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Edward wakes slowly, groggy, from a dreamless sleep, which he distantly has the sense to be thankful for.
Light filters in dimly through the curtains hanging over the dormitory window. It’s late morning, Edward registers, but he does not feel nearly rested enough for how long it appears he’d slept.
As he comes alive, he becomes aware of an unpleasant sensation blooming in his abdomen, like there’s a hand inside his gut, squeezing the organs there. He groans and throws his flesh arm over his eyes, trying to recall what he’d eaten yesterday that would upset his stomach.
He can hear his brother clanking about in the common room. His footsteps are light and slow, the creaking of metal abated by measured movements, and Edward figures he’s trying to be quiet to let him sleep in.
(He tries his best not to feel guilty about it – his brother worrying about the sound of the body he put him in. Ed sleeping the morning away while Alphonse hasn’t experienced a good night’s rest in years.)
Edward blinks the fatigue out of his eyes, pushing himself into a sitting position, the comforter falling into his lap.
He flinches at the sensation of wetness around his rear.
No.
His heart turns to stone and drops into his stomach.
God damn it!
Flinging the comforter off of him, Edward surveys the damage. His boxers are damp, sticking uncomfortably to his thighs, stained red at the seat. The bedsheets aren’t any better off.
His breath catches in his throat, shame wrapping around his frame like a wet blanket.
Suddenly, he’s all too aware of the shape of his body, the softness of his face and his too-thin vocal cords, the misplaced fat on his chest and the weight of something missing, something he’d been born without.
It isn’t the first time he’s sat in a pool of his own blood. He’s intimately familiar with the smell of iron, the feeling of pressing his hands into an oozing wound to stem the flow. He’s bled enough to last him through several lifetimes in his meager number of years, but this– this is different. This is a betrayal.
Edward should be used to feeling like a stranger in his own body, to being betrayed by his own flesh – there are bolts screwed into his bones, his nervous system hard-wired to machinery. He once felt his arm and leg unravel, his flesh, muscle, tendons, and bone forcibly ripped from his body in layers.
But this time, he knows, there’s no going back. This is beyond his control. This is simply nature taking its course, and there’s nothing he can do to stop it.
He’s vaguely aware of his legs moving, carrying him to the bathroom. He slams the door behind him, mostly by accident. He thinks he hears Alphonse’s tinny voice call out to him, but he doesn’t register what he’s said.
With his boxers around his ankles, he gets a better view of the crime scene. There’s a lot of blood.
This is only his third time waking up to – this.
He had been a late bloomer, all things considered. Winry got hers nearly four years before he did. Neither of them likes talking about it (she’s always apologetic whenever they breach the topic, like she’s afraid of hurting his feelings, and Edward wishes she didn’t have to worry about that), but her parents were doctors after all; it’s natural for her to fret.
After some time, she reasoned that it was delayed due to the toll that automail took on his body.
He had been almost hopeful it would never come, reckoning he had been thrown a bone, after all he’d been through. As if the universe had heard him, accepted that he is who he believes he is, and decided to spare him from this. He should have known he could never be so lucky.
Three months ago, it happened for the first time, and the second time the month after. There hadn’t been this much blood before.
He’s gotten blood out of his clothes plenty of times before, but something about the idea of it this time makes him sick – a feeling separate from the cramping already settling in his belly.
He unceremoniously drops the boxers in the trash.
There’s a series of gentle knocks on the bathroom door. “Brother? Is everything alright?”
Brother. Edward feels his chest constrict.
(That nagging guilt from earlier returns. What right does he have to agonize over this? At least he has a body, as divorced from it as he feels.)
“Yeah, Al, I’m good. I’m gonna take a shower. Sorry for slammin’ the door.”
“Alright.” He sounds mostly convinced, which Edward counts as a win. He’s not sure how to explain this, of all things, to his brother.
He turns the faucet on as hot as it will go, and he ignores the thing in his mirror as he undresses.
It's been a boring day at the office. Meetings. Paperwork. More meetings. Phone calls. Threatening the colonel at gunpoint to complete the aforementioned paperwork.
Riza can feel it. See it, too, in her teammates’ half-lidded eyes and eagerness to do anything but what they had been assigned to do.
“It’s a nice day outside, isn’t it?”
“So it is, Colonel. So it has been the last four times you’ve mentioned it.”
