A Home Worth Returning To

A Fullmetal Alchemist fic

Chapter I: In the End

Author's Note: An AU, a what if story. This totally focuses on Alphonse and is written in Al's POV. Also, it may be an Elricest. I haven't decided yet, but it may be RoyAl too. (Royal, I love that fic! I like the name especially.)

Disclaimer: All characters are owned by a bunch of dudes who are a lot ricer than me. I own none of these characters. Thanks for reading and enjoy after these messages . . .

Spoiler Warning! If you haven't seen the whole series I suggest approaching this written work with EXTREME caution.

"N - niisan!" I screamed.

Frozen. Impaled. His face, horror struck. Pain, confusion, terror. All those emotions so close to the human heart now displayed in his eyes, his hair, his body that swayed and dropped to the floor. The blood pooled around him in an aura of red splendour. Envy stood, looking self-satisfied with his kill. And Brother lay there. Immobile and slipping away. Leaving me again. Losing for me again. I couldn't stand it. He had to be the one to win it all by losing everything he had. Why?

"ED!" Rose . . .

"Niisan can't die like that. He can't be dead!" Dead. It occured to me, how hollow the word was when I said it. The imagined taste of its sick and sorrowful bitterness. Dead, like I should have been. Would have been. But niisan exchanged places. The most honourable person. The most proud.

Brother never thought of it, but he was one with so much pride, he kept enough for both of us. Even if he was told so, he'd say he had no reason to be proud. He always made himself the bad one, he could never cope if he wasn't the bad one. Unsure of what's right and wrong anymore, he turned all that he did into evil things so he could know that this life, his limbs, my body, they were punishments from something. Someone. Paying the price for the things he did wrong.

And yet, at the same time he didn't wish for the fall from grace. Doing the right thing and being slapped in the face by the people he saved. Other times, they fell to his feel, eternally grateful. He wouldn't admit this either, but he liked to be thanked.

"He - he's dead?" Wrath whimpered.

Envy turned to the nearly limbless homunculus. "Yes, he's dead. Everyone's dead. Only the homunculus survives." And he laughed. A long, mirthful laugh that filled the room and bounded across the walls.

"Niisan! He - He's dead. No . . . that's not right! He can't be dead, that . . . that's too weird," I murmured. This swimming feeling in my head. Nothing could ever compare with the suffering that is concentrated in this one moment. A lifetime of torture over seeing him die. I would take that offer without hesitation, if it meant he would live. He has to. Our dreams, their realization, it has been farther now than it ever has before.

"This is reailty, or is the price too high?" Dante said, her voice clip, as if this was how it was meant to be. As if she knew it all along. That Niisan would be killed.

Gluttony barreled towards me and I couldn't move. My grief weighed down all that was left in me to live. Farther than this, I can remember nothing. A blur in my memory. I do not want to seek these memories out, because the next thing I can remember is warmth, and that is good enough for me. Touch, sensations by outer forces have been lost and in my mind I am numb. I found myself, bent over Niisan, fingers pressed gently to his face and a trickle of warmth spread across my finger tips. I've pretended to feel a lot before, trying to hold on to what 'cold' and 'hot' was. What 'soft' and 'smooth' and 'feathery' and 'silken' meant to me before I was saved from Death's embrace, but this was real. Maybe it was the Stone that caused this. Maybe it was final 'sight' before . . . that.

"Niisan is not dead yet . . . Look . . . he's so warm."

Dante, the master mind, she looked distraught but she was unable to do anything. As long as I was the Stone, she couldn't touch me and by the time she found her wits and used me, I'd have already saved my brother. Used me. Had I lost all my humanity to this?

"His soul is now inside the Gate. He'd be saved if his soul could be retrieved. Just like what my brother did for me . . . "

"Stop it! If you do that . . ."

"I - !" I paused. "My sacrifice will destroy the Philosopher's Stone. I should have been dead that day." The guilt caused pangs in my heart every day. Every time I saw his automail arm. Every time I glimpsed his glove. His sleeve. Nothing could hide the muffled sound of metal scraping each other. Faint perhaps, but that emotion made it wail when I heard it.

Envy came out of his shock and prepared an attack. "It's dangerous . . . " I mumbled.

