Worlds Collide

A/N:Nomme de Plume, I'm sorry, but Edward's gone, and Ed's going to have a chat with the kids this chapter about human transmutation, so if they listen, I wouldn't count on it. kuragari 75, I know, it's sad, and it means a lot of angst on Wrath's part, next chapter probably for the biggest part of it. The Candy Made Me Do It, Wrath's pretty upset. Don't worry about the reviews, just glad you're reading. The bad part is, I wrote Edward, knowing i was going to kill him. Roy definitely couldn't handle losing him. Ryoma, mostly, he died because there'd be two Eds in one world, confusing to read/write, and seems wrong for the two to have to share it. Exotic Rose83, thanks. No, I liked writing Frank in the last story, so I wondered what Frank might have been like if he wasn't a bastard. Hikaru_9, Thanks. I thought it was necessary too. They were fighting, though, and that's going to make it harder for Wrath. Thanks for the compliment on my writing, I'd gone almost a year with just writing news stories, mostly because of some teacher shooting down my writing, not because it was bad but because it wasn't "literary fiction" but "popular fiction". She wasn't really supportive because of that, and I had massive writer's block for a while. It's all gone now, yay! Amethyst-eyed Koneko, really, you weren't responsible for Edward's death. I knew he was going to die. But this means Wrath is left having to deal with it all. Ed had to be the comic relief because he'd be the one having the hardest time accepting a near-twin, and wouldn't grasp the seriousness of it right away. And would be upset just enough to actually cuss at his kids.

Chapter 16

Aftermath

Sitting on the hospital cot, having medics analyze him for injuries, some Doctor Knox giving him a look-over and seeing there were some bruised ribs, a mild concussion and cuts, but nothing serious only served to worsen Frank’s guilt. Why him? He was older. He had only come along because the other option was a court-martial. He hadn’t needed to accept the younger men’s invitation, and what if he hadn’t? Maybe his weight on the ship had caused it to nosedive. Maybe the calibrations hadn’t been done properly to accommodate him, or maybe the calibrations were off just enough that had he not been aboard, the two men would have survived uninjured.

A thousand what ifs and maybes were running through his mind, threatening to drive him crazy in his guilt.

There was a woman now, bringing him clothes, she was young, dressed in pants, a toolbelt at her hips.

“Don’t know why I got to be the lucky one to bring these to you,” she muttered as she tossed the set of clothes at him. “I can’t help my automail’s so good I had hardly any repairs to do.”

“Automail?”

“Yeah,” she said. “That stuff that was attached to half your body last time anyone saw you alive.”

“I-I don’t understand. Until I saw that other Edward, I’d never… It’s not like anything I’ve seen before.” He looked down at clothing again. “Thank you.”

He stood, the lower half of his muscular body clad in a rough military-issue blanket. “You can change in that tent,” the woman said, green eyes venomous.

Frank moved from his cot to a tent with numerous tools and parts. The woman’s voice came from outside. “You touch anything inside, I swear to you I’ll hit you over the head with a wrench.” There was something in the blond woman’s voice that made him believe her. Frank had gotten to wash off Edward’s blood and had been sitting in that blanket for maybe an hour, listening through the canvas operating tent as a woman he was told was Roy’s sister worked on Wrath. Not only did it surprise the former spy that a woman was a doctor, but he’d always heard Roy talk of his sister Raine having died in an accident with his parents when he was a teenager.

Frank pulled the boxers, stiff new pants, socks, shoes, and shirt on, then folded the blanket. He stepped out of the tent, looking to the blond woman. “You really hate me, don’t you?”

“Yes,” she said, rather bluntly. “I do.”

He watched as a shorter man in glasses approached, this world’s Roy at his side—he was convinced now that Wrath had been speaking the truth when he’d said he came from an altogether different world—both looking like they would just as well rip him to shreds.

“I think those men want to talk to me,” he said to the woman. “Will you please return this to the hospital tent?”

“They’d probably rather burn it than use it again after you.”

