The naming of stars
It was funny how these things happened, Ed thought, two years of fighting in Germany to come back, to find himself on the edges of Xing, with a pocketful of useless currency and a dead prosthetic arm.
He had gone to the nearest army outpost because he had no idea what else to do and found he was legally dead and that the colonel in charge of the area had no intention of doing the paperwork that would see him brought back to life. It seemed that some things never changed, colonels would always shirk paperwork, but this one had no Hawkeye to force him into it.
It had taken nearly three months to return to Reisenburgh, most of which was waiting at the Xing border to leave with a shipment going that way, he had had a patch job put on his automail so it worked but it wasn’t up to the walk and he had no money for the train as they wouldn’t take his marks.
He looked at Pinako’s house and thought for a moment that he might be sick with nerves. “Ed?” Winry asked from the balcony of their little house, “oh my god, Ed,” She ran out as fast as she could, “oh god, Ed, we were so worried, we thought you were dead, that Colonel Mustang bastard came and said you were dead.”
Ed would have answered her but she was holding him so tight he could barely breathe. “Al,” she screamed and Ed winced, “Al, come look who’s here.” There was an answering shout from the house that he would be there in a minute as Winry pulled up his shirt sleeve to look at his automail and then launched into a tirade about not taking care of it and letting amateurs work on it never mind that he had outgrown it. She was hitting her stride when Al came to the door.
He looked older than Ed remembered him but not as old as he should have been. Al stared at him for a few long moments. “You’re not my Nii-san.” He shouted and ran off.
Winry held Ed back as they watched Al crest the hill, “it’s been hard on him.” She said, “let him go.”
But Ed didn’t want to let him go because it had been hard on him too.
It was dark when Ed, on a borrowed leg, walked out to the river side where Al sat hugging his knees. He didn’t say anything, just sat down a little way from him. “Do you know,” he said after a while, “that star there, it’s Cassopoeia, and there is the belt of Orion, our father taught me that.”
Al looked at him for a long moment. “Is that where you were?” he asked, “with Father, why didn’t you take me with you? I wanted to be with you, nii-san, not with granny and Rose and Winry and Colonel Mustang, I wanted to be with you, you left me behind.” It was a boy’s snivelling, it was a child’s complaint but Ed understood it completely. His brother was no longer two years younger than him, but six, with no memory of what had happened in the four years in which they had searched for the philosopher’s stone. Ed knew that was for the best.
“I wanted to,” he said, “but we don’t always get what we want.”
They were silent again for a while then Al spoke up, “Nii-san, what is the name of that star?”
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