#fmaangstweek

     “It’s impossible,” he stated, voice flat and unamused.

     “No, I’m serious, Roy,” Maes argued, leaning over his friend’s desk. “He is the sweetest, most caring person I have ever seen whenever he’s around Elicia.” He clasped his hands, tilting his head to the side. “It’s like my little angel had chased away the devil in him.” He returned to a more stoic expression when all Roy dared to give him was an annoyed huff.

     “But seriously,” he continued on. “You need to come see this. You know what, now you have to because I am inviting you to dinner tonight!” He grinned at Roy, innocence on his face masking the mischievous glint in his eyes. Roy groaned, picking a random excuse to shove at Maes.

     “Gracia will be making her homemade apple pie,” Maes sang, and Roy’s excuse fell down the drain. He looked up from the document he had been reading, giving as frigid of a glare as he could muster. Maes, that damn ray of sunshine, brushed the icy look away. Roy had no choice.

     “Fine,” he sighed. “I’ll be there. And there’d better be pie.” Maes’s grin broadened and he flashed Roy a thumbs up.

     “You won’t be disappointed!” Roy wasn’t sure which event he was referring to.

     It turns out Roy was promised both. He’d arrived at the Hughes’s home, carrying a bottle of fine wine from Creta and another bottle filled with sparkling juice. He’d figured the younger members of their group who could digest food would enjoy the bubbly beverage. His guess had been proven correct. Elicia had been ecstatic about the “mommy and daddy” drink she was allowed to have, and Ed had described it in as much detail as he could to Al, using descriptions Roy had never heard of.

     “It’s like... you know Old Jarson’s wine that he’d let us taste sometimes on special occasions?” Ed had asked, running his tongue over his lips and staring at the glass the fizzy concoction was held in.

     “Yeah?”

     “Well, it’s kind of like that, but not as sour. And its fizzy like... uh... oh! Like Granny’s special cure for stomachaches.” Al’s armor had clanked as he’d shivered and Ed had quickly waved his hand in reassurance.

     “But it tastes way better than that sh-stuff ever did.” He’d glanced at Gracia, giving her an apologetic wince for his near slip-up. She had only given him a reproachful glare (the gentlest punishment Roy had ever seen her give to someone almost cursing in front of Elicia) before returning to her meal and listening to her daughter ramble on about something or other that had happened at her preschool that day.

     The evening went on without much of a hitch after that. Gracia’s cooking was, as always, warm and comforting, the atmosphere of the room was devoid of the typical, strained tension that was common when the Fullmetal and Flame Alchemists were trapped in an enclosed space together, and the apple pie was a delicacy sent from a divine entity, Roy was sure. Gracia accepted all of their compliments with tinted cheeks and a delicate wave of her hand.

     Once everyone had as much as their stomachs could handle, despite their tongues wishing for more, Elicia popped up in her seat, leaning across the table to stare at Ed with sparkling eyes.

     “Edy, Edy, Edy!” Elicia bounced a little with each repetition of the new name. Roy didn’t bother to hide the snicker. Edy? Was this a new nickname the boy had? The amused sound didn’t go unnoticed as Edward shot him a glare that foretold an apocalyptic arrival of that infamous temper.

     “Can you teach me more of it?” Elicia asked excitedly. Her mother cleared her throat and sent a prodding look towards her daughter. Elicia turned from Gracia back to Ed and batted her eyelashes, making Maes coo. “Please?” Ed’s gaze slid away from Roy, and with it, the terrifying temper that had simmered beneath the surface. He looked over at Elicia, a soft, excitable grin lighting up his face.

     “Sure thing,” he replied. Elicia squealed in delight and leaped from her chair to race around the table and grab Ed’s sleeve. She tugged him away towards the living room, her light giggles mixing with Ed’s amused chuckles.

     Roy watched the duo disappear as Gracia gathered the dishes on the table, Alphonse insisting he help. Maes stood and leisurely made his way to his best friend’s side, enjoying the flabbergasted look stuck on his face. He leaned over Roy’s shoulder, smirking.

     “Told ya.” Roy only continued to stare at the now empty doorway, blinking.

