It's exam time again... I know, it seems like I'm constantly doing exams. I feel like that also. Furthermore, the musical (yes, I'm doing another one) is eating my life. The only good news is that as a result of extensive editing to the first draft of this chapter, I ended up with a bunch of pages that will ultimately be part of the next chapter (which I will try to update as soon as I can). I really apologize for the long waits, and hope you will enjoy the chapter.
Edward was gone.
Alfons lay on the floor, struggling to breathe, unsure whether the sick twisting of his stomach was a result of pain or terror. Air wouldn't come to his lungs, and what little he managed to gasp burned like acid. His head pounded and the room spun around him, yet still he fought to obey his instinct to give chase. Someone had taken Edward, and he had to find out who, where he was taken, if he was still-
He struggled to get his hands and feet under him, breath rasping in a harsh wheeze. He had forgotten his old fear of having Edward vanish into thin air, but now his nightmares were returning full force. His hold on Edward was so fragile, so terribly tenuous, and yet the idea that their fates were entwined had grown so real to him he could never have even imagined a situation in which Edward would go where he couldn't follow. He hadn't considered that there might exist somebody with the power to take Edward away from him.
A cough was starting deep in his throat and he fought it until he no longer could, and doubled over, wracked with the spasms, causing his throat to join in on the sea of agony washing over him. He tasted blood.
So pathetic... he thought vaguely, wiping at his eyes. Some partner he made. He couldn't even help Edward when he really needed it.
When he licked his lips he could still faintly taste Edward on them, and his heart ached. Spurred into action again, he tried to rise to his feet on knees that felt like jelly, but could hardly perceive which direction was 'up', let alone stay upright.
Somebody was tugging at his head, then, and tipped a cup of liquid into his mouth. He swallowed instinctively and felt his throat ease, allowing him to catch his breath.
"You may have a mild concussion," Pinako's voice said, her fingers probing the back of his head, making him see stars and gasp when she touched the lump there. She helped him sit up, and after a few moments he could see once more, and the room was spinning a bit less.
"I have to go after them," he managed, remembering Edward's last choked-off cry of his name. Who knew what they might be doing with him? And Edward, blind, incapable of doing alchemy, would be at their complete mercy.
"You can barely walk, and you want to chase after armed soldiers?"
Why wasn't she frantic? Adrenaline raged through him, demanding an outlet; at that moment he felt like he could do anything, if it meant getting Edward back.
She must have seen the look on his face, because she said quietly, "There is nothing we can do. Have faith. That boy has been getting himself in and out of worse trouble since he was eleven."
"There has to be something we can do!" he said, pushing her hands away, trying to rise to his feet again. "We can call-"
"The lines are down."
"How far is it to town?"
"Farther than you can walk, and we don't have a horse."
Leaning heavily on the wall he managed to drag himself to his feet, and practically shouted, "How can you be so calm?"
She looked aside, and suddenly her wrinkled face looked worn and hopeless. "Because when you reach my age, you will learn that there are limitations you can't overcome."
The wall was solid against his back, and he tilted his head until the back of it thumped the wood lightly. He stared at the ceiling, but all he could see was Edward's face. If only he had been quicker, if only he hadn't insisted on distracting Edward when a few crucial seconds might have saved him, if only, if only....
"Let's wait downstairs," she said. "Maybe we will be lucky enough to see somebody passing by who we can tell."
Going down the stairs was a painstaking and slow process. Her - old and stiff with age, him – young but weak, equally deliberate in his movements. That trek more than anything she said convinced him that he really wasn't in any shape to chase after Edward's captors. He was lightheaded by the time they reached the bottom floor of the house, his chest still aching terribly, and he was forced to sit down and rest. In this state he hadn't a hope of being any use, and he hated himself – his pathetic, sickly body which failed him constantly, and his will which wasn't strong enough to force him on despite his weaknesses. Sometimes he wondered what Edward saw in him at all.
So they sat, and waited. Watched the windows, Alfons straining his eyes for the slightest sign of human life. It was better than doing nothing or pacing, which made him dizzy and achy.
Horrible images flashed through his mind of what might be happening to Edward, everything from death to torture. Occasionally he felt Pinako's eyes on him, and was fairly sure he didn't imagine the compassion in them. He wanted to talk about Edward, wanted desperately to blurt out to somebody how much Edward meant to him, wanted to hear a voice comforting him that everything would be okay, that Edward would be back, safe and sound.
But he couldn't speak, because he still didn't know what she knew, didn't know how Edward would feel about him spilling the beans, was too used to hiding his feelings to be able to express them coherently to a third party.
An hour passed, then another. Every so often he saw her open her mouth, as if to tell him to stop fidgeting already, but each time she remained silent.
"Maybe Al will be able to do something when he returns," he ventured. Edward's safety was far more important to him than scoring imaginary points against a rival for his lover's attention.
"We can hope," Pinako said. "Would you like some tea?"
Alfons shook his head. He was too queasy to want anything. Instead, he chewed his fingernails, something he had never been tempted to do in the past, and resolutely mussed his hair, running his fingers through it repetitively.
"Actually yes," he blurted.
She made him tea, though he could have done it himself, and was generous with the sugar from their nearly depleted stores. The first gulp was ill-considered, and scalded his tongue and throat. He cradled the hot mug in his hands, waiting for it to cool, and contemplated the dark sludge of tea leaves at the bottom.
"I'm sure everything will be okay." Pinako's words were slightly stiff, as if she was unused to mouthing platitudes. He knew the words were empty, only meant for his comfort, but they helped. Just a little bit.
