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loss: -noun; the state of being deprived of or of being without something that one has had
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It had been over thirty-six hours since Edward and Alphonse Elric's night in the underground city, and very few people had seen either of the boys since the whole mess. From what Riza Hawkeye had come to understand, through various short conversations between her and a friend of hers who just so happened to work on the floor of the hospital where the boys were logded, Alphonse had been sleeping for the most part. The one time he had woken up, he'd immediately asked to see his brother. When she'd initially asked why the boy hadn't been aloud to see Ed, as she had been told, her nurse friend had been a little more than hesitant to answer.
Eventually, the only real answer other than that it was "hard to explain" she got was that she would have to see for herself. So, like Riza Hawkeye always does, she took the best advice that had been given to her, followed through with it, and did in fact go to see for herself exactly what her friend had been unable to explain about Edward Elric. No, the fact that visitors were not yet allowed to see him did not stop her. Nor did the fact that she was, by doctor's orders, not yet permitted to walk around with her arm being injured as it was -but really, she had only been grazed, it was hardly something to worry about-. It did not stop her one bit.
The moment she walked in the room however, she began to understand by what her friend had meant by it being "hard to explain". Edward was wide awake when she went to see him. He looked marvelous, especially for someone who had just done the impossible and reunited a human soul with it's accidentaly estranged body. She also noted, her heart expanding in joy at the sight, that Edward's right arm and left leg (foot really, she coldn't see much other than that) did not gleam like they normally would have in the late afternoon sun coming through the window. They were solid, tan colored flesh, the first time she'd ever seen them like that. But as she made this happy revelation, she also slowly made one that was far more disturbing.
Edward had not so much as turned his head upon her entery, eyes remaining focused on the world that lay outside his window. It wasn't just the lack of response that sent her internal warnings off. It was the way he stared at the world outside. So blank and empty, as if everything and nothing was passing before him. As if nothing had any meaning. As if nothing mattered.
Hawkeye made her way to stand beside Ed, finally pulling his attention away from the window with a hand on his shoulder.
"I'm glad to see you're ok."
It was at this point that he turned his eyes -his uncharacteristically quiet eyes- upon her, blinking once before answering.
"You seem to have been injured in your endeavours. Will you be healed soon?"
It took all of Riza's will power to not flinch away at those words. The tone, the lack of any inflection, the diction used...
It was all wrong. All so very wrong.
Where she'd expected an exuberant greeting, one laced with happiness, relief, maybe even a hint of tomfoolery to take the edge off of the serious conversation, there was nothing. Absolutely nothing. His voice was as blank and emotionless as a porcelain doll's face. The words were cold. Not in the way that someone makes words cold on purpose; they weren't intended to cut and bite at people's hearts. There was just nothing behind them that would ever lead anyone to think that they had come from someone who was as impassioned by so many things as Edward Elric.
Gently taking her hand off of his shoulder, Hawkeye squared her shoulders and asked the question whose answer she was now most afraid to hear.
"Edward, are you ok?"
Edward was silent for a moment, not even a quick look of pensiveness passing over his face before he answered.
"You must tell me what you mean by 'ok'. If you are able to do such a task for me, then I may be able to tell you whether or not I am, by your standards, 'ok'."
Hawkeye steeled herself further. Thinking quickly, she asked this seemingly emotionless and very literal Edward the next best thing.
"Ed, can you tell me what exactly happened to you and Al the other night? The night in the city underground?"
"It is fairly simple Riza Hawkeye. When I left you and Roy Mustang at your automobile, I made my descent into the city that lies underneath our feet. Once there, I was attacked by the homunculi and their master. We exchanged words, and blows as well. At one point, their master threw me into the Gate Of Truths, where my mind, body, and soul were split apart. My body and mind stayed within the Gate of Truths, but my soul went on beyond. It ended up in a world much like and very dissimilar to this one, inside of a body much like, but very different from my own. I saw Hohenhiem there. He tried very hard to explain to me that equivalent exchange is not and can never be as fair as alchemists make it sound. I grew angry with him and ran away. A falling flying machine, a dirigible was what Hohenhiem called them, fell on me. I died, I'm fairly certain. I awoke back inside the Gate of Truths, body, mind, and soul all as one again. I had just found my way out of the Gate of Truths when the homunculus Envy began attacking me again. He changed his appearance many times during our fight. The last change he made to his face startled me so badly, I hesitated for a moment. When I did, he stabbed something all the way through my chest. I died a second time. I remember standing in front of the Gates of Truth for a second time. I remember seeing Alphonse for a moment, before he dissapeared. Envy was there as well. He opened the doors to the Gate of Truths and walked through. I awoke some time after that. When I asked the woman Rose what had happened, she told me that Alphonse had brought me back to life by using the Philosepher's Stone that was in his body. I, in turn, offered my whole self to the Gates of Truth in exchange for Alphonse's complete self being brought back to this one side of the Gate. And that, Riza Hawkeye, is what happened to me." Edward explained, face and voice clean of all emotion.
