I'll Love You More, Zwischenzeit IV
Title: I’ll Love You More
Chapter: Zwischenziet IV: If You Leave, Don't Look Back
Previous: 1, I, 2, 3, II, 4, 4.5, 5, 6, III, 7, 8
Genre: Drama/Romance
Rating: PG-13 for language
Spoilers: for the entire series.
Summary: After six years, the brothers are finally reunited, but will Ed be able to adjust to a world that has long since moved on without him? This is an AU that ignores the movie. Pairings for now are an Ed/Win Al/Win triangle of sorts, with some implied Ed/Hei on the side
Chapter Summary:Hei's cousin tries to bring him out of his miserable Hei-ness.
Note1: This chapter was originally posted in two parts.
Note2: This chapter contains an OC, Heiderich's cousin Stephanie. She really only appears in this fic in this one chapter. She was first introduced in the companion fic "Twelve Days" in Nine Ladies Dancing. She's very minor.
If you leave, don't look back...
Part One
Dear Alphonse,
When I heard you were hurt you have no idea how worried I was; fortunately by the time your mother was able to give me the news you were already well again but it frightened me all the same. It’s been entirely too long since we’ve seen each other and I’m so sorry to hear about the death of your friend; I know how difficult it is to lose someone you love. It can take a life time to get used to the feeling of being alone. Unfortunately I wont be able to make it to Hirligen for the holidays this year because I have been planning a trip to Greece with some friends from my University days, but I’d hate to miss seeing you.
Is there any way you’d be able to visit me here in Frankfort? Or should I find a time to visit you? I just hate that the older we get the less we see each other; after all, you were always my favorite cousin and it was too long without seeing one another even before you were hurt.
Hopefully seeing you soon,
Your cousin Stephanie
It was no trouble getting the time off of work. As excited as the team of scientists had been to get Alphonse back in the lab, he hadn’t been much more than a disappointment. His mind was just as brilliant as ever, but the drive was gone. His ambition was a mere shadow of what the lab was like when he and Ed headed up their own project. Now that spark that meant the shining search for knowledge only showed up when Al was talking about ancient theories, occult sciences, old and disproved research and what the other scientists could only dismiss as “crazy talk.”
Other dimensions?
Alchemy?
Using souls as energy?
It wasn’t a matter of intelligence, they all agreed. Yes, it was a frightening head injury their colleague had sustained, but it didn’t affect his intelligence. It was worse than that.
It was his perception of reality.
The train compartment was hot and stuffy and it was cramped; he had been unable to find a car with even one extra seat and he balanced his research on his knees, scribbling furiously, not caring that he looked the part of a mad man to the other travelers. When he finally arrived in Frankfort he was pale, his light hair untidy and his shirt collar undone. He exited the train with his papers still clutched in his fist and scanned the platform for the familiar figure of his tall, loud cousin.
He laughed out loud when he saw her. She wore a ridiculously tiny green hat and carried an equally ridiculous green purse, and she stood by the wall in front of the train schedules jumping and waving her hand in the air. “Alphonse,” she greeted him, smiling, placing a hand on either side of his face. “I’d hug you but you need a shower,” she said bluntly.
He smiled back at her and shrugged. “I can’t argue with you, that train was like an oven.” Before they could exchange their usual banter she had hailed a cab and was pushing him gently towards it, and he gallantly opened the door for her.
“Ah, such a gentleman!” she said playfully, and leaned forward to give directions to the driver.
“You cut your hair off,” he said, noticing it for the first time.
She ran a hand over the back of her neck, grinning. “American fashion,” she told him. “Soon everyone will be doing it.”
Al merely raised his eyebrows.
Stephanie rolled her eyes dramatically. “Really, you should stop holding it against the Americans just because they launched the first rocket.” She wasn’t prepared for the harsh glare she received; she had been trying to joke with him. “Al, relax, I’m just teasing you,” she said, trying to make her voice soothing and less alarmed than she felt. “You aren’t really angry, come on!”
“Forget it,” he mumbled.
They didn’t speak much for the duration of the cab ride, and he followed her silently up the stairs to her home. “Dad’s sleeping,” she told him quietly as she unlocked the door. “All he does these days,” she added. “I doubt he even remembers you, but you can say hi if you want.”
Alphonse just shrugged in response.
She flung a door open to the right of the stairs. “Here, you’ve got Berdy’s room, lord knows he wont be sleeping here again.”
“Thanks,” he mumbled in response, setting his suitcase inside the door.
“Hey,” she said softly, grabbing his arm above the elbow. “I didn’t make you mad, did I? Al?”
He gave a heavy sigh, and turned to face her. “No,” he said finally. “I’m just being an ass. Sorry about that.”
She raised her eyebrows, then gave him a friendly punch to the shoulder. “Fine then,” she said quietly. “Go get presentable, I’m prepared to entertain you all day.”
He could feel it coming. He could feel it in the air between them even as they went sight seeing, even while they stopped for shaved ice, even while they leaned over the railing of the pedestrian bridge and stared down at the water.
“Al, are you all right?”
He knew that question. That question was the only reason she had asked him here. Because no matter how many times he answered it, no matter how many people he told ‘I’m fine,’ it would only come again and again. And he was sick of it.
Her voice was soft when she asked it, not her usual loud, abrasive tone but something quieter, more still. She was leaning over the railing swinging her horrible green purse over the water, and when she turned her head to look up at him her green hat slid down over one ear.
It slid a little further and dropped off her head, into his outstretched palm waiting to catch it before it tumbled down into the Main. “I’m fine,” he said neutrally, keeping ahold of her awful little hat and watching her ruffle her now-short dark hair.
“You’re not fine,” she said insistently, making no move to retrieve her hat.
He stood up from leaning over the rail, flinging his hands out to his sides. “What do you want me to say? You of all people? How ‘fine’ am I supposed to be?”
“You’re not,” she said quickly, her voice dripping with understanding that made him seethe. “You can’t be, you won’t ever be, you-“
“You don’t understand any of this!” he cried. He wasn’t yelling, he hardly ever yelled and he wasn’t angry with her. He was just frustrated with the constant attempts to comfort him coming from everywhere he turned.
“But Al, I do understand, of course I understand-“ she said, clutching his arm.
“No you don’t,” he insisted darkly, flopping back down over the railing. “Just let me get over this on my own, okay? Can’t we just enjoy these couple days together with out you picking me to pieces?”
“You’re not going to get over this,” she said softly, not looking at him, looking down at the brown water.
He turned his head sideways, his pale hair flopping down over his eyes, her stupid hat twisting in his hands.
“Steph,” he said slowly. “Just stop. You don’t even know what it is I’m trying to get over.”
She continued to look at him steadily, sympathy and empathy rising up in her eyes.
“I miss my brother,” he said then, and tried not to cringe when she wrapped her arms around him.
Don’t you see it? he thought at she pressed his head into her shoulder. Don’t you see the true problem here?
If his brother had been around, if his brother hadn’t run off to London years ago, he wouldn’t have been drawn to Edward Elric in the first place, he wouldn’t have needed him because he would have had his own Ed.
She let go of him, holding him at arms length and studying him hard for a moment as if she was about to say something else but thinking better of it. “We’re going to the pub tonight,” she said instead, grabbing her hat back and turning around, leaning back on the railing and watching the pedestrians pass. “You’re going to meet my friends.”
