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batsutousaiTitle: Come What May
Series: Part one of Our Sinner's Redemption
Fandom: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood
Author: Batsutousai
Rating: Mature
Pairings: Darius/Edward Elric/Heinkel, pre-Edward Elric/Roy Mustang
Warnings: Ed's potty mouth, spoilers for FMA:B ending, canon-typical violence, pile 'o OCs, survivor's guilt, angst, original character death, slow build (btwn Ed & Roy), referenced underage relationships, off-screen violence against women
Summary: After the Promised Day, with his alchemy still intact thanks to Hohenheim's sacrifice, Ed finds himself and his chimera team getting dragged into the shadowy world of military secrets in an attempt to keep Bradley's legacy from causing a civil war.
A/N: Potential trigger-wise: there's (mostly, save for one slap and some rough handling) off-screen violence against a female OC in this chapter. I only had physical abuse in mind when I wrote the scene where Ed comes to find her, but it wouldn't be a stretch to assume sexual abuse, and I'm sorry if that makes anyone uncomfortable. I'd like to say I'll mark it and people can skip it, but it's kind of mixed in with the start of this chapter's climax, so... Ugh. Sorry? Just read with care when Heinkel gets Ed from their campsite, I guess.
Chapter Fifteen
-0-
Ed and Teacher spent the first day making their way carefully around the bottom edge of the lake, watching for signs of recent passage and marking out a safe path for Sig and the chimeras to use after them. They set up camp on the west side of the river that went south from the lake in the late afternoon, then forded the river and checked over the east bank and a way into the brush edging it, setting some traps so they could sleep relatively safely.
Their next day was spent forging out east, still looking for signs of other humans being in the area, while also trying to find a campsite that was closer to the spot marked on Ed's map.
They found a couple of possible campsites, but didn't have the time to check far beyond them before they had to head back, so they left that for the next day and returned to their previous campsite.
Sig and the chimeras were there when they got in, cooking dinner in the smokeless stove Teacher had created the night before, and Teacher had immediately run to 'thank' Sig for being so thoughtful. "I think I'm going to hurl," Ed told his team as he reached them, and Darius snickered while Heinkel sighed and shook his head. "Hi. Anything interesting in South City?"
"A serious lack of pretty-boys," Darius informed him.
Heinkel sighed again while Ed covered a grin. "Nothing we didn't already know from the Führer. I expect we'll have more luck asking around the smaller towns, where his ears don't quite reach."
Ed nodded in understanding; smaller towns and villages had always been where they'd found the best intel on the pro-Bradley sort. "I figured, but, since you were down there..." He shrugged. "I got some descriptions of possible members of this group while I was up in Rush Valley, and I saw a few of them."
"Oh, right," Darius said, before reaching out and trying to smack Ed, which he dodged. "I thought I told you to keep your head down!" he hissed.
"I did!" Ed hissed back. "But I was staying somewhere way too many people recognise me! That's like telling me to keep a low profile in fucking Resembool, okay? Not happening."
"Darius," Heinkel interrupted before the part-gorilla could say anything else, and Darius let out an angry noise and turned away. Heinkel gave Ed a helpless look. "He's been fuming since we heard."
"You think I wanted to get almost blown up?" Ed demanded, only keeping his voice down because they didn't know where, exactly, this group was in relation to their camp. "I didn't want to be noticed coming into Dublith, you idiot. The idea was to let them think I'd kept on to Fotset so they'd let their guard down, but then they fucked that right up, and now Grumman's stopped the trains because we don't have the sort of personnel who can handle fucking nitroglycerin."
Darius stiffened, while Heinkel drew in a sharp breath. "They're using pure nitro?" Heinkel asked.
Ed nodded. "Froze it, piled TNT around it, and left a fuse as a dummy."
'I got lucky,' he didn't say.
Instead, he said, "You see any freezers in there, don't fucking touch them, and if you see someone else reaching for one, shoot 'em. Clear?"
"Yes, sir," they both said, Darius still not turning around.
"Good. I'm hungry." Ed turned towards the stove.
Before he could take more than a step towards where Teacher and Sig were dishing out the food, arms surrounded him from behind, pinning his arms far enough down that, had he reacted with violence, he'd have had trouble getting his hands together to transmute, or have the clearance to drawn his knife.
As it was, he didn't really have any say in the way his body relaxed back into Darius' hold, his eyes sliding shut. "Dammit, Ed," Darius growled, his arms tightening, and a part of Ed wondered if, maybe, Winry hadn't been right about their relationship being more than just sex. Not her romance-love bullshit, no, but trust and security, because this was the first time he'd felt like he could relax since they'd parted ways in Rush Valley. Even with Winry, as much as he cared for and trusted her, his mere existence had been putting her in danger, and it had been his job to keep her safe.
He grabbed for the underside of Darius' arms and curled forward around them, trusting the arsehole to take his weight.
Someone stepped around in front of him, and a hand rested lightly on the top of his head; Heinkel. "Ed?" he asked quietly, concern obvious in his voice.
Ed shook his head. "It's been a long week," he admitted, before letting out a laugh that sounded hollow. "Winry told me, actually, to tell you arseholes that I'm an idiot who needs a hug."
Darius' arms almost seemed to tighten even further. "Like we couldn't see that for ourselves," he muttered.
"Take as long as you need," Heinkel murmured, his hand brushing over the top of Ed's head, like he was petting him.
There was a joke in that, something about felines and who should be petting whom, but Ed just...didn't have the energy to get into that spat right that moment.
He gave himself until his stomach let out a growl of displeasure at being kept from food, then snorted and straightened, smacking Darius as the arsehole laughed at him. "Let me go, ape," he ordered, and received a particularly crushing hug before being released to wheeze.
