i'm still, still dreaming magnificent things

by anthrop

"Brother," he says, dismayed. He reaches out to touch Ed's hunched shoulder, to comfort him, to help him on his feet, to carry him bodily to the Rockbells' house if he has to to make sure Ed will be okay—but his hand passes right through Ed instead. (An AU where Alphonse's ghost is trapped in the in-between, blaming himself for everything that went wrong that night.)

1. Chapter 1

Written for paigyloli on Tumblr for a FMA Secret Santa exchange, as well as for teamalphonse who came up with the ghost!Alphonse idea in the first place. I side-eyed my 27 Danny Phantom fics and was like, "You had me at ghost," haha. Fic title comes from San Fermin's "Rennaisance!", though I admit Oren Lavie's "Don't Let Your Hair Grow Too Long" was a close contender.

---

Alphonse wakes up.

Or—no. No, that's silly. He's standing up. It's just very dark wherever he's at, and he can't remember what it was he'd been doing before this.

Maybe he was sleepwalking? He's never done it before and neither has Ed or Winry or Granny. Mrs. Sheridan at the post office sleepwalks, and so did Tommy Granger before he went off to boot camp. There might be other people in the town proper who sleepwalk, but Mrs. Sheridan and Tommy are the only ones he and Ed ever knew about because they always went out of their houses. He and Ed found Tommy once, not long after they'd gotten back from training with Teacher. The older boy had been really confused and kept going on about apple cider until he woke up properly, then he swore, ruffled their hair, and told them off for being up so late.

Anyway, right. Maybe Alphonse has been sleepwalking. He's awake now though, and he's still inside—at least, he thinks so. The moon was nearly full, and it was still rising when they'd gone down with the final prepared ingredients for their transmutation carefully balanced between them—

Oh, duh. He's got to be in the basement.

He squints into the dark until dim shapes make themselves known. The bookshelves, the tables, the wooden crates, beakers and tubes catching pale light from the little window wedged up by the ceiling.

"Ed?"

The lanterns must have all gone out in the transmutation. He takes a few cautious steps as his eyes adjust. The white chalk of their array stands out brightest on the floor, but there are thick black smears all around the edge of it nearest him, and inside it, and in the center where the shallow tray had been is a dark, huddled shape. Alphonse's breath catches; he wrings his hands, not daring to hope but still, maybe, maybe—

"Mom?"

The shape doesn't move. But that's definitely an arm, too long to be Ed's. It has to be her. It is her. It worked, it really worked!

"Mom!"

She still doesn't move, but that's fine, she must be exhausted. Ed must have run upstairs to get her some clothes. Alphonse rushes to her and drops to his knees, reaching out to touch her hand—

—and it's only then, with the dark of the basement and his own eagerness clouding his vision, that he sees. Her skinned face. Her yawning, split-open ribs. The huge pool of blood. The coil of intestines spilling out of her belly. How terribly still she lays.

He reels back, smothering a scream. No. No. What—? Is she—? She is, she's—she's— no. This isn't what they wanted—oh, what happened? What happened ? Why didn't it work? Why did it—? She's dead, she's deadagain and they killed her —

Where's Ed?

It takes him a few tries to get to his feet, shaking so badly that he almost loses his balance and falls into her—it—her—not her, please, let them have been so wrong that she was never alive, let them never have brought her back at all, please—

He breathes. He breathes. He. He's got to find Ed.

He staggers out of the basement, banishing the thought of that glassy-eyed thing sloughing to pieces down there. He's got to find Ed. All of that blood didn't belong to—to that. There'd been a pool outside the array, smaller and smeared across the concrete. There's blood all up the stairs, and across the white walls of the hall too, like garish streaks of fingerpaint. Low, closer to the baseboard, like Ed had had to crawl on his hands and knees.

A rebound. That's the only explanation. Their array was wrong—despite all their checking and rechecking, despite all their hard work, despite years—it was wrong. That's all there is to it. They were wrong despite their every precaution. There was a rebound that tore the—the transmutation apart and seriously injured Ed as well.

But what about himself?

He hesitates halfway down the hall, where dim moonlight spills through a crack in the curtain. He looks at himself; his hands, his arms, his torso, his legs. There's not a drop of blood on him anywhere. He doesn't hurt at all. Why didn't the rebound affect him too? Or—or maybe it did, but not as aggressively? He'd been knocked out, right? That must be why Ed had left without him; Ed couldn't wake him up, and whatever the rebound had done to Ed had hurt him badly enough that he couldn't afford to wait around. A few minutes or a few hours; Ed would have gone to Granny and Winry for something serious enough to leave this much blood.

Alphonse swallows as a terrible thought occurs to him: if Ed could make it on his own.

"Edward? Brother! Where are you?!"

He runs down the hall, veers into the entrance hall and finds the front door wide open. The storm had broken while he'd been unconscious and now rain is pouring down in sheets. The coat closet is cracked too—no, that's not right. Part of the door is gone completely. Alphonse hesitates again, frowning at the rough transmutation marks marring the wood. What had Ed been doing? Never mind, never mind, he just needs to find Ed, now.

Heedless of the rain he sprints into the storm, calling out for his brother. The dirt path has been beaten to mud already but he doesn't slip. He pounds up the path from their house to the main road, running as fast as he can. His brother's hurt. He doesn't know how badly, but there had been so much blood—please, let him get there in time— please.

Across the bridge, still no sign of Ed. From here it's another half-mile to the Rockbell's, and it's pitch black. No lanterns anywhere. Why wouldn't Ed take one? But no, idiot, Ed's hurt, he might not have a hand to spare and it's not like he took one either. Faster, faster, please—

There!

There's a huddled yellow shape collapsed in the ditch. Ed's raincoat. Ed.

"Brother!" Alphonse skids to a clumsy stop beside Ed, who isn't moving. Alphonse's throat closes up, sinking again to his knees. Oh, please no, please, pleasepleaseplease—"Brother!"

Ed sobs.

It's startling enough to leave Alphonse speechless; Ed hates crying. He always gets so embarrassed if someone catches him at it. Alphonse can't remember ever hearing Ed sound so—so broken.

"Brother," he says, dismayed. He reaches out to touch Ed's hunched shoulder, to comfort him, to help him on his feet, to carry him bodily to the Rockbells' house if he has to to make sure Ed will be okay—

—but his hand passes right through Ed instead.

Alphonse yanks his hand back with a yelp, wild-eyed. What? Did—did that happen? He looks at his hands. They look fine, but then why wouldn't they? He imagined it. He must have.

Ed sobs again, weaker and fraught with pain, then reaches for a length of wood in the mud Alphonse hadn't noticed. There's another one on Ed's other side. It's only once Ed's pushed himself into an awkward sitting position as he braces one of the sticks under his armpit that Alphonse realizes what it was Ed did to the closet door.

"Crutches? What did you make crutches fo—"

Ed's left leg is gone.

Ed drags himself onto his one remaining knee with a cry that sounds wrenched out of him. Alphonse can only watch, stricken, as Ed gasps raggedly and heaves himself onto his right foot and the crutches. He sways, nearly falling down again but catching himself awkwardly. "Dammit," he seethes. "Dammit, c'mon."

Alphonse doesn't understand. Rebounds don't take parts of you. They injure, they maim and mutilate, they shred and break you. But Ed's leg is just gone. "Oh my god," Alphonse whispers, reaching out on reflex to help steady Ed. But his hand passes through Ed's arm again, and he's looking this time to see it really happen. It doesn't even feel like anything, like catching smoke from a blown-out candle in his palm. What's going on? He looks at his hands again, forcing his attention on himself rather than Ed's labored hobble. His hands are fine. It's Ed's leg—gone, it's gone, it's gone—that took the rebound, or whatever happened. He's fine. So what the hell is going on?

The rain. It's raining. It's pouring down buckets, but he hasn't gotten wet.

He watches raindrops pass clean through his palms, unable to believe what's happening right before his eyes. He drops his hands, looking to his legs. He's kneeling in the mud and it should be freezing, it should have soaked through his jeans. The mud should be disturbed, here where he's knelt and back the way they both came. But there's only the smear of where Ed collapsed and forced himself to his feet—foot, foot, he's only got one, the other one is gone—and Ed's three-pronged tracks. There's no sign of Alphonse having followed. There's no sign that Alphonse is here.

"No," he rasps. "Brother. Edward. Ed, hang on—just. Wait a minute. What's going on?"

Ed gives no sign that he's heard him.

Alphonse gets to his feet—he doesn't slide in the mud, he leaves no footprints, how did he not notice before?—and catches up to Ed. He tries to grab him, but his hands only swing through his brother uselessly. Ed sobs again through tightly clenched teeth, forcing his way on, and on. Granny and Winry live at the top of a hill. It's a shallow incline, but from where they're at Alphonse still can't see the lights of their house. It may as well be on the moon given how slowly Ed's moving.

His leg… . The two of them know how to handle small injuries, cuts and minor burns and even broken fingers (Al had broken one of his sparring just a few months ago. Ed had rolled out of the way and he'd punched a wall. They'd laughed about it after but at the time he couldn't believe how much it had hurt.), but this? And with how much blood Ed had left in their house? There's no time. Ed won't make it on his own, and Alphonse can't help him. Not directly, anyhow.

"Just be strong," Alphonse tells him. "Hold on. I'll go get help. I don't know what's going on but you're going to be okay, Ed, I promise. Just hold on a little longer."

Ed's eyes scrunch shut as his crutches slip in the mud. He doesn't fall, but it's a near thing, a dear cost to keep his feet—foot—under him. He spits out a scream through clenched teeth.

Alphonse runs.

He makes it to Rockbell Automail in record time. He takes the stairs in two sets of three, reaches for the doorknob mid-step only to have his hand pass neatly through it. Momentum carries him forward however, and hepasses through the door without any resistance at all. He staggers into the house with a yelp, blinking in the sudden brightness. Granny's at the dining table sorting through brightly colored wires and Winry's standing on tiptoe at the sink washing out a mug. Neither of them look over at his sudden appearance. Neither of them notice him at all.

