FMA fic: Transient (part 9)
Title: Transient (part 9)
Fandom: Fullmetal Alchemist
Rating: PG
Category: Gen
Approximate length: 60,000
Summary: With Ed suffering from what he thinks is the seasonal flu the Elric brothers track a rogue alchemist in a small town outside of East City.
Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8
Spoilers: This story takes place about a year before the boys go to Lior. Anything that happened before that is fair game.
Disclaimers: I don’t own Fullmetal Alchemist. This story was written for entertainment only. I’m not making any money.
Notes: Action, snarky Ed. I apologize for any mistakes. If you see them, please let me know.
Enjoy.
PART 9
“What the hell?” Ed whispered hoarsely to himself. A half dozen horrifying possibilities played out in his mind, all involving Al coming to some kind of harm while Ed had been asleep. Panic rose so quickly inside of him that he was almost sick with it.
Ed started walking towards the open door, gaining momentum with each step, the pressure in his chest forgotten. He was halfway to his goal when Mason Biggs appeared in the doorway, hopping lightly up the steps from the muddy street. His posture seemed relaxed, like a man who
had just been relieved of a heavy burden. The deputy’s eyes were on the road behind him, so he didn’t see Ed until he was finished wiping the mud off of his boots. When he saw the state alchemist standing motionless in the center of the room he started visibly, and the look on his face was very similar to the expression Al wore when had Ed caught him trying to smuggle a kitten into their dorm room.
But first things first, Ed decided.
“Where’s my brother?”
“He’s at the town meeting, trying to convince a bunch of hard-heads that alchemy is the right fix for their problem,” Mason explained, moving toward the desk. His eyes flitted back and forth over the surface, as if he were trying to decide if anything were missing, or if the drawers had been opened. “The sandbags are holding for now, which is good, but that isn’t exactly helping Al make his case.”
“The river?”
“Still rising, but right now we’re doing everything we can.”
“Not everything,” Ed said. He began coughing and covered his mouth with the sleeve of his red coat.
“What are you doing up?”
“Can’t lay in bed all day,” Ed told him. “Still have a job to do.”
Mason was shaking his head. “No, I don’t think so. Listen, you need to let Al take care of things here. You were coughing up blood last night. You look like a sack of vegetables that’s a week past expiration.”
“Says you,” Ed said stubbornly.
“Oh, for the love of- ” Mason began, wiping a hand down his face. He ripped the sheriff’s chair out from behind the desk and shoved it at Ed. “Sit down!”
Ed glanced at the chair, then back up at Mason, and knew that his options were to A: sit in the chair or B: be pushed into the chair, and he didn’t think that he would have the energy to resist option B.
Ed sat. He dropped his elbows onto his knees and coughed weakly at the floor.
Mason parked himself in the desk, arms folded across his chest. Gone was the helpful, easy-going university student. Mason Biggs was actually quite an imposing figure, and Ed felt for the first time that the deputy might have some sort of authority over him.
Ed reacted in the same way that he always did when confronted by an authority figure.
“What the hell are you looking at?”
Mason’s posture didn’t change. “I don’t know how your brother puts up with you, but I’ll tell you what, I have a lot of respect for him right now.”
“You leave Al out of this!”
“You brother is the only reason I’m still trying to help you.”
“Concealing the location of a wanted criminal? Is that what you call ‘help’?”
Mason’s eyes narrowed, but he didn’t try to deny the charge. “You heard us talking last night,” he concluded.
“I heard you lying.”
Mason shook his head calmly, “I told Al the truth.”
“You told Al part of the truth,” Ed corrected him. “But you left some things out. I think you’ve been helping Leon since he got here.”
“You may be smart and you may know a lot about alchemy but you’re just a kid. You don’t know everything, and until you learn not to talk when you should be listening, you never will.”
“I have a job to do. You’re in my way.”
“So move me,” Mason challenged him.
Ed shot up out of the sheriff’s chair with a snarl, so enraged that he didn’t even think of transmuting his automail before he launched himself at the deputy.
Ed grasped at Mason’s collar, but Mason swept his hands aside effortlessly and Ed slammed into the edge of the desk, absorbed most of his momentum with his outstretched hands and the rest with his stomach. Gagging, he curled in on himself and sank to his knees in front of the desk.
Ed slumped there, trembling, until he felt a hand grasp his shoulder firmly, then he used the dregs of his rage to turn and punch Mason right in his stupid face. It occurred to him in passing that he might live to regret punching a law enforcement officer in the face, but his only regret at the moment was that he didn’t use his automail fist.