"Not an ape," Darius informed him.
"You really should be more proud of your arse-scratching heritage," Ed shot back, flashing a grin over his shoulder.
"Are you sure that's not baboons?" Heinkel asked.
"Actually, I'm fairly sure arse-scratching is a general mammalian trait," Ed admitted, "but I'm going to have to remember baboon for some other time. Thanks."
"Would you stop helping him?" Darius snarled at Heinkel.
Heinkel shrugged and flatly stated, "I can't help it that your animal half's relatives are common insults."
Ed laughed; he'd missed the arseholes.
Day three was spent scouting around the possible campsites they'd found the evening before, which went a lot faster with five of them. While the chimeras and Sig moved camp to the most viable spot, Ed and Teacher kept going, finally finding signs of human passage about half a mile from their new campsite, and it was a little under another quarter-mile to the clearing that the building they'd been looking for was in.
Without speaking, Ed and Teacher agreed to each go thirty paces around the outside of the clearing, sticking carefully to the trees, and get as much of an idea of the layout as they could, then meet back up and return to the campsite.
The place was definitely in use, and a lot more active than any of the other headquarters Ed and his team had taken out; he was doubly glad he'd tapped Teacher instead of running off with a couple soldiers, this time. There were two adult males teaching a group of seven male teens how to shoot on the far side of the compound, while another two adult males showed another group of six teenage males the basics of hand-to-hand. There were another few adult males around, but he saw a distinct lack of women, which was fairly unusual, as the other two larger groups they'd taken out had at least ratio of about one woman to every three men; easier to go unnoticed when there were women, and women tended to be trusted faster than men.
Of course, it was possible they had a scouting party out and their women were there, but as Ed finished out his paces and started back, he was left with the sense that this group didn't believe women to have any worth, or were too delicate or some bullshit for their cause.
Idiots.
They made it back to the new camp safely and quickly cleared a portion of ground to alchemise into a 3D map of the clearing, both of them adding the things they'd seen, and detaching the two vehicles Teacher had noticed – one a fairly nondescript, battered car, the other a military transport lorry – and any other commonly moved objects, so they could be moved around if their position on the compound changed.
"There's a track about a quarter-mile out," Ed murmured to the chimeras and Sig once they'd joined the alchemists. "It looks fairly well-used, and from what we saw of it, probably curves around the compound."
"Sentry path?" Heinkel guessed.
Ed shrugged. "I would assume. I'd like it watched tonight, to find out for certain."
Heinkel and Darius traded looks. "Understood," Heinkel agreed, and Ed knew they'd vanish as soon as dinner was done to find their own perch within sight or scent range of the track. He almost wished he could go with them, but he'd be more of a hindrance than a help in the dark.
He turned back to the map, tapping the top of the building, which looked like it had once been a basic farmhouse, before they'd started building onto it, and now it was a three storey sprawl that looked more like something a small child would make with a bit of mud and some sticks than an actual dwelling. "We'll start up a proper watch tomorrow, after we know if they've got sentries watching that track; I'd rather not settle in for an extended watch, only to be surprised from behind."
"How long are we watching for?" Darius asked.
Ed stared down at the hodgepodge building. "I told old man Grumman two weeks, but I'd like to have this finished next Wednesday." That gave them a week of watching, plus an additional three or four days to hunt down any explosives that had been passed on to other groups in the area.
"Yes, sir," the chimeras chorused grimly.
Teacher picked up the lorry. "And if they start packing up explosives?" she asked.
Aw, fuck, that hadn't even occurred to him. They could set up a road block, but only if they knew exactly where that road out of the compound went, found a good spot that was out of shouting range of the compound, but also well away from any nearby farmland or the nearest small town.
He touched the road out of the compound. "Sig," he said, "tomorrow, follow this and find a good spot to ambush them if we need to, well away from any other homes or fields. Teacher or I can rig some traps the day after that." He sighed and shook his head. "If they start packing up before that, we'll just have to move on them here. I don't like it, but if those explosives go up here, at least we know it's contained." He glanced around at all of them. "Any debates?"
The chimeras traded looks with each other, while Sig and Teacher traded looks themselves, before all four shook their heads. As she sat the lorry back into the faint wheel divots marking where it had started out, Teacher said, "Nope. We'll just have to hope they don't decide to be stupid. And start any attacks by walling off the lorry after they've filled it with their explosives."
Ed...hadn't even thought of that. Though: "Actually, we should just generally plan to start any attack by walling off the vehicles, or we're going to end up having to chase them down when they realise they need to flee."
Teacher's responding smile made it clear that had been her next suggestion.
Ed rolled his eyes; and she'd once insisted she was no longer their teacher.
The track they'd crossed was absolutely a sentry path, though it wasn't well manned, and most of the men who walked it didn't even pretend to look around. Still, they treated it like they were dealing with proper sentries and made an effort to never leave signs of passage on either side of the track. They kept one person watching the section of the track that was closest to their campsite, just in case, and three people spread out around the compound itself, while the last person had the chance to relax back at camp for four hours, before they all traded positions, giving them a chance to stretch their legs and wake back up, should it be necessary.
Every morning and evening, they'd leave one person watching the compound – cycling who it was – and the other five would gather around at their camp and make note of any changes on the map, as well as in the little notebook set off to one side, and whoever had been on watch would look the changes over during their break shift.
It turned out there were three women in the compound, and they – grudgingly, from what Ed and his group saw – managed the cooking and laundry. The youngest, who looked to be Ed's age or a little older, would often stop and stare towards the boys practising fighting, and it wasn't until Ed caught her practising some of the punches against a tree in the forest, within spitting distance of his post, on their third day of watching, that he realised that she wasn't watching one of the boys because of a crush, but wanted to learn to fight like them.
