"Are you alright now, Brother?" Al asked when he saw the tenseness in Ed's shoulders lessen at last.
The reply was soft. "Yeah."
Al pulled away and Ed sat, half-slumped on the bed.
"Brother..." Al began and stopped. Ed was looking up at him now. Al looked down into those gold eyes and felt a chill run down his spin. When had Ed's eyes ever looked like that? Al's body might be empty, but compared to what Al saw in those eyes...
Al sat down carefully on the bed next to Ed and Ed's neck automatically swung his way, his eyes focusing on him like the only light in an endless dark. Under Al's foot, the broken pieces of the glass made crunching sounds. "Brother, it was alright...I mean...I didn't mind Doctor Maenz asking..." Ed frowned at that, a spark of the old Ed then came through as he saw through Al's lie, "I mean...I minded it, but...Brother...what are we going to say? I mean...I ran into Mr. Shaefer and I couldn't tell him I was me..." Al didn't mean to sound as weak as he did, but despite himself, his words tumbled out, "But what am I supposed to say, Brother? I mean...I am me...right? Still...inside this...I am me...aren't I? But If I can't tell anyone...who am I...I mean..." He sighed, "I mean..."
Ed shook his head and Al moved to see him better. Again, from beneath his feet came the sound of snapping glass.
"We tell them the truth." Ed said and reached out to touch Al's would-be-mouth with a finger. "We're sinners."
Al paused, but he didn't say what was on his mind. He stopped himself at the last minute. That emptiness had returned to Ed's eyes, like an eclipse on his soul.
"You should rest, Brother." Al said instead and made to stand up, but Ed grabbed his arm. "Brother?"
"It was easy...did you know that?" Ed said from too close.
Al stared down onto Ed. "What was easy, Brother?" He asked, confused. Ed lifted his good arm into the morning light. For a moment Al didn't understand, and then slowly, he saw it. There, on the underside of Ed's arm...the blood seal that matched the one scrawled on Al's armor.
When Ed was sure that Al had seen it, understood what it was they were talking about, Ed leaned closer to Al again, and Al found himself unable to pull away as Ed whispered, "It was easy, Alphonse..."
"Brother?" Al said uncertain as he saw Ed's hand scoop into the jaw of his armor and saw him pull up. "Wait!" he cried, but Ed didn't stop and the next moment, the helmet had fallen to the ground with a dull sound that could've come from a thousand miles away. Al could feel his brother's hand hovering inches away from the seal, almost like a weight pressing harder and harder into his back. "Stop!"
"It was easy..." Ed said and Al suddenly knew that Ed mustn't touch that seal. There was a strange note in his brother's voice, but more than that, there was something just on the edge of feeling, a collecting, almost, like something poised on happening...Only Al knew that it couldn't happen...this event that would occur should Ed touch that seal...And so Al did the only thing he could think of; he pushed Ed and quickly moved away, pulling up his helmet from the ground and setting it back in place.
"Al?" Ed said.
"Sorry! I'm sorry, Brother!" Al said nervously. What had Ed tried to do? It had been something, but Al couldn't say what...But now, as Ed reached towards him, arm in mid-air, his naked foot hovering over the floor, Al's eye caught sight of the glass on that floor and it was nerves more than anything, the need to keep his brother from getting too close right now and trying to do whatever it was that he had been trying to do that made Al suddenly open the nightstand and shuffle through, even as Ed said his name again and hesitated on the bed.
Al found what he was looking for and pulled from that drawer a piece of paper and a pencil.
He saw Ed's eye on him and said too quickly, "Watch out, Brother. I'll get rid of the glass, Ok?"
"Al?" Ed said as he saw his little brother draw the transmutation circle. It was a simple circle, in truth, one of the simplest alchemic arrays, and one that Ed had seen Al use thousands of times in the past, but somehow, although he himself had almost performed alchemy, indeed, alchemy of a much higher and terrible sort, the sight of that simple, innocent circle made something twist in his gut.
"One second Brother!" Al said. He was gathering all the pieces from the broken glass onto the paper. He was moving too fast.
"Al." Ed said, "Stop."
"One second." Al said in a voice too high as Ed moved closer to him.
"Stop!"
Maybe Al was going to stop. Perhaps the sound in Ed's voice had penetrated the growing panic in the younger boy's mind. Maybe not. Whatever the case, by accident or not, Al's hands descended and touched the edge of that circle,activating it even as Ed pushed himself from the bed to stop him. However, he didn't land on Al. No. Al had moved at the last second, feeling, even now, that Ed should not touch him, must not touch him...and then it was too late.
The array had been activated and the energy burst for one brilliant moment and was gone.
The glass was whole.
But not for long.
"Brother?" Al asked and quickly pulled Ed up from the ground. The older boy was grimacing, grabbing his side.
"Told you..." he said.
"Ed..." Al whispered and touched his brother's bleeding side where he had landed on the freshly mended glass..."I'm so sor-"
"Why did you stop me?" Ed snapped.
"Brother..." Al began, but never finished, for it was at that moment that PInako and the doctor had entered the room and spotted them.
"What are you doing? What happened?" He saw Ed in Al's arms and he frowned, "Are you trying to kill yourself?" Maenz demanded as he scooped Ed from Al's hands and examined the wound, calling to Pinako to bring water and his bag from the hallway. "Dammit." he said as he watched a piece of glass move up and down with the boy's breahthing.
"It would have been easy...Alphonse..." Ed whispered as his eyes fluttered.
Al leaned closer. "Brother?" He said in a small voice.
The doctor touched Ed's face. "His fever's back." he said and outside the window, the sun finally rose fully into the sky, right above a horizon blotted with growing black clouds.
It was a new day.
The doctor couldn't know, nor could Al, but Ed knew what today would begin.
Last night Ed had told Al he didn't have to be strong for the both of them.
He had meant that.
As he watched his brother break down as he had, Ed had been thinking, even in his dreams, he had been thinking...
In his mind, he saw the array that now decorated Al's back; the same one on his own arm...
I can't feel you brother...
It hadn't been hard to transmute his brother into that armor. Not really. In fact, relatively speaking...it had been simple to pull that burning soul from the gate...
And it wouldn't be hard to transmute it again.
Into a body.
Al said his name and Ed slowly turned to him and smiled before darkness claimed him.
TBC...