     “He didn’t even do anything,” he murmured, awed. “It was like he was never even angry.” Maes shrugged.

     “I told you, it’s like my little angel calmed the devil in him.” The pestering, cooing tone snapped Roy quickly out of his stupor. He groaned as he stood, heading towards the kitchen to see if Gracia or Alphonse needed any help.

     “Ah ah ah,” Maes tutted, grabbing his arm as he tried to walk past. “You’re going to want to see this, too,” he said, dragging Roy to the living room. Roy twisted himself around in Maes’s grip before they passed the threshold and immediately caught sight of Edward kneeling on the wooden floor with Elicia. The little girl held a crayon in her hand and her other was plastered over a piece of paper on the ground. Her small tongue was sticking out between her lips as she pressed the crayon to the paper and drew something. When she was finished, she sat up and watched Ed expectantly. He studied the paper, giving a slow nod.

     “This is really good,” he praised. Elicia beamed. “You almost got it right.” Elicia immediately deflated, giving a long whine. Ed looked up at her. Roy, in all honesty, had expected those fiery golden eyes to be narrowed in irritation with his lip curled up in a vicious snarl, prepared to bark out obscenities and insults. That’s at least what he usually did whenever Roy was near him and someone had messed up or made a mistake. But his expression now was, in Roy’s opinion, a miracle. His face was open and understanding, his eyes soft and brows unfurrowed. His mouth was turned up a little at the corners, not really making a smile but unable to stay in a flat, tense line.

     “Hey, come on now, it’s ok,” Ed soothed the upset girl, placing a hand on her head. “You’ve almost got it. I want you to look really closely now. There’s one line that you forgot, and it’s the most important one. Think you can find it?” Elicia straightened up, giving a very determined nod, leaving Maes a gibbering mess of a puddle, and gave the paper a hard stare, her nose almost brushing it. Ed sat back, waiting for her to puzzle it out. Those warm golden eyes never wavered from Elicia. He didn’t fidget. He never seemed to grow bored or give any verbal sound of annoyance. He simply sat there, watching her with a calm, bemused expression as she continued to stare.

     Then, with slow, precise movements, Elicia placed her crayon on the paper and drew a straight line down. She slowly looked up at the boy in front of her, waiting for his response. His eyes remained trained on her paper then rose to meet hers. The smile that broke over his face could have blinded Roy.

     “You got it!” he congratulated, earning an excited squeal. She lunged forward, wrapping her tiny arms around Ed’s broader shoulders, giggling ecstatically. Ed’s own laugh joined hers as he placed his hands on her back, his gentle touch barely enough to crease Elicia’s dress. She pulled away from him, snatched up her piece of paper, and ran to Maes.

     “Daddy, Daddy, look!” She held it up for him to see. Maes crouched down eye-level to her, taking the paper. Roy looked over his shoulder, eyebrows lowering. It was a picture of a transmutation circle in bright pink. Roy tried to puzzle out what it could possibly be used for, but there were a few shapes and symbols that were odd and unnatural. Surely this couldn’t be a true transmutation, right?

     “Oh, my little darling,” Maes crooned, effectively hiding the confusion he was feeling from his voice. “I love it! I’m going to go hang it with the rest of your talented drawings-”

     “No!” Elicia grabbed at her father’s hands, shaking her head, tiny pigtails swishing. “No, Daddy. It’s not finished yet.” Maes tilted his head, stammering out an “O-Oh, ok”. Elicia’s head bobbed in a stiff nod as she gently took the paper from his hands. She took a few steps back and placed the paper on the floor again. She put her hands on her hips, lips pursed as she stared at it. She gave another firm nod and turned her head to look back at Ed, still in the same position Roy had last seen him in.

     “It’s ready!” Elicia called out cheerfully. A corner of Ed’s smile twitched further up as he hauled himself from his place on the floor. Elicia scrambled to sit in front of the paper, hands held straight over it. Ed knelt down behind her, placing the mismatched hands he had over hers.

     “Ready?” Ed murmured to Elicia. “One.”