He sat in his tree and watched her for five or so minutes, debating what to do, before sighing, calling himself seven kinds of idiot in his head, and jumping down from his watch perch.
She startled and turned, her hands dropping to her sides and shoulders hunching like she expected to get hit. There was a fading bruise peeking out from under the collar of her ragged dress, and her lip had been split fairly recently, which explained the reaction, even as it left Ed wanting to find someone to hit.
"That's no good," he said, forcing his voice light, and her head came up, eyes widening, as he gently caught her wrists and brought her arms up in front of her in a guard position, protecting her face. "See," he commented, "this way, no one's gonna re-split your lip."
"Who are you?" she asked, lowering her arms slightly so she could look over them at him. "I don't recognise you."
Ed shrugged. "I'm your new fighting instructor," he decided, and he was going to get beat around the head so bad for this, from both Teacher and Darius, but he couldn't just sit back and watch her beat her knuckles bloody, not after that reaction.
She scoffed. "Girls can't fight," she insisted, sounding like she was repeating a mantra.
Ed raised an eyebrow at her. "The person who taught me to fight is a woman, and my brother and I are still fucking terrified of making her angry."
She shook her head. "You must not be very good, then."
Ed quirked a smile at her. "I get by. Do you want some pointers?"
She considered that for a moment, then nodded. "Okay."
Ed showed her how to stand so she was better balanced, then took her through a few moves. Mostly defensive, because it looked like she would be better served learning how to avoid a hit than actually throw one, but he taught her a couple of punches and gave her some pointers about where best to aim on a male.
"Everyone knows that," she'd informed him drily.
"And yet," he'd returned in the same tone, "I somehow retain my masculine dignity."
She'd giggled in response, but had seemed extremely interested when Ed gave her the rest of his pointers about dealing with opponents who underestimated you or, in his case more than hers, as she had a good few inches on him, were bigger than you.
"Gloria!" one of the other women from the compound shouted.
The young woman he'd been training flinched and turned to look. "Oh no," she whispered, shooting Ed a wide-eyed panicked look. "I need to go."
Ed shrugged and relaxed out of the ready stance he'd been holding. "Okay."
She worried her lip, reopening the wound, then asked, "Can I come back tomorrow?"
Ed sighed. "I won't be the one here tomorrow," he admitted.
"Gloria!" the woman in the compound called again.
The woman next to him blinked, then her eyes narrowed. "Are you watching us?"
Ed considered her. "If I say yes, what will you do? Tell your faction commander there's a blond boy in the forest?" He smiled at her, showing teeth.
She scoffed. "You think he'd listen to me? I'm just a girl. What do I know?"
"A fuckin' hell of a lot," Ed guessed, easing his smile into something less threatening, since she hadn't immediately run off. "Anyone who underestimates the resourcefulness of women is a fucking moron, and fully deserves the knife in the back that's waiting for them."
She stared at him like she'd just found something mythical.
"Gloria!" the woman from the compound called again, starting to sound cross. "Where are you, you brainless child?"
"I–I need to go," she said, stumbling back a step. "It was, uhm, thanks. Thank you." Then she turned and ran back towards the compound.
"I'm gonna end up being the one with bruises tomorrow," Ed muttered as he climbed his tree again, reaching his previous perch just as his pupil – Gloria, and wasn't that the name of his pretend alchemy student? The world was laughing at him – cleared the trees. The woman who had been waiting for her smacked her hard enough that Ed heard the connection and winced, then grabbed her by the ear and dragged her back into the house.
When Ed joined the others for dinner that night, he steeled himself, then passed on the meeting. Darius was the one on evening watch, but Teacher kicked his arse enough for both of them, and Heinkel's disapproving stare made him feel like even more of an idiot.
The only concession he got was Teacher grumbling, "At least you told us, instead of trying to hide it."
"We'll have to move that sentry spot," Heinkel announced, and Ed sighed and joined the debate about another tree in the same general vicinity with an equally good watch spot.
He suspected that would be the last he saw of Gloria until they attacked the compound, whereupon it would be up to her how she reacted to their intrusion.
Two nights after his meeting with Gloria, as Ed was finishing the last of his dinner and reading up on the notes the others had added while he'd been stuck on the watch, he heard Heinkel let out that odd little croak that sounded like 'Jerso', which had turned into their warning call for when they were separated fairly early on.
Since it was nowhere near time for a shift change, the only reason Heinkel would be approaching was for an emergency, and Ed immediately grabbed up his knife from where he'd set it next to him and the small hand lantern he'd been reading by, and hurried to his feet, then started out of the camp in the direction of the call, absently jumping over the alchemical traps he and Teacher had set up the first night and left after showing the others how to avoid them.
"Your pupil showed back up," Heinkel murmured as he fell in next to Ed, having a far easier time finding him in the dark woods than the other way around.
Ed shot him a quick glance. "And?" he whispered, because it wasn't the first time in the past two days that she'd been reported out in the woods, possibly trying to find Ed again.
The light of the lantern cast angry shadows across Heinkel's face, hiding much of his expression, but Ed could detect disgust in his voice when he murmured, "You'll see."
Well, that was promising.
They were just coming within range of the sentry track and the point where Ed would need to shutter his lantern for safety, when Heinkel pulled him north, parallel to the track. He stopped after another few feet and murmured to Ed, "Straight ahead. I'll keep watch."
Ed nodded. "Cover her tracks?" he requested.
Heinkel gave a brief nod of acknowledgement, then vanished into the dark trees.
