🏁 Come Back To Me🪭 🤕

Rubberbands Snap When Pulled Hard

Edward watched as the ambulance zipped up the body bag and winced when the zipper let go and hit the fabric of the bag. He held the accursed pipe-turned-flower in his hand. He would never forget the awful thing he had done. He had wracked his brain over and over again, wondering how he could have been so stupid as to just transmute the pipe, knowing full well that it was keeping Roy alive. He knew it... he knew it. Why did he do it then? He kept asking himself that question over and over again. Why did he just clap his hands like anything usual and take the pipe out of Roy? What the hell was he thinking?

"I wasn't thinking..." he said, looking at the metal flower.

He had a blanket over his shoulders but not that coat. Not that infernal, infuriating red fabric. If it hadn't been for that coat, then they wouldn't have gotten into the argument, and if not for the argument, then Roy would have been concentrating more on the road and not on doing a comeback for Edward's retorts. So many variables that all led up to the demise of the Colonel... although Edward only knew the main reason and it was him. He caused Roy to die. It wouldn't have even mattered if he had waited with the pipe in his chest, the fact of the matter was that he was going to die and Edward caused it. The coat caused it... but he wore the coat...

"Ed?"

Edward looked up as Jean looked at him with a somber expression, his cigarette planted firmly in his mouth. He knelt in front of Edward and looked at him.

"Can you tell us what happened?" he asked softly.

"I killed him."

"Chief, you didn't kill him. The pipe did..."

"If I had left it in then maybe he could have survived..."

Jean shook his head. "The doctor said that it wouldn't have mattered. The amount of time you guys had been out here before Fuery found you would have killed him too. It's not your fault, Ed."

"Tell that to the red coat."

"The... what?"

"The red coat. It's why he died. If I hadn't been wearing it, he would have been paying more attention to the road and then we wouldn't have veered off the side. So... it's my fault all the way around. I came out here thinking I would be fine, wearing that damnable red coat, and then I lost my edge and made a mistake..."

Jean moved his mouth to the side, taking out the cigarette and bumping the ashes off of it. He could tell it was going to be a while before he was able to get anything halfway decent out of Edward. He stood up and walked over to the rest of Roy's subordinates and shook his head.

"Chief's cracked. He thinks it's all his fault."

"Has anyone gotten in contact with Alphonse?" Riza asked, seeming unbothered that her superior was dead.

"I called for him a few minutes ago and I think they said he's heading here." Fuery said.

Breda looked at the forlorn child sitting on his own and then back at Jean.

"What will we do about Fullmetal?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean... do we try and comfort him or what? He's just sitting there so sad..."

"Well, he's never been to war before. He's never seen death up close like this. He's probably in shock."

"Leave everything to Alphonse." Riza said, checking the magazine of her gun. "He will know what to do with him."

Jean and Breda looked at each other, both sensing a different tone in Riza's voice.

"Hawkeye, you okay?"