***It Wasn't Enough***

Central, Amestris, December 1920

Munich, Germany, December 1926

"Whatever you say, Ed," Alphonse said with anger in his 15-year-old speech. His voice was deepening, but he was still frustrated with his physical condition. You try being 19 in a 15-year-old body.

"Come on, Al. Don't be like that. We're so close, don't spoil it by being mad about things we can't control," Brother pleaded as he tried to calm his younger brother, his grin strained over his pallid face. It was another cost of this ridiculous plan. They had been working on this for a year, but Alphonse had fought his brother at every step. The only thing keeping Alphonse in line was that neither of them had found another way of doing it.

"Fine," Alphonse capitulated as he wallowed in his anger.

It was amazing what one year could do to a person. It seemed that Brother wasn't the only one who needed a mission he believed in to feel like himself. Alphonse knew he had been getting more and more irritated as the time drew near, but couldn't seem to help himself.

If it wasn't his older brother's blind optimism that this dangerous plan would work that upset him, it was something else. Alphonse vacillated between his loss of never getting to know their father, Hohenheim of Light, his anger at Brother's broken promise to never sacrifice himself again, or his guilt over opening the flood gates to war on Amestris.

Alphonse had realized during his first year in Germany that Brother had lived with their father here. The brothers had talked about it during the nearly six months it had taken them to work out how to safely destroy the uranium bomb, after their equally long search for the Amestrian artifact.

It burned Alphonse's insides to know that the brother, who had claimed to hate Hohenheim so much in their youth, had been given the chance to live a normal life with him, even if it was a short period of time before Hohenheim had disappeared on Brother again. It irked Alphonse further to know that Brother had left their father to study rocketry to get home. How could Brother have wasted what little time their father had left?

When Brother had explained that their father had been dying, since his soul could no longer support a body, Alphonse had cried. As he'd discovered more about their father's sacrifice to get Brother home, and that this crazy plan was based on that information as well as an article Brother had read about anticoagulants, he felt love for the man he barely knew.

He also felt a blazing sense of betrayal, and immediately Alphonse imagined that this is what Envy, their homunculus elder half-brother, must have felt. Edward Elric was the prized son among the three of them, even if he denied it. Alphonse could see it now. No wonder Envy had been so angry at Hohenheim and Brother.

Of the Elric brothers, Brother had lived the most time with their father. Hohenheim had taken care to build Brother replacement limbs once he'd arrived in this world. Their father had done everything in his power to open a gate to get Brother home, even giving up his own life and Envy's to do it.

And what did Brother have to say about it?

'He was a shit of a father. He left us, Al. He left mom; didn't even come to her funeral. He gave up his life for nothing; I still ended up back here anyways, didn't I?'

Brother was an ungrateful asshole. How could he be so heartless about someone giving up their life in order to get him home?

Alphonse shook his head as he continued to sketch on the ceiling. After the excitement of their flight to Haushofer's burned down and abandoned villa had worn off, they had been quiet as Alphonse had begun to stew in his resentment again. The last time they had been here, they had set the library on fire after destroying the gate, a gate they were going to try to recreate- sort of. Thinking about this plan made him so angry at Brother that he couldn't help but think of the other things he was mad about.

Alphonse was angry that his brother had broken his promise.

When Alphonse had jumped onto the last rocket ship the Germans had used to destroy Central (and don't even get him started on how guilty he was about letting them in), Alphonse had wanted to be reunited with his brother whom he could only partially remember. Once he was through the gate, though, and regained all his lost memories. He also recalled a promise.

Back when Brother had just started his career as a State Alchemist, there had been an Ishbalan man, called Scar, killing State Alchemists. The serial killer had wanted revenge on State Alchemists for their part in the Ishbalan War of Extermination, and had begun to target any State Alchemist, especially, for some reason, Brother, The Fullmetal Alchemist.

Around that time, too, their faith in alchemy had been shaken. Shou Tucker, the man they had been boarding with before Brother's certification exam, had transmuted his daughter, the incredibly sweet four-year-old Nina, and his dog into a talking chimera. Once Brother had caught the man red handed, Brother's spirit nearly broke, and it almost destroyed Alphonse to see his brother like that. Then, before Brother could do anything to save their chimera friend, Scar had killed her.

