Silent Echoes
(Ed's POV)
We stand here, Al and I, with our backs to the wind staring once more at the site where our home once stood. I decided I was going to become a National Alchemist by becoming a dog of the military. I don't regret joining. After all, it's the only way I can get the information I need for the Philosopher's Stone to get Al's body back. Similarly, I don't regret burning our house down. All it was was an empty shell housing memories to painful to remember. I do however regret the reason it was burned. If dad hadn't left, Mom wouldn't have gotten sick the way she had. If she hadn't died…
Al and I might have been living the way we always had. We wouldn't have tried to use the forbidden human alchemy to bring mom back (not that the reason was justified. We knew better). I wouldn't have lost my left leg and right arm and Al wouldn't have lost his body. I wish we hadn't been so incredibly stupid (more on my part than Al's). If I hadn't, perhaps I could see what I do now. Mother is still here with me. She's in my heart, in my memories and my little brother.
I see her in Al. I see her smile, her laughter, her kind and tender heart. But I alone ruined it. Thanks to me, I have to endure the way people stare at my brother. I hate myself even more knowing that it's him who suffers more than I. It isn't me I care about, it's him.
I stand in a different place now. I am at my mother's gravestone while Al goes back to Winry's. All I'm doing now is standing in the shade of this tree while the wind playfully at my hair and coat. In my hands, which are clasped over my heart, I hold a single wildflower that I found growing in the charred plot where our home once stood. A flower formed by life's natural cycle and not alchemy. It may have been what she wanted, it may not have. After all, every time we successfully performed transmutation, she was so proud of us and how we truly were our father's sons. She saw dad in us. Ever so slowly, I kneel in the dirt and place the flower on her grave.
Grief has suddenly overcome me and I take my coat off and throw it to the ground. For several moments, I look from my automail arm to the ground and back again. "I'm sorry, Mother," I whisper, "I didn't mean to."
I turn to leave but I can't. I lean against the tree and gaze over the field. The sun is setting in west painting the crystal clear blue sky hues of red, orange, yellow and purple while a gentle breeze sweeps in causing the wildflowers to dance.
I see now what I ignored for so long. I see different aspects of my mother in nature. The rising and the setting of the sun… just like the first and last things I saw in my day was her face. The flowers that bloom in all their beauty… just like how my mother was the most beautiful woman a person could lay eyes on. The wind is so gentle at times… just like her regular tone of voice was. The times when the wind howls angrily… just like the times she would get mad at Al and me (usually me for dragging Al into the messes I made).
Sometimes when I'm standing here like this, with the wind around me, I can almost whispering words to me that are already in my heart. I can hear her saying, "Ed, you can't change the past. All you can do is try to make it right…"
Her voice echoes silently in my head. She's a part of me and I won't forget her. I miss her.
But I believe she'd want me to go on. A single tear silently rolls down my cheek and drips onto my shirt. I've been so absorbed in my own thoughts that I've failed to notice Al coming up behind me.
I feel a hand place itself on my shoulder. "It's ok to cry, Brother. I miss her too."
"I- I'm sorry, Al. I didn't want any of this to happen," I managed to choke out.
"It's ok, Brother. The past can't be changed. We can only go on," he reassures me. "Don't you think mother would have wanted the same thing?"
I smile and nod and turn my head to look back over the field. "You know, Al, I was just thinking about that."
"Let's go back to Winry's."
And as I walk back with Al, I can almost feel my mother's arms wrapping themselves around me and her voice saying, "I love you."
These words still echo silently with the wind.
And in my heart.
For Shizu