Chapter Text
Despite Edward’s year-long sabbatical after Ishval, Mustang’s office is no less disorganised than the last time he was here. There’s still one of Ed’s old alchemy notebooks crammed into his bookshelf.
“You know, Hawkeye said you might be coming but I didn’t think you’d actually show up,” Mustang says from behind his desk. His shirtsleeves are rolled up and there are coffee stains on the notes he’s reading through.
Ed shrugs. “Last time I was here, you told me to, oh what was it? Piss off and not come back till I figured out how to transmute my head out of my ass?”
Mustang raises an eyebrow. So did you?
“I’m sorry about— about Hughes. Maes. He was a good man,” Ed swallows around the words. Four words that lead him back to square one. Completion is death just may kill Mustang.
The first time Ed got drunk was a kindness from Pinako when she was trying to prevent him from passing out from automail surgery. The second was in Ishval with Mustang and Hawkeye to celebrate a cease-fire. It lasted three weeks. Edward had been there for a month and the pictures of Al and Winry had already gotten his bloody fingerprints on them. Drink up, kid, we’re celebrating tonight, Mustang had said.
“Edward,” Mustang says, slowly and carefully, “after he could not get through to me, Hughes called a number with a Xingese region code. Would you know anything about that?”
Only Mustang and Alphonse know why Edward can’t look at corpses. You can’t resign, they won’t let you, Elric. You need to go on leave. Do you understand me?
“Nope,” Ed says in Amestrian. Then, in mangled Xingese adds, “Commanding Officer.”
Three prayers. Pick any three points, as long as they don’t line up into collinearity, you can construct a circle from them. Construct a circle, you create industry, agriculture, and the magic of alchemy.
“Get out.”
Ed doesn’t move. “I did hear, though, that there was a skirmish at Briggs with Drachma. General Armstrong won.” Information—the toll through. “With major casualties. Lots of bloodshed.”
Mustang leans forwards, knuckles white and Xingese flat, “Get out, Elric. Stop wasting my time.”
Edward hesitates on knocking for a long enough moment that the door creaks inwards. A foreign familiar face hisses at him. Order of business now that he’s back in Central: go needle Greed, then, go needle Mustang.
“Why drag me here?” Greed says with Ling Yao’s face. Edward scowls at him and pushes his way in.
They’re in the abandoned skeleton of a glass factory on the outskirts of Central. Back before they had alchemists to create miles and miles and miles of railroad, Central was a bustling industrial centre. These days, the factories and their toxic refuse is relegated to the outer edges of Central. Let the disease fester out of sight.
“Oh I just wanted to see how my favourite freak-of-nature friend-stealing Homunculus was,” Ed says and slams the door closed.
“What crawled up your ass and died?” Greed crosses his arms. He’s got Ling’s straight-backed royal posture. Keep them entangled long enough and you’ll transfer information involuntarily.
“You want more than whatever shit deal Father is offering you,” Ed cuts. “Completion is death.”
Greed freezes. “Who told you that phrase?”
A good man, Ed thinks. A dead man.
“You wanna become King,” Ed says. It’s a gamble.
Greed snarls at him, claws at Ed’s throat. “You don’t know anything you’re talking about.”
Ed smells Winry’s apple pie and automail workshop. He blinks and it’s gone.
“Ling,” Ed says carefully, “can you call off Greed before he kills me and you both miss out on the information I’m risking my damn life to share?”
Greed’s nose twitches before his hand slowly bleeds to flesh. Greed says, “What the fuck, kid? You think I’d want to be the King?”
Ed rolls his eyes. “Jeez. Why’re you always so dramatic?”
“I don’t harm my possessions,” Greed says. He lets go of Ed.
Here are the four final words Hughes left him: Completion is death… Bradley—
“So?” Greed says.
“We— I need your help,” Ed says. “But you already knew that when I said I needed to meet you. But you wanna know what’s in it for you.
Greed throws his head back and laughs at that. “Look, kid, I’ve got all the women—and men, believe me—that I could want. I’m immortal. I’m going to have the fucking world. What else could I want?”
“It’s what you want more than anything.”
Greed tilts his head. “What?”
“Freedom.” Ed snaps his fingers and a misshapen circle forms on the floor between them. “Agency.” It subdivides, until it becomes the transmutation circle map of Amestris.
“Your Father will consume everything and everyone. God willing, he will find the Truth uglier than he expects,” Ed says. He doesn’t need to snap his fingers. A geometry forms across the transmutation circle. Who needs a lemniscate when the humble square will do?
“So you’re gonna create an alkahestric counter-circle? Thanks for telling me,” Greed drawls. “I’ll be sure to pass him a word about your plans at the next family dinner.”
“Sure. He’ll kill you because he’ll need the excess souls and you’re a disloyal soldier—don’t make a bitch face at me like that. He’ll dissolve you and this time you’ll die for real. Poof—freedom gone.” Ed shrugs. “I’m not creating a counter circle. I need a Philosopher’s Stone for another plan. You want to do whatever it is you wanna do.”
Transmutation flows circularly. If you’re stupid enough to want to do it squarely, you need a steady enough flow of information to prevent blockage. Same principle as sewage pipes, honestly.
“How promising.” Greed rolls his eyes. “Fine.”
Ed relaxes a fraction. Then, the floor explodes, hitting Greed straight in the gut.
“Elric, 10. Yao, 7,” Ed calls out over the sound of Greed spewing curses.
Ed catches Al as he’s passing through a mining town north of Dublith to do a custom repair job. Ed wants to give the Mrs. Curtis a wide berth. Al’s going to needle him into visiting. There are clear dividers in Ed’s personal history. Before and after mom. Before and after human transmutation. Before and after Ishval. This is before Ishval.
But for now, they are two boys sitting by the pier throwing stones into the river.
“You’re cheating again, brother,” Al says as Ed’s stone skips six times before sinking.
“We should go to the casino again,” Ed says. Al had insisted on coming with him for his State alchemist exam. Neither of them expected Ed to pass. So, that night, Ed and Al proceeded to clear every casino in Central they could get their hands on. Ed’s alchemy has some benefits.
“Brother,” Al says slowly, “we are banned from half the casinos in Central.”
Ed sighs. “So anyways. How’s your repair thing going?”
“There’s… not much I can do. He’s an old man with nerve damage. I can’t do anything for automail rejection syndrome,” Al says.
Ed stays quiet. I found it—the truth within the truth. What a philosopher’s stone really is made out of.
Al looks strangely at Ed. “I can tell what you’re thinking.”
“Sorry.” Ed tosses a stone and watches the sunlight scatter. “I know you’d never use it.”
Would you? Al had asked. Ed wouldn’t. There are some things you can’t come back from; the toll is too high. Besides, getting Al’s body back is the goal.
“I was thinking about it,” Al starts in that faux-casual tone. “I, uh, I think I get why human transmutation exists.”
Yes, to punish children stupid enough to play god. Al continues. “I think you need it for alchemy to work—as a scientific field or law.”