With her head reeling from such information -what did he mean by another world?-, Riza slowly tried to peice the puzzle together.
"So, let me get this all straight. You've died not once, but twice, right?"
"Yes."
"Once in this world and once in...a world like this one?"
"Yes. The difference between this world and the other is that there is no alchemy in the world beyond the Gate."
Riza nodded, trying her best to believe everything the young man was telling her. Because at this point, so Riza believed, she shouldn't be too surprised by anything, not anymore. With all of the crazy things that had been happening in her life as of recently, it shouldn't be that hard for her to believe that an alternate universe of her world not only existed, but that someone she personally knew had visited it. Right?
Even still, despite all of the crazy things she'd witnessed, this was all a tough order to swallow.
"So, in this whole chain of events, you restored Al?"
"Yes."
"And yourself?"
"Yes and no."
This was the answer Riza had been waiting for, the one she'd been digging at.
"What do you mean by that? 'Yes and no'."
Ed stared blankly at her for a moment before answering.
"I thought it would be obvious at this point, Riza Hawkeye. I restored Alphonse's body and accidentally restored mine in the process. When I went back to the Gate of Truths for the last time, I had intended to give up my whole self in exchange for Alphonse to be whole. The Gate of Truths gave me Alphonse and allowed me to keep my limbs, but it still required something for its services."
Riza was quiet for a beat, again afraid of the answer her impending question might bring.
"Ed, this Gate you're talking about, can I ask what it took from you this time? Instead of a limb, what did it take?"
"My soul."
Riza stared at him, not sure exactly what to make of his words. She knew there was a severity in the fact that, according to Edward, he was talking to her, a body and mind, without a soul to go with it. But what that severity was, the exact weight in Edward's decision to give his soul away was somewhat lost to her. Riza had no way of knowing exactly yet how much it had cost him to give away the thing that made him, well...him.
"Is that why you're the way you are right now? Is that why you're so..."
"Detached?" Edward offered up blankly.
Riza nodded.
"I can not be anything other than what I am without a soul. The mind and body are incapable of creating or feeling emotions on their own terms."
Hawkeye frowned, Ed's hollow tone making her chest ache terribly. It just sounded so awful for him to be talking about his soul, something that even Ed -one of the least God concerned people she'd ever met- knew the deep value of, in the same manner someone would talk about the weather.
"How are you still alive, talking to me and all, if this Gate has taken your soul from you?"
"Riza Hawkeye, a human is made up of three things. Mind, body, and soul. Just like Alphonse was able to live without his body, I can do the same without a soul. When these are not all together at once, the person is incomplete. When separated, each part will pull towards one another until the person is complete again."
In its own twisted way, it made sense. If Alphonse had been able to survive five years without a body, who was to say the same thing in reverse couldn't happen to Ed?
"Will your soul return to you if that were to happen?"
"Perhaps. However, I may be relocated to the other world as well. It is all dependent upon which pulls stronger; my body to my soul, or my soul to my body."
Now, Riza had been doing a very good job so far keeping track of the complicated storyline Edward had been drawing up, if she did say so herself. But this, this one little bit of information, threw her for a loop.
"I thought you said the Gate took your soul."
"It did."
Or possible a corkscrew too.
Riza stood there, thinking about all the information Ed had given her. The Gate had taken his soul, that much they were both certain on. Then why would he even bring up the possibility of his body being pulled by his soul into the parallel world that was beyond all she would ever know?
...unless...
"Ed, did the Gate actually keep your soul? Did it lock it up inside of its self?"
"No."
One little word, and it all suddenly made so much more sense.
"Oh Edward, don't tell me..." she said, leaving her sentence hang for him to finish.
"What am I not telling you?" Ed asked dully.
Had the situation not been nearly as serious, Riza might have scolded him for having such little common sense and no tact. She was beginning to realize though, and quickly, that any new quirk he seemed to be developing was in direct relationship to the simple fact that he had no soul of his own at the moment.
Sighing calmly, Riza continued on, acting as best as she could that Ed's new incapability to see beyond the literal did not bother her.
"Did the Gate send your soul to the other world?"
"Yes."
"Can you tell where it is? How it's fairing?"
"From what I am able to feel, it is doing fine. It seems to have found the body it was inhabiting the first time it made the trip to that other world. It is safe to assume that the other Edward did not die then."
"Do you think you'll be able to get it back? Before it potentially draws you into that other world?"
Edward finally turned his attention away from Hawkeye and back towards the window.
"I do not know, Riza Hawkeye. A body is only meant to house one soul at a time. Not two."
Riza tilted her head, looking out the window with Edward. If she were to believe this, everything Ed had just told her, then somewhere, beyond cosmic laws of space and time that she may never even be able to begin trying to wrap her head around; there was an Edward somewhere, just like the one sitting next to her.
Except, the fact remained that the Other Edward now had two souls within his body, and the one with her had none.
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Somewhat inspired by the fic Jewelled Dagger by Griselda Banks; go read it, it's a cool fic. Anyways, expect more to come soon and I hoped you enjoyed the opening chapter!