Yes, I know, it's been too long since I've written anything, and I've been really slow for quite some time, even when I WAS writing. One word, writer's block. Wait, that's two words! ((smacks head)) Anyway, I'm taking the 100 Challenge thingy where I get a hundred different prompts and write a hundred different fanfics out of them...so yeah, you can expect a lot of oneshots to show up for awhile. I'll eventually get back into the swing of doing the stories you all know and love, but be patient with me as I pull myself out of this dry well. It takes time and effort to get oneself out of it when they've been in it so long, heh. Don't worry though, because I haven't given up on any of my stories. ((Well, maybe some of the ones that really suck, like "Across Time and Space" and "SG-1 on the Alchemy Planet", unless some of you can give me some good suggestions on what to do with them and I go and rewrite them.))
Anyway, this might not be what you were hoping to get from me, knowing me, but I hope that you enjoy it nonetheless. Thanks to my beta reader Weirdly. I honestly didn't know I had that much awkward phrasing in this fic until she pointed it out, but that's precisely why I went to a beta reader, heh.
Disclaimer: I do not own Fullmetal Alchemist, and I do not know why I always say that when everyone knows it. Like someone's really going to sue a person for writing fanfiction on a fanfiction website and they're not even making any money off of it. Just tradition to state the disclaimer, I guess.
Al,
You'll never see this, but I had to get these thoughts out of my mind before I went insane from all the things I haven't said. I know I left you and Winry very suddenly and without warning. I wish I could 've expressed how sorry I was, but words do not convey how I feel.
I miss you every day. I do my best to distract myself from my troubles so that I can go on with life, but I can't seem to escape my mind. You appear in my dreams at night. Every night. It might be comforting that it's almost like we're together in my mind, though we're physically separate; but unfortunately, it doesn't ease the pain much.
So how are you getting on? Are you alive, or did I fail? Living without you nearby is difficult enough to bear without my mind torturing me with the thought that you might not even have gained anything from my sacrifice. I was prepared to throw everything away for you, as I'm sure you know. You're probably angry at me for making such a choice, and it's okay. Take it out on me as much as you want. Maybe I'll feel your frustrations and know that you're still alive. That would make life so much more bearable.
If you see Winry again in the near future...well, I don't really know what I want you to tell her. Maybe I should be the one to talk to her directly, instead of sending you, though I don't know when my next chance to see her will be. You could tell her that I am still waiting for her - she'll know what that means. I'll give her the rest of the message next time I see her. Tell her that I miss her too. My head hasn't had enough bumps on it since I left our world, and that feels wrong to me in a way. Maybe when I come back, if I come back, I'll bring a wrench with me to give her as a souvenir of this world. She'd like that, right?
Al, you have no idea how strange things are here without you. I see the faces of those I knew in our world in the people here. It could just be me projecting their personalities onto these new faces, but it is a bit eerie, all the same. Everywhere I go, I just find more familiar faces. I'll probably find someone who reminds me of you one of these days. I'm not sure how I'll react when that happens. Will I be excited to finally see your face again, or sad because deep inside I'll realize that it's not really you?
There is nothing I want more than to go home and be with you again, but until I find a way to do that, you're just going to have to be satisfied with these letters I write that I can never send you. I used to make jokes about Elric telepathy quite a bit, and actually half believed in it whenever we'd get in a bind. Now would be quite a convenient time for such a thing to manifest itself if it actually existed. Exists. I want to believe in it, though my logic tells me it isn't possible. But I've seen a few impossible things occur in my time, as have you, so who can say what is fact and fiction these days?
Money is scarce in this culture at this point in time, so I'd best not waste paper. Sorry, Al, but you're going to have to settle for one page letters from me for now...it's not like you're actually reading this anyway. I like to think that you are, though. And I wish you were.
Anyway, I have to wrap this up. Give my regards to Winry, Auntie, Den if he's still alive, Teacher and her husband, and if you absolutely have to, that idiot who pretends to be a Colonel. Is he still a Colonel? I hope they demoted him to wipe that smug grin off his face. That would teach him.
I love you very much, Al, and I hope to see you again some day. Take care, until we meet again,
--Edward
Thanks for reading. This was prompt 001: "Beginnings". Number 2 ought to be finished soon, so if you're interested to see what else I come up with for this challenge, put me on Author Alert, don't just favorite the story, or you won't be notified. Of course it's your choice whether to be notified or not, hehe, but some of my readers haven't yet figured out how useful the "Author Alert" feature is, so I thought I'd enlighten them. See you all again soon!
