Worlds Collide

A/N:Amethyst-Eyed Koneko, I know, that kiss wasn't pleasant for Ed, and once Wrath realized what he was doing, for him either. The twins got some of Ed's DNA, Aideen getting more of his traits than Nicholas, but basically, Ed's X chromosome wiped out Roy's Y in the process. kuragari75, Roy's basically appreciating what he's got now, and that he's got it all because Riza died, so yeah, happy and sad.

This one jumps around a lot, and I'll be honest, I will probably tweak it again later, but I had to get past this chapter because it's a beast and really a transitional one, though it does show the start of Wrath and Edward's fighting in a flashback.

There's a bit of a Wrath/Edward lime in this one, but it isn't very detailed.

Chapter 17

Reflections

Laying beneath the down comforter of her bedroom, Dante contemplated exactly how to contact the people on the other side of the Gate, now that they’d finally managed to find a serpent to wrap around the portal. In that amount of time, the people on the other side could have successfully created a perfect chimera that would have served the same purpose ten times over. Then again, she had not spelled out word for word what they needed to do, which apparently was necessary with this group. Whoever it was who had sent the rocket and its passengers through the Gate was the closest thing to an ally that Dante had at the moment, and based on their slow progress, it depressed her immensely.

Admittedly, it would not have benefited the ancient alchemist very much if they had come sooner, and with each passing year that they proved their incompetency, it gave Dante better leverage, and more control over her situation on her own world. She laid and wondered to herself if without the formerly tiny homunculus to perform the alchemy, would people on the other side even be capable of it any longer? Was Hohenheim still alive on the other side to do it for them?

She would have to find another key on this side as well to give them instructions, detailed instructions. The child from Lior had become a ten-year-old boy by now much too old to open the gate. No, Dante needed to find a baby, the easiest way to open the portal, or at the very least a toddler, now that the blocks the meddling sons of her former husband had placed around central were null and void. The opening of the gate and the new, stronger connection between the two worlds would mean the baby didn’t have to show any sign of alchemic power, merely be young and innocent.

As she nestled herself beneath the warm covers of her bed, Dante allowed sleep to claim her, deciding that tomorrow was another day, and she had no reason to rush.

********

Fuery sat at his place at the rear of the hospital room, where he’d observed for the last few hours as this man who looked so much like Frank Archer remained, grasping onto Wrath’s arm, crying, himself, at the loss. Then, as the hours turned back to single digits, Archer had fallen asleep, head slumped onto his chest, faintly snoring. Fuery, watching this other Archer shivering at the cool hospital air, had grabbed an extra blanket from the corner, throwing it over the older man’s shoulders, feeling more than a bit strange being kind to the bastard’s look-a-like.

Occasionally, Fuery would notice Wrath’s eyes opening, looking around the dimly lit room, then close again, a heavy sigh escaping his lips. There would be silent tears, but never once did the younger man want Fuery anywhere near him. Archer, alone, was allowed to touch the former homunculus, and at the very least, the older man seemed to offer some form of comfort to the grieving, wounded man on the bed.

Fuery couldn’t help but pity Wrath. He’d lost friends on the battlefield, even an ex-boyfriend, and yet, he still could only imagine what the dark-haired man was going through at the moment.

********

It was one of the few times Edward was actually willing to top Wrath. For whatever reason the younger man couldn’t fathom, the elder seemed to have reluctance at being seme in their relationship. And all the while he was almost overly gentle and cautious. Wrath found it rather funny that Edward, who on more than one occasion lost himself to his own hormones on bottom never once lost control on top. The brunette found it funny because the only other option for Wrath was to be very concerned about what was going through his lover’s mind to make him behave this way.

Wrath had insisted they face one another this time, and he’d worked hard to ensure that his face showed no pain, no doubt throughout the process. Edward was so terrified of hurting Wrath, terrified almost of enjoying himself, that Wrath wanted to show the blond that yes, he liked this, and no, just because Edward was the smaller, less dominant of the two, he didn’t have to be bottom.

Still, careful and slow as the man always seemed to take this, Edward was still forcing Wrath to cry out, louder and louder with each thrust until finally, the former homunculus was completely spent, Edward as well, collapsed on top of the larger man’s body. The afterglow of it all was nice, neither caring that they were a mess and needed to clean off, and to tidy up the rest of the apartment before Stephen returned home from London. They fell asleep in one another’s arms, or rather Edward fell asleep in Wrath’s arms. That always irritated the older man, that in comparison to Wrath he seemed little more than a child.

