Waiting: Mother Arc: Chapter 10

Yu took a sip of her tea—proper tea, not the harsh drink that used the name here in Amestris—and flipped back a few more pages in her journal. This was her oldest one, from back when she had first come to this country as a young woman. She had had little more than a working knowledge of the language, and much of her early notes had been attempts to translate the foreign words and concepts into something more familiar. She smiled wryly, remembering how little success she'd had. She had eventually resorted to learning the science and the language in tandem. Only after she had the basics of both down did she have any success merging alchemy with her native teachings.

What she was searching for was any mention of anything similar to the Yellow Court. But the concept of finding one's center seemed to be absent from alchemy; in fact, anything to do with the spirit was largely missing. Western thinking divided human beings into three parts, the body, the mind, and the soul, but treated the soul as an unknown, the ever-present x in the equation, and seemed content to leave it at that.

No wonder this country is so unstable, she thought, then chided herself. Xing was hardly any healthier a country, especially now with the emperor ill and the line of succession uncertain.

Politics aside. What Yu wanted to find out now was why those boys had reacted the way they did. The Yellow Court was hardly a frightening concept, and she had looked through the beginning alchemy books Alphonse had left and now her own journals without finding anything remotely similar.

With a sigh, she set the journal aside and sipped her tea, cradling the handleless mug between her palms as she thought. The concept of a spiritual center hadn't been what alarmed them; they had been confused and, at least in Edward's case, maybe frustrated, but it had been when Mei had started elaborating on the Yellow Court that they had grown so pale.

Setting her mug down, Yu took a piece of scratch paper and wrote out the Xingian characters for gate of the meaning of the Dao. Yes, it had been then. And then Edward had asked the oddest question: this Gate isn't where the energy comes from, is it? The emphasis had been quite clear.

She wrote the character for gate by itself and circled it. Next to it she sketched out the snake-and-cross symbol those two wore so prominently. She tapped the pen against the page as she thought. Had she ever come across the concept of a "Gate" in her studies? It didn't sound familiar.

And did their crest really mean what she thought it did?

Sighing again, she folded the paper in half and picked up her current journal. She wasn't going to figure this out by staring at the table.

When she opened the book, a bundle of papers slid out and dropped into her lap. She blinked at them, then smiled to herself; she had forgotten she'd brought those along. She tucked the note into the journal and set the book aside, then picked up and unfolded the letters.

Yu always saved any correspondence she got from her son. After his last letter, she had gone through his previous ones, looking for any mention of Edward over the years. There had been several, but most of them were inconsequential. At least at first glance; looking back at them now, she thought she could see the beginnings of a certain kind of affection.

The most recent letter was on top. She scanned past the first part, where he talked about his demotion, transfer, return, and legal battle to reclaim his rank. There were gaps there that she still hadn't gotten satisfactory answers to, but she would worry about that some other time. A few pages in she started reading in earnest.

I've started a relationship with someone. I hesitate to use the word "dating," because that implies a certain level of conventionality, and this is anything but. We haven't been seeing each other long, but we've known each other for a while, and I have a good feeling about this. I have a good feeling about him.

Yes, him. You didn't misread that.

Yu remembered stopping and rereading those lines several times.

I'm sorry to spring this on you so suddenly, but I can't think of any good way to broach the subject. I'll state it plainly: I'm in a romantic relationship with another man. A relationship that I hope will last.

His name is Edward. He's—there is no one word I can think of to describe him. He's brilliant, but maddeningly dense at the same time. Charming, charismatic, rude, incredibly irritating and completely irresistible. I know this probably isn't making any sense. Ed defies description.

You might remember him from my previous letters. Ed was under my command a few years back. I might have referred to him then as "Fullmetal," which was his state alchemist title. He's been out of the military for a few years now, and I still have a habit of calling him that.

If you do remember my mentions of him, you're probably wondering about his age. He's an adult, and more deserving of the title than some men twice his age, but yes, Edward is significantly younger than I am.

So far, all Yu had seen was a boy who still looked and acted like a teenager, and an immature one at that. She was waiting for a sign of the "maturity" her son seemed so enamored of.

She set that letter aside and flipped to the oldest one in the stack.

The state alchemy exam concluded a few days ago. Only one title was awarded this year, and it was given to a twelve-year-old boy. Can you imagine that? But this is no ordinary child—in fact, I hesitate to use the word "child" for him at all. He's young—painfully young, really—but he's already been through a lot, and he has more than enough determination and drive. His name is Edward Elric. He was given the title "Fullmetal," supposedly for his prosthetics, but I suspect it's more for his guts and his nerve. At any rate, it's a fitting title. He hasn't gotten the official paperwork yet, so I don't know how he'll react to it.

