I'll Love You More, Ch. 1
Title: I’ll Love You More
Chapter: 1
Previous: Friends and Lovers
Genre: Drama/Romance
Rating: ahhh, lets see. There will be sexual situations but no graphic sex. In later chapters there will be lots of violence. But this chapter is entirely safe. PG-rated, I think.
Spoilers: for the entire series.
Summary: Now that Ed and Al are finally reunited, will Ed be able adjust to returning to a world that has long since moved on without him? Non-movie AU
Chapter Title: Left Between
Chapter Rating: PG
Chapter Summary: The brothers travel home after making it back through the gate, and begin to get to know each other again.
Things you should know: this is the continuation of “Friends and Lovers,” my post series Ed-comes-come story. The first chapter takes place before the last chapter of that story. However, I don’t think it is necessary to read the first story to enjoy this one; most of this chapter explains itself. All you need to know is that Ed and Al are finally together after a long separation, and that Ed has been at home with Winry and Al has been in Germany with his double, Alphonse Heiderich. Also, this story is NOT already completed, so I’m sorry ahead of time, I am going to be slower with updates.
Chapter One: Left Between
The sun was huge, red, low on the horizon and cold. Alphonse felt a crushing weight pressing down on him, and tried unsuccessfully to shift on the cold marble of the temple floor. “Brother,” he groaned, the words seeming to stick in his throat. “Get off.”
The body on top of him rolled off, hitting the floor with a soft thud. Alphonse sat up slowly, his mind registering the growing chill in the air. “Brother?” he said again, becoming more aware. “Edward?” He looked wildly around him, and the man knelt in front of him, the man with his brother’s eyes.
“I’m here,” said the man softly. “Are you all right, Al?” he asked. Those eyes were bright, magnified by tears and turned bronze by the redness of the setting sun.
“I- are you really him?” he faltered. “Is it really you?”
His brother nodded, blinking, and brushing at the wetness in his eyes. “It’s me.” He watched intently as Al’s eyes searched his face, his body, his being for something familiar. “I’m sorry I’m not what you remember.” His eyebrows drew down in concern. “Are you all right?” he asked again.
Alphonse looked down at himself, then back at his brother. “I’m fine. Are you?”
Edward nodded, standing up slowly. “We should get out of the desert,” he said. “It’s going to get cold soon.”
Al shuddered suddenly, rubbing his arms. “Colder,” he amended. He stood as well, standing in front of his brother, still taking in the sight of him. Yes, this was Edward. He was the same boy he remembered at eleven years old, he told himself. It’s still him. He realized he was looking down. His brother’s lack of height had been almost legendary, but in his memory he and Ed had always been nearly the same size. Alphonse might have been and inch or two taller, and just a bit stronger, but Edward had always been older, and in his mind he looked up at him. Now he was looking down.
Those unruly bangs, those thin, gracefully expressive eyebrows, the way those lips were beginning to quirk up at the corners, yes, this was his brother.
“What?” Ed asked him, smirking.
“Ah, nothing…” Al hedged. “You’re-“
Ed waved a hand dismissively. “Short, I know,” he finished for him. “Everyone made sure to tell me you were taller than me.” He frowned, eyes darting to the side. “Don’t tell anyone I said I was short though.”
Al smiled; gave a hesitant laugh. This was Ed, yet not Ed. The Ed in his imagination had pitched a tantrum of unreasonable proportions whenever his height was mentioned, just like the stories had said, but he had no actual memories of something like that happening. “Let’s get to the nearest town,” he said, trying to sound normal, and his brother nodded, following him across the floor of the temple and out into the barren desert.
“Al,” Edward said, stopping at the edge of the ruin. “I’m so proud of you,” he began. “All the time I spent on the other side, I didn’t even know if you were alive, or if you were, what you were doing. Everyone told me you never gave up, that you always believed I was alive somewhere, and that you did everything you could to find me, and while you were doing that you became a State Alchemist, and used your alchemy to rebuild after the war, and you did so many things-“ he stopped. “You’re amazing, Al,” he said, his eyes shining with pride. “You’re everything I would have wanted you to be.”
“All I wanted was to have you back, Brother,” Alphonse whispered, and, now in their own world, the brothers embraced once more, feeling the solidness of their forms against each other. When they parted they began to walk across the sand, both knowing the direction of the nearest Ishbalan town. Ed was about to say something to his brother about how much of Ishbal he had seen restored in his short journey to the temple, and how amazing it was that the government was taking the initiative to help the nation it had nearly obliterated, but when he looked over at Al he saw him watching him with a concerned expression.
“Are you sure you’re all right?” Alphonse asked again.
Ed raised his eyebrows. “Yeah, I’m fine,” he assured him. “We’re both fine. We made it,” he repeated, for himself as much as for Al.
His brother frowned. “Is something wrong with your automail?” he pressed, because Edward had an automail arm and leg, everyone who knew the Fullmetal Alchemist knew that, and what else could explain his awkward gait? Properly functioning automail should give him a completely fluid stride, he knew that from watching Winry treat so many clients over the years.
Ed looked at him strangely. “I don’t have automail anymore,” he said, an odd expression crossing his face. “I haven’t had it for years-“
“Why not? What happened?” Al demanded, stopping in the cold desert, the concern in his voice growing.
“Automail doesn’t exist over there,” he began, drawing his eyebrow down, his mind spinning. “Weren’t you- didn’t you- all the time you were on the other side, didn’t you say you were with Alphonse?” He flinched saying his friend’s name, feeling uncomfortable suddenly.
His brother nodded slowly. “Yes, I helped him build the rocket,” he confirmed.
Ed raised an eyebrow. “You spent all that time with him and he never mentioned my arm and my leg?”
Al shook his head, and to his surprise Ed laughed.
“That is so like him,” he said, rolling his eyes. Then he sighed. “Well, he always told me it didn’t matter to him that I was missing two limbs. I guess it really didn’t, if he didn’t think it was important enough to tell my little brother.”
“It doesn’t matter to me either,” Al said quickly, suddenly defensive; strangely jealous. “I was just surprised, that’s all.” He frowned again. “Are you going to be okay walking all this way?”
Ed nodded. “I’ll be fine,” he assured him.
“Are you sure?” he persisted, looking at his brother skeptically. “It’s going to be a long walk.”
“Yeah, four hours or so. It’s fine. I walked all the way out here, and it was fine,” Ed said steadily, gazing into his eyes with firm assurance. Don’t worry about me, I’m fine, his eyes pleaded. “Let’s go,” he added, beginning to move again. “We don’t want to get to the town too late, or there will be nowhere for us to stay.” He smiled inwardly. It was just like before, two brothers on a quest, traveling all over the continent searching, only now they had finally found what they were after and their only remaining quest was to return home.
Ed’s stomach clenched, and his smile drained. Return home, he thought sadly. Winry had warned him not to return to Rizembool, that it would only be depressing; there wasn’t much left there after the war ended. Pinako had passed away two years after he had disappeared; it had been sudden, she passed in her sleep. He never thought of her as old, and he was sure Winry never did either, but she must have been. He imagined Al comforting Winry at the funeral that had taken place eight years ago, or had it been four? He shook his head, feeling out of synch with this world that was supposed to be home to him. He had imagined being welcomed back with open arms, but instead- he hung his head, looking down at his feet, watching as the false one dragged a bit through the sand beneath him. I don’t remember what it feels like to have all my limbs, he thought, not a new realization at all. I don’t even remember what having good automail feels like, not really. What ever Alphonse had expected him to be, it surely wasn’t this, he told himself. I must look broken to him, he realized, understanding his brother’s concern finally. I’m not that kid he heard all those stories about, not any more. I’m someone else entirely.
He had not come home to Auntie, or to his Sensei either, who had died not even months after he disappeared. He had come home to Winry, and had- his face flushed in the fading light, but Al did not seem to notice. It had been without thought, without consideration, as if they were playing parts in a script that had been brewing in their minds for years (did it matter how many years?); as if of course, the night Ed came home, of course they would make love.
No matter what he did, no matter what his intentions, Edward Elric would always hurt those who loved him. That was the only thing that remained the same. He glanced over at Al, who was as intent on his own thoughts as he was, and fought with himself not to sigh out loud. This was nothing like their old quests. Al could not even remember their old quests.
It wasn’t until the faint glow of the distant town grew close enough for them to define actual buildings that Ed broke the silence. “Are you wearing my coat?” was what he said, looking over at his brother, who had shivered and drawn the old brown garment tighter across his chest. His voice sounded weird to him, muffled in the vastness of the desert.
Al smiled, relieved that Ed was finally talking to him. “Yeah,” he said, but then his face fell. “Oh…” he moaned, and Ed looked concerned. “Your red coat,” he explained, “I left it there.”
“My red coat?” Ed repeated, confused. “My old red coat?” He was silent for a minute. “You were wearing my red coat and left it in Germany?”
“I’m sorry!” Al all but wailed. “I’m sorry, brother, I wasn’t thinking, I was just so excited to get back to you that I left it behind, I’m so sorry!”
Ed just shrugged. “Al, don’t worry about it. It’s just a coat. I figured it was long gone anyway.”
Just a coat? Brother, it was the only thing I had connecting me to you! I slept in it when I missed you, I used to hold it and smell it because it smelled like you, until finally it started smelling like me, it wasn’t “just” a coat, he thought, but he didn’t say these things out loud. Now that he had his actual brother, why did the loss of his coat make him so sad?