“I’m not him, you know. Whoever your Frank Archer was, I’m not him.” The blonde unceremoniously grabbed the blanket from him, leaving him faced with the two shorter, dark-haired men. “I’m unfamiliar with your interrogation tactics. Should the medics be informed they’ll need to clean me up later, or won’t it matter?”

“If you end up bloody,” Roy said, “it won’t be from the interrogation.”

“Follow us, please,” the shorter man with large dark brown eyes said to him.

“First,” Frank said, “has there been any word on Ulysses… the man you all call Wrath?”

“Dr. Mustang is getting him stable enough to be transported to the hospital,” the man with glasses said. “Ed and Al are with him.”

The two men moved at either side of him, but didn’t restrain him, or even grab his arms to move him with their steps. “You seem to hate me, but you trust me enough to simply follow you?”

“Lieutenant Colonel Fuery is very good with a gun, and if you try anything, I’ll have you on fire before you get two steps out of line,” Roy said, looking ahead.

“On fire?” Roy raised his left hand and snapped, a tiny ball of flame starting from his fingertips rising into the air where it was slowly dispersed. Frank couldn’t help himself. He looked at the man's handd in surprise. He’d never seen anything like that, and perhaps a bit of Edward’s own curiosity had rubbed off on him. Roy moved his hand back, giving Frank a glimpse of the red symbol on the back. “Alchemy? That was real fire alchemy?”

“I’ve been doing it for years, Archer. You should know that.”

********

Ed hadn’t been able to shake the twins, despite the fact that they both hated hospitals. Sitting in the waiting area, with one curled under each of his arms, Aideen’s own around him in a sort of death grip, Nicholas’s broken one draped as close to a hug as he could manage, the other one behind Ed’s back. Their father didn’t envy them the fear they must have felt. He knew the feeling well enough, and he wasn’t about to tell the two they needed to go away from him as long as they were still frightened or at least finally able to get a little relief from their worry. Ed had done his best to explain to them that the mistake had been made because the man who’d died looked a little like him, not wanting to say he looked exactly like him.

“You’re not going to die, are you, Daddy?” Nicholas asked.

“Duh,” Aideen said, “everyone dies.” The gold and brown eyes looked up at Ed. “But you won’t soon, will you?”

“Not if I can do anything about it.” He kissed the tops of the twins’ heads.

“But if you did, we could bring you back. We’re already really good at alchemy.”

“Aideen,” Ed said, shifting his daughter to look him directly in the eyes, his voice turning stern. “You are never to perform alchemy to bring someone back to life.”

“But why not? Humans are made up of normal stuff. I have enough in my piggy bank to buy what they’re made of.”

“But you can’t bring back that person’s soul,” Ed said, taking his chair and repositioning it so that he could look at both of his children at once, noticing Al moving from his spot near the hall to the operating room. “I wanted to tell you this much later than this, but I suppose it had to come sooner or later.” He inhaled deeply. “Human transmutation is forbidden.” He pushed a stray black hair out of Aideen’s eyes with his automail hand. “You know that my mother died when I was just about your age?” Both heads nodded. “Your Uncle Al and I tried to bring her back when I was eleven and he was ten. You both know the laws of alchemy, what is the big one?”

“Equivalent exchange,” Nicholas said. “You can’t get anything without something else of equal value.”

“Right. What’s the value of a soul?” The twins looked at him, then at one another, as though waiting to see if there was a right or wrong answer to that question. “Your Uncle Al lost his body and I put his soul in a suit of armor. And I lost my arm and leg.” Nicholas reached out, putting his hand on the knee of the leg he’d hated for so long, Aideen grabbing his hand. “And even that wasn’t enough for our mother’s soul.”

“It took a long time to get my body back,” Al said from behind them, “and even though we tried, your daddy didn’t get his arm and leg back.”

“That doesn’t seem fair,” Nicholas said, then quickly looked down. “I’m sorry Uncle Al.”

Al knelt beside the seated boy, putting a hand on his shoulder. “I don’t think it’s fair either.”

“And after all that, we still didn’t have our mother back.” Ed moved his hands to his children’s faces. “You have to understand if anything happens, you can’t just bring someone back to make it better. It doesn’t fix anything; it only makes it all worse.”

