In Search of his Other Life

It was loneliness that had provoked it, in the end. Upon arriving in this world, Al had been plunged into the most terrible, complete loneliness he had ever felt.

It wouldn't have started if he had had some company; but Ed was out of the house an awful lot. It was a habit that he had picked up in this world, or maybe during their years of travelling; Al, whose memory had still only half-returned, couldn't be sure. In any case, Ed was constantly away, marching the streets as the day grew brighter, then darker, then brighter again as the street lamps came on, in search of who knew what.

There had been Noah to talk to, at first, but she had disappeared a few weeks after he had arrived. The death of that person had apparently affected her, for she grew further and further inside herself until finally she became totally, unrelentingly silent. Then, a short time after that, she had disappeared. She hadn't packed, but she had left nothing behind. She had simply, quietly, without making a fuss or disturbing anyone, vanished, in the same way in which she had arrived. Ed had walked the streets for three days looking for her before he realised that she had gone for good. He had then descended into silence himself, as if in tribute, and had seemed to be thinking. Finally he had confessed to Al that Noah and that person had spent a lot of time together. He had then redoubled the amount of time he spent outside the house, leaving before Al was awake and returning a long time after the shops closed.

So Al was left alone in the house, like a single pea in a broken rattle.

Of course, wherever he looked he was surrounded by familiar faces. He couldn't walk down to the corner without catching sight of Gracia, who, among the jumbled, confused, half-clutter of memories that had returned to him, stood out particularly strongly. Except that this was not Gracia.

Ed didn't understand that Al refused to talk to Gracia for fear of being rude. The way Ed saw it, it was rude to ignore people, full stop. Even when Al tried to explain that even so, he considered it a less direct, personal form of rudeness than the rudeness that would result if he did talk to her, Ed didn't comprehend.

The fact was that whenever Al did talk to Gracia, he was constantly thinking of the other Gracia. He couldn't help but address her as the widow of a close friend, who apparently made the best apple pie in the whole of Amestris- although Al himself had never tasted it- and who lived alone with her young daughter. And she, no matter how similar they looked or how much of the same kindness they shared, was not the Gracia in the flower shop. It wasn't fair to befriend her. He would only be doing so out of his own selfishness, to try and bring himself closer to his real friend. He would never be speaking to this Gracia, only to her counterpart.

But Ed did talk to her, of course, and Al still didn't know how he managed it. Perhaps he had been able to overcome this problem. Perhaps it didn't matter to him. Or perhaps he had never considered it a problem, having never experienced it firsthand, unlike his brother.

For Al had felt it himself, in the way Noah spoke to him. She had looked at him with eyes filled with sadness, but also a blind, mindless hope. Over time this had become confusion, then regret, and then, just before she left, a dull despair as she realised that he was not that person. She had become unable to look him in the eye. She had gone. And the entire process had been heart-wrenching for Al, who understood entirely and who could do absolutely nothing about it.

So the possible company that Gracia offered was impossible, and Al was left to his own devices inside the house.

He explored it thoroughly, wondering if the houses in this world, like the people, were carbon copies of the ones in their own world. The answer was a definite no.

It was a strange house in many ways. To start with, it was tall and thin, not wide and spacious like the Rockbells' house, or square and chunky like the buildings of Lior. For another thing, there was much less light in it than he was used to, filling the already narrow corridors and rooms with dark corners and hidden spaces. Lastly, and most importantly, it was full of strange, half-disguised feelings and emotions. At least, that was how it seemed. Maybe Al was only projecting his own mixed feelings onto the place where he lived, but it felt to him as though even the wallpaper in this place screamed of old tensions and long silences and deep hidden confusions. Memories of two lives lurked superimposed on top of each other, different parts shining through at different times. Ed's room, on the rare occasion Al was forced to enter, was the centre of these problems: especially narrow, especially dark, and especially full of mementos from all the various lives he had led.

The only room Al found that was free from these disturbances was the kitchen, which was bright with a yellow glow and somehow seemed to have a warm feel to it.

"Warm?" Ed said in confusion when Al asked about it. "Well, that room faces east, so the sun shines on the windows in the morning. . ."

Sometimes Al wondered whether Ed actually understood anything at all.

It emerged eventually, after Al asked more carefully, that that person, along with Noah, had spent much of his time there.

That person. The other Alphonse, or Alfons, as he had gathered it was spelt here. Al had been living in this house for at least a few months now, and yet he had never found a single remnant of Heidrich- as Ed had taken to calling him, presumably to avoid confusion. Ed had lived here for far less time than this Heidrich had, yet he seemed to have made far more of an impression on it. Ed was present everywhere, from the photographs and letters lurking on every surface, to the newspaper cuttings and stray pieces of metal on the table in the living room, to the books stacked anywhere and everywhere. Yet Heidrich seemed to be present only in the light in the kitchen, and on the diagrams of rockets still scattered around, some of which included notes written in a steady, even hand that certainly did not belong to Ed.

Al read over these notes with a ravenous interest, trying to discover everything he could about the other version of himself. They were largely unhelpful and unenlightening, as they were, after all, only notes on fins and fuels and streamlined nose-cones. But they were all he had. Ed seemed to have resolved not to talk about Heidrich more than was absolutely necessary, due to an odd, groundless fear that to do so would only cause trouble in some way or another. But Al felt both a duty and a curiosity that drove him to find out all he could.

He had attended the funeral, of course, even though he had never met Heidrich; the first and only time he saw him, he had been dead and cold and cradled in Noah's arms. It had been a shock, but only as far as seeing the body of any young man shot dead for helping a friend would have shocked him. He hadn't looked too closely, so he had not seen the face of the person who was supposedly his double, apart from basic differences in age and colouring. He didn't even know why he was suddenly so curious, but he put it down to a natural interest in the person he could have been and a search for his other life.

