(no subject)
It had all seemed to go so well for Edward, this time around. He had met up with his brother again, and in turn, they had met up with a certain Colonel bastard. That experience had been more than a little weird, and Ed finally has sympathy for how brain-breaking it must have been for Roy all these years, in the bar, not being able to say anything about Ed's future. He'd wanted to give Roy a similiar treatment to what he'd given Russ, but any fond words or physical overtures would have only earned him strange looks - and, uh, far more questions from his brother than he needed right now. Ed had been forced settle for a stupid sarcastic quip or two ( 'Too bad that eye-patch doesn't cover your mouth, too' ) to cover his frustrations.
They'd met up at the ship, and pulled a trick on the bitch. Ed had pretended to be defenseless and alone, and Al had put his soul into many pieces of armour. They'd set these loose on Eckart, and knocked her unconscious long enough for Ed to control the ship to push it to the other side.
In the grand scheme of things, one would say that he had succeeded in what he had set out to do. He had stopped a war, despite the fact all of his alchemic knowledge and skill should be rusty. He had stopped an insane woman in her tracks, managing to send her and her stupid ship back across the gate. With the help of two others, he had managed to destroy each side of the gate, therefore making it impassable to all future attempts to destroy either world.
In the grand scheme of things, Edward Elric was a success.
In his own mind, he was a failure, and he would never be able to put things right again.
Alfons Heiderich was dead. Someone had shot him while Edward had been gone, because apparently he'd taken too long to get back. It's all Ed's fault, he knows it. If Alfons hadn't been here, if Alfons hadn't tried to send him across, if - there are far too many ifs, and it's impossible to change the past.
Alphonse Elric is with him now. He refused to stay on the other side of the gate. His brother is with him, and Edward only hopes that he doesn't lead him to his death, too.
He doesn't know when he'll see Roy or Russ again. He doesn't think he'll ever see Winry again. With his luck, the bar door will never open again, and with his luck, he'll fuck up looking for the uranium bomb... and even more will suffer for his mistakes.
He's damaged from this war. He can't see the good in any of it. And in true Edward Elric fashion, he will spend the next three years burying all of his issues, rather than learning how to deal.
He'll be correct about the bar door. It won't appear to him for three more years. These three years will be spent searching for the uranium bomb. And when he and Al finally find it...
Well.
It's possible that things won't go exactly according to plan.