Memorial Chapter 9
The last chapter before the epilogue. You've made it!
Warnings: Riza's personality is a stretch, I understand this. I'm not very satisfied with it, but take it at face value with her, and don't let it ruin the rest of the show. I promise, it'll be a fun bunch of fireworks. -pets Alphonse/"It"-
"Wait—Havoc!" Riza bounded forward from the backseat and the man nearly swerved off the road. She pointed past the windshield. "That's . . . alchemy!"
And much to Havoc's surprise, there was a light that flared into the sky, faintly, to their left. It did not come from where soldiers were; nor the hospital to which they were going; but from beyond a few buildings at the parade grounds, no more than a few blocks away.
"Get me there now!" she demanded, and he was all too willing to obey.
D: THE CHAINS OF PARADISE
"I'm only going to tell you this once. The man in LaFantae said that if you waited long enough, your brother's soul would return, right? Well, what do you think the soul's trying to do, now that it is here?"
The hospital ward was burning in the orange light of sunset, from a window at the end of the white hall. The scorching sun reflected off the floor, the walls, and Al wondered if this was what the tunnel to heaven or hell looked like. He maneuvered around a smear of blood that had not yet been cleaned, and tried to put it, and the screams, out of his mind. With the thousands of patients the hospital had yet to see, there was no way they were going to have the manpower to clean it up for a week.
No one noticed when he passed by several men on gurneys, going around a corner to the military's wing. Alphonse didn't even bother to knock when he came to the correct door; he simply slipped in with a hand pushing on the bubbled glass.
Colonel Mustang's eyes were on him instantly. He was lying in a bed, hand draped over his stomach, and looking like he had been thinking about something complex. When his eyes caught Alphonse, his look didn't exactly improve; if anything, his frown of concentration became more tightly knit.
"Alphonse," he greeted like a grandfather. "How are you holding up."
"I don't sleep anymore," Al said without thought, without emotion. He shrugged, and his gaze was dead.
"He isn't going to wake up, is he," Roy said.
Al's voice was detached and hollow. He stared at the ceiling as he replied, as though he—and it—were not really there. "I really don't think so."
"Are you going, then?" Mustang struggled up onto his elbow, watching Alphonse's fine, expressive features intently. He was still a wonder, a miracle, to watch. "Will this be good-bye?"
Al stared at the floor. "I have one thing left to do. Then I'll go."
"Home?" he asked, eyes dark, probing.
"No." The answer was immediate, but unsure. "I don't think we can go back there."
Roy nodded and lay back down, though he didn't like it. Still, he found his throat dry when he tried to work up what may amount to his last words to Alphonse Elric. Ever.
"Do you know where you'll go? When?"
"No, and no." He shrugged. "But soon, and far away."
Mustang watched the youth lay a pocket watch on the table next to his hospital bed, already adorned with vases and other small get-well gifts. Then, Al's hand touched Mustang's shoulder, slight as a ghost's. "Thank you," he offered, "for all you tried. Ed would want me to thank you."
Mustang grunted, turned his head away, and bit his lip. He tried to keep from crying at least until Al was out the door, but he didn't make it by a long shot.
"Goodbye . . . Alphonse. . . ," he managed as the bronze-haired boy went to the door.
Al turned back, hardly an emotion on his face. "'Bye."
He turned; Mustang frowned at his back. That look--Something wasn't right. "Wait, Al—" but the door had closed.
Mustang's eyes opened wider. What's this last thing you're going to do?
Roy got to his feet faster than it would have taken to make Riza happy. Still biting back pain, he grabbed the nearest soldier guarding the hall, holding him with a grip so tight he even pulled the man to the ground as his feet gave out from under him.
"Follow that man. If he tries to transmute anything, stop him."
Inside the gray, stone tower he had become all too familiar with, there was a covered door. Hidden under the spiraling stairs cutting up through the cylinder, deep in the shadows where the only light came from one hundred feet up, was a wooden plank door in the floor. One quick pull of the black iron handle affixed to the rotting boards and the cover was lifted; the hinges squeaked in protest, and then Alphonse was descending, into a subterranean world he'd promised to return to.
Little did he know of the other that was following him there.
A few feet in to the cavernous room, he drew his brother from over his shoulder and laid him gently on the cold, wet floor, and after a quick squeeze on the shoulder, moved on for the moment.
The enormous water tanks—circles of low concrete walls that sank into the waterline—hummed almost as if they were alive: the force of the moving water flowing from one place to another out of the collection tanks. This place, once forgotten, Al guessed now that he had time to reflect upon it, was almost abandoned as an outdated well system. But the huge vats were more connected to the new system than had been imagined, and now that much of the city's new water systems had been destroyed, this was one of the remaining taps that was being relied upon almost exclusively.
He wondered how many people it had already infected, and it made him sick.
He dipped his hand in the water—what more would it hurt?—and drank a little. Grainy, sticky, sweet. It was everywhere, even a little colorful. But by the time it got into the entire system, people could hardly tell.
Al sighed and returned to his brother. He was still breathing unobtrusively, the only real sign that he was still alive. He was already becoming terribly pale, despite those days and days in the—
Al stared down at him, not making a noise. Why.
