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Ed wakes up to silence and for a moment, his entire world ends.
It isn’t until he scrambles off the bed with a metallic thunk and trips down the stairs and out the door and off the porch and into the grass that he remembers- that he can finally take a breath and oxygen burns against heaving lungs like a match strike. Fire catches with each greedy gulp of air, burning his throat and setting his veins alight.
His breath fogs in the air, crystallizing against the night sky.
It’s fucking freezing outside.
It’s a while longer until he can actually feel the frosty soil between his bare toes, blades of dew-soaked grass tickling his ankle. He stands there and breathes and stares down at the gleaming droplets of water crawling down thin green strands. Green. Life. Cold. He’s alive. His brother- he’s not here but he’s- he’s alive. Al’s not here but he’s alive. He’s alive and he has his body back and he’s fucking fine.
“Edward?”
He jumps, ducking sideways as his heart nearly drops to the ground. “Fuck- fucking warn a guy you old hag.”
Pinako’s face didn’t change where she looked down at him from the porch. She wasn’t often soft, and she wasn’t one to pity. It’s why he listens when she beckons him up to join her. Still, he doesn’t meet her eyes as he climbs stiffly up the steps and leans against the railing, but he does take her offering of the couch throw when she offers it up to him, taking a drag from her pipe as he wraps it around his shoulders.
The fabric is scratchy against his bare arms, and it does absolutely nothing to stave the cold, “Thanks.”
“The tea didn’t help?”
The magnolia tea she’d brewed earlier that night. It sat cold and untouched on the guest room floor. “No. Sorry.”
“No need to apologize, boy. I knew it probably wouldn’t help anyway.”
Ed scoffed, “trying to poison me?”
“Your problems won’t be fixed with dry leaves and a single night’s sleep.”
“Touche.” He shifted against the wooden railing, wincing at the sharp ache throbbing along his body, magnified by the disoriented wake-up call and frigid autumn temperatures. His leg especially hurts. It’s getting more painful as time goes on. Ed tries not to think about it.
“You’ve been out here a while, we should go inside,” Pinako suggests, “Not good for the automail.”
“Is it bad. . .” He stops, swallows. For years, he’d wake up to the sharp creak of well-oiled metal, or to the soft sleep well, brother? from Al, always a steady sentry over the night. It’s been a couple years now, and Ed still hates waking up in an empty room. He’s so pathetic. Like a little kid who needs a night light to keep the monster under the bed at bay.
She turns steady eyes his way, like she knows exactly what he’s going to say and she’s just waiting for him to admit it himself. Which is absurd because what he’s about to say is absurd. He doesn’t want to say it, but this... this sin...it’s been knocking him flat on his ass when he’s not expecting it, and the guilt is exhausting. Pinako can be brutal and he needs that- he needs someone to kick him back to the ground so he knows what the fuck to do with himself.
“Sometimes... I kinda miss it. I miss the way things… were.” The admission tastes like tar on his tongue, sticks to his throat sour and blistering and vile. “I don’t want to- obviously I don’t want it- I’d fucking do it all over again. I would have gladly died for him. I don’t- I just-” He sucked a breath before he could spiral, digging his thumb into the banister. A splinter sunk deep into his flesh and he flinched back, staring down at the bead of red welling up against his thumbprint. He sucked on the pinprick to ease the swell of blood while staring out at the dark horizon, stars hidden above a thin canopy of clouds. The blood was tangy and metallic against his tongue; he sucked it from his teeth.
Pinako let him stew in his broiling thoughts a moment before she spoke.“You don’t like being alone.”
Straight shot, as always.
“No,” he rasped, “hate it.”
She nodded, and he finally met her eyes through his wild curtain of bangs. She didn’t seem to be laughing. Or angry. Or confused. She just nodded, accepting. Knowing. She sucked on her pipe, staring out at the countryside. Smoke curled around her ears as she breathed. Ed’s breath misted delicately before him.