Ed raised an eyebrow. “Well, now that I’m here, you can’t dress like me anyway,” he said lightly. “People would get confused, don’t you think?” They passed through the gate in the low concrete wall around the town, and Ed looked around. There were still a few people out, so it couldn’t be that late at night. “Anyway, I guess-“ he stopped, his voice tensing. “I guess Alphonse can have it,” he finished quietly. “Where are you going, Al?” he said abruptly. “There is an inn on this street.”
Al looked back over his shoulder. “I know, but there is a better one over this way. I stay there all the time. The lady is very nice, and she knows me pretty well by now.”
The inn Al spoke of was a low concrete building, like all the other buildings Ed had seen, and dimly lit inside. It smelled odd, like something burning, and Ed looked past the desk into the next room and could see incense and smoke. There were three women inside, all dark-skinned and red-eyed, one wearing a simple robe of what Ed recognized as traditional Ishbalan dress and the other two wearing clothing more familiar to him. They all greeted Al, and to his surprise Al spoke to them in the foreign tongue, the words flowing easily from his lips. His brother spoke Ishbalan? He listened carefully to the exchange; he knew a small collection of words but could not pick out anything familiar. Al gestured to him, and the women bowed slightly. Ed returned the bow and said hello, one word he was definitely sure of.
He and Al followed the woman up the stairs, and she gave Al the key to their room and bowed again, walking away. Once inside Ed flopped down on the closest bed, glad to get off his feet. He had told Al he would be fine, but the truth was the stump of his leg has been bothering him for at least the last hour of their walk. Al must have noticed, because he had carefully slowed his pace to match his older brother’s, saying nothing. He rubbed at his thigh and considered removing the prosthesis, but he suddenly felt shy in front of his brother, not wanting to do anything else that might separate him from the image Al must have built up of him in his mind.
Al climbed onto the bed behind him and wrapped his arms around his chest, telling himself that this man who had been so quiet really was his brother, and there was no reason he shouldn’t be able to hug him if he felt like it. He felt a surge of relief when Ed leaned back into the touch, bringing his own arm up to grasp Al’s hand in his. “Are you really real?” Al asked, his lips brushing against the back of his brother’s neck, making him shiver. “Are you really here?”
Ed laughed softly. “I’m really here, Al. And I promise, I’m not going anywhere. Anywhere you are is exactly where I want to be.”
There was a knock on the door, and Al called out a word that must have been come in in Ishbalan, and a woman appeared carrying a tray with two short glass cups filled with a steaming red liquid. She left the tray on the table by the beds and Al thanked her. Ed repeated the word Al had used, and she gave that slight bow again before leaving them.
Al disengaged himself from his brother and reached for one of the cups, taking a sharp sip, and then he laughed. “I never thought I would be homesick for red tea,” he said by way of explanation.
Ed took the second cup and sniffed it suspiciously. “Red tea?”
Al shrugged. “It’s what they drink out here. It’s become slightly popular at home too, people think it’s exotic, I guess.” He watched Ed take a sip and laughed at his expression. “I like mine plain but you would probably like it better with sugar,” he suggested.
“You spend a lot of time here?” Ed guessed, trying to draw his brother into a conversation and spooning sugar into the foreign beverage.
Al nodded. “The military has done a lot to rebuild, but it takes time to restore what was almost completely destroyed.”
“I thought Ishbala forbid alchemy?”
“They don’t know me as an alchemist,” Al explained. “I’m just someone the government sent to help make things right again.”
Ed frowned. “So they don’t know you’re using alchemy?”
Al shook his head. “No one is using alchemy. The government made it a policy to respect their beliefs about it.”
Ed raised his eyebrows. “I guess things have really changed,” he said, and Al nodded again.
“So,” Al said after a few minutes of silence. He guessed that maybe his brother was so quiet for the same reason he was: they had been apart so long, and so much had changed that once the floodgates opened who knew when they would close again. He took a deep breath, and decided to be the first to ask the question. “What happened while I was gone? How did you know where I was? How did we both end up here? What happened to the other Alphonse?”
Ed took the first question and looked his brother directly in the eye. “Well, Winry is going to have a baby,” he started, and cringed inwardly as he watched Al’s face light up. Then he watched the joy drain from his face, and he felt a cold sense of dread seize his stomach. Al already suspected?
“How can she have a baby?” Al asked slowly. “I’ve been gone over a year. Who…”
“It’s been eight and a half months here,” Ed said quickly. “Time is different on the other side.”
Al regarded him suspiciously. Oh god, he knows, Ed thought, guilt pouring over him. “What do you mean?”
“It’s faster,” he said desperately. “It’s 1925 there, and it’s 1921 here.” What a story!
Al looked sad, and Ed flinched. “So you aren’t twenty two,” he said, not the response he was expecting at all.
Ed shook his head, puzzled.
“I’m really twenty one now,” Al said, “but I look seventeen, and everyone says I’m seventeen, and I don’t remember those four years I spent in the armor but I still lived them, and since you were with me all that time I figured at least you would believe my real age-“
“I do,” Ed interrupted, wondering why his brother was so fixated on his age. Did he think his being so much younger would make a difference to him? They were together, that was all that mattered! “If you say you’re twenty one, then you’re twenty one, Al. I believe you.”
“But you’re still so much older than me!” Al exclaimed. “And that’s just one more thing that’s between us now!” His words rang in the air long after he was silent. Just one more thing that’s between us.
Ed moved closer to him, taking his hand in his own, and Al almost snatched it away but stopped himself in time. It’s not weird for brothers to hold hands, he told himself firmly. Not if they’re as close as we are. But he couldn’t help imagining his brother holding that other Alphonse’s hand, feeling something different entirely.
Ed brought his metal hand to cover Al’s, trapping his brother’s hand between his two mismatched ones. “Let’s not let anything come between us, Al,” he said seriously, those gold eyes burning with intensity. “Whatever happens, let’s not let anything come between us.”
Ed wasn’t sure when he had fallen asleep, didn’t even know he had drifted off until the hot sun on his face woke him up. He remembered watching the black sky turn to grey and then to pale slate, and finally to that early morning dusky yellow, and he remembered watching his brother’s chest rise and fall with each breath, staring at his sleeping face and wondering why, if it was early morning, he couldn’t hear any birds. Birds had always made noise right before the sun came up, at home in Rizembool out in the country, in Central, in Munich, in every city he had ever stayed in. Were there no birds in the desert?
The sheets were dry but smelled slightly musty, and a wide rectangle of sunlight spilled over his side of the bed. He looked over at the other bed in the room, untouched. He moved his foot under the covers, feeling what he was certain was a single grain of sand between the coarse sheets, brushing his toes gently against Al’s calf. His brother stirred in his sleep but did not wake up.
Once the questions started they had talked rapidly, answering everything as fast as it could be asked and asking everything that came to mind, more questions than could be addressed in a week, let alone one night. They were both tired, and decided to go to sleep at least twice, and had turned off the lights but kept talking in the dark, unable to see each and desperate to hear that the other was still there. They had traded information in the dark until the sky began to lighten, and even when he finally drifted into sleep Ed still could not take his eyes off of his brother.
He watched Al jump when he heard the knock on the door, and sit up with a start, immediately awake. He smiled at his brother and pushed the sheets aside, standing up and making his way to the door, conversing briefly with the woman he had spoken to the night before. When he pushed the door shut again, he looked down at himself, trying to smooth the rumpled clothing he had slept in, and pulled his long bronze hair out of the tie and combing his fingers through it.
“Morning,” Ed said quietly, reaching for the false leg he had detached during the night and watching his brother glance quickly away.
“She said there’s breakfast downstairs for us,” Al explained, looking back at the door.
Ed stood up and stretched, popping the kinks out of his back, and looked down at his clothes much the way Al had done. “We look a mess, don’t we, Al?” he said, smiling slightly. He yawned. “Breakfast?” he added hopefully.
Breakfast was a dish of honey-drenched rolls and a cup of hot, thick, sweet coffee, and then the brothers dozed, Ed letting his head drop onto his younger brother’s shoulder as they rested in the cramped compartment of the desert rail train. It was another one of the military’s efforts to rebuild the destroyed nation: a train that ran several feet above the ground so that the sand could never blow over the tracks. It made it easier to bring supplies in, and eventually the government wanted to extend the line all the way to Xing, linking the two countries forever.
When the train jerked to a stop Ed was already awake again, and he watched Al wake up immediately, just like he had that morning. Was that something he had learned in the military, to wake up at a moment’s notice? He used to have to drag his brother out of bed, coaxing him slowly into wakefulness. Of course, it had been a long time since he had seen his brother able to sleep at all, and people did change.
“I’m going to get us tickets with my military account,” Al told him quietly as the exited the desert rail. “You stay here. The ticketmaster is going to recognize me, and if you’re there, he’ll know who you are for sure.”
“I have a ticket already,” Ed said, a bit puzzled at his brother’s show of caution, showing him the rumpled return-ticket that he had stowed away in his pocket. “I knew I was coming back.” He raised an eyebrow. “Is it really that big of a deal if someone recognizes me? I’ve been here before, and no one knew who I was then.”
