A/N: It was raining, and I was angsting... this is thr product of that plus three hours of furious page flipping. A lot is taken directly from the manga.. ;; (thanks to evil genius and toriyamas world for translating!) Apparently, I happened to be lucky and managed to nab the .zip file off the before they took them off the server. So I now have manga-ness through Ch 34.
I managed to make this pairing (and thus pain!) FREE! It's a miracle I swear.
don't own hagaren, cept some chapters of manga and the video game.. but I don't think that counts
Rain of Memories
Edward moved, and his automail creaked. There was only one thing that caused his artificial limbs to make odd noises…
He pulled back the curtain violently and saw what he had feared. It had begun to rain, and it was pouring. By now, it had become so loud that most people would have heard it, but Ed had been screaming at something (no one really wanted to know, although they could guess) for at least the last fifteen minutes.
Rain had always left him in a sour mood, and it brought back painful memories. Images flashed through his mind.
He was sitting on the stairs outside the military building, shivering and cold in the rain, hoping desperately that no one would see his tears. Al was sitting beside him, and he was sure that he would have been crying too if he could have. The Colonel walked up to him and asked him how long he planned to sulk. Infuriated by Mustang's lack of emotion he stood up and began to scream at him. "WE'RE HUMAN BEINGS!" he lashed out uncontrollably, not even trying to hide his tears or emotions anymore. "AND WE COULDN'T EVEN SAVE ONE LITTLE GIRL…!" he lost his energy and said softly, "Insignificant human beings…." His voice trailed off into the distance.
He remembered the nightmare he had had so long ago, and it still haunted him to this day. "Mother, mother!" he pictured the dream in his mind, seeing the smile on his mother's face when he had brought her another gift that he had transmuted for her. Every time, she patted him on the head and said, "Thank you. You're really wonderful, Ed, to make such a perfect object, but.." and every time, blood began to come out of her mouth, and she would say, "But you couldn't make me right.." before she fell the ground, lifeless. Every time, he would wake up suddenly, sweating, tossing, breathing heavily, struggling for air to breathe, looking for a will to live.
He had been sitting in the rain in front of the clock when he had first realized what an idiot he was. "Alchemy is the knowledge, analysis and recreation of the laws and currents that exist between substances" was what Al had told him that he had thought alchemy was. He remembered replying bitterly, "The world spins by these laws. People dying is also a part of those currents. Embrace the currents." They had been told that by sensei many times over. He had thought that he understood, but back then… he remembered the feeling of regret that washed over him. "And now…" he had said "now, I'm starting to think whether I could have done something about something I can't do anything about…. I am such an idiot…" He hadn't improved a bit since that time. He had thought that the rain would wash off some of his sadness, but every drop that hit his face just made him more and more depressed. He looked at Al, and realizing that he couldn't even feel the rain on his skin, howit must hurt. It was then that hehad decided that he was going to restore their bodies, whether or not it meant doing something as hopeless as going against the currents of the world.
It was in the rain that he had almost failed his goal before it had started. In the rain, his arm was destroyed completely, and in the rain, Al had almost died. The rain… so painful… But it was also in the rain when his friends had come to his aid; Hawkeye, Armstrong, Havoc, and even Mustang, though it was quite a stretch for Ed to call him his friend.
And it was the first time that he could ever remember Al hitting him. His words rang through his ears like his brother was standing right there in front of him. "I'LL SAY IT AND I'LL SAY IT AGAIN!" Al had screamed at him while grabbing him by the collar. "YOU MIGHT FIND A WAY TO RESTORE OUR BODIES IF YOU SURVIVE AND LEARN MORE ABOUT ALCHEMY…!" he had never seen Al this mad in all his life. "AND YOU MIGHT EVEN FIND A WAY TO SAVE A POOR GIRL LIKE NINA!" Al had stared him directly in the eyes. "BUT HOW COULD YOU TOSS AWAY THAT POSSIBILITY AND PICK DEATH? I ABSOLUTELY WON'T FORGIVE YOU IF YOU DO THAT!"
But the rain… the rain brought back a pleasant memory as well; memories of Rush Valley – and Winry. She had been so calm delivering Sadila's baby, like she actually knew what she was doing. He had seen the miracle of childbirth, and all he could think about was alchemy, and how over centuries even alchemists couldn't produce life. He was so blinded by his one goal, his driving force, his desire to exist, to be whole again, to have a purpose.
Come to think of it… it was raining when sensei had first showed up too. It was pouring that night, the hardest rainfall in sixty years, some said. Mysteriously, Izumi had showed up and saved the town using her alchemy. Yes… it was raining when this whole mess had begun… and it had been raining ever since. Rain… where this all started… in the wretched, cold, wet rain. And he had a bad feeling that that is where it would end. Alone, in the dark and cold rain of his heart, he knew.
Suddenly, he thought of the island –Jack Island, was it? –where they had begun their 'training';it was so long that he couldn't remember the name. But he remembered the rain. The desperate struggle to stay alive, and how everything was connected to alchemy. Al, you and I are both small parts of that flow of life. We are a part of it. The entire universe is formed from all the parts coming together. We are all living according to countless universal rules. Destroying and rebuilding objects according to those 'rules'. Is this what we call "Alchemy"?
The flow of life… the rising and falling tide of generations gone past. Death, as it is commonly said, is a part of life. Hadn't he once told someone to stand up and move on? After all, they had two perfect legs to stand on… He would never let himself forget that, for his sake, and everyone else's….
Roy could hear the steadily increasing intensity of the rain. Rain… he hated the rain. He tried to suppress the memories connected with the horrible weather, but they kept on playing over and over in his head like a scary movie, except that that was real. It had happened, and he would never forgive himself for it. He remembered the feeling, his hand, gloved, ready to snap, ready to burn the life out of an innocent person, ready to kill. The fear and hesitation of the moment, and the remorse and guilt and heavy weight on his conscience that remained. He tried furiously to stop thinking about it, burying himself in his desk covered with paperwork.
The rain. Always the damned rain. Agonizing, the sound of it on the roof. Unstoppable feelings, uncontrollable images flew through his mind. The rain… the FullMetal brat and his brother had almost died in the rain… and he was there, and unable to help them. Just another painful weight on a conscience already saturated with the immense weight of guilt. Another bystander, a victim of fate. But the world was cruel, and the property known as 'equivalent exchange' was the one supreme rule, or so it seemed. Death is a part of life…
His mind brought him to Hughes' grave. The bastard. How was he supposed to help raise him to the top when he was already a rank higher than him? He smiled slightly at his somewhat-inside joke with Hughes, him being alive to hear it or not. Come to think of it… yes. There was no escaping the rules, no escaping the rain. It had rained, hard, steady and long, days and days after the funeral. Piercing, biting, stinging, grief-laden rain and tears of regret.
He felt the rain begin to intensify. He couldn't show any emotion though. He had an image to keep up; stoic, unfeeling, a master of facial expression and a manipulative bastard. It was the one thing that kept him from falling apart completely, and he considered this. He really was such a weak, lost person, and he doubted that anything could help him. Choking back a few tears that he felt rising to his eyes, he got up suddenly and stormed out of the room. The damned paperwork could wait. He needed to go home… in the rain. The never-ceasing rain.
As he walked out, he passed by FullMetal, who was staring out a window at the rain, mesmerized, lost in thought, his eyes glossed over like he was a statue. Roy let out a carefully controlled, knowing kind of smile. If there was one thing that they would ever see eye to eye on, it was the rain.
gomen...Blame the angst... X.x...
