Nothing was ever the same.

When Lynette had come back, she had changed. She was silent, and didn't seem to react to anything. She seemed empty, her eyes lacking the fiery will that everyone had known her for.

She never revealed what had happened while she had been gone, no matter how much people asked her. She just gazed at them through glassy, unfeeling eyes, a mere wisp of the person she had been before.

When she had come back, she was hospitalized, her injuries and scars startling her parents. When they yelled at her, screamed at her to reply, she just stared at them, silent. No matter what they had said, she didn't reply, and eventually, they just left her alone, thinking it would pass.

But it never did.

I blinked, snapping out of my daze when Katya waved a hand in front of my face.

"Are you okay?" She asked, concerned. I gave her a nod, smiling slightly. The smile didn't reach my eyes- it never did.

Katya sighed. "So, what dress do you want to wear for prom?" She asked, and I shrugged. She rolled her eyes.

"I take it you'll just wear the blue dress?" She said, and I thought for a moment before nodding again. "I'm just going to go with the black dress I bought a little while ago. Remember, the one with green details?" I gave her a thumbs up, and she smiled. She continued to talk about prom, her date and what she wanted to do, but I couldn't seem to listen, staring off absently into space.

I sat in my room, tucking my knees to my chest. It had become a habit, to sit with my body all curled up like that, a child-like frailness about it that seemed almost unapproachable. I was still so raw, so withdrawn, even after so long. It was a permanent, disabling scar, and every time I opened my mouth to say something, I remembered.

It had been five years.

"Truth," I said, addressing the white figure.

"You left." Truth said, and I nodded. I gave it a small, heartbroken smile.

"I did," I said, tears welling in my eyes. "I made my own sacrifice." Truth was silent.

"You faked your death," Truth said, "Why?"

"He wouldn't let me go otherwise," I replied, my lips quivering. "If he had known that I transmuted myself right before the fire reached me, he would stop at nothing to get me back." Truth was silent, I stared at my hands, the burns that formed human transmutation circles on my palms.

"So what will be your toll?" Truth asked, and I looked down, tears escaping my lashes to streak down my cheeks. I sniffed, wiping the tears away with the backs of my hands.

"Take whatever you want." I said, looking Truth in the face. "I was prepared to sacrifice anything, so take whatever you see fit. It's not like I need anything anyway..." My gaze dropped, and I grit my teeth, holding back the sobs that struggled to escape my throat.

Truth looked like it wanted to say something, something that would stop my agony, but it had nothing. It looked down, and for the first time, felt like it didn't want to have to take a toll. Truth was the one, the all. But even so, every single soul that made up the god had feelings, but weaknesses were rare to Truth, but they were still there.

All Truth could do was walk over to me, gently resting its hand on my head while my body was racked with sobs and I doubled over, biting my lips on yells of pain.

I had woken up in my back yard, hounded by my parents. I tried to speak up, tried to yell, but every time I tried to say something, it came out as shallow gasps.

It was then I realized what Truth had taken.

The girl who had always fought for her voice to be heard had now become mute.

I sighed, staring at my knees.

The past five years had been so agonizingly empty. I had finished middle school, and now, I was finishing high school.

High school was hard. When people cracked a joke, I couldn't reply with a witty, sarcastic comment to make everyone laugh. I had become some one stuck in the background, letting out that wheezy laugh or fake smile. I was hopeless, and the people who tried to actually tried to understand me knew that deep down. Emma and Katya, the only two who knew some of what had happened, couldn't even mention it unless they wanted me to barricade myself in my room for days on end.

But worst of all, was by far trying to forget Ed.

I had dated. I had gone out with a few guys, but all of them seemed to know I was still trying to get over someone, someone who was the biggest piece in that gap of my life that remained a mystery. They had cared about me, and a few times I had almost felt something, but they all broke it off. They had told me that they knew my heart didn't race when they kissed me, that I wasn't really as happy as I tried to seem. I had been told that the first love is something that you'll never forget, but all of my boyfriends knew it was more than that. It was more than just a fond memory, it was so much more than just an infatuation.

I couldn't reply. What could I say? They were right. Even if it had been so short, and I knew nothing of love, it had meant more to me than any other relationship. He was there for me through things that no one else would understand, and I was there for him when he went through the hardest times of his life. I had buried myself too far in his story- and he had dug too far into mine- to just forget. I didn't say anything, because even if I did, who could relate? Who could tell me the things I needed to hear when they didn't know what it felt like?

What it felt like to cling to life, to watch other people get hurt and die. What it felt like to belong for once in their life, to have unique friends and irritable superiors and sweet family and a lovely boyfriend, and throw it all away, along with the thing you cherished the most about yourself. They didn't know what it was like to hit complete rock bottom, to throw away your life, but still having to survive as an empty shell.

They knew nothing.

So I was left to finish highschool. The only thing I found interest in were the things that hurt me the most, but yet, gave me chills of pleasure. I had resumed my martial arts, and competed in tournaments. My parents had let me because they said it was the only time they saw a spark in my eyes, a small ember of my former flame. That, and when I experimented. I had taken up chemistry, and was now at the top of my class. With every chemical reaction, I felt like I was closer, closer to the world I had given up. I had filled notebooks with formulas, with all the information I could get my hands on, almost daring to hope that I could hand that to him myself.