“Yes, it’s a big deal!” his brother hissed. “You’re supposed to be dead! If nothing else, we would be mobbed by people, and never get home!”
Ed had the feeling that there was more to it than that, but said nothing, instead his eye catching on a young woman with a child in one arm and a battered suitcase in the other, with two other children clinging to the hem of her skirts. She was scolding one of them, he could tell by the look on her face, and smiled inwardly, thinking of the one time his mother had taken him and Alphonse to what they thought had been a “big” city but had probably just been a more developed town like Dillon or Bethan. He and Al had clung to her skirts just like that, afraid of being lost in what had seemed to them like a crowded station, and she had probably scolded them for wandering. He smirked. She had probably scolded him for wandering. He had a tendency to stop to explore everything he found interesting along the way, regardless of where he was or who he was with.
“She kind of reminds me of mom,” Al said softly into his ear, nodding his head toward the woman, and Ed smiled a full smile.
“Yeah, I bet we were a handful,” he told him. Just then they both saw the smaller boy run off, and when the mother turned to call after him the suitcase she had been holding suddenly burst open, spilling the contents out across the busy platform. At once the two young men were at her side, shooing the crowds away from trampling her things, Ed collecting her two children while Al helped her pick up the articles that had been scattered across the ground, both ignoring her protests that they really didn’t need to help her. She was crouched down above the old suitcase, still holding the baby in one arm and re-packing with the other. Al retrieved the last item from where it had rolled nearly halfway across the platform, and shut the lid for her, only then noticing that the clasps had broken.
The young mother seemed at her wit’s end, Al guessed she was only stopping off in East City mid-journey like he and Ed were, and was at least twice as tired from traveling with her three children. She had been insisting that Al was being too kind, that she appreciated his help but that they would be fine, but now she simply sat back on her heels, staring at the broken latches in disbelief. “Don’t worry,” Al told her with a smile, “I’ll take care of it.” He glanced up at his brother and the two boys before clapping his hands together and pressing them to the battered container in front of him. There was a crack! and Ed jumped, just like he had the first time he had seen alchemy since returning to his own world. The two kids who stood next to them stared at Al with worshipful awe as he picked up the suitcase, standing up and handing it, repaired, to the mother.
“You’re an alchemist?” she said, the shock plain in her voice. “But you’re so young!”
Al just shrugged good naturedly. “I’m older than I look,” he said in explanation.
“Thank you so much for your help!” she gushed, glancing over at Ed. “Thank you both, you’ve been so kind.”
“It was no trouble,” Ed said, shooing the two boys back over to their mother.
“How did you do that?”
“That was amazing!” they cried, both at the same time, jumping all over Alphonse.
He laughed. “I studied hard,” he said sternly, still smiling.
The woman looked at the brothers closely, recognition slowly lighting in her eyes. “I know who you are!” she said to Al. “You’re the Soul Alchemist from the North, the one who used to wear the armor. The people’s alchemist, they call you! Imagine running into someone famous here!”
No, my brother was the people’s alchemist, I’m just the military’s alchemist, Al wanted to tell her, and would have if his supposedly dead brother hadn’t been standing right there. He glanced over to Ed, who looked pale and stunned, and flinched. I didn’t mean to take your title, brother, honest, he said silently, but it wasn’t anger or jealousy in Ed’s expression. It was something else entirely.
An announcement buzzed over the speakers. “That’s our train,” the young mother said apologetically. “It was wonderful meeting you, Mr. Soul Alchemist, thank you so much for your help.” She nodded to Ed. “You and your friend both.” She reached for the younger child’s hand, gesturing for the older one to follow along as well.
“My brother,” Alphonse corrected softly, once the woman was out of earshot. Ed’s expression had returned to normal; whatever had bothered his brother had evidently passed. “How did mom do it, all by herself, with the two of us?” he mused.
Ed raised his eyebrows. “I imagine she didn’t have much choice in the matter,” he said stiffly. He glanced away, trying not to think too much. Whose soul just repaired that suitcase? An old man who died in his sleep? A soldier who had agreed to die for his country? A sick woman who could not afford medicine?
Al followed his brother’s gaze, which seemed to be resting on a vendor’s cart. “I’ll be right back,” he told him, going to purchase a carton of dumplings for them to share while waiting for the next train.
They sat side by side on the bench, Al still thinking about the mother and her children. “I can’t imagine having three kids,” he said after a while.
“I can’t imagine having one,” Ed said, studying his dumpling a moment before taking a bite. “But I guess we’re about to find out, huh?”
“I’m glad you were there with Winry so she didn’t have to be alone while she was pregnant,” Al said seriously, causing Ed to nearly choke on his dumpling.
“No you’re not,” he managed, “all we did was fight, it was awful.”
“What did you fight about?” Al asked curiously.
“Everything you can imagine,” he said heavily. He took a deep breath. “Look, Al, the thing about the baby is-“
“You know what?” Al interrupted, chin on his hand, eyebrows raised. “You know who you look like?”
“Huh? Who?” Ed asked, startled.
“You look like Dad,” Al told him, almost apologetically, reaching over to snag a dumpling from the paper carton.
The pain he had seen before flashed behind his older brother’s eyes, and he sighed. “I need to shave,” was all he said, rubbing his hand over the short stubble on his face. He looked up and a sign caught his eye, and without really meaning to change the subject, he asked curiously, “Hey, how long have the signs been in Ishbalan too?”
It wasn’t that he was avoiding the subject. It was just that there were so many things to say, and every little thing prompted another question from each of them. Instead of asking about the signs, Ed could have asked Al if he even remembered their father at all, or if he just remembered seeing pictures of them. When Hohenheim had come to Rizembool, Al had spent quite a bit of time with him, not holding the grudge that Ed did, but that was when Alphonse had been a suit of armor, and he didn’t remember any of that, did he?
Ed knew, intellectually, that Al had no memories of those four years; it had been one of the first things Winry had told him when he asked about his brother. But it was only just beginning to sink in exactly what that meant. One of Al’s questions the night before, in the inn, before they turned the lights off, had been why Ed did not braid his hair like the pictures had shown. Ed had shrugged, not wanting to see his brother’s face fall upon learning that with his barely-functioning home-made automail it was nearly impossible to braid his own hair. He told him he didn’t have time to mess with his hair like that, and raised his eyes hopefully to Al, telling him he could braid it for him if he wanted. After years of feeling the leather gauntlets of his armor gently twisting his hair together, suddenly he longed to feel his brother’s human fingers against his scalp. Al had not looked at him when he said he did not know how to braid hair.
“Brother?” Al had asked him. They had been on the train headed from Central to Altenburg on what they had thought was the last bit of their journey. They sat opposite each other in the empty compartment, each brother’s feet propped up on the empty seat next to the other.
Ed had opened his eyes, not realizing he had closed them. “Hm?”
“I was wondering,” he began hesitantly. “The other Alphonse… did you really want him to come here, to our world?”
He had frowned. “No,” he had said simply. “He could never have come through the gate. It wouldn’t have been possible.”
“Did you love him?” came the next question.
“Yes…” he had answered slowly, god, this was another conversation he did not want to have.
Was he a replacement for me? Do you love him more than me? Would you rather be with him than with me? Are we the same person? Do you love me the way you loved him? Al could have asked any of those things, and Ed would not have been surprised, although he would have been hard pressed for an answer. He was not expecting the question he did hear. “How could you have lied to him, then?”
Ed had pressed his lips together. How can you lie to someone you love? “I didn’t lie to him, Al,” he had said finally. “I just didn’t tell him certain things.” Just like right now, how I’m not telling you that Winry’s child might be mine, and not yours. “I didn’t tell him anything he wouldn’t believe, because I didn’t want him to think I was lying.” I didn’t want him to think I was a liar, or a crazy person, because I didn’t want to lose him. Just like I’m hiding things from you because I don’t want you to hate me.
Al had looked at him thoughtfully. “He knew how much you loved him,” he had said slowly. “He really wanted to be here with you. Why couldn’t he come through the Gate, just like I did?”
Edward had frowned, silent for a moment. “Do you know how to create something with alchemy?” he had asked finally, his voice low; hesitant.
“Present something of equal value,” Al had said promptly, of course that was the answer and they both knew it, but he could tell his brother meant something else, and waited for him to explain.
“And the energy to fuel the reaction? Where does that come from?”
Al had tipped his head. “From the alchemist…” he had answered slowly, knowing this must have something to do with the other Alphonse but not certain what.
Ed was nodding. “But energy doesn’t come from nowhere.” He had sighed heavily. “When I first arrived on the other side, Dad told me that every alchemist has a Gate inside themselves from which they can draw alchemical energy-“
“You talked to Dad?”
Ed had held his hand up, signaling for Al to let him finish. “On the other side of the Gate, they have this law, just like equivalent trade, that says that nothing can be created or destroyed, only changed. They believe that when they die, their soul goes to heaven, but what is a soul, really, if it isn’t the energy that keeps a body alive?” He did not meet his brother’s eyes when he spoke his next sentence. “The energy we use to do alchemy comes from the souls who die on the other side of the Gate. That’s what Dad told me, and I’ve found no reason to believe otherwise.” He had raised his eyes. “If he could cross the Gate at all, it would have been as energy. I think. I wouldn’t have wanted to risk it.”
“You talked to Dad?” Al had repeated after a moment. “On the other side of the Gate?”