“What about animals?” Nicholas asked. “Black Hayate and Carlida are getting old. What would happen if we brought them back?”

“It’s the same,” Ed said, not really lying, but rather sounding definite about something he was only relatively certain about. He moved his chair back between the twins. “Now, no more talk of this kind of stuff, okay? I’m here right now, and I know the two of you are brave enough to get through anything if something should ever happen to me. Am I right?” He watched as the two nodded their heads, then he took his seat between them. “I knew I was. You just fled from the entire Amestris army today.” Two sets of eyes looked up at him. “Speaking of which, we’re going to have a little talk about the fact that you didn’t listen to your papa and me. You should have stayed in the conference room with Gracia.”

“Sorry,” the twins said in near unison before once again taking their place within the arms of their father, both obviously grateful to still be able to do so.

********

Frank had told them some about his world, his connection to Wrath and the Thule Society, but choosing his words carefully as well as what pieces of information he would disclose. He’d been trained to say nothing to interrogators because as a spy there was a risk that he could be traced back to his home country. That was why he didn’t make a habit of winding up in enemy hands. But here, in a world that obviously wasn’t his own, that didn’t seem to matter. All that mattered was ensuring that he didn’t say anything that wup Wrath in danger.

As long as he managed to keep certain details to himself, this at least this provided a distraction for him.

“Only a major?” Roy mocked.

“Well, we can’t all be fuhrer, you know.”

“That has to be a killer for your ego,” Roy said, leaning against the hospital bed opposite the chair where Frank sat.

“I’m a spy. If I’ve done my job well, no one knows I’ve done it at all. The only reason I got the title of major is because my superior officers felt it was time I at least receive some promotion in rank.” Then, with a smile, he added, “The only positive about being a major was that I was your superior officer, and despite your annoying ambition, you had to take orders from me.”

“Did you enjoy that? Having to have me under you?” Roy’s voice seemed to hold a double meaning, both of them dark and menacing.

“I’d have rather have had any man but you under me. I have no need for ladder climbers. But at least in my world you weren’t a very good one.” He looked over the fuhrer’s uniform. “So how exactly did you manage to make it to fuhrer?”

“I killed him.”

Frank couldn’t help it. His eyes widened in astonishment. The Roy he’d known was a bastard at times, but for the sake of ambition, he couldn’t imagine him actually killing someone. Not only that, he didn’t imagine the Roy he’d known to have the talent and instinct necessary to actually kill a head of state and survive.

“He was a homunculus. He’d performed acts of genocide, and carelessly risked his own troops,” Roy said. “I was considered a hero for it.”

Frank nodded, saying nothing for a moment, waiting for the next bit of questioning, and when it didn’t come, he took the chance to talk. “So, can you answer a few questions for me?” he asked the two men in the room with him. Roy raised that single eyebrow, the man in glasses at his side silently deferring to his leader. “Did your Frank shoot your eye out?”

“Yes.”

“Explains my swollen jaw then.” Frank rubbed the bruising spot where Roy had punched him, then flicked a piece of fuzz off of his pants. “And the automail. He was half machine?”

“At the end, yes,” Roy said.

“And you and Ed of this world, you’re together?” Roy nodded. “And your country supports you despite it?”

“Why wouldn’t they?” the man in the glasses—Fuery—asked.

“So it doesn’t matter here?”

“Not in Amestris, no.”

“Strange, I never expected you for the type. But in my world you were married to a woman, so I suppose that is what’s confusing me.”

“A woman?”

“Her name is Riza Hawkeye.”

“She’s still alive… in your world?”

“She died here?” Roy only nodded in response, a sad expression on his face. It seemed that this Roy had also been with Riza, and perhaps that was where those two children had come from, though Frank couldn’t imagine the Riza he’d known approving of her children calling Roy’s male lover Daddy. “She’s alive. And the two of you have nine-year-old twins, Nicholas and Aiden.”

“Aideen,” Roy said, correcting Frank.

“No, Aiden.”

Roy looked at him strangely, but before any more could be said, the door opened, the furher’s sister, Raine, stepping in. “I’m on my way to the waiting room where Ed and Al are. Are you done knocking him senseless?” With her cool black eyes, she looked at Frank. “You mean you didn’t even lay a hand on the bastard? I’m ashamed of you Pyro.”

