Humankind cannot gain anything without first giving something in return.
Alphonse's eyelids lifted open, the last time they did so being so long ago that every event in between then was almost nonexistent. Above him he could see a chandelier hanging from the highest ceiling he'd ever seen. Beneath him was the cold feeling of a smooth and solid floor on his palms, which differed from the creases in the floorboards back home. This triggered the last clear memory he had, which was pressing his hands with Edward on the chalk-drawn transmutation circle on the floor of their father's study. Something had dragged Al, he was screaming, his brother reached out for his hand but could not reach since that same force was holding down one of Ed's legs. Now Al was here.
Instinctively, he sucked a breath into his lungs. He felt his heart thumping beneath his chest. Perhaps it was the utter silence of this unknown room that caused his breath to pick up in pace and heart to pound, making it all more noticeable to him.
Al's eyes wandered about the room. It held a number of mezzanines leading up to the ceiling. This place of grandeur was so much bigger than him. Al had never been far from his family's tiny house in Resembool, so he couldn't help but imagine gowns and coats flow across the ballroom floor from a bygone time.
This place was unfamiliar to him. He could only wonder how he alone could have been transported there. He couldn't count the times Ed lectured how alchemy was primarily based on equivalent exchange, deconstructing elements to something and trading it for another of equal value or similar mass. How could that transport him this far? But the fright rising in him caused Al to stray away from those thoughts. How could he get home if he had no idea of where he was?
"Ed?" He muttered. There was no answer. "Brother…?!"
No one called back.
Al's head turned to his side to look around the room. Across the floor was a thin but long trail of blood. As he began to become more frightened his heart pounded faster in his chest. It wasn't only in comparison to the silence anymore.
Suddenly the emptiness of the room was shoved out by a loud scream. It came from one of the corridors leading outside of the hall. It sounded like an infant's cry.
"SHUT UP!" shouted another voice, sounding older but not by much. It startled Alphonse. "SHUT THAT THING UP! Make it quiet before I kill it!"
The baby's cry only became louder and more frightened. Al wished his brother was with him. He was braver than Al, at times to the point of irrationality.
He pushed himself up to his feet, stumbling slightly as his legs had grown strangely weak. Al caught a glimpse of himself in the reflection on the floor. The young round face, the murky brown of his eyes, the short blonde hair. More like his mother's than anything else.
His mother…
A spark of hope ignited. Somewhere their mother could be breathing again. Maybe Ed was not alone but home with their mother, worried about Al's whereabouts as well. But there was a chance that their mistake had also transported him far from their home as well. Wherever he was, he had to be worried about Al. Those golden eyes filled with fiery fury and determination. Al's eyes held only held a slight gold tint in them.
But Al was very aware how much of an astronomical miracle for two boys with little experience to perform such a feat. If their teacher had known what they were doing she would have socked them out a window before they could try. But… to see their mother again…
The smell of the blood grew thicker in the air as Alphonse drew closer. There was another wail of pain. At that, Al forced himself to move forward, peering into the shadow of the hall he followed into. The dark trail led to something writhing on the marble floor. It appeared to be human, but when the bloody mass growled, it bared its sharpened teeth. At first Al couldn't see the face to know that it was a child as well, with long ratty black hair. Al's eyes fell to where the blood was thickest and darkest, where he realized one of the arms, from the look of it, had been torn clean off. The only arm attached to the child pushed up off the ground. More blood oozed from the lower half, meaning one of the legs had been taken away just as violently.
The humane creature made an attempt to stand, only to feebly stumble to the floor again. It writhed in agony and frustration. Alphonse sucked in a breath, prompting the creature's head to dart in his direction. Eyes round as bolts glared at him. They possessed a wine-like color, and something in them became hauntingly familiar to Alphonse. He could not detect the reason why, but whatever the reason, it frightened him.
Someone was in there with the creature. A mother holding a baby, likely the source of the cries, also turned to Alphonse. She was a young girl, much younger than Al would have expected. Her appearance was the sole thing matching the extravagance of the room. Her dress was long and formal, a pearly white with yellow ruffles on the arms and wrists with the shoulders puffed out. There were pearls on her neck that could buy every repair his or Winry's house could ever need.
Winry…
But the girl herself did not match her dress. A young woman with long dark hair down her shoulders, her bangs an unmatching color. Al guessed she could be from somewhere else, a place like Reole, possibly Ishvalan, not the kind he imagined to be here. No, it was her downtrodden expression with the light from her eyes snuffed out. Still, she held her wailing infant closer to her.
Maybe they were transferred here through similar alchemy-related incidents? Al snapped to attention, realizing just how long the silence had gone on.