Alphonse marveled at himself--his brother's creation--as he went to work: his muscles, his bones, the fact that he could feel anything—and acutely, anything and everything his muscles did. It was all tender; every tiny stimulus, intense. It was a marvel he knew the cost of, that he could use his legs to bring their combined weights up the stairs; his bones to support upright standing and his nervous system to control his arms to bring Ed close to him; his heart, to feel the warmth between them and pump red blood cells through his limbs, to keep his every tiny cell alive—
He sighed and laid Edward out against the front tank's stairs. Ed's blond head, some of it void of hair from where they'd inspected the wound, rested in the water; the rest of him remained dry. Al would have put him completely in it, but Red Water chemicals probably didn't add to the buoyancy rate.
"If I don't get rid of this, there are going to be a lot of children that never get a chance at what we had," he mustered the courage to say. It was still kind of like a dream, and he hesitated before putting his hands together.
"All in one fell swoop, I can do this. . . ."
His palms connected.
"Hands in the air! State what you're doing, now!"
The shout came from behind him, a voice he didn't know. Alphonse instantly turned to the stairs, and found a rifle trained on him.
"I was told by the acting Fuhrer to stop you if you tried anything! Please step away."
The troop approached slowly, a man in his mid-twenties. Al couldn't make out much else in the light.
"It's already started." He leaned his back against the ledge, though his hands stayed raised. The energy readying to work was burning his hands. "Please put that down."
The man readied. Al was surprised, but not really put off. He decided on a different course of action. "Fine. I surrender." He held his hands up and came toward the man, but wasn't able to conceal the blue light crackling between them. "There's nothing else I have to say to you," Al answered to the man's stunned petrification at the energy. He came closer, one step, another . . . Almost there—
Just as the man came back into awareness, Al grabbed the rifle's muzzle and pulled it across the soldier's body. Al's other arm hooked around the man's neck as he spun him around, and then he was in a sleeper hold. Al kept him there, one second, two, as he attacked Al's stomach, shins . . . and then the soldier slumped against him. Immediately, Al let go; it was not hard, now that his legs were bruised all to hell. He went to his knees, and gently propped the soldier against the wall.
"Nothing to say," he repeated as he stood up, kicking the gun across the floor. "Except, maybe, 'Run.'"
Al walked back up the stairs to Ed and sat next to him. This would work. There was nothing else to say.
He put his palms together, and then pressed them to Ed's chest.
The energy surged through him, power from inside his ribcage that then broke out from him and into Ed, and into the water beyond. It fed off the chemicals, and grew exponentially stronger. He saw the water burbling around Ed's scalp and filling the wound in the artificial light; it wasn't Xing's healing alchemy, but it was what he knew. It would fix him. It would. And at the same time he would free the people from the prison they were going to have from his failure to stop the contamination of the water in the first place.
The transmutation reached a fever pitch. Wind—purple, yellow, blue, pink—spiraled through the low-ceilinged room; it was all he could do to stay upright. As he braced, he heard a sound behind him that didn't fit in. A clattering, something human—
Al shut his eyes, and let it come, wishing that some divine providence would keep it from doing so. He hadn't been mean enough; he hadn't killed the guy—and this was what he got.
If you do this, we may all die. I wonder. . . .
A pain shoved into his back, between the spine and shoulder blade. Perhaps it was because of the alchemy, but the sensation was muted. He knew his body caved, and he couldn't breathe more than a thick rasp.
Just as the low, hungry sound of the transmutation mutating to devour its host filled his ears, Al felt two luke-warm hands come up and close around his weakened own.
"Thank you."
The second transmutation was more energy than he had felt in his life. The light enveloped him, and he knew nothing more than giving up his own transmutation and melding with it.
"What you made that day was not a Sin. Due to the two transmutations fighting against each other, what ended up happening was separating your brother's soul from his body, along with part of yours, as well. Since you were using the red water to construct Ed's body anyway, a whole second body was created, a doll. The soul Ed was giving up to save you fled to this new body, instead of letting itself be caught by the powers that be, which would disintegrate it. Some of your waking mental capacities got mixed up in it as well, the pieces of your soul that you let the transmutation have when you fell unconscious--your bitterness, your hope. . . . So, when something is created that has no conscience, but compassion, and is a soul trying to get back to its body, it's only logical that it would do whatever it wants, in the most complicated and flashy way.
"The chains of Paradise, Alphonse; the chains of Paradise: I simply erased them for everyone, used three "miracles" of alchemy not only to rid everything that has ailed the people since the night the unjust revolution started—so that they can finally move on—but also to destroy the structure of my body so that this cage you created so well, even subconsciously, can be weak enough to return and fuse with my self, Edward Elric. Taking the Red Water particles from bodies and the water; healing wounds, cancers and limbs with it: there were no other transmutations I could do that would ensure a complete and total breakdown of my body--a body constructed entirely of alchemic catalyst--to the point where my body would not try to catch a soul when transmuted again.
