Everyone: Thank you so much for all the reviews. Please enjoy this chapter, although you will still have to wait for all those questions to be answered.

Finding the Catch: To Become a God

Perfect.

That array was of neither his nor Alphonse's making, could have existed for hundreds of years, even. And whatever Alphonse had thought it was, Edward was certain he knew the truth: it was the array that called up the Gate. His younger brother hadn't made a mistake when he activated the array, he simply didn't know what it truly was.

And it was perfect.

Edward was calm, finally at peace with himself. Finally, after fifteen years, the great weight would be lifted from his shoulders. Finally, Alphonse would be in his rightful world, in his rightful form, and all would continue as it should be, even if it meant continuing without him.

Perfect.

He looked up at the sky, savoring this calm that had flooded over him. Was this heaven? Was this forgiveness, this incredible lightness that he felt? Should he stand here like this, on this foreign array, so that his final memory could last just a little longer?

It was a blue sky, soaring above the ancient temple, the blazing sun low on the horizon of the desert. It would turn cold soon, when the sun finally sank, but he would not notice.

He sighed, breathing out (would this be his final breath?) and clapped his hands. As he felt the energy rush up under him, part of him wanted to offer up a prayer please, please let it work, but to whom would he pray? What did God do, all day long, if not make sure that all was well with his world? His body strained with the alchemical current, and he held his concentration, do not lose your own world, he told himself firmly, not until you know you have what you came for.

Look your last, said a voice, one that chilled him when he recalled when he had heard it last. Look your last on that which you have lost.

He had been lying to himself, and the admission flooded though him unchecked; he was unable to devote any energy to deceiving himself any longer. All alchemy came at a cost. Everything came at a cost. That was the one truth of the world no. He did not believe that, he had seen the Gates, and knew the real truth of the world. He did not believe in Equivalent Trade, and therefore Equivalent Trade did not exist.

Tch, such arrogance, came the voice of the Gate, resonating through him, in the air around him, in the violet crackles of energy flying past him. Who do you think you are? God? Just because you believe something doesn't make it true, human. You tell yourself you love people, but how can you love them if you hurt them so?

"I want to make things right!" he cried, his eyes squeezed shut, his arms flung out.

What do you know of what is right? Laughter echoed around him. Isn't it God's place to decide what's meant to be?

He was a child, playing by the river with Winry while his mother held his baby brother in her arms, sitting in the shade of the tree. Winry's mother joined her shortly, cooing over the baby in her arms. "Edward looks so much like his father, but the baby looks exactly like you, Trisha."

He was a boy, balancing on a fence, Alphonse close behind, arms outstretched for balance, tottering precariously.

His mother's hand went limp in his, and his mind clouded with rage that her last thought had been not of him and Alphonse but of their bastard betraying father.

A splatter of blood, such a strange shape for a little girl, almost as if it had been a dog, and not a girl at all. It had been raining, and the chill soaked through his skin into his bones, making his shoulder ache. "Little brother" she had called him, and he could not be angry over it because she had been so innocent, so adorable, it had been wrong for her to die, and it had been wrong for her to be in the form she was trapped in. Wrong, and he couldn't make it right.

That misshapen thing, that thing that had his mother's hair and no body, only a jumble of mismatched muscles and bones, and a horrible, putrid stink, it was the old nightmare, Edward, why couldn't you make me right?

"Take care of each other," and it had been his mother's voice, his mother's face, and did the thing even have his mother's memories? He had to destroy her, he had to, he had to give back everything he had taken in order to get back what he wanted. The image of his mother faded away, into gas, into air, gone, nothing.

"My son," came the choked voice, gurgling with blood. Edward clutched those broad shoulders desperately, shaking his head, this couldn't be happening. "You will find your own way in life," his father whispered, and his eyes remained open, but no more words would come.

"Father!" he screamed, hearing his own voice tear from his throat but not knowing if it was a memory or if it was real.

A mother and a daughter, both who had been very kind to him, treated him like family, stood over the grave of a man who had been killed by a creature of his father's own creation.

Alphonse, Alphonse when he was nineteen, in a pub in Munich, laughing and shoving a warm glass of beer at him, Alphonse, winding an arm around him and comforting him when he had nightmares, Alphonse, who had been there for him when he had no one, Alphonse who was not his brother.

You tell yourself you love people, but how can you love them if you hurt them so?

The creature had his mother's face, his mother's voice, even his mother's memories…

"Son," said his father, standing over his hospital bed in London, "I understand if you will never forgive me-"

"I wont," was his sour response.

Those familiar arms around him, and he cursed himself for taking comfort in a lie, this Alphonse was not his brother. "I love you Ed," came his friend's soft voice. They lay, stretched across the bed, letting the cool breeze from the open window pass over their bare skin. Edward choked on his reply.

He felt himself inside of her, the two of them tangled in sheets, the orange of the setting sun piercing through the room. She cried his name. He squeezed his eyes shut.

That horrible, hulking, menacing suit of armor, so unlike what it contained: the soul of a gentle, innocent boy whose life had been destroyed by his arrogant, selfish older brother-

"I don't want to be like this any more," the young voice echoed from inside the suit. "Brother, I want to feel things again, I want to feel you, feel your warmth-"

It was his note. The one he had scribbled in the early morning, before she woke up. "Back soon, Love Ed," he had scrawled.

Could a god lie?