“Huh?” Ed says. I’m sorry about all the medical bills, Al thinks.
“I think there’s probably something deeper than Equivalent Exchange. I mean, that’s just a law alchemists came up with, right? But there’s probably a truth within that. Something we can’t measure yet. Like..”
“Like what a human soul is,” Ed finishes. “So if you screw with human transmutation, you screw with Equivalent Exchange.”
A cracked Gate. A thread disappearing in the sky. Pull on it, and the Truth of Edward Elric might just unravel.
After they pried the bullet out of Edward and stitched him up till he could walk without sedatives, they paraded him. Luckily nothing as fancy as the Hero of Ishval’s treatment. That comes after the war—they drag Roy Mustang with his signature gloves up and down the country. No. This is months before the end of the war.
The ceiling fan spins slowly. The group of East University students listen as Ed perches on his stepstool and scratches equations on the chalkboard. He’s fifteen and the youngest in the room.
Ed faces the group. It’s a cramped room and his scar tissue is irritated. And yet, this moment is a bright spot in the pain after Ishval. He says, “Some say that the double-slit experiment and the collapsing of the wave equation prove existence of God.”
Ed pulls out a dice from his pocket and tosses it. “I didn’t pick up a tape measure to figure out how fast I threw that. But, I can be pretty damn sure that there’s a number. It doesn’t matter if I know it or not, it exists. But when you get down really small—smaller than atoms—you reach a point at which you can’t know if a measurement exists. At least, science can’t know yet. Therefore, God must be running the show, right?”
A long-faced girl raises her hand. “So you, The Invulnerable alchemist, are trying to show that God is playing dice?”
That gets a grin from him. Isn’t life one big game of chance. “My official title always was Fullmetal. Though, I’m more a scientist than alchemist these days.”
Ed steps off the stool and puts his palms together. “Can anyone tell me what Equivalent Exchange is?”
“Uhhh, no mass can be created or destroyed. Only changed? You can’t transmute from nothing.” A reedy boy with a Northern accent says.
Ed clicks his tongue. “Almost.”
He snaps his fingers and the wooden floor beneath him deconstructs and transmutes into a spear. The entire room bursts into whispers. He just might be having fun with this.
“You didn’t use a transmutation circle—drawn or with your hands,” the long-faced girl says.
Ed twirls the spear in his hands. “What is mass?”
“The amount of matter in an object!” someone shouts.
The military wants him to give a show. Fine. He’ll give a show.
“What’s mass?” Ed says, louder now.
What is weight? What is the anchor that is going to sink you? The noose around Edward’s neck. Around Alphonse’s. Around Izumi Curtis’.
“It’s information. Information on how the atoms are arranged. Their quarks,” Ed says. “Information can never be created or destroyed. It’s a closed loop. You cannot partially destroy information, either.”
Now I’d love to leave you on the question of what the densest form of information is but I’ll be court-martialled, Ed thinks. Worse, someone else will pay the toll.
He spreads his arms. “I’d argue God does not play dice, if there is one. But you all need to figure out whatever that information means to you.”
They’ve got him hooked on the good stuff in the hospital. He can tell because Hawkeye keeps making pained expressions at his jokes. Considering she dragged him all the way from Ishval to Central for him, he might as well repay her with free entertainment.
“And he was saying—it’s gonna cost you an arm and a leg, kid,” Ed makes his voice low and growly. “And I just went—last time I paid an arm and a leg, I saw god. That better be the best sandwich of my life you’re selling.”
Hawkeye pinches her nose. “Fullmetal, not to interrupt your… flow. But there’s a call for you from Resembool.”
Ed squints. “Did you tell them?”
Hawkeye levels him with a stare. Ed shrugs and leans on Hawkeye as he hobbles over to the phone booths.
“Hello?” Ed says. “Is this—”
“EDWARD ELRIC,” Winry booms, “YOU DON’T WRITE FOR MONTHS. NO CALLS. AND THEN YOU GET SHOT?”
Ed keeps the phone a safe distance from himself.
“—I should just kill you myself,” Winry finishes. There’s a second voice behind her. “Hey! Let me have the phone.”
“Al?” Ed says cautiously. “How are you?”
“I’ve got a terrible stomach-ache and it feels like my appendix just burst,” Al says. Winry says in the background, “Draaama queen.”
It should warm him—all of them being here. It just makes the dullness in his heart thud.
There’s a third voice in the background. Granny? “Edward, do you need us to come to Central?”
“No,” Ed says. He glances at Hawkeye who is doing a great job of pretending not to listen. “I, uh. Umm, I’m coming home. For good, this time.”
The air up in the mountains tastes sweeter. Perhaps it’s the fact that Ed’s been running around Xing for months with Hohenheim and the Changs and the Yao boy. Or perhaps it’s the fist Winry greets him with when he knocks on the door.
“You asshole,” she says and reaches for her wrench for round two. It soothes the ache in Ed’s soul. “You couldn’t call back for three months and you have the audacity to show up home?”
Ed rubs his face gingerly. “You shouldn’t worry so much about me, Winry”
“Oh thanks, like I needed a second Alphonse here.” She puts her hands on her hips. There’s grease smeared over her fingers and some stuck on her cheek. “Did you get a tan?”
Ed rolls his eyes. “How’s Al?”
“I’m in the workshop!” Al shouts from inside the house.
“Today’s a better day. Don’t… you know,” Winry says quietly. Ed catches her stern gaze before he goes in. She always thinks they’re both more fragile than they are.
The house smells of Pinako’s meat pie and Al’s alchemy. Up here in the mountains, in his adopted family’s home, tragedy is absurd. Until, of course, he walks up the hill to his mother’s twin graves.
“Brother!” Al stands from the automail leg he’s engraving and gives Ed a hug. Ed has sinned far beyond the point of forgiveness, even before Ishval. Al’s warm smile and calloused fingers are a price he refuses to regret.
“How’s your foot?” Ed says after they’ve both sat down. There are all sorts of metals and alloys spread across the room. If he flexes his fingers, he can almost feel them.
Al rolls up his pant leg. The scarring around his automail foot has long since healed, but…
“It’s still… off. There aren’t that many nerves left to properly connect to. Winry did a great job and I don’t have to use the cane every day.” Al shrugs. He’s really got mom’s nose and smile according to Winry and Pinako. I need to stop him from dying, Ed thinks. It’s a thought as dog-eared as his photograph of Winry and Al.
“How was Xing?” Al asks.
Ed exhales slowly. He’s thought about this moment the last three months. “alkahestry doesn’t have the magic solution we hoped it would. But… Al. I have to tell you something. I don’t think we brought back… but I think you can bring back someone from the dead.”
Al whitens and just barely grabs the trash bin before retching.
He doesn’t remember where the idea to write the first letter comes from. He’s in his dad’s study. It still smells like him—candlewax, parchment and chalk.