The two men ordered Frank to stand, and following the female doctor, they went into the waiting room, finding Ed and Al looking up at her anxiously, Ed with the two children asleep on him, the boy with his head on Ed’s right leg, the girl leaning against his arm. Carefully, he guided the girl to stretch out on the chairs to her left and lifted the boy’s head so he could slide out from beneath it. He and Al stood near Raine as she explained the extent of Wrath’s injuries.

“There were several lacerations, and he has broken his legs too badly for me to set and fuse them immediately, but his arms will be fine. At this point, what troubles me is the damage to his spinal chord. It has been severed above his waist.”

“So, he won’t be able to walk again?” Frank asked.

“Who said that? It’s just going to take a very long time for me to heal it. It’s not a process I can rush.” Frank hated the look she was giving him, that look that seemed to say ‘You’re an idiot. You don’t know anything about this place.’ In the last few hours, he’d gotten it repeatedly when he wasn’t receiving hated glares from the various soldiers and military personnel. “The biggest part of it all is going to depend on him now.”

“I seriously believe he’s going to wish he was dead,” Frank said, not so much to those around him, but to himself.

“He was close to Edward? Like he was to Ed?”

“You could say that. Edward was his…” Frank searched for the right word. “lover. I doubt he’s going to want to go on once he’s awake and aware.”

“Lover?” Ed asked, looking almost repulsed. “But he was like my little brother. You can’t be serious.”

“But you are not Edward.” That fact seemed to be proven over and over again. No, he was not the gentle, passive man he so resembled. “Edward was different, and they were lovers. For around five years.”

“But…” Ed looked confused, not to mention disgusted, as he still apparently considered Wrath the equivalent of family.

Out of the corner of his eye, Frank noticed as Roy possessively put an arm around Ed’s shoulders.

********

It was over an hour before Raine told the men in the waiting room that she was going to try to wake Wrath. Ed left the children with Winry, who had brought Sasha and the rest of her and Al’s little brood—they’d already adopted two other children, one girl, one boy—to the hospital with her. The group of children was on the floor of the waiting room playing a board game, Aideen trying to let the younger kids win and purposely making Nicholas lose after he’d won three games in a row.

Walking by them, he patted the children’s heads, his own and his nieces and nephew. Then he signaled to Roy as he passed by the makeshift interrogation room that Wrath was going to be awake soon. It went unnoticed as the men continued to talk, and the blond finally stepped inside. Ed couldn’t help but notice that while all the pretences of a military interrogation were in place, the snatches of what he’d caught between the two seemed like conversation mixed with bits of one-upmanship, as the two men seemed to be trading insults as they talked, Fuery observing all the while.

When they saw Ed, the blond Archer stood immediately and walked ahead of Roy and Fuery, determined to see the man he called a friend. Side by side with this Archer, Ed walked into the room where they’d moved Wrath, Raine already at the tall man’s side.

Looking at the man who had been just a child when he left, Ed was struck by how much he reminded him of Izumi. His features, his build, they were all hers. There were traces of Sig in there as well, with his height and strong jaw, but with the head of long braids, the resemblance remained with Ed’s late teacher. Ed stood on the side of the bed opposite Raine, the new Archer standing beside him, looking at Raine in awe as she brought her tattooed hands together and brought them to Wrath’s chest, glowing.

Slowly, the deep violet eyes opened, looking as though they were trying to focus. He looked around the room, seeing Frank, mouth moving to call him “Stephen,” but hardly any noise coming out. Careful of any injury, Ed put his own hand on Wrath’s shoulder to comfort him, something years of parenting had ingrained in him. It directed the young man’s attention to him, and before Ed could move away, a set of bandaged arms was in the air, large hands grapping hold of Ed’s head to pull him down into an embrace, then a needy kiss.

Eyes widening, Ed didn’t know what to do. He was a married man, and had instinctively held up his hands as he’d seen Roy do—on more occasions than Ed liked to think of—when a strange woman or man had made an attempt to kiss the fuhrer, but he didn’t try to pull away, afraid he would upset the man below him. Then, the violet eyes that had closed upon kissing Ed opened once again, pulling himself away, then grabbed hold of Ed’s right hand.