"Granny! Ed's hurt! Please come quick!"

Nothing.

"Winry! Winry, please, can you hear me? Ed's hurt!"

Nothing.

He stomps over to Granny, waving his hands wildly. He tries to bang his fist on the table and he passes right through it, falling to the floor with another yelp. There's no crash as he hits the wood, and Granny doesn't so much as glance his way.

"What's going on? Please, please tell me you can hear me. Ed's going to die!"

He hears the tell-tale click of nails and automail as Den trots out of the hall, ears pricked as he looks this way and that. Alphonse clambers to his feet—automatically trying to brace himself on the table only to pass through and fall down again, what the hell is happening—and dares to ask, "Den?"

Den's snout points right at him, ears perked and tail wagging in that small, tucked-down way dogs have of showing they're confused. Alphonse shakes his head in disbelief. He's invisible somehow and only the dog can hear him. Right, okay, fine. He can freak out about this later. Right now Ed needs him to get help, so. So, here he is, asking the dog to help.

"Den, it's me. It's Al. Ed's hurt. Ed needs help. Come on, boy, listen to me! Ed's in trouble!"

Den barks, startling Granny and Winry. "What's the matter?" Winry asks, setting her mug on the dish rack to dry. Den barks again, stiff-legged, tail wagging harder as he sniffs around the kitchen table. Alphonse stumbles out of his way, reaching out to pet him only to watch his hand sink through Den's spine to his knuckles. Den's hackles raise in a shiver and he dances out of Alphonse's reach, barking louder.

"Den," Alphonse begs. "Come on, go to Ed!"

Whining now, Den darts to the front door and hops in place, tail a blur behind him. Granny tuts, leaning back some to tap her pipe against the ashtray at her elbow. "What's gotten into that dog?"

"I dunno," Winry says, walking to the door. "He usually hates the rain, but I guess if you gotta go, you gotta go."

She's barely able to open the door a crack before Den worms his way through, darting off into the darkness and barking loudly. Alphonse and Winry both call out to him, but Den doesn't come back. Alphonse slaps a hand to his forehead, out of ideas. Invisible and no one but the dog can hear him, and the dog just went and ran off into the storm. Ed's still out there and Alphonse can't help him, and he doesn't know what to do—

Winry shouts out on the porch. "Den, you dummy! Come back!" There's barking again, but the pitch of it's changed, gone high and rapid, more of a yelp. "Den? Den!"

"Don't go out there," Granny chastises. "You'll get washed away."

"Something's wrong," Winry says. She looks over her shoulder, worry furrowing her brow. "I think something's out there."

"Yes!" Alphonse shouts. "It's Ed! Go get him! Please, Winry, come on, go get him!"

Granny sighs, setting the tangle of wires down. "Coat and a flashlight, then. I'll be along in a minute."

"We both don't have to get wet," Winry laughs, fetching her slicker from the coat rack. "It's probably just a raccoon or something."

"Would you stop standing there?" Alphonse fumes. "GO!"

Den barks again, louder and more frantic still. Winry and Granny both have the decency to look concerned, but not nearly as much as they ought to be considering Ed is bleeding out just a few hundred yards from their porch. Winry pulls her slicker on, grabs the flashlight off the kitchen counter, and dashes out into the rain. Alphonse is only a step behind her, whispering fervently that Den will find Ed, that Den will lead Winry to Ed, that Winry will be able to help Ed up the hill, that Granny will be able to save Ed, please, please, please—

---

And that's exactly what happens.

It's only after Ed, gray-faced and loose-limbed, has been bundled up in one of the spare rooms that Granny takes a deep, steadying breath and tells Winry, "I'm going to find Alphonse. Keep a close eye on him, alright?"

"Yes, Granny," Winry chirps at the same time Ed rasps, "No."

Granny frowns. "Hush. Get some rest. I'll sort things out from here. Don't worry about Al—"

"No," Ed repeats. "It took him."

Alphonse, who spent the entire terrible time Granny and Winry cleaned and bandaged the shocking red stump where Ed's leg used to be in a corner out of the way, frowns too. "What are you talking about?"

The pause between him asking, Granny asking the same question, and Ed's reply is enough that Alphonse knows there's no way Ed heard him. He still doesn't understand why no one can hear him, and it stings that his own brother won't—can't—look his way. "He's gone. It took him. There's nothing left of him. He's gone and it's all my fault—"

"Hush," Granny repeats, brushing Ed's bangs out of his sweaty face. Ed twists away, but Alphonse still sees the fresh tears down his cheeks. "Rest, Ed. You're going to be just fine."

Granny and Winry leave the room, leave the door cracked enough that Al can slip through and pretend parts of him don't pass through the frame. He follows them to the sitting room, where Granny presses one bony hand to the dining table and sighs. She looks ten years older than when Alphonse and Ed had left after dinner just a few hours earlier. It feels like it's been ten years to Alphonse too.

Winry fidgets, still in the smock Granny had barked at her to put on. Ed's blood is smeared across it. "What did he mean? About Al?"

"...I don't know. I haven't the faintest idea what they could have gotten up to that could have hurt Ed so badly, let alone—" Granny breaks off abruptly, smacking the table before she stomps over to the front door.

"Where are you going?"

"I have to be sure," Granny says as she fetches her own coat off the rack, pulling it on jerkily. She's afraid, Alphonse realizes. He saw her like this once before, when the news came from Ishval about Auntie Sara and Uncle Yuriy. If he stood close enough he thinks he'd see her aged hands tremble. He stays where he is. "Ed's lost a lot of blood. He isn't thinking clearly. I'm going to go find Alphonse. Stay here. Don't leave the house."

"But—"

"I said stay!"

Winry flinches, hugging herself like she's cold. She's had tears in her eyes ever since she'd staggered up the porch with Ed out cold on her back. Maybe before that too. Granny only looks up once she's buttoned her coat, and her fear is too obvious, too frightening in its own right. Grown ups aren't ever supposed to look so scared.

"We're sorry," Alphonse tells her. "We thought it would work. We thought we could bring Mom back. We had no idea this was going to happen. We're sorry."

Granny says, "Keep an eye on Ed. I won't be gone long."

"'Kay," Winry replies, but doesn't go back to Ed's room until after Granny's fetched the flashlight off the floor where Winry had dropped it and shut the front door behind her. She takes Den with her, so there's—apparently—no way for Alphonse to get Winry's attention. What could he even say if Winry could hear him? Don't worry, Granny's not going to find me. I'm right here, you just can't see or hear me?

He tries anyway. "Winry?"

She sighs, drops her arms to hang limply at her sides. She looks at the door a moment longer, then straightens her shoulders and turns back down the hall. He listens to her footsteps fade, to the thin creak of door hinges swinging open, to Winry's voice speaking too quietly for him to discern the words. He stays put, as torn as she'd been. More, maybe.

He's gone. It took him.

What did Ed mean by that? What happened when they activated their transmutation circle? He thinks back and remembers blue light turning red, and being terrified —

—and nothing else. He's never seen a transmutation circle burn red. Is that what a rebound looks like? But no, no. It wasn't a rebound. It couldn't have been a rebound. They'd read up extensively on the topic—at least, they'd made note of every single mention of rebounds in Dad's library, and Teacher's too. Rebounds don't make you invisible. Rebounds don't make it so no one else can hear you. Nothing should be able to do that.

He should go after Granny. It's late, and dark, and the storm's only just begun to subside. She shouldn't be out there on her own. Even if she did take Den with her, it isn't safe. She could slip and fall. She could break something, and Winry might not dare disobey her no matter how long she's gone. Granny won't find him, so there's no point in looking for him. But—but she'll find Mom, and that—

He can't.

He can't go back there. Not now, not again. He doesn't want to see her—it—her. He just wants to climb into bed with Ed, hold his big brother tight and tell him it's okay, it will all be okay, they're both going to be okay. But Ed almost died tonight. Ed's leg is gone and Alphonse is—he's—

Oh.

That's the word Granny stopped herself from saying before. She thinks—because of how badly Ed was injured, and how long it took to stabilize and bandage and calm him, and that if Ed had been so bad off then Alphonse must have been worse—she thinks he's dead.

Well.

That. That's—it's—

Alphonse shakes his head, hugs himself tightly and imagines as hard as he can that he can feel his own arms wrapped around his middle. He can't go there. He can't go home. Not tonight. Later, some unspecified later, he'll consider that thought and everything it carries with it. Right now he just wants to sit beside Winry and watch Ed as he sleeps. He wants to reassure himself that Ed, at least, is going to be fine.

---

Ed falls asleep not long after Granny left. Winry falls asleep not long before Granny comes back. Alphonse watches Granny shuck off her soaked coat, watches her ignore the trail of water she leaves in her wake to the cupboard where she keeps the whiskey. She skips a glass and takes a pull straight from the bottle, hissing through her teeth as she sinks down into the nearest available chair. She sits there a long, long time, and never once does she seem to hear a one of Alphonse's apologies.

At last, after she's had enough whiskey to put some color back in her face and still the shake of her hands, Granny caps the bottle again. She fills her pipe. It takes two matches to light it; the first breaks and the second one she nearly drops. She sets it between her teeth and breathes in, and in, and then breathes out a long pale plume of smoke.

And she croaks, "Oh, Trisha."

She finishes her smoke, taps out the embers, sets her pipe beside the ashtray. She's aged ten more years again, if the slow groan she makes as she gets to her feet is anything to go by. She's been old all of Alphonse's life but now she seems ancient, wizened, like how the woodcuts of wood nymphs were drawn in one of Dad's old storybooks. She moves like driftwood, brittle and dry. Alphonse wrings his hands, wanting to help. He'd already tried to touch her though, and his hands had passed through hers the same as Ed's. It makes no sense. He looks solid to his own eyes, but the proof is right here; Granny is crying in front of him, something she has never once done in his life.