"However, someone still has to fix the unborn children. I tried it out, I know it works, but I figured the hospital couldn't take it all at once. Plus . . . I didn't want to see that much blood in the streets again. So, what's left of the Red Water stone I gave to that Tringham boy. And there's still the problem of fixing you."
He smiled ruefully as he hefted Alphonse a little higher on his shoulder and held him with an arm that had strength equivalent to a bar of iron. "I love surprises; don't you love surprises? Well, you're certainly going to get one after all this. I couldn't let everyone else have one, and not have my dear brother and other self not. Besides, bringing you two back is the only thing that's been keeping Mustang alive all these years. . . ."
Alphonse felt like he was spinning, and somewhere he recognized that a terrible groan escaped his exceedingly swollen throat. Eventually, he opened his eyes, and for a while just watched the dark night world spin by, from where he lay haphazardly on the ground. From the very beginning, he felt his head throbbing to the point where he blacked out a few times; it may have been worse than when he had gotten his body back. He felt unbalanced enough that he couldn't move, and he spent his strength keeping his stomach from heaving.
He wasn't successful. As he was gasping for air while throwing up blood, he brushed against something soft and warm, because that something was wrapping itself around him.
Slowly, he was pulled up against a warm body, and gently cradled against delicate white clothing, the voice of the "homunculus" speaking to him, reverentially afraid. "Alphonse," it whispered, looking around and pulling him in even more protectively, like a teddy bear to a frightened child. "Where are we? What did you do? There's no one here— Why— What's going on . . . ?" He pulled back and looked Al's face, horrified and pleading. "What have we done. . . ?"
Alphonse chuckled sickly and shook his head, though he was heavy. Nothing, that laugh said, as he put his palm over his mouth and found thick crimson streaks falling between his fingers. I haven't done a damn thing.
Ed watched with wide eyes as his brother pushed away from him and tried to stand. He was doubled over, but even through the deep shadows made by the floodlights above, something was trying to connect in Edward's brain, something about the way his brother looked.
And then he figured it out.
"Alphonse! What have you done to your face? You look so old!"
Ed grabbed for Al's suffering cheeks, absorbed, until he saw his own arm. Felt his arm.
A moment after the flesh touched Al's skin, Ed pulled back with a gasp and stared at his fingers, all pale ten of them. And they were huge. His eyes traveled downward instantly: His leg. Everything connected to him was made of the same material: pale flesh, and not at all the size he was used to.
"Dear God, what did you do, where are we?" He moaned again, a strangled noise. He cast around the scene desperately, eyes flickering over everything available for him to see. It was not day, like he remembered. It was night, in a courtyard, not the wide open space of the plaza, and with no one and nothing. . . . Not a single dying soldier, not a single cross lit up by floodlights—
"What did you do!" he finally sobbed, his wide eyes coming back to Alphonse. "Where are we!"
As he looked up, all intelligent words shattered in his mind. Alphonse, still fighting to keep on his feet, collapsed back down in a flash of red, glittering blood that pooled from his mouth directly down over Edward's white-clad front.
"Alphonse!" Ed jumped into Al's body and held his brother's trembling shoulders as he came back down. "Did they shoot you? Jesus, don't die, please don't die!" He let Alphonse onto the ground and then jumped to his feet with alarming speed, nearly tumbling over his weak legs in the process. Al clung to the ground, pushing his face into the cold stone and dripping dark, burgundy liquid from his mouth. Ed looked at him once more, and then spun on his heels, almost crying. "Hang on, I'll go get some hel—"
He wasn't sure if he ever heard the sound. His chest lurched backward, and his muscles shivered like water rippling in a disrupted pond.
Alphonse looked through his own haze, but it wasn't until the body hit the ground next to him that he really understood what his eyes were telling him.
"Brother! Brother!" he shrieked, pulling Ed under him. His chest was stained with red, though he couldn't tell whose it was. But there was so much there, and, and—!
Al's mouth fell open as more thick red blood dripped from his damn spit glands and he shuddered bodily again, falling over. He was consumed in heat; the world swam both in his head and from his movements. The sudden flow of water in his eyes obscured his vision as well, until he forced his eyes shut again and fell against his brother, burying his head against his collar bone. Al's shoulders heaved, his whole frame wracked with sobs; he pounded on Ed's chest until he gave up and his hands hugged around the body. It couldn't--"Dammit, it can't be like this! No!"
He didn't get two more strangled breaths in before there were footsteps, and a click behind him. "Hands in the air where I can see them, Elric, before I blow your fucking head off!"
"Jesus, Riza, what are you doing!" Maes yelled from the far end of the grounds, he and Havoc finally catching up. And then he stopped, seeing her. He could only see Alphonse from behind her, dark stains around and on him. Without taking his eyes from Al, he found his own weapon raised to the woman's back. "Don't shoot him, Riza!"
Al couldn't spare Hughes or his soul another moment. He pulled his chest up and turned on the woman, not yet even recognizing who it was, his eyes smoldering and red. "What do you think you're doing, you stupid bitch! This is my brother, not the one who fucked up all those people!"
She kicked him in the chin and planted her foot on his wrist as he turned onto his stomach on the stone; in one sweeping move, she dropped down and dug her knee into his spine and thrust her gun against the back of his head.