I met him last year, and was impressed enough by his skill and strength to suggest he consider becoming a state alchemist. I didn't expect to see him again for years. In addition to his age, he'd just been badly injured (thus the need for the prosthetics I mentioned), and I expected him to take a few years at least to recover.

I underestimated him, clearly. Not only did he waltz into Central less than a year later looking like he'd never been injured, he completely blew away the alchemy board. They couldn't give him a watch fast enough. Because I sponsored him, he's been placed under my command. I'm not sure just yet what to do with him, but I would be a fool not to recognize his value.

If I was going to be completely honest, I would have to say that he scares me some. He's strong, incredibly brilliant—a genius, really—and driven in a way that is not entirely healthy. I'd hate to think what could have happened if someone else had gotten to him first. As it is I can easily see him running headlong into a bad situation—or causing one. I shall have to watch him carefully.

This has been sitting on my desk for a couple of days, too much has been happening for me to finish it. I can't tell you any details because the military still considers it an open investigation, but a young girl died, and Edward took it pretty hard. His reaction showed that he still is a child in some ways. What he probably needed was a parent, someone to comfort him—but he doesn't have that. Instead he got his command officer. I said some pretty harsh things to him. I feel terrible about it, but he needed to hear it. He's a boy in a man's world, and he won't make it unless he learns to pull himself together. Better he learns now. (I'm sure he hates me, though. He has every right to.)

As if that weren't enough, that boy got himself tangled up with a serial killer not a day later. I look back at what I wrote about him running headlong into danger and I cringe. I can see this becoming a pattern with him. But he handled himself better than many grown men would have—better than many soldiers I know. He's grown up quite a bit just in the short time I've known him, and I think he'll be all right. Provided he doesn't get himself in over his head one of these days.

She still remembered part of her reply letter: You brought a child into the military—and now he's facing down serial killers?

She flipped to the next letter in the stack and read part of her son's reply:

Fullmetal pursued the case against my direct orders. I did everything I could to keep him out of it, short of locking him away. In the end he was acting to save the life of a dear friend of his and at that point even locks and chains wouldn't have been enough. That boy leaps in with both feet and comes out on top out of sheer stubbornness, but his heart is always in the right place. Now if only I could get him to think ahead once in a while. If nothing else, it would mean less paperwork for me.

Yu set the letters down and sipped at her cooling tea. There was admiration and maybe even a certain fondness in these earlier letters, but it was more like that of a mentor or older brother. As well it should be, given the boy's age. Just when had that changed? Roy had said that Edward had been fifteen. She frowned and shifted in her chair, uncrossing and re-crossing her legs. There wasn't much difference between twelve and fifteen; at least not from her perspective.

Her personal feelings on that aside, it was clear from the letters that there was something . . . unique about Edward Elric, and his situation. What would make a boy that age push himself to join the military? And for the military to accept a child, even a brilliant one—there must be more here than she was seeing.

She pulled the note from her earlier musings back out and contemplated the snake-and-cross emblem. After a moment of thought, she wrote around it the characters for knowledge, power, freedom, and life and death. Beneath it she wrote containing or tempering the volatile. Containing it how? Tempering it with what? And just what volatile substance?

The sound of footsteps outside startled her out of her thoughts. She tucked the note away and tapped the letters back into a neat pile, just as a familiar large frame filled the doorway.

"Ah! Good." Charles grinned in relief as he moved to join her at the small table. "I was beginning to think I'd never find you in this place. Couldn't make heads or tails of the directions I got."

Yu couldn't help but chuckle. "Let me guess: you were told 'off the courtyard,' yes?"

"Something like that." He glanced at the papers on the table as he sat.

"Edward-san said something peculiar this morning, and I was hoping to find something in my old notes that might help explain it," she said. "Would you like some tea?"

"No, thank you, I'm fine. But speaking of Edward, that's why I'm here."

"Oh?"

He nodded. "You ladies got me thinking about Liore, so I called up an old colleague of mine to see if I could find out anything. He had interviewed one of the survivors just after it all happened. Turns out the Fullmetal kid was more involved than I thought."

"Oh?"

He pulled out a piece of paper and unfolded it, then read from what was evidently some notes. "Let's see . . . Colonel Archer had sent Fullmetal into the city as a scout. He came out just as the army was preparing to move. He was adamantly against proceeding, but Archer ignored him, and gave the order to move."

"'Adamantly against'?"

He gave her a brief smile. "Well, that's the official wording." He cleared his throat, looking back down at his notes. "All right, here's where things get strange. As soon as the bulk of the army was in the city, a dome of light, like from alchemy, only huge, spread out over everything. The entire city and much of the surrounding area was affected. But according to this witness, as soon as this started, the kid ran forward and dove to the ground. When the light cleared, everyone who had been behind the kid, in a swath about fifteen feet across, had survived. Everyone else—gone."

