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It’s dropped at least ten degrees since the sun set below the skyline. It’s no issue for the military and police officers that have been swarming the bloodied warehouse since early afternoon, bundled up as they are in thick blue and black coats.
It is, however, problematic for the two children sitting in the open back of a military truck. Winry’s white sundress is dirtied in patches, where pig’s blood and chemicals and dust caught the light fabric. Riza’s already draped her overcoat around the girl and ensured that the makeshift rags tied around her wounded wrists are still securely bandaged. Winry had given her a watery, grateful smile as she’d done so, and Riza had been able to mentally check her off in her head as safe and whole.
Edward, though- he’s another problem.
He’s barely moved since Alphonse left his side to help with the investigation of the warehouse. He doesn’t even seem aware of how violently he’s shaking in the cold, dressed only in his black top, which is ragged around the wound in his shoulder.
The checklist for Edward is much longer than it is for Winry. But Riza can solve one problem. And then, perhaps, the next.
“Sir,” Riza calls as she marches up to her CO, who’s coordinating with a small group of officers about evidence gathering. “I need your coat.”
“My- what?” Mustang turns towards her, bewildered. “Why do you need my coat?”
“Because I no longer have mine,” Riza says and holds out an expectant hand.
Mustang sighs but slips out of his overcoat and gives it to her anyways. “And what happened to yours?”
Riza doesn’t bother answering. She turns on her heel and jogs back to the truck, ignoring Mustang’s bemused calls after her.
Edward barely responds when Riza pulls the black coat securely around his shoulders. He’s staring out into the distance, as he has been for the past several hours, bloodshot eyes blown wide and hollowed-out. The sirens from the police cars flash blue and red on his pallid face, turning the blood crusted on his cheek nearly black.
“Hey, Edward,” Riza crouches so that she’s at eye-level with the boy.
Nothing. He digs his metal fingers into his thigh and stares right over Riza’s head.
“Edward,” Riza repeats. “Edward, can you hear me?”
Still silence.
Hughes emerges from the warehouse with Al on his heels and claps his hands, calling out,
“Alright, folks, pack it in. If you’ve been assigned to overnight guard duty, report to Lieutenant Havoc. Otherwise, we’ll reconvene at 0700 tomorrow morning.”
The crowd murmurs a distracted assent and movement to wrap up begins to disperse throughout the area.
Riza still hasn’t managed to catch Ed’s attention when Hughes comes up behind her.
“Young lady, where were you staying? I’ll have an officer drop you off.” He asks Winry, who immediately tears up again, shaking her head.
“I-I had just gotten in, I wanted to- to surprise Ed and Al. I don’t have- I need to get a hotel-“
“Hey, alright,” Hughes’s tone softens. “Don’t worry. We’ll get you taken care of as soon as we get the Elrics back to their dorm-“
Ed’s eyes widen and redden again, as if tears are about to resume their trek down the well-worn path on his filthy cheeks, and Riza feels something in her stomach contract painfully.
It has not been lost on Riza how young the brothers are. No matter how confident Edward sounds in the office nor the esoteric alchemical knowledge he’s able to spout off at the drop of a hat, there is no disguising the baby fat still clinging to his face, the way his feet dangle from the back of the truck, too short to touch the ground.
He’s a child. And he’s clearly scared to be left alone.
“Major Hughes,” Riza interrupts. “Edward suffered a head injury. A medic informed me that he needs to be monitored tonight.”
Hughes, exhausted as he is, doesn’t catch her intended meaning. He frowns and opens his mouth, likely to say that Alphonse is perfectly capable of watching him, before Riza looks pointedly at Ed, who’s now curled in on himself, shoulders shaking. Comprehension dawns on Hughes' face.
“Ah, you’re right, Lieutenant,” he says. He sits next to Ed on the truck and claps a soft hand on his uninjured shoulder. “That’s my mistake. Ed, of course, you two will stay with me tonight.”
