FMA fic omg finally
This is closer to animeverse than to mangaverse, and closer to fandumbverse than to either of those. Post-series, happy end presumed. R for Ed's foul language, otherwise G. RoyEd. (RoyAi fans, I come in peace.) Am really the last person on earth qualified to perpetrate FMA fic, but writing this was fun in the way of playing a goofy non-sport one is totally klutzy at, like mini golf. XD;

For calintz!



* * *

Ready Steady

*

"You should go if you want to, Niisan." The voice from the receiver crackled tinny and fond. It was tough to get a clear connection to Riesenbourg, and the guest phone in the downstairs hall at Gasthof Erstau seemed past the age of retirement. Very like the proprietress, who sat cradled in a rocker on the front porch, nodding, her eyes so subsumed by crinkles that it was impossible to tell whether she was awake or asleep. Ed screwed up his face as if grimacing would help him hear. The phone crackled again. "We're doing fi-"

CRASH!

He jumped, thinking for a minute that the hallway window had burst inward, but the noise had come from outside the house. It sounded like crockery breaking. He spun toward the front porch, where the old lady kept smiling and nodding.

"--Miffy hasn't had her kittens yet but Auntie thinks any day now--"

More shatters, and in their wake a scatter of maniacal guffaws. Ed shoved aside lace curtains to peer through the window, but all he could see of the outside world were begonias and whitewashed wall. Al was still talking; it was hard to make sense of the words.

"--says if you're stopping in Central, say hi to Gracia and Alicia, and pick up some lubricant at--"

SMASH!

"I'm not hanging around!" Ed's hand wrung the phone cord in a stranglehold. "I'll just--do what I have to do and come home."

"Well, okay, but Winry wants her--"

Whatever else Winry wanted was lost behind the oom-pah oom-pah of--Ed twitched, but there was no mistaking it--a tuba starting to play. The crashes improved their tempo. Ed shouted into the phone.

"I gotta go, there's something weird going on, I'll call tomorrow, bye."

He flung down the receiver and stormed to the porch. The door ricocheted shut behind him, but the proprietress showed no sign of alarm, or indeed of consciousness. Ed spun toward the street.

A small crowd--gang? mob?--was ringed around the front of the neighboring house: old and young, men and women, a little blonde girl in ribbons and pigtails. All of them but the tuba player were wielding dishware. As Ed gawked, the pigtailed girl hefted a saucer and heaved it at the front door. It shattered admirably, drawing a squeal from the girl and shouts from the rest. The tuba blared a raspberry. From within the house rose an awful wail.

Ed had seen enough. He charged down the steps, clapped his hands together, and thrust both palms forward. A current like blue lightning leaped from his hands to the shards heaped around the door. In a blur the fragments congealed into bowls, plates, cups and creamers, sleeker and glossier than they'd been before disintegration. The crowd of assailants cooed and clapped. One of the men braced both hands on his beer gut and boomed a laugh.

"Evening, Mr. Alchemist!"

A row of red faces grinned at Ed. Only a few of them looked particularly drunk. "The hell are you people DOING?" he yelled.

The pigtailed girl trotted up to him. "This is Marta and Joachim's house." She pointed. "They're getting married, so we have to break stuff."

"It's my sister's wedding tomorrow." The big man continued to boom; his voice seemed to have only one level of volume. "This is part of the fun, ha ha. Sorry if we gave you a fright."

In a daze Ed glimpsed two faces at the house's front window: a young couple smiling and wincing at the same time. They waved at him, then ducked out of sight.

"Now we get to break these ALL OVER again!" Pigtails lunged for a dinner plate. She raised it like a trophy above her head and whooped. The other members of the crowd--presumably friends and family of the couple--followed suit. They beamed en masse at Ed.

"Care to join in?" asked the bride's brother, one arm raised as if to thwack Ed on the shoulder. Ed scrambled backward toward the boarding house porch.

"I'll pass," he blurted. "Thanks."

"Suit yourself!"

BASH! and the barrage resumed. The tuba farted a polka. Ed observed for a while from his refuge, until at last he had mastered the impulse to wince at every impact. The restored dishes broke as splendidly as the originals. He looked sidelong at the proprietress in her rocking chair. There was no way anyone could doze through a racket like that.

"Hey, lady," he said. "You awake?"

One wrinkled eyelid cracked across cloudy blue.

"Is it okay if I use the phone again?"