There the Gate stood before me. Doors carved with that hypnotic pattern. Familiar but vague. I remember this from that night. I remember beyond the Gate. There was no Heaven or Hell. There was only blackness and maybe . . . Truth. But only if you glimpsed. Only if you passed and left, paying the price for admission. I understand now, my body and soul and my brother's leg were taken, but Niisan only had his leg taken, so in that span of time . . . in that time he saw Truth. But then I was still grasping the fact that I was at the Gate, that Brother's soul was standing only inches from the doors, as if he were waiting for them to open.

I saw the doors crack open and the black, snake-like things take hold of his arms. He seemed dazed, like he didn't know he was going to disappear forever, in front of my very eyes for the second time. I wouldn't let it happen again. So I grabbed him. I yanked him away and dragged him off the platform. Perhaps, I had thought, that taking him away would send him back. I pushed him and he caught himself.

His still hollow eyes stared at me and I watched him, even as the Gate's messengers wrapped themselves around my body, even as I was being forcibly pulled into the Gate once again. I hoped he would regain the life that sparked my adoration in those eyes. Turning from the dull brass they were to the polished gold they'd been ever since I can remember.

"Al?"

One last glimpse of those eyes. Then cold.

I was freezing. Yellow and white streaking across my vision and tumbling downwards. I saw a mirror image from nearly five years ago. It was me. I found it strange to see myself like that. Curled into a ball, as if sleeping. It seemed the further I fell, the farther from my body I went, as if while I descended, it rose higher and higher out of my reach. I stretched out to my body. It was mine, after all. I had the right. It was supposed to be like this. A transparent arm reached before my eyes. My soul, I assumed. Filmy, like my brother's visage was the last time I saw him.

Minutes may have passed. Maybe hours. It just seemed like one long winding path where you could lose yourself in your thoughts and not know what time of day it was, or how long you've been there because a canopy covers the sky and the road doesn't appear to end. It was something like that, where the time you entered and the time spent in there sort of blurred and you can't remember crossing the threshold. As if you were always there.

My body stopped drifting eventually and now it came closer, but always out of my reach. I heard a voice, calling for Hoenheim. Father. What was it that was so familiar about it? I didn't understand what was calling to him. It could have been me, but I said nothing. In fact, I hadn't spoken a word since I saved my brother. Somehow, this didn't seem so odd to me.

Only inches apart from one another. My body slipping away from my futile groping. I couldn't even brush the bright aura surrounding it. Frustration mounted. Why was I still stuck here? The logic of the Gate, how it worked. Even now it is a mystery to me. I, who spent the longest time deep within the Gate. Even Wrath only sat where that dark abyss my teacher called Hell was. Only skimming the surface of what was within. A long tunnel of light.

What would happen to me. I seemed to think of nothing at all as I tried to go back to my body. Even now, when everything was all over I still couldn't get to it. It was so unfair. Was it because I couldn't trade anything to get my body back any more? Did I have to sell my soul to get it back? What was the point in that?

"AL!"

I looked to the side. As if watching a scene replayed in my mind, I saw my brother fighting through a cloud of snickering black bodies, reaching for my body. "Niisan!" I uttered, so surprised to see him.

Brother looked at me in surprise . . . "Al?" He cursed and tore away from the dark things and came down to me, also falling. "Al!" He reached to me and I tried to take a hold of his hand. "Wha . . . what?"

My fingers went through his. I sighed and I felt a terrible sadness again. I couldn't touch him. I still couldn't feel him. "What are you doing here?" I asked, trying to hide my disappointment.

"To get you, of course!" he replied, not sounding pleased, but relatively cheerful, none the less.

"You idiot! Why did you come for me again!" I demanded. All the frustration had shortened my temper. Didn't my sacrifice mean anything to him! Why did he come and get me again and again. Sometimes, I could almost hate him.

"What? Why wouldn't I?" he asked, seeming confused at my anger.

"Idiot! Leave! Go back and don't come after me again!" I berated my older brother. He had to be the stupid, brazen one with too big a heart. Maybe that was what drove Winry insane. He was a genius, no doubt, but he was also incredibly hot-headed and tended to jump into situations and form plans while everything began to crumble around him.

"What are you talking about! I'll never leave you! I can't just let you vanish!" he retorted hotly. I almost smiled. This was the brother I remember, not the empty thing I had taken from the Gate.

"And I can't let you disappear either!"

"Don't argue with your older brother!"

"Why can't I!"

"Because . . . Because! Now go ahead and leave, goddammit!"

