Title: Soul Equivalence

Author: Personification of Fluff

Rating: PG-13 for language

Spoilers: Um… well, it's hypothetical… so long as you know who Nina is, I think there won't be any spoilers.

Summary: Ed, now and adult, has only one thing left to do to make his life now complete. He has a promise left to fulfill to Al.

Disclaimer: I don't own Full Metal Alchemist. Who do you think I am? I mean, for one, you're assuming I an actually draw! Hell, I don't even own a comic of FMA. I just got depressed during exams and FMA fit my mood perfectly. I am now on episode twenty, so sorry if things aren't correct. I'm only on episode twenty, after all. This is the result of me before a kilelr exam. I hop you enjoy, though! (Also, you can blame this on Iggy, Essence of Angst, both for encouraging to break out of the fluff and for introducing me to FMA. I'm sorry if the idea has been done before!)

Soul Equivalence

The law of equivalent exchange.

You all know it by now. Whatever goes into alchemy is the same as what comes out. The materials can be transmuted, but the size, or density, or mass must remain the same. When Al and I tried to bring back our mother, even with everything we had put into it, something was missing. I thought I had covered it. I thought that's what the blood was for.

Al always blamed himself for what happened that night. It was my idea to use alchemy to bring back my mother, yes, but he blamed himself because he never once tried to stop me. He just trusted me; completely. And look what happened. All those years of never feeling human contact, of being treated like a monster instead of a little kid…

It was my fault! I was the one who decided that my blood—our blood—could put the soul back into my mother. I was such an idiot! If I hadn't have done that, maybe the cost might not have been our bodies. There is nothing illegal in alchemy itself about human transmutation. People don't survive it because their creations kill them, or, like me, they're foolish enough to use their own blood and the alchemy starts to work on them. It started trying to draw our bodies into the actual transmutation! If we hadn't severed the connection… more of my body would have been drawn into that abomination we created.

There is no such law of equivalent exchange on the human soul… except one.

It took me a long time to understand exactly why there was no such thing as an equivalent exchange on the soul. The soul cannot exist within alchemy because there is no physical aspect to the soul. It does not have a density, or a mass, or a size and therefore nothing on this plane can ever match it. It's mathematical. Zero times zero is still zero.

It can be relocated. Yes, that is possible. That's how Al spent his entire adolescence in a metal suit. Just because it has no weight doesn't mean that it can't be moved. It's risky. Even though I had a talent with alchemy and underwent training, it was the sheer desperation in my actions which allowed me to correctly move Al's soul from his dying body and into the suit of armor.

No, nothing can be exchangedfor the human soul. And then, one night as I slept on the all-too familiar Rockbell family couch, it came to me. Two human souls. If thereone soul one wanted to be exchanged for another, could that be done? Two forms could be exchanged. Could two souls? Could I bring back my mother's soul if I'd had one to give up for it?

It didn't matter. I had learned my lesson. But I still wanted to fix Alphonse, to try and amend years of loneliness and isolation by giving him back a flesh and blood body. I could not, I think, make him a new body. The human body was too complicated to create. That's how we alchemists work. We have to first understand what we mean to disassemble and then create. The human body is too complicated to create. How can I properly fuse a brain? How can I create the proper electrical connections to generate a heart beat, delta waves in sleep, or brain wave patters?

But, I thought, I might be able to do something else with the idea…

Winry came down to check on me. She shifted nervously, her bare feet silent against the wooden floor of their house. Her blond hair appeared silver in the moonlight. Slowly, she approached the couch where I slept. "You're not asleep, are you, Ed?"

"No," came the answer.

"I didn't think so. Do you mind if I join you?'

"Whatever." I slowly sat up so she could sit on the couch next to me. She blushed when the summer blanket slipped from around my shoulders, revealing my chest and the edge of my pants. I know, without a doubt, why I love Winry. She's annoying, and entirely too cheerful sometimes, and God, she can be such a girl it makes me wonder if she's just faking knowing which end of a screwdriver you use… but I love her.