“Yeah.”
Al had waited. Ed had seemed to be collecting his thoughts.
“Dante- you remember Dante?” he had begun haltingly.
Al had shaken his head. I can’t remember anything, he had thought miserably. “Sensei’s teacher,” he had said quickly, a little too eagerly, wanting to prove that even if he didn’t remember, he still knew things, at least some things. Please, Brother, he thought desperately. I don’t remember anything, but we can still share these things. I was still there!
“It’s okay, Al,” Ed had said soothingly, seeing his younger brother becoming distressed. “It’s okay that you don’t remember things. I wish I didn’t remember most of it either.” He had taken a deep breath. “Besides, this isn’t something you knew, even in the armor. This is stuff I found out right before I-“ he flinched “-died.” After a moment he had continued. “Dante’s body was rotting away, and so was Dad’s. That’s why he left us when we were kids, he didn’t want us to have to watch.”
“What does Dante have to do with Dad?” Al had asked, not following.
“This is going to sound very weird,” his had brother warned him, and in the stuffy train compartment, racing along rickety tracks and swaying with the motion, Ed, who had never been a storyteller, had begun a hesitant, disjointed tale of what he knew about his father’s four hundred plus year life. He had told him everything, not sure what Al already knew and what he didn’t, about the philosopher’s stone, about the homunculus, about everything he had forced himself not to think about for the past ten years. The details had come to him in pieces, shards of information he had kept buried on the other side of the Gate. Hohenheim and Dante had been lovers long before he had met their mother. Envy had been their son long before Ed and Al had been born. They had created the horror that was the Philosopher’s Stone. The legend of the city that had disappeared in one night was not just a story.
“Dad had been on the other side for a long time already when I ended up there. He found me in a hospital and brought me home with him. I stayed with him, before I found Alphonse.”
“Why were you in the hospital?” Al had asked, alarmed.
Ed had glanced up. “Well, because when I showed up in Europe, it was without my arm and leg,” he had said. “I was bleeding. I was unconscious. Someone brought me to a hospital, and somehow Dad found me there. Eventually, we… came to an understanding, I guess you could say.”
Al had looked pained. “I wish I had known he was in that place. I would have liked to meet him.”
“He died a long time ago,” Ed had said shortly, looking out the window at the streaming scenery.
“How?” Al had asked, seeing the distress in his brother’s face but unable to stop himself from asking.
Still staring at the window, Ed had sighed. “Can I tell you another time, Al?” he had asked. “Please?”
“Of course,” Al had said softly. “Of course, brother.”
Both brothers plunged into a state of panic when the realized why Winry was not in her house in Altenburg. They had rushed back to the train station, demanding tickets to Dillon, where Al said the nearest hospital was. They were horrified when they learned that the last train of the evening had already left, and tried unsuccessfully to find someone to drive them to the town instead. Eventually they had resigned themselves to taking the first train the next morning, both of them spending only a few hours on some unrestful sleep in the quiet house.
Once they reached the hospital the staff gave them the run-around, since neither brother was actually related to her, until Alphonse had finally pulled rank on them.
“I’m a state alchemist, that makes me your superior,” Al said firmly, his voice ringing with authority. Ed smiled with pride, watching his brother withdraw the silver watch from inside his coat, dangling it in the man’s face. “Now you let me into my girlfriend’s room, or I’ll transmute the door open!”
Al clapped his hands together without a moment’s hesitation, placing them on the door which suddenly swung open with an alchemical whoosh. Ed watched his brother rush into the room, climbing at once into the bed with Winry. “I missed you so much while I was in that place,” he said into her shoulder, pressing his face into her. She leaned her chin into the top of his head, rubbing her lips on his hair. “We didn’t know where you were, we didn’t know you were in the hospital or we never would have been so long-“ Ed watched the scene from the doorway, silent in his brother’s rush of words. “-you have no idea how different it is there, it’s a whole other world, a whole other universe, like a mirror of this one, and-“ Winry looked so pale, but she was beautiful, he realized, startled. Of course she’s beautiful, he told himself. I’ve always known she was beautiful. Her yellow hair hung in sheets, streaming over her shoulders, and she held the baby tightly to her chest even as she embraced Al. Al’s baby, he thought firmly. It must be Al’s baby. Al had halted his rush of words and was simply staring, worshipful, first at Winry and then at the baby, and shifted on the bed, coming to lay properly next to her instead of half-leaning on the edge of the mattress.
“I missed you too, Alphonse,” she whispered, eyes on him, blinking back tears. Not once did she look up to see Ed in the doorway.
“I didn’t know,” Al was saying slowly, staring at the baby girl in her arms. “I didn’t know you were pregnant, if I did I never would have left. I’m so sorry. I never guessed that I would end up trapped on the other side of the gate.” He watched his brother touch the baby gently, reverently almost. What does she look like, Al? he asked silently. Does she look like Winry? Does she look like you? Does she look like me? “I’m sorry I couldn’t be here for you.” He brushed a finger across the corner of her eye, tracing the path of her tear.
“I was afraid you were never coming back,” she admitted, catching his hand in hers.
Alphonse was holding the baby now, cradling her gently in his arms. “Did you name her?” he asked softly.
Winry nodded. “I want to call her Kaiya,” she told him, her eyes not leaving her child.
Alphonse rocked the baby back and forth, his expression enraptured. “That’s pretty.”
“It means forgiveness,” Ed said hoarsely, from his stance in the doorway.
Finally Winry looked up, seeing him for the first time. Their eyes locked. “That’s right,” she whispered.
“Brother,” Al said from beside her, “do you want to hold her?”
Edward hesitated for a moment before coming over to the bed, and his brother stood, placing the baby carefully in his arms. She was soft, and warm, and moving in his arms, squirming and shifting, beginning to wake up. Her eyes were two tiny creases in the pink folds of her face that opened to reveal clear grey orbs, shining but yet unfocused. Her tiny mouth opened in a yawn, and she seemed to be looking at him, although he knew that was impossible. “She’s perfect, Winry,” he told her. “She’s perfect.”
Ed was still holding the baby, rocking her carefully as he stood next to the bed, when the nurse appeared in the room. “I’m so sorry to interrupt this,” she said apologetically, knowing that the two young men must be this woman’s family; this woman who had given birth alone; this woman whose only visitors had been the two most important generals in the Amestris military. She carried a piece of paper with her. “Miss Rockbell, we need to fill out the birth certificate today, it’s been a week now.”
Winry looked up at her, her eyes shining. “That’s okay,” she said, her expression light, happy, like a new mother’s face should look, thought the nurse. “I know what to name her.”
“Go ahead,” she prompted, pen poised.
“Kaiya Rockbell,” she said firmly, smiling.
“Mother’s name?”
“Winry Rockbell.”
“Father’s name?” the nurse asked, glancing with new interest from the man who held the baby to the man who sat with his arms around the mother.
“Alphonse Elric,” said the man with the grey eyes, his expression shining with that same glow as the mother. Because he was watching the nurse write his name on the form, Al did not see Winry’s eyes widen as she looked over at Ed, nor did he see the odd expression on his brother’s face. This doesn’t mean we aren’t going to tell him, Ed said silently, trying to believe himself.
“Alphonse Elric?” the nurse repeated, looking at the young man again. He was really a teenager, she saw, much younger than the baby’s mother. “The Soul Alchemist?”
Al smiled disarmingly at her. “The same,” he said, attempting modesty.
In spite of himself, Ed grinned with pride. His brother was famous!
The nurse looked from one man to the other, taking in the texture of their hair, the structure of their faces, what she had seen of their mannerisms. The man holding the baby, the older one, raised his eyes to her, a wave of discomfort washing over him suddenly. Those eyes were as gold as his hair.
“You’re-“ she began, startled. “I mean,” she covered hurriedly, not wanting voice any conclusions out loud. The Fullmetal Alchemist, the Soul Alchemist’s brother, the one who had become state certified at the age of twelve, the one who had destroyed an entire city with his power, the one who had died the night the Furher had been assassinated, over six years ago, had gold eyes. All the stories said so. She had been in High School during his heyday, studying to get into college when this kid was roaming the country doing good deeds. The people’s alchemist, they called him. He was a hero to the people in the north, regardless of what crimes the rumors held him responsible for. He had come from one of their small towns, just a child, a child who made a difference in so many lives along his journey. He even had his own holiday here in the north, although it certainly wasn’t nationally recognized. And here she was, staring a dead man in the face, stuttering some excuse. “You two look alike,” she ended lamely, addressing the younger one.
Ed had turned away, handing the baby back to Alphonse. “People say that,” he mumbled, the air in the room becoming chill.
“Well,” the nurse said brightly, tapping the paper in her hands. “It’s all filled out now, I’ll just leave you alone here.” She turned on her heels, exiting the room. She would keep their secret.
When it was just the three of them, Alphonse let out the breath he didn’t know he was holding. “She knew who you were, Brother,” he said quietly, exchanging worried glances with Winry.
Ed frowned. “No she didn’t,” he protested, rubbing the back of his head. “She was just guessing. I’ve never seen her before, she’s never seen me. She can’t prove anything.”
Al looked serious. “Eventually, someone will be able to.”
“I think we should go home,” Winry said to them both. “People are going to start talking.”
In fact, they already had.