Mason staggered back a couple of paces, shaking his head as if to clear it.
“Tell me where Leon is!” Ed commanded.
Mason moved his jaw around, testing.
“You’re a real piece of work, you know that?”
“Shut up.”
“Stop it,” he said. He put a hand on Ed’s back, and Ed couldn’t tell if it was meant to comfort or restrain. “Just stop for a minute. All you’re doing is hurting yourself.”
“Save it. I’m not in the mood,” Ed cut him off. “Just tell me where your friend is.”
“I’m not his friend,” Mason insisted.
“Fine. Classmate. Whatever. He got that array from the same book you showed me. It’s a course book from the university, so I knew that he either got the book from you or you’re in the same class.”
“I haven’t been helping him do alchemy if that’s what you’re accusing me of.”
“Did I say that? I know you’re not helping him do alchemy. You’re smarter than that. No, you’re just hiding him because you don’t want your friend to get in trouble.”
“I told you, I’m not- ”
“His friend? That would be the smart thing to say. I’m sure that’s what you told your dad when he asked you if you knew Leon. And yes, I’m sure he asked when he found out the kid’s age. It’s only natural that he’d pursue that line of questioning. Central University’s a big place. I’ve been there, but I’m betting that your dad hasn’t.”
“What makes you say that?”
“Because if he had, he’d know that the geology department only has about a hundred students. If you and Leon were both geology majors, even if you weren’t in the same year, there’s no way that the two of hadn’t met. You say you’re not close, but the way you protect him, the way you lie for him, even though you’re a deputy and you should be turning him in, it’s like you’re his older brother or something.”
“I told Al, he’s like a tag-along,” Mason said, and the irritation in his voice was probably for Ed and Leon both.
“That’s what little brothers do.”
Mason’s annoyed expression faded from his face.
“You’re an upper classman, a deputy, and you’re from Rhuel, a place that’s famous among geologists. He looks up to you. He followed you home and you didn’t have the heart to turn him out. I’m betting that he was here the night that we arrived, that he was upstairs while your dad was out on patrol. That’s why you didn’t invite us to stay.”
“You think you’re so smart. That’s not what happened.”
“Then fill me in.”
Mason shook his head, “If I’m as guilty as you say then why don’t you just skip the interrogation and send the military to arrest me.”
“Believe me, I would, but it’s not you I’m after.”
“So if I rat him out you’ll let me go? Is that what you’re saying?”
Ed looked up and met Mason’s gaze, which was as hardheaded as his own, and knew that they were at a standstill. He let the tension drain out of his shoulders. He coughed. Then he kept coughing until his stomach hurt and he couldn’t breathe.
“Hey,” Mason said, kneeling in front of him. “You okay?”
Ed couldn’t answer. Mason put a hand on his shoulder and Ed shrugged him off.
Sighing in frustration Mason sat back on his heals. “Go back to bed. Let me handle your stupid mission for you.”
Ed gasped in a painful breath. “Like hell I will.”
“Unbelievable. Listen, if it’ll put your mind at ease…” Mason seemed to hesitate. “He was never here. He asked and I said no. He stayed someplace nearby, with a friend of mine. But he’s not there anymore. That’s where I was just now. I told him he needed to leave, now. If I see him again, I’ll arrest him myself. You have my word on that.”
His word, huh?
“He’s just a stupid kid. Let it go, Edward.”
But even stupid kids have to pay for their mistakes.
With Mason’s help Ed staggered to his feet, coughing a few more times until his throat was clear.
“Thanks for the info,” Ed said, then broke free of Mason’s grip, heading for the front door as fast as his legs would carry him.
“Hey!” Mason shouted after him. “Where are you going?”
Ed ignored him and followed his instincts down the block to the bakery, aware that Mason was trailing behind him.
Zelda popped up from behind the counter when she heard the sound of the little bell over the door.
“Oh, hello Edward,” she greeted him. “Is Al with you? You never came by for lunch yesterday.”
Zelda’s expression became uncertain as a breathless Mason followed Ed through the bakery’s front door.
“Excuse me,” Ed said as he let himself behind the counter and made his way to the back room uninvited.
“Oh, wait, what are you-?” Zelda protested.
“Edward, stop!” Mason commanded. He moved to block Ed bodily. Ed sidestepped and Mason shoved him. Ed turned himself, but he was slow. The move caught him off guard and he lost his balance and fell against a stack of flour sacks.