She puts the whiskey away, turns out the lights, and goes to bed.

---

It's morning. Alphonse has been awake all night. He isn't tired. He isn't hungry. He isn't cold. He isn't anything.

Winry's the first one up and about, stretching to get the stiffness out of her back from falling asleep at Ed's bedside. She goes out to the hand pump with a bowl, scratching Den behind the ears as the dog follows her out before trotting off to do his morning business. Alphonse follows too, watches her fill the bowl with well water. It's one of the bowls they use for cleaning bandages. Alphonse swallows. He doesn't want to see Ed's bandages changed. He doesn't want Ed to need bandages at all. But morning's come and he hasn't woken up from this nightmare. Ed's leg is still gone and he's still dead.

"Good morning, Winry," he tells her as she makes her way past him back to the house. There are shadows under her eyes, her mouth thin with worry. It doesn't look like she slept well.

He follows her into the kitchen where she sets the bowl on the stove to heat up. She fetches another bowl and repeats the process. One bowl to clean Ed's bandages, one bowl to clean Ed. She lights the potbelly stove in the main room to warm up the house, brushes bits of bark off her hands once that's done. She goes back to the kitchen, pulls a pan off its hook and eggs out of the icebox, sets to making breakfast, standing on tiptoe now and then to watch the bowls for bubbles.

Granny comes out of her room before long, looking as rough around the edges as Winry does. Worse, maybe. She peeks her head into Ed's room then goes out to the kitchen. She watches Winry a moment, who hasn't noticed her yet, and some of that weariness seems to fade. Granny doesn't smile, but her eyes crinkle like she wants to. "Beans for Ed too," she says. "He needs the iron."

"Oh! Oh, sure. I was going to go get some spinach from the garden too, if you don't mind watching the stove for a few minutes?"

"Go on then."

Alphonse stays with Granny in the kitchen while Winry dashes off to their backyard garden with a wicker basket. He watches her knock about the kitchen with a smile. Granny's lived here in Rockbell Automail her whole life, learned her trade under her parents, who learned it from her own grandparents. She could navigate breakfast with her eyes closed and her hands tied behind her back, he thinks, and it'd still taste better than almost anybody else's cooking.

(The best cook in the whole wide world as far as Alphonse and Ed are concerned had been their Mom. Granny tried to recreate some of the recipes out of Mom's cookbook and they were always delicious, sure, but they were never right. Not exactly.)

She only pulls two plates out of the cupboard, which makes Alphonse frown curiously. Maybe she isn't hungry, but Winry had put enough eggs in the pan for three and Granny had put a whole can of beans to cooking as well. Alphonse doubts Ed's going to be hungry enough to eat that much. The bowls of water have started boiling so she pulls one off for now and lowers the temperature of the other so it can't boil over.

Winry comes back inside with Den at her heels. "Thanks, Granny. Actually, do you mind finishing up breakfast? I want to see if Ed's up."

"If he isn't you may as well wake him. His bandages need changing. Think you can handle that on your own?"

Winry hesitates, but steels herself when Granny looks over her shoulder at her. "Y-yeah, of course."

"Good girl. I'll be along to help once I've finished here. Don't spill any water now."

"I know, Granny."

Alphonse watches her carefully carry both bowls into Ed's room, then grab fresh towels and sponges from the surgery room. He follows her into Ed's room after that, watches her wake Ed with forced cheer in her voice, watches her help Ed drink a glass of water before she gets to work on his bandages. He watches Ed wince and hiss and grit his teeth, fist his hands in the sheets until his knuckles burn white, whimper as the bandages tug against his stump even though Winry wet them with a warm sponge first. The empty space where his leg should be is just as horrifying as what's beneath the bandages. Alphonse can't imagine the pain Ed is feeling, even with whatever pain relievers Granny's giving him.

Winry gets him cleaned and re-bandaged in due time, and then she sits there for a minute just holding Ed's hand. "You're going to be okay," she says softly.

Ed doesn't look at her. He hadn't looked at her once, not since Alphonse walked in after her. It's like he can't bring himself to meet her eyes, like the guilt won't let him. "Who cares," he says dully.

"I do," Winry protests. "And Granny does too, and—"

"I killed her," Ed snaps, tearing his hand away. "It was my idea to try and bring our Mom back and now they're both gone!"

"Edward!"

Ed rolls over—or tries, but he jars his stump and goes white and rigid with a yelp. Winry reaches out but Ed slaps her hand away. "Get out," he says. "Please. Just. Leave me alone."

"Stop that," Alphonse chides. "It was both our idea. We put in the same amount of work. It's not your fault, brother—"

"Breakfast is almost ready," Winry says, pausing at the door. "You need your strength, so you have to eat."

Ed says nothing, head turned away from her. She leaves, shutting the door before Alphonse can slip through after her. He tries to grab the doorknob, but of course his hand just passes through it. He holds it there, knuckles and fingers curled in the same space as the brass knob. It shouldn't be possible, mashing the molecules of two solid objects into the same space. He should be screaming in pain, just as Ed had been last night. But he can't feel anything at all.

"Brother," he whispers. "I don't understand what's happened."

Ed says nothing. Not because he's ignoring him, but because he can't hear him. Alphonse wishes more than anything that Ed was just ignoring him. This is so much worse than any fight they've ever had. He grimaces at the door. It won't hurt, he reminds himself. It won't feel like anything, because—because he's—because he's dead.

He takes a running start to pass through it anyway.

In the kitchen Granny's saying, "—long I'll be gone, so I'm trusting you to take care of things."

Winry doesn't ask where she's going so maybe Granny already said. She probably did, judging from the stricken expression Winry's wearing. Alphonse swallows. He's pretty sure he knows too. But why would she want to go back to their house? She saw—

"When I get back I want you to go into town to pick up a few things. If there's anything you or Ed want, make a list for yourself."

"Yes, Granny."

Granny pauses then, looking too old again as she cleans her glasses on the hem of her skirt. "Do you understand what the boys did?"

"I... I'm not sure…."

"Something taboo among alchemists. Something illegal in this country. If word got out Ed tried to bring their mother back he'd be killed for it. They'd take him away and hang him, never mind he's just a boy or that it nearly got him killed along with Alphonse. So you mustn't breathe a word of what he did to anyone."

Winry whispers, "I won't. I promise."

"You and I are the closest thing to family he has left. We have to take care of him."

"Of course." She hesitates, hands tangled together, biting her lip so she doesn't cry. "Al's... Al's really dead?"

Granny pulls her close and hugs her fiercely. "It's going to be alright. Just make sure Ed gets something in his stomach for now."

She doesn't take anything with her, tells Den to stay put when he tries to follow her out of the house. Then it's a long, quiet walk to their house. Alphonse walks alongside her, eyes on the muddy path. He doesn't want to go with her. But it was dark last night, and all his thoughts were on Ed and the... thing they'd transmuted. He hadn't look around the basement, not properly. He didn't see his body. He didn't see what happened to himself. If he goes now, with Granny, then it's almost like they're going together. It will be a little easier that way.

At their house Granny goes to the shed in the backyard. She pulls out a shovel and Mom's gardening gloves, stiff with disuse. She goes inside, walking briskly past the dried smears of Ed's blood on the floor and baseboards, so much worse to look at in the warm morning light. She goes to the linen closet, pulling out a spare sheet, then another. She pokes her head in a few rooms until she finds what she's looking for in Dad's study, going in and coming out again with the big lantern they keep in there to read by.

Then she goes down into the basement, and Alphonse freezes at the top of the stairs.

He can't. He can't. It's down there. She's down there. Mom—her skinned face, bright white teeth and sunken eyes, one twisted arm reaching out of the circle to the pool of blood where Ed's leg had been torn away—

He can't.

He has to.

He has to know what happened. He died. He's dead. Their transmutation killed him—and Mom again, he's sorry, they're sorry, please—

—but. But he's still here. It makes no sense. So he has to go down there too.

Just. One step at a time. He's been up and down these stairs a million times before. Sixteen steps, nine of them creaky.

Just. One. Step. At. A. Time.

And then he's down in the basement, eyes scrunched tight. He hears the bright hiss of a match being struck; when he looks up at the ceiling he sees warm light playing across it, Granny's shadow a wavering black stripe down the wall. Granny makes this low, awful, creaking sort of sigh that makes Alphonse feel like hiding under the desk. She says to herself, "Too smart for their own good," and Alphonse shrinks down further. People have been saying that about them for as long as he can remember, fond and frustrated and fascinated, but here it just sounds—

—sad.

He has to look. He has to look. How's he going to learn anything about what went wrong last night if he doesn't look? Quit being a coward and look—

"Oh," he whispers.

There's so much blood, is the thing. He can hardly look anywhere near their array without seeing dried and clotted streaks and pools of it. The pool of blood belonging to Ed is right in front of him. And right beyond that is the array, carefully measured and chalked out on a floor they'd transmuted perfectly level months ago. And beyond that—Mom's hand, reaching for where Ed had been, and beyond that—

He focuses on her hand, firmly ignoring anything beyond her broken elbow. It's too thin. Skeletal. Her nails are thick and yellow, more like Den's claws than fingernails. There are scraps of skin, bubbled and peeling back to expose the mangled muscles, the taut tendons, the brittle bones. It's barely recognizable as human, let alone as Mom's.

He looks away, back at Ed's blood, and only then sees a familiar pair of shoes to his right. His own shoes, the very same shoes he's wearing right now. And there, his pants, and his shirt too, all laid out neatly together in the shape of him. The same clothes he's wearing now, right there on the floor.

Alphonse swallows. There's no blood on his clothes-on-the-floor, the same as the clothes-he's-wearing-right now. No worrying lumps, no stains, no clumps of hair, nothing at all like the thing that was Mom for a few minutes at most before she died again. Their transmutation failed catastrophically, but it wasn't a rebound. The proof is right here, staring him in the face. If it had been a rebound, his body would be here all tangled up and staining his clothes. His body would look like Mom's, laying just a few feet away.