Ed sighed before starting forward again, stepping carefully through the unfamiliar portion of woods. He heard her before he saw her, heaving great, gasping sobs, and the why became readily apparent when he did catch sight of her: She was kneeling on the ground, crouched over and hugging herself, her hair in a complete disarray and her already ragged dress torn in at least two places, showing patches of (thankfully unbroken) skin.
He...didn't have any experience with this sort of situation. He was uncomfortable enough with Winry crying, and he'd known her his whole life, never mind some woman he'd only met once, but that was more contact than anyone else in his group had with her, and she looked rather like she could use someone who cared.
"Gloria?" he called quietly.
She stiffened, her sobs almost immediately stifled. "W-who–?" she stammered out, not looking up.
Ed shrugged out of his button-up and slowly stepped up to her. "Your fighting instructor," he offered as he knelt and set the lantern down, then draped his shirt over her shoulders.
She let out a broken-sounding laugh at that. "Fighting instructor," she repeated, before looking over at him, revealing a bloody nose, some red patches around one eye that were just starting to swell (which would almost certainly turn into a particularly impressive shiner, if Ed was any judge), and a new split in her lip. "I should have kept my head down!"
Guilt churned in Ed's stomach, and it was an honest struggle to force it down. "So why didn't you?" he asked instead, because nobody who punched their fists bloody against a tree during their free time did so without the intent to use those fists.
"Because– Because I was tired of those stupid boys always getting whatever they wanted!" she replied, her voice rising. "Richard said he was going to ask for me as his reward for killing whichever poor fool they're plotting against this time, and he grabbed me and I–"
"Punched him?" Ed guessed quietly, and she gave a miserable nod. "Good, he deserved it."
She looked rather like she didn't know what to do with that.
But Ed felt a bit more secure, recalling back to a surprise lecture Mustang had held for the command candidates on his last day, about what to do if another member of the military came to you to report abuse (and every one of them had known exactly what had spawned that unusual addition to their curriculum). And, as irritated and embarrassed as he'd felt during the lecture, he was grateful for it now, because he had a guideline to follow: Let them decide how to approach the matter, reassure them that nothing about the abuse is their fault, and give them the support they need to follow through on however they want to handle future interactions with their abuser.
"Punching you back, though," he offered gently, "that was serious shit on his part. Talking about people like they're property, that deserves a few good punches. As your instructor, I approve, though I probably should have taught you how to dodge a bit better. Sorry about that."
Without any warning, Gloria threw herself at him, wrapping her arms around his neck and hiding her face against his clavicle.
Ed hugged her back gently, not wanting to upset any wounds he couldn't see. "Hey," he whispered into her hair, "I've got you. You're safe."
"Thank you," she got out, sounding choked.
"Hey, little bitch, where are you?" someone called out, and Gloria went tense all over.
The light of a lantern came through the trees, preceding its owner, and Ed frowned when they weren't stopped by Heinkel; that didn't bode well. He carefully slipped from Gloria's grasp and turned to face the approaching person, remaining crouched, in case he needed to use his alchemy.
"Leading me on with light, eh?" he added, before stepping into the clearing. Then he froze, his eyes coming to rest on Ed. "Wait, who–"
Ed didn't let him get out any more than that, rising smoothly to his feet as he stepped forward and punched the guy hard in the gut, then took another step forward and, catching his hair as the fucker leant forward to clutch his stomach, slammed his face into the automail knee that came up to meet it.
The guy hit the ground, senseless, blood oozing from his nose.
"Oh my god," Gloria breathed, sounding somewhere between horrified and awed.
Ed leant over and put out the guy's lantern before it could start a fire, then turned his attention to the direction he'd come from and croaked out a call.
Heinkel replied in the same manner just before he came into view between the trees. Gloria let out a startled noise behind Ed as he quietly ordered, "Report."
"Five of the teenagers are out looking for her," Heinkel murmured. "They don't seem to have alerted the rest of the compound."
"Small mercies," Ed muttered to himself, then requested, "How many are down?"
Heinkel's eyes flickered down to the form at Ed's feet. "Two."
They had two options: Take the other three out and find some way to keep them prisoner until they were ready to attack the compound, or leave them to wander around and hope they got bored and went to bed without straying so far as to find their camp. Either choice chanced the compound's leadership discovering the missing members, which would mean a large-scale search, and there was no way his group could avoid that.
Ed kicked the prone body at his feet. "Fucking kids. Shit, fine. Take out the rest of the fuck-shits and gag them and tie them to a few trees, then everyone back to camp; we'll have to move tonight."
Heinkel's jaw tightened. "Yes, sir," he murmured.
"Fuck off," Ed ordered as he leant down to grab the kid at his feet and drag him over to a reasonable tree, leaving Heinkel to vanish back into the trees. "Can you stand?" he asked Gloria as he passed her.
"Y-yes," she whispered, and got unsteadily to her feet, collecting Ed's lantern as she did.
Ed shoved his victim against the tree, then set about transmuting his clothing into a gag and some basic rope ties, leaving him wrapped around the tree in a hug, his naked arse hanging out for all the world to see. "Awesome," he decided.
"You're an alchemist," Gloria realised behind him, and Ed glanced back at her to find her staring at him in disbelief.
"I am," he agreed.
"You're–" She swallowed, looking him over, and Ed could practically see her ticking off a mental checklist: Alchemist, check; blond, check; young, check; not ridiculously tall, check; hunting terrorists, check. "But you can't possibly be...him."
Ed blinked. "The Fullmetal Alchemist?" he suggested, and she nodded. "Why not?"
"Because you're nice," Gloria insisted.