He tries using one of his dad’s fancy ink pens but it bleeds through the paper thrice. He tries, a fourth time: Hi papa, I wanted to tell you about the alchemy I’ve been learning…
Ed is covered in blood as the— the thing writhes in front of him. Holyfuck fuck fuckfuckfuck—
Mom, he tries saying but the blood loss is making him dizzy. He draws three noncollinear points over his heart and a circle. The binding sigil. Then, for the second time, he joins his hands in prayer.
“Al—” he moans. His leg.
“Brother?” His own voice responds. Al? he thinks. Ed? his mind responds.
Ed can die here. He has been prepared to, since his father left. Since mother died. Since Al started coughing up blood as well. But Al, Al’s a price he will never pay.
He has no hand to complete this prayer. Edward smears his fingers in blood and presses them to the earth. All is one. None is king.
“Please—” Ed rasps. The pain is gone. There is no blood. There is the cracked obelisk gate before him and the brutal Truth behind him.
“My, my. Back so soon?” the Truth croons. Truth. God. The World. King.
Ed crawls until he sees the horrible Truth before him. He collapses. “Please, my brother—I need to save him. He can’t die with me.”
“Is that so, alchemist? You have been here twice. What is the toll you will pay this time?”
Edward shudders and sobs. He can be brave. He can be brave for Alphonse. “You—you want the truth. That’s why you showed me all of that. You—it was paying me back.”
“But— “ Edward coughs. His body must be dying. “But—entropy ruins it. The truth gets lost. So the less entropic the more… Oh shit.”
“Very good! Will you pay?” the Truth says. Ed can’t feel his hands. His heart’s in his ears. I’m so sorry, Mom. I loved you so much. Please forgive me. It was my fault, not Alphonse’s, he thinks.
“Yes.” It was never a question.
“Don’t forget to close the door on your way out; lest truth leaks out,” Truth’s voice is already fading. The decoded information behind the gate floods his eyes. He blinks and—
“Al?” Ed whispers. His stumps throb. His head is going to explode.
“Brother?!” Al shouts. “Stay still, I’m calling the Rockbells.”
“Sorry about the cold. It’s always drafty in here,” Hawkeye says as she turns the dial on the ancient radiator. Ed says nothing. There are four locks on the door. At least two guns within sight and one hidden within the cupboard. Some kind of strange iron alloy.
“Thanks for the tea,” he says and crosses his legs. There’s a storm pulling in tonight.
Hawkeye sits across from him and looks out the window. “You can stay if you need to.”
“Nah. I have an overnight train to Resembool.”
Hawkeye shifts. She’s decent enough not to ask about Al, though he can tell she wants to. That’s what Ishval will buy you—Amestris’ finest sniper’s friendship and a bullet to the gut.
“I heard the last time you were here you got into an argument with the Colonel.” She taps her finger on the table.
“Yeah, well,” Ed trails off. On cold evenings like this, his automail ports and stomach ache.
There are bags under her eyes. It’s been months since his fight with Mustang. Three truths nested inside of each other—there’s a fourth one just barely out of grasp.
“Do you think justice is out there?” Ed says. Perhaps the Truth is justice.
Hawkeye’s quiet for a long moment. “No. I think justice has no space in the natural world. We have to create it, if we want it.”
He’s heard Mustang’s plans for trials for what happened in Ishval. But will one man hold the system to account? None of them can atone for what they’ve done. Infinite edges snapping into a defined path. Clean mathematics, bloody history.
“Sometimes I think the truth’s gone to shit,” Ed says.Like a leaky faucet.
“What truth?” Hawkeye snorts. “The military keeps hiding things. The press keeps hiding things. Nothing’s clear anymore.”
“I need to tell you something,” Ed says. Al’s always been the braver one. “Maes Hughes called me before he died. He told me four words.”
Hawkeye tenses. “What were they?”
“You can’t go back, though,” Ed says. Worse, you’ll forget to close the door on your way out. “I wasn’t gonna tell you guys. But… hell. I don’t know if anything we do is gonna work.” Or if I make it out alive. “So I might as well tell you.”
“Tell me,” Hawkeye says. Completion is death. Bradley.
So he does. Her fingers tremble as he unfolds the truth.
“That’s why you told the Colonel about Olivier. That’s why you need help in the north,” Hawkeye says. “It won’t hold out, you know.”
“I know,” Ed says. “If it comes to it, will you…?”
Hawkeye sighs. “I’ve done it before and I’ll do it again if I have to.”
Ed nods sharply. His work here is done, then. He goes to put on his coat. “I should get going then.”
Hawkeye gets up to see him out. She hesitates then straightens out the lapels of his coat. “Take care of yourself, Fullmetal.”
Once Al finishes retching, they get straight to work. They dig, even as the rain soaks them to core. Even as Al stumbles and coughs. The work must be done.
“It wasn’t her,” Ed says. He falls to his knees. His heart aches and he knows Alphonse feels it too.
“She didn’t suffer,” Al says. “Brother, we didn’t make mom suffer.”
“It’s the gap. It’s the gap between the maths and the physics,” Ed gets out. Thunder booms around him. “You can bring the dead back. But the information is so disorganised… “
“Hey.” Al puts a hand on Ed’s shoulder. “We need to get inside.”
He nearly sacrificed his brother for nothing. Ed lets Al guide him back to the Rockbell’s. He sacrified an arm. They go slow as Al hobbles on his cane. He sacrificed his leg. Al stumbles in the mud and Ed has to steady him. He even sacrificed his fucking ability to—
“Edward, dear?” Pinako says gently across the dinner table. “You haven’t touched your pie.”
“Sorry,” Ed mumbles. Winry and Al shoot glances his way.
He stands up. “Sorry, I’ve had a long day of travelling. I’m going to bed now.”
He makes his way up to the guest room. It’s been Al’s room for years at this point but they share it when Ed comes to visit. Ed collapses on the bed. There are sketches and notes and all the stupid postcards Edward has sent Al over the years. He puts his face in his hands. Winry’s gonna be so mad he got snot between his automail fingers.
Mathematics is a maze where the walls get higher, until intuition is of no use. You can follow information from deconstruction to construction, assuming you make the correct logical choice at each turn. Maths affords you the kindness of perfect information. Sure, mathematics says, you can bring your dead mother back to life. Physics, well, the real world is where it gets messy. Neither physics nor alchemy afford you the kindness of a complete set of information. You don’t even have the guarantee that you can measure all the quantities you need.
The door swings open. “Hey.”
“Leave me alone Al,” Ed says, face still in his hands. He can’t make himself get up and face Al.
He tried to pull his mom’s soul back. Tried to pull back every half-forgotten particle into the pattern reflective of mother. He failed. Perhaps he forgot a scrap of information. Perhaps he forgot the whole soul.
“Move over,” Al pushes Ed to the other side of the bed.
“Go away,” Ed says. And now, he’s lost his mother in all ways he could.
“She was my mom too. It wasn’t just your choice,” Al says.