The evening had been somewhat of a blur to him. He hadn’t been drinking in a long while, not since before the crash, and he could swear the first sip of his beer went directly to his head. He sat back in the corner, watching his drink carefully as if it was the most important thing in the room. There was a man there, several years older than himself, who paid a particular amount of attention to his cousin, and he suddenly understood her attitude. Of course she was convinced that everyone can get over the loss of a loved one and move on.
He had never seen her cry over her fiancé. He had seen her cry over a scraped knee, but they had been kids then. All he knew was what her mother had told his mother, that she had locked herself in her room for nearly a week, and when she emerged she refused to talk about his death. It wasn’t until years later that she would even mention him, but she never took off the ring he gave her.
Now Alphonse couldn’t recall whether she was still wearing it, he hadn’t noticed because he hadn’t thought to look. The bar had a small dance floor and he could see them together, moving to the slow song and looking into each other’s eyes. No wonder she was convinced he should be able to move on. But it had taken her more than a decade. His cousin was almost thirty, he realized with a start.
“What are you thinking about?” inquired another one of her friends, another man, and he shrugged.
“Time,” he answered quietly, lifting the glass and finishing it off.
“Buy you another?” the man offered, his eyes twinkling, and before Al could react another beer was in front of him.
His balance may have been shaky and his vision blurry, due to alcohol or depression or just plain thinking too much, but he felt like his perception was amazingly clear. He watched the man who had bought him the drink, he watched his cousin with her friend or her boyfriend or whoever he was, he forgot everyone’s name but he understood one thing. His cousin had invited this friend for him.
She knew Edward had been his lover. And she was trying to replace him.
He slammed his drink down on the table and his cousin and her friends looked at him, startled. “Just because you’ve convinced yourself it’s okay for you,” he said angrily, “doesn’t mean everyone is the same. I’m not like you. I still love him!”
She gaped at him, her eyes wide with shock and concern, and he pushed his chair aside and sent it tumbling as he stood up. He didn’t know if she understood what he meant; he wasn’t even sure himself of what he meant half the time.
“Alphonse,” she called after him, but he was storming unsteadily through the crowded bar and out the door.
He paced the sidewalk back and forth, squeezing his eyes shut against the tears. He could have been out drinking with Ed. They could have been celebrating something, or they could be avoiding working on something, or they could be just stopping by to see old friends. It would be Ed who was the melancholy one, Ed who thought too much and stared into his drink with such a miserable expression that Al had to do something silly to cheer him up, like pretending to fall out of his chair.
He swiped angrily at he wetness on his face. He was crying again? Again? When was it going to stop? When was everything he saw and did going to stop reminding him of Ed?
When he blinked to clear his eyes he saw his cousin in front of him reaching into her purse and withdrawing a slim cigarette, lifting it lightly to her lips and closing her eyes as she lit it and inhaled.
“You smoke now?” he asked, his voice catching.
She nodded, exhaling a perfect ring.
He held his hand out. “Give me one too.”
She raised her eyebrows. “You don’t smoke,” she said, frowning.
“I did in college,” he said vaguely, and she shrugged, handing him her fancy lighter along with the cigarette.
He fumbled with lighting it for a moment, wondering how he managed to get so drunk, and then squeezed his eyes shut as his lungs screamed at being burned. He doubled over coughing, turning away from her, embarrassed suddenly at his stupidity.
“Alphonse!” she cried, rubbing circles on his back as if it would help him to get a good breath in. After a minute of struggling and wheezing he managed a clear breath before taking another drag.
Stephanie snatched her cigarette back from his lips, grinding it out against the brick wall of the pub. “What is the matter with you?” she demanded angrily, stomping her foot and glaring at him. “Are you trying to kill yourself?”
“What is the matter with you?” he countered angrily. “Why’d you even ask me here, just to set me up with your friend, that guy?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Just because you’ve met some one… look, I’m really happy for you and all, but I-“ Alphonse coughed violently again, falling silent for another moment before continuing. “Look, it’s really great that you got over your loss and all that, but I-“
“Al, it’s not like that, I didn’t, that’s not how it works, god, why do you think I asked you here? You seriously think I’m trying to manipulate you in some way? Introduce you to someone who’s… like you, so you can forget about Ed?” She inhaled from her cigarette sharply, letting the smoke drift out with her next sentence. “How can you think I’d be that sick?”
“Go back inside,” he said quietly. “Have fun with your friends. Go dance with that guy of yours. I’m sorry I ruined your evening. I’m going back.”
“Back to Munich?” she asked incredulously.
“No, back to your house,” he said, holding out his hand. “I want the key.”
She dug in her purse for a minute, looking up before she located it. “Al, just come back inside, or we’ll both go back, or we’ll go somewhere else-“
“No, forget it. Your friends are waiting. We’ll try again tomorrow.”
She placed the key in his palm, sighing. “Don’t lock me out,” she warned him.
“I won’t. I won’t sleep tonight.”
“You should,” she said reproachfully.
“Yeah but it wont happen.”
“Don’t make too much noise when you go inside-“
“I won’t.”
He was fairly certain he knew the way back to her house, but he had forgotten how intoxicated he was feeling and soon had no idea where he was. He wandered the lamp-lit sidewalks trying to search for landmarks but getting lost in thought each time he tried. It wasn’t late, he reasoned. He could wonder for hours before the bars started closing and the streets became crowded again.
Ahead he could see a man in a suit on the street corner stopping each passerby with a question. Al watched each person shake their head and continue on, and guessed that the man might be selling something.
“Excuse me,” the man said to him. “I’m looking for volunteers for an experiment we’re conducting,” he began.”
“No thanks,” Al mumbled, but the man continued.
“There is a woman in my library who claims she can speak to the dead. She is holding a séance tonight and we’ll be recording it. We’re looking for volunteers off the street to ensure that this isn’t just a scam of hers, although all evidence points otherwise…” The man’s explanation trailed off. “Sir? Are you interested?”
Alphonse was looking at the name of the street corner he was on, recalling something he had been told years ago. “The woman,” he said slowly. “Is her name Gemma Heinricks?”
The man seemed disappointed. “You know her then?” He shook his head. “I can’t use you, you have to be a complete stranger. Thanks for your time. Sir!” he called to the next passerby.
“Wait!” Al said before he knew what he was doing. “I don’t know her, I read about her in the newspaper, in Munich, that’s all. I remember the article saying she claimed she could cross between worlds, or something like that?” He suddenly felt dizzy and faltered a bit on his feet.
“Sir, have you been drinking?”
“I’ve got to see her, please, it’s important!” Al pleaded, and the man sighed.
“Follow me then.”
Al had lied when he said there was an article about Gemma Heinricks in the Munich paper, and he marveled at how easily the lie had come. As far as he knew, there had been no article. There had been a report published in an obscure occult journal and Ed had read it to him. Al dismissed it as nonsense but Ed had gone traipsing off to Frankfort with his father’s encouragement. Both Ed and his father had collected all kinds of information of the supernatural.
Ed had returned from Frankfort entirely dejected. Whatever he thought he might find from the woman hadn’t worked out for him. Al hadn’t been surprised; he had thought it all nonsense from the beginning, the traveling between worlds. That was before he knew.
