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Chapter Text

The Truth had told them that they needed to get to England. That was all he had told them, even as Ed glowered and held to Al's emaciated shoulders. So when Ed and Al woke in Germany, slumped against the red-brick side of a bar in the disreputable part of Berlin, Ed's first instinct was to get Al to a hospital and damn the consequences. 

"Brother," Al said, weakly brushing long hair over a - human! - bony shoulder. "We don't know how long a hospital visit will take. And you know what the Truth said!" 

They'd never had reason to find out before, but it seemed the younger Elric was just as disregardant of his own health as the elder. Ed's shoulders sagged. "Fine. Priority, however, is food and clothes. Then sleep. Fast." 

Al nodded tiredly as Ed pushed himself to his feet. "Can you stand?" he asked. 

"Yes," Alphonse said, putting a hand beside his jutting hip bone and pushing at the ground. He slumped. "No." 

Ed sighed. "I didn't think so." He pressed his hands together, feeling out the components of concrete, and of the earth below it. The equation balanced, and he put his hands to the pavement. The patch of sidewalk Al sat on sunk into the ground. Alphonse looked up, gold-brown eyes a question.

Ed took the concrete and smoothed it over the hole, leaving about three inches open for air. 

"It should hold, if someone walks over you," he said. "Stay here, Al. I'll bring you clothes and food." 

For a moment longer than was reassuring, there was silence. Then, "Be back soon, brother." 

"Of course, Al."

Inside the bar, Ed found a dialectical difference that was more than usually annoying - more difficult to comprehend than the mushy Amestrian he'd found in Liore, even. It might have also been that most of the chatter around him was, in fact, drunk.

"Go get yourself back to the university, kid." This from the bartender. Normally, Ed would have blown up at casual infantilization, but he rolled his eyes and put his elbows on the bar. He was a bloody, sweaty mess and surely that was influencing the bartender’s assessment of him, but at least his exposed arm was made of flesh and blood. Even if it was stupidly thin. 

"I'm not from the university," Ed said. "I need directions to the closest twenty-four hour store." Because the Truth didn't have it in him to send Ed somewhere at midday.

He was given directions along with 'shorty' comments and was told to stop reciting the periodic table. Bullshit. He was only at Beryllium, and he still felt full ready to punch the man in the face. 

The convenience store was hardly better. There were a few cheap t-shirts in offensive colors piled in a corner, and the food was bad. He could transmute the t-shirts. And maybe rework the food a bit too. It would have to do. He grabbed a few cans of chicken soup, and enough t-shirts to make two full sets of clothes. An atlas was added to his armload as an afterthought. He glanced to the counter, felt in his pocket for his watch and cursed. He supposed there was no such thing as a State Alchemist's tab, wherever it was the Truth had seen to put him. He scowled.

In the end, Ed just transmuted a door in the back wall and hoped to hell no one noticed. 

The walk back to the patch of sidewalk under which Ed had hidden Al was quiet and nerve wracking. He'd transmuted one of the shirts into a rucksack for the pile of cans and shirts he'd acquired, but he still felt awkward and naked. It was the middle of the night and he was covered in blood and dirt, basically shirtless, with one weak and shriveled arm. But he was better off than Al, completely naked and unable to even walk. 

He found the patch of sidewalk and transmuted himself inside. Alphonse blinked at him, clearly drowsy but too wired to succumb.

"I brought soup. And transmutable fabric." 

"Thank you, brother." Alphonse said. And rolled his eyes when he was presented with black, more black, and a bright red coat. 

It only took that one eye-roll for Edward to sheepishly remove the red dye, and transmute everything to a sensible brown. He'd use the red for his own clothes. He alchemically brought the soup to a boil inside its can, wrapped a spare shirt around it before handing it to Al. He was relieved to see that Al could support the weight of it. Barely.

"Start slow, Al. This is gonna be really tough." 

"I know."

It only took a day for Ed to get his bearings. They were in Berlin, Germany, and soon enough he'd get them to England.

Three months later, they were in England. They had a rented flat, paid for with the meager savings Edward had accrued from working at the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. Also from the discrete sale of transmuted gold, but you didn’t hear that from Ed. Nope.

Finally, they were in the country the Truth had wanted them in. But despite being on an interdimensional mission for a cosmic entity, Edward and Alphonse needed to provide themselves with the necessities. So Edward was waiting on a job interview, resume filled with fake credentials and an even faker age. 

Edward nervously fingered his trench coat. It was a plain beige, and he found himself desperately wanting to transmute it. The chair was red. He could swap the colors if he wanted. Before he knew it, he found himself feeling the fabric chair upholstery. The coat was cotton, so that was, of course, mostly carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen. The dye of the upholstery was... ah got it! 