Ed doesn’t look up to mutter, cracked, “No, Winry needs- I need to-“
“Ms. Rockbell can come too. There’s plenty of room at the house. Really, I’m insisting,” Hughes says firmly.
Ed visibly relaxes, letting out a choked sob and leaning into Hughes’ arm.
Hughes shoots Riza a grateful look over the children’s filthy heads and begins to get them loaded into the truck.
Riza stands in the street and watches the car disappear down the dark road, away from this nightmarish scene. Though her list only seems able to grow longer, that’s another problem checked off. At least for the night.
Mustang appears at her sides, rubbing at his arms exaggeratedly. “So, no chance of me getting my coat back, huh?”
“No.” Riza glances at him. “It’s being put to a far worthier cause than keeping you warm, sir.”
Mustang chuckles dryly. “That it is, Lieutenant.”
Ed’s skin is growing a violent red under the shower’s spray, but he can’t feel the sting that ought to accompany it. Not even when he turns the hot water handle as far as it will go. He only seems able to register that the swirl of blood and dirt and chemicals dripping from his body is staining the pristine porcelain of the Hughes’ bath.
He’s so dirty. And their home is so clean. So whole. He’s messing it up, just by existing in it.
“Hey, Ed?”
Ed hears the bathroom door swing open and has clapped his hands together before he fully registers that his brother’s voice is accompanying it.
“It’s just me,” Al calls hesitantly from the other side of the curtain. “Mrs. Hughes wanted me to give you some clean clothes and a towel. Major Hughes said not to bother putting on a shirt because he needs to dress your injuries.”
Ed can’t bring himself to respond. His heart is hammering in his throat. He swears he can smell disinfectant and blood.
“Ed? Are you alright?”
He looks down. There’s a blade protruding over his automail, crackling still with alchemic energy.
“Fine.” He croaks out. “I’ll- I’ll be out in a minute.”
“Okay,” Al doesn’t sound convinced, but the bathroom door shuts again, and Ed is alone.
He sags against the shower wall and doesn’t bother stemming the tears that come bursting out.
Time passes in a series of hazy, disjointed moments that Ed can’t seem to place linearly.
Major Hughes sits him on the couch while his hair’s still wet from the shower and applies a stinging antiseptic to the cuts on his arm and shoulder. He’s bandaging them up when Ed realizes he can hear crying, and can’t tell if it Elicia, Winry, or himself.
At some point, his hair becomes braided. Ed doesn’t think he did it himself; his automail arm doesn’t have its full range of movement and he can barely move his other arm.
Colonel Hughes assures him at least five times that the butcher is behind bars and that the investigation will find him guilty, and that he’s safe now.
Every time he does, Ed can only see Nina’s remains on the wall superimposed with Winry’s terrified face, and somehow, it’s not believable.
Someone sits him down at a table and gives him a glass of water and a steaming bowl of soup. Ed only gets one glance at meat, diced and stewed, swimming in the broth, before he bolts for the bathroom and locks himself inside to dry heave over the toilet.
The bathroom door gets unlocked, and someone guides him with a gentle hand to the guest room Ed and Al usually share, and Ed vaguely registers that Al’s not sitting on the other bed. Instead, a Winry-shaped lump is under the covers, the blanket pulled over her head.
Someone helps him sit on the bed and pulls the blankets over him and puts his head on the pillow, and says, soft, as if they care, “Get some rest, Ed. Things will look better in the morning.”
And then the door shuts and encloses Ed inside a dark room, and his two options are to allow the creeping panic in his chest to reach his head or to give in to enticing nothingness that’s pulling at his eyes.
The room fades away from him before he can decide.
He bolts upright sometime later, face slick with sweat and gasping, something sharp stinging his palm and nausea churning in his stomach.
There’s nothing identifying about the darkness around him. It’s just dark, dark, dark- he could be anywhere, the warehouse-
He’s going to throw up.