He told himself it was impossible to speak to those who had passed away and that’s not why he was following this man. There was nothing that this woman could know about passing between worlds, or Ed would have never have returned from Frankfort. But he followed him anyway, if only for a chance to speak to the woman who had met Ed so many years ago, if she even remembered him.
Gemma Heinricks was a plain looking young woman with pale, straight hair hanging around her face. She sat at a round mahogany table with her hands folded and her eyes closed. The room held such a hushed air that Al dared not speak to her. There were several others sitting at the table, and Al joined them, taking one of the empty chairs.
“Does she need to know who I want to talk to?” one of the other people asked, and the man in the suit shook his head. There were other people in the corners of the room, in front of the bookshelves setting up cameras.
Gemma opened her eyes and looked directly at Al. “Why are you here?” she asked him, and he felt a chill up and down his spine.
“You met my brother once,” he said before thinking. He didn’t even realize what he said.
She nodded. “Edward.”
The man in the suit was shaking his head. “This won’t do, get him out of here. She knows him. We need these people to be complete strangers.”
Gemma was continuing to stare at him. “Let him stay, Franz,” she said softly. “He wants to be here.”
Soon the cameras were rolling and they were holding hands around the table. Al’s heart was pounding as he felt the temperature in the room drop, and a part of him took the moment to laugh at himself, a scientist, desperate enough to sit in on a séance. It’s not because I believe she can talk to the dead, he told himself. It’s just that Ed met her once, that’s all.
She began to speak in a deep, booming voice, and he would have thought it comical if the woman to her left hadn’t started crying. This is terrible, he thought to himself then. This country has been through a war, everyone has lost someone, this woman is just trying to turn a profit,
But no one here was asked for any money.
Al tried hard not to pay attention to the people around the table who cried out when they heard the voices of their “loved ones,” feeling like he was going along with a spectacular trick being played at their expense. It was impossible. It was completely impossible. He just wanted a moment to speak to the woman, after all this was over. After these people have left.
Even though he had been instructed to close his eyes, he let them slit open, staring down at the mahogany table listening to the voices around him.
“Alphonse!”
His head snapped up out of habit and he blinked in confusion.
Had he fallen asleep?
He had been drunk, surely, but not terribly tired. It wasn’t even late.
But he had to be dreaming.
“Alphonse, the General is waiting for your report.”
A man in a blue uniform was gesturing towards a door, looking at him expectantly, and Al stood up as if out of instinct alone. “I’m dreaming,” he said out loud, but his voice didn’t have that weird echo of a dream. But this had to be a dream.
He opened the door to see another man in a blue uniform sitting behind a desk. He looked up when he heard the door open and sat back in his chair. The man raised one eyebrow. The other was hidden behind a large patch. “Well?” he asked after a minute of silence. “Your report?”
“Report?” Alphonse echoed.
“You did go to Bethan?”
“Bethan?”
The man frowned, standing up. “Alphonse, are you all right?”
“I’m fine, I’m just dreaming,” he said, squinting, trying to figure this out. There was something about this man… why would he be dreaming about him? Why did he look so familiar?
The man had a hand on either side of his face, turning his head from side to side and looking hard into his eyes. “Alphonse,” he said sharply. “What’s the matter? What’s wrong?”
“It’s you!” Al breathed, recognizing him at last. “Ed’s… you were Ed’s…”
The man’s frown deepened. “You’re not making sense. What about your brother? Did something happen?”
“No,” Al said, desperately trying to get control over this dream. “Ed is my brother.”
He expected to wake up then, he had his grand revelation, he had had it many times over in fact, it was the stuff of his nightmares. Now it was time for him to wake up.
If You Leave, Don't Look Back...
Part Two
Alphonse pinched himself, hard, just under his ribs, and nearly yelped out loud. He blinked, several times, stretching his eyes open wider each time and had to resist the urge to jump up and down and yell, “I wanna wake up, I wanna wake up!”
Because it wouldn’t have worked even if he had done it. Because he wasn’t sleeping. Which would mean he wasn’t dreaming. He put a hand to his head, half expecting to find what he did there: a ponytail of long hair trailing over his back. Looking down, he saw that he wore a blue uniform; the very same uniform the others around him were wearing.
As the pieces began to slide into place he let the full realization wash over him as to who the man with the eye patch was: he didn’t know his name or his rank or what his relationship with him was supposed to be, but he knew this was someone Ed had, at least at one time, harbored strong feelings for.
Strong enough feelings to get involved with this man’s double while he was stranded in Munich. Mr. Hassan, that had been the man’s name. Ed would disappear late at night, only to return intoxicated and miserable and talking nonsense, and it was all because of Mr. Hassan. Mr. Hassan was the reason Alphonse had ever let himself feel anything for Ed. Mr. Hassan was the reason Alphonse even considered that Edward was like him; that Edward also liked men. Because Ed was having an affair with Mr. Hassan.
And here he was. Not the copy in Munich (since when had the populace of Munich become mere copies of the people that inhabited Ed’s own world?) but the real man. The one who may possibly have deserved Ed’s misplaced affections.
“Alphonse,” the man said sharply. “Lieutenant Elric. Is everything all right?” His voice became a shade more gentle. “Are you okay?”
Alphonse opened his mouth and closed it again without speaking. Edward’s brother was a Lieutenant in the military. A military alchemist, that was what he had said, wasn’t it? He jumped when the phone on the man’s desk rang.
“Mustang,” said the man as he picked up the receiver. He listened for a moment and then began barking orders into the phone, commands that made no sense to Alphonse even as he listened carefully. When he slammed the phone down he looked Al in the eye and said, “There’s a situation. If you are unwell, you need to tell me now. Otherwise I need you to gather the rest of the unit. The president’s been shot and may have been killed. We need to lock down all of Central. Alphonse? Do you understand me?” The man, Mustang, stood up, coming around from behind the desk and took him by the shoulders. “Whatever’s going on between you and your brother you need to put it aside, you have a job to do!”
Information was swirling around his head faster than he could keep track of. He was unable to make heads or tails of his surroundings let alone fall into the role of Ed’s younger brother. He felt himself struggling even to keep consciousness, and let himself decide it may be better not to, hoping he didn’t hit his head too hard as his vision began to blur and he felt his knees give way beneath him.
He was silent as the military doctor had examined him, watching his body nearly as closely as the doctor himself did. He had seen himself in the mirror. He was Ed’s brother: dark gold hair and bronze eyes, but his own face, or a younger version of it. A face without lines, but a face with plenty of sorrow.
Now he sat in the military hospital, apparently forgotten by the doctor, watching patient after patient being brought past him. Had there been some kind of disaster? He sat by the nurses station, having been asked to vacate the exam room hours ago, and listened to the radio broadcast that he barely understood. It was like trying to read a book in a language that shared all the same letters but none of the same words.
The country’s leader had been assassinated and the city was rioting. That was why there were so many injured coming in to the hospital. The debate was over whether or not the crime had been internal. Because according to the broadcast, as far as Al could understand, another country’s government may have paid some unhappy citizen to commit the assassination. Which would mean he had appeared in a country about to go to war.
