Disclaimer: I don't own Fullmetal Alchemist.
The train just rolled along.
It kept going on and on.
How he had forgotten. Those memories, those sweet times, way back then. Oh how he had forgotten.
He was no longer person he saw there. He was no longer the Fullmetal Alchemist. That was from another time, long ago, in a land far away. That was in the land of childhood memories, growing up, danger, adventure, and excitement. That was all way back when.
Ed didn't want to think about that now. He didn't want to see himself on that train looking out the window with his brother, in a suit of armor, next to him. He didn't want to see that rad cloak, the white gloves, and the look of youth on his own face from so long ago. He didn't want to see it because he wanted to be there again, to be that young again, and to be himself again.
He really didn't want to see all this, but he had too. He had to see all the changes. He had to see what's different. He couldn't be on that train anymore. That train, taking him to the next place that the Fullmetal was to go to.
The Hero of the People, they used to call him. The Dogs of the Military, he wasn't one of them. He was their hero, a state alchemist who actually fought for the people. He remembered the famous motto, "Be Thou for Thy People," and longed all the more for that time. That time all the way back when in another place and another life.
How he longed for that.
The automail on his right shoulder was aged and dull. His golden eyes, once teeming with living sparks, were now calm and quiet. He was no longer short, and no longer blew his mouth off whenever someone mentioned short and his name in the same sentence. But how he wished he was and he did.
He wanted to see Winry again. He wanted another argument about automail and alchemy. He knew he sounded crazy but, he wanted her to hit him with her wrench. It would make the time all the more treasured because it was what used to be. It was what he wanted to go back to.
He wanted to hear his brother's reasoning to make a plan before he set out on his missions. He wanted to see his brother shake his head as he jumped at whoever had called him short. He wanted his brother to be there with him most of all. He wanted to know that his sacrifices weren't in vain.
Of course they hadn't been, he found that out, but that had still been long ago. Now he was probably the last one left. He was 99 years old and today was his 100th birthday.
He thought to himself of all the times and change he had went through.
He knew many things. And he knew that no one lived forever. His brother had died only a year ago and knew his time was soon. He knew that today was his day.
And as the Fullmetal Alchemist took his last breath, he smiled.
Humankind cannot gain anything without first giving something in return. To obtain, something of equal value must be lost. That is Alchemy's First Law of Equivalent Exchange. In those days, we really believed that to be the world's one, and only, truth.
But with the Philosophers' Stone, those who possess it are no longer bound by the laws of Equivalent Exchange and Alchemy. They may gain without sacrifice, create without equal exchange. We searched for it, and we found it.
But the world isn't perfect, and the law is incomplete. Equivalent Exchange doesn't encompass everything that goes on, but I still choose to believe in its principle: that all things do come at a price, that there's an ebb and a flow, a cycle, that the pain we went through did have a reward, and that anyone who's determined and perseveres will get something of value in return, even if it's not what they expected. That even with the stone, there is an Exchange.
I don't think of Equivalent Exchange as a law of the world anymore. I think of it as a promise between my brother and me. I think of it as a promise to the family that I left behind. A promise to all the friends I had made and lost. It is a promise, that someday we will all see each other again, but in another life, on another day.
Fin