"Oh, um, hello, um, listen to me," He was unsure of how much he could be able to explain when he was lost in the situation and not sure what happened, "My name is Alphonse Elric. I come from Risenbool. It might be far from a place like this? But that's not important! My brother and I were performing alchemy, I mean- we're not official or anything but somehow I woke up here. So if you would please help me, tell me where I am, I would appreciate that."
An uncomfortable silence was present after he stopped. Al considered it strange. But then the young woman's eyes widened in recognition.
"Alphonse?" she whispered.
"Um, yes?"
The creature started screeching once again. Al covered his ears but it made the baby cry.
"IT'S NOT FAIR! THAT'S JUST NOT FAIR! MAMA! THAT'S NOT HOW IT WORKS! THEY CHEATED! IT'S NOT FAIR MAMA! IT'S NOT!" The creature flailed its remaining arm and leg, flicking more blood on the floor and walls. It absorbed at the end of the young girl's dress. It wouldn't be long before passing out. Both she and Al felt pity, wanting to help, but knowing drawing near would result in violence.
Instead, she held her child closer, backing away from the blood to move toward Alphonse. Her lips hardly moved, but he could have sworn she whispered Edward.
To obtain something of equal value must be lost.
The pain arrived in the lonely nights, when Hohenheim had nothing to distract himself with. It was much easier to hide in his small apartment, with no people to hide it from. This feeling began at his shoulder a long while ago, but now spreads down his side and to new places on his flesh. The remainder of his chest should be next. The more unsettling part of it was afterward when portions of his skin would soften and he could not feel anything. When the points of a needle or knife slide into his decaying skin and he would feel nothing. But for tonight it's only pain.
He was currently at the nearest hospital, but his visit had nothing to do with his symptoms. Medicine won't be good to him anyhow. He gripped the edge of the chair he was sitting in. Even if tightening his muscles would not help there wasn't much of a choice. He made no noise but in his lack of privacy allowed his facial expression to move at the very least.
Of course, this night is when he received a knock at his apartment door. By the force of it, that wasn't his neighbors or associates, and it could not be ignored. There was yelling from the outside. It was likely the police. His desk was was buried underneath a layer of paperwork and open notebooks.
Hohenheim had been through this sort of thing before, given the things he's done, the people he's worked for and with, so he and gritted his teeth as he pushed himself forward to the door. Perhaps it was those influences that allowed him to keep on living in the first place. Another break in a long chain.
"Sorry for the interruption this evening, sir," said the officer, "This young man we found, well we believe him to be your son, but reports tell us that he was killed in that unfortunate zeppelin incident."
In the present, there was a recognizable yell in one of the hospital rooms
Once he was there he looked in to see three men in uniform, two of them holding back a younger bloody man. The way he thrashed around in the hands of authority was more than a hint for Hohenhiem to recognize him. He looked so similar to the boy he had been taking care of in this world, but this one had longer hair tied back in a braid and had a lack of movement in his right arm. Walking in on the fight between his son and the police felt as if he was the one intruding rather than the reverse. One of he three officers stepped away from the struggle, making it all only slightly less difficult.
One of the men separated from the fray cleared his throat. Hohenheim recognized this officer, one that stopped by the coffee shop and was trying to woo the florist from down the street. One trait of his was a portion of hair hung over his forehead and his glasses.
"Yes, we found this young man matching most of the description of what we were given. He also claims to be your son." said Officer Hughes, "But there are some…noticeable differences between the two."
"Touch me again and I'll dislocate you're jaw!" screamed Edward Elric, "Then we'll see who needs replacement parts!" By this point anyone nearby must have heard what was going on, but it wasn't given any reaction.
Hohenheim was trying to piece together how his son had even gotten here in his original body. With his own situation, it was through surviving the Gate, something he would never wish on any human being. What had pushed him back to this side, and what chaos had he escaped from?
"Sir?" The Officer asked, noticing Hohenheim's waning attention, "Do you identify him as your son?"
Edward stopped struggling, locking eyes with his father, this time more subdued than his usual murder-glare. Hohenheim grinned his own usual sort.
"Yes, of course he's my son." He said "Can't you see the resemblance?"
Edward let out a sigh.
Of course the officers had questions. Was the report mistaken? Did he lose the limbs in the accident? How could he possibly lose only his arm and leg in the crash? Instead, he assured them everything was fine, nothing was wrong, and important men have nothing to hide, now would they? Once they were gone and out the door Hohenheim was the only one with Edward. His son was staring blankly at the ceiling, sucking breaths through his teeth from some unseen pain.