She nodded and smiled. Ed waited until the orgy of breakage had stopped, and the wedding party had migrated toward a beer garden down the street. The bride and groom crept out of their house with brooms and dustpans. It occurred to Ed that he might help clean up, but local custom seemed likely to frown on that, and it probably counted as cruelty to dishes if he fixed them only to let them get smashed for the third time in one night. The door banged shut behind him as he sluffed back into the hall.

One of the resident cats fled into the parlor at his entrance, then stared at him with leery green eyes from under an upholstered armchair. Ed was the only guest at the Gasthof that night; at least there was nobody to overhear him. He dialed the phone number from memory. An operator picked up.

"General Mustang's office," Ed muttered. He scuffed his boot against a worn spot in the hardwood floor. "Edward Elric. Yeah. No."

The operator put him on hold. Twilight spread from the windows down the hallway, washing the paisley rug in swaths of wan violet. The standing order to put him through directly still held, but it was late in the day to be calling. Even generals went home at some point. Or out. On dates with hot women. Possibly two hot women at once. Although he ought to know by now how overblown (not to say bullshit) that reputation was. Ed scuffled harder. The operator came back on line: no answer at the general's office. Would he like to place another call?

"No thanks," said Ed. He hung up.

*

On the morning train from Niederfeul he sat by himself, cheek to window, letting the constant juddering shake his jaw and hinges all the way to the bone. The clatter kept him from mulling too much over the empty seat across from him. He could prop his feet up--that part was nice. There wasn't much else to be said for traveling alone. Nobody to play poker with, for one thing. He hated solitaire, but he lost three games before stuffing the deck back in the pocket where his watch used to be.

For a while he counted grain stacks in the fields that rolled by, all burnished green and gold in the light of late summer. He had nothing to read. Maybe it was time to start writing his memoirs. In the book, he'd decided, there would be a chapter titled "Everything I Need To Know I Learned From Alchemy," which would not be written in code, and would list pithy and edifying lessons you could absorb without getting dumped on a deserted island for a month. Lesson One was "Do not try to bring back the dead. No, really." Lesson Two was "If you achieve your life's goal at age 16, you will be bored shitless after that."

Or not bored, exactly, but shiftless. He'd never really cared about restoring his arm and leg, had paid lip service about it to placate Al. It was restoring his brother that he'd cared about, and once that was done--as much in spite of his own efforts as because of them--he felt like he'd run off his tracks. Suddenly there was no more map, no more quest, no more goose chase from town to village across Amestris. For the first time in a long time, Al hadn't needed him--rather, Al had often needed to be alone. Learning to live in the flesh again wasn't a joint endeavor. Sometimes just sitting in a room with other people, even family, even Ed, was overwhelming. Both Izumi and Auntie Pinako said there was nothing for Ed to do but be patient, try to understand.

He was not patient, not unless there was a goal to be patient toward. He was too used to motion to sit still. Can't you be happy without a fire burning under your behind? asked Pinako, when his restlessness had guttered to a smoldering funk. Winry had taken to throwing sharper things than wrenches. It was sneaky, Ed thought--like hell it was coincidence--how the general had called just then to make his proposal.

The fields beyond the window buckled into low hills. The grain stacks gave way to Holsteins. Ed switched to counting cows, pulled out his deck of cards and fingered the dog-eared edges. He was missing a joker. He'd left the good deck in Riesenbourg with Al.

With a long exhalation he put the cards away for the second time, then stretched his automail arm. His shoulder ached at the join between muscle and steel. He supposed it meant he'd grown again, and Winry would have a heyday when he got home, but for now it throbbed like a nagging wound. Stretching didn't help much. Ed slumped downward in the seat, wedged his head against the window, let the train go on rattling him as he closed his eyes.

*

He woke to the hubbub of disembarking passengers. In a groggy panic he grabbed his suitcase and staggered from the train, then stood on the platform searching for signs to reassure him. He was conscious only dimly of reunions happening all around.

Station attendants bustled back and forth. Their uniforms were dark blue: the color gave Ed a momentary turn. He found a sign. He was in the right place. There was an hour to kill before the next express to Central, so he holed up in a phone booth, propped his suitcase narrow-end-up to use as a stool, and called home. It was Winry who answered. Ed wished too late that he'd thought to disguise his voice.

"Ed? Where're you at? Are you in trouble again?"

"I'm fine." He rubbed his eyes. "Put Al on."

"Nuh-uh, no way, you're not getting off that easy. I heard you're stopping in town."