Ed glared up at Mason hotly from his sprawl. Mason took a step back. He looked slightly horrified at what he’d done. Zelda was standing behind the deputy, eyes wide, hands covering her mouth.
Slowly, and with as much dignity as he could muster Ed stood. He dusted himself off, continuing to glare at Mason and at Zelda for good measure. Neither one of them made a move to stop him or help him as he shrugged his flour-dusted red coat back onto his shoulders and turned towards the back of the shop. He tried the handle on the stockroom door and found it stuck. He braced his shoulder against the door and shoved.
“Edward… Ed, stop,” Mason tried to reason with him.
But Ed was past the point of being reasoned with. He stood back and clapped his hands, and then he placed them on the door. There was a burst of blue light and the door, reduced to several planks of wood and a handful of hardware, fell inward with a clatter. Zelda’s shocked gasp followed.
Ed barged into the storage room, fully expecting to be met with some kind of resistance, but there was none. The room was dark and the air inside was dusty and still. Ed stood for a moment, staring in disbelief at the empty room, half-hoping that if he stood there long enough Leon Mueller would drop in from the ceiling.
“He’s not here,” Mason said, coming up behind him. “I was trying to tell you that but you probably wouldn’t have believed me anyway.”
“No,” Ed agreed, his voice low, flat and empty of emotion, “probably not.”
Ed blinked at the empty room. His eyes were starting to water from the dust in the air. His manic energy seemed to have abandoned him, drained away through the soles of his feet. Ed swayed where he stood and put a hand to the doorjamb to steady himself.
He’d been certain. Ed’s instincts had never steered him wrong before. Sometimes they were a little off-target but they more or less never failed him.
Mason grew impatient and put a hand on Ed’s shoulder. He turned Ed around and Ed let him do it.
“Mason?” Zelda’s soft voice inquired. She was looking back and forth between the deputy and the alchemist. Her brows were drawn together, but she seemed more concerned now than angry. “What’s going on?”
“I’m sorry about this. Everything’s okay.”
“Is it?” she said uncertainly.
“Yes, we’re leaving. Edward,” Mason prompted. Ed had stopped in his tracks.
“Hold on a minute,” Ed mumbled, and dropped heavily to his knees in front of the storage room door. He touched his palms together again and restored the door to its original form. Good as new.
Behind him Zelda and Mason stood speechless.
With one hand on his knee and one on the counter Ed hauled himself to his feet, then turned away from the storage room and began a slow, plodding march back the way he had come.
“Do you want me to get someone? Your father?” Ed heard Zelda whisper.
“No, it’s okay,” Mason said. “I’ll handle him. I’ll come by later, okay?”
“Okay,” Zelda agreed, though she still sounded a little shaken.
Outside it had begun to rain again.
Ed coughed into his fist. “Will you tell her that I’m sorry about the commotion?” he requested as they made their plodding way back down the street towards the sheriff’s station.
“Sure,” Mason answered. The deputy had his hand wrapped around Ed’s flesh bicep. Ed couldn’t tell if Mason was supporting him or taking him into custody, and right now his feverish brain was too busy turning over the question of Leon Mueller for him to care which it was.
When they reached the sheriff’s office, Mason let him go and shut the door quietly behind them. Ed noticed for the first time that there were dark circles under Mason’s eyes. He looked worn and old.
“What are you so down about?”
Mason cocked his head, “Are you serious? I just chased a friend out of town, and I don't know how I'm going to explain to Zelda what just happened.” he said, wiping a hand down his face. "Ugh. She probably thinks we're both crazy. Thanks, for that."
Ed ignored Mason's concerns about his girlfriend. “So you admit that Leon’s your friend now?”
Mason rolled his eyes. “Know what? Forget it. I’m not going to play word games with you anymore. You pick apart everything I say. I don’t know what you’re looking for.”
“The truth.” And if he had to dig to find it… “Let me ask you something. Did he ever tell you why?”
“Why he moved the river? He was looking for sapphires. He really thought there was a deposit under the river. Idiot.”
“But why the rest of it? Why try to fix things?”
Mason frowned at him. “Why wouldn’t he?” A thought seemed to occur to him, and his puzzled expression disappeared. “Ed, he wasn’t looking for sapphires for himself. He wasn’t trying to get rich. He was doing it for the town.”
Ed blinked at him dumbly.
“Who wouldn’t want to seen Rhuel up and thriving again? Do you get it? He wasn’t doing this to get rich or to become famous.”