"'Gone'?"

Charles nodded. "I asked the same question. My colleague said the soldier had been very specific about that: not 'dead'—'gone.' Anyone who'd been caught at the edge of it looked like they'd been cut in two, with part of their bodies missing."

Yu drew back and covered her mouth. "Oh, how awful."

He nodded again, looking a little nauseous himself. "I know. That part was left out of the official report. So was the part where the Fullmetal kid saved some of those who would have otherwise been caught in that transmutation as well. And I'm sure now that's what it was—I've never heard of a bomb that makes people disappear."

"No, neither have I." She lowered her arms and leaned against the table. "But I've also never heard of a transmutation that large. It is possible in theory, but the larger the transmutation is, the greater the risk of it becoming unstable and rebounding. An alchemist would have to have a death wish to try something like that."

"Or simply not care, which fits with everything I've heard about Scar."

"And Edward-san . . . it is possible—again, in theory—for one transmutation to cancel out another, but the second alchemist would have to have a pretty deep understanding of the first transmutation, and the amount of energy needed. . . ." Yu's eyes slid to the stack of letters. A twelve-year-old who showed that sort of potential . . . no wonder the military had wanted him under its thumb while he was still impressionable.

The retired general grimaced, folding the paper and stuffing it back into his pocket. "Probably should've said this before—Liore was too big of thing for the military to hush up entirely, but a lot of people would've liked to. What I've just told you here probably shouldn't get around. You understand, right?"

Yu smiled and reached across the table to squeeze her old friend's hand. "Of course. I can't see what good would come of it, anyway."

He smiled back, then shook his head. "I like that kid, I do. He's got a problem with his temper, but he seems like a good kid."

"But . . .?"

"I've always thought there was something . . . strange about him. It's not normal for a kid to be that strong." He sighed, tapping a finger against the table. "Just from the scuttlebutt I've heard over the years, I think many of the officers were afraid of him. I imagine most of the lower ranks were. People are wary of state alchemists anyway, but one as powerful as this kid?"

"And at such a young age."

He nodded. "Not to mention that he had a reputation for being a loose cannon. Mustang gave him a long leash, but from the sound of it, he acted like he didn't have a leash at all. The Brass don't like that kind of thing. I'm wondering now why he was never transferred."

"I have other questions concerning Edward as well. But at the moment. . . ." Yu stood and gathered up her papers, sighing. "If you'll excuse me, old friend, there is something I should discuss with Princess Mei."

* * *

The fence rattled as Ed was slammed against it. The blade of Al's hand came to a stop a hair's breadth from his throat, the other arm pinning him across the chest.

"It's not usually that easy to beat you," Al observed as he stepped back. "You really are distracted."

Ed glared and flipped his brother off, not wanting to spare the breath for a verbal retort.

"I was surprised, too—but, we shouldn't be, now that I think about it." Al shrugged, then stretched his shoulders. "The Gate's the same everywhere."

"Yeah, you're right." He pushed off from the fence and rolled his shoulders. "It—it just startled me. I mean. . . ." He glanced away, trying not to look like he was floundering for an explanation. "We've never come across any reference to it—we wouldn't know it existed if we hadn't seen it—and then here it is out in the open. It's weird, y'know?"

"Yeah, it is strange," Al said, frowning. For a moment, he looked like he was going to say something more, but then shrugged again. "Anyway, I should get going. There's a shipment of books coming in and I promised I'd help."

Once his brother was gone, Ed shut himself in the study and winced, rubbing his shoulder. They hadn't been sparring hard, but his back still felt bruised from that last move.

They'd been sparring in an attempt to clear their heads. They were both more rattled by this morning than either of them wanted to admit, even to each other. It wasn't as if the Gate and what lay beyond it was a taboo subject, but that didn't mean it was one they enjoyed.

Edward sighed heavily as he dropped into his desk chair. For him, there were additional reasons not to bring it up. Al might have lost more that first time, and so theoretically gained more knowledge, but Ed had been in and out of the Gate so many times it might as well have been a fucking revolving door. It was impossible to pass through Truth's realm without being affected, and what he'd gained this last time . . . he'd really like to give back.

Ed lifted his hands and stared at them, then pressed his mismatched palms together. How many times had he done that without noticing? Without ever caring? Ever since that night, his alchemy had been like his automail—a tool that had started out foreign, but was now an integral part of his body. A clap and a thought, that's all it took.

He dropped his hands to the desk and leaned forward, staring at the paper-cluttered surface without seeing it. Al and Roy had both noticed his reluctance to do alchemy. He was sure it wouldn't be long before one or the other of them cornered him and demanded an explanation. What the hell would he tell them?

