Author's Note: Just finished this episode and need to vent some feels, I'm sorry.

It is a funny thing. Silence, that is.

When she was younger, she relished in a few moments of quiet, those rare times when her sister was in a good mood and all was well in the Elric house. Alphonse is quiet by nature, and she's completely fine with that. Honestly, how would her mom have coped if she and her sister were both hot-tempered and loose-lipped?

Alphonse believes there can be too much of a good thing. Silence is wonderful by principle, but nearly five years of it, well… it's maddening.

Alone in an endless void, she has too much time on her hands. She watches her body grow and deteriorate day by day because she has nothing else to do, notices how skin that was once tough and alive with color is now thin and nearly as pale as the white abyss she is surrounded by.

Sometimes Truth talks to her, tells her about her soul and her sister and how well they're doing – even if that's not the case – but it doesn't help to curb the animal clawing at Alphonse's insides, growing more frenzied as years pass. Truth talks to her like she's a student, eager to learn, when Alphonse doesn't really give a damn about anything that isn't her sister or her wayward soul. Truth doesn't come very often, though. Alphonse has no sense of time – it's only because of Truth that she knows it's been five years since that day – but she does know Truth will only show up when Alphonse is at her lowest, when the silence in her head becomes too much and she's close to admitting that she doesn't think Edward will ever find a way to save her.

Truth will come and speak with her, give her a taste of everything she's lost, and then leave again. Alphonse would like to explore and see where Truth goes when it's not with Alphonse at her gate, but she lost the ability to walk a while back.

When the day comes that someone aside from Truth pays her a visit, Alphonse is having a good day. She's studying the intricate designs on her portal when she hears that deafening roar and resounding thud, and the disturbance in her quiet void hurts her head. She doesn't want to turn, thinks it's only Truth and another one of its demonstrations and is about to curl into herself so she can't listen to it, not today, but then she hears it, and it's somehow much louder than the horrific groaning had been.

"Were there always… two portals?"

Truth once told her that her disembodied soul can't feel physical sensation. "Her despair grows with each passing day. It is as if she has forgotten that you are here and she is not." Truth had said. Alphonse knows Truth is not malicious, doesn't say those things with the sole purpose of hurting her. Truth is not kind, nor is it pretty. It simply is, and Alphonse understands that.

If her soul can't feel physically, then Alphonse, with only her ailing body, cannot feel emotionally. How can she, without her soul? She remembers how it feels to feel, has her memories, and they, at least, can suffice, but it's never good enough. Despair is primal, and while Alphonse thinks she feels it sometimes, when the silence is too great and she screams and curses, does she really?

Regardless, Alphonse doesn't experience emotion easily, and when she hears her sister's voice for the first time in five years, the only thing she can do is turn around and stare, because she can't get up and run to her the way she wants to; she doesn't have the capacity for it.

Edward is bloody and bruised, her arm is in a splint and she looks like she's about to keel over, but her eyes are so vibrant and golden that it physically hurts Alphonse to look at them. Edward's jaw slackens, her too bright eyes widen, and suddenly she's up and running toward Alphonse, a complete eyesore in this realm of white and deteriorating flesh.

Her gate begins to open, Edward's time has run up, and Alphonse struggles to push herself to her feet as black tendrils of smoke grab her sister, pulling her back to the place where she belongs, a place that can withstand her life. Deep down, Alphonse knows she longs for her sister, and she searches her memories, thinks of those nights after her mom died, and it's from there that she draws the phantom wisps of want and desire for her older sister. "Al!" How long has it been since she's been called that? "Come on! Please, hurry up!"

Alphonse is standing up fully now, watching as her sister is drawn back into the darkness. Edward looks desperate, so close to losing it, but Alphonse stays silent, uncertain of her own voice, though on that last desperate Ali, she knows she can't stay quiet, as she's grown accustomed. "I can't."

Edward gasps and grows pliant, and Alphonse knows a "Why?" is on the tip of her sister's tongue. "I can only leave with my own soul." Alphonse says, smiling for her sister's benefit. Regret, leftover from when she allowed Den to get hurt, consumes her. "I'm sorry. I can't go with you."

Edward's devastation is written across her face, and it throws Alphonse off, because when has Ed ever shown emotion so openly to her? She realizes then that she doesn't really know her sister anymore, hasn't seen how the past five years have changed her. This person before her is a stranger, and Alphonse knows that, to Edward, she must look like a stranger as well. The Alphonse she must remember was never this malnourished.

That look of absolute sadness is all Alphonse can see until Edward's gate finally slams shut, separating the sisters once more, and Alphonse is left looking at that one word on her sister's portal, the only one Alphonse can actually read. Adonai.

Alphonse releases a sigh and closes her eyes, though her small smile doesn't fall from her lips for a few precious moments; but the fact remains that she is by herself again, alone until Truth decides to return, and it's enough to sap what little energy Alphonse has left. She releases her hold over her memories, and all sensation leaves her, slipping from her mind like grains of sand. She stumbles on her uncertain legs, preparing to turn and retreat back to her gate, but then she hears another crash.

Alphonse stares, transfixed, as Edward – furious, bloody, alive – reappears from within her portal, just behind her automail arm, creaking with effort. Had her sister just… punched open the Portal of Truth? "Alphonse!" Edward yells, pushing both arms through the portal to dig her elbows into the stone, refusing to be pulled back in just yet. "Look at me!"

I am. I am, Sister, how could I look away?

"I promise. Someday soon, I'm coming back for you!" Alphonse feels a twinge of sensation in her chest as her sister glares at her, something that she didn't have to work for or call upon old memories to feel. Edward. Her idiotic, wonderful sister, who always made her want to believe in the impossible. How could Alphonse have doubted her and her promises? She was the Fullmetal Alchemist, after all.

"Just you wait." Edward is practically spitting out the words. She's really angry; or just trying to get her point across. She succeeds, regarding Alphonse like she's a child who doesn't understand, couldn't possibly understand, so how could Alphonse not hear her?

Maybe Truth knows the final outcome and pretends not to, though Alphonse doesn't care. She won't listen anymore when Truth asks, "Is she here yet?" just as it does every time they see one another. Truth is wrong about Edward, though it isn't wrong about much. Alphonse believes in her sister more than she does in absolute truth anyway.

"Wait for me!"

Always.