"Stopping," said Ed. He was beginning to wake up. "It rhymes with shopping, but is NOT IN FACT THE SAME--"

"You got a pen? Write this down."

She launched into a singsong recital of parts and viscous fluids. Ed listened with half an ear--he refused to root through his suitcase for pen and paper, but he knew his brain would recollect most of the list later, will he nil he. At last Winry ran out of breath. "You should visit Gracia and Alicia, too," she said. "Alicia must be getting so big now, I wish I could see her. Give her a hug for me."

"Yeah right."

"Give a hug to the general, too."

"Wha--WINRY!" Blood flooded his head. He nearly wrenched the phone off the wall. KILL, he thought, KILL, MAIM--how did she know? How could she? He hadn't been home for weeks, and before that he hadn't even worked it out for himself. Did she really know, or was she just being a shit? Was it some kind of horrible girl instinct? Winry was arguably a girl--

"Jeez, you're breaking my eardrums."

"SHUT UP!" he roared, and then, "PUT AL ON!"

She did. "Niisan? Is everything okay?"

"Kill Winry. With her own screwdriver. SLOWLY. Everything is swell."

"I was worried when you hung up like that last night. Did you get thrown in jail again?"

Ed snapped. "I'm not in jail, I'm not in the hospital, I'm at BuFu Station waiting for the Central Express. Last night was--" he paused. "Have you ever heard of a wedding custom that involves breaking dishes?"

"Um, nope?"

"Yeah, well, there is one." In retrospect it was beginning to seem sort of apt. Static hissed in his ear. Ed waited for the noise to pass. "I'm staying in Central tonight. Maybe at Gracia's."

"Sure."

He froze. Whether it was accidental or not, Winry's display of unnatural insight had roused his fear and loathing. Not Al--not Al, too. "What's that supposed to mean?!"

"It means...sure? Tell them hi for me?" Al sounded bewildered.

"Okay. Right." He drew a deep breath, waited through another stint of hissing. "You doing okay?"

"I'm fine, Niisan. Last night I took Den for a walk, outside and everything. You don't have to check up on me every single day."

"Don't tell your big brother what to do," barked Ed, and when Al started laughing, "don't forget to hurt Winry."

"So I don't have to totally kill her?"

"As long as you hurt her bad."

He felt better even after hanging up. Talking to Al always settled him, tightened his wobbly screws in a way nothing else did. He needed some tightening in preparation for what he was about to do. The phone receiver hung like dead weight in his hand. Ed clutched it grimly and dialed HQ.

Fury answered at Mustang's office. Yes, the brigadier general was in. Ed stood up as Fury transferred him. There was a single ring, a low click.

"Remarkable. You've learned to use a telephone."

The voice was resonant despite static on the line. For a second Ed forgot everything: his reason for calling, the reason behind the reason, the train bound for Central screaming somewhere down the tracks. "Uh-huh," he heard himself say. "Next up is driving a car."

There was a muffling sound as Mustang half-covered the receiver, not firmly enough to mute. He made a crack to whoever else was in the room--Fury, probably Hawkeye--about staying off the sidewalks. Predictable. Stupid. Ed caught himself leaning against the phone, toying with the phone cord like some ditz fiddling with her hair. He squelched the offending hand into a fist. Not even Winry played with phone cords. Shit. Shitshitshit.

"So? How was Niederfeul?"

Ed braced his fist against his forehead. "No chimeras. It was monkeys."

"Monkeys."

"There's this mad scientist couple living on the outskirts of town, and they keep monkeys. They're trying to teach them to talk or use sign language or something, I dunno. They have a permit. No dodgy alchemy going on. And then these other crazy people were smashing dishes in the street. So the whole town was fucking nuts, but harmless, and I think somebody other than ME could've figured that out." He huffed. "End of report."

More muffled noises in his ear. Ed slumped as he listened to that laughter, dully appalled at how much he liked the sound of it when it wasn't at his own expense, or even when it partly was. The corner of the telephone box jabbed into his side. He tucked the receiver against his metal shoulder, close to where the ache was, and did his best to growl. "Hey. General. Are you in tomorrow, too?"

"I am." Mustang coughed another laugh. Ed grunted.

"I'll come by in the morning. I need to talk to you."

He hung up before Mustang could tell him no. The collar of his shirt was clinging to his neck. He yanked at it with one finger, frowning at himself, at the whole world, until he noticed a woman waiting in line for the phone. With a shove he abandoned the booth to stalk down the length of the platform. Beyond the shade of the station building he had to shield his eyes from the sun's glare. The air was clear, but in spite of a breeze it smelled of coal and smoke and engine grease, at acrid odds with the fields and hedgerows on the far side of the tracks.