He fell asleep twice, for less than an hour, sitting outside the nurse’s station watching the injured come in and out. Nearly twenty hours went by before someone came after him, and it was the same man he had seen when he first appeared in this world. The man who looked like Edward’s Mr. Hassan. Mustang.
He burst into the military hospital, loud and demanding, surprisingly gentle as he pulled him to his feet but ordering the nurses to find him the doctor who had treated him. “Alphonse,” he said, his voice sharp, serious, and low. “Are you all right? What happened back there?”
“I-I’m fine,” he forced himself to say, but he could tell the man didn’t believe him, even after the doctor confirmed it.
“I trust you heard what happened?” man asked him, looking at him skeptically, watching how he would react.
“The president…” he began haltingly.
“The police have the suspect in custody. It looks like he may have been hired by the Drachmen- Alphonse!” he snapped suddenly. “What ever it is, put it aside! We’re in a state of national emergency, why have you been sitting in here all this time anyway? Why did you not report back to me?”
It was just like the dream. He had the chance to ask for Ed but his dream self could never get the words out in time. Strange as the situation was, this was not a dream and he was not his dream self. He could say whatever he wanted, he had no dream-restrictions on him. And Edward was really here, somewhere, in this world. He took a deep breath. “Where’s Edward?”
Mustang stared at him, hard, that single black eye piercing him, sharp as his voice, sharp as his grip when he grabbed him by the arm and dragged him out of the military hospital. “I need you in my office. We need to speak in private.”
They looked, Alphonse was sure, like two military officials walking briskly side by side, but there was no doubt in his mind. This man had a grip on him that belied his suspicions, and Alphonse wondered what the man would say if he told him the truth, that he wasn’t Alphonse Elric, he was Alphonse Heiderich, Ed’s lover from another universe. Because, he realized as he was marched through the military building up to the offices, this man, whoever he was, knew Ed’s brother well enough to know that even though he looked exactly like him, even though this was his very body, he wasn’t who he was supposed to be.
Mustang shut the door with a soft click and showed him one gloved hand. The gloves were strange, with red line designs on their backs, designs like the ones the Elrics had scribbled furiously over their research. “Envy,” he said slowly, quietly, as if to himself. Then he addressed Alphonse. “Did you know I killed one of your kind already?” He touched the patch over his eye. “It cost me,” he said, “but it was possible. Homunculi can be killed.”
Alphonse swallowed. “Envy?” he repeated.
“You’re a shape shifter. Just like him. You’ve got Al’s form perfectly, I can’t fault you there, but you didn’t do your research before hand,” he said, and his tone was menacing.
Alphonse swallowed again. Reality was even more frightening than his dreams. “I’m not Alphonse!” he blurted out. This place that was Edward’s home was dangerous with its strange alchemy and now its war, and its military and this man who looked like Mr. Hassan. “I mean,” he stumbled quickly, afraid to lie, “I am Alphonse, but I’m not your Alphonse.”
The man pressed his thumb and middle finger together, as if he were about to snap, and the motion filled Alphonse with dread, although he could find nothing frightening about the snapping of fingers. “Who sent you here? What did you do to Al?”
“I don’t know how I got here. And Al, I am Al, I’m in his body. I’m not some creature taking his form!” he said desperately. “Please, I just need to find Ed!”
Things Ed had told him about the other side of the gate were filtering through Roy’s mind. Everyone had a double on the other side. Ed even mentioned running into Roy’s own double. And Ed said he found himself in the body of his own double the first time he crossed the gate. Still, Roy remained suspicious. “Everyone wants to find Ed,” he said shortly, dismissing Al’s request. “It’s never been the easiest thing to accomplish. This city is rioting, I’ve got all my men on crowd control as we speak. I couldn’t contact Ed if I wanted to, even if I knew where he was.”
“You don’t know where he is?” Alphonse said, the sentence rushing out of him without enough air to carry it, his hopes sinking into the floor through the soles of his boots.
He felt like he was falling, falling through layers and layers of air, with the words “What have you done to Alphonse?” echoing after him.
It was over. His chance to seize his dreams and turn them to reality was over. He failed.
When Alphonse woke he was lying on an uncomfortable couch covered in a scratchy blanket. Even as he opened his eyes his heart was racing, and his mind struggled to recall where he was and what had happened. He sat bolt upright, faster than he had meant to, and felt the room begin to spin.
What room was he in anyway?
It was a library; the walls were lined with books, and he recognized it slowly. Gemma. Gemma something. Gemma Heinrick, the psychic. “I was right, it was a dream,” he said out loud, not really meaning to. Because of course it had to be a dream.
The woman, the psychic, Gemma, was in the room with him and hurried to his side when she realized he was awake. “Are you all right?” she asked him, her voice tinged with concern.
“I’m sorry,” he mumbled. “I’ve been drinking and… I fell asleep. I’m sorry, I ruined your-“ he looked around for the rest of the people, for the men with the cameras, for the man in the suit, but they were all gone.
She was holding a steaming cup of tea, and pressed it into his hand, saying, “Drink this.”
To late he thought of strange gypsy women giving mysterious brews to men, but it tasted like ordinary scalding hot tea, even like the cheap kind he and Ed always kept around.
“I’m sorry,” she said softly. “You’re looking for something, but it’s not something I can help you find. Your brother has not passed on, I could not hear his spirit.”
“I-my brother- I meant, you never met my brother. You met my friend, Ed-“
She smiled at him, and he felt like he wanted to scream. Why should she possibly be smiling at him? Was she reading his mind? Was he thinking anything he didn’t want her to know? “You know Edward is alive,” she said sweetly. “Your brother isn’t dead. Isn’t that enough?”
Alphonse stood angrily, flinging the blanket off of himself and not feeling dizzy or intoxicated in the least. “You don’t know what you’re saying,” he said harshly, eager suddenly to get away from her. “I’ll show myself out,” he added, making his way to the door.
Once outside he saw that it was the grey light of pre-dawn, and that he had been inside for hours. He recognized where he was immediately, and knew at once how to get back to his cousin’s house. He felt for her key in his pocket and smacked his forehead with his palm: he had locked her out! He walked hurriedly through the empty streets, not thinking once about the dream he had been having less than a half hour before.
It had been stupid to get so drunk in a city he wasn’t familiar with; it had been stupid to chase after ghosts in the first place. Here he was in Frankfort, invited, he was sure, to settle his cousin’s worries about him, and he had gotten drunk and angry and disappeared on her!
When he arrived at her house the door was cracked open, and he could hear her voice inside. “Stephanie?” he called, and she came rushing towards him, flinging her arms around him.
“What happened? Are you all right? Are you hurt? Were you kidnapped? Alphonse, I’m so sorry, I shouldn’t have left you go off like that alone, I-“
“It’s all right, I’m sorry, I was being an asshole. I’m sorry I took your key and then didn’t come back,” he told her. He saw that her eyes were wet with tears, and felt his heart sink even further into his stomach.
“Whatever I did that made you angry, Al, I’m sorry. I’m sorry I keep trying to make you talk about Ed-“
“Shh,” he said quietly. “I don’t really want to talk about Ed anymore.”
