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Ed sits and stares at the fire in the desert sand.
So much has happened. But the thing on the forefront of his mind is…Greed's death.
He glares at the burning flames.
He knows Greed wasn't human. He was a homunculus. He had to be taken care of.
But death? By Edward's hand? His own hand?
I'm counting on you, kid…
The words echo in Ed's mind. The last Greed spoke. Before his body curled into that husk. He could've gone his entire life without seeing that.
He touches his right arm. The one he stabbed Greed with. The desert night air isn't cold enough to freeze the metal, but it still bites. Still makes him long for his missing arm.
Who is he kidding? He always does, no matter what's going on. All he wants are his and Al's bodies back.
That's all he'll let himself want.
The fire continues to crackle, and all it serves is to piss Ed off. No amount of fire will warm his arm and leg. You could make the biggest damn fire courtesy of Colonel Jackass, but Al will never feel it.
He wants to stamp it out. He's half tempted to, but it wouldn't do anything. He and Marta will be cold, and that anger will still linger.
All he can do is settle down for the night and try to sleep.
-
Edward Elric hasn't slept well in…a very long time. If he's lucky, it'll be a dream-less sleep interrupted by something or other. But tonight, he isn't so lucky. The only thing worse than a bad dream, is a happy one interrupted.
By the time he's asleep, he dreams of the Tucker house. Of poor little Nina and Alexander.
They're playing with Al. Alexander is chewing on his arm while the sweet boy tries telling him not to.
“Come on, it's metal. You'll hurt your teeth..”
Nina laughs and grabs something Edward can't see.
“Look, Alexander~! Play with this instead!”
She tries dangling what must be a dog toy in front of the massive beast, but he only gives a deep huff and continues to gnaw on Al's arm. This dog is totally uncivilized!
“Alright, you mutt! I'll teach you to treat my brother like a chew toy!”
Ed rolls up his sleeve and prepares to do something! But Alexander is finally called to action and leaps up, crushing the Fullmetal Alchemist.
Wait.
He wasn't the Fullmetal Alchemist back then. When he and Al were studying for the State Alchemist exams, that's when they were with the Tuckers.
He feels like he can't breathe.
Nina giggles and pats his head.
“Big brother got squished!”
He has to do something. This is his chance to do something! He has to warn her! Get her out of here!
“N-Nina..!” He can barely speak. “Listen to me..!”
The little girl doesn't sense the urgency he's trying to convey, and the damn dog won't move.
“Nina..! Alexander..!”
“Alright, Alexander, get off Big Brother Ed.”
Her little hands gently push against her dog's fur and the beast relents, stepping off of Ed and rushing to play with a now-human Alphonse. But Ed doesn't notice that. All he can focus on is saving Nina.
He scrambles off the ground and takes a deep breath. Almost immediately he grabs Nina's shoulders.
“C'mon, Nina, we have to get you and Alexander out of here!”
The poor girl tilts her head, not understanding.
“Are we playing a new game?”
“Uh, yeah! It's like hide-and-seek! We're gonna hide you and your dog with this really nice family! You met them before, on my birthday! The Hugheses! We're gonna hide you there, okay? Come on, before your dad gets back–”
The chimera Shou Tucker turned into appears in the doorway of the house. His voice is barely a whisper.
“Nina, come inside now. It's dinner time.”
“Okay, Daddy!”
No, he can't let this happen! He needs to save her! He can save her this time, dammit!
“Nina, no! Stay away from him!” He shields her with his body. “I won't let you hurt her this time!”
Tucker takes a step forward, then another.
“Come along, Nina.”
He has to do something! Anything, even–!
“Nina, don't look! This is for your own good!”
Ed runs forward and attacks Tucker, using his weight to knock the bigger opponent off balance. He doesn't pay attention to Nina's frightened pleas for him to stop.
On his hands and knees, kicking up at that monster. Jump up, more kicks, spin around, and then!!
He stabs through Tucker just like he did Greed. The bastard falls to the ground. It was easy.
But then Nina starts to scream and the sound pierces through him. He turns to face her.
“Nina, stop! You're safe now! He can't hurt you–!”
Her small body morphs into her chimera form and her wailing turns into a distorted howling
No! No!!
He finally looks to Alphonse, whose body is starting to disintegrate, just like it did when they tried to bring Mom back.
It's happening too fast! He runs, scrambles to grab them both, to stop this! But he can't reach them! They just keep getting further away!
“No, please, come back! I can fix this! Don't go!!”
They both start begging for him to do something. To help them. To save them. Their voices ring in his ears, loud and overwhelming. He can't make it stop! It's eating him alive!
“Big brother!”
“Brother!”
“Please!”
“Help me!”
“Big brother!”
“Brother!”
“My little man~”
His mother.
“Mom!!”
He sees her in the distance now and runs to her. Remembers hugging her when he was afraid she'd die, after news of Winry's parents’ deaths came. Remembers holding her hand as her strength left her body. Remembers sitting at her grave, refusing to leave.
He wants his mom. He wants her to ruffle his hair and call him big and strong. He wants to feel her hug and smell her old fancy perfume she only wore for special occasions. He wants her to tell him that it's okay, that she's not mad at him for everything that's happened. Everything that he's done.
For trying to bring her back.
For losing Al's body.
For burning down the house.
For becoming a dog of the military.
For not doing anything to save Nina.
For putting Winry in danger.
For killing Greed.
He finally reaches her and latches on.
“Mom, I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I'm so sorry!”
He feels her hand in his hair and the familiarity makes him sob.
But something feels wrong and he opens his eyes and that husk from the transmutation is there in his arms instead of his mother.
-
“Brother!”
Ed awakes to Al shaking him.