"He has to be okay," Alfons said in a small voice. He took a small sip of tea, which burned on his hurt tongue.
When the tea was gone he returned to his vigil at the window, hoping, praying, his mind cycling once more through all the what ifs and could have beens.
In the late afternoon sun the snow was no longer brilliant white, but dulling to blue, endless hummocks and irregularities manifesting as deep shadows. Al sat silently on the wooden platform as it raced along the tracks, propelled manually by men pumping wide handles up and down, moving quickly back towards Resembool.
He felt no inclination to participate in their cheerful singing, his thoughts racing forward to where Ed was waiting. He chafed at every moment he was forced to spend away from his brother, irrationally unhappy by all the time Ed had got to spend in his presence.
The men had praised him endlessly for how speedily he had cleared the snow, how efficiently he worked. Though normally Al would have been pleased at the praise, today it gave him no satisfaction. He cleared snow as quickly as he could because the longer it took, the longer he would have to spend away from his brother.
The houses of Resembool came into view, deceptively close with the snow masking the landmarks. Nonetheless they made good time, and within fifteen minutes they were pulling into the depot amid cheers.
A small train waited at the station, already half loaded, waiting to leave the moment they announced the rails were clear. Uninterested in the activity, Al turned to leave when somebody called his name.
"Al!"
It was Winry, still bundled up against the cold, but flushed with activity, a wrench clutched in her hands. He waited.
"They roped me into fixing up a stuck piston," she said. "I should be done here in a few minutes, then we can head back together."
"But Ed..." he began, annoyance coloring his tone.
"Ed is going to be fine," Winry said, rolling her eyes. "For goodness' sake, Al, five more minutes won't make any difference!"
"Fine," he said, not bothering to conceal his frustration. Hurt flashed across her face, but vanished quickly. He told himself that in the long run, watching over Ed was more important. If only Winry could understand that. After so many years Ed had been gone, how could she tolerate being separated from him again?
He stalked over to one of the benches on the platform, and sat idly watching the soldiers load the train. There were ten or so of them, and most of their cargo consisted of their personal packs – light because of necessity. Al knew from experience what it was like to travel with the minimum of belongings. On their upper arms were colored bands designating their loyalty – in this case, stripes of green and white. Not Parliament, then, but he wasn't quite sure who they were affiliated with. Mustang would probably know.
Alongside their pile of equipment was a massive wooden crate, soundly padlocked shut, which seemed to be quite heavy considering the straining and grunting involved in getting it on the train.
Al wondered idly what was in it, then sighed mightily, the air puffing out in white clouds. How long did it take Winry to fix whatever-it-was, anyway? He wanted to get home, already. A strange urgency ate at him, worry which refused to be calmed despite the fact that he knew it was unfounded.
Now Winry was talking to the stationmaster, cracking jokes by the looks of things. Al kicked his heels against the bench, glowering.
Finally people stepped back from the train. The whistle blew, voices called, and smoke started belching from the stack. He wondered, for a moment, what it would be like to be so easily content – to have a life where the prospect of a train returning loaded with supplies was reason enough to cheer. All that train was doing was taking the soldiers away (admittedly, a reason to be pleased), along with one of the migrant workers who had apparently decided to move on, and yet....
He had been capable of cheering like that, once. Years ago, when he and Ed had been learning alchemy together, every small achievement had seemed like a great leap forward. But they hadn't really been content, even then. First they had done alchemy to cheer up their mother, and once she died nothing had ever been the same. Ed hadn't been content since, and how could Al truly be happy when his brother so obviously wasn't?
Fear rose, the same fear he kept on trying to stifle, born the moment he had seen his brother brushing Alfons' hair away from his face.
If Ed was content, it meant he could be, as well. But he was afraid he no longer knew how, and that meant that Ed had changed without him, gone somewhere he couldn't understand....
Unnerved by his thoughts, he did his best to shove them out of his mind, and looked for Winry again. She was coming towards him now, providing a welcome distraction.
"You done?" he asked, when Winry was again within speaking range. He stood up and pulled his – Edward's – coat tighter around himself.
She nodded and sighed, looking a bit reproachful.
"Good," he said, ignoring her disapproval. She had been disapproving of him for so long he was used to it, hardly knew what else to expect from her. "Then let's get going."
Winry walked silently beside him for a bit before she spoke.
"Al, can't you give it a rest? You were right, and things have worked out now. Ed's back. Won't you let go of your grudge?"
"I don't have a grudge," Al said automatically. Grudge was too simple a word to explain how they had betrayed his trust, again and again, and more importantly – betrayed Ed.
"Really," said Winry, the softness of her voice communicating skepticism. Al hunched his shoulders and walked faster.
"Nobody's going to take him away from you." Winry was striding quickly to keep up with him, refusing to be left behind – or to let go.
There were a thousand answers he could give to that statement, starting from the fact that he wasn't afraid of them stealing Ed away from him (although, at the same time he was), and ending with his fear that if the situation had been reversed, he would have been the one forgotten by the wayside, couldn't she understand that?
"We're all each other has," he said instead, staring off into the distance, eyes already straining to catch sight of the smoke from the Rockbells'.
"That doesn't have to be true," Winry said.
He didn't answer, her words awakening a wash of anger inside him. Of course it was true. The years Al had spent struggling on his own to find Ed and return him were proof enough of that. And maybe... no, there was no 'maybe' about it, Ed would never look at him the way they did. Even if he had lost a few years off his life, Ed wouldn't cut him off, treat him like he was somebody completely different. Ed wouldn't grow up without him and leave him alone. He couldn't.