He's just… gone. Killed and tidied away, like his atoms were scattered and swept under the rug—

Oh, oh gross, were his atoms really scattered? Is Granny breathing him right now? He firmly shuts that thought away for later (preferably never) and watches Granny work. This comes with the unfortunate consequence of looking at Mom directly, because she's why Granny brought down the spare sheets and gardening gloves.

Mom is—

Mom is—

Skinned face, overlarge teeth jutting out of a too-small jaw—her neck twisted at a terrible angle—her outstretched hand dislocated and grasping—her other hand stuck out of the center of her chest, curled in like a dead spider's leg—ribs wrenched wide open, bleached white and untouched by the dark flesh curdled at their bases—recognizable small intestine spilled across her hips, a kidney perched atop two coils—blood dried to a wide ink stain still damp in a few places—the gleam of clearer fluids dried to a glaze across their array, mucus or lymph or cerebrospinal or stomach acid—

Mom is a monster they made and murdered, and Alphonse can't even remember doing it.

He breathes. He breathes and he breathes and he claps both hands over his mouth to stop that because he doesn't need to, does he? He's just standing here, dead and panicking, and Granny's the one who has to touch Mom. Granny's the one who has to fold up her dead spider limbs and wind her stiff, wet corpse into the sheets. Fluids stain the cream colored sheets. There's no hiding the almost-person shape of Mom's corpse as Granny ties off each end so it will be easier to drag Mom's corpse up the stairs and out into the yard to be buried.

"We're sorry," Alphonse says, and he doesn't know which of them he's saying it to. Granny can't hear him and if there's some wisp of Mom's soul still tied to that thing—please no, please, please, let her be gone again, let her be dead, don't let her be trapped like he is, don't let her suffer one second more because of their arrogance, please —he can't see it. But he says it anyway, over and over again, hoping it will bleed through somehow. He can't help Granny in this. He can only bear witness.

Mom's second grave is shallower than her first. There's no coffin, no headstone. Only Granny, wheezing and shaking and too old and frail to be doing something as backbreaking as this on her own—but what's the alternative? Mom is rolled out of the sheets, landing face-down with a sickening crunch of her half-formed bones. Mom is buried again, one muddy swing of the shovel at a time.

And that's it.

It's over. It's done.

Granny moans, low and overwrought. The shovel is the only thing keeping her upright but the ground is soft from last night's storm. The blade sinks, losing purchase, wobbling dangerously. Granny sinks too; to her knees, to the ground, the shovel falling away from her. She falls in slow-motion, as if she hopes the ground will swallow her up too.

She sits there a long, long time. Saying nothing. Looking at the mound where Mom is dead and buried again. She ages, and ages, and she is made ancient by grief and weariness and loneliness and duty.

"You bastard," she croaks at long last. Alphonse doesn't know who she means, but it's a flash of anger, a flash of strength. Granny finds it in herself to stand up, to gather the sheets, the shovel, the gardening gloves, and she begins the long walk home.

Alphonse follows after. There's nothing else he can do.

---

Days pass. Long, interminable days and nights and hours and minutes tick-tocked by with no way of escaping the finality of time passing by without ever touching him.

He doesn't tire. He doesn't hunger. He doesn't thirst. He feels nothing. Nothing touches him. He just is.

He curls up in a corner of Ed's room. He sinks into himself, head wedged between his bent knees and elbows. He tries to cry and nothing happens. He just sits there. He listens to Granny and Winry care for Ed. Help him wash. Change his bandages. Coax him to eat. Talk at him. Kind whispers, soft nothings. Ed says nothing too. Ed allows himself to be handled like a doll. Ed is made meek, quiet, pliant. Ed's eyes are flat bronze coins set in sleepless hollows. Alphonse is there for every nightmare that tears Ed open. It's the only thing he can be.

Days pass. Identical days. Identical nights. Identical hours, tick-tocked away by clocks Alphonse wants to smash but can't even touch.

And then— change.

Change in the sudden, shocking, stomping appearance of two soldiers striding through Rockbell Automail's front door. A man, dark-haired and dark-eyed, and a woman with short hair as blonde as Winry's who remains by the front door as Granny shouts at them to get out of her home. The man ignores her, his eyes landing on Ed with frightening intensity. Alphonse can only watch as the man hauls Ed out of his wheelchair and demands answers. His voice is an exclamation point, deep and commanding, shattering the brittle silence that has reigned here for too long. "We went to your house. We saw the floor. What was that? What did you do?"

Ed shrinks even further into himself. His breath shakes, on the verge of tears, and he says nothing in his defense to this stranger in his blue uniform with stars and stripes and ribbons standing out bright and shining. Alphonse gets to his feet and tries to reach up and tug the man's arm down, to force him to let his brother go. But of course his hands pass harmlessly through. He is useless; invisible and mute.

"We're sorry," he tells the man. He begs. Please, please, let someone here him. Let this soldier know they had no ill intent. They just wanted to see Mom's smile again, and all they did was kill her again and take him along with her. Except here he is set apart from everything and forced to watch this stranger shake Ed like the rag doll he's been reduced to by their failure. "We didn't mean it. We're sorry. We're sorry. We're sorry."

The man is Lieutenant Colonel Roy Mustang. The woman is Second Lieutenant Riza Hawkeye. He is a State Alchemist recruiting prospective alchemical talent from the civilian populace. She is his adjutant. She has a holster with a pistol, presumably loaded, at her hip. He does not. She follows Winry out into the hall for tea. He sits down at the dining table with Granny opposite him once she's wheeled Ed over—making a point to smooth his shirt and glower a bit first.

Granny fills her pipe, lights it, breathes in, breathes out a plume of smoke. From the way Lieutenant Colonel Mustang's nose wrinkles discreetly, it's her strong stuff. Then, her glower unwavering, she tells him what happened.

Ed says nothing. Clarifies nothing, defends nothing. He sits there in his wheelchair with his flat coin eyes and his shrunken shoulders and his hands loose on the armrests. Alphonse knows just as well as Ed does what this soldier's presence means. Granny knows too that the game is up. A regular soldier who saw their bloodied array could conclude all sorts of things, but they'd be jumping at shadows that Granny could scornfully tear apart. But a State Alchemist?

No, this soldier knows exactly what he and Ed attempted. There's no running. Granny can only state the facts and plead on Ed's behalf and hope that there is a scrape of decency in this cold-eyed man's heart. If he won't walk away and leave Ed forgotten in their little tucked-away village in the mountains, then maybe at least he won't drag Ed away to be tried and executed in Central. Maybe Lieutenant Colonels or State Alchemists have the power to try and execute little kids all on their own.

When Granny finishes she sets her pipe between her teeth and waits for what the man will do. Lieutenant Colonel Mustang looks back at her, unflinching, arms folded and creasing the sharp angles of his uniform jacket. He looks over at Ed, who keeps his eyes on the pitted surface of the table. He doesn't see Alphonse, standing defensively between him and Ed for all the good it would do.

Then Lieutenant Colonel Mustang does the unthinkable—he praises Ed.

He is astonished by Ed's ability, his genius, his determination to survive against all odds. He thinks Ed could do—will do—even greater and more astonishing things given half a chance. He came here with the intention of recruiting Edward and Alphonse Elric, and while he is sorry for Ed's loss—here he hesitates, a flash of decency's stunted relation regret there and gone on his face—the offer still stands.

"I'd say he's more than qualified to become a State Alchemist," Lieutenant Colonel Mustang continues. "Should he choose to accept the position, he'll be required to serve the military in times of national emergency. In return, he'll receive privileges and access to otherwise restricted research materials. Given time, he may be able to restore his leg, or even more."

Ed says nothing, but his knuckles burn white against the armrests of his wheelchair.

Granny takes her pipe from between her teeth and blows out another plume of smoke. Her glare has only hardened; any relief she might feel for the fact that this man has no intentions of killing Ed are carefully shut away. "Right after my granddaughter stumbled to my door with him, half-dead and covered in blood, I went over to their house to see for myself what had happened. What was there, whatever that thing was, it wasn't human! Alchemy created that abomination. It killed his brother and nearly killed him too! And you want to throw him headlong into it? Would you really have him go through that kind of hell again?"

Lieutenant Colonel Mustang is silent a moment, and when he speaks his reply is solely to Ed. "If you agree, the decision is yours and yours alone. It's entirely up to you now. I'm not forcing you. I'm merely offering you the possibility. Whether to move forward or stay still. Will you sit in that chair wallowing in self-pity, or will you stand up and seize the chance the military can give you? It's your choice. You choose your own path. If you believe the possibility for restoring your limb, you should seek it out. Keep moving, whatever it takes. Even if the way ahead lies through a river of mud."

Not long after the soldiers take their leave, having left a train ticket and a letter and basic instructions for Ed in Granny's care. Ed said nothing, Granny said in no uncertain terms she wanted them to never darken her doorstep again, Second Lieutenant Hawkeye and Winry had parted smiling, and Lieutenant Colonel Mustang didn't walk out so much as swan out. Tall, preternaturally calm—apart from the bit where he'd shaken Ed and shouted—and holding out a lifesaver to drag Ed out of the mire. Alphonse very much wants to hate him, but offering Ed a job isn't the worse thing he could have done. He chooses to reserve judgement for now.

---

It's practically the next day that Ed is prepped for surgery.

There they gather: Ed in a gurney meant for a grown man, Granny and Winry in blue surgical scrubs and smocks, the gleaming steel trays with gleaming surgical implements, and Alphonse. He stands at the foot of the gurney, wringing his hands, unseen and unheard for even this crucial turning point.

"You're sure you won't regret this?" Granny asks.

"My mind's made up," Ed replies.

"Your mind has a few screws loose," Alphonse sighs.

Ed asks, "How long will the surgery and rehabilitation take?"

"Two years, more or less," Granny replies.

