Chapter Text
Life has a melody.
A rhythm of notes which become your existence
once played in harmony with God's plan.
“If you give half of your life to me, I’ll give half of my life to you.”
“Half? I’ll give you all of it.”
~
The first year Ed was happy. He could finally relax, probably for the first time in his not that long life, without worrying about anything.
He spent his days helping Winry in her workshop in Rush Valley, learning more about automail than he had during the years he was wearing two of them.
He spent his nights making love to his lovely wife, enjoying the sensations and feelings that were still new to him, or reading and working on some alchemy theories, trying not to think too much that now it was just this ― reading, researching, drawing arrays ― for others to use.
First year he thought he finally realized what it meant, to live.
The second year he thought he was starting to learn what happiness was, when Winry told him he was going to be a father. The thought of him raising his own kids was surreal but endearing, and he couldn’t get enough of just rolling it inside his head every time when he woke up in the morning with Winry in his arms, or when he looked at her working in her workshop.
And even when he was sitting in the night under the weak warm light from a table lamp falling on the opened alchemy books and papers with his messy notes on them, when he could almost pretend that he didn’t feel that suffocating dark emptiness somewhere on the verge of his conscience where the feeling of his Gate used to be.
He would get used to it.
It was all worth it.
The third year he thought he realized what true happiness was when he held his son in his arms. Winry was smiling at him and he was smiling back, thinking that his life couldn't be any better. They named him Maes. Mrs. Hughes was crying on the phone when he called her to tell her that, but he could hear a smile in her voice.
Mustang wasn’t crying when Ed received a call from him the next day. But he had never heard the man’s voice sounding so soft and sincere when he said, “Thank you, Edward.” Ed told him he could visit them anytime if he wanted to see Maes.
In the third year Ed received a letter offering him a position in a lab in Central City. He talked with Winry about possibly moving there ― they could open a workshop there, right? And they could use more money now when they had a kid. She asked him to wait until Maes was a bit older.
“You can do some research from here, can’t you?” she asked.
“I suppose I can,” he said, and sent a polite letter declining the offer.
Later this year Al and Mei came to visit from Xing and that year he spent taking care of his little son, while Winry was busy in the workshop. He didn’t have much time for reading or research, but he hardly even had time to think about it, and he could talk about alchemy and alkahestry with Al and Mei.
They left too soon, but he couldn’t allow himself to be upset that his brother lived so far away and he couldn’t see him too often. He was alive and happy ― that was what really mattered.
And Ed was happy too.
As for the alchemy… He still had his books.
In the fourth year they received an invitation for Al and Mei’s wedding in Xing.
In the fourth year Winry told him she was pregnant again. She said he could go alone and reassured him that she could take care of their son on her own.
A few days before the day he was supposed to leave, Maes got sick and Ed decided to stay. As much as he wanted to see his brother getting married, he had his own family now, and obligations that came along with it. He sent a short telegram with apologies.
Two weeks later he received a letter with several photographs of Al and Mei grinning happily to a camera. In the letter Al was telling Ed not to worry and that he understood.
In the end of the fourth year, he opened their door and was met with straggling hugs from Mrs. Hughes and Elicia, who had grown so much Ed barely recognised her. Mustang was smiling from behind them. Ed was laughing happily.
It was refreshing to see his friends after such a long time, and Ed wondered at what point he started thinking of Mustang as an old friend as well. Perhaps it was just a formality for his brain as he couldn't always call the man his former superior officer. Besides, Mustang brought him several books Ed hadn’t read yet, which certainly earned him several friendship points.
“Most of them are nothing special, but I managed to find one rather old edition of that alchemist you were ranting about a few years ago, and I can bet my left leg that you’ve never read it before,” Mustang said with a mocking smile.
Ed wanted to hug him or kick him with his own left leg, but he just smiled and thanked the man.
Ed didn’t notice how the two of them ended up sitting on the couch talking while Elicia was in the bedroom playing with Maes whose happy laughs were heard through the door, while Winry and Mrs. Hughes were doing something in the kitchen.
They were slowly sipping the whiskey Mustang had also brought with him, insisting that now that Ed was older, he refused to have a grown up conversation with him without the addition of a fine alcohol. Whiskey strongly smelled like oak, and Ed wondered absentmindedly why the scent was so familiar.