No words spoken, he looked up at Ed, then over at the people surrounding him, seeming to search for the man he’d mistaken Ed for. All watched painfully as the tears came, the realization of what had happened. Wrath tried to move, probably to run off somewhere to deal with these strange emotions, but discovered what had yet to be explained to him: his legs didn’t work, and wouldn’t for quite some time. They were in matching casts, and as far as Ed could tell, nothing below Wrath’s waist could feel anything. Raine tried to explain to the inconsolable twenty-year-old that he would regain use of his limbs shortly, but it seemed with his lover dead, that was the least of his concerns.

Most disturbing was the lack of words. He didn’t speak, hardly made any noise, only sobbed, quietly grasping hold of Archer’s hand and allowing the older man to hold him for a moment as Wrath cried into the shoulder offered him. Ed also realized that his presence, at the moment, hurt Wrath, and so he patted the large man’s arm, moving away beside Roy.

“We can continue our conversation later, Fuhrer,” Archer said. “At the moment, I think Ulysses just needs a friend.”

“I will stay here with them,” Fuery said. “You and Ed should go home with the twins, it’s been a long day, and for now, the battle seems to be over.”

Roy nodded, following Ed’s eyes to the two men at the bed men, the older one, so closely resembling someone Ed hated with every fiber of his being, comforting the younger, actually shedding tears himself. This definitely wasn’t Frank Archer, not the one he’d known, the one who’d permanently disfigured his husband, killed Wrath’s own mother, Ed’s teacher. This man was drastically different, or damned good at putting up an act.

Ed quickly left to gather the children, trying to remove himself from Wrath’s sight, lightly touching his lips with his fingers. He knew the kiss, given that kiss more times than he could count, having a husband who was fuhrer and on the battlefield and being a soldier himself. This Archer hadn’t been lying when he’d said that Wrath and that other version of himself were lovers.

“Daddy?” Aideen asked from her place at the game between her brother and Sasha. “Is your friend going to be okay?”

“It’s going to take a while,” he said. He looked over to Winry. “I think Al wants to stay with Wrath for a moment, introduce himself properly, comfort Wrath a bit. Roy and I are heading back to the house for the night.”

“We get to go home?” Nicholas asked. “I don’t have to sleep at the Central office again?”

Ed shook his head as he felt a hand sneaking around his waist. He looked up to find Roy bending down to place a kiss on his lips. “Trying to mark your territory, military dog?” Ed asked after Roy ended the brief kiss, noting the same sort of underlying need behind it as had been in Wrath’s.

“Just doing what I’ve wanted to do for the last few hours.” Ed felt himself being squeezed tighter in the older man’s grip. “While I was in with Fuery and Archer, I got a phone call.”

“Yeah, I remember. What was it about?”

“The rocket scared the Drachman leaders,” Roy said. “They think if we’re crazy enough to let that loose in our own country, then we would certainly be willing to do more damage in theirs. We have a temporary cease-fire with upcoming negotiations for a treaty.” Ed watched as Aideen and Nicholas neatly stacked the money and cards for the game, which their younger cousins didn’t have the patience to do.

“You didn’t lie and tell them we did it, did you?”

“Not at all,” Roy said. “I told them I gave no order to release it.”

“So you responded with political bullshit.” Ed rolled his eyes; Roy only shrugged. “So what do we do with Wrath and Archer?”

“We wait until tomorrow,” Roy said as their children ran up to them. “Right now, I want to be a little selfish after all this fighting and thinking I’d lost you.” He ruffled Nicholas’s hair. “I just want to finally go home and be with my family. We’ve been at war too long.”

********

“I expected much more fighting between the two of you, you know,” Ed said, resting on the sofa in the study, his body leaning against Roy’s as he sat between the older man’s legs, Roy enjoying the feeling of Ed’s unbound hair on his smooth fingers as they stroked through the loose satiny blond strands of the man in front of him.