********

Once again, Wrath found himself sobbing, seeing the dark, watchful eyes of the mousy-looking man at the back of the room observing him. Why the hell did he have to watch his pain? Was it enjoyable for him to see Wrath suffer? Did it get him off?

Why was that man in the room at all? Stephen was the only person he could bear to look at right now. Al might not have been so bad. He was glad the man had his body back, and under other circumstances, Wrath might have felt a little pride that he was the reason Al was whole once again. Roy he already despised from the other world and he was undeniably jealous of this one, having Edward—no, not Edward, Edward was gone, dead—Ed all to himself.

Then there was Ed, when Wrath had first seen him, he hadn’t taken into consideration that the hair was pulled back and not cut off, that the face was fuller and more mature, that the eyes were colder from more than one death at their owner’s hands, that the build was broader and even beneath the blue military uniform held the promise of rippling muscles. Thinking back, Wrath knew he had simply seen the blond hair, golden eyes, and gentle expression.

Oh, God, he had kissed him. He had kissed Ed. It all seemed like such a haze, but he’d really done it.

And once again, through that shock of the memory, he sobbed, glancing up through his tears to find the man with the glasses was staring at the wall rather than at Wrath even though he obviously knew the former homunculus was awake.

********

The letter arrived under the door the next morning. The sated couple, lounging in their bed, was thoroughly enjoying that because the Thule society was in the process of attaching the serpent formerly known as Envy to the ceiling of the chamber, they didn’t have work that day. They had not found the note, but Stephen did, kicking it into the apartment as he carried two armloads of groceries and letters from Hohenheim for the two younger men.

“What the hell?”

Wrath opened his eyes, looking to the man his body had completely enveloped. “Edward, I think Stephen’s home.”

Edward’s eyes slowly opened, still looking a bit glazed with sleep. Wrath made his way to a wash basin, scrubbing off the remnants of last night’s activities from his body before pulling on a clean set of clothes, not bothering with the shirt as he went out to see if Stephen was angry that the two younger men had left the apartment such a mess. Edward slowly rolled his way off of their joined beds, stretching and grinning with a mix of leftover afterglow and sleepiness.
“I’m sorry about the apartment,” Wrath said, ducking as he went through the much too short doorway.

“I don’t care about the damned mess.” He handed Wrath the paper he had in his hands. “It’s an eviction notice. The owner of the shop downstairs overheard last evening’s ‘activities’ and wants us out, or more specifically wants the two of you out. The only reason you two haven’t been reported to the authorities is because we technically are the authorities.”

Grabbing the first shirt available, Wrath had stormed out of the apartment and down to the shop below, ignoring Stephen and even Edward as the blonds yelled after him. He stormed into the shop, the owner giving him a nervous smile the moment their eyes met.

“I need to speak to you. Now.”

“I said what I wanted to in that letter. I wish to have the apartment vacant by the end of this month, so it can be thoroughly sanitized.”

Wrath’s violet eyes narrowed, and he moved his way through the racks of men’s clothing in front of him to get closer to the owner. “Do you have any idea what you are doing?”

“Do you?” the man returned.

Wrath drew his arm back, fist clenched, prepared to strike this man. How dare he? How dare he judge Wrath simply because he loved Edward?

Then, he felt two calloused hands grabbing hold of his wrist. “Don’t,” a small voice said, as Wrath looked down to see it was Edward grabbing him. “If he wants us gone, then that is all there is to it.”

“He has no right to dictate what goes on in my be—” One of Edward’s hands was on his mouth before the word bedroom escaped them.

“Be quiet, Ulysses,” he said in a whisper. “We are in a public place.”

Wrath pulled Edward’s hand off of his face. “But this isn’t his decision and it isn’t his business.”

“This is his store, and you need to keep your voice down. You’re attracting attention. We don’t need that.”

“Right,” Wrath said, walking out of the store, turning back at the owner. “Don’t worry. I’ll be gone.”

Edward followed him to the enclosed stairwell. “So, what we do is fine for our own bedroom, but not in public.”

“It could get us killed. People don’t accept it.”