How many girls could I ever meet like her? I remember Roze. She was horrified when she saw my body—and all she saw was the arm and the leg. She didn't see where the bruises and welts hid on my shoulder from being connected to the device. She didn't see where metal met flesh and melded. She didn't see me wracked with pain as Auntie gave the damn things to me—Winry did. Hell, she helped Auntie build them. She didn't look at me with disgust. She looked at me with a little bit of sadness at the look in my eyes, and compassion, and tenderness… and desire, too.

Sometimes, I wonder which part of me she finds more attractive: the metal or the flesh? And then I have to chuckle at the idea. She probably likes both, remembering the way she oozes to pieces over high-quality tools or the way she wanted to dissect my alchemist watch.

"What were you thinking about?" she asked, sitting next to me. Our bodies don't touch.

"Not much. I just couldn't sleep."

She was very quiet. It was a sure sign of nervousness. Winry was twiddling her fingers. Her voice was timid when she finally found it again. "Are you nervous about marrying me?"

I snorted at the idea—trying to be macho. "I wouldn't have asked you if I didn't want to marry you," I pointed out, leaning back against the couch. Winry smiled a little. She has a sad, lonely smile, but it's beautiful and it's so familiar it fills my heart with joy to see it. I smile back at her and her smile turns beautiful. There is no hesitation as she leans her head on my shoulder. Her blonde hair, against mine, makes it seem all the more fine and delicate, like spun silver.

"Still," she sighed. Her arm came up and she placed it on my opposite shoulder, curling her body around mine. I wrapped my human arm around her waist, holding her close. She smells faintly of motor oil, but it's such a Winry smell I can't help but love it. "You asked me a year ago. Over the past year, I couldn't help but think that maybe the reason why you didn't call or write or visit was because you were avoiding me."

I leaned my head against hers, kissing her warm hair. "I was just busy. You should be happy that I've had another year to explore the world, Winry. As a State Alchemist, I could have been ordered into military service."

"I know… it's just, sometimes I wonder what you love more. Me, or the stone." She lifted her head, her blue eyes gazing into mine. "Edward, if you had a choice, which would you pick? Me, or the stone?" I didn't answer immediately. She didn't seem too concerned. She knew I was thinking. "This won't stop me from loving you, Ed. I love Al, too. I love him just as much as you do. I think it does you credit to want to help him. Your determination and the way you and your brother help each other is part of the reason why I love you. I'm just curious."

I hang my head. It's a tough choice. I don't know the answer myself. "It doesn't matter any more, Winry. I sent my resignation into the State Alchemists, yesterday. They'll be getting the letter soon. I daresay that Hughes and Mustang will be a bit disappointed. They kept telling me I was talented, they kept covering for me and taking risks for me, and this is what I do to them… I can't even tell them to their face…"

Winry's face was crumpled. She looked hurt, but she was more angry than anything. "How can you do that? What about Alphonse? What are you going to do looking for the stone!" She leapt off the couch.

"Al and I both knew that I was giving up the search after I asked you to marry me, Winry." I slowly looked up at her, half-expecting to have various mechanic's tools thrown at me. "We gave it one more year, and that was it. Al and I lost Dad. You lost both your parents to war. I'm not going to risk my family losing anyone else that way. The safest way to do it is not be a State Alchemist."

Her anger faded quickly. She sat down. Her skin touching mine was enough of an apology. Silence stretched between us, but it wasn't uncomfortable. "Do you know when I fell in love with you? I think I've always loved both you and Al, but I know exactly when I fell in love with you, Edward. It was when you hit puberty," she smiled at me.

"Before then, I thought you two were the bravest people I knew. The things you did, the things you saw, would have made adult men cold and hollow inside, but you two both kept your warmth. I think it's because you have each other. But then, you finally got a growth spurt."

She giggled, and I growled, remembering the incident. I was ecstatic that I had finally hit puberty and was getting the long awaited growth-spurt… until my shoulder and knee started hurting, worse than ever before. Auto-mail doesn't grow with puberty. I started walking with a limp soon. I returned home to get it fixed, but Winry and Auntie couldn't do anything until I had grown more.

It pisses me off to hear people complain about puberty. They always tell me that they were made fun of for voices cracking, or that they had pimples, or that they got random hard-ons at the worst possible times because they couldn't control their hormones. Bitch, bitch, bitch! I had, every two months, to return home and to have Auntie and Winry open up my arm and my leg and insert extensions to enable me to walk levelly and to keep me from looking like I had one arm shorter than the other. Then I started growing width-ways, in the width of my shoulders, and I had to deal with the edge of the auto mail rubbing and scratching and embedding itself into my shoulder.