I glared at him. "No! No! You go! You shouldn't have to go again! Everyone will be sad . . . they'll kill you."

"Too late for that," he muttered.

My eyes widened. "You didn't . . . "

He took my overload of emotions as a sign to catch me offguard. "Go!" He shoved me and my body somewhere, but I heard him say I love you.

"Niisan! Stop!" I tried to snatch any part of him, but came up empty-handed. How did he touch me if I could not touch him? This wasn't exactly what I would call fair. "Niisan! Niisan!" I must have looked so mad at him, but I felt empty inside, my stomach catching itself and knotting again and again. The strangest thing, was that my body lay on top of me, still glowing but I wasn't in it. Obviously, something was not right. I felt drained, with the body on me as if I were some kind of spirit matress. How was it squishing me if there was no floor beneath us?

"Later, Al," Brother said, giving a short wave before disappearing.

"Niisan!" I cried. "Niisan! Niisan! Niisan!"

The body twitched. I held my breath, wondering what was happening and how it could move on its own. Were the electrical impulses of the brain starting up again? Without me as the soul, it would be nothing, like Nina. That irked me somewhat, something that might look like me but wasn't me at all. I tried to enter it through the mouth, the head, everywhere. The window to the soul. Yes, our optics. But how to pry open his eyes if I can't grab his flesh to begin with? I gazed at the gathering black waves. What was I supposed to do to get me to wake up? It opened its eyes and stared at me. Not only did that frighten me out of my wits, it also dispelled any thought of going back in me. What in the world was this?

Not a second passed by where I could think of anything, until I (we?) came to the dark mass surrounding the opening of the Gate. My body moved and stood and seemed to realize that we had to go through. The blackness actually made way for us. Shuffling to the side, making a hole for us to pass. Equivalent exchange. So Niisan really was taken instead of me. But the Gate didn't work like that. Brother's limbs and my body got us nothing. Or at least, it gave us a sick, twisted something.

A violent shove pushed me right through my body, I might have screamed. I looked back, not wanting to fall forwards and trying to see who had assaukted me with such rage. Filled in my mind were pictures of machines, of people and places and pieces of art and Winry and Roy and Grandma. A flying metal bird. A 'mushroom cloud'. Explosions and fire. A cross and a star. Guns far more advanced than could ever be made by any alchemist. Thick gas being poured into a room filled with naked people. Rose with a little boy. The moon and a flag with red, white and blue, being put in. A strobe of light crashing into the desert. And Niisan, waving good-bye and running into a building, just as it imploded and hurled chunks of concrete everywhere, striking my eyes and my left arm. And the vision ended when black shapes pulled away from me again.

I was out.

I couldn't move. It hurt to move. My legs were folded under me, crumpled. I was blessed with the feeling of pain. This seering that cut across my neck, my forehead, my limbs and torso. Everything felt so hot and so freezing at the same time. Caught between the desert sands and snowy ice caps of a mountain. Cracking open my eyes was a nightmare.

I saw foggy images of people walking from a gap of light. An alley, I assumed. The wall was hard, but there wasn't any kind of cold or slime. I know I had only come to for a day, but already it felt like a month. I could see clearly, whenever I mustered up the courage to peek through. Just red. Blood. What had happened? My arms felt so limp, and there was something on them. Trailing down onto my knees, not covered by clothing. I could only feel the shorts and shirt, because they stuck to my body in places.

I tried to look to the side, there was another wall. I was probably back up to the very edge of the space. No one was going to find me. I listened to the chatter. Conversations blending, the loudest ones closest to me. I had awoken early in the morning, all I heard were simple hellos or nothing at all but slowly, as the sun shook off its sleep, more people walked around. Though, it was still very hushed most of the time and not many exchanged words helped me know where I was. The most I could gather was this was Central. Maybe I could move a little. But my head throbbed simply thinking about what would happen if I get up.

To some degree, whatever my brother had tried had worked. Maybe not in the way he had wanted it to. Where was he, beyond the Gate? Or was he like all the dead there? My imagination couldn't stand the mental picture of a golden-eyed devil child. Complete with braid and automail limbs. That was the most disturbing thought I'd had in ages. Maybe he went through the Gate. As in, through. Not just in or a look-see. To my understanding then, the dead would stay in the Gate. Beyond the place of swirling yellow and white streaks was another world, perhaps. Or the Truth we seeked out so badly.