But Ed didn't talk about him, and answered as briefly as possible when questioned, and the house was bare of anything relating to him. The few things that Al found were analysed in detail. Still, he knew little.

Time passed, and he grew more into this world. It still confused him, still made him nervous, still shocked him at times. But it began to feel more like home.

Then one day in the frozen centre of November, something happened. Ed briefly returned to the house in the middle of the afternoon, as he had never done before.

Al had returned from lunch, and was just settling to internal debate over how to use his afternoon, when Ed burst into the house and pelted up the stairs into his room, leaving the door hanging open.

Al hovered nervously in the doorway. "Brother?"

"Come in," Ed said hurriedly, fumbling through the content of his desk and scattering papers everywhere in the process. "Come on, for God's sake. Help me look."

Al came in slowly and searched through the pile of junk on the end of the bed. "What are you looking for?"

"A bunch of papers," Ed said, out of breath, "tied together with . . . string. . . There's a map too. . . Ah!" He grabbed hold of something. "Got it!"

And he ran down the stairs two at a time, using his own momentum to go as fast as possible and ignoring the banisters, before running hell for leather out of the hallway and away again, swinging the door closed behind him.

Al was left alone in a house ringing with echoes of the shock from the sudden and violent intrusion. For a moment he stood still, speculating for the first time about what it could be that Ed was doing all day, and why he insisted on going alone. Then he moved, sighed, and stared around at the mess Ed's brief return had made in the bedroom.

He went over to the desk and began to pick up the paper scattered everywhere, sorting them into piles according to size, having no other method of categorising them without reading them, which he was loath to do. Until his eye was caught by a particular group of letters.

He raised them and looked over them with curiosity. He really ought not to read them, of course, but on the other hand. . . Ed had flung them around with reckless abandon, and had even told him to look through them, so they couldn't be all that private. . .

Glancing around, as though the house might report on his actions, he unfolded the letters and began to read.

Dear Mr Edward

Since the accident, sponsorship has been unfortunately difficult to find, however I have recently been approached by a very influential man, who. . .

And the second.

Dear Mr Edward

I understand your opinion of this prospect, but I hope you will also understand my decision to follow the advice of Mr Oberth and speak to Mr Res. He expressed an interest in our research and offered funds on the condition of a public demonstration, which he would of course attend. In my opinion it can do no harm. . .

And the third.

Dear Edward

I was informed of the disappearance of your father by a mutual friend. Under the circumstances I feel an obligation, both as a colleague and as a friend, to offer my assistance, such as it is. . .

All the letters were signed "Alfons".

Al folded them carefully and placed them on top of the pile of paper he had gathered. He lined them up, first one way, then another. Eventually he put them away and continued to tidy up, gathering more papers from the floor and the desk, but now examining each piece before putting it away, hungry for more information.

"Action/reaction. A fuel consisting of two different substances. Try hydrogen and nitrogen. Care during demonstrations."

Alongside an arrow labelling a diagram: "Mr Res' suggestion. Unsure. Situation demands we comply."

Cramped into a corner by Ed's multiple scribbles documenting the history of previous and current research: "Edward- Appointment at hangar 10:30. Don't forget".

And then, amongst the notes written by two hands in the same black notebook that they seemed to have shared: "Meeting with technicians and doctors. Many suggestions. Will explain in detail."

Following this was a strange note from Ed: "Don't let him tell you what to do."

Al stopped, bewildered, overwhelmed. What could that mean? He read it again. It was written in Ed's usual handwriting- rushed, messy, cramped with the effort of writing with the wrong hand. But that simple sentence overflowed with implications and possible information. Maybe this could be referring to Alfons' illness?

And then something colourful fluttered out from between the pages of the notebook and fell to the floor.

Al lowered the book and looked around-

- to find himself staring at a picture of him, lying on the floor where it had fallen.

And Ed had been right. Apart from colouring, age and slight differences in the shape of the jaw line, they were the same. Exactly alike. Alfons, however, had a slightly different expression in his eyes. Despite Al's gentleness, he had a deep, unrelenting hidden stubbornness and determination, much like Ed's, which was disguised by his round, honest face, but which shone brightly through his eyes. Alfons, however, lacked this quality. His expression seemed resigned, quietly sad and genuinely kind, but with a hint of something darker in the furthest corners of his face.

And all Al had had to do was scratch the surface of this house, and all these memories had come tumbling out.

He placed the photograph carefully on the desk, wondering how much Alfons knew about his cross-dimensional brother, and how much he believed of the ridiculous story. He thought that maybe Alfons, too, was often embarrassed by Ed's behaviour, and that maybe he, too, constantly tried to keep him out of trouble. But then Al remembered that Alfons was dead.

---

"What's wrong with you?" Ed asked, miraculously home by dinner time and eating together with him at the table.

"I've been thinking," Al said.

"What about?"

Al paused, wondering what he should say. "About . . . Heidrich." Somehow it was difficult to refer to him by his last name.

Ed frowned and glanced up. "Why were you thinking about him?"

Al felt this as an almost physical blow. "Why wouldn't I? Don't you ever think about him?"

Ed hesitated. What should he say to this? He didn't know what Al was getting at, or why he was suddenly asking about all this. Surely he wasn't jealous of Heidrich? But . . . why did it even matter to Al anyway? The question, he thought, had a hidden relevance that he couldn't fathom.

In the end he merely shrugged.

All was still for a while.

Then suddenly, inexplicably, Al was crying.

Author's note: Sorry if Alfons or Noah are out of character, but I've always found them both very difficult to understand, and even more so to explain.