Alchemy is fueled by souls, you see. Human souls.

Al would be horrified. Roy was a practical man, and more jaded than Al, but he wouldn't be happy. And they both loved alchemy; Ed didn't want to taint that for them.

It's not like the Stone, he could see himself reasoning. Nobody had to be murdered for alchemy to work. These are people who died in the normal course of their lives. It was why he could do research, why he could watch someone else perform alchemy without cringing. Nobody had died for alchemy. Energy was energy, right?

Except that it wasn't. Not for him.

His eyes were drawn to the ashtray that held the scant handful of coins that had been in his pocket the last time he'd gone through the Gate. They were nothing more than play-money here; not that they'd been worth much more back in their native country, thanks to inflation. Still, aside from his journals and a few beat-up photographs, they were the only tangible thing he had from that other world. Otherwise, all he had were memories of places and people that were not quite the ones from his childhood.

But he'd come back with something intangible as well. Whether it was Truth's last joke on him, or just an effect of having gone through the Gate so many times, he didn't know.

The mind was what made a person an individual. The soul was just energy that animated the body and linked the body and the mind. Once freed, it should be nothing more than simple energy. Generic.

It should.

The shrill cry of the phone made Ed jump, and scattered his morbid thoughts back to their dark corners. "Shit," he muttered as he pushed himself to his feet. "Fucking irritating machine. Ought to hook it up to an audio recorder somehow so I don't have to answer it." Although he had to admit—if only to himself—that at the moment, he was grateful for the distraction.

The downstairs phone—for some reason, Roy's status meant they also had one upstairs, right by the bed, which Ed considered two phones too many—was on a small table just outside the kitchen. He happened to glance through the doorway as he reached for the phone—and stopped, staring. Open cabinet, overturned garbage bag, food scraps, wrappers, cans and fuck knew what else strewn across the kitchen floor—and one small, guilty-looking grey-and-white cat standing in the middle of it.

Magpie jumped back from the garbage bag with a chirpy meow, dancing in place for a moment and looking very pleased with himself.

"What the—you little shit—" Forgetting the phone for the moment, Ed dove after the miserable excuse for a cat. Magpie darted between his legs, misjudged, and collided with his right shin. Ed stumbled into the table, while the cat went skittering into a chair, then darted into the living room. "Shit!"

The phone was still ringing. Ed stumbled back from the table and into the doorframe, and snatched at the receiver. "What??"

There was a brief moment of silence, and then an amused voice said, "Hello to you, too, Ed."

He sighed, rubbing his forehead. "Breda. Shit. Sorry."

"Did I call at a bad time?"

"No. No, it's—you probably saved the cat from getting strangled, actually." He glared as the feline delinquent slinked out from behind the couch and darted to the safety of the cat door.

"See, that's why I don't hold much stock with pets. They're more trouble than they're worth."

Ed grinned. "Oh yeah? You mean it's not because you're deathly afraid of dogs?"

"Bite me."

He snickered, dropping down into the nearby easy chair. "Sure. Anyway, if you're looking for Roy, he's still at the office."

"I figured he would be, but I had a moment, and I wanted to keep this unofficial."

"Oh? Something you didn't want to use military lines for?"

"It's nothing big, so don't go jumping to conclusions. I guess my last CO put in a good word for me before he retired, because now I have an opportunity to be transferred to East."

Ed sat up a little straighter at that. "Really? That'd be great!"

"It wouldn't be under Mustang, though, not directly. I'd be under Lieutenant Colonel Phillips."

"Phillips is all right. Oh—he's supposed to be keeping an eye on Roy and all, but he let us know."

Breda made a startled noise. "Wouldn't that violate his orders? Observations are usually supposed to be done covertly."

Ed grinned. "I should say he let me know, indirectly. He knew damn well I was listening, though."

"And that it was a pretty good bet you'd tell Mustang. Huh. I wonder what his game is."

"Dunno. He's not really chatty. Roy thinks he's all right, though."

"Yeah? Hm . . . this might work out. . . ."

"I'm surprised they're letting any of you anywhere near Roy."

"It surprises me, too. That's something else I wanted to bring up. I gotta go, though—let Mustang know about this, and if I have the time I'll try to talk to him tonight."

"Yeah, okay."

"Thanks Ed."

He hung up the phone and tapped a finger against it, thoughtfully. It didn't come up much, but he knew Roy missed his old office staff. And if this meant the Brass were starting to ease up on their hard-assed attitude, that was even better.

Out of the corner of his eye, he caught sight of Magpie starting to creep across the living room and glared. The cat froze, then sprinted the rest of the way across the room and up the stairs. "Fucking cat," he muttered as he got up and reluctantly headed for the kitchen. He wished Al had been the one to bring the little grey demon home; then Ed could leave him the mess.