Fullmetal Alchemist Fan Fiction ❯ The Fullmetal Paradox ❯ Speculation ( Chapter 2 )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

Warnings: anime spoilers, plenty of language, violence and lots of angst.

Disclaimer: Fullmetal Alchemist and all affiliated characters and settings are the creative property of Hiroaki Arakawa and all companies that hold license to its title. Characters picked on and plots shamelessly twisted without permission, but sadly, I don't make money off of my stupid plot bunnies.

Chapter 2: Speculation

He couldn't see. Somehow, however, he knew exactly where he was, and what he was doing, as if his mind had a method of projecting the world - if he could call it that - around him onto the backs of his eyelids. Unless his eyes were open. He couldn't tell. At any rate, he was fighting again, trying to pull away from the greedy hands, hands had no bodies attached to them as they grabbed for his remaining limbs in their everlasting search for embodiment. The feather-light touches stung like fire and presented their own form of torture even as he evaded the grasp of the wiggling fingers.

Images raced across his vision, battling for dominance in the motion picture of his mind, striking any number of different chords within his very core. Many of these snapshots were from his past, reminding him of what he once had, and could never have again. A stable family, with brother, mother, and… even that old bastard managed to find his way into the projection, a content glow upon his uncharacteristically pleased visage. This brought a conflicting mixture of pleased nostalgia and rage, joy and remorse. His brother's body whole brought further regret along with a glimmer of hope as they played together in green fields, green grass tickling at their backs as they lay with broad smiles and stared into the sky, wondering what was beyond it.

And then the hands would snatch away the images, squealing in delight as they realized how close they were to finding human flesh.

A suit of armor, hiding kittens inside its empty hollow, speaking with his brother's voice and emotion, attacking him in a sparring match. The armor would inevitably win, and he would growl in frustration as he cursed his human body's limits. Offended, the armor turned angry, and for some time he felt the overwhelming weight of guilt perched heavily upon his shoulders. Even without emotion in the metallic face, the actions and intonations of the voice became clear indicators of his brother's moods, as if he could actually see his brother's face as he spoke through the vessel that contained his only link to the living world - a blood seal, born from determination and a brother's love.

Then that too disappeared, pulled away with appalling shrieks that made his stomach roil. He wanted to stop the hands, and make them give back the images, but he couldn't speak.

Black streaks, in a horrifying and familiar pattern, covered the armor, which now glowed red from the sheer power the markings brought to the planet's surface. He was helpless without his one and only talent that would allow him to bring his brother's full body back, but not yet. A baby cried in the background, and he was fighting again. This time it was a losing battle, and even though he found himself with the upper hand for a brief moment, it was lost in a brilliant wash of agony and the horrendous taste and scent of blood.

Fire, explosions, and an unfamiliar setting, a heavy, lethal weight fell upon his shoulders and back and sent him home to find that the suit of armor was gone, and he was whole. But that wasn't what he'd wanted, and so he tried once more to make ends meet.

Then there was no more, as the hands grabbed up the rest of the pieces before he could place them together. Stop it! he wanted to yell. Give those back!

High-pitched cackling replied. You must present us with something of equal value, or you will lose everything that is precious to you.

I don't have anything left, he would say, but somehow he knew they were smiling at him, with burning eyes and broad, grinning mouths that lingered beyond the darkness.

Then give us your soul, Edward Elric.

The darkness spread to all senses, and he was lost.

“Ronald… but I'm… doctor…”

“He won't… bleeding… we need… I… fever… don't know what…”

For the time being, Edward was content allowing the hazy feeling in his brain take control for a while. Despite the murmurs and distant voices he couldn't quite make out, he felt blissfully unaware of the world around him. He hadn't slept well in quite some time, so he figured that now was as good a time as any to catch up on rest.

That is, until a blunt object pressed into his left shoulder.

Bright white flashed across the back of his eyelids, and he could've sworn he heard himself scream. The pain was nearly unbearable as fire coursed along his veins around the wound. There was sudden pressure on both his arms and legs, and through the haze he could hear distant shouting. Everything sounded as though it was underwater, and his entire being ached as something probed into the wound in his shoulder.

“Wait! You're… he's in… should fetch… instead.”

It hurts, it hurts!

“Edward!”

He tried to follow the voice when it called his name - he really did - but extreme pain washed over him and swallowed him whole, sending him back to the dream world that existed only in his mind. There, he hoped he could hide from the agony long enough for it to pass.