Roy sighs with a tsk, caught in his ruse. He loops the g in his signature and slaps the paper onto a steadily growing stack.
As he begrudgingly pulls out his next folder, a soft knock at the door interrupts, and Riza can almost hear the colonel’s internal celebration at the distraction.
Confusion overtakes the feeling quickly.
Their eyes land on Edward Elric, standing meekly in the doorway.
Riza has not known Edward to be anything other than loud, brash, and all in all a larger presence than his small frame (sorry, Ed) would suggest. There are a series of dents on the colonel’s office door courtesy of one automail foot that they’d given up on repairing long ago. He would barge in, loudly announcing his arrival with no small amount of crude name-calling, damn-to-hell if Mustang were busy or, god forbid, had an important guest.
But today, he seems resigned, his posture slouched, as though maybe if he hunched in on himself enough, he could make himself invisible.
Riza decides, wisely, to stamp out the beginnings of concern in the back of her mind, schooling her expression flat, aside from a polite smile as golden eyes lock in on hers.
Roy must have had a similar train of thought to her own, as he speaks with his brow furrowed and voice tight, “Fullmetal. I wasn’t expecting you today.”
“Lieutenant Hawkeye, could I speak with you?” Edward mutters, rubbing the back of his neck, hastily tacking on, “um. Privately?”
Riza and the colonel share a dubious look. She smiles pleasantly again. “Sure, Edward. Is everything alright?”
“Yes,” Edward responds almost too quickly. “I just need to talk to you about something.”
“Why didn’t you just call?” Roy asks. “You didn’t have to make the trip all the way here.”
“It’s none of your business, bastard.”
There’s the Edward they know. Riza chuckles, taking the door that he’d been white-knuckling. “Come on, Edward. Let’s step into the hallway. And sir?”
“Yes, Lieutenant?”
“Don’t slack off while I’m gone.”
“You wound me.”
“I mean it.”
Riza ensures the door clicks shut and that the two of them are a safe distance away to avoid any listeners in. (Not that she would suspect the team to do such a thing, but distantly, she can tell Edward appreciates the thought.)
She waits patiently while Ed bores a hole in the floor tile with his stare.
He opens and closes his mouth a couple of times before finding the words, “I’m bleeding.”
Alarm turns her blood cold for a moment, her gaze rapidly inspecting his frame, searching for a hidden injury or wound. It must show on her face, because his face turns red and he stammers.
“Sorry, um, I mean–” he waves his hands, his shoulders taut, before deflating and splaying a hand across his belly.
Realization strikes Riza like a wave – why Edward had come to her over anyone else.
“You’re menstruating.”
The corners of Ed’s mouth turn up like he’s just smelled something foul. His posture is tense; everything about him screaming uncomfortable.
“Yeah.”
Riza winces sympathetically. “Is this your first…?”
“...No. The first two weren’t that bad. There wasn’t this much…” Edward trails off. “I could ignore it before. I don’t think I can anymore.”
“I’m sorry, Edward,” she says, and she means it.
Admittedly, she feels a little out of her element – not necessarily with offering her comfort, but the grand task of offering comfort for something like this – for someone like Edward.
Riza lost her mother at a young age, long before she went through puberty, and her father wasn’t necessarily a man she could depend on to support her through it.
She has an embarrassing, distant memory of panicking at the sight of blood in her underwear and the tense conversation with her father afterwards. She remembers feeling mortified, recalling the way his gaze skirted hers, as though he was repulsed – by her. They never spoke about it again after that. From then on, she handled it on her own.
She had been very angry for a long time, before coming to terms with it. Angry that there was a monthly affliction to plague her, angry that the men in her life would never understand.
It wasn’t until she made friends with other girls in her young adulthood that she became able to swallow her anger. She's always struggled relating to women her age, but there's comfort in shared experiences. It’s not a pleasant experience by any means, but it’s like a mutual understanding, like singing the same off-key song.
(Maybe it had been when a hotshot private harassed her, insinuating she was just an emotional woman – that she couldn’t be trusted to make sound decisions because of her period – that her perspective shifted. Maybe she had been too emotional when she “accidentally” shot him in the foot a week later, but that’s neither here nor there.)
She can’t fathom how Edward feels.
Try as she might, there is a lot about Edward she can’t fathom.