“You don’t know that for sure.”
Mason sighed and his shoulders slumped forward wearily, “Yes, I do, because I know Leon. That’s the kind of person he is. Not everyone’s motives are selfish.”
“No,” Ed said with conviction. “In the end, everyone’s motives are selfish. Money and power aren’t the only things that can be gained from breaking rules. Part of the reason that laws exist is to protect people from the selfishness of others.”
Mason considered him for a moment, and then he said, “I feel sorry for you.”
That caught Ed off guard, but just for an instant. He ducked his head. “I guess it doesn’t really matter why he did it. Leon committed a crime. He needs to face the consequences.”
“That may work in alchemy, where all the lines are clear. Something is either inside the circle or outside. It’s either affected or it’s not. There’s no in-between. But we’re talking about real life. I may be a deputy, but I’m still part of the same community as the people I serve. We have to have the same goal. That’s how a community survives. It’s my job to decide whether or not something is inside of those lines or outside. If I obey the letter of the law and ignore the spirit of the law, I’m not doing the community any good. Everything I do affects everything else, either positively or negatively.”
Ed was silent, because instead of formulating a contrary argument, he was actually listening to Mason’s words. To his surprise, they made sense.
One is all.
All is one.
“Maybe you can’t see it,” Ed told Mason, “but we’re both saying the same thing.”
The two of them were silent for a moment.
“I feel awful,” Ed said, crushed by the sincerity of his own words.
Mason dropped his hands to his side. The wooden floor creaked under him as he shifted his weight.
“You should go back to bed,” Mason told him sympathetically. But he sounded like he was the one who needed rest.
Mason shoved gently on Ed’s arm, a touch meant to steer him towards the stairs. Ed rolled his shoulder forward and let Mason’s hand slide off of him.
He would not be moved.
“Did you say you sent him to the train station?”
“Edward,” Mason warned.
“‘Cause as long as I’m up… ”
Ed started walking, this time towards the back door of the office, mentally mapping out the town in his head. The train station was half a mile away at most, maybe less if he cut through the alley behind the main road.
“Ed, stop!” Mason shouted.
Ed wheeled around on him, grabbing the nearest wall for support. Ed was dizzy and feverish. His hands were shaking. His breathing was ragged, but he was young. He was strong. He’d trained his body to work through sickness and pain, and as long as there was a glimmer of hope that he might reach his goal, it was enough to keep him on his feet and moving.
Ed’s head snapped around. He bared his teeth. “Stay out of my way or I will make you regret it!”
Mason actually backed up a step, probably because he could read the sincerity in Ed’s eyes.
Ed burst out of the back door and into the muddy alley like a shot fired from a cannon. He ricocheted off the bathhouse and redirected himself toward the train station, moving as fast as his sluggish legs would carry him.
Given the weather conditions the streets and alleyways were nearly empty. A young woman carrying a basket of eggs ducked quickly out of Ed’s way, when she heard footsteps behind her. A pair of elderly men stood on a balcony above the street, leaning on the rail and smoking long-stemmed pipes. They followed the progress of the alchemist and the deputy with subdued interest as the boys charged down the street underneath their balcony.
Before long Ed was gasping for breath. He could hear his pulse pounding in his ears, throbbing in his temples. Black dots clouded his vision, and numbness that had nothing to do with the mud or the weather climbed up his legs, flesh and automail alike. Darkness was closing in on Ed from all sides, like the alley walls looming closer and closer. As hard as it pressed in, it only made him push back that much harder.
Ed was so focused on reaching the train station that he almost missed it…almost missed him… the young man who flattened himself against a crumbling garden wall to get out of Ed’s way. He almost missed Mason’s faltering steps, which interrupted an effortless rhythm that the deputy had used to keep pace with him this far.
Ed skidded to a halt, sliding in the mud and catching himself with one hand on the ground to redirect himself.
Ed looked at Mason. Mason looked at the frightened young man, who had frozen, stiff and wide-eyed at the sight of them. He was wearing wrinkled black trousers that were caked with mud and dirt around the cuffs. His tie and vest were undone. He carried a jacket in one hand and a worn leather suitcase, which looked as if it had been packed in one hell of a hurry, in the other. One of the latches was undone and a piece of dark clothing was peeking out, wagging like a panting tongue.
For one motionless beat the three of them stood staring at one another. Everything stopped, even the rain, like time itself was holding its breath in anticipation.