"You would have left him there," he said tightly. "If I hadn't brought him back, he could have been stuck in that other world for the rest of his life." Ed was the only one who would stand by his side no matter what. He stopped and turned around to glare at her, meeting her eyes unflinchingly.
"Not everybody has the strength to fight for the impossible and win." She wasn't backing down either, and that lack of guilt drove Al crazy. If Al felt such crushing pain over taking so long to find Ed, four entire years, how could the guilt of not trying at all not be tearing her apart?
"You gave up on him!" he snarled.
"All the evidence pointed to his death. You know as well as I do that people don't come back from the dead. How can you blame me for trying to move on?"
"But he wasn't dead!" That was the crucial difference.
"How were we-"
"Al! Winry!"
The breathy voice distracted them, and they turned to see Alfons slogging painfully towards them through the snow. He was clutching his side, obviously in pain, but unwilling to stop.
"Alfons!" Winry scolded immediately, going towards him. "What were you thinking? You're in no state to-"
"They took Edward," Alfons gasped out. "Soldiers – they broke into the house – you have to go after them –"
They took Edward. The words reverberated in his mind as he stood frozen, unable to hear what else Alfons was saying, unable to even think. He had left Ed alone, and now Ed was gone.
Again.
Again the not knowing, wondering why, where, would he ever return – he couldn't stand it. Not again.
He opened his mouth to speak, and the first words that burst out were angered, cutting, attempting to shunt the pain onto somebody else. "And you let them?"
"Al!" Winry gasped, but Al only had eyes for his double.
"What was I supposed to do?" Alfons snarled, but Al could see in his eyes that his words had hit home.
"You were supposed to protect him!" Only when the words left his mouth did he realize that he had, in fact, expected Alfons to protect his brother in his absence. He might detest this double of his, but unlike everybody else, Alfons had never betrayed Ed.
"How?" Alfons said bitterly. "I can't fight soldiers with guns."
"I know," Al responded, pushing past the two of them and heading towards the house. "Because you're useless." Both of them were, but at least Al had the tiniest excuse this time... at least he hadn't been there, watched the whole thing happen in front of his eyes, yet emerged with no memory of it and no clue as to what had happened to his brother.
The box. The damned box which had seemed so innocent, yet now Al wondered if it hadn't been just the right size to fit a person (small-statured, admittedly) into. It had been so close Al practically remembered the grain of the wood, the scratches on the dull metal padlock, and if only he had thought to question what they were taking out of Resembool, what was certainly by now kilometers away....
If only Alfons had told him before it was too late! Al whirled around, naked fury on his face, and saw a hint of his expression mirrored on Alfons'.
How dare he speak like that? How dare he imply that this was somehow Al's fault?
"Why are the two of you just standing there at a time like this?" Winry bellowed, finally catching their attention. "Let's get inside, talk to Grandma, and see what we can do."
Al turned his back and practically ran the rest of the way to the Rockbells', leaving the slow Alfons behind, and Winry to help him along.
He was furious, still, but now at himself. Bickering childishly when there were far more important things at hand... Ed would be so disappointed in him if he ever heard of this.
Inside, Granny told the whole story, and Al realized the enormity of what had happened. At this point, that train could be anywhere, not even taking into account the possibility that they had gotten off somewhere and headed cross country.
There was no question in his mind that they had to find Ed, and his mind whirled with possibilities. He watched Alfons, who seemed to be taking it harder than anybody else, and well he should. Alfons couldn't do anything right. Al watched silently as he escaped to his room after a while, probably to brood in peace. He snorted in derision. Alfons wasn't even capable of helping formulate a plan to follow the train.
But that was the crux of the issue, wasn't it? They couldn't follow the train. It had too much of a head start on them, and no alchemy he knew was capable of getting them anywhere faster than a speeding train. He might as well wish he could grow wings and fly.
Al paused, the idea suddenly hitting him full force. How many times had Ed told them about the flying machines of Alfons' world? And here was Alfons, supposedly a specialist in such machines....
Without excusing himself he pushed away from the sofa and practically ran upstairs. Nobody followed him, though he felt their eyes on his back.
The utter simplicity of his solution astounded him. Building a flying machine and flying it couldn't be that difficult (Alfons was apparently capable of it, after all), once alchemy was involved.
He pushed open the door to their room to find Alfons lying on the bed, his face buried in the pillow. Al felt a moment of disgust before he realized that his double wasn't crying or something pathetic like that, but was just lying there. Which was pathetic as well, but not as embarrassing. He cleared his throat.
Alfons sat up sharply, winced, and sighed when he saw who it was. "What do you want?" he asked tiredly.
"I think I know a way to follow the train," Al said, coming to stand in front of him. "I need your help." For Ed's sake, he would even cooperate with Alfons.
That got Alfons' attention, and he sat up straighter, fixing Al with a sharp gaze.
This was perfect, Al realized. Since Alfons had very little concept of alchemy, he would have no idea that what Al was proposing was irregular or dangerous.
"You can build flying machines, right? Aeroplanes?"
Alfons nodded. "But following Edward in one wouldn't be a good idea. They're difficult to pilot, and we'd need to worry about taking off and landing."
"What if we build a small one and pilot it with alchemy?" Al suggested, quickly rallying from his initial surprise at how quickly Alfons had followed his train of thought. "I know a kind of alchemy that allows me to control objects from a distance."
Alfons' eyes were alight, and Al was surprised to find himself pleased with the reaction. He was so unused to his ideas being greeted with enthusiasm. Normally all he heard was a litany of why they were unrealistic, rash, and ill-conceived, ad nauseam.
"You can't tell Winry and the others about this, though," he cautioned. "Otherwise they'll try to stop us."