“They don’t accept it because no one stands up for themselves.” Wrath glared at Edward. “And don’t cover my mouth again. If I choose to announce to the world that I’m a homosexual, or bisexual, or straight or like to screw cows, I will do it. If you want to kowtow, you go right ahead. I’ll be damned before I do.”

********

Wrath heaved yet another sigh, fighting back tears that seemed to have momentarily dried up. Why did they have to save him? He didn’t deserve to go on. He’d been so cruel to Edward in those final days, starting fights with him, yelling at him for not standing up for what he was. He should have died with Edward. He wished he’d died with Edward.

As he went to sleep once again, he hoped he’d get that wish.

********

Ed heard laughter and smelled pancakes. Looking through slitted eyes at the window, it seemed dawn was just barely breaking, but he felt he was probably the last one awake in the house.

“We wanted to surprise you,” Aideen said, steadily holding out a tray of pancakes with blueberry syrup. Ed looked down at the breakfast before him, with bacon and eggs on a nearby plate.

“We didn’t make them,” Nicholas said, handing Ed a glass of orange juice. “Papa did.” Ed looked up at the doorway, seeing Roy leaning against the doorframe, arms folded.

“They gave it a good try. I heard them making some noise in the kitchen, so I went down and gave them a hand.”

“So what’s this for?”

“Um, just because,” Nicholas said, obviously not finishing with ‘we thought you were dead.’

The twins sat eagerly on Roy’s side of the bed as Ed cut into the first pancake, taking a bite, savoring the sweet syrup. He ruffled Nicholas’s hair, thanking him, then placed a kiss to Aideen’s forehead, as she was closer.

Scrunching her face up, she rubbed the spot where he’d kissed her, “That was sticky.”

He looked at his daughter, feeling all the more claim on her, knowing that she had inherited not only his features and blood type but he now knew specifically that his entire X chromosome made its way through in the exchange of the babies from Riza. Obviously, the noticeable traits were there and he’d always known they were, but to at least know that one bit of his genetic make-up specifically was in that little girl, it pleased him. She was really his, even if he had wiped out a tiny piece of Roy for that claim.

Last night before going to bed, Roy had admitted to being a bit upset that there wasn’t an outburst the instant Ed had been informed he’d made Aideen a girl. Apparently he’d anticipated Ed to fly off the handle, demanding if Roy thought he was a girl. After learning that Roy had actually thought that, it had led into a brief lecture about genes and DNA. All of which, Ed had learned and come to understand—better than his husband, apparently—from Roy’s own sister. Roy had merely rolled his eyes, kissing Ed to shut him up, then pulled him close on the bed before they’d both drifted off to sleep.

“While I appreciate this, and I do, you two do realize you still have to be punished for running off like you did.”

The twins nodded, looking down at the bed, as though in hopes that down-turned puppy dog eyes would somehow force their Daddy to give in. He’d been building up a resistance to their uncle over the years, and Al had long been the master of the puppy dog eye, even when he’d been in the suit of armor. And even at their most innocent, the two children rarely looked or behaved like it. Like it or not, the twins were miniaturized adults from spending far too much time around them. Even at twenty-five and as the father of three, Al looked far more child-like than the two nine-year-olds watching Ed enjoy his meal.

“No spanking or grounding. Instead, since I technically am off duty today, I’m taking you around to every military officer who chased you through the streets or through the office, and I’m going to have you apologize to each one individually.”

The two mouths gaped. “Every one?” Nicholas asked.

“Every single one.” Ed bit down on a piece of bacon. Chewing it and swallowing it, he couldn’t help but notice two sets of eyes looking eagerly at his breakfast, bacon being Aideen’s favorite and blueberry pancakes Nicholas’s. “There’s an awful lot of food here. I don’t know if I could eat it all. Roy, would you like to split this with me?” The twins looked crestfallen.

“Oh, no,” Roy said, a faint smile on his face. “I ate all of my mistakes downstairs. I’m not very hungry now. I think you’ll have to finish it yourself.”

He cut a piece of the pancakes, spearing it on his fork, watching Nicholas follow the food with his eyes. Ed darted his hand with the fork out to his son, handing his daughter a piece of the bacon. As the twins ate, they grinned, encouraging their father to eat, but not too much, telling him to save some for them.

Roy walked into the room, sitting at Ed’s feet, running a hand up his husband’s right calf. “I have to head to the office and speak with the leader of Drachma to start the workings of a treaty, and then I’m going to continue talking to the other Archer.”