Ed blinked again, then glanced towards his bound prisoner. "Right. You know, I was actually joking about the demon spawn thing." As if this kid had any idea what he'd said to the one he'd grabbed on the train (or even cared, given his unconscious state). "Fuck it," he muttered to himself as he turned back to Gloria. "Come on, I'll have to take you with me back to camp. Make you some ice for that eye, maybe."
Looking rather like she wasn't certain she was making a good life choice, Gloria nodded and followed him back the way he'd come.
She started stumbling before they reached the line of alchemic traps, clearly exhausted from the strain of the day, and Ed gently touched her shoulder. "Stop. I'll carry you." Then he turned his back to her, ignoring the warning voice in the back of his head that this could be a trap, get him alone in the woods with someone who seemed trustworthy and–
Gloria climbed carefully onto his back, one arm clutching desperately at his shoulders, turned awkwardly in an attempt to keep from choking him, while her other hand kept hold of the lantern.
Fucking shadows.
Ed hefted her, wrapping her legs around his waist, then finished the trip to the campsite, stepping easily around the traps, grateful he didn't have to direct her around them. Once inside the clearing, he set her down next to one of the fallen logs they used as seats and quickly transmuted her some ice from their water stores while she sat.
"You don't have a campfire," she realised as he brought over the ice.
"Big fires are easier to spot," Ed admitted with a shrug, "and they smoke, which is worse. We make do with lanterns. Here," he gently caught one of her hands and pressed the cloth with the ice into it, then brought it up to press against her eye. She let out a quiet pained noise. "I know, but it'll help. I'll go get something to clean your face in a minute, but was there anything else I need to check on? You were limping a bit, I saw."
"I just...twisted my ankle," she admitted, motioning towards her right foot.
She'd been able to walk on it, so he doubted it was broken, but still... "Can I see?"
She gave a careful nod.
It didn't take him long to diagnose a sprain, and he collected a wrap for it from their field medical kit, as well as transmuting more ice and grabbing supplies to clean her bloody nose, which was (thankfully) not broken, though clearly tender.
He'd finished patching her up long before the others got back, and had given her Heinkel's spare coat – which he still didn't understand why the idiot hadn't left in the car – since his button-up wasn't really big enough for her, and some of the rips in her dress were a bit suggestive, but he wasn't going to suggest fixing it while she was wearing it. (Honestly, he'd just as soon leave the issue of her ruined dress to Teacher, who was less likely to cause embarrassment in the process of assisting.)
"Are you?" Gloria asked as Ed slipped his button-up back on. "Fullmetal, I mean?"
Ed sighed, then held down a hand to her. "Ed Elric," he offered with his best smile, "the Fullmetal Alchemist. Nice to meet you."
She swallowed and took his hand. "G-Gloria Richardson." She withdrew her hand after a brief shake and motioned towards the 3D map of the compound, which was just within view of her good eye. "You're nothing at all like they've always told us."
"Our enemies," Teacher said as she stepped into the clearing, making Gloria jump, "often vilify us to make the lengths they'll go to seem more acceptable." She stopped next to Ed and cuffed him around the head. "Stop attracting trouble."
Ed groaned and rubbed at his head. "Shut up. You're not the one who's losing his sleep period."
Teacher's stare made it clear she remembered well all the times she'd had to forcefully drag a book out of Ed's hands when he was a kid, as he'd just stay up reading all night, else, no matter how physically exhausting the day had been.
Ed sighed. "Gloria's dress could use a fix," he offered in lieu of continuing that conversation.
Teacher stared at him for another moment, then nodded and went to check on their visitor, leaving Ed to meet the rest of their group – and dodge Darius' half-hearted swat – on his own.
While they waited for Teacher and Gloria to return from the trees, Ed requested reports on the current situation. It turned out that Gloria had run right past Sig's sentry position, and he'd been the one to call out the warning to Heinkel, who had then followed her, recognised her, and made the choice to get Ed, rather than leave her to her upset alone. While he'd been collecting Ed, the group of boys had come after her, clearly sneaking out, and fanned out in the trees. Heinkel had caught one who'd been attracted by Gloria's raised voice, but hadn't been aware of the one Ed had taken out.
"The compound was still down for the night when we pulled out," Darius finished as the two women returned, "but who knows how long it'll take them to notice there's people missing."
"Not until morning," Gloria offered quietly, looking around their circle uncertainly. Teacher had lent her some of her own clothing, rather than fixing her dress, and while her split lip and the swelling around her eye made it clear she'd had a hard time, she looked a little less downtrodden; Ed suspected Teacher had had a few bolstering comments for her. "For me, at least, no one cares until it's time to start breakfast, and that lot doesn't get a wake-up call until breakfast's ready."
"Barring any midnight checks, we have a few hours," Heinkel murmured, eyeing the map they were sitting around. "At least a night attack means catching them unawares." Which, well, that had been their best plan after the first couple of days of watching, but caution had them sticking it out for the maximum time limit Ed had settled on, because while they knew the outside of the compound, they had nothing on the inside, and the hodgepodge building additions made it difficult to know what to expect.
Gloria took a careful, limping step over the log Ed was seated on and gingerly lowered herself next to him, using his shoulder to help balance herself. "What are you going to do to them?" she requested quietly.
"Knock 'em all out, wrap 'em up and stick a bow on their heads, then call in the Dublith troops to hold 'em until the train service is back up and they can be sent up to Central for trial," Ed offered with a shrug. "Same as usual."
"Ish," Darius amended, while Gloria considered Ed, her expression suggesting she was debating something with herself. "Usually, they get left in the area command for local trial and then either moved to Central after being declared guilty, or kept in that area's prison, depending on space. But this group..."