Standing on tiptoes on a small, wobbly stepstool, Pinako peered down at the sleeping young man with a deep frown in her wizened forehead. When she had been called to assist a wounded young man found in the Smithy's fields, she had most definitely not expected to see someone who looked almost exactly like the older of the two Elric brothers. She heard last that Edward was away with his brother, training in the art of alchemy under a strict woman named Izumi.

She had so many questions that she wanted the strange young blonde man to answer, the least of them being, `What the hell happened?' From her current patient's pained cries, Pinako could tell that although his voice was deeper than Edward's, it still held the same pitch. This boy also looked older - a lot older - and his hair was far longer than Ed's should have been.

Her questions would have to wait, however. The boy was running a persistent fever, and he was sure to be anemic from blood loss. Dark circles framed the closed eyes, as if he had exhausted himself on a goal, as the Edward she knew often did, too.

“That stupid beansprout,” she muttered quietly as she replaced the cloth on her patient's forehead and adjusted the blankets, tucking the edge under his chin gently.

“Who're you calling a beansprout?” The soft, masculine voice startled Pinako; she jumped. It was then she noticed the glassy golden peering from behind slit eyelids, and the gentle smile tugging at the corners of the boy's lips.

“Ah, you're awake!” she exclaimed. “I was starting to get worried, young man.”

Her patient's smile waned ever so slightly as he grunted in reply. Pinako sighed, turning briefly to pick up a water pitcher behind her so she could fill a glass of it for him. With a grimace, he slowly pushed himself into a sitting position, leaning his head back against the headboard as he did so. The blanket bunched at his lap, and he shivered as the air came in contact with his sweaty skin. He really did look a lot like an older version of Edward.

“How are you feeling?” Pinako asked, placing her head against his forehead as soon as he took the cup from her in shaking hands.

“Better, I think,” he said uncertainly. “This isn't your home.”

It wasn't a question, and it took Pinako by surprise; did the boy know her? She tried to cover her reaction with a nodded reply. “This is Ron Smithy's home. You were found passed out in his fields. He's fairly new to Rizenbul, moved here a few months ago with his wife.”

The boy's mouth formed a small “o,” and he shifted uncomfortably with a guilty glint in his eyes.

“By the way, how did you know? I don't believe I've met you before,” Pinako said suspiciously.

The boy couldn't suppress the flinch at the question. She turned an eyebrow up at his response, and he fidgeted slightly under her intense stare.

“I - ah, I'm not sure,” he replied nervously. “Just instinct. You don't seem to be completely at ease here.”

Pinako frowned. He had to be lying, but she wasn't sure how just yet. “What is your name?”

The boy looked away, swallowed, and seemed to think for a moment before he hung his head in shame. “I - I… d-don't know.”

This whole conversation was becoming rather strange, she decided. “Hm. Perhaps you took a hit to the head as well?” The boy merely shrugged, and she sighed. “Well, no use in turning you out, not in your condition. I hope you don't mind if we move you to my place; I think you've given the poor Smithy family enough of a scare for now, don't you—”

“Edward!”

A high-pitched feminine voice floated through the door, announcing the presence of its owner just shortly before she entered the room. Much to Pinako's surprise, the boy's expression first brightened with glad recognition, but the look lasted only a moment until his eyes widened, color draining from his already pale face. He paused a moment, lips moving in wordlessly - Pinako fervently wished she knew what he was thinking - until his voice finally came out in a stuttered whisper.

“W-Winry?”

Sometimes, I absolutely hate lying. I don't mind if I omit a few truths when speaking with politicians or enemies, but to the people I care about… I wouldn't lie to them unless I felt I had to. That was one of those situations. I remember that when I woke up, I was so ready to be home that I hadn't even thought about the fact that I was significantly older than when they'd last seen me, not until that girl showed up and reminded me just how old I was. I had to come up with some means of explaining my existence - somehow that I was Edward Elric, and at the same time I wasn't really the Edward Elric that they knew.

I hate to admit, that at first her name didn't come to mind, though I knew everything else about her. At the time, I thought nothing of it. After all, I'd just come home; well, in terms of the town, at least. My home was still intact, if I recalled correctly. I'd been wounded and was tired, and I hadn't seen this part of my adoptive family in years.

I would realize the real problem later, when it was far too late to do much about it.

“W-Winry?” How could he have forgotten about her? When her bright, cherubic, blonde-framed face appeared in the doorway, his breath caught in his throat.