After a spate of aimless pacing his stomach began to growl. There was a man in pinstripes selling pretzels from a cart at the end of the station, the fat, chewy kind bigger than an outstretched hand. Ed bought one and tore at it with his teeth. The dough tasted salty and warm. When it was gone he bought another, and when that was gone he felt mollified enough to return to the phone booth for one more call.

Gracia Hughes picked up. Her voice was bright and strangely harried.

"Of course you're welcome to visit, Alicia would love to see you, but..."

Ed fumbled for his manners and found them. "Uh, if it's a bad time..."

"No! Not bad, just--well, if you don't mind bearing with the mess!"

*

The hallway and living room at the Hughes house were stacked with boxes, some taller than Alicia's head. Gracia apologized when Ed came to the door, and again when she brought tea--not milk--and cookies (baked by a neighbor; her own kitchen things were packed). The living room couch was gone, so they sat in the kitchen. Alicia grinned at Ed and bounced in her seat.

Gracia seemed somehow sheepish about the move. "My cousin lives in Wieg," she said. "Her roommate moved out not too long ago, and with one thing and another...." She made a brief open-handed gesture, like a bird raising and re-folding its wings. "I have a friend who's a real estate agent. She found a buyer for the house right away. It's not easy to leave, but...I don't know. I think we need to." She smiled helplessly. "I thought Alicia would try to dig her heels in, but she likes Wieg."

"They have horses," Alicia said.

Ed glanced at the shelves and walls bare of photographs, with only nails to mark where the frames had hung. "You must've had a heck of a time. I mean, packing."

"I packed ALL my toys. And some of my shoes."

"Roy's been such a help. He brought in some people to get the furniture--I know he has no time, but he comes anyway. He was just here last night."

With practice Ed had learned not to feign gagging when persons spoke well of the general. These days it hardly even roused him to rebellion, only to a queasy sense of unsurprise. There was no use saying he's got you fooled to someone like Gracia, or in grousing that he'd been right about the date with two hot chicks. He fidgeted. "Anything left for me to do?" He flexed his automail arm. "It slices and dices. It lifts heavy sh--stuff."

Gracia looked pleased and amused. "If there were, I'd put you to work, but I think we're mostly set. I'm just sorry we can't put you up. I feel bad sending you to a hotel."

"Nah, it's fine. I'm not gonna get any rest, anyway. I have this mile-long shopping list from Winry, who confuses me with her personal slave--"

"How is Winry? And Alphonse? Are they still in Riesenbourg?"

They went on talking until the teacups were empty. Then the moving truck appeared in the street outside, and Gracia was obliged to direct the burly men who lumbered out of it. Alicia begged to go to the neighborhood park one last time, so Ed took her there, spinning her on the merry-go-round so fast that she shrieked (but afterward announced he did it way better than her mom did).

Next to the swingset stood a pair of red hobby-horses on bendable springs. Alicia climbed on each of them, then said goodbye to both and patted their noses, where their paint was flaking off in tiny chips. She looked somber after that, but Ed said, "There's real ones in Wieg, right?" and she nodded, reaching to hold his hand as they walked back to the house that in a few hours would no longer be home.

The burly men were making fast inroads on the boxes in the hall. Gracia tried to insist that Ed take the leftover cookies, so he struck a deal with Alicia to split them half and half. Then Gracia called a cab for him--it was the least she could do, she said--and promised to send a letter to the Rockbell house when she and Alicia were settled. Ed waved to them through the taxi window, trying as he did so to account for his sense of disquiet.

Maybe he wasn't the only person who had to keep moving, with or without a clear direction ahead. Maybe everyone was like that. It was stupid to think Gracia and Alicia would stay put forever in a place that would always be one-third empty. He and Al had abandoned their house in the same way. Worse, since they'd burned it behind them. Maybe the Hugheses were less clumsy at goodbyes than he and Al had been.

He had the cab drop him off at Atlas Hardware. There wasn't much time to hunt for widgets before the store closed, but that was all right. It would give him a reason to cut short tomorrow's business with the general.

*

Mustang's desk seemed to get bigger with every promotion. It had the effect of making Ed feel he hadn't grown an inch since age fifteen (which was NOT the case), and sometimes of making him wish he were still fifteen, when the man behind the desk had instilled in him nothing more complicated than antagonism and begrudged respect. He stood taller now, neither slouching nor fidgeting, taking not much satisfaction from his pronouncement, or from Mustang's pause of surprise.