He had just brought his hands together when Al hissed at him to stop. He was here for a job interview. In a world where no one knew about alchemy. They wouldn't appreciate him stripping the chair of its dye, and he chose the beige strictly because it was boring and mature. 

A woman in professional blacks came out of the office and called out his name. "You're up next," she said when he looked at her. "Good luck."

Al clasped Ed's shoulder. "I know you'll get the job, brother," he said. 

"Thanks," Ed said to Al in Amestrian and again to the woman in English, stood, and walked through the door, hoping that his false paperwork would hold up.

The office was plain, almost spartan in its furnishings. The wooden desk was sturdy and serious, the few chairs were hard-backed and sensible. Oddly, the walls were lavender, with a soft swirling pattern. "Edward Elric?" asked the woman behind the desk. She fit the spartan furnishings, but not the lavender wallpaper. Not at all. 

"Zat is my name," he replied. "Ms. Jenkins, correct?" He extended his hand, and she shook it firmly.

"Sit,” she said. Edward sat. “You're rather young to be a Chemistry teacher."

"I am,” Ed agreed, because that was the simple truth and not a shot at his competence. “But my credentials are in order, you vill see."  

She inclined her head, said, "Yes. Your resume is quite impressive. Humboldt University of Berlin, specializing in science education."

Edward nodded. He'd worked at the University’s Campus Nord Branch Library during his stay in Berlin and his supervisor had an abundance of contacts and very few scruples. She and the Head Librarian had helped Ed and Al with all sorts of shenanigans, in Equivalence to alchemically redoing their shelving units.

"Indeed. Had I extra funding, I vould have liked to continue in academia. As it is, I am more zan qualified. Just young. I graduated high school at sixteen, and completed my college courses two and a half years avter zat. Vas too easy. Am here now."

"I take it you've had trouble getting hired. Why is that?" Ms. Jenkins twirled a pen between her fingers as she looked at him. Ed found himself looking away from her gaze. 

"Age. No von vants teenager teaching teenagers, but I am a legal adult," Ed said, twiddling with a button on his beige coat. What a lie that was. Ed felt his sixteen years very sharply. 

"Well," Jenkins said after a moment of silence. "I don't really have any other options. Lots of people want the job in the English department, but no such luck for Chemistry. I'll hire you. Conditionally. You'll teach a summer school chemistry class. If I like how you teach it, you stay. I know you won't want to deal with the students who take remedial summer chemistry, but, tough."

Edward grinned. "Is Equivalence. You give me chance, I teach your delinquents. Sank you."

"Equivalence, you say," Jenkins said; a puzzled, but amused, smile came to her face.

"Conservation of Energy and Mass," Edward said. "I've turned it to somezing ov a philosovy." He extended his hand, and again they shook.

"Sank you again, Ms. Jenkins."

"Don't thank me, Mr. Elric," she said, looking over purple rimmed glasses. "Classes start on Monday."

Fuck. Ed's eyes widened, but the stakes were high and technically he was a military man. He took the news exactly opposite of how he would take an order from Colonel Bastard, maintained his professionalism and gave a firm nod. 

"I vill be zere," he said. "I trust you have textbooks for zee children? Goot. Give me von of zem, so I may plan my lessons." 

She gave him directions to the school bookstore and a note, as well as a pile of paperwork to fill out. This time, Ed couldn’t stop an image of Colonel Bastard from superimposing itself over Jenkins. He swore aloud, definitely breaking his professionalism. But Jenkins just laughed at him.

"Get a Miss Erica Carlan for me," she said. "I'm interviewing her for English."

Edward stood from his hard wooden chair. "Before I leave, I have custody ov my younger brozer. If I’m starting in zee summer, I’ll have to bring him to class until vee are settled.” 

Jenkins gave him a hard look. “Fine,” she said, then ushered Ed out the door.

Alphonse was already standing when he looked his way. Ed smiled at him, and called out for Carlan. She nearly leaped from her seat, but took a measured breath and walked into Jenkins’s office with a collected calm.

Ed turned his attention back to Al. 

"How did it go?" Alphonse asked in Amestrian.

"Surprisingly well," Ed said, switching to the same. "I actually have the job." 

"That's fantastic!"

"Well, there’s a catch." Ed scratched at the base of his braid. "I have to teach remedial summer chemistry first." 

Alphonse laughed, then grew more serious. "I'm sure you'll do well, Brother. And I'm sure your students will too. They probably haven't ever been given the chance to push themselves." 

Ed laughed and ruffled his brother's now-short hair. "You always see the best in people, Al. I hope you're right.”