"Looks about as dead as my child; I'd think you'd look good with him."
"Ri-ZA!" Maes cried again, swallowing against the image that was burning into his mind as he rushed closer. Ed lay on the statue's platform, chest covered in thick blood behind both Riza and Alphonse. Of course, Riza wouldn't have taken that shot without actually hitting something with it, but Jesus, Ed? A kill shot, without any announcement of her presence? They didn't know what he did. God wash his sins, they weren't here to kill the city and no one knew that but him?!
He leveled his sight. If Riza thought she was going to kill Alphonse in front of his eyes, she had another thing coming.
"Oh, and by the way," Al heard the echo in his mind, "if Riza asks—since she didn't seem to get it—"
"Shut up, Maes!" she screamed back at him, flipping Al over onto his back and going for his throat. She pressed her hand under his chin even as he thrashed and nearly threw her over; she forced his head down instead of back, and stared into his eyes as he went for her arm. She was slightly taken aback by the amount of blood coming out of his head, but it was just flashbacks to war all the same—blood was around when you killed someone. That was just the way it worked.
And this, this was war.
"Why!" She leaned her weight on his throat. "Why!"
Al's free hand ripped from her arm and aimed for her temple in a fist. She saw it coming; without releasing his neck, she swept her gun to the side and fired.
Al jerked his hand back just as he was blinded. Fire, orange like burning jet fuel, ballooned in front of him. It engulfed every bit of viewable space around Riza, and an instant later, the heat hit him. The roar of the arcing fire deafened; Riza ducked and Al curled up on his side under the molten-liquid plumes. He thought he had been shot, now he was surrounded by fire--his nervous system thought he was disintegrating, and his mind told him he was already melting. He couldn't breathe.
As the searing clouds of heat were about to enshroud him, they lifted. The clouds swirled up, dissipated by wind suddenly breaking into the vortex. Al checked Riza in the sudden cold--she looked distraught and had her eyes still closed--and then he made to roll off the back of the platform. Damn them if they thought he was going to let them line up to execute him. But someone caught his movement and he hadn't made it to the edge before a bullet zipped by his forehead, and he was forced to hunch back over the body next to him, in order to avoid his own death.
He screamed in frustration. He could barely hear it over clamoring soldiers' steps and his own ragged sobs and hacks, but he damn well did it anyway. Rifles chattered to the ready as soldiers spread through the corner adjacent to the one Hughes, Riza, and Havoc had entered from, and the State Alchemists surrounded them in a tight half-circle. It grew quieter around him, and when noise had stopped, Al looked up, shaking, feverish, and furious.
No one went for him, no one touched him, and the look on his face made sure they wouldn't dare.
But there were still voices that suddenly filtered into his raging mind, of Maes and Havoc holding Riza back and Roy trying to calm her. He couldn't see them, but it was like jabbing a knife into his back repeatedly; it snapped his emotions, dug them into his flesh, because the one in his arms wasn't able to talk back, now was he? No—Roy had her back, she had him back, Maes was fine, life was dandy, but him?!—
No.
Al's eyes burned in the light as he turned to them, leaning his cheek on the blood that coated his brother's body as he held it protectively. He growled as he seethed, and as Riza struggled, he could see Mustang stepping back, and her still pulling at Havoc's arms.
"No! I know what he did, Maes; he killed our fucking child. Roy!"
"Child?"
"Eight times, Roy! The one that finally made it and he killed it!"
Roy stared at her.
"Why didn't you ever tell me?" he asked, hushed and urgent. "You have been...? Eight...?"
Her glare was withering. "You didn't want to know."
It was only then that Roy seemed to become aware of his audience, and the venomous eyes on his back. When he turned to Alphonse, he was derailed even further. The entire scene that was Al, mangled and dying, sitting in a scattered pool of red with Ed tangled in his arms, broke his mind for a minute. "Alphonse—"
"I don't care if all that Sin was trying to do was fucking heal you, if you get any god-damned closer to me, I'm going to fucking kill you!" he screamed.
"How can you say that?!" Riza screamed back, causing at least a few soldiers' guns to momentarily jerk out of place as she nearly wrenched free of Havoc.
"How can you be so god-damned blind!" Al returned immediately, shaking. "He told me! He destroyed the cells infected with Red Water from six years ago, in everyone, but he just thought it would be nice to save the children first!"
"How can you say that! He took mine fucking out of me and you were there!"
"He took out the deformation, why do you think that's all he said!"
Riza went silent, and in the dreadful silence Mustang watched, Alphonse continued to lean forward and croon until he apparently felt another mouthful of blood well up. He clapped his hand over his mouth as it came out, but it slid down the bottom of his palm anyway. His eyes were tightly closed and he swayed.
In a flash, Al wondered if his insides really were coming apart; if something had gone wrong and he was breaking apart. The words, the face, ghosted from his memory immediately: "The Red Water poisoning. You had it, too. You drank it even though you knew. . . . You have to go through the cleansing, too, and watch out for everyone else I couldn't get. But if you want to be awake tomorrow, you have to do it the hard way: I can't knock you out."
And then he had smiled a little.