Teenagers weren't meant to have auto-mail. It's not given to adolescents not because of the pain of connecting the nerve endings to the mail, as it so much because the pain and the work is useless. The kid is just going to grow. I knew what I had been getting into when I asked Auntie to give me auto mail, or so I had thought. I have the scars in the back of my shoulder to prove what happens when teens live with auto mail.

"Even though it hurt," she said softly, cradling my body in her own, "you still put up with it bravely, just like you would anything else. You amazed me, Edward. And so, really, the respect I felt when I saw you was explained, but not the sadness. When looked at you, I was sad because I wanted to take away that pain you felt everyday and I couldn't. Even with all my skills with auto mail and mechanics, I couldn't make it easier for you. And then you, you jerk," she cired, striking the back of my head, "you always had the audacity to show up with your mechanics in the shittiest of repair like you didn't care about what you were doing to yourself and I had to be the one to put you through pain I couldn't stop just to fix you back up!

"That's not true," I grumbled. Winry looked up at me in surprise. "I mean, I did care about what happened to my body. It's just… a lot of it happened in circumstances beyond my control!" I shifted uncomfortably. "And you did make it better, Winry. You were there, always pestering me and bugging me and yelling at me… and I liked it, I'll admit. It would have been a boring stay recuperating if you weren't there to keep me focused on anything else other than how my body felt."

My hand covered hers. Her engagement ring was the same color as my hair in the moonlight. "I'm sorry that I always came to you like that. It was a little mean of me, wasn't it?"

"Every time Aunt Pinako told me you were here, I kept hoping it would be a nice, normal visit. I kept hoping you were just here to visit, or to check up on me, and I think I would have died of happiness if you showed up on my doorstep with flowers for the sheer hell of givng me flowers. And every time, you were always injured."

I smiled weakly at her. "Hey, with us getting married next week, pretty soon you'll be begging me to go just to get the occasional break from me, Winry."

Winry smiled back at me. "I'd never do that, Ed. I'd always worry you'd come back to me half-broken again." She leaned over and kissed me. Even if she smelled faintly like motor oil, she tasted sweet. I kissed her back. I kissed her back with more eagerness and longing than I had meant to. I love Winry, and I knew that this was the last night I was going to get to hold her.

The soft grass itched my legs. The summer weather was warm and I was wearing shorts. I didn't complain about it though. I didn't want to offend my brother as he sat next to me.

"So… no more alchemy?" Al asked me slowly.

"No more State alchemy, anyway. I'm an alchemist, Al. At the very least I can help people here by mending things."

He sighed. It was exactly the cue I was waiting for.

"You like Winry too, don't you, Al?"

I know it's impossible for suits of armor to blush, but I swear that if anyone can make it happen, my little brother can. He looked around, as if there was some other Al in the area. "What? Me? Like? Winry?"

"Yes. You. Like. Winry. Come on, Al. You're my brother. You can answer me. We've always be honest with each other. Don't start avoiding me now." I stared up at him. "I was callous about asking her to marry me. I never thought that you might like Winry too. You never talked about her. But… the more I thought about it, the more I realized that I was like you. I mean, that you were like me. We met other girls beside Winry, but she's our friend and closer to us than anybody else. Any other girl, that is. She isn't afraid of us, she knows our secret, she knows our personalities… how could we not fall in love with her, Al?"

He was quiet. The metal armor creaked as he lowered his head. "Yes," he finally admitted. "I love her."

"Why didn't you tell me when I asked her to marry me?" I demanded, sitting up. This was, however, exactly the answer I had wanted to hear.

"Because you love her too, Brother."

His answer surprised me. I turned away, trying to settle my unbalanced thoughts. I needed to be able to think clearly. "Al… what was puberty like for you?"

