A re-write in honor of FMA day.
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Spoilers up to ep 62-63 FMA:B
Ed knew many people who things for granted.
Toys.
Food.
Homes.
Security.
Family.
Limbs.
Life.
There had been a time when Ed had taken those things for granted as well.
But that had been a long time ago.
Before that night. That night. That night when everything went terribly wrong.
Well, if Edward was being honest with himself, things had actually started going wrong long before that night.
Technically, things had been going wrong ever since he—Ed refused to call him anything else but several choice insults—had left, ever since Ed and Al's mom had died. Ever since then, the world had been turned on its head. Ed had had to get used to the change in gravity, the immediate, irreversible, overwhelming weight that had been shoved onto his shoulders.
For a while, there had been peace. With Teacher, learning alchemy, but that ended, just like everything else, and things started going terribly wrong again.
But, really, when Ed mused back, he knew that everything had just fallen apart on that night.
He and Al had thought everything out so well. Why—why had it gone so wrong? They had worked too hard and for too long for everything to turn out as bad as it did.
Ed supposed it could have been worse.
He could have been too late to save Al's soul, and then he would be alone. Ed could have received some other punishment—something else could've been taken from him. And if Al hadn't been able to get to the Rockbell's in time, Ed could've bled to death. But that hadn't.
It just left Al as a soul confined in armor, invulnerable unless something happened to his blood seal, just left Ed with no arm and no leg. It just left Al incapable of feeling anything, left Ed to endure two automail surgeries at the same time.
That was all.
So, after that night, Edward stopped taking things for granted. He couldn't afford do that anymore. He had nearly lost everything he had left. He had nearly lost his little brother, and Ed realized how much he relied on Al, how much he needed Al, because without him, Ed had no family left, no stabilizing agent to anchor him. Without Al, there was no one left to live for.
Ed really had lost two of his limbs, and he knew that if he ever got them back, he'd never take them for granted again. Never.
He stopped taking home for granted, especially after he got his State Alchemist license, because he barely ever slept in the same place two nights in a row. The only constant "home" he had was the Rockbell's, but it wasn't like he went there often, or kept in touch with Winry and Granny.
He stopped taking security for granted. Between fighting Homunculi, doing his work for the Idiot Colonel, searching for the Stone, and trying to avoid getting clobbered by Winry, Ed spent a good majority of his and Al's time getting stabbed, impaled, knocked out, and generally almost killed.
So Ed stopped taking things for granted. Or, at least, he thought he did.
Unconsciously, over the years, Ed found himself falling back into his old habits, falling back into dependency. Started taking things for granted once again. Things like Winry's automail tune-ups, Mustang's quips about his height, Major Armstrong's bone-breaking hugs, and Teacher beating him and Al up. Ed didn't realize it at first, but while he stopped taking some things for granted, he relied so heavily on others, like Mustang's rumors about the Philosopher's Stone, on Winry's constant anger over the state of his automail, but mainly Ed relied on Al. He had sworn to himself that he would stop taking his little brother for granted, he had sworn to himself that he would not rely on Al's constant presence at his side, but none of that made any difference in the end. Ed hadn't realized it until too late that he was taking things like Al's laugh, tinny and echoey inside of his silver helmet, Al's selflessness, Al's untiring, unfeeling body for granted. Even after Ed had nearly lost him, nearly lost the only family that mattered to him, Ed was still taking Al for granted.
Ed's little brother was so indestructible, and yet so vulnerable. Al could withstand gunshots, sword wounds, explosions, getting armored limbs chopped off, but when it boiled down to it, Al was more easily killed than anyone else. The only thing tying him to this world was that blood seal on his back, and if anything broke the circle, if anything muddled the rune, then Al was gone, soul drawn back to his body, armor vacant and dead.
Al knew that. He knew how much Ed had sacrificed to bring him back (even though that hadn't turned out the way Ed had planned), knew how much Ed needed him.
And yet, here they were.
...
The battle against Father wasn't going very well, to say the least.
Ed had been beaten, bitten, stabbed and transported through that horrible gateway again, all in the course of a day, but it wasn't until his automail broke that he truly contemplated failure.
It had lasted so long, had been so constant, so unbreakable, so reliable; never had it crossed his mind that it could be destroyed. Ed had watched the pieces of his metal arm fracture, scatter to the wind and fall to the dusty, rubble-strewn ground, dead, and realized with a grim sort of humor that he'd even taken his automail for granted. If that wasn't the ultimate failure of his resolve not to take things for granted, he wasn't sure what was. And then, well, as he landed back on a half-upright piece of wall and realized he was stuck, then he started to think that maybe, just maybe, they might not win. Maybe he might die. Maybe they might fail and Father would destroy everything.
But everything inside of him rebelled at this idea, every part of him rejected hopelessness with an unflinching, fiery fierceness, and so Ed tried to get up, ignoring the pain as the metal he was impaled on dug into his arm, ignoring how useless he was without his automail.
And Father drew closer, a haunted, manic look in his eyes, relishing in the moment. Every step the not-so-bearded guy took felt like another dark drumbeat closer to the hangman's noose, every stab of pain through his upper arm barely drove back the dread rising in Ed's veins, and his lungs seemed to savor the desperate breaths he sucked in as though each bit of air were his last. Plans rose and were discarded in his head until the only thought left was to get free and punch Father in the face and he struggled with all his strength against the twisted rebar stuck in his upper arm, anger and dread and fear coursing through his body, mixing with adrenaline to fill every inch of him with an anxious, furious energy.