"Is it dangerous?" The spark dimmed a bit, Alfons suddenly looking wary.
"No," Al said quickly, as firmly as he could. "But it's a secret. Promise?"
He held his breath as Alfons pondered, biting his lower lip a bit, blue eyes intense. This was a risk, a terribly big one, but Al had to believe he had judged right. Alfons was some sort of parallel of himself; as such, he would stand by Ed. He had to.
Coming to a decision, Alfons nodded curtly, and some of the tension seeped out of Al. They could do this.
They moved quickly, then, pulling out pens and papers, and Alfons immediately started sketching an outline. It was vaguely cylindrical, with wings on the sides, and a propeller in front. Grudging respect filled him as he saw how efficiently Alfons drew, the crisp lines that shaped the components of the aeroplane as he explained how the different parts worked together. He might not be an alchemist, but he knew his stuff, and the simplicity of the model fascinated Al despite the urgency of the situation. Now was not the time to ask questions, though. Ed needed them.
Once he thought he had a pretty good grasp on the idea the two of them sneaked downstairs together to where Winry kept her scrap metal, to transmute the machine itself.
Al assembled a small pile, and, keeping his eyes on the diagram, prepared to transmute. Alfons looked away studiously.
"What's wrong?" he asked. "Scared?"
"No," Alfons said curtly, still not looking at him. "I promised Edward I wouldn't look."
Weird. "Look at what?"
"Alchemy," Alfons answered. "He's going to show me, when he can do it again."
"It's just alchemy..." Al muttered, looking from his double to the pile of scrap metal on the floor in bewilderment. Deciding he probably wouldn't be able to follow his thought processes anyway, Al shrugged, clapped his hands together, and touched the metal.
Getting the design right took several tries, and after each one he had to wait for Alfons to come check, make corrections, and then look away while he implemented them. Overall very annoying, and wasting precious minutes. Finally they reached a point where Alfons pronounced the craft flightworthy, at least as far as he could see. As a finishing touch, Al transmuted two glass 'eyes' to the bottom of it. Receiving visual input when his soul was in an object with no eyes was possible, but he always ended up wasting a lot of time trying to make sense of it all. Having 'eyes' to focus on would speed up the process.
"While I'm flying this thing, I need you to keep watch over my body," Al instructed, after they sneaked had gone back upstairs. "Put the aeroplane out in the snow so I can take off, and then come back here, okay?"
"What do you mean, 'watch over your body'?" Alfons asked nervously, suddenly looking like he might have second thoughts.
"I can't fly it and concentrate on walking around and stuff at the same time." Al did his best to modulate his tone, but it still came out condescending. He sat down on the bed and clapped his hands together, then held them out for the aeroplane. Alfons handed it to him, and the last thing he heard was his double muttering something about witchcraft.
Then his entire attention was focused on the aircraft – and then he was the machine, trying to figure out how to make the propeller rotate and the flaps in the wings move the way they were supposed to. Perspective changed around him, and he knew he was in Alfons' hands, though he couldn't feel them.
"This is so creepy," Alfons muttered from somewhere above him, and Al decided to desist for the time being.
He was placed on the snow, light enough not to break the crust, as Alfons had promised, and started spinning his wheels and propeller, shifting the wings the way Alfons had explained – feeling strange, because all he could see was the white snow beneath him – which suddenly dropped away dizzyingly.
He was flying, Al knew, and felt a moment of wild euphoria. The world spread beneath him in a glittering panorama, houses and trees suddenly taking on strange shapes. He thought he recognized Alfons, standing on the back porch for a moment before running inside – and immediately remembered the urgency.
He had to find Edward.
He turned midair, drawing a wide arc that brought him around facing the village as he scanned the ground for anything that looked like train tracks. There – he curved to follow them, sketching a strange zigzag path through the air as he constantly overestimated how far he had to turn.
The sun was behind him, assuring him that he was going in the right direction – north, away from Resembool. But where was the train? The tracks snaked up and down, skirted hills, went through another town – and still no sign of the train. Surely they couldn't have gotten this far?
Still, Al flew onward desperately, already starting to feel the connection floundering. He had never tried sustaining his alchemy for so long, or at such a distance.
A black smudge was trailing along the tracks beneath him, and there, just ahead – a tiny train, barely two cars, easily recognizable as the one that had left Resembool.
But where were they? They were definitely still in the East area.... He flew further, seeing the smudge of a town up ahead.
Second large town north of Resembool... large population, to be this visible.... The world dipped, the ground coming closer, and he jerked awake back in his bed, the sudden input of his senses almost overwhelming.
"Zirone," he said, remembering how to use his tongue and vocal chords.
"What?" said Alfons, looking completely unnerved.
"We have to hurry, I know where they are now," Al said, sitting up and throwing his legs off the end of the bed. Dizziness assailed him, for a moment, and he pressed a hand to his temple. He couldn't wait any longer, though. Shoving to his feet, he hurried towards the door.
"Wait, where are you going?" Alfons followed him out of the room. "Can we catch them?"
"We can't," said Al grimly. "But maybe Mustang can."
Downstairs they found the three women flocked around the kitchen table, Winry working furiously with a wrench on their radio. What they were up to was immediately obvious, and Al felt a strange, wild hope within him.
They hadn't given up on Ed, this time. They hadn't decided he was dead, consigned him to the earth, and called it a day. If they stood by him, did that mean....?
"Here, let me," he offered, stepping up and with one transmutation completed the transformation of their receiver into a two-way radio.
"I told you we should ask him," said Rose quietly. Winry shrugged. They should have asked him, Al thought unhappily. Didn't they know that if it was for Ed, he would do anything?