Ed takes a deep breath, that familiar, wonderful, exhausting stubbornness igniting his eyes for the first time since that night. "I'll do it in one."

Granny and Winry look at him, stricken. Alphonse recalculates the number of loose screws in Ed's scruffy head from a few to all of them, with a handful of pilfered ones rattling around for good measure. But Granny is at least half as crazy as he is. She laughs. "You'll be spitting blood, you know that?"

Ed nods. "He's alive. I'm sure of it. I can bring him back, but I need access to whatever the military's libraries might have and they won't take me without two legs. I'll endure whatever I have to to save him."

Granny and Winry share the same complicated, helpless, worried look they've taken to wearing ever since the soldiers left and Ed started talking again. That's the problem; all Ed has talked about is this—subjecting himself to what's tantamount to prolonged torture so he can run off to join the military, do three times the amount of research the two of them ever did together, all to perform human transmutation again. Not to bring Mom back, but Alphonse.

When Alphonse realized what Ed means to do he got so blindingly furious he forgot his predicament completely and tried to slug his stupid brother right in his stupid face. He'd whiffed, of course, and ended up falling right through Ed and wheelchair both to land in a heap on the floor. Not his best moment, but it had forced him to realize something that had been staring him in the face ever since he coaxed Den out the front door so Winry would go chasing after and find Ed dying in the mud.

He's a walking cold spot.

Wherever he touches someone goosebumps break out all down their skin and they shiver and roll their shoulders and tighten their jaws. They react. Granny and Winry and Ed have all passed him off as one of those inexplicable chills you get sometimes for no reason. "Like someone's gone walking over my grave," Granny muttered to herself once before going off to find the window someone had surely left cracked. Den knows it's him doing it because he usually warns Den beforehand so the dog doesn't startle and raise the whole household with his barking.

(He still can't believe the absurdity of the damn dog being more sensitive to his presence than his own brother.)

It's silly, and he'd be embarrassed by how often he's taken to trailing his fingers across the four of them if any of them could see him at it, but those goosebumps and shivers and Den's raised hackles and alert ears are undeniable, irrefutable proof of his existence. He still exists in some heretofore unrealized capacity. He's dead, yes, but he's real.

It's all he has left—chills on command, and Den's small whimpers when he started talking again too.

For now, though, he keeps his hands to himself as Winry folds back the sheet to unwind Ed's bandages. Granny is old and Winry inexperienced; they can't afford any distractions. People die during automail surgery; not as many as in decades past, but it still happens and it's rare for someone Ed's age to be put through this surgery at all.

Alphonse is glad to see life coming back to Ed again, even if he's putting all his eggs in a basket made of dreamstuff and delusions. He can't talk Ed out of what he means to try again one day, but he can be there for him every step of the way and pray Ed doesn't kill himself for a pipedream.

One of them should have a chance to grow up, at least.

---

The following year is—difficult.

First and foremost, watching Ed's outfitting is like having to watch Granny bury Mom over and over again. It's broken glass shards in his non-existent throat and palms and heart that he can't really, truly be there for his brother. Ed screams. Ed shakes. Ed cries. For three breathless, terrifying days Ed has a fever so high Granny orders a surplus of ice up from town and she and Winry outline and nearly bury Ed in ice packs. He's put back on the saline drip they'd just taken him off of. He lies so still, panting shallowly, half out of his mind when he drifts awake. He whimpers in his restless sleep and all Alphonse can do is hover his cold, non-existent hands against Ed's face and pray.

The fever breaks, surely beneath the stomping heel of Ed's stubbornness alone. Ed begins his rehabilitation the same day the bandages come off for good. It takes awhile for Alphonse not to startle whenever he catches a glimpse of the gleaming, unforgiving steel capping off Ed's stump. He winces and celebrates right alongside Winry for every hard-won inch of progress Ed makes.

When Ed isn't working himself to the point of sweat-soaked and shaking exhaustion, he reads. He reads constantly, barely sparing more than a few words with Granny and Winry unless they pry the books and notes and pens from his hands and put them out of arm's reach. He reads without interruptions otherwise, most often at night when his constant bad dreams leave him pale and wide-eyed, draw him back down to the mute doll he was in the days before Lieutenant Colonel Mustang dragged him out of his wheelchair. If the books are still on a shelf he can't reach on crutches, then he goes out onto the porch and sits on the top step until morning breaks, his eyes flat coins staring at the dark shape of their house in the distance. Alphonse sits with him and hopes that one night Ed will hear him say, "It wasn't your fault, it was mine."

Ed hasn't gone back to their house since that night. He gives Winry lists written out in neat cursive, lists of books and clothes and other things tacked on as an afterthought. Alphonse goes with her each time, every step of the way, even the time she ignored Granny's sharp-tongued warning to leave the basement be. Winry's legs had given out on the last stair and she'd sat there for a long time, blue eyes fixated on the black bloodstains, the white-chalked complexity of their failed array, Alphonse's empty clothes, Ed's forgotten boot. She was shaking before Alphonse touched her shoulder—"We're sorry. We're sorry. Please go back upstairs, Winry. We didn't mean for this to happen."—but she didn't cry until after.

When not looking after Ed—less and less as his rehabilitation proceeds at breakneck pace—Granny and Winry have other customers. No one else in need of outfitting, thank god for that, just adults who have lost pieces of themselves to accidents and illnesses and wars. Most of them are veterans of Ishval, feet and legs and fingers and hands and arms shot off, blown off, cut off, burned off, and so on. They share stories over drinks with Granny, and a few of them have Auntie Sara and Uncle Yuriy to thank for surviving that distant hell and always spare kind words for Winry that leave her flustered and teary-eyed. Ed, at least, ruffles her hair and does what he can to distract her when that happens.

There's also the matter of Ed's automail, the design of which Granny has entrusted entirely to Winry. The final design she settles on is beautiful in its own sleek, industrial simplicity. The blueprints are mostly gibberish to Alphonse's alchemically-oriented mind but from the way Winry rhapsodizes its specs it sounds like Ed will be able to make toothpicks out of an oak tree. So that should be fun to see if he puts it to the test one day.

But the most difficult thing by far about that year is the boredom.

There's no helping it, not really. He's intangible, invisible, and the closest thing to a conversation he can have is riling up Den until Granny gets fed up and throws the dog out of the house.

The trouble is, he lived and breathed alchemy for as long as he can remember—for longer, even. Mom took pictures of Ed teaching himself how to read out of Dad's old books, and Al had been sat right beside him, thumb in his mouth and eyes fixated on Ed's comically serious face. Now though, alchemy is a source of shame and horror. They spent all those years, more than half their lives, dedicated to bringing Mom back only for all their efforts to end in this: a second grave for Mom, nothing left of Alphonse to bury, and Ed's sanity a quietly fraying thing that neither Granny nor Winry nor least of all Alphonse have a hope of saving.

But just because the thought of performing alchemy makes Alphonse sick—abstractly, anyway—doesn't mean he wouldn't still do it if he could . Not doing alchemy would be like trying to go on without breathing. It's—fundamental. But here he is, incapable of doing either and going on anyway.

At best he can look over Ed's shoulder as he reads (apologizing reflexively when he accidentally brushes through Ed). It's the same books they've poured over a hundred times before; archaic spellings in archaic fonts on archaic paper, written in the complex codes and poems of alchemists long dead, all proclaiming the divinity and perfection of the Philosopher's Stone. So at least Alphonse knows the angle of Ed's research, the fixation of his worrying obsession, the method by which he intends to survive performing human transmutation a second time. Ed will chase down a myth, the fabled cause for the fall of Xerxes, plumb the stone from whatever dark tomb the equally mythical Philosopher secreted it away in, just to bend it towards a pipedream.

Well, maybe, maybe not. If Al's soul is bound to the earth somehow—he still hasn't seen a glimpse of Mom anywhere, and there's no way of knowing if she was a ghost after her first death too and dying a second time was too much for her soul to bear. On his own steam Ed has no hope of surviving the taboo again, let alone reviving Alphonse. But with the stone? Maybe. And that's more than enough for Ed, of course. But it's still such a risk. Even if he does find the Stone, or finds the means to make one of his own, who's to say he could use it without killing himself in the process? The Stone, if it's real, leveled a civilization in a single night. What hope does one twelve year old have in harnessing it?

Of course, all of his own questions and theories and suppositions go unheard.

They used to stay up all night together bouncing increasingly outlandish ideas off one another before crashing for the hour or two of sleep they could manage before school. Now Ed is silent, saying none of his thoughts aloud, modifying their shared alchemical code until Alphonse can't make heads or tails of it. Ed still doesn't sleep through the nights uninterrupted by bad dreams, but the days and months pass and Alphonse gets accustomed to watching the sun rise and set alone.

---

The year passes. True to his word Ed is back in peak physical condition by the end of it. No, Alphonse thinks proudly, he's better than that. He follows along with Ed during his cool down exercises in the dusty front yard of Rockbell Automail, admiring his strength, his speed, his focus. He was already trouncing all the other boys in Resembool back when he had two legs, but now when any of them summon the courage to spar against Ed it's like watching birds fly or fish swim. Ed is in his element again, and there is a decimal point's percentage of Alphonse that is relieved he can't be on the receiving end of a kick from Ed's automail.

(Of course Alphonse knows he'd beat Ed in a fair fight if they could still spar together. He's just not sure the fights would still qualify as fair. Toothpicks out of an oak tree is right, holy shit.)

Winry is a genius, she really is. She's also more than a little bit terrifying when she hounds after Ed to take better care of her automail. No one's throwing arm should be that good at her age, let alone a girl's.

"I wasn't doing anything to it!" Ed protests, rubbing his head. It was a small wrench she'd hit him him with, but a steel projectile is a steel projectile.

"You're getting dust in the joints!"

"Which'll wash out when I take a shower!"

"Go put some shoes on!"

"Well it's a little late now!"

"Oh, for—would you just come inside already? It's time for lunch! Granny made spaghetti."

"Gross."

