"Hey Al, there's something I've been meaning to talk to you about, but I've been too afraid to bring it up…"

"What is it?"

"…"

Tear-stained pillows

Ed's mind sharpened. The clarity gave him pause, as he only now realized how far he'd gone. Typical of him, he'd charged headlong, without having thought everything through; his mutilated body, and his brother's lack thereof were enough of a sordid testament to that. His silence was made palpable in the cold, silent winds of Central City in the night-light; a time when wayward, discontented souls staggered the streets, drudged through their work, or suffered the piercing emptiness of lonely hearts. The spirit could even be felt in the sombre hotel room the boys found themselves in. This was a sullen time, but more importantly, it was a human time, of introspection and thought. Al, of course, knew this period of the day very well; like a perverted curse for when he complained about being sent to bed early by his mother, he couldn't sleep, not for a long time, and perhaps a long time yet. While Ed didn't know exactly how that felt, he was under no illusion as to whether his brother liked it or not. As he thought about what to say, he suddenly became aware of the coldness of his auto-mail as it rested against his face. Ed sometimes loved to show it off, to show what he could do, to show how far he'd come; he didn't feel like doing that at the moment. As the seconds ran on, Ed's lips remained as tight as ever.

"Brother," asked Al in a serious but unthreatening voice.

Ed awoke from his wayward train of thought. "Huh? What is it Al?"

"You said you wanted to ask me something?"

"Oh, that!" Ed smiled unconvincingly. He gently bit his lip, as he realised that this may not be a topic he wished to breach after all. "I, um, uh…" he stammered awkwardly.

"Is it something about Winry?"

"No!" Ed replied with a hint of annoyance.

"About Nina?"

"N-no," Ed replied with a hint of guilt.

Al grew more confused. "Is it about the Philosopher's Stone?"

As Al's confusion grew, so did Ed's frustration. "No, Al, it's, it's…it's about you," Ed finally sighed, as he increasingly dreaded the fact he brought this up. He bent over with his face in his palms; the auto-mail felt colder than usual.

Al was taken aback. His brother had usually been so forthcoming about anything between them, or at least he thought so. He admired his brother's fighting spirit, the light in his eyes, and the nuclear intensity with which he sought to undo their mistake. He had the will etched in his face: to dream, to build, to fail, and to succeed; Al never found a tenacity to match Ed's. For all the jokes about his brother's height, Al was still the one who looked up to Ed. To hear that there was any issue between Ed and him was deeply troublesome. "W-with me?" he asked uncomfortably.

Ed shot a desperately apologetic glance at the concern in his little brother's voice. "No! I mean-I mean-I mean…" It was no use trying to explain it. He crumpled in defeat; he hadn't even said what it was, and he already regretted bringing it up. "Forget it, Al," he said weakly, "It wasn't important anyway."

"Please big brother," Al implored, now fully brought to life. He stood up, only to sit beside Edward on the sofa. "Trust me, if it really is important, then no matter what it is, you shouldn't be afraid to say it. I've seen how brave you can be when fighting, even against people who are far bigger and stronger than you. If you can be brave enough to confront the people who hate you, you should be brave enough to confront the people who love you."

Ed choked at the last line; Al may have thought nothing of it, but it triggered a terrible reaction within Ed. Lost for words, he stretched out his hands to hold Al's armored arm, even colder than his auto-mail. As he gently touched it, feeling every crack and bump, he silently cursed himself for having subjected his brother to such a fate. Years of self-loathing bubbled to the surface like a spiritual volcano. He fought hard to contain himself, but this was one war he felt he could never win. The government had spent a whole lot on making sure he stayed strong in battle; they never spent a penny about staying strong in solitude.

Very few things truly scared Al anymore. Fists, swords, even bullets were more inconvenience than threat, but he was truly mortified to see Ed in such a state. He could feel agony that writhed throughout his brother's face within his phantom heart.

"Ed?!" he implored.

His brother continued to shake regardless, and Al could see a tear roll down his trembling cheek. Ed sank deeper into the chair, and deeper into melancholy. All the mistakes he had made flashed before his eyes in a crescendo of suffering, but he couldn't get the last image of his Al's face on the day of the transmutation out of his mind. He remembered the sheer terror in Al's eyes as he vanished just inches away from him; but most of all he remembered the horror he felt.

Ed didn't even have the strength to look at his brother. "I'm sorry, Al. It's all my fault. You don't deserve a terrible brother like me. I only lost a limb or two; you lost everything because of my own damned stupidity."

To see such a foreign side to his brother stumped Alphonse Elric. He was helpless to see this, leaving Ed helpless too. "W-what are you talking about, big brother?"

"Al," Ed shuddered, as control completely left him, "I know I act all tough all the time, but it's just a stupid pose. The truth is…well," he smiled painfully, "I'm not really my biggest fan to say the least, not deep down anyway. Ever since the day mom died, I've come to see just how useless I am. All the fame and money, and I can't get our bodies back, or save one innocent girl. Every time I go to sleep, just for a second, I think about how you can't. How I can get a good night's rest while you're just alone, because of what I did; every night, for years. I just…I just can't believe that you don't hate me."