Zwischenzeit I: Left Behind
Chapter: 1
Previous: Friends and Lovers
Genre: Drama/Romance
Rating: ahhh, lets see. There will be sexual situations but no graphic sex. In later chapters there will be lots of violence. But this chapter is entirely safe. PG-rated, I think.
Spoilers: for the entire series.
Summary: Now that Ed and Al are finally reunited, will Ed be able adjust to returning to a world that has long since moved on without him? Non-movie AU
Chapter Title: Left Between
Chapter Rating: PG
Chapter Summary: The brothers travel home after making it back through the gate, and begin to get to know each other again.
Things you should know: this is the continuation of “Friends and Lovers,” my post series Ed-comes-come story. The first chapter takes place before the last chapter of that story. However, I don’t think it is necessary to read the first story to enjoy this one; most of this chapter explains itself. All you need to know is that Ed and Al are finally together after a long separation, and that Ed has been at home with Winry and Al has been in Germany with his double, Alphonse Heiderich. Also, this story is NOT already completed, so I’m sorry ahead of time, I am going to be slower with updates.
Chapter One: Left Between
The sun was huge, red, low on the horizon and cold. Alphonse felt a crushing weight pressing down on him, and tried unsuccessfully to shift on the cold marble of the temple floor. “Brother,” he groaned, the words seeming to stick in his throat. “Get off.”
The body on top of him rolled off, hitting the floor with a soft thud. Alphonse sat up slowly, his mind registering the growing chill in the air. “Brother?” he said again, becoming more aware. “Edward?” He looked wildly around him, and the man knelt in front of him, the man with his brother’s eyes.
“I’m here,” said the man softly. “Are you all right, Al?” he asked. Those eyes were bright, magnified by tears and turned bronze by the redness of the setting sun.
“I- are you really him?” he faltered. “Is it really you?”
His brother nodded, blinking, and brushing at the wetness in his eyes. “It’s me.” He watched intently as Al’s eyes searched his face, his body, his being for something familiar. “I’m sorry I’m not what you remember.” His eyebrows drew down in concern. “Are you all right?” he asked again.
Alphonse looked down at himself, then back at his brother. “I’m fine. Are you?”
Edward nodded, standing up slowly. “We should get out of the desert,” he said. “It’s going to get cold soon.”
Al shuddered suddenly, rubbing his arms. “Colder,” he amended. He stood as well, standing in front of his brother, still taking in the sight of him. Yes, this was Edward. He was the same boy he remembered at eleven years old, he told himself. It’s still him. He realized he was looking down. His brother’s lack of height had been almost legendary, but in his memory he and Ed had always been nearly the same size. Alphonse might have been and inch or two taller, and just a bit stronger, but Edward had always been older, and in his mind he looked up at him. Now he was looking down.
Those unruly bangs, those thin, gracefully expressive eyebrows, the way those lips were beginning to quirk up at the corners, yes, this was his brother.
“What?” Ed asked him, smirking.
“Ah, nothing…” Al hedged. “You’re-“
Ed waved a hand dismissively. “Short, I know,” he finished for him. “Everyone made sure to tell me you were taller than me.” He frowned, eyes darting to the side. “Don’t tell anyone I said I was short though.”
Al smiled; gave a hesitant laugh. This was Ed, yet not Ed. The Ed in his imagination had pitched a tantrum of unreasonable proportions whenever his height was mentioned, just like the stories had said, but he had no actual memories of something like that happening. “Let’s get to the nearest town,” he said, trying to sound normal, and his brother nodded, following him across the floor of the temple and out into the barren desert.
“Al,” Edward said, stopping at the edge of the ruin. “I’m so proud of you,” he began. “All the time I spent on the other side, I didn’t even know if you were alive, or if you were, what you were doing. Everyone told me you never gave up, that you always believed I was alive somewhere, and that you did everything you could to find me, and while you were doing that you became a State Alchemist, and used your alchemy to rebuild after the war, and you did so many things-“ he stopped. “You’re amazing, Al,” he said, his eyes shining with pride. “You’re everything I would have wanted you to be.”
“All I wanted was to have you back, Brother,” Alphonse whispered, and, now in their own world, the brothers embraced once more, feeling the solidness of their forms against each other. When they parted they began to walk across the sand, both knowing the direction of the nearest Ishbalan town. Ed was about to say something to his brother about how much of Ishbal he had seen restored in his short journey to the temple, and how amazing it was that the government was taking the initiative to help the nation it had nearly obliterated, but when he looked over at Al he saw him watching him with a concerned expression.
“Are you sure you’re all right?” Alphonse asked again.
Ed raised his eyebrows. “Yeah, I’m fine,” he assured him. “We’re both fine. We made it,” he repeated, for himself as much as for Al.
His brother frowned. “Is something wrong with your automail?” he pressed, because Edward had an automail arm and leg, everyone who knew the Fullmetal Alchemist knew that, and what else could explain his awkward gait? Properly functioning automail should give him a completely fluid stride, he knew that from watching Winry treat so many clients over the years.
Ed looked at him strangely. “I don’t have automail anymore,” he said, an odd expression crossing his face. “I haven’t had it for years-“
“Why not? What happened?” Al demanded, stopping in the cold desert, the concern in his voice growing.
“Automail doesn’t exist over there,” he began, drawing his eyebrow down, his mind spinning. “Weren’t you- didn’t you- all the time you were on the other side, didn’t you say you were with Alphonse?” He flinched saying his friend’s name, feeling uncomfortable suddenly.
His brother nodded slowly. “Yes, I helped him build the rocket,” he confirmed.
Ed raised an eyebrow. “You spent all that time with him and he never mentioned my arm and my leg?”
Al shook his head, and to his surprise Ed laughed.
“That is so like him,” he said, rolling his eyes. Then he sighed. “Well, he always told me it didn’t matter to him that I was missing two limbs. I guess it really didn’t, if he didn’t think it was important enough to tell my little brother.”
“It doesn’t matter to me either,” Al said quickly, suddenly defensive; strangely jealous. “I was just surprised, that’s all.” He frowned again. “Are you going to be okay walking all this way?”
Ed nodded. “I’ll be fine,” he assured him.
“Are you sure?” he persisted, looking at his brother skeptically. “It’s going to be a long walk.”
“Yeah, four hours or so. It’s fine. I walked all the way out here, and it was fine,” Ed said steadily, gazing into his eyes with firm assurance. Don’t worry about me, I’m fine, his eyes pleaded. “Let’s go,” he added, beginning to move again. “We don’t want to get to the town too late, or there will be nowhere for us to stay.” He smiled inwardly. It was just like before, two brothers on a quest, traveling all over the continent searching, only now they had finally found what they were after and their only remaining quest was to return home.
Ed’s stomach clenched, and his smile drained. Return home, he thought sadly. Winry had warned him not to return to Rizembool, that it would only be depressing; there wasn’t much left there after the war ended. Pinako had passed away two years after he had disappeared; it had been sudden, she passed in her sleep. He never thought of her as old, and he was sure Winry never did either, but she must have been. He imagined Al comforting Winry at the funeral that had taken place eight years ago, or had it been four? He shook his head, feeling out of synch with this world that was supposed to be home to him. He had imagined being welcomed back with open arms, but instead- he hung his head, looking down at his feet, watching as the false one dragged a bit through the sand beneath him. I don’t remember what it feels like to have all my limbs, he thought, not a new realization at all. I don’t even remember what having good automail feels like, not really. What ever Alphonse had expected him to be, it surely wasn’t this, he told himself. I must look broken to him, he realized, understanding his brother’s concern finally. I’m not that kid he heard all those stories about, not any more. I’m someone else entirely.
He had not come home to Auntie, or to his Sensei either, who had died not even months after he disappeared. He had come home to Winry, and had- his face flushed in the fading light, but Al did not seem to notice. It had been without thought, without consideration, as if they were playing parts in a script that had been brewing in their minds for years (did it matter how many years?); as if of course, the night Ed came home, of course they would make love.
No matter what he did, no matter what his intentions, Edward Elric would always hurt those who loved him. That was the only thing that remained the same. He glanced over at Al, who was as intent on his own thoughts as he was, and fought with himself not to sigh out loud. This was nothing like their old quests. Al could not even remember their old quests.
It wasn’t until the faint glow of the distant town grew close enough for them to define actual buildings that Ed broke the silence. “Are you wearing my coat?” was what he said, looking over at his brother, who had shivered and drawn the old brown garment tighter across his chest. His voice sounded weird to him, muffled in the vastness of the desert.
Al smiled, relieved that Ed was finally talking to him. “Yeah,” he said, but then his face fell. “Oh…” he moaned, and Ed looked concerned. “Your red coat,” he explained, “I left it there.”
“My red coat?” Ed repeated, confused. “My old red coat?” He was silent for a minute. “You were wearing my red coat and left it in Germany?”
“I’m sorry!” Al all but wailed. “I’m sorry, brother, I wasn’t thinking, I was just so excited to get back to you that I left it behind, I’m so sorry!”
Ed just shrugged. “Al, don’t worry about it. It’s just a coat. I figured it was long gone anyway.”
Just a coat? Brother, it was the only thing I had connecting me to you! I slept in it when I missed you, I used to hold it and smell it because it smelled like you, until finally it started smelling like me, it wasn’t “just” a coat, he thought, but he didn’t say these things out loud. Now that he had his actual brother, why did the loss of his coat make him so sad?
