We Go Together

Mr. Tucker/Emotions

"I thought we would get our bodies back..." Edward says quietly, "and the stone was a fake."

I hate to see him so upset. I place my hand on his shoulder. "We'll find a way to get your bodies back, I promise."

Edward smiles kindly at me, and along with Alphonse, we start making our way out of Liore.

****

"Congratulations on the Liore case," Mustang says. "The three of you did really well."

"Thanks," I grin at him.

"No big deal," Edward adds. "It's not like we did it for you."

"Right," Mustang says. "The philosopher Stone. Another false lead?"

"Yeah, after all we did, that stone was a fake," Edward says quietly. "But still, the power it gave Cornello was pretty real."

"Yeah," I add. "I mean, he managed to transmutate a full Chimera."

"I'm curious too," Alphonse says. "But I don't know much about Bio-alchemy."

"Yeah," Edward says, "maybe we could dig in. Who knows? Maybe we'll find something to help us restore our bodies."

"Well, it might help if you saw a specialist," Mustang says and pulls out a file.

"Specialist?" I ask.

"Yeah," Mustang replies. "Shou Tucker. I'll introduce you to him."

"Wait, what's going on here? What's up with the favors?" Edward asks.

"I just want to pay you back for sealing the Liore case, that's all," Mustang says. "Anyway, Dr. Tucker managed to create a Chimera that could understand human speech, but all the words it could say were 'I want to die'. It refused to eat until it got its wish."

When that conversation is over, Mustang takes us to a big house in a decent looking neighborhood, where we're supposed to meet this Tucker guy. Mustang rings the doorbell and the door opens a few seconds later, revealing a little girl with long brown hair pulled up in two braids, and big blue eyes.

I take a look at Edward from the corner of my eye, who is admiring how big the house is (of course, to me and to him, anything looks big). Suddenly, a big figure jumps clean on top of him and lands on him, leaving Edward completely pinned to the ground.

"Ed!" I run to him and realize that it's a dog that jumped on him. The big dog looks happy to have done what he did. I giggle when I see that nothing's wrong.

Edward moans in slight pain and lifts his head. "What the hell?"

I help him get up and giggle again. "Watch out for the dog."

Edward smiles at me sweetly and our attention is drawn to the door, when a grown man steps out and greets us. Then, he takes us inside his house.

"I'm sorry about the mess," Tucker says. "It's been that way ever since my wife ran out. I'm not that good of a housekeeper."

We sit down at a table. I'm sitting next to Edward, and in front of us sits Mr. Tucker.

"Dr. Tucker," Mustang says. "The Elrics are interested in the field of Biologic Alchemy. We were wondering if you could show him such of your research."

"Of course," Mr. Tucker replies.

Ed's eyes lighten up a bit when he hears those words.

"However," Tucker continues, "if you expect me to show you the tricks up my sleeve then you should show me yours. That is the law of equivalent exchange, isn't it?"