To be continued... part 10
Thank you for reading. Feedback is welcome.
Fandom: Fullmetal Alchemist
Rating: PG
Category: Gen
Approximate length: 60,000
Summary: With Ed suffering from what he thinks is the seasonal flu the Elric brothers track a rogue alchemist in a small town outside of East City.
Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8
Spoilers: This story takes place about a year before the boys go to Lior. Anything that happened before that is fair game.
Disclaimers: I don’t own Fullmetal Alchemist. This story was written for entertainment only. I’m not making any money.
Notes: Action, snarky Ed. I apologize for any mistakes. If you see them, please let me know.
Enjoy.
PART 9
“What the hell?” Ed whispered hoarsely to himself. A half dozen horrifying possibilities played out in his mind, all involving Al coming to some kind of harm while Ed had been asleep. Panic rose so quickly inside of him that he was almost sick with it.
Ed started walking towards the open door, gaining momentum with each step, the pressure in his chest forgotten. He was halfway to his goal when Mason Biggs appeared in the doorway, hopping lightly up the steps from the muddy street. His posture seemed relaxed, like a man who
had just been relieved of a heavy burden. The deputy’s eyes were on the road behind him, so he didn’t see Ed until he was finished wiping the mud off of his boots. When he saw the state alchemist standing motionless in the center of the room he started visibly, and the look on his face was very similar to the expression Al wore when had Ed caught him trying to smuggle a kitten into their dorm room.
But first things first, Ed decided.
“Where’s my brother?”
“He’s at the town meeting, trying to convince a bunch of hard-heads that alchemy is the right fix for their problem,” Mason explained, moving toward the desk. His eyes flitted back and forth over the surface, as if he were trying to decide if anything were missing, or if the drawers had been opened. “The sandbags are holding for now, which is good, but that isn’t exactly helping Al make his case.”
“The river?”
“Still rising, but right now we’re doing everything we can.”
“Not everything,” Ed said. He began coughing and covered his mouth with the sleeve of his red coat.
“What are you doing up?”
“Can’t lay in bed all day,” Ed told him. “Still have a job to do.”
Mason was shaking his head. “No, I don’t think so. Listen, you need to let Al take care of things here. You were coughing up blood last night. You look like a sack of vegetables that’s a week past expiration.”
“Says you,” Ed said stubbornly.
“Oh, for the love of- ” Mason began, wiping a hand down his face. He ripped the sheriff’s chair out from behind the desk and shoved it at Ed. “Sit down!”
Ed glanced at the chair, then back up at Mason, and knew that his options were to A: sit in the chair or B: be pushed into the chair, and he didn’t think that he would have the energy to resist option B.
Ed sat. He dropped his elbows onto his knees and coughed weakly at the floor.
Mason parked himself in the desk, arms folded across his chest. Gone was the helpful, easy-going university student. Mason Biggs was actually quite an imposing figure, and Ed felt for the first time that the deputy might have some sort of authority over him.
Ed reacted in the same way that he always did when confronted by an authority figure.
“What the hell are you looking at?”
Mason’s posture didn’t change. “I don’t know how your brother puts up with you, but I’ll tell you what, I have a lot of respect for him right now.”
“You leave Al out of this!”
“You brother is the only reason I’m still trying to help you.”
“Concealing the location of a wanted criminal? Is that what you call ‘help’?”
Mason’s eyes narrowed, but he didn’t try to deny the charge. “You heard us talking last night,” he concluded.
“I heard you lying.”
Mason shook his head calmly, “I told Al the truth.”
“You told Al part of the truth,” Ed corrected him. “But you left some things out. I think you’ve been helping Leon since he got here.”
“You may be smart and you may know a lot about alchemy but you’re just a kid. You don’t know everything, and until you learn not to talk when you should be listening, you never will.”
“I have a job to do. You’re in my way.”
“So move me,” Mason challenged him.
Ed shot up out of the sheriff’s chair with a snarl, so enraged that he didn’t even think of transmuting his automail before he launched himself at the deputy.
Ed grasped at Mason’s collar, but Mason swept his hands aside effortlessly and Ed slammed into the edge of the desk, absorbed most of his momentum with his outstretched hands and the rest with his stomach. Gagging, he curled in on himself and sank to his knees in front of the desk.
Ed slumped there, trembling, until he felt a hand grasp his shoulder firmly, then he used the dregs of his rage to turn and punch Mason right in his stupid face. It occurred to him in passing that he might live to regret punching a law enforcement officer in the face, but his only regret at the moment was that he didn’t use his automail fist.