Though there was no face to show it, Alphonse's shock grew tenfold. "Hate you?"

Ed clutched his hair with his hands, nearly stripping them from the roots; whatever pain he felt was surely not nearly enough to equal the suffering his little brother had felt all these years. "There's a reason I liked to sleep alone, Al. It's wasn't because I hated you, far from it; I didn't want you to see my crying every night. Winry always tried to tell me that you didn't hate me, but I could never believe her. I took everything from you, and you may never even get it back.

"For all the times I used to pat myself on the back, I never even had the courage to ask one simple question. Al, the thing I've been meaning to ask you is…y-you don't hate me, do you?"

While Al was speechless, Ed leapt to his brother's shell to hug him. He could barely speak through his sobbing. "Please Al, I don't want you to hate me."

Al had never seen Ed in such a state, so broken, so desperate. He thought it was obvious, but the ignorance of his brother hurt him more than it shocked him. "You mean to tell me that you've gone all this time without even knowing if I hated you or not?"

Failing to answer the question, Ed hugged tighter. "I'm sorry Al. It's all my fault. I swear to God, I'm sorry."

"No, big brother, it's not all your fault."

Ed relented his weeping. "W-what do you mean?"

"I mean that I'm just as much to blame as you. We both knew what we were doing was wrong, and yet we did it anyway. You didn't drag me into this; I wanted it to happen. Please, stop beating yourself up; if it was up to me, we'd have never gotten as far as we have. We'd still be at square one. Heck, I may have given up on getting my body back, or I may have given up, well…altogether."

The sting of Al's last remark was enough to stop Ed's crying, his eyes, just closed to hold back the torrents of tears, now shot wide in disbelief. Did Al just say that if it wasn't for him, he might have…

Al's words stopped Ed before he constructed the horrifying image in his head. "Thanks to you, big brother, you've gotten me this far. Even when everything was dark, when everything was awful, when it hurt to exist, you were there for me. You told me, that no matter how hard it was to get our bodies back, no matter what we had to go through, no matter how many mountains we had to climb, or how many valleys we had to walk, that we would do it. I said that to myself every day. I believed it because you believed it. We aren't going to stop until we get our bodies back, and when I get my body back, and I grow up, I want to be like you. If I ever have a kid, I'm naming him Edward."

Gently, Al put his hands over Ed's shoulders, to calm him down. Ed was shell-shocked to hear what his brother was saying; he couldn't believe that anyone, let alone his brother, was so proud of him. To feel the formidable iron arms of his brother's armour being used so tenderly and lovingly shocked him. For one brief moment, the creeping self-hatred from the pity he felt for his brother began to worm its way inside again.

As if connected in soul, Alphonse could feel that pity, and knew how to rectify it. "Don't worry, big brother, I still haven't lost everything. Even if I never get my body back, I'll still have my soul, I'll still have Winry, and I'll still have you. If I have those things, I can always be happy. Everyone gives me weird looks, but you don't. You look at me the same as you've always done since we were kids. You're one of the few people who still see me as human; is that what a terrible brother would do? You swore to me that you'd do everything you could to bring me my body back; is that what a terrible brother would do? And when you were bleeding to death, and you'd lost your leg, you gave up your arm too, just to bring me back. Even when you were dying, you still thought of me first; is that what a terrible brother would do? I saw what you did; I saw how much you were willing to sacrifice for me. I've never hated you, not before that day, and not after; I never could hate you, even if I tried. You've done so much for me. You're asking what you ever did to deserve me? What did I ever do to deserve a brother as incredible as you?"

Ed still couldn't look at his brother, but his soul was lifted; Al didn't hate him. He crumpled again, face into his palms, but they weren't tears of hardship, but relief. He was so happy, but it felt too early to smile. Finally, as his brother's metal frame gave him a hug no less warm in spirit than any flesh and blood hug, even the Fullmetal Alchemist found it within himself to smile, so much so that his cheeks strained themselves against the wet iron, soaked in his now forgotten tears.

"Hey, big brother," said Alphonse quietly, knowing how embarrassed his brother would be if anyone should walk in on him in this state, "if it makes you feel any better, I won't make fun of your height anymore."

Ed finally laughed a little, as his spirit rose again. Wiping his tears from his dampened face, he found a drier spot in his brother's armour to rest his head lovingly against. "Ha! Don't worry, Al. It's okay when you do it."

"You know you're never going to stick to that, right?" said Al.

Almost seeing the smile he imagined his brother would say it with, Ed gently chuckled. "Heh, I guess I won't. But I promise not to be as angry about it, okay Al?"

"You don't have to promise anything."

Even as his smiling cheek placed itself against the supposedly lifeless metal of Alphonse's chest, Ed could almost hear his brother's heartbeat beneath it. He knew, of course, that his brother's body was long gone, but that didn't matter; Al was as real now as he had ever been. And Al, even though his sense of touch had virtually perished all those years ago, on some deeper level, he could still feel the affection of his brother flowing inside him. He remembered the words they had learned from their teacher: All was one, and one was all. Ed and Al, at that one place and time, felt that they were only one with each other, and not with the universe. However, to them, after all the hardship they'd endured, it may as well have been.

THE END