aware of how alone she was. I don’t have anyone to ask, Ed had said earlier, and the conversation had stuck with her, eating away at the back of her mind all evening. None of them had anyone to ask. Granny was not there to tell her she shouldn’t have let Ed get out of bed so early, to tell her it was normal for him to bleed around his ports, to tell her exactly how long she needed to wait before attaching the actual automail. Neither her grandmother nor her mother was around to tell her at what age Kaiya should be learning to walk, and her heart twisted, not for the first time, knowing that her daughter would never know her grandparents.
Is this what adults did, she mused, make everything up as they went along? Is that what her parents had done? No, they had Granny to guide them along, to tell them what to expect with their daughter. She didn’t want to guess with Ed, to play things by ear. She didn’t want to do a single thing that might cause him any more pain than she already had to; she wanted to know for certain that she had done the surgery perfectly, that he would have perfectly functioning limbs in the end, but there was no certainty in anything anymore. She didn’t want to guess with her daughter, to cross her fingers and hope she was doing right. Kaiya couldn’t even speak yet, and Winry was already dreading the day she would have to answer her questions about why she has three parents when the other little kids have only two. “We’re totally alone,” she repeated. “None of us has anyone to ask.”
“What are you talking about?” Al mumbled blearily, sitting up in bed, looking at her worriedly. She hadn’t meant to wake him, and she sighed.
“Nothing,” she said finally, and he lay back down. “Go back to sleep.”
“We don’t need anyone else,” Al said, sounding defensive. “We’ve always been fine on our own.”
Winry rolled over on her side. “You’re such an Elric,” she muttered, pulling the covers tight around herself.
“Were you expecting something different?” Al asked, clearly puzzled, but after a few minutes she heard his breathing return to the slow rhythm of sleep, and continued to stare at the shadows on her ceiling.
Zwischenzeit III: Walking Forward but Standing Still
Note1: you may be wondering what was up with Ed and the books. Like, why was Ed all about the Harry Potter book (yep, that’s what the kid’s book was :P) and totally disinterested in the alchemy book? Ed is an alchemical genius, always has been. Part of it was natural talent, part of it was because he voraciously devoured every alchemy text he could get his hands on, and part of it was because he had innate information inside his mind that he had seen in his first encounter with the Gate. The way I see it, Ed’s been through those doors so many times that there isn’t a single thing about alchemy he doesn’t already know. Even if it’s the newest, most advanced theory to hit Amestrian libraries, its nothing new to him. That’s why he just puts it aside.
Note2: you may be wondering what on earth is going on in Central, and what’s up with Roy and Riza and the others, and the explosion and the red stones and the pyramids and all that. I’m getting to that part. Also the part where Al gets mad. It’s coming too, don’t worry.
Note3: this is the first chapter of this story that I actually wrote completely in one day. Usually I take forever. This one is really short compared to the last few, but I think they were too long anyway.