Mason staggered back a couple of paces, shaking his head as if to clear it.
“Tell me where Leon is!” Ed commanded.
Mason moved his jaw around, testing.
“You’re a real piece of work, you know that?”
“Shut up.”
“Stop it,” he said. He put a hand on Ed’s back, and Ed couldn’t tell if it was meant to comfort or restrain. “Just stop for a minute. All you’re doing is hurting yourself.”
“Save it. I’m not in the mood,” Ed cut him off. “Just tell me where your friend is.”
“I’m not his friend,” Mason insisted.
“Fine. Classmate. Whatever. He got that array from the same book you showed me. It’s a course book from the university, so I knew that he either got the book from you or you’re in the same class.”
“I haven’t been helping him do alchemy if that’s what you’re accusing me of.”
“Did I say that? I know you’re not helping him do alchemy. You’re smarter than that. No, you’re just hiding him because you don’t want your friend to get in trouble.”
“I told you, I’m not- ”
“His friend? That would be the smart thing to say. I’m sure that’s what you told your dad when he asked you if you knew Leon. And yes, I’m sure he asked when he found out the kid’s age. It’s only natural that he’d pursue that line of questioning. Central University’s a big place. I’ve been there, but I’m betting that your dad hasn’t.”
“What makes you say that?”
“Because if he had, he’d know that the geology department only has about a hundred students. If you and Leon were both geology majors, even if you weren’t in the same year, there’s no way that the two of hadn’t met. You say you’re not close, but the way you protect him, the way you lie for him, even though you’re a deputy and you should be turning him in, it’s like you’re his older brother or something.”
“I told Al, he’s like a tag-along,” Mason said, and the irritation in his voice was probably for Ed and Leon both.
“That’s what little brothers do.”
Mason’s annoyed expression faded from his face.
“You’re an upper classman, a deputy, and you’re from Rhuel, a place that’s famous among geologists. He looks up to you. He followed you home and you didn’t have the heart to turn him out. I’m betting that he was here the night that we arrived, that he was upstairs while your dad was out on patrol. That’s why you didn’t invite us to stay.”
“You think you’re so smart. That’s not what happened.”
“Then fill me in.”
Mason shook his head, “If I’m as guilty as you say then why don’t you just skip the interrogation and send the military to arrest me.”
“Believe me, I would, but it’s not you I’m after.”
“So if I rat him out you’ll let me go? Is that what you’re saying?”
Ed looked up and met Mason’s gaze, which was as hardheaded as his own, and knew that they were at a standstill. He let the tension drain out of his shoulders. He coughed. Then he kept coughing until his stomach hurt and he couldn’t breathe.
“Hey,” Mason said, kneeling in front of him. “You okay?”
Ed couldn’t answer. Mason put a hand on his shoulder and Ed shrugged him off.
Sighing in frustration Mason sat back on his heals. “Go back to bed. Let me handle your stupid mission for you.”
Ed gasped in a painful breath. “Like hell I will.”
“Unbelievable. Listen, if it’ll put your mind at ease…” Mason seemed to hesitate. “He was never here. He asked and I said no. He stayed someplace nearby, with a friend of mine. But he’s not there anymore. That’s where I was just now. I told him he needed to leave, now. If I see him again, I’ll arrest him myself. You have my word on that.”
His word, huh?
“He’s just a stupid kid. Let it go, Edward.”
But even stupid kids have to pay for their mistakes.
With Mason’s help Ed staggered to his feet, coughing a few more times until his throat was clear.
“Thanks for the info,” Ed said, then broke free of Mason’s grip, heading for the front door as fast as his legs would carry him.
“Hey!” Mason shouted after him. “Where are you going?”
Ed ignored him and followed his instincts down the block to the bakery, aware that Mason was trailing behind him.
Zelda popped up from behind the counter when she heard the sound of the little bell over the door.
“Oh, hello Edward,” she greeted him. “Is Al with you? You never came by for lunch yesterday.”
Zelda’s expression became uncertain as a breathless Mason followed Ed through the bakery’s front door.
“Excuse me,” Ed said as he let himself behind the counter and made his way to the back room uninvited.
“Oh, wait, what are you-?” Zelda protested.
“Edward, stop!” Mason commanded. He moved to block Ed bodily. Ed sidestepped and Mason shoved him. Ed turned himself, but he was slow. The move caught him off guard and he lost his balance and fell against a stack of flour sacks.