Oh god.

“Who are you?” he heard Pinako whisper in shock.

Winry was only ten years old, just like Ed had been at that time in his own life. And he had just given away the fact that he did indeed know who they were.

At first, Winry didn't seem to notice the fact that Ed had seemingly miraculously aged a good eight years by then. When she caught sight of the bandages - and the strange prosthetics - she couldn't seem to tell if she wanted to be angry or worried, as a mixture of both was written across her young face. “I was so worried! I came over as soon as Granny let me! What on earth happened to you?”

… Oh god.

His hands were shaking furiously now, and he couldn't seem to find anything to say to her, couldn't stop staring at her with wide eyes. Briefly, he recalled a theory he'd come across while researching about the potential for universal destruction if a time traveler somehow managed to alter his own history.

“Ed…?”

The air seemed to thin out in the room; Ed suddenly felt like he couldn't breathe in enough of it as his heart pounded painfully in his chest, blood rushing at a deafening speed in his ears. Heat rose up to his face, and the room whirled as sharp pain pierced his skull. With a muffled cry, he clutched his aching head in his hands and leaned forward, the world blackening around him even as he heard the surprised shouts of both his current companions.

Wh-What the hell?

Come to think of it, the headaches started when I'd first stumbled upon the right path towards my way home, back while I was in Germany. At first I thought it was from the lack of sleep, but those damn migraines would come without a moment's notice, and debilitated me until they passed. At first they were mild, but the longer I spent in my own time - with my own past - they only became increasingly worse.

But like everyone else around me, at first I thought that perhaps I was just dealing with a lot of trauma in the form of these awful migraines, and that they would pass in time.

Ed woke in a dark room, which he recognized was part of the Rockbell's home. They must have moved him while he was unconscious, and either it was evening now or they had pulled the curtains closed. At any rate, he was alone, and his headache had lessened to a dull, bearable throb, only bothering him some when he sat up. With slow movements, he moved his legs over the side of the bed and tested putting weight on his injured leg; was pleased to see it hold with only a light twinge. The movement made his head swim a little, but once he'd regained his equilibrium in an upright position, he hesitantly made his way across the room to check out the window. The bright light outside hurt his sensitive eyes, but at least he knew it was still daytime.

Moving generally hurt, since his body was sore with fatigue and injury, so he moved slowly as though he had aged far more than three years since he'd last been in his own world. Perhaps he was old; at this point, he didn't care, as all he wanted to do was to rest a little more before he had to face the world again.

Oh shit. And then he remembered; Pinako's hoarse whisper - “Who are you?” - and Winry's bright blue eyes shining with that strange mixture of hurt and worry just before the headache had swept him back into darkness. He must have scared Pinako and worried Winry, but he honestly hadn't thought about how he would react if he did see the people who were important to him. The first thing that had come to mind was to lie.

As he gingerly sat down on the overstuffed couch near the window, he wondered briefly what it would be like to run across his younger self, and then realized that he had a huge problem on his hands. Somehow, he had to come up with a flawless explanation - no, many flawless explanations. They must have a ton of questions as to how he got there, why he looked, sounded, and acted so much like an older version of the ten-year-old Edward Elric they knew, and how in the hell he ended up back on this side of the Gate.

His original plan of saying that he was simply a traveler was completely out of the question, now that he had acknowledged the fact that he did know both Winry and Pinako. God, he felt stupid. Now he'd have to explain why he lied as well, and the truth would only bring more questions he was fairly certain he didn't want to answer.

Footsteps approaching his room caught his attention, just before the door quietly creaked open.

“H-Hello? Are you awake?”

It was Winry, he realized with a sigh. “I'm over on the couch. You don't have to whisper,” he said gently.

She gasped as though caught doing something she shouldn't, and she turned to the couch to find him looking back at her with a small smile. Taking a hesitant step into the room, she waited for him to nod before she approached him slowly.

“I-I'm sorry… I didn't realize how loud I was being, and with you injured and all—”

Ah, so that's what this is about. “No, it wasn't you. I've been having migraine problems for a while, that's all,” he reassured her. “I'm sorry I scared you.”

Winry shook her head. “I really am sorry.”

“I know,” Ed replied. “Would you like to sit down?”

Suddenly, Winry looked at him accusingly, hesitating with open mouth only a moment before she asked, “Wait… why are you out of bed?”

