It's hard to watch those you love waste away before your eyes.
What's harder is knowing that you can't help them, that no matter how many flowers you bring, no matter how many hours you spend by their bedside, they're still going to die.
It hurts.
It feels like it's your fault.
Al and I felt it when Mom was sick with the illness that would eventually kill her.
When she did, the pain was so bad that it almost broke us.
We'd fall asleep in each other's arms, tears still slowly drying on our faces
In darker moments, I thought of killing myself, anything to escape the pain, the regret, the sadness.
I don't remember how many times I sat up in the attic that Mom used to shine a light from to guide us home.
The light was our hope, our something to live for.
But soon after she died, rats knocked over the lamp and smashed it.
The light was gone, and the shards of glass that remained were something to die for.
I went to the attic every night, when Alphonse was asleep; hoping I wouldn't get caught creeping up the stairs with no excuse, no lie to explain what I was doing without exposing my insanity.
I would reach into the broken lamp, and pull out a shard of glass, larger than the others, sharp and deadly.
Then I would stay there for hours, the shard poised above my wrist, putting just enough pressure on it o break the skin, wondering what it would feel like to cut deeper into the flesh, to make a wound that would never heal.
Shallow ones were easy, and I eventually had to move to my legs and even my chest when my arms ran out of room.
Deep ones were another matter, and I never had the courage to just push myself over the edge.
Never had the courage to let the sadness run out with the blood.
I had to be brave for Al.
Had to live for him.
Or die for him.
I never thought that he'd die for me.
I never thought he'd die at all.
I thought we'd always live with the pain.
Pain that couldn't be described with words.
It was that pain that made us try to bring Mom back, even though we knew the risk and the price of failure, we had to do it, had to see her again…
Then we failed, and lost our bodies as a result.
The sadness came again.
We thought that the Philosopher's Stone would fix that, would heal our minds with our bodies.
We were wrong, it only made things…
Worse…?
I was able to use the remnants of the Philosopher's Stone that Scar created to bring him back, human, but something had gone wrong…
He came through alright, but my body hadn't been able to provide enough nutrients, enough sleep, enough…
Anything.
He was starving and barely conscious, already dying of a disease he'd caught.
They rushed him to a hospital, tried desperately to save him, but he was too far gone.
They let me in to see him, and I stayed with him for what seemed like seconds, but must have been a few hours, talking about everything and nothing at all.
He didn't hear me, and eventually he started breathing slower and slower, until it had completely stopped, leaving me truly alone.
I cried again, just like I did when we were younger and we'd cry ourselves to sleep as we held each other tight.
That's what they were: tears of regret, tears of grief, tears of…
Happiness.
He looked so peaceful.
And I thought I saw a flicker of a smile on his lips.
I bent down and whispered a final fare-well into his ear, one last word, one last good-bye, one last thing for him to take to the grave.
Then I sat by his bed sobbing until someone noticed and forced me, struggling fiercely, out of the room to allow more people into the room to see if he could be saved.
I knew he couldn't.
He was safe now, happy forever.
So why were tears still continuously dripping down my face?
I couldn't stop crying, though they told me to stop, some with kind words, some with harsh words, and one with a slap to my face.
I looked up, rubbing my stinging cheek, tears starting to dry up, and saw Col. Mustang standing there, an unhappy Lt. Hawkeye behind him.
He just looked at me, his eye ablaze with something I didn't recognize, and walked away to talk to a doctor, Hawkeye trailing behind him.
It shocked me into silence, and my cheeks were dry all the way back home, to the room I'd shared with Al.
Then I'd cried myself into a sleep filled with Al: laughing, sleeping, smiling, bleeding, dying…
It was too much, it had to have been too much, because now I'm standing by the sink with my auto-mail arm poised over my flesh arm, blade extended, wondering if I have the courage to kill myself and be with Al again.
I know I do, but somehow, the faces of my other friends keep slipping into my mind, and other images as well.
A mouth overflowing with blood.
A funeral.
A crowd wearing black.
Two more coffins being lowered.
Two more graves.
Two more deaths.
Two more tears.
Two more cuts.
It's too much, I'm caught.
I love them all.
I love Al too.
I…
I just…
I miss you Al.
I miss you so much…
A cry of despair echoes through the darkness, and then all is still.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
In memory of Allie.
1992-1999
I miss you….