Fullmetal Alchemist Fan Fiction ❯ For The Worst ❯ Chapter 2 ( Chapter 2 )

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Chapter 2

Three days later, when Edward was sitting in the upstairs study, he heard slightly raised voices from downstairs. Since it had been almost a usual thing for Ed to hear arguments from downstairs between his mother and father before the latter left, he almost shrugged it off, mind back in a far away place. Just as he was about to sink into the book once more did Ed remember that his father was gone, and the voices he heard were not just his mother's and a man's. Auntie Pinako was down there, too. Ed couldn't make out what they were saying, apart from a few scattered words, only knew that it was an argument. So he slowly crept out of the chair, aware of every movement now, hoping they wouldn't hear him coming to spy.

At the top of the stairs, Edward peered down. He saw shadows falling in the hallway from the kitchen, moving sporadically. There was a very tall one walking to the other side of the kitchen. Another one, not as tall, followed the first. They must have been Mr. and Mrs. Rockbell, since their voices now registered in Edward's brain. A very short shadow walked around, stopping close to where the table would be. Edward could smell the smoke from her pipe.

“Trisha, we've seen the bruises on Edward,” the old woman was saying in her crackly voice. “You can't keep doing this. It's bad for him, and yourself.” So his excuses hadn't worked. Edward hung his head down. Somehow, though, he'd known they wouldn't work. And for some reason, he felt guilty for it.

There was hardly a moment of silence before his mother spoke up, loudly. “It's none of your business what goes on here!” Her words were slurred. She started to speak again, but Mr. Rockbell spoke up before she could finish.

“Trisha, we're worried about you.” His voice, as always, was laced with care and concern.

A quiet moment passed before Auntie Pinako spoke again. “It may not be a concern of mine what happens in this house, but as an old friend of Hohenheim's, it is my concern what happens to his boys,” she announced sternly. There was a blowing sound as she exhaled pipe smoke.

A strange sound came to Edward's ears; it sounded like someone was weeping. “Get out.” That was his mother. Her voice was uneven, hitching a little. It must have been her crying. “Get out!” she shouted, voice cracking up an octave or three. “I don't want any of you interfering with what goes on in my house!”

No noise signified people were listening.

“Trisha, you have a problem!” Mrs. Rockbell spoke up for the first time for Ed to hear. “We want to help you get over this.” Her voice was soothing, the type that could put young children to sleep without any fuss from them. There was a sound like footsteps crossing the floor before more voices. “You're ill. I know this is hard for you to take, Trisha, but I want you to know that—”

“You think this is only hard for me?” his mother nearly screeched. She began speaking again, but the short shadow crossed the room and closed the door. The light, the shadows, and most of the noise disappeared, leaving Edward alone on the stairs.

Edward's six year old mind tried to process this, tried to figure out what the Rockbells may have meant by saying his mother was sick, that she had a problem. It was to no avail. No matter how much he tried to put things together, tried to figure things out, his mind couldn't wrap around it. Maybe he would go over to Winry's and ask her if she knew anything. If his mother was sick, Edward wanted to help her, despite what she did to him. Maybe if he helped her, she would stop hitting him.

As Edward stood up to go back to the study, he bumped his side on the stairs and winced. Gingerly, he felt with his fingers his newest bruise on his side from lunchtime the previous day.

- - -

The next day, it was after lunchtime when Edward tiptoed down the stairs to the kitchen. He was trying to be quiet and trying not to upset his bruises. There was a nice colorful array along his side from falling on something. Ed couldn't remember what it had been exactly. Each time this happened to him, everything about it became a blur, which made it difficult and easy at the same time when the Rockbells asked him about his bruises. It was easier, because he could make up an excuse quicker, but more difficult because he knew, despite the blurriness, that it was his mother who had done this too him.

When Edward stepped into the kitchen to see if there was lunch prepared, or to make at least sandwiches for himself and Al, he was a little shocked. There, on the floor beside the sink, was his mother. As Ed rushed over to her, he was afraid. It didn't matter to him then that she hit him, that the bruises he had on his body had been because of her. It didn't matter that she purposely did things to hurt him. He was worried about his mom.

As he reached her, he caught a whiff of some smelly odor from her body. It almost made him fall back. In his stumbling, he saw a bottle, half drained, and an empty glass on the table. The glass was identical to the one he'd broken. It reminded him of the second time she'd hit him.

Pushing that away, Edward knelt beside his mother and shook her a little. “Mom, Mom,” he said urgently. “Mom, wake up.” As he shook her, she moaned a little. It sounded like his name, followed by his father's name.

Fear gripped Edward. His mother wasn't responding to him. What did that mean? His young mind couldn't wrap around it, instead twisted with the fear of losing another parent at that moment. So he did the only thing that seemed logical. He began to cry.

“Mom, please get up!” he mumbled, shoving at her shoulders with much less fervor than before, as though his strength had been sapped away. “Mom.”

Ed didn't know how much time had passed before the front door opened quickly and Winry burst in. She seemed excited for one second before that quickly changed to alarm. “What happened?” she asked Ed, rushing over to him and his mother.

With a pitiful shrug, all Edward murmured was, “I don't know.”

Winry frowned. “I'll be right back,” she said. Immediately after, she was gone, back out the front door. Edward wondered vacantly if she was leaving so she wouldn't have to be involved in whatever would happen next, or if she was going to help. The young boy had no preference between the two. He didn't care if his best friend was leaving him at that moment to face anything that was going to happen. He didn't care, also, if she was seeking help for his mother. All he cared about, all he wanted, despite everything that had been happening recently, was for his mother to wake up.

He wanted her to wake up and apologize to him, to pull him close in her arms and tell him how wrong she'd been for hitting him. Ed wanted to hear her voice in his ears, making things right between them. Maybe if she did that, she would stop hitting him and things would turn back to normal. Maybe his father would even come back if she did that. All Edward wanted was for things to be right.

As Mr. and Mrs. Rockbell ran in the kitchen, Edward knew that wouldn't be so, that his fantasy wouldn't happen. His father wasn't coming back any time soon, and his mother wasn't going to apologize. Not after what he'd heard her saying the previous day. She didn't want help for whatever was wrong with her.

The comforting words that came from Mrs. Rockbell in her soothing voice fell upon deaf ears. Edward knew she was speaking to him but could hear nothing she said, registered none of the meaning in her words. When she embraced him moments later, he cried into her shoulder because the way her arms were around him reminded him of when things had been right in his family, when his mother used to hold him when he was scared. For some reason, Edward knew that those times were no more.