Chapter Nine: I'll Be Running the Other Way
Note3: You can definitely believe that Al's "dream" will be, if not explained, elaborated on in Ch. 9, in which we will return to the real story in Amestris
Chapter: Zwischenziet IV: If You Leave, Don't Look Back
Previous: 1, I, 2, 3, II, 4, 4.5, 5, 6, III, 7, 8
Genre: Drama/Romance
Rating: PG-13 for language
Spoilers: for the entire series.
Summary: After six years, the brothers are finally reunited, but will Ed be able to adjust to a world that has long since moved on without him? This is an AU that ignores the movie. Pairings for now are an Ed/Win Al/Win triangle of sorts, with some implied Ed/Hei on the side
Chapter Summary:Hei's cousin tries to bring him out of his miserable Hei-ness.
Note1: This chapter was originally posted in two parts.
Note2: This chapter contains an OC, Heiderich's cousin Stephanie. She really only appears in this fic in this one chapter. She was first introduced in the companion fic "Twelve Days" in Nine Ladies Dancing. She's very minor.
If you leave, don't look back...
Part One
Dear Alphonse,
When I heard you were hurt you have no idea how worried I was; fortunately by the time your mother was able to give me the news you were already well again but it frightened me all the same. It’s been entirely too long since we’ve seen each other and I’m so sorry to hear about the death of your friend; I know how difficult it is to lose someone you love. It can take a life time to get used to the feeling of being alone. Unfortunately I wont be able to make it to Hirligen for the holidays this year because I have been planning a trip to Greece with some friends from my University days, but I’d hate to miss seeing you.
Is there any way you’d be able to visit me here in Frankfort? Or should I find a time to visit you? I just hate that the older we get the less we see each other; after all, you were always my favorite cousin and it was too long without seeing one another even before you were hurt.
Hopefully seeing you soon,
Your cousin Stephanie
It was no trouble getting the time off of work. As excited as the team of scientists had been to get Alphonse back in the lab, he hadn’t been much more than a disappointment. His mind was just as brilliant as ever, but the drive was gone. His ambition was a mere shadow of what the lab was like when he and Ed headed up their own project. Now that spark that meant the shining search for knowledge only showed up when Al was talking about ancient theories, occult sciences, old and disproved research and what the other scientists could only dismiss as “crazy talk.”
Other dimensions?
Alchemy?
Using souls as energy?
It wasn’t a matter of intelligence, they all agreed. Yes, it was a frightening head injury their colleague had sustained, but it didn’t affect his intelligence. It was worse than that.
It was his perception of reality.
The train compartment was hot and stuffy and it was cramped; he had been unable to find a car with even one extra seat and he balanced his research on his knees, scribbling furiously, not caring that he looked the part of a mad man to the other travelers. When he finally arrived in Frankfort he was pale, his light hair untidy and his shirt collar undone. He exited the train with his papers still clutched in his fist and scanned the platform for the familiar figure of his tall, loud cousin.
He laughed out loud when he saw her. She wore a ridiculously tiny green hat and carried an equally ridiculous green purse, and she stood by the wall in front of the train schedules jumping and waving her hand in the air. “Alphonse,” she greeted him, smiling, placing a hand on either side of his face. “I’d hug you but you need a shower,” she said bluntly.
He smiled back at her and shrugged. “I can’t argue with you, that train was like an oven.” Before they could exchange their usual banter she had hailed a cab and was pushing him gently towards it, and he gallantly opened the door for her.
“Ah, such a gentleman!” she said playfully, and leaned forward to give directions to the driver.
“You cut your hair off,” he said, noticing it for the first time.
She ran a hand over the back of her neck, grinning. “American fashion,” she told him. “Soon everyone will be doing it.”
Al merely raised his eyebrows.
Stephanie rolled her eyes dramatically. “Really, you should stop holding it against the Americans just because they launched the first rocket.” She wasn’t prepared for the harsh glare she received; she had been trying to joke with him. “Al, relax, I’m just teasing you,” she said, trying to make her voice soothing and less alarmed than she felt. “You aren’t really angry, come on!”
“Forget it,” he mumbled.
They didn’t speak much for the duration of the cab ride, and he followed her silently up the stairs to her home. “Dad’s sleeping,” she told him quietly as she unlocked the door. “All he does these days,” she added. “I doubt he even remembers you, but you can say hi if you want.”
Alphonse just shrugged in response.
She flung a door open to the right of the stairs. “Here, you’ve got Berdy’s room, lord knows he wont be sleeping here again.”
“Thanks,” he mumbled in response, setting his suitcase inside the door.
“Hey,” she said softly, grabbing his arm above the elbow. “I didn’t make you mad, did I? Al?”
He gave a heavy sigh, and turned to face her. “No,” he said finally. “I’m just being an ass. Sorry about that.”
She raised her eyebrows, then gave him a friendly punch to the shoulder. “Fine then,” she said quietly. “Go get presentable, I’m prepared to entertain you all day.”
He could feel it coming. He could feel it in the air between them even as they went sight seeing, even while they stopped for shaved ice, even while they leaned over the railing of the pedestrian bridge and stared down at the water.
“Al, are you all right?”
He knew that question. That question was the only reason she had asked him here. Because no matter how many times he answered it, no matter how many people he told ‘I’m fine,’ it would only come again and again. And he was sick of it.
Her voice was soft when she asked it, not her usual loud, abrasive tone but something quieter, more still. She was leaning over the railing swinging her horrible green purse over the water, and when she turned her head to look up at him her green hat slid down over one ear.
It slid a little further and dropped off her head, into his outstretched palm waiting to catch it before it tumbled down into the Main. “I’m fine,” he said neutrally, keeping ahold of her awful little hat and watching her ruffle her now-short dark hair.
“You’re not fine,” she said insistently, making no move to retrieve her hat.
He stood up from leaning over the rail, flinging his hands out to his sides. “What do you want me to say? You of all people? How ‘fine’ am I supposed to be?”
“You’re not,” she said quickly, her voice dripping with understanding that made him seethe. “You can’t be, you won’t ever be, you-“
“You don’t understand any of this!” he cried. He wasn’t yelling, he hardly ever yelled and he wasn’t angry with her. He was just frustrated with the constant attempts to comfort him coming from everywhere he turned.
“But Al, I do understand, of course I understand-“ she said, clutching his arm.
“No you don’t,” he insisted darkly, flopping back down over the railing. “Just let me get over this on my own, okay? Can’t we just enjoy these couple days together with out you picking me to pieces?”
“You’re not going to get over this,” she said softly, not looking at him, looking down at the brown water.
He turned his head sideways, his pale hair flopping down over his eyes, her stupid hat twisting in his hands.
“Steph,” he said slowly. “Just stop. You don’t even know what it is I’m trying to get over.”
She continued to look at him steadily, sympathy and empathy rising up in her eyes.
“I miss my brother,” he said then, and tried not to cringe when she wrapped her arms around him.
Don’t you see it? he thought at she pressed his head into her shoulder. Don’t you see the true problem here?
If his brother had been around, if his brother hadn’t run off to London years ago, he wouldn’t have been drawn to Edward Elric in the first place, he wouldn’t have needed him because he would have had his own Ed.
She let go of him, holding him at arms length and studying him hard for a moment as if she was about to say something else but thinking better of it. “We’re going to the pub tonight,” she said instead, grabbing her hat back and turning around, leaning back on the railing and watching the pedestrians pass. “You’re going to meet my friends.”
