A/N: More angst. I hope you don't mind, it's my mood of the day.

Disclaimer: I don't own FMA, if I did chapter 100 would have ended much differently.

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Without Her

He had been sitting in the same spot in front of her grave ever since the moment they had buried her three days ago. Unnaturally still. The only way a by-passer could even tell he was alive was by watching the slow up and down movement of his chest.

No one bothered him.

They all knew.

How could they not? It had been all over the radio, after all.

About how the poor girl had been killed by an insane man who targeted young women, calling himself "Barry the Chopper."

About how the murderer himself had been found not far up the road with an Xinese style sword in his chest.

About how a teenaged boy had been found near the girl's body, looking horrified and mumbling to himself.

About how the police had decided he was insane.

It was sad, really. It broke everyone's hearts to see him there, in front of her grave. But none of them cared quite enough to offer him a bed, or food, or any help. They cared only enough to give him sympathetic looks as they passed.

No one cared enough to even pause by the fence to hear what the boy was saying. No one cared enough to listen.

At least, not until the day a young blonde boy walked past the graveyard with a man in a full suit of vintage armor.

"Is that," the smaller boy said as he stopped next to the fence, "Ling?"

The boy looked up at the sound of his name, but did not stop murmering to himself.

The blonde boy opened the fence and ran inside.

"Ling!" he called, sitting down next to the other boy.

"-never got to tell her," Ling was saying, "Never will."

"Ling, it's me, Edward. Do you understand?"

"What am I, really without her?" Ling went on, as if he didn't hear Edward speak at all, "Without her I am just this; the boy sitting alone. The insane boy. She was what made me who I was. And she's gone now."

"But you're not alone," Said Edward, gently putting his hand on Ling's shoulder, "I'm hear for you, Ling."

Ling jumped at the first human contact he'd had since the night she'd died.

"Ling is dead!" He spat the words out as if they were poisonous.

Edward jumped.

"Ling is dead," the dark haired boy said, more softly now, "He died in the ally, three days ago. All that's left is this," he motioned toward himself, "this empty, broken shell."

Ed shook his head. "No, you're still you, Ling."

"Without her," Ling whispered, "I am nothing."

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