Ed raised an eyebrow. “Well, now that I’m here, you can’t dress like me anyway,” he said lightly. “People would get confused, don’t you think?” They passed through the gate in the low concrete wall around the town, and Ed looked around. There were still a few people out, so it couldn’t be that late at night. “Anyway, I guess-“ he stopped, his voice tensing. “I guess Alphonse can have it,” he finished quietly. “Where are you going, Al?” he said abruptly. “There is an inn on this street.”
Al looked back over his shoulder. “I know, but there is a better one over this way. I stay there all the time. The lady is very nice, and she knows me pretty well by now.”
The inn Al spoke of was a low concrete building, like all the other buildings Ed had seen, and dimly lit inside. It smelled odd, like something burning, and Ed looked past the desk into the next room and could see incense and smoke. There were three women inside, all dark-skinned and red-eyed, one wearing a simple robe of what Ed recognized as traditional Ishbalan dress and the other two wearing clothing more familiar to him. They all greeted Al, and to his surprise Al spoke to them in the foreign tongue, the words flowing easily from his lips. His brother spoke Ishbalan? He listened carefully to the exchange; he knew a small collection of words but could not pick out anything familiar. Al gestured to him, and the women bowed slightly. Ed returned the bow and said hello, one word he was definitely sure of.
He and Al followed the woman up the stairs, and she gave Al the key to their room and bowed again, walking away. Once inside Ed flopped down on the closest bed, glad to get off his feet. He had told Al he would be fine, but the truth was the stump of his leg has been bothering him for at least the last hour of their walk. Al must have noticed, because he had carefully slowed his pace to match his older brother’s, saying nothing. He rubbed at his thigh and considered removing the prosthesis, but he suddenly felt shy in front of his brother, not wanting to do anything else that might separate him from the image Al must have built up of him in his mind.
Al climbed onto the bed behind him and wrapped his arms around his chest, telling himself that this man who had been so quiet really was his brother, and there was no reason he shouldn’t be able to hug him if he felt like it. He felt a surge of relief when Ed leaned back into the touch, bringing his own arm up to grasp Al’s hand in his. “Are you really real?” Al asked, his lips brushing against the back of his brother’s neck, making him shiver. “Are you really here?”
Ed laughed softly. “I’m really here, Al. And I promise, I’m not going anywhere. Anywhere you are is exactly where I want to be.”
There was a knock on the door, and Al called out a word that must have been come in in Ishbalan, and a woman appeared carrying a tray with two short glass cups filled with a steaming red liquid. She left the tray on the table by the beds and Al thanked her. Ed repeated the word Al had used, and she gave that slight bow again before leaving them.
Al disengaged himself from his brother and reached for one of the cups, taking a sharp sip, and then he laughed. “I never thought I would be homesick for red tea,” he said by way of explanation.
Ed took the second cup and sniffed it suspiciously. “Red tea?”
Al shrugged. “It’s what they drink out here. It’s become slightly popular at home too, people think it’s exotic, I guess.” He watched Ed take a sip and laughed at his expression. “I like mine plain but you would probably like it better with sugar,” he suggested.
“You spend a lot of time here?” Ed guessed, trying to draw his brother into a conversation and spooning sugar into the foreign beverage.
Al nodded. “The military has done a lot to rebuild, but it takes time to restore what was almost completely destroyed.”
“I thought Ishbala forbid alchemy?”
“They don’t know me as an alchemist,” Al explained. “I’m just someone the government sent to help make things right again.”
Ed frowned. “So they don’t know you’re using alchemy?”
Al shook his head. “No one is using alchemy. The government made it a policy to respect their beliefs about it.”
Ed raised his eyebrows. “I guess things have really changed,” he said, and Al nodded again.
“So,” Al said after a few minutes of silence. He guessed that maybe his brother was so quiet for the same reason he was: they had been apart so long, and so much had changed that once the floodgates opened who knew when they would close again. He took a deep breath, and decided to be the first to ask the question. “What happened while I was gone? How did you know where I was? How did we both end up here? What happened to the other Alphonse?”
Ed took the first question and looked his brother directly in the eye. “Well, Winry is going to have a baby,” he started, and cringed inwardly as he watched Al’s face light up. Then he watched the joy drain from his face, and he felt a cold sense of dread seize his stomach. Al already suspected?
“How can she have a baby?” Al asked slowly. “I’ve been gone over a year. Who…”
“It’s been eight and a half months here,” Ed said quickly. “Time is different on the other side.”
Al regarded him suspiciously. Oh god, he knows, Ed thought, guilt pouring over him. “What do you mean?”
“It’s faster,” he said desperately. “It’s 1925 there, and it’s 1921 here.” What a story!
Al looked sad, and Ed flinched. “So you aren’t twenty two,” he said, not the response he was expecting at all.
Ed shook his head, puzzled.
“I’m really twenty one now,” Al said, “but I look seventeen, and everyone says I’m seventeen, and I don’t remember those four years I spent in the armor but I still lived them, and since you were with me all that time I figured at least you would believe my real age-“
“I do,” Ed interrupted, wondering why his brother was so fixated on his age. Did he think his being so much younger would make a difference to him? They were together, that was all that mattered! “If you say you’re twenty one, then you’re twenty one, Al. I believe you.”
“But you’re still so much older than me!” Al exclaimed. “And that’s just one more thing that’s between us now!” His words rang in the air long after he was silent. Just one more thing that’s between us.
Ed moved closer to him, taking his hand in his own, and Al almost snatched it away but stopped himself in time. It’s not weird for brothers to hold hands, he told himself firmly. Not if they’re as close as we are. But he couldn’t help imagining his brother holding that other Alphonse’s hand, feeling something different entirely.
Ed brought his metal hand to cover Al’s, trapping his brother’s hand between his two mismatched ones. “Let’s not let anything come between us, Al,” he said seriously, those gold eyes burning with intensity. “Whatever happens, let’s not let anything come between us.”
Ed wasn’t sure when he had fallen asleep, didn’t even know he had drifted off until the hot sun on his face woke him up. He remembered watching the black sky turn to grey and then to pale slate, and finally to that early morning dusky yellow, and he remembered watching his brother’s chest rise and fall with each breath, staring at his sleeping face and wondering why, if it was early morning, he couldn’t hear any birds. Birds had always made noise right before the sun came up, at home in Rizembool out in the country, in Central, in Munich, in every city he had ever stayed in. Were there no birds in the desert?
The sheets were dry but smelled slightly musty, and a wide rectangle of sunlight spilled over his side of the bed. He looked over at the other bed in the room, untouched. He moved his foot under the covers, feeling what he was certain was a single grain of sand between the coarse sheets, brushing his toes gently against Al’s calf. His brother stirred in his sleep but did not wake up.
Once the questions started they had talked rapidly, answering everything as fast as it could be asked and asking everything that came to mind, more questions than could be addressed in a week, let alone one night. They were both tired, and decided to go to sleep at least twice, and had turned off the lights but kept talking in the dark, unable to see each and desperate to hear that the other was still there. They had traded information in the dark until the sky began to lighten, and even when he finally drifted into sleep Ed still could not take his eyes off of his brother.
He watched Al jump when he heard the knock on the door, and sit up with a start, immediately awake. He smiled at his brother and pushed the sheets aside, standing up and making his way to the door, conversing briefly with the woman he had spoken to the night before. When he pushed the door shut again, he looked down at himself, trying to smooth the rumpled clothing he had slept in, and pulled his long bronze hair out of the tie and combing his fingers through it.
“Morning,” Ed said quietly, reaching for the false leg he had detached during the night and watching his brother glance quickly away.
“She said there’s breakfast downstairs for us,” Al explained, looking back at the door.
Ed stood up and stretched, popping the kinks out of his back, and looked down at his clothes much the way Al had done. “We look a mess, don’t we, Al?” he said, smiling slightly. He yawned. “Breakfast?” he added hopefully.
Breakfast was a dish of honey-drenched rolls and a cup of hot, thick, sweet coffee, and then the brothers dozed, Ed letting his head drop onto his younger brother’s shoulder as they rested in the cramped compartment of the desert rail train. It was another one of the military’s efforts to rebuild the destroyed nation: a train that ran several feet above the ground so that the sand could never blow over the tracks. It made it easier to bring supplies in, and eventually the government wanted to extend the line all the way to Xing, linking the two countries forever.
When the train jerked to a stop Ed was already awake again, and he watched Al wake up immediately, just like he had that morning. Was that something he had learned in the military, to wake up at a moment’s notice? He used to have to drag his brother out of bed, coaxing him slowly into wakefulness. Of course, it had been a long time since he had seen his brother able to sleep at all, and people did change.
“I’m going to get us tickets with my military account,” Al told him quietly as the exited the desert rail. “You stay here. The ticketmaster is going to recognize me, and if you’re there, he’ll know who you are for sure.”
“I have a ticket already,” Ed said, a bit puzzled at his brother’s show of caution, showing him the rumpled return-ticket that he had stowed away in his pocket. “I knew I was coming back.” He raised an eyebrow. “Is it really that big of a deal if someone recognizes me? I’ve been here before, and no one knew who I was then.”