The evening had been somewhat of a blur to him. He hadn’t been drinking in a long while, not since before the crash, and he could swear the first sip of his beer went directly to his head. He sat back in the corner, watching his drink carefully as if it was the most important thing in the room. There was a man there, several years older than himself, who paid a particular amount of attention to his cousin, and he suddenly understood her attitude. Of course she was convinced that everyone can get over the loss of a loved one and move on.
He had never seen her cry over her fiancé. He had seen her cry over a scraped knee, but they had been kids then. All he knew was what her mother had told his mother, that she had locked herself in her room for nearly a week, and when she emerged she refused to talk about his death. It wasn’t until years later that she would even mention him, but she never took off the ring he gave her.
Now Alphonse couldn’t recall whether she was still wearing it, he hadn’t noticed because he hadn’t thought to look. The bar had a small dance floor and he could see them together, moving to the slow song and looking into each other’s eyes. No wonder she was convinced he should be able to move on. But it had taken her more than a decade. His cousin was almost thirty, he realized with a start.
“What are you thinking about?” inquired another one of her friends, another man, and he shrugged.
“Time,” he answered quietly, lifting the glass and finishing it off.
“Buy you another?” the man offered, his eyes twinkling, and before Al could react another beer was in front of him.
His balance may have been shaky and his vision blurry, due to alcohol or depression or just plain thinking too much, but he felt like his perception was amazingly clear. He watched the man who had bought him the drink, he watched his cousin with her friend or her boyfriend or whoever he was, he forgot everyone’s name but he understood one thing. His cousin had invited this friend for him.
She knew Edward had been his lover. And she was trying to replace him.
He slammed his drink down on the table and his cousin and her friends looked at him, startled. “Just because you’ve convinced yourself it’s okay for you,” he said angrily, “doesn’t mean everyone is the same. I’m not like you. I still love him!”
She gaped at him, her eyes wide with shock and concern, and he pushed his chair aside and sent it tumbling as he stood up. He didn’t know if she understood what he meant; he wasn’t even sure himself of what he meant half the time.
“Alphonse,” she called after him, but he was storming unsteadily through the crowded bar and out the door.
He paced the sidewalk back and forth, squeezing his eyes shut against the tears. He could have been out drinking with Ed. They could have been celebrating something, or they could be avoiding working on something, or they could be just stopping by to see old friends. It would be Ed who was the melancholy one, Ed who thought too much and stared into his drink with such a miserable expression that Al had to do something silly to cheer him up, like pretending to fall out of his chair.
He swiped angrily at he wetness on his face. He was crying again? Again? When was it going to stop? When was everything he saw and did going to stop reminding him of Ed?
When he blinked to clear his eyes he saw his cousin in front of him reaching into her purse and withdrawing a slim cigarette, lifting it lightly to her lips and closing her eyes as she lit it and inhaled.
“You smoke now?” he asked, his voice catching.
She nodded, exhaling a perfect ring.
He held his hand out. “Give me one too.”
She raised her eyebrows. “You don’t smoke,” she said, frowning.
“I did in college,” he said vaguely, and she shrugged, handing him her fancy lighter along with the cigarette.
He fumbled with lighting it for a moment, wondering how he managed to get so drunk, and then squeezed his eyes shut as his lungs screamed at being burned. He doubled over coughing, turning away from her, embarrassed suddenly at his stupidity.
“Alphonse!” she cried, rubbing circles on his back as if it would help him to get a good breath in. After a minute of struggling and wheezing he managed a clear breath before taking another drag.
Stephanie snatched her cigarette back from his lips, grinding it out against the brick wall of the pub. “What is the matter with you?” she demanded angrily, stomping her foot and glaring at him. “Are you trying to kill yourself?”
“What is the matter with you?” he countered angrily. “Why’d you even ask me here, just to set me up with your friend, that guy?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Just because you’ve met some one… look, I’m really happy for you and all, but I-“ Alphonse coughed violently again, falling silent for another moment before continuing. “Look, it’s really great that you got over your loss and all that, but I-“
“Al, it’s not like that, I didn’t, that’s not how it works, god, why do you think I asked you here? You seriously think I’m trying to manipulate you in some way? Introduce you to someone who’s… like you, so you can forget about Ed?” She inhaled from her cigarette sharply, letting the smoke drift out with her next sentence. “How can you think I’d be that sick?”
“Go back inside,” he said quietly. “Have fun with your friends. Go dance with that guy of yours. I’m sorry I ruined your evening. I’m going back.”
“Back to Munich?” she asked incredulously.
“No, back to your house,” he said, holding out his hand. “I want the key.”
She dug in her purse for a minute, looking up before she located it. “Al, just come back inside, or we’ll both go back, or we’ll go somewhere else-“
“No, forget it. Your friends are waiting. We’ll try again tomorrow.”
She placed the key in his palm, sighing. “Don’t lock me out,” she warned him.
“I won’t. I won’t sleep tonight.”
“You should,” she said reproachfully.
“Yeah but it wont happen.”
“Don’t make too much noise when you go inside-“
“I won’t.”
He was fairly certain he knew the way back to her house, but he had forgotten how intoxicated he was feeling and soon had no idea where he was. He wandered the lamp-lit sidewalks trying to search for landmarks but getting lost in thought each time he tried. It wasn’t late, he reasoned. He could wonder for hours before the bars started closing and the streets became crowded again.
Ahead he could see a man in a suit on the street corner stopping each passerby with a question. Al watched each person shake their head and continue on, and guessed that the man might be selling something.
“Excuse me,” the man said to him. “I’m looking for volunteers for an experiment we’re conducting,” he began.”
“No thanks,” Al mumbled, but the man continued.
“There is a woman in my library who claims she can speak to the dead. She is holding a séance tonight and we’ll be recording it. We’re looking for volunteers off the street to ensure that this isn’t just a scam of hers, although all evidence points otherwise…” The man’s explanation trailed off. “Sir? Are you interested?”
Alphonse was looking at the name of the street corner he was on, recalling something he had been told years ago. “The woman,” he said slowly. “Is her name Gemma Heinricks?”
The man seemed disappointed. “You know her then?” He shook his head. “I can’t use you, you have to be a complete stranger. Thanks for your time. Sir!” he called to the next passerby.
“Wait!” Al said before he knew what he was doing. “I don’t know her, I read about her in the newspaper, in Munich, that’s all. I remember the article saying she claimed she could cross between worlds, or something like that?” He suddenly felt dizzy and faltered a bit on his feet.
“Sir, have you been drinking?”
“I’ve got to see her, please, it’s important!” Al pleaded, and the man sighed.
“Follow me then.”
Al had lied when he said there was an article about Gemma Heinricks in the Munich paper, and he marveled at how easily the lie had come. As far as he knew, there had been no article. There had been a report published in an obscure occult journal and Ed had read it to him. Al dismissed it as nonsense but Ed had gone traipsing off to Frankfort with his father’s encouragement. Both Ed and his father had collected all kinds of information of the supernatural.
Ed had returned from Frankfort entirely dejected. Whatever he thought he might find from the woman hadn’t worked out for him. Al hadn’t been surprised; he had thought it all nonsense from the beginning, the traveling between worlds. That was before he knew.