"Yeah, I'm not happy about this situation either, old man." said Edward.
"You know you're always welcome under my roof." Hohenheim pulled up one of his chairs and set it beside him. As he took in the sight, the most noticeable difference from the two's last encounter were all ten of Edward's toes present, matching his leg made entirely of skin. "What happened to you, Edward? How can you be here?"
"Save it." Edward said, sounding much more weary than he did with the police.
"But where's Alphonse? Is he okay?"
He kept up his refusal to not look directly at Hohenheim. His remaining hand made a dismissive gesture. "He's going to be fine. I made sure of that."
Edward attempted to turn his back, but winced in pain. Hohenheim instinctively reached out, when he felt something similar in his shoulder. For a moment the pain matched, and the two shared something in common.
That is alchemy's first law of equivalent exchange.
The Rockbells didn't receive many visitors outside of Risembool. The quota narrows down to locals and passerby's on business trips. Their workload usually revolved around busted tractors and windup watches. So when the flow of work halted, stretches of time could last as long as the distance between the sticks and the city. Winry hates these times.
In the heat of midday she was tempted to break things apart in order to get her hands on that cool metal. But with Pinako watching overhead, she stuck to family business projects. Namely, the parts for the Elric boys. Winry's mind often returned to the details in the damages expected from Ed and Al's return trips. She tried to focus on her own projects in her free time, but reasons like 'acidic spit" got to her. Really?! How could any mechanic even begin to combat predict that?! Spare parts should be on standby. And by that point she's drawing schematics.
Winry enjoyed the work she did, and she kept that in mind with every piece that became charred or missing or fell apart. This time it was the flickering lantern with a blitzed bulb on the top of the house she was fixing to fix when her eyes caught a few figures out the window. They were way down the road so it took a moment before she bothered notifying her grandma. Unfamiliar faces of costumers weren't uncommon, but it took some distance to be certain of it was a new client. There were at least three, possibly more with the cart rolling behind them.
It's only when she watched out for them closer, when a sense of recognition hit her with a realization. Winry knew that face. She knows that person.
"Al?" Winry stood up in a daze. It wasn't long before she stumbled downstairs and out the door, wrench still in hand, running down that dirt road. "Alphonse?!"
Years have passed since she last saw her friend's human face, but it felt nothing like that. Kicking up clouds behind her to meet with her friend in front of her house, suddenly it was all the same, with a few sacrifices and missing people in-between. Al must have known this too, as he started running to her.
"Winry, hey!" Once they were close enough, Winry came to a halt to take in the sight. Al's human form had not changed…at all. He was a whole head smaller than her, still having the appearance of a child. And on one hand she supposed that made sense, the body being unused and unchanged, but on the other, it was Al standing right in front of her and she should take what she is given. Al must have noticed this, as he glanced at his friend up and down.
"Winry," Al said again, his unfiltered voice welling up her emotions, "you grew!"
Winry nodded, "Oh yeah, I guess!"
Al had the beginnings of a smile, but that shrunk as his eyes met hers. He gestured to his face, and that's when Winry noticed the wetness in her eyes. Her hand reached up to brush the tears away, but instead her arms wrapped around Al's shoulders.
"I was beginning…to lose faith." said Winry, "If you and Ed stayed the way you were, we would have lived with it. But look at you!" Winry pulled away, her hands still on his shoulders, "You're back."
Al tried smiling again, coming out awkward like a joke only he understood. Looking at who was standing behind Al, one of them was a girl around her age she did not recognize, holding an infant of the same complexion. But if Al was intact…
"Ed?" Winry strayed away from Al as she made her way to the cart holding someone else she did not know. Instead of the golden hair and bright eyes she anticipated she was met with a scraggly child with an arm and leg missing in the same places as Edward. The lack of automail installments revealed the more gruesome sights of being an amputee, the bloodstains the cue to avoid that line of sight, and that face had an even a more childish demeanor where Edward had more thoughtful concern. But not even for a spark of a moment could Winry ever confuse the two. Perhaps he was even the antithesis.
"Where is he?" she asked the others.
Standing there was only Al, this wild pale boy, the girl, and her baby. Al stepped closer, as if he was the older one and Winry should be consoled. Back at their house, Pinako had finally stepped out the door and was staring in just as much awe.
"He's not here," Al said, and her smile faded, "That's the thing about equivalent exchange, Ed went thought so much to get everything right, but something will always be required to be taken in the process-"
"Is he dead?" Winry asked. Her hand was gripped onto her wrench. Sweat beaded over her head, the insects chattered, and all of this reminded her of how she was told about her parents, through logic and sugarcoating. Only she isn't the child anymore, and Al, even before the incident that started all this, should know better. Al looked down at his feet, his hair casting a shadow over his eyes.