Alphonse, Brother, and Scar had fought in the streets sometime after that. The Elrics had battled to stop Scar from killing again; Scar had simply wanted his revenge, taking it out on any State Alchemist. In that fight, Scar had nearly destroyed a third of Alphonse's armored body and all of Brother's automail arm. To Alphonse's horror, Brother had offered himself as the sacrificial lamb, submitting himself to be killed without a fight if Scar left his alchemist little brother alive.

And Alphonse had been powerless to stop their inhuman agreement.

Right before Scar could do it though, the boys had been saved, but Brother was not protected from Alphonse's rage. How could his brother bring him back from the gate, attach his soul to armor, and then offer to leave him all alone without a fight? Alphonse had made Brother swear that he would never give himself up like that again. They needed each other, and Brother had agreed.

Then, almost four years later, after all that had been given for Alphonse to live, he had decided it was his turn to pay the price. Before Scar's death, he had turned Alphonse into the forged Philosopher's Stone in Lior, and Brother had come to rescue him from the homunculi and their 'Master,' Dante.

In that battle of wills, it had been revealed that the homunculus Envy was actually his and Brother's eldest brother, Hohenheim's first son. Then in the next excruciating moment, Envy had killed Brother, and Alphonse had snapped. He had used himself, the Philosopher's Stone, to bring Brother back from the gate, alive and 100% whole, at the cost of Alphonse's own life.

Between that moment and the next, Envy had crossed through the gate (in the form of a dragon, if Alphonse could believe Brother), Dante had been eaten by Gluttony, and their friend/co-hostage Rose Thomas and her baby escaped with the recent double amputee, Wrath.

Brother swore that immediately after he had return from the gate, he too had transmuted himself to bring Alphonse back from the gate, only this time, it sent Brother to Germany and returned Alphonse to his 10-year-old body in Amestris. Alone. With no memory of their shared years searching the Stone.

How could Brother do that to him? How could Brother break that promise? After everything they had been through, after all the blood, sweat, tears, and memories, how could Brother just give it all up? When Alphonse had confronted Brother about it, Brother had said that he would do it again which only fueled Alphonse's anger instead of quieted it.

Why was Alphonse the only one who was not allowed to sacrifice? Why was Brother the one? Why? Didn't Brother understand that all Alphonse had wanted was to be with his brother?

True, Brother had pointed out, 'we're together now, and technically both of us have broken that pact,' but… but…

Alphonse didn't really know what was supposed to be on the other end of that thought. All he knew was that his brother had given up the gift Alphonse had given him, the return of his missing limbs and his very life.

Alphonse didn't know how to take the fact that Brother loved him so much that Brother would willingly and repeatedly give up his life for Alphonse. How was Alphonse supposed to pay back that debt? Maybe they were even on that score, like Brother had tried to convince him.

'Look, Al. You gave up your life for me first, and then I gave mine up for yours. We're both idiots, alive, and together, so we're even, alright? Now let it go, damn it!'

Alphonse snorted. Maybe he should let this one go considering he had other things to feel guilty about.

'This had better work,' Alphonse thought to himself. If not, then they were well and truly stuck here for the rest of their lives. He continued to draw the powder white lines while his brother prepared the smaller array and the gruesome package they had brought with them, carting it along with them throughout Germany, adding to its gory contents weekly, or when not being chased by a determined and bloodthirsty Lieutenant Hess.

Shaking away the thought, he looked at his work. Alphonse considered the last time he created this circle and felt nauseated as his stomach flipped. He had thought he was just helping his brother come home, but he had also let in an invading army that had leveled Central, killing who knew how many innocent people, children, at the price of Gluttony and Wrath's lives.

He rested his haunches on his heels as he knelt on the scaffolding below the intricate array he was drawing on the ceiling. His guilt was fighting with his anger for control of his heart. How was he going to face all those lost souls if this worked? Talk about being unable to pay back a debt.

"Hey, Al. I'm all set over here. You almost done?" His brother called excitedly from below him in the center of another alchemic circle.

"Yes. I'm done," he resigned, stepping off and then pulling the scaffolding away, returning to the lower levels.