Alphonse shakes his head. They've always bickered, but it's gotten a lot worse since he died. Granny's the closest thing to a buffer they've got and she's awful at it; she always takes Winry's side and bickers with Ed almost as much.

"There's really no need for you two to be at each other's throats all the time," he says, looking back at Ed—and the rest of his teasing dies in his throat. Ed is—Ed is—

Ed is taller.

Ed is almost a whole head taller than him. When the hell did that happen? Alphonse has had two to seven centimeters on Ed for as long as he can remember; the difference in their heights fluctuated, sure, but he's been taller than Ed for as long as he can remember!

He watches Ed drop his hand from the back of his head with a huff. He watches Ed's short braid catch the sunlight as he shakes his head, muttering, "Crazy gearhead." He watches Ed walk to the house, hears the soft pad of his bare right foot and the click-whir-grind of his left. He watches the door shut and doesn't follow after, because he can't believe he missed something so obvious. He had watched Ed's twelfth birthday come and go—uncelebrated, bleak, and attended to only by Granny's glowering insistence on a cake (Al's birthday had been worse; Ed had shrunk back into himself and didn't speak for three days). Ed will be thirteen this winter, and as for Alphonse?

He looks at his hands, his arms, his torso, his legs. He isn't real enough to show up in mirrors when he looks in them. He only has the pictures of himself stuck up on the cork board to remember the shape of his eyes, his nose, his smile. He—his ghost—is still wearing the jeans and white button down shirt he died in. He was ten when he died, he's still ten now, and he's going to be ten for—for—

For forever.

He's known on some level that Ed and Winry and all the other kids in town proper are growing up without him, and that Granny and all the other adults are growing older too. But he hadn't acknowledged—he hadn't wantedto acknowledge—the fact that time no longer has any bearing on himself. He'd ignored the truth for as long as he could, but it's unavoidable now.

His big brother is growing up without him.

Alphonse knows he isn't intentionally being left behind. Ed still speaks of him in the present tense, his eyes flat coins, his mouth gaining a brittle curl, and he'd knocked out Rick Springer's tooth when Rick said his mom said it wasn't right not to have a funeral for Alphonse. If Ed knew Alphonse was right at his side every day since that night he'd be over the moon—but he doesn't. He can't know. Nobody can, and Alphonse is being left behind all the same.

Standing there in the middle of the yard, Alphonse glimpses the dim, claustrophobic future that awaits him. Ed growing up and growing older, becoming some blurred combination of Dad and Uncle Yuriy in Alphonse's imagination; Winry growing up and growing older, becoming some blurred combination of Auntie Sara and Granny when she was young and violent; and Alphonse—the ten year old wisp trailing after their heels as they become world-famous in alchemy and engineering each, unseen and unheard and eventually barely spoken of at all for—

For forever.

He hugs himself and pretends he can feel warmth and pressure. For the first time since Ed declared his intentions of resurrecting him he hopes it's possible, he hopes there's a way he can hug his brother again, and be hugged in turn. He hopes to breathe, and eat, and sleep, and have conversations, and to have someone meet his eye when he says their name, and a hundred, a thousand, a million other little things he can't experience anymore.

He hopes, because the alternative is too lonesome to bear alone.

---

Today's the day. Today's the day Ed finally takes that train ticket and letter and instructions and leaves for the military—first to Eastern Headquarters to meet with now full Colonel Roy Mustang, then together on to Central Command where the State Alchemist exams are held. Ed's been making phone calls nearly everyday for three weeks to EHQ so Colonel Mustang or now First Lieutenant Hawkeye can fill out forms on his behalf to make the process that much smoother. All three of them seem convinced Ed's going to be a fully-fledged State Alchemist which says an awful lot for Ed's bravado, the Colonel's potentially-misplaced confidence, and the First Lieutenant's faith in that same confidence.

Or maybe it's just that easy to become a State Alchemist. Adults always go on and on about how difficult alchemy is and he and Ed have never understood that one either.

Granny had already said her goodbyes at the house, and Ed had squeaked when she'd pulled him into a fierce hug and demanded he be mindful, be careful, and to call once in a blue moon. So it was just Winry—and Alphonse too, of course—who walked him down to the train station.

Ed, shortly before he'd summoned the courage to call the number Colonel Mustang had left, had given practical alchemy a whirl just to see where he stood with it. Despite the mountain of new and edited-and-recoded-so-completely-it-might-as-well-be-new research he's done, Ed hasn't touched an array with the intention to activate it since that night. And he still hasn't touched an array with the intention to activate it, never mind he's alchemized himself a new wardrobe to include an enormous cherry red overcoat with a flamel emblazoned across the back. It should be tantamount to heresy to start wearing Teacher's favored alchemical symbol without her permission, but it makes sense too. Ed can— somehow —do alchemy just like Teacher can, by a simple clap of his hands alone.

For the thousandth time—the ten thousandth time—Alphonse wishes he could remember what happened that night. Winry had asked once how Ed could do alchemy like that when he couldn't before. Ed's eyes had gained that bronze coin flatness and all traces of humor had been struck from his expression to be replaced with naked fear, and in a quiet, no-more-questions-please voice he'd answered, "I just paid a toll, that's all." Winry had chosen not to pry, but Alphonse would have given anything to know what Ed had meant.

Maybe Colonel Mustang won't settle for vagaries and caged non-answers. Maybe he'll order Ed to divulge every last ugly detail about that night and Alphonse will finally get to know every last ugly detail too.

Of course he's going with Ed. As if there was ever any doubt that Alphonse wouldn't cross that river of mud right along with him? Ed deserves to be whole again. Ed deserves to know Alphonse doesn't blame him for what happened (How could he, when the fault so clearly rests with him?). Ed deserves to be happy again. Alphonse can't split the research or the burden with him, but he can be there for Ed. It isn't enough, not with Ed unable toknow he's with him, but it's the only thing he can do.

"You've got your oil? Your polishing rag? Spare screws?"

Ed makes a big show of rolling his eyes. "You're the one who packed my maintenance kit, you tell me."

Winry huffs. "I'm just making sure. You're gonna be gone a long time."

"I'm comin' back after I get my certification," he replies. "S'just a couple weeks."

"But you're not staying."

"Course not. Not 'til I've brought him back. I'm just gonna pick up some stuff to bring back to the, barracks, or whatever. Take care of some stuff. You know."

Winry's frown deepens, but she doesn't say anything. She saw what Ed did to Rick Springer, and Ed's never been afraid of hitting girls.

(Alphonse is pretty sure Teacher's to blame for that.)

Ed hastily adds, "And I'll come back for maintenance too, y'know, if my leg breaks."

Alphonse winces. "Idiot."

"Are you planning on breaking your leg?!"

"No! No no, I meant, just, it might break! I dunno what they're gonna be making me do, I mean for all I know I'm gonna be marching a month straight before they even let me near any of their libraries."

Winry harrumphs. "Your birthday."

"Huh?"

"Come back for your birthday—with your leg intact, okay?"

"I—I dunno if I'll be able—"

"Okay?!"

"Okay, okay! I will! Geez, you don't hafta shriek at me."

Winry gives Ed a Look. Ed winces and mutters an apology. Winry finally deigns to forgive him, mollified.

Alphonse stands on Ed's other side, grinning. "You'd be lost without her," he tells him. Ed huffs and switches his suitcase to his left hand, swinging it through Alphonse's knees. What a brat.

"Are you scared?" Winry asks quietly.

"Course not."

Ed's a terrible liar, but Winry never calls him out on it. That was always Al's job. Alphonse sticks his hand through Ed's neck as petty revenge for the lying and the suitcase. Ed shivers and rolls his shoulders, scowling.

"S'just gonna be different," he admits. "Be awhile before I get used to it."

Winry's eyes crinkle with a smile that doesn't quite touch her mouth. "You'll be great."

"So long as they let me do my own research I don't really care what they think of me."

"Mister Mustang seemed like a good man. I bet he'll make sure you get all the library time you need."

Ed grunts as the passenger car door finally slides open. "Time to g—urk!"

Winry practically strangles Ed in a hug, then shoves him toward the train. "Be careful! Write letters!"

Alphonse laughs when Ed scowls and stomps off without saying goodbye. "Don't mind him," he tells Winry. "He's got the emotional complexity of a tadpole. See you soon!"

Winry's scrubbing at her face to keep from crying too messily, so Alphonse dashes into the train after Ed without looking back. Inside Ed's taken a window seat at the back of the car, his suitcase pushed under his seat. Alphonse sits opposite him, beaming. "It's been a while since we've been on a train, huh? Not since we came home from Teacher's. We didn't get a chance to look around too much either way we came either. It will be interesting to see East and Central, won't it, Brother?"

Ed sighs distractedly, gaze following the rolling hills and shadowed mountains that cradle Resembool on all sides. He rubs his left thigh. When he presses, Alphonse can just make out the outline of the brace through his pants. "Not much longer," Alphonse promises. "I know you've got your heart set on bringing me back, but you've got to know I won't let you ignore your own body. You'll get your leg back too, with or without the Philosopher's Stone."

The door slides closed, the train shudders, the whistle wails, and then they're on their way at last. The first real step in Ed's plan is finally underway. Alphonse's grin widens when he sees the curl of a smile half-hidden behind Ed's hand. Ed doesn't smile nearly enough anymore; it's good to see him excited.

The town proper falls away, farmland stretching out across the hills like a patchwork quilt, the clear blue horizon interrupted by the steady up-down sweep of the telephone line, sunlight winking off the river and the windows of distant houses, white clusters of sheep bright as clouds against the grass waving in the wind. Alphonse is going to miss Resembool terribly, but they'll be back again in a couple weeks and again for Ed's maintenance and birthday, and Granny and Winry will be just a phone call away that he can eavesdrop in so long as Ed remembers to—

The world spins off its axis in a hard and startling twist, sky and earth kaleidoscoping wildly, and Alphonse isn't corporeal enough to feel the impact of being wrenched by an invisible tether clear through the train to slam—he's not corporeal enough for inertia to send him skidding along either, apparently—into the train tracks. He isn't dizzy, he can't be dizzy, but he's confused and terrified and alone.