Ed stills. “You don’t have to take the blame for me.”
And perhaps if Ed had manage to line up the arrays better, calculate the entropy, perhaps Mom would be alive and Al wouldn’t be sick.
“Brother, are you out of your mind?” Al kicks Ed with his metal foot, no less. “No, really.”
Ed turns his face to see Al. His face is set in annoyed and the same determined frown as that day when he saved Ed. Ed can still pretend they’re five and Al had a nightmare and the only person who could make him feel safe is his big brother.
“I— I messed up the calculations,” Ed says. He’s getting the pillow wet.
Al sighs. “It doesn’t matter now. That door is closed. We’re not going back there anymore.”
“No,” Ed says. “We burned it down.”
Al is quiet for a moment. He looks away. “You never told me what you gave to get my body back.”
Ed presses his lips together. “It was worth it to me. What it is doesn’t matter. What matters is that you’re here.”
“I hate this. You trying to protect me. Winry, yeah, I get it. But c’mon Ed.” Al looks back at Ed. “I know about the transmutation circle under Amestris. The Homunculi.”
Ed stiffens. “What? How—”
“I get much more bleed-through from your end than you do from mine.” Al says. Then, a little meanly, “You’re entangled with my soul after all.”
“I’m sorry. I was trying to…” Ed sighs. “Will you take the family and leave, please? I can get you through to Xing.”
Al kicks Ed again. “No way I’m leaving. Do you think it’s just—it’s not easy to leave everything. I’m out of my head half the time.”
Ed punches Al back. “Can you just be reasonable for once?”
“Stop that. Stop deciding—” Al plays dirty and pulls on Ed’s hair “—I’m fragile. I can make my choices.”
Ed shoves Al. And then— thud. They both fall onto the floor.
“Get off me,” Al says as Ed bites his arm. Ed bites with more gusto. “You know what’s pissing me off? You gave up your body for mine and somehow decided that means my life belongs to you.”
Ed’s face turns red with horror-guilt-shame. No it’s—Ed’s life belongs to Al. That’s all the opportunity Al needs to shove his face away.
“You can’t survive me. You—I need you to survive with me, brother,” Al says.
“Alphonse—” Ed begins.
The door slams open.
“What the hell are you two idiots doing?” Winry storms in. “Why are you on the floor?”
“Stay out of this Winry,” Ed grits out.
Winry crosses the room in three quick steps and pulls Ed off by his braid. Ed yelps. “Oi blondie.”
“You know what my problem is? I can’t focus on fixing automail because it’s loud upstairs and I’ve got three pieces I need to finish by tomorrow morning. I can’t focus because you’re so emotionally constipated and I’m worried about you,” Winry says, eyes glistening. “And you’re gonna just leave again and I’m scared this time someone will put a bullet through your head and I won’t know till months later. All because you had some half-brained solo mission. So can you please just stop?”
Ed crosses his arms. “I hate you both.”
“Don’t make me beat you up again, brother,” Al says, still breathing a little hard and promising violence.
“Edward, fourty-four. Alphonse, hundred and twenty one,” Winry says with a smile. “Hey, we’ve got some chocolate cake downstairs. Granny’s worried about you too. And you have to stick around till the weekend ‘cause there’s the annual sheep festival coming up.”
Ed rolls his eyes but finds himself smiling. If he could have at least another ten years of this.
He’s just past the ruins of Xerxes when he dismounts his horse. If he keeps riding any longer, the stitches on his abdomen are going to split and start bleeding. Well. At least it’s not Ishval. His stomach churns.
Ed closes his eyes. Calloused hands, a little smaller than his, mark three points on automail and draw a transmutation circle.
He opens his eyes. There’s a hooded stranger filling up his waterskin by the oasis. How far to Xing?
“Hello,” Ed calls out first in Amestrian then his broken Xingese. Who even needs a tonal language?
The strangers jerks upright, hood falling off.
“Van Hohenheim?” Ed says, finding only ash in the name.
“Edward?” Hohenheim says. All these years later, his father hasn’t aged a day. Ed can’t remember what mom looked like.
“Why are you here?” Ed says. His grip on the reigns tightens. An entire decade alone.
“I’m going to Xing for research. Why are you here? Shouldn’t you be in school?” Hohenheim says. Then pauses. “How is Trisha?”
“Dead,” Ed spits out. He wrote twenty eight letters to his father who couldn’t be bothered to respond to a single one. “Al’s sick now.”
Hohenheim’s expression crumples. “I— “
“You—” Ed steps forward, winds his arm, and punches Hohenheim across the jaw. He stumbles back. “Don’t get to feel sad about it when you left us.”
Hohenheim nurses his face. “Edward, your arm is automail.”
Ed works his jaw. “Al and I almost died trying to bring mom back.”
“Trisha… So you’ve seen the Truth,” Hohenheim says, voice strangled. Why does he still have that stupid pained expression on his face? “What did you feed it?”
“An arm and a leg.” Ed pulls his shirt back, until the cut above his heart is visible. The transmutation circle is just as fresh as the day he carved it. “And a piece of myself.”
“You left.” Ed lets go of his shirt and turns towards his horse. “They made me a dog and all I didn’t even get to pick my leash. I had to pay all of Alphonse’s medical bills.”
“Alphonse is sick?” Hohenheim says.
“I’m going to learn alkahestry to heal him,” Ed says. He pulls up his hood.
“Let me teach you,” Hohenheim says and Ed laughs at that. No chance.
Ed makes his morning coffee and carries his new topology textbook out to the porch, papers and notes sticking out from the corners. It’s a beautiful morning. The rain’s coming in like a gently blanket over the hills. Winry’s dangerous—she’ll cry, give Ed chocolate cake, and coerce him into staying a week longer than he wanted to.
“Oh hey,” Al says. “I didn’t think I’d find you up this early.”
“Yeah, couldn’t sleep. Figured I might as well read,” Ed says. “I was thinking about dad and Xing.”
Al hums. “You never really talk about mom.”
Ed sets down his textbook. “It’s… complicated. I have a hard time talking about her.”
Al looks at him for a long moment. Ed’s skin crawls like Al’s going to ask a horrible, perceptive question. Ed’s grief about his mother is the difference between zero and the null set. You can climb your way up—or down—to another value from zero. But the null set is empty, was empty, and will forever remain empty. It’s defined by being undefinably empty. Lack. Grief.
Mercifully, Al shakes his head. “So, dad and Xing. Your grand plan?”
“It’s never fun when you ruin the surprise,” Ed pouts.
“Alphonse, hundred and twenty three,” Al says. He pulls a paper Ed’s stuck in the corner of his textbook.
“So this is your grand plan.” Al holds up a paper with ‘0 = 1 -1’.
“Sure, yeah.” Ed sits up. “Information cannot be created or destroyed—only transmuted. So if this guy wants to create a portal to the Truth, we need something that will eat up that mass of information. One minus one is zero. Circle. So, Hohenheim and Mei—the Xingese girl—are working on creating an alkahestric counter-circle.”