Roy had proudly slid the stack of papers across the desk, much like a father showing off his child’s artwork – though Riza would have never made the comparison out loud.
“Look who passed the State Alchemist exam.”
“That was fast,” Riza mused, feeling like their trip to Resembool hadn’t been that long ago. She saw the young child, looking effectively dead, two limbs missing, sitting despondent in a wheelchair, in her mind’s eye. It was hard to imagine this account in front of her described the same person, in fact–
“Edward?”
“Hm?”
“Edward Elric,” she repeated, pointing to the name on the paper. “I thought her name was–”
“His,” Roy corrected pointedly, though he seemed uneasy, “He decided to enlist under a male identity.”
“Women can be in the military,” Riza deadpanned. “It isn't frowned upon.”
“It wasn’t my decision to make. I don’t know why she– he did it. But as far as anyone is concerned, Edward Elric is a man. A boy,” he corrected himself, frazzled. (Dear god, this is a child.) “I figure it has something to do with the Elrics’... past.”
“For protection? So people don’t look into what happened?”
“I don’t know,” Roy admitted. “But we have to be respectful of his decision.”
“Of course.”
She didn’t understand it, at first. Maybe it was her pride, being a woman in the military herself, but a part of her had thought Edward was making a foolish decision. He didn't need to worry about unwanted eyes prying into his and his brother’s past; Roy made sure of it. Their cover story was watertight.
That was before she started to see him in the office, once he had gotten his watch and title. Once she had gotten to know Edward, she figured there was more to it than she could ever understand.
She saw the way he beamed when he was praised for being a brilliant young man. (She remembers the brief, gutted look in his eyes when an older lieutenant referred to him as “son,” watching in real time as some broken pieces in him came together.)
Since then, she’s concluded that she doesn’t need to understand – just respect. And she respects Edward a great deal. Not just his identity, but for how incredible a kid he is.
A kid. A child, going through puberty without a proper guiding adult figure in his life.
She watches the boy in front of her curl into himself, rife with shame – this she understands.
She crosses her arms loosely across her chest, tilting her head in sympathy. “Do you need menstrual products?”
Edward hesitates. “Yes. I, um. I don’t really want to ask Al to buy them for me, but I don’t… want to be seen buying them for myself.” His voice is barely louder than a mumble at the end of his sentence. His eyes are still downcast, his fingers absent-mindedly picking at a thread on his coat.
Riza’s heart hurts. “Is that what you wanted to talk to me about?”
His nod is small. Riza feels big, knowing how delicate a thing Edward’s trust is, honored to be burdened with what’s troubling him. She knows it takes a lot of bravery to trust someone enough to put your carefully built walls down. To show your back and trust someone won’t stick a knife in it.
She also knows Edward wouldn’t have come to her if he had seen any other option.
It’s almost daunting, being entrusted to witness him at his most vulnerable, like holding glass in her shaking hands. She isn’t worried that he will break if she drops it (Edward is one of the strongest people she knows), but afraid that there’s a chance she could make him feel the way her father made her feel.
When had she gotten so soft? “Would you go to the pharmacy if I came with you?”
“You don’t have to,” Edward blurts, even though this is exactly what he’d come here for, “I just… I don’t know. You’re busy. The colonel is gonna slack off.”
“It’s really no trouble, Edward,” Riza places a hand on his shoulder, gentle, careful. “It’s nearly time for lunch anyway.”
He lets out the breath he had been holding, his shoulders sagging beneath her hand. “Thank you."
“Anytime,” she responds with an easy smile and squeezes his shoulder – his flesh shoulder, so he can feel it – before letting go. “I’ll go let the colonel know I’ll be stepping out for lunch. Meet me outside?"
He nods, offering a meek smile in return before disappearing around the corner.
The walk back to the dorms is peaceful.
Edward had gotten overwhelmed all over again at the pharmacy, at the array of products on the shelf. Shame, his familiar friend, bogging him down at the sight of the pink packaging, feeling hopelessly out of place and wretched.
Hawkeye was infinitely, mercifully patient. She explained which ones would be most absorbent, which ones would stay put during combat and other physical activity.
She had checked out for him, refusing the cenz he tried to force in her hands.
They split off at headquarters, and she had placed the neatly tied pharmacy bag in his hands with a kind smile.
He doesn’t feel the weight of what’s in the bag as much as he’d been expecting to.