He shifted again. "It was lonely," he answered. "Being a kid wasn't so bad, by comparison. But then I started thinking about girls more. I looked around and I saw boys my own age chasing girls, holding hands, or kissing them, and I kept thinking to myself, I should be thinking like that too. But what was the point? I can't kiss girls. I can't hold hands with them. I can't be in a relationship the way I am now—not a whole one. I could have intimacy yes, but not the way I want to have it. I would never be complete, the way other people are. Some part of me would still not be able to understand what it was to feel a physical, intimate connection. So I always tried to ignore those thoughts."

"You put a lot of thought into it, didn't you?"

"I have a lot of time on my hands."

This time it was my turn to be quiet. "Al, if something were to happen to me, would you take care of Winry for me?"

"She's my friend, Edward. She's the only real friend I've ever had, because she's the only one who's known me for more than a few days." He tilted his head curiously. "Why all the questions, Brother?"

"Because," I grinned. The night sky was beautiful. "I have one last piece of large alchemy I want to do. I think I've found a way to give you back a human body, Al." He bolted up to his feet. "Whoa, sit back down and let me finish. I think I've found a way to make you human, Al. The only problem is, I don't know if it will work. I didn't exactly get a chance to test this out first. It's kind of a one-shot deal. Either we try it on both of us or we don't do it at all."

Alphonse was suspicious. He knew me far too well. "What about Winry? Does she know what we're going to try doing?"

"She knows that if there's a way for me to make you human again, I'm going to take it."

He didn't answer me. He was going to say no. After so long being together day in and day out, I knew what to say to make him do it—for him not to say anything at all. "Come on, Al. I want to have one more mock battle with you. This'll be the last time you'll beat me, I swear!"

Al laughed and stood up, stretching. "I bet you when I have my body back that I'll still be taller than you, Brother."

"You're going to regret saying that!"

I finished drawing the circle into the sand and I jumped inside, dusting off my hands. Al already sat in the center of it, watching me work. He didn't realize what the circle was for. I sat down next to him, trying to steady my heart. I suppose I should have counted myself as being lucky. Not every man gets to die for someone he loves or gets the chance to make sure all the loose ends are tied up, or to know the exact moment they're going to die.

I do.

The note was still in my pocket. Al would find it later and be able to read it over. I've planned it so nothing can possibly go wrong. I looked over at my brother, and I realized that I over the years, I'd forgotten what he looked like. What did Al's face look like? What did his smile look like? I wish I could give his real body back to him.

Tears were running over my cheeks and I suddenly threw myself at Al, hugging him tightly. Al slowly hugged me back, but the embrace was cold.

"I'm sorry if this doesn't work, Al."

"It will work, Edward. You've planned it. We won't make the same mistakes like we did when we were little. We're adults now."

God, he's still so naïve. Even adults can make mistakes.

I settled back down on the sand. The lines are still perfect. "I'm going to need your help with this, Al." He nodded. "Just concentrate on feeling, okay? That should work? Just cooperate with whatever happens, don't fight it." He nodded again. I slapped my hands together and so did he. I wasn't wearing my gloves. The night sand was cool and felt a little like water.

If I could die for someone I love, for a family member… if I could undo my own mistake and it meant my life, would I call it suicide still? No, I don't think I would. I'd call it equivalent trade.

I knew the exact moment Edward succeeded in giving me a body. It was a strange experience. All I was thinking was how much I wanted to be human. I was trying so hard to recall what it was like to lay in bed and be stifling warm, sweating and kicking off sheets, or to feel my mother's hand in mine. For a brief, sudden moment, I felt another thought brush mine, mingling with mine. When I think back on it, I think the thoughts were just like gold. Rare, and malleable to work with, yet hard, and precious… and I realize my brother and I are working in unison.

Then I realized—I was smiling and I could feel it. I had a mouth to smile with. I could feel again. I was crying in joy. The tears itched my face, but I relished the sensation. I relished the feeling of tears against my cheeks, trailing slowly towards my chin. The wind blew by me and I was cold. I sobbed at the feeling. Slowly, the blue light from the alchemical transformation was fading, the stars emerging again. I could feel pain in my shoulder and my knee. It was dull and bearable. I enjoyed the feeling of it; of being able to differentiate once more between pain, an itch, the cool sand, and my own beating heart. I lifted my hands, feeling my face. Hair, soft hair; eyes; nose; lips that were damp from tears; a stubborn jaw… and a human hand.