“Yeah. But I did the numbers. The maths is pretty clean—I mean look at it. But if there’s a slight miscalculation, then with the physics…” Al trails off. “Best case, you create the smallest ever black hole that immediately collapses and takes out Amestris and half of Drachma. Worst case, we’re all stuck in the event horizon.”
Nothing escapes a black hole. Where does Truth sit? Ed almost rolls his eyes at the irony.
Ed waves a metal hand. “Don’t worry, I’ve got a contingency plan.”
If you can find the truth within the truth, you can certainly create plans within plans.
Al frowns. “Does it have something to do with a square? I thought alchemy and alkahestry both need circles for transmutation to happen?”
How do you invert a toll?
It’s Hawkeye who finds him half-delirious in an Ishvalan cell in a building halfway bombed to hell. She barks something to him.
“Mom…?” Ed whispers. His arm won’t stop burning. They pulled out his automail arm thinking it would stop him from performing alchemy. It has been a long time since Ed needed to put his hands together in prayer. The phantom pains just might kill him first.
“Listen to me, Edward. We’re going to get you out of here now. I need you to stay awake for me,” Hawkeye snaps. Her eyes linger at the cut above his heart.
“Hawkeye,” Ed says hoarsely. They’re never leaving this hell and the scar they’ve left on this earth. “Get me to a doctor and then send me right back out?”
Hawkeye looks at him for a long moment. “You’re not dying here, Ed.”
“I need to get out,” Ed gasps. The nerves in his arm are agony. He looks Hawkeye in the eye. “You know they’re not gonna let me go unless I’m not combat-ready.”
“Edward,” Hawkeye hisses, hands steady on her gun. Click. The safety’s off.
“Riza,” Ed says. He closes his eyes. It won’t kill him at least. “Thank you.”
The impact hurts less than opening the gate.
It’s the third night of travelling in silence that Hohenheim speaks. The campfire burns low against the desert chill.
“I have a suspicion something terrible will happen in Amestris and that I must contain it,” Hohenheim says, staring into the fire.
“Another Ishval?” Ed says. The cold desert wind cuts him down to the bone.
“Ishval is no comparison to the bloodshed.” Hohenheim shakes his head. “Do you know why alchemy starts with a circle?”
“All is one.” Ed wants to curse out Hohenheim but he’ll humour him in this moment.
“Yes. Compactness, closedness, infinity” Hohenheim says. “But there’s a way to disrupt it.”
“Okay. So destroy a transmutation circle by creating a counter-flow?” Ed says. Clever idea. But there’s a gap. alchemy destroys and then creates again. There’s an immeasurably small gap between destruction turning to creation. The kind of gap that mother is forever lost in. The kind of gap that means you need someone to keep the gate open so no information is lost.
“It’s got a high chance of not working.” Ed shakes his head.
“How many times did you open the gate, Edward?” Hohenheim says and Ed’s pissed at the lack of judgement. Screw him. It’s not like Hohenheim left a piece of himself behind the ajar Gate.
“Don’t be more of an asshole than you need to, Hohenheim,” Ed says. Hohenheim purses his lips but stays silent.
A one-in-a-life gap between destruction and creation. You could slip the truth right in and no one would notice. Hell. Maybe you could pull out missing information; a foot, even. Maybe even more…
“Who’s behind whatever this evil plan is?” Ed says. Two circles overlapping the shape of Amestris. But what about a square?
“I had a brother. A blood brother,” Hohenheim says, eyes downcast. “He gave me this body, though I didn’t ask for it.”
Ed’s stomach falls. Al. “I…”
Hohenheim sits up. “There’s someone coming from behind us.”
Ed jerks upright, automail at the ready.
“Hello-o-o,” a lilting voice calls from up the dune. “We smelled you had good food! Care to share, tiny man?”
Ed groans as he makes acquaintance with Ling Yao and his entourage.
“Exciting. Breaking and entering,” Greed says. “Why are we breaking and entering into this random house in the countryside?”
The family’s gone to Rush Valley during the busy season. The end of the world: weeks away. The floorboards creak as Ed climbs the stairs, past the workshop. Winry’s half is organised chaos. Al’s corner is sorted from top to bottom. If he blinks, he can see them bickering over the transmutability of nickel. Then, Ed will go in and say something stupid. Winry will seethe. Al will respond with an unassuming pun that makes them all laugh.
“We’re breaking and entering for fun,” he calls out after Greed.
“You’re never just fun,” Greed shoots back and follows Ed up the stairs.
Ed goes into Al’s room and starts sorting through the box of his papers. Legal documents. Medical notes from his doctor. Automail care instructions he never bothers with. And then, ah, there is letter twenty nine.
“This one’s comfortable. Nice view of the mountains, too.” Ling goes and sits on the bed. “We’re an hour from the second vertex. Might as well stay here and leave in the morning.”
The letters began with ‘papa’ then ‘hey dad’ then ‘dear father’ then ‘hello?’ and then ‘answer me’ and then ‘Hohenheim. there was a funeral. Answer me’. All twenty eight of them that Edward sent out.
“What’s that?” Ling says and comes to Ed.
“An unsent declaration of war,” Ed murmurs. He wrote the twenty-ninth in the week after he returned from Ishval. The physical therapy was killing him. Being stuck at home was killing him. Shell-shock, they’re calling it now.
“That’s to—Edward is this your house?” Ling says.
Do you know how many in Ishval You left. I had to We had to fend for ourselves. I hope you’re dead. I don’t know what I’d ever say to you. Can you have a funeral for someone who won’t die? It’s like you’ve left us stuck in this awful superposition. At least mom gave us a clean break.
Ed puts the letter away.
“I thought I told you not to come here because I’m no longer your teacher,” Izumi snaps as she ladles out stew for him.
“I know,” Ed says, dutifully taking the stew. “I… had some information.”
“Spit it out.”
Ed takes a deep breath. It never gets easier. “Human transmutation is not really possible. It’s… the maths says you can reconstruct all missing information. But you can’t. Not really.” Not in the ways that matter.
Izumi drops the ladle in the pot. Soup splatters against the Xingese tile backsplash.
“Are you sure that was your child you saw?” Ed says and braces himself for the slap.
He is wholy unprepared for Izumi to walk out into the bedroom and slam the door on him. Ed runs a hand through his hair and goes to the phone.
“Hello this is— Brother!” Al’s voice crackles from the other side of the line. Ed is standing is Resembool with a metal foot and a receiver in his hand. He’s in Dublith phoning Al. He swallows down the nausea and grounds himself.
“I told her,” Ed says. “She, uh, Al she locked herself in the bedroom after.”
“Damn. That’s both better and worse than expected,” Al says. He hears rustling behind. probably setting the table for dinner. Man, what he’d do for some fondue now.
“Yeah.” Ed lets the cool metal receiver press into his face. “Hey Al?”
“Yeah?”