Ed shrugged sheepishly, glancing back at the bed a moment before he said, “I needed to move a bit. Just had to make sure my body still worked, you know?”

She smiled a little and nodded, and then proceeded to regard him appraisingly. “You look a lot like someone else I know, but older,” she noted with the blunt honest ease of the young. “He recently… left, and hasn't been gone all that long, either.”

“I know,” he replied quietly. He knew these questions would arise at some point, but he still wasn't quite sure how to address them just yet. “His name is Edward, right?”

Her eyes widened in surprise. “How…?”

Ed couldn't suppress a small chuckle at the question. “Let's just say that I am well-acquainted with that friend of yours.”

“Is that how you know my name?”

He managed to avoid not looking surprised at the question - he shouldn't be, though - and answered evenly, “It is.”

She looked a little confused, but accepted the answer with a small nod anyway. “What happened to your arm and leg? You know Granny and I could give you automail… Those limbs you have aren't as strong as automail would be.”

Always the saleswoman, he noted amusedly. “I… uh… made a big mistake, and it cost me an arm and a leg - literally,” he joked with a wink, and she couldn't hide a giggle. “But seriously, I used to have automail. It broke, though, and I wasn't in a place where I could get more, or I would have.”

“Well, then, you didn't get very high-quality automail if it broke so easily,” she said airily. He had to hide his laugh.

“No, it was very well-made,” he said. “I was doing things with it that I shouldn't have. It was my own fault that it broke, not the makers'.”

She looked him directly in the eye then, apparently trying to figure something out for herself, but not quite able to understand what it was she was looking for. Ed started to get a bit fidgety after a moment, nervous under the serious stare of a ten-year-old girl who would grow up to be one heck of a woman. Looks like she got an early start on that.

“You… really don't seem like Ed,” she said after a moment. “You look and sound like him, but you don't act like him.”

Ed was a bit taken aback by her analysis, so it took him a moment to gather his thoughts enough to reply. “Is that so? I suppose I wouldn't be much like him.”

He resisted the urge to sigh in relief when she rocked back on her heels, and seemed to accept his answer for the time being. With a sigh, she said, “Granny said that we wouldn't be able to give you automail now anyway; even if you're older than Ed, you're still too young, and you still aren't quite all better yet.”

Ed had to laugh; he was almost nineteen, and had had the original automail surgery when he was only eleven. His younger self was only a mere matter of months away from getting affixed with the artificial limbs as it was, if this timeline stayed intact. A sudden thought hit him then.

“What's so funny?” Winry asked after a moment.

“Nothing,” Ed said, immediately erasing the laughter from his voice. “I'll tell you later. Could you do me a small favor, though? I could use a pen and some paper right about now…”

Winry brightened at the idea of being helpful, and she nodded as she stood. Ed thanked her as she left the room, and he immediately began doing calculations in his mind.

This is risky, the rational half of his mind told him. You know, by now the universe should have exploded by now. You're asking for it if you're going to mess with your own timeline.

Oh shut up, the other, impulsive side of his thoughts snapped. If there's even the slightest chance that I could keep that from happening again… I think it just might be worth trying.

You're messing with fire.

You're ruining my train of thought.

Winry returned with the promised supplies and some tea, and then seemed to be frightened enough by Ed's expression that she quickly set them down on the table and left. At least she had the instinct to know that he was nearly unapproachable in this state. Now he could focus on what his hands were subconsciously drawing out for him - his own timeline, in as much detail as he could remember.

Now if I met my former self at this stage, then… what kind of a reaction would that cause here? And here?

And so he spent the rest of that afternoon - and most of the night, much to Pinako's chagrin - tracing a long, weaving spiderweb of calculations and potential outcomes. He had to come up with a plan first, and if he didn't first unravel the makings of the universe by encountering his former self, he hoped it would work. Theoretically, it would… but knowing his line of luck as it were, he couldn't afford to take any chances.

Al, I hope you forgive me for this.

.end chapter 2.

Trying to make this chapter work plot-wise gave me a headache. Sympathy pains for Ed? Perhaps. XD

I'm sorry this took forever to write and post - I haven't forgotten this story at all! I ended up writing most of it in a fevered frenzy (literally; I had a really high fever), and even after I read back through it, I'm not quite sure I caught all the small nit-picky errors yet. Please forgive me if I've made a horrendous number of mistakes.

Let's just hope that the universe doesn't explode in the next chapter.

Comments are always much appreciated!