Ed throws himself out of the bed- okay, there’s a bed- and feels along the walls until he finds the door and flings it open.
There’s a dim light in the hall, and Ed registers a family picture of the Hughes on the wall across from him. He’s at the Hughes’ house. Okay. Okay. His stomach, blessedly, waits until he makes it to the bathroom again before it turns itself inside-out.
When he’s done, Ed turns on the sink as hot as it will go and runs his hand underneath it, discovering only when it stings again that there are four crescent-shaped cuts in his palm from his nails.
He stares into the mirror as he does and tries to make sense of what he sees looking back at him.
It could be a person. He’s not sure. They seem more a ragged collection of pain-marks and tragedy than a human, all bruises and deep, dark under-eyes and new scars crossed over old. Ed stops trying to comprehend it.
When the stinging in his hand is enough to alert Ed that he should remove his hand from the water, he turns off the sink and flicks off the bathroom light, shutting the door behind him. The dim light in the hallway is just enough to see his way back to the bedroom, but someone hits the switch, flooding the area with the bright overhead light.
“Ed?” Someone says behind him. “What are you doing up?”
Ed startles violently and only just manages to not clap his hands together, turning to see Mrs. Hughes a few feet away from him.
She wraps her robe tighter around herself and looks at him, eyebrows furrowed.
“I,” Ed stammers, his heart stuttering in his chest like a shocked deadened engine. “I, uh- I just-“
Mrs. Hughes' eyes flick over him as if she’s taking stock of his appearance. She must not like what she finds, because she raises her eyebrows and asks, “Not feeling good?”
Ed shakes his head mutely, digging his nails back into his palm, and waits for her to tell him off.
“Hmm.” She tilts her head to the side. “Come on, sweetheart. I’ve got just the thing for you.”
She leads Ed to the dark kitchen, turning on only the lamp, and sits him down at the table while she bustles around. He waits, silent, until she places a steaming mug in front of him.
“Ginger tea,” she explains, sitting down next to him with her own mug. “I drank it all the time when I was pregnant with Elicia. Helps with nausea.”
Ed tries to smile his thanks at her, but from the way her expression contorts in return, feels he must have gotten it wrong, somehow. The tea burns all the way down after he swallows it; Ed takes another sip.
“Where’s Al?” He asks abruptly a moment later, realizing that his brother certainly would have heard him get up.
“In the nursery with Elicia. I was up feeding her when I heard you and he volunteered to take her for me. Your brother’s a real sweetheart, Ed.”
Ed feels his cheeks redden. He ducks his head. She must have heard him throwing up. Making yet another mess of her clean, safe, house. “I didn’t mean to bother you.”
“You didn’t. I wanted to make sure you were alright.” Mrs. Hughes says kindly.
“I just didn’t, I didn’t-“
“You didn’t feel good.” She finishes for him.
Ed shakes his head again.
He hears Mrs. Hughes’ mug click against the table. “It must have really scared you, what happened today.”
Ed keeps his eyes steadily trained on the tea in front of him. He can’t quite seem to get his mouth to work.
“It’s alright to be scared, you know,” Mrs. Hughes says, so matter of fact. As if Mustang hadn’t yelled at him, cold and imposing, in that dark alleyway. As if fear was allowed to exist in him any more than disloyalty to the state was.
“No,” Ed whispers. “No, I can’t- he’s gone, I can’t-“
“That doesn’t change what he did to you and Winry. What you went through would have terrified any adult, Ed. It’s okay to be scared. It really is.”
Ed’s throat feels closed, all of a sudden. He reaches for it and sucks in a pained breath when the wound on his shoulder twinges sharply with the movement. Something drips from his face into his tea, and Ed realizes with horror that it's a tear.
God, he’s so sick of crying.
