He was leaving again. Why? Why was he leaving?
Two years, two years thinking he was dead, two years of hiding away, feeling lost and empty because I blamed myself that he was dead. Two years of hiding, of pretending.
Two years without using Alchemy.
And then, suddenly he reappeared. Hiding wasn't enough anymore... it never had been, the emptiness had never been enough.
I was fighting again, I was ME again. It came back, the fire, the purpose.
He was alive.
Seeing him and Al again, side by side as they should be, should always have been, was enough to bring me back. Seeing him again. To put in the most cliché way possible, seeing my sun again.
That was suddenly all that mattered.
"Sarcastic already?" he asked me, grinning. How I missed that grin... How I missed him.
"And what's with that eye-patch? It doesn't suit you!"
I'd wanted to hide, because I didn't believe I was strong enough for the world. I'd lost him and that'd destroyed me.
Running along beside him, everything as it should be.
Until... until he said he needed to go back to destroy the gate.
Go back.
Destroy the gate.
Couldn't come back.
I held Al back as he scrambled for his brother, screaming no at him. I could barely stop from rushing after him myself.
Go back.
Destroy...
Destroy...
Couldn't come back...
Go back...
Just as he was almost gone, I leapt over, leaving Al behind- or so I thought- and pulled him against me. Just as it should have been for the last two years... he should have been here like this for the last two years but he hadn't been and now he was leaving again with no chance of ever coming back... no chance... no...
Chance...
He told me then, that he loved me and had thought of me for the last two years. In less than five minutes he tried explaining the other world, the Al look-alike, the Hughes one. He told me too of their power, and how we couldn't let a war happen between the two of us. And I knew he was right, damn him I knew he was right.
I knew I had to let him go.
So I did, after kissing him one last time... holding the sun's light one last time...
I let him go.
Then Al rushed up to me, telling me to destroy the gate from this side, he was going with his brother and thank me for everything I'd done for both of them- little did he know what I did for his brother- and he wished me luck.
I would have to destroy the gate. I, with my hands would have to destroy the only link to the one thing I loved.
How could they ask me to do this?
But they were, and no matter what, I couldn't let more people die for my stupidity, I couldn't.
I destroyed the gate.
Go back...
Destroy the gate...
Destroy.
At the cost of my love I saved my world.
Hawkeye came up to me again then, smiling. Hair like his... would it be enough? Nothing would never be enough again.
He told me there wasn't a me look-alike though.
Besides, he'd said, he loved me, not someone who looked like me, and that would always be the way it would be.
Always loved me and no other.
Always loved him and no other.
Left.
Again.
Yep. I will Angst now. HE LEFT! LEFT! HE LEFT!
And yes, I have been screaming that all day.