"I want to talk," Al said. Nobody seemed inclined to argue, so he took the microphone, while Winry started fiddling with the knobs and dials.
"Start talking, call him," Winry instructed. "We should find the right channel at some point."
Everybody stood around, tense and silent, listening to the crackle of the channels, Al's voice thin and lonely as he repeated "Colonel Mustang? Are you there? Colonel Mustang?" over and over.
"I don't understand," Alfons whispered to Rose. "Why would Mustang be listening to the radio right now?"
"With the mess the country is, all the different factions have their own listening posts. It's an important way to transmit information, so there is actually a good chance of Mustang or one of his allies answering us," Rose answered softly.
"Shhh!" said Winry.
"Who is this?" Another voice suddenly answered, making everybody jump.
"Give me Mustang," said Al urgently.
"I need to know who this is," the voice said, crackling through the speakers.
Al opened his mouth to say, but Winry shook her head frantically. "You don't know who that is!" she hissed.
"It's urgent!" Al said instead.
"I'll transfer you to him the moment you identify yourself," the voice answered sharply. Winry cut the connection.
"We'll keep trying," she said shakily. She shouldn't have done that, Al thought, because maybe that voice had been help, but at the same time, who knew who was at the other side?
Better keep trying.
An interminable amount of time later, and after several more short conversations with people who were most definitely not Mustang, they finally got a voice who, when asked for the colonel, hesitated.
"Do you have identification?"
"I have to talk to him!" Al said tiredly, hardly daring hope.
"Hold on," crackled out through the speakers, and everybody exchanged a hopeful look. Al's heart was pounding so hard he could barely breathe.
"What is the meaning of this?"
Relieved smiles all around, and Al practically whooped in delight. He would recognize that voice anywhere.
"It's Alphonse Elric!" he nearly shouted into the microphone.
"What?" said Mustang. "What do you think you're-"
"Ed's been kidnapped!" he blurted.
"Wait!" said Alfons, but Al ignored him, too focused on his message.
"They're on a train, heading north, half an hour ago they hadn't reached Zirone yet!"
Silence, crackling over the lines, then Mustang's voice, tight.
"This is not a secure line," he said bluntly.
"Shit," said Alfons quietly. It took the meaning several moments to penetrate, and when it did, Al's heart plummeted faster than he would have ever believed possible.
"Right now, all of Amestris knows where your brother is. Heaven help us." And Mustang cut the connection.
He awoke with a cramp in his neck, suffocating. The pitch blackness when he opened his eyes no longer surprised him, but the walls pressing in on him – hard against the top of his head, back, knees – were definitely not familiar. He was lying on his right side, curled up in a way which had his back and neck cramping, and the muscles in his legs protesting. An attempt to straighten out proved futile; there simply wasn't enough room for him to unfold his legs. Only when he tried to spit out the fabric keeping him from breathing properly did he realize it was, in fact, a gag – disgustingly clammy, and already soaked with saliva. The strain in his arms was because they were both chained behind him, with heavy metal chain intended to keep him from breaking it with his automail. It dug unpleasantly into his side where he was forced to lie on it, and no amount of shifting managed to ease his weight off it.
The idiots, they had chained his hands behind his back, all he had to do was clap, and -
Unfamiliar terror stirred his stomach, and he jerked wildly against his bonds. No alchemy. There was absolutely nothing he could do. Knowledge of his own helplessness swam through his mind, making his breath snag to the point he was lightheaded from lack of oxygen. Who had done this? Why? He didn't even know where to start wondering. How could he fight back if he didn't even know what he was up against, deprived of his main weapon?
Alfons. What if they had him, too? Alfons was hurt, if they had drugged him and shoved him in a box (don't think about how it's like a coffin, don't think don't think-) it could make his wounds worse... Alfons wasn't used to being thrown around, Ed always had to hold back lest he injure him....
Shit. He had barely gotten used to the idea that Alfons was amazingly, gloriously somehow still alive, and now this. Could Alfons be in another box, somewhere beyond the pitch blackness? But then, what the hell could whoever-it-was possibly want with him?
He wished, desperately, that he had asked Al to look out for Alfons for him. He hadn't considered that something might happen to him, and if Alfons was left alone, what would he do? Al could take care of himself, could kick anybody's ass, but Alfons was vulnerable.
Obviously, he was their primary target. If they had hurt Alfons while trying to get through to him.... He swallowed, feeling guilt rise like bile in his throat. He would never forgive himself.
Feeling utterly wretched, he closed his eyes in the darkness, and felt his entire body slump against the chains. The pain didn't bother him. He could only hope Alfons wasn't going through something similar.
Surely Al would be coming after them. Knowing that Al was probably even now following his trail made him smile, against his will. When Al caught up with them, those thugs wouldn't know what had hit them-
A loud screech interrupted his thoughts, and he was abruptly thrown against the side of the box. Holy fuck, that hurt. When he had collected his thoughts as much as he could, he realized that there was a strange silence around him, a lack of -
- rails. The steady clacking of a train on tracks was so familiar to him he had edited the sound out entirely. He was on a train, and obviously it had stopped now, unexpectedly, for some reason.
He strained his ears, trying to figure out what was going on. Over the sound of his pulse pounding in his ears and the ragged whuff of his breath, he could make out an arrhythmic popping.
Gunshots.
Ed shifted, trying to calm the frantic beating of his heart. If there was anything he disliked more than the abstract notion of guns, it was being surrounded by gunshots while locked in a fucking box, helpless. Was Amestris at war? Oh shit, if he had brought Alfons to the middle of a war zone... but nobody had said anything to that effect. Surely either Winry or Rose would have told him something so important.