"We don't think so, but we aren't entirely sure." said Al, "All we know is he traded a piece of himself for my sake, and we have an idea of where he is, but we can't be certain."
"He wasn't offered much of a choice." said the girl Winry didn't know.
Winry's body was trembling, but was nowhere close to crying this time. Her other gloved hand curled into a fist. "That idiot…" she whispered.
"Please don't be mad at him." said Al. Innocence was very Al but there was something different in this. It was beyond the his current face and appearance. Something else was missing.
"But…" Winry fumbled to find her words in her frustration, "Then…what was even the point?!"
"Winry." Pinako was standing near to them now, supposedly caught up, teeth gritted on the tip of her pipe, "These people must have traveled a long way for a visit. How about we invite them inside?" She walked over to Al to touch his face, "It's good to see you again, Alphonse."
"But Grandma-,"
"You're happy to see them, aren't you?" Winry tightened. That ecstatic part of her that Al was had his body back had not gone away. "That's an impressive outfit," Pinako said to Rose, "But I'm sure you and Winry are the same size. You can borrow some if that's to your liking."
"Oh, I don't want to impose..."
After seeing her in the shop ever day this was the only time Winry saw her act this way, to try to defuse the tension. They moved to walking the long way back to the house. She could see it in the way that Alphonse gave attention to parts of the house he had already seen before as if they were new. The only changes before all this happened. Something was different and offputting. Pinako must have picked this up as well, but she must have been waiting for that to be relevant.
Winry just returned upstairs to work on repairing that light. She planned on using this light later, even if the point isn't apparent. Metal is durable. Metal can't make any complaints or cry out in pain as her hands move everything where they should be. Metal can't show off its intelligence or injure itself in the midst of being blinded by pride. It's incapable of wounding others with a decision. It takes dents but continues to work. The mood downstairs is rising, becoming more uplifting with hope and joy, and there's no possibility of Winry trying to burn that down at a time like this.
She imagined Edward and those words on his watch, etched into them for so long. Those sideways glances he gave to Al's armor, with that intelligence and pride, together with unconditional love, something that shouldn't mix with those other two elements. The most painful aspect of this outcome wasn't that she didn't see this coming. This was exactly the type of decision she had expected Edward to choose, but had hoped he would know better.
Winry tested the light. Though it was midday she could tell it worked just fine. She tightened the lid shut with the wrench before dropping it to the floor. She almost slammed it but held it tight, shaky, until it released from her grip. Alphonse's laughter could be heard from downstairs. This is a good thing. This is the best outcome there can be. There is no outcome where every piece fits perfect. Yet she was unable to convince herself her face was just wet from sweat.
It wasn't the differences, but all the similarities that made it difficult for Edward to get used to living in this new world. His travels with Al entailed never knowing what was to come next, now every day Ed encounters a familiar face, and is hit with the knowledge it is merely a stranger in similar skin. So he was expecting to see the familiar human face of his brother appear some time or another, but was still not prepared when he received the picture.
This world was more pale than home. Even in the picture, with the brick building and bare branches in the background, even down to the young man smiling in the center, is just a pale imitation of what he knew. And yet his breath still hitched.
The one person Ed knew was the one he learned to tolerate by the day, his father. And to be fair, he did pull his weight. Helped him out with prosthetics and regardless of the functionality that earns a good word.
"They're still painful," he would say, "not as good as my old ones. Don't quit your day job." Those are as good words as Edward can muster.
Unraveling Dante was treated as one less worry. The new priority was fixing the results in yet another decision. The science here isn't the only thing he must relearn. When anyone notices the differences in his arm and leg people nose in and ask about it. He wished the pity was the worst he had to worry about. A political turmoil was rising. He'll have to fit under specific requirements and if it weren't for his father's influence and a way to cover up the prosthetics he's be in more danger. A setback like that ignites his short fuse more than the comments from back home which…he doesn't have and aren't even the slightest bit true.
Any day now he knows he'll be face-to-face with a Mustang who still manages to outrank him, and that alone gives him anxiety. In a way he's still severed from the reactions of the people he left his sacrifice with. What would they all even say, if he managed to return?
In a way he knows in his soul he has earned this, but it nev er seems to be enough. But And yet the biggest similarity of all, he's on a platform waiting for a train. And in the darkness of the empty countryside there is a light flickering at home, waiting, just for him.
In those days, we believed that to be the world's one and only truth.