But those hopes and dreams die almost right after they're born. I could never go back. Even if I figured out how to make a transmutation work, what could I pay for the toll? My sight? My hearing? Did I really want to go back so broken that I couldn't function?

It hurt even more when I thought about how they were. They must have moved on, forgotten about me completely. I must be just another passing thought, another mere person that died years ago. Ed could even be married right now, but here I was, stuck in the past.

I raised a hand to my bare shoulder, and felt the big, webbed scar. If my voice wasn't enough of my reminder, the scar on my arm was. The stab wound had crippled me, and I could only move my arm to a certain extent. It took a lot to get back into martial arts, and still, I struggled.

That, and the scars on my palms. The human transmutation circles that stared me in the face every time I took off my gloves, taunting me. Again, when my parents found out about those, they yelled at me, asking what the hell it was, asking me who had branded me. I just watched them dazedly.

The fire in my eyes had vanished.

It had been five years.

Ed sighed. He stared up at the ceiling of his hotel, sprawled out on his bed.

Vivid images flashed through his mind, and he cringed, trying to push them all away.

Her brown eyes, warm and brave and beautiful, filled with tears. Her lovely voice, raised in a shrill laugh laced with madness. Her arms, covered in her blood-stained military uniform, cradling a bomb. Her scream that echoed through the room as flames destroyed the rock barrier she had formed, not to defend herself, but to save them from the blast.

He rolled over, burying his face in his pillow. His hands reached up to tangle themselves in his golden hair, and he groaned into the pillow.

He could never forget.

He had tried to move on, he really had. After the battle, he had lived with Al until Al's body was healthy and strong, fit enough that he could survive on his own. From there, Al had taken the east while Ed had decided to take to the west. In the west, he researched, learning new things every day and meeting a lot of new people.

He had even tried dating. But all the girls were too nice, tried too hard to get his approval. They wore pretty dresses, put on makeup, and walked in heels so high that they were the same height as him. They were too frail, they were too bendable, too slender. His heart didn't pound in his chest when their glossed lips met his, and when they tried more, he felt a twinge of disgust. The girls, though, weren't shallow enough not to notice this. They had ended it with him, saying that it was obvious his heart belonged to another woman, a woman that he never talked about. And he had been left, struggling to recover from the pain of loosing her.

It didn't take long for him to realize the truth. That no matter how many girls he dated, no matter how much he faked interest and attraction and smiles, his feelings wouldn't change. He was still in love with Lynette, the girl who sacrificed herself to save them. The girl who had a pure sense of justice, and was stubborn enough to uphold it. The girl who was brave, who fought with no hesitation when it was for something that mattered to her. The girl who had admirable ideals, beautiful dreams and aspirations, and left them all behind to save the ones she loved. The only girl he had ever met with a blazing fire in her eyes, with an iron will that no one could bend.

And she was gone, all like that.

He still struggled to believe it. She had been there through everything else. From what he saw, no one could kill her no matter what they tried. So why, after clinging onto life so vehemently, why did she take it herself?

That was the only question he couldn't seem to find the answer to. And, no matter where he went or who he talked to, the answer to that one question would forever remain a mystery. It would keep open a case that he couldn't close, a problem that offered no solution, and it would remain something that would never allow him closure.

And it was all the worse right now. He was back in Amestris, heading back to Central to meet up with his brother for the first time in a long time. He had gathered a lot of research from the west, and he was coming back to discuss it with his brother for a while before returning to visit places that he still hadn't been to.

He sighed again, getting up and bouncing off his bed, going over to his suitcase. From a small compartment on the inside, he retrieved the object that he took out every time he thought of her.

He sat back on the bed, staring at the object in his hands.

He had taken it from her old room when he and his brother had come to say goodbye to Gracia and Elicia before they headed off their separate ways.

It was a small statue of a dragon she kept by her bedside. It was made of a crystal blue stone with a smooth, black marble platform. The dragon held itself fiercely, and if you looked close enough, you could see a swirl of reds, oranges and yellows in its eyes, almost like fire. Each scale glittered in the light magnificently, and it's claws and horns were elegant and smooth, like ivory. The platform, which gleamed a marvelous black, had words inscribed on the bottom of it.

So this is what hope for the future feels like.

Every time Ed had read the inscription, he felt his heart jerk violently in his chest. Ed's thumb slid across the letters, feeling the indents in the stone.

"I wish you could've had a future," He murmured to himself, emptily gazing at the words. A sad sigh escaped his lips, and he set the dragon down on his bedside table before thumping back down on his bed, leaving the dragon to watch over him as he drifted to sleep.

The fire in his heart had gone out.

PSYCH!

I GOT YOU GUYS DIDN'T I?

ADMIT IT, YOUR HEART STOPPED WHEN LYNETTE WAS GONE IN THE END!

MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAha I'm a sadistic bastard I know!

Anyway, yep, Lynette is alive! I never said she died, did I?

Well, look! In this chapter, it pretty much explains what had happened to them both after the whole final battle.

(I'm going to sneak in a disclaimer here- Disclaimer: I don't own FMA)

Lynette is a mute! Huh, isn't that ironic? The girl who fought for her voice to be heard was now mute. That almost took my cruel ideas to a whole new level.

Poor Lynette! And Ed, poor him too.

Anyway, I welcome you to my new story.

But despite the name of this story, it's not quite the time to roll the credits on this game.