     “Two,” they both mumbled together. “Three.” Their hands fell onto the circle and a small flash of blue light lit up over the paper. It grew in size, almost reaching Elicia’s face. Her eyes squinched shut, the light too bright for her. Ed’s, however, didn’t leave the new, arching shape. Once the light had died down, Elicia opened her eyes, grinning, and looked over the creation towards her father’s face.

     “Ta-da!” she sang, spreading her hands for emphasis. Maes and Roy gaped at the thing. It was the words “I love my Daddy” made out of paper in a complex layout and folding pattern that would have put any master origami artist to shame.

     “Elicia,” Maes breathed, picking up the gift. “I love it! I’m going to put it right here,” He leaped up to put the paper on top of the mantle above their fireplace, “So everyone who comes in can see it.” Elicia jumped up, clapping her hands. Maes scooped her up, giving her cheeks a flurry of kisses. Ed watched the duo, eyes still as soft as they had been all night with Elicia. But, Roy noted, there was something else under it. An aching, maybe even a longing, for something like what Maes and Elicia had.

     Maes called for Gracia and Alphonse, wanting to show them what his darling daughter had created. Ed removed himself from the center of the room as the other two entered, placing himself off to the side with Mustang. His gentle smile was still stuck on his face, eyes never leaving the scene that was spreading out before them.

     “How?” It was all Roy could find to say, still puzzling over how vastly different this Edward was compared to the fuming, edgy teenager he was so used to seeing at work. Ed glanced up at him, arching an eyebrow. “How are you so good with her?” It was the best way Roy could ask his question without saying ‘How can you withhold such a large temper in such a small body?’ Ed looked away from him with a shrug.

     “Al and I had to figure out the basic steps of alchemy together,” he replied. “Sometimes I’d have to help him understand some of it better. Less chance of it rebounding against him.” He shifted his feet, crossing his arms.

     “And there was Nina,” he added, eyes dropping to his shoes. “She liked alchemy, but her... Tucker never really took the time to teach her.” He shrugged again, shoving whatever thoughts and memories he had away. “Between the two of them, I learned what worked and what didn’t.” He looked up at Roy out of the corner of his eye. “Like screaming and insulting a kid doesn’t do anything for them. It just makes them want to give up and not try it anymore.” Roy blinked, surprised the question he hadn’t dared to ask had been answered.

     “If that’s so,” Roy started, giving Ed a skeptical look. “Then why do you yell and curse all of the adults whom you so eloquently call ‘Idiots’?” Ed’s smirk was sharp and showed his teeth.

     “It’s ‘cause, compared to all of you Idiots, kids are freaking geniuses.”

     Roy found he could only spit out flustered noises that thankfully went mostly unheard beneath Maes’s gushing praises and Elicia’s euphoric giggles.

Farmer Brenson’s sheepdog oh-so-conveniently had a litter of puppies just in time for Winry’s fourth birthday. Urey and Sara were more than happy to present the wiggling black-and-white puppy to their ecstatic daughter.

“I’m not training that mutt,” Pinako declared as she watched her granddaughter and the Elric boys running amok with the dog in the front lawn.

Urey glanced over. “She’s not a mutt. She’s a purebred eastern scent hound.”

Pinako wasn’t amused. “Doesn’t change what I said. I’m not training her.” She’d been outvoted about having the dog, so she was going to stand her ground here. “And she’s definitely not allowed near my shop.”

Pinako had learned to expect the unexpected as an automail engineer, but having a dog on her table was definitely something she’d never anticipated in her half a century of work.

Earlier that day, Winry had come tearing into the house, bawling at the top of her lungs about the train, Ed, and Den. She’d been mostly incoherent and so Sara and Urey had run for the train tracks, expecting the worst for Trisha’s oldest boy.

As it turned out, Ed was fine- but Den was not. The dog’s front left leg was twisted and shredded down to the bone, victim to a nasty hit by the train. On a person, it’d have to be amputated. On a dog, it was fatal.

And yet somehow Pinako found herself in her surgery with Den laid out on the table. That hadn’t been the plan. She and Urey had quietly agreed that there wasn’t anything they could do at that point. Winry, apparently, had other ideas, and had fixed Pinako with the saddest eyes a four year old could muster. “Granny, you can give Den a new leg, right? Like you do for other people?”