Ed glared up at Mason hotly from his sprawl. Mason took a step back. He looked slightly horrified at what he’d done. Zelda was standing behind the deputy, eyes wide, hands covering her mouth.
Slowly, and with as much dignity as he could muster Ed stood. He dusted himself off, continuing to glare at Mason and at Zelda for good measure. Neither one of them made a move to stop him or help him as he shrugged his flour-dusted red coat back onto his shoulders and turned towards the back of the shop. He tried the handle on the stockroom door and found it stuck. He braced his shoulder against the door and shoved.
“Edward… Ed, stop,” Mason tried to reason with him.
But Ed was past the point of being reasoned with. He stood back and clapped his hands, and then he placed them on the door. There was a burst of blue light and the door, reduced to several planks of wood and a handful of hardware, fell inward with a clatter. Zelda’s shocked gasp followed.
Ed barged into the storage room, fully expecting to be met with some kind of resistance, but there was none. The room was dark and the air inside was dusty and still. Ed stood for a moment, staring in disbelief at the empty room, half-hoping that if he stood there long enough Leon Mueller would drop in from the ceiling.
“He’s not here,” Mason said, coming up behind him. “I was trying to tell you that but you probably wouldn’t have believed me anyway.”
“No,” Ed agreed, his voice low, flat and empty of emotion, “probably not.”
Ed blinked at the empty room. His eyes were starting to water from the dust in the air. His manic energy seemed to have abandoned him, drained away through the soles of his feet. Ed swayed where he stood and put a hand to the doorjamb to steady himself.
He’d been certain. Ed’s instincts had never steered him wrong before. Sometimes they were a little off-target but they more or less never failed him.
Mason grew impatient and put a hand on Ed’s shoulder. He turned Ed around and Ed let him do it.
“Mason?” Zelda’s soft voice inquired. She was looking back and forth between the deputy and the alchemist. Her brows were drawn together, but she seemed more concerned now than angry. “What’s going on?”
“I’m sorry about this. Everything’s okay.”
“Is it?” she said uncertainly.
“Yes, we’re leaving. Edward,” Mason prompted. Ed had stopped in his tracks.
“Hold on a minute,” Ed mumbled, and dropped heavily to his knees in front of the storage room door. He touched his palms together again and restored the door to its original form. Good as new.
Behind him Zelda and Mason stood speechless.
With one hand on his knee and one on the counter Ed hauled himself to his feet, then turned away from the storage room and began a slow, plodding march back the way he had come.
“Do you want me to get someone? Your father?” Ed heard Zelda whisper.
“No, it’s okay,” Mason said. “I’ll handle him. I’ll come by later, okay?”
“Okay,” Zelda agreed, though she still sounded a little shaken.
Outside it had begun to rain again.
Ed coughed into his fist. “Will you tell her that I’m sorry about the commotion?” he requested as they made their plodding way back down the street towards the sheriff’s station.
“Sure,” Mason answered. The deputy had his hand wrapped around Ed’s flesh bicep. Ed couldn’t tell if Mason was supporting him or taking him into custody, and right now his feverish brain was too busy turning over the question of Leon Mueller for him to care which it was.
When they reached the sheriff’s office, Mason let him go and shut the door quietly behind them. Ed noticed for the first time that there were dark circles under Mason’s eyes. He looked worn and old.
“What are you so down about?”
Mason cocked his head, “Are you serious? I just chased a friend out of town, and I don't know how I'm going to explain to Zelda what just happened.” he said, wiping a hand down his face. "Ugh. She probably thinks we're both crazy. Thanks, for that."
Ed ignored Mason's concerns about his girlfriend. “So you admit that Leon’s your friend now?”
Mason rolled his eyes. “Know what? Forget it. I’m not going to play word games with you anymore. You pick apart everything I say. I don’t know what you’re looking for.”
“The truth.” And if he had to dig to find it… “Let me ask you something. Did he ever tell you why?”
“Why he moved the river? He was looking for sapphires. He really thought there was a deposit under the river. Idiot.”
“But why the rest of it? Why try to fix things?”
Mason frowned at him. “Why wouldn’t he?” A thought seemed to occur to him, and his puzzled expression disappeared. “Ed, he wasn’t looking for sapphires for himself. He wasn’t trying to get rich. He was doing it for the town.”
Ed blinked at him dumbly.
“Who wouldn’t want to seen Rhuel up and thriving again? Do you get it? He wasn’t doing this to get rich or to become famous.”