But all that stopped with five small clangs as five little daggers shot through the air and embedded themselves in the rock directly to Ed's left, right where his automail port opened onto empty air.
It felt vaguely like someone had forcibly vacuumed all the air out of his lungs.
The world seemed to freeze with the blood in Ed's veins as he turned almost unwillingly to the direction where they had come, knowing somehow, deep inside him, what he would see and denying it even as his worst fears were confirmed.
Al was lying on his back, half-broken arms outstretched in front of him, directly in front of his blood seal, which was exposed as most of his chestplate had been blown off. Mei kneeled next to him, hands on the blue pentagram of her alkahestry, and Ed realized with horror that Al—his seal—was exactly in the middle of the circle. Although no words could make it from his mouth, his mind was suddenly overwhelmed with one word, one terrified, desperate word blanking out every other coherent thought—No.
And then, before he could say anything, do anything but stare dumbly, Al's voice cut through the sounds far in the distance. "Keep fighting, brother." The quiet, simple words were lost moments later as Al's seal started glowing, and a flash of alchemical energy rushed through the air.
And then Al was gone.
Gone.
Armor empty. Black eye sockets devoid of the warm glow of his brother's soul.
All for Edward.
The world was still frozen, and so were Ed's insides. There was barely time for him to drag in a breath for a plea that would never reach Al, and then another burst of bright light flashed next to him.
Ed didn't want to move his eyes from the armor—his brother, his brother, it was his brother, Al, come back, Al—but with the flash came a very curious sensation, a very strange, out-of-place feeling. With a jolt, he realized what it was. Something he hadn't felt in years, hadn't been able to feel for years.
Ed felt an arm.
So he tore his eyes away from the place Al's armor lay and turned to look down at what had just been an empty automail port.
But now, it was not.
There—thin and atrophied and pale—was an arm.
An arm.
The oxygen for the frantic yell he couldn't form caught in his throat.
An arm.
The thing he and Al had been trying to get back for four years.
An arm.
Emotions fought for dominance in Ed's veins—astonishment, terror, rage, happiness, determination, horror. For a moment, he could only rise the wave of emotion, mind spinning, body trembling.
Then rage won.
Ed shot to his feet, the simple piece of rebar too weak to hold back the anger searing through him, a wildfire far too out of control, the rage carrying him as he rose.
Ed clapped his hands together—both hands, both flesh hands—and felt alchemical energy charging up both his palms for the first time since that night. Rock crumbled and reformed under his alchemy and he sent everything he had straight for Father, throwing the thing across the battered courtyard. He grabbed the pole impaled on his right arm and ripped it out, a scream rising from his feet and tearing through his throat, fueled by anger and sorrow combined.
He threw the rod aside and slapped his hands together again, exulting in the alchemical surge which sent pillars of rock barraging one after another towards Father, pummeling Father in place of Ed's own fists.
He could vaguely hear his friends cheering him on—Teacher, Mustang, Lt. Hawkeye, Armstrong, even his horrible father, Ling—shouting words of encouragement which didn't even make it to his ears. He barely even registered the sounds. His mind was consumed by the fiery rage, stripping him of every coherent thought, every conscious decision except for the frenzied, searing desire to destroy Father. And get Al back.
Nothing mattered except killing this delusional idiot who thought he could be god.
Getting Al back.
...
He'd done it.
He was mostly aware of it, remembered slamming his fist into Father's face—that had felt so good, after everything he'd put them through—and watching as he'd crumbled to dust.
But now, that was over.
And he was left with the mangled armor which had previously harbored Al's soul. Had previously been Ed's brother.
His mind was torn with sorrow and one question repeating endlessly—What was there left to give? Ed and Al had decided no more people would die for them—they were not using Hohenheim, or any Philosopher's Stone—and Al would never forgive Ed if he gave up his arm again. But Ed wasn't leaving his brother stuck in that place with Truth, not while he still had life in him.
But what could he give to get Al back? All of him, not just his soul this time. What was there left to give.
He'd lost everything—his arm, his leg, his home, his brother—there was nothing left to give. No way to get his brother back. The burning rage was gone, leaving him empty and torn and alone, and he couldn't stop the tears, couldn't stop the agonizing stabs from every beat of his heart. His hands fell to the ground next to the broken pieces of Al's armor, finger digging into the disturbed dirt in a vain attempt to ease the pain in his chest. Ed let the dirt fall through his fingers, and was left with empty palms which stared at him like they knew the answer to his problem.
And then it hit him
There was one thing Ed still have left to give. One thing so constant, so usual, such a big part of him that he hadn't even thought of it. One thing he had always taken for granted.
His alchemy.
The immediate doubts which flew to his mind were silenced by a surge of desperation, a sudden, overwhelming need for his brother. It was the only thing he could think of. The only thing he had left.
So as Ed prepared to perform what (if he had his way) would be his last transmutation, Ed didn't feel sorrow for the loss of his alchemy. He didn't feel anger that he had to resort to this. He just accepted the inevitable. He was going to lose the one thing that had pretty much always been a constant in his life. And it was worth it.
He even managed to feel a bit of pride as he felt the circle go to work and he found himself face to face with Truth once again.
~fin~
A/N: Hope you all enjoy this rewrite, and have had a great FMA Day! In honor of this fantastic anime which has changed my life, I was going to post a different one-shot, but I didn't have enough time to edit it fully. So expect another FMA fic in a coupe days, maybe.
Reviews are always super appreciated, faves and follows as well.