The World
Fullmetal Alchemist fan fiction

Genre: gen, Elric!kyoudai
Rating: G (K)
Word Count: 1,300 or so
Notes: Without a doubt, dedicated wholly and completely to Miss Holly. In the years since I've met you, you've very quickly grown to mean the world to me. Your passions, your desires, your insecurities, your pains. No words (nor even actions) can entirely convey how much you mean to me.

While writing this, I realized that perhaps you would be offended by my use of fiction. After all, real life is and has always been most important. Characters are just characters. But, in this case, I think you understand.

--

He remembers a certain torpid summer day – one of many, he was sure, though the others had sunk too far from the surface to be recalled – when Mother had shown them the World. At six and seven, he and Brother had maintained that Risenburg was all there was, that the land ended suddenly beyond the last fields and orchards, and that 'trouble' could be cured with a few kisses and apologetic silence.

As they rolled past the countryside in the back of Mr. Engel's wagon Alphonse thought, This is the World. The path became a street and subsequently (imperceptibly) a train car racing towards the edge of the world. And when they did not spiral downward into a hideous oblivion –

instead pulling into a station filled with faces he had never seen before – he thought again: This is the World.

And again, he was wrong; there was much more past the clogged train terminal that Mother wished for them to see.

--

He remembers the day the doctor came. Auntie Pinako was Risenburg's doctor (a surgeon, to be precise) but she had called in Dr. M. Lyly from East City for Mother's 'condition'. One of the best, she said. Mother will be better in no time, she said.

And "I don't know," he said to Mother. He and Brother crouched outside the door. (Rats in hiding.) "Your condition is very rare; all of your symptoms cannot be explained. At such an advanced stage, there's not much we can do. Bed rest, healthy food; I can prescribe some pain medication when it gets worse." Worse.

It didn't get worse, Alphonse wanted to shout. Mommy was sick and it didn't get worse than that.

But it would – and did. Fast. "Why didn't you tell anyone? Long before this stage, you would have known. What if you infected your children? You shouldn't have put them at risk. You should have –"

Mother cried. Sobbed. He covered her face in her hands and her entire body shook; she looked afraid and lost and devastated. Alphonse wanted to run to her, climb into her arms like the nine-year old boy he was.

But Brother was ten. "SHUT UP!" Brother screamed, slamming the door open. "JUST SHUT UP! SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP!"

When Dr. M. Lyly next came calling, he wouldn't top tugging at his necktie and couldn't bring himself to look any of the Elrics in the eye. "We still can't identify your condition, but we've determined it's a wholly an intrinsic disease," he pronounced stiffly, awkwardly. "There is no chance of infection in either child."

And for a moment, Alphonse thought, A pity there wasn't.

--

He remembers the first day, and the last – and every remission, every relapse, in between.

"Mommy, let's go to the orchards. We haven't been hiking in a long time; we can have a picnic!" Brother tugged at Mommy's skirt, resting his chin on her shoulder and looking up with his warm, gold eyes. "Come on, Mommy. I want to go. We used to go all the time, we – " A warning look from Al.

Mother shook her head. "Maybe next week, sweetie. Mommy is feeling a little tired today."

"But I want to go ­now - you always took us, even when it was raining. Whenever we felt like it; we all love the orchards. The apples're ripe now." Brother was unrelenting. "Why can't we do it today? We're not doing anything else; all we do is sit inside now."

Alphonse watched and listened, dialogue unfolding before his eyes. His gaze darted between Brother's incessant pleas and Mother's face. Back and forth and back and forth and back and – "Brother, stop it. Please!"

The trance was broken. "Boys, can you go get Mommy some of her diamonds?" (That was mother's name for her medication. It was supposed to be a joke – something about the cost. Alphonse didn't think it was funny.)

"What were you thinking, Brother?" Alphonse hissed, once they were outside Mother's room and well into the kitchen. He grabbed Brother by the shirtsleeve. "You know Mommy can't go out. Dr. Lyly said that she needed to stay off her feet, and that she shouldn't be in the sun for too long, and –"

"I know," Brother snapped, shrugging out of Al's grasp. "And Lyly can stuff it! I just want everything to be… normal again.

"I wanted it to be like it always was." And Alphonse had forced him to embrace the truth – embrace the sword.

--

He remembers the day everyone thought she was getting better. She laughed, and smiled, and it was as if Brother's wants had been answered. Together with Auntie Pinako, they planned a short dinner (so Mommy could see all the friends and neighbors she both loved and now, perhaps, envied just a little).

But then mother had stumbled on the stairwell, dizzy, disoriented. She was running a high fever and back in bed as soon as Alphonse and Brother could call for Auntie Pinako's help. The guests came regardless, but stayed holed away in the dining room. They couldn't bring themselves to see her, nor she them. They didn't understand. Couldn't.

He and Brother stayed by her side, while she held their hands in hers. And when her fingers unfolded, let go, she released the weight of the World.

--

He remembers the day of tea and tears.

"I… brought your homework for the week. And some tea. And dinner, from Granny Pinako…" Winry said, holding out a basket and a thermos as if in tribute.

A nod of recognition from Brother. Alphonse does nothing. He hasn't seen Winry in over a week; he's not sure how to act around her anymore.

"You know, I'm – sorry. My parents also… so I know how—"

"No. You don't," Brother spat. "Because your parents just DIED. You didn't have to be there to watch!" Alphonse secretly agreed (she didn't need to watch her parents cry, or hurt, or change from lovely, loving Mother to something they hardly knew), but it wasn't right to say. Not at all. Not when Winry had gone to such lengths to comfort them, even if she didn't know how.

Now it was Winry's turn to weep.

This was the sole moment he was sure both he and Brother remembered. Brother couldn't bear to see Winry upset, ever, and Alphonse thought the day of tea and tears had played no small part.

But Alphonse surprised himself when, as Winry stepped back into the World and away from their little house, all he could give her was an inert "I guess I'm sorry, too."

--

Most of all, he remembers Mother.

He remembers the day he first grasped how much her smile meant, how greatly the smell of her hair painted his image of her, how sorely he would miss her cool hands on his brow and the strength in her voice when she reprimanded he and Brother for tracking mud into the house. He thought this insight had come too late.

Brother tracked dirt and grave soil into their home the night of her funeral (though it was quite possibly early morning of the succeeding day), came in with his suit caked in mud and grass hanging limp in his hair. He looked tired beyond measure, but beneath the smudge and stain (had he been lying on the grave? Alphonse wondered) his eyes held a citrine glint.

Mother had shown them the World.

Now they were ready to live it.

—fin

In memoriam – Heidi Burgess,
who has touched the lives of so many, both in life and in death.
May she live forever in serenity.