There was a leathery hush as the general sat back in his chair. "You haven't been under my command for some time. Or had you forgotten?"

"I mean, no more 'informal arrangement' thing. No more arrangement, period." For lack of anything else to do with his hands, Ed balled them into fists.

"I see." Another pause. "Is this about the monkeys?"

"No!"

"I see." Mustang stood and emerged from behind the desk. "Why don't we talk outside, Edward."

Ed took a backward step. "There's nothing to--"

"I was about to take a break in any case."

"Outside" meant a café-patisserie on Reichstrasse, where bistro tables lined the cobbled curbs. Next door was a florist, down from there a bookshop. Across the road sat a street musician scraping Du, du liegst mir im Herzen from his violin. It made Ed edgy. In the office at headquarters, facing off with a barricade of desk between them, he was on familiar footing, but this territory was strange, and before he could marshal a protest the general was ordering for them both. Hunching, Ed cast suspicious glances around the café, then realized he was hunching and resolved to sit up, kick his legs out, drape his elbow over the back of the chair.

Both chair and table were wrought iron, lacy, full of curlicues. Beside the sugar bowl perched a vase of fresh carnations. Ed stared at the flowers. Not that he had much--okay, any experience to go on, but the setup struck him as creepily datelike. Before he knew it he was hunching again. Their coffee arrived, and Ed flailed against the urge to leap up and demand that the waitress tell him if this was a date place. Was it a date place? Was the general trying to mess with his head?

Mustang stripped off his gloves, laid them on the tabletop. He dipped a spoonful of sugar into his cup and stirred purposefully. Manfully. Ed picked up his own coffee and burned his tongue on the first sip. When the general sat back to study him, it took every scrap of his mettle to sit still and not bolt.

"Is there some course in particular you'd like to pursue?" Mustang asked. "Is that what's brought this on?"

The patient tone confused him; the general sounded like a schoolteacher. Ed felt obscurely offended and obscurely reassured. "No. I'm going back to Riesenbourg."

"I thought you tried that once before."

"Yeah, well, it's different now. I need to, like, settle down or something. For a while."

The dark eyes flickered. "Met a nice girl, have you."

A year ago he might have blustered ("Yeah, two"), but he'd learned since then that sometimes it was permissible, or at least simpler, to tell the colonel--general--whatever--the truth. He crossed his arms over his chest. "I want to be where Al is."

"How is he?"

"Doing better. Lots better." Ed frowned. "Not ready to leave home."

"There's no need to bristle like that. I'm not going to try to stop you."

"So why are we here?"

"For the coffee." Mustang raised his cup for a long drink, long enough that Ed had time to conceive escalating paranoia about the meaning of coffee, its significance, its ramifications. He shrank back from his own cup. Was it coffee coffee? Coffee of the coffee kind?

When Mustang spoke again, he almost recoiled. "If a situation should arise that I think might be of interest to you, or one that you might be especially equipped to resolve, can I still rely on your help?"

"I said I quit." Ed gathered his dignity. "You're not the boss of me."

"Not as a boss. As a colleague. I'm putting this badly." For the first time Mustang frowned, and Ed was startled to see on his forehead a lingering furrow that might have been weariness. "What I want to know is, could I still ask for your help if need be."

Ask. Ed squinted. Colleague? The schoolteacher was gone, replaced by this alien body double speaking alien tongues. Or else his ears needed cleaning. Or else some high and mighty deity of justice had slammed a gavel and declared Edward Elric a grownup, from this day forth to be acknowledged as such by all persons, including brigadier generals. "I guess," muttered Ed. "If you ask real nice." He was flattered, bewildered, unsettled by both the flattery and the bewilderment. He kicked at the table legs and showed his teeth. "Can't you find another hired goon? Can't get along without me to bail you out?"

"There's no one else with your talents, Ful--" Mustang caught himself. He shook his head. "It's not like you to fish for compliments from me."

"WHO'S fishing for--"

"And I'd hate to fall out of touch. When I have in the past, it's always been to my detriment."

As the general kept on looking at him--bland-faced, if anything a little rueful--the need to bolt became consuming. Ed shot to his feet. "Yeah, well, you've got my number. I have stuff to do--Winry wants her lube, so I better--uh, thanks for the coffee." At times like this it was never his mechanical limbs that foiled him, but the human ones. His foot snagged on the chair leg as he stepped backward, and he was so busy hating himself for stumbling in front of Mustang that he failed to notice the waitress or her loaded tray.