As Alphonse braced against the spinning world with his legs, he heard a strange sound next to him, muffled like through a pile of clothes. And as he opened his eyes for what he was sure would the last time one way or another, Ed's pale left hand reached up, bent at the elbow, and then slowly patted Ed's chest.
Al stared as Edward coughed and searched his body, feeling around for something as he sat up. Slowly, he seemed to find something, and dug down the collar of the shirt as every soldier in the circle stared. Even Mustang took an audible step back. After a moment, Ed pulled out a chain, and then, tugging the rest of it up, produced from under his shirt what used to be a small but thick glass circle, red, orange, and yellow, with a short spire coming off of the chunk that remained.
Breathing hard, Alphonse reached out for it and disentangled it from his brother's shocked and childlike-working fingers, bringing it into his own palm to examine it without a word. "What is it?" Ed asked quietly.
Al turned it over once, then back, and as the large fractures became apparent to his eyes, he choked for a second, smiled, and then dropped it altogether and flung his arms around Ed's neck: "You're alive!"
Ed rocked backward with his weight. "What the hell? What was that thing, Alphonse, and—Whoa, where did all these people come from. . . ."
Al shivered against him, not taking the time to look back at the audience but still feeling its harsh presence on his back all the same. He clutched Ed tighter. "It's the medal Mustang gave you for being . . . a martyred hero. . . ," he reluctantly muttered into his ear, quietly, so no one else could hear. "He told me to give it to you if you ever woke up. . . ." The doll must've taken it from the house. "It's the highest honor the country can give now."
Al shook, and took a breath; his fingers curled around where they clung to Ed's shirt. Finally, hurt and sick, he sobbed.
"Are you kidding me?" Ed asked softly, looking past Alphonse's shoulder to Mustang, who looked decidedly older now as well. He was wearing his black overcoat that was blowing in the wind, and he hardly looked emaciated from being imprisoned, also. The man stood between them and everyone else, watching everything without a word, his fingers together at his side.
To his surprise, Ed smiled at him.
"I knew you wouldn't break your word," Ed said. "No matter how long it took."
Upon Roy's worn face came a gentle smile. "It's really you?" he asked quietly.
Ed gave Al a quick glance and then looked back to the man, nodding. "Who else would it be?"
Roy bowed his head and then, softly, reached out his hand. "Let's go."
"Are we in any danger?" Ed asked, looking around. His eyes stopped briefly on the statue towering next to him while he pulled Alphonse around his shoulder and slowly stood, and then he shook his head. He had Al's right wrist in his right hand, and he kept rubbing his fingers along Al's skin. While he was preoccupied, Al pushed away from him enough that he could glare at Mustang, hard.
"We are not," Roy told Ed simply. He motioned to his generals to take the troops away, and in a loud wave rifles were disarmed.
"Sir, are you sure?" asked one of them before the troops moved.
Roy's head tipped back a little, as he took a breath and did not let his eyes off of the brothers. In particular, after searching over Ed, he looked to Alphonse for a response.
"Oh, I am fucking real, Mustang," Al shook his head, baring his red teeth. "Don't you even dare—"
"Al—" Ed whispered to him, but Al staunchly ignored him.
Mustang took the chance and bodily turned to his general. When nothing happened from the Elrics, he was even more certain.
"Yes, I am," he said. "It's tomorrow and we're still alive, aren't we?"
The man saluted and all of the regular troops in the square filed out of the two nearest corner entranceways. Only the alchemists and the Fuhrer made no move to leave. On Ed's shoulder, Al felt like he was going to die, and even though he told his body to continue his sentinel on the soldiers, his head slumped down and his body went loose. Ed watched the scene with wide, silent eyes, no apparent desire to move.
Behind Mustang, both Maes and Riza stood, confused and uncertain, different looks attached to them. Riza fingered her stomach, and appeared to not be able to decide wether to look away or keep trying to kill with her eyes. Hughes merely stared alternately at her and the scenery in different degrees of shock and horror. Havoc, while attending to his duties, glanced at them every few seconds from across the square. Roy nodded to Havoc to continue his work, and turned to the other two.
"Hughes, take Riza to the hospital and then go home. Don't come into work until I call you." And to his wife, his face softened. There was no way to win the game of favorites; if he could have dealt with both right here, right now, he would have. He had honestly never seen these behaviors from either Al or Riza, and so was at a bit of a loss. If he didn't respond to Riza appropriately he would probably be divorced by the time he went home, but he knew the job had to come first. That was the first law of servitude, the luxury he'd given up for power, and Riza understood that. He told himself she did, anyway.
"Are you okay with that, Riza?" he asked gently.
She considered him without a word, then abruptly her mouth turned down and she grabbed Hughes's wrist, pulling him toward the exit. She couldn't make herself look at the brothers. "Come, Hughes," she said when her husband was out of earshot, and tears were tracing down her cheeks unbidden. "We have investigating to do."
Roy watched their retreating backs for only a moment before he turned and approached the brothers. He stepped directly in front of Alphonse, who had regained enough consciousness to glare again, and then bowed. "I'm sorry," Roy said. "Would you like me to go into detail?"