“We’ll probably see you there. After the little brats here are done apologizing to your army,” Ed said with smirk to the twins, “we’re going to stop off at the hospital. I want to see how Wrath is doing.”

Roy stood up, moving to Ed, pressing their lips together. When he pulled back, he darted out a tongue, licking a bit of syrup from his mouth. “Mmm. Blueberry.”

********

A warrant officer under this man Fuery’s command brought the pack of sharpened pencils, eraser, and pack of white paper. He handed the items to the lieutenant colonel, saluted and left. Frank watched as the smaller man handed him the items, grateful to have something to do to take his mind off of yesterday’s events. So, he began to sketch, starting first with his best recollection of the twins from London, as they seemed to be of particular interest to the fuhrer.

He sensed the young intelligence officer watching over his shoulder.

“Aren’t you tired?”

“I have gone without sleep before.”

“And you really are in charge of military intelligence?” Frank asked as he worked to properly draw Nicholas’s eyes. It had been far too long since he’d gotten to draw for drawing sake. Usually, he was stuck creating alchemic circles, sometimes doing sketches of suspects for the government.

“Yes, I am.”

“You seem young.” Wrath shifted on the bed at the other side of the room, but appeared to still be sleeping. “But then again, Roy isn’t all that old to be fuhrer, either. If he’s the same age as the one I knew, he should be about forty.”

“Not just yet, but he’s been fuhrer for nearly ten years now.”

Frank raised an inquisitive eyebrow as he started drawing Aiden. “I suppose I may never make sense of this place. You have a fuhrer who has a male lover—”

“Husband,” Fuery said in a correcting tone.

“Husband? Wow.” Frank shaded Aiden’s dark hair. “And you use alchemy like a science, though it looks more like magic to me.”

“Not everyone. Most of us are just normal people.”

Feeling satisfied with his work, Frank set the paper aside and went to sketching another, this time of a dirigible, planning that his next one should be that of a rocket. “Seems like that would make it unbalanced.”

“It does, but there are benefits to being mediocre. We were never used as human weapons. State alchemists like the fuhrer and even to a lesser extent Ed weren’t given a choice.”

“Human weapons?” Frank said, glancing up from his sketch. “So that was what I saw in Roy’s—the fuhrer’s—eye, even that other Edward. Those were the faces of people who’ve not only seen battle, but had to confront it close-up.” He looked up at Fuery. “It’s there in yours too.” Frank’s sharp blue eyes went back to his work.

“I could say the same for you,” the man with the glasses said. “But that’s the life of a soldier.” Out of his peripheral vision, Frank could see that Fuery was looking over at Wrath. “I’m surprised he didn’t recognize you.” Again, Frank stopped what he was doing to look up at the seemingly mousy man. “One of the last things he did before crossing through the gate was pound Frank Archer into a bloody mess after he’d killed Wrath’s mother. But the colonel didn’t exactly look much like himself, half metal and all.”

“The bastard killed Ulysses’s mother?” Fuery only nodded. “Bloody hell.” Frank looked up at Wrath, thinking back on the patch the fuhrer seemed unwilling to remove. “Why wasn’t I shot on sight?”

“The fact that you weren’t shows the fuhrer’s at least giving you the benefit of the doubt.”

********

Wrath kept his eyes closed. He could hear them talking, chatting like nothing had happened. In the back of his mind, the former homunculus knew that Stephen, or Frank as he’d heard the obnoxious man with the glasses call Wrath’s roommate, was able of shutting off his emotions temporarily, letting them boil inside until he found a release—usually shooting or punching someone once they surfaced. But after someone he considered a friend had died… How dare he act as though nothing was wrong!

Screw him, Wrath thought to himself. No one understood.

Then, to hear the annoying man say that Stephen was Frank Archer, the man who’d shot his mother and even kidnapped him once before, it was all Wrath could do not to at least make the attempt to get out of bed again. That was who he was, and he hadn’t recognized him.

He was useless. He couldn’t recognize a possible enemy, couldn’t save Edward. And now, he couldn’t even move his damned legs.

By now, he was growing more and more angry, and this Frank, Stephen, whatever the hell his name was, was coming over to him to try to comfort him. Wrath could only glower at him darkly, his legs still absolutely worthless.

“Okay Ulysses,” he said. “I won’t come over there.” The man Wrath had thought he’d known half-smiled at him. “You’ve always wanted to know my name and why I looked familiar. I just wish it wasn’t because I looked like the son of a bitch who hurt you so much.”