“Yes, it’s a big deal!” his brother hissed. “You’re supposed to be dead! If nothing else, we would be mobbed by people, and never get home!”
Ed had the feeling that there was more to it than that, but said nothing, instead his eye catching on a young woman with a child in one arm and a battered suitcase in the other, with two other children clinging to the hem of her skirts. She was scolding one of them, he could tell by the look on her face, and smiled inwardly, thinking of the one time his mother had taken him and Alphonse to what they thought had been a “big” city but had probably just been a more developed town like Dillon or Bethan. He and Al had clung to her skirts just like that, afraid of being lost in what had seemed to them like a crowded station, and she had probably scolded them for wandering. He smirked. She had probably scolded him for wandering. He had a tendency to stop to explore everything he found interesting along the way, regardless of where he was or who he was with.
“She kind of reminds me of mom,” Al said softly into his ear, nodding his head toward the woman, and Ed smiled a full smile.
“Yeah, I bet we were a handful,” he told him. Just then they both saw the smaller boy run off, and when the mother turned to call after him the suitcase she had been holding suddenly burst open, spilling the contents out across the busy platform. At once the two young men were at her side, shooing the crowds away from trampling her things, Ed collecting her two children while Al helped her pick up the articles that had been scattered across the ground, both ignoring her protests that they really didn’t need to help her. She was crouched down above the old suitcase, still holding the baby in one arm and re-packing with the other. Al retrieved the last item from where it had rolled nearly halfway across the platform, and shut the lid for her, only then noticing that the clasps had broken.
The young mother seemed at her wit’s end, Al guessed she was only stopping off in East City mid-journey like he and Ed were, and was at least twice as tired from traveling with her three children. She had been insisting that Al was being too kind, that she appreciated his help but that they would be fine, but now she simply sat back on her heels, staring at the broken latches in disbelief. “Don’t worry,” Al told her with a smile, “I’ll take care of it.” He glanced up at his brother and the two boys before clapping his hands together and pressing them to the battered container in front of him. There was a crack! and Ed jumped, just like he had the first time he had seen alchemy since returning to his own world. The two kids who stood next to them stared at Al with worshipful awe as he picked up the suitcase, standing up and handing it, repaired, to the mother.
“You’re an alchemist?” she said, the shock plain in her voice. “But you’re so young!”
Al just shrugged good naturedly. “I’m older than I look,” he said in explanation.
“Thank you so much for your help!” she gushed, glancing over at Ed. “Thank you both, you’ve been so kind.”
“It was no trouble,” Ed said, shooing the two boys back over to their mother.
“How did you do that?”
“That was amazing!” they cried, both at the same time, jumping all over Alphonse.
He laughed. “I studied hard,” he said sternly, still smiling.
The woman looked at the brothers closely, recognition slowly lighting in her eyes. “I know who you are!” she said to Al. “You’re the Soul Alchemist from the North, the one who used to wear the armor. The people’s alchemist, they call you! Imagine running into someone famous here!”
No, my brother was the people’s alchemist, I’m just the military’s alchemist, Al wanted to tell her, and would have if his supposedly dead brother hadn’t been standing right there. He glanced over to Ed, who looked pale and stunned, and flinched. I didn’t mean to take your title, brother, honest, he said silently, but it wasn’t anger or jealousy in Ed’s expression. It was something else entirely.
An announcement buzzed over the speakers. “That’s our train,” the young mother said apologetically. “It was wonderful meeting you, Mr. Soul Alchemist, thank you so much for your help.” She nodded to Ed. “You and your friend both.” She reached for the younger child’s hand, gesturing for the older one to follow along as well.
“My brother,” Alphonse corrected softly, once the woman was out of earshot. Ed’s expression had returned to normal; whatever had bothered his brother had evidently passed. “How did mom do it, all by herself, with the two of us?” he mused.
Ed raised his eyebrows. “I imagine she didn’t have much choice in the matter,” he said stiffly. He glanced away, trying not to think too much. Whose soul just repaired that suitcase? An old man who died in his sleep? A soldier who had agreed to die for his country? A sick woman who could not afford medicine?
Al followed his brother’s gaze, which seemed to be resting on a vendor’s cart. “I’ll be right back,” he told him, going to purchase a carton of dumplings for them to share while waiting for the next train.
They sat side by side on the bench, Al still thinking about the mother and her children. “I can’t imagine having three kids,” he said after a while.
“I can’t imagine having one,” Ed said, studying his dumpling a moment before taking a bite. “But I guess we’re about to find out, huh?”
“I’m glad you were there with Winry so she didn’t have to be alone while she was pregnant,” Al said seriously, causing Ed to nearly choke on his dumpling.
“No you’re not,” he managed, “all we did was fight, it was awful.”
“What did you fight about?” Al asked curiously.
“Everything you can imagine,” he said heavily. He took a deep breath. “Look, Al, the thing about the baby is-“
“You know what?” Al interrupted, chin on his hand, eyebrows raised. “You know who you look like?”
“Huh? Who?” Ed asked, startled.
“You look like Dad,” Al told him, almost apologetically, reaching over to snag a dumpling from the paper carton.
The pain he had seen before flashed behind his older brother’s eyes, and he sighed. “I need to shave,” was all he said, rubbing his hand over the short stubble on his face. He looked up and a sign caught his eye, and without really meaning to change the subject, he asked curiously, “Hey, how long have the signs been in Ishbalan too?”
It wasn’t that he was avoiding the subject. It was just that there were so many things to say, and every little thing prompted another question from each of them. Instead of asking about the signs, Ed could have asked Al if he even remembered their father at all, or if he just remembered seeing pictures of them. When Hohenheim had come to Rizembool, Al had spent quite a bit of time with him, not holding the grudge that Ed did, but that was when Alphonse had been a suit of armor, and he didn’t remember any of that, did he?
Ed knew, intellectually, that Al had no memories of those four years; it had been one of the first things Winry had told him when he asked about his brother. But it was only just beginning to sink in exactly what that meant. One of Al’s questions the night before, in the inn, before they turned the lights off, had been why Ed did not braid his hair like the pictures had shown. Ed had shrugged, not wanting to see his brother’s face fall upon learning that with his barely-functioning home-made automail it was nearly impossible to braid his own hair. He told him he didn’t have time to mess with his hair like that, and raised his eyes hopefully to Al, telling him he could braid it for him if he wanted. After years of feeling the leather gauntlets of his armor gently twisting his hair together, suddenly he longed to feel his brother’s human fingers against his scalp. Al had not looked at him when he said he did not know how to braid hair.
“Brother?” Al had asked him. They had been on the train headed from Central to Altenburg on what they had thought was the last bit of their journey. They sat opposite each other in the empty compartment, each brother’s feet propped up on the empty seat next to the other.
Ed had opened his eyes, not realizing he had closed them. “Hm?”
“I was wondering,” he began hesitantly. “The other Alphonse… did you really want him to come here, to our world?”
He had frowned. “No,” he had said simply. “He could never have come through the gate. It wouldn’t have been possible.”
“Did you love him?” came the next question.
“Yes…” he had answered slowly, god, this was another conversation he did not want to have.
Was he a replacement for me? Do you love him more than me? Would you rather be with him than with me? Are we the same person? Do you love me the way you loved him? Al could have asked any of those things, and Ed would not have been surprised, although he would have been hard pressed for an answer. He was not expecting the question he did hear. “How could you have lied to him, then?”
Ed had pressed his lips together. How can you lie to someone you love? “I didn’t lie to him, Al,” he had said finally. “I just didn’t tell him certain things.” Just like right now, how I’m not telling you that Winry’s child might be mine, and not yours. “I didn’t tell him anything he wouldn’t believe, because I didn’t want him to think I was lying.” I didn’t want him to think I was a liar, or a crazy person, because I didn’t want to lose him. Just like I’m hiding things from you because I don’t want you to hate me.
Al had looked at him thoughtfully. “He knew how much you loved him,” he had said slowly. “He really wanted to be here with you. Why couldn’t he come through the Gate, just like I did?”
Edward had frowned, silent for a moment. “Do you know how to create something with alchemy?” he had asked finally, his voice low; hesitant.
“Present something of equal value,” Al had said promptly, of course that was the answer and they both knew it, but he could tell his brother meant something else, and waited for him to explain.
“And the energy to fuel the reaction? Where does that come from?”
Al had tipped his head. “From the alchemist…” he had answered slowly, knowing this must have something to do with the other Alphonse but not certain what.
Ed was nodding. “But energy doesn’t come from nowhere.” He had sighed heavily. “When I first arrived on the other side, Dad told me that every alchemist has a Gate inside themselves from which they can draw alchemical energy-“
“You talked to Dad?”
Ed had held his hand up, signaling for Al to let him finish. “On the other side of the Gate, they have this law, just like equivalent trade, that says that nothing can be created or destroyed, only changed. They believe that when they die, their soul goes to heaven, but what is a soul, really, if it isn’t the energy that keeps a body alive?” He did not meet his brother’s eyes when he spoke his next sentence. “The energy we use to do alchemy comes from the souls who die on the other side of the Gate. That’s what Dad told me, and I’ve found no reason to believe otherwise.” He had raised his eyes. “If he could cross the Gate at all, it would have been as energy. I think. I wouldn’t have wanted to risk it.”
“You talked to Dad?” Al had repeated after a moment. “On the other side of the Gate?”