Al's brown eyes narrowed at him, a piercing glare, and he knew that any of the spite appearing to be held back was simply because his grief was getting through to his voice.
Al bristled, even growled a little as did his best to raise off his brother's shoulder. "You are going to get words, Mustang, oh you are going to get words, but not tonight. I have what I want, and it's not you."
Roy took a breath and straightened up. "Right." This wasn't going to be solved tonight. Alphonse was being downright gentlemanly in declining speaking to him, and he was glad; he wasn't sure he couldn't avoid hauling off and hitting himself were he in Al's situation. Six years of pent-up rage, anger, and helplessness were not going to go away the night Al had been shot at repeatedly by those who were supposed to protect him. And beaten. And imprisoned.
"I failed you, I'm sorry," Roy said.
"Yes, you did," Al said, his voice betraying him with a tremble as his face reddened and his eyes filled with water. The surface tension of the tears broke, and small streaks of red intertwined with the thin salt streams running down cheeks. "If you had thought it was really me, would you have still shot him?"
Roy froze. "How do you know that."
Al stared back, not breathing to avoid choking. He let the man squirm under his gaze until he eventually said, lowly, "Their memories integrated."
Al smiled a little on the inside, watching Mustang try to hide his fear. But eventually, Roy looked off, shook his head, and sighed. He put his hand on his hip and sighed again, this time clasping Alphonse's free hand within his own, bright and warm. "You are like my children, Alphonse, and I take responsibility for things like that. If I created a monster, it's my job to stop it." He frowned. "But it doesn't matter, now. I learned from it. It made many mistakes, and for that I am truly sorry. As I watched him die, I was reminded of everything I'd been trying to fight for all these years and had lost sight of. I wanted to reverse my unchangeable actions in those moments—" he raised a hand helplessly toward Al, and then dropped it. "—And yet somehow, you have still granted me that. You have still allowed me redemption. Alphonse, I have no right to ask, but, will you forgive me for the wrongs I've done you?"
Al rolled his head into his brother's neck and laughed, a biting sound. He took his hand away from Mustang's offered one, but not before squeezing the man's wrist on the way out. Ed stared at them, saying nothing, but absorbing all the information with overly widened eyes.
Al opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came out but a high wailing sound. Tears continued to drip from his eyes, red and disturbing, but there and unrestrained. As he hid his face in his hand and his shoulders heaved, without a word Ed rearranged his little brother on his shoulder and looked away. "I really don't have to hurt anymore, do I?" Al asked himself. While Roy tipped his head, Al suddenly looked back at him. "We've all been given a second change, Mustang. Don't give me any credit for it." He hiccuped, miserably. "Just do me a favor and stay the hell away from me tonight, okay?"
While Al wiped away more tears on Ed's shoulder, Ed tipped his head around to look at Al's face. He whispered gently to him, hefting him up a little more. "Hey Al, are you really going to be all right?"
Al nodded, patting him on the shoulder. He was vomiting less red water and infected cells, which he could take to be good. "Yeah. It's just red water. Don't worry about it."
"What?!"
"I said don't worry, and I mean it."
Roy took a breath, and straightened up. "So, what were those things doing?" he asked airily. "The papers are going to want to know, or else someone's going to want you in jail, or dead."
Al turned from Ed and hacked out a bit of red. Ed stared down as it flecked onto his bedclothes, which were now covered in cooling stains. Pressing on without him, Al ticked things off on his available fingers, sounding tired. "The transmutations took the red water out of the water supply, the people, and, as I think you're gonna figure out—" he vaguely waved his hand trapped under Ed's exposed, flesh, right hand "—gave people back their missing limbs by reconstructing them with the red water and infected tissue that was in the little stone they made."
Roy blew a breath through his bangs, putting his hands on his hips. He shook his head and turned, but Al's voice called him back.
"Mustang." Al was staring at him sidelong, his cheek still cradled on Ed's shoulder. "You know it wasn't us in the least, doing those things, right?"
The man took a breath. "You'll have to tell me all about it," he said.
Roy straightened his shoulders, assuming a different tone of voice, though it was equally apologetic. "There will be official letters of apology in your hands by Monday morning, and reprimands in my hands when I get back to my office, I assure you with the deepest of sympathies," he said to Al. "In the meantime, let's get you to the hospital, I am not going to have you arrested, and, gentleman, may I be the first to say, welcome home. It's been a long time."
He reached to pull Al away from Ed and onto himself. "Is it all right?" he asked quietly.
Al huffed and shook his head, though he switched bodies in a sack-of-potatoes way. He didn't seem comfortable with being toted away, but the man was a better size to lean on and hadn't just been transmuted, running the risk of falling over. "Yeah well, any money you would award me as reparations wouldn't cover the damage I'm doing to this statue by bleeding all over it." It may have been a joke, but it still sounded spiteful. "I like the statue."
Al hung on to Ed's hand as he was transferred to Mustang's shoulders, but Ed let his hand slip away and hung back as the two started toward the cars. The sudden absence of warmth and comfort seemed to wake his brain up. He continued to rub his right arm, and stared up at the starry night sky, then the statue. He had no idea where they were, or what they were doing. There were no snipers on the building roofs, and it was cold. Much colder than he remembered. He was wearing clothes he shouldn't be, and everyone looked so old. . . .