He told himself it was impossible to speak to those who had passed away and that’s not why he was following this man. There was nothing that this woman could know about passing between worlds, or Ed would have never have returned from Frankfort. But he followed him anyway, if only for a chance to speak to the woman who had met Ed so many years ago, if she even remembered him.
Gemma Heinricks was a plain looking young woman with pale, straight hair hanging around her face. She sat at a round mahogany table with her hands folded and her eyes closed. The room held such a hushed air that Al dared not speak to her. There were several others sitting at the table, and Al joined them, taking one of the empty chairs.
“Does she need to know who I want to talk to?” one of the other people asked, and the man in the suit shook his head. There were other people in the corners of the room, in front of the bookshelves setting up cameras.
Gemma opened her eyes and looked directly at Al. “Why are you here?” she asked him, and he felt a chill up and down his spine.
“You met my brother once,” he said before thinking. He didn’t even realize what he said.
She nodded. “Edward.”
The man in the suit was shaking his head. “This won’t do, get him out of here. She knows him. We need these people to be complete strangers.”
Gemma was continuing to stare at him. “Let him stay, Franz,” she said softly. “He wants to be here.”
Soon the cameras were rolling and they were holding hands around the table. Al’s heart was pounding as he felt the temperature in the room drop, and a part of him took the moment to laugh at himself, a scientist, desperate enough to sit in on a séance. It’s not because I believe she can talk to the dead, he told himself. It’s just that Ed met her once, that’s all.
She began to speak in a deep, booming voice, and he would have thought it comical if the woman to her left hadn’t started crying. This is terrible, he thought to himself then. This country has been through a war, everyone has lost someone, this woman is just trying to turn a profit,
But no one here was asked for any money.
Al tried hard not to pay attention to the people around the table who cried out when they heard the voices of their “loved ones,” feeling like he was going along with a spectacular trick being played at their expense. It was impossible. It was completely impossible. He just wanted a moment to speak to the woman, after all this was over. After these people have left.
Even though he had been instructed to close his eyes, he let them slit open, staring down at the mahogany table listening to the voices around him.
“Alphonse!”
His head snapped up out of habit and he blinked in confusion.
Had he fallen asleep?
He had been drunk, surely, but not terribly tired. It wasn’t even late.
But he had to be dreaming.
“Alphonse, the General is waiting for your report.”
A man in a blue uniform was gesturing towards a door, looking at him expectantly, and Al stood up as if out of instinct alone. “I’m dreaming,” he said out loud, but his voice didn’t have that weird echo of a dream. But this had to be a dream.
He opened the door to see another man in a blue uniform sitting behind a desk. He looked up when he heard the door open and sat back in his chair. The man raised one eyebrow. The other was hidden behind a large patch. “Well?” he asked after a minute of silence. “Your report?”
“Report?” Alphonse echoed.
“You did go to Bethan?”
“Bethan?”
The man frowned, standing up. “Alphonse, are you all right?”
“I’m fine, I’m just dreaming,” he said, squinting, trying to figure this out. There was something about this man… why would he be dreaming about him? Why did he look so familiar?
The man had a hand on either side of his face, turning his head from side to side and looking hard into his eyes. “Alphonse,” he said sharply. “What’s the matter? What’s wrong?”
“It’s you!” Al breathed, recognizing him at last. “Ed’s… you were Ed’s…”
The man’s frown deepened. “You’re not making sense. What about your brother? Did something happen?”
“No,” Al said, desperately trying to get control over this dream. “Ed is my brother.”
He expected to wake up then, he had his grand revelation, he had had it many times over in fact, it was the stuff of his nightmares. Now it was time for him to wake up.
If You Leave, Don't Look Back...
Part Two
Alphonse pinched himself, hard, just under his ribs, and nearly yelped out loud. He blinked, several times, stretching his eyes open wider each time and had to resist the urge to jump up and down and yell, “I wanna wake up, I wanna wake up!”
Because it wouldn’t have worked even if he had done it. Because he wasn’t sleeping. Which would mean he wasn’t dreaming. He put a hand to his head, half expecting to find what he did there: a ponytail of long hair trailing over his back. Looking down, he saw that he wore a blue uniform; the very same uniform the others around him were wearing.
As the pieces began to slide into place he let the full realization wash over him as to who the man with the eye patch was: he didn’t know his name or his rank or what his relationship with him was supposed to be, but he knew this was someone Ed had, at least at one time, harbored strong feelings for.
Strong enough feelings to get involved with this man’s double while he was stranded in Munich. Mr. Hassan, that had been the man’s name. Ed would disappear late at night, only to return intoxicated and miserable and talking nonsense, and it was all because of Mr. Hassan. Mr. Hassan was the reason Alphonse had ever let himself feel anything for Ed. Mr. Hassan was the reason Alphonse even considered that Edward was like him; that Edward also liked men. Because Ed was having an affair with Mr. Hassan.
And here he was. Not the copy in Munich (since when had the populace of Munich become mere copies of the people that inhabited Ed’s own world?) but the real man. The one who may possibly have deserved Ed’s misplaced affections.
“Alphonse,” the man said sharply. “Lieutenant Elric. Is everything all right?” His voice became a shade more gentle. “Are you okay?”
Alphonse opened his mouth and closed it again without speaking. Edward’s brother was a Lieutenant in the military. A military alchemist, that was what he had said, wasn’t it? He jumped when the phone on the man’s desk rang.
“Mustang,” said the man as he picked up the receiver. He listened for a moment and then began barking orders into the phone, commands that made no sense to Alphonse even as he listened carefully. When he slammed the phone down he looked Al in the eye and said, “There’s a situation. If you are unwell, you need to tell me now. Otherwise I need you to gather the rest of the unit. The president’s been shot and may have been killed. We need to lock down all of Central. Alphonse? Do you understand me?” The man, Mustang, stood up, coming around from behind the desk and took him by the shoulders. “Whatever’s going on between you and your brother you need to put it aside, you have a job to do!”
Information was swirling around his head faster than he could keep track of. He was unable to make heads or tails of his surroundings let alone fall into the role of Ed’s younger brother. He felt himself struggling even to keep consciousness, and let himself decide it may be better not to, hoping he didn’t hit his head too hard as his vision began to blur and he felt his knees give way beneath him.
He was silent as the military doctor had examined him, watching his body nearly as closely as the doctor himself did. He had seen himself in the mirror. He was Ed’s brother: dark gold hair and bronze eyes, but his own face, or a younger version of it. A face without lines, but a face with plenty of sorrow.
Now he sat in the military hospital, apparently forgotten by the doctor, watching patient after patient being brought past him. Had there been some kind of disaster? He sat by the nurses station, having been asked to vacate the exam room hours ago, and listened to the radio broadcast that he barely understood. It was like trying to read a book in a language that shared all the same letters but none of the same words.
The country’s leader had been assassinated and the city was rioting. That was why there were so many injured coming in to the hospital. The debate was over whether or not the crime had been internal. Because according to the broadcast, as far as Al could understand, another country’s government may have paid some unhappy citizen to commit the assassination. Which would mean he had appeared in a country about to go to war.