"It has to be public trials in Central," Ed agreed tiredly. "Never mind the sheer scope of their crimes, they brought themselves out into the public eye." He rubbed at his face, only vaguely aware of Gloria twisting next to him so she could face behind him. "Ugh. I don't want to get stuck in a Central courthouse. If old man Grumman tries to talk me into it, I'll punch him in the face."
"No, you won't," Heinkel and Teacher chorused.
"More's the pity," Darius added.
"Stop encouraging him," Heinkel muttered, shooting his fellow chimera a glare.
"Both of you shut the fuck up," Ed ordered, before turning towards the sound of scratching behind him. "Gloria, what are you–?" He stopped, took in the lines she was scratching out in the dirt. It was a series of squares and smaller rectangles in a shape that wasn't quite a perfect rectangle, but looked suspiciously like the hodgepodge building they'd been watching for almost a week. "Is that–?"
She finished her last line, then used the stick she'd found to point at a spot just in front of her feet. "Front door," she announced, and the rest of Ed's group got the fuck up to come see, "main hall, meeting room, dining room, kitchen, staircase, Boss Trevor's office, Boss Ritchie's office, weapons storage, and I don't know what that room is, no one's allowed in but the bosses."
"I'll bet a month's supply of kitty litter that's the explosives," Darius said, before letting out a grunt; Ed was nearly certain Heinkel had punched him.
"You can't bet supplies you don't have," Ed pointed out as Gloria started drawing again, "and no one here's gonna take that bet anyway, so shut up."
Gloria walked them through the layout of the entire building, admitting, "I get assigned cleaning duty a lot, so I know where everything is."
Even without taking her sprained ankle into account, there was no way Ed could have condoned taking her along on their attack, but he could and did get her to describe furniture layouts and who slept where to the best of her ability. They then used her layouts to plan their attack.
Since Ed would be handling the likely explosives storage, he left the rest of his group to debate their upstairs attack, while he collected the ingredients to transmute a sleeping draft disguised as water, then brought it back and handed it over to Gloria, forcing a smile in response to her grateful expression.
She was asleep before she'd finished it, and he caught the glass before it could slip to the ground and endanger the map, while Darius caught her. "Where do you want her?" he asked quietly as he picked her up.
"Under the shelter, please. Just lay her down in my gear, since it's out."
"Got it."
They finished their planning once Darius returned, then Ed went to enclose the shelter, ensuring Gloria couldn't run for it if she woke before they got back – more so she didn't run afoul of one of the alchemic traps, rather than with any intent to hand her over to the military as a member of the group; like with Wackett, her unrequested assistance pretty much exonerated her in his eyes – before joining the others in last minute checks of gear. Once they all felt prepared, they headed out.
At the sentry track, Heinkel and Darius split away from Ed, Teacher, and Sig, going to hunt down the three men who would be walking the perimeter. Once they reached the clearing, Ed motioned for Teacher to work on getting the doors opened while Sig watched her back, then left them to take out the vehicles. He disabled them, rather than encasing them in earth, since it was quieter, and checked the back of the lorry to ensure there weren't any surprises hiding in there – there weren't – then made for the nearest door into the building which, according to Gloria's map, should put him on the hallway with the two offices and the weapons rooms.
He cleared the offices first, ensuring he wasn't about to be surprised by someone working late, then cleared the gun room and sealed the door against anyone sneaking around for a gun.
And then, because he wasn't a complete idiot and had faced off against way too many booby traps, made a door from inside the gun room to the explosives room, taking care to only affect the wall and not anything leaning against it. Which, good plan, because the room had crates stacked up against the walls taller than Ed's doorway, all marked with the symbols for explosives, most of them also bearing the military's seal.
"Are they all fucking giants in here?" Ed whispered as he cleared a couple of guns of pre-loaded ammunition – fine, thank you, Grumman, for making him learn the most common guns – to use as bridges of a sort, since he didn't know how high the piles went, and he didn't really want to cause a shockwave by dropping a crate of explosives that had been caught near the top of the stack until he'd shifted its neighbour.
The crates were only two deep, and he didn't have to clear many to make a path for himself (Ha, see! Being compact was a good thing sometimes! ...He did not just think that), so it didn't take him too long to get through to the room.
The stacked crates of explosives ringed the room, stopping flush against either side of the doorframe. The room wasn't big, had just enough room for a slim person to move between the crates and the narrow table in the centre, but still. It was a fucking hell of a lot of explosives, and Ed probably would have ended up staring around at it in shock for a while, if not for the laboratory set up in the middle of the room, some sort of device letting out a low hum from under the table.
Warily, Ed knelt and found what he suspected was an icebox of some sort, though where it was getting its power, he couldn't even begin to guess, given the lack of cords leading across the floor. Finding the door, he eased it open and peered inside and, yeah, he wasn't even a little surprised to find four glass jars of nitroglycerin sitting inside, surrounded by ice cubes. He sighed and closed the door again, cutting off the blast of cold air, then looked around the room.
He could admit to being more than a little freaked out at the sheer number of explosives the crates suggested they had. A handful weren't marked as being from anywhere in particular, and two columns had words that weren't Amestrisan on it – Aerugonian, he suspected, given they were the nearest neighbour – but the rest of them all had the crest of the Amestrisan military on them, and the fact that so many explosives had gone missing was...
He squeezed his eyes shut and rubbed at them. Fuck. They needed to find their mole, and fast. Because they either had some serious power, or they'd been filching weapons from the military for years in preparation of a coup, and Ed really couldn't decide which option was more terrifying.
Someone croaked out in the hallway and, sighing, Ed got up and opened the door.
It was Heinkel, looking a little ruffled from his run along the track. "Darius is helping tie up the last few," he offered to Ed's raised eyebrow. "We'll have to find some way to confirm, but it looks like we caught everyone."
