![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
batsutousaiTitle: Reverti Ad Praeteritum
Fandom: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood/manga
Author: Batsutousai
Rating: Mature
Pairings: Edward Elric/Roy Mustang, May Chang/Alphonse Elric, Gracia Hughes/Maes Hughes, post-Edward Elric/Winry Rockbell
Warnings: Spoilers like whoa, Ed's potty mouth, canon-typical violence, pile 'o OCs, mute!Ed, original character death, angst, fluff, past dub-con, past adultery, Ed has all the guilt
Summary: Unwillingly forced to serve as a human trial for a crazy alchemist experimenting with time travel, Edward Elric finds himself standing across from Truth in the moment it takes his leg from him. Armed with the knowledge of what's to come and burdened with guilt for the choices he'd made as an adult, Ed sets out to fix every mistake he ever made and save every life they ever lost, no matter what it takes.
Al must have snuck in at some point while Ed was sleeping, because he woke to find his brother sleeping on a stool next to his bed, his head resting in the space where Ed's left leg should have been. He stared down at him for a long moment, letting relief settle over him like the blanket someone had covered him with. He'd done it. He'd saved Al. It didn't matter that he'd used a Philosopher's Stone, he'd done it. Al was whole and safe and fucking perfect.
He was just reaching out a hand to touch his brother, ignoring the twinging of his stump as he shifted, when Al let out a whimper, his face scrunching up, and he whispered in a broken voice, "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry..."
Ed clenched his hands for a moment, felt sick at the reminder that Al believed they'd killed Mum again, and then he reached out and brushed his fingers through Al's hair, making shushing noises, because he could do that much.
Al settled again, his expression smoothing out, and Ed pressed his eyes shut, hating himself for this, for the wretched choice that he'd made as a stupid child, for making his brother sin next to him and pay far too great a price. And maybe Ed had kept Al physically whole this time, but he'd done nothing at all for his brother's mental state.
Fuck, if Mum could see him, she'd be giving him so much shit for this.
'I'm sorry, Al,' he mouthed, running his fingers through his brother's golden hair and feeling like he was at least twice as old as his mental age. 'I'm the one at fault. I should have listened to you. I never listen to you, and you always get hurt and I'm so fucking sorry.'
He closed his eyes, hated that they were dry. But, then, he'd spent far too much of his life refusing to cry. Even for his little brother.
(He'd never had that right.)
The door creaked and he looked over to find Granny standing there with her pipe. "He keeps sneaking down," she commented, motioning with the pipe towards Al.
Ed nodded and brushed some hair out of his brother's face; if he'd been the one who was mobile, he'd have come looking for Al all the time, too. No matter what Granny said about him needing a proper bed.
"Brother?" Al mumbled, his fingers curling in the sheet.
Ed tried a humming noise, which sort of worked – he was going to be spending months trying to figure out what sorts of noises he could still make, he knew it – and ruffled his brother's hair.
Al squinted his eyes open, clearly still sleepy. " 'Kay?" he mumbled.
Ed offered him a smile and nodded.
Al blinked a few times, then his eyes fell closed and he turned away.
Ed shot Granny a worried look.
Granny sighed and approached the bed. "Back upstairs, Al, come on. Your brother needs his rest, and that position isn't good for your back."
Al let out a heavy sigh and obediently slouched out of the room.
'Al?' Ed tried to call after him, but the familiar name was little more than a gasp of air that went unheeded, and Al left the room without glancing back.
Something wretched was crawling up Ed's throat – bile or a sob, it was all the same – and he forced it back down as he leant forward and punched the bed where his left leg should have been, grinding his fist into the white sheet the way he wanted to do to Truth's face.
Granny was quiet for a long moment, before she settled into the stool Al had vacated. "I went by your house," she said.
Ed glanced at her from behind his bangs.
Granny took a long draw of her pipe, breathed the smoke in the opposite direction, then said, "I saw the headstone."
Ed gave a cautious nod, not sure what she was getting at.
"It's blank."
Ed blinked, then nodded again.
Granny turned around to collect what turned out to be a pen and some paper attached to a clipboard. "Write," she ordered, her stare hard.
Ed looked down at the clipboard. Write? Write what? An explanation for the blank headstone? 'It wasn't Mum'
"What do you mean, it wasn't your mother?" Granny asked, a note of surprise in her voice.
Ed stared down at the paper for a long moment, pen poised, trying to decide how he could explain...