“You don’t know that for sure.”
Mason sighed and his shoulders slumped forward wearily, “Yes, I do, because I know Leon. That’s the kind of person he is. Not everyone’s motives are selfish.”
“No,” Ed said with conviction. “In the end, everyone’s motives are selfish. Money and power aren’t the only things that can be gained from breaking rules. Part of the reason that laws exist is to protect people from the selfishness of others.”
Mason considered him for a moment, and then he said, “I feel sorry for you.”
That caught Ed off guard, but just for an instant. He ducked his head. “I guess it doesn’t really matter why he did it. Leon committed a crime. He needs to face the consequences.”
“That may work in alchemy, where all the lines are clear. Something is either inside the circle or outside. It’s either affected or it’s not. There’s no in-between. But we’re talking about real life. I may be a deputy, but I’m still part of the same community as the people I serve. We have to have the same goal. That’s how a community survives. It’s my job to decide whether or not something is inside of those lines or outside. If I obey the letter of the law and ignore the spirit of the law, I’m not doing the community any good. Everything I do affects everything else, either positively or negatively.”
Ed was silent, because instead of formulating a contrary argument, he was actually listening to Mason’s words. To his surprise, they made sense.
One is all.
All is one.
“Maybe you can’t see it,” Ed told Mason, “but we’re both saying the same thing.”
The two of them were silent for a moment.
“I feel awful,” Ed said, crushed by the sincerity of his own words.
Mason dropped his hands to his side. The wooden floor creaked under him as he shifted his weight.
“You should go back to bed,” Mason told him sympathetically. But he sounded like he was the one who needed rest.
Mason shoved gently on Ed’s arm, a touch meant to steer him towards the stairs. Ed rolled his shoulder forward and let Mason’s hand slide off of him.
He would not be moved.
“Did you say you sent him to the train station?”
“Edward,” Mason warned.
“‘Cause as long as I’m up… ”
Ed started walking, this time towards the back door of the office, mentally mapping out the town in his head. The train station was half a mile away at most, maybe less if he cut through the alley behind the main road.
“Ed, stop!” Mason shouted.
Ed wheeled around on him, grabbing the nearest wall for support. Ed was dizzy and feverish. His hands were shaking. His breathing was ragged, but he was young. He was strong. He’d trained his body to work through sickness and pain, and as long as there was a glimmer of hope that he might reach his goal, it was enough to keep him on his feet and moving.
Ed’s head snapped around. He bared his teeth. “Stay out of my way or I will make you regret it!”
Mason actually backed up a step, probably because he could read the sincerity in Ed’s eyes.
Ed burst out of the back door and into the muddy alley like a shot fired from a cannon. He ricocheted off the bathhouse and redirected himself toward the train station, moving as fast as his sluggish legs would carry him.
Given the weather conditions the streets and alleyways were nearly empty. A young woman carrying a basket of eggs ducked quickly out of Ed’s way, when she heard footsteps behind her. A pair of elderly men stood on a balcony above the street, leaning on the rail and smoking long-stemmed pipes. They followed the progress of the alchemist and the deputy with subdued interest as the boys charged down the street underneath their balcony.
Before long Ed was gasping for breath. He could hear his pulse pounding in his ears, throbbing in his temples. Black dots clouded his vision, and numbness that had nothing to do with the mud or the weather climbed up his legs, flesh and automail alike. Darkness was closing in on Ed from all sides, like the alley walls looming closer and closer. As hard as it pressed in, it only made him push back that much harder.
Ed was so focused on reaching the train station that he almost missed it…almost missed him… the young man who flattened himself against a crumbling garden wall to get out of Ed’s way. He almost missed Mason’s faltering steps, which interrupted an effortless rhythm that the deputy had used to keep pace with him this far.
Ed skidded to a halt, sliding in the mud and catching himself with one hand on the ground to redirect himself.
Ed looked at Mason. Mason looked at the frightened young man, who had frozen, stiff and wide-eyed at the sight of them. He was wearing wrinkled black trousers that were caked with mud and dirt around the cuffs. His tie and vest were undone. He carried a jacket in one hand and a worn leather suitcase, which looked as if it had been packed in one hell of a hurry, in the other. One of the latches was undone and a piece of dark clothing was peeking out, wagging like a panting tongue.
For one motionless beat the three of them stood staring at one another. Everything stopped, even the rain, like time itself was holding its breath in anticipation.
To be continued... part 10
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