the heart also grows, like everything else
i.
His teacher has changed house recently and he is not sentimental about it but it baffles him at first, following the new directions, stepping into unfamiliar hallways, like he is not quite sure what he is doing here. Everything smells different too, which is the biggest surprise – the new house and its backyard open out to the woods and everything smells of pine and damp earth this time of the year.
New house, new shop, but those two faces, and the same feeling of coming some place almost forgotten but welcoming.
`I was just passing by,´ he says with a grin. He wipes a bit of sweat on his forehead with the back of his hand, the afternoon surprisingly warm for this time of the year and he had to carry his heavy suitcase all the way from the station.
`Is this on the way to Xing?´ his teacher asks.
Alphonse tilts his head slightly, his smile dancing : `Technically, yes, it is.´
Izumi holds his gaze, hands on her hips, while Sig rushes to hug him.
ii.
He flexes his fingers and rotates his shoulder in a graceful gesture, like showing off, see what my new old body can doand remembering the teacher's lessons perfectly at the same time.
`It's been too long since I've trained with this my body. I came to brush up my studies.´
Izumi frowns.
`One can hope you'll be a good boy from now on and you won't need fighting lessons any more.´
Alphonse smiles. It's just an excuse. And excuse to visit and an excuse to sit by the fire and talk and eat good food and laugh until it hurts.
`Why don't you go with Sig to pick up some firewood for the dinner?´
He nods and the two men leave Izumi to prepare the ingredients.
Alphonse likes Sig. There's something about the man he finds really attractive. He didn't quite understand it when he was younger – the man was always an afterthought. Izumi was a star so bright for him and Edward, and her husband was always background. They never gave him much thought. But Alphonse was always comfortable in his company. Now he understands. It's his silence. And Sig's disposition that matches so well his own. Alphonse can talk for days and days but he can also keep quiet better than anyone, he can just enjoy a nice, silent stroll through trees to gather some firewood.
`You got so old,´ he tells Alphonse.
`Yes. I got to skip the years where boys' bodies get really awkward. Aren't I lucky?´
Immediately he realizes he has said something careless.
(Sig probably wondering if this is how he did it, all those years in a metal armour; wondering if play pretend, play adult was Alphonse's way of being childish; and when will that stop)
Sig gives him a glance like he wants to cry or hug him or both. Alphonse looks down, at the branches cradled in his arms. He remembers one of the first conversations he had with Ed after he'd recover his body, about how they should send thank-you notes to all the people that had helped them: because we were never alone, even when we thought we were had said Ed, for once raising to the challenge of being a wiser older brother. And it's true. It's a very childish thing to think that one's suffering belongs to only to yourself but Alphonse had never stopped to think about it in such simple terms as just seeing Sig glad to have him back. Years of being treated like an adult but Alphonse guessed he still had a lot of growing up to do.
`I'm sorry my brother and I made you worry all these years,´ he says.
The man's face gets all crumpled, as if he wanted to reprimand Alphonse but didn't really have the heart – and Alphonse wonders how many people have fought the urge to tell him and his brother off over the years and he is sure that he will do many more things to worry people from now on, but he hopes he can make it up to everybody somehow. Sig bends down to pick up another log and Alphonse can see him watching over his shoulder, suppressing a fond smile.
The stars come out one by one and as they walk back to the house there's a strong smell of meat and carrots and Alphonse feels lucky and blessed to be here, the kind of preemptive nostalgia you get when you are about to leave your country, no matter for how long or how short.
iii.
They over-indulge him. Alphonse is not quite used to knowing how much food should he consume, he does not want to get fat. Edward teases him about his doubts – Alphonse once replied "you were never going to be popular with girls, that's why you don't care about these things, but I have to look out for my figure, I have a brilliant career in romance ahead of me" and that was that, Ed walking out of the room in anger and Winry joining in Alphonse's laughter. Ah. He wonders how long until he sees them again.
`Dinner is delicious,´ he says politely but honestly, finishing a glass of milk that makes him feel like a kid but he doesn't care at all.
Sig says good night and goes to bed first, giving the boy and his teacher privacy. This is also why Alphonse likes Sig. The man has a lot of delicacy about him. He gets why he and Izumi are married – he didn't use to muse over these matters when he was a little kid training under Izumi. The years of a clear goal and purpose, the years of Ed and him against the world, they are gone now and it's the ordinary wondruous things around him that obsess Alphonse now. The people around him, how they live, how they interact. The kind of man he is going to be, once he has his body back.
Izumi throws a last log to the fire and fixes Alphonse and herself two cups of tea in front of the flames. It's kind of weird being left alone like this. Of course Alphonse has been alone with his teacher plenty of times but it was always him and Edward and Izumi, that was the story. And now he is writing a different one altogether. And he knows that, though she loved them both equally, Izumi always preferred Ed. Nothing to hold against, but Alphonse knew that his brother and Izumi were much more alike. It's nothing bad or anything, he didn't feel left out or jealous, it's just something Alphonse knows. If there was a way to tell Izumi that it's okay, that she shouldn't feel guilty. There are traces of her all over Ed, gestures Alphonse recognizes in his brother as something he once saw Izumi do.
`So what really brings you here?´
He stares into the fire.
`Nothing special, really.´
`Nothing.´
Izumi passes him a cup of tea. The boy watches her hands, her wrist, wondering how they can achieve such strength and then commit to such gentleness when required. The teacher that kicked his ass on a daily basis when he was a child, the teacher who bandaged his wounds and comforted him when he was hurt.
He wants that for himself.
Alphonse wants to be strong and gentle.
`Not everything has to have a big reason behind. I just felt like it. Seeing my teacher, letting her know I'm doing fine. Before I go on a journey east.´
`Will you be gone long?´
Alphonse puts his lips against the rim of the cup. The tea still too hot to drink but the warmth from the mug is nice on his face.
`I don't know. Maybe. I feel restless.´
`You were always restless.´
`No, that was big brother.´
`No,´ Izumi says flatly. `Ed was always the one who'd find it easy to settle down, because that's what he wants. You...´
She trails off. Alphonse smiles at her. Surprised –because he is young and thought that nobody could penetrate the mystery that was his personality– and overjoyed that she said that, flattered that she thinks so much about him.
She touches his shoulder.
`I meant what I said. No more fighting for you, boys.´
`I don't think I'll ever stop fighting,´ Alphonse shakes his head. `But maybe from now on the fight will be different.´
me and brother and teacher against the world...
It's time to find out if he can take on the world by himself.
`You were always too clever for your own good. That's why I never really liked you.´
`And why you liked my big brother...´
`No, he went overboard the other way. He was always too stupid.´
They both laugh and Alphonse spares a merciful thought for Edward – sorry, big bro.
Suddenly he feels sleepy, like a little boy. Weary from anticipation. The journey ahead of him: Xing, all that learning, seeing Ling and Lan Fan. Mei. New ideas. New feelings, perhaps. Everything is a part of the whole, the world is contained within one. Alphonse feels heavy.
`That was a really big dinner.´
Izumi crosses her arms in front of her.
`Of course. You need to stock up on calories for tomorrow.´
Alphonse goes pale.
`Training in hell plan B?´ he jokes (he hopes).
The woman winks at him, completely serious about it.
He feels positively sick.
`But teacher! Don't break my new body now that I finally got it back!´
The last thing he hears before Izumi rushes him to bed is something about giving his body a test drive and Alphonse contemplates the idea that he might not make it to Xing after all.