"No," he croaks into the gravel. He has no breath to catch, his exhale doesn't send dirt ghosting across the wood under his cheek. He clambers to his hands and knees and watches the train carrying his brother, his blood, away. "No!"

He jumps to his feet to run after it—who cares if it's a three-hour trip by train to East, he can't get tired, he'll run the whole way—but hits an invisible wall and staggers back. There's no pain or pressure, just a surface tension his hand flattens against when he reaches out. He bolts left off the tracks, running his hands across the invisible wall until he trips through a wooden fence, then bolts back across the tracks again to find the same wall barring his way across the dirt road that stretches parallel. He drops his hands, trying not to panic, trying to make sense of this latest impossibility, trying to—

His gaze falls to the painted wooden sign set beside the road: Now leaving Resembool. It's hard not to, seeing as how he's standing halfway through it.

He stares after the fading stream of coal-smoke fading in the distance, Ed off on his grand adventure none the wiser to his own plight, and thinks that surely, surely there must be a logical explanation to this.

---

In the two intervening weeks between Ed's departure and Ed's return, Alphonse scours the rolling hills of Resembool for a break in this barrier he can touch but can't see. In the thirteen days and seven hours without Ed, Alphonse combs the entirety of Resembool looking for a way out and finds—

Nothing.

From the northern hills to the eastern ridges, from the southern slopes to the western forests; he hits nothing but that same invisible wall, dead end after dead end. He's fenced in. He's trapped. He compares the perimeter he mentally sketches out three different times just in case he misses some lucky gap to the map at the train station and finds that Resembool's official boundaries are almost identical. He can't leave Resembool, not on his own steam, and there's no one he can ask for help or for an explanation because he's dead.

Despair drags him down, drags him low. He spends the second week away from town, away from Rockbell Automail, away from anyone who would look right through him and never see a shadow. He spends the days walking with his head down and arms wrapped tightly around himself, just walking, just moving, just trying to get ahead of his own racing, circular, howling thoughts. By each nightfall he finds his way home, passing through the front door, going past the broken closet door Ed had transmuted crutches from, past the brown smears of old blood on the floorboards and walls, down the basement steps, down to their array and Mom's bloodstains and his clothes and Ed's shoe. He sinks into a corner with his head in his hands and his knees to his chest and he shakes because this is it, isn't it? He's dead but not gone, he's a ghost, and every ghost story he and Ed ever heard says that ghosts are tied to the places they died.

So here he is. Here where he belongs. Down in this basement where no one will look for him because there's nothing but a pile of dusty, empty clothes to find.

One night, hours before dawn, he lifts his head again. His eyes find the black stain where Mom died with her neck broken and her ribs torn wide, and he croaks, "Mom?" Because if he's stuck here it would only make sense that she would be too, right?

But as before, as always, there's no answer. Eventually the sun rises, and he flees the basement before the black stains can gain color.

---

Alphonse keeps an eye on every train that comes to rest in Resembool station, keeps an eye out for a braid of sunflower yellow hair and a cherry red overcoat even when he's a miserable, shaking knot of self-pity. Or self-loathing. He can't decide. Thirteen days and seven hours after he hit an invisible wall that separated him from the rest of the world—and far more importantly, from Ed—he hears the train's lonesome whistle and runs to a point where he can see the road that leads out of town and ends squarely at Rockbell Automail's front door. Thirteen days and seven hours of anxious hand-wringing and what now, what do I do now s that go unanswered because no one can hear him, Ed comes home again.

Alphonse doesn't run when he spots a dot of bright red heading south out of town. He sprints.

He's far enough away that he doesn't catch up until Ed's already on the last stretch, not all that far from where Alphonse had found him sobbing in the mud that night. It's a clear, sunny day though, a far cry from then, so he shoves the ugly memory away and focuses on the now. Ed's hunched a little like the wind whipping at his coat is chilly—and oh, of course it must be, it's October now, isn't it?

"Brother! I'd almost started to think you weren't coming back after all! It's been awful without you here, honestly I don't think you realize how boring it is without you getting into things that I have to bail you out of. I tried to come with you, really I did, but I can't leave Resembool for some reason. I've tried everything—or at least, I feel like I have? But you've always been better at thinking outside of the box—or, no, we're both good at it, but you're never cautious about it so you're quicker at it. I hope you're planning on storing all your research at the house so I can get a glimpse at it now and then. You should really pick up a habit of talking to yourself, or leaving your notes out long enough that I can finally break the code, and anyway you're so impatient you never triple-check your work even though you know you should. I always did it for you but I can't now, obviously. You're going to have to bribe Winry into doing it for you instead because it's not like anyway else here can keep up with you—"

Ed hears none of this or anything else Alphonse eagerly chatters at him, but Alphonse can't find it in himself to care. Ed's back, he survived whatever tests the military threw at him, and most importantly, he still looks as determined as he had when he left thirteen days and seven hours ago. If he'd failed to earn his certification, or had been turned away, or something, Ed would have been—not shattered, no. Alphonse doesn't think Ed would sink back down into the limp, wordless misery of just after that night, but he would still... fracture. Ed's spent the past year pushing himself to the brink after losing everything they'd worked towards together. He's hung his last hope on this one chance Colonel Mustang offered him and refused to consider a single saner alternative. If Ed had failed to become a State Alchemist, well...

Well, Alphonse isn't sure Ed would have come back.

But Ed has, and when the wind whips his coat again sunlight catches on a silver chain at his hip that hadn't been there before. It can only be a real, actual State Alchemist's pocket watch. Alphonse whoops and punches the air when he sees it; not because he's glad Ed's convinced himself that this is the only path left to him, but that he succeeded at something so difficult on his own steam. It's a step in the right direction. Winry gave him a new leg that Alphonse's failure cost him, and he's learning to keep moving forward on it.

Ed grins when Den races down to greet him, barking as he trots eager circles around Ed's legs and doing his damnedest to sniff every inch of Ed at once. "You missed him too, huh boy?" Alphonse asks, laughing, and Den barks again, startled, but his tail blurs a little faster. It's nice to know Den missed his voice too.

"Heya mutt," Ed says quietly, scratching Den behind one ear once he's calmed down some.

Alphonse follows them into Rockbell Automail, stands out of everyone's way with a pleased smile as Winry shrieks, "You said you'd call before you came home!" He laughs again when she pulls Ed, squawking, into a rib-cracking hug. He watches Granny come out of the work room with her pipe between her teeth as she wipes her hands with an oil-stained rag. She's more restrained in the hug she gives Ed, but no less glad to see him.

"Well then," she says once she's let him go. "Let's see that new leash of yours."

Ed blinks. "How'd you know I passed?"

She smirks. "They would have been stupid not to. And we do get the Times out here, you know."

"The Times...?"

Winry slaps Ed's back as she shoves a piece of cream-colored card stock in his face. "Don't let it go to your head or anything, but you made the front page."

Alphonse peers around Ed's other shoulder, ignoring a pang of irritation with himself. He would have known Ed had made it days ago if he hadn't been off sulking. Anyway. Glued to the card stock is a clipping from Central Times, not the top story but a smaller column declaring YOUNGEST STATE ALCHEMIST CERTIFIED AT 12! There's a picture and everything, a little blurry, but it's definitely of Ed walking between two soldiers; probably Colonel Mustang and First Lieutenant Hawkeye.

Ed snatches it out of Winry's hands to skim the article, then laughs, bright and surprised. "'The previous record for youngest State Alchemist was held by Flame Alchemist Colonel Roy Mustang, who was certified in 1905 at 20 years old.' That bastard! He didn't even say anything!"

"Flame Alchemist?" Alphonse wonders aloud. Luckily Winry wrinkles her nose and asks the same thing.

"Oh," Ed says, handing back the clipping to shuck off his overcoat. It's gratifying to see that Ed still has to stand on tiptoe to hang it on the coat rack despite his growth spurt. "State Alchemists are all assigned titles by Fuhrer Bradley—he was at my practical examination, actually. I think that's what made him pick mine."

"What is it?" Winry asks.

"Fullmetal."

Granny tuts. "What did you do to earn such a dramatic title as that?"

Ed's answering chuckle is suspiciously nervous, not helped in the least by his sudden interest in scratching Den around the harness of his automail. "I, uh, might have tried to assassinate him."

Winry drops the clipping, Granny nearly drops her pipe, and Alphonse slaps his hand to his forehead. "You're joking," all three of them plead.

"I wasn't actually trying to kill him!" Ed protests hastily.

"Oh good, for a moment there I was worried," Granny says. Ed glares.

"I was trying to make a point that it's not a good idea to have VIPs around when they haven't finished vetting the alchemists they're examining!"

Winry snatches up the newspaper clipping, looking like she's tempted to beat Ed around the ears with it. "And they didn't clap you in irons? Put you in front of a firing squad? Draw and quarter you?"

Ed makes a face. "Do I look drawn and quartered? I mean—okay, yeah, they were pissed at me, but I think that was for how close I got and for making 'em look bad. The Fuhrer seemed like he thought it was pretty funny though, and anyway he's ridiculously fast. I didn't even see him draw his sword before he broke my spear."

Alphonse groans. "What is wrong with you?"

Granny seems to be thinking along the same lines. "You've got the Devil's own luck, Ed. Bradley never struck me as a man with a good sense of humor." She breathes out a plume of smoke. "But never mind that. Go on and put your things in your room. Have you eaten yet?"

Ed shrugs, grins. "I could eat again."

"How long are you staying?" Winry asks.