He clenched his jaw, made his choice, and wrote, 'Hohenheim suggested human trans never works. You can't bring the dead back to life'
"Hohenheim?" Granny repeated, definitely shocked, now.
'He comes back when I'm 15'
Ed turned to look at Granny, his expression set, and she looked up at him, met his stare with something that wasn't nearly as disbelieving as he'd have expected. (But, then, she'd known Hohenheim for so long, watched him never age; was it really any wonder she could so easily accept time travel?)
"How old are you?" Granny asked.
Ed didn't bother misunderstanding her. '29'
Granny drew in a careful breath, then offered, "You didn't react when I called you a shrimp."
Ed blinked, then found himself letting out a rough laugh. (And it was good to know he could still laugh.) Oh, of course it would be that which gave him away. He finally managed to train himself out of reacting to people commenting on his height, and that's what catches him out. Fuck.
Granny tapped out her pipe in the ashtray next to the bed. "Have you had automail before?"
Ed nodded, then wrote, 'Left leg + right arm. Kept my arm this time'
"I see that. And your voice?"
Ed couldn't keep his mouth from twisting with disgust, even as he scribbled, 'New'
"I see."
Ed paused for a moment, then carefully wrote, 'Al suffered last time. Not this time'
He glanced over at her and found a sad smile on her face. "You boys," she murmured, gently patting his thigh.
Ed huffed a breath, then picked up the paper he'd been writing on, leaving the pen on the clipboard, and clapped, activating the deconstruction array he'd taken from Scar, leaving behind pieces so small, they'd have needed a microscope to find them in the dust specks.
"...that's a new trick," Granny offered.
Ed shrugged and nodded; at this point, he had nothing but new tricks.
"Are you going to tell Al?" Granny asked.
Ed nodded, not even having to think about it; Al deserved the truth, deserved to know what was coming, what danger lay in wait under Central.
"And Winry?" Granny pressed.
Ed frowned at that, uncertain. Tell Winry? She'd just freak out on him and–
He swallowed, reminded that she'd been turned into a hostage to force his and Al's compliance. She deserved the right to know she was going to be in danger, that Ed and Al were going to be in danger, even.
So he met Granny's stare and nodded, then looked down to write, 'Not yet. Not while I'm a sitting target'
Granny let out a laugh and slipped off the stool. "I guess I should get working on that automail for you, then," she announced, and Ed couldn't keep from grinning at her, so very grateful. "For now, though, are you hungry?"
Ed blinked, then rolled his eyes; he was always hungry.
Granny laughed again as she stepped from the room.
Ed was left with the silence and his thoughts. He stared down at the clipboard in his lap, realised that he felt a bit lighter for telling Granny the truth, even so little of it. Like this wasn't just on his ten-year-old shoulders, any more. He had someone to share the burden, who wouldn't look at him and see a child who has no fucking clue what he's walking towards.
Granny had always been a solid support for him, for all three of them, and he hadn't even realised how much he'd needed her in his corner until she was there.
'Thank you,' he mouthed to the empty room.
"I don't know what's wrong," Winry admitted quietly when Ed shoved his clipboard at her, his brother's name underlined a couple times. "He sits outside with Den a lot. He won't tell me anything." She threw her hands up in the air and pointed an angry finger at Ed. "You're more talkative than he is, right now!"
Ed knew she didn't mean that in a rude way, no matter her tone, and she was using anger to hide how terrified she was, but it still made him flinch, the reminder than he was struggling to find ways to communicate.
Winry's face fell and tears welled in her eyes. "I'm sorry, Ed. I didn't–"
Ed shook his head and patted her shoulder; he would get used to this disability, same as he'd once had to get used to two metal limbs, same as he'd had to get used to not having alchemy.
It was amazing, the things you could adapt to, if it was important enough.
He picked up his pen and wrote, 'I'm worried about him too'
Winry swallowed and reached up to wipe angrily at her eyes. "It's not fair!" she snapped. "None of this is fair!"
Ed looked away, couldn't bring himself to write what he was thinking: Life isn't fair.
(He, better than anyone, understood that.)
They were both silent for a long moment before Winry got to her feet. "I'm going to go find Al. Tell him you're asking after him."
Ed paused for a moment, then wrote, 'If he won't come at least make sure he's eating?'