Talking with Mustang was a breath of fresh air, he couldn’t ignore this even if he tried. They talked about everything and nothing, remembering old days, Mustang shared some fresh rumors from his office, and also mentioned a new research in alchemy that he came across.
“Not much to do for a genius like you in Rush Valley, I see,” Mustang said with a polite smile and Ed wasn’t sure whether it was a question or a statement.
Ed didn’t comment.
They exchanged their usual mocking, Mustang joking about his height again, though Ed was now almost as tall as the General himself. Ed made him stand up to check.
“See,” he said. The edge of his palm pressed to Mustang’s brows indicating Ed’s height. “Almost as tall as you,” he wanted to say, but didn’t. Mustang breathed out in the little space between them, Ed breathed in. The air smelled like oak.
Ed blinked and sat back on the couch. The conversation resumed as if nothing happened and Mustang didn’t mention his height again.
They shook hands when Ed’s guests were leaving. Mustang didn’t have his gloves on. His hand was warm. Ed’s eyes fixed on the white scar on the back of the man’s hand. He may have held his hand a flicker of a moment longer than he was supposed to.
After Ed closed the door behind their guests, he realized that for the hours he had been talking with the man, he didn’t feel the urge to yell at him like before. Perhaps he was just an adult now.
Winry said that she hadn’t seen him smiling so brightly lately.
“Just happy to see others,” he answered. “And look at the books Mustang gave me! I’m taking back all the insults I’ve ever said about him!”
“I guess it felt good to talk with the Brigadier-General. I’m sorry I can’t discuss alchemy with you, Ed. Perhaps you should call him from time to time, you must be bored to death sitting here,” Winry said. “I promise to think about moving to Central after the kids are a bit older, ok? Do you think that lab that sent you an offer last year would still accept you?” she asked. “I think they would, you are a genius after all!”
Ed spent almost the whole night buried in the new books until it was already bright outside. He went to sleep with a weird heavy feeling settling down in his chest.
~
“How does it feel?” Winry asked him suddenly a few days later.
“What?”
“How does it feel, to be without alchemy? I wanted to ask you for a long time, but it didn’t seem like a good idea, when all this just happened. I thought it might be easier for you to talk about it after some time has passed.”
How did it feel? It felt like losing a limb.
No, it was worse actually. The limbs he had replaced with automail; there was nothing that could replace his Gate. It was a constant feeling of a dragging emptiness inside. Inside the whole of him. It was a constant annoying tickling at the back of his conscience of something being not right, of something important missing in his very being. He had considered himself half of a man when he was wearing two prosthetic limbs. But now he knew that he was whole back then.
At first he hoped that this black bottomless emptiness would heal with time. Then he hoped that perhaps it might at least become smaller. When it hadn’t shifted after the years, he had tried to fill it with whatever he could find fitting.
He knew it was a fair price to pay for getting his brother back and he couldn’t complain. When Maes was born and the drawing black hole in his soul didn’t become less painful, he mentally added his family on the side of the scale where Al already was. It was his equivalent exchange. It was all worth it.
But it had never become easier. Every time he opened an alchemy book, every time he drew an array that he couldn’t use ― could never use ― it felt like reaching desperately for something that wasn’t there anymore. It was a reminder that nothing in this world could fill this hole he had. He would wander in the darkness for eternity.
So how did it feel, she asked him.
Like there is never enough air in my lungs, he wanted to say. Like my heart was ripped from my body and I can’t feel it beating anymore, he wanted to say. Like there is a dark abyss in the place where my soul is supposed to be and there is nothing in this world that can fill it, he wanted to say.
But she would not understand. How could she, this wonderful strong woman, who was so whole, how could she understand what it felt like to be dragging your own corpse within yourself?
So instead he forced his usual smile on his face and said,
“It is fine.”
~
He woke up the day of his birthday the next year and felt that he was suffocating.
The feeling didn’t lessen for the whole day. He felt too big for their small house. The walls were pressing on him, the air thick in his lungs.
Winry gave him a book as a present.
