Ed dreamed of the gate.
He heard it-the groan as the door swung heavy on invisible hinges.
He saw that terrible eye, and those little hands, all waving, all palm-up, beseeching a piece of the boy who would dare return to this place.
He saw...
A soul.
Golden and brilliant, it salted the air with the taste of sunshine and sorrow.
It was beautiful, but all Ed felt was horror.
He began to run towards it, and there was the feeling...no...the knowledge...that as fast as he ran, he wouldn't make it. This time that soul would leave forever. This time, Al would die.
And like before...it would be his fault.
No! Please! He's my only brother! Please...
That's when Ed woke up.He had only a moment to realize that he was sleeping in a bed at Pinako's and that someone was holding his hand. The grip was strange.His first thought was that it was Winry, or Pinako, or the doctor with his gloved and glinting hands.
But he was wrong.
"Al...?" Ed whispered and sat up. Again had come the moment of disorientation, when Ed had to remember that this was his little brother...but the moment was brief. There was a reason for that. "Al...?" Ed said again, louder, but Al didn't move.
Something was wrong.
Al knelt at Ed's bedside. His head hidden, pressed into the bed. If he still had his body, he would be suffocated, doing something like that...And then there were those little sounds coming from him. Tiny gasps, almost, breathless and shallow, like someone trying to catch their breath. His back was bowed, his huge body pressing heavy into the bed, rolling Ed closer to him as a result. Both his gauntlet-hands gripped his brother's.
It hurt.
It was too tight a grip.
Ed didn't care.
He didn't care that his fever was gone. It gave him no peace of mind to feel the throbbing in his shoulder and leg had lessened an amazing degree. He didn't think of any of that, nor of the doctor, nor of Winry or Pinako, or the fact that he had decided to yell at Al for staying away so long.
He wasn't thinking of anything.
"Al...what's wrong?"
A long silence fell then, Ed felt his hands going numb, then, almost abruptly, Al said, "The array...It was perfect. It was a perfect array. There was nothing wrong with it. It wasn't the array at all!"
"Al...?" Ed said as his little brother suddenly let his hands go. The golden-eyed boy watched as Al gazed at his own hands, like someone amazed at what they were seeing.
"I was sure we had miswritten a character-they were so complicated. Or we had miscalculated the angles. Or that..." His voice faded, collapsing upon itself.
"Al...?" Ed said and reached to his brother. He set a hand on the armor.
"It was us." Al said in a strange, strangled whisper. "You were right, Brother...I had to see for myself...You were right. We only got what we deserved."
"Al." Ed said, shocked. He had never seen Al liked this. The first time he woke and saw Al, realized he himself had trapped his little brother's soul inside this thing, he had felt his heart ache. Now, he felt it break.
Al paused at the sound of the older boy's voice. Then he looked down at Ed's hand on his arm. "I can't feel you, brother." Ed looked down at his hand. He could see his own face reflecting back from his brother's arm.
"Al...I..."
Al suddenly grabbed his wrist. Ed gasped before he could stop himself. He winced. It was that same grip, that same new, hideous strength. "I promised myself last night I would be strong, Brother, because I know right now you're hurting...and you saved me and..." Al was saying, "I promised myself. 'If I can lock this window, I can handle everything for the both of us'. How could I have thought that?" Ed only stared back at the burning eyes glowing within two empty sockets in the face that was and wasn't his little brother's. He had no idea what he was talking about. What lock? Ed had slept through the night before, hadn't he? What window? What lock?
Ed tried to remember what his eyes had looked like just the night before as they chatted excitedly about the miracle they would surely produce. The miracle that no one else could perform. Ed couldn't remember his eyes. He could only see the burning light that was his soul and the smell of burning flesh as Al's body had slowly vanished before his eyes.
Al's hand was touching Ed's face. Ed couldn't say when that had happened. "But I can't be strong, brother...I couldn't even tell Winry I wasn't hungry or Mr. Schaefer that I was me...and...Big Brother...I can't even feel you..." That hand touched Ed's cheek, his eyes, his lips. "What happened to mother, what was that thing? And me, Brother-what happened to me?"
"Al...?" Ed said. Al's hand still touched his face and Ed reached up and took that hand in his own. Ed frowned because he was trying to keep himself together. It was frown or he would loose it. Now wasn't the time to loose it, not with Al like this. What had he seen at the house? Why did he seem so crushed that he couldn't handle this? What was Ed thinking? Truth be told, Ed felt he himself had already gone crazy.
TBC...