He had been almost worried he wouldn’t be able to handle it – carrying physical confirmation of his shortcomings, something goading him to admit that he’s a fraud, that he’s just lying to himself. (A morbid part of him figures he’s used to it by now; his shortcomings look him in the eye every day, touch him with unfeeling metal gauntlets.)
It’s a part of why he’d put it off for so long, like maybe if he ignored it hard enough, it would go away. (And then he woke up in a pool of his own blood, so. Maybe some problems are just meant to be faced head-on.)
But despite it all, he feels … fine. Still crampy, still upset, sure. But the world hadn’t ended. Maybe the lieutenant’s kind smile had made it a little easier.
Maybe he wants to herald this bag as a token of rebellion, like a fat middle finger to Truth. He took the cards he was dealt at birth and threw them on the floor, and he would hold the bag proudly as a testament that he can’t be held down by biology.
(That’s disingenuous, though, and he knows it. Ask him about biology when the rain makes his stumps ache and he’ll sing a different tune.)
In truth, sometimes he wishes he had held onto his cards. He wishes that he could have, that they hadn’t begun to burn his hands, the longer he kept them in his grasp. As much as he aches to be a real man, he would take being a girl all the same - if he could be secure in it, if it wouldn’t kill him.
He’d tried desperately to, he really did. He’d wanted to be a good big sister, a good girl friend to Winry, a good daughter. But when he’d started to develop into a young woman, he’d felt like clawing through his skin just to get himself out.
He had feared it was a matter of life and death, and that’s a dance he’s all too familiar with. He’d had enough death in his life; he wanted to live.
As much as it agonized him at the start, the choice had been obvious.
The way the name Edward sounds when uttered in his direction, the way his heart swells in his chest when Alphonse calls him his brother – it’s a far more potent feeling than the shame. He’d built himself from the ground up, Edward Elric born from the ashes of his childhood home.
He’s proud. It is painful, in the way the bandages around his chest make his ribs ache and the way the sight of himself in the mirror sometimes brings tears to his eyes, but – he’s proud.
And maybe other people are too. And maybe that doesn’t feel too bad.
He swings the bag gently in his fingers, a carefree air about him. He climbs the stairs of the military barracks, feeling much of the earlier tension gone from his shoulders.
When he swings the door to his dorm open, he finds the common room in a state of disarray. His heart skips a beat.
He drops the bag by the door before stepping deeper into the room, over throw blankets strewn across the floor. “Al?”
A moment of silence, then rapid metal stomping as Alphonse careens into the room, looking as panicked as a suit of armor can. “Brother?!”
“What happened?” Edward closes the gap between them, yelping as Alphonse rips his coat off of him, gauntlets fretting over his frame as though to check for injuries. “What–? Are you okay?”
“Are you okay?!” Alphonse cries. “I saw– There’s blood all over your bed, Edward!”
Edward pales, and he can almost laugh. “Oh.”
“Yeah, oh! Are you injured? Do I need to call the colonel?”
“God, no,” Edward places his hands over his brother’s, trying fruitlessly to still them. “Alphonse, I’m okay, really.”
Alphonse stares him directly in the eyes, hands finally still, only for them to grasp his own in a vice grip. “Don’t lie to me, Edward.”
“I’m not! I promise, I’m really okay,” Edward returns his stare, looking into searching soulfire eyes. They stay like that for a lasting moment, and Edward aches for his brother to concede so he doesn’t have to explain.
Finally, Alphonse sags, seeming appeased enough, but still uneasy in his posture. “Where’d the blood come from then?”
Edward presses his lips together in a straight line, feeling very awkward. There’s very little the Elric brothers don’t share between them anymore, but this feels like a line Edward doesn’t want to cross.
Thankfully (god, Edward is so endlessly thankful for his brother), understanding seems to dawn on Alphonse. His grasp on Edward’s hands loosens, looking a little embarrassed. “Oh.”
“Yeah, oh,” Edward teases, with no real malice in it. “It’s okay, though. I, um. I talked to Hawkeye. I’ll be okay.”
“That’s good,” Alphonse says, squeezing his hand in silent comfort. “I’m sorry.”
They stay like that for a moment, another lingering moment with none of the tension from before, until Alphonse rears back and smacks Edward upside the head. “Don’t do that again! I was seriously worried!”
“I’m sorry!”