Shouting, more gunshots. The words he could vaguely make out sounded like Amestrian, so it probably wasn't an invasion.
The thought of a civil war wasn't much more comforting.
Ed strained vainly to see, twisting in his bonds. A new, half-formed idea occurred to him: if something had happened this could be his chance to escape...
Or not, really. He stopped moving, knowing it was futile. Even if he could get free, there was nowhere for him to go. Wandering around in the snow alone didn't promise him greater chances of surviving than being locked in this box.
Fuck, he hated the blindness.
Voices neared, shouting unintelligible words. The entire box suddenly jerked, throwing him against the side. Watch it, assholes, he thought venomously. Now they were pounding on it, and he felt apprehension rising. He wasn't used to being captive in a situation where he had absolutely no weapons, nothing to help himself with. There was a great crack, and he felt splinters showering down, heard cries of victory.
"It's really him! We got him!"
Friend? Foe? He knew what he hoped for, but it seemed like too great a coincidence. How...? Was he just going to be a bargaining chip?
Hands grabbed him, dragging him upright. He tried to snarl and jerk away, the instinctive reaction having nothing to do with the commands of his conscious mind.
"Easy!" a low female voice told him. "We're here to help you."
He wanted to believe them, but what proof did he have?
"They sure locked him up tight," another voice said, hoarse and male. "Anybody found a key or something?"
He forced himself not to flinch when his head was tilted forward and fingers fumbled at the knots of his gag. Finally it came free. He swallowed convulsively, working his jaw a bit to ease the strain, and did his best to wipe his face on his shoulder. Fucking disgusting.
"No key. What do we do?"
"We can shoot it off," somebody suggested, an idea which Ed found profoundly unappealing.
"I don't like that option," he said, his voice hoarser than he had expected. There was momentary silence at his words, then soft murmuring he couldn't make out. He could still hear gunshots, somewhere outside, and turned his head towards them. Fuck, it was cold. If he had known he was going to be kidnapped he would have put on more than a light sweater.
"Don't worry!" somebody said cheerfully. "I'm a crack shot. At most some shards will hit your automail."
He still wasn't sure this was a good idea, but he was already being pushed over, and flailing around in panic wouldn't do much in the way of making an impression. Cold, hard wood against his cheek, and somebody was fumbling with the chain – a gunshot, the loud report making his heart skip – but then the heavy metal fell loose around him. The relief he felt at that was so intense it left him nearly breathless.
"We have to get out of here," the girl said, sounding urgent this time. "If you're ready, Fullmetal, we can get going."
He massaged his human wrist, stretched just a bit, and wished he had shoes. "Is there anybody else here?" he asked urgently. They should have found Alfons as easily as they found him, unless Alfons was somewhere else on the train, or (hopefully! Oh god, please-) not captured at all.
"Just our squad, and those ANP bastards we're killing," she answered.
"I mean, another captive," Ed said. "Was anybody else captured with me?"
"Not that we know of."
He nearly sagged with the sudden release of tension. They hadn't gotten Alfons, at least. He would believe that even now, Alfons was in Resembool, safe and sound. Suddenly his fate seemed less terrifying; no matter what they did to him, he knew that Al and Alfons would remain unharmed.
"Now please, come with me quickly! The area isn't secure."
Still, he hesitated. "Who the hell are you people? Who are the ones that had me before?"
He wasn't stalling, wasn't delaying the moment when he would have to step out into the unknown blindly. He was just... trying to figure out what was going on, because somebody swooping in to rescue him seemed just a little too convenient. But they were observing niceties, already a point in their favor. It occurred to him suddenly that they probably didn't know he had lost his alchemy, were maybe even afraid of him. But if they meant him harm, why would they have untied him?
"Colonel Caro's 3rd division, western squad," some guy said smartly. How many people were hanging around here, anyway? "Part of the UAA."
Whatever the hell that meant. It was an answer, of sorts, but it meant fuck-all to him right now. They had freed him, though, and seemed inclined to provide explanations, so he'd be inclined to trust them. He would have to trust them. It wasn't like he had much of a choice, and that rankled.
He took an unsteady step forward. "Where are we headed?" His heart was thrumming in his throat, pulsing in his temples. He hated, hated this.
"We had to collapse some trees across the tracks in order to get the train to stop. Ideally, we'd want to continue on the rails, if you'd help us clear them."
Shit. "I can't," he said hollowly, and could practically feel the confusion radiating from them.
"We're trying to help you!" one of the men said, sounding young, and betrayed. "I thought you were... they say you..."
"I can't do alchemy," he said. That admission felt like he had torn something deep inside him. It wasn't temporary, it wasn't a 'phase'. He couldn't do alchemy. He had achieved some of the greatest alchemical breakthroughs of the century, and paid the price. "I'm burnt out."
A hollow silence followed, intensifying to the point where Ed could hardly bear it. Why wasn't anybody saying anything?
"Cross-country, then," somebody decided, evidently a leader of some sort. His voice was loud, falsely hearty. "Let's head out. Fullmetal, grab some boots and a coat from somebody." At least he hadn't said anything about Ed's handicap.
He tottered forward a few steps, hoping vainly that he would suddenly gain arcane understanding of where an enemy soldier was lying (oh god, robbing a corpse. Though he couldn't see it, his mind was happy to supply him with vivid, horrible images of malformed bodies, twisted, leaking blood and fluid---). Needless to say, it didn't happen; the blackness around him remained (thankfully) impenetrable. Better get this over with.
