Setting: Washington, D.C., August 7, 1945: The day after the Hiroshima bombing

Edward: 38, Alphonse: 33

80,000 killed immediately, 70,000 injured, 100,000 died later of radiation poisoning and cancer

Disclaimer: I do not not own Fullmetal Alchemist or any of the characters within.

August 7, 1945 - Washington, D.C.

"DAMN IT!" The shout startled Alphonse Elric, who was just inside the door of the apartment he and his older brother shared in Washington, D.C. after returning from a brief shopping trip. All but dropping the brown paper bag onto a bench near the door, Al rushed down the narrow hall and turned left into the sitting room, half expecting to see his brother in the middle of a fight with some German assassin. It wouldn't have been the first time.

But no. Al had misidentified the shout his brother had emitted. While it contained some anger, it was also filled with anguish. The kind Al hadn't heard since...well, since Nina.

"Brother?" Al asked, moving quietly to Edward's side. The now 38-year-old man was hunched over his desk, shaking hands planted on the table as if to keep his body standing. "Ed?" he asked again after no response. "Edward. Brother, what's wrong? What happened?"

Nothing for another moment, then; "We failed, little brother."

Confusion flashed into Al's mind. "What?"

"Huskisson...and his bomb. We're too late, Al. We failed."

Al's mind raced, trying to find a meaning to his older brother's words. "W-what do you mean?"

"I just received word from the White House," Edward said in a strangled whisper, again not so dissimilar from the tone of voice he's held when the brothers had discovered what had happened to Nina and Alexander. "President Truman. He- He used that uranium bomb. On people!"

Alphonse paled. "And where...where did he send it?"

"Japan. A capital city called Hiroshima. Truman swears that the bomb was supposed to hit a military base, and only that base. But there was some kind of crosswind, it blew the bomb off course. It hit Hiroshima instead. I've been listening to the radio. They believe it was supposed to hit a military base too. So far, over 80,000 thousand people are missing, my guess is incinerated the moment the bomb hit. 70,000 more people are injured, with odd burns covering their bodies, probably from the radiation. Ten of that 70 thousand are already dead."

Alphonse struggled to calm his breathing. That many people? Over 90 thousand people dead so far, because he and Edward hadn't found Huskisson? Oh God. Al sat down, afraid he'd fall if he didn't. There was a folded paper next to where Edward's fingers still pointlessly gripped the flat table, hard automail digging grooves into its wooden surface. Al reached for and unfolded it, scanning its contents quickly.

It was from Truman. During the past seven, almost eight years, Edward had served as primary advisor for Truman and his predecessor, Franklin Roosevelt. It let him have access to information he most likely wouldn't get otherwise, like where the brothers might find Huskisson. Edward had proved himself to be indispensable to both Presidents, and Roosevelt had joked with Al on many occasions how Edward did, in fact, most of the work. He might as well have been the President. Truman wasn't nearly as open with the brothers as Roosevelt had been, and only kept Edward around because of the amount of work he'd done.

In the past few months, a man named Robert Oppenheimer had come to the attention of Truman, bragging about the invention he and his scientists had created at the University of California. It hadn't been until the week before that the elder Elric discovered exactly what this invention was. Truman had taken to trying to hide the true nature of it, knowing that Edward would protest. The moment he had found out, Edward had protested almost violently. He knew the destructive capabilities of that bomb, better than anyone else besides Al.

Truman, unwilling to get rid of Edward completely, had made the younger man take some of his completely unused vacation days. Frustrated with the American way of doing things that Truman seemed to be obsessed with, Edward had taken the time off, though he still called Truman's direct line every day in an attempt to persuade him not to send the bomb. Of course, it was now apparent that Truman hadn't listened and sent the bomb anyway.

The paper Alphonse held was a handwritten report from President Truman himself, detailing the actions he'd taken and why. The numbers that were already dead were listed right there on the paper. 80,000 confirmed dead on impact, with thousands more missing and/or dying of radiation poisoning.

Al dropped the paper back onto the table, unable to look at it any more. Wet tears pricked at the corners of his eyes, but he held them back. Whatever he was feeling, his brother was likely to be feeling a hundred times worse. He always blamed himself for everything, or took a bigger portion of the blame or unhappiness than he had to. Certainly more than Al was ever able to.

Al stood up again from his seat and approached his brother, laying a hand carefully on Edward's shoulder. "Brother? It's not your fault, you know."

A sarcastic laugh escaped him. "Sure it is, Al. I didn't track down Huskisson, sorry, Oppenheimer fast enough, did I? No. He just continued researching ideas and ways to use his precious bomb at a University in fucking California! And I couldn't find him! We've been in the same fucking country for fifteen fucking years!" Edward breathed heavily, clenching the table harder and harder, the gouges in the wood formed by his automail fingers growing ever deeper.

"Fifteen years, Al," he choked softly. "And it wasn't enough to save all those people."

"It's not your fault brother, nor is it mine, not even Truman's. You know why he chose to send the bomb, he said so in the report."

"You actually believe him, Al? It's a lie, and excuse!"

"Is it? What happened in Hiroshima, while a tragedy and a disgrace to a country that's known as the "Land of the Free," may be the only thing that will end this war. All of Europe and some of Asia is being ravaged by this war, and millions more will die by the time it does end. What happened in Hiroshima, well, this may scare the Japanese into surrendering."

"But what if it doesn't, Al? What if they just keep coming and Truman decides to send another one of his fucking bombs to another city?"

"If that's what ends the war, then maybe, just maybe, it will be worth it."

"Ha. You know what this reminds me of, little brother?"

"What, Ed?"

"The Ishbal Massacre."

"It is similar, isn't it?"

"Yeah, only difference is that the military there had Philosopher's Stones instead of a uranium bomb. Though at this point, I'm not sure what the destructive difference is."

"Maybe there isn't one, brother."

"...I'm going to resign from my office in the White House."

"...Okay, brother. Do you know what you'll do?"

"No. Though, I think that, as soon as this war ends and it's mostly safe again, I want to head to Germany and visit Rose."

Al was silent at that. His older brother was rarely willing to visit the dead, and only when they had meant something to him. They'd received a letter from Gracia Hughes about a year ago informing them that Rose had been taken from the streets and shoved into one of those concentration camps that had grown so popular in Europe.

When the same camp was invaded, destroyed, and the prisoners relocated to safer towns, Rose's body had been discovered in one of the tents. She'd died only moments before the American soldiers took command of the compound. The soldiers had found a letter from Hughes and Gracia on her body, and contacted the couple and called them to identify her body. When they did, Rose was transported back to Munich and buried in the same cemetery as Alfons and had been, right next to him even.

Al knew that the news of Rose's death had affected his older brother much more than Edward liked to show. Edward had hid his true feelings for the gypsy years, never telling anyone, even though Al had figured it out.

"Alright brother. I'll come with you."

"You don't have to, Al."

"Yes, I do." Al smiled at Edward. "Besides, it's been years since I saw Gracia and I could really do with some of her cooking."

A sad smile crossed Edward's face. "Yeah, it'll be nice to see some familiar faces."

~fin~

A/N: We're studying World War II in AP Euro, the last part being Hiroshima and Nagasaki. But us FMA fans, we "know" where the real uranium atomic bomb came from, right?

Looking back on the war is really depressing and seeing what Hitler had done to millions of citizens? It's almost more than I wanna see in school. But I took this class for a reason, so I have no choice but to continue.

Obviously, Edward held no such position within the American government and did not try to persuade Truman to not send the bomb, soooooo...

Thanks for reading!