“Yeah.”
Al had waited. Ed had seemed to be collecting his thoughts.
“Dante- you remember Dante?” he had begun haltingly.
Al had shaken his head. I can’t remember anything, he had thought miserably. “Sensei’s teacher,” he had said quickly, a little too eagerly, wanting to prove that even if he didn’t remember, he still knew things, at least some things. Please, Brother, he thought desperately. I don’t remember anything, but we can still share these things. I was still there!
“It’s okay, Al,” Ed had said soothingly, seeing his younger brother becoming distressed. “It’s okay that you don’t remember things. I wish I didn’t remember most of it either.” He had taken a deep breath. “Besides, this isn’t something you knew, even in the armor. This is stuff I found out right before I-“ he flinched “-died.” After a moment he had continued. “Dante’s body was rotting away, and so was Dad’s. That’s why he left us when we were kids, he didn’t want us to have to watch.”
“What does Dante have to do with Dad?” Al had asked, not following.
“This is going to sound very weird,” his had brother warned him, and in the stuffy train compartment, racing along rickety tracks and swaying with the motion, Ed, who had never been a storyteller, had begun a hesitant, disjointed tale of what he knew about his father’s four hundred plus year life. He had told him everything, not sure what Al already knew and what he didn’t, about the philosopher’s stone, about the homunculus, about everything he had forced himself not to think about for the past ten years. The details had come to him in pieces, shards of information he had kept buried on the other side of the Gate. Hohenheim and Dante had been lovers long before he had met their mother. Envy had been their son long before Ed and Al had been born. They had created the horror that was the Philosopher’s Stone. The legend of the city that had disappeared in one night was not just a story.
“Dad had been on the other side for a long time already when I ended up there. He found me in a hospital and brought me home with him. I stayed with him, before I found Alphonse.”
“Why were you in the hospital?” Al had asked, alarmed.
Ed had glanced up. “Well, because when I showed up in Europe, it was without my arm and leg,” he had said. “I was bleeding. I was unconscious. Someone brought me to a hospital, and somehow Dad found me there. Eventually, we… came to an understanding, I guess you could say.”
Al had looked pained. “I wish I had known he was in that place. I would have liked to meet him.”
“He died a long time ago,” Ed had said shortly, looking out the window at the streaming scenery.
“How?” Al had asked, seeing the distress in his brother’s face but unable to stop himself from asking.
Still staring at the window, Ed had sighed. “Can I tell you another time, Al?” he had asked. “Please?”
“Of course,” Al had said softly. “Of course, brother.”
Both brothers plunged into a state of panic when the realized why Winry was not in her house in Altenburg. They had rushed back to the train station, demanding tickets to Dillon, where Al said the nearest hospital was. They were horrified when they learned that the last train of the evening had already left, and tried unsuccessfully to find someone to drive them to the town instead. Eventually they had resigned themselves to taking the first train the next morning, both of them spending only a few hours on some unrestful sleep in the quiet house.
Once they reached the hospital the staff gave them the run-around, since neither brother was actually related to her, until Alphonse had finally pulled rank on them.
“I’m a state alchemist, that makes me your superior,” Al said firmly, his voice ringing with authority. Ed smiled with pride, watching his brother withdraw the silver watch from inside his coat, dangling it in the man’s face. “Now you let me into my girlfriend’s room, or I’ll transmute the door open!”
Al clapped his hands together without a moment’s hesitation, placing them on the door which suddenly swung open with an alchemical whoosh. Ed watched his brother rush into the room, climbing at once into the bed with Winry. “I missed you so much while I was in that place,” he said into her shoulder, pressing his face into her. She leaned her chin into the top of his head, rubbing her lips on his hair. “We didn’t know where you were, we didn’t know you were in the hospital or we never would have been so long-“ Ed watched the scene from the doorway, silent in his brother’s rush of words. “-you have no idea how different it is there, it’s a whole other world, a whole other universe, like a mirror of this one, and-“ Winry looked so pale, but she was beautiful, he realized, startled. Of course she’s beautiful, he told himself. I’ve always known she was beautiful. Her yellow hair hung in sheets, streaming over her shoulders, and she held the baby tightly to her chest even as she embraced Al. Al’s baby, he thought firmly. It must be Al’s baby. Al had halted his rush of words and was simply staring, worshipful, first at Winry and then at the baby, and shifted on the bed, coming to lay properly next to her instead of half-leaning on the edge of the mattress.
“I missed you too, Alphonse,” she whispered, eyes on him, blinking back tears. Not once did she look up to see Ed in the doorway.
“I didn’t know,” Al was saying slowly, staring at the baby girl in her arms. “I didn’t know you were pregnant, if I did I never would have left. I’m so sorry. I never guessed that I would end up trapped on the other side of the gate.” He watched his brother touch the baby gently, reverently almost. What does she look like, Al? he asked silently. Does she look like Winry? Does she look like you? Does she look like me? “I’m sorry I couldn’t be here for you.” He brushed a finger across the corner of her eye, tracing the path of her tear.
“I was afraid you were never coming back,” she admitted, catching his hand in hers.
Alphonse was holding the baby now, cradling her gently in his arms. “Did you name her?” he asked softly.
Winry nodded. “I want to call her Kaiya,” she told him, her eyes not leaving her child.
Alphonse rocked the baby back and forth, his expression enraptured. “That’s pretty.”
“It means forgiveness,” Ed said hoarsely, from his stance in the doorway.
Finally Winry looked up, seeing him for the first time. Their eyes locked. “That’s right,” she whispered.
“Brother,” Al said from beside her, “do you want to hold her?”
Edward hesitated for a moment before coming over to the bed, and his brother stood, placing the baby carefully in his arms. She was soft, and warm, and moving in his arms, squirming and shifting, beginning to wake up. Her eyes were two tiny creases in the pink folds of her face that opened to reveal clear grey orbs, shining but yet unfocused. Her tiny mouth opened in a yawn, and she seemed to be looking at him, although he knew that was impossible. “She’s perfect, Winry,” he told her. “She’s perfect.”
Ed was still holding the baby, rocking her carefully as he stood next to the bed, when the nurse appeared in the room. “I’m so sorry to interrupt this,” she said apologetically, knowing that the two young men must be this woman’s family; this woman who had given birth alone; this woman whose only visitors had been the two most important generals in the Amestris military. She carried a piece of paper with her. “Miss Rockbell, we need to fill out the birth certificate today, it’s been a week now.”
Winry looked up at her, her eyes shining. “That’s okay,” she said, her expression light, happy, like a new mother’s face should look, thought the nurse. “I know what to name her.”
“Go ahead,” she prompted, pen poised.
“Kaiya Rockbell,” she said firmly, smiling.
“Mother’s name?”
“Winry Rockbell.”
“Father’s name?” the nurse asked, glancing with new interest from the man who held the baby to the man who sat with his arms around the mother.
“Alphonse Elric,” said the man with the grey eyes, his expression shining with that same glow as the mother. Because he was watching the nurse write his name on the form, Al did not see Winry’s eyes widen as she looked over at Ed, nor did he see the odd expression on his brother’s face. This doesn’t mean we aren’t going to tell him, Ed said silently, trying to believe himself.
“Alphonse Elric?” the nurse repeated, looking at the young man again. He was really a teenager, she saw, much younger than the baby’s mother. “The Soul Alchemist?”
Al smiled disarmingly at her. “The same,” he said, attempting modesty.
In spite of himself, Ed grinned with pride. His brother was famous!
The nurse looked from one man to the other, taking in the texture of their hair, the structure of their faces, what she had seen of their mannerisms. The man holding the baby, the older one, raised his eyes to her, a wave of discomfort washing over him suddenly. Those eyes were as gold as his hair.
“You’re-“ she began, startled. “I mean,” she covered hurriedly, not wanting voice any conclusions out loud. The Fullmetal Alchemist, the Soul Alchemist’s brother, the one who had become state certified at the age of twelve, the one who had destroyed an entire city with his power, the one who had died the night the Furher had been assassinated, over six years ago, had gold eyes. All the stories said so. She had been in High School during his heyday, studying to get into college when this kid was roaming the country doing good deeds. The people’s alchemist, they called him. He was a hero to the people in the north, regardless of what crimes the rumors held him responsible for. He had come from one of their small towns, just a child, a child who made a difference in so many lives along his journey. He even had his own holiday here in the north, although it certainly wasn’t nationally recognized. And here she was, staring a dead man in the face, stuttering some excuse. “You two look alike,” she ended lamely, addressing the younger one.
Ed had turned away, handing the baby back to Alphonse. “People say that,” he mumbled, the air in the room becoming chill.
“Well,” the nurse said brightly, tapping the paper in her hands. “It’s all filled out now, I’ll just leave you alone here.” She turned on her heels, exiting the room. She would keep their secret.
When it was just the three of them, Alphonse let out the breath he didn’t know he was holding. “She knew who you were, Brother,” he said quietly, exchanging worried glances with Winry.
Ed frowned. “No she didn’t,” he protested, rubbing the back of his head. “She was just guessing. I’ve never seen her before, she’s never seen me. She can’t prove anything.”
Al looked serious. “Eventually, someone will be able to.”
“I think we should go home,” Winry said to them both. “People are going to start talking.”
In fact, they already had.
Zwischenzeit I: Left Behind