"I'm blind," he said, his voice sounding strange to his own ears. Weak and hopeless.
There was a stunned silence after his words, worse than the first, the kind that made him want to inch away or sink into the floor with shame. He could imagine their looks of pity, of disgust, well enough. Imagine the shock at realizing that the Fullmetal Alchemist was worse than useless.
Reminded him of walking into a bar in London and hearing murmurs of 'crazy' behind his back, of how it had been no different in Germany. With a painful twist of his heart he remembered what it had been like the first time somebody, Alfons, had met his eyes and believed him. Foolishly, he had thought that with Alfons, what others thought wouldn't matter anymore, and once they got home it would be different. Amestris wasn't supposed to be like this.
"Well," the voice-in-charge said, sounding momentarily nonplussed. "Jim, get him some shoes. Brian, stay close to Fullmetal and help him out. Everybody else, secure a perimeter. Move!"
Sounds of rapid movement around him, but all Ed could do was stand there and wait for-
"Here." Somebody – either Jim or Brian – was pressing a pair of shoes into his hands. Awkwardly, Ed knelt and pulled them on, cursing when he fumbled the laces in his freezing fingers.
"Ready?" There was a soft touch on his shoulder.
Ed stood up, grimacing at the too-large shoes. "Yeah," he said. "Which one are you?"
"Brian." He sounded amused. "Now let's get out of here."
Within two steps Ed had nearly stumbled again, but Brian caught him.
"Door's this way."
He followed the voice, trying to keep his attention on everything at once: keeping his balance, trying to move as fast as he could, following the sound of his voice. Another step, and suddenly his foot was in the air with nothing underneath it, a blast of freezing wind in his face. He flailed, trying desperately to grab hold of something. His automail fingers banged against something, but lacking tactile input, didn't register soon enough.
"Watch-"
A faceful of snow cut off whatever Brian was saying. Embarrassed and a bit bruised, he pushed himself to his knees, gathering his limbs from their sprawl.
"Shit, I'm sorry, I forgot to warn you, I was checking to make sure the way was clear-" Hands were patting him down, trying to brush snow off his clothes (not that there was much point, he could already feel where the wetness had seeped beneath them).
"Jerkass," he snapped. "I told you I can't see anything." He allowed himself to be helped to his feet, and set off again, ignoring the apologies.
Brian seemed to want to move fast, a task that was even more difficult for Ed. He had never noticed how damned uneven the ground could be, before. Every hummock and fallen branch in the area seemed to find their way under his feet.
An undercurrent of thought ran through his mind incessantly, trying to understand what was happening. If these people were truly on his side, why didn't they want to return him to Resembool? Had he exchanged one type of captivity for another?
He opened his mouth to ask, but Brian (he was now easily recognizing his voice – it had a dense sort of quality, like the way it felt to transmute bedrock) shushed him.
"It's not safe to talk right now. We should reach camp soon."
So Ed kept walking. Repetition gave him a measure of confidence, and now he was striding along faster, his flesh hand securely fisted in Brian's clothes, to help right himself when he (inevitably) stumbled. Now he had the peace of mind to worry again, to feel how the automail dragged at muscles unused to bearing its weight, to notice the increasingly urgent call of nature.
Every so often he heard gunshots in the distance, making him flinch instinctively in reaction. The first time, Brian had tried to say something reassuring about being protected by the rest of the team, but Ed had snarled at him to shut up. He didn't need to be coddled.
-
Half catatonic with exhaustion, he hardly registered that they had stopped until somebody shook him.
"Fullmetal? Are you okay? We're going to stop for the night, now."
Damn, it was already night? It had been hours since his kidnap, Alfons must be frantic with worry by now.
"Yeah," he said tiredly. He allowed Brian to talk him over a few fallen branches and into the camp perimeter, where he got a nice boulder all to himself.
"Here." It was a different voice, young and fuzzy-sounding, and a bowl of something hot was pressed into his hands. Curling his fingers around it was almost painful, so stiff and cold were they.
"Thanks," he mumbled, taking a few sips. The warmth shot through him, curling in his belly, and he started shivering. It was as if now that he remembered what being warm was like, his body remembered that it was actually quite cold.
Worse than that was the paranoia. He couldn't shake the constant feeling of being watched – tried to suppress his shivers, so they wouldn't see his weakness. Drank the soup carefully, to avoid spilling or anything embarrassing like that. Even when he went to the latrine the back of his neck crawled with the thought of somebody spying on him, though logically he knew nobody had any reason to want to watch him take a piss.
He stumbled back towards the camp, following the sound of their murmuring voices – and he wasn't imagining it, whenever he came close the conversation died down.
It seemed he was still a captive, only this time bound only by his own disabilities. In possession of his full faculties, they would never have been able to hold him. He wished suddenly, violently, that he was still in Alfons' world. At least there he had been able to fight for a modicum of respect.
Almost immediately, though, he felt guilty for even considering trading Al for something like that. Al was safe; he should be content with that. He was reunited with Al, he had Alfons-
Fuck. His heart twisted at the thought of Alfons. He wanted so badly to tell himself that Alfons was happy, but really, how could he be? Ed couldn't do anything for him.
Alfons had loved him despite his missing limbs, but now he was blind and –
Distraction. He sat down on the first log he found, scuffing his feet aimlessly through the snow. The silence around him was unnerving, and he scowled.
"Is something wrong?" a voice asked.
He spent a split second wondering if they were addressing him, but decided he was too annoyed to care. "The hell something is!" he snarled. "How long are you planning on keeping me captive here?"
Immediately a chorus of horrified rebuttals sounded around him, until the voice-in-charge shushed them. Once again he wondered just how many people he was up against.
