Disclaimer: I don't own Fullmetal alchemist.

Hope you enjoy.


It started with a favour.

I still remember how everything started. How my life went, for six months, from mundane to total madness, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and all because of him.

One day like any other my private phone started to ring, this was very strange giving that only a handful of people knew this number but, for some reason, I didn't though anything of it, to be quite honest my movements in those days were very mechanic, for the most part, I never expected to hear his voice on the other side of the line nor did I expected the proposal that came later.

"Do you have any time to speak with me tomorrow?" He said.

-To be hone…-

"It can be during lunchtime and you don't even need to move, I'll go by your office…"

It wasn't very like him to be so predisposed and his voice sounded different too but, jet again, in those days I was doing everything by the clock.
I told him that he could come and he said "thank you", then no other sound came from the other side. Now that I think about it I should have seen it coming, but I didn't allow my self a minute, my day continued.

The very next day, just when the clock strike one o'clock and everybody when of to the common hall I saw him standing in front of me, he looked different, taller, certainly more like an adult, after all, two years don't go by for nothing. It was hard for me to hide my content for his presence, the letters that he send me were our only form of communication.

-If is a private matter, close the door…-And he did- You stopped answering my letters.

-Yeah, I know… I was a little occupied in the last few months…-He sat down in front of me, leaving the brown bag that he carried on the side.

-Well Edward, you called me for this meeting, what do you need?

-A favour…well, to be specific is more of an invitation, but a favour on your side.

-A favour? Of what kind?

-A favour involving this…-At the same time that he said this words he picks up his bag and from it he pulls out a white envelope that he hand to me. The envelope contains some blood analysis among other medical test, all things that I didn't understand all that well – What you are seeing are all the tests that I been doing in the pasts months, with several doctors, and all of them arrive to the same conclusion: Cancer.

Let me tell you that there are some sensations that you never forget, no matter how bad you try, one of those is the way your body reacts when you hear something very shocking: Your blood starts to run slow and your throat transforms itself in one big, sharp, knife, carefully cutting everything on its reach.

Needless to say all this translated in a very dark expression on my face.

-N-no…W-wha-…. What do you w-want me t-to do?

-Well, there is where my invitation comes along, I want you to come with me on a little trip.

-A trip? Edward what are you talking about? This is serious!

-And so is my invitation.

-You have to start a treatment for this, not plan an adventure. Have you completely lost your mind?

- A little but that was never in question, now wasn't? – That little joke wasn't fun in that moment, and is not now either – I'm more lucid than ever before, I have visit three of the best doctors in the country, including Dr. Knox, all of them told me the exact same thing: 15% survival rated to the treatment. Those are not very good odds. They also told me that if I wait a few months to start with the hold circus it doesn't change the outcome all that much so, I decided, that I rather live a little before I subject myself to a chemical death but I need someone to come with me. My brother is not a very good alternative, he got very emotional when I told him my idea, so I started to think in someone more impartial and you came to mind…

-Impartial?

-Yes…you are, in general, colder than my brother.

-Fuck your impartiality! -Now that I remember all of these events, and that I know things that in that moment I didn't, I admit that screaming and making a mess in my own office wasn't the best way to react- And the feelings that I have for you? Those you basically don't care at all…

-No, that is where you are wrong! I care about you bastard, a little too much I will say, that's why I spend months in hospitals trying to be complete sure that this was something that had no other way out but this one. I'm asking you because I know, for a fact, that you wouldn't let me do something like this without you and, also, because I wouldn't forgive myself if I did it with anyone else! What kind of senseless animal do you pin me for?

We remain silent for a few minutes, while we put our emotions in order.

-So then… I just leave my job then? -Right then and there I saw him smiling. This intolerable man had an effect on me.

-I'm sure you can work something out, you are the general after all…-Again, not funny then, not funny now.

- I nee-

-Sure, think about it, you have a week to give me a definitive answer, literally seven days, after that I'm leaving.

He didn't give me time to replay, not even to react, he was out of the office before that, closing the door behind him without giving me one look, surely he was trying to avoid the familiar faces that might see him. I was left alone, in distress and doubt.

If you are reading this I'm sure that you know my decision by now.
What can I say? I had to lie a bit in order to get a leave of a few months but he was right, I was not about to let him go around without me. He knew that well.