"Just 'til the next train comes in, so two nights. I've got a stack of paperwork I have to fill out to be in-processed or gained or whatever at Eastern Headquarters." He says it so calmly. He says it like coming home just to visit is already old habit. He says it exactly how Auntie Sara and Uncle Yuriy would say It's just two weeks, Win sweetie, don't cry, be a big girl and listen to your grandmother, like how going out to Ishval for longer and longer periods became normal and worse, expected, right up until they—

Alphonse reels, tripping over his own feet to escape this brightly lit house full of laughter and easy banter and a table set for three. They've moved on, all of them, even Ed even though he's trying so, so hard not to. They miss him, but they don't expect to see him again, and how could they? How can they, when he's dead? He can't stay here. He can't be out there in the wide world with Ed—he can't bear to watch Ed go again. He just can't.

He spends the night down in their basement again, in the dark and quiet stillness, in the one place left to him in Resembool that no living person would willingly go to, least of all his brother.

---

In the morning, Alphonse comes up out of the basement to watch the sun rise. Not long after, he sees a bright red dot making its way down to town on its own. He catches up with Ed in time to see him disappear into the florist's, and he passes through the bright yellow door with its stained-glass windowpane in time to watch Ed pick out a bouquet of Mom's favorite flowers. Mrs. Caddeo smiles too gently and talks down to Ed like he's six years old instead of twelve. She doesn't mean anything by it, not really; no one who talks down to Ed or about Ed like this—like he's fragile, like he's delicate, like he's pitiful—ever means any harm by it. But they still pity Ed, and Alphonse can see how it rankles him to be thought of being coddled so he won't make a scene.

Mrs. Caddeo tries to give Ed the flowers for free but he insists on paying, and as she wraps them up in crinkly white paper she says Ed and his fancy State Alchemist certification are the talk of the town, and Ed gives her a shy smile and goes a little pink in the face right up until she says, "Your mother and brother would be so proud of you," and Ed—

—stills. His smile turns brittle, his eyes harden, his knuckles burn white against the wooden counter. All at once he loses his soft edges and he really does look—fractured. Half-cracked. As around the bend as Winry and Granny worry he's going when he's made a fortress out of Dad's books and his coded notes in the middle of the floor again. Ed does look fragile, in this broken glass, red-edged and raw kind of way. He looks scared. He looksscary.

Too late, Mrs. Caddeo seems to realize her mistake. No one but Winry and Granny know what happened that night, and only Ed knows the full details. No one in town knows what they tried to do, only that on that night, the night of the terrible storm, Ed lost his leg and Alphonse was just—lost. People assume all kinds of things, but everyone's too scared of Granny to pester Ed with anything worse than this sickening stream of pity and hand-wringing.

"I'm sorry," she stammers—still too gently, but at least her voice has lost that insipid, insulting good cheer. "Edward, I shouldn't have—"

"It's fine," Ed bites out coldly. "Keep the change."

And he's out the door with flowers in hand, the door banging shut behind him. Alphonse stays behind long enough to level a withering look at her. She can't see it, of course, but it makes him feel better all the same.

Ed's legs are longer than Alphonse's now, but one of them is disproportionately heavy and anyway, Alphonse can't get tired. He catches up long before Ed makes it to the cemetery. He stands beside Ed at Mom's grave—her first one, the only one anybody but Alphonse and Granny knows about. Ed stands rigid. Ed stands like something sharp and biting has tangled itself up in his ribs. Ed stands dry of eye, staring at Mom's headstone and not seeing it at all. The paper wrapping crumples in his fist.

"Breathe, Brother," Alphonse tells him quietly. Ed can't hear him, but after a long, long time he calms down of his own accord. He kneels, lays the flowers down with care, and claps his hands. When the light of his transmutation fades the bouquet has become a wreath. He adjusts its placement against the headstone, breathes, stands up again. Yesterday's rough autumn wind has died down today; it's so quiet out here that Alphonse can hear the whir and click of Ed's knee.

Ed rests his hand on Mom's gravestone a moment more, takes a steadying breath, then begins the long trek back to Rockbell Automail.

---

Dinner that night is strangely subdued. Alphonse wonders aloud if Ed and Winry had another fight after he'd run off yesterday. Den thumps his tail loudly against a table leg, but that doesn't really clear up much.

Once everything's been washed up the three of them all don coats and Winry lights the big lantern and Ed collects an armful of kindling from the woodpile while Granny waits by the front door. Alphonse asks what they're doing but—of course—gets no reply. Den whines, and Winry tells him to stay put as she shuts the door, the last of them to leave the house.

Alphonse's suspicions about where they're going are confirmed as soon as they cross the little bridge over the river, but he doesn't understand why. Outside of their unlit house Ed stops, dropping the pile of kindling at his feet so he can brace his hands against the white picket fence. Weeds have overtaken Mom's garden; dead leaves lay in wind-scattered piles on the browning grass.

"Are you sure you want to go through with this?" Granny asks softly. She always knows the exact degree of gentleness to use when speaking to Ed—or anybody really—of unpleasant things. She never condescends, she never belittles, she never pities. She's soft with Ed because she's grieving right along with him.

"Yeah," Ed says. "Just—stay out here, okay? I want to... before I..."

"Sure," Winry says, and she speaks in the exactly right degree of gentleness too.

Ed lets go of the fence. He picks up most of the kindling he'd brought, takes the lantern from Winry, and shoulders his way through the front door. He leaves it wide open, striding past the broken closet, down the bloodstained hall, going straight to the kitchen to drop the kindling on the dining table. Alphonse is barely a step behind him, and they look as one down to the same spot on the kitchen floor—like they'd done a hundred times, a thousand times before—where they'd found Mom collapsed. Ed's throat clicks when he swallows. He sets his shoulders and walks over the spot.

Alphonse follows him from room to room, the lantern light casting warm yellows and deep blacks where he's grown used to seeing uniform grays. Ed lingers here and there, sometimes reaching out to rest his fingertips against something, sometimes hovering them over whatever caught his eye instead. He opens every window, draws open every curtain. The last place he lingers—the longest place he lingers—is at the top of the basement stairs.

"Don't," Alphonse begs. "Don't go down there. You've punished yourself enough. Whatever you're doing here tonight—please, Brother, just walk away."

Ed can't hear him though. He goes down, and Alphonse does the only thing he can: he follows after.

Alphonse has long since memorized the basement and dried horrors couched here by dim shadow and moonlight alone, but this is the first time Ed's stepped foot down here since he still had two real feet and a little brother that hadn't yet failed him so completely. Ed makes it one step farther than Winry did. His boots ring out on the concrete as he stops. The lantern shakes so badly in his grip that he quickly sets it down before he can drop it, then he hugs his middle and stares out across their bloodstained array. Ed ages a year for every minute he stands there until he seems as bowed and wizened as Granny did, kneeling in the mud of Mom's second grave. Ed's automail rattles against itself, sounding like a coffee tin full of spare nuts and bolts. He forces one foot forward, and another, and another, skirting his own old bloodstain smeared by a child's pain and panic. He sinks to his knees before Alphonse's empty, dusty clothes. The left one clunks; the right one thuds.

For a long, long time, Ed stays there. Then something in him—something as invisible to Alphonse as Alphonse is to everyone else—breaks . All at once Ed's eyes brim over with tears. All at once Ed is crying, choking on sobs he tries so hard not to voice. Ed scrubs at his face as if he can claw the tears out of his eyes faster, as if he can get over himself faster, as if there's any shame to be caught grieving here of all places.

Alphonse reaches for him but of course, of course, his hand only passes through Ed's shoulder—as it always does, as it always will. Ed hiccups though, shivering, and the chill seems to—not calm him, but center him. He leans back on his heels and forces himself to take deep, even breaths so he can winch himself under control again, like forcing a leaky spigot that extra half turn so it doesn't drip. Alphonse almost feels an echo of pain somewhere in the space between where his heart and stomach once sat just watching his brother, helpless to help at all.

"I'm sorry," Ed rasps. "Mom. Al—"

His voice cracks. He breathes, scrubs at his face again, then clambers to his feet and up the stairs again before Alphonse can recover from his own shock. That—

That had been the first time he's heard Ed say his name out loud since that night.

Ed comes back with one of the sticks of kindling, opening up the lantern to light one end of it. Then he finds the three small oil lamps they'd had lit down here and smashes them with startling violence. One on the tables; one on the wooden crates; one against a bookshelf emptied of all but three old books by Winry months ago. Then Ed sets the lit kindling to each splash of oil, igniting them with a shocking whoomph of hungry fire.

Alphonse isn't struck dumb; he's struck stupid. "What—what are you doing?!"

Ed, of course, can't hear him no matter how loudly he begs Ed for an explanation, for Ed to stop, to put that out, Brother, please—

Room by room again, moving swiftly now. Ed lights kindling and sets fire to anything that will easily catch. Papers, curtains, bed sheets, and more smashed lanterns too. Room by room Alphonse claws through Ed and begs him to stop, but if Ed can feel the chill of his ghost he ignores it, jaw set and red-rimmed eyes hard and unseeing.

Ed rejoins Winry and Granny outside once he's done. They've drawn back as the flames begin to lick out of the open windows. Ed finishes off the rest of the kindling, darting dangerously close and tossing lit sticks through open windows until he's run out, and he finishes it all off by pitching Granny's lantern down the entry hall with a strangled cry.

At the end of it, as their house becomes one enormous bonfire that's surely going to draw every single person in town within the hour, Ed staggers out of harm's way. He's breathing raggedly, smudged with soot and hair coming out of its braid. Winry takes a step toward him but Granny holds her back, shaking her head wordlessly. Ed pulls out his new pocket watch, gripping it tightly. The surging fire stain Ed's eyes and the Fuhrer's crest flickering shades of orange. Alphonse falls quiet at last, feeling as wrung out as Ed looks. He's just near enough to hear Ed speak over the rush and roar of their home collapsing in on itself.

"No turning back now," Ed says, and Alphonse—

—understands.

---

I have two more chapters planned, a part two and an epilogue, though considering it took me almost seventeen thousand words to burn Ed's house down I can't be sure how long it will take me to get them out. These boys are gonna have a happy ending if it kills me though!