"You're not our captive," he said. "We'd much prefer you to think of us as your escort."
"Then why don't you let me go home?" Ed wasn't buying it for a minute. Escort, his ass.
"Resembool isn't safe for you," he explained. "Especially now that we've received communications that pretty much everybody knows you're back."
Ed clenched his fists, to cover up how shaken he was. "What the hell is going on here? Why is everybody after me?"
"Because of Lior," the voice-in-charge said, as if it were completely obvious.
"I wasn't responsible for that!" Ed nearly shouted, his voice cracking. No way. He thought – yeah, the Fuhrer had blamed him for it or something like that, but there's no way people really, actually still believed it? "I tried to block the transmutation – I tried to warn Mustang – "
Oh god, what had he dragged Alfons into?
"That was years ago!" he finally managed, shaken. He had forgotten. In his dreams of Amestris he had always thought of the pleasant skies above Resembool, the wide streets of Central, musty libraries full of alchemy tomes, endless train rides. Somehow, he thought nothing would ever change, that time stood still when he was gone.
And now here he was, thrown into the middle of a years-old intrigue, and him incapable of even doing any alchemy....
"I knew it," somebody spoke softly, then with growing enthusiasm, the voice sounding like Jim from the train. "I knew it! Didn't I tell you guys it was a frame?"
As if the words had released floodgates, Ed was suddenly surrounded by excited chattering.
"As if the Fullmetal Alchemist would ever have taken part in a massacre!"
"Those bastards – all these years, calling him a murderer-"
"They'll have to back down now, we'll be able to prove his innocence once and for all!"
What the hell. Ed's mind was spinning, trying to make sense of it all. These people were on his side? He felt a tiny rush of pleasure, the same thrill he had gotten every time he entered some town in the middle of nowhere, to hear people talking admiringly of his escapades.
Suddenly he found himself bombarded with eager questions from all sides.
"Fullmetal, where were you? Why did you vanish?"
"Was it those Old Regime bastards?"
"Were you captured by the Drachmans?"
"I heard that you ran away to Xing! Is that true?"
"Is that why you can't do alchemy?"
"I-" he began uncertainly into the cacophony, and was a little unnerved at the immediate, expectant hush. "I was..." -trapped in a parallel universe. Bad idea. "Lost," he said. "Very far away – and no, it had nothing to do with the military or the Drachmans or anybody."
"But the alchemy?" somebody said hesitantly, as if afraid to interrupt. "I heard the military used to do experiments on people-"
"Hell, no," Ed cut in, shuddering at the thought. "It's just burnout. It happens sometimes." Since it didn't seem anybody around was an alchemist, he decided to elaborate. "If you try to do alchemy that's too powerful or complicated for you, you can get fucked over pretty badly. If you're a hack alchemist, you'd probably end up with a rebound, which could kill you. If you're a good alchemist," he paused, his throat suddenly tight, swallowed, "if you're good enough to hold back from the edge-" that intangible barrier, standing on the very edge of your abilities, draining them to nothing but holding on to control with the last of your breath and concentration, to keep from the madness of the alchemy possessing you, taking control, "you can survive. But you might not be able to use alchemy anymore."
He might not be able to use alchemy anymore.
There was a silence after those words, grating on his nerves. He didn't need their pity.
"Will it come back?" a female voice asked.
"I don't know."
Nobody spoke for a while, leaving Ed to sit alone in the blackness. When people around him were silent the illusion of being alone strengthened, making everything seem surreal. Nervously, he started scuffing his shoe in the snow again, strained his ears to understand the murmurs being exchanged around him.
"That must have been some alchemy," somebody ventured, sounding almost... wistful? He didn't know; he was crap at reading people. Without visual cues, he was even worse.
"It was," he said heavily, feeling his expression soften at the memory. Throwing himself into that storm of energy... the way it tore madly through his mind, the way his thoughts had crystallized at the last, how for one glorious moment the world had made absolute sense. Looking back, the terror of failure, of losing Alfons was dulled. He remembered reaching into the star, seeing the colossal explosion in his mind's eye, feeling it inside him like a second pulse, fire in his veins.
It had been the greatest alchemy he had ever done.
He didn't know for sure, but maybe... even knowing the outcome, even if it ended up being the last alchemy he would ever do....
He would do it all over again.
The three of them sat silently at the depot, waiting for a train. Alfons hadn't quite followed the rapid-fire discussion, but the result was that it was decided Al and Winry would be heading towards Central, while Rose stayed to care for Pinako. Al had tried to leave him behind as well, saying he was wounded, but Alfons had insisted. No way he was letting them head alone towards any chance of recovering Edward. Even if he couldn't do anything, Edward was still his partner.
He shivered, pulling the borrowed coat tighter about himself. To the side, Al was studying a thick tome of train schematics. Either a train would arrive, or Al would transmute one; it was just a question of what would happen first.
The frigid air made his lungs ache, and he suppressed the urge to cough.
"If you catch pneumonia..." Winry began darkly, then subsided, leaving the threat unfinished.
"I will try not to," Alfons said. Though he spoke lightly, his heart felt heavier than lead, constricted with worry. Edward was somewhere in the unknown, maybe hurt, most certainly lonely. If only he knew for sure what he was going through, it would stop his mind from conjuring up the worst scenarios. He just prayed Edward was alright.
AN: to lilleii, who asked about Ed's height in the fic - I haven't really thought about it in exact centimeters, but Alfons is on the tall side, and Edward's forehead is approximately even with his chin. Hope that answer is satisfactory.
And once again, apologies to everybody for being so horrible about updating.