Reverberations

"Al! AL!"

Edward Elric bolted upright in bed and clutched the blankets with his good hand, his heart pounding in his throat. The back of his neck was damp with sweat. Was that...?

"Al?" he whispered. Something dripped onto the cold steel of his bare automail forearm. Another drop landed by his left hand, which still held a clump of blanket, and made a dark spot on the coarse wool. He lifted his good hand to his face, and felt moisture on his cheeks. His fingers glistened in the silvery light of the moon creeping into his room between closed shutters.

"Why am I crying?"

He opened his eyes, blinking against the light of a hundred candles. Rose's face, looking concerned, filled his view. "Ed…are you alive?"

"Yeah." His chest no longer hurt. That was good, because Envy had injured him pretty badly, there. What was Rose doing here? Was she sent beyond the Gate, too?

She still looked at him with that worried frown, so he smiled to reassure her. Her face blurred a little, and something warm flowed across his face. He lifted his hand to wipe his eyes.

"Why am I crying?"

This time, the tears belonged to someone else. He touched his chest where his mortal wound had been. "Don't be sorry, Al."

There was the sound of footsteps outside his door, running. The latch lifted noisily, and his father burst into the room. "Edward, what happened? Are you all right? I heard you yelling."

Ed quickly scrubbed the tears from his face with the back of his hand. "Ah, it was just a dream, that's all," he said, with a small laugh. "Nothing to worry about."

His father stood looking down at him, his expression inscrutable behind rectangular glasses that reflected the light from a streetlamp stationed near the bedroom window. "You know I worry about you," he said quietly.

Staring at the ridges and wrinkles he had made in the blanket, Ed replied, "You don't have to. I'll be fine."

"Edward…you're my son. I'm supposed to worry about you."

Ed gazed up at his father—this proud man who, in his faded memories, had always been cold and distant—and saw, finally, what he had been longing to see for the last fifteen years of his life. Though in a different situation, in a different life, he would have never admitted it, not even to himself. He also smelled the heavy scent of thyme and primrose that his father wore, the scent that used to make him think of the emptiness of his father's study and the emptiness in his mother's eyes. "I worry about you, too, you know."

The corners of his father's eyes creased as his mouth turned up in a slight, but kind, smile. "No, that's my job. Now get some rest."

Pulling the covers over himself, Ed turned to face his father. "Good night, Father."

Hohenheim Elric nodded at his son. "Good night, Edward." As he left the room, some papers scattered on the floor caught his eye. Several pages of Goddard's "A Method of Reaching Extreme Altitudes." A scribbled address belonging to someone named Oberth. A one-way train ticket.