He fell asleep twice, for less than an hour, sitting outside the nurse’s station watching the injured come in and out. Nearly twenty hours went by before someone came after him, and it was the same man he had seen when he first appeared in this world. The man who looked like Edward’s Mr. Hassan. Mustang.
He burst into the military hospital, loud and demanding, surprisingly gentle as he pulled him to his feet but ordering the nurses to find him the doctor who had treated him. “Alphonse,” he said, his voice sharp, serious, and low. “Are you all right? What happened back there?”
“I-I’m fine,” he forced himself to say, but he could tell the man didn’t believe him, even after the doctor confirmed it.
“I trust you heard what happened?” man asked him, looking at him skeptically, watching how he would react.
“The president…” he began haltingly.
“The police have the suspect in custody. It looks like he may have been hired by the Drachmen- Alphonse!” he snapped suddenly. “What ever it is, put it aside! We’re in a state of national emergency, why have you been sitting in here all this time anyway? Why did you not report back to me?”
It was just like the dream. He had the chance to ask for Ed but his dream self could never get the words out in time. Strange as the situation was, this was not a dream and he was not his dream self. He could say whatever he wanted, he had no dream-restrictions on him. And Edward was really here, somewhere, in this world. He took a deep breath. “Where’s Edward?”
Mustang stared at him, hard, that single black eye piercing him, sharp as his voice, sharp as his grip when he grabbed him by the arm and dragged him out of the military hospital. “I need you in my office. We need to speak in private.”
They looked, Alphonse was sure, like two military officials walking briskly side by side, but there was no doubt in his mind. This man had a grip on him that belied his suspicions, and Alphonse wondered what the man would say if he told him the truth, that he wasn’t Alphonse Elric, he was Alphonse Heiderich, Ed’s lover from another universe. Because, he realized as he was marched through the military building up to the offices, this man, whoever he was, knew Ed’s brother well enough to know that even though he looked exactly like him, even though this was his very body, he wasn’t who he was supposed to be.
Mustang shut the door with a soft click and showed him one gloved hand. The gloves were strange, with red line designs on their backs, designs like the ones the Elrics had scribbled furiously over their research. “Envy,” he said slowly, quietly, as if to himself. Then he addressed Alphonse. “Did you know I killed one of your kind already?” He touched the patch over his eye. “It cost me,” he said, “but it was possible. Homunculi can be killed.”
Alphonse swallowed. “Envy?” he repeated.
“You’re a shape shifter. Just like him. You’ve got Al’s form perfectly, I can’t fault you there, but you didn’t do your research before hand,” he said, and his tone was menacing.
Alphonse swallowed again. Reality was even more frightening than his dreams. “I’m not Alphonse!” he blurted out. This place that was Edward’s home was dangerous with its strange alchemy and now its war, and its military and this man who looked like Mr. Hassan. “I mean,” he stumbled quickly, afraid to lie, “I am Alphonse, but I’m not your Alphonse.”
The man pressed his thumb and middle finger together, as if he were about to snap, and the motion filled Alphonse with dread, although he could find nothing frightening about the snapping of fingers. “Who sent you here? What did you do to Al?”
“I don’t know how I got here. And Al, I am Al, I’m in his body. I’m not some creature taking his form!” he said desperately. “Please, I just need to find Ed!”
Things Ed had told him about the other side of the gate were filtering through Roy’s mind. Everyone had a double on the other side. Ed even mentioned running into Roy’s own double. And Ed said he found himself in the body of his own double the first time he crossed the gate. Still, Roy remained suspicious. “Everyone wants to find Ed,” he said shortly, dismissing Al’s request. “It’s never been the easiest thing to accomplish. This city is rioting, I’ve got all my men on crowd control as we speak. I couldn’t contact Ed if I wanted to, even if I knew where he was.”
“You don’t know where he is?” Alphonse said, the sentence rushing out of him without enough air to carry it, his hopes sinking into the floor through the soles of his boots.
He felt like he was falling, falling through layers and layers of air, with the words “What have you done to Alphonse?” echoing after him.
It was over. His chance to seize his dreams and turn them to reality was over. He failed.
When Alphonse woke he was lying on an uncomfortable couch covered in a scratchy blanket. Even as he opened his eyes his heart was racing, and his mind struggled to recall where he was and what had happened. He sat bolt upright, faster than he had meant to, and felt the room begin to spin.
What room was he in anyway?
It was a library; the walls were lined with books, and he recognized it slowly. Gemma. Gemma something. Gemma Heinrick, the psychic. “I was right, it was a dream,” he said out loud, not really meaning to. Because of course it had to be a dream.
The woman, the psychic, Gemma, was in the room with him and hurried to his side when she realized he was awake. “Are you all right?” she asked him, her voice tinged with concern.
“I’m sorry,” he mumbled. “I’ve been drinking and… I fell asleep. I’m sorry, I ruined your-“ he looked around for the rest of the people, for the men with the cameras, for the man in the suit, but they were all gone.
She was holding a steaming cup of tea, and pressed it into his hand, saying, “Drink this.”
To late he thought of strange gypsy women giving mysterious brews to men, but it tasted like ordinary scalding hot tea, even like the cheap kind he and Ed always kept around.
“I’m sorry,” she said softly. “You’re looking for something, but it’s not something I can help you find. Your brother has not passed on, I could not hear his spirit.”
“I-my brother- I meant, you never met my brother. You met my friend, Ed-“
She smiled at him, and he felt like he wanted to scream. Why should she possibly be smiling at him? Was she reading his mind? Was he thinking anything he didn’t want her to know? “You know Edward is alive,” she said sweetly. “Your brother isn’t dead. Isn’t that enough?”
Alphonse stood angrily, flinging the blanket off of himself and not feeling dizzy or intoxicated in the least. “You don’t know what you’re saying,” he said harshly, eager suddenly to get away from her. “I’ll show myself out,” he added, making his way to the door.
Once outside he saw that it was the grey light of pre-dawn, and that he had been inside for hours. He recognized where he was immediately, and knew at once how to get back to his cousin’s house. He felt for her key in his pocket and smacked his forehead with his palm: he had locked her out! He walked hurriedly through the empty streets, not thinking once about the dream he had been having less than a half hour before.
It had been stupid to get so drunk in a city he wasn’t familiar with; it had been stupid to chase after ghosts in the first place. Here he was in Frankfort, invited, he was sure, to settle his cousin’s worries about him, and he had gotten drunk and angry and disappeared on her!
When he arrived at her house the door was cracked open, and he could hear her voice inside. “Stephanie?” he called, and she came rushing towards him, flinging her arms around him.
“What happened? Are you all right? Are you hurt? Were you kidnapped? Alphonse, I’m so sorry, I shouldn’t have left you go off like that alone, I-“
“It’s all right, I’m sorry, I was being an asshole. I’m sorry I took your key and then didn’t come back,” he told her. He saw that her eyes were wet with tears, and felt his heart sink even further into his stomach.
“Whatever I did that made you angry, Al, I’m sorry. I’m sorry I keep trying to make you talk about Ed-“
“Shh,” he said quietly. “I don’t really want to talk about Ed anymore.”
Chapter Nine: I'll Be Running the Other Way
Note3: You can definitely believe that Al's "dream" will be, if not explained, elaborated on in Ch. 9, in which we will return to the real story in Amestris