“I want to, I do. I want to hit him, burn him until he’s unrecognizable, but not because he is like Archer.” Roy traced his fingers over Ed’s automail one resting on the fuhrer’s knee, somewhat missing the month-long period where it had been overly sensitive and so pleasurable for the younger man. “I want to do all that so I can to him so I forget he looks like Archer, if that makes any sense.”

Roy began kissing down Ed’s cheek, nestling his nose and mouth beneath the line of the younger man’s jaw, kissing there to remember how his husband tasted.

“So what did he say about his world?”

The older man looked up, somewhat perturbed. “Do you really want to talk about this now?”

“I’m curious. I mean, Roy, I just saw someone who looks like my twin, dead. And honestly, old man, I don’t have the energy tonight.” Ed latched his hand around Roy’s neck, a silent command that the fuhrer didn’t have to stop his actions on the younger man’s neck.

“He said that the other you was passive, accommodating, and quiet. In other words, nothing like you.” Roy felt the metal hand rap him at the back of his neck. “And the other version of me…” Roy paused, trying to think of how to put this exactly. “was a ladder-climbing bastard who didn’t consider others as he fought to get to the top.”

“Aside from not caring about others, it’s nice to know that some things don’t change,” Ed said. Roy, in response bit down on a bit of the soft flesh of his husband’s neck, drawing it into his mouth. “Damn it, that’s going to leave a mark.”

“I also found out one of the changes you made in the twins aside from the noticeable things like Aideen's eyes and Nicholas's complexion.” Ed tilted his head to look at him as Roy shifted his arms around the young, strong shoulders. “You made Aideen a girl.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“I’d have had twin boys if it hadn’t been for you.” Roy had to admit it was hard to imagine the little girl who brought a delicacy and softness to his world being a second rambunctious boy like her brother. Perhaps if he’d had the twin boys, his sentiments would be different, but he really didn’t even like the idea of not having his daughter now that he had her. “Could you imagine a house full of men?”

“Well, we wouldn’t have a purple bedroom upstairs.” Ed stared at the ceiling for a moment, then said, more to himself than to Roy, “It wouldn’t seem right without her.”

“No,” Roy answered.

“I wonder why the other versions of us weren’t together,” Ed thought aloud. Roy nuzzled once again beneath Ed’s jaw. “What do you know?” Ed pulled away and turned himself around to face Roy. “What?”

“Riza.”

“Oh, it makes sense.” Ed sat in front of him sullenly.

“What do you mean it makes sense? Do you have any idea how wrong it feels knowing that somewhere, you and I didn’t find a way—”

“If Riza hadn’t died here, Roy, we wouldn’t have found a way here, either.” Ed ran his flesh hand over Roy’s right cheek. “That thought has to cross your mind on occasion.” The blond pressed his forehead to Roy’s. “I know it does mine. Do you know how guilty I feel knowing my happiness was dependent on the death of one of my friends?”

The older man once again occupied his hands in the long blond locks, pushing Ed’s lips to his own. “Well, what does it say about me that I’m happy too?” he said after they’d finished the quick kiss. He was genuinely happy with his life as it was and at the moment, feeling particularly sorry for Wrath’s loss. More than most, Roy understood that kind of pain and had even thought his own Ed was gone. Thinking back on that sinking despair, the thought that he would be left with the twins, and once again, he was alone, there was a part of him that wanted to reaffirm to himself and the world that yes, the Fullmetal Alchemist was still very much alive, very much in his arms, and very much his.

The two kissed again, Roy allowing a little of his relief and gratitude that Ed was still with him entering that kiss. As their tongues mingled like old friends, the two fathers heard a gentle padding in the hallway.

“Crap,” Ed said. “Aideen’s sleepwalking again.”

“As long as she’s not performing alchemy this time,” Roy said, “I think we’re okay.”

The blond rose from his spot to go and retrieve their daughter and escort her back to her bedroom, leaving Roy in the study, gathering his thoughts, watching the blond with his long hair dipping over his left shoulder, leaning over, guiding the little girl with the straight jet-black hair back toward the stairs. As his eyes followed them beyond where he could actually see his husband and daughter, Roy tried to contemplate his life without them.