“I remember how happy you were when the General brought you all those books, so I thought you might want to read something new,” she said. He kissed her and smiled. He put the book on a shelf to never take it from there again ― it was one he had read several times years ago.
Maes gave him a drawing of their family: he and Winry holding hands, Maes sitting on Ed’s shoulders like the boy loved to do so much, little newborn Nina lying on Winry’s free hand. The drawing was clumsy but it raised a warm feeling in Ed’s chest and he smiled brightly at his son. He put the drawing on his desk. Maes was very proud his father approved of his present.
At the end of the day Ed went to sleep hoping that the tight fist around his chest would disappear in the morning.
He woke up to the feeling of a staggering fear washing over him. The walls were pressing again and there was not enough air, there was not enough movement, there was not enough… something , anything!
The feeling didn’t pass that day either when Al and Mei arrived from Xing to wish him a happy birthday.
Al noticed that something was off with him, but Ed didn’t know how to answer his worried questions. He couldn’t understand what was happening to him himself.
Al and Mei left after a few days. Ed saw them off from the station while Winry stayed at home with the kids.
“You should come to visit us in Xing,” Mei said.
“Yeah, when Nina is a bit older, you all should come,” said Al. “Maybe next year?”
Yeah, maybe next year, Ed thought.
They were waving at him from the window while the train started moving.
Ed was standing on the platform trying to breathe through the sudden panic attack, trying to calm his body while his mind was swarming him with an intense fight-or-flight response that came out of nowhere. And the leaving train’s tail was the only thing he could focus on, his vision blurry.
Maybe next year, he thought. When Nina is a bit older.
And maybe a few years after that he could convince Winry to move to Central and maybe he would still be able to find a job in some lab or university. How old would he be then? And maybe, when the kids were old enough to go to school, he could start traveling from time to time. Sure Winry wouldn’t mind then…
He should just wait. He had a good life: lovely wife, amazing kids. He had his books, he could go to Central City and buy new ones. Or ask someone to send them to him if Winry needed him here. Maybe he could write Mustang ― the books the man had brought him last year were a great choice and Ed was sure he wouldn’t even have to ask the man for anything specific ― he had spent years at the side of the Flame Alchemist, they were thinking alike in so many ways, surely the man would know what would be the best choice of the reading material for Ed.
And he should’ve asked Al the same. Ed would send him a letter today.
There were no worries in his life. His life was safe and stable. That was what he was fighting for ― for a life like that. It was perfect.
Then why was he…
... suffocating ?
~
Sixth year they started fighting. It was small things. But during one fight he spit out that he couldn’t sit here anymore, in one place, raising kids, doing so little, seeing so little. He wanted to travel, he wanted to explore the world, he wanted to meet new people, he wanted to read new books and learn new things. His mind was agonizing here, trapped and understimulated, and it just felt wrong, like he was betraying his very nature.
Winry cried. She begged him not to leave them. She got angry. She screamed that he was like his father. He didn’t say anything. He spent the night in the hotel. Winry came after him in the morning, apologizing. He accepted that but deep inside the thought had settled.
Later that year the university in Central he had been sending the researches he managed to perform with what limited arsenal he had in Rush Valley, offered him a position in their staff. It wasn’t the first time, and he had declined it before every time for the sake of Winry and the kids. This time he raised the question of moving to Central.
They agreed that he would go there and take the position and see if it fit him well, while Winry would stay in Rush Valley with the kids. It was just temporary, she couldn’t just move her workshop to Central in one day ― she had clients here and the next few months were full of appointments. It was all right. He would try to visit them on weekends and would search for a good place to open a workshop in Central. And it could be a good break for him if he was so tired of Rush Valley, she said.
They saw him off at the station. Ed kissed Winry and the kids, Nina was too little yet to understand that her dad was leaving. “ Just for a few months ,” Ed had to remind himself. It was nothing like what his dad had done. He would be together with his kids soon, he was not leaving them. He tried to explain it to a three-year-old Maes, who was clinging to Ed’s leg, drenching his pants in tears, and this made Ed’s heart hurt.
I am not my dad.
“I’m not leaving forever, Maes. I will come back in a couple of weeks and I will spend the whole weekend with you, I promise!”
He was not his dad.