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No matter where or how far Ed and Al had traveled, Resembool had always been their home. The rolling green hills and smog-free air carried scents of wheat and earth and everything that Ed had ever associated with comfort.
Resembool was home, and burning down their house hadn’t done anything to change that. All it had done was make the hill a lonely place for all these years, where soot and the burnt-out skeleton were the only things that had survived.
Looking back on it, maybe his father had been right. Maybe setting fire to the house hadn’t been a sign of their determination and resolve to fix themselves. Maybe Ed just hadn’t wanted to remember what they’d done, and burning it had been his and Al’s attempt at wiping a slate clean and starting again with nothing.
Ed had turned those thoughts over while Al was recovering. When Al started his rigorous physical therapy with Winry and Pinako, Ed decided to rebuild their childhood home.
Gathering the supplies was relatively easy: Ed still had plenty of money from being a State Alchemist, and now that Mustang had helped to get his account unfrozen, he could access all his funds. He snagged a large toolbox and a couple of books on architecture that looked promising and hefted his bundle onto the counter, smiling at the older man manning the register. “Good to see you, Silas,” Ed said, shuffling through his pockets to find his checkbook. “You doing well?”
Silas grinned and looked over the rim of his glasses. “Well, looky there—Edward Elric, all grown up,” he said. “I’ve been fine; wife’s got me working the counter most of these days. Can’t be much of a handyman anymore, but I still craft on occasion. And yourself?”
Truthfully, Ed had a lot of mixed feelings about how he was doing. Some days, he’d roll over in bed and look over at Al—who’d be out cold, snoring softly—and know he’d do it all again without hesitation. But there were times when he was alone when he’d read his alchemy notes and clap his hands, wishing desperately for even a spark of energy.
Today was a good day, though. “I’m good, Al’s started another round of physical therapy with Winry and Pinako. Figured I’d been hovering over him enough recently, so I decided to do something.”
Humming softly, Silas nodded at the counter. “Got something to do with these?”
“Yeah, it’s a… big project.”
“What’re ya building?”
“Rebuilding, actually.” Ed scratched his cheek and gave Silas an awkward smile. “Our old house, up on the hill.”
Silas blinked owlishly at Ed before letting out a chuckle. “That’s quite the undertaking. You sure you’re up for it?”
It wasn’t a matter of being up for it—not with Ed. This was something he had to do. He needed to properly close that chapter of his life, not just remove it from the equation entirely. Ed doubted anyone was going to get it.
Maybe Al would get it. But Al would probably see it as Ed setting roots down in Resembool again — that he planned to stay. Staying wasn't in the cards. Not right now.
Ed wrote a check for his supplies and walked back up the hill.
The book on architecture barely left his hands once he returned to the Rockbells’. It was dense, with lots of mathematical equations peppered through common schematics that houses tended to follow.
Granny Pinako stared at Ed over her pipe and blew out a pointed breath of smoke. "You're rebuilding it, then," she said.
Nodding his head, he turned back to his drafting paper, where he’d sketched out his fourth design. He’d tried to remember what the original had looked like, but each time, the sizes of the rooms were all off because he’d been so much younger before, and everything had seemed giant.
Granny Pinako tapped her pipe on the edge of the table. “You know, the original foundation can probably still be used.”
That had honestly never occurred to Ed. He’d assumed that the fire had destroyed everything. “But the fire—”
“That blaze you started took pretty much everything.” Pinako took a seat in the lone chair on the porch. “But concrete is surprisingly durable.”
Ed’s hand gripped the pencil tighter, his shoulders hunching. “…so the basement survived,” he mumbled.
The one room in their house that Ed wanted more than anything to disappear amongst the ash might be just fine.
“Hold your horses, Ed,” Pinako scolded, taking another drag off her pipe. “The heat definitely damaged the concrete, and that’s not even factoring in what kind of ash damage you have from the other floors collapsing.”
Something loosened in his chest at that. “So it’ll need to be replaced.”
