Leave A Scar (Fullmetal Alchemist)

Ice Cream

To say today had been a long day would definitely be an understatement. The train ride back to Central was short-or at least it felt fairly short. I woke up to the tilted sight of Al smiling at me, hand gently nudging my knee from his seat across from mine. Ed was looking over his shoulder, suitcase in hand as he stood in the aisle, smiling as well.

Definitely long, but I was glad it was almost over.

The Brigadier's office was as big as I expected it to be, but I really didn't think for it to have couches. I was thankful though, trying hard not to fall asleep as I sat down. Al quietly took the armchair as Ed flopped down beside me, arms fanning out to rest along the back.

"Alright," he was saying, "Let's get this stupid lecture over with, Mustang."

I focused, turning to see Mustang raise an eyebrow from his place at his desk. "I'm not scolding you, Fullmetal. You're old enough to know what you did wrong." He moved a paper from the top of a pile, sliding it in front of himself with two fingers. "Which, in this case, wasn't a lot of things."

Ed shot him an irritated look. Mustang just smirked, continuing to speak.

"So tell me about this case." he said. "After you all left for Lautoxan, what happened?"

"Well, we started going door-to-door," Ed began, looking to the ceiling, "Seeing if anyone remembered a State Alchemist being there."

Mustang nodded, like he agreed with the action.

"We got a little bit of a lead from that; someone told us what the guy looked like and what he took from their house."

Mustang's thin eyebrows rose. "What he took?" he repeated.

Ed nodded, allowing Al to fill in his reply.

"He was going to every house he could and getting different items from them."

"Using the watch as leverage." Mustang mused. "Okay, go on."

"And then..." Ed suddenly stopped talking, and he looked down, a slight blush coming to him as he scratched the side of his nose. "Uh..."

I realized what he was thinking of; the drawing he did when we stayed at the hotel. I grinned through my own embarrassment, seeing Mustang's gaze lift to me, welcoming an addition.

"And then the next morning, when we were eating breakfast, we saw him."

"The imposter?" Mustang asked.

I nodded, seeing Ed recover and continue on. He leaned forward, arms hanging past his knees.

"And when he ran off, Al and I chased after the bastard." A hand passed along his mouth, an irritation coming to him. "Figured out he was using bombs, too."

My lips shut a little tighter, noticing he was going to skip over the restoration of his sight completely. I only nodded a little bit, hearing him turn to Mustang and keep talking.

"But by the time we had really pieced everything together, he'd already struck an attack on a church."

My hands curled, grabbing handfuls of my skirt. I was glad nobody got hurt, but just seeing that building up in flames like that...

"Nobody was injured," Al chimed in, "But our imposter fled the scene soon after we got there."

"You trailed him, right?" Mustang asked.

"Obviously." Ed replied, kicking his weight back against the couch. "We got some information out of the bastard and the rest is up to the authorities he was handed to."