"Alright, Al. Now remember what I said?" Brother chimed when Alphonse met him on the ground floor. "This is going to work, I just know it, but when we get back, I'm sure they're going to want to know what happened. Did you memorize all the answers we agreed we'd give?" Brother placed his hand on Alphonse's shoulder.

"Yes, Ed. You don't have to remind me. I know what to do," Alphonse bit out in a frozen pose at the friendly touch.

"Ok, Al," Brother lamented, pulling his hand back as if Alphonse had hit him in his ashen face. "Do you have everything you want to take with you? 'Cause this is going to be a one-way trip!" Brother put on his false smile.

Alphonse hated that grin. It always meant that Brother was keeping something from him. It was the smile he wore when he had one of those pleasant dreams he didn't want to share with Alphonse, even if he hadn't had one in about a year. He wore it when he didn't want Alphonse to worry about something he was ashamed of or when he was pretending something awful didn't hurt him. Alphonse hated when Brother lied to him like that, as if he couldn't see right through it!

"Whatever, Ed; just do it," he said, calling his brother by name to let him know just how angry he was that his older brother had cornered him with this asinine plan, a plan that was as sure to kill them as to get them home.

"Alright, Al, here we go!" Brother yelled as he pulled a ripcord attached to the revolting glass container they had been lugging around for a year. Its deep crimson contents sloshed as they were released, spilling the yearlong cache of Brother's blood and anticoagulants just as Brother reached out and sliced his flesh palm with a knife. He threw down his bleeding hand to the activation array that would catalyze the circle Alphonse had drawn on the ceiling, the one they hoped would lead them to Central and close firmly behind them, destroying all alchemic evidence of their travels. If Alphonse wasn't so angry he might have been impressed.

Blue streaks of power from the functional focal array climbed into the air, crackling towards their destination. The sketched edges and lines Brother had constructed were rising off the floor, like wraith ribbons made solid, leaving no trace of his alchemy behind. Sharp static collected the raining blood fee and fed it into the arterial array above them just before a purple undulating circle throbbed into existence replacing the chalked design Alphonse had place there.

It's rolling maw pulled at them. They reached out and grab one another's hand, as agreed. Alphonse noticed, though, that Brother did not let go of the blade he held, as they had planned. He looked to his brother's worn tan face questioningly. Brother's golden eyes were looking straight at the floating ethereal amethyst sea of cloudy fabric as it towed them upwards. There was a huge smile on his pale face as he looked over at Alphonse.

A ghost of a conversation he'd had with Brother at the beginning of the cockamamie plan floated through Alphonse's mind about the intent behind the person paying the price to traverse between worlds.

"You're right; I don't like it. Putting aside that this is a monumentally bad plan, I still don't get how it would work," Alphonse had told his brother a year ago. "If your right, and blood from our side can open the door, how do we control where it opens or who can travel through it, you know, without it killing us?"

"Well, I think the location of the array here dictates where it'll open up at. The first one I bled on was on the floor and that led to Lior, but the one on the ceiling opened below Central. So that should be easy to replicate. As far as who goes through unharmed… Hohenheim intended to only let his son travel to the other side of the gate, so I was able to go without being covered in the black goo that enveloped that fucker, Eckhart, and her troops. When you came through from Amestris, it recognized you as Hohenheim's son, so you were able to escape being covered, too," Brother had explained.

"So my intent should influence how the gate responds?" Alphonse had questioned.

"No. It shouldn't," Brother had sounded nonchalant, but cagey.

"And why not?" Alphonse had demanded indignantly. "Doesn't what I want matter?"

"Because we already know it responds to my blood, and adding in yours exponentially increases unknown variables, we're going to only use mine. We'll draw my blood periodically, add in the new citrate anticoagulant method from that Edward William Archibald guy's article, and when we have the volume of blood equivalent to that of a full grown man, we'll open the door."

"But, wouldn't that take…" Alphonse did some quick mental math for the genius he was, "almost a year, and that's assuming it doesn't make you anemic. If, hypothetically, we're doing this ludicrous plan, why not draw blood from both of us and cut down the time? We're both Amestrian," he reasoned.

"I'm the only one paying the price, Al," Brother had said with conviction, "and that's final."