“Some of it, but it’ll save you some time if you don’t have to demolish the rest before you start the infrastructure." The smirk on her face was practically criminal. “Though you’ve always been great at breaking things.”
“I fix them afterward.” It was a weak argument, but this banter that he’d always shared with Pinako hadn’t changed with the loss of his alchemy. It hadn’t changed when he had lost his limbs either. Ed had always flourished under tough love and scary women.
She raised an eyebrow at him and gestured towards the front door. “Well, you’d better get on that. Maybe ring that Armstrong fellow—his specialty is stone, right?”
Ed squirmed under her stare. He hadn't contacted anybody since he’d left for Resembool with Al. He’d been avoiding the payphone at the station and the landline in the front hallway of the Rockbells’. He didn’t know why he hadn’t let any of them know that he and Al had arrived safely.
Maybe it was time to look back enough to pull the ones he cared about to the bright future ahead.
General Armstrong arrived shirtless and glittering two days later. Ed had thought he was prepared to see the giant man, but he fought the urge to run away as Armstrong came at him with open arms.
“Edward Elric!” Armstrong cried, nearly crushing Ed’s spine under the guise of a hug. “It’s been too long.”
“It’s been barely a month,” Ed choked, wiggling out of Armstrong’s hold.
“Like I said, much too long.” Armstrong dabbed at his wet eyes. “When I got your call I can’t describe how happy I was to hear your voice. How has Alphonse been? He had only just gotten stable walking the last I saw him.”
Ed eyed the single suitcase Armstrong had beside him and hefted the thing up as the two started making their way to the Rockbells’. “He can take all the walks he wants now, just needs frequent breaks until he can travel long distances.” Ed laughed as he thought about Al’s continued recovery. “He eats like a horse now; it’s almost like he’s still hollow, with how he can pack it away.” He counted his blessings that Al had better manners than he did.
“He’s a growing boy! He needs all the food he can get to bring his body back into tiptop shape.”
A silence stretched between them as Ed waited for Armstrong to keep up the conversation. When nothing came, Ed cleared his throat and looked up at the giant man. “Thank you for being willing to help me with this,” Ed said. He kicked at a pebble and watched as it skipped along the road before landing in the grass. “I know it’s not what you were hoping for when I called.”
“Nonsense,” Armstrong said, clapping Ed on the back with enough force to crack a steel plate. “It’s always a pleasure to help friends, and I’ve grown very fond of you two.” His eyes crinkled at the corners with his smile. “I’m exactly where I want to be, on my way to help you rebuild your home.”
Armstrong’s eyes looked misty by the end of his tiny confession, and Ed couldn’t deal with that kind of reaction. “I hope apple pie is okay for dessert. Al keeps hounding Winry for another.”
Armstrong’s eyes were soft as he heartily agreed.
Ed ended up needing to call Teacher and Sig next. The support beams for the house were too heavy for him to lift once Armstrong had returned to Central. It was logical to contact them, anyway—they’d want to see how Al was doing since his release from the hospital to continue his recovery at home.
Teacher’s greeting was surprisingly tame compared to the last couple of times he’d seen her. A nagging part of Ed’s brain kept telling him that it was because he’d been keeping in contact with her and hadn’t done anything stupid lately.
Teacher tossed her bag into his waiting arms with a gleaming smile. “So let’s see this house you’re building,” she insisted, already walking away from the station.
Ed gaped at her retreating form, turning to Sig, who looked like this was a completely normal reaction as he followed after her. With a heavy sigh, Ed caught up to them. “It’s not much yet,” Ed admitted. “It’s mostly a shell right now, but Armstrong helped get the basement fixed up.”
His teacher paused for a moment and turned her attention back to him.
Ed felt a scowl settling on his face. “What’s that look for?”
“You used to have such a hard time asking for any kind of help,” Teacher said softly. Her eyes were bright, and the goofy grin she gave him made him think of his mother when he and Al had done something that she thought was cute. “I guess I’m just happy you’ve learned that you can reach out to the people you know.”
