It was the truth, wasn't it?
Al gazed out the window of his house, the cat sleeping now in his arms.
All this time, he had been worried that because his body was gone, he would suddenly become...what? What was it he had been so scared of? That he would become this armor, empty and souless? But it was really a stupid worry.
He had sworn to be strong for both himself and his brother and what had he done?
He had told Ed he was numb...and worst...he had voiced his fears like a child...a baby...anything and anyone that is the exact opposite of what he was trying to be...
He was still looking to Ed to be the strong one...
To give him direction...
Even though he knew Ed was as clueless to that as himself now...maybe worst...
Al brought the cat nearer and it stirred in its sleep.
What good did it do to latch a window? Rescue a cat?
They brought themselves a small reward and no one could say they were bad things, but...
In the end...
In the end they did nothing.
They looped one event back to the beginning of another...
Al was himself, but that was exactly the lesson he should have learned two nights ago when the array glowed and everything went wrong.
Equivalent Exchange...
Is that what this was?
He had given more than his faith to Edward, believing they could revive their mother, and more, their old life, Al realized as his eyes settled on the dust that layered everything in the living room, was gone, he had given his blind faith and...
Al looked out the window and into the rain.
He was thinking how much of a fool he was; how much of a fool he had been.
He was thinking that he was too weak for this, that because of that weakness, the events occurring could not be possibly occurring simply because he could not handle them...
Al wasn't strong.
He was himself...
His head bowed.
He had nothing to offer, nothing to give to anyone, let alone Ed.
Blind faith...
Equivalent Exchange.
Sin.
Al peered out into the darkness and the rain and could not think of what would happen to them now...what would happen next.
As if in reply, thunder rolled not too far in the distance.
"Brother..." Al said, and after a moment of staring into the sudden flash of a lightening bolt, he set the cat gently onto a chair and left through the front door, not because he felt a new determination or sudden strength at his own apifany. No. He left because all he could do now is return to Pinako and to Ed and face whatever was to be...In his mind, he truly believed things were as bad as they could possibly be.
It was a significant thought and one he had thought before...
And one he had been completely wrong about...
Like this time...
TBC...