Author: Manda
Category: Drama?
Pairing: None
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: Episode 51. THE END OF THE ANIME.
Notes: Based on the alchemical theory of circular motion.
Time is off, tangled, strange at the Gate.
The Colonel seems to be asleep, until Ed sees the cuts on the side of his face, his arms, his hands, one hand with a fire array crudely drawn and slightly blurred. The blood on the side of his head.
(Al. Al is next to him.)
The man stirs, and Ed kicks him.
"Idiot. Idiot."
"I thought maybe I'd meet you here."
(Al! Armored, not-armored. Is here, not here.)
The Gate, the Door is creaking open, for both of them.
"You're a fucking idiot. You're supposed to be over there."
"And you're not?" Slowly, carefully.
"What the hell is with that resigned tone? I'm not going anywhere without Al, and he's not going anywhere without me. He's getting his body back, and I'll force my way back. You-," he grabs the Colonel's arm and stops, suddenly connected, there. "I can hear her. She's crying for you."
("Brother. I'm sorry.")
"You're crying too."
"Al..." Ed twists his face up. The tears wet his lips. "You idiot. You gave up, that's why you're dying. Go back to Amestris, and become Fuhrer. Help Al."
"If he's there" is unsaid.
The gate keeps opening, slowly, creaking. It was so fast before. Can't be anything more than an anomaly, that he has this time now.
Roy Mustang lifts his head slightly. Looks up at Ed. Isn't there. Is there. Is slumped on the not-ground in a puddle of blood. Is looking at Ed. With one side of his head covered in dark red blood with white bone splinters and white and black sprinkles of eye, and Ed recoils. With two good black eyes, mocking, in a memory.
"I'm tired."
The Gate is open. The black tendrils of nothing grasp out toward both of them.
("I'll find my way back to you, Al."
The armor with golden hair and grey eyes nods.)
He grabs the Colonel's arm again; Roy recoils in pain and Ed sees more stripes of blood working their way through the black cloth. Still alive. He thinks of Bradley's sword, two snakes consuming each other, one snake consuming itself, one snake alone on a cross.
"Go back to Amestris, shit Colonel! Flame Alchemist!"
Roy's two-no, one eye widens at the last term and he stares down at the array on his hand, fascinated. He slowly, painfully turns his head to one direction as if to hear something Ed cannot.
The doors slide open, close around themselves in a circular motion. Roy slumps onto the not-floor and fades.
"Shit Colonel," Ed repeats, and reaches out to the Gate.
Al! Armored, not-armored. Is here, not here. In a flash.
(The man stirs, and Ed kicks him.)
"Brother, I'm sorry."
Ed reaches out a hand that will not touch the armor.
"I'll find my way back to you, Al."
The boy and the armor nod.
(The Colonel seems to be asleep, until Ed sees his bloodstained hair and the cuts on the side of his face, his arms, his hands, one hand with a fire array crudely drawn and slightly blurred.)
The Gate is wide open now. The black tendrils reach out toward him and it's cold but he thinks, I can handle this. I have before.
(He stands in the middle of the array he learned from the Isbhar people, shaking, and claps.)