Ed rolled his eyes and stubbornly avoided her gaze. “Yeah, well—I’m taking you to Winry’s before I take you to the house. Al’s gonna be excited to see you both.”
He wasn’t going to think about what Teacher said, but his heart felt light when Sig patted him on the head.
From there, it seemed like every chance he had, he was reaching out to people for help. Winry had insisted on doing the electrical work—and had threatened to beat him with her wrench if he even thought of trying to do it himself, which was honestly a relief because he hadn’t thought about wiring the house.
And then, somehow, everyone seemed to find out that he was rebuilding his childhood home. His money was on Armstrong proclaiming it Wonderful! or some shit to Mustang and the team, because Ed started getting phone calls in the evening asking him how the project was going. Hawkeye had been the most diligent of his callers and tried to call him every other day.
It was during one of these phone calls that something seemed to click in Ed’s brain.
“The walls are all up, finally,” Ed said into the receiver, absentmindedly twirling the ice in his water glass. “Nothing fancy, but sheetrock is a bitch to install.”
“I can imagine,” Riza said, amusement heavy in her voice.
“But it’s another thing done. Soon I’ll be able to paint the damn thing, but I’ve still got to put in the flooring.” He groaned, tipping his head back. “It feels like the more I do, the more things I find out I’ve still got to do.”
“Well, we’re all happy to offer a hand if you want help.”
“Even Mustang?”
Riza snorted quietly. “An excuse for Mustang to get out of paperwork? He couldn’t be happier.”
Ed didn’t fight the wicked smile that spread across his face. “I’ll make him wish he was doing paperwork.”
“That’s all I ask.” The line was quiet before Riza continued, her tone soft like it always got near the end of their calls. “How are you doing, Ed?”
“I’m…” He paused and considered his answer. From the moment that he’d sacrificed his alchemy to the Truth in exchange for Al’s body and soul, he’d been insisting he was fine—that everything was okay because Al was back. Ed had succeeded in what he’d sworn to do.
And he had been fine. He’d never been the type of person to let something keep him down, always striving forward to the next thing. He’d approached the physical therapy for his arm with a tenacity that had startled the doctors at the hospital. He’d done everything he could to help with Al’s recovery so that they could come home.
But looking back, he’d also been shoving aside his feelings on losing a huge part of his identity. He didn’t talk about it. He dodged any form of comfort about his loss. And in doing all of that, he’d also been pushing away the people who were most tied to his alchemy.
Like Teacher. Like Armstrong. Like Hawkeye, and the team, and Colonel Bastard himself.
Because maybe there had been a small part of Ed that had been ashamed. Not that he’d given up his alchemy for Al—he would have torn down the world for his brother and sacrificed all of himself, if that was what it had taken to get Al back. But ashamed that he hadn’t known what to do with himself now that he couldn’t offer his alchemy.
So he’d started rebuilding his childhood home. It was like putting himself back together, in a way—coming to terms with the things that would be different, and learning that the changes were okay. That just because he’d lost his alchemy didn’t mean he had to turn away from that part of his life or turn away from the people who cared about him and genuinely liked helping him.
The people that loved him. If that wasn’t a startling thought, Ed didn’t know what was.
The soft call of his name from the phone drew him away from his musings and back to Riza, who was patiently waiting for his answer.
“I think,” Ed started, “that I’m doing really well, actually.”
For the first time in a while, Ed meant it from the bottom of his heart.
He could practically hear the smile in Riza’s voice. “That’s good to hear,” Riza said. “Well, I’ll let you go. You’ve got some hard work to do tomorrow.”
“Al’ll probably start working on that garden he’s been wanting to try growing, like Mom used to have, so I’ll have company at least.” Ed twiddled the phone cord. “I hope to see you all soon.”
“You couldn’t keep us away.”
The chapter of his life as the Fullmetal Alchemist may have ended, but he didn’t need to burn any bridges to move forward. Besides, this next chapter was looking brighter than he’d ever hoped.