He touched the back of his head. He remembered feeling the blood running down the back of his neck, but there had never really been any pain. It got fuzzy after that, heavy and confusing. There was no wound anywhere on his body though, and his hair was long.
There was only one explanation for this, and he didn't like it.
Slowly, he got onto his knees, and moved his fingers over the "blood" on the ground. He put his hands together and felt the familiar tingle; he touched his index finger to the cement and in a flash, the red stains separated, into water and a few other chunks of material; they clustered into balls on top of the ground, cleansing the white marble surface.
Ed smiled a tiny bit at the findings, and found himself starting to cry. Memories ran through his head, of bleeding, of things driving through his flesh, of looking at so many people's faces when both of them knew there was no saving either party. And from further back—his dying mother, his limbs ripping off and disintegrating at the same time, the heat of a transmutation's aftermath and Al disappearing, blood everywhere, and his family. . . . Then Pinako, Winry, aging through all the years he'd known them—
Al stopped and tugged on Roy's shoulder. He had looked back, only to find Ed collapsed on the ground, holding his head and sobbing. Al dropped away immediately and ran back to him, stumbling only once in the process. God, his body was like lead.
"Brother! Edward! Talk to me!"
Tears were streaming down his face and he shook his head, shivering, despite managing to speak. "Yes. Yes, I'm fine. It's just, I'm seeing things, is all. My life's flashing before my eyes. . . ."
Al held either side of Ed's face and forced him steady. "It's all right. Just push it off. Look at me, think of me. Let it flow, don't pay attention to it. . . ." Ed stared at him, not completely there, and Al started petting his head. "Tell me when it stops."
Ed closed his eyes and let the cold from Al's hands seep into his skin. "Why is this happening, what did you do, Alphonse? What did you sacrifice?"
A bit away from them, Roy crossed his arms and sighed, though he did listen intently. Havoc came up next to him, saluted, and then clasped Roy's shoulder tightly. "Thank you, Sir."
Roy nodded, worn and tired. "I'm going to have a hell of a time explaining this."
Havoc put his hands on his hips and watched the scene as well. "What are you gonna do?"
He shrugged, and ticked his head. "They're better than a movie. I want some popcorn."
"Sir!"
"Come on, Havoc, if I didn't laugh about something, I'd be a little more nuts right now." He chuckled once at the irony, then dropped it, quickly, a bit frightened. "However, we're never going to get out of here if they keep going like this. The next time Al gets up, he's going to tip right over into the statue and bust his head open. Ed's going to pass out at any moment—look at that—and still they talk. Jesus."
"Like I said," Havoc said, "What do you want to do?"
Al took a breath, and then gave up, resting his forehead against Ed's. "It doesn't matter what I sacrificed; I have it back now. Don't worry about me, worry about yourself."
"I'm not a homunculus," he said, but looking for conformation.
Al pulled Ed close to him, enfolding his head against his chest, in the dark cocoon under his arms. He shook his head, breathless. "No."
"And I'm not dead?"
"We're all alive. This is the world you knew. Just a few years later." He his arms cradled Ed tighter. "Just the same."
Ed sighed, a desperate plea. "Take me home."
A shadow fell over them. Mustang stood just behind him, hard to see in the backlight. And next to him, splashed over the ground, was Havoc's shadow. "Might I suggest the hospital, again?" he said. "Both of you need it. And I promised not to arrest you."
Ed just stared at them, and Al was about to sputter something when in one sweep, Havoc flipped Ed over his shoulder and Mustang went for Al. At this point, Ed didn't make a single sound, trying to reorient his suddenly upside-down head. Al beat his fist on Roy's arm. "I'll bleed all over your damn uniform," he threatened. "And this crap is sticky. No dry-cleaner in the world can get it out. PS, it's poisonous!"
"Come now, Alphonse. Anything you throw up out of spite, I'll just make Ed clean up. Also, you don't want to surprise me and have me drop you on your head, do you? Avoiding that is the whole reason I'm doing this." He shifted Al's weight and let him down on his feet, but held on to his arm. "You can talk all night at the hospital. Honestly, Al, I don't want you to die."
Havoc did the same shift to Ed, and then nodded as he hooked his arm securely around Ed's waist. "Sorry about earlier, Alphonse."
"It's okay," Al said quietly, genuinely, though a little surprised. "You did the best you could."
Roy's look softened a little, and Havoc shook his head. "Not that good."
Ed was still walking in a daze, rubbing his fingers together, and looking at his leg as it worked.
After a while, he realized he was looking down at his foot over Havoc's shoulder. ". . . Why am I this tall?" he asked in awe.
Al shook his head, almost bursting into tears again. "You grew, brother," he managed to get out before wiping at his eyes.
Ed was at a loss for words. Mustang, for once, kept his mouth shut on the matter. Havoc was continually avoiding Ed's clumsy limbs knocking him in the back of the leg, and a grin cracked at the side of his mouth, the side no one could see. "Just another thing to celebrate, right boss? Speaking of, who's gonna foot the bill? I'm goddamn hungry."