He scowled and glared back down at the banister. His stomach roiled with emotion. Guilt, anger, loneliness. He hated himself for not just… being happy. Al is the healthiest he’s ever been! He’s going to school and eating pie and giving friends warm hugs. It’s everything they’d dreamed, and yet here Ed is, feeling sorry for himself. What a pathetic piece of shit.
A sharp THWACK to his shins shocked him from his self-inflicted misery. “What the fuck you miserable bat?!”
“Stop feeling sorry for yourself.”
“Fuck off.”
“I know you’re blaming yourself for something dumb. Leave it and come inside. My old bones are freezing.”
“Your old bones should act their fucking age,” Ed grumbled, rubbing his shin.
Pinako frowned up at him, adjusting her shawl. “You’re doing good. You can’t forget that.”
“Good with what?”
“Recovery.”
Ed swallowed, laughing nervously, “I don’t need to recover from anything. I got an entire limb back. I grew a few inches! I’m fit as a fucking fiddle.”
“You haven’t grown an inch, stop lying to people. But that’s not what I’m talking about.”
Ed eyed her wearily, clutching the blanket tighter.
“You might still have a hard time with all these changes, but don’t let that invalidate how far you’ve come. You wouldn’t tell Al that he’s not making any progress, would you?”
“Wha- no!”
“Then don’t be such a goddamned fool when it comes to yourself. He feels the same about you, you know. He sees the progress you’re making even if you are the same trigger-happy fool you were a few years ago. Some things can’t be fixed with time, unfortunately.”
“You’re a menace.”
“I’m right,” she declared, blowing smoke to the clouds, “and you just need to accept that this time. You didn’t listen when I prescribed the healing process for your initial surgeries, and look at you now.”
Ed bristled, automail leg creaking. Something in his chest squeezed painfully at the words,“I did what I had to do, you know that.”
Pinako sighed and met his burning glare, she shook her head. “I know. I wish you didn’t have to. I’m sad for you Ed. I’m sad for the things you had to lose. You didn’t deserve it. Neither of you boys did. But that’s not what I’m trying to say.”
Ed leaned heavily on the banister. He wanted to go back inside now. The cold was creeping into his leg, seeping through the port and into the scar tissue. He was starting to shake beneath the scratchy blanket. “Spit it out.”
“You can’t brute force your way through this one. There is no possible way to speed up the healing process when it comes to your mind and heart. You’re hurt, Ed. You’re hurt in ways even you can’t see. It won’t just go away, and it will take time for things to get easier. But one day it will be easy. And you’ll be able to feel peace.”
“How do you know?” He choked, “How do you know it gets easier, because it’s been years and I’m still just as fucked up- if not MORE now! How do you know I’m not just stuck like this? Maybe part of the exchange was my fucking sanity. I’ll be a freak the rest of my fucking life. It’s no wonder Al stays away.”
Pinako shook her head, “You don’t believe that.”
“I do.”
“Al isn’t ‘staying away’ because of you, Ed. He’s not staying away at all. You visit each other all the time. You write. You call. He’s the one person in the entire world who loves you unconditionally, Edward Elric and you’d best not forget that.”
Ed swallowed, biting his tongue. “Yeah, sorry. I know. I’m sorry.”
Pinako poked his foot gently with her cane, “Just give it time, Ed. You will feel better. Just like automail procedures, when it comes to the mind it must get worse before it can get better. It’s a brutal process, but you can handle it. You’ve handled far worse.”
Ed frowned out at the yard, toward the road, “Sure.”
Maybe she was right. He’s always been impatient when it came to change and progress. Maybe he could give himself the same allowance he gave Al- the same acknowledgment of small battles won. It was worth a shot, he has no option other than to sit here and rot with time, and Winry would never let him treat his automail with such neglect. He just wanted everything to be over already. Why did the smallest things bring it all back? Why did he have to relive the terrors he and Al had to live through every fucking night? It was exhausting.
He scrubbed a hand through his bangs and across his face, sighing.
Pinako let the silence draw out between them, only turning back to the door once her tobacco sizzled out. “Come on then.”
He fought for this, he’d earned this time.
Nothing to do but try.
He followed her inside and shut the door against the cold.