Alphonse's irritation at the memory flickered as he felt his feet rising off the ground now with the pull of the portal, just like one a few years ago in Lior. He couldn't resist his forward motion, but his angry resolve wavered. Brother's plan was working. They were going home. They'd spent a year drawing Ed's blood, mixing in anticoagulants, lugging the concoction around, keeping it safe through fast chases, jumping trains, and gun shots. Brother had paid the price and now they were going home! Alphonse turned to the right and smiled at his brother for the first time in ages as they were sucked into the air just below the gate.

They sped faster towards the portal four stories up, but, looking back at the swirling gate, something was wrong. It was a darker purple than before, and Alphonse was beginning to worry. Then without warning, the rippling heliotrope hue began to swell angrily.

'Here it comes,' Alphonse resigned himself calmly around his exasperated sigh. He had died this way before, as a child trying to bring their mother back. He'd been killed by his brother's array, another one that he'd been against in the first place. He could feel the malice of the inky black calling to his tired soul.

Before he could panic at the agonizing memory of being ripped apart, a glint of light caught his eye. He turned to see Brother's knife cutting through the air. Brother quickly dragged the knife in his automail hand along the full length of his left coat sleeve, up into his arm, and let his blood flow down to the hands they had intertwined.

"Brother, no! What are you doing?!" Alphonse shrieked in horror and disbelief as they sped to the gleaming gateway.

"It wasn't enough, Al. I have to give it more to get you home," Brother said so low Alphonse wasn't sure that's what he'd said as the portal engulfed them in darkness, closing with a sharp, irrevocable clap.

A/N:

So, another longish chapter, but I love this one, too! What did you think of Ed's plan? In figuring out the rules for the universe I was going to use, it stuck me that the worlds are almost stacks on top of each other, only one is upside-down; the higher the German portal, the lower the Amestrian one - like how the German ceiling array is 4 stories up but opens deep under ground below Central. Oh, and if you were wondering, about the blood calculations, I originally did them for Ed's height/weight without automail, because obviously automail doesn't contain blood. You can check them out below. These were really interesting to figure out, even if morbidly. I flubbed how much time it would take to collect the total amount needed, but whatever. It's my story. Hahahaha!

Also, according to Wikipedia (and we all know how reliable that is…), Edward William Archibald was a well-known doctor who collaborated with the originator of blood transfusions, Canadian Lieutenant Lawrence Bruce Robertson of the Royal Army Medical Corps, to convince the British authorities during WWI of the value of blood transfusions. Edward William Archibald's method allowed blood to be stored using anticoagulants. I imagined that Ed would have picked up some medical journals in his spare time, you know Ed and his insatiable love of knowledge, while trying to deal without his automail before the German assault on Central Amestris, and he'd later think 'hey I could use this to get home, but Al is going to hate it…'

Calculations for Ed's height/weight/blood volume:

If Ed is 5'2" and muscular, he would weigh about 120 lbs with human limbs, without them, he would weigh…

If an arm is 5.3% of total body weight and a leg is 17.5% of body weight, then the he would be missing 6.36 lbs for his arm and 21 lbs for his leg (if it was his whole leg, which it isn't).

Since his leg is amputated above the knee at around mid-thigh, I added in extra weight, so instead of 17.5% of his body weight lost to a leg, I estimate 75% of 17.5% to be 13.125% weight lost due to his missing leg.

So if he is missing 5.3% + 13.125% (6.36 lbs + 15.75 lbs = 22.11 lbs) of the average body weight for a muscle build 5'2" tall man, he would weigh…

… 97.89 lbs. (44.40 kg) without the automail and ports.

So the most blood he can give at a time is…

If he weighs 97.89 lbs…

150lbs = 97.89 lbs = (97.89*4.7)/150 = 3.07 liters

4.7 liters x liters

…he must have 3.07 liters of blood, or 3070mL.

So, if he draws 2.5% (76.75 mL) at once or max drawn in 30 days (44/x = 45/180 x=(44*180)/45 = 176mL), so the most he can draw in a month is …

…176mL/month

So it would take him (3070/176=) 17.44 months (1yr 5mos 14 days) to prepare enough for his own height/weight.