Trapped in the room with these men he didn’t want near him, Wrath threw one of his pillows at them both and buried his head beneath the remaining one feeling at a loss between his rage and grief to do more than he already had.

********

Walking through the streets of Central, Ed guided the twins to the individual soldiers who had been chasing them the day before, watching as they apologized, noticing that the punishment had knocked their egos down a few pegs. It had taken much of the morning, but the only ones left were Falman and Fuery. Part of Ed felt he needed to discipline them further for leaving the conference area, but he couldn’t bring himself to get as angry as maybe he should have at them for trying to find him. He was worried that they had put themselves into danger, but he knew well enough that he’d have done the same in their position, hearing their parent was dead. He’d already demonstrated the lengths he’d go to for his family.

Seeing a few buildings that had come crashing down, Ed could hear the distinctively confident sound of General Alex Armstrong, apparently rebuilding the city. He really didn’t want living in a city that was essentially a shrine to the Armstrong line, with statues everywhere like Lior, so Ed decided to give the twins a break from the punishment while he helped to repair some of the damage done by the battle that had been going on for the last five days.

Observing a few of the broken buildings, he was grateful that at the time being, the reporters who had hounded him for going on ten years seemed to have something better to do. Clapping his hands, Ed began repairing busted walls and broken glass. He saw that not far from him, Aideen was doing the same with the town’s fountain. Nicholas occasionally repaired something, but as he’d found Phillip had come to repair the town with his step-father, the boy was otherwise occupied goofing off and being a kid.

Nearing his daughter, Ed tried to encourage her to play, telling the dark-haired child to enjoy herself with her brother and their friend, but she shook her head.

“This is good practice. And the boys don’t really like me to play all the time.” Ed rubbed the little girl’s pale cheek and allowed her to get back to what she was doing. He had to find her another girl to be around now that Elysia was a teenager and didn’t have as much time to hang out with the nine-year-old.

There seemed to be hope of that when Aideen approached a girl just a year or two younger than her, crying over a broken doll destroyed in one of the blasts. His daughter instructed the girl to put the doll down and with a clap of her hands and a quick transmutation, the toy was back in one piece.

But then it came like it always did.

“Thank you, Miss Mustang.” Ed didn’t understand why, but his daughter was addressed this way by nearly everyone, never correcting them as Nicholas did when they tried to call him Mister or, worse yet, Master. Aideen only smiled, nodded and watched the girl run off to show her mother what “the fuhrer’s daughter did.” Going on seemingly unfazed, Aideen continued to make repairs, her father doing the same until they saw Armstrong standing, watching Phillip and Nicholas racing one another to repair the pieces of a rather elaborate sculpture that stood at the center of the city. Nicholas, to be fair, was drawing the alchemic symbols, rather than just clapping his hands.

Ed spotted Rose with her younger son, undeniably an Armstrong, in her arms, smiling as she watched. It was good to see her smile like that again, though Ed would never have expected Armstrong to be the one who made her do it.
Aideen went over to Rose, immediately chatting away to the older woman while Edward tried not to cheer too loudly as his son won the little race. It was horribly sided in Nicholas’s favor, but a father had the right to be proud, after all.

After working with the twins and the two members of the Armstrong clan to restore Central for little over an hour, Ed took the twins to the hospital to see Roy and Wrath, and have them apologize to Fuery.

“Can we meet him, Daddy?” Aideen asked. “He’s the one who traded himself to the Gate isn’t he?”

“He is, but we’ll have to see how he’s feeling.” The girl knowingly nodded as the three walked to the hospital, making their way to the room where Roy was once again “interrogating” the new Archer.

Poking his head inside, Ed saw Roy and the other man were exchanging photos and drawings, much to the younger blond’s confusion. There was still no fighting between the two.

“I still cannot believe you have this kind of quality in color photographs. It’s incredible,” Archer said.
Ed cleared his throat to make his presence known. The blond man, who—guessing by the slight dark roots—wasn’t really blond, looked up at Ed with a sad smile. Roy looked up from a stack of drawings, then down at the two heads that Ed realized had appeared at either side of the door. The fuhrer waved them all inside, Nicholas interested in the sketches in Roy’s hands, Aideen immediately confronting the older man sitting next to Roy.