"Remind me to befriend low-ranking terrorists more often," Ed muttered and Heinkel snorted. "Cool. Let's go see if there's a manifest or something in either of the offices."
"How bad is it in there?" Heinkel asked, nodding at the room behind Ed as he slipped out into the hallway and sealed the door with alchemy.
"Bad," Ed admitted. "Did find the nitroglycerin, though, so at least we don't have to go hunting that down." He sighed. "I really hope they've kept records of any explosives they've handed off, because there's no way we're going to be able to estimate how much we're looking for."
"Damn," Heinkel muttered before they split up to search the two offices.
Teacher joined him after a bit and, between the three of them, they managed to turn up a list of members, an inventory for the guns and the explosives (with notes about the other groups they'd been supplying), rough drafts of the note they'd sent out to the papers for the first train bombing, and ideas for future ones. There was, disgustingly, nothing pointing fingers at anyone in the military, and Ed sort of hated a lot that their mole was so thorough at covering their tracks.
"Well," he said as they looked over their findings, "maybe Central's interrogators can get something out of these fuck-shits."
"Assuming our mole doesn't get to them first," Heinkel pointed out grimly, and Ed grimaced.
"It's also possible they just don't know who their benefactor is," Teacher added. "They may be working through a third party, or avoiding all face-to-face meetings; a far smarter choice when you're facing an opponent who refuses to kill."
"I don't want this shit-fuck to be smart, I want them to fuck up so I can punch them in the fucking face."
Heinkel snorted, while Teacher shook her head.
"I'll go get Darius and we can round up those we left in the forest, then maybe pick up your terrorist friend, see if she wouldn't be willing to check names off for us," Heinkel offered, tapping the list of members' names.
Ed sighed and picked up the sheets of bomb inventory. "Yeah, okay. I'll get started on the inventory, then."
"No," Teacher interrupted, taking the paper from him, "you're going to catch some of that sleep you were complaining about missing out on while I keep an eye out for anyone we missed, and we'll tackle the inventory as a group."
Okay, so maybe he was a little tired, since that actually sounded like a good idea to him.
Heinkel silently ushered him from the office they'd ended up in and led him down the hall to what Gloria had called the meeting room, where it turned out there were a couple fairly comfortable couches. "Get some sleep, Ed," he ordered, pushing Ed towards the nearest couch. "We can handle things for a few hours without you."
"Fuck off," Ed muttered as he unstrapped his knife from his back and slipped it under the edge of the couch, in easy grabbing range, then laid down and closed his eyes.
Fabric was draped over him and he breathed in Heinkel's familiar scent, let it carry him off into sleep.
They had managed to miss one man, who'd come across Teacher while Ed was asleep, and would live to regret it.
Darius and Heinkel had decided not to move Gloria until the drug Ed had used wore off, so they didn't get to the compound until after Ed had woken from his little nap. Which was probably for the best, because she'd greeted him by punching his shoulder. (Lightly, given, but still.) "You did that on purpose!" she snapped.
Ed shrugged and admitted, "Yes. You clearly need the sleep, and you weren't going to do anyone any favours by staying up and wondering what was happening." He ducked his head slightly, trying to get a look at her face, but she stubbornly kept her hair between them, glaring out at him from behind it. He sighed. "You probably shouldn't be doing much walking on that ankle."
Her shoulders slumped. "I know."
He quirked a smile. "Come on, let's find you somewhere to sit. And then maybe you can help me out some."
Getting her to sit meant she let her guard down a bit, and Ed finally got a look at her eye, which looked much better, but was still swollen, so he sent Darius, who was following them with an obnoxious smirk on his face, to get some ice.
"So," he said while Darius was running his errand, "first things first, you helped us out, so anyone tries to drag you down with them at the trial, they're gonna be sorely disappointed, because I'm totally willing to spin this to keep you safe. And, too, my teacher, Izumi, says she's willing to house you in Dublith, if you need somewhere to stay and get back on your feet, so you've got somewhere to go from here, if you need it."
"Oh," she whispered, her eyes going wide and watery.
Ed accepted one of the ice packets from Darius and offered it to her. When she took it, he hooked a chair and dragged it over for her to put her feet up on. "Both of those promises, they're good, no take-backs," he told her as he carefully set the second pack of ice on her ankle. "You're solid, but if you're willing to help us a bit more, I'd appreciate it."
She nodded. "Of course."
He offered her a crooked smile. "Don't promise anything yet," he suggested, and she frowned. "We've got everyone trussed up upstairs and a list of their names, but that only helps if we trust them to actually answer to their names, which I don't. I was wondering if you'd be willing to mark them off for us. It does mean," he continued before she could speak, "that they'll know you turned on them, which could set you up for retaliation at a time or in a place where you're beyond any help Teacher or I could give, so if you don't want–"
"Yes," she interrupted after taking a deep breath. Her expression was set as she agreed, "I'll help you check them off. I'm not–" She faltered for a second, then stiffened her spine and took another deep breath. "I refuse to be afraid of them. I can learn how to protect myself, I can do that, but I don't want to start a new life running away from my last one." Then she deflated, looking lost and a little scared as she met Ed's stare with her one good eye. "Is that...is that okay?"
Ed didn't really have words for how 'okay' he thought that sounded, so instead he asked, "Can I hug you?" because she looked a little like she could use one.
She nodded, so Ed leant up and hugged her, whispering, "Thank you."
She let out a muffled sob and nodded against his shoulder.
Ed wondered if, maybe, he wasn't getting a little better at this handling crying females thing, because he didn't feel like he needed to run the other way. For once.