There are a finite amount of chances to traverse down the same edge. Not really mathematically, but, if Ed’s right, he’s got them all numbered down.
“You’re my brother and… despite everything that happened. I’ll understand, even if…” You can’t forgive me. “You know I love you, right?”
“Brother, are you dying?” Al says dryly. Ed can hear his smile.
“Oh screw you,” Ed says. “Take care of Winry and Granny.”
The door to the bedroom opens.
“I will,” Al laughs. “Love you too.”
Ed puts down the receiver.
“You got your brother’s body back,” Izumi hisses, mascara smudged.
“Not fully. He’s sick. The doctors say he could die between the next six months and thirty years,” Ed says. And Ed will dutifully go with him. It’s like bits of his DNA are missing and the rest is unravelling very slowly—are you sure your brother wasn’t exposed to radiation? Anyways, he’ll be predisposed to various forms of cancer.
“You should have asked me before you did something so stupid.” Izumi’s points a finger in Ed’s face “I mean how stupid are you to do something like human transmutation without asking your teacher?”
Ed bites his lip and says nothing.
“Tell me,” Izumi says, “what you gave up at the gate.”
“An arm and a leg,” Ed bites out. His hands tremble. All the fury and grief and bloodshed of the last five years crashes into him. “You know what else?”
What is entropy slowest to consume? Synapses fire. Electrical signals. Lines and lines of telephone line.
“The densest form of information in the human body is not—it’s not the genome. That decays quickly as we get old and sick.” Ed’s voice cracks.
He reaches his trembling fingers into his pocket and pulls out a dog-eared photograph. At least he got the blood out of it. Winry’s got her hair cut boyishly short. Al’s falling onto Ed’s lap and getting Winry’s dress all crumpled. In his private reconstruction of history, Ed marks this the last moment of his childhood. And behind Ed, there is a woman with brown hair and a nose he can vaguely tell looks like Alphonse. He can never remember her features. She is smiling. What was her voice like? He’s told she was beautiful and witty and he gets his determined principles from her.
“Memory. Thought. Concept. Ideas.” He swallows the lump in his throat. “I gave up my mom. I can’t. I don’t remember her. I’m worry—I think I gave up being able to really love, too.”
“Oh, child,” Izumi says and hugs Ed tight as he shakes. There’s a piece of his soul stuck forever beyond the Gate. She strokes his hair gently. “I’ve got you.”
Ed gasps. “I never ever want the toll paid again.”
“I know,” Izumi squeezes him.
Ed slices his hand and lets the blood congeal on the earth. Greed leans against a tree.
“You know, I thought it’d be more fun than going on a hike when you said we’re killing sin,” Greed drawls.
Ed’s face twitches in irritation. He presses his palms together and slams them on the mossy floor. alkahestry’s razor-wire of qi flows from this vertex to two others. One more to go.
“I’ve never seen you need to complete the circle,” Greed says.
“I’m not exactly completing the circle this time, am I?” Ed says. “The Philosopher’s Stone.”
Greed leans into Ed’s personal space and pulls on his hair. “Ask a man out to dinner first.”
Ed shoves Greed’s face. “That’s a Ling-level terrible joke.”
“Tough crowd,” Greed says. He sticks a black-tipped finger into his skin to pull back the Philosopher’s Stone. The most inhumane creation brims with the red light of humanity.
Greed presses his hand to the alkahestric diagram. Nothing happens. Good.
“Not that it’s not interesting to be your human-powered battery for the square-whatever,” Ling says. “But what will you do once the gap’s covered?”
Ed shrugs. “Slip into the gate. Done it thrice—might as well complete the square and do it a fourth. There’s a gap that’s driving everything nuts.”
“Don’t tell me you’re taking us down with your suicide pact,” Greed says. It’s pretty one-sided. I can’t kill Al the way he could kill me if he died, Ed thinks, but he’s also not immune like me.
“No one’s gonna die. Probably,” Ed says. “But if it has to be you…”
Ling snorts. “Unbelievable. The world ends and you learn to be funny.”
Ed’s pulled out of his nap when the hotel door thuds. He twists in the sheets. The end of the world: next week, his brain automatically supplies. A draft blows in throw the window—Ling better not have climbed in and left it open. If it’s Greed, no mercy.
The knocking continues. Ed fishes out some boxers from between the sheets. “I’m coming, jeez.”
Mustang sent him a letter requesting a meeting in Central. They haven’t spoken since their fight ages ago but Ed owes Mustang too much to not show up when called.
He cracks the door open. Blue jackets. A soldier says, “Mr. Elric, you have an urgent meeting with Fuhrer Bradley. Please come with us after, ahem, putting on pants.”
Ed scowls. He is technically on his ‘sabbatical’. A dog is always a dog, no matter how long its owner lets the leash become.
“And maybe a shower,” the man adds.
Ed shuts the window before he leaves. He follows them around Central Command, up higher and higher.
“So…” one of the soldiers says. “You’re the Fullmetal alchemist. In Ishval, why’d they call you—”
“I’m just a physicist,” Ed cuts.
Was it Equivalent Exchange, the Conservation of Mass, to carve Ishval to pay for Alphonse’s medical bills? Even if Ed saves Amestris, this equation can never be balanced.
“We’re here.”
Ed takes a deep breath before entering. Mustang’s and Bradley are drinking tea. There’s a beautiful window behind them that overlooks the main courtyard.
“Edward! My, it really has been a long time,” Bradley smiles. “Please, take a seat. Would you like tea?”
Ed glances towards Mustang who does not look at him. “No, thank you. Sir.”
“Sit still and drink, Edward,” Mustang grounds out. Ed swallows and leans back in his seat.
“How have you been? I heard you travelled to Xing,” Bradley continues.
“Uh.” Ed stops himself from scratching his arm. “Yeah. I wanted to see their sciences.”
“Then I presume you haven’t heard of what happened to Lieutenant Hawkeye?” Bradley’s smile is getting brittle now.
Ed’s heart thumps in his chest. He stills himself. “What’s happening?”
“Ah, Fullmetal. In Ishval, you earned your other nickname. Invulnerable. I heard reports that Lieutenant Hawkeye and Colonel Mustang did their best to look out for you. Prevent you from being on the frontlines for too long,” Bradley says. “Colonel Mustang, do you know where Lieutenant Hawkeye is now?”
“No,” Mustang says, shoulders stiff.
“Well that’s just too bad for you, Fullmetal,” Bradley continues leisurely. “Hostage negotiations are always so much effort. I prefer to find fresh meat.”
“Colonel,” Ed hisses. Mustang is looking resolutely ahead. Ed readies himself to transmute—
Crash! The glass shatters. Air swishes past Ed’s hair, clipping his ear. Any closer, Hawkeye? Ed thinks with a shudder.
Bradley’s sword points at Ed’s throat. “Very impressive. You wouldn’t kill your protege.”
Ed’s face screws up. Jeez. Him? No way.
