My socks were wet. My boots were wet. My hair was wet. My coat was wet. In fact, I don't think there was a single part of me that wasn't wet as Alphonse and I walked through the rain towards the train station. We weren't late...yet. But we couldn't have waited for the rain to stop. I glanced over at my little brother and felt a pang of gilt because I knew he couldn't feel the cold rain beating down on his body. It was days like this that made me have to remember to keep moving and not just break down and cry. But I still felt bad. It was all my fault and I knew it.
Suddenly, Al stopped walking and ran down an alleyway. I stopped and sighed. I knew he was going to come back with a kitten or some other poor lost animal and beg me to keep it. I had hit the nail on the head; he came back with a tiny kitten. I looked it over. "Looks like you can't try to keep that one." I said as for I saw that it was wearing a collar with a little silver tag on it. "I know! But the address on the collar isn't too far from here!" He said, holding it closer to his chest. He begged me with his eyes, and for a moment I saw my little brother standing there just like he was before mom died..."Ok, ok, you win. But if we miss that train Roy will have us for lunch." I said, waiting for him to lead the way. His eyes glittered happily as he ran ahead of me, glancing at the house numbers as they whizzed by. He finally skidded to a halt in front of a small house with a rather dirty, sad girl sitting on the porch. Al approached her. "Excuse me, is this your kitty-cat?" He said, moving his hands so she could see the tiny thing. Her eyes lit up. "My cat!" She cried and took the mewing thing from my little brother and hugged it. "Oh thank you so much! Ever since mom died, the only thing my little sister and I have left is this cat. Thank you so much!"
I felt like a dagger had stabbed me in the heart. I looked and saw for the first time a small, even dirtier girl standing in the doorway. Her eyes looked so blank and emotionless that you could have taken her for a corpse, but a small light came on when she saw the cat. Al and I walked away and let the two sisters rejoice over finding their cat. I looked over at Al and saw that he was looking at me. "Al? I have a question." I said, wondering if asking it was such a good idea after all. "What is it Nii-san?" he said with a note of puzzlement in his voice. "If...if you...we...had the option of starting everything over again from the beginning, would you do anything different?" The question lingered in the air like smoke. Al stopped walking and shut his eyes, deep in though. I had asked myself the same question several times, but I could never answer it. I would love to go back, but mom would still die.
"No." I jumped. I was so deep in my own thoughts that I had forgotten that I was waiting for Al to answer. "Why?" He sighed. "If we hadn't have tried to bring mom back, think of all the nice people we might not have met. Think of all of the wonderful things we wouldn't have seen. We might not have even left Wintry's house, the town, or anything!" I hadn't thought of it like that. It wasn't until then did I realize that it had stopped raining and the sun was coming out. I turned my face upwards, towards the sky and saw one of the 'wonderful things' Al had mentioned. A rainbow with two arches, two complete arches. I smiled. "I guess your right Al." Just then, we heard a train whistle. "The train!" we both shouted and broke off at a break-neck run, hoping that we could make it. But I wasn't worried at all. I had an answer.