His automail arm jabbed her elbow. The waitress squeaked. Mustang was halfway on his feet, mouth gaping fishlike on a useless warning, but not before the tray careened sideways, and a cascade of empty cups and saucers poured, rims flashing, to the stone ground. There was a brilliant white shatter. Porcelain shrapnel exploded around Ed's ankles, under the table, toward the general's boots. Ed stared at the broken dishes. The café went silent. The waitress lost all color in her cheeks.

"I'm so so sorry!"

"Uh--? No, it's my fault. Here, lemme--" Before she could stoop to start gathering pieces, he clapped his hands. Across the table Mustang was smiling, not bothering to hide it. Ed swung between the yearning to sock him and the desire to crawl into a hole in the street. If there wasn't a hole, he could make one. The waitress squeaked a full octave higher as cups and saucers reassembled themselves. In a flash everything was mended. Ed rubbed the back of his neck and muttered "sorry" twice.

When the evidence had been cleared, and the other patrons had turned politely back to their café au lait as if nothing had happened, Ed flopped down in the chair. He glowered at the general, daring him--daring him to say something and DIE. Mustang laced his fingers together, propped his elbows on the table, said nothing. He was still smiling, the fuzzy-edged expression that wasn't exactly a smirk, after all, but was somehow even harder to endure. After a minute Ed looked away.

"There's another reason. Why I'm quitting," he said. In absence of a better target he glared at the carnations in their vase. Two were pink, one yellow. None of them wilted in fear of his ire. Ed lowered his eyes and kept dragging out words from between his teeth. He felt remotely ill, but that was probably due to terror. "Lieutenant Hawkeye told me, once. She said you might not act like it half the time, but really you have scruples."

"Scruples?" repeated Mustang, as if this were news of interest.

"About things." Ed gripped the seat of his chair with both hands, flesh and metal. He needed both hands to hold on. "Things. With subordinates."

His ears burned. He could hear with absurd clarity the tink-tink-tink of someone stirring coffee a few tables away. His scalp felt as if his hair were standing on end, every strand of it, including the braid. Now was the time to make a hole and crawl into it. Into the sewers. Fast.

Mustang unlaced his fingers. "You have errands," he murmured, "and I should be getting back."

Ed stared at him dumbly. The general stood--without tripping--and pulled on the white gloves inscribed with circles of flame, left, then right. He pushed his chair in, looked down at Ed. His voice was as mild as Ed had ever heard it.

"Have you made dinner plans?"

The question was so offhanded that Ed almost didn't think twice. Then he thought twice, and three times, and a couple more after that. The answer kept coming up the same. He wondered whether he could transmute his skull into something--a flowerpot, a beer stein, a bucket--equally empty but at least more serviceable. "Nuh--no?" he said. "Not really."

"Meet me here at 19:00, then?"

A bucket. Or maybe an urn to hold the ashes that would be left of him. His mouth was dry. "Okay."

He watched the general's departing figure, smart and blue-clad and jaunty about the shoulders--insufferably so--until he couldn't stand it anymore, and had to slump with his face buried in his folded arms. What just happened? he wondered. The tip of his tongue prickled where the coffee had scalded. He sat up, looked blearily at the bill and the bank note laid atop it. Mustang had overpaid.

Another waitress stopped Ed as he got up to leave, asking ohmygoodness, excuse me but was that General Mustang? Yeah it was, said Ed, and at that the waitress made heifer eyes and mooed again, ohmy. Ed frowned up at her--nosy cow was taller than he was--until she frowned back. Then he flashed a fanged grin, sharp enough to disarm her, and took off down the street.

There was a fountain in the middle of Central Square, a cacophony of pawing seahorses and spear-throwing mermaids and huge gouts of exuberant spray. Ed felt like running and diving into it, headfirst, maybe concussing himself in the process, though he halted at the edge and settled instead for flushing the flock of pigeons bunched around the rim. They burst upward in a prattle of gray wings, re-alighted a minute later on the cobbles of the square. Ed thought of phoning Al, and then almost immediately of not phoning Al, and then he wondered how he would ever tell Al, or whether there was anything to tell, yet.

He sucked in a breath. The sun shone warm on his back. The fountain's granite ledge spread smooth, glittery where light and water struck it. Ed stretched his arms out and jumped up to walk the circumference, all the way around the circle, right on the brim.

* * *