“I told you. I don’t do hostages,” Mustang says in that familiar arrogance. He picks up his teacup.
Bang!
Ed screams as his eye squelches inwards from the bullet. Gunmetal and legs exhausted from an afternoon hike up a mountain trail. He’s got a final stop in Rush Valley with Winry. Brother? Al thinks.
Ed swallows air by the lungfulls. The reek of alchemy fills his nose. The world blurs. His insides are not his insides anymore. Slowly, he registers the room around him is a burst of movement. It’s all so fuzzy. The razor-wire of qi between him and Al tightens. At least this time’ll be better than the bullet to the gut. Where’s Mustang? It’s so hard to keep his eye open.
He dreams of the desert, usually. An endless blue sky and bronze sand. Usually, it is littered with bodies. Some days they have golden hair and eyes like Edward. Most days, they have white hair and red eyes.
Edward.
At first the sight of Ed gave the Ishvalans pause. There’s a child out there. Once they learned he could transmute without a circle—without god in the equation—and the violence he was capable of, that changed.
Goddamnit Edward, get up.
The bodies are always bloating and decayed. He looks away. At least in Ed’s dreams, his weak stomach cannot betray him. The horror of the gore fades. The horror of his sins remains a stain he cannot wash off. But the bodies are what remind him of that horrible monster he created. No. It could never have been his mother. Ed can’t forget the sight of it.
“Edward.” Mustang’s voice wakes him up. He’s in a warm bed that smells of antiseptic.
“Mmsleepy,” Ed mumbles. Man, he’s getting some kind of a migraine. “Head hurts.”
“Considering I shot you five hours ago in the head, you’re doing remarkably well,” Hawkeye says.
Ed opens his eyes. He’s in a small room that doesn’t look like Hawkeye’s apartment. “Fuck. We got away?”
“Mmhmm. You’re presumed dead and the Colonel killed you,” Hawkeye says.
“Not much of a Colonel anymore,” Mustang says. Ed swallows. Mustang could have allowed Ed to be a hostage. Could have held onto the remaining pieces he had. Instead, Mustang made sure Ed wasn’t being hunted by head honcho Homunculus Bradley.
“Thank you,” Ed says.
Mustang snorts. “Don’t die again. That was messed up, Fullmetal.”
“No promises,” he says. Information cannot be partially destroyed. There’s a string that ties Al and Ed. It goes up through the sky into a doorway left ajar. Superposition. Immeasurable information.
Hawkeye says, in a strange tone. “There’s a Homunculus who willingly offered to surrender himself to talk to you.”
“Greed,” Ed groans. “Let him in.”
Greed walks in, expression murderous. They’ve tied him up. Ed laughs at the restraints.
“Shut up,” Greed says and slashes through the rope. Hawkeye and Mustang tense.
“He’s with me,” Ed says.
“It’s very annoying to be held up by something as small and useless as a human when I’m on my way to world domination,” Greed says. “You want to finish the square or what?”
“Sorry,” Ed says and the delirium almost makes him want to giggle. “I was busy trying not to die.”
“Try not to use chopsticks with your left foot,” Greed says in Ling’s Xingese. A saying for don’t be a smartass. Mustang coughs something like a laugh.
“Sorry,” Ed says, giggling now, “it’s made of very slippery metal.”
Mustang’s cabin is bougie enough to have a telephone. They really are paying that man too much. Were, Ed corrects.
The line crackles. “Hey, Winry?”
“Ed? It’s… almost three in the morning. Why are you awake?” Winry yawns.
Ed looks at his reflection in the window. There’s a nasty purple bruise around his eye and forehead. His head still hurts from the bullet.
“I… I wanted to know if I should use polish on the carbon-fiber parts of my automail,” Ed says.
Winry snorts. “You called me at three in the morning for that? Well I’m glad you’re finally taking care of your automail. It’d have rusted through if you weren’t lucky enough to have me. I’ll show you how to polish it when I see you again.”
“Yeah,” Ed says. He’s got stubble growing now. Mustang’s probably nice enough to lend Ed his razor. “You’re in Rush Valley, right?”
“Mm-hmm,” Winry says. “I’m putting my rivals out of business. It’s great fun. You’re visiting next month. No. You can’t argue—look I know you Ed. I bet you don’t even have plans in Central for next month.”
And Winry assumes, without question, that Ed will find his way through the Promised Day. She doesn’t even really know about it, but…
“Okay,” Ed smiles. “I’ll come see you next month.”
“Wow, you must be really out of it,” Winry says. “I’m going back to bed. I’ll see you soon, okay? I’ll even make apple pie for you.”
Greed stands in front of the final vertex, hand outstretched. The night is dark and promising violence. He glances at Ed. “What was that stunt you pulled with Wrath?”
Ed shrugs, pulling his coat. The transmutation has begin. Amestris glows red. Hohenheim’s alkahestric circle must be ready to activate.
“You’re not secretly a Homunculus, are you?” Ling says with a wink.
“Nope,” Ed says. “I’m very killable. Surprisingly so.”
That gets a smile out of Greed. “Good. Then you’ll have to live through this. I need to kill you once you’re back.”
“That doesn’t make any sense,” Ed says. “Just do it. Don’t make me wait.”
“Can I ask? What did you give the King?” Ling says.
If Ed’s going to be the collateral balancing coefficient in this equation, he may as well. He sighs. “My arm, my leg. Some… important memories.”
Ling waits. Hohenheim must be in position now. Ed looks at the stars above. “My mother. I can’t remember her. I didn’t realise what giving up those memories would mean. I think… Well. Information never exists in a vacuum. You pull out a card and then the entire house of cards falls down. I think I messed up my—well, I suppose I messed up my heart.”
“And I thought it was just the entanglement that made you insufferable. Is that what you think?” Greed says. “Idiot.”
Greed looks at Ed for a long moment with a strange expression. Ling? He shakes his head and presses his palm to the alkahestric circle.
They say, “Edward. Don’t you dare forget you’re still human, no matter what.”
Then, finally, for the fourth and last time, Ed puts together his hands in prayer and knocks on the Gate.
“Hello, Worldmaker,” Ed says. “King. Truth.”
The cracked gate looms behind him. The Truth stands in front of him.
“Well, this is most interesting,” the Truth says. “Are you back for your brother’s body or your own?”
“We’re in a white hole, aren’t we?” Ed says. “Information can leave but it can’t enter. The opposite of a black hole. That’s why the toll is so high.”
Arm, leg, binding to the heart.
“Very good, little alchemist,” Truth says. “What will you pay?”
“That Father guy is creating excess energy through human sacrifice. My dad’s alkahestric transmutation is trying to consume that energy—well, I hope I’m not swallowed into an event horizon. Zero equals one minus one. It should balance out. But…”
Ed turns back to look at the obelisk Gate. It’s left ajar—barely so. “The example of superposition isn’t really applicable to me, but it works. I’m inside and outside the gate. A small crack. It’s why I can’t die—I’m tied to my brother’s soul and a piece of my soul is beyond the gate. I sacrificed it last time to you, to bring my brother’s body back.”
