Author's Note: I probably should've stopped reading CaptainKase, because I am most definitely developing a habit of killing off the brothers. I do try not to, but then I see the theme and it all just spills out.... Ah well. I blame it on the depressing themes. Though I did laugh when I read this one. 'Cureless' isn't actually a real word – it's 'incurable' XD

Timeline: Post-series (when is it not? XP)

Theme 26: Cureless

"It's cureless."

Those were the words that greeted Alphonse Elric that bright, beautiful autumn morning. He had hardly stepped through the door to his brother's private hospital room. He had just opened his mouth to wish Edward a cheerful 'Good morning, Brother' that belied the anxiety he had lived with the past week.

And before he could do anything, Edward spoke the words that marked the turning point in both of their lives. Alphonse stood in the doorway, mouth still open, and stared in horror at his brother. He was unable to move, unable to speak. He could only stare at Edward, who sat up in his bed, hands folded calmly in his lap, a placid expression on his face.

Finally, Alphonse managed to say, "B-But the doctors said-"

"I know," Edward interrupted. His expression didn't change in the slightest. "They were wrong. It's cancer, Al. They've never been able to find a cure. I'm going to die."

"No!" The word came out in a scream that made a man walking down the hallways outside start with surprise and look at him oddly.

Alphonse firmly closed the door and walked over to Edward's side. A huge lump began to form in his throat, but he managed to choke out, "H-How long?"

"They estimate about three months," Edward replied calmly.

"Okay...." Alphonse could feel his face paling. So little time. Could he manage it? Yes. He had to. There was no alternative. Because if he failed.... The lump in his throat became horribly painful, and the tears he had known were imminent began to fill his eyes.

Wordlessly, he wrapped his arms around his older brother and allowed himself to let out his grief. He knew he would have to begin very soon, but he needed this time first.

And Edward held him, oblivious to the facts and theories already chasing each other madly around his younger brother's brain.

Brrring. Brrring. Brrring.

Halfway through the fourth ring, Alphonse reluctantly picked up the receiver of the phone that sat on the corner of his desk. "Hello?" he asked, trying to keep the reluctance from his voice. He knew who it would be. No one else ever called.

"Hey, Al, how's it going?" Edward's familiar voice crackled through the phone line. "I haven't seen you in a while, and you didn't stay long then either." Beneath the cheery veneer, Alphonse could detect a hint of pain.

"Oh...well, I've been busy." Despite himself, Alphonse felt a jab of guilt. He covered this up by picking up Albert Beidermann's Elements of Medical Alchemy and flipping to the chapter he had been meaning to look up before the phone rang.

"Busy? With what?" The hint of pain became marginally louder in his voice. Alphonse knew he was really asking, What's become so important that you put it above me, your only dying brother?

Alphonse knew Edward wanted him to say he was sorry, to blurt everything out and rush over to the hospital as soon as he hung up. Instead, Alphonse said, "Oh, you know. That theory I've been working on to successfully separate chimeras."

There was a brief silence, then Edward's voice came again, cold and acidic. "I see. Well, I'd better not detain you from your world-impacting research."

"Wait-" Alphonse began, but Edward hung up as loudly as possible. Alphonse let out his breath in a huff, threw down the receiver, and returned ferociously to his notes.

And when Edward called the next day to apologize and tell him his condition had dramatically worsened and wouldn't he please just come for a short visit, Alphonse pulled the cord out of the wall at the second ring.

Alphonse walked with long strides down the Central streets, notes clutched in his hand and a burning feeling in his chest. He couldn't decide whether this was a positive or negative feeling, and he tried to puzzle this out as he hurried towards the hospital.

He had done it. After three months of constant hard work and hardly any sleep, he had finally found the solution. He had built upon Albert Beidermann's work and some of the theories he had formulated himself when he had been new to the field of medical alchemy, and the result was these few pages of notes and transmutation circles in his hand. All he had to do now was draw the circles on the hospital floor, place his brother there, and then Edward would be healed at last.

Alphonse hurried up to the receptionist at the front desk. "I'm here to see Edward Elric, please," he said, his heart thudding in his throat. The receptionist directed him to the proper floor, and Alphonse took the stairs two at a time. He imagined what he would say. I've done it, Brother. I'm going to make you well. What did it matter that he hadn't visited Edward in over a month? Now they would have forever.

The door to Edward's room wasn't closed, and Alphonse could see doctors' white coats in the room. He sped up, burst into the room, and opened his mouth to say, "I've done it, Brother!"

But then he froze in the doorway, unable to speak, unable to move, his mouth hanging open. For a nurse was just then pulling up a white sheet over Edward's placid, dead face.

Alphonse couldn't move, not even to sink to the floor. He was vaguely aware of people talking to him, but he ignored them. He could only stare at the lumpy form that had once been his only brother.

"You're his brother, aren't you? Alphonse Elric?"

"I'm so sorry, son."

"If it's any comfort...he passed away in his sleep. There was no pain."

"He wanted me to make sure a message got to you." Alphonse looked away at last and saw that a dark-skinned nurse was speaking to him. He wondered dimly if she came from Lior or Ishbal. "He said he wanted to apologize for his words, and that he loved you. And...he said he was glad for all the chimeras you would save." She looked utterly confused.

But Alphonse let out a wail of grief, his tongue suddenly loosed in the dread realization of what he had done, and he slumped to the ground. Once again, he was oblivious to the nurses. For his brother was dead.

And he had never said goodbye.

In the years to come, Alphonse Elric became famous, and many lives were saved with his research. All those who studied in the Edward Memorial Institute for Medical Alchemy, which Alphonse had founded with the proceeds of his discovery, learned of the great man who had pioneered the use of alchemy for seemingly incurable diseases. They said it was a shame he had died so young. Just think of all the cures he might have been able to find, had he lived longer! But their hero had died in a binge of alcohol consumption, and they had to live with that.

About a third of all cancer patients recover from their disease, but there is no cure for heartbreak.