“Hey, Ed-“
“It was- I thought I was going to die,” he manages to gasp out before his breath gets choked off and he doubles over, trying desperately to keep the sobs from completely wracking his body. “I thought he was going to kill me, and Winry, and I, I-“
“Oh, I know,” Mrs. Hughes hushes, and suddenly there are arms around him, warm and clean and soft and so much like Mom- “I know, Ed, honey, I’m so sorry. It’s okay. It’s going to okay.”
“No, I c-can’t, I can’t,” Ed chokes. “I can’t, I couldn’t keep my b-brother safe, or Nina, or Winry, Winry- I can’t keep anyone safe. It’s my fault. It’s all my fault. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m-“
“No, no,” Mrs. Hughes says softly. “Oh, honey, don’t apologize. It’s not your fault. None of it is your fault.”
“I knew- I knew something was off with Tucker and I didn’t, I didn’t save her, and Winry almost died too, he almost got us-“
Ed can barely breathe. Can barely see. Can barely exist in this small kitchen, so warm and safe, as if the world outside of it wasn’t imposing on him, pressing down on every square inch of skin until he finally explodes.
“No. You saved her.” Mrs. Hughes moves back, tilting his chin up with one hand so that Ed’s forced to meet her eyes through his tears. “Edward, if you don’t listen to me about anything else, listen to me about this. If you hadn’t figured out what happened to Winry and hadn’t gone after her, she would be dead. You saved Winry. You didn’t hurt her. It wasn’t your fault.”
“So why,” Ed gasps out. “why does it feel like it is?”
“I don’t know.” Mrs. Hughes wraps her arms around him again, and Ed knows it’s a weakness, but he lets her. “But it wasn’t your fault. It wasn’t.”
When Ed finally stumbles back into the guest room an hour later, eyes nearly swollen shut and clutching a mug of cold tea, he finds Winry sitting up in bed, arms wrapped tight around her knees. She gasps as he opens the door and turns away.
“Are you-“ Ed’s voice cracks. He clears his throat and tries again. “Are you okay?”
“I just didn’t know where you went,” Winry mumbles into her knees. There are thick white bandages wrapped around her wrists, Ed realizes. The chains must have broken her skin.
“Uh, to get tea.” Ed gestures with the mug. “Want some?”
Winry turns her head so she can wrinkle her nose. “What kind?”
“Ginger.”
“Okay.”
Ed sits on the edge of her bed and hands her the mug.
“Oh-“ Winry takes a sip and then screws up her face, hand flying to her mouth. “Ed, this is cold!”
“Oh, yeah, it was made like an hour ago, sorry.” Ed can’t stop the half-smile that twists his mouth.
“You could have warned me!” Winry kicks a foot under the covers at him.
“I forgot,” Ed says, and Winry rolls her eyes.
"Sure you did."
Silence falls on the room. Winry sets the tea on the bedside table and tugs her knees to her chest again, settling her head atop. “Were you scared?”
Ed considers lying for a brief second. But Winry had heard him screaming. Seen him crying. And honestly, he’s just so tired.
“Yeah,” he says finally. “Were- were you?”
“Yeah. I was scared.” Winry says quietly. “I was really, really scared.”
Ed’s throat contracts again. He glances at her. Her eyes are puffy and look as swollen as his own feel. “You should get some sleep.”
“You, too.”
Ed gets up from her bed and is about to turn off the lamp when Winry says,
“But maybe- can we leave the light on?”
It’s childish, Ed knows it is, but relief floods him. He lets go of the cord. “Yeah. ‘course we can.”
He crawls into his own bed and pulls the covers tight around him as if that will keep out the pressure contracting above him. He ignores the twinge in his shoulder to turn on his side so he can see Winry across the room, eyes already fluttering shut.
“Hey, Ed,” Winry calls, voice slurring with sleep.
“Yeah?”
“I’m really glad you’re safe.”
“I’m really glad you’re safe, too.”
Winry’s breathing evens out not long after that, and Ed pulls his knees to his chest and lets the sound tide him over into sleep once again.