For now, I pondered what I had seen.

I was certain it was the Truth my brother had claimed to see, but could I do what my brother could? It hadn't taken long before he found transmutation circles to be obsolete. A year, about. But he and I worked hard every single day and still he was a far better alchemist than I was even from the beginning. I couldn't wait a year, but searching for an item to help me was useless.

Unless I took the exam. The watch may give me the extra boost I'd need.

Again the pain increased when my legs lost their balance and my shoulder scraped against the wall. It was overwhelming. I just had to rest for a little while.

Perfume. The sweet, wafting scent was what woke me up. It wasn't that it was strong, but it was such a reminiscent smell. The smell of fresh grass and stew and flowers rolled into a fragrance unlike any that could be captured. This was the closest it could ever come to. A pretty brown-haired nurse smiled at me. She was only inches away from my face, marking something on a clip board. My eyelids fluttered, unabe to still themselves so I could have a clear look at the room.

"Good morning, dear," she said warmly.

I opened my mouth to speak. It sounded to me more like a whimper. "What's going on?"

Here jade eyes softened. "Oh dear, you have no idea, do you?" she asked.

"Huh?" I asked. I must have sounded so stupid then. It was forgivable. I was in a train wreck state right now. She must have understood. The miss was a tender person. I could tell.

"Oh," she smiled wanly, "Sergeant Farman found you in the alleyway at near death and he rushed you to the hospital immediately. You must have been through a lot. You lost a lot of blood. Do you remember what happened to you?"

I looked to the ceiling. Farman . . . Farman. Was he the quiet old man? "Niisan saved me but he . . . he . . . and then I was pushed and I woke up there," I said, my voice seemed hoarse. "Can I have some water?"

"Of course, dear," she said. She looked so sad. Was that because of what I said. I wiped my tears with my hand and turned my head to look out the window. Indeed, it was morning. One of the most dark mornings I've ever seen in my life, I might add. I looked down trying to see if everything was alright. How could I have lost blood? A morbid fascination took hold of my sight as I looked down at my left shoulder. My arm. Where the hell was my arm?

The nurse came in looking at me. Was the shock so apparent in my eyes? Did I look as absolutely terrified as I felt?

"Are you . . . all right?" she asked.

"My arm," I muttered. "Where did it - ?"

"Oh, Al . . . " she sighed.

I looked at her, my mind ready to shut itself down if one more surprise flew in and hit me sraightin the face. "You know . . . who I am?" If I wasn't a giant armor, no one would be abe to guess I was me. Even then, more than half of the people who I met thought I was my brother. 'Fullmetal' can be such a deceiving title.

"Of course," she said. "Alan Rilec, the boy who was presumably dead."

And as promised, I blacked out.

End Notes: Heh heh. I've wanted to do this fic since I finished the FMA series and thought; "Geez, Edward didn't handle being in somenone else's body very well . . . Could Al?" And this was born. I even did a character sketch for Alan! Even though I didn't know I'd name him Alan, but there's this scene in my head where both Als are there and then . . . yeah . . . you probably know what I wanna say. Alan means; "Bright, clear, handsome, amiable, glorious." If there is an Alan reading this, you are soooo lucky! I think this name suits him more than 'Alphonse'. Don't get me wrong, I love the name Alphonse and am determined to give that name to my son. Alphonse means: "Eager for battle." Does that sound like Al to you?

Not really. :sweat:

Urgh, some other stuff, I have my own theories on the Gate, since my subs suck like bloody hell I don't know everything about it and whether my beliefs conflict with what happens. I confuse myself sometimes.

Ah yes, and how exactly would you spell 'niisan'? I've seen it nii-san, which makes sense, considering -san is an honorific. Isn't Niisan the shortened form of Oniisan? There's also oniichan and that looks better as onii-chan. Grr, I just like how Niisan looks but I don't want to butcher the Japanese language! Also, I capitalized Niisan because Al seems to ONLY call his brother 'niisan' so I assume he can consider it a name for his brother.

Review and offer any suggestions! I will take it to heart and think about what you write. Flame, harsh critique, appreciation or otherwise.

Next Time; Chapter Two: Two to Make One

Alphonse: My body a near perfect example of reviving the dead with Niisan paying the price. They have their Al, so what am I? I shouldn't be alive, and I can't take back my body. I should join Niisan and let him know everything's all right.