Winry's bottom lip trembled, tears gathering in her eyes again, and she nodded. "Yeah," she agreed, before taking her chance and fleeing.
Ed closed his eyes and drooped back against the bed. Fuck. This was so fucking hard. He couldn't tell if Al hated him or was being stupidly guilty about the whole mess or what, because Al wouldn't come see him, and Granny and Winry just didn't know how to read Al when he wasn't bright and smiling, but Ed could. Ed had learnt to read his brother when he couldn't have an expression; right now, this, it would be a walk in the park. (Fuck, Al was the only person he'd always been able to read; even Winry had thrown him for a loop half the time, even after they'd married each other.)
Assuming Al would stop avoiding him.
He could go chase his brother down, of course. It wasn't easy, but he was capable of getting around on a crutch, and there was plenty of material for him to transmute into one. But, if he did, he'd get all kinds of shit from Granny and Winry. And he knew Granny. She'd hold his automail over his head if he started misbehaving, and he needed his fucking leg.
He didn't know what to do.
Swallowing against a lump in his throat, Ed turned his thoughts to planning for the Dwarf in the Flask, which he really needed to sort.
Hohenheim, much as he hated the bastard, had been somewhat necessary in fighting the Dwarf in the Flask effectively, given his own regenerative powers were equitable, so waiting until his useless old man showed his face would be helpful.
Too, they would need Scar and his brother's notes for the reverse circle, so the Dwarf in the Flask couldn't shut off his opponents' alchemy. (Ed had seen the circle, sure, but his memory of it wasn't perfect, and he'd rather have the original than try to recreate it from memory and chance screwing it up. And he could probably research it himself, if he could find the necessary resources, but why bother spending months working on that when someone else already had?) All he had to do was wait for Scar to pop up, then tempt him into a fight and...
And, what? Ed couldn't talk.
He let out a grunt and shifted, opening his eyes to look towards the open door.
Al could, though, and Ed intended to tell him as much as he could. Give his brother enough to go on, he could probably talk Scar around for him.
Scar's brother would be the key. Ed understood all too well the bond between brothers, and could make some pretty good guesses as to how to approach the issue. He and Al would figure something out.
(If Al would ever talk to him again.)
'Stop it,' he ordered himself, scowling.
They would have to wait for Scar and Hohenheim, then. So that was four years or so where they would have to cool their heels. Ed could join the military again, but he wasn't sure he really wanted to. Eventually, sure – as a State Alchemist, no one would look at him twice if he went snooping in the underbelly of Central, and he'd need the title to attract Scar – but there wasn't much reason for them to be running around the east area for three years, hunting after whispers of the Philosopher's Stone, and he didn't really want to know what horrors Mustang or Bradley would assign them without the goal of getting their bodies back.
Carving bloody crests, with Ed's luck.
So, if not the military, then what?
He sighed and rubbed at his face. Not here. He couldn't sit still here, couldn't sit still anywhere. It was something that had driven Winry nuts, but she'd always understood. May had been a little less–
May.
Ed turned towards the hallway, as though thinking of his brother's future wife would bring him running.
Hah. Yeah, right.
Still, a few years in Xing might prove fruitful. Al had managed to figure out the Dragon's Pulse, eventually, but Ed hadn't bothered, not when he couldn't use alchemy or alkahestry. It had seemed pointless, so he'd just kept to collecting arrays and hadn't bothered to learn how to manipulate the Xingan power source. But, now...
If he and Al could use alkahestry, they didn't really need to talk Scar around. They probably still would – they weren't the only Amestrisan alchemists, after all – but it wouldn't be vital.
(Not to mention, fuck, distance alchemy. Ed needed that in his arsenal. Al had been fucking unstoppable once he'd figured that trick out.)
Right, so, Xing. He'd have to figure out how to teach Al Xingan, and he should probably actually practise the written form, for once. Because Ed had learnt to read the fancy characters – May had taken great joy in ambushing him with it until he gave in and let her teach him – but writing them had never been one of his skills. And since he was stuck communicating through the written word...
Ed sighed and picked up his pen, turning his attention to the clipboard in his lap. Well, he might as well start with that practising, and writing in another language was a good way to make a list of everything he needed to remember, without chancing someone figuring it out when he didn't want them to.
11 || 12 || 13 || 14 || 15 || 16 || 17 || 18 || 19 || 20
21 || 22 || 23 || 24 || 25 || 26 || 27 || 28 || 29 || 30
.