Automail on animals was far from common. It was considered by many to be unnecessarily cruel, especially for older animals. There were cases of it, here and there- a prize racehorse getting a new leg so they could be put out to pasture for breeding, the military replacing the paws of field dogs who’d stepped on landmines. All in all, it was expensive, messy, and a whole lot of trouble.

“We’ll see if she can make it through the night,” Urey had decided and the two of them had cleaned Den up the best they could. The leg was beyond saving and they’d had to amputate it up to the shoulder. She was young, they reasoned. She’d probably be able to adapt to missing her leg.

Neither one of them had talked about Winry’s plea for automail. But even so, Pinako found herself awake in the middle of the night, sketching out plans for an automail paw.

Pinako liked to think that she wasn’t a pushover, but evidence was starting to suggest otherwise.

Stupid dog.

They ended up doing the surgery. Winry had been inconsolable at the thought of Den not getting a new leg and the dog had recovered enough to hop around the house on three legs. Urey had spotted her half-finished automail plans and the two of them made a trip to the local veterinarian to have her look over the operation.

The veterinarian had been skeptical (and rightfully so, in Pinako’s opinion). “I don’t see anything wrong with it,” she said, sliding the plans back across the table. “In theory, it should all work. The only thing I’m worried about is not being able to keep the port in place.”

Pinako made a note to look into harnesses. That was old, outdated automail design, but having the port slowly tear itself off Den’s shoulder was a cruelty they could avoid. She and Urey outlined the surgery that evening and went to work on it the next day.

Ishval came and went and Pinako was glad Winry had that dog.

Den’s training with automail patients came about almost entirely on accident. Ishval had ended and with it came a line of patients a mile long. The Rockbell house could handle the load, but Den was still trying to get underfoot. Her surgery and rehab had worked, much to Pinako’s surprise and she was moving around like she’d been born with the metal limb.

One morning, Pinako was sitting in her living room with a soldier. He’d been sent to get automail to replace hand and forearm he’d lost in the war. Someone had clearly ordered him to do it; he was eyeing the paperwork in front of him like he expected it to bite him. The pictures of port connections were probably not helping, but Pinako didn’t believe in sugarcoating automail.

She got up to show him out as their meeting ending. The man hadn’t made any decisions and Pinako wondered if he was going to make some calls to get out of the surgery. They stepped onto the porch and the man stopped, eyes staring off into Pinako’s yard.

Winry and Den were there, playing with a ball. Winry tossed it as hard as she could and Den flung herself after it, barking and leaping for her favorite toy.

The man turned to her. “Did you make that?” he asked, pointing to Den, who was now prancing in circles around Winry, refusing to give the ball back.    

“Sure did. She’s had that leg a couple years.” Pinako watched as the man nodded once, slowly, his eyes following Den as she took a running leap into the air for a stick. Then he thanked her for her time and made his way off the porch and down the path.

Two hours later, he called to schedule his surgery.

One night, Pinako slipped into Ed’s room to check on him. It was raining, the first real thunderstorm since Ed had gotten his automail and she knew he’d be having a hell of a time with it.

The room was dark and Pinako could barely make out the lump on the bed. The lump was too big, she realized a moment later.

Her eyes adjusted to the darkness and Pinako realized it wasn’t just Ed on the bed- Den had jumped onto it and was huddled up against the boy.

Pinako scowled. Den wasn’t allowed on the beds in the surgery. It was one of the first things they’d trained her not to do, and there had never been a problem before. She opened her mouth, ready to shoo the dog out-

- And stopped when she caught sight of Ed’s hand (his right hand), rubbing up and down Den’s side. Pinako couldn’t see his face, but the movement was slow, carefully calculated to not pull on the fur or pinch skin.

Den huffed happily, tail wagging gently, when Ed paused to scratch behind one of her ears. She leaned over to lick him, her metal toes clacking against Ed’s metal arm.

Pinako slowly backed out of the room, closing the door behind her.