Remorse

DISCLAIMER: I don't own Fullmetal Alchemist, though I think Square and the other meanie-mos who do shouldn't deserve to own it. I'm just borrowing the characters for a while—I will put them back when I am done, so I don't think anyone will mind. The producers don't seem to want some of their characters, so I doubt they'll care too much even if I don't put them back…

NOTE: This is really just an expansion on one of the scenes from the episode "Goodbye". I swear, I wanted to hit Ed when it looked like he was going to run off after Envy and Al without thinking about Lust…

"Why do you want to become human?"

Somewhere in the distance, heavy bells tolled out the time. It was still early morning, and in some corner of his mind the boy standing in the abandoned factory found that hard to believe. So much had happened just since the sun had begun to rise and light had started to filter back into the world… so much that it was hard even for him to wrap his prodigal mind around.

He was a young teenager with long, golden-blonde hair twisted impatiently into a braid and normally bright, clear amber eyes that were currently darkened with conflicting emotions. He wore a long red coat with a black emblem placed on his upper back, and black shirt and pants beneath it. Despite the great maturity in his face, he seemed like any ordinary youth except for the mechanical prostheses that had replaced his arm and leg. His clothes were dirty, his automail damaged; the hand on his metallic arm seemed badly made and out of proportion to the rest of his body.

The woman standing slightly behind him was almost a full foot taller than him, with her masses of crinkly black hair tied into dreadlocks and pulled back severely. Her eyes were dark and flinty; she too seemed almost to have aged prematurely, like the boy. The same emblem on the back of his coat was tattooed just under the left side of her collarbone in red; she dressed sensibly in plain colors, and the lean muscle to her frame declared her stronger than the average townsperson.

Both woman and boy were staring at a huge transmutation circle that had been etched deeply and precisely into the cement floor—so precisely that it seemed impossible to have been done by hand.

Rather, they were staring at the contents of the circle.

Near its edge lay an old-fashioned silver locket with a blue stone on the age-dulled sterling cap. Antiquated by the current golden, heart-shaped fads as it was, the light of the early morning still sent its metal into radiant fire. It was a pretty thing, and looked innocent enough—but that couldn't change what it was in the eyes of the boy: A murder weapon.

There were a few lumps of what looked like red rocks strewn about, as well, and these did not catch the light at all, for they had been eroded with the years and dulled from their original jewel-like state.

And within the circle itself, her form twisted and shifted off-center as though she had still been futilely trying to get away in her weakened state, lay a woman dressed in black.

"Tell me, Edward… why do you want to return your brother to his human form?"

Her skin had lost the little color it had possessed; even the violet Ouroboros seal just above her breasts had faded sharply from its normal vibrant shade. Her silky, full-bodied black hair was strewn arbitrarily across the floor around her, far more carelessly than she would've liked. Neither boy nor woman could see that any damage had been done to her tight, satiny dress, her high-heeled leather boots, or her luxurious-looking opera gloves. At first glance, it seemed almost as if there was nothing wrong with her.

And on the second glance, one would notice the way her almost-closed, serpentine violet eyes stared blankly into the cold floor.

Or the sticky, bloodlike substance that caked her shoulders and the back of her neck, where her spine had been neatly severed by a single blow.

The boy shook his head and stared at the ground. "Lust…"

"It's the same thing."

The woman looked around briefly. "Did you seal this homunculus in this circle?"

"No… it must've been…" the boy fell silent mid-sentence, and walked over to pick up the locket, popping it open to see the smoky chestnut curl of hair still fastened inside. It had been foolish of him, a death sentence for her—the remains of the dead from whom they had been born were anathema to homunculi.

"Even so, this means that there are only four left," the woman said practically. The blonde, acting as though he hadn't even heard her, had continued on, then knelt at the dead homunculus' side.

"What is it?"

"I got her killed, Teacher…" he said softly, the crackle of remorse in his throat. "This is my fault. I didn't even think… I was just so busy worrying about Al…"

The woman was simply silent, waiting.

"I don't even know why she decided to help me… I thought that their master was supposed to be the one to make them human. That's… really all she wanted. But she trusted me with that wish, and I let her down…"

"Ed…" the woman behind him started, but he cut her off.

"I made a promise, Teacher! …And I hate breaking promises…" The boy named Ed sighed raggedly, angrily. "This is just like Nina… or Hughes… and I told myself I wasn't going to fail anyone again…"

"All you can do now is make sure that you don't fail your brother, Edward Elric. He's your only responsibility now."

There was a long silence.

"This doesn't make sense…" Ed said at length, frustrated. "I couldn't cry for Mom's homunculus. Not one single tear… so why am I feeling this way about someone who should've been my enemy? Why am I…" He let the sentence drop and shatter into the pallid-seeming glow of the morning.

"The homunculi can't help but desire to become human," his teacher told him. "Out of every one of them that's ever been created… perhaps this one came the closest."

"Where did I come from…? Where will I go…?"

"Yeah…" Ed nodded, then turned back to her, completely disregarding the thin wet streak on his left cheek. "We should probably get out of here. I don't… really like the idea of just leaving her like this, but still."

"Because of the way homunculi are created, their bodies usually dissolve not long after death. The older the homunculus, the faster it happens. It won't matter much in the very short run… within the next hour or so, I'd say she'll probably have become nothing more than dust."

"…Okay." He glanced back at Lust over his shoulder, then waited a few moments to think of something to say. He couldn't. "…Sorry…" It was little more than a lame cover for what had passed between them, however brief. Knowing this, he knelt back down for a moment, placed the locket that had been her demise in her open palm, and curled her fingers around it.

And he left with his teacher to discuss their plans for what to do next.

"Maybe that's all I really wanted, after all."

This is for you, Lust. You deserve nothing less and probably a lot more.

:remember:

owari