He's back in the desert with him and Marta, who's watching from her place across the fire.
“Alright, alright, I'm up! What is it?” He asks as he sits up.
Al relents and sits back himself.
“You started screaming...” His hollow voice is soft as always. “You were having a bad dream, weren't you?”
Ed rubs the back of his neck and yawns.
“Was I? Sure, maybe, but it wasn't that bad, Al. You didn't need to wake me up or anything.”
He tries playing it cool like always.
But Al is less than convinced.
“Then why are you crying?”
Shit.
“I just got some sand in my eyes when you were shaking me, okay? Don't worry about it..” Ed makes a point to rub his eyes, to wipe away the “sand” and his tears.
How embarrassing.
He almost tells Al to go back to sleep. The near-slip up makes the guilt spike.
“I'm fine, Al..”
He lays back down, facing away from everyone.
He's going to fix this. No matter what. He's going to make things right.
-
Munich, 1921
He's really starting to hate this.
He was careless and now his arm is busted and it's stuck just hanging limp. Now he's getting funny looks from everyone. Probably wondering what's wrong with him.
He's stuck here, that's what's wrong! Stuck in this country that doesn't make sense in this world that doesn't make sense where things are normal enough just to be uncanny and serve to make him feel worse!
Stuck without his mechanic who always knew what to do when he messed up his arm!
And he's stuck with that old bastard! Taking him with him on errands instead of leaving him alone!
At least he isn't making him go into the butcher shop.
Ed's leaning against the outside of the building, bottle in his only working hand.
So what if he's picked up some bad habits?
He keeps it close to his nose, trying his best to keep the smell of the raw meat away.
He feels like a dumb little kid hiding away out here. But it's still better than going inside. Even back home, he couldn't stand going to the butchers. Even the Curtis’. Not since that one run-in with Barry the Chopper.
After everything Ed's been through, he thinks that's still the most terrified he's ever been. Running for his life, helpless to defend himself.
Or Winry.
The stab of guilt still feels as fresh as that meat was.
It was his fault that happened to her.
It's always been his fault.
Still, he misses her. So much.
Her sweet smile, the sound of her laugh. Her obsession with automail. How she knew him better than he knew himself, sometimes.
But it’s better this way.
Even if she was his best friend. Even if he felt…something for her. He doesn't know what. Edward Elric has never been too good with those kinds of things. He still didn't know what to make of Rose saying…that.
With Winry, though…sometimes he thinks of what it'd be like to be…more.
No, he doesn't deserve to think like that. Not after everything he did to her. Not after all the harm and grief he caused her.
It's better this way. She's better off without him. She's safer without him. No matter how much she wanted to help him, he couldn't accept it. He couldn't do that to her.
To anyone.
He and Al always worked best on their own. Getting others involved just led to more people getting hurt.
Nina.
Winry.
Hughes.
Rose.
Hell, all of Liore was hurt because of them. Because of him.
Those graves that seemed to go on forever. All those people dead. And it was because of him.
Edward takes another swig.
He couldn't even stop those soldiers under Archer's command from getting killed.
And the Homunculi were hurt because of him.
Well.
Some of them.
Greed, Sloth (he'll never unpack what happened there), Lust, Wrath, and Gluttony.
“Be thou for the people”
What a joke it ended up being.
The only thing he did right was getting Al's body back. But even that was just fixing another mistake he made.
Even Al must be better off without him.
But still…he wants to go home.
He hates it here. Nothing is familiar, aside from his old man.
Different people, different towns, different countries and languages and races all in a different world that he doesn't belong in!
Another warm, harsh mouthful down the hatch.
It feels like a dream. One he can't wake up from. No matter how much Al tries to help.
How is Al doing? Is he safe? Healthy? Happy?
He should be there for Al! What if he needed to recover? What if something went wrong with the transmutation?! He should be there for his brother! Not stuck here in this nightmare!
-
Hohenheim finally leaves the shop, food in hand.
“These prices are too much. It's no wonder everyone is becoming so desperate..”
He looks over at his son, stewing over a bottle of alcohol with an expression he recognizes as a mix of regret and resentment.
“Come on, Ed. We're done.”
“Don't tell me what to do..”
But Ed still gets up from the wall and walks alongside his father back to their dwelling. He refuses to call it ‘home.’
Of course, people are still looking at him. He doesn't need their pity. Save it for someone who cares.
“Edward, I need to talk to you.”
“I'm sure you do..”
“You can't keep going on like this. It'll consume you.”
Ed doesn't respond. But Hohenheim continues.
“I know you want to find a way back. But you won't find it like this.”
He starts tuning him out. What good is another lecture going to do? He just takes another swig and keeps on walking.
Faces in the crowd pass, none that he wants to see. Everyone he cares about is back home.
A voice loud enough to pierce through the cloud of apathy in his mind rings out.
Ed looks around and sees some guy with a crowd standing around him, going on about rocket science and how it's the future.
The technology of this world is so different from home's.
But this…this is definitely intriguing.
“What's that guy going on about?”
“The theories of Hermann Oberth. He's a proponent of space travel.”
“Seriously?”
The idea sounds ridiculous, but…to Ed, it sounds plausible. And who knows what's out there? Maybe–
Maybe he could get back home that way. Who knows? It's not like anyone's ever been out there!
Hell, it's the best (and only) lead he's found the whole time he's been here. He'd have to be an idiot not to chase it!
“I'll catch up with you later, old man!”
Is all Edward says before taking off for the library he kept getting dragged to before. He's gonna need everything he can find on this topic!
If this turns out to be plausible, he'll do everything he can to see it through! And if it works? He'll be back home! Back with Al! And Winry! And everyone else, even that old hag!
He's gonna find a way home, no matter what!