Roy hummed thoughtfully. "I wonder I'm going to have to revoke your promotion, since you aren't really dead?"
"What?" Ed asked quickly.
"You're a Lieutenant-Colonel," Al explained with a shrug, though he was shuddering away memories and refused to look at his brother for it. Death promotion, and all that.
"Though, there are a lot of disability benefits we won't have to pay out now, so I don't think your pay hike will be much of an issue. You never accepted the survivor checks anyway, though, did you, Alphonse?"
Al shrugged again. "You would have found me if I had."
"Will you add that to the list of things you're going to tell me about?" he said. "Off the record, of course."
It took a moment, but Al nodded. "You deserve as much." A touch came on Al's shoulder, light and gentle; he looked, and it was from Ed.
"You didn't do something stupid like transmute me in front of all those soldiers, did you?" he asked lowly. He looked like he didn't know whether to laugh or cry. In fact, he didn't look too good, at all. They were almost to the black military fords (plus a tank, good lord), so they would be able to sit him down, fast.
Al was about to say something to that effect when a thought streaked across his mind at the view of the dark park beyond the street, and its bar-like lamp posts.
"Mustang," he started rather frantically, pulling off of him. "What did you do with Russell?"
Roy stared at him, then his eyes widened. "Havoc, do you have a phone? I need to make sure no one kills that boy."
"No, I don't." He swung Ed's arm over his shoulder and set him gently, but quickly, on the ground. "Ed, you gonna be okay?"
"Yeah. . . ?"
"Okay, good."
Roy's mind was still running just as Havoc tried to dart off. "Hey wait, Havoc!"
"Yessir?"
"Al." Roy's dark eyes surveyed him quickly. "That other kid. Was that—"
"His brother? Yes. That general that almost broke my skull didn't get to him, did he?" He was the only general he knew other than Hughes, and there was a decided chance that, if he'd been called to the station before, he was still on duty now.
Roy looked to his subordinate. "Havoc?"
Havoc took a nervous breath, and nodded. "I'll be right back." He shot off toward the tank.
Al sighed and plunked down on the shallow steps that led down to the street, next to his brother. What few feet separated them, he quickly scooted closed. He had his forearms resting on his knees, and a rather sage look upon his face, eyes closed. He held that pose for a second, then slyly opened his eyes the slightest bit, up at Roy. "You're going to have to make that phone call pretty soon." His mouth quirked up into a dark smile. "I promise I won't run. . . ."
Mustang had his hands on hips, standing just out of arm's reach. He sighed heavily, shook his head, and rolled his eyes. "Be there when I get back," he warned, dropping his hands and turning on his heel.
Al watched his dark coat sway in the breeze as he went, with an amused smile.
Ed was still confused, light-headed and shaky, but he couldn't help but snicker. At this point, he was thankful for whatever level of consciousness he could get his hands on. He elbowed Alphonse. "Best excuse to make Mustang leave, ever." He laughed a little, accompanied by a toothy grin, then rubbed his hand through his hair. God, just feeling things was amazing and ran shivers up his spine. He took a breath of the cold, clear night air. "So the Tringhams are here?" he asked. "What's up?"
Al nodded and leaned into him. The warmth of his brother's living, conscious body against his own flesh . . . even now, it was something he knew that he would look back on and not have traded it for anything. Al slid one hand around Ed's shoulders and rubbed his back. He clasped Ed's right hand where it rested on Ed's right knee and marveled at it, something that hadn't been there in a long, long time. He rubbed Ed's hand, and when he finally spoke, his voice was hushed. "So, you were up on that cross. . . ."
Mustang, leaning against the tank with the phone against his ear, watched the two from beyond the circle of light, shutting out everything in dark shadows around him. In a minute, Havoc returned from giving orders to someone, and just as he was about to make his way back to the stairs, Roy grabbed his collar and pulled him back. He put his hand on Havoc's chest, and as Jean was watching the brothers' scene, Roy let his hands slip away.
"Go find a reporter to take a picture of that," he said, dipping the receiver away from his mouth and pointing off to the barricade of soldiers behind the cars.
As Havoc disappeared into the night once again, a specialist appeared from inside the tank. "Fuhrer Sir, I've found the second number."
"All right, patch me through."
As the line rang, he watched the two shapes on the steps, a serene calm floating through him and the night. The photo face down on his desk came to mind, followed by a flood of memories from years ago, days in the bright sunlight and hurting night alike. He couldn't remember now, whether there had been more pain or more happiness, but the hope, the knowledge of what would one day come, that had been the brightest light in his past when it came to Ed. And Alphonse, too.
He let himself smile. When he thought of them now, his future, he knew where his hope came from. How to make his future. He tried to deny it, but his eyes watered, just as the ringing on the other end of the line ceased and a voice came on. He knew: There were going to be a lot more pictures on his desk soon.
A/n:
Imagine that, there's a happy ending.
Be sure to tune in for the epilogue, if you want more happies and a bit of melancholly, or just to see fuller explanations. And Ed. The real one.