Ed shakes his head. “I don’t want your truth. It’s a trap. The toll is too high and it’ll never be enough. No. I want to seal the crack. I’m causing Truth itself to become unstable, aren’t I? So let me let go of the bit of my soul beyond the Gate.”
“An unusual proposition. What do you want in Exchange?”
Ed licks his lips. “Information can never be destroyed or created. The smartest guy I know told me that if you unravel human transmutation, you unravel Equivalent Exchange. I want to transmute it. I want to scramble the knowledge of human transmutation until unknowably and immeasurably distorted. Let entropy eat it until it’s one of humanity’s forgotten daydream.”
“You’d destroy alchemy in its current form.” The Truth laughs. “I had high hopes for you, little alchemist. You have arrived at one of the many correct answers using the wrong methods.”
“Physicist,” Ed snaps. “You’ve taken my arm, my leg and my heart. What else are you going to take from me?”
“I will accept your toll,” the Truth says, grinning. “Physicist, I never took your heart. I took your innocence.”
And then Ed is in infinite freefall.
He’s in the desert again. There are no bodies. The sun is at its zenith. There’s a rotary phone baking in the sun. It’s ringing.
Ed picks it up. He knows who must be calling at this hour.
“Mama,” he says. “You’re probably a hallucination my brain’s cooking up if it’s dying from Truth. Or an echo, if I’m lucky.”
“I’m a remainder, too. An unbalanced equation.” He wipes sweat off his face. “I… I used to wish I could’ve let you go. I’m glad I can’t. I won’t let you go.”
“I wish I could crawl in with you and make my home in the dirt,” he says. His voice breaks. “But it wouldn’t make me whole again.”
“I’ll try to make sure Al eats well and gets air. I’ve got some friends. I… I’m trying with dad,” he says. “I can’t promise you we’ll meet again. The information won’t exist in that pattern. But, I hope our atoms be grains of sand sitting together in desert of this vast universe.”
Ed takes a deep breath. He can be brave. “I love you. I’ll try to keep going for as long as I can. Bye, mom.”
His hands shake as he puts down the phone.
Ed wakes up to the sound of birds chirping. Antiseptic clings to his mouth. His body feels boneless. Ed sighs. He could melt into the bed and stay here forever.
“I think he’s waking up,” a woman says. Wait. Winry?
Ed cracks an eye open. It’s so bright. And it smells like an automail workshop.
“Brother,” Al breathes. “You’re awake.”
They’re here. They waited for him. He’s not here alone. He’s alive.
“What happened?” Ed says.
There’s rustling from the corner of the hospital room. Someone’s reading a newspaper. A deep-set voice starts, “The newspapers say that the Fullmetal alchemist was dragged into a hospital by an—tch—by an illegal Xingese immigrant. It’s on page six, though. Don’t feel too special.”
“Greed?” Ed says.
Greed puts down the newspaper. “Apparently they had to call in both of his mechanics from Rush Valley.”
“Well,” Al says. pulling out his toolkit. “You really messed up your leg.”
“And arm,” Winry interjects, screwing a bolt in his arm with far more gusto than necessary.
“Yeah,” Ed says. Has a summer morning ever looked as beautiful as it does from this hospital?
“I felt it—when it was cut,” Al says. He pauses. “What now?”
“I think we’re both entangled,” Ed says. Suicide pact ongoing? his brain supplies. It’s a terrible Ling-level joke. “But… I think the Truth and I have settled our business. I don’t think I can go back. The Gate’s closed. I don’t think anyone’s finding out about human transmutation for a long time—if it even exists in the same way.”
Four points. Containment. Burn the fucking toll down. There are some things no one should go through. No alchemy. No more Ishvals. Maybe the future’s still up for grabs.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t get your body back,” Ed says. His eyes prickle.
Al snorts. “You never listen to me, brother. I don’t care. I don’t need or want it back. I just want you to be happy.”
“Oh.” Ed turns his face away.
“Well, I just think you idiots should take it easy from here on out,” Winry says, saving him from saying something rotten and stupid like, thank you. Greed snorts something like, this guy?
“On a beautiful day like this, I can’t argue with that, Win,” Ed says. Fresh start. Back to square one.
There’s a letter left for him when he comes back to Resembool. It’s sitting next to the fruit basket and ashtray on the dining table. There’s a square carved into the wax.
Ed swallows and starts reading.
My Dear Edward,
I cannot possibly know how to begin this letter but I will try my best. I’m terribly sorry that I did not write to you. I thought it was of no use. I cannot ask you to excuse me, but, you know I am stubborn.
I do not know when, or if, we will see each other again. So I must say it now in an attempt to make up for all the missed chances—I am so proud of you. I love you, my dear son. I have spent my whole existence defined by death. I have seen so much of it. Caused so much. Death-awareness is the price we pay for cognition. I think you’ll understand what I mean. But I remember the day you were born. The light of life was let into my life.
You have the best of Trisha and none of the worst of me. Be kind. You have good friends and a family and so much love to give. Give it to the living. They need it most.
Your rotten father
P.S., I am sorry for not including a return address. I do not know it yet. We’ll see each other in the desert, won’t we?
“Screw you for making me miss you again,” Ed says. He wipes his eyes. “See you around, dad.”
Ed’s in his office trying to see if the algebraic geometry works out. Man, measuring the unmeasurable is a real pain. There’s a knock on his door.
“Office hours finish at three,” Ed says without looking up.
“Well, I was hoping you’d make an exception for an old boss,” Mustang says as he strolls in and unceremoniously drapes across one of Ed’s chairs.
“Ugh, I’m in the middle of something. Come back later.”
Mustang coughs.
“Fuhrer Mustang, can you please get out of my office?”
Mustang sighs. “You know why I’m here.”
“Yeah. I’m not going back. I was a dog once. Don’t recommend it. Besides, I keep telling you—”
“Yeah yeah. You’re not an alchemist. You’re a physicist now—well, no one’s an alchemist anymore are they.” Mustang waves a hand. “Our bordering country is ruled by a Homunculus but of course that’s not a problem. Nor is the fact that Olivier Armstrong wants to overthrow me.”
“He’s a mostly domesticated Homunculus,” Ed says.
Mustang picks up a paper from Ed’s desk. “You’re working on a book? Does it even have a title?”
“It’s working up to a title.” Ed’s mouth turns up. “My students are more respectful than you.”
Mustang sighs. “They must be in front of the great Edward Elric who once stole my razor.”
The great Edward Elric who destroyed alchemy and writes middling metaphysics papers, yes.
“It’s about the physics of entropy. What do you think happens when we die?” Ed says.
“Get eaten up by bugs, preferably,” Mustang says.
“Exactly. We can find comfort in the fact that death—entropy—comes for us all,” he grins. “But we are far too important to be fully destroyed. Microdose immortality.”