“Are you the one who shot him?” she asked, sounding stern.

“No,” the blond Archer said. “But I think I look a lot like the man who did.” The twins looked to Roy, who nodded in agreement, apparently having resolved that this man was definitely not the asshole he’d known since his days at the academy. Ed saw Archer looking over Aideen’s face, then Nicholas’s, then their fathers’. He looked incredibly confused; Ed liked that. “How… They look like you. Do you have a sister?”

“Just a little brother. A tall little brother,” he added bitterly.

“Your sister?” Archer asked Roy.

“No.” Roy flipped through one of the photo albums, trying to find the pictures that had been flashed everywhere since the twins were born.

“But he…” Archer said, looking at Nicholas “he looks like Riza.”

Opening the book and putting it in front of Archer, Roy pointed to the first in a series of shots of Ed’s growing stomach, Ed looking absolutely miserable in each and every one of them. Roy had insisted they’d be necessary for proof for the twins and the rest of the world, but Ed had hated them more and more with each pound he gained. Engrossed in the photos before him, Archer followed them in progress to the one that had been taken by a nurse in the delivery room, thankfully not revealing anything that had been covered by a sheet on the day the twins were born. Those blue eyes Ed hated so much looked up at him, the otherwise stern mouth open, then back down at the photo. He seemed to be trying to mouth the word “How,” but failed each and every time.

“Alchemy,” Ed answered, as Nicholas picked up a drawing of what could have been the twins’ brothers, Ed realizing that these were, in fact, the twins of the other world, the twins minus his influence.

“So, you’re a wo—”

“Finish that word and you’ll be one,” Ed said. “I’m all male, thank you very much. Between alchemically transferring the babies,” He rubbed the back of both of the twin’s heads. “and female hormones that were regularly injected into me, I looked like that.”

“How often does this happen?” Archer asked.

“Once, as far as anyone knows.” Ed looked around the room, allowing Archer to repeatedly flip through the photo album. “No Fuery?”

“I sent him home to sleep."

"What about Wrath?"

"Raine’s in with Wrath right now, and Al said he’d be down in an hour to visit with him.”

“Daddy,” Nicholas asked, “since Uncle Al can visit, can we?”

“Maybe,” Ed said, “but not for long.” Ed started to turn, but saw the twins were already running well ahead of him.

********

Wrath laid in the bed, letting the woman who looked so much like Roy poke and prod at his legs, using alchemy to try and heal them, nagging him for being resistant. He tried to fight her, but she merely put him in his place verbally with her rather sharp tongue and physically with her alchemy.

Then, he saw two children standing opening the door, the girl poking her head in. “Are you Wrath?” she asked.
Wrath only nodded. The girl and the boy ran toward him, stopping just a few inches from his bed.

“Nicholas, Aideen, what are you doing?” the doctor asked.

“We wanted to visit him. Daddy said he’s upset, and we wanted to thank him,” the boy said, looking up at the woman, then down at Wrath. “He went through the gate and kept us safe. Something like that’s worth thanking someone for.”

These were the twins, Wrath realized, as the girl rubbed the man’s arm carefully, the anger in him wanting to melt for just a moment.

Then, Ed appeared at the door. “If they’re bothering you, they can leave.”

Wrath shook his head, Ed starting to turn back out of the door, Wrath waving a hand for him to come back in. He could stand to look at the man who’d promised to make him human all those years ago, as long as he focused on the differences, not the similarities between Ed and Edward. With a tiny, sympathetic smile, Ed made his way beside the bed beside the twins, Wrath noticing the metal arm still attached to the small body.

The younger man raised his right arm, looking up at Ed, then taking hold of the automail.

“You still have it?” Ed said, surprised as he seemed to notice that the darker skin coloring on the taller man’s right hand. Wrath looked at his hand nervously and back up at Ed. “I’m not going to rip it off. I don’t want it back.” The former homunculus looked at the alchemist in surprise. “This thing,” Ed raised his right hand. “has saved these two more times than I can count.” He patted the boy’s shoulder with his left. “Besides, I don’t think it’s exactly going to fit anymore.” Ed put his right hand up to Wrath’s, the automail dwarfed by the larger hand that had once been in its place. Then, he rubbed Wrath’s shoulder, saying nothing more, his children each taking a hand and holding it in thanks for his sacrifice those years ago and compassion for how much the young man was hurting now.