A human hand I recognized painfully. It was not so much the hand itself as it was the gold wedding band. I didn't think it was possible. The tears ran down my face harder and faster than ever before. I looked down at the other hand.

It was metal.

"Edward… Edward…" The sobs came harder still. I screamed his name, and spun on the damned metal armor beside me. I grabbed it by the shoulders and shook it. "Edward… Edward are you in there? Edward!"

No one answered me. I sank against the cold sand, crying. For the first time, I understood what it meant to truly be alone. Even in the suit of armor, void of human touch or warmth or tears, I could laugh. I could learn and joke. I could walk and move and converse and be answered. And I'd had my big brother there. He'd always been by my side. Now he was gone. I knew it even before I'd found the note. Edward was gone.

I found the note in my grief. I could barely read it, but I could never forget the contents.

Dear Alphonse,

I'm sorry that I could not get your real body back. I'm sorry that I had to trick you into the circle. I just wanted to make everything right. I had my body for two decades. As far as I can concerned, I got the better decades. Now it's your turn to experience what it's like to have a body again.

I've made everything ready for you, so don't fuck up on my, okay brother? First, marry Winry. It'll break her heart if you break off the wedding, and you promised to take of her for me. You're not Al anymore. You're me now. She loves you… and as she admitted to me last night, she loves Al too. Take whatever joy in that you can derive. Both of us love the same woman, Al, and she loves us both back. Yeah, so marry Win. Keep her happy, and love her. And bring her some flowers on your way back home. Tell them that you just felt like bringing her flowers… the way I should have. Tell her every day that you love her.

Remember that I'm allergic to seafood, too, okay? Trust me—food poisoning is not fun.

Destroy the old suit of armor. Change it into something good and useful. Keep it around, if you'd like, in case you ever need a suit of armor in a jiffy. You're a good alchemist Al. You can do it. Tell Winry that you continued your search to find a way to get your body back. If you want to fake your death later, that's fine with me. If you want to forge letters from yourself and make it look like you're traveling the world, that's fine with me. What you decide to do with yourself is your choice. I just want to make sure you treat my body and Winry well.

Don't ever tell her what transpired here today. As far as she's concerned, she's marrying Edward, the ex-Full Metal Alchemist. She can never know that you're in this body and not me. I think it would break her heart because she'd know I had done this behind her back. We've been together long enough you can fake being me, brother, I know you can. Destroy the letter when you're done reading it.

So that's it, I guess. I can't think of anymore instructions for you. Even if you were the younger brother, you were always better at making sure I took care of myself. I was the reckless one. I know you'll take good care of my body, brother. You're a survivor; you always were.

I love you, Al.

There were tear stains on it. He'd been crying when he wrote it. I destroyed the letter, as he asked. I may not have had Ed's talent at alchemy, but I knew the contents perfectly. Now and again, when I need to remember what Edward was like, I'll take out the letter and I'll read it, before I changed it back.

It took me the rest of the night to decide what to do with the suit of armor. Finally, I made up my mind. I changed it; I still have it with me to this very day.

As I neared the house, Winry saw me. Her blue eyes were filled with tears as she launched herself into my arms. "Edward! I was so worried when you didn't come home! Where were you? Is everything all right? Where's Ed?"

Her body was soft and warm. I smiled as I held Winry. I loved her; I don't think it was with the ultimate, loyal love I knew Edward felt for her. It was a different, warm, safe kind of love. But as I smelled her hair as she stood in my arms, I knew that I would very soon learn why Edward loved her as he did. I guess that that was the difference between the love I had been able to feel as a machine and the love I could feel in a human body. A human body could elicit my heart to passion, while no armor could.

"Just let me hold you like this, Win… Damn," I chuckled regretfully. It was odd hearing my brother's voice issuing my thoughts. "I meant to bring you flowers."

"Really, Ed?"

"Yeah…"

She smiled at me.

Edward had found a way to give me back a human body. I thought, for a long time, that he had died, that he had given up his very soul to give me a human home for my soul. But as I learned how to be human all over again, experiencing each new sensation with hidden greed and joy, I realized that Edward hadn't given up his soul. One day, I would die, as would Winry, and we would be with him again, and Mom, and Nina, and everyone else who had died. He'd given up Winry. The cost of my human body had been love.

Fin