They had, somehow, miraculously, managed to get all of the group, according to Gloria, and Teacher had managed to terrify some information out of the man Gloria had pointed out as being the one who dealt with other groups in the area, so Ed and his team had somewhere to start hunting.
Which just left them with the room full of explosives.
"Given they've already lost them once, I'm not sure we should give these back to the military," he commented, and someone snorted behind him. "But that does leave us with a massive pile of explosives to make vanish."
"If you're going to start breaking them down to their base elements again, let us know so we can run," Darius requested.
Ed flashed him a mean smile. "Ooh, I could, couldn't I?"
"Please don't," Heinkel requested tiredly.
Teacher snorted. "If you're not going to return it to the military, breaking the TNT down to base elements may be your best option," she allowed, "but I would use water to make the dynamite inert, and we should be able to do the same with the nitroglycerin."
Ed grimaced. "I didn't even think of that."
Teacher sent him a flat look. "You see nitroglycerin and explosions start going off in your head," she guessed.
"Possibly," Ed admitted; it was kind of cathartic to blow things up, sometimes, if he could do so safely. "Okay, so, water for the nitroglycerin and dynamite, and deconstruction for the TNT."
Teacher nodded and cracked her knuckles. "Let's get started on emptying this room, then. Take it all outside and we'll sort it there."
"Ed," Heinkel called as they all separated to grab a crate, and he glanced over at him. "Consider leaving a couple crates, as an extra tie to the bombings."
Ed sighed and nodded; the military was going to have some serious raised eyebrows if they completely cleaned the storeroom out. "Right. Two crates of the foreign lot, two from the military, one of the unmarked; that should leave a sufficient idea of their suppliers."
"You know–" Darius started.
"Shut the fuck up and don't contradict me," Ed ordered, "or I'll deconstruct a stick of dynamite just for you."
Darius huffed as he left the room, which really just meant he was going to wait until later to give Ed hell, but such was their relationship.
Once the collection of explosives had been whittled down, Ed pocketed those papers referring to how many there had been and any information he could find on the smaller local groups, then helped make sure all the terrorists upstairs had been watered and knocked out. With things as secure as they could make them, they took the smaller vehicle back to Dublith, and Ed left Teacher and Sig to make Gloria comfortable, and the chimeras to move their supplies back into their car, while he dropped past the military offices to give Loyd the information on where the group was.
"You're kidding," he said once Ed had been let into his office. "I thought you were headed for Fotset, but you've been here?"
Ed shrugged. "I drop misleading information just to piss you off," he offered drily, and Loyd snorted, looking very much like he was willing to believe that. "I couldn't let the terrorists know I knew where their base was, and I don't know where the leaks are, so I just let everyone think I was headed further south."
"But you don't care now?" Loyd guessed, sounding hopeful.
Ed sighed and passed Wackett's map across the table to him, with the road they'd taken from the compound marked on it. "I've got a few loose ends to tie up, but if you could head out there and pick up those fuck-shits, hold them until the trains start running again, then send them up to Central, that would be perfect."
Loyd blinked. "How many?"
"Thirty-six."
Loyd rubbed a hand over his mouth. "Right. I'm going to have to free up a couple cells."
Ed snorted. "I'll leave that in your capable hands. For now, loose ends," he announced, waving as he turned to leave.
"Ed," Loyd called after him, and Ed glanced back to find the man offering him a tired, yet grateful look. "Thank you."
He shook his head. "Don't start thanking me until the trains are back up."
"Will you even be here then?"
"Not if I can help it," Ed admitted with a grin, and Loyd chuckled. "See ya," he called and made his escape.
Goodbyes at the meat shop were relatively short, but Ed did pull Gloria aside and offer, "About that new life thing? If you keep on her, Teacher might take you on as a fighting pupil, once your ankle heals. She's ridiculously tough, but I guarantee there's no one better to learn from."
"Other than you?" Gloria suggested with a smile.
Ed snorted. "She still kicks my arse on a regular basis." He lightly touched her shoulder. "Ask her. And then, speaking from experience, don't go join the military, 'cause she was so fucking pissed, you have no idea." Okay, Teacher had been angry about more than him selling his soul to the military, and she did seem to almost approve, now that Bradley was gone, but Ed wasn't sure he wanted Gloria to trade her life as a servant of a pro-Bradley faction, for one where she bowed to the whims of officers who might or might not care about her.
Gloria laughed at that. "I'll keep that in mind." Then she hugged him. "Thank you," she whispered.
He squeezed his arms around her. "You're welcome." He pulled back as she loosened her hold and offered her a smile. "Good luck."
She nodded. "Be careful, okay?"
"I'm always careful," Ed lied as he started for the car, and Darius snorted. "You can shut up," he added under his breath as he reached the opened door.
"That lying thing of yours is becoming pathological," Darius commented as Ed slipped into the driver's seat; since he knew the area best, of the three of them, it was decided he'd take first shot at the wheel.
"Seriously," Ed ordered as he started the car, "shut up, or I'll start calling you Mr Gorilla while you're human again."
Heinkel snorted from the back seat.
"On second thought," Darius muttered, "pathological away."
"You realise 'pathological' isn't a verb."
"Shut up and drive."
Come What May Chapters:
01 || 02 || 03 || 04 || 05 || 06 || 07 || 08 || 09 || 10
11 || 12 || 13 || 14 ||
Extras:
Ch 04 (Roy) || Ch 07 (Roy) || Ch 10 (Roy)
Ch 10 (Darius - NSFW) || Ch 16 (Ed - NSFW) || Ch 17 (Roy)
We All Need Saving Chapters:
Unposted
Dancing With the Devil Chapters:
Unposted
.
